Despising The Small Things

If you would turn to 2 Kings chapter 5, we should say something about despising the small things, which is the same as to say noticing the big things, or noticing those small things and the big things that might be behind them.

What I'll read and ask you to stand for in a moment from 2 Kings 5, verse 1 through 14, is a fairly well-known passage of scripture where Naaman, the Syrian, has leprosy and he has a servant girl, an Israelite servant girl, who was apparently captured during one of the campaigns.

He, Naaman, a great Syrian general who served his king well, probably led. And this young girl, we'll read this in a moment, says to her master, her mistress I should say, that, oh, if only he would go and see the prophet who is in Israel, he'd be cured of his leprosy.

She says so faithfully. And it's a small thing that he is asked to do. And we wish to speak, I'll read this in a moment, we wish to speak about not despising these small things, this great man who was given this small thing to do.

With that short introduction, please stand and I'll read 2 Kings chapter 5, verses 1 through 14. Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria.

He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper. Now the Syrians on one of their trials had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, would that my Lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria.

He would cure him of his leprosy. So Naaman went in and told his Lord, thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel. And the king of Syria said, go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.

So he went, taking with him 10 talents of silver, 6 ,000 shekels of gold, and 10 changes of clothing. And he brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, when this letter reaches you, know that I have sent you Naaman my servant, that you may cure him of his leprosy.

When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, am I God to kill and to make alive that this man sends word to me to cure a man with leprosy? Only consider and see how he was seeking a quarrel with me.

When Elisha, the man of God, heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent to the king saying, why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may know that there is a prophet in Israel.

So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. And Elisha sent a message to him saying, go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored, and you shall be clean.

But Naaman was angry, and he went away saying, behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.

Are not Abana and Parfar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage. But his servants came near and said to him, my father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you.

Will you not do it? Has he actually said to you, wash and be clean? So he went and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan according to the word of the man of God, and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.

God bless the reading and not the proclamation of his word. Please be seated. Now, I hope that a film of 1997 does not date me too much, but Agent K in Men in Black being trained by the more experienced Agent J in Men in Black, he goes off on his first sortie against the bad aliens who came from space and are keeping the treaties.

You remember that?

The bad guy eating up all the people and stuff like that. They're going to go after him. And Agent K opens up the armory, remember. He opens that closet and he's got all the weapons. And he gives Agent J a little Derringer-looking thing, smaller than the cap guns I used to have when I was a kid.

Remember, anybody ever have those cap guns where you pull the hammer back and the caps go forward and you pull it, and I'm dating myself again. Teeny little thing. And he gets for himself this triple, I can't even describe it anymore, this triple-barreled.

Bazooka.

And it's got like hyper-powered lenses and super-photon explosives and just everything. It's, you know, super-powerful-looking weapon. He goes, hey, why don't I get one of those? And he's pointing at it and he goes, be careful with that little thing.

He was despising the little thing. And the message this afternoon to you is about despising the little things. It's to remind us how often it is that God uses the little things to do his great deeds and how rare, if not exclusively not, that it is that he uses the big things.

He uses the little things and it's up to us to not despise the little things that he does. Now notice in the passage I just read, again, well-known to us. We had this great man, this general who had gained all these victories.

Now the Lord gave the victory. Now that's the editorial for us. These were Syrians, they were pagans. They didn't believe in God. They once fought against Israel and they lost when they fought in the valleys.

So it's the God of the valleys, let's go to the mountains. They lost in the mountains. Oh, he's the God of the mountains, let's fight in the rivers. He's the God of the rivers. Oh, let's fight in the seas.

You see, it doesn't say all that, but you get the point. But he was a great general to whom the Lord had given many victories in order to punish his people, Israel, over and again for their sins. But this great general, having won all these battles, all these great victories for his sovereign king, the king of Syria, he has a problem.

It's very clear. We don't have to dig very much to find it. He was a leper. Now what is leprosy? Leprosy, you know, we talk about whether it's the disease that we know of where the skin is rotting or is it just the discoloration of the skin.

There are a lot of technical and medical analyses of what leprosy was then, even in Jesus' day. I want to, just for the sake of simplicity and myself not being anywhere versed in medicine, to just call it leprosy.

And as I understand the scripture, leprosy was something like a living parable of the awfulness, the encroachment, the ugliness, the putridness of sin. Lepers were those who had sinned. You remember when Miriam rebelled against her brother Moses, the one through whom God has spoken so often?

She was struck with leprosy. So this great commander has leprosy. And he is convinced by this little girl, this servant girl, this Israelite captive who's serving his mistress, to go to the prophet who is in Israel.

Why he believes her has always been a mystery to me. Now some years ago, I preached through this whole cycle of Elisha and Elijah before him. And I came to this passage, and even after much study, I could never quite figure out, and I wasn't satisfied with the commentators, why did he listen to her?

This little girl, an Israelite captive, she's a captive because the men of Israel couldn't protect her against becoming a captive. Just one out of all these captives that they took, made into a slave, made into a servant.

He's a great general. She's an Israelite. He's a victorious Syrian. Why did he listen to her? The answer is, I have no idea. But what we do know is this little girl, and I don't know if she was little this way, little this way, little in the sight of her master.

Little because she was an Israelite captive. Little because she was inconsequential as the whole nation of Israel really was to the Syrians when they were victorious over them. A little thing. This girl, for whatever reason, this great man, listened to her and went to the prophet.

I went with a letter of introduction, of course, to the king. Now when I read that letter to you, I didn't do any emphases, but I want to read it to you a little bit, again, with a little bit different emphasis.

I want you to understand the threat that was implied here. When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you Naaman, my servant, that you may, can we say editorially, you better cure him of his leprosy.

So the situation is pretty intense really. That the king of Israel, he tore his clothes not because he's upset that Naaman has leprosy or is going to go see his prophet and steal him away or something like that.

That's not what's upsetting him. What's upsetting him is this king of Syria who just sent his most successful general, his greatest battle winner, to him with this letter saying, I want this man sent back to me clean.

I want him cleansed. And I think implied in the letter is the threat, you better do it. Because if I have to send him back as he is now, then you're going to send him back with his army behind him and I'm not going to be happy with you.

I think that's why the king of Israel was so upset immediately and tore his clothes. Now notice what happens when Naaman is told how to achieve his goal. Now think about it for a moment. Here's a man, here's this great battlefield general.

Now the Lord had given him his victory but he was probably tactically not just competent but probably extremely competent, maybe even a genius on the battlefield. Able to see what's happening, able to make calm decisions, put his troops where he needs to and victory upon victory.

He won sort of like King David in the more glory days, the more Camelot type of days of Israel. This man knew how to get what he wanted. This man knew how to reach out and accomplish his goals. He's told, you need to just see the prophet.

Just do this little thing, go see the prophet. Notice how he comes though. Now notice, as I look at this again, as we recount how he comes to the prophet, how he thinks he needs to come, we need to think of ourselves in terms of the gospel of Lord Jesus Christ.

How do we come to Christ? Are we not like the mistress in the psalm, empty handed, bowing before the mistress with an empty hand, hoping that she would fill it? He comes with 10 talents of silver, 6 ,000 shekels of gold, and 10 changes of clothing.

This is a rich man, a wealthy man, probably a lot of that plunder came from Israel itself. He's a great man and he wants to come and bring part of the transaction to bear upon all this. He wants to be a part of it.

He wants to say, I did something, I'm going to get healed because my king commanded this king to send me someone who's going to heal me of my leprosy. Of course, when my king says, jump, the king of Israel jumps because we are victorious over him, so this is going to get done.

But I need to have a part in it. I can't just go and say to this man, heal me, and have him heal me. Not only do I have to have a part in it, I need to see some great sermon where he's going to wave his hand over him and call upon the God.

He's going to go through some ceremony and all these great things. Now I didn't have time to count up for you in what would be like in today's dollars to have 10 talents of silver and 6 ,000 shekels of gold and 10 changes of clothing, but can we just understand he was rich?

He had probably camels full of this stuff. And this is what he thought he'd bring for his healing. And I think this is a very good picture of us too often when we come to the need for salvation, when the Holy Spirit begins to prick us and show us our need for Christ and show us how, as Jesus said, you can do nothing without me or without me you can do nothing.

Not some things, not big things, not small things, nothing. What do we bring to the transaction? It's often said all we bring to the cross is our sin. We're often told, and there's many out there who believe, that all you have to do is exercise your faith and you'll be saved.

Put your faith in Christ. Take that faith that you have in you, that latent faith, that natural faith. You were born with faith. Just put it on Jesus and you'll be okay. And yet what does the scripture say?

Ephesians chapter 2 says, you who were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, what faith do dead people have? What faith did you have to put into Christ? Where does faith come from?

Ephesians 2, 8, 9, what does it tell us? For by grace you've been saved, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. Not of works, so no one should boast. What work does the apostle Paul exclude?

I'll tell you, putting your faith in him. And that doesn't say that you don't have to have faith. What I'm saying is faith is a gift of God. You don't put your faith in him, you put the faith that God gave you in Christ.

We bring nothing to the table. Here comes Naaman, despising the small things, already not even knowing what the prophet.

Would do.

He didn't even know what Elisha looked like. He knew nothing, but here's what he expected, that 10 talents of silver, 6 ,000 shekels of gold, 10 changes of clothing are really going to impress the prophet, and the ceremony's going to be really cool.

The servants that Naaman brought with him are going to be impressed. They're going to take a bunch of selfies. They're going to want to show off and say, hey, look what we witnessed. He's a great man, and he wants to do great things.

But what does God say? God says through the prophet, here's a small thing, go dip in the water seven times. Now Naaman is in a rage.

He's in a rage.

The Hebrew is very intense here. He's not just angry. He's not just saying, well, that disappoints me. Can't you do something more? I'm a great man. Can't you at least, you know, wave a wand over me once or twice?

What do you mean, go dip?

He despised the small things. But finally his servants say, you, a great man, now I'm reading into this a bit. Give me a little leeway here. You're a great man. You've done great things. The prophet asked you to just go into the water.

He commanded you to go into the water. Now if he told you to do some great deed, you would do it. If he told you, win five more victories and you will have been cured of your leprosy. Go climb this tall mountain on your toes and your fingernails and get up there.

And when you get to the top, you'll be cured of your leprosy. And everybody will know that you climbed to the top or you won the victory and therefore you gained freedom and healing from your leprosy.

But no, that's not what he says. Any more than God says when he says he commands all men everywhere to believe this gospel and to repent and to come to Christ. Acts 17, verses 28 to 30, I'm sort of paraphrasing for you.

What do we bring to the transaction? We bring only our dead spirits. We bring only our helplessness. We bring only ourselves. And if we have faith to put in Christ, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ this day, you didn't put your faith in him, a faith that you were born with.

You put your faith in him, a faith that God gave you when he gave you a heart to believe. When he took out that heart of stone, he gave you that heart of flesh. And what did he do that? To whom did he do that?

Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? You're one of how many? The little things. But that heart from God, the big thing. But despise it if you don't despise the little thing first. Naaman wanted to impress the prophet, and I think really he wanted to impress God.

He said, go in that river. As we are told, go to that cross. Just go dip yourself in that dirty old river. Naaman's rage, he said, aren't the waters in Syria better and clearer? Have you ever seen the Jordan?

It is kind of muddy. I mean, I'm sort of glad I was baptized in a baptistry out in a parking lot because the water had just been put into it.

But there's that river.

Come in, come out, come in seven times and be healed. Brethren, God uses the small things. We must not despise the small things he gives. Zechariah 4 .10 says, for whoever despised the day of small things shall rejoice and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.

The day of small things. What was that in that day, Zerubbabel's day? That smaller temple, that temple that would just be a faint picture of the glorious temple that had been destroyed by the Babylonians some time before, some 70 years before that.

Do we want to despise that temple? God said through the prophet Haggai that that temple, that small thing, that small thing that shouldn't be despised. Because why should it not be despised, that temple?

I know I'm switching around on you a little bit. We're not asking you to look up because you'll be jumping in your Bibles too much. That small temple, God said, the glory of this temple will exceed that of the former.

This small temple that you're building now, the one that's making so many men cry that you couldn't hear who's crying or who's rejoicing once the foundation was laid. This temple's glory will exceed the one that was destroyed, Solomon's temple that was one of the wonders of the world.

Why?

Because it's a small thing and God uses the small things to accomplish his great purposes. Why was that temple able to exceed the glory of Solomon's? It was built by faith. It was built by faith. They had no army.

They had no economy. They had no ruler. They had enemies all around. They had nothing. But this, it says in Nehemiah's book, they prospered through the preaching of Haggai and Zechariah.

They believed.

They believed in the small things and they kept building. Do you know the small things? Have you ever noticed how easy it is to miss? You know, in Matthew 13, in those great parables, Jesus speaks about the kingdom of God.

That kingdom of God, which we by faith, that faith that God gives us, that faith he gives us to repent and believe the gospel. He says, that kingdom to which we've been called, to which we are now citizens, if you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, is like that mustard seed.

Do you remember that parable? It's the smallest of all seeds and yet it grows into a great tree where all the birds go to take their shelter. That's a parable. So, of course, the seed is the gospel sown by the Son of Man and that great tree is the great things that Christ does through that gospel.

But if we despise that seed at the outset, what do we have? We need to be careful that just because something is small, we don't disregard it. James 3 .5, in admonishing us in our ethical response to the gospel and how we should behave with one another and how we should be careful in the way we treat one another, the way we think about one another, the way we speak to one another.

He says, so also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things. God uses the small things to accomplish great purposes. We need to be sure that we don't use our small things to accomplish great purposes in a negative sense, going the wrong direction.

Naaman's told to just do this little thing, but what does he want? He wants the glory to himself. I'm not going to run through a catalog of those communions, those brands, if you will, of Christianity that believe that you're born with faith, that you exercise in order to gain your salvation.

If I could just say, they're wrong, they're wrong. Faith is your gift of God. That small thing that leads to great things, it's like Jesus said, have you seen these.

Works I did?

He says to his disciples, greater things than these you will do. Meaning from the small beginning, God does great things. God uses the small things in that kind of way. Think of the prophet Amos and how many times when he saw judgment coming upon Israel, and he called out and he says, oh Lord, won't you relent?

Oh Israel, he is so small, he will not be able to bear up under this. He's too small, he's too little. And yet God, through the judgment that he brought to Israel, did great things. He brought his people into judgment, he gave that example of what it is when he is at the end of his patience with people.

He says, oh Israel, or oh Lord, he is so small. But brethren, these small things like dipping in the Jordan, these small things are things that we cannot ignore because that's exactly what God uses in order to accomplish his purposes.

This morning, the message at my home church now, which is Grace Baptist Church, I want to give attribution to Pastor Henry, who preached from Mark chapter 14. That's where that woman comes in, we know her to be Mary, the sister of Martha, and comes in where Jesus is sitting at dinner, and do you remember what she does?

She anoints him with oil. She does this one small thing, she has this one small flask of oil, it was very expensive, worth according to Pastor Wiley, and I believe him, about a year's pay. All in one little bottle, she breaks it and pours it on Jesus.

And while he's at Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, he was reclining at a table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of purinard, very costly, and broke the flask and poured it over his head.

There are some who said to themselves, indignantly, why was this ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than 300 denarii, there's your year's worth of wages, and given to the poor.

And they scolded her, but Jesus said, leave her alone. I think it was maybe more firm than that, more like, leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me, for you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them, but you will not always have me.

She has done what she could, she has anointed my body beforehand for burial, and truly I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, this small thing that she has done, this one little alabaster flask of oil that she's poured on my head, this small thing that you are despising, what does he say?

Wherever this gospel is preached, this will be remembered in memory of her. Do not despise the small things, they say big things come in small packages, I would say the blessings of God in the gospel come in small packages.

Small people like you and me, small churches like this, my home church at Grace, and the one I'll be going to in San Antonio, Texas, Lord willing, in just a couple of weeks. Small things, God accomplishing great purposes.

Do we despise the small things? Do you realize what a great thing it is, every Sunday, when a man with feet of clay like myself, like Pastor Owens, like my pastors, Henry and Pastor Michael, men like us, can stand before you and proclaim the gospel.

Is that not a great thing?

Yes.

You should say amen, that is a very great thing. And who's doing the great thing?

God.

Is it me? Yes, I'm speaking the words. Is it Pastor Owens? Yes, he's speaking the words. Who is doing the work through these small things? It's God. And he's always worked through the small things. And those small things that have been despised to the point of being ignored completely, where would we be?

Israel was not chosen, says in Deuteronomy 8, because they're the greatest of nations, they're the smallest, they refuse to number. And by the way, you're the most stubborn. Your foreheads are like flint.

And while I'm giving you the law, you're worshiping that calf. You're the smallest thing there is. And yet because he loved them, he chose them. Because he's true to his word, he drew them out of Egypt.

God's always worked through the small things. Think of the season that recently passed. The Advent season. You have this whole world. You have this messianic fervor in this one small nation out of all the nations in the.

World.

And then you have this one small family. These people are so poor, they couldn't even get a reservation for a place to stay when they went to get counted for the census. This poor family, related to David, yes, both Mary and Joseph related to David.

But who are they?

Nothings. Nobodies. Just a couple of inconsequential people with an inconsequential everyday baby in a manger because there's no place else to get out of the cold. You think of the small things that could be so easily despised and missed.

That treasure in the field that is so valuable. The man went and sold everything he had in order to get the field just to get that one treasure. And what's the treasure? It's that gospel. What are the small things that you've seen the Lord do that you've passed over?

How many opportunities can be missed if we're waiting to do something grand, if we're waiting to put ourselves into it, if we're going to say, I'm going to take part in this? And who then gets the glory?

Me.

The grand moi. What was Naaman's problem? Naaman wanted to be cured. He very much wanted to be cured of his leprosy, it was a dreadful disease, it was despised in his day. But even that could not drive away the human pride of wanting to say, when I'm done with the prophet, not the prophet done with me, when I'm done with the prophet, I get credit.

I get credit. Well, he finally did go and dip. And I would love it if the Spirit would have told this author of 2 Kings, a parenthetical like, and by the way, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, said, your servants are right, get in there.

I would love to know what really finally pushed him into that river. When ultimately, though, it was God's decree, God's sovereignty, it was to God's glory, because the prophet didn't touch him. I don't even think the prophet saw him, remember he sent the servant out?

He said, go dip.

And if you dip seven times in the Jordan, you get clean. And is that enough for him? Well, it went away rejoicing. He went away rejoicing. And the first time I ever read that, I sort of expected him to not do it.

I'm talking almost 40 years ago when I first got saved. Our pride wants to jump in and take a part. Our pride wants to come alongside God and help him. Our pride wants to say, I've got faith, I'm going to exercise it, I'll bring myself to Christ.

Our pride says, I'm going to do great things. But brethren, you're the small thing that God uses to do his will. Does that mean we're inconsequential, that we're meaningless?

Well, no.

Not if you carry the Holy Spirit within you. If you're reading the opening of Job, the way I take that is when the Lord has this debate with Satan about Job, the Lord puts him forth and he says, he's a righteous man, he's blameless.

He follows me no matter what. And God puts him forth as a trophy of his grace, which is whatever one of us little things are. If we have the Holy Spirit within us, if God has blessed you with faith and given you faith to repent and believe this gospel, you are one of those little things not to be despised.

This is how God works, through the little things, through inconsequential people, through one prophet in all Israel, and then does the greatest thing of all things ever done. I would match it up with Genesis 1 any day, where God spoke everything into existence and God spoke, and what's the great thing he did in that little inconsequential land?

From the son of that little inconsequential family, who was born of the Holy Spirit, therefore born impeccable without sin, that Jesus who as a man obeyed God's law, became the perfect sacrifice for our sin, he raised him from the dead.

The greatest act of all, using the little things, narrowing it down to that one man, the God the Son, God who became flesh, who dwelt among us, John 1 14, and God raised him from the dead after he had suffered and atoned for our sins.

How much do you like the great things? How much do we like to get credit to take credit? And yet it's God who's working always through the little things. Naaman was healed, a tax collector was made an apostle, a simple hard-working blue-collar fisherman joined and founded the church and died a Christ-glorifying death.

The little things are what Christ used. Do you remember when Agent K, that was Will Smith, used his little weapon, that dinky little thing that was smaller than a boy's Derringer? Do you remember what happened?

Who remembers?

Just a couple.

Oh, good.

The recoil was so hard it knocked him back, what, 50, 60, 70 yards, something like that. It was the most powerful thing in the whole armory. And that triple-barrel bazooka thing that Agent J took for himself, now his, he couldn't even match up to the little gun that Agent K had despised, Agent J had despised.

Do not despise the day of little things. It's the little things that we need to notice because that's where God works. Elijah heard God not in the great wind that tore the rocks apart, in the still small voice, the little things, the quiet times that we have, those times when we reflect and think of Jesus Christ and Him dying for my sins, the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me, that little thing, no, I'm the little thing, that the God of all the world, the God of the universe, the God who sent His Son, didn't despise and did a great work in, as He did in all of us who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, that great work by His Holy Spirit, giving you that heart, giving you faith to repent.

We're still the little thing, and yet it's through you that Christ is doing this great.

Work.

You're still a little church, and yet it's here, in this place, that Christ is building His church, Christ the risen Lord, Christ seated at the right hand of God, Christ working through this little thing.

We don't despise the little things, we don't despise the small things. We are a small thing, at least in the eyes of the world.

What does it say of our worship?

In Scripture, it says our prayers are brought before the very altar of God. The incense burning before God now in heaven are the prayers of the saints. These small things we do when we gather together and pray as a body, do we despise the little things?

No, because to God they're a blessing. So brethren, when you open up that armory, looking at your weaponry, don't despise that little, little gun like Agent K did, or Agent J, I keep mixing them up now, sorry, Agent J, the rookie, because it's through these things, that one word you speak to a brother or sister, to a mother or father, to a coworker, that gospel seed that you plant, that little teeny mustard seed, don't despise it.

Don't clam up. Don't be afraid to speak it out, because God works through these small things. God throughout Scripture uses those little things to do his greatest works. Little nations, little people, little seeds.

Don't be like Naaman. I don't want to turn this into a moralistic kind of sermon, but coming in with camels full of treasures, and here's what I'm going to add to this gospel. Bring nothing but empty hands and a hopeful heart and a spirit that says, God, the faith that you give can only come from you, and I have nothing to offer you except my sin and the hope that you will grant me the faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

They suffered for my sins, and he was raised for my justification. The day of small things is a glorious day. The day when small churches come together around the gospel are glorious Lord's days, because the great risen Lord Jesus Christ is still working today, is building his church today through the little things, through the small things, through the despised things.

Even us today who are gathered in this place to worship in his name, amen? Amen.

Amen.