God through changes

Change

There isn’t a whole lot of things that are sure in life, but one of them is change. The question isn’t so much, will there be change? But rather, how much will change and how fast will that change happen?

Our bodies change. Our bank balance changes. Our home lives change. Our relationships change.

Some are going to be changes for the better. Other… not so much.

The question then becomes, how do we deal with change?

Now there is a bit of a spectrum here. On one end you have those who just love change. They’re the ones you will hear saying things like - a change is as good as a holiday. Change is exciting. It all part of this wonderful adventure called life.

I usually have a bit of a tendency towards this.

At the other end, we have those where change is bad. They like the comfort of knowing how everything happens. Without change, it becomes much easier to plan and organise because it is all so familiar.

Now in part, where we lie on this spectrum is just part of who we are. I think it is good to have people on both sides. If everyone were change lovers, well we might never have stability. If everyone hated change, well things might become stale quite quickly.

But regardless of where you are the idea I want to explore today is trying to see God in the midst of these changes.

You see, a easy tendency for anyone is to see how God worked in the past but to somehow assume, well, he might have acted like that once, but he doesn’t act like that now.

Church scenario

Now into this discussion, I want to draw our own potential change that we’ve been looking at here at Tanilba Bay Baptist.

You see, just like in our own personal lives, things always change in churches as well, whether we like it or not. And there are a lot of reasons for this. People come and go. Trends come and go. Society around us changes.

If you look back through our history books and you judge purely on numbers (which I recognise should not be the only measure), then you could conclude that this particular church was at it’s healthiest during the 1990’s, when I’m led to believe that this room here was pretty full most weeks.

Well, one things for sure, and that is that we will not get back to those days by trying to replicate precisely how things were done then. Those days are gone. Whether that’s good or bad is really beside the point.

But we can rightfully ask, why was God bringing people along then when we struggle to get past 50 people today.

Of course, there are many factors involves and it’s not my intention to investigate the specifics of them in this message.

The question I do want to ask however is: can we rightfully expect God to work in this church today like he did 20 years ago? Or maybe even more to the point: can we rightfully expect him to work in even more powerful ways?

It is easy to loose faith. God worked in a certain way back then, but not today.

I want to suggest however that God is not finished here yet. Not by a long way. I believe God has exciting things in store for us here at Tanilba Bay.

Link with Elijah/Elisha

Well today we continue our series on Elijah and Elisha. What we witness today is actually a quite dramatic change from the leadership of Elijah to Elisha.

So my plan this morning is first to explore the specifics of this episode, before coming back to explore some lessons we can think about when it comes to change.

Background

Well, we’ve been exploring the background to this story over the last month or two.

For this chapter, the main thing for us to know is that Elijah has been chosen by God to deliver a very important message at a very critical time in the history of Israel.

Israel’s at a low point with regards to its relationship with Yahweh, and Elijah has come in to help set things straight and set up a new platform for God to continue his big plan to save humanity.

It really is quite a critical point in this whole plan.

Well, if I go back to , Elijah was on Mount Horeb and God revealed to him what would happen next. The important part for today’s context is that God revealed to him that his ministry would be passed on to Elisha.

Now when I actually looked at that passage, which was just before the school holidays, one of the aspects I explored was the connection that we can find between the ministries of Moses moving to Joshua. And the ministry of John the Baptist moving on to Jesus. I’m not going to have a big focus on that this morning, but we will see some interesting things that continue those connections.

Well, after that chapter, what became quite clear was that the change was not to happen immediately.

In fact, there is a lesson in that for us. Don’t get caught up in your own timing. Trust God that his timing is perfect. It doesn’t always feel like it at the time, but he delivers in his timing, and it is always perfect.

Well, the immediate background to the story we have today, is that Ahaziah’s very shortlived reign has now been succeeded by Joram.

Last week we looked at Ahaziah’s death as recorded for us in the first chapter of second kings.

If you’ve been following carefully however, than you might have remembered that at Mount Horeb, when I just mentioned that we had Elisha’s succession foretold, we also heard that Jehu was to become king of Israel.

Well, he didn’t get the gig after Ahab, because it first went to Ahaziah. But he wasn’t the next either. Because at the end of chapter 1 it tells us that Joram then became king. Well that just reinforces that idea I just mentioned that God’s timing is not always what we expect, but it is perfect.

Elijah’s end

Well, into chapter 2, and the end of Elijah is almost upon us. It tells us that in the first verse of the chapter.

As we read the chapter it also becomes clear that the Holy Spirit has not been shy in letting his people know.

You see, Elijah and Elisha travel together down to Bethel, and when they get there, a company of prophets come out and say “Do you know that the Lord is going to take your master from you today?”

This has also been revealed to Elisha and so he acknowledges that he does know, but it would seem he didn’t want to talk about it, so he tells them not to talk about it.

Now it’s hard to know exactly what is going on in the mind of Elisha here. Is this a sign that he is wanting to resist the upcoming change? Or is it that he is just wanting to stay in the moment, knowing that Elijah will not be with him much longer and he just didn’t want people who are going to worry about it affect the moment? Or maybe Elisha is concerned about to many people finding out before it actually happens.

Well, we don’t really know, so I’ll leave it up to you to decide.

Whatever the case, Elijah and Elisha continue their journey down to Jericho.

At Jericho, the same thing happens - some prophets remind Elisha of what is about to happen, and Elisha responds by asking them to keep quiet about it.

At verse 6, we’re told that Elijah has a word that he is to continue on to the Jordan, but he asks Elisha to stay. That doesn’t suit Elisha, and so the two of them travel together to the Jordan.

At the Jordan

And it’s at the Jordan where the action really starts to take place.

Now, notice verse 7. It tells us that fifty men from the company of the prophets were also present but that they stopped as a distance and watched. They will come back into the story shortly so just keep that at the back of your mind.

Now the Jordan river plays a significant role in the Biblical narrative.

I reminded you earlier about the connection between Moses to Joshua, and John the Baptist to Jesus with this story of Elijah to Elisha.

Interestingly, the Jordan features in all of them.

Shortly after Joshua is placed into leadership, we see him enter the promised land. He does this by getting this now large nation of Israel to cross the Jordan into the land.

It’s at this point that we get the miraculous crossing.

Just like Moses parting the waters of the Red Sea, Joshua too has his own parting which we can read about in .

I’m going to come back to this water crossing, but if I just briefly jump over to John the Baptist, it also becomes significant where he is baptising people - that’s right, the Jordan. And it’s while he is baptising in the Jordan, that along comes Jesus, to be baptised, and thus starts his ministry.

Well, Elijah is about to have his own river crossing, in a similar vein to Joshua, only he doesn’t have a whole nation in tow, just the successor to his ministry.

Verse 8 tells us he rolls up his cloak, strikes the water and it divides to the right and to the left.

The two men cross over, while the fifty others remain on the other side, presumably able to see some of what is going on.

Once they cross, the conversation starts about what is going to happen. Elisha has stayed by his side this long, so Elijah asks the question: what can I do for you?

To which Elisha answer, “let me inherit a double portion of your spirit”.

Now it’s worth understanding exactly what is being asked here. By asking for a double portion is not asking to get double what Elijah himself has. Instead it is based on the idea that the first born get a double portion. Therefore, effectively what he is asking is that he is to be considered his direct spiritual successor.

Of course, this is not for Elijah himself to decide. But Elijah knows that if it’s the Lord’s will, then it will happen, so he replies, “if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours”.

Well, if you thought the river crossing was dramatic, from verse 11 things get even more dramatic.

In fact, in many ways I find this next part hard to imagine. You see, they’re still walking along together when suddenly a chariot of fire splits them apart.

Now it’s the chariot of fire which I have a hard time picturing. I’m guessing however that it would be pretty spectacular.

Imagine being one of the spectators on the other side of the river. They would have seen this flash or something bright in the sky. My suspicion is they probably wouldn’t quite see what’s happening, other than to know that it’s not normal.

But what we learn happens though from verse 11 is that Elijah is taken up by the whirlwind. Elisha then cries out “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!”

At that, Elijah is gone, and all that is left is Elijah’s coat.

In verse 13 we read that Elisha picks up the fallen cloak of Elijah and then comes the big question.

It’s the big question that I believe lies at the heart of any change.

As Elisha asks it in verse 14: Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?

We might ask the question slightly differently. We might ask: is God going to bless this change? Or are we moving away from God in this?

Now, there is of course a bigger issue for us in that we need to be wise in our discernment of where to go, but leaving that aside (because that’s not my main focus this morning), there is an underlying issue of: is God going to turn up?

If we had confidence that God was completely in control, then change should never scare us. Sure it might push us out of our comfort zone, but knowing that God is fully in control should help us to put things at ease.

So let’s come back to Elisha.

In the same fashion as Elijah, he strikes the water, and we get the same amazing miracle. The waters part and he crosses back over.

Now remember we have these spectators from a distance. They too must be wondering - what happens now that Elijah is gone? Well to them it is clear - God is still in control.

Can we apply this to us?

Now before I continue, it’s worth asking the question, is it reasonable to apply this situation to understanding how God will work through our own change situation?

Well, the truth is, this is a very pivotal moment in God’s whole revealing plan and so in some ways we do have to be careful in how much we apply to ourselves.

There are some very deliberate similarities between Elijah and Elisha and we very often won’t see the same sort of similarities when we see change. But that being said, what I believe is clear in this passage, and essentially the reason why I am using this for our own situation, is that it represents the truth that God is not confined to any one person or any one place. I want to suggest that God often brings these sort of changes around so that people don’t start thinking that it’s about an individual rather than God himself.

I’ve mentioned to some of you that I’ve been reading a book lately called the Heavenly Man, which is the story of Brother Yun (actually, as it happens, I finished the book this week). In that autobiography, Brother Yun admits that at times he started making the ministry about himself. He felt that at times God deliberately lowered him as a reminder that this wasn’t about him.

I believe it is the same principle at play. God can work through any time and any place.

As we begin to grasp this concept, then we can push ourselves out of the mould of thinking that God only works in certain ways and in certain places. This can actually be very liberating.

Stuck in the past

As I move into verse 16, we see a problem that can exist in change - that is, people struggle to move on.

In some ways, it’s quite a comical little situation. The fifty men decide that after Elijah’s hasty exit, they should go to try and find him.

Elisha of course is in no doubt. He knows what has happened. God took Elijah to heaven. But the others aren’t convinced. We’re told that the persisted in asking till Elisha got to the point of embarrassment.

Finally, after a three day search they fail to find anything.

Too often, similar things can happen to us. Things change, for whatever reason, but then we can get stuck wanting to go back.

Now while I’m on that point, I should clarify that this is different from trying to learn from the past. It can be very helpful studying the past to learn insights from it.

But what we see with these men’s search is different. In some ways, perhaps they just want to honour Elijah by the search, but I suspect it represent more, namely, a desire to go back to what they had. With Elijah they felt secure, and they can let go of that.

But things had changed.

Continuity and change

Now, I want to really briefly just touch on the last two short episodes that we see at the end of the chapter because I believe they belong.

You see, we can see in them both continuity and change.

Interestingly, we see continuity as Elisha re-traces the exact route that Elijah and he had come down. First going back to Jericho and then onto Bethel.

Change at Jericho

But at Jericho we see a very interesting change.

Now to appreciate this change at Jericho, we need to remember back when Joshua entered the promised land - and of course, I’ve already reminded you this earlier of the connection between Elisha and Joshua.

But with Joshua, you might remember one of his more memorable victories at Jericho. The end result was that the land was cursed. They were told never the rebuild it or if they did, it would come at the cost of the first born.

Interestingly, at the end of we learnt that Jericho just so happened to get rebuilt in the time of Ahab.

Well, with Elisha, we actually see a reversal of this curse.

While some things remain the same - the beautiful thing is that God is changing things for the better.

Change at Bethel

But then the final little episode is of a very different nature.

This time, Elisha gets taunted by a group of young people, of all things, making fun of his bald head.

Then comes one of those curious things that we struggle to come to terms with, similar to what we looked at last week when Elijah called down fire and burnt up the soldiers. This time however Elisha calls a curse on them and two bears come out and mauls forty-two boys.

Now I’m not going to get into all the ins and outs of this, other than to point out that what we see is an example of God’s judgement.

We like God’s grace, like we saw a moment ago in Jericho, but not so much his judgement.

But God is a God of both mercy and judgement.

And so, in this two little episodes of both Jericho and Bethel we see changes but also continuity.

God is making things new, but he also has the same expectations.

Conclusion

As I started this morning, change is inevitable.

There is a lot to consider in change, both as individuals and as a church.

But the one thing that is really clear is that God always remains.

As we experience changes, whether by design or by circumstances, we can take great comfort knowing that God is not dependent on certain people or certain processes. He is the great I AM, the one who is over all.

At Tanilba Bay, I believe God has some changes in store for us.

Exactly what that is, is still being discerned, but we can know that one thing is certain, God will always be with us, and for that reason we can go forward with confidence.

Let’s pray...