Forsaken For Us

Forsaken For Us Life Swap

3/12/2021 1 Samuel 19:1-10 Matthew 26:36-45

We are in part 2 of our series Life-Swap in which we are acknowledging that Jesus voluntarily took our place and had things happen to him that rightfully should have happened to us. There four messages are Betrayed For Me, Forsaken For Me, Accused for Me, Punished For Me, and Alive in Me.

Suppose you were on trial facing a death sentence for a murder you did not commit. The one person who could prove your innocence was a childhood best friend. You had helped your friend out many times over the years. The two of you swore a bond to always be there for each other in a time of need.

As a matter of fact on the day of the murder, the two of you had been together fishing on the lake twenty miles away from where the murder occurred. But before you were arrested your friend had left the country. So your sole alibi was gone.

The trial is going on and the evidence against you is mounting up. You fit the description of the prosecutor’s only witness. Your lack of being able to find your friend only makes you seem more likely to be guilty.

You are praying for a miracle. Then your lawyer locates your friend, and comes back to you with the news that he’s made contact. You get all excited, and then you lawyer says, “your friend refuses to testify on your behalf. He said if I put him on the stand, he will deny that you were there with him.”

How are you feeling inside at this point when you think of all the times you were there for your friend? Betrayed, Forsaken, Alone. What about when you hear the verdict guilty as charged.

Would you voluntarily choose to endure and accept these feelings knowing that it was going to cost you’re your life.

Sometimes, being forsaken by someone we have invested in can be one of the most painful experiences we have to endure. There are parents who feel forsaken by their children. Now that they have grown older and can’t do for themselves, their adult children don’t want to be bothered with them.

There are spouses who feel forsaken by the other person. After all they did, the other person either left, or has so beaten them down in the relationship that though they are still married and are together they are feeling forsaken. There are children who know, their parent’s drug habits or boyfriend or girlfriend mean far more than they do. They are forsaken in their own homes.

There are plenty of reasons to feel forsaken. Investing 25 years of our lives in a job only to be let go because the company was sold. Staying in a bad relationship for years hoping to one day get married, only to hear the other person say I found somebody new. Being found guilty of a crime you didn’t do only to have friends believe you did it.

Investing in people in the church only to have them turn and walk away from the faith. Thinking someone truly was your friend or truly cared about you only to discover they were using you for their own purposes. As a child of God, one of the things that will happen more than once in your life, is that you will be in a spot where you feel forsaken. You will feel as though you are all by yourself.

In our Old Testament reading, David had done everything that he could to help King Saul. He risked his life going into battle again and again to strengthen Saul’s kingdom. King Saul would sometimes have an evil spirit come upon him, and the only way to relieve his suffering was to have some beautiful music played on the harp. David was a gifted musician, and this mighty warrior humbled himself to just play the harp to help King Saul refresh himself.

David was basically surrendering his life for Saul, and yet one day while he was playing the harp, Saul took a spear and tried to kill David with it. He charged at David with the spear, and David moved in time so that the spear went into the wall. David escaped with his life.

He didn’t know where to run or to whom to turn. He had to have felt forsaken. He had been praying for years that God would touch Saul’s heart, and see that David had no bad intentions. Yet God had been silent on answering His prayer. As a matter of fact, the more David prayed, the worse Saul seemed to have gotten in his anger and hatred toward him.

We do not voluntarily enter into a situation in which we know we are going to be forsaken. As a matter of fact, if most of us knew what was going to happen before hand, we would have chosen to do things differently.