17 Nov Will you follow the call?

1 Kings 19:19-21; 2 Kings 2:8-14

2 Kings 2:8-14 – ⁸ Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground. ⁹ When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” ¹⁰ And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.” ¹¹ And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. ¹² And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. ¹³ And he took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. ¹⁴ Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.

Have you ever been tricked by a brochure? A few years ago, I went to a Japanese BBQ buffet in Neutral Bay. Before I went into the restaurant, I looked at the price of the buffet and I thought, “That’s expensive.” But I was already there so might as well try it. While I was eating, I saw the brochure that the restaurant put on the wall, and the price they put on the brochure was almost half the price I saw earlier. And I thought, “That’s weird.” Until I saw a small asterisk next to the price. Do you know what I am talking about? ‘iPhone 16 pro for $299*’ or ‘Holiday to Japan for $499*’. That small asterisk tells us that the price we see is not the price we pay. They don’t tell us all the additional costs. They only tell us the basic price to get our attention. It is called marketing. How many of you ever get tricked by it? Here is the good news. There is no asterisk in following God. The Bible tells us exactly what it looks like to follow God’s call. God is not trying to hide anything. He is not interested in marketing. So, what does it look like to follow God’s call?

Tonight, we are on the fourth sermon of our series on the life of Elijah and Elisha titled, “Living by faith.” Both Elijah and Elisha lived at a time when the people of God were not following God, and God used their life and ministry to show us what it looks like to follow God. Let’s recap what happened earlier. Elijah had a massive victory against the prophets of Baal. They had the fire from heaven contest, and he won. At the end of the contest, the Israelites were chanting, “The Lord is God, the Lord is God” and they slaughtered the prophets of Baal. But right after that spiritual high, Elijah fell into a spiritual low. He experienced spiritual depression, and he wanted God to take his life. And instead of rebuking Elijah, God kindly dealt with Elijah and told him that God was not done with him. God commanded Elijah to go back to do his role as God’s prophet. And one of the things God told Elijah to do was to anoint his successor, Elisha. If Elijah’s name means “My God is Yahweh”, Elisha’s name means “My God is salvation.” And as we are about to see in the following weeks, Elisha’s life is a story of God who saves his people. His ministry is a foreshadowing of the God who will come in the flesh to save God’s people. Tonight, we will look at how Elisha is called by God to succeed Elijah. This story will teach us what it looks like to follow God’s call.

Three points for my sermon: the call, the cost; the power.

The call

1 Kings 19:19 – So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him.

I’m sure when Elisha wakes up that morning, he thinks it would be just another ordinary day in the life of Elisha. He will eat breakfast, have coffee, go to work, eat lunch, have another coffee, work again, go home, eat dinner, watch Netflix, sleep, and repeat the same routine the next day. Elisha is simply doing what he normally does when he suddenly receives a call from God. We don’t know much about Elisha’s background, but we know that he is rich. It says that Elisha is ploughing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him. You are considered rich if you have 1 or 2 oxen. Elisha owns 24 oxen which makes him a crazy rich Jew. And while he is ploughing, Elijah suddenly shows up and puts his cloak around him. This is Elijah’s way of saying, “I want you to take my mantle. I want you to do what I do. I want you to be a prophet after me.” And before we glorify this call to be a prophet, think about the context first.

At this time, Elijah is a wanted man. Ahab and Jezebel had put a bounty on his head. Elijah has been on the run for years. So, Elijah is not only calling Elisha to be a prophet; Elijah is calling Elisha to leave behind his life of comfort and luxury into a life of danger and fear. When Elijah puts his cloak upon Elisha, he is saying, “I want you to give up power and become weak. I want you to give up safety and become vulnerable. I want you to give up comfort and go into a life of hiding.” That’s the call. But notice something about this call. This call may have been sudden and unexpected for Elisha, but it has always been part of God’s plan. It was God who told Elijah to anoint Elisha to be a prophet before Elijah even knew of Elisha. God has decided on Elisha even before Elisha is given the opportunity to decide on God. So, what appears sudden to Elisha is already settled with God. One commentary I read put it beautifully. “Suddenness is the wrapping paper in which sovereignty sometimes arrives.” In other words, it is not Elisha that seeks the call of God; it is the call of God that comes to Elisha.

What’s the lesson for us? Here is the lesson. The call of God is not something we make up; it is something that comes to us. It is not us who decide on God; it is God who decides on us. We do not come to God on our own initiative. We come to God because God has called us. It tells us that the call of God is not an achievement, it is a gift. It is not something we pursue; it is something that pursues us. This is how God operates in the Bible. Let me give you another example: Matthew the tax collector. At the time of Jesus, tax collectors are the number one public enemy because they not only collect taxes from the people with interest, but they also use the money to fund the Roman army. To the Jews, tax collectors are worse than sinners. They are considered traitors, and they are not treated as people. But when Jesus sees Matthew, the worst of the worst, he says, “Matthew, I want you to follow me.” Out of all the people in Capernaum, Matthew is the most unacceptable person. He is the man no one wanted and the man everyone condemned. But Jesus seeks Matthew; he wants Matthew. Why? Because the call of God is given not based on merit but on grace. And grace is a gift.

The reason we are surprised that God would call people like Matthew is that we don’t understand that the call of God is a gift. The truth is, there is not a single qualified person. Everyone has fallen short of the glory of God, which means God only has unqualified people to work with. Just like Elisha, we were living for ourselves, and not caring about God and his purpose. And we would keep living our selfish lives if God did not interrupt us the way Elijah interrupted Elisha. So, if we’ve put our faith in Jesus, the only reason we can do that is not because we are better than others. The only reason we are Christians is because God has graciously said to us, “Follow me.” And at his call, faith arose in us, and we rose from our sins and followed Jesus. The reason we are saved is simply because God has called us to follow him.

Here is the thing about the call of God. If we have everything the world has to offer but we don’t have the call of God, we are empty. If you think I am exaggerating, just look at the lives of people who seem to have it all together. Look at the life of those who reach the peak of success. They say things like, “I have everything I’ve ever wanted. I am the best there is in my field. But why do I feel like my life is empty and meaningless?” Do you know why? Because we need the call. We must have the call. We must hear the call of our Creator who has built us for his purpose. If we don’t have that call, then it doesn’t matter what we accomplish, it doesn’t matter how much we have, our life is meaningless. We don’t know why we exist and what is the purpose of our life. We can be extremely rich, but what is it for? We can be extremely successful, but what to do with it? This is the story of Elisha. He has everything but there is an emptiness inside of him. But when the call of God comes to him, something in him flares up and it changes his life forever. Listen. When we experience the call of God, something changes on the inside. It doesn’t matter how rich or successful we are, nothing can give us the satisfaction of living God’s calling. Look at what happens next.

The cost

1 Kings 19:20 – And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” And he said to him, “Go back again, for what have I done to you?”

When Elisha receives the call, he immediately leaves his oxen and says to Elijah, “Let me kiss my parents, and then I’ll follow you.” Elijah replies, “What have I done to you?” What does that mean? Elijah is saying, “Why are you asking me? It is not me who calls you. It is God who calls you. It’s between you and God.” Elijah understands that it is not him who calls Elisha, it is God. Now, some people see what Elisha asks as unwillingness to obey the call of God immediately. They compare it to what happens in Luke 9. One person says to Jesus, “I will follow you, but let me first say goodbye to my family.” And Jesus replies, “No one who follows me and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “If you want to follow me, you can’t have a divided mind. You can’t continue to look back to your old life.” But is that what Elisha is doing? I don’t think so. Elisha does not go back to his parents to delay his obedience to the call of God. He goes back to his parents to kiss goodbye to them as his commitment to the call of God. He returns to sever his connection to his family, not to delay his commitment.

Listen carefully. If we want to follow God’s calling, we have to kiss goodbye to many good things. When Elisha says yes to God’s call, he kisses goodbye to his parents and a life of comfort and security. I know this is not popular in our Eastern Asian culture, but listen to what Jesus says in Luke 14:25-26 – ²⁵ Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, ²⁶ “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. This is a shocker. Jesus says that we must hate our own family if we want to follow him. Some of you might think, “This is why I don’t follow Jesus. He makes absurd demands.” Or some might think, “Oh, that’s easy. I hate them already.” But what does Jesus mean by hating our own family? We know that the word “hate” in this passage cannot mean that Jesus is telling his followers to have malicious intentions toward their families. It is not consistent with what is taught in the Bible.

So, what does it mean to hate our own family? Jesus is telling us that until our love for Jesus is so much more to the point that it makes our love for our family look like hate, we cannot follow him. The love that Jesus demands from us supersedes all kinds of natural earthly relationships. Every relationship in our life must look pale in comparison to our love relationship with Jesus. What a demand. I’ve heard it put this way. When good rivals the best, then the good must be hated. So, parents, hear what Jesus is saying to you here. Unless you love Jesus in such a way that it makes your love for your children look like hate in comparison, you cannot follow him. Children, hear what Jesus is demanding of you here. Unless you love Jesus in such a way that it makes your love for your parents look like hate in comparison, you cannot follow him. Do you see? If our love for our family hinders us from obeying God’s call, then that love is cancerous. But listen. Don’t misdiagnose the problem. The problem is not that we love our family too much; the problem is we love Jesus too little. What we need is not to love our family less but to love Jesus more. Unless Jesus is our highest affection, we cannot follow him. And look at what Elisha does next.

1 Kings 19:21 – And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him. After Elisha says goodbye to his parents, he slaughters the oxen and has a steak BBQ with the people. He takes everything that belongs to his old life, and he burns it. He literally cooks his career for dinner. Most commentators say this would have been an unbelievable party. This would have been a big feast. Do you know what Elisha is doing? He is saying, “I have finally found what my heart has been yearning for that riches cannot give me. The call of God has come to me, and I have decided to follow God. No matter what happens, no turning back. I will follow him unconditionally.” Elisha says goodbye to everything he knows and everything he loves in this world. He walks away from a life of luxury and becomes Elijah’s assistant for many years.

This is what it means. Following God’s call means leaving everything behind and surrendering our whole lives for God’s purpose. Let me tell you why this is important. We like to keep our options open, don’t we? Here is the bad news. God does not have double standards. What God required of Elisha is what God required of everyone who wants to follow him. What I see happen oftentimes is that we think that there are two categories of Christians: a regular Christian and a devoted Christian. A regular Christian is one who comes to church every Sunday and keeps their involvement minimum. A devoted Christian is one who is highly involved in the church. And we assume this radical call is for the devoted Christian. But that distinction does not exist in God’s sight. We either follow God and forsake everything, or we do not follow God. Here is the danger for many of us. If we are not careful, we can trade familiarity with God for costly following of God. We like to flirt with God. Flirting is fun. We take God out on a date by coming to church once a week. We text God by singing a few songs about how lovely he is. We buy gifts for God by transferring money into the church’s account. And that’s it. There is no commitment involved. We just cruise through casual, comfortable Christianity, and we hope we will go to heaven when we die. We are simply flirting with God. But God is not interested in flirting with us. He wants a committed relationship with us.

Following God is like being under arrest. How many of you have been arrested? Don’t raise your hands. What happens when you are under arrest? You lose control of your life. You follow the officer no matter what. You do whatever the officer says. That’s following God. There is no such thing as “I’ll follow God if…” There is no if. We are either free or we are under arrest. We are either following God or we are not. It is all or nothing. There is no middle ground. So, the question we need to ask ourselves is not, “Am I in church?” That’s shallow. The question we must ask ourselves is, “What am I willing to leave behind to follow God’s call? Am I willing to sacrifice my oxen?” Unless we are prepared to leave everything behind, we cannot follow God. Following God means, “No matter the cost, no matter how I feel, no matter how it looks, no matter what people say, I will follow God.” Let me put it another way. Do we want God for God, or do we want God for what he can do for us? Because if we want God mainly for what he can do for us, then we are not following God. We are simply flirting with God. And that’s what we often do. We often see God as a means to an end. We want all his gifts, but we do not want him. We enjoy all his blessings, but we do not love the blessed.

The power

2 Kings 2:8-10 – ⁸ Then Elijah took his cloak and rolled it up and struck the water, and the water was parted to the one side and to the other, till the two of them could go over on dry ground. ⁹ When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Ask what I shall do for you, before I am taken from you.” And Elisha said, “Please let there be a double portion of your spirit on me.” ¹⁰ And he said, “You have asked a hard thing; yet, if you see me as I am being taken from you, it shall be so for you, but if you do not see me, it shall not be so.”

So now, 18 years have passed since Elisha answered God’s call and became Elijah’s apprentice. Just as a side note, notice that it is God who established the relationship between Elijah and Elisha. When Elijah was depressed at Mount Horeb, God told him, “I am going to give you Elisha to be your successor. Anoint him.” And then God called Elisha and said, “I want you to follow Elijah. Serve him.” What does it mean? It means that if you want to follow God’s call, you need to serve me. Okay, that’s not what it means. Here is what it means. Every Elijah needs an Elisha, and every Elisha needs an Elijah. We learn to follow God through a discipling relationship. This is God’s ordinary pattern of Christian growth that we see throughout the Bible. Phillip Ryken puts it this way. “Disciple-making is God’s pattern for growth in Christian life and ministry. To that end, those who are young in the faith learn how to follow Christ from those who are mature.” One of the best ways to learn how to follow God is to follow in the footsteps of more mature and wise Christians. But it is wrong to think that discipleship is a one-way street. True discipleship is a two-way street. In my discipling relationship, I grow in my walk with God as much as I help others grow in their walk with God. Seeing how they grow in their walk with God also motivates me to love God even more. Discipleship also strengthens the discipler.

So now after 18 years of discipling relationship, it’s time for Elijah to depart from this world. Three times Elijah tells Elisha to stay behind, and three times Elisha refuses. Elijah then takes his cloak and strikes the Jordan River with it. And the river is split into two so they can cross on dry ground. After they cross the river, Elijah asks Elisha, “What do you want from me?” Elisha replies, “I want a double portion of your spirit on me.” For many years, I thought the double portion meant that Elisha wanted to be twice as good as Elijah. Elisha was asking for a double anointing of Elijah. I remember one time I had a conversation with my dad about ministry and we were talking about Elisha asking Elijah for a double portion. And he told me, “I pray that you will have my double anointing.” I said to him, “I don’t want your double anointing on me. I don’t want to be twice as good as you. I want to be ten times better than you.” What an arrogant brat. I did not know what I was saying. But that is not what Elisha is asking.

In those days, a double portion is the part of the inheritance that goes to the oldest son. So, what Elisha is saying is, “I want to be your heir. I want to be your successor. I want to be as powerful as you. I want to be your firstborn son.” This is what it means to inherit a double portion. Elisha is asking for the same presence of the Holy Spirit on Elijah to be on him. Elisha understands that what he needs more than all the lessons Elijah has taught him is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in Elijah. Elisha knows he can cope without Elijah. But he knows he cannot do it without Elijah’s God. So, Elijah replies, “What you are asking is beyond me. I can’t do that for you. But if you see me go, you know you get the double portion. If you don’t see me go, you don’t get the double portion.” What Elijah implies is that if Elisha has the spiritual sight to see what is about to happen, his request is granted. But if he does not have the spiritual sight to see, his request is not granted. If Elisha can see, it means that God has given him the eyes to see, and the Holy Spirit is already upon him.

2 Kings 2:11-14 – ¹¹ And as they still went on and talked, behold, chariots of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them. And Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. ¹² And Elisha saw it and he cried, “My father, my father! The chariots of Israel and its horsemen!” And he saw him no more. Then he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. ¹³ And he took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. ¹⁴ Then he took the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him and struck the water, saying, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And when he had struck the water, the water was parted to the one side and to the other, and Elisha went over.

By God’s grace, Elijah has the spiritual sight to see Elijah go out in a blaze of glory. Chariots of fire suddenly come down and take Elijah up into heaven. No one else sees that glorious sight except Elisha. Then I love what he does next. Elisha takes off his own clothes and tears them in two pieces. Then he picks up Elijah’s cloak that fell when Elijah went up. Elisha goes back to the same river he crossed with Elijah. He looks at the river and says, “Where is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” And he strikes the river with it just like Elijah did. This is crucial because Elisha can have Elijah’s cloak but does not necessarily mean he has Elijah’s power. Just because Elisha is Elijah’s successor does not guarantee that he has the Spirit of God on him. This is the problem with many church leaders today. They have the position, but they don’t have the power of God. But Elisha is different. Do you know what happens when Elisha strikes that cloak into the river? The river parts and Elisha crosses the river on dry ground. This is God’s way of saying, “You have what you asked. You got what you wanted. The same Spirit that was in Elijah is in you. You will be as effective and powerful as Elijah.” The fact that the river parts tell us that the God of Elijah is also the God of Elisha. Elijah may be gone, but God remains. And the same God who was with Elijah is with Elisha.

Don’t miss what the text is teaching us. The Spirit of God is not tied to a particular era or a particular person. Everyone who puts their faith in Jesus has the Spirit of God. There are many Christians today who believe that God could do the supernatural in the past, but he doesn’t do it anymore today. But why? Why doesn’t God do it today? The last time I checked, the God of Elijah and Elisha is the same God we worship today. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So, what changed? God has not changed. Is it possible that we don’t see the great works of God today not because God does not do it but because we don’t trust him to do it? The God of Elijah and Elisha in 850 BC is also the God of the apostles in the first century. And the God of the apostles in the first century is also our God in the 21^st century. The historical God is also the contemporary God. So let us not limit God and his great works to a particular era or a particular person. What happened in the past can still happen today because we have the same God.

When we realise this, it also prevents us from idolizing those whom God used. Our help does not come from the charisma of God’s servants but from God. Praise God for the people whom God used to preach powerfully and do great works in our lives. But God’s servants change all the time; only God remains. I love the way Dale Ralph Davis puts it. “Perhaps sometimes God removes his most illustrious servants so that we will not make idols of them, as though they are conduits of God’s help. Perhaps God deliberately displays his might through ‘lesser’ instruments so that we will not be transfixed on the pizzazz of God’s servants but on the strength of God’s arm.” I know what you are thinking right now. How does Domino’s have anything to do with God’s servants? This is not that pizza. Pizzazz is a word for a person’s style or flair that makes him dazzling or exciting. In other words, God loves to use ordinary people because God does not want to draw attention on them but on him. The same Spirit that was on Elijah and Elisha, the same Spirit that was on the apostles, is living inside every Christian today.

I love the way James puts it. James 5:17-18 – ¹⁷ Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. ¹⁸ Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit. When we hear the stories of Elijah, we often think, “Yes, but that’s Elijah. I am not Elijah. I am not Elisha. I can’t do what they do. I’m just an ordinary person.” But James is saying to us, “What makes Elijah different from you? Elijah was not from Krypton. He was an ordinary person just like you.” We tend to see people like Elijah and Elisha as a superhero of faith with a special power from God. But they were not. They were just ordinary people who said yes to God’s call on their life. So, whatever they experienced of God’s grace is available to us as well. The God of Elijah and Elisha is still at work through every believer who put their faith in God today.

But the question is, how do we know that we have God’s Spirit in us? Where do we get the power to follow God’s call? Here is how: the chariots of fire. What is a chariot? A chariot is an instrument of justice and destruction. You don’t ride a chariot to go on a date. You ride on a chariot to go to war. So, Elisha saw Elijah taken up by chariots of fire into a whirlwind. Elisha was shocked and he tore his clothes. Why? Because Elisha saw God’s glory. This is the same glory that came down on Mount Sinai where God said to Moses, “Tell the people of Israel to not draw near. Otherwise, they’ll die.” God’s glory is lethal. God’s glory is traumatic. No sinners can stand in the presence of God’s glory. The glory of God crushes sinners. But when Elisha saw the glory of God, he was shocked because the glory of God did not kill Elijah. Instead, it lifted him up and united him with God. It did not send him to hell; it took him to heaven. Elisha could not understand it, but we do. Why did the chariots of fire not kill Elijah? Because someone else will experience the fire of judgment on his behalf.

When Jesus came to earth, he experienced the fire of God’s judgment. The chariots of fire did not lift Jesus into heaven but sunk him into hell. At the cross, Jesus experienced the fullness of God’s wrath. He absorbed every drop of God’s fiery judgment toward sins. Why? So that when we put our faith in him, we will have the chariots of fire lift us up to God. That’s why John says that if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. John does not say God is faithful and merciful to forgive us. John says God is faithful and just. Why? Because Jesus has fulfilled the demand of God’s justice. And if Jesus has paid God’s demand of justice, it would be unjust for God to require any payment from us. That would be getting two payments for the same thing. It means if God fails to love and accept us after our faith in Jesus, that is not only a failure of mercy but a failure of justice. Therefore, when we put our faith in Jesus, we not only have God’s mercy on our side, but we also have God’s justice on our side. We have the chariots of fire on our side. And this is where we get the power to follow God. This is how we know that we have God’s Spirit in us. We have to see Jesus sunk into hell by the chariots of fire so that we will be lifted into heaven by the chariots of fire. If we see that, that’s power.

Elisha asked the right question, “Where is the God of Elijah?” The answer is: right here. He is living in us. He is empowering us. He is walking with us. He is blessing us. Elijah is gone, but the God of Elijah remains. He is the God who was, who is, and who is to come. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And this God is calling us to follow his call. Will you follow the call? Let’s pray.

Discussion questions:

1. What struck you the most from the sermon?
2. Explain why it is essential to have the call of God in your life.
3. What makes following God’s call costly for you? Please share it with one another.
4. Why is it so hard for you to believe that the same God who was on Elijah is living in you right now? How does believing this truth affect your daily life?
5. How does the gospel give you the power to follow God’s call?