Cutting Room Floor - 2 Kings 5
* Note that these are sermon notes that didn't make it into the final form of the sermon, not an organized essay.
2 Kings 5:1 (ESV)
1Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.
We are told here that it was by the hand of God that Syria was given their victory in battle.
We have been focused on God’s dealings with His chosen covenant people, but this passage is a reminder that God is always in control of everything everywhere.
Yes, God chose the children of Abraham to be His covenant people through whom the redeemer would come to the world, but He still reigns and rules over and through all of the world’s affairs.
Psalm 47:7–8 — “For God is the King of all the earth... God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.”
Just because the old testament story follows one group of covenant people does not mean God just checked out on the rest of His image bearers throughout the world.
Whitney laughs at me sometimes because she may find me watching a game, listening to a podcast, and reading an article all at once.
But the reality is, I can’t really do all of that at once.
Research tells us that, while we can process information from different sources at once, we can’t really give all of our attention to multiple tasks at once if they all require concentration and decision making.
But God ain’t like us.
God can zoom in on individual human hearts and simultaneously govern world affairs.
God can deal with the Israelites for hundreds of years as His chosen people while all the while working out His eternal plan to save people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and bring them into His blood-bought family.
God is powerful enough to fold world wars into His perfect plan for His global glory and personal enough to fold your bad days into His perfect plan for your spiritual good.
Here we see that God is powerful enough to grant victory in war to Namaan, yet personal enough to have a plan for His sickness.
I can remember my coach in junior high responding to a disrespectful student by asking - Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?
In other words, I have the power to control how much you play in the game. I make the rules. I decide how much you are gonna run after practice. I am the one with the power and authority here.
I wonder, church, when it comes to your prayer life, have you forgotten who you’re talking to?
Psalm 46:9:
“He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
The God who can turn tanks around kneels down and says to you, His blood bought child - what do you need?
This is our God, powerful and personal.
Another thing we see is that Naaman’s temporary problem led to an eternal solution.
Don’t be so quick to write off your suffering as meaningless. Your problems, your pain - they all have a providential purpose.
God often works through pain to save unbelievers, and He always works through pain to sanctify believers.
I don’t know if I have ever heard a christian say: You know, the time I grew the most spiritually was when everything was great and I had no problems.
Now, maybe that happens.
But usually, we look back at our pain, our problems, our sufferings, our sicknesses and we see that God was working and purifying and drawing us close through all of it.
So if you can’t see the providential plan in your pain right now, think about this story. And think about the fact that God used a life altering skin disease to save this man’s soul.
What might He be doing through your pain?
2 Kings 5:19–24 (ESV)
19He said to him, “Go in peace.” But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance,
20Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, “See, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian, in not accepting from his hand what he brought. As the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”
21So Gehazi followed Naaman. And when Naaman saw someone running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him and said, “Is all well?”
22And he said, “All is well. My master has sent me to say, ‘There have just now come to me from the hill country of Ephraim two young men of the sons of the prophets. Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.’ ”
23And Naaman said, “Be pleased to accept two talents.” And he urged him and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and laid them on two of his servants. And they carried them before Gehazi.
24And when he came to the hill, he took them from their hand and put them in the house, and he sent the men away, and they departed.
Elisha tells Naaman how to be healed. He tells him to go and wash in the Jordan River seven times.
And Naaman’s response is basically - we got rivers in Damascus.
Why did I have to come all the way here just to be told to wash in a river? I could do that back home.
It says he is angry at Elisha’s offer, and then it says he went away in a rage.
You ever responded to God like that?
Ever resented His response to your request for help?
It seems crazy that Naaman would respond to the offer of healing like this, but we all have some Naaman in us.
We all have some pride that assumes we know better than God.
We all feel some resentment when He doesn’t do what we think he should when we think he should.
Naaman was an important man. And so he expected a dramatic miracle, not something as ordinary as washing in a river.
He can’t see the offer of healing because he is blinded by pride.
Naaman is forgetting who He is and who God is.
If he had a really firm grasp of who he actually was - a Yahweh rejecting enemy of God - then he would have had a grasp of what He deserved from God - judgment, wrath and death.
And if he would have grasped all that, he would have jumped for joy that the holy God of heaven responded to him at all, rather than becoming upset that this God didn’t respond how he wanted him to.
If you spend a lot of time bitter towards God or upset that He ain’t answering just how you think He should, you might just need to recalibrate your perception of who you are and who God is.
God doesn’t exist for our purposes, we exist for His.
And we have rejected those purposes on some level and in some way everyday of our lives.
You need to be reminded that you deserve an eternity of conscious torment for your sinful rejection of Him, but through Christ’s death you will receive an eternity of joy in His presence.
You need to be reminded that our holy God has promised to listen to humble sinners like us and then meet our needs when we ask while working all things for our good and His glory.
Don’t resent the Father for not giving you what you think you should get when you think you should get it.
Rejoice in the fact that the God who should be your judge is actually your good Father, now and forever.
Naaman’s resistance to receive the healing points to a deeper issue.
This isn’t just about physical transformation, it’s about spiritual transformation.
God, through Elisha, is not simply seeking Naaman’s cleansed skin, he is seeking Naaman’s cleansed heart.
The act of obeying the prophet involved the attitude of submission to the one true God.
Naaman is so blinded by his pride that he would rather keep his skin disease than submit to the word of the one true God and be healed.
Crazy, I know, but the world is full of people who hear the simple gospel message but choose to stay in their sin sickness rather than submit to Christ and be healed.
And we look at them and think - what aren’t you getting?
Why stay sin sick when God offers you spiritual health?
But be very careful as we look out at the sin sick Naamans in the world who refused to submit to Yahweh's cleansing.
Make sure you look in the mirror before you look out at them.
Because God says forgive, and yet we hang on to bitterness.
God says to love your wife as sacrificially as Christ loved the church, but we treat our wives with selfish attitudes.
God says be a cheerful giver, but we have Christians stockpiling money and resources in a world full of urgent physical and spiritual needs.
God says to pray at all times, and we spend all our time doing everything but praying.
Before you get too judgmental of the Naaman’s out in the world, start looking at the Naaman in the mirror and ask:
What sin sickness are you walking around with right now because you pridefully refuse to submit to God’s word and so be healed?
Don’t be like Naaman. Submit to God. Be healed and free.
2 Kings 5:1 (ESV)
1Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.
We are told here that it was by the hand of God that Syria was given their victory in battle.
We have been focused on God’s dealings with His chosen covenant people, but this passage is a reminder that God is always in control of everything everywhere.
Yes, God chose the children of Abraham to be His covenant people through whom the redeemer would come to the world, but He still reigns and rules over and through all of the world’s affairs.
Psalm 47:7–8 — “For God is the King of all the earth... God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.”
Just because the old testament story follows one group of covenant people does not mean God just checked out on the rest of His image bearers throughout the world.
Whitney laughs at me sometimes because she may find me watching a game, listening to a podcast, and reading an article all at once.
But the reality is, I can’t really do all of that at once.
Research tells us that, while we can process information from different sources at once, we can’t really give all of our attention to multiple tasks at once if they all require concentration and decision making.
But God ain’t like us.
God can zoom in on individual human hearts and simultaneously govern world affairs.
God can deal with the Israelites for hundreds of years as His chosen people while all the while working out His eternal plan to save people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, and bring them into His blood-bought family.
God is powerful enough to fold world wars into His perfect plan for His global glory and personal enough to fold your bad days into His perfect plan for your spiritual good.
Here we see that God is powerful enough to grant victory in war to Namaan, yet personal enough to have a plan for His sickness.
I can remember my coach in junior high responding to a disrespectful student by asking - Have you forgotten who you’re talking to?
In other words, I have the power to control how much you play in the game. I make the rules. I decide how much you are gonna run after practice. I am the one with the power and authority here.
I wonder, church, when it comes to your prayer life, have you forgotten who you’re talking to?
Psalm 46:9:
“He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
The God who can turn tanks around kneels down and says to you, His blood bought child - what do you need?
This is our God, powerful and personal.
Another thing we see is that Naaman’s temporary problem led to an eternal solution.
Don’t be so quick to write off your suffering as meaningless. Your problems, your pain - they all have a providential purpose.
God often works through pain to save unbelievers, and He always works through pain to sanctify believers.
I don’t know if I have ever heard a christian say: You know, the time I grew the most spiritually was when everything was great and I had no problems.
Now, maybe that happens.
But usually, we look back at our pain, our problems, our sufferings, our sicknesses and we see that God was working and purifying and drawing us close through all of it.
So if you can’t see the providential plan in your pain right now, think about this story. And think about the fact that God used a life altering skin disease to save this man’s soul.
What might He be doing through your pain?
2 Kings 5:19–24 (ESV)
19He said to him, “Go in peace.” But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance,
20Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, “See, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian, in not accepting from his hand what he brought. As the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”
21So Gehazi followed Naaman. And when Naaman saw someone running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him and said, “Is all well?”
22And he said, “All is well. My master has sent me to say, ‘There have just now come to me from the hill country of Ephraim two young men of the sons of the prophets. Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.’ ”
23And Naaman said, “Be pleased to accept two talents.” And he urged him and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and laid them on two of his servants. And they carried them before Gehazi.
24And when he came to the hill, he took them from their hand and put them in the house, and he sent the men away, and they departed.
Elisha tells Naaman how to be healed. He tells him to go and wash in the Jordan River seven times.
And Naaman’s response is basically - we got rivers in Damascus.
Why did I have to come all the way here just to be told to wash in a river? I could do that back home.
It says he is angry at Elisha’s offer, and then it says he went away in a rage.
You ever responded to God like that?
Ever resented His response to your request for help?
It seems crazy that Naaman would respond to the offer of healing like this, but we all have some Naaman in us.
We all have some pride that assumes we know better than God.
We all feel some resentment when He doesn’t do what we think he should when we think he should.
Naaman was an important man. And so he expected a dramatic miracle, not something as ordinary as washing in a river.
He can’t see the offer of healing because he is blinded by pride.
Naaman is forgetting who He is and who God is.
If he had a really firm grasp of who he actually was - a Yahweh rejecting enemy of God - then he would have had a grasp of what He deserved from God - judgment, wrath and death.
And if he would have grasped all that, he would have jumped for joy that the holy God of heaven responded to him at all, rather than becoming upset that this God didn’t respond how he wanted him to.
If you spend a lot of time bitter towards God or upset that He ain’t answering just how you think He should, you might just need to recalibrate your perception of who you are and who God is.
God doesn’t exist for our purposes, we exist for His.
And we have rejected those purposes on some level and in some way everyday of our lives.
You need to be reminded that you deserve an eternity of conscious torment for your sinful rejection of Him, but through Christ’s death you will receive an eternity of joy in His presence.
You need to be reminded that our holy God has promised to listen to humble sinners like us and then meet our needs when we ask while working all things for our good and His glory.
Don’t resent the Father for not giving you what you think you should get when you think you should get it.
Rejoice in the fact that the God who should be your judge is actually your good Father, now and forever.
Naaman’s resistance to receive the healing points to a deeper issue.
This isn’t just about physical transformation, it’s about spiritual transformation.
God, through Elisha, is not simply seeking Naaman’s cleansed skin, he is seeking Naaman’s cleansed heart.
The act of obeying the prophet involved the attitude of submission to the one true God.
Naaman is so blinded by his pride that he would rather keep his skin disease than submit to the word of the one true God and be healed.
Crazy, I know, but the world is full of people who hear the simple gospel message but choose to stay in their sin sickness rather than submit to Christ and be healed.
And we look at them and think - what aren’t you getting?
Why stay sin sick when God offers you spiritual health?
But be very careful as we look out at the sin sick Naamans in the world who refused to submit to Yahweh's cleansing.
Make sure you look in the mirror before you look out at them.
Because God says forgive, and yet we hang on to bitterness.
God says to love your wife as sacrificially as Christ loved the church, but we treat our wives with selfish attitudes.
God says be a cheerful giver, but we have Christians stockpiling money and resources in a world full of urgent physical and spiritual needs.
God says to pray at all times, and we spend all our time doing everything but praying.
Before you get too judgmental of the Naaman’s out in the world, start looking at the Naaman in the mirror and ask:
What sin sickness are you walking around with right now because you pridefully refuse to submit to God’s word and so be healed?
Don’t be like Naaman. Submit to God. Be healed and free.
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