Raise your hand if you had a favorite restaurant growing up. I don’t mean fast food. I mean the place you went for birthdays, or homecoming dances.
For me, it was Red Lobster. I grew up thinking Red Lobster was just the pinnacle of swank. To this day, I still love Red Lobster. Trish is allergic to most seafood, so we don’t go that often, but if I’m traveling and Trish isn’t with me, I will almost always go to Red Lobster.
For my sixteenth birthday, my parents took me out to eat. And you guessed it—we went to Red Lobster. And at the end of the meal, my dad looked at me across the table, and said, “Well, son, you are 16 now. Do you know what that means?” And I said, “Yeah! I can drive!” And my dad was like, “That too.” But, it also means you need to get a job.
So a few minutes later, the dining room manager came by our table to check on us. And she said, “can I get you anything else?” And I said, “A job application?” And I took the application home with me, and the next weekend I started at Red Lobster as a busboy. And do you know, I worked there for a year and a half. I loved my job. I loved telling people what was on the menu. When they moved me from busboy to host I loved greeting people at the door and walking them to their tables.
One time I was in the lobby, and there was a little girl watching the lobsters in the lobster tank. And I went over and helped her name all the lobsters in the tank. Her dad looked at me and said, “Well, I guess now I’m just going to be getting a SALAD”
I never got tired of the food, and so I never got tired of telling other people about it.
And so today, as we wrap up our series on I Love My Church, I want us to think about what makes us excited to tell someone else about our favorite restaurant. Unless you’re a horrible person, and you’re one of those that finds a great restaurant and you don’t want to tell anyone about it because you don’t want it to get so crowded that you won’t be able to get a table anymore. No… when we love the food, we want to tell everyone about the restaurant!
And if we can just get our heads around that one idea, I think it would make evangelism easier. I think it would make inviting people to church easier. I think it would make being in church easier.
When we love the food, we want to tell everyone about the restaurant.
This morning, we are going to look at a story out of the Old Testament that I think illustrates the gospel as well as any story in the Old Testament, and its actually a story that a lot of people are not familiar with. The main part of the story is in 2 Kings 7, but we get the background in chapter 6. Normally, I like to read the entire passage at the beginning of the sermon and then teach it, but there’s so much drama in this one that I don’t want to spoil the ending for you guys that don’t know the story, so we’re just going to unpack it one section at a time.
This story happens during the days of Elisha. Israel and Judah have split into two separate kingdoms. The capital of Judah is Jerusalem, and the capital of Israel is Samaria. And we learn in chapter 6 that Ben-Hadad, the king of Syria, has attacked Samaria and laid siege to it. When you besieged a city, you surrounded it with your army and basically starved them out until they surrendered. And so in verse 25, we see that the famine is so bad in Samaria that...
25 And there was a great famine in Samaria, as they besieged it, until a donkey's head was sold for eighty shekels of silver, and the fourth part of a kab of dove's dung for five shekels of silver.
Now just to give you some perspective—nobody ever thought a donkey’s head was a delicacy. How hungry do you have to be to eat a donkey’s head? But you could buy a donkey’s head for That’s about 22 pounds of silver, or over $750 in today’s prices. And if you couldn’t afford that, you could get about 8 ounces of dove’s dung for almost $50. Now, some translations say “seed pods” instead of dove’s dung because apparently there was a plant called dove’s dung, but there’s a really good chance that dove’s dung means dove’s dung, and people are so starved that they are shelling out $50 for a cup of bird poop.
So things are bad! And if you’re thinking things can’t get worse, they actually get worse. In the next a woman begs the king to settle a dispute she was having with her neighbor:
Read with me…
28 And the king asked her, “What is your trouble?” She answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow.’ 29 So we boiled my son and ate him. And on the next day I said to her, ‘Give your son, that we may eat him.’ But she has hidden her son.” 30 When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body—
And now you know why a lot of us have probably never heard this story before—its not really the type of Bible story they’re gonna cover in Vacation Bible School. But I told you that I thought this story illustrated the gospel better than any story in the old testament, and here’s why. I think this is a picture of what our world looks like without Jesus. Its like being in a besieged city. People are surrounded on all sides by sin. Our enemy, Satan, has captured us, and we are starving. Our values are upside down. We pay big money for things that will not satisfy our hunger. People are willing to sacrifice their children to gratify their own desires. And our political leaders cannot help us. Notice the king is wearing sackcloth underneath his robes. That shows that he was already mourning the loss of the city. So the first step in responding to the gospel is to recognize your need. Know that you are starving.
And then, we move from starvation to desperation. Skip down to chapter 7. God sends his prophet Elijah to tell the king that within about 24 hours, things are going to turn around for the Israelites. He says in verse 1 that “by this time tomorrow,” people will have all the flour and barley they need. And we’re going to see how he does this.
But read verse 3 with me:
3 Now there were four men who were lepers at the entrance to the gate. And they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die? 4 If we say, ‘Let us enter the city,’ the famine is in the city, and we shall die there. And if we sit here, we die also. So now come, let us go over to the camp of the Syrians. If they spare our lives we shall live, and if they kill us we shall but die.”
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—every time lepers show up in a Bible story, it’s a great story. Lepers in a Bible story are like superheroes in a summer movie. You don’t know how the movies are gonna turn out, but if its got spider man in it, it’s a great movie. Lepers are the Spider-Man of the Bible. So these four lepers are sitting in the city gate, going, “What have we got to lose? We’ve tried everything else. Let’s roll the dice. We can either die in the city, or die sitting here. So what’s the worst thing that can happen if we go to the Syrians? If they kill us, we shall but die.”
And so the lepers head over to the camp of the Syrians in much the same way a lot of lost people wander into church. They’ve tried everything else. They know they are starving. And so they say, “What’s the worst thing that can happen? I’m willing to take a chance on this Christianity thing.
If you’ve ever been in a recovery program, or know someone that’s gone through a Twelve Step Program, this is going to sound familiar to you. Step 1: We admitted we were powerless over [fill in the blank]. Step 3: We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
That’s what these lepers are doing. They are moving from starvation to desperation. And if that’s you this morning, then let me say to you as a pastor: Rock bottom may be exactly where God is going to meet you. The end of your rope could be the beginning of your life. Because on the other side of desperation is SALVATION.
Here’s how it went down. Look at verses 6-7. The lepers go to the Syrian camp. And it says in verse 5 that when they got to the camp, there was not a Syrian soldier to be found anywhere! Read verse 6 with me:
6 For the Lord had made the army of the Syrians hear the sound of chariots and of horses, the sound of a great army, so that they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of Egypt to come against us.” 7 So they fled away in the twilight and abandoned their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, leaving the camp as it was, and fled for their lives.
You see, God, and God alone lifted the siege. I don’t know if it was thunder, or an earthquake, or what, but God caused the Syrians to hear what they thought was the sound of a huge army coming against them, and verse 7 says they ran for their lives.
The war was over. The siege was lifted. The battle was won. All without Israel firing a single shot.
Was it because the king of Israel was good and godly? No.
Was it because the people of Israel said, “You know what, we’re not going to eat our children anymore. We really crossed the line on that one.” No.
It was because the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
Don’t miss the gospel here! We are saved because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Not by any good we did for ourselves! From start to finish, the Bible is clear that it is not our good works that save us. We don’t bring anything to the table except for our sin. We bring our starvation—I know I am a sinner. We bring our desperation—I know that I can’t save myself, and that I deserve eternity in hell for my sin against you.
And we trust that Jesus will do the rest. Why? Because he already did.
So that just leaves our response. We go from desperation—bad news…
…to salvation—good news…
To Celebration—Woo hoo!
Let’s get back to our lepers. In verse 8:
8 And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.
These guys are having a ball! They’ve been living on donkey’s heads and dove’s dung, and now all of the sudden they are feasting! Eating! Drinking! Trying on new clothes! It is a party!
Let me ask you this: when you think about your Christian life, do you think primarily of celebration? Joy? Adventure? When we were out of church from March until June, and you missed being here, was it because we had so much fun here? Have you ever had someone say, “man—that Wade family—they know how to have fun! They seem to be the most joyful, fun-loving, party people. They must be Christian!
If not, have you ever considered the possibility that maybe you’re doing it wrong?
Now, I’m not saying that we turn a blind eye toward all the problems and suffering in the world. We still live in a fallen world, and we don’t make it better by putting on a happy face and ignoring it. And if you are hurting and need a shoulder to cry on, I’m not saying you’ve got to just bottle that up and leave it at the door when you come to church. This is, and always will be a place where its okay to not be okay.
But y’all—the war is over. Sin has been defeated! Jesus is Lord! Our salvation is secure! We have a place in heaven! We get to call the creator of the Universe
“daddy.” We have much to celebrate!
Now, maybe the reason we don’t is because there’s one thing these lepers did that we do very well. Look again at the verse:
8 And when these lepers came to the edge of the camp, they went into a tent and ate and drank, and they carried off silver and gold and clothing and went and hid them. Then they came back and entered another tent and carried off things from it and went and hid them.
Remember our analogy about what we do when we find a great restaurant? You know, there really are people that want to keep it to themselves. They like that their favorite restaurant is “the best kept secret in town.”
My fear is that way too many Christians do the same thing with their faith. We want to keep it to ourselves. And that’s why, what the lepers did next is so important. Look at verse 9:
9 Then they said to one another, “We are not doing right. This day is a day of good news. If we are silent and wait until the morning light, punishment will overtake us. Now therefore come; let us go and tell the king's household.”
Notice that phrase in verse 9: “This is a day of good news.” We’ve talked lots of times over the past few months about the Greek word for “Good News.” Do you remember what it is? That’s right. It’s euangellion. It’s where we get our word for evangelism. And, yes, the Old Testament is written in Hebrew, not Greek, but I went back and checked the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, and sure enough—there’s the word:
“This is a day of evangelism.”
So with the gospel, we can’t stay stuck in “celebration.” We have to move from celebration to obligation. “Come; let us go and tell the king’s household.”
What we have in here is too good to keep to ourselves. And what we have here will not be diminished if we share it with the world. In fact, it will multiply! This morning we celebrated Savannah coming to faith because Mrs. Jeannie shared Jesus with her. Now, Mrs. Jeannie—do you have more or less joy because you shared it with Savannah? Of course you have more.
Time for lunch, my stomach said
I left the office to get fed
But I had dined at every place on Min
My appetite was ripe for change
And there stood this old restaurant I had never seen before
And a stranger in an apron
Came bursting through the door and said:
Welcome to “The Best Stuff In the World Today” café
We all all believers In a better way
We were served as customers here not so long ago
But now we all are waiters
We thought you ought to know
Then the waiter said to me
"Everything we serve is free"
And I confess that I was full of doubt
Til I shoved the best stuff in my mouth
And the food was so fantastic
I could not stay in my seat
I jumped up from the table
Dragged a stranger off the street and said:
Welcome to “The Best Stuff In the World Today” café
We all all believers In a better way
We were served as customers here not so long ago
But now we all are waiters
We thought you ought to know
Church, let’s be waiters and not customers!
