"What comes next?" SUNDAY, FEB. 15, 2009

2 Kings 5:1-14; 1 Corinthians 9:24-27; Mark 1:40-45 The Gospel and 2Kings both include a sick person with leprosy and their healing. It only seemed to make sense to ask AFTER the healing, “What comes next?” Just think, you are standing on the bank of the Jordan River that day, and what you see is not really what you would have expected to see. You look out to the river and see an upstanding citizen of high authority, a well-respected leader, splashing and spitting and bobbing up and down, either saying out loud or thinking, “Ok. ONE!” Splash! “Two!” Splash! (I’m so furious I could spit!) “Three! This is really crazy.” Splash! “Four!” (I’m so glad that digital cameras are not invented yet!) Splash! “Five!” (Hey – you over there, you better not be laughing at me.) Splash! “Six!” (I told those guys this was insane, didn’t I?) Splash! “Seven!” Good, now we can get this $#%^%()$*^$#@! over with and go home. SPLASH! SO SIMPLE! Yet so difficult. *** BUT after further study, I came to the realization that this is the question that must always be in the front of our mind. Now, I am not suggesting that we ask, “What comes next?” in order to cause anxiety or expend needless amounts of energy on worry – that simply is not helpful to anyone, nor is it Biblical! However, after discussing last week that we have a choice to do NOTHING or to do SOMETHING – we are almost working backwards. It is at all times, and especially when we find ourselves, the ones we love, or the “especially extraordinary compassionate person” in the midst of a terminal illness, blanketed in sickness, self pity parties, or spewing out complaints, or justifying grouchy mood swings and selfish ways that each one of us must ask this question. After all, when things get bad – really bad – when the money runs out, when your spouse says shape up or get out, when your parents tell you to get a job or do without, when the government catches up to your conniving ways, when your hip finally snaps and you are laid up against your will – when your so-called friends gossip about you at the corner, or the doctor says, in not so many words, “Sorry about your luck, but this is your life…” When your life is not the way that you think it should be, and somebody who you may barely know at all - comes along and says, “Hey – I have a solution, I know who you need to go to for help” – What is your answer to, “What comes next?” In the Old Testament, we begin with a man named Naaman, an important man in his homeland, a great and mighty warrior. He was well liked by his king. He had all the qualifications of a great general AND he had leprosy. A disease that “begins with specks on the eyelids and on the palms, gradually spreading over the body, bleaching the hair white wherever they appear, crusting the affected parts with white scales, and causing terrible sores and swellings. From the skin the disease eats inward to the bones, rotting the whole body.” *** When we read about Naaman, we can determine two kinds of people. The first person lives in a state of waiting for God to do something. There’s nothing wrong with that approach per se, but God will often Provide the Cure, or the answers we seek in another way. Scripture has “wait on the LORD” throughout its pages. Waiting on the Lord is a much needed faith skill in the believer’s life. However, when would waiting be wrong? Waiting would be wrong when God has already Told us to do something to facilitate the cure, or the answer to our prayers, and we continue to piously sit, waiting. *** The second person realizes that God isn’t going to Reach Down and Touch them with His finger. Perhaps the second person has been praying about something and God has told them to do something about it themselves. For instance, I know of several situations that I can get up and do something about. God has already Provided the means to get it done. Now I have to get up, use the tools He has Provided, and affect the cure by being obedient to God’s Command. That command would be “Fix the roof,” or something similar. The well-known evangelist, Billy Graham once said that 90% of the Will of God is right between our ears. He is likely right. Another way of looking at this is that if you want to know what and how God is going to Provide, all you have to do is what God told Moses to do; look at what you have in your hand. Often God has caused us to come into possession of the cure, and we have yet to realize that it is there. Thus the saying: “The answer was right under my nose all along.” The second person listens to good advice, and follows it. That person does not have to understand it, but it is to their advantage to be obedient. When we are obedient to the Command of God, He acts in every single case. BUT we must do it God’s Way. Sometimes doing things God’s Way means listening to the advice of someone we don’t like – maybe even an enemy, like in Naaman’s case. Now that is a stretch for any of us! But a high military general – listen to the enemy – and a servant girl who served Naaman’s wife. Remember, the Syrians were in a war with Israel and took her captive. Yet, she says, "I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy." All good advice should be regarded as God-Given Advice even when it does not that way on the face of it. And even if Naaman was apprehensive, what hope did Naaman have, really? Nothing to lose! *** Initially - Naaman takes her advice and he acts on Faith in verse nine, and we find him standing outside the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha says - via teh messenger, "Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River. Then your skin will be restored, and you will be healed of leprosy." BUT – this is not what Naaman does. He wants this all to work out like it does on TV, where the folks in the wheelchairs and crutches come down the aisle, the Man of God puts his Hand on him, and he walks away leaping and shouting and being slain in the Spirit. I kid here, but it is a good analogy. *** PAUSE So you’ve spent thousands of dollars on a first class flight to England, you’ve taken time off work, you’re paying for your meals and your hotel on your Master Card – and to top it all off, you’ve traveled all these miles across the ocean to meet with a specific neurosurgeon only to hear his receptionist tell you that he has left this message for you – Go and jump in the Atlantic Ocean seven times, and you will be healed – you will be made whole. What would your reaction be? *** All of a sudden, Naaman gets stuck – why didn’t Elisha come out to him, a messenger, I am a powerful warrior – I deserve the best! Naaman is angry - “I expect more than this!” ***PAUSE Why did you have to fly all the way to England, why couldn’t your doctor’s receptionist have told you the same thing, besides, what’s wrong with Lake Erie or Lake Huron – or the Thames River? *** Naaman starts describing how he wants God to do things – and Elisha needs to call out God’s name! This is the point at which Naaman’s obedience through faith falters. He thinks that his healing must come in a certain kind of package – and when it doesn’t – he doesn’t want it. He takes a screaming fit, and he stomps away in a fit! We have all been here. Questioning – yeah right, whatever! You must think I don’t see you trying to make a complete fool out of me – NO WAY! *** Naaman thinks this is the way things should happen: 1. The man of God should come out to meet me. 2. The man of God should “wave his hand over the leprosy.” 3. The man of God should cry out in the “Name of the Lord.” Naaman has expectations of God that are unwarranted. We often loose sight of the reality that God is not obligated to heal us according to OUR wishes God is never Obligated to Act simply because of our own expectations. God ALWAYS Acts to fruition on His Own Word! *** And yet – how hard can it be?! Obedience in faith is sometimes just plain common sense (v. 13). Naaman’s officers, his servants, his soldiers (whatever version of the Bible you read) they are his sub-ordinates – need to talk some sense into him. They say something like you or I might say, “Hey! If the prize money in the contest here was about you standing on your head, you’d do it wouldn’t you? If the requirement was for you to eat a hundred marshmallows for the trip to your favourite destination, you’d do that would you not? Think about it man. All this guy is telling you to do is to take a bath – who cares where – just do it! What harm could it do you? But, it could do you some immeasurable good! So, why not go ahead and do what the guy says?” Yeah, it all makes sense to Naaman, finally, he might not like it, but he takes the advice anyway. And taking the advice is the important thing – first, the advice of a young slave girl, and then a second time, he takes the advice of some servants *** Naaman, though he complained, follows the advice. When we do the part God Assigns to us, God Does His Part. “What comes next?” We can obey or we can go our own way. ….and suddenly - when Naaman comes up out of that water the Seventh time, he knows something is different. He knows he has been obedient to God and obeyed The Almighty. God gave Naaman a role to play and something to do – AND - God would NOT Do HIS part until Naaman had done his part. Those were the conditions of God’s Healing. What comes next? I ask you. God Reminds us: He is the one who makes the rules, nobody else, and certainly not us. Naaman had a much bigger problem than leprosy - what could be worse? The disease also had an allegorical meaning in Biblical Times. Leprosy was “the outward and visible sign of the innermost spiritual corruption.” This is a story about HUMILITY - and - HUMAN PRIDE. Human pride is usually the largest obstacle to our healing. Naaman’s pride nearly cost him his healing – his pride nearly cost him everything. Anyone who sincerely seeks to be made spiritually whole can discover God’s help. Will you listen, obey and humble yourself? Amen.