The God Who Meets Us in Our Lowest Moments

How many of you love roller coasters? How many of you loved roller coasters when you were younger? When we were kids, money was tight, and there was a period where my parents thought it was worth the investment to purchase season tickets to AstroWorld in Houston back when Houston had a theme park with roller coasters. I think there were summers where we were there every weekend. That was family vacation for us. As a kid, I loved roller coasters. As an adult, I love them a little less, but they are still a lot of fun.

Back in April, the Heavenly Angels crew went on an outing to Sea World in San Antonio. I was the guy who went with all the roller coaster enthusiasts and rode all the rides. It was a fun day. There is a ride there they call the Steel Eel. This roller coaster starts with an ascent to a height of 15 stories before it drops you into a series of camelbacks (which is a series of hills, where you climb and fall) before returning you to the start. It is a pretty intense ride, and helps illustrate what life with God can be like.

We often refer to them as mountaintops and valleys, but life is often like a roller coaster. There are moments when you feel like you are on the top, and others where you feel like you are hitting the bottom. When you are riding the Steel Eel, there is a moment before that 15 story fall when you can see the entire city of San Antonio and maybe more. It is quite a sight. Then the drop comes and it is fast paced with lots of ups and downs, but every time you hit the top of a hill, there is a moment of exhilaration. When you hit the descent, you hold on for dear life! In life, we love the highs and dread the lows, but we will experience both. When we are at the top, we feel like we and God are best buds. We feel unstoppable. When we hit a low, we ask ourselves, “Where did he go?”

Today, we are going to take a look at the God who meets us in our lowest moments. We are going to be looking at 1 Kings 19 today. This chapter follows the more famous chapter where Elijah stages his showdown with the prophets of Baal. The nation of Israel had gone through a split. The kingdom of Saul, David, and Solomon had divided into two nations. Israel to the north departed from God while Judah to the south was a little more faithful, but also saw a departure from the ways of God. This is the time period in which most of the prophetic books take place. In Elijah’s day, Ahab was king of Israel and his wife’s name was Jezebel. They were both wicked and set up altars to false gods all over the land. They had broken the covenant with God, and broken most, if not all, the ten commandments.

Elijah prophesied there would be a drought in Isreal, which lasted for about three and a half years. During that time, Elijah spent time in a place called Zarephath. When he returned to Israel in chapter 18, Elijah set up the famous showdown between himself and the prophets of Baal. As the story goes, the wager was that whichever god consumed a sacrifice on the altar by fire was the true God. The prophets of Baal cried out to their God for a long time while Elijah mocked them. Eventually they gave up and Elijah proceeded to drench his altar in water. He then prayed a prayer, and fire from heaven came down and consumed the soaking wet altar and even the water that had spilled onto the ground.

God showed up! Then Elijah had the prophets of Baal seized and he had every single one of them killed.

We get into the next chapter and king Ahab goes and tells his wife Jezebel what had happened. She’s furious.

1 Kings 19:2 NASB95

Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.”

In other words, she’s spewing death threats. She’s saying, “If Elijah is not dead by this time tomorrow, may the gods take my life or worse!” For some reason, this terrifies Elijah, which can seem odd to us readers. He just stood against 450 people, but the queen is more intimidating. So Elijah ran for his life.

Elijah runs south across the territory of Israel, jumps the border into Judah, leaves his servant there, then jumps their southern border to the wilderness, and stops under a juniper tree. Elijah went from a great success to the lowest moment of his life so far.

1 Kings 19:4 NASB95

But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers.”

What’s going on here? What does Elijah mean that he is no better than his fathers?

Have you ever felt that you were failing? Failing at life? Failing at a job? Failing at church? Failing at anything? Elijah’s job was to be a prophet of the Lord, to be a vessel by which God might call the nation of Israel back to himself. Elijah just had a mountaintop victory at Mt. Carmel. Perhaps he thought, “Surely this is it! God just showed himself in a way that cannot be ignored! Surely the king is ready to acknowledge God’s sovereignty and lead the way God wants him to lead!” But that isn’t what happened. Haven’t you ever thought after doing something that someone’s life was finally going to change for the better only to watch them double down and do the same things that keep them trapped? Don’t you ever think that when revival breaks out somewhere that maybe finally things are going to turn around?

Can I ask you a question? If you could only wish for one thing you could experience before you die, what would it be? Think about that for a second. How would you feel if that one thing wasn’t going to happen? That gives us a window into how Elijah felt. The prophets that came before him all tried to move the needle back to faithfulness to God. Elijah thought that maybe he had done it! Maybe he was going to finally see it happen! But this response from Jezebel suggested it wasn’t going to happen. The hearts of the leadership were still hard toward God. He was at a low moment.

Elijah is tired and weak, and an angel shows up to feed him. He does this twice. The second time, the angel says something i want you to see.

1 Kings 19:7 NASB95

The angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you.”

The journey is to great for you. Let those words sink in for a moment. Here Elijah was at the lowest point in his life, so low that he wanted to die, and in that moment God still showed up. How many of you have experienced a low point in your life? How many of you, though you may not have recognized it then, did eventually recognize how God showed up in that moment?

When you are experiencing a low moment, God still shows up.

When we lost the opportunity to adopt Joshua, we were devastated. We felt terrible and I felt like it was all my fault because my criminal history had come back to bite me…again. I felt like if I had never done the things I did, or that Marci never got together with me, she wouldn’t have to experience this. I felt responsible. But God still showed up. God showed up by showing me that in spite of past failures and mistakes, I was loved by a Father who will never abandon me. He put people in my life that loved me through the pain. God showed up and ministered to me in my lowest moment.

Look at that statement again. The journey is to great for you. Life is hard, and I wish I could look people in the eye and tell them it gets easier as a Christian. It doesn’t. In some ways it gets harder because now you are fighting for something bigger than yourself. You are fighting for something bigger than a future for your kids and grandkids. You are fighting against evil and the devil himself. That can get overwhelming.

But that’s when God reminds us...

When you are experiencing a low moment, God will remind you that you can’t do it alone.

Do you ever look at the world around you and start to lose hope because it looks less Christian and not more? Do you ever wonder if that person you have been inviting to church will actually show up? Do you ever try to share your faith only to get frustrated with little to no response? Do you have trouble developing a thriving walk with God? These experiences can bring us down, but we have to be reminded that the journey is too great for us. We can’t do it alone. We were never meant to. We are to turn over our lives to the Lord and allow the Holy Spirit to work through us. We are to rely on one another for support and encouragement. In our love for one another, we are to bear one another’s burdens. You can’t do it alone, so stop trying.

After Elijah was fed, God brought him to Mt. Horeb, the same mountain Moses met God at where he spoke through the burning bush. It is also Mt. Sinai, where God brought Moses and the people of Israel to ratify the covenant. This is the same mountain where God gave Moses the ten commandments. This is a historic place. Elijah spends some time in a cave, then God shows up in verse 9.

1 Kings 19:9–10 NASB95

Then he came there to a cave and lodged there; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” He said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Now, it is untrue that Elijah is the only one left, but it is true that he feels like he is the only one left. We can relate to this. Have you ever felt like you are the only one who cares about something? Do you ever feel like the success of something rises and falls on you alone? I think we have all been there. If you haven’t, you will.

So, God does something interesting in the following verses. Look at verse 11.

1 Kings 19:11–14 NASB95

So He said, “Go forth and stand on the mountain before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” Then he said, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars and killed Your prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

The passage says God is passing by! A wind so strong that it breaks rocks, followed by an earthquake, followed by a fire, yet it says that God was not in any of those. How can God be passing by yet not be in any of these things? We should read this as God being present, but not speaking. These things are a display of power, but not communication.

But then God asks the same question as he did in verse 9, and Elijah responds the exact same way in verse 10. The difference is God gives Elijah an assignment.

1 Kings 19:15–18 NASB95

The Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when you have arrived, you shall anoint Hazael king over Aram; and Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place. “It shall come about, the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death. “Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

With this, I want to give you your final reminder.

When you are experiencing a low moment, remember God still has something for you to do.

God had not finished with Elijah yet. He may be at the lowest point in his life, but God says to Elijah, “Come on, son we aren’t through yet! We got one more thing to do! We got two kings to anoint and we got one person to anoint as your successor. There’s still a plan and a purpose. Let’s go!” You see, God had a plan. A day of reckoning was coming. God was going to use the kings of Damascus and Judah as his instruments of judgment on Israel, yet 7,000 will remain. “Don’t worry Elijah. There are more who will stand for me than you realize.” And with that, Elijah got up and did exactly what the Lord told him to do.

God is not finished with you. Many of you are getting older and you can’t do the things you used to do. Many of you are getting older and just don’t want to do the things you used to do. But I want to remind you that while breath is in your lungs, God still has a plan and purpose for your life. You can still have an impact.

I want to go back to the question I asked earlier. If you could only wish for one thing you could experience before you die, what would it be? How many of you said that the glory of God might fall on this church, this city, this state, and this nation like never before? Could it be that our eyes are on the wrong prize? I often wonder if maybe we care more about carving out a comfortable existence in this life than the glory of Christ. Meanwhile, there are Christians all over the planet laying down their lives for the glory of their king. We have to remember that Christianity is a call to come and die. We lay down our lives so Christ can live through us. May that be the mission of the church.