Dock Resource Kit
Sunday sermon, 9 November 2025
Summary
This week, Michael spoke to us about expectations and reality in God’s formation process, through the story of Naaman’s healing in 2 Kings 5. Naaman expected healing to come through wealth, power, and status—but instead, God met him through humility, obedience, and grace. Formation, we learned, often arrives through unexpected people and circumstances, unconcerned with our status, and always at a cost: the cost of surrender. Naaman came seeking physical healing, but found spiritual transformation. God alone forms and restores us, beyond what we can imagine, when we bring our lives—our pride, our plans, and our “not enoughs”—fully under His lordship.
Key Points & Takeways
Formation Can Be Unexpected - God often works through surprising people and moments, like the enslaved Israelite girl who set Naaman’s healing in motion. We are constantly being formed, whether we recognise it or not; every interaction, choice, and challenge shapes us. Formation is not confined to the expected or spiritual parts of life—it happens in the everyday.
Formation Isn’t Concerned With Status - Naaman, a man of prestige, expected access to kings and spectacle from prophets—but God humbled him through servants and messengers. God values every person equally: there’s no hierarchy in His love or His capacity to use us. True formation strips away pride and status, teaching us dependence and equality before God.
Formation Is Costly - Naaman brought wealth beyond measure, but the price of healing wasn’t silver or gold—it was obedience and humility. God’s grace is free, but it transforms us through surrender. Obedience, rightly understood, isn’t about control but presence—choosing to be with God in trust and submission.
Formation Is God’s Work - Naaman’s healing was designed so that no one else—neither Elisha nor the Jordan River—could take the credit. God doesn’t just meet our expectations; He exceeds them, transforming us completely. God’s saving work is for all nations and all people, breaking every boundary of privilege and belonging.
Dock Discussion Questions
Expectations vs. Reality:
When have you expected God to work in a certain way, only to find Him showing up differently? What did you learn from that?Humility and Obedience:
Naaman’s healing required obedience and humility. Where might God be inviting you to surrender pride or control so that He can form you more deeply?Formation as God’s Work:
How does recognising that God is the one who forms us change the pressure we put on ourselves to “get it right”?Formation Beyond Status:
How does Naaman’s story challenge the way we view people society deems “important” or “unimportant”?
Long-form, edited transcript
Formation
Expectations vs Reality
2 Kings 5:1–16
Luke 4:24-27
Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy
2 Now bands of raiders from Aram had gone out and had taken captive a young girl from Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. 3 She said to her mistress, “If only my master would see the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.”
4 Naaman went to his master and told him what the girl from Israel had said. 5 “By all means, go,” the king of Aram replied. “I will send a letter to the king of Israel.” So Naaman left, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing.6 The letter that he took to the king of Israel read: “With this letter I am sending my servant Naaman to you so that you may cure him of his leprosy.”
7 As soon as the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his robes and said, “Am I God? Can I kill and bring back to life? Why does this fellow send someone to me to be cured of his leprosy? See how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me!”
8 When Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his robes, he sent him this message: “Why have you torn your robes? Have the man come to me and he will know that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9 So Naaman went with his horses and chariots and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house. 10 Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”
11 But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. 12 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?” So he turned and went off in a rage.
13 Naaman’s servants went to 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’!” 14 So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.
15 Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel. So please accept a gift from your servant.”
16 The prophet answered, “As surely as the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will not accept a thing.” And even though Naaman urged him, he refused.
Expectations Vs Reality
As we look at the story of Naaman, we are going to look at the difference between Naaman’s expectation of being healed by God, and the reality of his experience. There was a significant gap between Naaman’s expectations of being healed by God, and the reality of being healed by God and what Naaman learned in his healing, can teach us lessons about our formation as Christians.
We are going to keep it simple today, we are going to work our way through the story of Naaman’s healing and observe the difference between expectation and reality, and explore how we apply the scripture to our lives.
Formation Can Be Unexpected
Formation can come about when we are not looking for it, and from places and people that we don’t expect. We read in 2 Kings 5:1-3 that Naaman had everything, powerful position, highly regarded, favoured by God. Interestingly though, whilst Naaman is said to have leprosy, it doesn’t say that he is actually seeking healing for it.
Instead, an unnamed enslaved Israelite girl. Someone that is part of the faithful remnant, that still worship Yahweh and are familiar with His prophets. She has compassion on her master, even though she is captive in a foreign land. Despite the enormity of the social status gulf between her and her master, tells her mistress about a way that Naaman could be healed. Naaman wasn’t looking to be healing, to be formed, and if we was it wouldn’t be from this unlikely source, formation can be unexpected.
We’ve talked about this phenomenon before, that our whole life is a life of formation. Every experience and every interaction has the potential to form us in one way or another. John Mark Comer talks about this in his book Practicing The Way:
“we are each becoming something. That’s the crux of the human experience: the process of becoming a person. To be human is to change. To grow. To evolve. This is by God’s design.”
In the same way, this week, when we leave this church, we are going to be formed whether we are looking for it, expecting it, or not. That formation will come from expected places, and unexpected places. Who are we going to spend time with, how are we going to approach those relationships. What are we going to watch, listen to? How will we choose to respond to the unexpected challenges and difficulties? Formation never stops.
Formation Isn’t Concerned With Status
We see in the next part of the narrative that Naaman had certain expectations of the process of healing, because of his status. Naaman expected to be dealt with by the king. He was a powerful man used to dealing with powerful men. His expectation is that the king of Israel will deal with him and be directly involved with arranging his healing.
The reality is that Naaman, a powerful man, is instructed to come to Israel by an enslaved girl. Expecting a king, he is sent instead to a prophet, another rung down the social ladder. The prophet (Elisha) doesn’t even come out to meet Naaman, instead sending a messenger. Offended by the lack of respect, Naaman leaves before being challenged by his own servants to be obedient to God’s instruction. Naaman follows the instructions and is transformed.
God is no respecter of persons, of status. Not because he is so mighty and we are all equally worthless and powerless compared to Him. Because we are all equally valuable, loved and able to receive His grace. Dale Ralph Davis writes:
“For God there is no tension between Isaiah 66:1 (the earth is my footstool) and Matt 10:29 (God cares for the sparrows).”
God is simultaneously mighty and incomparable, and concerned with the details of our lives, this truth is not something that minimises God, it is an aspect of His glory and splendour, His capacity and desire to be involved in our lives is a display of the magnitude of His power and love.
You need to know that there is no one on earth that is of greater value to God, than you are. None of us is elevated above the other because of the truth of Rom 5:8: “But God showed His love for us, in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.” When we were at our lowest, our most lost, Jesus died for us all.
The Bible says that God uses the the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and the weak things of this world to shame the strong (1 Cor 1:27). There is no one in our lives, in our churches, that cannot form us in some way. And whom, if God wills it, that we cannot help to form. Formation isn’t concerned with status.
Formation Is Costly
We see in 2 Kings 5:5 that Naaman was prepared to pay a kings ransom for healing, but the cost was not what he expected it to be. The amount of silver and gold that Naaman took with him: “ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold and ten sets of clothing.” In metric measurements was 340kg of silver and 68kg of gold an enormous amount of precious metals. If you were to cash that much in today it would be over £7 million in today’s value.
At the time, it was even more valuable, 6,000 shekels of Gold would be equivalent to the annual wages of 600 labourers. The fortune that Naaman took with him had the equivalent buying power of £575 million today. We can get a sense of the true value from 1 Kings 16:24, King Omri, the Father of King Ahab (The one that Elijah had the showdown with), paid just 2 talents of Silver to buy the hill on which he built the city Samaria, the new capital city of Israel.
Yet, after Naaman is successfully healed, Elisha refuses any payment. “As the Lord lives, whom I serve, I will accept nothing” (2 Kings 5:16). Naaman didn’t have to pay for healing (although in the next part of the story, which we don’t have time to unpack today, Elisha’s servant Gehazi undermines this with his dishonesty and corruption). God’s grace is freely available to us in the same way. The Bible says, in Roman 6:23 “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Yet what was the cost to Naaman? There was an obedience cost and a humility cost. As we looked at already, he is humbled by the clear evidence that God does not treat us differently based on our earthly status. He was humbled by God. Then he was obedient, and by following the instructions from Elisha (with a lot of encouragement), we was healed and transformed.
There is an obedience cost in formation too. Obedience gets a bad rap in our society today. If "obedience" gets your hackles up, I want you to consider obedience as closely equivalent to “presence” with God. Ultimately, we know that God desires relationship with us, and that relationship leads to our transformation, at which point other parts of obedience become no longer ‘what does this cost?,’ and more ‘what can I give?’
So this week, aim to be obedience, first and foremost in being present with God, when you are faced with a decision, chose that which is spending time with God, and see how that obedience forms you.
Formation Is God’s Work.
In verse 11, we see that Naaman expected healing through a specific person, Elisha, and in a specific way, a wave of Elisha’s hand. However as we noted already Elisha was absent and the instruction was to wash in the River Jordan 7 times. This meant that it was impossible to credit Elisha, or the water of the Jordan, for something which only God could do.
If Elisha had come out and prayed and waved his hand, Naaman may think the power was in Elisha. If Naaman had washed once in the Jordan and been healed, Naaman may have thought the power was in the Jordan. Instead Naaman was able to understand in his own words “Now I know that there is no God in all the earth except in Israel.” (2 Kings 5:15)
Not only was it impossible to credit to something else the work of God, but the work of God was far more than Naaman expected. Naaman was looking for healing, he found God. Naaman is an example of God doing immeasurably more that all we ask or imagine (Eph 3:20)
The healing and transformation of Naaman is so significant that Jesus discussed it in his ministry as we read in Luke 4:24-27:
24“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. 26 Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. 27 And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them wasmcleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”
Formation is God’s work, it goes far and beyond what we hope and imagine, and it is available to all. Naaman shows that God is alive an active in the world, drawing all people to him. Jesus came to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant that all nations would be blessed. Jesus speaks powerfully about this when healing the servant of the Roman centurion in Matt 8:
“many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Issac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Matt 8:11
God knocks at the door of all our lives regardless of nationality, ethnicity, status, he longs to heal and transform beyond what we can hope or imagine, because he is the only one who can. He longs to form us every day, in every areas of our lives, and through unexpected ways. We need only be obedient in being present with God and letting him be Lord of our lives.
Will we let him into our lives, not keeping him in just one area, in one room of the house of lives. Will we let him into every room, every cupboard, under the beds, will we allow him to renovate us in our entirety, our formation becoming transformation, as we see in the story of Naaman?
Closing Prayer
Lord of grace and power,
Thank You for reminding us through Naaman that You work in ways we don’t expect, through people we might overlook.
Teach us humility, obedience, and trust as You form us in Your image.
Free us from striving for control or status, and help us to receive Your transforming grace with open hands.
May our formation become true transformation,
and may our lives point others to the God who heals, restores, and saves.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.