Start Seeing God in the Small Things, God Can Do More Than You Realize | Jonathan Evans

What do you mean nothing? How many of us are looking over something like it's nothing? Don't you know what you make an exemption, God can make an exception? She's calling it nothing. And that's the very thing that uh God through the prophet Elijah is going to use to save her.

What are the things in your life you're calling nothing in the face of God? As if he doesn't use the little things in this life. Give him glory and give him praise. The Bible says in Psalm 66, "Shout joyfully to God all the earth. Sing the glory of his name.

Make his praise glorious." Sing the glory of his name and say to God, "How awesome are your works?" Are his works not awesome? Have they not been awesome in your life? Has he not been awesome all week long? We ought to give him praise in the house because he deserves the praise.

Heavenly Father, I give you glory over the house. We thank you so much. We praise you, Lord. For who you are and what you've done. We don't for take for granted. Thank you for waking us up this morning. Thank you for starting us on our way. Thank you for giving us minds to think, eyes to see, ears to ears to hear, uh noses to smell.

Lord, thank you for giving us feet to walk. Thank you for giving us lungs to breathe. Lord, we're and as long as we have breath, we're going to praise your name. Thank you for saving us. Thank you for delivering us. Thank you for choosing us. Thank you for adopting us.

Thank you for bringing us to this place and help our lives to mimic yours so that people may come to the gospel by what they see and then by what they hear. We love you and we honor you today. We pray that you bless this time. We pray that you take the meditations in my heart, the words from my mouth, make them acceptable to you.

It's your word. It's your church. It's your people. We love you and honor you today in Jesus name. All God's people shouted. Amen. Amen. You may keep standing. I almost tricked myself. We're going to go with Second Kings. If you're joining us online, 2 Kings, turn your Bibles, turn your pages, turn your apps to 2 Kings, chapter 4. 2 Kings chapter 4, starting at verse 1.

And this is what it says to us today. Now, a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord." and the creditor has come to take my children to be his slaves.

Elijah said to her, "What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?" And she said, "Your maidservant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil." Then he said, "Go borrow vessels at large for yourself from all your neighbors, even empty vessels, and do not get a few. and you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons and pour out into these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full."

And she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons. And they were bringing the vessels to her, and she poured. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another vessel." And he said to her, "There is not one vessel more."

And the oil stopped. Then she came and told the man of God and said, "Go sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest." Today I want to talk to you from the title from debt to delivered. From debt to delivered.

You may be seated. in this overflow series. This will be the second time that I bring up a widow. If you remember the first time we talked about the widow of Zerapath and I had Elijah and the widow on the stage with me and I thought it was important to reiterate and bring it up again.

Why? Why would I bring up in an overflow series a widow? Well, because she's a widow. That means she's at the lowest so socioeconomic class. That means she's at the bottom of the barrel. This means she's filled with grief and loss. This means she's unrecognized, unknown, and unmarried.

This means the culture does not recognize her as one with accolades or one you would follow or one you would look at or one you would give views to. This means that she is down at the bottom. And so it's a reminder because this woman is going to receive an overflow in her life that it doesn't matter if you're unrecognized.

It doesn't matter if you're unknown. It doesn't matter how big your podcast is. It doesn't matter if people know your name. It doesn't matter how big your social status is. It doesn't matter how much money you have in your none of that matters. You can be un recognized.

You can be unmarried. You can be unknown. But that does not mean you're unfavored. ((applause)) And somebody in the house needs to know that. You need to understand that God does not show partiality. That God will favor you and overflow you. He's not worried about all the stuff the culture is worried about.

He's not looking at you the same way the world looks at you. And some of us are chasing after something that we can't catch. We're trying to be approved in an environment that there that approval doesn't even matter. It's like picking up sand. You have it for a while only to watch it slip through your fingers to have to keep grabbing it again.

And that's not what you're called to. This widow evidently it didn't matter that she was just a certain woman's wife. Verse one says she's a certain woman's wife. It doesn't even give her the dignity of you knowing her name. It says she's one of the wives of the sons of the prophet. you know, you married to that person.

That's how you known is who you married to. And then it just tells you that she's a widow. So, it's letting you know her socioeconomic class. And after her being disregarded, even with scripture not even giving you her name, this is a woman who's about to experience overflow.

And so you need to understand that your story is not going to be about what people think about you. Your story is not going to be about how big you're able to n make the name on the back of your jersey. Your story is not going to be about how big your earthly platform is.

Your story is going to be about one thing and one thing alone that defined this widow's story. And that is this widow feared God. Let me say it again. I don't care who you think you is. If you don't fear God. I don't care how much you've accomplished.

I don't care what your accolades are. I don't care how many gold medals you have. I don't care how many people follow you and how many people watch you and want to know what you putting on. I don't care about if you don't fear God. At the end of the day, you don't get to be a participant in his overflow.

You may be blessed, but it ain't God blessing. God ain't the only one who blesses. So don't get confused, young people, when you see the artists take the stage that put out music that ain't got nothing to do with the kingdom and they say, "I want to thank God."

((applause)) God doesn't bless in opposition to his kingdom. But the devil does. Like we've said before, even in Matthew chapter 4, the devil tried to bless Jesus. So he has the ability to bless. So don't get it confused cuz you'll look at blessings from the devil, think that it's blessings from God, and run yourself right out of your purpose.

This is a widow whose story is defined in seven verses as one who feared God. Now, how do I know she feared God? Well, it only says in verse one that her husband feared God. That's what she was saying to Elijah. You know, my husband who died, he feared the Lord.

But how do I know that this widow feared God? Because when it came to her debt, when it came to her situation, she went to the prophet. In other words, she said, "My situation cannot be healed by human hands. I need an actual divine response. I'm not taking it to the bank.

I'm not taking it to my friends. I'm not taking it to social media. I'm not taking it to all of those other avenues. I'm taking my stuff to God. And so, that's one way I know she feared God. The another way I know she feared God is because she was married to one of the sons of the prophets.

Now, if you marry into that, you better know something about God cuz they will kill you for being a prophet. This was in the times where one of the sons of the prophet meant his father was probably one of those who was getting chased by Jezebel in first kings chapter 18.

And they were hiding them in caves because Jezebel was sweeping through and killing the prophets of God. And if you marry into that, you better believe something about God. If you marry into that, you better believe something about God because sometimes it's it's very difficult. But that's not the only reason.

The major reason I know she feared God is because when she took her problems to church, when she asked God for a solution through the prophet Elisha, watch this. This may sound foreign. She obeyed. ((applause)) Our church is founded upon a passage, Psalm 128. If you have not memorized it, go read it.

Go memorize it. It's six six verses. We had to memorize it when I was 6 years old sitting around the table. My dad brought us Psalm 128. The whole church is built on it on that philosophy of ministry. But verse one says, "Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord and who walks in his ways."

So how do you know you fear God? One way it's not by your talk. It's by your walk. It's not by your articulations. It's by your actions. Yeah. It's not by what you say, it's by what your feet do. In in proverb in Psalms 28:14, it says, "Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord and who walks in his ways always.

Be steadfast, unmovable, always abound in the work of the Lord and know that your toil will not go in vain." In Deuteronomy 6, it says, "Those who obey my commands, you will live long in the land. It will go well with you and you will multiply multiply greatly.

All through the scriptures, you'll see that the overflow of God's blessing is directly tied to the obedience of God's people. That's right. And here this widow feared God because of those things. And what she did is she brought her insurmountable debt to Elisha. Now, we know something about debt in this country.

We're in consumer debt up to our ears. We are in financial debt as a country and isn't like $40 trillion. I don't even think there's been 40 I don't even think there's been uh one trillion seconds from now since the time of Christ's life. We're $40 trillion in debt.

You know what that means? Somebody got to pay for it. And typically it lands on the next generation. She's saying, "I'm not only in financial debt, but my husband is dying. I'm in a grief debt. I'm about to lose my children. I got family debt. She has so much debt and an interest payment so high that she cannot pay it."

And many of you, if the truth be told, it's not just financial debt. We got family debt. We got marital debt. We got emotional debt. We got mental debt. We got hopelessness debt. We got purposelessness, debt. We got all types of debt in the room where you feel like the payments are just too high to recover from.

And here she says, "I got so much on me, Elisha. The creditor is coming to take my kids as slaves." Now, it's one thing to have a insurmountable debt that gets a repo on your car. It's a whole another thing to have a debt that gets a repo on your kids.

But if the truth be told, many of us are the kids that are still paying the bill of the previous generation's regrets. The truth be told, many of us are still paying in our own households the tragic things that have happened in our previous households. We're paying in our marriage.

We're paying as individuals. We're paying based on trauma. In other words, the next generation is dependent on this generation paying off its debts. That's great. There there's a need for a debt payoff in the kingdom of God because there is a creditor that comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

He goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And this is the scene that the widow finds herself in. And so she she does what many of us need to do. I need help. She comes to the church. She comes to the man of God representing God saying,"I need you.

I need help. I need to figure out how I need to get out of these circumstances. I need to pay off these debts because I don't want my I don't want to see my kids become slaves." The husband evidently didn't have his life insurance and his will set up and it put her in a debt scenario she could not recover from.

And so she goes to Elisha and she explains her problem. The problem is out there. And if you look at verse two, Elijah responds with a very interesting response. Elijah says, "Well, what can I do for you?" Okay, y'all didn't get that. She just explained her life falling apart.

Elijah's question is, "So, what can I do for you? Okay, y'all don't get it. Um, I saw this as a counseling session. So, let's role play, shall we? Elisha, my life is falling apart. Elijah sitting right there. My life is falling apart. My husband is dead. A creditor is coming after my kids.

I can't pay my debts. My kids are about to be enslaved. Everything is going away. I need help. Okay. What can I do for you? Um, that's the first question. The second question is, tell me what's in your house. So, he moves from a question of welcome to a question of working.

So something must have been in between there where she found that unacceptable and needed a little bit more. So this is what happened potentially possibly. What can I do for you pastor? I said, "My life is falling apart. Everything's going downhill. The creditors are coming for my kids.

My husband just died. I'm at a I'm I'm a widow. I'm at the lowest socioeconomic status. I need help." Oh, okay. Well, tell me what's in your house. Yeah. Okay. The first question was a welcome. And let's say she didn't do all that, but she stayed long enough for the word to start working.

Many of us just come to church for a welcome ((applause)) or you pick up your Bible to read a verse a day to keep the devil away. Yet you're in serious debt. You better stay in there until the word starts getting you to work. He went two questions back to back and the welcome wasn't good enough.

We need to move beyond that. You need to tell me what I need to do to get out of this debt. I'm going to stay in there with God. I'm going to stay in his word until his word speaks to me in such a way that I know what he's calling me to do and the things that I need to look at in my life.

And so he says, I see some counselors in the room. So he says a question that many of us don't like to hear when we have debt issues and we go for help. Okay. So tell me what's in your house. My house. My husband dead. I got kids in there about to become slaves.

I got a lot of debt in my house. There's nothing in there. You see verse two. You following? There's nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. There is nothing. Well, except a jar with a little oil in it. Well, that's not nothing. What do you mean nothing? How many of us are looking over something like it's nothing?

Don't you know what you make an exemption, God can make an exception. She's calling it nothing. And that's the very thing that uh God through the prophet Elijah is going to use to save her. What are the things in your life you're calling nothing in the face of God as if he doesn't use the little things in this life?

She says it's nothing. Did not Moses think his stick was nothing when he was in debt in Midian? In Exodus chapter 4, God says, "What is that in your hand? Oh, it's just a stick." No, it's not. It's the staff of God. And I'm going to use that little stick to carry all of the people from Egypt to the promised land.

Wasn't it Peter who had nothing in his net? And Jesus used the exact same net to cast on the other side of the boat. And then he received an overflow. Wasn't it not Andrew in John chapter 6 that said, "These two fish and these five loaves, that ain't nothing."

What is that going to do for this many people? Give it to me and I'll show you what it's going to do for this many people. You say, "Well, I only have a little bit of creativity. I only have a little bit of talent. I only got a little bit of empathy.

I only got a little bit of knowledge." God took 12 untrained men and changed the whole world with them. And here we are saying your something is nothing in the face of God. That's what he uses. She said it's nothing. Just a jar of oil. She didn't recognize this oil is extremely profitable.

Olive oil back then was used for fuel for lighting lamps. It was used for cooking food. It was used to make expensive perfumes. Yeah. She had something. And she considered it nothing. Some of us are tossing to the side the the things God is going to use for our own salvation and debt reduction.

And God will send you into the place where you are being raided so he can give you your resolution. But we don't want to hear what's in your house because we only see the problems. Let me tell you something about despair. Despair will put a pessimistic belief in the syringe of your circumstances.

Thus giving your problems a shot of adrenaline that make you blind to your solutions. giving you a greater sickness than the problem itself called hopelessness. And many of us through our debt and our situation can't see that God is trying to show us something we consider nothing and he's going to use it and make it something.

She said, "It's nothing. It's just a jar of oil." Oh, it's something. Um, as we continue with the counseling session, Elijah says in verse three, "Okay, if you want to get out of debt, if you want to change your circumstances, this is what I need you to do.

I need you to go to all your neighbors and gather their empty vessels at large. And when you go out there, don't just get a few. Are you sure you're a prophet? You ain't. I'm sitting here telling you about my life, my problems, my debt, my children, my family, my husband.

And your solution is for me to go to my neighbors. You get on my nerve. Like what do my neighbors and gathering empty vessels for them have anything to do with my problem? Well, I have to you're in debt, so I have to teach you kingdom economics. If you just have your one vessel, then if I try to expand your value, I'll have nothing else to put it in.

But if you go and grab the vessels of others and you bring more capacity for impact, then I can expand your value for debt reduction. In other words, you can't get more value and remain the only customer. This is the problem in the Christian faith. We remain the only customer.

My problems, my life, what I'm going through, I need help. This is my situation. And God is saying, until you expand your capacity for impact, why in the world would I expand your value for your debt reduction? You're trying to start a business where you're the only customer and expecting more value.

You can't get more value like that if your life is all about you. You'll remain in the same debt that you're in. Have you ever anybody ever started a business? You ever started a business? Hopefully in your business, one of the things you do for it to have to be successful is you have to solve other people's problems.

If you're not solving a problem, there is no value to your business. It has to be solving a problem. Not only do you have to solve a problem, you have to scale your business. If you're the only problem being solved and you took out a loan to start that business, you're going to get eaten up by that loan because you're not bringing any value because you're not solving enough problems at scale.

And he tells her, "I need you to go to your neighbors at large." In other words, he's teaching her to scale the kingdom business to the degree that there's empty vessels around her so that there's a reason for God to take that little bit of jar of oil and start perpetuating it to other people's empty vessels.

I've learned from a friend of mine who has a friend um that had heavy depression and heavy struggles and all of those different things. And so he said, "One thing they do at those facilities is they do not let you sit in your room by yourself to think about yourself."

What they do is they create a list of goals for you to achieve. They get you to serve other people. They get you to go fishing against others to see how many fish you can catch. They create purpose outside of you so you don't spend a whole bunch of time thinking about your personal depressive debt.

And the more that you remain your own customer, you're not scaling for anything to for God to give anything to. And he's teaching her kingdom economics. In order to get out of your debt, ladies and gentlemen, you can't remain the only customer. Go scale it. In other words, you have to think about something other than yourself.

I hear the problem. The widow is a widow. Her husband is she's dealing with grief. He didn't have no life insurance policy. Yeah. She don't have no money. The creditor is coming for her kids. And the advice in the counseling session that Elisha gives is to go to your neighbors.

That means the people that are around you, you ever been around somebody um you know everybody in the group has problems but they only talk about their problems. Your problems are value valuable and important. But why don't you try praying for someone else's vessel? I need encouragement. That's great.

And we will encourage you. But there are also other empty vessels that need encouragement. And what kingdom economics says is what you give will be given back to you. This overflow series. We talk about the same verse all the time. Give and it will be given back to you.

He'll actually press it down, shake it together, running over to give you a full measure. Elijah is trying to teach her we can't just sit here and think about ourselves. I heard you, but I need you to be a kingdom ambassador to scale to your name. Give me some empty vessels and then I can overflow this oil.

Give me a reason. Give me a reason. That's one of the hardest things you'll do is when things are emotional. It makes you only want to consider you. There are a community of empty vessel. We got Easter coming up. You know how many empty vessels out there that need to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ in the four services we have.

The simplicity of the gospel going forward because there are so many empty vessels. And that's what God that's what God blesses. He expands what you need by what you give. And he tells her, um, go to your neighbors at large, um, and I want you to get their empty vessels.

Yes. And I want you to bring your empty vessels back. Now, this is the embarrassing part of that. Um, no offense to people who do this job, but anybody know the uh when you're in your house and you see the pest control guys walking around trying to get business?

You don't. Y'all don't live in a neighborhood where they walking around selling. I know you do because 90% of y'all got a no soliciting sign on your door. And when you see them pass by, you try to jump out of the window. Uh-oh. He saw me. So now I have to open the door.

And so you open the door and you give them the I don't want you here body language. What? Poor guy. He's just trying to get some pay. And then he says, "I just want to help you eradicate pests." And then you say, "Oh, that's a good idea. Let me start with one.

((applause)) I don't even know why I said that. I just thought it was kind of ((applause)) funny. When it comes to your purpose, we ain't worried about being no pest. When it comes to bringing people to the gospel, we ain't worried about bringing no pest. There are people out there that need empty vessels and that's your purpose.

And God can pour into that. And he tells her, I need you to go at scale so that I can I I I see your jar. I see your oil. I want to make it, but you're asking me to bless you and I have nothing to put it in.

Yeah. And so he tells her in verse four, "And you shall go in and shut the door behind you, and you and your son shall pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full." He's assuming an overflow. Verse 5 says, "So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons.

They were bringing the vessels to her and she poured. You see what just happened? She did something. She obeyed. She went and got the vessels and brought them in and she started taking what she had, utilizing what she had. And as she utilized what she had by faith, God kept filling it.

As you utilize what you have, that little bit you're calling nothing, when you start utilizing it a little bit and you start scaling a little bit, God will keep filling it a lot of bit. And the jars kept getting filled. But I want you to notice something in this passage.

It says her sons were bringing the jars. In other words, she was so full of faith on what Elijah told her to do. She brought her kids into the business. You're not going to sit there and think about your problems either. You're about to come in here and help the household help others.

We're we're all going to do this together as a family. The problem is kids are learning more publicly than they're learning privately. They learn and are discipled in the household that it's not just going to be about us. We don't need kids that are growing up now that give up in three seconds.

Ain't nobody else got no kids. They give up in 3 seconds. I can't do it. You just started. It's because there's no stick to itness with the parents when it comes to faith and we haven't made them a part of the business of faith. They were bringing the vessels and she was pouring and they were watching God come through as the mother showed faith because the mother decided it's better for you to work for Christ than work for a creditor.

It's better for you to learn to work for the kingdom than work for the culture. Don't you see all this fulfillment that comes from the kingdom when you show a little bit of faith and get some vessels? Because we live in a generation where our kids are like this.

You ran into something. Oh, it's only the human trinity. Me, myself, and I. Yes, sir. And she says, "No, we're going to think about someone other than ourselves because that's what God has called us to do. And we're just going to take the little bit we have and pour it.

We're going to take the little bit we have and pour it. And God kept filling it. And you got to notice what happened. It says in verse six, she asked her son, "Hey, son, bring me another jar. This is fun." And he said, "Mom, we don't have anymore."

And then the oil stopped because God fills you on the measure of your faith. He's telling you go at large or at scale. Y'all remember the king that only struck the ground three times? And then he said, "Well, you only going to win three times. You could have won six, but you only had faith enough for three."

Yeah. In other words, as long as you keep going, that oil going to keep flowing. But whenever it stops and whenever you stop, it stops because God doesn't waste his blessing. And God doesn't waste. It's based on your capacity. We love the verse Ephesians uh 3:20. You know, everybody be flipping over fuse on that verse.

God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond all that you can ask or think. And then they leave out the last part according to the power that works in you. He's not He's just letting you know he's able. He's not telling you what he's going to do. He's going to do dependent upon Yeah. your capacity because he ain't wasting it.

Ephesians 3 talks about capacity so that you can know the height, the depth, the breath, the love of God that can surpass all comprehension. Like so that you can know that he can fill you to the fullest. Like he's got all of that. But he's able to blow your mind.

He's able to fill your life. He's able to take you from hopelessness to hopefulness. He's able to take you from purposelessness to purpose. He's able to turn it around according to how many of them vessels you bring in this house. ((applause)) The oil stopped and then the private time is over.

She comes back to the man of God in verse seven. Look at it. Then she came and told the man of God, and he said, "Go sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest." This is kingdom economics. He says, "Go sell that."

Yeah. There's value now. Go do what you do. Take what you were doing in private, take it public. Um, and then you'll be able to pay off your debt. In other words, the things that you're feeling and going through and all of that get consumed in your purpose for the gospel.

And not only will you be able to pay off your debt, you can live on the rest. Y'all didn't get to Okay, you still Let me just say it simply. Um, she just retired. She went from a brutal counseling session to retiring of off what God multiplied. Not just her, he said you and your kids.

They were almost slaves and now they're saved. Yeah, they were living in debt and now they're delivered. ((applause)) Okay, I'm going to close with this. People don't know the full story of Tony and Lois Evans. They uh they started in a mountain of debt. In their younger days, they lived in a basement.

My mom would tell the story, they only had Crystal because Crystal's the oldest Oh, she ain't here. Okay. Well, Priscilla's the second oldest since she's here. I wasn't with all that because I was the youngest. I wasn't there yet. I came in the good ((applause)) days. But if my mom were here to tell you, she said she was holding crystal.

She chasing around roaches trying to kill him in that basement. They didn't have enough money to pay the bills. They didn't have enough money to pay for seminary. He was going to seminary by faith. It was a time where he couldn't pay and he had to tell my mom, he said, "Well, I'm going to have to, you know, stop going to seminary because there's a $500 bill.

We don't have the money to pay it." He prayed about it and checked the mail and there was a $500 anonymous gift that was given to him. That's how they were making it, just with faith in the flow of God. But while they were going through all of that and while they were crying out to the Lord for their needs to be met, they kept on doing what they were called to do.

They took the little bit of oil and the other empty vessels and they just kept pouring it. And so then in 1976, y'all know they started a church with 10 people in the house. It's just 10 vessels and they just kept pouring with the little bit that they had.

Then they moved to the eight frame building that's right here. Then they moved to the family life center that's right there. And then they moved into this church that you're in right now because they kept pouring a little bit and their little bit became a lot of bit.

But then through it all, people always ask this question. How y'all all end up in ministry? Because they kept calling for us to bring the vessels. Y'all keep bringing these vessels and we going to keep pouring. Bring me some more vessels and we going to keep pouring. Our family is about the kingdom.

It ain't about you, yourself, and I. It ain't about none of that. So, right now, the only reason I'm standing on this stage is because I'm living off the rest. We're called to get out of debt because we're called to give. And when you give, God keeps perpetuating that oil.

And he'll keep perpetuating that oil. And he'll keep perpetuating that oil. And he'll start overflowing your life. Then you get your kids involved. Get them off them video games and get them involved in getting these vessels. Look, Jay, you don't want to hear that. Get them off them video games and get them into these vessels because one day they're going to be standing on your debt or they're going to be standing on your deliverance.

It's hard to give when you're in turmoil. But God is ready to perpetuate your oil. God bless you. ((music playing)) They've been praised in the house for teaching us the word. And that's what we're going to continue to do is use our lives. Um, as Easter is coming up, it's an opportunity