What is your favorite football team? What colors do you wear?

Can you name the quarterback? Of course you can because that is the position always in the spotlight. We wear their jerseys. We chant their name.

But can you name the guys on the offensive line? (Sound of cricketts chirping) We might know their names, but these are the guys that determine the outcome of the game. This is where the game is a war as these giants battle down after down. The game is won On the Line!

Today, we are talking about rejection. We have all been rejected. How does rejection make you feel? What can it lead you to do? What if we turned the tables around? Who are you rejecting? Often we get hurt, and we turn the hurt into hurting the other. We reject so they will feel the pain too.

How do we overcome rejection?

1. Take hold of Jesus

“Now when Jesus returned, a crowd welcomed him, for they were all expecting him. Then a man named Jairus, a ruler of the synagogue, came and fell at Jesus feet, pleading with him to come to his house because his daughter, a girl of about twelve, was dying. As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind her and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped. Who touched me? Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” Luke 8:40-46

• Do you believe Jesus is salvation?  What is your perception of Jesus?
• Her condition cut her off from worship and community
• She had risked her life to come close.
• She laid down her faced her greatest fear to seek healing.
• Her pain was physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual.

2. Take hold of His Word

• She grabbed the hem of His garment [Read Numbers 15:37-41]
• Cut the edge of King’s Saul’s robe [1Samuel 24:1-4]
• Healing in His wings [Malachi 4:2]

3. Take hold of peace

Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet.  In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed.  Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you, Go in peace.”  Luke 8:47-48

• Peace [eirene or shalom] = become whole, healing
• Jesus didn’t want this woman to be overlooked any longer.
• She needed physical and spiritual  healing
• She placed her faith in Jesus.
• “Daughter” = she received a relationship (no longer had to hide)

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11:1

For it is by grace you have been saved through faith–and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. Ephesians 2:8

Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision, or a husband’s will, but born of God. John 1:12-13

Our responsibility is faith

God’s responsibility is healing

Build your Playbook

1. Put light on rejection

2. Face your fear

3. Resist isolation

4. Join our mission: worship, small group, serve (inside and outside the church)

Would you fight your way through the crowd to get to Jesus?