Scripture: 2 Kings 13:20-21
Theme: Victorious Life
Title: Committed down to My Bones
This story focuses on the life of Elisha – a man who was completely surrendered to the LORD and who wanted to receive all that the LORD would give him.
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Most of us have been to a few funerals and we have on occasion seen some interesting things happen at them.
+There is a famous story of a man proposing to his future wife at her mother’s funeral. The young man seeing the woman he loved having to deal with so much loss and feeling alone, he leaned over to her and asked her to marry him. Suddenly, she was overwhelmed with two very different emotions; the loss of her mother and the joy of being engaged.
Now, that doesn’t happen at every funeral, does it?
+Then there is the story of a man named Tim who died at the early age of 40. Everyone was more than surprised to see that instead of having a casket at the front of the church, Tim had chosen instead to be laid out on a bed in his pajamas.
Now, again, that is something you don’t see very often.
+And of course, there have been other odd things that have happen at funerals.
-People being so upset that they punched the person lying in the casket or someone in the funeral party.
-Funeral homes losing both the body and the casket or else putting the wrong person in the wrong casket.
-People trying to walk around an open grave only to fall into the open grave. That has happened to not only family members, pall bearers but ministers and funeral directors.
In our passage this morning, we read about something unusual happening during a funeral.
Everything was going quite well. The body of the dead man had been washed and wrapped in a cloth. At that time, wooden caskets were not used. People were washed, wrapped in strips of cloth and placed either in the ground or in some type of tomb.
While the man’s friends and family were carrying his body to be buried they suddenly heard a renegade army of Moabites coming towards them. The funeral party didn’t know what to do.
+They didn’t have any weapons to protect themselves.
+They were too far away from their intended burial site.
They had to find a hiding place, or they would either be killed or taken as hostages and/or sold as slaves.
This was not how things were supposed to happen. No one goes to a funeral to be captured or killed by a renegade army.
At that time tombs and places where people were buried were marked with the color white. The opening of a tomb was whitewashed or there was some type of white cloth displayed. When people saw the color white, they would treat the area with respect.
Quickly, those leading the funeral party and carrying the body had to make a quick decision. Do they continue with the funeral or put the body somewhere and come back later and finish the job?
They decided that their lives were more valuable than their dead friend. Seeing a whitewashed tomb nearby they quickly moved the stone and just threw the body of their friend inside.
No, it’s right here where it where gets interesting.
Their dead friend, having touched the bones of the Prophet Elisha was brought back to life.
If you had been filming all of this with your phone, you would see these people running away. But are they running away from the Moabites hot on their heels or are they running away from their friend who is doing his best to run with all these strips of cloths on them?
This had to look like a scene from The Return of the Mummy.
There is nowhere else in scripture that we read about how the bones of a dead man brought someone back to life.
Elisha had been dead for at least five years. That is the shortest amount of time that it takes a body to decompose to mere bones.
Now, there has been a great deal of speculation on why God used this dead prophet’s bones to do this miracle. Speculation that is just that – one person’s reason is no better than another person’s reason.
The Bible is just quiet on the matter.
What the Bible is not quiet on is who the bones belonged to – the man that went by the name of Elisha.
I thought this morning we might just take a moment and reflect on this man’s life – for it is a life that has a lot to say to all of us this morning.
The Man – Elisha
When you talk about Elisha many people think that you are in fact talking about Elijah, but they are two different people who while they were both prophets were vastly different and the way they did things for the LORD were vastly different.
Elisha was born on a farm. The farm was owned by his father Shaphat and was located near the northern end of the Jordan River. It was a rather large farm and quite a wealthy farm.
Elisha’s name means – God is My Salvation. That’s a great name to give a child.
Now, that is about all we know as we meet Elisha in 1 Kings chapter 19. But that is not all that we know about this man.
Elisha possessed some qualities that I think can both challenge us and help us this morning.
1. Elisha was completely surrendered to the LORD – 1 Kings 19:19-20
One of the first things that stands out about this man was how he handled God’s call on his life. He was around the age of 20 years old.
When God called Elisha to follow him, he was busy plowing a field. He was leading a team of oxen.
Believe it or not, plowing with an ox or a team of oxen is still done today. In fact, millions of people plow their gardens and fields with an ox or a team of oxen in countries like Mexico, China, India and South America. Even here in the US there are a multitude of farms that choose to plow and use oxen to pull heavy loads rather than horses, mules or donkeys.
The only thing is you must be very patient, keep a close eye on them and be strong enough to lead them.
So, apparently, this young man named Elisha knew how to work and how to work hard. He didn’t let the fact that he was the son of a rich man make him feel entitled or lazy.
When Elisha heard God’s call – He immediately stopped being a farmer and followed Elijah and became his assistant.
The Bible tells us that he took the oxen he was plowing with and sacrificed them to the LORD using the wood of their yokes as firewood.
Now, think about this for a moment.
You get a call from the LORD.
You are a rich young farmer hard at work doing your best to be ready to take over the farm one day.
Suddenly, Elijah the Prophet shows up and tells you that God has another plan in mind. He tells you that the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY no longer wants you to farm but to become His Prophet and follow behind Elijah.
Elijah is this man that knows nothing about farming and at times lives on honey and locust. He is this man that has greatly upset those in power and has no problem confronting people with the truth.
What do you do?
+All your life you have lived on a farm. A really nice farm at that. Your family is quite wealthy and your parents have plans for you to one day take over the farm.
What do you do?
Well, this is what Elisha did:
+He got rid of anything that might have made him change his mind. +He sacrificed those oxen and burned up their yoke.
That was the way that Elisha signaled to the LORD that he was all in. He was fully surrendered and lived out that surrendered life for the next 60 years.
Elisha shows us the right way today. Listen to Jesus’ words:
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” – Matthew 16:24
27 And Jesus answered, s“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and tyour neighbor as yourself.” – Luke 10:27
When we choose to follow the Father, Son and Holy Spirit it is not on a whim. It is not something that we can just hear and put to the side. Our call to follow Jesus is a total call; it is a surrendered call and it is a lifelong call.
That is one thing that we can learn from Elisha – the importance of being totally sold out; being totally committed to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
2. Elisha was determined to get as much of God’s power and presence as he could receive. – 2 Kings 2:9
Elisha was not only fully committed he also determined to receive all that God would give him.
When it was time for Elijah to go to heaven, Elijah did his best to be alone. He didn’t want anyone to follow him or watch him go up to heaven.
But Elisha would not leave him alone.
He followed Elijah to Gilgal and then on to Bethel. He then followed him to Jericho. All told if you go in a straight line from one to the other it’s around a 50 mile journey.
Now, it’s not impossible to walk 50 miles in one day. In fact, the world record for walking an entire day is:
+131.27 miles by Annie van der Meer-Timmermann (Netherlands) in Rouen, France on 10-11 May 1986.
+ 142 miles 440 yd by Jesse Castenda (USA) at Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA on 18-19 Sep 1976.
Anyway, fifty miles following someone is not impossible but it definitely means that you are determined. And what was Elisha determined about – we read about that in 2 Kings 2. Elisha desired a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. That meant one of two things or both things:
+He wanted twice the power and presence of God’s Spirit in His Life that Elijah had possessed.
+He wanted to be the next main prophet of God for Israel.
Elisha received both. He not only becomes Elijah’s successor but as you read their stories Elisha does twice the number of recorded miracles as Elijah. The last one being the one we read about this morning – his bones helping someone come back to life.
The Bible records 14 miracles that God did through Elijah and 28 miracles that God did through Elisha.
No matter how you look at it. Elisha was not only committed he was determined to be all he could be for the LORD. He didn’t want to serve God on the sidelines. He wanted to be wherever God was working and doing whatever God wanted him to do.
The other day I was at Dickson’s Donuts around 6 am. Rebekah and I had gone to get our grandson to take care of him because he was sick and his mom had to go to work.
It had been a few years since I had been to Dickson’s Donuts so I didn’t know what they had but since it was so early, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to give them a try.
Wow!
The young lady that greeted me was awake, extremely cheerful and very helpful. Here it was 6 am and she was ready to go and wanted to wait on people and was having a great time doing it. She was making everyone’s morning a joy.
She was an Elisha. She was committed to her work and she was determined to make the most out of it. She wanted to sell donuts and have a great time doing it.
She made my day. I know that she helped me and a lot of other people have a great day.
We can do the same – we can do our best to help others have a great day - every day. And when it comes to church, we can help others have a great time with God and with one another.
We can do that by smiling, by singing, by praying and by worshipping. We can do that by sharing love and not frowns. We can do that by coming ready to give ourselves to God and to one another.
We can do that by being determined to receive all the blessings, anointings and presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We do that by telling God that we want as much of His power and presence in our lives that we can handle and then make it possible for us to handle even more.
3. Elisha possessed this amazing spiritual insight – 2 Kings 6:17
There is a lot more we could share about Elisha. In fact, I would encourage you to read his stories in the Bible. And if you can get ahold of a study on his life, you will be amazed at how much Elisha can teach you about God and how to live a victorious life.
So, let’s look at one more thing that this man shows us and can help us this morning. It’s really another strange story.
The King of Syria was upset with Elisha. He was livid. Every time he tried to make a surprise attack on Israel, Elisha had warned the king of Israel and Syria’s forces were pushed back.
At first the King of Syria thought that he has a traitor among his officials, but he learned that Elisha was being told by God when to warn Israel.
So, the King of Syria decides to surround Elisha with an army and take him prisoner and then he can go about attacking and destroying Israel.
He discovers that Elisha is staying in Dothan, a little town not far from Samaria. He sends some horses and chariots along with hundreds of soldiers to capture Elisha.
The Bible shares that one morning Elisha’s servant goes outside and sees all these troops. He quickly asks Elisha what they were going to do. He knows if they take Elisha then they might just kill him.
Elisha doesn’t get upset. He doesn’t run for the hills. He immediately asks God to show the young servant what he already knew.
While there were these troops of Syrian soldiers all around them, there was another army that had gathered that was surrounding the Syrians. All along the mountain tops there were these horses and chariots of fire from heaven.
One has to wonder if Elijah, his former mentor was leading that heavenly army.
That would have been quite the sight. For Elisha to see Elijah in one of those chariots, understanding that nothing was going to happen to him or his servant that day.
While evil might have gathered its army up, the army of the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY was at work as well.
Sometimes I think we forget that God sees us and protects us more than we can imagine. That at times that we too are surrounded by heavenly beings that watch over us.
Strange stories this morning:
Stories that challenge us to
+Be totally surrendered to the LORD; to get rid of anything that would tempt us to go back on the LORD or to serve him in a haphazard fashion.
+Be so committed that we want a double portion of God’s Spirit; God’s power and presence.
+Being able to see the forces of God that surround us day to day.
That’s not only our challenge today, but it is also our lifelong call. We are all invited to fully surrender ourselves to the LORD. We are all invited to allow the Holy Spirit to come in His fullness in our lives. And we are all invited to enjoy the power, presence and the protection of the Lord today.
Let’s let that be our prayer this morning and then we will close our service by listening to an amazing song – From Graves to Gardens.
