40-Days of Power (Elijah)

okay while we wait on a few people to given folks another couple of minutes to join us if you are joining us live if you are capable of doing that give us a give us a a drop in the comments tell us where you are at and letting us know where you have where you're joining us from I'd love to be able to keep a record of where everybody is is coming in and tuning in from and even those if you are watching the recording you can let us know that as well you can see from my background that things are looking a little bit different than they were last week around the Waddell house we have had a couple of we've had a little bit of a fever pop up and a little bit of a cough so we are just making sure that we do as we have been asked to do by all of the various authorities and we're gonna quarantine ourselves for a couple of weeks everybody's feeling fine doing okay but we just want to make sure that we do our due diligence and in trying to flatten the curve as the phrase is right now I hope you have your Bibles and notebooks with you today we are going to be continuing our study on 40 days of power let me ask you a question as we get started has your perspective changed any in the last 40 days I'll bet it probably has even if you don't realize how much that perspective has changed let me give you a couple of things to consider 40 days ago and in the United States on February 18th around the world there were seventy three thousand three hundred cases confirmed cases of the corona virus and in the United States 40 days ago there were only 29 confirmed cases as of March 25th as of March 25th there were 460 3418 confirmed worldwide at the same time on March 25th there were fifty four thousand 453 in the United States as I was hearing on the news today we've now eclipsed I think well over a hundred thousand cases in the United States again compared to only twenty nine forty days ago on February 21st on February 21st CNBC gave us the headline the u.s. prepares for a possible coronavirus pandemic is that a change in perspective I think so and endless just asking this question what were you doing what were you doing 40 days ago you were waking up you were going about normal life you were going to school during the week you were fighting normal traffic you were shaking someone's hand you could get upset when your favorite brand of deodorant wasn't on the wasn't in stock at the store toilet paper was all over the shelves the toilet paper shelves were overstocked Tom Brady was still a patriot and Joe Biden was trying to revive his campaign in Nevada so things have definitely changed in a 40-day period and now what we are having to do we are having to livestream we're having to do this right here because things have changed so drastically in that amount of time and having these at-home worship assemblies so again has your perspective changed in the last 40 days I would say it probably has and so it leads us to the question where exactly does perspectives come from I'm gonna try to get our slides changed here where exactly does perspective come from well perspective is a it's a point of view that you have based upon the experiences that we've had it comes from the interactions we've had with something a perspective or a point of view can have a can come from a strong emotional attachment that you have that helps to form that perspective I think we have to even acknowledge that a perspective about anything also is impacted by the American culture it plays a part in shaping our point of view on any given thing and because of how our perspectives are formed many of our perspectives are deeply rooted we hold them tightly and and we will argue for them vehemently if we if they are special enough to us see here's the thing about any given perspective that you have on a question or a situation of life the perspective you have is a window into the things that you hold dear it helps people understand who you are and what is special to you sometimes though our perspective needs to be changed maybe a particular point of view that we have maybe it's just all out flat-out inaccurate we don't have the correct facts and so therefore we need to change that perspective sometimes our responses our perspective needs to be changed because it is keeping us from fulfilling responsibilities maybe I don't understand what it is I need to be doing or maybe the perspective is skewing what not sure that I'm maybe maybe it is skewing what we need to be doing and then sometimes our perspective can be keeping us from getting the fullest experience of life that God intends at such times I think it is not uncommon for God to intervene in various ways to bring about the necessary shift in our perspective in fact we know as we read through Scripture that there were times in which God did intervene in order to change somebody's perspective in order to get them to do what they needed to do today we are going to examine one of those times and we are going to see that in 40 days God can change your perspective and we're going to do it from first Kings chapter 19 if you have your Bibles turn with me there we're gonna look at first Kings chapter 19 beginning with verses one through eight we're gonna go through about verse 19 to just give you a little bit of a synopsis this is the life of Elisha one of the great prophets arguably the most well known prophet of the Old Testament he is definitely one of the most powerful as far as miracles is concerned so in first Kings chapter 19 we're finding Elijah in a time when he is when he is coming off of one of those high moments in life in chapter 18 he had the showdown with the prophets of bale and and the the lightning from heaven and and the water over the the water over the sacrifice if you don't know that story go back and read it but he's in a very very high point in his life but let's begin reading in first Kings chapter 19 and let's just read the first eight verses a hab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elisha saying so may the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow then he was afraid and he rose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba which belongs to Judah and he left his servant there but he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree and he asked that he might die saying it is enough now O Lord take away my life for I am no better than my father's and he lay down and he slept under a broom tree and behold an angel touched him and said to him arise and eat and he looked and behold there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones in a jar of water and he ate and drank and lay down again and the angel of the Lord came a second time and touched him and said arise and eat for the journey is too great for you and he arose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb the Mount of God a couple of things before we press on that I really want us to take a look at when you get to verse a you see the 40 days that it was 40 days off of the strength of the food that God had provided for him that Elijah is going to wander on out further into the wilderness and he's going to Mount Horeb Mount Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai but one question that comes to my mind is this why does Elijah when he is in trouble why is it that he runs to the wilderness why doesn't he just go to some sort of to some sort of another city somewhere where it would be harder for Jezebel to find him why does he run to the to the wilderness and for that matter when we read through Scripture why do so many of God's people run to the wilderness when they find themselves in trouble I think the answer to that at least partly comes in the meaning of the word wilderness in Hebrew the the word that gets translated out wilderness literally means a place of order or perhaps you could translate it as a place of words have you ever noticed in Scripture that when these people leave and they run out what are they running away from typically they are running away from chaos or there has been something in their lives that has turned their lives upside down and so they go to the wilderness and why is it well if we look at the definition because the wilderness is that place of order it is that place that takes them away from the disorder that has skewed their perspective in life it's not just a difficult place to go survive but it is a place where all of the distractions are now gone and if you will give me this this terminology the wilderness is the place where it is easiest to hear God because the distractions are gone and in the solitude it is where these people go in order to confront their current circumstances and to confront their perspective hedaan this is what happens to Elijah notice what he says in in the earlier verses what is his perspective become he says I want to die it is not worth me going on any further it is enough Lord just take my life now this is his perspective and what does God do God provides for him food he provides for him sustenance and the strength to be able to go for forty days and for forty days God has given him what he needs to survive in the solitude of the wilderness because it is at this point that Elijah needs to re-examine his perspective about life let's continue reading in verses nine through nineteen and let's find out about Elijah's perspective being changed verse nine there he came to a cave and he lodged in it and behold the word of the Lord came to him and he said to him what are you doing here Elijah he said I've been very jealous for the Lord the God of hosts for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword and I even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away and he said go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord and behold the Lord passed by and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord but the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind and earthquake but the Lord was not in the earthquake and after the earthquake a fire but the Lord was not in the fire and after the fire the sound of a low whisper and when Elijah heard it he rapped his face in a cloak and he went out and stood at the entrance of the cave and behold there came a voice to him and said what are you doing here Elijah and Elijah said I had been very jealous for the Lord the God of hosts for the people of Israel had forsaken your covenant they've thrown down your altars and killed your prophets with the sword and I even I only am left and they seek my life to take it away and the Lord God said to him go return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus and when you arrive you shall anoint Hazael Isaiah the king over Syria and gee Hugh the son the son of nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel and elisha the son of shaphat avaible Mahalo you shall anoint to be prophet in your place and the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall G who put to death and the one who escapes from the sword of G who shall Elisha put to death yet I will leave 7,000 and Israel all of the needs that have not bowed to Bale and every mouth that has not kissed him and so Elijah departed and he found elisha the son of shaphat who was plowing the twelve yoke of oxen in front of him and he was with the twelfth elisha passed by him and cast his cloak upon him so what do we see happening here in this in these handful of verses so Elisha has has come to Mount Horeb his perspective is skewed and God says to him Elisha what are you doing here and he tells him what he believes he tells him that deep-rooted sense of what's happening in his life god I have been very zealous for you I have done all of the work that you've asked me to do but now I am the only one and everybody else has left you I'm not there's nobody else that's following you I'm the only one left and they even want to kill me and yet in verses 9 to 14 we find that that that really fascinating scenario of God speaking to Elisha that time when Elisha needs to hear the voice of God in this wilderness and I love the fact I you know you can make what you want of it but I love the fact that you see the the earth shaking literally earth shaking moments in which Elijah might have expected to hear God the wind the earthquake the fire which maybe it's that's lightning coming down from heaven he see he hears all of this and and yet God's voice is not there but it's in the small still breeze the quiet whisper the solitude it's when Elijah finally begins to hear God and what is it that God tells him he said Elijah your perspective is all wrong I still have worked for you you are not done as you seem to think that you are so get up and get back to work and then in verse 18 the whole idea of Elijah being alone God says and secondly you are not alone in all of this there are still seven thousand people who have not bowed the knee to bail so don't tell me you are alone don't use that as an excuse to stop working because the truth is you don't have all the facts and your perspective is not right and what I think is almost it is almost humorous is how the historian the writer of first kings Rhys records Elijah's response there's no give-and-take there's no big debate over whether or not God has given him the right facts or not no if you take a look at verse 19 it's almost humorous that the moment God tells him all of these things the moment God gives him the information that is needed to change his perspective Elijah doesn't argue he immediately packs up and he leaves he goes out to do the work that God gave him to do and the question is why can he do this why is he able to go out immediately and do this work because in 40 days of solitude God changed his perspective now what about us in a sense I want to suggest to you that we are all living and and we are all having to deal with a sort of wilderness right now all of this coronavirus has it has forced us into a time of relative solitude that has pulled us away from the normal hustle and bustle of our lives it has taken us away from a lot of the distractions that have filled the hours of our day and if we will allow it I believe that God could have used this 40 days of wilderness solitude to change some of the perspectives that that may have been getting in the way of us living the fullest Christian lives that we have been called to live for instance what if I were to ask you what does it take to lead a successful and fulfilled life 40 days ago would your list have included having everyday filled with with some sort of scheduled activity in order to keep busy would that have been part of what was required to have a fulfilled life or maybe 40 days ago an answer to this question you might have said that you needed to have a job that required 70 hours of work a week that's how you were going to be successful and fulfilled or maybe maybe 40 days ago you would have said that amassing a great collection of stuff whatever that may be the the latest and greatest technology or having having the collectibles that set up on your wall maybe that was maybe that's what you needed or maybe you would have said that in order to be fulfilled and satisfied I must be able to travel wherever I want whenever I want and get all of the greatest experiences is that how you would have defined success and fulfillment 40 days ago but how about now now that you have been forced into this relative solitude is it is it possible that you were beginning to to ask and reevaluate if maybe life needs to be simplified because maybe in this more in this simpler life maybe we are beginning to feel less frantic and less stressed because we're not running all over the place all over the time all of the time so maybe the perspective is changing what if I were to ask you how well do you know your family 40 days ago maybe you thought you knew them pretty well sitting around the table maybe once or twice a week or at least getting out and having and having supper out and about or maybe your your best amount of conversation came from just sitting in the car driving to and from school but now that you had this relative solitude are you realizing that you could actually know your family a whole lot better than you have to this point and maybe maybe you didn't quite know them as well as you did as you thought you did but what about the idea of having enough time or having skill what if I were to say could you do this how 40 days ago would you have said oh I can't get involved in XYZ work because I don't have the time or husband's dads let me speak to you 40 days ago would you have said that it was not possible for you to have meaningful worship for you to lead a meaningful worship with your family that was not at the building but how about now are you beginning to realize that having enough time is really a question about deciding what it is that we value most that it is possible to say no to certain things but what we say yes to is going to demonstrate what it is that we hold an highest value or have you realized that you can lead meaningful worship and meditation on God with your family it's not something that's reserved for preachers and elders and and and and school teachers that this is something that you can do and so I guess overall what I'm asking is it basically have you started to rethink what it is that you hold most valuable have you started to rethink what you can actually accomplish in your life and if so why is that happening right now I think it's because God is using this 40 days to change your perspective to change your point of view about the way that life goes and what life could be and so this week here's my challenge for you I want to challenge you to to actively think about what perspectives are beginning to change in your lives and there may not be many it may be one or two and when I say the perspective is changing it may be that you are making a complete shift on something in your mind or maybe this time of solitude has helped you to understand how much you already appreciate something that has been in your life but now it has a greater meaning but what I want you to do is I want you to begin discussing what those are what are the perspectives that are changing in your life but then what I want to challenge you to do is to sit down with your family and I want you to discuss how this new perspective could and should change your life what are we going to do differently now because of what's happening at this moment in other words what are you going to do when all of this is said and done and we're able to get back out and go to work in the way that we always were before what are you going to do to make sure that this new perspective will not quickly go away once things return to normal what are you going to do to make sure that you hold on to that and that you let it actually make permanent changes in your lives no doubt I no doubt there will be some challenging things about this conversation and I want to also tell you that this is something that will take time don't expect to get it perfect in your execution of this changed perspective it will require some trial and error it's going to require some give-and-take from all parts of the family but I suspect that if we let that 40 days that new perspective from this 40 days take effect it's going to be a very liberating exercise in our lives and why is that because in 40 days God can change your perspective he can change it so that your life will be more fulfilling more faithful and more successful thank you for joining us today we'll see you next week

Channel: Bear Valley church of Christ

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Length: 24min 16sec (1456 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 29 2020