Look up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman! Man, when I heard those words on my T.V. as a kid, I was in a T.V. trance for the next half hour. I loved to watch the exploits of the man of steel because he was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Then one day Superman died, actually, George Reeves, the man who played him, and it was suicide. That was hard to take. Now for another generation, an actor named Christopher Reeve has been Superman, but then something tragic happened to him in a riding accident. He was thrown from his horse and left mostly paralyzed. It's happened twice. The part being played showed a man who was invincible, but "behind the role" has been the awful reality.
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Superman is Breakable!"
Actually, many men have discovered that fact in their own lives. Our half of the human race has been raised to believe that we need to be superman. The world thinks we have it together - we feel no pain, we've got it under control. but as a man, you know there's a "real you" behind the part - maybe a wounded warrior; maybe bleeding a lot on the inside; or maybe a scared little boy inside underneath a mask of macho confidence; and you don't have it all under control. Superman, in reality, is breakable or broken.
Our word for today from the Word Of God introduces us to a "Superman" of another time and the dark secret that was beyond all his "Superness." 2 Kings 5:1: "Now Naaman was commander of the army of the King of Syria. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded because through him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was valiant warrior, a "Superman" of his time, but he had a secret, a dark secret: he was dying of leprosy. Well in verse 3, one of his servants said, "If only my master would see the prophet of God, who's in Samaria. He would cure him of his leprosy." So Naaman goes for that cure, but it required humility. He didn't like the cure prescribed: he had to wash in the dirty Jordan River. He says, "Couldn't I wash in one of the streams back home and be cleansed?" It says he went off in a rage! He was proud, and dying from it. Finally, he chose to be well rather than be in charge. In chapter 5, verse 14, it says, "He dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and he became clean like that of a young boy."
Maybe God brought us together today because He knows you're a modern day Naaman. He knows the dark spot behind the mask and He wants to cure it. but you'll have to accept His diagnosis and His cure. The diagnosis: you've got a terminal spiritual cancer, called sin! No matter how religious, no matter how respected you may be, you've broken God's laws and you've run the life that your Creator was suppose to run and "my way" of living has left you fatally separated from God. The cure requires humility - the admission that you cannot save yourself - and then a trip, not to a dirty river, but to a dying Savior's cross. There you say, "Jesus, it's my sin You're dying for, isn't it? I need to be forgiven. I need a Savior. I can't be my own savior, I want to be Yours. I belong to You." The result - the same as it was for Naaman: you're restored, you're clean, you're new! You've run from Jesus long enough, haven't you? Now it's your day to run to Him! Superman really is breakable and maybe he's even broken. Don't make the eternally fatal mistake of being proud, but dying. The Savior is waiting!