Hebrews 12:1-2- Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Each of us has people we look up to, people we admire, people we consider mentors. When we don’t get affirmation from those people or when we are hurt or disappointed by them it opens the door to possible wounds and disillusionment. I want us to consider a few Bible characters and how they responded to people who disappointed them. First up are Saul and David.
God had rejected Saul as king and was going to replace him. He told the prophet Samuel to anoint David to be the next king of Israel. Although the anointing transpired when David was about 15, God didn’t just move Saul off the throne. It was about 15 years before David took the throne. Do you ever wonder why God seems to take his sweet time sometimes?
Well, during that time, Saul started investing in David. He brought him to the palace to live. David would play the harp in Saul’s presence to calm him down whenever evil spirits would be at work in him. Yes, that was a real thing. I am sure David could see how getting to live in the palace was all just training for the day he would take over.
David killed the giant, Goliath, and it was a great victory for Israel. He actually wound up marrying one of Saul’s daughters which made Saul his father-in-law! David also became best friends with Jonathan, Saul’s son. You would think if any conflict would occur there would be hostility between Jonathan and David as it would be natural for Jonathan to think he should ascend to the throne, but that wasn’t the case. They were true friends.
Even though David posed no real threat to King Saul, Saul was jealous of David and the following David had for killing Goliath, and also for slaying 200 Philistines after that. Saul hated David because he could see an anointing on David’s life that he knew he, himself didn’t possess. Jealousy will cause people to do all kinds of crazy. So, Saul started hunting David down to try to kill him. It was attempt after attempt. David lived as a man on the run. The man who should have mentored him was trying to kill him, and that man was his father-in-law!
David had two easy opportunities to kill Saul, and no one would have blamed him if he had taken either one of them. Look at I Samuel 24 as we hear the words of David as he speaks to Saul the first time he could have killed him: 10 Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the Lord gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, ‘I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the Lord‘s anointed.’ 11 See, my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand. For by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, you may know and see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it. 12 May the Lord judge between me and you, may the Lord avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you.
Notice how David addressed Saul in verse 11. “My Father” Do you think if someone had been hunting you like an animal and trying to kill you that you would view them in a fatherly way? Yet that is how David addressed Saul. Maybe David still was hopeful that things could turn around.
Just try to put yourself in David’s mindset. Do you think he stayed awake at night and wondered what he had done to Saul to deserve such treatment? Do you think the two times he could have killed Saul, but didn’t were his attempt to prove his love for Saul and faithfulness to him? Do you think David thought, “Now surely Saul will see I am not a threat. Now surely, he will see I am not trying to take the Kingdom from him by force. Now surely, he will see I am willing to wait my turn. Surely, he will quit seeking my life.”
We do that sometimes, don’t we? We work and work and try to think of things we can do to get into someone’s good graces, to make someone like us, to prove our love for someone and sometimes we find ourselves disappointed over and over again. Sometimes we set ourselves up for rejection after rejection.
Saul did acknowledge David’s goodness when David spared his life that first time, but he didn’t give up the hunt. Saul hunted David and tried to kill him for months and years. Couldn’t David have just claimed self-defense if he took Saul out? David had been anointed the next King of Israel. Wouldn’t he be “helping” God by getting Saul out of the way? During the second opportunity David had to kill Saul, God had put Saul and his men into a deep sleep. He could have claimed it was God’s will for him to kill Saul, like God had set it up.
David had many “reasons” to justify Saul’s murder, but he didn’t act on any of those reasons. He declared to trust the Lord to remove him at the right time, I Samuel 26:9-11. David wasn’t going to take matters into his own hands. He was going to leave Saul in God’s hands. That is the best thing we can do whether we are hunted or hurt by someone. We can choose to leave the other person in God’s hands.
David did all he could do to be helpful to Saul, to prove himself and his loyalty to Saul, and it still wasn’t enough. Listen, there will be many times when you are hurt by someone, and it has nothing to do with you or your efforts. What is happening to you is unfortunately a commentary on their insecurity, fear, or pride. It wouldn’t matter how much you offered to help them or how many times you bought them flowers or candy. Until they deal with their issues, the way they treat you and likely others won’t be changing.
In the end, David was more concerned with pleasing God than he was with getting Saul to like him. Sometimes God will allow things to play out, as He did in the case with Saul and David, to expose someone’s sins and shortcomings. It became glaringly obvious to the people in Saul’s life and to the people in the kingdom in general that Saul was a bitter and failed king. It became obvious as they watched him mistreat David that Saul needed to go. Don’t you think palace officials were thinking, “Saul, you are obsessed with killing David, but you have a kingdom to run. You have real enemies to deal with, but you are off track and ineffective because you have let jealousy take you down this one path.” How could Saul have been getting any kingly duties done when he was so obsessed with killing David? Jealousy, anger and hatred can become a dangerous distraction.
The way David behaved even when being mistreated was also on display, and his patience, faithfulness and kindness toward Saul in the face of death threats gave him big points with the people in his soon-to-be kingdom. People’s fondness for David was growing, and David was a beloved king because people knew he was a person of great integrity even in the most threatening of situations. Because David didn’t choose to retaliate God elevated him in the eyes of other people.
Every time you choose restraint in a situation, God will elevate you. That is why it is called “taking the high road!” Listen, you can look to get even through revenge, or you can get ahead by trusting God.
And David took the high road all the way to the end of his relationship with Saul. Someone else killed Saul and came bragging to David about it. I think he thought he would win a prize and a pat on the back, but that wasn’t the case. David had that man killed. He then composed a song for the people of the kingdom to sing in honor of Saul and his sons. Like he conducted a joyous funeral and eulogized Saul, lifting up only his good qualities to the people. This wasn’t a man who had harbored offense. He didn’t take this opportunity to badmouth Saul and talk about him as a bitter, mean-spirited person even after he was dead. He told the people of Israel to weep for Saul. He could have spit on his grave and said, “He got what he deserved,” but he didn’t.
You see, David had freedom to lead in a godly way during Saul’s funeral because he hadn’t harbored bad feelings about Saul along the way. He could model for the people what was the appropriate way to remember someone who had at one time been used by God to lead them. David EVEN invited Saul’s sons to hang out in the palace at mealtimes with him. He gave them land. You would think he would nothing to do with any of Saul’s relatives; that they would be “guilty by association!” But NO! This was an incredible response from a godly man. David remained loyal to Saul even after Saul died. What an absolute miracle.
God is asking us today, Will we be like the people who try to destroy us, or will we trust God to deal with them?
Why does God allow evil, wicked people to hold a leadership seat? Why doesn’t He move faster, at least faster in our estimation, to unseat those who are possessed by jealousy, anger, greed and selfishness? We have to trust that God is working out His plan over time, and that He isn’t asking for our stamp of approval on His methodology. The point is, David didn’t let someone who was actively seeking to destroy him to destroy him on the inside because He kept his eyes on the Lord.
Look at the childhood of Samuel. You can read about it in I Samuel 2-5. God put little Samuel under the watch-care and authority of a corrupt priest named Eli. He had two wicked sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who were also priests. They took offerings by manipulation and force. They were involved in sexual perversion.
How was Samuel dealing with that kind of wickedness when he was supposed to be growing up to fear and serve the Lord? The priest that was mentoring Samuel did nothing to reign in his wicked sons. Even in the midst of that mess of corruption it was said of Samuel that he ministered to the Lord before Eli (I Sam. 3:1). As I read that I get the impression that the young boy was setting the example for Eli that Eli should have been setting for him.
The Scripture tells us in I Sam. 3:1 that the Word of the Lord was rare in those days. In other words, God wasn’t speaking much or moving much among His people. Do you think that had something to do with the behavior of the spiritual leaders? Still, Samuel continued to pursue the service of the Lord. It would have been easy to be discouraged and offended and give up. He could have used “church hurt” as the reason he wanted nothing to do with the priesthood, but instead, Samuel served the Lord. Church hurt is real, and we have all experienced it, but it cannot become the reason we stop serving the Lord and His people. Yep. I said it.
There are times other people don’t make it easy to love and serve God. There are places where it isn’t easy to love and serve God, but people whose hearts belong to God will serve Him no matter who has disappointed them and no matter what the circumstances are.
Please don’t hear that God never steps in and removes wicked leadership because sometimes He does. Please don’t hear that people are never right in lovingly confronting leadership or that people should just stay wherever there is corruption. Sometimes, as God’s Spirit directs people, a change must be made, but the main point is that we don’t quit serving the Lord. We are to keep our eyes on Jesus. People will fail us. Jesus never will.
There are going to be people in every church that don’t mesh with your particular personality or sense of humor or political persuasion. God has put us together. Y’all are stuck with each other. Hallelujah!. I Corinthians 12:18 says, But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. We embrace all those God sends because we very literally believe He is strategically bringing people to this body that have gifts, talents, and resources that will help us carry out our God-given mission. Everyone is here for a reason.
Do you know what the devil wants more than anything for TVCOG? He wants to cause offense between brothers and sisters in Christ. If God has planted you here, that means He has a purpose for you here. The devil wants you uprooted from that purpose. Not only are you to contribute to the mission God has given us as you worship here, but you are to grow in the Lord here. Psalm 92:13 says, “They are planted in the house of the Lord; they flourish in the courts of our God.” Plants need to put down roots. People need to put down spiritual roots. So let me offer two kinds of people who could be open to offense and the trap of the devil:
The first are Church hoppers. People who go from church to church a few months here a few months there. They aren’t staying one place long enough to put down spiritual roots. Spiritual roots involve spiritual friendships. We are to grow spiritually, and as we do, we are to grow together in spiritual friendships. We will never feel like we “belong” somewhere and can contribute to the mission if we don’t put down spiritual roots.
Second are Occasional Attenders. People who just come every once-in-a-while and don’t get an opportunity to know people and see people in various settings in the life of the church, could be quick to judge and do so inaccurately. When you know people and love people in relationship, it is easier to overlook an offense, to give the benefit of the doubt, to offer grace. When you don’t, it is easier to judge someone’s motive and be offended.
We need to go deep with people. We need to go deep with the Word of God. Psalm 119:165 says, “Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them.” (KJV) If we choose to get saturated in the Word of God, we can shake off offense and keep serving. If we live out the Word, we will put down spiritual roots! Roots connect us to God for sure, but they also connect us to each other.
As we put down spiritual roots, together, our roots will start intertwining, making us stronger as a church. As we invest in life and ministry together our roots start to crisscross each other’s underground, spiritually speaking. We start to get more and more connected to each other because our roots get intertwined. That makes it harder and harder in the storms of life to push us over or bring destruction because those connections to God and each other make us strong.
You need the people of this church, and they need you. I can’t tell you how many people I have talked to who tell me the reason they no longer go to church is because someone offended them somehow at some point and they lost their faith in God and in their desire to go to church. I see a lot of spiritual wanderers out there who haven’t grown in the Lord because they have been disconnected from a local body of believers.
Remember Cain and Able? The first two offspring of Adam and Eve? They both brought offerings to the Lord. Cain’s offering was based on his self-efforts and works. Abel’s offering was a sacrificial kind of offering. Abel’s offering was accepted. Cain’s was rejected. Cain was offended because Abel had done things right. Imagine that. Being offended by someone obeying the Lord! It happens!
God tried to talk to Cain about what made for an acceptable sacrifice and gave Cain an opportunity to give an acceptable sacrifice. But Cain didn’t repent and learn and grow from the situation. Instead, he murdered his brother. It’s there in Genesis 4, early in the Bible to show us what could happen when we let our feelings about others and our insecurities about ourselves go unchecked.
Cain was offended because his offering was rejected by God. Rather than learn and understand the reason why God didn’t accept his offering and repent and grow, he received a curse and became a wanderer. Cain lost his land and his livelihood. By carrying offense Cain had cut off his ability to produce fruit.
The person who carries offense, the person who lives for revenge, has a bitter heart. Bitterness inhibits our ability to bear fruit. When we aren’t fruit-bearing Christians we are just sort of wandering through life like Cain.
Notice what Cain said back to God after the curse was pronounced: 13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14 Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
Cain believed from that point on that everyone was out to get him. He developed a persecution complex. The same can be true today for many people. Offended people often believe everyone is out to get them. They have difficulty trusting anyone. As a result, they become loners, wanderers, and live disconnected from the Body of Christ. How can we intentionally disconnect from the Body of Christ and not see how that causes a disruption in our relationship with God who is the Head of His Body?
God didn’t create us to be wanderers. He created us to live together and grow together. God wants us to be active members of His family, and not wanderers. What are the takeaways from this message?
- Whether the person you want affirmation from is good to you or not, don’t fall into the revenge trap. Trust God to deal with them.
- Whether someone in spiritual authority does things right by you or not, don’t let a human failure become a commentary on God’s character and disrupt your personal service to God. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Don’t elevate any leader to a place where you would give up on Jesus if they fall.
- Don’t let someone else’s offering, someone else’s gift, get in the way of you offering your best to the Lord. Jealousy and comparison are traps the devil sets to keep you from living to honor God.
Choose to trust God with people and circumstances that are difficult. Give grace upon grace, and have loving and honest conversations when necessary, but above all, stay fixed on Jesus.
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