Pride And Arrogance Series

Now Naaman didn’t like the cure because it wasn’t the kind of cure he wanted. Look at 2 Kings 5:11, “But Naaman went away angry and said, "I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.” Naaman thought that Elisha would act like a Tele-evangelist and put on a big show, you know invite the news crews, have a 20/20 special on his healing and all that. But the cure wasn’t flashy, it wasn’t showy, it was, well simple.

Now some of you are waiting for God to work in your lives in a spectacular way, and you are waiting for the fireworks, the parades and all that, but God doesn’t always work in spectacular ways, maybe God wants to work in your life in ways that may not be so spectacular. And the thing is, God’s ways are not debatable. You don’t get to choose how or when God is going to work in your life. While in the Navy, I had a friend who God was really tugging at his heart, and when I asked him if he wanted to be a Christian, he said, “Yeah, but not right now. I want to wait until I’m older so I can have some fun in Thailand. ” Friends, You don’t get to pick and choose when God works in your life, and by trying to do so you are missing out on what God wants to do in your life now. Let God do it His way.

Now I want you to notice the dangers and the consequences of Naaman’s pride. The first is this: Naaman’s pride caused him to look down on other things. When he was told to go wash in the Jordan river, he responded by saying in vs. 12, “Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?" Pride tends to exalt one’s self and what one has by putting down everything else. Pride looks at your job and says, my job is better. Pride looks at another and says, “Lord, I thank you that I’m not like this person.” Pride puffs up by trying to put others down. During a bible study a while back I was talking about pride and I illustrated it by saying how if you bought a new car how you would be tempted to look down on someone driving a beat up old Buick with black smoke blowing out its tail pipe, and an old lady spoke up and said, “Well preacher, you ain’t got no reason to be proud, at least that car is paid for!” Don’t look down on anybody. Remember in God’s kingdom, there is no pecking order, no one person is more valuable than the next. In God’s eyes, we are all important.

The second danger is this: Naaman’s pride caused him to be stubborn. If I don’t do it my way, then it’s no way. If Naaman didn’t get healed the way he wanted to be healed, then by golly he wasn’t going to be healed. He was willing to give up his healing, just to keep his pride! Imagine that. But we do it all the time, don’t we?

So often marriages are destroyed, families are broken apart, friendships are lost, all because someone wanted to keep their pride intact. Let me ask you, what are you willing to sacrifice in order to keep your pride intact? Some of you won’t admit wrong, you won’t compromise on petty issues, you won’t admit your need for help all because you want to hold on to your pride. Naaman was going to leave Elisha’s place, and he was going to leave with his pride intact, but there was one problem…he was still a leper. Naaman would leave with his pride but the leprosy still remained.