From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Listen, I don't know where you are today, but I know that when we talk about rejection, that hits many people right in the heart. And God says, this is what I want you to do. I want you to bring your hurts to me, and I want you to get your eyes on me, and see what I will do when you trust me and obey.

Larry Nobles: When we suffer rejection, it can be a real gut punch. You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve, and we're currently in his new eight-message series studying the prophet Samuel. It's called Leaving a Legacy. And even though Samuel led the people of Israel well as a prophet, priest, and judge, yet when he was old, they rejected him.

The lesson today is entitled The Heartache of Rejection. It's from Pastor Jeff's eight-message series, Leaving a Legacy: Lessons from the Life of Samuel. And you can get this entire eight-message series in the format of your choice when you make a gift of any amount to From His Heart this month. You can get it on a USB flash drive, CDs, DVDs, or MP3 download. Just go to fromhisheart.org. Now, though, open your Bible to 1 Samuel chapter eight, and let's begin part two of the lesson, The Heartache of Rejection.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: What are we to do when we experience the heartache and the heartbreak of rejection? I want to share with you three encouragements from 1 Samuel chapter eight. 1 Samuel chapter eight tells us, number one, what are we to do? We are to share our hurts with the Lord. We can rightly bring our pain and anger upward, and that's what Samuel did. Samuel prayed to the Lord. He shared what was going on with the Lord.

Second encouragement: we are to see our situation from the Lord's perspective. So we can ask the Lord in the worst of situations, "God, give me wisdom. Help me to see this from your perspective." And the Lord helps Samuel see things from His perspective. Verse seven: the Lord said to Samuel, "Listen to the voice of the people in regard to all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being King over them."

Now, when we share our hurts with God, when we share our rejection with the Lord, remember this: God is very familiar with the pain of rejection. John chapter one, verse ten: "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him." They rejected Him. They said no to Him.

So we can bring our hurts to the Lord because He knows what that is like. He's familiar with the pain of rejection. And remember this, very important, so Samuel was taking this as, "They're rejecting me. They're rejecting everything I've taught them." "No, Samuel. They're not rejecting you; they're rejecting Me," God says.

Acts of rebellion are ultimately directed against God. People are rejecting God. Now, they can have trouble with the preacher, but oftentimes it's not necessarily the preacher. It's not necessarily the leader. It's that they don't want to have authority. They don't want to have a representative of the Lord telling them what to do. Why did Cain kill Abel? Was he mad at Abel? No, he was mad at God.

And so everything goes back up to God. When you see people who are just eaten up with bitterness and they're angry at the pastor, angry at the church, all bitterness goes back to the Lord because God is the God who's over everything, and God could have protected you, but He didn't protect you from that situation. And so your real problem is with the Lord.

I like what the Bible says in Hebrews 13:17 because Samuel is feeling this. Samuel, we could say, is the pastor of Israel. And they're telling the pastor, "You're old. You need to retire. You didn't do a very good job raising your sons. We don't want you. We want a king that we can see and touch and feel and listen to and follow."

Hebrews 13:17 says this: "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you." I remember somebody I was visiting with; they weren't my biggest fan. And I said to them, I mentioned Hebrews 13:17, and I said, "Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you."

And I said, "Hey, have you ever thought what it's like to be your pastor? Do you think it's a lot of fun to be your pastor?" He just looked at me. I said, "Let me answer it for you: it's not." But he never thought about it like that. And it's not about me. It's about this person because the Bible says that's going to be unprofitable for you. We yield to the authority over us unless the authority over us tells us to do something that's contrary to the Lord.

So Samuel prayed, "God, help me to see this from Your perspective." And God gave him His perspective, and God said, "Listen to their voice." So we are to see the situation from the Lord's perspective. And then, encouragement number three: we're to understand why, taking this story in context, why we tend to be like the people and why we tend to reject the Lord's kingship over us. Because it would be wonderful to say, well, all of us are just like Samuel, but the reality is most of us are like the people that said, "We want a king."

So what they did is what we so often do. And this is what the Lord said to Samuel: "Okay, listen to their voice, Samuel." Verse nine: "Now then, listen to their voice; however, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them." So Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who had asked of him a king.

All right, you want a king? Let me tell you about the king. And he said, "This will be the procedure, the manner, the program of the king who will reign over you." And notice how many times he says the word "take" here. "He will take your sons and place them for himself in his chariots and among his horsemen, and they will run before his chariots. He will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and of fifties, and some to do his plowing and to reap his harvest and to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.

He will also take your daughters for perfumers and cooks and bakers. And he will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and your olive groves and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your seed and your vineyards and give to his officers and to his servants. He will also take your male servants and your female servants and your best young men and your donkeys and use them for his work. He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his servants. Then you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day."

Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel. Now, you hear all that, and you're like, "I don't want that." It's kind of like the pharmaceutical commercials. You can take this drug, and it's going to be so wonderful. Yet be careful about eczema, seborrhea, all these different things. You're going to have homicidal tendencies and suicidal tendencies, and you're going to hate yourself and on and on and on. It's like, who would take this stuff?

You'll have insomnia. Your gums will start bleeding. You'll have a bowel obstruction. It's just like, "I don't want this," whatever it is. And so the Lord is telling them, "Hey, this is what's going to happen." And you're like, "Yeah, time out. Let me, I don't want a king, Lord." But what did they say? Verse nineteen: "Nevertheless, the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel, and they said, 'No, but there shall be a king over us, that we may also be like all the nations, that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.'"

Now, after Samuel had heard all the words of the people, he repeated them in the Lord's hearing. He brought that to the Lord again. And the Lord said to Samuel, "Listen to their voice and appoint them a king." So Samuel said to the men of Israel, "Go every man to his city."

All right, that's what you want. You know what the Lord says in Hosea chapter thirteen, verse eleven? "I gave you a king in My anger, and I took him away in My wrath." He gave them a king here in 1 Samuel chapter eight. Did God want them to have a king? Not at this time. The Lord, through Moses, had said that they were going to have a king, but God's timing was not for Saul to be their king; it was for David to be their king. They're too early on this. They're chomping at the bit.

And what is fueling all this? "We have to have a king." Why would they not listen? Well, the reason that they chose a king over God is the same way that happens with us so much of the time. First of all, they were motivated by fear. We often get motivated by fear. Proverbs 29:25 says, "The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted." They were afraid. "We're different from the other nations. We want to be just like the other nations. And we are surrounded by nations that could attack us, and we need to have a king."

We're afraid. We want to fit in. That was what was going on in their minds and in their hearts. They were afraid because they didn't fit in, because they were odd man out. Now, no one wants to be the odd man out, especially as a student in school. You don't want to be the person that stands out as weird or other than, right? You want to just blend in. I just want to be under the radar. Just blend in. Nobody really sees me. I'm just there, and nobody's calling me out.

But the Lord calls us as Christians, "Come out from among them and be separate." God had them be a theocracy because they were different from any other nation. But they wanted to be like all the other nations.

Larry Nobles: How would you see yourself more impactful for the kingdom: blending in or stirring things up for the Lord? You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve and today's lesson, part two of the message, The Heartache of Rejection, from the new eight-message series, Leaving a Legacy: Lessons from the Life of Samuel.

The older we get, the more we likely find ourselves thinking about our legacy and what we will leave when we're gone. The kind of person we'll be remembered for. Will the lessons we taught others impact the world? The answer, of course, won't be the kind of house you lived in or how successful you were financially, how busy your schedule was. No, not at all.

What matters is what remains in the hearts of the people we knew, the people we impacted. What will they remember about how our lives helped them? That question is on a lot of hearts these days, and we know it was Samuel's mind and heart in the Old Testament. When the Lord called Samuel in the night, Samuel responded with these words: "Speak, for your servant is listening." That's in 1 Samuel chapter three, verse ten. And we should have that same response.

What is God calling you to be, to do, to say, to believe? Will it bring Him glory? This month, Pastor Jeff Schreve's eight-message series is being featured. It's called Leaving a Legacy. And that is a process of reminding us that we are all building a legacy with our words, our choices, and what we prioritize. This extensive, deep series on Samuel is our gift to you for your gift of any amount to From His Heart this month. This important series is our thank you gift for your support this month.

To get yours, call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE, or go online to fromhisheart.org, and we'll be glad to send it to you in the format of your choice. We hope you will. And thank you for joining us in this effort to help people around the world to respond to God's voice and change the world. Call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org. Now back to the conclusion to the lesson, The Heartache of Rejection.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: So many people, they always want to be like everybody else. I told you before, when I was working in the chemical business, I went to a bachelor party for one of the guys in my district. It was just a small district, about eight of us. And we were eating and playing cards. Okay, that's all right. And then somebody said, "Hey, we need to go to the strip joint."

I said, "I'm not going there." He said, "Yeah, you've got to go there. We're all going. We're going as a team." I said, "Team minus me. I'm not going. I can't go there." And my boss told me, he goes, "Just go and close your eyes." I said, "Well, I'm not that strong, boss, to do that." I said, "I can't go. I just can't go." And you know, my flesh said, "Just do it. Just do it. Just go along, you know, go along to get along." But I knew I couldn't do that. And I said, "No, I can't do that."

Well, that set me apart. Jeff's the guy that doesn't play ball with the rest of us. That was a good witness. The Lord used it as a good witness. But a lot of people would just go. You know in the scripture, you want to ratchet this up to the nth degree? In the scripture in Daniel 3 when Nebuchadnezzar made this image, this image of gold, and he put it on the plain of Dura, ninety feet tall, nine feet wide, this tall skinny thing.

And he had his musicians there, and he had all the people gather, and he said, "Listen, when I strike up the band, you guys bow down and you worship my golden image. And if you don't do it, I'm going to throw you in the furnace of blazing fire." So he struck up the band, and the Bible says every person there fell down and worshipped. They all fit in. They all went along. Lots of Jews there. Lots of Jews that had been taken from Jerusalem were there, and they bowed down and worshipped. Except Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

They wouldn't do it. And they were there standing. Everybody else is bowing, and they're standing there. And we know about the miracle God brought because those three guys wouldn't bend, they wouldn't bow, and they wouldn't burn. Listen, God's people said, "Well, we're afraid because we want to fit in, and we're afraid because we want to feel secure. And if we don't have a king, then who's going to lead us out into battle?"

It's like, did you guys forget we've had lots of battles and the Lord has led you? You don't need a king. But they wanted a king they could see, they could feel, and they could touch. They were afraid. You know the Bible says we walk by faith and not by sight. We so often walk by sight. Faith is never going to match up with your feelings. Faith is never going to match up with circumstances. And we don't walk according to feelings, and we don't walk according to circumstances. We walk according to what the Lord says.

We're often motivated by fear just as they were. And we're often motivated by rashness and impatience. And so he told them, "This is what's going to happen. That king is going to take, take, take, take, take." Six times he uses "take". Our King, the Lord Jesus, gives. But that king was going to take, take, take, take from you. And they said, "We don't care. No, but give us a king." They made a foolish, impatient choice. They just wanted what they wanted right then.

Consequences be damned was their motto. We just want a king. I saw a sermon clip from Voddie Baucham where he was talking about taking the long look at life and not making just these rash decisions, you know, when you're tempted to do something, you just jump on it. Tempted sexually, I'm just going to jump on it because I want to satisfy myself right then.

You get tempted like Joel and Abijah, tempted to pervert justice and take a bribe and take a little off the top and cheat on a business deal. You're tempted to do that. Who's going to know? God knows. The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil and the good. And he said, "You've got to take the long look."

And he said, "One of my prayers is that God enable me, when I die, to be able to stand before my wife and say, 'Honey, I was faithful to you for all the days of our marriage. I never deviated. I never strayed.'" And the tears are streaming down his face. And he said, "And my prayer is that for my nine children, that I would see them come to know Christ, and I would see them do more in their relationship with the Lord than I ever saw in my own life. That they would go further with the Lord than I ever experienced in my own life."

He said, "That's my prayer. That's how I want to end." You've got to take the long look. Don't take the short look, the foolhardy look, the rash and impatient look. David said, "I would have despaired unless I believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord. Be strong and let your heart take courage. Yes, wait for the Lord."

If the people had just waited, God was going to give them a king. He was going to give them a king, a man after his own heart. But they got impatient, and he gave them Saul. Saul was a terrible king. Started out good, started out humble, couldn't handle the position. He was a psychoparanoid guy. Didn't follow the Lord. Wasn't good for the people. That's the king you got. "I gave you a king in My anger." Here you go. You can have Saul.

We tend to reject the Lord's kingship over us, His mastery over us. "For you have been bought with a price," the Bible says. "Therefore glorify God in your bodies." And why do we do it? Because of fear, because of impatience, because we're like Veruca Salt from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. "I want it now, Daddy." And we don't wait for the Lord.

I like what the Bible says in Psalm 81: "Hear, O my people, and I will admonish you. O Israel, if you would listen to me, let there be no strange god among you, nor shall you worship any foreign god. I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But My people did not listen to My voice, and Israel did not obey Me. So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart to walk in their own devices."

"You want a king? Okay, you can have a king." "Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways. I would quickly subdue their enemies and turn My hand against their adversaries. Those who hate the Lord would pretend obedience to Him, and their time of punishment would be forever. But I would feed you with the finest of the wheat, and with honey from the rock I would satisfy you."

How do you get in on the blessings of God? How do you have your soul satisfied in the Lord? By letting Jesus be King in you. The song says, "Friends all around me are trying to find what the heart yearns for by sin undermined. I know the secret; I've learned where it is found. Only true pleasures in Jesus abound. Jesus is all this poor world needs today. Blindly men strive for sin darkens their eyes. Oh, to pull back the grim curtains of night. One look at Jesus and all will be bright."

He's the one who satisfies. G. Campbell Morgan sent that telegram to his dad: "Rejected." And his dad sent back: "Son, rejected on earth, accepted in heaven." And G. Campbell Morgan said that message from my dad was what I needed to hear to get my eyes back on the Lord.

And God used the rejection, the thumbs down he got from those three ministers, to turn his life around, to give him such a hunger and thirst to know the Lord and to know His word. And then God opened a door for G. Campbell Morgan, and he preached to millions upon millions upon millions of people, saw people come to know Christ, and through his writings is still affecting people today. The one that they said was unpromising in the ministry. Wow. God can do what men can't see.

Listen, I don't know where you are today, but I know that when we talk about rejection, that hits many people right in the heart. God knows, God cares, God can relate. And God says, "This is what I want you to do. I want you to bring your hurts to me, and I want you to get your eyes on me and see what I will do when you trust me and obey."

Larry Nobles: Have you ever been rejected by others for, well, no matter the reason? Then that hurt and heartache can be healed. It really can. Will you bring your heartache to the Lord in prayer today? He is ready, eagerly waiting for you to pray to Him about your hurt that you are enduring.

Prayer is not a mystery. The sad truth is that many of us don't know how to pray very well. Our prayers often lack effectiveness simply because we fail to understand what prayer is all about and how to pray in a way that truly connects with the heart of God. Why don't you download a free PDF of Pastor Jeff's booklet called The Mystery of Prayer? It's available on our website when you click the "Free Stuff" link. Just go to fromhisheart.org, click the "Free Stuff" link.

Well, thank you for joining us today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles, trusting you'll be right back here tomorrow for the next message in Pastor Jeff's new series, Leaving a Legacy: Lessons from the Life of Samuel. Join us for the lesson: Is There Hope After Failure? That's next time, here on From His Heart.