Are You Willing?

Introduction

Elbert Hubbard, an American writer, artist, and philosopher once said, "A person saying that something can't be done is likely to be interrupted by someone doing it."

I like to read about ingenious solutions to problems. I'll share a few with you. In the 1990s, Houston Airport was being besieged with complaints about the amount of time that passengers had to wait to retrieve their bags from the baggage claim. Several years before, they’d tried to solve this problem by hiring extra staff to manage the transfer of baggage, all to no avail. Despite the wait time being brought to within the industry standard of eight minutes, the complaints persisted. Eventually, the frustrated management hit on a simple solution: move the baggage claim hall further away from the terminals. An analysis of the airport’s layout showed that it only took an average of one minute for passengers to travel from the planes to the baggage claim, nowhere near enough time for the baggage handlers to unload the plane. Passengers now had to walk six times longer to retrieve their luggage, which reduced the amount of time they were waiting once they got there. Underhanded? Maybe. Absolutely clever? Yes.

NASA has had some interesting problems and even more interesting solutions to these problems. In 1990, a communications satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral. One of the rockets that launched it did not separate, and the satellite was stuck in a low-earth orbit. It was determined that for the time being, the satellite would be left alone. In 1992, the space shuttle Endeavour was launched with a retrieval arm for the Intelsat 603 satellite. The specially designed arm would grab on to the satellite, bring it into the shuttles bay and be refitted with a new rocket to get it up to proper orbiting height. The only thing was, the retrieval arm proved to be useless for that operation. The satellite was spinning too quickly for the arm to grab it, so, to solve this issue and retrieve the satellite, three astronauts went on an unplanned space walk and captured the satellite with their hands. Keep in mind that they would have been moving around 17,450 miles per hour! This three person EVA (extra-vehicular activity), has been, to date, the only 3 person EVA that NASA has ever done. It was the willingness of these astronauts that enabled them to get the mission done. Had these astronauts not been willing to do an unplanned, untrained-for, and dangerous space walk to retrieve the satellite, it wouldn't have happened.

These are solutions to problems that we don't normally think about now, except maybe you will the next time you fly and have to walk a quarter mile from your plane to the luggage claim. But life isn't usually fraught with big problems that require teams of people to come up with the solution.

There is a famous phrase that is "Necessity is the mother of invention," it is attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. So many times, it seems, mothers feel the necessity for simpler and more efficient ways of completing tasks, especially while their children are small. Taking care of a baby is a big job, so efficiency in doing other things is huge so that more time and mare attention can be given to babies. It is because of this that it should come as no surprise that many inventions are have been developed by mothers. So, since Mothers Day is fast approaching, I think it would be appropriate to share some of these inventions with you.

The baby carrier

infant car seat

child safety latch (for cabinet doors and drawers) [how many of y'all have stressed out over toddlers getting into the cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink?]

Sippy cup

baby monitor

stroller

Baby Wipes

baby sling

breast pump

the Baby Food Maker

the Baby Gate

Sleep Sack

and many more things

Can you imagine if these ladies would not have taken the time nor had the willingness to come up with these solutions? That willingness is what I want to talk about today as we study a passage that contains the story of a woman in a a desperate situation.

2 Kings 4:1-7

2 Kings 4:1–7 KJV 1900

1 Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen. 2 And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil. 3 Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few. 4 And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full. 5 So she went from him, and shut the door upon her and upon her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out. 6 And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed. 7 Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest.

A Woman with a Problem

First off, we have a woman with some problems. She is a widow and a mother; she is in debt and cannot pay, and because of that non-payment, she is going to lose her sons to be, basically, indentured servants until that debt can be worked off/paid off.

So she goes to Elisha, the prophet of God, and tells him her problem. She has tried everything, probably. Note that when asked what she has, the woman's list of assets is pretty small. She has a pot of oil. I believe that she's probably sold everything else. She's had the garage sales, she's used everything she can to make things to sell at the local market. She’s put everything else on Facebook Marketplace, and after trying everything to saved her sons' lives from slavery, all she has left is a pot of oil. So Elisha tells her to do something odd.

Who has read this story or heard this story before? Okay, I want you to forget everything you know about this story. Y'all should know by now that this is one of my favorite things to do when it comes to studying and teaching/preaching the Bible. I like to take things that may be familiar from the Bible and look at them with a fresh set of eyes. So forget what you know or have heard, and forget the fact that we have just read what happens, and put yourself in this widows place. Everyone there? So to get you in character, remember these things:

Your husband is dead,

You have a very large debt

There is no life insurance policy or inheritance to speak of, and what there may have been is all used up by now, so you have no money,

Not only that, but you have nothing of value to sell.

Because of this and because of the culture in which you live, your sons' freedom in jeopardy. If the debts are not paid back, the creditors can come and take your children to be bond-servants until the debt is paid off. But you love your children, and they are all that you have left of your late husband.

So what do you do? What are your options? You can wallow in self-pity and despair. You can give up and give in to the fact that you soon no longer have your children. You try to run away, but where to? Eventually they will catch up to you, and that is no way to live.

But instead of doing any of that, this woman does something that is very wise.

She goes to the man of God and tells him her problem. This widow is not just venting, though. She is no doubt expecting a solution. Remember, this woman's husband had been part of a group known as the sons of the prophets. 2 Kings 4:1

2 Kings 4:1 KJV 1900

1 Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord: and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen.

This does not mean necessarily that his father had been a prophet, but the sons of the prophets were people who were being trained. Elisha had a group of prophets that were part of a school of prophets, and this man had evidently been part of this group of men.

The way this widow addresses Elisha by saying, "You knew my husband feared the Lord," indicates that at the very least, Elisha knew this man personally. It is very possible that Elisha knew this woman and her kids too, and it is possible also that this widow was expecting Elisha to take care of her.

But Elisha doesn't give her a check; he doesn't say that he's going to write a letter to the creditors and ask for an extension. He doesn’t start a GoFundMe page, or take up some sort of collection, which may very well be what this woman is expecting.

What Elisha does first is to ask her what she has available. 2 Kings 4:2

2 Kings 4:2 KJV 1900

2 And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house?

And I want you to notice what she does not say and do. She does not assume that Elisha is going to tell her to have a garage sale. She does not begin to tell Elisha that she has already sold everything of value. She does not say, “I don’t have anything in my house.” What she does is to give a precise inventory of what she has, which at the same time is also a statement of all that she doesn’t have.

2 Kings 4:2 KJV 1900

2 And Elisha said unto her, What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house? And she said, Thine handmaid hath not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil.

We do not know the tone of voice that this woman used or the attitude with which it was said. I would like to believe that it is a simple statement of fact, “I have nothing but a pot of oil.” So Elisha says, “If that’s all you have, then that is what we’ll use.” 2 Kings 4:3-4

2 Kings 4:3–4 KJV 1900

3 Then he said, Go, borrow thee vessels abroad of all thy neighbours, even empty vessels; borrow not a few. 4 And when thou art come in, thou shalt shut the door upon thee and upon thy sons, and shalt pour out into all those vessels, and thou shalt set aside that which is full.

He tells her to go borrow pots, vessels, as many as she can from friends and neighbors (not just a few), shut herself up in her house, and start pouring oil into the vessels.

Now remember, you don't know anything that is about to happen.

Here you are, freshly widowed. You have a huge debt and no money. You've sold things to raise money, but it is not enough to cover the debt. The creditors have warned you that according to the laws of the land, they will soon be back for either their money, or for your two sons who will have to work until they have paid off the debt. What do you do? You go to the prophet of God in the land and let him know your situation, surely he will be able to help.

But instead of helping, what Elisha does is that he gives odd instructions: go collect pots and any kind of containers from your neighbors. Can you imagine being her? She and her two sons go out into the neighborhood and start borrowing empty pots from people.

How many of you ever collected old newspapers or cans or bottles as a kid from neighbors to either take them to school or to recycle them for money? I imagine this is a little bit of what is going on, except that few people have a problem getting rid of old newspapers or empty cans. The widow and her two sons are asking for good pots. It's easy to go ask for someone's trash, but they had their red Radio Flyer wagon out asking for peoples' good pots.

It's not uncommon today to see people's houses decorated with clay and porcelain pots and vessels, but that is exactly what they are, decorations. Most people do not use them to actually hold or store things, but back then, that is the only purpose they had. That was their Tupperware! Can you imagine going around town asking people for empty Tupperware containers? You probably would only get the ones people had lost the lids to...🙂

But here these kids and their mother go, door to door, "Hey, good morning! Do you happen to have any empty pots? I'd like to borrow as many as I can from you. Why? Well, we are going to fill them with oil. Why? I don't know. Elisha told me to fill a lot of vessels with oil. Oh, you want to know where the oil is coming from? I have a pot of oil that I am going to empty into it."

Those neighbors probably thought that this lady was crazy! But they go and get vessels.

Now the next instruction that Elisha gives is to shut the doors of her house and start filling the containers. If you were the widow, what would your reaction to this instruction be? "How? With what?" But that is not what she asks. Instead, what she does is that, as she is there in her house with her sons, she takes the first vessel and puts it in front of her. In her right hand, she holds her pot of oil. And she slowly starts to pour. She stops, looks at her pot, checks the level, and sees that it hasn't decreased. Her excitement gains with every vessel she fills.

Can you imagine being her? Can you imagine her sons? What would your reaction be? If you were the widow you would be streaming it on Facebook; if you were the sons, it would be all over Instagram, TikTok, and SnapChat! But, alas, their tablets back then didn't have internet...🙂 I’m sorry! I couldn't help that dad joke...

But Elisha has told her to shut herself up in the house, they were to do this in private... And it gets to the last one and she fills it and says, "Get me another," but her sons tell her there are no more. Can you imagine that? That is so cool! So the widow looks around and starts to count vessels.

Alright. Hard questions coming up. How many vessels was she able to fill? All of them. I came up with that all by myself!

We don't know an exact or even an approximate number. But if she got 50 empty vessels from her neighbors, how many full vessels does she have? 50!

If she got 100? 100. If she got 200? 200I think you get the picture. So now she goes to Elisha and says, "OK, I have all the vessels full of oil, now what?" And Elisha tells her to sell them, pay her debt, and live off what is left over.

2 Kings 4:7 KJV 1900

7 Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay thy debt, and live thou and thy children of the rest.

I see a few things that we can get from this story:

God can get us through our problems.

God's methods are not usually what we would think.

God's methods work.

So this widow has just experienced a miracle allowing her to pay her debt and save her sons from being slaves/bondservants. And do you see what God used to accomplish this? He used what she already had. Oil. Elisha asked, "What do you have?" She said, "Oil." Elisha didn't say, "Man, if only you had a little bit of flour too... or some eggs and sugar... you could make cakes and sell them." No! He said, "You got oil? God can use that!" So God used oil. This was a mother who had an issue, but had the willingness to allow God to use all that she had. Time after time we see in Scripture that God uses people to accomplish different things and to solve existing problems. But a recurring theme in many of these situations is that…

God Uses the Willing

God can use what people have as long as they are willing to let Him use it. Let's look at a few people:

Moses - Staff. With this staff, Moses performs signs for Pharaoh, parts the Red Sea. It is great! How does this start off? It starts with God and Moses having a conversation, and when Moses asks God, "How will they know that I am truly sent of you?" God doesn't give Moses a new staff. He doesn't provide him with anything, actually. He just says, "What is in your hand? What do you have already?" Exodus 4:1-2

Exodus 4:1–2 KJV 1900

1 And Moses answered and said, But, behold, they will not believe me, nor hearken unto my voice: for they will say, The Lord hath not appeared unto thee. 2 And the Lord said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.

A rod, a staff. That’s all he had. Why? Well, when God approached Moses, he was a shepherd. And that was the tool of the trade, a rod. Moses had one, so God said, “I can use that.”

Shamgar - Shamgar was a cool guy, I just know he was. At least his story is cool. Shamgar is only mentioned 2 times in the Bible. There are only 50 words that are in these two verses that mention Shamgar, but he is listed as one of the Judges that God used to deliver Israel. In the days after Moses and Joshua and before kings, Israel had judges that God used to lead the Israelites and deliver them from oppressive nations. Judges 3:31 tells us that Shamgar used an ox goad to kill 600 Philistines. I don't know if he did that all in one day, but it was with the same ox goad. You know what an ox goad is? It's a pointy stick! God didn't give him special armour and a special spear when He said, "Shamgar, you are going to deliver Israel from the Philistines."

Shamgar just used what he had! It was so effective, that the prophetess Deborah later mentions Shamgar in her song. She says that in Shamgar's day, everyone was able to walk around freely and safely. I would feel pretty safe knowing that there was a person who could defeat 600 Philistines with a pointy stick. No telling what that man could do if he got ahold of an actual spear or sword!

Samson - He killed 1000 Philistines in one fight with the jawbone of a donkey!

David - Killed Goliath with a sling and stone

Boy that gave his bread and fish - Jesus fed a multitude with his 5 loaves and 2 fish

The thing that these all have in common is that they were all willing to let God use the thing that they had.

God Will Use You According to Your Faith

II. God will use what you have and what are willing to let Him use according to your faith. So back to the widow with the oil, she gets done filling all these vessels and starts to count them. How many does she have? (All of them/as many as she got)

How much faith did she have? It was shown by how many vessels she got. How many vessels did she get? We don't know exactly, but we know that Elisha told her to sell what she had, pay off her debt, and live off the rest. Now, I do not think Elisha was a cruel man. I think that if he knew there was only going to be $5 left over after paying the debt, he would have just said, "Sell the oil, and pay your debt." I believe that he added "and live off the rest" because he knew there was enough money left over to live off of. I think this woman had SO much faith, she provided for herself and two sons enough money for them to live for a good while.

God used Moses according to his faith. And the funny thing is, the more Moses was used by God, the more faith Moses had!

God ONLY Uses the Willing

III. God uses what you have ONLY if you are willing. Imagine the situation this woman would have been in if she would have looked at Elisha and said, "It will never work. I'll go and find some other way." She would have lost her children! She had to be willing to do whatever God indicated. Lets go back to our list of people that we've seen were used of God and imagine what things would have been like if they would not have been willing.

Moses - At first he was not willing, but if he would have continued to be so, God would have used someone else to deliver Israel out of Egypt. But what’s more, because of his willingness, Moses got to SEE GOD! Not full on, but he got to see God as He walked past Moses. Moses got to talk to God! He spent so much time in God's presence that his face lit up, and people couldn't stand to see him without Moses having to wear a veil, because he was shining so bright! Some of y'all probably know people that look better wearing a mask than not wearing one, but it isn't because they are shiny…

Shamgar - We only get 50 words about this guy, but nobody would know who Shamgar was if he would have refused to be used by God. In fact, Shamgar would have lived out his days in oppression instead of freedom.

Samson - Same as Shamgar, but we see that because of his unwillingness to continue to be used by God in God's way, he had a premature death.

David - Same as Shamgar. But David wrote so many psalms about trusting God and the delight he had in Him. Had David been to scared to face Goliath with what he had, do you think we would have those psalms today? Nope!

Little boy with bread and fish - He got to PARTICIPATE in one of Jesus' miracles! Had he not been willing to give up his food, he would have had a full belly but would have missed out on an amazing experience.

Do you notice a trend in these examples? Moses, Shamgar, Samson, and David all were used by God to be a blessing to others of deliverance from oppression. The widow was used to deliver her son's from servitude, and the little lad was used to deliver others from hunger. Each of these people were used to be a blessing to those around them. To be an IMPACT, to reach others.

Application

The question today is, “Are you willing? Are you willing to be used by God? Are you willing to be used by God in the church for His work?”

Real quick, this question is for members of this church, “How many of you would say with an uplifted hand, ‘Mike, I am willing to be used of God for His work through His church here at GNBC. I don’t know how, and I don’t know if I have a lot of skills, but I am willing.’” Anybody?

Good, because here is the deal. We want to be a church where people are reached with the radical power of the Gospel of Christ, but it will only happen if you are willing to let God use you.

You might not think that you have anything that is useful. God can use what you do have. I guarantee you have more than that widow.

You might say, "I don't have the voice to speak, or I am too shy." Moses used similar excuses, but was used in a mighty way, and experienced God like no one else in Israel did.

God wants to use you, and if you are waiting for God to give you something special so that you can be used by Him, your doing it wrong. Start giving God what you have and asking him to use you and your possessions, your talents, and the passions you have to reach others. It will only ever happen if you're willing.

I asked who of our members would indicate that they are willing to be used of God in the church.

Well, there are needs. We need helpers and teachers in kids classes. We need women to work in the nursery, we need people that could help teach the teens. We need teachers and helpers for the toddler class. We need help with the food pantry. We need people that would be willing to host home groups and lead the discussion. We need greeters at the door.

On Wednesdays, we are all getting on the same page of learning how to be disciples and learning how to guide others in discipleship, and we need more people that are willing to come of Wednesday nights. Are you willing to be used in the church? Or does your willingness stop where your inconvenience starts?

Church, I am going to be real with you today. We have more than enough people in our church that we should be able to run this nursery, toddlers, and children’s class without a hitch. But the fact of the matter is that not enough people are willing to sign up, and many that do sign up don’t actually do what they say they would.

One of the things that I have to do is watch out for burnout in those that serve. And one of the things that I am really close to doing, closer than you may imagine, is to shut down the nursery ministry. Because it is not fair and it is not right that there are a handful of women that work their day, then cover for everyone else, and they cannot be in the service. Y’all, that’s not right when we have the amount of women in membership that could easily take on this task.

We are seeing some wonderful things happen in Good News clubs - 2 got saved just last Thursday! But we will not be able to continue if we do not have a group of workers that is willing to cancel everything on Tuesday evenings for 7 weeks next Fall.

Then there are those that are serving and it looks like you’ve been sucking on lemons all night ling just to wake up and eat dill pickles for breakfast. You serve, but there is no joy. You sing, but there is no smile. You teach, but there is no patience. You are willing to do the bare minimum, but never to go an extra mile, never to sacrifice a little more.

What if the widow would have stopped at the bare minimum of pots? She would have missed out on God’s provision and His blessings.

This church needs people that are willing to do things and to work, and to work hard, and to be part of the church in an active way. Look, God did not put you here so that you could sit back, chill out, and be served. This ain’t a cruise ship. This is a battleship, and we need all hands on deck because the enemy has us in his sights. If you are part of this church, then you need to get plugged into a ministry of some sort. Don’t wait to get asked - ask. Find a ministry, see if it is a good fit. If it’s not, find another one! Talk to people, talk to me or Tahsha, Megan, Zach, Mindy, Taylor, and the deacons.

Find a place where you can serve the church that you are a part of. Are You Willing?