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Jun 19, 2022

It’s Not About You

It’s Not About You

Passage: 1 Kings 19:15-21

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Easter Egg, the hidden figure of Elijah in the life of Jesus

The thing we are most afflicted by is the thing we most admire in those who seem to have been healed of the affliction. It’s the fixation on the self–always monitoring and measuring it against others. How often do we need someone who loves us to tell us, as they say, “It’s not about you”? In this brief and, as we’ve come to expect, odd moment in the life of Elijah we find him calling in a successor–Elisha. They together offer us a mini-course in discipleship, the title of which might be “It’s not about you.”

readings & scripture

PREPARATION: Psalm 115:1, 36:5
LEADER: Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory,
for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!

ALL: Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the clouds.

CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Kings 19:15-21
1 Kings 19:15 And the LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. 16 And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. 17 And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. 18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.”

1Kings 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. 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?” 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.

AFFIRMATION OF FAITH/SCRIPTURE READING/CORPORATE PRAYER: Philippians 2:3-11
LEADER: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
ALL: Thanks be to God.

CONFESSION OF SIN: Based on Colossians 1, Genesis 3, Romans 7
ALL: By you all things were made, in heaven and on earth, things visible and invisible. You are before all things, and in you all things hold together. But we find another voice still more persuasive, more compelling. The voice that we can be like god, without needing You, rings in our ears and leads us astray. In what others see, or what only You can see, we find in us a desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. Some days, we don’t even have the desire. We confess our particular sins. Really, we confess the heart that birthed them.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: Romans 5:6-8
LEADER: For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

ALL: Thanks be to God.

BENEDICTION: Hebrews 13:14-16
LEADER: For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

ALL: Amen.

Additional Resources

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • Matthew 5:14-16
  • Matthew 8:18-22
  • Matthew 10:34-39 / Luke 14:26
  • Luke 5:29
  • Luke 14:25-26
  • Romans 11:2-4
  • 2 Timothy 2:4 (note also 1 Timothy 5:8)
  • Revelation 2:4

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. Deep question: can you remember a time in which you discovered, quietly or rudely, that you were not the center of the universe? Describe the experience.
  2. The Lord tells Elijah to anoint Elisha to succeed him. Why might Elijah have sought someone to follow in his way even if the Lord hadn’t instructed him to do so? In what was Elisha to continue? 
  3. What are several ways someone who is part of God’s people lives for the future of that people and its purpose? What makes us hesitate to think that way? Why is it an essential way of thinking–but also why might it be for our joy as much as for His honor?
  4. Scholars of this passage argue whether Elisha, in asking to kiss his parents goodbye, was hesitating or coming to terms with this call to follow Elijah. What from the passage leads you to side with either possibility?
  5. What are we to learn from Elisha’s sacrificing of his oxen and feeding it to the people? What did it signify for him–for us?
  6. Can you name a time when you struggled to prioritize your faithfulness to God in the context of a relationship with someone or something else? What went through your head? How did you respond–whether prioritizing the Lord the other? What came of it?
  7. How is Jesus a model of the idea “it’s not about you”? Why must we believe he was more than a model for us if ever we will find him a worthy model of self-forgetfulness?

ILLUSTRATIONS:

InView Media Album

QUOTES: 

  • The simplest argument against a cultural fixation on the individual getting whatever they want is that it’s entirely unachievable. But the deeper and more important problem is that several thousand years of human progress has advanced in the direction of the common good rather than of the selfish individual. We owe each other things, and sometimes this means sacrificing our own wants and desires to support others. Freddie DeBoer
  • . . .while the church exists indeed to extend comfort and to grace, she also exists no less centrally. . .to challenge and to disciple. . . .Debility creeps into the church when she sees her task as mainly that of comfort. . . . F.D. Bruner
  • He loves Thee too little, who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake. Augustine

 

 

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