Aspen Hill Christian Church

Dr. Robert Chance

Elisha refusing the gifts of Naaman, by Pieter de Grebber (Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem).

But Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.”    2 Kings 2:2 / NIV

Theme:  There is a quality of relationships evidenced in the Bible that speak to us of what our own relationships should be like and what beautiful things happen when God’s people bind to one another in a deep and faithful way.  The depth of the kind of relationships that God wants to see in and among his people stands in stark contrast to what is so normal in today’s world.

Introduction…

A Story…
A man and his wife are having dinner with another couple.  The two couples are old friends.  They have reached the point in their friendship where honesty and forthrightness is not only assumed in their relationship it is practiced with precision.  The two couples are talking and catching up on all the news of their respective lives.
When the waiter brings the salad the husband, not having remembered any conversation about either being interested in a salad or wanting to share one wonders why he brought salad for them.  His wife says “because I knew you would want one and I ordered it for us to share”.  “Didn’t you hear me order it?” she asks.  The husband gently pokes fun at his wife (perhaps an unwise thing to do that lesser men would never take on). 
Immediately upon her friend being chided by the unwise husband the second woman stands up for friend and starts chiding the husband back.  The banter goes on for a jibe or two.  The two women are steadfastly standing together.  The one husband is taking a lot of heat from the two women.  He’s strong, he can handle it.  Women bond together well.
Do you notice anything missing in the story?  That’s right.  Women bond together immediately and strongly while male bonding is sort of like “This is your battle brother, see you on the other side – if you make it”.  The first man then takes on his erstwhile friend “Where are you friend?  I don’t see you standing up for me like your wife stood up for her friend”. 
Silence.  Stone cold silence.  No yielding to the pressure.  No standing up between friends here.  It’s the way of male bonding. 
Fortunately, or unfortunately the first male, the one who was abandoned in the midst of battle by his friend while his beautiful wife’s beautiful friend stood firmly by her knew what to expect and never thought his friend would stand by him. 
It’s a sign of times the first man chided his friend.  Males let one another sink in a raging sea while women will go and grab an umbrella for their friends if the first drop of rain begins to fall. 
It wasn’t like this in the Bible.  No, men stood up for one another.  Men were faithful to each other.  No… true friendship was marked by loyalty and dedication, especially in hard times.

I.  The Bible has something to say about all this …

It was 850 (+/-) hundred years before the birth of Christ.  In Israel the great prophet was nearing the end of his life.  He had been a faithful and truthful witness for God for many years but the time of his departure was near.  It was believed that he would be taken into heaven on a certain day. 
His understudy was a young prophet named Elisha.  Elijah had befriended and mentored Elisha and the two had become great friends.  On the day Elijah felt the time had come he was going down to Bethel from Gilgal he told Elisha to stay back in Gilgal.  The young prophet refuses to leave his mentor’s side.   Finally, Elijah asks what Elisha is seeking.  He unabashedly requests a double portion of Elijah’s prophetic spirit.  Asking for a double portion of his mentor’s spirit wasn’t about chutzpah or greed on Elisha’s part.  According to the custom of his day the eldest son was entitled to a double portion of his father’s estate.  If a father had 3 sons each would get one fourth of their father’s estate after his death but the eldest son would get 2/4 while each of the others received one fourth.  Elijah promised that the wish would be granted if he could se him being taken away.  As the chariot of fire and horses of fire gallop with Elijah into glory, Elisha saw and exclaimed with joy what he saw.  

Elisha…
Following the death of Elijah Elisha did indeed become a great prophet. 
Elisha did inherit the wonder-working power of Elijah is shown throughout the whole course of his life. The Bible is filled with stories of Elisha’s miraculous powers as a great prophet.
*  After Elijah’s departure, Elisha returned to Jericho, and there healed the spring of water by casting salt into it (2 Kings 2:21).
*  We next find him at Bethel (2:23), where, with the sternness of his master, he curses the youths who have come out and ridiculed him as a prophet of God: “Go up, thou bald head.” The youths mockingly tell Elisha to follow his master in a chariot to heaven, and make fun of his appearance. Elisha then pronounces a curse upon them, pleading God for retribution. The judgment is said to have at once taken effect: two she-bears come out of the woods and kill 42 of the youths.
*  Elisha is next encountered in Scripture when he predicts a fall of rain when the army of Jehoram was faint from thirst (2 Kings 3:9-20).
*  Other miracles Elisha accomplishes include multiplying the poor widow’s cruse of oil (4:1-7), restoring to life the son of the woman of Shunem (4:18-37), and multiplying the twenty loaves of new barley into a sufficient supply for a hundred men (4:42-44).
*  During the military incursions of Syria into Israel, Elisha cures Naaman the Syrian of his leprosy (5:1-27), punishes his servant Gehazi for his falsehood and his greed, and recovers an axe lost in the waters of the Jordan (6:1-7).
*   He administered the miracle at Dothan, half-way on the road between Samaria and Jezreel, and at the siege of Samaria by the king of Syria, Elisha prophesied about the terrible sufferings of the people of Samaria and their eventual relief (2 Kings 6:24-7:2).
Numerous other stories in the Bible tell us us Elisha being a great prophet.  Finally, in 2 Kings 13:14-20 Elisha died and was buried.
While Elisha lay on his death-bed in his own house (2 Kings 13:14-19). Joash, the grandson of Jehu, came to mourn his approaching departure, and spoke the same words as those of Elisha when Elijah was taken away.   “My father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.”
The very touch of his corpse served to resuscitate a dead man. “In his life he did great wonders, and in death he wrought miracles” (Ecclesiasticus, xlviii, 15). After his death, a dead body was laid in Elisha’s grave a year after his burial. No sooner did it touch Elisha’s remains than the man “revived, and stood up on his feet” (2 Kings 13:20-21).
Quite a prophet, Elisha, his story is an interesting and powerful story.  But, more than his story what I want to share with you today is the powerful and suggestive insight from his insisting on remaining with his beloved mentor, Elijah. 
In the story of young Elisha’s promise to stay with Elijah to the very end, no matter what happened, I see for us the example of what our own relationships as the people of God are meant to be.  I see God’s reward for our faithfulness and I see exactly what God wants to see out of our own relationships.

II.  The world’s model of friendship is we bond together lightly – as long as it serves my needs, meets my requirements or gives me what I want out of the relationship.

There is a superficiality in many of our relationships today that stands in stark contrast to what we see in men and women of God throughout the Bible.
It’s seen everywhere.  Our relationships today are often bound together not with Gorilla Glue but with chewing gum.
*  Half of all marriages end within the first five years of marriage when people discover their spouse is as perfect as they thought they were or want them to be.  Relationship at home not working – no problem I’ll get a new wife or a new husband – whichever it may be.  
*  People “church shop” just like they car shop and even after they’ve joined a church and made a mutual commitment to one another they dump their church like a hot potato if they suddenly aren’t having their needs met. 
*  We expect politicians to make superficial and half hearted commitments but husbands and wives and church members?  I don’t think so.
*  Ballplayers jump from one team to another, without a hint of loyalty or affection for “their team” or “their city” or “their colors”.  I always watch with amusement as the newest team a famous ball player comes to play for puts on the jersey of his new team.  Recently, we watched the great theater as Adam Dunn put on his new Washington Nationals white shirt with “Nationals” emblazoned in red across the front.  I envisioned the same drama going on with great fanfare for the last city he transferred his allegiance to.  “Show me the money baby!”
*  Maryland starts losing some games, makes a few recruiting mistakes, is out of the NCAA’s a bit and suddenly fans are screaming for the head coach’s head.  Suddenly, when they aren’t winning a team’s fans fall by the way side, stop attending the games and abandon their coach and their team.  It’s ridiculous.  Personally, the Terps are my team, and Gary is my coach – in good times and bad – end of story.
People just don’t seem to value “sticking together” today like they may once in the past.
Personal loyalty and affection are a lot thinner these days. 
Maybe people don’t seem to form deep and lasting commitment to one another because we live is such a mobile society and friendships don’t get to be life long and lasting through all the important events of our lives.
Maybe people don’t seem to form deep and lasting commitment because we live in different parts of the city and work in careers unrelated to another and so do see each other enough during the week to plant deep common relationships.
Maybe we’re just so “me centered” and everything is about “me”, “me”, “me” that we just don’t form the deep and lasting “where you go – I go” and “your people will be my people”, no matter what kind of relationships seen so often in the peoples of the Bible.
Whatever the reasons it doesn’t really matter.
The truth is, today, our relationships often reflect a tentative, constantly being evaluated, shallow and temporary nature that is a far cry from what we see in Elisha and Elijah’s relationship.

III.  The Bible shows us what God intends in our relationships and in our commitment to stand by one another, through good times and bad.  The Bible shows us something different about relationships time after time, place after place, generation after generation.

In example after example God shows us pictures of what lasting and deep commitment between people looks like.
*   Elisha stays with his friend and mentor Elijah no matter what.  Unto the very end of his life Elijah will not be alone.  Elisha promises, no, insists on going where Elijah goes, doing what Elijah does, being where Elisha is.
* Where you go I will go.  Where you are I will be.  Elisha’s friendship isn’t transitory.  Elisha’s friendship isn’t tentative.  Elisha’s friendship isn’t dependent on Elijah telling him what he wants to hear or being who he thinks he ought to be.  No, Elisha’s friendship is permanent.  It is rock solid.  Through thick and think Elisha will stay with his friend.
* In another biblical story we read of the friendship and love of David and Ruth.  The whole beautiful love story of Ruth for David begins with Ruth’s commitment for Naomi. 
“Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me.”  Ruth 1:16-17 / NIV
* In yet another great story from the Bible we read of David and Jonathan’s great love and devotion to one another.  Their friendship is one of the greatest stories told in the Bible.  Their friendship is deep and lasting.  The commitment to one another is heart felt and genuine.
In fact, in one story after another throughout the Bible God shows what true and genuine relationship and commitment among people should look like and be like. 
The Bible shows us not just what God intended our relationships to look like but what happens.
In another and equally important sense God shows us in one story after another that good things happen when people make deep and lasting commitments, to one another, to country, to temple and church, to family, and most of all to him.
Good things happen when people follow God’s pattern instead of the world’s pattern in living out deep and lasting commitment in all aspects of their lives.
“Where you go, I will go” means we don’t friend shop when our friends don’t live up to some standard that we have arbitrarily set and imposed in our relationship isn’t met.
“Where you go, I will go” means we don’t “church shop” hopping from church to another until we get our way, and things are exactly what  we like or want.
“Where you go, I will go” means we don’t base our commitments to each other or to God or to those things that truly matter on fly by night, shallow, transitory commitments but on lasting and deep commitment to one another.
Good things happen like …
* knowing we can be ourselves and people will still stay with us.
* knowing we can stand by one another in good times and in bad.
* knowing we will have each other to count on when times get really tough and we can’t make it by ourselves.
* knowing likewise that just as our fiends will be there for us we will be there for them.

God not only shows us what relationship his way look like in the Bible but he shows the good things that happen when we follow his pattern.

Closing…

May we be blessed with deep and lasting commitments to one another. 
May we both give and receive friendships that like Elisha and Elijah will result in our remaining faithful and committed even until the very end of our days.
May we experience the deep and beautiful and life changing joy of sticking with each other, through good times and bad, through joy and sorrow, through birth and death, through all of the events of a life time.
This is one of the greatest joys of a long and durable relationship we have had as pastor and congregation.  We have been through life together.  We have grown up together.  Some of us have grown old together.  All of us are growing older together.  Life is good when “where you go, I will go” is the standard in our relationships.
I was just kidding John when I chided him for not standing up for me at the restaurant the other night.  I was just having fun when I accused him of not understanding male bonding.  I was just pulling his chain when I pointed out that Jane stood up for her friend Mary while my friend remained stone silent.  John is the best friend I have and I would count on him standing by me anytime it really mattered.  My example was just for fun –to get you into the right mood – but being faithful to one another and to God is no joke.

But today’s biblical lesson is no joke.  I’m not kidding.  I’m not just having fun.

Elijah tells Elisha he is going to Bethel where God has called him to come home for good.

Three times Elisha tells Elijah he will go where he goes, be where he is, and stay where he stays.

Three times Elijah tells Elisha to stay put.

Three times Elisha responds.  “Where you go, I will go”.

Theme:  1. God wants us to have Elisha relationships in our lives. God wants us to be deeply and thoroughly committed to one another. 
2.  God wants us to be faithful and committed to each other, to our country, to our church, and most of all to him throughout our lives.
3.  When we follow God’s pattern of relationships good things will happen.

“But Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.”    2 Kings 2:2 / NIV