Elijah #2 - Yelling At The Sky
Heavenly father, we, we come seeking your face this morning. We come seeking a word from you, lord. Lord and even like Elijah, he you you were found by him, lord, in the gentle whisper. You were not found in the fire. You were not found in the earthquake.
Cameron:You were not found in the thunder. Lord, you were found in the gentle and the quiet whisper. Lord, would you would you write even that truth on our hearts? Lord, that it often requires that we silence the thunder, the fire, the wind of our lives so that we can hear your voice. Lord, it's not as if you're not speaking to us.
Cameron:But our lives have so sufficiently drowned out your voice that we need to, lord, silence Mhmm. Other things in order to hear you. Lord, help us to do that this morning. To silence the things in our life that are competing for our attention, competing for our energy, competing for our emotions, competing for the energy of our ears or the sight of our eyes, Lord. We wanna see only you.
Cameron:We wanna hear only you, Lord. We seek your face this morning, father. We pray for our brother, Pastor Luke. We thank you, Lord, for the gifts that you've given to him to teach your word. And, Father, we pray that he may decrease so that you might increase this morning.
Cameron:Lord, we pray that your word, that your holy spirit would take the proclamation of your word, would would shove it deep down, Lord, into our souls. That it might that it might do what you have intended it to do, to teach us, to encourage us, to rebuke us, to admonish us, Lord, to exhort us, to transform us, Lord, as we pursue your son Jesus. Transform our hearts, father, by your word this morning. Lord, as we seek you and only you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Luke:Amen. Thank you, pastor Cameron. This morning, we're like Cameron said, we're gonna continue in our sermon series on Elijah. Elijah. Elijah.
Luke:Thank you. But anyways, we're gonna continue that. Today's sermon's gonna be a little bit different. So if you're new, this is, like, maybe your first time here or one of your first couple of times here. This isn't, like, the normal type of sermon that I we would normally give on a Sunday morning.
Luke:I like to do this maybe once a year or so when I feel like a text comes along that I feel would benefit from it and would be appropriate for it. Because I think that the Bible we believe the Bible is God's word, and it has so much to teach us. We try and base everything we say up here out of it. But I believe not only the content of the bible, but I also think that there's something important to the form of the Bible. The fact that so much of God's word is contained in stories, so much of it is contained in poetry that sometimes we kind of lose sight of that.
Luke:We'll kind of tell or talk about the Bible kind of like a lecture note verse by verse, and that's fantastic, and we do that here. But sometimes that kinda loses the train of thought, loses the drama of the story. So today, we're going to interact with the story of Elijah, and we're going to do it maybe with a little bit of a sanctified imagination. So if you would, I would encourage you and ask you to open up your bibles with me to 1st Kings chapter 18. 1st Kings chapter 18 is in the front quarter or so of your bible.
Luke:If for some reason you don't have a bible, we have lots of bibles on the bookshelves in the back. You can grab one of those or grab one of the ones underneath the pews here, and that is yours to keep and read out of. We wanna make sure that you have a bible if you would like one. So First Kings chapter 18 is going to pick up our story from where it was last week. He had perhaps one of the worst report cards a king could have.
Luke:He had led the people astray. He was leading them towards false worship of Baal. Baal was the god of rain and the harvest. And so Elijah, this prophet comes out of nowhere. And he says, it's not gonna rain anymore.
Luke:It's not gonna have dew on the ground until I say it's going to. And it was this throw down. It was this challenge of you're following this false god who you think is gonna bring rain, but I'm gonna show you that the true living God, the Lord of Israel, is the one true God, and he's gonna stop the rain. And we kind of talked a little bit more about the story, but that's the essentials of where we pick up is it has not rained since Elijah made that pronouncement, and it is now going into its 3rd year with no rain. So if you would have First Kings chapter 18 open, it will be up here on the screen.
Luke:But walk with me through the story today. Hey. Hey. It's it's me. Don't worry.
Luke:It's me, Obadiah. I I know you guys have been, cramped up here in these caves for a long time, but don't worry. No. I didn't bring any more food or water, but I brought better news. I brought great news.
Luke:You guys, you, the prophets of the Lord, who have been hiding out in these caves for so long now. I know you guys don't like it in here. But I've got great news. I think you're gonna be able to leave. I think you guys are now free to leave.
Luke:I have such good news. Don't worry. I will tell you all of the details. See, I was, called by Ahab the other day. He called me to come together, and he said he was concerned about his horses and his mules.
Luke:We we haven't, you know, there was not a lot of grass around. I know you guys have been in the cave and you haven't seen that, but there's not a lot of grass out there. And and he was really concerned about his horses and his mules. And so he wanted to go and find some green grass for them. And I know that, you know, we've got bigger horses bigger horses, bigger fish to fry, and that's pretty small potatoes.
Luke:He's definitely got his priorities wrong when he's talking about his horses when his people are starving. But anyways, he decides to come up with a plan. Him and I, we're going to split up, and we're going to go in different directions, and we're gonna look for grass for his horses and mules. But as we split up and we get started on our journey, I didn't get very far. Because see, I was walking down the road.
Luke:As I was coming down the road, I turn. I see that there's a man right in the middle of the road. And and as I get closer, I just get excited because I because guys, it was him. You know who I'm talking about? It was Elijah, the prophet of the Lord.
Luke:And I could just tell it looked exactly like everybody in had described him. He had on these clothes made out of animal hair and a leather belt tied around him. And he just had this commanding presence. He just looked like this person who was walking closely with the Lord. And as I got closer, I came and I threw myself on the ground.
Luke:I said, my Lord, Elijah, is it you? Elijah, he turned to me and he says, it is me. Now go tell your master that Elijah is here. I say back to him. I say, what have I ever done to you?
Luke:I'm going to die if I go and tell Ahab that. I don't know if you know this Elijah, but you're the most wanted man in all of Israel. The king has been scouring for you for years. We have gone to every single neighboring nation and said, is the prophet Elijah inside of your borders? And when the kings would say, we cannot find Elijah.
Luke:The King Ahab would make them swear an oath that you were not there. And now you're asking me to go back and tell Ahab that you're right here practically at his front door. And when I leave, who knows what the spirit of the Lord is going to do? He might just whisk you off somewhere and tell you to go somewhere else. What happens when I bring Ahab back and you are not here?
Luke:Surely, Ahab will kill me. 100 of them in caves. I brought them food and water. I've been a servant of the Lord from my youth. Elijah, please have pity on me.
Luke:Don't make me go and tell Ahab that you are here, for I will surely die. Now, I know that me groveling doesn't look that great. Really didn't wanna die. And I know I've talked with a number of you being prophets. And I know I'm a conflicting person for you.
Luke:I yes. I've helped. I've saved you. I've perhaps provided food and water for you here in these caves, but I still, all along, have kept my job working for king Ahab, being a servant over his household. And I know that I kind of walk this razor line where I have tried my best.
Luke:I don't know what else to do, but to be faithful to the Lord as best as I can and also uphold my job and my responsibilities. Of hope that Ahab one day will turn to the Lord that he his heart will soften, that he will repent and lead Israel back to the Lord. Or maybe he will eventually grow a spine, and he will stand up to his wife, Jezebel, and kick the false prophets out. Don't tell him I said that. But one day perhaps.
Luke:And so I was groveling. I really didn't wanna die. Ahab is kind of kind of punishment happy right now. And Elijah says to me very simply, he says, I swear by the Lord, my God, in whom's presence I stand, I will present myself to Abiad this very day. So I took off and I went to go fetch king Ahab.
Luke:And let me tell you, the news put him in a mood. He began to describe all the ways in which I would suffer and die if we got down the road and Elijah was not there. And so we're on our way to I'm bringing Ahab to where Elijah had been, and my heart was pounding in my throat. I was so anxious until we got around the corner, and I could see Elijah still standing there. It's very, very thankful.
Luke:And we get there, and let me tell you, king Ahab's interaction with Elijah went very different than mine. Ahab strode up to Elijah and said, is it really you, you foul troublemaker of Israel? And Elijah, completely unfazed, says, I I have brought no trouble to Israel. It is you and your family that are the foul troublemakers of Israel. For you have refused to obey the commandments of the Lord, and you have led the people astray to worship Baal.
Luke:And then Elijah drops a commandment. He drops a order to the king. He says, gather all the people of Israel. Gather all the prophets of Baal, all 450 of them, and gather all the prophets of Asher, all 400 of them, and bring them all and meet me at Mount Carmel. Ahab standing there in front of the most wanted man in all of Israel, the man he had been searching for for years, the man who had showed up out of nowhere and simply said, it will not rain anymore.
Luke:The king agrees. Maybe it was because Elijah simply holds all of the cards, and it really does need to rain. We're in dire straits. Perhaps, Eli and perhaps, Ahab is just not as strong willed as he puts off sometimes. But no matter the reason, the word is spread, the profits are told, and all of the people prepare and gather.
Luke:A few days later, everyone is gathered in the morning at Mount Carmel. And everyone is so excited and anxious and speculating as to what's going to happen. Elijah has called for all of the opposing prophets. Are they going to get into a fight? Are they going to argue?
Luke:What is going to happen? Maybe, just maybe, it might rain. And so everyone is gathered. And Elijah climbs up on a boulder so that he could be seen and heard. And he says to the people of Israel, he says, how long will you waiver?
Luke:How long will you hobble between 2 opinions? If the Lord is God, worship him. If Baal is God, then worship him. Elijah had named the heart of the issue. And the crowd was dead silent.
Luke:Nobody had anything to say. Nobody really wanted to look at Elijah either. There was a lot of stretching and looking around at the ground because no one wanted the answer. He just stood in silence in front of that accusatory question. And Elijah, after what felt like a very long pause, said, behold, I am the only prophet of the Lord left.
Luke:Baal. Baal has 450 prophets. Now I know he forgot about you guys hiding here in the cave. I didn't feel like right then was right time to point that out to him, but he points that out and then he says, this is what we're going to do. He says, I propose that we get 2 altars, 2 bowls.
Luke:You, the prophets of Baal, can prepare your sacrifice. Prepare it with wood and everything. Do everything except light it on fire. And I will do the same. And then what we will do is we will leave it up to our gods, to bail into the Lord.
Luke:Which one will light their own sacrifice? The one that does proves themselves to be a true God and the true God of Israel. All the people were in agreement and excited about this. They were much more excited about seeing some action perhaps rather than just some prophets yelling back and forth at each other. And the prophets of Baal agreed.
Luke:And so Elijah said, you can be the first ones to go. Pick your bowl. Set up your sacrifice and all of that. So they went to the 2 bowls. They examined.
Luke:They picked the best bowl that they thought would be good for the sacrifice. They slaughtered the bull, put it on the sacrifice. They got all the dry wood they can find, which was not hard because, you know, it hasn't rained. But we put all of the wood around the altar, And then, the prophets of Baal began to march around their altar, and they began to call out to Baal, light this altar on fire. And they little spark in this whole altar will go up in flames.
Luke:Just waiting and waiting. Just waiting and waiting and waiting. Because it went on from morning to late morning till noon, and all this time Elijah had been standing off to the side just watching the prophets of Baal. And he decides to chime in, and he says, hey, you guys, looks like Baal doesn't hear you. Maybe you should try yelling louder.
Luke:Maybe maybe Baal is just daydreaming or he's busy. Maybe maybe Baal's in the bathroom. You should just yell louder and get his attention so he'll answer you. Now the prophets of Baal didn't particularly appreciate the jittering, but they did start to yell louder and more consistently with more fervor. They even got out their ceremonial swords and their daggers, and they began to draw their own blood in a way to get the attention of Baal.
Luke:But all of this continued on from the early afternoon to the late afternoon until it was a bloody mess. And all of the prophets of bales, their voices were hoarse and could no longer yell. And Elijah called the attention of the crowd and said, come come here to the altar of the Lord. And we come over to a dilapidated altar that no one has used in years. Elijah goes about and he grabs 12 stones.
Luke:One for each of our tribes and rebuilds the altar of the Lord before us. He it all around the altar. And then he does something weird, because he's Elijah. And he he begins to dig a trench around this altar so deep that the deepness of it could hold 3 gallons of water. And then, he sees these jars of water, and he commands that they be poured over the altar and the sacrifice.
Luke:We don't have a lot of water. It was a pretty precious commodity, but he pours it over there not just once, not twice, but three times. He's poured so much water on this altar, on the sacrifice, the wood, that the water is filling up the trench that was around the altar. The water has now turned that dry wood into wet soaking wood that it's dripping with water. And this is the sacrifice he's going to make to the Lord.
Luke:Elijah comes up to the altar and says rather loudly, but clearly, but not exactly yelling like the prophets of Baal did. But he says it loud enough that we can hear him. He says, oh, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove that you are the Lord God of Israel. And that you have called them back to yourself. Almost before Elijah had finished saying that sentence, a pillar of fire fell from the sky onto the altar.
Luke:All of us as we were standing there, we felt that wave or that wall of heat come from that fire. We could immediately start sweating right away, and we could sense we could just see the fire consuming everything. Those that were in the front were beginning to back up for fear they might be consumed. And we could see the fire consuming not just the sacrifice, not just the wood, but the stones and the water too was all being consumed like the fire was a hungry animal. And then all of a sudden, just as soon as it had come, the fire lifted from the sacrifice and went back up into the sky.
Luke:And we all stood there in dead silence. What do you say after you've seen something like that? Trying to wrap our minds around it. After a few moments, like an ocean wave, the entire crowd fell to their faces. And in response to Elijah's question that he had asked at the beginning of the morning, they cried out, the Lord, he is God.
Luke:The Lord, he is God. In all of that, Elijah gets up and he tells the crowd. He's like, gather the prophets of Baal bae, for they have to pay with their lives because they have led Israel astray to worship a false god. After that has taken place, Elijah and King Ahab have some exchange of words that I didn't get to hear, but they go off their separate ways. And I decided that you, the prophets of the Lord, have been hiding out here in the ought to know.
Luke:You ought to know that you can come out at once. The people of the Lord have finally turned back to God. Oh, I almost forgot that as I was here, I saw storm clouds out on the horizon. Did you guys hear that? Can you hear the rain falling?
Luke:Did you guys smell the fresh rain hitting the dry dirt as it's just starting? The Lord has come like the spring rains. He's so good and he is so faithful. I hope that we stick this time, that perhaps we have finally learned our lesson and we will continue to seek the Lord's face. You know, through that whole experience today and as I watched the people, watched the prophets of Baal run around their altar and shout up into the sky expecting something to happen from a false god.
Luke:It was really easy to laugh at them and to join in Elijah's jeering and to see them as foolish. But I kind of was struck with a question. The question is, is it maybe easier to see a false god when it's not the one that you're worshiping? And I think that that from our story is indeed true. I do think it is easier to spot a false idol when it's not the one that we're worshiping.
Luke:I think it's easy for us to hear this story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal and see the prophets of Baal and say, that is so foolish. How could the people of Israel have been led astray so badly? How could they end up worshiping Baal? We don't do that anymore. That's too primitive.
Luke:We don't have little wooden idols and nobody's going out into their backyard and slaughtering a bull and making a sacrifice out of it. Idolatry surely has been a thing that was confined to the old testament, But I don't think that that's true. I think that we would find that actually the idolatry that exists in our lives today has not disappeared, but has just changed forms. It just looks different. The question that I kind of had to myself when we were when I was thinking about this was to simply ask, what are the modern bowls?
Luke:You know, we we don't keep a bull around. It's not you know, I mean, if you're a farmer, maybe you do, but like, most of us are not keeping bulls in our yards. But it was a thing that represented a significant financial thing. It was food. It was provision.
Luke:It was important. And so when it was sacrificed, it meant something. So what are today's sacrifices? What are the things that you and I, our culture holds so valuable that we, that we feel like we need to manage, that we need to sacrifice. And so I came up with a couple and these are the 4.
Luke:The first is to say money. Right? Money is always, always been a resource. We strive to have more of it, to control it, to hang on to it, to save it, to find it passively. However, we talk about money.
Luke:It most certainly is a thing that we are willing to sacrifice. Time, there's not a person that I feel like I can talk to where we don't resonate deeply with this sense of just being busy. Time is the thing we always want more of, more control over, more say over. It's definitely a commodity for us. And then attention.
Luke:Attention has become the silent capital. It's the silent money of our age. There are entire industries and companies that spend every day figuring out how to get our attention. Marketing, our cell phones, social media, everything is striving to hold our attention. What we give our attention to is what we find important and valuable.
Luke:And then finally, our energy and emotions. Maybe not so much our physical energy. Oh, some don't sometimes that is a thing, but we only have so much brain power in a day. We only have so much emotions to give. What are we gonna spend it on?
Luke:Do we have enough emotional energy to invest in that? I think these are the things that we hold dearly. We try to manage. We want to control and have more over, and I think they represent the things that we sacrifice when we want to. See, I found this quote from Martin Lloyd Jones.
Luke:He was a well known preacher, and he had this definition of idolatry that I think puts idols away from this idea of kind of a wooden statue thing and bowls and altars, and puts it in modern terms I think you and I can talk about more easily. He says an idol is something that holds such a controlling position in my life, that it moves and rouses and attracts me so easily that I give my time, attention, and money to it effortlessly. An idol is something that is so attractive to me, has such a control over me that I will pull out my wallet. I will spend my time. I will give my attention without a thought.
Luke:Here's my money taken. Here's my time taken. Here's my attention. Here's all of my energy. And idle is the thing that we have no question that we would say yes to.
Luke:We are left with this question of what has such a controlling power over me that I would without thought sacrifice to it. What has such a controlling power over me that these things that I say are so important are so easily spent on it. There are well, to say this maybe a different way is to say that there are Christian writers of old who used to talk about this using different language. They would use the language of attachment. Right?
Luke:Things that our hearts are attached to. Things that maybe wherever we go, we're pulling this thing with us or better yet, the thing we're attached to is pulling our hearts with it. Whatever it is that we are so attached to that it controls our hearts, our emotions, and desires so completely. There are things other than God that our hearts get attached to. These are things that are our attachments, the things that we strive and hold on to so tightly.
Luke:This is what I must have. This kind of looks like to use the language that I used last week in the sermon before this. I was talking about using that language and answering that question of, if only blank, then I would be happy. How would you fill in that sentence? If only I had more time.
Luke:If only I had more success. If only I had whatever comes to your mind. That's the thing that your heart is likely attached to. It's the thing that you're saying your happiness, your joy, and satisfaction in life is gonna rise and fall on how fulfilled that blank is in that sentence. That represents a a place where we're giving control for perhaps we're holding on to an idol.
Luke:But here's the really, really difficult thing is that idols are rarely this thing. Like, we like to think of idols as maybe things of horns and things that look evil out of the box. But my guess would be is that as I'm talking and walking through this message that the things that are coming to your minds aren't inherently evil. They're actually really good things. They're gifts.
Luke:See, I idols what they what idolatry likes to do is it likes to take a gift, and then it likes to replace the giver. Eyes off the gift giver so fully that the gift becomes the thing that we are only focused on, it has become an idol. Good things can so easily become idols. Actually, the things I have a handful of list here of kind of modern idols I think we follow it fall into, they're all good things. None of them are things that are inherently evil.
Luke:Family, spouse, kids, work, comfort, and pleasure. Those are good things. Things the Lord has given us to enjoy and praise him with and for, but they so easily become idols of our hearts. Just think about how family can become an idol. Perhaps we expect our spouse to be the person who meets our every whim and need will finally make us happy.
Luke:We'll make life worth living. We'll make it worth coming home. Right? The spouse that's going to save us from our loneliness. But that's not a realistic expectation to put any human being under.
Luke:Or what about our kids? Perhaps, my kid will succeed in ways I wish I had succeeded. Or maybe I will be a better parent finally than the parent my parents were to me. I'll be able to give my kids a better start. All the things I wish I had had, I will be able to make my kids succeed in ways that I wish I could and I could live vicariously through their own accomplishments.
Luke:That's a lot of pressure to put on a kid. But it's trying to get the meeting this need or desire. It's becoming an idol. Or what about work? Workaholism is such an easy thing to fall into because, well, my job is important.
Luke:The things we need to do are important. This is where I find my significance. If I'm not this, what am I? I'm successful. I need to climb the ladder, or I need to earn a little bit more money, or this is really all for my family all this time that I'm spending away from them.
Luke:Work can become an idol that feeds our ego or a place to run from or have comfort. I think we run to comfort so often in our culture. I think we have lived in an age in a place where, yes, there are still needs. Absolutely. But largely, there is so much more access to comfort and to avoid adversity.
Luke:Pastor Cameron and I were talking about this. And Cameron named this idol 2, 3 weeks ago when we were talking about this. And he said, comfort is this massive idol that I think we've not addressed. And I agree. I think we are so comfortable that we're, oh, did the lord really mean that I needed to lose my life to find it?
Luke:Like, couldn't I have my life and still find it? Like, did Jesus really what did he mean when he say pick up the cross and follow me? Because I don't really wanna do it. Maybe I'll drag the cross. I don't wanna pick it up.
Luke:Right? We love to find ways to say, god, I'm this comfortable, but I'm not gonna go farther than this. This is where my comfort zone is. And I think we love to live a life surrounded by comfort. Let's not do anything hard.
Luke:Let's not stretch ourselves. What is comfortable? Or finally, pleasure. I think we live in a time where we want things fast, instantaneous, and good now. We live not in a time of just fast food drive throughs, but a time of fast food order online.
Luke:If it's not here in a day, that's awful. Right? Like, we're become so entitled to things being comfortable and coming fast. And we live by this mantra of if it feels good, it is good. We live in a culture where if you want it, if you want it, if your heart says yes to it, you should get it.
Luke:That's how we make our decisions. Does it make me happy? Live your own truth. Pursue your own happiness. Treat yourself.
Luke:However, it is that we kind of frame this talking about of pursuit of pleasure and enjoyment, it can become a thing that we become entirely oriented around. I was reading and listening to Timothy Keller on this topic. He talks quite a bit about idolatry and he has a book called Counterfeit Gods. And in that book, he has this concept of what he described as deep idols. So I just described things.
Luke:Right? People, things. But he says that there's often a layer deeper. Because you and I, we could go through and we could come up with, like, alright. What are the idols of our culture?
Luke:We could make a really long list today. And each idol is going to be individual to you and to where you find yourself in your life, what it is the thing that you are seeking. But Keller says that there's 4 deeper idols. Things that we want that are really under the surface of of each of those things. He says that the deeper idols are these four things, power, approval, comfort, and control.
Luke:Whenever we come into a place where we're, like, not living like Jesus, where we're not living like, loving, or serving like Jesus, where we're falling short of the call of Jesus, chances are we're chasing one of these 4. I was thinking and wrestling about this in my own life, and I felt convicted and confronted over the fact that I get kinda aggravated sometimes, which is a nice way of saying I get angry, which might surprise some people. But I get angry. I get frustrated. I get really kind of just, you know, like, why is it this way?
Luke:And this should be better. And if only everybody would listen to me and do what I said, things would be better. Right? I have this desire for certain outcomes, a desire for things to work out the way I want them to. And that could play from everything to how my food is given to me, to how my work life goes.
Luke:But what I'm really wanting is control and comfort. What's deeply in my heart is I'm I want control over things. I wanna feel like I have control over my life and situation that it's gonna work out and happen exactly the way I think it ought to. And I really want everything to be comfortable. Don't want anything to be an inconvenience.
Luke:I don't wanna have to sacrifice any of my needs or wants for the benefit of another person. I really like, they can get their needs and wants met as long as it doesn't inconvenience me. And I have to wrestle with that. That that's a desire that's coming out of my heart that wants to make idols out of things. That I'm sort of walking around my own sort of alter and saying, I just want more control.
Luke:I just want more comfort. If only I had this thing or if only my day went like this, then I would be happy. And the thing is is that no matter how much I yell and scream and fight for my comfort and control, I'm never going to have enough. There's a quote. I don't remember who it's by, but it goes like this.
Luke:It says that mankind is finite, is limited in all respects. We have limited amount of time, energy. We die eventually. We are limited. But we are infinite in one way.
Luke:And that is in our desires. We always want more. We always want another good experience, another good meal. We always want more. I think this point is made very clear in Jeremiah chapter 2.
Luke:Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 12 through 13 says this, be appalled at this you heavens and shutter with great horror for my people have committed 2 sins. They have forsaken me the spring of living water and they have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold any water. We have been here. We've been in the garden. We've had the tree of life.
Luke:And we've said, you know what, god? I would rather abandon your provision, and I'd rather come over here and try and dig my own well desires and be control of my own life and get my own comfort. And what we end up doing is we end up digging a well that doesn't hold any water. We end up chasing finite things to fill an infinite to fill an infinite hole. We're looking for something to fill that hunger and desire inside of us.
Luke:But the thing is is no matter how much I put in there, I'm always gonna be hungry for more because I was meant for something more than that. Compare this with the words of Jesus in John chapter 6 verse 35. I mentioned this passage last week, but it bears mentioning again. John 635 says this, Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Luke:You guys are chasing after things that will fill you for a time. But I'm the thing. I'm the person in which if you were to abide in me, to trust in me, to be with me in relationship, you would find that your soul, your heart would be satisfied for now and through eternity. Jesus is declaring that I am the spring of living water. Stop digging a well that is never gonna give you a lot enough water.
Luke:Saint Augustine said this when he was describing this phenomena in his own life. Saint Augustine was a person who spent his entire youth chasing all the things of life that he wanted. If he wanted sex, he found it. If he wanted pleasure, he found it. Wanted food, riches, wealth.
Luke:He traveled the world. And at the end, he found all of it wanting and found the Lord. And until they find their rest in you. We will wander a dry and parched and weary land looking for broken cisterns hoping they will finally quench our thirst. When the Lord is inviting us to come and know him, come taste and see that I am good.
Luke:See that I am the bread and the spring of life. It's not unlike that of the story of the prodigal son. Prodigal son takes his life into his own hands and says, you know what? Life's gonna be better on the other side of that hill. There, I will find greener pastures.
Luke:He chases everything that he wants and finds himself in a pig sty starving. All the while, the Lord is saying, if you would only come home. If If you only would come home, you'd find I'd set a table for you. I would sit down and dine with you. Your family would be here to love and support for you and care for you.
Luke:The father is waiting for us to simply turn around, and he will run out to meet us. The Lord is faithful to come to those who repent and seek him. He comes like the spring rains. And here's the thing is when we have identified an idol, we might be tempted. Oh, well, I just need to smash that idol.
Luke:Just need to destroy it. Yes. You might need to do that. But the thing is is that if all you do is destroy an idol, you will put another idol in its place. It's kind of like a whack a mole.
Luke:Right? We get word of 1 idol, we will find another and another. It's not until we remove an idol off the altar of our heart and put god there that an idol can't get back up. It's not simply about destroying our desires or destroying our idols. It's about putting God at the center of our lives and our heart.
Luke:And when we do that, those gifts, they turn they turn from idols back into gifts. Our family, our work, our jobs, our significance, our time, our money, all of that becomes gifts and not an idol. But God has to be at the center of our heart for that to happen. He has to be on the altar of our lives. He has to be at the center because if we don't do that, we will simply just replace the idol we just removed.
Luke:So I will leave us with the question that Elijah left the crowd with. And that is simply, how long will we waiver? How long will we run to an empty cistern? How long will we waiver between 2 opinions? If the Lord truly is God, let us follow and worship him.
Luke:Please please pray with me. Heavenly father, Lord, we want to listen to your spirit today. If your holy spirit is speaking into our lives and is calling us out, is calling us to lay down something we have made an idol. Lord, I pray that you would give us clarity. You would give us insight into our hearts because our hearts are wickedly deceitful.
Luke:Who can know them, Lord? But you know our hearts. Pray that you would give us insight. And, Lord, I pray for those of us who feel that conviction, Lord. But I pray that you would remove any guilt or shame or that you would recall to us the faithfulness of the father pursuing the prodigals.
Luke:Lord, we seek to repent and lay aside those things that we have made idols out of. Faithless. But you are faithful just to forgive us our sins when we confess our sins. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
Luke:Conduit, this morning, my prayer for you is that as you speak Jesus over your life, you would find that he is an abundant source of life, that he is a fountain that does not run dry no matter what season of life you were in. Conduit, go in peace and know that you're loved.
