God is glorified because...

Intro

Tonight we are talking about God’s glory. This is a running theme in the stories of Elijah’s life. So far we’ve seen a lot of God’s provision IN Elijah’s life…but now we are about to see God’s glory THROUGH Elijah’s life. Namely, the things God does through Elijah that continue to bring Glory to himself.

And here’s what we are in today. The story of Elijah and the Widow’s son. You might remember the Widow if you were with us last week. Elijah found her, and asked her for the last of her bread so that he might live. She told him that she and her son had nothing left, yet gave it to Elijah with nothing but the promise that God would provide.

We saw that God provides through miraculous means…we also saw that God provides through the Church. And last week I challenged you to think through how you can better humble yourself and receive from the church…and how you can better bring yourself to a place of providing as the church.

I pray that has stuck with you and will continue to stick with you.

But tonight, like I said. We shift from God’s provision to God’s glory on display. And I want to spend a minute getting familiar with the passage.

So here’s what I want you to do. Take a few seconds…and put yourself in the widow’s place. You’ve got almost no food left…just enough for one last meal…so you go out to grab some sticks for a fire to make this food.

You grab these sticks and your plan is that both you and your son are going to starve to death. You’re at the end of your rope. No way of providing for yourself…no other way to possibly think about how to live. Just ready to die.

And then a man comes along…and offers you and your son the promise of life. The promise of provision.

I want you to imagine the joy and happiness that the widow felt knowing that her son and her would get to live. Imagine the trust that grew in God. Imagine the satisfaction that came with that. That not only her, but her son would get to live when all hope seemed lost. Get to that spot of feeling what the widow felt…now let’s read this next passage.

1 Kings 17:17–24 ESV

After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

So..you’re in the place of this widow. God does this miracle to provide food for your family…and then all of the sudden…the promise that God would sustain you and your family turns south when God allows your son…whom he promised to provide for....when your son dies.

Let me ask…what would you feel? My guess is that many of you would feel exactly what this woman felt. Empty, questioning, angry. You have a God that sustains and provides life…and then allows your son to get sick and die. How does your mind process that?

Well what this woman says is a super common response…especially in the OT. She comes to the conclusion that she is being punished. That Elijah being there has somehow brought her sin to light to God, and now that God sees her sin she has to pay for it with the life of her son. Look back at v.18.

1 Kings 17:18 ESV

And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!”

Meaning…Elijah. What did I do to you that you would come into my house and reveal my sin to God and make him angry enough to punish me by killing my son?? What did I do??

Let me start with this. The Lord does punish sin. Even in the life of a Christian…he does punish sin. Sin still has consequence…a loving father disciplines his child.

Hebrews 12:7 ESV

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?

So, the woman is not wrong in saying God punishes sin...

But here the woman here has a fundamental misunderstanding of God. And it’s one that we fall into quite often. She has this idea that her sin…at some point…was hidden from God. That God didn’t know about it…or was overlooking it until Elijah came a put a magnifying glass on it. And because of that…she begins to ask questions....she begins to express how she’s feeling and what she’s thinking.

And before we move any further…I want to make this point about God’s glory.

God is glorified because he can withstand your questions.

The glory of God isn’t diminished by the things you misunderstand…God can handle the questions you ask…God can handle the emotions you express.

Now, if you’re preaching God to someone else you can definitely not glorify God by preaching untruth. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Here we’re talking about our relationship and interaction with God.

And I bring this all up to say this....don’t let your anxiety and worry of making sure you think the right things about God get in the way of you expressing your heart and emotions to God.

You know I see this in my kids a lot. In case you didn’t know…Brittany and I are actually pretty strict parents. We make sure our kids are super polite and behave and treat others well.

And most of the time that’s a great thing…but every so often I see where it comes back to bit me. You see, sometimes something will happen to one of my kids and their feelings are hurt, or they are worried about something, or they might even be physically hurt.

And sometimes…they are so concerned with making sure they tell me something or ask me something in the correct words, that they just choose not to express themselves at all. Their mind is so worried that they will say the wrong thing and be in trouble…that they choose to just not talk to me in the first place. They try to handle it on their own. They fall into this trap of hiding things to themselves.

Much like this woman here clearly thought it was better for her to keep her sins hidden…as if God didn’t see them. But where we can learn from this woman is that she expressed herself, despite her theological inaccuracy. We too often make God this parent that only concerns himself with making sure we think the right thing about him that we stop treating him like our father in the first place. A lot like my kids do.

So the encouragement here is God’s glory is not diminished by your misunderstanding. Oftentimes God is glorified despite our understanding of him. Much like here, where God raises the widow’s son despite her misunderstanding of God’s knowledge.

And if you’re in the same boat as me…you need to be encouraged to spend more time talking TO God and less time figuring out the exact words of how to talk ABOUT God. Because nothing is hidden from him. And oftentimes we let our desire to be correct negate our need to be in relationship.

So, we’ve got this widow in verses 17-18 that is just in anguish over the fact that God promised provision…and all of the sudden there is death. She’s upset, she expresses this to Elijah. And now we see what Elijah’s response is to it.

1 Kings 17:19–20 ESV

And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. And he cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?”

So, Elijah takes the boy, carries him up to the room that Elijah has been staying in…and lays the boy on the bed. But then he asks this interesting question…It’s not a statement…it’s a question. Lord…have you saved this boy from starvation just to kill him with disease? Have you brought tragedy on the widow I’m staying with by killing her son?

Here’s another instance of how God’s glory can withstand your questions. Elijah, this awesome man of faith that we are about to see in action…asks a question that seems sort of weird right? Many of us would look at that and be like “that’s doubt, you can’t have that…oh boy, somebody’s in trouble.”

Clearly Elijah has faith…like we are about to see…but yet he has questions. Clearly he trusts God, yet he’s willing to ask the things that come to his mind. It’s like a final point to drive home…that God can handle your questions…it doesn’t take away from his glory....so be in enough relationship with him to ask those questions.

So Elijah has some uncertainty about God’s decision or God’s action here…but he doesn’t lack certainty about what God can do.

He’s questioning God, like why God? Is this really what you did? Clearly Elijah lacks a bit of understanding…but he’s not going to let that lack of understanding get in the way of the Glory that God deserves in this. Look what he does next.

1 Kings 17:21–22 ESV

Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived.

So we don’t know why or what exactly it means that Elijah stretched himself on the child…like was it like this…or this…we don’t know. but that’s not the point of the passage.

The point of this part of the passage is that God wasn’t hindered by Elijah’s questions…but he was moved by Elijah’s faith. I’ll say that again…God wasn’t hindered by Elijah’s questions…but he was moved by Elijah’s faith.

The text is very specific to word the sentence this way…that the LORD LISTENED to the voice of Elijah.

Another point to take away tonight...

God is glorified because he listens to prayers.

Here’s what a commentary I was reading said of this point...

1, 2 Kings (3) Elijah’s Miraculous Powers (17:7–24)

Regardless of the method used, the important fact is that God raises the boy from the dead. The child revives because Yahweh hears Elijah’s plea, not because of the prophet’s prowess. Yahweh is God, not Baal, not Elijah.

God listens to prayers. He listens to what we have to say. He’s not just this distant being that knows what we are going to say…but he’s an intimate God that listens to what we say.

I want to use another parenting example with you tonight. I pick my son up a few days a week from school.

A lot of times..his teacher will tell me what Ayden did that day for school. So, when him and I are in the car…I know exactly what he is going to tell me.

But knowing what he is going to tell me is different than listening to what he’s going to tell me.

So, even though I already know it…I listen. Why? Because 1) It’s beneficial for him. It grows him in his ability to synthesize things, to understand things, to care about things, to express things that are good... and 2)It stirs my affections to hear him tell me things. Rely on me for questions. Show me his excitement…because I’m his Father. I love him. And I love hearing him enjoy and process through the things that i’ve provided for him.

God is a father as well. He’s the ultimate father. He’s a loving father. He desires to hear those things from you. And not just hear them…but he listens to them as well. I just want to remind you of a few scriptures that show this point.

James 4:2 ESV

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask.

1 Peter 3:12 ESV

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

1 John 5:15 ESV

And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

These are just a couple verses…but the point remains…God listens to our prayers. And he’s glorified in doing so.

The fact that God is in enough relationship with people to hear and answer his prayers show’s his glory all the more. An infinite God extending his attention to finite beings.

God is glorified because he can handle the questions we throw at him…and he’s glorified because he listens to the prayers of the faithful.

And our last point I want you to see tonight...

God is glorified because death is not his enemy.