Morning Message Text: 1 Kings 18: 30-39
30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the LORD, which had been torn down.
31 Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.”
32 With the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed.
33 He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”
34 “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again. “Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time.
35 The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.
36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.
37 Answer me, LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
38 Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
39 When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The LORD—he is God! The LORD—he is God!”
Morning Message:
We need to have a serious conversation about church attendants. I know what you are thinking, why is he talking to us about attendants when we are here. First off, I am not just talking to those of you who are sitting in the pews this morning. There is a whole audience on the other side of our video camera that I am speaking to. Now let me get the acceptable excuses out of the way. There are some who cannot attend worship that have good reasons for their absences. There are some who are too ill or homebound with an illness or disability that takes away your ability to come through the church doors. We need to take care of you and minister to you in any way that we can. If you are not in that category this morning, I would like to hear a thank you Lord from you. Some have issues with their jobs and have to work on the Lord’s Day. This world that we live in has become post-Christian in that it has little to no respect for the tenants of our faith. There are very few businesses in our nation that would put the worship of God before what they perceive to be the needs of their business. I feel for those who find themselves in such situations and are forced to work on Sunday; I was once in that position. We need to pray for them and do what we can to nurture their faith. If you are not in that situation, can I get a praise God from you today? For the rest of us we have no excuse. I know that someone will come to me with an excuse that is reasonable that I have missed, but for right now, those are the only exceptions that I am making.
Let’s talk about the altars in our lives that we build and take very good care of. Let me go right down the line and start with the people that are precious to us. Your spouse or significant other. Pastor, Sunday morning is the only time in our busy schedule that we can spend time together. Awe, I never thought of that, how about spending one hour together worshiping the God that blessed you with each other. You put a lot of thought and effort into preserving that altar, but what about God’s. Pastor, Sunday is a family day and wouldn’t God want me to nurture and build up the family. Yes, by all means, go and have a good time with your family, put your arms around them, love them as you should, build a beautiful family altar. But what about God’s altar? You know, the one who created you and blessed you with this wonderful family to love; what about his altar? But pastor, I work so hard all week; I’m up early every morning burning the candle at both ends. I just need to get some extra sleep on my one day off. I totally understand. Go ahead and sleep in on Sunday morning; worship doesn’t start until eleven o’clock and we won’t even mind if you are a couple of minutes late; spend an hour worshiping God every week and see how refreshed you can be. Our beds can become an altar where we worship the idol of sleep, but one day we will have eternal rest, shouldn’t we focus on our Savior who give us that. I know all of the excuses, football, soccer, baseball, birthday parties, sleep-overs, they are all altars that we take better care of than God’s altar and our commitment to him.
This idea, this thought, about the altars of our lives came to me by way of my daily devotionals. In the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, it seems someone had once built an altar to God there, but it had crumbled over time. Elijah repaired it, prayed earnestly, and God answered with fire. There is some similarity in our nation today to that time of Elijah in the land of Israel. Most of the nation had turned away from the Lord and the prophets. Those who stood for God’s ways were being persecuted and killed. God’s altars had crumbled, but God was ready, willing, and able to act.
Has an altar in your life crumbled? You once knew the Lord. You once walked with him. You once lived for him. You once loved him. But your spiritual life has deteriorated. You feel that, right? I know that I am not alone in this. In our western world, there was once a greater fear of God than now. We once walked with him, but the spiritual vitality of our culture has crumbled, and the altars have broken down. We need to repair the broken-down altars. Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob. With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord. How many of you remember the movie, Field of Dreams? There’s a famous saying from that movie that churches used to misquote when they were trying to increase their size. They would say, “If you build it they will come,” but the correct phrase is, “If you build it He will come.” God will come back to this nation if we will rebuild His altar.
Please listen to me carefully. We can do that through confession and commitment. We can say, “Lord, this area of my life has broken down.” For a lot of you your habit of worship, your commitment to the worship of the God that you claim to love, has broken down. Here are the words, but you have to mean them, and you have to follow through. My faith has broken down, but I confess it to you and rededicate myself to live for you with all my heart. I am coming back to you full force. In order to alter things, let’s repair the altars; that the fire of God will fall fresh upon us. You need to come back to worship in order to do this. We will have a rock for you, and we will rebuild our altar together.
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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