Fear of Rejection — Carter Conlon

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Overcoming the Fear of Rejection by God

I want to talk to you, as one of your pastors, about something that God has put on my heart, for this church body, and it's about overcoming the fear of being rejected by God. We are living in perilous times, as the scripture says.

The Church Shining in a Darkening World

We're living in a time when the world is going to get darker, going to become more distant from God, more alienated in the thinking, from the ways of God, more evil. But at a time that the scripture bears witness, when the church of Jesus Christ is going to come more and more and more and more into the light, and into the likeness of our Lord and Savior, until it culminates at a time when the Spirit and the Bride say, Come.

When Jesus Christ stands up, and all of heaven stands up with Him, and the Father speaks to Him, that word that He's been longing to hear for so long, the word that God has had in His heart right from the beginning of time, before you and I were even created, that He would have a people among whom He can dwell for all of eternity, His beloved body, His beloved Bride, those that will rule and reign with Him for all of eternity.

And all of a sudden, the Father is going to speak that word to His Son, and say, Son, go get your Bride. And there's going to be a shout, the Bible says He comes with a shout, hallelujah, and with the voice of God, the voice of the archangel and the trump.

And He comes for all those who have lived and trusted in Him, who have walked with Him, who have known Him, who have trusted in His shed blood. First, those that are dead, have died in Christ, and secondly, for those who are alive and remain.

And so shall we ever be with the Lord. And the Apostle Paul says, therefore, comfort one another with these words. We're going to sing in heaven, we're going to shout in heaven. And we're going to do a little bit of that here on earth, too, up until the time that Christ comes.

The Purifying Word of God's Love

But there's also going to be times when God, because of His love for you and for me, you see, He sees things that we don't see. We come into the house of the Lord and we say, oh, I'm saved, sanctified, filled with the Holy Ghost, set apart for God.

And we generally are quite quick to have a wonderful testimony about ourselves, if anybody should care to ask. But God doesn't see the way man sees. And He looks down upon those that He loves, those that are covered in the blood of Christ, those that are redeemed.

As we heard this afternoon as well, those that are held fast by His hands, planted solidly in the courts of our God. And He looks down and He sees things in you and He sees things in me that if left unchecked and unchallenged, will give the enemy access to our lives.

If left unchecked and unchallenged, those will perhaps in some day in the future, especially when hard times come, will erode our confidence in God because perhaps we are looking to one thing or another to give us satisfaction or to give us some kind of an assurance of our future.

God knows these things and not just part measure, He knows them in full measure. And so He will come down and He will put upon the hearts of His ministers, those who stand in the pulpit for a season, He will put upon their hearts a word that will come and cut deep, deep, deep into the heart.

The word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, cutting asunder between soul and spirit, determining that which is of God and that which is strictly of the soulless realm of man.

It goes right in and determines the thoughts and intents of the heart. And it's at this time, when God begins to do these things because He loves us, that many who have not overcome the fear of rejection, especially the fear of being rejected by God, when they begin to have a revelation that there are things in our lives that are not, things in our lives in some areas that are not the way we once thought they were, then all of a sudden there's like an overwhelming fear, God in heaven, it's like an Isaiah experience, swollen to me, I'm undone.

God, how can you love me? God, how can you continue to use me? All of these things that are in my life may be some that you're aware of and others that you didn't even know were there, you may have even thought they were good, but now the Holy Spirit comes and begins to cut right into the very motives of the heart and it begins to stand before God in an undone feeling.

Now that's the Lord that does that because He loves us. The end result of that is joy unspeakable and full of glory. And as we heard so ably today, we ought to be a people who desire this kind of a word, who desire to come into the house of God and say, God, purge me, cleanse me, any area and every area of my life where I might be holding to something that's unlike you, God, come and touch that area of my life.

I want Christ to live in me. I want to abide in Him and I want Him to abide in me. And that life that God has promised me, I want to have it a life that bears much fruit to the honor and to the glory of God.

And many times you and I have cried that out at an altar and God in His goodness will come down and answer that prayer, but He answers it in a way that we didn't think sometimes He was going to do it.

And when we're not fully grounded in His love, if we're not fully grounded in an understanding of what He has done for us on Calvary, of what has happened in heaven as we heard about this morning, that our names are written down in the Lamb's Book of Life, that yes, there may be on that day when we stand individually before God some issues that God has to speak to us about, it will still be in the context of a loving Savior with His beloved bride that He has cherished and He's bringing into eternity to dwell with Him and to live with Him forever.

But those that are not grounded in this love can come to the place because of past experience of thinking, God, You have rejected me. When trial comes, when there's a silence from heaven, there are different things that God will do to get our attention.

I'm going to talk about a few of these things tonight. I want you to know when God begins to do this, His love is going to purge this body. His love is going to root out and tear down and destroy everything that has the potential to lead any one of us away from the very heart of God.

And then He's going to build, line by line, precept by precept, character, the character of Christ, the nature of Christ, the desire for the things of God. He's going to wean us from the things of the world and raise up to Him a beloved bride, a beloved testimony in this city of New York.

My brethren, please don't be afraid when the Word of God begins to come and begins to cut the heart. That is the loving hand of God. Father, I ask tonight that as I share what You put upon my heart with Your bride that You've gathered in this house, Lord, that You would anoint these words to tear down all works of darkness, to tear down any misconception of You that has been formed either in the soulless realm or has been planted there by demonic lies.

Father, I come against every demonic suggestion, every power of hell that comes against any child of God in this house. Lord, I thank You that Your truth will triumph this night, O God. I ask, Lord, that prison doors would be opened, those that have been wounded in heart in particular, bruised in heart would be healed and set free from the fear of rejection.

Christ's Forsakenness and the Believer's Fear

Father, I thank You for this in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. If you'll turn with me to Psalm 22, please. My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Why art Thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring?

O my God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not, and in the night season, and am not silent. Verse 14 says, I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws. Thou hast brought me into the dust of death. Now this scripture foreshadowed an audible cry. Now this scripture is written by the psalmist David approximately the year 1018 B .C. and it's a foreshadowing of an audible cry that many years later would echo from the very depths of Christ in the last few torturous moments before his death on the cross.

Now Hebrews chapter 4 and verse 15 identifies Jesus as a high priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. And as I was reading these words again, I was wondering how many thousands since that day have cried out these very same words.

We know from history, we understand that God had not forsaken him, but he was touched with the feelings of our infirmities. And he had to go through everything that you and I have to go through because the scripture says he was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin.

And he had to go through that time of the deep feeling in his heart of being forsaken, rejected by God even though he knew that that forsakenness at that particular moment was because he had become sin who knew no sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God through him.

But how many thousands since that day have cried out these very same words? I know that I have cried them out. And if you're an honest person here today, I know that you have cried them out too. If you have not cried it, yet you've not perhaps gone as deep yet with God as God is going to bring you to.

But there comes a time in your life when you feel all alone. You've tried to serve God with all your heart. You do whatever you feel God is asking you to do. You're living as good as you can and yet he seems so far away.

My God, why have you forsaken me? I can understand other people forsaking me but why has thou forsaken me? Why are you so far away from me? Why am I crying so loud and it seems that you're nowhere to be found?

It seems that you're not even listening to me. And if you're anywhere near, you're not even lifting a finger to help me. How many have cried these words in moments of personal despair, feeling alone and fearing most terribly of all that because of some struggle in their lives that they have been rejected by God?

Rejected by God. I have counseled so many people over the years that have been trusting Christians. They have trusted in Christ for their salvation. They do love God. They do desire His Word. But they have a struggle in one, two or more areas, whatever the situation is in their life.

I don't know how many times that I've had people meet me in different places or come in to talk to me and they have this overwhelming sense that they have been rejected by God. The sense that God has put up with me for so long and He's put up with my struggling for so long but certainly there's got to be a walk out point with God.

Certainly there's got to be a time when God is just going to reject me and walk out on me. Now Webster's definition of rejection is to throw away, to cast off, or refusing to accept or grant. To throw away.

That's rejection. Cast off or refusing to accept. Now God Himself in the Old Testament endorsed the principle of the separation of and even the complete rejection of those who despised His law. This rejection brought to the people the knowledge of the severity of sinning against God and established boundaries of acceptable living and practice.

Now it's all the purpose, the intent of God doing this was to bring His people to the knowledge of their need of a Savior. First of all to define His law, to define His character by putting away out of their midst those who despised His law, those who simply rejected His truth.

Because it was in His heart not only to dwell among His people but it was in the heart of God from the beginning of time to dwell not only among His people but in them and with them and through them. That's God's desire for you and for me.

It's not just to dwell among us but in us and with us and through us. The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 23 he calls the church His body. The fullness of Him that fills all in all. Acts 17 28 Paul in making a defense of the Gospels said to those that were in his hearing audience he said in Him we live and move and have our being.

He's not just among us. He's in us. He's with us. He moves through us. He has become the very essence of our life. We have learned to abide in Him. We walk in Him. And all of what God has done in the Old Testament is to bring us to the knowledge of His desire to provide for us the means through Jesus Christ where He could come and give us the power and give us the strength that we might become the resurrected bride of the Lord Jesus Christ here on this side of eternity.

That we might know Him beyond strictly a head knowledge of who He is but we might know Him in intimacy. In pure intimacy. That He might come and be all and all within our lives. And the only way that can happen is God has to come through the power of the Holy Spirit and with the revealed Word of God to show us everything in our hearts that's unlike Christ.

Everything that gets in the way of God moving in us in the fashion that He desires to move. Paul says in Galatians 3 24 The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith.

We see then that rejection had a purpose. And so too today there is a rejection that has a purpose of correction. A casting off, a putting away, a refusing to accept. We employ these methods all the time.

Corrective Rejection in Family and Christian Life

Methods that God Himself is not against to a certain degree. In our home, for example, we employ the method of separation. Our children don't behave. What do we say to them? Go to your room. We're talking about we reject.

Are we rejecting our children when we say go to your room? No, no. We're not rejecting our sons and we're not rejecting our daughters. There may be a separation from us for a moment. They may have to go to another location.

We're not saying I reject you son as my son or I reject you as my daughter. I put you away, I cast you off. No. We are saying you're still my son, you're still my daughter. I still love you as much as I have always loved you.

But I reject your behavior. I reject your conversation. I reject the attitude of your heart that's coming out of your mouth. Therefore go to your room. But yet remember the admonition that God says in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 4.

Fathers provoke not your children to wrath but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Go to your room. How many of you have heard those words somewhere down the line in your life? I know periodically I suppose I did.

Go to your room. Separation. Separation. A form of rejection. But not a rejection of the person. A rejection of the behavior. There is time when God will send us to our room. I know that's very theologically simple but it really does happen.

God says I'm not going to, you want to be in my presence? You can't bring that attitude of heart into my presence. You have a brother or sister that you refuse to forgive. You harbor bitterness in your heart.

Therefore I'm not accepting this. I'm putting this away. Although you are still my son and my daughter because you love me, you desire me, you have trusted me. There's a relationship there that is not going to be broken.

We often employ the method of silence. That's not speaking for a while to a family member who has hurt us in an unacceptable manner. I can handle almost anything but silence when somebody is mad at me.

Yell at me if you want to yell at me. But I'm an extrovert to a degree and extroverts have to talk and have a need to have everything in right balance. You cannot employ silence against an introvert. They just love it.

They absolutely love it because they don't want to talk anyway. And they hate sharing their feelings and so that is an absolute method that will not work with them. You want to get under my skin if you're close to me, just don't talk to me for a little while.

And it bothers me more than anything else. Ephesians 4 .26, remember though, says be angry and sin not. And let not the sun go down upon your wrath. Hallelujah. I remember, oh never mind, I won't tell you that.

Another method that we employ in the home is withdrawing from intimate communion. The husband, for example, comes home late from work once too often to find his bed made on the couch. I know that's happened to some here.

That is designed to correct your behavior. Remember that the word couch is the word ouch with a C in front of it. So the next time husband says you come home late and you find your bed on the couch, your wife says C, you go ouch, couch.

Withdrawing from intimacy, from intimate communion. All of these now are temporary rejections that are designed to correct the behavior of one another. We send our children to the rooms, but they are still our children.

We may not speak to somebody for a season who has wronged us or harmed us, but they are still our brothers and sisters. They are still our fathers and mothers. Nothing has changed in relationship. There may be a withdrawal of intimacy.

You may find yourself on the couch, spiritually speaking, saying, God, what's happened? I come into the prayer closet and it's like the heavens are brass. I have known such intimacy with you and all of a sudden that intimacy seems to be withdrawn.

God, what are you doing? And oftentimes God allows that to happen. He has not rejected you. He has not forsaken you. Spiritually speaking, and I know this is somewhat simplistic, but he has put you on the couch because there's something in your heart.

He has withdrawn that intimacy to cause you and I to begin to cry out to him, to say, Lord, what is it that's in my heart? What is it that has caused you to withdraw from that intimacy that I love so much to share with you?

These are all temporary things. They come under the title rejection, but it's only the rejection of behavior and attitude. It's not the rejection of the person. And very often people get those two things mixed up.

The Wounds Caused by Wrongful Rejection

With anything else that sin has touched, however, what was intended by God to ultimately bring about good has become over the years a means of unspeakable hurt and pain to countless numbers of people who have been the victims of the wrong use of rejection.

Children, it breaks my heart when I see the weeping children that I have known, and no doubt there are obviously thousands and tens of thousands more who have been made to feel hopeless by harsh words of rejection intended to wound them and not to restore them.

Some of you know that. You're sitting here today and you come home and your mother, your father, your guardian, whoever it was that looked after you spoke words of absolute death into your life day after day, told you you are useless, you are stupid, you will never amount to anything.

Oft times I've had children so broken hearted. They're teenagers and adults come into the office for counseling and they're having difficulty in their marriage, for example. And oft times when you're talking to people who have difficulty in their relationship, the difficulty stems from words that were spoken way, way back.

Rejection that was spoken into their lives when they themselves were very young that there's never been a full healing of in their life. Only Christ can go and pour the oil of his presence on those wounds, those bruises in heart that are so deep.

Children that were told by mom and dad, we don't love you anymore, we wish you were never born. Wounds so deep that only God can cure them. People that have been hurt in relationships by the wrong use of rejection.

Unspeakable hurt at the hands of those that they once looked to and they once trusted. Nobody can identify more grievously the pain of rejection than those that have been married perhaps and come home and thought everything was okay.

Only to find their spouse, their mate with their bags at the door or perhaps a note on the tables saying I'm gone, I don't love you anymore. Those are powerful and painful words that put a wound in the heart.

That oft times only God himself can come and heal. David said it himself in Psalm 55 verses 12 and 13. He said it was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it. But it was you, a man mine equal, my guide and mine acquaintance.

And there are others that have experienced rejection by society for various reasons. Having seemingly paid the penalty or not allowed back in. I think of prisoners for example coming out of prison. Having done their time.

Wanting to live right when they get out and oft times society refuses to let them back in. Rejected. When sin and selfishness enter the heart of any society, rejection becomes a weapon to wound and not as intended by God to be a method to restore.

Church Discipline and Restoration

You remember the apostle Paul in the Corinthian church? There was a man who was caught in a sexual sin. And Paul said to the Corinthian church, he said why are you not doing anything about this? Why are you letting this happen in your midst?

He said take that man and put that evil out of your midst. And so the Corinthian church did what the apostle Paul asked them to do. But later on, and so he was separated from his brethren. Separated from that fellowship because of something that had come into his life that was against the law, the order of God.

But later on Paul writes to the church and says now go and pursue that brother. Pursue him lest he be swallowed up of over much sorrow. Lest the devil get a hold of him and destroy him for eternity. You see the intent that God has in any of these temporary separations is to restore.

Assuming that the person who is put out comes to a place of repentance and wanting to get right with God. Then he commands us to go out and to reach out to them and to display his heart and to restore them.

The wounding of wrong rejection often leaves such scars that many Christians even after coming to the knowledge of their salvation live with the constant fear of being rejected by God. The moment that for whatever reason they fail to feel his closeness and favor on their lives.

They wrongly assume that Jesus just like those before him has walked out on them. Folks I'm speaking to a lot of people tonight. The moment, the moment that God begins to deal in their life. Because the roots of this rejection have never been dealt with.

The moment he begins to answer their prayer because he loves them. The moment he begins to reach out to take things out of the heart that he knows would only lead them into captivity. The moment they feel any kind of separation or maybe the preacher gets up and just his mannerism reminds them of mom or dad or uncle or whoever it was.

There's a trigger response that happens in them. There is such a thing called the trigger response. The children that have come home for many, many years and when they walked in the door they heard something out of their father's mouth or their mother's mouth.

And the moment these specific words were spoken, the moment they saw the mannerisms they knew that they were in for a very, very hard time. And a lot of times because that's never been dealt with, that root of rejection, they come into the house of God and they're so distracted perhaps by the mannerisms of the preacher.

They're so distracted by perhaps the severity of the deliverance of the word that the trigger response happening. And even though they have been rooted and grounded in God, they have heard about the covenant.

They've heard about the love of God. Something happens in the soul and they begin to succumb once again to that fear that God is going to walk out on me. Jesus is just like everybody else. Tells me he loves me, but then points his finger at me, raises his voice to me and he's going to walk out on me when I don't measure up to his standard.

Jesus' Mercy Toward the Accused Woman

When I, as I continue in my struggle, if I don't get everything right in my life, if I can't conform, he's just going to walk out on me just like everybody else has walked out on me before. Now turn to the book of John, please, chapter 8 in the New Testament.

John chapter 8. Scribes and Pharisees brought to him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act. So here she is, she's caught in her sin, she's without excuse.

She's been completely exposed. Now Moses in the law commanded us that such should be stoned. But what sayest thou? This said they tempted him that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground as though he heard them not.

Now I want you to notice something in this particular passage of scripture. This woman is caught in the very act. She's in the light, her sin's exposed. She's brought to a place of judgment. Now Jesus allowed the crowd to pick up their stones and to identify the wrong done.

That's an interesting point. He could have stopped it at the gate. He could have stood up as they came in their murderous procession perhaps. He could have stopped them right at the gate and said that's enough, let this woman go.

He had the authority, he had the power to stop it right there. But he didn't. He let the crowd bring her, press her to the wall, pick up their stones and clearly identify the sin that was in her life.

The writer of Hebrews says it this way in Hebrews chapter 12 verses 5 and 6. My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives.

Folks, this is the word of God. As much as all of the promises that we have in the word of God, that we have the natural tendency to gravitate to the promises that make us feel good, there are other promises.

And one of the promises is if you are a son, if you are a daughter of God, he is going to chasten you. He is going to come and take the scourge of his word because this is what he does with every son and daughter that he receives, the scripture says.

He has already received you and a sign that you are received by him, that you are in the beloved is that he will scourge you. And he says don't faint when that happens. Now a lot of us don't mind the chastening of God.

You get used to that after a while. Don't mind the chastening. It's that conviction of the Holy Spirit. When you speak a word you shouldn't speak, the Holy Spirit comes down and there's an instantaneous chastening of God that says that's not my heart, that's not right.

And we bow our head and say Lord, please forgive me for that. I shouldn't have done things that way, I shouldn't have spoken that way. And then if it's in our power to make it right, we make it right.

But there's a scourging. I want to remind you that Jesus doesn't ask us to undergo anything that he didn't undergo himself. In the scripture he was tied to a pillar and he was scourged for our transgressions.

And the scourging was done by two very, very powerful Roman soldiers who took, they were sticks with thongs of leather attached to the stick and tied into the ends of those thongs of leather were pieces of glass or pieces of bone or pieces of steel.

And they would take that and with full force they would flail that across the back of their intended victim and the stone or the bone or the glass would dig right into the flesh. And then they would reef it back and when they pulled it back it would pull strings of, literally strings of flesh and skin back with it.

Most often times, people that underwent Roman scourging didn't survive it. And those who did, their backs would be pressed wide open and oft times, I've read in medical accounts and historical accounts of scourging, the very internal organs would be exposed to the open air.

It was severe. Now the scripture says he scourges. That means he comes, not just to do a little, a little deliance around us and just a little things that he speaks into our ear here and there, but he comes with his word to go right deep into the very inner core of who and what we are.

To tear out of us those things that are unlike Christ. That we might turn to him and as we turn to him he promises, I will come, I will restore you. I will gather you and I will heal you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Now in this sense, we could say to a point that Jesus was not against what was happening. This woman is against the wall, her sin is exposed. He is simply there stooping down, writing with his finger on the ground as if he is not even concerned.

Here's this woman thinking that her fate is sealed. She's about to be sentenced to the sentence of death. She's not aware that God himself in the flesh, God himself manifested through Jesus Christ is there.

He is the one who has stooped down writing with his finger on the ground seemingly To those around, indifferent or not even caring what's going on. And yet when the crowd wanted to destroy her life, this is where their intentions and the intentions of Christ parted.

Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Certainly she saw her sin and was ashamed. And ironically seeing the angry crowd who were supposedly righteous, she probably thought that they had rightly represented God and that she deserved her punishment.

But Christ confronts the consciences of those who themselves needed his mercy. I'm going to ask a question when I get to heaven. There are going to be a lot of questions, but I have one in particular.

What were you writing on the ground? He confronts the consciences of those as he stands up. He says, when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

Now God, the scripture says, he again stooped down and wrote on the ground. And they which heard it being convicted by their own conscience went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last.

And Jesus was left alone and the woman standing in the midst. God is now the only one before whom this broken woman stands. Psalmist in Psalm 31 verse 22 said, For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes.

Nevertheless, thou heardest the voice of my supplication when I cried unto thee. In verse 10 says, when Jesus had lifted up himself and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers?

Has no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

The Security of God's Love in Romans 8

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. Now go to Romans chapter 8 with me, please, in the New Testament. Romans chapter 8. In Romans chapter 8, the Apostle Paul, in verse 26, talks about the Spirit of God helping our weaknesses.

Now this particular instance he's talking about prayer. He says, Likewise the Spirit helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray as we ought. But the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Verse 28, he says, We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to his purpose. Do you know that everything that God brings into your life, everything he does, every word he sends to your heart is for good?

It's not to reject you. It's not to put you out of his presence. It's that you might be drawn closer into deeper intimacy with him continuously. That you might know him. That your eyes of your understanding might be opened.

That you might see the exceeding greatness of his glory where he sits at the right hand of God. That you might have an understanding of what he has done for you. That your security may not be in the things of this world.