I see a storm coming Part 1
Summary
Today’s sermon is split into two videos. Pastor Adrian discusses how God brings breakthrough in our lives and what we need to do to see it come to pass. It starts with a seed but ends with a storm. Like Elijah you may feel like you are living in a drought, a lack of God’s presence, but know that a breakthrough is coming!
Transcript
'Later on, in the third year of the drought, the Lord said to Elijah, “Go and present yourself to King Ahab. Tell him that I will soon send rain!” ' 1 Kings 18:1 (NLT)
1 Kings 18 says This later on in the third year of the drought, the Lord said to Elijah, who was a prophet of God. He said to Elijah, "Go and present yourself to King Ahab. Tell him that I will soon send rain." So Elijah went to appear before Ahab. So I want to talk to you today about this story that happens here. Many of us know it. I've mentioned it a few weeks ago in our team night. I want to delve into it a little bit today. This is a famous story actually in the Old Testament. The Israelite nation was in drought, and we have droughts in Australia, but we don't see the effect of them as badly as they were. We have droughts and we go, we might have to use a little bit less water, but we still have food. No one's worried about not having enough food. We import our food from overseas. Well, they couldn't do that if a drought happens. And this is the third year of the drought. A drought happens, your family is in danger of dying. There is no food. You can't grow wheat. Yeah, this is a terrible time, and you're just struggling to survive. So drought for the Israelites was a life and death situation. It was a time of deep pain. And what we discover in the Bible is that we have all these stories, these things that have happened in the ancient past, really thousands of thousands of years ago. But the New Testament and the apostles and others, and Jesus himself, used these stories, used these things that happened in the Old Testament, not just as, "Oh, this is what happened." They used them as spiritual examples and to say, "Hey, these things actually happened, but we can take spiritual truths from these things." And so I want to do that today with this story. We see here that it says in the third year of the drought, the Lord said to Elijah, "Go and present yourself to King Ahab. Tell him that I will soon send rain."
And I want to talk to you today about this topic, I see a storm coming. I see a storm coming. We have the Elijah the prophet, and he is in the middle of the drought with everyone else. God speaks to him and he says, "Rain's coming."
'Then Elijah said to Ahab, “Go get something to eat and drink, for I hear a mighty rainstorm coming!” So Ahab went to eat and drink. But Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and bowed low to the ground and prayed with his face between his knees. Then he said to his servant, “Go and look out toward the sea.” The servant went and looked, then returned to Elijah and said, “I didn’t see anything.” Seven times Elijah told him to go and look. Finally the seventh time, his servant told him, “I saw a little cloud about the size of a man’s hand rising from the sea.” Then Elijah shouted, “Hurry to Ahab and tell him, ‘Climb into your chariot and go back home. If you don’t hurry, the rain will stop you!’” And soon the sky was black with clouds. A heavy wind brought a terrific rainstorm, and Ahab left quickly for Jezreel. ' 1 Kings 18:41-45 (NLT)
We'll cut to verse 41. He goes and talks to a bunch of things happen and then in verse 41 of 1 Kings 18, it says this: "Then Elijah said to Ahab, 'Go get something to eat and drink, for I hear a mighty rainstorm coming.'" He says it again. So Ahab went to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Mount Carmel and bowed low to the ground and prayed with his face between his knees. Then he said to his servant, "Go and look out toward the Sea." The servant went and looked and then returned to Elijah and said, "I didn't see anything." Seven times Elijah told him to go and look, and finally the seventh time his servant told him, "I saw a little cloud about the size of a man's hand rising from the sea." And then Elijah shouted, "Hurry to Ahab and tell him, 'Climb into your chariot and go back home. If you don't hurry, the rain will stop you.'" And soon the sky was black with clouds. A heavy wind brought a terrific rainstorm, and Ahab left quickly for Jezreel. I see a storm coming. We go from this in this story from a drought that was going to kill people and take their futures and their lives to a mighty storm. And who knows that if we take spiritual truths from this, that we can all of us can go through times of drought. We can all go through times of drought. It's this idea of being in lack, being without something that you need, being in a dry place, being spiritually dry, facing challenges. Some people in the Christian world, we talk about being in the wilderness and going. It's just dry. There it can happen in all kinds of ways. It can be a spiritual dryness and feel, "I don't feel close to God." Sometimes we can use this term in Christianity. We can say we've been backslid and away from God, or we've lost our fire, we've lost our hunger. All these are all metaphors to describe this kind of drought that can happen in you spiritually. You can go through droughts in life, can't you? You can go through drought in finances. Or in the in how you're doing in life. You know, people can lose their jobs and there's a drought where there's is a lack, it can be a drought in relationships, it can be a drought in your own well-being. Can't there as many of us have faced that over time. You know, where anxiety grabs a hold, depression, other things can grab a hold of you, and it feels like there's. I'm not this isn't the way it should be, that's what a drought means. It's this is not the way it should be, there's something lacking, there's something missing, and we can go through that life, and the truth be is that many people live their lives in a drought. Many people live their lives in a spiritual drought, going through lack time and again. But you and I know or should believe that God doesn't want you to leave you like that. God does not want you to go and stay in a drought, and this is what he says to Elijah: hey, go and tell the king there's rain coming, there's a storm coming, and see, this is the heart of God. Whatever drought that you're facing in your life, and it could be a bunch of things, we all have different areas of drought, there is a time where God wants to bring rain and bring refreshing and change that, and you can be in a drought for all kinds of reasons.
Sometimes the reason you're in a drought is not your fault. Elijah was in the drought with everyone else, he was a man of God, he was serving God, it wasn't his fault. There was sometimes it was just sin and life circumstance of what's happening in the earth. Sometimes it can be because of what others have done to us, whether it's close people or far. There's people that are living in drought in Nations because the leaders of that Nation have made terrible mistakes, and so they're living in drought. So you can be in a drought, and it's not your fault at all, you're just living in it, and then sometimes you can be in drought because we did make some bad judgments, and sometimes we need to realize that sometimes the drought we can face is because we've made decisions that have kept us in drought, and see, there are things that you can do. This is the thing God doesn't want to keep you in drought on, and even in the midst of other things going on in your life, there can be a spiritual fire, spiritual refreshing that comes that will replenish your soul and give you hope for your family, for your future, for what God wants to do through your life. Who knows, as Christians, you should have hope, you should have joy in your spirit, there should be a river flowing out of you. God wants to bring that, but there are things we need to do, there are things we need to do, and I want to talk to you today about three things that Elijah did that God wants you and I to do if we're going to see the rain, the storm come in our lives of God's refreshing, of God's blessing, of God bringing you out of whatever drought it is you're in, of being able to come out. You can't control everything, but you can do these three things, so can I talk to you about that.
Get a seed from God
Today, the first one is this. He was in the middle of a drought, and then God speaks to him and says, "Tell him I will soon send rain." The first thing you need if you're going to see yourself out of this drought and see God's storm come into your life is you need to get a seed. You need to get a seed from God. A seed is representative of a word from God to you in your life. The parable of the sower talks about seeds that are the word of God being poured out. It's this idea Jesus told this story, and one of the things I get from that is that God is pouring out seed. God is the farmer, scattering seeds everywhere. The word of God is going out, and here's the thing: it's going out to you. Do you believe that the word of God is going into your life? Do you have a seed of the word of God in your life now?
Elijah, he got this seed. Here's the thing about a seed: if it's from God, often it doesn't correlate to what's happening in the natural. Often it doesn't look like what's happening in the natural. He said rain's coming, and there was not a cloud in the sky. Now, we should have a little idea of this because here in Melbourne, you can be told there's rain coming or there's sunshine coming, and it looks exactly the opposite. I've discovered this: we have very modern means, Adrian. We've got the Bureau of Meteorology, and they know what they're doing and how to go. They still don't know what's going on. They wouldn't have a clue. I've got an app on my phone, as most of us do, that tells me the weather. The other day, I was looking at my phone, and it told me that there was no rain coming for about 3 hours. I went, "Great, I've got a dog, Ollie needs to go for a walk, who's going to go crazy." I was like, "I'm going to go for a walk." And Narelle was at home at the time, and I was getting Ollie ready for a walk, and Narelle goes, "There's rain coming." I'm like, "Who do you think you're not the rain whisperer? I've got the app on my phone. There's no rain coming for 3 hours." He's like, "Well, we'll see about that."