The Man of God, 1 Kings 17:8–24 | Pastor Josh Lindstrom

well hello Woodmen thank you let me ask you and you don't have to like respond like out loud or raise a hand or anything like that but have you ever questioned God in his ways have you ever asked yourself what is he doing have you ever questioned the wisdom of his direction have you ever thought that God has failed you you know as as his people we desire to see men and women enter into a life changing relationship with Jesus Christ and as such we declare his love and goodness we speak of his mercy and grace we share of his absolute sovereignty and unlimited power thing that makes us a little uncomfortable and consequently something we don't share quite so liberally so a lot of times we have no idea what he's doing you ever felt that I guess the good news is yeah God told us this would happen speaking through the prophet Isaiah 55:8-9 he says my ways are not your ways my thoughts are not your thoughts for as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my thoughts higher than yours my way is higher than yours to be expected God is very upfront about the fact that he has some things up his sleeve that we may never understand and while that's not always particularly comforting and it's nonetheless true God is in control he knows what he's doing and sometimes it's really it's really tough I spent some time this week with a couple friends of ours who clearly felt God's leading stepped out in faith and even initially saw God sort of come alongside and just we were all so excited only to now find themselves in a completely different spot in a bind up against the wall nowhere to go and asking themselves what gives I thought you said what's happened as we continue in our study of Elijah we're going to see Elijah the great prophet the prophet to whom all others will be compared going through the very same thing God's Direction is not going to make a lot of sense but then he's going to see God's miraculous provision only to have the bottom drop out completely unexpectedly and be left asking what happened now the thing that sets Elijah apart and I'll put my friends in the same category Elijah and them are not willing to cash out he will cling to God he's going to cry out to him and in doing so he's going to see God do something unimaginable he's going to see God do something that had never happened in scripture before my prayer this morning is for those of us across these campuses who are struggling trying to do what's right but then faced with trial difficulty heartache the bottom has dropped out and the temptation is to turn and run my hope is that our time in God's Word it's gonna strengthen you help you hang on white-knuckle this thing so with that let's pray and get into God's Word Heavenly Father honestly I have seen you do so many great things and yet God I have no idea what you do sometimes I just don't understand your ways I know a lot about you I know that your love goodness just and righteous but the way it plays out it confuses me sometimes I pray God that our time in your word is going to encourage us all I pray that as we see a great prophet go through the same thing that we go through it might make us feel just a little bit better I pray that you'd be glorified I ask that you help me speak in Jesus name Amen if you have a Bible turn to first Kings chapter 17 we're at verse 8 just to get you up to speed if you weren't with us last weekend we just started this series Elijah had stepped onto the scene out of nowhere he just kind of pops up and he confronts Ahab the king of Israel the Northern Kingdom with Ahab's rampant idolatry and he calls him out he may Ahab had been worshiping Baal the fertility god that was supposedly bringing water to the earth and Elijah says actually it's not gonna rain in fact there's not even gonna be any dew until I say so and fighting words God then speaks to Elijah and sends him to this brook he says you're gonna have some running water and then I'm gonna send some ravens they're gonna deliver food and you can just sit tight perfect situation if you have to lay low but then verse seven the brook dries up no more water and God comes to Elijah with something crazy and what we see is Elijah's willing obedience even though it really doesn't make a ton of sense look at verse 8 it says then the word of the Lord came to him arise and go to Zarephath which belongs to Sidon and dwell there behold I've commanded a widow there to feed you so he arose and went to Zarephath now this is a little odd Zarephath is not in Israel it's a hundred miles away through drought stricken land in the kingdom of Sidon the kingdom of Sidon is where Jezebel a Ahab's wife had been a princess this is the enemy territory this is in the heart of Baal worship and God's idea is to send His Prophet to that place it's not in the text and so I hesitate to say it cuz that's just safe in my line of work but not hard to imagine like Elijah saying you're kidding right and God's like no I'm I'm serious I've hooked you up with a widow there who's gonna feed you now what's interesting in English it says like commanded a widow maybe a better word would be to say God ordained it because the one thing we find out God hasn't actually told the widow yet I've set it up this is what's gonna happen but I want you to go 100 miles drought-stricken land enemy territory let's pack up now some people look at it and they're like well God so smart strategically if Ahab is looking for an Israelite prophet cause he wants to kill him I mean where's the last place he's gonna look the kingdom of Sidon but practically it could have also made sense for Elijah to say or why don't you just command the brook to bring more water and then I got a sweet spread here I'll lay low save me the journey God's like no God's Direction does not always make sense at the time and even in hindsight with God it's not always 20/20 there are some things he asks us to do there's some things he calls us to do it we may never really understand like ever question becomes if God does call you to something crazy if God's Word leads you to do something that you're like humanly speaking it doesn't make sense why would I do it but you know he said it how do you respond won't always be true for Elijah but here we see willing obedience he packs up heads a hundred miles and the encounters tremendous need look at the second half of verse 10 and when he came to the gate of the city behold a widow was there gathering sticks and he called to her and said bring me a little water and a vessel that I may drink and as she was going to bring it he called her and said bring me a morsel of bread in your hand and she said as the Lord your God lives I have nothing baked only a handful of flour in a jar and a little jug of oil and now I'm gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son that we may eat it and die widows back then especially those didn't have extended family which obviously it was this lady's plight were some of the most at-risk socially they her need would have been unprecedented and we can even tell that her plight is maybe worse than we would think by the fact that she's by the gates not a forest she's by the gates collecting sticks she wants to make a fire so she can bake a little bit of bread but she doesn't have any firewood and she's literally just kind of roaming around grabbing sticks kindling she's at her end now what's beautiful is even though she's like having the worst day of her life she still sort of holds her head up high it was expected especially for a woman if a stranger came up from out of town and said hey could you get me some water it was kind of thought that she would go and grab the water you'd think though like on any day where you could say no it's not going well for me this could be her day but she's still willing and she actually goes she she's getting sticks from what's gonna be her last meal stranger shows up and says hey could you grab me some water and she's like yeah I will and as she's going Elijah's like oh and hey could you bring me a little morsel of bread now I don't know exactly how big a morsel is but you could write in your Bible not big right this is not he's not asking for an 8-ounce then he's not saying I want steak I want this I want that he's just like could you bring me a little morsel of bread and that's where she opens up that's when she says actually as the Lord your God lives I have nothing baked I got a handful of flour I got a little bit of oil my plan for the day is to make this my son and I are gonna eat it and then we're gonna die that's tremendous tremendous need and there's two things that I think should come to mind but unfortunately for me I overlooked them so much you know there are people in our community who live in tremendous need admittedly in my life I've never experienced that I've never wanted for food clothing or shelter I have sometimes in my life that I would define in sort of lean years things that I wanted that I couldn't get but but I never went without but there are people in our community that are there are people in our community that deal with real food insecurity they literally don't always eat it's why we have our feeding family saying this is in your bulletin a lot of you bring in stuff that we can deliver several of our campuses partner with local schools and what they do is they pack backpacks on Friday with food so that the kids can eat on the weekend this this is real like right here the second thing though is that people in need do not always think our God is interested in helping them look if you will at verse 12 again let's say and she said as the Lord your God lives now what she's doing is she's using it as like a statement of fact the way that if if I told you something and you doubted me for some reason and I were to say yeah as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow what I'm using it as a way of giving weight to my words that's what she's doing as the Lord your God lives I'm about to die what's interesting is her choice of truth to back up her statement is that Elijah your God the God of Israel is the living God what's curiously absent though is she never says and do you think that maybe he could hook me up the god of the land here's Baal and it's not been raining that's why I'm in this bind and and it's not raining because we believe that our god dies every year and then he comes back and then he brings the rain but then he dies again but your God Elijah lives and I'm about to die and she never says do you think he could do anything about it not I'll admit to you a lot of people are still like that we come across people every single day who if pressed would say no I think there's probably a god I think there's something out there but it really never occurs to them that he might be interested in helping them this is why and I know here at Monument can't speak for the other campus some of you are a little late this morning no judging really but we started with this video and you can see in the bulletin about this thing that we partner with COSiloveyou called CityServe October 5th already there's some 1900 people from churches across our community who are going to go into different parts of our community and serve and I'm hoping that we as Woodmen are going to add hundreds to that number because we desire to practically show that our God is interested in your plight and we want to be the tangible demonstration the practical thing that you can see we're telling you the things that you've maybe put your hope on our dead but our God's alive and he can help I wonder if you at one of these campuses I wonder if you're in need today I mean it could legit be financial it could be something else I can't say that we can meet all your needs but I can say on behalf of the staff and the ministry partners that serve at this church we want to have a shot at it we want to try we want to come alongside you and point you to the God that lives and is able but but you have to tell us you had a lot of snow nothing else we can pray and as we'll see a little later that's that's something he meets this woman this widow in tremendous need and now God is about to bring his miraculous provision for these three look at verse 13 it says and Elijah said to her do not fear go and do as you have said but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me and afterward make something for yourself and your son now right out of the gate it just seems insensitive right and at times as we get into Elijah's life he didn't always have maybe the greatest people skills now in English it actually sounds worse than the original but hey don't fear I just told you I'm having my last meal and my son and I are going to die don't worry about it and yet I mean time and time and time and time and time again through the pages of that book that so many you hold in your hand right now do not fear have no fear don't fear not because there's nothing scary around but because our God's alive and he's living but what Elijah says has some tremendous moxie don't fear go first make me a little cake of what you've got and then hook yourselves up how are you responding at that point you're looking into your jar you're eyeballing it about a handful of flour you're you're swirling a little jug there's just a little bit of oil in there and then a stranger that you've known for all but what seven minutes he's like give that to me and then go make your last meal only after he says it does he give her sort of the punchline verse 14 for thus says the Lord the God of Israel the jar of flour shall not be spent and the jug of oil shall not be empty until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth and she went and did as Elijah said and she and her household ate for many days the jar of flour was not spent neither did the jug of oil become empty according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah notice that Elijah didn't say go make me something and then have something for yourself check your jar the miracle didn't like it wasn't like she was like no I only have a handful and he's like look again and she did and it was full and he's like see pick up that jug heavier right it's heavier see I'm telling you my God lives what's annoying is could God have just put a bunch of flour in the jar Church says yes but he didn't still was just a handful still was just a little bit but she hears Elijah's words a stranger she's only known for about seven minutes and she goes and does just as he said now I wish I could stand before you and tell you this is sort of an oddity God doesn't do this a lot but that wouldn't be true God often calls us to take a step of faith God often seems to test our resolve before he actually does the thing you don't even have to be a church person you've probably heard of like the Red Sea and the Israelites and it parting what's wild as if you read it there's this Red Sea big Egyptian army coming at them people start understandably freaking out Moses starts to freak out a little bit and goes to God and is like a little bit of help here God's first words are tell the people to move forward and then hold your staff up over the sea and it's gonna split but it doesn't split until they move forward and Moses holds his hand up over the sea would have been a lot easier guys check it out oh okay but no they they are they're moving forward towards water Jericho we talked about this last week God brought down the city of Jericho and everyone's like that's so amazing but when you read the account God's plan was I want you to march around the city once and do that for six days then on the seventh day I want you to march around at seven times and then play your trumpets and screaming I'm gonna bring the wall down did God need the extra time were there Israelites that are like I really hope this works I'm going to feel pretty silly if we keep marching around this place and nothing happens God often makes us step out before we see how it works not surprisingly then Jesus Christ saying to those who would come after him if anyone wants to save his life they're gonna lose it but if anyone's willing to lose their life for my sake they're gonna get it God often calls us to crazy things before we get to see the miraculous provision now obviously there are times and we don't know what God wants us to do I mean that happens but I think if you've been following Jesus for any length of time you'd have to admit there are some times that we're really crystal clear about Jesus what he wants us to do I just don't want to do it a lot of times I want to see the miraculous before I have to get up what about you do you need to trust him at his promises and step forward in faith even though you're not sure how it's going to go for this widow it went awesome she trusted and it might every time she looked in I suspect every single time she's like they're still just a handful and it just keeps coming and her her son Elijah and the household ate for many days and this is the spot so many of us can look back and relate to her or like I seen God's miraculous provision it's so amazing but then the pain of sin steps in and the bottom drops out look at verse 17 after this after what after being miraculously fed for many days the son of the woman the mistress of the house became ill and his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him and she said to Elijah what have you against me oh man of God you've come to bring my sin to remembrance and the cause of death of my son things are going so amazing she's like telling people like they're saying how are you so well fed and she's like God of Israel every morning she's whirls she's like it still keeps coming she's feeding her son she's like this is wild Elijah's certainly telling her about the God of Israel they're having a little Bible studies together and then her son dies the only one she has left the only family the bottom drops out because the pain of sin is real it hurts and in her grief her comments to Elijah somewhat misguided and yet true it's like have you caught you've caused this forgetting that if you hadn't showed up days before they would have starved to death anyway but the true part is even though she's not an Israelite even though she does not hold Elijah's faith at this point she recognizes there's something in her where she's like this is because of my sin you're so holy you're so spiritual you being here my sins are great and if you hadn't showed up nobody would have known unbelieving people can often put on a strong face my line of work I talk to a lot of people and sometimes I don't know if they're kidding themselves or trying to kid me but I can say to some and you may be knowing them like what you think happens when you die I don't know do you care I haven't thought about it much but for every one person who acts as if they have no thought or concern about what's next I believe there are scores more who know that something isn't right death isn't fair death is not good and yet though we don't like to admit it I think deep down people know but neither am i I'm not good in some weird way it makes sense it's so awful but I understand this is where this woman was she realizes there is a correlation between our sins and the pain in this world and so does Jesus Jesus more than any of us recognizes correlation between sin and death pain and suffering we turned from him and when we did we brought death and sin and pain into this world we were not created for this which is why it's so unsettling but Jesus Christ came and He gave His life to pay the penalty for our transgression and bring us spiritually to life and we can know it but then when the bottom drops out in our own life when the pain is crushing and we cannot hold it up that's hard and Elijah knows it but he offers this cry of faith look at verse 19 it says and he said to her give me her son and he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged and laid him on his own bed it certainly moves the narrative along but we learned some things obviously the kid was very tiny had been in mom's arms now to Elijah's arms show that even in her anger she trusted Elijah enough to give him her dead son shows something about Elijah it would have ceremonially made him unclean to hold a dead body but he didn't care and she was obviously at some point a woman of some means because she's got like the rooftop house which set her sort of apart from some of the people and that's where Elijah had been living and he takes the boy up stairs and what does he do verse 20 he cried to the Lord O Lord my God have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn by killing her son this great prophet that had heard from God multiple times this great prophet who'd been told Ravens will feed you a widow will feed you and seen it happen this man is completely blindsided by this the God who told him so much was curiously silent on this fact have you ever experienced that it's hard it's hard and he cries out in faith sometimes bad stuff happens because we do dumb things but sometimes bad stuff happens and it catches us totally off guard on Monday and I wish I was at Woodmen Heights to talk about this on Monday I was riding a horse I don't know I'm not really a horse person but we went riding and um I you know moving to Colorado get in the zone a little bit you know so I've I feel like Monday was the first day where I'm like this sort of isn't awful and we were going up this sort of dirt road had a full lope and if you're not a horse person that's like one gear below gallop I guess so we were we were cranking and I actually remember thinking this is this is moderately fun until the horse tripped and he went down I went flying and I land and the horse is calm and I I pop up and I'll tell you two things about it one it happens so fast and two don't tell my guy friends it hurt it was so interesting it is like one of my cowboy dudes like he's a cow I won't even say his name cuz he'll get such a like oh yeah you know my cowboy I was telling him and he looked at me and he goes yeah happens he said it's part of it which for me wasn't a great endorsement for horse stuff but and then he said I'm gonna remember this for a while very next thing did you get back on the horse when you're earnestly trying to follow after Jesus and the thing goes down and you go flying the temptation is going to be to take your chips from the table turn around and walk away but you got you got to get back on and I would suggest to you when the bottom drops out that is not the time to pull your chips I would say to you double down put more on the table put whatever you can that is what Elijah does and it is phenomenal verse 21 then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord O Lord my God let this child's life come into him again a lot of people when they read that they're like what's the significance of the stretching yourself on the child three times anyone think that when you saw it saw that part I have no idea no one does but there's a problem living on this side of the New Testament there's a problem knowing that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ died on a cross was buried and rose again and the problem is because we know it can happen but Elijah takes his little kid in his arms puts him on his bed cries out to God and he asks for the kid's life to come back and that had never happened in the Bible before he had no frame of reference he had no cause for hope hadn't seen this in a movie once but he knew God and he said let's do something here if your horse has gone down if the bottom has dropped out do not cash out double down and pray for something even bigger pray big our God is able because he's the lord of life this is how a closes verse 22 and the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah underlined that the Lord listened to the word of Elijah and the life of the child came into him again and he revived and Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother and Elijah said See your son lives and the woman said to Elijah now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord is in your mouth is truth I'm going to close is sort of the us-and-them side of this for the US God still brings the dead to life one day he will do it absolutely all the dead in Christ will one day come back to life but I know so many of us have people that we want to see come to faith and it's a hard case we look at it and we're like there is nothing and I am Telling You God still is in the business of bringing spiritually dead people to life he can do it white-knuckle it pray stick with it but the widow's example also demonstrates a little bit of how that often happens and I think she's still a lot like a lot of people today one of the first things out of her mouth was an affirmation that Elijah's God lived she knew that there was a God and then she experienced miraculous provision the flour didn't run out and the oil kept pouring and yet by her own admission she still was doubting now I think us looking at her could be like girl what is your problem how do you account for the flour but when she saw the man of God cry out and her son come back to life it was then that she was like and now I know the word in your mouth is true people are watching us and when the people of God face the bottom dropping out when the people of God get thrown but then boldly get back up on that horse put more chips onto the table and pray big people notice it because that's not of us that's of him Jesus Christ loves you and his love for you was not going to be demonstrated in the days ahead his love for each of us was demonstrated finally upon the cross where he gave his life for us conquered death and rose again for the forgiveness of our sins and I'm telling you the words in my mouth are true and I'm praying that some of us are going to acknowledge that today it's not gonna be the example of anyone we've seen but we're going to be like you know what good gracious for the first time I think this actually did happen and I want it others of us the bottom has dropped out and though we don't want to maybe admit it we have sort of been pulling ships off and walking backwards and I can't say everything's gonna get better this afternoon but I do say that we're gonna come to this table and remember Jesus' demonstration of love on our behalf we're gonna come to his altar we're going to give him our concerns we're going to pray bigger prayers than maybe we've ever prayed and we're gonna trust him and I am praying that the Lord listens to your voice today because Elijah was a great prophet but he was just a regular guy like you and me our prayers matter the bottoms dropped out let's white-knuckle it together amen let's pray Heavenly Father lord I pray for those who have seen you do so many things and yet still are wondering if you're real I pray that today would be the day where you you you pull the veil from their eyes and that they finally click it finally makes sense that this word that I'm hearing is true God just doing the math though I think there's probably a lot more of us who we believe the word is true but the bottom has dropped out and our hearts are hurting give us comfort God that Elijah had the bottom drop out to remind us that you told us this is gonna happen my ways aren't yours my thoughts aren't yours but then give us the faith to believe you can do something more give us faith to believe you still bring the dead to life do that in our spirits we ask in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Woodmen Valley Chapel

Views: 649

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Id: d6rYE6cYq6w

Length: 43min 49sec (2629 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 15 2019