1. A powerful rocket is fired from the earth on August 20,1978 sending the spacecraft Voyageur 2 deep into space. By the winter of 1985, it had traveled 2 billion miles. At 49,000 miles an hour, it passes by and takes pictures of the planet Uranus. Its movements and the camera are controlled by radio waves transmitted from the earth. It discovers 7 new moons over the next 20 days and the pictures it takes are sent back to earth..
2. O January 28, 1986, the spaceshuttle is launched. Within the first two minutes of the launch tile rockets explode, sending the 7 astronauts on board to their death.
3. Amusement parks are built in most major cities in North America. Thrill seekers ride engineering wonders which seem to fly out of control and yet are supposedly safer than driving your car.
4. On June 14, 1986, what is believed to be a minor mechanical failure on the Mindbender roller coaster in Edmonton caused a horrible accident in which three people died.
5. These examples make a common point. Through modern science and technology, God has enabled us to be able to reach new horizons in almost every major field. The seemingly endless capacity of the human mind and a world filled with rich resources lead us to believe that we are able to do whatever we want to. There is no limit to what we can do. And yet every so often something happens which points out that we do have limits.
6. There is human error and there is the human limitation to understand all the variables which face us. There is a wide gap between our human capabilities and the perfect knowledge which we require to have complete control over all that we do.
7. For many centuries theologians - some of the most intelligent people who have lived - have spent their lifetimes studying and trying to explain who God is. And yet after a lifetime of such work theologians have admitted that they still don’t fully understand God. At end of life time, Karl Barth asked to tell what His studies told about God. His answer "Jesus loves me, this I know".
8. Again there is a wide gap between our ability to comprehend God and who God is.
9. As a church and as individual Christians, we read the Bible, we study it, and we seek God’s wisdom to enable us to understand Him. We become zealous or enthusiastic as He uses us. As a church we build up each other in faith. As individuals we may lead others to Christ. Soon it appears that we can do almost anything as God’s servants.
10. And then, in some task, we may fail as a church or as an individual. We don’t understand what happened or why? We thought we knew what God’s will was and yet circumstances make us doubt if we really did. We thought we knew so well what God’s plans were and what our role was in those plans.
11. Things were all in control and now we seem to have lost that control. Even in serving God we can easily forget that we are not in control but that God is. There is a wide gap between God’s ways and our understanding of those ways.
12. If this were not so, we might consider ourselves as equal to Him.
13. As we enter new year we can gain much assurance about future and spare ourselves much grief by seeing how God is in control and not us or anyone else.
Teaching
1. In our Scripture passaged we read that Elijah was discouraged. God had strengthened Elijah to face the circumstances that stood before him. God works within us to enable us to face various situations in our lives.
2. Today will focus on verses 9-18, to see that God is also in control of these situations and how He exercises that control.
3. Elijah comes before God quite strongly, complaining about the situation that God has put Him in. God shows Elijah, however, that His understanding of the situation is limited. God comes to Elijah in a different way than he expected and He uses Elijah in differently than he expected. There is a wide gap between that which Elijah understands and that which God knows of the situation. Elijah is upset. He looks at the situation he finds himself in and he feels that he is alone. He has been deserted by all the other Israelites. He alone has been zealous for God. He alone is fully devoted to serving and following God. He alone would not tolerate the worship of Baal.
4. God asks Elijah what he was doing there but Elijah doesn’t answer the question. He is so upset that he alone has been faithful and so he complains to God. Instead of blaming Ahab, he now blames all of Israel. It’s almost like Elijah is God’s last hope and if he fails, God will fail.
5. Do we ever feel that way? We see that things are not the way they should be or the way we think that they should be. We come before God angry that we alone are fighting the good fight. Either as an individual or as a group we can feel that its completely up to us. "God, unless you use us to overcome those who are attacking you or your church we are going to be defeated.
6. God comes-to Elijah in a different manner than Elijah expects Him to. Elijah is all worked up and he wants God to empower Him to continue the fight. If God would come to him in a powerful way then he might be inspired or pumped up to continue on his holy mission. "Almighty God, show me your power that I may use it and that I might be used by you in a mighty way." God showed His power and might. There was a mighty wind that tore the mountain apart and shattered the rocks. There was an earthquake. There was a fire. Elijah must have really started getting psyched up to continue his fight.
7. But the Lord was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. Instead there was a gentle whisper. When he heard the whisper, Elijah had no doubt that the whisper he heard was the presence of God. He immediately covered his face with his cloak.
8. The gentle whisper was the opposite of the loud complaining with which Elijah had answered God’s question. It showed more control. It was like someone saying, "Let’s stop and talk about the situation. Are things really the way you see them? Are they really out of control?"
9. How many times have we not felt as zealous or angry as Elijah did and just wanted to push our views or plans ahead without listening to others or to God?
10. Thank God for those times when He has either calmed our spirits or sent someone into our lives to remind us that we should remain calm and not get carried away with what we wanted - even if we are so sure that it is also exactly what God want. Let that angry spirit within us calm down before we say or do things which will not only hurt ourselves but also hurt those around us.
11. God’s response to Elijah indicated that He would use Elijah, but He would use Elijah in His way. He told Elijah to anoint three people - Elisha, Hazael, and Jehu - and that through these people all those who worshipped Baal would be destroyed.
12. God didn’t provide the details of how He would use these three man. Perhaps that would have led Elijah to worry about some of the details - details which were God’s concern, not his.. Instead he had to follow God’s instructions and then trust God that he would use these actions to accomplish His purpose.
13. This element of trust emphasizes that God is in control. He uses us to accomplish His work but if no trust is required, the burden of the task and the need to control things becomes ours.
14. So often we want to know every detail of God’s plan for us, the danger for us is also that it becomes our plan, not God’s.
15. God also tells Elijah that he is not alone and he does not have the burden of the task placed on his shoulders alone. In telling Elijah to anoint the three men, God is telling Elijah that He will work through these men - they will be His instruments also. Elijah is not being called upon to do the work alone. God sometimes does great things through individuals but He often deals with us as a group - as His people - and He accomplishes His purposes through His people. Leaders cannot do the work unless those who follow also feel called to that work.
16. God’s covenants, His promises - are with His church - those who together are His people.
17. Elijah was not alone. God said that He had caused to remain 7,000 people in Israel who had not bowed down to worship Baal. Elijah thought he was the only one left. Instead there were 6,999 others that he forgot to count.
18. When we serve God, that service is very personal. God wants us to give all of ourselves to Him. However, because it is personal, it can become quite easy to think that we alone are sincere in our service and to forget that there are others around us who are also eager to serve.
19. We may feel called by God to serve Him in some way but we have to work with those Christians which God has placed alongside us in the church and in our lives. When each person serves God on own without working together, we will not have the strength which we have when we work together as a group.
20. Elijah was enthusiastic and eager to serve God. Enthusiastic and-eager people can provide the spark we need to work effectively for God. But that enthusiasm must not make us forget that God not the individual is in control. He will use us - in His way and in His time. We may not understand how but we need to be available for His use and not to set our own agenda. If our enthusiasm only lasts while we do our own thing, then we need to question that enthusiasm and the motives behind it.
21. We are to follow God’s word and listen to Him to try and determine what He wants us to do. Sometimes He will speak to us through mighty acts but other times through the quiet moments we spend with him or the calming advise of other believers. This means not just listening to what we want to hear but to be open to all of God’s word. To discuss with others what we feel that God is telling us and to work together with them.
22. Mostly, though we may seek to serve God and to be used by Him, we are to trust Him. He is in control and His will shall be done despite us or through us. We can pray to God, asking Him to answer our petitions and trusting that He will do so, but we make our prayers subject to His will - thereby acknowledging that His ways are greater than our ways.
23. When we look at the many things happening around us, it is easy to wonder if God is in control? What power or say does the church have in today’s society? Why does He allow abortion laws that permit the killing of thousands of unborn children each year? The church seems often to fail in its efforts to influence such laws? There are no human answers for some of these questions but to trust God?
24. While God works through His church, He also works outside of the church as well. This doesn’t mean that God condones what is happening in place where Christians and others are persecuted. We are told in Romans that the authorities that exist are established by God. While this doesn’t mean that we should not speak out against injustice and seek changes for the better, it does mean, that God is in control of the world.
25. We can’t understand why He then allows things to happen, but that’s all right. After all He is God and who are we to fully know the mind of God.
26. If we look at the commission which God gave to Elijah and how that commission led to the extermination of Baal worship in Israel, we will see some ways in which God exercises control over the world and works out His purpose. God tells Elijah to anoint o set apart Hazael as king of Aram or what is today called Syria. He is to anoint Jehu as king over Israel and to anoint Elisha successor as prophet. Elijah sets apart Elisha who later sets apart Hazael as king of Syria. Elisha also anoints Jehu as king of Israel.
27. As God told Elijah, through these three men, all those who worship Baal in Israel would be destroyed. To see how God works through these men is most interesting and the final acts which complete the destruction of these worshipers are not recorded until the 2nd book of Kings, chapter 11.
28. Some of the methods used by these men are questionable and some of the events seem simply to happen by chance. But God uses these various means for His purpose. Elisha tells Hazael that he is to be King of Syria and then destroy many people of Israel. This prompts Hazael to kill Ben-Hadad, so that he can succeed him. Later Hazael battles with Ahab’s forces and weakens them so that Jehu can easily finish them off. At one occasion, Jehu just happened to run into some relatives of Ahab from Judah.
29. I suggest you take the time to read through the first 11 chapters of 2nd Kings to see all the ways in which God’s will was done. Through these events, it is clear that God was in control of the situation.
30. Just as He had often done in the past, He used foreign countries to carry out His punishment on Israel in order that they may again turn to Him.
31. Sometimes God uses circumstances. Events that seem to just happen are actually tools used by Him to carry out His will. And of course, God uses people, sometimes without them even knowing that they are being used. If God wants to use us He will in spite of us.
32. God doesn’t need us to carry out His purpose. He didn’t need Elijah. He could simply have destroyed the house of Ahab by some illness or some other way. But God is a God who relates to His people. He created us so that we may have fellowship with Him and although He doesn’t need us, He does want to involve us in His work.
33.God is in control of each of our lives, of this church, of this world. Many people would say that to make such a statement doesn’t make any sense. From a worldly point of view this is correct but God’s wisdom is much greater than the wisdom of the world. The writer of Psalm 46 sees that nations are in an uproar and kingdoms fall. Sounds somewhat like the world today! Is anyone really in control? But God, in the midst of it all, says to us, "Be still and know that I am God."
34. Some of you may be familiar with the story of the China Inland Mission which was begun by Hudson Taylor. Through much work and many struggles this mission was started. Taylor and all of the missionaries gave up their western dress and dressed like the Chinese - even in the way they styled their hair. They gave up their way of life so that the Chinese might accept them and their message of salvation. Despite diseases and persecution which killed many missionaries, by the year 1900 over one million Chinese had become Christians. In 1949 the communists took over China and in 1953 they kicked out the missionaries. Anyone who was a Christian was considered to be a traitor. For years little was heard from China and it was thought that the church was dead. All that work, suffering, persecution to do God’s work seemed to have failed. How could God have allowed it? A few years ago, we discovered that somehow the church has survived and is alive. Some think millions of Chinese are Christians and the church had actually grown during the time it was thought to be dying. Despite the way things looked, God was in control. His church did not die.
35. You may think that this is a nice story but what about me. What about the unanswered prayers or things in my life that a loving God could not allow if He were truly in control? There are questions that cannot be answered. He reveals many things to us but there is much that we do not know.
36. My mother suffered a brain aneurism when I was 10 years old. The operation which she had damaged her brain - affecting her eyesight, ability to reason, and emotions. She spent many years in a nursing homebefore she died. She was confused about most things - there is one thing that never left her - her strong faith and trust in Jesus Christ and in a God who loves her. She knew where her future home was. I look at her life and wonder why her life had to be what we may consider to be such a waste. I believe that God could have healed her but that was His decision.
37. Each of us may have similar, personal situations which make us wonder if God is in control. Things that happened in 1997 or which we face in 1998.
38. The source of comfort that we have is that He is in control, not us. He is a perfect and loving God. We thank Him that He uses us and that He makes us part of His plans. He wants us to work at solving our problems, but do not think that the burden to change all that is wrong around us falls only on our shoulders. We are not alone - God is in control and there are many others around us who are zealous for Him besides ourselves.
39. God is working His purpose out.
