is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful. Forever God is faithful.
Even you took a picture of your lunch and you posted it on social media. How many of you have ever posted one of those, you know, cute memes on your Facebook page? Anybody? OK. How many of you have ever turned the volume on your car stereo up or down? Anybody? OK. If you raised your hand, that means you are qualified to help out for some of the things that we need.
You know, one of the exciting things about getting out and doing ministry and being a part of the body of Christ is that everyone has an opportunity to serve. Everyone has an opportunity to be a part. And I know what you're thinking. Sometimes it can feel a little bit intimidating to be the one to step out there and you think, oh, I'm not. I'm not qualified enough. I don't have the skills enough.
But right now we really need some folks in our congregation to step up and help in a couple of areas. One of those is with our social media. And you're thinking to yourself, well, I don't know anything about social media. Well, really, you do, because when it comes to the kinds of things that we want people in the community to see, if we were going to ask them, what do we want them to see when we see Corinth Baptist Church?
First of all, we want them to see a joyful, vibrant community of believers that is taking joy in sharing the love and sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. And what does that look like on a social media platform? It looks like taking some pictures of the things that we do. And if you've ever used your iPhone to take a picture or your Android to take a picture of your family members or your grandkids, trust me, you can do this and upload it.
If you've ever gone and seen one of those memes with, you know, the cool backgrounds and a passage of scripture on there, you could go on to our church Facebook page and post one of those every Wednesday. It's not rocket science, but what we do want to show the community is that we're a community of believers who are living life together, that we are community believers who are actively serving.
And we want to share the truth and the good news of Jesus Christ. And you can be a part of that. One of the things that we're uber excited about, you know, we just celebrated this past Friday, all of our graduates walking across the stage and cheering them on. Well, a lot of our graduates are part of our A.V. ministry and they're about to spread their wings. They're about to go off to college.
But what that means is, is that there is a seat back there that some of y'all need to go fill in. And if you can push the next button on the slides, if you can take a little slider and go up and down on the volume control and anything else we can teach you how to do, then God can use you to make an impact.
Because, you know, the reality is, did you know that over ninety-five percent of the people who walked through the door the very first time have watched us online before they walked through the door? And so being able to have an audio stream where they can see the service, hear the service and realize that that's something that they want to be a part of makes a really big difference in our ability to reach out to our community.
So we are going to be having a training this coming Saturday, June the 15th at nine a.m. If you think that you even might possibly be interested in serving in this, there's no commitment to show up to the training. I want you to go to R.C. and let him know, hey, I'm interested in coming and I'm planning on being there at nine a.m. on Saturday morning.
So I want to encourage you to prayerfully consider being a part of that. It's really exciting to have so many families coming to visit the church, many of them joining. We're looking forward to having a baptism service coming up as several folks have made professions of faith and are wanting to join our church family.
And one of the ways that we can welcome them and help their transition into our church family be as easy as possible is for them to be able to learn the names and the family. So that's the next step. And then we're going to be having a virtual conversation with those families. And I encourage you to join us.
I want to make sure that we're getting that and all of our folks have made the choice for us to be able to join. And then I want to encourage you to go to our website and access our Facebook page. And I want to make sure that we're getting a lot of support for that.
So if you have any questions or comments, I'll be happy to answer them. We'll actually be able to get you in touch today. So that will be available. Wednesday nights if you have a fifth grader who is graduating up to our middle school program or if you're a senior who is now in college where it's kind of a time of new beginnings, we're inviting the fifth graders to come to our youth on Wednesday nights.
And I'm going to be meeting with our college students and career age and the young adults in our church to talk about some ministry possibilities with that group this summer and going forward. So we want to invite you. It's going to be over at the youth center this coming Wednesday night.
And let's see, I don't see a time there. What time does that start? Somebody tell me. Six o'clock? I don't have my calendar in front of me, so thank you. 6 p.m. is when that starts.
And then the last thing that I'd mention to you today, we're really excited about what we're calling Operation Blessing. We're calling it Operation Blessing after Jesus's words, "Blessed are the hungry for they shall be filled." It's our opportunity to show that we care to the elementary school students across the street.
We're going to be collecting bags of food to send home to them so that over the summer months those who are in need aren't going to go hungry. And so there's a couple of things that we want you to know if you're interested. Right there on the floor right next to our center are three bags.
Two of the bags are identical and what they represent is the portion that we want to give to each child. Now there's two bags there because our goal is to be able to give, whenever we do a distribution, to give two servings to each child that comes through the line because if they're not going to be coming through every week, we want to make sure that they get a bag for that week and a bag for the next week.
And then the third bag is a bag that is a supplement for the whole family: some peanut butter and jelly, some dry pasta. We already have all of the pasta sauce that has been donated. And so that it says it in the bulletin, but since the bulletin was printed, the windows of heaven opened up and pasta sauce came out.
And so we have hundreds of jars of pasta sauce now that we're going to be able to give out, but we need the dry spaghetti to go with it as well as some canned pasta. And it doesn't matter whether it's like the raviolis or the spaghettios or whatever it is. Pop tops are best, but we want to encourage you to go and to get some goldfish crackers, some tuna, and you know the pouches are nice because the kids can open these easily, but if you bring cans, we'll use cans.
So we're happy to take whatever you bring in that sense as long as it's in date. Like don't do like I did one time when I was reaching all the way back in the cupboard and I pulled out a can of cake icing one time that literally was as old as my oldest daughter, Colleen. Yeah, so leave those at home. But if it's in date, you know, bring it on.
And there is a list in your bulletin of all the items that we're collecting as well as if you prefer just to write a check. If we buy the bags in bulk, like if we go to Sam's and we buy, you know, big cases and we buy the bags in bulk, then the bags cost about ten dollars a piece to make. If you go and you filled that bag and you bought it at Food Lion, it would probably cost about twenty dollars a piece to make.
So either way you want to do it, like if you would prefer just to add some items to your grocery cart while you're shopping and you don't really see the money, then that's great. If you'd prefer to write a check or if you prefer to do both, we're happy. But the biggest thing is that we're going to be able to meet the need in Jesus's name.
In the next couple of weeks, we're going to be talking about ways that you can get personally involved. If you're interested in being one of the greeters who prays with them at the cars and gives them the bag, reach out to the church office and let me know, and we will touch base with you before that and we'll talk about some more opportunities for you to get involved as it gets a little bit closer.
But as we're gathered here together, we want to just pause for a moment and go to the Lord and ask Him to prepare our hearts for this time of worship together. Let's pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we just thank you so much for this opportunity to be in your presence. But we thank you that we can be a part of something bigger than ourselves, meeting people's needs, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.
And Lord, we pray that as we've gathered here today, that you would just clear all of the distractions out of our minds, Lord. Help us not to think about the vacations we're going to go on or the plans that we have for lunch or all of the crazy busyness of our family lives or even some of the struggles that we might be facing.
Lord, I pray that in this moment that what we would see is you, and in this moment that we take the opportunity to say we love you. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
The God of Angel Armies is always by my side. The God of Angel Armies is always by my side.
Brothers of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon, and aren't his sisters here with us? So they were offended by him. Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown, among his relatives, and in his household."
He was not able to do a miracle there except that he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he was amazed at their unbelief. He was going around the villages teaching.
He summoned the twelve and began to send them out in pairs and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the road except a staff, no bread, no travel bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on an extra shirt.
He said to them, "Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave. If this place does not welcome you or listen to you, when you leave there, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them."
So they went out and preached that the people should repent. They drove out many demons, anointed many sick people with oil, and healed them.
Let's pray together. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we come before you today asking that your word and that your spirit would speak to us a word of encouragement, of courage, of hope, even in the times and seasons of our life which can be discouraging when we face rejection for your sake.
God, I pray that you would inspire each of us as we look to your example of how we can continue to live in faithfulness even when the world doesn't accept us or the message of the gospel that we bring. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
You may be seated.
So here we are again in the book of Mark, and Peter is speaking to the early church in a time that is about to change the world. 70 A.D. has completely destroyed the state of Israel and Jerusalem and the temple, and it has created a situation where the Christians are starting to disperse, partly because of the destruction that happened, partly because of the persecution that they are about to come under under Rome.
And so this is a critical time in the life of the early church and a time where I'm sure Peter can hearken back to the lessons that Jesus is teaching his disciples here in Mark chapter 6, preparing them for this very day, the day where they would start to experience the same kind of persecution, the same kind of rejection that Christ himself experienced, yet continued to be faithful in reaching out to a lost and dying world with the love and the good news of Jesus Christ.
And so as we look back at Mark chapter 6, I think that what we see here is this example, which is a pretty remarkable story of Jesus going back to his hometown only to be rejected by those he grew up with, those he was closest to.
And Jesus took that moment to start to train his disciples of what they would later face in the future as they were going out and trying to share the good news of Jesus. And I think that this passage also teaches us what do we do when we come to those moments in our life when, with all of the enthusiasm and all of the hope that we have in Christ, we're desperately trying to make a difference for the kingdom of God, and we give and we serve and we pour our heart and our soul into every opportunity that we have, only to be rejected by those that we're trying to love and trying to help.
Well, I think Jesus teaches us some important lessons here for each of us, first of which is to be rejected by those that we're trying to love and trying to help. We have to be rejected by those who are closest to us. We have to be rejected by the far out, even when we're rejected by those closest to us. We have to reach out even when we're rejected by those closest to us.
So I know that the kids have a couple more days of school left, but you know, from my perspective, the official start of summer started on Memorial Day. I mean, it is a beautiful day outside, the sun is shining, and for when I was growing up, as soon as school was over, one of the things that we would always do with our youth group, I grew up on the beach, in a little town called Long Beach, we would take the youth group over to the beach, and we would build a bonfire.
And of course, if you have a summer bonfire, what are you going to do? You're going to roast marshmallows, right? I mean, that's just kind of the best thing to do around the bonfire, other than sing Kumbaya. And so, you know, I remember one particular afternoon, evening, we had gone to the beach, the sun had gone down, and even though we were in South Mississippi, it was still a little bit chilly because the wind was coming up off of the Gulf.
And so I had on a light jacket, and they were passing out the sticks for the marshmallow roasting, and I'll have an argument with you if you want after service, there's only one way to roast the marshmallow, and it is golden brown, all right? Not burnt, not on fire, like golden brown is the ticket.
And so I decided I wanted my perfect marshmallow, right? But when I went to approach the fire, what I realized is that whoever built the fire was a little bit enthusiastic in their build. Like this was not the kind of bonfire that was good for roasting marshmallows. I mean, it was literally taller than me, and it was roaring hot.
And so I remember I had my stick, and I was bound and determined to get my marshmallow brown, but not burnt, but it was so hot, it almost kind of felt like I was Moses approaching the flaming bush or something, right? And so I remember it was so hot, I literally took my arm like this, and I was using it as a shield over my face as I was trying to get the stick as close as possible.
When I couldn't get any closer, and I couldn't stand it any longer, I pulled back to look at my marshmallow, and I looked down at my arm, the entire arm of my jacket had melted. The fire was so hot.
Now, as I have been reflecting on this passage this week, what I was reminded of is that I think that there are some things that are similar between relationships and fires. See, when they're constructed well, it makes you want to draw close. It provides a sense of warmth and comfort, and something that really draws you in.
But if you're not careful, and if things aren't constructed properly, you can also get burned. And my guess is that every single person in this room, at some point in your life, has had a relationship, whether it's at work, or whether it's with a friend, or whether it is at church, or whether it is a close family member, where you poured all of the love, and passion, and kindness, and sacrificial commitment that you could into a relationship, and you drew close, only to find yourself getting burned.
You know, we read this story in Mark chapter 6. I think it would be really easy to gloss over the emotional implications of this passage. Most of the time, when we think about Jesus, we think of Jesus being God in the flesh. The emphasis on the God part, right? I mean, we look at him, and of course we should, because he literally is God in the flesh, but as we read in the scripture, what we should know is that he is God, but he was also 100% fully human.
He was a person who had a mom and a dad, who had friends, who had neighbors, who had feelings. Jesus grew up in Nazareth, and when he was called to literally save the world, he went back to his hometown. With all of the hope, all of the enthusiasm of the mission that God had given him to go and to share the truth, and to help people in his Father's name.
And he goes back to the people who, when he was a little boy, and he tripped and skinned his knee, perhaps one of his neighbors helped patch him up. These were the boys and girls that he probably played with in the street growing up. That perhaps when they were in need and they were sick, he may have gone over to their house and cared for them.
These are people who may have had the dining room table and chairs that he had made for them when he was a carpenter, before he started his ministry. These were the people that if there was anyone in the world that you would say that Jesus cared for and loved the most and thought that they loved him, would be them.
And yet, Jesus goes to Nazareth and is rejected by the people that he considered to be family. Now, my guess is that every single person in this room at some point in your life has felt hurt in a relationship. Perhaps you had a friendship and you may have even gone on date nights and vacations together and you poured all of your heart and sacrifice into those relationships only to find one day that the people that you thought were your friends weren't real.
They weren't really your friends. There are some of you who may have been at a workplace and you gave your heart and your soul to your job and you felt like that you were a part of a family only for one day for them to come in and say, "You're not part of the family anymore."
There may be some of you who, with all of the joy and all of the enthusiasm and all of the courage that you could muster, have gone out into your workplaces and into your neighborhoods and around your family table to try to share your faith with people that you desperately care about, that you desperately want to see in heaven one day, only for them to completely reject you.
There may be some of you who have invested your life into relationships with family only to feel some of the greatest hurt that there is when someone walks away from your marriage. And my guess is that many, many, many of you, at some point in your life, have gone to a church. You've invested your life into the ministry and into the people.
And in your heart, you treated them like and you believed that they were your spiritual family. Because that's the way that it's supposed to be. You know, there's an entire group of people in our society that they don't attend church, not because they don't believe in God, not because they don't love Jesus, but because they have been so hurt in the church that they just can't bring themselves to walk through the doors.
And you know what? I can empathize with how they feel. It wasn't that long ago, not here, where a group of people came to me and said, "Richard, we think you are a horrible pastor and we not only want you to leave our church, we think you should leave the ministry altogether."
And you know, you wouldn't be human if that didn't hurt your feelings. You wouldn't be human if you weren't feeling hurt inside by being rejected by people that you loved and that you cared about. Some of the people who came to me were people that I had had in my home at the holidays.
They were people that I had made food for when they were sick. They were people I had done the funeral services for their spouse and visited them in the hospital, coming back from vacations and my days off. These were people that I looked at as my family.
And for each of you, sometimes when you find yourself hurt, it's really easy to start to let that self-doubt come in, to ask yourself, you know what? I know I'm not perfect. I know I'm not the perfect husband. I know I'm not the perfect wife or the perfect grandparent. I know I'm not the perfect neighbor or the perfect Christian or whatever.
But maybe if I had just said the right thing, maybe if I had just done a little bit more, maybe if I had just done a little bit better, then people wouldn't have rejected me. Well, this morning I have some encouragement for you.
Okay? Yes, can we all agree? All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. None of us are perfect. All of us need to strive to do better. But even if you were perfect, even if you were Jesus, the solution is not to give up on golden brown marshmallows.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Better jacket. The solution in our life is not to give up on God and the church and faith, or to give up on people, but to keep going and allow the grace of God to be sufficient for you.
To know that when you are hurt because you are being faithful to try to share the love and good news of Christ, it is one of the hardest but greatest blessings you can experience, because you are literally experiencing the same blessing that Christ made as he did that for us.
This morning, to make a difference for the kingdom of God, we have to reach out even when we're rejected by those closest to us. Secondly, we have to reach out even when we don't see positive results.
Now, this is summertime, and way back in the past, this was the time where everybody in the family would go out and what? Work in the field, right? There's a reason why we had summer vacations, and it was not for King's Dominion. The reason why we had a break from school was not because it's hot to ride on the bus.
It was because we had a break from school in July and August, although it is really hot to ride on the air-conditioned bus in July and August. The reason why there was a break was because everybody worked on the farm, and mom and dad needed all of the hands to go out and work in the fields and bale the hay and do all those things.
Now, we're kind of removed from that at this point. Most of us do not have the experience of going out and working, but I'm here to tell you there are farmers in Virginia, there are farmers in this area and all around, and I've never had the personal experience, but I'm here to tell you farmers are some of the hardest-working people on the planet. God bless them.
Every morning, they get up before the crack of dawn, and they work all day until past the time that the sun goes down, day in and day out, month in and month out. And as they put all that work in, they get up before the crack of dawn, and they work all day until past the time that the sun goes down.
And during the summer, they hope and they pray that come the fall, they will have a harvest. Now, it's really easy to be excited and glad to be a farmer when the harvest is plentiful, right? But what about the years when it's not?
Do you think they put in less work? Do they decide to do less work? Do they decide to sleep in until 10 a.m. instead of getting up at the crack of dawn? Do you think that they decide to knock off at 5 instead of 9 o'clock at night? No, they put in the same amount of work. It's just they didn't see the results that they were hoping for.
And sometimes when we don't see those results, it can be discouraging. And if I had guessed, reading between the lines in the language that Jesus is using, I would say it was probably discouraging for him, too.
Yeah, as I'm reading through this story, there's a lot of surprising things here, but I don't know that there is any more surprising than what we read in verse 6, something that I can't think of another place in all of the Bible that we see this.
It says, "And he was amazed at their unbelief," going around from village to village. I'm sorry. Back. Back up to one verse. He was not able to do a miracle there except that he laid hands on a few sick people and healed them.
Now, how unusual is that verse? I want you to think about this for a second. Like if you were going to take the portions of the Bible that are the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you were just going to randomly open to any old page and put your finger down randomly, what would you normally see?
You'd see Jesus. You'd see Jesus doing God things, right? Like it doesn't matter where you open up. Like, OK, he's walking on the water over here and he's taking the fish and loaves and he's feeding 5000 people or he's casting out demons or he's raising people from the dead or he's speaking to the wind and the ocean and the wind obeys his commands.
I mean, Jesus all over the place. It's like, yep, God's here. And amazing things happen. But wow, this one time Jesus goes back to his hometown and not everything goes according to plan. Not everything is happening, at least from Jesus's perspective.
I'm guessing he was feeling like his ministry wasn't completely effective, at least according to Jesus's standards. Now, according to my standards, if I ever went to a hospital and let's just say that I prayed for 100 people and one of them magically was cured from cancer, I would say, hallelujah, praise the Lord, successful day.
I can ride on that for the rest of my life. OK, but at least according to Jesus's standards, I mean, it says he wasn't able to do any miracles except heal a few people.
Now, I don't want to get too much off on a rabbit trail here, but I will also say that I think that this teaches us another lesson, which is for many of us, we get to this point where we're discouraged in our life. We don't think that things are progressing or that we're accomplishing the things that we want to accomplish.
And our failures look like successes to other people. Sometimes we really don't understand how good we've got it until we walk in somebody's. But regardless, Jesus is at this point where he's feeling like, you know, hey, I have the same amount of faith that I always did, but the miracles just aren't happening.
And like the farmer, sometimes we can find ourselves out in our spiritual field and we can go and with all of the hope and enthusiasm and effort and sacrifice, we go and we try to make a difference for the kingdom of God.
We try to go and share the good news of Jesus Christ. There are some of you who, you know, there are co-workers or there are neighbors, there are family members and friends that there are some of you every single night before you go to bed, you get down on your hands and your knees and you're crying out to God.
God, save my children. God, bring my grandchildren to faith in Christ and be a part of the church. And you pray. And you pray. And you pray. And you pray. It doesn't feel like anything's happening. I can be discouraging, can't it?
Well, this morning, I have a word of encouragement for you. That there is a cosmic law of the universe. And it doesn't matter whether you're talking about farming or whether you're talking about sowing spiritual seed, that eventually, if you keep at it, that if you keep serving, if you keep giving, if you keep praying, that you will reap what you sow.
Do you think a farmer quits the very first year he has a bad harvest? If they did, we would have no farmers. Because it's not about if they will have a bad harvest one year. It's a question of when.
And the reality is, in your life, it's not that if you are going to be rejected. It's not if you are going to go through difficult seasons of life. It is about when. But the farmer knows if I continue to sow the seeds into the ground and I continue to be faithful to cultivate what I've been given, eventually, God will produce the harvest.
I just have to just continue to be faithful and have faith. Now, I'm not here to tell you this morning that every single thing that you want and hope for is going to happen. I'm not here to tell you that it's going to happen when you want it to happen.
But I will guarantee you this: that if you are faithful to serve the Lord, that if you're faithful to sow the seeds of his word into the lives of those who are around you, God will produce the results. Because he is faithful. And you can trust him.
Know that if you faithfully give, that God will work all of it out one way or another. Make a difference for the kingdom of God. We have to reach out even when we're rejected by those closest to us, even when we don't see positive results, and even when we're discouraged in our faith.
We go back to verse seven. He summoned the twelve and began to send them out in pairs and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the road except a staff, no bread, no travel bag, no money in their belts, but to wear sandals and not put on an extra shirt.
He said to them, "Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that place. If anyone does not welcome you or listen to you when you leave there, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them."
Now, there's great parts about every season. But you know, my favorite thing about the summer is the sun. I mean, we're to that point where you get off work at five o'clock and you still have like at least three, three and a half hours to just enjoy the day.
I mean, you go outside on a day like today where it's just slightly cool, there's a breeze, the sun is shining. I mean, it just feels like the energy of the universe is soaking in. But you know, before we know it, we're going to get to one of my least favorite times of the year.
It starts on a particular day where for some reason we've decided that the time doesn't change, but we're going to change our clocks. And instead of stepping out of our workplaces at five o'clock to have a little bit of light to get home, it's literally pitch dark when you're walking out to your car.
I don't know about you. I find it depressing. I mean, I have a whole playlist for my car as I to get me through the season of darkness. It's got some Beatles on it. "Here Comes the Sun." Do do do do. Only November. Eventually, though, it'll come.
But you know, sometimes you go through these seasons in your life where you're feeling kind of discouraged. But you know, you're feeling like this sense of darkness is around you. And Jesus knew that the disciples would get to the place in their life in their ministry where they were feeling it.
He kind of gave them this little test run in Mark chapter six. You know, he said, "Hey, I'm going to send you out on a little mission trip. I'm going to pair you up two by two. I'm going to send you out so that you can go out and tell them everything that you've seen."
I want you to picture this just for a second. OK. We've gone through six chapters. What have the disciples already seen? All right. In chapter five, Jesus literally brought a girl back from the dead.
All right. Jesus has fed 5000 people with one boy's lunch. He's literally calmed the storms. He's cast out demons. He's made them walk. He's made the cripple whole. I mean, like we're talking biblical proportions.
I mean, wouldn't you be excited about going out and saying, "Have you met Jesus? I mean, he's everything that we've hoped and prayed for." I can imagine the disciples on their very first opportunity to go out would be shocked that people would respond to that kind of news of God at work with anger and rejection.
And Jesus is preparing the disciples in this baby little step for eventually what's going to happen. By the time this book is written, because by the time this book is written, they're declared an enemy of Rome.
That they're being gathered up and literally used as human torches in the emperor's garden. That they're being thrown to the lions and the tigers to be torn apart in the arena. That every single one of these disciples ends up having some kind of incredibly gruesome death, whether it's Peter who was crucified upside down or whether they were speared or skinned alive, beheaded or burned.
Jesus is preparing them to be rejected by Paul, who came to share the good news of Jesus at church and ended up getting dragged out and stoned, only for him to shake the dust off and go right back into the town.
But what is Jesus trying to teach his disciples here? It is that yes, you're going to experience engagement and rejection, but don't take it with you.
Now Jesus gives this picture. He says if you go into a town, go and stay with some people and share the good news. But if they reject you, if they don't want to listen, that's fine. Eventually they'll pay the consequence.
What does he say? He says take the shoes off your feet, shake the dust off them, and move on. Now I actually don't think that Jesus was trying to be like in your face pejorative, like make a big scene and cause a big hoopla.
I actually don't think that what Jesus was saying was, "Disciples, take off your shoes, get right up in their face, clap it up there, and make a big scene." So what was he saying then, though? If it's not like the, you know, walk into your boss's office and throw all your papers and say I quit kind of moment, what was it then?
I think that what Jesus was saying was don't take the hurt with you. And that's kind of the natural human experience, isn't it? You have a relationship in your life that, I mean, you just got completely burned. The wounds go so deep.
And you know, the tendency is to take all of that hurt, all of that pain, all of that insecurity, all of that mistrust, and bring it to the next relationship in your life. You know, there are people who are hurt by their experience in the church.
Some of them feel like, you know, I just can't attend here anymore. And so they go to a different church, but they haven't forgiven. They haven't let him go. They haven't moved on from the past.
And you know what the reality is? Is that they take all of that hurt and all of that pain with them to the next place. That there are people who get so hurt that they try to keep people at arm's distance and never really experience what it's like to live in a sense of closeness and community and the encouragement and the help that that brings.
And I think that what Jesus is saying is, "Look, disciples, some haters are going to hate, so shake it off. Shake off the dust off your feet. Don't take it with you. Because if you do, it's not mud on them, it's mud on you."
And so I wondered this morning how many of us could really say that we've allowed the grace of God to help us to forgive, to shake off all of the hurt and all of the pain so that we can love people with joy and share the good news.
How do you respond to this message this morning? Well, there may be some of you who are here today and you've kind of misunderstood what faith is really all about. There may even be some of you who this is the first time you've been in a church for a really long time.
Or maybe you're not in the church right now. Maybe you're watching online, but you haven't been through the doors of a church in quite some time because at some point in your past, you've been hurt by people that you thought to yourself that this is the place where perfect people are.
And you know the reality is that this is the place where broken people are who have come to be healed by the only one who can. And it's not that we're always going to love the way that Christ has called us to love, but we do recognize that a loving relationship with Christ is what we need most.
And I hope and I pray that there are some of you who are here today who realize that if that is missing in your life, that you are missing the very reason for which God created you. That he created you because he loves you and wants you to be a part of his spiritual family.
And that this life and all of eternity cannot be complete without a relationship with him. And this morning, I hope and I pray that you don't walk out the doors of the service or click off your screen today without making the decision to ask Jesus Christ to be your Lord and your Savior.
There may be some of you and you realize that you know what? For me to live the life that God has called me to live, for me to be able to go and to make a difference, that requires me to be a part of community, a community of faith that God instituted, that he has placed us in according to his will and his providence.
And perhaps this morning you realize that the place that God has called you to worship, the family he has called you to be a part of, the place that he has called you to serve in and out of is right here at Corinth Baptist Church.
And I want to invite you to come and make that decision to become a part of this spiritual family. I can guarantee you we are not going to be perfect, but what I can guarantee you is that as long as I am your pastor, the kind of church that we are going to strive to have here is the kind of community where we treat one another like the love of family.
There may be some of you who are here today and you are discouraged. You are going through a situation or a season of rejection in your life, whether that is through opportunities to try to reach out to people who you dearly love, whether that is in relationships with friends or family.
You are doing your best to be faithful to show love, but you are struggling to see the results. This morning I want you to know that this community of believers is here to walk alongside of you, to encourage you, to support you.
There is a reason he sent out the disciples two by two. It is because we are supposed to walk along with one another in life and in ministry, to bridge each other up. And perhaps this morning you just need to come and lay your burdens at the feet of the cross, pray to the Lord, and have your church family pray with you.
That however the Holy Spirit is speaking to you, you respond as you stand and sing together. It's my joy to honor you.
You know, this has been an exciting season for the life of our church. You know, there's been a lot of work going on here, all kinds of things that we've been able to get out and to be out in the community and meet people's needs, and people have been coming to faith in Christ and people have been coming and joining our church.
And you know, it's easy to be excited when the sun is shining, but when the sun is shining, take it all in because it feels good. And Jack and Patty and Isley Hester, they've been a part of our congregation for some time and they already feel like family, but they're coming this morning to make it official.
You know, they want to come and join our congregation. Jack has already been baptized by immersion and is coming based on his statement of faith. Patty grew up Methodist, and so in a few weeks, on the 30th, we're going to be celebrating her baptism, as well as several others who are making professions of faith for the first time.
And so at the end of the month, we'll get to celebrate that with them. But they're coming this morning to say this is the community that we want to call our spiritual family.
And if you're willing to accept them, to walk along through this life, supporting them, encouraging them and their family, including them in the ministries that you are a part of, would you let them know with a hearty Amen?
And as we come to a time to close, I want to encourage you to come by and give them a hug, shake their hands, welcome them into our family of believers. For those of you who may be going through a difficult time in your life right now, I just as you walk out the door, the Lord was with you at that time so Mo Nice.
I just want to remind you, the sun will come out tomorrow, even if it doesn't feel like it today. Hold on, keep going. Have hope.
Click to upload 
on Jun 13, 2024
