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And it'd be great if you could, open a bible up and turn with me to two kings in chapter five.

And once we've read that, Rob, we'll come up and open up God's word for us. Two Kings chapter five. Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded because through him, the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.

Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, if only my master would see the prophet who was in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy. Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. By all means, go, the king of Aram replied. I will send a letter to the king of Israel.

So Naaman left, taking with him 10 talents of silver, 6,000 shekels of gold, and 10 sets of clothing. The letter that he took to the king of Israel read, with this letter, I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy. As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, am I god? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy?

See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me. When Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message. Why have you torn your robes? Make the man come to me, and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel. So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha's house.

Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed. But Naaman went away angry and said, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot, and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Farpa, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed? So he turned and went off in a rage.

Naaman's servants went to him and said, my father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then when he tells you wash and be cleansed? So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy. Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel.

So please accept a gift from your servant. The prophet answered, 'As surely as the Lord lives whom I serve, I will not accept a thing.' And even though Naaman urged him, he refused. 'If you will not,' said Naaman, 'please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord. But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing. When my master enters the Temple Of Rimmon to bow down, and he is leaning on my arm, and I have to bow there also, when I bow down in the Temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.

Go in peace, Elisha said. After Naaman had traveled some distance, Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, the man of God, said to himself, my master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean, by not accepting from him what he brought. As surely as the Lord lives, I will run after him and get something from him.' So Gehazi hurried after Naaman. When Naaman saw him running towards him, he got down from the chariot to meet him. 'Is everything all right?' he asked.

Everything is all right, Gehazi answered. My master sent me to say, two young men from the company of the prophets have just come to me from the hill country with a frame. Please give them a talent of silver and two sets of clothing. By all means, take two talents, said Naaman. He urged Gehazi to accept them and then tied up the two talents of silver in two bags with two sets of clothing.

He gave them to two of his servants, and they carried them ahead of Gehazi. When Gehazi came to the hill, he took the things from the servants and put them away in the house. He sent the men away, and they left. When he went in and stood before his master, Elisha asked him, where have you been, Gehazi? Your servant didn't go anywhere, Gehazi answered.

But Elisha said to him, was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to take money or to accept clothes or olive groves and vineyards or flocks and herds or male and female slaves? Naaman's leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever. Then Gehazi went from Elisha's presence, and his skin was leprous. It had become as white as snow.

Rob. Good morning. It's wonderful to be with you here. I actually haven't been to this building very many times. I think I've only been here once before.

So whenever I think of Cornerstone, I still think of Beadlesford School and the hub. So that's how old I am. It's wonderful to be with you here. Our church is over in Becontry which is East London just the other side of Barking. It's quite a different area, isn't it?

To Southwest London I'm sure. And we're part of the commission network. So of churches. So we've we've we've known Cornerstone for a while and it's great to be with you this morning. And please do keep your Bibles open in front of you as we look at it together.

I want to start with a question, and I want you to be honest with with this answer, if that's okay. I'll try to be as well. Is there anyone that you you struggle to believe that God can save? I want you to it might not be a specific person, maybe it is. It might be a type of person that you've got in your mind.

I want you to sort of picture them. Is there anyone that you struggle to believe that God can save? Well, I know each week the bible is taught here faithfully so I know that we know the right answer. Don't we? We know the right answer is no.

God can save anyone. That's what the Bible teaches. But sometimes the truths that are in our head struggle to make their way down to our hearts and and practice you know to believe that God can save anyone. And maybe you'll hear and the answer to my question just now was was yourself. Maybe you're here for the first time and you're thinking, I just struggled to believe that God could save me.

Because you know all of the things that have happened. You know all the things that you've done. And you come here this morning and you're riddled with guilt. And you just think don't think you belong. Maybe you are a Christian, but you struggle with that self righteousness that we all have.

When the the guys at 2AM in the morning in their fast cars go down my 30 mile residential street and almost take off when they hit the speed bumps or when they play their loud music in their subwoofers that shakes the house and rattles the windows. I, how do I feel towards those people? They might be the kind of people that we struggle to believe God can save because they inconvenience us or they make us feel, yeah, like inconvenienced or or put out. Well, this morning, we're gonna see that god saves the most unexpected of men. He saves Naaman.

And if he can save Naaman, he can save anyone. And let's have a look at the first verse of this chapter, chapter five. Who is Naaman? Naaman is a commander of the army of the king of Aram. Aram is a nation that is at war with Israel, and Israel is the country where God's people are.

And this man's job is to be the senior the most senior military man in charge of the whole of their army. And so his job is actually to make sure that Israel lose, To make sure that God's people suffer. That's his job. And he's really good at it. Yes, he doesn't realize in verse one that God has given him the victory.

But he it says in verse one, he was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded because through him the lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier. So, that not only is this guy really important but he's very well revered. He's really good at his job. So you you if you picked one word to describe Naaman, it would have to be capable.

Right? He can do whatever he wants to do. He is the most capable person. I don't want to offend you but probably in this room. Yeah?

If he was here. Because he has all this authority at his disposal and he can tell people to do what he wants. And he says jump and they say how high? And that's the kind of guy that we meet in verse one. But he does not know God.

He is in a land where people don't know this God, don't worship this God. They worship many other Gods. But they do not know this God. But look down in at the end of verse one, he is a capable man but there was one reminder even for Naaman that he is a man in need. One reminder that God has given him that he is a man in need.

And it's that he has leprosy. There's one thing in his life that he isn't in control of. How unsettling that would be for him? He could he could do everything else but he can't cure his leprosy. He can have all the authority in his job, but he can't help himself.

So here's a man in need. If we go to the next slide. So we have this decorated army general, And yet he is in this area of life, he is utterly helpless. And I just want you to turn just to the person next to you. This is what I do in my church.

I hope that's okay. And I want you to actually look through this chapter and I want you to answer the question, what does god use to save Naaman? And I'm going to give you a few minutes to do that. Great. Go for it.

Okay, let's come back together. Hopefully hopefully, you've got more than one answer. Right? Hopefully, you got more than one answer because god uses lots of different things to save Naaman. What would we say the first one is?

Anyone go for the first one? A miracle someone said. What before the miracle? He uses his leprosy, right? And we don't understand why God gives.

This is not to say that we always know that that's the reason why God gives people that kind of illness or any illness. But in this particular case, I think we can say that God used his leprosy in order to save him. And we're gonna see why because it humbled him and he was a very proud man. What else did he use? The slave girl.

A girl, just just a young girl who is a slave in his household who's been taken from the land far from her home and God uses her. I'm gonna come back to her at the end. What else does he use? His faith? That's a bit of a fudge.

I don't know. Faith in what? Faith in himself or? He believed. Okay.

Great. So there was a moment he believed. Yeah. But what led him to the moment that believed? When he believed?

His servants. His servants do a job. Yeah. Elisha and the instructions of Elisha and the River Jordan, the murky waters of the sorry. He didn't believe.

Okay, great. Well, we'll look at that in a minute. So those are the things that he God uses to save Naaman. And we see, don't we wonderfully how God pursues people? People who have no interest in him and will never have any interest in him.

And he comes to them and he pursues Naaman. And so all of the things are working for him to come to know this God. For himself. But first God needs to humble him. And this is the big thing I want you to see is that grace is free but it humbles.

It has to do that. God's grace is free for anyone but first we have to be humbled by him. Firstly, Naaman, we just have the first one. First point, I don't know if that's possible. We're seeing everything now.

Okay, the first one. When Naaman tries to do what he knows how it goes really badly wrong, okay. I don't understand too much about what it's like to be in the Army. I haven't ever served in the Army, okay. That's my confession.

But what I understand about the Army is that if you want something or you need something you go up the chain of command. So if you're the bottom of the rank, you go up rank to your officer. If you go if you're him, you go up the rank to the next guy. And what Naaman does by asking by talking to the king about this, about his need, is that he basically does what he knows how. He knows how to go up the chain of command to get what you need.

He's just going through what he'd going through the motions of what he already knows. And what does the king do? Well, the king thinks diplomatic solution. We'll write a letter. It'll be from me.

We'll send a letter. They'll know it's from me. They'll they'll provide the solution. The god of their land, we need to speak to the king of their land. That's the rationale.

But what actually comes of their attempts to solve the problem? Have a look down with me in verse seven. What actually comes of their attempts? It's anyone? Anyone?

They almost cause, like, an all out war with this nation. So they think this is the diplomatic solution is gonna achieve something and help Naaman. It is the reverse. As in, it almost completely explodes because the king says, well, they can only be asking me out for a fight. They've asked me to do something that's impossible for me to do.

So that's that's a provocation. They want to fight me and it almost turns into an all out war. So the human solution to our problem to achieving some kind of salvation is not in us. It's just going to cause and make it worse. Now secondly, we see Naaman's response to the instructions that he's given.

And his first response is anger. Look down with me in verse 11. He's just received the message from Elisha in verse 10. Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, go wash yourself seven times in the Jordan and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed. Fairly simple instructions.

But Naaman went away angry and said, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot, and cure me of my leprosy. I'm not a banner and far for the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel. Can I wash in them and be cleansed? So he turned off and went off in a rage. Elisha gives the instructions and the instructions are good.

The instructions are you can be cleansed, Naaman. God can cleanse you. But initially, he's offended by them. Why is he offended? Because God is God and Naaman is Naaman.

And the instructions are saying, there is only one way to be cleansed, Naaman. And you don't get to decide what that way is. There is one way to be saved, but God decides. Because salvation comes from him and not from you. And you know what?

That that emerges from that with two black eyes because spiritually because he I thought I was the top dog here. I thought I was the one in charge of my own destiny and my fate. And God is bigger than the superior officer. He is above all and he gets to decide what happens in his world. And if we want salvation and it comes from him, he gets to choose how, where, and when.

So God says, true Elisha. Notice that Elisha doesn't even go out to him. I think that's also part of the humbling. You know, when you when you go to something, you think you go to visit someone and they send someone else to meet you. You sort of get that impression that you're probably not as important as you think as you thought you were.

Well, that's kind of what happens with Elisha. He goes expecting, well, surely the servant of God is gonna come out to me to meet me. I'm let Naaman after all. And he doesn't. He just gets instructions.

And it's the same instructions that anyone else would be given in that situation. He has to come to terms with the fact that yes, he may be someone and important in the world that he has been imagining. But when it comes to God and salvation, he is not as important as he thinks he is. And that's the same thing for anyone who's gonna be saved by God. So God's grace is free, but it has to humble us first.

And basically what Naaman has to do is he has to abandon his status and his self importance in order to receive from God what God is promising. Think about it. Naaman was a military man. He would have had his uniform. He would have had his army or his troops behind him.

And in order to get into the waters, the murky waters of the River Jordan, which by the way is where everyone wash their pots their themselves. It's disgusting. Right? And he's saying I could go bathe in the crystal waters of the the exclusive waters of my back home. I could have had the lovely seaside resort.

And and and now he's here and in order to get into the water, he has to take off his uniform. And he has to leave it on the shore. So he has to take off everything that shows that he's relying on for his own self importance and saying, this is this is who I thought I was and before God this is who I am. And he would can we have the photo? He would have had to walk into the water in his under clothes.

Before his men humiliated, embarrassed. They would have been like, Naaman, what are you doing? You're such a you have you lost your mind? You're such an such a great bloke. You've done all these great things.

Why would you act like this is out of your mind? But Naaman's response to that point would be, the humiliation that I'm gonna feel here is nothing compared to what it would be to stand before the almighty God on the day of judgment. This is small. This is God humbling me so that he will exalt me so that he will lift me up so that I can know him. So God's grace is free but it has to humble us And it has to do that for everyone.

Whoever we are. Secondly, God's grace transforms inside and out. We we have focused, aren't we, on the leprosy and you'll be pleased to hear the leprosy is gone. And when Naaman emerges from his dip or seven dips, his flesh was like that clean like that of a young boy. Actually, it's a young child like the girl that we meet in the first verse.

But more has changed for Naaman than just his skin, isn't it? What has changed for Naaman? He says, if you look down with me, Verse 15, is it? Yeah. Verse 15, bottom of the page.

Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. Whatever he believed about God and gods that you could go to the God of that land and get him to do something for you and go to the God of that land. He now is completely changed. He knows that there is one God in all the world and that he this god, the god of Israel is the true god.

That's what he says. We can see he's changed by what he says. And also, we can see his humility. A minute ago he was cursing Elisha, spitting. This man won't even come out to meet me.

Does he not know who I am? And now what does he call himself? He says your servant. In verse 17, if you will not please let me your servant. That's very different, isn't it?

Everything's changed for him. Something has happened inside of him not just with his skin, inside of him to recognize that he is indebted to God and that he is thankful for what has been done for him. And that God is the one that he would serve. And then thirdly, on this his identity. Has anyone ever done that thing where you're maybe you're on holiday and it's a beautiful beach.

Maybe it's black sands, maybe it's white sands. And you get your little jar out and you scoop up a bit of sand from the no? Some sometimes people do that when they get engaged or married in a certain place and they it's a luxury wedding on the beach and they bring a bit of sand back to remember the place that they they've been to or that they that is special for them. Well, here Naaman asked for a very weird thing. He asked for enough earth for two mules to be able to the two mules would be able to carry.

That's a very weird request. It's his first request. He says, okay, I can't give you gifts, Elisha, but would you please let me do this? Why does he want the earth from Israel? It's because it's his true home now.

His identity has changed completely. He is no longer a Syrian. He is an Israelite. He sees himself as part of the people of God and where their home is his home is. And so he wants, I don't know if two mule loads of earth would be enough to lay under your house even.

But he wants to establish his life where his true spiritual home is. And then finally, I think there's one more. His conscience. His conscience is firing in loads of different ways that it never did before. So whereas before he would have been happy doing all of those things and it wouldn't have bothered him at all.

What's he saying verse 17? He says, verse 18, but may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing. When my master enters the temple Of Rimmon to bow down and he's leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also. When I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, that's in his in his home country. May the lord forgive your servant for this.

So more than just words, anyone can say I I believe this. Right? Anyone can say it. But you see in his actions, his his conscience is is is pricked by things that he never really cared about before. And now he says, I don't want to dishonor my God.

So he's an utterly changed man transformed inside and out. He's a new man. And God has been incredibly gracious to him to show him all of this and patient with him. And what we can see from this if God's grace is free and it humbles and it transforms inside out, there's three things that we need to learn from this passage. The first is, woe to those who obscure God's grace.

We see that. It's a bit like the sting in the tail of the prodigal son story, isn't it? And there's another character in this story. He hasn't really appeared much yet but he appears in verse nineteen and twenty. He's the servant of Elisha and he doesn't get a great role in this story to be honest because he responds to Naaman who is a new creation, a new person brought into the family of god.

He treats him as an enemy. What's he asked for from him? He asked for his stuff. And in those days, what when they had enemies, they would beat the enemies and then they plunder them. They take everything of theirs.

And if you look down with me at verse 26, when Elisha takes takes him up on this and and tells him what he's done wrong. He says, is this the time to take money or to accept clothes or olive groves and vineyards or flocks and herds or male and female slaves? Those are the things that they would have taken as plunder from their enemies. But Naaman is not an enemy anymore. He's changed.

He is now part of the family of God. And for someone to obscure God's grace in such a way to suggest that you need to pay God back is to say that God is not as good as he is. And if we blaspheme God and say he's not as good and kind and gracious as he is, then there is very serious consequences for that. So whether it's false teaching across many churches which would say there's more that you need to do to be saved or once you are saved you need to somehow pay God back. Or whether it's just the way that we treat others who have been brought into the family of God.

Those who are not like us. There's a really serious thing here of woe to those who obscure God's grace. It's a warning. He says, and actually he gets to experience what it's like to be an outsider. So what is the consequence of that?

Verse 27, Naaman's leprosy will cling to you and your descendants forever. Then Gehazi went from the presence and his skin was leprous. It had become as white as snow. So the one who is rich and an outsider at this in this story ends up being like having the skin like the little girl who's a faithful Israelite. But the one who is Israel is an Israelite ends up an outsider because he doesn't understand God's grace.

So it's possible to be around the church to hear the gospel and to yet still be an outsider to the grace that everyone else has received. And secondly, a bit more cheerfully. If you think you're too bad to be saved and we started with this, didn't we? If you think you're too bad to be saved, you're wrong. You're wrong Because God welcomes people like Naaman.

He pursues people like Naaman and people who are actually inactive against God and against his people and doing all these things against him. He pursues them and he wants them to know him. So if that's the case my reading is that he wants you to know him too. Thirdly, as a wonderful example for us as Christians of what it means to live as those who have received grace in this story. And it's that little servant girl, isn't it?

Because what does she what could she have done in her captivity? She could have said, this is this stinks. I've been taken far from my family away from everything that I know. This man has done horrible things to me. She could be feeling harboring those that bitterness and revenge.

But what does she want? She doesn't want more comfort for herself and easier life. She's just a little girl, probably under the age of 10. And yet she understands that God's grace came to her and she wants it for her master. She knows that if God can save her, he can save anyone and he can save her master.

And she does something wonderful. If if you worry about what you're gonna say to your Christian friends, your non Christian friends at work, there's just one thing that she says to to Naaman's wife. She basically says, my God can help you with that. And I think all of us can do that. As Christians I think that's not beyond our capabilities of when we're in our workplaces and our friends having marriage difficulties or relational struggle or feelings of guilt or feelings of regret.

And they sometimes they open up about these things don't they? Not always but sometimes they do. All we need to do as Christians is say, I think my God can help you with that. That's the first thing that triggers the whole rest of the journey, doesn't it? All the way to his repentance and his realizing who God is.

So let me encourage you. You don't need to know how to explain every bit of the gospel to someone. But you can say, I think my God can help you with that. You're going through that difficulty. You're battling, you're struggling.

I can see that. I think my God can help you with that. And she is a wonderful example to us of what it means to live in the world. As Christians we can do one of we will do one of three things. We will either avoid unbelievers, so turn the other way and do our own little thing and live in an isolation from them.

We will either join, either that will join unbelievers in what they're doing and become just like them or we seek to do them good. And that's what she does. She seeks to do her pagan master, the guy who is probably responsible for family members being killed. She seeks to do him good. She wants good for him.

And she wants him to have to be relieved of his suffering but she wants him to know her God. Let's pray. Father God, thank you that your grace is free. You're so gracious to god that you would pursue us when we had no interest in you. Thank you that you can save anyone in the world.

Who calls unto you for mercy. Thank you that you humble and show us that we are not as important as we think we are. That our achievements, our status, what others think of us is not gonna cut it before you. That the salvation that you offer is something that must come from you. And thank you that you have set a way that we can be saved.

And there is only one way. Thank you that you have told us that we can come to the cross and have our sins forgiven because of the death of Christ. And father, would you save us from pride that would stop us from even obeying those simple instructions? We know you have to humble us to prepare us to receive your grace and your mercy towards us. I pray for any in this room who have yet to do that.

We pray that you would help them. Would you humble their hearts? So they would see the good that you are wanting to do in their lives. That this instruction is not evil but it is good. And the humbling is also good if it achieves salvation and knowing you.

And we pray for ourselves as we go out from this place and as we live in the world that you've amongst many people who don't yet know you. You have no knowledge of you. We pray that you would help us to be those who would not stay away, not join in fully, but we would seek to do good to those around us in a way that will get them to ask why we're doing that. And when we have the opportunity, we pray we do them the good of of telling them about Jesus. We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.