Today we are starting a new message series where we will look at the amazing life and faith of the prophet Elisha, who is not to be confused with the great prophet Elijah. Elijah was perhaps the greatest prophet in Israel’s history. At a time when many of God’s people had turned to worship the false god Baal, Elijah stood strong and he performed miracles that proved Yahweh was the one and only true God. At one point, Elijah thought he was the last faithful leader among God’s people and he was feeling very low and isolated, but God told him that he was not alone and that he needed to go and anoint 2 kings who would lead God’s people as a nation and then to select Elisha to be the next prophet. Today we are going to look at the meeting when God called Elisha.
So Elijah went from there and found Elisha, son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,” he said, “and then I will come with you.”
“Go back,” Elijah replied. “What have I done to you?”
So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant. 1 Kings 19:19-21
Elisha was just an ordinary man. He wasn’t a priest or religious leader, he was a farmer. From what we know, he didn’t have any special schooling or knowledge about God, he was literally a laborer on the family farm pushing a plow behind a pair of oxen. Not a great job. Elisha spent his days looking at the rear end of two oxen. Think what it must have smelled like, and how careful he had to be about where he placed his feet. And Elisha did this season after season, year after year. He probably had been doing it from the time he could handle the plow - many years. It was monotonous work. Same job, same field, different year.
Have you ever felt that way at your job? Maybe the view isn’t great, maybe you feel like your job stinks, and you have to watch how you navigate through the day. Maybe you are just tired of doing the same thing day after day, year after year. Maybe your life has grown monotonous and you are thinking that there is no way God would call someone like you. Well if that is what you think, think again. God IS calling you and God CAN use you. And just like Elisha, God might be preparing you today for His call that will come tomorrow. It is often the daily ordinary routines of life and work that actually prepare us for what God wants from us. While we might not see it here, God was using Elisha’s work in the fields to prepare him for the call that was coming.
Again, what we see Elisha doing is plowing the fields. He is working hard at the job that needs to be done. He was taking care of the family business and helping care for his community. In his life and work, no job was too small and no task was beneath him. Elisha was being faithful in the little things. Elisha was being faithful to his family. He was being faithful to his community that ate the produce from the fields. It wasn’t a fun job, it was tedious and monotonous and smelled bad, but Elisha was faithfully doing the work.
The first lesson we learn from Elisha is that if we want to be ready when God calls us, we have to be faithful in the little things. Sometimes our work does seem monotonous, it’s the same goals, the same quotas, the same lesson plans, the same schedule day after day, week after week, year after year. But being faithful to the details of our work shows our commitment, and God is looking for that commitment. And raising a family can be tedious. It’s the same thing week after week. Laundry, meals, shopping, cooking, cleaning, yard work. And then we hit repeat and do it all again and again. But being faithful in the little things shows God we are willing to be faithful in all things. In fact, if we can’t be faithful in the little things God gives us - we aren’t going to be faithful when God calls us to step out to do something big.
For three years I was the assistant manager of movie theaters. It was an OK job, but it could get tedious. While the movies changed every few weeks, nothing else did. We popped the popcorn. We counted cups and boxes of candy every morning and every night for inventory. We sold tickets and then we immediately ripped them in half. We sold a lot of popcorn before the movie and then swept up a lot of that same popcorn after the movie. You would think with the price of popcorn at the movies people would be more careful about spilling it, but there was always a lot on the floor. Day after day, week after week, it was the same thing.
After three years I began to hear God call me to something different. I left the theater and eventually ended up in seminary and then as a pastor of a church. During my almost 30 years as a pastor, I have often looked back on those 3 years as an assistant manager and the lessons I learned. You see, it was working that tedious job that gave me experience working with the public. I learned good financial practices, and how to hire and manage a staff. Being faithful in all those little things at a movie theater helped me when God called me to something new.
Maybe the most important lesson I learned was that for God to fully use me, I had to be willing to be faithful in the little things right where I was. In whatever place you find yourself today, remain faithful in the little things you are doing because those things have meaning and purpose. God is using those things today to prepare you for tomorrow.
That tomorrow came for Elisha when Elijah showed up and placed his cloak around him. This might seem odd to us, but it was a very powerful and symbolic moment for Elisha. If you think about a cloak, it is really just a covering. So what was covering Elijah was now going to cover Elisha. The call and power of God that had covered Elijah for many years was now going to be given to Elisha. By placing his cloak around Elisha, Elijah was telling him that God was calling him to be a prophet and that God’s power and authority would now be covering him.
Look at Elisha’s response. Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah. “Let me kiss my father and mother goodbye,” he said, “and then I will come with you.”
Notice what Elisha doesn’t do: he doesn’t stop to pray about it. He doesn’t make a list of pros and cons and then decide which path he should take. He doesn’t go and ask his friends for their advice, or wait to see if a better offer comes his way. He also doesn’t ask Elijah, or God, what following him and being the prophet of God was going to mean. He just went. He left his oxen, kissed his family goodbye and ran after Elijah. And the lesson for us is this:
we don’t have to understand fully to obey immediately.
When we hear God calling us to step out in faith, we don’t have to understand everything and have all the plans worked out before we obey. This doesn’t mean we don’t take time to stop and pray about what we hear God saying, or make a list of pros and cons about what impact following God will have for us and our families. And it might be good for us to seek the advice and wisdom of others and ask God some questions about what we will have to do as we follow His voice. All of those are important things to think about and do, but many times God doesn’t give us all the details before he asks us to follow Him. We don’t always get all the answers before God says, move.
The truth is that it is probably a good thing that God doesn’t give us all the details at the beginning because if we knew all that was going to happen as we followed God, we might not follow at all. If I had known that leaving the movie theater and following God’s call was going to require me to be a local pastor in Central PA, I probably would have stayed at the theater. I didn't want to be a local pastor. I was very clear when I started seminary that I didn’t want to be a pastor in a local church. Maybe a missionary, a chaplain, teacher, or serving in some non-profit, but the local church? Never. It took God 2 years before I was willing to accept that call.
And when I started seminary I didn’t know anyone living in PA, so it didn’t make sense that I would go there, but by the time I graduated from Duke, I had family living in PA and actually felt a sense of call to serve in this area. God didn’t tell me all of this at the start, I learned it on the way. We are not going to fully understand God’s call at the beginning, but that doesn’t mean we can’t obey when we hear God’s voice calling us.
In the gospels there is a great story about Jesus walking on the water and coming up to the boat that the disciples were in. Peter was in awe of what he saw and said, Jesus, if that is you, tell me to come to you on the water. And Jesus replied with just one word. Come. Peter didn’t stop and say, OK, but first tell me how this is going to work. Am I going to be floating on the water or are you going to make the water solid ground? Do I have to say something special before I get out of the boat? Do I have to hold my breath? Pray a certain prayer? Peter didn’t ask for information, he simply obeyed the command and got out of the boat. Sometimes God’s call might just be one word and to obey that one word might not make any sense, but are we willing to follow it anyway?
Maybe you are in a difficult marriage today and the one word God is saying to you is STAY. You have heard that word but have a whole list of questions about how and why and how long, but all God is saying is, STAY. Or maybe you heard God talking about FREEDOM in the last series and you are still trying to get answers to all your questions when God is just asking you to take one step in order to get healthy. Or maybe you have been part of Faith Church for a while now, maybe years, and you are hearing God say, COMMIT. And you are looking for answers on what and when and when and how you can possibly add one more thing to your calendar, but God is still just saying, commit.
Is there a word, a command, a call that you have been hearing lately that you know is God, but you are still asking a lot of questions and looking for all the details. During an extended prayer time at our annual conference this past week we were encouraged to just focus on a one word, or a few words and the word that I heard God speak was the same word Peter heard. COME. I pictured all the times during Jesus’ life when He called people to come to Him. From the manger people heard God say, come. When Jesus was a young boy He heard God call Him to come to the temple. Jesus heard God call Him to come to the Jordan River to be baptized. Jesus said to come to fishermen and tax collectors. He said come to religious leaders and zealots. He said come to those who were burdened and weary, those who were outcast and alone. From the cross Jesus said, come to the thief at his right hand and in the resurrection he says to the world, come. While we look for all the answers and want all the details about what it means for us to follow God’s call, sometimes there are no details, God just says come. Come to me and then together we will walk into the future. You don’t have to have it all figured out to obey, you just have to take the first step.
Elisha didn’t have it all figured out, but he was willing to obey and what he does next is truly amazing. This is ridiculous faith!
So Elisha left him and went back. He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.
Elisha killed the cows and burned the plows. He closes the door on every returning to his old life because he is 100% committed to the new life. He doesn’t even want the temptation of turning away from God, so he closed that door. He is all in. He has no plan B.
When I heard God call me to something new, I left my job at the movie theater and not knowing what else to do, I went to seminary. I took all the money I had and used it for the first year of school. I didn’t know where the money would come for year 2 and 3, and I couldn’t drop out of school because I didn’t have any money left. I had to keep going. There was no turning back.
Too many times it is holding on to our security that keeps us from our destiny. We hold on to plan B because we don’t trust God to come through for us with plan A. But from Elisha we learn that: those God uses the most are the ones who hold on to the least.
When Jesus called the disciples to follow Him, they all had to leave something behind. Peter, Andrew, James and John were successful fishermen. They had a business and were good at what they did, but when Jesus called them to follow Him and start fishing for people, it says they immediately dropped their nets and went. One of Jesus' disciples, Matthew, was a tax collector when Jesus called him. Tax collectors got a contract from the Roman government to collect the taxes and if you ever left your tax booth, you were leaving everything behind. Matthew left everything behind.
Elisha left everything behind. There was no turning back. He killed the cows and burned the plows. While I am not telling you to sell all you have to follow Jesus, we all hold onto things that keep us from more faithfully following God. Maybe we are holding on to our reputation and if we were more active in our faith or in the life of the church someone might think we are some kind of radical religious zealot, so we hold back.
Maybe we are holding on to our money because we think we are going to need it for a rainy day so we can’t be more generous in our giving to God and others. So we say no to God and fail to be part of the great things God wants to do. Or maybe we are hoarding all of our time and using it for our own pleasure and aren’t willing to use any of it for the worship of God or the service of others.
What are those things we need to let go of so we can follow God’s call? Elisha let it all go and he never looked back. That is a pretty ridiculous faith, and it was because he was willing to commit himself fully to God that God used him fully, and in some pretty powerful ways among his people and in his generation.
Elisha was an ordinary man who shows us what a ridiculous faith looks like. This can be our faith. We can be faithful in the little things. We don’t need all the answers to take one step of faith and we can open our hands and let go of those things that are holding us back. We can do this - and we can do this today.
Next Steps
Read 1 Kings 19:19-21.
Be faithful in the little things.
● How was God preparing Elisha before he was called?
● How is God using your daily routines to prepare you for His call?
● Where do you need to remain faithful in the little things?
● Ask God for the patience and persistence you need to keep going.
You don’t have to understand fully to follow immediately.
● Where is God asking you to follow Him?
● What is holding you back?
● How can you take one step forward - even without having all the answers?
Read Matthew 14:22-33
● What one word invitation did Jesus give to Peter?
● How did Peter respond?
● What one word invitation might God have for you?
● How can you take one faithful step toward Jesus?
Those God uses most are the ones who hold on to the least.
● Elisha killed the cows and burned the plows. How did this show his 100% commitment to God?
● What security do you hold on to? How might this be keeping you from your divine destiny?
● What cows and plows do you need to destroy in your own life? How can you start doing that this week?
