Last week
Elijah on the run
Exhausted - God, not judgment or a rejection of Elijah’s humanity
But, compassion and mercy

After rest, food, and water
Elijah heads on a 40-day journey to Mt. Horeb/Sinai
Deep on the Arabian peninsula
To encounter God

At his lowest, Elijah needed
Rest, food, water
Time
Encounter

God’s mercy fuels Elijah’s faith

Moses
Burning bush
Torah

Encounter
God - What are you doing here, Elijah?
Elijah’s honest prayer

“I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”

Go stand on the mount, YHWH is coming
Elijah heads up, goes into a cave
Wind, Earthquake, Fire
Whisper - Elijah covers his face and heads to the front of the cave

Massive display of God’s sovereignty
Creator comes to the creation
Yet, God is not the summation of what he does

Paradoxical nature of God
Transcendence AND Immanence
Never what to conflate them
We want to head out into it

God - same question
Elijah - same answer
Anoint two new kings
Take on an apprentice
You are not alone - 7000

Call of Elisha
Threw his cloak
Interesting reply
Oxen - Not a small ordeal
A community event, parents, his parents tax advisor

Elisha offers up his old life to God as he begins his new one

Wonderful that we are given stories
Not a clear handbook

We meet God

One thing is clear
How does God respond to a rattled faith?

Mercy
Encounter

For Elijah, this was an overwhelming moment
For us, we see the condensced story of his life - really, man?
Drought, Ravens, Widow, Fire, Rain

What’s one death threat?

We don’t live consdensed versions…in the everyday, it is easy to lose heart, to forget

Not just Elijah - almost everyone we meet in Scripture has their faith rattled

World has always offered a number of off ramps…
Elijah is a great example because he leans into it
Goes to God with it

Secret - a rattled faith is just faith
We live by faith and not by sight

For Elijah, when his faith was ratttled, he ran to the mountain
For us, we might think it’d be nice…just take a month off, go on a camping trip, see a great show, have a chat with Almighty and get back to it

It wasn’t the signs that restored Elijah
He already had them - why did he need the Wind, Earthquake, and Fire?
He already had the Drought, Ravens, Widow, Fire, Rain?

Newbigin paints this picture of us
Purpose of the sign

Newbigin:

Until that day of Christ’s coming in glory, His reign is to be known not by sight but by faith, not in full enjoyment but in foretaste, not in complete manifestation but in signs which point beyond themselves to a reality greater than themselves; and such signs were present in the ministry of the incarnate Lord, and in the ministry of the apostles as it is recorded in the Acts and Epistles. The supreme sign on which all else depends is the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb on the first Easter morning. This is the divine event without which the Church could not have been born. Had the tomb not been empty on that morning there would have been no Church. But it is at the same time a sign pointing beyond itself, a foretaste, the first fruits of a harvest yet to come. It is the place at which we are begotten again to a living hope for an inheritance yet to be revealed (I Pet. 1. 3). Without that sign the apostles could not have believed. And yet just as our own Lord rebuked those Jews who in the days of His flesh cared more for the signs than for the King whose reign the signs revealed, so He gently rebuked Thomas with the words, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed’ (John 20. 29). The purpose of a sign is to point beyond itself; of a foretaste to make us long ardently for that which is yet to come. —Leslie Newbigin, The Household of God, pg. 114

For us, we have the cross and the empty tomb
The Spirit as a foretaste of what is to come
Paradox of the immanance and transcedence of God
Paradox of the already and the not yet

the sign always points to what is to come
Our rattled faith is just a reminder that we are in the not yet

We have it better than Elijah
No need to travel to a mountain
We have the Spirit
Every time we open the Scripture, the Spirit speaks the Whispered Word of God

This morning, let us delight in Christ
The source of faith

By faith, let us long ardently for that which is to come
Everwhere we train our eyes, we see the not yet
Unrestored neighbors and family members
Actual evil and sin, broken systems and people as a result
The more we stare at the world, the worse it looks
Just the outside! Inside we feel the storm
Tired of the same old struggles

Today we encounter the Christ by faith
Good that we come to the table

Table
We meet Christ by faith
By faith, we nourished by his body and blood
By faith, we are bound together
By faith, we come in hope of that great day