Allignment Time

Arika and I have recently gotten addicted to a home improvement show called fixer upper.

Are any of you formilure with the show Fixer upper

Well for those of you who are not to firmilure with the show the title basically explains the show.

But their is a married couple that helps people find a house to buy that has some work that needs to be done.

In some cases the house is disgusting to start out and in other cases we will be watching the show and you look at the house and go that already looks really nice but then they go ahead and do thousands of dollar renovations to the house and make it ten times nicer.

And our favorite part of this show is that at the very end of the show they walk the family thru the house ad show the before and after pictures of the house.

And when you look at the before and after pictures of the house you can see that the house does not even look like the same house.

Because what the two people in this show do (Chip and Joanna Gaines) they find a way to repurpose these sometimes disgusting houses as well as some of theses houses that are actually already pretty nice.

But the reason for such a great transformation is because they find a way to repurpose homes that may be way out of date or really even just a little.

And as I was watching this show I was thinking about our relationship with Christ.

Because often times when we reflect on our life with Christ their is often times a lot of repurposing that needs to take place.

Because when we are not realigning or repurposing our life daily with Christ will we often times can get like a lot of the homes that you see in the show Fixer Upper.

Maybe their not exactly ugly homes, In fact some of them are nice or even beautiful.

But they are not at their full potential.

And that is how often times our lives are.

We do not go to God daily and we end up not living in His full potential for our lives.

We end up getting outdated in our walk with Christ and eventually we start just feeling fine with where we are.

We go well I have been here in my life for a few years and its not a bad place to be.

Our relationship with God becomes stagnant

But God wants so much more for us.

So today our passage we are in actually discusses this and we will be in and this is the final week of our series “Unstoppable” and today we will be seeing another area where God was Unstoppable

but also our passage that we are in today talks about us realigning or lives with God.

So if you will turn to it says:

The New International Version Chapter 19

9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.

The LORD Appears to Elijah

And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

10 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

11 The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

14 He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

15 The LORD said to him, “Go back the way you came, and go to the Desert of Damascus. When you get there, anoint Hazael king over Aram.

So this passage takes place right after last weeks passage where Elijah ends up under a tree depressed and anxious but God still pursues him.

But this week Elijah makes it to the Mountain

And the first question that God ask Elijah is what are you doing here?

And if you have been present the past few weeks you know that Elijah was running from God and was in kinda a rough place so Elijah gets ready to vent to God about why he is here.

Because Elijah goes Look God I am a zealous for you

Which that word he uses basically means possessed but hes using in kind of in a bad way.

And he is basically saying look I have given you all of me to the point where it feels like I have no control over my life.

And then he goes look at where I am now.

The isralites turned against you

they have torn down your alters

they have killed a ton of your prophets

and now I am the only prophet left and now I am going to be killed also.

Once again Elijah has this under the tree atitude we talked about last week where he is just depressed, anxious and now mad at God. If you were not here last week ask whoever was here about what the under the tree attitude is.

And so God just tells him look just go out to the presence of the Lord.

So Elijah is still obedient to God and he does it and look what happens.

Because next it says that there was this huge wind that was so powerful, but it tells us that the Lord was not in the wind.

Then it says that there was an earth quake but God was not in the earth quake.

Then their is a fire but the lord is was not in the fire.

And if you are Elijah you are probably getting frustrated at this point because you are looking at this journey to this mountain to seek God and God has not really spoken yet.

He may have prepared Elijah through this journey, but he did not really speak to him clearly yet.

And you know now God is probably having all of these things to happen which were probably showing Gods power but he has not heard from him yet.

So finally he hears this whisper or mummer and realizes that it is God

So it says that that when he hears this he wraps a cloak around his face and goes out to hear God.

It is amazing to me in this passage how in this passage God knew exactly what Elijah needed to hear and he knew how Elijah needed to hear it.

Because Elijah has already seen God do amazing things. But for some reason Elijah has forgotten about this.

So we see God talking to Elijah through a small whisper.

A many of you know Arika and I are the proud parents of a knew puppy.

and she is extremely sweet. Except in the morning. Because in the morning she turns from this sweet dog that you see in the pictures to a monster.

And we have tried certain things that will make her stop attacking us and our furniture but a lot of them do not work.

But there are certain ways we are able to communicate to her through different hand motions, and noises where sometimes she will stop.

And there are other things that either we looked up or people have told us and they do not work at all.

So we are starting to know how we have to communicate to our dog in order for us to understand.

And how often is God like that with us.

Except he knows exactly how to communicate with us.

and he does that with us.

With Moses he spoke to him through a burning bush.

He knew that would work best

But with Elijah he speaks to him with a gentle whisper.

God knows how to communicate with us. And a lot of times he talks to us through a gentle whisper.

He talks to us through just saying look do this.

And it might take us a 40 day 40 night journey by ourselves to hear that voice.

We might have to elimanate all of the distractions in our life before we are able to hear God but once we do that God will speak to you.

And even in this passage the whisper was more of a mummer in the actual language.

Sometimes its hard to hear God but Elijah goes out and voices His concern anyway.

Because God ask Elijah the same question as before where he says Elijah “what are you doing here?”

And Elijah actually says the same thing he already said.

He goes God I have given you all of me and this is where I am?

I am going to be dead just like all of the other prophets before me.

I am done with this.

But look what happens in the next couple verses because God actually begins to tell Elijah his new Job.

His new calling. Because like I said Elijah was done and while he is a little bitter… He is still turning to God and wanting to see what God wants him to do.

Have you ever had a job somewhere and you know you start off having just loving that position

Probably because its new and exciting and you get to start a new chapter.

But then often times what happens (and this is more my generation) but after a few months or after a few years its probably not as fun as when you started.

And even jobs that are great a lot of times you get 20 years down the road and go I am done with this.

And I don’t know if you have ever been in a position where you go “maybe I should of be done with this awhile ago”

But when your in that position its not fun and work just drags on.

And I partly feel like often times thats how our walk with Christ is.

When I think about our relationship with God and where he is calling us, I often wonder how often are we like that?

God calls us to do something amazing

Maybe just to be in a relationship with God

Maybe to start a ministry

Maybe to start a Bible study

Maybe to do anything really

We have listened to where God is calling us at one point in our life but now a few days, a months, a year, 5, 10, 20, 30 years down the road we have not realigned ourself with what God’s will is for us.

When was the last time you did that.

Because when we do not do that daily that relationship with God gets stall.

And a stall relationship is not a fun one.

You know you never see anyone go to the grocery store and ask for stall old bread.

Why you ask?

Because why would you settle for stall old bread when you could have something fresh it taste better.

And really when bread or some other type of food gets stall in your home what do you do?

you throw it away.

Because its not good anymore.

And when we are neglecting our relationship with God a lot of times unintentionally we do the same thing.

We slowly walk away.

Being in a relationship with Christ is fun and exciting.

Not always easy but exciting.

You know some of us may have never aligned ourselves with God

For some it may be time to do it again.

Whether it has been years

or just this morning.

Because Gods call is important and the new mission that Elijah is given is to set up the next group so when he is gone this group will keep things moving for God and one of them will basically take Elijahs place.

It is vital that we as a church realign ourselves with God’s vision and calling for us.

It is vital that we say God where do you want us as a church

Where do you want us individually but also corporately as the body of Christ.

God spoke to Elijah to tell him what is next.

What is next for Buchanan church of the Nazarene

What is next for the community

And what is next for you.

Pray

Sing this with me.