1 Kings 17 God Often Leads With The Next Right Step

Your “next step” might feel too small to matter, but that’s often where God starts. We open 1 Kings 17 and follow Elijah into a season where the water literally runs dry, the easy provision ends, and God doesn’t hand him a five-year plan. Instead, God sends him to Zarephath, a place that feels like enemy territory and a crucible all at once, and tells him to stay. 

We walk through three anchors for anyone facing spiritual drought, burnout, fear, or constant bad news: God sometimes sends us into painful places for our good and his glory, God uses our faith to strengthen other people, and God does what he says he will do. Along the way we connect Elijah’s story to real life trust issues, the temptation to run from hard places, and what it looks like to be planted for the sake of a hurting community. We also talk candidly about church being a hospital, making room for people who are messy, loud, and struggling, because that’s the kind of welcome many of us desperately need. 

The widow at the gate has almost nothing, just a little flour and oil and a plan for a last meal, yet God meets her with daily provision and a direct word: “Do not be afraid.” That same thread leads us to the gospel, where our hope isn’t wishful thinking, it’s rooted in Jesus’ death and resurrection and God’s proven faithfulness. If you’re tired, scared, or down to “a couple sticks,” we’re praying this message helps you take the next faithful step. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Bibles For Everyone

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Amen. Amen. Today we are going to be in 1 Kings chapter 17. We have Bibles available on both sides. We have Bibles available on that side as well. We have great study Bibles. If you don't have a really good study Bible in a language you can understand, please take one. And we have them in multiple languages. Tenemos Biblias Bilinguees disponibles o costara del Salom. Bonjour Mwensatzim can avec muen isit la nueg bib creo punis nasomson au creo. Alright. So just so you know, if this is your first time in our church, there's a few things you need to know. We welcome people here. And sometimes they make noise, sometimes kids make noise, and we think it's beautiful. And we always say a crying church ain't a dying church. When you hear kids crying and making noise, it means that we're a church that is going to be alive ten years from now, 20 years from now, because those kids will be taking leadership one day. So a long time ago, before Apple Maps, before Google Maps, before Yahoo Maps, before MapQuest, we had this thing. It was a navigational thing that we called maps. It was like paper, you know? And when I was a kid, we would go to AAA and we would get our maps there when we went on a trip. And there was no updates to traffic or if streets were closed or anything like that. But that's what we did. Now I will say for the most part, most of my adulthood, we had like kind of the middle thing, right? For a little while we had uh these GPSs that you would buy at Costco and then they would steal them out of your car, which is what happened to us. Um but then it uh before it went to our phones, we had printout maps. And so that's what we did. We printed out maps from like MapQuest, and you would print it out, and then um there would be like 12 ads and like three lines, you know, to help you get to your destination. Uh uh and so what would happen is, you know, like I don't know if anyone's like me, but you would not prepare well, and then you would um print out your map um only to find out that you were out of toner, and then you you couldn't get to your destination. And so um uh hey Tiffany, it's good to see you. It's good to see you. Come on, sit down. And if you could try to like not be too loud, that would bless me. I appreciate you, thank you. All right, so what would happen is if you were really blessed though, you would have a navigator, right? Somebody who could tell you where to go, um, just like what we have now in our phones, right? And so you would you would have it say left, right, left. That would be the person sitting in the front seat, right? Um, the problem is, is uh uh my wife would give me those directions, and I have you know what we might call ADD, right? So she would say left, then a right, and then a left, and I would say, all right, U-turn, right? Is that what you said? U-turn, you turn? She's like, no, I said left, right, and then left. And I'm like, cool, got you. Left and then straight for how long? What and she's like, no, I said left, right, left. This is a problem that I had. I was I would struggle to listen to directions. I learned my wife was good at getting us there because she could just tell me one thing at a time. Okay, you're gonna turn left, okay? Left. You're gonna let no, not not no no left. This is kind of how it goes when I would get directions from my wife. I don't know if anybody else is like me or if you have a spouse like me. It's a struggle bus. I get that. But the thing is she couldn't get us home. So praise God, I knew how to get us home. Like I knew, okay, I know where we came from, I can get us there, okay? Um, Ashley had to tell me one thing at a time, and she had to repeat it over and over and over again. That's what she did. In the same way, I have learned, friends, that often God doesn't want us to get in front of ourselves either. And often he will just give you the next step. Because he knows if he gives you too many steps, you're gonna struggle. It's annoying, and it's good. And it would seem in our text today that's what he's doing for Elijah. So, as you recall, last week, if you were with us, Elijah had confronted the king and his evil boss, uh, excuse me, his king, who is also his evil boss, basically, and he told him that God was gonna stop the rain. If you're gonna worship Baal, this fake God, then God is saying, we're not gonna rain down anything anymore. It's done. And so he said, until I say so. And so what happens next is that Elijah was sent by God to hide by a river. Uh we call it a wadi, and he was fed uh meat and bread by ravens, which were unclean birds, which was weird if you were a Jewish person. And then it said this in verse 7 of 1 Kings 17:7, after a while the wadi dried up because there had been no rain in the land. See, only after that did God tell Elijah to do what was next. You know, that's crazy. God wanted Elijah to be faithful with just the next step, friends. See, when God sends his children into difficult places and when trust feels insane, God remains trustworthy. So I hope you're with me in 1 Kings 17, 8 through 15. 1 Kings 17, 8 through 15. If you're not, that's okay. We will put it up on the board as well. Um, but I always appreciate when you check my work. If I say God says something and you don't see it in the text, it's always good to check in. All right, so this is uh 1 Kings 17 8. Then the word of the Lord came to him. Get up, go to Zarephath that belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Look, I have commanded a woman who is a widow to provide for you there. So Elijah got up and went to Zarephath. When he arrived at the city gate, there was a widow gathering wood. Elijah called to her and he said, Please bring me a little water in a cup and let me drink. As she went to go get it, he called to her, Hey, um, please bring me a piece of bread in your hand. But she said, As the Lord your God lives, that your is important. I don't have anything baked, only a handful of flour in a jar, and a bit of oil in the jug. Just now I am gathering a couple of sticks in order to go prepare it for myself and my son so we can eat it and die. Then Elijah said to her, Don't be afraid, go and do as you have said. But first make me a small loaf from it and bring it out to me. Afterward you may make some for yourself and your son, for this is what the Lord God of Israel says the flower jar will not become empty, and the oil jug will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the surface of the land. So she proceeded to do according to the word of Elijah. Then the woman, Elijah, and her household ate for many days. The flower jar did not become empty, and the oil jug did not run dry, according to the word of the Lord he had spoken through Elijah. This is God's word. Would you pray with me, friends? Father, we thank you for loving your children. Loving your children with a relentless love. And God, as we just look around us and we see the pain. We see pain in the mirror, we see pain in our friends' faces, we see suffering. God, and sometimes we look at the pain and the sorrow and the suffering around us, and we just want to give up. Some of us in the room have sustained so many hits in their lives, and I just ask that as we come to your well this morning, thirsty and dry, that you would refresh and sustain us. Make us more and more like your Son Jesus. Give us faith and strength to obey and trust you even when we don't understand. And God, I'm just gonna be real with you. We don't understand a lot of the time. And so we ask that you would teach us. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing to you. We pray this all in Jesus' name, and all God's people said, Amen. So I've already told you why I love uh the Bible's account of Elijah. Because Elijah stood in the presence of God, and then moments later he struggled. And I think so many times we think God is with us, so why am I struggling? God is present with me. I know God is real, I know God is good, so why do I not feel God is good? Why am I suffering? Why am I struggling right now? This is why I love Elijah. I love his story. He's like us. He stands in the presence of God and he gets in his own head all the time. Elijah felt what so many of you are constantly feeling. And today I'm gonna give you three facts about God when the water runs dry. And nobody at the first service got any references to boys to men there. So my first fact is this God sends us to painful places for our good and his glory. For our good and his glory. See, then the word of the Lord came to him in verse 8. In verse 9, he said, Get up, go to Zarephath that belongs to Sidon, and stay there. Look, I've commanded a woman who is a widow to provide for you from there. So Elijah got up and went to Zarepheth. Now, see, after the river dried up, God sent Elijah to Zarepheth. Zarepheth means smelter, means crucible, like where you would melt silver down and remove any of the impurities. So Elijah was being sent to the crucible. That's not a place I want to go, a place that melts you like wax. The crucible is Sidon. Now remember last week where we told you about the terrible queen Jezebel from the region of Tyre and Sidon. Sidon, where they worshiped the false god Baal. We talked about how the king married this terrible Sidonian woman who encouraged him in all kinds of evil. But he was already gifted and evil himself. He didn't even need her help, but he just went further. Now the the moral could have easily been stay away from Sidonians. That could be the moral if someone was just looking at it out of context. But in reality, while marrying and dating someone outside your faith is a problem, going to those people is a different story. We are sent to people who are just like Sidonians. God sends us there. Now Elijah had been hiding from uh from Jezebel, the Sidonian woman, and God sent him to hide. And then after the water dried up, he sent Elijah to another Sidonian woman, which is crazy. Like, I bet he was like, God, this plant of yours, like I'm I know you're like all-knowing, all-powerful, but what what are you thinking? Like, I'm if I were like Elijah, I don't know about you, I might ask him some questions. Like, Lord, you wanted me to hide because you wanted me safe. Now you're sending me to Jezebel's hometown? Like, I mean you are Lord, but what are you thinking? I I'm already exhausted from running away. I just spent all this time hiding while gross birds were feeding me food, and God's like, hey man, just take the next right step. Just trust me. And Charles Swindah, he says this he says, if you walk with the Lord long enough, you will discover that his tests often come back to back. Or perhaps it would be even more accurate to say, back to back to back to back to back. That's what a crucible does. That's what a furnace does. It brings all the impurities to the surface so they can be skimmed off, leaving greater purity. So we thank God for the faith of Elijah. Because without his trust, we wouldn't have the beautiful sections we have in our Bible. Elijah showed great trust in the midst of struggle, in the midst of tragedy, in the midst of loss. Guys, when God sends us into difficult places and trust feels insane, he remains trustworthy. Now, Proverbs 3, 5 through 8 says this trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Don't be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. This will be healing for your body and strengthening for your bones. But the funny thing is, while we say trust in the Lord, you know what we really trust in? We trust in our jobs. But this can be taken from us. We trust in our health. This can be taken from us. We trust in money, we trust in intellect, we trust in family, but all these things can be taken from us. You know your reputation can disappear overnight if the right person wants to destroy it. Then what do you trust in? Psalm 20 says, Some trust in chariots, some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. Things are going to be bad in your life. It's a promise. It's a promise. We're in a broken world. It needs to be redeemed. Some of you have been sent to places you didn't want to go to, to jobs you did not want to be in, to neighborhoods you did not want to live in. Some of you are in families that you don't want to be in. Don't raise your hand if that's you. Some of you are watching us from hospital beds that you don't want to be in. Some of you are in situations that feel like hell. You don't feel God's presence in that moment. But you are there for your good and his glory, and he is there with you. It's his promise. Now I'm amazed at how often Christians talk to me about how they're leaving California because it's godlessness. And and and it's it's it's weird to me because I talk to Christians, like I've spoken to Christians that are um Syrian, and I'll give them a hug and I'll pray with them, and then um it's kind of like see you in heaven, man. You're going to die. You're choosing death because you love Jesus. Christians who have gone to Iran, to China, but here in the United States, we're trying to flee evil. Like, guys, we want to flee doing evil, but we don't want to flee those who are evil. We want to confront it with the goodness of God. It's like, here's the thing: like, I know we all want to live in the middle of a beautiful forest, perfect Christian, beautiful forest. Like, I just want to run away to that forest and be safe in the forest. But you can also be here in the midst of the ash and dust, and you can start planting trees too. You can plant trees that the next generation may marvel at the beauty of God all around them. Why run away? You can do something great here. Now, trauma surgeons, they don't go to school for 10 years so they can live in the healthiest and safest cities in the world and only take care of boo-boos and like little stitches. That's not what a trauma surgeon does. No, no, they are needed where people are dying. They are needed where people are dying without their help. They run towards these things. And this is what God is doing with us. God has sent many of you to San Diego. Not from. Maybe some of you he'll send somewhere else. Like, not lying, but I believe he's planted some of you in the hood right here in Mount Hope amidst pain and suffering for his glory. For his glory. And I know many of you will suffer because of it. But we need more healthy Christians here to serve those who are suffering apart from Jesus. I know water costs more here. I know housing is more expensive here. I know electricity costs like three times as much as it might cost you somewhere else. Insurance, how long do I go on in this? We have less support for our faith in schools and in government. Everything is more difficult. Ministry is harder in the hood, but this is why God sends us here. This is why God sent you to that hard family of yours. Because he's going to use you for his glory. And guys, we have so many holes here, so many holes that need to be filled by people that can help. But the thing is, is like we need volunteers who are healthy to step up. And sometimes, you know, uh not everybody here's gonna pass a background check and be able to work in kids. It's just a problem. But it's all right. I believe many that God has called many of us to live here, to plant seeds, to put down roots, to care for the hurting and the dying, and to share the good news, and that's not gonna be easy. Now, where did Jesus say in the Bible that this would be easy? Nowhere. He said, Come follow me, and he says, Pick up your cross. What is a cross? It's a death instrument. Come pick, like it's like I'm not okay. He did not say it would be easy, he said, Come and die. He said, Come and die. And he never said, Come and sit my ties on the beach. Maybe he didn't want to you, I don't know, but he did not say that to me. He said, Come and die. God has made you a soldier in his army, but not for violence, but for compassion and care and violence against the devil. And it means that you might feel like Elijah sometimes, like you're fleeing the Sidonian enemy and you are running to a Sidonian. And you're like, What? What, Lord? Now in Matthew 9 35, Jesus continued going around to all the towns and villages, not because they were doing well, okay? Teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, healing every disease and every sickness. Where would Jesus have gone if nobody was sick? Not there. Where would Jesus have have gone if there were no diseases? Not there. When he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, the harvest is abundant and the workers are few. Therefore, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest. Guys, we pray for more people to come to care for this community because it's difficult here. But we're in this fight for a reason. There are people here that when you care for our community, you change generations. Guys, church is not just here for you. We are here to encourage and empower you to make disciples of the people around you, to offer them encouragement and hope from God's word. And let me just tell you, like Elijah, you can share good news while you suffer. He will use your suffering in ways you could not imagine. He can take your fragile fear and he can turn it into a truss made out of iron. And when he gives you greater faith amidst your doubts and suffering, something amazing happens, friends. This is our second fact that uh about God, for when the water runs dry, God uses our faith for others. God uses our faith for others. When he arrived at the city gate, there was a widow gathering wood. He called to her, said, Please bring a little water and a cup. Let me drink. Verse 11, as she went to get it, he called to her and said, Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand. But she said, As the Lord your God lives, I don't have anything baked. You think I got something bakery? No. As a only a handful of flour and a jar, a bit of oil and a jug. But just now I was gathering a couple sticks in order to go prepare it for myself and my son so we could just eat it and die. That's it. Now do you see what is happening here? God sent Elijah to Baal's hometown, and all you saw was dust and ash. God sent his team on the road into enemy territory, and the home team couldn't bring the smoke. Everything in Sidon was dying. She was only getting a couple sticks to cook bread on. She didn't say uh uh uh she was gathering like a handful of sticks, even a couple. That's like one pondasol, one KFC biscuit for two starving humans. It's not a meal for nourishment, it's a last meal to usher in death, a little last joy before you die. Now, Indian pastor Havila Duramjas, he says it succinctly, he says, Baal's worshippers have lost hope. This is where the seed of the gospel comes in. Verse 13, Elijah said to her, Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Go and do as you have said, but first make me a small loaf from it and bring it out to me. Afterward you may make some for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord God of Israel says. The flour jar will not become empty, and the oil jug will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the surface of the land. So she proceeded to do according to the word of Elijah. Then the woman, Elijah, and her husband ate for many days. Now you guys gotta understand Jewish hospitality and Middle East. It's alright. It's we're okay. Hey, Tiffany, if you do Tiffany, you're gonna have to leave if you do that. Okay? This is your last chance, okay? We like you being here. Just don't yell, okay? Thank you. Alright. Okay, so okay, Tiffany, it's time to go. We love you. Come back next week, okay? Come back next week. So this is what we do, friends. Um, we we believe that church should be a place where people get a chance, and so we give her chances and um we want her to feel welcome. Um but there's times when she uh outstays her welcome and we tell her, come back next time, don't drink when you come back next time. So uh one of the things, friends, um she she doesn't have another place that would welcome her. So um if God sends us to hard places and he doesn't allow us to engage people who are in hard places, then I don't know what we're doing. So we're a hospital. We love her. Yeah, we love her even if you know she cusses me out every once in a while or every other week. Um, all right, so here's here's what we're saying. Let's bring it back in, okay? Now, he's at the he's at the city gates, right? Elijah's there. Now, Jewish and Middle Eastern hospitality would say that when you arrive at city gates, people should welcome you with open arms and food. But the city was in ruins. Like they were in the middle of a three and a half year famine. People were burying their dead, eating last meals, focused on their suffering. They're not thinking about hospitality at this moment. You ever feel that way? You feel at the end of your rope, and then you gotta like host people in your house for a city group or something? Dang, man. You gotta. To lead a city group? You gotta you ever just get in a fight with your spouse and then someone asks you about your faith or asks you to pray for them, and you're like, Man, not today. We are closed. But God works big in those moments. When you have nothing to offer, he fills in the gaps. And I know a lot of you in the room right now feel like I got nothing to offer. But God works big in those moments. And he did here. Out of all the people God chose, he chose this widow. And she was obedient. She clearly didn't even believe in Elijah's God. Did you hear what she said? She said, as your God lives. As your God lives. This is a statement. I I may not hear this exact statement, you guys, but I hear the same sentiment all the dang time. Okay? When people have been sick, when they have money woes, when bad things happen to them, they will appeal to just about anything. Sage, you know, Buddha, weed, doctors, sex. They hope that that will get them out of this and anything else that might work. Okay, but then when all hope is lost, they will approach me and say, Hey man, I've tried everything. Um, I I don't really believe, but like I see what God does for you. Can you pray for him to do that from me? Well that that comes after a lot of time sitting in the dirt with somebody for them to say that to you. Sometimes God does a miracle there. Elijah was known as a man of God, and his reputation preceded him, and so he was able to speak to this woman. Now, can you imagine them? Like he shows up at the city gates, right? And there's this guy who made it stop reigning for three and a half years. Man, I'm gonna go punch him in the mouth. That's the kind of hospitality I want to give him. Let's go jump him right now. And then they start thinking, if he could stand up to a king and a queen and still live, if God shut down our idol Baal, then maybe we shouldn't mess with him. Or like, like, what if he did something worse to us? And yet this widow with nothing to lose, she engaged the prophet. And he said to her, Don't be afraid. The same words God and the angels spoke when people cowered in their presence. Don't be afraid. God said these words to Jacob, don't be afraid. Rachel, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Ezekiel, Daniel, many of the Jewish kings. He said it to Mary, to Zechariah in the New Testament, and the women searching for Jesus after his resurrection. He said it to the Apostle Paul, do not be afraid. God also repeated this phrase through his leaders Moses, Joshua, Boaz, Samuel, David, Nehemiah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zechariah the prophet in the Old Testament, and especially Jesus. Do not be afraid. What do those words mean to you when you have nothing left? Now there is also a woman in the Bible named Hagar, an Egyptian slave woman, who fled an abusive situation, unloved by her baby daddy. She ended up stranded in the desert, friends. No water, no food, and she was dying of thirst, and she took her child and she put her child under a bush and she walked away. She walked away from her child that she loved, and she loved him. But the Bible says God heard the wails of her child, the cries of her child, and he said to Hagar, Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid. And then he just provided the next step for her. He showed her a well, fresh water to revive her and her son Ishmael. And I tell you, for those of you who feel like you're in a Hagar kind of moment, for those of you who feel like the widow in Zarephath, do not be afraid. I will trust in you. In God whose words I praise, in God I will trust. I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? See, God may using may be using that tiny shred of faith that you have right now, and He's using it to encourage the people around you, even if you got a sliver. Just as Elijah was able to revive a dying mother and her child, God used hunger to give faith to a widow, and even possibly a town that was suffering under a terrible famine. Their deliverance would not come through anything but a famine. Now you may not feel faithful right now, that's okay. But when you give your life to Jesus, the Bible says his spirit gives you faithfulness. His spirit is faithfulness in you. God does not waste anything, not even your suffering, friends. See, when God sends us into impossible places and trust feels insane, he remains trustworthy. And in our suffering, in our pain, God promises us through his word, he promises that, he gives us promises that even transcend this current pain. And that's our third point. God always does what he says he'll do. That's a silly statement, isn't it? Like when God says something, he'll do it, and yet so often he'll say something to us, and we're like, Yeah, yeah, except in this case. Verse 16, the flower jar did not become empty, and the oil jug did not run dry, according to the word of the Lord He had spoken through Elijah. Now, guys, we've seen God do this before many times. When Jesus fed thousands with only a couple fish sticks and a like a loaf of wonder bread. Like God did that. And when Israel was in the desert after fleeing oppressive Egypt, God provided them something called manna, which basically means, what is this? What's the stuff I'm looking at right here? They were allowed to only gather a certain amount, though. And if they gathered beyond that, it would end up infested with maggots because he wanted them to trust them for tomorrow. But when the when they could gather twice as much on a Friday because the next day was their day of rest and it wouldn't spoil. That's the way God works, friends. That's the way God works. God had intention for all of this. It's trust. He wanted Israel to trust him. Now, how much of the Bible is about trust, friends? God promises us joy. But do we trust him for it when all we see is suffering? Do we? He is reliable, friends, much more than me or you. When things are bad, when our relationships are bad, do we trust God? Like maybe you say you trust God and then you have a car accident. Are you gonna trust him? Your pet died. Are you gonna trust him? Your spouse left you. Are you gonna trust him? You couldn't get the surgery you desperately needed. Are you going to trust him? You got an unexpected bill, you are struggling to make ends meet. Your kids are acting wild. You are fighting with the people you love. You have an injury, a cancer diagnosis, you're in addiction. Do you trust him in these things? Because I'll just tell you this, guys. He is trustworthy. Some trust in chariots, some trust in jobs, some trust in money, but we trust in the Lord our God. Deuteronomy 7, yes, says, Know therefore that the Lord your God is God and a faithful God who keeps his covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. That is steadfast, unending love, friends. There are some people in the room that trust everything and everyone. That's awesome. I I love you guys. You're the best. Some people might call you gullible, but in most cases, I just think it's kind of sweet. Like you're awesome. Um, but I'd say the majority of us, we don't trust anything or anyone. I'm just being real. Like we are pessimistic people, are we not? We've been trained that way, right? Like mom and dad are like, what are you taking your money out for on the trolley? You know, like put it away. Don't let anybody see that. Nowadays, you you can watch an AI video and you have no idea that it's fake, right? So that means that every video now is fake, right? People can make a video of you killing somebody. They can make a video of you naked now. It's not good, it's not a good thing. It's not you, it's fake. But it causes us to trust nothing, right? No wonder we have trust issues. Man, I've been ripped off on eBay. I've had my car stolen when I was on tour with my band. I've had my surfboard, my wetsuit stolen off my porch. I've had my catalytic converter stolen off my porch, I've had my shoes stolen. People have stolen plenty of things from this church building. Matter of fact, like we had a bunch of stuff go missing right before the Easter egg hunt. Like we had these uh these speakers um that were rechargeable that we use, they're gone. We don't know where they went. Like they just disappeared. Hopefully it was an accident. But you know, all these things causes you to do what? You don't trust anybody. I swear, for like 10 years in the 90s, um, and I was corrected because this place only opened in 1997, um, but like in the 90s and 2000s, we used to go to the In N Out by the sports arena. Um, and the same guy would stop us every dang time. Hey man, uh I was driving my family and uh we ran out of gas, and we're just trying to get across country, and if you could just like hook me up with five bucks, you know, we could get you know get back on the road. And you know, the first time we're like, oh, oh man, I'm so sorry, you know. And then it's like, you know, two weeks later, hey man, uh I hate to do this to you. And we're like, wait a minute. Then, you know, the third time, then the fourth time, then the fifth time, you're like, dude, we know what you got, one MPG on that car? What are you driving a tank? The thing is, is that it causes us to do what? We stop trusting anybody. Matter of, you know, someone's gonna run out of gas sometime, and everybody like you run out of gas over by that in and out, over by the sports arena, you're never getting out of there. You are that's purgatory, okay? You are stuck. It's funny, but these things pile up, by the way. I don't believe in purgatory, sorry. Uh but you get lied to daily by politicians, don't you? Social media, family members, no matter how trusting you are at some point, you are going to get hardened and bitter. Then you see all the pastors getting in trouble for doing some things that are terrible. Pastors. People who are supposed to shepherd the sheep, abusing them. You see supposed Jesus followers doing the terrible things that you read in your history books. Very reliable sources have shown us that Dr. King, one of my heroes, had multiple affairs. But then people look outside the church and they say the church is failing you, but no one else will. And then what came out the news this week that Caesar Chavez was likely a slime ball to women. No wonder we got trust issues. This should cause us to have trust issues, right? And yet, God is trustworthy. He has shown up again and again and again. But we tend to remember the other things where people have hurt us. In his great suffering, the prophet Jeremiah said in Lamentations 3 the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. God is faithful to his children. When God sends us to impossible places and trust feels insane, he remains trustworthy, he remains faithful. It takes a lot to trust God when everything seems wrong. But it's what Christians do, it's what God has adopted and redeemed you to do. And it's what this poor Sidonian woman did.

unknown 33:20

Dr.

Gospel Hope And A Call To Respond

When Life Feels Hopeless

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Tony Evans says, even in the face of certain death, she acted on faith, trusting in the word of the living God, and he provided. Evans goes on to say, we should give others the very thing we wish God would give us. We should give others the very thing we wish God would give us. Friends, this woman chose hope based on very little information. She was a Baal worshiper whose husband had died, and she was about to cook this last meal before she died. What did she have to put hope in? Nothing. But you Christians in the room, you have an advantage. You have great access to the hope that she never had. Romans 5 says, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Now, for those of you who have never grabbed a hold of this good news, who have never really truly embraced this hope, uh, you can have that hope today. You may have heard of it called the gospel. The gospel is this when we had no chance, when we had no hope, when we had nothing on our side, we had God on our side. He sent his son Jesus to this earth to die on the cross for our sins. A lot of us sometimes think God makes all these rules and then condemns us, even though we're not very good at keeping them. He made us that way. Here's the thing He made a way to save you too. We kind of forget that, don't we? Jesus died on the cross for your sins, rose again on the third day, defeating sin and death, defeating the devil. So you could have hope in tomorrow. So you could have hope in tomorrow, but but you know, like there's something to just have hope up here, and there's another to have it here, and we gotta live it out, friends. When you give your life to God, everything changes. There will still be hopeless moments, but you will find hope inside of you that is not you, it does not originate from you. It's not from your spouse, it's not from your job, it's not from your gullibility, which is awesome, but God in you, Christ, the hope of glory. When you belong to Jesus, you now have a book full of hope, too, that you can trust. You have the Holy Spirit of God in you. God lives in you when you give your life to God. You have a full church of people ready to help you in the struggle, and you other times you are going to be the church to the people who are struggling. You get to sing songs of hope every week. We got Spotify now. Even if you can't sing a lick, you can sing with the best worship teams in the world. When you gather with God's people and you study God's word and you sing of the goodness and glory and hope of God, and God's spirit is working in you, counseling, encouraging, empowering you, you get hope. Real hope, and there's nothing that can touch that. If this is not you yet, I say, stop waiting, apologize for your sins, choose to follow God from now on. Tell the world you belong to Jesus, be baptized, make your home with this peculiar people called God's church. This place is a power plant for hope. But you have to stay in the fight. Together we get our energy from the Son, S-O-N, the Father and the Holy Ghost. When it feels like our last meal, friends, when we are gathering but a couple sticks, and it says a couple sticks, right? Not a bundle, a couple. He's there with us. Do you feel like you just got a couple uh sticks left to cook your last meal? He's there with you. He gives you his presence and he gives you his hope. And if God promises something, he always comes through. He's not a man that he should lie to you. God is true to his word. And so I say this to you, City Life Church and guests. Sometimes life looks hopeless. Sometimes it does. Sometimes life be life. When it feels like pain is piling on top of tragedy and on top of suffering, it feels hopeless. Maybe you all are just so tired you feel hopeless. But our caring, loving God is with you in those moments. He doesn't leave you, he doesn't forsake you. His arm is not too short to save you. Guys, when God sends us into impossible places and trust feels insane, God remains trustworthy. Let's pray.