Sermon Central
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The Prepared Church Series
Contributed by Mike Hullah on Dec 31, 2018 (message contributor)
Summary: God's Promise is always achieved through preparation, whether individually or corporately, you cannot avoid the journey if we want to get to the destination. This sermon compares Elijah's life and the steps he took to the principals of the process of God.
ELIJAH CHURCH: THE PREPARED CHURCH
INTRO: This is part of a series using the life of Elijah as a picture of the last day Church. It is also a stand alone sermon.
1 Kings 17:2-6 Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: "Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there." So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.
I don't know how many have been operated on in some way, but if you have there is always a fear of going under the knife. What makes it bearable is the belief you will be better afterwards. So you endure with the hope of better health.
The truth is that anyone who wants to become a man or woman of God has to endure the cutting of God. It is His operation in our lives. It's called circumcision. The cutting away of the flesh in the Old Testament it was a literal operation, a requirement of Law, in the New it is a spiritual operation.
Romans 2:29 No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person's praise is not from other people, but from God.
Colossians 2:11 Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles in the flesh and called uncircumcised by the so-called circumcision (that done in the body by human hands)
Flesh must be dealt with if we are to function in the spiritual realm.
In our text in Kings Elijah was being prepared as a vessel of God . He sent him to Kerith, meaning "Cutting".
At Kerith - 3 things happen.
1. Our flesh is cut away
2. Our faith is strengthened
3. Our obedience is tested
Let us go with Elijah and visit him in this stage of his development:
Elijah had challenged the false gods of Israel, Baal and Asherah. Elijah the ORDINARY man, from an OBSCURE place. The praying spokesperson of God to Ahab had been OBEDIANT to the Lord., What next? The natural man might say stay and enjoy the victory, but God says go east of the Jordan (away from the promised land). HIDE in the desert at Kerith. which leads us to remember God's ways are not our way's. Isaiah 55:8.
The flesh is deceptive. To be a servant of God takes a people that walk in the Spirit. Remember the Spirit bears witness to our spirits which cause us to submit and serve. The soul reasons what seems logical or illogical.
One lesson learnt, one victory gained, a servant of God does not make. There is a process. Here lies the possibility of deception "we have arrived". Consider Moses. A man born of faith, raised in the courts of royalty, a somebody, who got ahead of God, tried to work out God's promise in delivering the Israelites by killing an Egyptian, and was sent to the desert to be taught God's ways!
What happened with Moses? This was a lesson we need to learn and Elijah needed to know:
It was his idea.
It was initiated and energized by his flesh.
It led to failure and greater opposition. (Pharaoh increased the workload)
The flesh at work though it appears good, and according to God's promise instead increased bondage. Moses went to the desert for 40 years to become a nobody that God could use. Greatness as the Bible defines it never comes suddenly. It is forged in the furnace of time, of afflictions, the cutting and burning of the flesh.
Proverbs 17:3 The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the LORD tests the heart.
James 1:2-4 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
1 Peter 1:6-7 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Sometimes we think we can cheat or take shortcuts to end in our destiny - we can read about Elijah - we know his end - and in doing that though we miss the process, the preparation needed to fulfil our promise it can only be found in God's School. AND WHERE IS GOD'S SCHOOL?
