Introduction

Welcome back for week three of our sermon series, “Wilderness.” I hope you have enjoyed it so far. God has something to say to us today from His word once again, and I’m excited to share it with you.

We’ve been spending some time hopping around to different stories in scripture, all of which have something to say about the seasons in our life we would define as a wilderness season.

These are the times when we feel as if we’re all alone, or we don’t matter, or maybe we feel as if we’re lost and will never be able to find our way once again. The wilderness is an important place because, as we have already mentioned in this series, God is often able to teach us important things about both himself and us. The wilderness is a space where our faith is challenged and strengthened.

And today, I want us to look together at the story of Elijah, as we learn how to: Listen in the Wilderness.

The wilderness is a space where our faith is challenged and strengthened.

Main teaching

Please open your Bible and turn with me to 1 Kings 19:9-13. Now, at this point in history, Elijah had just finished a challenge on Mount Carmel with some prophets of Baal, a false god. After showcasing God as almighty, and even killing the prophets of Baal, he fled to Mount Horeb (or Sinai) to escape Queen Jezebel, who was trying to kill him. And while he was alone in a cave in the wilderness, here’s what the Bible says…

This is such a cool and unique story of God speaking to someone. Now, it’s important to understand the way in which God spoke to Elijah is not always the way God speaks to people.

This is one example of how God speaks today. And here’s the hard thing about God speaking: we often don’t hear His voice as clear as we hear those around us day to day. So, we have to learn to discern the voice of the Good Shepherd over and above the cacophony of other voices in our ears throughout the week.

If you were here last week, we talked a little bit about David and how he had patience when it came to his anointing to be king of Israel. And we specifically focused some of our time together on how he had patience. We came to the conclusion that it was because of his time spent with God, that he could understand God’s will on a deeper level. Therefore, he was able to persevere in patience because He had a relationship with the Father.

I believe when it comes to discerning God’s voice, we have to gain intimacy with God as well. But before we even talk about how to discern God’s voice, we need to understand what discernment actually is.

Here’s how the dictionary defines it, “To judge well, with the goal of obtaining and maintaining spiritual guidance and understanding ... View this full sermon with PRO Premium