As you make your way back, uh, you can turn with me in your Bibles to one Kings 19. First Kings 19. I was reminded this week. That's because this is my last sermon before I'm ordained and licensed in the PCA. It's allowed to be my last bad sermon. So if that doesn't set your expectations high, I don't know what will.
But last week we finished up our series in Ephesians, and before we get into our advent series, we have this in between week where we get to spend it together in one of my favorite passages in the Old Testament one Kings 19. But first I wanna tell you a little bit about my glass. Glasses. Yes, my glasses.
Last week I swung by TU to pick up a student to take him out to dinner, and I decided, I got there a little bit early. I stopped in a sharp chapel, which is the chapel on campus, because I knew a few people that worked there from my time at tu. And one of those people who I knew worked there was Walker Rose.
He's the campus minister at RUF. At TU. And I was talking to him in his office and he just stopped me mid-sentence. He's like, dude, you have to put on your glasses. You're freaking me out. Because I had my glasses off and they were tucked into my shirt collar, and I realized that I really have only had these glasses for about a year and a half, which is almost as long as I've known him.
So he has only known me wearing glasses. And for me that was weird because I've gone the majority of my life without them. And I'm not sure how many of you have gone through the process of finding out that you need glasses. Some people start when they're young. When they're kids, they start wearing glasses or contacts and they wear them the rest of their life.
But for me, I had known for a little while that I had an astigmatism. And for me, all, all that really meant was driving at nighttime was terrible. Um, but, uh, my, my vision was fine otherwise, until about a year and a half ago, a bunch of things happened all at once. I got COVID. Seminary classes were extremely tough for me.
A former mentor of mine had stepped away unexpectedly from ministry, and one of my best friends showed up in the middle of the night and told me that his wife, one of my other best friends was divorcing him. And all these things happened. All at once. And the combination of all of these stresses, all of these overwhelming things, uh, combined with my compromised immune system and COVID caused a few things, caused brain fog and disassociation, and also visual snow, which I had never heard of before.
And so my doctors told me about it, but it, it's basically, if you aren't familiar, it's when you see static all the time in your vision, especially at night or when you're looking at screen. And it's less a problem with your eyes than the actual connection between your brain and your eyes. It's kinda like tinnitus for your ears.
And so I went to the eye doctor and they told me, okay, glasses will actually probably help. They'll help train your brain to kind of see through the visual snow. And, and they did. But what the glasses didn't do was do anything about all the overwhelming things happening in my life all at once. And I know that many of you have been there.
Before. And when one thing happens, seemingly other things happen altogether, and you have hard days or weeks or months or even years. And if you're unfamiliar with the context of our passage today, that is kind of what's happening with Elijah. Life is overwhelming to him. Things collapse in on him all at once.
Now, if you don't know, Elijah was a prophet of God, meaning that he revealed God's will to his people. Elijah was called by God to denounce the evils of King Ahab and his wife Jezebel, for their evil leadership and Queen Jezebel. She was a worshiper of veal who was a false God. And before our passage today in one Kings 18, it's an amazing passage.
What happens is Elijah defeats the prophets of veal in a contest. The prophets build up this, this altar of wood, and Elijah builds up an altar of wood, and it's a contest of whose God is stronger and better. And so the prophets of Baal are going through all of these exercises to try and get their God to burn their pyre of wood.
And Elijah actually covers his with water and he makes fun of the prophets as all day. They do all these things and nothing's happening, and Elijah prays to God and fire rains down from heaven and lights his altar on fire. And because of Elijah's victory with God, Elijah kills all of the prophets of ba.
And how might we expect Elijah to respond to this? It's amazing, right? It's incredible. It's an incredible victory. It's, it's triumphant. That's what we would imagine would happen. It's not quite what we see. So if you would please stand with me for the reading of God's word from one Kings 19, one through eight.
Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets. With the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so may the Gods do to me and more. Also, I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow. Then he was afraid and he arose and ran for his life and came to be Sheba, which belongs to Judah and left his servant there.
But he himself in a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a branch. And he asked that he might die saying It is enough now. Oh Lord, take my life for I'm no better than my father's. And he laid down and slept under a green tree. And behold an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat.
And he looked and behold there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water, and he ate and drank and laid down together. And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, arise and ate for the journey is too great for you. And he a rose and he ate and drank.
And when the strength of that food, 40 days and 40 nights, to ho the mounts of God, the prophet Isaiah tells us that people are like grass and beauties like the flowers of the field. All the grass withers and the flowers fade. This the word of our God will stand forever. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated.
We all experience difficult and stressful days, and some of our days are more difficult than others, and maybe today is hard for you, but when we consider the passage that we read today and we consider our own difficult days, we're maybe able to relate a little bit to where Elijah is and when I think this passage shows us.
And the main question I wanna look at today is this. How does God respond to his followers on their difficult? Days. How does God respond to his followers on their difficult days? And the passage answers this question, I think in, in three ways. Three things. How God responds to his followers. God's followers receive the difficult days.
God's followers receive empathy and God's followers receive God. So one, God's followers receive difficult days. Two, God's followers receive empathy, and three God's followers receive God. First, God's followers receive difficult days. Now in our passage, like I said before, we might expect Elijah to be celebrating over his victory.
We might look at this scenario and think that God would be blessing Elijah for following his commands and showing everyone that Baal isn't real on paper. Elijah should be converting people by hundreds who witnessed God's mighty deeds through him. I mean, if you and I saw this event and saw a fire raining down from Heaven and burning antar.
We'd be very quick to, to be strengthened in our faith, right? However, that's not what we see. There is no record of mass conversion in this passage. Instead, Elijah is threatened with death. Elijah is downtrodden, and fear has overwhelmed him. He abandons his duties. He travels alone into the desert, and he's overwhelmed by his being sentenced to death, and he's effectively an outcast despite he did everything right.
He did absolutely everything right. Verse four, it says this. He asked that he might die saying It is enough now, oh Lord, take away my life where I am no better than my father's. He wishes for death, and that's meant to be an extreme thing here. Our God is one who values life. He does not promote death as an escape from hardship.
So for Elijah to desire death as a sign of his fear and his depression, what Elijah's despair despite his success shows us is that we might hope. That if we just follow God really, really well, if we just do what he desires for us every moment of our life, that he will give us gifts in return. He'll make things easy and simple for us.
But God never promises a life without difficult days. The promise of the Bible is not that if we just work hard enough, pray hard enough, do enough good deeds, or follow God's law enough that we will have riches and fame and power and success and worthiness. That's not the message of the gospel. World consider this.
We actually see the the opposite, almost Israel, in the Old Testament, they're God's chosen people and yet constantly what they face is war. They become slaves in Egypt. They're exiled from the Promised Land. Paul in the New Testament, he's an evangelist, the church planter at the best ever. He's an author of many books of the Bible, and yet he talks about thorn in his flesh that he has.
He's put in jail constantly. He's even killed for his ministry. The apostles too. Follow. Jesus went out and spread the word, executed almost all of them. I know that many of you, many of you in here have had difficult days, maybe years or months of difficult times, but whether you've given your life the followed Christ or you have not yet done so, I hope that you know that being a Christian does not equal a ticket to what our society considers the good life or an easy.
Life. Faith is not an out when it comes to struggle. One Peter four 12 says it this way, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you. I'm not saying that being a follower of God is always terrible or bad or hard or or difficult, but it it is beautiful. Despite the struggle. It is beautiful despite the struggle.
It's knowing that on the other side of this life where there are difficult days is one where suffering does not even exist. It's a message of endurance and a message of peace knowing that God has a plan, that God is at work to bring that plan to completion. But the time in between then and now is one where we experience hardship through Israel's hardship promised Savior came through Paul's hardship, thousands came to faith, and millions lived by the words that that God wrote through him.
In the New Testament, God does not promised. Zero difficult days, but rather that he's work, working in our heart. He is at work in our heart. God is working all things for good despite our own difficult days. He's not making things easy for us just because he likes us. 'cause he does like us and he does love us and we don't know why.
Some seem to have it easier than others, but we do know that God's love for us does not depend on what we bring to the table. And I am very thankful for that because there are days where I feel like I do not bring. Much so first God's followers receive difficult days following God does not remove struggle from our life.
Elijah shows that. So then how does God approach us on our difficult days if we do have them 0.2, God's followers receive empathy. Look back with me to our passage in verses five through seven and he laid down and he slept under a brain tree. And behold an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat.
And he looked and behold there was at his head of cake baked on hot stems in a jar of water and he ate and he drank and he laid down again and the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, arise and eat for the journey is too great for you. Elijah sits under a broom drink.
Now what is that? Not something that you and I would be familiar with. It's, it's a desert shrub. Uh, it has an umbrella like canopy, so if you were to come across it in the desert, it'd be a great place to escape the sun and lie down. And Elijah does just that. He sits down and he goes to sleep. And now we don't know everything about sleep, but we do know it's important for our health.
It's important for our immune systems and our brains. And without it, our bodies could not survive. But one thing we do know for sure is that it's a wonderful thing when we get it. Sleep is a wonderful. Think, and we know it's wonderful because it's really bad when we don't get it. There have been nights when I was either stressed out or sick, and I just did not sleep at all.
And I know all of us have probably had nights like that and they're terrible. But nights like that helped me realize this, that sleep truly is a gift from God. It is a gift from God. And being able to sleep at a, in a difficult time, a time of anxiety or being overwhelmed, that is an absolute gift. And Psalm 1 27, Dan read it earlier for us, it says it like this.
Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest. Eating the bread of anxious toil for he gives to his beloved sleep. God gives to his beloved sleep. And that's not to say that every time you struggle to sleep that you are not a beloved of Gods, but rather than when we worry about sleeping for the sake of our own fear and anxiety and our attempts to figure out our own lives.
God allows us to rest in that knowing that he's in control of our situations. That's what that means. And in the passage we see, God lets Elijah sleep because he knows Elijah needs it. I've seen the same thing about sleep this, this need for sleep in the midst of a difficult time. When I get to hang around my nieces on family vacations, they're all under five, and I know about like midday, maybe a little before, a little after lunch.
Everything's terrible for them, right? Every small thing makes them cry. They're cranky. They don't wanna play, they don't wanna read books. And what will their parents say? Oh, it's nap time. It's nap time. And so they'll go down for a nap and about an hour or two hours later, they get up and things are magically better all of a sudden, right?
They wanna play again. They're happy, they're ready for the day. See here in our passage, what what we see is something amazing. God knows that Elijah has a real physical need for rest. And despite the anxiety of Elijah's difficult day, God gets it to him. He lets Elijah sleep. It's reminiscent of the most famous Psalm, Psalm 23.
The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not. Once he makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake. God gives sleep to his beloved. God gives sleep to his beloved. And next in our passage where we see God cooks for Elijah.
And he gives him water. God acknowledges something that we forget about ourselves. We are humans with bodies. We are humans with bodies. We seem to think that worry and anxiety are only spiritual things, that those are only spiritual things that can only be solved through, through spiritual means. But we have to realize that we are flesh and blood too, and our bodies and brains run on nourishment and hydration.
We cannot rip apart the physical and the spiritual. We can't do it. God feeds Elijah. He, he knows this about Elijah. He cares. God cares for Elijah's needs and there's no need too small for God.
Then we see God speak to Elijah through the angel who says, arise and eat for the journey is too great for you. And those are my favorite words. It's, it's what makes this passage my favorite passage. A rise and eat for the journey is too great for you. God acknowledges Elijah's pain and his weakness and his limitations, and God understands Elijah.
God shows him empathy. I think God's responsive empathy here actually shows us a lot of how we are to respond to others in their struggle and their suffering on their difficult days. Notice God does not say, stop complaining. You just need to work harder. You just need to to be better. That's just life.
Everybody has hard days. That's just like you doesn't say, here's a podcast to listen to. What he says is, the journey is too great for you. And what's the good news is that Elijah is not alone in this. The journey is too great for you, implies that it's too great for you. It's not too great for me. God says, I am here with you, and he says the same to us and know in our lives we do not see God.
We do not see God, but faith is being served what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. It's knowing that we are not alone and we are hurting. And that's one of the greatest comforts of having a God who is relational. A God who sees you and knows you and loves you. And in the same ways of all his ways of comfort, God teaches us how to comfort others.
Now, I mentioned this at the start, but a year and a half ago, and it was two years ago, one of my best friends called me very, very late at night, almost midnight, and he asked if he could come over, and that was very unusual. And I said, absolutely. And about 15 minutes later, he shows up around midnight and he walks in.
Terrible. He collapses on my couch and just can't speak for a while. Um, and so I sit with him and he finally tells me that his wife was divorcing him and they've only been married about two years at this point. And that's pure pain and heartbreak. It's not something I expected ever, and I'm sitting there and I'm trying to figure out what to say.
What do you say? What could you possibly say in a moment like that? I know that many of you have been there too. When someone opens up to you about something hard. What am what, what, what am I supposed to say? How do I make them feel better? Right? What's the, what's that Bible verse I can read for them that's gonna make them feel better all of a sudden?
But I knew I couldn't do any of that. I knew I couldn't do any of that. He wasn't in the mood to listen months later, he probably would never remember a thing that I said to him. So even though I did try talking some, and that moment, really what I did that helped was I gave him a hug and I made him some toast and tea, and I made up my couch for him to sleep there.
I gave him a safe place to sleep. And that's what, that's what he needed. That's what he needed was, was just to be with somebody who, who would care for him, who would listen to him, who would give him a place to sleep. And we had many conversations after that night where we were able to talk through things.
But in that moment, what I had to recognize was he was a real person with real needs. And at that time it was something to eat, something to drink in place to sleep. Sometimes helping each other meet those needs is enough. That's enough. And God shows us in this passage that God shows us not just how to comfort, but also that God comforts us that way.
God recognizes your limits. God recognizes your limits. He knows you need. You need rest. He provides that rest for you. And do you trust God enough to give yourself over to that rest when it feels like you should be doing something to fix your situation? Because on those nights when I have difficult days.
And I have so much going on. The problem that the reason I can't sleep is usually because I'm in my head about it. I'm trying to think my way through all my problems. I'm trying to figure that out for myself because I forget if I can give those things over to God, that God shows empathy to me and my weaknesses in you and yours.
He doesn't expect perfection from you to never feel overwhelmed or to never feel down Trump, and he has compassion for you enough to know that it's important that you practice some self-care, like rest and nourish. I hope you do. We don't really grow out of that need of a nap and a snack.
The second point, God's followers receive empathy. So we know that God's followers receive difficult days and God's followers receive empathy. But third God's followers receive God. God's followers receive God hope with me at verse eight, and he arose and ate and drank. And went in the strength of that food, 40 days and 40 nights to horrib the mound of God.
God calls Elijah to himself, not Horrib. If you're not familiar with it, you, you actually are, uh, in the Old Testament, actually goes by, it goes by a different name, another name, Mount Sinai, a little more famous, right? The burning bush, the 10 Commandments. And in, in a few weeks, at the end of December, when I preach again, we're actually gonna talk about the next part of this passage.
The next. Half of, of chapter 19. Um, but it's when God passes by Elijah 19, not in the wind or the fire or the earthquake, but in the whisper. God has power to control the world, and yet he shows up to Elijah in gentleness. It's the, it's the parts two to this passage. Now notice what happens here at the end.
This passage is, God does not say, I changed Jezebel's mind. You're good to death. He doesn't say, I defeated your enemies. You're all good. I took away all the hurt. No, the difficulties in life are still there for Elijah. Even at the end of this passage. The difficulties are absolutely still there, but what happens is God calls Elijah to himself.
That's the solution. And these are the unsaid but shown interactions between Elijah and God. Here is Elijah saying, it's too much for me. It's absolutely too much for me. And God says, yes, but it's not too much for me. Come to me. I'm with you. And Elijah says, I'm too afraid. We see that. I'm too afraid. He sends off his.
His assistant. I'm too afraid. God says yes, but I give you rest and peace. Come to me. Elijah says, I'm too weak. I cannot do it. I didn't have the strength to do it. And God says, yes, but I will nourish you. I'll be your strength. Come to me. I am the God. Now, one of my favorite examples of this, of someone carrying burdens comes from the Lord of the Rings.
Now many of you have read the book, so you've watched the movies because you're Presbyterian and you hold it to the same level as our confession probably. But if you haven't, if you haven't, I recommend it. If you haven't, all you need to know is that the point of the books and the point of the movies is that there is a great evil that needs to be destroyed and by destroying a ring of power, the one ring and this ring corrupts everybody who wears it by tempting them with that power.
And the only creature that can that can bear it to carry this ring for a time without being completely destroyed by it is a small creature called a hobbit photo van. And so Frodo and Sam Wise and the whole party, you can maybe call it a fellowship or something, I don't know. But that whole party sets off together on this quest to destroy this one ring and near the end of the books in the movies.
And I would say spoiler alert, but the movies are like as old as I am at this point. So just go ahead and watch 'em go ahead and read 'em. But near the end of these books in movies, Frodo is being overwhelmed by the power and the weight of the temptation of this ring. It's finally gotten to him, and as he's going up the mountain.
Which is like the last stretch of his journey. He can't do it. He collapses and Samwise is the only person who's still there with him throughout this whole journey. He kneels down beside him and he says, with the most striking words, kind of in cinema, come, Mr. Frodo, I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you and if we are so moved by this.
If someone would carry their friend through hardship, how much more beautiful is it when we come to a passage like this in the Bible and know that God can carry it for us and can carry us, and he does. How much more beautiful is it to know that God knows what it's like to carry our burdens, even because he came as a man and carried our burdens on the cross?
That is true. The good news is this, is that the same God who empathizes with Elijah? Who gave his presence to Elijah, that God gave himself to us in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, who knows what it's like to struggle like Elijah did. Jesus bore the weight of our sin on the cross, and he empathizes with those of us who struggle.
We have a God who understands us because he came to live as one of us. God gave Elijah in his anxiety, and Jesus says, what in Matthew 11? Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. It says it right there. God gave Elijah food and water and his weakness, and Jesus says in John six, I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. God tells Elijah the journey is too much for him, and he calls Elijah to himself, come to me. And Jesus takes on the weight of the sin of the world because we are bearing the, because the, the, the weight of bearing that weight is too much.
It is too much for us. And we are called to what? Run to him. To go to Christ, to run to our God with all that we have and all that we are, and to know that we are received into His arms is the beauty of the gospel a God who knows what it's like to hurt? Who can empathize with us? Because he came and lived as a man who did hurt.
He experienced deep hurt and pain and suffering and death so that we might live through him. And how does that apply to us who have difficult days? I could not say it better than the words these. Hymn come Sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus Ready stands to save you full of pity, love, and power, Comey thirsty.
Come and welcome God's free bounty, glorify true belief and true repentance. Every grace that brings you nine, let not conscience, make you linger, nor fitness fondly dream, all the fitness he requires is to feel your need.
Do you recognize your need for God that you can't do it on your own? I think it's the call of this passage as we look at the example of Elijah. Don't shy away from the love and the rest and the nourishment and the empathy that God provides for you in your difficult days. And would you be willing to place your faith in the God that cares for you in your hurts, even if he doesn't take that?
Her away.
Now listen, I didn't need these glasses two years ago, and maybe I'll need them for the rest of my life. Maybe my vision will not recover and maybe my brain and body will never figure out how to work together in this life. And yes, I may even suffer and struggle and have difficult days till I die and, and probably you will as well, but you and I have a savior who suffered even unto death so that you and I might be free one day.
You and I will see all things made new, and would you be willing to trust that even in this life, even if this life is called hurt and fear and pain, that Christ comforts you in the midst of it? Would you run to him? Would you go to him and would you be most comforted in the sure promise that in the death of resurrection, the death and the resurrection of Christ, that sure promise is that as Revelation says, there will be no more death nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain that there will be no more difficult days.
Let's pray. Lord God, I thank you. This day is every day, Lord, that we are able to gather together, Lord, that we know that it's true, that you comfort us in the midst of our hard times, that you just as you give rest and nourishment and empathy and presence to Elijah, that you do the same to us. That you're a God who loves us and likes us and cares for us.
Lord, I pray that we don't forget it. But we lean more on you than we lean on ourselves, Lord, that we wait with patience for the day of glory, Lord, that we run to you, uh, Lord, and we don't run to ourselves that we lean on each other and not on our own strength. And pray all this in your name. Amen.
Sermon transcript is computer generated.