24 year old Danny Simpson was sentenced to 6 years in jail for robbing a bank. Danny got 6 years in the clink for stealing $6,000. But the gun he used in the robbery ended up in a museum.
The .45 caliber Colt semi-automatic turned out to be an antique made in 1918 by the Ross Rifle Company. His pistol was worth up to $100,000 on the collectors market. If Danny Simpson had known what he had in his hands, he would not have ended up in jail.
Many Christians live like this. They spend their lives searching for God’s power and presence, not realising it’s already in their hands. Somehow we Christians know that God is powerful and that humanity is weak, but we forget that God wants to fill our lives with His power and strength. Do you know that you have been clothed with His power? The Bible says ....
“I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)
We have been saying this year that we want to be a church that is expecting God to achieve marvellous and wonderful things in people’s lives. That’s means your life, and the lives of those around you, through you. And we’ve seen, as we’ve reviewed our goals this morning, that the Lord is doing just that. But if we want to continue to see God sized things achieved in people’s lives, then we need to see God’s power continue to work. But so often we’re like the bank robber Danny Simpson and we don’t realise just what’s at our finger tips. If only we realised the power available to us then maybe we would see God’s work more often.
This account of Elijah on Mount Carmel shows us how to access God’s power in order to bring glory to him in our own lives and in our world.
1. ELIJAH’S WORSHIP WAS REAL (V 30)
I recently had to clean up some brickwork at home. New bricks had been laid and I had to clean off the excess cement. So I bought a litre of hydrochloric acid and mixed it at about ½ litre to a bucket of water. This was just the right amount to keep the acid effective in cleaning the brickwork without eating through my gloves or causing any damage.
However, when it comes to our faith in Jesus Christ – we can’t afford to dilute it one iota. Do you see that a diluted faith is a powerless faith – just as adding ½ a litre of acid to a bucket of water reduced the power of the acid. And when it comes to our faith the equation goes like this, God + another = not God. It’s not just a diluted, less powerful faith – it’s not even God. God + another = not God.
In Elijah’s day Israel experienced a three year drought. Baal worship at this time was seen to be a helpful additive to worshipping the Lord – the logic went something like this, “if the Lord won’t break the drought, maybe Baal would.” So, many people worshipped both.
Now, we know that the fruit of a divided heart is always idolatry, and it will eventually catch up with us. It will steal the power God wishes to release in our lives.
God will release his power when our worship is real and genuine. God is not interested in mere lip service. He wants to be, and he deserves to be, the centre of our attention.
And this is the principle of power that Elijah brings out. That if we want to know God’s power in our lives he must truly be the number one priority for us. We’re kidding ourselves if we think we can follow God and live our own way – and then expect to know his power in our lives.
30 Then Elijah said to all the people, "Come here to me." They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the LORD, which was in ruins.
Elijah repaired the altar. What is significant about this is that it shows that Elijah knew the importance of genuine worship. The people had spent too much time worshipping a false god – it was time now to get back to worshipping the real God. It was time to get God back into his rightful place.
They had failed the very first commandment, “You shall have no other god’s before me” (Exodus 20:3), and now it was time to put it right.
Elijah had already issued the ultimatum “If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” (I Kings 18:21). Now though, after their god had failed, Elijah leads the people to the altar of the Lord. And this is what we as Believers are to do.
And how do we do that? We make sure our worship is real and genuine, like Elijah we have to attend to the altar of the Lord in our lives.
a. Attend to your own spiritual health.
Each one of us has to attend to the altar of our own spiritual health.
Without exception, all believers face a struggle between being fully devoted to God, and yet still wanting to have it our own way.
We want God’s blessing, but we also want our friend’s approval.
We want God’s protection in our hour of need, but we struggle to hand control over to him and trust him.
We want God to deliver us from all kind’s of sin - yet we feed an addiction like a mother nurses a baby.
We say we trust God to provide – yet we work ridiculous hours because we never seem to have enough.
We want to say that God is the most important person in our life, yet we are easily swayed and drawn away from that allegiance
But the life that knows God’s power is single-minded in its devotion to God.
I went to a funeral on Friday. In the eulogy it was said that this man was an electrical engineer with Telecom for many years – but that he considered this work secondary to the work of the Lord. And I knew this was true, because the evidence was sitting all around me. There were about 400 people there many of whom had been led to the Lord or discipled by this man. His life was a powerful life – a life that influenced many people to also follow the Lord.
b. Attend to your churches spiritual health.
And a church that knows God’s power is the same. God gets a high priority.
You know, you can tell how important God is to a church by the state of their facilities. How many church buildings are left dilapidated – garden’s overgrown and paint peeling? How many church cupboards and halls are filled with people’s cast offs? People upgrade their furniture so they bring in this moth eaten couch and say - “It’ll do for the youth group.” Just think about what that’s saying to the Lord - - let me spell it out for you - - - It’s saying that the Lord is only worth my junk!!
A church that knows God’s power has an attitude of excellence about it because they believe their Lord deserves their best attention.
Elijah wasn’t happy to make a sacrifice on an old broken altar – he honoured the Lord by repairing it – by attending to it first.
c. Attend to your communities spiritual health
And a community that will know God’s power will be a community in which God is honoured.
I’ll confess here. A couple of weeks ago, while I was on leave I went to Bunnings on a Sunday morning – it was packed. I actually stopped just inside the door because I was taken back by how many people were actually there. And perhaps it was because I was feeling that I should have been in church – it struck me that none of these people were either – and probably hadn’t been for years if ever! All these people going about their day without a thought for the Lord – do you think that breaks God’s heart? Does it break yours?
Can you imagine a community where God is honoured wholesale? What would it be like? Would the crime rate go down? Would divorce go down? Would production go up? Would the environment benefit? If you have ever seen any of the Transformations videos you will know that this is exactly what’s happening in communities around the globe where the Lord is being honoured.
It’s a simple principle of worship – when we make God number one in our whole lives – he releases his power. Elijah knew this because his worship was real.
2. ELIJAH’S FAITH WAS REAL (vv 31-37)
I once read an amusing story about the first Duke of Wellington. An inventor was trying to interest him in a bullet-proof vest he had made. It was considered an incredible invention that could save the Duke’s life if somebody ever tried to assassinate him.
The Duke asked the man to put it on, and he examined it carefully, and then, to give it a test, he sent for a rifleman - but the inventor took off out the door! The man had no faith in his own invention.
But when our faith is real and genuine, that’s when God will release his power.
The Bible makes this point very clear. It says in James that faith without works is dead (James 2:26).
But how did this work out for Elijah?
a. His motivation was genuine reconciliation (vv 31-32)
Well first of all Elijah showed that his faith was real because his motive was genuine reconciliation. We’re told that ....
31 Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD had come, saying, "Your name shall be Israel." 32 With the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD .....
At this point in Israel’s history the nation had been divided in two due to civil unrest – the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. One representing two tribes and the the other representing the other ten. By gathering the twelve stones together to make the altar, Elijah was reminding the people that in the eyes of the Lord they were still one nation – and united under God is where their power lay – they needed to see this.
And likewise, our faith is real when we get on with other people both inside and outside the church. A divisive person is a powerless person. Our faith will be powerful and effective when we work towards health in all our relationships.
b. He didn’t use human trickery (vv33-35)
Elijah also showed that his faith was real because he didn’t rely on any human trickery. The story continues ....
33 He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, "Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood."
34 "Do it again," he said, and they did it again.
"Do it a third time," he ordered, and they did it the third time. 35 The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.
This sacrifice was so wet that it was humanly impossible to light the fire – but that was the point. A human was not going to light the fire – God was! Elijah’s strategy was not engineered by any mere human. This was clearly going to be an act of God.
In addition to this Elijah was on his own! There were 450 of Baal’s prophets and they couldn’t conjure up a thing! Clearly there is no strength in numbers, - - - there is only the strength that is found in the Lord.
Likewise we can access God’s power in the full knowledge and confidence that there is no other true power.
c. He sought the glory of God not himself (vv36-37)
Finally Elijah also showed that his faith was real because he sought the Glory of God and not himself.
36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: "O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. 37 Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again."
This takes us back to the first point about getting our worship right – getting God back into the centre of our lives and giving him the credit he is due.
So if we want to know God’s power in our lives we must be sure that our worship and our faith are real. Not mis-directed and not diluted.
3. ELIJAH’S GOD IS REAL (vv 38-40)
When Elijah got this right an amazing thing happened – people began to see that his God was also real.
We should note at this point just who Elijah is confronting. He does not challenge Ahab’s Baal worshipping Phoenician wife Jezebel; his fight isn’t against the pagan worshippers of other gods. His challenge is put to God’s own people – the Israelites.
The point is that other people don’t come to see the reality of God through hostile confrontation, but through God’s activity among his own people and their actions and life choices. A life dedicated to real worship and real faith in action is a life of powerful witness.
God was real, and this day the people could see it. God was real and three things proved it to them.
a. The unexplainable acts of God proved it (v38)
38 Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
God achieved a marvellous and wonderful thing in a whole community.
b. The people’s transformed lives proved it (v39) Revival broke out among God’s people first!
39 When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, "The LORD--he is God! The LORD--he is God!"
God achieved marvellous and wonderful things in the lives of individual Believers.
c. The victory and authority of God’s man proved it (v40).
Elijah was emboldened by the Lord’s answer to his prayer.
40 Then Elijah commanded them, "Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!" They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there
God achieved a marvellous and wonderful thing in his servant’s life.
CONCLUSION
There is an incredible power available to us. And this account of Elijah on Mount Carmel shows us how to access that power - God’s power. When our worship and our faith are real and genuine, and directed towards the Lord, people will see that the Lord is real too, and his power will be released to transform lives.
Psalm 68 says, “Proclaim the power of God, whose majesty is over Israel, whose power is in the skies.
You are awesome, O God, in your sanctuary; the God of Israel gives power and strength to his people. Praise be to God! (Ps 68:34-35)
If we want to know the power of God in our lives we must be sure that our worship and our faith are real – undiluted – we must be sure that they are directed towards the one and only real God.
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