Relate Community Church
Relate Community Church
Triggered and Trapped | Week 3
I’m Fine
King Ahab told his wife Jezebel everything that Elijah had done and how he had put all the prophets of Baal to death. She sent a message to Elijah: “May the gods strike me dead if by this time tomorrow I don't do the same thing to you that you did to the prophets.” // Elijah was afraid and fled for his life; he took his servant and went to Beersheba in Judah. Leaving the servant there, Elijah walked a whole day into the wilderness. He stopped and sat down in the shade of a tree and wished he would die. “It's too much, Lord,” he prayed. “Take away my life; I might as well be dead!” There he went into a cave to spend the night. Suddenly the Lord spoke to him, “Elijah, what are you doing here?” He answered, “Lord God Almighty, I have always served you—you alone. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed all your prophets. I am the only one left—and they are trying to kill me!” 1 Kings 19:9-10
What happens when you allow Offense to take root?
- You Take Responsibility For a Battle That isn't Yours.
2. Your Thinking Gets Out Of balance.
Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind. Ecclesiastes 4:6 NIV
3. You isolate Yourself In A Cave.
The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”
Genesis 2:18 NIV
4. You Let The Noise Around You overpower God’s Voice.
“Go out and stand before me on top of the mountain,” the Lord said to him. Then the Lord passed by and sent a furious wind that split the hills and shattered the rocks—but the Lord was not in the wind. The wind stopped blowing, and then there was an earthquake—but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was a fire—but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the soft whisper of a voice. When Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. A voice said to him, “Elijah, what are you doing here?” He answered, “Lord God Almighty, I have always served you—you alone. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed all your prophets. I am the only one left—and they are trying to kill me.” 1 Kings 19:11-14
5. You Start Believing The lies You Tell Yourself.
And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise… Then the God of peace will be with you.
Philippians 4:8-9 NLT
6. You forfeit The Role God Has Given You
The Lord said, “Return to the wilderness near Damascus, then enter the city and anoint Hazael as king of Syria; anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king of Israel, and anoint Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel Meholah to succeed you as prophet. 1 Kings 19:15-16
Discussion Questions:
Growing up, how did your family handle payback? (Examples: siblings getting even, playful revenge, or getting even.)
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All right, good morning everybody and welcome to church. How many of you are excited to be here? Okay, that's most of you. Some of you are still trying to wake up and it's a little rainy outside, and that's all right. We're gonna have a good time today in church.
Speaker 1:I know today's message is gonna help you. I know it's going to challenge all of us, because it challenged me this week. I feel like this series that we're in is one of those series that it pretends like it's going to be fun and it's going to be something that is teaching, but it's really one of those things that challenges us at the deepest part of our heart and where some of us have locked away some pain and some hurt. And I feel like this is one of those series where God can really help us get freedom as we open up his word and see God's will for us and his desire for us. So I hope, my hope for you today is that that's where you're going with me. So go ahead and pull out your notes, go ahead and prepare your hearts and minds to dig a little deeper into God's word and take a hold of the freedom and get to the place where he wants us to be. But that requires us to sometimes make some hard decisions, and sometimes we described it sometimes before is ripping the Band-Aid off to where there's just some things that if we'll take those steps, they might be difficult, they might be scary, but when we do, our life becomes so much better. If you are a guest today, if you are, or whether you're home today or watching online for the first time or joining us again, it means everything to us that you're with us today, that we're worshiping together here in the very first service. It's an awesome thing to imagine that we have not just two services and our own building, and things are growing and lots.
Speaker 1:How many of you guys saw the fence coming up outside in the graveyard there? Yes, some of you don't know what I'm talking about. Just go look toward the graveyard and there's a beautiful fence that is coming right along, and some of you are. If you have little kids, you're thrilled about that because you know sometimes the kids just charge off into the graveyard like it's Adventureland, like it's the best playground a church could ever have. But you know we're dealing with it.
Speaker 1:So, with that said, I just want to pray for us. Take a minute and let's kind of bow our hearts and turn our hearts toward his will, toward his desire, towards, in your own way, what surrender looks like and coming into a yielding, because this is one of those every time we open God's word. That should be our posture. That should be our posture where we're saying God, whatever you want done here, I'm in. So let's do that as we get started. Lord, we just thank you again for loving us before we ever loved you, before we ever knew of you, before we were ever born, while we were still in our mother's wombs. Lord, your word says that you knit us together. You knew every page in our book before even one of them was lived out. And so, right now, we just turn to you and we look for freedom, we look for healing, we look for your plan and your purpose, your desires for us, and we yield to them. Put aside our own agenda, our own thoughts, our own checklist of issues and prayer requests, and we just say yes to your design for us, in Jesus' name, amen. All right, are you ready? Okay, that's five. How about one more time? Are y'all ready, all right? Good, good, good.
Speaker 1:Triggered and Trapped this whole series. We're week number three. We've been talking about what it looks like when the enemy sets a trap for us. It almost always looks the same. You know there are a few variations, but almost always it's a lie wrapped in some, there's some kind of bait put on the trap that we want to go for. Otherwise, why would we go for it? Why would we, why would we trigger that? Why would we put ourselves in a trap or to a bad situation or accept a lie Other than there's part of it that is appealing and part of it feels good, it's something that we want to do. Our flesh says I like that, and so we are. We're asking God to open our eyes, open our ears to see what we need to see and hear what we need to hear, so that we don't trigger those traps, we don't go for the bait and hear what we need to hear, so that we don't trigger those traps. We don't go for the bait and in this case, almost always offense the idea of taking offense.
Speaker 1:Let me just lay this out real quick. Sometimes offense is not somebody says something that hurts your feelings, or sometimes it's something someone does and it's not just well, I am so offended. No, sometimes somebody says something to you and doesn't hit you and you don't rise up and come back at them. And then now all of a sudden you're offended and we're going to be I'm going to give them what they gave me. No, sometimes an offense is just something, that it's like death by a thousand cuts or it's just a small little wound and then that turns into something else and this progression of pain in our lives turns from something that seems innocuous, it seems like it's you know, I take it or leave it. It just I want to just forget about it that turns, it takes root. The Bible talks about the root of bitterness and all of a sudden offense whether it's all of a sudden or over time, it turns into bitterness, turns into something ugly and toxic and something that's painful every time I think about it.
Speaker 1:So the very first week of this series we talked about the bait itself and kind of the mechanics of the enemy's strategy against us, and then last week we took it to a deeper level. How offense? Deeper level, how offense? Sometimes we want more than just to return evil for evil. But we have this justification. We want to justify and make things fair and make things even and fix things. And if I don't, then who will stand up for justice? And so we talked about vengeance, and vengeance is mine, says the Lord, and so it's his to take and not ours. If we'll put it in his hands, then he can do a much, much better job. Somebody say amen this week.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about something a little bit different, and to the title of your message. If you're taking notes I hope you are we're a note-taking church. Your title is I'm fine, I'm fine. That's when you ask somebody, well, what's wrong? Because you can tell something's wrong and they're like I'm fine, nothing's wrong. Some of the men just leaned forward and thought I'm going to learn about what my wife is all about right now. This is not that message. This is there are places and times in life where we want to ignore the problem. We want to. Maybe something has happened, but we're not paying attention. We haven't acknowledged that there is an offense. When you don't acknowledge an offense, you let it land and you let it root, you let it take root. And so I want to talk about kind of this idea that it's possible for something to be wrong and you don't know that something's wrong. You've either ignored it or you haven't. You're blind to it. I'll give you a few examples.
Speaker 1:15, 20 years ago almost, I was a youth pastor for a long time and one of the young guys in our group was kind of known for. He was in the high school wrestling and he was always fighting and he just he was a rough, rough kid and he had a great attitude all the time. But his thing was it was kind of his part of his personality that you couldn't hurt him. Like if, if you were to play mercy or one of those, any kind of game where he had to give up or tell you that he was in pain, he would not. He would hurt himself to to to give up or tell you that he was in pain, he would not. He would hurt himself to not say that he was hurt. So at one point I noticed he was limping a little bit. I said, dude, I won't tell you his name, but I'll call him Johnny. Johnny, you're limping and are you okay? He's like I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. He would never say he's hurt. And it went on for like several days and then a week and then almost two weeks and finally his mom said there's a problem, we need to go. Look, we need to go to the doctor. He said I'm fine. They went to the doctor. It turns out his ankle was broken and now, two weeks later, they had to re-break his ankle because some part of him wanted to, not just would not acknowledge, would not accept that there was an issue going on.
Speaker 1:And sometimes we do ourself a disservice or we do ourselves more damage when we just won't acknowledge that hey, I'm dealing with something here, there's something going on, there's something deeper here. As a human being, it's not personal to you, it's personal to all of us. As humans, we're capable of ignoring a thing, even if it's right in our face. We're capable of tuning it out in a way that I just don't want to see it, even though it's right here in front of my face.
Speaker 1:I've been to some people's houses and I walk in and instantly I realize there's something, there's a, there's a smell here. What is the smell? Sometimes it's good and I say, hey, what is that smell? And they're like I don't know, that's our house. Sometimes it's a very bad smell and you think this needs some investigation. There's some, I don't know where this is. We could, we could figure this out, but we become nose blinded. There's been things where I come home into our house and I'm like, babe, what's that smell? And she's like I don't know what you're talking about. This is like normal smell in here. And I'm like, uh, no, no, no, it's not normal smell. There's something going on here, um, some that. That's kind of the way if you have a gas leak, it's easy to not know that it's happening if you miss it, and so this is kind of like that.
Speaker 1:In our faith, in our emotional life, there's things that are happening and if you're not looking for it, you'll never see it. In fact, if you've got your eyes turned or blinders on, or if you're just so focused on other things especially, I don't have time to be offended right now. I don't have time to deal with that kind of I don't have time to be hurt right now. There are those in the room. That's not your nature, in fact, as it relates to like how we relate to each other. There are some people, when something's wrong, you're a shouter how we relate to each other.
Speaker 1:There are some people, when something's wrong, you're a shouter. You're going to come right on out and say I don't like how this is going and we're going to talk about this right now, or you're going to let it be known that that that there's a, there's shouters. And then there's people like me who are not. Shouters were powders. If I, if, if, sometimes I'll just push it down and I'm not. I'm not even going to deal with this right now. I don't. I'll just endure it for a little while and see if it goes away, see if it's something we need to. So they're probably in the room. I won't ask you to raise your hand, but we got powders and shouters and usually they're married to each other.
Speaker 1:So, whether it turns out to be a broken ankle or hurt feelings or a broken heart or just an offense that you never saw coming, this message is about not overloading, like there's something about overstepping it and passing it by. We talked about that last week, that love covers a multitude of sin. There's an ability where we are able to pass over. But if I think I'm passing over an offense and yet it's still rooted in my heart, then I haven't passed over it. I've just overlooked it and yet it's still landed, it's still affecting me, it's still hanging on to me.
Speaker 1:As Christians, we think that well, I just need to, we think it's holy or we think it's righteous, if we'll just, you know, keep our head held high and nothing bothers me. And whenever people ask me how are you doing? Oh, I'm doing just fine, I'm doing great. Well, can I tell you that it's okay. As a believer, as a Jesus follower, it's okay to not be okay, it's okay to not be able to just be oblivious and non-emotional to everything because we are emotional, just because we feel emotion, just because offenses land and our hearts get broken and we're dealing with something heavy. It's not, it doesn't take you out of God's will.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's in marriage and she'll say something or he'll say something and it affects you so deeply. I remember when Angela and I, especially in our first year of marriage we're 26 years married this year, but in our first year of marriage there were so many things like I can't believe. She said that this changes everything, this. I don't know if I'll be able to forget this. Like you learn that she didn't intend that. Like you work through those they usually try to work through those things and we develop our communication abilities. But sometimes in life something hits you and all of a sudden it just changes everything. Maybe it's a boss, maybe it's your children or your mom or dad says something and it makes you rethink the way everything. It makes you rethink everything that you thought and in situations we feel like I just need to act, like I'm okay and we hold out a brave face and sometimes that's the answer.
Speaker 1:But when it truly lands, I want to show you in the Bible. I want us to turn to the Old Testament. Today we're going to open up a passage and look at the most famous of all prophets in the Old Testament Elijah. He's one of the greatest prophets.
Speaker 1:This incredible story is God used him in the year 867 BC. For those of you who understand what that means, some of you are like I don't know what that means. When was that Jesus? Before or after? Yes, 867 years before Jesus and the king. At that time? Elijah was the prophet.
Speaker 1:The king was Ahab, and the Bible says that Ahab had sinned more than any of the other kings before him. He had done so wrong in the sight of the Lord. All of Israel was going in the wrong direction. So all of God's people, the nation of Israel, was worshiping false gods. He had married a woman from outside of Israel named Jezebel, who had brought in the worship and led the people to worship Baal, the false god.
Speaker 1:And at one point Elijah goes to Ahab, king Ahab, and says listen, because you've done evil in the sight of the Lord. It's not going to rain until I say. And so of course King Ahab is mad, like not happy with Elijah. But Elijah is bold and brave and confident and says what God tells him to say. And then all of a sudden he's kind of on the run for the, because at this point Ahab says well, if we can find him, we can make him, make it rain again. Everyone's suffering, everyone. This is. This is bad news.
Speaker 1:Not only are they chasing Elijah, but they're killing all the other prophets of God, of Jehovah, and so this is a really it's like centrifuge and all of the. There's like spies and people who are looking for the prophets and the king and there's a lot of crazy stuff going on. But it becomes like God and the prophets of God against Ahab and Jezebel and his family and the prophets of Baal and Asherah and the other false gods. Here we go. So Elijah says it's not going to rain until I say and you need to get things together and turn your heart back toward God. He doesn't things together and turn your heart back toward God. He doesn't.
Speaker 1:And so Ahab and Elijah are out in the field and God speaks to Elijah and says go present yourself to King Ahab, because you have. I want you to talk to him and imagine King's looking for you. He wants to kill you, he wants to force you to make it rain, he's killing all the other prophets on the land. And God says go present yourself to the guy who's looking for you. So that's kind of the framework for the story that's about to unfold.
Speaker 1:Elijah does just that. He's bold. He goes and he presents himself to the king and right away the king says you, troublemaker, we've been looking for you. Of course I'm summarizing all of this you troublemaker. And because Elijah is bold and he is the prophet of God, he comes right back at the king and says no, no, no, you are the troublemaker, you're the one that caused all this problem. You can blame it on me, but you and your family and your father are all the problem here Now. I want you to just pay close attention. He never says that's our first indicator.
Speaker 1:We're going to read it here in just a minute. But he never says your wife is part of the problem. He leaves out Jezebel's name, and we're going to just make note of that. So I want to show you a quick video clip that will unfold what happens next. Finally, they're arguing over who's the real troublemaker and who's the real solution. And Elijah says why don't we just make this a challenge and find out whose God is really real? And so he bring all your prophets. So he brings 450 prophets of Baal and says why don't you make an altar? Build an altar, put a bull on it. We'll sacrifice a bull and see whose God accepts the sacrifice. And it's a showdown on Mount Carmel, and this video is going to show it to you quicker than I could tell you the story.
Speaker 2:You go first, choose a bull and call on the name of your god.
Speaker 1:You'll have to shout louder, for surely he is a god. Perhaps he is daydreaming or is relieving himself. My god's turn, o Lord, god of Abraham, isaac and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel. That gives you an idea of this moment where there's this challenge and a showdown between the false prophets and the prophet of God. And exactly that. Not only is Elijah bold and he's taunting the prophets that are not a their God is not showing up. No fire is falling from heaven, the, the sacrifice is not received by their God. He's not showing up, and the Bible actually says all those things. What he literally says in the Bible is maybe he's distracted, maybe your God is sleeping, maybe he's going number two. Go read it. And yet God shows up and the Bible says that the fire comes from heaven and consumes the sacrifice and the altar and all the water that had been poured on. So God shows up in a mighty way, and then they kill for all the prophets of the false God. And then this is where our our story picks up. So you see Elijah's bold. Elijah is stepping out, he's living his life, he's living on purpose, he's on God's plan for his life. And then something crazy happens. He actually tells Ahab okay, now that we've proven who's God is real, you got to start doing the right thing. And it can rain now. So he takes off the drought. But then King Ahab doesn't take it laying down, and so we're going to pick up in 1 Kings, chapter 19, verse 1. King Ahab told his wife, jezebel, everything that Elijah had done and how he had put all the prophets of Baal to death. She sent a message to Elijah. May the God strike me dead if this time tomorrow, I don't do the same thing to you that you did to the prophets. Okay, so she sends a message back to Elijah and just between us, elijah was brave and bold in the face of everything else, facing the prophets, facing the king, facing the drought, speaking to the weather. He was all of those else facing the prophets, facing the king, facing the drought, speaking to the weather. He was. All of those things were no big deal, but as soon as Jezebel threatens him, it hurts his feelings.
Speaker 1:This one strikes to like. This wounds him in his heart a little bit, because you're going to see his response. It says Elijah was afraid and fled for his life. He took his servant and went to Beersheba and Judah, leaving the servant there. Elijah walked a whole day in the wilderness. He stopped and sat down in the shade of a tree and wished he would die. Here's what he says when he prayed it's too much, lord, take away my life. I might as well be dead. It's too much, lord, take away my life, I might as well be dead.
Speaker 1:So, first off, jezebel came across really strong to him. There are some people in your life that anyone else can say what they say, and yet when they step in the room or when they say it or when they do it, or they just be living their life over there in the same room as you, breathing, and it's hurting your feelings. Some people, just they know how to get you, or they could look at you or make that face or say that they know how to trigger you. And so Elijah runs from an elite showdown. He goes from an elite showdown to really overwhelmed, ready to die. Take my life, I can't do this. It says.
Speaker 1:There he went into a cave and spent the night. Suddenly, the Lord spoke to him. Pay attention, right here. It says. This is what God says to him Elijah, what are you doing here? And he answered Lord, god Almighty, I have always served you, you alone. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars and killed your prophets. I'm the only one left and they're trying to kill me.
Speaker 1:Notice what he doesn't mention. All of those things didn't seem to be too big of a problem until one person came into the mix and he didn't even mention Jezebel at all. He never even says her name. It's like there's this one part of. He refuses to either look at it, say it or acknowledge that this is a part of the problem. But clearly she is a part of the problem.
Speaker 1:There are some things in your life that have hurt your faith, hurt your heart, hurt your feelings, and you've pretended it doesn't matter to you. You've pretended that you don't care about them at all. They have no effect on you. But even when you pretend to not be offended, when you pretend that it doesn't hurt you to the core. I want to look at a few things that happen when you allow offense to take root. Number one I will give you six today, so I'm going to go through them pretty quickly. Six of them. Number one the first thing that happens is you take responsibility for a battle that isn't yours. So, elijah, never should. There's some things that God said I want you to do this at the highest levels of politics and the and the nation and the world. It's not going to rain. There's some things that God's called you to do and there's some things that God has not called you to do, and for some reason, we just charge right into things that God didn't call us to do. There's some things that God never intended you to touch and yet you just decide that's your whole battle. That's the hill I am gonna die on, why?
Speaker 1:God's first question to him when he's in the cave and he's so upset, so distraught take my life. God's first question to him is what are you doing here, like, why are you in this cave? I didn't, I didn't send you to this cave. Why are you at? Why are you in this place in the country? Why are you? He never mentions Jezebel, but when God called him to to go present himself to Ahab, he was actually.
Speaker 1:I'm going to show you a quick picture. He was in a place on Mount Carmel in a lush, fruitful. Down off this mountain was a fruitful valley where most of the people of Israel lived. In northern Israel, most of the fruit and the produce is grown here. It's a beautiful place and he's well taken care of. And he runs away from this place. And where does he go? He goes to a place of desolation that's bleak and he runs toward right near Mount Sinai, into a cave. And sometimes I look at my life and I think how did I get here? And it's because I've run away from God, where God told me to be. God said I want you in this fruitful, beautiful place. Even though you're fighting battles, I'm going to take care of you. You've got to fight the king. You're speaking to the weather, you're fighting all the prophets, you're calling down fire from heaven, but you're still in a beautiful place. You're where I want you to be. And sometimes we get so upset, so hurt, so wounded that we run the other direction. He ran all the way to the south of Israel, into the desert, into the bleak and desolate, broken, dry place.
Speaker 1:Could it be that the place you're in, you never were supposed to be there in the first place? Could it be the fight you're having with so-and-so or such-and-such, or this thing that you're wrestling with? You never were supposed to pick it up, but that's not your battle. Could it be that person who is your arch enemy? God didn't call you to fight them. God didn't say go present yourself to that person or run away from that. They're not your fight. You need to go back, go back to Mount Carmel, go back to where God wants you to be. That doesn't mean life is perfect. You still got to fight the battles. He still has a purpose and a plan for you.
Speaker 1:Some offenses send you to a cave. Some offenses send you to a place where you are not supposed to be. Maybe you're frustrated with a relationship that this kid God you gave me. This kid, true, but can I tell you that this, this child that God put into your hands, they were his first. Some things you can't fight. Some battles belong to the last we talked about. How vengeance is mine? There's some things that he just wants you to know. Can you let him do his job, because he's going to do it a lot better than you would. And you're not there to fight. You're there to say what God tells you to say.
Speaker 1:Sometimes our kids don't do the things we want them to do. Sometimes kids make decisions. Sometimes it's a parent. It might be a husband or a wife. Can I tell you, wife, your husband belongs to God before he belongs to you. You don't have to fix him. Same thing, husband. Your wife belongs to the Lord. First he was, she was his before she was yours. It's his fight and he will win the fight. So you need to. You got to release it to God. You have to release it to God. There's there that you don't quite know how to let go of. Can I just give you a hint?
Speaker 1:The reason that we have small groups that relate is not so. You go, hang out with people and you'll have something to do. Fill up your schedule so you can run around town all week long and go to meetings. That's not the point. The point is because there's some things that you need other people around you to help you to let go of. There's some healing that you're only ever going to get when you're not by yourself.
Speaker 1:The Bible says we confess our sins to one another, and sins just mean the places where we're falling short, the places where we're struggling, the places that we're not reaching the standard. There's some of those things that we're only going to be able to deal with and find freedom when we bring other people into it and learn how to trust someone. You don't have to trust everybody. You don't have to stand up here on stage and say good morning everybody. My name is Sean and I have a problem. You don't have to do that. I don't want to embarrass you, but the thing is you can find one person at a small group that you can relate to. You can start to build trust with them, and it only takes two, three, four weeks before you start to realize you know what. Maybe I could talk to them.
Speaker 1:And there's this beautiful moment in a small group, in the life of a small group, or your walk of freedom, where you step out and you say hey guys, can I tell you about something I've been dealing with? Maybe it's one or two people. That is a key moment because you start unpacking that, you start walking through it together and sharing. I'm going to move on to number two or we won't get through six. Here we go.
Speaker 1:The second thing that happens is your thinking gets out of balance and this is one of those things that I'm going to show you that it's cyclical and it kind of has a duality, and I'm going to show you what that looks like. But we know that Elijah's thinking was not normal because he was taking on the world. And then, all of a sudden, one person says one thing and then boom, all of his thinking flips upside down. He's running for his life. God, kill me now. When his life was threatened, he was willing to stand up and mock the other prophets. But whenever Jezebel mocks him and threatens him and says if by this time tomorrow, all of a sudden something about that was enough to send his thinking into a spiral.
Speaker 1:Sometimes what happens small, it can grow into taking over your thoughts and we start not thinking like ourselves and we start arriving at conclusions that are not our own. And so this happens in nature in a really weird way. There's things that happen to us and we don't know that they're happening because we don't feel it. We don't feel it, so it doesn't matter that they're happening because we don't feel it. We don't feel it, so it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:Not too long ago we were in our backyard, angela and I and some of the kids and some other people, and I mentioned to some people that were there. I said, hey, you guys might want to put some mosquito spray on, because there's tons. We live in the woods. There are mosquitoes. If you live in my neighborhood you know Lonnie and Steve no, we live in like mosquito neighborhood. They were there before we got there and so I mentioned you definitely want to put on some mosquito spray. We got the natural stuff, we've got the unnatural stuff that just does the. They will kill them or keep them off of you and they say, oh, no, we're good, we don't need them. They have shorts on short sleeves. I said no, no, no. You definitely look at your legs there. There's mosquitoes all over you. They're getting you. You just don't know it. Mosquitoes have the. They have like an anesthetic whenever they bite you. You don't know that they're there until a little bit later. Sometimes offense happens that way that you don't know that this is happening, but you're actually. You're already too late by the time you feel it, by the time you recognize it, by the time you will be willing to. Okay, I got a problem. You're way deeper than you need to be For me in 2021,.
Speaker 1:My father-in-law, my pastor, my mentor, passed away in January 2021. It so affected me. That is crazy. The very same day I didn't. I didn't know how hard it was hitting me that for months he had been sick, in hospice and we were. We were really struggling. And then he passed on beginning of January and the same day I came home and realized that our water heater had busted or had a leak and there was water all over the back part of our house.
Speaker 1:In that moment I don't know how, I don't know why, but in that moment it seemed right to me that I just started pulling sheetrock off of all. I just started like pulling the toilet out and the I pulled off the disconnecting the water heater, pulling the pipes out of the wall, just destroying the whole back end of our house. And then it hit me. I probably shouldn't have done this right now. This is a bit I've. Just I went from having like grief and all this stuff to deal with and now I'd like the back end of my house is destroyed, when I could have just cleaned up the water and dealt with it later. I wasn't thinking clearly. I was like in my grief, I was processing emotion and all, and I just started like I went and got a hammer and just started I'm going to fix this and it became such a much bigger problem than it should have been.
Speaker 1:Sometimes we, if we're not moving slow enough to realize that we have we need. So here's the deal we have to create some margins last week, for the last few weeks. I know this doesn't seem like it fits together, but if I have both hands full and all my thoughts full and if I'm running 100 miles an hour, it's so much harder for me to recognize when there's a problem, when there's an issue, when someone else is having an issue, it's harder to love. Whenever I'm struggling or whenever my schedule is full. If I'm just go, go, go, go go, I got too much happening. This is kind of a picture of Elijah so much happening.
Speaker 1:When we get offended it's easy to get out of balance. But also when we get out of balance, we're more likely to be offended or offended again. Number three we isolate ourselves in a cave. When you take on an offense, you allow offense to take root. You ignore the fact that it's there. Then it causes you to isolate yourself.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that on the way as Elijah is running from Jezebel, it says he left his servant in the city. On his way to running into the desert he said leave me alone, I don't need it, I can take care of this by myself. I got this. And in all of the unbalanced thinking and running and I got to do this and in the middle of all that, he leaves the people who are closest to him. How often have you run away from something and you're in a place where no one can speak to you, no one can tell you. Hey, put some mosquito spray on Our offenses, cause us to isolate ourselves. And when we're lonely again like the last one, when we're lonely, we're much more likely to be offended. And so now it becomes this deadly cycle where it just snowballs into something bigger. Now we're not thinking clearly, we're getting offended, we're isolated, we're getting more offended and it's turning into something that it was never meant to be.
Speaker 1:In fact, when you look in the Bible, the very first chapter of the Bible, god says it is good. He created light, he separated light from the darkness, he created all the things that God did. The Bible says that it was good until the first thing ever mentioned that was not good. Do y'all know what? It was the very first thing that God saw and said that's not good. The very first thing that God saw and said that's not good. It's not good for man to be alone. That's the problem. Adam was all by himself. He needs a helpmate, he needs somebody to walk with.
Speaker 1:If you're walking alone, could it be? Can I just look at your life today? Can we look at your life? Can you look around and say it's not good for me to be alone? Can you just tell your neighbor you need me. Somebody just got a date right there. Hey, you need me in your life.
Speaker 1:This is why small groups exist. Doesn't matter what you do, you need to come out of your cave and start walking next to some people. You need to link up arms, grab someone by the hand. You see somebody by themselves. Go get next to them For your sake, for their sake, let's get in a group. I wish I could come around the room and just tap you on the shoulder and say, hey, are you doing life alone? Are you isolating? Are you running away? Are you in a cave right now? Get out of the cave. Let's go. Go pick up the servant, go back, get with some people, because when you're around some people that you can trust, it's very comforting to know that, look, I'm not the only one with a broken marriage, I'm not the only one with a broken heart, I'm not the only one who's been offended by this. I'm not the only one who turns on the news and has to turn it right back off. When you're in a group, you're able to get a perspective and you're able to speak faith to each other and you're able to challenge each other in a trusting and powerful way.
Speaker 1:Here's number four. You let the noise around you overpower God's voice. Watch this. God says go, stand out before me on top of the mountain. To Elijah in verse 11.
Speaker 1:Then the Lord passed by and sent a furious wind that split the hills and shattered the rocks, but the Lord was not in the wind. Then the wind stopped blowing and sent a furious wind that split the hills and shattered the rocks, but the Lord was not in the wind. Then the wind stopped blowing and then there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was a soft whisper of a voice and when Elijah heard it, he covered his face with his cloak and he went out and stood at the entrance of the cave and a cloak. And he went out and stood at the entrance of the cave and a voice said to him Elijah, what are you doing here? Notice the same question that God already asked him. He didn't hear it. Then, in fact, he spilled out a bunch of things like they did this to me and they're trying to kill me and they're not following you and they're tearing down all of your altars. And watch what. When, when God says, what are you doing here? Again, watch what his response is he answered Lord, god Almighty, I've always served you, you alone. But the people of Israel broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, killed all your prophets. I'm the only one left and they are trying to kill me. So in his response to the same question twice. So in his response to the same question twice, he spills out the same answer.
Speaker 1:I'm sure that had been running through his head and I don't have time to talk about this a whole lot, but we get this script that just runs. How often do you get into an argument? You're just telling yourself what you want to tell them. Maybe you're in the car driving. You're saying, well, I'm going to tell them such and such and so and so. And we've got this script. That just runs and it becomes we've talked about this before, but it becomes something that we kind of regurgitate and then we swallow it back down and then we regurgitate it again. It's like a cow that's chewing cud and it's psychologists call it ruminating that we just keep on chewing on this thing and when God asks him again, what are you doing here? There's a familiar lack of one thing, and he never says Jezebel's name.
Speaker 1:For the third time we see him ignoring this. He's blaming it on everything else and it's almost like he's ignoring that one factor that clearly has gotten him. So how do we do this? How do we listen for that still small voice and stop the regurgitating, stop the thought, this windstorm of thoughts in my head that just I? How do we do that? The Bible tells us to take captive every thought. How do we do that? Your thought? Life can kill your life if you let it run away with itself. So we have to take captive and make sure we're thinking about the right things, because if not, then here comes number five.
Speaker 1:You start believing the lies you tell yourself, you make the offense bigger than it really is. In fact, whenever he asks him, the thing that Elijah keeps saying is I'm the only one left and if you go back in. We're in chapter 19,. But if you go back one chapter before Obadiah, another prophet tells him there are a hundred prophets that I've hidden in a cave. He knew that he was not the only one, but now he's claiming it back to God and I'm the only one left. They just told him that there were a hundred prophets that had been saved and hidden, and yet now he's so caught up in this offense that he started believing the lie. I'm the only one left. Nobody cares about me. I might as well die. He ignored the offense and it festers and it grows and it becomes toxic.
Speaker 1:Brian Tracy said 95% of your emotions are determined by the way you talk to yourself, by the way that you talk to yourself. So I'm going to give you a verse that I know you've read before Philippians, chapter 4, verse 8, but I want you to pay close attention. It says now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing Fix your thoughts on Facebook, on Instagram and on TikTok. No, no, that's not what it says. Fix your thoughts, and I've underlined fix your thoughts, because this is very simple. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable, if you'll point your thoughts in the right direction. Fix your thoughts. Point your thoughts in the right direction. Fix your thoughts. And then the very next sentence says think about things Like what are you thinking about? Fix your thoughts by thinking about things, the right things, not the wrong things Like stop, put a roadblock in front of your own thoughts. If you have to Change what you're thinking about, think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise, then the God of peace will thoughts. If you have to Change what you're thinking about, think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise, then the God of peace will be with you. We need to change the way we're thinking. Finally I know I'm a little over time here Number six the sixth thing that happens when you allow offense to take root, even when you want to ignore it, is you forfeit the role God has given you.
Speaker 1:This is almost like number one. You're in the wrong place. God, why are you here? Why aren't you over there, where I want you to be? Why have you left the job I gave you? You're overwhelmed and running away. I need you back over there. There's so many. If the enemy can just offend you out of God's plan, not only are you losing and you out of where God wants you to be, but the enemy is winning.
Speaker 1:I remember Grace did when she was in high school our daughter, she did club volleyball. So she was, she played in school, she played. We traveled and played. She played volleyball everywhere, everywhere, and we went to a tournament in Dallas one weekend and they're playing team after team after team in a big tournament and one of the teams and, believe me, there are a lot of trash talking that goes on. They all know, even though there are other teams from other places. A lot of them know each other because they've all played each other and people are insulting and saying you guys are trash and y'all aren't going to win this time. And one of the teams got so overwhelmed and so upset because some people said something. There was all kinds of. I don't think you can get a bunch of teenage girls together and there not be some drama, but there was some drama and one of the teams was so upset and people were upset.
Speaker 1:I can't believe that they're allowing this to happen and people to say they should never have been allowed to say the things they said, and this and that and that, what, that? That's not uh, unusual. Right, that kind of stuff happens, but the team was so upset that they dropped out of the tournament and went home. This seems extreme, but it happens all the time. How often have you walked away from the thing that God said I need you to do this because you just I'm not dealing with this. This is not what God planned. This is I can't believe. This is even I can't believe. They allowed this to happen and we allow our opponent, our opponent, the devil, to take whatever he wants to take, just because we're offended, we're not going to fight anymore and we give away our authority and our role in the kingdom of God. That's exactly what happens to Elijah.
Speaker 1:We're going to pick up the very last verse, where finally he's listening, finally he's responding, finally he's coming back around. He slowed down and heard the still small voice and in verse 15, the Lord said to him return to the wilderness near Damascus, then enter the city, anoint Haziel as king of Syria and Jehu, son of Nimshi, as king of Israel, and anoint Elisha, son of Shaphat from Abel Mahola, to succeed you as prophet. In other words, god's got some things that he wants to do, just because you might think well, I don't hear God saying anything doesn't mean that there's not a still small voice still leading the way, still showing you. So the last thing I have for you, then we're going to pray and close this.
Speaker 1:You, even in the midst of an offense, you need to decide that you're going to turn the offense into offense. It's time to turn this situation around, where you were offended and running and you need to turn that back around and decide okay, god, let's get, let's, let's. I'm going to follow your agenda, I'm going to let you use this, I'm going to let you put me into a place where your kingdom is being advanced and lives are being changed and people are being anointed and steps are being taken of faith. And okay, I'm going to go get back on purpose, on my purpose. Would you stand up today? Here's what I do know. I know that God can use whatever thing has broken your heart.
Speaker 1:The Bible says that God is near the brokenhearted. You feel like he's far away, but he's not. He's just that still small voice and it just requires that we surrender to Him enough and listen to Him and follow where he wants to lead and He'll take us into victory and into freedom and healing. So today, maybe that's joining a small group coming out of the cave wherever he has you, let's follow. Let's let ourselves be used. Let me pray for you. God, I thank you that you are in this place. You are mighty, you are able. You are able to free us from the offenses of life. Lord, we love you and we honor you in this place In Jesus' name. Amen, amen, let's worship for just a moment and then we're going to be dismissed. Your way.
Speaker 2:My hope is knowing that my God is holy To know what we say. My life, your story, your name Fills with me. Yet Don't finish with me, yet Don't finish with me. Yet. Don't finish with me yet. Keep watching, keep waiting, keep hoping, keep praying, keep watching, keep waiting, keep holding, keep praying, keep watching, keep waiting, keep holding, keep waiting, cause you're not finished With me yet. You're not finished.
Speaker 1:With me, yet You're not finished.
Speaker 2:With me. Yeah, Before we leave.
Speaker 1:I want to give everybody in the room an opportunity to begin a relationship with God, and that starts with surrender. It's not just a prayer we pray or a moment of decision. It starts with a moment of decision. It's a moment full of faith where we decide that the rest of my life, and everything from this point on, belongs to him and I'm going to follow him. And when you do that, not only does the Bible say that we'll have eternity with him, but for the rest of this life he'll walk with us and lead us and take us into real freedom.
Speaker 1:So would you just bow your head and close your eyes, right where you are, and I'll invite you to say this prayer with me. Would you repeat these words, dear God, today I give you my life. I choose to follow you. So take my heart, take my thoughts, mold me and make me into a new creation. Forgive me of my sin. From this day forward, I will follow you in Jesus name, amen, amen. Let's put our hands together for those. I will follow you In Jesus' name, amen, amen. Let's put our hands together for those who said that prayer. I love you, guys, and we'll see you next week. Don't forget to sign up for a small group. We're going to have a great, great fall.