River Church NOLA
Wed September 3 Wednesday
  • Open Up The Heavens
  • Who You Say I Am
  • It Is You
  • Break Every Chain
  • Intro
    America was built with this idea of rugged individualism. We are a group of tough people… or were. Many of us grew up with the idea that no matter what was going on, you didn’t cry, certainly not in front of people.
    The trouble is that this has followed us into the church. No matter what is going on, how tragic something might be, we keep it to ourselves. Remember, we are not going to let anyone see us cry… right?
    Maybe you are like so many of us who grew up not knowing that we get to come to God as we are… not as we wish we were. Jesus says to come with your questions, your doubts, your anger, your brokenness, your addictions… whatever. Just come to Him. The song even says, come just as you are…
    How many of you have memorized this Psalm?
    Psalm 23 NLT
    A psalm of David. 1 The Lord is my shepherd; I have all that I need. 2 He lets me rest in green meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams. 3 He renews my strength. He guides me along right paths, bringing honor to his name. 4 Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. 5 You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. 6 Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.
    Most of us can recite at least some of this Psalm and almost all of us are familiar with it.
    Here is the deal, and maybe you can identify with me. We know the words, but we really don’t know what they mean. We don’t understand that even in the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus is right here with us. We are never alone. God is in control no matter how bad things may look.

    1. God is in control no matter how things appear.

    I grew up in a Methodist church that was at times, a little stuffy in the worship time. Then we got a new music director and his wife and he told her one night to use her left hand and worship was fun after that.
    One of my favorite hymns was Rock of Ages.
    Rock of Ages cleft for me … Let me hide myself in thee … Let the water and the blood … From thy wounded side which flowed … Be of sin the double cure …Save from wrath and make me pure
    Verse 3
    Nothing in my hand I bring … Simply to the cross I cling … Naked come to thee for dress …Helpless look to thee for grace …Foul I to the fountain fly … Wash me Savior or I die
    Verse 4
    While I draw this fleeting breath… When mine eyes shall close in death … When I soar to worlds unknown … See thee on thy judgment throne …Rock of Ages cleft for me …Let me hide myself in thee
    Maybe like me you sang those words and never really understood them. Maybe you, like me have come to a place where you were in pain and ready to give up, and remembered those words… Rock of Ages…
    Maybe you have had a difficult childhood… or a terrible one. Maybe you have been hurt badly. Heres is a question for you.
    If you are walking through a difficult situation,

    How can God be in control when it feels out of control?

    Maybe you are saying, Lord I want to believe that you are in control but I’m in a mess. Maybe you have even given your life to the Lord, but you hide the real you… the hurt you… the you that was made to feel inferior. You feel all alone. When we’ve been hurt, we don’t want anyone to know the real us, because we are afraid of rejection.
    The crazy thing is that we want to be noticed, but we are afraid to be noticed. I was shy in HS, and I wanted to be noticed… to have friends, but I was afraid of rejection. We are so scared that if someone knew the real us… they would not want to be around us. We all want to be fully known and fully loved. But we are scared.
    I love the Psalms…
    Psalm 27:1 NLT
    1 The Lord is my light and my salvation— so why should I be afraid? The Lord is my fortress, protecting me from danger, so why should I tremble?
    The truth is that we are afraid of way to much. When I was in HS, I was afraid of everyone so I was an introvert on steroids. Maybe you have even been to a place where you thought about taking your own life, or thinking that if something bad happened… ok.
    You are not the first one to think that way. Look at Elijah. He was a mighty prophet and did something extraordinary, but the next day, he wanted to die.
    1 Kings 19:1–2 NLT
    1 When Ahab got home, he told Jezebel everything Elijah had done, including the way he had killed all the prophets of Baal. 2 So Jezebel sent this message to Elijah: “May the gods strike me and even kill me if by this time tomorrow I have not killed you just as you killed them.”
    Here is a little background. Israel was in a bad place… a far cry from when David and Solomon reigned. David was loyal and worshipped God. Now you don’t have David or Solomon, you have Ahab and Jezebel who were wicked to the core. They worship Baal. They don’t want anything to do with the God of Heaven… kind of like many today. They worship false gods and it’s just a dark time in Israel’s history.
    God was angry with them and called Elijah to go and confront them. God told Elijah to tell Ahab that there would be not one drop of rain until God said so. Fast forward… three years and it hasn’t rained. So Ahab puts out a bounty on Elijah’s head. People are looking for him every where.
    Elijah worshipped and was faithful to God through this time and he believed that His God was more powerful than all the false gods combined. He challenges Ahab to a show of power on the top of Mt. Carmel. You can read this story in 1 Kings 18. He invited people from all over Israel so that they would make up their mind who they would worship… God or the false gods.
    There were 400 prophets of Baal, and 450 prophets of Asherah, so that’s 850 against 1. They spent the whole day crying out to their god asking him to burn the sacrifice. Nothing. Crickets. They even began to cut themselves and bleed. Many religions require their followers to shed blood… not Christianity. Our God shed his blood for us.
    Now it’s Elijah’s turn. Elijah stood in front of thousands who had come out and he said… “Oh, Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you're God in Israel."
    Immediately fire came down from heaven and consumed the bull, the wood and the rocks of the altar and even burned the ground. All the people fell on the ground and worshipped the Lord. Elijah rounded up all the false prophets and had them killed. In today’s terms… revival broke out.
    At this point, and maybe you have experienced this, everything made sense. He did his part and God did his part. Everything was good. Have you ever been where you thought like that? If I do this, God will do that. Listen, you cannot put God in a box.
    For Elijah, something dramatic is fixing to happen that will shake his beliefs that “God is in control” to the core. Jezebel said that she was going to kill him. That didn’t make sense. He had done what God told him to do. After that the Israelites all fell and worshipped God.
    Elijah went straight to where the capital was at that time… Jezreel. the only reason that he would have had to do that was that he was convinced that either Jezebel and Ahab would repent and turn to God or the people would rise up and throw them out of office. Neither happened. People seed not to care and just went about their business. Then he gets the message, I am going to kill you.
    Have you ever had a moment like that? Things seemed to be going in a way that made sense… you are doing your part and you expect God to do his part, but then something happens and it doesn’t make any sense? And it attacks your belief that God is in control. Maybe you feel like God has let you down.

    Have you ever felt let down by God?

    Sometimes we feel like failures and other times we feel like God failed us.
    1 Kings 19:3–4 NLT
    3 Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He went to Beersheba, a town in Judah, and he left his servant there. 4 Then he went on alone into the wilderness, traveling all day. He sat down under a solitary broom tree and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life, for I am no better than my ancestors who have already died.”
    This is crazy. Elijah saw God do incredible miracles, and now he is so depressed, so discouraged and confused that he is asking God to take his life. It's interesting that he left his servant in Beersheba and went on alone. Elijah didn't have a servant because he was a wealthy man. He had a servant because he was a prophet. It's as if he's saying, "I'm done. I'm out of ministry. This doesn't make sense to me anymore."
    Maybe you have felt that way… I’m done. I have nothing to give. My life is too messed up. Listen. If you will give God all the broken pieces, he will put them together in a beautiful way.
    Not only that,

    2. God is with you even when you can’t see Him or His plan.

    1 Kings 19:5–6 NLT
    5 Then he lay down and slept under the broom tree. But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, “Get up and eat!” 6 He looked around and there beside his head was some bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water! So he ate and drank and lay down again.
    Look what happens here. Elijah had seen God do something spectacular. Now he is done with ministry and an angel shows up.

    How does God respond when we’ve given up?

    The angel doesn’t say, “what’s wrong with you? why are you here?…” He doesn’t do that. The angel prepares a meal for him and tells him to eat. So eat a meal and take a nap. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is to eat and take a nap.
    Then the angel did it again.
    1 Kings 19:7 NLT
    7 Then the angel of the Lord came again and touched him and said, “Get up and eat some more, or the journey ahead will be too much for you.”
    This is what we call a theophany or better a Christophany which is a manifestation of Jesus before the incarnation. When God appears to Elijah, it didn’t look like an angel and he would not have recognized Jesus… He saw a man. He had no idea that God woke him up and told him to eat and rest.
    Write this down

    When we have given up on ourselves, we don’t receive judgment, we receive a touch a meal and some rest

    Often times we are pretty hard on ourselves. If you feel like a failure (Elijah did) or you have said, “I’ll never do this again, and then you did and now you feel condemned and overwhelmed… remember that God is a merciful God. He understands that we are human and that we fail, but he gives us grace and mercy.
    Grace is unique to Christianity. How many have heard about Karma? Grace is the opposite of Karma. Grace gives us what we do not deserve. There are a lot of people around us… and you may feel like one… a lost sheep… so lost that God can’t find you. Listen to me…

    The shpeherd knows where to find you.

    There is no hole too deep, no night too dark, there is no place too far away that the shepherd can’t find you and reach you and pull you out of that place because it’s never been about you getting it right. It’s always been about Christ who makes us right. Jesus said it was finished so there is nothing else we need to do.
    check this out.

    3. When you think it’s all over, with God it’s just beginning.

    1 Kings 19:9 NLT
    9 There he came to a cave, where he spent the night. But the Lord said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”
    God came to Elijah. He knew where he was. And he asked him, what are you doing here?

    When God asks a question, He knows the answer. He wants us to look at the question.

    So God causes a windstorm, but he was not in the wind. He causes a fire that went past him, but God wasn’t in the fire. Then he whispered… and then Elijah went out of the cave. The God told him you are not alone. There are 7,000 others who have been faithful to me.
    Sometimes, we may know the Master, but we don’t know the master plan. God is in control no matter how it seems.
    Check this out.
    Luke 9:28–31 NLT
    28 About eight days later Jesus took Peter, John, and James up on a mountain to pray. 29 And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was transformed, and his clothes became dazzling white. 30 Suddenly, two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared and began talking with Jesus. 31 They were glorious to see. And they were speaking about his exodus from this world, which was about to be fulfilled in Jerusalem.
    Imagine that. Here is what happened. Moses and Elijah came face to face with the Rock… Jesus the rock of ages… who had always been their shelter.

    Elijah finally came face to face with the Rock who had always been his shelter.

    Sometimes we feel like we are such a failure that we deserve God’s judgement… his earthquake and fire in our lives. But Jesus took all that on himself and whispered… I love you… When someone whispers, it causes us to move closer to the Lord… just like Elijah did when he came out of the cave.
    I want to tell you tonight. It’s ok to not be ok. God called Elijah out of that cave into His presence. God is calling you out of your shame into His love.
    Let God out of that box you had him in and live in the presence of God.
    God is in control no matter how things apear
    God is with you even when you can’t see his plan
    When you think it’s all over, with God, it’s just the beginning.
    Salvation Prayer

      • Psalm 23NLT

      • Psalm 27:1NLT

      • 1 Kings 19:1–2NLT

      • 1 Kings 19:3–4NLT

      • 1 Kings 19:5–6NLT

      • 1 Kings 19:7NLT

      • 1 Kings 19:9NLT

      • Luke 9:28–31NLT

River Church NOLA
robert@riverchurchnola.com
504-578-8317
https://riverchurchnola.com
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