Today we're actually finishing up our series
that we've been in all summer long going through
the book of James. And I want to give a special
thanks to everyone else that preached as a part
of that. So a special thanks to Gary and Alex
and Jen and Jake and Scott and Eric. Thanks for
being part of this year. So give them a round
of applause. And while Eric's not here, a special
thanks to him because he talked about baseball
last week. So that's great. All right, so let's
actually, we're just going to jump right in.
to the passage so that we can get going, okay?
So we're going to be in James chapter 5. There's
Bibles on the table. They're the blue things.
And then there's Bibles out in the lobby. If
you want to take one home, feel free to take
one if you don't have one. Or you can download
a Bible from any of the digital app stores. James
is towards the end of the Bible. There's only
a few things after it. So it's Hebrews, James,
and then you start seeing 1 and 2 Peter and 1,
2, 3 John. So if you see that neighborhood, you
know where to get to, okay? We're going to be
in James. And then we have a tradition of giving
the scriptures our full attention when they're
read in the context of a message or a sermon.
You can do that any way that is going to work
best for you. But if you'd like to stand with
me, you can stand with me now as I read from
James 5, starting in verse 13. Are any among
you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful?
They should sing songs of praise. Are any among
you sick? They should call for the elders of
the church and have them pray over them, anointing
them with oil in the name of the Lord. Prayer
of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will
raise them up, and anyone who has committed sins
will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins
to one another and pray for one another so that
you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous
is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human
like us. And he prayed fervently that it might
not rain, and for three years and six months
it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed
again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth yielded
its harvest. My brothers and sisters, if anyone
among you wanders from the truth and is brought
back by another, you should know that whoever
brings back a sinner from wandering will save
the sinner's soul from death and will cover a
multitude of sins. And the book of James ends.
Let us pray. God of every tribe, every tongue,
every color, every nation, we thank you for the
scriptures that they have persisted throughout
the millennia. We still have them to read, to
consider, to learn from. Whatever you have for
us today, I pray that it would stick, that it
would become a part of the framework of our faith,
that our faith would become stronger as we become
more like your son, Jesus. Amen? Amen. You may
be seated. Elijah is the fourth historical figure
that James has mentioned throughout his short
book of just five chapters. He mentions Abraham.
He mentions Rahab when he's talking about faith,
when he's talking about actions. He mentions
Job. when he's talking about enduring through
suffering. Here in the last few verses, James
mentions Elijah when he's talking about prayer.
Now, we've already talked about prayer, a number
of different sermons, and so I'm not going to
focus on the subject of prayer. I want to focus
on the subject of Elijah, because Bible writers
do this thing quite often where they'll name
drop. They'll just mention someone and maybe
just a little bit of their story, expecting that
you'll know more of the story and that this story
will help you with understanding what's going
on. We do the same thing now. If you have lived
in Rock Island for more than 10 years, and I
say the Walmart debacle, you know exactly what
I'm talking about. It's a similar thing here,
where you drop a topic or a name. And immediately
whatever I say next gets put into the context
of that thing that I just mentioned. Writers
like James do this all the time, knowing that
the basic reference will tell us something. But
they also know that if we have more of the details,
we'll find more meaning in what is being said.
So just a pastor's encouragement, whenever possible,
if a Bible writer mentions something or someone
else or another event that happened way earlier
in the book, it will benefit you to go back and
look at what actually happened. It will tell
you more about what they're saying right there.
And so that's what we're going to do today. We're
actually going to go back. We're going to look
at Elijah because these verses about Elijah might
be about more than just rain and prayer. If you
want to read every word of the story later, you
can. You're going to go back to 1 Kings 11, okay?
And you're going to read at least through. Chapter
19, but I'm going to paraphrase it for us for
the sake of time. In 120 years, Israel had three
kings. Just popcorn it. Who were Israel's first
three kings? Just popcorn it. Saul? Solomon and
David. Yeah. So first was Saul, then came David,
and then came his son Solomon. And then in 1
Kings 11, it says that Solomon dies. Everything
changes. The kingdom of 12 tribes splits into
two kingdoms. Ten tribes in the north keep the
name Israel. Two tribes in the south, they take
the name Judah, which was the name of one of
those two tribes. And over the course of less
than the next 200 years, 120 years, three kings
for everybody. In less than the next 200 years,
the northern king had 19 kings. The southern
kingdom had 20. So when you get to Elijah, you
can tell that the context has already changed.
It's tumultuous. There's something happening.
When you get to Elijah, he's on the seventh king
after Solomon. And every single one of those
kings, if you read it, it says, and this king
did evil in the sight of God. The next one, and
this king did evil in the sight of God. And the
next one, and this king did evil in the sight
of God. And you get to Ahab, and he says, this
king did evil in the sight of God more than any
other king. The evil that he did that was more
than any other king was that he married someone
from outside of Israel, and he brought her cultural
god into Israel. That cultural god was called
what in English? We tend to say Baal, but it
was actually Baal. So he brings her God into
Israel. And not only does he worship Baal, but
he leads the people of Israel into worshiping
Baal. He sets up places of worship for Baal.
And, all right, we'll just keep the Bible quiz
going. Who remembers the first commandment? Thou
shalt have no other gods before me. If you have
a hard time memorizing Ten Commandments or all
the Beatitudes, you know, most of the time any
of us are trying to memorize a list, we at least
remember the first one. You shall have no other
gods before me. Sin wasn't just that he worshipped
another god. It's that he led the people to do
it as well. This is a classic case of what we
still see today, where the leader goes, the people
follow. The leader is worshiping false gods.
A good chunk of those people are going to worship
that false god. The leader is protecting abusers,
cutting funding for the poorest people, and saying
racist, conspiracy -laden nonsense designed to
distract people from God and justice than a great...
number of people will turn around and protect
abusers, praise the neglect of the needy, and
echo racist conspiracy -laden nonsense designed
to distract them from God and from justice. So
Elijah, he knows this is what is happening. He
goes to the king and he says, it's not going
to rain anymore. Your sin, your sin, it's not
going to rain. It's shut up the heavens. And
it will not rain again until I pray. Now, if
you're the king, if you're the leader, you have
two choices. You either repent and change course,
or you try to kill the messenger to keep from
that message getting out to the people. And isn't
that what continues to happen today? For the
next... Three and a half years, Elijah was a
hunted man. And so God hides him near, in the
scriptures it's called a wadi, but it's essentially
just a riverbed that still has water in it. And
for food, my wife will love this. She loves this
part of the story. For food, he had the ravens
bring him food every day. All she wants is a
raven to befriend her. That's all she wants.
Or a crow, one of the two. You just want a bird
to be friends with you. A crow, specifically.
Elijah had plenty of bird friends. I know I'm
joking around a little bit here, but I want you
to hear what I'm about to say. If God tells you
to confront the powers that be, he will feed
you. If God tells you to confront the powers
that be, he will feed you. I think one of our
greatest fears is what we will lose if we speak
up. It will require all of the faith that James
has been teaching us about. It will require all
of the patience that James has been teaching
us about. It will require us mastering our tongue
and our temper the way that James has been teaching
us so that we can use all of the wisdom. That
James has been teaching us. When God says to
speak. With this mouth. As the words come out.
He will give you what you need to go back in.
Now that doesn't mean. That the first way that
God feeds you will be the only way that he feeds
you. It says that eventually Elijah's water dried
up. presumably because the water came up. Maybe
the ravens stopped coming there because they
didn't have water to drink either. And so it
says that God spoke to him and said, Elijah,
I want you to go to a place called Zarephath.
There's a widow there that I have told to feed
you. And he goes. He decides to trust the Lord
once again, trusting the Lord will provide for
him, though he has spoken out and his life is
in danger. And it says that he goes to Zarephath
and he finds this widow at the gate of the city
and she's collecting sticks. And he says to her,
will you please bring me water and provide food
for me? She says, I would, but... I only have
enough left for one day. I only have enough left
for one more meal for myself and for my son.
The reason I'm here is because I'm collecting
sticks to make a fire to bake our last meal so
that then my son and I will die. It's a moment
of realism for Elijah. He's been hidden away.
He's had food and water for his every day. He
has been in hiding, but he has had it relatively
easy. He hasn't seen yet how God's punishment
and judgment against Ahab have been affecting
the people. Because as a leader goes, so goes
the people. And if judgment and punishment comes
against a leader, it will inevitably affect the
people that he leads as well. So Elijah promises.
He says, no matter what, no matter how long your
supplies, How low you think your supplies are.
Even if you think you can see the bottom through
the grain that you're about to use, your grain,
your oil, will never run out until the rain comes.
Again, that is my promise to you as a man of
God. She believes him. She bakes. She gives food
to him. She has food for herself and for her
son, and it happens. single day. How many of
us have the guts to say what we believe God will
do right after our water ran out? How many of
us have the guts to use everything we have left
over to feed a stranger, trusting there would
be more tomorrow? For Elijah, he trusted that
God didn't send him there to die. Or for this
woman, or her son to die. But listen, he was
a man of faith. The real credit should go to
the woman. That she believed. It was her life.
It was her son's life that she was putting on
the line to help a stranger. It was her faith
that kept him alive. Now, this goes on for a
while, probably years. We know that it's three
and a half years in total. It doesn't say how
long until the waterbed dried up. It could have
been years that she was feeding him every day.
And then it says that her son got sick anyway.
It says that he dies. So she says to Elijah,
something most of us have probably felt as well.
She says, after all this, what have you done?
She says, is this my old sin? That I'm being
punished for? That you let my son die? He says
that Elijah cried to God over this boy. He says
to God, why have you saved my life but taken
his? He cries out. He says, let him die. He falls
onto the boy three times. It describes him laying
his body across this boy's body three different
times, crying and praying. And it says that the
life of the child came back into him again. Elijah
knows that none of this has happened because
of her sin. None of this was her fault. Why should
she lose her son because of someone else's sin?
when he was alive because of her faith. And I
think that he knows if her son died and needed
to be brought back to life, how many others are
dying, hoping that there would still be life.
So it was time for him to go back to the king,
to confront not only the king's idolatry, but
to confront... All of the prophets of Baal. To
confront all of the false leaders that were leading
the people into worshiping something that was
wicked. Now remember, all of this, everything
that I've just said is baked into two verses
in James. That Elijah was a human like us. All
of this. And he prayed that it would stop raining,
and then he prayed that it would begin raining.
All of this happened in between there, and we're
not even done yet. So Elijah goes back, and he
says to the king, let's have a contest. All right,
he didn't say that, but that's the kind of way
it plays out. He says, you guys build an altar
to your God, and I will build an altar to the
God, and you guys cry out. Ask your God to answer
and set your altar on fire. I'll ask my God and
see who answers. And whoever answers is the winner.
So the false prophets of Baal, they set up an
altar. They cry out to God all day long. It says
that after a while, they had been crying so loudly
and so longly that they started hurting themselves.
Trying to get... this God's attention. They started
abusing their bodies, just trying to get this
God to listen to them. And then it says that
Elijah, sitting over here, is like, hey guys,
maybe he's taking a nap. It's legit. Go read
it. He starts just straight cold mocking them.
Oh guys, maybe he's on vacation. Picked the wrong
time. And after all day, Obviously, this God
does not answer. So he builds an altar out of
stone. Like the woman at the gate, he tells them
to collect wood for the fire. And like the widow,
he asks for water. And he says, bring water and
douse the entire thing. They dug a moat around
the altar and they doused the thing three different
times. And the moat... filled up with water.
He saturated the offering, the wood, the stones,
all of it with water so that there would be no
chance that something or someone else had done
that. He stands back and he prays a simple prayer.
God, answer my prayer today so that your people
will turn their hearts back to you. And immediately
fire strikes the altar consuming everything.
Not just the offering, not just the wood, not
just the stone, but evaporates all of the water
into thin air, leaving no doubt whose God is
alive and whose God is worthy. All the false
prophets were put to death. God brings back the
rain, and the people have the opportunity to
bring back their hearts to God. When that fire
fell on that altar, it wasn't just about proving
but all wrong. It was about calling a nation
back to God. It wasn't just about proving that
that's fake and the wrong thing to follow. It
was about calling people back from their wandering
to save them from their sins. To call them back
to a God that is real. Instead of following a
wicked, wicked king. In James, verse 15 and 16,
it says, anyone who's committed sins will be
forgiven. Hear that. Anyone, anyone will be forgiven.
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and
pray for one another so that you may be healed.
See, some people know when they've done something
wrong and that it's time to say they're sorry.
Some people know. When they've done something
wrong and it's time to turn their hearts fully
back to God. They know when it's time for them
to come home so that they do not abandon their
God and follow a wicked king. But when verse
20 says, whoever brings back a sinner from wandering
will save the sinner's soul from death and will
cover multitude of sins. James knows that some
people don't know. They need someone to tell
them. Over and over again, in the scriptures,
God does this for his people and for the world.
He tells us. He shows us. He confronts the leaders
that have led us away, doesn't he? Doesn't he?
Ultimately, Jesus, the perfect image and presence,
fullness of God, became human like us to show
us, to bring us. Home, like Elijah. Jesus confronted
the powers of his age. Not with violence, but
with his broken body. Not with abuse, but comfort
for the healing that had been hurting. Not with
a sword, but with love. See, Jesus became the
altar. The offering on a cross. The sticks. The
wood for the offering. Confronting the false
gods that we have worshipped. And confronting
the leaders who led us there. Jesus was not consumed
by fire. But he was crushed under the weight
of our sin. So that there would be nothing left
to keep us from coming home. We are a church.
As a church, we have always said that we are
here to call prodigals home, to adopt the spiritually
homeless. And part of that is confronting the
powers that have led them away from God in the
first place. Listen. Listen with ears to hear.
Elijah prayed and it did not rain three and a
half years. In our country. We have three and
a half years left in this current president's
term. And I pray the people do not suffer the
way that the Israelites did for the sins of their
king as they followed their king into idolatry.
I pray that the people of this country, that
the Christians in your neighborhood will not
fall into despair by following. Anything that
would lead them away from Jesus Christ. I can
see it the same way. The same way that the prophets
of Baal hurt themselves for a false god to get
the attention of a god that had no real power.
that did not actually care about them, that today
so many are hurting themselves for empty leadership,
for empty and abusive power, for an authority
that cannot bring the rain back. It will not
listen. It will not bring the rain back. I look
around and it feels like desert. It feels like
drought. It feels like the loudest Christian
voices in our country are the voices approving
cruelty. Cruelty. So much of American Christianity
has wandered off to worship. the gods of presidents,
instead of the God that is Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. And I hope that we will be like Elijah,
that we will trust that if we speak, that God
will feed us. I hope that this church, the individuals,
the entity, the community, the family, I hope
that we will be like Jesus, that we will use
our voices to confront the leaders that worship
empty idols that lead their people into drought
and famine. Because there are widows. They will
need food. There will be sick sons that will
need healing. It's a timeless truth that as the
leader goes, so goes the people. And so we, we,
we must follow Jesus. We, we must follow Jesus.
Say it with me. We must follow Jesus. Amen.