Washing Hands with Purified Hearts

Well, if you would open your Bible again to 2 Kings chapter 3 verse 11. Hopefully you've marked that. It's always a tremendous privilege to be here to preach the Word of God. Let's read, "And Jehoshaphat said, 'Is there no prophet of the Lord here, through whom we may inquire of the Lord?' That one of the king of Israel's servants answered, 'Elisha, the son of Shefat is here, who poured water on the hands of Elijah.'" Just one verse this morning. This verse is actually loaded. But in order to understand, to make sense of this one verse, we actually have to do a little bit of background.

So I want to do a little Old Testament history, if I can, just an introduction. "The Lord blessed King David immensely." King David died in 15 BC. And after he died, his son Solomon took over and enjoyed a very successful tenure as king. So whereas David was a man of war, Solomon was a man of peace and a man of wisdom. But unfortunately, at the end of Solomon's life, he had many women. The scripture says that he loved many foreign wives. He would take these wives as political alliances, which contributed to the peace. But he not only took them into his home, he took them into his heart and took their idols into his heart.

Shortly after his death, the kingdom was divided in 975 BC. And towards the end of his life, he embraced this idolatrous polytheism. And the Lord cast the two nations, whereas there were one. King Jeroboam was in the north. This is sometimes referred to in the Old Testament as Samaria or Israel. So when you're reading the Old Testament and you read Israel, it's talking about the ten northern tribes. You talk about Judah, the tribe of Judah was located in the southern part of the country. Jerusalem was the capital city. Now you have to know and understand something about this, because Jerusalem had the temple. It had the Ark.

It had the glory of Israel. You can say that it had the only true church in the entire nation. And Jeroboam was forced in a quandary when he found himself king of Israel without Jerusalem. We go back in 1 Kings 12-25. You don't have to turn there. I'll read this. I would encourage you to go back and study this. It's always good to be familiar with Old Testament history. And this is actually very critical to our message today. 1 Kings 12-25, and I'll start in verse 26. Jeroboam thought to himself, "The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David.

If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will again give their allegiance to their Lord, Reboam, king of Judah. They will kill me and return to King Reboam." So after seeking advice, the king made two golden calves. He said to the people, "It is too much for you to go to Jerusalem. Here are your gods. Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt, one he set up in Bethel and the other in Dan. And this thing became a sin.

The people came to worship the one at Bethel and went as far as Dan to worship the other." And so what you see here is several years before our verse this morning, Jeroboam set up a very pragmatic, self-serving, self-preservationistic idol. He said, "This is your god." And so the ten northern tribes fell headlong into an idolatrous worship of these golden calves. They were calling it Yahweh. They basically took part of Jerusalem, and they basically created a new religion. Jeroboam did this entirely to keep them from going to the temple.

He thought if they go to the true church, what will happen is they will end up abandoning me and I'll lose my life and my kingdom. That's important because what we find here in our passage, 2 Kings 3, 11, is we see Jehoshaphat, who is the king of the southern kingdom, the king of Judah, making an alliance with the northern king. This is King Jehoshaphat. If you go back and read 2 Kings 3, you can read this whole story. I'd also recommend that you do that. I wished I could do more teaching on this, but for the purpose of truly being faithful to our verse this morning, I will just give you this feedback.

So King Jehoshaphat, who is the descendant of King Jeroboam. So this is his grandchild. He's got a kingdom now. He has the ancient enemy of God's people, the Moabites, under his thumb. They owe him 100,000 lambs and 100,000 rams. Every single year they owe this tribute. But after his dad Ahab died, they stopped paying. You might remember Ahab. Ahab was a wicked king. He sought for years to kill Elijah. His wife Jezebel was wicked. She really pulled the nation into her pagan practices. So here we see one verse. The southern kingdom and the northern kingdom going out to make war with the Moabites.

The problem that they run into is they run out of water. So King Jehohram and King Jehoshaphat take their armies together and they're marching basically in a circle. And they run out of water and they're in trouble. And the southern king says, this is King Jehoshaphat. Well isn't there a man of God around here? He's used to the Levites who lived in Jerusalem. He's used to the temple worship. He's used to the true biblical church. It's like don't you guys have a single prophet who can come and help us? And that leads us to our text today. You have the southern and the northern kingdom making an unusual ecumenical alliance. And here we have.

So the message today, the title is washing hands with purified hearts. Washing hands with purified hearts. And I'll read our verse one more time now that I've given us an introduction. And Jehoshaphat said, is there no prophet of the Lord here, through whom we may inquire of the Lord? Then one of the king of Israel's servants answered, Elisha, the son of Shefat, is here who poured water on the hands of Elijah. We'll have four points this morning for truths. We'll see that a servant is needed. We'll see that a servant is found. We'll see that a servant is found faithful. We'll see that a servant is found successful. A servant is successful.

So these kings are in something of a quandary. They're in need of a man of God. The prophets in this day were not just preachers, but they were miracle workers. Elijah was Elisha's successor and all of these miraculous works he worked. So first, let's see simply a few questions here about this first point, a servant is needed. Who is this Jehoshaphat? Who is this Jehoshaphat? So four questions under this first point. As I mentioned, Jehoshaphat was the king of the southern kingdom of Judah. And at the time of this passage, the nation of Israel is divided. He has chosen a rare partnership with Jehoram, the king of Judah.

Now, who is this king Jehoram? He was the son of Ahab. He was like his father and he walked in the ways of King Jeroboam. So that meant that they worshiped the golden calves set up in Bethel and in Dan. Now Ahab was worse than his son, Jehoram, because Ahab actually worshiped Bales. He got these wives from Jezebel. He got these gods and these deities from Jezebel. So there's Bales set up all throughout the northern kingdom. And when Jehoram becomes king, he takes those down. Great, that's a great... He's making some positive steps. But he does not do anything about the golden calves that his ancestor, King Jeroboam, set up.

So the second question, who is Jehoshaphat seeking? Who is Jehoshaphat seeking? Jehoshaphat was seeking a man of God who could give them some direction. He was seeking a prophet. He was seeking a man of God. If it's not uncommon during famine, nations would oftentimes think we have sinned. There's a famine, we've done something wrong and we need to repent. If you go out to war and you lose, God is judging you. So it made perfect sense for him to say, "Isn't there a man of God around?" The third question, why is Jehoshaphat seeking a prophet? I know it might have answered that question, but let's take this a little deeper. What is his reason?

Now, if you continue to read this chapter, God had some regard for the southern kingdom because of David. The Lord blessed Judah because of King David. He always is faithful to his word and in the Davidic covenant, the Lord promised that David would always have an heir on the throne. But he had no regard for the northern kingdom. So why then is he seeking the Lord? Now that's a good question. Why are you seeking the Lord today? Does the Lord have regard for your offering? Are you part of the true church of God? When we look at Judah, it's symbolic of a true biblical church with true biblical worship.

And the way you enter the true biblical church is through conversion. You know, lambs were sacrificed in Judah. And in our age, Jesus is the Lamb of God and he is our sacrifice. And have you entered this? Or are you seeking the Lord for self-serving purposes? Now, Jehoram was part of his servant actually notified Jehoshaphat that there was a prophet. He said, yes, there's one who lives in this town. He washed the hands of Elijah. Now, we can often do good things for the wrong reasons. And today what we're going to talk about is washing hands, serving others with a pure heart. Not just washing hands, but actually washing our own hearts.

And what we see is that these kings, especially King Jehoram, was seeking the Lord for selfish purposes. Now, can you seek the Lord for wrong reasons today? Can you come to church for wrong reasons? Absolutely. You can seek the Lord simply for heaven. You can seek the Lord for resolution of problems in your marriage. You can seek the Lord when you have a famine, when you have physical needs, much like these kings. Now, is it wrong to seek the Lord in trial? No. But it is wrong if you simply want the Lord's water without the Lord's truth. Now, you may be like these men in that they were seeking a man of God.

You know, it can be hard to find a man of God. And if you were living in that northern kingdom, you actually had to risk a lot of things if you were going to go to Jerusalem for real worship. You'd have to leave your country. You'd have to sneak into the southern kingdom to go to the temple. Either that, or you would have to have corrupted worship in Bethel or in Dan. Actually, worshiping a golden calf that is not God and calling it God. What lengths will you go to to find real biblical worship? Is it the priority of your life? Or will you accept the cheap substitute? That's a question that we all have to ask.

I simply want to read a portion from later on in chapter 3. I finally find Elisha. This is in verse 13. Elisha says to the king of Israel. This is King Jehoram of the north. He says, "What have I to do with you? Go to the prophets of your father and to the prophets of your mother." Now that's a pretty strong statement. Elisha is looking at this king and says, "My successor Elijah, your dad wanted to kill him. Y'all worshipped Baal's. Go to the prophets of Baal." You know, it can be really hard to find a pastor who will stand up to those who have power in the community and speak the truth.

We live in a day of compromise where many evangelical heroes will cower to someone who has a lot of political power and not point out sin in their life. We hear of these all the time where people will go to a political power, maybe a person who is in president, a person who is very powerful. And instead of speaking to sin in their life, they'll make unholy alliances. And it can be very difficult to find a pastor in a church that is a true church who will speak the truth.

And Elisha was looking at these two kings who easily could have killed him and said, "We've got problems here." He goes on to say that, "As the Lord lives before I stand, if it were not for that I had regard for King Jehoshaphat, the King of Judah, I would neither look at you nor see you." He's basically telling the king of Israel, "Your golden calves have brought iniquity between you and the Lord. And I would not have even had this meeting had you not brought a friend whom the Lord does have regard." Last question I want us to see is, "Who brings the news of Elisha?" Fourth question. Who brings the news of Elisha?

This question is revealed in plain sight. "Then one of the king of Israel's servants answered, 'Elisha, the son of Shefat, is here who poured water on the hands of Elijah.'" Now one of King Jehoram's servants is telling the king about the prophet. He's saying, "We have a prophet. His name is Elisha. He poured water on the hands of Elijah, and he's here. We know nothing else of this servant. We do not know his name. We know nothing else about him. However, we do know that God sovereignly used this servant in the king of Israel's household and possibly there is a line. See his father Ahab also had a servant.

There was a time when Ahab and Jezebel were killing off every prophet of God in the northern kingdom. All of the men who were saying, "Your golden calf is wrong. Your bales are wrong." They would kill them. And there was a man in King Ahab's house named Obadiah. Obadiah was actually the chief administer of the palace. This is amazing. He actually was the chief of all of Ahab's house. So he would have governed his food. He would have governed his servants. He was the chief executive assistant to the king. The scripture tells us he was a godly man. God can use servants in unlikely places. Please write that in your notes.

God can use servants in unlikely places. I want to go back to 1 Kings and read this. Let's read of Ahab and Obadiah. This is in chapter 18 of 1 Kings in verse 1. After many days, the word of the Lord came to Elijah in the third year saying, "Go, show yourself to Ahab and I will send rain upon the earth." So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. And Ahab called Obadiah who was over the household. Now Obadiah feared the Lord greatly. And when Jezebel cut off the prophets of the Lord, Obadiah took 100 prophets and hid them by 50s in a cave and fed them bread and water. So here we have Obadiah.

Scripture says he feared the Lord greatly. So I have some application here. Perhaps you are a servant of God and maybe you are in an unlikely occupation. Perhaps the Lord has placed you next to a king Ahab or a king Jehoram. Maybe your boss is not a believer. Maybe you have been placed in a position where it's hard to be a believer. Perhaps the Lord would use you like he did Joseph. God put Joseph as second command to Pharaoh in Egypt. Perhaps the Lord would use you like Daniel. The Lord put him in second command in Babylon. Perhaps you might even be like Esther. God used to save all the Jews throughout the world.

But most importantly we have to remember that God placed this servant here on purpose. Why did King Jehoram not know? Why did he not suggest that they call Elisha? It's because he was not a believer and was not walking with the Lord and the Lord had no regard for him. I want to remind us of Proverbs 21.1. That would be a good verse for you to go back and look at. Proverbs 21.1. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will. Perhaps you are here today and there's no water in your life. You're in a time of drought, a time of famine.

Perhaps you're working for a boss who is tyrannical and unreasonable or you're in a complicated marriage. The Lord can use you to accomplish eternal purposes. We must never stop trusting the sovereignty of God. The reason why your circumstances are the way they are is because God has placed you there. Perhaps he wants to use you in a special way. There was a servant who was in need. Let's see the second question that a servant was found. Servant is found. "Elijah the son of Shiphat who poured water on the hands of Elijah." Now this to me is a powerful verse.

This verse really jumped off the page for me as I was reading this in my time of Bible study and meditation. And this word really captivated my heart. And it was this phrase, "Poured water on the hands of Elijah." So I began to do some research on that phrase. What does that mean to pour water? Before Elijah was a prophet, he was a servant. In fact, in this day, the only people who washed the hands of someone, these were the lowliest of servants, the lowliest of slaves. Number two, how Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. Only a servant and only a slave would have washed feet. And only a lowly servant would have washed the hands.

That might be important to note that before he was a prophet, Elijah was a servant. Before he was known for great miracles, he was known primarily for his faithful service to the nation's most famous prophet. So if I can just ask you a question. Are you willing to serve in the shadows where no one sees or recognizes that you do anything at all? In your heart of hearts, are you willing to do jobs that others don't want to do? My first job, I was working with children who had been through some really hard times and hard situations. And we were actually putting on a training. And so I saw that the hallway needed to be swept.

And I started sweeping, sweeping, sweeping the hallway. We had lawyers in the training. We had social workers in the training, police officers in the training. And they broke for lunch and they were coming through. And one of my attorney friends that was in the training saw me sweeping. And he said, "Isn't that someone else's job?" And he kept on walking out. Perhaps he thought someone else was assigned to that. But I worked at a summer camp. And at this summer camp, one of the training that they gave us was, "If you see something that needs to be done, it's your job.

If you see trash on the paper, it's your job, trash or paper on the floor." And I've adopted that as a philosophy throughout my life. I teach at the college there. But if I see balled up paper in the stairwell, I will grab that, discard of that. But that was his philosophy, is that he was simply going to do what needed to be done. And even if it meant the lowest job, the lowest servant, washing hands. And so with this verse, we get to the heart of our message today. This is a message you could easily overlook. But I was recently gripped at the subtlety and the humility of this verse.

The writer tells us that Elijah poured water on the hands of Elijah. And if you do some more research, you'll find out that from the time Elijah was anointed, the time that he joined Elijah, he did this for 17 years. For 17 years, he washed the hands of the prophet. Before he raised people from the dead. There's all kind of creative, interesting miracles that Elijah works. One of my favorites, there's some men who are chopping down a tree. They're using a borrowed axe head. And as they're by a lake and as they're swinging the axe head, the head flies off into the lake and it sinks.

And these men are really in trouble because they borrowed that axe head. And only are they, they need the lumber to sell and to work. They need the axe head. So they call Elijah. And Elijah prayed and made the axe head float. Can't tell you how many times when I'm missing my keys, I asked the Lord to make the axe head float. When we think about Elijah and his faithfulness before he was even known as a prophet. So a servant was needed and a servant was found. And a servant was found faithful. Two qualities that made Elijah faithful to serve as a prophet. First, if you would note that he was set apart.

First Kings 19-19, we see the call of Elisha. Again this is very lengthy. I will try to summarize it. I tell you what, let me just read it. I have this here. First Kings 19-19, you don't have to turn there. So this is talking of Elijah. Elijah departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shafat who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him. And he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him. This was very symbolic. Elisha would have known that this was a call to be his assistant.

So he left the oxen and he ran after Elijah and said, "Let me kiss my father and my mother and then I will follow you." And he said, "Go back again for what have I done to you." And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of oxen and gave it to the people and they ate. Then he rose and after Elijah went after Elijah and assisted him. So when Elijah is going through the country, he takes his cloak when he comes and he sees Elijah is working in the fields, puts the cloak around him. He is calling him into the ministry. He is appointing him.

And Elisha almost says the wrong thing. He says, "Before I go, let me first kiss my mother and my father and tell them goodbye." Which was not the right answer. But he covered well because he took his oxen and he slaughtered them and he took the yoke the oxen were attached to and he used this for wood to make a burnt offering. They had a meal and they sacrificed this to the Lord. It really became an act of consecration. Then he kissed his parents and he left. And so that call was an invitation for Elisha to count the cost. Perhaps the Lord would call you to some work in the church.

It may not be as dramatic as Elisha's call, but it will be ever bit as spiritual. The Lord will call you and he will call you to count the cost, to commit to a task and to not look back. Elijah was not only set apart, but he was a successor. He was a successor. Says that for 17 years, researchers, scholars say that he spent learning the prophetic ropes. And we have no record of Elisha performing a single miracle. We have no indication that Elisha had any sort of negative attitude. Now, can I ask you a question? If you had to wash someone's feet or had to wash their hands for 17 years, what would your attitude be?

We don't understand really the concept of a servant. In fact, here recently, among the young people that we pick up from the community and bring to church, I was talking in a group and I was talking to them about the importance of being a servant. And one of them shot back and gave me a glare as if that was an evil thing. Don't demean me and treat me as a servant. And then I explained that, no, in Christianity, that's a good thing. Jesus was a servant. Jesus came, he considered equality with God, not something to be grasped, yet he humbled himself. He became a servant. And that's the model.

So if we ask, you think Elisha ever grumbled when he was washing Elisha's hands? The answer is unequivocally no. Well, we will get to this in a second as we unpack this. But the fourth question, Elisha, servant is found faithful. The fourth question, a servant is successful. So with our final point, I want to examine the qualities that made Elisha faithful. What were the qualities that make Elisha a faithful servant? So simply two qualities here and then we'll close. A leader, servant. A servant leader will always foster contentment. A servant leader will always foster contentment. I do not think that Elisha was a grumbler or a complainer.

The example that I give to this is Jesus. Every Old Testament prophet that is used of God is a forerunner to Christ. And I would say this, if he was a grumbler or complainer, he would not have been chosen to be the nation's prophet. The Lord would not have called Elijah to lay his cloak on Elisha, drafting him into ministry if he was a grumbler or a complainer. And God will not use you if you're grumbling and complaining either. Look at what Jesus says in John 10, 18. He says, "No one takes my life. I lay it down willingly." Husbands, you know that you are to lay down your life for your wife.

You know that you are to love her like Christ loved the church. You're to cherish her. But how, you know you are to be your wife's servant and helpmate, but how are you to do this? If you're to love her like Christ loved the church, you must do this willingly. Now can I ask you a question, husbands? Are you willing to, scripture tells us to wash our wives with the washing of the Word. We are to take the Word and we're to live that out in front of them. Not just teaching them, but being an example to them.

And that means that when we are called to serve our wives, we must do this not with grumbling and not complaining, because Jesus gave his life willingly and we should too. But there's another New Testament example of contentment, not just Jesus. Let's look at Paul. I call Paul the king of contentment. Philippians 4, 11. "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content." It must be learned. What did Paul say in 4, 11 of Philippians? He says, "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content." This means all these different situations that he was in challenged him to be content. I meant he struggled with being content.

Perhaps when he was adrift at sea for three days. Perhaps when he was beaten with a cat of nine tails. Perhaps when he was beaten with fists to the point of death. So if you are to be found faithful and successful in your service, you must foster contentment. And the second thing that you must do is you must forsake covetousness. You must forsake covetousness. If you are to wash the hands of those around you, if you are to serve those like the servant prophet Elisha, you must forsake covetousness because covetousness is the enemy of contentment.

You cannot serve someone if you're not content and you can't be content if you're coveting what someone else has. Think about what Elisha could have done. Elisha is over here and perhaps he's just worked a miracle. His hands are filthy. He's like, "I'm just in need of my hands washed." Elisha could say, "Well, here we go again." You ever think that maybe Elisha for 17 years could have coveted the honor and the position that Elisha had? If you're in your workplace, have you ever been tempted to think, "This person gets paid more than me. They're in a job that gets more glory and honor than me and I'm doing their job half the time.

I know I could do it better than they could." You will never be able to serve that leader ahead of you if you're battling this covetousness. And the ultimate example of someone who failed is Cain in Genesis 4.6. It says that God had no regard for Cain's offering. Scripture tells us that Cain coveted the approval that God gave to Abel's sacrifice. Abel rightly sacrificed the blood offering. And God then, in His grace, in His mercy, finds Cain when he's bathing in this rage, in this covetousness.

And the Lord goes to him and says, "If you do well, will you not be accepted?" But He goes on to say, "If you don't, sin has a desire for you and it will have you." God tells Cain, "You must master sin or it will master you." So let's tie these themes together. If you do not master covetousness, covetousness will master you. You will not serve those around you. You specifically, in leadership, will not become this servant leader the Lord has for you. So if we have covetousness exemplified with Abel and Cain, let me define it. Covetous is defined in 1 John 2.6. Excuse me, 1 John 2.16. If you want to write that reference down. 1 John 2.16.

Scripture refers to covetousness as the lust of the eyes. The lust of the eyes. And this is so prevalent in our country. In fact, the marketing industry simply desires you to covet things that are not yours simply by telling you you deserve them. Simply telling you you deserve our product. So if we can simply package the thing in such a way so that we make you covet, then you will buy our product and we will be successful. The problem with this is that covetousness is the enemy of contentment. Dear Christian, if you are to serve and lay your life down willingly, you cannot covet.

And the reason why we give begrudgingly is because we desire something that someone else has. And we know because of Elisha's 17-year ministry of simply ministering to his pastor and ministering to the prophet, we know the Lord had plenty of opportunity to develop with him a heart. So here is the message title today. Washing hands with purified hearts. Perhaps the Lord would call you to purify your heart. Fathers, perhaps you serve your families, but there are times when you are grumbling and doing it. Perhaps in your job you are serving others and going the extra mile, but you don't always have the best attitude in it.

Let's ask the Lord to fill our church with servants. And in their service, the Lord might be preparing you for something greater down the road. If he doesn't call us to that, that is his choice. But it's our job to be faithful. You would bow with me to close. Lord Jesus, we come before you in great need. Lord, we must not only do the right thing, we must do the right thing for the right reason, and we must do it the right way. We must serve you wholeheartedly, and we must be grateful in our task. Lord, when the work is hard and the work is challenging, we pray that we might, like Paul, we might learn to be content in all situations.

We know if you've commanded us to do everything without grumbling and complaining, we know you will enable us to do this. Lord, we thank you for the servant prophet Elisha. Lord, we love you. We ask you to bless us in your word throughout the day. Your holy name, we pray.