Shut up and Listen
Elija • Sermon • Submitted
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We live noisy, busy lives.
We live noisy, busy lives.
Yesterday, Martye got up at 5:30 because Elena Got up at 5:30. I slept until about 06:45. The tv was on, Elena was playing. I went to a visitation, a friends wife passed, and there were a-lot of people there and it was loud.
Then Nora came over to play with Elena, it got louder. They went to play at the park and I went to Lowes then to Kain and Katie’s to hang wallpaper.
Went by, fed Jordon’s cat. Came home fed out dogs.
Getting ready for bed and figured out one of the Dogs peed on the bed, so we had to strip the bed and put new sheets on.
Calgon - Ultra moisturizing Bath Beads.
Calgon take me away.
If you remember from last week, Elijah is having a Calgon moment.
Elijah recap:
Has this mountain top experience defeats the prophets of Baal, God Brings back the rain and he out ran horse and chariot in a near marathon distance race.
Get word that Jezabel is going to kill him.
Post mission trip depression. Vance said that he was just afraid of women.
Remember how God responds to his predicament?
He feeds him breakfast and lunch and then sends him on a 40 day Journey without any food.
So Shane! I’m sure you had breakfast. Eat lunch and then start walking West. Don’t eat anything and on March 27th, God will meet with you and have something to say to you.
NOPE!
See I believe that sometimes God wants us to demonstrate out love and commitment to him.
He sends Elijah on a 40 day journey with no food.
The rich young ruler was told to sell everything and give the money to the poor.
James tells us to be doers of the word, not just hearers
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
But we have trouble making it one day without anxiety, hatred, jealousy, greed....
God demonstrates his love with the life of his son, we have trouble 10% of our income.
I think thats what that 40 day journey was. It was to prepare Elijah to meet with God as well as see how bad he wanted to hear from him?
How bad do you want to hear from God this morning?
1 Kings 19:9-
9 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?”
10 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.”
11 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.
12 After the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing.
13 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?”
14 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.”
If you are interested in God’s response to Elijah, I encourage you to go read the rest of the 19th chapter of 1st Kings.
See what God says to Elijah is important to Elijah, but how God speak to Elijah is important to both him and us this morning.
God asking questions
God asking questions
Adam - Where are you?
Cain - Where is Abel?
Moses - What’s in your hand?
Elijah - Why are you here?
Easiest way to get people to engage with you is to ask them a question.
God doesn’t ask questions because he doesn’t know the answer. He asks to get the listener to reevaluate their decisions and feelings.
We are auto pilot sometimes, but questions can give us focus and clarity .
What are you doing here?
Still small voice
Still small voice
How God asked the question
Not in the strong wind,
Not in the earthquake,
Not in the fire.
a sound of a gentle blowing (thin whisper)
King James - Still small voice.
Why a still small voice with Elijah?
Elijah though one grand exercise of God’s power would melt the hearts of God’s people. He thought with God consumed the offering that had been drenched with water, that all of Isreal would fall down and worship God and all their troubles would be over. In Elijah’s mind the only thing that needed to be said after God took the offering and the prophets of baal were destroyed was; And they lived happily every after.
And when that didn’t happen, Elijah broke. His cheese was sliding off his cracker. He had put God in a box that said, this is how you work. And what God was showing Elijah by speaking in that still small voice, that gentle whisper, was that while He could speak in the strong wind, the earthquake and the fire, His most effectual way of communicating in the quit place dealing with the heart of a man or a woman.
When you communicate with someone by being loud and yelling, you will cause them to do the same. But if you lower your voice and get quiet, they will have to stop talking, they will have to lean in. They are more likely to pay attention.
Elijah’s ministry after this was less about grand gestures, and more about being a messenger of God.
1 Kings
17 Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying,
18 “Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, who is in Samaria; behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth where he has gone down to take possession of it.
19 “You shall speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Have you murdered and also taken possession?” ’ And you shall speak to him, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord, “In the place where the dogs licked up the blood of Naboth the dogs will lick up your blood, even yours.” ’ ”
Charles Spurgeon believed that these verses held a message for preachers today.
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. LV A Voice with Four Messages (No. 3,171)
To all of us who preach the Word, or who try to teach it in any way, God seems to say, “Do not trust in great displays of force, in tremendous demonstrations of power; trust rather in the still soft influence of the distilling dew of God’s Spirit, and the gentle rain of the gospel. Preach the Word to the sons and daughters of men.”
The old fire and brimstone preaching that said you were going to hell if you drank a beer, watched tv, danced, listened to rock and roll, has as much affect on people today as did Moses on pharoah.
It’s not beating people with the laws of God that saves people, but the gentle direction toward Jesus.
Spurgeon wrote:
The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, Vol. XXVIII The Still Small Voice (No. 1,668)
“Law and terrors do but harden
All the while they work alone;
’Tis a sense of blood-bought pardon
That dissolves a heart of stone.”
This passage has a message for us today.
If you want to hear from God, you have to get quiet and still before the Lord.
1 O Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty;
Nor do I involve myself in great matters,
Or in things too difficult for me.
2 Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child rests against his mother,
My soul is like a weaned child within me.
Jesus spent quit time with God
12 It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.
35 In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.
Prayer closet
5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.
6 “But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
Listen to God’s promise to his people
11 ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.
12 ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
:11-
Schedule a time
Remove distractions
Get alone
Keep trying even when you fail.
How do you know it’s God?
If you are a child of God, you will know.
4 “When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
It will never violate Scripture.
27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me;
It will not always be about you.
2. It will line up with Scripture.
16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;