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This is a message of rejection. Mark chapter 6, verses 1 to 6. Jesus returned to pass written and was met with disbelief by those who do him pass.

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Join me, Pastor Richard, as we ask. Have we become so familiar with Jesus that we fail to honor him as Lord? Discover how faith or unbelief shapes the work of Christ in our lives.

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Morning Church. Please stand for the reading of the Gospel. The Gospel reading is taken from the Gospel of Mark, chapter six, beginning from verse one. Mark chapter six verse one. He went away from there and came to his hometown, and his disciples followed him. And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things? Where what is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hand? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joseph and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. And Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household, and he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief. This is the gospel of Christ.

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By show of hands, how many people right here have been calling themselves a Christian for at least 10 years? If you've been a believer for at least 10 years, uh keep your hand up. Yeah, lift your hands up. We have a lot of hands. How many for 15 years? All right, still quite a number of hands. 20 years? Wow, praise the Lord. A lot of us. 30 years. Still have some. We're starting to get a bit lesser now. 40 years. All right. We still about uh half a dozen or so. Any who have been believers for 50 years or more? Wow. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Now I ask this because the question for today, and this is for all of us, whether you've been a believer for one month or one decade or over five decades, do we still meet with the Lord with the same reverence that we did in the beginning? Now, if I were to ask how many of you have faced uh rejection as part of your faith in Jesus, I think we'd see a lot of hands raised. And in fact, all of us have faced rejection before. Uh whether it was as a result of our faith or for other reasons, we've all faced rejection. And you know what? Rejection hurts. All right, let's be real here. Rejection is very painful. I can tell you from my own experiences, wow, rejection can really, really hurt. Few things pierce us like rejection does. And there's, of course, many types of rejection. Uh, it can be school age young people can face rejection in school, it can be uh being chosen for groups, and you are the last one to be chosen. It could be in a relationship, it could be uh experiencing rejection sometimes, even from a parent to the child, it can be a close friend. There's many forms of rejection, and few things will pierce us more than that. Now, as we look at the context of our passage today, we see uh the Bible actually records Jesus returning twice to his hometown, twice to his hometown once he had started his ministry. And so after his baptism by John the Baptist, as we think about Jesus beginning uh going into ministry, he went into the wilderness, right? And he fasted in the wilderness for how many days? Forty days? Forty days, right? He went into the wilderness for forty days, and he was tempted by the devil while he fasted. And following this he began his ministry. He turned the water into wine in Capernaum at the wedding, he cleansed the temple in Jerusalem. We remember the moneylenders that had set up shop there. He spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well, and he began preaching in Galilee a message of repentance that the kingdom of God had arrived. And so within his first year of ministry, he began to be recognized as a teacher with authority. And Luke records for us Jesus first returned to his hometown, and this is taken from Luke chapter 4, beginning in verse 16. Says, and he came to Nazareth, that's the hometown, where he had been brought up, and as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And he rolled up the scroll, and he gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say that to them, Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth, and they said, Is not this Joseph's son? And in that passage, uh, this is the first time he had gone back to his hometown, and they thought to themselves, Wow, yeah, Jesus, he's he's really grown up. I mean, we we we grew up with him, but wow, he's made something of himself. He's he's pretty well spoken. But you see, Jesus continued speaking, making it clear that Isaiah's prophecy is not just for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles. And when the people that he'd grown up with, they heard that, they became furious. Luke continues, he says, When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town, and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away. The same Jesus that they'd grown up with, the same Jesus that they had played in the street with, the same one that they had known, they tried to throw him over a cliff. And if we fast forward a year or so from that point, we come to today's passage. And you know, since that time, Jesus had been traveling more, he had been doing even greater miracles, he had been becoming uh popular among the people. Who is this who performs miracles? Who's this who speaks with such authority? And although they had rejected him once before, Jesus returned to his hometown to give them a second chance, to extend to them grace. Second chances, they are incredible. I know I myself, I've been given uh second chances in my life. One time, I think I was about nine years old, and I set off some firecrackers too close to my head, and I lost my hearing for about 30 minutes. And in those 30 minutes, I was so scared that I would never hear again. But my hearing came back, and you know it felt like a second chance that shouldn't be squandered with repeating such foolish mistakes. It was a second chance that God gave to me. Another time I'd after working through the night, I was driving home on the highway, on icy roads, at high speed, as all the traffic was traveling at high speed. And it was the time when everyone else was coming to work, so the road was busy. And after working all night, I I nodded off at the wheel of the car, and I spun around one, two, three times, and it stopped, and I was facing the traffic coming towards me. But God preserved my life, He gave me a second chance instead of being injured or dying from that mistake. God gave me a second chance. Second chances are absolute gifts from God. They're gifts from God. If you have had a big second chance in your life, you know these are gifts from God. Second chances should not be squandered. And so Jesus, in an act of grace, he went back to his hometown, to the very ones who had tried to kill him the last time he had returned. And he returns to give them a second chance. Mark tells us that he returned and he began teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. And the text records how they responded this time. It says, And on the Sabbath he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished, saying, Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to him? How are such mighty works done by his hands? Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And they took offense at him. They responded by taking offense at the preacher, the person, and the power of Jesus. First they took offense at Jesus the preacher, because you see, he went, he spoke with authority. The teachers of that time, the rabbis, uh, they would be quoting one another. Oh, well, you know, Rabbi so-and-so says this, and and this rabbi, they were pretty much quoting commentators as we think of it today. But Jesus had no need to quote what other teachers said. He taught with authority. It was very different. He taught with wisdom, he was declaring truths. There was no cloudiness when it came to understanding what the prophets had intended, because Jesus knew. He knew what the prophecies were about. He knew so many of them were about he himself. And so he had wisdom in declaring truths. And his preaching was different because of his works. His works backed up his words. He didn't just preach one thing and then go and live another thing. His works backed up his preaching. And so when the people heard him preach, they were astonished. What it means is the people, they were amazed. They were amazed because they had never heard anyone preach like this. And in that word astonished, they were also a bit panicked. They were astonished, they were panicked. They were filled with fear because if what Jesus was saying was true, then they had to reevaluate everything that they knew. They were offended because what Jesus was preaching was full of hard truths. And the gospel we have today as a result of the life and death of Christ, as a result of the Scripture being given to us, is also full of hard truths. And so hard truths offended the people in Jesus' time. They offend people today. Here are the gospel truths that all people are sinners, that every single person sitting or standing in this room are sinners. That all sinners are headed to hell. This is the hard gospel truth, that there is only one way to be saved from sin. That all other religions are false and will lead to hell. This is a hard gospel truth. That you can only be saved by active faith in someone who lived, died, and rose again 2,000 years ago. These are the hard gospel truths, and these are non-negotiable. If you are going to be a Christian and follow Christ, you have to accept these. These are non-negotiable. They're hard truths because they condemn much of humanity, including people that you and I hold dear. Because apart from Christ, they're headed for an eternity of being lost and separated from God. And when the people they heard Jesus teaching, they were astonished. They are absolutely astounded that he would say such things, and they were panicked because of the implications of it being true, and they rejected the preacher. They also rejected Jesus because they thought they already knew everything about him. They rejected the person of Jesus. You know, we we knew him growing up. He was a carpenter, he built some tables, he built some chairs, some ox yokes. Yeah, we know this guy. Jesus was a craftsman, not not some big name theologian, and certainly not God come to earth in the form of a man. We know him, we grew up with him. And Mark says that they took offense at him. They're offended as if they had just witnessed someone brazenly committing a crime. They took offense at him. They are outraged at his shamelessness in preaching something different from what they had been accustomed to. And they said, Isn't this the carpenter, the son of Mary? And what we don't recognize today is there's a little bit of nuance here. There's something that we don't quite see because it was cultural, it was implied. See, normally a person would be referred to as the son of their father. They would use the father's name, they wouldn't use the mother's name. Jesus would have been called the son of Joseph. Always the father's name, never the mother's name. But when they said, isn't this Mary's boy? It was really an insult. They were saying, Oh, you're you're the son of Mary. We don't know who the father is. They were saying he was an illegitimate child. They were they were shaming his mother and shaming him as well when they called him the son of Mary. They rejected the person of Jesus. And today, people find it easy to accept the sweet baby in the manger, Christmas time, we have that scene. But they reject the virgin birth, which is something miraculous. People accept a man dying on the cross out of love for humanity, but they they reject his resurrection three days later. But you know, there's more hard truths of the gospel. The Bible tells us that Jesus was God in the flesh, that Jesus was born of a virgin, that Jesus lived a perfect, sinless life, that Jesus died for your sins, that Jesus ascended to heaven, that Jesus will return to receive his followers to himself, and that Jesus is the only way to salvation. It's exclusive. And that's offensive to many people. And it was the things that he was saying in the synagogue on that day, it was offensive to them as well. You know, we've all heard the phrase, I think, familiarity breeds contempt. Have you heard that phrase? You've heard it right. When someone grows up and remains in their home community their entire life, it becomes very difficult for people to see who they've become. We think, I know this person. I knew them when they are little, I knew them when they were in diapers. And it becomes very hard to see the person that they've become because we re once we establish a memory of something, we don't really look at it again. Family members. When's the last time you really took a moment and studied their face? You know what they look like, so you stop looking at them and you don't notice the changes that take place. And on a larger scale, that's true of people. We're thankful uh for Reverend Wei'i, we're thankful for his time here, but I gotta tell you, he's gonna go on to see God use him in even greater ways as he's posted out. Because we we can only see a little bit of the change, but we don't have eyes to see all that has taken place inside of him. And you know, if familiarity breeds contempt, the opposite is true too. And as someone who was in missions for many years, as someone who's lived in different nations, I've experienced that every time you start in a new community, it's a new beginning. People don't have any preconceived ideas of who you are, they can see you for exactly how you present yourself. And so you're able to live out who you want to be and to be accepted as that. Back to our passage. Despite reports of his miracles elsewhere, because Jesus' ministry had been well established by this point, uh, you know he had he had healed a man's withered hand. It's a miracle. And it's a miracle that could not be denied. He had calmed a storm as we remember that story. Wow, he had power over nature. There are a lot of witnesses. He spoke, and suddenly the storm was calmed and became still. He had delivered a man who had been possessed by a demon that gave him supernatural strength, someone who had lived in a graveyard in a cemetery, who had caught himself. They tried to bind him up, and he'd break the chains every time. He freed that man from that demon. He had raised a man's 12-year-old daughter back to life from the dead. And these reports were going out. They didn't have Twitter, they didn't have WhatsApp, but news spread. He had done so many miracles. And despite all this evidence of who Jesus was, they rejected his power and his identity. And Jesus, Jesus who had seen so much, Jesus who was able to see past the surface into the hearts of men and women. Scripture tells us that he was astonished. He was amazed at the depth of their unbelief. Mark tells us that he could do no mighty work there except a few miracles of healing. And so great was the ministry of Jesus that just a few miracles of healing is considered something small here. Now, to be clear, there was no lack of power on Jesus' part. Our Lord and Savior, he didn't need people's faith to enable him to perform miracles, but rather it was a refusal to demonstrate his power to those who so strongly were opposed to him and rejected him. God is sovereign, he can do what he pleases, when he pleases, to whom he pleases. Jesus was amazed. They'd heard the truth, they'd seen the truth, and yet they still turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the truth. And here is something very important. After this hometown rejection, Jesus moves on, and Scripture never again records him returning to his hometown. They had received a second chance, but they had squandered it. And so this morning, I think it leads us to ask the question what about us? Jesus is spiritually present when we gather here together, and he's present with us right now, right here. And if we come expectant to meet with him and to be strengthened, we can be amazed at what he will do in our lives. But don't be deceived. If we have come here with an I've seen it all and I've heard it all attitude, we can expect nothing from the Lord. The truth is that preachers and sermons uh do nothing on their own. Half of every sermon. Well, the congregation is responsible for that. Expectancy to hear from the Lord is essential, my brothers and sisters. We must come expectant. We must come ready to hear from the Lord and to meet with the Lord. And another truth for us is if we don't want Jesus here on Sundays, he will leave YCCA. And there'll be no life in our worship, no life in our messages, no difference when we celebrate Holy Communion together, no change when we go for baptism, and no growth from when we are confirmed. Have we allowed familiarity with God to breed contempt in us? You know, this morning, again, whether you've been following Jesus for over fifty years, or it's only been a month, the Lord is inviting us to come and approach Him again as if it were for the very first time. To commit our lives to Him and repentance and bitterness from our sin and expectant gladness and joy that our sin has been miraculously forgiven. Today is a chance for us to commit again to surrendering our lives to the Lord, meaning that we give him the right and the control to tell us how we should live, what our values should be, what choices we make. Today is the day to respond to what the psalmist writes in Psalm 34. O taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. O fear the Lord, you his saints. For those who fear him have no.

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