Make It Make Sense | 1Kings 18:25-40 | Lonnell Williams

Come on, put your hands together as you take your seat in the house. Technically, it's Sunday morning, so good morning, everybody. Man, listen, I am so excited upon this day. My name is Lonnell Dawson-Williams. I'm the executive pastor here at 2819 Church. And we are just grateful through the arm of technology that we can actually come to you. You are watching this on Sunday morning. but technically it's Thursday, I believe. And so we're just grateful that through technology that we can reach each and every one of you. I wanna shout out very quickly all of our digital disciples. Man, we are just so grateful for you. Seems like today everybody's a digital disciple technically. So we are just so grateful for you and your ability and willingness to lean in with us. You are a part of our digital family. That's why we call you digital disciples. We have no members here. We are all disciples of Christ. And our submission is to him and not to a building, not to a place, not to a name, but to Christ and Christ alone. And so I'm just grateful to be able to have this opportunity. I would be remiss if I did not do my due diligence and honor the lead pastor of this house, Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell, on this morning. We also want to thank Miss Lena Mitchell, his wife, and all that she does in supporting the spread of the gospel. Man, what an amazing, amazing time. My wife is here. Y'all don't want to just clap for my wife if y'all can. The vivacious Dr. Jessica Williams and all my children's and as the church of old would say, all the saints and all the aints. We are grateful for you today. Listen, I got a little bit of time and a lot of work to do. So really quickly, if you can just open up your Bibles with me to 1 Kings. 1 Kings, the 18th chapter. We are going to take a small pause out of our series, Cross the Commission, and just do an independent message on tonight. So we're going to go to 1 Kings, the 18th chapter. The 18th chapter. I'm really excited about what we are going to talk about tonight. Now, technically, we are going to read and work through verse 25 through 40. 25 through 40. but for the purposes of this moment, I'm actually going to just read verses 31 to 35. All right. I still hear pages turning as I used to say. Here we go. Verse 31. It says, and Elijah took 12 stones according to the numbers of the tribes of the son of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came saying, Israel shall be your name. And with the stones, he built an altar, the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar as great as would contain two seas of seed. And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces. And he laid it on the wood and he said, fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood. And he said, do it a second time. And then he said, do it a third time. And they did it a third time. And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench with water. If I could pause there and pin a title to this message, I would call it, Make It Make Sense. Make It Make Sense. When I was growing up, it was very common for my grandmother to engage in very traditional acts that to me at the time didn't make sense. Now, You didn't grow up in my house and I didn't grow up in your house, but it's very possible that your grandmother or mother or grandfather or father engaged in the same activities as my grandmother and my grandfather. Let me give you an example. Whenever my grandmother would cook chicken, right? She would cook the chicken. She would fry the chicken. Sometimes it'd be in Crisco. Sometimes it would be in peanut oil. Sometimes it would be in vegetable oil. but she would cook the chicken. She would fry it up. And then after she was done, she would drain the oil in a can. I have no idea why anybody would want to reuse oil after you cooked in it. But somehow, someway, when I was in school, I would drain the oil into a container. Threw me off. Okay. Maybe that wasn't in your house. But what about this? you would wash the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher. Am I going crazy? And the reason why I was taught was because, you know, the dishwasher don't always clean up these dishes. That's the truth, right? All right. How about this one? Or you would wash the dishes first and then use the dishwasher as a drying rack. Now, why do you buy a dishwasher in the first place if it's just going to be a drying rack. But this one, this one is my absolute favorite. And I am so guilty of this right now in my house next to my dishwasher. I promise you, if I brought you to my house and you looked, you'd be like, what in the world? When I was growing up, my grandmama would always keep the grocery bags from the grocery store. And you know, that little drawer right next to it, you'd be stuffed with all them bags. Oh, y'all didn't have that. Am I the only one? Right? And I always was like, no, why you got four drawers full of grocery bags from every grocery store in the world? And she would always say, because you never know when you're going to need one. And you go to my house, and right now you open up that. Why you got all these bags in here, bro? Because you never know when you're going to need it. It has to make sense. All of those little things. we didn't just come up with them. No, we watched our family. We watched our grandparents. We watched our mother and father do it. They did it. So we did it. And we never even knew why. We just learned to live with a just in case mentality. And here is what I've learned. Just in case isn't really about grocery bags or dishwashing and oil. It's about fear. It is what you do when you've been caught without before. I feel it already. Family, have you ever lived through a season where the one thing that you needed the most just stopped coming. Not because you sinned, not because you forgot how to pray, not because you forgot the not because you stopped believing. It just stopped. No matter what you tried, you couldn't make it start again. You couldn't hustle your way out of it. You couldn't positive think your way into it. You couldn't manifest your way into it. You couldn't bring it back into existence. You did everything right and the sky stayed silent and that my brothers and sisters is called a drought a drought doesn't only empty your wells it doesn't just keep the earth dry a drought rewires your theology because after a while you stop expecting you stop looking up and you stop rationalizing your hope and if we tell the truth you start making deals with gods you didn't even believe in why just in case make it make sense you you you start keeping little spiritual grocery bags in the cabinet just in case and this is the case for israel in first kings chapter 18 if you look at first king 17 verse 1 you will see uh that the prophet elijah professes over the land that there will be a drought over israel three years three years that the sky was shut closed three years of dust three years of silence three years of heaven holding its breath and here is what a drought does that is so dangerous it changes everything about the way you view God it changes your question instead of you asking is Yahweh still God you start asking is Yahweh still working and that's more dangerous question because it makes God's activity the measure of God's existence when you have been in a drought for so long you start thinking silence means absence help us holy ghost but silence and absence are not the same thing a surgeon is silent during a surgery but silence doesn't mean the surgeon left the room okay y'all not with me but that's okay God's silence in your drought might not be abandonment it might be precision and right in the middle of the drought a prophet named Elijah does something that makes no sense he pours water on the altar he's asking God to burn in fact he makes it worse on purpose make it make sense god doesn't share credit with coincidence can i help somebody if the season keeps getting worse you might be closer to a miracle than you even think because god isn't avoiding your impossibility he is divinely arranging it let me help you out. Number one, the setup. This is the setup. No fire from below. If you look at verse 25, it simply states, and I'm just going to paraphrase here, Elijah goes to the prophets of Baal and he tells them to grab a bull, right? Prepare first, slice it up. I want you to put it on the altar. And he says, I want you to call on the name of your God. But listen, I want him to bring fire from heaven down to the altar. But you prophets, you cannot light the fire yourselves. This is important Elijah doesn't let them light the fire No matches No sparks No backup plan The only fire that counts is the fire that fell from heaven And this my brothers and sisters is not a fair fight This is a divine moment of exposure because Elijah is intentionally removing the possibility of human explanation See, Elijah understood something about fire. Whoever lights it has to maintain it. The source of the fire determines the sustainability of the fire. And if heaven starts it, heaven has to sustain it but if you start it you have to keep it going which makes you god of the fire let me help you elijah knew the one who lights it is the one who has to keep it lit and if a man can start it hell can fake it okay i'm gonna say that again if a man can start the fire that means that hell can fake it heaven will not honor what hell can reproduce. And here is the truth that really stings. Some of us have been so busy trying to manufacture a moment that we missed the miracle God was setting up. We have been lighting matches under altars God never called you to build. Okay, here we go. Let me help you. Let me help you. Here's the thing. You are exhausted because you've been trying to sustain what God never started. If you're exhausted maintaining it, God didn't ignite it. Well, why is it so? I can prove it. Because God isn't trying to impress Israel. He is trying to recover Israel. And you can't recover people who still give credit to their hustle, to their ingenuity, to their creativity to their wisdom to their wit to their passion god is not interested in outcomes you can explain without him all right here we go now now watch this bail was not dumb to them he was dependable so they thought Baal was the god watch this of rain storms and crops the predictable exchange would take place you give to Baal and Baal gives back to you that's why Baal's worship felt safer it was controllable I give you get Baal offers control but watch this Yahweh which is our covenant father he required surrender and that's always the difference every idol you've ever flirted with promise you the same thing control but watch the irony three years of a drought under the nose of what they would view as the rain god and here is what lies the tension if you look at verse number 26, it says something along the lines of, so the bull was given to them and they prepared it. They called on the name of Baal from morning until noon and Baal, Baal, answer us, they shouted, but there was no response. No one answered and they limped around the altar that they made. Six hours, loud, yelling and screaming. Sincere, but sincerely wrong. And that's the refrain. No voice, no answer, no attention. It is the funeral for every single idle. The Bible says here that they limped. See, the same word is actually used in 1 Kings 18.21. If you look at it, the word means unstable, wavering, divided. And that is what happened when you worship and you worship a thing that cannot stabilize you. Your worship becomes limp. activity without progress movement without meaning you can be active and still be stuck let me help somebody some of us have been praying to a version of god we invented he moves when we move he answers when we perform he shows up when we're good enough and the silence we have been experiencing isn't God being distant it is us discovering that the God we have been serving does not exist we can be sincere and still be serving the wrong God let me ask you this question as I love to do what if the silence you hear isn't God testing you. It is your idol ignoring you. How long are you going to limp around an altar you built with your own hands? Let's keep going. Let's keep going. Verse number 27, it says this, at noon, help us, Elijah began to taunt them. Shout louder. Surely he is a good God. Perhaps he's in a deep sleep. Maybe he's in thought. He's busy. He's traveling. Maybe he's sleeping. Maybe he needs to be awakened. Elijah's sarcasm is not petty. It's prophetic. He is exposing the absurdity of worship with something that cannot respond. Your God is always unavailable. And that's why your worship is always filled with anxious. You cannot have peace in worship when the thing you're worshiping cannot answer. If you worship a man, you only get manly responses. But when you worship the king, who has the power to crack the sky, you can call on his name and he can give you exactly what you need. Look at the text. Look at the text. Verse 28, it says, so they shouted louder and they slashed themselves with swords and with spears as was their custom until blood flowed. Now this threw me all the way off. This is where the title of the message came. Make it make sense. here is the psychological mismanagement of a self-serving worship when your god won't answer you assume you are the problem i didn't give enough i i didn't try enough i i didn't bleed enough so you cut deeper yeah and some of us aren't worshiping we are negotiating we think if we hurt ourselves enough God owes us something hello lights that's not devotion that is manipulation in religious language let me help you transactional faith keeps a ledger if I do this God does this covenantal faith says God has already done something for me therefore I must respond so how do you know which one you're operating in let me help you out real quick transactional faith gets angry when God doesn't respond as expected covenantal faith trust God's character even when you can't trace his methods make it make sense I don't interrupt his excuse me I don't interpret his word through my situation. I interpret my situation through his word. What I see doesn't change what he says, but what he says can change what I see. I see debt. He sees opportunity. I see defeat. He sees hope. I see shame. He sees opportunity to bring you back into his heresy. This is the opportunity that God has given so that you can see him through your own eyes. Some of us are so committed to the wrong altar, we would rather bleed than admit we were wrong. Some of us are in relationships. Well, let's not call them relationships. They're called hostage situations. Yeah. You keep giving, they keep taking. You keep giving they keep taking. And you call it love. That's not love. That is simply idolatry with a heartbeat. You've turned self-harm into a spiritual discipline. God does not need your blood. He already has his sons. Can I just free you real quick? You ain't got to perform for nothing. Jesus paid it all. All to him. All right, all right. Who grew up in the Baptist church? All right, all right. We're gonna mess around and do something up in here. Here we go, here we go, here we go. My grandfather, Reverend Dr. Lonnie Dawson at New Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, 402 East El Segundo Boulevard, Los Angeles, California, 90061. He used to say it like this, what can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Is anybody grateful for the blood? Am I talking to anybody that says thank you for the blood? It was the blood that saved you. It was the blood that redeemed you. It was the blood that brought you back. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. The blood. The blood. The blood, the blood, the blood, the blood, the blood. The blood that was draped over the doorpost so the death angel would pass over. The blood that was shed on Calvary. the blood oh the blood that washed me white as snow oh the blood that kept me closer to him thank you god for the blood listen wait a second help us holy ghost okay wait wait we got to keep going we got to keep going all right here wait Here we go Look at verse number 30 Look at verse number 30 This is what it says It says Elijah said to the people come here to me They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. now watch this i want to jump back up to 29 because i saw something that i missed i want to make sure i say this this is very important as we think about it the bible says that midday passed and they continued prophesying frantically uh and they kept going for sacrifices but there was no answer and no response watch this desperation without direction is just noise what if you haven't heard god because you've been shouting at the wrong altar okay we'll keep going all right let's go back to verse 730 let's say here we go here we go this is the thing i learned elijah doesn't say come watch me look at the text it says elijah said come here to me proximity before experiencing power you cannot be healed from a distance. You can't be restored while you're hiding. You can't be rebuilt while you're running. This is the thing. He repaired the altar that had already been destroyed, which implies that the altar had history. It was used at one point in time or another. Now God in this season of Israel's journey, he was experienced or had experienced from them neglect, disappointment, compromise, complacency, avoidance, bitterness, deception. All of these emotions Israel had placed onto God, had expressed towards God because of all of that and now the altar that was once used to sacrifice to God was in pieces Elijah doesn't build something new he restores what belonged to God you don't destroy an altar all at once you just stop showing up to it and it decays over time. Destroying the altar looks like rush prayers, which become rare prayers, which become no prayers. It looks like I'll get to it before the day is over. Prayers. It looks like I forgot prayers. It looks like I don't need to do that. Prayers. It looks like letting everything in and giving nothing back. But we're repairing the altar. That is not complacency. That is just you showing up over and over and over again. Repairing the altar looks like honest prayer. Even when it's awkward, even when you don't have the words, it looks like I'm going to go into my prayer closet. And even if I have nothing to say, I will just sit in his presence so that he knows that I'm willing and able to rebuild what is broken. The altar that needs repair is not a mystery. You already know what to do. You just hate to admit that the altar has been destroyed. The altar that needs repair isn't complicated. it. Just don't want to admit it, that there's work to do. Let me say this, and then I'll go ahead and brush up. Sometimes the altar isn't broken because demons attacked it. It's broken because you walked away. It's broken because you got busy. It's broken because you got bitter. It's broken because let's be honest, you got bored and now you're mad at God and you're angry because you feel like he won't show up at an altar that you failed to maintain. You do not have a breakthrough problem. You have an altar problem. You have to stop asking God for fire. The question is not, is the altar even his? God understands that the altar is his, but he will not light a altar that you fail to rebuild for him. Look at verse number 31. Elijah took 12 stones, one for each of the tribes, descendants of Judah, to whom the Lord had come saying, your name shall be Israel. And with the stones, he rebuilt an altar, the name of the Lord, and he dug trenches around large enough to hold two seas of seed. Elijah uses 12 stones, 12 tribes of Judah. It's the covenant language and the covenant number. Covenant first, conditions second. The 12 stones really replicated the covenant that God kept with his people. Then Elijah tells the people to dig a trench. He creates capacity for what has not even arrived yet make it make sense some of us stop preparing because we stopped expecting faith doesn't wait for proof to prepare faith digs trenches in a drought can i be honest with you some of you are in a season called at your word season y'all need some help all right here we go Simon Peter said to Jesus master we have toiled all night and have taken nothing nevertheless at thy word I will let down my net the end of the day in this season your faith has to believe that God's word shall not lie and in this season we have to ask ourselves what trench do you need to dig for what you have not seen yet let's go real quick we got just a little bit of time he the bible says in verse number 33 he arranged the wood he cut the bull into pieces he laid the wood on it and then he sat there he He said, fill four jars with water and pour it on the offering of the wood. And then he says, do it again. And he says, do it again. He says, do it a third time. He ordered them and they did it a third time. And the water ran down the altar and even filled the trench. This is what messed me up. Aren't they in a drought? i mean that's what the bible says they're in the drought so where did they get this water from and not just like a little bit of water literally four excuse me it was 12 so you got four big big big big big big buckets for seeds they took it to the altar and they poured it onto the altar. Now, this is the thing. Mount Carmel, which is where they're located, is actually a Mediterranean mountain right off of the Mediterranean Sea, right? So actually the water, watch this, the water that they got was actually not regular water. It was seawater. You can't drink seawater. You cannot grow anything with seawater. For three years, Israel had to stare at water that they needed but couldn't use. And now Elijah turns their frustration into a testimony. The very thing that they couldn't sustain them becomes the thing that proves God can. Am I talking to anybody up in here today? Three years of a drought. Water is survival. And Elijah says, pour the water out. Not once, not twice, three times, 12 jars. The trench of water is full. If you want fire, you do not add water. Make it make sense. And just like that, the prophets of Baal, and just like some of us in here, we are not on our first pour. Some of you are on your second pour. Some of you are on your 12th poor. But what if the poor was not meant to drown you? What if it was meant to delete your explanations? What is a poor? Your first poor is unexpected bill, car repair, deductible. Second poor, job change, hours cut, clients dropped. Third poor, safety nets get touched. your savings is drained assistance needed first poor misunderstanding in a cold season of a marriage communication breakdown second poor you try counseling didn't work you try to apologize and forgive didn't work third poor you get humbled apologies without an asterisk accountability boundaries you're struggling to make things work what's another type of poor you get hurt you hate to forgive, but you do forgive. You ask to forgive, but they don't want to apologize back to you. You ask to bless them, but they won't bless you back. We are all in seasons of a poor. We want a testimony that we can manage. And God wants a testimony that can't be managed, but only witnessed. We are praying for fire while refusing to let go of the water. and that's not faith that's insurance faith pours what it cannot afford to lose fear hoards because it doesn't want to trust god with it we are saying to ourselves lord make it make sense and it won't because you are still trying to explain it away The water won't stop until your need to control the story dies. And God keeps adding water because you keep reaching for matches God does not share credit with coincidence The water is God closing your escape route so that when he moves, no one can say it was you. What if you're holding onto because you're afraid God won't come through if you pour it out? if god is engineering impossibility why are you still protecting a backup plan listen listen i i want to i want to run really quickly to to this part this is what the bible says that in verse number 36 and verse number 37 it's very unique he gives a 48 word prayer when you get home i want you to read it it's 48 words no manipulation no no no yeah loud screaming, no yelling, no, no, all he says, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. I did this at your word. Let it be known to you, our God, and turn their hearts back. Prayer is not a lever for outcomes. It is alignment for obedience. Make it make sense. If your prayer is longer than your obedience, you are not praying. You are just performing. And God is not moved by volume. He is honored by hearts of submission. Notice this. Elijah does not ask God to remove the water. He assumes that the water is actually a part of the plan. He prays for fire on wet wood. And I don't know about you, but that to me does not make sense. What does that teach us? Stop praying for God to change the conditions and start asking him to consume what seems like it cannot be changed. Fire is the sign, but turned hearts was the goal. Are you praying for relief or are you praying for revelation? if God doesn't change the conditions will you still trust his character I'm gonna hurry up and go to my seat I want you to look at verse number 38 it says then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice and the wood, the stones, the soil also licked up the waters in the trench. Now look at this. It says then, not eventually, not after six months or six years, not after 12 steps. It says then. when heaven says now God doesn't warm up he acts the fire did not avoid the water it consumed it it consumed the sacrifice the wood the stones the dust everything that would have prevented the burn. In other words, your obstacle just became your evidence. You are mad at God because of the obstacles, not realizing that this is proof that God is still working something. Your proof is impossible, just became an ingredient for God's miracle. Somehow, someway, God does not work around impossibility. He consumes it. The Bible says this. He says that when all the people saw this, they fell on their face and they cried out. And some of us are in a season in life where we have run out of force. feels like the more that you go through the more water is poured on your altar marriage and trouble poor kids acting up poor faith being tested poor shame and guilt a poor fear and anxiety a poor cancer diagnosis a poor diabetes a poor fornication a poor you feel like the more you pour out more grief and shame you feel and you feel like that my sacrifice on the altar is going to be drenched with all of my mistakes. But can I help you really quickly? Jesus is the greatest sacrifice. The poor that Jesus experienced on the altar was the poor of our sins. his sins excuse me, our sins were poured out on his shoulders and with every nail that was placed in his hand every nail in his feet was proof that a fire would still fall from heaven and would consume a consuming fire sweet perfume. You see, sometimes it's easy to take credit for something that seems divine. Oh yeah, that was me. I wrote that. I did that. I got that job. I bought that house. I created that opportunity and then the world shakes and it feels like everything is destroyed and here you are rebuilding the altar and God is saying I don't want you to light a match I want you to trust me that I'm going to send fire down on it so what is your sacrifice? What is the thing that you are going to give God in this season? Say, it doesn't make sense. I'm going to give you the very thing that I need, that I love, that I care for. I'm going to sacrifice it, trusting that when that thing, that need, that desire, that passion, that purpose, when that thing comes to pass, the only person that can get the credit is God and God alone. This is the season where God gets the glory. there's nothing that we can do to gain his love but what we can do is lay before him thank him for all that he's done it doesn't make sense that you would die on the cross for our sins it doesn't make sense that you would go into a borrowed time it doesn't make sense that you would resurrect after after three days it doesn't make sense that you sit on the right hand of the father it doesn't make sense that you would use someone as flawed and fickle as me it doesn't make sense that my sins are what they are and that because of that i deserve to go to hell but it doesn't make sense that you love me in spite of everything that you've done and everything that I've done and you still open up the keys of the kingdom. You still have a spot for me in heaven because of your love for me not because of my activity. I want you to just take a moment as you think about the altars in your life that have to be restored. The waters that you've had to pour out and the sacrifice that has to be made so that God can get the glory. We're gonna sing a song and kind of bathe this word in worship. Trusting him in this season of our lives. Let all the other names fade away. Till there's only you. Let all the other names fade away. Jesus, take your place. Jesus, take your place. Let all. Let all the other names fade away Let all the other names Let all the other names fade away Till there's only you Let all the other names fade away Jesus take your place Jesus take your place One more time now Let all the other names fade away Let all the other names fade away Till there's only you Let all the other names fade away Jesus take your name Jesus take your name Come on, if you were blessed by that word, put your hands together and give Jesus a hand clap of praise.