Teaching Others How To Serve

We have been involved in the prophet Elijah's life for some time now. We've been talking about living outside our comfort zone by serving God in different ways. We have discussed serving God with courage, serving God with trust, serving God through our prayers, serving God with our loyalty, and last week we learned that we can serve God even when we are discouraged.

Today we are going to look at one last aspect of Elijah's life as we now work at leading others to serve and teaching them how to serve God. In fact, that is essentially what I have been doing with each of you. Let's see what God's instructions tell us about leading others to serve him.

Prayer

Have you ever really thought about what counts in your life? It was Nelson Mandela that said “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made in the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.”

In Nelson Mandela's fight to promote justice and end human suffering, he spent 27 years in prison. For the first 18 years, he was held in a cell with no bed or plumbing, assigned to do hard labor and regularly endured inhumane punishment.

In 1985, Mandela was offered release under the condition that he would stop getting involved in politics. He refused. He said, “I cannot and will not give up any undertaking at a time when I and you, the people, are not free. Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.”

I open with this historical fact because Elijah had the same attitude. Elijah also looked beyond his own life to a greater mission. Just like him, we can act today to leave an impact long after we're gone. And isn't that really what we want to do? Don't we want to leave a legacy? Leave a reputation that is worth copying?

Last week we saw that having experienced the power and healing of God, Elijah learned that God still had work for him to accomplish. Elijah heeded God's command and he left Mount Horeb, the Mount of God, to pursue his new assignment.

If you remember God had given Elijah the assignment to appoint two kings; one over Aram and one over Israel and also to appoint someone to take his place. Maybe it was because Elijah believed he needed a personal friend and apprentice that he chose to start by finding Elisha to replace himself. This is going to be a tough message to preach because we will be talking about Elijah and Elisha. Let's not get the two confused.

1 Kings 19:19 – “Elijah left there and found Elisha son of Shaphat as he was plowing. Twelve teams of oxen were in front of him, and he was with the twelfth team. Elijah walked by him and threw his mantle over him.”

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Many of you might remember the animated film Finding Nemo. We cheered as clownfish Martin journeyed all the way across the ocean in search of his son Nemo. But Martin didn't succeed in finding Nemo on his own. He might never have completed his mission without the company of a small, ever upbeat, blue tang fish who struggled with short-term memory loss. Dory supported Martin in his mission, encouraging him to “just keep swimming” through all the obstacles that stood in his way.

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But not everyone on a mission recognizes their need for the help of others. Some may think, “if I want the job done right, I'll have to do it myself.” Or they might think, “I don't have time to enlist and train other people.” And sometimes they may be thinking, “I'm not sure I trust anyone else with this responsibility.”

Elijah was not like that. When God told him to enlist Elisha to carry on his mission, Elijah didn't hesitate. He left immediately and found Elisha as he was plowing. Elijah went in pursuit of Elisha and initiated the invitation.

I learned two lessons from that. Number one, if you're serving in an area of ministry in church, invite someone else to serve with you. If you aren't already serving in an area, pick an area and a person to learn from. The second lesson that I learned is to never discount what God can do with your life.

You may think that God can't use you. Never think I'm not smart enough, I'm not old enough, I'm not young enough, or I'm not talented enough. God does not need your ability. God needs your availability.

So Elijah found Elisha busy working his land. Elisha's use of 12 teams of oxen to plow indicates his family was wealthy. Here was a man who had ties -- to his family, his work, his possessions, and the land. So why would Elijah disturb Elisha in the middle of his work to call him to a difficult job? Why should Elisha even be interested? Simply enough, God had told Elijah to do it. And to disobey would be to rob Elisha of the opportunity to fulfill God's calling on his life.