Mantle Of Elijah, Growing Beyond Success Into Legacy (Part 1)- Rod Mills

The connections between spiritual fathers, restoration, and generational transfer, are not automatically intuitive to some. Our goal here is to look through the divine telescopes and peer back across time at this tidal wave we call the mantle of Elijah, that began in an encounter with God in a cave and created an incredible chain reaction move of the Holy Spirit that is increasingly impacting the human race and eternity.
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Up until this time in the story, Elijah had been focused on HIS mission, HIS calling, HIS success, HIS failure. Through this crisis, God brought him through a strategic shift and transition in his life. Here in this cave, God transitioned him from a life focused on success to a life focused on legacy; from a life focused on being a son to a life focused on being a father.

Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):





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​Our last the last time we were together before, our before we took the team to Central America, we were talking about just again, things that God has in store and we kind of took a detour to talk about why God hymns, people in disobedience. And I was ready to continue that. And guys, as I kept praying, I kept praying, I have the notes, I'm ready to teach it. I just really felt impressed to double back on something that some of you actually when we did the Seven Pillars teaching. I touched on this several times, just briefly. And then I introduced this again, at the retreat when we start talking about spiritual fathers and the mantle of Elijah. But dig Dungan told me, he said, This section of your teaching, you need to expand this, and I want you to come and teach it at the men sabbatical. And so we did that Mike was there, we, I reinforced and expanded this, that teaching. And it was, it was a piece or a component of the mantle of Elijah. And I'll get to it in a moment. So I taught it at them in sabbaticals. But we never taught it in Mission House. And I've passed out several of you have asked me for the notes that I passed out the notes. But as I kept praying, I don't know why. But I just feel like the Lord wants me to double back and teach it in this setting. Now, I don't know if you guys know this, I don't even know if they still do this. But when I was a kid in grade school, the way the grade schools would work Beth, your teacher, you could tell me if I'm wrong, that the way the grade schools would work is they would teach certain concepts and like year one, well, then in second grade, they actually double back and reteach a whole bunch of first grade concepts. And then in third grade, they would teach a whole bunch of new concepts. And then in fourth grade, they would double back and reteach a whole bunch of the concepts. So this is a little bit of doubling back. But it's also an expansion of the teaching on what I call the Elijah transition from success to legacy. And I don't think it's any mistake that several share today. And then other weeks shared about being poured out as an offering. Because I think this is part of this message of living lives of the Crucified lifestyle, where we pour our lives out for others. And there is extraordinary resurrection power in the sacrifice itself. We don't like to talk about those scriptures. Like, think about this. How many times have you heard very many teachings on all the crucifixion scriptures of Paul? Do you know there's a whole bunch of them, there's a whole lot of scriptures of Paul, talking about pm poured out talking about Crucifying the flesh talking about dying daily talking about all this. And yet, we don't hear a whole lot of sermons on that, because it's not real. Like, I don't really want to talk about dying. But the cool part is, is that when we enter into His death, we enter into His resurrection life. It's actually a really good deal. Like Colin said earlier, it's like, you give him everything, and He gives you everything who's getting the best deal. So I'd like to double back to this, this concept. And so forgive me if you hear a few things you've heard before. But hopefully, today, we might fill in some of the gaps where maybe I didn't teach on it. Or maybe we just were distracted. You know, when I listened to recordings and teachings, I listened to each one three times. That's my practice. Now, I can't say I've done that every single time. But I'll say almost, you know, the majority of them, almost all of them. I listened to three times. And I'm amazed how many times I even listened to the same exact teaching on the third time. And I'm like, Oh, he never said that before. It's like, well, I know they did because, you know, it's the same recording. So anyways, we're going to talk a little bit about this transition from success to legacy. And this was what happened to Elijah in the cave now. I believe we have as a spiritual family. I believe God has given us an apostolic mandate to teach and impart the mantle of Elijah, raising up spiritual fathers and mothers. Now in order to do this, it's a If it were enough for us to just teach on the mantle of Elijah, then God would just call one of us to do it right. And we've just teach on it. And that would be it. But if it takes an impartation, and many different things that surround that, then God has a whole family to impart this, because there are many teachings, there are many importations, there are many prayers that happen to cause this to have its full force in the body of Christ in this generation, which is our calling. So I will say this, much like our own lives, Elijah's life, I call it the tale of two paradigms. It's two ways of living two perspectives of seeing and experiencing the world. But it's two completely different types of motivations. We're talking about his life before the cave, and his life after the cave, in the cave with just him and God, Elijah came face to face with his own mortality. Amazingly, I think this is remarkable. He came in touch with his own failures, when he wasn't a failure. He was very successful. How many times in your life? Have you been having success and victory and success and victory? And then one day, you just find yourself praying, and you feel like a total failure? Have you ever been there, all of us have, if you haven't been there, it something's probably not right, because that happens to everybody in some form, in some measure, on some level, and he came face to face with his own mortality. And at that time, God launched him onto this trajectory, that forever changed his life. And it changed the kingdom of God. Because Elijah died to himself in many ways. He died to his ministry, he died to his fame, he died to the things that were about him in order to birth, things that were about God in other people. And and I said this when we were in Central America recently, I've said this at the retreat. But the cool part about this is it has a huge impact on your life and my life, because God started a chain reaction of the mantle of Elijah that started in that cave, and the dominoes are still fallen. The question is, do we want the dominoes to hit us? Now I do. Because I want to be a part of the passing down of this mantle of Elijah, because the people who carry the power of God, the anointing of God, the kingdom of God, in the final days, and in that in the times that will usher in the second coming of the Lord, they will be people who received it from those who passed it down. Now, guys, I wish every Christian was passing down generational transfer, but they are not. That's just a fact. There are many Christians who go through the motions. But the question is, are they producing generational transfer of faith and intimacy with God of anointing of gifts of callings, and of the things God's given us? Are we given it to other people? Now, Elijah's transition is something that I think up until this time in the story in the cave, he had been focused on his mission, his calling, his success, his failure. So, you know, when you're focused on your success, what else are you focused on? Your failure, right? Like, you're like if you're focused on making A's, and you get a C minus, oh, boy. Now, I'm not saying don't make A's. But I'm saying don't fall apart when you make a c minus because it's really not about us, at the end of the day. And I remember one time, I had a terrible professor in college. She was so bad, they actually fired her the next semester. It was horrible. It was really bad. But she gave me my first see in college. Now, my family's in a family. Can I get an amen from my family? I mean, like my family, I'm gonna I'm just gonna say this is a gift from God. My family is a straight A family. That's not because I'm trying to say we're better than anybody. It's a gift from God. It's so so man, you It destroyed me. You might as well give me an F, you know, because it just destroyed me. But at the same time, God began to show me some said, Hey, in some respects, you know, I'll take the blame for it, but in some respects, I just had a terrible teacher. And and so I had to realize, hey, there are times in life when you're not going to make A's Sometimes it'll be your fault. And sometimes it won't, don't fall apart. Because ultimately, what's going to matter to me is what grades my kids make more than me. And so you see what I'm saying is generational transfer. Well, I recovered from that did great, did great and did went to grad school and all that. But the point is, that if you're focused on your success, you're also focused on your failure. Through the crisis that Elijah was going through, God brings him through this strategic shift. He brings him through a transition. And I said this recently, when we were in Central America, and I said, you know, I believe that Elijah shows up, and he had just defeated the 450 prophets of Bailey called down fire on the altar and God's power came down, all this stuff happened, he goes to the cave he's getting with God. And I really believe this. The Bible doesn't say it. But I really believe this. Because I think this is what most human beings would do, is they go to God and man, they're like, Okay, God, now we're going to take care of Jezebel, she's the one that threatened to kill me. We took care of 450 profits last time, this time, we're going to take care of 1000. Like, I'm gonna get a hold of God. And you know, I can see in his mind how he was thinking, we're gonna keep doing the same thing and gods like, Whoa, no, we're going to change it up a little bit. And literally, God changed the world. Right? During that cave, God changed the world. So much so that you could see it prophesied Malikai chapter four, Matthew, chapter 17. Luke chapter one, Jesus prophesies, it Malikai prophesized that John the Baptist lives it and says, Guess what, you're going to see this at the end of the age, and it's going to travel all the way through time. And there's even one prophecy we looked at a couple weeks ago, where actually it's all it's present in every generation, this mantle of Elijah. So here in the cave, God transitioned him from a life of success, to the life of legacy, from a life of being a son and a prophet to a life of being a father, being a spiritual father, and a mentor. He, this forever changed Elijah's life. And it changed a whole lot of other lives. And I believe what happened there that day, is changing our lives right now. It's having an impact. We just saw it. When we were in Central America, the team in Central America, we saw it happening. We're seeing this happen. Now we're seeing this happen, as we continue to impart and live in this, which means we surrender to our own success, our own our own name, our own brand, and ministry, for his for the kingdom, and for people. And it's it's not that we don't want to be successful, it's that we redefine success. That is I don't care if they think I'm anointed, I don't think I care if they think I'm powerful. What I care is that the Holy Spirit moves through my life in your life, and impacts transformation in them. Because it's not going to matter what they say about you, the day you minister, it's going to matter what they say about you after you're gone and you're in heaven. You see the difference? It matters what they say about you in the long run, because that will be the truth. Amen. Somebody say Amen. So I'm not going to read the passage, but first Kings chapter 19, is the passage I'm going to draw from just a little bit. But I want to I want you to take note in first crit, and First Kings 14, that in verse three, Elijah isolated himself. Let me go back and see if I can just read that verse. I don't have verse three in front of me. Can somebody read that? So we're gonna have a Bible verse first Kings, chapter 19, verse three. Somebody read that to us. Yeah, verse three. Oh, hold on, what? What version Do you have? Okay, go ahead. What do you saw that you rose and rainbows like that went to bear Sheba, which belongs to Judah, Alexis seven, so he ran off, but he didn't even take his servant with him. His his administrative assistant didn't even go with him. Now, his administrative assistant went everywhere with him. And yet this day, he goes by himself. Now I'm not totally critical of Elijah. But what I want to say is that when when people get into this, this myopic focus, it's real easy to focus on yourself. And you start looking in the mirror so long, that you become crippled with them, and his focus being on himself. This is what the parent they, this success paradigm reinforces a constant focus on yourself. I think this is one of the problems we have A day with young people in social media. One of the things that bewilders me in my generation is how that people can fall apart when people bully them. In my day, when somebody bullied you, they knocked your lights out. Like if they was a bully man, the next thing you know, they're hammering on you with their fist, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, man, somebody says something about you on Facebook, who cares? They're not hitting you. But what's happened is, is that social media is creating a myopic culture, where people are constantly looking at how the world sees them. And they're so worried about how the world sees them. And this is part of the curse of the culture. This is the curse of an unclassified culture, a culture that doesn't crucify the flesh that looks to itself that looks in the mirror that constantly wants to have a brand, almost like they're a business, and everybody think favorably about him. And that's the reason why canceled culture is so powerful, because so many people are worried about what people think about them. Now, this might seem normal to you guys, in your teens, you guys in your 20s over here, you guys in your 30s. But listen, in my generation in our 50s, it is not normal. It's not something we grew up with. And so again, it's an illustration of, I believe, too much myopic focusing on ourselves. Now, I'm not saying my generation doesn't have a problem with this. I'm just saying that God was taken Elijah from a place of focus on his own success, to focus on legacy. And when you're focused on your own success, you can quickly isolate yourself, quickly isolate yourself. Most of us in this room can right now audit the last few years of our lives and find a time when we got too focused on ourselves. Guys, listen, it happens to the best of us. And if when we get too focused on ourselves, and pretty soon, we're like, oh, man, well, then the enemy starts giving voice to accusations. And pretty soon we're like, oh, man, I'm just, I'm this and I'm that, and this and that. And pretty soon, what happens if you cut off a member of the body from the body, then that member will die? Whether it's a hand, whether it's an arm a finger, you have to be connected into the body of Christ. So Elijah was so discouraged, even though he had all this success, he was so discouraged that we see in verse four, he wanted to die. Now he didn't just want to die. He prayed to die. He literally prayed and said, Lord, just take me out right now. I won't ask for a show of hands. How many of us have prayed that, but I guarantee you, every one of us have felt like that at some point in our lives. If you haven't maybe, I don't know, maybe there hadn't been too many trials. But the success paradigm will set you up for great discouragement. Or it'll set you up for jealousy, or negative emotions, because it's focused on its own success, even in the good things. Guys, listen, this is not just when your people do bad things. This is especially people who do good things, because it's easy to start believing no one else is pulling their weight. No one else is doing it, Lord. And notice in verse four, Elijah says of First Kings 19 He goes, for I am no better than my father's. Where'd that come from? Man, I'll tell you. I have you know, we all have many fathers it not just our natural father, but our grandfathers and great grandfather's and our spiritual fathers. I tell you what, I don't know. I mean, there's fathers. I can't be better than right. I mean, I don't know. I just, I have. I've got some great I'm one of my great grandfather's Amen. Both to my great grandfather's been through some hard times. And they were spiritual giants in that day. I'm like, what, where did this come from? That all of a sudden, he goes, I'm no better than my father's. He had an expectation to be better than all of his fathers. Now, I'm not saying that's bad. That's I want all my kids to be better than me. But you see how he's thinking, see what's going on. He's comparing himself to them. In his mind, he's in this focus on himself. And again, in this in the first phase of his life, his focus is on what he could do for God. Now it's good to do this. It's good to seek to be pleasing to God. But our our study here is to examine focus. What's the focus the paradigm through which we see and operate. Now, if if our focus is on legacy, most likely this statement will not even come up in our thoughts or our language. Most of the time, we're not going to think about well, am I better than my father's? We're just going to think, man, how can I be better? How can I impart How can I make this next generation greater in God, we won't even be looking at whether we're greater than our fathers or not, we're just going to be, am I taking everything my father's have given me am I being faithful in ministry, and in life, it's not uncommon to find people, and they're so focused on themselves, they're nervous about doing a good job, or nervous about failure, or nervous that we won't be perceived the right way. Or they struggled to function. Or maybe here's what ends up happening is they don't say yes to God. If you get so focused on perfection, and how you're perceived, and wait till you're good enough, you will never be good enough, especially in your own mind. Or if you are you, you, if you're a legend, in your own mind, you'll be good enough, but then you'll have so much pride, God can't use you. And then they'll have to humble you. But that's a different story. But the whole point is that you don't want to be paralyzed. I've often wondered about the guy with one talent in the parable of the talents, or the guy in the parable of the mean is with one I've often thought, you know, is it Jesus tells us this parable more than once. And one time, it's mean isn't one time it's it's talent. So we know he told it at least twice, there's a good chance he told the parable of the talents multiple times. But in every instance, in the Bible, where it is recorded, it's the person with one talent who buries it. Is that significant? Because I think there are a lot of one talent people who think they're not good enough. And if they just invested the talent, what happens? It makes two talents. Now there are two talent person and they invest the two talents, and what happens, it makes for talents. And pretty soon they're no longer a one talent person or a two talent person, because they're investing what God's given them, the gifts, the resources, the time, the energy, the efforts, and God causes it to work. But there are many who get paralyzed because they're focused on themselves. And it's easy to get into this Elijah syndrome that he was in. Now this focus on on self, it will always at some point lead to self doubt. In it a worry that people may not be impacted enough, or may not sense a strong anointing upon our ministry. And others worry less about their own mistakes, because their focus is on the people they're serving. Or better yet, on God's word, what did God tell you to do? Now, I don't know if you guys remember this story. I don't even know if I told you but I never forget this. When I was a kid. After I became a Christian to start going to church. I heard this. I went and heard this evangelist speaking. And he said, God called him to go down to the county jail, and to preach. And he said, So he goes, Man, he goes, he said, I did. Nobody knew me yet. He goes, I wasn't traveling. Nobody knew my name. So I wasn't anybody to draw a crowd, even in the jail. So they said, I go down to the jail, and they do the call over the intercom. And he goes, nobody comes. He said, Nobody came. And he goes, I thought about going home. He goes, But the Lord told me to go down there and preach. And so he opens up his Bible in the room, and he starts preaching, and he preached to nobody. He preached to nobody. And so he said, I preached and he goes, Man, I preached like, I was preaching to 1000 people. He goes, I even gave an altar call. He says, After that, he goes up, packed it up, and I went home. He's been home for a few hours, and I got a phone call. And it was a we receive a collect call from say, a county jail, blah, blah, blah. So he says, Yes, he takes it and it's a prisoner. And the guy is just crying and he wants to give his life to the Lord. And so he leaves him to the Lord. He goes, but I don't understand. He's like, nobody was there today in the in the prisoner. He goes, I heard you through the walls. Know I was a young man when I heard this. And it's always impacted me. When God calls you to do something. You know, Jesus says, if nobody cries out, the rocks will cry out. And if Jesus tells you to preach to the rocks, you go out there and preach to him, whatever he tells you, if you can get past yourself, and that's what I love about the story is he got past himself. Because, you know, if the guards walked by, and they see him preaching, and there's nobody in there, you know, and I always remembered that story. And so in some of you know, I've worked in the state prison for a while ministering and and, man, I'll tell you, it didn't matter if there was two prisoners, or 220, or 50, or whatever, man, I thought, I remembered that guy, I was like, man, just preach like, there's 1000. And many people came to the Lord. But again, it's about the call of God, it's not about us, it's about the call, and the legacy that God's called us to. So in ministry in life, if people are nervous about this, they're going to struggle to function or say, Yes, they'll struggle with their own failures, they'll struggle with man, I don't feel anointed today, I don't feel this, or I didn't pray long enough, or whatever, well, you know, you're always going to have those days. So be careful. Another good indicator of the paradigm that we're operating in, is how we deal with immaturity in others. So the more we operate in a success paradigm, the more self focus we tend to be. And that means the more effective we become. Now, I remember this, especially when I was in the military. And especially as I got more senior in leadership, I found that some leaders were pretty patient, you know, they were just they learned to deal with, guys, listen, the more leadership you're in, the more people that you're leading, you're just going to deal with more failure. That's just part of it. But some of them would get so frustrated, they would actually become toxic leaders, and others, they just developed a patience about it, and learn to appreciate it. And I always tell all the guys that work for me, I used to have to tell him this all the time, because they get into leadership, have people working for him the honor standard, I've told him to do this four times, and they still haven't done it. I said, Well, honestly, a lot of them won't remember, you got to tell people 15 or 20 times and there's this patience that you develop. But here's the difference. If you're focused on yourself, it's really easy to get frustrated, because people aren't doing what you want them to do. But as soon as you start focusing on them, you're like, Okay, what can I do to make this better? I'll never forget one time, one of the guys that was working for me, and we had a pretty good sized team. And there was some significant failures going on. Not moral failures, but just functional failures going on. And we had, I don't know, we had six or seven pastors of this service. And just things were going wrong. I mean, one thing after another, and one day, I hit my limit, and I'll never forget that they put the words up. And the words I don't know what was wrong, they couldn't get the words right in the worship music. And one day they they're singing, you know, that song, that hymn that goes, no other found tie, no, nothing but the blood of Jesus. And it got to found and it was count. And I got, I was like, no other count. I know, at some just got I was like, man, I was the straw that broke the camel's back, you know. And I called, I called the senior guy that worked for me, I go, Hey, I see. It feels like we're worshipping Dracula in here. Because I'm like, What in the world, and the Holy Spirit. He said, Rod, this is your fault. As it was, like what he's like, you've got to set them up for success, which means you have to develop a system where they will succeed, teach them how to coach their teams, and so forth. And so I actually had a meeting with the senior guy that worked for me there. And I Apollo, I said, You know what, this is my fault. Because I have failed you guys to teach you how to coach and set this up and, and do all these things. And so I had developed a system, the guy started crying. I was totally floored. I couldn't believe he started crying. He just and here's my point is whenever I was focused on myself, and I mean, there's that was a Tom's looking at me, that was actually there was a lot of senior leaders. Let's call him that in that place. You know, it looks bad. It reflects bad on you. And it wasn't that I was so much worried about myself, but I was still too focused on success instead of on them in on that legacy for them. You And when that switched, they endear them, their hearts to me and me to them forever. And then we begin to make those corrections. And amazingly, there was a huge turnaround. But again, if we if we see if we're focused on our own success, many times when people do things that offend us or do things that hurt us, we will become offended. Rather than having a mature more like a spiritual father, spiritual mother leadership role where we go, okay, we can deal with this. The more we operate in a legacy paradigm, the more we transcend the immaturity of others. What example, can you think of, if someone on your job gets angry at you, and they start throwing hurtful words at you, the more focused you are on yourself, the more easily, it's easy to become offended, right? You're like, Oh, what are you talking about? And then we snap back at him and, and what have you. But if your own children get angry with you, and they say something hurtful? What are you focused on? You're focused on correction, you're focused on discipline you're focused on how do we bring them out of this? I mean, there's a lot of things kids do, that. Parents don't get offended at. But if they go to work, and people do it, boy, they get offended and be mad at him the rest of their life, right? Because they can't transcend that immaturity. Unless they have a spiritual father and mother role in life and focus. Now it's no longer about me, or whether they hurt me or not. It's no longer it's now there's a spiritual mother or father in you, that goes, Oh, wait a minute, we're going to transcend this. They're acting like a knucklehead. This is foolish, they shouldn't do it. But I'm not going to get offended. Instead, I'm going to see what I can do to help them come in. Now, if they don't receive it. You still you just go, Well, we're Lord. They're gonna go through some hard times, they'll go around the mountain, and we'll be here for them when they come around the mountain, right. And sometimes God will do that, especially as your kids get older. And that's another art will have to teach about that. It's different than when they're little when when they're younger. It's different when they're adults. Is this sinking in? You see, in one scenario, you're focused on yourself, and then the others, you're focused on those you love dearly. It's kind of like Lucy shared, the more today, the more you love people, something happens in the chemistry of the soul. It doesn't mean that everything they do is okay with us. That's not what it means. It doesn't mean that we are troubled by different words and actions. But it means that God gives us the power to transcend think of Jesus, man, they were hammering him talking behind his back doing all this kind of stuff. And you know, sometimes he had some pretty tough words. You know, sometimes he's like, Well, you're of your father, the devil say he said, a lack of was right. He didn't always just people think Jesus just you know, always had the, the positive kind words. Well, he probably said it kindly. When he said that, right? Or when he said, You brood of vipers, or was that John the Baptist? You brood of vipers. You know, those are tough words, right? But it wasn't spoken out of offense. It wasn't spoken because, oh, you said something bad to me. I'm gonna fire back. That's not what it was. It was done. Out of what Jesus out of the Son of God, authority of love for His creation, to speak truth. That's what we do as parents with our children. When children do something wrong, we speak true to them. We say, No, this is not right. You can't do that. And you're better than that. So I'm not gonna let you live this way. And then when they get grown, when they're grown up, and they're adults, you say, you're better than that, and you shouldn't do it. And by God's power, he's not gonna let you live this way. And we're going to help him, right. It's an adult thing. You see what I'm saying? One of my spiritual fathers used to quote this a lot. In fact, I was talking about him a few minutes ago, before we started the recording. Psalm 119 165. He used quote, as to me when I was a young, young man in my in my teens great peace, have they which love your law, and nothing shall offend them. That means causing them to stumble. There's a piece that comes upon the people who love God Law, spiritual fathers and mothers are grounded deeply, so deeply in the ways of God the laws of God, which is the record of his ways. It's the record of his nature. It's the record of his faithfulness and his attributes. In other words, like Nancy spoke at the at the teaching, we did the pastors conference. They know God. And the more you know him, the more you know how he deals with his creation. Have you ever wondered, how does God deal? I mean, Majan the offense is toward God every one day. Imagine now, there are many people who, who hurt the heart of God every day. And yet somehow he manages to have compassion to have love. Yeah, he exercises judgment. Yeah, he brings discipline. Yeah, he, there's some tough stuff that comes with it. But he manages to stay unadulterated by bitterness, or unforgiveness, right? And then amazing. The more we operate in the legacy paradigm, the more we will see ourselves as spiritual fathers and mothers, the more we operate in this, and that means we will operate as spiritual fathers and mothers. And we will transcend the offenses that people bring or that come or that the enemy tries to bring. Sometimes people don't even intend to offend you. But the devil comes along, and he helps it out. And he goes, Did you see what they did to you? Did you hear what she said to you? And he gets you to think about it, that voice of the evil one. And so you know, a lot of times, the way I handle that is first I rebuke the devil. That's what Jesus did. Even when he spoke through Peter, or when he spoke to him whenever he was in the place of temptation in the desert. I speak and rebuke the devil. And then immediately say, Lord, I forgive them in the name of Jesus. Don't wait, don't wait. Don't let it fester. Don't let it be like a splinter. When you get a splinter. I hope you don't just walk around for three days with that thing hurtin because it's amazing how little splinter can bother you, and you get it out, and you feel better. Even if you have to dig in there and you're bleeding, it doesn't matter. Just get that thing out. And that's why I encourage us to just deal with things as get it out. And when we do that, when we understand our legacy role, we will love much easier as a spiritual father or a spiritual mother. So God asks Elijah twice, in verse nine in verse 13, he says, What are you doing here, Elijah? Now, some have interpreted this to mean that God didn't know why he was there. Of course, you know, that's not true. Right? Or that God didn't want him to come. I've heard it interpreted that God says it like, hey, well, what are you doing here? You're not supposed to be here. He didn't say you're not supposed to be here. He just said, What are you doing here, Elijah? Often God will ask a question in order to solicit a response, so that he's engaging us in the conversation. So we go, yeah, what am I doing here? Now I'm thinking, again, this is speculation. But I think it's pretty good speculation. I think Elijah thought, Lord, I'm here. I'm going to tell you how I'm the only guy left and how you really need to use me in great power and one altar wasn't enough and 450 prophets of bail taken out wasn't enough. And we need some major lightning strikes down here. I can see how he would think that because he thought he was the only one. But he's in so Eli just starts to enter into this dialogue with the Lord. And we see in verse 10, and in verse 14, number one, he thought he was alone. And he was so focused on his mission, his perceived lack of success, that he could not see others like him. Isn't that what happens? The more focused I get on myself, what ends up happening, I can't see. I'm like, pretty soon you're not even noticing how God's using her over there. You're not seeing how God's using him over there, or how God's using this family, we lose track, we lose our spiritual radar of what God's doing in other people. Now, guys, this is a big deal, because let me let's use it as a parenting example. If you're a parent, and you don't see how gifts are developing, and your own kids, you won't feed those gifts. Right? You won't create space and opportunity for them to grow because you don't see them. See what see what happens. And as a parent if I get focused on Myself, instead of my children, then pretty soon I'm not even noticing what God's doing in them. Or I'm not noticing the challenges, or I'm not noticing the attacks, or I'm not noticing the failures and the defeats because I would be focused, I would be on a focus on myself. But whenever, excuse me, we whenever we look in this passage, we see that Elijah actually did not know there were other people like him. He didn't see him. I'm like, Huh. Now, the cool part about this is, it didn't stay that way. After this, suddenly, Elijah is noticing a lot of people. And not only that, they're so noticeable. They're recorded in Scripture, and we'll talk about that later on probably next time. But after he came face to face with his own frailty, he postured himself to hear the voice and the direction of God, which was a little harder for him to hear, because it was not about him. That's what I love. I don't like the sermons when I've heard people criticize many sermons. I've heard them criticize Elijah go into the cave. Some of them say, Yeah, because he prayed to die, he was suicidal, and he was clinically depressed. And he was, and they get come up with his whole diagnosis of Elijah. And I don't know if that's true. But my point is that they come up with all this stuff. And pretty soon, they talk about how bad it was that Elijah even went to the cave. Now, guys, I'll tell you what, if you, if you get to a place like Elijah, one of the best things that you can do is get with God. Right? I'm not going to criticize Elijah for going to the cave, because of all the people who could help him who can help him the most. God good. So yeah, maybe he shouldn't isolated himself, maybe he should have taken as administrative assistant within like Moses took Joshua, maybe he should have not isolated himself from all those other lodges in the land that he didn't know about, you know, those 7000 The Scripture talks about, but the point is, he saw God, and God turned it around for him. So up until this time, he was convinced in verses 10 and 14 of First Corinthians First Kings 19, that he was the only guy pulling for God. And two times he says, these exact words, I alone am left. Now, you may not have said those words before, but I know we've all felt them at different times. Lord, I'm the only one left who's really serious about this. Or Lord, I'm the only one left who's really praying. God, I'm worn out. I mean, there's a lot of things I pray about. And I'll tell you, I'll be honest with you, I'm very candid with the Lord, because he reads my thoughts anyway. Right? It's like, you're not going to hide what you feel from the Lord. I'll say, Lord, you know, this is a been a burden. We've been praying over this for years, God, we need some breakthrough down here. Lord, we need some help. And Luke 18, I'm gonna keep praying, and I'm gonna keep believing, because there will be a breakthrough. There will be don't let up. When the Son of Man returns, He says, When the Son of Man returns, will He find faith in the earth? And I'm going to keep saying, Lord, yes, with me and my house, you will find faith in the earth. That's my spiritual house. Also, that's us, with the people we love and serve, and Minister, we say yes, you will find faith with them. If we're all dead and gone, and in Heaven, you will find faith with the next generation. If they're dead and gone. And in Heaven, you will find faith with the next generation. And you will find it because we stood in the gap. You see, it doesn't take Supermen and women, it takes faithful men and women. And we will stand in the gap. Regardless of what the devil tells us how bad we are good we are, but whatever, it doesn't matter, we're going to stand in the gap and believe God. So up until this point, his life was focused on his ministry. And I've said this before, I'm going to say it again, because it's in my notes, and I'm trying to fill in all the gaps here. But I've heard it taught that and I used to believe this, that this was the beginning of the end of his ministry. In other words, I used to believe for many years, that Elijah just reached his point he had burned out and God says, okay, Elijah, let's start last chapter go anoint the guy that's going to replace you. That's the way I used to think. But when you start studying Elijah's life you actually see Everything blossoms after this. When he goes forth, and he anoints the, the two kings and he anoints, the Prophet and then the schools of the prophets rise up, and suddenly there's Elijah is everywhere there's prophets, there's men and women of God, there's the power of God, there's anointing, the double portion on Elisha after that, and then the miracles in Elijah's life, on and on. It's actually the this inner this cave experience is actually the end of the introduction of his book and the life of his biography. It's actually the end of the introduction. Because when he goes forth and anoints now, here's what I'm praying for us. Some of us are older than others. But I'm praying this for as young as possible, we make this transition. This is critical. And guys, listen, you and I, some of us in this room are middle aged, some of us are in our 40s 50s 60s. Some of us are still in our late teens, or 20s. And or 30s. Yeah, I keep forgetting my kids. Yeah, I got I have kids in their 20s. And I have kids in their 30s. If you look back at these young ladies, they look like they're in their early 20s. They'll fool you every time. Dancing possible. But anyways, I want to see people make this transition early. I don't think you have to wait until you're in your 40s or 50s. To make this transition. I believe that we can help people make this transition early in life. And when we do when they make that transition, man, the sky is the limit. There's no limit at all. And so that's my prayer for us, as God's people as we serve as people now you guys know, for us as a spiritual family, and as a spiritual family of families, our lives and ministry is not about when we gather as a family on Sundays, right? We gather as a family on Sundays, because we're family. Our lives are about serving the nation's and raising up God's people, leaders, spiritual leaders, spiritual fathers, spiritual mother, this is our life. That's what we're about. And so you guys are living this, I'm preaching to the choir. But I want to help the choir preach effectively and teach effectively, because God has given us the mandate, apostolic mandate, I believe this with all my heart to impart all of this to nations. Because as we do, it will fulfill the prophecy of Jesus in Matthew chapter 17, the prophecy of the angel in Luke chapter one, the prophecy of Malachi, chapter four, to call forth the mantle of Elijah, to a generation who will usher in the coming of the Lord. Let's pray, Lord, we thank you that as we make this transition, and as you raise up people making this transition, that you are transitioning people to the most powerful season of their lives, and we pray, Lord, help us be faithful, and to carry this mantle into impart this message and mantle and calling in its fullness to the nations of people that you've called us to. And, Lord, we just want to let it be said of us. We were faithful in our generation in all of God's house, so that we can truly help them and raise them up in God in great power in the fullness of their calling, in the fullness of their eternal destiny in Jesus name. Amen, and Amen.