Sermon: Faith Anchors in Difficult Seasons – 1 Kgs 17.17–24 (4/19/26)
Introduction
Scripture
Turn to 1 Kings 17.
Today we continue our study of episodes in the lives of two of the Old Testament's greatest prophets...
Elijah
Elisha
Last week we learned how to have courage...
There is a kind of formula that, when followed, gives us great courage.
We watched Elijah walk courageously through three real crises…
A wicked king who opposed him…
A drying brook in the middle of a drought…
And a daily dependence on God for food…
Today we will read the rest of 1 Kings 17 and see Elijah face one more crisis.
This crisis is...
Not political...
Not financial...
Not circumstantial...
This one is personal.
The son of the widow who is helping Elijah will die.
And everything Elijah and this woman believed about God is suddenly tested…
Now, we could have included this as just a fourth example in last week’s message on courage…
But this moment deserves its own focus…
Because this is not just about courage in action…
This is about faith under pressure…
Faith when life does not make sense…
Faith when God’s ways seem confusing…
And here is why this matters so much…
EVERY PERSON IN THIS ROOM WILL WALK THROUGH A SEASON LIKE THIS…
A moment when what you believe about God collides with what you are experiencing in life…
And when that moment comes… one of two things will happen…
Some people begin to drift…
They question…
They pull back…
Some even walk away from the faith…
But others…
They are shaken…
But they are not moved…
Their faith holds…
So, what makes the difference?
That is what this passage answers.
In this story, God gives us anchors for our faith in difficult seasons…
Truths that will hold you steady…
When life unravels…
When prayers seem unanswered…
When circumstances do not reflect what you believe about God…
Let us walk through the passage together…
Scripture
What happened in the first sixteen verses…
Elijah confronts King Ahab and announces that there will be no rain…
This was not just a weather report, and it was not just a pronouncement of judgment…
It was God showing Ahab and the people that Baal, the so-called rain god, had no power.
Then God sends Elijah to a hidden place where there is water…
And there, God personally provides food for him…
In a season of drought, Elijah learns to depend on God daily.
But eventually, even that brook dries up…
And when it does, God sends Elijah to Zarephath…
A completely unexpected place…
There, God provides for him again…
This time through a poor widow…
And God miraculously sustains both of them.
And everything seems to be going well…
God has provided…
God has sustained…
God has proven himself faithful…
But then… everything changes.
1 Kings 17.17 | After this, the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. His illness got worse until he stopped breathing. (CSB)
1 Kings 17.18 | She said to Elijah, “Man of God, what do you have against me? Have you come to call attention to my iniquity so that my son is put to death?” (CSB)
Of course, the mother is distraught.
Her theology is not entirely right, but it is understandable.
She assumes this tragedy must be caused by God punishing her for her sin…
That is a very common way people think in suffering…
1 Kings 17.19 | But Elijah said to her, “Give me your son.” So he took him from her arms, brought him up to the upstairs room where he was staying, and laid him on his own bed. (CSB)
1 Kings 17.20 | Then he cried out to the Lord and said, “Lord my God, have you also brought tragedy on the widow I am staying with by killing her son?” (CSB)
Even Elijah does not understand what God is doing…
1 Kings 17.21 | Then he stretched himself out over the boy three times. He cried out to the Lord and said, “Lord my God, please let this boy’s life come into him again!” (CSB)
If you underline things in your Bible, the three words to underline here are...
Stretched...
Three times...
Please...
This is not a casual prayer…
This is desperate, persistent pleading before God…
Everything now hangs on whether God will answer…
1 Kings 17.22 | So the Lord listened to Elijah, and the boy’s life came into him again, and he lived. (CSB)
This is the first recorded instance of God raising someone from the dead.
Who gave life to the lifeless boy?
Not Elijah.
The Scripture says...
The Lord listened to Elijah...
The Lord raised this boy to life again.
1 Kings 17.23 | Then Elijah took the boy, brought him down from the upstairs room into the house, and gave him to his mother. Elijah said, “Look, your son is alive.” (CSB)
For some people, this is an especially emotional verse.
Some of you have seen your son or daughter die...
And you prayed and prayed, and God did not intervene the way you hoped he would...
But there is hope in this verse...
The God of Elijah is in the business of handing children back to their mothers.
If not in this life, in eternity!
And before the message ends, I will show you why though that does not erase your grief...
IT IS A BETTER HOPE!
1 Kings 17.24 | Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know you are a man of God and the Lord’s word from your mouth is true.” (CSB)
The climax is not only that the boy lives.
The climax is also that the widow comes to a deeper conviction about the truth of God’s word.
Three Faith Anchors in Difficult Seasons
I. Our circumstances are not a reliable measure of God’s love.
Let us look again at the widow's response to the death of her son...
1 Kings 17.18 | She said to Elijah, “Man of God, what do you have against me? Have you come to call attention to my iniquity so that my son is put to death?” (CSB)
Her first instinct was to connect her suffering with God’s displeasure.
In other words...
“This has happened because God is against me.”
Have you ever experienced something similar?
I imagine you have...
“What did I do?”
“Is God punishing me?”
“Has God turned against me?”
I certainly have...
About twenty five years ago, I had a medical test come back with a shocking result, and I thought I was going to die.
My doctor had me rush to a big university hospital about an hour away...
Emergency surgery was expected...
Thankfully, it turned out to be a false alarm...
But I can tell you my first thoughts went to my "iniquity."
"Iniquity" is the word the widow used in 1 Kings 17.18.
About three years ago, Donna and I began dealing with a family situation that shook us to the core.
My first thoughts focused on how my sin might have somehow contributed to this problem.
That is both a really good and a really bad reflex...
What is good about it?
It is good to recognize our sin and sinfulness...
It is good to know that sin always has consequences...
It is good to remember the holiness of our heavenly Father against whom we have sinned...
It is good to be quick to examine our hearts...
What is bad about it?
It is not theologically accurate...
It is not helpful...
It is often the lie of the enemy...
We can begin to interpret every hardship as proof that God no longer loves us.
We can treat pain as if it were a measuring stick of divine affection.
Truth: Circumstances are not a reliable measure of God's love.
Listen to how the apostle Paul said this...
Question...
Romans 8.35 | Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? (CSB)
That is a good question...
Do these things separate us from God's love?
Are these signs that something has separated us from God's love?
Answer...
Romans 8.37 | No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. (CSB)
Romans 8.38 | For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, (CSB)
Romans 8.39 | nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (CSB)
Notice that Paul does not say believers are spared from affliction.
He says affliction cannot separate believers from the love of Christ.
We often try to play the match game with the Lord.
You know this game from your childhood...
On one side of the page you have drawings of...
Train...
Car...
Boat...
Airplane...
On the other half of the page you have pictures of...
Water...
Clouds...
Train tracks...
Roadway...
The child is instructed to match the pictures on one side to the pictures on the other side.
That works in the kindergarten classroom, but it does not work in life.
In life, there is not always a correlation between our circumstances and God's love.
There wasn't in this historical event described in 1 Kings 17...
Certainly it is always appropriate to confess our sins and seek the fullness of the Lord's forgiveness.
But it is a mistake to turn every hardship and loss into an expression of God's anger and disappointment.
I love how the pastor, J. D. Greear, often speaks of the gospel truth for believers...
There is nothing you can do to make God love you more...
And nothing you have done that makes him love you less...
You are as loved and accepted in Christ as you ever will be.
Paul wrote...
Romans 8.1 | Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,(CSB)
Walking away from faith...
We said earlier that many people walk away and drift from their faith when hard times come...
This is why!
They draw the conclusion that in his anger over their sins, God has withdrawn his love...
They connect their crisis with their own sin and God's judgment...
And they conclude that all is lost...
And they walk away...
Please do not do that!
God loves you...
Certainly, God disciplines his children...
And that discipline is real.
(Ask me about it some time.)
But God loves you...
He does not want to tear you down...
He wants to strengthen you...
Encourage you...
Bless you...
John the Baptist...
May I show you one unexpected story in the Gospels that will knock your socks off?
Background...
John the Baptist was the forerunner for Christ...
He announced the coming ministry of Christ.
John was a very popular minister with a large following...
Until Jesus's ministry began...
John the Baptist was arrested in the first year of Jesus's ministry.
John was wasting away in prison facing a likely execution (that did eventually happen)...
It was a hard time for John...
And Jesus did not rescue him!
So, John began to think that maybe there was a problem...
Maybe Jesus was not the Messiah?
Maybe Jesus was angry at John?
So, John sent a message from prison to Jesus...
Matthew 11.2 | Now when John heard in prison what the Christ was doing, he sent a message through his disciples (CSB)
Matthew 11.3 | and asked him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” (CSB)
Jesus gave an important answer that we will save for another sermon.
But here is the most important thing Jesus said for our purposes this morning...
Matthew 11.11 | “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one greater than John the Baptist has appeared, but the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (CSB)
How did Jesus view John the Baptist?
Was John a failure?
Was John a disappointment?
Was Jesus mad at John?
NO!
Jesus said that he admired John as the greatest man ever born of a woman.
Essentially, Jesus was saying...
John, your circumstances are not a reliable measure of God's love.
Jesus is saying the same thing to you today...
As Greear says...
There is nothing you can do to make God love you more...
And nothing you have done that makes him love you less...
You are as loved and accepted in Christ as you ever will be.
II. God uses deep trials to move us from self-reliance to God-dependence.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
The question...
There are some category problems with that question...
But that is a question every one of us has asked in some form.
The answer...
The answer to a question like that is not simple...
But one part of the answer is that...
God uses deep trials to move us from self-reliance to God-dependence.
One of the greatest lessons in the Christian life is learning to lean on the Lord when everything else gives way.
Sometimes the Lord teaches that lesson by removing the things we were quietly depending on more than him.
For this widow woman...
She had learned to trust God for provision...
Now she must trust him with her son.
God is taking her into a deeper school of faith.
The same thing happened earlier with Elijah...
The brook that refreshed Elijah eventually dried.
The same God who provided the brook also dried the brook.
Why?
Because God was moving Elijah to a deeper lesson...
Trust the provider, not the provision.
We also see this in the New Testament...
Scripture
2 Corinthians 1.8 | We don’t want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of our affliction that took place in Asia. We were completely overwhelmed—beyond our strength—so that we even despaired of life itself. (CSB)
2 Corinthians 1.9 | Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death, so that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead. (CSB)
So that we would not trust in ourselves but in God who raises the dead!
Illustration
Do you remember learning to ride a bicycle or teaching your children to ride a bicycle?
You begin with training wheels...
Riding a bike with training wheels is very easy...
But riding a bike with training wheels is not the ultimate goal.
Then the training wheels come off...
The rider discovers that things are not as easy as before...
Before, there was too much reliance on those training wheels...
The training wheels were not bad...
It is just that as long as you could rely on them for balance, you would and you did.
Eventually, the rider learns to ride the bike without relying on training wheels for balance.
Sometimes, the Lord takes off our training wheels...
Sometimes, God may dry up the brook to deepen the faith.
Are you going through a difficult season?
The WHY is likely not a simple thing...
There are likely many contributing factors and divine purposes.
But consider that almost certainly one of the reasons is so the Lord can teach you to trust him.
And when you learn that lesson, it will be a sweet day.
May I overshare for a moment...
I do not mind sharing this embarrassing life detail because I think the Lord will use it to encourage someone...
The first fifty-four years of my life, I never really had a problem.
No major health issues...
No major failures...
I got every job I ever wanted...
I married my dream girl...
My three kids were perfect...
I never pastored a church that did not lead the region in growth...
I never left on bad terms...
I never lost a leadership battle...
I had never been depressed...
I had never been anxious...
God had just been so very kind to me!
But something else...
I never really knew how to pray...
I could not identify with half the Psalms where the writer spoke of lament...
I never knew what it meant to trust the Lord for my next breath and my next day.
Then four years ago, the Lord took off the TRAINING WHEELS in some areas of my life.
Long story short...
I've learned to pray...
I've learned to lean on the Lord...
I've learned to trust the Lord's hand in all things...
God uses deep trials to move us from self-reliance to God-dependence.
III. God welcomes and works through honest, desperate, persistent prayer.
Let us look at Elijah's prayer once again...
Scripture
1 Kings 17.21 | Then he stretched himself out over the boy three times. He cried out to the Lord and said, “Lord my God, please let this boy’s life come into him again!” (CSB)
What were the three words or phrases I mentioned as good candidates for highlighting?
Stretched...
That speaks to the desperation in Elijah's prayer...
We must pray earnestly!
He was not casual; he was desperate!
This was a hallmark of Elijah's praying...
James 5.17 | Elijah was a human being as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. (CSB)
That was how the first Christians prayed...
Acts 12.5 | So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was praying fervently to God for him. (CSB)
Three times...
That speaks to the persistence of Elijah's praying...
Elijah kept praying...
He did not stop after one attempt...
This was a theme of Jesus's teaching on prayer...
Luke 18.1 | Now he told them a parable on the need for them to pray always and not give up. (CSB)
Paul commanded persistent prayer...
Romans 12.12 | Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer. (CSB)
Please...
Elijah was just honest before the Lord.
Elijah brought his broken heart before the Lord...
No performance.
No polished speech.
No pretending.
This reminds me of what the father of a demon-possessed boy said to Jesus...
Mark 9.24 | Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!” (CSB)
May I share what the Lord brought to mind as I studied this Scripture narrative and especially Elijah's prayer?
This is not a perfectly congruent comparison...
But I thought of the many parents in our church family who have lost their children...
I do not mean those whose children may have died.
We spoke earlier of the Lord's encouragement to those parents...
I mean those who have lost their children to the world...
Parents who are heartbroken over their children no longer walking with the Lord...
Parents who live in fear for the souls of their children or grandchildren...
Parents who worry that their younger children might stray from the Lord when they grow up...
Every week, I have conversations about this with parents in our church family.
But in this narrative with Elijah and the widow who had lost her son...
Prayers were prayed...
The son was brought back to life...
Parents, now is the time not to give up on your children...
Let us pray for our children and grandchildren like Elijah prayed for the widow's son.
I wanted to ask parents in this situation to stand, but I do not want to put anyone on the spot or create a potentially embarrassing situation if a wayward or wandering child is with you today...
But we can still pray...
For many of you, I know your story...
For all, the Lord knows...
Let us pray...
Earnestly...
Persistently...
Honestly...
PRAYER
Conclusion
Let us wrap this up with a couple of quick and maybe surprising observations...
First, this widow’s son was not resurrected in the fullest sense.
He was restored to earthly life.
He was brought back temporarily.
But one day, he died again.
This miracle was glorious...
But it was limited.
It solved death for a moment, not forever.
That means this story is pointing us to something greater.
Many people in this room know what it is to wish for one more day...
One more conversation...
One more embrace...
One more chance.
But even if that were granted, it would only be temporary.
The greater hope of the Christian is not temporary resuscitation.
The greater hope is resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15.54 | When this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory. (CSB)
For those who die in Christ, the best gift is not being brought back to this broken world for a little while.
The best gift is being raised forever into a world where death can never touch them again.
Second, Elijah could ask for life, but he could not give life.
Elijah stretched himself over the boy.
Elijah prayed.
Elijah cried out.
But Elijah had no life in himself to give.
Then came one greater than Elijah.
Jesus did not merely pray for the dead.
Jesus commanded the dead.
John 11.25 | Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.” (CSB)
He said, “Lazarus, come out.”
He said, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
Elijah was an instrument.
Jesus is the source.
Have you trusted the One who has life to give?
He died for sinners.
He rose again.
He offers forgiveness.
He gives eternal life.
Do not merely admire Elijah.
Come to Jesus.
Jesus is the better Elijah.
Jesus has life to give.