Sheryl Brady - Surviving the Shortages of Life

So today, I’m going to bring you the word of the Lord, and I’m going to speak throughout the book of 1 Kings, chapter 17. If you’re looking for a topic today, I think it would be okay to mention that I’ve got several ideas, but I think we’ll call it today «Surviving the Shortages of Life.» We’re going to take that from 1 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 that we need.

That being said, I often believe that God allows us, now you have to hear me out on this, to experience shortages in our lives from time to time or to find ourselves in a deficient moment, dealing and struggling with a little bit of lack in our lives. I really believe it is because there are just seasons in which God wants to remind us that He is the true source in our lives. 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, someone might say, «I’m lacking strength.» Somebody else might say, «I’m lacking joy.» Another might say, «I’m lacking peace,» or someone else might say, «I am lacking emotional support; I feel empty.» Somebody else might say, «I’m lacking a job; I’m lacking an opportunity.» And someone else might say, «Pastor, I’m all of that; I’m lacking all of 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 this, 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 that 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, and I trust that we can pull out some lessons from his life regarding why there are moments when God might leave us lacking.

There were actually three points in Elijah’s life—three experiences—that I believe will help us handle the feelings of frustration and hopelessness that we might be dealing with in our lives. But let me first give you a little bit of background from 1 Kings. There were three kings in Israel that came at different times, but when they were there, they united the kingdom: that was Saul, David, and David’s son, whose name was Solomon. Those were the three that 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 60 years in the northern kingdom, there was a string of 19 absolutely terrible leaders in charge. They were terrible politically, economically, and, most importantly, spiritually. Things began to fall apart, and the government actually went bankrupt, leading the nation into a recession.

The Bible tells us that the worst of these leaders was King Ahab and his wife, whose name was Jezebel. You’ve probably heard her name more than his. Ahab and Jezebel were, indeed, the worst of the worst. One of the reasons they were so terrible is that they eliminated the worship of God, got rid of the worship of Jehovah, and introduced a false god, creating an idol known as Baal. They established Baal as the official religion of Israel. God wasn’t happy with that, so He sent Elijah as a spokesperson and prophet to confront King Ahab. Elijah confronted him, saying, «Because of your wickedness and because you have led this nation to worship a false god, God doesn’t mess around when it comes to worship; He will strike you down in a moment if you disregard it.» Elijah used this message to say to Ahab, «Because you have led this nation into the worship of the false god Baal, I will dry up the rain, and it will not rain again until I, the prophet of God, say it will.» We find out later that it ended up being about three and a half years, plunging the nation of Israel into a terrible drought and famine. Elijah told Ahab, «Because of your sin, this nation is going to suffer for three and a half years.»