Surprise Witness | Trinity Sermons

Today's scripture reading is from 2 Kings 5,

starting at verse 1. Now Naaman was commander

of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great

man in the sight of his master, unhighly regarded

because through him the Lord had given victory

to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had

leprosy. Bands of raiders from Aram had gone

out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel

who served Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress,

If only my master would see the prophet who is

in Samaria, he would cure him of his leprosy.

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. So he went

down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times.

as the man of God has 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. Go in peace, Elijah

says. And 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 Armenian, by not accepting from 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 toward 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 had just come to

me from the hill country of Ephraim. 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 the bags with

two sets of clothing. He gave them to two of

his servants, and they carried them ahead of

Jehazi. When Jehazi 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, Jehazi?

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 accept

clothes or olive groves and vineyards, or flocks

and herds, or male and female slaves, Naaman's

leprosy will clung to you and to your descendants

forever. Then Jehazi went to Elisha's presence,

and his skin was leprous. It had become white

as snow. The word of the Lord. Well, in a courtroom,

sometimes when you think everything has been

said and all the witnesses have spoken and we're

just about done here, all of a sudden something

quite unexpected can happen. One of the lawyers

can get up and call. A surprise witness. Now

a surprise witness is this unexpected person

who's going to show up and bring some brand new

testimony. And so the courtroom usually goes

into a bit of a furor when the surprise witness

is getting called. And then the doors of the

courtroom open and everybody turns in their seats.

You've seen the TV shows. Everyone turns in their

seats to see who this surprise witness is. And

there's usually gasps as they walk down the aisle.

And then the judge has to kind of bang. his gavel

to kind of bring the courtroom back into order

back into order and then and then when they finally

have calmed down the judge will swear this witness

in this witness will then go take the stand and

now they get a chance to say what they're going

to say and often actually what a surprise witness

brings to the case is enough to change everything

and to force the jury to rethink everything Today,

we're bringing to a close this little teeny tiny

teaching series that we've been doing here in

February called Filed Away, The Case of Naaman.

And we've been looking at this little story that's

buried deep in your Bibles, in the Old Testament,

in the book of 2 Kings, that talks about the

story of Naaman. And it's a short story. You

might even miss it. And you might think, actually,

that by now, surely, we've heard all that needs

to be heard. There can't be much more. here,

but actually no, no, not all the witnesses have

spoken. There's actually somebody else that we

need to hear from today. There's actually a surprise

witness in the case of Naaman. Ooh, who is it?

Well, let's think it through. Surely it's not

Naaman. Right? Because we've actually heard a

lot from Naaman already. Naaman was, of course,

that man who had everything until he realized

that without God, he had nothing. He had money.

He had connections. He had power. But he had

leprosy. And there was nothing that he could

do. And there was nothing that anybody else could

do to save him or heal him until, that is, he

encountered the grace of God. When he encountered

the grace of God, not only was he healed of his

leprosy as he came up out of the waters of the

Jordan River, but he found a brand new faith.

And so that's why Naaman declared, now I know

there is no God in all the world except in Israel.

That is a wonderful piece of testimony. That

is great testimony. But actually, we've heard

this testimony before. We've heard it for the

last two weeks. So no, Naaman is not our surprise

witness today. Well, then you might say, maybe

it's Elisha. Elisha was the prophet of God who

refused great wealth so that God's grace could

remain a gift. You see, Naaman came to Elisha

for help and Elisha told him where to go and

how to dip himself in the Jordan River. And then

after he was healed, he came back to Elisha and

he wanted to pay Elisha for this wonderful miracle.

But Elisha said, I will not accept anything.

In fact, he says, is now the time for me to accept

money? I think there probably is a time for someone

like Elisha to accept money, but he knew this

was not the time because he knew to take money

from Naaman would be to take credit from God.

And it was so important for Elisha to make sure

that Naaman understood what God's grace was all

about and that it was purely a gift and it could

not be bought and it could not be earned. That

is a wonderful, wonderful testimony. But we've

heard this story. And so, yes, Elisha is not

our surprise witness today. So then you might

say, well, then it must be Gehazi, right? Gehazi

was this quote -unquote holy man who was so completely

lost, choosing empty religion over the grace.

You know, Gehazi had great exposure to religion.

He was like the sidekick to the greatest prophet

in the land. And yet he could not grasp God's

grace. Instead, all he did was grasp for greed.

And we heard today that at the end of the story,

he goes chasing after Naaman. And he says, oh,

this. My master, Elisha, he let the Syrian off

too easily. I'm going to go get something out

of him. And he made up some lie about people

needing money. And Naaman, of course, gave him

the money and he hid it. But Elisha knew and

God knew about this sin. And so by the end of

the story, Gehazi now is the one with leprosy.

It's a sad story. It's tragic testimony. But

Gehazi, is not our surprise witness. Well, if

it's not Naaman, if it's not Elisha, if it's

not Gehazi, then who is it? Who is this person

that is coming to us today to bring us a brand

new tidbit of information that is going to change

absolutely everything? Well, the courtroom doors

swing open, everyone turns around, and what do

they see? Who do they see walking into the courtroom?

None other than a little girl. A little girl

who most people probably in that courtroom don't

even see at first. But she is the surprise witness.

She's the slave girl. She's the person upon whom

this whole case depends. Because this is the

little girl who lost everything. And chose to

forgive. And transformed her suffering into healing.

and hope. And you're probably like, little girl?

I don't even remember there being a little girl

in the story. Rob, what are you talking about?

Well, at the very beginning, right after we find

out that Naaman has leprosy, the author tells

us, now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out

and taken captive a young girl from Israel. And

she served Naaman's wife. And she said to her

mistress, if only my master would see the prophet

who's in Samaria. he would cure him of his leprosy.

And that's it, two verses. And yet without her,

there would be no healing for Naaman. There would

be no new faith for Naaman. Without her, Naaman

would just have slowly deteriorated from leprosy

until he finally died. So let's learn why this

whole case depends on this overlooked. surprise

witness. I've given you some notes. I encourage

you to follow along as we go through this surprise

witness. Well, let's get started with the hidden

trauma behind the testimony. Because before this

little girl was a witness, she was a victim,

actually. And before we talk about her courage,

we have to talk about her trauma. Her life was

not a Hallmark movie. She had experienced horrible,

horrible evil and violence in her life. She had

seen her own family torn apart. She had seen

her home burned to the ground. And she herself

had been dragged away, kicking and screaming.

Let me just slow down and unpack what this sentence

means that we just read. First of all, bands

of raiders. What is that all about? Well, yeah,

Israel and Aram were in the midst of a war at

this time. And there were always these incursions,

these border clashes that were happening as soldiers

would swoop in past the borders and exact all

sorts of horrible damage and violence before

they swooped right out again. And if you lived

on the border, it was a very, very dangerous

place. to live. This little girl lived on the

border. It was brutal. She was taken captive,

we are told. Now that is very sanitized language.

What that means is that she was separated from

her family and she was dragged away. You know,

children were often the ones who were taken away

because they could still be assimilated, right?

And they would make good slaves, children. And

her village probably burned to the ground. Her

family, probably all killed or scattered, for

sure. She would likely never see any of them

again. She's a young girl. The Hebrew here tells

us she's pre -adolescent. Think of someone who's

10, 11, or 12 watching their front door be smashed

in by soldiers. She's from Israel. That just

reminds us that her exile from her homeland wasn't

just geographical, it was also spiritual. This

was the promised land. This is where she worshiped

the God of Israel. Now she was gone from there.

And then finally, again, Some very polite language,

but it says she served Naaman's wife. Nah, she

became property. She became property with no

legal rights. And to make it even crueler irony,

she served in the house of the very man who had

caused all her pain. Naaman was no average Joe.

Naaman was a commander of the armies of Syria.

And he was the one who had done all this. It

was at his command that her whole life had been

destroyed. And so, yes, every day she heard his

voice. Every day she walked through the kitchen

and saw him. And she had to serve him. I cannot

imagine how all that would feel. Maybe it felt

like those exiles who were taken from Jerusalem.

This is another story to Babylon. But in Psalm

137, we kind of read how they were feeling. It

begins with this longing for home. Oh, alongside

Babylon's rivers, we sat on the banks and we

cried, remembering the good old days in Zion.

I bet you she felt that way, remembering the

good old days. But did she feel this way too?

The revenge? Oh, reward. For whoever gets back

at you for all you've done to us. Is that how

she felt? Was she full of revenge? Well, as we're

going to see, no. Because what we're going to

learn is that the strongest faith often comes

from the deepest. And trauma like she endured

can either do one of two things. It can harden

your heart with bitterness and revenge, or it

can refine and transform your heart. Now that

may seem like impossible to imagine, but let

me tell you this. I know for a fact that some

of the deepest faith right here at Trinity Streetsville

was forged in the deepest wounds. You never know

the hidden pain. That is sitting beside you in

the pews here on a Sunday morning. Some people

in this room, they have lost loved ones. Some

people have lost marriages. Some people have

lost their livelihood. They've lost their health.

Some people have lost safety. There are people

here at Trinity who, like this girl, have lost

their country. They have lost their homeland.

And yet, they're still here. They're still here.

And so the real question is not, are you going

to go through suffering in your life? Of course

you are. The question is, what is that going

to do to you when it happens, when someone hurts

you? Well, we know that she didn't let revenge

control her because of what she spoke. Now, when

I say spoke, I don't mean she got up and. yelled

something. I don't mean she got up on a stage

with a microphone in her hand and preached a

long sermon. No, she just whispered a few tiny

words. But you know what? God doesn't always

work through the loudest voices. Sometimes he

works through the quiet whispers of a witness.

And here's what she said. She said to her mistress,

if only my master would see the prophet who is

in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy.

This again, this little whisper didn't happen

in a pulpit, didn't happen on a stage, it didn't

happen in a palace. This probably happened in

a kitchen, actually, in one of the most ordinary

places ever. A private conversation between this

little girl and her mistress. But yet, this ordinary

place and this ordinary moment led to extraordinary

consequences. And you know what? She didn't have

to say anything, did she? She could have just

zip, kept her mouth shut and watched with delight

as day after day after day, Naaman deteriorated,

deteriorated. She could have said, good, serves

him right. Let him suffer. But she doesn't do

that. Instead, she whispers these words of hope.

And you might wonder, you know, what could a

little whisper from a slave girl do in such a

world? Well, we know what it did. That whisper,

moved Naaman's mistress to talk to Naaman, which

moved Naaman to go down and talk to his king,

which moved Naaman then to go down and talk to

the king of Israel, which then moved him to go

and talk to Elijah, which then moved him to the

Jordan River, which then moved him toward healing,

which then moved him toward a brand new faith

in the God of Israel. It seemed like all the

geopolitical machinery in the world at that time

moved because of this little girl's whisper.

Heaven itself moved because of this little girl's

whisper. And that is because God works through

overlooked people who speak hope into broken

places. A little bit of faith, a few words can

have massive consequences. It's like that quiet

invitation you give to someone to come to Alpha.

Or that youth leader who keeps showing up week

after week after week. It's that person who prays

faithfully. Without anybody knowing. It's that

apology that someone offered in private. It's

those encouraging words that you say to somebody

after church this morning. Movements do not start

with people like me standing on stage with microphones

in their hand. They start with small conversations.

The world runs on power. But God's kingdom runs

on whispers. But the greatest miracle of this

story. Actually, I don't think that she spoke

up. The greatest miracle is not that Naaman was

healed. The greatest miracle. There was a miracle

before all of those miracles. The real miracle

in this story is that this little girl wanted

Naaman to be healed. I mean, did you hear her

voice earlier on? If only my master would go

and see the prophet. If only. There's compassion

there. Right? There is a longing there. Where

the heck does that come from? And it comes from

this. There was a miracle that happened in that

little slave girl's heart long before a miracle

happened in the river down in Israel. And that

miracle is the miracle of forgiveness. And you

might say, Rob, since when is forgiveness a miracle?

Well, yes. Leprosy falling off someone's body

is pretty astonishing, but I'll tell you, hatred

falling off of someone's heart is nothing less

than a miracle, right? She had every right to

revenge. She had every right to bitterness, every

justification to stay silent and watch him suffer.

And yet by the grace of God, I don't even understand

it. The grace of God, she was able to forgive

Naaman for all that he had done. And so centuries

before Jesus would stand on a mountain and preach

these words, they were being lived out by a little

girl in Syria. Love your enemies and pray for

those who persecute you. I mean, she didn't just

tolerate Naaman secretly wishing he was dead.

She loved him, loved him enough. to want him

healed. That is enemy love. It's like she had

Naaman's life in her hands. If she kept quiet,

Naaman died. If she spoke up, Naaman would live.

Forgiveness is just that. It is the power of

life and death. Bitterness kills people. Mercy

saves people and gives life. My goodness, this

could not have been easy for her at all. Forgiveness

is the hardest thing in the world, but the greatest

miracle is, hands down, the power of forgiveness.

I mean, we tend to think that a miracle has got

to be something that somehow disrupts the natural

forces in the world or disrupts the cycles of

nature or something. But you know what forgiveness

does do? It actually disrupts the cycle of revenge.

It disrupts the forces of retaliation within

us. When someone faces real harm and they forgive,

when someone forgives real evil, that's not normal.

It's actually quite shocking. This story is actually

quite shocking, which means this is supernatural.

God has done something in this little girl's

heart. It is a miracle. And I just wonder about

you. I wonder about me, actually. Would I have

spoken up? If somebody who harmed you was suffering,

would you want them healed? Or would you just

want to see them squirm a little bit? And I know,

of course there are. There are people here today

who are carrying hurts. And you can't even begin

to imagine letting go of that anger. It would

take a miracle, you'd say, for you to forgive

that person. Lewis Smeeds. once said that to

forgive someone is to set a prisoner free and

to realize that that prisoner was you. This little

girl was a prisoner to Naaman. Yes, she was,

but she refused to also be a prisoner to her

resentment. You know, we don't think that this

girl was set free, right? When she forgave, it

didn't free her from Syria. But when she forgave,

it freed her from the bitterness. It freed her

from the anger. She said, I'm not going to be

a prisoner to that as well. And as a result,

she was turned into someone that God could use

in an amazing way. What an amazing witness she

is. Wow. But here's the thing. After giving this

great testimony, something very surprising happens

to our surprise witness. She just disappears.

The real hero of the story is never mentioned

again. She disappears from the pages of history.

You know, actually, if you read Luke's gospel,

Jesus even remembers Naaman, but no one remembers

this little girl. There's no reward for her.

There's no spotlight. We have no record of Naaman

saying thank you to her. There's no, and she

lived happily ever after. No, she just speaks

and then she vanishes. Naaman, of course, gets

the healing. Naaman gets the new faith. Naaman

gets two bags of dirt from Israel to take back

home to his home country. But she gets nothing.

She just fades into the history books. She fades

into the margins. But, you know, that's how it

works. In the kingdom of God, it is often the

hidden heroes who do the work. The kingdom of

God runs on people that no one applauds. Who

was that woman who gave those two coins? I don't

know what her name was. What was the name of

that boy who gave his loaves and fishes so that

all those people could be fed? I don't know.

What was the name of that slave girl, the Israelite

slave girl down in Syria who saved Naaman? I

don't know. No one knows. Well, that's not true.

Actually, God knows. God knows. You know, the

prophet Zechariah once said, do not despise the

day of small things. You know, the world measures

importance by visibility, but God measures importance

just by quiet faithfulness, which means that

you can be central to the purposes of God and

no one knows your name. You never trend on TikTok.

You never get famous. The kingdom of God is not

sustained by celebrities. Instead, the most important

kingdom work often happens in obscurity. The

kingdom is actually built by unseen saints who

no one notices. That volunteer who set up chairs

this morning in there, you know, who did that?

Or the anonymous donation that pays for the program.

The parent who just reads scripture to their

children at bedtime, night after night. The kid's

church volunteer who steps in at the last moment.

You never know these people, right? And you may

never know how your quiet obedience changes someone

else's eternity. Because I mean, without her,

none of this story would ever have happened.

Are you willing to be faithful even if you're...

forgotten? Are you willing to serve even if you

never get the credit? It reminds me of Jesus,

who was the greatest hero of all, of course,

and yet he never got the applause. He never got

the appreciation. And that's where I want to

end today. The last reason why this surprise

witness is so important to us is that she is

a symbol of the Savior. She is not just an example

for us to follow. She, a suffering servant, is

pointing us to the true suffering servant, Jesus

Christ. You know, Isaiah writes this about Jesus.

Surely he took up our pain and bore our sufferings,

and by his wounds we are healed. Just as this

little girl was torn from her home and lived

in a foreign land, Jesus left his heavenly home

and came and lived among us. And just as she

had to live among her enemies, Jesus came into

a world that rejected and hated him. And just

as she bore sufferings that she did not deserve,

Jesus suffered as an innocent man on the cross.

He did nothing to deserve that. But just as her

forgiveness healed and saved Naaman, us all.

The reason that Naaman was healed is because

he had this suffering servant. And the reason

we are healed is that we have a suffering servant,

Jesus Christ. Just like that little girl looked

at Naaman and forgave him and saved him on the

cross, Jesus looked at us and said, Father, forgive

them. They don't know what they're doing. And

in so doing, he healed us and he saved us too.

If you just see the little slave girl, as an

example for you to follow, we're all going to

leave here feeling very, very challenged for

sure. But if you see the slave girl as a symbol

of Jesus, then we're going to leave here with

joy, knowing how much God loves us, just like

that little slave girl loved Naaman. And that

realization might just be the thing that you

need in order to do some forgiving of your own.

So no sooner did our surprise witness appear,

then she's gone, and the case of Naaman is now

closed. But I want to say to you, the Spirit

is still calling witnesses. Witnesses who will

speak words of hope. Witnesses who will serve

without applause. Witnesses who will refuse revenge.

And witnesses who know that before they ever

forgave anyone, they themselves had already been

forgiven by God. a suffering servant who bore

our wounds so that we could be healed. That is

the greatest miracle of all. Thanks be to God.

Amen.