Faith , Hope, Love #3 Despair
From our study to this point we know that
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.
1 Corinthians 13:12-13 (NLT)
Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
We know we have an enemies that seeks to turn our faith into doubt,
Our hope into despair and our love into ambivalence.
When faith, hope and love are attacked,
We find ourselves in the Valley of Achor, the place of trouble,
We find ourselves in the desert wilderness.
We learned about the power of the desert,
It breaks you to remake you.
We learned about drama, and the story God is writing with our lives.
We learned that when faith is assaulted there are three things you must
continually do to find the route out of your desert.
During this journey out of the desert,
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.
Today I want us to focus on the Satan’s counter attack on our hope.
Faith, hope and love are interconnected and grow out of one another.
Faith is trust and confidence in God.
That trust and confidence convinces us that God has good things in
store for us.
Faith believes the God’s promise through the prophet Jeremiah.
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
That faith is the basis for our hope.
Hope empowers us to move ahead, sometimes against all odds.
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Last week I gave you a home work assignment.
I asked you to transform our third question—
“Why did God allow this to happen to me?”
To
“What good has God worked out of my difficult journeys in the past?”
If you gave this any thought during the week and have an
answer for me—I’d love to hear it.
Testimonies
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.
----
As you embrace your pain, remember your story and forgive your offender,
You allow God to strengthen your faith.
Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)
Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.
If I have faith, then I will hope if I do not have faith,
then I am not likely to expect a good tomorrow.”
(Allender, The Healing Path p. 139)
If the enemy can’t destroy your faith,
hope is the next place an attack will come.
The counter attack on hope comes in the form of a loss and failure
that brings with it a sense of powerlessness.
You know that hope is the power to proceed on faith’s vision.
Faith envisions a future, hope powers us to lean into it.
The more we hope, the more we lean into the future,
With anticipation of the joy to come. (Allender, p. 26)
God gives us many promises that we can hope in—
I want to share with you some of my favorites
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV)
For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Romans 8:28-29 (NLT)
And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
Philippians 4:13 (NLT)
For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
Revelation 21:4-5 (NIV)
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"
For me those promises empower me to keep on keeping on.
“We move into the future not with a map, …
but with the whisper” of hope in “the goodness of God.”
(Allender, p. 147)
If Satan can replace hope with despair,
Then you will not move forward.
You will find it easier to hunker down in whatever comfort zone you
can find.
You will seek to control what little you think you can.
You won’t dare to risk.
You will settle for the status quo.
Loss and failure is Satan’s counter attack against your hope.
Loss and failure lead to despair.
Despair causes a power outage—
You feel helpless to effect a change in your situation or
improve your circumstances.
You’ve tried and failed.
So you quit trying, you give yourself up to apathy.
Your dreams are disintegrating around you.
You can’t right the wrongs,
You can’t fix what’s broken.
The boss says you’re fired,
The doctor says incurable
The banker says broke,
Your spouse says goodbye
“The world compels you to make bricks with less and less straw.”
(Allender, p. 70)
The teacher says fail.
The friends say freak.
The parent says not now
The application is denied.
So much stuff is out of your control.
“We live in a world where floods, earthquakes, thieves and bacteria
break into our existence and we are powerless to stop them.”
(Allender, p 72)
When it seems like there is nothing you can do.
The temptation is to give up.
There you are again, in the desert.
This time caught up in despair.
Sitting under a broom tree, just wishing you were dead. {pic of tree}
1 Kings 19:3-5 (NIV)
Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. …he went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, LORD," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep.
There are three dead ends that a desert of despair encourages you to walk.
The first dead end is to take upon your self the roll of the Martyr.
The martyr attempts to gain power through silence, service and suffering.
The silence is a barrier the martyr builds so that they can not receive
empathy or words of encouragement.
They are not going to talk about their problems.
There is nothing you can do to help them anyway,
They try to bury their problems in the desert.
They refuse to listen, they refuse to be taught.
Nobody knows the trouble they have seen.
The service they perform comes with an unstated obligation to those being
Served. (Allender)
Without ever asking for it the martyr demands reciprocity.
This really blind sides the one being served.
They have no idea that the debt the martyr expects
them to pay back continues to grow.
They send past due notices in guilt, and shame.
The public suffering is so that the martyr can blame everyone for their lack
Of caring, their thoughtlessness, for not coming to their rescue.
Can’t you see my pain, why don’t you do something about it.
Ever run into anybody like that.
It because Satan has stolen their hope and left them powerless.
The path of the martyr is a dead end when it comes to routes
out of the desert.
The second dead end is to take upon yourself the roll of the gangsta.
You put a chip on your shoulder and invite violence.
Violence is an effort to restore pride and a sense of personal power.
You dis’in me?
The gansta can take the form of the bully,
The yelling parent,
The verbally abusive spouse.
They try to mock what they are unable to achieve by
creating chaos. (Allender)
The gangsta feels powerless to change his or her world.
So they try to drag others down with them into their hopeless state.
Ever run into anybody like that.
It because Satan has stolen their hope and left them powerless.
The path of the gangsta is a dead end when it comes to routes
out of the desert.
The third dead end is to take upon yourself the roll of disengagement.
Despair has swallowed up their dreams,
So they disengage.
They flee from this world and fantasize about a better day
without doing anything to turn those dreams into a
reality.
One day the ship will pull in,
Prince Charming will arrive,
You’ll hit the lotto—
But until then its romance novels or sports games.
The disengaged choose to live their lives vicariously through others.
Ever run into anybody like that.
It because Satan has stolen their hope and left them powerless
The path of the disengaged is a dead end when it comes to
routes out of the desert.
The paths of the martyr, the gangsta and the disengaged lead nowhere,
You really want to go.
There is a way out of the desert of despair but it isn’t easy.
Three things that you must be doing to leave a desert of despair
Grieving your loss.
Sometimes what we lost is very obvious,
A loved one, a friendship, security, a parent, a job, an opportunity.
Sometimes what we lost is hidden to us.
It happened long ago, in our family of origin.
Parental abandonment to drugs and alcohol.
Abuse in any of its forms.
You have to ask yourself—
What did I loose?
What did I fail at?
To grieve you first must evaluate and know what you
lost, why you failed.
Then grieving is expressing your feelings about your loss or failure.
(H. Norman Wright, Experiencing Grief, p. 18)
Grieving requires two—
One who speaks and one who listens.
The speaker pours out their agony,
The listener mourns with their friend.
Your feelings are often one of protest at the loss.
You want what happened not to have happened.
You tell about the effects this loss is having on you.
Grieving allows you to enter fully into your sorrow.
You ask tough questions, painful questions, questions that have no answer:
How can God be good, and kind and compassionate and allow this to
have happened to me?
Job 17:11 (NLT)
My days are over. My hopes have disappeared. My heart’s desires are broken.
In that sorrow and suffering of grief
Fear and anxiety may grip your heart
Guilt may become an uninvited guest
You must tell another of your pain.
And I think you will be angry at God
Psalms 77:4-9 (NLT)
You don’t let me sleep. I am too distressed even to pray! I think of the good old days, long since ended, when my nights were filled with joyful songs. I search my soul and ponder the difference now. Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be kind to me? Is his unfailing love gone forever? Have his promises permanently failed?9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he slammed the door on his compassion?
Grieving and mourning a loss takes time,
You just don’t get over it,
You just don’t snap out of it.
It takes as long as it takes until you can bear the pain and
function at the same time.
Some losses will always hurt.
But eventually you will be able to put a new
and much different life together.
Psalms 30:5 (NLT)
Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning.
Sometimes the night is very long, and the morning very slow in coming.
“Everyone needs to talk, to rage, to weep with others who are unafraid of the
depths of loss,” that you have experienced. (Allender, p. 146)
Three things that you must be doing to leave a desert of despair
Grieving your loss
And Admitting your Discontent
Discontent.
You can’t escape the desert of despair if you are committed to comfort.
(Allender, p. 149)
It started out like any other day,
But by the end of the day,
Job had lost his health, his wealth, his reputation, and his family.
He grieves
Job 1:20 (NLT)
Job stood up and tore his robe in grief.
Job 16:12-17 (NLT)
I was living quietly until he shattered me. He took me by the neck and broke me in pieces. Then he set me up as his target, and now his archers surround me. His arrows pierce me without mercy. The ground is wet with my blood. Again and again he smashes against me, charging at me like a warrior. I wear burlap to show my grief. My pride lies in the dust. My eyes are red with weeping; dark shadows circle my eyes. Yet I have done no wrong, and my prayer is pure.
Some believers use scripture to torture themselves with.
The circumstance is loss or failure and they tell themselves that the should
be joyful.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NIV)
Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
I don’t see a joyful Job.
Job 6:2-3 (NLT)
If my misery could be weighed and my troubles be put on the scales, they would outweigh all the sands of the sea.
I see a man who is not content to let the dust settle.
He admits his discontent with God and he wants answers.
Job 7:20 (NLT)
If I have sinned, what have I done to you, O watcher of all humanity? Why make me your target? Am I a burden to you?
Job 10:1-3 (NLT)
Let me complain freely. My bitter soul must complain. I will say to God, ‘Don’t simply condemn me— tell me the charge you are bringing against me. What do you gain by oppressing me? Why do you reject me, the work of your own hands…
Discontent with what has happened drives Job to loudly protest his situation.
Job wants an answer—
He desperately wants an audience with God.
Nothing is going to satisfy him until he has a face to face with
God
Job 13:15 (NLT)
I am going to argue my case with him.
Admitting your disconnect over the loss, the failure, the injustice of your situation
drives you to God for an answer.
In your discontent you dare God to show up and give you an account
of what He has allowed to happen.
You demand an audience.
Job gets his audience with God.
Chapters 38 through 41—God comes, God doesn’t answer Job’s question,
But instead gives Job exactly what he needs—
An opportunity to surrender to God.
Surrender frees us to admit our powerlessness, our emptiness, our vulnerability and
our hunger for easy street, rose gardens, worldly prosperity.
(Allender p. 153)
The struggle with discontent leads us to a place of surrender
“Surrender is turning over all that we are to God’s mercy.
It is laying down our arms and confessing that his power and glory
outnumber our puny resources. (Allender p. 153)
Surrender convinces us that if we don’t cling to Him,
we fall.
Three things that you must be doing to leave a desert of despair
Grieving your loss
Admitting discontent,
And Taking risks
Risk taking—
That feels so counter intuitive when you are in the desert of despair.
Risk means you open your self up for another loss,
Another possibility of failure.
Here’s a risk—Connecting with others.
Here’s the risk—God is true to His promises.
To take that risk, one has to have the faith of at least a mustard seed.
Which is just a small speck of faith.
Enough to trust that in spite of what has happened,
God will redeem all things.
Job put it this way:
Job 19:25-27 (NLT)
“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself. Yes, I will see him with my own eyes. I am overwhelmed at the thought!
We shape our present in light of the eternity we anticipate. (Allender, p75)
When we dare to anticipate a good ending to our story,
Hope begins to overcome despair.
As we anticipate a good ending
we are not recasting the present in terms of how we want the world to be
(that is illusion),
nor are we reordering our lives to add new elements and delete the ones we
don’t want (that is delusion).
Instead, holding reality firm in the grip of unflinching honesty we risk
believing that God will bring peace and joy back into our life.
(Allender, p. 155)
The thought encourages you to risk trying
to look beyond what “is” to what “will one day be,”
(Allender, p. 153)
God gives you a glimpse of not merely rebuilding,
but filling a life full of even more purpose and meaning than existed
before your loss. (Allender, p. 137)
And all of a sudden there is a glimmer of hope in our despair.
Hope takes the experience of loss and failure with its powerlessness and
despair
And uses it as the raw material for writing a new and unexpected story,”
that ends well. (Allender, p. 137)
Slowly, ever so slowly your
Grieving your loss
Admitting discontent,
And Taking risks—
Births a hope that grows to devour despair.
IF today you are deep in the desert of despair—
Start taking that route out.
Satan has lied to you and said you are powerless.
But you are not.
You can start today on the route out.
Whenever I find my hope being attacked,
When I find my self in the desert of despair
I like to recall Habakkuk,
Today it just might be God’s Word to you.
Habakkuk 3:17-19 (MSG)
Though the cherry trees don't blossom and the strawberries don't ripen, Though the apples are worm-eaten and the wheat fields stunted, Though the sheep pens are sheepless and the cattle barns empty, I'm singing joyful praise to God. I'm turning cartwheels of joy to my Savior God. Counting on God's Rule to prevail, I take heart and gain strength.