Faith Over Pride

The Power of Faith Over Pride

2 Kings 5:1-14

I. Introduction

A. Naaman

1. Commander of the Army of the King of Syria - Power

2. Great man with his master – Prestige

3. In high favor – Popularity

4. Leper – With this, nothing else matters because he is dying

B. Trusting in God is often difficult because it by definition means that we cannot see everything, how do we know that faith in God is better than pride in ourselves?

II. God’s grace has no boundaries

A. Exegesis

1. Here is a man who commands the army of an enemy of Israel who is in need of God’s help

2. He is prompted by a little maid

a) Most likely a young girl from Israel

b) She was taken in a raid in Israel

c) Yet she still believes in the power of God and His prophet

3. The King of Israel

a) The letter was sent to him because the King of Syria assumed that such a great prophet would be found in the court of the king

b) Yet, Jehoram was clueless and could not figure out why Naaman was sent to him

c) He tore his clothes in anguish

B. Application

1. God’s grace is extended, even to the enemy of Israel – Never too far from God

2. God’s grace has no social boundaries

a) The little girl is the most faithful of all

b) God allows for the one you least expect

3. There are no boundaries between God and you

4. His grace is yours no matter who you are or where you are

III. God’s grace cannot be bought

A. Exegesis

1. Surely this great commander was known and feared by Jehoram of Israel

a) He had won some battles against Israel

b) He was an intimidating figure in Israel

c) He has the weight of the king of Syria behind Him

d) Yet, Leprosy doesn’t care about who he is

2. He brought with him an immense amount of gold and silver and clothing in order to buy whatever or whomever he needed to get the healing he needed

3. He brought a letter from the king of the most prominent and powerful nation at the time

4. He came with a great entourage of horses and chariots

5. Yet, when he gets to the door of Elisha, Elisha sends someone out to him, he does not greet Naaman himself as one would expect

6. He would have expected a red carpet to be rolled out for him, but instead gets snubbed

7. Yet, when he gets to Elisha’s door, he is at the mercy of Elisha’s request

a) Elisha doesn’t want what he has

b) Elisha doesn’t care who he is

c) Elisha simply bears the word of God

B. Application

1. Naaman brought the status and wealth that he thought it would take, but that was not what God required of him

2. We often do the same things

3. The most difficult people to minister to are the ones with the pride of believing that they already have it all

4. But, ultimately, God doesn’t want, nor need our status or wealth. He requires our faith

IV. We often miss God’s grace because of our expectations

A. Exegesis

1. The only request made of Naaman is that he was seven times in the Jordan River

a) We often think of the Jordan as being a beautiful place because of its prominence in the Bible

b) But it is simply a small, murky, muddy river

2. He has a certain expectation of what this healing is going to look like 11)

a) He would call upon the name of the Lord

b) He would wave his hand over it

c) But to do this would be to assume that the power was in Elisha, not God

3. This makes Naaman angry because he comes all this way to hear something he finds foolish

a) He speaks of the rivers of Damascus

b) These are in fact much more beautiful rivers than the Jordan

c) He could have gone to these back home if that was all that was expected

B. Application

1. We often have our expectations of what religion looks like and our pride gets in the way when it doesn’t look the way we feel it should

2. But, God often calls us to trust him more than we trust our expectations

3. God is not interested in our trusting in religious duties. He wants us to trust in Him

4. You cannot come before God humbly and faithfully if you already have expectations of what He should do

V. God’s grace is found only in faithful obedience

A. Exegesis

1. He turned away and went in a rage – Angry because of what Elisha has asked

2. His servant simply says, “It is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it?

3. The word: Wash and be clean – He promises hope, life, and health if he simply washes

4. Naaman does it and is made clean – His life is restored.

a) His flesh is restored like the flesh of a little child

b) And he was clean – The leprosy was gone!

B. Application

1. Often, God asks so little of us, but it doesn’t look like the world that we want and so we walk away mad

2. But, He is the one with the power to heal and restore life

3. Our duty is to be faithful and obedient

4. God promises the good of the Kingdom is we will obey Him, yet we are often asking for wealth and status.

5. When we are obedient to the call of God we find that he is faithful in giving us life

VI. Conclusion

A. The whole passage is parallel to the gospel

B. We are like Naaman in that we have a terminal disease called sin

1. In this life, we may have status and wealth and feel that there are no problems

2. But we are still sinners and the end is judgment and death

C. We come to Jesus thinking that we need to bargain with him – we will try to be good people if he will save us

D. We try to convince ourselves that we have done enough to gain salvation

E. But ultimately the command that we are given for salvation is to trust in Jesus

1. So many feel like it is not enough

2. Some feel it is foolish

3. Some feel that there have got to be better ways

F. Ultimately, those who are obedient and place their faith in Jesus find full restoration and healing.

40 Percent of Men on Dating Site Claim Genius Status

There's nothing wrong with thinking that you're smart. You probably are pretty smart, and we commend your healthy esteem and belief in yourself. But healthy self-esteem has its limits. Those limits were pushed a couple of years ago, when dating website OkCupid revealed how thousands of its users had answered one particular question in a survey to measure partner compatibility: Are you a genius?

Amazingly, according to OKCupid's blogger Christian Rudder, two in five people (and nearly half of all men!) said yes to that question. Rudder said, "2 out of 5 think they are one in a thousand." Now, as there's no single scientific definition of "genius," Rudder's "one in a thousand" is kind of arbitrary. But to qualify for most high IQ societies—"genius clubs" like MENSA—you usually need to have an IQ at least in the 98th to 99th percentile. That's about one in a hundred. So there's something seriously wrong when 50 percent of men think they are geniuses.

Adapted from Rosie Cima, "The Psychology of Self-Appointed Genius," Priceonomics blog (5-11-15)

Pride and the 1986 Challenger Disaster

On January 28, 1986, NASA was planning to launch the space shuttle Challenger from Kennedy Space Center—a mission that included a schoolteacher named Christa McAuliffe. The launch had already been delayed a few times. On the night before the new launch date, NASA held a long conference call with engineers from Morton-Thiokol, the contractor that built the Challenger's solid-rocket motors. Allan McDonald was one of the Thiokol engineers.

On the day of the launch it was unusually cold in Florida, which concerned McDonald because he feared that his company's o-ring seals in the Challenger's big joints wouldn't operate properly at that temperature. Since the boosters had never been tested below 53 degrees McDonald recommended the launch be postponed again.

But NASA officials overruled McDonald and requested that the "responsible Morton-Thiokol official" sign off on the decision to launch. McDonald refused to sign the request, but his boss did. The next morning McDonald—and millions of people around the globe—watched as a mere 73 seconds into the flight, the shuttle burst into flames.

After the accident, a review showed the cause of the explosion to be what McDonald had feared: the o-rings failed to hold their seal in the cold temperature. In other words, some people in the know had foreseen the exact cause of failure. So why, even with that warning, did NASA push on? Allen McDonald claims that NASA fell prey to the oldest and most basic sin—pride. McDonald said:

NASA [had become] too successful. They had gotten by for a quarter of a century and had never lost a single person going into space … And they had rescued the Apollo 13 halfway to the moon when part of the vehicle blew up. Seemed like it was an impossible task, but they did it. So how could this cold o-ring cause a problem when they had done so much over the past years to be successful? [All of this success] gives you a little bit of arrogance you shouldn't have … But they hadn't stumbled yet and they just pressed on.

Adapted from Freakonomics blog, "Failure Is Your Friend: Full Transcript" (6-4-14)

HUMILITY: The New York Times magazine carried an article by psychologist Lauren Slater titled, The Trouble with Self-Esteem. Rather than offering revolutionary new insights, she simply reported on common knowledge among experts. Dr. Slater noted there is no evidence to support the idea that low self-esteem is big problem in society. To the contrary, she highlighted three studies that reveal people with high self-esteem pose a greater threat to those around them than people with low self-esteem, and feeling bad about yourself is not the source of our country's biggest, most expensive social problems. Pride and lofty opinions of one's self have never served a country well but humility can lead to societal grandeur. The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, Timothy Keller, 2012, p.10