By Frank Michael McCormack
NEW ORLEANS -- Whether it’s crime, natural disasters, illness or difficult church settings, every believer will face hardship in his or her ministry. The question is, in a pressure situation, how will the man or woman of God respond?
To answer that, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary President Chuck Kelley turned to 1 Kings 17 during the schools first chapel service of the semester Jan. 17. Kelley drew parallels between the prophet Elijah’s calling and God’s call on each person’s life.
Kelley focused first on verse 1, where Elijah says 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.”
Kelley said the phrase “before whom I stand” is crucial Elijah’s story, and the story of each person’s calling.
“To be a man or woman of God, you have to be in the presence of God,” Kelley said. “If you are going to say to a crowd [like Elijah did] ‘I will call down fire from heaven,’ you better know that God is going to do it. ... If you publicly announce ‘there will be no rain until I say so,’ you better know that God is going to do that.”
And the key to confidently delivering that kind of message, Kelley said, is knowing that it came from God. Kelley said that, when reading how Elijah lived in God’s presence, it makes him ask himself if he is settling for less than that.
“There is no part of your life where you live without being in the presence of God,” Kelley said. “The question is, will you recognize it? Will you seek and know that God is here? And will you give him the attention you owe?”
Kelley said the second lesson he learned from Elijah in 1 Kings 17 is to accept the consequences of his decisions and actions. Just as there are consequences for people who are disobedient or sin, there are also consequences for people who obey God – and those consequences aren’t always pleasant.
“You do understand that sometimes when God asks us to do things it doesn’t get us out of trouble but gets us into trouble?” Kelley said.
When Elijah was obedient, for example, he became a man on the run. Verses 2 through 7 describe how God told Elijah, after he delivered the message to Ahab, to flee to “the brook Cherith” and live in hiding. After he got there, though, verse 7 records that “the brook dried up.”
As Elijah watched the water level in the brook get lower and lower, “he realized that he did exactly what God told him to do and was in the precise place where God wanted him to be, but the brook was drying up,” Kelley said.
“Folks, sometimes your obedience will put you in tough circumstances you never dreamed that you’d be in,” he said. “Sometimes you will find that doing what God wants you to do carries consequences far greater than any sin you did before you got saved.”
Sometimes obedience means going to a smaller church rather than a larger church, leaving one region of the country to serve in another, leaving a rural setting for an urban ministry, or the reverse.
“What if God calls you to be a missionary and you take your family with you to a place that is so dangerous you can’t even tell people where you’re going?” Kelley said.
Elijah’s obedience, Kelley said, created some problems in his life.
“Our obedience will often create problems for us. And the test will be whether I’m willing to accept my consequences,” he said. “We try to avoid the consequences for disobedience, but we must embrace the consequences of what God calls us to do.”
As an example, Kelley mentioned the 19th century cricket star and missionary C.T. Studd, who abandoned a promising cricket career to serve God in China, India and Africa. Studd favored what he called a “muscular Christianity” that embraced difficult circumstances for the cause of the gospel. He’s quoted as saying, “Some want to live within the sound of a church or chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.”
Kelley cautioned those present not to go in search of trouble and put themselves in danger.
“You don’t have to look for trouble. It will find you,” he said. “What you’re looking for is the particular trouble that God wants you to address.”
The final point to draw from 1 Kings 17, Kelley said, involves Elijah asking the Widow of Zarephath for some water and bread. The widow, in verse 12, objects and said, “As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.”
Elijah, though, insists, challenging her to exercise faith and promising her that her flour and oil will not run out “until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth” (verse 14).
Kelley said that part of following God’s call involves making obedience to God the top priority and challenging others to trust Him in obedience also.
“God kept his promise, but she had to exercise faith to see God’s promise fulfilled,” he said.
Surveying Elijah’s ministry leaves no doubt that God used him in a mighty way. He announced the drought, promised that the widow’s flour and oil would not run out, raised the widow’s son from the dead, called down fire from heaven and defeated the priests of Baal. But his ministry did not unfold in a vacuum. It required his participation and obedience.
The same is true for every believer, Kelley said, and it acknowledging God’s presence, embracing the consequences for obedience, and putting obedience as the top priority and challenging others to do the same.
Keeping that in mind places the hardships of life in a whole new light.