[0:00] I want you to turn to 2 Kings chapter 4. 2 Kings chapter 4. I pastored a small church while I was in seminary. And the greatest thing that came out of those three and a half years of ministry there is I met my wife Who was a friend of a mutual friend and he introduced us and she fell in love instantly.
[0:25] That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Her memory is not that great. I preached my first Mother's Day sermons in that church.
[0:36] And on one of them an 82 year old lady who had never had children told me I've always hated Mother's Day because I couldn't have children.
[0:49] But I enjoyed your message today. Thank you for thanking of all of us. You made it special. I'm going to tell you something. Miss Dolly had a big impression on me when she said that.
[1:00] And ever since I have tried my best to make Mother's Day a day to celebrate godly ladies. Ladies you are appreciated more than you are told.
[1:12] Your influence upon our children is beyond measure. Whether it's your children, your own children or whether it's somebody else's that you're loving on. I want to thank you for investing in the next generation.
[1:27] And to give us fellas some love along the way. It would be an ugly place without you here. I promise you that. And I am thankful for you. Fellas, aren't you thankful for them? Last week I ventured into 2 Kings chapter 4 for just a moment for an illustration.
[1:48] But I want to go back there today. I recently got to hear this passage preached by 88-year-old Dr. Jerry Vines.
[2:03] If you're not familiar with Jerry Vines, he was the pastor of First Baptist Jacksonville, Florida, which was the gold standard in how to do Southern Baptist Church in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s.
[2:19] They had a wonderful pastor's conference that was really for the whole church. I took a busload of my folks down there one year and got trained by a lot of their lay people in the church that were leaders and came back and it had an impact immediately upon our church.
[2:36] He did it right. Wonderful preacher. Wonderful man of God. I'm thankful for him. He gave some insights about this passage and then I dug a little deeper and cleaned up his mess a little bit.
[2:47] So the passage is about an encounter with Elisha that he had with a woman that had ministered to him with kindness and hospitality.
[3:00] And now she was in a crisis. There's much to learn from this dear lady. She had trouble having children in a day when that was thought to be a curse from God.
[3:16] And Elisha told her that she would have a child and she did. And then one day a crisis came.
[3:28] 2 Kings chapter 4 beginning in verse 18 says,
[4:31] Yes, I tell you. So she set out and came to the man of God at Mount Carmel. When the man of God saw her coming, he said to Gehazi, his servant, Look, there is a Shunammite.
[4:46] Run at once to meet her and say to her, Is all well with you? Is all well with your husband? Is all well with the child?
[4:59] And she answered, All is well. Why in the world would a mother of a son that had just died say, All is well?
[5:17] Well, I want us to understand the questions that she was asked and the answers that she gave. Her response was a Hebrew word that you may be familiar with, Shalom.
[5:30] Shalom means peace. It's how we normally think of it. But it also means it's a great greeting for folks. But it also means all is well.
[5:41] And she said that, I believe, it could be for a couple of different reasons. I really believe she said it for both. One reason she said it is she is purposefully dismissive.
[5:53] If this were a conversation today, one may ask, How are you doing? And you respond, I'm fine.
[6:04] How's your spouse? Fine. How's your children? Fine. We typically do not respond to such a question in the produce aisle at the grocery store.
[6:20] Well, let's just hunker down here at the bananas for a few moments and let me share with you what's happening in my life. Let me tell you how bad it is.
[6:34] Let me tell you how sorry my husband is. Let me tell you how wild my kids are. I will say that in most cases, if you do that, most people don't want to hear all that.
[6:45] They were simply trying to be nice and good about their way in the grocery store. Lou Holtz said one time, Don't tell people your problems. Ninety percent of them don't care, and ten percent are glad you got them.
[7:00] They greeted you with that to speak, not, and then move on. However, I want to ask the same questions today, particularly to the ladies on this Mother's Day.
[7:13] And I don't want you to be dismissive. And I don't want you to be surface. Instead, I want you to strive to dig a little deeper, to be introspective.
[7:28] How are you doing? How are you doing individually? I mean, really. How are you doing? Physically, how are you doing?
[7:41] Are you getting the rest that you need? Are you getting the exercise that you need? Are you seeking the care for yourself that you need?
[7:55] Because the reality is, it's easy to spend so much time taking care of the kids, taking care of your spouse, taking care of your parents, taking care of the circus that all those people create in your life.
[8:08] Spend all your time doing that instead of caring for yourself. Because we feel like we don't have time. However, that time to take care of yourself has to be made.
[8:23] Vance Havner, great North Carolina preacher of old, said, if you don't come apart and rest for a while, you may just come apart. How about emotionally?
[8:37] This lady had experienced an unexpected birth, and then a few years later, an unexpected death. And that kind of jolt, and moving from one extreme to another, is tough.
[8:51] When I was pastoring that first church, while in seminary, early in ministry, I rushed to the hospital after I heard that one of my dear ladies in the church's son had overdosed.
[9:09] And I went to the ER, sat with her family, until the doctor came out and said, he didn't make it.
[9:23] You can come in and see him now. They had put him in a stark, cold room. His appearance was not appeasing.
[9:36] It was tough. I was young. I'd never been in a situation like that.
[9:47] And the weight of that grief was overwhelming. As they mourned over him, clinging to him, crying out to God over him.
[10:05] It was horrible. And then I left there after praying with him. I got in my car and I drove a mile down the road back to the church.
[10:18] Because that night, we were having revival. It's time for revival. And as the pastor of the church, I was to be the one to help spark it, get it going, get people excited.
[10:36] I thank God that my preaching professor, I had asked to do the revival. And he was there that night. We sat down on the stage next to each other.
[10:49] And he took his hand and put it on my knee. And he said, these kind of shifts in ministry is what will wear you out and nobody ever see you.
[11:06] It's true. And it happens in life, too. So I ask you, how are you doing emotionally? How are you doing socially?
[11:20] We all need friends. The Apostle Paul in his letters lists over a hundred of his friends throughout those letters. We need people that know us.
[11:33] And even though they know us, yet they still love us. Those kind of people. And the best place to find those kind of friends is in church. I'm just telling you. I encourage you to get engaged.
[11:49] I will say this again and again. If you come to this church and sit in here for one hour and leave and never engage in conversation and never build relationships with folks, you've missed the joy of the possibilities that are before you.
[12:08] You need to be in a life group. Walking through life together. Studying God's word together. Praying together. You need to be in a Bible study group that goes after a specialized particular interest that may perk in your life.
[12:26] You can be in that class with other people with a common interest. You need that. You need to be a part of the fellowships in the church. We don't do this just to be doing it.
[12:38] We do it in order for us to build camaraderie, for us to build friendships and help. This choir, not only are they wonderful at singing, but they're a wonderful family.
[12:50] They're a prayer family that prays together, that loves one another. Many times I find out what's happening in people's lives because the choir's talking to each other, sharing with one another.
[13:02] There's a couple in this church that's in this choir that out of the previous church, they were kind of struggling, particularly the male in the family. He was struggling. His wife was in the choir and as he was looking for his place, she said, won't you join the choir?
[13:17] That's my prayer group. That's what's getting me through. And he joined the choir and it helped him through it. And when they came to this church, they both immediately joined the choir and was part of that.
[13:28] It's a wonderful way to fellowship. I don't care where you jump in. I encourage you to jump in as many as you have time for. But I encourage you to build friendships. How are you socially?
[13:41] How are you spiritually? One of the easiest areas of neglect in our lives is our time with the Lord. I'll be very clear.
[13:52] There's a satanic strategy devised just for that. Satan don't want you to have time with the Lord. In reality, we are too busy not to pray.
[14:05] We need a dose of God's word every day. And we need to commit to that. She said everything was fine. But it wasn't.
[14:19] How are you doing relationally? What about with your spouse? Proverbs 18, 22 says, He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.
[14:34] Proverbs 20, 6 and 7 says, Many a man proclaims his own steadfast love, but a faithful man who can find the righteous who walks in his integrity.
[14:47] Blessed are his children after him. What about your parents? How's that relationship? Exodus chapter 20, verse 12 says, Honor your father and mother that your days may be long in the land that your Lord, your God has given you.
[15:04] I remember reading that as a kid and understanding that to say that if I don't honor my mother and father, they're going to kill me. The reality is, folks, when you're grown and on your own and you no longer have to obey your parents, you still ought to honor your parents.
[15:26] What about friends? How are you doing relationally with friends? Ecclesiastes 4, 9, and 10 says this, Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil.
[15:40] For if they fall, one will lift up his fella. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. I meet with men, they take turns sometimes coming, but I meet with about 80 men total between 6 a.m.'s class and 9 a.m.'s class on Tuesday morning.
[16:00] We read a common book together and share together and tear each other down and build each other up and pray together and those type things. We just closed out this semester. Some of them are grieving over that this morning, they told me.
[16:12] They're missing it already, you know. And we'll start back in August, and I encourage you men, if there's any way your schedule can allow it, I promise you, you'll be blessed by being a part of that time together. But a common passage that we often refer to probably every week is Proverbs 27, 17.
[16:27] Iron sharpens iron as one man sharpens another. How are you doing as a parent? Psalm 127, 3 says, Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward.
[16:48] However, I will tell you, even with all of that, it's not easy being a parent. I have heard that there are four stages of maturity in children.
[16:59] And I didn't hear this from Freud or Erickson. I heard it from a preacher. First, children idolize their parents. When they're very young, man, they're looking for mama.
[17:12] They're looking for daddy. When you come home, they meet you at the door. They're like a good dog. They'll meet you at the door and love on you. They idolize their parents. Then they demonize their parents.
[17:26] We are the cause and we are the problem for whatever's wrong in their lives. And then, they utilize their parents.
[17:37] They find out we've got something they want and they're not afraid to ask for it. And then, as they mature, they humanize their parents.
[17:48] They realize that we're not gods. We're not demons. We're not things. But humans with faults and with failures.
[18:00] Parents, do all you can. Be as diligent about it as you can be. and then you leave the rest to the Lord.
[18:13] God is perfect. Yet, all of God's children have went wayward. Every last one of them.
[18:26] Don't be surprised when your struggle has will. So, when somebody asks you these type of questions, it's easy to dismiss them. it's easy to ease by them.
[18:38] It's easy to move on. Sometimes, that might be best. However, it's good to do a spiritual inventory to lay it out before the Lord. She said all is well.
[18:52] And she said it to be purposefully dismissive. But I want to explain to you why she did that. She did that because she is passionately expectant.
[19:05] This lady put a lot of faith in the man of God. She had ministered to him. She had been ministered to by him and she trusted him. And I want you to understand the back story of what set this passage up.
[19:20] It's in 2 Kings chapter 4 beginning in verse 8 and it says this. One day, Elisha went out to Shunem where a wealthy woman lived who urged him to eat some food.
[19:31] So whenever he passed that way he would turn in there to eat food. And she said to her husband behold now I know that this is a holy man of God who is continually passing our way.
[19:45] Let us make a small room on the roof with walls and put there for him a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp so that whenever he comes to us he can go there.
[19:58] Now understand in this culture they lived in a flat top house and so if they wanted to expand the house they just had to build the walls up a little higher on the top and they could add a room.
[20:09] That's exactly what they did for the prophet Elisha. It was a simple room. Even the word for chair speaks more of a rustic stool but it was still a place and what a blessing.
[20:27] From time to time always at just the right time people through the years have offered a beach house have offered a lake house have offered a resting spot away to me and my family and it's been a blessing.
[20:48] I know a man who dearly loved pastures. I was able to pastor him for the last six years of his life. He had some property and he dug out a fishing pond and then he built a nice cabin on that pond and you know what he built it for primarily?
[21:04] He had family functions there but he built it primarily to house visiting preachers and this is what he said when they come to my house I can't go to bed until they leave but if I put them out there I can go see them and leave whenever I want to.
[21:19] this lady had accommodated Elisha he had prophesied that she would have a child and she did and when that child most likely had a sunstroke is what theologians believe because of the heat in the harvest it killed him she rushed to get Elisha she dismissed the questions that she was asked she simply replied all is well but she was dismissed because she was trying to get to the man of God she knew that if she could get to him that all would be well she was distressed of course but she had the faith to believe that God would use this man to change his circumstances and that's exactly what God did 2nd Kings chapter 4 verse 27 through 31 says this and when she came to the mountain to the man of God she caught hold of the feet and Gehazi came to push her away but the man of
[22:21] God said leave her alone for she's in bitter distress and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me and then she said did I ask my Lord for a son did I not say do not deceive me and he said to Gehazi tie up your garment and take my staff in your hand and go if you meet anyone do not greet them and if anyone greets you do not reply and lay my staff on the face of the child and then the mother of the child said as the Lord lives and as you yourself live I will not leave you so Elisha rose and followed her Gehazi went on ahead and he laid the staff on the face of the child but there was no sound no sign of life therefore he returned to meet them and told them the child has not awakened he sent
[23:23] Gehazi Gehazi was unsuccessful I believe Elisha knew he would be unsuccessful I believe he did it for three reasons one I believe he sent him in a hurry away from them toward the dead son to put her at ease you want urgency when something bad happens you want to see people moving and doing something about it I always say in the emergency room nobody's in a hurry but you because it feels like that but in reality they're working to save lives but we want to see things happening immediately something had to be done first to put her at ease then it also appears to be a lesson for Gehazi whose greed and selfishness would later bring him unnecessary hardship in 2nd
[24:27] Kings chapter 5 Elisha knew what he was like he was trying to prepare him to think that it wasn't all about him and I believe the third reason it didn't work is to teach us that dead sticks don't do miracles and I want you to hear me when I say God who does the miracles it's not in the stick it's not in the objects it wasn't in Moses staff it was in the God that Moses was trusting in my friend it's not in things it's not in possessions it's not in money it's not in education it's not in pleasure our hope is not found in those things our hope is found in God and I want you to watch what happens 2nd Kings chapter 4 verse 32 says this when Elisha came into the house he saw the child lying dead on his bed so he went in and shut the door behind him the two of them and prayed!
[25:41] And as he stretched himself upon him the flesh of the child became warm and then he got up again and walked once back and forth in the house and went up and stretched himself upon him the child sneezed seven times and the child opened his eyes and then he summoned Gehazi and said call this Shimonite Shimonite and so he called her and when she came to him he said pick up your son she came and fell at his feet bowing to the ground she picked up her son and she went out the mother had said all is well she said that because she trusted God enough to lay out a plan to watch him work through the man of God and if you look she had a plan she laid the boy in the prophet's bed she went with haste not even telling her husband why she was going she answered the questions that were asked her along the way with a hurry when she got to him she clanged to him inappropriate in that atmosphere it would have been as inappropriate for her to do that as the unclean woman who grabbed the hymn of
[27:02] Jesus but both of them brought healing healing came for both of them because they were so determined she knew the Lord had given her the son she knew the Lord had a prophet she could go to she knew!
[27:19] God would be at work she knew however it turned out regardless of what happened she knew all as well it's a famous story but one I believe that we need to know and maybe be reminded of Horatio Spadford was a real estate moment in Chicago in the 1800s when the great fire of Chicago came through it took a lot of his real estate away he lost a lot of his fortune after that his son was tragically killed he was in a low spot he decided to take some time off for he and his family and so he put his wife and his four girls on a ship to sail back to England where they were from he intended to do some more work and then to meet them in
[28:20] England later but as they got just in sight of Wales the ship got in a storm and sank!
[28:32] Many died including his four daughters his wife sent a wire back to him that simply stated saved alone Horatio made the means to make his way to see his wife in England when he got on the ship to go on that trip he asked the captain when you get over the area where the ship went down will you please let me know when they got over those haunted waters!
[29:07] He knocked on the cabin's door of Horatio and Horatio went out and stood on that deck and overlooked those dark waters that swallowed the baby girls that he had lost and he wrote this when peace like a river attendeth my way when sorrows like sea billows roll whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say it is well it is well with my soul though Satan should buffet!
[29:37] the trial should come let this blessed assurance control that Christ has regarded my helpless estate and shed his own blood for my soul it is well with my soul it is well it is well I know that with Mother's Day comes a lot of memories I know that with Mother's Day comes a lot of burdens a lot of heartaches and a flood of thoughts but whatever that is that you're burdened by however uncertain that you may feel about it however overwhelming it may seem I want you to know that you can bring that to the Lord today I want you to know all is well because of Christ all is well
[30:39] I want you to hear me it's going to be alright God's on the throne and he's watching over us it's going to be alright all all is well with every head bowed and every eye closed I ask you today what is that burden you need to give to God today whatever it is lay it at his feet and trust him all is well all is well Lord Jesus help us bring our burdens to you and trust you with them for we don't know what tomorrow holds but thank God we know who holds tomorrow and in that we rest in Jesus precious name amen