Ridiculous Faith
Elisha, Week 2
Today, we are in the 2nd week of a series
looking at the old testament prophet Elisha.
If you missed last week,
we talked about burning plows,
in other words
leaving behind anything
that would keep us from following God.
So last week, we burned plows.
Today, we're going to talk about digging ditches.
Our goal in this four-week series.
is that God will build the faith of our church
to be greater than it ever has been.
Because, we know without faith,
it’s impossible to please God.
Now, before we dive in,
I'm wondering how many of you have played
the "if only" game.”
"if only" I had this, if only I had that,
then life would be better, easier, and happier.
How many of you have played the "if only" game?
"If only" I had a better job,
"if only" I had more money,
"if only" I had more hair,
or at least hair in the right places.
Some ladies might say, "if only" I had a husband.
Others would say "if only" I had a husband with a job.
Others would say "if only" I had a husband with a job who looked like Brad Pitt.
I don't know what your "if only" would be.
But I do know that throughout our lives,
we will always have needs,
we will always be tempted to play the “if only” game,
and think that life would be so much better,
if only.
What I want to do today
is encourage you to listen to this message
through the lens of your greatest need,
as we talk today,
think about how it applies to your greatest need,
maybe an area where you’ve been thinking,
if only.
Now in this story, we're going to see that
there were 3 kings
who joined forces to do battle against the Moabites.
3 against 1, and they thought,
This should be an easy victory.
But often in life, things don’t go as planned.
Anybody know what I'm talking about?
You think you've got it figured out
but, "whoops,"
things don't turn out the way we thought.
That's what happens with these 3 kings.
Before they even get to the battle,
the 3 armies run out of water
while they’re marching through the desert,
They're about to die of thirst,
they are in big trouble,
They have a huge need.
And this story demonstrates a faith principal
that is actually great news to many of us.
And that is:
Your Greatest Need Becomes A Blessing, When It Drives You To Depend On God.
Let me say that again.
Your greatest need becomes a blessing, when it drives you to depend on God.
Look at 2 Kings 3;9-12
"So the king of Israel set out with the king of Judah and the king of Edom; After a roundabout march of seven days, the army had no more water for themselves or for their animals with them. "What," exclaimed the king of Israel, "has the Lord called us three kings together only to deliver us into the hands of Moab?"
In other words, we thought we'd win easily
but now it looks like we're going to be destroyed.
And of course, who gets the blame?
God does.
…has the Lord called us three kings together only to deliver us into the hands of Moab?"
Of these 3 kings,
Jehoshaphat was the only one
that worshipped the true God at all,
the other two worshipped Baal,
Jehoshaphat wasn’t a great example of faith,
but at least he didn’t worship idols.
So the story continues…
"But Jehoshaphat, one of the kings, asked, 'Is there no prophet of the Lord here, through whom we may inquire of the Lord?" An officer of the king of Israel answered, "Elisha, son of Shaphat, is here. He used to pour water on the hands of Elijah."
And all of sudden, when they're in trouble,
they do what a lot of us do,
"Um, God, I’m in big trouble.
Can you help me?"
But see the problem was,
they didn’t have much of a connection to God,
they hadn’t been serving him.
So they said,
"Is there anybody around who is in good with God?
Anybody who can do a little rain dance for us,
pull some spiritual strings?"
And they said,
"Oh yeah, there's Elisha, the prophet.
Maybe he can help us out."
Now, if you missed last week,
Elisha started out as the servant of Elijah.
We talked about Elijah a few months ago,
You may remember the story,
when the nation was in a great drought,
Elijah prayed to God, for rain,
but nothing happened,
and he prayed again and again,
finally after praying for 7 periods of time,
God sent a heavy rain that ended the drought.
And so they're thinking,
"Wow, if Elijah did that,
maybe Elisha can do the same thing."
Verse 12,
"Jehoshaphat said, 'The word of the Lord is with Elisha.' So the king of Israel, and Jehoshaphat and the king of Edom went down to him."
Now, as I said earlier,
these three kings were not serving God;
they wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with Elisha,
except that now they’re in big trouble,
they’re desperate,
they’re clutching at straws.
And they’d probably heard about
the miracles that Elisha was already doing
in this rookie year as a prophet;
He had already separated the Jordan.
Kind of like Moses on a smaller scale.
Still very impressive.
He divides the Jordan River.
Another time, he spoke to a polluted spring of water.
This was like, you drink the water, you die.
But he spoke to it and healed the water
so you could drink from it;
the water was healthy and good.
That’s pretty impressive.
Then another thing he did is…
some young boys were making fun of him,
because evidently he didn't have a lot of hair,
and the young boys were calling him, "baldy, baldy, baldy,"
Elijah kind of lost it,
and summoned two bears out of the woods.
And the bears tore up the boys.
That's in your bible;
I'm not making this up.
You can't make that stuff up.
You should read your bibles.
There’s important stuff in there, like
never make fun of a bald guy,
because you never know how much faith he has
and how close a bear might be.
Okay? Just a warning.
But the 3 kings go to Elisha and say,
Hey Elisha, can you help us out?
And the next part is interesting.
Usually when people are talking to kings,
they’re kind of respectful and polite.
Not Elisha.
He actually gets an attitude;
and starts getting sarcastic.
He's like, "Okay, I get it guys.
You want to ignore God all the time,
until --- suddenly you’re in big trouble
and now you want some God action,
you want him to bail you out.
He’s being sarcastic with the kings.
You may ask," Where did he get that attitude from?"
Probably, from his mentor, Elijah,
who was the king of attitude.
Remember the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal?
Elijah says, Let's have a little contest
between Baal and the real God.
We'll get a bull for each of us,
make a couple of altars,
You call on Baal to send fire from heaven,
I’ll call on God,
and we’ll see which is the real God.
So these false prophets, they pray to Baal,
"Send fire. Send fire," and nothing's happening.
So Elijah starts making fun of them.
He said, "Maybe you should shout louder.
Maybe your god's deaf.
Maybe your god's on vacation."
or maybe your God's in the bathroom and can't hear you."
I'm not making this up.
That's in the bible.
If you’ve never read that story,
You need to read your bible; it's in there.
Well, Elisha does the same thing Elijah did,
he gets an attitude,
starts getting a little sarcastic here.
In verse 13:
Elisha said to the king of Israel, "Why do you want to involve me?"
Okay, you guys have been ignoring God all this time –
"Why you coming to me now?
Go to the prophets of your father and the prophets of your mother."
Can you hear his attitude?
He's even bringing a momma into it.
Your momma wears army boots,
and she’s got her own prophet.
Why don't you go to your momma?
I will admit there’s some parts of the bible
that get a little boring,
this is not one of them, This is fun story.
He said, "Call the prophets of your mother."
"No," the King of Israel answered, "because it was the Lord who called us three kings together to deliver us into the hands of Moab.
Now the king is trying to blame it on God.
Hey we were just trying to follow God,
he’s the one who called us together to attack Moab.
Which of course is false,
because the kings didn’t even care about God,
till they got in big trouble.
So Elisha comes back with more sarcasm,
"As surely as the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve,"
In other words,
"guys, you're not serving him but I am.
Just want to make that clear.
"As surely the Lord Almighty lives, whom I serve, if I didn't have respect for the presence of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, I would not pay any attention to you."
So he's saying to the kings,
"Okay, Jehoshaphat, he's not serving God right now,
he shouldn’t be hanging around with you other two,
but at least at one time he did fear God,
he’s a lot better than you other two jerks,
and if it wasn't for Jehosophat,
I wouldn't give you the time of day,
But because Jehoshophat's here,
I've decided to help you out.
"but now bring me a harpist.
Guys, if you want me to prophesy,
I need some worship music, bring a harpist.
This was a pretty common practice for prophets back then,
just as it is today.
There's something about
when you worship God through music
the bible says God inhabits the praises of his people.
Somebody asked me last week,
Why does the Vineyard always start things with worship,
not just Sundays but any kind of meeting.
The same reason Elisha did.
It helps you hear God,
it invites God into the situation,
and focuses your attention on him.
In fact, when I have a quiet time in the morning,
to read my bible and pray,
its not really quiet
because I put worship music on
and it helps me to connect to God.
That's what Elisha does here,
"Bring me a harpist."
And the 3 kings think,
All right, Elisha is going to do what Elijah did,
he’s gonna pray and bring rain,
this is going to be good."
Verse 15:
While the harpist was playing, the hand of the Lord came upon Elisha and he said, "This is what the Lord says: Make this valley full of ditches.
The kings are going,
Wait, wait wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
I thought God was going to make it rain
and it was gonna be great,
and we're going to take off our shoes
and run through the puddles
and enjoy the rain.
What is this dig ditches stuff?
You're telling us, that
when our troops are about to die of thirst,
you want them to go do manual labor
under the hot desert sun,
and dig ditches all over the valley?
What kind of prophet are you, anyway?
Where’s Elijah when you need him.
Elijah would have made it rain,
he wouldn’t tell us to go dig ditches…
But,
Elisha says, You heard me right,
I want your armies to dig ditches.
You see Elisha knew something.
He knew that,
Your greatest need often becomes your greatest blessing when it drives you to depend on God.
Verse 17, Elisha continues…
"For this is what the Lord says. 'You will see neither wind nor rain, yet this valley will be filled with water, and you, your cattle, and your other animals will drink." "This is an easy thing in the eyes of the Lord."
This is easy…
In other words, you have no idea
how powerful, strong, and mighty our God is.
At the snap of the finger, our God can do this.
This is an easy thing in the eyes of the lord.
And oh, by the way,
you know that other thing you wanted,
well, he's going to do that as well.
He will also deliver Moab into your hands
He’ll give you victory in the battle…
but first…
I want you to dig some ditches.
So that’s the story…
What I want to do in rest of our time together is
I want apply this to our lives.
What does that mean for us today?
And I put a subtitle in your notes:
Faith That Works.
How many of you would say,
Yeah, I want faith that works.
Now there's a play on words here that is intentional.
Faith that works means 2 things,
First, I'm talking about faith that’s effective.
In other words,
faith that moves the heart of God
and brings a response from God.
That’s faith that works.
But we’re not just talking about faith that is effective
we’re also talking about faith that is active.
Faith that works, in other words,
effective faith, is also active faith.
Those two go together.
Effective faith often requires you to
be active,
or take some action first.
We believe in faith that God is going to act
so we act first,
we take a step of faith toward God,
believing that God is going to take a step toward us.
If we relate it to this story…
Only God can send the water,
but sometimes he wants you to dig a ditch.
Only God can send the water
but sometimes he wants you to dig a ditch.
God is going to do the miracle,
he’s got the power,
but he wants you to take action,
in faith, first.
Look at James 2:26:
Just as the body is dead without breath so also is faith dead without [what?]
"faith is dead without good works."
Only God can send the water but sometimes
he wants to see your faith first;
he wants you to dig a ditch.
Now, Question:
Do you think God could have provided water,
for these 3 kings and their armies,
without having them dig ditches?
Do you think that the God of the universe
who created everything that exists,
Do you really think he needed these guys out there
digging ditches?
No, I don’t think so.
God can do anything.
God could have made the ditches himself.
In fact, God dug a ditch one day,
he filled it with water,
and now we call it the Pacific Ocean.
God didn't need them to dig ditches.
But instead, it's like he’s saying,
You show me your faith, and I'll show you my faithfulness.
You show me your faith and I'll show you my faithfulness."
Because, God loves to see our faith.
All over the Bible
you see this again and again.
statements like…
"When Jesus saw their faith."
Now have you ever asked yourself,
How did Jesus see their faith?
How can you see faith?
I mean,
Can you look at me right now,
and see my faith?
Or if I'm praying, do you see faith?
you're like,
"Oh man, there’s faith smoke rising
from Ken’s brain?"
No, you don't see that.
You see faith, by people’s action.
When Peter was in the boat
and saw Jesus walking on the water,
he said, Jesus I wanna do that.
And Jesus said, "Come,"
So what did Peter do?
He got out of boat.
That's when you see faith.
The other 11 guys stayed in the boat,
you didn't see any faith.
The guy that got out of the boat,
you could see his faith.
There are many times when
God wants to see us participate in his miracle,
using our faith;
it's still his miracle
but he wants us to participate.
Another time there's a guy with a withered hand.
What does Jesus say to him?
"Stretch out your hand."
In other words, I can heal you,
but I want to see you believe it first.
So stretch out your hand.
Now, Jesus could have grabbed his arm,
and stretched it out for him,
and kazaamm, it's healed."
He could have done that,
but instead he said,
I want to see your faith in action
to stretch out your hand.
Another time in the bible,
there was a guy who was born lame,
had never walked a step in his life,
Jesus looks at him and says,
"get up, pick up your mat and walk.
In other words,
I'm going to heal you,
but I'm not going to pick you up.
I want you to show your faith,
by getting yourself up.
I want to see you have the faith to believe
that what I said was true.
So get up."
Only God can send the water, but sometimes he wants you to dig a ditch.
There was a guy who was blind from birth
and Jesus goes up and picks up some dirt
and he spits in it, makes mud
and puts it on the guy's eyes.
Now I know what you're thinking,
"That is nasty."
I hope the Vineyard prayer teams don’t do it that way,
because it's nasty.
And what’s worse it, the guy wasn’t instantly healed.
he just has muddy spitty eyes.
Next thing, Jesus says is (John 9:7)
"Go wash your eyes in the pool of Siloam.
And it wasn’t till he washed his eyes in that pool,
that he could see.
So in other words Jesus says,
"I'm going to do my part,
and then I want to see you do yours.
I want you to take an action, that shows your faith,
You show your faith, and I'll show you my faithfulness."
Because
Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
Too many people today are waiting for God
to show them his faithfulness
but they're not showing God any faith.
Take a step
step out in faith.
You want to heal a relationship that's gone bad,
you take a step of faith
and forgive them before they even ask
or you act loving to them,
when all they’re doing is being ugly to you.
What are you doing?
You're digging a ditch, showing your faith.
A lot of people go,
"I want my kids to serve Jesus and be strong Christians
But they don't bring their kids to Awana,
and they never open the bible in their own home
to read it to their kids,
they never pray with their children.
You want some water?
Want something from God?
Dig a ditch.
Take some actions in faith,
Be a godly parent.
You show your faith,
and God will show you His faithfulness."
People say, I need more money;
I’m broke,
I need a raise,
I need a better job
And yet they don’t tithe.
You show your faith,
and God will show you His faithfulness."
God tells us that
if we give him our first and our best,
he will bless the rest.
Those of you who are tithers,
you know the supernatural power of God
You know that 90% with his blessings
goes further than the 100% without.
It seems crazy, but it is true.
You see, when you tithe your 10%,
What are you doing?
You're digging a ditch.
Then God fills it with water.
Because only God can send the water but he wants you to dig a ditch.
The second principal, if you're taking notes is this:
Real Faith Believes Big, But Is Willing To Start Small.
Real faith believes big but is willing to start small.
I know too many people that are
just not thinking big enough.
The bible says
we serve a God who can do
exceedingly and abundantly more
than all you can ask, think or imagine.
It's time to think big.
because we serve a big God,
who wants to do more in us than we can imagine.
But a lot of times the problem is not in thinking big.
A lot of times people are willing to think big
but they’re not willing to start small.
Think about it, How do you dig a ditch?
If you're in the 9th century, in Elisha’s time,
how do you dig a ditch?
You take a shovel,
and you pick up one shovel of dirt at a time.
You dig a big ditch, by starting small.
Zechariah 4:10 says,
"Do not despise these" [what?]
Do not despise these small beginnings for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.
Sometimes, you have to start small.
There may be some of you,
you've got a vision for something big,
and you don’t know where to start.
Well, I’ll tell you where to start?
You start small,
one shovelful at a time.
You start with what’s in front of you.
You start by being faithful
with what God has given you.
You start small,
and then let God grow it.
This church started really small.
It actually started in my livingroom, in 1990
though I wasn’t the pastor for the first 4 years.
And by 1994 when I became pastor,
we had grown to
19 adults, about 9 kids, and 8 dogs...
Actually, I’m kidding about the dogs,
but I’m trying to inflate the numbers at least little,
because it was so tiny.
We were definitely starting small.
We were thinking big,
but willing to start small.
About 5 months after I became pastor, in early 1995,
we’d grown to about 70 people by then,
and a woman named Janie came to me, and said,
I think we should start a food pantry at our church.
My immediate thought was,
do we really need to be doing that?
But I didn’t say that,
I just said, If you want to lead it, we can try.
So we did,
we got some food, and filled some bags,
filled a couple shelves
on a bookcase in the church basement.
And started spreading the word
that we were going to be open one evening a week
to give it out,
And it started very small.
In fact it was so small,
do you know how many people showed up the first 3 weeks?
Exactly zero.
That’s pretty small.
But the fourth week people showed up,
and it grew, and it grew, and it grew,
Pretty soon we had to rent a truck to get the food,
and it kept growing,
next thing we know
we’re giving away 30k pounds of food every month,
and then we had to buy a warehouse in Hamilton,
because it wasn’t small anymore, it was big,
and we re-named it Serve City,
and then in 2001 we started the homeless shelter
And we learned that you…
Do not despise small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.
Real faith believes big, but is willing to start small.
I want to encourage you this morning, to
Think big, but be willing to start small
because
Only God can send the water, but he wants you to dig the ditch.
So you say,
God, I believe you’re gonna do big things.
And then you start where you are.
God loves when we participate in his miracles
when we take action in faith,
we do something so people can see our faith
because faith without works is absolutely dead.
A year ago we did this,
We were having a lot more financial troubles
as a church, than we are now,
and yet in my prayer time I felt like God was leading us to give away our entire Easter offering to a Christian organization that feeds hungry kids in Haiti.
So I talked about this with our leaders and trustees,
and some were excited about it,
others were not very excited,
Some said, that doesn’t make any sense,
we’re having a hard time paying the bills,
and you want to give away the whole offering
on the largest Sunday of the year?
I said, I agree it doesn’t make sense.
But I think God is saying we should do it,
We want God to bless our finances,
and help us pay all the bills,
so we’re going to take some action,
take a step of faith,
and give away the whole offering.
Those of you who were around after Easter last year know,
that God blessed us financially that month,
so even after giving away the $15,000,
to feed kids in Haiti,
we still put money in savings after Easter.
This was after we were coming up short,
just about every month.
It was a step of faith,
we took action,
and God poured out his blessing.
Verse 20 of 2nd Kings, chapter 3 says this:
The next morning about the time for the offering of the sacrifice, there it was---water flowing from the direction of Edom. And the land was filled with water.
Let me tell you what probably happened here.
In desert areas its common that
when there’s heavy rain, you’ll get a flash flood.
The reason is that
you have poorly-absorbent soil,
that won’t absorb water quickly.
So when it rains, you have a flood sweep through and area,
but then in a few minutes all the water is gone.
Well, probably there was a heavy rain in Edom,
because it says the water came from the direction of Edom,
and it caused a flash flood
to sweep through this desert valley
where the 3 kings were.
Now think, what would have happened
if there were no ditches in the valley?
That water would have swept through and been gone,
and then there’s still nothing there to drink.
But because they dug the ditches,
now there was plenty of water for everyone to drink.
Sometimes God sends rain,
sometimes he sends a flash flood,
God provides in different ways that we cannot predict.
But what we do know is,
Only God can send the water but sometimes he wants you to [do what?]
dig a ditch.
He wants you to take a step of faith,
do something that shows your faith
to the people around you.
Some of you, right now,
you've got a significant need in your life,
and you think,
"If only God would do this,
If only God would meet that.
If only God would answer that prayer."
Maybe God is waiting for you to show your faith,
by starting in some small way,
believing in faith
that God will then show His faithfulness.
Real faith believes big, but is willing to start small.
What is your biggest need right now?
Maybe it’s your finances,
Maybe your health,
or the health of someone you love,
Maybe a child that’s going the wrong direction,
maybe your job or lack of job,
Whatever that need is,
Don't ever forget that
your biggest need
can become your biggest blessing
when it drives you to depend on God
STAND FOR PRAYER
Heavenly Father, I pray for a church full of people who will think big but start small,
believing by faith, long before there's a cloud in the sky or any sign of water, that if I'll dig the ditch, God is faithful enough to send the water.
"Father, I pray that you would build the faith of this church and every person in it, that we’d be changed, God, as we begin to bring faith into every area of our lives.
" As we pray today, let me just ask you a couple questions.
First, I wonder how many of you, at this moment in your life, you're facing a significant need and you need prayer today. If that's you, then God knows the details.
2nd, I wonder how many of you would be willing to say, I want the faith to do whatever God leads me to do, I want to have faith to dig a ditch, or whatever God asks me to do.
I want to show my faith and trust him to show his faithfulness.
If you’d say, "I want that kind of faith to honor God," would you lift your hands right now?
"God, I pray for all these people, that you would hear our prayer and increase our faith. And God, especially those who are in need today, we thank you that you care so much about what we’re going through, and that you’re always with us, and you’re working in all things even though we may not see it or feel it.
We put our faith in you. Thank you God.
Some of you here, it's time for you to put your faith in God, to believe that Jesus was sent by God, and because of his life, you can be made right with God.
You can become part of God’s family forever.
Pray along with me.
"Heavenly Father, forgive me of my sins. Make me brand new. I believe Jesus died for me so I could live for you. Fill me with your spirit so I can follow you for the rest of my life. Thank you for new life. Today, I give you mine. In Jesus name, I pray."
