May 30, 2025 • 40 mins
Sometimes the greatest thing God can do is not to give us something new, but remind us of what we already have.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
And I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving
in your life.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
The Lord put it on my heart to share from
this passage and this thought with you. And I want
to speak to you today from tewod King's four one
through six, and really I want to speak to someone
who is in a deficit in an area.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Of your life.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
The more I become exposed to I'm convinced there are
many different varieties of poverty. And so you can be
rich financially and broke emotionally.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
You can be.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Rich financially and broke relationally. You can have a lot
of responsibility and not a lot of joy, or you
can have a lot of joy.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And not a lot of influence.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And so I learned that poverty, although we tend to
associate it with finances, can be a poverty of a
different kind. And that really helped me when I was
first starting preaching, I thought, and I was telling Mike
this this morning, right before I came out to preach.
How you know, some people come to church and take
(01:23):
the bus and some people come in a bentley in
the same church, and so you kind of feel on
the surface like, well, maybe you can't preach the same
message to the person who is in the top tax
bracket and maybe the person who hasn't had a job
for two and a half years. But you learn over time,
if you passor people and pay attention, that everybody has
(01:46):
an efficiency and.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
That we're not all that different. The reason I like
this text from Second Kings.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Four is because it seems like a small, little practical,
i don't know, almost incidental miracle on the surface, but
understanding the surrounding context in the life of the prophet Elisha,
he just finished solving a problem for three Kings.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
And right after this he.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Performs a great miracle for a very wealthy woman. And
sandwich between those two magnificent miracles on a grand scale,
where he's consulting political advisors like.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
The real prophet would, and where.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
He's hanging out with a top donor, there's something that
happens that seems so small on the surface, and that's
where my assignment is today. In Second King's four one
through six, and I hope to be able to preach
it to you on a very personal level. So let's
read the text together and discuss it a bit. The
wife of a man from the company of the Prophets
(02:51):
cried out to Elisha, your servant, my husband is dead,
and you know that he revered the Lord. Sometimes we
find ourselves in situations that are not the result of
our disobedience. And have you noticed that life doesn't make
allowances for your crisis, That the universe doesn't send out
(03:12):
a memo when you're having a bad day, Hey, everybody
be nice to her today.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Her mom is sick. It would be nice if life's.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Demands would accommodate my crisis, but they don't. And so
the bills were still due, although the woman did not
have the means, And so this creates a sense of deficit,
the very desperate deficit in her life. As it turns out,
and this crisis is not a national crisis, it's a
personal crisis. But the Man of God takes time for
(03:42):
one woman, just like he took time for three kings.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
That just touches my heart so much, because he's not
just presiding over a royal wedding across the pond somewhere.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But he's right up in your life.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
While you're crying at night, and while you're trying to
figure out how to build your own relationships.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
God is to that touch. Somebody say, God is in
to you. So she comes with this need.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Probably seems small in the scope of a big, bad,
important prophet who's commanding kings, but she comes to him
boldly and says, 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? So
it sounds like he's about to get the checkbook out,
(04:26):
but then he makes this weird move where he answers
his question with the question, tell me what do you
have in your house? She said back, Your servant has
nothing there at all. That's why I'm coming to you.
(04:46):
If I had something to put on eBay, I would
have done it by now do I need to back
up and take it from the top. I've told you
nothing except a small jar of olive oil. And Elisha said,
go around and ask all your neighbors for the jars.
This dude can't hear. He's good at talking, but he
can't hear. I don't need jars, I need oil. I'm broke.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
I don't need something to put nothing in or do you.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
See in the beginning, when God created the world, it
was without form and void, and the first thing that
God did was to form it before he filled it.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I'm gonna keep reading this Bible passage because we only
have so long. Go around and ask all your neighbors
for empty jars.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
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 us filled, put
it to one side. She lets him and shut the
door behind her and her sons they brought the jars
to her.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
She kept pouring.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
When all the jars were full, she said to her son,
bring me another one, but he replied, there's not a
jar left.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Then the oil stopped flowing.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
And the gravitas of that last versus such we got
to read it in the King James King James Bible,
like the one your grandmother had, that big one. I'm
gonna put it on this big screen for you the
King James version of that verse, and I'm gonna take
my title from this one verse. It came to pass
when the vessels were full, that she said, unto her son,
(06:12):
bring me yet a vessel, and he said, unto her,
there is not a vessel more. And the oil state,
I want to speak today for a few moments about
frozen oil and chosen vessels. So if there are many
(06:33):
varieties of poverty, and if the abundance of our life
really consists in the flow, you know, like Jesus said
that from your belly will flow rivers of living water,
or like it says in Proverbs that from your heart
flows the issues of life.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So you got to guard it.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
It is instructive that Elisha the prophet, in performing his
first miracle, cut off the flow of the Jordan River.
First thing he did when he became the prophet was
to grab the mantle that fell off of Elijah, who,
by the way, he was known for giving strange commands
as well, when he called the false prophets up to
(07:12):
Mount Carmel. You can read about this in One Kings
eighteen nineteen. It's amazing because the people were in a drought,
and he said whichever God answers by fire is the
true God, because he was challenging their idolatry. And when
he got up there on the mountain before he called
down fire, he made them pour water on the wood,
because sometimes God will make a situation seem impossible to men,
(07:35):
so that when fire falls and the wood starts to burn,
you won't think it was because of the quality of
the firewood, but it is because of the power of God. Now,
if you got wet wood in your life today, start
rejoicing right now, because God is setting you up to
do something so special, and he wants all the credit.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
He wants all the credit. He wants all the credits.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So he allows this woman to get down to seemingly nothing.
Do you notice that her first instinct when the prophet says,
what do you have in your house?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Is to say nothing.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Her first instinct is to minimize.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
What little she has left.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Now, I can't prove this, it's not in the text,
but just imagine with me, and maybe I don't know,
you know, profits are weird. Maybe Elijah asked her that
question and when she started to answer, maybe he made
eye contact with her, you know, awkward eye contact.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
You got anybody in.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Your life who has really low relational skills. People have
no concept of personal space. You got any close talkers
in your life?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Let me see if you got any close talkers in
your life.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
You know, some people just look at you a little
too long and a little too hard, Like eye contact
is good, but it come to a point where it's
a little awkward. I can see you're a little sleepy
right now. Look at your neighbor. Look at them so
hard in their eyes that they feel what I'm talking about.
I want you to make eye contact. Come on, staring
contests all over the church.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
You two Raleigh.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Awkward eye contact, So look at him while I talk.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
She says nothing, and Elija just waits. Somebody say nothing.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Ask the person next to you, really nothing, because sometimes
we get so overwhelmed by our scarcity that we minimize
our supply. One of my friends was complaining so hard
the other day I thought he had me confused with
the professional counselor. And after a few minutes I was
(09:59):
tired of it, and I can listen for a minute,
but he would not shut up, And finally I said, bro,
do you have anything going good for you right now?
And he said no, nothing, I said, really nothing, not eyelids.
Let me see your hands. You walked in this room,
(10:21):
you woke up this morning. That's not nothing. Huh, that's
not nothing. So the first thing that I see in
the miracle is Elisha instructs this woman who is at
a deficit to check her oil.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And I want to preach to you today, check your oil.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It is possible that you are overlooking the very thing
that God wants to perform a miracle through. When you've
lived in a deficit long enough, it can be difficult
to appreciate the supply that you have, especially when you've
lost a lot.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
She's lost a.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Husband, spent almost everything. She's got one little jar of
oil in her freezer. I know it's not a freezer,
but you know, go with it. It goes with my
title frozen oil.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
And she's got a little bit of oil, just a
little bit of oil, and it's so little.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
In fact, the oil is so small that she doesn't
even think it's worth mentioning.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Okay, I'll say it.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
God is about to do a miracle through something that
you don't even think is worth mentioning, something so small
and insignificant in your sight that your first instinct is
to not even mention it. But the enemy wants you
(11:40):
to despise your oil because he can't steal your oil.
Oil in the Bible is symbolic of the Holy Spirit.
When they would anoint a king in the Bible, they
would anoint the king with oil. It represented God's empowerment.
It represents joy and gladdening. It's symbolic of the Holy
(12:01):
Spirit that came on the day of Pentecost to live
inside of us. And so when I preach about oil,
I'm not talking about something that.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
You keep in your pantry.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I'm talking about something that you have in your heart,
the gift God gave you, the people God put in
your life, the idea God gave you, the time He
gave you, the ceason you're in. If I were your
enemy and I knew I couldn't take your oil, what
I would do instead is to get you to think
that your oil was so little that it wasn't even
(12:34):
worth using. And that's why some people sit in church.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Week after week after week.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
After month after month after month after year after year
and stay in their deficiency and never realize that what
you've got is something somebody's shout is not nothing.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's not nothing.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Feeling in my spirit today, it's not nothing. Somebody shout,
My gift is something, my life is something, My praise
is something. Now high five, somebody say, I got something?
Speaker 1 (13:18):
How about you?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
For too long, I've been comparing.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
My oil with yours.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
My oil might not be as much as yours, but
God won't hold me accountable.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
For your oil. He learned this from Elijah.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Go look and see if you see anything in the sky,
and the servant came back, nothing. Go look again, nothing,
Go look again, nothing, Go look again, nothing, Go look again, nothing,
Go look again nothing. This is getting really old, Steve.
Can you just get to the point how old would
it get if you were the one running to the
(14:00):
top of the hill to look at nothing, and then finally,
by the time you do see something is so small
you minimize it. There's a cloud, somebody shall there's a
cloud the size of a man's hand. See, it's not
the size of the cloud that determines the size of
the blessing. It's not the amount of the oil. It's
(14:24):
not how smart I am, how well educated I am.
It's not even my estimation of myself. If God calls
me and chooses me, Nothing on earth.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Shall be able to stop me. Shall If you believe
that in the back of the.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Room and check your oil. It might not be much,
but it's not nothing. It's not nothing. And I think
it's harder than ever to.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Feel okay about our oil because we got we got
too many ways to check other people's oil, whether it's
their vacation, because that's about to start, you know where
everybody's posting the happiest moments of their vacation this summer.
And it's gonna make you feel like a crappy parrot,
(15:20):
and it's gonna make you question your oil because they're
gonna all be smiling in the picture. Now, let me
tell you something that happened right before the picture. It
was almost a divorce. Those kids almost went out for adoption.
But they can't put that on the ground. Do somebody say,
enjoy your oil? So I'll tell exactly what the devil's doing.
(15:42):
He can't take your gift, he can't take your calling,
the gifts and calling of God or without repentance.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
God doesn't change his mind about what he gave you.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
If he can get you to think it so little
that you don't use it. He can starve you. I
realized that God gave me a ministry. The devil can't
take the ministry that God gave me. But if I
give up my joy, then I will forfeit my ministry.
(16:12):
If I give up my joy, I will forfeit my marriage.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The devil can't take my marriage.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
But if he can get me to despise my oil,
like to make me think I'm not a very good husband,
or I don't have what it takes to be a dad,
then I'll say it's nothing when it's really something. Noticed
by the end of this passage, this woman has a
house full of oil.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
It was not.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Until she poured the oil that it became more. And
when you feel poor, you don't poor.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Because you hold on to what you have.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
So when you feel like a poor parent, it keeps
you from one to try talk to me. And I
can go from here to hear real quick as a parent,
real really quick as a parent.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
You look so perfected right now.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I can't figure out where one real person in this
whole church is that will say that even if you
figure out how to change diapers, they stop wearing them.
Doesn't work anymore. So like there are things about me
and things about you that make us feel insecure and
(17:36):
make us say, you know, it's nothing when it's really something,
but it seems small. It seems small, and it's overshadowed
by something that seems when the need seems so big
compared to the supply, you call it nothing and you
don't use it, and so it doesn't multiply. You send
the crowds away so they can get something to eat,
(17:58):
and you give away the opportunities go gave you kus.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
It's nothing. What you have is nothing. The need the
need is great.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
And my marriage just hit a sixteen year milestone.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
We celebrated sixteen years of marriage. I love when I do.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
That because there's always people that have been forty years
and they look at me like what I think it's significant.
I took Holly to Oak Steakhouse. We dined together. Let
me tell you how good the date was. The date
was so good. When we got home, the babysitter was
(18:39):
texting us that the fire alarm was going off in
the house.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
It was a.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Storm in Charlotte that night and something tripped the smoke alarm.
Abby's freaking out on the porch, and I had other
plans for post date. So I'm driving fast down the driveway, right,
(19:07):
Can I talk to y'all?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
But the kids are on the porch and the.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Fire alarms going off in the house and it's not
a fire, and it's the alarm system is bugging.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Out, and she already tried to take the battery out.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
So Abby is freaking out, and I'm holding her because
she's seven.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And when I grabbed her, she stopped crying. And I
felt like the dad of the.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Decade because I knew what to do. I knew if
I started singing Hamilton from the Hamilton soundtrack that Abby
would stop crying. And it worked and she stopped crying,
and I felt like the man for about five minutes
until we had to call the fire department, not to
(19:53):
put out a fire, but to turn off the alarm.
What made it worse was when they got there, when
only the Braves showed up at my house.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
They're walking down the.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Driveway the nicest firefighters you would ever want to see.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Let's hear it for the firefighters.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
These men come walking down the driveway and my wife
is the one in the house trying to fix the
detectors because I don't know what to do. And I'm
holding Abby and five minutes ago I was the man,
and here come the firefighters and they're looking at me like, really, dude,
(20:30):
And I can tell that the one that's coming in
first goes to the church. He didn't say it, but
he had that look in his eyes, like you're my pastor,
and I'm ashamed of you. You're much bigger on the screen.
What kind of man are you? So I didn't make
eye contact. I just thanked them for their service, and
(20:52):
they got it off and there was no carbon monoxide
and we're alive to tell about it.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Isn't it funny how I was the man one minute?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
But then now you got to understand it's little stuff.
It's not always some big shame that the enemy brings
to make you feel.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
This is where I always got it wrong.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I thought that you had to go through something sexual
that caused you this great traumatic shame to keep you
from really trusting God.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Or now.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I thought maybe you had to go through a season
of your life, you know, eight years in prison or
something like that, and then you would live with regrets.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
But I found out.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
It is the seemingly insignificant insecurities that make you feel
like I'm not a real man.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
I'm not a real mom.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Now I'm yelling at my daughter just like my mom
yelled at me, And I'm just repeating the cycle. And
it causes you to despise your oil. And that's exactly
what the enemy wants, is to use a small little
thing to get you to miss your miracle, because your
miracle is hidden in what you've been overlooking. And the
(22:04):
reason you've been overlooking at is because it seems so
small to you. And the reason it seems small to
you is because you are insecure about what you're not.
So he'll he'll work on you until you call it nothing.
(22:24):
What do you have to be grateful for?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Nothing? Really? Nothing? What are you good at? Nothing?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
We went around the table the other day and I
asked a group of people, what are you really great at?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And it took us all a long time to answer.
I wonder why.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
That is because we're so humble, or because the enemy
has messed with us so much now, because we're all
on the verge of forty and we've gotten so familiar
with our deficiency. When you've lived in a deficit for
a long time, it overshadows the oil that you do have.
(23:04):
He wants you to despise your oil, wants you to
despise the season of life that you're in.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
He wants you to be thinking about.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
How much time you used to have back before, or
how much time you're gonna have when Meanwhile, the question
of the prophet is not what do you wish you
had in your house?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
What do you have left?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Because that's what God is going to bless what you
have left.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
God is gonna bless what he gave you.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
You are his chosen vessel, and the oil you have
is the oil you need. And the strengths you have
are the strengths you need. And the experiences that you've
had are the experiences that you need.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
But notice this, the oil only flows when it is poured.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
You can pray over it, you can cry over it,
you can wish for it, but until you pour it, it
will stay one small jar. If the enemy can't take
your oil, he will try to get you to stop pouring.
And some of you have stopped pouring. You got your
heart broken. You poured your love into your last relationship
(24:22):
and it didn't work out, and they left you and
they hurt you, and they turned away from you. So
you stop pouring, and when you stop pouring, it stops flowing.
You used to encourage people, and then you got discouraged
and you stopped encouraging.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
But God told.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Me to tell you keep on pouring, because the more
you pour.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
The more it's gonna flow.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I feel I appreciate until somebody pray, until somebody pours
out the praise you've got. Now, we tend to think
I'll pour more when I I did more. But the
way it works in the order of God is it
becomes more as it is poured. Isn't it just like
(25:09):
God to command you to pour something that you don't
feel like you have enough of strange instruction, I don't
have much pour it out. It's the weirdest strategy in
the world. But I'm gonna tell you I think this
(25:30):
stuff works. I think as you pour it out, it
becomes more. Really, I'm convinced of him because I tried
that thing where you feel sorry for yourself when you're discouraged.
I tried the other thing where I encouraged somebody else
when I felt discouraged. The first one took me deeper
(25:51):
into my deficit and my discouragement. The second one is
the weirdest thing because I didn't feel like I.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Had it to give? How did somebody to encourage me?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
And bitterness will keep you from pouring what you have
while you wait for what you want.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And so then you stay poor.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
You stay frustrated, you stay stuck, you stay in bitterness.
I wonder, what's the woman a little disappointed that the
prophet told her to pour something. It's frustrating when you
have to pour into someone else when you really wish
someone would pour into you. Yet the more you pour,
(26:41):
the more it flows. I'm just telling you what to
do the next time. I know you haven't had any
struggles in the last seven years, but in case you
go through something this year, the more you pour, the
more it flows. The more you pour, the more it flows.
(27:04):
You're getting it over here. And so the devils will
crafty that that He will put you in a state
where you'll tell yourself, nobody appreciates me, so you'll stop
giving yourself, and it will it will reinforce that.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Nobody appreciates me, They won't appreciate you because you'll stop pouring,
and then no longer have anything to appreciate about you.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
That's that's why Holly said the.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Other day, they don't they don't even care what I cook.
She's talking about the kids, She said, they only want
the noodles. She made this meal. She made this meal.
And if you're considering marrying, uh, you know, in this
age that we live in right now, there's a lot
of things that can attract you to a person.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I appreciate many qualities about my wife.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I appreciate the fact that she has excelled to the
point where she now, can I tell you something.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
She grows her own Swiss shard. Do you know how
boogie that is?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
So here's some homegrown Swiss shard and some chicken. And
when the kids went back for seconds, she said, they
don't care about the chicken. They don't care about the
homegrown Swiss shard. They just want the noodles. That dollar
(28:37):
twenty nine box of noodles. They would be happy with
just the noodles. I said, girl, I know exactly how
you feel. I feel that way sometimes when I'm preaching,
the devil will tell me that, you know, they really
don't care. They're not going to remember this sermon. It's
(28:57):
the craziest thing how I get into self pity, and
it's like, you know, they don't appreciate my Swiss shard,
my scriptural Swiss shard, my biblical chicken.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
But I looked at her. I said, girl, if.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You don't cook it for anybody else, keep cooking the
chicken for me. It's not even about those little breads.
Let them eat the noodles. Give me the chicken. I
want the Swiss sharp. Now, you gotta have this sense
in your life, servant of God, that I'm not doing
(29:34):
it for them. Because sometimes you will pour into people
and they won't say a word.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
But they're not your sauce. I said, they're not your sauce.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I might be pouring into people, but I'm pouring for
the Lord. So I can keep pouring. If you appreciate me,
I can keep pouring. If you don't, I can keep pouring. Stay,
I could keep pouring if.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
You walk out. Who am I helping?
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Make some noise? So Swiss sharp Frisian, I'm so grateful.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I'm so grateful that God kept pouring into me when
I seemed unprofitable, and so I got to keep pouring.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
It said that she kept pouring.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I wonder how stupid she felt when she first started pouring.
Now once it starts working, it was probably kind of
fun And I will point out one thing that I
thought was kind of funny. We were talking about this
JJ were we How Elisha told her in verse three,
give me the verse go around and ask all your.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Neighbors for empty jars.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
And then in verse five it says she left him
and shut the door behind her and her sons they
brought the jars to her.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
She made her kids go to the neighbors. You heard
what the.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Man said, But she did one more thing I want
to point out, and it's what enabled her to pour.
She shut the doors. And that's such an important detail
in this text because it is what you pour out
in private when no one is looking, and a lot
(31:31):
of us are so busy praying for more oil, more opportunity,
more more, more, more more.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And God says, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, And the
more you pour, the more it flows.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
You're never going to pour out what you have while
you're so busy consulting what everybody else has.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
You'd be like the woman. You'd be like the woman
who came in.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
And poured out that expensive fragrance on the feet of Jesus.
And all the men around called it a waste, and
she called it worship. Because you're always you're always, you're
always going to feel like it's not enough, and even
if you feel like it is enough, you feel like
(32:29):
it doesn't matter. Have you had a day like that
in the last seven where you felt like this doesn't
even matter.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Shut the door and keep pouring.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
In fact, sometimes the best thing to do is shut
your mouth and keep pouring, and keep pouring. Because the
oil only became more when it was in motion, and
the oil only fled when the vessels were ready. I
(33:03):
don't think this message is really about the oil at all.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I think it's about the vessels.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Because when Elishah told her to go around to her neighbors,
he gave her a very specific type of vessel to request.
He said, make sure they're empty. Make sure they're empty.
God can't fill what's already for that's why it's so
important that you pour out your pride. That's why it's
(33:34):
so important that we pour out our own opinions and
come before the Lord empty, because listen, when the vessels.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Are ready, the oil will flow.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
And it's something strange about these vessels that we only
learned with a New Testament revelation.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
This is the Second King's for.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
But if you jump a couple of centuries over the
Second Corinthians For, you get the full message, where Paul says,
we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Why would God
put something so special in such a cracked vessel. What
keeps you from showing up is your cracks and your conflicts.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
But that is the very place that the blessing flows through.
Paul said, we have this treasure in earth.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
And vessels, that the excellency of the power might be
from God, not from us. One season in our church
that I was feeling particularly overwhelmed, I said to Holly,
I just don't feel like I'm the pastor that they needed.
The reason, I said, it is because the need was
so great and my experience was so small. At this
particular point, I had just turned thirty and the church
(34:50):
was already about the same size as the town I
grew up in. That'll make you stop in pause, That'll
make you feel like not enough if you ever felt
like not enough?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Wave of me.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I don't like to do this alone. It's a very
vulnerable feeling. Yeah, I said, I don't feel like I'm
the pastor that they need. She looked back at me
cold blooded and said, you're the one we've got. Y'all
(35:28):
are clapping at me, but I'm saying it to you.
You're the mom they got. You're the dad they got.
You're the son they've got. You're the daughter they've got.
You're the one God chose. You are his chosen vessel,
and he chose you not in spite of your cracks,
(35:53):
but because of them. That ensures that people will not
compliment the vessel. They will value the oil. It is
what God put inside of you, but you've got to
pour it out. I want to pray for you today.
(36:14):
Stand to your feet because I want to pray for
you in this moment. If you've been in a deficit emotionally, spiritually, relationally, financially.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Deficits come in many different varieties.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
But if you are that empty vessel today and you
come to the end of yourself, I got good news
for you. That's the starting place for God's supply to
be poured out in your life. And My God shall
supply all of your needs according to his glory, not
according to your quantity of oil, but according to his
(36:50):
glorious riches. I appreached this message today with the hopes
that in this moment you would see yourself as a
vessel that God is ready to fill. When the vessels
are ready, the oil will flow. And it's good when
(37:12):
you feel empty. It's good when you feel like you're
not enough. It's good when you know your need, because
then you remember your source. Right now, in this moment,
I want to ask that everybody who needs a touch
from God today in an area of your life where
you've been feeling deficient, I want to ask that you
(37:33):
just close your eyes, lift your hands to Heaven, and
forget about all the people around you. Let's shut the
door for a moment, and let's come before God in
honesty and sincerity. Like this woman did with the prophet,
she knew where to go first.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
She took her needs to the Man of God.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
She didn't run around from neighbor to neighbor to neighbor
like we tend to do some times.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
She went to God first.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
If we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, all
these things will be added to us.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
But if we run around.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
If we don't open our hearts before Him, we will die.
For the lack of what he has already provided. There
is oil in your house. There is a reason to
be grateful. There is a strength in this season of
your life. And Father, today, with our hands lifted up
(38:33):
and with our hearts open, and with our minds renewed,
we thank you for the oil we have. Somebody say,
thank you Lord for my oil. God, we're sorry for
complaining about the oil that we lost, or we're sorry
for comparing our oil supply to others. We come to
(38:56):
you today in humility of spirit, declaring that what you
have done given is all that you require. We thank
you for the gift of your grace in our lives.
We thank you for your mercy in this moment. We
thank you for your enabling power you're annointing for this
season of our lives.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
That where we are is where we're supposed to be.
It's by design God.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
We determine in our hearts in this moment not to
become bitter about what we've poured out that we didn't
receive a return on. We declare that you are the
source of our strength, and you are the strength of
our lives. And so we lift our eyes to the hills.
Our help comes from you. Our joy comes from you,
and you are more than enough to meet every need. Father,
(39:40):
we lift our eyes to Heaven today. Would you fill
our cups to the top. We thank you that goodness
and mercy flow over our cup overflows. You are with
us in this moment. We declare that your presence is
more than enough, Your word is more than enough. Spirit
of God fall fresh on your people now, a fresh
(40:01):
out pouring, a fresh anointing.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
May they receive it in the old power of your
great name, Jesus, Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
And I wanted to thank you for joining us today.
Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hope it gives your perspective to see God is moving
in your life.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Enjoy the message.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
The Lord put it on my heart to share from
this passage and this thought with you. And I want
to speak to you today from tewod King's four one
through six, and really I want to speak to someone
who is in a deficit in an area.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Of your life.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
The more I become exposed to I'm convinced there are
many different varieties of poverty. And so you can be
rich financially and broke emotionally.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
You can be.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Rich financially and broke relationally. You can have a lot
of responsibility and not a lot of joy, or you
can have a lot of joy.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And not a lot of influence.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And so I learned that poverty, although we tend to
associate it with finances, can be a poverty of a
different kind. And that really helped me when I was
first starting preaching, I thought, and I was telling Mike
this this morning, right before I came out to preach.
How you know, some people come to church and take
(01:23):
the bus and some people come in a bentley in
the same church, and so you kind of feel on
the surface like, well, maybe you can't preach the same
message to the person who is in the top tax
bracket and maybe the person who hasn't had a job
for two and a half years. But you learn over time,
if you passor people and pay attention, that everybody has
(01:46):
an efficiency and.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
That we're not all that different. The reason I like
this text from Second Kings.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Four is because it seems like a small, little practical,
i don't know, almost incidental miracle on the surface, but
understanding the surrounding context in the life of the prophet Elisha,
he just finished solving a problem for three Kings.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
And right after this he.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Performs a great miracle for a very wealthy woman. And
sandwich between those two magnificent miracles on a grand scale,
where he's consulting political advisors like.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
The real prophet would, and where.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
He's hanging out with a top donor, there's something that
happens that seems so small on the surface, and that's
where my assignment is today. In Second King's four one
through six, and I hope to be able to preach
it to you on a very personal level. So let's
read the text together and discuss it a bit. The
wife of a man from the company of the Prophets
(02:51):
cried out to Elisha, your servant, my husband is dead,
and you know that he revered the Lord. Sometimes we
find ourselves in situations that are not the result of
our disobedience. And have you noticed that life doesn't make
allowances for your crisis, That the universe doesn't send out
(03:12):
a memo when you're having a bad day, Hey, everybody
be nice to her today.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Her mom is sick. It would be nice if life's.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Demands would accommodate my crisis, but they don't. And so
the bills were still due, although the woman did not
have the means, And so this creates a sense of deficit,
the very desperate deficit in her life. As it turns out,
and this crisis is not a national crisis, it's a
personal crisis. But the Man of God takes time for
(03:42):
one woman, just like he took time for three kings.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
That just touches my heart so much, because he's not
just presiding over a royal wedding across the pond somewhere.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
But he's right up in your life.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
While you're crying at night, and while you're trying to
figure out how to build your own relationships.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
God is to that touch. Somebody say, God is in
to you. So she comes with this need.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Probably seems small in the scope of a big, bad,
important prophet who's commanding kings, but she comes to him
boldly and says, 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? So
it sounds like he's about to get the checkbook out,
(04:26):
but then he makes this weird move where he answers
his question with the question, tell me what do you
have in your house? She said back, Your servant has
nothing there at all. That's why I'm coming to you.
(04:46):
If I had something to put on eBay, I would
have done it by now do I need to back
up and take it from the top. I've told you
nothing except a small jar of olive oil. And Elisha said,
go around and ask all your neighbors for the jars.
This dude can't hear. He's good at talking, but he
can't hear. I don't need jars, I need oil. I'm broke.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
I don't need something to put nothing in or do you.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
See in the beginning, when God created the world, it
was without form and void, and the first thing that
God did was to form it before he filled it.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
I'm gonna keep reading this Bible passage because we only
have so long. Go around and ask all your neighbors
for empty jars.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
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 us filled, put
it to one side. She lets him and shut the
door behind her and her sons they brought the jars
to her.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
She kept pouring.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
When all the jars were full, she said to her son,
bring me another one, but he replied, there's not a
jar left.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
Then the oil stopped flowing.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
And the gravitas of that last versus such we got
to read it in the King James King James Bible,
like the one your grandmother had, that big one. I'm
gonna put it on this big screen for you the
King James version of that verse, and I'm gonna take
my title from this one verse. It came to pass
when the vessels were full, that she said, unto her son,
(06:12):
bring me yet a vessel, and he said, unto her,
there is not a vessel more. And the oil state,
I want to speak today for a few moments about
frozen oil and chosen vessels. So if there are many
(06:33):
varieties of poverty, and if the abundance of our life
really consists in the flow, you know, like Jesus said
that from your belly will flow rivers of living water,
or like it says in Proverbs that from your heart
flows the issues of life.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
So you got to guard it.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
It is instructive that Elisha the prophet, in performing his
first miracle, cut off the flow of the Jordan River.
First thing he did when he became the prophet was
to grab the mantle that fell off of Elijah, who,
by the way, he was known for giving strange commands
as well, when he called the false prophets up to
(07:12):
Mount Carmel. You can read about this in One Kings
eighteen nineteen. It's amazing because the people were in a drought,
and he said whichever God answers by fire is the
true God, because he was challenging their idolatry. And when
he got up there on the mountain before he called
down fire, he made them pour water on the wood,
because sometimes God will make a situation seem impossible to men,
(07:35):
so that when fire falls and the wood starts to burn,
you won't think it was because of the quality of
the firewood, but it is because of the power of God. Now,
if you got wet wood in your life today, start
rejoicing right now, because God is setting you up to
do something so special, and he wants all the credit.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
He wants all the credit. He wants all the credits.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
So he allows this woman to get down to seemingly nothing.
Do you notice that her first instinct when the prophet says,
what do you have in your house?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Is to say nothing.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Her first instinct is to minimize.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
What little she has left.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Now, I can't prove this, it's not in the text,
but just imagine with me, and maybe I don't know,
you know, profits are weird. Maybe Elijah asked her that
question and when she started to answer, maybe he made
eye contact with her, you know, awkward eye contact.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
You got anybody in.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Your life who has really low relational skills. People have
no concept of personal space. You got any close talkers
in your life?
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Let me see if you got any close talkers in
your life.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
You know, some people just look at you a little
too long and a little too hard, Like eye contact
is good, but it come to a point where it's
a little awkward. I can see you're a little sleepy
right now. Look at your neighbor. Look at them so
hard in their eyes that they feel what I'm talking about.
I want you to make eye contact. Come on, staring
contests all over the church.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
You two Raleigh.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Awkward eye contact, So look at him while I talk.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
She says nothing, and Elija just waits. Somebody say nothing.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Ask the person next to you, really nothing, because sometimes
we get so overwhelmed by our scarcity that we minimize
our supply. One of my friends was complaining so hard
the other day I thought he had me confused with
the professional counselor. And after a few minutes I was
(09:59):
tired of it, and I can listen for a minute,
but he would not shut up, And finally I said, bro,
do you have anything going good for you right now?
And he said no, nothing, I said, really nothing, not eyelids.
Let me see your hands. You walked in this room,
(10:21):
you woke up this morning. That's not nothing. Huh, that's
not nothing. So the first thing that I see in
the miracle is Elisha instructs this woman who is at
a deficit to check her oil.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
And I want to preach to you today, check your oil.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It is possible that you are overlooking the very thing
that God wants to perform a miracle through. When you've
lived in a deficit long enough, it can be difficult
to appreciate the supply that you have, especially when you've
lost a lot.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
She's lost a.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Husband, spent almost everything. She's got one little jar of
oil in her freezer. I know it's not a freezer,
but you know, go with it. It goes with my
title frozen oil.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
And she's got a little bit of oil, just a
little bit of oil, and it's so little.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
In fact, the oil is so small that she doesn't
even think it's worth mentioning.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Okay, I'll say it.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
God is about to do a miracle through something that
you don't even think is worth mentioning, something so small
and insignificant in your sight that your first instinct is
to not even mention it. But the enemy wants you
(11:40):
to despise your oil because he can't steal your oil.
Oil in the Bible is symbolic of the Holy Spirit.
When they would anoint a king in the Bible, they
would anoint the king with oil. It represented God's empowerment.
It represents joy and gladdening. It's symbolic of the Holy
(12:01):
Spirit that came on the day of Pentecost to live
inside of us. And so when I preach about oil,
I'm not talking about something that.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
You keep in your pantry.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
I'm talking about something that you have in your heart,
the gift God gave you, the people God put in
your life, the idea God gave you, the time He
gave you, the ceason you're in. If I were your
enemy and I knew I couldn't take your oil, what
I would do instead is to get you to think
that your oil was so little that it wasn't even
(12:34):
worth using. And that's why some people sit in church.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Week after week after week.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
After month after month after month after year after year
and stay in their deficiency and never realize that what
you've got is something somebody's shout is not nothing.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's not nothing.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Feeling in my spirit today, it's not nothing. Somebody shout,
My gift is something, my life is something, My praise
is something. Now high five, somebody say, I got something?
Speaker 1 (13:18):
How about you?
Speaker 2 (13:19):
For too long, I've been comparing.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
My oil with yours.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
My oil might not be as much as yours, but
God won't hold me accountable.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
For your oil. He learned this from Elijah.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Go look and see if you see anything in the sky,
and the servant came back, nothing. Go look again, nothing,
Go look again, nothing, Go look again, nothing, Go look again, nothing,
Go look again nothing. This is getting really old, Steve.
Can you just get to the point how old would
it get if you were the one running to the
(14:00):
top of the hill to look at nothing, and then finally,
by the time you do see something is so small
you minimize it. There's a cloud, somebody shall there's a
cloud the size of a man's hand. See, it's not
the size of the cloud that determines the size of
the blessing. It's not the amount of the oil. It's
(14:24):
not how smart I am, how well educated I am.
It's not even my estimation of myself. If God calls
me and chooses me, Nothing on earth.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Shall be able to stop me. Shall If you believe
that in the back of the.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Room and check your oil. It might not be much,
but it's not nothing. It's not nothing. And I think
it's harder than ever to.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Feel okay about our oil because we got we got
too many ways to check other people's oil, whether it's
their vacation, because that's about to start, you know where
everybody's posting the happiest moments of their vacation this summer.
And it's gonna make you feel like a crappy parrot,
(15:20):
and it's gonna make you question your oil because they're
gonna all be smiling in the picture. Now, let me
tell you something that happened right before the picture. It
was almost a divorce. Those kids almost went out for adoption.
But they can't put that on the ground. Do somebody say,
enjoy your oil? So I'll tell exactly what the devil's doing.
(15:42):
He can't take your gift, he can't take your calling,
the gifts and calling of God or without repentance.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
God doesn't change his mind about what he gave you.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
If he can get you to think it so little
that you don't use it. He can starve you. I
realized that God gave me a ministry. The devil can't
take the ministry that God gave me. But if I
give up my joy, then I will forfeit my ministry.
(16:12):
If I give up my joy, I will forfeit my marriage.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
The devil can't take my marriage.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
But if he can get me to despise my oil,
like to make me think I'm not a very good husband,
or I don't have what it takes to be a dad,
then I'll say it's nothing when it's really something. Noticed
by the end of this passage, this woman has a
house full of oil.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
It was not.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
Until she poured the oil that it became more. And
when you feel poor, you don't poor.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Because you hold on to what you have.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
So when you feel like a poor parent, it keeps
you from one to try talk to me. And I
can go from here to hear real quick as a parent,
real really quick as a parent.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
You look so perfected right now.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I can't figure out where one real person in this
whole church is that will say that even if you
figure out how to change diapers, they stop wearing them.
Doesn't work anymore. So like there are things about me
and things about you that make us feel insecure and
(17:36):
make us say, you know, it's nothing when it's really something,
but it seems small. It seems small, and it's overshadowed
by something that seems when the need seems so big
compared to the supply, you call it nothing and you
don't use it, and so it doesn't multiply. You send
the crowds away so they can get something to eat,
(17:58):
and you give away the opportunities go gave you kus.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
It's nothing. What you have is nothing. The need the
need is great.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
And my marriage just hit a sixteen year milestone.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
We celebrated sixteen years of marriage. I love when I do.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
That because there's always people that have been forty years
and they look at me like what I think it's significant.
I took Holly to Oak Steakhouse. We dined together. Let
me tell you how good the date was. The date
was so good. When we got home, the babysitter was
(18:39):
texting us that the fire alarm was going off in
the house.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
It was a.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Storm in Charlotte that night and something tripped the smoke alarm.
Abby's freaking out on the porch, and I had other
plans for post date. So I'm driving fast down the driveway, right,
(19:07):
Can I talk to y'all?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
But the kids are on the porch and the.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
Fire alarms going off in the house and it's not
a fire, and it's the alarm system is bugging.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Out, and she already tried to take the battery out.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
So Abby is freaking out, and I'm holding her because
she's seven.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And when I grabbed her, she stopped crying. And I
felt like the dad of the.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Decade because I knew what to do. I knew if
I started singing Hamilton from the Hamilton soundtrack that Abby
would stop crying. And it worked and she stopped crying,
and I felt like the man for about five minutes
until we had to call the fire department, not to
(19:53):
put out a fire, but to turn off the alarm.
What made it worse was when they got there, when
only the Braves showed up at my house.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
They're walking down the.
Speaker 2 (20:04):
Driveway the nicest firefighters you would ever want to see.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Let's hear it for the firefighters.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
These men come walking down the driveway and my wife
is the one in the house trying to fix the
detectors because I don't know what to do. And I'm
holding Abby and five minutes ago I was the man,
and here come the firefighters and they're looking at me like, really, dude,
(20:30):
And I can tell that the one that's coming in
first goes to the church. He didn't say it, but
he had that look in his eyes, like you're my pastor,
and I'm ashamed of you. You're much bigger on the screen.
What kind of man are you? So I didn't make
eye contact. I just thanked them for their service, and
(20:52):
they got it off and there was no carbon monoxide
and we're alive to tell about it.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Isn't it funny how I was the man one minute?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
But then now you got to understand it's little stuff.
It's not always some big shame that the enemy brings
to make you feel.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
This is where I always got it wrong.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I thought that you had to go through something sexual
that caused you this great traumatic shame to keep you
from really trusting God.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Or now.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
I thought maybe you had to go through a season
of your life, you know, eight years in prison or
something like that, and then you would live with regrets.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
But I found out.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
It is the seemingly insignificant insecurities that make you feel
like I'm not a real man.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
I'm not a real mom.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Now I'm yelling at my daughter just like my mom
yelled at me, And I'm just repeating the cycle. And
it causes you to despise your oil. And that's exactly
what the enemy wants, is to use a small little
thing to get you to miss your miracle, because your
miracle is hidden in what you've been overlooking. And the
(22:04):
reason you've been overlooking at is because it seems so
small to you. And the reason it seems small to
you is because you are insecure about what you're not.
So he'll he'll work on you until you call it nothing.
(22:24):
What do you have to be grateful for?
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Nothing? Really? Nothing? What are you good at? Nothing?
Speaker 2 (22:32):
We went around the table the other day and I
asked a group of people, what are you really great at?
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And it took us all a long time to answer.
I wonder why.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
That is because we're so humble, or because the enemy
has messed with us so much now, because we're all
on the verge of forty and we've gotten so familiar
with our deficiency. When you've lived in a deficit for
a long time, it overshadows the oil that you do have.
(23:04):
He wants you to despise your oil, wants you to
despise the season of life that you're in.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
He wants you to be thinking about.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
How much time you used to have back before, or
how much time you're gonna have when Meanwhile, the question
of the prophet is not what do you wish you
had in your house?
Speaker 1 (23:22):
What do you have left?
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Because that's what God is going to bless what you
have left.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
God is gonna bless what he gave you.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
You are his chosen vessel, and the oil you have
is the oil you need. And the strengths you have
are the strengths you need. And the experiences that you've
had are the experiences that you need.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
But notice this, the oil only flows when it is poured.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
You can pray over it, you can cry over it,
you can wish for it, but until you pour it, it
will stay one small jar. If the enemy can't take
your oil, he will try to get you to stop pouring.
And some of you have stopped pouring. You got your
heart broken. You poured your love into your last relationship
(24:22):
and it didn't work out, and they left you and
they hurt you, and they turned away from you. So
you stop pouring, and when you stop pouring, it stops flowing.
You used to encourage people, and then you got discouraged
and you stopped encouraging.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
But God told.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
Me to tell you keep on pouring, because the more
you pour.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
The more it's gonna flow.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I feel I appreciate until somebody pray, until somebody pours
out the praise you've got. Now, we tend to think
I'll pour more when I I did more. But the
way it works in the order of God is it
becomes more as it is poured. Isn't it just like
(25:09):
God to command you to pour something that you don't
feel like you have enough of strange instruction, I don't
have much pour it out. It's the weirdest strategy in
the world. But I'm gonna tell you I think this
(25:30):
stuff works. I think as you pour it out, it
becomes more. Really, I'm convinced of him because I tried
that thing where you feel sorry for yourself when you're discouraged.
I tried the other thing where I encouraged somebody else
when I felt discouraged. The first one took me deeper
(25:51):
into my deficit and my discouragement. The second one is
the weirdest thing because I didn't feel like I.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Had it to give? How did somebody to encourage me?
Speaker 2 (26:03):
And bitterness will keep you from pouring what you have
while you wait for what you want.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
And so then you stay poor.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
You stay frustrated, you stay stuck, you stay in bitterness.
I wonder, what's the woman a little disappointed that the
prophet told her to pour something. It's frustrating when you
have to pour into someone else when you really wish
someone would pour into you. Yet the more you pour,
(26:41):
the more it flows. I'm just telling you what to
do the next time. I know you haven't had any
struggles in the last seven years, but in case you
go through something this year, the more you pour, the
more it flows. The more you pour, the more it flows.
(27:04):
You're getting it over here. And so the devils will
crafty that that He will put you in a state
where you'll tell yourself, nobody appreciates me, so you'll stop
giving yourself, and it will it will reinforce that.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
Self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Nobody appreciates me, They won't appreciate you because you'll stop pouring,
and then no longer have anything to appreciate about you.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
That's that's why Holly said the.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Other day, they don't they don't even care what I cook.
She's talking about the kids, She said, they only want
the noodles. She made this meal. She made this meal.
And if you're considering marrying, uh, you know, in this
age that we live in right now, there's a lot
of things that can attract you to a person.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
I appreciate many qualities about my wife.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
I appreciate the fact that she has excelled to the
point where she now, can I tell you something.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
She grows her own Swiss shard. Do you know how
boogie that is?
Speaker 2 (28:15):
So here's some homegrown Swiss shard and some chicken. And
when the kids went back for seconds, she said, they
don't care about the chicken. They don't care about the
homegrown Swiss shard. They just want the noodles. That dollar
(28:37):
twenty nine box of noodles. They would be happy with
just the noodles. I said, girl, I know exactly how
you feel. I feel that way sometimes when I'm preaching,
the devil will tell me that, you know, they really
don't care. They're not going to remember this sermon. It's
(28:57):
the craziest thing how I get into self pity, and
it's like, you know, they don't appreciate my Swiss shard,
my scriptural Swiss shard, my biblical chicken.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
But I looked at her. I said, girl, if.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
You don't cook it for anybody else, keep cooking the
chicken for me. It's not even about those little breads.
Let them eat the noodles. Give me the chicken. I
want the Swiss sharp. Now, you gotta have this sense
in your life, servant of God, that I'm not doing
(29:34):
it for them. Because sometimes you will pour into people
and they won't say a word.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
But they're not your sauce. I said, they're not your sauce.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
I might be pouring into people, but I'm pouring for
the Lord. So I can keep pouring. If you appreciate me,
I can keep pouring. If you don't, I can keep pouring. Stay,
I could keep pouring if.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
You walk out. Who am I helping?
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Make some noise? So Swiss sharp Frisian, I'm so grateful.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
I'm so grateful that God kept pouring into me when
I seemed unprofitable, and so I got to keep pouring.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
It said that she kept pouring.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
I wonder how stupid she felt when she first started pouring.
Now once it starts working, it was probably kind of
fun And I will point out one thing that I
thought was kind of funny. We were talking about this
JJ were we How Elisha told her in verse three,
give me the verse go around and ask all your.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Neighbors for empty jars.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
And then in verse five it says she left him
and shut the door behind her and her sons they
brought the jars to her.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
She made her kids go to the neighbors. You heard
what the.
Speaker 2 (31:06):
Man said, But she did one more thing I want
to point out, and it's what enabled her to pour.
She shut the doors. And that's such an important detail
in this text because it is what you pour out
in private when no one is looking, and a lot
(31:31):
of us are so busy praying for more oil, more opportunity,
more more, more, more more.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And God says, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, And the
more you pour, the more it flows.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
You're never going to pour out what you have while
you're so busy consulting what everybody else has.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
You'd be like the woman. You'd be like the woman
who came in.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
And poured out that expensive fragrance on the feet of Jesus.
And all the men around called it a waste, and
she called it worship. Because you're always you're always, you're
always going to feel like it's not enough, and even
if you feel like it is enough, you feel like
(32:29):
it doesn't matter. Have you had a day like that
in the last seven where you felt like this doesn't
even matter.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Shut the door and keep pouring.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
In fact, sometimes the best thing to do is shut
your mouth and keep pouring, and keep pouring. Because the
oil only became more when it was in motion, and
the oil only fled when the vessels were ready. I
(33:03):
don't think this message is really about the oil at all.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
I think it's about the vessels.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Because when Elishah told her to go around to her neighbors,
he gave her a very specific type of vessel to request.
He said, make sure they're empty. Make sure they're empty.
God can't fill what's already for that's why it's so
important that you pour out your pride. That's why it's
(33:34):
so important that we pour out our own opinions and
come before the Lord empty, because listen, when the vessels.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Are ready, the oil will flow.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
And it's something strange about these vessels that we only
learned with a New Testament revelation.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
This is the Second King's for.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
But if you jump a couple of centuries over the
Second Corinthians For, you get the full message, where Paul says,
we have this treasure in earthen vessels. Why would God
put something so special in such a cracked vessel. What
keeps you from showing up is your cracks and your conflicts.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
But that is the very place that the blessing flows through.
Paul said, we have this treasure in earth.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
And vessels, that the excellency of the power might be
from God, not from us. One season in our church
that I was feeling particularly overwhelmed, I said to Holly,
I just don't feel like I'm the pastor that they needed.
The reason, I said, it is because the need was
so great and my experience was so small. At this
particular point, I had just turned thirty and the church
(34:50):
was already about the same size as the town I
grew up in. That'll make you stop in pause, That'll
make you feel like not enough if you ever felt
like not enough?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Wave of me.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
I don't like to do this alone. It's a very
vulnerable feeling. Yeah, I said, I don't feel like I'm
the pastor that they need. She looked back at me
cold blooded and said, you're the one we've got. Y'all
(35:28):
are clapping at me, but I'm saying it to you.
You're the mom they got. You're the dad they got.
You're the son they've got. You're the daughter they've got.
You're the one God chose. You are his chosen vessel,
and he chose you not in spite of your cracks,
(35:53):
but because of them. That ensures that people will not
compliment the vessel. They will value the oil. It is
what God put inside of you, but you've got to
pour it out. I want to pray for you today.
(36:14):
Stand to your feet because I want to pray for
you in this moment. If you've been in a deficit emotionally, spiritually, relationally, financially.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Deficits come in many different varieties.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
But if you are that empty vessel today and you
come to the end of yourself, I got good news
for you. That's the starting place for God's supply to
be poured out in your life. And My God shall
supply all of your needs according to his glory, not
according to your quantity of oil, but according to his
(36:50):
glorious riches. I appreached this message today with the hopes
that in this moment you would see yourself as a
vessel that God is ready to fill. When the vessels
are ready, the oil will flow. And it's good when
(37:12):
you feel empty. It's good when you feel like you're
not enough. It's good when you know your need, because
then you remember your source. Right now, in this moment,
I want to ask that everybody who needs a touch
from God today in an area of your life where
you've been feeling deficient, I want to ask that you
(37:33):
just close your eyes, lift your hands to Heaven, and
forget about all the people around you. Let's shut the
door for a moment, and let's come before God in
honesty and sincerity. Like this woman did with the prophet,
she knew where to go first.
Speaker 1 (37:50):
She took her needs to the Man of God.
Speaker 2 (37:54):
She didn't run around from neighbor to neighbor to neighbor
like we tend to do some times.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
She went to God first.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
If we seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, all
these things will be added to us.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
But if we run around.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
If we don't open our hearts before Him, we will die.
For the lack of what he has already provided. There
is oil in your house. There is a reason to
be grateful. There is a strength in this season of
your life. And Father, today, with our hands lifted up
(38:33):
and with our hearts open, and with our minds renewed,
we thank you for the oil we have. Somebody say,
thank you Lord for my oil. God, we're sorry for
complaining about the oil that we lost, or we're sorry
for comparing our oil supply to others. We come to
(38:56):
you today in humility of spirit, declaring that what you
have done given is all that you require. We thank
you for the gift of your grace in our lives.
We thank you for your mercy in this moment. We
thank you for your enabling power you're annointing for this
season of our lives.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
That where we are is where we're supposed to be.
It's by design God.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
We determine in our hearts in this moment not to
become bitter about what we've poured out that we didn't
receive a return on. We declare that you are the
source of our strength, and you are the strength of
our lives. And so we lift our eyes to the hills.
Our help comes from you. Our joy comes from you,
and you are more than enough to meet every need. Father,
(39:40):
we lift our eyes to Heaven today. Would you fill
our cups to the top. We thank you that goodness
and mercy flow over our cup overflows. You are with
us in this moment. We declare that your presence is
more than enough, Your word is more than enough. Spirit
of God fall fresh on your people now, a fresh
(40:01):
out pouring, a fresh anointing.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
May they receive it in the old power of your
great name, Jesus, Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
You can click the link in the description to give
now or visit Elevationchurch dot org slash podcast for more
information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
You can share it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
You can click the share button, take a screenshot and
share it on your social stories and tag us at
Elevation Church.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
Host
Steven Furtick
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