Sex & Drugs & Rock 'n Roll

The values of this world or the next?

Well as you’ll probably know, I’m doing the fourth and final talk in this mini series that has been focusing on "Sex Drugs and Rock & Roll" and I’ve been given the title of "The values of this world or the next." I wonder what’s the first thing that comes to mind – I was thinking about this as I reflected for this talk and I came up with a few values that I thought were important, but they’re only important to me. So I thought the best thing to do, would be to do a bit of market research and find out what others in the world values as most important.

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I thought it was interesting to see which ones had come up most frequently. Family, Health and Wealth .

So I thought this morning, that rather than doing a completely subjective self-help talk, focusing on one particular value, or just giving you 10 top tips as to how you should change your values, I thought it would be best if we look at a Biblical example and see the values that God views as being most important. Rather than relying on my lack of wisdom and providing specific situations comparing our actions with what our actions should be, I hope this morning we can look a bit deeper and instead of just concentrating on our actions, focus attention to our intentions and motives. What is the attitude that is behind our actions.

So let’s turn to 2 Kings 5

To me this is a classic story as it shows the class between the values of God and the values of man, and its obvious that they don’t fit together. The story is one of contrasts and builds up as we move through it. I hope the application to our own lives will be clear as we imagine and try to understand what is going on. As with all good stories, this ones got a great twist at the end, and the last thing I want is anyone to feel got at – but I do hope that we’ll all be open to God challenging us this morning.

We see Naaman, a high powered and successful leader in the army. He’d done well. He was an achiever. God had given him worldly success and this had obviously brought with it not only status, but also much wealth. In v18 Naaman talks about him being the one on whom the king leans – literally he was the king’s right-hand man. A valiant, great strong, important soldier, but he lacked one of the things that as we’ve heard already this morning, people value more than anything else – good health. He lacked good health as he had leprosy. The worst of all diseases – incurable and no doubt a major part in leading to him being desperate. And that desperation was so great that he ended up having to resort to taking the advice of his slave girl (v4).

Really important, slave girl wouldn’t have chirped up – must have been enquired of her – listening to a woman, a girl, a slave who was caught in war – massive thing. SLAVE GIRL

Surprisingly, due to his desperation, he takes the advice of his slave girl and does what you do in the world situation. The prevailing view then in 650 BC was the same as now in that money can buy you religion, it can buy you everything. Even when going off to see the prophet, completely understandably, In his ignorance Naaman does what mankind generally does in the world’s system and he takes much wealth to the king in the hope that he’ll be cured of this horrific disease.

So he goes off with all a royal letter and all his great worldly possessions – viewed as what you needed to get you anywhere and right from the beginning we see the difference between man’s ways and the ways of God. And that just gets exaggerated more and more as the story progress.

In steps the great man Elisha, with his focus in the right direction and the promise that if the man comes to me, he will know that there is a prophet in Israel v8 – a simple promise, not going off on one about the greatness of God, but a simple promise that Naaman will know that there is a prophet in Israel.

The next scene in the story is what I think is the hardest to imagine. You have this great man of huge status, with authorisation from the enemy king, and more wealth than you could imagine, turns up at the prophet’s house. And instead of getting the red carpet treatment, he doesn’t even get invited in for a cup of tea, instead he’s told to go and wash in the river 7 times. Crazy – he’s not even told by Elisha, its his servant who tells him to go and wash. A strange thing in itself considering he must have washing for years previously and still had this leprosy – and he’s told to go and wash not just once but 7 times in the river. A great warrior, obeying a servant’s order to wash in a dirty river 7 times.

Naaman must have been so confused – he’d come to get cured from an incurable disease, something that would clearly be quite miraculous and so of course he’d expect this to be accompanied by a miraculous show, but instead, he gets instructed to go and wash in a dirty river. All seems quite bizarre, as firstly,

1. The prophet doesn’t even come out to see him;
2. He’s told to do a random and obscure thing in a river; and
3. It’s not even a decent river renown for its healing qualities.

That’s not how it works for one of the most powerful people in the kingdom. Verse 11 READ

Naaman’s obviously puzzled, but again we can see his desperation – as once more he listens to and acts on the advice of his servants. What they say makes logical sense – its Naaman’s ignorance again that means he expects a big show. He equates miraculous things with a miraculous show and yet that is not what God is looking for, or how God works. Now at this point in the passage it’s easy to lay into Naaman for being so clueless, 1) in thinking that the only way to get something is by throwing money at it, and 2) that the only way that something miraculous can happen is by a big show being performed, but he is acting in ignorance. He doesn’t know God and so therefore doesn’t know what God values, its not the outward show that matters, it’s not the material wealth that you may have. A theme that is recurrent throughout the Bible.

So Naaman goes and dunks himself in the minging river 7 times and sure enough he gets cleansed. So after , he finds out that he’s been cleansed, and at this point in the story we see a great change in the mind of Naaman - Naaman for the first time acknowledges his place before God, v15 "Now I know that there is no God in all the world, except in Israel". A hugely significant verse – a miracle – Naaman was willing for his attitude to be changed as he’s prepared to do an obscure thing and as Naaman’s attitude has been changed so his physical body changed. The conversion of his mind was crucial for any long term change in his life. A statement of great meaning, as not only is he acknowledging God as the only God, but he is acknowledging that the God of his enemies is the only God.

He then does naturally what most people would do in this situation and offers a gift for the man through whom God has given him good health as a way of showing his appreciation. Elisha refuses. Elisha knows how God works. Significantly, it shows that money isn’t a factor at all in what has happened. Naaman’s money was not going to buy him healing, and so it wasn’t something that Elisha wanted after the healing. Money had no part to play in what has happened - it was purely down to God choosing to work in his own way.

Not forgetting what has happened, Naamans change of heart is clear,

in wanting to build an altar to worship God in his home. He’s decided to worship the one true God and

2) then as a reflection of that worship, he wants to live a life in accordance with that and so asks for forgiveness when he has to go before the false gods of his nation.

Go in peace is then how this first part of the story ends.

SUM UP

So we can see through the passage what Naaman views as important. He wants good health, so he takes worldly possessions to buy it, and is confused when he’s told to do something trivial, rather than being healed in a spectacular way. And yet, we see in Naaman, what God values as being most important. 1) Desperation; 2) Obedience; 3) Willing to change.

– (GIVE SOME OTHER EXAMPLES – SAMARITAN WOMAN, other people Jesus was involved with. Paul etc.

Willing to change

It was Naaman’s ignorance that leads him to have his values upside down.

Same in the world today, people’s ignorance – either false or unintentional, leads them to have values that are so different from Gods.

Although the message of Naaman is incredibly challenging, some of us have not lived in ignorance for so long, and have been privileged to spend time with other Godly people who, hopefully, are helping us to become more like God and learning from them. Well the second half of the story is a stark contrast to the first.

Turn to verse 19 READ

Here was a man, Gehazi, who although he’d seen the miracles of God he loses sight of this and is drawn in by the values of the world. In the previous chapter, he’d seen God’s awesomeness and miraculous power in raising a young boy back to life and then in this chapter he sees first hand Naaman’s miraculous healing. He also sees firsthand the way in which the man of God had treated Naaman then goes and then incredibly goes and does completely the opposite.

And we can see the progression as he slips into the values of the world. It starts with his thinking deceitful plan as he makes his own judgment, and then he follows after Naaman and follows his plan by making up lies about what Elisha had said to him. Gehazi, makes his own judgment that he should have gained materially. And he judges it perfectly in not asking for too much, but an amount not too small and not too big, so as not to arouse suspicion. His greed and hunger for possessions is clear – he wants what the world has to give and that leads to the rest of his fall.

He not only abuses the position that he has been in but then is not prepared to admit to Elisha what he had done and lies directly to the man of God when questions in v25. READ

And then most hard hitting of all we see the severity of God’s punishment on Gehazi in the statement in verse 27 that the leprosy will cling with him forever. Naaman the ignorant pagan who thinks he can buy healing from God is changed and shown by Elisha that God’s grace cf. with Gehazi, the who was raised and worked in the Church and abuses position using the ministry for his own lusts and is severely judged by God.

God values are so different from the world. As Christians we can often spend hours thinking and discussing about whether we should have this possession or that, and yet the key thing is our motives and what our heart is longing for and wanting to do. Our heart reflects best where our focus is and if our heart is seeking after God in all things, then that will become more and more evident in what we value in both the next life and also this.

Now its easy for us to say this is just extreme and of course we’re never like Gehazi, and yet in so many subtle ways the values of this world can influence us and draw us away from God’s.

Naaman could be plead ignorance, Gehazi had no excuse.

When Jesus was asked what the most important thing in life, he said the well known command of "Love Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbour as yourself" – emphasis that’s the values that we should have in our lives. Mark 12v28

Andrew Lower