Scripture: 2 Kings 5:1-19a
Speaking of skin diseases, at my annual dermatologist appointment last fall, Dr. Cleaver prescribed for me an ointment—whose name I cannot pronounce—for my face. He said that this cream was literally a kind chemotherapy—it kills precancerous lesions on your face. But in the process it makes your face red, swollen, blistered, scabby… It makes your face look hideous. So he said, “You’re a pastor… Why don’t you wait to fill the prescription and use this ointment immediately after Christmas—when you won’t be around so many people. Otherwise you’ll terrify them with your frightening visage. You’ll going to look like Frankenstein’s monster! All the poor villagers will run away in fear when they see you coming.”
No, he didn’t exactly say that, but that’s how I interpreted it!
And because of my vanity—which is a form of pride—I did not get that prescription filled even after Christmas. I just wasn’t eager to do it… I didn’t end up doing it until February… Because of pride. My face needs all the help it can get. As much as I don’t want skin cancer, I also don’t want to look like Frankenstein’s monster!
And that’s pride. So maybe I’m not so different from Naaman in today’s scripture. And maybe you’re not, either. In this sermon, I want to make three points from today’s scripture, which ought to help us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to kill our sinful pride: Point Number One: Everything we have comes as a free gift from God. Point Number Two: What about the bad stuff? And Point Number Three: What about Jesus?
We can infer that Naaman’s pride had become a problem because of what verse 1 tells us: “Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master andin high favor, because by him”—by whom? By Naaman—“the Lord had given victory to Syria.”
This reminds me of Proverbs 21:31: “The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.” That’s always the case. And so it was with General Naaman: God gave Naaman the gifts he needed to be successful in planning his battles, and preparing his troops, and executing his battle plan in such a way that God gave him the victory.
But do you suppose that when Naaman led Syria in victory over his enemy, he got down on one knee and “Tebowed”… like Tim Tebow in the end zone… as a way of thanking God for giving him victory? Of course not… He didn’t even know who God was at this point! And neither did the king of Syria. They worshiped idols. So all this acclaim and power and wealth went straight to Naaman’s head: “Look what I can do! Look how powerful I am! Look how important and impressive and respectable I am. I have the world on a string. I have everything going for me.”
And of course this is also the deadly sin of pride. Pride is, in part, failing to recognize the sheer giftedness of life—that it’s all from God, every moment, every heartbeat, every gift. Pride is believing instead that we’re in charge; that we’re in control.
Pride even makes us think that we’re in control of God! Pride seeps into our religious practice when we believe, for instance, that through our good works, through our righteousness, we can earn something good from God: we can earn his favor, his forgiveness, his grace… Or in the case of Naaman, his healing…
Think about the parable that Jesus tells about the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke 18:9-14:
Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: “I thank you, God, that I am not like other people—cheaters, sinners, adulterers. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.”
Why does the Pharisee feel the need to remind God of all these good things that he does? Because he believes that it’s on that basis—and not God’s free gift of grace—that he will be justified, or made right with God. It’s on that basis that he can get God to do things for him. And you probably remember from the parable that it doesn’t work! Of the two men—the very respectable Pharisee and the much-hated tax collector—only the tax collector goes home justified, that is, put in a right relationship with God. Because the tax collector does nothing but confess his need. In so many words, he says, “I know I have nothing to offer you, God. I can give you no reasons that you should accept me. I am a sinner who is completely at your mercy.”
To receive the gospel of Jesus Christ, all you need is need. All you need is nothing. The problem is that our pride refuses to come to God empty-handed. We come to God with our good works, and our righteousness, and we say, “Is this enough?”
That’s why one 20th century theologian named Gerstner said that the main problem standing between us and God isn’t so much our sin; it’s what he called our “damnable good works.”
And that’s pride!
We see Naaman’s religious pride especially in the way he’s offended that Elisha tells him to wash seven times in the muddy little Jordan River. And I’ve been to the Jordan River… it is not impressive! It is often little more than what we would call a creek. Surely Naaman deserves to wash in a far more impressive river that better accords with his stature!
And he’s about ready to leave! He’s about ready to give up on the miracle entirely! And that’s when his servants talk some sense into him, in verse 13: “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” The English Standard Version, which I usually love and appreciate, stands alone in translating this verse in the most confusing way possible. Literally every other translation puts it the way the NLT puts it:
“Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn’t you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply, ‘Go and wash and be cured!’”
The servants’ point is, if Elisha had told Naaman to do something daring and difficult—like go on a quest to slay a dragon, or retrieve a rare flower from the top of the steepest mountain—then that would have appealed to Naaman’s pride—only someone as brave and strong and heroic as Naaman could do that!
But again… anyone in the world can travel a few miles away and dip themselves in this muddy creek!
And if anyone can do that, then Elisha seems to be saying that God’s grace, God’s favor, God’s healing… is a completely free gift! He seems to be saying that Naaman’s standing before God simply doesn’t depend on anything other than God’s free, unmerited grace. And it’s available to everyone.
And if that’s the case, then that means it’s available even to sinners like… well, you and me! We don’t have to do anything to qualify for it.
That’s the pride-killing gospel of Jesus Christ right here in 2 Kings chapter 5, and that’s Point Number One: Everything we have comes as a free gift from God! We don’t earn it or deserve it. As the apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:7: “What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if everything you have is from God, why boast as though it were not a gift?”
But that raises a good question? What about the bad stuff that comes to us? Is that also from God? I’ll try to answer this question in Point Number Two…
Let’s look again at verse 1—the last sentence: “He”—Naaman—“was a mighty man of valor, but…” Uh-oh… “but he was a leper.”
All the commentators point out that what we refer to as leprosy today—also known as Hansen’s Disease—isn’t necessarily the same disease as the one called “leprosy” in the ancient world. Leprosy was a more generic term back then. It could refer to any number of contagious skin diseases—fatal or non-fatal. But they were noticeable—they would discolor your skin and hair, and they were highly contagious. Everyone would want to keep their distance from someone who suffered from leprosy.
So when Naaman sees a spot on his skin… it’s a crisis… This is a huge and potentially life-threatening problem… Scary!
I said this on Wednesday night, but it bears repeating: There are good kinds of “B-U-Ts” in scripture, and there are bad kinds of “B-U-Ts.” A good kind of B-U-T is part of our vision statement for this year (which is posted on a banner in Cheek) “But God…” That’s a good kind of B-U-T that shows up in many places in scripture and reminds us that God is not limited by any circumstances, and we always turn to him and find hope and strength and encouragement and grace for any situation we face. “Yes,” we may say, “Things look really bad right now, but God…” “Nothing is too hard for God.”
Verse 1, however, is not the good kind of B-U-T. It’s not “but God”… it’s “but he had leprosy.”
It’s as if verse 1 were saying, “Naaman had everything going for him… he was on top of the world… but… this terrible thing has happened to him.”
The word “but” in that sentence is the opposite of “But God [dot, dot, dot]”… Naaman’s bad kind of B-U-T expresses only regret… disappointment… despair… “How could this happen? This is the worst thing that could ever happen to me! My life was going so well, and then this bad thing happened… and disrupted my life!”
In last week’s sermon, we read about a great victory that Elijah won for the people of Israel. Now… It’s very confusing that God called two prophets in Israel—back to back—who have very similar names… Eli-jah was the mentor of Eli-sha. Eli-sha is the student of Eli-jah. But last week we looked at Eli-jah, and the way that he bravely stood up to wicked King Ahab and the 450 prophets of Baal… and God gave him a great victory over these false prophets and turned the hearts of many Israelites back to faith in God.
But what we didn’t see in last week’s scripture what happened next… In 1 Kings chapter 19… there, the idolatrous Queen Jezebel vows to murder Elijah, and so the prophet runs away in fear… far away, to a cave on Mt. Sinai, of all places, where God originally met Moses and gave him the Ten Commandments. This time, of course, God meets Elijah… and Elijah is depressed and filled with self-pity. He says to God, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But…”—and here’s the the bad kind of B-U-T—“But… the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.” 1
And God is so patient with his beloved child, Elijah… So merciful… So gracious. But God tells him, in so many words, “I understand why you feel this way—and I have nothing but compassion for you, my dear child… but frankly, you have no idea what’s going on. You have no idea what I’m up to here. For one thing, you say you’re the last man standing. Are you kidding me? Not even close! I have seven thousand other servants in Israel who’ve never bowed their knees to Baal—who will never do so!”
“I know it looks pretty bleak right now… but all your enemies… including wicked King Ahab and murderous Queen Jezebel… they’re going to be destroyed. And I’ve got another prophet, whom you’re going to anoint in a few days, Eli-sha… And he’s going to accomplish even mightier things for me than you have.”
Elijah’s “bad kind of B-U-T” was ignorant of all the many things God was doing… and would do in the near future.
How about another example of the bad kind of B-U-T, this one from the New Testament. It comes from Acts chapter 9, shortly after the risen Lord appears to a man named Saul of Tarsus, as he was on the road to Damascus, sent there to arrest and persecute this tiny Jewish sect known as “The Way”—which would soon be known as Christianity. A man named Ananias is a Christian. And God tells him, “Go over to Straight Street, to the house of Judas. When you get there, ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul. He is praying to me right now…” 2
And how do you suppose Ananias, a great man of faith, responds? He says, “But Lord… I’ve heard many people talk about the terrible things this man has done to the believers in Jerusalem! And he is authorized by the leading priests to arrest everyone who calls upon your name.” 3
Why is Ananias trying to give our Lord—the One whom the author of Hebrews says, “upholds the universe by the word of his power” 4—why is he trying to tell the Lord some information that he thinks the Lord may not already know: “But Lord, have you heard about this guy, Saul? Maybe you haven’t seen the latest headlines. He’s trouble!”
This is the bad kind of B-U-T—the kind that presumes to know better than God what ought to happen.
Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 1 that even his former life as a great persecutor of the church has been used by God to bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ: After all, if even the worst sinner ever—that’s what Paul calls himself—if even he can be forgiven and saved and used by God to do mighty things, then that means there’s hope for everyone else.
Ananias, of course, didn’t know about any of these plans when he used the bad kind of B-U-T.
We can’t know better than God. We can’t know how to run the universe better than God, even though we so often think we do! This bad kind of B-U-T represents what we think of as a disruption to our life—something that interferes with our plans, that gets in the way of our happiness.
And we don’t like it at all! And like Naaman it makes us feel regret… or like Elijah it makes us feel despair… or like Ananias it makes us feel afraid. It makes us say, “If only… If only… If only…”
But when we feel that way, we simply don’t know what God is up to! We can’t know what God is up to!
So, to answer the question in Point Number Two… If everything comes from God, does that include even the bad stuff?
In a sense, yes… God didn’t cause Naaman to enslave this Israelite girl in verse 2, who told him about Elisha in the first place—make no mistake, enslaving her was evil. God didn’t cause him to do that. God didn’t cause Queen Jezebel to seek to kill Elijah. God didn’t cause Saul of Tarsus to persecute, harm, and execute Christians… We’re not told whether God caused Naaman’s leprosy, but whether he caused it, or, more likely, whether he transformed it into something good, is beside the point: through this bad thing—and leprosy is bad—God brought Naaman to repentance and saved him.
I love Naaman’s words in verse 15… after the miracle takes place: “Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.”
Wait… No mention of his leprosy? No mention of the healing miracle itself? Not even a “Thanks, Elisha, for the miracle!” Why…? Because from Naaman’s point of view, the most important fact—the most important thing he can say to Elisha and to the rest of the world—is, “Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel.” He didn’t go Elisha in the first place in order to have a relationship with the one true God, but that’s exactly what he got! In other words he got the best thing ever! And he repented. And he is now saved.
Pastor J.D. Greaer, in his sermon on this scripture, compares Naaman’s response to his healing to a husband who tells his wife that he’s going to ask for a Friday off from work—they have a special trip out of town they want to take—but he needs check with his boss and see if it’s okay. So he goes to his boss and asks for Friday off. And the boss says, “I’ll give you Friday off, and while I’m at it… I also want to give you a three-hundred-thousand dollar raise.”
When he talks to his wife later in the day, do you think he’s even going to mention whether he got Friday off? Of course not… Getting Friday off was now beside the point… It no longer mattered.
And that’s how Naaman felt. “Oh, yeah… the leprosy thing… I now have something far greater than a physical healing… I have God. And I will enjoy him eternally.”
If it took something like leprosy to give Naaman a saving relationship with God, to give him eternal life, to give him salvation, to kill his pride and change his life immediately for the better, then from Naaman’s perspective, it was totally worth it!
So look again at verse 1: “He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.”
By the end of the story, do you see what God did? He transformed that but into an and: “He was a mighty man of valor, and he was a leper, but God”—my two favorite words—“but God used even this leprosy… to work something so good in Naaman’s life that he forgot all about the leprosy! Naaman was so worried that this leprosy was disrupting his life… Actually, in the hands of almighty God, that really bad thing actually became the path to an event greater kind of life.
If you’re a child of God through faith in Christ, you can be sure that God will do the same thing for you: He is always transforming what we are tempted to call a B-U-T into an A-N-D. It’s always temporary… and God has always got something better on the other side.
Point Number Three: What about Jesus?
Let’s look again at the servants’ question again in verse 13: “Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn’t you have done it?”
In other words, if you had to do something difficult in order to be healed, wouldn’t you do it?
It’s a rhetorical question because of course the answer is “yes”; of course Naaman would have gladly done a difficult thing if it meant healing and life and salvation. Doing the hardest thing possible would have been totally worth it!
Now get this: God shows us through the cross of his Son Jesus Christ that he would answer that question with a resounding yes, too!
If God has to do something difficult to bring healing and eternal life and salvation—not for himself, of course, but for these sinful human beings he loved—he proved in the most dramatic way possible, on the cross of his Son Jesus, that he would do it… And that it would be totally worth it!
Because it was difficult for Jesus—God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, God in the flesh, the Second Person of the —it was difficult for him to sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying, “If possible, take this cup from me. But not my will but thine be done.” But he did it. It was difficult for him to endure the mocking, the beatings, the crown of thorns thrust on his head, the nails driven into his hands and feet. But he did it.
It was difficult for him—for the first and only time in eternity—to experience separation from his Father, crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Separation from God is nothing other than hell, and Jesus experienced hell on the cross.
That was difficult… but if that’s what it took to save us, to heal us, to give us eternal life… it was totally worth it to him.
You were totally worth it to God for God to have done that for you…