A. We want
to know, when did Gehazi turn into such a greedy
opportunist?
1. When did he become a
liar?
2. Has he always been this
way, or did something happen to him more recently
which brought out the
flaw in his character?
3. Elisha was such a wonderful and kindly man. He
was also one who forced a
change in palace
administrations, before whom kings stood in fear for their
lives.
It is doubtful he would
have kept such a two-faced servant in his house.
a. But people do
change; circumstances make people change.
c. That is what
makes us so fascinating.
4. You may recall the story
in Acts 5, where Ananias with his wife Sapphira,
were
members of the local
church. During the stewardship drive, together they sold
a piece of property and
brought only a part of the proceeds to Peter while at the
same time telling him it was the entire sales price which
they were dedicating to
the Lord. Because they
lied, because they kept part of their tithe, it cost both
Ananias and Sapphira
their lives. They dropped dead on the spot.
4. Greed--avarice--taking
advantage of others...
a. (Isaiah
56.11) “The dogs have a mighty appetite;
they never
have enough.”
b. We are told in 1 Timothy (3:3, 8) that if you
aspire to an office in Christ’s
Church, you
must be
(I)
above reproach,
(ii)
no lover of money,
(iii)
sensible,
(iv)
and hospitable, among other things.
c. Elisha’s
servant failed on each count.
5. His name, GEHAZI, paradoxically, means “valley of
vision” in the Hebrew,
a. and he was
anything but.
B.
From his position as a mere
servant, this man never ceases to view Naaman as
anything more than an outsider, a non-Jew who cannot really
be saved by a God
who loves Jews best,
1. so that Naaman starts out
as a foreign egotist, with bad theology/bad beliefs;
while Gehazi starts from the position of one of the chosen
people with correct theology.
Somewhere in the story, the two men each cross the line
to the other side.
2. At the outset you and I are a bit impatient with
Naaman and sympathetic to
the nameless servant who gets caught in a tense situation at
Elisha’s doorway.
3. Naaman is the one we end
up loving,
a. Naaman is the
one who is amenable,
b. generous ,
just like Elisha, just like our God
4. Gehazi is selfish,
foolish.
5. Both men are DESPERATE:
a. one for
healing,
b. the other for
wealth
6. One is cleansed,
delivered of sin and disease,
a. the other
starts out clean and ends up cursed,
b. as well as a
captive to
sin
7. This is true irony which ought to speak to
every one of us:
a. one outside
of the family of faith gets saved, made whole,
b. while a
member of the community of faith, God’s own chosen, is
damned
for his principles of stewardship.
C.
We see here how one little lie leads to a
bigger lie, then to hopeless deceit.
1. He’s a Biblical
Pinocchio, his nose keeps growing longer!
2. Gehazi, seemingly
innocent enough, believes his master was too easy on
Naaman. The employee
tells himself that he must look after his boss’s best
interests if his
employer will not do it himself.
a. but the lie
is that he is really thinking of his own
best
interests.
2. There are 3 lies in
all, Gehazi even swears an oath by
God’s name,
a. mimicking the
prophet Elisha: “‘As God lives...’”
b. one vow is
that he wants nothing,
(i)
the other vow swears under his breath that he will get
something
c. When he
“takes” the two talents from the Syrian
general,
the Hebrew language is very strong:
(i)
A bribe has been accepted; someone has been bought off!
3. The ancient Greek
philosopher Zeno wrote, “The avaricious man is like
the
sandy ground of the
desert, which sucks in all the rain and dew with
greediness, but yields
no fruitful herbs or plants for the benefit of others.”
a. It reminds me
of the unrelenting summer heat of east Texas and the
Oklahoma
Panhandle that can reduce cows to eating newspaper!
4. In the 35th chapter of
Proverbs (verse 3) we read “be cleansed from profit.”
It is
a prayer we all might
do well to pray every day.
a. (The scene of
those bank presidents testifying before Congress this past
week comes
to mind.)
III. WHAT IS THE MESSAGE HERE? WE KNOW THIS STORY IS
ABOUT GOD’S GENEROSITY.
MORE THAN THAT...
A. It
is a story of stewardship, our mission in God’s greater
world, to all God’s people–
from the diseased, pagan
foreigner to the individual in the highest rank of the civil
service or elected office.
1. Says one
pastor, Mission is not about human activity,
our mission is about
God’s activity in
God’s world.
2. and Elisha is a
missionary, or to be politically correct, a
“mission specialist.”
3. Here is a loving anecdote
which affirms the inclusiveness of God’s love.
a. it is
therefore God who changes hearts,
b. a generous
God who keeps on giving.
4. We have learned in our
study of Ecclesiastes that in order to receive pleasure or
joy in life we must
learn 3 principles of stewardship:
a. One: that
there is pleasure in simple, ordinary things;
b. Two: you and
I must also learn how to receive;
c. Three: the
only thing worth having in the end is God’s love.
B.
Jesus mentions this story in justifying his
own ministry to those beyond the chosen
race of
Jews.
1. Our Lord says there were
many people with leprosy in Elisha’s day, but only one
is saved.
2. In fact Jesus likens his
own ministry to that of the prophet Elisha in Luke 4: