Elijah: The Making of an Extraordinary Ordinary Person

Be Quiet, God Might be Whispering to You

March 5, 2023 • Todd Wendorff • 1 Kings 19:11–21

If we are listening, God does not need to shout. In fact, when he wants to say something really important, His modus operandi is to whisper. In I Kings 19: 11-21, Elijah meets God on the mountain. He has something to say, but He’s not going to compete with ambient noise. He’s got Elijah’s attention with simply a whisper. John Donne said, I neglect God and his angels for the noise of a fly. I want to say something really hard. Many Christians are spiritually co-dependent. They rely on those who listen to God instead of learning to listen. God wants to speak to you. What did he say to Elijah? In fact, He had more for Elijah to do. This is really important. What might he say to you?

Serve the Lord Means What Exactly

1 Kings 17:1, 1 Kings 18:1–18

I have heard this phrase thrown around for years, “We are to serve the Lord.” What in the heck does that mean? Psalm 100 says to do it with gladness. Joshua said, "As for he and his house, they will serve the Lord." OK. But what does that mean? Elijah is called to serve the Lord in I Kings 17-19 by confronting a wayward king and an idolatrous nation. You also see him serving Obadiah, and the widow with words of encouragement. You may serve the Lord as a full time ministry worker or as a business person or a parent. Question: Is there a common thread that runs through all our shared experiences of serving the Lord? Possibly. In I Kings 17:1 and in I Kings 18:1, Elijah is to go to the King and tell him what God is up to. Maybe that’s the idea of serving the Lord. It’s going to others and sharing what God is up to in order to bring about a renewed heart of passion for the Lord, a revival of spirit. Sometimes people need a pat on the back, other times we need a kick in the pants. My belief is we need both at times. God uses those he has commissioned to serve Him (all of us) to help others in their spiritual pursuit of the Lord. Elijah served the Lord.

Kicking Defeat to the Curb

February 26, 2023 • Todd Wendorff • 1 Kings 19:1–11

I am speaking on a very controversial topic this weekend from the life of Elijah: depression. Did Elijah fall into depression? Was it severe? How do we know? Lots of questions. One of the problems is we are trying to diagnose a 9th century BC patient with 21st century medical knowledge. All we really know is Elijah got kicked in the butt. He went down hard. Jezebel wanted him dead after slaying her Baal influencers and turning the people back around to the worship of Yahweh. Elijah asked the Lord to take his life. He wasn’t willing to live any longer. He was hopeless. Depression can be identified as a mental illness. It’s a disease. You can’t just convince someone to not be depressed. It must be unravelled carefully through a layered multi dimensional process. Anxiety, worry, and depression are becoming more and more common in young people as we try to bounce back from a debilitating shutdown that left many people worried and depressed. It’s an epidemic the Christian church does not want to talk about. Thank God Elijah was honest with us. He showed what happened, what it was like and how he recovered. There is hope. Join me.

Victory in Jesus

February 12, 2023 • Todd Wendorff • 1 Kings 17, 1 Kings 18

Did you ever go to a Billy Graham crusade and hear George Beverly Shea sing Victory in Jesus? OK, maybe that was before your time. But the moment was electrifying as thousands and thousands of people gathered.

A Tail of Two Kings

February 19, 2023 • Todd Wendorff

If you’ve ever been in a conflict or conversation about a tense issue (which, duh, you have—welcome to planet earth), then you’re well aware of how frustrating and unhelpful it can be when someone responds with defensiveness and blame shifting. And if we’re all honest, we’ve each done our fair share of defensive and blame shifting responses ourselves. But beyond being frustrating and unhelpful, defensiveness is a symptom of something much more insidious: pride. Yet the story of Scripture as a whole, and our particular scripture for this teaching from 1 Kings 18:17-18, emphasizes over and over again that the sweet spot of life is humble receptivity toward God. Join us for a teaching from the life of Elijah and his foil King Ahab as we learn about the freedom of humble receptivity, the danger of prideful self-reliance, and how the good news of King Jesus is the key to freedom from the trap of pride.

Elijah and the Widow - Giving to Get More

January 8, 2023 • Todd Wendorff

Elijah is the story of every one of us, if we desire more. Do you want more? Contentment is often the product of choosing compromise over commitment. But it’s momentary. You can be content for awhile, but you will yearn for more. Holding on to what you have does not lead to lasting contentment. Elijah challenges us to seek more in our lives. But it comes at a cost. All good things do. Do you want more? Join me for the next several weeks as we explore the life of Elijah from I Kings 17-19 and glean from his life several life transforming lessons and principles that will lead to more of God, more faith, more trust, more depth. This week we will look at a scene halfway through the drama. Elijah meets a widow on the brink of starvation who gives up what she cannot afford to lose to gain what she could not live without. Because she chose generosity over scarcity, her life was blessed beyond measure. It’s a great place to start because we see God show up more when we have the least.

Favor in Famine

January 22, 2023 • James Petitfils • 1 Kings 17:2–6, Matthew 6:25–34

Here are a couple big, fat biblical-theological ideas of which I am convinced: 1) God is an expert teacher and 2) the Bible is repetitive. If you spend any time listening to the tales and teachings of scripture, you quickly discover that a handful of very basic themes reappear again and again. I do not think this repetition is a failure of literary beauty; I think it is a mark of pedagogical brilliance. If you are human like I am human, then like me, the most basic and essential truths that shape my

When God Calls You to Something More

January 15, 2023 • Todd Wendorff • 1 Kings 19, 1 Kings 17, 1 Kings 18

The reluctant prophet. That is the story of most of the prophets, except eager Isaiah who said, “Here I am, Lord, Send me!” I hate to say it, but I kinda think he’s a bit too happy for me. Jonah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Elijah, I can relate to these guys. Jonah got spit up on the shore of Nineveh. He tried running. Jeremiah needed convincing. Before you were born, I appointed you. How dramatic. Elijah, he was tending his olive orchard and God told him to go to the King of Israel and announce the drought. Ugh. He was halfway through his life when God interrupted his daily routine. Well, I am so sorry! Don’t think God doesn’t see you hiding from behind that desk, your important duties as a parent, or in school as a student. Move on, nothing to see here. Elijah got called up. It was go time. Each of us will find that to press further into a vibrant faith in Jesus, we will be called out for more. Whether we step up or not is in our court.

An Excerpt from Elijah: The Ordinary Extraordinary Life

February 5, 2023 • Todd Wendorff • 1 Kings 17

Ready set wait. A runner hears the gun and does not lift her head to her ascent. She remains in a four point sprint start waiting position. Her head bowed. Her feet firm ready to bounce. She’s in a race but does not move. It’s so counterintuitive we can hardly imagine the scene. A runner that doesn’t run? What is she waiting for? Unless she is running a different race. From a biblical perspective, waiting can be described as that space between our wounds and our healing, says Sue Monk Kidd in When the Heart Waits, our questions and our answers, our departure and our arrival, she continues. It’s the space between what is and what we hope to be. She visited a church once and the pastor called people with heartaches and problems to come forward. “God will take care of them right now”, he said. No waiting necessary. And we wonder why so few dive into to the deepest caverns of themselves to see what’s there and what is not there. The space between our real time experiences and our desired outcomes is the place God works best. Elijah was held in a waiting stance for over three years. He was a far cry from a mountain top victory, but that did not preclude God from doing his best work in and through Elijah. With little comes much. It’s all in the stance.

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