Healing is Waiting for You

Last week we had a guest speaker Greg McNichols who brought a message to us entitled, “When foolishness comes back around.” Pastor Greg’s message was based on Proverbs 19:3 that says People ruin their OWN lives by their OWN foolishness and then are angry at the Lord. I think it was one that we could all relate to in one way or another and this week we are going to build off that fact as we look at a story that highlights how we might ask God for a better situation in our life and then we become angry or frustrated with Him because we don’t like what He asks from us in order to receive that better situation.

We’ve titled the message this week… Healing is waiting for you… and we can see it as somewhat of a play on words, not only is there healing that is waiting FOR you, but your healing is waiting ON you. It’s there, but you have to move towards it.

Find your way 2 Kings 5 NIV

Intro: Healing is a seven letter word and in our story today, the process for healing is accomplished by an action being completed seven times. In the Bible the number seven is a number of completion and you can know today that God wants to heal you completely. I’m afraid too many of us allow ourselves to believe we are healed because we feel a little better than yesterday, we do the good thing a little more, or the bad thing a little less. But God’s not in the business of partially healing you. He wants you to be whole and complete. Too many times we settle for less than that because it’s something we can accomplish on our own strength. Healing is not something we do to ourselves. It is something that is accomplished as we do what God asks us to do, so that we can receive all that He has for us. We will look at the story of Naaman the leper and we will consider not only the healing of the physical disease that is accomplished, but even more so how the disease of pride is healed and overcome in the life of Naaman, let’s look at the text this morning.

2 Kings 5:1–5 “Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy. Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.” Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing.” 2 Kings 5:6–10 “The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.” As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!” When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”” 2 Kings 5:11–15 “But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage. Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.””

PRAYER

Naaman

Last week Pastor Greg pointed out that we ask the wrong people the wrong questions and get mad when we get the wrong answers. And he’s so right about that, but today Naaman asked the right person the right question and still gets mad about the answer. I mean seriously, why does God even put up with us?

Naaman is a captain of hosts in the nation of Aram. Aram is an enemy of God’s people. Yet God gave Naaman victory in his military career because it served His larger purpose, that is… To draw a great commander to Him through his illness and an enslaved, basically trafficked’ girl’s witness. Naaman's victories made him a powerful, respected figure in Syria, yet his leprosy overshadowed his achievements, which God would use to orchestrate the events leading to his healing and eventual conversion to faith in the God of Israel.

He was the Captain of hosts which means he had experienced promotion in his career. In the same way Naaman was filled with pride I wonder if the same thing doesn’t happen as we are promoted in this life… from child to parent, from employee to manager, from follower to leader. It becomes easy to convince ourselves that we have more authority or deserve more privileges than we actually do. Sometimes in the physical sense, but maybe we do it in the spiritual sense as well..

God has a way of using something that you have no control over to humble you of all things that you do control… and that is where we find Naaman…

NAAMAN WAS DISABLED BY PRIDE. In his case the greater disability was that of His spirit rather than his body. Let’s look at some of the characteristics of pride. First, PRIDE ASSUMES ENTITLEMENT – Pride says I deserve… I know I’ve certainly been guilty of this before; I’ve reminded God that I was entitled to what I thought I deserved. But I’m reminded that what I truly deserved was death. That’s what we are all truly ENTITLED to, as Ephesians 2 tells us that death is the payment for sin. Eternal life is a GIFT. We really don’t deserve anything. In John 3, Jesus told Nicodemus that you can’t receive anything unless it comes from above.

It’s easy to want to fall on to excuses. It’s become popular to idolize the struggles of our past as an excuse for our deficiencies today and I’m certainly not belittling past trauma. But when we live in the past, that’s exactly where and who we will be. To believe that we are entitled to something because things have happened to us, paralyzes us from the healing that God wants to bring today and in the future. The poor aren’t entitled to the rich, because they’ve made poor decisions. The weak aren’t entitled to strength when they haven’t trained, the person with the lesser job, the better job. The worse house, the better house. Christianity isn’t a religion of handouts. Mercy… grace… love… sure!!! But you have what you have because of the position that you have placed yourself in to receive blessings from God, and at the end of the day we need to wrap our heads around the fact that what God has for me might not be what he has for you, and what he has for you might not be for me. God say he will bless whomever he wants to. Jesus told Peter that he was going to be crucified, and when Peter asked Jesus about John, Jesus said what’s it to you, I know what plans I had for you. Because of Naaman’s position, he thought healing was something that he was entitled to rather than something that should be received due to the mercy of God. We need to quit focusing on what we don’t have, and what others do have. This a sure tell sign that you are struggling with pride. Pride say I am entitled…

            PRIDE REJECTS INSTRUCTION – I would say that I can’t speak for God on this next one but His word says He is not a fan of those who reject instruction. And you can know that for Pastors, Teachers, Professors, Parents… probably the greatest pet peeve is someone coming to them for advice when all people are really looking for is someone to tell them that the wrong they are doing is ok. Money, budgeting… not looking for a solution, you’re looking for a quick fix. Naaman asked to be healed, the medicine was offered, and he brushed it off… do you know why… Pride assumes entitlement, pride rejects instruction and…

            PRIDE ALWAYS KNOWS BEST – Naaman said how about a clean lake, I think his servant answered humbly, but probably wanted to say hey boss,… you just do what’s best, and see how that works out for you? Time and time again I see and hear people looking for help, and in their lack of response and change, I hear them saying… I know what’s best. People want what others have but don’t want to do what others do… The person that believes they know it all, knows very little. True wisdom is understanding that there is always more to learn. Pride just like the leprosy that Naaman was plagued with can spread like a disease.

THE DISEASE OF PRIDE – SPIRITUAL LEPROSY (Quickly before remedy) parallel to physical disability

Did you know that most physical disabilities acknowledged today are because of age? In other words, people are born with disabilities, people come to realize disabilities through accidents, injuries, or the acquiring of disease… BUT the largest group of disabilities can be attributed to age, because all of us are in mortal, finite bodies that at a certain point begin to deteriorate. Hearts become weak, bones become frail, joints, ligaments, and tendons wear down. In other words the older we are, the more we recognize that our bodies are not immune to the wear and tear of this life. But barring any abrupt shift in our health such as cancer or a car accident, how many of us know that most of what we deal with is the breakdown of parts of our body over time? The older we are, the more we can probably point to days or years in our life where we say I can’t do that anymore. I can’t run anymore, I can’t throw anymore, I can’t shoot basketball anymore, I can’t walk anymore, I can’t stand anymore. So many of those moments didn’t mean we didn’t remember how, or we didn’t want to, but something happened day by day and here we are. That’s encouraging on a Sunday morning isn’t it?

But I say that because it’s the same way pride deteriorates our spirit. We think it’s no big deal that since we get educated we can remind people we are educated. We’ve worked hard to get where we are financially so it’s ok if we give the appearance of having more than others. I was watching a business show this week talking about flight shutdowns, the news person said thankfully those aren’t any of the airports we fly privates jets out of… and instantly they became un-likeable, and un-relateable. And perhaps they had been deteriorating into pride for so long they didn’t even recognize it.

Pride deteriorates our relationships. In those times, leprosy was so contagious and damning that the leper would be removed from society and placed in a community with only other lepers for the rest of their lives. In the same way, little by little pride causes others to avoid us. Pride is perhaps one of the greatest causes of loneliness, but when you’re prideful you won’t take responsibility for your loneliness, you will just assure yourself that others are at fault. Perhaps, even playing the victim when you weren’t willing to do the hard work of humility and reconciliation to restore relationships.

 Ultimately, Pride is even terminal.   As scripture teaches us that pride goes before destruction; This could be the destruction of your own soul, relationships, material possessions, and ultimately life itself, without a remedy. And that’s the good news of the sermon today that we want to wrap up with. There is a remedy for pride.

THE REMEDY. The Remedy or the healing begins with…

            SUBMISSION – over and over throughout scripture, a humbling of one’s self was a prerequisite to receive the blessing of God. 2 Chronicles 7:14 is a verse that we quote often, it says “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” But to be quite honest we put most of the emphasis on the paraphrase of this verse and quote it as “if my people pray”. We should probably put much more emphasis on the fact that humbling ourselves is a prerequisite to having God hear our prayers. Like nothing else can, pride interferes with your ability to receive the things of God. So many of our issues with submission today have to do with our view of authority. What? You have a bad boss? Get out of here. Your perception of a bad boss might be because she spends all day trying to manage lost, and un-submissive employees. You want a better boss, be a submissive employee, and after you become one, teach others to do so through your example.

The enemy will constantly remind you of the lie that to submit to someone means you are less than which couldn’t be further from the truth. Authority and submission are principle that God set up to keep order and unity. Chinese missionary Watchman Nee wrote perhaps one of the greatest books ever on the matter entitled Spiritual Authority. In his book he posed the question Whom Shall I Obey? He said every time he entered the room he determined whom the authority was. If it was him than he would lead. If it was not he would submit. If we would truly receive this, how much we would be freed of our pride and need for control.

Submission goes hand in hand with…

            OBEDIENCE – Not just easy obedience, but in spite of human reason. Our rationale is often one of the greatest obstacles to God working through us. Let me work on easy obedience versus hard obedience here for just a minute. When we talk about struggling with obedience we are typically talking about doing something that is difficult because it opposes what WE really want to do. I’ll use parenting as an easy illustration. I could walk into a toy store and tell one of my children to go pick out whatever toy that they want. If I give them an order like that there is no doubt that they will carry it out. But if I ask them to eat vegetables rather than French fries, obedience is not going to be so immediate. We all know that it’s a better option for us, but French fries taste better. Don’t we do the same with God? He knows what’s best for us, and He sees the future, and the long term outcome, but because we see something better in the immediate, we defy Him by delaying or perhaps flat out refusing to change our ways.

Naaman argued with God about the answer for his healing and don’t we do the same? We want to preach when He told us to sing, He told us pray when we wanted to work, He told us to give when we wanted to lead. Whatever it might be, God is trying to grow you in the area where you trust Him the least.

Our healing comes through submission, obedience, and because God is the one doing the healing, we must remember that it is…

            SUPERNATURAL – God is about the unconventional, the supernatural, and the humanly impossible. Doesn’t anyone want to tie into the supernatural? God wants to blow our minds with blessings, did you know that? His word said he wants to exceed our greatest thoughts and expectations. We need to renew our belief in a supernatural God. I don’t want to view my relationship with God as transactional, as in I do this and He does that. He wants to do so much more. When we do this we would become like a Naaman that only dipped once in the water. We come back up and don’t see clearer skin so we just throw in the towel. I’ll tell you that Naaman’s skin didn’t clear up on the 1st, 2nd or 3rd dip, not the 4th, 5th, or 6th,   it wasn’t until the 7th dip, but I believe in the spiritual realm, each time he went under, his pride was being healed… God’s breaking of your spirit is something that might not happen over night, but keep leaning into obedience and submission to Him. Pastor Mark Fuller once preached that if you want to live a spirit filled life just keep saying yes to the Holy Spirit. Don’t stop until you get your healing, and then once you are healed, turn it all back to Him in worship.

            WORSHIP – Verse 15 of  our text in 2 Kings 5 said “Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.””

INVITE TEAM to help us wrap up the day not just in worship but perhaps a proclamation or prayer that we depend on Him for our healing.

If you believe today that your healing hasn’t come, it could be that you haven’t allowed God to do the supernatural. Scripture tells us that God opposes the proud, I don’t know about you but I don’t want God to oppose me. And I don’t want oppose Him. This tells me that when pride remains I cannot receive the supernatural healing that He has in store for me.

RESPONSE

Will you stand with me please today. What’s your move today?

Maybe today you’ve received healing from Him and you just want to proclaim He is good or come to the altar with your heart full of gratitude.

Maybe you are Naaman today and you’ve allowed your position, or perceived position to lift you up. Would you come this morning and confess your pride to God? About whatever it is, would you give over control to Him? Would you ask Him to give you a spirit of submission and obedience so you can receive all that He has for you?

Some of you just need to hear this today. Do the hard thing. Do the hard thing. Do…the…hard…thing. It’s hard because you are weak and you don’t have the power to solve the problem on your own, but when you step into the water, his strength will overwhelm you, and the supernatural can begin.

Healing is here physically and spiritually today. In Naaman’s story he had to be healed spiritually first. Are you asking God for a physical healing when His priority is your spiritual condition?

Please don’t leave here today without talking to God about what He’s talking about to you.

PRAYER

POST RESPONSE? Saved? Bibles? Celebration?