What is the cost of Medical Mission work? How do we minister to those who are suffering?

<p>What is the cost of Medical Mission work? How do we minister to those who are suffering?</p>

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Granite Bay SDA Church

Jeff Walper

Namaan’s Leprous Need & Elisha’s Double Supply

This was recorded at the Granite Bay Hilltop SDA Church, located in Granite Bay, California.

Hope you are blessed by the message and that it draws you closer to God.

Let's turn in our Bibles to 2 Kings 5, verse 1.

I want to study with you today the cost of medical missionary work.

Just this past year, Americans spent $5 trillion on health care, and yet the New England Journal of Medicine has pointed out, despite a significant rise in medical costs, there has not been a noticeable improvement in overall population health, but that isn't the price that I want to focus on today.

I want to study the price that Jesus Christ has paid as our Redeemer and as our healer.

I want us to better understand the heart of God as he relates to those who are suffering and what he would have us do as he pours out the Holy Spirit in double portion amount as we approach the end.

In order to do that we're going to look at a story in 2nd Kings chapter 5.

2nd Kings chapter 5 we read verse 1, Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria was a great man with his master and honorable because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria he was also a mighty man in valor but he was a leper So Naaman was a man of prominence.

And this describes many people today, would you agree?

You know, there's 1 thing you cannot buy.

But what I want to look at is, God is calling his church in the last days to embody the character and the heart of Jesus so fully that the Gospel Herald is gonna end with the greatest demonstration of the glory and character of God in the person of Jesus Christ inside his church.

I know, I know we're not going to be able to buy and sell.

I know we're gonna yield all national sovereignty to some global cabal, and that would include the Bill of Rights and your liberty of conscience.

And all that's gonna change, and we're already starting to sense some of those winds blowing.

But I want you to understand that the scripture says that the gospel herald is going to end with a bunch of Elijah's and Elisha's that exemplify the character of Jesus fully.

Not motivated by money, that filthy lucre, but motivated by the gospel, by the love of Jesus.

And they can't be bought, because they've already been purchased by the blood of Jesus.

And so here we find this problem with Naaman.

Naaman represents the secular people outside of the church.

God has his people out there that will listen to the message of the gospel.

Or maybe they have heard it, but they haven't seen it demonstrated.

A lot more is communicated by actions than just words, would you agree?

I don't want to denigrate in any way the importance of preaching the gospel, but let's never forget that demonstrating the gospel is what the Lord's waiting for.

He's waiting for his church to exemplify the gospel in their lives, in their actions, and how they treat others, especially the marginalized, the vulnerable, and the defenseless, even the sick.

Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and honorable because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria.

He was also a mighty man in valor, but he was a leper.

And the Syrians had gone out by companies and had brought away captive out of the land of Israel a little maid, and she waited on Naaman's wife." Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about little maid.

Little maid doesn't get a name in scripture, but she doesn't need 1 because her witness, wow.

I believe that, well let me just tell you a little bit about who Little Maid is.

The Syrian armies had gone up against Israel and none other than King Ahab died in that war.

And in that battle where Ahab, the ungodly, unfaithful husband of Jezebel, not a marriage you want to be in.

But, here Ahab dies in this battle with the Syrians, and surely Naaman was there in that battle, and little maid is taken captive from the war.

And she's brought back to Syria in little maid.

We don't know her exact age, but she's little and she's a servant.

And That's what the Bible wants you to know.

And she's there serving in this high-ranking official in the military of this country that just destroyed her country or killed the king and took her prisoner.

We don't know what happened to her parents.

But it's fascinating to me that little maid has no hint of bitterness or acrimony or anger towards her enemy.

Now, if you've been living on competitive sports and competition and combative, you know, culture, and this is what you call recreation, then you'll have a hard time loving your enemy.

You'll be pressed to fulfill this diminutive stature of little maid being a lowly servant in a foreign land.

It's interesting Ellen White tells us that as the judgments of God start to fall on the cities in the United States and great balls of fire that God's people are going to be scattered in the remote regions of the world and whether or not you don't want to go you're gonna have to go she says so you might as well go ahead and go and she says God's gonna have a work for you to do there and then she lists in about 3 different paragraphs there's gonna be 5 things that God wants you to prepare for he wants you to develop your voice that you can share the message of the gospel with influence.

And then she says that some need to learn every aspect of literature work, how to bind books and make literature.

Don't think that the Internet is going to finish the Gospel of Herald.

She says some, and I've heard people say, oh well that's 1800s.

God doesn't need you to contextualize his message to some foregone historical era called the Victorian Age of Western civilization.

He says that you need to have a knowledge of literature, not only to disseminate it, but also how to bind books and make literature.

She says that some need to know how to make literature.

She says every Seventh-day Adventist church member also must be trained as a medical missionary.

And then she says you need to learn how to build simple small homes and plant gardens and grow your own food.

That's in the context of great balls of fire falling as judgments upon the cities of the United States, and it'll spread from city to city unless they humble themselves and repent.

We're going to be scattered in ways we don't anticipate, like Little Maid.

I'm sure she woke up 1 day and she never anticipated, oh, I'm going to be taken captive today and taken away from my family, and then I'm gonna be serving maybe the very man that harmed my family.

And I'm gonna have compassion for him Because Jesus lives in my heart.

You know, that's the call of the Christian.

Paul says in Galatians 2 verse 20 that, I'm crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live, but Jesus Christ lives where?

Sometimes we get so familiar with scriptures and different verses that we forget the application and the true meaning of what they're saying.

It's Jesus who's living in the Christian, the true Christian.

Well then how does Jesus treat his enemies?

With acrimony and bitterness and anger and rancor and just...

You no longer live if you follow the Lamb.

Well, little maid is there and she said in verse 3, under her mistress, would God my Lord were with the prophet that is in Samaria, for he would recover him of his leprosy.

So little maid had compassion, she had love for even her enemy.

Lord help us to be like Little Maid, to love our enemies.

We won't go to Matthew chapter 5 verse 45, for 44 and 45, but it bears meditation that we are called to love our enemy and to pray for those who spitefully use us and see all manner of evil against us.

That's what it means to be a child of God.

That's why you need to prayerfully repent of watching competitive sports, because it is turning you into a beast and not lamb-like.

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Namaan’s Leprous Need & Elisha’s Double Supply

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