Transcription
Have you ever felt stuck? Just a certain area of your life stuck, like you're stuck in a rut and you can't pop out of it. Try to turn to the right or the left and just kind of keep landing in that rut. Or like you're going around in a track and you just kind of keep seeing the same scenery again and again and again. Or like you've got the TV on a certain station and the same show just keeps playing over and over again. Or you're trying to climb up a hill and you just get to the crest of it and then you fall back down, stuck.
That feeling is almost like claustrophobic. It's an energy-sapping experience. Not just the being stuck part, but the exhaustion that gets you, the spending energy and not making any progress. It's the erosion of the willpower to keep going, the boredom of the same experience over and over and over again, the discouragement, the despair that what is might just always be stuck.
Maybe you're stuck in your relationships. Feel like you're having the same fight over and over and over again, same frustration, same conversation. Maybe you feel stuck in your finances. You keep reaching the end of the money before you reach the end of the month. Maybe you feel stuck in your career. You're getting a headache from hitting your head against the glass ceiling over and over and over again. Maybe you feel stuck rooting for the same football team every year. Same story. Same story every year. Over and over and over again. Stuck. We're stuck.
But what's even weirder is you can be stuck in like one area of your life and not stuck in other areas. But what's weird is if you stay stuck in that one area, it seems to almost have like a gravity to it, pulling on the other areas of life. And if this stays stuck long enough, it can almost grind your whole life to a halt. I don't know if you've ever experienced that before, but one area, if it stays stuck long enough, can kind of pull everything to a stop.
So, we're in a series right now called Seasons and Cycles. We're looking at how growth works, how progress works in your life. And being stuck is the opposite of progress. Last week, we acknowledged that in the Bible, there are really kind of two main seasons that are put out there. So, there's a planting season and there's harvest season. Harvest, obviously, you get to experience, you know, harvest, crops, bounty. You put in work and you get something out. But in planting season, what we acknowledged last week is that that's the one where you put in a bunch of work and you don't see results right away. You're tilling the soil, you're putting seed in the ground, you're expending an enormous amount of energy, but you don't see a return. And we also acknowledged that obviously a bad planting season will affect the next harvest. But actually, what we saw was that a bad harvest can also affect the next planting season. And that's how a season then turns into a cycle because a bad planting season makes a bad harvest, which makes then a bad planting season. And now you're stuck in a cycle.
So today I want to look at a man who was stuck in one area of his life. Stuck in just one area. And I want to learn from him as he breaks free here. So, working title for my message is "How to Unstick a Stuck Part of Your Life." Wow, that's a long title. We'll see if it fits on the YouTube thumbnail. All right.
So, his story is found in 2 Kings chapter 5. We'll start in verse one. "The king of Aram had great admiration for Naaman, the commander of his army, because through him the Lord had given Aram great victories. But though Naaman was a mighty warrior, he suffered from leprosy." So, we have this guy named Naaman. He's the commander of the army of Aram, top of the org chart when it comes to their military industrial complex. He's the guy, right? One great victory. He himself is a great warrior, but he has leprosy. You kind of see this, the verse almost goes up into the air and then it kind of lands on a downer here. Now, if you don't know what leprosy is, it's an incurable skin disease that eats away at you until you die. Super pleasant. Just one area of his life that he's stuck there. And this area, this leprosy, this thing that's got him stuck, if this, if he stays stuck in leprosy, it will affect every other area of his life, right? You can't be the general of an army, win great battles, be a great warrior if your body is wasting away. So, he has to do something about the one area that he's stuck because eventually it's going to affect all the other areas.
So, let's see what he does. Verse two. "At this time, Aramean raiders had invaded the land of Israel. And among their captives was a young girl who had been given to Naaman's wife as a maid. One day, the girl said to her mistress, 'I wish my master would go and see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy.'" All right. Admittedly, there's a lot going on in that verse that I do not have time to go into. War crimes, human trafficking. I know there's a lot. We're just going to ignore that. Obviously, war was especially brutal back then, for sure. But we have this little girl who's taken captive, and something's going on with her to the point that she like cares enough about this guy who was taking her captive, and she tells them that like, "Hey, there's a prophet in Samaria in Israel who could do something about that."
Now, at this point in the story, if you're looking at the resume of these two people, Naaman and this little girl, like Naaman's top of the top. There's like one guy above him in Aram, the king. There's like nobody below her. They're as far apart as they can be on the social totem pole. So, if you paused the story right now and said, "Is Naaman going to listen?" I would say, "No. Why would he listen to her?" But how many of you know the longer you stay stuck, the more obscure places you go to for advice? How many of you have been on some really weird websites trying to solve stuff that's just like you're looking for anything, right? So, I think Naaman's at the point where he's like, "Hey, I got all this going for me, but I got this one thing. And if this one thing stays, I'm in trouble. What's that little girl? There's like there's a prophet in Israel."
So, something happens. And here's what he does. Verse four. "So Naaman told the king what the young girl from Israel had said." Verse five. "'Go and visit the prophet,' the king of Aram told him. 'I will send a letter of introduction for you to take to the king of Israel.' So Naaman started out carrying his gifts: 750 pounds of silver, 150 pounds of gold, and 10 sets of clothing." So Naaman listens to the little girl, and then the king listens to the little girl, and he says, "You need to go do this thing." So this kind of sets Naaman up to be on this journey towards healing, this journey towards getting unstuck in this area of his life. And you've got to picture this. This is like presidential motorcade level travel here. He is a big guy. Like he matters. Okay. So, he's got the stretch chariot going. You know, he's got the guys on motorcycles next to it with the little Uzis. He's got the guys in suits and sunglasses and the earpiece and the silver briefcases with the little handcuff attaching it with lots of money inside the briefcase. By the way, that level of money that he's bringing with him, somebody actually came up and did the math on just like the poundage of gold, that's like in the hundreds of millions of dollars that he's bringing with him. So, this is he is rolling into Israel like with everything he's got to go get unstuck. You know what I'm saying? Like, he's got all of his strength rolling into Israel.
Now, right now in the story, I know you're not like associating with Naaman that much, right? You're not like, "Man, I just did that last week, you know, rolling down the street with millions of dollars." That's not something that we're like feeling like, "Yes, this is he, I see myself in him." But I do think Naaman is doing something that we all do or try to. Naaman is trying to fix the stuck part of his life with the unstuck parts. Or to say it another way, he's trying to heal his weakness with his strength. He's using his powers and his military prowess and his wealth to heal his leprosy. All those connections he's got, all that money he's got, he's trying to use the strength to heal the weakness. Now, spoiler, it doesn't work. It doesn't work. His letter is not received well. His connections aren't they don't connect. His money is actually rejected. His royal clout is completely ignored. All of his strength does nothing to heal his weakness.
And I want to slow down and look at that real quick. If you're stuck in an area of your life, you need to really slow down and say, "Hold on a minute." Because our instinct is to use our strength to heal our weakness. We do it without even thinking. And I bet he didn't plan this out. It's just natural. We want to get after the stuck parts of our life with the unstuck parts. We think we can fix it. But what if that's not the way God created us to work? Because there's almost something supernatural about this. It seems like it should work, but it doesn't. You can do a lot with your strength, right? You can cover your weakness up with your strength. You can hide it, right? Naaman probably had some really nice, expensive, ornate armor that he put on, and that covered up the leprosy. So when people saw him, they didn't see the weakness, they saw the strength. And we can do that. You can lead with your strength. You can put your strength out there so people don't ever see the weakness. You can use your strength as a crutch in your weakness, right? You can use your strength to drag your weakness along, but you can't heal your weakness with your strength. And if anybody should have been able to do that, it's Naaman, right? The guy, he's got the most pronounced strengths you could imagine. He's at the top of the military org chart. He's got friends that are kings. He's got hundreds of millions of dollars. You're like, "Hey, this guy's strength should be able to fix his weakness, but it can't."
So, what if God doesn't want you to heal your weakness with your strength? What if that's not the way God created it to work? What if God wants to do something deeper in that? So, let's see what God does with Naaman. Verse 6 and 7. "The letter to the king of Israel said, 'With this letter, I present my servant Naaman. I want you to heal him of his leprosy.' Super elaborate letter there. When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes in dismay and said, 'Am I God that I can give life and take it away? Why is this man asking me to heal someone with leprosy? I can see that he is just trying to pick a fight with me.'"
So, you've got to imagine this scene. Naaman's on his, you know, he's on this journey towards healing, on this journey towards getting unstuck. He rolls up and parks his really nice chariot in front of the palace. He's got his whole entourage with him. He's got servants. He's got security. He walks up into the palace in Israel. He's standing there like a big tough guy. His servant goes up and like presents this letter to the king. And he's thinking, "All right, here we go. He's going to get this letter and my friend who's a king is going to affect this king and this king's going to tell that prophet and I'm going to take him to a back room. We'll be out of here by lunch. I'll be healed and it'll be over." That's what he thinks. So, the king opens up the letter. Doesn't take him long to read it because it's super short and to the point. And the king's like, "I don't..." Who knows how all this went down, right? The king's face drops. He's not like, "Oh, good. Yes, right this way, sir." But he's afraid. And like this makes sense what the king did with this in his head. He's like, "So the king of Aram is asking me to heal a guy of an incurable skin disease." He's like, "He's trying to fight me because he's going to say, 'Well, you didn't heal my general. Now we're going to war.'" So he's assuming this is like the way to go to war without just being a bad guy. He's trying to look for an excuse. Now, he's wrong about that, but he's right about the fact that he can't heal Naaman, that he's not God.
So, here, right here in this moment, you see that Naaman's powerful connections don't work. It has no effect. The king of Israel got up, walked to the back room, tore his clothes, and freaked out. He's talking to his advisors, "What are we going to do? Aram's going to Aram's going to pick a fight with us." And Naaman sent away without anything, still having leprosy, still stuck.
But here's what happened. Surprising turn of events. Verse 8. "But when Elisha, the man of God, this is the prophet, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes in dismay, he sent this message to him: 'Why are you so upset? Send Naaman to me, and he will learn that there is a true prophet here in Israel.'" So, we don't know how this happened. We don't know how he heard all this. I almost think it's almost like a God thing, and God let Elisha know, "Hey, you need to send this message." So Elisha, who is the prophet, who has the right kind of connections, sends this letter. And I love what he says there. I mean, that is if it wasn't true, it's cocky. "He will learn that there's a true prophet here in Israel." Like, nobody's allowed to talk like that, right? You can't, if you talked like that to me, I'd be like, "Shut up. You're stupid." But he can. He can.
Now again, you've got to look at the story from Naaman's perspective. He showed up to the palace, expected to be healed, sent away, still not healed. Now the king of Israel calls him back and says, "Go to Elijah's house." From Naaman's perspective, he's like, "Wait, I have to go to him? Really?" Okay, so here's what he does. Verse 9. "So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and waited at the door of Elisha's house." Picture this. So the whole entourage, this whole presidential motorcade pulls out of the palace. It belongs there. And now he's rolling through some back streets and he ends up in suburbia and the presidential motorcade stops in front of a random house. Or maybe it's even, I mean, can you imagine a presidential motorcade pulling up in front of your house? Maybe even worse. Maybe this is rural. He might have had to go down some like gravel roads, you know, like a real long driveway. Pulls up and Naaman's sitting here going, "This is it. This is a two-bedroom ranch." Like, this is where I'm going to find healing. This is where I'm going to get unstuck. And you see, so he pulled up with like, the verse goes out of its way to say he's there with all the people. And then he goes, you know, again, standing at the door, big tough guy, servant, knock for me. Knock on the door. He again is expecting something here.
And here's what happens. Verse 10. "But Elisha sent a messenger out with this message: 'Go and wash yourself seven times in the Jordan River, then your skin will be restored and you will be healed of your leprosy.'" Elijah didn't even come out to talk to him. So, he's standing there again expecting like, "All right, I'm a big deal. You know, treat me like I'm a big deal." And Elijah's like, "Busy. He's like making himself a ham sandwich in the back. He's like, 'I can't. I'm sorry. Go tell him to go wash in the Jordan River.'"
So, can you imagine where Naaman's at at this point? You can feel he's trying to do all this stuff with his strength. He's like, "I got millions of dollars here. I got all this. I got a letter from a king." And Elijah's like, "Go wash yourself in a river." So, here's how Naaman responds. Verse 11. "But Naaman became angry and stalked away. 'My 8-year-old stalks away from me when I tell him something he doesn't like.' That's what it sounds like. 'I thought he would certainly come out and meet me,' he said. 'I expected him to wave a hand over the leprosy and call on the name of the Lord his God and heal me.'" Ooh, so he's hot at this. Now it finally boils over. You can kind of, I just imagine this whole time he's like stone-faced but you can feel the temperature rising, rising, rising, and he finds like he didn't even come out and talk to me. He's like, "Now he's now he's working himself up and did you see the way the sentences started? I thought, I expected." He had this idea of how the healing was going to happen. He had this idea of how he was going to get unstuck, and it's not matching that. So he's angry.
So, can I ask you a question? What if your expectations of how you're going to get unstuck are a part of what's keeping you stuck? Because at this point in the story, the only thing between Naaman and being unstuck are now his expectations. He has wrong expectations of how this is going to happen. And that's now keeping him stuck. And I think that can happen to us sometimes. You have an idea. You have this preconceived idea of how you're going to get unstuck, of how you're going to find healing. And if it doesn't match that, you don't want it. And you're only looking in one place. So you're not even recognizing that God might do it a different way. So your expectations are now a part of the prison that you're stuck in.
Let me ask another question. This one's even harder to be honest about. What if your attitude about being stuck is a part of what's keeping you stuck? I've got to say, that's definitely true. Now Naaman's angry, and his anger, his attitude about being stuck is actually a part of what's got him locked up at this point. What if your attitude is actually a part of the thing keeping you stuck? Because what's an attitude? An attitude is a way of thinking. An attitude is a way of feeling, right? And that's a groove. And if you dig that groove deep enough, it sure feels like there's walls on either side of you. And now your attitude is a part of the thing that's keeping you in the same place. To quote the great theologian Jax Pharaoh, "The problem is not the problem. The problem is your attitude about the problem." I love that quote. That's deep right there. So, it's actually for Naaman, the problem isn't even the problem anymore. The problem is now his attitude about the problem. He's been given a way out and he doesn't want it. He's angry about it and it's preventing him from even going towards it. Matter of fact, he's not done ranting yet. Verse 13, he continues. Or verse 12. "Aren't the rivers of Damascus, the Abana and the Pharpar, better than any of the rivers in Israel? Why shouldn't I wash in them and be healed?" So Naaman turned and went away in a rage.
So look what he's done to himself. He started angry and now he's in a rage. Has anybody real good at getting themselves mad? He didn't need anybody else, right? He was just, he was all by himself working himself up. He had gotten to the point where he finally explodes and then now he's talking himself into even being angrier. His expectations and his attitude keeping him stuck.
So, I think if you're in an area of your life and you're stuck, it calls for some pretty deep reflection. What are your expectations of how you're going to get unstuck? Are they preventing you? Are your expectations a part of what's keeping you stuck? Are they preventing you from seeing that God might use something outside of your expectations to get you unstuck? And then what's your attitude about being stuck? Is it possible that now your attitude is a part of the prison that you've got? You've got cause and effect mixed up. You're like, "I'm stuck and that's what's causing my attitude." Stuck is causing my attitude. What if what if now it's flipped, though, that your attitude is causing the stuck? You've got to flip cause and effect now. And you have to ask yourself those questions. That's deep reflection. That's deep work that only you can do, but it requires some bravery on your part. I'll tell you, my instinct is to say no to both of those. It's definitely not that. Tell me another reason, please. But I think you should at least look at this now.
So, this is you just got to, he's finally exploded. He's ranting. He's hit, he's hit a whole another level and he's walking off all angry. But Naaman has some really good people around him. And that's actually one of the themes of the story. He's got good people. So, here's what happens in verse 13. "But his officers tried to reason with him." Love reasoning with angry people. "And said, 'Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something very difficult, wouldn't you have done it? So you should certainly obey him when he says simply go and wash and be cured.'" Love this guy. Whoever this guy is, this is brilliant. His officer is like, "Hey, if Elijah would have said go climb a mountain, you'd have done it." If Elijah would have said, "Go fight this big wild animal," we would have went and done it. All he's saying is to go down to a river and wash and you won't. He's like, "That doesn't make any sense. You would have done anything and now because it's that you won't do it. It doesn't make sense." And you can kind of see Naaman is struggling here. There's an internal battle happening in Naaman. He's fighting.
So, can I confess something to you? I empathize with Naaman here. I'm really good. This is not a good thing to be good at. I'm really good at talking myself out of something God has nudged me to do. Really good at it. Pro-level even. Because and some of it is the whole expectations and my attitude thing, but I'm good at using logic. God invented logic. I try to use it against him. Fail every time, but still I try. And just like, think about what Naaman is doing here. He's using, he's got actually kind of good logic here. "Elijah the prophet could have just waved his hand over my leprosy and healed me." That's true. That's true. "Elijah could have done anything." "Elijah could have..." The rivers in Aram are nicer than the rivers in Israel. He's right. The Jordan River is a mud puddle compared to some of the rivers in his home country. It doesn't really, if you're comparing the two, it would make more sense. Honestly, the Jordan River might you might get more sick getting into that one. Like, that's a little scary. So, he's talking himself out of the thing that God is telling him to do. And I do the same thing. I bet you do, too.
And one of the ways I do it, have you ever heard of a logical fallacy? It was one of those college classes that I wasted money going to. So, my favorite example of a logical fallacy has to do with atoms. Not atom, at OM, not atom, atoms, you know, protons, electrons, small little things. So, here's my favorite example of a logical fallacy. Atoms are invisible. Can't see them. So, this iPad is made of atoms. Invisible. It is. Stop looking at it. It's not there. Right? The logic of that is perfect, right? Two statements and then a conclusion. Atoms are invisible. You can't see. You have to have a really expensive microscope to even begin to see an atom. And this is made up of atoms. That's absolutely true. Both of those things are true. But you put them together in the wrong way and you get a wrong conclusion. You follow? We do this to God all the time. We put a truth next to a truth. We twist them. We put them together and we come to a wrong conclusion. "Good things come from God." True. "This doesn't feel good." True. "Therefore, this must not be from God." Hold up now. Hold up. And I get it. I get it. Doesn't feel good. "Only good things are come from God." Therefore, this must not be. Hold on. You're taking two things. You're putting them together in a funny way. And you're coming to a conclusion that's actually not true. "God wants the best for me." True. "This decision makes me uncomfortable." True. "Therefore, must this must not be what God wants for me." Oh, hold up. Hold up. I get it. I get it. Yeah. You can't argue with the first premise, can't argue with the second premise, but your conclusion you've come to, that though those two things that you're putting them together in the wrong way. It's not your logic's wrong, but your reasoning is wrong. You're putting them together the wrong way.
And then the thing that Naaman is doing, "God can do anything." True. "The thing he's nudging me to do is a little crazy." Sure. "Therefore, this must not be what God wants me to do." And I get it. I do that and you do that. And that's what Naaman's done. Naaman's like, "Hey, God can do anything. Elijah could have just waved his arm. Elijah could have done whatever he went. Like, God could have just healed me. And now he's telling me to go do something that doesn't make any sense." So, he's putting those two truths together and it doesn't make sense. And God could do anything, and he's put them together and he's just like, "I don't want to do it then."
So, let me ask you, could God heal his leprosy? Yeah. Right. Is it even hard for God to heal his leprosy? I mean, if you're a Christian, you believe that God can do anything. This is actually not the degree of difficulty on this is not high for God. He can do anything. And God could have had Elijah wave his hand. God could have had Elijah just speak a word. God could have used the rivers in Aram. He could have, God could have used Naaman's bathtub at home to heal him, right? God could have healed him any which way he wanted to. So for Naaman, this doesn't make sense.
But consider this with me. We've been looking at the story from Naaman's perspective the whole time. So it's almost like a quest he's on, right? If this were a video game, the main quest that he's on is to heal, be healed of his leprosy, right? Like that would be at the top of the screen: find a way to get healed from leprosy. And that's his main quest. Everything he's done, you know, getting the letter from the king, gathering his money up, getting his entourage together, traveling to Israel, talking to the king, talking to Elijah, all this stuff has been designed in Naaman's eyes to get healed of his leprosy. That's his main quest.
But if you flip it and you stop looking at the story from Naaman's perspective and start looking at the story from God's perspective, healing Naaman of his leprosy can't be the main quest. Can't be, because God could have just done it. So all of this stuff has to have a different main quest. Side quest: healing him of leprosy. Main quest: something else. God's doing something else here on a deeper level that Naaman hasn't recognized yet.
Naaman's leprosy is secondary. What God is really after is Naaman's heart. He wants this. Everything God is putting Naaman through here kind of has nothing to do with his leprosy. It has to do with his heart. God is trying to get at his heart. You know those little titles at the top of every little Bible story? If you're reading your Bible story, it has a little like section heading. Like, "This is something about Naaman and his leprosy." But if I were writing those, I would change it. I don't think the story is about Naaman's leprosy. If you go back to that sentence that his officer said to him, "You should certainly obey him when he says simply go and wash." Obey simply. He's encouraging Naaman towards simple obedience. Simple obedience. You know what it takes to commit an act of simple obedience? Humility. Humility. That's the thing. The impossible thing that's going to happen in this story is not Naaman being healed of his leprosy on this journey to do that. The impossible thing in this story is God wants Naaman's pride. He wants to break it. That's the impossible thing. And I actually believe that's harder. That's harder than the leprosy. God's after his pride.
And here's the thing. I think pride is sticky. I think it's sticky. I think pride is the main reason we get stuck. I bet if you could look back over all of the things in your life, all of the times that you felt stuck, I bet if you could boil them all down and come to, "Oh, what's the reason I got stuck in all of these times?" I bet the vast majority of them, pride was at least an ingredient in your being stuck. Pride. Stuck. So everything God is doing here, if you look at it from that perspective, you realize, "Oh my, everything God is doing is designed to kind of strip Naaman away of all of his strengths." Your letter didn't work. Elisha doesn't even want your money. Nobody, Elisha isn't even coming to the door to talk to you. Your clout doesn't matter. Your armor doesn't impress anybody. God is just pulling all of this off of him and leaving him with his weakness and saying, "Naaman, come on, man. It's not about the leprosy. It's about your pride."
So God asks for a simple obedience that doesn't make sense. And the only answer is humility. "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, and he will lift you up." And this is what happens, right? God will nudge you to do something that you think doesn't make sense. Which means not only is humility required, so is faith. So is faith. You've got to humble yourself. And then you have to take a step of faith. There's your two ingredients. If you're stuck right now in an area of your life, two main ingredients to get unstuck are humility, unpleasant, and faith. You're going to have to take a step, a big one. One where you don't know where your foot's going to land. One where you don't know how it's going to make the connection, but you feel God pushing you towards it, and you need to say yes to it.
By the way, consider this. Dipping in the Jordan River had nothing to do with Naaman's leprosy. This is really important. Or to say it another way, the solution actually had nothing to do with the problem, right? I mean, think about that. Dipping in the Jordan River actually likely would get you sicker. But God's like, "Dip in the Jordan River seven times and you'll be healed." Here's your solution. It has nothing to do with the problem. Which means they're actually not connected. The real thing was dip in the Jordan River seven times because I want you to take a humble step of faith, and I'll take care of the problem. The problem isn't the problem. The problem is your pride. The problem is you won't take the step of faith. So that's how they actually do connect in the spiritual, just not in the physical. And that's what happens all the time. But we talk ourselves out of taking the step because we're like, "Well, that doesn't even connect." Those two things aren't even connected in the physical. Maybe. But in the spiritual, God might be up to something in your heart.
One of my favorite quotes from a guy named Andy Stanley, he says, "A single act of courage is often the tipping point for something extraordinary." I love that. Just one act, one decision, one brave thing, and it can tip everything. Your whole life can kind of just tip over and momentum comes out of a decision like that. I love that. Now, if you stop and look at that quote, though, I'm guessing Naaman has a whole lot of courage based off his resume. He's probably full of courage. That wasn't working for him. Courage wasn't the thing. So, I want to change this. I want to change it to: "A single act of humility is often the tipping point for something extraordinary." A single act of humility, man. How many of you know that's true? If you really look back over your life, those times where you finally broke, where you finally said, "You know what?" And that's when God moves. Asking for help requires humility. You know that? Asking for help, that's an act of humility. And God will use that to do something extraordinary. Asking for forgiveness, that's an act of humility. Love that talk, don't you? "Hey, sorry." That's humility. Giving forgiveness sometimes requires humility. You don't want to do that. You don't want to break. You don't want to stay mad. Giving forgiveness requires humility. Letting go of control requires humility. Putting someone else's needs above your own requires humility. Waiting on God's timing requires humility. Doing something God wants you to do even though you don't think it makes sense requires humility. What act of humility is in front of you that you're not wanting to do? Could be the doorway to some kind of breakthrough in your life.
Now, we don't know what happened between verse 13 and 14. So, verse 13, his officers are making this perfect argument. "Dude, climb a mountain, fight a wild animal. If he would have asked us to do anything, we would have went and done it. All he's asking is if you go down and dip in the Jordan River." Something happens there. I'm sure there was a conversation. I'm sure Naaman had to go on a walk, cool down, think about it, like come, you know, come to some conclusions because, I don't know about you, but when I'm faced with my own pride, it takes me a minute. Ask my wife, it takes me a minute. I have to cool down. I have to decide, "All right, all right, the only reason I'm in this predicament is because my pride won't break." So, Naaman probably went on a walk, probably took a minute. And something happens between verse 13 and verse 14. So he goes from angry, he goes from having an attitude, he goes from having expectations to verse 14, a simple act of obedience.
"So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the man of God had instructed him, and his skin became as healthy as the skin of a young child, and he was healed." A simple, humble, faith-filled act of obedience, and he's free. And it's not always that simple, but I still want to push you towards this. I want to say the way to get unstuck a lot of times is a simple, humble, faith-filled act of obedience that God is just waiting for something to happen in here. The details actually don't even matter to God. Leprosy, whatever. I got that. It's this that he's after. This is the miracle. This is the miracle. Your heart breaking, your heart humbling, your heart taking that step of faith. That's the miracle. And Naaman did it, and it was the breakthrough.
The cool connection here is so Naaman gets, you know, he dips in the Jordan River seven times, and if you fast forward hundreds of years, Jesus actually gets baptized in the Jordan River, same river. And the cool thing there is obviously Naaman was dipped to be cleansed. Jesus doesn't need cleansing. Jesus is the cleanser. So, Jesus got baptized. The reason we believe Jesus got baptized is because it was an act of obedience to God. And he dipped in that water and came back out. And we believe, you know, this sets Jesus, he gets baptized and it sets Jesus on a course for three years of ministry and then dying on the cross in our place for our sins. The most cosmic act ever committed.
So, what's next for you? What's your next step? A simple, humble, faith-filled act of obedience. I believe for some of you in this room, it is like crossing the line of faith. Like, you don't have a relationship with God. You've never given your life to Jesus. You might be sitting next to somebody who does have faith and they have, you know, have that relationship and you feel a little bit of benefit from that just because you're close to them. But you yourself, you've struggled with this and you've never quite broken. You've never humbled yourself enough. You've never taken that step of faith. And I would invite you to do it here today. You can stop listening to me. You can pray a very simple prayer: "Jesus, I give you my life. Jesus, I'm breaking here. I need your forgiveness." And this could be the beginning of something, something spectacular. A relationship with your creator. Forgiveness from God. Knowing that you're deeply loved and he has a purpose for your life. A single act of humility could be the gateway into a life filled with purpose and forgiveness. The only thing standing between you and it, it's that pride thing.