God’s Got A Plan
Psalm 1:1-6 Matthew 21:18-22 2 Kings 4:1-7
Have you ever seen a situation in which you thought it was a pretty hopeless, and been shocked that something good still came out of it. The problem is, what we see is not necessarily all of which is actually present. There was a time in our church’s history in which some people from presbytery looked at our church, and saw a church with very little or no future. They looked at the size of our offerings and the number of people coming to church, and the lack of vitality and said, "cut off the funding. Let’s put our money somewhere else."
Now even though some of us called it racism and some of us didn’t think the church would make it, and some of us left and went to other churches it turned out to be one of the greatest blessings to the church. All for the simple reason that "God had a plan." God had a plan to raise up a church which would partner to build another church on one side of the continent of Africa and support an orphanage on the other side . God had a plan to raise up a group who did not know what a tithe was to become a group of tithers. God had a plan to teach men how to love their wives. God had a plan to reach countless youth throughout the summer. God had a plan to restore families, to save souls, and to touch thousands with the gospel. God even had a plan to restore the building and prepare it for use for the twenty-first century. When Glenville seemed to be up against its biggest mountain, God had a plan.
If you’re trying to make sense out of your life today, or what’s going on at work, or how you’re going to get out of mess you find yourself in, then know, "God already has a plan." You’ve got to wait and see what it is, and then apply it to your situation. As you read the Scriptures, you will discover, God is constantly on the side of the underdog. God delights in coming through for His children, for His mercy is everlasting.
There was a prophet by the name of Elisha in the Bible. Elisha was a man of God and sort of a type of Christ. He was used by God to do miracles in the lives of others. Whereas the prophet Elijah, who came before Elisha, did miracles on a large scale of people, Elisha’s ministry involved touching the lives of people more on a one to one basis. When people needed a touch or a miracle from God, they would seek after Elisha for prayer.
Let me tell you a story about Dan and Amanda. Dan and Amanda had two sons, Jeff and Jamie about 9 and 10 years old. Dan loved the Lord and he would travel with the school of the prophets. The school of the prophets would train young men to become priests and prophets. Even though Dan loved the Lord, he fell on some hard times economically. Instead of seeking God’s plan for handling his situation, Dan went out and borrowed some money at a high interest rate. His wife Amanda was probably not in favor of the loan, because if something happened to Dan, there’d be no way in which she could pay back the loan. She could lose all she had, including their sons Jeff and Jamie. Dan assured his wife they would be able to pay back the loan, and there was no need for her to worry about it. They would be back out of debt in no time. So Dan went ahead and got the loan.
But things did not go as well as Dan had hoped. They used up the money and before they could pay it back, Dan became sick. Shortly afterwards, he died. He did not have any life insurance and there was little money to bury him. Amanda did not know what she was going to do.
Just as she thought things couldn’t get any worse there was a knock at the door. The man from whom her husband had borrowed the money was at the door. He told her, "I want the money your husband borrowed from me and I want it now." She tried to explain she didn’t have the money, and if he gave her some time, she would get it for him. The man said, "Look you know the law. If you don’t get my money soon, I’m going to take those two boys of yours and sell them as slaves to get back my money." With that he slammed the door and left.
Amanda put her arms around Jeff and Jamie to try to comfort them, but she was scared of what else the future might bring. Her options for making money were very limited. Thank goodness she didn’t go to the wrong group of people for advice. Some of them might have told her about how to sell drugs to make end meet or how she could earn money as a prostitute. But the bible says, "Blessed is the person who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the way of sinners, but rather takes delight in the law of God. Amanda’s situation seemed hopeless until she factored in God stepping into the situation.
God must have sent someone to Amanda to tell her to go and see the prophet of God, Elisha. So she went and found Elisha and told him in Kings 4. "Elisha, you knew my husband and how he served the Lord. Well he’s dead now, but before he died, he borrowed a good sum of money and the man he borrowed it from wants it back. He’s threatened to come and take away my boys and sell them as slaves. What in the world am I going to do."
Today, we believe we are entitled to everything right now, even if we do not have the money to get it. We put something on the credit card and claim the Lord has blessed us. The Lord has not blessed us until we have paid the thing off. We would be better off making do with what we have until we get the money we need to buy the thing we want. Debt should be something we enter because there is a real need, not a sincere want. The Bible warns us about going into debt because its going to turn us into thieves and robbers. You may claim you will never become a thief or a robber because of debt. That’s not what God says.
God says every time we do not pay our tithes, we have robbed him of what belongs to Him. The moment we can’t pay our bills, we cut our giving to the work of Christ. God has a plan for everybody’s finances, but most of us will not allow God to use it. God says if you quit stealing from me, and bring in the whole 10%, watch and see if I don’t open up heaven itself and pour all kind of blessings upon your life.
God says, I’ll give you so much more than what you gave to Me, you will not even have room to receive it. Instead we would rather believe the god of Visa and MasterCard and try to use them to obtain the things we want. Whereas we would not give God 10%, we gladly give them 12%, 15%, even up to 25% on what we receive.
Well Amanda did not have a Visa Card or A Master Card available, but she had something greater. She had faith in God to come up with a plan. Before we start talking about borrowing money and giving interest to somebody else, let’s ask God what God’s plan is. God may be saying, just wait a little longer. I’ve got to get something else done to put you in the right place to receive what it is I want you to have.
Elisha looked at her and said, "How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house." The first thing Elisha does, is to point the lady to look at her own resources. He was not about to give her six winning numbers in super-lotto. Many of us think, if the Lord would just let me win such and such, then everything is going to be all right. Winning a million dollars is not going to make you any more like Jesus Christ than being without a million will. The determination to become more like Christ has nothing to do with our external circumstances. If we can’t serve Christ where we are today, God’s not impressed with our promises to serve Him if we ever get to the place we want to be in order to be faithful.
Elisha did not say, let me see how much money I have in my bank account, or let me see what the other prophets may be willing to donate in your husband’s memory. Instead he said, "tell me what do you have in your house?". Did you know one of the reasons we miss God’s plan for our situation is we do not answer this simple question correctly.
Far too often we are looking at what somebody else has, thinking how nice it would be to have what they have, and blaming God for not blessing us in the way he has blessed them. A failure to understand what we have in our own house is a curse of immense proportion. Sure there may be some mountain in front of us that needs to be removed, but the answer to it begins with an understanding of what do we have in our own house. What positive thing can we find which we can possibly use?
As I told you before, when some of us was lamenting that Presbytery was cutting off financial aid to our church our sorrow was due to a failure to understand what we had in our own house. The offerings were poor, but that didn’t mean we did not have the potential to become tithers, of which several did. The attendance was down, but that did not mean we did not have the potential to become faithful in worship which many of us did. The bible study was very small, but that didn’t we couldn’t grow in our hunger for God’s word which many of us did and so we increased.
The building was going downhill, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t beautify this place to the glory of God regardless of whose name was on the deed which we went ahead and did. The workers were few, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t bring forth more elders, deacons, lay pastors, youth teachers, ushers, choir members and a number of organizations. The outreach was barely reaching outside the doors, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t reach thousands with our newspaper and radio broadcast. Part of our problem was, "we didn’t understand what all was in our house," But God did and God had a plan.
Now Amanda could have gotten upset with Elisha. Here she was coming to him for some guidance and some help, and he’s asking her what does she have in her home. If she had of had anything, she would not have needed to come to him in the first place. She said, "Brother, I don’t have anything. There is nothing there at all." My friend if you think you have nothing at all in your house, then you are sadly mistaken about what God has placed around you. God equips everybody with what they need to turn their lives around when they put their faith and trust in him.
Stop selling yourself short, and recognize, there is far more potential within you and right around you than you think possible. There is not a single person here who has reached the full potential God has for his or her life. There’s not a person here who has received all the blessings God wants to put into his or her life. Step one is to recognize you do have something for God to work with in changing your position in life.
Amanda remembered for a moment, and then said, "Oh yeah, I do have a little oil left that’s used for cooking and lighting the house." She was no doubt thinking, surely Elisha would see how bad off she was and give her something. She was hoping for some money, but instead he gave her some instructions on what she would have to do.
It’s amazing how many people want prayer to have their situation changed, but are completely unwilling to receive instruction on changes they need to make in order for a miracle to happen. Faith without works is dead in more ways than one. Jesus can’t do anything for your life, if you’re not willing to do what Jesus tells you to do in your living situation. You can’t pray in a better marriage while continuing to act like the devil in it.
Elisha said now here’s what you need to do. Go around and ask all your neighbors 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. Now if we had of been Amanda, there are several reasons we would not have accepted Elisha’s plan which was really God’s plan.
The first reason is we would have had to much pride to go and ask people for the junk they were going to throw out. We couldn’t see ourselves asking, "you got any empty jelly jars or empty peanut butter jars." Some of us, no matter how down and out we get, we are not about to let others know we have a real problem in our lives. Far too many Christians are acting like everything is fine, mean while they don’t have food to eat this week, or their marriage is going to pieces, or they are struggling with some secret sin, or they are involved in something and don’t know how to get out of it, but pride keeps them from going to somebody and saying, "look, this thing is messing me up and I need some help."
Church is the one place we ought to be able to be real with each other. We are the only people to admit, we are all sinners in need of a Savior. Becoming a Christian did not make a single one of us perfect. It made us more available to be used by God to help someone else along the way. God has a plan, but it often involves swallowing some pride to get the help that we need. Do you think the people talked about Amanda when she was asking for empty jars? Of course they did. People are going to talk about you if you ever decide to do what God told you to do. People are going to talk about you anyway, so it may as well be in reference to God because it means something good is about to happen.
The second reason we would have rejected God’s plan is that it was too repetitious and lasted too long. Elisha said, " don’t ask for a few." In other words, get as many jars as you possibly can get." Now its bad enough we had to humble ourselves to ask for them, but now we’re told to get as many as possible. We would have had to go to several neighbors again and again. Some would say yes and give us something and others would say no and not give us anything. This thing could take a long time.
I look at people all the time and see the tremendous potential they have in their lives. The only thing holding them back is lack of a college degree. The first thing they tell me is, it would take too long to get one. Four years later that person will still be on the same low pay scale, but if they had of gone to school, they could be adding an extra $20,000 a more to their check just for sacrificing four years. Whether you choose to go to school or not, you’re making a sacrifice. You’re not going to get to live those four years over. Death will be here a lot quicker than we think. We’ll be saying, where did all the years go so quickly.
Miracles begin with us sometimes doing the same thing over and over again. Just be loving day in and day out, when its easy and when its not can get a miracle going. God’s got a plan. Just don’t quit in the middle of it because you don’t understand how its going to work. God’s law works the opposite of what we some times think is going to happen.
The third reason we would reject God’s plan is the belief we don’t think God fully understood our situation. We would have said, "Elisha, do you have a hearing problem. I said, I only had a little oil. If I had enough oil to fill up a bunch of empty jars, I would not have needed to come to you in the first place." We would then called him a big dummy and left.
But not Amanda. Amanda had faith that God had a plan. Every Christian has got to be willing to exercise faith if he or she wants to be committed to God. So what if she was going to look like a fool with a bunch of empty jars in her house. She had a word from the Lord and she was going to see it through to the end. Amanda didn’t have the privilege of knowing Jesus would one day say, "even a very small amount of faith which is rooted in him, can move mountains out of a person’s life."
All Amanda could see, was the little oil she had left in her single jar. In front of her was a number of jars which Jeff and Jamie had helped her to collect. Elijah had told her to go into her house and shut the door behind her and her sons. She was to then poor oil into all the jars, and as each one was filled it was to be set aside. Amanda did not know how this thing was going to work because she had to operate in faith. God is going to ask you to do some things you never did before. Just do it.
In faith she and her young boys collected the jars. In faith she closed the door. In faith she began to poor the oil from her jar into one of the empty ones. The empty jar filled up, but the jar she was pouring from never increased or decreased in the amount of oil in it. We think we need to see a large amount of money in the bank in order to have our needs met but that’s not true. Our church’s bank account has stayed the same pretty much, but the transformation that has taken place in our building and in the lives of so many people continues on and on. God keeps sending us what we need even as Amanda kept pouring it out. She had Jeff and Jamie bring in jar after jar. Finally she said, bring another. They told her, "Mom there are no more jars." Immediately, once the jar was filled, the miracle was over. The oil no longer continued to multiply.
She went and told Elisha what had happened. Elisha said, "Now go sell the oil and pay off your debts. You and your sons can live on what’s left." Now they had to work with God for this miracle to take place. But I also want you to notice, the size of Amanda’s blessing was determined by how obedient and hard working she was in getting the jars. She did not know, God not only wanted to get her debts paid off, He wanted to bless her and her young boys to keep them from getting in the predicament again. Now suppose, all she had tried to do was to just get enough jars to get by. Her creditors would have been paid, but she would not have had much left for herself. Saints when we do things for God with out whole hearts, there is always a blessing for us.
We celebrate Vision 2000 today because we stopped thinking of this building as Presbytery’s and saw it as God’s Building. Now we have been blessed ourselves by working together to the glory of God. God always had a plan in mind for this church and its people. The more we seek to reach others for Christ, the more blessings we are going to return upon our own heads
God has a plan for every life here today. If we are not saved, that plan begins with coming into a right relationship with God by receiving Jesus Christ as our Savior. Until we begin the journey of walking with Jesus Christ, we can not know the plan God has for us. Tell the person next to you. God has a plan for you.
