Main idea

What do you do with good news that was never meant to stop with you? In this message, Go Back, we walk through the story of four outcasts who found a miracle and almost kept it to themselves. God does not wait for qualified people. He hands the good news to ordinary ones and asks them to go back with it. The person who needs to hear it may be closer than you think.

Scripture

2 Kings 7:2
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!”

2 Kings 7:3-4
3 Now there were four men with leprosy 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.”

2 Kings 7:5-7
5 At dusk they got up and went to the camp of the Arameans. When they reached the edge of the camp, no one 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.

2 Kings 7:8
8 The men who had leprosy reached the edge of the camp, entered one of the tents and ate and drank. Then they took 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.

2 Kings 7:9
9 Then they said to each other, “What we’re doing is not 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.”

Luke 10:5-6
5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 6 If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you.

1 John 4:9-11
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

James 4:2
2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.

Discussion Questions:

• What does this passage say about God?
• What does this passage say about people? The officer said, “even if the Lord opened the heavens, could this happen?” What is your version of that sentence?
• Finish this out loud: “God can do anything, but ___.”
• The lepers weren’t rebelling, they were just enjoying what God gave them and forgot to go back.
• Where has that been true of you?
• Who is one person in your life who is still living like the siege is on because nobody has gone back to tell them? What is one thing you will do this week because of this passage?