This message was originally given at Element3 Church in Tallahassee FL. To download this message’s corresponding PowerPoint, audio, and artistic elements for free please visit www.element3.org
Well good morning, I’m Pastor Mark and we are in a series called My Life. What we’re doing is looking at the phenomenon which is MySpace; a website where a lot of people go to connect as an extended metaphor for our life. On MySpace, there is something that people put a lot of time into and it’s called their profile. In that profile, you see heroes, people they’d like to meet, things they like to do, activities and all sorts of different things. I thought it would be beneficial if we looked at our life as followers of Christ, who we’re meant to be, as worshipers, as Christians, and look at our profile, where it currently is and look at the vision of the profile that God would have for our lives and see where the gap is, see if we can close that gap.
Last week, we looked at our life as worshippers, looking at where we are and where we should be. We looked at 1 Kings chapter 18. If you remember, we picked up with Elijah who was in the middle of a high stakes worship game with 450 prophets of Baal. What was going to happen is they said, “hey, whoever has the real God is going to show up and if your God shows up, we’ll be put to death and if our god shows up, then you’ll be put to death.” So, I mean, the stakes are pretty high. Imagine if you came here on Sunday morning and that was the stakes. You know, if God doesn’t show up, we’re hosed. So, luckily, we don’t have those kind of stakes happening. But, that was the situation that was going on when Elijah went up against the 450 prophets of Baal. When we looked at the scripture, at chapter 18, we discovered that Elijah did some interesting things that we could learn from.
The first one was, he expected God to show up. There was no doubt in his mind, he put his life on the line. He expected God to show up. We talked about how many times we go and approach our Father in Heaven. How many times do we come to church, if we are really, truly honest, and don’t expect God to show up? Then, we said, you know what that’s the first thing we need to do. We need to expect God to show up, that we’re going to have a personal encounter with Him.
The next thing that we saw is that Elijah was disciplined. He was disciplined in his preparation. We talked about how we should prepare our heart, bodies, minds and come and encounter the living God.
Finally, we looked at the difference between the prophets of Baal and Elijah. The prophets of Baal did not have worthy adoration; they were worshipping just an idol. What we need to always keep clear in our minds, is that God is the one true God and He needs to be in the center place in our lives. If we do these things, we will raise our profile as worshipers.
So today, we are going to be continuing on with the story of Elijah in chapter 19 and picking up right after this huge victory that he had, that God had shown up in a huge way. We are probably expecting what the next great thing that is going to happen in Elijah’s life, but we are going to find out that you know what, life doesn’t always go to plan. Before we jump into that though, we are going to pick up with Lindsay as she is working on her MySpace page and contemplating last week and looking forward to this week. So, join me.
(Drama Begins)
“Man, I guess I should know something about the person before I put them in my profile. Who knew I worked with the president of the Carol King fan club? That was embarrassing. I don’t know anything about her. Who really are my heroes? Hmm…I wonder if this has anything to do with what Pastor Mark was talking about last week at church. What was the phrase? Worthy adoration? Man, if I had to grade my heroes on worthiness, I don’t know who’d make it. So, heroes, my mom, and if anyone makes a mama’s girl joke, I’ll end you. Who knew one website could cause me so many problems. So, I’m a member of people who like the color green are stupid and should be put down? What’s the big deal? I keep getting all these nasty comments. Like this one, “my favorite color is green and I see you all the time and I thought we were friends. Guess not.” Who’s this from? P-Bomb? Oh, wow, huh. Guess that wasn’t such a good group to be a part of. Ouch.”
(Drama Ends)
Reading from God’s word, the book of 1 Kings 19:1-21
“When Ahab got home, he told Jezebel everything Elijah had done, including the way he had killed all the prophets of Baal. So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah, "May the gods strike me and even kill me, if by this time tomorrow I have not killed you just as you killed them." Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there. Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.” Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, “Get up and eat!” He looked around and there beside his head was some bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water! So he ate and drank and lay down again. Then the angel of the Lord came again and touched him and said, “Get up and eat some more, or the journey ahead will be too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel forty days and forty nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God. There he came to a cave, where he spent the night. But the Lord said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Elijah replied, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.” “Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He replied again, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.” Then the Lord told him, “Go back the same way you came, and travel to the wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive there, anoint Hazael to be king of Aram. Then anoint Jehu son of Nimshi to be king of Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from the town of Abel-meholah to replace you as my prophet. Anyone who escapes from Hazael will be killed by Jehu, and those who escape Jehu will be killed by Elisha! Yet I will preserve 7,000 others in Israel who have never bowed down to Baal or kissed him!” So Elijah went and found Elisha son of Shaphat plowing a field. There were twelve teams of oxen in the field, and Elisha was plowing with the twelfth team. Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak across his shoulders and then walked away. Elisha left the oxen standing there, ran after Elijah, and said to him, “First let me go and kiss my father and mother good-bye, and then I will go with you!” Elijah replied, “Go on back, but think about what I have done to you.” So Elisha returned to his oxen and slaughtered them. He used the wood from the plow to build a fire to roast their flesh. He passed around the meat to the townspeople, and they all ate. Then he went with Elijah as his assistant.
Message Point #1: As “followers” we are most vulnerable to failure after a victory.
So, a lot is going on here. We picked up again right after the big worship event that God showed up, burned up all the alter and Elijah is on a huge high. What we find is that life intersects with Elijah. So many times, the same thing happens with us. Today, we are going to continue with Elijah’s story and look at our story and see where they may intersect, and try to figure out how we can come close to the heart and mind of God, being fully devoted followers of Christ.
When is it easy or hard to follow someone or something? As we are looking at this today and it’s kind of interesting looking at Elijah, that he had been following God and putting himself out there and we looked at last week, where he really understood that one plus God is a majority. But, for some reason after this big success that he had, this big victory, when Jezebel shows up and sends him a note that says, if I’m not able to kill you in 24 hours, I want to be dead and I’m coming after you. At this point, he just implodes and he totally tanks. It’s kind of interesting to note that this actually happens more times than not. We as followers are most vulnerable after a huge victory. This is not just true in the case of following Christ, but it’s true in just about every aspect of our lives. One sad note, that just kind of illustrates it is January is the number 1 month for suicides in the United States. You wonder, why is that? Well, psychologists think it’s because everybody gets built up for Thanksgiving and the expectations, then Christmas, then the New Year and you have all these expectations, making great strides personally, making resolutions. And then, what happens? You don’t make them or the new year that you had all this hope in and you made all these strides for, you realize that January 7 is no different than December 30. You are still yourself in these habits and these problems that you’ve been carrying. All these expectations follow you wherever you are. It also happens just if you look back in the bible that we see time and time again, not only in Elijah after a huge victory, but think about the disciples. Think about when Jesus came into Jerusalem at the end of his life and he had the triumphant entry. Everybody is cheering Him, saying wow this is the Messiah. You can just imagine if you were a disciple. You would be like “Whoa, this is awesome” and you’re at the top of your game and you’re really excited. What happens? Jesus gets arrested. These men specifically, Peter, who before He was arrested said you know what, I’ll never deny you Christ. Jesus, I’ll be there until the end. After this huge high, he hit a rock bottom low and he denied Christ three times and he hid. So many times in our lives as we are trying to move towards something, we are most vulnerable after a huge success. The same thing was true with Elijah. He just had this huge victory. He goes and he runs and he’s scared and he goes right into the dumpster. If you open up your bibles and you turn to verse 4, it says this:
Message Point #2: Unresolved failure can lead us into despair.
“Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die.”
You ever felt like that you just wanted just to pull out of the world? Just wanting the world to forget that you exist and that you just cease to exist. He says this:
“I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”
What’s going on here? How did he just go from being the man of the day, man of the hour, to getting one little note from one person and going straight into the toilet. It’s because he didn’t realize and protect his heart about where he was spiritually and emotionally. You know the one thing where he is at right here and we talked about it a couple of months ago is the circumstantial faith, that our faith is only as strong as the circumstance that we’re in. As followers of a dream or followers of Christ, we have to protect ourselves from only seeing the circumstance that we are currently in.
About a month ago, I tuned into the Green Bay Packer game. It was the last time Brett Favre was probably going to be playing at home. I’m not a huge football fan, but Brett Favre is a really amazing quarterback. He’s done a lot of things and it’s kind of a historic moment. So, I wanted to check him out and just watch his last home game. So, I’m watching it and the game was a total blow out. Green Bay was winning and there was no chance that their opponents were going to come back. So, the announcers were starting to talk just about Brett Favre and about some of his statistics. One interesting thing they said is if he threw 2 more touchdowns, that he would be the all-time leading quarterback for touchdown receptions. I’m like, “wow, that’s amazing.” The other guy came up and he said “Yeah, you know what, he’s also the leading quarterback in throwing interceptions.” It’s kind of interesting to think about that. What if Brett Favre just gave up after throwing his first, tenth or hundredth interception? If he said “you know what, I stink. I’m just awful. I throw interceptions all the time.” Which, is true, but he also throws a lot of touchdowns. They went on to talk about other sports stars like Cy Young who is a hall of famer and has won so many games. He also has one of the leading loss records. What if baseball players had circumstantial faith in their abilities? It’s kind of interesting in baseball, that it’s the only profession that you can do something only 30% of the time and make it into the hall of fame. You can get up and strike out or pop out 7 out of 10 times and people think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread. Failure is a part of success and what we need to do as followers of Christ is to understand that we are going to have these high points and we are going to have these low points, but not to allow ourselves to be destroyed and leave these low points unchecked and let our lives just fall apart. Because God had a plan for Elijah and Elijah was a man of God, that God intervened into his life.
Message Point #3: God’s pathway to overcoming failure and being a fully devoted follower:
-Be open to intervention from other followers
I think that we can learn a lot from how God intervened into Elijah’s life and how we can look at the patterns of how God may intervene in our lives to help us transcend our circumstance so we can be part of his bigger plan. The first thing that we see is that God sent him an angel. He was just off by himself, under the broom tree. He is just miserable. If you know what a broom tree is, it’s this sparse little plant and it doesn’t give a whole lot of shade. You just have this picture of Elijah, just sitting there like “Woe is me, I’ve got this lousy tree, I’m in the middle of the desert, I don’t have any water or food. I’m a total failure.” He’s just going into the toilet and going fast. God intervenes supernaturally and sent him one of his messengers and said, “look you have to get up, so get up and eat some food.” God prepared some food for him for a journey that he was going to go on. I think that us as followers of Christ not only in our spiritual lives, but also in our workplace, in our relationships, emotionally and even physically, that we have to be open to intervention from other followers of God and that the Holy Spirit will intervene into our lives.
I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this and I’m sure you have, but have you ever had a loved one, especially someone that you see a lot of potential in, you just see them putting up walls or metaphysically putting themselves under the broom tree, just not wanting anybody to speak encouragement to them? They just keep going down and down and it’s painful. As followers of Christ, we have to understand that we are part of a community. Part of the deal of connexity, connecting with biblical community, of doing life together, is to speak life-giving words into one another, to be looking to encouraging one another to outbursts of love and good deeds, to knowing what other peoples goals are, not only spiritually, the goal here is to become fully devoted followers of Christ, but making pathways and conversations open so we can encourage people in their work, their relationships and physically. That’s why we have these growth groups, these pathways to becoming a fully devoted follower of Christ. That’s why it’s so important that we are connecting and getting involved with this.
It was an amazing thing yesterday where we have our training group, physical training group on Saturday mornings. Jamie Thompson and his wife Heidi are leading that. It was so cool, we met at 8 o’clock at Miccosukee Parkway and he did a devotional to encourage us. Then, all of us at different levels physically, broke off and encouraged one another to move and get healthy and to try to treat our bodies as a temple of God. There’s other growth groups that are going on that are meant to stimulate people intellectually and emotionally and how to interact with one another. We need to be open to intervention from the people that God has placed around us.
-Be honest about your disappointment
Another interesting thing, if you jump down to verse 10, the Lord asks Elijah “What are you doing here Elijah?” This is how Elijah replies, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty.” What is he saying there? He’s like, Look, I’ve done everything that you’ve asked. I’ve done the best I can. “But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.” What’s Elijah doing here? He’s being honest. Something that many times we don’t feel that we can do to God. We don’t feel that we can be honest with Him. Well, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. God already knows that you’re disappointed. I mean, God is big enough to handle your disappointment. To open up those channels, you need to open up your heart. If you’re hurt, let him know that you’re hurt. If you’re frustrated, let him know that you’re frustrated. If you feel alone, tell Him that you feel alone. Then, He can start dealing with the problems that are in your life. You know, when you’re with people, like Eric was saying, don’t put on a happy face if you’re not happy. There’s no benefit in erecting a façade in real biblical community. We need to reach into one another’s lives and encourage one another, but if we don’t know where each other are at, where we’re hurting or where things are hard, then there’s no way that we will be able to help one another transcend the place that we are at.
-God meets His followers where they are at; emotionally, spiritually, physically and intellectually.
The next scripture starting in verse 11, there’s just this beautiful poetic part of it where God is communicating and Elijah is up in this mountain and there’s this huge windstorm. It’s so big, the wind is blowing so hard that the rocks are coming down and it’s just this violent thing. The scripture says that the Lord was not in the wind. Then, there was this violent earthquake and everything’s shaking. The bible says, but God was not in the earthquake. Then there was this fire, things are burning. It’s hot, it’s scary, but the bible says God was not in the fire. These huge things, right? Then, there was this gentle whisper and God was in the whisper. What is being communicated here? What’s being communicated is God is going to intervene in our lives and speak to us in a way that we can hear him. You think about it, emotionally Elijah was already beating up on himself. That, you know what, a big hurricane coming through, he would have welcomed being swept up, thrown against the rocks and being dead. That’s what he wanted, or an earthquake. He would have loved it if the earth split and he fell in. That would have been a good day for him. Alright, done with my problems or the fire. I don’t know if he would have wanted to be burned to death, but he wanted to die. God knew that these things weren’t the place where Elijah was.
It’s interesting to note that God has used all those things in different places to connect with other people, but in this specific circumstance, God is speaking into Elijah’s life at the place where he is at. He is vulnerable, he is hurting and he needs gentleness to restore him. That is not the only thing that’s happening. God, through this whole thing, is meeting him where he is spiritually. He intervened into his life spiritually. It says in verse 9 and 5, it says, the angel of the Lord came to him. Spiritually, Elijah needed some extra attention from God and God supplied that. He even was there physically for him. He said, get up and eat. He looked around and beside his head was some bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water. God is providing for him, right where he was at and the most interesting thing is that he also met him where he was intellectually.
It’s kind of interesting when you look at this and the angel of the Lord said, look, you need to drink and eat so you’ll have enough strength to travel 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Sinai. Why is this important? Because this is stimulating, this would have triggered something in Elijah’s mind. Instantly, when he heard that he was going to be going from Beersheba and going to Mount Sinai, this is where Moses went and encountered God. He was going to be traveling 40 days; that wasn’t by accident. That is symbolic of the 40 years that the Israelites traveled and walked around in the desert. What’s going on is the angel of Lord is telling Elijah all this. He’s understanding that there’s a lot of things going on that God is intervening and that he’s bringing the story of God all into a place where he was and there was more for him to do. It’s kind of interesting to note that where he was and to get to Mount Sinai, that it was only 200 miles. According to other biblical journeys, that should have only taken 10 days. He knew that. He knew where he was and he knew where Mount Sinai was. So why did God say, you’re going to have to travel for 40 days. One, to connect him with the bigger picture of what’s going on. Also, to be molding his heart. Many times, when we are moving forward and we want to get where God is calling us. We’re just like, God just give me the fast track. God knows that we cannot handle that at that point. Each and every one of us needs to learn things. We need to have encounters. We need to grow to be able to eventually and finally get to a place where we can hear and understand what God would have for us.
-Get back to actively following
So, if you continue on in this story verse 15, the Lord told him to get back the same way that you came. Travel to the wilderness of Damascus. Another way that God moves us from despair is to move us back into service. Elijah’s sitting there and God has asked him once already, hey what are you doing here. He asked him once again in a gentle whisper and he goes back and he tells him the same answer once again “Look, I’ve served you and I’ve done all these things and I’m the only one left and I’m depressed.” God says, You know what, you need to get back to work. You need to get back into action. You need to be serving and being the tangible hand of me. This is so important for each and every one of us. So often, we just want to give up. We feel like we’re total failures. We feel like we’re failures in our marriages or in our workplace or following Christ. God says, you know what, I have a plan for you and you need to be continually moving toward fulfilling what I have envisioned for your life. This is what God is communicating to us.
About 5 years ago, there was a psychology convention. There was a renowned speaker who talked about depression. There was a question and answer period. One of the psychiatrists asked the psychologist “What advice would you give someone who is just depressed and wants to die?” This psychologist responded to this psychiatrist and everybody’s thinking it’s going to be get medicated, even though there’s nothing wrong with that or get into therapy or all these kinds of things. But, that’s not what he said at all. It’s really telling what he says. He says “I would tell that person to lock up their home, go across the railroad tracks and serve someone who is less fortunate than themselves.” Why? Because something happens when he leave our comfort zone, our own problems and serve those who are less fortunate than us. Something happens when we start to engage in a world that’s bigger than ourselves and start engaging in the world that God has created.
-Let reality determine your reality
Another thing that Elijah has done twice and is essential for us to be restored from despair and relieve depression and to becoming fully devoted followers of Christ is to let reality dictate our reality. Let reality determine your reality. What do I mean by that? Well, two times Elijah said “I am the only one left.” You think about that and we use that language all the time. I don’t know if Elijah really believed it or not, I think he did. Many times, we feel like we’re the only ones suffering. We feel like we’re the only ones who have problems. We are the only ones that think our marriages are failing or we’re the only ones who think our families are a wreck, or we’re the only ones who are having a hard time meeting or rent or mortgage; or just fill in the blank. God says “You know what, let me give you a dose of reality here. You aren’t the only one. You may feel like you’re the only one left, but in fact there are 7,000 others who are just like you; who have never bowed down to Baal, they have never kissed him. And you need to know that you are part of a much bigger community.” That should speak volumes to us. We are all part of a much bigger community. Whatever you’re going through in life right now, as painful and alone as you feel. Guess what? There are tons of other people who are suffering right along with you. What we need to do is not just suffer in our own self-pity under a broom tree, but we need to get ourselves out into the open. We need to connect in growth groups, that we need to connect with one another and start being real with one another so that we can really truly speak into one another’s lives so we can transcend where we are and be closer to God.
-Connexity (Connect with others following God)
Finally, the most interesting thing I think is that God tells Elijah to connect with community. He says, look you’ve been trying to do it on your own and you need people around you. Not only is it good to know that these 7,000 are out there, but I’m going to connect you with a guy named Elisha and you need to teach this guy Elisha and he is going to help you carry out the mission of bringing my people back to me.
This is so important for each and every one of us. We cannot do it alone. We cannot be a self-made business person. We cannot live our lives in isolation. We need people to do life with. We need to be open with one another and we need to be open to speaking truth to people and them speaking truth to us, to encourage us past where we are. God’s saying, you need to get community around you because by yourself, you’ll find yourself hitting these highs and lows, highs and lows, and when you’re weak, you need people around you who will be strong and when they’re weak, you need to be strong for them. So, he goes out and he connects with Elisha and Elisha becomes his apprentice. We’ll talk more about Elisha and his journey in the following weeks. As we see this all come together, that we so often find ourselves in the pit of despair and we see that we need to be open to intervention from Jesus and people who follow Him. We need to be honest with our disappointment, that we need to realize that God is going to meet us where we are at. He’s done it time and time again. It’s His story, that God meets us in our despair. He left Heaven to come in the person of Jesus Christ so we can have a full relationship with him forever. God is calling us to get back to actively serving Him to be part of his business. To also not let our depression paint our reality, but let reality be our reality and finally that we all need to connect with community. If we do these things and we learn from Elijah, we will become closer to the heart and mind of God. We will be fully devoted followers of Him and we will be able to be the image that he has envisioned for us.
Let’s pray. “Dear God, I just pray for those who I know are hurting today. I echo what Eric was saying, that it’s so awesome in your word to us that we do not have cartoon character type heroes, that the bible is filled of stories full of real people who had real problems, real successes and real failures. God, I just pray that we will be a community that intervenes into one another’s lives, encourages one another, that we will love you with all our heart, mind, soul and strength; that we will truly be a biblical community. We love you Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
