It’s so hard and so hurtful when we discover that people are plotting against us.  I mean – where do you turn?  Who do you talk to?  How do you respond?  

My hunch is that we’ve all been in that place at some time in our lives where people are plotting against us. You know when you just know you’re on the outer and you have this sense that people are talking behind your back and plotting and scheming. Sometimes it’s happening more inside our heads than in reality, other times it’s really happening, sometimes it’s somewhere in the middle.

It can be a tough thing, I mean we all want to be liked, we’re by and large pretty social creatures and whether it’s at work or at home or with our friends, we want to be part of that group but sometimes, for whatever reason, it doesn’t happen quite that way and we have this sense that people are plotting against us. So I thought that since it’s something we all go through at some point, why don’t we take a look at that on the program this week?

When I was a kid growing up I always felt like I was on the outer. I mean it’s tough as a teenager because when you’re a teenager, the whole peer group thing is so incredibly important. I mean for starters, all the guys had long hair in those days and my parents wouldn’t let me. I had to have short hair and I was a bit short and dumpy, I’m no sportsman I can tell you. On the other hand, I’m very academic and I’m musical, I play the piano.

I’m just not one of those people who likes being around a lot of people all the time and one of my strongest memories of those years was this sense that people were laughing at me, to my face and behind my back. I wasn’t one of the ‘in crowd’. I wasn’t one of the beautiful people. I always felt like I was on the outer and the more successful I was academically, the worse it became. I mean I was the top student at our school yet that ability somehow isolated me.

A lot of us can look back on that growing up and even more recently, this sense that people are somehow cutting us out of the loop. It might be a big thing or it might be just a small thing. It can be a huge plot, like at work. I mean I’ve worked as a consultant in over 150 or 200 organisations around the world and over a period of almost 20 years, can I tell you? I have seen a lot of plots to undermine people, to marginalise what they say, even to get rid of people. And that sort of thing doesn’t happen without that person getting a sense that somehow people are murmuring or whispering behind their back, that something’s going on, that they’re losing their supporter base.

Or maybe it’s a much smaller thing, maybe you have a friend you catch up with regularly for coffee or for lunch and all of a sudden they stop ringing you and it feels like they’re avoiding you, what’s going on?

You see it in politics, you see a leader who’s been in the top job of a political party for a long time and his or her party decides they can’t win the next election with this leader and it’s time for change. And people start counting the numbers behind the scenes and leaders start talking about the importance of loyalty.

There are so many different spheres in life where you see this. And we all know how hurtful and unsettling and isolating it is when we have this sense that people are plotting against us. Maybe it’s something you’re going through now, maybe you have this friend who’s all of a sudden dropped you like a hot potato and you feel that kind of pain and that hurt as though people are plotting against you.

This week on the program, I’d like to look at one mans story, a guy called David. He was one of the greatest leaders, possibly the greatest leader that Israel ever had. He was the King, he was God’s anointed one yet he had this problem and he writes about it, it’s kind of a prayer. You can read about it, if you have a Bible, in Psalm 31. And it’s a prayer of deliverance from his enemies. Have a listen to what he says when he’s pouring his heart out to God. He says:

God, be merciful to me because I’m distressed. My eyes are growing weak with sorrow and my soul and my body with grief. My life’s consumed by anguish and my years by groaning, my strengths failing because of my affliction and my bones are growing weak because of all of my enemies. I’m an utter contempt to my neighbours; I’m a dread to my friends, those who see me on the street run away from me. I’m forgotten by them as though I were dead. I’ve become like a broken piece of pottery for I hear the slander of me, there is terror on every side, they conspire against me, they plot to take my life.” (Psalm 31: 9-13)

Ever felt like that? Well I sure have and what I love about this is that it’s in the Bible. Here’s the greatest King Israel ever had. This man is on the Biblical ‘A’ list, he’s on top of the heap, he’s a man of faith, he’s Gods anointed leader, in fact it even says about him in the Bible, “He is a man after Gods own heart.” And the two things I love about this is firstly, he had the same problem that you and I have. I love that. And secondly, he had a normal human response, anguish, pain, that sick feeling in the stomach and that sense of isolation.

‘I’m like a broken bit of pottery lying on the pavement, they treat me as though I’m dead, I mean I hear them talking about me behind my back and this terror and the conspiring against me.’ It happens, what did he do with that? He took it to God. You see this psalm is him praying to God, he took it to God, he told God just how it was, just how it felt, how much it was hurting, his fears, his insecurities, the sense of ridicule and worthlessness and his loneliness.

You know how many people would never think of doing that? Pouring their heart out to God, ‘But, but don’t I have to clean my act up before I take it to him?’ No, that’s the whole point. Right through the Old Testament it talks about God being our helper. These Psalms, there’s 150 of them, the Book of Psalms is like the Hebrew hymn book or prayer book and people often think of it as a book mostly about praise but you know something? There are more Psalms of lament and anguish in there than there are Psalms of praise.

There’s a message in that, God is not going to fall off His twig if we come along and tell Him just how it is. He already knows just how it is, He’s God and He’s there for us to go and talk to and just pour our pain out to.

Now over the course of the rest of this week on the program, we’re going to look at God’s response and what happens in David when he does that and some wonderful things but today, I don’t know, today I just want to make this point that we can pour our pain out to God the way David did. If it’s good enough for God’s anointed King to do, it’s good enough for you and me to do. And in a sense, what we often want to do, you know when people are plotting against us and they’ve rejected us and we’re lonely and we’re hurt, we want to crawl into our little hole and die, don’t we?

We just want to do the ‘misery guts’ thing and ‘oh, this is so bad, this is hurting so much’ and we whinge and complain and wail and belly ache and we go downwards in this spiral or we come out fighting and we go and confront them, we have arguments and we carry on or we ring up friends and we whinge and complain about a person. What about just taking it to God?

Be merciful to me O Lord, I’m in distress. My eyes are growing weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life’s consumed by anguish, my years by groaning, my strengths failing me. God, I need you, I can’t do this on my own. This thing where people are conspiring against me hurts.

What about just taking it to God?!

Sometimes, people turn against us.  They undermine us or marginalise us.  And it’s a scary thing.  You look around and they seem like giants.  How do you deal with that fear?

We’re having a chat this week, on the program, about what it’s like when people are plotting against us. By and large, it’s a subject we don’t really like to talk about much because we all like to think, well we’re pretty well liked. And we want other people to think we’re pretty well liked too but there are times in our lives when others threaten who we are and what we do. Maybe we sense that we’re heading for the chop at work or maybe we’re living in threatening circumstances, politically or socially or maybe we just feel that our friends are cutting us out of the loop, ostracising us.

And you know, when people come against us like this, it really hurts, it’s painful, especially when it’s happening behind our backs where we can’t really put our fingers on it. My hunch is you know what I’m talking about, we’ve all been there and probably we’ll all travel that road again sometime. One of the hardest things to deal with is the fear, the fear of what people will say or do.

Yesterday, we looked at King David, I mean David was the greatest King of Israel, he was right at the top of the heap and yet he was going through exactly the same thing. We’re going to look at Psalm 31 where it’s a prayer, he pours his heart out to God in this Psalm and this is what he says:

 Be merciful to me O Lord, I’m in distress. My eyes are growing weak with sorrow and my soul and my body with grief. My life’s been consumed by anguish, my years by groaning and my strength fails because of my affliction, my bones are growing weak. Because of all my enemies I’m an utter contempt to my neighbours, I’m a dread to my friends, those who see me they cross to the other side of the street. I’m forgotten by them, it’s as though I were dead; I’ve become like a piece of broken pottery. I hear the slander of many, there is terror on every side, they conspire against me and plot to take my life. (Psalm 31: 9-13)

 “… there is terror on every side; they conspire against me.”

Whether that’s exactly what’s happening or whether it’s just in our imaginations or whether it’s for real or somewhere in between, the fear is overwhelming. It’s something Jesus talked to His disciples about actually because they were going to go through terrible persecution for their faith in Him. People were persecuting Jesus at the time and this is what He said to His disciples:

 A student is not above His teacher, a servant isn’t above his master. It’s enough for the student to be like his teacher and the servant like his master.

 They’re calling me the head of the household, Beelzebub; the devil. How much more are they going to have a go at you, the members of my household?” He said, “So don’t be afraid of them. There’s nothing concealed that won’t be disclosed or hidden that won’t be made known. What I tell you in the dark, speak of in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear proclaim from the roof top.

 Don’t be afraid of those who kill the body but can’t kill the soul. Instead be afraid of the one who can destroy both your soul and your body in hell. Aren’t a couple of sparrows sold for just a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father and even the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid: you’re worth a whole bunch more to Him than a tonne of sparrows. (Matthew 10:24-27)

 I love this because He’s telling them, He’s telling us, that God is in that place with us. Things that are done in the dark, murmuring behind closed doors, plots and schemes, don’t be afraid of them. Gods in this place, His light is shining yet it’s so easy to be afraid of people, what we can see. You know we see them pulling back from you, you see them talking, you get this sense that it’s happening behind your back and we get so scared, you have this sick feeling in your stomach, it dominates everything in your life, you know what I’m talking about.

It’s so easy to be afraid of people and we see them and we focus on them and we feel the pressure and the tension. Sure that can have an impact on us, maybe even a bad impact, maybe the very worst will happen. But Jesus said, ‘Look, there’s a beautiful picture here about love that I want to tell you about. You know the sparrows that are flying around out there; God knows them all by name. Aren’t you worth so much more to Him than a bunch of sparrows?’ He’s really talking about taking refuge in Gods love, even the very hairs on your head are all numbered so don’t be afraid, you’re worth so much more than any sparrow’.

Can I tell you something? I think this is something we all struggle with, we want to believe that Gods here. You know when you’re struggling with other people, when you feel threatened, when you’ve got that, your stomachs tight in a knot, we want to believe God is here, we want to believe that He loves us and that He’ll help us but the problem is, what we see and fear is the people plotting against us, we can see them, we can’t see God and yet the Son of God is saying here, ‘Look, the hairs on your head are numbered, this powerful God who created the whole universe, He’s above everything. He knows us so intimately.’

It doesn’t matter who we are, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a King David or an ordinary Joe or Mary like me, people threaten us sometimes. They threatened Jesus, they crucified Jesus and Jesus, full knowing that, is saying ‘you need to look at this from a different perspective, from God’s perspective. He has our lives in the palm of His hands, He knows all the outcomes, He knows what we can take and what we can’t and He’s the one who can give us eternal life or eternal death. That’s how powerful He is. Why wouldn’t we trust ourselves to Him? No matter what people are saying or doing or plotting or scheming, why wouldn’t we?

And amidst his pain and anguish, in Psalm 32, David writes this:

 I hear the slander of many. There’s terror on every side; they’re conspiring against me, to plot to take my life but I trust in you O Lord, I say, “You’re my God.” My times are in your hands, deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue me. Let your face shine on your servant and save me in your unfailing love. Don’t let me be put to shame O Lord for I have cried out to you but let the wicked be put to shame and lie silent in the grave. Let their lying lips be silenced for with pride and contempt they speak arrogantly against the righteous.

 It’s a beautiful prayer, David is fearing for his life. He’s a King, he’s got so many responsibilities, he had battles to fight, he had all sorts of stuff and these people are coming against him and he’s fearing for his life and there’s plotting and conspiring and isolating and hurting him and he says, ‘You know something God, I am going to trust in you because You’re my God. I know that my times are in Your hands, I know You can deliver me from my enemies, I know that You’re my God. No matter what happens Lord, let your face shine on me and save me in your unfailing love.’

That is an awesome thing; you know what David’s doing? David is taking refuge in God’s love. When everybody else is against him, he turns to God and says, ‘You’re my God and I know you love me and I am going to take refuge in You and I’m going to put my trust in You and that’s it’.

It’s a hard thing to do isn’t it? When people hurt us and when we’re afraid but can I tell you something, I’ve been there and I’ve done that, just like David, put my trust in Him and it’s the most awesome thing. God always protects us, He always looks after us and no matter what happens He’s always our God. Our life is always in His hands – the outcome is always in His hands. He is our God!

When people turn against us, what we really need is unconditional love.  Acceptance.  Knowing that there’s someone out there whose love is so rock solid – it can never be shaken.  Where do you find that these days?

This week on the program we’re chatting about that horrible feeling we get when we know that other people are murmuring behind our backs, plotting against us. It’s awful, we all know that because in some way, shape or form we’ve all been there, right? And you know when it’s the hardest? When it’s the people who are closest to you who are doing the murmuring.

It never ceases to amaze me how we people have the ability to undermine one another, to hurt one another and to harm one another by what we say. ‘Did you hear what she did? My goodness, that’s terrible.’ We just can’t seem to keep our mouths shut, is it that we somehow feel bigger and better if we can parade someone else’s failures or faults in front of other people? How do we deal with that when we’re on the receiving end of it?

The last couple of days we’ve been looking at King David, probably the greatest King that Israel ever had. I mean he was so successful, he’s a man after Gods own heart; he ruled the kingdom really well but he struggled with this, people plotting against him, plotting to take his life. You know, David was on the run for a long time from his predecessor Saul who, for years tried to kill him and then when he became King, David had lots of enemies, people who were after his throne and people who were after his kingdom.

It’s the reality of life, David went through it, Jesus certainly did, the Apostle Paul did and you and I do as well. And when we sense that people are plotting against us, that they’re cutting us out of the loop, that they’re ostracising us, this kind of fear and dread saps the life out of us. It can turn us into a nervous wreck, what do you do? Where do you go? David poured his anguish out to God, you can read about it in Psalm 31, one of the psalms from the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament but at the same time, in the middle of his human anguish, his natural response of pain and hurt, he had a few interesting things to say. This is how he starts it off, this Psalm 31:

In you O Lord I have taken refuge. Let me never be put to shame, deliver me in your righteousness. Turn your ear to me; come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge and strong fortress to save me. Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead me and guide me. Free me from the trap that is set for me for you are my refuge. Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me O Lord, the God of truth. I hate those who cling to worthless idols, I trust in the Lord. I will be glad and rejoice in your love for you saw my affliction and you knew the anguish of my soul and you have not handed me over to the enemy but you have set my feet in a spacious place. Be merciful to me O Lord for I am in distress, my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. (Psalm 31:1-9)

Look at what he says to God, he calls God his refuge, his rock of refuge, his strong fortress, my rock and my fortress. What picture is David painting here? On the one hand he is deeply distressed, “I am in distress, my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief.” Doesn’t he write so beautifully? Doesn’t he just, in a few words, sum up what it feels like when people are plotting against us and from in the midst of that pain and that hurt and that anguish, he says, “but God is my refuge, God is my rock, God is my fortress to save me.”

Isn’t that exactly what we need when we’re shaken? Something solid and certain and unmoving and unshaken, when we feel like the rug has been pulled out from underneath us, when people are plotting against us, we need a place of certainty – God, but why is it that David takes refuge in God? Look at what he writes again in verse 7 of this psalm.

 I will be glad and rejoice in your love for you saw my affliction and you knew the anguish of my soul… (Psalm 31:7)

You see Gods love, Gods perfect and tender and gentle love, He sees our affliction, He knows the anguish of our soul, he understands. It’s such a wonderful love being understood and we can say this 100 times stronger than David because all this time on we know that Jesus has walked in the same path as us, we know that He became a man and suffered everything that we have to suffer. He was misunderstood, rejected, they plotted against Him, it cost Him his life on the cross. Later on in the psalm David goes on to write this, for me this is exactly where the rubber hits the road,

 How great is Your goodness which You have stored up for those who fear You, which You bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in You. In the shelter of Your presence You hide them from the intrigues of men, in your dwelling You keep them safe from accusing tongues. (Psalm 31:19-20)

Isn’t that brilliant? God’s goodness towards those who take refuge in Him, He’s the shelter, in His presence we hide from the intrigues of men and His dwelling we’re safe from accusing tongues. This talks about people who go and undermine us, the intrigues of men, the accusing tongues. How often do people look at us and misunderstand us and judge us and say, ‘Well, I wouldn’t have done it the way he does it. I wouldn’t have dressed the way she dressed or I wouldn’t have this and that.’ The accusing tongues, “In the shelter of your presence you hide them from the intrigues of men, in your dwelling you keep them safe from the accusing tongues.”

That is a wonderful thing. David has experienced the refuge of God when everybody else was against him, when his very life was threatened. When people would walk on the other side of the road when they saw him, when they treated him as though he was dead, when he felt like a piece of broken pottery left in the gutter. David experienced the shelter of Gods presence; he experienced what it’s like to be safe in the dwelling of God from accusing tongues.

You know it can feel so unnatural to put our trust in God. When people are plotting against us, I mean, augh we want to crawl up and die, we want to fight, we have anguish, we want to just whinge and complain and in the middle of this hurt, David is putting his trust in God.

It can feel so unnatural when people are plotting against us. But the trust is not misplaced, the trust is in a rock solid love – in God’s goodness, in God’s faithfulness, in God’s power to protect us. And you know, when we’re in these situations, when people are kind of coming against us, as the days and weeks go by and we just decide to just trust in God. Instead of worrying about those other people we just quietly put our trust in Him and what we discover is peace.

It’s a really weird kind of peace because it’s a peace we don’t deserve to have, it’s a peace that in human terms shouldn’t be there. But you know something, when we just put our whole lives into the hands of God and say, ‘You know Lord, all these people are coming against me, just like they did with David, I’m just going to trust in You. My souls in turmoil, Lord I need your peace.’ That’s the peace that Jesus gives us, that’s the peace that Jesus leaves for us and He doesn’t give it the way the world gives it, He gives it genuinely, deeply, permanently.

The apostle John a thousand years later put it this way:

There is no fear in love but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, the one who fears is not made perfect in love (1 John 4:18)

You see peace comes from knowing that however it turns out it’ll come from Gods love, that there’s no need to be afraid anymore.

When people are giving us a hard time, what we want is to sort them out.  We want to be vindicated.  Justified.  We want to win.  But sometimes, the more we hang onto that hope, the harder it gets.

I was staying with a couple recently on a ministry trip to New Zealand and they were about my age and as I got talking to them I discovered that they’d been bungy jumping. Now if you’re not a Kiwi you may not know this but it’s the New Zealanders who invented bungy jumping and I reckon it’s nuts. You walk out onto this bridge, they tie a big elastic band around your feet and you jump off and plummet hundreds of feet, head first, down to the ground only to be stopped in the nick of time by this big elastic band. And for this, this privilege of sheer and utter terror, you pay the bungy jump operators a tidy sum of money. So, um, why do they want to do this? I mean what exactly do they get out of this? The bottom line for me is that jumping off a bridgehead first is unnatural, its nuts. What do you think?

Now I’m not knocking the bungy jumpers or the Kiwi’s. God bless them but me, I hate heights. I like terra firma, the more firmer the less terror. On our honeymoon, my wife Jacqui and I went to the South Island of New Zealand and we stayed in the beautiful Queenstown, up in the mountains, where bungy jumping started. And we went out to this place, the A J Hackett centre, which is a bridge over the Shotover River and I stood there looking at this from a distance, you know, on the land and I thought, ‘Oh well maybe I could give this a try. You know maybe I could, well you know I’m only here once, I should give it a spin.’

So I walked out onto the bridge and I looked down to the river 43 metres below, now it doesn’t sound like much until you’re standing on that bridge. And I have to tell you, 43 metres is a long way. I looked down, my knees turned to jelly, and I thought, ‘There is no way I could let them tie that elastic band to my feet and then step off into no mans land and rocket down towards the earth – no way’. It is just so unnatural.

Today and for the rest of this week we’re talking about another pretty scary situation in life, when people are plotting against us. Now you see this a lot in life, I’ve seen it a lot. I was a consultant in the IT industry and I’ve worked in a couple of hundred organisations across the world. And the politics of organisations, I tell you, is just brutal. People are always plotting against other people and sometimes I’ve had to give the hard advice. I mean, this senior manager isn’t up to it, you have to get him out of here or your project will fail. That’s tough, I mean a couple of people lost their jobs because of me, it was humiliating for them, it was painful for them but it had to happen.

When something like that is happening we inevitably have this sense, when we’re on the receiving end, we sense something’s going on. We always know deep in our hearts and that brings fear. You see it’s that fear of the outcome. It’s the fear of “what if I step off this bridge and plummet down and the elastic band breaks or it’s too long? What will happen to me? What if I lose my job? What if my friends reject me? What if I can’t pay my mortgage because I’ve lost my job? What if I’m alone? What if …?” And what we do is we imagine all the worst outcomes, we imagine that somehow all these different bad options will happen to us all at the same time.

Over the last few days we’ve looked at a man who went through that, King David. He was the King of Israel around about 1000 BC. He spent years on the run before he actually became King, in fear of his life, he had to fight many, many battles to preserve his kingdom and every now and then it got to him. The intrigues of men and the accusing tongues and people’s ridicule and rejection. Over the last few days we saw how he reacted, he had a really human response. You see, this isn’t some thing in the Bible (it’s in Psalm 31) it’s not some thing where there’s some great theoretical response and we should all be like David.

David was a man and it got to him and he was in anguish and pain and he was hurting but in the middle of all that distress and dejection and fear, in the middle of all that he puts his trust in God. And you know, when it’s scary there’s something unnatural about it and the scarier it is, the more threatened we are, the more it’s like this bungy jumping thing. Trusting in God, someone we can’t see is like stepping off that bridge, its downright unnatural, plain and simple.

Let’s go back to Psalm 31 today and see how David put it; in what effectively is his prayer, it’s him talking to God about it. He says:

Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name God lead me and guide me. Free me from the traps that are set for me for you are my refuge. Into your hands I commit my spirit. (Psalm 31:3-5)

Now that’s a line, that last line “into your hands I commit my spirit,” that you may just recognise. That is the last thing that Jesus said when He was dying on the cross, His last breath He said, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” He prayed and then He died and it was a gruesome and a painful death. He was beaten and brutalised and He hung on that cross in excruciating pain and He died of suffocation as His chest simply couldn’t breathe anymore. He was rejected and deserted by everyone yet He still, in spite of all of that, committed himself into His Father’s hands.

You know why that’s so unnatural because we want a good outcome. You see, when people are plotting against us we want to win, when people are plotting against us we want to be vindicated and we want to come out on top. We want to believe God for victory and success. We have this picture of success and nothing less will do from God. But Jesus was about to die. He was about to pass into the worst possible outcome for any man or woman and He committed Himself into God’s hands and trusted in God.

That is a huge difference because He let go of the outcome, “Into your hands I commit my spirit” He prayed and then He died, He left it to God, whatever God would bring. Remember, if you’ve read the story in the Garden of Gethsemane He said, “Father if this suffering can somehow pass from Me take it away but not my will, let Your will be done.” And He passed through death before He rose again.

When people are plotting against us real peace only comes when we commit ourselves and the outcome into God’s hands. You know, sometimes there’s still some suffering to be had along the way. Sometimes there’s going to be failure, sometimes we’re going to fall flat on our faces, sometimes there’s loss ahead. Peace comes when we step off the bridge and leave the outcome in God’s hands. When we accept whatever His will is then the peace comes.

We want to hang on to our position or our friends or our promotion or whatever it is. Maybe God has a plan to lead us into some wilderness for a time. Maybe God has a plan for us to experience a loss for a time to shape us, to mould us, to mature us, to polish us and it might hurt terribly. We can’t always tell what He’s up to when we’re in the middle of that.

Peace comes when we say, ‘Father I don’t know what the outcome is going to be but into Your hands I commit my spirit no matter what the cost, no matter what the outcome as long as it’s Yours Lord.’ Then we have peace.

When we’re suffering – what we want is for it to end.  Today.  Now.  Get me out of here.  But sometimes, sometimes that’s not God’s plan.  Sometimes we have to wait.  Great!