Same God | Wk 3.
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· 2 viewsYou possess tremendous power & authority in your Faith that surpasses your current understanding, circumstance, condition, & imagination.
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Wk 3 | Same God | MT. CARMEL | ELIJAH
You possess tremendous power & authority in your Faith that surpasses your current understanding, circumstance, condition, & imagination.
1 Kings 19:3–4 (ESV)
3 Then Elijah was afraid, & he arose & ran for his life & came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, & left his servant there.
4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness & came & sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”
1 Kings 19:8–14 (ESV)
8 And he arose & ate & drank, & went in the strength of that food forty days & forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God.
9 There he came to a cave & lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, & he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
10 Elijah said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, & killed your prophets with the sword, & I, even I only, am left, & they seek my life, to take it away.”
11 And the word of the Lord said, “Go out & stand on the mount before the Lord.” & behold, the Lord passed by, & a great & strong wind tore the mountains & broke in pieces the rocks 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 the sound of a low whisper.
13 And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak & went out & stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him & said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
14 He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, & killed your prophets with the sword, & I, even I only, am left, & they seek my life, to take it away.”
There's a scene in Mark's Gospel (4) where the disciples are in a boat. Jesus is in the boat with them. Suddenly, out of the blue, a strong wind blows up & the waves begin to rock the boat. The sea gets really rocky, according to the NLT. The waves start to fill the boat with water & the disciples start to bail water & they are rowing furiously & they're blaming somebody for this they're shouting, screaming, cursing at the sea & the Bible says in the back of the boat, Jesus is sound asleep with his head resting on a pillow.
Now, do you get the contrast for a moment? We've got disciples who are furiously bailing water, rowing, screaming, blaming, cursing, & Jesus all the while in the boat, but he's in the back with his head resting on a pillow.
So, the disciples run to the back & wake him up & they say to him, don't you even care if we're about to drown?
Then Jesus stands up & puts his arms out & he speaks & says with the strongest of imperatives in the original language quiet down & immediately, the storm got calm & so did the fretted spirits of those on board.
Ever wonder if he was speaking to more than the storm? Do you think He was speaking to them & us?
Thomas Kelly says... “deep within us is an inner sanctuary of the soul.
It's a divine center, a quiet place. It's the stirring of a seed.
He says... it’s trying to come alive if we don't choke it out.
It's a light within, it illumines the face of God & it illumines other faces as well.”
He says... “it is in this quiet center that this lumbering Christ speaks & the soul is clothed with form & action.”
It is within us all but, like disciples...
We flail, We fret, We bail, We scream, We blame, We curse...
The storm! Even while we created it.
We hate it.
But, We manufacture turbulence.
It's not in the meeting, & it's not in the relationship, it's in us! We brought it with us, but we blame somebody or something else...
All the while, Jesus is in the boat, sound asleep...
While you're flailing, screaming, cursing, blaming.
› You think you ought to go wake him up?
Do you think you might want to find him & get him to say something like quiet down?
› How do we do that?
How do we find that divine Center?
That sanctuary of the soul?
That place of quietness with all the demands of life?
› Maybe, the best way to answer the story is to retell the story for you that you just heard a few moments ago.
I'm going to back up a little bit for it & I'm going to finish it. Are you ready?
Israel has been in famine for 3 years.
Hasn't rained for 3 & a half years.
That means as all the people & the livestock are sick & all the plants in the field are dying.
The problem is that the president & his wife are in the grips of a god named Bale.
This makes sense because, in their thinking, Bale is the god of the storms.
The people believe in that day that the clouds in the sky are the entourage of Bale. They believe that the breakings in the clouds are like windows that show into Bales Palace, where he lives.
They think that it is through these windows that Bale will send the rain.
So, if Israel is in a famine & Israel is an agricultural economy, then rain is to their economy what the Dow Jones is to ours.
When the Dow goes down, people in America start worrying about their retirement.
Therefore, we have got to stimulate the markets & we'll all be better off.
In their thinking, when the fields are barren we've got to get it to rain & the way to do that is to summon the favors of Bale, the God of the storm.
But it's been 3 & 1/2 years & Bale has done nothing—absolutely nothing for the economy.
The president is nervous. He's neck-deep in his religion. He believes in the markets more than anything else & they're flat. It's time for a voice from the outside.
One morning Elijah wakes up & he hears that voice, the voice says to him... “go present yourself to King Ahab & I'll send rain.”
Elijah is an aging man.
He starts on the journey.
He's a long way off & Ahab sees him coming.
Ahab shouts from a distance… “Is that you, old man? You troublemaker. You brought all this stuff on us.
Elijah is a fiery prophet, so he says back… “I didn't bring this trouble on you. You brought this trouble on you! You have turned the hearts of the people away from Yahweh & onto Bale. & even though he's done nothing for you, you will not go back to Yahweh. This is your problem, not mine.
But Ahab is neck deep in his religion. He can't just change it.
Elijah says... “I'll pose a contest. Go get all of the prophets of Bale (there are 450 prophets), get them & tell them to meet me on the top of Mt. Carmel & we'll have a contest we'll build an altar we'll each sacrifice a bull on the altar. We'll each call on the name of our God to light that altar on fire & the one who lights the fire is God.”
They get to the top of Mt. Carmel & he orders the people to build the altar there are two bulls waiting to be sacrificed.
Elijah says... to the prophets of Bale, “you pick the one you want. I'll get the leftovers.”
The prophets choose the bull that they want to sacrifice & they lay that bull on that altar & they, start to chant & then sing & then scream & then they start cutting themselves.
This goes from about 6:00a in the morning till about noontime & so far, nothing has happened.
Elijah says... “why don't you scream even louder, maybe he can't hear you, no, wait a minute. Maybe he's on a trip.” “Maybe he’s busy.”
They start screaming louder. They are cutting themselves now with swords.
It's almost 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon it's been 10 hours of screaming & ranting & cutting & there's nothing.
Elijah says... “my turn.” He says to the servants go get 12 stones, one for each tribe in Israel & build it again. He sets that bull on that altar & then he steps forward & he says, “Yahweh the God of Abraham, Isaac & Israel, let it be known in Israel today that you alone are God & I am your servant & let these people know that you are turning the hearts of these people back to yourself.”
As he said that, lightning came from the sky & hit that altar with such force that it burned up the wood & the 12 stones. It licked up the water that was in the trenches. It consumed completely vaporized the sacrifice that was lying on top of it & Elijah said game over. That's a rough translation but then he said to get all 450 of these prophets, not one gets away. Take them down to the river & slaughter the last one of them. Bale worship in this country is over.
Trembling & shaking, Elijah backs up & falls to the ground & he puts his face in between his knees & a servant comes to see him &
says... “hey, man, you, all right?
Elijah says … “would you go look out & look over the sea? Tell me what you see.”
The servant runs outlooks over the ocean, doesn't see anything, comes back &
says... “sir, there's nothing there.”
Elijah thinks to himself, any god that just consumed that altar is surely going to make it rain.
Go check again, he says, I bet you missed something.
This happens 7 times & the last time, the servant comes back to Elijah, who is sitting there with his face between his knees.
He comes back & says... “sir, there's nothing. Well, I did see one thing. I saw a cloud about the size of a man's fist & it was rising above the sea.”
Elijah smiles & says to Ahab... “you better hitch up your chariot, man. It's fixing to rain!”
Ahab thinks the old man won the contest but he's lost his mind & yet while he says it, he looks up & the clouds begin to form & then they get dark & ominous.
He starts to hear the Thunder.
Ahab hurries up & makes a mad dash back to the city & it's starting to rain.
When he gets back to the city, Elijah is already there now; you would think that this was the day when Israel's religion had changed.
I mean, after all, it was beginning to rain, the market was stimulated, the economy was making a comeback, and Israel's having a revival.
This is not the case because Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, is the chief over all 450 of these prophets that just got killed.
So the conversation must have gone something like this…
Ahab to Jezebel… “you won't believe what just happened today. What's that, honey?
You know all those prophets. Do you know that cabinet of prophets who worked for you?
They are all dead! What happened to them?
Jezebel, before my eyes, lightning lit up that altar consumed everything on it & then that old man had all 450 of your cabinet members slaughtered down by the river.
Jezebel says... “you tell that old man by this time tomorrow, he's gonna be as dead as those prophets are.”
She calls up the Navy SEAL team 6 & says... “I want that old man killed by this time tomorrow.”
A messenger comes to tell this to Elijah & all of a sudden, Elijah has a turn, it's like he starts losing courage, it's like he's exhausted from the conflict.
He's tired, he's hungry, he's frustrated, & instead of fighting Jezebel, he runs into the wilderness & now he's all alone.
He gets into the wilderness & he sits down for the night & he starts to talk to Yahweh.
He says… “I'm no better than any of the other prophets you sent. You sent them & they just mowed them down & I'm not any better than these people they stick in me. Just kill me, just kill me. I don't want to live.”
He falls asleep middle of the night a strange thing occurs.
God sends an angel to a man who is depressed, tired, hungry, frustrated, lonely, & angry, & he wants to have a conversation with somebody who is so filled with rage & hurt that he doesn't want to have a conversation with Yahweh.
Note to self God can speak to you even when you're in a foul mood.
Middle of the night, the angel shows up to have that conversation, & it goes like this... “get up. He doesn't want to eat, doesn't want to live.”
He wakes up & looks to his side & there's bread & water.
It's like somebody snuck in & laid it there.
He starts to eat it & the voice comes back again & says... “eat more, you can't go where you're going if you don't eat more.”
We don't know where Elijah is going.
It’s as if the angel knows where Elijah is going. But he hasn't told us.
1 verse later, we find out where he's going.
He's going to Mt. Horeb.
Mt. Horeb. This is like Mt. Everest in Israel.
500 hundred years earlier, Moses was on Mt Horeb.
This is the Mtn. where Moses saw the burning bush.
This is where Moses spoke to the rock & water came flowing out of the rock.
It was on this Mtn. that lightning came down & it says in Deuteronomy... “the finger of God inscribed the 10 commandments.”
This is the Mtn. that Israel was led out for the promised land.
This is a legendary mountain Exodus says…
Moses was at the base of this mountain & he looked up to the top & he saw the fire come down from heaven & it started to billow smoke like smoke from a furnace, so thick you couldn't see the top & then the mountain was on fire & the wind was blowing & the whole thing was rattling with the presence of God.
That's where Elijah is going if he's going to have a conversation, if he's going to find his nerve, he's going to find it on Horeb.
He gets on to the top of Horeb & he goes inside of a cave he sits down& he starts to rest for the night & he hears that voice again.
Yahweh. says… “Elijah, what are you doing here?”
“I have been extremely jealous for you, but these people they've broken your covenant.
They've torn down your altars.
They've killed all the prophets.
I'm the only guy left & now they're trying to kill me.”
In the silence, Elijah hears… Go out there & stand on the mountain in the presence of Yahweh he's about to walk by.
Elijah thinks to himself… I bet he's about to walk by & as he thinks it.
He hasn't even left for the mouth of a cave & suddenly, he sees or hears a strong gust of wind.
Hurricane-force 140 miles per hour blowing outside so hard that the Bible says it was splitting the rocks.
I didn't know wind could do that.
He listened & thought to himself this must be where Yahweh speaks.
He hears nothing.
A moment later, he starts to feel the ground Rumble underneath his feet.
He hears boulders falling on the outside of the cave.
He thinks to himself; this is what happened to Moses.
This must be where God speaks.
He waits But nothing happens.
A moment later, a bolt of lightning comes from the sky, like the one that lit up the altar & he thinks to himself that surely God, who lights the mountain on fire, is going to speak.
God does not speak in the wind or the earthquake, or the fire.
Still perplexed in the back of the cave, there is utter silence it's what the New English Bible calls a low murmuring sound King James Version calls it a still, small voice.
It's a bad translation it's actually a combination of 2 Hebrew words, one word meaning SOUND & the other word meaning SILENCE.
How can something make a sound & yet still be silent? How can something that is totally silent make a sound?
One starts to wonder if what Elijah heard was not a whisper at all.
He heard the silence. He was hearing silence. God was speaking in silence. He was finding that divine center. That sanctuary of the soul.
That slumbering Christ.
He woke him up & in the language of silence, God was speaking!
Elijah, what are you doing here?
You just asked me that I told you they're killing all the prophets.
I'm the only one left.
Elijah, go back the way you came & when you get there, anoint Hazael king over Arab & then you anoint Jehu king over Israel.
By the way, 30 years later, Jehu, whom Elijah anointed, would be the one who kills Jezebel.
Elijah, anoint your successor Elijah & there's one more thing.
I still have 7,000 people in Israel that have not bowed the knee to Bale.
Elijah, you're not alone.
Now be on your way.
Two things arise from this story.
› 1.) There are times when God speaks in the earthquake, wind & fire. But it's just as likely that God will speak in silence.
If you want to hear his voice you must become proficient in silence.
For there are days when God was not in the wind, or the worship service, or in the music, or in the preaching, & yet some of us in the room right now cannot hear God in any other place but worship.
There are times when God is not speaking in a mission trip.
Sometimes he does, but not all the time.
He will speak in silence & if you want to hear him, you have to quit making Him speak only your language.
You have to become proficient in His & it's often silent.
Church why do you hate silence?
Why do you wage war on silence?
We invent noise because silence bores us. It unnerves us.
We don't know what to do with it, so we'd rather sing, chant, anything but be still!
› 2.) The only way for silence to help you is to structure it.
What scares you about silence is that it feels like the wild to you.
I don't know what's going to happen at the moment.
Luke, the moment I stop talking, all of these thoughts just come flashing into my mind.
I've got things I've got to do & I've got people that ticked me off. I've got commitments & deadlines & I've got these insecurities & like demons, they fill the room.
I can't be quiet!
Can I suggest that you structure that time like this…
› Start with REFLECTION. › Go from that into prayer. › Then readiness or preparation.
For me, I will choose the time.
I will choose a space. (I have 6 or 7) I wander from place to place sometimes until I feel it's is the place I can talk to God today.
I will assume a posture that prepares me to speak to the divine.
what that means is I will not let slouch, I will not cross my legs.
CS Lewis… my soul will do what my body dictates
I make my body tell my soul what it's going to do.
Once I get in that place, my mind comes horribly alive with activity.
I spend thinking of all the stuff I have to do & then I sometimes shout & ruminate about my enemy & then I start thinking of the deadlines. I start replaying videos from yesterday, & I start worrying about the thing that's happening tomorrow.
I cannot stay in the presence.
Does that happen to you?
The problem is not that this happens, the problem is that we quit when this happens!
We think this isn't the right time to talk to God.
It should be easier than this. I must not be ready for this today. But look, you don't speak Spanish either, but if you were to learn,] that language, you would have to get comfortable fumbling through it.
› Now is where you start using scripture to focus.
• It you may use the Lord's Prayer.
• You may use the 23rd Psalm.
• You may use the names of God.
• You may use John 17.
• Sometimes, I will picture a scene in the Bible & I will place myself in that scene. I'm in the boat right now waves are coming over I'm flailing, saying, “wake him up.”
All of this is done in Reflection.
• It's a time of letting go!
• It's a time of listening!
Silence is how we disentangle from the world.
When I'm done I go into prayer.
• When I pray, I pray for the whole church. As a body, as a community. I say, God, while we're trying to do all these things, what is happening to us that we don't even know?
If God calls your name to mind, I pray for you by name.
If I say I will pray for you, I pray for you.
When I pray I don't just mention your name.
I will plead your cause or if I don't believe in your cause then I will try to find out what God's cause is & I will plead that.
Sometimes I'll send texts, sometimes, I'll write notes, & sometimes I'll stop you when I see you & say I prayed About You & this is what came to mind.
› Finally, before the time is over,
I get into a position of readiness.
Where I get ready to present myself to the day.
Some time ago, I learned how important it is for us to use our physical bodies in everything that we do.
I never thought it was that big of a deal. (yeah, the Incarnation, that's not a very big deal).
So I went through this exercise where I would start talking about the parts of my body.
The parts that are giving me the hardest time right now.
• Maybe it'd be my mouth (I’m saying the wrong things),
• Maybe it's my eyes (I'm looking at the wrong things),
• Maybe it's my heart (it's too tense)
• Maybe it's my posture (I never look at people, or I'm always checking to see when this conversation is over) (wait, I just got a text).
So I will start presenting the parts of my body to God in prayer for that day.
I'll rehearse the meetings at 10:00 I got another one and these are the personalities likely to be in the room.
Sometimes when the day is over I'll go back to the Lord & debrief.
How’d that 10 o'clock go?
It’s in the preparation & rehearsing that I catch myself.
More than anything this morning, I long for you to find the language of silence.
There are days when God will speak to you through a burning bush or a talking donkey.
But it's just as likely that he will speak in silence & if you want to hear it, you have to go & present yourself before the Lord on the MTN because he's about to walk by!