Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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You are God’s Valentine
Valentine’s Day is coming.
It’s a day of “love”.
Isn’t it weird that we help our kids give out Valentine’s Day cards to everyone in the class, but I only gave Valentine’s Day cards to 3 people and suddenly I’m in trouble.
I got this email this week.
“You are God’s Valentine!”
Isn’t that sweet?
You are the apple of God's eye-His dearly loved valentine!
He cares so DEEPLY for you and loves spending time with you.
He longs to meet with you!
Will you consider pausing this Valentine's weekend to take time to tell God how much you love Him?
Now… that’s true.
God does love you, He cares for you, all of those things.
I want to know and receive the love of God for me.
But is the purpose of life for me to bask in the love of God?
To receive and enjoy it forever?
It’s kind of convincing?
I feel like that could be on a Hallmark card somewhere.
And there’s truth in there… but there is also danger in there.
The danger of Gehazi.
But first, a story about leopards.
Naaman Healed
2 Kings 5:1–14 (ESV)
1 Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria.
He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.
He was a “leper” (not as Dylan once read it, leopard).
Leprosy was a catch-all for all kinds of skin diseases, not just the specific disease we call leprosy today.
Naaman was probably one the more functional side, without actual rotting body parts falling off, but “unclean!”
2 Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman’s wife.
3 She said to her mistress, “Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria!
He would cure him of his leprosy.”
4 So Naaman went in and told his lord, “Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel.”
5 And the king of Syria said, “Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.”
So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing.
6 And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, “When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
7 And when the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, “Am I God, to kill and to make alive, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy?
Only consider, and see how he is seeking a quarrel with me.”
8 But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes?
Let him come now to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.”
9 So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha’s house.
10 And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.”
11 But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.
12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?
Could I not wash in them and be clean?”
So he turned and went away in a rage.
“A great man may expect some great thing.”
Instead, of a grand public miracle, a humble private bath.
It doesn’t match, it doesn’t meet his expectations.
He is slighted Elisha didn’t meet him in person, he deserves that level of respect, he is a “great man” after all.
Maybe that’s exactly why Elisha, at God’s direction surely, gives him instead a little test of faith.
Instead “it is a great word...”
13 But his servants came near and said to him, “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’?”
14 So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.
The servants are kind of the heroes in this story.
First the little girl, a kidnapped slave, but she shows enough love to point to God and His prophet.
The servants of Naaman stop the guy from walking away after traveling hundreds of miles.
Dude, it’s worth a quick bath, yeah?
The tiny, tiny, tiny faith of Naaman.
God asks just a little step of faith.
Dip once.
dip again.
Yeah… I know it might be annoying, but dip again.
Just enough faith to dip seven times in the river.
Half-hearted Worship of Naaman
Loads of earth - to prepare a sacred place for an altar.
Naaman doesn’t know anything about YHWH.
Rimmon - Syrian version of Baal.
“Go in peace” acknowledgment of covenant relationship with speaker and his god.
Shalom!
Lech le Shalom.
In TOTAL contrast to the story of Naaman, we have Gehazi.
The “servant of Elisha.”
Gehazi Punished
2 Kings 5:19–27 (ESV)
19 He said to him, “Go in peace.”
But when Naaman had gone from him a short distance,
20 Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, said, “See, my master has spared this Naaman the Syrian, in not accepting from his hand what he brought.
As the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.”
Time to GET PAID $$$.
21 So Gehazi followed Naaman.
And when Naaman saw someone running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him and said, “Is all well?”
22 And he said, “All is well.
My master has sent me to say, ‘There have just now come to me from the hill country of Ephraim two young men of the sons of the prophets.
Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of clothing.’
”
23 And Naaman said, “Be pleased to accept two talents.”
And he urged him and tied up two talents of silver in two bags, with two changes of clothing, and laid them on two of his servants.
And they carried them before Gehazi.
24 And when he came to the hill, he took them from their hand and put them in the house, and he sent the men away, and they departed.
25 He went in and stood before his master, and Elisha said to him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?”
And he said, “Your servant went nowhere.”
Now the heart of Gehazi is truly revealed.
Was he going to get extra donation?
That would have been wrong still, but at least not selfish and greedy.
Gehazi wasn’t going out to get Elisha’s forgotten donations, he was absolutely grifting, stealing the money.
He saw a chance to profit off the miracle of God.
26 But he said to him, “Did not my heart go when the man turned from his chariot to meet you?
Was it a time to accept money and garments, olive orchards and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male servants and female servants?
27 Therefore the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and to your descendants forever.”
So he went out from his presence a leper, like snow.
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