Two Kings, chapter four, and verses eight to 17. This woman receives a gift. Gifts are something that can bring great joy. I think maybe the children might concur in that. Gifts at your birthday or at Christmas can bring great joy, can't they? But even for adults, Gifts are things given voluntarily, by choice. But the gifts of this world from the people of this world are fleeting. That means they're here today and gone tomorrow. God has given an astonishing gift to his people. a gift that should make us stagger in amazement. That's why the title today is God's Astonishing Gift. Let us consider this passage, which, as we will get to a little later, does picture this for us. Well, the first point, children, on your sheets, first big point, it's just simply the Shunammite woman. If you can't spell that, just do your best. The Shunamite woman. This is this wealthy woman we have here. We see in verse eight, actually before we start in verse eight, we have two subheadings. The first subheading is this, her generosity. her generosity. So the big point is the Shunammite woman, the subheading, her generosity. See in verse eight that there is this woman who lived in Shunam. Now, Shunam is near Carmel. Maybe you, if you're good at geography, you've been getting a bit of a geographical picture in your mind from our studies of Elijah and Elisha. You see, they travel about the place. It's always saying, and Elijah went from here to here, and Elijah went from Jericho to Bethel. You remember the sermon we had a while back Not that far back, actually. With Elisha in 2 Kings 2, verse 19 to 25, we titled it A Tale of Two Cities. And you have those two cities, Jericho and Bethel. Well, these two cities were near Carmel, and this place, Shunem, was near Carmel. So, all these things are in close proximity to one another. And what was in Jericho and Bethel? schools of the prophets. Now these were the schools of the Bible teachers, the sons of the prophets, and Elisha would teach in these places. All this is to say that this woman lived in a place where Elisha would go near to quite often. As he travels to Jericho and Bethel and elsewhere, he would go near this woman's house and Elisha seems to have been more of a reserved personality. A quieter man, it seems. And so, he doesn't just go straight in and have food at her and her husband's table when she says it. She has to, look at verse eight, urge him to eat some food. So she does. Some of the old commentators actually put it as through importunate pleadings. Basically means she really urges him, come on, come and eat some food. And eventually she persuades him, and this becomes a regular thing, verse eight again, whenever he passed that way, he would turn in there to eat some food. Now she was a wealthy woman. Exactly why she was wealthy, we don't know where her money came from, but she was a wealthy woman, her and her husband. And she gives to Elijah of what she has. But soon she's not content with just having him in to eat some food every now and again, she wants to do more for him. She wants to build a little room with a table and a chair and a bed and a lamp so that he can go in there, perhaps he can study, he can think quietly to himself. See as a preacher it's actually If you travel round and you're preaching at a church twice, and you go to someone's home, you travel the long way in the morning, you preach there in the morning, and you go to someone's home and they kindly give you lunch, people of the old school generally also say to you, look, we've got a room that you can go up to and just have a nap or prepare your sermon. It's actually very helpful. It's interesting, because you just, it's been people all day and you've been preaching, and it's nice just to, Sit down and be quiet somewhere where you don't feel like you have to interact with people. So this is probably what was happening with Elijah. She recognized that, she says, why don't you come here? Perhaps even sleep here some nights when you're passing through. This can be a place of refreshment for you. But she doesn't just ask him. She shows respect to her husband, verse nine. She asks her husband, basically, The way it's put suggests that this woman has money of her own. Now, it would have been hers and her husband's, but the fact that she is a wealthy woman doesn't say her husband was a wealthy man, although that would seem, you know, most probable. But somehow this money, she had a claim to beyond just being married to this man. But she doesn't just make use of it. She does ask her husband, she shows respect to her husband. She submits to him in this sense. Now it's interesting that in this passage, the scenes have this woman, she is the character, not her husband, he only features when she asks him. He's not the one going out of the way to do these nice things for Elijah. But nevertheless, she shows respect and she asks him. And of course, it seems that she gets a positive answer because that is what she does. And she cares for Elisha. She gives of what she has. She is hospitable. She is generous. This is what we should be like as Christians. We have been given things by God. We should be generous back to those around us. particularly to those of the household of faith, as it says in Galatians 6. So that's the first subheading, her generosity. She's really setting the scene. Secondly is her priorities. Verse 11 says this, one day he, Elisha, came there, and he turned into the chamber and rested there. And he said to Gehazi, his servant, call this Shunammite. When he had called her, she stood before him and said to him, Say now to her, see you have taken all this trouble for us, what is to be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or the commander of the army? She answered, I dwell among my own people. Elisha says, she's been kind to me. There's no need to, she's not expecting anything in return. Call her Gehazi. And he basically offers her to put in a good word with the king. That's pretty big, that. Put in a good word with the king, or the commander of the army. Perhaps her husband could be promoted to some position in the royal household. Perhaps she could become well connected, knowing the wife of the king, or something like this. This was a real, genuine, Big offer. This is the kind of thing you don't turn down. The go-getters of our age would bite Elijah's hand off. Yes, please! Interesting, isn't it? Now, I don't think it would have been... I don't think there's anything in the past to suggest it would have been wrong for her to say yes. Elijah wouldn't have offered it if it was wrong to say yes. But the fact that she says, I dwell among my own people, I'm happy here. I don't need the delicacies of the king's table. I don't need the connections of the royal family. I'm content with what I have. This is suggestive that she was a contented person for whom worldly gain was not first in her heart. It seems that worldly gain was not first in her heart. May it be so with us. Gehazi, this very servant of Elisha, was not the same. A few passages later, in 2 Kings 5, just one chapter over, Naaman, the commander of the army of the king of Syria, comes to Elisha, and I won't go through the whole story, but essentially, Naaman has leprosy. And Elisha facilitates his healing of leprosy. And Naaman comes and he basically says, I have so much to give you if you will receive it. Suits of clothes, perhaps gold, silver, you know, worldly possessions. And Elisha says, we don't want it. Thank you very much, we don't need it. So he goes off and Gehazi, what does he do? He sneaks out to this man and he says, a couple of people have come by, we need some of these things. Basically, he takes a couple of suits of clothes, some money, some of this, some of that, and he goes back and he hides it. And then he ends up getting leprosy. Now in our passage, the woman was offered, she could have received it, she wouldn't have got leprosy, she was offered this sort of thing, but she refused it. In the other passage, Gehazi, was not offered it. In fact, it was wrong for him to go get it. But his heart led him astray, because he wasn't content. He didn't want to just slum it. As a servant of the prophet of God, he wanted new suits of clothes, he wanted money, and he was willing to get it illegitimately. Well, not so with this woman. May we be more like this woman than Gehazi. But interestingly, though it wouldn't have been wrong, I don't think, for her to say yes to this offer, if she had said yes, would she have received a son? Well, the way the passage is laid out suggests not, because she gets this offer because she turned down the one of worldly gain. She would not have received a son, it seems, if she'd accepted this worldly profit, this royal connection, this use of the army of Israel. Likewise for us, this is an important point. We receive the best gift from God, salvation, as we discussed earlier in Luke 14, by dethroning worldly lusts in our heart. What does Jesus say? You cannot serve God and mammon, money, worldly possessions, the things of this world. If they are first in our heart, if they are on that throne, you imagine your heart and a throne there for the one who has control, if worldly gain is there, dictating your actions like a puppet master, then you do not have the salvation of Jesus Christ. God offers us salvation and it is set up for us as it were in that passage in Luke 14 as well. Salvation or worldly gain. Now this is not to say that people cannot have worldly gain, that people cannot have riches, that is not it. It's a heart question. What is first in your heart? What is first in my heart? It's a question we need to ask. Imagine this, Elon Musk has been in the news a lot recently. Take Elon Musk, or Bill Gates if you don't like Elon Musk, or some other very rich person if you don't like either of those. If they came to you and said, you know, I've been looking at what you've been doing, I've been looking at your work, or I've been looking at your character, what you say on social media, I think it's brilliant. Now I want to back you to go worldwide with whatever it is you do or whatever it is you want to do. I want to sponsor you three billion pounds tomorrow. But you must never, to the best of your ability, speak or think of Jesus again. If you were to pick the money, that would mean that at that moment your heart was not for Christ. and the salvation of God would not be yours. You can fill that in with whatever else you want. If it's for you, it's the idea of finding the perfect partner, or whatever it may be. If it's it versus Jesus, where are you? This is about a heart state. This is about a heart state. Riches may never be offered, The perfect partner may never be, will never be offered. Whatever it is, it may never be offered to you, but it's about your heart state. It's like a litmus test. That's what we need to ask ourselves. You know what a litmus test is, children? It's one of those little pieces of paper, and you dip it in a liquid, and it turns a colour depending on how acidic or alkaline the liquid is. Now, if I remember rightly, darkest blue is most alkaline, and most red is most acidic. And in the scale are different shades, and so you dip the litmus paper in, and you see, oh, this is very acidic, or oh, this is very alkaline. Now, by dipping the paper in, that doesn't make the liquid acidic, like lemon, or alkaline, like dishwasher tablets. It just shows you what it is. And this is what our illustrations are doing here. It's not if someone offered you these things. It's showing our heart state. Where are our hearts at? Dipping that paper, the lips in and saying, where's my heart at? Is it for Jesus or is it for the world? We did read earlier, didn't we, Luke chapter 14? We're not gonna read it all again. But Jesus speaking. of father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, even they cannot rise above the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts and minds. He must be number one. He must be everything to us. He must be all in all to us. Now, as I've been speaking of this, of searching our hearts, of doing that litmus test, The right response, yes, we need to look at ourselves, but the right response isn't to be incredibly introspective and now for, if it's really struck you to think for the next days and weeks and months, am I really saved? If you're not sure, the response is to change it now. Because love is an act of the will. It's not just a feeling that waves over you like a wind. It's an act of the will. Faith is an act of the will. So we must change it now, if we are for the world and not for Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ must be all in all to us. And for Christians, as we spoke earlier, Jesus Christ is on the throne in our hearts. He will win out. He is there on the throne, that greatest throne in our hearts. He is controlling. He will order us, and we will want to do it. But as I said before, we raise up temporary thrones. You might imagine smaller thrones that compete. Rebellious thrones for our sins. Perhaps it is loving the things of this world, or perhaps it's something different, but how do we know Which sins are enthroned in our hearts? Let's get very practical. We've been talking about having Jesus enthroned, and now I'm talking to Christians, those who do love Jesus. But we set up other smaller thrones, don't we, in our hearts. How do we know what's on those thrones? How do we know which sins? Well, who sits on the throne? That's right, God sits on the throne, but who sits on the throne on earth? It's kings. And what do kings do? Take King Henry VIII. What did he do? He gave orders. He controlled. Wolsey was a cardinal of the church, and Henry gave lots of orders to him, and he did lots of things, but then when he decided he didn't like him anymore, you know what he did? He had his head chopped off. Off with his head! And then Thomas Cromwell rose up, and he was in the king's good books, and he ordered him to do this, and this, and this, and this, and then he decided he didn't like him. What did he do? Off with his head. See what King Henry VIII said goes. Yes, another wife. Yes, behead her, now I'll have another wife. He just orders. Like our sins in our hearts. You see, we know which sins in our hearts are on the throne at any one time. from looking at what is controlling us. We know discontentment and desire for greater worldly gain is on the throne in our hearts when it controls us. One of those temporary thrones for Christians, yes, but it's still there when it gives orders, when it dominates our minds. We know anger is on one of those temporary thrones in our hearts when it controls us. I got angry at the printer this morning. Those brief moments, it's controlling you. Lust, when it controls our eyes to look where they should not, and our minds to think about what they should not. Control. A spirit of rebellion for all of us, but you might think especially for children, against parents, against school teachers, against authorities, when you are being controlled by, oh, I don't want to do that, no, I don't want to do that, don't tell me that, I'm gonna do this instead. Do you see? We know things are on those temporary thrones as Christians when they are controlling us. Let us, Christian, dethrone those idols Cast them out. Jesus Christ is on the big throne of your heart. And do you know why he's there? Because he won that place. He won it not by sitting restfully and peacefully on a throne, he won it by being raised up on something else. Two planks nailed together and his hands nailed to that plank and he wasn't restfully sitting, he was suffocating because you know on a cross what happens is, Your arms rest down and your chest goes down and you can't breathe. And so you have to pull yourself up by your arms to breathe. And then you can't again because you're too exhausted. And then you have to do that again and again until eventually the victim suffocates. That's what Jesus did. For if you're a Christian, to be on the throne in your heart. That's what he did to be on the throne in my heart. Does that not cause us to want to cast away all these other wretched sins off those thrones in contention with Him and have Him only there? So that's our first point, the Shunammite woman. But secondly, receiving God's astonishing gift. Receiving God's astonishing gift. Verse 14, after she's refused this first gift, Gehazi suggests she has no son and her husband is old. Basically, she has no son and she's not going to have a son unless some omnipotent ruler of the heavens and the earth miraculously gives her one. And so Elijah calls her in and he tells her that she shall have This woman does not want gifts from earthly kings, but she surely wants a gift from their heavenly king. She was blessed with a miraculous child. Now husbands too, but wives and women do want children. If you hadn't noticed that. Many of you had children. It's a desire that God has placed in the heart of women. And it is rare that at no time in a woman's life, from what I've seen and read, it's rare that a woman will never want a child. But more so Jewish women, especially of this time. Think of Hannah. Remember Hannah in the story, in Samuel? She was one of two wives of one husband. That's wrong. Nevertheless, it happened. She was one of two wives with one husband, and the other wife, who was not very nice to her, had lots of children. She had no children, and she was devastated. She was so upset, she was praying in the temple, I believe it was, and the high priest, Eli, came in, and he thought she was drunk. She was so earnest in prayer. She really wanted a child, and this woman, too. would have really wanted a child. We can actually see that from her response, don't lie to me, don't get my hopes up, this can't be. Children are the joy of parents. To have a quiver full is a blessing. And the joy of this woman must have known no bounds when she actually received this child. Her soul must have been tried by waiting, hoping, and then having her hopes dashed. Her soul must have been seriously tried, for the power of God's might knows no bounds, and the joy this woman had when she finally received a child must have been overwhelming. Elisha knows exactly, not exactly, but roughly when this baby will be born, verse 16. At this season, about this time next year, this is definitely the miraculous work of God. God's timing is his own. He gives us what he has in store for us when he has decided to. And sometimes we're not happy, but God gives his gifts in his own time. But this woman, she does doubt that God can actually deliver. What does she say? She says, no, my lord, oh man of God, do not lie to your servant. Now, I don't think this is a spirit of you're a liar, but I don't believe anything you say. This is more, I can't believe that. Should she have believed it? Amen, she should have believed it. She doubts God's power. And well, she either doubts God's power or she doubts God's willingness. She either doubts that God can or she doubts that God will. And Christians, is this not also so often us? Perhaps we do not say, yeah, I don't believe God's given me that, I doubt it, but we act like it, and we think like it, and we live like it, and you know, it makes us miserable, and if only we could cast off that mantle of gloom because of it, we would be more contented, more joyous people. We say God is sovereign, and then we panic when things are going wrong. Everything's going wrong, how am I gonna get out of this? Oh no. Now a level of stress is natural and right, but panic, downright panic, which we've all done, perhaps only once in your life or a few times, some of us probably done it thousands and thousands of times, it's a demonstration that actually in that moment, there's a doubt there about God's sovereignty. We say it is better to give to the Lord now and receive blessings in eternity, but I'm not sure I wanna give this. Whether it be money, or time, or energy, or hospitality, whatever it is, if God has given it to us often, we're not willing to put it on the line, because we're worried. We actually think, in parts of our mind, better to have this now. At least I can be sure of it now. If we fully believed, what we partly believe that it is better to give now and receive in eternity, all of us would live different lives. And I'm not shaming anyone here, I'm talking about myself as well, this is the same for all Christians, there are those elements of doubt. We say Christ is sufficient, he's enough for me, But then actually, sometimes we trust in our own works. We've had this from Jamar, haven't we? What's a way to think of that? So how do I know I'm trusting in my own works? Well, when you doubt about your salvation or you think about heaven, is it only Christ's blood and his righteousness that gives you assurance, or is it? You know, I have done that and I have done this. I did do the other. You're probably not thinking when you get to heaven, I've done these works. You know your Bibles. But at the same time, is it all Christ? Or do we sometimes think, yes, I'm gonna be okay because we say all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. But then if we sometimes, cannot ourselves bring about the result we want or think is best, then we despair. We greatly worry and we are anxious. We say the word of God is enough to save, but then sometimes we don't believe it. This is so as we preach and speak to you children as well. We need to believe more that the word of God is enough to save us. I urge you afresh. Trust God. It's a journey for us in sanctification. You're not gonna completely trust God as you will in heaven tomorrow, but we do grow. Let us grow. Let us trust God more and more. He has saved you, has he not, if you're a Christian? He is trustworthy. Would one who is not trustworthy send to you his only begotten son to die for your sins? No. He is trustworthy. Sometimes, in our minds and hearts, again, probably not front foremost in saying it and literally thinking it, but sometimes we do actually treat God like a confidence trickster. In the sense of doubting him. thinking can he really deliver on that? Will he really do that? Let us not shame our God. And for unbelievers here today, do not doubt God's power to save. God can save and he will save whosoever believes in him. So this woman doubts and so do we, but we have the Lord Jesus Christ. This child of the woman, this astonishing gift of God, was born a long time, sorry, the astonishing gift of God for us, the son of God, was born a long time after this son was born. But he was born 2,000 years ago. And this is what I want to spend the rest of my time on. It's not a lot of time, but just this. This is a remarkable, astonishing, staggering meditation that I hope will lift your hearts in joy to God, which is this, that this woman here received a son from God as her own son. The Lord Jesus Christ, if you're a Christian, is not just your savior, he is yours. He is yours. Sometimes, in a marriage relationship, a husband may say of a wife or a wife may say of a husband, yes, affectionately, they're mine. And what they mean is they've given themselves to each other. They belong to each other, not to order around and do everything, but they've given themselves for the good prosperity of the other. There aren't the same boundaries there are. with other people. Now, of course, we do not have that with the Lord Jesus in any physical way, but in a spiritual way. The bond is just as close, if not closer. He is ours. Isaiah 9, verse 6, famous Christmas passage. Listen carefully. Think about the strength of this statement. For to us, a child is born. For to us, a son is on land? Given. Given. Jesus is given to us, God's people. Given. This son who was born in the miraculous way of the virgin birth was given. to us. The lady here in our passage held this miraculous son in her arms. Mary cradled the eternal God, contracted to a span. Not in that he stopped being God, but that he took on that humanity as a baby. Fragile, limited. Mary cradled him, and we can grasp hold of him too. He is no longer a baby. He is the risen Christ, but we can grasp Him no less closely in honour and respect and love, because He is ours. To us a son is given. We have joy in Him now, and we shall have joy in His presence and relationship with Him for all eternity. Christians have the Lord Jesus. 1 John speaks of this. This is the same writer as the book of John's Gospel, 1 John 5. I'll read two verses, 11 to 12. And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have eternal life. It's true whoever believes on the Son, but that's not what it says here. It's true whoever has faith in the Son, but that's not what it says here. It says whoever has the Son. This is the doctrine of unity with Christ. Paul talks about it in Romans 6 and 7. We are united with the Lord Jesus in an unbreakable bond. ordained in eternity. In God's good time, his son was sent forth for his people. And does not that truth cause our hearts to sing in praise and honor and worship of God with the hymn writer? His forever, only his, who the Lord and me shall part. Ah, with what a rest of bliss Christ can fill the loving heart! Heaven and earth may fade and flee, Firstborn light in gloom decline, But while God and I shall be, I am his, and he is mine. Since we have been given him, Since we have the Lord Jesus as our own, and in Him we have forgiveness, we have sanctification, we have eternal hope, we have righteousness, we have the blessing of God, His smile upon us, we have blessing upon blessing upon blessing, all the blessings there are to have in Jesus Christ in the heavenly places, highest of all, which is Him. Since we have all this, since we have been given, God may fledge. Let us, as we go back to our first point, be generous with what we have. Since we have been welcomed into God's house, let us welcome others in hospitality into our homes. Since we have received Christ as a friend, let us deeply and fully befriend those around us in this church and other Christians, especially so. Since we have received so much that we could never get by our own power, let us give and give and give to God, his kingdom and his people. But as we close, What if you don't have him? How do you get him? How do you become united with him? Well, in this passage, 2 Kings chapter four, we see this. And he said to him, Say now to her, see you have taken all this trouble for us, what is to be done for you? Now this is interesting. Are we like this woman to receive this gift by taking trouble for God? By doing hard things for God? By going out of our way for God? You see, this woman could go out of her way for Elisha, but which one of us can go out of our way for God? Who owns everything? Who has everything? The only way we can be saved is by faith. We see in the passage that when the child arrives, what does the woman do? She will embrace him. Embrace him. That is what we must do with the Lord Jesus. Not physically, but spiritually. In our hearts, we must have faith on him. We must believe on him. Psalm 2 says, kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish in the way. For his wrath is quickly kindled. This kiss is a kiss of respect, of belief, of faith. In this, We cannot but repent of the sins that he had to come to save us from. Are you not moved to do this by the wonder of this Jesus? Amen.