Brian's Sermons

1 Kings 19:1-18 Have you ever heard of the phrase “mountaintop experience?” The idea is that there are some experiences that take us to the mountaintop. These are the best experiences of life, and when they are over, you just don’t want to go back to your everyday life. Church camp was often, for me, a mountaintop experience. I would go to camp every summer and by the end of camp, I was on fire! I was ready to win my entire school for Christ. There’s a problem with the mountaintop experience, however, and that is simply that we don’t live on the mountaintop. At some point, we have to come back down. In scripture, one notable mountaintop experience was when Jesus went up on the mountain with Peter, James, and John, and was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and he was joined there by Elijah and Moses! Peter, maybe even recognizing the amazing experience, suggested that they build shelters, one each for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses. But Jesus rebuked him and Jesu

1 Kings 18:`-39 James 5:17-18:   Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. As we catch up with our normal guy Elijah, he has had quite the adventure in trusting and obeying God and accepting God’s provision. When God told him to leave the king’s court and go hide in the ravine and be fed by ravens and drink from the brook, Elijah went. When the brook ran dry, God sent him to a widow in Zaraphath, where God miraculously multiplied her meager flour and oil supply, feeding him, her and her family until God once again brought rain. To finish up that passage (and I apologize for not being able to get everything in – time is short), her son died, but God, through Elijah, brought him back to life! So in the third year of the famine, God tells Elijah he’s going to send rain once more. So Elijah, led by God (and o