Ignoring Precise Advice | 2 Kings 5:1-17

2024 Messages

In this message, Marvin Walker, South Dallas Campus Pastor, talks about ignoring precise advice.

Marvin WalkerAug 4, 2024

In This Series (9)
Christmas Eve 2024 | John 2:1-11
Timothy "TA" AteekDec 24, 2024
How to Live a Fearless Life
Jonathan PokludaOct 13, 2024
Abiding in Jesus, We Are Making Disciples Together
Timothy "TA" AteekAug 11, 2024
Ignoring Precise Advice | 2 Kings 5:1-17
Marvin WalkerAug 4, 2024
When Someone You Love Is Not Okay: A Conversation About Mental Health Part 2
Timothy "TA" AteekMay 12, 2024
When You’re Not Okay: A Conversation About Mental Health Part 1
Timothy "TA" AteekMay 5, 2024
Easter 2024 | John 11:17-44
Timothy "TA" AteekMar 31, 2024
Good Friday 2024
Dave BruskasMar 29, 2024
Vision Sunday 2024
Timothy "TA" AteekJan 7, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • Listening to the right voices helps you make the right choices.
  • Don't let your reputation destroy your deliverance.
  • Before God heals your pain, He wants to heal your pride.

3 things that could cause us to ignore precise advice:

  • Pride
  • Preconceived expectations
  • Preferences

Discussing and Applying the Sermon

  • Do you believe the Lord is in control of your life? What passages of Scripture remind you of His loving and wise control (e.g., Isaiah 46:8-11)?
  • Do people around you move toward you with the truth when you need it? Do you move toward others? By God’s grace, how can you grow in this area?
  • In the difficult circumstances of your life (e.g., relationships, job, finances, health), are you looking for solutions outside the Word of God? How does God’s Word speak to your circumstances in order to help you trust and hope in him (e.g., Psalm 42, Matthew 6:25-34, Romans 8:18-30, Philippians 4:10-13)?
  • In Luke 4, Jesus references the story of Naaman to teach that the gospel is going beyond Israel to the nations. How can we take the good news of Jesus to our neighbors and the nations? Is there someone in your life who needs to hear the gospel?
  • How does knowing that Jesus is the better Elisha who gives a better Word for a better healing—forgiveness of and freedom from our sin—shape how we live in Him by the power of His indwelling Spirit?

Watermark, good morning. My name is Marvin Walker, and I am coming to you from 14 miles south of this location from our Watermark South Dallas Campus. Before I get going, I have some updates for you. I'm going to fire those out, but I first want to acknowledge my bride of 10 years, 2 months, and 18 days today. It has been a blast being married to her, Amber Walker, who's sitting right here. She is the dressing to my salad. Without her life is so dry.

We have children who are 6, 5, and 3. If you do any praying this service, please do it for us, because we feel like we are in the woods at times. It's a blast to be a parent and all that good stuff. This week, our house actually flooded. Yeah. Fighting the good fight, and here we are. Warfare is present, but the Lord is faithful, and he is kind.

I want to thank everybody who's a part of Watermark for your visits to the South Dallas Campus, for your recommendations, your love, your support, your generosity. I am extremely grateful for all the insight and care from our elders and just watching us be a unified church. It is one of our markers here at Watermark, and I have gotten to see that lived out even being in South Dallas.

I want to celebrate just for a moment what the Lord has done at Watermark South Dallas at the old Pearl C. Anderson Middle School. There has been so much. I can think back to June 20, 2021, our first time in that building, when it was just a handful of people who gathered, all the way to just a few months ago where we got to worship with another church body in South Dallas, Mount Carmel. We had been with them one month, and another month they came over and worshiped with us. So, it is a beautiful thing that is happening.

There are also Community Groups that are in full stride, running the race of faith together. We are about to have our fourth annual Fall Fun in the South that is ministering to kids and the community through candy and pumpkins. That's coming October 27. It's a lot of fun. And being able to partner with Watermark Health's mobile clinic, which is on-site every Tuesday and every Wednesday 9:00 to 4:00, alongside Watermark's Community Development Corporation (Watermark CDC).

They have job connection programs going on, hooking people up with jobs and better jobs, as well as financial literacy courses for the church, for the community, and all that good stuff. We're celebrating new members constantly, and we're also partnering heavily with FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) as well as Young Life as we minister to the kids in the community.

Just under 10,000 more square feet are about to be added to our campus. Praise God. That's coming in just a few weeks. I mean, it's a big deal that a 200,000-square-foot building that was renovated… We've been operating out of 24,000 of those 200,000 square feet, and 10,000 more are coming.

We spend some Sundays in five minutes of worship and five minutes in the Word, and we use the rest of the service to be out in the community, knocking at doors, engaging people, sharing the gospel, sharing the love of Christ, getting to know our neighbors, and building trust. It has been a beautiful thing. That's coming back up, actually, on September 1.

Lastly, it's a beautiful thing also to see one of our members who has engaged the Watermark mobile clinic, then jumped into the job connection program, and then said, "You know what? I want to be a member of this church." God has been faithful there.

Those are a lot of high moments that I share with you, a lot of celebratory moments, but when you look at the ministry of Jesus, there are also hard moments. Folks have been mad at times. Folks have left. Building the church… Even when you see it in the book of Acts, it was never easy. There was constant resistance that happened there, but the Lord was faithful, and he remained sovereign. We've been able to see that take place. Five years ago, that building was purchased, and we just turned 3 this summer. Amen.

So, yes, welcome to the month of August, the first Sunday in August. School actually kicks back in in a few days. All of the students just said, "Aw," and all of the adults just said, "Yes! Praise the Lord." I am rejoicing myself, and I'm humbled to be back here this Sunday morning.

You might have heard this story before. It's about a Texas rancher who was in Europe, looking for a fellow rancher he could talk to about his ranch. As he ran into this rancher, the first question he asked this European rancher was, "Hey, tell me how big your ranch is." The European rancher responded and said, "I've got about 100 acres. I'm doing okay." What he didn't know was he fell right into that Texas rancher's trap.

The European rancher responded and said, "How big is your ranch?" The Texas rancher responded back and said, "Well, it goes a little something like this. When the sun comes up, I can hop in my truck, I can drive alongside my property, and by the time the sun goes down, I still have yet to reach the end of my ranch." The European rancher responded and said, "Yeah? I had a truck like that once." I am humbled (and I mean it) to be back here today, unlike the Texas rancher. Let's pray and hop into the Word.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word this morning and the fact that we get to get into it as a body. We pray, Holy Spirit, that you convict, that you correct, and you direct our steps and keep us faithful, Lord. In Jesus' name, amen.

I'm thinking back to a time when I was playing college football. My university was undergoing some new coaching changes, and as a defensive back, I was excited to get news that a coach was coming in who was just exiting the NFL. He was drafted in the second round. A defensive back has the job of not letting a receiver catch the ball. He's supposed to defend passes. Defensive back.

So, as this coach is now coming in, teaching me some new techniques, I had the thought, "I've been playing this game since I was 7 years old. I get this dude is where I'm trying to get to, but let me show him what I'm made of." I said that in my head. Simple summer drill. I lined up against a receiver, got in my stance, took my backpedal, made a move, and this dude just ran right by me.

Though he was later drafted to the Detroit Lions, I realized something was off in this moment. The advice this coach gave me was weird. The advice he gave me didn't make sense. Quite frankly, the truth is I just didn't want to do what he said. What I did in that moment was I ended up ignoring precise advice.

For title's sake, that's where we're going today: Ignoring Precise Advice. We are going to be in 2 Kings, chapter 5. In 2 Kings 5, there's a man very similar to you and me who did some ignoring. This is the post-King David era. Elisha and Elijah are hiding out, and we are about to jump into a story where a Gentile was in need of some great help. So, 2 Kings, chapter 5, starting in verse 1.

"Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper. And the Syrians had gone out on raids, and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel. She waited on Naaman's wife. Then she said to her mistress, 'If only my master were with the prophet who is in Samaria! For he would heal him of his leprosy.'"

Check out what the author did in this situation. We see a great and mighty commander in verse 1, and right behind it, in verse 2, we see a captive young girl with no name. Such a drastic difference between somebody who has all of these titles, and then a no-name slave servant girl who had just been brought back captive. She was maybe a victim of human trafficking, separated from her family, yet we're going to see this girl have some very great significance.

As I talk about all of these words…great, mighty…I have to repeat them, because they're in there for a reason. This girl gave a suggestion to her mistress and said, "If only my master were over here." But this is a servant. Church, the first question as I open this text is…Who is it that you're listening to? Is it only folks who have influence? Do they have to have a certain number of followers? Do they have to make more money than you, and then they'll have your ear, you'll pay attention, you'll listen? Or maybe it's just somebody who has to have that title in front of their name. But lower than me? I might not take that advice.

This girl had exactly what Naaman needed. He just had to be humble enough. Sometimes it's hard for us to be humble. Amen? It really is. We have to be humble enough to admit there are certain areas where we need help. Naaman had all of these titles, but he was a leper. He had a condition. Yes, big time. Yes, he was a commander and all that good stuff. Surely, he had tried some things up until this point, but he hadn't tried this way. The Lord was about to open a door for him to enter into, but Naaman had to listen.

For us, we can't just listen to the news and take that advice. We can't just be people who are going to say, "You know what? I'll be attentive in the work meetings. I'll pay attention there because I have to." Or is it only just a select trusted people you're going to hear out? We ought to never, as a Bible-revering church, be listening to outside voices more than the Lord's Word, his Spirit, and his people.

Is it possible, just maybe, that we might be ignoring some people who have exactly directed us to where we ought to go? Just maybe. Just maybe, we might be ignoring some specific advice, or should I say some professional advice. What I mean by that is real professional advice. Oh, you can't see that? Okay. I'll hold the bag up. When you see this bag or you buy these picks or you buy the floss itself… I'll let you know what it is. Whether it's a bag or whether it's a string, the suggestion is once a day, not right before your appointment. That's not what this is used for.

When you see this right here, now I should have your attention. "Oh, I do ignore precise advice. I get it." But some of you might be okay with bad breath, so I'll just move on. This young captive girl shared a piece of advice that was crucial for Naaman's situation, and it could be the answer to his problem. Listening to the right voices will help us make the right choices. She gave clear direction that we see in the next verse.

In 2 Kings 5:4 it says, "And Naaman went in and told his master…" We're doing good, Naaman. You heard something, and now you're moving forward. "…saying, 'Thus and thus said the girl who is from the land of Israel.'" So, he's talking to the king. He's saying, "Hey, she told me to do this. She told me to go here." The king says, "Okay." Verse 5: "'Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel.' So he departed and took with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing. Then he brought the letter to the king of Israel…"

Naaman got the direction. His wife must have communicated something to him. The Bible doesn't tell us how it happened, but he's moving. He's moving toward his healing. Naaman didn't know how he was about to receive it, but obviously, it says he went. He hopped in that Mercedes-Benz chariot, got all of his designer gear together, and he's moving.

The king gets the letter in verse 6. He brings it to the king of Israel. It said, "Now be advised, when this letter comes to you, that I have sent Naaman my servant to you, that you may heal him of his leprosy." Verse 7: "And it happened, when the king of Israel read the letter, that he tore his clothes and said, 'Am I God, to kill and make alive, that this man sends a man to me to heal him of his leprosy? Therefore please consider, and see how he seeks a quarrel with me.'" "He must want to fight."

Let's go back to the captive girl for a second. She said, "If only my master were to go see the prophet." Naaman, why are you heading toward the king? You were told about the prophet. It's just a thought that I want to leave us with. As we keep reading in verse 8… "So it was, when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent to the king, saying, 'Why have you torn your clothes? Please let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.'"

Elisha is saying, "Come over here." Going back to advice, Naaman seems to be on a roll. When somebody gives you advice, and it might be pertaining to golf, do you just reject it? It might be a colleague saying, "Hey, when we come into these meetings, you have to watch your tone." It may be a spouse saying, "Hey, you've got to change your ways." Do you reject it or do you listen to the precise advice?

Here Naaman is, in verse 9, getting more direction to go to Elisha, and he hops back in the chariot. He's rolling. He knows the direction he's supposed to go. It says, "…he stood at the door of Elisha's house." So, he hops out of the chariot, and he's knocking on the door. "Elisha! Elisha!" I mean, you can picture it as you read the text.

Elisha has to be in the house just sitting back, probably eating some grapes, and he sends a messenger to the door. The messenger goes to the door, but Naaman was expecting the man of God, the prophet. It says the messenger comes to the door and looks at Naaman and says, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored to you, and you shall be clean."

He's face-to-face with another servant. First it was the captive young girl who was a servant. Now Elisha's servant is speaking to him at the door. Please catch this. The next verse says, "But Naaman became furious, and went away…" He walked off. This is where you and I can connect very closely with the text. When something does not go our way, we walk away from the things the Lord has for us, because we had it all played out in our heads how it was supposed to go.

He went away. It's so key that in verse 4 it says, "And Naaman went." In verse 9 it says, "And Naaman went." He's heading in the right direction, and now in verse 11, Naaman went away. You see what happens in verse 11 as he goes away. "…and said, 'Indeed, I said to myself…'" You know when you start talking to yourself something is going on.

"Indeed, I said to myself, 'He will surely come out to me…'" Look at all of the ands in here. He had it played out. "…and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and wave his hand over the place, and heal the leprosy." Naaman felt like it was supposed to go a certain way. He felt like he should get the red-carpet treatment, and he didn't, and he was hot. He was furious. He was full of rage in this moment and went away.

This is where we are in the story, but it can look very similar when you and I go to a restaurant. We just want to come in and dine, but we have how it's supposed to be played out in our head, and when it goes a different way, we start getting sharp with the waiter or waitress. We get a little too sharp. We've gotten so sharp before we've said, "You know what? Bring me the manager."

Or if that doesn't hit you, we have how our trips to work or destinations may play out. Let somebody cut you off. You Christians. Mm-hmm. You have some words, because you thought it was supposed to look a certain way. So did Naaman. Don't let your reputation destroy your deliverance. I'm going to say that again. Do not let your reputation destroy your deliverance and the things the Lord might want to deliver you from, because it can, and that reputation you might want to hold on to…it will.

Naaman is in a storm, a personal storm. If you've ever flown in the middle of a storm… I mean a storm where cups are spilling, overhead compartment bins are opening up, and people are screaming on an airplane. I've never been one who's afraid of flying, but even those who might be strong are going to buckle their seat belts and pay attention to that "Buckle your seat belt" sign.

There's a story of a flight that hit some unusual turbulence, and the plane was being tossed side to side. The clouds on the outside of the plane looked more like coal. The lightning was striking. You could see it, and it was eerie. It was so eerie there was silence. In between the silence, you could hear shrieking. You could hear screaming. People were scared, and nobody felt safe…except for one small child.

This little boy sat there preoccupied, coloring a picture, crayon in hand, and he was enjoying himself. A passenger nearby noticed this storm was going on and people were screaming. She saw the little boy, looked over, and this woman asked him, "Aren't you afraid?" He paused in his coloring. He looked up and said, "No, I'm not." This woman, holding her seat, said, "Please tell me why." He looked back at the woman and said, "Because my dad is the pilot."

My question for us in a situation like that is…Is Jesus the pilot of your life? I mean, in the same way, is he in control in a way where you know, "I don't ignore the advice of my Lord," or do you? Do you ignore his direction, especially when you're in a personal storm or a family storm? That's exactly where Naaman is.

Naaman asks a question in 2 Kings 5:12. He says, "'Are not the Abanah and the Pharpar, 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." He's farther and farther away from what the Lord has called him to and how he's being led. Naaman is continuously going away because he's walking in anger.

But, Naaman, you asked a question. You said the word better. Better? Naaman was familiar with the Abanah and Pharpar rivers. They were rivers in his hometown. He was accustomed to them. But better? That better could be like you and me saying, "Isn't Central Market better than Walmart?" We have to be cautious there, because we might say, "Isn't this people group better than this people group? I'm more accustomed to and associated with this people group. I'm more familiar and understand what's going on here, so it has to be better than this."

"Isn't this brand of clothing or this brand of food better? Isn't Texas A&M better than…?" You fill in the blank. We can be in a place like Naaman, saying, "This has to be better," yet the Lord is calling to a certain direction. The reason Naaman had issues with the Jordan was he didn't fully understand it. He didn't understand the Jordan, but he understood his preferences, and because of his preferences, it had him ignoring precise advice.

But that Jordan… The Lord had done some things at the Jordan, and Elisha knew about the Jordan. His servants knew about the Jordan. Many times, we may not fully understand things that are happening in God's Word. We may not fully get it. We don't know what things mean or why God is doing what he's doing. So what do we do? We look for solutions. We figure certain things out that are outside of the will of God for our lives that God wouldn't have for us. Naaman is going away in rage. This whole situation, this moment, is about obedience, and Naaman is struggling.

Sharing a little vulnerable moment, I can remember coming home on a weekday. I was tired. I walked in. My beautiful bride had cooked dinner, and she served our 3-year-old daughter first. She cut up some apples and set them on the table in a little bowl. I remember this. I watched my daughter get the apple, look at it, and throw it. I said, "What?" She looked back at me like, "Do something, Daddy."

Again, I was tired. I looked at her and said three words: "That is wrong!" And it crumbled her. I watched her be devastated, and I watched her cry. My bride responded to me and said, "You could have shown her it was wrong, not scared her into it." As hard as that was to hear, I was full of pride in that moment, so I couldn't even hear her precise advice, but due to the Spirit, due to my spouse's tenderness, and choosing humility, I came to realize that was unacceptable, that was ungodly, and I had to repent of it.

Naaman is in rage in the text. Things aren't going his way. He's done listening, and pride is on full display right here and right now. In verse 13, it says, "And his servants came near…" Naaman is far, far away, but his servants had been following him this whole time. They had gone hundreds of miles to get here, and now they're at this place, and it says they kind of say, "Naaman, you know, uh, we've traveled kind of far, and all they told you to do was dip in the Jordan."

Before I read the whole text, the question there is…Do people around you care enough about you to move toward you in situations? Do you have community around you who are going to speak into your life and maybe even hit you upside the head with some truth when you need it and move toward you?

I love how the servants, it says, came near. The rest of verse 13 says their response was, "My father…" Not that they were his sons. He wasn't their daddy, but that's their master, and that was a respect thing. "…if the prophet had told you to do something great, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, 'Wash, and be clean'?" "We came all this way. Just do what they told you to do."

But that's a third servant. It was the captive girl in the beginning, and then it was Elisha's servant who answered the door, and now his own servants are speaking to him and giving him direction. Was God trying to teach Naaman that before he healed him of his pain he wanted to heal him of his pride? The Lord was clearly at work in this situation and I'm sure wanted to heal him of his pain, but first, the pride situation.

Naaman just wanted a quick fix. He wanted a drive-through experience. Burger King says, "Have it your way." The King of Kings doesn't say that. That's not the way he would have for us, but we have the same attitude. We want a quick fix when it comes to our addictions and the things we want to hide and the things we don't want people to see. We want it to be fixed quickly if it's something with our eyes that we're coveting and dealing with.

Any struggle, the love of money, comfort, stability…it might even be overindulging in food…we want it fixed now, but that's just not how the Lord works. It's a heart issue, church. The real problem with Naaman is the heart. Proverbs 28:13 says, "He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy."

Naaman was covering up and walking away. "Will not prosper." Until verse 14: "So he went down…" I know that had to be hard. I know that had to be difficult, but Naaman had to take that posture of humility. He had to listen to servants, he had to listen to the man of God, and he had to go down at a lower level than he was.

It says, "…and dipped seven times in the Jordan…" When it comes to us, we might go, "Okay. One, two, three… Okay, God. I did what you wanted me to do. I'm here. I obeyed you." Hold on. It says seven. We get frustrated when we partially obey God, and then blame God for not showing up. Partial obedience is total disobedience. We will never get the results we're expecting when we partially obey the King of Kings.

He had to go four, five, six, and seven. The text says in verse 14, "…according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean." He finally got what he originally came for, because he finally listened to precise advice. It says, "The skin of a little child." It's almost as if Naaman was born again. His flesh was restored to him. I don't know if you realized what happened to me subtly on the screen behind me, but the color of the screen was restored to its original color in the same way Naaman had his flesh restored.

"And he returned to the man of God, he and all his aides, and came and stood before him; and he said, 'Indeed, now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel; now therefore, please take a gift from your servant.' But he_ [Elisha] _said, 'As the Lord lives, before whom I stand, I will receive nothing.' And he urged him to take it, but he refused. So Naaman said, 'Then, if not, please let your servant be given two mule-loads of earth; for your servant will no longer offer either burnt offering or sacrifice to other gods, but to the Lord.'"

Naaman was not just cured of leprosy; Naaman was cured of idolatry. An idol is any person, any place, any thing, or any thought you go to more than Jesus; any person, place, thing, or thought you look to that you depend on more than God himself. By Naaman's response in this text… Remember all of the shekels, the 10 changes of clothes, and all of the things he had? You don't hear about them anymore, because they no longer matter. They're secondary now, because what mattered a lot more was he understood who the living God was.

As I think back to the football story I shared with you in the beginning, that technique I was trying to get from the coach… I told you it was weird. It didn't make sense to me, and I didn't want to do it. It was just one simple step in my backpedal as a defensive back. Just a simple step. That simple step would help me to break up passes, to be on top of receivers, and not get beat deep. That simple step, that advice that was given to me… I hated it at first, but I came to love it because of the impact it made. All of this happened because I chose not to ignore precise advice.

You and I, on a daily basis, line up across from an enemy that is coming after our souls. Satan himself wants to destroy us. The Lord, even from this text, is saying, "You just have to obediently dip in my presence in the places I might call you to that you just might not like." There are three things that could cause us to ignore precise advice.

The first one is pride. God clearly wanted to teach Naaman that he doesn't just save through the faith of men. God saves by grace through faith. Salvation itself is received. It's not achieved. Sometimes we want to work for certain things. You might be a Naaman or a Naenae. Male or female, it does not matter. We must never forget that it is by grace through faith. The cross itself destroys pride, and God, the Holy Spirit, will bring us to a place of absolute humility for our good and his glory. As we just saw in Naaman's situation, there's going to be a lot of discomfort if you're going to choose to pridefully reject advice.

Secondly, if it's not pride that's going to cause us to ignore precise advice it's going to be preconceived expectations. Naaman's preconceived expectations caused him to ignore precise advice, but later on, we see in the New Testament, Jesus uses Naaman to teach a lesson to the Pharisees. It was in Luke 4, specifically, that Jesus is like, "All right, Pharisees. God the Father sent me to be the Messiah not just for the Jews but for the Gentiles too."

Specifically, in Luke 4:27, it reads, "And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian." So, yes, God could have healed a Jewish leper, but God used Elisha to heal a Gentile with leprosy. God can work. He just might work in different ways than we expect him to. The Pharisees didn't like that. They disregarded it in preconceived expectations. Our walks are something we have to hold loosely.

Thirdly, preferences. Our preferences can hold us back from listening to the right people. They just can. They did with Naaman, because there were rivers he preferred. There were ways he preferred. There were people Naaman just preferred because he was familiar with them. We are going to have to guard our hearts and step into some situations where we might have people who might not be on the same playing level, but they might be leading us in a direction God would have for us.

Our preferences can't ever supersede God's references. Ever. References are just the inerrant, God-breathed verses of Scripture. I'm going to pray, but I have one last story I want to share with you before you leave, so don't leave. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for what just took place in 2 Kings 5, and for us as your people, for us as a church, would you be our portion in a way where, by the power of your Spirit, we choose to humble ourselves under your mighty hand, hear your voice and the voices of others, and be willing to step out in uncomfortable places. We truly do love you, Jesus, and we thank you for the power of your Word. In Jesus' name, amen.

Before you walk out, before you try to get to brunch, before you try to go be back with family, before you rest, before you leave, I want you to take this precise advice and stay, because I want to challenge you with something. In the National Basketball Association (the NBA), every single game, 60 minutes before tip-off, there's something they have called chapel. Every single game, both teams, home and away, come into the same space, and the Word of God is opened and the gospel is shared.

As I got to be a part of one of these moments, I remember opening my Bible to Genesis 3, and I started talking to the fellas about Adam and Eve hiding. As I started talking about Adam and Eve hiding and got into the text, I was interrupted. Hand on my shoulder. This person was like, "Hey, Chap, you're talking about hiding. I don't have anything to hide from, so where are we going with this direction for chapel? What are we about to talk about?"

It was like, "Okay." The front office is in there sometimes, other players, and you want to be respectful. So I was like, "Well, okay, Mister $93 million man. What I'm trying to say is some of us could possibly be hiding behind a jersey. Some of us could possibly be hiding behind our bank account. Some of us can possibly be hiding behind the text messages we disperse in the midnight hour. We could just be hiding from things we don't want others to know." He went, "Oh, I'm hiding from this. This is what I'm hiding," and he sat back down.

In the game of hide-and-go-seek, when the game is all over, when it's done, the language is used, "Come out, come out, wherever you are." That's how you know it's no more games. Church, the games are truly over. We ought to be ones who come out, come out, wherever we are. We ought to come out of the spaces of bitterness we truly do have.

We ought to come out of the places of lusting we're doing. We ought to come out from the spaces of "Hey, I believe this about my marriage, and nobody knows. I might need to share this and come out as a stay-at-home mother. I might need to come out and share that last 2 percent, but I don't know what's going to happen." We are called to be a people who come out daily.

The Lord himself doesn't want us hiding from trauma, hiding grief, hiding hurt, hiding pain, hiding the things he wants us to be free from. He wanted Naaman to be free. Some of us might need to come out and realize the Great Commission is a command. We are called to make disciples, but some of us just want to say, "It's not the right season. Not for me right now."

Come out, Watermark. Come out, come out, wherever you are. Come out from the places where you're hiding. Even now, I want to have our Care Team come up here. Don't leave. Don't wait for your Community Group. You can share things right now, right here, and be free. All it takes is one "Yes," one dip in the presence, the blood of Jesus, confessing him as Lord, and the promise is you and I will be saved.