Who Is In Control?

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.