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Encounters with God is a sermon series about the theophanies or divine appearances and how they reveal the stunning character of God and his heart for a world that is lost without him. Is there any hope for the exhausted? Any grace for when you're feeling burned out? Absolutely. In the encounter with God and Elijah, we discover God's care for the whole person and our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Recorded on Dec 5, 2021, on 1 Kings 19, by Pastor David Parks. Sermon Transcript All year, we’re talking about The Greatness of God. And today, we’re continuing a sermon series called Encounters with God. In the Bible, when God appears to someone it’s known as a theophany or divine appearing. And these encounters are wild stories, God never seems to act how we would expect. Well today, we’ll consider the fascinating encounter with God and the prophet Elijah. And to me, this encounter is one of the most comforting and practically helpful stories if you ever get to the point where you’re feeling exhausted or burned out. The holiday season can be a tiring season under normal circumstances. But after the last 2 years of chaos and loss, I think we’re all feeling a little fatigued. Exhaustion shows up differently for different people. Some of us get more down/depressed, others get more angry/irritable, some of us feel all of these things. As followers of Jesus, what can we do when we’re exhausted? Is there any hope, any grace for the burned out? Absolutely. In our text for the day, we’ll see God care for Elijah in his exhaustion as a whole person, ministering to him physically, emotionally, and spiritually. If you have a Bible/app, please open to 1 Kings 19:1. We’ll unpack this story as we go: 1 Kings 19:1-5a (NIV), “1 Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, “May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.” 3 Elijah was afraid[a] and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.”  Ok, let’s pause here. What is going on here? Well, first, when is this taking place? So Ahab and Jezebel were the king and queen over the northern kingdom of Israel about 850 years before the birth of Jesus. This is about 100 years or so after the time of King David and Solomon. Under David, the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah were unified. But after the time of Solomon, the unified kingdom started to fall apart. So it was right in the middle of this tumultuous time that God had called Elijah to be a prophet in Israel. This was a tough assignment. There was no peace at this time, and it wasn’t just that war was coming. There was vast corruption in the house of Israel. There was widespread idolatry/violence/injustice under the leadership of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. But immediately before this, Elijah’s ministry career had really reached a pinnacle. 1 Kings 18 describes an epic showdown between hundreds of prophets of the false Canaanite god, Baal, and Elijah. And Yahweh had shown up in a very public way, that he was the one true God, not Baal. Though hundreds of prophets cried out for hours and hours and cut themselves, Baal never answered them. In contrast, Elijah simply prayed and Yahweh rained down fire, completely consuming his offering. Now, you might think that after such a mighty victory, Elijah would be feeling good! That he would feel vindicated and wouldn’t need to be afraid of anything. But when he heard how Jezebel responded, and he heard her solemn vow to kill him,