Episode 68 - A Lesson From Naaman

The Old Testament is full of interesting characters and challenging events.  There are many lessons we can learn that apply to our walking with our Master today. 

In this event I want to show a parallel between the Syrian Commander Naaman found in 1 Kings 5 to our relationship with our Lord.

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Transcript

Hello friends, I'm your host Dave Laton and welcome to the podcast, Walking With Our Master, an outreach of the Prattville Church of Christ designed to inform, encourage, and teach as we daily walk with our Master. 

Today I want to talk about a well-known event that happened in the Old Testament.  It is the event of Naaman.  This event is well studied and has several lessons we can apply to our life today as we begin and continue in our walk with our Master.  

Let’s begin by reviewing the event.

We find the event of Naaman in 2 Kings 5.  Naaman is a commander in the powerful army of Syria.  He has rank, wealth, privilege, and friendship with the King.  But we know Naaman has a serious problem.  Verse on ends by simply stating that Naaman suffered from leprosy, a potentially deadly skin disease.

In the time of Naaman, there was no known cure.  Just a point of note, leprosy was a term given to a range of skin diseases.  Apparently, Naaman’s leprosy, although serious, did not necessarily keep him from his role as a commander of the army.  But obviously, there were serious consequences that greatly impacted his quality of life.

Naaman hears from a servant girl about the prophet Elisha in Israel that could heal him.  Eventually Naaman travels to Elisha in hopes of being cured.  As Naaman arrives, Elisha doesn’t come out to greet him. Instead, he sends a messenger out to him to tell Naaman to dip in the river Jordan 7 times and he would be healed.  This greatly angered Naaman.  He threw what we today would call a hissy fit.  He thought Elisha would do some great signs and put on some kind of amazing show.  Perhaps he thought Elisha would chant some special incantations calling out to God to heal him.  After all, Naaman, a great man, surely would deserve special treatment.  Oh, and by the way, he pouted some thinking the rivers back at his home were better than the river Jordan.  Why not bathe in one of those?  So Naaman stormed away, angry, dejected, and still with his leprosy.

It was a good thing for Naaman that a servant did not give up on him.  He humbly points out to Naaman that if Elisha had told him to do some great thing, that he would have.  Why not do the simple thing Elisha said to do?  Although the scripture doesn’t say so, we can almost imagine the servant saying, “What have you got to lose?  Naaman swallows his pride, does what Elisha said, and sure enough, he is healed of his leprosy. 

There is another lesson in this event, but I want to break from the event here and focus on what we’ve looked at so far, Naaman’s rejection of the cure for his disease.

Certainly, there was not magical power in the waters of the Jordan river.  Rather, the power was in doing what God wanted Naaman to do.

Like Naaman, we today suffer from a deadly disease that we cannot cure by ourselves.  In truth, every one of us suffers from this disease at some level.  It’s the disease of sin.  No matter what we try, and oh how we try, we cannot bring about a cure.  

The disease of sin, if left alone, will eventually destroy our life.  In a way, it is a leprosy of the heart.  It eats away on itself, eventually destroying us.  Even now, it impacts our quality of life, just like the physical disease of leprosy.  Thankfully, there is a cure, and there is hope.  We must do what Jesus, our great physician asks of us.  And like Elisha told Naaman, the cure is simple and something each of us can and must do.  If we don’t, then also like Naaman, we turn away with our disease still on us.

What Jesus tells us to do is to become His followers.  We turn to Him and become part of His body.  Great!  That sounds simple enough.  How do we do this?

Some people say it begins by hearing the word of God.  Well, you’re hearing it now so let’s jump past that part.

We begin by recognizing that Jesus is the son of God.  We accept that we need him in our life because we are sinful and there is no way out of our situation except through him.  We acknowledge him as our savior from our sin.  Some refer to this as a confession.  

We also turn to Jesus and away from living for ourselves.  We commit to following His teachings as we move forward into our life.  That is also known as repentance.  We change from something to something.  This is an ongoing element of joining with Jesus.  

We then submit to Jesus through physical baptism.  The baptism we practice being physically and completely submersed in water. (This should remind you of Naaman being cleansed in the Jordon River.)  

This baptism is a symbolic dying and being resurrected.  It is symbolic of the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord.  In this we are now added to the body of Christ, we have been joined to Christ and our sins are forgiven.  We have been healed from the disease of our sin.  We are now a new creation.  This is what is meant by being reborn.

The next part is also important.  It is doing the best we can to live by the teachings of Jesus just as we had acknowledged Him as our savior and committed to His teachings.  This too is ongoing.  And it is perhaps the most difficult element of our salvation.  But God even makes a way back when we stumble.  

 In 1 John 1:5-9.  The Apostle John teaches us an incredible lesson about the love and forgiveness of our Savior.  He states,

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Friends, I praise God continually for the hope and strength we find in this passage.  We all sin, even after we are added to the body of Christ.  Sadly, it is our human nature.  But John reminds us that we are now children of God.  We are in God’s Kingdom, the church.  And if we confess and repent of our sins and seek to do God’s will, then our sins are forgiven.  Sometimes we might not even know we’ve sinned, yet they too are forgiven.  

 John says when we are walking in the light.  That means to live according to Jesus’ teachings.  You see, God does not demand perfection, but he does demand and rewards faithfulness.

John ends this statement by saying God forgives all unrighteousness.  There is nothing God will not forgive us of if we seek to follow our Lord.  We serve and love an incredible Lord and Master.

Well friends, I'm your host Dave Laton.  Thank you for joining me in this podcast.  I hope you will continue to do so. If you wish to share with me something from your walk with our Master or you would like to learn more, please email me at:

walkingwithourmaster@gmail.com.

I invite you to follow our podcast and share it with others as together we walk with our Master.  And until next time, remember, we give all glory to God the Father.