Possess God’s Promises

Sermon Outline for Sunday, January 9, 16, 23 & 30 and February 6 & 13, 2022

SERIES: The Praying Church

TOPICS: Pray; Listen; Obey; Discern; Focus; Expect; Humble; Partner

PASSAGES: 1 Kings 17:1; 1 Kings 18:1; 1 Kings 18:8; 1 Kings 18:15–16; 1 Kings 18:17–40; Psalm 37:4

 

When God promises or blesses our lives, He takes us into a PARTNERSHIP; but not unilateral guarantee that no matter how we live or behave, we get to keep the blessings or promises of God.

 

• Hurt

• Bitterness

• Resentments

• Disappointments

• Disillusionment

 

Why? Because they think God said something or promised something and He really didn’t. OR Because they have stepped outside the will of God and they believe that God has left them.

 

In either event, we as Christian must do all we can to have a foundation in His Word to know the difference. We also must have a foundation in our life, that just because something is happening in our life, it is NOT God’s nor everyone else fault.

 

When God promises or blesses our lives, He takes us into a PARTNERSHIP; but not unilateral guarantee that no matter how we live or behave, we get to keep the blessings or promises of God.

 

We must guard our lives, our prayer life, our Bible study life, so we can possess the promises of God.

 

There are eight words that we need to get into our life to live by that will help us possess the promises of God.

 

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PRAY

 

You don’t have to understand prayer, just the partnership of prayer.

 

1 Kings 17:1 ESV

Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.”

 

• Elijah prayed in 1 Kings 17 for it not to rain, except at his word and his word was calling out back to God.

• What we also must understand, the judgement has been given by God and everyone, even innocent, even kids, even Elijah himself faced the judgement from God.

• You see in Chapter 17, Elijah was by a brook and the drought dried up the brook that Elijah was getting water from.

• What does this tell us? It tells us that all of our actions, all of our steps, they also effect others around us. Others feel the pain and consequences from our actions.

• Israel had done wrong, lead by the wrong leader and EVERYONE felt the judgement from God.

• Three years have now passed in 1 Kings 18 and God tells Elijah to go back to Ahab; who has been hunting him, to kill him.

• Let’s look at 1 Kings 18, and as we do, let’s look at the partnership and power of prayer.

 

1 Kings 18:1 ESV

After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.”

 

1 Kings 18:8 ESV

And he answered him, “It is I. Go, tell your lord, ‘Behold, Elijah is here.’ ”

 

We see in verses 9-11, Obadiah sensed that Elijah’s command would mean certain death for himself.

 

Also, in verse 13, Obadiah pled with Elijah to excuse him from this dangerous task.

 

1 Kings 18:15–16 ESV

And Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.” So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him. And Ahab went to meet Elijah.

 

But watch what happens next.

 

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1 Kings 18:17–40 ESV

17 When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?”

18 And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals.

19 Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

20 So Ahab sent to all the people of Israel and gathered the prophets together at Mount Carmel.

21 And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word.

22 Then Elijah said to the people, “I, even I only, am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal’s prophets are 450 men.

23 Let two bulls be given to us, and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood, but put no fire to it. And I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it.

24 And you call upon the name of your god, and I will call upon the name of the Lord, and the God who answers by fire, he is God.” And all the people answered, “It is well spoken.”

25 Then Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose for yourselves one bull and prepare it first, for you are many, and call upon the name of your god, but put no fire to it.”

26 And they took the bull that was given them, and they prepared it and called upon the name of Baal from morning until noon, saying, “O Baal, answer us!” But there was no voice, and no one answered. And they limped around the altar that they had made.

27 And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”

28 And they cried aloud and cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them.

29 And as midday passed, they raved on until the time of the offering of the oblation, but there was no voice. No one answered; no one paid attention.

30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come near to me.” And all the people came near to him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that had been thrown down.

31 Elijah took twelve stones, according to the number of the tribes of the sons of Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord came, saying, “Israel shall be your name,”

32 and with the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. And he made a trench about the altar, as great as would contain two seahs of seed.

33 And he put the wood in order and cut the bull in pieces and laid it on the wood. And he said, “Fill four jars with water and pour it on the burnt offering and on the wood.”

34 And he said, “Do it a second time.” And they did it a second time. And he said, “Do it a third time.” And they did it a third time.

35 And the water ran around the altar and filled the trench also with water.

36 And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word.

37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.”

38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench.

39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”

40 And Elijah said to them, “Seize the prophets of Baal; let not one of them escape.” And they seized them. And Elijah brought them down to the brook Kishon and slaughtered them there.

 

Everything begins with PRAYER.

 

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LISTEN

 

It is one thing to talk, it is another thing to LISTEN. Prayer is not all about telling God what’s up; prayer is where you learn to meditate and be intimate with Him, LISTENing and lying down like a lamb at the feet of the Shepherd.

When we LISTEN, we will align ourselves with the will and direction from the Holy Spirit and we then can understand what the Spirit is saying to us.

We, like Elijah, have to develop the LISTENing side of prayer so we are not doing all the talking; we also need to LISTEN, and not already have our minds made up before we LISTEN.

Prayer includes disciplining our spirits, minds and our flesh to LISTEN to God.

 

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OBEY

 

In 1 Kings 18:1, we find that God told Elijah “GO”. Not only did God tell Elijah to go, we must look at the next few words, “show yourself”.

This GO is a command, not a suggestion. And God didn’t tell Elijah to text, Skype, Zoom call or send a postcard; God told Elijah to “go, show yourself”.

Usually when God gives us a promise or blessing, there is a condition or command that goes right long with it, and we must do our part to receive from God.

Obedience means full and complete obedience. If we want to posses the promise, we must be willing to obey.

 

Now let’s look deeper in this command:

• Elijah is to show himself to the King that is trying to kill him.

• Elijah must get to the King thru all the army that has been dispatched to kill him.

• Elijah must go thru the towns and villages for all the people to see him. All these people have been told that Elijah was the “Troubler of Israel” (v. 18) and he was the cause of the drought.

 

We must understand that there are times that obedience to God is not going to allow us to stay in our comfort zone. When we obey God (partial obedience is disobedience) people around us may get mad, may dislike you, may disown you, but you must obey God. Sometime the promise doesn’t feel like it is worth it, but trust me, the promises and blessings of God are worth it all!!!

 

Let’s address the relationship between disobedience and promises of God for a moment:

• If God gives us a promises and a command, it is not easy at times to follow that command; remember, partial obedience is disobedience.

• This is the reason that some of us let our promises of God die in the very early stages.

• This is also why some are bitter and angry at God, His Church, His servants; because we may feel like God has failed us by NOT full filling His promises.

• If we trace our steps back, it may be that we didn’t follow the steps God laid out in front of us.

 

Bottom line … we must PRAY, LISTEN, and OBEY!

 

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DISCERN

 

Psalm 37:4 ESV

4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

 

I hear this verse MISQUOTED more times that not. Many look at the last half and forget the first half.

 

With promises from God, we must discern FIRST, the difference between emotions and desires. We must be able to discern the difference.

EMOTIONS ~ We get a wonderful touch from God and get all excited. We see God growing and working thru our church and get all excited.

DESIRES ~ Our desires must come AFTER we have delighted or get a high degree of pleasure in or get mental satisfaction in the Lord; then our desires will be aligned with God’s desires for our live.

 

If you get excited (emotion) and feel that God is calling you to sale all you have and give to the church, I will accept. HOWEVER, is that God’s desire for your life? I am not saying that you shouldn’t follow God, I am saying did you get excited because God touched you and you haven’t had a touch from God in 1,000 years? We have to discern the difference between our EMOTIONS and God’s DESIRES for our lives.

 

ALSO, we have to discern the difference between:

• Universal Promises ~ “If I go, I will come again” ~ it doesn’t matter who is living on earth, what we have done, we are NOT changing the fact that God is sending His Son again.

• Conditional Promises ~ If you do this, God will do that ~ You must obey God to receive from God; God often makes conditional promises to us.

• Personal Promises ~ Personal promises are always conditional. You must have FAITH, you must have OBEDIENCE, and you must have STEADFASTNESS.

 

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FOCUS

 

The word focus mean to concentrate or in our words for our Sermon Series, direct attention on the PROMISOR not the promises or the problems. We are talking about Possessing God’s Promises, but let’s not forget who is giving the promises.
 
 
Think about this; after Elijah got the promise, everything happened:
 
  • Severe famine
  • Jazebel killed prophets
  • Good people were suffering
  • Obadiah came in and argued with Elijah
  • People suffering and blood in the street
All this because of a promise. Just because something good is about to happen, doesn’t mean things are going to be great before the promise. Let’s re-word that just a little. When a promise is given by God, everyone in the spiritual realm knows. Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Angels, the Principalities, the demons and Satan himself. Guess who is going to try to cause your FOCUS to change and thereby causing us to slip and fall; and thus causing the promise not to happen? BINGO – SATAN!!!
 
If Satan can assail your life, he will. But you can hold on to the though that if Satan vents and rages against you, then something has just left heaven headed your way. Satan wants to cheat you out of your promise. That is why when you begin to PRAY, LISTEN, OBEY, DISCERN, and FOCUS on/to God about:
 
  • your children
  • your marriage
  • your finances
  • your relationship with God
  • your job
  • and the list goes on
 
… things go CRAZY!!! Your child gets worse; your spouse gets meaner; your bills pill higher and unexpected things happen that cost money; things start causing distractions in your prayer and study time; the job situation gets tougher. You start to wonder what is going on.
 
Satan is trying to steal your FOCUS and thus your promises from God.
 
If God gives you a promise, don’t look at that, look at the ONE who gave you that promise!
 
Your hope is not in a promise … it is in the PROMISOR!!!

 

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EXPECT

 

The word expect means to regard something that is likely to happen. The word expect has often been use, abused and misused because it is easy to think the word means “it IS coming!”
 
Looking at Scripture and we find that something is LIKELY to happen. As we see that things are LIKELY to happen, we need to have GREAT expectation of something good happening in our life!!!
Matthew 24:4 ESV ~ Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Acts 3:5 ESV ~ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them.
1 Corinthians 16:11 ESV ~ So let no one despise him. Help him on his way in peace, that he may return to me, for I am expecting him with the brothers.
 
In expectation, we see many things working PRIOR to getting the the EXPECTING:
 
First, there is a time where life is breathed into being. This happens AFTER the PRAY, LISTEN, OBEY, DISCERN, and FOCUS has taken place. This is a time that you know that you know; no one can take that away from you. DON’T GIVE UP!!!
 
Second, after life is breathed, there will be a time of aggravation. You are continuing to PRAY, LISTEN, OBEY, DISCERN, FOCUS and you are not giving up. This is a time of transformation in your life. God is changing your life, your body and your spirit for what He has in store for you. Just as a mother is aggravated carring a baby; the pain, the foot in a kidney, head in the rib cage, she is not giving up, because she know that it will be worth it all when the promise has arrived.
 
SIDE NOTE: Timing is more important that time.
 
  • The promise will not come, nor does it need to come, before your mind, your body and your spirit are ready.
  • The promise doesn’t necessarily have to come tomorrow or next week, DON’T GIVE UP!!!
  • The promise may out live you. How? Look at Isaiah, Jeremiah and other Old Testament prophets that were given the promise of a coming Messiah.
 

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HUMBLE

 

We find that in 1 Kings 18:42, Elijah goes up to the moiuntain top and he bowed himself town on the earth and put his face between his knees.
Often times there is physical labor in receiving the promise of God.
Did you know that God can do all this without you? But He wants you!!!
 
 
 
Why do we need to be humble before God?
  • First, our humility is a demonstration to us and to God; as well as to the unseen enemies that are watching us to see how they can trip us up. We are showing them we are humbling ourselves before almighty God. Our humility shows there is no bitterness or anger toward God fror what we have gone through from the beginning of the promise to the completion of the promise.
  • Second humility demonstrates that we did not produce the miracle or promise; we are showing that it came from God. He gets the glory and He gets the honor.
Something else we need to notice about Elijah in these verses; look at 43-44.
 
1 Kings 18:43–44 (ESV) ~ And he said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.’ ”
  
We find that Elijah, a man of a great prayer life who could stop the rain from coming, who had a great promise from God; even Elijah knew the ultimate power and authority of God.
 
 
 
He prayed and prayed seven times. He didn’t give up; he showed respect, honor and humbled himself down before God. He was not too important that he couldn’t bow himself down to the earth and pray before God; and he prayed until the answer came.
 
  
 

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PARTNER

We must always rememmber that God is the senior partner in our prayer live, in our lives as a whole.
Elijah obeyed God and presented himself to Ahab and said: “I hear the abundance of rain.”
God, the senior partner, sent the rain. The devil may say to you, “You are not going to get your promise.”
But I declare to this church, to this church family, as the Pastor of this church, it is going to rain!
It is going to rain in your heart, in your home, on your family, on your health, on your finances, in this church – IT IS GOING TO RAIN!
God is the giver of the rain, so we must make sure that HE remains the focus of our lives. HOW?
We must PRAY, LISTEN, OBEY, DISCERN, FOCUS, EXPECT, HUMBLE, and PARTNER.
 
 

Pastor Andy Lambert ~ pastorandy@cvcog.church

Call/Text: 205.642.8744 ext 101

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