All right, well, good morning and welcome to Red Village Church. Once again, beautiful singing by the congregation. I think I say this pretty often, but I keep saying it. So the most important instrument that we have as a church is the voice of the congregation. So thank you for singing out to the Lord.
So I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron. I’m a preaching pastor here at Red Village. And we’re really glad you’re with us today. So if you have a Bible with you, open up to Second Kings, Second Kings, chapter five.
And if you don’t have a Bible with you, if you’re not, there are Bibles scattered throughout the pews, and it’s on page 177 of those blue pew bibles. Second kings five. So this morning I’m going to be working through verses 1 through 14, but for this time, here, let me just read verse 14 and then I’ll pray as the Lord’s blessing our time, and then we’ll get to work. So, Second Kings 5, as mentioned, I’m just going to read verse 14. But our sermon today will come from 1 to 14.
As you open your Bible, if you’re visiting, please keep them open. So we do a style preaching here, it’s called expository preaching and kind of verse by verse. And so I’m just going to kind of walk us back through the passage line by line throughout the sermon. So open the Bible, keep them open. Okay, so number verse 14 says this.
So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan. And according to the word of the man of God. And his flesh was restored like flesh of a little child, and he was clean. Okay, so that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you pray with me, Lord, thank youk for your Word.
And Lord, we’re here because we want to hear from youm in youn Word. And so God, please bless the preaching of your Word. Please help me to be a good communicator, help the congregation be good listeners. We just ask that your spirit would be very present in speaking through your Word to our hearts today. Praise all in Jesus name.
Amen. So this morning I just want to start off time with you just to let you know how encouraged I have been the last few weeks that we started evangelism baseball. As stories continue to come in that continue here. They’re just so encouraging. So now if you’re visiting with us and not sure what I’m referring to.
So as a church family, one of the ambitions, desires that we have is to be like Eager, bold, joyful witnesses to the Lord Jesus Christ, to the world around us, which is something we also see in scriptures, is a command, an expectation that we’ll be doing as Christian people, that we’ll go about our lives testifying to the excellencies of Christ, testifying to the message of his gospel, where we live out our lives by being witnesses. Everything else is our ambition, our desire. You know, this is a biblical expectation. Unfortunately, this is not. Unfortunately, this is not something that’s easy for most of us to do for a host of different reasons.
Far too often we come up short in this ambition and desire and this biblical expectation, which I know can be discouraging to us at times. It’s very frustrating to us. Like, why can’t we be better with the desire that we have? So a few weeks back, as a church, how we’re trying to grow in this area is to try to simplify things for us by using the great game of baseball as your guide. If you don’t know what baseball is or don’t know much about it, come talk to me after the service.
I love to talk about baseball. I love baseball. Okay. Now, when it comes to being a witness to Christ, one of the reasons why I think it’s so intimidating to us, why we often fail, is maybe there’s like, some false understanding that we have. Like, maybe being a witness can only happen, is like, we share the message of Christ with someone who has yet to believe.
And after sharing that message with that person in that moment, they turn from sin. They turn to Jesus in ways that they’re trusting him, like they’re converted. A home run is hit. Now, obviously, we would love for that to happen for a person to believe right away, but stories of, like, immediate conversions, these are often not how God is at work. In fact, often before a person believes, they have many different witnessing encounters where each of these little encounters are like seeds planted in their heart that God grows over time.
So for us to help us grow in our witness to Christ over the past few weeks, as mentioned, trying to take some pressure off, try to make the pressure off. And being a witness only happens if a person believes in that moment, you know, hitting this evangelism home run, and we’re trying to take the pressure off. If I just focus on trying to, like, sit simple things like simple little witnessing base hits, trusting that the Lord uses all those little. Witnessing all those little consistent base hits to plant seeds in the hearts of people. As mentioned, over time, God uses to draw people to himself in ways that they Are trusting in Jesus.
Back to my encouragement. It’s been so encouraging to hear all the different base hits that have come in. You know, I’ve encouraged you to hear stories of, like, great conversations that some of us have had with people in the park. Stories inviting people to church or different activities, especially ones leading up to last week and Easter weekend. Stories of like, praying over a coworker who was having a really hard time, or praying with, like, patients who are sick and struggling.
Stories about how they talk with, like, church. Talk about church with, like, customers. Stories about, like, handing out invitations to, like, church to, like, cashiers at the checkout line. Some really great stories of great conversations with, like, neighbors and friends about the things of God. Heard some great stories about conversations that took place on campus.
Right? Lots and lots of little base hits. By the way, a really cool one you’re going to hear at the end of the service, but I won’t tell you about that. There’ll be a little teaser for you. And all these stories, they’re just so encouraging.
Now, all that being said, it’s for his church. So we’re in a little bit of a window here when it comes to sermon series. So just a few weeks back, if you’ve been with us, you know, we finished our studies of Lamentations. And then following that sermon, we had one in Luke on Palm Sunday, which was observed a couple weeks back. And then last week, if you’re with us, we had a sermon from Matthew’s Gospel as we celebrated Easter and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.
In a few weeks, we’re gonna be starting a sermon series and take us through the fifth book of Psalms. So as mentioned, we have this little bit of like a three week window in between. So what we’re gonna do is we’ll work through three passages that I hope encourage us and help further spur us on with evangelism baseball, which we’re a little more formally doing from a few weeks back all the way through vbs, which will take place the end of June, but informally, I hope, like we always are doing this, doing this, evangelism baseball. In three passages that I work through. This will be a little bit of a mini sermon series for us that I’m just going to call stories from unlikely evangelists, which are stories that, as mentioned, I hope just encourages all with our evangelist or evangelism.
And I’m particularly hoping that these stories will encourage those of us who for different reasons, maybe feel like defeated or discouraged when it comes to evangelism. Like perhaps you’re discouraged because you still haven’t got your first base set. So my hope for this sermon series, this is going to be encouragement that by the grace and power of God, that you trust that God can use you, you can do this. You can be his witness. So our first story that we’re looking at this week is actually one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament.
A story of a powerful man named Naaman and a young slave girl who witnessed to him. Okay, now before I work in this story, just a real brief context. So Second Kings. So in the original, this actually was one book. So First Kings and Second Kings were one book.
And this is a book filled with various stories of kings of Israel in Jewish Judah. So at one point, they’re part of the same united kingdom under King David and King Solomon, but they split shortly after Solomon’s passing. And throughout the Book of Kings, there’s actually a lot of awful stories where a good portion of the kings from really both Israel and Judah did awful things, particularly the kings of Israel. None of their kings were good. However, even though much of the Book of Kings tells awful stories that brought various judgments of God on them, scattered through the Books of Kings are also some really encouraging stories.
Some stories revolve around the different kings of Judah who sought to be faithful, as well as some stories revolving on like, different prophets that were used by God, particularly two prophets, Prophets Elijah and then his protege Elisha, who’s in our text today, where the Lord is at work through the prophet Elisha, maybe in ways that we expect him to be at work, but also is at work through a very unexpected evangelist, the aforementioned young slave girl whose name has now been lost to history. Although that being said through God’s eternal words, your witness, her base hit still remains. Okay, so with that as an intro, if you please look back with me starting at verse one, as mentioned, we’re just going to walk through this passage. So if you have Bible open, please keep it open. So verse one, where we read a man named Naaman, and then we see that he was a commander of the Syrian army, or some translations might say Armen army.
So these are both referring to the same place. And Syria is basically a network of tribes who were able to form a really powerful army who also so happened to be one of Israel’s greatest enemies. One of the commentaries I read this week, they said that Syria would have been like on the bottom of the list of receiving any kind of blessing from Israel. So seriously, this is like worst enemy type people. They were hated, despised by Israel, right?
They had a real history of having bad blood between them. In our text, Naaman we see was viewed as a great man by his master, where he was held in high regard, much favor, because in the text by him, Naaman, the Lord gave victory to Syria, which is speaking of victory over Israel. Now this here, the Lord giving victory to Syria, this is actually an act of judgment on his people. Where we actually see throughout the Old Testament narrative, God would providentially use foreign nations to be like a rod of judgment on his people because of their sins. So this is true here.
God used Naaman to bring judgment on his people because of their sins. However, even though God’s providential hand was present on Naaman for us, we can imagine how hated he must have been by Israel. Right? Not only is he part of the great hated enemy, he’s in charge of their military that just defeated Israel yet again, where no doubt, like they had Israel, had loved ones died, where lives were ruined, where in the text, Naaman led others off into slavery. So for us, let’s not underestimate how hated Naaman would have been by Israel.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to think he would have been like, right at the top, one of the most hated people in all of Israel, one who stood in opposition, violent opposition to them, to their way of life. Covering the text, while he’s hated by Israel, he was revered by the Syrians. We read further, read that he was labeled as a mighty man of valor. Now, before we keep going in the passage, I do want us to sit on this just for a second here, just to feel the gravity of the witness from this unexpected evangelist that we’re about to get to. Okay, let’s just sit on the gravity situation.
The worst enemy, Syria, the commander of the army of the worst enemy who just recently defeated you in awful ways, who left you decimated, that’s Naaman, great, mighty, famous military general. But we also see in our text he also was a leper. Now, leprosy is not something we see in our day, at least not commonly, but it is something that we see throughout the scripture where the word leprosy is often used to describe these various forms of painful, grotesque skin, skin diseases, kind of a catch all term, one that often had like no cure, where this disease would just kind of linger and spread, which would bring like much social stigmatism and shame, often leading to like isolation for the person with this awful skin disease. So even though Naaman was a great military leader, a famous military Leader, he also had this painful, shameful disease. I mean really kind of a hopeless disease that no doubt he wanted to rid himself of.
Okay, keep going. Verse 2. Read that in one of the raids that Naaman led the Syrian army on, which by the way, this information like one of the raids obviously implies that this is kind of like an ongoing thing where multiple times Naaman raided Israel. And these ongoing attacks, right, this was just only added how much Israel hated him like a constant thorn in their side. In the text, on one of the multiple times Naaman raided Israel, you see he carried off a little girl from the land of Israel.
This little girl, I’m sure many others were assigned to become slaves to Syria. Where in this text we see this little girl, she was assigned to work in the service of Naaman’s wife. And as this little girl slave for Naaman’s wife, naturally she learns about the skin disease that Naaman was suffering with. Now she didn’t physically see the disease ravage the skin of Naaman. No doubt she heard about it.
So verse three, as this little girl became aware of Naaman’s awful condition, we see that she goes to her mistress. Not to gloat over the situation, not to further shame Naaman for his suffering, not to tell the mistress that her husband is really getting what he deserved. Instead, this little girl proves to be a very un unexpected evangelists because she testifies to the wife of Naaman. Would that my Lord Naaman know that there is a prophet who is in Samaria, which is northern part of Israel. We see in the text, this is Elisha.
We’ll get to him a little bit more. But for this little girl to name his wife, you know, if Naaman was around, Elisha, the prophet of the one church, true and living God, I’m sure Elisha the Lord would cure Naaman of his leprosy, that he be healed. Now, once again, before we keep going, let’s sit on this. Once again, the worst enemy, the general of the worst enemy, the very general who took the this young girl from her home, from her family, and basically made her a slave to his family. That same girl who was a little girl is now testifying to Naaman’s wife with the hopes that through her testifying, Naaman would respond in ways indeed he would go to the prophet and be healed.
Talk about an unlikely person to testify to Naaman. I mean, she’s unlikely on so many fronts. Keep going. Seems as unlikely as it was for the little girl to testify is that Naaman actually responds to the girl’s witness. So in verse four, if you take Isaiah, Naaman went in and told his lord, the king.
Thus, and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel, meaning Naaman testified to his lord that which was testified to him. Which is kind of an interesting thought to think about as well. Probably more often than we think. Like, our testimony doesn’t just like, end with that person, but sometimes that very person, as they’re trying to figure out the testimony we share with them, might be sharing that testimony with others, maybe multiple times over. As a king heard this from his highly favored commander of the army.
We see that he gives Naaman the green light to go search this out, telling Naaman to, you know what? Go now. And I’m going to send a letter to the king of Israel to notify him of your coming so that the king of Israel would help you find the prophet in Samaritan. So with all this in place, the end of verse six, you take your eyes there. Naaman went on his way to find the prophet of God.
Our text doing so with 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold, and 10 changes of clothing. This is a large sum. So one talent of silver and Nim brought 10. So that equals 3,000 shekels. So 30,000 shekels of worth of silver combined with 6,000 shekels of Gold.
Okay, 10 shekels, that’s an annual wage for labor. This is a massive sum of money to go along with the 10 changes of clothes, which in that day was also a huge thing to have. These are often things that, like, kings would give to each other. So this is what Naaman is more than willing to pay for the prophet to heal him. Verse 6.
As Naaman and his party reached the king of Israel, which probably took some real time to do, days to do, we see that Naaman gave to the king of Israel the letter from the king of Syria. You see, the contents of the letter in our text says, this king of Israel, when this letter reaches, you know that I’ve sent to you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of leprosy this year in this letter. This is the king of Syria. Basically, assuming the king of Israel had power to control his prophet, where the prophet in Samaria would just do whatever the king said, whatever his bidding was, which I’m sure is true for the false prophets and the false religions of Syria. Right?
The king had power, control over his prophets, but this is not true of the prophets of the one true and living God. Right? The king of Israel had no power, no control over the prophets of God. Why? Because God’s in control.
And the prophets were there to do his bidding, to serve his purposes. So in text verse 7, as the king of Israel reads this letter, we see that he tears his clothes and responds to Naaman and his party. Am I God? Am I God? Am I the one who is able to kill and make alive Am I God that this man sends word to me to cure a man of leprosy?
Which here are the obvious answers to rhetorical questions of the king Israel is no, he’s not God that’s not able to kill and make alive, not able to cure. Nimon, a text, you know, the king is here. Did he write this to me? Only to consider and see that he’s seeking a quarrel with me, meaning for the king of Israel. He felt like this letter from Syria was like basically a letter to set him up for a fall, maybe to mock and ridicule him, perhaps even a justification for the king of Israel to once again come on the attack if Naaman is not healed.
Keep going. Verse 8. As the king of Israel is like distraught over this letter, somehow word of all this makes its way back to Elisha, the man of God, the prophet who the little girl referred to in verse three of the passage. And as Elisha hears about this message from the king of Syria that caused the king of Israel to carry his clothing to lament, we see that Elisha now sends his own message to the king of Israel. King, why have you torn your clothes?
Why are you in such disarray? The text let him, meaning let Naaman, let him come to me so that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel. Was in the end, knowing that there’s a prophet in Israel, a spoke God’s word. This is knowing that there’s a one true and living God in Israel. Let him come to me.
Verse 9. This invitation from Elisha to Naaman, as it was given, we see the invitation was received. So Naaman made his way to Elisha, doing so with horses and chariots, symbols of his power, of his wealth, of his might. And as he came to the house of Elisha, we see that Naaman stood at the door. I’m expecting, I’m sure expecting the prophet like to come out and give him some type of proper greeting, you know, a great and mighty man was probably used to receiving.
However, what happens in verse 10 of the text, Elisha didn’t open the door to come and greet Naaman. Rather he sent a messenger to Naaman instead, which, which annoyed Naaman that Elisha would not come and give him a proper greeting he felt entitled to. But then what happened? As the messenger came, already annoyed, Naaman becomes more annoyed because of what the messenger communicated to him in the text, saying, naaman, go wash in the Jordan river seven times. Do that and your flesh will be restored and you should be cleaned.
It’s hard to know why 7 is that in the Bible. It’s a number of like completion. So possibly that, who knows, maybe just seven is just a number that he gave. But it’s also what we know, a pretty interesting command, a command that clearly Naaman is not buying into in the text. So verse 11, as Naaman hears this from Elisha’s messenger, he’s angry, as I mentioned, he’s already annoyed that Elisha didn’t greet him.
And now he gets this command on how he was to be healed, to go in the Jordan seven times. And this is like too much for this mighty powerful man, Naaman. So his anger, he goes away saying, behold, I thought he, meaning Elisha, would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of his Lord, praise God, and do some kind of waving with his hands all over the place. Which for me this week kind of made me chuckle to myself. You can just kind of picture here Naaman, you know, angry, hot, complaining, you know, I’m sure, like demonstrating with like exaggeration how he thought the prophet would be moving his arms all around him.
Verse 12 with further complaining, Naaman’s like grumbling out for all to hear. Are not Abner and Paifar the rivers of Damascus, better than all of the waters of Israel? Could I not have just stayed in Syria and washed and be cleaned? Why did I come all the way here to this miserable place, to miserable Israel on this multiple day journey just to go wash into Jordan? Which by the way, also kind of made me shocker.
You know, you’re upset when you’re trying to like one up another nation by stating that your rivers are better than their rivers. But that says how angry Naaman is. Here he is, steaming mad, stomping, steaming mad. And as he is this mad, our text tells us in his rage he turns and goes away, starts to make his way back home. I’m sure muttering to himself at every step that he made.
Well, as Naaman starts to make his way back home, servants began to look at each other, starts talking among each other. Yeah, Nimit kind of has a point. This is kind of an odd command to do, especially With Elisha, Prophet didn’t even come out of his house to give the command himself. But we’re all here, we’ve already made the long trip. So maybe Naaman should just try it, see what happens.
You know, maybe the prophet’s right, and really, worst case scenario, he goes into Jordan and he gets a bath before we head home. As the servants talk among themselves, they felt good enough about the suggestion they came up with. So verse 13, they catch up to Naaman, and as they came near to him, they said, my Father, it is a great word that the prophet spoken to you. Will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, wash and be clean?
You know, Master, we know you’re in so much pain because of this condition, and we know you have tried everything and nothing has worked. How about before we go back home, let’s just do what the prophet said and let’s see what happens. As the servants reasoned with Naaman, clearly the reasoning landed where his anger subsided. And Naaman takes him up on their suggestion and they go down to the Jordan, and as they get to the river, Naaman did what was told by the man of God. Seven times dips into the river, right?
In the water, out 1. In the water, out 2. In the water, out 3. In the water, out 4. In the water, out 5.
In the water, out 6. In the water, out 7. However, on the seventh time, in out of the water, unlike the previous six times in out the water, where Naaman came out as a leper, on this seventh time, according to the word of the man of God, the Lord does a miracle. And as Naaman comes out the seventh time, the flesh of Naaman was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was cleaned. A miracle, a great work of God, which for us this morning, this work we can trace back to a little slave girl, the most unlikely person, the most unlikely evangelist, being a witness, sharing a little testimony, simply telling Naaman about the prophet of God who is in Samaria.
No. Well, I’m going to stop working here. Through the verses in the passage, as mentioned, we’re going to go through verse 14. Let me just kind of give you a little bit of the rest of the story before I give you some concluding thoughts. So as this story continues, maybe want to read this later on today after Naaman, after his body is clean, we see, more importantly, his heart was clean.
Where we read that Naaman actually perfected faith after all this faith in the God of Israel, where he even testifies that there is no other God but the One true and living God, which, by the way, makes the story not just one of an unlikely evangelist, this young girl, but this makes the story of an unlikely convert with Naaman. After Naaman was converted, he goes back to Elisha, not only to thank him, but also to give all the treasures that he brought with him, which we see in the story. Elisha actually refuses. This is. This is a free gift from God to Naaman.
Now, Elijah’s servant, after Naaman leaves, he tries to go get the treasure. But you should read more about that on your own. Last thing I was to mention in this story, after Elisha, Naaman, as they meet. So we see Elisha actually gives Naaman some, like, upfront discipleship, as Naaman is kind of now needing to know how to go back to Syria and live out his new faith as he’s entering into, like, a pagan land. Pagans all over the place, which I think actually seems kind of instructive as well.
Right? We’re not only called to be witnesses, we’re also called to make disciples to help those who come to faith know how to live out their faith. So just a reminder, evangelism, baseball, this doesn’t end with initial witness, but it continues on into discipleship as those we are witnessing to come to faith. Okay, now, as we close, I want to close off the time here. First, I just want to give you three encouragement in the text in terms of, like, some theological truths I think we see in the passage.
And after that, I just want to give you three practical truths and how you can apply to your life in your own witness. So just start with some theological truths. So first, it’s true, God uses unlikely people to do his work. Now, in the text clearly also used a very likely person in Elisha to do work. But to say it again, this work of God in this passage, when we trace it back, is God using a little slave girl, someone whose name has been lost to history, someone who would have been pretty natural, pretty easy to be, like, angry and bitter at Naaman for all that he did to her family.
Say it again. God used this most unlikely evangelist and church. If God can use her, he can use you as well. Even if your entire history up to this point has been failing as an evangelist, be encouraged, have hope. God can still use you to be his witness.
Second, be encouraged. God brings unlikely people to faith, something I also talked about earlier, but I want to bring that in front of us again.
Naaman, a very unlikely person. I want to bring this up again because I think far too often we’re just too quick to write people off where we try to judge hearts. And for whatever reason we just end up saying, you know what? They’re not worth sharing with.
They’re just too far gone. What’s the point? Or maybe for some reason we feel like they stand in opposition to us, so we don’t share. Friends. Naaman, a very unlikely convert.
Strong, proud, hardened military leader from a pagan nation. Yet not only did God heal his skin, as mentioned, more importantly, he healed his heart as God brought Naaman to faith. And I think we know this. Stories like this of God bringing unlikely people to faith, this is what we see all throughout the scriptures. It’s what we see all throughout church history, perhaps even like in this room today.
How many of us are unlikely to be a Christian? Yet here we are, maybe even for some here this morning for the first time, you’re here to put your faith in Jesus Christ, put your faith in God so he would give you a clean heart. Church God brings even the most unlikely people to faith himself. Don’t write people off, do the third thing, friends. God is passionate to put his power on display.
That’s God’s desire. End of the day, this is what this story is all about. God’s passion to put his power to put his glory on display. So that years later, we’re still marveling in it where God put his power in display through a little slave girl and a prophet who raised witnesses, right? Acts 1:8.
You should receive power from the Holy Spirit to be my witnesses as God passionately put his power on display through his witnesses. More importantly, God put his power on display to heal Naaman once again. Not just his skin, to heal his heart. The book of Romans, the Gospel is the power of God to salvation for all who believe. Which for us on this side of the cross we know the power of God is salvation is not power like in a prophet or power and taking a dip in the Jordan River.
Rather, the power of God unto salvation is found in God’s eternal son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Very one who came to die for his people, to take on the punishment of our sins, to take on all of our diseases, only with great power to rise again from the dead on the third day, where through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, through God’s great power, through his great love, he’s now using people, even unlikely people, to build his kingdom, to draw people to himself. Even the most unexpected to the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. A gift that we receive by faith and faith alone. A gift where we’re washed clean by the blood of Jesus Christ, who heals and forgives of all of our sins, all of our trespasses.
By the way, if that’s something you’ve yet to do in your life, in this moment, we actually do want to plead with you to do so, to hear the word of the Lord, to confess and turn from your sin and to by faith believe that Jesus did die for you and he did rise again from the dead, and to believe that he receives with all of his love all who by faith turn to him, including you.
You know, I know being a witness, this is something that’s hard for most of us to do for many reasons. But if our text and our text, if I encourage you with this truth, friends, God’s power is present through the entire process. It’s not about me, it’s not about you. Rather, it’s about the power of God that He is passionately putting on display through his witnesses, through bringing people to faith in Christ. This leads us to the conclusion part.
Just some practical thoughts for us in this desire to be a witness. Desire to play evangelism, baseball. So I’m going to go through these pretty quickly. So first, for us to be a witness, first, we actually must be available. We can’t live in isolation.
We can’t live removed from everyone. We must be available where we’re in the lives of others around us so that like the girl in the story, we too can have conversations. Don’t hide. Don’t isolate yourself from your co workers or your classmates or your neighbors or from others who maybe participate in similar events that you’re participating in. Rather, be available.
Be available in ways you’re actually trying to get to know others in meaningful ways so you can have real conversations again, like the girl had with Naaman’s wife. Second, practically be intentional, which at times is actually necessary for us to be available. We’re like intentionally putting ourselves in the lives of other people. And right now you don’t really know others. At work, at school, in your neighborhood, in your activities.
You need to be intentional with this to be intentional to get to know others, which practically means just sitting down with a paper and pen and just like write out ways where you can be intentional to get to know others. It doesn’t have to be hard. Just write down what are some ways I can do to be intentional as you’re intentional getting to know others. Don’t just stop there, but also to be intentional with the conversations you’re having as you get to Know others where you’re intentionally bringing up the things of God in conversations, even if they’re just like little base hits concerning the things of God. You know, for me, I just kind of see, like, this little girl and her mistress maybe, like, doing something around the house, maybe, like, talking as they work.
And somewhere within this conversation, the little girl intentionally brings up, hey, do you know there actually there’s a prophet of God in Samaria? Be intentional. This is the third final thing. Just be faithful. What I mean here.
Be faithful with that. What? You know, and I do wonder sometimes, maybe we’re not as active of being witness as we desire to be, as we should be, is maybe we’re not as confident as. As maybe we think we are in terms of what we need to know to do evangelism, or what we might need to know, like difficult questions that might come up our way. And while it’s true we should always seek and be growing in that which we know, we always want to be ready to give an answer for the hope within us.
It’s also true that we’re simply called to be faithful, to proclaim that which we do know. And this is something I just kept thinking about all week with this little girl in the text. What’d she know? She knew there’s a prophet of God in Samaria. She didn’t know exactly where.
Seemingly she didn’t even know his name. She didn’t know how the prophet might heal Naaman. All she knew there’s a prophet of God and she knew that God worked through his prophets. That’s it for us in evangelism, baseball, as we seek to get base hits. Simply share that which you know, which might just be like the core tenants of the gospel.
Share that. Listen, I know Christ was crucified and risen again for the forgiveness of sin. I know that I can share that. Which, by the way, is there anything more exciting to talk about than Lord Jesus Christ and what he’s done for us?
You also know your own story, your own personal testimony, how God has been faithfully at work in your life or brought you to faith, how he’s growing you in the faith. You know that you can share that. You know things about church life. Leave me here. Sunday morning, you know that.
Wouldn’t it be great if others came along with you? But just simply sharing that what you know.
And for us, as we’re a little more formally finishing evangelism, baseball, the end of June, if you’d be less, you know, that information, share that as well. Invite people to vbs there’s little flyers in the back. If you don’t know all the information, guess what? It’s all on that flyer. Invite people to that as well.
Church, please be encouraged how God has been at work through our witness, especially the last few weeks. There has been so many, so many encouraging base hits. And let that encouragement motivate all of us to boldly, passionately, joyfully seek to be evangelists all of our days. So for the glory of Christ, we might continue to hear great story after great story of some great Bay shit after Bay’s hit after Bay’s hit, trusting that God is doing all these great stories of base hits to do great stories in the lives of people to bring them to faith in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. And Church, may we all do this, even though the majority of us, I think, probably label ourselves as unlikely evangelists.
Let’s pray.
Lord, thank you for this incredible story in 2 Kings.
Thank you that you are a God who heals and that yout bring people to faith where you heal hearts.
And Lord, thank youk that in youn wisdom, according to youo purposes, to display youy power, you have chosen to use youe people to declare the excellencies of Christ, including us here.
So God, please help us to be faithful to this end.
Lord, we do pray that we hear many more stories of just great evangelistic encounters. But more than that, Lord, we just pray that we hear many more stories of people coming to faith through our witness.
God, would you do a great work through us for your glory and for our joy. Pray so in Jesus name, Amen.