SEP 13 2026 | Elijah: From Drought to Downpour S2E4 | The Ordinary Call of Elisha

**Sea Change Church · Elijah: From Drought to Downpour** **S2E4 · "The Ordinary Call of Elisha"** **Pastor Adam Stadtmiller · September 13, 2026** **1 Kings 19:19-21** --- If you have your Bibles, we are a Bible-bringing church, but open your Bibles to 1 Kings 19. Final week of Elijah here as we look at his life and the different things that he, excuse me, Elisha is coming into the picture today. Elisha will be the successor for Elijah. And what is interesting is the succession, as you're going to see here, doesn't happen immediately. It happens through stages and through a process. And that's the one thing I want to say in this passage.

What I really want to show today is that just because God lays a mantle on you, gives you a calling, doesn't mean the timing is now. As soon as we get a calling from God, as soon as we get a vision from God, we are a now, now, now people. God says you're going to be married, well, let it happen today. God says you're going to have a business, let it happen today. Everything's today. And sometimes God does that, but we often find that God will lay a mantle upon somebody, and it'll be a while. We're going to pick up the story where we left off last week.

Elijah had been living in fear, had gone to the cave. He met God. God came in a whisper. And then God sends him out, back into mission, to go find the people that are going to collaborate with him to bring the downfall of the evil Israel and King Ahab. He says, go anoint these three people, one of which is Elisha, his successor, and he sends him back out into mission. And I think that one of the words for us is this: some of us are in fear, and God is saying, I need you to get back out in mission. I need you not just to go do it on your own, but I need you to go find the people who you're going to collaborate with.

Jesus would call it disciple, and send those people, and involve those people into the calling that God has put upon your life. I believe that all of you have a calling upon your life that God has put together. It says in the scripture, before time, good works to do in advance. And if he's called you to something, he's anointed you for it. Elijah's doing the same thing. And here we find him throwing his mantle, his cloak, upon Elisha. Go to 1 Kings 19 through 21. "So he departed from there and found Elisha, 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, 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, for what have I done to you?'" Verse twenty-one: "And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them. He boiled the flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. And he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him." Elisha ends up being super powerful in regard to gifts. I believe he asked for a double portion of the gift of Elijah.

Elisha doesn't end up in the same narrative as Elijah gets. If you remember, Elijah ends up on the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus. But he's a pretty good successor, and we're going to follow his story. Just don't underestimate the amount you need to be shaped, even though you know your calling is secure and it's been prophesied over you or given to you in one way or another. God still works. The big idea today is God's call is often found in ordinary obedience, and ordinary life. Rarely is somebody in the midst of the action in the Bible where God shows up and they're in the midst of their gifting and God's like, I have a call for you, it's going to get even better, you're at the height of your game.

No. He seems to find him, as we'll see in just a moment, in ordinary life. If you can't live ordinary life with righteous obedience and in glorious affection for your Savior, you better ask God not to bring you into the calling that you think he has called you into, because you'll fail utterly. You won't have the provision and the means. Like he said to Elijah, the journey is too great for you, and so he had to sustain him with a touch by angels, with food that came from angels. No one wants to live an ordinary life. And we live in a world that tells you that you should be at the height of your game, always living on Everest.

Let me just give you a little something about Mount Everest. You cannot live on the highest peak. I think God did that on purpose. It's called the death zone. It's the only place you can go for a while, but base camp is where life happens. And when we find Elisha in this story, he's at base camp. Now God is saying to him, I need you to summit. But it's in the base camp of life. I have two keywords for you today. First one is ordinary. How comfortable are you in the ordinary? How many years can you live in the ordinary before you get dissatisfied with ordinary obedience?

And the next word is anointing. We see an anointing here. Now, it's not an oil anointing, it's a cloak anointing. Samuel pours the oil on David, but that isn't what happens here. He says there's an anointing that comes, and he's waiting for this anointing, and it's a physical anointing where he throws his cloak upon them. So the first thing we're going to look at today is God calls us in the ordinary, and not to despise the ordinary or the slow journey. Go to verse nineteen. "So he," that's Elijah, "departed from there and found Elisha, the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him.

He was with the twelfth, and Elijah passed by him, and he cast his cloak on him." Couple things I think are interesting. First of all, if you have twelve yoke of oxen, you're wealthy, especially in antiquity. We believe that there's an homage here to the twelve tribes of Israel, and he's with the twelfth one. It shows the completion. The tribes are scattered right now, the kingdom is broken, and Elisha has all twelve together, and he's at the head with the twelfth. So it shows that God is bringing him into the nation to be a representative of what God's purpose is. But he's also not having his servants do the work.

He's doing the work, and he's still overseeing and has a hand in the things that God has given him. What I find interesting is God calls him out of an ordinary place. If you look at scripture, the majority of callings, whether it be Moses in Midian shepherding, David watching over sheep, Peter fishing, these callings most often are happening in the mundanity of life as opposed to the platform. I don't think God's looking for platform people. I don't think he cares about your talents. I don't think God's looking for your talent, he's looking for your heart. What I think is interesting is in that ordinary place, the mantle doesn't come to him when he's on the stage, the mantle comes when he's in the field.

Everyone feels that the mantle happens when you actually get to the top of the mountain. But that doesn't seem to be the place where God calls. Over and over again, the most important people in scripture, David, Jesus himself just carpentering, Moses, on and on, God is calling them out of the ordinary. I want you to redeem the ordinary, and I want you to infuse power into the ordinary. Especially true for stay-at-home moms, stay-at-home parents, people that are just doing a bus driver route. It's in those moments where God does his best work, it feels like, or when he makes the deepest callings. So Elijah has this cloak that he wears, and it's an anointing, and it always mentions with these prophets what they were wearing.

They had a distinct outfit. And what is so classic is the way in which he anoints him, and then he feels bad about it. He says, oh, what have I done to you, Elisha, I shouldn't have done that. He's here, and Elisha's pushing twelve oxen, and somehow he just keeps on walking, and casts his cloak upon him, and it says that his mantle at that point was upon him. Go, if you would, verse nineteen again, halfway through the verse. "Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him." Now, here's the key that I thought was so interesting, because at that moment you're like, oh, he has the cloak.

It seems as if Elijah gets his cloak back, because he's wearing it when the chariots of fire come to take him up to heaven, and at that point the cloak falls off of him again to the ground. Now here's what's really interesting. If you go further, and it's not going to be in this series, but if you go further to 2 Kings 2:13, when Elijah goes up to heaven and he leaves the mantle, the anointing, behind him, it says that Elisha comes up and took up the cloak of Elijah that had fallen from him. Let me tell you the difference. There is a difference between having the mantle upon you and picking up the mantle and walking in it.

I knew at twelve years old I was called to preach. It was a long time until God put me in a place that I thought, you see, for some reason he got some foreknowledge of the mantle, but he wasn't ready for the mantle because God had another step. Here's your second point: surrender. He needed a lesson of surrender. Receiving the mantle doesn't mean you're ready to carry it. And two, be faithful where you are and wait for the mantle. I would say I'd be hesitant to ask for mantles. I tell young preachers, if I'm discipling a young preacher, I'll tell you, never ask to preach.

You never need to ask to preach. If God wants you on a stage, he will put you on the stage. Sit in the back row and carry some water. And when God's ready to call you, he will call you. He knows who you are. And if he wants to lift you up, I would say he will lift you up. That's true for all the different callings God has on your life, whether it be marriage, the next relationship, parenthood, all these different things. There are some things that have to happen. So there's two things we see happening that I think are key here. One, after being faithful where you are, God's call requires surrender.

Verse twenty-one: "And he returned from following him. He took the yoke of oxen, sacrificed them, boiled their flesh with the yoke of the oxen, gave it to his people, they ate, and then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him." Now, what is interesting is he says to Elisha, I want to go back and talk to my parents and say goodbye to them. This was a request. There's someone who comes to Jesus and says the same thing, and Jesus basically says, if you have to do that, you're not worthy to follow me. It's a different situation here. It does say that Elisha doesn't have a problem with it.

But Jesus does say, no one who is not willing to leave even your family, all this behind, is not worthy to follow me. So it requires surrender. And not only does it require surrender, it's a huge sacrifice. The key thing was Elijah just doesn't leave the plow. He burns every option to return to it. And so often we leave these things behind to follow Jesus, but we leave enough in place so we have a plan B. What does it look like to destroy plan B, to burn the ships, to say there's no way that I can go back to that. It was interesting that the sacrifice actually was used to feed people and to care for people.

It was a public service to win that following. Elijah didn't just leave his old life. He eliminated every option of going back to it. I will tell you that one of the best things you can do is when Jesus calls you away from something, do everything in your power to not be able to go back to it. Remember, Abraham left his family and his land. There's no one in scripture that I know of, of much import, that didn't leave something radical in order to move into that mantle, into that next place. I'll just tell you, I will be definitive. You will never move fully into God's inheritance for you unless you leave behind what is supposed to be left behind.

Moses left the comforts of Egypt. Peter leaves his nets. Matthew leaves his tax booth. What will you leave? Because mantle requires sacrifice. There is no mantle that I've ever seen with no sacrifice. That's what the world wants. You can do whatever you want, keep as many plan Bs as you want, and you can still go after and have it all. Not true. Not true in the kingdom of God. The whole thing is based on sacrifice. What I think is interesting, and ties back to the garden: when we got kicked out of the garden because of our sin, we were forced to leave a place. What I think is so interesting now is in God's redemptive plan, we choose to leave a place in order to go to the place that he's called us to.

He will redeem the entire cosmos. There is nothing in your life that will not eventually be redeemed. But the fact that we had to leave a place, he forced us out of that place. Now in order to redeem it, he says, for me to take you to the next place, I need you to leave something, but this time it's on your volition. You are choosing to leave something and walk into that. You can't fully embrace what's next while you're holding tightly to what's behind. Do you know when relay racers run the slowest? Doesn't matter how fast they are. You know when they run the slowest?

When both of them have their hands on the baton. That's the slowest. God wants you to be either in a marathon or a sprint, depending on the season of your life. I don't think he wants you holding on to what's behind. Final part as we close: calling starts with serving. Go to verse twenty-one B: "Then he arose and went after Elisha and assisted him." Elisha served the mantle before he picked up the mantle. Elisha doesn't immediately become the prophet he was called to be. He becomes Elijah's servant. That is so powerful, because once you know that God has spoken to some of you, God has this for your life, and you're still waiting for it, but you struggle with serving the mantle or having a life of service, caring for others, not being that fullness of what we think we're called to be.

Mark 10:45 says Jesus came to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Let me just give you some people in scripture if you have a problem with being a servant. Joseph served Pharaoh. Moses served Pharaoh. Joshua served Moses. Samuel served Eli. David served Saul. Nehemiah served as cupbearer to the king. Daniel served the king of Babylon. The disciples served Jesus. Paul served Gamaliel. And Jesus himself, before stepping into the fullness of leadership and calling, came and served. He washed the disciples' feet. Before Elisha carried the mantle, he carried the water. A water carrier for Jesus is enough for you. Proverbs says the servant sleeps way better than the ruler.

If you want to have a lot less problems, have the mindset and the heart set of a servant. Here's your practical takeaway. Identify your next step and take it. Is it to be faithful where you are? Just lock in. Quit reaching for the heights over and over again. I'm not saying be faithful to the callings. If God's called you to preach, then go to seminary, do your homework, whatever, because just because that mantle has come, and the mantle over and over again comes in the ordinary part of life, just because that mantle's on you doesn't mean that it's the right time to pick it up.

What's the next step? Maybe recommit to being faithful where you are and be content. Contentment is joy. Surrender what's holding you back. It's time to get out of the relay race, get into the marathon or the sprint. Surrender what's holding you back. And then I would just say, serve where God has you. We are equipping in a serving church. We are a church that is trying to send you. You guys are plan A to go out into your spheres of influence to make a difference in the world, to be sent. I think God has called you guys into amazing stuff. I think God has powerful anointings for you.

I think God has mantles that he's already put on you, and some of you are walking in those. I don't want you to sell yourself short that God has those incredible things for you. I will tell you that if you walk faithfully in the ordinary, your purpose and the next calling will come lay at your feet. So recommit to that and recommit to just walking with Jesus. That's it. All you're called to do is walk with Jesus. He wants to sit. He wants you to abide. He wants to walk with you. If all eternity is kissing the wounded, bloody feet of Jesus, for me, that's enough.

If I do that for eternity, it's enough, and I pray that that's true. How base, what's the lowest baseline you can get with just relationship with Jesus and be content? That's what you want to strive for. How baseline is it enough if just sitting with him and serving at his bequest, kissing his feet, anointing him with the spikenard like the woman who did, who broke the bottle at his feet. Is that enough? That's what you need to shoot for. All the rest will happen. Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these other things will be added unto you. Amen.