Hit By Friendly Fire: What To Do When Christians Hurt You...Continued from page 1

Interrupted by God

I do sermon planning, and then I do sermon preparation. In sermon planning, I seek to plan over a period of time, such as a year, and seek the Lord to take us through books or chapters of the Bible. Then, week-to-week, I do sermon preparation ? based upon the planning ? where I actually prepare for the sermon coming up. Between series on books or chapters, I bring you single sermon messages, like last week and like today. I thought I knew where I was going in this single sermon. But between the planning and the preparation, God interrupted my life. And that is the way it should be. So I believe this message has come from the Lord.

I would characterize this message as a pastoral sermon ? that is, a sermon drawn from Scripture to address a need I see in the lives of our people. I have not seen this need just in this congregation or in any single person here or even in my life. I see this as a universal need in the lives of Christians . . . and, I must say, in the lives of non-Christians. It is the matter of being hurt by one you love. It is the matter of seeing yourself as a victim ? or not ? in that process. Let me tell you how God brought this to me, and then I want to address it from God’s Word.

I like to joke that the way I live my life is just to let women tell me what to do and do it. I joke, but it is true. My beloved wife runs my schedule before 7:00 a.m. and after 6:00 p.m., and Mrs. Miller, my secretary, runs my schedule in between. I simply seek to be obedient. But men, that is another sermon.

Well, one day, not too long ago, Mrs. Miller told me what my schedule looked like that particular day. Among other appointments, I was to see three different families. None of them were from our church, or even from our city for that matter. Without going into detail, let me also say they were all in ministry.

The first began to tell me their story. But soon the words, going nowhere as far as I could tell, ended in tears. Then they said it, “We have been hurt by other Christians.” I spent no small amount of time with them. I brought them to God’s Word, and we spent time together seeking the truths of Scripture. Our time was over.

Then came the second family. They began a rambling story that got more complicated as they went. I slowed them down and tried to help them identify the heartache. They had been betrayed by another believer. I was amazed. Two appointments, two identical issues. But my amazement would not be complete.

The third person came in. I was almost ready to say, “Alright, so how were you hurt by another believer?” But he told me his concern was about a vocational decision. I thought, Ok, great, this is not a trend. We spoke about his vocational crisis ? seeking God’s will on what to do with his life. Finally, holding back tears, he interrupted our flow of talk with the real hurt, “I am in this fix because another Christian hurt me!”