Are You Following Jesus or Just Blending In? // David Swart

I'm gonna get us into our sermon.

Are you guys enjoying summer?

Can we can we technically say we're in almost done with summer?

No?

Isn't that where we are?

Yeah, thank you.

This is uh yeah, okay.

Uh next weekend at our uh near our house, we there's a church that runs a annual fair or I think it's called a fair.

Uh kind of a big deal.

Our kids have, huh?

Festival.

Festival.

Okay, fest not a festivus for the rest of us.

Um our kids have loved this event for for the last 12 years, and that we've lived here, and it's incredibly well attended.

Um we live about three blocks away from this church, and uh our street fills up for this weekend as they go into the early hours of the morning.

Um, there are rides for little ones, there's ride for big kids, a lot of fun and all that.

But there's also a bingo night where you can make some money, do a little bit of gambling.

There's also a lot of beer going on, and the beer is flowing, and this is at a church, just mind you, this is a church festival, and uh it's summer, and uh, you know, they start at like 5 p.m., 6 p.m.

And we usually tell our kids, no, we're not getting anywhere near there uh after 10 p.m.

because by then the sun has baked the alcohol deeply into everyone's system, and there's all sorts of shenanigans going on at this festival.

And what's interesting to me is this is a staple event of Upper Arlington, a church in the community, and we're like, come on, man, this this can't be right.

This the they're like, no, no, no, no, it's the biggest fundraising event for the year.

They they raise so much of their funds.

I'm like, this is a church.

What are we talking about?

Now, this isn't just a Columbus issue.

There's a study from the Barna Cultural Research Center.

They released a report in 2025 from something called the American Worldview Inventory.

And they say this this word, syncretism, not atheism, is a dominant American worldview.

Syncretism.

What that means is it's a combination of different forms of beliefs or practices.

So we take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little bit of new age, a little bit of practical, a little bit of common knowledge, we put it all together and we form our worldview of what it means to be a spiritual person, what it means to follow God.

It's not exactly following the God of the Bible, it's this combination.

They say 92% of American adults hold a syncretistic worldview, blending elements of competing philosophies, while only 4% hold what the study defines as a coherent biblical worldview.

That's what we're living in today.

Now, there's been this growing discontent in my heart for how we as a country have allowed the name of Jesus and the church, the bride of Christ, to become a place of such compromise and duplicity.

These comments are going to begin to make sense in a minute when we cover our next king in our series.

We're going to look at Ahab.

But my prayer today is that we recognize what we have become as a society, we recognize what we have become perhaps as the American church, and ask the same spirit that rested on Elijah on Mount Carmel to come on us and lead us into the same kind of conviction that he did Elijah, that we would see a transformation in our nation.

Would you pray with me?

Also, open your Bibles to 1 Kings 18.

Father, I pray this morning as we open your word, as we are faced with the black and white truth of how you've dealt with the people of Israel, how they've dealt with you, how you've called prophets, how you've called correction, Lord, that we need this today.

Father, we sit under your word, Lord, and I pray that only what you want to be heard will be heard, and that we would open your scriptures and submit ourselves to your word as truth, as life, and as the way for how we should proceed and conduct our lives.

I pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Now we're in this sermon series, if you're new with us, called The Era of the Kings.

And in this series, we have in this year, we've been slowly going through the Old Testament with this idea of doing a year-long Old Testament survey from Genesis, from the creation story all the way to the coming of Christ.

And we've broken it up in kind of four categories.

The first part of the year, we looked at creation all the way to Abraham, roughly 20 generations putting that story together.

From April, we looked at the era of the patriarchs.

We looked at Abraham, uh, Isaac, Jacob, we looked at Moses, we looked at Joseph, we looked at uh at Joshua, the patriarchs who led the nation of Israel into what it became.

At the end of that era, the people said, We want a king.

We want a king like the nations around us.

Why can't we be led by king like them?

God said, Well, this is not gonna be good for you.

This won't go well with you, but okay.

So he gave them a king.

And so we started in our next series in uh July, we started with our Saul and David, let's say Solomon, and Solomon we looked at for a couple weeks, and we are now here at Ahab.

The last part of the year we're gonna get to this part, the fourth section of this Old Testament survey, is when the nation of Israel went into exile, came out of exile, and that 14-generation period from there to the coming of Christ, there was no king, there was no patriarchs leading the way, there was a prophetic voice calling them out, and there was silence for a long time until Jesus comes on the story.

And that's the the arch of the story throughout this year.

When we look at the era of the kings, what we see is God told them this is not the way, I will be your king, I will be your leader, I will be your God, and he warned them of what would happen when human kings get put over the nation of Israel.

And we continue to see in 1 and 2 Kings how this played out.

Now, what's helpful to know when we look at the the book of 1 and 2 Kings, originally written as one book, it came out around the time that Israel was in exile.

Around they were in exile or just coming out of exile.

So there's a purpose to receiving this kind of history book, especially if you are part of the nation of Israel and you're wondering how on earth did we get here?

We were a mighty nation, we had our own land, we came out of Egypt, we we ruled the world.

Solomon was the wisest king, he had all these positions.

How did we get into exile?

A people with no king, with no land, and no place.

And so they're reading kings with that kind of lens.

What happened?

What happened?

How did we get so far apart?

I want us to ask the same question today.

Where a church down the road can have a bingo night and an alcohol night to raise funds for the work of the kingdom.

How did we get to this place where we can say that's okay?

Read it, read it through these lenses as we go today.

So, 1 Kings chapter 18, that's a little bit of the context.

1 Kings 18 · chapter mention

We're looking at Ahab.

He's about 70 to 80 years after Solomon, which we covered last week.

And at this point, Ahab was known as in chapter 16, verse 33, it says, Ahab did more to provoke the Lord, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

Imagine that on your tombstone.

Here lies Ahab.

Luther.

No.

He had a wife, her name was Jezebel.

Anyone heard of Jezebel?

Anyone ever heard someone referred to as Shiza Jezebel?

Anyone made that reference?

Don't do that.

Well, anyway, Ahab married the OG Jezi.

I mean, that's who we're talking about.

This is Ahab's wife.

So here we are.

She was a foreign princess who didn't just believe in a different God privately.

She was all out about it.

She installed this entire religion of Baal worship at government expense.

Why do I say that?

Well, scripture tells us that the prophets of Baal were sitting at her table.

And so they were funding this whole enterprise of let's bring the Baal worship practices into the nation of Israel.

Yahweh's prophets, the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, his prophets had been murdered, had been chased out and hunted down.

Elijah was one of them who, in a sense, was fleeing for his life because Ahab and Jezebel wanted to get rid of him because he only spoke truth to them.

They didn't like what he was bringing to them.

So that was kind of their relationship as we go.

Now, as we look at where the nation was at this point, it wasn't just a debate about a religious preference.

It was a nation that, in a sense, was running on two separate operating systems.

In one sense, their identity were this is a nation of Israel, we are a people of God.

We are the people of Yahweh, this is identity.

But in practice, they had gotten rid of all the priests and they put in Baal priests and baal practices.

So their practice was one of idols.

Their identity was one of the living God, their practice was one of idols.

And that's the duplicity we enter into when we look at this story.

Now, before we get to 18, in the beginning of chapter 17, we see how Elijah confronts Ahab and he tells him, Because of what you have done, because of what you have allowed, God is going to shut up the heavens.

There will be a drought until I say the word.

Imagine that kind of prophetic word.

No water, no nothing, until I say the word.

Now this is not just random.

This is not just God, like, hmm, I wonder how I'll punish them.

There's a connection.

There's a connection with them worshiping Baal for them, Baal was the God of rain, of thunder, and of fire.

It was a god of rain, thunder, and fire.

And that was at that point that God shut up the heavens.

You're gonna worship Baal for rain?

Well, let me show you who controls the rain.

Now, for you and I, well, for me, not that fond of the rain.

It makes this building leak.

Uh, it makes my dogs go nuts when they see lightning.

So for me, it's not a big deal.

But in the context of these people, rain meant food.

Rain meant it was an agricultural uh community.

Uh if everything grew by rain.

The animals were fed by rain.

It wasn't just God of rain, it was essentially a God of that would provide rain that would provide provision.

So when they're thinking of provision, when they're thinking of wealth building, when they're thinking of building their empires, rain was an absolute necessity for them to be able to go forward.

So when the rain stopped, it will grab your attention, especially if you were in this day and age.

So now we're in chapter 18.

Elijah calls the king and the false prophets and the whole nation to a mountain called Mount Carmel, which sits on the border between Israel and Jezebel's homeland.

So this kind of in-between land.

He's like, all right, let's have a showdown.

Let's talk.

So, will you turn to 1 Kings 18, verse 17?

1 Kings 18:17

We're gonna read 23 verses.

It's a lot, but this is an incredible story.

I encourage you, if you've got your Bible, grab a pen.

There's another seat in front of you.

There's a few things we need to underline in the story that helps us pack out what the Lord wants to tell us here today.

You with me?

Are we a holler back church?

Yeah, yeah, good, good, good.

Verse 17.

When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, Is it you, you troubler of Israel?

Underline that one.

We're gonna camp on that for a minute.

Is it you, you troubler of Israel?

And he answered, I've not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father's house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals.

Now therefore, send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel's table.

So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel.

And Elijah came near to all the people, and he said, Here is what we need to underline.

He said this how long will you go limping between two different opinions?

If the Lord is God, follow him.

But if Baal, then follow him.

And the people did not answer him a word.

Silence.

Verse 22.

Then Elijah said to them, I am the only one of the Lord's prophets left, but Baal has 450 prophets.

Get two bulls for us.

Let Baal's prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it to pieces, put it on the wood, but not set fire to it.

I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood, but not set fire to it.

Then you call on the name of your God.

Remember, Baal was a God of rain and fire and thunder.

You call on your God, and I will call on the name of the Lord, the God who answers by fire, he is God.

The one who answers this question is God.

Let's settle this.

You're gonna serve this one or that one?

Let's settle this.

Who's actually God?

That's where we are.

The people said, What you say is good.

They like this.

This is a good plan.

Let's let's get this figured out right now.

Verse 25.

Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, Baal, choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you.

He's kind of like mocking them the whole time.

Is that do we call it rage baiting these days?

Choose one of the bulls.

There's so many of you.

Uh call on the name of your God, but do not light the fire.

So they took the bull given them and prepared it.

Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon.

Baal, answer us, they shouted.

But there was no response.

No one answered.

And they danced around the altar that they had made.

At noon, so they started in the morning.

At noon, Elijah began to taunt them.

Here he goes.

More rage baiting.

Shout louder, he says.

Surely he is your God.

Perhaps he's deep in thought or busy or traveling.

Maybe he is sleeping or must be awakened.

Some other translation says, Maybe he's relieving himself.

It does.

Check it out.

So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed.

Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice, but there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, Come here to me.

They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord which had been torn down.

Ahab had torn down the altars towards the living God.

And he took twelve stones, one for each of the tribe descended from Jacob, to whom the Lord had come, saying, Your name shall be Israel.

Pause there for a second.

The twelve stones representing the twelve tribes of Israel.

If you've been following slowly with us during this story, you would have known at this point in the trajectory of the kings, the nation had been divided.

There was a kingdom of ten tribes, and there was a kingdom of two tribes, Judah and Israel.

So here, even him building the altar back up with the 12 tribes, there is a unity and the identity of the people of God that he is trying to restore, trying to bring people back.

Verse 32.

With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two sears of seed.

He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces, and laid it on the wood.

Then he said to him, This is nice and messy being a prophet, isn't it?

It's not just standing on stage giving a nice prophetic word.

You're cutting up bulls and everything.

Alright.

Then he said to them, Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.

Do it again, he said, and they did it again.

Do it a third time, he ordered, and they did it a third time.

There's some significance here.

In chapter 17, when the drought started, this is roughly three to three and a half years later.

So three years, three years represents three times.

Just drenched that thing over and over in water.

For three and a half years, they have been wondering when is their God going to give water.

Verse 36.

At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed.

And have done all these things at your command.

Answer me, Lord.

Answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.

This is the heart of the Lord, that you are turning their hearts back again.

When he asks a question earlier, how long will you go limping between the two positions?

He knows that Baal wasn't going to get that fire down.

He knows Baal is not a real God.

What he's trying to do is bring their hearts back to him.

The Lord has always been searching and making a way for us to come back to him.

Verse 38.

Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood and the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

Praise God.

Amen.

I'm going to read that again.

If you're a hollow back church, let's just get a little bit thankful for this.

Then the Lord, the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, and the soil, and it licked up the water and the trench.

Praise God.

When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried.

They fell on their faces.

They fell before the Lord and they cried, The Lord, He is God.

The Lord, Yahweh, He is God.

Then Elijah commanded them, seize the prophets of Baal.

Don't let anyone get away.

They seized them.

And Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there.

We'll stop reading now.

The next scene is the cloud coming and the rain coming and the drought ending.

When God had revealed himself to them as the one who provided.

So I want to talk about three quick things here today.

One, let's look at Elijah's reputation.

We're going to look at Elijah's main message, and we're going to ask what is our response?

What is the response to what is being put out here, what is being challenged here in 1 Kings chapter 18?

1 Kings 18 · chapter mention

Let's start with Elijah.

So Ahab meets Elijah with an accusation before Elijah says a single word.

He says, Is it you, O troubler of Israel?

Is it you, O troubler of Israel?

Do you notice the order?

The man causing the national disaster because of his duplicity, because of allowing Baal worship in, tearing down the altars of God, the man who's caused all of this, sees a man who's been telling him the truth all along, and he calls him the troubler of Israel.

These seven words, is it you, you troubler of Israel, have been keeping me up for months now.

I try to go on vacation and I just try to have some fun.

Lord, let me enjoy the waves.

But these words just kept coming back to me.

Is it you, you troubler of Israel?

What is the Lord asking me?

And I've kept asking this question: what are you stirring in me?

What are you asking us as preachers?

What are you asking us as a church?

What are you asking us, Lord?

Is in in these words.

Is it you, you troubler of Israel?

And I believe this is a word for us.

I believe it is a word for our church.

Is this how we are being known?

Is this how we are known in our city?

Is this how we're known in our families?

Is this how we're known in our dorm rooms?

Is this how you're known at your company?

You troubler of Israel?

Or have we blended in so nicely with this post-Christian culture that our lives are indistinguishable from those around us?

Has our message as a church, as as we go out and preach, as our message becomes so gentle, quoting only the gentle and nice and comfortable verses in Scripture, avoiding the hard truths of someone, so that they may like us, accept us, and not be offended by us.

At school, does anyone know you have a different allegiance?

In your workplace, does everyone know that you have a different focus, a different goal?

Goals, focus, allegiance that challenges the American dream, which is all about you.

Does anyone know that we have pledged our allegiance, we follow the God who consumes the sacrifice?

Does anyone know?

Or have we just blended in so nicely?

Through your life and through your words, is anyone calling you a troubler of Israel?

Is anyone calling you an agitator?

Just leave me alone.

I want to do my sin.

I want to do my thing, leave me alone.

Is anyone even saying that to you?

I'm asking these questions with this sense of urgency.

I feel it's what God has been asking me.

Have we allowed the fear of man to mute us?

Have we allowed the fear of our reputation to soften the message that the Lord is giving?

Have we allowed the consequence of what could happen if we go all in on the Lord?

Have we allowed that to just draw us back?

We're in a day and age here where nobody wants to be offended, and we're all got to be nice, we've got to tiptoe around everyone's feelings, about everyone's sensitivities.

And as a result, friends, and I get it, don't be a jerk, but as a result, we've stopped speaking any truth whatsoever.

Any truth whatsoever.

And I wonder if the Lord is speaking to us here today.

Now, please, here's my disclaimer.

I'm not talking about being abrasive, I'm not talking about being rude, I'm not talking about finger pointing, being judging, being obnoxious.

That's not what I'm talking about.

But I'm talking about whether your confessions and lifestyle blend in with a culture of syncretism, or does the words be holy be set apart, for the Lord your God is holy, mean anything to the way we live our lives and our conduct?

I'm talking about the prophetic calling that each one of us have to be a witness, to point to Jesus, to speak the name of Jesus to a culture that perhaps doesn't like it.

But can anyone say you've told them?

Or when the day comes, they say, I never knew.

Because we didn't want to offend them.

We didn't want to hurt them.

We didn't want to hurt our reputation, we didn't want to hurt our job prospects, our advancement prospects, our career prospects, our home, and the stuff going on in college.

We didn't want to interrupt that.

I'm asking this question to me, to you, to all of us, the confession we make on a Sunday, are we living to it?

Or is it nice to have a great worship service, scratch the itch, and I go on doing whatever I want.

Monday through Saturday.

Friends, if we live this way, let me tell you, it's going to cause someone to be agitated.

It's going to cause someone to stop and think.

And they may even be blaming you for their problems, deflecting their own responsibility.

Like Ahab says, is it you, you troubler of Israel?

There was an English preacher, I think he died in 1992.

His name was Leonard Ravenhill.

Anyone heard of him?

He's a fiery preacher.

He was like a no-nonsense kind of preacher.

In fact, he says you should never tell jokes on stage.

I'm like, oh, okay.

All right, Leonard.

Maybe he's right.

I don't know.

But he had this call, this burn in his heart to see the church come back to a place of prayer, back to a place of seeking revival in this nation.

He wrote a book called Why Revival Tarries.

Fantastic book.

Go go read it.

Actually, his friend was A.

W.

Tozer, who we we often quote.

And A.

W.

Tozer did the foreword, and he said something like this, exactly like this, because I'm quoting.

He said, such a man, talking about Leonard Ravenil, is not an easy companion.

He cannot turn off the burden of the Holy Ghost as one would turn off a faucet.

He insists on being a Christian all the time everywhere.

That's challenging.

That's why he says, such a man is not an easy companion.

Let's talk about Eliza's mess, Elijah's message.

What he does is he gets he gets the prophets, he gets the nation, they've got their showdown, and he asks them a question before the showdown happens.

Verse 21.

He says this question How long will you go limping between two different opinions?

How long will you go limping?

The word choice is important here, how long will you go limping between two different opinions?

If the Lord, that's Yahweh, if the Lord Yahweh is God, then follow him.

But if Baal, then follow him.

What he's saying is, you're living in two different operating systems.

You you have this identity as a people of God, as a people of Israel, but your practice is this.

How long are you gonna keep being this duplicitous?

How long?

The text says something remarkable after that.

The people didn't say a word, nothing, had nothing to say.

Not they chose Baal or they chose God, they just silence.

Now the word he used in verse 21 for limping, the Hebrew word is passage.

And it gives this P-A-S-A-C-H, Passage.

It gives this picture of someone hobbling between two things.

It's not just an indifference, I'm not sure.

It's actually going back and forth, hobbling between two things.

It's the same word used in verse 26 when he describes what the prophets were doing around the altar.

Remember, they were dancing around the altar.

It says they were limping between the altar.

They were trying absolutely everything they can to get their God to come down and do something.

It's the same word.

Now, whatever you think staying undecided looks on the inside.

Maybe you're like, well, I'm in between decisions right now.

From where God's standing, it looks exactly like limping.

You say this, you do this, you want this, you do this, and we're going back and forth, and we are divided.

We're divided in our hearts, we're divided in our practice.

And let me tell you what happens: the witness of Jesus Christ is diluted.

How many people, when you talk to them about Jesus, when you talk to them about the church, one of the first things they say is, full of hypocrites.

Full of hypocrites.

They say one thing, but I know how they live.

They say one thing, well, I'm on their private Instagram feed.

They say one thing, but we go party and I see what they do.

They say one thing.

This is a culture that we're living in.

And we wonder why is no one like coming to church?

Why is no one like like you know, asking me about Jesus?

Well, they're looking at how you're following Jesus, and it doesn't look that much different to the way they're following their own God.

How long?

Verse 21, will you go limping between two different opinions?

If the Lord is God, follow him, but if bald, then follow him.

Elijah asks us to the people of Israel, stop limping, pick one.

And this is a challenging word for us.

And we've got to wrestle with this question.

Friends, here in the American church, I think the danger in the American church is that we confess one thing and we live another thing altogether.

Or perhaps people go to church and they're like, Well, I'm American, I'm Christian, this is what we do.

So I go and I do my church duty, but everything else is completely untouched by the profession I made on a Sunday morning.

Now I'm not here to judge whether you're Christian or not, but there is fruit when we give our lives to Jesus.

There is a fruit, there is an outworking of it.

So the danger for the American church is well, I'm born Christian, I was born in a Christian family, I was baptized as a child, so therefore I'm a Christian.

When we get to that day and we find out, well, that's not it.

This is why we as a church need to be a little clearer with what it means to be a child of God.

We need to call one another.

We need to be Elijah, firstly, in the church.

Elijah's message was to the Israelites, it was to the people of God who had allowed a whole different system to come in and tell them how to live their lives.

To the American church, I wonder if just the American church would come alive in Jesus again, would come alive with a single focus.

Friends, this nation's industry would look different.

Our internet would look different, our social media would look different.

If only those who have once confessed that Jesus is Lord actually start living it.

Let's not even talk about reaching everybody else.

If we as the children of God, our identity as Christian, follow this.

Revival begins.

Revival begins because the world begins to see, oh, they actually mean this time what they say.

They actually live the way they say, they treat their employees differently, they treat one another differently, they treat their finances differently.

There's a generosity about them.

What is this?

This isn't my culture.

They talk online differently, they they they talk in circles differently.

When we begin to live what we confess.

Now we again have to understand what Baal meant to them in their context.

If Baal was God of rain and thunder, and the society was built on this attributure, what is this actually saying?

It means they were looking to another God for provision, for wealth building, for survival.

Let's ask the same question today.

What do we look at for provision?

For wealth building?

For survival, for thriving?

What do we look at for identity?

So far, I've not heard anyone call on Bal in this church.

But we call on other things.

We call on government assistance as going to save me.

Uh my company's pension plan is going to save me.

The health of my family is going to save me, is going to provide for me.

We look at all sorts of things, and I'm not saying government assistance is bad.

What I'm saying is, do we look at that for our provision?

Or do we look at the God who said, I will never leave you or forsake you?

The God who says, Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things, your food, shelter, clothing, will be provided for.

Are we putting our faith in things or a person?

This is the question.

This is the question.

How long?

How long will we go limping between two provisions?

Two confessions.

How long will we profess God on a Sunday and live the rest of the week like we're trusting all these other things?

On Sundays, friends, we sing Jesus is Lord, but then Monday through Saturday, we live like Jesus is not Lord, we are Lord.

We are in control.

We sing, Lord, I give you my heart, but we just go and give our heart to everybody else.

We read in scriptures, Lord, bring it, bring your tithe to the Lord.

But we we we consult the financial professionals for how we should really think about our money.

We read, you are a holy, set apart people, but we live just like we want.

Elijah says, if Lord is God, follow him.

But if Baal, then follow him.

Now what's the response?

After this fire is doused with water three different times, and God shows himself consuming the offering completely, amazing, right?

The people start worshiping there on their face before the Lord.

Yahweh is God, God, yes, this is him.

But the story doesn't end there.

It actually gets a little bit more uncomfortable.

Elijah tells the people now, sees these prophets, and he does away with them.

Now, this is not a plan for how to treat your enemies.

This is not a modern plan.

This belonged to a specific moment under a specific covenant that we don't live under anymore.

This is why I say that.

Later in the biblical story, two of Jesus' own disciples actually knew the story and they were ticked off about something.

They're like, Lord, send down fire on them.

We've seen this movie before.

And Jesus says, Nope, nope, that, nope, that's not what we're doing here.

Same fire, but it's a different king.

It's a different king.

He doesn't call fire down on his enemies, friends.

He walks up a hill and lets it fall on himself.

That's the difference with this Jesus.

That's the difference.

Friends, the point I'm trying to make here is a real encounter with God was never designed or meant to end with a feeling.

This is a call for us to decide.

When he reveals himself to us, when we have a revelation and encounter with him, it's a call to say, now follow me.

Now follow me.

Follow me.

And let that following not just be a Sunday morning activity.

Follow me.

And this means, friends, this call, this revelation, this encounter with the Lord, this seeing the fire come down has got a consequence for us.

It may mean there's some things you now need to go put in place.

Some relationships you may need to end.

Some unsubscribing you need to do in your emails and your socials.

You may need to go close some accounts.

You know what I'm talking about when I'm saying this.

You need to gather, perhaps, your inner circle and tell them God has revealed himself to me.

He has shown himself to me.

Jesus on the cross, taking that fire on himself, taking that I need to change something in my life.

My inner circle, things are gonna change, guys.

Things are gonna change, ladies.

We can't do, we can't, I can't do this anymore.

I want to follow him.

There is a next step from the revelation.

There's a next step from an encounter with the Lord.

Standing on that mountain and applauding God and worshiping God, that's in a sense, it's free.

Obedience costs you.

Obedience now costs you something.

I think, I think Elijah is probably one of the most impressive Old Testament characters out there.

His stories, him, Elisha, oh, I mean you can read it all day long.

But James tells us that Elijah was a man with a nature just like ours.

James 5, 17.

Elijah was a man with a nature just like ours.

Not a different category of person.

Yeah, he got to go up into heaven.

I don't think he experienced that death.

I don't know how that works, but uh not braver by he was a man.

He was a man who prayed and it mattered.

Later on, we see a story of Elijah in the New Testament again.

We see when when Jesus on the transfiguration is on the mountain and this cloud comes down, and there appears with Jesus two other men, Moses and Elijah.

As impressive as Moses was, I mean, he brought them out of Egypt and did all the ten plagues and everything, as impressive as Elijah was, listen to the voice of the Lord.

Matthew 17, verse 5.

Matthew 17:5

The voice of the Lord, when you see these three characters together, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, here's what the Lord said.

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, This is my son looking at Jesus, whom I love.

With him I am well pleased.

Listen to him.

Elijah, Moses, overshadowed by Jesus, who they were always pointing to.

The three of them stand in that circle.

The voice says, Listen to my son.

This is my son.

This is who we follow.

So then we see what Jesus does.

Instead of calling a fire down on his enemies, he said, No, no.

The time is going to come.

I'm going to take that on myself.

Elijah burnt up his enemies to prove that God was real.

Jesus let himself be consumed to bring his enemies home.

Do you see the difference?

That's the whole difference.

Now, some of you friends have been listening to this message, and there's perhaps a few different responses that you've had.

I'd like to invite the worship team up as we as we take a moment to respond to the Lord.

Perhaps you've been sitting in this room and you've recognized, man, if if this was me, if this was Elijah, I'd have to answer that question.

How long will I go limping between two opinions?

Maybe you've been in the church, maybe you've you've followed him for a while, but you've gone cold.

You've gone cold, you've gotten comfortable.

Your life is mostly around your wishes and your wills and your dreams and your desires.

And we've lost this true, true devotion to the will and the ways of the Lord.

If that's you, I believe the Lord is trying to again draw you back to Him, like He did in Kings, and like we see in the life of Jesus, Jesus who died for you so that you may live.

But the scriptures tell us in Romans all who believe that Jesus is Lord, confess it with their mouth, will be saved.

There has to be a response in our heart to receive what Jesus has done for us.

Specifically, I was feeling this morning that some of you have been on fire for the Lord.

There's a conviction, you have a voice, you have things that he's telling you, but something has muted you, and I feel today it's the fear of man has kept you bound up.

The fear of man, the fear of the consequences of what would happen were you to be this solely focused on the will and the ways of the Lord.

There's a fear of man for your reputation, a fear of man for your future, for your career.

There's something that is making you worried what will happen if I begin to live the way I sing on a Sunday morning.

What will they think?

Some of you live in families, have families around you who don't follow Jesus, or they're in the the name only Christians.

Come to church on Christmas and Easter.

And you're like, if I begin to follow the Lord like this, they're gonna think I'm in a cult.

They're gonna think I'm weird.

They're gonna think there's something wrong with it.

They're gonna think I'm unbalanced.

And I know that's hard, friends.

I know that's hard, but please don't hear my words.

Hear the words of scripture.

How long?

How long will we go limping between two opinions?

If God is God, follow him.

If bald, follow him.

But this in-between thing isn't helping anybody, it's actually harming us.

We live as an American church under the illusion that we're saved.

But we're only saved when we have put our faith in Jesus and asked him to be the Lord of our lives.

And I want to end with that.

If there's someone in this room, you hear this message and you're like, man, I'm just starting to come to church.

I'm just I'm looking for some kind of truth.

I'm looking for for something to to dull the pain I have in my life.

Friends, you're here because Jesus has brought you here.

He wants to, he wants to to save you, he wants to give you a new heart, he wants to enable you to live for him.

I want to ask everyone to close their eyes.

If you're sitting in this room and you don't know Jesus, it's you I want to speak to for a second.

You've never given your life to him.

Perhaps you've done church, perhaps you've done Christian activities, but you yourself have never submitted your life to say, Jesus, you're Lord.

And as my confession of you being Lord, you are going to be driving the bus.

You're going to be driving my car, you are going to be the one I seek and say to follow.

If you've never given your life to Jesus, what I'm going to do is I'm going to pray with you.

And this prayer is just a guide for you to begin to connect with the Lord.

So, as every eye is closed, if you want to give your life to Jesus, I want to pray for you.

But will you lift your hand so I know who I'm praying for?

You want to follow him?

Starts with a confession of where we are and who he is, and saying, Lord, I would follow you.

That's you.

Lift up your hand so I know who I'm praying for.

Thank you, man.

Anybody else?

Thank you, man.

This is the single biggest decision you will make in your life.

This is a matter of life or death.

In the realm of eternity.

One more time.

Is there anybody who wants to respond today to Jesus?

If you lifted your hands, would you pray this prayer with me?

Say, dear Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God.

And I want to follow you.

I realize I'm a sinner.

I'm asking you, will you forgive me of my sins?

In this moment, Lord, I receive your forgiveness.

Lord, I want to follow you.

Would you help me to follow you all the days of my life?

Show me your ways, Jesus.

That's just the beginning of a conversation between you and God.

I want to encourage you, continue to just reach out to Him.

Someone's gonna come and give you a little pamphlet, just with some next steps.

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

Could we stand together?

I know a message like this could feel agitating.

And this has not been an attempt to make anyone feel condemned, but what the Holy Spirit does is he points on things in our lives and he draws us to him.

He draws us to him.

This repentance draws us to him.

Following Jesus is a journey of daily holding on to his hand, being equipped, being enabled, being drawn by the love of Christ in our heart.

But there's a decision we are making today to say, this day I will follow you.

From here on, Lord, I'm gonna follow you.

Help me, help me every day.

Our prayer ministry team will be out here, but we're gonna take a moment to worship.

Would you respond in whatever way the Lord leads you right now?

Whether it's coming forth for prayer, standing where you are, kneeling where you are.

Let's respond before we go home and get on with our day.

What has the Lord told you today?

Will you respond?

Amen.