The Beauty and the Beast of Serving Pt. 2 | Marcus Mecum | 7 Hills Church

Second Kings chapter four, familiar text, but I'm gonna talk about this text from a different, at least I've never saw it this way. I'll just tell you me. Every now and then you see the same thing, but you see it from a different point of view. Last week, we talked about the beauty and the beast of serving. And we touched on second Corinthians four, where Paul said, we serve others for Jesus' sake. So others benefit, others get the advantage of our serving, but it's not really for their sake. It's for Jesus' sake. And I wanna continue with that thought. And in this scripture that we're gonna look at, if you go through the Bible, there of course are the great heroes of our faith, but there are also pockets of people that ended up almost in an irredeemable failure, is what the Bible points to. Of course, we have those who fail and get back up, but there are those in the scripture that kind of almost go past the point of return. You see it in Judas in the New Testament, you see it with Absalom. And in this story, we're gonna look at a man by the name of Gehazi or Gehazi, Hebrew is Gehazi, but Gehazi is how a lot of us say it. I don't know which one I'm gonna use. It's just whatever comes out, how about that?

But he's kind of, Gehazi would fall into that upper echelon of failures, people that not only failed, but it would lead to their demise, their destruction. And again, in many ways, it was irredeemable the way that their life ended or their failure ended. And I want us to do that. I want us to look at this individual and I want us to, instead of just villainizing him and thinking, oh, he's kind of just this horrible person, I want you to ask yourself the question as we walk through some events in his life. I want you to ask yourself the question, can you kind of understand why he ended up being a sellout at the end? Can you kind of see it? And maybe even more importantly, can you maybe see that Gehazi is in all of us? This thing in us that we start off serving for the right reason, we start off serving God for the right reason, but our motives get messed with. And so let's look at verse eight. "'Now it happened one day that Elisha went to Shunem, where there was a notable woman who persuaded him to eat some food. And every time he passed by, he would turn there to eat. And she says to her husband, "'This is a holy man of God who passes by here all the time. "'Can we just take this small upper room in our house "'and put a bed in there for him,

"'a table, a chair, and a lamp stand?' And so it will be whenever he comes to us, he can turn in here." And so it happened like that in verse 11, and then verse 12, we'll touch on in just a minute. But I want you to notice that it says, "'Let us make a small room for him.'" Everybody say him. Him. So for who though? For who is this room for? Who is all this going to? The Bible says it's set for him or for Elisha. In that room that she made, she put one table, one chair, one lamp, and one bed, and she set it out for him or Elisha. Now Gehazi is in this story. He's mentioned in the next verse. And so you have to put yourself in his shoes for just a minute. Because I'm only imagining that he's wondering, why didn't she think about there's two of us? I mean, I'm here too. Where am I supposed to sit? Where will I eat? Where will I sleep? Where's my lamp? I have needs too. Is there no respect? Am I not worth something in this situation?

And it's not like Gehazi was a novice. He was there when the bears came out and ate the irreverent teenagers. He was there when the valley filled up, the ditches filled up with water that came from seemingly nowhere. He was there when the widows borrowed vessels filled with oil. He'd seen miracles. He was an eyewitness to many miracles. And in all of those. miracles he was a part of, there was beauty. And Gehazi's job was to keep focus that he was a servant for Elisha's sake. Just as we are to keep our focus that we serve others for Jesus' sake. And so as beautiful as it was for those miracles to be a part of what Gehazi participated in, there's the beast of serving. And the beast is Gehazi, you're going to sleep on the floor, you're gonna eat lunch in your lap, you're gonna stumble around in the dark, you don't get a lamp, and you're gonna have to sit in the corner. Because it's not about the servant's comfort, it's all about the master's majesty. And this is the test of serving. It's the comfort test. It's that am I really so obsessed with my own comfort that I'm willing to sell out what God's called me to do

and who God's called me to serve? Right, because in America we're brainwashed with this culture of comfort. That that's all it's about is my comfort. But in serving God there is a time you say I've got to be comfortable being uncomfortable. I've got to be willing to leave the shores of my comfort and go out into the deep waters of discomfort where it's unsettled, it's unpredictable, waves all over the place, but I'm not setting out on my word, I'm setting out on his word and I don't fear anything that's going to happen because I'm just doing and I'm serving in a way that honors what God's asked me to do. In verse 12 it says that Elisha looks at Gehazi and says, hey, I want you to call the Shunammite woman and I want you to say to her you've gone through all this trouble for us. Put yourself in Gehazi's shoes. Elisha's telling him go tell the Shunammite woman, hey, do you have any needs because you've gone all this trouble for us? And if I'm Gehazi I'm saying us? Us? I don't see any us. I mean, do you see any us in this story? I see one lamp, one table, one chair, one bed, I don't see us anywhere in the story. I'm cold in the corner sleeping on the floor every night

and you're hanging out over there in your warm bed. Just put yourself in his shoes. Okay, I guess I'll go ask the lady if she needs anything because she's gone through so much trouble for us. So he asked her if she needs anything and she says, no, I'm good, I'm fine. And Gehazi and Elisha begin a conversation and Elisha wants to know, did you see anything? I know she says she has no needs, but is there anything that you noticed that she needs? And Gehazi's like, well, probably would have been hard for you to notice, you know, sleeping in every morning in that nice comfortable bed, Mr. One lamp, one chair, one table. But yeah, I've noticed there's some needs. I mean, I don't know if you've seen any bicycles in the driveway, have you seen any Barbie dolls laying around, have you seen a playground in the backyard? In other words, she don't have a child. Her husband is old and immediately Elisha gets the bright idea, well, why don't we pray and ask God to give her a miracle child? Gehazi's like, what do you mean great idea? That's what I just told you. She doesn't have a child, that's a need. Yeah, yeah, tell her that this time one year from now, God's going to give her a son. The miracle child comes and Gehazi is in the beauty of serving, he sees the miracle, he played a significant role in the miracle,

but the beast is, he sits in the corner, he eats on the floor and he sleeps on the mat. And he's learning that you have to weigh it out in serving God, there is the beauty. There is the miracles, there are the changed lives, there are the miracles, there are the miracles and there are the wondrous things that God does. There absolutely is, but there's also the beast. The beast of discomfort, the beast of being stretched, the beast of being asked to do things. that creates some discomfort in your life. So they get the miracle child, the miracle child grows. The story is that at one point, he's out in the field with his father, begins to cry out that there's something wrong with his head and he faints, the father carries him to the woman. The woman goes and lays him in the bed of the prophet and he's gone, the child has died. And this mom who's just had this miracle child a few years before immediately knows what she needs to do, she wants to get to Elisha. She saddles up the donkey, she's gone, she's going. And the Bible says Elisha sees her from afar off and he tells Gehazi, I love this, run out to meet her. If I'm at Gehazi, I'm saying, well, she's obviously on her way here, Mr. Prophet. She's obviously coming this way. I'm pretty sure we can just wait a little bit and she'll make her way here. Why all this running?

Why are you asking me to run everywhere? I run here, I run there, I run here, I run there. I'm always running around everywhere. I don't know if you noticed Elisha, but you could use some running. But he says, fine, I'll go, I'll do it. And he runs and he meets her, says, are you okay? Is your husband okay? Is your child okay? And she says it as well, pushes Gehazi to the side and grabs a hold of the feet of Elisha. And this is the beast of serving. Because Gehazi reaches down and it says that he shoves her to the side. He thrusts her to the side. In other words, we have a tendency to get extremely territorial about the things that we believe are important. We get possessive about areas or things or ideas. And I've been in church a long time and I can just tell you there are some people that saw the video from the great rally in Pakistan that we just showed you. And they're like, yeah, we need to do more world missions, more world missions. And there's somebody else that sat there like, why are we doing that? Why are we going to Pakistan? We got stuff to do in our own backyard. And the thing is, is neither of them are wrong.

But a servant has to be cautious to not become overly territorial about the things that they're passionate about, where they're strong, where they have a gift or they have a strength. You have to be careful with that because it's many times the things that you touch day to day or the things that have affected you in your life or somehow God has done something in your heart that makes you be given to that. And so you have to be cautious that you don't forget that the Bible says God places us in the body as it pleases Him. And that He gives all of us various or diverse gifts and some the gift of administration and some the gift of leadership and some the gift of teaching and some the gift of teaching and on and on the gift of all these different gifts. And the whole point is that the hand will have a tendency to say, I don't really like all the attention the feet are getting. And the feet have the tendency to say, I don't really like all the attention the hands getting. And if you're not careful in being part of the body, like Gehazi, you can end up pushing away real needs. You can be insensitive to real needs because that's not what you think that everything should be focused on at that moment

or more should be focused on things at that time. And there's weeks that you'll come and you'll see other ministries and other things that we do. I'm not saying we shouldn't do it all and do more of it. I'm saying, you have to be careful to not be insensitive to some of the needs that are right in front of us right now. What is God wanting us to do right now? Not what we should be doing. Okay, I get it. But what is something that you can be doing right now to directly meet needs or just throwing it to the side? Just, that's not important to me. That don't matter to me. That's not a big deal to me. A lot of people just cut. and run, don't they? And if you cut that hand off the body, the body just grows up, doesn't it? Now it don't have a hand, but it adjusts, and it learns how to function without the hand. But what happens to the hand? Decays, deteriorates, dies. Because again, the beast of serving is you've got to be willing to say, I'm giving my all, I'm gonna keep building the body, and it might be the foot's day today, and it might be the bicep day some other day,

and it might be the eyeball day another day, and I'm gonna be sitting around saying, are they ever gonna get to me? I'm the elbow part of the body. Are they ever gonna get to what matters to me? And you've just gotta simply say, I'm here to serve. What do you want me to do? How can I serve God, His kingdom, His people? And the Bible says that Elisha corrects. Gehazi says, leave her alone. Her soul is vexed. Her soul is in despair. Gehazi, this woman is heartbroken. This woman, they don't have the details at this point, but he can tell she's going through something that's extremely painful. And he says to him, in front of the woman, leave her alone. In other words, he corrects Gehazi publicly, which I don't endorse, but I'm just simply saying it's the beast of serving. That sometimes you kind of find yourself needing a little correction. Maybe even right now. I'm not suggesting that I correct you, and I'm not suggesting that you need to be corrected. I'm saying sometimes God, through His Spirit, does though, huh? Now, some of you, he just kind of whispers in your ear, right, just like whispers in your, hey, sweetie,

you know, maybe, and you listen to that. I don't listen that way. Anybody else, God's gotta just get out His old leather belt and say, come on. Those, I love that old quote, those He loveth, He beateth the hell out of. He disciplines those of us He loves. That's right. And so, Gehazi has to pick himself up, humiliated, hurt, and Elisha says, hey, take my staff, and I want you to run immediately to the boy. I don't want you to get distracted by anything. I don't want you to talk to anybody. Go immediately. Now, Elisha does not specifically say that something great is going to happen, but it is insinuated that something great is going to happen if he runs and takes this staff and lays it on the boy, and so he takes off, does exactly what he's supposed to do. He runs through the front door, runs up into that upper room, takes the staff, and he lays it on the boy. Nothing happens. Well, maybe I missed it. Maybe I need to, you know, maybe turn the staff this way, maybe that way. Nothing happens, and of course, at this point, Elisha comes walking in with the woman, and Elisha hears that nothing happened.

There's Gehazi saying, I did everything you told me to do. I ran. I didn't talk to anybody. I went straight to his room. I took the staff. I laid on it. Nothing. He's not breathing. He's not talking. He can't hear nothing. He's dead, and Elisha goes and lays his hands on the boy's hands, his body on the boy's body, his eyes on the boy's eyes, his mouth on the boy's mouth. The body begins to warm. He gets up, walks around, prays a little bit more, lays back on the boy, does the same thing again. He sneezes seven times and immediately comes back to life. What a miracle. The child has come back to life. How beautiful is this moment? How amazing is this moment, but put yourself in Gehazi's shoes. You didn't say anything about laying on the boy. You didn't say one thing about hands and breathing and eye. You didn't talk to me about none of the sneezes. You said, take the staff, lay it on the boy. I did what you asked me to do, and nothing happened. And this is the beast of serving that not everything you do will work out. the way you expect it.

But the beauty is you are not responsible for the results, you are responsible for your obedience. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. The results are in the hand of the master. Amen. Your obedience is in your hands, my obedience is in my hands, and that's a lot in and of itself. But whether it works or not is in God's hands. Same chapter, verse 38, Elisha comes to Gilgal, there's a famine in the land. He walks into a place where the sons of the prophets are hanging out. This means their parents are kind of important people, I guess, it's like they're a notch above everybody else. They're kind of, you know, like special people, I guess. And so Elisha looks at Gehazi and says, hey, I want you to make the sons of the prophets some soup. Of course you would. Of course, the servant has to make the soup for the sons of the prophets. Of course, the sons of the prophets can't make their own soup, probably unable to make their own soup,

but no problem. He goes out, gathers some stuff, puts the pot on, heats it up, makes the soup. Come on, you worthless sons of the prophets, sit down, throws the soup at them. They start eating the soup and the first thing they do is start doubling over, sick, saying to themselves, there's death in the pot, there's death in the pot, we're gonna die, we're gonna die. Whatever that man did with that food, it's so nasty, we're gonna die. And Gehazi's sitting there looking at Elisha saying, I think I'm gonna, I think I killed them. I think, I don't know what's going on. And Elisha says, just put some flour in it. Some flour? I mean, I just went missing one ingredient? Yeah, just put some flour in it and then tell them to eat. So he put some flour in it, says, come on, get up, eat. They start eating and they're like, my God, Elisha, you're the best cook I've ever met. I never ate any soup this good. That Gehazi, he don't know what he's doing. He almost killed us with that stuff. But man, Elisha, you sure know how to cook. So if we put ourselves, again, this is one of the greatest failures in the Bible, but I want you to see his effort. I want you to see how hard he's trying. I want you to see the struggle.

I want you to see he didn't just show up one day and his heart turned. I want you to see the battle and the struggle, the beauty and the beast of serving because it's there for him and it's there for all of us. You see, Gehazi at this point is saying the staff failed, the soup has failed. I mean, you could have told me about some of the flour. So this is where it's important we have grace for one another. What do I mean by that? It's possible that Elisha should have given some more details and mentored Gehazi a little bit better. It's possible that he just threw him out there and didn't give him what he needed to get the job done right. That's possible. It's also possible that putting some flour in soup was a pretty basic thing. And Elisha didn't know that he needed to go into that detail and he thought at this point in Gehazi's life, he should know how to make sure there's some flour in the soup. But this is the point and it's the point with all of us. Did anybody die? That thing you're so dramatic about, that thing you're so worked up about, that thing, that little, the thing, the imperfection in somebody else, did anybody die? Did God still do a miracle?

Is God still transforming lives? Is God still doing wonderful things? In other words, God does what he does, not because of us, he does it in spite of us. He don't need our perfection. He needs our grace towards one another so we can just back up and say, man, I guess God's gonna do what he's gonna do. I tried to make the soup, but at the end of the day, God is the one that raises people up. God is the one that does the miracles. And I've gotta be okay. Yeah. Next the Syrian general who has leprosy, Naaman, shows up at Elisha's house, knocks on the door, and here he is again Again, what's Elisha do? He says to Gehazi, go answer the door. You can't answer your own door? What is wrong with this guy? Gehazi knows they're not there to see him, but he goes and he answers the door and standing there is this five-star general with his military uniform on, medals, you name it, and there's a small army behind him. And he says, I want to see Elisha. Gehazi shuts the door. Elisha, I don't know what we've done here, but we're in trouble.

There's a five-star general out there. He looks extremely serious. He's got an army around him. And I don't know if I've mentioned this, but it looks like he's got leprosy too. And Elisha says, well, just tell him to go dip in the River Jordan seven times. And Gehazi's like, nah. This is probably like one of those staff situations, right? Where I'm supposed to take, this is like that soup thing. You're leaving something out. I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna say this and he's gonna get mad at me. And then you're gonna come in and fix it or whatever you're gonna do. No, just go tell him. So he goes out there, says, hey, Elisha, he can't make it. He's got some hammock that he's laying in back there, but he just said to tell you to go dip in the River Jordan seven times. And this Syrian general's face gets bright red. He's angry, he's furious. And the Bible says, he tells him, you go tell that Elisha to get out here. I want him to tell me the message himself. And by the way, we rode all the way here from Syria, all across Israel, we rode. And we saw river after river and he names one river, then names another river. And he said, they're crystal clear.

These are clean rivers. You can see they're rushing. They're beautiful rivers. You can see the salmon jumping out of them. You want me to go dip in that filthy, dirty, Jordan River? Like, that's like the Ohio River. That's what he's at being asked to do. He's like, do you not know I got leprosy and I'm gonna get all kinds of other stuff if I go dip in the River Jordan. And he walks away in complete rage. And this little servant girl says to Naaman, hey, if he asked you to do something big, you would have done it. Why not just go do what he's told you to do? So notice this whole thing is riding on the shoulders of servants. No name, servants. He goes down, dips in the River Jordan. And I don't know at what point the leprosy was healed, but when he comes up after that seventh one, it says that his entire body had like baby skin. So God not only took the leprosy away, like God sent a plastic angel to do plastic surgery that gave him a nip and a tuck, like all the wrinkles gone, all the blotches. They didn't, I don't know how God did it, but he did it. His whole body like a baby. His whole body like a baby.

And that's the beauty, because there's Gehazi saying, thank God that worked. I was hoping he wouldn't kill the messenger. I mean, I just brought the message, but it worked. Thank God it worked. And that's the beauty. He's there, again, a significant part of a miracle, but here comes the beast. Naaman comes back, got a chariot full of gold and silver and garments. Goes right past Gehazi and says to Elisha, all this is yours. I'm gonna give all this to you. Imagine, put yourself in his shoes. He never left his hammock. He didn't even answer his own door. He didn't give the message. He didn't put any work in. He didn't put his life at risk. You know what it took for me to go tell an army, a Syrian general that he had to go dip in that dirty river do you know the risk? Do you know the fear that I had to overcome to do that? Do you know all that I've had? And you want to give this to him? He's done nothing. Elisha says, I don't want it. I don't want any of it. Take it. There's Gehazi saying, easy for you.

You got your lamp and you got your bed and you got your chair and you got your room. You've got all that stuff, but here I am, I've served you, I've loved you, I've been a good servant, I've done everything I could possibly do, but yet here I am, and I have nothing for it. And the Bible says that as he sees Naaman going off in the distance, he says to himself, I've gotta get mine. I'm done serving, I've got nothing to show for it, and he goes after Naaman, says, hey, I need some clothes, I need some silver, and he gives it to him. He goes and he throws it in a closet somewhere, comes to Elisha, and Elisha asks Gehazi, where have you been? And Gehazi says to him, I've not done anything, I've not gone anywhere. And he said, did my heart not go with you? I love this part of it, because if you look at Gehazi's life, he's been humiliated, overlooked, he's the invisible man, his soup almost killed the prophets, his staff didn't work, he was rebuked in front of another woman, he don't have a bed to sleep in, he don't own a lamp, don't own a table, doesn't even have a chair to sit in, he's always doing for his master, always serving, always sacrificing, and he thinks to himself, I've gotta go get that reward. At least I gotta come away with something.

I'm not gonna have the bed, I'm not gonna have the, but at least I'll have some, he cracked under the beast of serving, the beast that said you should take more than what you've been given by God. So when Elisha says, where have you been? And he says, I've not been anywhere. Elisha says, did my heart not go with you? Again, this is my favorite part, that every place the servant goes, the master's heart goes. And Elisha said, my heart's gone with, in other words, he's saying, is my heart not enough for you, Gehazi? And for us, what is the master's heart worth? What is the master's heart worth to you? And he says to Gehazi, I get it, I get it. You're done being servant. You want your fields, you want your maid servants, your man servants, I get it. You want to be master, you're done being servant. And Gehazi says, that's not at all it, I just wanted a few outfits. But Paul said, we are servants for Jesus' sake. Where Gehazi missed it in the end is I'm not master, I'm servant. The glory and the majesty goes to the master and no earthly reward can ever compare to making sure I have the master's heart in everything I do. And so, the Bible says that Elisha looks at Gehazi

and says to him, you'll have leprosy from this day forward and not just you, but your children, your children's children, generations yet to be born will be affected by this. You're going to take a portrait in the future and they're all going to look like you. They're all going to have the same leprous condition that you have because leprosy just starts off as a spot, just a spot, before you know it, it eats the whole body. And it's contagious, so then it starts to affect anybody that's close to you. So, he's saying to this man, hey, you have to be careful. This need to serve yourself is a leprous-like condition. So, we serve others for Jesus' sake. Can I get an amen? Amen. But, You're also doing it for your sake. I serve others for Jesus' sake because it's what He's asked me to do, and that's what's best for me, too. Enduring the beast of serving is what's best for me, too. It's what's best for my children, my grandchildren, and those closest to me. So are you tired of serving? Nineteen years we've been doing Heart to City. You tired yet? Tired of giving? Tired of stretching yourself? Tired of putting yourself out there? Tired of saying, I don't understand how painting this wall makes a difference in anybody's life?

Or as you cry still, can we serve and love and give our best to our community? And we don't need a thank you, and we don't need an accolade, and we don't need a press release. We just want to serve others for Jesus' sake. Can we stand up and pray over Heart to City this week? Lord, we give you this week every project, every person, every organization, every ministry. Lord, thank you that we go forth from this place with the Master's heart. Let us represent your heart, we ask you. And I believe that there are things that we do that are pre-evangelism. There are things that we do to meet needs, to warm hearts, and at some point it opens the door for us to minister in different ways. And Father, I'm praying that that happens this week, that you are going to open doors we could not imagine into meeting needs and healing hurts that right now we can't see. But through every moment and every act of service, every deliberate act of compassion, we're asking that you bless the works of our hands. In Jesus' name.