This is the sermon preview of sermon five of nine in the preaching series Elect Spiritual Fruit. To watch a recording of this message, visit FBCM’s services and sermons page.
"The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” - 1 Kings 19:7
“Looking inside ourselves, we can anticipate only harshness from heaven. Looking out to Christ, we can anticipate only gentleness.”
― Dane C. Ortlund, Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers
You believe in God, well and good. But even the demons believe and shudder (to paraphrase James 2:19). Many of us believe in God. In fact, most in our country believe in God, according to surveys. And I do not mention this to cast doubt on anyone's sincerity.
But it makes a difference what God we believe in. Is the God you believe in the true God? Is he gentle? Is his burden easy and light like the God revealed to us in Jesus? Or his this God merely an incessant voice of accusation.
While on vacation, I attended my friend Sara Jane's church in suburban Cincinnati. She is a Presbyterian. One of the gifts of good Presbyterian preaching is its strict attention to holy scriptures. She cautioned us not to assume that the voice in our head was not necessarily of God. "If you are being told never to rest, never to give up, that might be the voice of your old boss posing at Jesus, but that is not the real Jesus. Jesus told his disciples then to rest. He tells us who are his disciples now to rest."
A needed message, and one consistent and resonate with one of the most powerful messages I have ever heard. Beth Moore preached at my seminary's Preaching conference in 2019. Her message was entitled "Knowing This From That" and examined Acts 1:-11 and the rest of Acts. "This same Jesus," the two men dressed in white informed the Apostles, "who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 19:11).
The message asked us to consider who *this* Jesus was, compared to the many forms of Jesus promoted in various corners of society. The late Evangelist Billy Graham's famous sermon "Who is Jesus?" where he also explored the unavoidable question also asked us to dispense with any false versions of Christ, as he thundered to a stadium of thousands.
As Dane Ortlund notes, if we listen to a Christ of our own making we will find only a distorted Christ: distorted in its judgment and yet often endlessly exercising judgment. But if we look to Christ, as he is revealed to us in Scripture, we will find inexhaustible gentleness.
Elijah has been fleeing the prophets of false Gods. The Queen Jezebel and King Ahab have been promoting the false prophets of Baal. The prophets of the true Lord and God have been persecuted, and Elijah is exhausted. He prays to die (19:4). He has seen the harshness of the world and the situation is hopeless. So hopeless, in fact, it seems better not to be on earth at all. He has looked within him and found nothing left to give. He has looked without him, and seen dangers. What he has not seen is a reason for hope.
How does the Lord respond? Does he chastise Elijah? Does he hand down judgment on him from on high?
No.
The Lord, through an angel, gives Elijah food, and rest.
The journey, he knows, is too much for him. The Lord's gentle and generous provision sustains him. And it is after this ordeal, when Elijah is at the end of his hope, that Elijah experiences the glory of God pass him by in what the NIV translates as a "gentle whisper."
Before we can ever know how to be gentle and our lives (and we should seek gentleness, rather than condemnation, to characterize our relationships with those near to us, and even those hostile to us), we must know the gentle nature of God, the true nature of God. The God whose burden is easy, and light (Matthew 11:18-30).
Reflection
1. Have you ever realized that the Jesus "in your head" is different from Jesus as revealed in Scripture? What changed when you realized who you thought Jesus was different from who he really is?
2. Is it difficult for you to accept gentleness or accept it? Why might that be?
3. Sometimes gentleness is seen as weakness. In what ways might be a great spiritual strength?
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