From the recent sermon Jesus the Prophet, on Luke 4:22-30. What would compel you to reject Jesus Christ? Here are eight things that might cause you to reject Jesus, drawn from Luke 4:22-30.

1. Theology

The people in Nazareth love Jesus as a teacher and a healer and a feeder and a defender of the poor. But when he said, “I’m God, and I speak on behalf of God,” they said, “No, you’re Joseph’s son. You’re just a really good guy, but you’re not God.” Some of you do that. “Jesus is a good man, but not the God-man. He’s a good teacher, except for when he lies, saying things like ‘I’m God and savior.’” Don’t reject him theologically.

2. Control

You can reject him because of control. This was the real conflict in Nazareth. He showed up and they said, “Here’s what we want, Jesus. You grew up with us. You know that we’re poor and she’s sick and he needs a job, and we’ve got a dumpy, rural hick-town nobody comes from, to, or through, and you—you’re a rock star. You draw huge crowds. You can heal and feed people. We’re gonna set up a tent. You’re gonna be the circus act. People are going to come from miles around. You can feed us, heal us, bless us, make us headquarters. We’re gonna use you for our own mission. We wanna get rich and famous.” It was a control issue. Jesus said, “I’m not going to do any miracles here in Nazareth. Not because I can’t do any miracles, but because if I do, you will think that you controlled me. And your motives are disgusting, and you don’t love God.” And for the widow, she got her miracle after she trusted the Lord. For the leper, he trusted the Lord and he got his miracle. Jesus says, “You guys don’t even love me, you don’t even trust me. You just want miracles. You want me to be the magic genie who jumps out of the bottle and answers all the requests. No.” Some people are like that with Jesus. They come in to church or ministry and say, “Okay! Here’s what I want. Jesus, give it to me. He didn’t give it to me? Well, then I reject you. I’m post-Christian, anti-Christian. I’m going to find another religion or go my own way.” It’s how to reject Jesus.

3. Greed

Greed. There’s a lot of money to be made in Nazareth. If you could get Jesus to stay there and all the crowds to come to him, and you could build a huge synagogue, and you could take an offering after you heal people, you’d be doing well. They wanted to use Jesus for the money, so he uses the analogy and the illustration of the widow. She had nothing and she allowed the servant of God to live with her and to eat of her final meal before she starved to death. You don’t use God for money. That’s idolatry. You love God because he’s God. You love Jesus because he’s God.

4. Selfishness

Sometimes it’s just selfishness. The people in Nazareth, when he showed up they didn’t say, “Jesus! This is amazing! We could reach the nations. We could spread the good news that God has come. How could we help you and serve you? How could we give our lives so that others would come to know you?” It was just all about me. “Where’s my miracle? Where’s my healing? Where’s my food? Where’s my provision? What about me?” Complete selfishness can cause you to reject Jesus.

5. Familiarity

Familiarity. They say, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son? He says he’s God, Lord, Savior, Christ, King, and Prophet, but we saw him grow up. We know who he is. That’s not who he is. We know who he is.” The truth is, you can become so familiar with Jesus that you don’t even know who he is. You can grow up in church, be around Bible teaching, go to camp, go to Christian school, have Christian family, friends, relatives, co-workers, neighbors. You can even go to Bible college and get some goofy, dinky Bible college professor that gives you some weird, funky new liberal insight on Jesus and all of a sudden, you feel like you got it all nailed down and covered, and you reject him and move on and get into spiritism, demonism, and false teaching. Why? Because you’re like, “I know Jesus. I know the stories. I know the doctrine. I got it all nailed down, you know. But I’ve kind of moved on to some other things as well, in addition to or in place of him. Because I know him really well.” And the truth is, you don’t. You don’t know him at all. You’re like the people in Nazareth. They’ve become so familiar of him that they’re really not aware of his true identity as God among them. I really worry about this with the church kids. See, I’m a fired-up, full-tank-of-gas kind of guy when it comes to Jesus. And part of that is, I didn’t grow up knowing a lot about Jesus and reading the Bible. We were marginal Catholic, but I wasn’t paying any attention. And I would have said, “Oh, I know who Jesus is. Yeah, he did something with fishes and loaves and, yeah, he can water-ski without a boat and stuff. Yeah, I know a few things about him.” But I didn’t really know much about Jesus and I wasn’t that familiar with him. When I start meeting Jesus and reading the Bible and being with God’s people, I’m fired up because it’s all pretty fresh and new to me. For those of you who are like my wife and now like my kids, and you’re going to hear the name of Jesus and you’re going to hear Bible teaching and Bible reading and be around God’s people for a long time, don’t get too familiar with Jesus. Still be amazed and shocked and continue to be astonished by this man.

6. Comfort

Comfort. It’s where he uses the examples of the widow and of Naaman. Do you think it was comfortable for the widow to give what she had and her house to the prophet? No. Do you think it was comfortable for Naaman to go to another nation and another God and go down to the river and publically humiliate himself? No. Some of you, it’s just comfort. You’re like, “I would give, but it’s not comfortable. I would serve, but it’s not comfortable. I would pray, but it’s not comfortable. I would whatever, but it’s just not comfortable.” You worship convenience instead of Christ.

7. Embarrassment

Sometimes it’s just embarrassment, because being a Christian does not get you cool points anywhere. This was my big thing as a non-Christian. All the Christians would come to me and they’d be like, “Okay, you need to give your life to Christ.” And I’m like, “I don’t want to join the team, man. The Ned Flanders society. I do not want to join the team.” And it was always the kids with the bumper stickers and the t-shirts and the permagrins and the parted hair and the wristbands, and they’re like, “We love Jesus! We love him, we love him.” I was like, “Aaaargh! Seriously, is there another team that he has? Maybe wearing black, you know? Could I join that team?” It was just embarrassing. “I love Jesus.” You know how weird it is to get converted in college and your philosophy class, when they’re like, “How many of you are Christians?” “Oh, here we go.” You know. History class. “Yeah, I love Jesus.” Sociology class. “I love Jesus.” Women’s studies class. “Oh yeah, I love Jesus.” You know? You’re just a piñata for your whole undergrad degree. It’s embarrassing. And then every time any Christian says or does anything stupid, myself included—I am not beyond this capacity—it’s like, “You Christians.” You’re like, “There are billions of us! Just because one duffed it doesn’t mean we’re all doing it.” It’s embarrassing. Do you think it was embarrassing for Naaman to go down to the river? “Hi, I’m the mighty man, leper, help.” It’s kind of embarrassing. For those in Nazareth, it’s like, “You’re the bad guys.” “Really? That’s kind of embarrassing, because we took a vote. We thought we were the good guys.” Some of you just need to be humiliated for Christ.

8. Religion

Lastly, sometimes it’s just good old-fashioned religion. That was me. Before I met Jesus at age nineteen, I was a religious guy. I thought, “Okay, I believe in God. I’m a good person. Good enough.” Didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t do drugs, most likely to succeed, student body president, four-year letterman, man of the year, holier-than-thou, “Da da dada, I’m here. You’re welcome.” Just kind of that attitude. Better than everybody. And you know what? That’s religion. Sometimes it’s just religion. Religious people don’t think they need Jesus because they think they’re doing fine without him and they don’t realize that they’re in worse shape than the widow and the leper. The truth is, we’re as needy as the widow. We’re as hopeless as the leper. We’re sinners by nature and choice.

Don’t Reject Jesus

They didn’t kill Jesus on this occasion in Luke 4, but eventually they did. And you know what he did? It was the most amazing thing in the world. He took our sin upon his sinless self and he died to forgive us of all of our sin. That’s amazing. You know what Jesus is? He’s good to the end. He provides for us like he did the widow. He heals us like he did the leper. He does that as we murder him, and he loves us. Some of you are going to reject him as they did in Nazareth. I would beg you not to do that. Some of you would reject him like the soldier rejected God, and then he had a change of heart and mind, and he received God. See, there’s still hope for you. You’re still alive. Just because you’ve rejected Jesus doesn’t mean you can’t receive him today. Some of you will be like the widow and you will just receive the Lord into your life. That’s what I want for you, because I love you, and I want good for you. And I want you to enjoy the gift of Jesus Christ. Note: You can read the whole transcript of this sermon in PDF format here.