2 Kings 4:1-7
January 22, 2023
Emptiness and the Fullness of God
Is the pandemic over? Are you looking out of the window of life, and you feel stuck because you see the world going on around you but your motivation to move is gone. Somehow your belly is full and yet you are empty? Yes, they still say You Sing so Well or You Speak so Well or How Wonderful a Job You Do, but you are empty because the last few years have inwardly drained you with circumstances beyond your control.
I was watching the news and heard a tearful announcement from the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern. After 6 years of exemplary service, she resigned. She said, “her tank was empty.” She was the worlds youngest female head of state. Through her leadership in response to COVID19, New Zealand recovered faster than almost every other country in the world. After two mosques were attacked by a gunman killing 51 people she banned military style semiautomatic weapons just six days after the attack. In the same year she bought back over 60,000 AK & AR15 from her citizens and there was no uprising. She enacted laws that lifted almost 100,000 children out of poverty and led 48 countries in the Christchurch Call to Action Summit with the goal of eliminating violent extremist content online. All these accomplishments and yet she says her tank was empty.
• What do you do when you are facing problems with your children that you cannot solve?
• What do you do when your marriage is falling apart and the crashing waves of hopelessness are unrelenting?
• What do you do when there are problems at work and it seems that there is no one in authority to address your concerns?
• What do you do when you have all this month left and you are already at the end of your money?
• What do you do when you have placed a loved one’s body in the earth and you cannot escape the loneliness, the grief and the pain?
• What do you do when your heart is broken, your dreams are shattered, and your hopes have been dashed by the cruel rocks of reality?
• What do you do when you are walking through a spiritual valley and there seems to be no river of hope for your weary soul?
Jesus has the answers to all these questions in His word. We can find hope in this the history of a poor, widowed, preacher’s wife, who was empty. In her pain and her poverty, she did the only thing that she could do… She turned to God. This passage teaches us the glorious truth that God has a plan and a promise for our problem. Biblical history shows us that just as God took care of this widow, He will take care of you. It lets us know how an empty vessel can be used by the fullness of God.
I. V. 1 The PROBLEM - “Now there cried a certain woman.” The word “cried” means “to moan; to weep out of grief.” This woman comes to the man of God at the lowest moment of her life. It’s not easy to come to the prophet at the beginning of your problem! That’s why people wait until they are at their wits end! She was married to one of the “sons of the prophets” (Elisha’s associate ministers in training). Her husband, her lover, her friend, her provider, her protector, had been taken away from here in death. And since her husband is dead she cannot pay her bills. As a result, her creditors are coming to take her sons away as slaves so they can work off the debt. This was allowed under the Old Testament Jewish Law, Leviticus 25:39. She has been deprived of her husband, now she is about to lose her sons as well. She needs help, but she does not turn to her family or her friends. She does not try to find someone to loan her more money. In her desperation she turns to the man of God for help. Elisha was God’s representative, and in spite of her pain, her problems and her lack of possibilities, she still looked up to God for the help she needed! Even though she didn’t understand everything she was facing, she still believed that God could do something about her situation, so she cried out! ILLS: Home Closing in 2000
II. v. 2-4 The PROPHET - The Lord established the widow’s faith through two questions asked by Elisha in the text. 1.) What do you need? 2.) What do you have?
By those two questions, this woman was made to see the size of her need and the smallness of her own resources. She needed everything and she had little. Often God will use the trials, heartaches and burdens of life to bring us to the place where we can honestly see our need and our own inability to meet it. Think about it, as long as we think we can handle things, why should we look to the Lord? If we have all the answers, why should we turn to Him with our questions? He isn’t trying to weaken our faith; He is trying to erase our faith in ourselves. As long as we think we can, He won’t!
“What hast thou in the house?” A question designed to teach the woman that she already had everything she needed to obtain what she wanted. She couldn’t see it, but God had already given her the very thing He would use to meet her need. We look at our problems and they look so large. We look at our possessions and our problems we often fail to factor God in! “I have nothing in the house but a pot of oil.”
There is often something public! The widow is told to go to all her neighbors and borrow all the empty vessels that she can get her hands on. "Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors — empty vessels; do not gather just a few.” That is a strange command! How do you suppose she explained this to her neighbors? “Don’t ask me why, but I need to borrow some empty jars, pots and pans?” You see your problem is not always about you! Sometimes God allows your problem to be public so when the Lord meets your need everyone will know that the hand of God was in it! God used her as a living, breathing sermon to her neighbors.
There is always something private! She obeyed the Lord; she borrowed the vessels and she and her sons shut themselves up in the house and trusted God to do what He had promised to do. She fills up one after the other and oil just keeps pouring out of that little pot until every pot was filled. There in the privacy of that home, they learned that God was able to meet every need. The neighbors would hear a sermon, but this family would witness a miracle.
III. v. 5-7 The PROMISE - The woman and her sons filled one vessel after another until every vessel they had borrowed was full. She began that day with nothing, she ended it with everything! That is what our God can do! Verse 6 tells us that the oil flowed until the vessels ran out. There was no limit on the amount of oil. The only limit was on the amount of empty vessels. God’s promise knew no limits in the widow’s case and it knows no limits in your case! God is able to meet every need, move every mountain, and solve every problem. God stands ready to give all that you make room for in your life! I am talking about our God’s Promises and your Empty Pots! When the day was done, the prophet tells her to start an oil business! There would be enough oil in those borrowed pots to settle her debts, meet her desires and supply her dependents! God’s supply was far more than sufficient! He is able to do more than you can imagine if you give Him your emptiness! Place your emptiness before Him and watch Him fill you up. The Apostle Paul says that God, “is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:20-21) And Yes, my Jesus knows a thing about emptiness! Philippians 2:7 says, “He emptied Himself and took on the form of a man.” No man understands all there is to know about the doctrine Kenosis, the self-emptying of Christ, but if God could empty himself for our sake, surely you can bring your emptiness before His presence! Place your trust in Jesus Christ! He alone can save! He alone can take your emptiness and use it to fulfil all your need.
