Lord, thank You that You are gracious and patient and merciful.

1 Kings 19:2 2 Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah with this warning, "May the gods judge me severely if by this time tomorrow I do not take your life as you did theirs!" 3 Elijah was afraid, so he got up and fled for his life to Beer Sheba in Judah. He left his servant there, 4 while he went a day ...

Lord, link our hearts together in unity and love. Draw us into You, Your kingdom, and Your work. Thank You for Your love – because of that we give ourselves to You. Open our hearts, through Your word, to hear what You would have to say:

1 Kings 18:41 41

Then Elijah told Ahab, "Go on up and eat and drink, for the sound of a heavy rainstorm can be heard." 42 So Ahab went ...

Lord, we give you our hearts as we come to Your altar. We know you are a forgiving God and it is by Your forgiveness that we can come to You.

I’m going to go back to last week a little bit. Towards the end of last week, I said – every idol (we were looking at the idolatry of Israel) – has a narrative, and that narrative needs to be understood and dismantled.

We saw ...

Baal – was considered to be the god of the weather – so they would pray to him to help their crops to grow! If it rained, he was with them – if there was drought, he was absent. If he was absent, they thought they needed to offer more sacrifices

Mot – the god of the underworld – had these jaws to swallow people. Mot would summon Baal and hold Baal captive, and there would be drought – and then ...

Lord, thank You that You have defeated death! We pray for Lewis and Gigi – that You would help them to recover in Your healing power. Speak to our hearts – help us to understand the times we live in and what we are to do as Your followers – as witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

This is really part 2 of last week – you might want to go back to put things ...

Welcome – let’s turn our attention to the Lord.

Lord, thank You for this opportunity to be in Your presence. I ask that You would help each of us, as You give us opportunity – to engage people. Sometimes it would be easier to ignore that opportunity or to purposely not take that opportunity – but in a time like this, help us to engage people as Your servants, as those who love You, follow You, and ...

Solomon becomes king in chapter 1 – in Chapter 2, Solomon solidifies his position – either by exiling or killing his rivals. This happens in some places even to this day. It happens here, but we don’t kill or exile, but attack through the media and advertisements. We eliminate our rivals.

In chapter 2, neither God nor the writer approve or disapprove of Solomon’s actions. The point is not the events and the things that ...

I’m beginning a series on the book of Kings – and this is really part 2 – of what we might call part 2 of the history of the Israelites. This is a different kind of history. The primary concern – it is telling the story – the history of God and his relationship with His people. The goal of the instruction is not for you to get a high score in the SAT – but the goal is ...

We are to be IN the world, but not OF the world. Jesus talks about this in John 17. This means that we are to be fully engaged in most aspects of our culture: socially, relationally, economically, nationally, politically – but we are to do this in a way that we do not conform to those aspects of our culture which are negative and improper. Last week we talked a bit about how not to be ...

Lord, thank You for the opportunity to turn our thoughts and hearts to You. Thank You for Your mercy – Mercy is found in You – that You gave Yourself for us – that we might know Your love, forgiveness and grace. Give us a deeper understanding of that. That it might empower us to live as we ought to live. Speak through these words – in Your Name we pray.

I am going to tell you a parable ...