Elijah #4
Today we’re wrapping up our series on the life of Elijah.
If you have your Bibles, open up to
I Kings, chapter 19.
I don’t know if you heard the story about Beethoven’s funeral.
They were standing at the gravesite,
and the pastor is preaching the funeral service,
and all the sudden people heard the sound of Beethovens 5th symphony.
They’re looking around, trying to find the source of the music,
but there’s nothing in sight,
besides which it sounds like the music is coming from the casket.
Well, next thing they know, that music stops, but now they hear Beethovens 4th symphony. And now they’re really creeped out.
Then they hear the 3rd symphony, then the 2nd,
and by now everybody is so worked up and agitated that the pastor can’t even preach.
So he stops right in the middle of the funeral, and says,
people would you just relax.
Its not a big deal,
its just Beethoven decomposing.
3 weeks ago was the story of
Elijah being fed by ravens,
then making a little flour and oil feed a family for months,
and then raising a widow’s son from the dead,
2 weeks ago we talked about how
Elijah had one of the greatest victories ever on Mount Carmel,
God does a huge miracle, sends fire from heaven
to burn an offering,
Last week we saw that Elijah prayed for rain
in the middle of a drought, and a heavy rain came,
So there’s been one miracle after another,
in Elijah’s life,
God is working in all these supernatural ways,
so you would just expect that now,
after all this cool stuff,
Elijah is gonna be at the top of his game,
he’s gonna be pumped
and ready to take on anyone,
watch out for Elijah, right?
Well, actually the opposite happens.
Elijah now enters a very low point in his life,
he becomes burned out and depressed.
Verse 1 of chapter 19:
“Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he killed all the prophets with the sword.”
If you remember, Ahab is the evil king.
the 19th consecutive evil king,
and scripture tells us
he had done more evil in the eyes of God
than any of those before him.
But at this point,
after seeing Elijah overcome all the false prophets
of Baal and Asherah,
he kind of hands over the leadership
to his evil wife, Jezebel,
In verse 2 it says,
“So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, ‘May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like one of them.’ "
And she’s referring to dead false prophets.
So in other words she’s saying,
“Elijah, I’m going to kill you.
You’re a dead man by tomorrow.”
Now, Elijah did not expect that.
He thought that surely,
when King Ahab told her about God’s huge display of power,
and that all the false prophets were defeated and dead,
and that all the people had now promised
to follow the one true God,
Elijah thought that Jezebel
would finally give up
on trying to make the people in Israel
worship Baal.
But instead of Jezebel giving up,
and admitting defeat,
She says, Elijah, I am going to kill you
if it’s the last thing I do.
Then verse 3 says
“Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.”
Now when you first read this,
it makes no sense at all.
Why would he be so afraid of this woman?
King Ahab’s been trying to kill him for years,
so he’s kind of used to that.
In addition, he’s just seen
one powerful miracle after another, done by God.
Healings,
raising the dead,
multiplying food,
fire from heaven,
rain in a drought,
Over and over and over again, for years,
he’d seen the faithfulness of God.
But then one day, a woman says, “I’m going to kill you,”
and he panics, and he runs for his life?
What is going on?
Well we’re going to see in a moment,
that Elijah is burned out and depressed,
and when you’re depressed,
you just react differently to things.
And while we’re at it, this morning,
I’m gonna tell you how you can get depressed,
in four easy steps.
Just in case your life is way too joyful and peaceful right now,
and you really miss being depressed,
I’ll tell you how to get there.
In verse 3 it says,
When Elijah came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it, and he prayed that he might die.”
Okay, that’s a little indication there,
that maybe Elijah is depressed.
You don’t have to be a mind reader
or brilliant theologian
to figure that out.
He’s praying that he’ll die.
Now remember, he just had this great victory,
over the false prophets,
he’s just seen God work powerfully,
and what’s best of all is the 3 year drought is over,
the rains came,
but now he’s praying that he’ll die?
He says:
"I have had enough, Lord," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors."
Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep.”
You ever felt that way?
I’ve had enough.
I have had it up to here.
I’m just ready to quit.
I used to have some dreams
for what I could do, or what I could be,
Those are gone, its not working out,
I give up, I want to quit.
Maybe you feel like that right now.
Maybe you feel like
quitting your job,
quitting your marriage,
quitting as a parent,
quitting church,
You say,
"That’s it, I’ve had enough!"
That’s where Elijah was.
He was completely burned out and depressed.
So how do you get depressed in four easy steps?
Just do what Elijah did
Step number 1 is,
Wear yourself out.
Physically and mentally wear yourself out.
Elijah goes through a stressful time,
dealing with Ahab, and the false prophets,
and even though it’s a victory,
he’s worn out,
then instead of getting some rest,
he immediately takes off,
and runs all the way to Jezreel.
That’s about 25 miles,
so he does a marathon.
and he’s physically exhausted,
hasn’t had any sleep.
and then the messenger from Jezebel comes,
and gives him the message,
Jezebel says, I’m gonna kill you by tomorrow.
So Elijah panics,
and now he’s running for his life…
and runs to Beersheba.
That’s another 100 miles.
It probably takes several days,
and he’s in a constant state of fear,
knowing that there are assassins on his trail,
trying to catch him.
and then once he gets to Beersheba,
he leaves his buddy, the servant,
and runs another day’s journey out into the desert,
and finally collapses under a broom bush.
He’d gone as far as he could,
he had nothing left,
he was totally exhausted…
…much like some of us.
You wonder,
“Why am I getting burned out?
“Why am I depressed?”
Maybe you’ve worn yourself completely out.
Some of you moms,
are working a full-time job,
taking care of the house,
putting dinner on the table,
carting kids all over the world,
Maybe some of you are taking classes in the evening,
while you’re working a full-time job,
and you’re going,
“Why am I so depressed?”
You’re wearing yourself out.
Some of you, it’s not just a physical exhaustion,
but it’s mental exhaustion.
You’re thinking,
I’ve gotta be there for them,
I’ve gotta make sure they’re covered.
and be strong for everybody.
and be a great provider,
and fix all their problems,
and you’ve got all this stuff going on in your head all the time,
so you never really relax,
and you’re mentally exhausted.
If you want to get burned out and depressed,
Step number 1 is to wear yourself out.
Step number 2 is to Shut people out,
Elijah did that too.
He left his only friend, his servant,
in Beersheba,
and went on without him.
We don’t know why,
but it was probably because
his servant was so worn out with running
that he couldn’t go on.
So Elijah says,
Forget you, I’m not stopping,
see you later alligator.
That’s the same thing a lot of us do
when we get overwhelmed,
we start to shut people out of our lives.
A friend asks what’s going on,
You say, I’m fine.
I don’t wanna talk about it,
and besides, they wouldn’t understand, anyway,”
And I don’t feel like being around anyone else.
I don’t want other people getting involved,
I can handle it myself.
I can get through with it.
So we clam up and start to push people away.
You want to get depressed?
Wear yourself out, and
Shut people out.
#3, Focus on the negative,
which is also exactly what our hero,
the great man of faith, did.
He said,
“I’ve had enough. I’m no better than my ancestors.”
You can hear the self-pity start to take over.
And what self pity does is,
it exaggerates.
I’m never going get past this situation,
I’m always going to be stuck in this problem.
My life’s never going to get any better.
I’m never going to get that job I want,
I’m never going to get the promotion.
my marriage is never gonna get better,
my kids are never going to come to Christ.
You’re living in never, never land,
you think its never gonna get better,
But it’s just exaggeration,
it’s focusing on the negative.
It’s all the bad things,
and none of the good things.
And when you focus on the negative,
it starts to feel like everybody else has it better.
Elijah says,
“I'm no better than my ancestors."
What’s funny is,
nobody was comparing him with his ancestors,
we don’t even know anything about them,
But when we’re mentally and physically exhausted,
we start to compare,
and comparing always ends negative.
We look around and say,
that guy looks like he’s doing great,
its working for him,
why doesn’t it work for me?
He’s making the sales at work, why not me?
Her marriage is easy,
why not mine?
Her kids are doing great.
She’s getting the promotions,
People appreciate him,
but they don’t appreciate me.
I'm working just as hard, why not me?
I expected more.
Verse 10
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.
He says, God, this isn’t fair.
I’ve served you zealously.
I’ve done everything you asked me to,
but it feels like nothing in my life is working out.
Yet these other guys,
have broken their covenant with you,
killed your prophets,
and yet they look like they’re doing fine.
This is not fair, God,
what’s going on here?
You ever felt like Elijah?
God, what’s going on?
This isn’t fair.
The Bible warns us over and over
not to compare ourselves.
When you do,
you're setting yourself up to be depressed,
because there’s always somebody around,
who appears to be doing better than you.
And those are the people we compare with,
the people who are doing great,
we don’t compare ourselves to the person
who just got laid off,
divorced,
and lost their house.
No, we always compare with the people
who are doing better than us,
so we always end up feeling worse.
You want to get depressed?
Just wear yourself out,
shut others out,
focus on the negative,
and the 4th thing that you need to do,
if you want to get depressed is,
you need to
Forget God’s faithfulness,
which again is exactly what many of us do.
Think about all we saw God do in the life of Elijah,
supernatural protection and provision,
birds feeding him,
water from a brook during the draught,
raising the dead,
fire from Heaven.
But now Elijah is going,
“I’ve had enough. Take my life; I’m no better than my ancestors.”
He’s already forgotten all the amazing things God did…
But you know what,
I can understand where Elijah was.
Because I can look back at the faithfulness of God
in my own life.
all the times He was there for me,
and He provided,
He comforted,
He gave me strength,
I can look back at all that,
but then as soon as something comes along
that stresses me out,
I’ll forget all about his faithfulness,
forget all that he’s done for me in the past,
and start to get depressed.
Because its so easy to get depressed,
just follow the 4 easy steps:
Wear yourself out.
Shut people out.
Focus on the negative,
and Forget God’s faithfulness.
Now in case you’re already there, or on the way,
let’s talk about the answer,
What do you do when you’re starting to get burned out,
or maybe you’re already dealing with depression.
maybe you feel like things are hopeless?
And quite frankly,
some of us are there today…
God is speaking directly to you, today,
And if you’re not there,
you probably know somebody who is.
The first step when you’re facing burnout,
is to get control of your physical situation.
God sends an angel to Elijah,
verse 6
All at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat." He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
God had Elijah sleep,
then eat, and then sleep again.
The first step is to rest your body.
Somebody said,
If you’ve been burning the candle at both ends,
then you’re not very bright.
Before God could do anything else with Elijah,
he knew the first step was that Elijah needed rest.
Now notice that God didn’t criticize Elijah.
He didn't give him a sermon, or a lecture,
God didn’t say,
“Just snap out of it, Elijah!
Don’t you know that Christians don’t get depressed,
What's wrong with you?
Get with the program.
No.
He didn't criticize him for being burnt out.
He had him sleep, then eat, then sleep some more,
because Elijah had been overdoing it.
Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do
is go home and go to bed.
In fact,
one of the most disobeyed commands of God
in the world we live in is,
Honor God by taking a Sabbath,
We sort of just ignore that one, like
That one’s not really as important
as the other 9 commandments,
God didn’t really mean that one.
Besides, I’ve got too much to do,
I can’t go a whole day a week without working…
I’ve gotta do this,
and I’ve gotta get that done,
and I got to do the other,
and I just don’t have time to rest.”
But I think God might say,
You know, it doesn’t matter so much,
if the clothes are dirty.
or if the house isn’t clean.
or if the yard isn’t mowed.
or if a few things go undone,
Maybe the thing that matters most,
the most spiritual thing
is that you get enough rest,
and actually obey my command to take a Sabbath.
So the angel of the Lord gives Elijah food
and then has him take a nap.
Then in Verse 7,
The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.
Now, most scholars believe that
this is the same mountain
where God gave the 10 Commandments to Moses.
This is like God’s holy mountain.
So God is basically telling him,
“Eat, rest, and then go to church.”
Go to the place where God is,
the place where God met Moses.
God’s prescription for Elijah’s depression is:
Eat,
rest your body,
and go to the place where you’ll experience God.
Now once you’ve done the first step,
the second thing we’re gonna see, is that
to defeat depression,
God replaces Elijah’s lies with God’s truth.
The problem here is that
Elijah is focusing on his feelings
instead of facts.
I feel like its true,
therefore it must be true.
And by the way,
You and I do the same thing all the time.
We feel like its true,
so we assume that it is true.
Some of you came in here today saying,
"I don't feel close to God.
I don't feel like God's working in my life.
I don't feel that He loves me.
I don't feel like He knows me."
What do you think is more important?
what you feel.
or what the truth is?
A lot of therapists today say,
"Get in touch with your feelings."
That's fine, that’s a good thing to do.
But what's more important?
Getting in touch with your feelings
Or getting in touch with the truth.
The Bible does not say,
"and you will know your feelings
and your feelings will set you free."
It does say,
"You will know the truth..." And the truth will set you free.
Maybe you'd say this morning,
that you're in a hopeless situation.
Is that what you feel,
or is that what God says about it?
God says
“All things are possible to him who believes."
You say, I might as well quit,
I just can’t win.
Is that what you feel,
or is that the truth?
Look at verse 9…
“Elijah went into a cave and spent the night. And the word of the LORD came to him: ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ “
Now, let’s stop for a second…
Was God asking this question,
because he didn’t know?
Was God really trying to figure it out,
he is just stumped and confused
by this whole situation?
No, he knows exactly why Elijah is there,
and he knows Elijah is burned out and depressed.
What God wanted Elijah to do
was to to verbalize the lies he was believing,
so God could correct the lies.
So God asks him,
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
Verse 10,
“He replied, ‘I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, broken down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too."
Now that was mostly true.
It was true right up until the last statement…
when he said,
“I am the only one left.”
But that last statement was a lie from the enemy,
And it’s a lie that our enemy uses all the time
on you and me.
Maybe you’ve said or felt this past week…
“I’ve been doing all the work.”
“I’m the only one who cares.”
“I’m the only one that can get it done.”
“There’s no one who cares like me.
Everybody’s depending on me.
I’m all alone.
Nobody understands.”
Those are lies that the enemy loves to use.
And if you read on in this story,
God’s corrects the lies, he tells Elijah,
Sorry to bust your bubble, Elijah,
but you’re not the only one left,
there’s 7000 other people in Israel,
who haven’t worshipped idols,
7,000 who have stayed faithful to me,
and they’re still following me
and praying to me.
Don’t believe the lies, Elijah,
You’re not the only one.
God replaces the lies, with his truth.
I can imagine in this room with several hundred people,
all the lies
that God wants to replace with his truth.
Some of us are believing the lie…
My marriage could never be healed.
God says, that’s not true, that’s a lie,
With God, all things are possible.
Replace the lie with the truth.
My kids, oh, they’re never going to come back to Christ.
Do you know the future?
Because God does…
and maybe that lie is from your enemy.
My life’s never going to be any better.
I’m never going to have an intimate relationship.
I’m going to be all alone for the rest of my life.
I’m stuck in this dead end job.
I can’t make a difference.
I can’t serve God with my life,
My husband’s never going to believe in Christ.
I’m always going to be depressed.
God wants to take all those lies
and replace them with truth.
In fact the bible tells us to
Take every thought captive, and make it obedient to Christ.”
Obedient means it lines up with God’s will.
and the one thing you know for sure
about all those lies,
is that none of them are God’s will.
So God would say to you right now,
That is not the whole truth,
don’t believe a lie.
There are seven thousand,
in other words,
there are many many things you know nothing about,
You may not be able to see how it’ll work out,
but I’m God,
and I have ways you know nothing about.
I have people ready to help, that you know nothing about,
I have plans already in the works, that you know nothing about,
so don’t believe a lie.
Replace the lies with the truth of God.
The third way to deal with burnout or depression,
Refocus on God.
v. 11 God says to Elijah
"Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD.”
God says,
I've got something for you to see, Elijah,
and God puts on this spectacular show.
First He causes a great wind to come by.
Possibly a tornado,
since Elijah was able to see it.
Then God causes an earthquake
and the earth rumbles and shakes
all around him.
Then God sends a great fire down
and Elijah watches all these spectacular fireworks.
Now the purpose of these powerful demonstrations
was not to speak to Elijah,
because when God finally speaks,
he speaks in this gentle whisper.
So then, what was the point of it all?
Why did God demonstrate all this power to Elijah
when he's burned out?"
God was saying,
"Elijah, I'm in control.
I've got the power to handle any situation you face.
Don't worry about some lady trying to kill you.
I've got it under control.
You don’t have to worry and fret,
about all these overwhelming problems.
God does this huge display of power,
to help Elijah refocus on who’s who."
When you refocus on God's awesome power
then your problems become a whole lot smaller
by comparison.
When God does speak to Elijah,
how does he speak?
Not by a tornado or earthquake or fire,
but by a gentle whisper.
A gentle whisper means that
if we’re not listening,
if we’re not paying attention,
we don’t even realize he’s speaking.
There was a science show on TV recently,
and [The host] was interviewing Dr. Kathleen Wermke,
director of the Center for Pre-Speech Development
at the University of Wurzburg in Germany.
She recently published results from a research project
comparing the cries of newborn babies in Germany
with those of newborns in France.
The research involved precise recordings in maternity wards.
Dr. Wermke digitally graphed the pitch and cadence of those cries, and then painstakingly compared, baby for baby, those cries along ethnic lines.
What they discovered stunned them: babies cry with an accent.
They found that the intonation pattern of a baby’s cry
exactly mimics the the patterns of speech
characteristic of the mother's national language ….
German speech patterns are much different than French,
and the babies cries imitated this difference.
They concluded that a baby listens to its mother for nine months, and emerges from its mother's womb already familiar with her voice and speech patterns,
and begins imitating her right from the first cry.
That makes me think ….
How many of us as spiritual babies,
don’t even realize it,
but we’re hearing God’s voice all around us,
all the time.
Maybe his voice is very soft,
maybe it’s a still small voice,
and maybe we haven’t yet learned to understand it,
but we do hear it,
just like those babies in the womb
hear their mothers voice.
So then for us it becomes just a matter of
learning to understand
what that soft voice of God is saying to us.
because even when we’re burned out and depressed,
he comes to us and speaks to us,
and we’ll hear it if we refocus on Him.
The fourth thing that God does
in the middle of Elijah’s depression,
is he has Elijah,
Resume Serving Others
To overcome depression, God has him
“Eat and rest.
He replace the lies with truth.”
Refocuses on God,
and then Resumes Serving Others,
God gives a new assignment,
new work to do.
Notice in vs. 15-16
Elijah’s new assignment.
The LORD said to him, "Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram. Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha…
So God says,
"Elijah, its time to quit running,
and get back to serving others.
Get back to doing the things
I’ve given you to do."
Start serving others needs,
so you can get your eyes off of yourself.
You see, when you're burned out
you tend to become very inward focused.
All I see is
All of my problems.
My needs.
My hurts.
How tired I am!"
All you look at is yourself.
God says,
"You need to get your eyes off yourself, Elijah.
You need to be out helping other people,
and serving again.
Quit moping around,
and get a purpose for your life,
start helping others.
There’s a well known quote by
the famous psychiatrist Karl Menninger,
He was asked what someone should do
who’s experiencing depression:
He said,
Lock your house, go across the railroad tracks, find someone in need, and do something for him."
This guy wasn’t a Christian,
but he knows how God created people,
and he knows that we get fulfillment in life,
when we help others.
The point is:
The quickest way to get rid of depression
is to get your eyes off yourself
and get involved in giving your life away
to help other people.
Jesus said it like this,
in Matt 10:39
Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
The more you give your life away,
by giving out to others,
the more God gives back to you.
You see,
Elijah thought God was through with him.
He was depressed,
discouraged,
down in the dumps,
ready to quit.
But God was not through with Elijah
and he’s not through with you.
Maybe you are discouraged or burned out this morning.
God's not through with you.
He's got a great plan
for the rest of your life.
Galatians 6:9
"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up!"
That’s what God is saying to you this morning…
you will reap a harvest if you do not give up!"
VIDEO: Scott Rigsby on Depression
Stand for Prayer – Worship Band…
If you've never said Yes to Jesus Christ say,
"Christ, would You come into my life today? Maybe I don't understand it all. But I recognize my need for You. Jesus Christ, come into my mind and my heart. Put Your spirit within me. I want to follow You."
Lord, you told us not to become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we don’t give up."
Father, I pray for those who are here today that are on the verge of giving up. Give them the strength to keep going. Help them take these steps to get back to balance in their physical, emotional, and spiritual lives.
We pray Your blessing on all those here who desire to serve you.
