Miracles

Because this morning, we're going to be talking about miracles. We're going to be looking at an account in the Old Testament, which is only seven verses long, sort of just chucked in between two bigger events, but it reveals a whole lot about who God is and how He operates. If you have ever wondered why God performs miracles, this sermon is for you. If you've ever thought about why miracles happen, if you've ever witnessed a miracle, if you are new to Christianity perhaps and you've never witnessed one, or you don't understand what they are, then this is for you. Let's open our Bibles to 2 Kings.

Two Kings chapter four. And we're going to be reading about the widow's oil. And so we're gonna start from verse one, and we'll read to verse seven. 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 little oil." Elisha said, "Go around and ask all your neighbours 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 afterwards 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's 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." So far the reading.

Interesting story. A widow and her two sons are in a desperate situation. In the time of Israel, in the ancient Near East, the majority of the population lived right above this poverty line, just above it. It was oftentimes touch and go when it came to these sort of things. And so when someone died, unfortunately, like this, it often meant that the whole family died.

It often meant that they were all made destitute. Now this widow's husband, the Bible says, was a son of the prophets, the Hebrew says. He was part of a school of prophets that they had in those days. It was started by Samuel the prophet, and they had these great, almost like monastery type situations where these special, well educated men would come and they would be taught by a head prophet, someone like Samuel, like an Elijah, and probably in this case, someone like Elisha. And so this man that passed away was probably known to Elisha.

The widow was probably someone that Elisha knew. And so this woman felt that she could come to Elisha and plead with him about her case. Scripture says that this man made some poor choices in his life though. He took out a loan. He got some creditors, and he did something really stupid and put his two sons down as security for this loan.

So he said, "If I can't pay back this loan, you can have my sons. You can take them into slavery to pay off this debt of mine." Now the unfortunate thing happens, he dies. We don't know how. He became sick or something like that and he passes away.

So this crisis happens. And now this widow has no way to pay back her creditors. Women in those days didn't have an income of any real sorts. And so she had no way of paying it back unless she was going to go into prostitution. That was the other option.

But obviously, she's a widow of a righteous man, and we can assume that she was righteous as well. So that was not an option. And so it's likely also that these two sons were young. They were five, six, eight years old. If they weren't young, if they were teenagers, they would have been working.

They would have been earning a wage. They would have been able to support Mum and themselves, but they were probably young and so they couldn't do that. And so that resulted in there being just no option. There was no option. These creditors were gonna come.

The time for the repayments had been fulfilled and now they were going to claim back their security. This woman has nothing to her name. Her husband made some very bad decisions, took out a loan and pledged his sons as security. In those days, this was something you could do. You could make your sons pledge your sons as security.

These creditors could take your sons away for a maximum time of six years. On the seventh year was the sabbatical year, which we even practise in our Australian culture of taking a year off, your sabbatical year. On the seventh year, these slaves were to be let go. They had served their time as slaves. So for six years, her sons, they wouldn't be able to work and Mum may have died.

And so they would've been working perhaps as farmhands or as part of a trade of these creditors. So this widow is going to lose his sons for six years and probably die from starvation. What a bleak situation. What a terrible situation to be in. But we see God providing a way out through a miracle.

An amazing miracle which restores justice to a very unjust situation. We see God providing for the needy based upon the injustice of their situation, based upon the faith of an individual, and based upon the kindness of an intercessor. The first thing we're going to be looking at is just the injustice of this situation. A man's death has left behind a terrible situation, a widow with her young sons. The situation screams unfair.

It screams unwise decisions. And sometimes in Scripture, God gives us examples of what to do and examples of what not to do. And I believe this is one of those examples. The Bible doesn't shy away from giving a warts and all description of what sin can result in, the consequences of that. We see the example of a father and a husband being a bad steward of what God has given him.

He goes in debt. And we have to remember that debt and interest and loans was something that the Jews weren't supposed to do. God forbid interest. OK. Fair enough.

They might borrow, but you could not ask interest of your neighbour. So this was something that was frowned upon, but he goes into debt. He's got no contingency plan. He's got nothing. If he was to die, there's no money sort of tucked away or anything like that.

Nothing. And so he leaves his most precious possessions in life in danger. As Christians, we have the responsibility to be good stewards. To be good stewards of what God has given us. As people who live on the Gold Coast in affluent Australia, God has given us many blessings.

And so we have a responsibility. We have the responsibility that it not only affects our credibility to others if we make poor financial decisions. It not only affects the credibility of our witness that we have been redeemed and restored and renewed in our thinking by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But it also can have a direct impact on the people that are most precious to us in our lives. So there's some great wisdom that I want to share with you this morning that I've been reading about in some Christian blogs and books and so on on financial stewardship.

And I thought these were some great points. The first thing from our example here of what not to do, for us to be good stewards, responsible managers of what God has given us, is to get our theology right. To get our theology right about what God's blessings actually are to us. Being a good steward is grounded in the understanding that God owns everything. God owns everything.

What we have is just borrowed. What we have is simply grace. And God has blessed us with a portion of His bounty. The size of the portion doesn't matter. If you remember this parable of the talents in Matthew 25, the portion of what the boss gives his servants doesn't matter.

One got five, one got two, one got one. It doesn't matter. What matters is what you do with that. Do you use it to help others? Is the money that you have used to help yourself perhaps or the family around you, is it needed as opposed to things that are wanted?

We have to understand that what God has given us belongs to Him firstly, that you are a manager of what He has given you. So we have to get our theology right, firstly. The second thing is that we have to practise self control. To be a good steward, to be someone that does the right thing according to God's blessings, we have to have the ability to control the financial situation we are in. So in other words, having creditors who can fluctuate their interest rates, who can put it up and put it down.

Having creditors who can randomly call in debts, is not a situation where you have much control. Having self control, delaying your gratification is one of the biggest disciplines in the Christian life. Self discipline relates to every aspect of Christian living. Holiness, purity, but it also affects how we use our finances. Do you need another car?

Do you need a convertible? Do you need to build a new house or that luxury mansion? And oftentimes, we have to also remember that communication is very important, especially between married couples because in that communication, one person might be a little bit tempted, maybe a little bit weaker, but the other person has a bit more self control. He's a bit little bit more removed from the situation and can help in making a wise financial decision. The third thing is to prioritise.

Most of the financial quandaries we may suffer from are a result of our inability to prioritise. To really decide, well, this is really needed and this is just a want. It's important to understand that a good financial steward is one who's able to separate needs from wants. And then when it comes to luxury items, and you we do have those, to prioritise those luxury items even further. Fourthly, to take responsibility, and this is what this man didn't do.

To take responsibility for your actions or your decisions. Sometimes we are in the habit of blaming something or someone else for our problems. You can never be a good manager of your resources if this is your attitude. Being a good financial steward means taking full responsibility of all the outcomes, whether they are favourable or not. If you make a mistake, make sure that there is a plan B.

You got into this mess and you have to take the responsibility to get out of it. And lastly, and these, again, these are all very helpful practical things that Christian financial managers suggest. Lastly, and most people say this is to create a budget. Create a budget and stick to it. It's very simple advice, but spending that little bit of extra time researching how much you spend on a monthly basis, where the money goes, how much you get in, all those sort of things.

Spending that little bit of time and then sticking to a plan is really important. Work out how much you will spend on groceries, on fuel, on school fees, on all the necessities, then how much you will have left for luxuries, and also importantly, as Christians, we have to be proactive about our tithing, our giving. It is a significant—it should be a significant part of our budget. So be proactive about how much we set aside for that as well. I'm so glad that we did our giving before the sermon because it is a private thing, and it is something that we all have to determine.

But our gifts to the church, we have to remember, it's just important in our monthly budget as how much we're going to spend on groceries or movie tickets or whatever. And just to give you an insight from a church leadership perspective, it's really good to know a consistent amount is coming in. So then we can set our budget and we can work according to that. So from our perspective and just, you know, a suggestion, something regular like a direct deposit is really helpful for church leaders and church leadership to work with. So, yeah, a direct deposit is a good option.

So creating a budget that is accurate, that is well researched, and that is enacted or worked upon with self discipline is very important. So we look at this example of this man and this is the situation of what not to do. We have some points on how to be good stewards. The situation is desperate. The situation is unfair.

And then we come to the second point of why God and how God does miracles. We look at the faith of the individual involved here. Elisha says to this lady, "Go and get as many jars as possible from all your friends, and then close the door behind you and start filling them." This isn't a command that he gives her. It doesn't give any more context or any further directions.

If you're someone like my Dad who needs detail, it needs to be you know, the jar has to be this big and it needs to be this colour and you need to go through step one, two, three. He doesn't say any of that. He just says, "Don't get jars, close the door and fill them up." And so in this desperate situation, we see that God causes a miracle to happen. The oil keeps flowing.

She keeps pouring, fills up a jar, puts it aside and keeps pouring. But only as long as the widow has empty jugs to fill does the oil keep flowing. Elisha sent his widow away with very specific instructions. She does exactly what he asked. And at one point, she asked for another jar to fill up because she had filled up the one before.

But her son tells her that there's no jars left. And the Bible says, "And then the oil stopped flowing." It's obviously a miracle. It's obviously a miracle. I mean, how difficult would it be to explain in some physical natural way how a jar with just a limited amount of oil could fill five jars of the same size perhaps with oil completely.

But what we see here is the intermingling of faith of an individual with God's power. If the widow had scrounged up more jugs, God's power would be great enough to fill even those. God's power is unlimited, and there's a magnificent lesson for us to learn about God. Sometimes it's easy to blame God for our situation, our bad luck, and we don't take responsibility for our own sin, but God is always good. God is always good.

We are never made poor by God. We are never left in the lurch by God. All our poverty comes from us. Our poverty in relationships, poor relationships, broken marriages, in our spirituality, in our poverty in peace, it comes from us. It was the poor decision by the widow's former husband that left her in this mess.

He made deals that he didn't have a contingency plan for. The widow herself could have filled triple, quadruple the amount of jugs she had if she just found more. There was enough power, there was enough grace for God to fill all those jugs. But what she had left was what was limited to what she believed. Isn't that an amazing insight into God?

She stopped short by what her faith had limited her to. God's grace and His amazing mercy is far beyond what we sometimes are willing to believe. It's our faith that fails, not God's promise. God can give way more than we can ask. Were there more jars?

God is powerful enough to fill them. God is enough. And that counts for everything in our life. Everything that requires trust and dependence on God. It seems that over and over again in the Bible, God's all sufficient actions, His salvation is only limited when people stop praying, when people stop believing, when people stop asking, when they start depending on themselves to get out of the situation.

That's the only time where God's power is limited, it seems. God provides for the needy based upon our faith in God. God provides for the needy based upon our faith in God, based upon our conscious awareness of our dependence on God's goodness and His salvation. And then we see the third thing, the final thing here, and that is the importance of an intercessor. The importance of a third party that becomes involved in this mess.

Elisha's actions and his involvement were acts of real charity. It would have been easy just to keep walking on, not to say something, you know, easy like, "Well, we're praying for you, thinking for you, God bless." It would have been easy to have said those things, but God magnifies Elisha's goodness by His power. God magnifies Elisha's goodness by God's power. God uses Elisha and his connection with this woman to bring about an amazing miracle.

We don't know the internal process of, you know, what Elisha was thinking. Was Elisha prompted by God to say what he said? Or did he say that first and God reacted? We don't know exactly how that works. But what we do see is a promise that if she was to follow the instructions that he gave her, then something amazing would happen.

Again, we see God working with an empty vessel, but this time it's not a jug, it's a person. An empty vessel like Elisha who is willing to make that effort, to get involved in the mess, to feel sorry, really sorry, to sympathise with someone in really bad times. So God multiplies and magnifies Elisha's goodness by adding His power to it, and something amazing happens. Sometimes the help of a third person, a third party, and an intercessor is needed in desperate situations. Someone removed or outside the crisis needs to get involved in the situation.

Often desperate situations like this one here, leaves people so depressed, so grief stricken that they don't know who to turn to. They don't know to turn to God even. They might be so angry and so upset with God that they don't want to. And so they need someone that can step in. In that incredibly painful, scary situation, it takes just a little bit of extra kindness, a little bit of extra mercy, of charity, of unwavering love for God to make a dramatic impact on the life of someone in that situation.

God magnifies our goodness by His power. And just like all miracles in the Bible, which aren't once off, which aren't sideshow alley tricks or something like this, this miracle is used to prove something, to strengthen faith, to point back to God and His goodness. And so this miracle happens and it's usually in the context of desperateness where now we ask sometimes, why do miracles happen so much in Australia but we hear of accounts in Indonesia or China or Africa. The situation here is much easier. We've got good doctors, we've got good surgeons.

In Africa, there's nothing like that. So God uses miracles in the desperateness of a situation for His grace to shine through more powerfully, for His mercy to just stand out in contrast to the situation. It's where God's mercy, His character really shows. If you really want to see God glorified, if that is the passion on your heart, to see God glorified, then get involved in the lives of people who are needy, who are desperate. Because in those situations, God's grace, His goodness, His love is gonna shine so incredibly much.

We, of course, see the perfect example of this, of what real charity, of what real love, of great kindness looks like when we look at Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate example of what kindness and charity looks like. He didn't just perform great miracles. He saw people where they were. He went to where people were at.

He showed them that He was someone worth listening to. And Jesus readily received these people. I mean, at one point, He was so tired, He could hardly keep His eyes open. But they kept coming and He kept serving them. Jesus is our greatest example of how we can be intercessors for our friends, for our colleagues, for those strangers that we bump into across our paths.

In His time on earth, Jesus showed Himself to be a great intercessor for the needy. But even more so than being a great intercessor of the sick and the desperate was ultimately shown in His work as the intercessor for us on the cross. Jesus' sacrifice on the cross and His glorious resurrection from the dead is how we understand what real intercession is. Because of our sin, of our imperfection, of our brokenness, we caused ourselves to be spiritually bankrupt. As poor and as bankrupt as that widow was, so poor and so bankrupt were we in our brokenness.

We needed an intercessor to step in, to be on our side, to plead with God on our behalf. And for a time, we know that God set up, created an arrangement where He had priests who would do this for people, who had looked after God's people, who interceded, who pleaded to God on their behalf. These special people called priests stood between humanity and God and pleaded to God for mercy. And God delayed His judgment and He relented, but this arrangement wasn't perfect. These priests lived and died.

These priests were just as imperfect as we were and as we are. So the arrangement wasn't perfect. But the Bible says that through Jesus' sacrificial death on the cross, through His amazing, miraculous resurrection from the dead, He became our intercessor. He became the intercessor on our behalf. We're going to finish with this.

Have a look with me in to Hebrews 7. Hebrews 7, we're going to read from verse 23. "Now there have been many of those priests since death prevented them from continuing in office, but because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood. Therefore, He is able to save completely those who come to God through Him because He always lives to intercede for them."

"Isn't that great? Such a high priest meets our need. One who is holy, who is blameless, pure, set apart from sinners exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other priests, unlike the other arrangement, He does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people. For He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself."

"He sacrificed for their sins once for all when He offered Himself." Jesus is alive eternally and is the great champion of the underdog. He is the great intercessor who came on our behalf. The promise in Scripture is that Jesus intercedes, mediates, pleads on our behalf, and He has saved our life through His sacrificial death. Miracle of miracles, it was.

God provides for the needy. God provides for the needy. Miraculously, based upon the desperateness, the injustice of their situation, based upon the faith of the individuals involved, and upon the help of an intercessor.