Feeling Forsaken?

1. Forsaken

At the age of 41,Elizabeth Barrett became the wife of Robert Browning, the famous English poet. Her father, a widower, disowned her. He objected to the marriage and disowned her simply because he didn’t want any of his children to leave home and break up the family! Elizabeth’s biographer wrote that her father “ruthlessly sought to obliterate every trace of his daughter.”

Elizabeth and Robert Browning moved to Italy where they lived for five years. Elizabeth wrote hundreds of letters to her father hoping to soften his heart. Almost every week she wrote telling him how much she loved him and how she longed for reconciliation. He never answered her. Returning to England Elizabeth sought, through intermediaries, to restore the relationship. Her father steadfastly refused, deciding instead, to carry his bitterness to the grave.

Shortly after Elizabeth had arrived back in England, Mr. Barrett sent a package to her. It contained every letter she had written him during her five year absence. The letters were all sealed and unopened. She resigned herself to the inevitable end, and once again left England. Forsaken by her father whom she loved was more than she could bear.

Forsaken. “It is one of the most haunting words of human life and one of the most dreadful of human experiences. This dreaded word recalls for many an ocean of tears, heartache, bitter disappointment, blighted hopes and unbearable loneliness.”

2. There are times that we may feel God is illusive and distant, silent and uncaring (Psalm 22.1ff)

3. Psalm 27.7-9

7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry aloud;

be gracious to me and answer me!

8 You have said, “Seek my face.”

My heart says to you,

“Your face, LORD, do I seek.”

9 Hide not your face from me.

Turn not your servant away in anger,

O you who have been my help.

Cast me not off; forsake me not, O God of my salvation!

4. The truth – Psalm 27.10; (Matthew 28.20; Hebrews 13.5)

10 For my father and my mother have forsaken me,

but the LORD will take me in.

5. In what ways is he with us?

I. God Is Our Life Giver – Acts 17.26-28a

26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, 28 for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

A. Life in the Physical Realm

1. Creation

2. History of Nations

B. Life in the Eternal Realm – In Him we live, move, have our being

1. His Nearness in Life

2. His Source of Life – In Him

a. The way in – Galatians 3.26-27

b. A New Birth – John 3.3, 5

c. A New Life – Romans 6.1-4

II. God Is Our Freedom Giver – Galatians 4.6-7

6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

A. The Significance of Family – Sons/Children of God

1. The Common Connector – SPIRIT of the SON

2. Brings familiarity – Abba Father – just like Jesus – Mark 14.36

And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

B. The Satisfaction of Freedom

1. Children, not slaves

2. The Father reinstating the Prodigal (Luke 15.21-24) [How did the son act after he was restored?

21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.

III. God Is Our Peace Giver – Ephesians 2.14-18

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.