Sheryl Brady - Surviving the Shortages of Life

So today, I’m going to bring to you the Word of the Lord, and I’m going to speak throughout the book of First Kings, chapter 17. If you’re looking for a topic today, I think it would be okay; I’ve got several ideas, but I think we’ll call it «Surviving the Shortages of Life.» We will take that from First Kings, chapter 17. Those of you who have been around me for any length of time have probably heard me say the statement I’m getting ready to make because I have used it a lot in my life. The statement is: You don’t realize how much Jesus means to you until He’s all you’ve got. When He is all you’ve got, He can then become everything that you need Him to be. We don’t realize how much Jesus means to us or how much we need Him until He’s all we’ve got, and then we begin to realize that He’s everything we need.

That being said, I often believe that God allows—now you have to hear me out on this—I often believe that God allows us, from time to time, to experience shortages in our lives, or to find ourselves maybe in a deficient moment, or to find ourselves dealing with and struggling with a little bit of lack in our lives. I really believe it is because there are just seasons when God wants to remind us that I am the real source that is in your life. If I were to evaluate you today, or if I were to ask you to take an evaluation of your life and tell me where you are lacking today, somebody might say, «I’m lacking strength.» Somebody else might say, «I’m lacking joy.» Another person may say, «I’m lacking peace,» or «I feel empty.» Someone might say, «I’m lacking a job,» or «I’m lacking an opportunity.» And there may be others who say, «Pastor, I’m all of that. I’m lacking all those things. I’m actually running out of everything in my life. I wasn’t prepared for 2020 to zap me like it has.» As a result of all of it, I find myself dealing with lack in my own life.

Well, if that’s how you feel today, then you are absolutely who I have come to talk to on this Sunday morning because I believe the Word is for you. What we’re going to do today is look into the life of a man, a prophet of God by the name of Elijah. I trust that we can pull out some lessons from his life about why there are moments when God might leave us lacking. There were three moments—three points in Elijah’s life—three experiences I believe will help us handle the feelings of frustration and hopelessness that we are possibly dealing with in our lives. But let me first give you a little bit of background from First Kings.

There were three kings in Israel who came at different times but, when they were there, they united the kingdom: that was Saul, that was David, and that was David’s son whose name was Solomon. Those were the three who brought unity to the kingdom. However, after those three, everything fell apart. Israel was then divided into two kingdoms: the northern kingdom was Israel, and the southern kingdom was Judah. For the next sixty years in the northern kingdom, there was a string of nineteen absolutely terrible leaders in charge. They were terrible politically, terrible economically, and most importantly, terrible spiritually. Things began to fall apart, and the government actually went bankrupt. The nation found itself in a recession. The Bible tells us that the worst of the worst of these leaders was King Ahab and his wife, whose name was Jezebel. You’ve probably heard her name a little more than you have his. Ahab and Jezebel were the worst of the worst, and one of the reasons they were the worst is that they got rid of the worship of God. They eliminated the worship of Jehovah and brought in a false god, creating an idol named Baal. They set Baal up as the official religion of Israel.

God was not happy with that, so He sent Elijah as a spokesperson, as a prophet, to confront King Ahab. He confronts him by saying, «Because of your wickedness and because you have led this nation to worship a false god—because God doesn’t mess around when it comes to worship—He will strike you down in a moment. Because you have led this nation into the worship of a false god by the name of Baal, I will dry up the rain, and it will not rain again until I, the prophet of God, say that it will.» We find out later that it ends up being about three and a half years, plunging the nation of Israel into a terrible drought and a terrible famine. Elijah said to him, «Because of your sin—he said this to the person that was leading the nation—this nation is going to suffer for three and a half years.»