Pastor Brodie Kalamen | The Widow of Zarephath | July 28th, 2025

Thank you, Lindsay.

We love Lindsay.

She's so sensitive to what God does.

Saying she's such a gift.

And her husband Adam is such a gift as well.

I was one of the guys who he built beats at the brisket competition, but I have you know that August 13th is coming, that brisket's already sitting in the fridge soaking up.

I'm going all I'm going for broke here.

I'm bringing in wood, smoked wood from like the Middle East.

It's You've got nothing yet.

Yet, yet.

I'm looking forward to it.

I'm looking forward to it.

Um there are different ways to serve, and one of the ways I found myself in is making a brisket.

So, how many of you enjoy brisket?

Yeah, that's right.

You well, you're welcome.

You're welcome.

Um thank you, team, for leading today.

Let's give them a hand.

I'd love to celebrate our team.

We're going to continue on our series on uh ordinary hero or ordinary saints.

And I I I know the title's called Everyday Saints, but I just like the word ordinary.

Uh how many of you consider yourself ordinary?

You like you you just know it.

There's something about you that's just like, nah, we're just or like I'm just one of how many billion people in the world today.

And the more the older you get, and in my world, the more funerals and times uh times I go to these events where remembering someone's life, I think like life is just like a vapor.

It comes and it goes so quickly.

I'm watching my kids grow up, I'm watching uh others um you know achieve you know milestones in their life, and I just think how short a time we have to actually uh do something with our life, and at the same on the same hand, how God uses the ordinary to do extraordinary things.

Because we're all ordinary, and no none of us, if we compare ourselves to to God, we're just we're just an ordinary part of creation that God has chosen to pour into to make a difference in every part of our world.

And so when I look at each individual here, I see you on two sides.

You're the ordinary individual, but you're also the saint that God has chosen.

And so I love that some of the um some of the men in the group, when they see you in the morning, they're like, hey, what's up?

And you know, how you doing, bro?

And some of them are like, how you doing, saint?

Like they call it out of you.

And I think about that uh sometimes I think about the value of the saint part of who we are called to become and who we're we've been called to be in the world, because God placed us here on purpose, he's given us a destination and a destiny to fulfill, and each one of us needs to carry that.

And so we're looking at some of the ordinary people that God used in his word, like in some of the illustrations through scripture, to find out how God used ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

So we can see ourselves there, we can see ourselves clear in the scripture.

So, what I'd like to do today is share on 1 Kings chapter 17, and we're gonna read a little bit from chap verse 7 to 16.

1 Kings 17 · chapter mention

It says this it says, sometime later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land.

Then the word of the Lord came to him.

This is to Elijah, go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there.

I've directed a widow there to supply you with food.

So he went to Zarephath, and 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 and a jar so I may have a drink?

As she was going to get it, he called, Bring me, please, a piece of bread.

How many of you know men haven't changed?

Hey, are you getting up to get a drink in the kitchen?

It's like, well, while you're there, do you think you grab me some snacks and make some nachos, or how about a burger or a sandwich or something else, right?

That's what Elijah does.

Water, how about some bread?

And I think that kind of broke the relationship here.

Because her response is, 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.

And I'm gathering a few sticks, I'm gonna take it home, make a meal for myself and my son that we may eat it and die.

I've never been talked to that way in my home, but if after asking for bread, but that's quite the response.

And Elijah said to her, Don't be afraid.

Go home, do as uh as you have said, but first make a small loaf of bread for me, for what you have, and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son.

For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says The jar of flour you will not be used up, and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.

She went away, did as Elijah had told her, so there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family, 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.

What a great portion of scripture, a great story to look at.

And so we're gonna look into this a little bit deeper because the fact that God chose a widow to provide for Elijah is like deeply ironic, because widows in the ancient world often were typically destitute themselves and in need of provision themselves, and yet God commanded a widow to feed Elijah, showing that sometimes God's provision actually just comes from the most unlikely people and places.

Beaverdale, Peach Land, Vernon.

Some of you are like, I'm perverted.

It takes you from where has God brought you from?

Unlikely places.

How many of you are from Saskatchewan?

Yeah, my family, my wife's family's from Saskatchewan.

How many of you are from Rutland?

God uses unlikely people in unlikely places to do unlikely and extraordinary things.

If you know anything about this church in the 40 plus years of ministry here, churches planted around the world, clinics and orphan orphanages and church plants that have gone beyond our border here.

Because God does not restrict people to a border a place.

God uses ordinary people and ordinary places to reach extraordinary places.

God's provision came from the most unlikely person, from the most unlikely place.

And God, like I'm sure Elijah was, he's walking into the city, would have been looking for the rich widow.

The widow who had food, the widow who had a fridge full and resource, or somebody who would have been a great supporter.

But God chose an unlikely instrument.

And Jesus refers to this widow in Luke chapter 4, verse 25 and 26, where he says to the people in Nazareth, he says to them, Listen, there were lots of widows, but God chose a widow who wasn't even a believer to do an extraordinary thing for one of the mighty prophets that you esteem.

Luke 4:25

God used her above, and so God's mercy and God's blessing isn't restricted to just favored people or prestigious people or popular people, but God can use a widow and God can use you.

The people of Nazareth were so upset with Jesus, they they grabbed him and tried to push him off a cliff.

And the scripture says Jesus just walked right through him like a boss.

Yeah.

Come on.

Jesus unfolded this story.

This this story uh was uh a reflection to the people in Nazareth because at this time the story was that God had sent a drought to Israel.

And the drought was a judgment to the people of Israel because they had they had uh started to um worship other idols and other gods.

And one of the gods that they were worshiping, his name was Baal.

And during during that drought, God sustained Elijah near a little brook.

He brought him food and water to this brook, but afterwards the Bible says here, the brook dried up.

And how many of you know that sometimes you did the right thing and God brought you to a place, and then all of a sudden that place dries up and God's gonna have to move you somewhere else.

And sometimes that movement somewhere else, you're like, is that of God, or is that, you know, God's left me?

No, God's just moving you, right?

God's moving you to that next point, that next place.

And so God moved Elijah from the brook and he moved him to a place where he would find his uh resource.

And God oftentimes moves you into next steps, the move you into that next step of faith.

And oftentimes it's it's very unlikely places where God moves you.

In this situation, God moved Elijah from a very private place, a brook, a place that was secluded, a place where all his resources were met at that point, and God moved him to a place called Zarephath, which happens to be the home base of Jezebel, who was the uh kind of the queen who served the god Baal, who was the god of rain, who our God had decided the way we're gonna show judgment is we're gonna shut off the tap.

Everything's gonna dry up.

And God sent him to the homeland of Baal.

And that's the Baal was a place of refinery, it was a place where there was a lot of refinement, and and uh God often uses those places to actually move you.

I I see it as a training ground.

How many of you know that God just doesn't put you in a ring with a black belt right away?

He just moves you into a place where you actually learn and develop and mature and grow until the point where you're actually able to stand your feet to feet, toe to toe with your adversaries.

God moved him and was training him to move him from point to point.

So God moved him to a very unlikely place.

And he he moved him with the to a place where at the gate he met the widow.

And this widow was gathering sticks, but even more than that, the Bible, one of the translations said she was gathering scraps of firewood, not even logs, not even large sticks.

She was just grabbing whatever she could find, whatever she could scrape up, because out of that she was going to cook her last meal.

And Elijah asks her for a piece of bread, asks her for water, and her her response was agitated.

She was in a dire space, to the point where she says, I'm just going home right now.

I'm gonna take what little I have so that my son and I will eat it, and then we'll just settle in and die together.

How dire is that?

I can't imagine that point of desperation, and that point of fatigue, and that point of working so hard that even the widows who were supposed to be taking care of in the culture, there was no resource even for them, and she just felt completely alone.

No other mention of other other people, no other mention of other family.

She felt that despair, and really I can read it in her tone as she's talking to Elijah, says, This is your like I recognize your God, but recognize my situation here.

I haven't got much left.

And so the response revealed that inner despair, that inner circumstance.

She had nothing left.

And so Elijah makes this promise to her: don't be afraid.

Would you say that?

Don't be afraid.

I don't know who needs to hear this today.

Don't be afraid.

Don't be led by fear, don't be afraid.

And then he makes the promise that God will take care of all of her needs, and he will make that jug of oil never run empty, and that pot of flour never run dry.

And Elijah addresses that fear.

Now, fear is a natural response in a point of scarcity.

When you look at your life and you say, What have I got right now?

What do I have in my hand?

What do I have?

And oftentimes we see the scarcity in our life.

I don't have anything to offer, I don't have the name, I don't have the history, I don't have the resource.

You can make up excuses all day for the things you don't have.

But what do you have is the question that will reverse your trajectory.

What you have is something greater and something of more value because when you have God, you've got everything you need.

You got every promise.

And so when when Elijah made this audacious request, hey, by the way, I know your kids are gonna, you and your child are gonna die, but I want you to go home and make me some food.

And after I've eaten, go ahead and make yourself something with your child.

I don't know if I could have done that.

I don't know if I could have said that.

Like my my gentle, merciful heart couldn't have done it, but it sounded so cold.

But what what Elijah was doing was he was putting on her an opportunity for obedience.

Do I make him food and give him my last and trust the promise of God, or do I eat it for myself?

And she decided to take a moment and to obey and to risk something and to not be fearful, but to put her trust in a God she didn't even know.

Theologically, this is a test of faith and a test of surrender.

Will she cling to a scarcity mindset or pour out what last she had in obedience and trust God's abundance in her life?

Faith needs to act on God's word.

And so we all have a moment in our life where we have to look at our life, and we all have places in our life where we feel scarce, and we feel like we don't have anything.

And I love her first response.

She said, At first, I don't have anything.

And then she goes to Elijah, well, I do have a little of this and a little of that.

A little flour and a little bit of oil.

So she lied at first, or maybe it wasn't a lie intentional, it's just in her mind she had nothing when really she had something.

And every one of us, I know when we come in to even worship, and that was my challenge this morning before we went to worship.

You've got something to offer.

Take your everyday sleeping, breathing, living, everyday working life, and present your work as an as a worship to God.

Sometimes we come to church, what do I have to give as worship?

Just give your expression, smile a little.

Thank God with your face.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, God, for what I have.

I have my word, I have my voice, I have my expression, I have my tone, I have my attitude, I have my my legs, I have my breath, I can sing.

All we have we can give to God is worship.

Sometimes we look and we go, I've got nothing when you do have something.

You do have something, you have enough.

God multiplies.

The miracle was unlocked after she poured out for Elijah.

After she poured out, after she walked out steps of obedience, God multiplied it.

And this teaches us that God multiplies what we're willing to pull out, pour out.

We see provision after we offer trust, after we offer what we already have.

And so these ordinary miracles, these ordinary resources, there's nothing more ordinary than flour, it was ground, ground wheat, flour and oil, crushed olives.

It was ordinary of that day, and God took the ordinary in the hands of an ordinary individual and did an extraordinary thing.

What can God do with you?

This miracle of provision, it was heroic obedience.

There's a reason why I consider her a saint, because if I had my child and I had my last offering, where would I send that offering?

Where would I deposit that offering?

But it took a heroic act of faith for her to say, I'm going to obey God, this God, the God of Elijah.

I'm going to obey this God of Elijah, and I'm going to submit to him and trust in him.

This verse and this scripture just tells of God afterwards providing for her every day, day to day, that promise of that He offered her.

In a sense, this miracle was a miracle that was done in the margin.

It was done with the little things that she had that would have been considered something that would have been overlooked.

There's a reason why God uses things that are overlooked.

People who are overlooked.

People and resources that we overlook.

And I get it.

In our mind, we see one thing.

We see a big, a big, like, you know, a big resource coming our way.

We see our salvation coming from our boss, our manager, the bank, the economy, the world kind of collective coming into alignment to us.

We see it coming that way where God uses the obscure.

What requires of us is obedience and trust in Him.

Jesus, when He referred to her, He said, God, God knew what was in her heart.

He knew what she was willing to offer.

She knew how to give her last.

And again, another widow in Scripture who gave in the offering, the last of her offering, where Jesus saw it.

And said, she's giving more than any of the rich people have given because she's giving all that she had.

The value of your offering, the value of the two mites, which is less than a penny.

It's a small thing.

But God provides through faith.

And I think sometimes we have to take our minds off of seeing small God.

Instead, seeing the God of abundance.

And so we need to start thinking that God has come, the enemy comes to rob, kill, steal, and destroy.

But Jesus came that we would have life and that life to abundance.

And we look at God's abundance and that abundant life.

And it means trusting God's supply over our supply.

And saying, God, I'm going to put my attention on what you have, not on what I have, on what you can do, not on what I can do.

There was nothing the widow could have done on her own.

She'd done it all, but God provided for her because He she looked at that supply.

God's promise and God's power will challenge the human norms.

It will challenge where we see the miracle coming from.

Often it'll be unlikely vehicles.

I look at the scripture and I see a young shepherd boy.

Who's gonna take down the giant?

Well, there's a little boy out in the field who plays a harp.

Let's put him in.

Call me up, coach.

Bottom of the bench.

Forgotten child, David, going in to slay a giant.

Mary, Mary, uh like the youngest, the the one who was considered like someone who would never have been the mother of Jesus, could become called out to be the mother of Jesus, to bear the Messiah.

I look at, you know, you got 5,000 people to feed, men to feed, maybe more in terms of the women and the children.

And Jesus looks and the little boy comes up, he's like, Jesus, I got lunch.

What do you have?

Five loaves, two fishes for five thousand.

And what does Jesus do?

In the hands of the God Jesus, he blesses the food and it multiplies and it feeds everyone with baskets left over.

Unlikely spaces, unlikely places.

We just have to keep our heads up and be watchful for what God is doing.

Oftentimes when we when we walk, we walk with like our head down, oh man, we're walking, we're navel gazing, looking at the ground, and we're just kind of like, oh, poor is like poor me, pour me.

Instead of saying, God, today I come to you and I'm attentive and I'm waiting and I'm expectant and I'm looking for the miracle that you're gonna bring my way through any means necessary.

I'm gonna watch, I'm gonna prepare, I'm gonna walk with arms wide open, waiting to receive what you have prepared for me from any resource that you have.

Jesus talked about her and he said, you know what?

This is the most important person in that story in 1 Kings 17.

It wasn't King Ahab, it wasn't the prophet, it was it was the widow that that Jesus remembered and recalled to the people in the synagogue in Nazareth.

He said, It was the widow.

You gotta think about the widow, you gotta think about this one person in the story that you might see as overlooked.

I'm telling you, she knew something that you don't know.

And Nazareth, the people like, gosh, she was a gentile, she was less than a Jew.

That's their perspective.

She doesn't have the promise of God.

God would have overlooked her, anyways.

And Jesus is like, pay attention.

I've got something for you, but it's gonna come through an unlikely means.

And you've got to be ready for it because that's the way God blesses.

He doesn't look at your gender or your wealth or your social standing, he looks at your obedience, and you obey in the small areas.

I'll take this bread, I'll take this oil, I'll take this flour, I'll make a cake for you first.

And that unlocked the miracle for her.

It's a lesson of obedience.

We surrender to God's work.

So the the woman, uh the widow of Zarephath, was an ordinary woman in an extraordinary circumstance.

And she is a perfect example of an ordinary saint.

And I look around because many people I see have um you know are walking the same walk.

And I just want to recognize today some of these hidden figures that are are walking even in our church.

We we have single moms.

Amen.

They're providing every day and raising families and raising kids and and teaching them the ways of God and are hustling every day and doing it with God's help.

And I'm telling you today to keep keep it keep your eyes on Jesus, keep your eyes on the one who will provide.

He can do miracles through simple obedience.

I think of the kids' program directors downstairs who are taking care of your kids.

We should clap right now and let them hear you.

They're the ones who are like helping teach and helping raise and speak truth and speak life into the kids.

So when you collect them, they're like, This is what I learned, mom, and this is what's being formed in my my view of God.

I see Jesus as my friend, I see Jesus as my Lord, Jesus is my king, He's He's my everything.

It's gonna come because there are people that are investing in the grandparents who pray.

I had praying grandparents, and I'm so grateful for prayer of praying grandparents.

And now my parents are praying.

I helped my dad with his computer the other day, another day, another computer issue, and he's working out his calendars because his calendars aren't working, and each one of his calendars has a block in it from seven to eight in the morning, I believe, where he's praying for the next generation.

Thank you for prayer, thank you for dedicated prayer.

There's some marrow, uh, some modern parallels of ordinary saints.

Uh, I I think about the people who are taking care of um people who are in distress or sick.

And I watched my mom go through a lot in this last year, and the people who cared, the people who provided food, the people who came to the door with a warm meal, or just an encouraging word.

God, God sees that and he recognizes it.

It's the spirit of that widow that says, I'm going to do the small things, and the small things are going to unlock big things.

And so this greatness that we look at, spiritual greatness, it oftentimes culture sees influence and platform and stage and it sees highlights and spotlights.

But God sees obedience.

It's not about the platform, it's about private obedience to do the things that God has called you to do.

No matter how small it may look, God will call you to obey.

And it's that obedience that makes a difference.

This the I have two stories here just before I leave that were just really inspiring to me this week.

One of them is of a woman named Osceola McCarty.

And I have a picture of her up here.

She was an elderly African American woman who was a washer woman in Mississippi.

How many of you know that that wasn't a place that was friendly to the African American people?

And she was a washer woman there, and she lived frugally washing clothes by hand for decades.

And in 1995, she was 86 years old.

She uh stunned her community by bringing in$150,000 towards a bursary for uh young people who needed furthering in their education.

And that fact stunned the community that her small investment, her small uh, her small donation there in terms of what others could have done, she went and she did that.

And by doing that, others followed her lead, and it created a ripple effect all across Mississippi where her investment was multiplied time and time and time and time again.

I tried to look up how much it was that came out of that small seed, but that small seed made a huge, huge, huge difference, affecting lives all across Mississippi.

God doesn't God doesn't see, God doesn't people don't see what God sees.

And what God sees is a seed, and what people see may be like a donation, but God sees the seed and the effect of the seed, and that's the way she planted it into the ground, and she saw a harvest.

This other example I thought was just incredible were these two elderly sisters in the Hebrews.

And I probably said that wrong, but it's in Scotland.

Scot, Scotland.

In 1949, the sisters are on each side of the minister there, and one of them was nearly blind, and they committed, these sisters committed to pray twice a week all night long throughout the night.

They decided we're gonna pray all night and we're gonna pray for our 15,000 people that are in our community in the in the outside uh in the outskirts of Scotland.

We're gonna pray for our community and we're gonna pray for revival.

That God would send revival to this place.

And that prayer and those prayers literally created a fire in that area.

And that fire was felt by people who were going to restaurants and going to dances, and especially in the young people, that they would be out dancing and the music would be playing, and they would hear in their in their mind uh like a call to repentance and a call to go to this little cottage where these two elderly sisters are praying and to get their lives right with God, to the point that the cottage was like 200 people in a house.

How many of you know that's a good party?

And they're they're calling out to God to pray for them and to deposit in them a seed of destiny into their life, started by two unlikely people.

If God can use hidden prayer warriors, hidden figures, the people, the ordinary, the washer woman, the blind, he can use the child in the field taking care of the sheep, he can use a widow woman collecting scraps of wood to make a difference in the world through one simple act of obedience.

How much more can God use you and I?

We've been given such privilege in this nation to have a freedom for religion, to freely pursue God's intent.

And there's no reason why we can't just call out to God every day and say, God direct me, God lead me, God like strategically prepare my path so that the right people come in the right place at the right time and the right words are deposited that make a difference for our future in Jesus' name.

In Jesus' name.

And my big question for us today is really the flour and the oil.

What is God placed in your hand?

What has God placed in your heart?

What are those ordinary things that God has given you to be able to make an extraordinary difference?

Would you stand with me today?

You might be feeling like the widow.

And perhaps, and I hope not.

But I I I hope you're not at that place of despair, and that place like she was at, the point where she was giving up, and the point where she was willing to just throw it all in and just give up and die.

But I'm here to tell you today that God is with us, and if we hang on to God and we trust in God and we put our faith in him and we take those steps of obedience, God will lead us to the point of recovery and the point of blessing, and he will provide for us.

And I know like I one of the benefits and one of the challenges I have is when I look across the room, I know people are going through things.

And I know that you're facing huge mountains, and I know you're facing obstacles in your way, and I know your stories, and I'm here to challenge your belief and to transform your mind, and to actually help you see that God is taking, can take you in whatever situation you may be in, and he can help you overcome, and he will work with you in overcoming.

Would you just close your eyes with me today?

And just we're gonna take a moment before God that's private between just you and God.

And if this is you and you're facing an obstacle today, and you're saying, God, I need your help, I need your work to go forward in my life, would you just raise your hand?

You're facing some obstacle, just go ahead and raise it with faith today, knowing that we're not alone in this place, that God is with us today.

God is with us today.

And so, Father, for every hand that's raised today, with every heart that's raised before you, Father, today we announce, Lord, your abundance, your name, Jesus, the name that is above every other name.

You are the Lord of all lords, you are the King of all kings.

There's nothing scarce in your name.

You are full of life, full of joy, joy unspeakable.

You're full of peace, peace that passes understanding.

You are full of wisdom, creative knowledge, and genius to be able to get through any situation today.

And so, Father, today, you are our healer, you are our provider, you are our comforter, you are our help, you are our strength, you are our shield, you are our strong tower, where the righteous can run in and be saved.

You are our provision, you are el Shaddai, you are our banner, you are Jehovah Nisi, our victory.

Father, we say today, you are great.

You are great, and you're worthy of our praise, and you're worthy of our obedience.

Help us, Father, today to take that one small step of obedience, that one risk, a no to fear, and yes to you.

And we ask this, Lord, your favor, your it would funnel towards us, your blessing would funnel towards us, Lord, as we connect to you, connect to that source today.

Father, I ask for friends, for those who need the right people in their life, Father, friends who will stand together, stand with wisdom, stand in counsel.

I ask for counselors, Lord, for those who are facing situations, that the right people would be brought in, that would have the solutions to the challenges that they're facing.

I ask, Lord, for your word to be deposited in every heart, and that your prophetic word, that encouragement, that lifting up, that uplifting word would benefit each and every one, Lord, in this room today.

In the name of Jesus.

Do you believe that with me today?

You receive that with me today?

Thank you, Father.

Thank you, Father.

Let's just worship him right now.