What To Do When Your Love is Rejected | John 13:21-26

[00:00:00] Real Truth Daily. This is Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman. Hi everybody! Welcome back to Daily Truths. You probably have somebody in your life that you've tried to love and you've continued to try to love and you shower love upon them and they reject your love. They won't receive it. They don't appreciate it. They don't even sometimes even acknowledge it. What do you do with that?

[00:00:29] How do you deal with that? Did Jesus have people in his life that rejected his love? Are there people in the world today that reject Jesus' love? And how does he deal with it? How did he deal with it in the New Testament when there was someone very close to him who basically said, I don't need your love and I don't acknowledge who you are?

[00:00:56] We're in the book of John, chapter 13, verses 21-26. Again, Jesus is in the upper room with his disciples. They're ready to celebrate the Passover. He's washed his disciples' feet and we pick up the scenario here in verse 21. After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified, truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.

[00:01:22] He was deeply moved. He was incredibly sad. Now you might be saying, and some of you have written this even, well, Pastor Dave, we know it was. It was Judas. It was part of the plan of God for Judas to betray Jesus so that the plan of salvation could be carried out.

[00:01:37] I get that. And so did Jesus. However, he was still grieved to the core that someone he trusted, someone that he thought believed in him, of course, he knew that he didn't, but someone who gave the impression that he believed in him was going to betray him. And it grieved his spirit. It made him very sad.

[00:01:58] Verse 22. The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. In other words, it wasn't obvious to the disciples that it was Judas. And probably they thought the least likely person who would do something like that is Judas. After all, Jesus trusted him with our treasury. Okay? Verse 22. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table close to him.

[00:02:23] So John was the closest friend of Jesus, basically. Okay? And so you know that these guys were leaning on their side, right like this, and their food was right at their chest. And so the one who was right in front of Jesus reclining was John, right? Who was at his right. And usually the most favored person was at the right of the honored guest, if you will. Okay? One of his disciples, verse 23, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table close to Jesus.

[00:02:49] So Simon Peter motioned to John to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. You can just imagine that. Come on. Ask him. Ask him. Ask him. Who is it? Okay. So what does John do? He leans back, basically, and he says this. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, it is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it.

[00:03:17] Morsel of bread made of dates and raisins and wine, right? And so that was mixed together. And basically what they did as a sign of friendship is they took the bread, the unleavened bread, dipped it in that substance, and then passed it to somebody that they loved, somebody they cared about, someone who's a close friend, a favored, you might say favored disciple in this instance. But Jesus did this to identify who it was who would betray him.

[00:03:46] So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. My goodness. So what do we do with people who reject our love? What did Jesus do with Judas? Judas, he would have continued to love him and forgive him had Judas not taken his life. What does Jesus do with people in this world, three quarters of the world, who rejects his love? What does he do?

[00:04:16] His desire is that all people would come to faith in him. All people would receive his love by accepting his substitutionary work on the cross. He wants everybody to be saved. And so he's going to continue to reach out to them in love through missionaries, through the proclaimed word of God. This is Jesus' act. This is how he feels. This is his disposition. This is what he wants accomplished, that he would continue to reach out with love to people that have rejected it.

[00:04:45] He's just going to keep on loving them. Isn't there a song like that? Oh, I'm going to keep on loving you. Air supply, 1980s. Oh, okay. So what does Jesus want us to do? The very same thing. There are people in your life who no matter how hard you try, they will continue to persist in rejecting your love. So what do you do?

[00:05:13] Like Jesus, regarding the whole world, you just keep loving them. You keep forgiving them. You keep treating them nice. You keep loving them no matter what. That's what love, it's unconditional. And God has given us unconditional love. It's not that we merited it or earned it or deserved it or worked for it. He loves us with no strings attached. And so when you have people in your life who reject your love, you can give up.

[00:05:42] You can say, I'm not going to love you anymore. Or you can say, I'm just going to keep on loving you no matter what. And you might not even say that because they may not believe it. But you just continue to treat them with love and kindness and respect and caring. Even though from your perspective, they surely haven't earned it because they keep on rejecting your love. But you keep on loving them no matter what. And that's how to deal with people who reject your love.

[00:06:10] This is what Jesus does with the entire world, three quarters of which rejects his love. He just keeps on loving them. And that's what we're called to do as well. Have a great day in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is today's Daily Truth. Thank you for tuning in to Daily Truths with Dave Ahlman. Pastor Dave Ullman is the pastor of Mount Hope Church in Boulder, Colorado. If this ministry is blessing you, please consider supporting us by sharing this channel with a friend.

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