Compassion and Evangelism: 2 Kings 7:3-20

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our show, on our podcast.

On our podcast. All right, So in mail bags, people

will send a question. Yep. And today it's Sarah s Hey, Hi,

Sarah s Hi. Sarah. It says this. She said. Recently,

you guys were asked about a hobby you'd like to try,

but I haven't yet. My question is, what's something you've

tried to do but completely failed at basketball? Really? Yes,

you're not good at basketball.

I think I mentioned this before, But my older brothers, Chucky, Donnie, Tommy,

they were into basketball.

But when we were little, our older.

Brothers, particularly Chucking Donnie, used to beat us up a lot,

and we didn't like them. So there was a space

between Tommy and between Tommy and Jimmy, so Jimmy and Chrissy,

which is us. We rebelled against anything our older brothers did.

So they grew up watching the Cleveland Browns games. Yep,

so we didn't watch the Cleveland Browns games. They liked

Star Trek together. We didn't like Star Trek. Right later on,

I came around on that one. I came around on

the Browns too, But basketball I just avoided. I just

avoided because they loved it, and then we were like, no,

we're not going to play it. I actually played my

first driveway pick up basketball game in my life with friends.

I was eighteen years old. Oh wow, isn't that crazy?

So completely Yeah, didn't didn't touch it.

So basketball is not your thing.

So when I.

Become a youth pastor, I thought, oh no, I need

to learn. So I trained for months. I had a

person show me the ropes, and so I practiced and

practiced and practiced at our health club and went.

Up and down the court, learned how to do a layup, learn.

How to shoot and not very good, but still learned

it until I when I've got to be decent at it,

I decided I hate this game.

I hate it. I was given court side seats for

the Atlanta Hawks.

Wow.

My feet were literally on the court right and.

I was sitting there watching the game, and about midway

through the game, I'm like, I'm ready to go home,

Like that's how much I don't even enjoy watching it.

Wow.

Here's another one. The Detroit Pistons wanted me to become

their chaplain. And so I don't know how this might

have been, like twenty thirteen or fourteen or fifteen, somewhere

around there.

I got a phone call and.

I didn't even like you guys.

Well, they called and said, would you consider being the

chaplain for the Detroit Pistons.

And so I had a choice.

And I actually talked to my son, who with time,

was in high school and said, Dad, you have to

do this.

This is great.

We can get tickets and you know all the players,

and you'd be able to hang out just like Dave

Wilson does with the Lions. And I said, this is

not fair to the Pistons.

Like I literally loathe all basketball.

Why would I why would I try to relate to

people who I don't even like what they do for

a living.

So I said no because of it? Wow, So there,

it is so basketball.

But like, if the Detroit Opera House called and wanted

you to be the chaplain for all their Broadway shows, that'd.

Be very difficult.

It would be difficult, but I would probably not have

the time for that.

First of all, I'd be busy. I'm not sure I

would do that.

So basket ball is your thing? Not your thing? You yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I tried and I completely fell out.

For me, it's the DIY stuff. Okay, I am horrible

at it and it makes me so frustrating because I

loved basketball, love it. I'm terrible at it. I love it,

love basketball, but DIY stuff. In my mind, I look

at a thing and go, that'll be super easy, right,

and the people that I know are really good at it.

I think I should be good at it. Then other

people get this stuff.

You try and tell me he's better than me.

I know, I know. I'm like, come on, man, this

so I think I can do that, and I promise

you now. My kids are like, Dad, put the tools down, right,

It's just I don't know. I wind up making fifteen

trips to home depot. I cut everything too short or

too long. I never get it done. I start it,

I can't finish it. What the concept in my mind

does work out, but I have no fallback plan for

another way. Almost all the time I have to invite

somebody to come and help me. To the point where like,

I'm horrible at painting for crying out loud. If I paint,

we should tear up all the carpet and remove any

cabinets or anything. I can paint like an empty room,

but if there's anything in it, I'm going to ruin

every bit of clothes. I'm gonna walk around paint on

me for a week. It's just and I don't do

it on purpose. It's that way about everything I do.

I ruined tools. I look at this, see that scar? Yeah,

I almost cut my finger off a saw. I was

explaining to my son how not to use a saw

when I cut my finger all the way to the bone.

Wow.

Right, it's just so I want to be a DIY guy.

My wife wants me to be a DIY guy, and

I'm just not.

Wow.

Yeah, I didn't grow up being a DIY person. My

dad was not that way. But somewhere along the way

I started to explore as a homeowner and just started

diving into it.

And I think I would classify myself as fairly decent.

I would say I would say eighty five percent of

all the projects around the house I do.

If I was ever like super super rich, yeah, I

would probably have. But single right, I'd probably have to

live in a hotel Jesse, because I just I can't

think somebody's gonna have to bring me stuff and fix stuff.

And j that movie Two Week Notice with Hugh Grant

and Center Bullock where he's a rich guy Wide Enterprises

and he lives on the top of a hotel that

he owns on the suite and he says.

My life is very much like Monopoly.

I don't want to be snooty. I just am completely

inapt when it comes to maintenance. Yeah, that's terairrible. I

want to be that guy. Well, thanks for bringing up misery, Sarah, Yeah,

no kidding, just making us feel less than a.

Recall with your audience. The things you're really the things

you're really bad at.

Right, a loser.

Recall?

No, No, I get it, Sarah, sometimes we talk like

superheroes all the time, and so it's nice to know

that we're not.

Yes, well we don't do we talk like superheroes?

Oh, I would imagine that is. I mean, you can dance.

Stop it, you know the Bible stopt stop it.

Yeah.

First of all, I can't even really sing, and and

I actually cannot dance at all.

That's the other thing I just love. That's the other

thing I can't.

That's it. I like music.

If she wants to know, here's the bonus material for

that one. I can't dance neither. Yeah. Yeah, terrible. Okay,

So speaking of not being able to dance, what levers d.

Because their legs are gonna fall off.

Because they have terrible transits. That may be the worst

transition we've ever done.

Oh no, it's hard to d.

Wow, that's that's by far the worst transition. I think

we may have just peaked.

That's the best one we've ever had.

Oh no. So anyways, if if you're a lepard and

you're listening, we're not making fun. We're not laughing at you.

We're laughing with you.

All right, because I don't think we meant to. But

I think terrible Yeah, okay, okay.

Oh, I can't even see now, my eyes are full

of te Okay. So in Second King's chapter seven, it says,

now there were four men with leprosy sitting at the

end truths of the City Gate.

By the way, this is actually one of my favorite stories.

Absolutely, I love this story.

It's really great.

You gave me an outline one time to preach. Oh

yeah about this, Yes, oh, it's fantastic. Yeah yeah. Since

why should we sit here waiting to die? They asked

each other. We will starve if we stay here, but

with the famine in the city, we'll starve if we

go back there, so we might as well go out

and surrender to the Aramean army. And if they let

us live, so much the better. But if they kill us,

we should have died anyway. So at twilight they set

out for the camp of the Arameans. But when they

came to the edge of the camp, no one was there,

for the Lord had caused the Aramean army to hear

the clatter of speeding chariots and the galloping of horses,

and the sounds of a great army approaching. The King

of Israel has hired the Hittites and the Egyptians to

attack us, they cried to one another. So they panicked

and ran into the night, abandoning their tents, horses, donkeys,

and everything else as they fled for their lives. When

the lepers arrived at the edge of the camp, they

went into one tent after another, eating and drinking wine,

and they carried off so over in gold and clothing

and hit it. Finally, they said to each other, this

is not right. This is a day of good news,

and we aren't sharing it with anyone. If we wait

until morning, some calamity will certainly fall upon us. Come on,

let's go back and tell the people at the palace.

And so they went back to the city and told

the gatekeepers what had happened. We went out to the

air man camp, they said, and no one was there.

The horses and donkeys were tethered, and the tents were

all in order, but there wasn't a single person around.

Then the gatekeeper shouted the news to the people in

the palace. The king got out of bed in the

middle of the night and told his officers, I know

what has happened. The air Mans know we are starving,

so they have left their camp and have hidden in

the fields. They're expecting us to leave the city, and

then they will take us alive and capture the city.

One of his officers replied, we'd better send out scouts

to check this out. Let them take five of the

remaining horses. If something happens to them, it will be

no worse than if they stay here and die with

the rest of us. So two chariots with horses were prepared.

The king sent scouts to see what had happened to

the Aramean army. They went all the way to the

Jordan River, following a trail of clothing and equipment that

the air Maans had thrown away, and their mad rushed

to the escape. The scouts returned to the king about

The scouts returned and told the king about it. Then

the people of Samaria rushed out and plunder the Aramean camp.

So it was true that five courts of choice flower

were sold that day for one piece of silver, and

ten courts of barley grain were sold for one piece

of silver, just as the lord had promised. The king

appointed his officer to control the traffic at the gate,

but he was knocked down and trampled to death as

the people rushed out. So everything happened exactly as the

Man of God had predicted. When the king came to

his house, the man of God had said, to the king,

by this time tomorrow, and the market is the sama

of five courts a choice flower becausts one piece of silver,

and ten courts of barley of grain will cost one

piece of silver. King's officer had replied, that couldn't happen

even if the Lord opened the windows of heaven, And

the Man of God had said, you will see it

happen with your own eyes, but you won't be able

to eat any of it. So it was for the

people trampled into death at the gate. Wow.

Yeah, so you have it there, you go, of all,

how desperate and starving and close to death do you

have to be to trample the king and not even

have any consistent.

This was the king's officer. They got trampled to death.

Oh, the king's officer.

Okay, but still, I mean, you know, my guess is

several months before that they would have feared the king's officer.

Right, and now they're just plowing right over.

Yeah yeah, yeah, and okay, so this is just an

unbelievable way to start a story. It says, four lepers

are sitting outside the entrance to the city gates.

Well, first of all, if you are in a city

or in.

Any community in those days and you had leprosy, you

were exiled from the city, right. And so oftentimes lepers

were outside of the city gates as beggars, right. And

so do you remember in the New Testament when when

the lepers were in the caves and they shadowed out, Oh,

son of David, have mercy on us. And so they

were often that way. They were sort of excommunicated, and

you know, leprosy was contagious.

And so these four lepers are sitting outside.

They were banned by law from being inside or around

people or touching other people.

Yes, and so that's why they're there.

And then and they basically contemplate their options, and they

come up with three really bad options. They said, Hey,

let's go surrender to the what do they call the Armenians, Amians.

Let's go strender to them, because we have three bad options.

Either number one, we just sit here and just die.

Number two, we go into the city and we die.

Or number three, we go to them and we surrender

and we might die, or the only chance is maybe

they'll feed us, maybe they'll maybe they'll take us as prisoners. Right,

so they're considering three really bad options, but the third

option has the only glimmer of hope, and so then

they they then they they're the ones. And I love

this because they discovered this hidden treasure. So can you

even imagine the desperation of like the walls of Samaria

that are shut up? And you know, besieging a city

was a strategy and it's still a strategy today. Strategy today, Right,

you just surround the city and you stop all the

export and all the import of a city so that

they only have finite resources, and then you just wait

it out then, And because you're supposed to wait it out, consequently,

that means that the people besieging have to have supplies

to outweight the people inside the city, right, which means

that they have a ton of supplies. They have basically

brought their whole kingdom around the city just to capture

the city. And so you can't even we can't even

imagine the amount of goods and sheep and horses and

food and money and commerce and clothing and tents, and

I mean.

It would have been incomprehensible for four lepers to show

up and all this stuff there. Yes, so God scares

off all the airmans. Yes, they all take off, they run.

These lepers show up and go where is everybody?

Right? So can you imagine the amount of wealth and

food and everything else? And so uh so there's only

four of them, and uh and so as you can imagine, uh,

you know, they're eating to their hearts content, they're sleeping,

they're enjoying riches and jewels and crowns.

You went into one ten after another, eating and drinking wine.

They carried off silver and gold and clothing.

And yes, yes, and they're they're they're burying it, right,

they're burying it.

Did you ever when you were a little kid, do

you ever have kind of fantasy getting locked in the

mall overnight?

I don't think I've ever thought of that specifically.

I used to think about that, How cool would it

be to get locked in this mall and then just

have free reign of everything in this mall all night long? Yeah? Yeah,

right right, that's kind of the.

Yeah, you know, the End of the World movies are

like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the zombie movies got everything, they're trapped

in them all.

Yeah.

But anyway, Uh, the point, the point is, so, by

the way, that isn't that a typical response. You're using

your imagination. I'm referring to a movie.

Well, I grew up with books and you grew up

with the movies.

That's right, that's right.

So anyway, the point is is that there's this realization,

there's this coming to themselves moment where they say, we're

not doing what is right.

This is not right. We have good news that needs

to be.

Shared, and we're not sharing it.

We're not sharing it because there's literally a whole city

of people who.

Are not us.

There are other people, right, and they're the people that

you know, outcast us from the city. They are the

people that didn't let us in, right, But they are

also the people that they beg from, and I'm sure

that they received things from. So in other words, what

I'm saying is is that they had compassion on people

even though they were excommunity from the city, and they said,

these people deserve to hear this good news. And so

the outline that I wrote for you was about evangelism.

It was about sharing the good news of Christ, because

you know, there are people around the world that don't

know yet the name of Jesus. They don't know that

Jesus died for them on the cross and rose again

from them to pay their sins. There are people around

the world that don't know that God loves them radically,

not because of the hoops they jump through, but in

spite of their sins. And so you know, we, just

like the four Lepers, have this wealth of knowledge. We

have this great information and just this revelation that they have.

They come to themselves and say, we are not doing

what is right. We have this great store of wealth

and life literally life literally right like food, water, it's life.

And so we need to go back to the city and.

We need to share this good news so that they

can enjoy and have the benefits of life.

And that's us.

We have the good news of Christ, right, and so

we need to go back and we need to tell

as many people as we can about this good news

that we have this wealth of life.

You told me a joke about these guys that they

had a band, these lepers, they had a band called Footloose.

Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness, Wow.

I just pulled up the notes from that it is, Oh,

this is this is this is this is part of

the message.

Where did you find this? Yeah, this was years ago.

How did you.

Find I had it in my in my documents. So

the notes that you sent me were Uh, is this

the one that you sent me? Or is this one

I edited? So so you send me Yeah, you send

me things and then I make them better? So where

is that?

That's the pattern?

Yeah, yeah, what is the what is the point of

who were the only people that could share the good news?

Only the ones who had experienced it themselves? And then

our temptation is to bask in the awesome reality of

who God is and forget the people and places you've

left behind. And then so the truth is, with great

great discovery comes great responsibilit Oh, little spider Man, isn't

that amazing?

Yeah?

Why can't we just leave let everyone believe what they

believe and not bother anyone with evangelism? Right, because with

great responsibility or great discovery, comes great responsibility. Yeah, isn't

it great?

That's great?

That's good stuff, buddy.

Yeah, and uh and uh and yeah, that really is

the question, isn't it? The question is you know, people

think that often they think, why do Christians you know,

why don't they just leave everybody alone?

Yeah, like why do they have to invade?

You know? And in history, why do they have to

you know, bother and bring up things? And you know,

just isn't religion a personal thing?

Isn't it?

Isn't it something you should decide for yourself, Like stop

talking about it, stop bothering people, and and uh, but

that's not what the Great Commission tells us because Christianity

is not intuitive, right, Like, you can't just you can

sit under a tree and probably derive that that there

is a god, maybe a creator, uh.

You know, but the only way for you to.

Understand that there is a point in history, that that

there was a man God named Jesus who died for

your sins, rose from the grave and offers that as

a as a way to heaven.

Christianity's grounded in history.

It's an event, and the only way for history to

be shared or to be known is to be shared.

And so and so we are called to share the

good news.

And it's an event. It's a piece of information that happened.

And so that's why God tells us that you know

you have to share this with other people because it's

it's it's.

The way to heaven, it's the way to God, our Father.

And so the reason why we can't just let everybody

believe what they want to believe is because God loves

the world.

Yeah, well, here's what you wrote. You wrote. Do you

remember how it was when out of desperation you came

stumbling in and discovered all the riches of God's grace

freely available to you. Do you remember what it was

like before you met Jesus. You had deep belonging in

your heart. You knew something wasn't right. You pursued great

things and finally achieved them or acquired them, and were

struck that there must be more to life than this.

Maybe on the inside you were content, but on the

outside there was chaos that heightened your spiritual awareness. Or

maybe on the outside your life seemed perfect, but on

the inside you were hungry and thirsty for something that

you couldn't even put your finger on, and it wasn't

going away. You did that unusual thing, You ventured out

into the unknown, your desperation outpaced your pride. You opened

your Bible, or you accepted that invitation to come to

a Christmas or Easter service. You were so desperate. I

don't know if it's going to work, but I just

can't let things go on the way things are. And

then you had that aha moment when you discovered you

needed a savior, and you asked him to forgive your

sins and come into your life as your lord, and

put your faith and trust in him. And suddenly it

became real, and it became alive, and you were surrounded

by the treasures of God's grace and you wanted to

experience them all for yourself. Do you remember that your

friends and family couldn't believe it. New friends, new faces,

and the way you did business was new morality. Slowly,

not immediately, your life began to change. It wasn't just

a religious experience. It was a discovery that changed your life.

So let's repeat the question. Who were the only people

that could share the good news? Only the ones who

had experienced it themselves. That's what you wrote.

Yeah, well, guess what?

That great?

Guess what now that you've read that, I'm recalling in

my mind, I'd like to take credit for that. Yeah,

I think that's an Andy Stanley thought.

Oh, this whole piece here. Yeah, it's fabulous.

Ye, it's fabulous.

It's so good. Yeah, yep. So anyways, in that context, man,

this is what that to me speaks to, Yeah, is well,

one turns out what God says is going to happen

is going to happen. Yeah, And so sure enough, you know,

they did just get overwhelmed with tons of food and

the guy didn't get to eat any of it. That

was part of that because you know why, it is

because he says that couldn't happen even if the Lord

opened the windows of heaven, and guy goes, oh, watch me, right,

So there's that. But I love the fact that these

four lepers who would were total outcasts. Nobody in that

city would show them respect. They had to shout out

that they were a leper if somebody was coming down

the street, and they were required to cross to the

other side of the street to avoid being around respect people.

They were the bottom of the bottom of the bottom

of society, and yet they're gorging themselves and having this massive,

beyond comprehension party and suddenly they go, hey, this isn't right.

We need to go tell everybody else. And so somehow

God gave them compassion when almost nobody would show compassion

to them. Yeah, and they go back in and change

the lives of all these desperate people. And that's our opportunity.

So the phrase that I used in the message is

we are just a bunch of beggars telling other beggars

where to find bread.

That's right.

That's the thing that's right.

And by the way, when you were reading that, maybe

there's a listener out there that relates to that and says, yeah,

that's me.

You know, like that, I feel like something is missing

in your life.

Just know that you know, God's grace and God's salvation

is available to everybody. And that's the wealth and the

treasure of good news. That Jesus Christ came into the

world to die for sinners just like.

You, and and that we can't earn ourselves to Heaven

earn our way, but it.

Simply comes by believing that Jesus loves you and died

and paid for your sins.

Yeah. The Bible says in Romans chapter ten, the believe

that Jesus is who he says, he is right, that

he did what he would said he would do, that

he rose again paid the price for your sin. And

then you're invited me, the Lord, the king of your life.

That's right. And then Romans ten thirteen says everyone who

calls on the name of the Lord will be safe. That's right.

You can do that today where you're at.

That's awesome. All right.

Well, hey, that is our time together and so we

will hopefully see you tomorrow on the Bible.

Guys,