Forrest: I'm glad to be worshiping with you today.
Forrest: And um I got some joy today because today is my little Magnolia's third birthday.
Forrest: Today so we're gonna be celebrating her birthday.
Forrest: And uh she's getting a big girl bed.
Forrest: Don't nobody tell her.
Forrest: Nobody tell her.
Forrest: Don't tell her.
Forrest: Um and in the joy of that celebration, I also feel very conflicted because of an extremely heavy week that we have had.
Forrest: And I don't know about you, I don't know what you've been paying attention to, but for me this week has been heavy in our nation.
Forrest: And it makes me wonder what kind of world my little three-year-old girl is gonna grow up in.
Forrest: One where this week we have seen a school shooting in Evergreen, Colorado.
Forrest: And the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Forrest: And I I I witnessed two people dying, videos of people dying this week that I saw with my own eyes unintentionally online.
Forrest: Of Charlie Kirk and then uh Ukrainian immigrant, a young lady in in uh Charlotte who was stabbed to death on a bus, that these videos just popped up on my feed.
Forrest: And to to be quite honest with you, um I've just really f felt, and I feel like seeing the wickedness of our world this week.
Forrest: And I'm the only one.
Forrest: Okay and so as the the excitement that I have had about us stepping into this new series that's all about faith, I've had to be reminded this week of the fact that we are a part of a kingdom that is not of this world.
Forrest: And that we are citizens of heaven, and that we're the ones that are the ambassadors of Christ that are going to be the ones to bring true change by way of hearts being changed by Jesus.
Forrest: That we get to be a part of God's redeeming work, that we get to be the ones that see God changing lives and hearts for redemption, for restoration, and that doesn't happen apart from the power of Jesus Christ, the cross, his blood poured out for us.
Forrest: And so as we jump into this series today that's all about faith, uh I've been looking forward to this series as it pushes us deeper into following Christ and what it looks like for us to be a part of this redemptive work that He's doing.
Forrest: For us locally, the people that we know, for us to be the ones that are carrying the gospel, the only thing that's really gonna fix things, and this word that I'm bringing to you today, as we look at the scripture, when I talk about faith, I'm not talking about faith in this general sense of faith of, oh well, they're people of faith of every religion.
Forrest: No, I'm talking about faith and the way that the scripture teaches us what faith is a faith that comes from the one true Son of God, the King of the universe, Jesus.
Forrest: Are we all on the same page right now?
Forrest: So as we dive in, as we talk about faith, today I'm just preaching straight from my Bible.
Forrest: And so I want for us in this series, and what I'm teeing up today, is for us to take a look at the characters and the context of this series, and as we end today, we're gonna take communion together as the body.
Forrest: But I want to start by just setting the foundation of this series and of our mind as we talk about faith, and it comes straight from the scripture.
Forrest: And so I've got my Bible today.
Forrest: If you have your Bible today, please turn with me to Hebrews chapter 11.
Forrest: If you've got your phone, I want you to pull it out.
Forrest: Go to find where Hebrews is, it's the end of the New Testament.
Forrest: Go to chapter 11 because I want you to highlight these two verses that are in this chapter that's all about faith.
Forrest: Not enough, not enough of you are getting your phone out of your pocket.
Forrest: Y'all don't have the Bible on your phone.
Forrest: Get the Bible on your phone.
Forrest: Bible app.
Forrest: Here's the first scripture.
Forrest: 11.1.
Forrest: The definition of faith.
Forrest: Faith is the confidence of what we hope for will actually happen.
Forrest: It gives us assurance about things we cannot see.
Forrest: And then the verse that this series really hangs on is down to verse 6.
Forrest: And it is impossible, everybody say impossible.
Forrest: It is impossible to please God without faith.
Forrest: Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.
Forrest: It's impossible to please God without faith.
Forrest: Everybody say impossible.
Forrest: See, that scripture could have said a lot of things.
Forrest: It could have said that it was it's impossible to please God without having all the right answers.
Forrest: It could say it's impossible to please God without having the correct political leanings and ideology.
Forrest: It could say it's impossible to please God without having a spotless life.
Forrest: But that's not what the scripture says.
Forrest: It says it's impossible to please God without faith.
Forrest: This saving grace that comes through faith, not of yourselves, so no man could boast, but it's a gift from God of eternal life in Christ Jesus.
Forrest: This faith that we walked in that gives us hope of things that we don't, that we don't yet see, and it gives us evidence of the things that we hope for in Christ.
Forrest: And this faith that we are walking in, this isn't just a one-time faith where faith is just, okay, I gave my life to Christ at some point, I got baptized, and now I have faith.
Forrest: No, faith is something that we are walking in, and you're walking in every single day as your faith in Christ grows and as you are walking out the things that God has already prepared and advanced for you to do.
Forrest: I'm gonna get going.
Forrest: Here's the thing: we are citizens of heaven.
Forrest: We are a part of his kingdom.
Forrest: See, it was Jesus who taught us how to pray.
Forrest: That said to us, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Forrest: Give us this day our daily bread.
Forrest: Y'all know what I'm talking about when Jesus taught us how to pray?
Forrest: And he tells us that there's a kingdom of God, that this kingdom is supposed to be a kingdom that is now but not yet.
Forrest: A kingdom of heaven that is being made alive here on this earth as we call heaven down, and we are citizens of a kingdom that is a civilization.
Forrest: The civilization of the kingdom of God, and we're asking and we're participating with God of seeing heaven come to earth and to give us our daily bread, which is the title of this message that we're fed by faith.
Forrest: As we take a look at the life of Elijah, the most famous prophet, one of the most famous prophets in all the scripture in the Old Testament, to set the stage for you and to give you an understanding of what was going on for Elijah the prophet.
Forrest: Now, for those of you who lead a little bit more context, Elijah was in the Old Testament.
Forrest: We're talking, we're talking long, long time before Christ came onto the scene.
Forrest: And what was happening at the time is the people of God and Israel, they were in this unholy just cycle of sin where they would follow after God and then they would fall away from God and begin to worship other false gods and false idols and doctrines, and then God would raise up a prophet who's someone who speaks for God, for them to bring the word of the Lord and for their for the people the people of God to turn their hearts back to God in repentance, and then the cycle would start all over again.
Forrest: And when we enter into the story for Elijah, what has happened in Kings is that there has been this long line of succession of evil kings, but at the day of Elijah, the king was the most evil thus far, King Ahab.
Forrest: And he had an evil king, evil queen who he married, Jezebel, who was from this area of Sidon.
Forrest: And in her area, and at that time, Ahab and her brought into the kingdom of God the worship of a false god called Baal or Baal.
Forrest: Now, if we live in the Bible belt, Jezebel was from the Baal belt, okay?
Forrest: And the worship that was going on at the time to Baal that we're going to see in this series included self-mutilation, cutting themselves, sacrifice, human sacrificing, sacrificing children, temple prostitution that even made its way into the temple of God eventually.
Forrest: This sick and wickedness that had now been been uh made known and began to fester and grow in Israel, even to the point that Ahab built a temple and an altar to Baal in the people of Israel's territory.
Forrest: So with that as a backdrop, I want you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Kings chapter 17.
Forrest: As we watch Elijah be raised up, and speak truth to power in 1 Kings chapter 17, starting in verse 1.
Forrest: Now Elijah, who was from Tishbi and Gilead, told King Ahab, as surely as the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, the God I serve, there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word.
Forrest: Now, right there, I'm gonna stop because we read that and we think, well, okay, like, alright, there's no rain.
Forrest: That's kind of a strange thing for Elijah to say.
Forrest: But at that time, for there to be no rain, this was a country in crisis.
Forrest: For there to be no rain, that means that there was no prop crops, which meant that there was nothing being produced, which meant famine, which meant drought, which meant their whole economy was about to shut down.
Forrest: And the reason why Elijah steps up to Ahab and says that to him, and this judgment of God is coming down onto this king and his wife and the people of God.
Forrest: The reason the judgment has come is because Baal was known as the storm God.
Forrest: And so Elijah steps up to this wickedness and he says, I'm gonna let you know who truly holds the world in his hand.
Forrest: The one true God, the God of Israel.
Forrest: And there's not gonna be rain for a few years.
Forrest: Verse 2.
Forrest: Then the Lord said to Elijah, Go to the east and hide by the Krief brook, near where it enters the Jordan River.
Forrest: Drink from the brook and eat what the ravens bring you, for I have commanded them to bring you food.
Forrest: So Elijah did as the Lord told him, and camped beside Krief brook, east of the Jordan.
Forrest: And the ravens brought him bread and meat each morning and evening, and he drank from the brook, but after a while the brook dried up, for there was no rainfall anywhere in the land.
Forrest: Elijah speaks truth to power, and then God tells him to go down to this ravine, the Karif Brook.
Forrest: Karif means the cutting place to cut.
Forrest: And so God takes Elijah now to a place of full and total dependence on him.
Forrest: To a place where the things that need to be cut off of his life so it can be cut off.
Forrest: Last Sunday, Pastor Leighton Levy gave a great message as he talked about us walking through breaking seasons, and there are times where, like a great gardener, the Lord will prune us and cut off things of the vine that aren't bearing fruit.
Forrest: And so we need to allow the gardener, we need to allow the God of our life to cut and break things off of our life so then we can step into what God has called us to do and see a breakout of God's spirit in your life and across our city.
Forrest: So some of you, some of you, this word today is not even for you.
Forrest: You need to go back to last week because there's something in your life right now that needs to be cut off and broken off of you.
Forrest: Some sin that you're entangled with, some kind of scheme and stealing that's happening at work.
Forrest: Maybe it's some relationship or sexual sin that you're stuck in.
Forrest: Things need to be cut off from you so that you can step into, listen to me, the kingdom work that God has appointed in advance for you.
Forrest: Do you know that if you're here today and all that you hear from me is that you're bad, you're a sinner, you're in the need of a savior, and Jesus can save your life.
Forrest: That's not all, that's not the whole story.
Forrest: You know what the whole story is?
Forrest: That Jesus saves you, yes, but he also saved you for a purpose.
Forrest: The scripture says that there are things that He has appointed for you to do in this life before you were even born.
Forrest: There are things in your life that God is wanting you to walk out as the citizen of the kingdom for you in your life to be stepping and walking in faith, so then you can participate in the amazing work that God has already planned and advanced for you.
Forrest: So don't be held back, but let the things that are in the past be in the past and break off of you so that you can walk forward in the Holy Spirit power that wants to break out in your life.
Forrest: Confess it to God, ask for forgiveness, repent, change.
Forrest: So then you can take your next step into the kingdom of what God has in store for you.
Forrest: See, Elijah was taken down to this cutting place, this Kharif ravine.
Forrest: And he was then supplied his daily bread.
Forrest: God supplied his every need by bringing bread and meat.
Forrest: I would love that.
Forrest: Where's that Walmart Plus subscription at?
Forrest: Where's that butcher box at?
Forrest: Like, send me.
Forrest: If I just had bread and meat, I would be 300 pounds.
Forrest: Like that would just, man, I'd be amazing.
Forrest: God is supplying Elijah's every need, and he's sending ravens that are an unclean animal to bring him what he needs in dependency to prepare him to go to uh the Gentiles and to speak his word to them.
Forrest: And then what happens is after the time of cutting has been complete, then God does something very strange.
Forrest: He dries up the brook.
Forrest: And it's time for Elijah to then move on.
Forrest: You know what my struggle is?
Forrest: I just always think that God wants to lead me by all the new things and new opportunities he wants to do in my life.
Forrest: All the new fun, exciting stuff.
Forrest: Well, God's gonna lead me to this new opportunity and this new thing, and I just need to walk through this door.
Forrest: When we also know that when things have run their course and God's ready for you to move, he'll dry up the brook so that you will actually take action, which is the first point, which is you need to have a faith that is in motion.
Forrest: You need to actually be moving in faith with God.
Forrest: And and what the beautiful part of that is, is that right now, you being here this morning is an act of faith.
Forrest: As you came and you were and you came to worship Jesus, and you're in this room right now, and you're saying to the world, I'm not worshiping any other false thing, I'm not gonna worship any other idol, I'm gonna be in this house, I'm gonna be in the Lord's house, I'm gonna worship God, and I'm gonna have a faith emotion.
Forrest: So keep coming.
Forrest: Keep doing that.
Forrest: Being faithful, being faithful to Christ.
Forrest: Because we can be full of faith.
Forrest: None of us can be perfect, only Jesus is perfect, but we can be full of faith, but you can't be full of faith without you being faithful to Him.
Forrest: You being faithful to Christ, and your worship and what God wants to do and to speak to you and in prayer.
Forrest: God tells Elijah to move on to what's next.
Forrest: And the book draws up.
Forrest: And then the instruction comes in verse 8.
Forrest: Then the Lord said to Elijah, Go and live in the land of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon.
Forrest: I've instructed a widow there to feed you.
Forrest: Now remember, this place Sidon, this is the same place that Jezebel's from.
Forrest: This is the Baal belt.
Forrest: God is now sending Elijah, not to a widow in his own camp, but God is sending him to a foreigner.
Forrest: To bring faith to a foreigner, to bring God to a foreigner, and to trust that she's gonna feed him.
Forrest: Look at what happened in verse 10.
Forrest: So went to Zarephath.
Forrest: As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and she and he asked her, Would you bring me a little water and a cup?
Forrest: And she was going to get her get it.
Forrest: He called to her, Bring me a bite of bread too.
Forrest: But she said, I swear by the Lord your God.
Forrest: See that?
Forrest: Your God?
Forrest: Not her God.
Forrest: She's saying, By the Lord your God.
Forrest: Elijah.
Forrest: I swear by the Lord your God that I don't have a single piece of bread in the house.
Forrest: I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug.
Forrest: I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal.
Forrest: Everybody say last meal.
Forrest: And then my son and I will die.
Forrest: So the drought has made its way to the north.
Forrest: To Sidon.
Forrest: And there in this house, this widow is about to serve her last meal.
Forrest: And then begin to starve.
Forrest: And Elijah steps in.
Forrest: He says in verse 13, but Elijah said to her, Don't be afraid.
Forrest: Go ahead and do just what you have said, but make a little bread for me first.
Forrest: Then use what's left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son.
Forrest: For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says there will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again.
Forrest: So she did as Elijah said.
Forrest: And she said, She did what Elijah said, and she and Elijah and her son continued to eat for many days.
Forrest: There was always enough flour and olive oil left in the containers, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah.
Forrest: The woman is about to serve her last meal.
Forrest: But Elijah has the faith and knows that God can do whatever he wants and can provide whatever he wants.
Forrest: He can even bring food to them from the birds.
Forrest: He already has that faith, and so he tells this woman, go ahead and make that last meal.
Forrest: And she, in faith, listens to the word of the Lord through Elijah, and she prepares this last meal, and then God does a miracle of multiplication.
Forrest: And provision comes to her household, and they don't run out of food.
Forrest: There's always food that's there.
Forrest: And so for you and me, we need to, like Elijah, get a Graduating faith.
Forrest: That's my second point.
Forrest: Get a graduating faith.
Forrest: The things that God has done for you in the past, instead of you forgetting them, why don't you remember how faithful God has been to you so then your faith can grow in the future?
Forrest: It's like going up a set of stairs, stepping up as you are the faithfulness of God in your past will help you to graduate and to lift up your faith and your belief, your trust and submission to God as you step up the stairs.
Forrest: Now, what what what does that also imply?
Forrest: It implies this that if at some point you were closer to God in the past than you are right now, that didn't mean Hebu.
Forrest: That means you walk backwards down the stairs.
Forrest: And it's time for you to turn around and to walk back up towards God in full faith, walking out what God has for you as your faith is graduating to the next level, and to the next level, and to the next level, and you're stacking up faith in the faithfulness of God.
Forrest: So when the trying times come, you can believe that God has your back.
Forrest: And in the difficulty and the hardship, you know that you're not just a citizen of this world, but a citizen of the kingdom of God.
Forrest: And that your last breath on earth is going to be your first breath in heaven with the king in paradise.
Forrest: As you stair step, as you step up in faith, God does this miracle of multiplication.
Forrest: And then this woman's greatest crisis comes.
Forrest: Verse 17.
Forrest: Sometime later, the woman's son became sick.
Forrest: He grew worse and worse, and finally he died.
Forrest: Verse 18.
Forrest: Then she said to Elijah, O man of God, what have you done to me?
Forrest: Have you come here to point out my sins and kill my son?
Forrest: But Elijah replied, Give me your son.
Forrest: And he took the child's body from her arms and carried him up the stairs to the room where he was staying, and he laid the body on his bed.
Forrest: And then Elijah cried out to the Lord, O Lord, my God, why have you brought this tragedy to this widow who has opened her home to me, causing her son to die?
Forrest: And then he stretched himself out over the child three times and cried out to the Lord, O Lord, my God, please let this child's life return to him.
Forrest: And the Lord heard Elijah's prayer, and the life of the child returned, and he revived.
Forrest: Then Elijah brought him down from the upper room and gave him to his mother.
Forrest: Look, he said, Your son is alive.
Forrest: And then the woman told Elijah, Now I know for sure that you are a man of God and that the Lord truly speaks through you.
Forrest: Elijah, with his graduated faith, when this crisis comes and this child dies, he scoops him up and takes him up the stairs and steps up into a new level of faith.
Forrest: And we see for the first time in the scripture a resurrection be recorded.
Forrest: Resurrection power that then would be a foreshadowing of the Son of God when he stepped out of the grave alive and resurrected on Easter morning.
Forrest: That now you and I have access to that resurrection power that we would be redeemed and that we would see other people be redeemed and resurrected today.
Forrest: You know, I was reminded this week in a conversation with someone that you're only as deep as you do.
Forrest: In a world that is so obsessed with content and getting the latest truth, you can get sermons from people all across, the best preachers all across the world.
Forrest: You can get content, content, content, all you want.
Forrest: You can get a new revelation, you get a new revelation, a new revelation.
Forrest: But if you just have knowledge and you don't have love, Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13 that if you have knowledge but you don't have love, then all you are is a clanging symbol.
Forrest: And a clanging symbol is annoying.
Forrest: So if you're one of these people who is all about the content and you've just got a flow of content and everything is a deeper of content, I need to get more and more theological, and we need to get degrees and accreditations and all these.
Forrest: If that's your focus, but you don't have love, you are annoying.
Forrest: Love.
Forrest: The love of God that's flowing out from you as you actually do what Jesus has called you to do in his word, and that by doing so, you step into the faith that God has called you out from so that you can walk with him in faith now and every single day of the rest of your life, having full confidence that the resurrection power of Christ is flowing through your life.
Forrest: To redeem you, to restore you, but then to overflow to others.
Forrest: And that overflow that's flowing to others is from this place of having this graduated faith that for you to actually move, and guess what?
Forrest: You have to move before the miracle.
Forrest: That's my third point.
Forrest: You have to move before the miracle.
Forrest: This woman, she gave up her last meal in faith because of what the Lord had told her through Elijah, and then the miracle happened.
Forrest: Elijah, in full faith, took that boy up the stairs, believing that God was able to raise him from the dead, and he was revived.
Forrest: What's crazy about Elijah's story is this this isn't even the craziest miracles that are about to come.
Forrest: But as we look at his story the next couple of weeks, even bigger things happen because his faith is building on top of another, and he's willing to move before you see the miracle, and he was willing to move before he saw the miracle.
Forrest: And in the same way, we need to have a faith as we're walking towards God that we're able to step out in faith and take the step of things that we know that are holding us back, but we need to step up to the next level.
Forrest: And as we do that, the spirit of Elijah, the spirit of God, can flow out from your life and break out of this place in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Forrest: Can I celebrate something with you?
Forrest: Last Sunday, four people made the decision to be baptized last Sunday.
Forrest: And the reason why they made the decision to be baptized is probably because they saw Trace Miles get into the water right here, and for him to proclaim the fact that now he's a believer and follower of Jesus, and they saw that, and he stepped out in faith, and then it's other people, faith just welled up in them for them to make that decision.
Forrest: And here's the thing: what in the world does God want to do through you in your life as you continue to step out in faith?
Forrest: What does God want to do through our church?
Forrest: I have no idea, but the whole point of us looking at this series of us talking about faith is really leading into our next series that comes, it's all about prayer and asking God to do something powerful in this place and through you and through our lives and in our workplaces that God would flow through us and his resurrection power would change lives and we would see people redeemed and restored by the blood of Christ, and then we would be people of action, that we would be people of faith, not just hearers of the word, but doers of the word.
Forrest: And then we would be part of the redemptive work that Jesus did on the cross and is still doing day after day as he's redeeming this world.
Forrest: The wickedness that we experience, the antidote is Jesus.
Forrest: The antidote is Christ.
Forrest: The night before Jesus died, he took this cup and bread, and he broke it, and he said, Do this in remembrance of me.
Forrest: Can I tell you that there's probably people in this place right now that you need the resurrection power of Christ to change you and transform your heart for you to give your life to Jesus, to believe in his death, burial, and resurrection for the first time?
Forrest: In a few moments, we're gonna take this communion together, but I want you to bow your heads and pray with me, Father, right now.