Pentecost 12 (Proper 14), August 11, 2024 Jesus Is Enough
Text: 1 Kings 19:1–8
Other Lessons: Psalm 34:1–8; Ephesians 4:17–5:2; John 6:35–51
Sermon Theme: We may tell God, “I’ve had enough,” but Jesus comes to give us more than enough.
Sermon Goal: That listeners will find confidence in Jesus’ resurrection in the face of life’s sorrows. Based on a Sermon Outline in Concordia Pulpit Resources by Rev. Donald O. Neuendorf, |
Sermon: Elijah has had it! Yahweh had just given him what any faithful prophet would call his greatest triumph. At Elijah’s request, the Lord had just sent fire from heaven to show Israel who was God! Not the Baal and Asherah of those weakling prophets who couldn’t raise their gods if they’d had a megaphone or a telephone, but Yahweh. “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God,” the people had all shouted (1 Ki 18:39). Then they’d rounded up and killed those 850 pagan prophets. At least for a day, Elijah was king of the prophets!
“Not so fast, Elijah!” said wicked Queen Jezebel. “By tomorrow I’m going to see that you’re as dead as my beloved prophets.” And so Elijah runs—out of the country, out of the neighboring country, out into the desert. And when he stops and catches his breath, he prays, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life” (v 4).
“I’ve had enough!” Look at it from the prophet’s point of view. He has endured years of deprivation: isolation, hiding, worry, hunger, getting by on meager rations, knowing he is hunted. To everyone else he seems strong, wise, successful, but to himself he seems a failure. And so he says, “Enough!” This is how he begins his prayer to God! “Enough!”
You are no Elijah, but I wonder if you know how he felt. To all those sitting around you, I’m sure you, too, appear confident, put together, responsible, much like Elijah.
But how do you see yourself—after years stuck in the same job? after all this time striving to make ends meet? with the long list of troubles that you could name, but you don’t want to sound like a complainer? Much of the music we hear on the radio expresses this theme, “I’ve had enough.” Lost love, loneliness, the death of your dog, and the rust on your pickup truck all show up in the list of our miseries. Country music didn’t invent this kind of song.
Listen to the complaints of a songwriter in the seventeenth century: “It is enough! Therefore, Lord, take my spirit from here to the spirits of Zion. . . . There is enough of the misery that crushes me! . . . There is enough of the cross that almost breaks my back; how heavy, O God, how hard is this burden! . . . It is enough” (“Es ist genug,” Bach Cantatas Website). In its original German, this hymn was called “Es ist genug”—literally, “It is enough,” taken from the very words Elijah cried out to God.
But when Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a cantata on the last verse of this hymn, he turned this cry of despair into a hymn of hope and longing for the Savior. Today this hymn doesn’t appear in our hymnal, but the tune for it does. You know it by this title: “I Am Content! My Jesus Ever Lives” (LSB 468). To this melody of despair, we sing about the victory of our Savior over death
“I am content! My Jesus ever lives.” Elijah was sustained by the “angel of the Lord” in the desert (vv 5–8). was given enough to go on, although his problems were not immediately taken away. Elijah was revived, but he did not see the final fulfillment of his hopes.
The fulfillment of God’s promise that Elijah longed to see was reserved for you. You may experience the same sense of despair. You may have the same long list of troubles. (Give possible examples.)
But you have received help from that same angel of the Lord—when he became a man in the person of Jesus. Jesus never said, “It is enough,” until he indeed had done enough to pay for all our sins, taking them to the cross. And that was enough! The work of saving us is finished!
Like Elijah, Jesus has fed you with bread that sustains you. Not just ordinary bread and water but his own body and blood, which are the food of healing and life.
And so our complaint of despair is transformed into a song of resurrection victory: “I am content! At length I shall be free, Awakened from the dead, Arising glorious evermore to be With You, my living head. The chains that hold my body, sever; Then shall my soul rejoice forever. I am content! I am content!” (LSB 468:4).
We May Tell God, “I’ve Had Enough,”but Jesus Comes to Give Us More Than Enough. Amen.