Soak in some rays at the Crossroads Pool Party! Enjoy swimming, volleyball, basketball, lawn games, great food, and new friends. This will take the place of our normal Crossroads gathering on June 27. Your friends are welcome!
Location: Jake & Josh Olson's House
16880 W. Sundown Ct. New Berlin, WI
Contact Info
Phone: 262.271.5762 Email: jakeolson9@earthlink.net
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2 Kings 7
Context: There is a famine in the land
People of Israel are starving to death.
Things have gotten to bad that 1 woman went to the king to complain about another woman.
She pointed, "This woman said to me, 'Give up your son so we may eat him today, and tomorrow we'll eat my son.' 29 So we cooked my son and ate him. The next day I said to her, 'Give up your son so we may eat him,' but she had hidden him."
The king began to lament the terrible condition his people were living in
The famine was so severe, crisis so extreme that people were moving towards cannibalism.
And then, Elisha, the prophet of the Lord, says:
2 Kings 7:1
1 Elisha said, "Hear the word of the LORD. This is what the LORD says: About this time tomorrow, a seah [a] of flour will sell for a shekel [b] and two seahs [c] of barley for a shekel at the gate of Samaria."
Translation: Everything that is priced at Macy’s today, is going to be priced at Wal-Mart tomorrow.
2 The officer on whose arm the king was leaning said to the man of God, "Look, even if the LORD should open the floodgates of the heavens, could this happen?"
"You will see it with your own eyes," answered Elisha, "but you will not eat any of it!"
The Siege Lifted
3 Now there were four men with leprosy [d] at the entrance of the city gate. They said to each other, "Why stay here until we die? 4 If we say, 'We'll go into the city'-the famine is there, and we will die. And if we stay here, we will die. So let's go over to the camp of the Arameans and surrender. If they spare us, we live; if they kill us, then we die."
Don’t you just love their optimism?
This is I connect to this passage
Every option is a bad option, so you might take one of the other bad options
We’re leapers, so we’re not exactly living it up
Outcasts
No defense, community, future
If
At least we’d die quickly, and that would be a better day than what we’ve had
5 At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, not a man was there, 6 for the Lord had caused the Arameans to hear the sound of chariots and horses and a great army, so that they said to one another, "Look, the king of Israel has hired the Hittite and Egyptian kings to attack us!" 7 So they got up and fled in the dusk and abandoned their tents and their horses and donkeys. They left the camp as it was and ran for their lives.
8 The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp and entered one of the tents. They ate and drank, and carried away silver, gold and clothes, and went off and hid them. They returned and entered another tent and took some things from it and hid them also.
9 Then they said to each other, "We're not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let's go at once and report this to the royal palace."
So they go down to this Aramean city and find it totally abandoned. God had sent a rumor of victory. God Sends the sound of chariots and soldiers.
So the arameans ran for their lives:
Proverb
The wicked flee when no one pursues them, but the righteous are as bold as lions.
He put the fear of the possibilities inside of them, and they ran for their lives.
And the leapers go down there,
Can you imagine if you were a leaper, and you never owned anything in your life?
Enter a city and it’s all yours.
Plundering, eating, and eating, taking all they can, stacking stuff, not thinking about anyone but themselves.
But let’s give them a break, probably no one ever thought about them either.
The heroes of the story are the ones you least expect.
10 So they went and called out to the city gatekeepers and told them, "We went into the Aramean camp and not a man was there—not a sound of anyone—only tethered horses and donkeys, and the tents left just as they were." 11 The gatekeepers shouted the news, and it was reported within the palace.
12 The king got up in the night and said to his officers, "I will tell you what the Arameans have done to us. They know we are starving; so they have left the camp to hide in the countryside, thinking, 'They will surely come out, and then we will take them alive and get into the city.' "
The king says ‘this is a trap’
13 One of his officers answered, "Have some men take five of the horses that are left in the city. Their plight will be like that of all the Israelites left here—yes, they will only be like all these Israelites who are doomed. So let us send them to find out what happened."
14 So they selected two chariots with their horses, and the king sent them after the Aramean army. He commanded the drivers, "Go and find out what has happened." 15 They followed them as far as the Jordan, and they found the whole road strewn with the clothing and equipment the Arameans had thrown away in their headlong flight. So the messengers returned and reported to the king. 16 Then the people went out and plundered the camp of the Arameans. So a seah of flour sold for a shekel, and two seahs of barley sold for a shekel, as the LORD had said.
When we hear stories of greatness, stories that inspire us to live lives that are noble,
The protagonist in the story is so inaccessible, we say ‘That’s just not me’
Moses: burning bush and glowed a lot
David: better looking, hands and shoulders taller
Saul: taller than anyone
Esther: the most beautiful:
No wonder they rose up
They were genetically dispososed to greatness!
But the thing I like about this story is that the Heroes are leapers.
The leapers had no visual potential for greatness.
Have you ever feel that way? What happened?
Brothers and sisters, cousins are all a combination of Cindy Crawford and Albert Einstein. Even bad hair looks good.
You wonder why God didn’t give you more?
More resources, intelligence, talents, gifting.
Did you guys ever go through the humiliation of picking teams?
I always hated that process!
I just stood there and waited and waited.
I think that’s the way God does things.
Without God, most of us would remain the last picked.
If people knew about you what you know about you, they wouldn’t pick you as quickly as they pick you.
You can look good on the outside, but know you are a mess on the inside.
God can take leapers and make them heroes
God can take people like you and me
Nothing is more dangerous than a person you underestimate.
And even in your worst moments, God knows that something amazing could happen in you.
Now the environment is important.
These guys were desperate!
It wasn’t that they were courageous.
Sometimes it looks like courage, but it feels like desperation.
Some of the most courageous acts are only because the other options are worse.
How many have come to the point where we realize our need, or desperation.
Maybe you have been observing God from a distance, but the only thing that will
Religion is a crutch for the weak? You gave your life to Jesus because you couldn’t do it on your own.
I didn’t enter into a relationship because I was a better person.
I didn’t do it because I was smarter
I didn’t do it because I was more talented.
I was more desperate than anyone else.
If I stay here, I die. There has to be more to life than this.
If I go back, I’ll die. They’re not even searching for hope. They’re locked in a little bubble of life, afraid to venture outside.
Following God is a courageous decision.
Faith is just a spiritualized word for risk.
You have to step into something you don’t fully know.
Invite a god you’ve never experienced to be your God, and trust him with your life, when maybe nobody in your life has never been trustworthy.
(story: I’m ready to give God a shot.)
God is not a product with a 30 day warranty. He’s not an I Phone.
When there is desperation in your eyes, that’s when serious and wonderful things begin to happen.
We need to continually go back to that place of desperation where we realize how much we need God.
They’re plundering and pillaginging, they’ve eaten lots, they’re stuffed, not thirsty, and have more stuff hidden.
They have an insight: This doesn’t feel right.
Ever done something where you’ve said ‘this doesn’t seem right’
This might be unethical.
Even leapers have a conscience.
If I were a leaper, and I’d been kicked out of my community and nobody cared about me, I’m not sure I’d pause and think about them.
So these guys really rose up.
9 Then they said to each other, "We're not doing right. This is a day of good news and we are keeping it to ourselves. If we wait until daylight, punishment will overtake us. Let's go at once and report this to the royal palace."
They tell the king:
The city is open!
The famine is over!
God has done an incredible miracle!
And the leapers became the instruments of freedom, hope & life.
But they had to have a moment where they said it’s not right to keep it to ourselves.
(story about being compelled to share)
Why do you feel like you have to tell me about Jesus?
My life would be easier if I didn’t feel this moral imperative to talk to people about God.
There’s lots of things I enjoy doing, and sometimes God gets in the way of that.
And you get anxious, you talk to someone about God, and they get mad at you, and then you say “I did that all wrong”
Don’t you feel this overwhelming burden?
And I realize now it’s because I was a leaper. Who was dying.
If I stayed where I was, I’d die.
Then I took a risk in desperation and realized that God actually had life for me.
And I somehow knew that if I were going to plunder and pillage all this good news and not go back and share it with the people who were starving I’d be the worst of all people.
And so I’ve resolved
People on the outside who look disinterested, but on the inside they are desperate. Hoping maybe God might have an interest in me.
Do you remember when you were like that? Perhaps you’re like that tonight.
And the reason these leapers stopped living for themselves,
Too may Christians live just for themselves, and it’s really sad.
we can be consumed with our own spirituality, concerned about our own friendships, relationships, family, our own financial well-being,
If anyone should think more about others more than we think of ourselves, that should be us!
And maybe we need to follow up the narrative of these leapers
And see that all along we’ve been pillaging and plundering, eating all we want and living for ourselves and realize all the while people around us are starving.
Wondering why God doesn’t show up in my life? Doesn’t He care about me?
And when the leapers went back and said: The city is open, if you’ll just go.
And the king was afraid, and initially just sent a few, and then they were followed by the rest of the city, where they plundered and ate.
One of the greatest marks that we’ve met God is an understanding that in a sense we were all leapers, not better, not smarter,
We were more desperate
And we came to an honest place where we said God, I don’t have any other choice. I need you.
And when we experience the joy of that we can no longer live for ourselves.
Because this is good news
And if we try to keep it to ourselves, it’s just wrong. It would be the greatest of all wrongs.
If you experience life, you should try to help others to find that life.
And you don’t need to force it on anyone.
Be an honest, authentic, connected person.
And you’ll find yourself being a guide and a help.
Even leapers can be heroes.
The central part of this story: God has come for us:
God stepped into humanity
The creator into the created.
He who is spirit took on blood and flesh
The one who was perfect stepped into our imperfection
To say I have not come to condemn you but to bring you life.
He allowed himself to be crucified
All of our hatred, bitterness, anger and sinfulness
Could be placed upon him, so he could overcome, and rise from the dead.
Are you in a place of desperation, where God can squeeze the hero out of your soul?
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