06 23rd Sunday after Pentecost (1 Kings17 18_16)

            My friends, I greet you today in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Our lesson is recorded in the 17th chapter of 1st Kings.

            What is your reputation?  How do you like to be known?  When people think about you or talk about you, what kinds of things do you want them to be saying?  He is kind and caring.  She is compassionate and funny.  They really love Jesus, and you can tell by how much they give to others.  But what about this?  “He did evil in the sight of the Lord, more than all who were before him.”  Here is another one, “He did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, than all who were before him.”  Ouch.  What do you think?  Is that the kind of reputation that you want to hold? But this is how the scriptures describe Ahab. 

            You know Ahab, the son of Omri.  He was the king of the northern kingdom, the king of Israel, and his reign lasted twenty-two years, and that was almost three thousand years ago. And if he is not ringing any bells for you, perhaps his wife would be more familiar to you, her name was Jezebel. Now what could Ahab have possible done that would have earned him the reputation of doing more evil and provoking the Lord more than all who where before him?

            Ahab and Jezebel were Baal worshipers.  Baal was the Canaanite god of vegetation Ahab was a devoted follower.  He would worship Baal in the temple that Ahab had built for him.  He had sacred places of worship the goddess Asherah.  This guy was bad news.  How come?  Well, confirmands, what is the first commandment?  You shall have no other gods before me.  I’m so proud of them.  They are wonderful.  That’s right, you shall have no other gods before, and well Ahab certainly has other gods before the Lord. So not only was he worshiping false gods, but since he was also a king, that meant that he was leading others astray. So instead of worshiping the Lord, they were worshiping Baal.  And things were bad, so bad that it earned Ahab the reputation of doing more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, than all who were before him.

            Now the Lord is indeed patient, but when enough is enough it is enough.  So enter Elijah, the great prophet who will, at the end of his ministry go up to heaven in a fiery chariot, the prophet who appeared with Moses on the mountain of transfiguration.  Elijah goes before King Ahab and says, “As the Lord your God lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except my word.”  Wouldn’t you like to have that job? Would you like to be the one who has to tell the king that he is wrong and that because of him there will be terrible drought? 

            After Elijah delivers his message, the Lord tells him to head east.  And so he goes to the Wadi river, out in the middle of nowhere, and there ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and in the evening.  Now after some time had passed the wadi dried up and there was no more water for Elijah to drink.  So, and this is where our lesson comes in, the Lord tells Elijah to go west to Zarephath.  This is kind of ironic because Zarephath is not in Israel.  The residents are Baal worshipers.  So Elijah, who is hiding out from King Ahab, a Baal worshiper in Israel, heads to the heart of Baal country to seek shelter and provision.  Without arguing he goes. Another irony in this story is that Baal, the god of vegetation, was not able to stop the drought and allow vegetation to grow.  So Baal is shown to be a fraud.

            Now when Elijah gets to the gate, he sees the widow.  In those days widows were at the bottom rung.  They had no one to support them or care for them.  They couldn’t get a job, and so they were dependant on others for their survival.  This widow is collecting sticks by the city gate.  And Elijah asks her for a cup of water.  She kindly brings it. It was just good hospitality.  And then Elijah asks her for some bread.  And she says, “As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die."   Now this lets us know how bad the drought had become.  Because the city of Zarephath had two main exports, grain and oil.

But Elijah say to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the LORD the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth."

And what does the woman do?  Does she argue or put up a fight?  No.  She goes and does what Elijah said and they all ate for many days, and at no time was the jar of meal emptied, and the jug of oil did not fail. 

God is able to take what little bit she had, it should have been only enough for one more meal for her and her son, and he used it to feed them and Elijah too for many days. 

What an awesome story this is.  I mean what an incredible story.  It is a story about God’s faithfulness, and the care that he has for his people.  It is a story that shows the power of God’s word.  His word is to be trusted, it is sure, certain and true.  Yet at the same time it is a story that challenges us, and asks us to take a good hard look at ourselves and at how seriously we take our God. 

As we read it, it can really strike home for us, especially as we find ourselves in the characters.  Are we like Elijah?  Humbly obeying God’s word, calling out those who are wrong, even when he is the only one who is right.  Are we like Ahab?  Not in spirit of Ahab, but how often do we seek to do what we want and will and desire, instead of seeking our God and what he would have us do?  Are we like the widow?  We look at what we have and make our plans and set our goals accordingly.  But we are limited by our limited resources.  Where in this story are we? 

If we are honest with ourselves, we will see that we need to repent.  That it is all too easy to do what we want, to do what is right in our own eyes and to not take the time to seriously find out from God what he would have us do.  How many meetings have you been to that opened in prayer, and then relied on our own wisdom and understanding for everything?  I have led to many meetings like this, and I repent.

As we find ourselves in this situation, God’s words come forth loudly and clearly.  “Do not be afraid.”  These are word that prelude God’s saving action.  Do not be afraid.  For the one who has fed the widows and her son and the prophet is with you and me.  He walks with us.  He is the one who suffered on the cross and rose from the dead to forgive us, to redeem us from sin, death and the devil.  He has reconciled us to himself.  Do no be afraid.

It is easy to look at things from our perspective.  We see the short comings, the failures, the limitations and the miserable sin.  WE see the lack and it is easy to become discouraged.  But we know the saving power of our Great God.  Not just because we read about it, but because we have experienced it first hand in our lives.  The power of God’s word.  The power of God’s word, together with water washes our sins away.  Jesus’ own body and blood in, with and under ordinary bread and wine.  And in those elements there are forgiveness, everlasting life, and salvation.  For our God, the impossible becomes possible.

Now the widow, and Elijah both showed trust in God when they heard his word.  The same goes for you and me.  We are going to be facing some big challenges in the upcoming years at Our Father.  So I want to challenge you in light of these things.  We need to repent for seeking our own will and we need to go to our God in prayer, and ask him to revel his word to us.

It is easy to get caught up in our day to day activities.  It is easy to go from one thing to the next without taking the time to go before our Lord and to ask him what he would have us do, to ask him to reveal to us his will, to ask him what he would have us do with our oil and our flour.

And when we go to our God, and when we seek his will, we are no longer limiting ourselves to our limiting resources.  Instead we are humbling ourselves, going before our God and asking him what he would have us do.

And we do this with confidence.  Because we know that our God hears our prayers and that he will answer them.  The hard part is being faced with the possibility that what he wants for us is different than what we want for ourselves.  But we take comfort in knowing that the plans our God has for us are infinitely better than anything we can come up with on our own.  So we ask, seek and knock.  Lest we become like those in the Gospel lesson who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats and places of honor. 

Instead we want to be humble and to serve our God for his glory, not our own.

I want us to pray, and to pray often that God would guide and direct everything that we do at Our Father, and then trust him to do it.  I want us to seek his will and make sure that what we want is in line with what he wants.  Pray.  Pray in your small groups, pray in your Bible studies, pray when you are waiting in traffic.  Pray in the prayer chain, that God’s will would be revealed to us, and that if our wills are not in alignment with his, that they would be frustrated. 

Wednesday evenings are wonderful times around here.  There is great food, study and fellowship.  I’m going to challenge you to join me here, in the sanctuary at 6:15 p.m. to pray for this congregation and the ministry that is done here. 

My friends, may our God bless the work that we do.  May he be glorified in our lives and service and ministry.  May his will be done among us, just as it is done in heaven.  For we know that God’s will comes on its own, but we ask that his will may come among us also. Now and always. Please pray with me.

Lord God, we thank you that you hear us, that you have blessed us in so many ways.  Forgive us for seeking our own wills instead of for seeking yours.  We come before you now, and ask that you would revel your will to us.  Give us the wisdom to discern it, and the strength to follow it.  Align our wills with yours, that we may walk forward in unity, and in ways that bring you glory.  In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.