Introduction:
With every mess that we find ourselves in that we cannot fix on our own, there is this inward desire to see God come through for us, to rescue us, to provide that miracle that we so desperately need. And if I were to ask God about His timing, He would tell me that He does what He does “right on time.” Me, being the impatient person that I am, I would say God. “it seems to be that you wait until the last minute.” So, I began to study why does God see it one way, and I see it another way. And as I began to search the Scriptures, I discovered some great truths that I have been sharing with you.
We have looked at three miracles so far. The first one, God sent an angel to Peter in prison the very day of his execution to set him free. In our second miracle, Jesus was walking into a city the very moment that the town folks were taking the body of a young man to the cemetery to bury him and Jesus feeling compassion for the young man’s mom raised Him back to life. And in last week’s miracle, God’s presence in the ark parted the waters of the Jordan River so the Israelites could enter the Promised Land.
So, in the first miracle, an angel was the instrument that God used to accomplish the miracle. In our second story, it was Jesus, Himself, who performed the miracle in person. And in our third miracle, it was the presence of God in the Ark of the Covenant that parted the Jordan River. Today, we are going to see that God uses people like you and me to be the instrument that brings about a miracle in someone else’s life. So, let’s look at our Scripture passage and see what we can learn.
Scripture Reading:
1 Kings 17:8-16 (NKJV)
8 Then the word of the LORD came to him, saying,
9 "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."
10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, indeed a widow was there gathering sticks. And he called to her and said, "Please bring me a little water in a cup, that I may drink."
11 And as she was going to get it, he called to her and said, "Please bring me a morsel of bread in your hand."
12 So she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die."
13 And Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son.
14 For thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the LORD sends rain on the earth.' "
15 So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days.
16 The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke by Elijah.
Background Information:
Elijah, God’s prophet who at God’s instructions, told King Ahab that there would be a drought for 3 ½ years. God provided for Elijah during the drought, and when the brook Elijah drank from dried up, God told him to visit a widow woman in Zarepath, and she will take care of you. Elijah was going to be the instrument that God uses to bring about the miracle for the widow woman and her son and to provide for the prophet during the drought.
Point #1
I WONDER HOW MANY MIRACLES WE ARE MISSING OUT ON IN THE WORLD TODAY BECAUSE OF GOD’S PEOPLE NOT BEING OBEDIENT TO WHAT GOD HAS TOLD THEM TO DO.
9 "Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there. See, I have commanded a widow there to provide for you."
During the drought, God had provided for Elijah by the Brook Cherith which was probably a brook in the section of Promised Land that ½ of the tribe of Manasseh possessed. So, during the drought, Elijah is still living in his homeland. But then, the stream dries up, and God tells Elijah to go to Zarephath, a place that according to Obadiah 1:20 would be considered a Canaanite land. So now, God is asking Elijah to leave his homeland.
That’s tough, but obedience to God is sometimes difficult. It is not always easy to do what God is asking you to do. Think about it, if God asked you to leave your homeland and go to a place completely different, could you do it? Let’s say, God says I want you to leave Magnolia, MS, and I want you to go live down in Mexico, how many of us would do that willingly? A lot of us would straight out tell God, “no.”
But, I wonder if that widow woman and her son would have survived the famine if Elijah was not obedient and did not make that trip to Zarephath.
And then there was the widow woman; she had to be obedient also. If she would not have prepared the piece of bread for Elijah, then her bin of flour and jar of oil would have inevitably run out, and they would have died in the famine.
So, let me tell you what I have learned. I know obedience brings blessings to my life, but I need to realize that my obedience might also bring a miracle for me and possibly for someone else.
Because Elijah was obedient, the widow and her son received a miracle. Because the widow was obedient, Elijah received a miracle because God continued to feed him miraculously during the drought.
POINT #2
I WONDER HOW MANY MIRACLES WE ARE MISSING OUT ON IN THE WORLD TODAY BECAUSE WE DON’T THINK THAT WE HAVE ENOUGH FOR GOD TO USE.
Listen to how the widow described what she had. 12 So she said, "As the LORD your God lives, I do not have bread, only a handful of flour in a bin, and a little oil in a jar; and see, I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die."
And in the New Testament, the disciples asked Jesus how can we feed 4,000 in the wilderness when we only have seven loaves of bread. Mark 8:4-5 (NKJV)
4 Then His disciples answered Him, "How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?"
5 He asked them, "How many loaves do you have?" And they said, "Seven."
What is the widow saying, and what are the disciples saying? We don’t have enough for God to use. And that is our biggest obstacle for not seeing more miracles in the world today. The devil would love for us to believe we don’t have enough; we are not big enough; or, we don’t know enough for God to do a miracle with. The God who created the universe out of nothing does not have enough to perform a miracle. How absurd!
You may know of a financial need of someone in the church. Their problem is a lot bigger than you can help with. And so the temptation for us is to say that our little bit isn’t going to make much difference. But your little bit might be the little bit that starts the miracle happening.
We can sit here and think that we cannot impact Pike County for Christ because we are a small church. We are not big enough, and we are nowhere in size to FBC Summit. God cannot use us. But here is the deal, it is not about us, but it is about our God. Do I need to remind you that God used little David to fight a giant named Goliath?
If you were teaching a Sunday School Class, you might be able to lead someone to the miracle of salvation. But you don’t because you say to yourself, I don’t know enough about the Bible to do that. But what about the Holy Spirit leading you in what you should say.
POINT #3
I WONDER HOW MANY MIRACLES WE ARE MISSING OUT ON IN THE WORLD TODAY BECAUSE WE ALLOW FEAR TO FREEZE US IN OUR TRACKS.
13 And Elijah said to her, "Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son.
Elijah knew that the one major thing that would prevent her from giving him a piece of bread first and afterward, making some for herself and her son was fear. And this woman had a lot of fear to overcome. Two things stick out in my mind.
In verse 12, when she talks to Elijah, she refers to the Lord of Elijah as your God; she does not say our God. In other words, Elijah’s God is not her God, and she had to overcome that fear to feed Elijah first.
She has to overcome the fear that she didn’t have enough left to make a mistake. If Elijah is wrong, then either she or her son would go hungry this afternoon. You and I when we are asked to give, we are usually never left with nothing. But this woman was asked to be left with nothing for herself or her son if all she had was enough for herself and her son, and still, she feeds Elijah first.
She was able to overcome those fears and allow God to perform a miracle in her life. And she, her son and her household were able to eat off of that supply for many days.
If the widow can overcome those gigantic fears, how much more should you and I be able to overcome our fears? We know our God, and she didn’t; God usually don’t ask us to be left without anything, but the widow was.
She overcame those fears to receive her miracles; can you overcome your fears to receive your miracle?
