The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E62 - Faith

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

Hey, church family, if you got your Bible, we're going to be in First Kings chapter 18. First Kings chapter 18. We'll pick it up in verse 17. It says, and when Ahab saw Elijah, so I guess I need to give you a little context here. Elijah is the prophet of God. Ahab is an evil king of Israel. And the Bible says that Ahab did evil in the side of the Lord. He marries a girl named Jezebel, and when he marries her, he adopts her false worship. He begins to build like temples to the God of Baal and Ahtra and brings in prophets. And so God has told Elijah now to go and confront the king of Israel. And Elijah's coming off this kind of weird journey in his life. He tells the nation of Israel there's going to be a drought for three years, but then God tells him

to go and hang out by the brook and he'll have water. Nobody else will have water. And that these birds will bring him food every morning and every evening. And then one day the brook dries up because sometimes the brook dries up. And Elijah doesn't know what to do. And so God tells him to go and feed this widow, or actually this widow is going to feed him. And then there's miracle happens there where there's an abundance of food.

And the widow's child. and Elijah brings them back to life. And then while he's out there, he bumps into one of the prophets that works for Ahab, and Elijah says, you go get Ahab and tell him to meet me right here. And there's going to be this showdown between Ahab's God and Elijah's God. And so when Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, is it you, you troubler of Israel? And he answered, I have not troubled Israel, but you have in your father's house because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Bales. Now therefore, send and gather all Israel to me at

Mount Carmel, the 450 prophets of Bail, and the 400 prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel's table. And so Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel. And Elijah came near to all the people and said, how long will you? you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if bail, then follow him. So you get what's going on here. This is going to be a big showdown. And there's 850 prophets of the false gods, Bail and Ashera, versus the one prophet of the one true God. And Elijah asked this very important question, how long will you go limping between two different opinions? either worship God or worship your false God.

It's very similar to what Joshua says at the end of the book of Joshua, choose for yourself whom you will serve this day. As for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. It's very similar to what Jesus says, when Jesus says no one can serve two masters. No one can serve both God and Mammon is really the word there, the stuff of this earth. It's what the Apostle John says in 1 John.

if no one can love God and love the things of this world, if they love the things of this world, then the love of God is not in him. And what we see in cultural Christianity all the time is people, church people, limping between two opinions. You got one foot in the gospel camp, and you got one foot in the world camp. And like I've told you before,

it's like a person getting off a boat slowly. If you put one foot on the dock and one foot on the boat, it will rip you in half. This is the context that Elijah is setting up here. He asked this question, how long will you go on limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Bail then follow him. And then the people didn't answer him, a word. And Elijah said to the people, I even I am let, I only am left a prophet of the Lord, but Bail's prophets are 4.50,

let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it into pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. And you call upon the name of your God, and I will call upon the name of the Lord,

the God who answers by fire. He is God. And all the people answered, it is well spoken. And so Elijah says, you take a bull, I take a bull. We both pray to our gods. We'll see what happens. Then Elijah said, to the prophets of Bail,

choose for yourself one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your God and put no fire to it. And they took the bull that was given to them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Bail from morning until noon. You think I preach long sermons? These guys are crying out for about six,

hours saying, oh, Bail, answer us, but there was no voice and no one answer. And they limped around the altar that they had made. And at noon, Elijah mocked them. So Elijah, with some serious, like Holy Spirit confidence, he is now going to come and just straight talk smack. He says, cry aloud, for he is a God. Either he is musing or he is relieving. Or he is relieving. himself or he is on a journey or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened. That Elijah walks out and says, what's happening, boys? You guys are crying. There's 850 of you.

You're making a whole lot of noise. Maybe you need to cry louder. Literally, maybe he's in the bathroom or maybe he's asleep or maybe he's on a journey. Where is your God? And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances until blood gushed out upon them. And as midday passed, this is going on all day, as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice, no one answered, no one paid attention. Now, why is that? Because there is no God other than the

one true God. We live in a time that really doesn't believe in truth, but you hear this phrase, your truth. There's no truth. There's no your truth. There's just the truth, and then everybody's got an opinion. And just because you believe in something passionately does not make it true. And this is what Elijah is saying to these guys. Maybe you need to turn up the volume on your passion a little bit, and maybe then your God will respond. Well, Elijah knows that no one's going to respond because there is no bail and there is no Asha. This is a thing that people have made up to serve themselves. And pay attention here.

Passion and devotion to a false God are irrelevant. And that God can never give you what the one true God promises you. Now, I know in our day, I don't know, there are some crazy stuff. Maybe this is probably happening in cities all over our country. I don't know. But I doubt those of us that are dialed into the devotional time are doing these kinds of false worship sorts of things. But let me tell you what happens over and over and over in our country and in our society

is that we can fix our passions and devotions on a temporary thing and that we can be just as passionate about those things, even more passionate about those things than we are about worshiping the one true God. And we can look to some temporary false gods of this world to try to scratch some eternal itches that we have and it just will never be able to. And the crazy thing is, these things in and of themselves are bad. I mean, worshiping a false God, it's just bad, bad. But sometimes what we do is, man, we'll worship like our home. We'll worship our home, the way our house looks, the way it's decorated, the renovation that we want to

to do in our home. And we don't pay attention to it. I mean, we come to church on Sunday, and we believe God, but ultimately what we're doing is we are limping between two opinions. We say we find our joy, we say we find our satisfaction in the Lord, but really deep down in here what we're looking for is satisfaction in some stuff, a new couch or a new paint job on your house or expanding or whatever it is. And the crazy thing about it is what the enemy often duds is he takes a good gift that God has given us. like a home, and he twist it so that we began to worship the gift instead of the giver of the gift. And your home will never be able to satisfy you. It just won't. And I'm not anti-home.

What we're supposed to do as believers in Jesus, and we'll see Elijah do this in just a second, what we're supposed to do as believers in Jesus is, look, it's not like you can't ever renovate your house, but that renovation of your house needs to be a means by which you glorify God. So maybe you are going to add on to your home so that you can bring in more people to have fellowship for the glory of God. Maybe you are going to, we did an addition, we did like a backyard thing a few years ago, and it is the place on a weekly basis, a daily basis where I go to spend time with the Lord. Sometimes, maybe it's not a home.

Some of you guys are probably thinking, yeah, tell them, pastor. But some of you, it's like golf. Like you, you begin to throw yourself into some hobby. For me, it can be hunting. You begin to throw yourself into some hobby. And that hobby, the worship terminates on that hobby. And your day is good. If you have a good round and bad, if you have a bad round, and you think more about swing thoughts than you do God thoughts and those kinds of things, and you've got to pay attention to that. Now, is golf evil? Sometimes I think it is. because every time it's very, it's very seductive. Is it not?

She lures you onto the green and then thumps you in the face when you miss that put. But the deal is the way we as believers need to be thinking about this, it's not limping between two objects of worship, but using these things God has given us, like a home, like hobbies, like relationships, to be means by which we ultimately glorify God. And so, no matter how much, you limp around, dance around, shout out at these things that we are passionate about,

those things will never answer you the way you think they ought to. Why? Because they were not designed to. They are means to an end, and the end is the glory of God. Well, then Elijah said to all the people come near to me, and all the people came near to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down, and Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying Israel shall be your name. Here's why I think Elijah is doing this. Before Elijah is going to trust God for this big deal in the future, he's going to stack up these 12 stones.

Stones in the Bible are represented memories. They represented times of faithfulness. He's going to take a minute and look over his shoulder and remember God's faithfulness in the past so that he can be reminded that he can trust God for his faithfulness. in the future. And with the stones, he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a trench around the altar as great as would contain two sillas of seed. And he put the wood in order, and he cut the bull in the pieces, and he laid it on the wood, and he said, fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood. And he said, do it a second time. And they did it

a second time. And he said, do it a third time. And they did it a third time. Now remember, They're at the end of a three-year drought. It has a rain for three years. So water is the most precious thing in their possession, and what he is saying is, take the thing that is most precious to us and pour it out for the Lord. And the water ran around the altar

and filled the trench also with water. And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah, the prophet, came near and said, Oh, Lord, God of Abraham and Isaac and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and that I have done all these things at your word. Answer me, O Lord. Answer me that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have turned their hearts back. And then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burn offering and the wood and the stones and the dust and it licked up the water

that was in the trench. And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God. So, Church, I know that you turn on the news and you see all, I mean, just crazy stuff all the time, right? You look at your own lives and it does not resemble what it did five months ago. And in our culture, sometimes we feel like we're staring down the nose of false prophets and there's 850 of them and there's only one of you. And maybe there's some kind of thing in your life, if you're honest, and you have been limping between two opinions. And you've been limping between the stuff of earth that competes for the allegiance that you owe only to the giver of all good things. And I would tell you today,

choose for this day whom you will serve. And for some of those things that we've been trying to find our satisfaction in, we don't necessarily have to get rid of those things like your home, like your hobby, we just need to have the right kind of perspective that there is only one God and he and he alone is the one to be worshipped. And maybe you would pray that like the fire that came down from heaven and consume what was on the altar, that maybe God would send the fire of heaven to you to burn away all of the temporary distractions that we have in this world. And maybe you, like the nation of Israel, would bow down once again and say, the Lord, he is God. the Lord, He is God.

Let's pray. Father in heaven, you are the giver of all good things. And we have an enemy that likes to take those gifts and fill our heart's desires with those gifts. And the enemy likes to try to blind us so that we would be blinded and only see the gifts and not the giver. God, would you remind us once again that you're a good, good father,

and you are worthy of our worship. God, may you give us an overwhelming sense of gratitude. God, for the men and women, the students to find themselves in a tough situation right now, Lord, I pray that they would, with great desperation, cry out to you, knowing that even a mustard seed-sized faith in you is exponentially greater than all kind of hoopla towards anything in this world. And God, we thank you for your faithfulness. We pray it in Jesus' name.

Amen.