of thousands of refugees in camps all around Central Europe and maybe we think well that story
! sounds more fitting for there rather than for us here in nice comfortable relatively affluent
! Edinburgh. But when we recognize the reality that desperation takes many forms then I think we begin to see
! that there is relevance for us.
as we are invited to recognize that the God who sees is the God of compassion.
As Calvin put it, the Christ who put on our feelings also put on our flesh.
So God's willing to meet our desperation with this compassion and we're going to see that
and the second and it's related truth for ourselves is that God is ready to meet our lack with his
overflowing grace. And again this is a pattern we see it in this one woman's story but it's a pattern we
see and we could trace all through the Bible that God often chooses to demonstrate his grace and his
power in the context of our weakness. To show to us and to show to the world that our life depends on God.
That the life of faith is a daily and a constantly placing our weak hands into God's almighty hand.
It is about learning to discover and to rediscover that God is glorious and God is good.
So you and I, we need this little story and the truths that it conveys and we need to claim the truths of this story for our lives.
So let's get into the first couple of verses and help us to recognize that God meets desperation with his compassion.
Because what we see is a human tragedy developing.
So there's a company of the prophets and we've encountered them before and a wife from one of the prophets comes
and explains to us the extent of the tragedy that is beginning to develop.
So her husband, the prophet has died and he has died leaving a debt of some kind significant enough
that the creditor is now claiming the debt. She cannot pay the debt and so what's going to happen
is that her two sons are going to be sold into slavery. And standing behind all that is the reality that this
woman appears to be going through all this by herself. And we say this because in the Old Testament,
there were poor laws that spoke about the help that a community would provide.
And in particular, it spoke to us of a kinsman redeemer, that within God's Old Testament law,
there was provision for a family member who would take responsibility for settling debts.
There is no kinsman redeemer here. And so in desperation, her faith cries out to Elisha,
to the Lord's prophet. She has nothing. Her only hope rests in God.
And what's Elisha's response to this situation?
How can I help you?
He is God's man and he has God's heart and he longs to help. His heart is moved instinctively with compassion
for this woman of God in her suffering.
As I was thinking about this story, I remembered back in, I think it was 2012,
teaching the story of the Good Samaritan to a group of Chinese students who had never heard it before.
And as we were talking about what Jesus teaches about if you see someone on the road,
you know, that invitation to help and to use one's resources, they were sharing a story, a true story,
that had happened in their country in 2011. It became a huge story across all the news networks of
a little girl in a busy market who was knocked over by a van, not just once, but twice.
And over the course of some 10 or 15 minutes, multiple people who had witnessed what happened,
they did nothing. And so it led to the country asking big questions of themselves. Why did people
not get involved? How could people just walk by as if nothing had ever happened?
God's man is not unconcerned. God's prophet is willing to enter in. And this speaks hope to the women,
because now she knows she will have access to God in her troubles. It's wonderful to look at the life
of Elisha and to recognize that Elisha mirrors for us the compassion of God. In Exodus chapter 34,
when Moses says to God, God, show me yourself. God says, no one can see my glory and live,
but here's what I'll do. I'll tell you my name. I'll tell you my character. And as God begins to talk
about what he is like, he says, I am the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God.
And as we read, for example, the book of Exodus, it's the compassion of God that explains why he
acted to redeem his people from slavery. It is God's compassion that moved him to respond
to their cries of misery and their distress, sending Moses to be a deliverer, working those great miracles
of his power so that the people of God would be free to know their God and to know the heart of their God,
that he is compassionate. It's the same God who established within the Old Testament those poor laws
that express the particular care that God has for widows and orphans for the weak and the helpless and that he
expects the people of God to have. In the New Testament, the religion that God approves of
is when we care for the widow and the orphan, because then the people of God are reflecting a heart like his.
But to think still further, the emotional response of Elisha in this woman's story speaks to us again of the emotional life of the Lord Jesus.
If you want to read a good essay on that, B.B. Warfield has a wonderful essay on the emotional life of the Lord Jesus.
But to think about the Gospels, we read the stories of the life of Jesus and we see the compassion that he had for huge crowds.
Sometimes he sees the crowds and he has compassion and so what he does is he heals all the sick within the crowd.
Sometimes he sees the crowd and he has compassion so that he feeds them because they're hungry.
Sometimes he has compassion and he teaches them because he sees them as like sheep without a shepherd.
They are ignorant. They don't know the way back to God and so he teaches.
But sometimes too we see in the Gospels that Jesus has compassion on individuals.
So he walks along a road and he sees a funeral procession and here is a widow who has lost her son and the son is in the coffin
and Jesus stops the procession, touches the coffin and commands the boy to live.
Or another time, a desperate father comes with a young son who's been possessed by a demon that is trying to destroy him
and Jesus, moved with compassion, drives out the demon.
Or as the lepers, those untouchables who had to stay a great distance from other people,
as they cried out to Jesus for help,
it was compassion that saw Jesus move towards them and touch them and heal them.
Our Savior has a heart of compassion and that compassion leads to action.
And we can go further as well and recognize that in the heart of the Gospel,
there is compassion for a lost and a broken and a sinful world.
To think about that great parable of the Good Samaritan is to recognize that in the Gospel,
Jesus becomes for us the Great Samaritan.
He sees our misery, our desperation.
And of course, when we look honestly at the Bible and our own lives,
we realize that our spiritual misery is actually a mess of our own making.
Because we are the ones who have turned our back on God.
We are those who are treating God shamefully.
Yet the Holy Lord Jesus, who could have stayed at a distance,
passed by on the other side, he enters in.
And his heart of compassion, his holding nothing back commitment to be a Savior,
leads him to go to the cross to give his life in our place to pay the ransom price.
God meets desperation with his compassion.
It's in his nature and it's the heart of the Gospel.
But I think it's worth us taking a little sort of pause and a little sidebar at this point.
Because we need to recognize that what's true for this woman is not true for every person.
Our God is in control of all things.
Nothing happens apart from his will.
And our God is good all the time.
But yet even within our story, there is a point of tension.
Because we have a prophet and we're told that he revered the Lord.
He honored the Lord.
That was what he lived for.
But he has died and his family are suffering.
And that at least invites us to consider that painful mystery that has always probably provided questions for people of faith and people without faith.
Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?
Why does he allow bad things to happen to his people?
You know, in this story and in every miracle story that we read in the Bible,
the God of compassion acts in a particular way to bring a particular deliverance,
to bring an immediate end to the desperation,
to draw them out of the miry clay.
But you and I know that's not always the case.
And part of the life of faith is wrestling with those things that we know to be true while living in the tension of the way life is,
to trust that God is good.
That this one who reveals himself as gracious and compassionate,
he will either, because he must be faithful to himself and to his people,
he will either take us out of the trouble that we are in,
or he will and he must be with us to give us grace,
even for as long as he leaves us in those trials and troubles.
But in this woman's story,
the compassion on display will lead to complete transformation.
But here's why I think you and I need to hear this story.
Firstly, because we need to remind ourselves
some truths about God.
The first time God is named by a human being,
in the book of Genesis, Hagar,
who's in desperate trouble,
and God came and spoke and delivered and gave hope.
And she said,
you're the God who sees me.
God says,
I see you.
And he knows where our troubles are.
He knows that desperation takes many forms.
Our story is not this woman's story.
And the God who is altogether wise,
he knows exactly the trials and the troubles
that you and I are facing.
Now, they may not mirror the size and the complexity of her story,
but they are real nonetheless.
Perhaps it's loneliness and isolation.
Perhaps you find yourself in a city and full of crowds,
but you feel alone.
You're desperate for friendship.
Maybe your trouble is rejection or bullying.
Maybe you find yourself excluded because of faith.
Maybe persecuted online for your beliefs.
And it hurts.
Maybe it's in the workplace
or where you study or go to school.
Maybe you're struggling to keep up with the workload.
Maybe you're kind of breaking under the burdens of responsibilities.
Maybe it's uncertainty about the future.
Career prospects.
Maybe it's a very basic fear and anxiety.
When the guys from Solace come on Friday night in November,
they'll be asking the question,
is there any hope for the future?
Maybe that's a question we find ourselves asking.
Well, the God who sees us is the God who says to us,
come to me.
Cry out to me in faith.
Ask Jesus.
Help me.
God also is saying to us through this story
and through what we discover in the Bible,
he's saying to us,
see my heart.
Learn to trust in my character.
To fix our eyes by faith on Jesus
who is described as our sympathetic high priest.
Don't believe the lie
that God is too distant,
that God is too big,
that God is too busy for the likes of me and you.
Don't tell yourself,
my troubles don't really matter to God.
I shouldn't really bother God with this.
And certainly don't say,
I should be able to deal with this by myself.
God wants to supply grace at all times,
in all circumstances,
in all our weakness.
Rather,
see the compassion of Jesus in the gospels.
See the compassionate Savior on the cross
and know his heart in heaven is unchanged.
He still loves us.
He still,
as we thought about this morning,
pours out the Spirit on his people.
There is grace for us from Jesus.
Jesus.
But I think God is also saying
to us as his church,
it's something about Elisha.
And I think God says to his church
through this story,
you go be my hands and feet.
I've been tidying up my bookshelves recently
and I came across an old book that my auntie,
some of you might know my auntie,
Katie Ann McKinnon.
She wrote a book called Love Breaks Through.
It's a really lovely book.
It's a really lovely title.
She went to Kenya as a nurse
and set up lots of baby homes and orphanages.
And what a wonderful mission
for a follower of Jesus
to let God's love break through.
To let the light of God's love
break through and into the darkness
and despair that people face.
Just like Elisha,
confronted by human suffering,
to see and to feel
and to act for Jesus,
following the pattern of Jesus.
What that looks like
will look very different for us all.
We won't go and set up baby homes in Kenya
or to think about Adam.
You know, we might not have a ministry
to refugee camps and medical ministry.
We all have our own circles.
We have our own particular communities.
We have our own gifts and abilities.
But there are things in common
by way of responding.
I think one of them
is the need for us to slow down.
To try and build some margins.
Perhaps to go unplugged
so that we can see
the people who are in front of us.
And to see the people in front of us
as people made in God's image.
People who matter to God.
It will help us to help others
if we are regularly reflecting on
the compassion of God for us in the gospel.
That's what will stop us becoming weary
or cynical or just saying
the job is too much.
If we recognize that God stopped at nothing
to love us and to save us
and to bring us to himself.
As we've been thinking from the book of Acts,
we need to rely on the spirit
to both guide our steps,
to guide our conversations,
and to give us the power
and the wisdom that we need
to know how best we can help.
We need to ask
for an increasing desire
to give God glory
in our lives
in this way
by following the pattern
that he says.
Because in this story,
it's God through his prophet Elisha
who meets desperation
with his compassion.
Well, let's think secondly
about another reality
we see in the story,
and it's this,
that God meets our lack
with his overflowing grace.
There's a quote from J.C. Royal
that I really appreciate
to do with friendship.
A friend is someone
who halves our sorrows
and doubles our joys.
And just think about
an experience perhaps
you have had
of going through a hard time
and a friend comes to the door
and they sit
and they spend time with you.
Or they cook
or they provide a meal for you.
Or they send you a message
and they tell you
you're praying for you.
Or they stand by you
and for you.
When we've had that experience,
we understand
that friendship,
friendship,
and Christian friendship
is a wonderful gift
to receive,
which also makes it
a wonderful gift
to give.
But to come back
to our story,
the impression
that we are given
is that this woman
has no one.
She has no friend
to stand by her
until Elisha steps in.
And so we get
this beautiful truth
of here is God's prophet,
here is the one
who represents God
in the world
and God through Elisha
becomes a true friend
to the helpless.
Again,
illustrating what the Bible
teaches,
that God's strength
is made perfect
in human weakness.
The story reveals it
in a different way.
You know,
to read the Old Testament,
you discover
that God's people,
there were battles
that they won
that only God
could win for them.
Go to the Gospels,
there are healings
that people experience
that only Jesus
could give to them.
This woman finds
a help and a friend
that only God
could be and give.
She discovers
that God
is an incredibly
generous giver.
The God
who pours out
his spirit
on his people
like a monsoon rain
is the God
that David celebrates
in Psalm 23
of the overflowing cup
of goodness
and mercy.
Now we see
he's the God
of overflowing grace
as the oil
continues to flow.
So to just pick up
our story again,
Elisha asks the woman
in verse 2
about her resources
and he discovers
your servant
has nothing
except a small jar
of olive oil,
just a little jar
of oil.
A few weeks ago now
we were in
the life of Elijah
and Elijah
was sent
to a widow's
home
to be provided
for
in a time
of famine
by a woman
who has
just a little
olive oil
and just a little
bit of flour
and again
God miraculously
provided food
for her family
and for Elisha.
It's happening
again.
Notice in verse 3
and 4 that she's
called to
exercise faith.
This is a moment
that's going to be
public because she
has to go around
and ask all her
neighbors for
empty jars.
Why do you want
my jars?
Surely someone's
going to ask
well it's because
the prophet has
come and he said
I need to get
the jars and if
I get the jars
then my tiny little
jar is going to
fill them all.
God's going to
look after me.
She's exercising
faith in her
community
and as she
is invited
to go
and collect
and then to
pour and to
fill
she's invited
to take God
at his word.
Just like
Elijah's widow
just like
when Jesus
turned water
into wine
remember that
first miracle
where he reveals
his glory
the servants
are taking
these massive
jars of water
to the master
of ceremonies
taking Jesus
at his word
that by the time
it arrives
and by the time
it's drawn out
it's going to be
wine
and it is
and it's the
very best
of wine.
So we see in
verse 5 and 6
her obedience
she left him
and shut the door
behind her
and her sons
they brought
the jars to her
and she kept
pouring
when all the jars
were full
she said to her
son bring me
another one
but he replied
there's not a jar
left
then the oil
stopped
flowing.
And then we see
the outcome
and we see
the wonderful
overflowing
nature of
God's grace
so she goes
to tell
Elisha
and Elisha
said go
sell the oil
pay your debts
you and your
sons can live
on what is
left.
God doesn't
just give
her enough
to pay off
the debts
to stop
the slavery
God goes
above and
beyond.
Debts are
paid
and there's
plenty
left to
live on.
God's
miracle
shows the
women's
lack
being met
by a
generous
outpouring
of grace.
And this
absolutely
prepares us
for the
story of
the Lord
Jesus
and the
way
Jesus
operates.
So remember
Mark chapter
six
Jesus
asks
the
disciples
there's
this
great
big
hungry
crowd
he
asked
them
what
do
you
have
five
loaves
and we
have
two
fish
how will
that do
for
feeding
such a
great
crowd
God
then Jesus
prays
and one
loaf
becomes a
thousand
meals.
That's
generous
grace.
Or to
think about
another
story
to think
about the
time when
Jairus
an official
came to
meet Jesus
and fell
at his
feet
to tell
Jesus
that his
daughter
was
seriously
ill
and then
a message
comes
later
from the
servants at
home
don't bother
Jesus
anymore
because
your
daughter
has
died
and
Jesus
at that
point
says
don't
be
afraid
just
believe
and as
the story
progresses
behind
closed
doors
Jesus
calls her
back to
life
in another
example of
his
lavish
grace
and these
miracles
provide us
a little
window into
the story
of God's
salvation
here is a
woman with
a debt
that she
cannot pay
the Bible
tells us
every human
being has
a massive
debt
not financial
but moral
we are made
to honor
God
we are made
to obey
God
we are made
to love
God
and to love
our neighbor
and every
time that we
fail in those
duties
we are
amassing
debt
and to
examine our
hearts and
our conscience
and to hear
the testimony
of God's
word
they all
speak the
same
message
that by
nature we
are guilty
of rebellion
by nature
we turn
our backs
by nature
we don't
do those
things that
we are
called to
do
and even
when we
try our
best
we still
fall short
of God's
glory
and so
the Bible
uses a
picture
of
slavery
not that
slavery
is a
prospect
to come
but by
nature
we are
slaves
to sin
this is a
condition
a situation
we cannot
pay God
back from
we cannot
earn our
way out
of
and so
we find
ourselves
the Bible
tells us
heading for
ultimate
death
the spiritual
death of
being separate
from God
and his
goodness
and into
that
desperate
situation
God
steps in
Jesus
the eternal
son of
God
this
sinless
one
enters
into
this world
that he
created
this world
that had
turned
its back
on God
he becomes
one of
us
in order
to become
our
kinsman
redeemer
remember
that figure
from the
old
testament
the close
relative
who agrees
to pay
the debt
in full
to set
a person
free
and to
restore
them
to good
standing
Jesus
came
to do
that
for us
on the
cross
he came
to serve
us
to give
his life
as a ransom
for many
he has
cancelled
the debt
that would
condemn
us
when our
faith is
in Jesus
we're told
it's as if
our record
of debt
is nailed
to the
cross
of Christ
and it
is marked
paid
in
full
as a
free
gift
of
God's
grace
and not
only
that
not only
is our
debt
cancelled
the God
of overflowing
grace
goes above
and beyond
he invites
us into
his family
he invites
us into
a life
where we
have peace
with
God
where we
have
eternal
life
with
God
knowing
him
now
with
a
promise
of
knowing
him
and
enjoying
him
forever
and when
we understand
what the
Bible
tells us
about
ourselves
and about
our God
about the
problem of
sin
and the
reality
of salvation
then how
we can
have
this
becomes
the
question
for our
lives
and here
again we
return to
the woman
who gives
us the
answer
to see
our
distress
to see
our need
we are to
call out
to Jesus
for his
help
for his
salvation
and remember
he is the
one who
encourages
us to
ask
and to
seek
and to
knock
to come
to a
God
who is
generous
to
bank
everything
on
God's
kindness
and
compassion
to
place
our
hope
squarely
in the
truth
of who
God
is
as
revealed
in his
son
Jesus
he is a
God
of love
and
kindness
and
forgiveness
for people
like you
and me
and so
as the
story
shows us
God
meeting
our
lack
with his
overflowing
grace
it's a
story
that
invites
us
to
humble
faith
like the
hymn
writer
to say
nothing
in my
hands
I bring
simply
to your
cross
I
cling
this
woman
was wise
to know
her
resources
were not
up to
the task
of meeting
her
needs
your
human
resources
my human
resources
cannot
meet
our
basic
need
to be
right
with
God
but
Jesus
can
and so
we are
called
to go
to him
because
he is
able
and he
is
willing
the story
as we
hear it
as well
invites us
to heartfelt
worship
of our
God
as we
place
ourselves
within
this
story
to reflect
on
the desperate
trouble
that we
were in
because of
sin
to think
about the
incredible
the indescribable
gift
of love
that God
the Father
has sent
his own
son to
be our
savior
then that
causes our
hearts
to recognize
he is of
supreme
worth and
value
it leads
to joy
it opens
our mouth
to sing
his praise
it opens
our hearts
that we
would live
with grateful
obedience
and then
this story
too
invites us
to an
even greater
happy ending
than we
find in
this story
it's
wonderful
to see
the
transforming
work of
God
from the
threat of
slavery
from having
nothing
that now
her debts
are cancelled
her families
together
they have
enough to
live on
that's a
happy ending
that's a
work of
God
but the
story invites
us into
a still
greater
happy ending
so whenever
the Bible
tells stories
of miracles
those miracles
are redemptive
in their
nature
we see that
here
those sons
are not
sold as
slaves
but every
miracle provides
for us a
window
a window
into the
new creation
a window
into the
kingdom
of God
and in
the kingdom
of God
there is
and there
never will
be any
lack
there will
be no
suffering
there will
be no
separation
there will
be no
sin
there will
be no
death
it is a
place where
we will
live eternally
under the
waterfall of
God's love
and grace
and we
are invited
to live
in that
grace
today
understanding
that someday
we will
feast in a
new way
and that
will last
forever