WHEN
YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF EVERYTHING
When
You’re Hoping For A Miracle – Part 2
07-08-12 Sermon
You don’t know that
God is all you need until God is all you’ve got. That’s why God often allows a shortage, a deficiency, a lack
in your life.
If I were to ask
you, “What are you lacking today?”
you might say, “I need more energy… I need more money… I need more emotional
support… I need more creativity… I need more opportunity… I need a job.” All of those things that happen in your life
happen really for a reason. Today
we’re going to look at what I call what do you do When You’re Running Out of Everything?
We’re in this
series on Hoping for a miracle. For
the next several weeks we’re going to look at the things that cause people to
feel hopeless. Today we’re going
to look at three incidents in the life of a man named Elijah.
Elijah lived about
nine hundred years before Jesus. He
went through three experiences. They’re
all in 1 Kings 17, and they teach us lessons on how God wants to do miracles
when there are things that are happening in our lives that cause us to lack
what we need.
The worst king and
queen in Israel’s history were named Ahab and Jezebel. You’ve heard of her probably. So God sends Elijah as a spokesman, as
a prophet, to go confront King Ahab.
Elijah says to Ahab and to Jezebel, because of your wickedness, because
you’ve led the nation to worship false gods, it’s not going to rain any more in
this country until I, the prophet of God, say so. It was sort of like Nashville at that time!
We later find out
this actually ends up being three and a half years. Three and a half years without rain in the nation of Israel
which meant they were in terrible drought, and terrible famine. But Elijah says because of your sin, Mr.
leader, the nation is going to suffer for three and a half years.
This message did
not sit well with Ahab. In fact he
and his wife Jezebel were furious.
They were ticked. And they
put a price on Elijah’s head. They
said, we’re going to kill you. They
authorized bounty hunters and assassins to find Elijah and kill him.
The Bible says in 1
Kings 17 “Now Elijah confronted King
Ahab, ‘As surely as God lives, the God of Israel whom I worship and serve,
there will be no dew or rain during the next few years unless I give the
word.’” And as I said the Bible says everything in the country dried up for
three and a half years.
Maybe you feel that
way in your life. Maybe you feel
like the joy has dried up in your life.
Your savings have dried up.
Your job has dried up. During
this time of spiritual and emotional and economic dryness, God did some
miracles for Elijah and he taught some lessons to Elijah that you and I need to
learn.
So my question for
you is, Are you ready for a miracle?
During this time of
dryness God took Elijah to three different places and they represent three
different phases that you go through in your life.
For the first year
of the three and a half years of drought, God took Elijah to a place called Kerith. Kerith
was a ravine and a time of obscurity.
The Bible says this
in 1 Kings 17 “Then the Lord said to Elijah, [this is
after Ahab had said I’m going to kill you] ‘Go east and hide in the Kerith Ravine,
east of the Jordan. The Kerith
brook will give you fresh water to drink and I’ve commanded ravens to bring you
food there every day.’ [That’s unusual.] So Elijah obeyed what the Lord
said to do. He moved to the Kerith
Ravine and lived there. The birds brought him food each morning and evening and
he drank from the brook. But after
a while the brook dried up, because there was no rain.”
The first stop in
Elijah’s journey of faith is the ravine, the Kerith Ravine. How would you like to live there for a
year? God says I’m going to put
you in a ravine for a year. I want
you to hide there.
Do you know what
Kerith means in Hebrew? It means “cut
off.” And Elijah is cut off from
everything. Cut off from all of
his friends, cut off from social interaction, cut off from what’s happening in
the world. He’s cut off from the
limelight. He’s cut off from attention. He is literally all by himself.
What is going on
here? God had great plans for
Elijah. This is at the very beginning
of his ministry and God did incredible miracles through this guy in the years
ahead. But first he said “You need
time alone with me. I need to
narrow your focus. You need to
focus on me. You need to develop
your inner life. You need time
alone with me and nobody else. I
want your undivided attention for a year.
So I’m going to put you in a ravine.”
God often uses
private darkness in your life to prepare you for public ministry in the light of
day later on.
During this time
that he’s in this rut, God supernaturally provided for him – in a very unusual
way. He has ravens – birds – bring
food over the top of the ravine and drop it. This is not exactly gourmet food, friends. Because where do birds get their food? Off of other people’s plates. They find a little piece of meat here
and a little piece of bread there and they pick it up and take it. So for a year, Elijah’s eating leftovers
at the best. So this is not
exactly a Club Med vacation here. But
he’s in this pit and his only support is from God. There’s no food there.
So the birds have to bring it.
He’s got water that God has provided in this brook. His only support is from God. Remember: you don’t know God is all you
need until God is all you’ve got.
Then in 17:7 it
says “The brook dried up.” This
is such an important concept, an important principle in your life. The brook is going to dry up in your
life many, many times. So I want
you to remember this phrase. In
fact I want you to remember where it is in the Bible. 1 Kings 17:7.
Some of you right
now are in a situation where the brook has dried up in your life. The money’s not there. The friend isn’t there. The support isn’t there. The energy isn’t there. Your health isn’t there. Things have dried up in your life.
What do you do
when the brook dries up in your life, relationally, emotionally, economically
or whatever? You do three things. You remember three things. There are three reasons why brooks
dry up in your life and you need to know this because it’s going to happen over
and over.
1.
Brooks dry up to keep me from depending on
the brook.
That’s the first
reason. Brooks dry up in your life
to keep me from depending on the brook instead of God.
Elijah was in this
ravine, in this rut, for a year. It
would have been very easy for him to just forget God and focus on the birds and
the brook; because they are supplying his needs. He doesn’t have to work; it’s all right there. The birds bring the food and the brook gives
the water. Pretty soon if you
depend on a bird every day to drop food down to you, then week after week,
month after month for the full year, pretty soon you’re not thinking about God. You’re thinking about, is the bird on
time?
So God says whatever
you’re trusting in, if it’s not me, I’m going to turn it off. I’ve been trusting in my job for my
security – we’ll just turn that off.
I’ve been trusting in my health – we’ll just turn that off. I’ve been trusting in a friend of mine
– we’ll just turn that off.
God says you must
trust in me. Anything you put
before me is a false god. It’s an
idol. It’s human nature for us to
trust the brook and the birds. Sometimes
when God gives us something and then it’s taken away, maybe not even by God, but
it just vanishes, like a job; then we start getting mad at God. I don’t have the job I used to have! What’s wrong with you, God? I don’t have the health I used to have!
That was a gift to
you. And no gift on earth is eternal
except eternal life. No gift is going
to last forever on this planet. It’s
all just a gift and God has a right to give it or take it away if he thinks you’re
depending on it for your source of joy instead of on him.
There’s a second
reason the brook dries up.
2.
To move me to a better place.
God had no intention
of leaving Elijah in the ravine, in that rut, for the rest of his life. It was simply a one year temporary retreat
for reflection. He was protecting
Elijah while there was a bounty on his head and the assassins were out to get
him. But God didn’t intend for
Elijah to be born to live in a rut for the rest of his life; and God doesn’t intend
for you to live in the rut you’re in for the rest of your life.
As long as the
brook was bubbling and the birds were bringing food, Elijah wasn’t going to
move. We don’t change when we see
the light; we change when we feel the heat, when all of a sudden we’re forced
to change. And sometimes God dries
up stuff in your life to move you.
God wants to move you to a new place in your life.
Often what we
think is bad – the brook dried up!
I lost my job! – could be the best thing that happened to you. How many times has something you
thought was bad actually turned out for the good in your life? You could think of a lot of times
that’s happened. The things that
you thought were going to destroy you are actually developing you. They’re making you the great person you
are. They’re building your character. They’re developing you. What you thought was going to destroy
you actually develops you.
God often dries up
the brook in your life to keep you from depending on the brook instead of him,
to move you to a better place, and…
3.
Three, to prove that he has not forgotten
you.
To prove that God
has not forgotten me, God often dries up the brook. God could have left Elijah in that rut. He could have left him there. If God didn’t care, he could have put
Elijah in that ravine and left him there the rest of his life. But God did care about Elijah. For that reason he dried up the brook
so that Elijah could have something better.
When things go wrong
in our lives, we often think God’s forgotten me. No. It means
God is paying attention to you. He’s
paying attention because he wants to move you to a new place.
That brings us to
the second place. First he’s in
the ravine, the rut. The second
place we see Elijah is in the next verse – he’s on the road.
The second test of
Elijah’s faith is a dangerous journey.
I call this the road of insecurity. 1 Kings 17:8-9 says “So then the Lord said to Elijah ‘Now
get up [out of that rut you’re in, that ravine] and go to Zarephath and live
there. I’ve prepared a widow there
[in Zarephath] to take care of you.’” So Elijah obeys.
He went to Zarephath. Circle
‘get up and go” and circle the word “prepared.” God had prepared in advance the widow where he was going to
take him next.
What’s happening
here? God said I want you to move. Get ready to go on a journey, Elijah. But who and where Elijah is being sent
to does not give Elijah a lot of confidence, for a number of reasons.
At the bottom of
Israel, is Kerith, that brook where he was in that gorge, in that rut. Zarephath is at the very top. It’s not even in Israel. It’s in modern day Lebanon. It is a small town on the coast of the Mediterranean. It wasn’t even a Jewish city. It was a pagan city. For Elijah to get from Kerith to Zarephath
he is going to have to go through dangerous territory. It’s over a hundred miles. It’s going to take him days to walk. And remember he’s a marked man. There are wanted signs for Elijah all over
Israel. He’s going to have to walk
right through the heartland of Baal worship where everybody there wants to kill
him. It’s in the middle of a drought,
so there’s no water.
In fact, Zarephath,
it just so happens, was the home town of Jezebel. And Elijah says, “You’re sending me to Jezebel’s home town? You’ve got to be kidding, Lord! All of her friends are there. I’ll be a sitting duck!”
Then God says, When you get to Zarephath, I’m going
to have a very poor widow to take care of you, the least likely person to take
care of Elijah, a poor widow. She
couldn’t defend him or protect him, much less even feed him likely. She’s a poor widow. Of all the people, God says, I’m
sending you to Jezebel’s home town to a poor widow. Now he’s going from bad to worse.
Are you there? Some of you are in the journey phase
right now of life. You’re on the
road from Kerith to Zarephath and it seems like things are going from bad to worse. And as I said, you’ve got a pile of
bills sitting at home, stacked up, unpaid, and you don’t know where the money
is going to come from. Bad to
worse.
When you’re on the
road, when you’re on the journey phase of the test of faith, what do you need
to remember? When you’re
scared to death and God’s got you on a journey and you don’t know where you’re going,
you don’t know how long it’s going to take and you don’t know what’s going to
happen when you get there. You do the
three things and remember the three things that Elijah did. Three things to remember when you’re
on the road.
1.
One, the path to a miracle is always through
uncomfortable territory.
Miracles never
happen in your comfort zone, when everything’s going great, when everything’s
copacetic, when everything’s comfortable, when everything’s convenient. You don’t need a miracle when
everything is settled in your life.
You only need a miracle when you’re on the edge, when you’re scared to
death, when you’re insecure, when you’re out there and you can get hit at any
angle. The path to a miracle is always
through uncomfortable territory. He’s
going to have to go through all that with people wanting to kill him in order to
get to where God wants him to go.
Miracles don’t
happen when things are comfortable. Miracles happen when things are uncomfortable. Elijah didn’t say to God, “God, this is
a great plan. There are only three
things wrong with it. One, you’re
sending me in the wrong direction.
You’re sending me right through my enemies’ territory. Two, you’re sending me to the wrong
location. Jezebel’s hometown. I’ll be a sitting duck there. And three, you’re sending me to the
wrong protection. A poor widow
can’t take care of me.”
No. He just obeyed.
The second thing
you need to remember when you’re on the journey and it’s a little scary:
2.
The source of a miracle is always unexpected.
In your life the
source of a miracle, where it comes from, will not be where you think it’s going
to come from. It’s always
unexpected.
Why does he do it
that way? So that God gets the glory. That’s why you can’t figure it out. So stop trying. Some of you, you’ve got
some need in your life that you want met.
And you’re trying to figure it out. You’re looking around saying maybe God could do it that way…
maybe God could do it that way… maybe I could help God along with this... maybe I could drop a few hints… maybe I
could manipulate the situation…maybe I could give a suggestion here.
God does miracles
in illogical ways. Why? God says in Isaiah 55 “My thoughts
are completely different from yours.
My ways are far beyond anything you can imagine.” The way you want to meet the need in
your life is not the way God wants to meet the need in your life. Your way is second best. God’s way is best.
The path to a
miracle is always through uncomfortable territory. The source of a miracle always comes in an unexpected way.
So what do you do when
you’re on this road? You don’t
fret. You don’t fear. You don’t forget. You don’t try to figure it out. You don’t try to formulate.
You just have
faith. You just trust God. I don’t know how God is going to do it
but he’s going to do it. If God
tells me to do it, even if it doesn’t make sense, even if it’s illogical, even from
a human standpoint it doesn’t make sense for me to go that direction, to that
location, and talk to that person, I’m going to do it. Because God said do it; and then you’re
being set up for a miracle.
3.
The third thing you need to remember on the
journey, the pattern for a miracle is always CPR. Command – Promise – Risk.
This CPR will
really get your heart going. Command
– Promise – Risk. You need to
realize that every time God does a miracle, anywhere, it always comes in this
format. God gives you a command,
he tells you to do something. Then
he gives a promise and says, if you do it here’s what I’ll do. There’s command and then there’s a
promise. Then you take the risk. You step out in faith, because this does
not make sense. This is illogical. I can’t afford to do this. It doesn’t make sense at all. But God says here’s the command, here’s
the promise. Now you take the
risk.
Then comes the miracle;
then comes the fulfillment; then comes the answer. God always works with cpr.
It’s how he starts your heart
spiritually.
Now
we come to the third place of Elijah in the test of his faith. First he’s in the rut, the ravine; then
he’s on the road. Now he comes to Zarephath. Zarephath, when he arrives in the city,
this is a time of scarcity.
“When he reached the
town gate, Elijah saw a widow gathering firewood. He asked her, ‘Would you please bring me a drink of water?’ As she was going to get it, Elijah
added, ‘and please bring me a small piece of bread, too.’”
This
is absolutely hilarious. Can you
imagine walking up to a total stranger who’s obviously poor like some homeless
person on the street saying, “Can you give me a drink of water? And by the way, bring me a sandwich. Or bring me some bread and if you don’t
mind put a little of that garlic sauce on the top of it. Bring me some oil and vinegar, I like to
dip it.” Would you say to a
stranger who is obviously poor, a homeless person, I need you to help me? No. You wouldn’t.
Why
would Elijah do that? Because God
did cpr – I’m going to command
you to do this and I promise if you do it it’s going to work out. I’ll take care of you. So Elijah takes the risk. It did not make sense for him to say to
a poor widow, Can you help me? Can
you do something for me? That just
did not make sense.
But
now he’s in the place of scarcity.
“The woman answered,
‘As surely as your God lives, [Notice
she said “your God”. It wasn’t her
God because she wasn’t Jewish. She
was an idol worshipper. She said
as surely as your God lives] I swear I have no bread. I only have a handful of flour left in
a small jar and a little olive oil left in a jug. I came here to gather some wood so I could go home and
cook our last meal. My son and I
will eat it and then we’re going to die of hunger.’”
Elijah’s
thinking, “This is who you sent me to, God? You’re sending me to a woman who doesn’t even have food for
her own family. She’s got one meal
left and you’re asking me to ask her for it?” This is illogical.
This is a test.
The
test is do you believe God or do you believe yourself. Do you believe you’re smarter than God or
do you believe God wants to do a miracle?
She says, “I’m telling you!
I’ve just got a little bit of oil and a little bit of flour. I came out here to pick up some sticks. I’m going to make a pancake dinner for
me and my son and we’re going to die.
Because we’re like everybody else.
We’re in the famine! And there’s
nothing left. So we’re going to
eat our last meal and then we’re going to starve to death.”
Then
here’s what Elijah says, “‘Don’t be afraid! Go home and first make a small loaf of bread from what you
have, and bring it to me. Then
cook something for yourself and your son. [Hello! This does
not sound right does it? It just does
not sound right. You go home and
you take whatever you got and I want you to give it to me. God wants you to give it to me. Then he says, then cook something for
yourself and your son.] God says, [here’s the promise] 'I assure you
that jar of flour will never be empty, and the jug of oil will never run out,
until the day I send rain to the land.' [He says God will supernaturally
replenish it. That bowl and that
jar, you’re going to make stuff out of it and supernaturally it’s going to fill
up again. You’re going to make some
more and it’s going to supernaturally fill up again. You’re never going to run out and you’ll always have reserve. If you’ll do what I tell you to do on
the promise of God, you’ll never run out until the day I send the rain to the
land.]
What
is Elijah doing here? He’s doing
the very thing God did with him – cpr. God didn’t just want to bless Elijah. He wanted to bless this widow too. So she had to go through the same steps
of faith he did. He’s giving the
widow a chance for a miracle. He
gives her a command that seems impossible – I want you to go home and I want
you to make whatever you’ve got left and I want you to bring it and give away
your last meal. Hello! You’re asking me to give away my last
meal? Yes, I am. This is a test of faith. I want you to give away your last meal. Don’t eat it yourself. If you do God says, I promise you’ll
never lack. I’m going to take you
through this recession. I’m going
to take you through this dry spell.
I’m going to take you through this famine, if you put me first. And that’s exactly what the widow does.
“So the widow did
what Elijah told her to do, and she and her son and Elijah had enough food
every day. [Elijah went ahead and lived with her
the next couple of years] The jar of flour and the jug of oil never ran out,
just as God had promised.”
This
is the third place Zarephath. Do
you know what Zarephath means in Hebrew?
It means the refinery.
God is refining his faith – Elijah’s, and her faith – the widow, and the
son’s faith in the refinery.
What
is a refinery? A refinery is a
place where they take heat and pressure to purify and shape raw metal into
something useful.
Some
of you are in the refinery phase right now, where the pressure’s on in your
life. The heat’s on in your life to
purify your motives, and to shape you to be used by God in ways that you cannot
even imagine.
God
had prepared a widow. It’s interesting
that when God plans a miracle in your life he works both ends at the same time. He was working on Elijah’s end, but he
was also already working up in Zarephath on the widow’s end. Because she had to be out there picking
up sticks at the exact time that Elijah arrived. God’s timing is perfect.
And
God is working in your life. While
you’re waiting for the miracle, God is working. And right now the person who’s going to meet or the situation
that’s going to meet that need in your life, God’s always working on that end,
while he’s working on your end. He’s
giving you the cpr while he’s
giving the other person at that end, God wanted to bless both the donor and the
donee. He wanted to bless both
ends at the same time. Both the
need and the supply. He works all
the angles.
What do you need to
remember when you’ve run out of resources? What do you remember? You need to remember three things.
1.
One, whatever I need more of, give what I
have to God.
In
fact, give it all. She didn’t just
give a little. She gave it all. Whatever I need more of, give what I
have, all I have to God. She
needed more flour and oil. She
gave flour and oil to God.
From
a human standpoint we would have said, “Woman, you’re poor. Keep your oil. Keep your flour. You can’t afford to give it.” There is a myth that sometimes I cannot
afford to be generous. Wrong! You can always afford to be generous. You can always give something. It may be your last meal. But you can give something. It is a myth that says I cannot afford
to give. You can’t afford not
to give. You can always afford to be generous.
God
wants to teach you to be generous because it teaches you faith. God doesn’t need anything from you. He doesn’t need your time. He doesn’t need your money. He doesn’t need your effort. God has everything. He doesn’t need it. He wants to teach you to be like him. He wants to teach you to trust him.
The
point is, when God says I want you to put whatever you’ve got and give it away
and then I’ll multiply it – this is a test of faith. He praised the widow.
We think that God looks at the amount we give. He doesn’t. God
does not look at the amount you give away – time, money, energy. He looks at what’s left. He looks at what you gave in relationship to what’s left
over. You can give a million bucks
to help the poor but if you’ve got two million bucks in the bank it’s not a
bigger gift than the woman who had five cents and gave five cents but that’s
all she had. It’s not equal
amount, it’s equal sacrifice. God’s
saying I want your heart.
So
whatever I need more of I give it to God.
She needed more oil and more flour.
2.
Two, the second thing, whatever I have the
least of I give to God.
Whatever
I have the least of, I give that to God.
Why? It’s a test. We’re taught to give out of our extra. We’re taught to give out of our leftovers. That’s better than nothing. But God says if you want a miracle, you
give what you don’t have to give. You
give when you really need to hold on to it.
That’s
what puts you in the cpr line for
a miracle – command, promise, risk.
So
there are some people who are very wealthy who can give real easily. They can give a lot of money to help
the poor. But what they really need
to give is not their extra money. They
need to give their time. Why? Because they don’t have enough time. So they need to give their time. Whatever
I have the least of, I give it to God.
3.
The third thing I need to remember is, I don’t
give to get a blessing, but to be a blessing.
If
I am generous will God bless me? Of
course he will. There are more
promises in the Bible about giving than anything else. But that’s not why I do it. I don’t give to get a blessing. I give to be a blessing. If I am generous with my time, with my
money, with my energy, with my tithe, if I become a generous person and I’m a
giver instead of a taker in life, will God bless me? Absolutely. But
that’s not why I do it. I do it in
order to be a blessing.
Let
me close by giving you some advice, some Lessons for Famines.
1.
One, God is all I need.
2.
Two, where God guides, God provides.
3.
Three, the third thing to remember is I must
trust him one day at a time.
4.
Four, the last thing you need to remember. God’s promises hinge on my obedience.
Command-Promise-Risk. Take that step of faith. It doesn’t seem logical. But you do what seems illogical and you
follow God. And God says I’ll take
care of you. CPR.
Why? The Bible says this “My God will
meet all your needs…” Notice
it doesn’t say God might, God hopes, God maybe. “… God will meet all [not
some, all of] your needs…” This
is a promise from God. God does
not lie. Here’s the promise – Command-Promise-Risk. “My God will meet all your needs
according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”
Notice
he doesn’t say God will meet all your greeds. God has not promised you a Bentley and a nine million dollar
home. God has said I will meet all
your needs in Christ Jesus.
Prayer:
Would you pray this prayer in your heart? Dear God, today I’ve learned that the
things that I’m lacking in my life – the deficiencies, the shortages – are
really proof that you love me, that you care, that you’re paying attention to
my life. I thank you. Thank you that you want to keep me from
depending on the brook. Forgive me
for when I’ve depended on my job and other people instead of you. Thank you that when the brook dries up,
you want to move me to a better place.
Thank you that you haven’t forgotten me. Lord, in the days ahead which may seem a little scary sometimes,
help me to realize that the path to a miracle is through uncomfortable
territory. That you’re stretching
my faith and that the source if a miracle will be unexpected so I shouldn’t try
to figure it out. I should just
trust you. That the pattern of a
miracle is always cpr. You told me what to do and it doesn’t
always make sense. It sometimes
seems illogical to give away what little I’ve got. But help me to take the risks. Help me to give away whatever I need more of, whatever I
have the least of. Lord, I don’t
want to give just to get a blessing.
I want to give to be a blessing.
Help me to remember that you’re all I need, and that where you guide you’ll
provide. Jesus Christ, I want to
open my life to you. I want to
learn to trust you one day at a time.
I want to go your way not my way.
I want to follow you and ask you to save me and come into my life. I want to claim the promises that
you’ve given that if I trust you you’ll meet my needs. I pray this in your name. Amen.
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