In God We Trust: Pt2, Put God First

January 20, 2019                       NOTES NOT EDITED

Stewardship Pt 2:  Put God First

1Kings 17:1-24

SIS – When we put God first in our lives miracles happen.

Just this week Teresa May, the Prime Minister of England (UK), suffered a brutal defeat in Parliament when her Brexit Plan was rejected.  Brexit is a word coined to refer to Britain’s Exit, meaning Britain’s departure from the European conglomeration of nations called the European Union.  In 2016 the British people voted 52% to 48% in favor of leaving the Union and becoming economically independent.  It is parliament and the Prime Minister’s responsibility to come up with an exit strategy before the exit date of March 29.  She survived a “No Confidence Vote” in Parliament that would have ended her career.

Brexit is essentially a movement that says, “Britain First.”  It is nationalistic cry.  Such patriotic and nationalistic movements are not universally popular these days.  You might reflect on the uproar Donald Trump has made with his “America First Movement,” affectionately known as, MAGA—Make America Great Again.

My desire is not to digest the politics of British or American nationalism.  My purpose is to point out the significance of “putting something first.”  That which holds “first” place in our lives does so because it is of ultimate importance to us.

So, here’s my shot at a “first place movement.”  Put God First.  Do I, do you, REALLY put God first in your life, or is it just a slogan?

This is the question I want us to consider as we look at a very important passage in the Old Testament.  The Widow of Zarephath will serve as an example of how God responds when we put Him and His work first.

We can all relate to the central figure in this text.  It is a woman.  A single woman.  A poor woman.  A poor, single woman with a child and no food in a land that was experiencing famine.  This is a situation not unlike so many face as we speak today.  It may be your situation also.  Sooner or later, it will be a situation we all face.  The lesson in this text applies to all of us.

Do we trust God . . . really?  Do we put God first in our living?  Do we put Him first in our giving?  These are the types of questions we must answer before we leave this morning.  The lessons from the Lady of Zeraphath will help us learn to “Trust in God—Really!”

Let’s get acquainted with the Widow of Zarephath by reading verses 7-12 together, and then we will work our way through the text:

READ 1Kings 17:7-16.

How we respond to God when we are desperate demonstrates just how much we really trust God.  This Widow was “desperate!”

The immediate background of this passage begins in chpt 16:23-25

At the time of our text Israel was experiencing a high point in its economy and a very low point in its morality.  For generations, Israel was plagued with terrible leadership (kings).  Currently, Ahab was king and the word says in 1Kngs 16:30:

“Ahab, son of Omri, did more evil in  the eyes of the Lord than any of those before him.”

Currently, even with all the turmoil in government, America is living pretty high on the hog economically compared to most of the world.  The Stock Market dips, but it still is higher than in any previous generation. Yet, America’s morality can be categorized as nothing more than “abysmal.”  Like Israel, we have been and are plagued with some pretty terrible leadership in our government.

I could spill forth a litany of ironies pointing to the moral decay in America:  like, school sponsored condom programs while school-sponsored prayer is illegal.  Or, a man in Idaho is threatened with jail for shooting a Grizzly Bear that entered his property where his children were playing, but it is perfectly legal to kill an unborn baby human.  The rudder of America’s morality has completely disintegrated.  We are drifting aimlessly on a sea of immorality. We have a high standard of living economically, and a very low standard of living morally.  It’s never been worse.

So it was in the time of the Widow in our text.  And, as a result, God sent a drought in response to the immorality (17:1). 

Israel had slipped into a horrible period of idolatry. They had problems with idolatry before, but now the idolatry had reached the highest levels of leadership in the nation.  Idol worship WAS the religion of Israel.  This brought God’s wrath upon the nation.

This brings me to my first point in the message.  

1.  Faith Does Not Prevent Hard Times  (vv 1-7, esp 7a; v12)

If anything, faith makes life much harder in many ways.  Sometimes hard times come because of our own foolishness.  Sometimes hard times come just as a fact of life.  Sometimes, hard time come because our faith requires it.  But, hard times will surely come and will test just how much we really “Trust in God.” As I said last week, “If trust were easy, everyone would be doing it.”  In fact, life is hard and trusting God is hard.  As I said last week, “If trust were easy, everyone would be doing it.”  In fact, life is hard and trusting God is hard.  The widow was a suffering citizen in a suffering country.

The Widow was not the only one affected by the drought.  Look at vss 2-6:

17 Now Elijah the Tishbite, from the Gilead settlers,  ^c said to Ahab, “As the Lord God of Israel lives,  I stand before Him, and there will be no dew or rain during these years except by my command!” ² Then a revelation from the Lord came to him: ³ “Leave here, turn eastward, and hide  yourself at the Wadi Cherith where it enters the Jordan. ⁴ You are to drink from the wadi. I have commanded the ravens  to provide for you there.”

Now keep in mind that a “Wadi” is a valley stream that only flows when there is much rain.  The rains had stopped.  The Wadi should have been dry.  No doubt Elijah was wondering how he was going to drink from a dry river bed, but verse 5 says:

“So he did what the Lord commanded.”

POINT  You might want to mark this down in your notes:  if you want to be blessed, you need to do what the Lord commands.  This applies to every aspect of our lives, but surely applies to our giving of our offering to the church.

God’s people are not immune to hard times.  Even when we are doing everything we know to do as believers, we can experience some pretty rough seas in life.  In fact, just when God’s man was getting used to the water in the Wadi and bread delivered by carrier raven, look at verse 7:

“After a while the wadi dried up.”

So, here’s where the Widow enters our story. VV. 8-9:

⁸ Then the word of the Lord came to him: ⁹ “Get up, go to Zarephath  that belongs to Sidon and stay there. Look, I have commanded a woman who is a widow to provide for you there.”

I can almost hear Elijah say:  “Oh, Lord, not a widow!”  But Elijah was once again obedient to the Word he received from the Lord. V10:

Elijah got up and went!

POINT You might want to write this in your notes:  Simply hearing the Word of God, or knowing a thousand facts about God will never substitute for obeying God – “Get up and go!”

The Widow in our text was experiencing some hard times. We read about her difficulties a few minutes ago.  She was gathering up some sticks to make a fire in order to cook her last meal for herself and her son – and then she fully expected to starve to death.  She was desperate, indeed.

Mark this down my friends:  “Things are going to get worse before they get worse.”  I don’t think this cloud of trouble our world finds herself at this time has a silver lining – beyond the hope a person has in Christ.

Make no mistake about it:  you will face “lean, hard times” in life—if not now, sooner rather than later.  You need to start now “battening down your hatches.” You may very well find yourself like “Old Mother Hubbard.” 

Old Mother Hubbard Went to the cupboard,

To give the poor dog a bone: When she came there,

The cupboard was bare, And so the poor dog had none.

The Poor Widow in our text this morning could have been

the inspiration for Old Mother Hubbard.

Hard Times do not refer to just “economic conditions.”  We can experience hard times with our health.  We can experience hard times in our marriages.  We can experience lean times spiritually—a phenomenon St. John of the Cross called a “Dark Night of the Soul.”

My point is this:  we cannot be “fair-weather believers.”  We must resolve to trust God in bad times as well as the good times.  Trusting God is an attitude that can be severely challenged by hard times.

This brings me to the second lesson I’ve gleaned from the Widow that you can add to your summary of the text: 

2.  Faith requires you ACT before you SEE (vv. 11-12)

¹¹ As she went to get it [ei, a drink of water], he called to her and said, “Please bring me a piece of bread in your hand.”

The Widow quickly protested by pointing out that she did not have any bread in her hand, and she certainly did not have enough flour and oil to make enough for the prophet to have some.  The widow could not “see” the solution to her problem.  She could only see the problem.  This lesson exposes the weakness in the faith of most people:  they can see every detail of their problem, but cannot see the DESIGN God has for a solution.

This is also why most people do not give regularly to God through the church:  they can only see what they are “giving up” and not what God has in store to give back.  Let me repeat that.  Tithing is not an expense—it is an investment; an investment with eternal dividends.

Without exercising faith when we give we can only see what we are “giving up” and not what God has in store to “getting back”  Keep that in mind as you listen to this Word from God in regard to “tithing,” or giving regularly at least one-tenth to the church:

Mal. 3:10  Bring the full tenth into the storehouse  so that there may be food in My house.  Test Me in this way,” says the Lord of Hosts. “See if I will not open the floodgates of heaven  and pour out a blessing for you without measure.

If our plan is to wait until God makes us rich before we “give a full tenth” to Him:  ONE:  We will never give; and TWO, we will never experience what it means to be “truly rich.”

Faith requires that we ACT before we SEE.  This is not “blind faith” but confident trust.

Listen to another verse on the relationship between “trust” and “sight”

Heb 11:1  Now faith is the reality  of what is hoped for,
the proof  of what is not seen.

If we want to truly be blessed by God and to be “rich beyond any human measure” we have to see “the bread as already in our hand.”

This principle even applies to our prayer life.  Mark 11:24 says:

⁴ Therefore I tell you, all the things you pray and ask for —believe that you have received  ^q them, and you will have them.

If you are not experiencing a miraculous affirmation that the answer to your prayer is on the way, one of two things is happening: ONE—you are asking for something that is NOT in God’s will; or TWO—you are not “seeing your prayer as already answered.”

POINT:  A very important point in regard to trusting God for all our living, including trusting God with our giving is this:  you cannot experience the miracle of bread if you are only relying on the resources you already have in your barrel.  Your resources are NEVER ENOUGH  to bake a miracle.

Now, a third lesson, and the key lesson in our text—indeed the key issue in trusting God in life—is this:

God’s provision is there all the time.  God always knows in advance what we need, whether we can see it or not.  When darkness falls over my part of the world, I cannot see the sun, but I know it is still there.  So, even when I cannot see God’s hand, I can always trust His heart.  His answers to my prayers are always there.  Remember the horrible devastation that was brought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  There were billions of dollars in damage and tens of thousands of people displaced.   One man who was devastated by this disaster was a retired Methodist minister.  Rev. Jones and his wife evacuated before Katrina struck.  After the storm passed, they were allowed to go back into the city to grab a few belongings.  When they entered their house the water was still knee-deep.  Rev. Jones was determined to salvage what little he could.  He saw several cherished family photos floating in the water.  They were all that seemed salvageable so he scooped them up and took them back to the shelter.  Back at the shelter Rev. Jones removed the photos from the frame so they could dry out.  When he removed the photo of his father’s picture, money fell out of the frame.  Rev. Jones counted $366.  The astounding part was his father had died in 1942 so that money had been in that frame for over 100 years.  Even more astounding is this:  $366 is the exact amount Rev. Jones and his wife needed for tickets to go to Atlanta after the storm and live with their daughter.  Trust means we act before we see knowing that God has already prepared to bless us.

3.  When we trust God with our living—including our giving, we always get more than we bargained for (vv. 17-24)

Remember I said that the theme of my message this morning was:  When we put God first in our lives miracles happen?  Well, I was not thinking only of the barrel of flour and jar of cooking oil that lasted every day for a three year drought.  I was thinking of verses 17-24:

Soon after the incident with the miraculous barrel and jar, the Widow fell on even harder times – not economically, but personally.  Her only son fell ill and died. She sought help from the prophet and we see the result in v 21ff:

²¹ Then he stretched himself out over the boy three times.  He cried out to the Lord and said, “My Lord God, please let this boy’s life return to him!” ²² So the Lord listened to Elijah’s voice, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived.  ²³ Then Elijah took the boy, brought him down from the upper room into the house, and gave him to his mother.  Elijah said, “Look, your son is alive.” ²⁴ Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know you are a man of God  and the Lord’s word from your mouth is true.”

Nobody will ever get saved because God makes them rich.  They will never get saved even if they see miracles happen all the time like the unfailing barrel of flour and jar of oil.  Learning to trust God requires something more than seeing a miracle – it requires experiencing a relationship.

A very important word jumps off the page at me at the end of the miraculous saving of the Widow’s son.  What did the Widow say:

“Now I know!”

That word “know” in Hebrew means a lot more than our word, “know” in English.  It means to have an transforming knowledge through an intimate relationship.  YADA cries out:  relationship!

People don’t get saved by miracles—people get saved by God.

People don’t get saved by filling their bellies --
they get saved by letting God fill their souls.

The miracle of the unending barrel and jar touched the woman physically.  The miracle of getting her son back touched her “spiritually.”  What really is taking place when the woman said, “Now I know” is this:  she connected with Almighty God.  That’s what trust is all about:  connecting with God!

She fell on hard times.  As best as she knew how, she believed the prophet even when her circumstances said otherwise.  She put God first; and she experienced a real miracle – a miracle of new life.

We all have a barrel and a jar in life.  Sometimes they are more full than other times.  How we respond to God in the times when the barrel is empty, determines how much God will bless us.

You MUST PUT GOD FIRST if you want miracles to happen in your life.  You can’t give Him the left-overs and crumbs of your life and expect to experience what the Widow experienced.