Give Me More
Notes
Transcript
Handout
WELCOME
Good morning!
Excited to open up God’s word this morning.
After the message Todd is going to give an update about what God has done behind the scenes in our church over the past week!
This morning we are going to kick off a series that is going to carry us through the summer.
We are calling it Summer School.
We are looking at some familiar bible passages that many of us if you grew up in church you know.
But maybe you’ll look at them in a new way.
Now, if you didn’t pay attention in Sunday school....
Or came to faith later in life this will all be new.
Here is my prayer for this series:
That you would be
encouraged
challenged
convicted
equipped
…to follow Jesus more faithfully.
Because the goal isn’t just to know Bible stories. The goal is to become disciples of Jesus.
And you’re going to hear from a few different people throughout this series, which I’m really excited about.
We’ve got some great leaders in our church, and I think you’re going to be encouraged by the different perspectives and voices.
So…
I know I said these would be familiar stories…
But I’m the pastor.
So naturally, I’m going a little obscure. 😂
We’re not starting with Noah.
We’re not starting with David and Goliath.
We’re not starting with Jonah.
We’re starting with a widow…
A little jar of oil…
A bunch of empty containers…
And one of the strangest miracles in the entire Old Testament.
And yet, I think this story may have something to teach us about following Jesus that is more relevant than we realize.
Turn with me to
1 Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”
2 And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”
3 Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few.
4 Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.”
5 So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her.
6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
7 She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”
I’ve titled the message this morning:
Give Me More
Pray
COFFEE PROBLEM
It’s no secret that I take coffee very seriously.
Some people drink coffee.
I have entered into a covenant relationship with coffee.
I have an espresso machine.
I have a Chemex.
I have pour-over brewers.
I have a French press.
I have an electric grinder.
I have a hand grinder.
Because apparently if the power goes out, I’m still making coffee.
I have coffee scales for beans.
I have coffee scales for coffee yield.
I have special coffee water.
Not water.
Coffee water.
I have mineral packets that get added to distilled water because apparently regular water no longer meets my standards.
I have a WDT tool.
If you don’t know what that is, congratulations on making better financial decisions than me.
I have a distribution tool.
I have multiple tampers.
I have a puck screen.
I have dosing funnels.
I have espresso shot glasses.
I have a knock box.
I have cleaning brushes.
I have filter papers for espresso.
I have filter papers for pour-over.
I have coffee storage containers.
I have coffee beans from different countries.
I recently bought a bag of coffee that cost forty dollars.
Forty.
Dollars.
For beans.
Beans.
I bought coffee beans that cost more then some coffee makers…
I don’t say that to brag...
I say that to ask for prayer….
At this point I don’t buy coffee.
I sponsor it.
And if all that wasn’t enough…
I have coffee shop-sized syrup bottles.
The giant ones.
At this point my coffee bar looks like I lost a lease negotiation with a boutique coffee shop.
This week I was standing there looking at it…
And I realized something.
My coffee bar is completely full.
The other day I went to set my kettle down and realized there wasn’t even room for it.
The kettle.
The thing I actually need to make pour-over coffee.
There is literally nowhere for it to go.
It’s currently living in random places throughout the kitchen.
And Alyssa is thrilled about that.
She loves walking into the kitchen and discovering coffee equipment in new and exciting locations.
You know what’s crazy?
This afternoon I could go buy the fanciest kettle on the market.
Well… if I hadn’t recently spent forty dollars on coffee beans.
Which sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud.
Because it is.
But listen…
The problem isn’t whether another kettle exists.
The problem isn’t whether I can get another kettle.
The problem is I have nowhere to put it.
PIVOT
And I wonder how many Christians are asking God:
Give me more faith.
Give me more wisdom.
Give me more peace.
Give me more of Your presence.
Give me more opportunities.
While giving Him nowhere to put the answer.
The problem wasn’t getting more.
The problem was making room.
2 KINGS 4
And that’s exactly where our story begins.
2 Kings 4 opens with a crisis.
There is a widow.
Her husband is dead.
Debt collectors are showing up.
And come on…
Isn’t it encouraging to know that apparently even death doesn’t get you out of debt?
Her husband is gone.
The debt remains.
The collectors are coming.
Her sons are about to be taken.
Her future is collapsing.
Her options are gone.
She is out of answers.
She is out of resources.
And she comes to Elisha desperate for help.
Let’s go back to the text and unpack it together
1 Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”
2 And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”
WHAT DO YOU HAVE
Elisha’s question to the woman is fascinating to me.
“What do you have in the house?”
Think about that for the moment.
This woman just told him…
My husband is dead.
My sons are about to be taken.
The creditors are coming.
And Elisha responds:
“What do you have in the house?”
If I’m her, I’m thinking:
“Did you hear anything I just said?”
Can you imagine if you came and met with me your life falling apart…
Marriage trouble.
Financial pressure.
Family crisis.
Anxiety through the roof.
And the I said:
“What do you have in your pantry?”
You’d be looking for another church by lunch.
Because it feels like the wrong question.
She is asking for rescue.
Elisha asks for inventory.
She is focused on what is wrong.
Elisha is focused on what remains.
There is a difference.
Her response is equally fascinating to me.
She says: “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”
I love that response because it feels so human.
She starts with: “I have nothing.”
Which isn’t true.
She has a house.
She has two sons.
She has a jar of oil.
But when you’re overwhelmed, that’s how we talk.
We exaggerate.
We don’t mean literally nothing.
We mean: “Nothing that can fix this.”
That’s what she’s saying.
I have nothing that can stop the creditors.
I have nothing that can save my sons.
I have nothing that can solve this problem.
Except…a jar of oil.
In her mind, the jar doesn’t count.
It’s too small.
Too ordinary.
Too insignificant.
Which is exactly why she mentions it last.
But watch what Elisha does
3 Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few.
GATHER THE JARS
“Sir, all I have is a jar of oil.”
“Great! Go get more empty jars.”
What?
That’s basically Elisha’s response.
“Go outside. Borrow vessels from all your neighbors. Empty vessels. And not too few.”
Can you imagine?
She probably went to every grandma in town.
Because grandmas keep everything.
That jelly jar from 15 years ago?
Still got it.
That pickle jar nobody has used since King David was writing Psalms?
Still got it.
The butter container that somehow became a leftovers container?
Still got it.
The container with no matching lid?
Still got it.
You know exactly who I’m talking about.
Some of you are who I’m talking about.
And Elisha says:
“Get all of them.”
Not a few.
Not enough.
Get more than you think you’ll need.
Because Elisha already knows something she doesn’t know yet.
The problem isn’t going to be the oil.
The problem is going to be whether there’s somewhere for the oil to go.
And that’s where most of us miss the story.
Because we get so focused on the emptiness.
We get so focused on what the widow doesn’t have.
But do you realize something?
THE REAL ISSUE
A full thing can’t be filled.
You can’t pour water into a glass that’s already full.
You can’t park another car in a garage that’s already packed.
You can’t put a kettle on a coffee bar that has no room left.
The very thing the widow probably hated about those jars…was the thing that qualified them for the miracle.
They were empty.
Too often we go around looking for finished products…
People who have it all together.
People who have all the answers.
People who never struggle.
People who never doubt.
People who never fail.
But look at what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount:
6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Notice what Jesus didn’t say.
He didn’t say:
Blessed are those who are completely full of righteousness.
Blessed are those who have it all together.
Blessed are those who have arrived.
He says: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst…
In other words, blessed are those who know they still need something.
Because hungry people seek food.
Thirsty people seek water.
Empty jars get filled.
Look at what Elisha tells her to do once she gathers the jars:
4 Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside.”
5 So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her.
Now…
This is a very important detail.
Because if I’m honest…
This is where most people stop.
They come to the pastor.
They come to a friend.
They come to a small group.
They come to church.
They ask for help.
They ask for prayer.
They ask for direction.
They ask what they should do.
The pastor tells them what to do to get back on track…
And then…
Nothing.
They never actually do it.
They wanted validation.
They didn’t want obedience.
They wanted insight.
They didn’t want action.
They wanted a conversation.
They didn’t want transformation.
But the miracle doesn’t happen when she talks to Elisha.
The miracle happens when she does what Elisha said.
Think about it.
She receives the instruction.
Then she leaves.
She shuts the door.
And she starts pouring.
The meeting gave her instruction. The private place produced the miracle.
Listen to me…
I want you in church.
I want you in a small group.
I want you at prayer meetings.
I want you around other believers.
Those things matter.
Those things are biblical.
Those things are gifts from God.
But church gatherings can show you how to love Jesus. They cannot love Jesus for you.
At some point every disciple has to leave the gathering.
Shut the door.
Open the Bible.
Get on their knees.
Obey what God said.
Because eventually your walk with God becomes personal.
And that can only happen behind closed doors.
too many christians are trying to grow through proximity.
Proximity to sermons
Proximity to worship
Proximity to church
Proximity to Christian content.
Proximity to spiritual conversations.
And don’t misunderstand me.
Those things matter.
God uses those things.
But eventually there comes a moment when the sermon is over.
The worship music stops.
The small group ends.
The podcast is finished.
And it’s just you and God.
That’s where you fall in love with Jesus.
That’s where prayer becomes real.
That’s where obedience becomes personal.
That’s where faith stops being borrowed and starts becoming your own.
Let’s keep going verse 6
6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
Then the oil stopped.
You know how most people read that?
The oil ran out.
That’s not what the text says.
Read it again.
It doesn’t say: “The oil ran out.”
It says: “There is not another, Then the oil stopped flowing.”
I wonder how many times we’ve asked God for more.
More faith.
More peace.
More wisdom.
More of His presence.
More opportunities.
More growth.
And all the while God is looking at our lives and asking:
“Where would I put it?”
Your schedule is full.
Your attention is full.
Your priorities are full.
Your life is full.
There is no room.
The problem wasn’t the oil.
The problem was the space.
You know the part of this story that I think gets overlooked?
It starts with a debt.
A debt the widow could not repay.
That’s the whole reason this story happens.
The oil wasn’t the goal.
The oil was the provision.
The debt was the problem.
The miracle wasn’t ultimately about oil.
The miracle was about rescue.
The widow had a debt she could not pay.
And unless someone intervened, she was going to lose everything.
Does that sound familiar?
Because the Gospel begins the same way.
Not with oil.
Not with jars.
With a debt.
A debt we could not pay.
A debt no amount of effort could erase.
A debt no amount of religion could remove.
And just like the widow, we needed someone to provide what we could never produce ourselves.
The widow was saved by provision she did not earn.
And we are saved by a Savior we did not deserve.
Jesus paid the debt.
Jesus became the provision.
Jesus did for us what we could never do for ourselves.
And that’s why I think this story gets misunderstood so often.
This story has been preached as a prosperity gospel message.
And that’s wrong.
Because this isn’t a prosperity story.
It’s a Gospel story.
The widow wasn’t trying to get rich.
She was trying to survive.
She wasn’t looking for a luxury.
She was looking for rescue.
The oil wasn’t the point.
The oil was the provision.
The debt was the problem.
And the miracle was the answer.
That’s exactly what Jesus did for us.
We had a debt we could not pay.
A problem we could not solve.
A rescue we could not accomplish.
And Jesus became the provision.
Not so we could become wealthy.
Not so we could become comfortable.
But so we could be saved.
Here is the question I want you to ask:
If God wanted to pour more of Himself into your life this week…Would there be another vessel available?
Because most Christians don’t need another sermon.
They need another vessel.
Another place for God to work.
Another area surrendered.
Another habit developed.
Another conversation started.
Another step of obedience.
What area of your life is unavailable to God?
What area is crowded?
What area have you kept closed?
What vessel needs to be brought before God?
Because the problem wasn’t the oil.
The problem was the space.
