Dock Resource Kit
Sunday sermon, 5 October 2025
Summary
This week, Brigid continued our Formation series, speaking to us about how God forms us through both the hidden and ordinary moments of life, just as He formed Elijah in 1 Kings 17. Before Elijah ever stood before kings, he learned in the wilderness, with the widow, and in grief that God is faithful, caring, and present. Through dependence on God’s provision, relationships with others, and honest wrestling in suffering, Elijah was shaped into someone who could carry God’s presence into the world. Our own spiritual formation works the same way—God meets us in our weakness, provides in our need, and calls us to extend His grace to others. The invitation is simple yet profound: Do not be afraid. God sees your needs and cares. Take Jesus as a gift.
Key Points & Takeways
God forms us in the hidden and quiet places before He calls us into the public ones.
Like Elijah by the brook, God often teaches us to trust Him in seasons of obscurity and dependence before He sends us into action.The wilderness is a classroom of trust.
In scarcity and uncertainty, Elijah learned that God’s care is constant. Formation often happens when we are not in control but must rely on God’s provision.God forms us through relationships and shared need.
Elijah’s encounter with the widow reminds us that formation isn’t solitary—it’s relational. In community, our needs and weaknesses meet God’s grace together.God’s care reaches the unnoticed and the powerless.
God sent Elijah not to the powerful but to a struggling widow. God’s attention always extends to those the world overlooks, and He invites us to do the same.Formation involves honesty in suffering.
When the widow’s son dies, Elijah doesn’t suppress his anguish—he cries out to God. True formation includes learning to bring our raw emotions before God, trusting He still hears and cares.All formation points to Jesus.
Elijah’s miracles anticipate the life and ministry of Jesus: provision of bread, resurrection from death, and the call to trust in God’s care. We are formed to live as people shaped by His life and love.
Dock Discussion Questions
Where might you be experiencing a “wilderness” season right now, and what might God be forming in you through it?
How does Elijah’s encounter with the widow challenge your understanding of who God notices and provides for?
In what ways can we be both receivers and conduits of God’s grace within our church and community?
How comfortable are you in trusting that God wants you to bear your heart before him in thanksgiving as well as mourning and strife?
What might it look like for you, in your everyday life, to live as someone who believes: “Do not be afraid. God sees your needs and cares”?
Long-form, edited transcript
Formation
How to Depend on God
1 Kings 17
1 Peter 1:7
Hey everyone,
Last week we started a new series all about formation. We are looking at the stories of Elijah and Elisha to help us see how our discipleship forms us into people who live like Jesus.
We want to be disciples - followers of Jesus. And as we follow, we are formed. Formation isn’t just about what we do, but who we are becoming. Whether we realise it or not, we’re all being shaped by something - the media we consume, how we spend our time, the people we’re with. So the question is: are the things that are forming you the things that you want to form you?
Being formed into Jesus’ likeness is where we find our identity, our purpose, and our values. It shapes everything about our lives. And being formed into the likeness of Jesus is your calling. That you might know who you are, and why you are here, and how you should live.
We explored last week that formation is constant, relational, hard, and purposeful. It’s happening all the time, it happens alongside others, it happens for a purpose and it isn’t easy. But it is worth it. Worth it for you, for your family, for your community, for our world.
We are diving into the stories of Elijah and Elisha to help us be formed. Today we are going to look at three key stories from 1 Kings 17: Elijah’s early days of being formed as God’s prophet.
17 Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe[a] 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.
7 Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. 8 Then the word of the Lord came to him: 9 “Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.” 10 So he 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?” 11 As she was going to get it, he called, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”
12 “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 olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.”
13 Elijah said to her, “Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. 14 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 sends rain on the land.’”
15 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. 16 For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.
17 Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. 18 She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”
19 “Give me your son,” Elijah replied. He took him from her arms, carried him to the upper room where he was staying, and laid him on his bed. 20 Then he cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” 21 Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”
22 The Lord heard Elijah’s cry, and the boy’s life returned to him, and he lived. 23 Elijah picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to his mother and said, “Look, your son is alive!”
24 Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”
So three stories:
The ravens out in the wilderness
The widow’s miraculous food
The widow’s son being brought back to life
At first glance these are just three stories of survival. But actually when we look closer, these are Elijah’s training ground. Before Elijah can speak publicly and dramatically on behalf of God, God forms him in the quiet, more hidden places. So let’s go through each story and see what it can teach us about that process of formation that God takes us on.
The ravens.
Elijah announces to the king that there is going to be a drought and then God immediately leads Elijah out into the wilderness. Not into action or into the spotlight, but into hiding.
By the brook, God promises Elijah that he will be fed by ravens and he can drink the water in the brook. We don’t know exactly how long Elijah was staying by that brook there, but just imagine the madness for a moment of waiting each day for some ravens - some birds - to drop off your food.
I don’t know if you’ve ever met a raven. I don’t think I have. But I have met seagulls. Ever walked along a beach with an ice cream or sat with some fish and chips? It’s less like a lovely picnic and more like you’ve entered a duel with a feathery foe who will stop at nothing to defeat you - and steal your food. It’s hard to imagine ravens delivering food without eating it. But, as God promised, twice a day, the ravens would arrive with bread and meat. And each day Elijah would drink from the brook having just told the king that God was going to send no rain for a few years. Knowing that brook was going to dry up.
It’s an extraordinary position that Elijah has found himself in. I think it’s really interesting that this is the first part of Elijah’s training and formation in following God. Before he performs a miracle or does anything public really, he has to learn the lesson that God is the one who holds him, who provides for him, who will look after him. And day by day as Elijah waits on the ravens for the sustenance he needs, he is slowly being formed to trust that he doesn’t need to be anxious because of God’s unfailing care.
You might have spotted the parallels between this story and the story of Jesus going out into the wilderness after his baptism. Before Jesus does anything - before he heals, or teaches, or brings God’s kingdom on earth - he goes into the wilderness for 40 days to spend time with God.
The wilderness is not an easy place to be. It wasn’t for Elijah I’m sure, it certainly wasn’t for Jesus. None of us want to be in the wilderness of grief, or illness, or fragile relationships, or financial worry. But there are some lessons that it’s hard to learn elsewhere. We live in a culture where everything is at our fingertips. Most of us can provide for our own basic needs without too much difficulty. If we’re hungry, we order a next-day food shop. If we’re bored, we scroll. But for some in our city, our community of course, that isn’t the case. Each day is a matter of survival. For parents struggling to feed their children, for the unemployed on their hundredth job application, for those fighting with addictions or debt. Each day can feel like a wilderness. In the wilderness, Elijah learnt that because God deeply cares, God will provide. Elijah wasn’t in control and yet God met his needs.
I think the reality is that if we want to follow Jesus and do the work of God, we must learn that our strength and our means and our understanding will not be enough. Even if we have our practical needs met at our fingertips, our strength and resources can fail us. But God’s care for what we need never will. Perhaps that is the lesson that we find in the wilderness.
In a letter that Peter, one of Jesus’ close friends, wrote to early Christians, he said this in relation to the trials they were suffering:
These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. (1 Peter 1:7)
In other words, through our trials and our wilderness moments, our faith can be refined and made more beautiful, that Jesus might be revealed to us and those around us.
So my question for you at the end of this part of our passage is this: Do you know how deeply God cares for you? Can you let that care form you into trusting that God will provide? How might we trust in God’s care for us rather than relying on our own strength? And if you are facing a wilderness of some kind at the moment, God sees, and knows, and loves you. How might God be wanting to meet your needs in that place today?
The widow and the food.
Elijah follows God’s instructions to go to Zarepath in Sidon. For Elijah, that was heading straight into some tricky territory because Sidon is where the queen Jezebel is from. Elijah is heading straight into the area where other gods are worshipped, where Yahweh is not important at all. God doesn’t instruct Elijah to find someone with status or power or influence. Instead God sends Elijah to find a widow who is at her wit’s end. Elijah is to ask the widow for some food and water, but the widow answers that she only has enough for one more meal for her and her son until they are totally out. Nothing left. She is totally at the end of herself.
And because of where this widow is living, the likelihood is she’s being instructed to follow the god Ba’al. Remember the god that Ahab and Jezebel were trying to get everyone to worship? Not the true God, Yahweh. But the widow has still ended up in this horrible position with her son. I bet she’s asking are any of the gods any good?
If I had been Elijah, when the woman told him she had only one meal left, I think I would have bottled out of asking for bread. But, being obedient to God, Elijah stuck to his request for bread. Why? Because Elijah trusted that God would stay true to his word. Verse 14:
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 sends rain on the land.’ (1 Kings 17:14)
And of course God was true to that word. There was food every day for Elijah and the widow and her family. The flour and oil did not run out. Zarephath, the place where the widow lives, literally means a place of refining. It is clear from that to me that God is sending Elijah here to refine him - like gold in a fire.
At first, it almost sounds cruel, asking a starving widow for her last meal. But God wasn’t sending Elijah to exploit her, he was sending Elijah so they could both experience God’s grace together. Elijah needed food. She needed hope. And together, God provided for both. I love that God sent Elijah to see the widow before anyone of power. It reminds us, doesn’t it, that in the midst of political complexity and sending prophets to deal with wayward corrupt kings, God has not forgotten a single mother and her son who need bread to survive. God noticed her. And so he called Elijah to notice her too. Yes he had a big calling to speak to the kings. But he is being formed here to see humanity as God does. Every person is important to God.
I wonder if for Elijah this felt like an interruption or at least a bit of a surprise. In his need for food and shelter, I wonder if he was expecting that to be the moment where God asked him to share God’s love. Again, here we see God providing exactly what they needed each day. Not in bulk or in advance, but just enough. Elijah has just spent time in the wilderness learning that God cares, and so here with the widow and her son he can pass on that grace and care and love.
We have three people in deep need - and Elijah is able to say don’t be afraid, because we have God on our side, and he sees our needs. And he cares about our needs. So we can depend on him. And isn’t this exactly what the church is? We have talked about formation being relational - being something we embark on together - and I think this illustrates that beautifully.
The church has never been a place for the strong to show off, or for the people who have it all together. The church is the place where our needs and weaknesses meet in God’s presence, where his grace is given, and where we can offer that grace to others. In this passage, Elijah needed food and the widow desperately needed hope. Together, in their need and their support of each other, they found God’s provision.
Part of being formed into the likeness of Jesus is that we become both a container and a conduit for God’s grace. We as the church have the privilege and responsibility of receiving God’s love that we might be able to pass it on. We acknowledge our own needs so that someone can meet us in them, and vice versa, we give to others in their need whatever little we might have.
I had a very practical need the other day - I needed a gas safety check done on my boiler. The technician, Peter, arrived not long before I needed to leave the house so I was in a bit of a rush but as we chatted, I felt a little prompt of the Holy Spirit to chat with him about Peter in the Bible. I had a choice at that moment. I could have ignored it, or I could take a risk and chat with him about God. Well, I asked him if he knew much about Peter’s story in the Bible and he said he hadn’t read much of the Bible since he went to church as a child. We spoke about it and it ended up with him getting the audio version of Luke’s gospel ready to listen to between his jobs in the van. I’ll maybe never see Peter again, but I trust God used my little seed of obedience to plant some of God’s love into Peter’s life that day.
I think this part of Elijah’s story reminds us that formation isn’t just something that happens in quiet moments with God, it happens in relationships, in the places where our lives intersect with others. God formed Elijah not just in solitude by the brook, but in community with a widow who had nothing. Maybe the invitation for us this week is to ask: who is God calling me to notice? Whose need might intersect with mine in a way that allows God’s grace to flow? It might look ordinary: a conversation with a neighbour or a colleague who’s struggling.
And as we do that, we learn again that being formed into the likeness of Jesus isn’t about having it all together. It’s about becoming people who depend on God and pass on his grace to others. People who trust that even the little we have can be multiplied in God’s hands.
Son’s death and resurrection.
It would be easy to stop the story there, wouldn’t it? The miracle of flour and oil. A happy ending, everyone fed and grateful. But life rarely stays tidy for long. Just when Elijah and the widow are settling into God’s daily provision, something unthinkable happens. The boy gets sick and dies. Suddenly Elijah, this man of faith, has to learn another side of following God - not just trusting when things are full of blessing, but crying out when life breaks apart.
She cries out, “What have you against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?” It’s raw, honest, and desperate. Elijah himself wrestles with God too. He takes the boy in his arms, cries out: “Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with?” Elijah is honest with his pain. Amidst the questions and the wrestling, Elijah doesn’t question that God will hear his prayers. And God meets them there.
Formation doesn’t necessarily happen when things are good. Elijah shows us here that formation happens when we learn to bare our hearts to God and discover that God still hears us. Earlier in this passage the widow was worried that her provisions would run dry. Now it seems that her conviction is running dry. She knows that Yahweh can provide, that Yahweh cares but now it seems that with her son’s death, Yahweh’s care has run out.
And Elijah has the same wrestle. He has seen God provide and act miraculously in response to need. And I think that means that amidst his questions, skepticism and anger, Elijah knows that God cares. Even though they were distraught, they did not question that God would hear them. They questioned God’s timing and methodology, but not his presence or attentiveness to their cries. That verse from Peter’s letter reminds us that gold is refined through fire.
I don’t believe that God sends trials on us deliberately to punish or put us through pain, but perhaps when trials do come, God is able to refine us through them. Form us into people who understand God’s love and character more, who are able to pass that onto others more. There is so much that can be said about moments of great grief or suffering, that I don’t have time to fully unpack today. Though it is of course deeply important.
What I want to highlight is that this story of tragedy comes immediately after two moments of learning of God’s deep care and therefore provision. And what we see is that God can handle our struggle and our wrestling in the moments where we can’t see God’s care at work.
Part of our journey of formation into the likeness of Jesus is to see two things: In the moments where we cannot see God’s hand at work, or where we can’t see God’s care in action
We are allowed to be honest with God. We can pray and wrestle and ask. We can bring our pain to God. And we must, for to deny it will break our hearts.
God hears our cries and never ceases to care.
Now of course this story ends in great joy because God brings the boy back to life. He lives and the widow recognises again that truly, Elijah is a man who represents the true God. So where do these stories leave us?
We’ve seen Elijah depend on God, learning to trust that God will take care of him. We’ve seen him sent to the unlikely people that God deeply cares about and we’ve seen him acknowledge his deep needs before God. We’ve seen him bear his heart before God, asking God to intervene in the real, messiness of life.
More than what Elijah did, we’ve seen these stories reveal that we can trust God to provide for us. We’ve seen that we worship a God who cares about the powerless and statusless. We have a God who doesn’t just want robots who follow instructions, but people who will speak their hearts to him, who can honestly bring their needs before him.
And we can see how these stories echo hundreds of years before the kind of life that Jesus will have. Elijah saw bread provided for this widow and her son. Jesus shows us that he himself is the bread of life - a sustenance that will never run out or go dry. The son is raised back to life, foreshadowing the resurrection where Jesus will bring life not just for himself but for us all. That death might not be the final word on our lives. That life, now and forever, might be given to us.
This is the formation that we need as followers of Jesus. To be formed into living like we have received the sustenance - the life - of Jesus as a gift. And that means that the work stress, the family challenges, the workplace politics, the reality of addiction, the dating agonies or the mundane, everyday life, can all be full of moments to be formed by the gift that is life in Jesus.
So much of what passes for success in our world, the things that want to form us into the likeness of apparent good life, are rooted in anger and greed and fear and competitiveness and power. But we embody in our everyday lives the surprise of God’s love, because we are the people who like Elijah say, Do not be afraid. God sees your need and God cares. Jesus is a gift to you.
Elijah says this to a widow. Jesus rises from the dead and says this to the disciples who abandoned him. Then we must say this with the way that we treat colleagues who annoy us, or parents who frustrate us, or people whose politics we disagree with, or friends who have betrayed us, and people for whom we think we don’t have time. Instead of criticising them and excluding them, we say with our lives, Do not be afraid. God sees your needs and cares. Take Jesus as a gift. After all, that’s what Jesus says to us.
That is the formation that Elijah’s story points us to this week. Do not be afraid. God sees your needs and cares. Take Jesus as a gift.
Closing Prayer
Dear Lord,
May we let these truths form us into the image of your Son. Father, strengthen us to step into our workplaces, families, and neighbourhoods carrying the surprising, transformative love of God. As we step boldly into the days ahead continue to form us and use us to form those around us, for your kingdom and your glory.
In the name of Jesus, Amen.