ESF, Lord’s Day service message
2/16/2025
Growing Through Discipline
1 Kings 17:1-6
1. Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” 2. Then the word of the LORD came to Elijah: 3 “Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. 4 You will drink from the brook, and I have directed the ravens to supply you with food there.” 5 So he did what the LORD had told him. He went to the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, and stayed there. 6. The ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook.

God has unlimited supplies and resources to provide us with all our needs. Even when all the resources in this world cannot help us, God can help us. Even when no one can provide us with what we need today, God can provide us. Through today’s word God wants to prove that truth and teach us how to receive His provision. The key to receiving God’s blessed provision is enduring His discipline.

Some years ago, a young black child was growing up in a poor neighborhood in the city of Cleveland. He was living without any meaningful goal or dream in life.
One day a famous athlete, Charlie Paddock, came to his school to speak to the students. At the time Paddock was considered “the fastest human being alive.” He told the children, “Listen! What do you want to be? You name it and then believe that God will help you be it.” That little boy decided that he too wanted to be the fastest human being on earth.
The boy went to his track coach and told him of his new dream. His coach told him, “It’s great to have a dream, but to attain your dream you must build a ladder to it. Here is the ladder to your dreams. The first rung is determination! And the second rung is dedication! The third rung is discipline! The boy followed the coach’s advice. He was determined to be the fastest man. He was dedicated to pursuing the dream. He went through tough discipline for many years. Then he became a runner in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. In the Olympics, he won four gold medals. He won the 100-meter dash and broke the Olympic and world records for the 200 meters. His broad jump record lasted for twenty-four years. His name? Jesse Owens.

God disciplines us to keep growing and becoming people who can accomplish noble dreams.

Hebrews 12:11 says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

When God helps us grow through His discipline, He gives us three basic disciplines. They are obedience, self-control, and dependence.

Discipline of Obedience
Before God provided Elijah with his basic needs, He told Elijah to go to an isolated brook. God promised him that God had ordered the ravens to feed him there. At the isolated brook side, there was no food for Elijah to eat. Elijah had never heard of anyone being fed by birds. Also, according to the law of holy diet (clean and unclean food) for God’s people, ravens were unclean birds (Leviticus 11:15). So, Elijah was unable to understand how he would be fed by the ravens. Elijah might have thought, “How in the world could ravens feed me there?”

But Elijah surrendered his reasoning to God’s command. He trusted in God’s promise. And he went to the place where God told him to go. He obeyed just as God told him to do. And God fed him by the ravens exactly as He had promised.

When God wants to provide us with what we need, He encourages us to obey His word first. Obedience is a key to receiving God’s provision. When God encourages us to obey, He does not tell us to do anything impossible. But He may tell us to do something we cannot understand. Also, He always promises us that He will take care of our needs if we obey Him.

Jesus performed the first of all his miracles at the wedding banquet in Cana. The wine had run out in the middle of the banquet. The banquet could be ruined without wine. But it was impossible for the banquet host to get wine immediately. Then Mary, the mother of Jesus told the servants to ask Jesus for instructions but to be sure to “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). When they obeyed what Jesus told them to do, Jesus turned water into the best wine.

The word “Do whatever God tells you” may seem to be foolish according to our own reasoning. But that is the obedience God wants from us.

In the eleventh century, King Henry III of Bavaria grew tired of life in the secluded palace and the pressures of ruling people of all kinds of troubles. He inquired to a priest at a local monastery, asking to be accepted as a monk to spend the rest of his life in the monastery. “Your Majesty,” said the priest, “do you understand that the most important pledge here is obedience? That will be hard because you have been a king.”
“I understand,” said Henry. “The rest of my life I will be obedient to you, as Christ leads you.”
“Then I will tell you what to do,” said the priest. “Go back to your throne and serve faithfully in the place where God has put you.”
When King Henry died, a statement was written: “The King learned to rule by being obedient.”

God speaks to you with His word and with His Spirit, which is something to obey every day. God does not tell you to do anything impossible. But God may tell you to do something you don’t want to do.

For example, God may tell you to humbly serve somebody who is proud and treats you harshly. God may tell you to be thankful in all circumstances although you are in difficult and painful circumstances. God may tell you to be generous in your financial giving when you are financially very tight.

You may not understand why you must do so. You may not understand how God will bless you if you do so. However, surrender your thoughts to God. Trust in His promise that He will bless you if you obey His word. And after obeying, you will receive His miraculous provision.

Discipline of Self-Control
The discipline of self-control is a key to growing. When God helps you grow, He will certainly discipline you to control yourself.

Edmund Hilary became the first man who conquered Mount Everest. One day an interviewer asked him how he could conquer Everest when nobody else had. He gave this reply: “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”

There is the story of Bobby Jones, a legendary golfer. He was born with the talent of golfing. By the time he was fourteen, Bobby had already become one of the best golfers in the world. But he had one problem. Bobby was known for his temper. While he was playing golf, he often threw his clubs when he got irritated. One day Bobby’s uncle sat down with him and said, “Bobby, your problem is you’ve mastered the game of golf, but you haven’t mastered your emotions; and until you master your emotions, you’ll never be a champion in golf.” Bobby took his uncle’s advice seriously and disciplined himself to control his temper.
Then eventually he won a major tournament at twenty-one. By age twenty-eight, he had won the grand slam of golf.

When God wanted to use Elijah as a great prophet, God disciplined him to control himself.

Elijah was a very passionate and active man. The places he liked to go might be places where he could do some ministries actively. But God told him to go to a brook and stay at the brook where he had nothing to do.

God did not tell him how long he should stay there. It was against his temperament to stay in such a solitary place without doing anything. For Elijah, staying in such a place indefinitely was not only boring but also painful.

Then why did God tell him to go to such a solitary place and stay there indefinitely? By doing so, God wanted to discipline him to control his temper by waiting on God’s timing patiently. God molded him to be a humble and patient person. Because of this discipline, Elijah was able to learn to wait for God’s timing patiently. Through this discipline, God gave Elijah spiritual authority and power.

God develops our spiritual maturity and strength when we patiently waiting for God’s timing. This also test our temperament.

The way you spend time with God alone while you are in a lowly and painful situation shapes your spiritual maturity. Sometimes God may put you in a solitary place, in a lowly situation for a while. God may allow you to go through uncomfortable or painful situations as you wait patiently for His deliverance. Then He trains you to sharpen your spiritual sensitivity. He trains you to be sensitive to His word, to listen to the voice of His Spirit.

If you patiently endure such discipline, God strengthens your character and faith. And you can manage God’s blessings given to you in any situation.

God used Moses to rescue the Israelites from slavery of four hundred years in Egypt and to lead them to the land of promise. But before that God had disciplined him of his temper by having him spending 40 years in the desert as a shepherd. Before he was disciplined, he was a man of temper. He killed a man because of his temper. But after receiving God’s discipline in the desert, he became a very gentle and humble person. Now Moses was a very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth (Numbers 12:3)

So, when you are facing a tough and difficult situation, believe that God uses the situation as an opportunity to discipline you. Give thanks to the Lord for the opportunity to receive discipline for your temper. And endure it patiently. God will shape your character to be humble and strong. That is a blessing already. When you wait for God’s right timing for you, the time will surely come. God not only molds your character to be better and stronger, but also provides for all your needs.

Discipline of Dependence
While Elijah was staying at the brook, there was nothing there to eat.

But God used a raven to provide food for Elijah. God prohibited His people from eating ravens, classifying them as unclean birds (Lev 11:15; Deut. 14:14). Yet, God Himself used them to carry food to His servant. God taught Elijah here that God can use even unclean birds to provide for His child. Everything in this universe can be used by Him to bless His people. Elijah was trained to believe that God has endless resources.

God can control everything in this world to provide us with our daily necessities. Psalm 135:6 says, The LORD does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths.

Also, it was not just a few days he had to live in such a situation. It lasted many days. How long should Elijah depend on the birds for getting his daily bread? What if the ravens did not come back or stopped bringing food for him? Getting food through a raven everyday was something out of Elijah’s control. So, to get daily bread in that situation, Elijah had to depend upon God one day at a time. Every day Elijah had to depend on God’s supply. He had to totally depend upon God’s way of providing food. This allowed him to grow in faith. While Elijah depended on God’s provision each day, God provided him as He promised. The ravens brought food to Elijah for his meals every day. Day after day Elijah was disciplined to depend on God who was in control of all situations and met all his needs.
When we need many things, God may not provide us with all our needs at once. God may provide us with only one of our needs at a time. Why? By doing so, God disciplines us to depend on nothing but Him. God makes us grow by depending on His faithfulness. God enables us to live with confidence of His provision and to live without fear or worry in difficult situations.
Missionary Hudson Taylor had faced many trials while he was doing missionary works in China. From time to time, he faced severe financial shortages. But he never worried. He had never given up. He had always overcome it. How? By completely depending on God’s provision. In his journal he wrote:
Our heavenly Father is a very experienced One. He knows very well that His children wake up with a good appetite every morning. He sustained 3 million Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years by providing them with daily bread. (Underlined phrase is my adding) We do not expect He will send 3 million missionaries to China; but if He did, He would have ample means to sustain them all. Depend on God. God’s work done in God’s way will never lack God’s supply

God may use trials to help us depend on nothing and none but God. When we depend on Him, He will always provide a way of deliverance. In Isaiah 33:16, God tells us that, even in times of famine, the bread and water of the righteous will “be supplied”: They are the ones who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the mountain fortress. Their bread will be supplied, and water will not fail them. This is a promise that the prophet claimed and every one of God’s children can claim it even today.

When you have nothing or none to depend on to get what you need, depend on God who is the faithful provider for His people. God will always provide you with what you need.