Faith, Hope Love #2
Faith – Betrayal
1 Corinthians 13:13 (MSG)
But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.
Last week we started a series examining faith, hope and love.
Faith is belief that moves us to action.
Hope is power to proceed.
Love is the fuel of life.
And they all rise and fall on relationships.
It’s with faith, hope and love, that we live our lives to the full.
Faith, hope and love are vitally important to your ability to live your life to the full.
Therefore they become a battle ground.
You have an enemy who through deterring, damaging and destroying
Relationships engages in constant warfare to steal from you
Faith, hope and love.
The devil assaults us,
The world assaults us,
People assault us and we are left with deep hurts and pains and
Wounds, that bleed away our faith, hope and love.
We find ourselves in the desert,
In the valley of Achor, the place of trouble,
Desperately trying to find a route out.
Last week I gave you some homework and today the assignment is due.
If you took the time this week to read Lamentations 3 and Psalm 23,
If you took the time to reflect on it.
IF you asked the Holy Spirit to speak to you through it—
I would like to hear your thoughts on your meditation.
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Today I want us to focus on the faith.
I want to explain to you the weapon used to overcome your faith
Then I want us to see the route out of Achor.
I must warn you, I have no easy answer, no quick fix, no steps,
no pat answers for you today.
But I will show you the path out,
And I will walk with you.
Faith is trust and confidence that moves us to action.
Faith gives us perspective.
We see things differently when we are looking through the eyes of
faith.
Every relationship requires faith.
The scripture place a high value on faith—
Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
Faith is trust that comes from repeated encounters with a person who proves
to be solid and sure. (Allender, p. 58)
We have learned that not every one is a safe person in this world.
So we protect ourselves.
Yet we long for intimacy, we long to connect,
We are designed for relationships.
We reach out and we do succeed in connecting.
We have friends, we have best friends,
We have acquaintances and we have an inner circle.
The degree of faith we have in the other person,
Determines the depth of intimacy that we feel safe to
share with them.
We sense that our heart is safe in the others hands.
That they have our best interests in their hearts.
That they care and are concerned about us—
We feel secure.
We know who we are.
A two way street.
Two people committed to meeting the need of the other at the
cost of a personal sacrifice is a beautiful thing.
This is the way of true discipleship.
This is how brothers and sisters in Christ are supposed to be with each other.
This is how family, your blood family is supposed to be.
This is how your mom and dad are supposed to be.
Do you realize that our relationships that tell us who we are?
Its through our relationships that we gain a sense of self-worth,
A degree of dignity, and self-respect.
We see ourselves reflected in the eyes of those we share
intimate relationships with.
Our relationships define who we are.
They provide us with confidence, a safety net, an anchor.
“You are a network of all your relationships present, past, and future.”
Your concept of who you are “revolves around the stories of those
relationships.” (Allender, p. 61)
Faith, that leads to trust, builds relationships,
Relationships define who you are, they give you perspective.
So your enemy wants to replace faith with doubt.
Doubt leeches away trust,
Slowly destroying the relationship.
One of the best ways to destroy a relationship is for Satan to set up an act of
betrayal.
Betrayal is Satan’s counter-attack on faith.
Is there anything more bitter than being knifed in the back by one you considered a
Friend, by one you love.
Someone you trusted, someone whose company you enjoyed,
Someone you were open with, someone you loved,
Betrays you and you are suddenly thrown into the valley of Achor.
“Betrayal is the experience of being set up, violated, and then discarded.”
(Allender, The Healing Path, p.23)
“Betrayal is the breaking of an implied or stated commitment of care.”
(Allender, p. 53)
Betrayal is to be deceived, misguided, used, abused and then removed.
Betrayal assaults our faith.
“When your past is littered with the rusted-out remains of broken
friendships,
you are robbed of the desire to trust—
not only in the relationships that has suffered harm,
but in all of your other relationships.”
(Allender , p. 24)
“Betrayal eventually hardens the arteries of trust and causes us to become cynical
and suspicious.” (Allender, p. 56)
“Betrayal strips us of connection and intimacy” (Allender, p. 122)
“Betrayal means that one party in a relationship acts in a
way that favors his or her own interests at the expense of ours.”
(Julie Fitnesshttp://www2.psych.purdue.edu/~kip/392F/FitnessBetrayal.pdf)
“Betrayal sends an ominous signal about how little the betrayer cares about, or
values his or her relationship with us.” (ibid)
Betrayal steals away our faith and in its place leaves us with doubt, confusion and
isolation.
Expectations whether spoken or unspoken were not meet.
The rules of the relationship were broken.
And we are left with a lot of questions.
Psalms 55:1-23 (MSG)
Open your ears, God, to my prayer; don't pretend you don't hear me knocking. Come close and whisper your answer. I really need you. I shudder at the mean voice, quail before the evil eye, As they pile on the guilt, stockpile angry slander. My insides are turned inside out; specters of death have me down. I shake with fear, I shudder from head to foot. "Who will give me wings," I ask— "wings like a dove?" Get me out of here on dove wings; I want some peace and quiet. I want a walk in the country, I want a cabin in the woods. I'm desperate for a change from rage and stormy weather. …This isn't the neighborhood bully mocking me—I could take that. This isn't a foreign devil spitting invective—I could tune that out. It's you! We grew up together! You! My best friend! Those long hours of leisure as we walked arm in arm, God a third party to our conversation. Haul my betrayers off alive to hell—let them experience the horror, let them feel every desolate detail of a damned life. … And this, my best friend, betrayed his best friends; his life betrayed his word. All my life I've been charmed by his speech, never dreaming he'd turn on me. His words, which were music to my ears, turned to daggers in my heart.
There we are in the valley of Achor, in the desert,
The place of pain, hurt, suffering and tears.
Trust as been broken.
You are hurt, you are angry, you may want revenge,
Hatred might burn in your heart—
You’ve been belittled, humiliated and taken advantage of.
You may feel guilt, shame, embarrassment, devastation.
You have a couple of questions:
1. What’s wrong with me?
Self-doubt
Doubt can paralyze you from making a decision.
What if you make another bad choice?
If faith moves us to action.
Doubt stops us dead in our tracks.
Doubt gets you second guessing your ability to judge character.
Often you don’t know what went wrong the relationships.
Betrayal always results in a mess.
There is seldom any closure.
The relationship becomes a dangling loose end.
So you start examining your behavior trying to discover what you did
wrong that invited a betrayal.
2. Why didn’t I see this coming?
Self-incrimination
Betrayal berates you.
You wonder how you could be so stupid.
You wonder why you let it happen.
Why you allowed your-self to be duped.
You blame yourself for the betrayal.
You feel like you have “sucker” or “looser” tattooed on your
forehead.
You second guess yourself.
You arm chair quarterback what you should have
done if you weren’t so gullible, naïve and
trusting.
3. Why did God allow this to happen to me?
“A loss of faith comes when God no longer seems predictable and sure.
It comes when our heart desperately longs for God to change the
outcome of a situation and he chooses not to act according to
our best sense of what is good.
Our heart aches for good things, legitimate desires.
And when God refuses to act to keep those desires alive,”
we doubt his goodness, His love, His plan, His power,
His purpose, His caring. (Allender, p.67)
We doubt God—
Does God rescue?
Does God protect?
Does God let the guilty go free?
“Betrayal sends us reeling a bouncing pinball—
From terror to regret.
Betrayal stalks and haunts.
It turns the past into a long series of questions and doubts.
Betrayal isolates.
It takes to the end of a long lonely dirt road and unceremoniously dumps us
without provisions or promise of help in the valley of Achor.”
(Allender, p. 60)
There you are,
In the valley of Achor,
The place of trouble,
Of pain, hurt, suffering and tears.
You’re like Job sitting dazed and confused,
And you have those 3 questions
Doubt is eating way at faith.
Faith to trust others, yourself,
Faith to trust God is ebbing away.
As doubt grows you loose perspective.
You can’t see,
There’s a sand storm in your desert.
We don’t know who we are.
Here’s the way out.
It is a hard and difficult way.
It is not an easy path.
During this journey out you will have to continually do three things.
There is the continuing action of embracing the pain,
Those 3 questions—
What’s wrong with me?
Why didn’t I see this coming?
Why did God allow this?
Seeking answers to those questions are part of embracing the
pain.
As you search for answers and as you grieve your pain,
Nurse your wounds, and cry your tears—
The desert will do its work on your soul
In the storms of the desert your presumption of independence is
stripped away.
Pride and arrogance are replaced with humility.
You’re confronted with your lack of resources,
Skills and power to handle life.
You realize that you are frail and fragile and easily broken.
In the silence of the desert you will hear your dependence on noise.
You begin to understand how trivial urgent things shout
through out your day,
attempting to drown out the whisper of God’s
voice.
You realize that the noise you’ve immersed yourself in keeps
you from dealing with the broken places in your life.
In the stillness of the desert you will see the numbing effect of
countless distractions the world offers.
You see the false idols you are trusting in.
You see how you have been self-medicating.
You will see how you’ve lost your true self
to things.
In the poverty of the desert you discover the trinkets and baubles you
Cling to for security and pleasure.
You learn that the things you treasure can not consistently give
you: acceptance, belonging, love, caring, protection,
security, companionship, intimacy,
Your props can’t define who you are,
They can’t give you value and worth—
In the barrenness of the desert you are made aware of how shallow
you’ve been living your life.
How you want easy answers.
How you have been avoiding difficult tasks.
How you have replaced image for substance.
How unsatisfying your comfort zone
is.
In the dryness of the desert you know that nothing you have can
quench your thirst.
Your waterholes and wells have run dry.
You know that you do not have the streams of
living water welling up from within you.
You know you must have God,
You must trust God, or die.
During this journey out of the Valley of Achor, out of the desert,
you will have to continually do three things.
You will have to continually be Embracing the pain,
And you will have to be continually remembering.
Betrayal, with its doubt, makes us forget the love of God.
It calls into question the goodness of God,
The plans and purpose of God.
God’s care
So we must remember the goodness and the love of God.
The Lamentations 3 Psalm 23 dance—calls us to remember,
That God writes redemption stories full of high drama.
“Drama involves a beginning, with setting, characters,
and a search or problem to be solved,
then a middle, with a plot that has tension, risk,
and then an ending that closes the story.” (Allender p. 116)
If you’ve read any of John Eldredge you know John is always asking
what sort of story have you fallen into, what part are you playing,
he wants you to see the story God is writing with your life.
“Every redemptive story has a beginning in innocence.
Has moments of tragedy that bring a rise in tension and imagination,
and a resolution that instills confidence and invigorates hope.”
(Allender p. 116)
“Drama rouses our interest as observers;
It brings our senses, passions and soul to their peak attention—
especially when it is our drama.
We are made alive,
thrown out of the predictable, safe ruts of daily existence.
In a tragic and wonderful sense,
it is suspense and drama that brings out the reality to what is in our
hearts” (Allender 117-118)
And what betrayal with its assault on faith does is cause us to forget the stories of
God’s redemption in the past.
You have a story.
It’s God’s story of your redemption.
A story of you becoming the person God created you to be.
You must remember the times in the past when like now,
Your “Peace was shattered, and the resulting doubt and confusion sent
you on a deeply personal search to make sense of it and God
lead you out to a place of resolution and joy.”
(Allender p.123)
You must remember the times when God rescued you.
When he pulled you up from the mire and set your feet on the solid
rock.
Recall His blessings,
How he has been your help in troubled times.
You’re in the valley of Achor:
Remember--
Lamentations 3:21-26 (NLT)
Yet I still
dare to hope when I remember this:
The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his
faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord
is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!” The Lord is good to those who
depend on him, to those who search for him. So it is good to wait quietly for
salvation from the Lord.
During this journey out of the Valley of Achor, out of the desert,
you will have to continually do three things.
You will have to continually be Embracing the pain,
You will have to be continually remembering.
And you will have to be continually forgiving your
betrayer.
This I think is the most difficult part of this journey.
I don’t want to forgive my betrayer I want God to smite my betrayer.
I want God to take my brother or sister in Christ and beat the living tar
out of em.
And if they are not a brother or sister I want God to cast
them into hell.
I don’t want to forgive, I want revenge or at least vindication.
I want every one to know what a villain my betrayer is
And I want God to take action against them now.
But that’s not the way of a disciple of Jesus.
Matthew 5:43-45 (NCV)
“You have heard that it was said, ’Love your neighbor and hate your enemies.’ But I say to you, love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you. If you do this, you will be true children of your Father in heaven.
The only way I know that you can love a betrayer is to forgive them.
Forgiving is not about pretending the betrayal didn’t happen.
Forgiving is not glossing over the offense.
Forgiving is not saying let bygones be bygones.
Forgiving is not asking to be friends again.
Forgiveness is canceling the debt the betrayer owes you.
If you have read the Shack—it was an act of forgiveness that brought
the story to a righteous conclusion.
When you have been betrayed, the debt that is owed is huge.
Most often I have found that the betrayer will never own up to what
they did.
It is indeed a rare thing when a betrayer will truly repent, make
restitution and go through the incredibly difficult process of
regaining trust.
Repentance means the leopard has changed its spots.
Restitution means they make amends to give back to you what
they stole from you.
Then they have to prove themselves to be trust worthy again.
In my experience that just doesn’t happen very often.
So I can emotionally hang on to the betrayer even though we have physical
parted
demanding that things be made right.
Or I can forgive and cancel the debt.
Releasing the offender to God.
Forgive—it’s the way to get free from your betrayer.
During this journey out of the Valley of Achor, out of the desert,
you will have to continually do three things.
You will have to continually be Embracing the pain,
You will have to be continually remembering.
And you will have to be continually forgiving your
betrayer.
In the words of those theologians from the 60’s
“You know it don’t come easy”
It is a difficult dance to learn.
A hard song to sing.
And if you are in the valley right now,
If you are in the desert, it seems impossible.
But let me assure you,
In the desert God will do incredible things for you if you embrace your pain,
remember your stories and forgive your betrayer.
Hosea 2:14-15 (NLT)
I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there. I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.
Faith Hope and love, what we need to live our lives to the full.
We have seen how betrayal is Satan’s counter attack to faith.
And now you know how to fight this battle.
Next time we will look to see how Satan tries to counter hope,
And replace it with despair.
I have another homework assignment for you.
Last week I asked you to read and mediate on Lamentations 3 and Psalm 23
and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the song, the dance.
This week I want you to take our third question.
Why did God allow this to happen to me?
Read the story of Joseph. Genesis chapters 39 -50
And if you don’t have time to read the story at least read
Genesis 50:20
Genesis 50:20 (NLT)
You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.
Then transform the question to this:
What good has God worked out of my difficult journeys in the past?
You recall a desert time in your life—
What good came of it?
Please be prepared to tell us next week.
Let’s pray