MattGlover.com

Sunday was Mother’s Day here in Australia, a time when we treat our Mums like royalty by giving them burnt toast and cold coffee for breakfast in bed…

At my church, something else we did this year was have the young people and the children take the morning worship service. Our two services are, in reality, two congregations with little in the way of cross-over, so it was nice to be able to spend some time worshipping with everybody together.

Greg (the General) gave the message on Elijah and the Widow of Zarephath (2 Kings 17:8-24). Basically the passage tells of a woman who is so poor that she is about to prepare her last meal and then wait for her and her son to die. Elijah comes along and asks for food, reassuring the widow that her ingredients would not run out until the drought had broken. She believes the prophets and does what he asked, only to have her son die some time later. Naturally, she is distraught, but Elijah raises her son back to life and confirms that what he speaks comes from God.

Greg’s message focussed on faith and defined it as “Acting on what we say we believe”. For instance, I can believe that my 1990 Corolla would get me to the Northern Territory and back on one tank of fuel. But unless I’m willing to get in and start driving to the NT, I have no faith in what I say I believe. (The fact that I’d run out of fuel around Portland is irrelevant…)

The illustration Greg used was one of the final scenes from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where Indi has to pass the three tests to reach the Holy Grail and save the life of his Dad. The last of the tests sees him having to take a leap of faith from the Lion’s Head over an impossibly large canyon. Indi takes a step anyway and reveals a cleverly hidden bridge that could simply be walked across. He believed the words in his Father’s journal and acted on them in faith.

In the same way, the widow believed the words of Elijah the prophet and acted on all of them. She had faith that his words were coming directly from God. Encouraging us to have faith like the widow, Greg left us with three points to ponder:

1. We need to be stepping forward in our own faith. Acting on what it is we say we believe.

2. We can learn from the past, but we can’t hold on to it. When we take that step of faith, we can’t do so while looking back.

3. We need to keep looking forward, enduring the hard times and holding on to the hope that Jesus offers.

It was a great morning together - thanks to all of our young people that planned, took part in or came along to the service.