Faith Hope Love #1
1 Corinthians 13:13 (NIV)
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Faith is belief that moves us to action.
Hope is power to proceed.
Love is the fuel of life.
And it all rises and falls on relationships.
And with faith, hope and love, we live our lives to the fullest.
A year ago Carol was diagnosed with breast cancer.
Today Carol is cancer free, but still undergoing therapy and recovering from
The effects of chemo.
It has been a difficult journey.
There are some Christians who believe that sickness, or hard times,
is the result of sin.
When things aren’t going right there is an Achan in the camp
And for those of you who do not know about what happened to
Joshua’s army because of the disobedience of a man named
Achan, you can read about it in the 6th book of the Old
Testament, Joshua chapter 7.
There are some Christians who interpret 3 John verse 2 to mean that it is
God’s will that you are healthy and well.
3 John 1:2 (NIV)
Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.
If you are not healthy or well—God is punishing you.
But if you recall when we studied the book of Job together,
Sin is not the only reason for a difficult journey.
God never promised any of use a rose garden,
An easy carefree existence of Hallelujah’s, Praise the Lord’s, and prayers
answered the way you want.
Christianity is not about worldly prosperity.
Sometimes we experience difficult times, sometimes we suffer.
If you think that suffering has no part in the Christian experience then let me just
remind you of the experience of Jesus.
1 Peter 2:21-23 (MSG)
This is the kind of life you've been invited into, the kind of life Christ lived. He suffered everything that came his way so you would know that it could be done, and also know how to do it, step-by-step. He never did one thing wrong, Not once said anything amiss. They called him every name in the book and he said nothing back. He suffered in silence, content to let God set things right.
Do you know its ok to suffer?
Do you know its ok to grieve?
Do you know its ok to hurt?
Do you know its ok to cry?
We put on these masks that look like everything is ok.
I’m getting over it, no big deal, I put it behind me.
Praise the Lord anyway.
I’m making it.
But inside faith hope and love
“The confidence of faith,
The dynamic of hope
The passion of love” (Allender, The Healing Path p. 18)
Is being eroded away by “doubt, despair and disappointment”
(Allender, p. x)
As doubt, despair and disappoint grow ,
I become joyless, isolated and powerless,
I’m defeated, a victim.
You’ve experienced difficult journeys.
M. Scott Peck in his book “The Road Less Traveled” chapter 1 first sentence
writes: “Life is difficult”
Dan Allender writes “To live is to hurt” (Allender, p.4)
Jesus said:
John 16:33 (NIV)
“…In this world you will have trouble…”
And you have an enemy
Satan who seeks to devour relationships
Who whispers in your ear:
“If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy,
and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished.
But the creatures are not happy.
Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both”
(CS Lewis, The Problem of Pain p. 23)
Or as a Junior High student once put it—
“If God loves me why can’t I get my locker open?”
“We start to lose faith:
How could God allow this to happen to me?
Doubt starts to grow.
We start to lose hope:
How can I ever be the same after this hurt?
Despair starts to grow
We start to lose love:
How can I give and receive when so much has been lost?” (Allender, p. ix)
Disappointment starts to grow
The difficult journey,
Walking the Via Dolorosa, the way of suffering
has the potential to heal you or harden you.
It will harden you if you attempt to do an end run around the pain.
It will soften, break, mold and heal you
if you choose to take sorrow and suffering by the hand and
embrace the pain that we find in the damage of our past,
the struggles of the present and
our fears of the future.
To embrace the pain is the path of healing the hurt.
Next couple of weeks I want you to walk with me into the Valley of Achor,
The place of trouble. [read Joshua 7]
I want you to walk with me into the desert of pain, and hurt and suffering.
For its in the Valley of Achor, that God can help us to defeat
“doubt, despair and disappointment”
And return to us faith hope and love.
It’s a frightening place to be,
But I suspect that many of you are already there.
You’ve just put a spin on it so you don’t have to notice.
“…Many of us are carrying deep hurts simply because human beings inflict
harm on each other, whether intentionally or unintentionally,
provoked or unprovoked.” (Allender p. 5)
But we don’t deal with them, we don’t embrace the pain, and
therefore we can not embrace our healing.
I suspect that many of you are in the valley of Achor, in the desert,
And you’ve chosen another route out rather than to embrace the pain.
Some of you may have taken the Cynics Route.
The cynic says: “Life is a long hard struggle, then you die.” (Allender, p.8)
The cynic says: “You’re born naked, cold and wet, then things get worse.”
The cynic says: “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”
The cynic sees: “the crucifixion but fails to see the resurrection.” (Allender, p.9)
The cynic sees: The dark lining in the silver cloud.
The mud at the end of the rainbow.
Bad things have happened before,
Bad things are happening now,
Bad things will happen in the future—
“The cynic over predict misfortune, and they are eventually correct because
nothing lasts and there is something wrong with everything in this imperfect
world.” (Allender, p.9)
The cynic expects pain and hurt, sadness and sorrow so that when it comes there is
no surprise, no being taken aback, no horror, no grief.
“see, I told you didn’t I, just a matter of time before it fell apart.”
The cynics escape route out of the desert, out of the valley of Achor is a dead end.
Then there is the fatalist’s route.
The fatalist looks at pain and hurt and suffering as inevitable
Now I have already made the case that bad things happen to good
people,
but the fatalist’s stand is that there is nothing you can do
about it.
That there is nothing you can do with it.
“just hunker down and wait for better karma.”
The fatalist handles suffering by minimizing it, shrugging shoulders,
Just letting it roll off the back,
Things are not as bad as they could be,
So focus on the good in life and do your work.
But doing nothing with your pain and hurt and suffering and tears is not the way out of the desert, a dead end if you want to leave the valley of Achor.
You might be thinking, well I’m not a cynic or a fatalist.
Can I suggest to you that sarcasm,
A lack of empathy,
Are telltale signs of walking these dead ends.
Then we have the Hero’s Route.
The hero mantra is “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
“I am the master of my own destiny.”
“I wake up every day knowing it will be a hard day,
But I know that I can shape each event to a higher purpose,
And to a better end than most people.
I am a conqueror, not a victim” (Allender p. 11)
So everybody stop whining, pull yourself up by the boot straps and just do it.
Life is an individual battle for the hero,
As they fight to defeat the trouble that has visited them,
They isolate themselves from others.
“They value sweaty, gritty performance and
perseverance.” (Allender, p. 12)
They go it alone.
But this Hero’s route, regardless of how noble,
Is just another dead end when it comes to leaving the desert,
It’s a path that doubles back on itself and
not out of the Valley of Achor.
The Cynic’s Route, The Fatalists Route, The Hero’s Route are all dead ends.
There is also the Optimist’s Route.
Pain, hurt and suffering,
well slap a smile on your face, let go and let God work things out.
He works it all for the good anyway,
So be patient in the pain,
Trust him in the hurt,
Be at peace in your suffering,
“Hang in there, it will soon work out for the best” (Allender, p. 14)
All four routes, the Cynic’s, the Fatalist’s, the Hero’s, and the Optimist,
all seek to avoid pain, hurt and suffering rather than truly dealing with it.
“The cynic avoids pain by seeing it everywhere and with everyone,
Never disappointed because they never surprised by sorrow.
The Fatalist avoids hurt by accepting it as normal,
Bad stuff happens to good people, its our lot in life.
The Hero avoids suffering by seizing it as an opportunity to grow without
ever acknowledging need or weakness.
The Optimist avoids sorrow by focusing on all the good in their lives.” (Allender, p.14)
There is a little truth in each route, but ultimately each path doesn’t take you out
To “The confidence of faith,
The dynamic of hope
The passion of love.”
To living your life to the full,
No these routes leave you with “doubt, despair and disappointment” slowly
growing like a cancer that will eventually consume your life,
destroying your relationships.
Stealing your joy.
The path out of the desert, the path out of the Valley of Achor is by embracing
your pain, your hurt, your suffering and your sorrow.
I want to compare and contrast Psalm 23 which many of you are very familiar with
and Lamentations 3 which many of you probably have never read.
Lamentations is the 25th book in the Old Testament.
Tradition hold it was written by the prophet Jeremiah
Want I want you to hear is the song that plays on the route out.
The Song of redemption is composed of the deepest strains of sorrow and a
haunting melody of hope.
I can’t fully explain this to you,
The Holy Spirit must reveal the song, with its rhythms
and harmonies, its melody it refrain.
I want you to learn dance with me
Lamentations 3:1-3 (NIV)
I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of his wrath. He has driven me away and made me walk in darkness rather than light; indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again, all day long.
Psalms 23:1 &:4 (NIV)
The LORD is my
shepherd, I shall not be in want. …I will fear no evil,
for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Lamentations 3:4-6 (NIV)
He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones. He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship. He has made me dwell in darkness like those long dead.
Psalms 23:2-3 (NIV)
He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
---
Lamentations 3:13-17 (NIV)
He pierced my heart with arrows from his quiver. I became the laughingstock of all my people; they mock me in song all day long. He has filled me with bitter herbs and sated me with gall. He has broken my teeth with gravel; he has trampled me in the dust. I have been deprived of peace; I have forgotten what prosperity is.
Psalms 23:5 (NIV)
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
---
Lamentations 3:10-12 (NIV)
Like a bear lying in wait, like a lion in hiding, he dragged me from the path and mangled me and left me without help. He drew his bow and made me the target for his arrows.
Psalms 23:6 (NIV)
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
To embrace the pain and not give into to “doubt, despair and disappointment”
But rather hold tightly to faith, hope and love,
“is not a jaunt in the park.
“It is a life-rattling,
Heart revealing journey that
takes you through danger, harm and heartache,
but ultimately leads you to a new trust,
a profound hope and
a love that can’t be scorched by assault or
destroyed by loss.” (Allender p.23)
The path out will require you to face and embrace what happened to you.
We must feel the pain to enable us to discover who we are.
We must feel our hurt to strip away our presumption of how things
should be.
We must feel our suffering to remove our self sufficiency
We must feel our sorrow so that we turn to God—
Psalms 46:1 (NIV)
God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.
On this path of embracing our pain we must come to realize that God is awfully
fond of us.
God is awfully fond of you.
Then not only will you be able to embrace your pain,
You will be able to embrace God.
At the same time,
In a dance or healing and redemption.
God longs to make your relationship with Him much more intimate,
and though He did not cause you pain, hurt, suffering and sorrow
He will use it, to draw you closer to Him.
But you will have to be His partner
Next time I want to talk to you about how betrayal, powerlessness and
ambivalence wage war against faith, hope and love.
I believe if you know your enemy and know the tactics of your enemy
you are better able to defeat your enemy.
Between now and then,
I want you to think about the Lamentations 3 Psalm 23 song.
I want you read it at least daily and think about your life.
I want you ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the truth you
need to experience from these verses of scripture.
I am going to ask you for a testimony next Sunday
What did God reveal to you through your meditation of
Lamentations 3 and Psalm 23.
So come prepared with an answer.
Now a word of encouragement before you leave today—
Before we set out together on the only route out of the desert—
Joshua 1:9 (NIV)
Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."