Have you ever been rejected?
Reading an article given to me by my pastor & brother in the faith… It’s been heavy on my mind the way that the gospel has been and is being put in “shoe leather” in my life. Wonderfully put here in an article entitled “Sanctification: Living By the Gospel” written by Les Newsom, by God’s grace I’ve been wonderfully allowed to see my missing the mark in practically applying what it means to live in light of God’s grace shown to me. Both sad and sweet, it’s wonderful to know what it means to be forgiven by the Creator of the universe. Living in repentance, knowing that I’m a fool to not confess my sins… to my brothers and sisters and non-believers as well, knowing that the King is “faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” I John 1:9. I am being refreshed to know who I am, at least a glimpse more clearer, in light of who HE is. Please take a moment and read the great insight of Les Newsom in his more lengthy article (if you have the time please take it to read the rest) HERE
“C.H. Spurgeon was greeting parishioners outside the Metropolitan Tabernacle after a certain Sunday worship service. He was accompanied by his elders and a throng of people came by to thank him for the service. However, as the crowd paraded by Spurgeon, an elderly lady approached him with a look of consternation on her face. “Mr. Spurgeon,” she sharply began, “you are the most arrogant, obnoxious, annoying man that I have ever heard of. And I wanted to be the one to tell you so.” The crowd grew somewhat quiet with embarrassment as the old woman stormed off in a huff. With all eyes on him, Spurgeon turned to the elder standing next to him and said, “Sheesss, she doesn’t know the half of it.”
Now, why do we smile when we hear that story? I would venture to say that when we hear it we think to ourselves, “I want to be around more people like Spurgeon. He’s the kind of guy that I want to hang around with. Unpretentious, unassuming, self-effacing.” And isn’t it true that we ALL love people like that? Spurgeon was only drawing off his knowledge of what the Scriptures have said about him. If it was true that he was “more sinful, wretched, and depraved than he could ever imagine,” then what was the opinion of some old woman who happened to confirm that in him? The answer is, that it was nothing. Spurgeon knew that he was on Rock Bottom as far as God was concerned, and it so colored his opinion of himself that he was able to forgive and be patient and love and show kindness to this old woman. Because he knew that even though he was a screw up like us, he also knew that his God loved screw- ups. And that was enough.
THE MYSTERY
There is a mystery here that happens at this point. The Holy Spirit does something in us while we are looking desperately to Christ. All the while as we get our eyes off ourselves, he is producing fruits in us. We find ourselves with a new patience, because we know how patient God has been with us. We find a new wellspring of forgiveness in us, because we know the great debt we owed that has been forgiven. We find a new love, because he first loved us. Go down the line of Galatians 5 and the fruits of the Spirit, all these come about “naturally” as we look to Christ for our only hope. In other words, they really are “fruits,” they are not things that I noticed and said, “Oh,… ‘love’… well, I need to work harder at being loving.” Yes, harder work is needed, but only in the context of setting our eyes totally on Christ alone for our salvation.
I had this principle illustrated for me recently in a most vivid way. I wonder how many of you have ever been dumped. I mean, you have had someone reject you severely. I had one such girl in my living room with my wife recently. This young lady had been dating a great guy whom everyone thought would ask her to marry her, until things just simply changed (as they often do in dating relationships) and he said goodbye to her. And as she sat and described her pain, it brought back a lot of memories for me.
I can vividly remember being rejected by an old girlfriend. And if the event is bad, the weeks or months afterward are worse. And I can still remember the strange, awkward pain that I would feel after these times. I used to think that this pain was nothing more than having to get “out of the habit” of the other person, to get used to not having them around so much. But I think I know better now. The pain that one goes through a break up is nothing more than the pain of rejection. Someone, who knows us well, has said to us in effect, “You aren’t the man. You’re not good-looking/pretty enough. You’re not ambitious enough. You’re not funny enough. You don’t have the right personality. I can do better, so I’m leaving.” And the awkwardness of the following weeks comes from wrestling with this estimation of yourself.
I have seen people react to these kinds of break ups in one of two ways. On the one hand, they simply look for (often desperately so) a replacement who will tell them that their worst fears about their own estimation of themselves is not true. “You really are valuable, you really are loved,” they assure us. And after time, the pain goes away. The other type of response comes from the person who becomes depressed and despondent about themselves. These are those who literally grow to hate themselves. Guys just get more insecure and unsure about relationships, while girls grow desperate to change themselves (dieting, exercising often leading to eating disorders or worse).
But my friend sitting in my living room this evening hadn’t done either of those things. Her comment went something like this, “I don’t know how else to say it, Les. I just got to the point where I stopped being afraid of what I was so afraid was true. And I owned up to who I was. And something happened. I all of a sudden was okay. I knew that I was going to be fine.”
What she had done was to own up to her limitations. She had admitted to herself that it just might be true all the things she was thinking about herself. She allowed herself to hit “rock bottom.” And all the sudden, she realized that rock bottom wasn’t all that bad. As a matter of fact, it was “good solid ground.” But the really amazing fact that both my wife and I noticed at that moment was that, so far from being a morbid, self-absorbed kind of self-realization (it was the farthest thought from my wife’s mind that she wasn’t going to be okay), this girl actually became more attractive to us. Her confidence that she had gained had made her look and sound so mature, so peaceful, so attractive.
This is nothing less than gospel truth illustrated in real life. I have often struggled with how the freedom of the gospel is to be squared with the necessity that we lead holy lives. But I think I am beginning to see that it is the very nature of the gospel to change us. The minute that we “own up to who we are,” to cease trying to be someone that God has not created us to be, to admit to our sin and to the fact that the God of the universe has rejected us (has “dumped” us), it is at that very moment that we hear the Gospel say to us that God adores just those kind of people. And strangely, we are fine. We have a new humility, a new patience, a new kindness, a new sincerity, new genuineness. THESE are the fruits of the Spirits work in our lives to assist us to understand that 1) I am more sinful, wretched, and depraved than I could possibly imagine, and 2) I am more loved, accepted, and forgiven in the Lord Jesus than I could ever dare dream. THIS is living by the gospel.
Dr. Lloyd-Jones used this illustration. What if someone approached you out of the blue and told you that they had recently paid one of your bills, but they didn’t tell you which one. They might have paid your dry cleaning bill this month. But then again, they might have paid the balance that you owe on your automobile. The point is that it is the size of the debt which determines the amount of the joy that you have upon discovery that it has been paid for you. Could it be that the reason why so many Christians have no joy in the Lord Jesus is for one of two reasons: either they are not aware of how large was their debt they owed to God for their sins (like the parable of the ungrateful servant in Matthew 18), OR they are not aware of the depth of God’s radical provision in Christ for our sins.
© Reformed University Ministries Used by permission
