“Becoming a 3-D Disciple” – 2 Kings 2

What is success? What would you say is a good definition of success? I think of Jesus dying on the cross and His last words were, “Tetelestai!” which means the job has been completed and paid in full. There is nothing else to be done. That is success. That is a job well done. He did everything the Father had sent Him to do and He did it right and did it completely.

The dictionary defines success as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. So, that begs the question, what is your aim or purpose? If your purpose is to make money, it’s pretty easy to judge if you are a success. If your aim is to make friends, it’s pretty easy to judge if you are a success. But if your purpose in life is to make disciples like Jesus said it should be in Matthew 28, then how do you know if you are successful? You should just invite them to church, right? Does that make you a success at making disciples?

If your purpose in life is to make disciples then you should just pray for people. Then you are a successful disciple-maker. Right? If your purpose in life is to make disciples then you should just get them to make a decision for Christ and walk the aisle and be baptized. Is that being a success at making disciples? Okay, so now we have to define “disciple”, right? How would you define a disciple?

I did some research on this a few years ago (no, I did more than just google it this time) and my brief, working definition of a disciple in our context has been a disciple is simply one who learns from Jesus and then tells others what they have learned. Being a disciple includes becoming more like Jesus and carrying on His work and His message. And we are going to see over the next few weeks that Jesus was the model for disciple-making.

His first command was to “follow me.” All through the New Testament we are told to walk as He walked (1 John 2:6), do what He did (John 14:12), and think as He thought (Philippians 2:5). The whole purpose of Jesus’ three years of ministry was to raise up men who were just like Him and who could do ministry the way He did it. Jesus had a plan for making disciples and He was successful in following that plan so how perfect is it that we, as His disciples, should follow that plan to make more disciples?

In the next few weeks we are going to see that plan and see what we need to do to follow it but for the first message in this series I want us to see that while Jesus is the model for disciple-making, disciple-making didn’t start with Jesus. He wasn’t the first one to make a disciple. In fact, all through the Old Testament period, disciples were being made all over the place; in the temple, in the schools, in the wilderness; people were learning from other people and telling others what they had learned while in the process of becoming more like that person and carrying on their mission.

One of my favorite Old Testament stories about making disciples is in the book of 2 Kings. It goes 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles and Ezra, etc. 1 Kings is where we first meet Elijah. Elijah was a prophet of God and if you want to read about some incredible miracles, all you have to do is read what God did through Elijah. I don’t have time to give examples but it is fun to read about. I’ll just say that you didn’t want to be on God’s bad side when Elijah was around. That old dude wasn’t messing around.

But Elijah knew that his time on this earth was short and he needed somebody to come along after him and continue the work God had called him to do and God told him to choose Elisha. Their names sound alike but they weren’t related or anything like that. But evidently God had told Elijah that Elijah’s time was short so Elijah was preparing to leave by making the rounds of some theological schools to say goodbye and encourage them in the Lord. You might think of these as seminaries and they may have been seminaries that Elijah had started. So, Elijah is the old professor saying goodbye to his schools.

Let’s pick up the story in 2 Kings chapter 2 and we are going to read verses 1 through 15.

When the LORD was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. 2 Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; the LORD has sent me to Bethel.” But Elisha said, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went down to Bethel. 3 The company of the prophets at Bethel came out to Elisha and asked, “Do you know that the LORD is going to take your master from you today?” “Yes, I know,” Elisha replied, “so be quiet.” 4 Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here, Elisha; the LORD has sent me to Jericho.” And he replied, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So they went to Jericho. 5 The company of the prophets at Jericho went up to Elisha and asked him, “Do you know that the LORD is going to take your master from you today?” “Yes, I know,” he replied, “so be quiet.” 6 Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; the LORD has sent me to the Jordan.” And he replied, “As surely as the LORD lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So the two of them walked on. 7 Fifty men from the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan. 8 Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground. 9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?” “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied. 10 “You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.” 11 As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. 12 Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two. 13 Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. 14 He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the LORD, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over. 15 The company of the prophets from Jericho, who were watching, said, “The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.”

Let’s stop right there. What a sight that must have been! Chariots and horses of fire, a whirlwind that carries Elijah off to heaven, the Jordan River parting not once but twice. Good grief, pass the popcorn. This is a great show! There is enough here to preach a hundred sermons but I want to focus on the disciple that Elisha was. What made him a good disciple? Was it his ability to part the Jordan like Elijah or was it something else?

I want us to see what makes a good disciple so that we recognize it first in ourselves and then in the disciples that we make. Look first at just how devoted Elisha was. Three times Elijah tested him by saying, “Wait right here while I go on ahead.” And three times Elisha said, “No way. I’m going with you.”

It reminds me of another disciple who said something similar and meant the same thing. Ruth was a disciple (disciplette?) of Naomi in the great little book of Ruth. In chapter 1, Naomi is not testing Ruth when she tells her to go back to her people. She is genuinely concerned for her. But Ruth said, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me." 18When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.” (Ruth 1:16-18)

There was no arguing about it with Ruth or with Elisha. They were devoted to their teachers. But, why? Why was Elisha devoted to Elijah? The easy answer is that he loved Elijah and wanted to please him but there is more to it. Love is where discipleship starts but it goes deeper. The devotion is there for Elisha because he believes in the cause of Elijah. He is all in. He has seen the power of God at work and wants the world to see it. He wants the world to know God like he knows God. He wants everybody to have what he has.

A while back, I went to Walmart with Cody. We both needed some groceries so we went together. When we got there we split up to do our own shopping and a few minutes later, I hear him two or three aisles over. “Hey, how ya doin’? Blah, blah, blah…Christ Fellowship…blah, blah, blah…we just love Jesus…something something I couldn’t hear…hope to see you there! Bye!” When we found each other again later, I asked him if he had seen somebody he knows. “No. Why?”

I love that! Cody isn’t perfect. He’s not a perfect disciple. None of us are but Cody wants everybody to have what he has. Cody has been delivered by God from drug addiction, jail and a hopeless lifestyle to become a free man in every sense of the word because he is God’s servant and a disciple of Jesus. He loves God and he is devoted to the cause of Christ. He wants everybody to know God like he knows God so as a disciple, as he goes- as it says in Matthew 28 - as he goes, he tells others about Jesus. It is what Jesus said to do and Cody is devoted because he loves God and is committed to the cause.

Look at verses 8-10 again in our story about Elijah and Elisha. Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground. 9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?” “Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied. 10 “You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”

What Elisha was asking for comes from Deuteronomy 21:17 where the law says that the first-born son inherits a double portion of his father’s household. Elisha is not asking for stuff, though. He is asking to be the one who carries on the mission when Elijah is gone. Elijah knows that is not his decision to make and tells him if he sees Elijah taken, then that is God’s sign. There is a lot to this passage but we see that Elisha was developing the vision that Elijah had. We see Elisha developing the character that Elijah had and we see him developing the abilities that Elijah had. He was devoted to Elijah and was developing into Elijah, if you will.

Because Elisha was developing the vision, the character and the abilities of Elijah, God chose him to be used much like Elijah was. When God took Elijah in the whirlwind, Elijah’s outer jacket or cloak fell to the ground and Elisha picked it up knowing full well that this life wasn’t going to be easy. But he walked back to the Jordan River where they had crossed over on dry ground just like the Hebrew people when they left Egypt and hit the water with the jacket, not because he was mad or trying to show off. He just had the same vision, character and abilities now that Elijah had and God did a miracle through him just like He did with Elijah.

In verse 15 the young men from the school had gathered to watch and it was obvious to them even from far off that God was now using Elisha.  They said, “The spirit of Elijah is resting on Elisha.” That wasn’t meant to be a compliment. It was just fact. It’s what Elisha wanted more than anything and he was ready to pay the price to develop into what Elijah had been and what God wanted for him. And people noticed.

I think part of the reason that some people start to follow Jesus and then slowly drift away is because they aren’t told from the beginning what is expected of them now. They think that now God is going to solve their problems and get them out of what they had gotten themselves into and they don’t understand the commitment that is required. They have devotion. They love God and want other people to go to Heaven with them but they don’t realize the cost of developing themselves to look and act like Jesus. God is not your spiritual genie that you have in your back pocket for when things go wrong. And for us, developing to look more like Jesus means lots of time in prayer and scripture reading. Don’t call yourself a disciple if you aren’t constantly developing, changing and growing.

There is one more way that Elisha proved he was a disciple. The military calls it to be deployed. Some of you here were in the military. What does it mean to be deployed? It means to leave the comfort and safety of home and what you are used to and engage in the battle. Elisha was deployed. Man, was he deployed! He took off.

After this story, it is chapter after chapter of Elisha being used by God. The same kinds of things that Elijah did, Elisha did them and more and always giving God credit and making God look good. He started with parting the Jordan, then raised a little boy from the dead, multiplied the widow’s oil, purified the town’s water, made the axe head float and on and on, always pointing to God and speaking truth. One of my favorite stories was when a bunch of young boys were making fun of him for being bald and so it says he called down a curse on them and two bears came out of the woods and mauled them. Y’all just remember that the next time you call me the SBC (short bald clergy).

Now, maybe God uses you in the same way to work a bunch of miracles and call down curses…but I doubt it. He is the same God but it didn’t happen much in those days and is needed even less these days but when you are deployed as a disciple of Jesus, God will still use you. I promise.

In Matthew 9:35 we see Jesus going around healing and teaching in all these different places but it says that He saw the crowds, and had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38Ask the LORD of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." Jesus said the answer to human suffering in this world is prayer. But not a prayer that says, “Lord, please help these people. They are really hurting.”

It’s a prayer that says, “Lord…send me. Deploy me. Give me everything I need to do what you have called me to do. Lord, help me help them and as I go, help me make disciples.” But, don’t worry. I hear ya. You’re busy people. You have jobs, kids, grandkids, hobbies and not much spare time to go around being deployed. I understand. In fact, God understands and that is why the Great Commandment, the Great Commission says, well, think about what it doesn’t say. Jesus doesn’t say to go and build a bigger church. In fact, He said that’s His job. He didn’t say to start a discipleship program. He doesn’t command us to call down bears or multiply oil or make axe heads float.

What does He say? He said “Go and make disciples” which means “as you go” – as you go to work, as you deal with the kids and grandkids, as you go to the doctor, as you go to soccer practice or to Walmart, make disciples. That means to lead them to Jesus and get them involved in a local church (I recommend this one, but whatever) and then disciple them to be devoted, developing and deployed just like you are.

So, does that sound like you? Are you 3-D? If it doesn’t, it’s not the end of the world. Becoming a true disciple takes time and it is difficult to do. D.L. Moody said, “It is better to train ten people than to do the work of ten people. But it is harder.” Do you understand that? It is easier to just do all the work yourself than it is to train other people but it’s worth it and it’s a command.

But if that doesn’t sound like you; if you are not making 3-D disciples then that easily tells me that you still need to be discipled and that only comes from being in church, being in prayer and being in the Word. There’s no shortcuts. To be like Jesus, you have to spend time with Jesus.

Maybe you have never started the process of becoming a true disciple yourself. You can’t replicate what you are not. Maybe that’s why you aren’t making disciples. Start by going to God in prayer right now and asking Him to be Lord of your life; that whatever He says and scripture says to do, you will do it. Ask Him to forgive you of your sins and then repent or turn away from those sins.

Becoming a true believer and a true disciple is not a complicated thing. All you have to do is truly believe. But that belief will show itself as a changed life, a changed heart and mind and a focus on learning from Jesus and then telling others what you have learned. That’s being a disciple and there is no better deployment in this world.

We can have peace and joy in this world even in the difficult times plus the promise and security of Heaven when we die. If you have never accepted that gift from God, do it right now as the music plays.