THE LONELINESS OF SELF PITY
Text: I Kings 19:1- 4, I Kings 19:10 -18
1 Kings 19:1-4 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. (2) Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow." (3) Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there. (4) But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: "It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors." ….
1 Kings 19:10-18 He answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." (11) He said, "Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; (12) and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. (13) When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" (14) He answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away." (15) Then the LORD said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. (16) Also, you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha's son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place. (17) Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. (18) Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him” (NRSV).
"When Helen Hayes was a young actress, her producer George Tyler, told her that, if she were four inches taller, she could become one of the greatest actresses of her time. "I decided," she says, "to lick my size. A string of teachers stretched and pulled till I was in a medieval torture chamber. I gained nary an inch---but my posture became military. I became the tallest five-foot woman in the world. And my refusal to be limited by my limitations enabled me to play Mary of Scotland, one of the tallest Queens in history". (Alan Loy McGinnis's Confidence. Minneapolis: Ausburg Publishing House, 1987, p. 20). She was determined.
Have you ever wanted to quit because things got tough? Elijah did. Helen Hayes was fighting to get the role of a lifetime. Elijah was considering dropping out of his role because Queen Jezebel threatened him!
1.If Elijah would have been a golfer, he would have studied the course of his mission and claimed that there was no way that he could ever get the ball anywhere near the hole.
2. If Elijah had been a boxer, between rounds he would have told his manager to throw in the towel.
3.If he would have been playing chess, he would have declared that he was stalemated.
4.If Elijah would have been a soldier, he would have waved a white flag meaning that he surrendered.
5.Yet, it was God who trying to help Elijah to see things differently. In Nascar racing, the white flag means the final lap. God was waving his white flag at Elijah, not to tell him that it was time to quit but rather time to finish the last lap of the race---the mission.
Unlike Helen Hayes, Elijah was discouraged. In I Kings 19:4, Elijah said, "… 0 Lord, take away my life", due to his self-pity. Elijah’s obstacle became a huge element of discouragement to him. There are times when, we like Elijah, might feel sorry for ourselves. Self-pity usually dwells on failure, mistakes, discouragement, despair and leads to hopelessness. In his book Lonely People, the late Warren W. Wiersbe summed up Elijah’s life journey in four points, 1) Perspective; 2) Patience; 3) Personal Touch and 4) Purpose. (Warren W. Wiersbe. Lonely People. Lincoln, NE: A Back to the Bible Publication, p. 1983. pp. 50 - 52). It was God who was trying to give Elijah a pep-talk.
THE LOSS OF PERSPECTIVE
Can nurturing self-pity make us lose our perspective?
Elijah had slain 850 false prophets and yet Jezebels’s threat rattled him really bad. ( Wiersbe, p. 50). Instead of keeping his eyes on the Lord, he started to focus on the problem and only the problem, it seems. God is bigger than our biggest problems.
Have you ever wanted to quit because of (fill in the blank)?
1) Discouraged: When people get discouraged, they lose hope. When people lose hope, they start lacking in faith. When people start lacking in faith, they give into failure or despair.
2) Self- pity: When people give into failure or despair, they give up hope. Self-pity can magnify things and make them bigger than they really are. Self-pity can exaggerate not only our problems, but also our, helplessness.
3) Obstacles: "Years ago in England there was a frail, freckle-faced lad. He disliked study and appeared dull. It took the lad three years to complete the first grade. His father suggested that he could never master law and suggested that he go to a military college. Before being admitted, he failed the entrance examination three times. He had a terrible speech defect which plagued him everywhere he went. But to have judged the lad's failure based on those facts would have been a mistake. There came a time when Winston Churchill cast a timeless shadow across the pages of history. You cannot always tell what's going on by any given day. Sometimes it takes "a while before the real gold mine can be uncovered”. (Ernest A. Fitzgerald's Keeping Pace; Inspirations In The Air. Greensboro: Pace Communications, Inc., 1988, p. 24). We can only wonder how the course of world events and WWII might have been different if Winston Churchill had not been England’s Prime Minister during that time.
THE LOSS OF PATIENCE
Do you ever get impatient and antsy with nervous apprehension?
1) Deserted his post?: "Elijah ran away from his place of duty" (Wiersbe, p. 50). How well do things go when we act on impulse because we are impatient? Don’t we tend act on nervous energy rather than good sound reason in making decisions when we are like that? What happens when fear gets the best of us? Elijah was in a hurry to retreat rather than put his trust in God! He ran for his fallback position, when God needed him to get back in play. He even prayed that he might die (I Kings 19:4). We will unpack this thought a little more later.
2) Impulsive: There's the story about a traveler who stopped to ask for directions. The gentleman who was giving directions was an old resident mountaineer. When the traveler asked him for directions, he was in a hurry to get to his desired location. When the mountaineer got through giving him directions, he sensed that the traveler was in a rush. Then, the mountaineer asked him, " What's your hurry? ... You're gonna run by more'11 than you'11 ever catch." (Fitzgerald p. 5). How many times have we be impulsive like that?
3) Patience: "Patience is important in the Christian life, but self-pity will lead you to impatience and disobedience" (Wiersbe p. 52). How many times have we been disobedient because we were impatient?
How many times have we been in a hurry about something, when we have heard God speak to us through the scripture saying, "Be still and know that I am God" (Psalms 46:10)?
1) Stopping to smell the roses: When God speaks to us in that manner, we ought to listen so that, in the words of the mountaineer, "we will not run by more than we will ever catch." We need to take time not only to heed the advice of Mac Davis by "stopping to smell the roses.”
2) The still small voice: We must wait on the Lord, in order to avoid making a decision that is not in the will of God. Only then can we listen to the "still small voice of God" (I Kings19:12).
THE LOSS OF PERSONAL TOUCH
Didn’t Elijah lose touch with his role as a leader when he got intimidated by Jezebel who had put a price on his head?
Elijah lost touch with his servant Elisha, when he ran away. Can you imagine you are Eljah’s apprentice /servant, and you feel like your leader went AWOL?
Do we ever underestimate our role in a community? Elijah also lost touch with his community. We could compare what Elijah did to hitting a home run but stopping on third base.
1) Stopping on third base: Was Elijah abandoning his community who had abandoned God’s covenant? There are those people in our community, not to mention communities everywhere across the nation who have abandoned the church because they do not feel like the church is living up to its potential in its commitment.
2) Our sibling’s keeper: God called Elijah to be the Shepherd of that community of people. God has placed us where we are to serve Him, to love and encourage one another as we share the Gospel. We may not be a leader in the same capacity in which Elijah was, but we must remember that we are there for a purpose of leading others to Christ. God has placed us in the position in which He has placed us in the church for a reason. So how can we lead others to God if we ourselves are not following God's lead?
THE LOSS OF PURPOSE
Have you ever felt like you have lost your purpose?
1) Resignation declined: Obviously, God was rejecting Elijah's resignation! Scientists' will tell you that a crisis provokes us to a “fight" or "flight” response. It seems that Elijah chose a third option---resignation. Going back to what we said earlier, we said we would come back to “unpack” Elijah’s impatient desertion. Elijah –was stressed out and lost his purpose for existing. Elijah wanted to die.
2) The cross: What would have happened to the lost if Jesus quit and called on the ten thousand angels before he destroyed the works of the devil on the cross? What will happen to those God sent us to reach if we quit carrying our crosses? God reminded Elijah that he had been called for the task of bringing the wayward sons and daughters of Israel back home.
3) Chosen vessel: Elijah was ready to quit, to resign, but God's purpose was to be fulfilled through the work of Elijah. God reminded Elijah that there were seven thousand who had not yet bent their knees to worship Baal! Elijah walked out on him, Elisha his servant did not hold it against him.
Have you ever felt how God rekindle your weakness through His strength?
1) Faith under fire: There was a man who lived in the eighteenth century who had suffered through one crisis after another. "He failed in business in 1831, he was defeated for legislature in 1832, he was elected to the legislature in 1834. His sweetheart died in 1835, he had a nervous breakdown in 1836, he was defeated for speaker in 1838, he was defeated for elector in 1840, he was defeated for Congress in 1843, he was elected to Congress in 1846, defeated for Congress in 1848, defeated for Senate in 1850, defeated for vice president in 1856 and for Senate in 1858. But fortunately, he was elected president in 1860. His name was Abraham Lincoln. (McGinnis's Bringing Out The Best In People. Minneapolis: Ausburg Publishing House, 1985, p. 76). What was it, then, that made Lincoln persevere?
In his book Bringing Out The Best In People, Dr. Alan Loy McGinnis said that what made Lincoln persevere was the way that "... people believed in him, encouraged him when he despaired, taught him failure was not permanent and pushed him on” (p. 76). People who believe in us are one source of strength but without God’s strength it will not be sufficient.
In his own words Abraham Lincoln once said, “I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day.” Like Elijah Abe had to learn to completely trust in God as he said that he learned that he had nowhere else to go but down on his knees in prayer.. God was using this as a teaching moment to help Elijah understand that failure is not permanent.
2) Strength in weakness: 2 Co 12:9-10 but he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness." So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (10) Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong (NRSV).
3) Spiritual resilience: Just like Esther (see Esther 4:14) and Elijah, Churchill and Lincoln (see I Kings 19:18) were chosen for their time, God has chosen us for this time! Elijah became overwhelmed and wanted to quit. He needed renewed strength that only God can give. but we also need to be or learn to be patient, He was reminded that he needed be still and listen (I Kings 19:12 - 13) and "... wait on the Lord shall for renew[ed} strength, [so he] could shall mount up with wings like eagles, …[and] run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint" (Isaiah 40:31 RSV).
4) Harvest: What would have happened if Elijah did not get back to work? What will happen if we do not get to work to reach those whose knees have not bowed to a modern-day idol? How many souls would be lost? How often does God use us to accomplish His will of bringing in the harvest of those who would otherwise be lost? God is not willing that anyone should perish (II Peter 3:9).
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
