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Hey this is Steven Furtick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you, hope it builds your faith. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message. The series is called Triggered. This is week four. I just trust that you came expectant today for God to speak to you. Let's look at 2 Kings chapter 5. I'm going to give you my title right up front. The title of this message is why I went off touch somebody Tell them It's a long story. When I first decided to preach on this topic of Triggered, I figured that it would help me personally and then we could do group therapy. But I wanted to do it from the Word of God because I am not a psychologist, certainly not a neuroscientist or anything like that. I interviewed a neuroscientist a few days ago and that is now on the Elevation Church YouTube so you can go and watch that. I asked her questions related to the clinical reasons. Sometimes we do the things we do and had a conversation with her about not just understanding things with cliches and jargon that we sometimes use to cover up our lazy thinking. Sometimes we spiritualize issues that are practical at the same time, sometimes try to solve things practically that are spiritual. So it was just a great talk that's on the Elevation Church YouTube and you can check that out. But this week I want to share a character study on a Bible character who is so familiar to me. By that I mean not only have I read this story quite a few times, but I feel like I know this guy. I feel like I met him one time in the mirror. Certain things about him really spoke to me. So I just pray that the same will happen for you today. As I read this text I want to just tell you the spoiler alert right up front. Naaman in 2 Kings chapter 5 has leprosy and gets healed. But that's just a headline. There's a lot to learn in the midst of it. I want to read a few verses and kind of drop in and explain and move along in this narrative. The Bible says in 2 Kings 5, 1 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. It's interesting the way that is phrased because it says it wasn't by him that the victory was won, it was through him. I think understanding that is very critical if you were to have any hope of remaining sane in your life, just to know that God is going to do it through you. Half of the time I'm messed up is because I'm trying to do it for God and he's trying to do it through me, but he can't do it through me when I'm trying to do it for Him. So I just start forcing situations and then I'm frustrated and irritated and agitated and I'm mad at everybody and everything because I'm trying to do stuff for people and for God that God would like to do through me if I would yield myself and yield my will. This is even more interesting because Naaman is not an Israelite. He's not one of these chosen people as they understood it at the time. He's actually a commander of an enemy army from Aram that would consistently raid the Israelites and not only do damage to their crops, but many times take their people away in bondage at the end of one of these raids. The Bible says he was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded because. Because through him. He was highly regarded because of what he did. He was highly regarded because of the results he achieved. He was highly regarded because of the outcomes that were brought about through his skillset. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded because through him. I'm reading it over and over on purpose because it's so profound that if we skim the surface we will miss the meaning. 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, an incurable skin disease, a non lethal form of it in this case, but a problem nonetheless. He was great, but depending on when you see someone in the setting you meet them in, you might be sometimes more acquainted with their victories than their vulnerabilities. That's why I advocate just a little bit of time dating, just a little bit of time to see them in pressure filled situations. Just a little bit of time out of the candlelight, under the harsh neon glow of some of the trials of life. Just a piece of advice, but I can't prove it in the Bible. But I think depending on where you see someone determines what you see. I realize this more and more now because I think people think they should behave in front of a pastor. So when I meet people, a lot of times I realize I might not be meeting the truest version of them. Do you know what I mean? They might not always speak in Hebrew and Greek, they might sometimes speak in other tongues. But when I really want to know about somebody, especially on staff, I don't go off of my first impression because I don't really trust my first impression of people anymore. I used to, I used to say I have discernment. Now I realize that a lot of what I thought was discernment was really me just vibing off of somebody or maybe they reminded me of somebody. And I didn't like some people that were really cool, consistent people, but I thought they were boring. But the reason they were boring is because they're not always having to create drama in their life. I found out that drama works good in movies, but in real life, I don't want the ticket to that show. Am I preaching already? This is just the first verse. What I learned about myself is I need to ask others, I need to get references. At times I'll meet somebody on our staff and it's not a small staff and I don't know everybody on the staff anymore. I used to, I used to hand select people and oh man, when I hired the first staff member, I got the opportunity to spend just hours and hours getting to know him. So I knew his strengths and weaknesses pretty well. But now I will ask someone about someone. I'll ask somebody who works with them and has had to work with them in a pressure. Hopefully if I can get somebody that has had to work with them when there was a deadline involved or has seen how they manage the disappointment and how they treat others and things like that. So I will ask how is so and so. Let's say I wanted to know about jt, I would ask. I would be like, hey, how's jt? I would wait for the person who knows them, not the person who met them, but the person who knows them. I would wait for them and See how long they hesitate before they answer the question. I want to see how long they're going to scroll through. Sometimes people will say the right thing, but it's the inflection in their voice they say it with that lets you know there's something else. I'd be like, hey, I've noticed JT on our staff. He seems like a great guy. And if the person's voice goes up when they answer, you have to pay attention to that. It's like, how's jt? And they'll go, oh, he's great. When they hit that falsetto, unnatural soprano note, he's great. When they start sounding like Axl Rose up there, I'm like, but what? Everybody say. But what? One thing that has really helped me in ministry and in life is to realize that everybody has two eyes, two ears, one nose, one neck. Most people, two arms, two legs. Everybody has at least one butt. He was a great man, but it's in the Bible, people. I'm not making it up. It said that this great man, he's great. But the problem with being a preacher is I can see your eyes. I can see your ears. I can see whether or not you're taking notes. If you don't have a pen out. I'm judging you so hard right now. I hope you feel the vibrations of the flames of hell. The issue with this arrangement is I can't see your butt. And it's probably better that way. I spent a lot of my ministry preaching to people's heads, preaching to people's intellect. I messed around and pastored this church now for over 12 years and messed around and got a few stray grays in my beard. I messed around and got involved in a few people's lives. I messed around and found out that everybody has a butt. The only way I knew it is that a few people showed me their. I know it's awkward. And half the reason sermons don't really register more than two hours sometimes is because we're all trying to cover our butt. That's the strategy most people come to church with. COVID your butt. You cover it behind a big smile and praise the Lord. You know, I could do that. Do you know what I'm saying? He was a great man, but he had a skin issue. Nobody can see that on the battlefield, because on the battlefield, I have armor. We all have something we use to cover a spot in our life. Let's be honest. We're not talking about human anatomy here. You have multiple butts. You are great with people, but you don't take care of yourself. You see what I'm saying? You are really good at succeeding and really bad at being content. I'm successful, but I'm miserable. I'm killing it at work. But my 15 year old. Do I even have to finish this? I have a great marriage. I'm great, but I'm not making any money right now. I'm a good emotional provider, but financially I never learned how to do that. The thing about a really good encounter with God, you can tell when you've encountered God. It will expose your. The way it happens, it'll often be an unlikely way. Let's talk about this in three stages. The first is exposure. Naaman is perhaps changing one day in his own home. Verse 2 says bands of raiders from Aram. Remember he's a captain, he's a commander of these armies from Aramis, which would often go out and take different people captive. On one particular such occasion, the 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. The Bible says something really important in verse four because you are not blessed based on the word of God you hear or the word of God you understand. You are blessed and your life is changed in accordance with the word of God that you apply, obey and act on. That's why you can hear 13 years of teaching and still be mean and as the serpent in the Garden of Eden. That's why you can hear a lot of teaching about love. But if you don't make the decision to forgive, the teaching about love will be snatched up by the birds of the air and will not take root in your heart. Verse 4 becomes really important if we really want to change, if we really want to get beneath the surface and not just have a skin deep spirituality and a skin deep relationship with God where we can fake it for a little while and we create stages to impress people. We have armor we put on to go out into our job, but we come home and feel like miserable people to live with. Or we feel like we don't know how to be intimate, but we know how to be impressive. So as long as people only see us from a distance, they don't really notice what's starting to cover our skin and cover our souls and things that are just leaping out of us at all the wrong time. Verse 4 says Naaman went to his master and Told him what the girl from Israel had said. This took courage and it took humility for Naaman to go to his master and show his but to show his vulnerability when he was a man with so many victories. I just want to stay there for a minute because sometimes I feel like we use prayer as an opportunity to read God, our resume. While I think it's great to celebrate all of the Goliaths we killed, sometimes the giants in us are kicking our butt and we don't say anything about it until it's too late. I'm getting bolder every year I pastor, as I commit more and more to preaching to the part of you you would just as soon hide and never mention. I think that's where real help is found. Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. This is a servant girl. Naaman is what? A great man. A great man. He's a great man, but he has these spots that are starting to spread. And if he doesn't do something soon, there's no telling what might happen next, since there are no essential oils for this particular form of leprosy. At this point in antiquity, Naaman has to take the advice of a little girl. And now we have a great man going to an enemy nation in Israel because of the advice of a little girl. Are you willing to obey God even if he speaks through something that seems smaller than you? Because I notice a lot of us won't. A lot of teenagers will listen to me preach and roll their eyes at their parents. And I don't understand that because I'm not paying for your college or your braces. I'm not even buying you ramen noodles. Sometimes I've noticed that men will listen to me preach, but their wife knows them better than I do and could say some things that would actually help them. It's getting quiet and even the women left me out on that one. It's like that. I'm going to cancel, reflect if y' all don't help me with this sermon. It's something about exposure. When a spot in your life, everybody say spot, a leprous spot, something that is consuming you, that others can't see, when it is exposed by experience. That's the second stage. I wanted to mention experience because things will happen in your life and you'll come up upon situations that will expose something you would prefer to hide. And what you do next determines whether you get healed. So Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. Verse 5 says the king, said, by all means go. I will send a letter to the king of Israel. So Naaman left, taking with him 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold. That's like 75 pounds of each. So Naaman is going to Israel with his resources to attain healing. He's going to deal with this like he always deals with things, because he's a great man, he's a persistent man, he's a prepared man, he's a powerful man. He has other things that start with the letter P as well. The letter 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. There's all kinds of stuff wrong with that sentence. It's like the telephone game we used to play when you pass a message along to somebody. It starts out, we're having chicken for lunch. And it ends with, I'm dying of cancer. You pass it down and it only takes three people. This chain of communication has polluted the message itself because number one, the servant girl didn't say the king can heal him. It said the prophet can. Sometimes we run to the wrong people because we have our own ideas about where our help comes from. Talk to me. And it's not the king who is going to have the faith to get him healed. It's the prophet. His name is Elisha. But the king sends the commander to the king because this is, to me, the most logical way to get him healed. We'll go straight to the top. But watch the king's response. This is kind of interesting when the king gets a letter and Naaman shows up with all of the accumulated wealth he believes it's going to take to get him healed. You know how we have our own ideas about what it's going to take to make a change in our life. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to go back. I'm going to get my degree. I'm going to go back. I'm going to get my degree. I'm going to eat so much kale, it's going to be coming out of my nose. I'm not eating gluten again until 2024. I'm going to do hot yoga and cold yoga and powerlifting. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it all. I'm going to read my Bible. I'm going to delete every his social media off my phone. I'm never Going on Facebook again. I'm going to get my face in the book. He shows up with all this stuff. He thinks he's going to need to get healed. But as soon as the King of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, am I God? You want me to do what? I have this friend, y'. All. His name is Alex Early. He was my college roommate. He used to make prank phone calls in college, and they were hilarious. Most of them were clean. We were Christians. But he had the ability to push people to their breaking point. He was a big fan of a guy at the time who did prank calls named Roy D. Mercer. This guy was famous for taking people right to the edge. We would laugh. We still have these phone calls recorded, and one day I'm going to Release them on SoundCloud. These phone calls to me just bring me joy at times in my life because everybody's reaction was the same. He'd make up a million scenarios. He would use this name, this alias, Duane McGraw, D U W A I N E, and put a thing over the E because it's French. My name is Duane McGraw. He'd say, My boy Bobby is throwing up all over the shag carpet because I came to your grocery store and I bought bad milk. They would always say this, no matter what scenario he made up. One time it'd be, bobby's throwing up on the shag carpet. One time it'd be, I took my trousers to your laundromat and they shrunk up and now they're coming up around my thighs and I look like a European. But whatever scenario he would bring up, their response was generally the same. What do you want me to do about it? The king is like, you brought me a leper. Do you think I'm God? I'm not a doctor. I'm a king. Have you ever felt like life brought you something that was above your pay grade to handle God? They're doing that thing again where they sit there and look at me like they always have it together and they have all the answers. I looked at my kids the other day and said, I am not Google. I am not a search engine. I do not know. Furthermore, I do not care. Get out of my face. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and replay things I've said to my kids and feel so bad that I have to get up and baptize myself in the bathtub and get saved again, just as I am without one plea. O lamb of God, what do you want from me? I'M only a man. The king says, I know what this is. This man can I kill and bring back to life. He's triggered because he is confronted with a situation he is unable to transform. Whenever life presents you with something you were not equipped for, so you have to be a dad, and you didn't have a dad. You have to pay a bill, but God didn't give you a job. You have to step into something you've never seen before with the faith to believe that it's already done. It can be exasperating to the point that you allow your past experience to contaminate your perspective of the present moment. Remember what I said. The king of Aram Benhadad ii, would often go and invade Jehoram's land. Jehoram is king of Israel. So when he gets the letter saying, hey, can you help my guy Naaman? Can you heal my guy Naaman? It triggered within him a traumatic memory of the last time he was attacked. So he goes off not because of the situation he's experiencing, but because of past experiences. Do you ever wonder why you go off and it's inexplicable. The level of the offense does not match the level of the outrage. And you wonder why. What was that all about? Have you ever, with the Elevation church sticker on your car, said some words that weren't bless the Lord, O my soul, and wondered, you know, how y' all think. Holly is so sweet. One time in college, she was singing a worship song in her Ford Contour. The song said, I was there. I was in the passenger seat. The song said, you are so patient with me, Lord. She didn't get to Lord before. She was screaming at the Dodge Ram that pulled out in front of her. She's loud. Holly is like. When she's up here at reflect, she'll be smiling. But I'm going to tell you something about Holly Furtick. What was that all about? Where did that voice come from? Then the devil starts telling you, oh, well, you know, you're not a real Christian. You're a hypocrite. Some of y' all are going to lose it before the day is over because of your fantasy football lineup. No, not because of anything significant to anything having to do with real life in any way. Because of other men that have absolutely no effect on you other than $100 at the end of the season. You'll wonder, why did I go off like that? It's understandable because we live in not only the age of anxiety, but have you noticed we Live in the age of outrage too. How trendy it is now to just get mad about anything you don't like the first time you hear it. Well, y' all aren't going to like this part of the sermon. I don't think too much. Can I be honest with you? I don't really care what shoes you wore to church today. No. Maybe my perspective is different, but I spend too much time seeing people's butts to care about what you have on your feet today. I don't have time when teen suicide is at an all time high to check and see if you're wearing Adidas or Nike. If you have Yeezys or you want to just do it. I don't really have time to debate with you about a swoosh or a commercial or get mad about. I really don't have time for it up here. When people's lives are on the line, I really don't have time for it in here. When people are on antidepressants at a rate that's making them more depressed, but they don't know where else to turn. And we're running to all kinds of places that are leaving us empty. But we want to fight. There will be at least one comment on this YouTube video about the holes in my jeans. Are you for real right now? But it triggers something. You're not fighting me over shoes, you're not fighting me over jeans. One woman told me, until you shave your beard, I can't watch you anymore. This is psychotic. She said, I'm praying for you. I want to say I'm praying for you. I'm going to fast 40 days if you're that messed up. I don't know why I went off. I think for me this is just what I'm working through. So if this makes you think I'm crazy, you're right. I'm going through this season of my life where I don't want to keep blaming my environment or consulting things that happen in my life because the cross of Jesus Christ gives me a new reality. It really changes everything in the sense that all of my life has to be viewed through that lens of what he did for me and who he says I am. If I'm not careful, I'll be like the king who, when confronted with an impossible situation that reminded him of a past hurt, he inflicted the opportunity of his present moment with the pain of his past. Do you see what I'm saying? He projected. See, every time he dealt with Aram, it was an attack. Now it's an opportunity for this man to be healed and see what God can do. But if what you went through isn't healed by what Christ did for you, you will treat the opportunity like an attack. I've noticed. I spend a lot of my time fighting stuff God is actually sending into my life. I spend a lot of my time fighting against people I'm not really mad at. It's really not them. Tell the person next to you, it's not you, it's me. I'm a perfectionist. Sometimes when things aren't just like I want them to be, here's what really happens. It really happens with my expectation. Put that word up there. Because when I expect it to be one way and it's the other. When I went off on my dad a few years ago, it was because I rented him a house. I moved him and my mom to Charlotte. Well, I didn't. I didn't move him. I hired movers. And then they got fired because my dad was crazy. It was so funny. It really wasn't funny. It's funny now. Can we laugh about it? Ha, ha, ha. Okay. But the day I went to see him. This story has a happy ending. And we ended up being together, and it was good and all that, but in between, remember, Naaman gets healed at the end of this story. But there's some stuff in the middle that I want to talk to you about. Because in the middle of that whole messy situation with my dad, I remember going over to check on him one day. I was so proud of the house Holly had found that we rented for them. My mom liked it, and she was happy. My dad, the first thing he said when I walked through the door, he said, this ain't going to work, Bo. I know. Honor your father and mother in the Lord. I know that Bible verse. I promise you, I know it. I even know that honor is kavad in Hebrew, and it can also be translated glory and weight. But the only thing I wanted in that moment. I'm going to just be honest with you. I don't like to be disrespected. It felt disrespectful to me, so I went off. It really wasn't what he said, because really what he wanted was just a few small tweaks. But I couldn't hear that anymore. My expectation was that he was going to meet me at the door and give me a big old hug and say, my son, in whom I am well pleased, and the dove would descend. But he didn't read my script. What do you do. When people don't read your script, meet your expectation, here's where the story gets good. I want you to notice that the same event that triggered the king and made him go into fear mode, which is usually what's happening when we're lashing out or withdrawing, because not everybody fights outwardly. Some of us bottle it up inwardly, and then we never go off. One day we just tap out. You wonder, how did they drop like that? Well, it's usually a series of unmet expectations. In this case, the king of Israel, Jehoash, traumatized to the point that he thinks everything is a fight. It says it in the text. See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me? That's verse seven. See how they're looking at me? They didn't even wave at me. This is a Southern thing. You're supposed to wave at people when you drive by them. The town I grew up in, you waved at everybody. The first time we were driving through the neighborhood and Holly didn't wave at people. I corrected her. I was like, what is wrong with you? She's not from Moncks Corner. She's from Miami. And it's a different culture. It's an inferior culture of rudeness. Anytime you've been used to in your life, you've been used to fighting. If life has really been a fight for you, if you've had to fight for your mental health, or you've had to fight for your emotional health, or if you've had to fight through issues of bitterness and forgiveness because of abuse, if you've had to fight for your own and fight to make it, or if you had to fight your own family, when you've had to fight over and over again, everything looks like a fight, everything looks like a threat. Everything sounds like an insult. Every time somebody doesn't check on you, it feels like abandonment. It's the trauma that's being triggered. But what's encouraging to me and what I got up here to tell you about today, because this is pretty depressing so far, but the same stimulus that triggered fear in the king's heart triggered faith in Elisha's. The Bible says in verse eight, when Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message. Now watch this. The king said, who do you think I am? Do you think I'm a healer? Elisha said, I know God is a healer. So watch this. Have the man come to me and he will know there is a prophet in Israel. This man said, where you see opposition. I see opportunity. The same thing that triggered you to tear your robes and freak out and fall down in fear triggered Elisha to rise up in faith. Elisha said, send him to me because the word of God is with me. Elisha has an experience to build this expectation on. Elisha has healed the waters at Jericho. Elisha has multiplied the widow's oil. Elisha has spoken to barren wombs and when that child died, spoke life and resurrected from the dead. Elisha has dug ditches in dry valleys and seen God bring water from the direction of Edom. Elisha has seen God do things only God can do. So when an impossible situation that is beyond him shows up, Elisha knows what to do. Bring him here to me. I have something for Naaman. I heal lepers for breakfast. Bring him to me and he will know not how great I am, but how great God is. Watch verse 9. I love this story. Naaman went with his horses and chariots and his expectations and his leprosy and his greatness and his butt. He brought it all because he wanted to be healed. I know you want to be healed of something today, even though you've been covering it up. I know you use your charisma to cover your cracks. I know nobody knows how dark the thoughts can really get for you sometimes, but I've been doing this too long to sit there and preach to your armor. A business leader walked up to me and told me he had to kick his teenager out of his house. He said we almost got in a fistfight. He said I swung at him and missed. I realize this has gone way too far. The man had on khakis while he was telling me pleated khakis, double pleated khakis. No tattoos, but didn't look like the kind of guy who would swing on his kid. But I don't even really think you've seen your own. But until you've been through certain things, then the weird thing is we all have short term memory loss if we have one devotion and read our Bible one morning. Now we start judging other people when they flip out. Naaman is on the verge of something. They travel a long way to get here. It's like a 90 mile trip. He has a big crew with him and he needs a miracle. We admire him because he went. I do. At least I think to even get to this point takes faith. Maybe one of the reasons I don't put a lot of condemnation, or I try not to in my preaching is because I'm pretty proud of you. Who Decided to show up anyway. I know how many things could have kept you from being here. I'm pretty proud you made the decision to bring your butt to church. Give yourself a hand for bringing your butt to church. If you're watching online, you don't get to clap. So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house. Elisha sent a messenger, oh, this is not going to go well. Naaman is a great man. When a great man comes to your doorstep, you give him a great greeting and you welcome him by name. Man, I'm a retired. This is my last sermon. Y' all enjoy it. He sent a messenger to say to him, go wash yourself seven times in the Jordan. In the what? In the Jordan. You mean that muddy little excuse for a river y' all like to celebrate so much in this nation of Israel, which I don't even like anyway. He didn't even come to the door. And Naaman went off. No, he literally went off. Not in the figurative sense. He literally decided, I would rather go home with my leprosy. I'd rather go home and my arm fall off. I would rather die than be disrespected like this. When he heard this ridiculous command, he said something very important in the instruction. It was a simple instruction. It was a stupid instruction. It didn't make much sense. Just like it doesn't make much sense when God tells you to forgive somebody so you can be forgiven. And you want to say, well, God, if they ask for it, I'll give it. And God says to you, I'm not talking about what they deserve. I'm talking about your deliverance. I'm talking about your clean heart. I'm talking about your clear mind. So if you want to get cleansed, I need you to do something that makes no sense. Because there is no cure for leprosy. It can't be cured. It has to be cleansed. And it can only be cleansed if you obey this command. Verse 11 starts, so sad, but there it is again. I'm going to preach a whole series one day on the buts of the Bible. But Naaman stand in front of Miracle. I mean, the guys around him are like, okay, that's all we have to do. Name it. You could keep the 75 pounds of silver and the 75 pounds of gold, and you can pass out the 10 sets of clothing. We could go home. We could start back home. That's easy. Somebody start running the water, naming, you want it hot, you want it extra. Hot. Naaman, you want a rubber ducky? Get the towel ready. You want some sunscreen? But it's a funny thing about pride. It's a funny thing about the small things. It's a funny thing about something that seems beneath you. Remember, the king was triggered because of something that seemed beyond him. Am I God? Naaman is triggered because of something that seems beneath me. Do you want me to do what? I'm not doing that. No. See, because when your heart is filled with pride, you try to write your own prescriptions. This is how I want God to bless me. This is how I want God to come through. This is how I want God to heal me. This is how I want him to respond. This is the opportunity I want. This is how I pray. So Naaman went away angry and said, this is two very dangerous words, by the way. This is maybe the two most dangerous words for you to interpret your life through. I thought maybe those two words are the two words that are standing between me and peace today. I thought. I thought my dad was going to be grateful for the house. Now he's telling me about getting somebody over here to fix the. Huh? I thought you'd say thank you. I thought you'd grow up and play piano and put you in lessons. I thought. I thought. I thought he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord, his God. Naaman had it all planned out because that's what great men do. Great men make great plans. When those plans don't go the way they were supposed to go, great men go off. Great women go off. I had this family picture. Here's where you were supposed to stand. Here's where you were supposed to smile. I thought, could those two words be standing between you and healing today? I thought, God says, my thoughts are not your thoughts and my ways are not your ways. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts and my ways above your ways. But Naaman went away angry and said, I thought he'd come out to me because I had this worked out. He comes to me and then I give him the gifts and I get the healing. This is how this works. Not this time, Naaman. Not this time. This transformation is not going to happen on your terms. God is not going to do it like you expect him. He's not going to be held hostage to what you thought. So I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord, his God, and wave his hand See, he's supposed to wave. He's supposed to wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. He doesn't like the place God told him to get healed. Are not Abinah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? I didn't have to come here for this. Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed? So he turned and went off in a rage. And one of his servants, this guy needs a raise, by the way, went to him. Notice how beautiful the story is told. It's chronicled like this. Naaman went to his master and said, I need permission to go to Israel. So he went to the king, and the king said, I can't do it. Then he went to Elisha with his chariots and horses. Now Naaman went off in a rage, and he's about to miss the opportunity to be healed because he is going off. Here's why he went off. Because he didn't go in. He went off because he made his decision about what he thought about it, but he didn't go in. You know, I've noticed something about myself when I don't go into the presence of God. When I don't go in and ask God, what are you doing in this situation? When I don't go into myself and say, seek for the spirit of God to lead me, I start going off. And then I spend the next week fixing stuff that if I would have taken one moment and worshiped, if I would have taken one moment and sought God's wisdom, if I would have taken one moment and said, you know what? I don't want to fight about this. I don't want to be right. I want to be healed. I don't want to prove my own power. I want to receive your power, God. What happens next is really beautiful because some of you are going to do it today. Stand with me. The servant came to Naaman and said something I think is very prophetic. And I hope you can hear it on the level which it is intended. The servant chased Naaman down. Naaman is on his way back to Damascus. He's going to walk 90 miles back home with leprosy still on his skin because of something that seemed too small and insignificant for a great man like him to do. He's going to spend the rest of his life with this disease because he didn't want to do what he was told to do. The servant said, hey, man. Sir Naaman, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? Well, of course I would, because I'm a great man. Well, if you're a great man, how much more should you be able to do? A small thing. So when he tells you, wash and be cleansed, why not give it a try? You know, you've been fighting so hard, justifying your side of the story and justifying yourself and why it's all right and why it's okay. But hey, man, why not? If we already came 90 miles, if we already came this far, and that prophet is telling you that if you dip in the Jordan, you can be cleansed, isn't it worth a try? You already went to your master and got the letter. You already went with your horses and chariots. Now you're going off in a rage. But verse 14 is the happy ending. I believe it's a new beginning for many of us today. The Bible says so. He went down and dipped himself in the Jordan. I'm glad. After Naaman went off, he went in. He went in not just once, not just twice, not just three times, not just four times, not just five times, not just six times, but all seven. Often when you're in the process of obeying God, you see no immediate effects of change. It's not like your skin gets healed a little bit with every dip. You have to have the faith to go through the motions even when you see no evidence. Who am I talking to? You have to have the faith to go down and pray again, to lift up your hands in worship and say, I don't feel a thing right now, but God is with me and God is for me and who can be against me. And I will not fear. Though a host of enemies and camps about me, I will not be afraid. The Lord is my helper. I lift mine eyes to the hills. My help comes from the Lord. Bow your head and close your eyes for a moment. I believe this is a significant word for someone in the room who is about to go off. Maybe you've been going off, maybe you already went off. I don't just mean temper tantrums, breaking stuff, throwing pictures around the room. I mean that there is something God has given you to do in your life that seems so ridiculous that you, like Naaman, are at the point of frustration. I want to speak a word over your life today. That in this moment, the only way to receive healing is through your surrender. As long as you want to stay in control of those situations, they will continue to consume you. That's what the presence of God is for. This is the Jordan river, the you can dip in seven times. The Bible says when he did it, his flesh was restored like a young boy. Isn't that amazing that the great man became like a young boy and he was healed? Isn't it interesting that God's greatest goal in Naaman's life was not to heal his skin, but to produce faith in his heart? Lift your hands in this moment. Father, I thank you for every person, I thank you for every problem. I thank you for the great things and I thank you for the but somebody in this room has an addiction, somebody in this room has an illness, somebody in this room has a heavy depression and they see no signs of change and they have really, really, really attractive armor so nobody can see but you what they're fighting with on the inside. And they keep pushing people away that you send to help them in this moment. God, may this be the first dip in the process of their deliverance. I thank you for the cross of Jesus Christ that we stand under and look to today for our healing and forgiveness and redemption has already been accomplished. I thank you that we are not healed, cleansed or cured by achieving, but by receiving. Stretch your hands high as you can stretch them. We receive your grace in this moment, your mercy in this moment. Healing waters wash over our soul. Thank you for joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give generously to this ministry. It's because of you that this ministry is possible. You can click the link in the description to Give now or visit elevationchurch.orgpodcast for more information and if you enjoyed the podcast, you can subscribe, you can share it with your friends. You can click the Share button, take a screenshot and share it on your social stories and tag us. Levation Church. Thanks again for listening. God bless you.
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Ice Cube's Big Three is the surprise hit of the summer. This Saturday, 4pm Eastern on CBS with playoff elimination on the line, the most physical, fiercest and competitive basketball in the world. Miami's Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson must win to make the playoffs, and breakout star Dwight Howard of the LA Riot will battle Gary Payton's Boston squad in a do or die match for both teams. Six teams are allowed for four spots and all must win. There's no crying in the big three and the no holds barred action starts Saturday at 4pm Eastern, 1pm Pacific. Presented by iHeart.
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This is an IHEART podcast.