Rejected!

Luke 4:14-44

What are some reasons for being rejected by your friends and family?

How does it feel to be rejected by your friends?

Tried and True (v14-15)

Then Jesus returned to Galilee, filled with the Holy Spirit's power. Soon he became well known throughout the surrounding country. He taught in heir synagogues and was praised by everyone.

When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll containing the messages of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him, and he unrolled the scroll to the place where it says: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has appointed me to preach Good News to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the downtrodden will be feed form the their oppressors, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come." He rolled up the scroll, handed it back to the attendant, and sat down. Everyone in the synagogue stared at him intently. The he said, "This Scripture has come true today before your very eyes!" All who were there spoke well of him and were amazed by the gracious words that fell from his lips. "How can this be?" they asked. "Isn't this Joseph's son?"

Kill the messiah? (v22-29)

All who were there spoke well of him and were amazed by the gracious words that fell from his lips. "How can this be?" they asked. "Isn't this Joseph's son?" Then he said, "probably you will quote me that proverb,'physician, heal yourself'-meaning, 'why don't you do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum?' But the truth is, no prophet is accepted in his own hometown "Certainly there were many widows in Israel who needed help in Elijah's time, when there was no rain for three and a half years and hunger to a widow of Zarephath-a foreigner in the land of Sidon. Or think of the prophet Elisha, who healed Naaman, a Syrian rather than the many lepers in Israel who needed help." When they heard this, the people in the synagogue were furious. Jumping up, they mobbed him and took him to the edge of the hill on which the city was built. They intended to push him over the cliff, but he slipped away thought the crowd and left them.

Jesus' Focus (v42-44)

Early the next morning Jesus went out into the wilderness. The crowds searched everywhere for him, and when they finally found him, they begged him not to leave them. But he replied, "I must preach the Good News of the kingdom of God in other places, too, because that is why I was sent." So he continued to travel around, preaching in synagogues throughout Judea.