SPEAKER_00: So we are carrying on our series this week on an ordinary day and just kind of looking at how God meets us in our everyday situations.
SPEAKER_00: And the passage we're looking at today, I'll tell you from the start, is not a cheery one.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna hang out with a guy called Elijah, who's a prophet in the Old Testament, who ends up in a cave in a mountain, asking God to take his life.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not a peppy story, but I think it is such an important one that we look at and we how God meets us in the low moments of our lives, how God meets us when we are despairing, because I think that's just as important as how God meets us when we're kind of winning and doing well.
SPEAKER_00: And this has always been one of my favourite passages of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: I've always just really liked it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm quite an emotional person, as anyone who knows me will know.
SPEAKER_00: So I have very high highs and very low lows.
SPEAKER_00: And so seeing how God meets us in those lows has been really powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And studying it in more detail this week has just been so good for me to see things that I hadn't seen before and to see, yeah, all the ways God just shows up for us.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to read the passage.
SPEAKER_00: We are in 1 Kings 19.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm gonna read from the NIV, it will be on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: Other translations are available, but we'll run through that and then we'll kind of chat through uh, you know, what we what we see with Elijah here.
SPEAKER_00: Um now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he killed all the prophets with the sword.
SPEAKER_00: So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like one of them.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah was afraid and ran for his life.
SPEAKER_00: When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness.
SPEAKER_00: He came to a broom bush, sat down under it, and prayed that he might die.
SPEAKER_00: I have had enough, Lord, he said.
SPEAKER_00: Take my life.
SPEAKER_00: I am no better than my ancestors.
SPEAKER_00: Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
SPEAKER_00: All at once an angel touched him and said, Get up and eat.
SPEAKER_00: He looked around, and there by his head was some bread, baked over hot coals and a jar of water.
SPEAKER_00: He ate and drank, and then lay down again.
SPEAKER_00: The angel came back a second time and touched him and said, Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.
SPEAKER_00: So he got up and ate and drank.
SPEAKER_00: Strengthened by that food, he travelled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.
SPEAKER_00: There he went into a cave and spent the night.
SPEAKER_00: And the word of the Lord came to him, What are you doing here, Elijah?
SPEAKER_00: He replied, I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, put your prophets to death with the sword.
SPEAKER_00: I am the only one left, and now they're trying to kill me too.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord said, Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.
SPEAKER_00: Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.
SPEAKER_00: After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
SPEAKER_00: After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire came a gentle whisper.
SPEAKER_00: When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
SPEAKER_00: Then a voice said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah?
SPEAKER_00: He replied, I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword.
SPEAKER_00: I am the only one left, and now they're trying to kill me too.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord said to him, Go back the way you came and to the desert of Damascus.
SPEAKER_00: When you get there, anoint Hazel, king over Aram, also anoint Jehu, son of Nimshi, king over Israel, and anoint Elisha, son of Shafar from Abel Meloah, to succeed you as prophet.
SPEAKER_00: Jehu will put to death any who escaped the sword of Haziel, and Elisha will put to death any who escaped the sword of Jehu.
SPEAKER_00: Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have now not bowed to Baal and whose mouths have not kissed him.
SPEAKER_00: So quite a long reading there, but I think it's important to do the whole chapter, because context is always really important, though.
SPEAKER_00: We should never just jump in to like a good verse that would look good on a poster and be like, yeah, got it.
SPEAKER_00: We should always look around at what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: So we're going to start with that.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to start looking at the context of this passage because I think that is really important to look at first.
SPEAKER_00: Then we'll do a bit about Elijah, a bit about God, a bit about us, will be the general plan.
SPEAKER_00: So the context of this story is that the people of Israel have once again started worshipping a different God to the true God Yahweh, the God of the Bible, which, if you read the Old Testament, happens quite a lot.
SPEAKER_00: And the God of choice this time is one called Baal, who is a god of rain.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in response to the people turning to a god of rain, there has been a three-year drought, which is somewhat embarrassing if you're Baal, because the rain should be coming and it's not coming.
SPEAKER_00: And then Elijah, at the end of this three-year drought, has a big showdown with the prophets of Baal.
SPEAKER_00: They go to a mountain called Mount Carmel, which is kind of in the north of Israel, and Elijah says to the people, how long will you keep limping between two opinions?
SPEAKER_00: If the Lord is God, then follow him.
SPEAKER_00: If Baal is God, then follow him.
SPEAKER_00: And so he sets up these two altars on the mountain, one to God, one to Baal, and says, the real God will show up and set fire to this altar.
SPEAKER_00: Hooray, we'll see who's who.
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's a massive win for Elijah because God shows up in a major way.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah says, you know, I'm going to put God to the test a bit, and then God shows up.
SPEAKER_00: So the offering on the altar, the altar itself, even the stones underneath, are completely consumed by the fire of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's like the absolute high point of Elijah's prophetic career because he has just had such courage.
SPEAKER_00: He'd said, There's a real God, he's going to set fire to the altar, God does it, the people repent.
SPEAKER_00: Yay for Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: And the only person who wasn't thrilled by this was Queen Jezebel, who's the Queen of Israel at this point, big fan of Baal, so they're not a fan of Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: And she then threatens Elijah's life, which is where we find ourselves at the start of chapter 19 when we started reading from.
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really important to see where we've come from, because I think when we look at Elijah, the kind of timing of his despair is really important.
SPEAKER_00: So we go on to the next slide.
SPEAKER_00: Should be about the when.
SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
SPEAKER_00: So I think quite often we see a pattern where we have a great high and it's immediately followed by a really low low.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what we see here.
SPEAKER_00: We see the height of Elijah's career.
SPEAKER_00: It would make more sense to us if he was really dreading going to the mountain of Carmel and then was sat in this cave beforehand saying, What are you doing, God?
SPEAKER_00: But he's not.
SPEAKER_00: He's after like the people who have repented and God showed up.
SPEAKER_00: But that's a pattern we see through the Bible, through church history in our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's a pattern I've seen with myself.
SPEAKER_00: So when I was pregnant with Nathan, who's my first baby, who's not a baby, he's three.
SPEAKER_00: I kind of have always struggled with anxiety, but during my pregnancy, I just really felt God show up.
SPEAKER_00: And I felt real progress in that anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: I had a real trust that Nathan was a gift from God and that he would be with us and all these different things.
SPEAKER_00: And then the first few months of Nathan's life were the worst my anxiety has ever been.
SPEAKER_00: I had horrendous intrusive thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: I really struggled.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it's a coincidence that the low followed the high in that kind of experience with Nathan.
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a couple of reasons for that.
SPEAKER_00: So the first is that emotions can't last forever.
SPEAKER_00: It is really good when God meets us in a big way, a conference or a, I don't know, a big thing.
SPEAKER_00: God shows up for us.
SPEAKER_00: But that can't last forever.
SPEAKER_00: And actually pursuing it lasting forever can be really damaging to our faith.
SPEAKER_00: Our faith has to be more than chasing a series of emotional highs because it feels really good when God is kind of really speaking to us in a really obvious way.
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes we can equate having big experiences of God with our faith being in a better place.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, that's not been my experience.
SPEAKER_00: I think people who reach depths of despair and meet God there have a really more powerful and deep relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's important to recognize that pattern and know that emotions won't last forever, because that gives us real strength to get through both the highs and the lows, because we're not just thinking, oh, if I can just have another big experience, that will fix everything.
SPEAKER_00: And secondly, the enemy tries to get in.
SPEAKER_00: It is a prime moment when you have just made real steps forward for the enemy to come in with lies and say, I'm not sure that was real, I'm not sure God really spoke to you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think you've made progress in that sin.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's the same issue that you're going to keep having the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: And so if we don't recognize the pattern that lows can follow highs, we will just sit there and think, oh yeah, the enemy's right, it wasn't real.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not true.
SPEAKER_00: It's just that nothing in our lives is continuous.
SPEAKER_00: Our emotions are in rhythm, the things we go through in rhythm, there are highs and lows, and that is part of our walk with God that we should kind of expect.
SPEAKER_00: And the second thing is that Elijah is tired and he's hungry.
SPEAKER_00: So I doubt there has been a huge amount of food in Israel after a three-year drought.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah has just walked, if you look at the geography, like a ridiculously long way.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why he felt the need to go this far, but he has not been probably eating or sleeping well.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why he's at this place of despair.
SPEAKER_00: And again, if we kind of think about the example with Nathan, um, yes, it was a kind of spiritual thing, but also I was the most tired I've ever been.
SPEAKER_00: Nathan has many wonderful qualities.
SPEAKER_00: Sleeping has really never been among them.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it would just be like month after month of absolute exhaustion.
SPEAKER_00: And God has made us physical beings who actually feel tiredness, who feel hunger.
SPEAKER_00: He has given us two natures.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think by accident that actually, I think sometimes we can really underestimate how important it is that we are physical creatures who have like who feel all these different things going on.
SPEAKER_00: Um because what I think the temptation can be in church is to meet people's spiritual needs and forget about their physical ones.
SPEAKER_00: So I think we can be really good and be like, oh, I'll pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, what would be really helpful is to be like, can I also, as well as praying for you, which is really important, can I cook for you?
SPEAKER_00: Can I walk your dog?
SPEAKER_00: Can I do whatever?
SPEAKER_00: Um so as an example of that, with um with Nathan, I was in labor for about 60 hours, and then we're in hospital for a bit, and it was not, it was not the most successful week of my life, really.
SPEAKER_00: And we got home and Nathan didn't sleep at all through the night.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we got to 6.30 in the morning, neither of us had slept, and we called Sonia, and we were like, we don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: This baby won't sleep.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think he's a baby that ever's gonna sleep.
SPEAKER_00: Um, like what and Sonia, who lives half an hour away, was there 45 minutes later, and she filled our fridge with food and she held Nathan and she was just there for us in a really meaningful way that still means a huge amount to us three years later.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, if she'd been like, Oh, it's really tough praying for you, and so it's like a praying hands emoji, it wouldn't have had the same impact on us as her coming to our house and feeding us.
SPEAKER_00: And I think so often it's just really important that we don't just go, oh yeah, praying for you, yeah, but actually see, we are physical and spiritual, and when we're in despair, being tired and hungry will probably not be helping the situation.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: The second bit is um, we go on to the next slide.
SPEAKER_00: The where is really important.
SPEAKER_00: So um we should always take note of locations being mentioned in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Um, quite often the Bible is just like he was walking along, whatever else.
SPEAKER_00: So whenever there's a location, it's often significant, and we should take note of that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and you may have noticed mountains feature heavily in these stories.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah's up Mount Carmel, trundles over, goes up Mount Horeb.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so theologically, in kind of Hebrew theology, mountains are where heaven and earth are closest, because the sky is the first heaven, and a mountain is just a big old chunk of earth sticking up into it, and so actually, it is a place where God is closest to his people.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so lots of key things happen on mountains.
SPEAKER_00: God meets his people on the mountain, but there's also often a time of testing, they're not always peppy places in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and we see a lot of key stories.
SPEAKER_00: So Abraham is asked to sacrifice Isaac on a mountain, uh, Moses meets uh God in the burning bush and then gets the Ten Commandments, and Jesus is revealed as the Messiah up a mountain.
SPEAKER_00: But it's also not just any mountain.
SPEAKER_00: So Mount Horob is the same as Mount Sinai, which, if you're big fans of the book of Exodus, which I'm sure you all are, features really heavily because that is the place where God makes his covenant with the people.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You are my people, I am your God, we'll do this together.
SPEAKER_00: So it's the central geographical location in the history of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so to get a sense of you know the importance of places, it would be like if I said to Andy, oh, some guy's at the door, and then this is who he saw at the door.
SPEAKER_00: Like, for those of you who are not as into football as Andy, this is Harry Kane, who is the captain of the England team, and I presume will lead us to victory in the final.
SPEAKER_00: Um so if I if I said, Oh, there's some guy at the door, it wouldn't quite cover to Andy.
SPEAKER_00: Harry Kane is at our door.
SPEAKER_00: Unclear why he's in Luton, but it's but it's really important that it's not just, oh, he's up a mountain.
SPEAKER_00: It is the mountain, it's the central mountain of all of kind of Hebrew kind of theology and experience up until this point.
SPEAKER_00: Let me hop on to the next slide.
SPEAKER_00: Um Elijah is echoing Moses all through this story.
SPEAKER_00: So if you read this story and then read where Moses goes up Mount Sinai, there's lots of things in common.
SPEAKER_00: Um so both ask God to take their lives, although for very different reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Moses is asking for God to take his life as a sacrifice because the people have wandered off again.
SPEAKER_00: That's clearly changed at the start of this story.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and Elijah is just like, I'm done, take my life.
SPEAKER_00: Um both of them have an experience of the power and presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: They both have kind of physical manifestations of God's power.
SPEAKER_00: They both have to hide their face because it's so intense.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but their responses are very different.
SPEAKER_00: So Moses meets God on this mountain, comes down the mountain, leads the people victoriously, is really kind of in his most successful place as a leader of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah has asked a question by God, answers, I'm the only one left.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's so sad.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then has this amazing, you know, there's a there's an earthquake, there's a fire, there's a flood, and gets to the end, what are you doing, Elijah?
SPEAKER_00: I'm the only one left.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing has changed.
SPEAKER_00: God has come in physical form.
SPEAKER_00: So just like, yeah, well, I'm the only one left.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so he can't see where he is.
SPEAKER_00: Um, he is on the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's hard for us because we probably as a culture don't have geographical things being as important, but he is on the mountain of God and he can't see what God's doing.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be like if Harry Kane was at our door, but because England lost this evening on penalties, but I'm sure will not happen, um, he couldn't see.
SPEAKER_00: Harry Kane's at our door.
SPEAKER_00: He can't see who is there because he's just stuck.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he's too stuck in despair to see a way out.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really important to look at what do we miss when we are stuck in despair.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we'll flick on to the next slide.
SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, so I think we look inward when we despair.
SPEAKER_00: And I think you can see that in what Elijah says.
SPEAKER_00: I have been really zealous, they're all coming for me.
SPEAKER_00: It's all about what's happening to him directly in front of him.
SPEAKER_00: And I think this is the temptation when we're in a really difficult situation, is just to be like, oh, this is really, really bad, and to stop seeing anything else around us to get a kind of total vision.
SPEAKER_00: So the people had repented.
SPEAKER_00: This is a big victory.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah has said, pick a side.
SPEAKER_00: They picked the right side.
SPEAKER_00: Hooray! But all he sees is that Jezebel hasn't repented, she's threatening him.
SPEAKER_00: So he doesn't see anything but the kind of despair that's in front of him.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason this is so important is because God moves in unexpected ways.
SPEAKER_00: He is a God who we see over and over again, loves to show up and use people who we weren't expecting him to use, to come in places we weren't expecting him to be.
SPEAKER_00: And so if we are stuck inward in the place that we are, then we miss out on seeing what God is doing around us.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want you to hear this as me saying the difficult things we go through are just no big deal and we should just forget about them.
SPEAKER_00: We will go through really hard, unpleasant things in this life.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible's quite clear that all of us will be expected to have suffering at some point.
SPEAKER_00: But I think it's so important to not see nothing but the cave and cannot see anything outside of that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, we need to look up.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe your individual circumstance right now is really quite awful.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, if all we see is that we will not see what God is doing in this church or this town or this nation or the world, because all we'll see is what's directly in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: And even in the situation itself, we can get a kind of tunnel vision.
SPEAKER_00: So if we hop on to the next one.
SPEAKER_00: So this boat, which is not having the best time, is a ship called Torrey Canyon.
SPEAKER_00: And looking at the age profile of the room, you may not have many of you that actually remember it, but it's an oil tanker that sank off the Isles of Scilly in 1967.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they did an investigation afterwards to figure out what was an oil tanker doing on the Isles of Scilly.
SPEAKER_00: That's not a famously good shipping lane.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and what they what they realized is that the captain had got tunnel vision, he had got stuck where he was and couldn't see a way out.
SPEAKER_00: So the ship was leaving the port that it was um kind of coming from late, so they were in a hurry.
SPEAKER_00: There was an issue with the maps that meant they were too close to the Isles of Scilly, there were two paths that they could take, and they accidentally took the narrower one.
SPEAKER_00: And then at the very end, they had time to turn the ship around, but but didn't because they didn't realize they still had time.
SPEAKER_00: And at every point, if he had realized that there was more going on than he saw, if he'd seen more than the rocks in front of him, there would have been other things that he could have seen.
SPEAKER_00: And I think I've seen this in my life where I'm so like, oh, this is all going wrong, that I don't see the people God is bringing into that situation, the ways that he might be using it for greater glory, the things he's trying to teach me.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't see anything but the rocks, and I just go barreling into them and say, I'm just, what's the point of this?
SPEAKER_00: I can't go on.
SPEAKER_00: And Elijah here is just stuck in this cave and he cannot see a way out.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's so important that we realise that that's what's happening to us when we're in despair, that we don't just sit in the cave and go, well, I'm in a cave now, there's nothing that can be done, because God is always on the move, especially in really hard times.
SPEAKER_00: So we don't want to just sit there and say it's hopeless because it is never hopeless, and God is always there doing things even if we don't see them.
SPEAKER_00: So we've kind of had a look at Elijah, not having a great time, Bessim.
SPEAKER_00: And then we're gonna have a look now at how God responds to us when we find ourselves in despair.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I've read lots of commentaries for this, and some of them are like really mean to Elijah, just like, oh, Elijah, oh, what a loser.
SPEAKER_00: Just sat despairing in a cave.
SPEAKER_00: What a terrible end to his ministry, so embarrassing.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's just not at all what God's response is here.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't just stand on the other mountain of Mount Carmel and be like, well, come back when you're ready, Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: Not my problem if you're despairing.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to that cave and he meets Elijah and he doesn't despair of us even when we're despairing.
SPEAKER_00: He is so compassionate to us.
SPEAKER_00: And he just comes to where Elijah is and meets his most pressing need.
SPEAKER_00: So the angel doesn't turn up and be like, Elijah, let me unpack some theology for you.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you all remember what I did, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_00: He just goes, You need to eat, you need to sleep, I've baked some bread for you.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's so often what God does to us.
SPEAKER_00: He comes and sees what we need and meets that need and doesn't ever lecture us or um or kind of say, Well, you really should be doing better than this, Elijah.
SPEAKER_00: I did show up in a major way on Mount Carmel, if you remember.
SPEAKER_00: Um if we hop on to the next one, um, he also shows Elijah his power but speaks in a gentle voice.
SPEAKER_00: So he shows Elijah the fire and the flood and the earthquake, but he doesn't terrify him, just comes and says, What are you doing here?
SPEAKER_00: In a really gentle way.
SPEAKER_00: And I think so often God doesn't show up in dramatic ways, he speaks to us in a gentle voice.
SPEAKER_00: So for me, some of the most powerful times for God that I've had have been in my small group, where, you know, like it's come to the prayer time, what did I pray for?
SPEAKER_00: My kids aren't sleeping because my kids are never sleeping.
SPEAKER_00: And people in my small group have just stood around me and put their hands on me and prayed for me and prophesied for me, and that has been so profound.
SPEAKER_00: The words that have been spoken to me in that kind of context have stayed with me far more than the most incredible worship set, um Catalyst or New Day, because actually that's where God has spoken to me in that gentle voice.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's so important that we give God opportunities to speak to us in those smaller ways.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're not in a small group, I'd really encourage you to be in one.
SPEAKER_00: Because actually, if you're coming to church to wait for like a big moment with God, then you're gonna miss out on huge amounts that he might want to say to you with 10 other people in someone's living room.
SPEAKER_00: And so, actually, if you're just like, well, it's not really dramatic enough, is it?
SPEAKER_00: I think we shouldn't be looking for God in the big drama because God doesn't come here in the fire or the flood, he comes here in the gentle voice.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's how we're kind of known in community, um, and that's where God, I think, speaks to us often more powerfully.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing is he honors Elijah's request to stop.
SPEAKER_00: So Elijah says, I have had enough, I have come to the end.
SPEAKER_00: And then God says, Okay, go and appoint your replacements, which is the bit about Elisha and the king of Israel and stuff, and then he lets him stop.
SPEAKER_00: So Elijah features very lightly in the Star of Two Kings, does a few small things, but this is his last big story in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And then he is taken up into heaven on a chariot of fire at the star of two kings.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think sometimes we can get kind of mixed up that God loves us because of what we do.
SPEAKER_00: Um, God loves us because we're on every single rotor at church, and there's never a Sunday that we just Sit there.
SPEAKER_00: And actually, that is so not true of what God says about us.
SPEAKER_00: He says that we are loved and valuable because of just being us, that he doesn't love us anymore because we come to set up and then do set down than he would if we came in at 11 o'clock each week.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not advocating that you should come in at 11 o'clock each week.
SPEAKER_00: The setup rotor is very important.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think this is my permission to you to quit every rotor that you're on in a blaze of glory, because that would really ruin Neil's day if everyone does that this afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: But I do think it's so important that we serve with the right heart in the right way.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that sometimes we can come to God and say, I think I've come to the end of this, and He will say, Okay, and let us stop, and He won't love us any less or value us any less, we won't be any less welcome in the kingdom because we say, actually, I've come to the end of this ministry, I need to stop.
SPEAKER_00: Because Elijah's life ends in glory.
SPEAKER_00: There are about three people in the Bible who are taken up into heaven without dying, Jesus being the other big example.
SPEAKER_00: And so God in no way rejects Elijah or is like, well, not much is much used to be now.
SPEAKER_00: He takes him up in glory on chariots of fire, which is what a way to go.
SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't despise Elijah or reject Elijah, but he does say you can stop now, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think we just need to be aware of like why are we serving?
SPEAKER_00: What's the heart behind it?
SPEAKER_00: Because if the heart behind it is God loves me more because I'm on teams, God loves me for the ministry that I bring to church or for my gifting or for anything else other than He loves us because He loves us, then we are introducing in our hearts a seed of doubt that actually, if I came to the end of this ministry, would God still want me as much?
SPEAKER_00: If I turn around tomorrow and say, actually, I can't be on the youth team anymore, or I can't be on coffee, or I can't do anything else, is there actually a seed of doubt in us that says, I don't think God would love me as much?
SPEAKER_00: Because we see here that is not the case.
SPEAKER_00: Um, Elijah, I'm sure, if God had wanted him to, could have carried on doing amazing things.
SPEAKER_00: But Elijah says, I want to stop, and God says, Okay, you're more than your ministry.
SPEAKER_00: Um the last bit we're going to look at is our response to this.
SPEAKER_00: So, what is the relevance of like some guy in a cave 3,000 years ago?
SPEAKER_00: How does that affect us today in 2026 in Harpenden?
SPEAKER_00: And I think there are just a few different bits that I think have quite an impact.
SPEAKER_00: So I think the first bit is we should be prepared for the valley, especially after a great high.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is not me saying, Oh, my friend came to church and therefore I'm going to break my leg next week.
SPEAKER_00: That's just a given.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a cause and effect.
SPEAKER_00: But I think knowing the pattern of our lives is actually really important for robbing the lies of their power.
SPEAKER_00: So I think if you are finding yourself in a really dark cave and really struggling, actually being like, I am not the first one to go through this, this is a pattern, is actually really helpful because what the enemy does is say, Oh, you just live in this cave now.
SPEAKER_00: This is just you, you will feel this despair for the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: There is no way out.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not true because actually there are seasons in our lives that are really hard, but they are just seasons.
SPEAKER_00: We go through the valley, but it is just a valley.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so if we can speak against those lies and say, no, this is a hard time, but God will meet me in this hard time and it will not last forever, that is really powerful.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think a guy who did this really well, if we just flick on to the next slide, this is a guy called Charles Spurgeon, who was a preacher in the 1800s.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he had a life that I think you could say could have some pretty high highs and some pretty low lows.
SPEAKER_00: So he was an unbelievably gifted preacher, had a huge church, saw thousands come to faith.
SPEAKER_00: God was really with him and moved with him, but he also had some really difficult things.
SPEAKER_00: He had a lot of physical health things, so he had rheumatism and smallpox and gout, none of which sound very pleasant to me, and was often in a lot of physical pain, but also had a lot of mental distress, suffered with real times of depression and despair.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and this is what he says about this passage.
SPEAKER_00: It might puzzle us to tell why Elijah should get under a juniper bush, but when we get under the juniper ourselves, we are glad to recall that Elijah once sat there.
SPEAKER_00: And when we are hiding away in the cave, it's a source of great comfort to us to remember that such a man as this great prophet of Israel was there before us.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's just so important that we find ourselves in the cave and we look across and we see Elijah's been there too, and Spurgeon's been there too, and Jesus has been there too.
SPEAKER_00: We are not sitting alone in a cave.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, we come from a long line of people who have had some really difficult, despairing, suffering times, and yet the pattern is the cave comes to an end.
SPEAKER_00: Because actually, all of us are looking forward to an eternity in the glory where we are with God for all eternity, where there is no more mourning or crying or pain.
SPEAKER_00: That is the reality for all of us who know Jesus here, and so the cave doesn't last forever.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's just really important for us to hold on to in those times because it will feel at the time like the cave is just going to go on and on.
SPEAKER_00: Um and I think with that, it's really important to be honest with God and honest with others.
SPEAKER_00: So hiding it doesn't help.
SPEAKER_00: I think in times where we're struggling, the temptation is to think this is not for other people to know about.
SPEAKER_00: I think often there's a sense of shame that, like, oh, good Christians are like peppy 100% of the time and nothing ever happens to them.
SPEAKER_00: And so actually saying, I'm having an awful time, having such a bad time right now, to God or to others feels in some way unspiritual that, like, oh, if I was just trusting in God more, then I'd feel nothing but joy 100% of my life, and that's just not the case.
SPEAKER_00: And with so much of our walk with God, but especially um with this, living in the light is so important that actually bringing things out into the open, coming to people we trust and to God and saying, I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_00: I can't go on.
SPEAKER_00: I am sat in this cave, I cannot figure out a way forward, because that's where God meets us.
SPEAKER_00: God is not served by us being like, Yeah, Lord, I just pray for like world peace and that our camera and feeling as great as always do.
SPEAKER_00: When actually we're in a we're in a cave of despair, he is served by us saying, Lord, I don't know what you're doing here, I don't understand what is going on, I'm struggling to trust you.
SPEAKER_00: This seems like an absolute disaster to me, is a far more powerful meter, so much more in that place than he can in a place of praying what we think are spiritual prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so I think it's just, yeah, it's really good to bring it into the light.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in a place of despair, especially if it's a place that doesn't feel very justified, you know, I think sometimes we can be like, well, you know, if I was really unwell, then I'd feel okay telling people.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, on Pape My Life's Fine, I just feel dreadful.
SPEAKER_00: That is even more important to bring and to say, I'm struggling, because Elijah here has no reason to despair.
SPEAKER_00: He's just had the greatest high of his prophetic career.
SPEAKER_00: What's he doing?
SPEAKER_00: Sat in a cave.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, for all the things that he gets wrong in this story, he is honest with God.
SPEAKER_00: He tells him exactly how he's feeling, and that's what I think we should model that actually we bring our despair into the light.
SPEAKER_00: Um I think also just not ignoring physical needs.
SPEAKER_00: So this is true of how we impact others, like I was sharing earlier with kind of Sonia coming to meet us, but also it's true of how we look after ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: So there are some physical things that we can't control.
SPEAKER_00: We might have health things that we can't control, or other things that are just out of our control physically that will affect how we feel about things.
SPEAKER_00: But I think if you are sat up till two o'clock in the morning doom scrolling and then eating McDonald's for every meal, you're not helping the place of despair that you might find yourself in.
SPEAKER_00: And so actually being aware of how we look after our physical bodies that God's given us, honouring the bodies that we live in, and actually being like, I will actually go to bed at a reasonable time.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was up until like 11 last night doom scrolling, so you can't really do what I say and not what I do.
SPEAKER_00: But I think it is so important to actually see ourselves as physical and spiritual and not think that it has no impact when we don't look after ourselves, and then we kind of feel worse than we have before.
SPEAKER_00: And then the last thing is just remembering who God is.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so Elijah thought he was alone, but God has far more information than we do.
SPEAKER_00: And if Elijah had trusted and remembered the God who was serving, he would have actually trusted, okay, all I see right now is despair, but I think that there is more going on here.
SPEAKER_00: So just flick on to the next one.
SPEAKER_00: This is my daughter Kezia, who is one, and the bars that you see her so tragically trapped behind are the baby gate between our dining room and our living and our kitchen, because she's not allowed in the kitchen.
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is I'll go into the kitchen and Kezia will stand at these gates and pull this face and whinge at me until I come back again.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a slightly silly example, but um, but actually, the reason she is despairing at that point is because she doesn't have as much information as I do, and she's not trusting that I will come back.
SPEAKER_00: So I know the kitchen is not safe for her, and I'll be back in two seconds once I've got a drink, and the world will not end because I've left her alone in the dining room.
SPEAKER_00: But all she sees is the despair of the gate that she wants to be through there, and I'm not there, and it's an absolute disaster if you're Kezia.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but actually, if she would trust, mummy does always come back again, and you know, I don't know what she's doing there, but I trust she has good reasons, then she might despair a bit less.
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, the things we go through are probably a bit more serious than uh Kezia being shut out of the kitchen, but I think it's a it's a good principle to stick by, not in a kind of vague, oh, everything happens for a reason kind of way, but in a we know who our God is.
SPEAKER_00: Our God is good and he is faithful and he is for us and he has a plan.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we are sat there in despair, we can say, okay, this feels awful, but I trust that you are bigger than me, and I trust that you have a plan.
SPEAKER_00: Um and in that, if we hop on to the last slide, um, I think we need to remember what Jesus has done.
SPEAKER_00: So we have more information than Elijah did.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah kind of comes a little bit before Jesus, so he doesn't know the kind of whole story yet.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, all of us have things that separate us from God.
SPEAKER_00: We have all thought and said and done things that we know are wrong, that the Bible would call sin, and that makes a barrier between us and God.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, Jesus has taken that away, and he has experienced true despair and true abandonment that we should have felt.
SPEAKER_00: So those depths that Elijah does here, that Jesus reached before he was on the cross and died.
SPEAKER_00: And I think actually seeing everything in light of the gospel, that yes, difficult things will happen, but actually, because of Jesus, we have a way to know God in all of it, is also just really important for us as we get through these difficult times that actually the way is open.
SPEAKER_00: We can ask God to come and meet us in despair, and he will do because the price has been paid.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we'll just flick on to the next one.
SPEAKER_00: So um, so that's kind of the end of why I've got to say.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we're just gonna have the band come up and we're gonna listen to, or we're gonna all sing a song um called I'll come to the altar and just kind of ask God to meet us where we are in the places where we find ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: But there are just a couple of uh groups of people that I would just really like to speak to specifically in this kind of time.
SPEAKER_00: So I think if you're in a place of despair, if you're in a place where you're just like, yeah, Elijah, I feel you, I'm sat in that cave, I don't know how to go on.
SPEAKER_00: I just really encourage you to either come and speak to someone who you've seen at the front today, come and speak to me, or to speak to someone you trust.
SPEAKER_00: But live in the light with that.
SPEAKER_00: Come and get prayer and let God meet you.
SPEAKER_00: Um, or if you're here and you wouldn't say that you know Jesus, but you think, huh, this has been a weird talk about a guy in a cave, but I do like the idea of a God who wants to meet me and know me and has made a way for me, then also just come and grab someone and have a chat about that as well.
SPEAKER_00: But um, but yeah, I'm just gonna pray for us and then we're gonna sing.