When God Whispers Your Name
CCCAG March 5th, 2017
Scripture: 1 Kings 19:9-14
Preaching/working for years with no affect
One thing I was taught in bible school about the way that a pastor should present him or herself that I never agreed with was this idea that a pastor should never tell his congregation about the personal struggles that they have had.
I’ve always found that advice a bit troublesome as the bible tells me about the failures and struggles of the spiritual greats but conventional wisdom among pastors tells me to hid them.
I’m glad the authors of the bible didn’t believe that, because we’d lose so much depth in seeing that the people of the bible were just that- people.
Just think about David- The bible records his wins, his losses, and his huge mistakes for us to see.
The bible also shows us Jesus, our God Himself, struggling in Gethsemane, or becoming short tempered with his disciples, or violently angry with what went on in the temple courts with the money changers cheating the people.
So why am I as a pastor better than my master?
I’m going to break that rule today and share a very trying and even dark time of my life this morning because I think it could be encouraging to someone here or someone listening to the podcast who is also groping their way through a dark valley without any hint of the light at the end.
In December of 2004, I was working as a paramedic for a company named Medix. I had been working there for most of my paramedic career, and we were told right before Christmas that it was going out of business.
I was devastated- I had worked very hard there trying to build it up and make it work for years, but the owner wouldn’t listen to reason and ran the company into the ground and had no other choice other than to sell it to an even worse ambulance company. I decided to stay on for a bit with the new company and see if we could make it work but by mid-January most of the paramedics were leaving and it was obvious that this new company was going to be even worse. I applied to work at our chief competitor, which was a hard pill to swallow as I had been fighting with them for years to keep the business we had in Walworth county, but they were the only other paramedic job in the area. I started at Paratech in February of 2006 as a rookie paramedic- after being the ALS manager, or operationally 2nd in command (under the owner) at the previous company.
At the same time, things were coming to a head at our first church. We had been there for 13 years, and had served in an undefined pastoral and intermittent interim role for 6 years as they went through a few senior pastors. A new pastor had been called, and a sizable portion of the congregation was not behind him, and were coming to me complaining about it. After a very uncomfortable confrontation with the pastor, and then the board, I took it to prayer, and I felt the LORD leading me to resign from that church in order to allow the new pastor a fresh start without having me in the way. The word the LORD gave me was “You need to decrease so he can increase”.
However, I had no leading of where to go after that. Just was told to leave. No direction, no plan for the future, just obey and leave.
One problem with that…I was ordained through a local church credential, as soon as I left that church I was no longer a credentialed minister.
I had to lay down the title of “pastor”. At that time it felt like I had misunderstood God’s call, or maybe it was just for a season and that season was now over.
So….I’m 36 years old, and I was starting over in my secular career. Not a good place to be or wise career move.
And my ministry career was gone- the thing I had majorly sacrificed for, studied for, gone days without sleep for, used 80% of my vacations for the past several years for
Was poof- up in smoke.
In both jobs if felt like
All that work, all of the hours, all of the studying felt like I wasted 10 years of my life.
Men define themselves largely through their work, and although I had my family and marriage intact and relatively healthy, it still felt like I was in a life raft, adrift in the middle of the Pacific, with no hope of rescue or ever seeing land again.
In the biblical text today, Elijah is in the same situation-
In his case
He has been the only prophetical check against THE most wicked king and queens in Israel’s history. Most of his ministerial career has been about avoiding death by their hands, and repeatedly being ignored by the people as he proclaims God’s word over and over again. God even sends a severe drought to the land to try to get the people to repent without success.
This all comes to a head when God has him directly confront the idolatrous religious leaders of the false god Ba’al in a dramatic show-down on Mt. Carmel. Elijah proposes a contest- they both build altars for a burnt sacrifice of a bull- one for Ba’al, one for God. Whichever God answers by miraculously setting the altar on fire is the true God of Israel.
The prophets of Ba’al go first- they yell, and scream and even cut themselves for hours trying to get their false god to respond, but nothing happens.
Elijah prays one prayer, and God answers with Fire from heaven which consumes the whole altar. The people immediately turn away from Ba’al worship and execute the false religious leaders- there is a revival in the land!
After the confrontation at Mt Carmel, God tells Elijah to pray for rain, which he does and the drought ends.
Elijah is riding high- all of his work and all of his effort is finally paying off! He is seeing the reward of his labor, things are looking up!
Then a messenger comes- The King and Queen are sending assassins out to kill you, and the revival you thought had started- that is over as well.
Elijah is devastated. HE is exhausted. HE is emotionally spent, and now spiritually empty.
Have any of you had that happen- riding a huge emotional high, then the rug gets pulled out from under you.
So he did what many of us do when that happens- we run away.
Elijah runs into the desert, and is provided for by God who sends an angel to feed and strengthen him, and tells him to keep going. For 40 days he journeys further into the wilderness, until he finds a cave to rest in.
Elijah is alone, in the dark, it’s cold, and ironically it matches his spiritual condition.
and that is where we pick up the story-
1 King 19:9The LORD Appears to Elijah
And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn 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.”
11 The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn 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.”
Prayer
The title of today’s message is “When God Whispers Your Name”. It is part of our series “Hidden in God”.
Last week we spoke about being purposeful about getting alone with God.
This week we are going to talk about God being purposeful about being alone with us.
Why does He do this? Why does God have his prophet shivering alone in a cave right now?
Because spiritual burnout is a real condition. I’ve experienced it, and Elijah is experiencing it.
This is about a God who loves you so much that even when you are at ------your lowest,
-even when you are questioning Him and His plan,
-or even when you feel like screaming into the heavens asking, “Why did I just waste the best years of my life for no reward, no fruit, and nothing to show for it. Now by every human measure, I’m even further behind in life then when I started?”
That’s when God needs to pull you out of the battle for awhile, put you in a cave until you can hear HIM Whisper your name.
Let’s go to the text and break this down a little-
I. The Question- “What are you doing here Elijah?”
How strange of a question was that? Wasn’t it God who lead him there? Why is an all knowing God asking what seems to be an obvious question?
One of the fascinating things about Jesus is that He rarely answers a question directly. If I was one of the original 12, it would have driven me crazy to ask him a question and get a parable in response.
Just the facts, don’t need a story. Give it to me straight and quick.
I’m like the rich young ruler- “Jesus, give it to me straight! No stories, no parables, no equivocation- what must I do to gain eternal life”
Years ago, the American Heart Association did a survey that found that people who took their CPR and advanced medical classes only remembered 10% of what they were taught, so they revamped everything, including the way that they educated their instructors. We all had to go to a “teaching the teacher class?” One of the things they taught us was not to regurgitate information to people, but to draw out of them what they already know, and then fill in the blanks.
An example would be CPR- there is a student stuck with what to do next in the sequence, so you start asking them what they think should happen next and you come to find out that the reason they aren’t doing it is because they are missing a vital piece of information, and then you explore that- let them figure it out for themselves and they will remember it forever.
So when God is asking Elijah, “What are you doing here Elijah” isn’t so much a question to ascertain his location, but to draw out of him what feelings, what actions, what circumstances lead him here.
Elijah responds- (anger)
“I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn 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.”
Paraphrase- “I’ve done everything you’ve told me to do, and my life has gotten steadily worse until now I have hitmen looking to kill me and gain a bounty.”
“And God, it’s because of you!”
Jeremiah had a similar experience. He said this about God calling him to the ministry as a prophet-
You deceived me, LORD, and I was deceived; you overpowered me and prevailed. I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me. (Jer 20:7)
I don’t know if I ever verbalized these thoughts when I was going through this, but I had these same thoughts when all of that stuff came down in my life- I had sacrificed a lot for the sake of the church over those last 10 years.
A job offer that could have worked into a 6 figure salary, but involved moving to the Denver area, which would have left our first church without a pastor.
Going back to being a street paramedic, and giving up a 24 hr shift (20% of my paycheck every three weeks for almost 2 years so I was off on Sundays to serve my church, without pay.
Living sometimes on a razor thin budget while everyone else around me is driving new cars, having all the toys, but I’ve giving all that up so I can serve God, and now I’m left with nothing for my trouble.
But this is also where Elijah is. There is some attitude, and a lot of frustration in his answer to God here.
In essence Elijah is asking-
“God, What possible benefit comes from me serving you? All it’s done, and all you have done is make my life worse!”
It’s not an explanation that Elijah is giving, it’s an accusation against the goodness of God.
HE’s having a Job moment- Job went through some crazy hard situations - family and property wiped out, and he’s left with nothing but a incurable, painful skin disease with a wife telling him to commit suicide and his so called friends calling him a rotten sinner.
But then God shows up.
That’s what happens to Elijah here-God showed up.
“Elijah, go stand by the entrance to the cave, because I AM is about to pass by.”
There was a wind….hurricane and tornado force together causing the very mountains Elijah was standing on to rock and quake, huge boulders flying past Elijah like so much straw.
But God was not in the wind. With all the mighty display of power God that showed his servant, His presence wasn’t felt.
Suddenly the mountain quaked hard, huge chunks of rock falling everywhere, the ground shaking so much that Elijah would have been thrown to the ground, unable to stand under such a tremor.
But God was not in the earthquake. With all the display of power, God’s presence wasn’t there.
FIRE! Fire falls all around Elijah, flames of such intensity that he can’t even open his eyes. He sees the fire, smells the smoke, and feels the heat.
But with all of that, God’s presence isn’t there.
Elijah is trembling in fear, wondering what’s coming next- Flood, animals, plague?
What is God going to throw at me next for questioning HIM?
Suddenly, a whisper- “Elijah”
God whispered his name. Elijah felt the overwhelming presence of God enter that cave.
13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Elijah pulled his cloak, completely covering himself before the awesome presence of God.
Why did he cover himself?-
The presence of God brings spiritual transparency- Elijah knew that God could see every blemish, every doubt, and every sin in his life, and he covered himself.
The voice spoke again- “What are you doing here Elijah?”
The first time Elijah answered this was in anger and unbelief. This time his answer is in confession with repentance.
“I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn 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.”
There is a Bedrock principle here-
God can’t answer our questions, until our heart is right to receive them.
Otherwise it’s casting pearls before swine, or scattering seed on hard ground. God has to get us to see who HE really is before that truth can sink in, take root, and bring healing to our souls so we can produce fruit for the Kingdom.
When God whispers your name.
This thought is encapsulated by one of my favorite songs by my favorite worship group- United Pursuit in their song “Met By Love”
We can run straight into your arms unafraid
'Cause every time we need you we’re met by love
This life can beat us down to allowing our anger, our disappointment, our hurt, and our frustrations to change our view of who God is.
But, our Father is gracious and will bring us to a place where we can again hear HIM Whisper our name, and restore us back to where we need to be.
This is what God is doing with Elijah at the moment- the prophet’s heart was being prepared to see and accept-
II. God’s Provision
First, Elijah got to see if first in his own life
A. God knows when we are at the end of ourselves
That’s when you are going to be driven to a place of solitude until all of that anger, disappointment, and even rage can be worked out, until you are able to hear God’s whisper again.
B. During that time, God will supply the means to get us where we need to go
It might not seem like a blessing at that time- It might mean losing a job, losing a relationship, or losing something really important to you- but once you see the plan of God, that lose will become insignificant in comparison to the blessing that is coming.
But to get there-
C. We have to trust in HIM, that HE will supply the spiritual strength
God will give you just enough to get you to the place where you are alone, empty, and ready to receive from Him.
To hear God whisper your name again.
Why a whisper?
There is something intimate about someone who loves you whispering your name. Most of the time, the first time you hear “I love you” from someone you are falling in love with- it was in a whisper. When you tuck a child in for the night- you whisper “I love you” before leaving the room. When you say goodbye to a loved one as they slip into eternity, it’s a whisper. Our truly intimate moments in life are done softly.
God whisper is meant for you to stop, clear out the noise in your heart and soul, and bend your ear toward your Father in Heaven, so you can hear the Lover of Your Soul.
Whisper your name.
When your heart is right, then God can show you His plan, because the ground is ready for the seed of his truth to grow in good soil, and that is what happens with Elijah-
III. The Plan
A. God shows Elijah that his efforts are not in vain
15 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. 16 Also, anoint Jehu son of Nimshi king over Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. 17 Jehu will put to death any who escape the sword of Hazael, and Elisha will put to death any who escape the sword of Jehu.
18 Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel—all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.”
Elijah still had a lot to do for the LORD, but he needed the right heart to do it. God took him aside, gave him some rest, and got Elijah’s heart ready for the last days of his ministry before God would take him directly to heaven.
But it couldn’t have happened if Elijah had not heard God whisper his name.
Musicians
Some of you might be in a spiritual cave. You’re tired, you’re exhausted, you can’t think of any reason to continue with Jesus.
You need to spend some time with Him as we prepare to take communion.
Altar call
Communion- Unleavened bread- representing the sinless Jesus
