string(7) "m-66998" Burnt Hickory Baptist Church

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Apr 25, 2021

One True God

One True God

Passage: 1 Kings 18:17-38

Speaker: Matt Petty

Series: Stand Alone Message

Category: Sunday Sermons

Keywords: worship, prayer, repentance, elijah, idols, true worship, true god, god’s power, god’s presence

We are always worshiping something; you can’t turn it off. The real question to consider is “what” are you worshiping? As we dig into 1 Kings, we see that people where worshiping false gods and idols, and Pastor Matt shows us that in reality, we aren’t that different. Our idols look different than in the days of Elijah, but we are still trying to replace God’s rightful place in our hearts with objects, ideas, and people. These idols are never fully reachable, and they're constantly upping the stakes of how to reach them and eventually push us toward self-destruction. What things are in place of God in your heart? Call out to God in prayer and begin the act of repentance. If you’ve got questions or need to talk with a pastor, then check out our next steps here – www.burnthickory.com/next

Well good morning church, hopefully you have had an incredible week and come on, how about some worship this morning?! Incredible. In fact, can we just give a big old thank you for all of our houses of worship this morning, and tell them how incredible that is?

So good. So good. I know some of you are coming off some weeks that you just needed that. You just needed that moment. Also just want to give a shout out this morning, before we jump into the message to our life group leaders. Man, can I just tell you, I spent a little bit of time with a few different sets of you guys this week. And man, y'all love people so well, every week, you're so faithful to take care of people, to prepare to teach the word, to bring messages of hope, to take big old casseroles and Uber Eats gift cards whatever your jam is, to take care of people. And let me just tell you, if you're not in a life group here, I promise you that it's way better than what you're about to get. Go jump into a life group, please, please, please, it'll feed your soul. Alright, it really will and give you some people around you. If you got a copy of Scripture this morning, jump with me to the book of 1 Kings. It's right before the book of 2 Kings. That's why it's 1 Kings, it is in the front of your Bible, we're going to be in 1 Kings, chapter 18. 1 Kings chapter 18. Last week, we jumped into this text. In fact, we jumped into chapter 17, last week, and we looked at this widow from Zarephath. This widow from Zarephath that taught us an incredible biblical principle. And that is the fact that God uses our small acts of obedience in incredible ways. In fact, He makes them exponential, whether it's a couple of fishes, and some loaves or whether it's a couple jars of water at the wedding feast, God takes our little offerings and turns them into incredible movements from Him.

Last week, we saw this in the life of this widow providing food for Elijah, this little moment, and we walked out of here looking at this principle last week that the big things in God's economy starts with little acts of obedience from us. Well, this week, we're going to jump into the rest of that story. Because what that did last week is it set us up to talk about what I think is one of the biggest and most epic like JR Tolkien moments in all of the Old Testament. And it's what we're going to look at this morning. But before we do, and we look at this Elijah moment today, I think we need to look at a couple different things, we need to look at really the context of what's happening. We need to look at kind of where is God's people in this moment. What are they dealing with? And we also just need to kind of figure out who some of the major players are, that are going to be in this story, so then we can just take the story head on, and we can listen to the music start. Like in this big epic thing that's about to happen. Well, God's chosen people, that's the Israelites. Anytime in the Old Testament that you're reading about God's people, that is Israel, it started at Abraham, and God chose the Israelites to be His and to be a special people. They have begun this downward spiral into a life of really not hating on God, but really just allowing some of the old kind of Canaanite idols to kind of creep back into their lives. If you remember, right, if you're an Old Testament person, when God took the children of Israel, His people into the promised land, the first thing that He told them to do was to get rid of all of these false gods. To get rid of these idols, to smash the altars, to get them out of there, so that He would be the true God. The only God, the only one worth their worship. But what's happened over the course of a couple of different kings is they began to kind of dip their toes back into some of these little g gods, we'll call them, some of these idols, some of these things that really aren't who God wanted them to be. And I want you to see if this sounds familiar, because I think it might.

It's not that they despise the true God. It's not that they looked at God and went, God, I hate you. They never said that. It's just that they wanted to keep their options open. They wanted to keep their ideas open, and they wanted to be able to, catch this, whichever god that it was that fulfilled this need in their life at that moment, they wanted to be able to dip their toes into that god's world. So, in other words, that they felt like today there was this god that was going to give me what my heart's desire was they chased after that god. And then on this day, if they thought it was the Jehovah God, the real and true God that would get them out of trouble, they chased that God that day. Now know that doesn't sound like any of us. And I know that doesn't sound like our culture, but that's what they're dealing with. They're dealing with this idea that they wanted enough God to get them through their troubles, but they wanted enough of the little g gods to get them their pleasures, amen? That's where they were living. And so, what they were doing is they were on this downward spiral of inviting these little idols into their lives more and more and more and more God's people were. And then comes this guy named King Ahab. Now, King Ahab is an incredibly spineless joker. He has no intestinal fortitude. He has no ability to stand what he believes in. In fact, if you read the book of 1 Kings, you'll see the King Ahab on one side, he loved God. He really did love God. In fact, he named two of his sons and names meant something in this day, he named the first son after God and the second son after God. He named one owned by Jehovah and he named the other one, Jehovah is exalted. He named two of his sons God, and He came from a godly family, and he didn't want to do anything to upset the gods. But he married this girl named, Jezebel. He married this girl named Jezebel. Now, even if you haven't spent much time in church, there's something about the name Jezebel, right? There's something about, now even if that's your name, I'm sorry. I'm not, I'm not getting on you. So please know that I love you, but your parents did you wrong. That's all I'm saying. Okay. Jezebel, I know it, it's coming. Jezebel is the symbol of evil through the whole Old Testament. I mean, when anybody is evil, they're like, well, they're not as evil as Jezebel. I mean, they're not as evil as this. And she really was. So, on this side, King Ahab, he really wanted to love God, but he married Jezebel. Now, Jezebel was a princess to a Phoenician king. That sounds so official, right? She was a princess of a king that is what is in modern day Lebanon now. And the king of Israel, Ahab married her just for the trade routes to be better, for economic reasons. He married her just so that if the Assyrians ever tried to attack Israel from the north, then he could call up on Pappy in law and say, Hey, come save your queen. It was really a good move. It was a smart move. But it was a carnal move. It was not where God wanted him to be. It was about economics. And it was about money. And it was about power. And it was about protection. It wasn't about God. So, with the protection of Jezebel, also came the evil worship of the Baals, became even more of inviting these old, nasty idols back into God's people, back into their lives. And Jezebel, she destroyed hundreds and hundreds of God's prophets, hundreds and hundreds of God's people. She killed them. She brought Baal worship even on a larger scale back into Israel. And Ahab, he's like happy wife happy life. Just let it be.

It's where he lived his life. So, you got Israel on a downward spiral. You got Jezebel bringing the Baals. You got spineless Ahab he's like, hey, whatever happy wife happy life. So, God raises up this man by the name of Elijah, a prophet by the name of Elijah. And Elijah's chief goal in life was to live out what his name literally stands for. The name Elijah is a compound word, Eli, and jah and it literally just means the Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God when he was born, he was given the name Elijah and he was also given the task to become a prophet of the Lord, to turn God's people back to God. That was his reason for life. That was his calling for life. Like my calling in life to get up here and scream for 45 minutes at you guys. But his calling in life was to say, hey, turn back to the Lord. Turn back to the Lord, the Lord He is God, the Lord He is God. These other little things that you're following. They're not God. They're not going to do it for you. They're going to always leave you hanging. So, Elijah was doing everything he could. Everything he could to get to this point. He was doing everything he could to bring these people back, but the people were worshipping Baal, worshipping Baal, worshipping Baal. Now when I was a little kid, I used to think like Baal was some like evil little statue somewhere, right? I don't know why but that's not it. Baal was a conglomerate of gods or a group of thinking or Baal just kind of stood for anything that kind of popped in my mind that might give me pleasure if I worship that I could ask the God of the Baals to bring it, He was a controller of the weather, he was a controller of prosperity. And listen, before we jump down on these people for worshiping Baal, I think we just need to check up for a minute. Because if you really study the idea of worshiping Baal, they worship the same things that we worship.

They're worshiping the same things that our culture worships. The chief aims of Baal, let me just give them to you. Number one was prosperity. They worship prosperity for them and their family, in their society and their culture. Number two is sex. They worship sex, do it, go for it, whatever you want to do, it doesn't matter. Number three was their family. Go for it. Just put your family above everybody else, squish everybody else. It doesn't matter what else is around. And number four was accomplishment. It was accomplishment. It was whatever you need to do to put yourself ahead, well go for it, get it, do what you need to do to call that into your life. And number five was the earth. Earth Day anybody? It was the earth.

It was to worship the earth and worship what was around the earth and one of Baal's primary goals was to bring rain on the earth and bring lightning to the earth bring fire to the earth. But here's what I'm going to say. Before we start judging on these people. Does that sound a little bit familiar to anybody here? It's still the same things that we worship, but look, at least they had the intestinal fortitude to name it. At least they had the idea of saying, Hey, we understand that this controls us physically and spiritually. And we're not even denying it. We're chasing after both. You see, here's the problem that a lot of us don't realize, we're all worshipers. And we all worship, we all worship, you cannot look at me with an honest face and say, Matt, I don't worship. I'm not religious, I don't worship, that just means that you don't understand what worship is. Because all worship is giving your worth to something. It's giving something the idea in your life that it is a worth ship. It is what controls me and it's what I'm chasing after. And it's what I attach the most meaning in my life to and that was the Baals. So let me give you the principle that's going to just kind of give us the rest of the morning. Here it is, you cannot turn off your drive to worship. You can't any more than you can turn off your drive to want lunch in an hour. You can't turn off your drive to worship. The question is what god are you going to worship?

That's the question. You see, can I just tell you that God has hardwired into us a life of worship. Nobody has to teach your kid how to worship, we're going to worship and here's what we do. We worship whatever primarily brings us security, whatever primarily brings us fulfillment and whatever primarily builds us into the identity that we want to have. And for some of us, the idol that we worship is money. It's money, we worship money. It is everything that we do. It controls our schedules, it controls our family, it controls our whole lives, and we will sell our soul to making the next deal. For some of us, it's our families. Okay, West Cobb. We worship our kids. You might not say that out loud, but you plan your life around it. You plan every priority around it. And if they don't get the right grade, the right school, the right team and the right school then your life is going to fall apart.

We worship our families, we worship identity. That's the idols in some of our lives. We worship accomplishment in our lives. Listen, these things are not bad. That's not what I'm saying. Those are great things to have as part of your lives. But here's what I'm saying, they make horrible gods. They make horrible gods, and we don't call them gods, but they are. We don't call those things idols, but they are. Why? Because an idol according to Tony Evans, which says things way better than I do. So let me just read it. "An idol is an unauthorized and unapproved god. It's an unauthorized and unapproved by God now." Now, I put this in there just so you know, noun; person, place thing or idea, that you look to d be the source to get your needs met. It's unauthorized, that's what an idol is. So, before we start throwing shame on these people worshiping Baal, man, we got a whole bunch of these in our lives, don't we? It's those things that give us satisfaction and fulfillment. In fact, John Calvin says it like this, "The human heart is an idle factory." We just keep producing new ones. We keep producing new ones, we keep producing new ones. And listen, I'm just going to make the statement that I feel like we have as many Baals in our hearts as Jezebel put in Israel. We just don't name it. So, what is Elijah doing? Elijah's saying, you got to choose. Let's get to the text. 1 Kings 18, there’s been three and a half years of rain on the land. Elijah's been the most wanted criminal according to the king, but he's not a criminal that's out there. And now God has called him to go stand before the king and give him one more chance. 1 Kings 18 when you read the story, you got to read it like an epic battle scene. Just put the drumbeat and put the music in your mind because it's in mine.

Here we go, verse 17. "When he saw Elijah," that's Ahab, "he said to him, 'Is that you, you traveler of Israel? I have not made trouble for Israel,' Elijah replied. 'But you and your father's family have, you have abandoned the Lord's commands,' Elijah said. 'And you have followed the Baals." I love this word troubler. Because this word troubler literally just means; one who wreaks havoc or brings trouble. It's like putting a toddler in somebody else's grandma's house and there's a lot of precious moments. It is one who comes in and causes trouble. Ahab is saying to Elijah, you are the trouble. And then Elijah goes, excuse me? We're in this mess because you and your family turned from God. You see, sometimes God chooses to hit the pause button on the blessings in our lives, to show us what it really is like when we get what we want. And that's not following Him.

What's been happening? There's been no rain on the land. Who's the provider of the rain on the land? Well, according to these people, it's Baal. So, what did God do? God goes okay, I'll pause the provision I'm going to give you for your economic situation here, you ain't gonna have any crops, and I'm going to see what your gods got. Sometimes when you're in a dry spot, God is just looking at you going, Okay, I'm just going to back off. That's what you want me to do. You want to go follow your thing. And let's just see how this works out. That's the conversation they're having. But Elijah doesn't take it so well. Just like some of us when we have a holy rebuke moment in our lives. We don't take it so well. But that's another day. Keep going. Verse 19. Listen to what Elijah says. "Now some of the people from all over Israel, to meet me on Mount Carmel." Why the mountain, because there's a Baal worship site up there. And the children of God didn't follow God, but they built one up there too. There's about to be a showdown at the OK Corral. Here it is. It's on Main street. "And bring the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah." To his girlfriend, it doesn't really matter, but that's kind of what it is. "Who eat at Jezebel's table." Now, it's not a big table. That just means that this lady was so evil, she had 850 false prophets on her payroll. "So, Ahab sent word throughout all of Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel." Verse 21, now we're up on the mountain, get in your mind, you have to see it. Elijah, It's not only by himself, that's okay. Because the simple majority usually doesn't win. Elijah went before the people and said, get underline and your highlight out here comes. "How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal is god, follow him." Then go follow him. Listen, this statement alone right here is enough for us to close up our Bibles and get the Cracker Barrel. But, but we ain't doing it. This statement alone is an incredible message that should be written on every billboard in America right now. Because what is he saying? He said, I'm not saying you're hating on God. I'm just saying you are going to have to make a decision. Which god are you going to serve? Which god are you going to serve? Then he gives us these truth claims. Let me give you the first one and it's this; when it comes to God to not make a decision is making a decision.

Now let that sit for just a minute because that's pretty deep for some of you, right? When it comes to God to not make a decision is making a decision. Here's what that means. When you pull up into God's economy, and you feel like you can just press the pause button and have one foot in each world of God and the idols, here's all you're going to do, you're going to continually go backwards because there is no neutral. Your natural bent is not to produce a life that walks towards God. Our natural bent is to have a life that is backing away from God that is backing away from God and is backing away from God. And when we don't choose, we look like the children of Israel. We smell like the children of Israel, and we began to put the same things in our lives that they're struggling with. We just don't call it Baal. But here it is, look at verse 21. "How long will you waver between two opinions?" You see Israel they weren't fully committed to the Baals, but they weren't fully committed to God. They just on whatever day it was wanted what they wanted. And listen, they wanted whatever didn't interfere, catch this, with their lifestyle. It's in the text, but here's the problem. Worshiping God and worshiping Baals. most of the time are mutually exclusive. And when we don't choose our bent toward evil, I'm putting me in this case automatically begins to pull back. What does Elijah say? He says, quit wavering. Now look, this is going to be pretty raw. I'm not going to lie, but we need to hear this. Elijah is going hey, pick one and quit waiver. Pick one quit and quit wavering. Some of your text uses the word limp. It's like quit having a limp faith. In other words, quit having a faith that is just kind of like I don't know, I'll just stand in the middle. Do you know what Elijah is saying? This is rough. He's saying this; if money is your god, then you need to go serve money. And I'm just being honest with you. If money is your chief aim, then go serve money. Whatever that takes, however much cheating that takes, however much lack of support for your family that takes, however much lack of involvement in the things of God that takes. Money, listen church, if money is your god, go serve it because this is a terrible hobby. It's a terrible hobby. What else is he saying? He's going hey, listen, if approval is your god, then go get it. Whatever you need to do. Whatever hoops you need to jump through, no matter the hoops they're there, go serve money, live your life exclusively for the approval of others, or you're always going to be miserable if you don't. Go do it. What is he saying? If beauty is your god. If Beauty is your god, Elijah's looking at these people and going, then go serve beauty. Go get it lifted, tucked or plumped, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Go do it. And don't worry about the rest of this stuff. What is he saying? If romance is your god, then go romance your way into the next world. Leave your family, leave your kids, if that's your god, go serve it. If sex is your god, go make all of your dreams come true. Go make them all come true. But what does he say? But if Jesus is your Lord, then go chase Him. Go chase Him. You see, we don't do this. We feel like we can be in the metal for some reason. We feel like we're good enough, strong enough and smart enough to live Monday through Friday in one world and maybe every other week on Sunday in this world.

And what is Elijah saying?

If God is your God, then go serve Him. You living in the middle is not going to do anything but tear the kingdom of God down. What did Charles Spurgeon say? I've used this a couple of times before he says, "Most Christians are trying to be a little into the world, and a little into God; but they are enough into the world to be miserable in God; and enough into God to be miserable in the world." How long will we go between? Keep going to the story. I love this. Verse 21, "Elijah went before the people and said, 'How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is god follow him.' But the people said nothing." Does no one else kind of find that funny that that's like a normal invitation moment? Verse 22, "Then Elijah said to them, 'I'm the only one of the Lord's prophets left, but Baal has 450 prophets. Get two bulls for us. Let Baal's prophets choose one of them for themselves and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and I will put it on the wood, and I will not set fire to it." Verse 24, "Then you call on your God and I will on the name of the God,” I love that! Hey, your little g god, but I'll call on The God and the God that answers by fire-He is God. Then all the people said, 'what you say is good." Why did they say that? Because Baal is the god of fire. He's the god of lightning. They're like you don't know what you're talking about here Elijah, this is going to be easy for Baal. He's like, Okay. Verse 25, Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, 'Choose one of the Bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire." This is where the music would start in my mind. Verse 26, "So they took the bull given to them and they prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning until noon. 'Baal answer us.' they shouted." But watch this. "But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made." Here's truth number two; idols will always go silent and abandon at our greatest time of need. It's what they do. At our greatest moment. What does this mean? It means this, when idols are in our life, they seem absolutely amazing until we really need them. And then they go, zero dark 30. They're not anywhere to be found. But what does God say? It's the opposite right? Matthew 11, "Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls." What does he say? And you will find rest for your souls.

These people are dancing. These people are like come on Baal, come on, Baal, come on Baal. And where's Baal? Hey, ain't nowhere to be found. Because at this moment, they need him. Why? Because false gods always leave us hanging. They always leave us hanging. Now watch this is going to get every middle schooler back in the room. Come and get off your iPads here it is right, ready? Elijah starts to talk a little trash talk. A little holy taunting, a little righteous rebuke, a little motivational mocking. I couldn't come up with any more words. Here it is. I love it. Verse 27, "At noon. "Elijah began to taunt them." I love that some things need to be taunted. I'm just going to say it out loud. Here it is. "Shout louder, Elijah said. 'Surely he's a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling." He's like, Hey Baal, maybe he's just thinking about something? Maybe he's daydreaming? Maybe he's just scrolling his Facebook aimlessly and you need to call him louder. Or verse 27 "or he's busy." Now look, I love the NIV, I read it all the time. But the NIV cleans this up a little bit and says busy. The actual Hebrew euphemism here literally means maybe your god is on the toilet going number two. I'm not making it up. You can send me whatever email you want to, but I'm being true to the text. All right? He's like maybe your God is in the bathroom in the fan is on. He just can't hear you right now. Been waiting all week for that. Here it is. Or I told you the middle scores are back. Or.......or he's traveling. Or he's traveling. It's not going to be good. Or he's traveling. Melissa's just shaking her head, wherever she is. Maybe he's just on a trip. Maybe he's taking a little vacation. Maybe he's like well-deserved time off. Keep going Elijah still he quit and yet. Or maybe he's sleeping and must be awakened. Poor things just tired. Your gods just tired. Just yell a little louder. What is it? This is what our false idols do to us. We call them, we call them, we call them, and call them and they go silent, in the moments we need them. You know it, because you've had this happen to you in your life. Which leads me to the rest of the story.

Keep going verse 28. "So, they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom until their blood flowed." I told you this is an epic story. "Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention." Why? Truth number three; idols are never fully reachable. They're never fully reachable. What do they do? They constantly are upping the stakes of how to reach them. And eventually, what do they do to us? Eventually, they push us towards self-destruction. The little g gods and the little idols that we put in our life is never going to be reachable for you. It is always going to take more of the substance, it is going to take more of your time, it it’s going to require more of you for getting your family, it is going to cause you to get farther and farther and farther and farther into despair. Here's the deal, whatever it is that you're chasing, if it's not Jehovah God, you will never reach it. You will never reach it; it will always seem like you can reach it. It will always seem like it's right there. It's right there. A little more of this, a little more of that one more deal. But before you know it, the deceit is going to grow. It takes more than a substance to get you there and you never have satisfaction and you're doing it all just to please an idol that's going to leave you hanging. It's going to leave you hanging. Why? Because it ain't God. It's not a god and you're a slave to an ideal that has no eternal substance. Zero in significance. Don't be judging up on the Baal worshipers. Don't do it, fight the urge. I know what you're doing, you're reading it like their slashing themselves, they're dancing? What in the world are they doing with themselves? Listen, our dance just looks a little different. It just looks a little different. We're calling on things all the time that have nothing to do with The God. Just these little g gods. You see we forsake things to dance like, hey I'm going to get in the right school, or I got to be the right popular person, or I got to make that deal no matter what happens.

We slash our morality; we slash our fundamental Christian beliefs. Why? To chase something that's not God. What are they doing? Why? They think that it's going to give them something but it's not. John 10:10, God says, "The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy; I have come to give you life, and have it to the full." That's what He's offering. Keep going in the story, verse 30. "Then Elijah said to all the people, 'Come here to me." Now pause right there, Elijah has been sitting in a lawn chair all day long at this point. I mean, that's not in the commentary. But you know where I'm going with that, right? Sitting there from morning until night, he's got an umbrella over him. He's just shaking his head. He's like, really fellows? "They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down." Truth number four; calling out that God should always start at a place of repentance. Always. What does that mean? That means when we hit a point in our lives, where we're turning away from the Baals, and we're turning towards God, then we can't puff up with our pride and go God, here I am, I'm walking into your presence. It's a moment of me saying, God, I know that my sin has separated me from you. And without you, I will never get back on track. It's what he did when he started at the altar. What was the altar was the place the sacrifice went? What was the sacrifice for it was to cover their sins, who is Jesus to us? He is our sacrifice. But we must approach God at salvation and repentance that I'm turning from who I was, and I'm turning towards You, but every single day out of a state of repentance, me coming before the Lord and saying, God today, I can't do it without You. I've already failed You and I need your presence in my life. Are you honest enough to do that is the question? Verse 31, "Elijah took the 12 stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come saying, 'Your name shall be Israel. With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord and He dug a trench around at large enough to hold two seahs of seeds." That's 24 pounds. "He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces, and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, 'Fill four large jars with water and pour them on the offering and on the wood. Do it again,' He said, and they did it. 'Do it a third time,' he ordered, and they did it a third time." For those of you non-math people, that's 12 jars of water. That's not how you normally start a fire. You got to love it when God's about to show up.

Keep going, I love this. "The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench. "At the time of sacrifice," that's the normal afternoon sacrifice to God, "the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: 'Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known today that You are God in Israel and I am your servant. I've done all of these things at Your command. Answer me Lord, answer me so these people will know that Lord, our God, and that You are turning their hearts back again." We're coming full circle, right? You, Lord are God and that You are turning their hearts back to Him. Truth number five; prayer is often the catalyst that connects God's presence and God's power with people. It's often in. It's what connects people to God's power and presence. What did he do? Elijah knew that the altar needed to be fixed. There are some things you don't need to pray about. There's some things God has been really clear on and that is keeping the altar of our life straight. But then he said, Hey, God if this is going to happen, it's only going to happen through You and nothing else. So, he began to pray, and he recognized God, he called on God and he's like God, You are the only one that can do this. None of my silly dancing. Let's keep going, I love it. This is it. This is when the crescendo the band is playing. Here it is verse 38. "Then the fire of the Lord fell," man to be there at this moment, "and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the soil, and it licked up the water in the trench. When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate." that is on their faces in front of the Lord, "and cried, 'Christ the Lord, He is God the Lord! The Lord-He is God." Now what does that remind you? That reminds you of Elijah's name. Elijah is the Lord He is God the Lord. It's almost as if they're chanting Eli Jah, Eli Jah! But it ain't about Elijah at this moment, it's about the mission at this moment and they are turning their faces back away from the Baals and toward who God is. And notice what happened in the story. God didn't just set a little fire ablaze. He didn't just a send a little bitty poof there it is. He sent an incredible bolt of fire that not only burned up the bull, not only burned up the wood, not only burned up the outside in the sea, but it set the rocks on fire. Number six; when we experience the true presence and power of God, it always exceeds our expectations. Always. Are you noticing the difference? You can't reach idols, you can't reach idols, you can't reach idols. But when God steps in, it's bigger than we can ever dream or imagine. It's more. What does that mean? That means when you pray to God; God, would you show me your love? He wants to show you more of his love than you want him to show you. God, would you just deliver me? He wants to deliver you more than you even want delivering. God, would you show me Your grace and Your mercy? God, show me your power. God says, Okay, I will. But listen, you got to choose. You got to choose, because what does God want to do? He not only wants to meet our expectations, but He also wants to exceed our expectations. And here, do you know what God wants? The same thing He wanted in the story. He wants there to be no question. No question of who God is. Number seven; There's only one true, God. There's only one. There's one God. And you know what? He ain't gonna show up how we need Him to show up until we choose until we choose. So, here's the question. Here's where we land the whole morning.

Do you know Him? Do you know Him? You say, Matt, I feel like we talked about this every week? We do. It's what churches is. It's God calling his children back. And it's God calling people from darkness into His light. But listen, you got to choose. You got to choose. You got to choose. Here's the invitation today. It's quite simple. Number one, do you need to give your life to Jesus and accept the fact that He is Lord, and He is King, and He is deliver and He has offered Himself up to you? Is something in your spirit today going, yes? Well, Matt, I'm just really not sure. Okay, well, then reach out to us because we want you to be sure. Matt, I just don't know something in me is pointing me in a direction. Hey, let us help you clarify that. Because what we're talking about here is not what flavor of ice cream you want. It's your eternity. Do you need Jesus? But number two, what is it? It's not necessarily up on the mantle of your house. But it's taken up that spot in your heart. That's the Baal.

I don't know what it is. I'm not assuming to know where you are. But I know this. We want to see God's power in our life. Choose, if the Lord is Lord, then let's chase Him. If Baal is Lord, which he ain’t, then chase, him. Man, America, we need this. Man, Burnt Hickory, we need this. We need to choose which God we will serve. And for me, I'm going to choose the one that is not out of my reach but came to me and lives for me and died for me. He's giving me hope, Lord in this next invitation moment. God, I pray that we don't stand and say nothing. But God, you reach into our souls and you show us if we need you today God that, that hey, there are people in every one of our rooms today that would just walk down to the front and find me and say Hey, I need Jesus. Find one of the other pastors and say Hey, I need Jesus today. There's some that just need to reach out on our next steps text this week and say, Hey, I need Jesus. What do I need to do?

God, I know there's a whole lot of us that just need to offer up the little b baals that are in our lives, that are keeping us from being all in You, Jesus move during this next moment. It's in your holy name we pray. Amen.

Let's stand and sing together. I'll be down here on the front. If you want to respond publicly. Maybe you just need a moment at your seats. To say Lord, here I am. Let's sing together.

 

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