1 Kings 19:7–8

0:00 My family and I recently got back from a trip where we got to spend a day at a theme park riding roller coasters. If you've ever ridden a roller coaster, you know you see a big variety of responses to roller coaster rides. You've got some people at the top of the hill, leaning forward in their seat, hands in the air, woohoo, let's go. This is my wife Morgan, this is how she rides you've got some people when the cart gets back to the end of the ride it's their turn to get out usually this is small kids they're pouring tears they're terrified horrified at what they just experienced they hated it they're ready to get out of there then you've got some people that maybe are not quite down that low but are maybe more towards the middle that's kind of my five-year-old son will who we didn't always totally explain what he was waiting in line for but he'd get on the ride he'd stick his head under my shoulder usually under my arm he'd kind of keep his eyes closed because he really didn't want to know what was

1:03 coming up but he was kind of having fun but he was mostly scared and he might have been muttering something about me under my arm mostly he was ready for the whole thing to be done with that was great that was fun in our verses tonight in first kings chapter 19 verse 7 and 8 I would argue that Elijah is somewhere kind of at will stage, maybe at the bottom, but he's kind of down there. He has been through some high highs and some low lows. Our verses are coming right after that engaging story in the Old Testament when there's this face-off between King Ahab and his wicked prophets of Baal versus the Lord and his prophet Elijah and Elijah gets to be part of this incredible beat down by the Lord in this contest when he rains fire down from from heaven on Elijah's prayer and when just knocks out this whole sacrifice contest and leaves absolutely no

2:06 doubt whatsoever that Yahweh is the one true God Elijah gets to be part of that he sees every he tells everyone who's watching this whole contest, slaughter the prophets of Baal. Elijah is riding high. He is up, arms up. This is a big deal. But after that, King Ahab's wicked wife Jezebel is very mad in response to all this, tells Elijah, promises even, before the sun goes down, I'm going to take you out.

2:42 He's on the run. He's hiding under a tree. Elijah is low. And in the verses surrounding ours, it's very apparent. He's very frustrated with Israel. He's so low, in fact, that while he's under the broom tree, he prays that the Lord would take his life. It's enough now, Lord. Let me die. I'm no better than my fathers. So read with me as we see how the Lord starts to respond to Elijah in 1 Kings chapter 19, verses 7 and 8.

3:15 1 Kings chapter 19, verses 7 and 8. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you. And he rose and ate and drank and went in the strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the mount of God. Now, anyway, especially for the Israelites of this day, they may have read this story a little bit like a pulse check on Israel.

3:46 So Mount Horeb refers to Mount Sinai. Years prior, Moses had already spent a 40 days, 40 nights situation with Mount Sinai where he meets the presence of the Lord in a really peculiar way. Elijah doesn't know this yet, but he's about to go 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Sinai and have a very similar, peculiar interaction with the Lord. When Moses got done with his time on the mountain, he finds Israel in horrible, awful rebellion. During the time of Elijah's interaction with Mount Sinai, he too is experiencing maybe even worse, horrible, awful rebellion by the Israelites.

4:27 The leadership is terrible. They're in this deep, wicked worship of all these terrible gods. Elijah is mad. He's annoyed. He's frustrated. And now he's running for his life, and he's just ready to quit. And yet, here, the angel of the Lord shows up in his hiding place, and he says to Elijah, get up, eat some of this food. You've still got a ways to go. Our main idea from these verses, God does not stop working.

4:59 Trust him with humble obedience. God does not stop working. Trust him with humble obedience. And I've got two points. Point one, God has eternal perspective so you can embrace your lowly perspective. God has eternal perspective so you can embrace your lowly perspective. As a created human being, you have been assigned a limited perspective that does not have eternal glasses. You can't see what God's doing all the time.

5:31 Elijah was a prophet. He just experienced this crazy, miraculous thing in the battle with the prophets of Baal, fireballs coming out of the sky. How much more grand does it get? And even he's having a hard time understanding in this moment exactly where his life is going and what is happening around him. He says enough in this whole story for us to know that from his perspective, he thought the next step was death. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to die. This time, though, unlike the prayer for the fire to come down from the sky, this time God doesn't grant Elijah his prayer at all.

6:09 And in fact, in a bit of irony, this prophet never actually dies at all. God just takes him up. But in our verses, God responds by sending his angel to tap him on the shoulder and say, hey man, you're not going to make it. You're not going to make it. And we're not actually going to do what you're asking to do. And you're not even actually understanding what I'm doing at all. So let's eat some food, get a drink of water. Let's get up. Let's keep moving. So Elijah may have thought and even could make a pretty good case that deep down inside, He felt like his days as a prophet to Israel were over, but God's plan overrules his perspective.

6:51 We are constantly chewing over and mulling over whether we're doing the right thing in life. Begging the Lord for wisdom, trying to piece together different data points and see if we can put together a picture of what it is the Lord's doing in our life or in the life of the people around us. How do I fit into this and what is it I should do and why did that person say that thing to me and why did they say it like that to me and this thing happened over here and what does that mean for me? What does that mean for my church? What does that mean for all these people? And the fear of making the wrong decision can sometimes be really hard to navigate. And even with well-intentioned, well-intended motives, it can be hard to understand what God wants to happen sometimes.

7:40 Despite Elijah's pessimistic outlook on this whole situation, God overruled his perspective, and he wasn't done using Elijah for his purposes. The Lord is going to keep marching on with his plan. When you get hand-wringy about interpreting things that are happening in your life, leave room for the truth that God is always committed to providing a means for his promises to be fulfilled and his word will always carry on to battle that anxiety of just like getting stuck in this this mode where this thing that's happening in your life just overrules the reality of everything that's happening in the world and just focusing on that keep the bible in front of you put your phone away during the Sunday morning sermon. Listen very intently to the word that's being preached to you. When you get home, read your Bible. Put away the political commentary podcast

8:44 for a little bit. Listen to a sermon. Listen to a Bible talk podcast show. Listen to the songs that we sing on Sunday morning. Open your Bible and read. You need God's word to remind you of God's word. Your perspective is limited and Satan knows that. Satan wants you to overanalyze and overstep your perspective. My life shouldn't be going this way. I should have a better job. I should have a spouse. Maybe you should. And those are good things to wrestle through and think through and the Lord wants you to think wisely about those things. But you also need to remember that the Lord is on his throne and he is working. He's orchestrating events and even tiny circumstances all over the place to keep his purposes moving forward. Ask friends here at church, ask pastors, am I looking at this situation right? And really ask them, leave some room in your life for somebody to step in and

9:46 say, hey, I don't think you're thinking about this well. I don't think you're thinking about this decision well. Be careful about self-proclaiming, the Lord told me in my spirit to go do this or that. We just don't always have the necessary perspective we need to know what God's doing around us or even what the most wise thing to do around us is, and that can be a hard thing to wrestle with. That takes us to our second point. The Lord welcomes response and encourages obedience. The Lord welcomes response and encourages obedience. God's response to Elijah is kind of weird obviously making bread and water appear out of nowhere is a little bit odd it's a good thing but it is a little bit odd and in some ways what God doesn't say to Elijah can be as instructive a few verses prior Elijah throws a big fit and he begs for the Lord to take his life away. God could have given Elijah a big rebuke, told him he was being a wuss. He just saw me do

10:54 this big miraculous thing in this prophet battle. What are you whining about? It's going to be okay. But he doesn't even really seem to be that huffy about what Elijah is doing or talking about under that tree. Instead, from all we're told, he lets Elijah get it out and he has his angel go wake him up, gives them something to eat and drink, and says, let's keep walking. Like this one, there's just, there's too many examples in the Bible of God's people venting to him, their anger, their sadness, whatever that is, and the Lord responding with kindness and patience and grace. Jesus himself cried to the Lord, even while he was hanging on the cross. Words of despair, or even knowing what the Lord's will was, praying deep prayers of anguish about what the Lord's will was for his life. You'd have a hard time reading through any series of psalms in a row without getting to Holy Spirit-inspired words of anger or deep sadness or despair that are written into

11:56 the Bible, given to you to be laid out before the Lord and even towards him. The Lord can handle your fits, but you do have to take them to him. It doesn't do any good to be sitting in a corner pouting with your nose against the wall, stuck in your own anxiety inside your own head. Elijah does throw a fit, but he at least prays it to the Lord. This is a lot more seductive than it seems to just be stuck in your own head. I mean, the number of times that I have gone days wrestling with something at work that's got me anxious or some relationship before I realize I haven't actually prayed about this. I haven't really talked to anybody about it. I'm just kind of stuck with it in my own head. Pray these things out. Think deeply on how to put words to your fears or frustrations. Pray them to the Lord and then do it again if you have to. Use the psalms to help you pray. Use them every day until you settle down. Grab an angry psalm. They are in

12:58 there. Sit down. Pray it out. Actually pray the psalm out loud. Use audible words. Your fit is not going to get in the way of the almighty eternal God from doing what it is that he intends to do. I promise you that. He gave you words to help you reorient yourself, get yourself together and reorient your heart around him. And then after you do that, go into the kitchen, make yourself a sandwich, get yourself a cup of water, eat, and go back to work. I'm not kidding. I bet that's not a tactic taught in the counseling track at Southern Seminary. And sometimes somebody that's under a tree needs a counseling session. That's true. Sometimes maybe you let them get it out and your only response is here's a chicken sandwich and a coke do you need a ride to work today

13:59 obedience for Elijah in this situation was actually really small and simple sit up eat start walking knowing the Lord is still working sometimes being faithful and obedience especially in a confusing situation is just doing the most simple thing that's next in front of you for that day when your heart is gnawing at you over the difficulty of raising children it's a humble obedient thing to get out of bed again to put your clothes on to make one more meal to push them through one more homework assignment to be patient through one more meltdown to take them to one more doctor's appointment when you've lost a loved one too soon to keep walking knowing the Lord is working might be wrestling with the weight of that grief in your heart, the psalm, and then getting up to go to one more Sunday morning service, even though you're sad to be around your brothers and sisters. You can't stand your job and you're wondering where your career is going. Obedience

15:03 in the fear of the Lord might be just putting your shoes on and going and working hard for your employer one more day and providing for your family. God doesn't give Elijah really any color at all about what's going on in that moment or why he asked them to do what he asked them to do until he gets there. He just says, eat and walk without much else. God doesn't always give us a lot of clarity in every day-to-day situation about what it is his will is for these things. He doesn't always illuminate his plan for every circumstance, but he does ask for obedience.

15:37 But when you pick the Bible up, the more and more you read it, it is undeniable that he does go to painstaking lengths to give deep detail and foreshadowing and color and explanation after explanation and assurances and specific promises and promises fulfilled and testimony after testimony after testimony about the work he did in sending Jesus to you and who Jesus is and what it was he did and why he did that.

16:14 So what do you do with that? You're wrestling over a career choice and in your Bible reading for the day you're reading in John and three times in two verses Jesus says assuredly, assuredly truly, truly, I promise you if you believe in me you will have eternal life. Well there's no manual given for pick this route or that route but there is that. If you say that you trust him than knowing who Jesus is and why he did what he did and who he is, that must be the most important thing for you to possibly know in this day, no matter what. If your greatest challenge right now is wanting a spouse or needing more money or a difficult health decision, these are big things. God wants you to think about those things. He cares about them. They are important, but the right job is going to have bad days. Your spouse is going to sin against you. The money is going to come and it's going to go one day our health is going to fail us but knowing that you

17:15 have a holy God who calls you to come to him despite your sinfulness and never ever not for one second stopped working no matter what to fulfill his plan for Jesus to die on the cross for your sin rise from the grave and ascend to the father if he's made that happen and you believe that, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. The money may not get to the ceiling, but he's going to provide for you. Obey him as best you can with what's in front of you. Trust that he's working. Keep walking. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we trust that you are all powerful and able to fulfill your plans. You've made it abundantly clear that you've done that through your son, Jesus Christ.

18:05 Lord, we pray that you would give us a deeper faith and ability to understand how to live in light of that for each day and each circumstance. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.