10.13.24 2 Kings 5:14-27
When you get to be in your middle ages you need to start making appointments with the dermatologist, because you start to notice bumps and moles on your skin that are flaky or have potential for cancer. So the doctor or practitioner will come in with a little wand type of thing with a trigger on the end, and freeze dry portions of your skin. It isn’t pleasant. You leave with miniature boils all over the place.
Naaman had much worse than that. He had leprosy. According to the Answers in Genesis website,
Its symptoms start in the skin and peripheral nervous system, then spread to other parts, such as the hands, feet, face, and earlobes. Patients experience twisting of the limbs and curling of the fingers to form the characteristic claw hand. Facial changes include thickening of the outer ear and collapsing of the nose. Tumor-like growths called lepromas may form on the skin. The largest number of deformities develop from loss of pain sensation due to extensive nerve damage. In fact, some leprosy patients have had their fingers eaten by rats in their sleep because they were totally unaware of it happening.
Who was Naaman? He was a commander of the army of Aram, a neighboring country and enemy to Israel. He personally had conquered a portion of Israel and taken a girl to be his slave. The slave girl lovingly told him that he could be cured of his leprosy by the God of Israel. So Naaman’s king sent him to Israel with a boatload of money in hopes of being healed of his leprosy.
Elisha didn’t demand any sort of payment. He didn’t want him to think that God could be bought. All he told him to do was to wash in the Jordan River seven times. And what happened? “His flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.” Can you imagine that? Removing all the sunspots, the wrinkles, maybe even the scrapes and wounds! We don’t know how far his disease had progressed, but you can only imagine how his wife and other soldiers would have responded to seeing him! He would have probably looked kind of odd, a forty year old man with ten year old skin!
Naaman hurried back to the man of God and urged him to accept some money for what had happened to him. But Elisha absolutely refused. It would have given into the idea that God can be bought. That’s not how the LORD works. He’s a God of free grace and salvation. Just as this healing would be free, so through the Messiah to come his salvation would be free. And that’s the beauty of Christianity. Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Jesus does all the suffering and dying. He charges me nothing for it. Here, take it. Free of charge.
It’s that freedom and grace that changes the heart, and that’s what happened with Naaman. He vowed never to worship another god. He even took some dirt back from Israel, possibly to build an altar to the LORD on which to worship God from then on in.
Think about how much more the LORD has promised to give us. We have free and full forgiveness from the death of Jesus on the cross. We have freedom from guilt. Freedom from thinking that we owe God a payment for what we’ve done. We don’t just get fresh skin at the resurrection, but a brand new body as well. Perfect eyes, perfect ears, perfect back, heart, feet, legs . . . the whole works - much more than skin. And again, we don’t get charged a dime for any of it. It’s all free.
We just had the funeral for Kim Stock on Friday. You may not have known Kim very well. Even though Kim was only 47, a disease had ravaged his body. He couldn’t breathe properly. He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t feed himself or clothe himself. He was sharp as a tack though. I spoke with him in the hospital about his resurrected body, what God would give him. He was wiping tears from his eyes in joy and hope. He’s free now, waiting for his new body to be given to him. He didn’t have to do anything to earn that promise. He didn’t have to give any amount of money for it. It was free of charge, straight from Jesus. Then the Lord called him home four days later. That’s something that only Jesus can do.
Naaman was overjoyed at his new lease on life in this sinful world, so joyful that he wanted to give. He practically begged to give. A similar thing happened with the Macedonian churches in Paul’s time when they found out about the trials that the Jews in Jerusalem were going through. Paul wrote, “Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. 3 For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, 4 they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints.” (2 Cor 8:2-4) It wasn’t their RICHNESS that overflowed with rich generosity. It was their POVERTY! They were glad to let go of what little they had when there was a greater need that someone else had. That’s how thankful they were for the Gospel which came through their brother and sister Jews.
This is what God wants from all of us, no matter how much we have. It’s why this church was built, the school was built, the gym was built. People love Jesus and they want a place to praise Jesus. They want their children to know about Jesus. It has opened their hearts to give freely of their firstfruits. It’s neat to see it happen, like how people generously gave when the hurricanes hit. I see the generosity flow towards our MLC students which helps them tremendously. When we decided to get a pipe organ we received the money in no time from a few generous donors. Is the same true of you? Do you have such a generous heart all the time, or just when something hits that really touches your heart?
Why do we find ourselves not so giving? Maybe we’ve become more attracted to the finer things of life, the newest cars and campers and clothes. Maybe it’s because we are used to being saved. Or perhaps we even forget that we ARE saved or that we NEEDED to be saved. Don’t forget that Jesus had to go through HELL on the cross to get us to heaven. It was no small payment. And don’t forget, that without that payment on the cross we would all be bound for the eternal fires of hell. We have a God who gives us much more than that when it comes to protecting us from evil, providing us with clothing and shoes. God gives us so much with the purpose of making us GENEROUSLY thankful people. Paul told the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 9 that, “he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. 11 You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.”
But you have to be careful, sadly in this sinful world, of people like Gehazi, who prey on the generosity of others for their own selfish gain. Maybe Gehazi said to himself, “Naaman’s got plenty! I hardly have anything. I’ve been serving Elisha faithfully, and I don’t have a fifth of what he has. He doesn’t need all that!” Whatever it was, he decided to undermine God’s generosity, and take Naaman’s gift for himself. He said, “My master was too easy on this Aramean, Na’aman, when he did not accept anything that he brought. As surely as the LORD lives, I will run after him and get something from him.” (Notice also how he called him an Aramean. Maybe he thought it was especially too nice because the guy was an enemy of Israel.)
Grace has to be easy. It’s the nature of grace. When it comes to your salvation, you can’t pay for it, because the payment is too high. If Naaman had to pay for this, then he would think the same thing when it came to his salvation. The principle would have been ruined. Baptism, the Lord’s Supper, they are all meant to be FREE ways that God gives us His mercy and forgiveness. It is unfathomable that anyone would be charged for these services that are supposed to be gifts of grace!
And here’s another thing, God LIKES being generous. He likes giving freely. Imagine going out with your rich uncle who loves you very dearly. He’s invited you out to eat and told you, “I’ll pay for it! Get whatever you want!” What if you ordered nothing because you didn’t want him to spend his money on you? What if you said, “No, you should just give it to the poor.” Wouldn’t he say, “Yes, but you’re my nephew. I do give to the poor. But I want to treat you special today.” It wouldn’t be just about the meal. It would be about the time spent together as well. It was supposed to be a package deal. He’d have to wonder if you didn’t really like HIM if you didn’t want to eat a free meal with him.
Gehazi went behind Elisha’s back, made something up and put words in Elisha’s mouth that he never said in order to extract a payment out of him. He preyed upon Naaman’s generosity by being a false prophet. He asked for one talent of silver and Naaman gave him TWO - about 300 pounds of silver! And he didn’t put the silver in the temple coffers. He hid it at home, kept the payment for himself. The worst thing was that he undermined the message of free grace because of his greed.
There are still modern day Gehazi’s out there. In 1987 so-called faith healer Oral Roberts claimed that God would strike him dead if they didn’t raise 8 million dollars by the end of March of that year. In a Time article of July of that same year entitled, “Religion: Raising Eyebrows and the Dead,” Richard Ostling wrote,
The money was raised, but Roberts’ dramatic ultimatum provoked widespread derision. He drew additional gibes by declaring that his wife Evelyn had come to his rescue when the devil visited his bedroom and tried to strangle him. Then, in May, Roberts mailed 1 million packets of “healing” water to followers, advising them to use it to “anoint your billfold” to solve money problems and “anoint your body” to allay physical ills.
Gehazis can come in the family of believers too. Why do you worry about money or pray for a new job or increase in salary? Is it only because you are worried about yourself and your stuff? Maybe your children call you unloving, claim you don’t care, if you don’t give them more money that they can waste. Gehazis can come from fake charities and scams on the internet, trying to take advantage of the generosity of others in order to make themselves rich. Gehazis can also come from churches that become greedy and materialistic in the way they spend their money and pay their faculty as well.
Gehazis, when they don’t repent, don’t get away with it. He and his descendants inherited the disease of Naaman. Sounds harsh, and it was, but I wonder if he ended up having any descendants with his infectious disease. There is a special place in hell especially for those who abuse their positions in the church in order to get rich themselves. I think of the “name it and claim it” television preachers that are CONSTANTLY trying to squeeze more money out of people while living in absolute luxury. If God punished Gehazi, we can trust that He will take care of the many other frauds out there as well still today.
You can’t control all the abuse that goes on out there. But you can control YOU. You can be diligent to know how charities and people are using their money. Don’t let the fraud and abuse only fill you with caution. Don’t let it make you a selfish person either. Think of how many people make an overstatement of all churches when they say, “All the church wants is my money.” So they give nothing. It’s simply not true. God pleasing churches are here to give you hope and forgiveness and grace in Jesus Christ. They are here to comfort you and strengthen you in times of sorrow and doubt. They are here to open up heaven to you in the midst of suffering and death. These are gifts of grace, freely given in Christ. God wants so much more than money. He wants your soul to be free, your heart to be free, your future to be hopeful and bright, in Christ.
God’s gift to Naaman changed him into a completely different man, not just with his flesh but more importantly in his soul. Naaman probably never even knew what happened to his donation, and he didn’t really care. He went home healed with a new lease on life and a new God, the only true God of grace and mercy and salvation.
You have the same God and the same hope. He has given you salvation and so much more. You all have riches as well, different kinds of riches. It might be finances. It might be the gift of being able to cook. It might be more free time than others. It might be a more caring heart than others. Give of your gifts freely, as a reflection on the God who has given you His Son freely. Why has he been so generous with you? So that you can be more selfish? More greedy? More worried about life? Or more giving and more free?
Bekah and I went to Frankenmuth last weekend, and we stopped at an estate sale on the way home. The house was filled with Barbie dolls and records and 8-track tapes and all kinds of junk. The granddaughter was in the house and said, “If grandma knew that there were strangers going through her stuff she’d roll over in her grave.” Think about that in life, how much stuff we accumulate, and all for what? Just for a bunch of strangers to go through it? What good does so much of it really do in the end? It’s all going to burn on Judgment Day anyway.
Naaman was willing to give up all of it and more, just to be freed from his leprosy. God wanted him to keep it and have so much more - a new God - and a new salvation. It changed Naaman into a new man. He wanted to give anything and everything, twice as much as what was asked.
Gehazi, on the other hand, had the privilege to see Elisha work miracles and be in the presence of God’s prophet. Yet he didn’t consider that enough. He felt he had to lie to get riches that didn’t belong to him. He suffered in the end. I hope he repented of what he had done.
We’ve been given so much in life from our generous God. Life isn’t about how much stuff you can accumulate. It’s about the life we have in Jesus, the forgiveness and grace and mercy. Think about that in what you prioritize, how you spend, what you value. What is the world to me? Where are your riches truly found? They are found in Christ alone. Don’t forget that. Amen.
