Episode 277: Ultimate King

Welcome to Harbor West.

Good to see all of you guys this morning.

My name is Justin.

I'm one of the pastors here at our church.

And if you have a Bible, you can grab it now and open it up to the book of 1 Kings.

1 Kings.

If you need a Bible, there should be a Bible under the chairs in front of you.

We're going to be in 1 Kings chapter 16.

1 Kings 16 · chapter mention

And in those Bibles under the chairs in front of you, that's on page 308.

We are going to open God's word now together.

We're going to read it together, study it together, and seek to believe it together,

and then live it out together as a community, a family of faith.

The book of Kings was written about a dark time in the history of God's people.

The Bible is all about how the God who created everything perfect also created us to uniquely

and specially image him in his world, but we wanted to live our own way, and so we rebelled

against him as our king.

We tarnished creation's beauty.

We brought about the consequences of decay and death and separation from God.

But God chose to restore creation's beauty and promised to send a rescuer to reverse the curse of our rebellion.

And the way God chose to do that, to bring the rescuer, was to first choose a people to be his people and represent him in the world.

And through this people, the nation of Israel, God would send the rescuer.

But at this point in the book of 1 Kings, those people are not acting at all like God's representatives.

They aren't representing God well at all.

The nation has split in two, and the northern kingdom has had 19 kings in a row who were wicked kings and didn't care about God.

And now in 1 Kings 16, we get to the worst king of them all.

A king who didn't just ignore God, but who actively led people to worship dead idols.

Idols. We're going to be talking a lot about idols in the book of 1 Kings. What is an idol?

An idol is anything we depend on to give us blessing, guidance, or help instead of depending

on God. And man, we are all tempted to worship and serve idols instead of God. Romans 1 talks

about how humanity, all of us, we're a people who exchange the truth of God for a lie that's just

are bent and we worship and serve what's been created instead of the creator. And the crazy

sad thing about that is that when we do that, when we worship created things, that means we are

worshiping something infinitely less strong and beautiful. Psalm 96 says it this way up on the

screen. It says, for all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols. All the things we choose to

worship and elevate and worship as if they were God. They are worthless idols, but the Lord made

the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

See guys, that's what this series is going to be about. This series that we're calling Ultimate.

It's going to ask the question, who are we going to choose to worship? Who are you going to choose

to worship. We're all worshiping something. We're all going to choose to worship something. And the

question is, are we going to worship the worthless idols of our own making or are we going to worship

the ultimate king in his splendor and majesty and strength and beauty? Who are we going to worship?

Good answer. Let's pray and get into it. And so God, we thank you that you meet us where we're at.

We thank you that you meet us just like you met your people here in 1 Kings

in a place where they had elevated some worthless idols to worship in place of you.

That you met them, that you called them back because you want life for them.

And so God, meet us in any ways that we've allowed some worthless things to creep into our lives

and we've started to give ourselves to them.

Give ourselves to worthless idols that can't deliver.

God, would you give us the grace to turn around and run to you, our refuge, our strength,

and worship you as the ultimate king that you are.

We pray that you would guide us through this series and through our time today in your word.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Amen.

All right, let's look at chapter 16, verse 29.

Ahab, son of Omri, became king over Israel in the 38th year of Judah's king Asa.

Ahab, son of Omri, reigned over Israel in Samaria 22 years,

but Ahab, son of Omri, did what was evil in the Lord's sight,

more than all who were before him.

Then, as if following the sin of Jeroboam, son of Nabot, were not enough,

he married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbel, king of the Sidonians,

and then proceeded to serve Baal and bow in worship to him.

He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria.

Ahab also made an Asherah pole.

Ahab did more to anger the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

King Ahab decided to go against God's plan and marry someone who didn't worship God.

And the results for Israel were severe.

Jezebel brought her favorite idols into Israel and built temples for them.

And because Israel had all these terrible kings before Ahab, who'd been leading them away from God already,

the people just accepted these new idols and began to worship them.

And it got dark.

Jezebel's favorite Baals were supposed to give the people prosperity and protection,

but these idols demanded sacrifices.

And so people in Israel would begin going to the Baal temples to serve these false gods.

And one of the things they required is that people sleep with temple prostitutes as a way to appease the Baals.

And eventually, people in Israel even began performing child sacrifices.

In verse 34, it says,

During his reign, he all the Bethelite built Jericho.

At the cost of Ebrahim, his firstborn, he laid the foundation.

At the cost of Segub, his youngest, he finished its gates according to the word of the Lord

that he has spoken through Joshua, son of Nun.

See, God promised Joshua that if anyone tried to rebuild the city of Jericho,

that they would be cursed.

And instead of listening to God and fearing God's judgment,

Ahab went forward with wanting Jericho rebuilt at great cost,

the cost of these two children's lives.

He was fine sacrificing children's lives so that he could openly defy God.

A few years after this, Jezebel was behind having hundreds of prophets and priests of God murdered,

slaughtered because she didn't want any other spiritual voices in the land other than her own cult leaders.

King Ahab and Israel have abandoned God, and now they're fine with prostitution, child sacrifice, and the slaughter of hundreds.

When we elevate our idols to be supreme in our lives, and we serve them as ultimate, it can lead us to some dark, deep places.

They've drifted so far from God, and the beautiful way that God designed them to live.

The whole nation was declaring with one voice, Baal lives, and Yahweh is dead.

and it was all because of what they valued most in life. They desperately wanted prosperity.

They wanted the land to be as fertile as possible for there to be as much rain as they could get so

that they could be as rich as they could be. And so they turned to these idols believing that they

would do, that these Baals and Asherah would do a better job at getting them what they wanted in life

than God would.

What do you desperately want in life?

What do

you just desperately want and wish you had?

What is ultimate for you?

Here's how you could probably know.

Here's a good way that's helped me figure that out for myself

is to ask the question,

what do you dream about in your free time?

When you have free time,

when you have nothing else that you need to be doing,

need to be thinking about,

where does your mind go?

What do you dream about? What do you start scheming at and planning at? What do you want to spend your

time investing in when you have nothing else to work on? What are you grinding away at?

For so many people, the answer to that is money. It's money. Man, how can I get more money? How can

I create some more passive income? How can I invest in some new ways? What can I do so I can get

more and finally get to whatever the benchmark is? But you know that benchmark keeps moving up,

right? But how can I finally get there? Maybe that's where your mind goes in your free time.

Maybe for some, it's relationships. You spend all your time trying to find someone, trying to find

a friend, trying to find a spouse. Maybe for some, it's sex. You spend your free time daydreaming,

looking at things that will entice you. Maybe for some, it's experiences or lifestyles. Man,

this was the one for me over the last year. I found myself in my free time when I have nothing

that I need to be doing. Like the family's asleep. I got all my work done for the day.

There's no movies I want to watch or anything. I just got free time. You know what I found myself

doing is getting on Airbnb and just looking at different homes around the world. Like just

anywhere. I just look at these awesome homes and I just daydream. I'm like, man, like what would it

be like to live there? Or what would it be like to own that home and rent it out? Or I see one and

I'm just like, okay, that's it. I got to figure out a way to get to Iceland and pay this people

$1,000 a night to live in this ice hut. Like I just, I'm so obsessed with

experiences.

I just

want all these experiences. And that can become an idol for me. Because what we dream about in our

free time is usually what we end up serving all the time. What we dream about in our free time

is usually what we end up serving all the time. Whatever it is that we desperately want in life,

We either end up turning to idols to get it for us, or we turn the thing itself into an idol,

and it becomes an ultimate thing in our lives. Ahab and Israel, they made their decision, man,

we want prosperity. That's ultimate. We want to have our best life now, and so they served

these false idols. And God sends a prophet to meet his people who've turned away from him.

A prophet is just a representative, someone to speak to the people for God and tell them

they've gone the wrong direction and that they need to come back. In fourth grade, I had a friend who

was a prophet for me. His name was Adam. And I had to have him go talk to the girl I was dating, Lydia,

and say, hey, Justin's only been good to you. He gives you cosmic brownies at lunch. Why are you

going after this Rick guy? Come back to Justin, right? Yes, that was his mission. He went and he

was sent on that mission and he failed. He was a terrible prophet. But this prophet, man, he goes

straight to the top, right to King Ahab. And his message is clear. There is only one ultimate king,

and you need to turn around and bow to him.

Chapter 17, verse one.

Now Elijah, the Tishbite from the Gilead settlers said to Ahab,

as the Lord God of Israel lives in whose presence I stand,

there will be no dew or rain during these years

except by my command.

Elijah.

When you read the New Testament,

you see that people revered Elijah, man.

Even hundreds of years after he lived,

He was seen as the greatest of the prophets.

People would ask Jesus, man, are you Elijah?

Come back to life.

Elijah bursts onto the scene right here when things are dark, when they're bleak,

and he boldly speaks into the brokenness of his time.

And it all starts with just his name.

His name, the word Elijah, it means the Lord is my God.

Even in his name, he's proclaiming there is one God, only one God,

that we should bow our knee to.

And Elijah's whole mission was to show people that God has no rivals.

No one and nothing can compete with him.

That's why I look at his first words.

The first words of the prophet Elijah, as the Lord God of Israel lives.

Man, that's something we are going to see over and over in this ultimate series,

studying through the lives of Elijah and Elisha.

We're going to see it over and over, is that the ultimate king is alive.

The ultimate king lives.

The God of the Bible isn't like the idols we make, the dead Baals and Asherahs. He's alive right now.

That's what we've been seeing coming through this Easter season, right? Not even death

could defeat him. He experienced death and showed that he's more powerful than it.

God is alive. And this ultimate living king is the giver of all life.

In this agricultural society, a drought was a death sentence.

Rain was everything, right?

Without rain, the crops wouldn't grow and people would starve.

And so Elijah's highlighting this.

It's not Baal or Asherah who gives life.

It's God.

And the beautiful thing about that is this.

The ultimate living king wants us to have life to the fullest.

That's God's heart.

That's what he wants for his people.

Like look at what Psalm 1611 says.

This is one of the verses we just love here at our church.

It says this, God, you reveal the path of life to me.

In your presence is abundant joy.

At your right hand are pleasures, are eternal pleasures.

So look at those words.

Do you see in those words, God's heart for you?

God's heart for you is this.

He says, I've revealed the path of life to you.

I think for a lot of us, we feel like, man, we're on this path of life that feels

pointless, where am I going? Or I'm just heading toward like constant conflict and struggle. And

maybe there's a little offshoot trail. Like if I could just find it, that's a better path that

leads to something better. But for the most part, I just feel like I'm on this path of life that I'm

on right now and might never get off it. We feel like maybe God's path to joy is hidden. And he

makes it clear here, man, I'm not hiding the path of life to you. I've revealed it. I'm making it

clear. God's not hiding from us. He's calling us, it says he's not calling us away from joy.

He's drawing us closer to abundant joy. In your presence is abundant joy. And isn't that what we

all want in life? We all want lives that are filled with true abundant joy. Maybe we think

it's in things that if we got it, it would work, but God knows, no, those aren't the things that

They're going to bring you true, lasting, abundant joy.

But that's what we want.

We want abundant joy.

With him, it says, we have the greatest life possible, eternal pleasures.

And so, man, maybe you've always thought that if God is really out there,

that he's probably not on your side.

He probably doesn't care about you or how life goes.

But something we're going to see just over and over again in this series

is that there is an ultimate king who wants abundant life for you.

That's God's heart for you.

God is for you.

He is on your side.

But here's the wild thing.

Elijah's announcing that God is going to withhold rain.

God's going to withhold life right now.

He's going to shut everything down.

Life as they knew it in Israel was about to come to a halt.

And we find out later that this is what Elijah prayed for.

He prays that God would bring a drought.

Why?

Why would Elijah pray that?

That doesn't seem like that's God's heart.

Why would Elijah pray that God bring a drought into the land to make everybody's life difficult?

I was traveling several years back.

I was traveling on the mission field to hang out with some missionaries.

And I was hanging out with some pastors in the country that I was in.

And we were talking, just talking about a bunch of things.

And they came up to me and they said, hey, we've been praying for you.

We've been praying for you and for other pastors in America and Christians in America.

We've been praying that God would send you some persecution.

And I was just like, oh, what?

Say it again.

What is it?

They were like, yeah, we've been praying that God would send you some persecution in America.

And I'm like, oh, why?

Why are you praying that?

Like, that's a terrible prayer.

Why are you praying that God would do that?

And the pastors were like, well, because we've been around.

a lot of American pastors lately

and a lot of American Christians

and we see how weak your faith is.

We see how you give God

just a tiny little slice

of the pie of your life

and of your heart

and that you give your life

to so many other things

and you care about

so many other things

and God kind of gets your scraps

and we know

because we've experienced it

that persecution

will make you bow your life

completely to God

and give your life

completely to him

and it'll strengthen your faith

like you never could have dreamed of

so we're praying that God

would bring some persecution

to Christians in America.

And I was like, oh, okay.

Keep praying.

Because that's what Elijah prayed.

Elijah knew that sometimes we need to be shaken up.

Sometimes we need to see what Elijah knew

is that physical suffering that's caused by a drought

is not as terrible as spiritual drought.

And that's what God's people were going through.

He's praying that God would shake their lives up to wake them up about how they're giving their hearts and worship to false idols

so that they don't miss out on the true abundant joy and eternal pleasures that God actually offers.

And man, this is another thing that we're going to see over and over throughout this series.

The ultimate king is in control.

The ultimate king is in control.

Speaking on God's behalf, Elijah says,

there will be no dew or rain during these years except by my command.

See, God's people were beginning to believe that the bale of nature was in control.

They'd been sacrificing to a dead God in the hopes that rain would come and they'd have life.

But Elijah's making it clear, only the ultimate king is in control of what we need in life.

And man, maybe you're in a spot today where you have some big needs in your life,

some heavy things happening in your life right now,

and you're wondering if there's a God out there who's actually in control of it all.

Not a God who just knows about it and cares about it,

but a God who's actually in control of it.

Elijah's here to tell us and show us that there's one ultimate king

who's in control of all of it.

But God wants Elijah to experience it for himself.

Look at verse 2.

Then the word of the Lord came to Elijah,

Leave here, turn eastward, and hide in the wadi sheriff where it enters the Jordan.

You are to drink from the wadi.

I've commanded the ravens to provide for you there.

So he proceeded to do what the Lord commanded.

Elijah left and lived in the wadi sheriff where it enters the Jordan.

The ravens kept bringing him bread and meat in the morning and in the evening,

and he would drink from the wadi.

That seems kind of wild.

Like God calls Elijah to make this bold, incredible statement to King Ahab,

kind of like a calling out, like a call to the mat, like let's fight. And then God just takes him

away. Elijah goes into hiding. And what we find out is that because God wants to do unbelievably

great things through Elijah, he's first got to do some stuff in Elijah. And so he calls Elijah to a

time of preparation. It's a time where God's going to teach Elijah just how much God himself is in

control of Elijah's life. You see guys, before we can do great things for the ultimate king, we've

truly experience that he is the ultimate king of our own lives. And so first, God takes Elijah's,

well, takes away Elijah's reliance on his friends and family. He tells him, go be alone.

Whatever Elijah's about to go through, he's not going to be able to depend on anyone else. If he's

turned his father or his mother or his siblings or his neighbors or his friends into idols, if he's

leaning on them and depending on them for his stability and comfort in life, God is saying, no,

I'm going to remove that. And it's just going to be you and me.

There's a group of 12 pastors that I've been in a cohort with for the last five years. And we

meet together monthly on like a Zoom call and just kind of pray for each other, encourage each other.

And then twice a year, we get together. We meet up and we spend three days just praying together,

catching up, trying to just work through some issues and problems together that we have in life

and ministry. It's been a really healthy, beautiful thing. We meet in different places where these

pastors have churches. And so one year, about a year and a half ago, we met up in Alaska. And the

guy who leads our cohort, he came to us one day and he said, hey, we're all going to go. We're

going to do something together. We're going to do this Japanese practice called Shinrin-yoku.

The Japanese have this practice, Shinrin-yoku, and we're all going to go do it together. It's

forest bathing. We're going to all go forest bathing together. And we were all like,

no, probably not going to do that. And he was like, no, let me explain it. And basically the

practice is this, is that it's a call to intentionally get away regularly and just be

in nature. Just have time where it's just you out in nature, not with any devices, not with anything

man-made, just out in nature. And he said, so we're going to go do that and spend some very alone

time with God. And so he said, okay, followed him up to a glacier. We all spread out, like

probably super dangerous with all the bears and whatever is in Alaska, but we all spread out to

where we couldn't see or hear anyone else. And I had to surrender my phone, my watch, the granola bar

in my pocket. Like I gave it all away. I got to a space where I could only see nature and there was

nothing on me to distract me. And I thought I was going to die out there. I didn't even have my

granola bar, right? It was the most terrifying 30 minutes of my life that we were out there. All

half hour of Shinrin Yoku, I look back on it even now, a year and a half later, all the time,

with such fondness. Because I think God did more in my life in that 30 minutes than maybe he'd done

in a couple years. I prayed for things during that half hour that I hadn't prayed for in I

don't know how long. I asked God questions during that half hour that I'd never asked God before in

my life. And sometimes it just takes us getting away from all the things that distract us, all the

things we allow to distract us, or all the things we've given permission to distract us, all the

little idols that tend to pull our attention and time and focus and energy away from God. And so

God's taking Elijah away, takes away his reliance on some things. The second thing he takes away is

Elijah's reliance on himself. Like Elijah's a capable dude, able to do what he needs and get

what he needs, but not now. God calls him to be beside this wadi that just is kind of like a brook.

It's not a river. It's a small offshoot of a river, and those dry up first during a drought, right?

There's no food out there. There's uncertainty about if he'll get water each day. Everything

Elijah used to trust in is now gone, and God is teaching him this, you can completely trust in me.

See guys, sometimes God may have to bring us to a place where we're actually confronted with that.

Do I truly believe that I can trust in God for everything?

See, for some of us, we've built lives where we build other things into our lives where we say,

man, as long as I have my money, I know I'm going to be okay.

As long as I have my family, I know I'm going to be okay.

As long as I have my health, I know I'm

food for that day. See, God's doing all of this to teach Elijah that the ultimate king

provides for us. The ultimate king is a provider. That's another thing we're going to see over and

over again throughout this series. Our God is a God who provides for us. Philippians 4 says it

this way in verse 19, my God will supply all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ

Jesus. Here's what that means. If you have it, if you have it in your life right now, it's because

God provided it for you. If you don't have it, it's because the ultimate king of the universe,

who has complete wisdom and control and love for you, knows that it wouldn't be good for you to have

it, or at least not have it right now. Because our God is a God who provides all that we need.

This morning I was in a rush, kind of getting our kids out of the house, so I wasn't late for

service and could actually preach the sermon. And my son looked up to me in the flurry of getting

shoes on and stuff, and I guess I'd said no one too many times, or I don't know, it's all kind of

a blur. But he looked up at me, he goes, you guys, which actually means me and my wife, so he wasn't

just picking on me. But he said, you guys never let us have anything cool like phones and iPads

and Kindles. You guys only give us things like shoes and socks. And I was like, yep.

we're only giving you what you need man put them on and get in the car like we got to go like

come on but he recognized something we're providing what he needs and nothing more we know that the

things he doesn't need right now and listen we have a God that knows the things we don't need right now

and I think one of the things that throws us off so much our joy our contentment our rest is that

we look at a lot of things we don't have and we say God I know better than you

I think I need this in order to be content and happy and you haven't given it to me and I know

better instead of sitting back and looking at Philippians 4 and saying man God's supplying all

my needs according to his riches there's nothing he won't give me that he doesn't know I need right

now God's got the riches to do it he will provide it if he knows we need it but then this third thing

happens during this time of preparation that's gonna God's gonna actually take away Elijah's

comfort now. Verse seven, after a while, the wadi dried up because there had been no rain in the

land. Yes, Elijah's been in a season of dependence, but it's been comfortable. God's been providing

for him. Food and water have been showing up. The other prophets of Elijah's day didn't have any

meat. They only had bread and water, but Elijah's getting meat out here from these ravens. So even

in this crazy dependent season, he's been pretty comfortable, but now the comfort is gone.

The provision is gone.

The brook is dried up.

The Hebrew word sheriff, it's the name of the brook there.

It means to cut down.

And that's exactly what God is doing in this preparation season for Elijah.

He's cutting down Elijah's dependence on earthly things.

Teaching Elijah that everything that he has comes from God.

As long as we depend on earthly things, our health, money, relationships, skills, abilities,

we won't depend on the ultimate king.

And God loves us too much to continue to let us depend on false idols.

He puts Elijah in a situation where he can feel his own weakness

so that he can find his strength in God.

And when he does this, this weakness that he feels, the drying up of the water,

it actually leads Elijah to go do what's next.

It leads Elijah to leave this place, the body sheriff, and go do what God has next for him.

See guys, sometimes God guides us by what he doesn't provide.

God knows that what Elijah needed was for this brook to be dried up, to feel even more dependence

on God. So he'd cry out to God and say, what's next, God? And God could tell him, here's what I

have planned next for you. Where has God made you feel weak right now? Where do you feel weak in life?

Maybe you feel some weakness financially. You're like, man, I just, I don't know how we're going to

make it. I don't know how we're going to get through this next season. I don't know how we're

going to get through this next month. There's just a weakness financially. Maybe you're single and

you want to be married and it just feels like, man, I'm in this time where I feel the weakness of not

having something I desperately want. Maybe God's removed an opportunity from you that you thought

you'd have. Maybe there's some skill that you lack that you desperately want, but maybe in all these

things or whatever it is for you, that is the exact weakness that where God wants to grow your

dependence on him. Maybe it's in that exact weakness where God wants to propel you forward

to what he has next for you. But man, that can be scary. The idea of complete dependence on God,

like Elijah's having to experience, the idea of God calling us forward into something new,

that had to be super scary for Elijah too. The brooks dried up. How's he going to survive? Where's

he going to get water? He's all by himself. He has no one and nothing. This could feel like a rock

bottom type of life situation. When that brook dried up, Elijah could have cried out, God, where are

you? You led me out here. I thought this is where you wanted me. Where are you now? And that's what

we're tempted to cry out when life gets really difficult too, right? God, where are you? Why aren't

you showing up? What do I do now? But think about where God has actually been through this whole

experience. He's been speaking to Elijah. He's been guiding Elijah. He's been providing for Elijah.

Man, God has just always been present right here with Elijah. And that's another thing we're going

to see all throughout this series in the lives of Elijah and Elisha. The ultimate king never leaves

us. He's always there. He's always present. Yes, it may be difficult like it was for Elijah, but God

is right there even through this season of preparation. I ran into someone in our church

this week and she has had a wild year. Her life has just been turned upside down. Life looks so

different right now than what it did a year ago. And so I ran into her, you know, kind of just

randomly out in the community and I just was talking to her and I was like, now how are,

is one of those kind of like, how are you really questions? It's like, how are you really doing?

And she answered it, and then I had to run back and write it down because it was too good.

She said, man, I'm in a good place.

It's a bummer that I had to go through the last year to get here, but I'm stoked that I'm here now.

She went on to explain about how she's just literally been experiencing God's presence

through this season of incredible dependence on him.

Listen, guys, God won't leave you.

He'll never abandon you.

He's promised to stay with us, to constantly be with us, fighting for us.

And we're going to see that over and over again in the lives of Elijah and Elisha.

Because what God's really showing us through Elijah and Elisha's lives,

through this event in the darkness of Israel's history,

through the books of Kings, through the whole Bible,

what God is really showing us is this.

He is the ultimate king who has no rival.

He has no rival.

We are prone to believe, like Ahab and Israel, that God does have rivals,

that other things can compete with him and possibly give us more than he can.

But what we're going to see just over and over is that God has no rivals at all.

No one else and nothing else can even come close to our ultimate king.

Every false idol demands that we serve them and then they'll bless us.

The ultimate king served us and blessed us even when we hated him.

Every false idol rewards the strong, but the ultimate king comes down to help the weak.

Every false idol demands that we sacrifice to it.

The ultimate king gave his whole life in sacrifice for us, simply because he loves us.

Because while we were lost in our rebellion against him, the ultimate king made it possible

for us to have new life, life to the fullest, by providing exactly what we need.

He did send the rescuer, his son, Jesus, to take on the consequences of our rebellion and defeat death for us so that we can live forever, proving that he has no rival in this world.

God knows us more deeply than we know ourselves, and yet he loves us more completely than anyone else ever could.

There is no one else who can even compete to be on the throne of our lives.

And God is going to show us again and again how it's the greatest news in the world that he is the ultimate king.

Let's pray together.