Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning.

Today, we continue with our journey through the life of Elijah, examining what it means to be a Called one of God.

As we do so, we are looking at 5 purposes to help us apply God’s truth in our lives.

Last week, we looked at the purpose of obedience.

If you missed it, I encourage you to check out the audio online at valleycommunity.cc/bristol.

This morning, we will look at the purpose of prayer, and to get us started, I want to read a few examples of some common, and un-common modern proverbs of wisdom.

“Any fool can know, the point is to understand.” - Albert Einstein

“God never made a promise that was too good to be true.”

DL Moody

“If you have a Bible that’s falling apart, you’ll have a life that’s not.” - Adrian Rogers

“All of us could take a lesson from the weather; it pays no attention to criticism.”

- Unknown

“In the 60’s people took acid to make the world weird.

Now, the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.”

“Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.”

“Health nuts are going to feel stupid one day, lying in a hospital, dying of nothing.”

“Give a person a fish, and they eat for a day.

Teach a person to use the Internet and they won’t bother you for weeks, months, or even years.”

“Pray without ceasing.”

-

And this last saying might be the most important one for Christians.

Why do I say that?

Let me ask you all some questions?

How many of you like to watch TV without plugging in your television set?

How many of you like to go for nice Sunday drives with no gas in your car?

How many of you like to roast marshmallows over a nice pile of wet coals?

Of course, doing stuff like that would be stupid because it wouldn’t work.

If we do those things, we are trying to accomplish them without the power that is needed for those things to actually function.

Now, we can see that clear as day, yet somehow, how many of us will go through a whole day without talking to God even once?

How about two days?

Three?

A week? Two weeks?

Maybe even a month or more?

Here again is another one of those weird dualities that Christians face.

We sing all the time about how our God is our everything, and yet we ignore Him day after day.

We come to Him when we want our colds to go away, and when we want to get somewhere safely, and when we want our favorite team to win, but do we ever just come to Him to be with Him?

“Lord Jesus, its so nice just to be with you.

How are you?

Are you pleased with my life?

Have I pleased you today?

Have I blessed you today?

Jesus, tell me more about who you are.

Help me to know you in deeper and richer ways.”

We don’t pray that prayer very often, do we?

When the apostle Paul talks about praying without ceasing, he does not mean that we should spend ever minute of every day in eyes closed prayer, but that we should continually be aware of the fact that we are in the presence of the Most High God.

Because if we do so, we will depend on Him more, we will include Him in our lives more and more.

Its when we forget that He dwells within us in the Person of the Holy Spirit, that we can confuse God to be just another daily appointment on our to-do lists that we can move around as we need to.

A few weeks ago, we were talking about the shared values that we have across our 3 locations as Valley Community Baptist Church, and I mentioned that prayer is practicing the presence of God.

When we practice the presence of God, it means that we acknowledge that He is always with us, and His very presence changes how we live our lives.

Just like how kids are different when their parents are around, so should we be different because Jesus is around.

But unlike our parents, there is never a time when Jesus isn’t around.

There is never a time when we are hidden from the eyes and Person of Jesus, and so we should, as Paul writes, “pray without ceasing.”

And this brings us to the Purpose of Prayer

Prayer connects us to the Person of God, the Power of Jesus Christ, and the Presence of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer connects us to the Person of God as we come to His throne on our knees in humility, reverence, and honor.

Prayer connects us to the Power of Jesus Christ as we demonstrate our total insufficiency, and our complete dependence upon Him for all things.

Prayer connects us to the Presence of the Holy Spirit as we affirm that He really is real, that He really is with us, that He really does dwell within us, and we live like it.

If you’ve got your Bibles, please turn to , and if you need a Bible, please raise your hand and one of our Valley Bristol team will bring one to you.

The Bible we bring to you is yours to keep, or to give away if you know someone who needs the Word of God.

All we ask is that if you take a Bible or two from us, do not give them back.

God’s Word is not meant to be kept in a box at the church building, it’s meant to permeate our communities, and the only way it can do that is if you take it to those you know in our city.

Let’s pray as we come to God’s Word this morning.

Ok.

To bring us to speed, Ahab is the king of Israel right now.

He is married to Jezebel, and he is a serial compromiser of God’s Word.

In response, God raised up and called Elijah as His prophet to rebuke Israel and bring them to repentance so that they might return to their true king, the Almighty God.

God told Elijah to tell Ahab that there would be a severe drought that would overtake the land, and that rain would not be seen until, basically, God said so.

At the beginning of , Elijah confronts Ahab, and this ultimately comes to a testing of the gods.

Elijah sets up a test between the false gods and idols that Ahab has ushered into Israel, and the One True God of the Bible to see which God is actually God.

Of course, Elijah is not confused as to who God is, but nonetheless, the test of the gods begins.

Let’s pick up in , and I will pause as we go along to explain what is happening as we read, and then we will hopefully pull out some application for us today.

As we go through this narrative, notice that most of what Elijah does in this example is pray.

There are two things that God showed me in the text that I want to convey to you this morning.

First,

Elijah did not rely on his own strength because he did not neglect to connect to God through prayer from the very start.

From the moment Elijah comes onto the scene, we see a life of incredible prayer.

Such prayer that Elijah had no doubt that God would do what He had promised.

Furthermore, if you look closely and think critically about what Elijah prophesied, he (Elijah) was only prophesying what God had already promised He would do should Israel continue in its disobedience.

Elijah, then, was proclaiming God’s promises.

As a side note, one thing about biblical prophecy is that, the prophets were not just predicting a future out of thin air, they were proclaiming what God had already promised.

Now, what Elijah did in debunking the false gods is really the ultimate in evangelism isn’t it?

He displayed God’s Truth to a non-believing people.

He overcame their objections and left no doubt who the One True God really was (and is).

You know, perhaps one of the biggest fears that a Christian has is actually sharing their faith with a non-believer, with someone who doesn’t yet know and place their faith in Jesus Christ.

So many Christians think that they don’t know enough to tell others about Christ.

They are afraid that someone’s intellectual sounding, non-believing rhetoric will run circles around them.

Well, maybe that’s true, but that’s no excuse.

In fact, what did Elijah do here?

Did he ever engage in a debate as to whether God is real and/or that God was truly God?

No.

In truth, that is not up for debate.

God is God no matter what, and no matter how intense our belief might be to the contrary, God is still God.

God is not God because people believe Him to be so, He is God because He is God.

So Elijah starts from that foundation.

Then, Elijah lets the false gods have first crack at proving themselves.

When you’re in an argument, how often do you allow the other person to fully state their case?

Or how often is your mind just trying to think of what to say next that will prove them to be wrong, and you to be correct?

In fact, Elijah actually made fun of them while they were waiting for their false gods to reply.

But when Elijah spoke, he gave instructions as to how to build and treat the altar upon which the sacrifice would be offered to God, and then he prayed.

He didn’t offer any defense.

He didn’t explain systematic theology to them.