Marks of the Messengers 2: Sometimes Rejected

On Saturday morning we had our church leadership conference, an annual morning where we get together and share the vision for Trinity in 2013. I spoke on 'Marks of the Messengers,' from Mark 6:7-14. You can view part one here.

But we have to remember, as Jesus warns us in verse 11, that sometimes we’ll be rejected. Read that with me. This is not a new teaching from Jesus. Remember He said if He was called Beelzebul as the master of the house, what will they call the servants in the house. Jesus was rejected wasn’t He? He came to His own, but His own didn’t receive Him. He was rejected in Nazareth; a prophet is not without honor, except in His hometown. He was rejected by the crowds in John 6, and finally, but the majority of His disciples. Jesus was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and rejection.

Should we expect any better? Of course not! Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians  2:16 that we are the aroma of death to those who are perishing. That’s rejection. When you smell something like death in your house you throw it out, you don’t make a bouquet out of it. So many problems that the evangelical church gets itself into these days are because we’re afraid people don’t like us, we change to be liked. We worship a guy who got murdered, of course people don’t like us, of course our message is offensive! If we are going to be effective messengers, we have to get over the idea that everyone, everywhere is going to like us, sometimes they’ll shut the door in the face of your teenage son, sometimes they’ll ignore you in the checkout line, sometimes they won’t send you a Christmas card. That’s ok, that’s a mark of the messengers.