Jeff Schreve - How Big Do You Believe?
Summary:
In this message from the «Believe and See» series, inspired by Jesus' words to Martha in John 11:40, the preacher encourages believers to develop great faith that expects God to do exceeding abundantly beyond what we ask or think, as in Ephesians 3:20. Drawing from the miracle of the widow’s oil in 2 Kings 4, he outlines four signs of big faith: coming to God with your problems, not dismissing the little you have, stepping out on God’s word with obedient action expecting abundance, and using what you have so God can multiply it. The core idea is that God’s provision is limitless, but often limited by our small expectations and lack of capacity for Him—challenging listeners to believe big and see God’s glory.
Believe and See: The Importance of Faith
In the Christian life, we often secretly wonder—as we hear from skeptics—“Well, I don’t know if I can believe that. Can you really believe that? Can you believe the things that you hear about and read about in the Bible?» Well, we’re in a series called «Believe and See, ” and Jesus said it’s based on John chapter 11, verse 40, where Jesus was at the tomb of Lazarus. He told Martha to remove the stone, and she didn’t want to. She said, „Lord, by now there’s a stench; he’s been in the tomb for four days.“ And Jesus said, „Did I not say to you, if you believe, you will see the glory of God?“
If you believe, you will see the glory of God. Believe and see! Believe enough to remove the stone, and you will see the glory of God. You will see God begin to work. Believing is so critical, and the Bible is filled with stories to help us believe. It says in John chapter 11 that Jesus purposely waited when he found out that Lazarus was sick. He waited until he died; he waited until he was four days in the tomb. Why? He says, „I waited so that you may believe.“ So many stories in the Bible are given to us so that we might believe, so that we can grow in our faith, so that our faith wouldn’t just be small but would be strong. It wouldn’t be weak; it would be strong.
One of my favorite scriptures in all of the Bible is Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20. It says, „Now to him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us, to him be the glory.“ Now you mark it down: God is not the God of barely enough; he is the God of more than enough. He not only wants us to believe Him, but he wants us to believe Him in a big way. He wants us to have great faith.
You know there were two people in the New Testament at whom Jesus marveled because of their faith; neither one of them were Jews. One was a Roman centurion, and the other was a Canaanite from the region of the Syrophoenician. Both of these had great faith. Jesus would say, „Woman, your faith is great, ” and of the centurion, Jesus said, „I haven’t found such great faith in all of Israel“ because they believed that the Lord could do great things.
Do you believe that the Lord can do great things in you, in your situation, in your life, in your marriage, in your family, or in your situation at school or your job? Sometimes we believe that God can do great things; we know that He did great things in the Old Testament. We know that Jesus did great things in the New Testament, and we’ve heard stories of Jesus doing great things in other people’s lives. But then we look at ourselves and say, „You know, he’s not doing much in me.“ Well, maybe it’s because you don’t believe Him for very much. Perhaps he would love to say to you, „Woman, your faith is great.“ Maybe he would love to marvel at you and say, „Wow, what great faith!“
You know, two blind men came to Jesus in Matthew chapter 9, and they came for healing. Jesus said to them, „Do you believe that I am able to do this, to restore your sight?“ They said, „Yes, Lord.“ And Jesus touched their eyes and said, „Be it done to you according to your faith.“ And they could see. „Be it done to you according to your faith”—not according to your fame, not according to your family, not according to your fortune, but according to your faith. They believed He was able to do something miraculous, and He did that. How big do you believe?
The Story of the Widow’s Oil in 2 Kings 4
We’re going to look at a story today in 2 Kings chapter 4 that is designed to help us believe big, to believe that God is able no matter the difficulty we’re in. 2 Kings chapter 4 says this: „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. The creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.’“ This is dire straits here, and Elijah said to her, „What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the 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, do not get a few. And you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full.“ So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, and they were bringing the vessels to her, and she poured. And it came about when the vessels were full that 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 he said, „Go, sell the oil and pay your debt, and you and your sons can live on the rest.“ This is such a great story that begs the question, „How big is your God?“ You know, we like to think, „How great is our God.“ Well, how great is your God? If people were to watch you and look at your faith, would they say, „Man, that person trusts in a huge God—a God who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think“? Or would they say, „Hmm, that person seems to worship a God who can’t do much, a God who seems pretty powerless“?
We don’t want to be people whom others look at and say, „Their God must not be very strong.“ God is not the God of barely enough; He is the God of more than enough. Behold, the Lord says, „I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too difficult for me?“ If God can speak the worlds into existence, God can do anything in your life and in my life.
Four Signs of Believing God Big
Now we want to look at this story and break it down to answer the question: How can you tell if you’re believing God in a big way? There are four signs that show that you are on the right track in growing in your faith, believing God in a big way, not in a small way but in a big way.
Sign 1: Come to Him with Your Problems
First, how do you know? How can you tell? It’s because you come to Him with your problems. You come to Him with your problems. Now, this woman in verse one had a big, big problem. As Professor Harold Hill would say, she had trouble with a capital „T“ in her life. Now here’s her situation: her husband had died. The scripture doesn’t say who her husband was, but Josephus, the Jewish historian and other rabbis, and tradition tell us who her husband was. Her husband was Obadiah. Obadiah is talked about in 1 Kings chapter 18. Obadiah was a person, as the scripture says, who greatly feared the Lord. He was involved with Ahab and Jezebel when that wicked team was running the country, and Jezebel was trying to destroy all the prophets of the Lord.
Obadiah got a hundred prophets of the Lord and put them in caves—one group of fifty in one cave and one group of fifty in another cave—to hide them from Jezebel. Then, out of his own pocket, he fed those hundred preachers; he provided meals for them. Well, if you’ve ever had a preacher over for lunch or dinner, you know that they can eat! I’m talking about Larry. But, yeah, you know, preachers can eat. When you get a hundred of them and you’re providing all the meals for an extended period of time, it will cost you a bunch of money. No wonder when he died he didn’t have anything. No wonder when he died he was in debt, and the creditor came to get the money that was owed. Well, his widow didn’t have the money—they didn’t have the money; and so, as it was in Israel, when you couldn’t pay your debts, then they would take your children. That would be the payment.
It’s almost like getting your car repossessed, but now you get your kids repossessed, and it would be like, „Okay, your kids are going to work for me. They’re going to be my slaves until the year of Jubilee, and then they’re set free.“ Well, the year of Jubilee could be a long time away. So here’s her situation: she lost her husband, so she’s heartsick, and then the creditor is coming, so she is very worried and nervous because she knows she doesn’t have any money. Then she hears he’s coming after my boys, and she doesn’t know what to do. So what she does do is the right thing: she goes to Elijah, the man of God, the representative of God on the earth, and she cries out to him; literally, she shrieks at him. She cries aloud, „Help me! I’m in dire straits!“ She came to the Lord with her problems, and she believed that the man of God could help her.
Now, when we come to the Lord, we need to know not only that God is able to help us—He is the God that can speak the world into existence; He can help us—but not only that He can help us, that He will help us. Great two verses in Psalm 118, verses 6 & 7—the scripture says this: „The Lord is for me; I will not fear. The Lord is for me among those who help me.“ You know the name of the Holy Spirit is the Helper; the Lord wants to help you. He wants to help me. And you know, when we struggle, when we go through problems, when we go through trials—maybe it’s of our own doing; maybe we fall down because we bow to temptation and we think, „God must hate me.“ No, He doesn’t hate you. He wants to help you because the Lord is for you, and He is among those who help you.
So, she came before the Lord and the Lord’s servant and cried out, saying, „Help me!“ Now, something that is a good scripture to memorize is 1 Peter chapter 5, verses 6 & 7, where the directive is straightforward: „Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety, all your worries, all your cares, all your burdens upon Him.“ Why? „Because He cares for you.“ Because He cares for you—literally, because it matters concerning you. God is a God who cares, and God is a God who is able. So you come before the Lord; that’s a sign that you’re trusting Him. You come before the Lord with your problems, your burdens, your heartaches, your heartbreaks.
Now, one thing to really watch for with this, when those things happen to you—and they happen to everybody—the heartbreak comes in. The difficulty comes in. When that happens, do not allow your heart to get bitter. It’s very easy to let your heart get bitter if you’re not careful. Now, this lady could have said, „What’s the deal, God? My husband Obadiah risked his life for you. He protected those hundred prophets. We gave all our money to feed those hungry preachers, and now we don’t have any? Now my kids are going to be sold into slavery. God, it doesn’t make sense to me. Why are you doing this to me? You must not be good.“ It’s very easy to go down that dark road of lies, and the devil will be like, „Yeah, that’s right. That’s right; God doesn’t love you. He doesn’t care about you. He’s not good. Look what’s happening to you.“
We tend—all of us have this problem—we tend to view God in a snapshot of what’s going on in life rather than stepping back and saying, „God must have something great that He’s doing here.“ Remember what we said last time about Lazarus? Lazarus is dead; that’s bad news. But not when you see it from God’s perspective. This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it. Her situation, although it seemed dire, is dire until you factor in God.
So the very first sign: you come to Him with your problems.
Sign 2: Do Not Dismiss What You Have
Second sign that you’re trusting God in a big way: you do not dismiss what you have. You don’t dismiss; you don’t discount what you have. Now, in verse two, Elijah said to her, „What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?“ And she said, „Your maidservant has nothing, nothing in the house.“ Ah, well, almost nothing—nothing except this jar of oil, probably her husband Obadiah’s anointing oil that he used in his ministry. „I don’t have anything.“ Maybe she sold everything that was ever in the house; she sold all the furniture trying to come up with „I have nothing“ except this jar of oil.
Now, don’t discount the little that you have. A lot of us, you know, we tend to—as we’re looking at our life, especially when we’re in difficulty, maybe financial difficulty, it’s very easy in financial difficulty to look at how little you have compared to how much you owe. You say, „I don’t have anything.“ But that’s not true; that’s not true! She had something; she had a little jar of oil. That something is something God wants to use! As the song says, „Little becomes much when you place it in the Master’s hand.“ Almost all the time in scripture you’ll find that God uses the little to do great and awesome things.
The Lord doesn’t—as it says in the book of Samuel—the Lord doesn’t need a mighty army to deliver His people. He can do it with just a few. Remember in the days of Gideon he was going up against a hundred and thirty-five thousand of the enemy, and he only had thirty-two thousand, and God says, „You’ve got too many.“ „God, no, I don’t have too many; I have less than I had.“ He sent them down to three hundred. „It’s like I’ll hardly have any soldiers left, God.“ „Yeah, you’ve got the right amount because now I get all the glory.“
So all she had was a little jar of oil. And maybe all you have is something that you think is very, very small compared to your need. God loves to use little things to do a great miracle. You remember in the Gospel accounts, the only miracle that’s recorded in all four Gospels is the feeding of the multitude. We call it the feeding of the five thousand, but it was way more than five thousand because it was the feeding of five thousand men, plus women, plus children—probably closer to the feeding of twenty thousand plus that were there that day.
In John’s account, Jesus said to the disciples, „Where can we go buy food for these folks to eat?“ Philip said, „Two hundred denarii—two hundred day’s wages—can’t even make a dent; that’s not enough to buy bread for just to give everybody a little bit.“ Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said, „Lord, I found this kid—he has a sack lunch. He’s got five barley loaves“ (don’t think of a loaf of bread; think of a cracker) „and two sardines.“ But what are these among so many people? „It’s just so small.“ And the Lord used that kid’s lunch; He used the little thing to multiply it and feed twenty thousand-plus people. God loves that—to take our little and turn it into lots.
So don’t dismiss what you have. Don’t be like the guy in the New Testament when the Lord says that he gave one guy five talents, one guy two talents, and one guy one talent. Maybe you’re here and you say, „Yeah, I’m the guy that got the raw end of the stick; I only got one talent.“ Well, if you have one talent, don’t do what the guy did in the Bible and bury it in the ground. Use it! Use what God has given you. Don’t dismiss it just because it’s small.
How can you tell if you’re believing God in a big way? You come to Him with your problems; you do not dismiss what you have.
Sign 3: Step Out on the Bare Word of God
Sign number three: you step out on the bare word of God. Then, in verse three, Elijah said, „Go borrow vessels at large for yourself from all your neighbors; even empty vessels do not get a few. And you shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full.“ Now it’s important to note that from the scripture—as you read it closely—between verse three and verse four, there’s a break. He didn’t say verse three and four together; he said, „Go and get vessels.“ And when she came back with the vessels, then he told her what to do with the vessels because it says in verse five, „So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons. They were bringing the vessels to her, and she poured.“
She already had the vessels when he spoke! So here’s verse three: she’s coming for help, and instead of giving her a check, he gives her an assignment: „Here’s what you need to do, sweet lady. You need to go to all your neighbors and borrow jars, borrow vessels.“ Well, that doesn’t make much sense. „So I come on, Elisha—how’s that gonna help me? I just have a little bit of oil; I don’t have much. Borrowing jars isn’t going to cut the mustard.“ But that’s God’s way. He always tells us to do stuff that we think doesn’t make sense.
When Jesus did the very first miracle that he ever did in Cana of Galilee when they ran out of wine, he told the servants, „Fill the waterpots with water.“ „Why? That’s dumb! Why would I do that? That doesn’t help me at all; that doesn’t move the ball down the field at all—to fill the waterpots with water.“ They couldn’t figure out what he was doing, but they did it, and then the miracle happened; he turned the water into wine.
Well, in this situation, we know from reading the whole story that she doesn’t know the end of the story; all she knows is the man of God told her to go and borrow vessels. „Okay, I’ll do that.“ And she went out, and she stepped out on the bare word of the Lord.
You mark it down: real faith believes with action. Real faith believes with action. You can’t have real faith without action. „Remove the stone; if you believe, you’ll see the glory of God.“ Well, how do I show that I believe? I removed the stone. James said, „Faith without works is dead, being by itself.“ If you don’t have works, if you don’t respond with some kind of action, then you don’t really have faith. Peter used to say that what we really believe we practice; what we really believe we do, and all the rest is just religious talk. If you don’t do it, you don’t really believe it. The things that you do are the things that you believe.
What we really believe we practice, and all the rest is just religious talk: „Go and borrow vessels.“ Real faith believes with action, and real faith believes for abundance. „Do not get a few; do not get a few.“ Well, how many is that? I don’t know; not a few. I mean a couple is two; we could say a few would be three or four. Don’t get three or four; get a lot! Get a lot! Now she didn’t know what he was going to do. It’s just like, „Go get vessels.“ „All right. Okay, I guess I’ll go get vessels. I don’t know; is this just a hoop that I’m jumping through? I don’t understand it. Go get vessels.“
He told her, „Go to all your neighbors. Do not get a few.“ Real faith, big faith believes in a big God, believes that God is a God who does exceeding abundantly beyond all we ask or think. So when you have faith like that, you don’t get a few jars; you get tons of jars. You go get jar after jar after jar after jar because you say, „He told me not to get a few, so I’m gonna get a bunch! I had a jar; I had a wheelbarrow full of jars, but I had to borrow that too! I’m gonna get a lot!“
Now, don’t you know—because we know the rest of the story—she was pouring the oil, and the jars were filling up, and the oil never ran out until she filled up the last jar. Don’t you know she would have thought to herself, „If I had only gotten more jars! If I had only gotten more jars, then I could have had more oil!“ But I only got a certain amount. See, I think that some of us in our faith are leaving jars out in the neighborhood because we’re not believing God for enough. We’re not believing him for big things. But we’re asking God for Spam, and He wants to give us steak! We’re just „Lord, just throw me a bone here or there, ” and God’s like, „I don’t want to throw you a bone; I want to bless your life! I’ll load you down with blessings because that’s the kind of God I am!“ Tom says, „You’re coming to a king; large petitions bring!“ For His grace and power such no one can ever ask too much.
A story is told of a man who loved the Lord, and he died. He was just like most people today—I mean, he loved God; he walked with God, but his faith was not great faith. So he meets the Lord in heaven, and there’s a tremendous embrace. Then the Lord Jesus begins to show him around heaven, and he’s seeing all the glories of heaven. Then the Lord takes him to a room in heaven, and the man sees in this room wonderful blessings—they were like gifts of blessings, wrapped gifts of blessings, and his name was on the tag.
He said to the Lord, „Lord, I see my name here, but I don’t ever remember getting this gift or this gift or this gift or this gift.“ He said, „Lord, what is this room?“ And the Lord said, „This room is the room of unclaimed blessings. These are all the things I wanted to do in your life, but you never asked me for it. You never believed me for it. This is my steak room, and all you ever asked me for was Spam!“ I wanted to give you so much more because I’m the God who does exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works within us.
Are you leaving jars out in the neighborhood because you’re not believing God for big things? Some of you are not believing for abundance, and you need to because God wants to do great and mighty things with you.
Sign 4: Use What You Have
And I don’t know. How do you know that you’re believing in a big way? You come to Him with your problems; you do not discount what you have; you step out on the bare word of God; and you use what you have.
So she gets the jars: „Do not get a few.“ That’s all she knew to do. „Go borrow; don’t get a few empty vessels.“ So she does, and she comes before Elijah, and then he tells her in verse 4, „You shall go in and shut the door behind you and your sons and pour out into all these vessels, and you shall set aside what is full.“ So, verse 5: „She went from him, and she shut the door behind her and her sons. Then they were bringing the vessels to her, and she poured.“ And as she poured, you know what happened? The oil never ran out of her jar!
I don’t know how much she had in the jar; maybe she had that much in a jar, and she’s pouring it, and she still has that much, and she’s pouring. She still has that much; she’s pouring—and it’s just not running out! The Lord turned her little jar of oil into a fountain of oil, and it filled vessel after vessel after vessel.
Now what’s the lesson in that? You use what you have. See, God begins to give after you and I begin to give. When you and I begin to give, when you and I begin to pour out, then God begins to show up and show out. You want God to show up and show out? Then you need to step up and step out. You need to start pouring; you need to start using what the Lord has given you.
You say, „Well, I don’t have much; I just have one talent.“ Then take the one talent and use it! The guy with two talents was way less than the guy with five talents, but the guy with two talents went out and traded with his two talents, and when his master came, he said, „Look, master! You entrusted two talents to me; I made two talents more.“
The guy that had five talents made five talents more; he had ten total. The guy with two just had four total. But the Lord blessed them and rewarded them the same. „Well done, you good and faithful slave! You were faithful in a few things; I’ll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master because this is what I entrusted to you, and you used it.“
God doesn’t give to us until we first give to Him—until we start to pour it out. The scripture says in Luke chapter 6, verse 38, „Jesus said this: ‘Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over; they will pour into your lap.’“
God is waiting for us to give. To give what? To give your time, to give your talent, to give your treasure. You know, that’s one of the things when we get in a bind financially—well, that’s one of the things we just lock down on! We start going through, „So where can I cut?“ Well, I can right off the top; I’m not going to give to the Lord.
That’s the absolute worst thing that you can do. I’m not going to give to the only one who can bless me! I’m going to start robbing God. That’s one way to get some more money—rob God? Bad plan! Really bad! Really short-sighted plan to think that’s going to help you. You know, giving to the Lord is not God’s program to impoverish you; it’s God’s program to bless you. It’s God’s program to enrich you in many ways—more so than just financially; it’s God’s way to grow your faith because you say, „Lord, I give to you first!“
And when tough times come and it gets hard, you keep giving to God. You, as we think today, pour out your praise, pour out your gifts, pour out your praise. „I’m not going to get bitter, Lord; I’m going to keep praising you. Lord, I’m going to keep giving to you!“
Lord, of my time, of my talent, and of my treasure—because when you start pouring, God starts multiplying. And when you’re just sitting there doing nothing, waiting for God to show up and show out, the Lord is saying, „I’m waiting for you. I’m waiting for you to start pouring!“
You know, because the oil didn’t magically—she gathered all the jars; it didn’t magically just show up in the jars; it only came into the jars as she poured it out! So God begins to give when you and I begin to give, and then, so cool: God’s provision is limited only by our capacity.
Verse six: „And it came about when the vessels were full that she said to her son, ‘Bring me another vessel.’“ And he said to her, „There is not one vessel more, ” and the oil stopped.
The oil is God’s provision for her, and the oil was flowing as long as she had room—as long as there was another jar, as long as there was another vessel. And the oil only stopped when she ran out of vessels.
Listen, you have the oil; it’s a symbol and a picture of the Holy Spirit. You have, and I have, as much of God as we have room for! Many of us want to have more of God. How do you get more of God? John the Baptist said you do it this way: He must increase, and I must decrease.
The way you get more of God is to empty your heart of self. Many of us are like the innkeeper in the Gospel of Luke: No room, no room! We don’t have empty vessels. We don’t have much room for the Lord because it’s filled up with other stuff; it’s filled up with self, and it’s filled up with stuff, and it’s filled up with the love of money and the love of pleasure and the love of this and the love of that and lesser loves, and we have all that in our heart, and the Lord says, „You know what? There’s no room for me here.“ And so, the oil stops.
You want to see God do great things in your life, as I want to see God do great things in my life? One of the things to pray is „God, give me more capacity! Give me more room, Lord! Dig out, ” as the scripture says, „dig out my heart.“ It says in Psalm 119, „I will run the way of thy commandments, for you will enlarge my heart.“ Now I’m going to have more capacity in my heart to love God and to know God and to serve God and to experience God.
I told you once before a very well-known Christian leader had talked about driving in his car, and his car had a breakdown on the side of the road. He was praising God even in the breakdown, and in the midst of his prayer, he said this, „God, would you stop blessing me? Because I feel like my heart is gonna burst!“ He was so full of God! Because he had so much room for God!
God’s provision is limited only by our capacity. If you want to have more of God in your life, you need to make room for the Lord in your life, and you need to throw out things that are taking so much of your time. You know, Facebook can be a good thing, and Twitter and all those things—they can be good things, or they can be addictive things that suck up all your time, and there’s no time…I think it was John Piper that said that God allowed us to have Facebook to show that we really did have time to pray. It’s an indictment on us! „Lord, I don’t have any time to serve you.“
Well, you sure have a lot of time to spend on Facebook! The things that we love, that’s what we spend time with. And the problem for you and the problem for me is we start to love things that aren’t worth it. He’s worth it! He’s worthwhile!
This story—what a great miracle! And God provided for her needs. No, it’s not like she sold the oil and then moved to Beverly Hills, like Jed Clampett. She didn’t do that. She had enough to where she could pay the creditor, and she and her sons would live on that. And God gave her abundantly, and God gave to her miraculously.
This story is in the Bible for what purpose? So that you and I would have great faith in a great God who can do anything in your life and in my life. The little girl in the story about the tooth fairy: „Mommy, can you believe this? Do we believe in a big way?“
Is your faith reflective of the fact that you serve a great, big God who can do anything in your life?