Elisha: the Man, the Myth, the Legend - Week 3

This past November, my parents celebrated their fiftieth anniversary, and

so my brother and I we got them the gift

of buying all of us in the family a dinner

and a show. And so we went out to dinner

and show, and we got to see the old play

A Christmas Carol. And you know how many of you

guys seen a Christmas Carol? I think like everybody here, yeah,

And you know, we all know about Scrooge, We know

about Bob Cratchet, and a lot of us know about,

you know, the shame, the fear, and the sense of

poverty in a childhood. Now, what's interesting is that Dickens

wasn't just making this up. Dickens was really kind of

just sharing and casting a light on his own childhood.

A lot of people don't know this, but Dickens's father

into some debt trouble and so as a result, Charles's

father went into a debtor's prison, his mother went into

a debtor's prison, his two siblings went into a debtor's prison.

And then Charles had to go and work as a

you know, employee at a factory to pay off his

family's debt. Later on his life, he wrote a lot

about that shame. He wrote a lot about how poverty

stole his childhood and the pain. And see Charles Dickens

wasn't just you know, making this scenario up for the

Victorian period of England. This, you know, season of great

poverty also hit America. Think about this. Less than one

hundred years ago, we were in the Great Depression. And

what you got there to understand about the Great Depression

was that the women were the most vulnerable. We did

not have welfare, we did not have guaranteed assistance, we

did not have SNAP, we didn't have food stamps, we

didn't have anything like that. And so as a result

of that, whenever, you know, the debts were overwhelming and

you lost your home, you will lose everything. And as

a result of that, there was a phenomenon that happened

less than one hundred years ago here in America, and

this is where families would give away their children. And

one worker in Chicago, a social worker reports a woman

coming in with a single bag and she says, everything

I own is in this bag. And the woman said

to the social worker, I've already given away two of

my children. If I lose this last one, I will

have lost everything. And from New York all the way

through the Midwest, there is this thing called placing out.

And placing out was what it was called whenever you

looked at your children and said, we can't afford to

take care of our children, and so you would find

relatives or institutions you would just abandon your child. And

so there was a lot of placing out in America.

And one social worker talked about how this woman said

to her one time, she goes, you know what, my

biggest fear isn't something happening to me, but my biggest

fear is my children dying of starvation. See, dead didn't

just threaten finances, that threatened families. And it's important remember

because you know times like this one I knew, and

this is less than one hundred years ago in American history,

and this has happened all throughout history. We had Victorian

era England, we had the Great Depression here, but also

we could go back thousands of years to the Bible

days we can search in the Word of God and

we can still see things like this happening. And that's

what brings us to our text today. As we're looking

at the prophet Elisha, and we're gonna see this encounter

with a widow whose life has fallen apart. She's lost

her husband and now she's afraid she's gonna lose her sons.

She's grieving, she's afraid, and you know what, she has

nothing left. And so her cry for help is not dramatic.

She's talking about the reality that faced many families for centuries,

of getting to the point of desperation where only God

can help. So let's look today at Second King's chapter four.

It says, one day the widow of a member of

the group of prophets, and I pay attention to that

member of the prophets, her husband was a prophet, came

to Elisha and cried out, my husband, who served you,

is now dead. And you know that he feared the Lord.

You know he was a man of God. But now

a creditor has come threatened to take away my two

sons as slaves. So here's this with us. She's a

single mom. We don't know her name, her husband's died,

she doesn't have anything, but we do know that her

husband was a part of the group of prophets. Now

what she's saying to Elishasha is you know my husband.

You know that he's a man of God, and now

we need your help. Now, the Bible doesn't tell us

who this woman was, but when we look at extra

biblical text out there, we find when we look at

Josephus the Great Historian, that Josephus actually points to this

widow and says that her husband was Obadiah, now Obediah.

He was a prophet of God who served King a

Haf now King Ahab's wife. Well, Jezebel absolute nutcase, okay.

So whenever you would prophesy against her or in other words,

she would hear the word of the Lord, and if

the word of the Lord did not agree with everything

that she thought should be done, she would want your head.

So we get to First Kings, chapter eighteen, and we

see a background to the story. Obadiah was a devout

believer in the Lord. When while Jezebel was killing off

the Lord's prophets. Pay attention to this, Obadiah had taken

a hundred prophets and hidden them into two caves, fifty

in each, and then pay attention to this word right here,

supplied them with food and water, so on a profit

salary which was probably not much at all. He goes

and he takes this group of guys, maybe their families

were with him as well, takes him to a cave.

And then what does he do. He pays for all

of their food and their provisions. Now, think about this.

A lot of us live in this area, in the

northern Indianapolis, caramel fishers, this little area here. Have you

noticed how much it costs to God to eat? You know,

when we first moved here, it is about thirty five

dollars for my family to got to eat. Now and

even you know how like I go before we go

into a restaurant, I look at the girls like ice water,

ice water. And every once in a while if I

don't say that, my daughter will wait to the waiter

or waitress gets out. Dad, can I have some coke?

I'm we have coke because she knows how to get me.

And but just the three of us say we just

get sandwiches, count and tip and everything. We're talking about

fifty five sixty dollars bill. All right, Now, imagine feeding

one hundred people, one hundred families for a season. Okay,

here's what happened. Obadiah went and borrowed a lot of money.

He borrowed a ton of money to help out these

men who were going to be killed by crazy Jezebel,

and then Obadiah, for whatever reason, dies young. Now all

of that debt is transferred to the widow. She can't

pay it, she doesn't have a job, and so the

creditor comes up with this solution. Your sons are going

to become my slaves. Now, by the way, this was

a very normal thing back then. So children are people

in the family would become slave members or what they

would call indentured servants for a period of five to

six seven years until the was paid off. But in

reality you were just a slave on lease. When we

look back in American history, did you know that half

of the Europeans that came to America before seventeen seventy

five were indenture servants. My family a part of them

on my mother's side. When they came here, they were

in dentures service for their first seven years. They paid

for their passage by being servants for about seven years.

But in a lot of these indenture servants situations, or

sometimes they called them apprentice situations, where you become and

learn a trade, you basically were like a slave to

whoever was over you or whoever was paying for you.

And we find that Benjamin Franklin is anybody here got

a one hundred dollars bill like see real quickly. So

for those of you who don't know who Benjamin Franklin is,

he's the guy on one hundred dollars bill. But before that

he was a founding father, a great philosopher, a great diplomat,

and so he really helped shape the philosophy of our

country in many ways. But when he was young, at

twelve years old, his father sold him into an apprenticeship,

which was a legal contract that from age twelve to

twenty one he would be someone's apprentice. But also basically

they're indentured servant. Well, just like many of those relationships

that turned ugly by the way, you can't change jobs,

you can't leave. If you run away, you get arrested,

you get brought back. And so he started getting beat

a lot humiliated him. Finally, Benjamin Franklin at seventeen ran

away at the Philadelphia with three loaves of bread under

his arm and finally felt like, oh freedom. But if

he would have been arrested, he would have been brought back. See,

this is a system that has went throughout history, and

here we are. We're finding this woman facing this very

real system that blew up families, that threatened families, and

it was legal and it was common. But here's what

you got. See, she's devastated because she's not gonna be

able to find work, she's gonna have any husband, she's

gonna have no protection, and now her sons are gonna

be gone. So how does Elisha respond? I love it?

Pay attention here? What does Elisha say? Elisha just simply says,

how can I help you? Now? Pay attention here? Okay,

He did not say, how did you find yourself in

this situation? Were you not prepared for this? You know

result this? Could you knew that this could have happened

whenever your husband took on debt? Don't you guys have savings?

Don't you have this? Didn't you have this? Did you

plan for that? No? No, no, no, she does not.

Elisha just simply says, how can I help you? Now?

Pay attention to this. This is a big here at

the Church of the Crossing. Part of our DNA is

not too wonder if someone is worthy of help. Our DNA.

Here is just to help. Okay. See, I want to

remind you that the greatest of among us are those

who serve, not those who need justification to serve. There's

a lot of people that will help someone only if

they've seen them while you try to help yourself out

like crazy. No, no, no, we simply help. And so

Elisha just says, well, how can I help? And then

he says to her, well tell me what you have

in your house. And she says, well, your servant has

nothing at all. And then she remembers, almost like afterthought,

well except the little jar of oil. Now I pay

attention to this. She says, well, I got nothing. But

that's not the whole truth. Now, remember any of us

who have been in a situation where our life is

almost falling apart, we do feel like we have nothing. See,

when you're hurting, it's incredibly easy to focus on what

you don't have. I don't have a husband, I don't

have savings, I don't have a job, I don't have

any hope. And when we get to a spot where

we're desperate, or we're in pain, or we're overwhelmed, we

can't feel a way out. Have you ever been there, exhausted,

burned out. I feel like there's no hope. I can

still remember vividly sitting on the side of a bed

upstairs bedroom in Pittsburgh, and the youth group had grown

from about thirty kids to about three hundred a week.

And I had spent literally every day of my life

for years pouring into this ministry work during the day

and in the evenings I was with the kids, and

it finally caught up with me, and I felt like,

you know what, I can't change my schedule. I can't

back off because if I back off, well, then some

of the kids, you know it won't be helped, and

I'll stop coming to the youth group. And then and

then I think the leadership might look at me and say,

what's happening? Is the youth group in trouble? So I

felt like there's no way, but I have to keep

up this pace. And the pace was unsustainable, and I

became emotionally and mentally exhausted and wore out. I had

exhausted my leadership skills, I had exhausted my pastoral skills.

I was done, but I didn't know a way out.

And I still remember having this really dumb thought, and

it wasn't suicidal, but I had this thought, like God,

I just I just wish you would take me to heaven.

Like this, life's too overwhelming. I just wish I was

out of here. And I think that when we get

overwhelmed and we don't see a way out, we can

fill this and we start getting filled up with fear.

And let me tell you something about fear in our life.

Fear is something that when you start living in your

life in a fearful way, it can mess with your life.

Because let me tell you something right now, fear doesn't

just exaggerate. Fear lies. Fear doesn't just exaggerate it lies. Now.

I don't think I'm the only one who struggles with this,

but have you ever texted someone and calls someone a

bunch but then they don't answer? And so what do

you do? You go into life three sixty and you

start tracking them down, right, you start tracking them down

and if they don't answer, you're worried to death about them.

This past week, on Tuesday, my daughter and my wife

went up to Anderson that gets take care of some stuff.

And I knew they should have been home by now,

So I look on Live three sixty and my daughters.

It's showing that my daughter is off of I sixty

nine for about twelve minutes, and she's in a cornfield

and I'm like, I don't think there's any corn left

out there, Like she's not out there to eat, you know.

And my first thought was maybe she's been in a

really really bad car wreck. So I call and I

call no answer. Now I'm like, all right, she's dead.

I know she's dead. And then I finally called my

wife and my wife is like, hey, have you seen

Caitlin And she goes, oh, she's right here with me.

I don't know what happened to the phone signal or

to whatever. And then I heard my daughter say as

I was hanging out, boy, that must have been scary

for him, like, yeah, I picked out your casket, Like like, see,

fear lies to us, and fear overwhelms us. And you know, God,

the Bible says it says, not giving us a spirit

of fear, but of power, of love, and of a

sound mind. But the enemy spreads fear into your life.

And this may be personally You're like, hey, I didn't

get the Joba one. I'm never gonna get the Joba want.

Are you trapped in a secret addiction? You're thinking, I'm

never gonna overcome this? Are you pray your worship to God?

Like God? Where are you at? I haven't seised you

a long time. I haven't seen you a move in

my life. And you believe God has forgotten you, See,

fear will lie to you. This is where the widow

is a See she's letting fear over what she doesn't

have drown out the faith of what God has already

placed in her house. I'm gonna repeat that again. She's

letting the fear of what she does not have drown

out the faith and what she already has in her house.

So Elijah asks, what do you have? She's like nothing? Well,

oh yeah, except for this little thing of oil. Now

what can you do with oil? Well, you can do

a lot back then. You could cook with it, you

could like lamps, you could mix with the herbs for medicine.

You could annoint somebody and pray with Sometimes. See, here's

what I want you all to understand today. Sometimes God

begins his greatest miracles. Was something very small, very ordinary,

and very easy to overlook. What she had was not

sufficient by human standards. She didn't have much, but in

God's hands it was enough. And the honest truth today

is a lot of is don't have enough, but in

God's hands are little is enough. You're little is enough.

If some of you are sitting here going like you know, James,

I don't have enough time. I'm working two jobs, trying

to raise my kids. I can't keep up. I don't

have enough confidence. I don't have enough faith that God

will lead me through tomorrow. Another saying, you know, I

don't even have the hope that things will change. And

here's the truth, not enough. If you're feeling that desperate

today is often where God begins his work in your life.

It's when you reach the end of yourself, when you

can no longer depend on your abilities, your skill, your wealth,

your looks, your talent, all those things, When you can

no longer figure out how to get out of this,

That's when God begins to work in our life. So

what do we do when we don't have enough? We

simply offer to God what we do have, and then

you trust Him to provide with what you do have.

It might be a small thing from us, but when

we say God, I trust you with this. Remember, a

little is enough for God. I want to policy here

and I want to remind us of some things and

praise our God for awesomeness. Don't forget that our God

is the God of David. Who David went up against

the Goliath. And what did Dave have? David only had

five stones because what he only needed one? Why? Because

a little is enough with God? What about that little

boy who's watching Jesus preach to five thousand people, not

counting children and adults. And you know, now everybody's starving

and they're hungry and it's time to eat, but they

don't have enough. Little boy says, well, I got something

that's a little five loaves, two bread. But with Jesus,

a little is enough. And you're like James, I don't

even have that much faith. I am almost completely out

of faithful. Did Jesus say, Jesus, if you have faith

just as small as a mustard seed, you could say

to this mountain move and it will move. See, with Jesus,

a little is enough. We go back to this text.

All she has is a little bit of ball of oil,

and so Elijah says to her, Now go around, ask

all your neighbors for empty chars. Don't ask for just

a few. Now pay attention, because this she gets very personal.

What does Elijha tell her to do. He tells her

to go get help. And here's where I see a

lot of christ especially in the church. They have all

these problems, but they don't go and let other people

know they need help. Because, let me tell you something,

Pride doesn't borrow jars. Pride doesn't go around ask people

for help. Pride doesn't let other people know that you're hurting,

or you're suffering, or you're struggling. And so therefore the

miracle doesn't happen because we're too prideful to go out

and let anybody know that we actually need help. But

Elijah says, listen, you're gonna have to humble yourself. Go

around and ask all your neighbors for some jars, it says.

Then go into your house with your sons and shut

the door behind you. Pour oil into the jars, and

as each one is filled, put it to the side.

So she left him, shut the door behind her, and

her sons. They brought the jars to her, and she

kept pouring. When all the jars are fools, she said

to her son, bring me another one. So she keeps

feeling and feeling and feeling. By the way, these maybe

were two gallons, ten gallons. Maybe they were the type

of containers that you would hold, you know, yeaston or

or whatever, it doesn't matter. These things were huge. And

she keeps pouring and pouring and pouring and pooring, and

the oil never runs out, one galling after her. The

pay attention hit, this is so cool, and this really

matters when we think about this miracle. God didn't give

her something new. He multiplied what she already had. God's

gonna provide for you through what you already have. It's

not like you've gotta go out there and find no, no, no,

it wasn't through something new. Is through what she already had.

And then they kept pouring, and finally we find this

in the text. There is not a jar left. And

then the oil stopped flowing. As long as there was

empty jars, the oil kept flowing. And noticed that God

that he didn't require a specific size. He didn't say

you had to pour a specific way. They didn't have

to do a certain saying over the jars. There was

no you know, ritual that they had to go through. No, no,

none of that. What was the only requirement for the jars?

They had to be empty, They had to be empty.

Some of you need to empty yourself of the shame

you have that you've been carrying. Some of you need

to empty yourself of that need to look strong and

impress others when the truth is you're hurting on inside.

Some of you need to clean out that anger that's

poisoning your soul. Some of you need to clear out

that fear that's paralyzed you. Some of you need to

clear out that comparison that you've been doing where and

it leads you to always saying I'm not enough or

I don't have enough. Some of you need to clean

out the lives of the enemy that's poisoning in your thoughts.

They're telling you you're this or you're this. See, we

need to empty our lives of what doesn't matter. And

when we do that, we will watch God fill our

lives with what does See when we empty ourselves of

sin and ourself, God, what does he do? He fills

us with his spirit, his purpose, his power, that same

power that raised Jesus from the grave. So if you

want to be filled by God's presence. You want to

be filled with God's purpose. You want to be filled

with God's power. You have to empty yourself of whatever

sin you're carrying. Insecurity. You gotta empty yourself so that

God can fill you of his power because it's when

you reach the end of your strength, that's when His

strength is present. See. Not enough is where God starts.

Not enough is where God starts. See. God will fool

every part of your life that's empty, every part. Now,

let me ask this question here, very simple. Who was

a part of the widow's miracle? All right? Number one?

The widow? Who else Elias shup her sons? And who else?

The neighbors, the neighbors community mattered. God perform a miracle

through his power is Prophet who loved her. See, many

of God's provision miracles come through people. That's why I

often say, you've got to have Christian community. You gotta

have connections here. And we don't just go to church,

but we are the church. We're the family of God.

And even though the whole world is divided right now,

we stand together. Why because Christ says, may my disciples

be one, so that the world will know that I

am the true son of God. And here's the reality

of what I want all of us to hear today.

All Right, you might not be the person who came

in like the widow today. You might not be the

one who's desperate. You might not be the one who

is in need. But you may be the neighbor in

this story, the one who has a few jars and

the opportunity to help someone else. Are you the neighbor?

What are your jars that you have that can help

someone else? A few years ago, my furnace went out

dead of winter, freezing. A family from the church heard

about it, brought over a ton of heaters, warmed our

whole house up. I was so blessed because they heard

we had a need. We didn't even have to ask,

they just showed up. And now every time I hear

about someone's furnace going out, we bring our heaters over

to help buy. That's some of our jars. But I

ask you again, what are your jars? What do you

have that you could be helping and blessing other people

with in the kingdom? You know, let me just tell

you a little bit about some of my jars. And

again they're weird. Their mine they're probably not for you,

but here's some of my jars. And it started back

probably about sixteen seventeen years ago. There was a couple

of families that I was pretty close to, and the

husbands were hunters, and the families didn't have much means

at all. And within the same season, both husbands left

their wives and left them in a bad spot financially, like,

left them in deep poverty and just went on their

own way. One moved to Florida, another one moved out

and out of town, and all of a sudden just

left these women with these children in desperate situations. I

was very, very disappointed in these men, but I also

knew that they were hunters and their family ate deer meeting,

and I knew that deer season was coming up, and

I thought, you know what, I think I can help

them out. And I had never taken more than one

deer in any hunting season up until then. But then

I got this wide audea in my head. I talked

to my wife, I said, you know what, I'm gonna

go get enough deer for these women, and then we're

gonna go pay to get it process, which is pretty expensive,

and then we're going to pay for all kinds of

food to go with it, and we're gonna feed them

for like three or four months. And so I went

out in a step of faith and I bought six

deer license six deer tax never taken more than one,

but I bought six that year. And it was pretty ridiculous.

But I said, Lord, I remember laying them out and

pray over them and said, Lord, this is for those

ladies and those children. That year, when I went out,

I kid you not, deer would not stop walking in

front of me. They would fight each other over who

got to be harvested. They would turn and show me

their sign. It was the easiest season I ever had.

I just couldn't believe it. And you know, I did

it again the next year, and I had some tax

for these ladies. And I went out that first morning

and of gun season, and I remember I went up

into this old barn I never been in, and it

was really scary, and I was up in the in

the top of the barn and this deer came out,

so I shot at it, missed it, and another deer

popped up. I shot out it, I missed it, and

I look at it. Another deer came up, I shut

up if I missed it, and I'm like, oh my gosh,

I'm the worst hunter ever. And then I went out

there and there was three deer right there. I got

them all. I didn't miss any of them, and that

took care of this next group of ladies. This past

I've done that every year for the last fifteen years,

except for a couple of years when I moved here.

And this past year I had one week in the

hunt because I'm going back to school. So starting in September,

I start praying, Lord, blessed this one week, and bless

this one week, and bless this one week. And only

got two nights to go out, two nights to go out,

Blessed this weekend. But God laid four people on my heart.

First night we went out, two deer walked out, harvested them.

The next night, I was sitting out there in the

woods and it was getting late, had like one hour left,

and I start praying, like, Lord, you know who you've

laid on my heart. God, I want to bless them,

because dear meat's gonna be our hamber is probably gonna

be ten bucks by the end of the year. They're saying,

and I'm like, God, I really love the bless these families.

But here's the thing God, And then I got really weird.

I said, God, I don't want to pay a thousand

dollars for amount, but I also don't want to whimpy buck.

Can you bring me out an eight point about this big?

And I want the body that have about this much

to me? And I literally daydreamed, like you see that,

dear Lord, that would be awesome, and then I prayed

that prayer and I even laughed, like you are ridiculous, James.

Twenty minutes later, the doppel ganger of the deer in

my mind walked out, looked at me, positioned itself, and

then went, I'm not out there eating mushrooms. People don't

worry about it. But the point is that's my jar.

And I remember harvesting that deer. I'm like, God, you

gave me exactly what I needed that I can bless

these people. And that might be weird to you, but

every year for me, it's a spiritual journey and that's

my jar, and this is how I can help other

people in my own way. What is your jar? What

is something unique that God has getted you with has

blessed you with that you can go and you can

help others whose life is empty and a certain area,

but you can go pour into their life. What is

your jar? So as we wind down today, let me

go back to what do you need to relieve so

that you could be filled by God? Some of you

need to release a empty pride and that self reliance

so you can experience his strength. Some of you need

to empty yourself a fear so that He could fill

you with his faith. And some of you need to

empty yourself that need to control so you can trust

God again. Some of you need to turn off social

media and empty the noise of this world saying you

need to be this or that. Maybe you feel like

this widow, overwhelmed, empty port out, and convince you have

nothing left to give. But know this, that's where God

begins to do his greatest work. Not enough is where

God starts. What do you need to empty yourself up

today so that God can feel it? Let's close with

a verse of provision, says she went and told the

man of God, and he said, go sell the oil

and pay your debts. You and your sons can live

on what is left God took care of her needs.

The only requirement was you need to ask for help,

and her vessels needed to be empty so that God

can fill them. We're gonna do something a little different today.

We are going to take some time to pray, but

we're also going to have a time of anointing. But

today annointing is gonna be a little bit different. So

if you have any need physical, a big need, and

you want to be anointed for and prayed for, and

you want to talk about it a little bit, you

can go to the prayer partners on the far edges

out here, the prayer partners that are going to be

right here and right here. We're just gonna do a

simple anointing. You know, the Father Son and the Holy

Spirit may be blessed. And that anointing where you're gonna

receive oil is a sign that you this morning have

decided to empty yourself of something so that God can

fill you back with And so what do you need

to empty yourself up of today? As a pride? Is

an anger? Is it control? Is there an addiction? What

do you need to release to God? Let's take a

moment to pray, and I want you to just ask

God to speak to your heart today, ask him, Lord,

what do you need me to empty today? God, we

come to you today and we want to receive from you.

We want to experience more of your love today and

thank you Father that our little can be enough with you.

So here's what we're going to do today. Here in

a moment, I'm gonna ask you to stand, and then

for those of you who do need to have some

conversation and need a little deeper prayer, you're going to

go to the ends. But for those of you today,

just as a simple sign, if I emptied something today

and I want God to refill it, I want you

to make your way down the middle aisle, and like

I said, you don't have to say anything other than

just receive that anointing from God. Let us stand as

we continue to worship, and as if you come down

to receive the anointing, please make your way around down

to the middle and we'll help you out. Let's continue

to worship.