The consequences of rejecting Jesus

How good are you at making decisions?

What, for you, would the difference between a good decision and a bad decision?

Although there are always exceptions, and unforeseen things, I think it is fair to say that a good decision is good because it has a good outcome and a bad decision is bad because it has a bad outcome.

If we grow in knowledge and wisdom, we can get better at making decisions. Which usually means we get better at weighing up and managing the outcomes of our decisions.

And it is very important for us to get better at decision making because for better or worse our lives are shaped by our decisions and their outcomes.

I think we could all trace much of the mess in our lives to not carefully weighing up the consequences of our decisions. Especially when we make decisions that clearly reject what God has said on the issue we are deciding on.

That is what started all the mess in this world in the first place.

God told Adam and Eve that if they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die.

Satan lied and told them that they would not die. He also deceived them into thinking there would be some good consequences for rejecting God’s will and doing their own thing (that has always been Satan’s strategy).

Tragically, Adam and Eve didn’t weigh up the situation and the consequences carefully. Their decision was to reject what God had said and do things their own way. And the rest, as they say, is history. Tragic history.

Rejecting the will of the God, who always knows best, is always a bad decision and will always bring bad outcomes, somewhere along the line.

And Satan is always very willing to help us mess up with that by trying to hide the true consequences of rejecting God’s will from us.

The constant narrative of this world is that there are no consequences at all for rejecting God’s will. As the Atheist bus slogan that started in London in 2008 said, “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” (Very clever)

As Christians, we must always be gracious in dealing with people who reject God’s will, but we must never hide the truth of the consequences of rejecting God’s will. That would be the most unloving thing to do.

In our passage in Mark’s gospel this morning (6: 1 – 30) we will see the very serious consequences of rejecting the teaching of Jesus and about Jesus.  

(Pray)

Mark’s Gospel is all about good news

Mark 1: 1, “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah (God’s promised King), the Son of God (that is God Himself)”

In Mark 1 – 3 it is clear:

• Jesus is God’s promised King
• Who has come to save sinners
• Establish them in God’s new kingdom
• And Jesus’ priority is to preach about that.

In Mark 4 – 5 we see, amongst other things, that:

• There are negative and positive responses to His preaching. Those with no faith reject His preaching or fall away from it. Those with faith accept His preaching and are fruitful in their faith.

In Mark 6, Mark picks up on how some people respond negatively to the preaching of the good news.

And as I said we will see the very serious consequences of rejecting the teaching of Jesus and about Jesus.

• Rejecting Jesus’ teaching and the consequences (1 – 6).
• Rejecting the apostles’ teaching and the consequences (7 – 13)
• Rejecting the prophet’s teaching and the consequences (14 – 30)

Rejecting Jesus’ teaching and the consequences (1 – 6)

Jesus goes back to His home town of Nazareth and takes His disciples with Him.

On the Sabbath (as was His custom) Jesus went to the synagogue (He never missed church).

On this Sabbath day, He was the teacher. He would probably (as usual) have preached on what was summarised as His message in Mark 1: 15, “The kingdom of God has come near, Repent and believe the good news”.

Which was not only about the good news but also a call to repent of any rejection of Jesus as the King of this kingdom.

The people are initially amazed at what Jesus taught and the miracles they had maybe heard of Him performing.

But they have no faith in Him as King Jesus, all they can think of is that He used to be the kid next door.

And so as amazing as His teaching was and His miracles sounded, they were offended by Him. Literally the word means they were “tripped up” by Him being just the kid next door.

They probably also took offense at the kid next door calling them to repent of the way they were thinking about Him. Who does He think He is?

Jesus had already warned His disciples of negative responses, but this rejection was close to home. So, Jesus applies a proverb of the day, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home”. We might say, “Familiarity breeds contempt”.

And so, we have the amazing truth of verse 5 and 6.

It was not that He was not able to do any miracles, as though a lack of faith takes Jesus’ power away. That is clearly not the case as we see in the second half of vs 5.

It is that He could not do miracles because it would go against His desire to be in a faith relationship with the people of His hometown as the King of God’s kingdom, He didn’t want to just throw miracles at them.

He wanted them to accept His teaching, and therefore, Him. But if they rejected His teaching, there were consequences.

Not only “no miracles”, but much worse, He would stop teaching them and go somewhere else – second half of vs 6.

Sometimes Jesus judgement is not thunder and lightning but silence. That is a nice outcome when dealing with an annoying person, but disastrous if it is Jesus.

For Jesus to go somewhere else and no longer say anything to us, is to leave us with our own sinful, fallen thinking and words that will convince us that we are ok spiritually … only to find out when we die that the opposite is true.

Jesus, speaking hard words of repentance is way more loving than Jesus saying nothing and leaving us to self-deception and destruction.

Now we begin to understand what Jesus meant when He said in 4: 24 – 25, “Consider carefully what you hear. With the measure you use, it will be measured to you – and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.”

Someone might say, “I don’t reject Jesus’ teaching. It’s when other people teach Jesus’ teaching that I sometimes reject what they say.”

Well, let’s look at the next section…

Rejecting the apostles’ teaching and the consequences (7 – 13)

The men that Jesus sent out named their ministry “The Ark”. Guess why? (Two by two ????).

But seriously, if they did decide to call their ministry something, it would be something that would reflect that it was all about Jesus.

• Jesus sent them out. It was in His name that they would go.
• Jesus gave them authority to preach and call people to repentance.
• Jesus gave them the authority over impure spirits. It would be in His name that they would cast them out.
• Jesus gave them authority to heal. It would be in His name that healing would happen.

They would never use their own name to identify their ministry (as some do today). That would not reflect that the authority lay with King Jesus.

Matthew would probably be mortified that we named our church in a way that made it sound like it belonged to him. He would probably tell us to change the name immediately.

But as Jesus sends them out, He has in mind what He has just experienced and what He told them in Mark 4 about how people respond to the preaching of the good news and repentance.

And so, Jesus tells them how to respond to rejection 6: 11.

If a place does not welcome them or listen to them, they are to leave. Not primarily because they are being rejected but because to reject Jesus’ preachers and their teaching is to reject Jesus and His teaching.

And when you do that, Jesus’ preachers (in this case the apostles) will go.

They will shake the dust off their feet as a testimony against these Jewish towns…

Devoted Jews were known to shake out their robes when leaving a Gentile town, as if protecting themselves from being contaminated by false beliefs. By shaking the dust from their feet, the apostles show that Jews who reject Jesus' gospel are as lost as the Gentiles who do not know God at all.

They testify that the people have chosen a different path and that the apostles are not responsible for their choices.

And if Jesus’ preachers go, Jesus goes. And they will be left with the judgement of silence.

Rejecting the prophet’s teaching and the consequences (14 – 30)

Mark records that King Herod hears of what Jesus and His disciples are doing.

Herod wrongly concludes, when dealing with all the speculation about who Jesus is (John the Baptist raised from the dead / Elijah / some or other prophet), that Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead.

He has no faith and gets it wrong, in contrast with what we will see in chapter 8 when Peter, whose faith is now growing, says to the speculation of who Jesus is that Jesus is none of these other ones but is the Christ (the King).

Mark then records what Herod did to John the Baptist as another example of what happens when you reject a God appointed teacher about Jesus and the kingdom.

Like Jesus and the apostles John had also been calling people to repent. In this case he had called Herod to repent.

And although Herod had something of a soft spot for John, he rejected John’s teaching and has him killed.

Instead of accepting John’s words and repenting, Herod considers his own words given in a promise to the daughter of Herodias more important to keep.

The consequence? The only person that would have helped Herod to think about repentance and could have pointed him to King Jesus who could have saved him, is the same person that Herod rejected and had killed.

Herod would also be sentenced to the judgement of silence and the eternal consequences of being an unforgiven sinner. He would not hear the good news again and died not too many years after John the Baptist.

Those who reject Jesus’ teaching and who reject those who teach about Him could end up getting what they want – no more teaching. But what a terrible judgement that is, an eternal one.

Obviously, Jesus and the apostles are no longer physically with us

They no longer stand on this earth preaching the good news and calling us to repent.

But in every generation since they did do that, God has appointed other preachers to preach the good news and call people to repent of their sin and believe the good news.

In God’s great mercy, the good news preached by Jesus and His apostles is published in the Bible. And that is all they need to preach.

And if each generation of preachers preach that, they preach with the same preaching authority as the apostles.

Which then means (as usual) that Jesus is watching to see how their listeners respond.

And as always there will be consequences for how they respond.

If you reject the preaching of the good news that Jesus can save you from your sin. If you refuse to repent of that sin and do things your own way not God’s way. If you reject Jesus as your Ruler. And if that rejection carries on…

A time will come when Jesus says, “Right. No more. I’m out of here. And I am taking my bible preachers with me. I will leave you in the judgement of silence and to a worse judgement beyond this world.”

If you still think you are a Christian, you might then go to other preachers who will say what you want to hear but it won’t be the truth that can set you free, which will be as condemning as the silence.

You might try another religion and find it much more suited to what you want and believe because it suits you it must be right.

But there too you will eventually find that it was only the construct of people who didn’t want anything to do with the true God and you are all in the judgment of the silence of God together even with the religious mumbo jumbo of made up gods all around you.

Or you might just give up on religion. You might adopt the Atheist bus slogan, “There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

But just because you think or believe that God doesn’t exist doesn’t mean that’s true. As you will find out.

Like other preachers of Jesus, with the authority of His Word. I warn you… repent of your sin, ask for Jesus’ forgiveness for your sin. Accept Jesus as your ruler and then do things His way not your own way.

And don’t think you are a Christian if you reject the teaching of God’s Word.

How will you respond? Think of the consequences.

And I know that some people like to mock the gospel as being, “Love Jesus or go to hell”. Like Jesus is so unlovable that He must threaten people with hell to get them to love Him.

It’s not that. It’s this… because of sin we are all going to hell. But Jesus loved us so much that He made the decision to provide a way we could be forgiven our sin and be saved from hell. The best decision with the best outcome, if you decide to accept this good news.

So, repent of your sin, accept what in love He did for you and you will be saved and fall more and more in love with Him.

The decision is yours. The consequences will be yours. They will shape or reshape your life for good and for eternity.

Questions:

Re-read Mark 6: 1 – 30 and from that answer the following:

1. What are the consequences of rejecting Jesus’ teaching?
2. What are the consequences of rejecting the teaching of anyone else who teaches what Jesus taught?
3. What does rejecting the teaching of Jesus (even if it is taught by someone other than Jesus) look like in practice?
4. How does this apply to those who say they are Christians, but they also reject the truth of God’s Word?
5. What are some of the excuses we give ourselves for not obeying God’s Word and how could we overcome that?