How to Be a Servant of the Lord. (2 Kings 5: 1-27)

The Bible Project Daily Podcast is an in-depth, daily study of the entire Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. 

Episode Notes:  How to Be a Servant of the Lord. (2 Kings 5 1-27)

If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, you are automatically a servant of the Lord, and you are also called to serve, to minister to other people. So, the question is not whether you’re a servant. The question is: What makes someone a good servant of the Lord?

 There’s a passage in the Old Testament that gives us a vivid illustration of what true servanthood looks like. And what makes this passage especially interesting is that it contains several servants, each contributing something different to the picture it paints.

 So, join me in 2 Kings chapter 5, one of the most familiar stories in the Old Testament — the healing of Naaman.

Transcript

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I'm sure we've all had the experience. You go out to a restaurant, the food is pretty good, the setup looks nice, but the service was terrible. And in that moment you think, if I had a service role, I could do better than that. I wouldn't do what that guy did. Well the truth is you are a servant and you are in service. If you're a believer in Jesus Christ, you are automatically a servant of the Lord, and you're called to serve, to minister to other people. So the question is not whether or not you're a servant, the question is what makes someone a good servant of the Lord. Now there's a passage in the Old Testament that gives us a vivid illustration of what true servanthood looks like. And what makes this passage especially interesting is that it contains several servants, each contributing something different to the picture it's painting for us. So join with me today in our journey through the whole Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, because we've reached 2 Kings chapter 5, and it has that familiar story of the Old Testament healing of Naaman, but within it is a lesson that teaches us how to be a servant of the Lord. Welcome to today's episode of the Bible Project Daily Podcast. He was a mighty man of valor, but he also had leprosy. Now there's a lot of information packed into that one verse. It tells us Nathan was a brave man, a courageous soldier, a successful commander, in fact, and it also says the Lord had given him victory. So this was an honorable man and his king deeply respected him. But most surprisingly, it's talking about a Gentile here, not an Israelite. And yet the text says the Lord had given him a victory. And the personal name of God used here, the word Lord, in your Bible, if you look at it, is capitalized, L-O-R-D. So it is talking about the God of Israel here. God is being gracious to this pagan military leader. But then comes this problem that he has. It tells us he had leprosy. So with all his accomplishments, all his honor and his successes, he still had to carry with him an incurable disease. A disease which was very much a death sentence in those days, in fact. Anyway, the narrative continues in verse 2. The Syrians had gone out in raids and brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel, and she waited on Naaman's wife. So this little girl here is a servant, she's a captive, but she will become the first great example of servanthood for us in this chapter. Because verse 3 it tells us that she then said to her mistress, If only my master were here with the prophet who is in Samaria, he would heal him of his leprosy, talking about the woman's husband Nahum. Now, this of course is quite remarkable. This is a girl, a child, a slave, and a foreigner in this land, taken from her home by the very army Naaman commanded, and yet she still speaks with faith, compassion at her captor, and demonstrates her confidence still in the God of Israel.

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D.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Al Moody, that great American preacher, once said of this passage, How often has the finger of childhood pointed grown-up people in the right direction? And I think that's exactly what's happening here, because this little girl becomes the first servant in our story, and she's the one that points Naaman towards God, the true God. The text continues, and Naaman went in and told his master, saying, Thus and thus said the girl, who is from the land of Israel. So the king of Syria responds immediately, saying, Well, go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel. And this is where the plot's thickening a bit. Instead of going to see the prophet, as the girl said, did you notice Naham actually goes to the king? And the king of Syria sends him to the king of Israel, and the text then tells us he sends with him an enormous amount of wealth. We are told there are ten talents of silver, so that's about 750 pounds, and 6,000 shekels of gold, and by weight that's around 150 pounds. Also, it mentions ten changes of fine clothing. Now let me try and put this all in perspective for you. At recent prices, some Bible commentators have worked out that 750 pounds of silver in that day would have been worth the equivalent of over 200,000 pounds. But the wealth here, the real wealth, has founded the 70 kilos, 150 pounds of gold, roughly equivalent today to well in excess of 40 million. And the clothing as well, which in that culture was also extremely valuable. Some estimate that at being worth at least 20,000, maybe up to or more than 200,000, if these clothes were made of the finest purple cloth. So the king of Syria is signalling that this man, Nahim, who's going to him, is valuable to him, and he will pay almost an unlimited amount to get this guy healed. Verse six then says, So he brought the letter to the king of Israel, and the letter says, I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of leprosy. Okay. So the servant God remember said, Go to the prophet, but now the king of Syria is saying, Go to the king, and he kind of, it seems, expects the king to heal to heal him. Verse 7 then says, And it happened when the king of Israel read the letter, that he tore his clothes and said, Am I a god to kill and make alive? The man sends a man to me to heal him of leprosy. See how he wishes to seek a quarrel with me. So the king of Israel actually panics when he hears this. He tears his clothes, a sign of grief and fear. And he says, What am I supposed to do with this guy? I can't heal leprosy. He knows nobody can heal leprosy, and he assumes that what's going on here is that the king of Syria is actually trying to pick a fight with him, using his non-compliance and request as an excuse probably to go to war. So he's anxious, fearful, terrified, maybe. And that's where we are with the story at this point. We have a desperate king, a concerned commander, and a man who has been sent with a really desperate physical need. The story continues, verse eight nine. So it was when Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes. He sent a message to the king saying, Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel. Then Nahum went with his horses and his chariot, and he stood at the door of Elisha's house. So Elisha hears about the king's panic and essentially says, Calm down, everyone, send him to me. God is about to do something important here. So Nathan indeed arrives at Elisha's door, and it's noted that he brings his horses, his chariot, and his entourage, so that's assuming all the wealth with him, and he stops right outside Elisha's front door. So this is a decorated man now, a general, a national hero, a national hero, a man actually who's probably used to being honored wherevery one he goes, and what happens? Well Elisha doesn't even come outside to greet him. Verse ten says, Elijah sent a messenger to him saying, Simply go wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh will be restored, and you shall be clean. So Elijah sends the servant to deliver the message, which is simply go dip in the Jordan River seven times. Now where did Elisha get the idea that baptism will cure someone of illness? Well, of course, it doesn't work that way. That's not what's going on here. Believe you me, I've baptized lots of people over the years, and it's a wonderful thing to do, but it doesn't even cure a cold. The point isn't about the river, the point is about Naam being given the opportunity to demonstrate it that he trusted what this prophet said. When God exercises his grace, he usually simply asks for two things from us. First of all, that we trust him, and secondly, that we do what he says, what he asks us to do. Well, and the key line in these verses is Elisha says, if he does that, he shall then know that there is a prophet in Israel. Now that's not just a throwaway phrase, it's the theological anchor of the whole story. Remember, the people of Israel were under the influence, and many of them were worshipping Baal, a God that they believed could heal people as well as provide and protect them. But God is using this moment to say no, he is the Lord, and he is the one who heals, and Naaman has come in seeking out the prophet of the God of Israel in order to hear that message and indeed be healed. So this story isn't just about Naham's leprosy, it's about God's glory breaking through. But Elisha, in the way he does it, absolutely refuses to play into Nahum's expectations about what he thinks might happen. He doesn't even come out, he doesn't wave his hands over him as Nahum expected, he doesn't perform any sort of religious ceremony, he simply sends a servant with a simple command from the prophet, from the Lord. And Nahum's not really happy about this. Because in verse eleven we saw that he said to himself, Indeed, he will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God and wave his hand over the place I stand. So Naaman had already written the script in his head. He expected drama, he expected religious spectacle, he expected to be honored in some way that this in recognition of the importance of him, this man whom it's being done for. Instead he just gets a servant and an offer to go down and wash in a muddy river. Verse twelve then records his initial response. Naaman says, Are not the Abna and the Hefar, the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? Translation being, Do you know who I am and you want me to bathe in that muddy river? And he effectively storms off in a bit of a range. He throws his toys out of the pram, as we say here in the UK. You see, Naaman's problem wasn't just leprosy at this point, he has that other disease, the disease of pride. Naaman has two problems here, not just his physical leprosy, but his personal pride. The first, of course, the pride needs to be cured just as much as the leprosy, but God in his grace is going to deal with both. But then once again, it's servants who step in to this situation. Verse 13 says, And his servants came near and spoke to him. Now these servants are in many ways the unsung heroes of the story, because it is they who gently reason with Naham. My father, they say, if the prophet has told you to do something great, wouldn't you have done it? How much more when he says wash and be cleans? In other words, they say, General, if this guy had asked for the money, or if he'd asked you to do something complicated and religious, you would have done it, or you would have paid what you'd been asked to pay. If he'd asked for some heroic quest, I bet you'd have done that as well. But he asked you for some something simple. Why not just try it and do it? You know, sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is simply to offer someone common sense. So Nathan does indeed swallow his pride and he goes down to the Jordan and it tells us he dips in it seven times. And then verse fourteen says his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child and he was clean. So this hardened soldier comes out of the water with the skin of a newborn child, it says. And that's a picture here of what grace does. It restores, it renews, and it gives life where there was death, new life. And that's why so many people see this story of Nahum as a picture of salvation. He was, after all, helpless in his physical and emotional state, hopeless in his ability to change it, unable to cure himself, obviously, but when he humbled himself and simply trusted in the Word of God, he was healed, and importantly, he was healed without cost. He didn't have to pay over his forty million, he didn't earn this salvation, he didn't deserve it, his healing was a gift of grace. And that of course is exactly how salvation works. We are helpless and we are hopeless sinners, the Bible says. But then it also says Jesus died and rose again, and when we simply trust him, we receive that gift, the gift of eternal life, freely. And that's the gospel. And Nahim, a Gentile here, a pagan and an outsider, believed that God could do that, and he received his healing and his salvation. Now Jesus himself chose to highlight the story in Luke chapter four when he was teaching and uh a as an illustration to show that sometimes the people you least expect are the ones who respond to God's grace. And Naham certainly did here. But he also tells the followers that Rahab did, Ruth did, the sailors with Jonah did, the people of Nineveh did, and the Queen of Sheba did, and Jesus then also points out that Naham does that very thing here. So so far we've seen two acts of faith in the story a miracle as well, Nahum is claims of leprosy by faith, a servant's heart, simple obedience leads to healing, and some other servants offer some wise counsel and advice. But now we come to the second major section which deals with well, does this and how is this sort of thing paid for? Remember that forty million he came with? What happened to it? Let's pick up the story in verse fifteen. And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood beside him and said, And now I know there is no God in all the earth except in Israel. Now therefore please take a gift from your servant. Now this is the critical verse that demonstrates for us it shows Naaman's heart has changed. He wasn't just healed here, he's now been converted. He clearly says there is no other God in all the earth except the God of Israel, which of course is a direct contradiction of Baal worship that he's grown up within. And anyone listening on that day and would have heard them him say that in effect is saying, I declare that Baal is not God, that Yahweh the God of Israel is. And with a heart now full of gratitude and pockets full of gold, remember, he wants to give Elisha a gift, and he travels twenty five miles all the way back to Samaria just to say thank you and to make his offer. But Elijah says, As the Lord lives before whom I stand, I will receive nothing. Nathan urges him again, insists, but Elisha again refuses. Why? Because a true servant of the Lord should never put a price tag on the grace of God. Elisha is not saying here that servants and ministers shouldn't be paid. Scripture is very clear about that. A laborer is worthy of his hire, and that includes prophets, pastors, Bible teachers, workers, they all have the right sometimes to financial support. But that's not what's going on here. Elisha, Nahum is offering to pay for the healing, and Elisha is saying, Look, I didn't heal you, don't pay me. God did, and I cannot take money for what only God can give. This, I think, is the highest purest form of servanthood, serving without expecting anything in return. So Elisha refuses because he serves the Lord, not himself, and he refuses because he'd wants no association with the false prophets of Baal, who were notorious for lining their pockets and charging for this sort of thing in return for their supposed miracles. Elisha is just a servant who simply serves because it's a joy for him and it's an expression of his giftings. And in response to that we see Naham's conversion deepen even further. Verse 17, Nahum says, If not, please let your servant be given to mule loads of earth, for your servant will no longer offer burnt offerings or sacrifices to other gods, but to the Lord. There's something beautiful going on here, I think. He wants to take some soil, some of the earth from Israel, home with him, Israelite soil, so when he gets there he can build an altar and worship the Lord on holy ground there. Remember, this is the Old Testament. Nahim wants dirt, but he's not asking for it out of any sort of superstition, but as a symbol, because he wants to say, I belong, I now belong to God, the God of Israel, and I want to worship that way. But now there comes a little bit of a tricky verse here. Verse 18 says, Yet in this thing the Lord may pardon your servant. So he explains now that when he returns home, the king of Syria will go into the temple of Raminon, who's a pagan god, and Naam, of part of his official duties as commander of his army, will be expected to accompany him and to help him bow down. He says, When I bow down, may the Lord pardon your servant in this thing. So what we have here is a very real-world example of a very real brand new convert wrestling with a real-world dilemma. He's not worshiping the idol himself now, he's not abandoning the Lord, but he's pointing out that he's caught in a cultural and a political situation which at that moment he cannot immediately see how he can escape. And in a sense, he's asking for Elisha's guidance, his response, his forgiveness, and Elisha's response in verse 19 is really straightforward. He simply says, Go in peace. Now, frankly, this is where commentators lose their minds. Many different and widely different view versions of how people interpret this. Some say Elisha didn't approve or disapprove. It's just a blessing given out as a standard. Some say, yes, he's issuing a blessing, but it's for the journey. He's not even commenting on the temple visit. And some say he's simply saying, Don't worry, God understands, you can work it out. Now, this is a difficult one, but I do think in my approach to it, I find it helpful to understand what it means when we think about what represents idol worship for most people these days. The things they've done all their lives, the things that meet real emotional needs for them, or the habits that have been put upon them before they knew the Lord, the culture and the circumstance in which they have grown up. And here's the reality, I think, friends. New believers don't become mature believers overnight. Read the New Testament, read the book of Acts, or read the New Testament letters and the problems Paul, Peter, and the others had to address all the time. Lots of people we see are struggling to try and give up their old ways. Read those New Testament epistles. Read about all these new converts making mistakes and sometimes big ones. Now, in reality, I've been on mission fields abroad where people genuinely come to Christ and yet they keep their household traditions, maybe even their idols for a while. It takes time for them to grow, and it takes time, and although they can take a step of faith, it sometimes takes time and Bible study for them to understand those things they need to change in their life. Now, I've also been in the home mission field where people genuinely come to Christ but are unable to give up their old destructive habits for quite some time. Again, it can take time for people to grow. Now, let's make let me be clear. Paul warns believers about idolatry, and in fact, John ends his first letter with the phrase, little children, keep yourselves from idols. So this is definitely an issue. But the reason they're teaching on it and saying those things is they understand that believers, new believers particularly, will struggle with these things. And Naham here, I think we've got to understand he's a brand new believer and he's trying to navigate a complicated situation. And Elisha eventually says the blessing is particularly simply walk with God. In other words, don't panic. God sees your heart, walk with him, and he'll change and he'll give you the insight and how to deal with these situations as you grow in spiritual. Maturity. And with that, Nahum is able to head home, knowing he's forgiven, cleansed, and transformed, and beginning a new chapter in how he approaches his life. Okay, now in verse 20 to the end, the story quickly shifts again. Verse 20 introduces another servant, our final one today, Gazi, and it shows us the opposite now of true servanthood. This is another servant for us, but a very different one. Verse 20 says, But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God, said, Look, my master has spared Naham while not receiving from his hand what he brought. But as the Lord lives I will run after him and take something from him. So here we go, another servant, but this time it's Elisha's own servant, this guy Gehazi, and he watches Nahem right away, and he thinks, surely this guy should pay something. Surely we're not going to let all that wealth just disappear over the horizon. Now he may not have known the exact amount, but I think it's fair to say you can't hide a hundred and fifty pounds of gold and seven hundred and fifty pounds of silver, and you can't have a wardrobe fit for royalty and lots of it. He knows that there's something really valuable here slipping out of sight, and he makes that deliberate decision. In fact it's so deliberate he tells us he swears an oath by it. He says, As the Lord lives. So that's saying, Look, this guy isn't just a momentary act of weakness, this is a premeditated step of grief. Well let me read from verse twenty one to the end of the chapter. So Gehazi pursued Nahum, and when Nahum saw him running after him, he got down from his chariot to meet him and said, Is all well? And he said, All is well. My master has sent me, saying, Indeed just now two young men of the sons of the prophets have come to me from the mountains of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of garments. So Nahum said, Please take two talents, and he urged him and bound two talents of silver in two bags with two changes of garments, and handed them two of his servants, and they carried them on ahead of him. And when he came to the citadel he took them from their hand and stored them away in the house, then he let the men go, and they departed. Now he went in and stood before his master Elisha, who said to him, Where did you go, Gehazi? And he said, Your servant did not go anywhere. Then he said to him, Did not my heart go with you when these men turn back from his chariot to meet you? Is it time to receive money and to receive clothing, olive groves and vineyards, sheep and oxen, male and female servants? Therefore the leprosy of Naham shall cling to you and your descendants forever. And he went out from his presence leprous and as white as snow. Okay, wow, what a finish. Gehazi pursues, goes after Nahim, and Nahum sees him running up and stops the chariot, gets off and says, Is everything all right? And Gehazi, let's be clear, he lies. He says, All is well, but my master has sent me. No such thing happens. Elijah did not do that. He then invents a story about two young prophets arriving unexpectedly and now needing financial support, and he asks him for a talent of silver and two garments. A fraction, just a just a fraction of what Nahum actually brought. And Nahum, grateful for what has happened and generous, says, Well take two talents, he says. He doubles the request and he sends servants to help him carry it back. Gehazi then hides the money in his house, dismisses the men, and then walks to Elijah's house as if nothing has happened. And Elisha asks, Where have you been? And Gehazi, of course, lies again and he says, nowhere. But Elijah knows and he says he says, No, I know where you've been, and this was not a moment in which you were meant to profit from God's grace. And then comes the judgment. The leprosy of Nahum, that in other words, which was cured, shall now cling to you and your descendants forever. And it tells us Gehazi leaves Elijah's presence, his body afflicted all over with the effects of leprosy. The contrast is stark. Nahum, this pagan general, is now cleansed, and Gehazi, this former servant of the prophet Elisha, is cursed with leprosy. Why these two events? Why? Because one man humbled himself and the other took it as an opportunity and grasped out for personal gain. So there we go. Servants, lots of servants, and the chapter offers us several examples of service, both good and bad, doesn't it? The servant girl who shared the good news at the beginning, the servants of Nahum, who offered wise, gentle counsel themselves, Elisha, who served himself without expecting anything return, and then Gehazi, who served but served himself. So what can we learn from this? Well a lot, I think. I quickly wrote down seven things. Do not lie, do not steal, do not be greedy, give helpful suggestions to people, offer reasonable, humble advice where appropriate, and share the good news of God's grace. And while and indeed at the end, while it's biblical to be paid for ministry, never actually accept payment for the gospel or for the power of God itself. But above all else, the big picture we need to pick up from this is that real service is serving for the joy of serving the Lord. Jesus actually said, The greatest amongst you shall be your servant. A servant leader is a leader, but they're still a servant. We may lead, but we actually lead as Christians by serving. Now let me close this story with one that I think captures the heart of this for me. A few years ago, a minister friend of mine, about the same age as me now, he had for a while a role in a small church in North Yorkshire, about 60 to 80 miles from where I live, and he told me about a woman in that congregation named Margaret when he arrived. She was elderly when he got to that church, and he said she just was there in the background. Now you never really noticed her. She didn't have a platform of any sort, she didn't lead worship, she never spoke publicly, she wasn't even involved in committees, but for nearly 40 years and all of his ministry life there, she quietly served in that church. Every Sunday morning, long before anyone else arrived, she was the one who walked in and opened the church. She turned on the heat in winter, she laid out the hymn books as they had in those days, she filled the kettle, she prepared the tea, coffee, and biscuits for after the service, she even straightened the chairs in the hall, and it was said she prayed over and about all these things as she did them. Now the key point is here no one ever actually asked her to do it. No one certainly paid her to do it, most people didn't even know that she did it. But when she died, my friend said the church really felt rather strangely unprepared for months and months afterwards, because this invisible servant had quietly held everything together in that church for a generation, was now gone. And at our funeral, my minister friend said, You know what? Margaret never preached a sermon, but she certainly lived one. That, my friend, is true servanthood. It doesn't seek applause, it doesn't seek and often will not even receive recognition, it certainly doesn't seek reward, it just loves people, loves servingness, it is just faithful and faithful to just be happy to serve in that way. And I think that this whole chapter should inspire us to thank God for faithful service of others, and I also think that we should pray that we might also be one of these people, such as these, a good and faithful servant. Amen to that. And it invites us to ask that question: what kind of servant are you? Well, in our next episode, we're going to move into our next chapter, 2 Kings chapter 6, where God's surprising provision continues in remarkable ways. I'd love for you to join me for that. Patreon's the place to be if you want to connect more closely and intimately with this ministry, some people even financially support me over there. Thanks for being with me today. Bye-bye, Fanaha.