Oct. 5 2011
Steve Jobs died at age 56
Rip Steve jobs. You led the world into the 21st century.
Rip Steve jobs. You improved life as we know it.
Steve jobs- on behalf of every dreamer sitting in his or her garage who is crazy enough to try to change the world, you will be missed.
Good Enough-
baseline living marked with mediocrity, being stuck in spiritual survival mode, and being controlled by complacency
Greatness- the vague unrealistic aspirations of doing better that don’t work in real life
Good enough leaves you stuck in stagnation
Grasping for Greatness lends to endless frustration
But there is a third way greater
The life-altering understanding that god is ready to accomplish a kind of greatness in your life that is entirely out of human reach. Beyond Steve jobs. Beyond what you see in yourself on your best day. But exactly what God has seen I. You all along.
John 14:12
“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.
Tweetable
When God is speaking one word is more than enough. He’s more interested in your obedience than your total understanding.
Elijah
1) Causing the rain the cease for 3 1/2 years (1Ki 17:1)
2) Being fed by the ravens (1Ki 17:4)
4) Resurrection of the widow’s son (1Ki 17:22)
5) Calling of fire from heaven on the altar (1Ki 18:38)
6) Causing it to rain (1Ki 18:45)
14) Being caught up to heaven in a whirlwind (2Ki 2:11)
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 NIV)
Talk about my call. 2nd grade at living word church. Everyone went forward to get prayed for and I went up.
People are falling left and right.
Fast forward to my senior year of high school.
Worship story and north central.
God was talking behind Elisha back
Explain about Elijah.
He was tired of fighting battles with wicked people and he was depressed he was worn out.
Jezebel wanted to kill him. She was the queen of the country of where he is from. It is in the midst of this time that god is having a conversation with Elijah about Elisha.
Elisha has no idea that the conversation is even happening.
1. God invites us to a higher calling. 19
i. Elisha wasn’t searching for greater when he was invited to a higher calling.
ii. Elisha was plowing the fields when Elijah mantle hit him.
Elisha job was to plow the fields.
It is hard work to plow.
Some scholars think that Elisha would have been charge of all of the oxen. That means he wasn’t just eking out a living.
He was comfortable.
His job would have had a lot of monotony to it.
He was the 12 driver of 12.
Taste the sweat. But he can also taste the smells around him
Their is dust and an ox dung and it is caked into his clothes
His scenery is always the same.
Monday he has a ringside seat to ox butt
Tuesday if you look out the window to your right ox butt
Wednesday the inflight entertainment ox butt
Thursday he gets to click www.oxbutt.com
Fridays special more dust and dung for master chef ox butt
God calls him in the midst of a boring mundane life. Elisha wasn’t seeking out God for give me more he was just doing his job. And Elijah came up behind Elisha and out his mantle on him.
http://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/mantle/
The mantle
Hebrew word addereth, a large over-garment
The mantle usually is made up of animal skin.
It is easily recognizable and is worn by kings and prophets. To wear the mantle would it make it easily recognizable.
The mantle represented Elijah’s calling. It represented the anointing that rested on his life. And when Elijah put the mantle on Elisha it would be like the ALS ice water bucket challenge. And it would have been undeniable the call of God on His life.
Elijah no coffee
Not happy or satisfied In His job
Carrier fair about different opportunities.
Disclaimer: *this doesn’t mean doing something different! but perhaps living where you are with greater purpose and passion.
I don’t want you to think that if you are working a 9-5 job as accountant or in some other area of business. Preachers like me is the higher calling. That if you can graduate to be like then you will receive your higher calling. That is not what I want to communicate to you at all.
Greater= better that may not be the case. What if god wants you to show up to your current job with a greater sense of destiny.
God wants you to not sit behind the plows mindlessly.
2. God invites us to deeper surrender.
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?” (1 Kings 19:20 NIV)
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 19:21 NIV)
A. When Elisha accepted God’s invitation to a greater life, he left nothing for himself to go back to.
i. Elisha literally burned everything that was connecting him to his past life of good enough.
ii. Time wasters. Game on my phone.
iii. Kyle illustration of Arizona state.
iiiI. You make the decision to follow Jesus you are saying he is far greater.
The world behind me the cross before me
Context of the song
In the 1880’s a Welsh missionary who had endured severe persecution finally saw his first converts in a particularly brutal village in the Indian province of Assam. A husband and wife, with their two children, professed faith in Christ and were baptized. Their village leaders decided to make an example out of the husband. Arresting the family, they demanded that the father renounce Christ, or see his wife and children murdered. When he refused, his two children were executed by archers. Given another chance to recant, the man again refused, and his wife was similarly stuck down. Still refusing to recant, the man followed his family into glory.
Witnesses later told the story to the Welsh missionary. The reports said that when asked to recant or see his children murdered, the man said: “I have decided to follow Jesus, and there is no turning back.”
After seeing his children killed, he reportedly said, “The world can be behind me, but the cross is still before me.” And after seeing his wife pierced by the arrows, he said, “Though no one is here to go with me, still I will follow Jesus.”
http://thecripplegate.com/why-we-sing-i-have-decided-to-follow-jesus/
Hand on the back door of the world.
Call you higher but the only way to get there is to have a deeper surrender.
What are the plows God wants up you to burn?
1. Dependencies
2. Ways of thinking
3. Bitterness
4. Resentment
5. Excuses
- Good thing when God has something greater for you.