Good morning. I've been watching the food channel all week.In half hour increments all day for the last five days, I have learned everything there is to know about turkey—

and stuffing, cranberry sauce, potatoes, everything.

And then, when I haven't been watching food on TV,

Matt has been cooking.

He cooks when he's stressed out,

the more stressed the better the food.

Last night he made chicken with capers and

white wine and lightly diced tomato.

And then while I was preparing for this sermon,

reading, in fact, this line, from today's OT lesson

"As surely as the LORD your God lives, I don't have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die."

As I read that,

Matt brought me a sandwich of very thinly sliced roast beef,

tomato, and lightly toasted Spanish cheese.

It was Delicious.

In other words, we live in a land of so much plenty,

so much wealth,

there is really no way for me, healthy as I am,

to emotionally understand the words,

“I am gathering a few sticks that we may eat and die.”

However, we must not despair.

This text is for us today.

It is, in fact, part of God's sovereign provision.

  Turn with me to 1 Kings chapter 17 beginning in verse 7.

‘Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain.' There has been no rain because Elijah had prayed,

at the instruction of the Lord,

that there would be no rain.

Last week Father Matt walked us quickly through the 10 commandments . Does anyone remember what commandment number one is?

You shall have no other gods.

Does anyone remember the first thing Israel did

when they possessed the Promised Land?

They set up house,

they organized their pots and pans,

and farming equipment

and took leisurely walks down their new roads

to find out what other gods might be available to them in the land. Which is so often the way, isn't it.

God pours out the riches of his blessing and grace,

promising to provide for all our needs and bring us into eternal life, and we say, ok,

but first let me just check this other thing out.

Maybe there is something better.

And because they did not obey God

and do the very hard and difficult thing

of pushing out all the people living in the Promised Land

when they arrived,

there were plenty of other gods to choose from.

One of their favorites was the god, Baal,

a lifeless wood like fertility god.

Many of the eventual kings of Israel enjoyed the worship of Baal,

but none more so than King Ahab

and his wicked and famous queen, Jezebel.

By the time Ahab and Jezebel achieved power

God was thoroughly fed up

and gave Elijah the unhappy task

of calling the people of Israel to repentance.

Does anyone remember what God promised the people of Israel

if they obeyed and had no other gods?

Right, there would always be enough.

The land would be filled with plenty.

No one would ever lack for anything.

So, having broken the very first commandment—no other gods—

what be would the logical consequence?

They would lack.

There would be famine.

They would be hungry.

And so, we find that there has been no rain in the land

and Elijah's brook has dried up.

And the word of the Lord comes and, verse 9, says,

‘Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon',

which is not in Israel, and stay there.

Zarephath is having a famine as well.

So God is telling Elijah to go from one dry place to the next.

Now, what would have made human sense?

That God sends Elijah to a rich person in a land of plenty.

There's no food here,

I'll send you to somewhere where there is food. Right.

That makes sense.

But God is more creative than that.

“Go to Zarephath and stay there.

I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food”.

So besides the famine in Zarephath, right,

God is going to have a widow do the providing.

The very fact that she is a widow, in the near east, at this point in human history, means that she is very poor.

She's eking out an existence unsupported and so we can assume,

and the text would demand that we do, that she is poor.

God is picking a poor woman in a place with no food,

to provide for Elijah.

So, Elijah does as the Lord says,

he goes,

he sits by the town gate,

he sees the widow and he asks her for some water.

And, as she is going to get it, he ups the anti,

‘And bring me, please, a piece of bread in your hand.”

“As surely as the Lord your God lives,” she says,

“I don't have any bread—

only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug.

I am gathering a few sticks to take home

to make a meal for me and my son that we may eat it and die.”

Notice, here, that she is not saying no.

She's just basically saying, ‘wow. I'd love to. I have nothing'.

And notice also that she says,

‘As surely as the Lord your God lives.'

In other words, she is acknowledging Elijah's God,

about whom, presumably,

she knows nothing,

as a real fact on the ground to be considered.

So, Elijah says to her,

“Do not be afraid.

Go home and do as you have said,”

that is, make a morsel of bread with the oil and flour,

but instead of eating it with your son

and then waiting to die of starvation,

“make first a small cake of bread

for me from what you have and bring it to me,

and then make something for yourself and your son.

For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says,

“The jar of flour will not be used up

and the jug of oil will not run dry

until the day the Lord gives rain on the Land.”

  So let's just review, shall we, in four points.

God has, in his good will,

determined to provide for Elijah through impossible means.

That's point Number One.

God is sovereign.

That means he is in control

and he has the power to accomplish his purpose.

And when you determine to belong to him

And be obedient to him and make him

the First and Most Important Thing in your life,

he will provide for you.

He has the power to provide for you.

And he will do it in his own way.

  Point Number Two ,

in so providing and caring for Elijah,

God's blessing extended to the Widow of Zarephath

and her Son who were destined to die of starvation.

This one instance of God's provision for Elijah and for the Widow

is really a picture of the way God blesses and provides

for the whole world.

He uses his servants and those who belong to him,

to care for and reach out to everyone,

in every part of the world.

That's what the church, the Kingdom of God is for

To reach out and spread the news about who God is

And what he does

And how he provides.

  But, point Number Three ,
what was the condition of that provision?

The widow had to put her complete and total faith and belief

in the word of Elijah which was the Word of the Lord.

She had to believe

in advance that what Elijah said would happen,

would happen.

In other words, she was obedient

Before she could see how it would turn out.

Our attempts to make our obedience conditional,

or dependent on seeing results first,

means that we interrupt or essentially reject God's blessing.

You obey, then God provides.

Why would it be this way?

Because God wants you to trust him.

He has the power to give you everything you need,

but you have to trust him—

for food, for money to pay bills, for clothing, for safety,

for joy and peace and eternal life.

You trust him to provide, then he provides.

If you don't trust him,

you are thereby striving to do imperfectly for yourself

what God can and will do perfectly for you

if you trust him.

If you don't believe,

there isn't much God can or probably will do for you.

If God does bless you,

in spite of your unbelief,

it is in his great mercy.

But given the opportunity to evidence faith and act on it,

the Widow takes it.

Verse 15,

“So she went away and did as Elijah had told her.

So there was food every day for Elijah

and for the woman and her family.

For the jar of flour was not used up

and the jug of oil did not run dry,

in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.”

  Which brings us to point Number Four .

God is trust worthy.

You can be obedient, because he will provide.

If, and when, God asks you to do something

or give something,

or become something,

he will give you everything you need

in order to do or give or be that thing.

So, if he asks you to give of your time,

he will give you the time to give,

but only if you say yes.

If he asks you to give out of what he as already given you,

he will provide for your needs.

If he asks you to go to the ends

of the earth to spread the good news of Jesus Christ,

he will give you the skills,

money and desire to go to the ends of the earth.

Whatever he asks of you, he will give.

BUT you have to obey and say yes first.

  There isn't anything better

than rich abundant restful eternal life

with God.

There isn't anything on earth that can compare to it—

no amount of food,

no amount of drugs,

no special relationship,

no amount of stuff,

in short, No Other God,

who can give you what you most need—

the deepest most knowing love,

the sure and certain provision of all your material and spiritual needs,

and life that goes on and on in the very presence of God himself.

So, for those of you who knowJesus,

I have a couple of questions, don't answer them out loud,

Are you, right now, being obedient?

Are you trusting him to provide for you?

Are you saying yes to whatever he is asking of you?

If you are currently frustrated and unhappy in your Christian life,

It may be that you are not putting your full faith and belief and trust

In God to do what he has promised.

If so, take the opportunity, this morning, to straighten things out.

For those of you who don't know Jesus,

put your full faith in him.

Open your hand to him, like the widow,

and give him the little that you have,

and he will forgive you of your sin, welcome you into his family and give you everything you need, even the depths and mercy of eternal life. Amen.