The Miracle Is in the House, Part 2

We are to walk by faith, not by sight. We are to believe God, to bless and prosper as people. But don't go to extremes. Don't act like if you walk by faith, you're not going to have trouble.

It's not true. In fact, faith is built for trouble. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. Well, that's Psalm 46, verse 1, and this is Destined for Victory with Pastor Paul Shepherd. Well, if the Word of God tells us that God is a present help in times of trouble, that means times of trouble will sometimes come.

Faith does not produce a problem-free life. It gives us the strength to face those challenges head on, knowing that God will deliver us in due time. Today, Pastor Paul has an encouraging word for you. God won't always keep you from trials, but He'll always get you through them. As always, stop by pastorpaul.net anytime to listen to any recent message on demand. That's pastorpaul.net.

But right now, we hope you'll stay tuned. As Pastor Paul shares today's Destined for Victory message, the miracle is in the house. Go with me to 2 Kings chapter 4. Let's look at the first seven verses. 2 Kings chapter 4, first seven verses. A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the Lord, and the creditor is coming to take my sons to be his slaves. So Elisha 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 but a jar of oil. Then he said, Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors, empty vessels. Do not gather just a few, and when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons.

Some of y'all got some doors open that need to be shut. Then pour it into all those vessels and set aside the full ones. So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought vessels to her, and she poured it out. Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, Bring me another vessel.

He said to her, There is not another vessel. So the oil ceased. Then she came and told the man of God, and he said, Go, sell the oil, pay your debt.

You and your sons live on the rest. The miracle is in the house. In the last message, we looked at just the first verse and a half of this passage, because I wanted to take that time and not so much preach as to just talk as a pastor, as a spiritual shepherd and parent, and to make sure we looked at just a simple but important set of statements in the passage. So last time we looked at the fact that although this man to his credit truly loved the Lord and served faithfully as a son, a mentee of the prophets that God had placed over him, he was faithful in all of that.

He was a great husband, great dad in many respects. But to his discredit, this husband and father left his family in very poor financial shape. And so I took the time and encouraged, exhorted all breadwinners, not just husbands these days. We have many, many two income households that by the nature of the economy and the lifestyles we're accustomed to, very few homes live on just one income anymore. And so I want to say to all breadwinners, all people who have dependents, who are responsible, you are responsible for financially and spouses who are co-partnering with you in that, make sure you do three things. Get out of debt, build savings, buy insurance. I know you walk by faith. I know you claim 120 years of life, but buy insurance.

In the event the Lord takes you unexpectedly, you've got to be prepared to make sure you don't leave your family and your loved ones in a lurch just because you have transitioned. Your goal ought to be at your memorial service or your funeral, they are crying only because they miss you, not because you left them broke. And so get on with that business and you younger people especially, take advantage of the fact that insurance for you is cheaper than for many of us who have moved into different brackets. I had a term policy that I took out in my, I guess it was mid-late 40s, and it was a 15-year term policy in addition to whatever else I have. And so I took that out and two months ago, a letter came and said, you may continue this policy, but if you do, the premium is changing. And I looked at the premium that they said they wanted if I were to keep that policy alive. I need some old folk to walk with me through this. Some of y'all witnesses, I won't tell you what, I had a nice reasonable premium for 15 years, but this new one, they said if you keep this policy going, it's going to cost you 9,000-some dollars a month.

When y'all going to believe I'm old? Them people wanted 9,000. See, this wasn't no $500,000 policy. Because if I was going to leave before 63 where I was when they wrote me, if I was going to leave before then, I wanted to make sure that Sister M not only had what we already have set up, but she'd have another little bit of change.

And now that's gone away. I told her, I said, baby, I can't leave you quite as happy as I was going to. I was going to hook you all the way up, but that would have meant I had to die like in my 50s or something, and I know you wanted your boo to stay, so I made it this far, and I said, so you're not as broke off as you were going to be.

And she said, as long as you stay here with me, we're going to make it. I said, thank you. But do what you can, saints.

That's what I'm saying. Seriously, do what you can. If you can't do big, big, huge things, do what you can because you want to be a steward of the responsibility you have over your family. Amen? All right, now let's get into this passage.

So we see that a widow cries out to Elisha, your servant's dead, he was faithful, and all that, but he left me in a lurch financially, and the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves. Life on this planet sometimes means we will face difficult situations even though we are people of faith and people who walk by faith. I am determined to keep a balanced voice on radio and TV, wherever the Lord allows my voice to be heard.

I want there to be balance. We got so much hyper faith around us and so much anti-faith around us. The truth is right in the middle. We ought to walk by faith, not by sight. We ought to believe God to bless and prosper as people, but don't go to extremes. Don't act like if you walk by faith, you're not going to have trouble.

It's not true. In fact, faith is built for trouble. Think about it. If faith meant I had no trouble, then everybody would be walking by faith. No, no, it takes a faith-walking person because life is going to throw you some curve balls, life is going to give you some trouble. It's just a function of being on a fallen planet.

That's all it is. And I know we are people of the kingdom, but we're not living in the physical existence of God's presence yet. We're living in this world that is going to be redeemed, but not yet. Even creation, Paul said when he wrote to the church in Rome, is groaning. Creation is groaning. Creation is saying, when is all this going to be over?

It is crazy. And we have to exist in a crazy environment, and we are going to have to learn that trouble and difficulties are going to come into our lives. Don't beat yourself up because you got your spirit filled and you have trouble, or you have strong faith and you have trouble. You are going to go through difficult times. And trouble and difficulties and crises come to us people of faith in various types. Some of us have financial trouble.

This prophet has financial trouble. Some of us do. Some of us have relational trouble.

You can be saved, sanctified, filled with the Holy Ghost. That don't mean everybody in your life likes you. In fact, I'm just trying to help you make sure that they don't dislike you cause of how super spiritual you act all the time.

Please just be regular. Your unsaved friends, just learn there's something called being nice. Just learn how to be nice. I'm trying to help Christians be nicer people. Some of them are only spiritual, but they're not nice.

That's a contradiction. One of the fruit of the spirit is kindness. We'll be right back with more of today's Destined for Victory message from Pastor Paul Shepherd, Senior Pastor at Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. To listen to any of Pastor Paul's recent broadcasts, be sure to stop by pastorpaul.net and listen on demand. That's pastorpaul.net. And stay with us after today's message when Pastor joins me from his studio. But first, let's tune into the rest of today's teaching from the life of the prophet Elisha. The miracle is in the house.

Once again, here's Pastor Paul. I know you don't like the way your nieces living and your nephews and your grandkids are going to hell, but when they come to your house. I'm trying to help you when they come to your house. Make sure that's not hell yet.

Make sure when they come to your house, there's a little bit of heaven. So we got to know. Sometimes we have relational trouble. Some of y'all have vocational trouble, having trouble in your work world. Some people are having physical challenges. You can be saved, sanctified, walked by faith, still have physical challenges.

Mental, emotional. I heard a preacher knocking therapy the other day. I said, dude, your saints, you can't just lay hands on everybody and clear up all the stuff. Every now and then God will bless you with one of those kind of miracles. I'm not saying he never does it. Yeah, you can get every now and then God will do that, but that's the exception to the rule. You know what makes a thing a miracle? It's not common. That's why it's a miracle. It's not common. And don't start acting like you're supposed to have a miracle three times a day.

Just come on, let's get down to real living folks and let's be true to the truth. And so we're going to have trouble. But the good news is when difficult situations arise, God is a present help.

Jot that down because you're going to need to know that. When difficult situations arise, God is a present help. When you have your difficulty, it doesn't mean God has taken off. God is right there with you. What does the Bible says? He is our refuge and our strength.

Then it says a present help where? In trouble. When you're in trouble, he's there. Why?

Because he's with you. Yeah, I don't like this trouble. I don't, but I do like my company. I hate going through trouble, but I love it that I'm not here by myself. Yeah, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

Why? Because thou art with me. Thou art with me. And so you got to know when your difficult situations arise, God is a present help. So do you have a difficult situation you're dealing with right now in any area? Know that the Lord is with you and he will get you through it and bring you out of it. If your back is against the wall, you say, oh, this is it. I don't have any more rope. Tie a knot there at the end and say, God, I know you're here.

I'm looking for my help. Because he is a present help when you are in trouble. And he's going to see you through it. Now look at verse two. So Elisha 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 but a jar of oil. The prophet asked the questions, what can I do for you?

What's in your house? Because he knows that God is going to bless this woman with the miracle she needs. That's why he's asking the question. It's not like she said, oh, I'm in trouble. They get ready to come get my sons, make them slaves. I'm in trouble. It's not like he said, oh, man, that's too bad.

I love that. The man of God didn't panic. He said, no, no, you're bringing this to my attention because we serve a God who is a present help. He's going to deal with this and all he's got to do now is discern how God's going to do it. He's not questioning whether God's going to do it. He only wants to know how is God going to do it.

I came to tell somebody who's going through your crisis right now in whatever area. There is no question but that God is going to give you a solution and bring you through it. The question is the how. Because God doesn't do the same thing the same way all the time. It's one of the things you've learned when you read the Bible and when you walk with God long enough, don't try to put God into patterns that you can predict. Just because he did it this way that time doesn't mean he's going to do it that way this other time. Look at the way healing took place, for instance, in the ministry of Jesus. And you'll see there were times when he would just speak the word and send healing, just airmail healing.

But guess what? That didn't happen all the time. Some folk, he laid hands on them. Some people, he would do something. One guy, he got some dirt spit in it. Come on, made himself a little patty cake. Put it on the man's eyes. I see some of y'all would have missed your healing. Ah, you know, it's COVID out here.

What you doing? God doesn't do it the same way. Doesn't mean you're less special. They just got one set of blessings, you got another set. And so you got to understand the prophet isn't panicking, he's just waiting to discern how. So he asked a question that was inspired by the Holy Spirit, what do you have in your house?

And she said, I have nothing but a jar of oil. That's when he knows, okay, now I see what God is doing. God, in other words, was going to work this miracle based on what she already had. Now you got to understand that sometimes God wants us to be more aware of how he'll use and bless and supernaturally favor you based on what you already have. In other words, some of us are well aware of our need. That's what was going on with her. She was well aware of her need, but unaware of her seed. She was well aware of her need, but unaware of her seed.

That's some of us. Some of us know real well what we're waiting on God to do. What do you want the Lord to do for you?

You can give us a full explanation. Paragraphs, word from information, well here's what I'm believing God for, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's fine, you're well aware of your need, you're well aware of your desire. That's okay, he loves you.

He's a good, good father. He wants to know what's on your heart, what's on your mind, what you need and what you desire. What you have to become aware of is that sometimes the miracle's not going to come out of thin air, sometimes the miracle's going to come out of a seed you already have and just haven't identified.

So that's what's going on here. He says, what do you have? She says, nothing but a jar of oil. He realizes that's the seed. Every time God doesn't do it out of thin air, it's because he's going to bless what you already have. We must get this principle. It's really important as you walk with God. See, we're all familiar with Ephesians 3.20. Oh, God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or even think.

Yes, indeed. But it goes on to say, according to the power that works in us. Well, what is that power? Well, you got to let the Holy Spirit show you.

How does he want to work in you and use you as part of the answer to your own prayers? So you got to know this widow doesn't know it yet, but that oil is more than oil, it's a seed. And she's got to be willing to sow it. How do you sow oil? We know how to sow offerings when God tell you to give what you have and then believe for more. Yeah, we know how to do that.

How do you sow oil? You say, Lord, okay, here's what I have. What do you want to do with this to bring about favor, blessing, increase, whatever I need?

What are you going to do with what I already have? Now, let me show you this in another passage just to give you a context. Go to John, New Testament, Gospel of John chapter 6. Look with me at verses 5 through 13, John 6, 5 through 13. Then Jesus lifted up his eyes and seeing a great multitude coming toward him, he said to Philip, where shall we buy bread that these, this multitude may eat? And he said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. You know, God does that to you sometimes. Whispers a question to you in your devotion. It's not because he doesn't have an answer. 855-339-5500 or visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online.

You can also mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. A seed is meant to be sown because the only way God can take that natural principle he put in the earth, seed time and harvest, and supernaturally multiply from it, you've got to sow it. You can't keep looking at it.

You can't keep asking questions about it. The only thing you can do with a seed is sow it. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message, the miracle is in the house. Until then remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory. .