Responding to Rejection – Luke 9:51-56 – Grant Vissers

Early morning like this to gather, to worship, to lift, tie

the name of Jesus. And so I love that we are called

together to do exactly that. This morning we're going to be

reading in the Gospel of Luke. And if you are new, we're

working our way through the Gospel of Luke and we are

solidly, squarely in Luke Chapter 9.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

So we're going to be working through verses 51 through to

about 56 today. And what I wanna say is we

begin. I'm gonna pray in a minute.

I'm gonna read from from my Bible here, which this morning

is the New International Version.

I'd encourage you to follow along.

Doesn't need to be in the same version.

It could be on a phone or tablet.

Eventually we'll put it up on the screen and you'll be able to

follow along that way. But let me say this, if you

don't have a Bible, we have I was at the back and on a cart.

So if you would like to grab that for this morning,

fantastic. If you want to write in it,

fantastic. If you don't have a Bible at

home and you're like, I actually really think I wanna take this

with with me. Great.

That's our gift to you. So please do that.

You can walk right out and nobody's going to stop you at

the door. Nobody's going to like ask for a

receipt or like give a credit card when you take that thing,

like it can be yours. Take it.

If you want to take two and give one away, do that also.

Alright, so let me pray Luke 9 find it about this far through

your Bible. God, thanks for your love,

thanks for your grace, Thank you for your goodness.

And yeah, we who gather here, we know it, we feel it.

God, for those who are kind of stumbling in needing to know it,

needing to experience it and feel it yet I pray that today

would be the day. I pray that today would be the

day that you draw us close and you remind us of who you are.

You remind us of your goodness and your character, Your love

toward us and toward the world. So I got where yours this time

is. Yours belongs to you.

Like none of this makes sense. None of it makes sense without

you. And so God thinks that your

promise is that you'll show up. Thinks that your promises that

you speak to us and you meet us where we're at, thinks that

you're promises that you challenge us.

And at times and seasons you rebuke us.

Thinks that all of it is to draw us closer to your heart and to

your love and to your goodness and to your grace.

So, yeah, would we experience that this morning?

For us, yes. And for the world because, yeah,

we know. Like this thing's gotta explode

beyond our walls and into this world.

Your Kingdom come. That's our our prayer.

So as we read through these verses, God, would you do that?

Would you encourage? Would you challenge?

Would you rebuke where needed? All of it we trust for your

glory. In Jesus name we pray.

Amen. All right.

Luke 9 In my Bible, this is how it sounds.

As the time approached for him, that's Jesus to be taken up to

heaven. Jesus resolutely set out for

Jerusalem, and he sent messengers on ahead who went

into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him.

But the people there did not welcome him because he was

heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and

John saw this, they asked the Lord, Lord, do you want us to

call down fire from heaven and destroy them?

But Jesus turned and rebuked them.

Then he and the disciples went on to another village.

So as I was preparing for this sermon this week, I, I got

thinking and actually found myself reading some of the

stories throughout, like I say, modernish history on the

greatest or sort of most famous occasions of rejection.

So I'm not gonna ask you for your own painful personal

stories of rejection. But here are a few that I found

myself reading through. Some I've heard before, and some

were new to me, stories of individuals who, before they

ever succeeded, were rejected, many of them multiple times.

So I wonder if these are new to you.

I found out. So Walt Disney fired from a

newsletter that he wrote and edited because he, quote, lacked

imagination and had no good ideas.

So that was #1 #2 maybe, you know, this one, Steve Jobs being

fired from Apple early on in Apple's history, like far

before, long before the iPhone was ever released.

First Harry Potter manuscript rejected by 12 publishers.

Like, that's my era. If you look sort of ish in the

same age as me, you probably have less Gray hair already.

But listen, that was maybe some of your childhood. 12 publishers

rejected that first book. This was a new one.

Michael Jordan cut from his high school basketball team.

OK Sylvester Stallone had 30 manuscripts rejected before he

wrote Rocky. Stephen King was rejected by 30

publishers before his first book was printed, and this again a

new one. Elvis Presley was told by people

at the Grand Ole Opry to go back to truck driving.

Feel like Ouch. Like that's like that's harsh.

That's a, that's a strong rejection.

Like not we don't want you back here.

We think just this whole industry just leave it behind

and go back to driving a truck. But listen, like I'm guessing

that, and I'm not gonna ask you. Please don't be worried.

I'm guessing though, you don't have to Google stories of

rejection to feel them yourself. Like I I'm guessing that you

likely have your own stories of moments in your life, seasons,

incidents where you were and have been rejected.

And it could be that it was a workplace or within the context

of your career. You find yourself feeling

constantly rejected or at least rejected in ways of whether it's

promotion or ideas being dismissed or even layoffs that

come and sweep through an organization.

You yourself have found yourself on the receiving end of a

workplace rejection. We know it happens in

relationships and inside of communities where individuals

are excluded from social groups like, hey, we no longer wants

you to be a part of what we've got over here, and we're not

going to really give you a good reason, but goodbye.

Or we think of, right, ghosting or just completely disappearing.

I'm just never gonna talk to you ever again.

Family dynamics alright. Kids can feel rejected by their

parents who disapprove of their choices in life.

Estrangements happen. You can have conflict within

families over faith and values. Parents can feel rejected by

their kids as they grow and and leave, but we also see it in the

church, whether it's simply the fact that when you come in, you

fear for your life that you're gonna be rejected.

And so it changes maybe that first step that you take toward

faith and toward a Christian community that is the church

because of fear of rejection. Maybe it's that your faith you

feel puts you at odds with others who constantly push

against. Have your gifts kind of pushed

to the outside. Maybe that's online.

Big ignored or attacked, facing difficulty or anger or violence.

Like rejection of who you are. We feel it, you feel it.

I am guessing you don't need to Google.

Like when did Michael Jordan get rejected from his high school

basketball? Like I got rejected from my high

school basketball team. I did get rejected from my high

school basketball team, by the way.

But that was a good decision. That was a wise like discerning.

I once tried to shoot the ball into my own neck.

Basketball was not my sport for so many different reasons.

This story is a story that kind of revolves around this idea of

rejection. It all has to do with rejection.

And there's like rejection flying in multiple directions.

And so I want to look at that a little bit this morning and how

we might learn from A, how the disciples react, and then B, to

how Jesus challenges the disciples in the midst of their

rejection and hurt and anger. So let's reread it as the time

approach for him to be taken up into heaven.

Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.

This is now going to work. OK, So this is just, if you

would like to know, an editorial note.

As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, this

is Luke trying to tell us where this story fits within the

narrative. This is Luke reminding us this

is what Jesus is headed toward. This is where the narrative is

is moving. This isn't conversation inside

of the text. So you now know something that

in this moment the disciples don't know.

As the time approached for him, Jesus to be taken up into

heaven. That's where we're headed.

He sent Jesus, sent his messengers, went ahead, who went

into the Samaritan village. That's gonna become important in

a minute to get things ready for him.

But the people there did not welcome him because he was

headed for Jerusalem. So a couple of things.

This is literally what I want you to see.

The time for me to take my heavy Jesus resolutely set out for

Jerusalem. This literally means set his

face. This is he turns his whole being

toward this moment. Everything is moving him toward

Jerusalem. All that he is, all that he is

doing, all that he is trying to accomplish.

It's he literally turns his face, points in that direction

and says this is the direction we're going no matter what.

So that's the idea. And in that moment, as Jesus

sets his face, declares like this is where we're going.

The people in the Samaritan village reject him and they

reject the disciples. They reject him for the

direction that he's moving. Now, Samaritan and Jews as

cultural groups, as people, as religions, they did not get

along. And this might be recap for some

of you. It might be news to others, but

listen, like this isn't the Leafs and the Habs are like

Leafs and Habs fans, OK? I was a Leafs fan.

I grew up in Montreal. Like this isn't this doesn't

touch that. This isn't Apple versus Android.

This isn't Pepsi versus Coke. Like this isn't even as simple

as my neighbor put a fence on my side of the property so I cut it

down and I took out his tree also just for good measure.

Like this is a deep seated historical, theological, social,

political divide division that's caused these two groups to

reject each other for generation after generation.

And and not only do they just like reject one another and turn

away, it's like they don't consider one another wholly or

chosen by God. There's this sense of complete

and utter you do not belong as a person of God.

We overhear have the truth. So a little bit of history.

Both of these groups trace their lineage back to Abraham after

the Assyrian conquest. So this invasion of the northern

Kingdom, this is 722 BCE, many of the Israelites in that region

were taken off into exile. And so people from surrounding

nations, they moved in and they began to marry with the

Israelites who remained. And that group of people is who

became the Samaritans. And so Jews from the southern

Kingdom of Judah viewed Samaritans as compromised, like

unclean, ritually unclean. They rejected their their

legitimacy as true descendants of Israel, as people of God.

And and by the time of Jesus, like by this moment, the

hostility is so hardened and so overt, like in your face disdain

for one another that they just completely avoided, right.

Jewish people did not travel into through the surrounding

Samaritan areas and cities. They refused contact.

They rejected the Samaritans and the Samaritans.

They reciprocated the animosity. They rejected back toward the

Israelites. One of the most telling turns in

their history together is that the Israelites considered

Jerusalem their place of worship and the Samaritans considered

Mount Gerizim their place of worship.

And so symbolized in that is this complete and utter divide

rejection because Jesus is moving toward Jerusalem.

He's rejected by this town of Samaritan people because he is

not headed toward their place of worship.

He's headed somewhere else. Jesus resolutely set out for

Jerusalem, His face, his presence, his life, all of it

pointing, moving toward that place, the place where he was

gonna be confronted by religious leaders, right?

It's gonna be the location for his trial.

It'll be where he is sentenced to death.

It's where he'll die, just outside that city.

Jesus's life and teaching, his mission, all of it culminates in

that place. And because of where his life is

pointed, he and his disciples are rejected.

And now I gotta think like you. Picture the disciples in this

moment. I'd say Jesus is standing right

in front of them and you can almost understand the disciples

anger or at least their response.

Like, here's this guy we've been waiting for, here's the Messiah,

here's the Son of God, here is Jesus, and you're gonna reject

him because he's going to Jerusalem and because you

worship somewhere else. Listen, I don't know about you,

but I wonder about these questions.

How many times do Christians argue and fight and reject one

another over theological differences over places of

worship or over ways of worship or ways of being and how we

gather right? How often do we reject someone

or how often do we miss something that is standing right

in front of us because we're so committed to being right?

How often do we let opportunities for grace and

forgiveness and healing and reconciliation just slip away

because we're more concerned about our own vindication and

our own righteousness than any type of movement toward

community and toward embrace? And if you wonder about that

question, I'll give you a hint. I think it's often the

Samaritans themselves, like they themselves were rejected.

That's part of their identity. And in their rejection they turn

and they reject Jesus and his disciples and they push away.

And it's like this never ending spiral.

And I'm sure that you've experienced it in life and in

relationship where like 1 rejection leads to another, like

it's death begets death, it's rejection leads to more

rejection and the divide grows. So what do we see?

Like in this moment and their moment of rejection, the

disciples react very strongly. When the disciples Jim and John

saw this, they asked the Lord, Do you want us to call down fire

from heaven to destroy them? It's a strong reaction.

I said, listen, if you know about the disciples a little

bit, James and John are taking a page out of Peter's book.

Peter, like who boldly, rashly, immediately responds to

everything. That's how they respond in this

moment. They respond loudly and

immediately. They want to call down fire from

heaven and it's not out of the blue.

That's what we need to understand.

Like they don't come up with this out of thin air.

They don't just think, oht, hey, this sounds like a good idea.

They're pulling stories from their history forward, trying to

understand how they should react and respond to their own

emotional state of rejection. They don't know how to respond.

They don't know what to do. And so they pull forward this

story that's kind of probably lingering in there mind and in

their community. It's the story of of Elijah and

the story of Elijah. If you wanna check it out, we're

in like first Kings 18 is where we see this immediate story.

I'm not gonna go through it all because it's it's long, but some

of the basics. What's going on here?

So there's in this day, so Elijah's day, there's drought

and there's famine and there's a king and there's a people who

are split. Some are following God, the God

of Israel, and some are following Bail, other gods,

Ashura, like there are these movements away from the God of

Israel. And Elijah confronts the people

and, and again, this is like zipping through the story, but

Elijah confronts the people and he says, hey, it's time to

choose. He says, guys, like, listen, you

got 1 foot in both camps. You're trying to do like, well,

worship the God of Israel, but just kind of let us hedge our

bets. Like we're gonna also have one

foot over here in this camp and we're gonna try to do, we're

gonna try to play both sides. We're gonna worship God.

We're gonna worship Bailey. You know, it's like, why can't

we incorporate some of these other things?

And, and he says, listen, like no more of this, no more 1 foot

in, one foot out, no more worshipping multiple gods,

different gods. Let's set the record straight.

And so he's like, listen, like I'm one prophet.

We've got, we've got one of us. There's 450 profits for bail.

So let's build 2 altars. Let's put some, some sacrifice

on both those altars and let's pray and let's ask God to light

the fires. We're going to leave them unlit.

Whichever God lights the fire, that's the true God and that's

who will worship. And so they build their altars

and they put the meat on top of the altar and then they begin to

pray and yell and, and so nothing happens over here in

with the prophets of bail, 450 of them.

There's like 400 other profits for Ashura here as well and

nothing happens. And so Elijah, what he says

like, OK, I'm going to pray now, but before I do it, throw some

water on my altar. Like let's just it's dry.

It's there's a drought. Like let's just make sure that

nobody misunderstands what happens here.

And so let's put some water on top of it.

And three times they do that, they're dumping like 4 pails of

water jars on top of this altar. And then Elijah prays and God

delivers fire from heaven. Elijah calls down fire from

heaven. That's the imagery that I want

you to see here. And God proves who he is, lights

that altar on fire. So you think, OK, great.

Like that's a, that's a good moment.

That's a wonderful thing. Like God's showing up.

He's revealing who he is. Like this is, this is God

miraculously bringing fire down and lighting the altar and

proving that he is God. But that story ends with death.

It's a story that ends with the death of all of the prophets.

So at the very end of that story and go read it against its first

Kings 18, the 450, the prophets of bail are taken down to the

river and executed because of the influence that they had on

the people to lead them away from God.

And so in this moment where the disciples are are, you know,

asking Jesus, hey, do you want us to call down fire from

heaven? Like it's it's not this

symbolic. Hey, would you want us to prove

who God is for you? Like they're calling back a

story that ends with death. It's almost as if they're in

this moment, rejected, and they turn to Jesus and they're like,

hey, like, should we destroy them too?

Like, do you want us to kill these guys just like Elijah did

with those guys? It's not a pleasant moment for

the disciples. They have other stories in

Scripture. This is one of the things that I

wonder and will wonder forever, like they've got other stories

that they could pull from. There are other moments in

Israel's history. I think of Abraham, who, you

know, pleads with God. God's gonna kill or destroy

Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham pleads with God.

He's like, hey, listen, if we find 40 righteous people, please

just relent. And OK, how about 30?

How about 20? How about 10?

Like how you know how few people can we, if we can prove to you

that there's like even just one righteous person, like, will you

relent? Please just don't destroy them.

Here's this this man pleading with God on behalf of a people

for God not to destroy them. And yet the disciples in this

moment, like in their rejection, they're not all let's let's pull

that story forward and and plead with God and and beg for God to

not destroy them. They turn and they wonder to

Jesus, Hey, like, is now the time where you want us to kill

these guys? Fred Craddock has this great

line and I think it's worth even having up, he says.

Is it not interesting how the mind can grasp and hold those

scripture which seem to bless our worst behavior and yet

cannot retain past the sanctuary door, those texts which summon

to love, forgiveness and mercy? It's like, hey, there's just

something inside of the human mind that in moments where we

need, we pull back these scriptures that bless the worst

thing that we could possibly do. You're like, I really wanna do

this one thing. I'm gonna try to find a way to

justify it. And he's like, man, wouldn't it

be better if we could remember as we go, the passages which

summon, which call, which challenge us to love and

forgiveness and mercy? Listen, I get it.

Like the disciples are rejected, they feel rejected.

I think worse still, they actually rise in this rejection,

in this moment of it, and they rise in defence of Jesus, who

they perceive as being rejected. And I think they're probably

angry and I think they're probably hurt.

And and yet in their anger and in their hurt, they asked Jesus

if he wants them to call down fire from heaven.

I'm guessing that you, and I'm not gonna ask for examples, have

wanted or thought about calling down fire from heaven once or

twice. I'm guessing in your own

rejection that you've experienced, you found yourself

so hurt and so angry and wanting to just find any possible way to

get back at that person and say, I wish you could feel what I

feel. We can respond with anger.

We can respond with defensiveness.

We can turn and reject further. You're like, you're not gonna

break up with me first. I'm gonna break up with you.

I'm gonna jump the gun. But what are some other ways

that we know, right? We're prone to anger.

We're prone to defensiveness, lashing out verbally,

emotionally. We want to cover the pain of

rejection. And so we just rise up and like

rage because I'd rather feel angry than I would feel

vulnerable and hurt. We tend to withdraw, pull away

from others. You're gonna say, well, OK, I've

experienced that one hurt. I'm gonna withdraw because I'm

now gonna live my life in a way that protects myself from ever

being hurt again. And so you approach every

relationship with, like, your foot up.

You're like, I'm just, I'm ready to kick and launch and go.

But it pushes us into withdrawal, into isolation.

We can turn to self criticism. We can internalize rejection and

and start to believe some of the lies like I'm not good enough, I

must not be worthy of these things.

We can look to seek for approval elsewhere.

Alright, we can double down. We're like, well, if you reject

me once, I'm going to try extra hard to win your whatever it is

like I'm just gonna double down. I'm gonna win validation from

you. I am gonna do whatever I can to

convince you to change your mind.

And so we become what we think other people want, and we change

who we are and who you've been created to be, to meet what you

perceive are other people's expectations of who you are.

I think one of the worst things we can do is maybe you've tried

all of those, and then you just go, hey, man, I'm just numb.

And so then we go down even further toward distracting

ourselves and numbing the pain of it, and go.

I'm just not gonna feel. I'm not gonna feel the pain.

I'm not gonna deal with it. I'm not gonna face it.

I'm just gonna avoid it. I'm gonna live like it just is.

Not even here. And so I think one of the things

that I want to say to you this morning is this resist the urge

to call down fire from heaven. And what I mean by that is not

just like don't just resist the urge to call down fire from

heaven on somebody else, but resist the urge to call down far

from heaven on yourself. Like resist the urge that you

have to run in all of these different directions when you

face rejection. I love how Jesus turns.

Here's the hope of the gospel. But Jesus turned and rebuked

them. Then he and his disciples went

to another village. We're gonna get to this in a

minute. Went to another village.

But Jesus turned and rejected that.

Stifles are ready. They're like, Jesus will do it.

You just say the word. We're going to bring down the

fire. We're going to destroy this

town. And I wonder if in the back of

Jesus's mind he's like, yeah, right, You're not.

So if like, if you haven't followed the story, like just a

few verses ago, they couldn't heal a kid and Jesus had to step

in there, like you couldn't heal the kid.

What makes you think you can call down fire from heaven now?

But that's not in the text. So you can't go too far down

that road. What is there is, again, I

think, some of, if not the two most powerful words that we find

in the entirety of Scripture. But Jesus.

Jesus is the one who steps in and intervenes in between the

disciples and the Samaritan village.

The disciples who want to call down fire and destroy these

people. But Jesus steps in between them

and doesn't rebuke the Samaritans for rejecting him.

He rebukes the disciples for wanting to rage and violently

show who this Jesus is. It's Jesus who steps in and

stops them from destroying or potentially destroying this town

and these people. Jesus doesn't turn and curse the

Samaritans. He doesn't encourage the

disciples to destroy the city. He turns and he rebukes the

disciples. He chastises them, not the

Samaritans, for their lack of faith or understanding.

Doesn't turn say like how could you like I'm here?

Like how could you not see who I am and receive me?

Like do you not know who I am? Like Jesus has none of that

inside of him. He doesn't rebuke the Samaritan

for having bad or different or wrong theology or worshipping on

the wrong mountain. Like he confronts his own

disciples and he rebukes them and then he moves on.

When Jesus sends out his disciples, when he commissions

them at the beginning of Luke 9, this is Luke 9, like one to six.

He says to the disciples at that point he's like, hey, take

nothing for the journey. You're gonna rely on the

goodness of people, their hospitality.

So it's like no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra

shirt. Like just take what you got on.

Go. Whatever house you enter, stay

there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you,

leave their town and shake off the dust from your feet as a

testimony against them. But he says, listen, move on,

just go. And I think what he's doing in

this moment is that Jesus is demonstrating the kind of

leadership and the kind of life and the kind of way of being

that he expects from his followers.

He doesn't stay where he's not wanted or welcomed.

He doesn't stay here. Let me try to convince you.

Let me argue. Let me throw all of these things

in front of you. Let me try to convince you that

I am who I say I am and why you are wrong for worship.

Like he doesn't enter into that mess.

He simply turns and goes. He went on to another village.

He doesn't curse, he doesn't call down fire from heaven,

doesn't destroy them. He simply moves on to shake the

dust off your feet. You kind of picture like dust.

You've been traveling for a long time, not on concrete, but on

dusty, dirty roads and it just gets everywhere.

Kind of comes up all like your your your legs all through your

feet certificate. Shake it off and then walk to

literally shake the dust off your feet.

Is this symbolic move of cleansing you like cleansing

yourself from the unclean things of that place?

What what it says is you don't have any impact on me.

What it says is I don't carry the things from over here with

me as I go and as I move, I don't carry the the things of of

that place, not even the dust on my feet with me.

I move on. Jesus moves on, and here's where

the story of Jesus is different than any other story written.

It's not even the end. This isn't the end of the road

for Samaria. It's it's not even the end of

the story for the people of this town.

Like sure, Jesus and the disciples, they don't stay, they

don't lean in, they just move on to another village.

But the gospel will still reach some area.

This is what Jesus declares at the beginning of Acts.

The gospel will still go out and reach these people, the people

of Samaria. They're not forgotten.

They're not abandoned. Jesus doesn't leave them to

their own brokenness and say good riddance.

Never again. Don't have to worry about you,

deal with you like he doesn't abandon them to their own sin.

What he knows is that his way, the road toward Jerusalem, with

his death, with his resurrection, with all that will

happen, is the only way for salvation to be made possible,

even especially for these people who have just now rejected Him.

So here's the thing. If the disciples did manage to

call down fire from heaven, if they could, if they did somehow

manage to do it like that would have led to that cities

destruction, It would have led to those people's deaths in

Elijah's encounter with the prophets of Bail and the

prophets of Astra. Like God's power is revealed,

yes, and the brokenness of humanity, the brokenness of the

prophets, is on full display. But it's their brokenness that

leads toward death. That story ends in death.

Abraham pleads with God for Sodom and Gomorrah, and Sodom

and Gomorrah are still destroyed.

Sin leads to death and sin leads to destruction.

Death begets death, but Jesus turned and rebuked them with

that one line. He says sin and death will not

be how the story ends for these people.

With that one moment, with that one turn, he says.

Your story will not lead toward your death.

It won't be how the Disciples story ends, and it doesn't have

to be how your story ends either.

Why does it matter that Jesus resolutely set out for

Jerusalem? Like why does he matter that he

set his face toward Jerusalem? Because it's there on the cross

where Jesus will flip the story of rejection on its head, where

he will flip the story of sin and death on its head, where he

will use his own rejection and his own death to bring life

where there would have previously been only an

absolutely death. After his resurrection, Jesus is

gonna gather his disciples in again, his close friends.

He's gonna say, hey, come in like I got some last words to

say to you. And what he says is, you will

be. My witnesses hear this in

Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

It's like now, because of my death and my resurrection, he

said. Hey, this thing can explode far

beyond what you ever thought would be impacted, Far beyond

the regions where you were from, far beyond your own little

corner of the world, ultimately to the ends of the Earth.

Here's the thing. Rejection feels like the end of

the story. And so often in life, it looks

like the end of the story. And it could have been the end

of the story for this Samaritan town.

It could have been the end for the disciples, and it may feel

like it's the end for you as well.

But Jesus turns and and invites you into a different story with

a better ending. And it's a story of love and of

grace. It's one where Jesus's own

rejection determines and defines what life can look like and what

life should look like. And it's one that pushes against

shame and isolation and loneliness and rejection.

And it's one where you are embraced, and it's one where you

find community, and it's one where you find hope and healing.

And it's one where we believe you find life to its fullest

measure. That's Jesus invitation.

Let me pray, Yeah. Thanks for your love and for

your grace, and thanks for your presence with us.

Yeah, we, we long to know it. We need created, we believe

created to know your presence, Your goodness, your love, your

grace in our lives. And so we got.

I pray that we would in a strong and bold and very obvious way

today, know your presence in our lives and God, whether that

presence is to remind us that rejection isn't the end of the

story for us, that there is embrace that there is life and

love and community and hope and wholeness and healing, all of

it. God, I, I pray, if that's what

we need to hear, would you speak those words and got it.

What we need to hear is a little bit of this rebuke.

I pray that what we need to hear is to resist and fight and hand

over and lay at the cross our need to call down fire from

heaven. Would you do that as well?

So yeah, we love you. We believe that you've got good

things for each one of us, and so would you speak the words

that we each need to hear in Jesus name, Amen.