Out of the Cave

And I want to welcome those that are worshiping with us online.

I want to say welcome to all of you that are in the room.

And if you're here maybe for the first time or second time, we're glad you're here.

We're excited you're here.

We hope that you experience friendliness and just a good welcome as you came in.

We want to encourage you to reach out and connect with us.

You can go online and fill out what we call an encounter card.

You can do it right out here at the little guest table, and uh there's a gift for you that we have out there.

We'd love for you to have that.

Excited for those of you that are online and are part of our church family, and maybe it's your first or second time, third time watching with us online.

We're excited that you're with us.

And um, yes, um, it has been a good week for sports fans, right?

It's been a it's been a yeah, don't no, don't clap because that gets on my nerves.

Um here that's what just one of my pet peeves.

If you it it you you you have to act, you have to worship God more uh more profoundly than you than you worship a sport.

All right, that's just that's so so that's why I don't talk about it a lot.

But it's it's okay to enjoy sports.

It's okay.

Let's just clap, let's give congrats, yeah, the golf clap for the Braves.

Um I just ruined it, didn't I?

Um so it's okay, it's great that man, it's great for our city.

I think it's a blessing.

I think God gives us the gift of competition, and the and so it's that is great.

That is awesome.

As I thought about it this week, everybody's not a sports fan.

And even if you are a sports fan, um real life comes back and and and you have to deal with just the hurts and the pains and the difficulties that life throws at you.

Everybody had to get up and go to work, or some of us, some of some of you did.

I mean, somebody may have taken some time off, and and and every day is not a parade, and so trophies lose their luster, and and that's why we need to come back and we need to make sure that that our our idols um are in check, and that that the victory and the sport and the trophy doesn't become the object of our worship.

And remember that life goes on.

So I just ruined all of that for you guys this week.

I just ruined the whole moment.

Um, but I want to tell you, I because I know I I talk to people every day that are hurting, that are going through difficult times, and and they need an encounter with the living God.

I love what it says in what it the verse that we've kind of come back to over and over this series in this um soul-keeping series where where Jesus, it's the only place in the in the New Testament where Jesus describes his own heart.

And he says, All of you who are weary and heavy laden, come to me.

He says, What does he say?

He says, Come to me, come to me, come to me, I will give you rest.

Learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart.

He says, I'm gentle and lowly.

I'm gentle and lowly.

He says, Take my yoke upon you, yoke up with Jesus.

He said, My yoke is easy and my burden is light.

That's what Jesus says.

I love what um what the writer of Hebrews says about Jesus.

He says, For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace in the time of need.

So there in that verse in Hebrews, that word sympathize.

He said, Jesus is able to sympathize.

He is our high priest, he's able to sympathize.

That word literally means to be a co-sufferer.

He co-suffers with you, he comes alongside of you.

Jesus not only bears your sin and takes your sin upon himself on the cross, he crawls into the hole of despair and sin with you to bear the burden with you.

That's why I love it when we when we sing songs that speak of the humanity of Jesus.

You've got the humanity of Jesus and the deity of Jesus.

Jesus is fully God.

Jesus was fully man, is fully man.

And so in that way, he is able to sympathize, to co-suffer with us.

And so as we talk about depression, as we talk about keeping our souls healthy and caring for our souls, remember at the very first week I shared the parable about the keeper of the stream.

The stream is your soul, and you are the keeper.

You are responsible to take care of your soul.

You've got to realize, like we said last week, we are in a war.

We are in a battle, and the battle is over your soul.

The battle is over your very life.

The battle is to, the, the, the enemy wants to take away any joy and hope you have.

That's why it's important to understand verses like John 10, 10, where Jesus says, the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come that you would experience life and that you would experience it to the full.

And listen, it's okay to enjoy.

It's okay to enjoy a hobby.

It's okay to enjoy a sport.

It's okay to enjoy all of the gifts and the blessings that God has given us.

But remember at the end of that, it is the giver of those gifts that that is worthy of our attention and our affection.

And so we're back to the life of Elijah today as we're talking about coming out of the cave of depression.

And I that you know, we've we've talked about the the issues of mental health, and um uh one of the things that I mentioned earlier in the series was there's been a rash of even pastors over the last few years, even prior to COVID, who've committed suicide.

It just seems like the number is higher than usual.

Um where somebody who represents God, walks with God, supposedly knows God, has a relationship with God, um, would feel so much in despair that they would take their life.

I went to seminary um with a young man who was one of the most joyful guys that that I knew in seminary.

And so years later, he he left his wife a note and walked up into the mountains of North Georgia.

And he took his life.

And I and I couldn't believe it because he was always one of the most joyful guys in class, but I found out later that he struggled with clinical depression.

And it was just uh he covered it up with all this happiness and joy and and and this this kind of um uh exterior way that he would uh present himself.

People are hurting and people are uh are feeling desperate and hopeless.

And so that's how we find Elijah.

He's in the cave.

Last week we talked about how how Elijah, even though he had these two huge victories that happened in his life, where he he has the this competition where he says, the prophets of Baal, he challenges them.

He said, Hey, you you build an altar, you call upon your God, and I'll build an altar to the true living God, and we'll both call down fire from heaven, and we'll see who has the true God.

And so the prophets of Baal dance and they they cut themselves and they um call out all day long, and nothing happens, and then Elijah calls down fire from heaven.

Victory, victory for Elijah.

He he he he prays for God to bring relief from the famine, and it comes and it rains, and they have relief.

And then Ahab and Jezebel threaten him, and he runs off like a scaredy cat.

And he goes into the cave, and we talked about this last week.

We talked about what leads us into the cave of despair.

What are some of the things that lead us to places of uh of maybe dealing with depression at whatever level it is?

What leads us to low points in our life?

And sometimes it's lifestyle issues, it's life imbalances.

We talked about um how how you talk to yourself.

We're ruminating, we're talking about chewing the cud and and um comparison, not processing pain in a healthy way.

We talked about isolation and we talked about spiritual warfare.

The enemy doesn't want you to have the joy of the Lord, the enemy doesn't want you to have a relationship that is thriving with Jesus.

The enemy wants to take all of the circumstances in your life collectively and to keep you in a state of despair.

And so Elijah is that's where we find Elijah.

He's in a cave.

He literally is in a cave.

1 Kings chapter 19, if you want to follow along.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

1 Kings 19, 5 through 8.

It says, Then he lay down and he slept under the broom tree.

But as he was sleeping, an angel touched him and told him, Get up and eat.

He looked around, and there beside his head was some bread baked on hot stones and a jar of water.

So he ate it and drank and lay down again.

Then the angel of the Lord came again and touched him and said, Get up and eat some more, or the journey ahead will be too much for you.

So he got up and he ate and drank, and the food gave him enough strength to travel 40 days and 40 nights to Mount Sinai, the mountain of God.

So what we talked about the steps into the cave last week.

What are the steps out of the cave?

The steps that we need to take.

One step is stepping into a needed recovery.

Stepping into a needed recovery.

Sometimes what we need to do is to step out of the rush and the busyness of life, and we need to get some rest.

Part of this is understanding that God has created all of us with limits.

He's created us with limits.

Have you ever heard of a thing called the Sabbath?

It's one of those ten rules that God gives to Moses when he comes down the mountain.

He says, You are to take a Sabbath.

It is to be a holy day.

God created the earth in six days, all that was in it.

And then it says, God rested.

Do you think God was tired?

No, God is saying, I'm establishing a rhythm for you.

And this rhythm is meant for your well-being, and then it's meant for my worship and my holiness.

He creates Adam and Eve, and on their first day is the Sabbath.

He tells them subdue the earth, fill the earth, take dominion.

But your first day is a day of rest.

He says, so a lot of us need to prioritize Sabbath, rest.

And we, as humans, work out of rest.

A lot of us think Sabbath is a relief from work.

No, we work out of rest.

Humans' first day was a day of rest, a day to honor God, a day to focus on who He is and our limitations.

And so some of us need to rest.

If you want to get well, you've got to rest.

I've got a niece that works, is a nurse and has worked in transplant in the hospital in the transplant department or transplant area, and there'll be people that will be on a waiting list for a kidney or or or another organ for a transplant.

And that person will get to the top of the list, but they will they will tell them you can't you can't accept the transplant.

Your body is not healthy enough right now.

If we gave you this transplant right now, your body would reject it.

You need to get healthier before you can get the transplant.

And so it's kind of interesting.

You need to get well before we can get you well.

And so we've got to realize that we have limitations.

And if we want to get well, we've got to prioritize what God says for us is to honor and take into account the rhythms that He established for us from the very beginning of creation.

Here's what I've learned.

If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will.

If you don't prioritize in order your life, then you will accept whatever else somebody else imposes upon you.

This world has an agenda.

The enemy has an agenda for you.

I love what Psalm 90, 12 says, and this is the New Living Translation.

It says, Teach us to realize the brevity of life so that we may grow in wisdom.

The English Standard Version says this.

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Take a Sabbath.

I had a mentor that challenged me a number of years back.

He said, Do you think God gave us 10 suggestions or ten commandments?

He said, There's a reason.

I know what legalism is.

I'm not trying to push you toward legalism.

It's not like God's counting how many hours you take off in a week.

That's not the heart of God.

But I care about people.

And so you've got to prioritize what God says.

Take a Sabbath.

So you've got to get some rest.

Take a 24-hour period and away.

Now this is where I enjoy sports, being outside, hiking, activity.

You can do things with your family.

You can do a lot of things on your Sabbath that aren't work-oriented, but they might take energy or they might energize you.

But get away from normal life and the things that are sucking the life out of you and get rested up.

Now listen, I know as I'm about to I'm about to say something that's going to be hard for some of you to realize because I'm at a stage in life that's so different.

But but sometimes you just gotta take a nap.

Hallelujah.

And you know who you know you know who's like right now thinking, you you you don't even know what you're talking about.

It's moms of young children.

That's right.

You don't know what you're talking about.

That's easy for you to say.

I I agree.

I agree.

I love it.

I get up, I got, I can get up.

You know, I my wife was gone with her mom this past week for two days at the beginning of the week, and my 16-year-old was at home, and I got up and left the house.

I thought, oh my goodness, I didn't even check on Caleb.

But he's old enough.

He's old, he, I mean, he's he can handle himself, he can drive.

And so I'm at a different stage.

I can take a nap.

But but dads, husbands, get let your wife take a nap.

Can I get an amen?

Take a nap and eat a crispy cream.

It's okay.

Take care of yourself.

All right, that's enough, right?

Man, we got I gotta move on.

Verse nine.

Verse nine.

There he he came to a cave and lodged in it.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, What are you doing here, Elijah?

He said, I've been, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with a sword.

And I, even I only am left, and they seek my life to take it away.

And he said, Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.

And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore down the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.

After the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.

And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.

And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper.

Out of the English Standard Version, it says low whisper.

Some of your versions will say gentle whisper.

Here's what you need, secondly, is you need to step out of the cave and into an encounter with God.

You need to step into an encounter with God.

So Elijah experiences this powerful move of God.

But here's what it says here.

It's not in the earthquake, it's not in the wind.

It's not in the mountain that was broke apart.

It was not in the fire, but it was in a gentle or low whisper.

You know what the literal translation is out of the Hebrew?

Thin silence.

Thin silence.

Pastor Chris Hodges says we look for the dynamic.

But God is often in the intimate.

And sometimes you gotta step into an encounter with God that may not be dynamic.

It may seem ordinary and mundane.

But when you open up your Bible on a daily basis, God is opening his mouth to speak to you.

And regardless of how you feel, regardless of whether it's emotional or not, you are encountering the living God of the universe.

Jesus, the word, is speaking to you.

We've referred to this verse, Psalm 46, 10.

Be still.

Be still.

We talked about sitting and settling.

Solitude and silence.

Be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth.

This simplicity of just being quiet before the Lord.

Personal worship.

If worship, if Sunday morning is the only time you worship, then you're missing out on the blessing that God has for you on a daily basis.

As a matter of fact, you feel distant from God, you just start worshiping.

You start worshiping.

He comes to you.

He says in John chapter 4, we're speaking to the woman at the well, he says, I'm seeking those who will worship me in spirit and truth.

John 4 · chapter mention

And so worship.

I sing as loud as I can sometimes when I'm by myself.

I would not dare do that in public.

But just start start proclaiming back to God who He is, His attributes, His characteristics, and God promises that He will come and seek and find us.

Psalm 73, 16 and 17.

But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God.

Then I discerned their end.

The presence of God changes everything in your life.

And it's it's work.

I mean, it's it's a practice.

You've got to, so, so you've got to you've got to.

Step into recovery.

You've got to step into an encounter with the living God.

And then you then let's look at verse 13 and 14.

When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and he went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

And behold, there came a voice to him and said, What are you doing here, Elijah?

He said, I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, for the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword.

And I, even I only am left, and they seek my life to take it away.

Now I'm gonna tell you, is it me or has Elijah just repeated himself over and over?

He's in the presence of God and he's whining.

I mean, this sounds whiny to me.

But but he covered, he recognized there's something.

He covers, he covers his face, which represents his identity.

There's probably some bit of shame.

We need to step into a true identity.

Part three, step into it to step three, step into a true identity.

There are going to be things that try to pollute your mind.

There are going to be things and people and forces and spiritual forces that want you to believe lies about what is not true about you.

And you've got to step into a true identity, which means you believe the truth over the lie.

Elijah keeps, he keeps repeating himself over and over.

God, you know, I've been jealous for you, but the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, killed your prophets, and I am the only one that is left.

That's how we feel sometimes.

Pain and despair and depression tends to make us become very self-centered and self-focused.

So here's my translation of that verse.

This is what I prayed.

Lord, I have been very zealous for you.

I planted a church 15 years ago.

Nobody else in that church loves Jesus like I do.

And the government won't let me meet with my people.

This is during the shutdown, the COVID shutdown.

And I'm the only one left trying to worship God.

That's I I there's times that I have felt that way.

How silly is that?

How silly is that?

I need to believe what God says about me and not what culture says about me, not what the enemy says about me.

I need to believe that I am an adopted child of the King of Kings through Jesus Christ.

He has given me the gift of the Holy Spirit to dwell within me and to give me power to live.

And greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world.

That is the truth.

So he goes on in verse 15.

He says, And the Lord said to him, Go return your way to the wilderness of Damascus.

And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria.

And Jehu, the son of Nimshe, you shall appoint to be king over Israel.

And Elisha, the son of Shaphat of Abel Maholakh, you shall anoint to be the prophet in your place.

And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death.

Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.

Here's what he's telling Elijah.

Sometimes you've got to step into a new assignment.

You've got to step into a new direction.

You've got to step into a new purpose or a new understanding of what God wants to use you for in the place that he's called you to.

Victor Frankel, I mentioned his book.

He was a prisoner of war in the Holocaust.

He was a survivor of the Holocaust.

And he says, people have enough to live by, but nothing to live for.

They have the means but no meaning.

So here's what Elijah does.

He says, go back the way you came, and you remember where God called you.

You remember where God met you.

I was thinking about this the last couple of weeks.

Um I served at a camp called Impact for really 20 years.

I mean, I most of my youth ministry, and I just kept going back.

I kept going back.

I kept going back.

Even after I planted Church of the Grove, I went back for a couple of years, and and that's where God called me into ministry.

It's where many times over the summer, during that one week, I would be connected with some of my best friends in life.

It's where I met my wife.

And so I would drive back onto that campus in Tokoa every June.

And there would be times where I would just weep as I drove onto the campus because that place meant so much to me.

And it became, it's just it's just one of those places.

There's other places, there are other other points in my life.

I have to go back and be reminded that God has called me, He's given me purpose, regardless of how I feel, regardless of how difficult life is.

The apostle Paul says we've got to we've got to understand this.

He says, um, 2 Corinthians 4, 16 through 18, so we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

As we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, for the things that are seen are transient or temporary, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

And so stepping into a new assignment, remembering where God has met us in the past to help propel us forward.

And then finally, verse 19, it says, So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with 12 yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth.

Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him.

And that was a way of saying, you are the one that will carry my mantle.

You are the one who will be my apprentice.

You are the one who will have the anointing as God's prophet as I move on from here.

And so step number five is stepping into relational strength.

One of our core values is you can't do life alone.

Let's say that together.

You can't do life alone.

Stepping into relational strength.

You weren't designed to go through life alone.

We're created for relationship.

We're created for community.

I know some people are introverts and some people are extroverts, but we all need relationship and we need relational strength.

Kevin Eikenberry says this.

He says, look carefully at the closest associations in your life.

And that is the direction you are headed.

And I have taught my kids this all of their life.

That the people you surround yourself with and the things that you read or expose yourself to will determine the direction, the quality, and the blessing of your life.

Always be aware of who you are associating.

Now we're all called, you know, to Jesus hung, he was called a friend of sinners.

We're called to reach out to the to the people that are that are spiritually curious or people that are not interested.

We're called to rub shoulders with people that are lost and that people that need Jesus.

But there's a difference between influencing someone towards Jesus and then and then falling into a place where they begin to influence us.

We've got to have key relationships in our life that provide us encouragement and relational strength.

So where are you in this process?

And say, Russ, I've never really dealt with depression.

I don't know that I've maybe I've had some moments of despair.

Well, that's that's awesome.

That's great.

Are you in a place where maybe right now you you feel depressed, you feel despair, and it may be circumstantial, it may be connected to circumstances, it may be you can't even put your finger on it, but you wake up feeling sad.

And if you haven't ever been there, the chances are there's probably going to be a season in life where you just you experience something like that.

I think all of us have probably been hit or blindsided in the past couple of years.

I mean, just just dealing with the unknown, uncertain circumstances of a deadly virus.

Not to mention just dealing with the rest of normal life.

Many of you've had circumstances way beyond probably what I've had to experience, but just just a couple of things that that are personal to me.

On Christmas Day, my uncle Tom, my mom had four, uh my mom had three brothers.

And her oldest brother died in um 1992.

Um her second oldest brother is still living.

Her youngest brother on Christmas Day last year had his first COVID symptom.

And on Sunday, and I remember this because my family were hiking up in North Georgia, on Sunday he was gone.

And so I my mom called me frantically that morning to tell me Tom's in trouble.

By the time I got to the bottom of the mountain, she called me and she said, He's gone.

And he was a father-type figure in my life, so that was that was that was troubling.

And there's a whole set of circumstances that I won't go into, but we we we have yet even have a memorial or a funeral for him.

There's some family dynamics.

So, so you know that's that's that's a little bit troubling.

My wife is a is the type of person that doesn't have necessarily a ton of friends that are really, really close.

She is a loyal, loyal friend to the friends that she has.

Her mom and daddy told me, said, Russ, she will be fiercely loyal to you.

Two of her closest, best friends passed away this year, this calendar year, due to COVID.

You go on other, you know, we we we all have our list of things that we could all share and talk about.

Losses, difficulties, job situations, on and on and on.

My oldest brother has been diagnosed with a dreadful disease just months ago.

And so you just feel sometimes you get gut punched over and over and over.

And that's why I feel like it's so important for us to step into the reality that Jesus is able to sympathize with us.

He is our co-sufferer, he became human and he walked in the dirt of this planet, and he experienced what you and I experienced.

His friend died, and it says Jesus wept.

It says he's gentle and lowly.

It says as he looked out over Jerusalem, he's moved with compassion.

He felt at the deepest level the pain and the hurt of people being scattered like sheep without a shepherd, without any purpose and significance.

And he knelt before his heavenly father in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he says, Daddy, would you please take this cup from me?

Take it from me.

He says, Not my will, but your will.

Maybe your step is to be a better keeper of your soul and to get the proper rest and get into the proper rhythms that God has established for us because He created us with limits.

So what is your step?

Would you pray with me?

Let's pray together.

Father, I know that there's people possibly under the sound of my voice, either in this room or possibly that have watched online with us this morning, and they might even put themselves in a category where they're not really sure about what they believe.

Maybe they're curious about spiritual things, or maybe they believe that there is a God, or maybe they're not even interested, and they're just here because somebody in their family brought them.

I pray that you would reveal yourself to them.

I pray that they would be open in their heart to taking a step towards you as you draw them by the Holy Spirit.

And if there's someone in this room that's never put their faith in Jesus, I want to encourage you to simply understood that God created you and designed you for a purpose.

Sin, sin broke us and compromised our purpose and significance.

But Jesus came to make things right, to restore us, to reconcile us back into the right relationship with the Father, and we enter into that relationship simply by trust, belief, and faith.

And maybe this morning you simply have a hurting heart.

And I want you to know that Jesus is willing not just to die for you, he's willing to crawl down into the depths of despair with you and to suffer with you because he loves you.

And his hope and desire is that we would step out of the despair and walk in purpose and follow him.

Understand, he's called us, he's called us to purpose, he's called us to be a disciple maker, he's called us to be a part of the family of God.

He's called us into the mission of reaching other people with this good news of Jesus.

So let's get healthy so we can walk in the healing Jesus has for us that will lead us to mission and significance.

Father, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for Jesus.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Would you stand with me?

Let's make this song.

Man, what a great word this morning.

So good.

This this message is that this series has been so good, so good.

Um so we hope that God spoke to you through that um and that you were challenged and encouraged.

And uh, yeah, we just what an amazing morning.

Um we would like to just say if you have made that decision this morning to follow Jesus for the first time, we would love to partner with you, to come alongside you, give you some resources for the journey, um, because we believe it's that this is the first step on the journey to a lifelong uh relationship with Jesus.

And so we would love to partner with you.

So if you would take it, start to follow all one word to 97000 this morning.

And uh, like I said, we believe that this is just the first step on your journey, and we want to be able to come alongside you and partner with you to give you some resources to help encourage you in that this morning.

Yeah, decision you won't ever, ever regret for sure.

So we guys, we hope you have a great week.

Don't forget, we'd love for you guys to be a part of Shop with a Hero.

You can go to the app for more information and to sign up.

And don't forget to bring in your Operation Christmas Child boxes on November 21st.

We hope you have a fantastic week.

Yeah, and we will see you next week.

Go brings you.