This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day two of our look together through the fifth week of
First and Second Kings. We're looking at the miracles of Elisha, and we're
looking at the principles from these miracles of provision that you see early on
in Second Kings, the principles for how we're available for the miracles that
God wants to work in our lives. You cannot demand a miracle of God, but you can
make yourself available for whatever God wants to do.

And those who make themselves available are the ones who see the miracles. It's
not those who demand God, you have to do this miracle right here, right now,
that see the miracle. You can't have enough wisdom to know exactly what God
needs to do in that one moment.

One of the reasons we never see miracles is we have just one in mind, and it has
to happen this week. Well, of course, we don't have the wisdom of God to see
that. But when we make ourselves available, then we begin to see miracles
happening on God's timetable, on God's schedule.

And yesterday we learned that one of the principles for this is you have to dig
some ditches. You have to be willing to do the work that God asks you to do, to
dig ditches in deserts, to trust Him, even when it doesn't always make sense,
because you know that He's trustworthy. That's one of the keys to being involved
in the miraculous work of God in your life.

There's a second key in chapter four, verses one to seven. First key is dig some
ditches. Second key is collect empty jars.

I love these principles from the life of Elisha. Listen to what happens in these
verses. 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. " 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. "
Elisha said, "Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for
just a few.

And 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. " She left him, and
afterwards shut the door behind her and her sons.

They brought the jars to her, and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full,
she said to her son, "Bring me another one. " But he replied, "There's not a jar
left," and then the oil stopped flowing.

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. " This is one of the most
familiar miracles in the Old Testament to many people, this miraculous pouring
of the oil into the jars.

Here's this woman in financial need. Miracles always start with a need. How
would God supply her need?

He chose to do it, in this case, through a miracle. There could have been many
ways you could have chosen to supply your need, but he did it through a miracle.
But in order for this miracle to happen, Elisha said, "Here's what you need to
do.

You need to collect jars. You need to collect jars. " Now, what does that have
to do with our attitude of being available for miracles?

The attitude behind collecting jars is you begin to look at life as an
opportunity for God to work. Every empty jar that she collected was an
opportunity for God to work. She didn't see that at the beginning.

She was just obedient to do what the prophet had told her to do. But the more
she collected the jars, the more she realized, "God could be at work here. God
could be at work here.

God could be at work here. " And then as they began to pour the oil into those
jars and pour the oil into those jars, she saw God at work. So here's the
question for your life.

How many jars worth do you trust? Collecting those jars was a matter of
obedience for her. When Elisha told her to collect them, he said, "Don't collect
just a few.

" When it comes to seeing God's work in our lives, too many times we collect
just a few jars. We just put a few things in place, a few times that we've
trusted, a few prayers, a few times that we've gone above and beyond in our
integrity. And then we wonder, why isn't God working in incredible ways?

How many jars worth do you trust? To God's directions and commands in our lives,
and many times it is like gathering empty jars for him to fill. What other
people see as empty, you see as an opportunity for God to be at work.

Here's what I'm talking about. For some people, tithing is an empty jar. They
give to the Lord and they think, "Well, that's wasting the money.

How's that going to be used? " But for those with faith, they see, they
understand that every time you give to the Lord, it's going to be multiplied in
this life and it's going to be multiplied all the way into eternity. That
there's oil being poured into what some see as an empty jar.

You're not getting anything out of it. It doesn't seem like there's anything in
it for you. But when you begin to pour, you see that God abundantly supplies the
need again and again and again and again, serving the unnoticed, serving the
people that most of the people in this world would rather just sort of put in a
corner and never talk about, never see.

Those who are suffering with mental illness or those who are suffering with
HIV/AIDS or those who are suffering with leprosy or those who are suffering with
emotional problems that make them difficult to be around. When you serve those
kinds of people, you in many ways are trusting God. And you're saying, "God, I
know that you love even the unlovely.

I know that you notice even the unnoticed. " And as you serve in those
situations, in one sense, you're trusting God with empty jars because you're
recognizing that all the way into eternity, God's going to be blessing and
working in the lives of those people. Jesus had a word for this.

He called it "storing up treasure in heaven. " That's what we're to do. We're to
store up treasure in heaven.

That's part of what it means to live this miraculous life of God. Now as we walk
through these stories of Elisha's miracles, there's another one in chapter 4.
And there's a third principle.

We talked about dig some ditches. We talked about collect empty jars. Third
principle is get some flour.

Another simple principle. How do you get involved in God's miracles? Get some
flour.

Chapter 4 verses 38 to 41. Elisha returned to Gilgal and there was a famine in
that region. While the company of the prophets was meeting with him, he said to
his servant, "Put on the large pot and cook some stew for these men.

" One of them went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine. He
gathered some of its gourds and he filled the fold of his cloak. When he
returned, he cut them up into the pot of stew, though no one knew what they
were.

The stew was poured out for the men. As they began to eat it, they cried out,
"Oh, man of God, there's death in this pot! " And they would not eat it.

Elisha said, "Get some flour. " And he put it into the pot and he said, "Serve
it to the people to eat. " And there was nothing harmful in the pot.

So here's this stew that apparently has poison in it. They could tell by the
taste. And so they turned immediately to Elisha and they said, "We've already
eaten some of it.

What are we to do? " We've already begun to see Elisha as this man to turn to
when a miracle is needed. Because the miraculous working of God has been
happening in his life.

That's the kind of person that you should desire to be, that I want to desire to
be. That when somebody is looking for God to be at work, they turn to you. Would
you pray?

Would you be a part of this? Would you be there? What should we do?

And Elisha has this very spiritual advice. Flour. Get some flour.

Regular old flour. Just put it in there. It would have been a lot easier to
trust in what Elisha was saying this day if he'd said, "Put some newts eggs and
some daffodil powder in there.

" But just flour? What's so special about that? If you want to learn how to
involve yourself, to be available for a miracle to happen, you have to
understand this principle of the flour, that God delights in working through
what we would call ordinary.

You've got to learn this principle well. So Moses's ordinary staff, God delights
in using that to do the miracles of the ten plagues. Or a little boy's lunch.

God delights in using that to feed the 5,000. Ordinary fishermen. God delights
in using them to change the world.

Plain old clay on the eyes. Jesus puts that on a man's eyes and God delights in
that man seeing. Or a common handkerchief.

God delights in using those for healing in the early church. Or an old rugged
cross. God delights in seeing that common instrument of torture turned into a
place of worship.

The very essence of miracles is that God can work in ordinary circumstances with
common materials through ordinary people with extraordinary power. So don't look
for some weird, strange, uncommon thing to create the miracle. It's God who's at
work and God who's going to be glorified.

So you get some flour. You do what God says to do. Because God is the one who's
at work.

It's all about trusting in him. So as we pray today, as we're praying our way
through these miracles that God worked, let's ask again that God will give us a
heart for being available. Jesus, you're the miracle worker and we want to be
available for the miracles that you want to work in us and through us.

We don't always know when they'll be or how they'll be, but we know we can trust
you with them. And so we come to you and we trust you now. We trust you to guide
us and to lead us.

And Lord, instead of us looking for the extraordinary thing, help us to look to
you as the awesome God. You are the miracle worker. It has nothing to do with
the things, the circumstances, it has everything to do with you.

So we trust you. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, join us tomorrow.

We're going to look together at a fourth principle for how you and I can be
available for God's miraculous work in our lives.