In the life of Elijah, we see God’s perfect timing in meeting Elijah’s needs at exactly the right moment. We can draw assurance from this – no matter what our circumstances may be, that same God will meet our needs too.
I want to speak about the significance of God’s provision for you, and its reality.
Isaiah 6:1-4
When God speaks to an individual, He communicates who He is. Those verses in Isaiah reflect the glory, power, might and majesty of God. We saw how God brought light in complete darkness. It seemed there was no witness in the whole land.
You can trust God as your provider. You can trust Him to guide you and your family.
Ahab was the worst of the kings since Solomon. And Elijah came to him :-
1 Kings 17:1
It was a reflection of Deut 11, where it says that if you keep worshipping the true God, but if you turn against God there will be drought. Elijah said that no matter the circumstances, the God of Israel lived. It was an incredibly dramatic moment. Ahab was confronted with the reality of the living God.
In your circumstances of life, it doesn’t matter if there seems to be complete darkness around you. It doesn’t matter what the economic climate is. Our God is alive, and He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. He’s alive.
Elijah left things at that.
1 Kings 17:2-5
It wasn’t that Elijah was told to continue in some public office, to remain with Ahab. He said what he had to say, and then he was told to go. Sometimes in your life, it would seem you can’t figure out why God is guiding you in a particular way. Elijah was obedient according to the Word of God. He went. This was particularly peculiar. God was to use ravens. These were unclean, but God was going to use them.
Luke 12:24
Jesus refers to the ravens too.
Here Elijah goes to the brook :-
1 Kings 17:6-7
Here he is by the brook, getting food from the ravens. And then the water provided by God dried up. “Have I missed God’s way? Did I get it wrong? Why has the brook dried up?” When God leads us, He does so step by step. We don’t know ten steps ahead of time. He knows each step. And as we take each step, the next one becomes apparent. If we turn in on ourselves, and blame God for the fact that we haven’t been told the whole way, and we become bitter against Him, we have problems. He’s our provider. “Did God bring me here? Yes, I know He brought me here. I know I’m in the place He wants me to be.”
At exactly the right point in time, the Word of God comes again.
1 Kings 17:8-9
In v9 “sustain thee”; in v4 “feed thee” – same word. God’s commands are real. His provisions are real. If you have lost your job, your God is your provider, and He does provide. There is no recession in heaven, no misfiring of God’s plan for your life.
When the brook dried up, he stayed put, because God had told him to be there. And then the word came. He was to go 100 miles northwest to the coast again. “I’ve commanded a widow to provide for you.”
1 Kings 17:10-11
She was on the way to get the water, and he called out for bread. And it shocked her, because she was down to the last bit.
1 Kings 17:12
God’s timing is perfect. Our attitude to the circumstances of our lives has to be right. God isn’t making a mistake with you. He hasn’t brought you here and is now leaving you to wither. Not at all!
1 Kings 17:13
There’s an interesting thought. Sort things out with God first, and then sort out yourself and your son.
1 Kings 17:14
Jesus referred to this time :-
Luke 4:25
Three years and six months there was drought. The introduction to this woman required her to organise the right priorities in her heart. “Make me a cake first, and then make for you and your son. And if you do that, the barrel of meal and the cruse of oil will not fail.”
1 Kings 17:15-16
Three years and six months is a long time. God’s economy and timing and planning is perfect. And He sees things on a timescale of eternity.
Some of you are weighing up big things. I want to confirm to you that Jesus Christ is your provider, and that according to His word He is guiding you.
At the same time that Elijah went to the brook and was told to move on to the woman ... during that period, there was another prophet in the land – Obadiah.
1 Kings 18:4
Why didn’t God send Elijah to be with these other prophets? It would have been much easier to be with other people of like mind. But God’s pathway for him wasn’t to be with them, but to be elsewhere, knowing and learning God’s provision.
Elsewhere we know there were 7000 other people of like mind – and Elijah didn’t meet one of them. But He met with God, and learnt the provision of God. Are you doing that too? God is organising your circumstances so that you will prove His provision for you.
The widow was so grateful. She knew that drought was across the whole country, and here she was with the man who told her God would provide. But then this happened ...
1 Kings 17:17
And now we see what is in the woman’s heart ...
1 Kings 17:18
In those times, the automatic assumption was that if something went wrong, it was because of sin. Maybe she used to worship Baal and felt that perhaps she hadn’t fully turned.
How’s it going in your life? When you’re looking back over the last three years and six months? He’s our loving heavenly Father.
“How come this has happened, Elijah? Things were going so well. I was anticipating seeing my son grow up.” Elijah doesn’t actually answer her :-
He’d got to know him. He’d seen the boy grow up.
1 Kings 17:21-24
Some of you here are finding things difficult – you’re wondering, “Has God heard my prayer? Does He know the way forward? Will He find that job for me? Will He make provision for my children? How am I going to fulfil the abilities God has given me in His kingdom?”
Psalm 34:9-10
Hebrews 10:23
God is your provider. He is the one who loves you. Let us hold fast to our faith, without getting into conversations which are so contrary to what you know to be true in your heart.
I want to encourage you – with us before God – you can look up into His face and you can know right now that He is faithful who promised. He loves you. And whichever way God is guiding in your life, I want you to know that the Word of God is secure and true.
Showing posts with label Elijah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elijah. Show all posts
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Friday, 29 May 2009
God is Never Finished with us
By Garold Andersen
I want to remind you of how wonderful ministry is. A little outreach from people can bless someone so deeply. The kindness that we can extend to people is a body of living water. It doesn’t have to be extreme, it is simply kindness. If you give a cup of water in Jesus’ name, your reward will be eternal.
My background is theatre, so when I communicate from the Gospel I like to bring it to life. I think this is one of the most theatrical moments in the Bible, in 1 Kings 18.
The people of Israel have been pulled away from worshipping God. The prophet Elijah said God was going to cause a drought in the land, and it happened. In Chapter 18 Elijah comes back and meets with the people of God who are serving the gods of the land they are in. Baal was one of these gods. They had a god for everything. And Elijah was calling them back to the one true God. he comes to the people and says, ‘Who do you want to serve? All these foreign, stone gods? Or the one true God?’
Then Elijah tells the prophets of Baal to sacrifice to their gods, and if fire comes down and consumes the sacrifice, it will prove that their gods are real. They tried everything they could. They danced; they even began to cut themselves, but nothing happened. Then Elijah pours water on the sacrifice, prays, and fire consumes the offering, the water, and the stones. Then Elijah destroyed the prophets who had been misleading the people. He then prays for rain, and rain begins to come.
Now we get to Chapter 19. Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, so she sent a messenger to Elijah.
1 Kings 19:2
She would sacrifice her own life to destroy his.
1 Kings 19:3-5
Imagine that you are at this scene, and Elijah knows that God is real. He knows what God has spoken to him, and he brings the word of the Lord to the people. But the words of Jezebel struck fear in his heart. As he ran something happened in his heart. He thought he had failed God.
Sometimes when we’re facing the things that we believe God has called us to, we think we only have one chance. We think that if we fail now, it’s over. Elijah has just experienced the power of God in the greatest moment of his life, and the fear of the enemy gripped his heart. Now he says to God that he is worthless.
Consider the response of God. Elijah is asleep, and all his energy was gone. He feels fear, failure, depression, and he is sleeping.
1 Kings 19:5
What’s the most spiritual thing that can happen to him now? An angel tells him to get up and eat some food. We think ministry is the moment where Elijah is calling down the fire from heaven, but now the angel is ministering to Elijah simply with kindness.
1 Kings 19:6-7
In the reality of what this scripture is saying, in Elijah’s exhaustion, he needed food. Sometimes the greatest ministry is to find out what people need.
I once met a couple in Germany who were having terrible problems in their marriage, and my wife went to their house, and they were living in a construction zone. Their floor was cement and the carpet was a roll in the corner. The sink wasn’t working so the wife had to wash the dishes in the bathtub. What these people didn’t need was counselling of some spiritual kind. They needed someone to fix their sink and lay their carpet, and so we did. It transformed their lives. Sometimes ministry isn’t something supernatural. It’s giving someone a ride somewhere. It’s something simple.
Elijah is refreshed, and he knows where he’s going. There has been this fascinating miracle with fire coming down, and now fear is in his heart so he runs to the wilderness. He could run on to Mount Horeb to meet with God, but he doesn’t want to because he feels like he’s really let God down. And this God brought down fire from heaven.
God had told him to come to Mount Horeb to meet him, but Elijah sat there wondering for forty days.
1 Kings 19:9
I often find a question comes into my heart from God when he has a task for me to do. God isn’t going to give Elijah an easy answer because the answers we need are already within ourselves. Questions bring them out of us.
In France we have a house where we invite people who are going through difficult times. It’s a ministry of hospitality and asking questions. When people are really stuck and they don’t know which way to turn, they need to listen to the question.
Elijah finally arrives at the mountain, and God speaks to him and says, ‘What are you doing here?’
1 Kings 19:10
Elijah’s response doesn’t answer God’s question. He talks about all the terrible things that have just happened to him. But God is asking what he is doing here. What is this moment about and how do we go on from here?
I find it so beautiful that the angel ministers to him through food, and the first thing that God does is ask him a question.
1 Kings 19:11-12
One pastor in America, A W Tozer, said that nothing twists or distorts the soul like a misunderstanding of who God is. When we fail, if we understand who God really is, that he is a God of compassion, love and mercy, we are drawn to him. But in this moment, Elijah thinks he is the fire, the earthquake and the wind. God was certainly able to use these things to demonstrate his power, and to lead the children of Israel, but when Elijah comes here feeling so desperate and so down, he lets the wind come, and Elijah realises the power of the wind is not the nature of God.
1 Kgs 19:12-13
Now his heart has been prepared, because in that soft voice he heard the voice of God. Elijah realises it’s not over.
It’s the same question, and Elijah gives the same response, but something has changed. Because now Elijah isn’t trying to defend himself, he is talking about the nature of God towards him.
1 Kgs 19:15-16
There are many people who have said Elijah disappointed God and so God was replacing him. But no. This was the highlight of Elijah’s life.
God said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And then God tells him what he is doing here. He was here to receive the next orders. He wasn’t over. He was getting ready to set up a system that was going to take over from the corruptness. Elijah had not failed, he had done a great work.
If we see God as the heavy task master, we are so fearful of coming to him. Elijah was encouraged by the angel and he faced his fear. He faced the wind and the earthquake and the fire. But God wasn’t in that.
It is so important that we understand the heart and the nature of God. One of the greatest things that Jesus did when he spoke to people was to communicate to them who God is.
Luke 12:36-37
The God that we serve, the God that Elijah went to face, is not a God who is looking to curse us. He is a God who calls us to do great things. When fear is in our heart, God is a God of mercy and compassion. He is a God of service. Elijah came to hear the voice of God, and it is in a whisper that gives him courage.
I don’t know what dreams and thoughts that you have had in your life. I don’t know if you think that you have missed your opportunities. I want to remind you that the reality of God is to be ready with service in your heart. We might think that we’ve failed, but we are ready to do the next thing. The master brings the food and serves us.
Elijah saw a God of power. But he comes down upon his knees to whisper to his children and to ask us questions and to encourage us. That is our awesome God.
God is never finished with us.
I want to remind you of how wonderful ministry is. A little outreach from people can bless someone so deeply. The kindness that we can extend to people is a body of living water. It doesn’t have to be extreme, it is simply kindness. If you give a cup of water in Jesus’ name, your reward will be eternal.
My background is theatre, so when I communicate from the Gospel I like to bring it to life. I think this is one of the most theatrical moments in the Bible, in 1 Kings 18.
The people of Israel have been pulled away from worshipping God. The prophet Elijah said God was going to cause a drought in the land, and it happened. In Chapter 18 Elijah comes back and meets with the people of God who are serving the gods of the land they are in. Baal was one of these gods. They had a god for everything. And Elijah was calling them back to the one true God. he comes to the people and says, ‘Who do you want to serve? All these foreign, stone gods? Or the one true God?’
Then Elijah tells the prophets of Baal to sacrifice to their gods, and if fire comes down and consumes the sacrifice, it will prove that their gods are real. They tried everything they could. They danced; they even began to cut themselves, but nothing happened. Then Elijah pours water on the sacrifice, prays, and fire consumes the offering, the water, and the stones. Then Elijah destroyed the prophets who had been misleading the people. He then prays for rain, and rain begins to come.
Now we get to Chapter 19. Ahab told Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, so she sent a messenger to Elijah.
1 Kings 19:2
She would sacrifice her own life to destroy his.
1 Kings 19:3-5
Imagine that you are at this scene, and Elijah knows that God is real. He knows what God has spoken to him, and he brings the word of the Lord to the people. But the words of Jezebel struck fear in his heart. As he ran something happened in his heart. He thought he had failed God.
Sometimes when we’re facing the things that we believe God has called us to, we think we only have one chance. We think that if we fail now, it’s over. Elijah has just experienced the power of God in the greatest moment of his life, and the fear of the enemy gripped his heart. Now he says to God that he is worthless.
Consider the response of God. Elijah is asleep, and all his energy was gone. He feels fear, failure, depression, and he is sleeping.
1 Kings 19:5
What’s the most spiritual thing that can happen to him now? An angel tells him to get up and eat some food. We think ministry is the moment where Elijah is calling down the fire from heaven, but now the angel is ministering to Elijah simply with kindness.
1 Kings 19:6-7
In the reality of what this scripture is saying, in Elijah’s exhaustion, he needed food. Sometimes the greatest ministry is to find out what people need.
I once met a couple in Germany who were having terrible problems in their marriage, and my wife went to their house, and they were living in a construction zone. Their floor was cement and the carpet was a roll in the corner. The sink wasn’t working so the wife had to wash the dishes in the bathtub. What these people didn’t need was counselling of some spiritual kind. They needed someone to fix their sink and lay their carpet, and so we did. It transformed their lives. Sometimes ministry isn’t something supernatural. It’s giving someone a ride somewhere. It’s something simple.
Elijah is refreshed, and he knows where he’s going. There has been this fascinating miracle with fire coming down, and now fear is in his heart so he runs to the wilderness. He could run on to Mount Horeb to meet with God, but he doesn’t want to because he feels like he’s really let God down. And this God brought down fire from heaven.
God had told him to come to Mount Horeb to meet him, but Elijah sat there wondering for forty days.
1 Kings 19:9
I often find a question comes into my heart from God when he has a task for me to do. God isn’t going to give Elijah an easy answer because the answers we need are already within ourselves. Questions bring them out of us.
In France we have a house where we invite people who are going through difficult times. It’s a ministry of hospitality and asking questions. When people are really stuck and they don’t know which way to turn, they need to listen to the question.
Elijah finally arrives at the mountain, and God speaks to him and says, ‘What are you doing here?’
1 Kings 19:10
Elijah’s response doesn’t answer God’s question. He talks about all the terrible things that have just happened to him. But God is asking what he is doing here. What is this moment about and how do we go on from here?
I find it so beautiful that the angel ministers to him through food, and the first thing that God does is ask him a question.
1 Kings 19:11-12
One pastor in America, A W Tozer, said that nothing twists or distorts the soul like a misunderstanding of who God is. When we fail, if we understand who God really is, that he is a God of compassion, love and mercy, we are drawn to him. But in this moment, Elijah thinks he is the fire, the earthquake and the wind. God was certainly able to use these things to demonstrate his power, and to lead the children of Israel, but when Elijah comes here feeling so desperate and so down, he lets the wind come, and Elijah realises the power of the wind is not the nature of God.
1 Kgs 19:12-13
Now his heart has been prepared, because in that soft voice he heard the voice of God. Elijah realises it’s not over.
It’s the same question, and Elijah gives the same response, but something has changed. Because now Elijah isn’t trying to defend himself, he is talking about the nature of God towards him.
1 Kgs 19:15-16
There are many people who have said Elijah disappointed God and so God was replacing him. But no. This was the highlight of Elijah’s life.
God said, ‘What are you doing here?’ And then God tells him what he is doing here. He was here to receive the next orders. He wasn’t over. He was getting ready to set up a system that was going to take over from the corruptness. Elijah had not failed, he had done a great work.
If we see God as the heavy task master, we are so fearful of coming to him. Elijah was encouraged by the angel and he faced his fear. He faced the wind and the earthquake and the fire. But God wasn’t in that.
It is so important that we understand the heart and the nature of God. One of the greatest things that Jesus did when he spoke to people was to communicate to them who God is.
Luke 12:36-37
The God that we serve, the God that Elijah went to face, is not a God who is looking to curse us. He is a God who calls us to do great things. When fear is in our heart, God is a God of mercy and compassion. He is a God of service. Elijah came to hear the voice of God, and it is in a whisper that gives him courage.
I don’t know what dreams and thoughts that you have had in your life. I don’t know if you think that you have missed your opportunities. I want to remind you that the reality of God is to be ready with service in your heart. We might think that we’ve failed, but we are ready to do the next thing. The master brings the food and serves us.
Elijah saw a God of power. But he comes down upon his knees to whisper to his children and to ask us questions and to encourage us. That is our awesome God.
God is never finished with us.
Sunday, 26 October 2008
God Has Not Forgotten You
I want to encourage you: what God does through pressure is to make us realise who we are trusting – is it Him or not? Do we trust a man or the church, rather than Him? “My God has supplied, is supplying and will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
We read the background to Elijah’s appearance in Israel in 1 Kings 16:29-33. It was bad news. Ahab, the king at the time, had rejected the true God and taken Baal, a foreign god. Things were looking bleak.
1 Kings 16:29-33
The pressure in your life has caused you to see things bleakly if you’ve let your heart get to a point where you cannot see a way forward. I have a word for you this morning: God is sending the solution for you, and it’s on its way. There is no way He’s forgotten you or has somehow slipped up and not been on time to provide the solution. Who do we trust? In what is our faith?
Ahab had chosen how he wanted to rule but then Elijah, a true servant of God, turned up. God provided for Elijah in a miraculous way. God’s ways of provision do not go along the same lines of thinking as ours. He delights in surprising us with how He makes provision. You’ve been trying to figure things out so much that your faith is more in what you’re trying to work out, than in Him.
1 Kings 17:1
It was a word from God that there will be famine and drought, and it will continue for several years. When Elijah said that, he didn’t know how God would provide for him during the drought. But the priority of his life was to deliver what God had for him to say to Ahab. If you’ve been trying to get priorities right in your own life and it’s been as though the enemy has been saying, “It’s a waste of time. Look at what’s happened,” we’re going to turn that round.
Matthew 6:24-29
There’s a principle here. I need to have the priorities right and put God first: I genuinely want to do and say what pleases Him, I want to outwork what He wants for my life. I’m not paying an insurance policy to guarantee that God blesses me.
1 Kings 17:2-5
When Elijah delivered the words to Ahab, and walked out of Ahab’s presence, he was facing the same famine and drought. He had no idea how God would provide for him. Note the verb in what God said, “I have commanded the ravens ...” God tells him to stay by a brook where there would be water, and says he has commanded the ravens to feed him.
When I look at the bird table in our garden, I know we feed the birds. Here it was the complete opposite. Elijah was to be in the middle of nowhere, and God had commanded the ravens to feed him. When God brings His solution for your need, it will be the opposite of normal thinking.
God is saying, “Trust me. Take no thought for your life. Get your priorities in order – look unto me, communicate with me, read my word, hear as I speak through the preaching – and I will provide the solution.”
1 Kings 17:7
Elijah had been sent to the brook and it had provided water. The ravens had fed him, and now at the very place he was told to go to, the water ceased. What would be your reaction? What’s your reaction with what’s happened in your life? Has your heart turned to bitterness, where you can’t see how this can go on any longer?
Elijah now witnessed God speaking to him again, with the next solution. There is no way that what has happened in your life has caught God unawares. God is in control.
1 Kings 17:8-14
Elijah came across a woman who was preparing her final meal. She only had enough meal for her and her son one last time and Elijah asked her for food. It was God’s plan for providing for Elijah. Elijah told her to make a meal for all three of them, as God had told him to. Humanly speaking it was impossible.
God will bring people across your path to provide a solution you haven’t thought of.
1 Kings 17:13-15
The widow was going to collect the sticks for the last meal and then they would die. Elijah turns up at exactly the right time. And he tells her to make two meals, and then the word came to say that the food would be maintained until the rain came. There is nothing finite about God. His provision is limitless. He doesn’t have to reset or change debt programmes. He is the provider, the one who loves you and is communicating to you this morning that the barrel of meal will not fail. He is your loving heavenly Father.
1 Kings 17:17-18
She didn’t anticipate this. It was a further pressure even in the miraculous provision of the meal. Her son died.
1 Kings 17:19-24
God provided the answer again. She knew the word God spoke was truth. God wants to convey to you the truth, Jesus – “I am the way, the truth, the life.”
James 5:16-18
When you pray, God hears you. Three and a half years Elijah was with the ravens and the widow. He was just an ordinary fellow, so James says, but look what happened when he prayed. Pray. Be open before your loving heavenly Father. “I’ve prayed,” you say. Right. When did you pray, and what about? The answer is in Him, and that answer is coming.
Matthew 6:30-34
If you don’t have a job at the moment, keep knocking on the doors and the job will come because God has already provided the answer. He will provide it. If you get made redundant, you were made redundant because God has something better. God is our provider and he is our loving heavenly father.
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