Hallelujah in the City IV

It was three years ago that we made that video piece. I did say there'd be some bumps along the way. I heard that. I don't know that I was fully prepared for all the bumps, but there's been way more celebration than difficulty. And I'd like to invite you to kind of bring this entire journey that I talked about in that video to a point of culmination for now. And I encourage you to grab your North Way notes and pull your outline out as we look together at an unlikely story, talking about Halloween in the city, talking about how Jesus changes cities, how the word of the Lord changes people, and how things happen because God cares about you and me and about the people that we love. 1 Kings chapter 17. I want to set the background for the primary lesson of this story and actually this series and I expect in some ways this entire journey. Elijah was one of the greatest prophets of all time. He's referenced numerous times in the Old Testament, of course, and then later on some even say that asking of Jesus, are you Elijah? Come back. And he's one of the prominent men of the Bible and certainly one of the most prominent prophets of the Bible. But this is where he just appears. There's no other place. There's no background. We don't know much about him, but he just appears here in 1 Kings 17 and makes some pronouncements. So let's read along. If you have your outline, you can read there, probably up on the screen or your Bible. We always prefer the Bibles, but for some of you it might be just easier to read off the screen or your notes. Now Elijah the Tishbite from Tishbite and Gilead said to Ahab, Ahab was the king of Israel. He was a wicked king. As the Lord God of Israel lives whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word. And then the word of the Lord came to Elijah, Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kareth ravine east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there. And so he did what the Lord had told him. He went to the Kareth 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. James tells us in his book at the end of the New Testament that this drought lasted three and a half years. I expect there were people clamoring about global warming. Things are getting really bad. You know, it's proven that after a period of time people get depressed and do sort of irrational things if severe droughts or other natural calamities continue. I imagine things back then were really horrific. And God tells Elijah, All right, you've said your piece. You've done what I've told you to do. Now get out of town because the king certainly is going to want to kill you. So he sends him out to this little brook and he tells him that some ravens, some birds are going to feed him. And there's some people say, well, that's kind of silly. How does that happen? I don't know. But all we know is that faithfully morning and evening these birds came and dropped off meat and bread. We don't know how long it was. It just says for a period of time, Elijah survived by God's provision because he had faith in what the Lord had told him to do. Remember we said last week, in case you missed it, the most important thing about faith is that you've got to grab hold of it and obey what the Lord tells you. And we said that you've got to have faith because you hear God speaking to you. That's the way it happens. If you don't hear the Lord, if you're just all caught up in a whole lot of different inputs, it's likely you don't know what the Lord's telling you to do. We said last week, Romans 10, 17. It's not on your outline, but I made such a big note of it last week. I hope that it sank in. Romans 10, 17. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. And I just want to implore you, listen to God. He's speaking to your heart. Read His Word. The Word of God, the Bible, is the primary way God speaks to your life and you hear things for you and God directs you. So the Lord told him to do that, and Elijah obeyed, and he was out in the wilderness. We don't know how long. Man, look at this. Then out of nowhere, and this is another thing I want you to see. There's seasons. Sometimes you can go along for weeks, months, or years, and then all of a sudden God just says, now it's time to do something different. Let's read on. Verse number seven. Sometime later, and I don't know if that sometime was five months or through, you know, a year. I don't know how long it was. The brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land, and then the Word of the Lord came to him again. There we see God spoke to Elijah again. Go at once. Notice He didn't say, you know, meander on over when you feel like it. He said what? Go at once. Or immediately, it says in some translations, to Zarephath of Sidon, stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food. And I want to pause there and say, you see, so often our rational thought and so often our sort of well-reasoned emotion get in the way, and most of us are offended. What's God picking on a widow to take care of the big profit guy? Friends, God just does not do things the way we do them. And it's a good lesson to learn early on. If you're trying to get God to line up with all your rational things, it's going to disappoint you and make you mad. And most of you email me, so just don't do that. All right? God told him that a widow was going to take care of him. He said, I commanded a widow to do this. She's going to supply you with food. So he went to Zarephath. Notice again, faith plus obedience. Obedience is what activates faith to cause something dramatic to happen. All right, so there we go. And when he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks, just like God had said there's going to be a widow there to take care of you. Loved ones, please listen. We come into salvation by meeting a person by the name of Jesus. We talk about Him frequently around here, in Oakland, in the worship cafe, here in the main sanctuary, all throughout the community, wherever we go, we talk about Jesus. Because salvation, knowing God, being in relationship with God, only comes through knowing a person whose name is Jesus. But we live our life by the principles that Jesus gave us in His Word. Some of us wish it was sort of different. We'd like to have our own way of doing things. But if you grab hold of the principles that Jesus gave us in His Word, then life begins to make sense. And those of you who've learned that over the years have seen God do incredible things in your life. And your story, your journey is one of just God stepping in at key times and leading you in amazing ways. And I want to give you just four quick principles. This is going to be a very short message because we're going to do something really unique today. So follow with me. Here's the first principle. When circumstances are at their worst... If you're filling in blanks, that's the first blank. When circumstances are at their worst, God is ready to demonstrate His best. This is what happens. The widow at Zarephath is there in this killing drought. She's gathering up some sticks. Everybody's depressed. People are dying. God speaks and says, I'm going to take care of you, Elijah, in the middle of all this. Loved ones, I just want to say to some of you right now, I know this through your communications that some of you are in some very desperate times in your life. And I don't know how else I said this, but I can't say it enough or perhaps I don't emit it enough or whatever. But we really do care and we really do help a lot of people here. We try our best to come alongside of people in multitudes of ways. And then that's not even counting the ways that you individually come around people or personally and just one-on-one and sometimes groups and so on. It just happens because people care about people. He knows how difficult the economy is. He knows every stock ticker sign, okay? He knows how much your 401k is falling. He knows that no one seems to really know what they're doing either. And they've changed their story again this week about what's going to happen. He knows who needs, you know, to be bailed out and thrown out and cleaned out and all the rest. He knows all that. And I take great comfort in that because he's in control. The second thing on your outline is this. The promise of God is still received through faith and obedience. Just to make the point clear again. You got to do it. When the Lord says, go do it, do it. So Elijah did it and here's what he says. End of verse 10. He sees the widow of Zarephath gathering up some sticks and he says to her, Would you bring me a little water and a jar so I may have a drink? Obviously, he was tired from his thirsty from his journey. And as she was going to get it, he called and bring me a piece of bread. Not much of a request, okay? A little water and a piece of bread. So Elijah is just obeying what the Lord told him to do. Faith plus obedience. His name, Elijah, by the way, means the Lord is God. And she answers back this. As surely as the Lord your God lives, she replied, I don't have any bread. Only a handful of flour and a jar and a little oil and a jug. And I'm gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it and die. Not happy times in old Zarephath. Friends, there are people, I've encountered some, I'm sure you have as well, whose posture right now is somewhat desperate. I was talking to a man this week, told me just in the last six months, he's lost like 80% of his retirement money. And doesn't know what he's going to do. I mean, it's, you know, it's a real serious situation. And it would be easy to understand why, like this widow, you just can only hold out for so long. And so she was planning the last supper for her son and hers. Just pull this stuff together and cook a little fire and eat this stuff, and we're just going to die here. Some of you honestly are as low as you can go and you're embarrassed to say any more because you just don't know what to do. But you know what? Look around you. You're surrounded by a lot of people who believe that maybe there's another answer. As I put my ear to the ground, I'm starting to hear more of a rumble of that other answer. I'm starting to hear a few more voices that are more hopeful than this widow and people out there that are hurting and people out there that are having their issues, not having enough. And Elijah is sensitive, and I want to be sensitive. And look at what Elijah says to her. Verse 13, Elijah said to her, I love this. He says, don't be afraid. Do you remember the poem we made last week? And we said that fear will always fight faith in your life. The enemy of faith arising in your life is fear. Fear that it won't come through. Fear that God won't deliver. Fear that somehow your worst scenario is the one that's going to happen. You know, fear that, well, you know, the sin that you did way back when is God finds he's going to come with a hammer now and drop it and punish you. And I love Elijah's response. He says, don't be afraid. And I want you to hear the word of the Lord spoken to you, loved one, today. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid that you're not going to have enough. Don't be afraid that just because someone else is losing, you're going to lose. Don't be afraid that you're going to be thrown out in the street. Don't be afraid that whatever happens to your company, something negative is going to happen to you. Don't be afraid that God has forgotten about you or your family or this nation. Don't believe it. It's not true. Don't be afraid because I want faith to rise up in us. And I got to tell you right now, it's just, it's just, it's just so close if we'll get just moving a bit and hear the word of the Lord to us. You're in the right place at the right time for God to do His best work. Don't fear. Have faith. Next point is very important. Here's what Elijah instructs her to do. Please carefully grab hold of this. He says, go home and do as you've said. Now, what did she say she was going to do? Cook up a little piece of cake, eat it and die. Now, I don't think Elijah meant go ahead and go home and die, but I do think he said, go home and take care of yourself. Go ahead and make that little cake you were talking about. He said, but first, look at this. But first, he said, say it with me. But first, everybody please. But first, make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me. You selfish. You're getting an email. I don't know how many times I'm in the Bible. This is said, but I know I haven't said it enough over the years, but I believe with all my heart, God wants you to put him first. And if you put him first with your best, whatever that is, he will bless the rest of what you have and make it work. And it doesn't always work exactly when you want it or need it, or maybe even envision it, but something deep in your soul is so satisfied with what God provides. And sometimes it comes in ways way beyond what you can imagine. Friends, please hear this. This is, look, this is a desperate time. I mean, if there was ever a time for God to say, well, you go ahead and take care of yourself and there'll be some other way that God will supply you, it would have been there. But he looks at this widow with this little boy and says, you make me a cake first. I'm telling you, that's selfish. I'm going to another prophet. I don't like this guy. Put God first. Do we have Proverbs 3, 9 and 10? Can we put that up, please? Proverbs 3, 9 and 10. Honor the Lord with your wealth with the what? Firstfruits of all your crops. And then God, then He'll drop the hammer on you. No, then your barns will be filled overflowing and your vats will brim over with new wine. There's scores of different scriptures. Then I love Jesus comes along in Luke, I believe it is chapter 6. In Luke, He says in the New Testament, give and it will be given to you. Notice, first you have to give. Then the Lord says, I'm going to take care of you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap. For the measure you use will be the measure that will be used to you. Oh, friends, this is so important. It's so basic, but I fear that way too many of us just don't want to hear the feedback. You know, here's just a little side note. People say, well, you talk about money, talk about money. I like to hear messages about money when they're coming from God's Word because it's the way to live at peace with God and money. God's in control of the money of the world. And I have found that God's totally trustworthy. And I just want to encourage you to trust Him because He doesn't have anything but your best in mind. Give Him your best. That's all I ask. Some years ago, when we were first starting to build a building, we had one of these little campaign things. And at the end of it, people were stepping up and giving little testimonies about how they were going to sacrifice. And I'll never forget this. Some of you who were here will never forget either. A lady who was not real old then, but she was older and a widow, I believe, stepped up and said, I don't have much savings. And I live on, you know, social security and, you know, just the very basics of life. But every day, yeah, every day, five days a week, I go down to the local shop. She named a certain store where I have a Diet Coke and a pretzel. And it cost me a dollar and a quarter. And she said, and God just spoke to my heart and said, I don't need to have that Diet Coke and pretzel every day. So I'm going to give that $6 a week. And I'm telling you, friends, it was quieter in that room than it is in here, which is really saying something. It was packed. There was like 1,100 people in that gym. And then people pulled out handkerchiefs and then they stood to their feet and applauded. And here's the funny part. That dear lady had no idea what she did. Her $6 a week helped the project. I had to turn away people who had bags and vats of pretzels and, you know, unlimited Diet Coke things. And I mean, she could have gone on a binge for 10 years. God took care of her. If we give our best. Let me end with this. Look in your outline. I said, fear will always battle faith. And finally, you must give first and then God will supply. The first money that we gave to this massive project that we've called Church Disturbed, Church Inspired, changing our city, changing our nation, changing our world. The first money that we gave, we made a pledge of $250,000 to install a heart catheterization lab in Lhasa, Tibet. And the first check that we wrote, I'll never forget it, was for $50,000 to help get that ball rolling. Several years had gone into laying the foundation through Pastor Mark Geppert and the work of CPAC. And now we were in a position to get that thing going. The People's Republic of China and the people of Tibet are not best of friends, as you know. The Autonomous Tibetan Region, I believe they call it. And yet, somehow God used this whole incredible thing to touch the lives of children in Tibet through an American who had the support of a church that said, we're with you in this project. And then he got Children's Hospital involved and so on and so on. And out of all of this, God, only God, orchestrated it. Now listen, that the Chinese hospital, that the hospital rather, was built by the Chinese government that would house this heart catheterization lab for these Tibetan children who live at such an elevation that 20% of them have heart defects and die before the age of 12. And we thought we'd just end this portion of the service by sharing a video piece with you taken not too long ago, this earlier this year, I believe it was, of Matthew Geppert, who's part of the team now of CPAC and Dr. Lawrence Ang, who's been here at North Way. And you'll see them in the video and you'll just get a glimpse of what God did because the firstfruits went into the mission, the Touched Lives. Let's watch this video together. She turns and walks away, what a shame, oh yeah. Just across the street in your hometown, leaving from his nine to five. Gazing down the road, he wonders, is this all there is to life? Never been told the name of Jesus. He continues on his way, what a shame, oh yeah. Whom shall I send, who will go for me? To the ends of the earth, who will rise up for me? Jesus. Yes, Lord. I ask you into my heart. I ask you to change me, to change, to heal me. And I will live for you, from this day forward. For the answers that lie within your name. I want to proclaim the love of Jesus, in all I do and say. What a shame, oh yeah. Whom shall I send, who will go for me? To the ends of the earth, who will rise up for me? Jesus. Just a couple things to weave that together for you. What they discovered is they didn't know how to test these children as to whether or not they needed a heart procedure. They discovered that if a child could go up and down a flight of steps three times, their heart was healthy. And the ones that had heart defects could not do that. And that's all a simple test. And so every child that did it, did the test, got the balloon. That's what the balloon stood for. Let me ask you a question. How much would you pay to save one of those kids in Tibet? Most of you would, if you knew that you could do it, and it was within your power to do it, you would do it. It's a human life. We've directly now saved 320, I believe it is, children's lives by heart catheterization procedures, since you stepped up and made an investment. We've been in 14,000 homes. Part of the incredible blessing of all this is that the government has allowed us to make the contact with the families and to share Jesus with them, as you saw in the one moment when the man led the other man in a prayer of salvation. How much would you pay for that? Say, I know you. I know you, Oakland. Your heart, too, in a cafe. Most of you would empty out everything you could to see someone come to know Jesus, to see a little baby or young person like that have a new heart and a chance at life. What you have to see is that what we're asking you to do in establishing this ongoing ministry called North Way and all of its expressions is a direct connection, because without North Way, the church, and all of its ministries, and all that's required to make it go, what you saw there probably would not have happened. I can't say God wouldn't have done it. I just, I'll tell you this. He would have found some other church, because the church is God's plan A to bring about the establishment of His kingdom. And we were blessed to be the ones that He chose. And that's the piece I need you to see, is that whether it's in Tibet or new water filtration systems in Laos, or providing microeconomic opportunity for people in Cambodia, or going into Homewood, or wherever it is, it's the church. It's the church, friends. It's what, when we give, we don't give to just a project. We give to Jesus and His church, and His church then goes out. And changes the world. And that's what I need you to see. It's all one. And that's the privilege that we have to share together. I want you to stand and pray with me, please. Dear God, it's such an enormous concept, Lord, to think that somehow you would take everyday people like me, and these that have gathered in Oakland, and here in Wexford. Lord, we're just such a small, little, tiny piece of humanity. And yet, Lord, we are touching all parts of the world, because Your life is flowing through us. And I pray now, God, that we'd have the eyes of Elijah to see that obedience, coupled with the word of the Lord, brings about the miraculous flow of faith. For indeed, as You promised, Lord, that passage ends by You giving that woman and her son enough oil and flour to survive the entire duration of that drought. And Lord, likewise, You will provide for Your people here, if we put You first. And so I pray, God, with all my heart, that we would see that connection, and just do our best to honor You. And then let You, God, show us, show us, Lord, show us what You can do, in Jesus' name. And every one said, Amen. Let's be seated together. Pastor Scott's gonna come up and share a couple of things, and then we're gonna do something together. So stay really engaged. All right? It's important. Thanks. Hey, for four weeks, we've had this pledge card in your notes, and it won't be in there.