The story is told of a little girl who was placed
in an orphanage in her earliest days of life.
As she grew up, she became unruly and difficult
to deal with. She was obstinate and was often
unruly. One day, someone reported to the director
of the orphanage that the little girl had written
some things on pieces of paper and had taken
those out to a tree and had hung them on the
tree. And so thinking this might be an opportunity
to have the little girl taken out of the orphanage
and put somewhere else where they would deal
with a mental difficulty. The director of the
orphanage went out to the tree and got one of
the pieces of paper to read it. And on it, it
simply said, whoever finds this, I love you.
The director's heart was smitten because she
realized that what that little girl needed and
what she had missed was love. She had been desperately
wanting attention. and tried to get it the only
way that she knew how. Whoever finds this, I
love you. Rejection is one of those experiences
that many of us, if not all of us, have had.
Rejection is painful. It might be defined as
the withholding of affection and love. From some
time, at some time, all of us have had that experience,
I suppose. But it's especially tragic when it
occurs in childhood, because a child is not prepared
to deal with rejection. A child is vulnerable
and doesn't know how to interpret what he or
she is experiencing. But the feeling of rejection
is not limited to childhood. Adults struggle
with it likewise. Rejection comes through the
pain of divorce or the end of a relationship
that has been dear. Rejection is sensed in an
unhappy marriage. when there is not intimacy.
Rejection is felt in the loss of a job or the
failure to get a desired promotion. Rejection
is felt in the terrible feeling that occurs when
you're hurting inside and you reach out for somebody's
hand and nobody's there. In some context, I would
guess that all of us have experienced rejection.
Its results are a deep emotional wound that is
accompanied by a sense of unworthiness or inferiority.
Those who have been rejected often have a sense
of loss of esteem. There is confusion about identity.
There is anger that wells up followed by depression
Often rejection leads to withdrawal from others
seclusion a lack of desire to Associate with
others and it's merely out of a matter of self
-defense People just don't want to be hurt anymore
There's a terrible loneliness and a feeling of
not being desirable. Rejection and those feelings
that occur around it commonly carries over to
one's relationship with God. The reasoning goes
something like this. If I can't be acceptable
to people, how can I ever be acceptable to God?
If I'm not worthy of the affection of others,
How can I be worthy of God's affection? And so
when we sense rejection coming to us from others,
we also apply that in our relationship with God.
But child of God, if you are struggling with
the feelings of rejection, I have an important
message for you today. The message is very simply
this, the God that we worship. loves. You, personally,
deeply, and forever. God never rejects those
who come to Him humbly. He always receives. He
is slow to anger and quick to restore. And we
can be grateful that His affection does not depend
upon our performance, our personality, or our
proficiency. Would you open your Bible, please,
to 1 John chapter 4, where we read a wonderful
statement about the love of God. 1 John chapter
4, verse 7. Beloved, let us love one another,
for love is from God, and every one who loves
is born of God and knows God. The one who does
not love does not know God, for God is love.
By this the love of God was manifested in us,
that God has sent his only begotten Son into
the world so that we might live through him.
In this is love, not that we loved God, but that
He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation
that is the satisfying sacrifice for our sins.
The God that we worship is a God of love. God's
love is comprehensive. Louis Barry Schaeffer
reminds us that like the words spirit and light,
love refers not merely to a peculiar virtue among
many which are gods, but that God is himself
precisely what love means. Let me quote Schaeffer.
God has not attained unto love, nor does he by
an effort maintain love. It is the structure
of His being. He is the unfailing source of all
love. As no other attribute, love is the primary
motive in God. And to satisfy His love, all creation
has been formed. Love is the very nature of God.
To love is the essence of what God is. That's
not all that could be said about God, for there
are other attributes as well. But love is the
essence of them all. Love is the heart of Him
who is our Creator. Infinite love has always
existed with God. It did not begin with creation.
In fact, it predates creation. But love has always
existed among the persons of the Godhead. In
the most appropriate sense, God supremely loves
Himself. The Father loves the Son and the Spirit.
The Son loves the Father and the Spirit. And
the Spirit loves the Father and the Son. The
God who is one loves Himself as Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. God is love. So His love did
not begin with His creatures, but we can be grateful
that His love is shown to His creatures. In Ephesians
chapter 1, we are told that before God even created
the world, He loved us. Listen to these words.
Just as He chose us in Christ, before the foundation
of the world, so that we should be holy and without
blame before Him. In love, He predestined us
to adoption as sons." In other words, before
God ever created in Genesis chapter 1, God looked
ahead into time and into creation, and He loved
us. And He chose us to be His own. And predestined
that we should be His Sons. God's love is eternal,
but God's love is also free. What that means
is that there is nothing in any of us that merits
God's love. When God looked into time and space
and loved us, He did not choose us because there
was something in us that He found desirable or
worthy. But He loved us for the mere fact that
He loved us. God says that essentially back in
the book of Deuteronomy to the people of Israel.
In the seventh chapter of Deuteronomy there is
an amazing verse that expresses to us this fact
about God's love. How free it is. In Deuteronomy
7 and verse 7 it says, Nor choose you because
you were more in number than any of the peoples
For you were the fewest of all people But because
the Lord loved you and kept the oath which he
swore to your forefathers the Lord brought you
out by a mighty hand and redeemed you Why did
God love the people of Israel? Was it because
there was something worthy about them? Was it
because they were the the largest of tribes?
No, they were the fewest. And they were as unlovely
as all the rest of the sinful human race. But
for His love's sake, and His faithfulness to
His covenant with Abraham, God delivered them
from Egypt and redeemed them. Why has God loved
you and me? Is it because there is some intrinsic
Worth in us some merit that causes his love to
be provoked not at all He loves us for his love
sake He loves us for Jesus sake and He loves
us as much as he loves Jesus God's love is sovereign
God's love is unchanging God's love is comprehensive
But God's love is demonstrative as well. We can
talk about God's love and theorize about it,
and we can explore it as it's found written in
the Bible and revel in the words that are there.
But the wonderful truth is that God has demonstrated
His love. Now, I just told us about it. God has
demonstrated His love in a number of ways. In
the first place, He has demonstrated it in the
cross of His Son. as we've read here in 1 John.
This is love. That God loved us and sent His
Son to be the atoning sacrifice that satisfied
God for our sins. That's love. Chapter 3 verse
16 of 1 John. It says, We know love by this,
that He laid down His life for us. God's love
is demonstrated. Demonstrated at the cross of
Calvary. Romans 5 and verse 8 says, God demonstrates
His love for us in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. God's love is demonstrated.
There is no one who can say that God doesn't
love me. No one can say that because God has
demonstrated just the opposite. Dr. Laman Strauss
has written some words to this point when he
writes, There never has been a man in all the
world who ever knew anything experientially about
the love of God apart from the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ at Calvary. There is no word in all of
human language for that kind of love. The soul
of man is so precious to God. that He could not
stop at any cost to have it for Himself, going
even to the extent of self -sacrifice. Man may
hate God, curse Him, deny Him, and defy Him.
Still, He pursues the vilest enemy in order that
He might do Him good. This is God. For He is
the God of love. Not only do as we behold the
cross and God's sacrifice thereon can we perceive
His love, To know God in Christ on the cross
is to know intuitively divine love in its greatest
and highest expression. God in Christ reconciling
the world to himself is the acme, the highest
expression and exhibition of love. Dear friend,
there is great love in the cross of Calvary.
For there God expressed his love for you and
me. in causing his son to die. Notice it's his
son. The sacrifice on the cross of Calvary was
not without deep emotion. For just as you parents
love your children and desire their health and
their painlessness and their wholeness and their
happiness, So in an infinitely greater sense,
God the Father loves God the Son. For Him to
die on the cross with its shame and its torture
was an expression of God's love that you and
I can hardly fathom. What a demonstration that
God loves you and loves me. as He was willing
to allow His Son to experience the cross death.
As we sang earlier, oh how He loves you and me.
That's what the cross is about. God not only
demonstrates His love in the cross of His Son,
He demonstrates His love in the calling of the
Christian. Notice again here in 1 John 3 and
verse 1. See how great a love the Father has
bestowed upon us. What John is saying there,
see what kind of love this is. It is a kind of
love that is foreign to you and to me as human
beings. It's a kind of love that surpasses anything
that we have known or can experience of ourselves.
See what great love God has bestowed upon us.
that we should be called children of God. Think
of that. We who are the vilest of sinners. We
who are the hostile enemy of God. Loved so much
by Him that He brought us to Himself and named
us His children. It is one thing to name one
as your child that is pitiful and cries out for
your help. If you saw any of the episodes on
television regarding the Romanian orphans, you
probably wept as I did. Little babies born into
the world, many of them with AIDS because of
the medical conditions in Romania. unwanted,
warehoused, in large units, some of them caged,
sometimes two or three to a bed, not properly
cared for, without adequate food and clothing.
Our hearts naturally turn to children like that.
And what a response it brought from the American
people. Scores of these children have been adopted
and many are still in the process of being adopted.
Americans desiring to reach out to these pitiful
children, to call them their own, because their
hearts want to share with them what they have.
But dear friend, God's love surpasses that. That
can't even be compared to the love of a God who
looked down upon a race of human beings that
spat upon Him, that cursed Him. that raised a
hostile fist in His face, and yet God chose to
love. And He reached down and redeemed through
the cross of His Son, and He gave us the name
Children of God, so that we share all that is
God's. We have access to our Father. At any time
that we desire, we can come right into His presence
and speak with Him directly regarding our heart's
desires and concerns. We inherit His Kingdom.
We will one day bear His very likeness in our
moral beings and in our physical bodies which
will be glorified and made like Christ's. Children
of God, He calls us. What love there is in that.
That's why John exclaims, what a foreign, what
a different, what a great love the Father has
bestowed upon us that we should be called the
children of God and such we are, he says. That's
just what we are. I hope that's something that
that bridges the gap in your life between how
you feel about others rejecting you and God.
Because you see, God doesn't reject you. God
had every right to reject us, but He chose not
to. Instead, He loves us. I would pray today,
and I have prayed, that the wound of rejection
that some of you are bearing might begin to be
healed by a realization of the deep love that
your Heavenly Father has for you. That somehow
you could understand that He does not turn His
back on you, ever. And He accepts you. with all
of your shortcomings and all of your failings.
As we said last week in that Gaither chorus,
quoting it, He who knows you best loves you the
most. God persistently loves you. No matter how
far you may stray from Him, He will follow you
to bring you back as His child. God permanently
loves you. You may say things to Him at times
that hurt the heart of your Heavenly Father.
There may be attitudes that you harbor in your
heart from time to time that were He some other
kind of God would cause Him to change in His
attitude toward you. But His love is not only
persistent, it's permanent. God pursues you and
He pleads. He disciplines and He directs. He
waits and He welcomes. He receives you. He is
slow to anger. He is quick to restore and to
forgive. And so if there is any feeling inside
of your heart today as a child of God that He
rejects you, then understand that those feelings
that you have are lies. Perhaps lies that you
have sold to yourself because of emotional wounds
from your past. Or perhaps lies that Satan has
whispered in your ear, but lies nonetheless because
God does not reject you. Rely on that truth.
Believe what God says about himself and about
you. I pray that you might today feel his acceptance
of you in Christ. But still many of us struggle
with feelings of rejections and we ask questions
like, why don't other people accept me? One possible
answer to that is that you may have the wrong
perception of how people feel about you. You
may misunderstand how people actually feel toward
you. They don't reject you at all. Another possibility
is that they back off from you because you may
be overbearing. You may be too demanding You
may be unreasonable in your expectations of others
to yourself And if that's the case then you need
to change The way that that you feel toward others
so that they then will be able to change how
they feel toward you The fact is that you and
I can't control how others choose to treat us
There will be some people in life who will reject
you simply because that is their personality,
their bent, and their own hurt. We cannot control
how others choose to treat us, but we can control
how we choose to treat them. The greater question
than Why do people reject me is this? How can
I demonstrate God's love to others? For you see
as children of God, God gives us the capacity
and the command to love others. For we are sometimes
guilty of giving others a message of rejection.
God tells us on the other hand that we are to
love just as He has loved us Beloved let us love
one another for love is from God and everyone
who loves is born of God and knows God The greater
question is how can I demonstrate the love of
God? To someone else for my God my father who
calls me his child is love And He calls upon
me to convey His love to others. How can I do
that? We've talked quite a bit around here about
something that we call cultural keys. Means by
which we as individuals or as groups of people
within our church can get together and demonstrate
God's love to people out there beyond our walls.
These become cultural keys, you see, that unlock
the hearts of people who are without Christ.
In our world today, the message we have lacks
credibility unless it is seen. That is, the credibility
is seen and proven in us. How can we demonstrate
the love of God to others? This last week, I
was visiting someone one of the nursing homes
in our area. As I walk down this long hallway,
there were people in their 70s and 80s and maybe
90s who were seated all over the place in wheelchairs
and in chairs by themselves. Some of them may
have family that come and visit them and bring
some cheer, but many of them have been rejected.
Family comes only when it's mandatory or expected.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was someone
or there was some flock within our church or
some group of people who would get together and
say, you know, we're burdened for people like
that. And we want to go to a nursing home. We're
going to go once a week or we're going to go
once a month and we're going to ask for those
people who have no one to come and see them.
And we're going to become their family. And we're
going to let them see the love of Jesus Christ
in us. How can we demonstrate the love of God?
It's a man named Joe who lives here in the Twin
Cities. God has saved Joe out of a life practicing
homosexuality. He is gaining victory over that
lifestyle that captured him for a number of years.
But because of the way that he chose to live,
Joe is... suffering from AIDS. At the present
time, he's in remission, but he's had some close
calls with death already. Recently, Joe wrote
a few words that described an experience that
he had. I thought it would be appropriate to
share this with you this morning. He says, I
am hurt and frustrated by the cheap platitudes
and cliches Well -meaning Christians sometimes
throw my way these days. The verse that says
God works all things together for good to those
who are loved and called according to His purpose
does not necessarily encourage me in my darkest
hour. It is true and there are times when I can
hear it and hold on to it. Yet a Bible verse
thrown your way in the midst of suffering is
not a substitute for a hand or a hug or a tear."
Did you hear what he said? That's a great statement.
It may be truth, he says, but when we in the
church use it to distance ourselves from another's
pain, it wounds rather than brings healing. What
an insight. For the temptation is present with
all of us at times to throw out a Bible verse
at somebody and use that really to distance ourselves
from them rather than to enter into their suffering.
He says that doesn't bring healing. He says it
implies if only I were more spiritual or trusted
God more, I wouldn't be sick or struggling. That
may be true, but trusting God doesn't mean I
won't feel pain or sorrow. Christ's tears in
the garden tell us that. What I need is someone
to listen to my cry of anguish. I need to experience
the love and mercy of Christ in the form of a
friend. I remember once when I was sick and in
the hospital my pastor came to visit me. He didn't
pump me full of Bible verses and shake my hand
and leave pleased with himself and content that
he had served God. No, he knelt by my bed and
told me that I was important to him and important
to the church. Here was a man who had preached
four times that day and then stopped to see me
on his way home from church. It was late. I was
really tired and he didn't want to keep me awake.
I just turned off my light when he knocked. He
prayed with me. It was not a big thing, but it
felt big to me. It said several things to me.
It said, I love you. I care. I am here and you
are not in this alone. You are important to me,
and this hurts me too." It was comforting to
know that in some small way, seeing me in my
pain hurt him. His simple love opened a door
for me to feel the love of God. When he left,
I felt the presence of God very strongly. The
pillow felt softer, the air smelled sweeter,
and it seemed as if for a night my room had become
some other place. I felt as if I was held in
the very arms of God. All worry, sorrow, and
fear slipped away, and I slept peacefully, aware
of God's great and tender love for me. Love,
honestly and simply expressed, is the key that
can open the hardest heart to the overwhelming,
healing love of the Father. That is our task.
and our calling. You know what we need to repent
of, many of us? It's the attitude that says,
I want somebody to meet my needs. The me first
kind of an attitude keeps us from experiencing
the reality of God in our lives. Do you remember
hearing about Wanda Holloway a few weeks ago?
Wanda Holloway has a 13 -year -old daughter.
Her 13 -year -old daughter was competing with
a 13 -year -old friend in their school in Channelview,
Texas for a cheerleading position. Wanda was
jealous for her daughter because her daughter's
friend had several times beaten her daughter.
in various positions in the school and otherwise.
And so Wanda contracted for someone to kill her
daughter's friend's mother. Believing that if
this friend's mother was killed, the friend of
her daughter would be so shattered she wouldn't
even try out for cheerleading. Talk about a me
-first attitude. And Wanda went to church. And
her daughter went to a Christian school until
she got into high school. We look at someone
like Wanda and we despise that kind of greedy
selfishness. And we say, how could a person possibly
do that? But all that really is is a further
extension of the Me First attitude that all of
us struggle with. She just took it a little further
than most of us are willing to do. A me -first
attitude absolutely destroys our ability to know
God's presence in our lives. When we humble ourselves
and we say, oh God, to whom can I show your love?
Where is another Joe? Where is another person
in the nursing home? Lord, where is that child
that needs someone to love them? Every day, God
would open doors for you and for me to be avenues
of His love to others. As we start every day,
let's say to Him, Father, You are love and I
am Your child. Show me today. how to love, and
show me whom to love for Jesus' sake. Let's bow
together. Would you stand with me please? Father,
I pray that you will cause us not only to enjoy
your love, but to grow in it. and to grow in
it not merely in knowledge but in demonstration
of it to others. I pray that your love would
heal some of us who are wounded by rejection
still today. That your love would also flow through
us to heal others. May we be lovers as you love
and love others through us, we pray. Amen.