But before we open to 1 Kings 17, I just wanna share with you a man called Major Albert Moore. He's a unique wartime legend. He was involved in some of the fiercest, most merciless battles of World War II, but he never fired a single shot. He was one of the bravest men on the front line, but he didn't fight. He was a great leader, an inspirational man, yet he baked scones.
He was a chaplain, a non combatant, and he was actively involved in supporting Australian troops. Albert Moore was a Salvation Army officer who tirelessly brought comfort to men on the front line. He tended to the wounded, and in desperate times, did everything in his power to make life more bearable for the diggers. It was a role he fulfilled from the searing deserts of the Middle East to the unrelenting jungles of Kokoda. He organised the construction of a refreshment centre for exhausted and wounded troops along the Kokoda Track at the foot of the incredibly fatiguing Golden Stairs.
At times, the station that he set up provided troops with an average of 45 gallons of coffee a day. Imagine trying to keep that amount of coffee hot. Perhaps one of the most touching contributions to the men's morale and comfort that Moore provided were the scones and the jam tarts he baked for them. The ingredients were pretty basic, but still hard to acquire, and yet Moore managed to produce hundreds of his scones from the oven he had made from a biscuit tin buried in the ground. Despite on occasion having baked from flour that came alive with weevils, in his words, the scones and the jam tarts were immensely appreciated by men who had seen nothing but hard rations, bully beef and dog biscuits for months.
Moore's philosophy was when you are hungry, sour grapes can taste sweet. Such was the commitment and the courage of the man that Albert Moore inspired extraordinary respect and affection from his men, as well as being immortalised in the image of lighting the cigarette of a wounded digger in 1942, Albert would become part of one of the most enduring images of Australians at war, the sustaining power of mateship, as you may have heard. If you ever wanted an example of servant leadership, this is the guy, Major Albert Moore from the Salvos. Servant leadership is tough. It's not glamorous.
It doesn't come naturally always. It doesn't fit nicely into your schedule. It doesn't gain you recognition or glory. Instead of looking tough with a gun in your hand, you're baking scones and an apron. Yet Christian leadership is founded on service and humility.
Christian leadership is marked by servant leadership. This morning, we come to the next event in the story of Elijah. If you have your Bibles with you, we're going to read that in 1 Kings 17. We read from verse 7. Sometime later, the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.
Then the word of the Lord came to him, who is Elijah, go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food. So Elijah went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?
As she was going to get it, he called, and bring me please a piece of bread. As surely as the Lord your God lives, she replied, I don't have any bread, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I'm gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it and die. Elijah said to her, don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said.
But first, make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me. And then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, the jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land. So she went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family.
For the jar of flour was not used up and a jug of oil did not run dry in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah. So far in our reading. Last week, if you remember, we saw God sent Elijah away from the spotlight that he had walked into, away from the place in the palace where he had been, God sends him into the wilderness, to the Kereth Ravine, the place known as the Cut Off Valley. God sent him to train him, to equip him for the purpose he had called. The wilderness that he found himself in was tough.
It was a place of preparation, place of training, but God provided. But now after some time, with no rain, the brooks started drying up. The drought in Israel had become severe and there was no rain in Israel, the Bible says. And even though Elijah was in a tough situation, God again didn't abandon Elijah. Verse 8 says that the word of the Lord came to Elijah, go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there.
I have commanded a widow there to supply you with food. It seems that Elijah's training wasn't over just yet. He didn't pass basic training just yet. Now Zarephath was in a place called Sidon. It wasn't Israel.
It was a nation. Zarephath today is known as Seraphand in Lebanon, but Zarephath was on the opposite side where the Kereth Ravine was. In fact, Elijah had to walk from the Kereth Ravine, was east of the Jordan, from your side, east of the Jordan, he had to cross over Israel and go to Sidon, which was on the west, on the Mediterranean Ocean. And so it was about a 160 kilometre journey for him to walk. That's about from here to Toowoomba, isn't it, Andrew?
Almost. Walking. And it wasn't straight, it was up and down and mountains and everything. Elijah had to walk all that way to a place called Zarephath in Sidon. The people living there were not Jews.
They didn't follow God. They would have been suspicious of Jews in their country because the Jews were the enemy. Interestingly, the name Zarephath in Hebrew means smelter or forge, furnace, place where you melt down metal. God sends Elijah from the Kereth Ravine, the cut off wilderness, to the forge of Zarephath. Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?
From the frying pan into the fire, almost. God wasn't done in refining Elijah just yet. He had to go into the furnace for a little bit longer. All throughout the Bible, the image of God refining, disciplining, strengthening the character of His people is symbolised, is portrayed in the concept of refinement through fire. Like a valuable metal, God says that He sometimes needs to melt us down to burn away the dross, to burn away the impurities that cling to our character.
The furnace, the forge, is an aspect of Christian life. It is not something to be avoided. It is not something to run away from. The Bible says it's a given. It's an aspect of Christian life.
These days, churches don't like to talk about those things very much because suffering is foreign to us. Comfort is in. Suffering is out. But go to any church in Africa or Asia, Pastor James, and they will tell you that suffering for the sake of the gospel, suffering as a Christian, is part of being a Christian. They understand that it's God's refining.
They get it. God does allow us to go through furnace situations sometimes, but there's a purpose to it. That is our hope. Because He's concerned about what comes out on the other end. God knows what the future holds for His prophet Elijah.
God knows what His mission is. His mission is to take on Ahab, to change an entire nation, bring them back to God. That is his purpose, that is his mission, but he's not ready yet. Some refining has to happen still. It's not a job for a wimp.
Thin skinned softies need not apply. So God sends Elijah to Zarephath, where all the remaining dross will be burned away. God tells Elijah to go and stay with the widow, verse 9 says. Imagine that. Here is Elijah, the mighty man of God.
Tanned, leathery, tough man from the outback, comes to Ahab and says no rain by the word of the Lord until I say so. Disappears. Mighty man of God that he is has to be served by a poor widow. That's a humbling experience. But Elijah obeys and he does a trek to Zarephath, a 160 kilometres.
Elijah arrives there sometime later dying of thirst. I mean, there's no water. He does a 160 kilometres with no water. Lo and behold, when he gets to the town gate, there's a woman, a widow, gathering sticks. He asks her for some water, of course, because he's just walked 160 k's with no water.
And she turns to go and fetch him some and says, oh, by the way, while you're at it, me a sandwich as well, please. She replies, as surely as the Lord your God lives, I don't have any bread. Only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I'm gathering a few sticks to take home to make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it and then die. Great.
Welcome to Zarephath. There's a widow that is on the point of depression who is suffering from a serious case of self pity, and Elijah comes all the way and finds nothing but a woman looking for sticks so she could build a fire, fix her last meal, die of starvation. Ministry is tough. What a let down after all this hard work, after this long arduous journey. But these are the kind of situations that takes servant leadership.
Servant leadership in this moment is when you are worn out and so tired, and on the point of dying of thirst, you feel like you're gonna scream. And then there's just that one thing that leaves just that little bit of extra energy that you feel you don't have. Servant leadership is overcoming that first impression of a self pitying widow and feeling, well, stuff it. If she's gonna die, I wanna die too. It's overcoming that.
Servant leadership is depending on God to give you the strength to endure, to serve when your gas tanks are empty. Believing that God can sustain you and the person that you want to serve. Servant leadership is getting into and onto the dirt that she is finding herself. Servant leadership is talking the talk. You can't talk the talk if you haven't walked the walk.
You can't encourage someone to believe that God is about to do the improbable, can do the improbable, if you haven't self experienced God doing the impossible. You can't light another's candle of hope if your own torch of faith isn't burning. Elijah had walked into a situation that was, from all human perspective, impossible. Impossible. But the great thing is he saw beyond the difficulty, and he handled the problem with faith.
And this is how he did it. Verse 13, Elijah said to her, don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first, make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, the jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.
In response to Elijah's sympathy of caring for this widow, that's obviously just at her wits end. In response to this sympathy and his great faith and dependence on God, the widow actually obeys his words. How incredible would it have been? How tough would it have been? Hey, this is your last cup of flour.
It's enough for just you and your son, but make a little bit of that for me, and then you can eat the rest. I would've been, who are you? You're just a Jew. You're just someone that walked into the front gate. She goes and she does it.
But again, we see that the spirit of God rested on Elijah, and what he had said came to pass. The oil and the flour did not run out. Verse 16 ends by saying, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah. Again, God's word is powerful. God's word says no rain and it doesn't rain.
God says, flour, unlimited flour and oil, and it is so. But so often, we can do feel two things about a leadership in these situations. We feel we're either too worthy to do certain things, or we feel that we're not worthy enough. We're not good enough. We're not skilled enough.
We don't have the knowledge, or we're too skilled. We're too good. We're too smart, too clever. But God often draws out service in the most difficult situations. Elijah could have said, I don't have time for this.
I'm the man of God. God's spirit is resting on me. I can say and do whatever, almost, and God will do it. Imagine if you're Elijah, you're on the verge of passing out, but a widow is in need. But you get help.
You're a mom and you're tired and cranky because you've been looking after the kids all day long, but some random needs a meal and some hospitality. It's tough. That little bit of extra energy that you don't have. Your business is giving up so much of your emotional energy, and yet someone needs some serious intercession and prayer right now. Man, can I take a break?
Can I pray for this person? Can I go and see them and have a coffee with them? In our service of others, we become leaders. The night that Jesus washed His disciples' feet was the night before He was to be crucified. They were uncomfortable with their teacher, their master, washing their feet.
Jesus said to them, you call me teacher and Lord. You call me teacher and master, and rightly so, for that is what I am. But now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you must also wash one another's feet. I've set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. That is the epitome.
That is the epitome of what servant leadership looks like. In the furnace of God's refinement, Elijah had to use up all that last little bit of energy that he had to sympathise for a widow that was in desperate straits. Like Major Albert Moore, he had to provide scones and coffee, rather than a fight with Ahab with a chivalrous gun in his hand. Leadership in the way that many people today would see it would have been to charge with a sword straight against Ahab's forces. Yet God sends him away and Elijah had to be humble, humble.
And Elijah had to be patient. He had to serve. Our church needs men and women like this. People willing to put shoulder to the wheel. Our nation needs servant leaders so badly.
How different would politics look in Australia or in Queensland if our state, if our federal ministers did what their titles say they should do? Minister means servant. If our ministers served our nation, how different would it look? Our nation needs servant leaders in every sphere, in every realm. If God could call one man, Elijah, to change an entire nation of Israel, imagine what He can do for a whole church full of servant leaders.
Of people on their knees pleading with God to bring about change in their neighbourhoods, of people pleading with God to place hope and trust in the hearts of people that don't know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. Imagine what change that would bring. Today, wanna honour our current ministry leaders who are our servant leaders, who are people who tirelessly provide things like Christian education for our young kids at this church. I wanna honour you. Thank you for that.
I'm so glad that we've got young people like Joe and Simonette who have stood up in this church to lead the next generation of young people. That servant leadership right there. They live in Brisbane. Had to travel down on Friday nights, and I complain about driving from Molandina. I wanna thank and honour ministry leaders who have, at times, single handedly kept this building, this church afloat through their tithes, through their offerings, through their efforts, with sore backs, and sore shoulders, with cancer, with the loss of family and friends.
People who have at times stood in the gap completely alone to ensure that the future generations of this church might have a church to worship in. You may not realise that, but that is service. That is leadership. But ultimately, we look to Jesus Christ to see what servant leadership is. We must look to Jesus who said I did not come to be served, but to serve.
To give my life as a ransom for many. Jesus knows the difficulty. Jesus knows what it feels like to give that last drop of energy when you don't have anything in the gas tanks. Isaiah 53 says of Jesus, He was a man of suffering, a man familiar with pain.
An old hymn speaks of God's love for us during those moments of pain in our lives, of refinement. The hymn says, the flame shall not hurt thee, I only desire, thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. We can never be like Him. We can never be like Him if we don't endure the forge, the furnace of Zarephath. As Christians, we believe that the only reason we can endure this furnace that we go through at times in life, the only reason we can endure it is because Jesus has spared us the all consuming fire of God's judgement.
Christ went through the forge of God's justified anger for our sin. There was a moment when Christ looked to have been burnt consumed up by this fire. For three days, He was dead. But on the third day, He rose from the dead, and He was vindicated and restored as the king of all that He had created. And we, we like little kittens that are carried in the arms of a firefighter, have been carried through this flame.
You will not find a better servant leader than the servant king. On the Christian journey from faith to maturity, all roads, at some point, lead through Zarephath. There's much that you can offer this church. There's so much that you can offer this neighbourhood. People that don't know Christ that need Christ.
If you're uncomfortable, do something about it because it's probably God saying, what are you gonna do about this? On the Christian journey from faith to maturity, all roads lead through Zarephath.