Introduction:
A. Once there was a Christian woman who lived next door to an atheist man.
1. Every day, when the Christian woman prayed, the atheist man could hear her.
2. The atheist thought to himself, “She sure is crazy, praying all the time like that. Doesn’t she know there isn’t a God?”
3. Many times while she was praying, he would go to her house and harass her, saying “Lady, why do you pray all the time? Don't you know there is no God?” But she kept on praying.
4. One day, she ran out of groceries and as usual, she prayed to the Lord explaining her situation and thanking Him for what He was going to do.
5. As usual, the atheist heard her praying and thought to himself, “I’ll prover to her there is no God once and for all.”
6. The atheist went to the grocery store, bought a bunch of groceries, took them to her house, dropped them off on the front porch, rang the doorbell and then hid in the bushes to see what she would do.
7. When the Christian lady opened the door and saw the groceries, she began to praise the Lord with all her heart, thanking God for providing for her needs.
8. Immediately, the atheist jumped out of the bushes and told her, “You silly lady, God didn’t buy you those groceries, I bought those groceries for you!”
9. The Christian lady replied with great joy, “I knew the Lord would provide me with groceries, but I didn’t know he was going to make the devil pay for them!”
B. Today, as we continue our Transforming Truths Sermon Series, I want us to be blessed by the truth that God does and will provide for our needs.
1. This is a truth that God has made known to us throughout the Bible.
2. This truth is communicated in the beginning words of the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.” (NIV)
a. “The Lord is my shepherd, I have all that I need.” (NLT)
b. “God, my shepherd, I don’t need a thing.” (Message)
3. In Psalm 37:25, David declares: “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread.”
4. Consider the way that God provided for hundreds of thousands of Israelites as they wandered for forty years in the desert.
a. Moses reminded them about this saying: “2 Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD . 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.” (Deut. 8:2-4)
b. Their experience with God in the desert was a daily reminder of the way that God provides.
5. Consider the promise of Jesus in Matthew 6: “31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:31-33)
a. When we seek first God and His kingdom, then we can know that God will provide what we need to eat, drink and wear.
6. And finally, Paul confirmed the truth that God will provide, saying: And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 4:19)
C. In addition to those assorted verses that convey the truth that God will provide, I want to remind us of two biblical examples that drive home this truth.
I. Abraham Experienced God’s Provision
A. The first biblical example of God’s provision that I want to share with you is from the story of Abraham.
1. Throughout Abraham’s journey with God, God revealed himself as the God who will provide.
2. Abraham’s father, Terah, felt the call of God to leave the Ur of the Chaldeans and to head to Canaan, but when they got as far as Haran, they settled there.
3. But then after Terah died, when Abraham was 75 years old, he experienced a call from God to leave Haran and go to a land that God would show him, which was Canaan.
a. God told Abraham that he would become the father of a great nation.
b. The problem at that point was that Abraham and Sarah had no children.
4. Did Abraham trust God to provide an heir? Yes, he and Sarah waited patiently for many years.
5. But when time passed and Sarah was still not pregnant, Abraham and Sarah decided to help God fulfill His promise.
a. They devised a scheme whereby Abraham would bring forth a son through Sarah’s handmaiden, Hagar.
b. Abraham took Hagar to be his wife and she gave birth to a son named Ishmael.
c. But Ishmael was not the child of promise and God asked Abraham to trust that God would provide the son of promise.
6. Finally, after 25 years of waiting, the son of promise, Isaac, was born to them.
a. Isaac was born when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90 years old.
b. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that God’s provision was a miracle!
B. For the next 15 or so years, Abraham enjoyed a season of peace and tranquility with his wife and his son of promise, Isaac.
1. Things were looking up and Abraham had much to be thankful for, because God had provided him with a son, an heir, the promised one.
2. Yet, when Isaac was a young man of about 15, the Lord called upon Abraham for a supreme test of faith and obedience.
3. The Bible says: Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” (Gen. 22:1-2)
4. This request is actually quite a shocking one on its face value – here God asks for a human sacrifice.
5. There was nothing leading up to this account which would have prepared Abraham or us readers for such a request.
6. Child sacrifice was not an unusual thing in the period of the patriarchs and even all the way into the book of Kings, but God and His people were always against it.
7. So certainly, in general, Abraham should have been shocked by the request, but more specifically the request must have been so confusing after having waited so long for this son of promise to be born.
C. The three words – “take, go, sacrifice” – must have taken Abraham’s breath away.
1. Once again, Abraham was commanded to go somewhere he had never been.
2. There was no doubt what he was being asked to do - a burnt offering was a total sacrifice.
3. There was no way the offering would be walking back from the altar.
4. I want us to notice that God gave no explanation; just an expectation that Abraham would obey this staggering command.
5. Sometimes we are not given reasons either, because God just wants us to faithfully follow Him.
D. It appears that when Abraham received this tough test of faith, he didn’t argue with God nor did he discuss it with others.
1. Not one word of objection is recorded in the entire text.
2. Instead, Abraham practiced immediate obedience.
3. The Bible says: Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.
On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. (Gen. 22:3-6a)
4. The journey to Moriah covered about 50 miles and took three days to get there.
a. Can you imagine what must have been going through Abraham’s mind as they traveled?
5. Once again, we see that Abraham was determined to obey God when he told his servants to stay with the donkey.
a. He didn’t want them with him to talk him out of what he knew he needed to do.
6. Abraham had the faith to believe that both he and Isaac would return after they worshiped!
a. Notice the pronouns: “We will worship…we will come back.”
7. So how did Abraham have the assurance that Isaac would return with him?
a. If Abraham was prepared to sacrifice his son, then how could he come back with him?
b. Hebrews 11:17-19 fills in the blanks for us: “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, ‘It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.’ Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.”
8. It didn’t make sense to sacrifice his son, but he was prepared to do it because God said so.
a. He figured that God would somehow work it out to maintain His promise to bless the world through Isaac, even if he had to raise him from the dead.
b. What is stunning about Abraham’s declaration of faith is that in the previous 21 chapters of Genesis, there is no mention of resurrection.
c. Somehow Abraham knew that God could do this, even though it had not been done before.
9. Abraham then took the wood and put it on Isaac’s shoulders and like a condemned man he walked to the hill of sacrifice.
10. Abraham carried the knife that must have become extremely heavy in his hand and he also brought the hot coals that would be used to start the fire that would cremate his son.
E. The Bible says: As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?” “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied. “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” (vs. 6b-7)
1. Oh, how these words must have sliced right through a devoted dad’s heart.
2. The Bible says: Abraham then answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” (vs. 8)
3. Notice that Abraham said that “God himself” will provide the sacrifice - the sacrifice will come from God.
a. The word “provide” is the word Jireh, which means “to see” or “to see to it” as in “provision.”
b. God sees beforehand what is needed and what He will provide. He is Jehovah Jireh – The Lord Who Provides.
c. Abraham trusted that God would somehow see to it that everything would work out.
F. The Bible says: When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.” (Gen. 22:9-10)
1. Abraham had every intention of following through on his commitment to completely obey.
2. At the very last second, with the knife hovering in the air, the Bible says: But an angel of the Lord called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.” (Gen. 22:11-12)
3. Abraham must have breathed a huge sigh of relief as he heard those words. Isaac too!
4. Abraham had passed the test, but he still needed to complete the sacrifice and so just as Abraham had believed, God did provide what was needed.
5. The Bible says: Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. (vs. 13)
G. What would you say is the main lesson that we learn from Abraham’s story about God’s provision?
1. The lessons of trust and obedience are what stand out to me.
2. Abraham would not have experienced God’s provision had he not trusted and obeyed God.
3. What would have happened had Abraham not trusted and obeyed God each step of the way?
4. The only way to receive God’s provision is through faith and obedience.
H. Let’s look at a second biblical example of God’s provision.
II. The Widow Experienced God’s Provision
A. In 2 Kings 4, we are told about a family who was facing a discouraging and desperate situation.
1. The story is about a widow whose husband had been a prophet, but after his death, the creditors were about to take her two sons as slaves to pay off the family’s debts.
2. The Bible says: 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.” (2 Kings 4:1)
a. How would you feel if you were in her situation? Desperate? Terrified?
3. The Bible says: 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.”
3 Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few. 4 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.”
5 She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. 6 When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.”
But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing.
7 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.”
4. I believe this story gives us a number of important lessons about the way that God provides.
B. The first lesson we learn from this woman’s example is that she sought the right kind of help.
1. The widow revealed her situation to a prophet of God, and in that sense, she was looking for God’s help.
2. Many times when we are in need, we seek the help of anything or anyone, except God and God’s people.
3. But seeking God’s help and seeking the help of God’s people should be our first step, and not our last resort.
C. A second lesson we learn from this woman’s example is that the solution may begin with what we have, rather than what we do not have.
1. This widow was so overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do or where to begin.
a. So Elisha simply asked her, “What do you have to work with?”
b. The widow said, “Nothing, I have absolutely nothing.”
c. Which as it turns out wasn’t true, she had a little bit of oil.
2. Oftentimes in difficult situations, our emotions blind us to the resources we actually have.
3. But God would have us first look for the solution in what we have, not what we don’t have.
4. Because, as we see in this story, God is able to do much with little.
D. A third lesson we learn from this woman’s example is that we must be willing to obediently do whatever it takes.
1. God’s formula for providing for us often requires our humility, our obedience and our effort.
2. Someone once said: “God gives every bird its food, but He doesn’t throw the food in the nest.”
3. Most of the time, in order for God to do what only God can do, He first expects us to do what only we can do.
4. So, this widow was told to humbly go to her neighbors and borrow as many empty jars as she could get (Elisha told her “don’t ask for just a few!” – and how was that supposed to help?
5. That leads us to another lesson we learn from this widow.
E. The fourth lesson we learn from this woman’s example is that we must act believing that God will do His part.
1. Once she collected the jars, then she had to go into her house, behind closed doors, and pour the little bit of oil out of her jar into the jars she had borrowed.
a. How many jars would that little bit of oil fill?
b. In human terms, we might think: “This won’t take long, the oil I have won’t even fill another jar!”
2. But with trust and obedience, she learned that if she did her part, then God would do His part.
a. Her little bit of oil kept flowing until the last of the jars she had collected was full.
b. I wonder if she kicked herself thinking: “I should have gotten twice as many jars!”
3. When God wants to provide for us, He often requires us to take the first step.
a. When the Israelites were headed to the promised land, they had to cross the Jordon River at flood stage – do you remember that God required the lead priests to take the first step into the swollen river before it parted?
b. Then when they came to the first city, Jericho, Joshua and the Israelites saw the walls of Jericho fall down, but first they had to march around the city for seven days – do you think they wondered how circling the city was going to bring the walls down?
c. Remember how Naaman had to dip in the Jordon seven times before his leprosy was cured.
d. Remember how the blind man in John 9 had to go wash the mud Jesus put on his eyes before he was healed from his blindness.
e. When God wants to provide, he often requires us to take the first step in faith and obedience.
F. How wonderful that God provided for this widow! She was able to sell the oil, pay off her debts and then had some money to live on!
1. But God’s provision only came after she sought the right help, began with what she had, was willing to do whatever it took, and acted believing that God would do His part.
Conclusion:
A. Our lives are transformed as we believe and act upon the truth that God will provide.
1. Perhaps many of us today are in a place of need and we are waiting for God’s provision.
a. Our need may be material – a job, a place to live, or help to get out of debt.
b. Our need may be physical – relief from pain or healing from disease and affliction.
c. Our need may be emotional – healing and help for heartaches or depression or abuse.
d. Our need may be interpersonal – healing of broken relationships or new relationships to help with isolation and loneliness.
e. Or our need may be spiritual – help to overcome temptation or to grow in our relationship with God or service in God’s kingdom, or the answer to prayer for the salvation of others.
2. No matter what our need may be, we can trust that God will provide the right thing, at just the right place, and at just the right time.
3. It has been said, “God is never too early. He’s never too late. He’s always on time.”
4. In our 33 years of marriage and ministry, Diana and I can attest to God’s faithful provision for our family, this church, and Camp Hunt.
a. Over and over again, we have seen God provide what was needed in His time.
B. But isn’t it hard to wait for God’s provision sometimes?
1. I like the story told of Phillip Brooks, a famous minister of the 19th century.
a. One day Brooks was in his office, pacing the floor, obviously frustrated.
b. Somebody walked in and saw him and asked, “What’s the matter, pastor?”
c. Brooks replied, “I’m in a hurry and God isn’t!”
C. Allow me to end by reminding us of Jesus’ promise in Matthew 6: “31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:31-33)
1. God will provide – that is the truth!
2. Our God is Jehovah Jireh – the Lord our Provider.
