God’s Grace to the Hopeless and Nameless: 2 Kings #04
This is an exposition of 2 Kings 4:1-7. This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday evening, June 12, 2016.
Intro:
Do you ever feel small, insignificant or unimportant? You are just one of the 7,404,976,783 people on the planet. You exist on this tiny rock that is relatively small in a galaxy that spans roughly 100,000 light years across. And our galaxy is one of an estimated 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. “Well, pastor I didn’t feel insignificant until now!” Don’t you at times of crisis feel alone? Aren’t there times when you wonder what’s the use of praying? Why bother, nobody cares? This is part of the wonder of the gospel – God cares! The God who spoke this universe into being and holds it all together by the power of his might actually knows what is going on in your little corner of creation and wonder of wonders, he cares about what happens to you. This glorious fact is at the heart of our text this evening found in 2 Kings the 4.
Text: 2 Kings 4:1-7
Elisha has taken up the mantle of Elijah.
You remember when asked what he wanted he requested a double portion of Elijah’s spirit.
He is now God’s prophet to the Northern Kingdom.
This portion of 2 Kings beginning with 2 Kings 4:1 of 2 Kings 4 and running through 2 Kings 4:7 of 2 Kings 6 demonstrates the power of God over debt, drought, disease and difficulty. In some of what follows we are given quite a few details in others the story is sketchy at best. But through it all we see God’s grace, God’s kindness towards his people.
In our text this evening we see God’s grace extended to a hopeless, nameless widow.
Dale Ralph Davis points out that king Omri, one of the most important figures in Israelite politics and history is given only 6 verses in 1 Kings and this obscure, nameless widow gets 7! Desperate people matter to our God.
[Read the text]
As we work our way through this text we discover that…
Thesis: God’s surprising grace extends to the most desperate, drawing them to ever increasing faith while His provision exceeds all expectations.
The grace of God is not a New Testament teaching it is a Bible teaching. This is the nature of our God from Genesis to Revelation. It is often wrongly assumed that the God of the Old Testament is a God of wrath and fire in the perpetual pursuit of judgment while the God of the New Testament is gracious and loving. No, God is gracious in the Old Testament. And the God of the New Testament is a consuming fire. Our God is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Three (3) things I want to note in our text.
- Disaster often overtakes the faithful servants of the Lord. (4:1)
- God often uses such occasions to build our faith and develop our obedience. (4:2-6)
- God’s provision routinely exceeds all expectations. (4:7)
Conclusion:
Davis remains us, “Christians have to be very careful. Watch your cup – God tends to make it overflow and then you have a mess of blessings on your hands.”