Levi Lusko - When Heaven Whispers

Welcome to Fresh Life! We’re glad you’re here. Thank you for coming, especially if it’s your first time. We greet you in the name of Jesus at every Fresh Life location, especially those this weekend for the first time in our brand new Whitefish building. Come on, somebody! It’s open! We did it! It’s amazing, and we’re praising God for life, and we’re praising God for the chance to gather in His name right there on Highway 93 at this beautiful new facility. We’re just so grateful.

All right, as you turn in your Bible to First Kings chapter 19, I’ll tell you that when I grew up, it was in the Rocky Mountain region-Colorado and New Mexico. I spent about 20 years in the mountains of the Southwest and in Southern Colorado. Then we eventually relocated to Montana 17 years ago to start this church. People always talk about why we moved here, and we came to start this work. God wanted to. We started a Bible study that turned into what we’re experiencing now. In between my time in the Rockies and now being back in the Rocky Mountain region, we lived for a few years in Southern California. My wife, Jenny, and I, at the time, had one daughter and were pregnant-though we didn’t know it yet-with another daughter on the way. We lived for a few years there, and when we moved to Montana, we found out that Jenny was about to have another baby, which we had just given up all our health insurance, so that was tough. But God worked it all out.

I was thinking this week about when we lived in California, specifically how we did our baptisms. We used to go to the ocean and have beach baptisms there at the Pacific Ocean. Our church was just a mile or less from the beach. So we would say, «Hey everyone, come to this beach, and we’ll do a baptism service.» Of course, you’d schedule it in advance, right? Here’s when we’re doing it. The problem with that is nobody knew what the weather would be like or what the surf report would be like when the actual baptism day came. One day in particular, it was not a good idea to be standing in the surf doing baptisms because these waves were picking up; a swell was coming in. We picked a mild beach, but on a day with a big swell, anything’s possible. There are currents that move in the ocean that you can’t even see. It could be a calm day at the beach, but there can be an undertow; there can be a current that you can’t even see! They call that a riptide.

By the way, this is just for free: if you ever end up in a riptide, how are you going to know it’s happening? You’re swimming for the beach, but you’re getting further, not closer. You might be caught in a riptide. The solution is to make a 45-degree turn. You can’t fight directly against it; you’ll just get pulled out to sea. So you go 45 degrees to get to the shore, a diagonal turn back to the beach. That’s how you break free from a riptide’s power! See, it’s a current pulling straight out to sea, and that could save someone’s life! PSA over.

So we’re doing this baptism, and I’m feeling both the surf getting bigger and I can tell the currents down are getting stronger. The impulse to go away is just picking up. We had a big long line of people fixing to get baptized, and we were like, «We’ve got to get this show on the road!» So we were just like popping them through, you know? «Yes, that’s great! God loves you too. Let’s move right along; I don’t want anybody to get lost today.» Then this girl comes; she’s one of the last, maybe the last, and she wants to pour her heart out. I’m like, «Let’s go, I’m ready to baptize you!» She says, «No, I need to tell you about every sin I’ve ever committed.» I’m like, «No, just tell me you’re a sinner; we get that. It’s all covered under the blood.» She says, «Oh no, you don’t understand! I need to get all of this off my chest!»

So she’s going on, and I’m looking at her like, «Man, we need to really get this going!» Finally, I paused in the conversation to say, «Well, it’s all covered by God’s love for you, so let’s get this done.» I got her down here, and in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit, she covers her nose and holds it. I put my hand on her nose and my hand on her shoulder. I go down, and right when she goes down, a big wave came. We had been timing them with the waves to baptize in between. Well, right then the wave started surging back out to sea. It’s called backwash! It’s not just why you shouldn’t drink after your three-year-old; it’s also a phenomenon where the wave returns to the ocean that created it. As the wave sucked away, so did she, and I couldn’t find her anywhere!

Then I spotted her about 10 feet back, so I just dove for her! I grabbed her ankle and pulled as hard as I could. She pulled forward just as I got her up. She came out, her eyes were as wide as saucers! It had been the longest I had ever left anybody under the water in my entire life! Baptizing people, right? I love to think that wherever she is, whatever God’s doing through her that’s like normal to her. Maybe that’s what she thinks all baptisms are like! Like she just sort of assumed this violent, you know, experience was normal. She was like, «Man, I was having an out-of-body experience!»

Right? Well, we don’t baptize in the ocean; we baptize in a nice, safe, contained environment here at Fresh Life. But I thought of that moment today as I was driving to church because the reality is that backwash always comes on the back end of a big, powerful wave crashing upon the seashore. The bigger the wave, the more violent the wave, the more intense the backwash will be-because the more gravity is pulling all that water as it runs back into the ocean, the more aware of it you have to be.

And so it is when God does something powerful-you might say when a wave of the Holy Spirit works in and through your life-which I think is a brilliant picture of what it’s like to watch God move through you. Surfing- I don’t know if you’ve ever gone surfing for a wave-but you’re out there waiting, and you see the wave coming, and you’ve got to paddle for it before it gets to you. Then eventually, it will pick you up and carry you, and you have to choose to commit and drop in on that wave. If you have enough boldness to jump up and ride that wave, you’re essentially just holding on for dear life! It’s the power of the ocean that’s propelling you, but you had to choose to go for it!

So it is when it comes to God’s Spirit. He alone can move through you in a way that will do the impossible! He alone can raise the dead. He alone can forgive sin. Only God and His Spirit want to work in your life. The Bible says that God has poured out His Spirit on all flesh and that all sons and daughters can prophesy, speaking His word using their God -given authority in your sphere to declare God’s word to your life, to your situations, to preach the gospel to this world.

At times, there will be a powerful wave, and you’re like, «Oh dang!» Especially like between sets, there can be a freak wave. It could be like normally it’s hip high, and then all of a sudden, something comes in overhead or double overhead. The ocean’s unpredictable, and so it is when God moves in and through your life. At times, we’ll just commit ourselves to it and drop in in faith, taking that plunge, and we’re holding on for dear life, but we’re exhilarated at the same time!

What I want to warn you about is exactly what happens after that ride is over-after that wave of God’s Holy Spirit- because you should and can expect there to be a backwash that follows. The backwash, if you’re not careful, can take you out. An example of this — though we could turn to many places in Scripture- is Jesus' baptism. He comes out of the water; if there ever was an epic moment, it’s this one! Father God speaks from Heaven: «Behold, my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased!» The Holy Spirit descends upon Him like a dove. What happens next is the backwash: He ends up in the wilderness, the lonely place, where for 40 days He’s tempted by the devil. The devil tries to get Jesus to earn what He already has, and He can never lose the approval of God the Father. But He had to deal with those temptations. There’s demonic backlash that comes on the back end of the wave of the Holy Spirit.

So what does this mean for me and for you? It means whenever there’s a Holy Ghost breakthrough, the devil will try to break you. So what do we need? We need to turn to God.

The title of this message is «When Heaven Whispers.» In First Kings 19, there’s a story where Elijah, who has watched God move in power, most notably in the chapter just before this, involves the most famous scene of Elijah’s life. Anybody love the movie Tombstone, right? The shootout out there, good against evil, right? It’s kind of like the Tombstone shootout of the Old Testament. The children of Israel have been following the false god Baal because Ahab and Jezebel had led them astray to spiritual harlotry.

God compares His people to His wife, His bride, and so they were essentially unfaithful and cheating on God with this other God whose nickname was the Storm God. God had a contest He wanted Elijah to propose; He assembled all of the false prophets of Baal, as well as King Ahab, on the top of a mountain called Mount Carmel. You can go to Israel and literally stand where this happened; it’s an incredible thing to see and to picture the scene. It’s going to be the shootout. Here are the terms He proposes: let’s both build altars-an altar to the God of the Bible, an altar to the god called Baal-and we’re going to put sacrifices on top of the altars, and then we’re going to pray. Whichever God sends fire down from heaven upon the altar, consuming the sacrifice, that God is the real God; the other God is not the real God. And by the way, the losers get to die. Okay?

The prophets of Baal amazingly agree to the terms, and so they both build their altars. They both put wood; they both put a sacrifice. And Elijah does a strange thing: he gets a ton of barrels of water and pours them on top of his sacrifice. It doesn’t make sense; why would he do that? Because God told him to. To welcome the wind, you have to welcome the weird. If you want to see God work in your life like He intends to, it’s going to involve some things that don’t make sense to you. God healed a man of leprosy once who wanted a miracle cure by having him dunk in a muddy river seven times. He almost didn’t do it because it was so weird to him. But God’s ways are not our ways, and God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save those who will put their faith in Him. This doesn’t make sense-the message being preached. I’m here to talk to you about the cross. I’m here to tell you about the resurrection, and you’re like, «Wait, a guy 2,000 years ago died, and supposedly if I trust him that’s going to save me?» That’s foolish; that’s crazy! Yep, it’s foolishness to those who are perishing, but to those who believe, it is the power of God unto salvation. Naaman, by the way, was healed of his leprosy coming up out of the water the seventh time; he was baptized by this powerful work that God had done in him and through him, and he was changed for the rest of his life.

Similarly, Elijah, with his dripping sacrifice, now says, «You guys go first,» confidently saying, «I’ll wait here; I’ll go second.» So the prophets of Baal, 450 of them in number, begin singing out, crying out, «Oh Baal, answer with fire! You’re the Storm God, so send a storm. You’re the powerful God of thunder, so please send your thunder!» And nothing-crickets. Right? Elijah is like, «Hey, maybe if you sing louder, he’ll hear you,» like having fun with it, right? The more I read about Elijah, the more I relate to him. And so they yell louder; they start dancing, you know, like trying to get his attention, right? And he knows they’re talking to Baal, so he’s like, «Maybe he went on a trip; maybe he’s in the south of France. Maybe he’s on the toilet,» right? He’s really having fun now. And so they start cutting themselves, thinking if Baal sees their blood, he’ll know they’re serious and will really answer. Eventually, they fall on the ground at sunset in a heap because Baal didn’t answer.

So it’s Elijah’s turn, and Elijah is quiet. Elijah is composed and calm, and now, with his dripping sacrifice, he simply prays that God would turn the hearts of the children back to their Father. «Behold, my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,» and the fire falls. There’s no dancing, no screaming, no cutting himself. Why? Because Elijah knew what you need to know: that God, in His Son Jesus, has given us a means of salvation where you don’t need to cut yourself and make yourself bleed; He, on the cross, did all the bleeding for you. Our basis, our standing before God does not come from what we do for Him; it comes from what He has done for us. In this, the fire falls, and in this, the mighty rushing wind comes, and in this, the wave of the Holy Spirit moves through your life when you trust in the finished work of the cross and base your life and your death alike upon what Jesus has done for us. Amen? Somebody? Am I preaching good on a Sunday morning in August on what Jesus has done for us? He said on the cross, «It is finished,» and there’s never anything you could do in your entire life that would make you be more loved than you are right now. Accordingly, there’s not one thing you could ever do that would make your Father in heaven love you less than He does right now. The devil will always try to get you to earn what’s already yours, and in Christ, you have the favor and the righteousness and the tailwind of the Holy Spirit upon your life. It’s not about what you have done; it’s about what He has done, and when we stand confidently in that place of worship, faith, trust, and dependence, beloved, you become unstoppable in Jesus' name.

Does anyone think this was a good day? It was a great day! So Elijah personally puts all 450 prophets of Baal to death. I have had some crazy ministry assignments; that’s weirder! Right? You have to welcome the weird! But they had agreed to it, and so now we’re going to pick up immediately on the back end of this great day. Ahab told Jezebel-that’s the king and his wife-all that Elijah had done, also how he had executed all the prophets with the sword. Jezebel sent a message to Elijah saying, «So let the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time.»

Elijah had been suspecting that there was going to be national revival and repentance, and Jezebel and Ahab would both admit they were wrong and that Baal was the worst, and that they were sorry for what they had done and now wanted everyone to worship the God who answered by fire. But instead, she doubled down on her commitment to the pagan deities and put a death threat-a hit on Elijah’s life.

You would think this man of God, who stood unflinching against the onslaught of the wicked one, would fearlessly continue to soldier on in the face of this woman promising she’s going to kill him. He had not been afraid to go toe-to-toe with 450 prophets on the mountain, so why would he be scared of a simple woman declaring that she was out to get him? But that’s not what happens; for he falls and flounders in the backwash on the back end of the wave of the Holy Spirit. Verse 3: when he saw her message, he arose and ran for his life and went to Beer Sheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. So now he’s alone, and he even isolates himself from his assistant, from his help, from the one who’s there to support him. So now he’s fully by himself, and he went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. He prayed that he might die and said, «It is enough now, Lord; take my life. I want to die, for I am no better than my forefathers who are currently dead.» As he lay and slept under the broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, «Arise and eat.» Then he looked, and by his head there was a cake baked on coals and a jar of water. So he ate, drank, and lay down, falling asleep again.

The angel of the Lord came back the second time and touched him and said, «Arise and eat because this journey is too great for you.» So he arose, ate, and drank and went in the strength of that food for 40 days and 40 nights. Some pretty good food baked by the angel! You might call it angel food cake. I do apologize and will not use that again, but it was appropriate, so I decided to go for it. He came to Horeb, the Mountain of God. If you’re a notetaker, in the margin of your Bible or on the note with your Bible app, you might write «Sinai,» for this is the same location-Horeb, the Mountain of God-where Moses encountered a burning bush one day that was on fire but didn’t get consumed because the tree wasn’t the fuel; God was supplying the fuel. You see, where God supplies the fuel, it never flickers. It can burn but not burn up because it’s not burning you as fuel; it’s burning Him as fuel. «Not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit,» says the Lord. Amen? You can burn but not burn up; you don’t run out of fuel because the fuel doesn’t come from you; it comes from God.

On that same mountain, where Moses encountered the One who spoke through the burning bush, there also came the Shekinah glory of God descending upon it. Moses, who came to meet with God, received two stone commandments. Famously, Moses was hidden in the shelter of the rock so that the glory of God wouldn’t destroy him, but he would just, in fact, glow in the dark for a number of weeks because of what he encountered as God proclaimed His name and goodness passing before Moses. This is a significant place; this is a special spot. Anybody with me on that?

And so it’s to a special spot he’s called in his time of despondency. Notice verse 13. The word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, «What are you doing here, Elijah?» So he said, «I’ve been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have now forsaken Your covenant, torn down all Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and now they seek to take my life.» Then He said, «Okay, go out, stand on the mountain before the Lord.» Behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but notice the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind, an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire, a still small voice.

So it was when Elijah heard it that he wrapped his face in his mantle because he remembers Moses’s story, and God said it would kill you if you encounter me. He’s like, «I’m not taking any chances. I’m putting my balaclava on.» He went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. Suddenly, a voice came to him and said-remember, it’s a still small voice-"What are you doing here, Elijah?» He repeats the answer in case God, who might be hard of hearing, didn’t get it last time. He repeats exactly the same answer: «I’ve been very zealous for the Lord God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and now they seek to destroy my life.»

So the Lord said to him, «Here we go: go return on your way. I have a calling on your life. I want you to get back to it, get back on the horse that you swore you would never get back on after it bucked you off. Get back in that ocean to surf even though you had a bad experience, and you went overhead and crashed and hit the coral reef. Even though it didn’t go great, I want you to go get back to your calling, the way that I put on you, the wilderness of Damascus. When you arrive, you’re to anoint Hazael as king of Syria. Then I want you to find Jehu, son of Nimshi, anoint him as king over Israel. Then you’re going to find a farmer who’s plowing with oxen named Elisha, the son of Shaphat, of Abel Meholah, and you are going to anoint him as prophet who will be the prophet in your place when you’re dead.

It shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill. Whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill. Yet, listen to me, buddy boy; I have reserved 7,000 in Israel, all whose knees have never bowed once to worship Baal, and these 7,000 have lips that have not kissed him.

I was hiking at lunchtime on a hot day-triple digits; terrible plan. But the day had gotten away from me. You know, I find that if something’s important to get done, pushing it to the earliest part of the morning is generally the safest route before the day gets crazy. Meeting with God, working out, doing any creative work-these are things that I try and do before the day begins, right? You have the least control over the time of day into which we generally try and cram everything. So if you go to sleep earlier and wake up earlier, you can have a massive window of time to do something important toward what God has put on your life: to meet with Him, to prioritize health.

For me, working out is a keystone habit; I find my soul’s doing better when my body is exercising. When I’m sweating, when I’m working some of that tension and stress out that gets kind of accumulated in the system. In summertime, I try to do this outside. It was a year ago on this hot day that I was like, „Ah, I didn’t get my workout in; everything got wild; East Coast came in early.“ Here we are, and I’m at noon hiking; it’s 100 degrees, but I’m like, „I just have an hour, so I’m just going to power through this thing.“

Of course, haste makes waste, and so I forgot to bring water. I didn’t have any snacks and I’m just going for it, right? If you’re going to work out short, it’s got to be hard. So I’m just grinding up this steep hill, and they say your top end of your heart rate should be 220 minus your age. Your max heart rate: take 220, subtract your age; that should be what you could expect your max heart rate to be- which for me would be about 180. When I noticed on my fitness monitor that I was pushing 190, I thought maybe I should slow down a little bit because I started to feel that weird warm, light-headed, sluggish feeling that usually is a precursor to cardiac arrest. So I thought, let’s just back it down; my heart rate’s getting close to hummingbird territory.

Then I’m like, „Man, I’m woozy; I don’t know if I’m going to be able to finish this hike out.“ Exactly what I needed, at my hottest and my most discouraged, I came around a corner and changed direction; a clearing opened up, and the most beautiful breeze just began to wash over me. I wanted to bathe in it; it was so lovely, this wind. I was like, „Oh my gosh, all my skin that had been covered in sweat was now turning into an air conditioning system.“ That’s how God designed us! Why do we sweat? So we can dump heat, and when air passes over it, you become a human swamp cooler. All of a sudden, „Oh my gosh, the AC is on!“

I was just drinking this in and the words came out of my mouth involuntarily, „What a welcome wind this is!“ This wind, I was like, „Oh, it’s so welcome!“ I thought to myself, „There’s not been a happier person to encounter a breeze in all the history of the world than I feel right now.“ I was like, „Thank you, God, for this wind!“ But then God spoke back to me, and it wasn’t like an audible voice; it wasn’t „Thus saith the Lord;“ it wasn’t weird; it was just an impression I felt. Here’s what I felt like God was speaking to me in this moment: You don’t have to wait for the wind to welcome it. You don’t have to wait for the wind to come along so you can find that wind to be welcome in your life.

As I felt that, as I registered in my spirit, all of a sudden, like a series of windows opening up on a computer browser, I thought back to all the different times in my life I had done that particular hike and how many of the times at that exact same spot a wind had picked up. Almost always, actually, coming around that corner, there was usually a wind blowing from that direction, and because of the break in the trees, you usually would come into the wind at that moment. I had completely forgotten about that.

I had been like, „Oh, I’m hot; I’m going to go to the windy space.“ I wasn’t just like, „Oh wow, what a lovely wind this is,“ right? Like how you feel maybe if you haven’t been to church for a while, or haven’t been reading scripture for a while, then all of a sudden, one day something that God does blesses you-a little scripture comes across your feet, or a little clip on your YouTube short. „Oh my gosh,“ you’re like, „That wind is welcome!“ And God’s like, „Hello, you don’t have to wait for a wind to come along that blesses you and then be surprised by it!“

Like Jacob, who had been running from God, thought God wasn’t with him, that there was no hope for him, and so he slept hopelessly in the desert one day. God showed up in his desert and showed him He had a plan for him and still loved him. Jacob, you know what he said when he woke up? „That was a welcome wind!“ Right? He literally said, „God was in this place, and I didn’t know it!“ I had no idea God still wanted me. I had no idea God could be there. I had no idea that if I sought God, He would answer. I had no idea that even though I’ve made my bed in hell, basically, that still, God’s here.

So here’s what God was saying to me: you don’t have to just stumble upon wind and then be like, „Wow dang!“ like a laggard or a late adopter. Turns out, VCRs are not the way; even DVDs aren’t that good-turns out you can just download! I heard someone try to describe a new technology to you that’s not very new. „Yes, yes! There’s this thing on my phone; I can talk to her, and she’ll tell me the answer to a math problem.“ Wow, you discovered Siri! Like, like, that’s me spiritually sometimes: I’m like, „Wow, turns out I feel better when I put worship music on instead of just scrolling Instagram.“

It’s like the craziest thing! What you’re saying is that you don’t just wait for a wind to show up and then, when God, through His common grace-even though you’re not pursuing Him at all-stumbles upon you, just be like, „Wow, what a welcome wind! Turns out God is really good, and worship is really amazing.“ You have no idea the scripture that blessed me, right? You can-here we go-welcome the wind. Like that’s just semantics? No, no, no, there’s a huge difference of peace between a welcome wind and you realizing, „No, no, we actually can welcome the wind.“

As I continued the rest of the way up that hill that day, I thought about Ezekiel standing over a valley of dry bones and being instructed to prophesy to the bones and to prophesy to the wind. As if he, as he prophesied God’s truth over his circumstances and obeyed God-even though it felt weird in that moment — that mighty rushing wind continued to blow. The heartbeat of this collection of messages is the part that we have to play in going to the windy location; you see what I’m saying? Orienting our lives around what God loves to bless-that’s the heartbeat.

So no, I’m not trying to say we can control and predict exactly like a series of dominoes: if you do this, this will happen. But what I am saying is that God, through His Holy Spirit, who wants to send waves upon your life of His Spirit, has certain things He likes to bless. He’s a God of order, not a God of chaos or confusion, so there are predictable rhythms to what God likes to bless. Throughout the movements of the series, we’re trying to discover what those might be, and today we come to God’s whisper.

Because if you want to welcome the wind, honey, you have to get good at welcoming the whisper. The whisper- God did not speak through the earthquake; He was not in the fire, but a still small voice. Why does God often choose to whisper? Four things that we can know behind the scenes are happening when God chooses to whisper.

Number one: God whispers because He knows what you need. He knows what you need, and it’s not just that God whispered-I believe it’s key when God whispered. God whispered when His servant had troughed on the back end of blessing, when there was melancholy and meltdown on the back of a major ministry milestone. Just as the devil came after the dove in Jesus’s life, so often the valley low comes on the heels of the mountain high. In observing this, we can anticipate and predict it and sort of do some jiu-jitsu against it, right?

That’s what Paul meant when he said not to be ignorant concerning Satan’s devices or schemes. There are certain predictable ways to how the enemy works, and one of the ways he works is the moment you’ve had a great big victory or accomplishment. You have to almost expect there’s going to be a backwash, a trough; there’s going to be his attempt to break you on the back end of breakthrough. Sometimes, when people ask me about some things in ministry that maybe they could learn, they’ll ask me, „Like, what do you do after a bad Sunday?“ Right? You ever have a bad Sunday? Like, „Oh gosh, I’ve preached some stinkers; there have been some bad Sundays!“ Right? How do you recover?

I’m like, „Oh, the bad Sundays are fine! It’s the good Sundays that are the problem.“ What do you mean? „Oh man, the good Sundays: like, are you worried about pride? Like, it goes to your head?“ „Wow, God did something!“ I’m like, „No, because I’ve got wet wood, and anytime it burns, I’m like, 'That' s not me; my life’s been covered in water! '“ Right?

So this is wet wood. If God poured out His fire, that’s all on Him. We did something weird; He blessed it-that’s amazing! The problem for me isn’t like the big pride of like, „I walk away from a great Sunday and think, 'Yeah, I really did it! '“ It’s like the fire fell; praise God! They said, „What do you mean?“ Then, what’s so hard about a good Sunday? In my mind, it becomes like this high watermark of „Are we ever going to see that great again? Are we ever going to see God move like He did in that moment?“ That’s the discouraging part of it. I’ve got to do that again and figure out, „Watch God, how are you going to top that?“

Which, which is human thinking and not even the right level of thinking, but those are the discouraging thoughts that are not logical but are real for me. So a Monday after a great Sunday can be hard, or a great tour or a great time where we just watched God move in power-the back end of that when you walk, when you watch your dreams come true and not when they become a nightmare is oftentimes the greatest discouragement. The enemy will sneak in; some of us worry so much about, „What if we fail?“ What if we fail? „Oh my gosh, what if it doesn’t happen?“ You should have a plan for what you will do if it does!

I was talking to a friend this week, and he told me, „I’ve sold multiple companies that I started, and the most miserable I’ve ever been was the day all my dreams came true.“ He said, „In that moment, I sold these two companies simultaneously in one stroke of a pen; I knew my children and my grandchildren would never want for money.“ In that one moment, this is generational, life-changing wealth, and he said, „I’ve never in my life been more miserable.“ That’s the enemy sneaking in. That’s the enemy trying to bring a breaking of you because of the breakthrough, because of walking in our dreams.

There’s a low — a satanic low-that comes. We have to expect it, we have to anticipate it, and we have to remember in those moments God knows what you need. And hear me: you need His whisper. But notice before the whispering came on the Mountain, first an angel came who brought Elijah some very tangible solutions to his problem.

What do you mean? I mean, Elijah was a person with a number of issues; he was disappointed; he was discouraged; he was depleted. Notice he was also distorted in how he was looking at life. All these things were remedied by what God did with him and for him on the mountain. We’ll unpack more of these as it goes, but physically, functionally speaking, he had been running hard. When you’ve been running hard for a season, a sprint season, a go-go-go season when there are times when you’re utilizing margin, you’re not refilling a tank of margin, you have to realize that can only be sustained by a human for so long.

Eventually, either the Red Bull detox needs to begin or you’re going to crash! You know that you have, just like I have, a max heart rate that I was exceeding. I was toying with that boundary, so it comes to pace, so it comes to schedule, so it comes to bandwidth and aptitude and plate size and all the other areas in which we can be run down. Elijah was now, because he was a mighty miracle- working prophet, that happened to be a pretty big plate for this cat. I mean, the things this guy got to be a part of-not only fire falling. I mean, that’s one of the least weird days of his life-the day fire fell, and he had to kill 450 prophets.

There was also the day when God had him live in a drought by drinking from a brook, and whenever he got hungry, God would send-not drones-ravens! Literal ravens were to bring him his food. I have long wondered what that looked like, right? Did the raven drop it into his hand? And then eventually, like, the raven started dropping it from higher and higher, and eventually he just opened his mouth and just put his hands down like, „I’m just like, what in the world?“

There was the day that God told him to go into King Ahab’s house and say it’s not going to rain until I say it will. That was his whole message: „It’s not going to rain until I say it will,“ and then he ran away. They were laughing at the weird man who just thought he could control the weather until it stopped raining, and then they were like, „Where is that guy? Where is that guy? He has to say it’ll rain, so we’ve got to find him.“ So he became Public Enemy Number One.

They’ve got to find him; he was billed as a terrorist: „We have to find this guy! He controls the weather.“ And you know, he got to see someone raised to life who had died. He was the first person in all of scripture to participate in God raising someone from the dead. That’s a pretty big deal! He also was fed by a widow one time, right? He was hungry; there’s no food. God said, „I got food for you; go to the widow of Zarephath’s house.“ He’s like, „God, widows don’t have a lot of food! Send me to someone who’s got a lot of food, who’s got lots of money.“

„No, no, go to the widow’s house.“ He’s like, „All right, hey, how are you doing?“ She’s like, „I’m doing terrible; there’s no food.“ He’s like, „Oh sweet, I’m super hungry; can you give me some food?“ She’s like, „Did you hear me? My son and I have no food. There’s only a little food. This is our only food. We’re going to eat this food, and we’re going to die after we eat this food.“ He’s like, „Yes, be that as it may, could you make me some food first, and then you can make food and go ahead and die after the fact, but please, just I’m very hungry; could you…?“

What did I say about welcoming the weird? To welcome the wind-so she goes! Amazingly, all right, I’ll put God first! Sometimes that’s how it feels when we give. „I don’t know how this is going to work; God calls me to give a tithe to support the work of God in the world. I don’t-it’s not that I want to; it’s just that I don’t have enough!“ It never is going to make sense because that’s why it involves faith. And so she puts God first, even though it shouldn’t work out. What happens after she makes a cake for him?

She looks back in the oil bin, and there should be no oil, but there’s oil left. She looks into the flour bin; there should be no flour, but there’s flour left! So she makes another pancake for her and another pancake for her son, and as long as she keeps pouring, there continues to be flour and oil, and they live through this entire famine supernaturally on the provision of God.

Why? Because she trusted God! Just like God said, „Test me in this! Just see! I know it doesn’t make sense! Welcome the weird! See what happens when you trust Me! Watch if I do not pour out a blessing on your life that you won’t even be able to receive because you’re opening your windows to My provision in your life!“ And Elijah got to see and experience all of that.

In the process, he had put his own needs on the back burner, running and running and running and running and running. He had bonked; he had hit a wall. The angel knew-God knew-to send the angel that Elijah needed some very practical things: a good night’s rest because he was discouraged, needed some food, and so the angel baked him bread. He needed water, so the angel-like, what is this angel thinking? „This is the weirdest job I’ve ever had! I’m getting this prophet water because he hadn’t been drinking for his own self.“

Elijah wakes up from his nap: „An angel? I am indeed an angel.“ „What are you doing?“ „I made you breakfast.“ „Thank you!“ Like, Elijah doesn’t even like skip a beat; he eats it and just goes back to sleep. God knew he didn’t even just need a nap; he needed multiple naps! This is how bad his mood was!

We took Olivia to college last week and dropped her off for her freshman year, and when we first got there, all of us freaked out-she freaked out, I freaked out. We, you know, she almost was like, „I don’t know; do we make a mistake?“ There was this moment for all of us like Jenny and I had to agree beforehand-we were not backing like, „We, this is what we decided!“ Because either of us would be like, „Come with me! You’re coming in my bag! We’re all going home! I’ll take you to safety.“ And we all had this, and it was this moment of like, we' d been traveling all day, and it was funny; she goes, „I think I just need a shower and something to eat.“

We all had that little nap, some food, a shower, and it was amazing how much better we felt on the back end! We didn’t sit down and have a Bible study; we didn’t like, you know, pray and fast for the next two hours. Sometimes, you don’t need a spiritual encounter; you need a sandwich, you know what I’m saying?

Sometimes we’re looking for supernatural solutions to physical problems, right? You’re like, „I just-I feel like I need to go -I need to find a monastery for two weeks of silence. I need to… „God’s like, „Actually, you just need some enchiladas!“ Not just the eating of them, the making of them. Baked bread? You bake bread; it’s a process! The baking-the angel had to bake the bread; it wasn’t just like poof, there’s bread! The process of making bread is good for you!

I think about how in my life when I don’t grab an egg sandwich that’s keto-approved from Costco and microwave it and eat it on the go to the next thing, but when I take the time to crack some eggs and heat up the pan and put some butter in it, how good it is for your soul to be still long enough to make some food in our lives, rather than just on the go and driveth through.

And here we go! Just these little moments of the restoration and rejuvenation of Elijah’s soul came through the whisper of cooking and eating and sleeping, and so it is for you. I think if you’re like, „Dude, I got headaches. I don’t know. Can you pray for me, Pastor? I got headaches! I’m going to pray for you for sure, but I’m also going to ask you, are you dehydrated?“ „No, you don’t understand, it’s a demonic affliction!“ „No, I think it’s actually Diet Coke! That’s your problem, right?“

Some of these little things God will do for you what you can’t do for you, but God will not do for you what you can do for you. Your nutrition and your rest and your screen time and your Netflix watch history- these are all things that play into the peace that we either are enjoying or forfeiting on any given moment. And so a depleted prophet gets a meal, and a discouraged, disappointed, and distorted prophet is going to get God’s whisper.

So God knows what you need. God also, number two, will whisper because He wants you to lean in. The interesting thing is that when someone’s shouting, you can sit back, but if someone whispers, you want to hear what they have to say. You’re going to lean in. You’re going to turn down, like if the phone’s not loud enough, you’re talking-"Turn down the music! Come on, turn that down! We’re lost; we need to focus in; figure out where we are! We need silence; we intuitively know when you get lost turn the radio off; I need to lean in here for a second!»

The Bible tells us that if we seek God with our whole heart, if we lean in, if our posture is «Speak, Lord; your servant listens,» we will, in fact, hear from Him. God wants you to lean in. He says so specifically: Psalm 46:10, «Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.» Habakkuk 2: «The Lord is in His holy temple; let all the earth keep silent before Him.» The flesh is so loud; the media is so loud; even friends and people in our life can be so loud!

We have to be still; we have to be quiet. God refuses to shout! People shout because they’re trying to command attention, right? Insecure leaders shout! Insecure leaders always-have you ever had like a boss or someone in a leadership role in your life who’s always reminding you they’re in charge? «Well I’m in charge here! You need to listen to me!»

Hey, newsflash! You might have authority, but not influence. If you have to keep reminding people under you how important you are, God won’t shout because God has no competition; God has no rival; God has no equal. God is not insecure about His place, so He sits and waits to be wanted. He waits for us to lean in to come to the place of saying, «You, God in heaven, I am here on earth, so I’m going to let my words be few and do more listening than talking, because I want to hear what You have to say.»

If we’re not careful, in doing the things that we do for God, it eventually can become more about us than about Him. I wonder if that’s not why Elijah starts to go, «Well, all this has happened, and I tried this, and it didn’t work, and no one knows the troubles I’ve seen.» It starts to be this chip on his shoulder, what he’s done for God.

God just simply says, «What are you doing here?» What are you doing here, Elijah? Not just here on this mountain, but here at this outlook, here at this place of bitterness. Almost it’s kind of like you can tell there’s some sense of injustice in his heart of how God’s acting-or not acting-and how things are going. He’s becoming critical; he’s becoming, you know, sort of, this is not who he was. He’s the guy willing to go get fed by ravens; he’s the guy willing to go in and say it’s not going to rain. But now, you know, after Mount Carmel, there wasn’t the response to his preaching he thought there would be. Jezebel didn’t give him a standing ovation, and clearly, he had some unrealistic expectations of how he thought things were going to go post-Mount Carmel, and God’s dealing with it.

God’s not trying to remind him, «No, no, don’t worry, don’t worry, don’t worry!» Buddy, God’s not going to do that for you! God’s not trying out to be your God; He’s glorious whether or not you recognize it, and He will not cease to be glorious if you keep back your song because rocks will begin to praise Him. He will not be a bit less holy if you don’t describe Him as holy-a bit less glorious if you don’t speak His glory. He will not change if you don’t praise Him. But you will because you were created to bring Him glory; you were created to bring Him honor. You can never become what God’s called you to be outside of your worship rendered unto Him. You will always end up distorted like Elijah, and He wants you to lean in with that posture of humility and faith.

Why? So that your doing for God can come from your being still before God. Acts puts it this way: in Him we live and move and have our being. In Him, Acts says we live-look at it on the screen-and move and have our being. Acts 17:28. Our being still before Him is meant to drive all the doing, doing, doing for Him. I believe the earthquake and the fire and the wind are all characteristics of God doing in our lives. In Acts, they preached the word of God with boldness; the ground shook like an earthquake as they were filled with the Spirit to go out and bring the gospel to the whole world. Fire came upon their heads, and a mighty rushing wind showed up in their midst.

So doing, doing, doing-earthquake, there’s nothing wrong with any of those things, but God is not in our doing that does not come from our being still before Him. Because otherwise, we will end up boasting in our gift, boasting in the part we play, boasting in our contribution to the work instead of boasting in the fact that we know and get to walk with God, the creator of the ends of the earth, who did the work, who lit the wet wood on fire yet again!

We’ll end up thinking it’s about us. What I’m trying to say is, if what you do for God doesn’t come from time spent with God, you will begin to think that you’re God, and that’s why it was a mistake for Martha to work in the kitchen instead of sitting at the feet of Mary. Because she ended up criticizing Jesus. «Jesus, tell my sister to help me!» Whoa! Whoa! Tell my-like he’s ordering Jesus around! Right? But that’s the same critical, bitter spirit that will end up inside of us like a root of bitterness if we’re not sitting at His feet like Mary, being a human being before we rise up for the doing.

Where the earthquake, the fire, and the wind all have their place, but only if it’s first driven by Heaven’s whisper. So, Levi, how do I hear from God? «I want to hear from God!» Okay, three things; jot them down.

How do we hear from God? We first have to want to. It’s a simple step, but have you told God, «God, I want to hear from You? God, speak to me»? So don’t rush into your devotional time or your «fit for the fight» reading or even time in prayer without first saying, «God, I want to hear from you.» God waits to be wanted! Secondly, create space! Functional time where the phone’s off, or in another room, or the TV, and all the other things are distractions.

How could you ever think you’d hear from God if there’s never any time in your schedule where you can’t hear from people? We make the mistake of thinking we need to be reachable at all times. There are things you can do to your phone to where if your wife calls twice, she’ll get through, while no other text will come through. But maybe that one person-that’s our reason for not, you know, getting away.

So we have to want it, and then we have to, secondly, make space. Here’s a really important third step-ready? Do whatever He tells you! I think the real problem with God talking to us isn’t that He never does; it’s that He often does. We just don’t like what He told us to do, so we’re hoping He’ll tell us something different, if we just keep waiting long enough.

But why would God tell you something new if you didn’t do the last thing He told you to do? And why didn’t you do it? You’re like, «Well, if I’m honest, it’s because what He told me to do was weird.» Welcome to the wind! Welcome to following Him! So here you go: do whatever the last weird thing He told you to do that doesn’t make sense to you, and then you watch as He continues to speak a new word to you in between now and then.

He’s saying to you what He said to Elijah, and He’ll say it again as many times as it takes before you get whatever’s blocking the flow out: «What are you doing here?» What are you doing here? I think it’s actually a really simple question that He asked because of where he functionally was. Where was he? For the first time in the entire recorded ministry of Elijah, the prophet, he was doing something that God didn’t tell him to do! God told him to wait for ravens! God told him to tell the widow to give him a pancake!

God told him to predict no more rain! Not one place do you ever hear God going-the word of the Lord came to me: «Run from Jezebel for your life!» Because as I read Ephesians 6, we have a breastplate and a helmet, a shield and shoes, and a sword, but there is nothing guarding the Christian back because God never intends for you to turn tail and run from your calling!

«What are you doing here, Elijah? Didn’t I give you an assignment? Did I stutter? Get back to your way! Eat your little pancake, take your little nap, recharge your little’woe is me' tank, and then be a man and keep doing what I’ve called you to do! Because I haven’t abandoned you; I’m still your God; I’m still the lifter of your head; I am still with you; I am still for you.» Oh, you’re scared? You’re scared that Jezebel is mad at you? You’re scared you got an angry email from someone who didn’t like you doing what I called you to do? Welcome to following God! Death threats don’t feel good; ask me how I know.

Elijah got this death threat; he’s like «Ahh!» And he freaks out and runs from his calling. And so God said, «What are you doing here?» He wants you to lean in so He can speak that same question to you if you’ve wandered.

And then, thirdly, this is a reminder that God has a plan, and it unfolds in His instructions. I want you to go anoint this guy; that’s the king of Syria. He’s a pagan king over a different country-that’s okay; you don’t have to understand how it’s all working together. I’m playing chess here, not checkers, bro!

So go do what I told you to do! How is that going to work to this? «I’ve got a bigger plan; I’m working three moves ahead! I’m going to involve this other king because I turn the hearts of the kings of this world to accomplish My will and bring it to pass, so you don’t have to understand it; just obey it.»

Then raise up this guy, and raise up that guy! What is He doing? He’s redirecting the self-importance, the self-pity, and the narcissism that I relate to so much because I see my part in this whole thing and get all stuck on that. Then it’s like, «Why aren’t other people as committed? Why aren’t other people working as hard? Why aren’t people taking…» And God’s like, «Ooh, that sounds really hard being you!»

And so God wants him to redirect his focus back to God, and whenever we do that, God will always push it back to other people because joy is spelled Jesus, others, you! So we focus on God, and He says, «What about others?» «Okay, go raise up another prophet! Go reach another guy! Go encourage someone else!» Oh, you don’t feel? Who can you minister to? Who can you touch so they can be serving God on the earth after you’re gone? He wants his mind on legacy; He wants his mind on faithfulness and trusting that God has a plan that he’ll be able to do that and participate in.

The problem he had and that I have is that we all think it’s going to be some big thing that God’s going to use. «God, use the fire! As I pray it, as it comes down, that’s going to return everyone’s hearts back to you.» The truth is, the real revival was going to come not through one prophet praying some epic prayer on a mountain but through 7,000 different people all responding to the whisper of the God who called Elijah.

So, hey God, when we are reminded I have a tiny part to play, so would You help me encourage a middle schooler to hear Your whisper and obey at school and this person-Elisha-who’s currently a farmer, but he doesn’t know God’s got plans for him. Even this other king of this other country; he’s going to participate in it all.

God, would You keep whispering? Would you help me foster the whisper in all Your people that they might prophesy Your word to their circumstances? God, would you welcome the whisper all over the world, and I could just be a tiny part in Your huge plan. I’m not going to get frustrated or mad when it doesn’t go how I thought it would go or when I thought it would go.

I’m going to close with this: The whisper tells us that God is near! God is near, and when we encounter the whisper, it should tell us something. It should tell us God’s not far, like we feel. If you end up down in the dumps where, like Elijah, you are saying, «I’d rather be dead,» you’re discouraged at that level. It’s because you probably feel like God’s forgotten about you and God’s far from you.

But for someone to whisper, what do they have to be? Close! God can whisper to your heart. God was with me on that hike; God is with you in your bed; God is with you in your car; God is with you in your discouragement, He’s with you in your disappointment, He’s with you in being frustrated with how the universe is playing out, how your dreams aren’t coming to pass, and how your kids misbehave, and how your marriage is struggling, and how hard of a time you’re having at work or in ministry.

Today, God just whispers to remind you that He’s near. He is a God, Jeremiah says, near at hand, not a God far off. My little sister got a gift certificate for a massage, and she forgot to use it! You ever have a gift certificate lying around? You keep meaning to get around to it, right? And you just forget. Then she noticed it was about to expire; it was about to expire, and she’s like, «Oh my gosh, I’ve got to get a booking in or this thing’s going to go to waste!»

So she called. When she called, there was no booking available for a massage. But the lady said to her, «We do have room for a sound bath on Tuesday.» She said, «A sound bath? That sounds nice!» Right? At a spa, like a sound bath-like, I don’t know what I would think. I would think, like, wonderful music happening while you go in a hot tub, you know what I mean? It wasn’t that at all!

She was brought into a room, laid down on a yoga mat, given a face mask, and then someone played cymbals and wind chimes over her while she lied there on the ground relaxing-a literal sound bath! Can you imagine getting bathed with sound? Right? Someone’s listening going, «I do sound baths for a living!» Right? I’m sorry! It sounds amazing, but I personally would find that highly uncomfortable, right? «Like, rub my sore muscles! I’m with my sound waves!»

It’s like, «No! Use your hands!» You know? Oh my gosh! She said it was pleasant! Actually, that was her review. She said it was actually pleasant! Right? She said, «I think if I had a friend there, I’d be giggling, but because I was alone, I was able to just sink in and enjoy the notes as they washed over me.»

She said there were singing bowls, which made her a little uncomfortable, but I was like, «I didn’t even know a bowl could sing!»

Maybe today you’re like, «No, God, do something! Get your hands in there and do something!» Maybe God knows you just need that sound bath; you just need space for His Holy Spirit. Maybe if you would just, we close our eyes and prepare to close out this time together, just give God some space. As the keys begin to play, you receive help in your spirit. Lifting your eyes up, I just want to remind you that God is with you. I’m going to read from the words of Jesus, and I want to whisper them to you as Jesus whispers them over you:

«I am with you always, even to the end of the age. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. I’m with you always, even to the end of the age.» You can trust in Him. Be still. God, we’re still before You. We know we need You. Forgive us for the ways we’ve turned from You. Forgive us for the ways we’ve forgotten about You and made it all about ourselves in the process. Heal us and help us, Lord! If today you would say, «I needed this; I needed this! I have some version of Elijah in my life right now; I’m discouraged, I’m disappointed, I’m depleted, and my lens has gotten distorted.» If that’s you I’m describing, could you just let God know it, wherever you are-every location, church online-by raising up your hand? Raising up your hand, you say, «I needed the whisper; I needed that sound bath from God’s mouth; I needed to be touched.» If that’s you I’m describing, I want to pray for you, but just put your hand up; it’s a show of dependence; it’s a show of vulnerability and humility.

Father, I pray Your blessing on these whose hands are raised because they’re weary in the work; they’ve experienced breakthrough in some way, and it’s come as it’s come into their life, so has backlash. The devil is trying to break them because of what You’ve done for them! And I pray, God, that they would know that You haven’t given any armor to protect their back. Running like Elijah, we’re never going to find peace as we run from You but run to You towards what scares us, towards what doesn’t seem like it’ll make a difference!

Why would it if I raised up a prophet and a king? God, whatever He’s telling you, do it! Whatever He’s telling you to do, do it! He doesn’t need you to understand Him; He needs you to obey Him. But right now, He wants you to know He is for you! He is for you! He is for you! He is for you! He is with you! He stands behind you! He loves you! You can put your hands down.

I want to now invite anybody who’s never trusted in Jesus for salvation to make that decision. The Bible says that we just have to trust and believe. It’s not about what we do but what He did on the cross and rising from the dead. If that’s you I’m describing, you need to give your life to Jesus. Say this with me, Church; pray it with us:

«Dear God, please come into my heart. Forgive me of my sins. I can’t do anything to fix myself, but I believe that You can, so I ask You to. In Jesus' name.»