"Life by the Brook" | Sunday AM | Melody Shephard

So today we're going to be studying the trusting God for direction.

It's life by the brook.

And we're going to read from 1 Kings chapter 17, 1 through 7.

1 Kings 17 · chapter mention

You can stay seated.

And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.

Think how bold that is.

And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Sherleth that is before Jordan.

And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.

Amazing, isn't it?

So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord, for he went and dwelt by the brook Shileth that is before Jordan.

And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook.

And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.

So the Lord is leading this Elijah to a brook, and even Elijah proclaims there's not going to be rain.

So he finds himself there at this brook, and he's drinking from this brook, but he knows eventually that brook might be drying up.

So who is this Elijah?

And I love to look back at the prophets and how God dealt with them and where God took them.

And we know Elijah is powerful.

He's referred to as Elijah the Tishbite, a prophet of God from the region called Gilead.

And Gilead in ancient times are the portions of land where the tribes of Gad and Reuben and half the tribe of Manasseh settled.

So today, where is it?

Today it is in the country of, it is the country of Jordan.

Nothing is really known about Elijah's family or his birth.

This gives us a glimpse of hope and a glimpse of understanding.

That Elijah is not, we God is not concerned about where Elijah's lineage is or where he's come from, even who our relatives are today.

God is not concerned about your pedigrees necessarily, but he desires to have a personal relationship with you and I personally.

The God of heaven wants a relationship with us.

The scene of Elijah's life opens with him having boldness and a prophetic message to this king Ahab who ruled the northern kingdom of Israel.

So just think about it for a moment.

Just think.

This one, this one most courageous confrontation in the Bible.

Elijah is standing before the most powerful man in the nation.

And then he announces God's judgment.

He said to the king, King Abab in verse one, as the Lord God of Israel liveth before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word, think about that relationship.

According to my word, God's gonna back me up.

After this confrontation moment in time came a private time.

Say private time of preparation at the brook of Sheleph.

God will often take his servants from the spotlight to the schoolroom.

And I want you to begin to think how God deals with every one of us.

Before the Lord can use us openly or publicly, he will develop us privately.

He will speak to us.

He may give some people visions and dreams, but he will speak to us in those quiet moments with him, those separate moments with him.

So the brook shelf became Elijah's classroom in the school of faith.

Say school of faith.

Number one on your handouts, quiet seasons of solitude prepares us for ministry.

In 1 Kings 17, verse 3, it says, Get thee hence and turn thee eastward and hide thyself by the brook Shileth.

1 Kings 17:3

Hide yourself.

Say, Hide myself.

This was the first command God gave to Elijah just after this great victory of prophecy.

However, there is a school of thought, school of thought, because we have no scripture of proof, but we do have a principle.

So this is called the school of thought, noted throughout the scripture.

God must have been preparing Elijah somewhere, somehow, before he went to Ahab the first time.

Hidden away until he was the right moment that God said, now it's time to speak.

For him to come out of the scenes and into King Ahab's life.

There was must have been a moment, a time of preparation.

So God will usually choose preparation before platform.

Before ever getting somewhere, God will choose that school of preparation.

But what we sometimes being impatient, we want the platform before that preparation.

And God sometimes will give us visions or he'll give us dreams.

Amen?

As we pray, God will speak.

Yes?

And sometimes he'll show us this great thing, and you'll think, okay, I'm ready, but you're not ready.

God may be showing you something you'll be doing in the future, but he still has to put you through the school of it.

Amen.

Anybody ever been there?

Elijah still needed to learn that his abilities and effectiveness would not come from his talents.

They wouldn't come from even courage or personality.

Sometimes we see people come in and they have wonderful talents, and that's God, and God's gonna bless them.

But they still got to go through that school of preparation before they ever step and use those specific talents that God has got for them.

It would only come from a relationship with God.

This only comes from a relationship when we get hidden away with God, when God tucks us away a little bit and says, I'm gonna prepare you for this task.

I'm gonna show you a glimpse, but I'm gonna prepare you for this task.

Elijah being hidden away at the brook realizes there were no crowds, there was not even applauses, there was no celebration of his ministry.

He was alone.

It was only him and God alone.

And God often does his deepest work in those hidden places.

He's cultivating our heart, he's moving in our life.

So here are some biblical examples.

In Exodus chapter 3, it says, Moses spent 40 years in a backside of a desert called Midian before leading the children of Israel out of Egypt.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

He was happy to stay in the back side of the desert.

He was okay.

I'm okay until the burning bush.

Amen.

And God calling him.

Sometimes we can get comfortable in those places.

When God tucks us away and hides us away, we can kind of start digging our heels and becoming very comfortable.

I'm good here, God.

I'm real good.

I'm just fine.

In Psalm 78, it says David spent years tending sheep and even anointed by the prophet Samuel before ever becoming King of Israel.

In Galatians chapter 1, Paul spent time in Arabia and Damascus before he began his ministry.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

And we know a little bit about Paul.

In Luke chapter 2, even our Lord Jesus, our Savior, spent forty days in that wilderness before beginning his public ministry tucked away before beginning.

Luke 2 · chapter mention

Example after example through the word of God shows us this truth, and this truth will be applied even to our lives.

Amen.

Public ministry is only true, truly sustained by our private fellowship and our relationship with God.

The world, excuse me, the world will push, pushes at values of visibility.

You need to be seen.

Your talent is there.

You need to be doing this, you need to be doing that.

And all the while God is saying, no, no, no, no.

Not yet.

Not yet.

Because God, however, values preparation.

Many of us in the church become frustrated during this great quiet seasons.

But we let gotta let God develop our character.

Amen.

We gotta let God just probe us, get things out of us, show us who we really are before Him.

God depending, our faith is being rising as He is working with us.

He's depending on that faith in us to arise.

And we can pray for doors to open.

That's okay.

Amen.

But let God deepen that faith while we're praying for the doors to open.

Lord, just deepen my faith.

We must not despise the brook experience.

The brook may be the place where God is preparing you and I for our greatest usefulness in the kingdom of God.

Amen.

Anybody ever been through the brook experience?

Anybody ever been tucked away?

Amen?

You know what it feels like.

You can feel yourself like, okay, God, I think I'm ready.

Oh no, God, I'm not ready.

And you have these mixed emotions, Lord, whatever, and finally you surrender and say, God, whenever you're ready.

Amen?

Whenever you see fit.

Number two, on your paper, God's direction opens his provision.

In 1 Kings 17, 4, it says, And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.

Say there.

The word there stands out.

The ravens were not going to feed Elijah in Samaria.

He was not going to feed Elijah in Jerusalem.

Amen.

But it was at that specific place.

And at that specific place, God has us when we're by that brook.

He has us.

He doesn't want us to go to and fro.

Just stay still in the hand of the Lord as He is preparing you.

They were feeding him at Shareeth.

So God's provision was waiting at God's appointed location.

And the provision was connected to the place of obedience.

Remember that.

As God is moving on you, the simple obedience to him is where the provision will come.

So here's a principle of faith.

In our logical human way of thinking, we would say, God, provide this for me, then Lord, I'll obey.

And I call this in our Bible study the Jacob experience.

When Jacob was laying his head on that pillow of rocks, God shows him that vision.

Think about that.

And he gets up and he says, Well, God, if this, if that, if this, and if that, then I will.

Right?

But years later, as God put him through that school of faith, he came in.

The next prayer was, Lord, it's on you.

Lord, I know you can do this.

Lord, I'm believing that you are able.

God, whatever you want me to do.

The whole thing changed because God got him in that quiet place and taught him those lessons.

Amen.

Faith says, God, I'm trusting you.

Say, I'm trusting you, Lord.

I'll obey.

I know you will provide.

Amen.

I'm going to give you a personal example.

I'm going to put me out there for a minute, my husband and I.

There were times my husband didn't have jobs, and in construction, we did not work for the union.

It was, it was, he got on his own, and it was basically a job.

When you had a job, that's where your money was.

And if you didn't have a job, you didn't have the money.

So God was putting us through that school of faith.

We were raising three children, little, and we had just gotten to church when I had a newborn.

And we learned the shortage of food.

We learned to trust God would provide.

But my husband decided, and we decided we were living in a 720-square foot home.

We only had two bedrooms, and we had three children.

And the Lord said, basically, we're felt impressed.

I wasn't saying to me, but felt impressed that we need to add on because we didn't have money to go and buy another home.

We didn't have enough equity to even take that home and put it into another home.

We didn't have a savings account.

So my little my husband decided, well, I know what we'll do.

This is faith.

I'll go out there and I'll start digging the ditch.

I'll dig the ditch for 820 square feet.

I will dig this ditch.

And God somehow will provide.

So as he's digging the ditch, and he got to a point that he couldn't find an electrical panel that he needed, electrical wire, something on the ground.

Ah, he was digging this hole and that hole and this hole.

And he said, I just don't know where it's at.

And uh so what we did is we went to bed that night and and we we began to pray.

And I went to my daughter's room and I just started tearing up and I said, Lord, I we're trusting you.

We are we are right there against the wall.

We do not know what to do.

And I went into this half-sleep-ish realm.

And the Lord said to me audibly, He said, Melody, give it all to me.

Everything will be alright.

Audibly, the voice of God.

And I couldn't get over He knew my name.

It was, Do you know my name?

And the next morning I said to my husband, get out there.

You're gonna find it.

You're gonna find it.

Because guess what?

Last night I dedicated this whole house to you, the whole house to the Lord.

I said, Whatever Bible says need to be taken, whatever prayer meetings need to happen, this house will be dedicated to the Lord.

And he went out there and he found it.

And from that moment on, we had prayer meetings, we had Bible studies, we had everything.

That home, my daughter remembers, that home was dedicated to the Lord.

And every home since then was dedicated to the Lord.

We know God will provide.

Amen.

Amen.

We never took out a loan, we never had money in our bank account, but we did that addition and we finished it.

Without a loan, without cash.

People came to help us.

People came and uh and did things for us.

And it was majority, of course, my husband building it, but it was such faith building that we felt like on the backside of a desert.

Lord, only you know what needs to be done.

Amen.

And we all get there at that time.

And Lord, no, you only know nobody, I don't want anybody's help, but I want your help somehow, filter it through.

Amen.

And he did that, and he built our faith because of that.

In Matthew 6, 33, he says it like this but seek ye first, say first, the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all, say all these things shall be added unto you.

Amen.

So think about Elijah's perspective for a moment.

Some things didn't make sense by a human reasoning.

Some things when we go through it does not make sense.

Sometimes it is once God wants to get the glory.

Amen.

If we would just step back and allow him to get the glory.

Amen.

Elijah's reasoning, I'm hiding from a king.

I'm drinking from a brook during a drought.

I'm even being fed by ravens.

Remember, God's resources are never limited by man's human reasoning.

Amen.

Let that sink in.

Our reasoning, mm-mm, it's all God.

Amen.

It should be all God.

We lean on his understanding.

Wherever God guides you and I, God shall provide.

Amen.

God will provide.

If you give it all to him, he's gonna do it.

Our human understanding wants to see everything that is ahead of us.

Lord just shows.

Do you know what?

If I think if we all saw that, we'd probably like faint.

But God, most of the time, will only reveal the next step.

And here's another testimony I have that that came real to me.

I found this out personally.

I was called up to the pulpit unexpectedly.

I wasn't prepared to share a thought from scripture.

Go ahead, come up here, take out a scripture, share your thoughts.

I was very nervous.

I shut my eyes and I began to pray, Lord help me.

God show me.

And sure enough, God deals me with me with me with visions and whatnot, but sure enough, all of a sudden, as my eyes were closed, I saw my feet in my mind's eye.

And I saw this big cloud all over the place.

And I only could see my foot.

And there, as I began to look, there was a light, and the light did not shine to the whole area.

The light was only shining on the tip of my toe area.

And as I began to walk, that light would go another step.

And the scripture that the Lord gave me right away was Psalms 119-105.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

So the Lord gave me the scripture to expound on that night.

For that very moment in time, He showed me that scripture.

Amen.

God's provision is not found in following our own paths, our own plans, our own ways.

It is only found in following God's direction and trusting Him.

Amen.

We always want to say, hold my hand, Lord.

Lead me.

Oh, lead me.

I trust in you.

Amen.

Number three on your handout.

Trust is learned in increments.

Romans 1:17 says, For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith.

Romans 1:17

Say faith to faith.

As it is written, the just shall live by faith.

Amen.

So we're going to look at Elijah's progression in the school of trust for a moment.

All right, here we go.

First, he trusted God enough to confront Ahab the king, and that was a big deal.

Second, he trusted God to go to Shereath.

The brook that will eventually dry up.

Third, he trusted God for water and then even his daily food.

And fourth, Elijah would trust God with a widow's last meal.

Fifth, he trusted God for the healing and raising of a child back to life.

Think about how it's building.

Amen?

Think about your life and how what God has brought you through and how your life is building from faith to faith.

Later, Elijah would stand on Mount Carmel, face the prophets of Baal, trusting God for the fire to fall from heaven, consuming and licking up the sacrifice that He had made unto the one true God.

Eventually, this prophet Elijah would trust God, say, I trust God, to take him up in a chariot and horses of fire by a whirlwind into heaven.

That last moment before we leave this earth, our relationship is what's only gonna matter with the Lord because he is the one who's gonna take us up.

Amen.

We must trust him.

But it all began at Sheleeth at that brook.

Can we thank God for his faithfulness right now?

Can we just lift our hands and say, Lord, I thank you.

Thank you, Jesus, for being so faithful.

Thank you, Lord, that I can trust you, Lord.

I don't have to lean on my own understanding, but I trust you.

In Jesus' name, in Jesus' name.

In Luke 16, 10.

He that is faithful in that which is least is faith, is faithful also in much.

And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.

Amen.

So let's look for a moment at God's method of training.

What's his method of training?

Many believers want this mountaintop faith.

I want faith to move the mountains.

I want faith to do this.

Yes?

God develops mountaintop faith through everyday obedience.

Amen.

As we obey every day, is building to that mountaintop experience.

In fact, when a climber is climbing a mountain, he doesn't just leap to the top.

Amen.

But there's a struggle going up that mountain.

There might be some scarring on the knees and elbows and hands, sweat on their brow, but they're climbing that mountain.

And finally they get to that top.

And they say, look at the victory.

They learned some things up that mountain.

They learned the hard knocks up that mountain, but they kept going.

Amen.

They kept going.

That He allows to come on our Christian pathway of life.

Amen.

We're living for the Lord.

He's gonna take us step by step.

Great faith, great trust is simply small faith.

Exercise consistently over time.

Even when you feel like I don't feel like praying today, I don't feel like devotion today, I don't feel like it.

Do it anyways.

Do it anyways, because that's that obedience in the scripture.

That's obedience to Him.

That is faith in Him.

Lord, I may not feel you in this dry space of my life right now.

But God, I know you're there, and I'm gonna keep praying, and I'm gonna even fast, and I'm gonna keep my reading my word because I do know you're there.

It's that faith that is triggered, and God sees it and He loves it.

First Kings number four says, A dried-up brook signals a change, not desertion.

See, I'm not being deserted.

God will not desert you.

In fact, he said, I will never leave you.

I will never forsake you.

Amen.

I will be with you to the rough areas of life and to the great areas of victory.

I will be with you.

In 1 Kings 17, 7, it says, And it came to pass after a while that the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.

Elijah is now learning to trust the process with God.

God, you brought me to the brook, and now you're dried it up.

So now what, Lord?

I can imagine Elijah just like, okay, I've got to trust the process.

We've got to trust the process in our life with the Lord, amen.

There's gonna be hard knocks, but we're gonna trust him through it all.

Amen.

He knew he was exactly where God told him to be and stayed there under obedience to God.

I'm gonna stay.

The brook is drying up, but I'm staying.

And yet the brook still dried up.

But I stayed, and I you told me, and I obeyed.

But the brook still dried up.

That lets us know that sometimes our circumstances change even when we are in the will of God.

Amen.

Circumstances in our lives will shift.

Doesn't mean we're out of the will of God.

We're in the will of God.

Let the shifting happen.

Amen.

But hold on to the hand of the Lord, trust his process.

We have all been through some changes in our lives.

Can I get an amen?

Such as change of jobs.

Opportunities even disappear.

Relocating to a different state or city.

Amen.

Ministries change.

Family grows or declines, and health challenges occur.

Elijah was not a failure because the brook dried up.

That does not signal failure.

When we go through things, when we go through health challenges, uh-uh, it doesn't signal a failure.

When the Lord says, okay, I want you to give up this church and give it to a man of God here when we were pastoring.

We knew, my husband and I knew it wasn't a failure.

We did the time that we did what the Lord wanted us to do.

And it was time that we gave it over to a younger man and his wife so they can take it to the next level.

We knew the timing of the Lord.

We trusted that.

It doesn't mean we were a failure.

It doesn't mean you're a failure when God shifts, amen, things in your life.

The drying brook was preparing the next lesson.

The times that we've spent in the past with the Lord, he just is preparing for what is ahead.

The drying brook was actually leading Elijah to a widow, to a resurrection miracle, to a greater understanding of God's provision and a greater display of God's power and authority.

If he stayed in that brook and refused to go, he would have never met the widow.

Amen?

He would have never met that little girl and had to be raised from the dead.

He would have never met those opportunities that God would show his power and his authority through Elijah.

If we stay in a comfortable position and not be stretched and let the Lord stretch us, we're going to miss opportunities that God wants to work through us.

If he tells you, if you've been praying, Lord, I want to win a soul to you.

Lord, just help me to open my mouth and speak as your ability goes through me, Lord, and let me teach that Bible study, or let me witness.

The Lord brings you somebody, and you say, No, I'm I'm comfortable.

I'm just, I'm good.

Right?

Or with somebody is struggling, and I've done this before, somebody's struggling with a wheelchair or whatever, and I've and the Lord had prompted me, go pray for that person, and that person was in Ross.

It's a clothing store.

Back in the day, I think.

And I went up and I prayed.

I was nervous.

Amen.

But I prayed because he can get the glory for it.

Amen.

Think about how many times the Lord has dealt with you.

Think about how many times God has prompted you to do something.

Don't get settled in your own ways, but stretch yourself and let God get the glory for it.

Amen.

Sometimes we can pray real good in our quiet time of prayer and whatever, and all of a sudden Sister Lori will say, Would you come up here and pray corporate prayer?

Oh, I cannot do that.

The Lord wants to stretch you.

If Sister Lori comes up to you and says, I need you to have be on the prayer team, I bet you can do it.

Go ahead and do it.

Long as it's okay with our wonderful pastors.

Amen.

Let God stretch you.

Let God show you the next step.

Let God be greater and more powerful with more authority in your life that he can show his greatness to somebody else.

Amen.

So we think about this.

Elijah may have never left that brook if it had never dried up.

He might have just stayed there and said, Oh, this is good stuff.

Hey, Ahab and Jezebel, all they can just do what they want to do, and I'm good right here because I'm hidden and I'm drinking and I'm being fed.

Sometimes God removes what has been sustaining us.

He'll remove it.

And I think about the eagle.

And the eagle, when they have babies up in the high nest, they have their babies, and what happens is that when those babies become older, they have to learn to fly.

And they have to get uncomfortable to do it.

And the eagle will be the eagle mama, papa, whatever it is, will pull out, start pulling out those twigs that they have made the nest with.

And all of a sudden the nest is kind of uncomfortable for these eagles' lips.

And it will force them to fly.

And as they fly, some go down, but the mama, the papa's right there to pull that eagle back up, that baby eagle, to teach that eagle again to fly.

Jesus is the same way.

We can step out and say, Lord, okay, you're having me do this.

And if we flub up or we think we haven't done it right, God will redo it again.

He'll say, It's okay, I'm here.

I'm gonna get the glory.

It's okay.

You just do it again.

It's okay, amen, to step out, make a few mistakes, and God is there with us helping us.

Amen.

He is gonna get the glory.

Amen.

Because we need to move to the next stage of this plan with the Lord in our lives.

In Joshua 5, 12 says, and the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land.

Neither have the children of Israel manna anymore.

You mean what, Lord?

Come on, Moses.

Come on, Joshua, come on.

Really?

We're not gonna eat from God's hand anymore, no?

But they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.

God said, now I'm gonna change your diet.

You're gonna go out to Canaan, you're gonna get your own food.

The manna ended because it was time for the next step to begin.

Amen?

They weren't gonna get comfortable in that wilderness.

They weren't gonna get comfortable.

They need to be pushed into the other side, pushed through that Jordan River, pushed into the land of Israel today.

When God closes one chapter of our lives, he is already writing the next.

And isn't that exciting to know that the Lord is writing our story?

He is writing our life, and he is charting it down.

So you can say, Lord, I made this mistake, I made that mistake, blot it out with your blood, and redo it again.

Amen.

Let me go through it again, let me witness to somebody again.

Let me teach a Bible study again.

Help me to get it to another soul.

Help me to go to a hospital and pray for souls.

Amen?

Let me do it again, Lord, because I know that you're able to get the glory for it.

Don't mistake a closed door for divine abandonment.

God closes a door.

He has not abandoned you.

God is not taking something from us, but moving us towards something greater.

Line upon line, precept upon precept.

I love that.

Here a little, there a little.

The Lord keeps adding.

As you keep obeying, He keeps adding.

He keeps adding.

The school of faith, the school of trust.

So faith is basically trust.

Leaning not on your own understanding, but trusting God.

There's times in your prayer life you may say, God, I don't know what to say.

But I'm just gonna sit here for a moment and I'm gonna lean my head on you and I'm gonna hear your heartbeat.

I just want to hear your heartbeat.

You know, John the beloved is called the beloved because John called himself the beloved.

If you read through the scripture, Jesus didn't call him the beloved.

John called himself beloved.

John said, I have a relationship, so I am the beloved.

But you see John at the Passover, and you understand that he just leans himself up to Jesus.

And I can imagine he just saying, Where you're gonna take us, I don't know.

But with your hand and with your heartbeat, I'll go.

It is John's understanding that all it is is the heartbeat of God.

The quiet sessions, the seasons of solitude with the Lord prepares us for ministry.

God's direction opens his provision.

Trust is learned in increments.

A dried-up brook signals a change, not desertion.

Now, with understanding, we can see God's greatest work in our lives is often done in those hidden places.

Can you stand?

When we follow God's direction and we trust his provision and remain faithful, when the brook dries up, we will discover that every season is a classroom in the school of faith.