Steven Furtick - Enough Until It Comes
First Kings, chapter 17, verse 7. "Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land. Then the word of the LORD came to him [Elijah the prophet]: 'Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.' So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, 'Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?' As she was going to get it, he called, 'And bring me, please, a piece of bread.' 'As surely as the LORD your God lives,' she replied…" This is an indication of the magnitude of the miracle; that it's not even her god that the prophet represents. She is going to have to make a choice to obey. "'As surely as the LORD your God lives,' she replied 'I don't have any bread—only a handful of flour in a jar and a little olive oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it—and die.'"
How many of you, if you're the prophet, you're sorry you asked at this point because you didn't really ask all of that? "Elijah said to her, 'Don't be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small loaf of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: "The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD sends rain on the land".' She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the LORD spoken by Elijah". Okay, the Lord told me to tell you this for our message today. Look at your neighbor and say, "God promised to give you enough until it comes".
This is the Mother's Day message: Enough Until It Comes. Are you waiting on something from God? He told me to tell you prophetically (not pathetically) that he promised to give you enough until it comes. All right. Y'all take your premium seat, and let's talk about this text, this story, for a moment. Because I'm surely not going to give a parenting sermon on Mother's Day, but I might just preach a few practical things from this passage about a prophet, a problem, and a mom. So, you be the mom, and I'll be the prophet, and we want to talk about what God said: Enough Until It Comes. I'm biased, but I think Holly Furtick would beat all of y'all in a "momming" competition. Not that there is such a competition. We do give her a hard time, because every family that can't make fun of itself is dysfunctional.
So if you ever see a family and nobody picks on anybody, that is a sad family. Trust me, I have to regulate and referee in our house. "That's enough. That's three times with Abbey, one time with Graham, and five times with Holly. Y'all leave your mom alone". But there's one thing we all pick on her about. It happened right here on this very stage. I want to say it was on Mother's Day. I'm not sure. It'll make the story better if it was, so let's say it was Mother's Day. She was up here preaching, and after her sermon… I'm going to tell you why she did it, and then I'm going to tell you what she did. After her sermon she said, "I want to go into Way Maker". Do y'all know the song Way Maker?
Now, let me tell you something. I have written many songs to bless our church. Way Maker is not one of them. I wish I wrote Way Maker. That's a great song, but I didn't write that song. We didn't write that song. She stands in my pulpit, closes her message where she was speaking about Jesus is the way, and I know the way, so I know how she got there, I know why she got there, but what she said was devastating. She ripped out this songwriter pastor's heart. She said, "You know, there are a lot of great songs out there…Graves Into Gardens, The Blessing, Rattle!…" The songs we wrote. "…but my favorite is Way Maker". We will never let her live it down. And what better way to earn points with your wife after a two-week tour than to pick on her on Mother's Day in your opening sermon illustration. Right? We always do it. Every time. We'll say, "Mom, do you want to sing your favorite song? 'Way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper"? We love her so much. "We love you so much. You're amazing. You're our way maker. You're our miracle worker".
Okay, okay. Giving it up. Since this is you're favorite song, if I could have written it I would have added one thing to it. I want you to think about this really quickly. Not just the moms. Don't log off because I said Mother's Day. That's not code word for saying this sermon isn't for you. This word is for you. But if we're going to call that a way maker, miracle worker, promise keeper, light in the darkness, I also want to talk about how he's a need meeter. Right? How good are you at letting God meet your needs? And, what do you tend to run to instead of God in times you need relief or resource? And, is it possible that those things you run to are the things that you have replaced God with in your life? I'll just look right here at my pulpit and not look at y'all, because you do not like this sermon so far. It's going to get good in a minute, but first we have to talk about the context of confrontation in 1 Kings 17 with a prophet, a mom, and a problem.
Now, the whole nation has a problem called famine. Drought, which causes famine, has now become so severe that they have the king's men out searching for grass. It's really his fault because he brought this woman named Jezebel. I don't think there are many preachers in America bold enough to preach on Jezebel on Mother's Day except yours truly. She is…catch this…a Phoenician princess. But they worshipped different gods than Yahweh. So when Ahab decided to bring this Phoenician princess into the ecosystem and the religious system of Israel it caused all kinds of compromise. Maybe not all at first, but gradually it began to corrupt everything about the way God's people worshipped the God who had called them and named them. Eventually, Ahab got so bold about it that he set up a center for Baal worship. That was the name of one of their gods that controlled the rain and fertility, so they thought. They thought that all the way up until Yahweh, the God who is the real God, said, "Okay, if Baal is so big and bad, tell him to make it rain. Oh, he can't? That's right. Because I am God. I am the source. I am the one. I have the word that sustains life, starts life, and ends life".
That's kind of the context of 1 Kings 17. I point that out to you because both of the people in this passage of Scripture that I read to you are dealing with a problem that's not completely their fault. The prophet Elijah has prophesied there will be no rain nor dew except at my word over the space of the next few years. He said that to Ahab, and then he went into hiding. This woman… She's not even an Israelite. She's hanging out in Sidon, which happens to be Jezebel's home town. She's the one who is going to try to kill Elijah in a few chapters after he goes up on Mount Carmel and says, "Hey, Baal. Are you busy? Are you using the bathroom? Send some rain since you're really god". You have to understand. This was a tremendously cruel and tormenting system the people were living under, trying to appease Baal, who wasn't a god at all. Depending on a god who can't save. Depending on a god who is not a god will leave you dry.
I want you to hear something from me today. I'm not a prophet, but just as a preacher prophesying God's Word… Everything you depend on that does not come from God will eventually dry up. I'll take it further. Everything that is not God, even if it's good, will eventually dry up. Even people who like you will get tired of you if you start needing them to meet needs that God is designed to meet. Some of the people who you are angry with… They are good people, but they are not God. When you try to make a good relationship a God in your life it becomes an idol. The passage in 1 Kings 17 is about idolatry. It's about what happens when you decide to run to the resource and neglect the source. I'm going to break this down so everybody in the room can confront it.
When I fill every spare moment of my life with social media, how can God speak to me? If I run to that, if that becomes my first resource and recourse any time I want to escape my mind then how can the peace of God guard my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus? You could say that about sex. You could say that about a pill. You could say that about a donut. I could go all day long. How long do you have? I mean, I have a big list of stuff that I've tried to run through, run to, that wasn't God, and… I said that accidentally, but it was kind of good. If you run to something that's not God, you will run through it eventually. It will not sustain you, it will not last forever, and it can only give you so much. Now there's been no rain in the land. Why? Because the people needed to repent and come back to God. Maybe you do too. Maybe you need to say, "You know, God, I'm experiencing a dryness in my life right now that indicates the fact that I have been replacing you with something that is not you".
See, I think dryness is often a gift God uses to direct us. God directs by dryness to show you, "Something is wrong here. This isn't working here. Wow… I keep putting more effort, more effort, and more effort, but I'm not getting more results. I'm not getting more joy. I'm not getting more peace. I keep doing more, and I keep feeling less". That is a sign that God is redirecting you. To the text… First Kings, chapter 17, says Elijah is hanging out by a brook because there had been no rain in the land. You don't know what restraint I am using not to preach about the fact that he is suffering from the problem his prophecy caused. Did you catch it? He said, "There's going to be no rain". So God says, "Since I made you say there's going to be no rain, and since nothing can grow where there is no rain, I'm going to show you where to run where you can receive even though there's no rain". It works for a while. Eventually, the Bible says the late autumn rains and the early winter rains that were meant to replenish the land didn't come.
Now, we know by nature that the brook didn't dry up all at once. I mean, you don't go from a brook that's filled with water to a brook that has no water just like that. So every day Elijah went… This is a pretty good setup he has. Let me tell you what God did. God's like, "I'm going to give you water from the brook even though there's no rain in the land because you spoke a word to bring the people to a place, back to worshipping me. I'm going to bring you to a brook, and I'm going to let you drink from the brook, but you need to eat too, so I'm going to send birds". And not just any birds… Y'all ready? Dirty birds. "I'm going to send some ravens".
These are unclean birds. For a Jewish boy to eat from a dirty bird, that's a bad system already. But God would meet Elijah's needs daily through the mouth of a bird he considered unclean. He would meet his needs daily at the brook called Cherith. The Hebrew, the Kerith Ravine, gives the impression that he's by this brook, and every day he wakes up and there's something for him to drink. How many of you would say that in your life there were seasons where God provided new mercies every day in your life? Let me be more specific. You didn't know how he kept you going. You didn't know how. It didn't add up. It doesn't even make sense, but you had something to drink. It doesn't even make sense, but you had something to eat. It doesn't even make sense, but you got up and went to your job. And your job sucks. (Sorry Mom.) You didn't want to be there. You didn't ask to be there. But I have watched in my own life times where something that was sustaining me in one season started to go away in the next season. It goes away slowly.
The Lord is going to minister to somebody today whose brook is drying up. The thing that used to bring you joy or comfort… It's no longer bringing it to you anymore. Your brook is drying up. You're thinking, "Maybe I did something bad. Maybe I did something wrong". No. Elijah did exactly what God told him to, and his brook still dried up. There is no indication that God gave him an incremental warning. "In 14 days this brook will be dry". He watched the water level go down, down, down and waited for a word from God to tell him what to do about it. When it says in the Bible the word of the Lord came, in verse 8, it says nothing of the space before the word of God came where Elijah had to sit there and watch the water level go down while his thirst increased and his hunger was not abated but his resource was not replenished.
The Bible says that as it went down, Elijah, waiting for the word of God to come, has to wait in a place where he doesn't know he's going next. I'm preaching to somebody today who is waiting for God to give you your next step. Who is it? And you don't know what it is yet. You need God to show you your next step. Who is it? You need God to show you a next step in your life, because, "God, I can't stay where I am, like I am, where it is. This isn't going to work. I have to move on, but I don't know where".
Now you feel like Abraham, to whom God said, "Go to the place I'll show you". What kind of weird life coaching is this? "Go where I'll show you". It makes me think of Psalm 119, verse 105. Verse 105. That's how long Psalm 119 is. You get all the way to verse 105, and the psalmist says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path". But I don't really like the fact that God's Word is compared to a lamp to my feet, because what I really want is a floodlight, where I can see all the way to my future…10 years from now. Especially as a parent. "God, show me exactly where my kids need to go to college so I can know how much I need to save and when I need to put it there," and my kid is 3. But God is not going to give me the name of the college when my kid is 3 when I have barely gotten them walking. But in our walk with God, a lot of times we won't take a step toward a destination we don't know until God gives us all the details. That's not faith. He had to wait for the next word from God, and until it came God kept him sustained in a place that was enough.
It wasn't fancy, but it was enough. It wasn't bougie, but the birds got the job done. It wasn't 5 star, but his belly stayed full. God is sustaining some of us in a place in this season of our life where it's enough, but we don't know what's next. The problem isn't that God isn't faithful to us in this moment; the problem with us is we haven't read Matthew 6:34. Jesus has a word for everybody who is trying to project out into the future a promise that God will not give you until you get there. If I came to preach this message just to Holly and me it will have been worth me putting on this itchy Levi's jacket that Josiah gave me, because Jesus said, "Here's your problem". Look at Matthew 6:34. Y'all got it? "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself". Then I love this part. "Each day has enough trouble of its own".
So wait for the day to bring the trouble. Don't borrow trouble from tomorrow that you may never have to face anyway, because God might do something about it overnight. Yeah! It's Mother's Day, but I've got a word from God. I realized that a lot of us are not really losing the battle that we're fighting in the moment; we're losing the battle we're imagining is going to happen out there. Sufficient is the day for its own trouble, and sufficient is today's strength for today's struggles, but today's strength is not sufficient for tomorrow's struggles. God will not give you the entire plan. It's kind of like GPS. He told Elijah turn by turn. "Go east of the Jordan. There I have directed these birds".
Now, he can't leave Elijah there forever, because if he leaves Elijah in one spot long enough where he provides for him Elijah will begin to worship the spot and think the spot is God. Have you confused the spot where God blessed you with the God who blessed you there? You worship the situation, or even worship the person. Y'all, I say this about once a year to make sure you know it. If I don't show up to preach next week… You know, my head gets cut off or something like that. I don't know what might happen to me. I might be riding a bike and might run under something and cut my head off and I can't come preach. If that happens, y'all still need to get to church because God will put up here the person you need. It's not me. I'm just a dirty bird. I'm just dropping off the stuff God wants you to have.
I have a lot more birds. I want to be the best bird I can be. I'm trying to stay clean, stay holy, stay studied, and all that, but God will not leave you with a need he will not meet. He just might meet it differently in different seasons. And that's intentional. Because if Elijah had stayed at the brook for the whole three years during the famine he probably would have been temped to start worshiping the birds. How can he confront Baal worship if he thinks the birds bringing him the food are God. So the brook dried up. God uses the dryness in our lives…the dry places and the dry seasons…to lead us to our next assignment. Does that make a little bit more sense of why you've been feeling like you've been feeling? What is God using in your life to move you?
Now, remember. He doesn't move him to somewhere more comfortable. He calls him to somewhere even crazier. It's one thing to get water in the wilderness; it's another thing to be sent to get it from a widow in enemy territory. So God will send you to places to provide for you that you may not prefer. I can't buy an "Amen, Holly". Do you want to take over? I know it's good. The Lord told me it was good. He told me to preach this word to you today because he wants to show you the dryness in your life is not a sign he has left you; it is a sign he is moving you. I don't mean physically. I mean moving you to new patterns. Moving you to a new way of doing things. Moving you…if we want to make it a Mother's Day sermon…to a new way of parenting your kids. I think the greatest skill to learn in life is the difference between what you can control and what you can't control.
Now, in the story both the prophet Elijah and the mom whom he's going to meet… He doesn't know he's going to meet her yet. He's about to find out, and you're about to find out why God is working in your life. But he will not tell you that until it's time for you to know. Say this out loud. "I know enough for now. When I need to know more, God will show me more. Sometimes, when I'm waiting for the next word to come from God I am still stuck in the last 30 words he spoke to me that I haven't done a thing about". You have enough Bible verses in your phone right now to beat the Devil's behind back to Timbuktu every time…or wherever he comes from. You can beat him back to the sixth level of hell with the Scripture you have. "Well, I need a word from God today".
Okay, I know what you mean by that, but did you walk in the last word from God you heard? Because a lot of times I don't. The Lord already told me some stuff to do. I just don't like that stuff. I'm addicted to the feeling of the next thing he tells me to do because the next is sexier, and the last thing he told me to do, I don't like it very much. One thing he told me to do in the Bible… This is a Bible verse. This is not a personal word. This is a universal word in the Holy Scriptures of almighty God. Yahweh, maker of heaven and earth. He said, "Do everything without complaining and grumbling". I'm still working on that word. Do you hear me? In the meantime… A lot of times we use it as an excuse. "Well, I don't know how. I don't know where. I don't know what. God, if you show me… God, if you tell me…" God is like, "No, no, no, no. You know enough right now".
If you needed to know more he would show you. You know enough exercises to be in good shape. You've heard of push-ups. You've heard of sit-ups. You've heard of dumbbells. You know to put this down and pick this up and do that over and over again. You know enough. It was enough. He was by the brook. He wasn't stressed. He wasn't confused. If he was, the Bible doesn't say. He just waited until the next word, knowing, "If God fed me here, if God replenished me here, if God sustained me here, if he took me in this wilderness, if the birds brought my food, whatever is next will have what I need, and I don't even need to know what it is". So the Lord was preparing you in Canada while my last music director was leaving. I'm not mad at him. God had you in Canada. He was practicing in Canada to my sermons, and we had never met. We had never interviewed him, and LJ would play organ to my sermons to practice before I ever knew that on the eighth day God made LJ.
Now, let me bring this down really specifically for you. That means I know we all want to know…especially if we're talking about with our kids…every struggle they're going to face, and we all secretly fear we're screwing them up, because we don't know what we're doing. I am bluffing you every day. I am tour-guiding you through a terrain I barely survived as a teenager. And I love God, because he's so good. O Lord, help me help them see that they know enough. And when they need more wisdom, God will send more wisdom. When it comes to the point… When Harold Staley used to teach me guitar, and then he finally said, "You need another teacher. I have taught you everything I know," so he moved me to another teacher. I'm glad he did that, because it gave me an illustration for how I can trust God that when it's time for a new stream or a new teacher he will use something to move me along.
Now, can we do a quick parenting conference? God knows what's next. He doesn't want you to, because if you did you'd screw it up trying to be him. You would make an idol out of your idea of what you're kid's life needs to be, and you would end up depending on Baal to send rain instead of waiting on God to send his. So…a confession. God is going to send everybody my kids need into their lives. And, while you're at it Lord, keep all those other ones out. I don't care what you have to do… Relocate their parents at another job in Kansas City, whatever Lord. Because you know what they need, and I don't. That's my favorite prayer to pray before I preach. I've tried a bunch of them, okay? But this one seems to work best. "Lord, they need something I don't have and you do. Give it to them through me".
And then the Lord speaks to me. It said the word of the Lord came to Elijah, and then it came through Elijah. Because, really, the brook's drying up had nothing to do with the prophet, did it? It had everything to do with this mom. Talk about vague… God said, "I'm going to send you to a widow in a region. Go to Sidon…" Now, Zarephath is seven miles south of Sidon, so he actually has to go even past. He has to go way out there. The Lord is like, "I'm going to send you to a widow". Let me tell you something. A zip code is not an address, so when the Lord says to go to Sidon, I'm going to be like, "All right. Can you be a little more specific? Can I get the street number"? I know you might have forgotten it; I read it a few minutes ago. The Scripture says that when he got to the gate there was a woman there who was gathering sticks…two twigs, the original language says. So she has two twigs, and she has a son.
I noticed this, as Elijah's brook was drying up, this woman's son was dying. So God, the need-meeter, knows that his prophet needs a meal and this mother needs a miracle. God is this sovereign that he will take a need and put a need next to a need, and he will get in the middle of those needs and create a space for himself that is called grace. He will supply all of your needs according to his riches in glory. I might stay at 11:30 and preach this again. God is that good at his job. God is good at his job. In some of our lives, God wants his job back. We have been trying to do God's job. We have been trying to make it happen in our own strength. We have been trying to manipulate it in our own strength, and that's why we're stressed. Any strategy that does not start with God as the source will dry up, and now your strength is dried up.
Now your friends aren't calling you back. Now nobody wants to talk to you. Now you have no energy. Now you have no ideas because you're too tired to think. You're filling all the empty spaces with everything but God. He redirects this prophet to a mom so that the mom can feed the prophet. Or is it so the prophet can feed the mom? I can't figure out who God is trying to meet the need of today. Is it you? Did God give me this word…? Because he gave Elijah her word. But unless his brook dried up she couldn't get her word. Everything you go through isn't just about you. His brook was drying, and her son was dying. God said, "I've got to get you there". She's not even a follower of Yahweh. She says, "…the LORD your God…" "You've got this God telling you to ask me for bread? I don't have it". Come on, be real. Have there been some moments in your life this week where you said, "I don't have it"? I certainly don't have it to give to you. Maybe you said that this week. "I don't have it". Maybe you were lying and you just didn't want to give it. "I don't have it".
I know somebody here this week has said that this week about patience. "I do not have a single nerve left for you to get on. I would gladly invite you to get on my last nerve, but my last nerve was gotten on three weeks ago. So if you come on this nerve you need to know it's already gone, so whatever happens when you try get on this nerve, you just need to be forewarned I don't have it. I'm out"! "In fact, you caught me making the final arrangements because I have just enough left". Of all the widows… Jesus mentions this woman in Luke 4 right beside Naaman. He says there were many widows in the time of Elijah the prophet, but he was sent to one and he said, "Give me some water," and she said, "Fine…" as it was customary, but when he asked her for bread, she'd had enough, and she told him how it really was. "I don't have it". In fact, translated like this, it would be like her saying, "I swear to God I don't have it".
That's what she said. "By the LORD your God, as he lives, I don't have it". "I'm not lying to you; I don't have it". The Lord said, "You're going to be preaching today to some people who are weak and weary. They don't have their own water, and they're trying to give water to others". Look at me preaching a Mother's Day message after all. Trying to organize somebody else's life when you wish somebody would come and help organize yours. Telling them to clean up their room when you've got a few spots you would like to get to also. But now you've got to teach them responsibility. You guys, you deal with your own resistance. This is the scene in Zarephath, Jezebel's hometown, the one he would ultimately confront. The Lord said, "I'm going to send you to this place with your need so you can meet a need so I can meet your need". That's parenting. God uses what your kids need that you don't have to show you what he's giving you that you don't recognize yet.
All right. Are y'all ready for this? This is what I got up to tell y'all. Honestly, y'all need to bring a little more energy for me to give you this point. I've been in these arenas all week, and they were excited to be there. That's my son, and I feed him to support me, so… That's how bad it's gotten. Let me teach you. The prophet was the problem, and the problem was the prophet. They both start with P. "Can you break it down a little bit"? I sure can. When he said there was no rain, that's why she was gathering sticks. The land had stopped producing because of the word he spoke. In obedience to God, the word he spoke was responsible for the problem she had. So he shows up as a prophet and as a problem. Some of the problems that show up in your life aren't just problems. They are prophecies in disguise designed to show you what you have that you don't…
Now, I remember Holly preaching on Running on Empty last Mother's Day. It was so good. She preached about this widow in 2 Kings 4. The woman was in the same situation. She was desperate. She didn't have it. She was in a bad situation. The creditor was coming to take her kids. The prophet asked her what she had in her house, and she said, "There's nothing there except for a little oil". He told her to go get some jars, and it said the jars were filled. I mean, so many jars were filled that they ran out of jars before they ran out of oil. But let me show you something specific about this miracle. Ooh, when the Lord showed me this I had to stop and write it down because I didn't want to forget it. It was in verse 14.
When Elijah gives the prophecy… I believe I'm prophesying to some moms, some dads, some teenagers. I believe I'm prophesying to some single people, some married people. In other words, if this is your word and you need a word from the Lord today, I believe God has authorized to tell you this from verse 14 from his Word. This is a word for you. Say it, "This is a word for me". "For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the LORD sends rain on the land.'" There is a prophet who is waiting for God to give him a word he can speak that will open the heavens and bring the rain, bring the repentance of a nation, bring the destruction of the false prophets of Baal and deliver the people to the freedom of worshiping Yahweh.
There's a prophet waiting for the rain. There's a woman waiting for the rain. While they are both waiting, God sends a word, and this word is for your situation, for your children, and for your family. The jar and the jug. He said there was going to be enough. "There is going to be enough in the jar and enough in the jug". "Wait a minute, Elijah. Don't you mean jars and jugs…plural"? "Nope. I said what God told me to say. There is going to be enough in the jar and the jug. One jar. One jug. It's not going to be 10 jars and 10 jugs. It's not going to be 100 jars and 100 jugs". He says, "As a matter of fact, it's not even going to look like it's any more than it was before you brought it to God, but it won't run out". I'm praising him for all the times in my life where it seemed like it wasn't enough but he said, "My grace is sufficient. My strength is made perfect in your weakness". It was one jar and one jug.
Well, watch God. What was in that jug was enough, and I came to tell somebody you have enough in your jug to do your job. You've got enough in your jug to raise your family. You have enough in your jug to make it through this trying season, this hard place. There's enough in your jug. There's a word in your spirit. There's a breath in your lungs. I feel God on that. There's enough in my jug. There's enough in my jug. I don't have 15 jugs, but I've got enough oil in one jug that if I will use it daily… Drop by drop by drop she ate through the famine, fed the prophet, served God's purpose, and saved her kids, all by understanding that God promised to make it enough until the rain came. God said you needed to be here today because he's going to give you enough until it comes. Enough until it comes.
You may not feel freedom right now, but God is going to give you enough grace to make it until freedom comes. When we fight to be free of things we feel like we're never going to be free, and we think that until we feel free God can't really use us. But God said, "My grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect in your weakness, so I see what you still struggle with". But greater is he… Do you want this word or not? He said it will be enough until the rain comes. He does not tell her it's going to rain in a year, because he doesn't know either, but they are both in the same place. The prophet and the mom, looking at the same problem, trusting in the same God, believing in the same word. It was the word at the brook. It was the word in Zarephath. It was the word when you were 12. It is the word when you are 72. It will be the word that sustains you, and it will be enough.
So while you wait for the rain, rejoice in the space between, because God said, "I'm going to give you meantime miracles while you're waiting for the change, while you're waiting for the maturity, while you're waiting for it to take root". The Bible says train up a child in the way they should go and when they are old they won't depart from it. So how do I have enough patience to keep from killing them until they can get old enough to do what I taught them? God said, "My grace is sufficient, and if you will lean on me and learn from me and listen to me it will be enough until it comes". All your life God has been leading you from brooks to Sidons to Carmels, from brooks to Sidons to Carmels, and every space in between he has been good, and he has been God.
So, as simple as it sounds, whatever you have like the woman that isn't even enough to feed an extra guest… Whatever strength you have, whatever skill you have… Just so I can know, because I need to know, because I need to adjust my approach if I miss this bad. Are there any moms in here who have been feeling in the last little bit, in the last season (I don't mean 30 years ago) that you are not enough for the job? Just feeling like that. There are literally eight people here who have felt like they're not enough.
So let me tell y'all what you need to know, for the eight of y'all who feel that way. There is enough in your jar and your jug for you to do your job. But, there's not enough for you to do God's job. He's the one who has to make it happen. He's the one who has to make it work. He's the one who has to prove himself able…not you. You're a steward. That means you get to give it back. I love being a pastor, because I know it's God's church. I tell the Lord, "Here it is back. It's COVID Lord; here it is back". What do we do now? I don't know what the future is 10 years from now, and neither do you, but God said, "Until I show you what's next, what you know will be enough until I come. If you go worrying about tomorrow…"
God cannot defend you from a battle he did not call you to fight. If you keep waiting for 50 more jars, if you keep waiting until the fact… Because I'll tell you what's going to happen. You're going to think, "When I have this much money… When my kids get this old… When I get this opportunity…" It still will never be enough until you really, truly believe that he is enough. I want us to sing the words. We sang them earlier many times, but I want to sing them over every prophet who God is giving a word to and every mom who God is giving a miracle to, and I want us to sing it over every problem you need to bring to God today. Did you notice what the prophet said? He said, "Bring me some of what you have," when she did that it was always enough.
As we wait in these spaces for answered prayers, as we wait in these spaces for test results, as we wait in these spaces for situational resolve we have to know that his word is enough until it comes. God, just like Abraham finally got to the place and you had a ram in the bush and he called that place Jehovah-jireh, we chose and decide in our hearts today to call you Jehovah, and we call this place jireh, that the Lord will provide. I want to pray for somebody who has been tormented by what they don't have. They've been threatened by what they don't have. They've been restless, withdrawn, and depressed because they don't have it. I mean, if it's a mom, if it's a dad, if it's somebody who doesn't have kids…
You see every need, God; I don't. But whatever they thought they were not when they came in here today is just a space for you to show off who you are. We talk tough, and we say these things, God, but we need to live like that: to bring you the little that we have and watch it become more than enough in the hands of Jehovah-jireh. Just like you did when I started, I want you to cup your hands toward heaven, like if you had a father who knew how to feed you, like if he would send birds to drop food for you, like if he would send Elijah to your doorstep as you were gathering sticks to feed your family.
I want you to take a moment and silence all of those voices that have been telling you, "Look at you. You're not smart enough to raise that daughter; you can't even help her with her math homework. Look at you. You're not tough enough to raise that boy; you don't even have a man around the house". For everything you're not you are a candidate for revelation of who God is. After all, when God gave his name to Moses he chose to self-identify as "I AM".
That leaves all the space in the world for any need you will ever have, and I believe God is calling some people away from dry places of self-dependence. I believe God is calling into their next assignment today. Your jar, your jug… It's more than enough. If your jar needed to be bigger, or if your jug needed to be wider he would have bigger or wider, but he put you there. You are the one he chose. It's going to be all right. God's got tomorrow, and it's going to be all right. God's got your babies, and it's going to be all right, for the jar of flour will not run dry, and neither will the jug of oil until the day the Lord sends rain. I know you're waiting on rain, you're waiting on some things, but God said it's going to be enough until it comes. He's going to send you everything you need, but until it comes God is no less enough.