"What Are You Doing Here?" (June 28, 2026 Sermon)

Text: 1 Kings 19:1-18

Preaching: Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing

Faith fatigue can sneak up on you right after you’ve done something brave. You fight for what is right, you try to love your neighbor, you try to follow Jesus with your whole life, and then the world still feels cruel and out of control. That emotional crash is where Elijah lands in 1 Kings 19 and it’s where many of us recognize ourselves.

We reflect on Elijah’s fear, his flight into the wilderness, and the raw honesty of his prayer under the broom tree. Then we slow down to notice how God responds. Before God gives Elijah a new task, God gives him care: rest, water, bread, and the space to recover. If you’re dealing with spiritual burnout, compassion fatigue, or the exhaustion that comes from justice work, this is a reminder that your body and spirit belong in the conversation too.

From there we follow Elijah to Mount Horeb, where wind, earthquake, and fire pass by, but God shows up in a sound of sheer silence, the still small voice. We talk about what it means to listen, to reflect without shame, and to hear God’s question as an invitation: “What are you doing here?” And we end with hope that is practical, not fluffy, because God makes it clear the life of faith is not a solo marathon, it’s a relay race. We’re meant to share the mantle, raise up others, and keep moving one faithful step at a time.

If this message meets you where you are, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s tired, and leave a review so more people can find it. What helps you hear the still small voice when life gets loud?

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Transcript

Scripture From First Kings 19

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Today's scripture comes to us from 1 Kings 19, verses 1 through 18. Let us listen for the word of the Lord. Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow. Then he was afraid. Elijah got up and fled for his life, and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah. He left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die. It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors. Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, Get up and eat. He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. He ate and drank and lay down again. The angel of the Lord came a second time, touched him, and said, Get up and eat, or the journey or the journey will be too much for you. He got up and ate and drank. Then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the Mount of God. At that place he came to a cave and spent the night there. Then the word of the Lord came to him, saying, What are you doing here, Elijah? He answered, I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life to take it away. He said, Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks and pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, What are you doing here, Elijah? Elijah answered, I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life to take it away. But the Lord said to him, Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive, you shall anoint Hazel as king over Aram, and you shall anoint Jehu, son of Nimshe, as king over Israel, and you shall anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat of Abel Mahola, as prophet in your place. Whoever escapes from the sword of Haziel, Jehu shall kill, and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill. Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him. Friends, holy wisdom, holy word. Thanks be to God.

A Different Sermon Approach

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Alright, friends, I'm stepping out of the pulpit today for a little bit of a different sermon. I spent some quiet time for myself this past week in Montreat at the music and worship conference. I took some time for myself to breathe in God's mercies for myself and breathe out God's mercies for others, and I spent a lot more time listening to other people's sermons than writing my own. So today we get to do what I like to call hopefully not so random thoughts from Pastor Stephen. As we wrap up this first part of our sermon series going through the books of 1st and 2 Kings. So first of all, let us pray. O Lord, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable and pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Naming Faith Fatigue Today

SPEAKER_00 4:32

How many of you know what faith fatigue feels like? Maybe you're not quite sure what that means, but you probably have a pretty good guess. This phrase was coined this past week from a sermon that I heard from the Reverend Dr. Brian Blunt, who's the president emeritus at uh at uh at Union Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and he talked about faith fatigue. It's that feeling that I trust that you all feel with me. When we look out in the world and we see all the faithful things that we try to do in our own perfectly imperfect way, both for ourselves as individuals, being followers of Christ, and together as a church seeking to follow Jesus and to be a be agents for good change in the world, and we look around and things don't seem to be going in a really great direction. We see a lot of people that are hurting, a lot of people that are suffering, a lot of people that are scared. We go out and we try to do our best, and yet Haitian immigrants who have done nothing wrong, that have come here illegally, have been given the uh have been given the this presidential administration is going to tell them to get out. And that broke my heart this week. We see things like that, and we look out and we see so much injustice in the world, and we wonder, Lord, why are we here? How is it that we try in our best way to advocate for our neighbors, our immigrants, our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness, and yet there is so much brokenness still in the world. We just want to run away. Do you ever have that feeling? Because your pastor is here saying that he feels this way, and I'm guessing you all do too from time to time. And you know what? There was a prophet in the Bible named Elijah who felt that way too. You may remember last week we recalled the story of Elijah standing up to the powers that be that were leading the Israelites into idolatry, and he got together and challenged the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel, and they had this great showdown in which they uh both tried to get their God to come down and rain fire from heaven, and the prophets of Baal tried in vain to get Baal to show up to rain fire down from heaven, and Baal didn't show up. So then Elijah came and said, Okay,

Elijah’s Collapse And God’s Care

SPEAKER_00 7:05

God, time to do your thing. And guess what? God shows up because we worship a God who does what? Who shows up. Well, Ahab and Jezebel were not very happy because of that. In fact, Jezebel put out a basically a price on Elijah's head. So guess what Elijah did? Ran away. Elijah said, I am out. I have worked so hard for justice and equity and righteousness, and all I have gotten in return for it is a price on my head. And so Elijah flees. He goes to a place called Mount Horeb, and he is feeling tired, he is feeling faith fatigued, he is feeling despondent, so despondent that his prayer to God is that God would let him die. And in that moment, an angel of God shows up and says, Elijah, God has told me to tell you something. You need a nap and a snack. And that's exactly what the angel of God gives Elijah says, take some time for yourself. Rest. Here's a freshly baked cake, here's some fresh water, take some time for yourself. And that's what he does, being led by this angel for 40 days and 40 nights. Does that sound familiar to any of us? Elijah spends 40 days and 40 nights in the silence, recovering, rejuvenating himself, having a bit of a pity party. We're all entitled to that from time to time, aren't we? And then after 40 days and 40 nights, this great wind comes by. And was God in the wind? No. And then an earthquake shatters the floor and the ground. And was God in the earthquake?

unknown 9:09

No.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

And then this great Pentecostal fire comes by. But was God in the fire?

unknown 9:17

No.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

God was in a still, small, quiet voice that said to Elijah, a very simple sentence, What are you doing here? Now we could read that in any various ways. We could read of it as God kind of shaming Elijah, saying, What are you doing here? I like to think that that's not how God was saying. I think God was inviting Elijah into some personal reflection, what we all need to do from time to time because we all need rest. We fight the good fight. We try to join the work of bending the moral arc of the universe that moves stubbornly slow, but it's bending nonetheless. We sometimes need time to reflect and to be quiet and to rejuvenate ourselves before we get back to fighting the good fight of faith. And that is the question that God said to Elijah, Elijah, what are you doing here? And Elijah had taken the time that he needs, and then basically God gives Elijah a new marching order, says, Okay, I'm gonna appoint you to anoint other people. And although it's not in this text, the next thing that God calls Elijah to do is to go and call another prophet by the name of Elisha, right? Elijah is to call Elisha to share the mantle of leadership because what God is saying to Elijah in this space of so much violence and injustice and pain is saying to Elijah, what are you doing here? I called you to do something, but I never called you to do it by yourself. And so I'm going to raise for you Elisha to help you carry the mantle of doing justice

Silence, Relay Faith, And Geese

SPEAKER_00 11:04

and walking humbly and doing kindness. Because, friends, one of the things that I heard in the silence that I took for myself this week from a sermon that I heard from Reverend Dr. Brian Blunt is that the run of face, of faith, rather, is not a solo marathon, it's a relay race. Sometimes we are out there fighting that fight, sometimes we take time for ourselves, as Elijah did, to care for our spirits, to take a nap and a snack. Raise your hand if you ever just need a nap and a snack, right? Yeah. And then there's also time to get back out there, to hand the baton out. And the good news is we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses who have run that race and are handing that baton to us. And you and I are gonna carry that baton, and we may not see this race finished in our lifetime, but that is the life of faith is that there will come a time when you and I will hand that baton off to the next generation. And so, friends, that's the message I want you to hear tonight is to find that still small voice because it's looking for you wherever you are. I'll tell you where I found a small voice this week. We, our house, where we live in southeast Guilford County, has a pond in the back, and we have three families of geese that have called our backyard home. We have about two dozen geese that my family has just enjoyed watching grow up over the past two months. They come to our house every single day around five or six o'clock. I could set my watch to it. They come by, and I'm not crazy about the things that they leave behind. Um watch your step if you come to our house. But I absolutely we just love watching these baby geese grow up. And a few nights in last week um or the week before last, we had this huge storm. Thanks be to God, because we need some rain, don't we? Um we had this huge storm that scared all of us, especially our little girls, and the thunder was clapping and it was loud and scary. And I took Winnie outside and I said, Look at the geese. They're just hanging out and doing their thing. They're just out there still and quiet and calm as the very heavens are thundering around them. And I kind of said to Winnie, look, the still small voice of God in the midst of the crazy and the loudness. So, friends, look for geese wherever, whatever those metaphorical geese are for you, and trust that that still small voice is going to call you to where God is calling you to be. Because the good news of this text, and after our three-week break, where uh Reverend Potter will be leading you all, we'll hop back on to 2 Kings and we'll know the rest of the story. The rest of the story is that things don't go very well for Ahab and for Jezebel. They both die. Jezebel gets um thrown out of a window. Does anybody know what word that is, what word that that is in the Bible? It's called being defenestrated. It's one of my favorite words. Um, things do not end up well for Jezebel and Ahab, and Elijah eventually gets carried off to heaven in a chariot. And maybe we will see those glorious times when the chariot comes, and maybe we won't, but we continue that work. As we close every single worship service here at Guilford Park, remember that we are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are we free what? To abandon it. So remember that, friends. Listen to that still small voice calling you to where God is calling you this day. In the name of God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God's beloved children, say.

unknown 14:48

Amen.