Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today on Summit Life, a cautionary message from pastor JD.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Greer.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
What God does is he chooses the weak to shame
the strong. He chooses the simple to confound the wise.
You see, rejoice in your weakness, as Paul says, the
flip side of that is this, If you're going to
rejoice in your weaknesses, beware your strengths because those are
places that you're most likely to forget God.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Thanks for joining us today for Summit Life with pastor,
author and apologist JD. Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vittevic.
Everyone knows the anxiety of a job search, maybe nowadays
more than ever before. And when you're applying for a job,
you do everything you can to put your skills and
natural talents on display. Your strengths and abilities are what
will hopefully qualify you for that position. But today on
(00:54):
Summit Life, pastor and author JD. Greer reveals that when
God chooses us for a job, he has an entirely
different standard and for that we can be grateful. We
just began a study in the Life of Elijah titled
something Better, and if you missed yesterday's teaching, you can
catch up online at Jdgreer dot Com. Right now, let's
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dive back into First Kings for the second half of
a message pastor JD titled Preparation for the Battle.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
One King seventeen.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Let me give you a little historical context getting in
the First Kings Israel. Israel was founded as a monotheistic nation. Well, Israel,
the Northern Kingdom, has a succession of really bad, ungodly kings,
culminating in the worst king ever, King Ahab. Well, Ahab
married a cute little thing from the neighboring pagan nation
(01:46):
of Saida.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I'm called Jezebel.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Now most of us think of Jessicabell as something that's
not flattering. There's a reason for that, because Jezebel was
just a wicked woman. She brought into Israel the worship
or her two favorite gods, which were Bail and Atzerah,
and she set up temples to worship them all over
the countryside of Israel.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
The point is this, for the.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
First time in Israel's history, we're dealing with a pluralistic society,
which means that everybody has their own different God. Into
this situation, this pluralistic situation, God sends a man named Elijah,
and the whole point of Elijah's life is which God
is the real God? And is there a way to
know which God is the real God? Or is it
(02:28):
Whatever bail works for you is fine. So if you
have a Bible, I'd love for you to take it
out now and open it to the Book of First King,
chapter seventeen. You see the stories of Elijah go from
big picture what God is doing in the world through Elijah,
and then they zoom back down to what God is
doing in Elijah's heart.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
They kind of go in that rhythm.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
And so we're going to look first to what God
is doing big then what he's doing in Elijah, because
you're going to see today that God has one major
obstacle to overcome in using Elijah one. And when God
conquers this one thing in us, this one area that
He conquers, becomes the source of most of His power
in our lives. So here we go, One King seventeen,
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verse one. Now Elijah the tishbite. He said to Ahab
As the Lord, the God of Israel lives before whom
I stand, there shall be neither do nor reigned these
years except by my word and the word of the
Lord came to him, depart from here and turn eastward
and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east
of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and
I've commanded the ravens to feed you there. So we
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went and did according to the word of the Lord.
He went and lived by the brook chart that is
east of the Jordan, and the ravens brought him bread
and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in
the evening, and he drank from the brook. All right,
what you have here is what I told you about
him in the goo that you're going from the big
picture of what God is doing through Elijah in the
world verse one, and narrowing down really quickly into what
(03:54):
God is doing in Elijah's heart. And God is going
to teach Elijah one nature lesson, one major lesson he
has to teach to anybody that he uses. You're ready here.
It is the lesson of complete dependence. The brook that
God placed him by was called the brook Cherrief. Cherif
(04:15):
in Hebrew literally means to cut down. In other words,
God is saying to Elijah, Elijah, I'm gonna cut you down.
I'm going to remove from you any strength you have
in yourself. I'm even going to remove the ability that
you have to take care of your own most basic needs,
and I'm going to teach you. I'm going to reduce
you to the status of an infant and teach you
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to depend completely on me.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Write this down.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Before God can use us, he must first break us.
Craig Rochelle says that this story reminds him of the
story of the little bird who got a late start
flying south for winter. Because he got a late start,
he got caught in a snowstorm. The snowstorm was so
bad that his wings froze, and so he had to
make a crash landing. They're crash landed with his wings frozen,
(05:02):
can't fly, thinks he's going to die when along by
comes a cow.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Who takes a dump on him.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
But the manure warms his wings and they fall and
he realizes that he's going to be able to fly again.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So we get so happy about it. He begins to
chirp and sing.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Well, this attracts a cat who comes along and eats him.
And there are three things that we can learn from
this story. Number one, not everyone who drops manure on
you is your enemy. Lesson number two. Not everyone who
digs you out is your friend. Lesson number three. When
you're in manure, sometimes it's helpful for you just to
keep your little chirper shut.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
All right.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
God is at work in your disappointment and your pain,
removing your idols, which is your false sources of trust
and enjoy and hope, making you depend on him.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Write this down, Write this down.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
If dependence is the objective, then weakness is an advantage.
If dependence is the objective, then weakness is advantage. Elijah's
greatest enemy was not his weakness, it was his strength.
And he's about to go into a battle where he's
not going to have the strength to do it. So
God first has to take him back to the brook
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Cherith to remove his most basic abilities, because there he'll
learn to depend on God. And sometimes God makes you
weak so that you can find your strength in him.
Has this happened to you? Taking Corinthians twelve nine, Paul
says it this way. Therefore, I will boast all the
more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may
rest on me. How crazy is that statement? I will
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boast about my weaknesses. When's the last time you did
that where's God made you weak? I thought about my
own ministry, and Veronica and I were talking about this
the other the other night, that there are a couple
of skills that I lack in ministry. But I've noticed
that over the last twenty years that these skills that
I lack, God has always supplied somebody who would come
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alongside me that was strong in that area. And I
can tell you over twenty years that these areas that
I'm the weakest at have been the strongest areas in the.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Organizations that I lead. Why.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Because God takes a point of weakness and God makes
it a point of strength. I've had temptations over the
last years that I've asked God just to remove from
me altogether. And you ever ask God to take away
a temptation from you, and you're like, God, why don't
you do it? Why won't you take that away from me?
It would just be easier if I just never had
that thought.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Again. You want to know why?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Because God keeps me in a point of weakness so
that I won't get proud, so that I won't start
thinking I'm superhuman. And I'm realizing that one of the
reasons that God lets me continue to struggle with certain
sins is He just wants to remind me all the time, Hey,
you're not a superman standing up there telling people how
to be like you. You need to stand up there
with somebody who is broken so that you can point
them to the same grace that you've found. I don't
need a pastor who's superman. I need a pastor who's
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in touch with Jesus. So see God, God takes weakness
and he turns that into strength because that's where his
glory his power overcome yours. See God has some of
you have just found out you got diagnosed with some
kind of disease, some kind of debilitation, and you're wondering
how in the world am I supposed to go into
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the future with that. And I'm telling you that that
is God allowing something to be broken so that maybe
for the first time in your life, he can work
his power and do things that you've never been capable
of doing. Jesus said it this way, Matthew five p' three.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Blessed are the poor. Listen. I've told you this before.
I have never wanted to be poor in the spirit
on anything.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Jesus said, You've got to be poor in spirit, because
it's only if you're poor in spirit that you'll ever
open your hand so that you can receive my spirit
and be rich in mind. The problem with you, JD.
Is not that you are too poor in your spirit.
The problem is you're not poor enough, because if you
were poor in your spirit, you wouldn't look at your spirit, you'd.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Look to mine.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And I got more richness in my spirit than you
ever will have in yours. So why don't you see
the cross only feels empty hand. You got to come
with indie hands before you find the richness of God's
power or his righteousness. That starts by the way, it's salvation.
If you're saved, you realize that the reason that God
saved you is not because you climbed the moral lad
or high enough and finally got your life under control
where God said, now I approve of you, and now
(09:15):
I'll take you to heaven. If you are saved, it's
because you came to a point where you said, I
have no righteousness, I have no ability to like claim
of God's exceptness.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
There's no way I'm going to make it into heaven.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
And through the poverty of spirit that you showed in
that moment, God saved you because he said you have
no righteousness. You said, God be merciful to me, a sinner,
and God filled you with gift righteousness in Christ. Spiritual
power works the same way. When you are poor in spirit,
you can be strong in God's spirit and God's strength.
I remember hearing an old Southern magist pastor and Adrian
(09:46):
Rodgers talk about this.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
One time.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
They had a big old audience who was preaching to
a couple thousand people in it, and he said, all right,
he said, I want everybody in this room who was
valedictorian or salutatorian and their graduating classes stand up. Smattering peace.
Will stood up all over the audience, and he said,
remain standing. He said, if you were homecoming queen, stand up.
A few people said, if you were captain the cheerleading squad,
(10:08):
captain of your athletic stand Some bunch of people stood up.
You went to college on scholarship, if you were all American,
if you make six figures now in your job. By
the end of his little you know thing, he went
through probably twenty thirty percent of the people were standing
up because he just named things that are impressive to
who's who, and he said, all right, remain standing.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
He said, for those of you that are standing, everybody's.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
You know, kind of really impressed, and everybody's standing up,
and He's like, for those of you they are standing,
I got good news and I got bad news.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
He said.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
The good news for those of you who are standing
is God can use you to.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
He said.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
The bad news is you're not his first choice, his
first choice of those people that are seated besides you,
because God has never really been interested in displaying your strengths.
God has been interested in displaying his. And so what
God does is he chooses the weak to shame the strong.
He chooses the simple to confound the wise. He takes
the things that are not and use them to bring
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to nothing the things that are, so that all flesh
would glory in God's presence and no flesh would glory
in their own. So God makes you weak, and he says,
blessed are the poor in spirit, because He's simply trying
to let you let go so that you can.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Embrace His power.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
You are listening to Summit Life with Pastor JD. Greer.
To learn more about this ministry, visit Jdgreer dot com anytime.
We'll get back to today's teaching in just a moment,
but I wanted to make sure that you knew that
you can find Pastor JD on YouTube. I don't know
about you, but it seems like YouTube is quickly becoming
the number one choice for media in my house, and
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as you know, that can be for better or for worse.
There's just so much to watch, but thankfully it includes
solid biblical teaching from Pastor JD. Greer as well. And
when you subscribe to his channel j dot d dot Greer,
you'll automatically be notified when we post new episodes of
the Ask the Pastor podcast and Summit Life TV so
(12:07):
you can watch along as Pastor JD preaches. And we're
always posting new YouTube shorts to give you bite size
gospel centered content throughout your week. Once again, subscribe to
Pastor JD's YouTube channel by searching for j dot D
dot Greer. Get on board. We can't wait to have
you join us. Now let's get back to today's teaching
(12:28):
once again. Here's Pastor JD.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
You see rejoice in your weakness.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
As Paul says, the flip side of that summit Church
is this, If you're going to rejoice in your weaknesses,
beware your strengths.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Beware your strengths.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Because those are places that you're most likely to forget God.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Beware your strengths, because those are the places you're most
likely to forget God. For seven and after a while,
the brook dried up because there was no rain in
the land. And now we go from bad to worse.
Dries up.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
The courier ravens, with their daily rations of beef jerky
and the Hebrew spam or whatever they were bringing, they
quit coming. Look what happens next verse eight. Then the
word of the Lord said to him, Arise, go to Zaraphath,
which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. But hold, I've
commanded a widow there to feed you Zarahphath.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Like, where's that?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Take ninety five north out of Israel extra two ninety seven. No, no, Zaraphath.
The point is it's in Sidon, which is outside of Israel.
And he goes to a widow. Now, a widow in
those days was the weakest of the week. Well, I mean,
she's a woman, so she doesn't have the ability to
work like the man did in those days. She's a widow,
so she's unmarriable.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
She is poor. Here's the weakest of the week.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
And God says, I'm gonna have her provide for you.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
She's in saidan, all right, she's in Sidon. We'll come
back to that.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Elijah get to Sidon and here he finds this widow
and he has what had to have been an awkward conversation. Hey,
we've never met, but God told me you're supposed to
give me something to eat. And she's like, well, i'd
love to, but the famines hit Sidon two and I
have just enough flour and just enough oil to make
one cake for me and my son. And Elijah says,
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I got a hunch that if you'll just do what
I'm saying, that you're going to find that God will
do something that you're not expecting him to do. And
so the woman in faith obeys. She takes the bread,
she takes the oil, she makes the cake. She goes
back to the place where she keeps the flour and
the oil, and guess what, it's been replenished. And as
many cakes as she makes, the more flour and oil
keeps getting replenished, so that the entire every day of
(14:43):
the famine she has more than enough because God supernaturally
multiplies the flour and the oil. Now I told you
she is from Sidon. Do you remember who else was
from Sidon? Starts with Jay, rhymes with Isabelle Jezebel.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
That's right, And.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Guess who the main God was inside him?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Bail So God follow this.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
God first took from Elijah his ability to provide for
himself and provided for him through a special act of providence.
Then God took away from him even that God made
him even weaker, and then took care of him through
a full blown miracle. The greater Elijah's need, the greater
God's glory and the provision. You write that down, The
(15:29):
greater the need in your life, the greater.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
God's glory and the provision. Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
When Elijah was a young man and he'd made money
and bought food with it and fed himself, was God
providing for him in that?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yes he was.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
But it's easy to forget that, isn't it In a
situation like that, and you start thinking you're the one
that provides for you. So when God removes his ability
to provide for himself and starts to provide for him,
to this special act of providence by controlling the ravens
and the stream, it's easier to see.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
The work of God in that is there not.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
But when God drives that up and sends him into
a widow's house and multiplies flower and multiplies oil, there
ain't no mistaken that that's God at work. The greater
the need, the greater chance for God to display his power.
Can I point out something to you painfully obvious about
the miracles of Jesus. Get this right? This is what
(16:24):
you come to church for. Right here, it's insight like this.
Every miracle that Jesus ever did had.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
One thing in common. You want to know what it was?
What are you ready? It fixed a problem.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Jesus miracles were not magic tricks where he's like, I'll
prove you I'm the son of God and then he
makes Peter levitate, or you know, turns him into a
gopher and flies him around the Sea of Galilee, or
catch bulletin his seat. That would have been impressive. But
that's not the nature of jesus miracles. All his miracles
were problems. You know what that tells me. That means
if you're here with a bunch of problems and a
bunch of weaknesses, good news, you're a candidate for a miracle.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
And I'm looking at a bunch of you.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
They don't really feel like you have any problems because
your middle class and spirit.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Bad news.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
You are not a candidate for a miracle. In fact,
at the end of our service, maybe you should come
down here. I'll lay my hands on you and pray
that God will give you some problems, because then you
could experience the miraculous provision of God. Every miracle in
the Bible starts with a problem. When God really wants
to show off his power. When God really takes you
into the heart of Sidon where Bail lives, and he
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really wants to put himself on display, he will often
make you weaker in that moment so that his power
can rest upon you. Because see again, he doesn't want
to put your talents on display, because that's not going
to help anybody. That might impress some people, but it's
not going to help him. He wants to put his
power on display because He is the God and savior
of all who call upon him.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
That's why he chooses the weak to shame the strong.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And that's why when I preach to you, I alluded
to this a mind and go, I don't want to
try to impress you with my strengths. Oh look how
much there's about the Bible which I knew that much.
Oh look how awesome his Christian life has been, How
successful his Christian life has been.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Isn't our pastor fantastic? All right?
Speaker 3 (18:08):
That might impress you, But A, it's not really honest.
B it's not gonna help you. I would much rather
show you my weaknesses and display the power of Christ
in me, because then I can point you to the
same grace and power that I have found. There is
a fountain that runs deep and wide, and it is
every bit as full for you as it has been
(18:31):
for me. And every ounce of strength and grace that
I have tapped to into my life is fully available
for you. It's not that you're really screwed up and
your marriage is all fout up and your kids are
messed up, and you've made a lot of bad decisions,
and you've got guilt and you got brokenness. And then me,
there's a bunch of us that are a bunch of saints,
and we just told me that much. That's not true.
That's not true. The point is not what kind of
center you are. The point is what kind of savior
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he is. And quick comparing yourself to how bad you
think you are compared to other people, and you compare
your brokenness to the size of Jesus healing. Jesus went
into a grave and came out from it. It was
your grade that he was going into because he wanted
to take the deadness of your marriage, and the deadness
of your family, and the deadness of your brokenness, and
he wanted to put his gospel into it. So he
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raised you from the dead at the cross of Jesus Christ,
so that you would know it's not about your power,
it's about his. The greater your weakness, the more chance
for God to display his power. If dependence is the objective,
and it is, and weakness is an advantage, So rejoice
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in your weaknesses because in those places you're made strong.
So again I ask you, where has God made you weak?
He's put you there to trust him. Maybe there's some
unexplainable things that are happening to you right now.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Maybe they've happened this weekend.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Maybe you're like the bird that got dumped on. You
come in here this weekend, smell and newer, you know,
and you're just like, I just don't understand why things
are happening the way they are. You realize that God
is at work in that training you to trust him
and depend on him.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
He's taking you back to the brook Cheriff to.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
What reminds me of is reminds me of a scene
in that great nineteen eighties movie Karate Kid. Right now,
I know that some of you are as old as
I am, but we've all seen that movie, right, I
mean that's kind of a classic, and not the rip
off that came off two years ago, because that was
a total, total shame, all right, But I mean like
the real win with LaRusso, Daniel LaRusso and mister Miyagi
and you know all that stuff. Okay, even if you
(20:27):
haven't seen the movie, you probably are familiar with the
scene where you know, mister Miyagi is is training Daniel
to fight karate and he does it by having him,
you know, sand the floor and wash the car and
paint defense and all that kind of stuff, and Daniels
gets fed up with it because he feels like he
mister Mayagi has just made him his slate, and so
you know, he's.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Ready to give up. Late one night he's like, I quit.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
And and mister Miyagi said, you know, uh uh flo,
you know, send the floor and he and he sends
the floor, and Mayagi throws a kick at him and
he blocks it, and he's.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Like, don's paint defense, you know, paints offensity. He throws
a punch and he blocks it and Daniel.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Daniel realizes that all this stuff in the mundane, things
of painting the floor or paying the fence and staying
on the floor in the cars or whatever. You don't
stay in the car, but you know, you all the
things that he's doing, mister Miyagi has been training him
in the mundane to prepare him for the battle. And
what happens is you realize at some point that God
took you to the brook Sheriff, which is a very
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unglamorous place.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
The only audience there are the ravens.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
But God is producing in you the character and the
faith and surrender that he's going to use to bring
the prophets of bail to shame on Mount Carmel. The
reason that God could use Elijah the way he did
on Mount Carmel is because he taken him to the
brook Sheriff.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And that's what he's doing with some of you. You like,
how can I know?
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I'd love to be able to give you your mister
Miyagi moment, right, but I can't. What I'm going to
tell you is these stories are written so that you
don't have to have one, so that you can just
realize that God is always at work in all things,
he says, working for your good and his glory because.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
He's preparing you for eternal things.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
God is producing in you in the mundane, in the sand,
the floor and the paint, the fence moments of your life.
He is working in those things to prepare you for eternity.
You see what I'm saying. Look at your Bible one
last time. Let me show you something here one King
(22:25):
seventeen one. I'm going to show you one of the
most important transitions you can ever make in your life.
How is Elijah described in verse one? Elijah the tick bite.
That's right, he is defined Watch this by where he's from.
Now look in verse twenty four, the last verse of
this chapter, and you'll see Elijah mentioned again by the widow.
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How is he now described Elijah the man of God?
Elijah has gone from being in verse one to being
defined by where he's from, to.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Being defined by who he belongs to? Have you made
that transition in your life?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So what defines you? Is your identity wrapped up in
God or in something else? A powerful question from Pastor J. D.
Greer on Summit Life. As we're starting this new teaching series,
we also have a very special new featured resource for
our Gospel partners and anyone who gives generously to this
ministry this month. It's called Elijah and Elisha, an eight
(23:27):
day scripture guide through First King seventeen to Second King
six highlighting the lives of the prophets Elijah and Elisha.
Take just eight short days and you'll see God move
in miraculous and mysterious ways through these two men of
the Old Testament. And what you'll discover along the way
is that while God used these prophets in extraordinary ways,
(23:48):
he can still move the same way through ordinary people
like you and me. We'd love to send you a
copy of this latest devotional, Elijah and Elisha with your
gift of thirty five dollars or more to this minished
to give call us now at eight six six three
three five fifty two twenty. That's eight six six three
three five fifty two twenty. Or you can always give
(24:10):
online at Jdgreer dot com. And while you're on our website,
you can also access our entire suite of gospel centered content,
like the entire Summit Life broadcast library, the transcripts for
each sermon, pastor JD's blog, his podcasts, and our weekly
email newsletter and daily devotional and more, all free of
(24:30):
charge thanks to the generosity of our gospel partners. I'm
Molli Vidovich inviting you to join us again tomorrow when
we look at four aspects of God's character that set
him apart from all the false gods we've ever invented.
Listen Thursday to Summit Life with JD.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Greer.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Today's program was produced and sponsored by Jdgreer Ministries.
Today on Summit Life, a cautionary message from pastor JD.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Greer.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
What God does is he chooses the weak to shame
the strong. He chooses the simple to confound the wise.
You see, rejoice in your weakness, as Paul says, the
flip side of that is this, If you're going to
rejoice in your weaknesses, beware your strengths because those are
places that you're most likely to forget God.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Thanks for joining us today for Summit Life with pastor,
author and apologist JD. Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vittevic.
Everyone knows the anxiety of a job search, maybe nowadays
more than ever before. And when you're applying for a job,
you do everything you can to put your skills and
natural talents on display. Your strengths and abilities are what
will hopefully qualify you for that position. But today on
(00:54):
Summit Life, pastor and author JD. Greer reveals that when
God chooses us for a job, he has an entirely
different standard and for that we can be grateful. We
just began a study in the Life of Elijah titled
something Better, and if you missed yesterday's teaching, you can
catch up online at Jdgreer dot Com. Right now, let's
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dive back into First Kings for the second half of
a message pastor JD titled Preparation for the Battle.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
One King seventeen.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Let me give you a little historical context getting in
the First Kings Israel. Israel was founded as a monotheistic nation. Well, Israel,
the Northern Kingdom, has a succession of really bad, ungodly kings,
culminating in the worst king ever, King Ahab. Well, Ahab
married a cute little thing from the neighboring pagan nation
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of Saida.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
I'm called Jezebel.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Now most of us think of Jessicabell as something that's
not flattering. There's a reason for that, because Jezebel was
just a wicked woman. She brought into Israel the worship
or her two favorite gods, which were Bail and Atzerah,
and she set up temples to worship them all over
the countryside of Israel.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
The point is this, for the.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
First time in Israel's history, we're dealing with a pluralistic society,
which means that everybody has their own different God. Into
this situation, this pluralistic situation, God sends a man named Elijah,
and the whole point of Elijah's life is which God
is the real God? And is there a way to
know which God is the real God? Or is it
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Whatever bail works for you is fine. So if you
have a Bible, I'd love for you to take it
out now and open it to the Book of First King,
chapter seventeen. You see the stories of Elijah go from
big picture what God is doing in the world through Elijah,
and then they zoom back down to what God is
doing in Elijah's heart.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
They kind of go in that rhythm.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
And so we're going to look first to what God
is doing big then what he's doing in Elijah, because
you're going to see today that God has one major
obstacle to overcome in using Elijah one. And when God
conquers this one thing in us, this one area that
He conquers, becomes the source of most of His power
in our lives. So here we go, One King seventeen,
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verse one. Now Elijah the tishbite. He said to Ahab
As the Lord, the God of Israel lives before whom
I stand, there shall be neither do nor reigned these
years except by my word and the word of the
Lord came to him, depart from here and turn eastward
and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east
of the Jordan. You shall drink from the brook, and
I've commanded the ravens to feed you there. So we
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went and did according to the word of the Lord.
He went and lived by the brook chart that is
east of the Jordan, and the ravens brought him bread
and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in
the evening, and he drank from the brook. All right,
what you have here is what I told you about
him in the goo that you're going from the big
picture of what God is doing through Elijah in the
world verse one, and narrowing down really quickly into what
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God is doing in Elijah's heart. And God is going
to teach Elijah one nature lesson, one major lesson he
has to teach to anybody that he uses. You're ready here.
It is the lesson of complete dependence. The brook that
God placed him by was called the brook Cherrief. Cherif
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in Hebrew literally means to cut down. In other words,
God is saying to Elijah, Elijah, I'm gonna cut you down.
I'm going to remove from you any strength you have
in yourself. I'm even going to remove the ability that
you have to take care of your own most basic needs,
and I'm going to teach you. I'm going to reduce
you to the status of an infant and teach you
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to depend completely on me.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Write this down.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
Before God can use us, he must first break us.
Craig Rochelle says that this story reminds him of the
story of the little bird who got a late start
flying south for winter. Because he got a late start,
he got caught in a snowstorm. The snowstorm was so
bad that his wings froze, and so he had to
make a crash landing. They're crash landed with his wings frozen,
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can't fly, thinks he's going to die when along by
comes a cow.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Who takes a dump on him.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
But the manure warms his wings and they fall and
he realizes that he's going to be able to fly again.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So we get so happy about it. He begins to
chirp and sing.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Well, this attracts a cat who comes along and eats him.
And there are three things that we can learn from
this story. Number one, not everyone who drops manure on
you is your enemy. Lesson number two. Not everyone who
digs you out is your friend. Lesson number three. When
you're in manure, sometimes it's helpful for you just to
keep your little chirper shut.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
All right.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
God is at work in your disappointment and your pain,
removing your idols, which is your false sources of trust
and enjoy and hope, making you depend on him.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Write this down, Write this down.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
If dependence is the objective, then weakness is an advantage.
If dependence is the objective, then weakness is advantage. Elijah's
greatest enemy was not his weakness, it was his strength.
And he's about to go into a battle where he's
not going to have the strength to do it. So
God first has to take him back to the brook
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Cherith to remove his most basic abilities, because there he'll
learn to depend on God. And sometimes God makes you
weak so that you can find your strength in him.
Has this happened to you? Taking Corinthians twelve nine, Paul
says it this way. Therefore, I will boast all the
more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may
rest on me. How crazy is that statement? I will
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boast about my weaknesses. When's the last time you did
that where's God made you weak? I thought about my
own ministry, and Veronica and I were talking about this
the other the other night, that there are a couple
of skills that I lack in ministry. But I've noticed
that over the last twenty years that these skills that
I lack, God has always supplied somebody who would come
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alongside me that was strong in that area. And I
can tell you over twenty years that these areas that
I'm the weakest at have been the strongest areas in the.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Organizations that I lead. Why.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Because God takes a point of weakness and God makes
it a point of strength. I've had temptations over the
last years that I've asked God just to remove from
me altogether. And you ever ask God to take away
a temptation from you, and you're like, God, why don't
you do it? Why won't you take that away from me?
It would just be easier if I just never had
that thought.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Again. You want to know why?
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Because God keeps me in a point of weakness so
that I won't get proud, so that I won't start
thinking I'm superhuman. And I'm realizing that one of the
reasons that God lets me continue to struggle with certain
sins is He just wants to remind me all the time, Hey,
you're not a superman standing up there telling people how
to be like you. You need to stand up there
with somebody who is broken so that you can point
them to the same grace that you've found. I don't
need a pastor who's superman. I need a pastor who's
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in touch with Jesus. So see God, God takes weakness
and he turns that into strength because that's where his
glory his power overcome yours. See God has some of
you have just found out you got diagnosed with some
kind of disease, some kind of debilitation, and you're wondering
how in the world am I supposed to go into
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the future with that. And I'm telling you that that
is God allowing something to be broken so that maybe
for the first time in your life, he can work
his power and do things that you've never been capable
of doing. Jesus said it this way, Matthew five p' three.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
Kingdom of Heaven.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Blessed are the poor. Listen. I've told you this before.
I have never wanted to be poor in the spirit
on anything.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Jesus said, You've got to be poor in spirit, because
it's only if you're poor in spirit that you'll ever
open your hand so that you can receive my spirit
and be rich in mind. The problem with you, JD.
Is not that you are too poor in your spirit.
The problem is you're not poor enough, because if you
were poor in your spirit, you wouldn't look at your spirit, you'd.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Look to mine.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
And I got more richness in my spirit than you
ever will have in yours. So why don't you see
the cross only feels empty hand. You got to come
with indie hands before you find the richness of God's
power or his righteousness. That starts by the way, it's salvation.
If you're saved, you realize that the reason that God
saved you is not because you climbed the moral lad
or high enough and finally got your life under control
where God said, now I approve of you, and now
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I'll take you to heaven. If you are saved, it's
because you came to a point where you said, I
have no righteousness, I have no ability to like claim
of God's exceptness.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
There's no way I'm going to make it into heaven.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
And through the poverty of spirit that you showed in
that moment, God saved you because he said you have
no righteousness. You said, God be merciful to me, a sinner,
and God filled you with gift righteousness in Christ. Spiritual
power works the same way. When you are poor in spirit,
you can be strong in God's spirit and God's strength.
I remember hearing an old Southern magist pastor and Adrian
(09:46):
Rodgers talk about this.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
One time.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
They had a big old audience who was preaching to
a couple thousand people in it, and he said, all right,
he said, I want everybody in this room who was
valedictorian or salutatorian and their graduating classes stand up. Smattering peace.
Will stood up all over the audience, and he said,
remain standing. He said, if you were homecoming queen, stand up.
A few people said, if you were captain the cheerleading squad,
(10:08):
captain of your athletic stand Some bunch of people stood up.
You went to college on scholarship, if you were all American,
if you make six figures now in your job. By
the end of his little you know thing, he went
through probably twenty thirty percent of the people were standing
up because he just named things that are impressive to
who's who, and he said, all right, remain standing.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
He said, for those of you that are standing, everybody's.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
You know, kind of really impressed, and everybody's standing up,
and He's like, for those of you they are standing,
I got good news and I got bad news.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
He said.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
The good news for those of you who are standing
is God can use you to.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
He said.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
The bad news is you're not his first choice, his
first choice of those people that are seated besides you,
because God has never really been interested in displaying your strengths.
God has been interested in displaying his. And so what
God does is he chooses the weak to shame the strong.
He chooses the simple to confound the wise. He takes
the things that are not and use them to bring
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to nothing the things that are, so that all flesh
would glory in God's presence and no flesh would glory
in their own. So God makes you weak, and he says,
blessed are the poor in spirit, because He's simply trying
to let you let go so that you can.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Embrace His power.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
You are listening to Summit Life with Pastor JD. Greer.
To learn more about this ministry, visit Jdgreer dot com anytime.
We'll get back to today's teaching in just a moment,
but I wanted to make sure that you knew that
you can find Pastor JD on YouTube. I don't know
about you, but it seems like YouTube is quickly becoming
the number one choice for media in my house, and
(11:45):
as you know, that can be for better or for worse.
There's just so much to watch, but thankfully it includes
solid biblical teaching from Pastor JD. Greer as well. And
when you subscribe to his channel j dot d dot Greer,
you'll automatically be notified when we post new episodes of
the Ask the Pastor podcast and Summit Life TV so
(12:07):
you can watch along as Pastor JD preaches. And we're
always posting new YouTube shorts to give you bite size
gospel centered content throughout your week. Once again, subscribe to
Pastor JD's YouTube channel by searching for j dot D
dot Greer. Get on board. We can't wait to have
you join us. Now let's get back to today's teaching
(12:28):
once again. Here's Pastor JD.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
You see rejoice in your weakness.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
As Paul says, the flip side of that summit Church
is this, If you're going to rejoice in your weaknesses,
beware your strengths.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Beware your strengths.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Because those are places that you're most likely to forget God.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Beware your strengths, because those are the places you're most
likely to forget God. For seven and after a while,
the brook dried up because there was no rain in
the land. And now we go from bad to worse.
Dries up.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
The courier ravens, with their daily rations of beef jerky
and the Hebrew spam or whatever they were bringing, they
quit coming. Look what happens next verse eight. Then the
word of the Lord said to him, Arise, go to Zaraphath,
which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. But hold, I've
commanded a widow there to feed you Zarahphath.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Like, where's that?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Take ninety five north out of Israel extra two ninety seven. No, no, Zaraphath.
The point is it's in Sidon, which is outside of Israel.
And he goes to a widow. Now, a widow in
those days was the weakest of the week. Well, I mean,
she's a woman, so she doesn't have the ability to
work like the man did in those days. She's a widow,
so she's unmarriable.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
She is poor. Here's the weakest of the week.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
And God says, I'm gonna have her provide for you.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
She's in saidan, all right, she's in Sidon. We'll come
back to that.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Elijah get to Sidon and here he finds this widow
and he has what had to have been an awkward conversation. Hey,
we've never met, but God told me you're supposed to
give me something to eat. And she's like, well, i'd
love to, but the famines hit Sidon two and I
have just enough flour and just enough oil to make
one cake for me and my son. And Elijah says,
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I got a hunch that if you'll just do what
I'm saying, that you're going to find that God will
do something that you're not expecting him to do. And
so the woman in faith obeys. She takes the bread,
she takes the oil, she makes the cake. She goes
back to the place where she keeps the flour and
the oil, and guess what, it's been replenished. And as
many cakes as she makes, the more flour and oil
keeps getting replenished, so that the entire every day of
(14:43):
the famine she has more than enough because God supernaturally
multiplies the flour and the oil. Now I told you
she is from Sidon. Do you remember who else was
from Sidon? Starts with Jay, rhymes with Isabelle Jezebel.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
That's right, And.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Guess who the main God was inside him?
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Bail So God follow this.
Speaker 3 (15:05):
God first took from Elijah his ability to provide for
himself and provided for him through a special act of providence.
Then God took away from him even that God made
him even weaker, and then took care of him through
a full blown miracle. The greater Elijah's need, the greater
God's glory and the provision. You write that down, The
(15:29):
greater the need in your life, the greater.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
God's glory and the provision. Let me ask you a question.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
When Elijah was a young man and he'd made money
and bought food with it and fed himself, was God
providing for him in that?
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Yes he was.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
But it's easy to forget that, isn't it In a
situation like that, and you start thinking you're the one
that provides for you. So when God removes his ability
to provide for himself and starts to provide for him,
to this special act of providence by controlling the ravens
and the stream, it's easier to see.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
The work of God in that is there not.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
But when God drives that up and sends him into
a widow's house and multiplies flower and multiplies oil, there
ain't no mistaken that that's God at work. The greater
the need, the greater chance for God to display his power.
Can I point out something to you painfully obvious about
the miracles of Jesus. Get this right? This is what
(16:24):
you come to church for. Right here, it's insight like this.
Every miracle that Jesus ever did had.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
One thing in common. You want to know what it was?
What are you ready? It fixed a problem.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Jesus miracles were not magic tricks where he's like, I'll
prove you I'm the son of God and then he
makes Peter levitate, or you know, turns him into a
gopher and flies him around the Sea of Galilee, or
catch bulletin his seat. That would have been impressive. But
that's not the nature of jesus miracles. All his miracles
were problems. You know what that tells me. That means
if you're here with a bunch of problems and a
bunch of weaknesses, good news, you're a candidate for a miracle.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
And I'm looking at a bunch of you.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
They don't really feel like you have any problems because
your middle class and spirit.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Bad news.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
You are not a candidate for a miracle. In fact,
at the end of our service, maybe you should come
down here. I'll lay my hands on you and pray
that God will give you some problems, because then you
could experience the miraculous provision of God. Every miracle in
the Bible starts with a problem. When God really wants
to show off his power. When God really takes you
into the heart of Sidon where Bail lives, and he
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really wants to put himself on display, he will often
make you weaker in that moment so that his power
can rest upon you. Because see again, he doesn't want
to put your talents on display, because that's not going
to help anybody. That might impress some people, but it's
not going to help him. He wants to put his
power on display because He is the God and savior
of all who call upon him.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
That's why he chooses the weak to shame the strong.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
And that's why when I preach to you, I alluded
to this a mind and go, I don't want to
try to impress you with my strengths. Oh look how
much there's about the Bible which I knew that much.
Oh look how awesome his Christian life has been, How
successful his Christian life has been.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Isn't our pastor fantastic? All right?
Speaker 3 (18:08):
That might impress you, But A, it's not really honest.
B it's not gonna help you. I would much rather
show you my weaknesses and display the power of Christ
in me, because then I can point you to the
same grace and power that I have found. There is
a fountain that runs deep and wide, and it is
every bit as full for you as it has been
(18:31):
for me. And every ounce of strength and grace that
I have tapped to into my life is fully available
for you. It's not that you're really screwed up and
your marriage is all fout up and your kids are
messed up, and you've made a lot of bad decisions,
and you've got guilt and you got brokenness. And then me,
there's a bunch of us that are a bunch of saints,
and we just told me that much. That's not true.
That's not true. The point is not what kind of
center you are. The point is what kind of savior
(18:52):
he is. And quick comparing yourself to how bad you
think you are compared to other people, and you compare
your brokenness to the size of Jesus healing. Jesus went
into a grave and came out from it. It was
your grade that he was going into because he wanted
to take the deadness of your marriage, and the deadness
of your family, and the deadness of your brokenness, and
he wanted to put his gospel into it. So he
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raised you from the dead at the cross of Jesus Christ,
so that you would know it's not about your power,
it's about his. The greater your weakness, the more chance
for God to display his power. If dependence is the objective,
and it is, and weakness is an advantage, So rejoice
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in your weaknesses because in those places you're made strong.
So again I ask you, where has God made you weak?
He's put you there to trust him. Maybe there's some
unexplainable things that are happening to you right now.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Maybe they've happened this weekend.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Maybe you're like the bird that got dumped on. You
come in here this weekend, smell and newer, you know,
and you're just like, I just don't understand why things
are happening the way they are. You realize that God
is at work in that training you to trust him
and depend on him.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
He's taking you back to the brook Cheriff to.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
What reminds me of is reminds me of a scene
in that great nineteen eighties movie Karate Kid. Right now,
I know that some of you are as old as
I am, but we've all seen that movie, right, I
mean that's kind of a classic, and not the rip
off that came off two years ago, because that was
a total, total shame, all right, But I mean like
the real win with LaRusso, Daniel LaRusso and mister Miyagi
and you know all that stuff. Okay, even if you
(20:27):
haven't seen the movie, you probably are familiar with the
scene where you know, mister Miyagi is is training Daniel
to fight karate and he does it by having him,
you know, sand the floor and wash the car and
paint defense and all that kind of stuff, and Daniels
gets fed up with it because he feels like he
mister Mayagi has just made him his slate, and so
you know, he's.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Ready to give up. Late one night he's like, I quit.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
And and mister Miyagi said, you know, uh uh flo,
you know, send the floor and he and he sends
the floor, and Mayagi throws a kick at him and
he blocks it, and he's.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Like, don's paint defense, you know, paints offensity. He throws
a punch and he blocks it and Daniel.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Daniel realizes that all this stuff in the mundane, things
of painting the floor or paying the fence and staying
on the floor in the cars or whatever. You don't
stay in the car, but you know, you all the
things that he's doing, mister Miyagi has been training him
in the mundane to prepare him for the battle. And
what happens is you realize at some point that God
took you to the brook Sheriff, which is a very
(21:22):
unglamorous place.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
The only audience there are the ravens.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
But God is producing in you the character and the
faith and surrender that he's going to use to bring
the prophets of bail to shame on Mount Carmel. The
reason that God could use Elijah the way he did
on Mount Carmel is because he taken him to the
brook Sheriff.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And that's what he's doing with some of you. You like,
how can I know?
Speaker 3 (21:45):
I'd love to be able to give you your mister
Miyagi moment, right, but I can't. What I'm going to
tell you is these stories are written so that you
don't have to have one, so that you can just
realize that God is always at work in all things,
he says, working for your good and his glory because.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
He's preparing you for eternal things.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
God is producing in you in the mundane, in the sand,
the floor and the paint, the fence moments of your life.
He is working in those things to prepare you for eternity.
You see what I'm saying. Look at your Bible one
last time. Let me show you something here one King
(22:25):
seventeen one. I'm going to show you one of the
most important transitions you can ever make in your life.
How is Elijah described in verse one? Elijah the tick bite.
That's right, he is defined Watch this by where he's from.
Now look in verse twenty four, the last verse of
this chapter, and you'll see Elijah mentioned again by the widow.
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How is he now described Elijah the man of God?
Elijah has gone from being in verse one to being
defined by where he's from, to.
Speaker 2 (22:58):
Being defined by who he belongs to? Have you made
that transition in your life?
Speaker 1 (23:05):
So what defines you? Is your identity wrapped up in
God or in something else? A powerful question from Pastor J. D.
Greer on Summit Life. As we're starting this new teaching series,
we also have a very special new featured resource for
our Gospel partners and anyone who gives generously to this
ministry this month. It's called Elijah and Elisha, an eight
(23:27):
day scripture guide through First King seventeen to Second King
six highlighting the lives of the prophets Elijah and Elisha.
Take just eight short days and you'll see God move
in miraculous and mysterious ways through these two men of
the Old Testament. And what you'll discover along the way
is that while God used these prophets in extraordinary ways,
(23:48):
he can still move the same way through ordinary people
like you and me. We'd love to send you a
copy of this latest devotional, Elijah and Elisha with your
gift of thirty five dollars or more to this minished
to give call us now at eight six six three
three five fifty two twenty. That's eight six six three
three five fifty two twenty. Or you can always give
(24:10):
online at Jdgreer dot com. And while you're on our website,
you can also access our entire suite of gospel centered content,
like the entire Summit Life broadcast library, the transcripts for
each sermon, pastor JD's blog, his podcasts, and our weekly
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(24:30):
charge thanks to the generosity of our gospel partners. I'm
Molli Vidovich inviting you to join us again tomorrow when
we look at four aspects of God's character that set
him apart from all the false gods we've ever invented.
Listen Thursday to Summit Life with JD.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Greer.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Today's program was produced and sponsored by Jdgreer Ministries.
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