May 11, 2025 SERMON

FAITH OF A MOTHER 

1 Kings 17:8-24

We’ll get back to our series on Supernatural Transformation next week but today is Mother’s Day and so we recognize our Mother’s. 

I came across this in (www.christianitytoday.com) and I thought I’d share it with you as we begin this morning’s message -

“Faster than a speeding toddler, more powerful than a cocky teenager, able to leap roller blades and hockey sticks in a single bound! Look up on that ladder… is it dad changing a light bulb??? a workman painting the ceiling???

NO!!!! It’s AWESOME MOM sorting through the laundry pile that has accumulated over the weekend.

Strange alien to a lazy teen, she hustles through the house with power and authority far beyond that of mortal man. Yes its AWESOME MOM!… Who disguised as a *totally weird creature who never ever was a kid herself* fights a never ending battle for TRUTH… JUSTICE… and time alone in the bathroom!”

Mothers are truly awesome beings. So happy Mother’s Day to all our mothers and Sandy is going to pass out a little gift to all the ladies this morning.

Because there was so much talk about faith during last week’s Bible Study I thought I’d find a mother demonstrating her faith for a Mother’s Day message.

There’s a story, in the Bible of a single mother who went through a lot… (look with me in 1 Kings 17 beginning in verse 8)  

Today we are going to look at a woman of faith. This woman in our Scripture doesn’t start out as a woman of faith, but she sure ends up a woman of faith. 

Whoever you are, and whatever your faith is like – to end up as a person of great faith is a godly goal. 

God can still you use you even if you don’t have a great faith, we see this in our passage today.

The land is in the middle of a great drought, predicted by Elijah himself. In verse 8 the word of the Lord comes to him and directs him to go to Zarephath; which is today Lebanon.

Zarephath means fiery trial and describes perfectly what his situation is going to be. Notice, God doesn’t give him much to go by. 9 “Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.” 

So, does the woman have a name? What will she be wearing? What is her address? Does she know I’m coming? Do I meet her in the morning? What if I’m late? Is she godly or does she have a criminal record?

Does God ever do this to us? Life is moving along, we’re doing our thing and bam, out of the blue something hits you and you ask, “God, what is going on?” and you get, no details…. But still, you’re in your situation.

Elijah is a man who will do whatever God asks of him, so why the lack of details? Sometimes God is silent because we will refuse to walk in faith if we know 

what is coming. But sometimes God is silent because His awesome power is revealed slowly. 

Sometimes the time spent waiting will intensify the impact of the work of God on our lives. Sometimes the wait will make us more than ready to receive the Word of the Lord.

And here is a truth for us: if we have the details in advance, then, we wouldn’t be walking in faith.

So, Elijah must walk in faith alone with minimal details to his Zarephath, his fiery trial.

At the gate he finds our woman of faith. What I love is that when Elijah arrives at the gate – there’s the widow, front and center. He doesn’t even have to look in the phone book, he doesn’t have to ask around, there she is. 

We want the details of our circumstances from God upfront. But God supplies the details as we walk in faith – as we step out and arrive where God has directed us, and there are the details, standing right in front of us.

So here is this woman gathering sticks in verse 10, and Elijah calls to her and asks for a drink and as she is going to get the water he adds, “And bring me, please, a piece of bread.”

In the ancient middle east, hospitality was a very big deal. If someone asks for a drink of water, it is rude to refuse the person a drink. It would be shameful for this woman to refuse him a drink of water. 

She may be broke, she may be at the end of her rope, but she still has her dignity, and she can perform this act of hospitality, so she heads for the water jar – but to give away her bread, that is another thing all together. 

Yet she is trapped by Elijah adding on a second request. Understand this second request is asking for her life commitment, the request is asking for all she has.

Who was this woman? Her name is not even mentioned. What we do know is that she is a single mother who is trying to make it. She is desperately trying to take care of her son, but it is clear that she cannot provide for him. 

Usually, a widow would have family to help take care of her. Many times, a brother would marry a widow in the family to make sure she was taken care of.  

This woman apparently doesn’t have anyone. As a woman she has low social standing and as a widow she has no social standing. She is a nobody to neighbors as she comes and goes from her house. 

She is so much a non-person, we never even learn her name. At this point the drought has been going on for about 3 1/2 years and she is at the end of her resources. 

Note that she isn’t saying no to Elijah, she is just pointing out the physical reality that there isn’t enough for herself, her son and Elijah. She has literally nothing, and yet….God will use her for great things.

2 Corinthians 12:10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Do you see what is happening here? Do you understand what God is setting up for both the woman and Elijah? 

Let me ask you to consider this: If God operates this way in the lives of those found in Holy Scripture, why would we expect God to act differently in our life?

If the weakness of this widow makes her strong, if the weakness of the Apostle Paul made him strong, why is it so hard to believe the weakness in our life is what will make us strong?

What do we need for God to use us for powerful things? weakness. Because when I am weak, when I cannot do it on my own anymore, we let God take over.

But wait, does this woman, who is never even named in the passage, have any faith at all? Look at what she says to Elijah, any faith that may have been there is evaporated.

What she has is despair, utter hopelessness, she is lost. Verse 12 “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.” 

If there ever was a phrase that spoke of faith that was not it. 

At this point does she even know who God is? She is a pagan living in another land where they worship false gods. She is not a Hebrew. Is God going to expect a person to act in faith, when there is no faith?

But wait, there is a hint, we see that she has a tiny twinkle of faith. We see this at the beginning of verse 12 when she says, “As surely as the LORD your God lives”

She acknowledges that there is a God. There is a start of faith there. Look at verse 15, “She went away and did as Elijah had told her.” Hold on, what happened there? Did you see that leap? 

The woman goes from a teeny tiny faith to enormously huge faith, she goes from the person with the least amount of faith in town to the person with the greatest faith in town – in the blink of an eye. Amazing!

Elijah asks for the impossible. He asks to be fed first, which will pretty much take all she has. You see that in verse 13. He wants her to make the cake, bring it to him and then go back and make the other cakes. 

Understand, she cannot divide what is left to make sure she and her son gets some. She cannot make the cake for Elijah and then change her mind when she sees there is not enough left over. She must give away what she has first. 

By all logic and sense, she is choosing death for herself and her son. But God defies our logic – we see our faith as holding on; God sees our faith as letting go.

When a friend has asked you how things are going in a difficult time in your life have you ever responded, “I’m just holding on”? What you mean is that you are holding on to your faith. But here we see just the opposite, letting go.

Elijah encourages her – in essence he speaks the Word of God to her, “Don’t be afraid.” 14 “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 gives rain on the land.’”

Right there, is where something inside her says, “take the step.” It doesn’t make sense, it defies logic, it runs contrary to everything she may have ever done in her life, and she turns to walk to her house…and she has something that she did not have nano seconds before – real faith.

I mean who in this room could do this? Who here could give up all they had, knowing that it would directly lead to their death, and their child’s death. I don’t think there is one of us who could. But I also don’t think she could either – God blessed her with the faith to take the step, and she responds.

It is clear that the Spirit has come upon her giving her the faith she needed to take the first step toward the house – and continue on that path of faith. 

See, instead of holding on, instead of holding tight to the last thing she has, she let go, and upon her came the God’s Spirit.

It is one thing to say you believe, it’s another thing to take action on that belief.

So do it. Do it today. What has been holding you back? Some have been thinking about faith for a long time. Do I have it? Have I lost it? What does it feel like?

Some are hoping the faith will slowly creep up on you. Some want to know every detail before they take a step. Some say to themselves, seeing is believing, so they are waiting to see…. But all this is holding back. It is standing still, with the illusion of moving forward.

God doesn’t ask her to do anything way out of her ordinary life. God doesn’t ask her to build some great church or be a missionary and travel to other lands. He doesn’t ask her to give up her house or testify to crowds of people – He asks her for a small piece of bread.

Granted, it was all she had, but it wasn’t something that was beyond her everyday life. Faith isn’t about huge projects; it’s about everyday life. God uses ordinary, everyday, even somewhat boring, been there done that, ways to build our faith. 

Yet notice it is a spiritual thing that hits her, not a material thing. She has to believe before she takes the action of making the cake of bread, or she wouldn’t make the cake of bread.

She was limited in how God could use her. She wasn’t much of a person, and she didn’t have much to offer. Who takes that Mother’s Day flour and extends it into Mother’s Day flours? 

Not the woman, but God. Remember what Paul says? “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

We had a restaurant that served only breakfast – and it was a great breakfast, and cheap. What made this breakfast unique was that, except for the manager, everything was handled by mentally handicapped folks. 

They were the cooks, the waiters and waitresses, the busboy, the hostess the cashier and anything else it takes to run a restaurant. And this placed hummed.

It really was some of the best service in town. It was surprising…. Many were surprised that it was such a great place because they had written these folks off. Had seen them as people with very limited resources. Not capable. Unable, below average….

We do the same thing with God; we look at what we don’t have, how we don’t measure up and we believe we’re not much for God to work with.

The woman lets go and the blessings come raining down. It is like the loaves and fishes. The flour and the oil don’t run out. The handful, the limited inventory, the one thing that was between her and death – she let it go. 

The one thing. That tiny bit of faith expands, but there is more to it, for amazingly, she really doesn’t believe yet, I mean it is clear that she believes to some degree, but she doesn’t have a convicted belief.

This miracle goes on day after day. The ridiculous amount of flour and oil never run out – and life goes on. The great leap of faith that the woman experienced, that amazing moment, becomes routine.

What was once so incredible is now expected: One more cake, one more fire… my faith, which is real, which believes to some degree, goes flat. It is just flour and oil after all.

Elijah has got to be thinking, “This place is called fiery trial, and it has been nothing but endless eating, what in the world is around the corner?” 

Verse 17, Sometime later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse and finally stopped breathing. Ahh there’s the fiery trial.

For this single mother, what good is an endless jar of flour, if her son cannot share in the blessing? So of course she is angry. 

18 She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”

This woman has had an amazing leap faith and on top of that she has seen the same event repeat itself on a daily basis, reminding her that her faith is not an illusion, it is not something she has deluded herself into believing. She has seen a daily miracle, but the death of her son is just too much.

In verse 19 we see Elijah step into action. Why does he take the boy out of the arms of his mother and into another room? If you are a mother, you know that Elijah did not take the boy without his mother giving him up, without letting go.

I see that like the moment where she turns to go make the cakes of bread, that moment where she let go instead of holding on – right here she does it again. Again she finds herself in weakness and she doesn’t hold on – what does she do? She let’s go.

Elijah takes him up and lays him on his bed, stretching himself out three times: “O LORD my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”, “O LORD my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”, “O LORD my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”

You know the outcome. God hears his cry, God answers his prayer, the son lives. Talk about a Mother’s Day present. 

This woman had a leap of faith when the flour and oil wouldn’t run out, but this time it is different, I don’t think calling it a leap of faith does it justice, it is more of a cementing of faith. You know that she had to believe before – but this is unprecedented.

Verse 24, Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the LORD from your mouth is the truth.”

Before, I suppose, she suspected this was all real, but clearly, she had her doubts. 

When we function within the faith parameters, God’s provision will never be used up and His spirit will never run dry!

Can you see the life application here? Faith is the key that unlocks the door of God’s blessings. What is it in your life that needs filling? Where in your life do you need provision? Are you at the threshold of God’s blessing and you don’t even realize it?

God is asking us just as He did the woman to go and get some water of life, and on our way pick up the bread of life also. 

However, like the woman, we can’t because what we have is insufficient. God says, give Me what you have, and I will multiply it!

Are you ready to trust Him? Will you give what you have just as the woman gave what she had? The pattern here is when we give, God blesses abundantly.

Will you give your life? Your time? Your energy? Will you commit to the church? To the vision that God has for us here at Maranatha to make disciples.

I pray so, in Jesus’ Name, Amen!