Again we want to wish a Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there and to all the men who work hard to help provide and care for others. We honor men today for all that you do and how you strive to be a source of strength, love, and faith for those around you. It’s not easy being a Dad and trying to live up to all the expectations that others have for you and that you set for yourselves. None of us feel like we have the time to do all that we want to do and need to do. None of us feel like we have enough money to keep up with inflation and the costs needed to meet our needs and the needs of our families. We are all looking for more patience and faith as we try to navigate all the stress and problems of the world. It’s not easy today but the truth is that these are the same problems and issues that have faced people all through history.
Today, as we continue to look at the ridiculous ways the prophet Elisha ministered to God’s people, we are going to see someone who was in need just like we are. 2 Kings 4:1-2
The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord. But now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as his slaves.”
Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”
“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a small jar of olive oil.”
We don’t know the name of this woman but some scholars think she may have been the widow of the prophet Obadiah. Obadiah lived during the time of Elijah and he spoke out against the evil and godlessness of King Ahab and his wife Jezebel. While at one point Obadiah was quite wealthy, he spent all his money helping meet the needs of the prophets during his day and when his money was gone, he went out and borrowed more money to make sure the prophets of God were fed. When he died, he still owed that money and so this may have been his widow who came to Elisha for help.
The situation for the woman is desperate. She has debt she can not pay back and not much hope of making money. Women had few options for a paid profession other than the “oldest profession.” The one sure way she could have made money involved selling her body, and she didn’t want to do that. If she couldn’t pay off the debt, then her sons would be taken from her to work as slaves to repay the loans. She is in a difficult situation. She has no good options and so no hope for herself or her family or her future.
Maybe you can relate to her situation. You were just making ends meet before inflation took off and now you aren’t sure how you will pay the bills. For some it’s either, put gas in the car or food on the table. Or maybe one problem has led to another and then to another and you are feeling overwhelmed by it all and wondering where do you even start. Maybe your once steady relationships are now rocky or broken. You once felt strong but now you just feel weak and tired. You just don’t see any good options for the future. Even the light at the end of the tunnel looks more like the headlight of an oncoming train and you can get off the tracks fast enough.
Anyone feeling this way? If that is where you are, then please look at how Elisha responded to this woman’s cry for help. Elisha didn’t ignore her. He didn’t blow her off or play down her situation as “not that bad”. He stopped and listened. He asked her, how can I help you?
In all our struggles. and in the face of the challenges we face today, God is listening and God is asking, how can I help you? Elisha’s care for this widow and her situation is a reminder that God does care about our situation and He wants to get involved and help us if we will trust Him.
God is asking, how can I help you, but He also wants us to ask each other this question. Even in our own struggles, reaching out to help others is important. In fact, it is often when we focus on the needs of others and how we can help them that we find our own situations improving.
I once heard a counselor say that anytime someone came to her experiencing depression she asked that person, who are you helping? Who are you reaching out to? She knew that it was in helping others that we are helped. Even in our most difficult and low moments, if we seek to bless others then we will be blessed. So even in the midst of the great challenges we face today, can we ask those around us “how can I help you?” The most important thing to remember when we ask this is that we don’t have to have all the answers. We don’t have to have ANY answers. We don’t have to solve the situation and make it right, we just need to be available.
To all the dads out there, the greatest gift you can give to your children doesn’t come from your paycheck and I hate to say this but it’s not going to be any great words of wisdom or faith you might share with them, it’s just being available. Being available to play a game, or go for a walk, or to listen when they want to talk, or talk when they want to listen, that is the gift children need. The greatest gift any of us can really give to anyone is to be available and present with others.
My dad served in the Army as a chaplain when I was young and then transitioned in hospital ministry when I was in elementary school. He worked long hours and had a long commute every day and so the greatest gift I remember wasn’t any toy he brought home or any words of wisdom he might have shared (sorry Dad). The greatest gift was his time. One of my fondest memories is of playing checkers with him at night when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade. It was just an ordinary night, but he was available. We played checkers and those times when I was able to beat him were just awesome. Kids, you know what that’s when you beat your parents at a game? It's great. And parents, deep down you also know that it’s great. So dads, and moms, and grandparents, and friends, just make yourself available. Ask others, how can I help you? And don’t pressure yourself to have all the answers, just take the time to listen.
Elisha took the time to listen and what he heard was a woman in despair. She felt defeated. When asked what she had to work with in life she said, I have nothing at all. Now we will see in a moment that this wasn’t true. She did have something, but she was so overwhelmed by her problems that she couldn’t see what she held in her hands. When we are overwhelmed with problems it’s hard to think that we have anything that can make a difference. When we are in crisis we often operate from a place of scarcity. We can’t see that what we hold in our hands just might be all we need.
We need to stop waiting for what we want or what we think we need, and start working with what we have. What gifts has God given us that we can use? What skills and abilities do we have that we can start working with today? Do you have the gift of time to give to your family, or friends, or church, or neighbors, or community? Do you have the gift of faith that you can use to pray for those in need? What do you have in your hands right now that God can use to make a difference in your life and in the life of others? Elisha helped the woman see what she had in her hands and once she saw it, God did something ridiculous with it to meet her need.
What the woman had was a jar with a small amount of olive oil. It wasn’t much, but olive oil was very valuable and versatile. Olive oil could be used in cooking, it could be used to light lamps, and treat leather to keep it soft. Olive oil could be used to help sharpen iron, treat wounds, and anoint kings. It could also be used as an offering to God. Her small amount of oil was valuable and what she had in her hands could be multiplied by God and used to meet all her needs. 2 Kings 4:3
“Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.”
She left him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.”
But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
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.”
The widow trusted God and began to pour out her oil. She poured it until jar, after jar, after jar were filled. When she finished she had many jars of oil and when they were all sold they not only paid off the debt but she had enough left over for her and her family to live. God is always able to do a lot with the little that we offer Him.
God is able to do a LOT with the LITTLE that we offer Him. What we have in our hands, or in our homes, or in our bank accounts might not seem like a lot, but in God’s hands it can do more than we ever thought or imagined. Remember, a little boy with 5 loaves and 2 fish placed his lunch in Jesus’ hands and God fed over 5,000 people and then they picked up 12 baskets of leftovers. A shepherd boy had 5 stones and a slingshot and yet God used what was in his hands to take down a giant named Goliath and then give Israel a victory over their enemy. Joshua marched around the city of Jericho with trumpets and lanterns hidden in jars. It wasn’t much, but God used it to bring down the walls of Jericho. All Moses had in his hand was a staff, but that staff held out over the water parted the Red Sea. God is able to do a lot with what little we have in our hands, if we will offer it to Him.
What is it you have in your hands today? What do you have that can be offered to God so that He can do a lot with it? What little do you have that can be used to not only meet your needs but maybe the needs of your family, your neighbors, your church, and community. All God is asking is for us to offer Him what we have with faith, faith that He will do something ridiculous and amazing with it.
Offer God what you have and trust him to give you what you need. Don’t focus on your needs. Don’t focus on your problems and how overwhelming they seem. Focus on what’s in your hands, and what’s in your heart, and in faith give it to God. It may not seem like much, but in God’s hands, what we offer can be multiplied and used to meet our needs and then bless the world.
Now, if you don’t think that this applies to you, think about this, the widow was told to go and collect empty jars. The only requirement was that they were to be empty. They did have to be a certain shape or size. They didn’t have to be made out of something special or come from a certain place. They just had to be empty. If they were empty, God could fill them. If they were empty, God could use them.
If you are empty God can fill you! If you are empty God can use you! God isn’t looking for any special background or training and God doesn’t need us to look or think or act a certain way. God just wants us to come to Him empty so that He can fill us up and when He fills us up then what we have is something of great value to offer the world. God wants to use you today to bless the world in ridiculous ways, in ways you never dreamed of or thought possible. Even in the midst of our burdens, doubts, stress and fear, God wants to fill us and use us. All He asks is for us to come to Him empty.
The apostle Paul calls us to come to God as empty vessels and when we do, God’s light and love and power will fill us to overflowing. 2 Corinthians 4:7-9
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
We are the empty vessels that God wants to fill with His all surpassing power. Even when we feel struck down and destroyed, God says, come and let me fill you up. No matter who we are or what we are going through today, we can come to God and be filled to overflowing if we offer God what we have and trust Him for everything else.
There is one more important lesson we need to learn from this story. This woman had a debt that she could not pay herself, so God paid it for her. This is what God does for all of us with Jesus. We all have a debt that we can not pay, it’s called sin. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. Our sin separates us from God and the life God gives and there is nothing we can do to make this right. We can’t pay off this debt, so God sent Jesus to pay it for us. When Jesus died on the cross, He paid the price for our sin. He died so that we could live with God forever.
Just as the woman didn’t do anything to make the oil flow, neither do we do anything to make God’s grace and mercy flow. It’s just there for us. In Christ Jesus, God forgives us. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that we might be saved through Him. And it is by grace we are saved through faith. All we have to do is believe. All we have to do is come to God empty and accept His love and mercy. Empty yourselves and ask God to fill you.. Empty ourselves and ask God to forgive you and He will give you life.
If you have never really come to Jesus empty, truly empty, and if you have never asked Him to forgive you, ask Him today. If you have never asked God to fill you with His Holy Spirit, ask Him today.
Ask God the Father to forgive you.
Accept what Jesus did on the cross as the payment for your sin. Allow the Holy Spirit to fill you today and then let the power of God use you in some amazing and ridiculous ways.
Next Steps
Elisha - God’s Ridiculous Provision
Read 2 Kings 4:1-7 and 2 Corinthians 4:7-9
● Where are your feelings crushed, perplexed, persecuted and overwhelmed right now? How does this affect you?
In our problems, God says, how can I help you?
● How would you answer God?
● Who can you reach out to this week?
God is able to do a lot with the little that we offer Him.
● Why do we focus on what we don’t have instead of what we do have?
● When did God do a lot with just a little in your life?
● What did you learn from this experience?
Offer God what you have and trust Him to give you what you need.
● What do you have in your hands and heart right now that God can use? How can you allow God to use it?
● What things do you need to let go of so that God can fill you up with what matters most?
● How can you empty yourself this week?
Have you ever experienced God’s ridiculous provisions in your life? If so, how and when?
● Who do you know that might need to hear this story?
● Share it with them this week.
Jesus paid the price for our sin on the cross. Our debt has been paid, our sin has been forgiven, and with our faith and trust in Jesus we can experience new life now and forever.
● Ask God to forgive you.
● Accept Jesus Christ as your savior.
● Allow the Holy Spirit to fill you with God’s power.
