Prayer // Fire, Water, Stillness

Coming soon!

Stand with me for the reading with God's word this morning. Psalms, chapter , verse  says this.  

Father God, this morning we just continue to invite your presence to minister to us today. Lord, we thank you that as we study your word this morning that you will illuminate the truth about prayer in our lives and how we can come to you.

And the peace that passes all understanding that we experience when we are able to be in covenant union with you.

Lord, I thank you that you just blessed this time together. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. You may be seated. You may be seated.

All right. So I am excited. We are in a series on prayer, and we're continuing that series today. And here is what we're going to talk about. It's a little different.

You know, so studying the Bible, you guys know this if you've been here for a while, if you're a first time, welcome. My name is Jonathan. I'm a self-professing Bible nerd and Bible fan. That's what I am. Like, that's what I do. And I'm just embracing that more and more as my identity, which is great. But here's the thing. There's many, many, many different reasons that we read the Bible, right? The Bible is this beautiful book. I've mentioned it a couple of times over the last couple of weeks. Like, there's many reasons that we do it for encouragement, for information, for illumination. There's so many reasons we read the Bible. But one of the reasons that we read the Bible, and I think this is really important to read it and just to read it consistently and to have this narrative story, the poetry, all of the different prose discourse that goes through this holy text that we have, is because when you find yourself continually being exposed to Scripture,

 Scripture begins to shape and form your imagination.

 It begins to shape and form the way that you filter through the world, the way that you filter through your experiences, and it even begins to shape and filter and form the way that you approach and read Scripture. Like, sometimes when you read some of the things in the New Testament, when they're reflecting on the Old Testament, and you hear their commentary on it, and you're like, "Wait, how did you get that out of that? You read this story, and you got this out of it. I read the same story," and I'm like, "Ugh, I didn't get the same thing." You have a very different filter, and it's because their imaginations were completely formed and inspired by the Scripture.

 And when we find ourselves inspired by the Scripture, and that's the thing that creates our imagination, while we're engaging with Scripture, not only are we able to understand the history of context, not only we understand some of the literary ideas that are going on, not only can we understand the original intent of what's happening in Scripture, we can take a moment and we can allow our imaginations to continue to picture what this story means on another level, on a deeper level, on a meta level, and even to a personal level of how we experience Scripture. And I think just as a side note, I didn't have this in my notes or anything, but while planning, I think this is why it's so important that we have to be careful about what we expose ourselves to, because your imagination will be formed and impacted by what you see and what you read and what you are constantly dwelling on. And I am not opposed, listen, I am not opposed to watching movies, I'm not opposed to TV shows, I am not opposed to music, I am not opposed to art, I am very for all those things whenever they fall within the right guidelines. But what I can tell you is, if there's something that is taking the place of the primacy of Scripture in your life and the thing that is forming your worldview and how you see the world, it is going to distort everything, including when you engage in Scripture. And so be careful what you see and how you engage, be careful what you allow your children to see and engage with. Like I'm not suggesting any record burnings that we have in the parking lot later or anything like that, but there's a moment, there's a time that you can understand that this is an important thing. And so here's what I want to do, because I want to open up some of our biblical imagination today and look at it and filter it through some of the concepts that we've been talking about and learning in prayer over the last couple weeks. And I want to look at a story that this whole story is found in  Kings chapter  through . If you've grown up in the church, you've probably heard this story, and it's the story of Elijah, the prophet Elijah. And I'm going to kind of like give you the highlighted, like I'm going to kind of give you the condensed Jonathan version of the story. But you should go and read it. It says just a few chapters or at least this section of his life is just a few chapters. And it's really, really interesting. And so here's how it starts. And this is what's so amazing in  Kings chapter . It just starts with no introduction for Elijah whatsoever.

 We know nothing about him. We don't know where he came from. We don't know what his childhood was like. We don't know what his parents were. We don't know anything about him. He just shows up and on the scene. And he is addressing the king of Israel. And just for the historical context to remember where you're at, we're in the time where this is post David having a united Israel. Now there's two different tribes. The tribes of the north, which are ten tribes. The tribes of the south, the two tribes. We're in the tribes of the north. And for the most part, everyone in the history of the tribes of the north were basically evil and worshiping foreign gods. They would occasionally have these little moments of revival, but it was never very long lasting. And so we're in this place of like the bad guys at the top. The bad guys in the north. And Elijah just shows up and out of nowhere just makes this proclamation to the king. He just says, starting today, it will not rain anymore until I pray again.

 And then he leaves. Just real simple. Now to you and I were like, I could go for a couple months of rain. Listen, I would love if we could get an extended period of no rain. Our roof would be so, you know, I say this about a roof all the time. It only leaks when it rains. So it's a pretty good roof except for when it rains. And so, you know, that's a real positive. But so, but here's the thing. We got to remember again, we're taking historical context. We're at our imaginations. Well, what was the world? They were very, very agricultural based, right? Like they were farming based. If you grow things, some of you are gardeners, some of you are like little green thumbed little people around here. They're doing all this kind of stuff. Not me, but you're great. When you're farming, when you're growing things, the rain is one of the most important things that your crops need. But it goes to even deeper level. This accusation, this proclamation that he's making about no rain goes to an even deeper level because it's not just saying like, hey, there's going to be a famine until I say so. Like that could just seem maybe a little mean and a little cruel. But we have to understand the context of the people that he's talking to. And at this time, the king of Israel and his wife, who, you know, is one of my favorite characters to bring up. I'm not going to spoil it yet because another, right?

 They are worshipping two pretty distinct gods. They're worshipping Baal. You've never heard Baal or Baal. Some people will pronounce it that way, but I'm not cool. So I'm just going to say Baal. And then the other one is Asherah. Maybe you've heard the Asherah polls, Baal, Asherah. They're pretty common if you read through the Old Testament, they pop in and out. And here's the thing you have to know about these two gods, these two deities that the people are choosing to worship. Baal is considered to be the storm god, the god who brings rain, the one who brings the things that are needed for crops to grow. That is like what he does. And Asherah is considered the fertility god. Like she helped not just in human fertility, but even in the fertility and the growth of all living things. So when Elijah comes and says, because of what you've done and the evil that's here, there will be no more rain. Until I pray to the one God, Yahweh, until I pray to the living God, there will be no rain. He's making this proclamation. You may have your gods that you believe bring rain and bring fertility and bring produce and productivity. But my God, the God of the nation of Israel that you should be worshipping is above them. And I'm going to prove it to you. So he says there'll be no rain. And there's some other things and characteristics about Baal and Asherah that you have to understand.

 They had some very perverse styles of ritualistic worship.

 So Baal had a lot of things in which mutilation and violence, which we'll see later in the story, were performed on oneself to be able to have their offerings be accepted. And it even went as far in particular circumstances in which they would offer children sacrifice to God, which is awful.

 And God himself throughout Scripture says this idea is detestable to me. The very thought of it is detestable to me. And then the second thing is Asherah, this is like a ritual tree worship. You always hear this idea of like the Asherah pole, and they would have these ornate poles. And not only was there the worship of trees and these living things, but they had this whole concept that there was just sexual rituals that were performed in order to find the favor of Asherah within their community.

 So both of these gods have this thing that has crept in to the nation of Israel that has created perversion and idolatry and worshiping something other than the one true God. So he comes and he announces that there's going to be no rain. And then it says that God takes him, leads him to a place and to a brook. And he says, I'm going to take care of you there, Elijah. And he takes him to this brook. And it says that he has this stream where he gets water all the time and the ravens, these raven birds.

 He's like a male, like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty. Birds just come in and bring him food. It says to bring him bread and meat at the morning and evening he's taken care of. But after some time, that riverbed, that brook dries up and he's got to go somewhere else. And so he's traveling. At this point, he's tired. He's hungry. He's thirsty. His little raven friends have not brought him anything to eat. And he comes up to this village, this small village, and he finds this widow there.

 And she is there. And he goes to her and she's as well, like kind of looking for some water. She's gathering sticks. And he says, hey, I need some water.

 Now, remember, a significant amount of time has passed.

 We are now in full blown drought.

 A brook that he was by that had water now has no water. So a lot of people are dealing with lack of water. So he goes to this lady and says, I need some water.

 Now, she apparently has access to some. And so she says, OK, I'm going to get you some water. And then he says, hey, while you're at it, can you bring me some bread, too?

 I'm hungry. And she says, here's the thing.

 Me and my son are the only ones here. My husband's died. I'm literally out here gathering these sticks because my whole goal is I'm going to gather these sticks. I'm going to go inside. I'm going to use my last person portion of oil and my last portion of flour. I'm going to make one little loaf of bread. And then we are going to eat it. And then we are going to die, which is a pretty bummer outlook on life. But that's where she is. Now, here's the thing. If someone told that to you, I feel like you would say, at least me. And maybe it's because I'm like, oh, my bad.

 I'll go find someone else. You seem like you're in a rough place. I'll go ask someone else for something. Like, you just keep on—you go off and enjoy your last final days.

 But what Elijah says seems wild. He says, man, I get it.

 So could you still please bring me that bread and that water, please?

 And then he makes a promise. He says, and if you do it, if you trust me, God will make sure that you never run out of flour and you never run out of oil until it rains.

 She doesn't know who this guy is. This guy just walks up and now he just seems inconsiderate.

 And he asked for this, but she does it. She goes. She makes the loaf. She brings it to him. He does it. He eats. He prays. And it says that her jar of oil and her flour storage literally does not run out until the rain comes later in the story. And that it sustains her and her son and Elijah for as long as they're there.

 But then all of a sudden there's this little plot twist.

 She's going. Elijah's been going around. We don't know what he's doing and what. But she's gone and he comes back and he finds out that her son is dead. He died. And she's distraught. She's already lost her husband. This is her only son. He died. And she's angry at Elijah and talks about how God has abandoned her. And how can he do this? Like how can he save me from hunger only to take away the life of my son? And so Elijah picks up the boy and carries it to his room and lays on his bed and prays over him. And it says he stretched out his body on him three times and prays, God, will you restore life back into this boy? And at the end of the third time, he's risen up from the dead. And breath returns to his body and he comes back down and he presents the boy back to his mom and says, here's your son alive.

 And here's what's wild. Her response after receiving her son back to life, she says, now I know that you truly are a man of God.

 I find this interesting because I feel like I'd be pretty amazed by the unending oil and flour jar.

 Like that feels pretty amazing to me. Like my grocery bill could really, if every time I opened the fridge, it was still there. Like, look at God, won't he do it? Like I close it, I open it, it's still there.

 Because for those of you, I buy the groceries in our house and I have five people who eat the food and one person who buys the food and puts it back in. That's how it works in my house. I don't know how it works in your house. But here's what's amazing. No matter who they are, every person in my family does this. They never tell me, hey, thank you that when I opened the pantry, we had chips today. It never happens. They never said, hey, thanks that I opened, there was waffles in there. You know what they do? We're out of chips.

 No chocolate chips in the house, dad. We need more chocolate chips.

 I'm like, there's a whole cupboard. I can't even get any more things in there. Yeah, but what I want is not there.

 They never tell me good job. So you would think that she would believe in God and believe in Him on this wild miracle that she's been living off of supernatural provision.

 But apparently that wasn't as impactful as watching life come back into a dead body.

 Because material things are important. But life and resurrection life apparently is something that only God can do.

 The other provision apparently was something that she just kind of, but this was something special. Now we fast forward from there because it really turns something important. The chapter changes and the story shifts. And Elijah decides that it's been a little over three years and at this point it's time for him to tell Ahab that he's going to pray for rain. And Ahab's out with one of his advisors, one of his people who had actually been hiding different Christians, a hundred believers in Yahweh. In different caves and two groups of , he's been feeding them and he finds Elijah because Ahab has been chasing after him this entire three plus years. And it says that he finds him or that Elijah finds Ahab's group, but he talks to one of his servants and says, hey, go tell the king, King Ahab, that I am going to be able to come and I'm going to pray for rain. And I got a thing for him. And the servants like, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it because here's what's happening. He'll lose to something that we don't see in the text. He says, every time we try to find you and we hear you're somewhere, you're not there. You just keep disappearing. And I know what's going to happen. I'm going to go to the king and say, hey, Elijah wants you to meet you and then he's going to come over here and then you're going to disappear. And then guess what? He's going to kill me. And I don't like that plan. And so Elijah has to promise. I promise we're going to do this. He said, in fact, here's what I want you to do. Tell him to meet me on the top of Mount Carmel. I want you to bring all the priests of Baal and all the priests of Asherah and bring them up to the top of this mountain. We're going to have a little showdown, a little challenge. So he says, okay, so there's  priests of Baal,  prophetesses of Asherah, and they come up to the top of this mountain, Mount Carmel. Mount Carmel is really significant because that's a place of worship for the people who worship Baal. There's all sorts of ritualistic ideas. It's a thing that had a lot of significance in their religion. So he brings them up there and he basically says, here's what we're going to do.

 I'm trying to tell you, and I've been telling you, this is the fact that you can see by proof that no rain has fallen for the last three plus years, that God is the God of all and that your gods are not real.

 And I'm going to show you this. We're going to do a little challenge. Your priests and prophets are going to take a bull and they are going to build an altar and they're going to set it all up and they're going to pray to God. And they're going to ask God to consume that sacrifice with fire. And then I'm going to do the same thing in whichever God consumes the sacrifice with fire. That is the one true God. And that is the person who this nation of the people should be worshiping. And they say, okay. And the prophets will get their bull and they prepare it and they build an altar that's there and they do all these things. They start chanting and they start doing all sorts of stuff. And Elijah starts like trolling them in this story. He starts saying a lot of really rude things to them as they're trying to process. He starts saying like, talk louder. Maybe he's taking a nap. Or he must be preoccupied to see if you can get his attention. Or my favorite one is maybe he's in the restroom and he's busy. And they just get more and more fervent, more and more fervent. They begin to cut themselves. They begin to bleed themselves. They begin to do all sorts of things. And for hours and hours goes by and at the end nothing happens. No fire.

 So Elijah then says, okay, it's my turn. And there's some really important details of what Elijah does. There was an altar to God there. It says there was an altar to God that he rebuilt. And he says he rebuilt this altar that had been torn down to Yahweh. And he rebuilt the altar. And says he took  stones, one representing each of the nations of Israel. And he put it on this altar. And then it said he took the wood that they brought up there for the sacrifice. And he says he laid it out on the altar. And then he took the bull and he made the sacrifice and he prepared the sacrifice after he took the life of the bull. And he laid the bull on top of the altar. But then he wasn't done. That's already a lot of work. Then it says they dug this huge trench around the altar, a big trench. And he then says, what I need is I need water. He said, I need you to take four jars, these water jars, and fill them up and bring them and we're going to pour it over the altar.

 Now, each of these jars probably could carry between, in our measurements, between like three and six gallons of water. And so they come and they bring that water and they blow it up. And he does it one time, he does it two times, he does it three times. Now remember, we are on a mountain. There is no water hose. They had to go down and get the water, because I don't know if you know this, at least where I've seen it. Water goes down.

 So they had to go down and get the water and then carry it back up. Have you ever carried a five gallon water jug up a mountain? I can tell you I haven't. And there's a reason. Because it sounds terrible. So they carry it down, they come back up. They carry it down, they come back up. They carry it down and they dump it. And it says the trench that we're done is completely filled. Now, here was something. Someone brought this up the other day when I was doing some studying and I thought this was interesting. I always thought the reason that he soaked the offering is because I don't know if you've ever tried to light something that's wet. It doesn't go very well. You've been out there camping. Of course, it always rains when you camp. And then you're trying to light wood and you're trying to prove to your kids that you're just like Davy Crockett out there and you just look like a fool. Nothing will light. And then you douse everything in gasoline and it just becomes a real crazy hazard. Just me? Okay, cool. So I always thought, well, that's why he got it wet. He wanted to show, God can't just light a fire. He can light a fire even if it's wet.

 But all of a sudden, again, the imagination has changed a little bit. The reason that water was dumped on the altar, there may have been some showmanship in that vault.

 But what was maybe the most valuable commodity in that moment of time, three and a half years after any rain? Water. A precious offering.

 That he knew there had to be blood for this sacrifice because sin requires blood. Like he knew that. But he wanted to give something precious to God.

 The thing that no one can live without. The very thing that he was about to invite God to restore.

 So they took this precious gift and they poured it over the altar.

 Not one time, not two times, but three times. And it was just overflowing, drenched, and wet.

 And then he says a very simple prayer and invites God to prove that he is who he says he is. And it says immediately, fire fell down from heaven. And it gives us all the details. It said that it consumed the bull and the wood and the stone and the water.

 Every element of the sacrifice was gone. Everything was considered acceptable. Everything was completely consumed and God's expression of power.

 And then immediately it says that they took all those prophets and providence of the bell and they slew all of them. They killed all of them.

 And you would think that this would be like, God just did something really good. We probably should start worshipping that guy.

 Unfortunately, that's not what happens.

 Unfortunately, that's not the moral of the story. Because he goes and he tells Ahab, hey, prepare yourself. It's about terrain.

 And he takes his assistant, his servant, and they go up back on top of the mountain and they pray to God. And I want to read this little verse. This is the only verse we're going to read from the actual story in verse  of chapter . It says, so Ahab went up to eat and to drink and Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he says, and he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees.

 Now, anytime the Bible gives you a detail, we got to investigate.

 Because it didn't just say that he prayed. It gives us a detail of how he prayed. And it's very unusual. In fact, I believe it's the only place that this type of expression is shown because we have a lot of different expressions of prayer. We have people who stand in prayer. We have people who close our eyes in prayer. We have people who lay down on their face in prayer. We have people who kneel in prayer. But this is none of those things. It says that he kneeled his head to the ground.

 He kneeled his head to the ground and he put his head between his knees, which I can't do because I'm not flexible enough. But he was flexible. That's also what we know about Elijah, flexible.

 And he prayed.

 And after he prayed for a while, he told the servant, go out and look and see if the rain's coming.

 And the servant goes out and he looks and he comes back and he's like,

 nope.

 So he prays again.

 Second time. Same thing. Same position.

 Go out. Nope. He does this seven times.

 Seven times. And on the seventh time,

 the servant comes back and says, I see the cloud. It's like in the distance I can cover the whole thing with my hand, but I see something out there. And he said, that's it. Go out.

 Go and tell Ahab that it's about to rain.

 He goes and tell Ahab it's about to rain.

 And so they get on the chariots. And it says that Elijah was inspired by the Holy Spirit and that he goes and he runs faster than the chariot and beats Ahab to the place that they're going.

 And he's feeling like really, oh man, not this again. Hold on.

 Sometimes you just got to blow on the cartridge, you know.

 He gets there and he's feeling confident. He just flew all the prophets. God just rained fire. It started pouring monsoon. Like all these things are happening. He's feeling good.

 And then enters the real bad guy in our story. Ahab, after losing all this, like trying to be Mr. Tough Guy, he just lost all the priests and the prophets. He's now wet. He gets back and you know what he does? He goes and he tattletales to his wife. Jezebel. And she must have been really bad because he goes, you know, kill all of our people.

 And she gets real mad. And she says, I am going to kill Elijah. In fact, if he's not dead by tomorrow, she makes all the way to the end. All these vows and stuff. And here's the thing. You would think that the guy who just experienced all these moves of God would be like, yeah, right.

 But it petrifies him. And he runs and he flees.

 And he is completely scared and he ends up falling asleep and laying down completely exhausted at a tree.

 And then he prays again. Remember, he's prayed several times in the story now. He prays again and he just says, God, will you please just kill me? Let me die. This is too much.

 Now talk about just a wild roller coaster of emotions.

 But maybe you've experienced this. Sometimes this happens. We have these really big highs and then all of a sudden there's some really big lows. And thankfully, God, he knows Elijah. And so it says that he fell asleep hoping that God would kill him. And it says that he's in a ministering angel and he woke up. He woke him up and he said, hey, you don't need to die. You're just hangry and need a nap.

 So he fed him and then put him back to sleep. Just like a little baby, you know, sometimes babies just need a little food, a little nap. They wake up much better and then woke him up and fed him again. I said, okay. Now you can go. And it says they took that food, the food that God gave him there and the energy from that. And it says he went  days and  nights without any more food. And it says he went from there and he ran from that place all the way. Your Bible will call it Mount Horeb. Now Mount Horeb is really important because Mount Horeb has another name. It's called Mount Sinai, the place where God revealed himself to Moses.

 And he gets to this place that mountain where God revealed himself to the nation of Israel, the same place where the burning bush happened, the same place where the tin can be given, the same place where the pillar of iron, the smoke and the people saw like God's presence, the elders were able to feast with the presence of God. Like this place, this holy mountain, not Mount Carmel where Baal is worshiped, but to the very holy mountain. He took his supply of food that God gave him and he ran for  days.

 And he gets there and honestly he's still just not in a good mood. He's still upset. He's still frustrated.

 And he complains to God like I'm the only one. No one else is trying to serve you. And now I'm getting chased by some crazy lady named Jezebel who's going to be blamed for the belly button piercing someday.

 What can I do?

 And God does something interesting. And again, biblical imagination, he says he's hiding in a cave on the top of a mountain.

 And he said, go outside.

 I'm going to pass before you. By the way, the exact same language that he told Moses on the same mountain, the same words.

 And he says that he goes out there and he hid himself in a rock,

 maybe the same rock that Moses hid himself when God passed before him.

 And he hid himself in this rock and it says that a mighty wind blew through and shook boulders and things went crazy. And it says, but God wasn't in the wind. And then an earthquake came and the rocks cracked and everything happened and the ground shook. But God wasn't in the earthquake. And then a fire came. But God wasn't in the fire.

 It says, many of our version says, but then there was a still small voice.

 And he found God's words there. Now still small voice, it almost sounds like a whisper.

 And it could be a whisper. We could translate a whisper. But if you go through and you read some of the Hebrews, some people actually say it was an absence of everything. A stillness, a calmness. That in the stillness, in the calm, that is where he found the presence of God.

 And God gave him instructions. And at first it looks a little harsh because he basically says, hey, listen, you're not the only one. I've saved , who've never bowed. You're going to be okay. Go anoint these two people, King. And then also go find this other guy named Elisha and he is going to be anointed as a prophet. And it almost looks like he's being reprimanded. And there's probably some correctness that's going on here as well.

 But Elisha's ministry is not over. In fact, he has a lot more to go. He just basically is getting an apprentice.

 And here's the thing, the story changes and transfers after this. And it moves on.

 But I want to put this through some filters of what we've been talking about in prayer. Because in his life, there's a lot of different prayers. And he had a lot of different experiences of prayers and a lot of different expressions of prayer.

 And it's interesting that when he was on the mountain and he called down fire from God under this place in which he made this sacrifice, not just of blood, but of water on this high place.

 That God accepted that sacrifice. And he didn't have to cry out. He didn't have to wail. He didn't have to beseech. He didn't have to ask more than once. It was literally one time, one representative which he was able to pray.

 And immediately the sacrifice was deemed acceptable.

 And while we allow our imagination to run and to be formed, I can't help but think of another sacrifice that was done on another hill in which the wood was laid out just right. And that the blood had to be shed. But that the water was also flowing. And that it was a sacrifice that when God looked down on it, there was no question to him on whether it was acceptable or not. That he looked at that sacrifice and said, "This is my beloved Son,

 the pure and spotless Lamb, the one who takes away the sin in the world." And that sacrifice was acceptable. Because the sacrifice of Jesus was perfect to God. And when we find ourselves at a place where we have to call out in the name of Jesus, when you find yourself far from God and you pull on the sacrifice of Christ and the fact that his blood covers you and that the water was poured out for you, you realize that that is an instantaneous decision. The moment you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you make that commitment to allow that to be the sacrifice that covers your life. God instantly accepts that sacrifice because he already accepted Jesus. He already accepted Jesus.

 And you get to find that. It is there for you. It is with you. You don't have to beg and beg and do it again and again and again. It only takes one time.

 And salvation is there for you. But he went from there and he put himself in a position and he prayed. And the very thing that God told him to do, which was to pray for rain, he did it and he didn't answer the first time or the second time or the third time or the fourth time or the fifth time or the sixth time. And I can't help to picture and imagine that the position that he was in wasn't just a place of submission, but it was a place in which he found himself in a very vulnerable position. That's a place where you don't have power. You don't have the in fact, I'll tell you what I imagine. My wife's had four boys and I've been able to be at the birth of all four of those boys.

 And the way I see it is he was putting himself in a place in which something can be birthed.

 In which new life can pass. In which something new can come. He was praying for the rain. The same water that was given on the same day. He was praying for the rain.

 He was praying for the water that would come into bring cleansing and provision for the people who were there.

 And sometimes when we pray, we see immediate response, especially when it comes down to Jesus' sacrifice. But sometimes in our life, we may be asking for rain in our life.

 And we may not see it the first time or the second time or the third time or the fourth. What I couldn't help but think about Jesus on the night that was betrayed before the Passover meal when he went with his disciples and he told them, hey, after he took off his robes and he put on the servants clothes, he says, I need to wash your feet.

 I need to wash your feet with water. And he's washing their feet as water is an example of humility and surrender. And then he gets to Peter, old loud mouth Peter, and Peter says, surely you can't wash my feet, Lord. And Jesus says, if I don't get to wash your feet, you can have nothing to do with me. And then of course he flip flops. Then wash all of me, Lord. And Jesus is like, bro, please. I'm not giving you a sponge bath here.

 He says, no, no, no. When you've been cleansed, you've already been cleansed. I just need to clean your feet. I just need to clean your feet. You've already been saved. I just need the water to wash your feet. Because everyone's wearing sandals around there and everyone's walking in the dust of the earth. And the thing that I get to have my imagination formed by is that the dust of the earth is still cursed. Adam and Eve were not cursed in the garden, but the ground was. And so the dust is cursed. And I, as a believer, have been saved with the very sanctified power of Jesus Christ in his blood. I am saved, but I am still called to walk in this earth. And as I walk around and I'm continually going through the process that God has me, sometimes my feet get a little dusty.

 And that curse tries to make its way on there. That thing that tries to make me be that old man, that thing that has not yet been sanctified in my life, tries to be the thing that rules me. And Jesus says, if you just come to me, your suffering servant, I am willing to wash your feet. You do not need to have your whole body washed because that sacrifice was already made with Jesus on the cross.

 But I can allow the water to wash your feet. And if you know anything about sanctification when you've ever been trying to get through something, like get rid of anger or lust or some addiction, sometimes you pray to God and the first time it doesn't show up.

 Even though you know he promised it. And sometimes you pray the second time and it doesn't show up. And sometimes you pray the third time and it doesn't show up. But here's the beautiful thing. When you know that God says, I will never leave you and forsake you, that I will continue to wash your feet as many times as you need, that the rain will come. Just trust and believe that the process is working. You realize that sometimes the slow process of sanctification, of being transformed into this image, it's just a matter of continually putting ourselves in a place of vulnerability and say, will you birth something new inside of me?

 Will you birth something new inside of me? Even when I can't see it, I'm looking. Create something new inside of me. Because sometimes we have to contend and trust and show up.

 And then in our journey, sometimes the world and the problems that we experience become overwhelming.

 And we find ourselves in need of an answer.

 Elijah ran to the place where he knew the presence of God existed. He ran to the presence of God.

 And he thought maybe he would see them in ways that God has expressed himself before, in the wind or in the earthquake and the fire. But God wasn't in any of those things. God was in the stillness.

 In the peace, in the calm. And that word that they used for stillness is very interesting. It's only in two other verses in the whole Bible. We already read one today.

 In Psalms  where it says, they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered from their stress. He made the storm be still and the waves and the seas were hushed.

 And they were glad when the waters were quiet and he brought them to their desired haven. Jumping down to verse , he says, he turns rivers into deserts, springs of water into thirsty ground, a fruitful land into a salty waste.

 Because of the evil of his inhabitants, he turns deserts into pools of water and parched lands into springs of water. And there he lets the hungry dwell and they establish a city and live in it. They sow fields and plant vineyards and get a fruitful yield. By his blessing, they multiply greatly and he does not let their livestock diminish. When I read that word, I just kept thinking about Jesus when he was in the boat and the storm came.

 And he says he rebuked the wind and said, "Peace, be still."

 And in the stillness, they knew that he was God. Sometimes when life overwhelms us, we want God to show up. We want him to blow things away, shake things away, burn things away. And we're just like, "God, I need you to talk." And sometimes the thing that we do when we run into the presence of God is what we need to experience is the stillness that comes from being in his presence.

 And to realize that in that stillness, we can find vision, we can find assignment, we can find peace, we can find direction, we can find forgiveness,

 that it doesn't always have to be the big loud thing. It doesn't always have to be this incredible emotion. In fact, we can just come to a place where we can experience the same stillness that calms the storm.

 And the storm in your life can be calm. And then you can see more clearly. And in my mind, as I was reading through this story, I see this prayer of invitation to accept the sacrifice of Jesus and how quickly God is to give that. I see the fact that God doesn't mind that we have to continually come to him over and over as we walk through this life and we continue to stumble around in the dirt because he says, "I'm here for you and my grace covers those things." And you just keep on praying and keep on believing and keep on asking and knock and seek and ask and you will experience that transformation in your life. And I can't help but think that sometimes I just need to go to the presence of God, which is actually already inside of me and be still and know that he is God.

 And let the stillness and let the quiet speak to me and then have a new life that comes out of that.

 Elijah went on to do many other miracles after this. Many other expressions of faith were done and was even able to apprentice one who did even more miracles than him.

 But sometimes we just have to step into that stillness and experience something that can only be found in the presence of God through prayer.

 Let's pray this morning. Father, we thank you for today. I thank you for your word. I thank you that you inspire your word to inspire our thoughts,

 to show the goodness of your heart.

 Lord, I thank you that when we accept the sacrifice of Jesus, you are quick to respond on our behalf because his sacrifice was perfect.

 I thank you that as we continue to pray and to see your work continue in us, that you are good and faithful and that you even give us the endurance to not grow weary, to have something birthed inside of us, to new life.

 Lord, and I thank you that when the storms of life overwhelm us, when the noise around us grows too strong, we can experience your presence and in the stillness, we can find your heart for us.

 How beautiful is your word today.

 Church, last thing before we're dismissed this morning, with every head bowed and every eye closed, if you're here today and you've never made the decision to accept the sacrifice of Jesus, I'd like to give you an opportunity to do that today.

 It's as simple as repeating a prayer. I'm going to have everyone repeat it and you just repeat it with all your heart this morning, just everyone say, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for sending Jesus to die for me." So my sins could be forgiven and my heart could be set free. It's in Jesus name I pray.

 With every head bowed for just a minute more, if you made that decision today, anywhere in the room, would you just raise your hand up? Anywhere in the room, just raise it up real high.

 Any of the hands that are up, they can go down. Father God, we just celebrate for people who are making decisions for salvation today.

 And that your answer is instantly yes, because your answer to the sacrifice of Jesus is yes. Lord, we celebrate with them.

 Father, we love you. We thank you. Bless the rest of our Sunday. Bless this beautiful church community and what we get to grow in together. It's in your holy name we pray. Amen and amen. Alright church, we love you. You are dismissed. Have a great rest of your Sunday.