Hope Has Come
Glenville 3/15/2013 2 Kings 4:8-17 1 Peter 1:3-9
Each week it seems as though somebody has taken another person’s life in an argument, a drug deal, or a robbery. We have the debate going on in Congress over gun control on who should have background checks and what kind of guns should they buy. We are alarmed at over 30,000 deaths a year by firearms. But to do something about gun control also demands that we look at the why behind some of those deaths
We want to end school shootings and movie theater shootings and mall shootings. But in reality what is behind the bulk of those 30,000, almost 50% of them to be close is not a deranged killer or an angry spouse or a madman in the streets. Almost 15,000 were caused because somebody no longer had hope for the future.
15,000 people who were killed by gunfire, were killed by themselves in an act of suicide. A gun control law will not help them. A ban on assault weapons will not keep them alive. What they need is hope that life is worth living. In the year 2005, 1.3 1.3% of all deaths were from suicide. On average, one suicide occurred every 16 minutes. Suicide was the eleventh leading cause of death for all Americans. Suicide was the third leading cause of death for young people aged 15-24 year olds.(1st = accidents, 2nd = homicide)
Suicide was the second leading cause of death for 25-34 year olds. Suicide was the second leading cause of death among college students. More males died from suicide than females. (4 male deaths by suicide for each female death by suicide.) More people died from suicide than from homicide. (Suicide ranks as the 11th leading cause of death; Homicide ranks 13th.) There were over 800,000 suicide attempts in 2005. 800,000 people who had given up hope for their situation.
Suicide has changed the lives of several families here in the church. We have either had family members attempt suicide or as in my case, I had a brother just 34 years of age who committed suicide. At the heart of suicide is a lack of hope that things can change and go in a different direction. Even though we may all be living, we are not all having life. Jesus said I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly. Jesus is promising us that there is more to life than the living we are currently experiencing. But we have to be willing to look at life from His perspective. That’s when we realize that Hope has come.
We live in a society which promises us instant happiness in just about every arena of life. We have instant dinners, with the microwave or fast foods. You can have instant relationships through matchmaking dot com. You can be an instant millionaire through the lotteries or casino’s. You can instantly lose 40 lbs. as you sleep with this pill. You can instantly be available to everybody through e-mail and texting. You can instantly have this item at the swipe of a credit card.
The problem is we think everybody is having a much greater time in life than we are. We put our hope in these instant solutions and we are sorely disappointed when they do not do what they promise. Why on earth are we so fascinated with the lives of celebrities and super stars? They have the same problems in life as everybody else and most are no happier in life than you are. Some of them wish they have what you have which is peace of mind and freedom to go where you want to without a camera in your face.
Nobody has a perfect life in which nothing goes wrong, there is never any loss, and sorrow does not visit it. We met in our Scripture reading today a woman that’s known simply as the Shunnamite woman. She has what appears to be a very good life. She’s married, and she and her husband are financially well off. She had the heart of a servant, and she loved the Lord. She noticed that Elisha, the prophet was a man of God and she urged him to come and eat at her home. He passed through Shunnem from his home town on his way to Mt. Carmel where he worked.
She noticed also that Elisha passed through the area somewhat often so she encouraged her husband to add a small bedroom on to their house so that when Elisha came through, he would have his own guest room with meal service included. She wanted to make her life count by doing something to help further the work of God.
Elisha had been so touched by her generosity with this new addition to her house, that he wanted to do something for her in return. But the amazing thing about this Shunnamite woman is that she had learned to be content in life with what she had, instead of focusing on what she did not have. A lack of contentment will destroy our hope for the future. If you feel like you just have to have something to be successful in life other than God, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
Not all of us are going to reach our dreams. It’s not going to be due to a lack of work, we simply cannot control all of our circumstances around us nor can we control the people around us. We can learn to be content, by choosing a different dream. It’s okay to come in second. In the Olympics, they have discovered that 3rd place finishers are happier than the 2nd place. Second place focus on what they missed, where as 3rd place focus on where they are. Not getting your dream today is not a reason to give up and to lose hope.
Elisha asked her, with all you have done for me, what is it that I can do for you. He was offering her a chance to meet the king and queen, or to have special security forces around her home, or if there was a favor she needed from somebody important, just let him know. Her response was” I am content. I have a home among my people.” It wasn’t that important to her to be with the in crowd or to have certain perks in life. But I want you to know her contentment did not mean she was not carrying a burden or sense of loss.
Deep inside of her, she had wanted a child. Her husband was considerably older than she was. She lived at a time when women were expected to have children. No doubt there was pressure on her. It’s obvious her husband loved her, but she felt as though she had let him down by not producing an heir for the family. That was part of her culture.
But she did not allow her desire for the perfect family keep her from enjoying the family she had. She didn’t cry out to Elisha for a son. It was Gehazi, Elisha’s servant that picked up on the desire in her heart. There’s nothing wrong with having desires in your heart. The bible tells us that God at times give us the desires of our heart.
When Elisha took the initiative and told her that she was going to get pregnant and have a son about this time next year, she was afraid to believe him. She didn’t want to get her hopes up only to have them come crashing down again. How many times have we refused to take risks because we didn’t want to get our hopes up, only to see our hope vanish into thin air? We even tell others, “ now don’t get your hopes up, but.” If we don’t get our hopes up, then we don’t have a real reason for moving forward.
Jesus never tells us to not get our hopes up, he simply reminds us in this world you shall have struggles and disappointments, but be of good cheer because he has overcome the world. Jesus knows how to get you beyond your present crisis. That’s why when we focus on Jesus, we realize that Hope has come.
Well just as Elisha told her, the woman did have a son a year later. I want you to notice, that God blesses us, when we choose to bless others. The son came a direct result of the woman wanting to help Elisha in his ministry. When you give a high priority to the work of God, God grants you special favor.
I also want you to notice, that every blessing that comes into your life will one day present a challenge of its own. Sometimes we have to remember that we said, “God made this possible” or “God blessed me with this.” Sometimes we may lose the very thing we were so sure of that God gave to us. When we do, it can cause us to lose our Hope, if our hope is not grounded in our relationship to God.
Everything seemed to have fallen in place for the Shunnamite woman. She had plans and dreams for her little boy as he was growing up. He seemed as healthy as any other child. She watched him play with the other kids. She could not have been happier with this gift child from God.
One morning her son goes out into the field where his father is working. He goes to his dad and says, “Daddy, Daddy, my head is hurting really badly.” The father says to one of the servants, pick him up and carry him to his mother. The father goes on working, thinking nothing more of the incident.
The servant takes the boy to his mom. She sits him on her lap. She doesn’t know what to do to help her son, so she’s praying for him. And then the unthinkable happens. The little boy breathes out his last, his head falls over, and he dies.
What would you be thinking and feeling if you were the mother of that little boy? Earlier that morning you would have had breakfast with him and told him to behave and to have a good time, and to stay out of his father’s way as he worked. As you watched him walk out the house and run towards the fields, you were thinking, “this is the son who is going to be with me after my older husband dies.” But now all you have is corpse. Is this a time to give up hope? Your dream for the future has been shattered. Is this a time to get angry with God? It’s in moments like this that people wonder if they should just give up. They lose a spouse. They lose a marriage, They lose a job. They miss a scholarship. They get arrested. They hit rock bottom because of a habit.
When you reach a situation like this, you have to recognize you can only do what you can only do. The Shunnamite woman knew that she could not do anything to change the situation, but she knew somebody who might. She had a hope because she had faith in God.
No doubt in the many times Elisha had spent at her home, he shared with her some of the things God had done in the prophet Elijah who had been Elisha’s boss and mentor. One of the things had involved a widow who had a son who had gotten very sick and died. She was probably thinking, if God had done it once, then just maybe God might do it again. It helps to know what God has done for others, because God might do it for you as well.
The Shunnamite woman didn’t tell anybody her son was dead. She took him to the room she and her husband hand built for Elisha and laid him on the bed. She then shut the door and went out. She had one of her servants get a donkey ready for a 25 mile trip to Mr. Carmel to meet Elisha. She said ride as fast as you can with me and don’t stop unless I tell you I need a break.
So they took off as she went in search of Hope in the midst of her struggle. Sooner or later, hurt and disappointment is going to come into everybody’s life. That’s why we should keep on saying, “Good morning God, what’s your plan for us today.” She hadn’t planned on this journey when she woke up that morning. She hadn’t planned on this emergency coming up in her life. She hadn’t planned on today being so different from yesterday, but it was. You can go to bed thinking your kids are fine only to discover that 6 of them are not returning from a car of 8 like just happened in Warren this past week. Life changes at rates we don’t expect.
Elisha and Gehazi were together. Elisha saw her at a distance and immediately recognized her. He had Gehazi run and ask here, If she was alright, if her husband was alright, and was the child alright. When Gehazi asked her, she said “Everything is alright.” Her goal though was to get to Elisha, and she didn’t want to waste time explaining things to anybody but him.
When she got to Elisha, no words would come out of her mouth. All she could do was grab a hold of Elisha’s feet. She is exhausted from the trip. She’s emotionally and spiritually drained from the burden she was carrying in her heart. Gehazi wanted to push her away from Elisha, but Elisha said , “No, leave her alone, she is in bitter distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me and not told me why.”
There will be times when we will be in bitter distress and no one can truly know our pain except for God. Knowing that God knows our pain, can give us hope that God can provide the necessary comfort to alleviate our situation. There was a time in which Jesus Himself was in bitter distress, in the garden, before the crucifixion. That’s when he prayed,” not my will but your will be done.” Sometimes the hardest prayer we pray is “not my will, but your will be done.” We have the hope that regardless of the outcome, God is still in control.
The Shunnamite woman finally gets enough strength to talk. She says to Elisha, “Did I ask you for a son, my lord? Didn’t I tell you, don’t raise my hope.” Elisha knew immediately something had happened to the boy. He told Gehazi, quick take my staff in your hand and run. Don’t say a thing to anybody and lay my staff on the boy’s face. Gehazi took off running with the staff and God gave him the stamina to run for 25 miles. We never know what God can do in and through us until we act in obedience to a word from the Lord. Gehazi ran 25 miles by God’s grace.
The Shunnamite woman told Elisha, as surely as God lives, I am not going to leave you. Whatever she was going to have to face, she wanted Elisha at her side when the news came. So Elisha went back to her home with her. God gives them both the stamina they need for the 25 mile journey by foot and donkey.
Gehazi goes and lays the staff on the boy’s head and nothing happens. Can you imagine how he felt having run 25 miles only to see nothing happen? Well one thing that did happen is that he was obedient to what God told him to do. Results are not the measure of a person’s walk with God, faithfulness is. God may be using you and you just don’t see it, so don’t give up hope. You may be preparing something for somebody else to complete. Your life counts far a lot more than you are giving yourself credit for.
Gehazi runs back down the path to tell Elisha, “the boy has not awakened.” In other words to him, “nothing had happened”. What do you think the sound of his words did to the Shunnemite woman? Would she have cried out again in pain? I wonder what did she and Elisha talk about on that 25 mile journey back.
When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on the couch. He went into the room, shut the door behind him and started to pray. Elisha remembered the anointing he had received from his mentor Elijah. He remembered he had asked for a double portion of that anointing. He remembered that Elijah said, if you see me when I go, you will get it. He remembered watching the chariot of fire come out of the sky to take Elijah away. Sometimes our hope comes from remembering, what God has done in the past. He remembered that Elijah had gotten on top of the widow’s son three times and cried out three times.
But God didn’t use Elisha in exactly the same way. When he got on the boy the first time, the boy’s body went from cold and hard to warm and soft. But he didn’t come back alive. Elisha was hoping for a miracle, but he did not know if he was going to get it. Many of the saints who prayed didn’t get a miracle in the Scriptures. They simply had their hope in God strengthened.
Elisha could have gone out and said, “I’ve done all I could, and it didn’t work. He had sent Gehazi with his staff to put on the head of the boy. He had come back 25 miles to pray for the boy. He had had gone into the house and prayed. I’m sure the Shunnamite woman could have accepted his answer and been appreciative for what He had tried to do. Her hope had not been in him but in the God that He represented. And that God was still God.
But Elisha felt God wasn’t through with the situation. He turned away from the boy, and started to walk back and forth in the room. I think he may have needed to look away from the problem to be able to see God a little more clearly. He goes back one more time and gets upon the bed and onto the body. All of a sudden the boy sneezes seven times and opened his eyes.
Elisha tells Gehazi to call the Shunnamite woman who must have been outside the house. She comes back with Gehazi not knowing what to expect . There hasn’t been any sign that anything has changed. She has probably accepted the death of her son by now. When she walks into the room, Elisha tells her, “Take your son.” She came in fell to her feet and bowed to the ground. It was after her act of worship, that she took her son and went out.
God can take the most difficult of circumstances in our lives and fill us with hope. If God can raise a little boy back from the dead, why can’t God see you through the situation you might be going through today. Why can’t he resurrect your marriage? Why can’t he resurrect you dream? Why can’t he resurrect you a job. When Jesus speaks of giving us life, He is really offering us hope of something to look forward to that is beyond where we might be stuck at the moment. We are not always going to be at the place we are right now. For the believer, we can take some assurance in that song, “status is changing, future is bright, we’re on our ways to brighter days.”
As I’ve gotten older, there are dreams that I had, that probably are not going to happen and you know what, that’s okay. I choose to believe that my hope in Jesus Christ is leading me to discover greater things that God has in store for my life. My hope ultimately is not in my dreams but in a God who plans what is best for me. Hope has come, and it has come in the form of Jesus Christ. Let him be your hope today! He will make your life worth the living.
