04-03-16 Voices in the Wilderness: Elijah (part 1)

Hello, and welcome to Spring 2.0!  It’s gonna be cold and wet here at the beginning of April, followed by being really, really cold, followed by being fairly warm... and all in the same week.  Man, I remember when I was a boy and there were actually, honest-to-goodness seasons that you could count on and look forward to.  Now, I’ve gotta keep my sweaters and short-sleeved shirts in the same drawer...

In unrelated news, we hosted our second of our monthly Brown-Bag-It lunches after the service, and if anything, it was even more of a success than last month’s was.  We had even more people in attendance, from even more demographics within our church family.  So when that first week of May rolls around, please plan to bring a lunch for you and your household (or do what several people did this week and swing out to grab something and bring it back in) and join us for a really nice, low-impact time of warmth and fellowship.

Please also be praying for a handful of FCCers who are struggling through things.  Randy Laninga’s father had a seizure, but seems to be doing well now (so praise God, but please keep him in prayer).  The Wainwrights’ son Nathan seems to have come through his surgery well earlier this week (so praise God, but please keep him in prayer).  Ken Peryam’s infection is gone, and he should be on the downward slope of the mending process with his leg (so praise God, but please keep him in prayer).  Please also be praying for Sara Stewart, Harry and Janet McClure, Nikki Andrews, and anyone else whom the Lord lays on your heart.

In our message this week, we began a new mini-series looking at the “Voices in the Wilderness” -- prophets like Elijah and John the Baptist who preached against the secular and spiritual powers of their day, and spoke with a power and authority that came from God... and a personal nuttiness that gave them the willingness to be used in ways that less kooky people might have scoffed at being used in.

For instance, in 1 Kings 17, Elijah shouted a one-verse prophecy against Ahab... and then left the stage.  It’s even possible that he didn’t say much more than “No rain!” and left without explaining any of God’s “why” behind that pronouncement.  He was a nut.

And yet, he was nutty enough to believe God when he was told that ravens would feed him breakfast and dinner each day.  He was nutty enough to believe that a starving widow in enemy territory would feed and shelter him.  He was even nutty enough to believe that a sincere prayer could be used to see the dead raised.

And yet, James reminds us that Elijah was a normal guy, just like you and me.  Those kinds of miracles aren’t just “Bible times” things, but rather part of the character of God, who never changes... and they aren’t dependent upon the “power” of the human asking for them.

So what leading is God asking you to believe Him in today?  Upon what exactly is your faith based?