To the Unnamed Girl

I want to cover something that is a fairly long and in-depth story because this today is the 24th Sunday of Pentecost.

And so the scripture for today comes from 2 Kings chapter 5, and it is the story of Naaman's healing.

2 Kings 5 · chapter mention

So if you have your Bible, you can turn to 2 Kings chapter 5.

2 Kings 5 · chapter mention

We'll start there.

And if you are going to be on your Bible on your phone, you can now go to notes.gatewaypeople.com.

You can follow along there on U version.

You'll see all the scriptures there.

Or also they will be on the screen if you want to just follow along that way.

So we're going to jump right in.

We're going to talk about what happens in the healing of Naaman.

You need to understand that Naaman was a great commander of the army of Aram.

He served for the king of Aram.

He was a great soldier, a great man, but he had leprosy.

This was a form of leprosy, a skin disease that he had.

And so he was a well-respected man.

He was very wealthy, but at the same time, he had this skin disease, which would certainly take away his position, his authority, his power, his wealth, and his notoriety at some point and eventually lead to death.

And so this is what Naaman was dealing with.

And I'm going to start in verse 2.

It says, Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive of 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 is in Samaria, he would cure him of leprosy.

This is all we hear about this young lady.

This is the only line in the story that deals with this young lady.

She was a slave, she had been captured out of Israel, but she knew the prophet Elisha.

She mentions to her master that if if he could only go there and see Elisha, then he would be healed.

That's all that's said about her.

In fact, even where it says she was a young girl, that some translations translate it as little girl.

If you were to go back and look at the original word, it seems to mean that she was the opposite of respected.

Not little in stature, although I'm sure she was quite young.

Not little in stature, but little in significance.

That's what it says about her.

And so we don't know the name of this girl, but we know she had a profound impact in Naaman's life.

Verse 6, now I'm going to skip down.

It says, The letter that he took to the king of Israel, this would be a letter that uh Naaman requested that the king of Aram send to the king of Israel.

And so Naaman took this letter with him, and this is what the letter said.

With this letter, I am sending my servant Naaman to you, so that you may cure him of 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.

It felt like a trap to him.

It felt like uh something that was uh set for him, a snare.

These two countries had fought with each other greatly in recent years, and so it was a trap.

Why would he send somebody with an incurable disease and tell me to cure him?

He's definitely trying to pick a fight with me.

This is exactly what he said, is exactly what I say when someone asked me to clean the dishes.

Word for word.

Word for word.

I'm gonna read it to you in the context of cleaning the dishes, and you'll see, word for word, this is what I say.

Someone says, Josh, can you do the dishes?

I go, Am I God?

Can I take these dishes from dirty to clean?

Can I bring these dishes back to life?

See, she is trying to pick a fight with me.

That's exact word for word.

That's what I say.

Back to scripture, guys.

We have a lot of scripture to get through.

Naaman took with him, I'm just gonna read, I'm just gonna paraphrase this part for you so you can understand that Naaman had taken with him 10 talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of clothing.

Now, I wanted to be able to tell you what this value might equate to in today's money, but it's really difficult to figure out.

So I found something that maybe helps compare this.

Uh, he brought with him ten talents of silver, and then he also brought six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing.

Obviously, six thousand shekels of gold is worth quite a bit of money.

You got the ten sets of clothing, but he took with him ten talents of silver.

So I looked back, and in 1 Kings, just a few chapters before this, we see that the hill in which all of the capital city of Samaria, where it rested, all the entire capital city of Samaria rested on a hill, and that hill cost two talents of silver to purchase.

So we know that Naaman brought at least five times what it took to buy the entire land where the capital city of Samaria was located.

That's how much money Naaman brought with him.

And so Naaman went with his horses, this is in verse 9, and his chariots, and he stopped at the door of Elisha's house.

Elisha sent a messenger.

He didn't even come out to talk to him, he just 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 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 Abanah and Farpar, the rivers of Damascus, far better than all the waters of Israel?

Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?

And so he turned and went off in a rage.

He says, Listen, the Jordan is so dirty.

Actually, today, today is two years from this day that I was baptized in the Jordan.

And so they told me, like, we're gonna be baptized in the Jordan.

And I was like, Great, I'm so excited.

And we were on a tour bus, we were touring all of Israel, and we went there, and then we pulled up, and I saw the river, and I was like, oh, I don't know.

Not sure I want to do this.

It's brown, it doesn't flow very well, it's just gross, it's very dirty.

And so uh, you know, here you have Naaman comes with with tons of gold and silver and beautiful chariots and horses with an entourage, he travels there, and Elisha sends his servant out to be like, You guys remember when you crossed that river?

You did the disgusting one, you remember that one?

He just wants you to go dip in that river seven times, okay?

And then you'll be good.

That this this would have been so insulting to Naaman.

It would have been so insulting that Elisha couldn't even come out and meet him in person, and instead he sends him to the dirtiest river and he says, I could have gone to any other river.

It's uh frustrating sometimes when uh you have a real problem and someone gives you such a simple answer or doesn't help at all, doesn't even meet you in your time of need.

Um I know this because uh I had an experience like this one time.

I moved into my very first house, and uh, I'm not very handy.

Uh I don't know what to do in the house, and uh it's not my fault though, it's my dad's fault.

Um because he doesn't know anything.

Like I've learned a little bit over time.

He doesn't know anything.

If he thinks, I'm gonna say a lot more than I said last night because he was here last night in the service.

So I'm gonna really elaborate on this, but he doesn't know anything.

If he considers doing a housing project, it breaks immediately.

Whatever it is that he's considering working on dies immediately.

That's how bad it is.

So I didn't know these things.

I didn't understand.

I wanted to, I wanted to put in like a little timer switch, you know, where the switch goes, where like the porch light would turn on at night and it would turn off in the morning, and I'd be so proud because my house would be lit up at night.

And so I was trying to change out this switch, and I was having to go to the garage and turn the breaker off, come back in and work on it, and go to the garage and turn it back on and see if it worked, and then go back and do it again.

And I kept going back and forth from the garage, I couldn't figure out what was going wrong.

And I was walking into the garage one time to turn the breaker back off, and I saw on the ground the instructions to the device that I had bought, and I was like, well, that would have been a good idea.

And so I picked up the instructions, I went back into the house, thinking that I had turned the breaker off when I had not.

And so when the screwdriver touched the wire that goes to the switch, a bolt of lightning, literally, nearly blinding, left the wire, went into the screwdriver and into my arm and pulsed all through my body.

I flipped the breaker, luckily, or I probably would have died.

That was the day that I learned you can flip the breaker from the inside if you really want to.

It's not a good idea though.

And I it literally, I mean, it was the worst feeling, the electricity like pulsing through my veins.

I did the dumb thing that people do.

I don't know why we do this.

I tried to shake it out of my body, like and it wouldn't go anywhere.

It just kept getting me, you know.

And then I had seen the fire, and I noticed that the wall literally turned black and black.

And so I figured I'm on fire.

And so I fell on the ground and I started rolling around.

It took me literally three to four minutes to regain my composure, and then I remembered my brother's still in the room.

Where is he?

What is he doing for me?

And I looked over, he's sitting on the couch still, watching all of it take place.

And so I stared at him with daggers of death that I was dying, and you're just sitting there, word for word.

This is what he said.

You okay?

Yeah, because I saw fire go into you.

You okay?

Yeah, James, I'm fine.

I'm I'm good.

Sometimes people aren't very helpful when we need them.

To be fair, when we were younger to save my own life, I pushed him into a very angry water moccasin snake one time, and I think he's been holding a grudge about that.

That's a different story.

I'll tell you guys about that next time.

Back to scripture, people.

Verse 13.

Naaman's servants went to him and said, My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, we should be listening to this.

If God had told you to do some great thing, wouldn't you have done it?

But how much more then when he tells you to wash and be cleansed?

And so Naaman went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored, and he became clean like that of a young boy.

Amazing that he was healed.

He has this incredible experience.

He goes back to Elisha, and now he gets to actually meet with Elisha and talk to him face to face.

And he offers him all of the money that he had brought with him.

Elisha turns it down, and so this is what Naaman says in response.

If you will not, in essence, if you will not accept the gift that I've brought, 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.

Let me just grab a little bit of dirt and carry it on the donkeys back with me.

It's funny how Naaman didn't even care for the river that was located in Israel compared to his river, and now he just wants to take back a handful of dirt.

Now he's so willing to just just give me a little bit of dirt so I can take it back and I can remember that I had this experience with God.

Verse 18 says, But may the Lord forgive your servant for this one thing.

When my master enters the temple of Rimen to bow down and he is leaning on my arm, I have to bow there also.

When I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the Lord forgive your servant for this.

And Elisha says, Go in peace.

What this meant is that kings had gotten so lazy that they would just lean up against whoever was next to them, and when it was time to bow, they just move down, and then that person has to bow back up.

And what Naaman is saying is, I love God.

I will not worship any other God, but I'm going to still have to serve the person that I serve and help him bow whenever it becomes time.

And then after this, there's a character named Gehazi.

I'll read a scripture to you about him in just a moment, but I just want to summarize what happens with Gehazi.

Gehazi decides that Naaman was, or Elisha was wrong not to accept the money from Naaman.

And so Gehazi, in secret, in hiding, goes back, runs after Naaman, receives some of the money, and brings it back.

When he gets back, Elisha knows what he has done and puts leprosy on Gehazi.

And so this is the story.

This is what takes place in the healing of Naaman.

And as I was going through this, I thought, what is the best way to kind of unpack what is happening here?

And I figured the best way would be that I could just go through each individual character.

What did they contribute and what can we learn?

There's so much more that we could do on this.

It could be an entire series.

I just want to hit a few of the highlights in this and talk a little bit about what was going on in these characters.

The first character that I want to cover is Elisha, the prophet.

Any speculation that Elisha stayed in his home and did not go out to meet Naaman because he was afraid of contracting leprosy should be dispensed with immediately.

Because Elisha could have avoided the entire situation.

You see, Naaman went to the king of Israel, and the king of Israel didn't know what to do about it.

It was Elisha who said, Send him my way.

It was Elisha who knew God's call for Naaman.

It was Elisha who knew exactly what was going to happen to Naaman.

So we have to ask ourselves for a moment, why then would he not even come out of his house to meet him?

He was happy to meet with him later when he didn't have leprosy.

Why then did he not come out and meet him?

And the answer is because Naaman came believing that he could buy his healing and his salvation.

And he believed that the way that he came into that place with all of this money and all of these possessions and the beautiful chariot that he had and the entourage that he traveled with, and the importance that he came with a letter decreed from the king.

He thought all of those things, surely those things would work.

He was appealing to the higher powers of the world and not the higher powers of heaven.

He was coming there with all of these things, saying, If my importance matters in this place, then surely I will be healed.

There will be some great ceremony and I will be healed because I am such a great man.

Elisha says, I'm not even going to bother to come and see you the way you see yourself.

God doesn't see you that way, so I'm not going to see you that way today.

Elisha says, Instead, I'll send him to a dirty river, a place where, where, where, think about this.

Whenever he gets there, he will have had to have removed his clothing and remove his chariot, leave behind all the gold, all the wealth, all the riches.

He will have to leave all of those things behind, remove his clothing, reveal the thing that is killing him so that he can be healed.

He can't take that stuff with him.

He's got to leave it behind and he's got to go into that place revealing what it is.

Leprosy was not a good thing back in the day.

It was people were repulsed by leprosy.

It may have been the first time ever that Naaman had taken his clothes off to show the disease that was affecting him, and other people were around.

Naaman had to be himself whenever he encountered God, or it wasn't going to work.

Naaman had to come as himself into the river.

He had to lose all of those things, lose all the things he was dealing with, all the things that he brought with him that he thought would help him.

He had to get rid of all of those things and just have an experience with God.

And so Elisha says, God is going to see you how you really are.

So you better see yourself how you really are before you go into those waters.

Elisha points him to authenticity.

That's what the church has to do today.

If when everyone walks in these doors, we're dressed up, we're looking nice, everything's going well, we tell everyone we're blessed all day, all the time.

If we don't introduce them to authenticity, they can keep using those things to medicate themselves instead of looking for the actual cure.

Our money, our clothing, all of these things can provide temporary relief from what it is that we're dealing with, but only an encounter with God can bring complete healing.

And so Elisha says, remove all of those things.

Then you can go into the river, and then you can experience healing.

You will be who you are, and God will be who he is, and you will see how powerful God is, and you will also see that while others have rejected you, when you present yourself just as you are, God will accept you into the river.

He will accept you for who you are.

There's another curious thing that Elisha did because uh Naaman comes back and he goes, Hey, listen, I'm gonna serve God.

I'm definitely gonna do that.

That sounds real cool to me.

But there's gonna be a time where we're gonna have to bow in the temple of Rimen, and just so you know, I'm gonna still do that.

And whether we think it's right for him to do that or not, doesn't really matter because Elisha does this very strange thing.

He says, Go in peace.

He doesn't tell him anything.

Elisha, where was the new believer's handbook that you gave him?

That's a very important thing.

Tell him the rules, tell him what he's supposed to do and what he's not supposed to do, tell him how he's supposed to live like a believer now, tell him all of these things.

Elisha doesn't do any of that stuff.

Why?

Because he can see that the spirit is already working.

Think about it for a moment.

It isn't Elisha that brings up the fact of whether he's going to bow in other temples or not or bow before other gods.

Elisha doesn't say a word about it.

It's Naaman that brings that to him.

He says, I'm so convicted that God is the real God, and I'm thinking through how I'm gonna go back to my life now and live this out and walk it out.

And I'm definitely only gonna worship God, but there's gonna be some tough situations here, and you can already sense how tough that situation is.

And Elisha says, I can see that the spirit is working in you, and I'm going to allow the spirit to do what he does best.

You're gonna allow the spirit to work in you and through you and to bring conviction.

Naaman is already feeling that conviction.

It isn't conscience.

Conscience is human, conscience is flawed, it's something that you develop over time.

This is the Holy Spirit speaking to him.

This is God working in and through him.

Conscience is for the unbeliever, the Holy Spirit is for the believer.

So we've gotten this pattern wrong.

We think people ought to feel bad, feel sorry, feel conviction for their sin, and then they'll go have an experience with God.

More often than not, in scripture, what you see is that someone has an experience with God, and then the conviction comes.

We are not responsible for bringing conviction on people's lives.

We are responsible for loving them into an experience with God.

That's what we're responsible for.

So Elisha says, Go in peace.

I know now that the Spirit is working in you.

Naaman's plan is still to go try to figure this out and see what he has to do.

And Elisha says, I trust you to do this because the spirit is working through you.

Naaman was sincere.

Even when Gehazi chases after him to catch him, he jumps off of his chariot and says, Is everything okay?

Gehazi says, All is well, all is well.

He's he's very, very concerned about this.

One other question that Naaman may be asking of Elisha is if I go back and I bow before this other god, Remen, whenever I'm helping my king, will I lose my healing?

I think that's part of the reason why Elisha says, go in peace.

It means don't worry anymore.

God saw you.

He looked down on you and he orchestrated all of these events to get you here, to this place, right here, today, so that you could be healed.

Now, go in peace.

You'll still make mistakes.

That's what you ought to be telling the new believer.

You'll still make mistakes, go in peace.

God is guiding you.

Your healing is not in jeopardy.

Your your salvation in this moment is not in jeopardy.

You can tell that you're you're you're you're hearing from the Holy Spirit and that you're watching him, and he is guiding you.

Now, let's talk about the character Gehazi.

Gehazi is the one who was a servant to Elisha.

Now, Elisha used to be a servant to Elijah, and then took his place, succeeded him.

And so Gehazi probably thought that he was going to succeed Elisha.

And he probably began to think that he was a pretty big deal because that's the role that was lined up for him.

And so he probably began to think that maybe sometimes he knew better than Naaman.

He says, Naaman should have received, or Elisha should have received this money.

And so he believes he knows better than Elisha, but he's serving Elisha.

And so he runs after him and he takes this money.

And I want to read to you a scripture that shows what it was that was taking place here.

It's uh verse 19.

It says, 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.

As surely as the Lord lives, I will go take from him.

That's a huge contrast to earlier in the passage, Elisha says it the exact same way.

As surely as the Lord lives, I will not accept one penny from you.

As surely as the Lord lives, I will not accept it.

And then here Gehazi says, I will accept it.

But there's something else important about this scripture.

You see here it says, My master was too easy on Naaman, this Aramean.

Everyone knows by this point where Naaman is from.

In my mind, this is a racial slur.

In my mind, this says, it isn't that Elisha should have accepted from Naaman.

It's Elisha should have accepted from Naaman the Aramean.

We hate them.

They raid our country, they take our women, they take our supplies, they come in here, and we hate who they are, and so he should have taken something back from them.

They should have to pay for what they've done.

That's what Gehazi believes.

Gehazi believes that someone else should have to pay for what they've done.

What he received for free.

This happens to us so many times in the church.

We've been involved in the church for a long time, uh, doing things, serving, being a part of the community.

And so after a little while, though, you you've you've been following the rules and doing these things, and you look around and somebody comes in and you go, Why do they deserve it so freely?

Why they should have to do the same things that I'm doing.

They should have to serve in the same way that I'm doing.

This is this is the hypocrite seeping in.

This is exactly what Gehazi was dealing with.

He wanted someone to pay for what he had received for free.

Gehazi resembles the brother of the prodigal son who says it isn't fair that he just gets to come back in and just be right back in the same place that he was before he left.

He should have to pay all the things that I've paid.

This is the spirit of Gehazi.

If you believe that you did something to earn your salvation, you are going to struggle with these thoughts.

If you believe that you did something to earn your salvation, you're going to struggle with these thoughts.

This is why what Gehazi does puts a stumbling block before Naaman.

What he does here is he says, no, no, no, actually, you should have to give something.

This is going back to the new believer and saying, no, no, no, you got to do it all right.

You got to do the right thing.

You can't go to the new believer and ask them to do those things because it cheapens the grace that they just experienced.

They were given something for free and now you ask them to pay for it.

It cheapens the grace that they just received.

This is the spirit of Gehazi.

You ever seen somebody, you give them some something for free and they sell it on Facebook like two weeks later?

You can call them out.

You can be like, Gehazi, I see what you're doing.

You're a Gehazi.

It just if you want to, it's just a suggestion.

You don't have to do it.

But now let's talk about Naaman.

Naaman was healed.

Naaman had his healing experience.

I almost didn't even want to preach on this because I was so embarrassed lately by uh a fake healing that I experienced.

Um I'll tell you the story, it's fine.

Um I I I was really embarrassed about it for a while, but uh I'm getting over it.

I have had bad vision my whole life, like really terrible.

I've had three surgeries on my eyes, and it's just never really that good.

And so I I've worn glasses for a very long time.

And these glasses were getting bent out of shape a little bit, so I went back to the glasses store and they were gonna adjust them or whatever.

I watched the lady take them back to the room and I saw her working on them.

She was bending them, she heated them up and stuff, and she was bending them.

She brought them back to me.

When I put them back on, everything was blurry.

Everything.

I just watched her do this, and she brings back my glasses, and everything is blurry.

And so I take them off, I look, I'm like, these are definitely my glasses.

Nothing has changed about them.

I put them back on, everything goes blurry.

I take them off and I'm like, I can see, I can see pretty good actually, especially compared to this.

Put them back on, everything's blurry.

So I realize now that I'm in a very awkward situation because I have no idea what's actually happening.

And so I keep going like this, like over and over.

I put them on, it's blurry, and I take them off and I put them back on, and and I can't figure out what's going on.

And I probably look so confused.

And all she did was clean my glasses and bring them back to me.

That's all she did.

And I'm not even speaking, I'm just walking around going like this in the store, like trying to figure out what's going on.

And so I start to say to her, like, I'm like starting to feel like maybe I just got healed.

Like everything looks way better without my glasses than with my glasses.

I think that might be what happened.

And so I'm I'm like trying not to make a scene in this public place, there's people around, but I'm really starting to feel very emotional, like in a very raw way.

Like, what?

How did this just happen to me?

What?

And as in the moment that I'm saying, like, I think I just got healed, I'm like halfway out saying healed, she goes, Oh, you know what?

You know what I think just happened?

And I go, what?

And she goes, I put this lens on that side and that lens on that side.

That's why you can't see.

That's why I can't see.

Cool.

That's what I thought happened.

And I was trying to say that to you.

I didn't want you to feel bad that you did something stupid, so I just made an idiot of myself so that you would feel better.

I definitely didn't think I got healed if that's what you were about to say.

I just thought you should do a better job at your job, that's all.

So the the bitterness is subsiding now, and I can preach on healing more now.

But Naaman, uh, although he was healed, this was a salvation experience.

That's what really took place.

The thing I want to point out about Naaman, though, is that there was really two things that were stopping him from having his encounter with God, that nearly completely stopped him from having his experience with God.

It was his pride and his unmet expectations.

His pride in that God should heal me the way I expect him to heal me because I'm a big deal.

His pride because he came in saying, no, no, no, I'm supposed to be treated a certain way.

I'm owed something, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm presenting myself in this certain way, and and and that's what should that's what should take place here.

Naaman came with all of this extravagance.

He came as an important person, and and so you he came in this way going, here I am, do something special for me.

His pride was blocking him from having an experience with God.

It was his pride that didn't even allow him to stop and inquire whether insult was intended by Elisha or not.

He was just offended and walked away.

If you've been offended by someone lately and you didn't even stop to wonder whether insult was intended or not, it may be your pride that's at work there.

If if maybe maybe you know I've got a need in my life, and at the end of every single service at Gateway, we have the prayer team down here, and you're supposed to come forward and receive prayer.

And maybe you know I've been, I'm I'm the one that's supposed to do that, but it's my pride that's holding me back.

I I wonder what other people might think about me if I do that.

Maybe, maybe it's just that it seems so simple.

It seems so simple.

All you have to do is walk out to the aisle and come forward.

But my problem is so complex.

That's one of the things that Naaman dealt with is how could this simple solution repair something that's so complexly difficult and broken?

Maybe it's your pride that's stopping you from having a real encounter with God.

Maybe it's your unmet expectations.

Maybe you've expected it to happen a certain way.

Maybe you've had certain expectations.

Naaman said that he thought that Elisha was going to wave his hand over it.

That means he came there with an expectation of what was going to happen, and that wasn't met.

Maybe there's something that God is calling you to, but your expectations of what it's supposed to look like are blocking you from receiving what God wants to do in your life.

We have a lot to learn from Naaman.

Naaman's servant said to him, if you had been asked to climb some great mountain to do some great thing, if you've been asked to go do some mighty thing, you would have done it.

Maybe I'm saying to you today, if maybe if we were asked to do some huge thing, if God asked us to do some massive thing, all of us would say, Yeah, I would do that.

I would step out in faith and do it.

But what about the little things that don't seem like they matter very much?

Will we do those things?

We have so much to learn from Naaman.

Now, I would have I wanted to devote the entire message to the person that I think makes the most difference in this story.

And in a way, I have.

I've talked about all the other things that are going on, but I want to end on talking about the unnamed slave girl because without her, none of this would have taken place.

Without her, what she did, none of this would have taken place.

And and there's only one line in scripture.

There's not enough, nearly enough writing about her.

And I didn't know what was going on in my heart as I kept thinking about her.

I had read tons of different um uh commentaries about this healing of Naaman and tried to figure out over and over what it is that's going on, and hardly anyone said anything about the unnamed slave girl.

But in my heart I felt such a conviction that this is really what we are called to do.

And so I started writing, and I didn't know what I was gonna write.

I just wrote this thing out, and it ended up being a letter to the unnamed girl.

And it's not really a letter to her, it's more of a letter for me.

It reminds me of of what I believe about this situation.

But I ended up writing it, and I don't know any other way to communicate communicate it to you than just to read it.

And so this is a letter that I wrote to the unnamed slave girl.

To the unnamed girl.

How did you keep your faith in so much turmoil?

I can't imagine the terror you must have felt when you awoke to the sound of screaming coming from your parents' room.

You froze as you realized someone was in the house and you listened as your mother begged for her life.

As you held your hand over your mouth, trying to be quiet so as not to alert the intruders of your presence.

You feared this would be your last day on earth.

If I could speak to you today, you would recount to us the terror of hearing your parents murdered in the next room and the anguish that you felt in that moment.

You would tell me of how you went numb with shock as you were ripped from your bed and taken to a foreign land to live with and work for the man that had killed your parents.

You wondered for many years what you were worth in this world as you realize your new reality as a spoil of war.

You may have been grateful since you could have been sold into a much certain much worse situation, but is it really better to serve the wife of a commanding officer that sent men into your village to kill your family and friends?

You wondered many times where God was as you suffered these terrible atrocities.

You wondered why he had abandoned you and why he would turn his back on someone that had worshipped him so faithfully for so long.

And why would you, a child of God, be sent to live with the devil?

Some days you watched as your master played with her kids and enjoyed her family, and you wondered where God's justice was that you had served so faithfully, yet everything you wanted in life was ripped from you and given to this evil family so that they could live in decadence while you make their life better every day.

You may have gotten a word from God, or you may have remembered the words of the prophet to bring you out of hatred for your life and your circumstances.

You may have remembered all the times that your parents prayed for their enemies and spoke blessings over Syria.

You may have woken up every day and prayed the Shema just as you had done at home, which reminded you that the greatest commandment was to love God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul.

You may have decided that this commandment was easy at home, but difficult as a slave in a foreign country, and that you had an opportunity in your adversity.

You made a declaration to love.

And while others served begrudgingly, you served faithfully with love in your heart.

You woke up each day and chose to be a light in a dark place.

You changed your perspective on your circumstances and realized that being a light in a bright place is easy, but being a light in a dark place is the real calling to those who love God.

You kept praying to God even if you weren't always sure that He was there to hear your cries.

You decided each day that your circumstances were not going to stop you from loving God and loving people.

It must have been something pretty special to watch.

People must have noticed that you were different from the other slave girls and that you conducted yourself as if you knew something that no one else knew.

You had a joy that seemed to never be impacted by your circumstances.

You probably prayed for people and saw God intervene in their lives, and so people begin to ask you what your secret was.

Even Naaman's wife could see that you were different.

You developed a bond and a trust between each other.

You didn't just do what was asked of you, but you took joy in your work.

You went above and beyond and smiled while doing it.

Who, anyways, would listen to a servant and travel across the country to go seek a cure for something that had never been cured before?

Who would believe you and go into a hostile territory demanding a cure and willing to pay someone who has previously been the subject of war?

This is not to testify of the greatness of Naaman, but it is to testify of the greatness of his servant, the unnamed slave girl.

You must have had a light in you that shines so bright that everyone around you believed this incredible story that you shared of a God who could heal leprosy.

You had a profound impact and influence even as a lowly, unnamed slave.

Part of the reason they listened to you is because you actually cared for your master.

It would have been a trap if it weren't for your genuine concern for your master.

And so you remind me to genuinely care for those that God has called me to reach.

I wish I could tell you what an inspiration you have been to me.

I wish I could tell you that I recall your story sometimes when I get into tough situations.

Your actions remind me that I can make a difference from where I am.

I would tell you about how I've had to serve so many times in difficult places that I didn't like.

I had difficulty with those around me, but I remember that I, like you, may be there for a reason.

That maybe the greatest thing I can do for the kingdom happens in my worst circumstances and not my best ones.

And I would tell you that Christ asked us to take up our cross and follow him.

And then I would thank you for accepting this call hundreds of years before Christ and showing me what it looks like to love without reservation and to change the world from the depths of tragedy.

And so today I commit that I will do the small things right because you taught me that God's greatness always works best through our smallness.

And I learned all of this from you, an unnamed slave girl.

Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me?

As we close this moment out in prayer, I want you to ask the Holy Spirit a question.

I want you to ask, which character am I, God?

We we rotate throughout our Christian lives, in and out of these things.

We have moments of hypocrisy or moments of downtimes.

We have these things happen in our lives.

But God, who do I most resemble right now?

Maybe right now who you most resemble is Naaman.

Maybe you need a miracle in your life.

Maybe you need to remember that when Naaman dipped in the river six times without seeing a single result, all he had to do was one more time.

Maybe you need healing in your life and you need to come forward one more time for prayer.

Maybe you need an encounter with God.

Maybe, maybe you're an unbeliever today.

Maybe you need an experience with God.

Don't let your pride stop you.

Don't let anything stop you from coming forward.

It seems so simple.

There's no way that there could be a cure for something so complex and something so simple.

But just come forward and receive prayer.

Maybe today you're like Gehazi.

Maybe today you need to repent of times that you've judged others or demanded something of them.

Maybe you haven't entrusted someone into the hands of the Holy Spirit.

Maybe today you're that young unnamed slave girl.

You're in a job you don't like, you're in a situation you don't like, you're in a family situation that's difficult.

Maybe today, no matter how insignificant you feel, you need to remember that God wants to do great things through you.

And it's probably not going to be something big that he asks you to do.

What simple thing is he calling you to do today?

And so, Lord, right now I pray that you would draw every single person who needs prayer.

God, don't let anything stop us from receiving the prayer that we need.

And so, Lord, when we pray after this service, God, I pray that everyone who needs prayer would be drawn to the front, Lord, that that God, we know that where two or three are gathered together, you are there in their midst.

And so, God, we we ask you that you would do miracles through the prayer time today.

That you would do mighty and miraculous works.

And Lord, I ask you that you would draw every single person who needs prayer to the front.

I pray all these things in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.