Sermon Tone Analysis

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Your stronger future will be the byproduct of stronger faith.

You won’t get a stronger future with weaker faith and it’s impossible to have a weaker future while living with stronger faith.

Stronger faith will always produce a stronger future.

For some of you it was a level of faith that got you from where you were to where you are now.

And that’s great.

But it will take a new level of faith to get you from where you are now to where God is inviting you next.

This story Elijah finds himself in the middle of a 3 year drought.

The drought occured because King Ahab and Jezebel, who ruled over Northern Israel, had begun to worship the god Baal and as a result, God speaks through Elijah and says that the clouds will be shut and there will be a drought and there is for 3 years.

3 years of no rain.

Not even a drizzle.

Just like there are some 2.5 year old kids right now that do not know a world without masks, there were 3-year old children who had never seen rain, heard thunder, let alone seen a cloudy sky.

And it’s in the midst of this drought that God is about to do one of the greatest miracles in Elijah’s lifetime.

1 Kings 18:41–46 (NLT)

41Then Elijah said to Ahab, “Go get something to eat and drink, for I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!” 42So Ahab went to eat and drink.

But Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and bowed low to the ground and prayed with his face between his knees.

43Then he said to his servant, “Go and look out toward the sea.”

The servant went and looked, then returned to Elijah and said, “I didn’t see anything.”

Seven times Elijah told him to go and look.

44Finally the seventh time, his servant told him, “I saw a little cloud about the size of a man’s hand rising from the sea.”

Then Elijah shouted, “Hurry to Ahab and tell him, ‘Climb into your chariot and go back home.

If you don’t hurry, the rain will stop you!’ ” 45And soon the sky was black with clouds.

A heavy wind brought a terrific rainstorm, and Ahab left quickly for Jezreel.

46Then the Lord gave special strength to Elijah.

He tucked his cloak into his belt and ran ahead of Ahab’s chariot all the way to the entrance of Jezreel.

1. Stronger Faith sees the invisible.

41Then Elijah said to Ahab, “Go get something to eat and drink, for I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!”

Now, we need to pause here because Elijah does something so significant.

Elijah doubts the drought.

And this was no easy thing.

Remember, for 3 years they had not seen a drop of rain.

Not even a drizzle.

Not even Karl the Fog visited Israel for 3 years.

Nothing.

Now I can relate to Elijah because I am from Arizona.

I am convinced that if you don’t believe in the devil, it is only because one of two things: You’ve never been to Arizona or you don’t have kids.

But I was born-and-raised in Arizona.

The land of 120 degree summers where your swimming pool feels like a bathtub.

One time I went down a slide at a water park and even with water that metal slide was so hot and I only realized how hot it was because halfway down I felt my skin burning like I was doing a slip-and-slide in Hell.

But it was too late.

By the time I splashed into the pool I had a severe burn on my back that looked like some overcooked bacon.

Arizona is that hot.

I know a thing or two about living somewhere that it doesn’t rain much.

The landscape is brown.

Everything is dusty.

Even the wind is hot on your skin.

So Elijah and everyone in Israel wouldn’t need a meteorologist to tell them that they are in a drought.

Everything around them would remind them they are in one.

The dusty and cracked landscape would remind them.

The skies without a cloud in sight would remind them.

Their dry skin would remind them of this.

Every single day that they wake up and every time they step outside for the past 3 years they would be reminded that it hasn’t rained and there’s not a drop of rain in the forecast.

At some point, you have to imagine that Israel might have thought that they would never see rain again.

So it would it would take next level faith to say that rain was coming.

It would take laughable faith to declare that rain is coming in the midst of a 3-year drought.

And it’s not like the sky was now full of cumulonimbus clouds (how about that for a word?).

But Elijah shows us something here and that is that stronger faith survives the invisible.

Stronger faith doesn’t believe it because they see it, but stronger faith believes it before they see it.

Elijah shows us that if you are going to have stronger faith, there are going to be moments in your life that you’re going to have to doubt the drought.

And I want to tell somebody today that finds themselves in a drought today that stronger faith is going to at times require you to believe something before you see it.

It has felt like a drought at times these last 2.5 years.

For some you’ve been in a relational drought/financial drought/mental health drought/purpose drought/hope drought

But if 2022 is the year that you become your strongest self, it is going to take stronger faith, and stronger faith will mean learning how to doubt the drought.

It’s been a drought relationally.

But you’re going to doubt the drought.

God is about to send you deeper community than you’ve ever had.

The rain is coming!

It’s been a drought in your purpose.

But you’re going to doubt the drought.

God is preparing you and about to bring opportunities your way so that you can do work you love and that makes a difference.

The rain is coming!

It’s been a drought in your dating life.

But it’s time to doubt the drought because God is about to bring you a man who loves Jesus, has a job, and isn’t a jerk.

It’s raining men, hallelujah!

Some of you have been in a drought in your faith.

Over the last couple of years you’ve felt hope dry up in your life.

But it’s time to doubt the drought because the rain is coming and God is going to do a new and fresh work in your life.

And you don’t believe it because you see it, but you are beginning to see it because you believe it.

Like it says in Hebrews 11:1: Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.

Faith is seeing something happening before anything is happening.

Faith is seeing something in your soul before you see it in your situation.

Faith isn’t believing because you see but seeing because you believe.

This brings me back to when Jena and I came out to SF to start Canvas.

We didn’t move out to San Francisco because SF had proven to be an easy place to start a church.

We didn’t move out here because there was so much evidence that a new church would succeed here.

If anything, everywhere we looked and everyone we talked to reminded us that if there was a place a church couldn’t succeed it would be San Francisco.

We were constantly reminded that the landscape for churches here was a dry one.

If there was a city that was in the midst of a drought when it came to the church, San Francisco would be that city.

But we could see something that no one was seeing and we decided to doubt the drought.

While others saw a city where faith had dried up, we believed that San Francisco was a city that was full of some of the most passionate and innovative people and that God could shape this City to shape the world for good and for God.

We believed rain was coming.

While others saw a city in the midst of a drought of faith, we believed SF was a city made up of people who are ready to experience God in a new, real, and profound way.

The rain is coming.

We didn’t move here because we saw something first, but because we believed something first and the more we have believed it the more we have seen it.

The more we learned to doubt the drought, the more ready we were for rain.

I wonder what drought you need to doubt today?

Are you ready for the rain of God’s favor on your life?

The rain of God’s provision?

God’s healing?