Expectations
Before you read this, I made a sound recording of the sermon, which I will start doing every week. If you would like a copy of it, leave your email address and I will send you a copy. If not, here is the manuscript. God Bless!
Since we have been in the New Testament for about 3 months, I figured that over the next couple of weeks, we would take a travel back to the Old Testament until the holidays.
These days, we get wrapped up in making plans for the future, and we have a certain set of expectations we hold in mind prior to arriving at a particular appointment or event.
For example, there is a story that goes like this. A man dressed as a cowboy walks into an office building in New York City. The front desk receptionist, having never been out of the city, saw the cowboy walk in and gave him the quick once over like so and asked rather sharply, “can I help you?” The cowboy, with full grace replies, yes, I am looking for the offices of Berkley and associates.” The receptionist guides him in the correct direction to the elevators and the proper floor. Upon arrival at the offices, the cowboy receives another sharp and rude welcome from another receptionist. Naturally he tells her that he has an appointment with the owners and investment partners of the firm. The receptionist then asks the cowboy how exactly he knew of this meeting and who he was because it was supposed to be a confidential meeting. He replies that he can answer the question or he can be late for his appointment. Reluctantly, the receptionist walks him down the hall to the conference room where the meeting is being held. One more time, he is greeted with a very cold reception, this time by the owners and investment partners. After being rudely asked who he is and what he’s doing there, the cowboy finally reveals exactly who he is. He states that he is the owner of the company that is looking to buy Berkley and associates. At once the owners are barking orders at secretaries to get Mr. Williams anything he needs. You see, everyone of these people who greeted this man on his journey had a certain expectation of what a CEO should look like. His appearance was not that of a man who had lots of money, was in charge of a company and he just looked out of place in a huge city.
Expectations are huge pre-suppositions that we all bring to the table in any given situation. Today we’re going to talk about the story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5:1-15. As we will soon see, Naaman had some expectations as well. Let’s read together.
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.
2 Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
4 Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. 5 “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. 6 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.”
7 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!”
8 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.” 9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 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.”
11 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. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
13 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’!” 14 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.
15 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.
Naaman is such an interesting character. We find first of all that he is this mighty and successful commander of the King of Aram’s army. Keep in mind that Aram was of Aramean culture. At this point, Israel had been split into two kingdoms, Judah and Israel. The Aramean’s had been given victory over the kingdom’s of Judah and Israel. Naaman is called valiant here…in other words he was a brave and courageous and a soldier to whom the King of Aram highly regarded. He was no slouch as far as success on the battlefield went. It even goes as far to say that God had given them victory over the Israelites and even took his wife’s servant from them. There was, however, a problem. Naaman had leprosy.
Apparently, leprosy was not a big deal in Aramean culture because if he were an Israelite, he would have been shunned and been an outcast due to his constant state of uncleanliness. In the Aramean culture however, he was still the commander of the armies and given high rank. He even had an Aramean wife, which is unheard of in the Israelite community. One of the young girls he took captive, apparently she was pretty young indeed, a few translations use the word “little” instead of younger. However, Naaman had taken her to his wife to be her servant.
The fact that his wife had an Israelite servant, to me is no mistake on the behalf of God. As a matter of fact, it was part of the design. In the text it says that the little servant girl went to Naaman’s wife and told her of a prophet in Samaria (who was Elisha) who could heal a leper. I have to add here that it is apparent that Naaman and his wife treated this little girl very well because she thought highly enough of Naaman to recommend him to go see the prophet Elisha in Samaria. She would not have done that had they mistreated her, abused her or hurt her in any way…there was indeed a trust there.
I can just see this scenario playing out. I’ll call Naaman’s wife Naomi for these purposes.
Naomi: You know that little Israelite girl you brought home to me a few months ago?
Naaman: Yes, I do, she’s such a sweet girl, what’s wrong, do you not like her? Naomi: Oh, yes I love her, she’s one of the greatest servants I’ve had! But, she said something to me the yesterday and I think maybe you need to investigate a little further.
Naaman: Oh really? What did she say?
Naomi: Well, she said there is a prophet in Samaria who can heal leprosy. Perhaps you should see if the King will give you the time off to go see him?
Naaman: Wow…really? I’ll go talk to the King tomorrow!
Can you imagine the excitement Naaman had when he went to the King? Can you imagine how excited he was after the King wrote a letter, gave him silver, gold and clothing for the trip. Obviously, the King saw the healing as a huge investment in his kingdom. He wanted his best soldier, commander of his armies to be healed and stick around for a while longer!
Well obviously, the letter to the King of Israel went well until he actually read it. Tore his robes and the works over the letter…thinking it was a ploy to start a fight. However, once Elisha got word of it, he instructed the King to send Naaman to him.
The first picture I had in mind when I saw Naaman headed to see Elisha was the picture of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz. Skipping and singing down the yellow brick road, “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!!!! I imagine Naaman’s excitement on this level with the expectation of seeing Elisha and being healed.
Unfortunately, it did not go as expected. Naaman’s expectations were crushed before he even saw Elisha…someone went out to him and gave him the instructions Elisha had for him…to wash in the Jordan 7 times, and he would be healed.
Naaman’s reaction is classic. I can just see Naaman now, “What?! I came all the way here and he tells me to go bathe in the Jordan 7 times!? I could have done that in the Abana or the Pharpar in Damascus rather than come all the way here! I thought he would have prayed over me, waved his hands and it would have been done like that! Man, what a waste of time!!!”
His servants, with much more faith and less expectations in the deal eventually talked Naaman into washing in the Jordan and when it was over, he was indeed cleansed and made new.
You see, Naaman’s expectations of what should have happened got in the way of his healing. Had it not been for the servants with him, he would have missed out on the opportunity to be healed. God was reaching out to the Gentile world even before the time of Christ. How many times in your life have you prayed for something and gotten what seemed like the exact opposite of what you were expecting?
Our expectations in life can hinder us from the true healing and will of God. They are nothing more than pre-suppositions, ideas that we bring to the table from our point of view before we even pray. I, on the other hand think God has a good sense of humor by sending us something that we don’t expect. Hey Ryan, you want patience, here’s a thousand things that’ll test your patience!!!
Whether it be healing, direction, peace or a ministry opportunity, next time you get something other than what you expect, open up to the idea that God may be giving you exactly what you wanted, it just may not look like what you thought it would.
This week for Sherri and I was rough. Tuesday night, I pulled into the driveway after the Leader’s class party this week, hopped out of the car, hooked up the new propane tank to the grill, and on my way inside, Sherri comes out telling me the Carbon Monoxide alarm is going off. I thought this was a little strange because it had never gone off before! So I went inside and sure enough, it was doing it’s thing, “warning, carbon monoxide levels too high.” So, I took the alarm outside to clear it and, sure enough, it quit going off. So, the next logical thing to do was to have Sherri call the Fire Department because I don’t know what else to do. I took the tester back inside and it didn’t go off again. Hmm…strange. So the fire department got there and came in, and their detector went off immediately as soon as he got near the furnace.
Now, you have to realize that our furnace was made around Day 6 of creation… I really think so!! It is older than the hills! So, naturally I was like, oh great…now we’re gonna have to find a hotel to stay at because the carbon monoxide level was too high and the furnace would probably have to be fixed…ugh. We’d been complaining all summer long that we needed central air because of Ave’s asthma and a heater that didn’t shake the house apart when it turned on. Well…we called the landlord and he immediately said he’d get someone out the next morning. Sure enough, he did. He also said that the guy found the problem and he was going to actually replace the furnace and while he was at it, put in Central Air!! We ended up staying with Sherri’s mom for Tuesday night because it was like 10 o’clock when we found out we had to be evacuated. All turned out well, despite the expectations being much different from how I actually wanted to get central air and a new heater. I was also caught off guard not expecting to have to pack things up and stay somewhere else due to carbon monoxide…craziness.
Expectations are a crazy thing. I wasn’t expecting to get my new furnace and central air this way, but neither was I expecting it at all! We can translate this into our expectations for healing, prayer, or peace. But we can also translate this into evangelism as well.
When people talk to us Christians about their problems, what are they really expecting? Advice maybe? Perhaps they’re expecting you to give them a logical solution. If they’re expecting you to say something about God being the answer, then you’re doing your job correctly as a disciple. We are called to do nothing more than extend an invite to non-believers. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.
An invitation was all that was extended to Naaman by a little servant girl of Israel. And yet, he was cured and became a devout believer in God through it. That unexpected invitation turned out to be exactly what he needed. He did not expect to have to wash in the Jordan either, yet, it turned out to be exactly what he needed.
The next time you talk with someone, I want to encourage you to be the unexpected blessing in their lives by extending an invitation to them. Also, I want you to pray for the one empty seat in your pew for the person who will eventually fill it…my friends, don’t let your expectations get in the way of what you think should happen. On the other hand, I want you to pray and expect the unexpected.
Since we have been in the New Testament for about 3 months, I figured that over the next couple of weeks, we would take a travel back to the Old Testament until the holidays.
These days, we get wrapped up in making plans for the future, and we have a certain set of expectations we hold in mind prior to arriving at a particular appointment or event.
For example, there is a story that goes like this. A man dressed as a cowboy walks into an office building in New York City. The front desk receptionist, having never been out of the city, saw the cowboy walk in and gave him the quick once over like so and asked rather sharply, “can I help you?” The cowboy, with full grace replies, yes, I am looking for the offices of Berkley and associates.” The receptionist guides him in the correct direction to the elevators and the proper floor. Upon arrival at the offices, the cowboy receives another sharp and rude welcome from another receptionist. Naturally he tells her that he has an appointment with the owners and investment partners of the firm. The receptionist then asks the cowboy how exactly he knew of this meeting and who he was because it was supposed to be a confidential meeting. He replies that he can answer the question or he can be late for his appointment. Reluctantly, the receptionist walks him down the hall to the conference room where the meeting is being held. One more time, he is greeted with a very cold reception, this time by the owners and investment partners. After being rudely asked who he is and what he’s doing there, the cowboy finally reveals exactly who he is. He states that he is the owner of the company that is looking to buy Berkley and associates. At once the owners are barking orders at secretaries to get Mr. Williams anything he needs. You see, everyone of these people who greeted this man on his journey had a certain expectation of what a CEO should look like. His appearance was not that of a man who had lots of money, was in charge of a company and he just looked out of place in a huge city.
Expectations are huge pre-suppositions that we all bring to the table in any given situation. Today we’re going to talk about the story of Naaman in 2 Kings 5:1-15. As we will soon see, Naaman had some expectations as well. Let’s read together.
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.
2 Now bands from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
4 Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. 5 “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. 6 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.”
7 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!”
8 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.” 9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 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.”
11 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. 12 Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
13 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’!” 14 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.
15 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.
Naaman is such an interesting character. We find first of all that he is this mighty and successful commander of the King of Aram’s army. Keep in mind that Aram was of Aramean culture. At this point, Israel had been split into two kingdoms, Judah and Israel. The Aramean’s had been given victory over the kingdom’s of Judah and Israel. Naaman is called valiant here…in other words he was a brave and courageous and a soldier to whom the King of Aram highly regarded. He was no slouch as far as success on the battlefield went. It even goes as far to say that God had given them victory over the Israelites and even took his wife’s servant from them. There was, however, a problem. Naaman had leprosy.
Apparently, leprosy was not a big deal in Aramean culture because if he were an Israelite, he would have been shunned and been an outcast due to his constant state of uncleanliness. In the Aramean culture however, he was still the commander of the armies and given high rank. He even had an Aramean wife, which is unheard of in the Israelite community. One of the young girls he took captive, apparently she was pretty young indeed, a few translations use the word “little” instead of younger. However, Naaman had taken her to his wife to be her servant.
The fact that his wife had an Israelite servant, to me is no mistake on the behalf of God. As a matter of fact, it was part of the design. In the text it says that the little servant girl went to Naaman’s wife and told her of a prophet in Samaria (who was Elisha) who could heal a leper. I have to add here that it is apparent that Naaman and his wife treated this little girl very well because she thought highly enough of Naaman to recommend him to go see the prophet Elisha in Samaria. She would not have done that had they mistreated her, abused her or hurt her in any way…there was indeed a trust there.
I can just see this scenario playing out. I’ll call Naaman’s wife Naomi for these purposes.
Naomi: You know that little Israelite girl you brought home to me a few months ago?
Naaman: Yes, I do, she’s such a sweet girl, what’s wrong, do you not like her? Naomi: Oh, yes I love her, she’s one of the greatest servants I’ve had! But, she said something to me the yesterday and I think maybe you need to investigate a little further.
Naaman: Oh really? What did she say?
Naomi: Well, she said there is a prophet in Samaria who can heal leprosy. Perhaps you should see if the King will give you the time off to go see him?
Naaman: Wow…really? I’ll go talk to the King tomorrow!
Can you imagine the excitement Naaman had when he went to the King? Can you imagine how excited he was after the King wrote a letter, gave him silver, gold and clothing for the trip. Obviously, the King saw the healing as a huge investment in his kingdom. He wanted his best soldier, commander of his armies to be healed and stick around for a while longer!
Well obviously, the letter to the King of Israel went well until he actually read it. Tore his robes and the works over the letter…thinking it was a ploy to start a fight. However, once Elisha got word of it, he instructed the King to send Naaman to him.
The first picture I had in mind when I saw Naaman headed to see Elisha was the picture of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz. Skipping and singing down the yellow brick road, “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!!!! I imagine Naaman’s excitement on this level with the expectation of seeing Elisha and being healed.
Unfortunately, it did not go as expected. Naaman’s expectations were crushed before he even saw Elisha…someone went out to him and gave him the instructions Elisha had for him…to wash in the Jordan 7 times, and he would be healed.
Naaman’s reaction is classic. I can just see Naaman now, “What?! I came all the way here and he tells me to go bathe in the Jordan 7 times!? I could have done that in the Abana or the Pharpar in Damascus rather than come all the way here! I thought he would have prayed over me, waved his hands and it would have been done like that! Man, what a waste of time!!!”
His servants, with much more faith and less expectations in the deal eventually talked Naaman into washing in the Jordan and when it was over, he was indeed cleansed and made new.
You see, Naaman’s expectations of what should have happened got in the way of his healing. Had it not been for the servants with him, he would have missed out on the opportunity to be healed. God was reaching out to the Gentile world even before the time of Christ. How many times in your life have you prayed for something and gotten what seemed like the exact opposite of what you were expecting?
Our expectations in life can hinder us from the true healing and will of God. They are nothing more than pre-suppositions, ideas that we bring to the table from our point of view before we even pray. I, on the other hand think God has a good sense of humor by sending us something that we don’t expect. Hey Ryan, you want patience, here’s a thousand things that’ll test your patience!!!
Whether it be healing, direction, peace or a ministry opportunity, next time you get something other than what you expect, open up to the idea that God may be giving you exactly what you wanted, it just may not look like what you thought it would.
This week for Sherri and I was rough. Tuesday night, I pulled into the driveway after the Leader’s class party this week, hopped out of the car, hooked up the new propane tank to the grill, and on my way inside, Sherri comes out telling me the Carbon Monoxide alarm is going off. I thought this was a little strange because it had never gone off before! So I went inside and sure enough, it was doing it’s thing, “warning, carbon monoxide levels too high.” So, I took the alarm outside to clear it and, sure enough, it quit going off. So, the next logical thing to do was to have Sherri call the Fire Department because I don’t know what else to do. I took the tester back inside and it didn’t go off again. Hmm…strange. So the fire department got there and came in, and their detector went off immediately as soon as he got near the furnace.
Now, you have to realize that our furnace was made around Day 6 of creation… I really think so!! It is older than the hills! So, naturally I was like, oh great…now we’re gonna have to find a hotel to stay at because the carbon monoxide level was too high and the furnace would probably have to be fixed…ugh. We’d been complaining all summer long that we needed central air because of Ave’s asthma and a heater that didn’t shake the house apart when it turned on. Well…we called the landlord and he immediately said he’d get someone out the next morning. Sure enough, he did. He also said that the guy found the problem and he was going to actually replace the furnace and while he was at it, put in Central Air!! We ended up staying with Sherri’s mom for Tuesday night because it was like 10 o’clock when we found out we had to be evacuated. All turned out well, despite the expectations being much different from how I actually wanted to get central air and a new heater. I was also caught off guard not expecting to have to pack things up and stay somewhere else due to carbon monoxide…craziness.
Expectations are a crazy thing. I wasn’t expecting to get my new furnace and central air this way, but neither was I expecting it at all! We can translate this into our expectations for healing, prayer, or peace. But we can also translate this into evangelism as well.
When people talk to us Christians about their problems, what are they really expecting? Advice maybe? Perhaps they’re expecting you to give them a logical solution. If they’re expecting you to say something about God being the answer, then you’re doing your job correctly as a disciple. We are called to do nothing more than extend an invite to non-believers. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.
An invitation was all that was extended to Naaman by a little servant girl of Israel. And yet, he was cured and became a devout believer in God through it. That unexpected invitation turned out to be exactly what he needed. He did not expect to have to wash in the Jordan either, yet, it turned out to be exactly what he needed.
The next time you talk with someone, I want to encourage you to be the unexpected blessing in their lives by extending an invitation to them. Also, I want you to pray for the one empty seat in your pew for the person who will eventually fill it…my friends, don’t let your expectations get in the way of what you think should happen. On the other hand, I want you to pray and expect the unexpected.
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