God Is In Charge Over Me

Elijah God over gods: God Is In Charge Over Me

Text: 1 Kings 17:1-9

Intro: We want to believe that there is a growing trend in America towards being anti-god. On one hand, that is true, and on the other, it is not, as the total percentage of atheists in America hovers around 4%. However, there is a growing number of people who claim no religious affiliation at all, as that number is almost 30%. People are confused about God and aren’t questioning is there a God as much as which one. We’ve all heard the story of God being on the mountain, and there are many ways to get to the top of the mountain, as we are all going to the same destination. This series on Elijah and Elisha addresses the need for us to choose the God of the Bible to submit our lives to and worship. He is the only true God.

1. Set Scene
   1. History
      1. Israel was founded as a monotheistic nation.
      2. Israel split into two nations after a type of civil war. The northern kingdom was known as Israel, and the southern kingdom was referred to as Judah.
         1. The northern kingdom had a succession of 19 evil, ungodly kings that spanned 200 years, culminating in the worst king, Ahab (1 Kings 16:33).
         2. Ahab married a woman named Jezebel from the neighboring pagan nation of Sidon, and she introduced her false gods of Baal and Asherah to Israel, immediately setting up temples for them throughout the land. These false gods promise prosperity and protection, and Israel caved.
         3. Baal is not the name of a specific god, but rather a title. There was the baal of fertility, harvest, business, and nature.
         4. The worship of Baal and Asherah led to child sacrifice. A few years after Jezebel was in power, she killed hundreds of prophets and priests of God and set up her own. We know Obadiah kept 100 alive during this time.
      3. Elijah
         1. Name - The Lord is God. In a pluralistic society, Elijah’s name communicated that there is one God and He is to be worshipped.
         2. Land - comes from Tishbeth, which would have been rural, not polished which will explain some of how he functioned.
         3. Style - He seemed externally fearless but internally struggled.
            1. He was a prophet that God used, but not to record his teachings as a part of scripture outside 1 Kings. There is no book of Elijah
            2. Where did Elijah get his start? How did he develop such a deep relationship with God while living in a society that turned their back on Him? Did Elijah’s parents follow the Lord and the Law? Did his walk and relationship start small and grow or did God reach down and touch him personally? When he confronts Ahab, he has already established himself in the eyes of the people as a prophet of God. How did he build this ‘reputation’? In heaven, maybe I can see “Elijah, the early years” scrapbook and fill in some of the holes.
2. The Drought Predicted
   1. 17:1 begins with Elijah in the presence of Ahab.
   2. When God wanted to address this pluralistic society, he didn’t raise up an army, but He raised up a person. One business leader who stands for integrity, one student who stands for truth and morality.
   3. These passages will zoom out and then zoom in as they look at the big picture, and then they will focus on Elijah.
   4. One of the main Baals of the time was the Baal of nature. Elijah confronts Ahab, wanting him to know that Baal does not control the rain, but God does. It is not going to rain for days, weeks, or months, but for years, which is a life-threatening announcement.
   5. Elijah is making it clear that Ahab is not the most powerful person in the land, but the Lord is.
   6. With no rain, there are no crops, and the animals and people will starve and die.
3. The Direction Change
   1. God brings a directional change into Elijah’s life
      1. To us, it might be wise for Elijah to stay in front of Ahab as a continual reminder of God’s power, but it was not God’s plan.
      2. To us, a social media campaign across Israel is necessary to reveal to the nation that a drought is approaching, and to encourage them to return to the Lord.
   2. God placed him in isolation for his protection, care, and growth. 17:2-6 Some of God’s most remarkable work in our lives happens in the shadows and in times of darkness.
   3. God planned to accomplish His work deep within His servant’s inner life, things that would prepare Elijah for encounters that were in hi future. God immediately sent him away to a place of isolation, hidden from everyone, where he would not only be protected from physical danger but would also be better prepared for a greater mission.
   4. For Elijah to be used as an instrument of significance in the Lord’s hand, he must be humbled and forced to trust. He must be “cut down to size.”

• A. W. Tozer loved to say, “It’s doubtful that God can bless a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” It is my observation that the deeper the hurt, the greater the usefulness.

1. One of the other things we should note is that God loves to feed His children meat. (sidenote)
2. God tells Elijah to hide by the brook Cherith, east of the Jordan (1 Kings 17:3). Hiding is difficult if you innately desire to be seen or if you are by nature a doer.
3. It is here in isolation that Elijah learns that God uses the weak, not the strong.
4. Cherith - cut off or cut down. At Cherith, God cuts off Elijah from everyone else, and be cut down to size as the Lord uses this moment for him to place complete trust in the Lord for each day. Have you been cut down?
   1. Has a friend, parent, or child disappointed you?
   2. Have you been passed up for an opportunity that you believe you should have, and now you are facing a future that is looking different?
   3. God is at work in your life, exposing and removing false idols and teaching you to depend totally on Him.

• Groeschel tells about a little bird flying south for the winter who got a late start, and got caught in a snowstorm. The storm was so bad that ice formed on his wings and he couldn’t even fly. He went down for a crash landing and couldn’t get back up. He thought, “Great. Now I’m going to freeze to death.” But suddenly, a cow came and pooped on him. At first, the little bird had gone from bad to worse, but then he realized that the manure had warmed his wings and was thawing them. He got so excited that he started to chirp and sing. But this attracts a cat, who comes along and eats him. You can learn three lessons about your life from this story: Lesson 1: Not everyone who drops manure on you is your enemy. Lesson 2: Not everyone who digs you out is your friend. Lesson 3: When you’re in manure, sometimes it’s helpful to keep your little chirper shut… and just wait it out because God may be up to something extraordinary.

1. If dependence on God is the goal, then weakness is an advantage. Sometimes God reveals your weakness so that you will find your strength in Him. 2 Cor. 12:9
2. Where are you weak?
   1. Financially?
   2. Relationally. You are single and you want to be married. You are married, but your marriage is not great.
   3. You don’t have an opportunity, skill, or education that you wish you had.
   4. Physically, you have chronic pain, or you have been diagnosed with a disease.

• What if God uses these areas of pain in your life to teach you to pray or to know God more intimately? Mt. 5:3

1. If weaknesses are an advantage in becoming dependent on God, our supposed strengths are a liability as they cause us to ignore God.
2. Elijah was a spokesman for God but not truly a man of God. By 17:24, the Lord will develop Elijah into being a man of God, but he is not there yet.
3. Elijah lived by the brook as he did what the Lord said. 17:5
   1. Every day, the Ravens brought him food in the morning and in the evening.
   2. Every day, he drank from the brook.
   3. He did this alone. In the silence and solitude, we often hear more from God than at any other time in life. The spiritual discipline of solitude is one of the most neglected disciplines in the Christian life in our current culture.
4. The brook dried up. The greater your weakness, the greater the opportunity for God to reveal His power.
5. So What?
   1. The first lesson is to identify our greatest area of weakness. Whatever the answer is, its purpose is to bring you to trust God and is your greatest opportunity for intimacy with God.
      1. God is not looking for powerful people who have it all together to use, but He is looking for the wounded and hurting who choose to be used for His glory.
      2. The scriptures are clear: Elijah was like us and not a superhuman. As Elijah prayed, so are we to pray with his fervency. James 5:17-18
   2. The God who gives water can also withhold water.
      1. God is in charge, and we are not; therefore, whatever God chooses is right, even when we don’t understand it.
      2. Our human feelings often say things like, "Once God gives, He should never take, but He does": spouse, good business, ministry growth, pastor, etc.
      3. God has not forgotten you and knows fully what he is doing. Is. 49:14-16 In the middle of the dried brook, you are tattooed on God’s palm.
   3. The dried-up brook is a direct result of His prayer. James 5:17-18. The very thing he had prayed for was happening.
      1. Lord, make me a Godly man, but don’t let me be hurt too much.
      2. Lord, teach me to trust you, but don’t let me suffer.
      3. Lord, give me patience, right now.
      4. God does not design our spiritual development for our comfort but for our maturity.
   4. We must be just as willing to be in hiding as we are to be used in public.
      1. God’s plan for our lives may not always make sense to us. Elijah was a prophet, which means he was to be with people and speak truth into their lives. He is now alone by a brook, and next week we will see him with a widow and her son, whom he will be with for three years.
      2. We must be willing to be set aside to hear from God in the stillness, away from the noises and disruptions of life.
      3. It is during these moments that we understand God is more interested in who we are and who we are becoming than what we do for Him.
   5. God’s direction includes God’s provision of our needs.

• In 1915, the boll weevil made its first appearance in the cotton fields of southern Alabama with devastating results. The weevils destroyed the main cash crop of farmers, leaving them desperate. Not knowing what else to do, some of them started planting peanuts, which proved to be much more profitable—by the end of World War I, Coffee County, Alabama, had become one of the top-producing peanut areas in the world. On December 11, 1919, the citizens of Enterprise, Alabama, erected (show pic) what is believed to be the first monument in the world dedicated to a destructive pest. The plaque on the monument reads: “In profound appreciation of the boll weevil, and what it has done as the herald of prosperity, this monument is erected by the citizens of Enterprise, Coffee County, Alabama.” The weevil that had threatened to decimate Alabama's economy instead shaped it for a more profitable crop.

Many things in life do not go according to plan. Often, we struggle to understand why God has allowed us to suffer hardship and difficulty. But none of those things takes God by surprise. He is never caught off guard. And He is able to use even what others mean to harm us to accomplish His purposes in our lives.

1. Sometimes God sends the Boll Weevil into our lives, and we have to find new ways to live.
2. God places us into situations where we learn how to adapt, and we become better husbands, wives, employers/employees because of the difficulties of life. God provided our needs and developed us in ways that we didn’t see coming.

F. We Learn To Trust God Day By Day

1. Elijah learned to go every day and wait for a raven, then go to the brook for water. The Lord provided until it was time for a change in his life.
2. We live today, not tomorrow. We don’t live next week today, but we live the day we are in.
3. God revealed to Elijah what he was to do for each moment. He was to go to Ahab, and then the Lord told him what to say, where to go, and what to do. Elijah did according to the word of the Lord.
4. Our job is daily obedience, nothing more and nothing less.

G. A dried-up brook does not always mean we have done something wrong, but sometimes reveals we have done something right.

1. When we live obediently, we will not miss pain in our lives because God brings trials and difficulties to mold us into what He desires us to be.\
2. God called Abraham to take His son, Isaac, and sacrifice him - his brook dried up.
3. Joseph was thrown into prison and falsely accused of rape, where he spent more than a decade - his brook dried up.
4. Paul was stoned to death in Lystra and left for dead - his brook dried up.

H. Identify how you are being shaped into a man/woman of God?

1. God sees all of our sins and knows what needs to be addressed by His kind hands.
2. God knows the position you need to be in, even if it doesn’t make sense to you.

Conclusion: There’s a story told of a world-renowned violin maker who was known for creating some of the most beautiful-sounding instruments ever heard. People traveled from around the world to hear his violins played — their tone was rich, vibrant, full of depth.

One day, a young apprentice asked him, “Why do you use old, weathered wood for your violins instead of fresh, smooth wood?”

The master smiled and said, “Because the old wood has suffered. It has endured years of storms and heat and cold. That pressure makes the fibers tighter, the wood stronger, and the sound richer. If you want to make something that sings, something that lasts, you use wood that’s been through something.”

some of you are standing beside a dried-up brook. You’ve been cut off, hidden away, or brought low. Maybe you’ve lost something — a relationship, a job, your health, your sense of identity or security. And it feels like the silence means God has forgotten you.

But like Elijah at the brook, and like that weathered piece of wood, you are being shaped — not wasted.

God isn’t done with you. He’s developing you, teaching you trust, strengthening you — so that when He plays your life like a violin, it won’t just make noise… it will sing.

God is not just in charge of the rain or the drought. He’s in charge over you — lovingly shaping, humbling, and preparing you for what’s next.

So don’t despise the Cheriths in your life. Lean into them. You will find God’s provision in unusual places.