Jesus Endured our Rejection that we might have His Acceptance with the Father

We’ll go on to the next exchange which is closely related but it is different. That is, rejection. My observation is, and this is simply out of my personal dealings with many people, that the commonest, single emotional problem in our contemporary culture today is rejection. I’m also inclined to believe it is the deepest wound that the human heart can ever bear.

There are various sociological reasons for that. Primarily it’s the failure of contemporary parents and particularly fathers. I have said sometimes the problem of America is it’s a nation of renegade fathers. And I would guess there’s some in front of my eyes here this morning. That’s something that you have to determine.

My conviction is that every baby born into the world is longing for one thing before anything else—that is love. And particularly the love of a father. A mother’s love is truly wonderful but a father’s love is what gives a baby security. There’s something about being held in the strong arms of a male that was designed by God to provide security. I sometimes look at little babies held in their father’s arm or over their shoulder, and the one thing that they are saying is “I’m secure.”

Also, love is really not effective if it isn’t openly expressed. To love people secretly is probably better than hating them secretly but it doesn’t do much, especially for children. Children need warm, openly expressed love. And my observation is at least 50 percent of the generation now before us has been denied that provision of God through many different sociological facts. But the truth of the matter is that there are millions of people growing up in this nation and around the world that have never really known warm, outgoing, unconditional love. And the result is rejection.

It can begin earlier than that. I’ve dealt with many people who had a problem with rejection that started when they were in the womb. When the mother discovered she was pregnant she didn’t want the baby. Maybe she had too many mouths to feed, or maybe she was just selfish and centered on pleasure, or maybe her relationship with her husband was not good. But she just resented it.

An interesting thing that I discovered some years back when I was ministering to people and I dealt with people who needed deliverance from rejection, I discovered it was of particularly high proportion in a certain age group. When I checked when they had been born, I discovered it was during the Great Depression. I just deduced that here’s a mother struggling already with poverty and the problem of feeding who knows how many children and she discovers another one is coming. She just says, “I wish I didn’t have that baby, I wish I didn’t need to have that baby.” And that has an effect on that little person inside the womb. And it can come out of the womb already feeling rejected.

Then again, there’s another very common cause of rejection which is the break up of a marriage. In Isaiah 54:6—does anybody have an NIV here? Could I borrow it for a moment? Thank you. I’m choosing this because of the translation. Isaiah 54:6:

“The Lord will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit; a wife who married young only to be rejected, says your God.”

That’s exactly the situation of millions of women in this nation right at this time. They married young only to be rejected.  However, let’s not imagine that the wound is borne only by a woman. Because a man can suffer just as deeply the wound of rejection from a broken marriage as a woman. So thank God that there’s healing. If there were no solution to people’s problems I wouldn’t want to focus on them. I would go off and just live it up while I had time. Sometimes I’m absolutely overwhelmed by the depth of human suffering. There are times when I feel it’s almost impossible to support that burden.

It’s bad enough in the west, but when you go to the Third World or behind the Iron Curtain, the total sum of human suffering is almost unendurable. But thank God we have the answer. If I didn’t have an answer I don’t know what I would do. I’m so thankful that it’s a complete answer. It meets every need. There is no need of humanity that is not met by the sacrifice of the cross. It’s wonderful to be the person with the answer.

I trust that by the time this series of studies is over and you’ve been ministered to individually by the people who help you, I trust that every one of you will go out of this period here as a person with the answer. You probably heard that saying, “I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.” Well you can be part of the solution. If you will grasp the truths we’re sharing and apply them, you can be part of the solution. I don’t think that God has ever given me a greater privilege than to be part of the solution. I know I don’t deserve it but I’m glad he gave it to me.

Let’s look at the picture now in Matthew 27, we’ll go back to that chapter and we’ll see how Jesus endured the wound of rejection. We’ll begin at verse 45 and read to verse 51.

“Now from the sixth hour [that was noon by their counting] until the ninth hour [which was 3 p.m.] there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried our with a loud voice saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?’
Some of those who stood there when they heard that said, ‘This man is calling for Elijah.’
Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. The rest said, ‘Let him alone, let us see if Elijah will come to save him.’
Jesus, when he cried out again with a loud voice, yielded up his spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.”

What killed Jesus? It wasn’t crucifixion. He would have died but it would have taken considerably longer. When Joseph of Arimathaea went to Pilate to ask for the body, Pilate was surprised that he was already dead. Crucifixion was normally something of a lingering death. Jesus died of a broken heart. What broke his heart? Rejection. Rejection by whom? By the Father. The most agonizing of all rejection. He cried out in his agony, “Why have you forsaken me?” and no answer came from heaven. The first time in the history of the universe that Jesus prayed and got no answer. It says immediately after that he gave one further loud cry and yielded up his spirit.

But what was the result, the immediate statement that follows? The veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Now it was an extremely thick veil, no human being could have torn it in two starting at the bottom. But when it was done from the top it was to demonstrate it was a work of God. The veil was what separated sinful man from a holy God. And when Jesus took our rejection and died, that veil of separation was torn apart and the way was opened for us to come to God without shame, without rejection, accepted.

Let’s look in Ephesians 1 at the result of acceptance. Verses 3–6. I’m reading from the New King James.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he has made us accepted in the beloved.”

I like that translation because of the use of the word accepted. What’s the opposite of rejection? Acceptance. “Jesus bore our rejection that we might have his acceptance as sons and daughters of the Living God.” The Father turned a deaf ear to Jesus Christ, but has opened his ear to our cry as his children. The exchange is absolutely exact.

The word that’s translated here “has made us accepted” is the verb that’s derived from the Greek noun for grace which is charis. And the same word is used when the angel Gabriel saluted the virgin Mary and said “hail thou that art highly favored.” So it’s a very strong word. We need to understand God just doesn’t tolerate us, his favor is upon us. He is passionately committed to us. We never have any reason to doubt our access to him.

This is an exchange that took place when Jesus died but it can be worked out in the lives of each one of us who needs it.

Let me illustrate that by a little incident that always stays in my mind. I was in a conference that was held in Georgia in a very beautiful setting out in the forest. I was scheduled to speak at a teaching session and I was in danger of being late. So I was walking very rapidly across the campus and I ran into a lady who was walking just as rapidly in the opposite direction. When we had got ourselves together again she said, “Mr. Prince, I was praying that if God wanted me to speak to you, we’d meet!” I said, “We have met! Tell me your problem but I can only give you two minutes.” So she started to tell me what her problem was and I think she would have gone on a long while. At the end of one minute I said, “Listen, I think I understand your problem and I know the answer. Would you pray this prayer after me?” I didn’t tell her what I was going to pray. In fact, I didn’t know what I was going to pray but I knew the essence of what I was going to pray. I said, “Now, you say this after me. Oh God, I thank you that you really are my father, you really love me. I really am your child. I’m not rejected, I’m not unwanted, I’m not second class. I belong to the best family in the universe. Thank you God, you are my Father, I am your child, you love me and I love you. Amen.” I said good-bye. I had no more time.

About a month later I got a letter from the lady and she told me very simply that that brief encounter had completely changed the whole nature of her life, she was a different person. What had happened? She had passed from rejection to acceptance.

Now, it was all done by God and she was already a child of God but she hadn’t realized what had been accomplished for her by the cross.

Shall we just go through the motions then? It could easily happen even while we’re doing this that somebody here who has a wounded heart—you know, the Bible says the spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded spirit, who can bear? When the wound is in your spirit, that’s something else. But if there should be somebody here, while we are saying this, if you can receive it by faith you can make the transition. But we’re not going to take a lot of time. And if the Holy Spirit doesn’t move that way that doesn’t mean that you can’t receive help another way. But why wait if you can get it now? God has got a permanent now. The Bible says now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation. A lot of people misquote that. They say today is the day of salvation. That’s not what God says. He says now is the day of salvation. Today—who knows what will happen later, but now, now is the day of salvation.

I’ll do it once following the same routine. “Jesus endured our rejection that we might have his acceptance with the Father.” Let’s put in with the Father. Are you ready? “Jesus endured our rejection that we might have his acceptance with the Father.” Again. “Jesus endured our rejection that we might have his acceptance with the Father.” What do we do now? We make it personal. This is the point where something can happen to you. Are you ready? “Jesus endured my rejection that I might have his acceptance with the Father.”

Now let’s say this: “God really loves me. I really am his child. I belong to the best family in the universe. Thank you, Jesus, thank you. Amen.”