This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome back to day three of our look together through our fifth week of First
and Second Kings. We're in chapter four of Second Kings, looking at these
miracles that God worked through the life of Elisha, and these incredible
miracles of provision that seem so simple when you first look at them, but you
can see in them the depth of the process of how God works, how we make ourselves
available, and how God works in miraculous ways in our lives. We've looked at
simple principles like you've got to dig some ditches, you've got to gather
empty jars, you've got to get some flour.

Those principles of recognizing that God is at work, He's the one that we're
trusting, not the circumstances. Those principles of recognizing that it's in
the power of God, not in the power of the thing that He's using, that we see the
miracle. There's a fourth story in these first few chapters of Second Kings of
the miracle of Elisha that teaches us a fourth principle about how how God's
miraculous work is going to be a part of your life, and that fourth story
teaches us the principle of giving it to the people.

Dig ditches, collect empty jars, get some flour, and finally give it to the
people. Listen to verse 42 to 44, "A man came from Baal Shalisha, bringing the
man of God twenty loaves of barley bread baked from the first ripe grain, along
with some heads of new grain. Give it to the people to eat, Elisha said.

'How can I set this before a hundred men? ' his servant asked. But Elisha
answered, 'Give it to the people to eat, for this is what the Lord says.

They will eat and have some left over. ' Then he set it before them, and they
ate and they had some left over, according to the word of the Lord. " So this is
the feeding of the hundred with twenty barley loaves.

These barley loaves, by the way, were very small loaves of bread, just enough
for one person. This feeding of a hundred with twenty barley loaves, that has
nothing in comparison to Jesus' feeding of the five thousand with just five
loaves. Somebody said that's the difference between management and employee, and
Jesus is definitely in management.

He's the Lord of all. But still, this is a miracle. At one loaf per person,
there were going to be eighty loaves short.

There was no way they had enough food. But Elisha says, "Give it to the people.
" It's very familiar to what Jesus said to his disciples at the feeding of the
five thousand.

You feed them. And there's this interesting response, same as the disciples had
on that day of the feeding of the five thousand. How can I?

How can I set before a hundred people just twenty loaves? And you have the sense
here, it would just be too embarrassing to do that. What would they think of me
if I do that?

Many, many people never make themselves available for the miraculous work of God
because they're afraid they're going to be embarrassed. They're afraid God's
going to let them down. They're afraid it's not going to turn out like they
hoped it would turn out.

They're afraid they're going to set out twenty loaves, and all that's going to
be left are twenty loaves, and everybody's going to go away hungry, and they're
going to look bad. The question in this story is a very deep question about
being available for God's miraculous work, the works of faith that he wants to
do in my life and in your life. Will you trust God when it doesn't seem that you
have enough?

You see, unless you're willing to place yourself in a situation where by
yourself, you're going to fall flat on your face, you're going to be
embarrassed, unless you're willing to put yourself in those circumstances, you
will never be involved in the miracles that God wants to work through your life
and in others' lives through you. Now, let me tell you a secret. You're worried
that you might fall flat on your face or be embarrassed?

Here's the secret. Sometimes you will fall flat on your face and be embarrassed
because you're human and you got it wrong, and that wasn't what God was saying
to do at all. Or because God is God and he changed his direction.

People who are involved in miracles aren't afraid to keep trusting even after
they've been embarrassed because they know it's God they're trusting and not
themselves. If it was all about you, you'd stop doing it because you're just
thinking about what people think of you. But it's all about God, and you don't
have to protect God's reputation.

God can change the direction that he's taking. He can leave the 20 loaves there
because of some sin that's in somebody's heart, some selfishness or some
teaching that he wants to give. You don't know why, but God can certainly do
that.

But when God says he's going to feed a hundred and you set out the 20 loaves,
the hundred are going to be fed. Set it before the people. You have to set it
out.

You have to put it out there. You have to share your dream. You have to share
your faith.

You have to take that step. You have to put the bread before the people. Even
when all of the resources and possibilities and future directions are not
evident and secure, you have to set it out there.

If you don't, you're never going to see any miraculous work of God. You think,
but I'm going to fall. I'm going to be embarrassed.

God will pick you up. God will keep you going. God will teach you even through
that embarrassment.

And the truth of the matter is, you never will see God embarrassed. You can read
through the scripture many times that God changed his direction, and it was
clear to people that God knew what he was doing. God knows what he's doing.

Let me just mix up a batch of metaphors here. If you want your guarantees in the
bank before you go out on a limb, you're always going to be left out in the
cold. If you want all your guarantees in the bank before you go out on a limb,
you're always going to be left out in the cold.

So you forge ahead without all the guarantees in the bank. The first time I
taught these principles from the life of Elisha, I was teaching a church that
had just a few years before had their buildings destroyed by a flood. Completely
destroyed.

We were in a community college, and we needed to rebuild. The college was glad
to have a start meeting there, but they were starting to say, "Okay, three
months you've got to be out. Well, maybe we'll give you four months.

" And we were having to figure out how we could extend that out and at the same
time buy the land that we needed and have a place to build. Well, we didn't have
anything. The church's buildings had been destroyed.

A lot of the members' homes had been destroyed. The money wasn't all in the
bank, but we had to trust God. Little by little, God supplied the need just at
the right time, and the land was bought, and the building began.

And finally, there was a building on a corner by the freeway where God could be
glorified. Great testimony to how God can be at work when all the resources
aren't there. All the resources had been taken from that church.

And it happened to be, by the way, one of the poorest communities in all of
California. But God supplied the need. When you look at your life right now, a
need for provision that you have, a struggle that you're facing, how can you
trust God?

How can you express faith in God in this moment? I'm not talking about taking
the kind of silly risks that somehow build my pride that I took the risk. Any
time you take a risk and it makes you feel prideful, you know it's not God's
risk.

Now, when you're taking God's risks, you're scared to death, and then you know
only He can bail you out. And then you know that only He is the one who's going
to come through. And it may not happen exactly as you think it's going to
happen, but you take that risk of faith.

And God, in His way, in His time, He can be trusted. So whatever you're facing
right now in this need for provision, I want to pray for you. I want to invite
us to pray together.

Lord, I pray right now for those who are facing a need for provision in their
lives. It might have to do with the building, it might have to do with money, it
might have to do with college, it might have to do with food, clothing. God help
us to remember these lessons from the life of Elisha, especially this last one,
to set it before the people, to set our faith forward, to let other people know,
to trust you openly.

God show us how to do that, how to take that step of faith. We pray this in
Jesus' name, amen. Join us tomorrow, we're going to learn about a miracle of
God's healing from a military captain by the name of Naaman.