Week 1 Advent Every year during the Christmas season at our
church, we gather together to wait to wait the word Advent is
from a Latin word and that Latin word literally means coming and
what it refers to is it refers to the fact that God's people in
the Old Testament had to practice in a posture of waiting
for the first coming of, of Jesus and we as people who know
about the first coming of Jesus also need help waiting for the
second coming or the second advent of, of Jesus.
And so over the course of the next 4 weeks to kind of prepare
you for the coming light of Christ and Christmas, we're
going to explore this Advent sermon series.
We will explore the four traditional Advent themes, hope,
peace, joy, and love. And as we cruise through those 4
Advent themes, we'll also explore them with the background
concept of stubborn gladness. Stubborn gladness.
This this truth that even when we don't feel hope, feel peace,
feel joy, or feel love, we still have a stubborn gladness in the
midst of it that never goes away, even if that's not our
subjective experience. Stubborn gladness.
But today, week 1 is hope. So this week, when you light
that first Advent candle, if you've got kids, tell them
that's for hope. If you're alone at home, remind
yourself that that's for hope. The first week of Advent is a
celebration of hope. Pray with me, Father of Light.
In this Advent season, we confess that we know the
darkness too well, the anxiety that tightens in our chest, the
depression that clouds our joy, the shame that whispers old
lies, and the hopelessness that makes the future feel thin.
Like Elijah under the broom tree, Meet us in our exhaustion.
Like Jacob trembling on the road to meet Esau, speak peace to our
anxious hearts. Like Job, who cursed the day of
his birth, Let your joy rise stronger than our despair.
Like Adam and Eve hiding in their shame, clothe us with your
steadfast love, Father, Son, and Spirit.
You alone, three persons and one God, are the only light in this
present darkness. You are hope where we feel
deserted, peace where we feel undone, joy where we feel
broken, and love when we feel unworthy.
So, Lord, make us a people of stubborn gladness, not by
ignoring our wounds, but by encountering you in them.
You are the light that refuses annihilation, and all God's
people prayed. Amen.
If you're able, let's go ahead and stand for the reading of
First Kings. Chapter 19 beginning in verse
one, Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done and how he had
killed all the prophets with the sword.
So what's going on here is Elijah is the prophet who
defeated the the false prophets of the Pagan God Baal.
So that just happened. That was right before the story.
And notice this, Elijah's faithfulness doesn't solve his
problems. What's his faithfulness do
creates more problems. Look at verse 2.
Then Jezebel, queen over Israel, sent a messenger to Elijah
saying, so may the gods do to me and more also, if I don't make
your life as the one, as the life of one of them by this time
tomorrow, In other words, Jezebel saying I'm going to kill
you, there's a death warrant out for Elijah right now.
So naturally Elijah was afraid, and he arose and he ran for his
life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah.
And he left the servant there. But he himself went a day's
journey into the wilderness. And he came and sat down under a
broom tree, symbolic for having a personal collapse and
meltdown. And he asked that he might die,
saying, It's enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no
better than my father's. This is the profound paradox of
being a human being. Elijah is so afraid of dying
that he wants to die. And he laid down, collapsed and
slept under a broom tree. And behold an Angel touched him
and said to him, arise and eat. And he looked and behold there
was an Angel. And at his head a cake was baked
on hot stones in a jar of water. And he ate and drank and laid
down again. Dude was just hangry and needed
a nap. Weirdly relatable.
And the Angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched
him and said arise and eat, for the journey is too great for
you. And he arose and ate and drank
and he went in the strength of that food, 40 days and 40 nights
to Hora, the Mount of God. This is important.
This is really important here. Mount Ora is the exact same
mountain as Mount Sinai. Those are two different names
for the same mountain. So this is signaling something
to you right now. I know you're a close and
careful reader and thoughtful reader.
So right now, as a thoughtful reader, you're thinking, oh,
just like God revealing himself to Moses on Mount Sinai with
Thunder and lightning and the earthquaking.
As the careful reader that you are, you're thinking that's
what's going to happen. It's going to be Mount Sinai
again. But Elijah's not excited about
the prospect of meeting with God, so it takes a detour.
Verse 9 there he came to a cave and instead lodged in it.
And behold, the word of the Lord came to him and he said, what
are you doing here? Elijah supposed to be on Sinai
or. And Elijah says, I have been so
very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts, you and the people
of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your
altars and killed your prophets with the sword.
And I, the good Christian, even I only am left and they seek my
life to take it away. So what's Elijah saying?
He's saying I don't want to meet with you God.
I don't want to. I've been a good Christian even
when no one else was. And all my faithfulness has done
is create more problems. So he hides out in a cave and
God gently gives the one commandment that we see in this
entire story, Get near God. He said, go and stand on the
mountain before the Lord. That's the one command.
Get near God and behold Mount Sinai.
Moment the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the
mountains and broken pieces the rocks before the Lord, like
Moses and Mount Sinai. But the Lord was not in the
wind. And after the wind there was an
earthquake like Moses on Mount Sinai, a powerful revelation of
God with an earthquake. But the Lord was not in the
earthquake. And after the earthquake of
fire, like Moses on Mount Sinai, a powerful demonstration of the
glory of God. That is visible, right?
But the Lord was not in the fire.
And after the fire, the sound of a low whisper.
What in the actual heck is going on here?
You guys can have a seat. What in the actual heck is going
on here? Let's start with the mental
state of Elijah. What state of mind is Elijah in?
And the answer to that question is it's not good.
In verse four, he says, he says he asked that God might die and
said, I've had enough. Take away my life.
I'm no better than my father. So the word for Elijah's mental
state right now, the word for his condition is really simple.
What he's experiencing is hopelessness.
He has no hope. He does not see a future where
his life gets better. He does not see a future where
the people of God become more faithful.
And I think the sharpest point of this blade right here is
this. I don't think hopelessness
happens to Christians when bad things happen after we do bad
things. That makes like our spiritual
mental model of what spiritual life should be is if bad things
happen to me after I sin, that makes sense.
That probably should happen. But if I did good things, then
good things would happen, right? When that happens, our mental
models of spirituality don't really collapse.
What happened? How do they collapse it?
It collapses. Hopelessness takes root in the
Christian heart precisely when it feels like bad things happen
to us because of our faithfulness.
That's when it feels like, OK, so 2 + 2 doesn't equal 4.
Then what is true about life? That's when life becomes
confusing and disorienting. Feeling punished for his
faithfulness is precisely what drives Elijah under the broom
tree. To say what?
First four take away my life? Just pull the plug.
Just put me out, right? If any counselor or therapist
we're meeting with Elijah underneath the broom tree right
now, the diagnosis would be simple hopelessness,
hopelessness. Speaking of which, let's talk
about pop psychology for just a hot minute.
I'm an advocate for therapy and medications at proper doses
administered by the proper people.
It's really important for you to hear me say that upfront.
It seems like what therapy does really well is it's helpful when
it gives language to otherwise sub articulate emotional
experiences. Counseling therapy does a really
good job at that. People will experience that and
say, hey, I'm experiencing trauma because X happened to me,
that's helpful. Or I behave this way because my
family of origin was like this or that.
Or in Elijah's case, I'm experiencing the trauma of a
death warrant right now because of my faithfulness to God.
I think that's helpful, giving language and naming things.
It's helpful because it gives you a sense of control somewhat
over your inner experience. And there are limitations to pop
psychology. It's very helpful.
I'm an advocate for it. It's a tool in the hand of God,
and it has limitations. And the limitation is this.
Giving language and naming things is very helpful, but it
doesn't solve the problem. It becomes unhelpful when it
convinces you that just because you can psychologize your
problems means you've solved them.
No, because at root you are a spiritual being designed to be
in communion with God. And what does that mean?
That means that all of our problems, hopelessness included,
are not at root pop psychology problems.
They are proximity problems, or in other words, you are not a
problem to be solved. You are a person who needs to be
placed in the presence of God. That doesn't mean there's not
practical helps, right? For instance, our text, God
feeds Elijah twice and gives him two naps, right?
That's helpful. He should do that.
While this is a spiritual problem Elijah's facing, God's
also like you're a little hangry and you need a nap.
That's helpful to recognize. But what's the true diagnosis
underneath the symptoms? The most urgent need of this
hour for Elijah is for Elijah to encounter God, particularly for
him to hear God. Isn't that what God does in the
story? Just listen to verse 11.
What's the that's the condition? That's the condition of Elijah
hopeless. What's God's response?
Verse 11 And God said, Go out and stand on the mountain before
the Lord, and behold, this is so profound.
The Lord passed by in a great strong wind, tore the mountains
and broke into pieces the rocks before the Lord.
But the Lord was not in the wind.
And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not
in the earthquake. And after the earthquake of
fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
The revelation of who God is to Elijah is not something that
Elijah can see. It's something he can hear.
After the fire, the sound of a low whisper.
Where's God in the story? Not in something you can see.
Where's God in the story? He's in something you can hear.
Now, is this profound? Yeah, I think so.
Is it existentially true? Yeah, I think so.
Like, imagine you're in a room and there's a bunch of people in
the room and everybody's angry and they're yelling at each
other and people's voices are just rising and rising and
everybody's getting more angry. Everybody in the room is angry
besides one person who speaks in a calm, hushed voice.
Where does your attention go? Who probably has the truth?
The person whispering in the angry world.
That's why God whispers in an angry world.
It's poetic, but it's first and foremost theological.
It actually teaches us something about the way that God tends to
reveal himself in the world. I'm going to need the help of a
good buddy of mine, theologian Carl Bart.
I went to high school with him. That's not true.
I shouldn't have said that. He's a 20th century Swiss
theologian who I have some profound disagreements with, but
he's brilliant and I want to pick his brain on this a little
bit. Bart is hard to understand, so
I'm going to put you in Carl Bart's brain for the next two
minutes. If you give it your best
intellectual effort, I think you'll understand.
Oh, that's why God reveals himself in a low whisper in an
angry world. Here's what.
Here's what Bart says. Bart says the God of the Bible
is the God who speaks in ways that man does not expect.
Elijah doesn't expect a whisper, he expects Moses's Mount Sinai.
And so Bart elaborates a little bit more elsewhere by saying
God's revelation contradicts all human experiences.
He is not where man looks for him, right?
We want him to be in the fire, in the earthquakes, in the
Thunder, in the miracles, in the fantastic experiences of life.
And sometimes he is. That's not just, it's just not
his normal mode of revelation, right?
Here's Bart again. Bart says in his revelation, God
is the humble one, and this is the mystery of his deity, right?
What's a whisper? A whisper is humility of speech.
It's non threatening, non impressive, non overwhelming.
You can imagine Elijah straining himself to hear it, probably
barely even audible. And yet it's the true revelation
of who God is. The whisper here.
And this is exactly where this becomes anonymous sermon right
here. The whisper here is not just a
sound passing over God's lips to our ears, right?
The whispers, not just an audible sound.
This is Carl Bart for the last time.
Then we'll be out of his brain. Bart says God ultimately reveals
himself in his concealment because he is exalted in his
lowness. Does that sound like anybody to
you? Do you know anybody who has ever
said my heart is gentle and lonely?
And if you do, do you see where I'm going with this?
You see where Bart's going with this?
Here's here's what's happening. This text foreshadows the first
advent or the first coming of Jesus.
There's a reason why Jesus is referred to as the word of God,
the spoken word of God. Jesus is Jesus is the true
gentle whisperer. Jesus is God's whisper with
flesh on. Jesus is God's whisper with arms
and legs. That's why the Bible calls him
the Word of God. Jesus comes his incarnation, his
first advent. It is a whisper in a noisy
world. He's a vulnerable child wrapped
in flesh. That's a whisper.
He's he's put in a humble, lowly Manger while everyone else was
looking for a War Horse. That's a gentle whisper.
He's in a Carpenter shop shop rather than a King's earthly
throne. That's a gentle whisper.
And what's his ultimate whisper? The least likely place anybody
would ever look for him on planet earth.
The ultimate whisper of God is death on a cross.
Here's what I'm saying. The whisper in Elijah's cave is
God rehearsing the way that he's ultimately going to come.
In Jesus first Advent, you see that this is profound because
what what the gospel shows us again is that you are not
ultimately a problem to be solved.
And yes, God feeds him. Yes, God gives him a nap.
And yes, if you read the rest of the story in First kings, which
I think you should, God does change his circumstances
afterwards. He promises a faithful remnant
of Israel, takes a delegates a little bit of of his his
problems off of him and changes his circumstances.
It's just not the main point of the story.
The main point of the story is that Elijah is not a problem to
be solved. He's a person who needs to get
in the presence of God. And when you get this, you can
experience stubborn gladness, what the Bible calls being
sorrowful yet always rejoicing, right?
It's why Paul can be in jail in the New Testament and still tell
people, count all your trials as joy.
You can have a stubborn gladness even when your circumstances are
terrible. It's like I think if I had to
pick one thing that sees the worst version of me and the
worst side of me, it's printers. I don't know.
I don't know what my relationship with my
relationship with printers is so bad.
Printers. I have no patience for printers.
I don't know if you're the same way.
I expect them to work on the first time and if they don't,
I'm ready to go full office space on them like baseball bat
and everything. So last night, last night I was
actually trying to print my sermon and I had print problems.
I'm trying to print my sermon and my my printer says there's
no paper. I look in the printer, what's
there paper? So I try to print it again, it
says there's no paper. I look at what's there paper.
Paper is objectively in the printer.
The printer is subjectively not experiencing it and so I want to
throw it out the window and I don't praise God saved you a
couple 100 bucks in the church budget this year.
I don't throw it out the window. Instead I Google what the
problem is and I wrote it down. It turns out that this is a
pretty common experience. What was wrong was an optical
sensor problem. There's an optical sensor in
there that had dust on it. It was like, try blowing on it,
picked it and I so I opened it and I blew on it and then it
worked. So apparently there was dust on
the optical sensor. There was an optical sensor
problem. Paper was objectively in it.
The printer did not subjectively experience it because of an
optical sensor problem. Humans have an optical sensor
problem, but there's dust on your sensor inside.
You as a Christian are filled objectively with the joy of the
Lord. Jesus calls it the Joy John 16
that no man can steal. You objectively have joy
dwelling in you and subjectively, a lot of times you
don't experience it. What is that?
That's an optical sensor problem filled with the joy of Lord but
not detecting it. Because ultimately joy is not an
emotion, even though I think emotions are important.
Joy is not an experience, even though I think that's important.
Joy is ultimately rootedness in the presence of the joyful One,
God. And when you get that, it can
fill you with a stubborn joy, even when you don't taste it
right. This is one of the great
mysteries of being a Christian is when you get this, you
understand the relationship between your identity and the
word of gods, namely, that you are not your thoughts.
Those are important, but they just float by you.
They'll be gone in a couple hours.
You are not your feelings. Those are important.
But what do feelings do They pass through you.
So if you're not your thoughts and you're not your emotions,
what are you? And the Bible is so clear.
You are what God says about you. You are what the word of God has
made you. This profoundly matters.
This means that the next time you experience hopelessness, you
have the power to say I'm not hopeless.
Hopelessness is simply passing through me.
You have you have the opportunity the next time you
have suicidal ideation like Elijah, you can say I am not
that thought. It's just passing through me.
And what this does is it doesn't take the pain away, but it does
help you detach from the experience of it a little bit,
gives you an objective foothold where you can say, this is not
who I am. I am what the Word of God makes
me. I am what the whisper of God
says to me. I'm a beloved child, purchased
by God, paid for by the Son, filled with the joy of the
Spirit. That's the truest thing about
you. If you're a Christian, you know
how I know it's the truest thing about you because every other
aspect of your life, it's temporary.
It's temporary. You're not sad, you are just
temporarily experiencing sadness, and that's an important
experience. It's not your identity, though.
You're not depressed, you're temporarily experiencing
depression. Those things, even if they are
lifelong afflictions, will be true about you for such a short
time compared to the light of eternity, which what are you?
Are you the thing that happens to you for this long or are you
the thing that's going to happen to you for this long?
Cause sorrow and sadness are real experiences.
Do you know how long the last you though compared to eternity
this much? And look at this that that's an
exaggeration. That's like when you buy the the
bag of Doritos and on the front they've got a massive Dorito,
but they legally have to put in text next to it.
This has been enlarged and isn't scaled to size.
This has been enlarged. Your experience of sadness and
sorrow, though it feels like forever and lifetime is like
that much. Your experience of the joy of
the Lord that much So which one are you?
Are you this? Are you this?
And of course, the answer is you're this.
You're what God says about you and who God makes you for
eternity. And when you get that, you can
experience stubborn gladness. I stole that.
I stole that from one of my favorite poems by Jack Gilbert.
Gilbert says we must have the stubbornness to accept our
gladness even in the furnace of this world.
We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness even in the
furnace of this world. I think that's good news.
Jesus is coming back, Amen. And when he and when he comes
back in his second Advent, he will come back as a shout.
He will come back with fire and Thunder and lightning and
justice. So this Advent, get right with
the whisper of God so that you do not have to face the shout of
God. Heavenly Father, thank you for
your incredible ways of revealing yourself in the world
in ways that we just never would expect.
I just think it's such a poetic, beautiful, brilliant story to
see you reveal yourself in the lowly whisper of God.
I so often want you to reveal yourself in different ways.
Sometimes I even put you in hostage situations and say
foolish things like, God, do this big thing for me and then
I'll trust you with my whole heart.
But you love to reveal yourself in the little things, Lord, the
incarnation of yourself into an unexpected little baby, the full
revelation of yourself on the cross, crucified in the place of
a center. You reveal yourself in gentle
whispers, maybe even in snowstorms.
And so, Lord, I pray this Advent season, as we light candles and
celebrate and remember the first advent of Jesus, I pray that we
would listen closely for your gentle whisper.
It's in the precious name that all God's people prayed.
Amen. Let's stand together.