Summary of Sermon: Shaking the Dust from Your Feet

Jesus Knew that not everyone was going to be receptive to the word of God and the good works of His Disciples.

Jesus understood that there would always be firm and determined opponents to God’s word. This is why He gave the Disciples ground rules for their mission.

Shaking the dust from your feet is a statement that can apply to virtually any and every life situation. It essentially means learning how to overcome disappointment, how to navigate through bad situations and how to press on towards one’s goals despite opposition.

So many things in this life can take away our self-esteem. So many things in this life can cause us to lose confidence in ourselves and in God. So many things in this life can make us want to give up on life all together because of the frustration that comes with rejection, misunderstanding and non-acceptance.

Many youth today experience the frustration of rejection when they try to do good things for others. There are many young people who try to do ‘good’ and seem to fall short of being appreciated. Nothing they do ever seem to be ‘right’. People are always on their cause in matters where they have done the ‘right’ thing. IF we are not careful, those young people can become resentful, angry, spiteful and hateful.

There are many examples of people who sometimes are at a standstill in situations or a particular problem because they experience some form of rejection or misunderstanding.

You may have had instances in your life where you’ve tried and tried to make something right and still experienced confusion and rejection.

We must learn to shake the dust from our feet and keep on stepping to higher ground.

We learn that:

• Life is not always fair and just.
• People will try to outgun and out due you and take all the credit for the work you have done.
• Every smiling face ‘in your face’ is not your friend.
• If they rejected and crucified Jesus, we know what the enemy has in store for us.
• In the time of Jesus, it was customary for Jews who left their sacred land and traveled through pagan territory to shake the dust from their feet once they returned home.

Shaking the dust from one’s feet meant cleansing one’s self of all unclean matter. It meant ridding one’s self of the pollution and corruption that came from traveling through Gentile territory.

Shaking the dust from our feet today means:

• Removing from our persons, our minds, our memories, spirits, bodies, hearts and all vestiges of the devil’s influences and corruptions.
• It means removing from our persons, anything that will hinder our acceptance of God and receptivity of His Holy Spirit.
• It means resolving, to press on towards good, to work in spite the opposition to it.
• Not keeping a long memory of all the bad things that has happened to us and turning our attention to the good things.
• Learning how to do what is ‘good’ and ‘right’.

When we experience rejection or confusion in life we must look to Jesus and His word as a source of strength and power.

Food for Thought
We wait too long to do too many things when it comes to God. Does our delayed obedience have to do with blessings denied or delayed?

God has needs. He needs us, those who have faith, to demonstrate that faith, to carry out his will, and execute that will in a timely way.

God relies on the faithful to do His will.

Faith might be our capacity, our ability to give instant obedience to God, particularly in the things we do not fully understand or agree with.

When we are truly faithful, the “Me”, “I”, or “Why?” does not get in the way of what God wants. When he asks something of us, we need to give.

What things has God asked of us that do not in the end draw us closer to Him? Everything He asks of us is designed for our own good.

Immediately is a word that we must operate and live by. Give God everything He wants and see what He does. Consistency must be part of our mission.

Biblical References

Matthew 10:5–15

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