Give god first

First of Kings chapter 17 verse 8 onwards, says: "He came to him" to Elijah, and that later is because there is something that precedes, a few verses before Elijah has fled from Jezebel and Hacab because he has declared a drought in judgment against Israel Because of his sin and his corruption, God has told Elijah to escape into the desert and has hidden him there near a stream, and has sent ravens, you remember that famous story, ravens to feed him, and Elijah remains hidden there for a while in reserve but at the moment after God provided him in that extraordinary way he says that the stream dried up and then it was time to look for another solution, very interesting, we don't have time to discuss that so much, but the fact is that God gives him instructions to the prophet then to go to another place and here begins this narrative.

It says that: "He came" after drying up in the stream, "to him" to Elijah "the word of the Lord saying: Arise, go to Sarepta of Sidon, and dwell there, and behold, I have given orders there to a widow woman that sustains you So he got up and went to Sarepta.”

"And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, a widow woman was there gathering sticks, and he called her, and said to her, please bring me a little water in a glass that I may drink." A very small intermission and this has almost nothing to do with it, but this idea captivated me: how old do you think this widow was, how old? it was probably a younger woman, because one thinks of a widow and generally one thinks of a woman like that, but the fact that she has a son and that in one case Elijah carried him and she also carried him, later more Later there is the story of the son dying and being resurrected by the prophet, evidently she is a relatively young woman, in the prime of her life, however she is already a widow and is in a very, very pressing situation.

It seems interesting to me because one sometimes thinks that, well, a person is already old and that is why she is a widow but no, she is a woman who is experiencing a relatively young stage of her life and the Lord calls her to redeem her in a sense of his misery. And she is there choosing firewood, and he called her and said: I beg you to bring me a little water in a glass so that I can drink, and going to bring him the water, he called her again and said: I beg you to bring a morsel of bread.

Now it occurred to me that one day one could preach a sermon entitled: Occurrences of God, because notice that the prophet says to her: bring me a little bit of water and then as a second little thing: and if you bring me a little bit of Bread I'll thank you too. That occurrence is the central part of the entire message.

Do you know how sometimes God sort of prepares the ground for us to trip and sometimes He tells us: do this and one says: oh of course, I can do it but then he has something else more important? Then that second occurrence of Elias: ah, bring me a little bread if you can too.

But she, verse 12, replied: "As the Lord your God lives" in other words, pay attention to what I am going to tell you, "I don't have any baked bread, I only have a handful of flour in the jar, and a little oil in a vessel; and now I was collecting two logs, to go in and prepare it for me and my son, so that we could eat it, and let ourselves die.”

If there is a gloomy and tragic scene in Scripture this is one of them. A woman reaching the end of her resources, one last meal that she has left and she knows that what awaits her on the other side of that meal is certain death, starvation because there is nothing else, as they say out there, nor manna, simply that there is nothing else this time, there is nothing left, a little bit of oil to make a little bread there and then go into a room to simply wait for death.

So what is interesting is that in verse 13, I say that verse 12 is one thing and verse 13 is another, verse 12 is life lived without God, life lived only with the resources one has, life lived simply with a bare fist: with your mind, your resources, the circumstances but no divine intervention, and this woman has reached the end of her life.

And this is what happens many times with many of us who are often living in circumstances in life in which if one measures them from the point of view simply of what I can do, as there are many people in this world: there are many people who are very prepared. They are highly gifted and do not have God in their hearts, do not have Christ in their life, have neither the Word nor the principles of the Gospel to help them and can only depend on the resources that they have.

Let me tell you brother that life is too dangerous, too complicated and too threatening for you to want to live it on your own. Every man and every woman, no matter how gifted, needs an Almighty God (applause).

Because this world is a big trap, it is a minefield and you don't know where the explosive mines are. And you are walking and it may be that the first day, the second day, in the 25th year, everything will go relatively well, but one day, if you are only using your own resources, you will step on a mine, and it may be a mine of anxiety. , it can be a mine of marital problems, it can be a family mine, it can be an explosive mine of your emotions or your family lineage, or a demonic attack, or whatever, but if all you have are your personal resources to deal with that crisis sooner or later you are going to be defeated because no one can live this life fully successfully if they do not have God as their resource, and that is something we must carry in our hearts today.

If you are living life today only with your own resources instead of doing what every human being should do and admit that you cannot live by yourself, that you need an Almighty God to take you like a fragile child in His Hands and take you through the paths of life, every human being has to reach that moment.

When I came this morning in the cart to prepare for this service I said to the Lord: Take me in Your Hands and carry me through the next few hours, and God entered me into a moment of deep conviction, brothers, that by myself I could not I am able to guide this town and to keep it from the attacks of the enemy, and to keep it in health, and in security, that I desperately need as the main Pastor of this Congregation the Grace and mercy of God on my life, and that By myself the only thing I could do is a disaster, and that I need God to protect me even from myself, and that all the glory and all the honor are exclusively for the Lord.

Brother: we have to cultivate in our lives a sense of fragility, that is good. People think that the opposite is true: we must cultivate a sense of strength and sufficiency, no. The son, the daughter of God must continually recognize that by our own resources we can never because life and the devil will always be more powerful than us and that is why we need the additional strength that only God can provide.

At that moment when Elias finds her, this woman is the symbol of the human being living life with his own resources and the water is already reaching his neck, he is preparing to eat the last bit of bread he has and lie down to die. But now in verse 13 the Grace of God enters, the presence of the Kingdom of God incarnated in the prophet Elijah enters. With the prophet Elijah, resources enter the life of this woman, authority enters, the person focused on the Power of God enters, the person who knows that God is real and who knows that he can say as Elijah continually said: “live God in whose presence I stand."

Can we be that individual who makes a difference when he walks into a home where there is crisis, a marriage that is breaking up, a place where there is disease, a place where there is despair and mental disturbance, and when we walk into the Presence of God and the Kingdom of God with us? We can then intervene, intercede, declare the Grace of God because the Kingdom of God enters with us. That is what Elias represents right now. Elijah represents the Grace of God entering a desperate life and changing the whole landscape.

Then Elijah says: "Do not be afraid." My brothers, I would like each one of us this afternoon and myself also to supply ourselves with that call "do not be afraid", no matter how difficult your life seems, if the Lord is with us, who against us?

Elijah tells him: "Do not be afraid, go, do as you have said" and here is the key "but first make me a small cake baked under the ashes, and bring it to me." I want you to fix your mind on this Word because this is the center of the sermon: "do me first."

Elías tells her: yes, I know that your situation is urgent, I know that you are seriously deficient, and instead of telling her: don't worry, it's fine, eat your little meal there and I'll take care of it however I can, he tells her something that would seem totally outrageous and selfish, he tells her: do me first.

Brother: if that is all I can say this afternoon, you have enough to go home nourished spiritually, "Give to God first", that is the title of this sermon, "Give to God first." Get that into your heart and consciousness right now, “give to God first.”

Elijah as a representative of the Kingdom of God, because Elijah is not simply in his flesh saying: no, I want to eat first, no. Elijah is a prophet of God, Elijah embodies authority, he embodies the affairs of the Kingdom of God, he represents the Presence of God on Earth. He has Israel in checkmate with that drought that he has declared. Elijah represents the living and traveling authority of God on Earth.

And then, by serving the prophet, she is not only living a man of flesh and blood, she is serving the Kingdom of God that he incarnates, do I understand? and that is something very important that we have to understand, brother.

When we serve the concrete manifestations of the Kingdom of God on Earth we are serving God by extension and that is important for us to understand. The Bible says that when you bless a prophet because he is a prophet, you will receive a prophet's reward, right?

The Lord Jesus Christ in one of the parables says that he will come one day on the Day of Judgment and will say to some: Come, enter My Kingdom because I was naked and you clothed me, I was hungry and you gave me food, and the people seemed surprised : that I would not ask him that question, if God tells me: Come, come in, I am not going to ask him: ah but, clarify that for me, no, I would go in, but these people say to him: but Lord, when did we see you hungry and did we feed you? shut up (laughs), come in and that's it, enjoy it. When did we see you hungry and feed you, when did we see you naked and clothe you? and He says: because you did it to one of these little ones you did it to Me.

One has to expand one's mind to see that many times the things that one does in the Name of the Lord and for the extended glory of the Lord we are doing for Him and for His Kingdom as well, and many times we do not make that connection, and that is why I believe that sometimes we are stingy and tight when we have the opportunity to be used to bless others.

There are people who think: well, why do I have to give my tithe to the Church, why do I have to serve for free in the different ministries of the Congregation? brother, because the Church is the place that God has chosen, it is the instrument that God has chosen to channel His Grace here on Earth and when you bless your Church, when you bless someone from God's family, when you bless someone in the Name of the Lord and because you are being a channel of blessing, and you sacralize that moment and that act is because it is for the Lord that you are doing it.

So when Elijah says to this woman: give me first, he is telling her to invest in the Kingdom of God. And it is also telling you something very important that is the center of this message and that is that many times we cannot wait for God to solve all the problems in our lives so that we can then give to the Lord, and it does not have to be giving financially, brother, I clarify that, is to share the resources that God has given us in any creative way to advance His Kingdom.

It may be in terms of someone in need, it may be volunteering in a Church ministry, it may be blessing someone in need, it may be taking a moment of your time to make a phone call to a lonely elder. from the Church in need or to visit a family that has experienced a loss, pray with someone from work, all in the Name of the Lord. We are instruments in God's Hands and we must see ourselves that way, because if we wait until we have all the strength and all the resources to do God's work, we will never do it.

And God chose this woman, a symbol of total scarcity, a symbol of helplessness, a symbol of the inability to help someone, because she doesn't even have enough for herself.

The truth is, God has a sense of humor, right? God has a sense of irony that He could have chosen one of the rich in the country. He could have chosen someone who had enough food, a businessman, a food reserve owner, no. He chose a woman who had nowhere to drop dead and to that woman He gives the order to support the prophet, the condition that God places on him, and how many times, brothers, God tests us in very small ways.

Many of us want to be great evangelists, we want God to use us to bring multitudes. We say: Lord, take me to such a country and I will give you my body as a sacrifice, and a person comes around saying: brother, could you offer me a plate of food or whatever? or if an opportunity is offered in the Church to serve and we say: no, I am too tired.

We can go to a service in the middle of the week to honor the Lord and we feel the sinking in our spirit to go: no, I have to get up tomorrow morning and I have to work, I have to get up and deal with that alarm clock, I am too tired , I can't and I shouldn't, and maybe you're missing a great blessing.

There are times when God presents himself to us in very small ways to test us and to see what our hearts are made of, and if we said: yes, at that moment by faith God would open the window of heaven and bless us. I wonder how many opportunities we have lost to be blessed in our life because we have failed a little test that God has brought us.

She surely did not know Elías, she did not know that perhaps she was in charge of the most powerful man on Earth at that moment, but he tells her: give me, do me first. Brothers that is the key, I tell you this, that is the key to a powerful life in the Christian faith. That is the key to a life of power, success, influence, product in the Kingdom, to see your prayers answered, to see your needs met, to see the desires of your heart fulfilled, to see and taste the benefits. and the faithfulness of the Kingdom of God and the promises of God, give God first.

Many people wonder: but the Bible promises me this, God promises me that and I don't see such a thing, and I spend my whole life starting but I never get ahead, and it is because perhaps there is a tumor in our spiritual circulatory system that is enduring the flow of God's blessing, and it is that we have not given our hearts and our priority to the Lord.

There is an Isaac, there is something that we love more than God, something that perhaps we have not admitted but that in our spirit and in our mind, and in our subconscious we have said: yes Lord, You can have 98% but that 2% Unfortunately I can't give it to you.

It may be a habit in your life, it may be a trait of your temperament, it may be an attitude, it may be that there are things that you value most: your privacy, your comfort, your social or financial position, the esteem of people, your reputation, the friends that give you so much pleasure to be with them. There is something that you have said: I am willing to give everything else to the Lord, but that should not touch me, and perhaps you have not said it verbally, but God does not take only what you verbally admit, God knows the fibers of your heart, and it says that God reaches down to the marrow and divides the thoughts of the heart, and there is nothing that is hidden, it says, before His scrutiny.

And God knows those areas of our life, and we all have them, by the way, I tell you, that we have not yet delivered to the Lord, and what interests God is that you go to that place, to that which puts God in second place , and until you are willing to give him that precious thing in your life, you are stuck because the Lord is not content with less than first place in the heart of man or woman.

When the rich young man came to where Jesus rushed and urgently said to him: Lord Jesus, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life? you remember the passage, and the Lord says: well, going back to the occurrences of the Lord, right? well, nothing, keep the commandments and behave well, and he says to him: but Lord, if I've done that since my youth, that's easy, and the Lord says to him: oh well, look, all you have to do is : go to your bank account, take out all the money you have, give it to the poor and follow me, you will find the satisfaction that you need, you will find that salvation and that security that you are looking for.

The Bible says that the young man left sad because he made a kind of recognition in his mind: am I willing to give up my money, my reputation, my social influence? And when he did the math, he realized that he was not willing to give those things, and the Lord Jesus Christ was saddened with him because he understood that it was a sacrifice.

If you see throughout all of Scripture those moments of crisis in which a person is put with their sword against the wall and told: what do you prefer more, the Kingdom of God or the things of this world? and I think that is the key brother. When one has solved that problem in his life then God's blessings will flow. You will have trials, you will have difficulties but you will be victorious because the Lord sticks with you and says: Now I can work, now we can walk together, now I can do what I wanted to do in your life.

And this woman, her life depends, at least the next few minutes of her life, depends on that little bit of flour and that little bit of oil, and Elijah in the incarnation of the Kingdom of God tells her: look dare, do me first. And then he says: "Because the Lord, the God of Israel, has said so" wow. Have you stopped at that word? "for the LORD, the God of Israel, has said so." I ask the Lord to help me and all of us to speak with that authority.

How many of us can say: because God has said so? and we can pray that way, and we can walk with that authority, that does not come easily, brothers, that comes at a great price.

But Elijah can speak with that prophetic authority and tells him: listen to me, the flour in the jar will not become scarce, nor will the oil in the jar diminish until the day that Jehovah makes it rain on the face of the Earth. In other words, he tells him: see if you obey me, if you dare to go against your mind, against your reason, because that is one of the things that often prevents us, brothers, from doing the Will of the Lord and from entering that stage. of glory and victory, it is because our mind betrays us and we begin to do mathematics: ah but if I am this, that will happen to me, if I do this then I will lose the other, if I rush, so many things that compete with our opportunity to enter into the blessing of the Lord.

Right now there are people perhaps in this Congregation to whom God has been speaking for a long time about: Give Me first, give your life, believe me, open your will, open your heart, your spirit, and there are twenty thousand excuses that we give to the Lord. It's not the time, I don't feel ready, I have to fix a number of things, my life is not in order, ah! Those are man's nonsense, I can do that at home and I don't have to be doing it in front of anyone, there will be another time, it's not time yet, I have a long way to go to enjoy life, hundreds of reasons.

Times when God gives you an opportunity to bless His Church, to take a discipleship class and invest in your spiritual growth, to serve your Congregation in some way, to adopt a young person and disciple and mentor them, to consecrate yourself further in your life, to surrender some aspect of your life and get closer to the Lord and one says: ah, another time, that is not necessary, after all that is nonsense, God knows my heart, and our heart, and our mind begins to work, and we find ten thousand rational and logical reasons to say no to the offer of the prophet that is presented to our life.

And this woman has the opportunity right now to do something extraordinary and to step out of an anonymous, ordinary, ordinary, deficient life and into greatness, greatness for thousands of years. This event probably happened about 3,000-odd years ago, 3,000-odd, do the math. And this woman does not know that at that moment she is living a crossroads that depends on what she says to the prophet or what she does with the prophet's offer, she is going to continue in her misery or enter into spiritual greatness for all the eternity.

Look where we are today 3,000 years later in Boston as far as possible from the Brook of Cherith and from Sarepta of Sidon, and we are talking about this woman. And let me say something else, and I hope I don't forget the book of thoughts: this woman is pregnant and she doesn't know it. This woman carries within herself an embryo of greatness, an extraordinary mission and she doesn't know it. But God has already told the prophet Elijah: I have ordered a widow from Sarepta to feed you.

This woman does not know it because when the prophet approaches her she does not recognize anything, she is simply so involved in her lack and in her crisis that all she sees is her lack and her need, but inside of her she carries a order of Almighty God who has impregnated her with an extraordinary mission and every day she needs to do that: obey and launch herself by faith so that that impartation of life that she carries within herself is activated.

My brothers: I wonder, for the first time this morning this came to my mind reading this passage that I have literally read dozens and dozens of times, that many of you, many of us right now carry in our lives a mission that God it has for us an embryonic greatness that is within you and perhaps you only see right now.

I see this young woman here that I greeted her this morning and she told me that she is taking the discipleship classes with joy, and it is good that she is moving from the ordinary to the exceptional because that takes time, you have a baby there in your hands and one thinks: oh I have a baby, I have to take care of him, all the things of a mother, maybe she works and other things, but she has decided, sorry for putting you in trouble here, she has decided to seek more from God and Invest in the Kingdom and in your spiritual growth and knowledge of the Word, right? who knows if there will be a Deborah in 10 or 15 years, if she is destined for, perhaps I am prophesying (applause), who knows what God may have.

Brothers, I have learned that this is not a matter of great academic pedigrees or exceptional lineage or anything exorbitant, God does what he wants with whom he wants and the only thing that is needed is a willing heart, a radical willingness to be used by God.

Through thirty-odd years of pastoring, brothers, I have literally seen giants being born in our Congregation, people that one could say: how good can come out of Nazareth, right? and God has done extraordinary things through many of you, he has activated you in the Kingdom, you have brought people to the knowledge of God, you have become teachers of the Kingdom, you have blessed and supported your Church in extraordinary ways, you have been an inspiration so many people and that's just the beginning. I believe that each one of us carries an embryo of power, life and distinction in the Kingdom.

God had delegated an exceptional task to this woman and she herself did not know it, but a reaction of obedience was only needed when the prophet told her: give me first, do me first, prefer me who incarnates the Kingdom of God, and she did not allow her conscience, her reason to prevent her from doing what she had to do, but rather obeyed.

Verse 15 says: “Then she went and did as Elijah told her” and she did as Elijah told her, brothers, obedience. Many of you told me on the trip that obedience is the most important thing in the Christian life.

Brothers, sometimes it is not even conviction, because many times we feel the emotional conviction to do something but it is obedience, it is doing things because God tells us to do them. It is to follow the principles of the Kingdom and the Lord then take charge of supporting His Word.

Sometimes one gets into so much trouble in the ministry and if it were up to the flesh and emotions one would never do things. I'm involved now like this with these issues of, as we always have been in recent years at the New England level and the region, and all this, and you've heard me talk about Evangelism and the importance, and God is doing it, sometimes not as fast as some of you would like but it's either my flaws or whatever but I am committed to a call from God to become a radioactively evangelistic Church and it is a commitment.

But at the New England level I am giving the signal and the voice, and speaking about Evangelism, and motivating the churches, motivating people to make a regional Evangelism strategy, and God has been finding me along the way. There are things that are happening right now, they are in an embryonic state with organizations and groups. Right now when I was in Atlanta, Georgia this week after returning from Israel, I reluctantly went to that activity because I was engaged by a person to whom I owe, and I went, reluctantly, grumbling as we say, but that time there the Lord put me in contact with resources and with people regarding this of Evangelism and I see how He is weaving this web.

Now, my emotions tell me: don't get into any more trouble, you already have enough, and many times I do things myself and while I'm doing them I see myself doing them, and I say: why? if you can no longer cope with what you have, but something inside me tells me: simply obey and give the word, and I will open the way before you.

And I have learned through my life that it is so, brother. I have to live like a pilot flying at 32,000 feet in the middle of the night over an ocean, there is nothing telling him where to go except the instruments in front of him: his dash, the compass, the computer. or whatever and he just, he can't get carried away by external signals, he has to adjust to what the instruments say.

My brother: you must learn and I must learn to live by what comes out of the mouth of God, the Word that comes out of the mouth of God. As you learn the principles of the Kingdom, as you learn to live according to what the Word says and as you obey those principles, you will always be blessed and supported by God.

Do not take away your emotions, do not take away even what makes sense on a rational level, take away what the Word of the Lord says and you will always come out on top. If you discerned the Will of God and you are sure that God is the one who is calling you, put your hand in it and the Lord will bring you forward.

This woman heard the Word of the prophet, obeyed and launched herself in the Name of the Lord. Elijah's promise: if you give me first the oil will not diminish and the flour will not be scarce.