Rejecting Jesus
Series: Prepare Him Room
Speaker: Steve Jeffrey
Date: 21st December 2025
Passages:
00:00:00 --> 00:00:10 Christmas is the only Christmas holy day that is also a major secular holiday.
00:00:10 --> 00:00:15 ! In fact, Christmas is the largest holiday in the entire world.
00:00:15 --> 00:00:18 ! More people gather and celebrate Christmas than anything else.
00:00:18 --> 00:00:26 ! Of course, what happens then is you end up, the result of all of that, particularly in Western civilization, is two different celebrations.
00:00:26 --> 00:00:33 And it can bring a certain level of discomfort on both sides of the fence.
00:00:33 --> 00:00:46 For instance, many Christians can't help but notice that more and more of the public festivities surrounding Christmas avoids any reference to its Christian origins.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:52 Things like Merry Christmas has been replaced with Happy Holidays.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:57 And the holiday, the Christmas time is promoted.
00:00:57 --> 00:01:00 I heard it on the radio multiple times in this past week.
00:01:00 --> 00:01:07 It's a time promoted as for family, for giving and for peace in the world.
00:01:07 --> 00:01:18 On the other hand, non-religious people can't help but find the old meaning of Christmas keeps intruding, uninvited into their world.
00:01:18 --> 00:01:21 It can be irritating to answer a child's question.
00:01:22 --> 00:01:25 What does it mean when it's said, born to give them second birth?
00:01:25 --> 00:01:25 What does that mean?
00:01:26 --> 00:01:31 And as a Christian, I've got to say, I've shifted my thinking on this over time.
00:01:32 --> 00:01:38 I actually now, in a position where I think it's great sharing Christmas with the entirety of society.
00:01:38 --> 00:01:39 Well, the most of society.
00:01:39 --> 00:01:44 The secular Christmas is a festivity of lights.
00:01:45 --> 00:01:46 It's a time of family gathering.
00:01:47 --> 00:01:50 It's a time, it's a season to be generous, to give.
00:01:52 --> 00:01:59 And particularly around those who are not just closest to us but also those in need in our society.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:07 And those are practices, in my view, which are ultimately good and enriching for society, for everyone.
00:02:07 --> 00:02:14 And they are genuinely consistent with the Christian origins of the celebration of Christmas.
00:02:15 --> 00:02:24 The emphasis on light in darkness comes from the Christian belief that the world's hope comes from outside of it, into it.
00:02:24 --> 00:02:31 And so remember that as you pass through houses lit up and Christmas trees and so on.
00:02:31 --> 00:02:37 The giving of gifts is a natural response to Jesus' stupendous act of self-giving.
00:02:38 --> 00:02:43 And when he laid aside his glory and was born into the human race.
00:02:43 --> 00:02:53 Concerned for the needy recalls that the Son of God was born not into, you know, aristocratic, powerful family, but into a poor family.
00:02:53 --> 00:03:02 The Lord of the universe, identified with the least and the most excluded of the human race.
00:03:02 --> 00:03:06 All of those are very powerful things.
00:03:07 --> 00:03:10 But every one of them, if you like, is a double-edged sword.
00:03:11 --> 00:03:23 Jesus comes as the light because we are so spiritually blinded and our souls are plunged into such deep darkness that we cannot find our own way.
00:03:23 --> 00:03:32 Jesus became mortal and died because we are too morally ruined to be pardoned in any way.
00:03:33 --> 00:03:34 We cannot help ourselves.
00:03:35 --> 00:03:40 Jesus gave himself to us so that we might give ourselves wholly to him.
00:03:40 --> 00:03:55 Christmas, like God himself, is both more wondrous and also more threatening than we'd ever imagined at all.
00:03:56 --> 00:04:03 To understand Christmas is in fact to understand the very basics of Christianity,
00:04:03 --> 00:04:14 which is why I am delighted when I hear Christmas carols come in the supermarket as people about worshipping other things.
00:04:15 --> 00:04:25 Every year, our increasingly secular Western society becomes more and more unaware of its historical roots,
00:04:25 --> 00:04:31 many of which are grounded in the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
00:04:31 --> 00:04:36 Our society wants Christmas without the Christ at the centre of it.
00:04:36 --> 00:04:37 That's not new.
00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 That's not new at all.
00:04:41 --> 00:04:47 Jesus was being pushed away and rejected from the very beginning,
00:04:48 --> 00:04:50 from the moment of his birth, as we saw last week.
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 Luke chapter 2, familiar manger scene.
00:04:54 --> 00:05:01 She wrapped him in clothes and placed him in a manger because there was no guest room available for him.
00:05:01 --> 00:05:09 At the very beginning, Jesus is shut out and pushed out into the shed, away from all of the action.
00:05:09 --> 00:05:16 And when Jesus' parents brought him to the temple on the eighth day, there was this old man present,
00:05:16 --> 00:05:23 Simeon, he'd been waiting for the long promised Jewish saviour and ruler,
00:05:23 --> 00:05:30 and he said something that was quite troubling when he saw Jesus.
00:05:31 --> 00:05:37 This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel
00:05:37 --> 00:06:03 Now, unlike the manger scene, it's pretty rare to have those verses read out at Christmas services around the world.
00:06:03 --> 00:06:13 They seem rather depressing, even though they get, in fact, to the very heart of the meaning of Christmas.
00:06:14 --> 00:06:20 The words of Simeon tells us that Jesus Christ came to be rejected,
00:06:21 --> 00:06:26 and he had already experienced it by eight days since his birth.
00:06:26 --> 00:06:34 He came to reveal people's hearts and ultimately to have them speak against him.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:36 They're the words of Simeon.
00:06:38 --> 00:06:44 Jesus didn't come seeking rejection, but knowing that he would face it.
00:06:45 --> 00:06:53 He embraced the rejection because it is at the very centre of the reason why he came.
00:06:53 --> 00:07:00 And so if we don't understand the rejection he faced, why he faced it,
00:07:01 --> 00:07:05 and the implications for us as a result of it,
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 then in the end we don't understand Christmas at all.
00:07:12 --> 00:07:14 It means that Christmas can't be good news.
00:07:14 --> 00:07:19 It can't be a moment of celebration unless we understand the rejection of Jesus.
00:07:19 --> 00:07:24 And so there's three things I want to get to today.
00:07:24 --> 00:07:26 You see it on the board, that's where we're going to head.
00:07:26 --> 00:07:30 First of all, he was rejected for being ordinary.
00:07:31 --> 00:07:40 That is, he was rejected first up because he didn't meet humanity's expectation of what a saviour would be.
00:07:41 --> 00:07:42 He wasn't the right kind of person.
00:07:43 --> 00:07:45 He didn't act or look like a saviour or a ruler.
00:07:46 --> 00:07:47 He was, in fact, too ordinary.
00:07:47 --> 00:07:58 When Jesus is presented at the temple, we are told in verse 24 that Mary and Joseph brought along a couple of doves or pigeons for the sacrifice.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:07 What that tells us, in their context, Mary and Joseph were extremely poor people.
00:08:09 --> 00:08:11 It was the offering of poverty.
00:08:11 --> 00:08:18 And therefore, Jesus was not born into an aristocratic family, a wealthy family.
00:08:18 --> 00:08:22 He was brought into the low of the world in society.
00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 He was born into poverty.
00:08:26 --> 00:08:29 He came from the wrong side of town, if you like.
00:08:31 --> 00:08:33 He didn't have the credentials of leadership.
00:08:33 --> 00:08:43 In Mark 6, we are told that his own hometown and his closest circle of friends rejected him.
00:08:44 --> 00:08:45 They were offended by him.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:47 They were scandalised by him.
00:08:48 --> 00:08:52 And as William Lane says in his commentary on Mark 6,
00:08:52 --> 00:09:00 that the reason was their discernment could not penetrate the veil of ordinariness that surrounded him.
00:09:03 --> 00:09:04 He was a carpenter.
00:09:06 --> 00:09:08 His father died young.
00:09:10 --> 00:09:12 He was raised by his mother.
00:09:12 --> 00:09:13 He had no connections.
00:09:14 --> 00:09:16 He was on the margins of society.
00:09:16 --> 00:09:18 He wasn't leadership material.
00:09:18 --> 00:09:20 He didn't get a high mark in his HSC.
00:09:21 --> 00:09:27 We even told in Isaiah 53 that he was not good looking.
00:09:27 --> 00:09:31 He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him.
00:09:31 --> 00:09:34 Nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
00:09:35 --> 00:09:38 He was despised and rejected by mankind.
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 A man of suffering and familiar with pain.
00:09:41 --> 00:09:44 Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised.
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 And we held him in low esteem.
00:09:49 --> 00:09:50 He was not a celebrity.
00:09:50 --> 00:09:58 A celebrity has always been someone who has it all together and on the outside.
00:09:59 --> 00:10:01 A celebrity is someone who we want to be like,
00:10:01 --> 00:10:04 even if inside and their private life is an entire train wreck.
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 On the outside, they're beautiful.
00:10:08 --> 00:10:12 If not beautiful, then they're either rich, and if not rich, they're talented.
00:10:14 --> 00:10:17 Or they've just got a social media account that others just want to buy into.
00:10:17 --> 00:10:23 It matters not if their relationships are a wreck and they struggle with addictions.
00:10:24 --> 00:10:27 In a celebrity culture like ours, it's the externals.
00:10:27 --> 00:10:28 It's the superficial.
00:10:29 --> 00:10:32 The outside that matters more than anything else.
00:10:35 --> 00:10:38 And Jesus destroys all of that.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 Christmas destroys all of that.
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 He says your status, your look, your beauty, your achievements,
00:10:45 --> 00:10:48 your position, your connections is absolutely nothing.
00:10:49 --> 00:10:50 It matters nothing.
00:10:50 --> 00:10:52 God is not pressed by it at all.
00:10:54 --> 00:10:56 What matters is your heart and your soul.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:03 And Christmas means, at the very least, that Christians reject snobbery.
00:11:05 --> 00:11:06 And we care about character.
00:11:06 --> 00:11:07 We care about humility.
00:11:07 --> 00:11:13 We care about compassion and love and wisdom and integrity
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 and standing with those who are rejected.
00:11:17 --> 00:11:21 What we love reveals who we are.
00:11:23 --> 00:11:29 Jesus is rejected because he is too ordinary to be the saviour and the ruler of the world.
00:11:29 --> 00:11:43 But secondly, he's rejected because he reveals the ordinariness of our inner lives, of our hearts.
00:11:44 --> 00:11:45 See what Simeon says in verse 35?
00:11:46 --> 00:11:49 The thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.
00:11:49 --> 00:11:57 That is, Jesus shows people who they really were and they really did not like it at all.
00:11:58 --> 00:12:02 The book of Romans in the New Testament tells us that deep down,
00:12:02 --> 00:12:06 every human heart is a need for God.
00:12:06 --> 00:12:14 We all know, sinners, that we are all flawed, we are all failures,
00:12:14 --> 00:12:19 and we dress up the external to try and distract ourselves and everyone else from that.
00:12:24 --> 00:12:31 We constantly, deep inside of ourselves, have what you might call the engine of self-justification,
00:12:32 --> 00:12:33 constantly revving.
00:12:36 --> 00:12:38 And it's not EV.
00:12:39 --> 00:12:46 We're talking V12 engine in overdrive of self-justification.
00:12:47 --> 00:12:53 And it desperately, that engine wants to so desperately to think that we are okay
00:12:53 --> 00:12:58 in such a way that it suppresses the truth about God.
00:12:59 --> 00:13:04 It does not want to know about God or what he would require.
00:13:04 --> 00:13:11 He doesn't want to hear that, in fact, we need God or that there is anything wrong with humanity
00:13:11 --> 00:13:12 at all.
00:13:15 --> 00:13:21 Anything that makes it hard to suppress that truth gets us mad.
00:13:21 --> 00:13:25 So when Jesus Christ came along, he was hated.
00:13:26 --> 00:13:28 Everywhere Jesus went, crowds gathered.
00:13:31 --> 00:13:37 He both, in those moments, he both mesmerised people and he alienated them.
00:13:37 --> 00:13:39 He attracted and he infuriated.
00:13:40 --> 00:13:42 He evokes rejection and hostility.
00:13:42 --> 00:13:49 In the Christmas narrative, King Herod hears that Jesus is born the king.
00:13:49 --> 00:13:53 He's threatened and he attempts to kill, to have him killed.
00:13:53 --> 00:14:03 And instead goes on a murderous rampage and kills boys, everyone in the vicinity of Jesus,
00:14:03 --> 00:14:04 around the age of Jesus.
00:14:06 --> 00:14:15 When Jesus Christ comes to anybody and reveals himself as the true ruler of our lives,
00:14:15 --> 00:14:19 our first instinct is to get angry with him.
00:14:21 --> 00:14:25 And people will get upset with any Christian who lives and loves like Jesus
00:14:25 --> 00:14:30 because it reminds them of their own heart and their own priorities and their own actions.
00:14:31 --> 00:14:34 The self-justification engine kicks into gear.
00:14:34 --> 00:14:39 And yet the reality is you don't have to be perfect to get rejected.
00:14:40 --> 00:14:50 Living a life like Jesus exposes corruption, immorality, gossip, greed, vilification, hatred.
00:14:53 --> 00:15:01 No one likes the depths of immoral hearts being revealed or those who reveal it.
00:15:04 --> 00:15:10 Christmas means in our growing secular society,
00:15:11 --> 00:15:17 there's often not room in the inn for those who follow Jesus.
00:15:20 --> 00:15:26 But thirdly, Jesus was rejected for our acceptance.
00:15:27 --> 00:15:33 Jesus Christ came into this world knowing that he would violate the world's standards and its priorities.
00:15:34 --> 00:15:40 And that he would intimidate people with his life and his message.
00:15:41 --> 00:15:50 But he became, because, he still came, because of the substitutionary work, nature of his work.
00:15:51 --> 00:15:57 That is, him being rejected is his work for us.
00:15:57 --> 00:16:00 Have a look back at Isaiah 53.
00:16:02 --> 00:16:03 Right after it says,
00:16:04 --> 00:16:08 Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised.
00:16:08 --> 00:16:10 And we held him in low esteem.
00:16:11 --> 00:16:12 We read these words.
00:16:13 --> 00:16:17 Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering.
00:16:17 --> 00:16:22 Yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted.
00:16:22 --> 00:16:26 But he was pierced for our transgressions.
00:16:26 --> 00:16:30 He was crushed for our iniquities.
00:16:30 --> 00:16:35 The punishment that brought us peace was laid on him.
00:16:36 --> 00:16:39 And by his wounds we have been healed.
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 All, like sheep, have gone astray.
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 Each of us has turned to our own way.
00:16:44 --> 00:16:49 And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:53 You see, in a nutshell, what that's saying is,
00:16:54 --> 00:16:57 Jesus' rejection is our acceptance.
00:16:58 --> 00:17:04 He didn't come to be rejected simply as an example for us to follow.
00:17:04 --> 00:17:08 He came to be rejected as our substitute, as our saviour.
00:17:08 --> 00:17:10 He came to be rejected for us.
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 He was rejected for our transgressions, for our sin,
00:17:14 --> 00:17:17 for our rejection of our created God.
00:17:17 --> 00:17:17 God.
00:17:20 --> 00:17:22 Simeon says in Luke 2, verse 34,
00:17:23 --> 00:17:27 that Jesus is to be a sign that will be spoken against.
00:17:29 --> 00:17:34 What that means is that because Jesus is spoken against,
00:17:35 --> 00:17:37 God speaks for us.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:43 Because there is no room for him,
00:17:44 --> 00:17:47 we can dwell through Jesus,
00:17:47 --> 00:17:48 through his substitutionary work,
00:17:48 --> 00:17:51 we can dwell in the presence of God forever.
00:17:52 --> 00:17:54 Jesus knew that his acceptance
00:17:54 --> 00:18:00 would ultimately mean our rejection by God.
00:18:00 --> 00:18:04 But his rejection would be for our eternal acceptance.
00:18:05 --> 00:18:07 And he chose that rejection for us.
00:18:09 --> 00:18:12 And so Christmas is so beautiful.
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 It is so glorious.
00:18:15 --> 00:18:18 It is so filled of light and hope for humanity,
00:18:19 --> 00:18:19 broken,
00:18:19 --> 00:18:19 broken,
00:18:20 --> 00:18:23 and yet it is so dangerous at the same time.
00:18:24 --> 00:18:26 Because the news of Christmas,
00:18:26 --> 00:18:29 the message of Christmas is so hard to hear.
00:18:30 --> 00:18:36 That is the very nature of some gifts that you receive.
00:18:36 --> 00:18:37 You know,
00:18:37 --> 00:18:39 a few days from now,
00:18:39 --> 00:18:42 you pull out a present that's been given to you,
00:18:42 --> 00:18:43 gifted to you,
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 you unwrap it and it's a book said,
00:18:45 --> 00:18:46 how not to be arrogant.
00:18:47 --> 00:18:47 You know,
00:18:47 --> 00:18:51 or how to grow in humility and defeat pride.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:52 You know,
00:18:52 --> 00:18:54 what on earth?
00:18:57 --> 00:18:58 Who bought me this book?
00:19:00 --> 00:19:02 Your sensibilities are damaged,
00:19:02 --> 00:19:05 but it's most likely needed.
00:19:08 --> 00:19:10 The message of Christmas is hard,
00:19:10 --> 00:19:13 but it's also healing and soothing.
00:19:14 --> 00:19:15 In the same way,
00:19:15 --> 00:19:18 a surgeon brings healing to our body
00:19:18 --> 00:19:19 by cutting out
00:19:19 --> 00:19:22 the stuff that's wrecking it
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 and spilling our blood.
00:19:25 --> 00:19:25 Ultimately,
00:19:26 --> 00:19:28 that is a wound that brings healing,
00:19:29 --> 00:19:30 brings health.
00:19:30 --> 00:19:34 And the reason Jesus makes us uncomfortable
00:19:34 --> 00:19:38 is because he challenges our worldview.
00:19:39 --> 00:19:42 He forces us to expand our fury of life
00:19:42 --> 00:19:44 and its purpose and its goal.
00:19:45 --> 00:19:46 The magnificent,
00:19:47 --> 00:19:47 perfect,
00:19:48 --> 00:19:49 flawless God
00:19:49 --> 00:19:53 comes down into our ordinariness,
00:19:54 --> 00:19:56 into our brokenness and our darkness.
00:19:56 --> 00:19:57 He immerses himself
00:19:57 --> 00:19:57 himself
00:19:57 --> 00:19:59 in our pain
00:19:59 --> 00:20:00 and our vulnerability
00:20:00 --> 00:20:02 and our suffering.
00:20:02 --> 00:20:05 The ordinary suffering of human life,
00:20:05 --> 00:20:07 let alone the extraordinary suffering
00:20:07 --> 00:20:07 of human life,
00:20:08 --> 00:20:09 like we saw last week.
00:20:10 --> 00:20:12 He came to be rejected,
00:20:13 --> 00:20:15 to be murdered by humanity.
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 And it took God
00:20:18 --> 00:20:20 such drastic steps
00:20:20 --> 00:20:21 to save us.
00:20:21 --> 00:20:24 It is offensive
00:20:24 --> 00:20:26 to our sensibilities
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 to think that we are so dark,
00:20:28 --> 00:20:30 that we are so broken,
00:20:30 --> 00:20:33 that we are so sinful.
00:20:34 --> 00:20:35 And yet,
00:20:36 --> 00:20:37 we cannot know
00:20:37 --> 00:20:38 the blessing
00:20:38 --> 00:20:39 of his forgiveness,
00:20:40 --> 00:20:41 the blessing of hope
00:20:41 --> 00:20:42 and life
00:20:42 --> 00:20:44 and light forever
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 if we have never felt
00:20:47 --> 00:20:48 the offence
00:20:48 --> 00:20:51 of Christmas.
00:20:54 --> 00:20:55 We should feel
00:20:55 --> 00:20:56 the offence
00:20:56 --> 00:20:57 of Christmas,
00:20:58 --> 00:21:00 but don't take offence.
00:21:01 --> 00:21:03 It's hard to believe
00:21:03 --> 00:21:03 in Christmas,
00:21:04 --> 00:21:05 but there is
00:21:05 --> 00:21:06 light
00:21:06 --> 00:21:06 and life
00:21:06 --> 00:21:07 and healing
00:21:07 --> 00:21:08 and hope
00:21:08 --> 00:21:09 and joy
00:21:09 --> 00:21:10 when we do.
00:21:11 --> 00:21:11 Amen.
00:21:11 --> 00:21:11 Amen.