(Sunday) God of the Impossible: From One Generation to the Next

Every generation faces its own battles—but we don’t have to fight them alone. In this powerful message from 2 Kings 13, we look at the final miracle connected to Elisha’s life and discover what it means for faith to be passed from one generation to the next.

Whether you’re a student, young adult, parent, mentor, or leader, this episode challenges us to reject convenience-based Christianity and step into a faith that is surrendered, active, and ready for the fight. You’ll be reminded that God’s power isn’t stuck in the past—He is still raising up a generation that can hear His voice, walk in His anointing, and carry His victory forward.

This is a call to receive what God has done before us and become part of what He wants to do next.

Transcript

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If you have your Bibles this morning, would you go with me to Two Kings chapter number 13? And today we're gonna land the series that we've been working through throughout the summer called God of the Impossible, where we've recognized that there comes moments in our life where things are truly impossible and there is no pathway for us, by us, or through us. And the only thing we can do is trust that there is a God in heaven who can make a way where there is no way, who can turn the narrative of the story, and we have discovered through the life and times of Elisha that our God is the impossible working God. That there is nothing too difficult, there's no mountain too high, river too wide, night so dark that he cannot show up. And not only bring us through, but bring us through with overwhelming victory. Today we'll look at the last miracle that God works through his servant Elisha. And I will tell you, it is one of the oddest, most peculiar, maybe even bizarre miracles that is found in the Bible. Matter of fact, part of the reason it is so bizarre is it doesn't even happen during his lifetime. It's a miracle that God worked through him after Elisha had died and had been dead for a long time. The reason this miracle is so important to us is because God was teaching the nation of Israel through this moment, and thus teaching us his people today through Christ, that our faith is to be generational and it is to be passed from one generation to the next. So with that, let's open our Bibles, 2 Kings chapter 13. We begin with verse 14. Here at the end of Elisha's life. Now, when Elisha had fallen sick with the illness of which he was to die, Joash, the king of Israel, went down to him and he wept before him, crying, My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and its horsemen. Now, if you might recall, when we began the story of Elisha, it began at the end of Elijah's life, and Elisha said to Elisha, these same words. It is just an old expression that says, Your death is at hand. The Lord is coming to get you. I recognize this, this is the final moments. And Joash, the king of Israel, is recognizing this, and there's this anxiety and this fear that rises up. Verse number 15. And Elisha said to him, Take a bow and arrows. So Joash took a bow and arrows. And Elisha said to the king, Draw the bow. And he drew it. And notice this verse. And Elisha laid his hands on the king's hands. And he said, Open the window eastward. And he opened it. Then Elisha said, Shoot and he shot. And the prophet says, The Lord's arrow of victory, the arrow of victory over Syria, you shall fight the Syrians at Aphakh until you have made an end of them. And he said, Take the arrows, and he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Now strike the ground with them. And Joash struck the ground three times, but then he stopped. Then the man of God was angry with him and said, You have struck you should have struck it five or six times. Then you would have struck down Syria until you have made an end of them. But now you will strike down Syria only three times. Verse number twenty. So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now, bands of Moabites used to invade the land of Israel in the spring of the year. And as a man of Israel was being buried, behold, a maraudering band of these Moabites was seen, and the man that was dead was thrown into the grave of Elisha. Watch this. And as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and he stood on his feet. Oh God, in the next few moments, speak to our heart. And God let us sense that our faith is beyond just our lifetime. That we are to leave an impartation of your spirit in the generation that follows. And I pray for the generation that is coming forth that God, they would sense the importance of receiving an impartation of your spirit from the generation that is before. God, I trust you for it in Jesus' great name. And everyone said, Amen. I want to give you five quick principles this morning. Then we're going to pray for our students, our teachers, our professors, and we believe God's going to do something great. But I want to give you these five quick principles as I share with you this message from one generation to the next. And the first principle we see in the story is this is that every generation has its own battles. Every generation has its own battles. If I had read all of chapter 12 and even back to chapter 11, what we would have discovered is that from generation to generation we see these kings come to Israel, and each one is in a different battle. There's different struggles, there's different wars that they're having to face. And what we ultimately discover in that is this truth: that every generation has its own battles. The battles change, the uniqueness of those battles alters and change. But the need for God in every generation for their battles is necessary, and that need for his anointing and his power never changes. In this story, we see a moment when the younger generation in Joash sees that he needs a touch from the previous generation, Elisha, in order to live out the victory that God would call them to. Let me just give you a little bit of the backside story. King Joash was likely a young man. We do not know his exact age, but most scholars believe that he was probably in his late 20s, maybe his early 30s. And what he ultimately does, though, is he represents the generation that is coming forward. And he is facing a very difficult season in the nation of Israel. Israel had been at war with Syria and the battle was not going in their favor. They needed a breakthrough. They needed God to intervene. They needed direction from the Lord. They needed a word from God in the moment, but Joash wasn't quite certain how to get that for his generation. He needed some help. And so Joash seeks out and he finds the old prophet Elisha. And he goes to Elisha and he says, Elisha, I need your help. And we might ask, why would this young leader go to this old man? Because Joash had seen something in Elisha that changed and touched his heart forever. He saw that Elisha was a man who was connected to God and he knew the mind of God, the will of God, the power of God, and the anointing of God. Joash knew that Elisha walked with God. And when Israel needed a breakthrough, he went to someone who knew how to get a word from God and how to walk out God's plan in the most difficult hours of life. And I believe that this is the cry of every up-and-coming generation. They're facing battles today that we don't even know of, even in my generation. The battles that they're facing and having to navigate, the challenges, the pressure, the cultural forces that are at work against them. They're different from even the ones that I faced and the ones that our parents or our grandparents faced. However, this coming generation needs to see that our faith is in a God who is bigger than the generational battle. He is the God of victory in every generation. And this coming generation must see from our generation that our faith is more than just a weekend experience, that it's not simply a tradition or a culture or something that we just engage because it's easy. They need to see men and women who are fully surrendered to Christ, people who walk in the power of God, the anointing of God, who know the presence of God, and in a moment of crisis, they know how to hear the voice of God and say to them, Thus saith the Lord, Elisha was such a guy for the next generation, and us who are older, we must become that for the generation that God is raising up now. They must see that we know the living God and we walk with him and we know his power. Can I get an amen? Joash recognized that he needed Elisha. He recognized that he needed the wisdom and the faith of a generation that was before him. The older generation that's with us today, I want you to know we must be willing to engage the generation that is coming forth. It is not optional for us as the people of God. And for the younger generation, those that are coming forward now, that God is raising you up. You need to receive what the older generation has experienced and desires to impart to you. The question is not will your generation face battles? They will. The question is whether we will have seen enough of God to know that when we are in those battles, we have a confidence that God is going to bring us through. Number one truth that we see is every generation has a battle. But in that generation, there has to be those who know the voice and the presence and the power of God. Secondly, is this one generation must teach the next generation how to fight in faith. One generation, the older generation, must now show and teach the younger, the upcoming generation, how to fight the good fight of faith. One of our responsibilities to the next generation is to teach them how to fight, not in anger, not in fear, not in human strength, but how to fight the good fight of faith. When Joash came to Elisha, Elisha simply did not give him words of encouragement. Elisha gave him a weapon for the war and the battle in which he was fighting. Notice what the scripture says there. Keep your Bibles open. Verse number 15. It says, Elisha says to Joash, take the bow and the arrow. This picture is powerful. Elisha is saying, in essence, I know that you have come to receive direction from God in the hour of your trouble and of your battle. And he says, I'll pray for you and I'll do all those things. But what I want you to do is I want to teach you how to fight for your generation. I want you to know how to engage the enemy and walk in the victory that God has for you. And he says, Take the bow, and I want to teach you how to do this. Elisha is saying, Take what I have, what I have tested and found to be true. Take the weapons that have carried me through my battles, and let me teach you how to fight with them, that you may stand as a good soldier. See, Elisha understood something that I pray that all of us would embrace. That our faith must be taught to the next generation. You know, the Bible teaches, or we discover that every generation does not automatically know how to stand when life gets difficult. We have to teach them. The Bible teaches us that we have weapons for our spiritual warfare, and that these weapons are mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds. But we must learn how to use these weapons. We know that the Marines have this saying that every Marine is a rifleman. But they were not born a rifleman. They had to be taught how to use the rifle, how to aim the rifle, how to care for the rifle. And their training is all a part and around that. Well, as believers in the Lord, we have been given great weapons in the warfare that we are engaged in. But we cannot just say, hey, go and use them, figure it out for yourself. We must teach the next generation how to use these weapons that God has given us. I want you to notice this. It's one of the most beautiful moments in the story. Elisha says, Joash, take the bow and the arrow. And verse number 16 says, and he said to the king of Israel, Now draw the bow. And he drew it, and then something powerful happens. The old man gets up apparently from his chair, and he comes around and he lays his hands on the hands of Joash the king. I've imagined this in my own mind of this young king saying, Well, I don't know that I've ever ever ever used a bow and arrow. And he's fumbling with it and he's trying to figure out how do I get the arrow and the string and how exactly do I. And Elisha is not, watch this. Elisha is not sitting there critical of him. He's not saying, How is it that you don't know how to use a bow? After all these years, you're the king of Israel, you are to lead our nation, and you don't know how to pull a bow, you don't know how to aim a bow. You know, isn't it easy for us in an older generation to get a little critical of the younger generation, as though somehow what we were taught they were just supposed to catch and they're supposed to figure out on their own. Elisha, this old wise prophet, he gets up and he goes behind the King Joash and he places his hands. That's what it says. He places his hands on the king's hand as though he stood behind them and he said, Listen, this is how you're gonna get the bow, the arrow, and the bow, and this is how you hold your hands here, and this is how you begin to brace yourself as you begin to pull down on that string and you begin to feel the tension. Careful now, don't let it fly off. Don't go shooting just anywhere. You gotta, and he begins to show them how to point the bow and how to aim the bow and how to do all those things that are necessary in order to use the weapon that God was about to use for their victory. Can I say that? That's how it needs to happen in our life. I remember as a young boy, my grandfather taught me how to bird hunt and uh came to love bird hunting. And I remember him taking me out in the fields, and he would show me how to hold the shotgun and how to cradle it in my shoulder just right, and how to get the eye, uh get the iron sights lined up, and how I was supposed to draw it and look, follow the bird, and how to, and I would squeeze the trigger off, and I'd miss, and I'd miss, and I'd miss, and I'd miss. I'm telling you, the way I shot birds back in the day, it was $87 a pound. But you know what my grandfather did? He just stood there with me and he would put his arms around me and he'd hold me there and said, No, no, bring your gun like this. Keep your head down. You're getting you're stopping, you got to keep flowing through. Get in front of the bird. And he just caught me and he just taught me, and he just was patient with me as I was learning. And I remember when I got my first quell, man, I thought I had done something. I mean, I was just so happy. But you know who was happier? My grandfather. One, I saved him a lot of money. Finally, he died and had to. But he had passed something on to me that was precious to him. And he didn't just sit in the house or at the barn and say, go figure it out yourself. He says, I'm gonna place my hands on your hand. I wish somebody would get a picture of what this could look like in the body of Christ. I wonder what it would look like for some of our mothers and fathers, spiritual mothers and fathers, who would see the sons and daughters of this house that said, we're not just gonna tell you have faith. We're gonna show you how to have faith. We're gonna show you how to pick up the bow of praise and how to draw back praise and the dark hours of the soul. We're gonna show you how to stand on the promises of God. We're gonna show you how to pray when it feels like nothing in heaven is moving. We're gonna show you how to humble yourself and repent when you make mistakes. We're gonna show you what it means to stand and contend for the faith. We're gonna show you what it means to not give up on the promises of God because we've been there, we've learned this, and now we want to impart it to you because you've got battles that God wants to give you the victory over, and we're just not gonna leave you to figure it out on your own. And we see Elisha wrapping himself around King Joash saying, I'm gonna show you how to do this. Friends, all of us have that responsibility to the next generation. It's not just enough that we know how to fight, we must teach the next generation how to fight the good fight of faith. Can I get an amen on that? So we see this mentorship, we see this development. Anybody here remember when you had someone who was discipling you and they taught you how to pray? And they taught you how to read the scriptures, and they taught you how to forgive those who've wounded you, and they taught you how to stand and worship God when everything in your world was coming unglued, and they just whispered in your ear, keep on pressing him. He's worthy, and he will carry you. Man, I look back over the course of my life and I have so many who stood and they placed their hands on my hands. And today I have seen so many victories in my life, not because I learned how to be a warrior by myself, but because other men and women came alongside and they said, Let me help you. We cannot allow for generational division in our life. It is contrary to the will and the plan and the purpose and the family of God. Those of us who are older cannot look down with a sense of criticism and critical spirit to this generation. And for those that are in this generation coming forward, you cannot shut the door on what God has done in our lives that God wants to teach you from and draw from. And that leads us to this third truth I want you to see today, and this is the danger of convenience. I want to tell you about the danger of convenience that we see break out in the story. After Elisha had taught Joash how to fight, the moment came when Joash needed to respond. The lesson had been given, the weapon had been placed in his hands, and now Joash was ready to make a move. And it says this, verse number 18, then then Elisha said, Take the arrows, and Joash took them. And he said to the king of Israel, Strike the ground with them. And he struck them three times, but then he stopped. Then the man of God was angry with him and said, You have struck you should have struck it five or six times. Then you would have struck down Syria until you made an end of them. But now you will strike down Syria only three times. This is where everything in the story changes on this weird moment. Joash has been given the opportunity to step into a complete victory, but he stopped short and only walked away with partial victory. He struck the ground three times and then he quit. The problem was not that Joash did the wrong thing, the problem was that he did not do the right thing long enough. He responded with limited faith, limited effort, and limited commitment. He was looking for a convenient victory instead of a complete surrender that would bring a complete victory. The danger of convenience is this it is always asking us to look for the shortcuts in life. And isn't it true? Never has there been a generation of people that live more convenient lives than we live today. I mean, stop and think about it. No one this morning had to get up and hitch the horses to the wagon to get to church. We didn't have to have people come and put oil in the LED screen. It comes pre-oiled in this generation. You know, this afternoon you can go home and in convenience you can sit there and you can order your dinner on Grubhub, and somebody's gonna show up at your door in about 15 minutes with your dinner. And then you can sit down and you can order all the supplies you need this week with just a few clicks from Amazon. And then you can sit down on the couch, and I can sit down on the couch, and with all of our streaming and on-demand television, we can watch what we want, when we want, as long as we want. That life has become extraordinarily convenient. We drove today in cars with air conditioned, thank God. And some of you have new cars that you don't even have to drive. It drives for you. We live in a land of convenience, and I appreciate that. The danger, watch this, the watch this. The danger in that life of convenience is now that I bring that sense of entitled convenience to my faith in the Lord that says, I'm gonna look for a shortcut, I'm gonna look for a bypass, I'm gonna look for something that's a little easier. I don't want to hit the ground a lot of times with these arrows. What can just three get me? What can I do to just get by? Would to God that something would stir up in all of us in this house and all of those watching online that we are not desirous of the shortcut in the Lord. We want to say, Lord, here am I, all of me, all surrendered, because I've discovered that convenience will always produce consumers, but those that live out of a heartfelt surrendered conviction to the Lord, that develops disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's what our generation, regardless of which one you fall into, We need that. Lord, make us the people you want us to be. Can I get an amen? Jesus never called us to a life of convenience, He called us to a life of surrender. And Joash said, you know, I want victory. But I'll only do enough to just get a little victory. I wonder if there's anybody here that wants complete victory in your life. I wonder if there's anyone here that wants just not to make it a marriage, but you want your marriage to be dynamic and passion-filled and loving. I wonder if there's anyone here who wants to see your grandkids walk under the anointing and the power of Almighty God and know the God of the Scripture in a way. I wonder if there's anyone here who will take some arrows out of your sheath and you'll just begin to bang those arrows and saying, God, I'll bang it until the victory comes, and not just a little victory, God, we want complete victory in this place in our life. Here, let me give you number four quickly. And this is for the older generation, and this is resembling of me, I'm afraid, now in my life. To those of us who are getting a little age on us, Elisha teaches us this: don't stop living before you stop breathing. Don't stop living before you stop breathing. There are some people who are alive, but they've already decided to be dead. The world is always changing. The danger isn't change, the danger is that we become cynical towards change as we get older. I've discovered that in my life. I remember when the day I just embraced change with everything that was in me. If it was new, it was for me. But as I've gotten a little bit older, I've noticed I like routine and I like things to sort of stay there. Anybody know what I'm talking about here? And what I've discovered is when I begin to become resistant to change, it just raises up a critical old spirit in me. I just become critical of the change and the next generation. And what I've discovered, if you're not careful, those of us who are, let's say, over 30, if you're not careful, you will become an observer of life that is critical instead of a participator who brings forth the kingdom into the life in which we're called to live. On Friday night, we were driving back uh from uh Orlando. We needed to get back uh early on Saturday, and so we drove back on. And so on the way up 75, we come across uh this area and there's this massive bridge. Some of you have seen it, and it says the villages. And Trisha looked and said, My goodness, what a bridge. That is outstanding. What are the villages? I said it's an it's a retirement community for old people. And they said, Well, why would you why would they come here? I said, Well, heaven is or Florida is heaven's waiting room, right? I mean, that's where everybody goes to die. And there comes this place if we're not careful in the older generation, we just want to check out because we don't like the younger generation and we don't like the changes, and we don't like what we're seeing. Like I remember my dad when I came home um years ago, I was probably freshman, sophomore in high school, and I said, Dad, I'm struggling with math. Will you help me? And he said, Sure, I was good at math. What do you got going on here? And I sat down with him when I opened it up, I was algebra calculus or something. And he said, Well, well, how are you trying to do it? I said, This is the way they're teaching us. And he said, Well, I don't know that that new math. I said, I don't know that it's new math, Dad. It's just ones and zeros and formulas. No, no, this ain't the way they taught me. I don't know why they got to change math. There's nothing wrong with the old math. The old math just worked just fine. Listen, they did a lot of good things with the old and went on some tirade about this new math. No need to change on this new math here. Fast forward about 25 years, Chandler comes home from North Oak Honey High School and he says, Dad, I need some help with math. I said, That's all right, I can help you. I'm good at this. He opened it up and said, I remember this, let's do it. He goes, That's not the way we do it. I said, What do you mean that's not the way you do it? That's why you're not getting it right. I'm showing you the right, hey. He said, No, Dad, this is new math. This is how I said, there's nothing, there's nothing wrong with the old math. Why they got to channel? It was like I was channeling my dad. And so in my own hubris, I sat down for the next seven hours with YouTube and I tried to figure out this new math. But there was something in me that just wanted to bark. Why are we changing? It needs to be like it used to be. Friends, it's never going to be like it used to be. And we can sit on the sideline and we can lose a generation complaining about the changes, but the changes we're barking about are the same changes our parents barked about, which are the same changes our grandparents barked about. We can sit and we can bark and we can die while we're still breathing, or we can say, by the grace of God, I'm gonna engage what God is doing in this generation. And even though life changes and the world changes, I serve a God who does not change, and his power and his anointing and his grace is sufficient for every generation, and I'm gonna pour it into the next one. Hallelujah. That's who we gotta be. Don't stop living before you stop breathing. And then finally, is this there comes this power of impartation? Now, we need to understand that faith is something that we teach, but it's also something that we impart. Somewhere after this moment, Elisha dies. The old prophet is gone. Word gets around the community, around the nation. They have his memorial service. They speak all the wonderful eulogies. They talk about how he impacted a generation for the Lord. They reminded them of the story about how God used Elisha to heal Naaman of leprosy. They talked about how God restored an axe head that had fallen off of the life of Naaman. They talked about how God restored a son of a Shunammite woman. They laughed, they cried, and then they covered him up. And as far as anybody knew, the life and the times of Elisha were over. All he is now is a historical account of a man in one generation that God used. The story's over. Next prophet, please. Next generation, next set of leaders. But in verse 20, it says that sometime later, we don't know how long, months, maybe years. That there was still trouble in Israel, and these Moabites would come and they would raid the land. And there was a funeral procession going on one day. And a young man had died. We don't know what of or how. But as the funeral was going on, they saw these marauders coming and they knew there was trouble. So they said, Quick, just throw them in the cave. What they didn't know that in that cave was Elisha's old bones. And when they threw him in the cave and they ran out, the scripture says, when that young dead man touched the bones of Elisha, the power of God from one generation was imparted unto another generation that was dead. And the Bible said that he came to life and he stood up on his feet. Can I tell you there is something yearning in this pastor that says, God, I believe there's a lot of young people in this generation that they're walking around like dead people without much life, without much energy, with little vision, with a lot of confusion, with a lot of uncertainty. But there's been a generation that knew the move of God, the power of God, the anointing of God, the breakthrough of God. I've been a part of that generation. I've seen it myself. But there's something inside of me that now says, God, I don't want to live, leave with just a testimony of what God did. I want to live my life in such a way that the generation that comes behind me can receive that touch of God that was once on me and on my parents and on my grandparents, that I'm not just having to start over again generation after generation, that there comes an impartation of God's anointing and God's spirit on the next generation that was on the previous generation. I believe that there is a transfer that comes that is more than being taught, we are caught by the Spirit of God. And God says, I'm gonna take what was on one generation. And as they prayed and they sought me and they knew me and I used them, I'm gonna go ahead and just allow that to pour over on the next generation so that those that don't have a vision and those that can't move and those that are dead, when they touch that power of God in their generation, they're gonna come alive and they're gonna realize it's not just something that happened in our generation. It ties us back to something that was before, and we're a part of a family that moves by the power of his spirit. And I pray that we would be a part of such a church in such a movement that we say to the next generation what we have, we have received from God, and we give freely to you.