Today I have with me a young preacher who I just, bro, I saw you on Instagram and I saw a clip of you preaching and if you don’t know who I’m talking about, I’m talking about Elijah Rubashka. Am I pronouncing that correctly?
You are. Yeah. Well, welcome, bro, on the pod.
Thank you, brother. I’m honored to be here. I’m honored to be here. I actually before we came on, we had a guest speaker come toward our area and I asked him to pronounce my last name. He gave me the Ruba Shaka.
So if you pronounce it, he maybe was speaking in tongues before you. There you go. Yeah.
So bro, welcome man. I remember you when you came to one of our youth camps at City Hill and I just remember I think I was praying for people and I see this kid praying in the corner by himself and bro you were just balling your eyes out and I just remember thinking I know that the Lord is moving in this kid’s life and I don’t know if you were maybe 16 at that time.
Yeah, I was probably around there 15, 16. Yeah.
And I just remember I came up to you and I started praying for you. And life went on. But then recently I got to visit South Campus, City Hill South Campus, and I was just kind of flipping through some Instagram things on the page, and I saw you preaching. And I’m like, is this the same kid that I saw almost eight, nine years ago?
Right? And bro, I love your heart for the Lord. And the reason I wanted you to come on the podcast is I want to hear your heart. I want to hear why you preach, what caused you to pursue the Lord in such a way.
And I love how passionate you are and how you move on the stage. And I’m not as animated when it comes to preaching. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but you are passionate, man.
And I think I remember just seeing clips and I’m like I’m already convicted. So that’s awesome.
So tell me a little bit about how did you end up preaching and tell me a little bit about your story.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Well, I’m Elijah, 21 years old. Grew up in a Slavic household. So Slavic household with three brothers. We were always battling with each other and going back and forth, even just fights or whatever. But we were always having a good time.
Slavic household, we always did the outdoors, whatever had to be done, fishing, dirt biking, whatever. We’re outside, we’re doing it.
I always like to think about it like we’re really good at fishing, we’re just really good at catching no fish, but that’s all right. But we loved it, it was good times.
And the household that we grew up in was a Christian household, God fearing household. We have two amazing parents, mom and dad, who feared the Lord and loved the Lord. I honor them even to this day.
But as life went on, I wouldn’t say I grew up super on fire for God. I grew up in the church obviously, but I wouldn’t say I had this very ignited flame where I was constantly thinking about Jesus.
It was around maybe 14 or 15 years old that I met you and you prayed over me, and things shifted in that moment. But I would say the most turning point of my life happened at a ministry here, Jesus place.
It was a house church filled with like 40 or 50 people, maybe more. And they did a call for baptism of the Spirit. It was such a holy moment.
I remember I was with two other guys, just a room filled with people, people praising the Lord. Someone came up and did a call to repentance, a call to the baptism of the Spirit, to be filled with the evidence of speaking in tongues.
At that moment my heart began racing. If you’ve ever had this, your heart starts beating. I felt the Lord quickening me, convicting me of sin, and not living fully for Him.
At that moment I said, Lord if it’s not now, it’s never. I give you everything.
I fell down on my knees and began to weep. I was balling my eyes out and experiencing the presence of God.
A man of God came over, laid hands on me, and after that I received the baptism of the Spirit. I received the gift of tongues.
That moment became the launching point where I began to pursue ministry and preaching full on.
So Elijah, obviously we’re different generations. You’re Gen Z. I’m a millennial. And I think Gen Z grew up with social media and comparison.
What keeps you grounded when everyone else is chasing money, fame, pleasure, and all these things?
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s a great question, especially for this generation because comparison has been running rampant.
What has kept me grounded is my secret place, my prayer closet. My heart cry has been, Lord bend me.
I think of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem, weeping and fasting. It’s that same kind of burden.
Yes, people are chasing wealth and success, and I believe the Lord can bless those things, but for me personally it is that burden of weeping with the Lord day in and day out.
We often think every encounter with God must be emotional, but sometimes the Lord tests your faith through Scripture alone.
If faith is not tested, is it even faith?
I love that. I’m reminded that on the mountaintop you see the best views, but in the valley you grow things.
We both know what it is like when people come up after preaching saying it impacted them. That feels like the mountaintop.
But the fruit of the Spirit is often developed in the valley, through suffering, rejection, loneliness.
And in ministry you can even feel separated from friends. People may not invite you to certain gatherings because of conviction or lifestyle differences.
So what are some costs of following Jesus that people do not often talk about?
Yeah, following Jesus has cost my life. Matthew 16:24 says take up your cross and follow Him.
It is daily surrender of ambition, dreams, and self will.
Even when opportunities come that could bring more money, there is a grounding in the Lord that changes your desires.
When you are grounded in Him, those things lose their grip.
I love that because many people use “I can do all things through Christ” for achievement, but Paul actually spoke about contentment in all circumstances.
Yes.
And that leads to reward. What are some rewards you have seen in following Christ?
The reward is not just ministry success. The world promises satisfaction in pleasure, wealth, and influence, but it never satisfies.
Jesus offers living water. You keep coming back and yet you are satisfied.
It is like eating a great meal. You are full, but you will hunger again. With Jesus, you are satisfied and still want more because He is that good.
Like Moses on the mountain, his face was radiant. Jesus offers what nothing else can.
Nothing compares to it.
That is powerful, because everything in the world is temporary. God places eternity in our hearts.
People are chasing influence, looks, money, but still feel empty.
Why do you think that is?
We live in a time of constant comparison, especially with social media and AI.
People chase what others are doing without considering their own grace and calling.
Abraham tried to fulfill God’s promise in his own way and produced Ishmael. That is what happens when we rush God’s promises.
God cares not only about the promise but about the process.
How we get there matters.
If we step over people to get to destiny, we miss the heart of God.
I believe gifting is given to serve the church, not to display ourselves.
So what do you think the church is missing today?
I think it is easy to fall into professionalism and excellence, which are good things, but they must never replace the leading of the Spirit.
If the Lord is moving, we should not cut it off because of structure.
The church is not a building, it is a people.
We must prioritize the Lord above everything else.
And it continues from there, but the transcript cuts off mid sentence at that point. you grow, you continue to look to Christ, allow Him to shape you, and remain faithful in everything He has called you to.
Church that is right now, what do you think he would complain about or kind of like write us a letter about?
And his answer would be that I think apostle Paul would be horrified how we don’t care that we are not united.
Wow. Right. When Jesus, when you know in his high priestly prayer, he talks about how he wants us to be united.
Right. If you think now it’s like we have so many different denominations and we have so many people who the moment you disagree on a very small thing like where the piano is placed, right, people start to like gossip and then that turns into a church split. Yeah.
And it seems like a lot of people are not concerned with that.
Um, but I I teach at a school where there’s a lot of different denominations like Presbyterian, Methodists, there are Baptist, Pentecostal, uh, Pentecostals, um, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox.
Now, of course, there’s some doctrines in all of these movements that are not biblical, right? But I think we’ve divided to the point where the moment somebody doesn’t believe like everything the way we do, right, then we make our own church and we kind of like separate ourselves.
And the problem that I think that’s a problem is because it seems like nobody is concerned with, well yeah, but the Lord wants us to be one body.
Yes, sure we have differences and there are some doctrines that we should, you know, like debate over and maybe even sometimes divide over there if they’re important enough.
But we should also put an effort in trying to come together, right, to bring the church together.
Like think of even the circles we hang out, the moment like if you’re too conservative, you might not be like out of prayer because you’re too conservative.
And if you’re if people think that you’re a bit more on liberal side, right now of course like all of that has own proper place, but I feel like the very fact that we’re not even trying to unite, right, I think that’s a problem.
Yeah. And I think that’s something that my hope is that, and again what I love about what inter said is like you cannot have unity at the expense of holiness and holiness at the expense of unity.
Right, like you have to have both.
You have to have unity and you have to have holiness.
You can’t just choose one or the other.
So we can’t really compromise on theology just to have unity, you know.
But the very fact that we’re not trying to unite together I think that’s a problem.
Right, you know.
Bro, couple more questions that I have for you.
One of them is this, um, Elijah, what keeps you going? What motivates you? What gives you, you know, the ability to keep on going?
I know you have your own ups and downs, right? So what keeps you motivated?
What helps you in the moments you feel like giving up?
Yeah. Yeah. I think this is actually a very needed question especially for like nowadays people who are, you know, in the ministry or people who are in the ministry of preaching for example.
Um, you know, there there are times in my life when, you know, I’m feeling like, man, Elijah, like are you even worthy of taking that stage? Do you even have anything to bring, you know, this upcoming day when you’re going to be preaching?
Um, I think it’s important that we address that there will be times or there can be times when you do feel down, when you do feel overwhelmed, for example, in the ministry.
But the only thing that keeps me going, I will say, is the presence of Jesus.
I can’t say that something else keeps me going because it’s really at the end of the day.
After a sermon, pretty much the first thought in my mind is, is the Lord pleased? Is the Lord pleased? Is the Lord pleased?
And so after every sermon I’m always thinking, was that glorifying the Lord?
But that all stemmed from that burden of the secret place and cultivating intimacy with the Father, praying day in day out and seeing the Lord’s presence.
There’s many times where I might feel overwhelmed or feel like I’m doing too much, which I’m really not.
Bro, I love what you just said.
Because one of the things that I try to do every single time I preach is, not every church I can do this at, but normally before I start to preach I pray for the sermon.
Especially if I’m able to, because some churches have very strict guidelines on time and all of that.
And one of the things I always try to include in that prayer is this passage where he says, “Lord let the meditations on my heart and the words of my mouth be pleasing to you Lord my God and my redeemer.”
You know, and I feel like that is something that is always at the forefront of my mind.
Lord let the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be pleasing to you.
So I love what you said.
And I think if there’s one thing that I preach toward, if I were to summarize the purpose of preaching, it is hope.
Right? To bring hope to a broken, forsaken humanity.
But the hope is that Jesus came to save, to heal, to restore.
So when I walk away I have something similar.
I always ask, did my sermon lead people to worship or did they walk away saying something else?
Yeah, you’re a pretty good speaker.
Right.
Is the response, I just can’t wait to get in the presence of Jesus to worship, or that guy is funny.
I like his illustrations.
And I always try my best that I want at the end of my sermon for people to say, this God that he was talking about, I want to know Him, I want to worship Him.
And not just, he’s a funny guy or a good speaker.
Because then I failed at the mission.
And the mission is that they would want to know Jesus.
Right.
I mean I heard a man of God say, if the congregation leaves saying they heard more about Elijah than Jesus, it is proof that the Spirit did not lead the meeting.
Right.
So it is really important that the Lord is being glorified.
Elijah, what do you think or what do you hope in a hundred years from now, when both of us are gone, what do you hope people will say about your life?
Yeah. Honestly, I don’t want to be known as a great speaker or gifted preacher.
Those are good things, but the most important thing I want to be known for is that I loved God and I loved people.
I just recently turned 21, and one thing I’ve been journaling is, “Lord help me to love people like You love Your church.”
Holy Spirit teach me to love Your people.
And I think that burden of loving God and loving people is so against what the world proclaims, which is individualism, “you do you,” it’s all about you.
But what the Lord has burdened me with is to love people, to serve people, to love God, and surrender everything to Him.
Are you familiar with Reinhard Bonnke?
Yes.
I actually had the privilege to meet him when he was alive.
He once said, if you want God to make a difference through your life, care about what God cares about.
And what God cares about most is people.
And to live that out is much harder than just saying it.
We all know it theologically, but in practice it is very difficult because comfort, influence, and self-interest compete for our attention.
So yes, loving God and loving people is simple to say, but hard to live.
And even interruptions in life, we can either see them as annoyances or as divine opportunities to love someone.
So last question.
How do you live with eternity in mind? How does knowing there is heaven and hell, and that life is not just temporary, shape your daily life?
Yeah, absolutely.
Paul says, set your eyes on things above, not on things of the earth.
And I believe it is impossible to live in light of eternity without denying yourself.
So living with eternity means setting your eyes on what is above in everything you do.
Well brother, it’s been an hour and I am thankful you came on.
And my encouragement to you is to pursue the Lord.
There is a tendency to become discouraged, to become cynical, to lose sight of what matters when things don’t go as planned.
But Jesus keeps us grounded in our identity in Him.
My hope is that as you grow, you continue to look to Christ and let Him shape you.
And I am here for you if you ever need anything.
It’s been an honor.