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May 22, 2022

Why this Lord?

Why this Lord?

Passage: 1 Kings 17:17-24

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Easter Egg, the hidden figure of Elijah in the life of Jesus

As a controlling idea or story for your life, you have 1,001 options–at a minimum. Why would the God of whom we hear in Elijah (and in whom we see in Jesus) be preferable to any other? Why this Lord? The exchange between a Gentile widow and an Israelite prophet continues this week, but in which we’ll find a larger point about the worthiness of YHWH to be worshiped.

Readings & Scriptures

PREPARATION: Psalm 136:1-3
LEADER: Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods,
for his steadfast love endures forever.

ALL: Give thanks to the Lord of lords,
for his steadfast love endures forever;

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH/SCRIPTURE READING/CORPORATE PRAYER:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty;
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God,
Begotten of the Father before all worlds;
God of God, Light of Light,
Very God of Very God,
Begotten, not made,
Being of one substance with the Father;
By whom all things were made;
Who, for us men and for our salvation,
Came down from heaven,
And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,
And was made man;
And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered and was buried;
And the third day he rose again,
According to the Scriptures;
And ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
And he shall come again, with glory,
To judge both the quick and the dead;
Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life;
Who proceeds from the Father [and the Son];
Who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified;
Who spoke by the prophets.
And we believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
And we look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Kings 17:17-24
1Kings 17:17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” 19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20 And he cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” 22 And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” 24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”

CONFESSION OF SIN
ALL: Lord, you who are mercy and grace, and who are righteous and just–we feel our frailty, and see our failure of nerve and of hope. We let so much become more than it is, and make You in our eyes less than You are. We fear others more than You. We love ourselves more than You. We believe, but help our unbelief. Forgive us the sin that so easily entangles. Help us to know You again as You are: the Lord and Lover of our souls.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON
LEADER: He knows our frame. He remembers we are dust. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

ALL: Thanks be to God.

BENEDICTION: Numbers 6:24-26
LEADER: May the Lord bless you and keep you
May the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you.
May the Lord lift up his countenance and give you peace

ALL: Amen.

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Psalm 13
  • Ephesians 1:16-21
  • Hebrews 4:15
  • James 5:13-18

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Imagine this scenario: you’re sitting among friends from a variety of backgrounds, both religious and not. Someone ventures a question for any or all to answer: why do you follow the God (or philosophy) you do, as opposed to others? How would you begin to answer?
  2. Comment on the fact that this widow has in the previous paragraph been provided for beyond her expectation, but here in this paragraph comes to different conclusions about Elijah’s God. Explain her reasoning as you sympathize with her situation. How is she a not so unfamiliar example of how the human heart thinks?
  3. How would you characterize her conclusions about Elijah’s God? Accurate? Imprecise? From what Elijah prays on her son’s behalf, how would you characterize his tentative conclusions about the Lord?
  4. What is prayer for? We see one purpose behind it in this crisis moment for Elijah. But fill out the answer–what is prayer for? If that’s what it’s for, what does prayer ask of us?
  5. Bible trivia: who before Elijah had ever asked God to raise someone from the dead? Anyone after Elijah?

ILLUSTRATIONS:

QUOTES: 

  • I have been asked to tell you what Christians believe, and I am going to begin by telling you one thing that Christians do not need to believe. If you are a Christian you do not have to believe that all the other religions are simply wrong all through. If you are an atheist you do have to believe that the main point in all the religions of the whole world is simply one huge mistake. If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all those religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. - C.S. Lewis
  • Just read St. Paul. He’ll disabuse you rather quickly of the notion that the church consists of satisfactory Christians. It turns out the church is nothing but unsatisfactory Christians. […] The church has to make room for the unsatisfactory, [for] the just-getting-by, the I’m-barely-paying-the-bills, the it-took-all-I-had-to-show-up-this-morning, the I’m-doing-my-best, the just-give-me-a-break folks. The holly-ivy Christians, who begrudgingly show up twice a year. The Kichijiros and Simon Peters and doubting Thomases. The addicts who relapse, the gamblers in debt, the porn-addled who can’t quit, the foreclosed-on and laid-off, the perennially fired and out of work, the ex-cons and adulterers and fathers of five kids by three different moms. Is the church not for such as these? “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.” - Brad East
  • . . .prayer is more like schoolwork than like a conversation, in that in schoolwork, we are learning to pay attention to an object. . .learning to pay attention to God and not ourselves. - Myles Werntz, From Isolation to Community

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