SERMON NOTES

Don't Skip This Step

There are seasons in life where you're not simply maintaining, not just surviving, not going through the motions of routine. There are seasons where God is calling you to break new ground — new ground in your faith, your thinking, your relationships, your calling. And here's what's true about ground: it doesn't break by accident. It breaks with intention, with pressure, and sometimes with obedience even when every part of you doesn't feel like it.

The problem is that while we love the idea of new ground, we don't always love the process it takes to get there. Because if there's one thing most of us are quietly expert at, it's finding ways to skip steps. We want the outcome without the process. The promise without the preparation. The miracle without the movement. And if we're not careful, we bring that same mindset into our walk with God — skipping the hard conversation, the forgiveness, the surrender, the obedience — looking for the shortcut to the breakthrough.

But what if the step you're trying to skip is the very step God wants to use to change everything?

The Man Who Had Everything — Except Healing

In 2 Kings 5, we're introduced to a man named Naaman. He was commander of the army of the king of Aram — a great man, highly regarded, a valiant soldier through whom God had given victory. By any external measure, he was successful. But then the text adds a quiet, devastating phrase: "…but he had leprosy."

Success doesn't mean whole. You can be winning publicly and wounded privately. You can look like you have it all together and still be fighting something nobody else sees. Naaman had achievement and influence and still carried something that needed healing — and that tension is more common than most of us admit.

When Naaman hears of a prophet in Israel who could cure him, he sets out with his horses and chariots, an entourage befitting his rank, ready for a significant moment. What he gets is something far less dramatic. Elisha doesn't even come to the door. He sends a messenger with a simple instruction: "Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed."

That's it. No grand ceremony. No laying on of hands. No dramatic encounter. Just — go wash.

When Expectation Blocks the Instruction

Naaman's response is telling. He goes away furious. He had pictured it differently — the prophet standing before him, calling on God, waving his hand over the afflicted area with some kind of visible, impressive power. What he received felt beneath him. And so he almost walked away from his miracle.

This is one of the most quietly dangerous things that can happen in our spiritual lives: misguided expectation blocking a clear instruction. How many times have we found ourselves saying, "I thought it would look different… I expected something deeper… Surely God would do it another way"? When what God is asking doesn't match what we imagined, the temptation is to dismiss it, delay it, or go looking for a better method.

Naaman put it plainly: "Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn't I wash in them and be cleansed?" On the surface, it sounds like a reasonable question. But underneath it was something more uncomfortable — pride. And that's the thing about pride: it doesn't always look like arrogance. Sometimes it sounds perfectly logical. Sometimes it even feels justified. Naaman wasn't shouting that he was too important to obey. He was simply offering what felt like a reasonable alternative. And he turned and walked away in a rage.

Pride will make you walk away from the very thing that could heal you.

The Wisdom of a Simple Question

Thankfully, Naaman had people around him willing to speak plainly. His servants approached him and said, "My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, 'Wash and be cleansed'!"

It's a question worth sitting with, because we tend to have no problem with hard — as long as hard looks impressive. We'll commit to an extended fast, but struggle to send one honest apology. We'll show up for a night of prophecy and prayer that runs until midnight, but question whether a quiet Sunday morning is really necessary. We'll design a new journal, a new routine, a whole new system — when God isn't asking for a new system at all. He's asking for one step.

God is far more interested in obedience than in impressiveness.

When Naaman finally sets aside his pride and goes to the Jordan, he doesn't dip once and wait to see if anything happens. He goes all the way — seven times, exactly as instructed. And he is healed, completely restored. The lesson is clear: the power was never in the water. It was in the obedience. Had he gone in once or twice and decided that was probably enough, the story ends differently. The miracle was on the other side of following through, fully and without revision.

The power is in the step.

What Step Have You Been Skipping?

Naaman nearly missed everything because the instruction felt too simple, didn't look powerful enough, and didn't meet his expectations. It's worth asking honestly whether we do the same. God speaks, and instead of responding, we evaluate — whether it suits our preferences, whether it looks the way we thought it would, whether there's a more sophisticated version available.

Before you move on from this, consider: what step have you been avoiding? What has God been nudging you toward that you've been putting off because it feels too small, too uncomfortable, or too straightforward to be significant? That step — the one that seems almost too simple to matter — might be the very thing standing between where you are now and where God is calling you to be.

Don't skip it.