“Faith
That Surprises the Saviour”
Luke 7:1-10 (SBC, Sligo
IE)
20 May 2018
INTRODUCTION:
Have you ever heard someone say
something that really surprised you, left you taken aback? Maybe their words
were harsh and critical and spewed forth with such venom that it startled you.
Or perhaps it was hilariously funny, causing you to burst out laughing. Or
maybe it was a kind word, spoken in such a loving way that it helped you get
through a dark time in your life. Or perhaps it was something your child said
that came out of nowhere and was so surprising that you just had to share it
with all your 675 best-friends on Facebook.
Or instead of words, perhaps
it was the actions of another person that impressed you or surprised
you. He/she did something that left you with your mouth wide open. Maybe it was
one of those so-called “random acts of kindness” that caused you to stand
amazed and marvel at the person’s generosity.
TRANSITION:
In our text
for this morning we will learn about an event in the life and ministry of Jesus
that caused Him to be surprised and to marvel at the faith of a man who we
would not expect to have any faith in Jesus. But he did! And he acted upon his
faith! And he provided for us such a beautiful example of Christian faith in
action that it has lasted for over 2,000 years. Who was this man of faith? I
think you will be surprised. Turn to Luke 7:1-10.
MAIN BODY:
Verse 1: When [Jesus] had completed all His discourse
in the hearing of the people, He went to Capernaum.
·
For
the past six Sundays we have been studying Luke chapter 6, known as “the Sermon
on the Plain.” In those 49 verses Jesus explained to His hearers what it means
to be sons and daughters of the Kingdom of God and to live by its rules and
responsibilities. That is the “discourse” to which Luke is referring here in
7:1. We do not know exactly where that sermon took place, but it seems evident
that it was in Galilee, probably not far from the Sea of Galilee. Now Jesus and
the Twelve head on back to Capernaum, the town that He now called, “home,”
because He had relocated there from Nazareth. Capernaum was a small fishing
village near the Sea of Galilee. This is where Jesus spent much of His time and
performed many of his miracles. And you will recall that quite a few of the
Apostles came from Capernaum or villages nearby.
Verses 2-3: And a Centurion’s slave,
who was highly regarded by him, was sick and about to die. 3
When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders
asking Him to come and save the life of his slave.
·
“…a Centurion’s
slave”
– What was a Centurion, you ask? A Centurion [Lat. centúrio] was a middle-ranking officer in the Roman Army. Often rising
through the ranks or receiving his commission as a prize for some valiant service,
the Centurions were the backbone of the Roman Army. As the name implies, he
commanded a group of between 80-100 Roman legionnaires comprising what was
called a “century.” Six of these centuries made up a “cohort” and 10 cohorts
made up a “legion” comprised of 5,500-6,000 soldiers. A Centurion, when
compared to an officer in our modern military command structure, would be
roughly equivalent to an Army Captain.
·
“…a slave,
who was highly regarded by him, was sick and about to die.” The word Luke uses
here for slave is “doulos” and it generally just means a house servant or a
personal slave. This is a curious situation because most Romans were very
class-conscious, and a person of this officer’s rank would normally not give a flying
hoot about any of the slaves in his house, or even be aware of them unless he
needed them to do something for him. But this Centurion “highly regarded” his
servant. Why? We have no way of knowing but it does seem to point to the fact
that this man was no average Roman. He was different in his values and his
outlook. But we gather from this verse that the slave was mortally ill and at
death’s door. Matthew 8:6
indicates that the sickness caused paralysis and great torment. Generally,
paralysis means you have no feeling. But this servant was paralyzed and in
pain.
·
“When he
heard about Jesus…” How
had he heard about Jesus? And exactly what had he heard? We simply do not know,
but he must have had some prior knowledge or had heard rumors that this
Galilean rabbi named Jesus was a powerful healer as well as a teacher.
·
“…he sent
some Jewish elders asking Him to come and save the life of his slave.” This is quite
remarkable because most Roman soldiers absolutely hated the Jews. Truthfully, there
was no love lost on either side. The Jews hated most of them as well. But this
Centurion had friends among the Jews. He was actually a friend to the village
elders to the point that when he asked them, they were willing to go to Jesus
and plead the man’s case, begging Jesus to come to the Centurion’s home to save
the life of his beloved servant.
·
Notice
that the Centurion’s first inclination was to beg Jesus to come to his house to
heal his servant. Like everyone else, he assumed that Jesus needed to be
physically present to accomplish a healing.
Verses 4-5: When they [i.e. the Jewish elders] came to
Jesus, they earnestly implored Him, saying, “He is worthy for You
to grant this to him; 5 for he loves our nation and it was he
who built us our synagogue.”
·
“…they earnestly
implored Him”
– From the depths of their hearts they begged Jesus on the Centurion’s behalf.
They laid out the case and pled with Him to go back with them.
·
“…saying, ‘He
is worthy for You to grant this to him.” Really?! Who is worthy to receive a
miracle from God? No one, that’s who! But in the minds of these Jewish elders
the Centurion was such a good man that they believed he was worthy of this boon
from Jesus. They based their conclusion on three things:
1.
They
had watched him long enough to recognize that he was truly a good man, and they
had come to respect him.
2.
He
loved their nation and the Jewish people, and they could sense this was true.
This was totally out of keeping with what one would expect from a Roman
officer. Most of the Romans despised the Jews and despised their religion.
3.
He
had proved his love for them, not just with words, but by building them a
synagogue for their village. He had invested his own money to put up a place of
worship for them. Why would he do such a thing? I have a theory, but the text
does not tell us. I suspect that the Centurion was what they called, “a
God-fearer.” That was a Gentile who had come to believe that the God of Israel
was the one, true God. They went through a multi-step process to convert to
Judaism. This seems to me to be the only way to account for the Centurion’s
actions.
·
However,
from the argument of the Jewish elders you can see that they did not understand
the difference between grace and merit. In fact, most of the world does not
understand this biblical concept. All the other religions on the planet place
their bets on the efficacy of merit to win God’s favor, on being “good enough.”
People believe that if they can just do more, do better, be better then they
will win God’s favor by their good deeds. Every religion on earth, with the
exception of biblical Christianity, is a treadmill, a rat-race of trying to win
one’s right to inherit eternal life. But the Bible is clear that the only thing
any of us deserves is the wrath of God and eternal condemnation for our sins.
But that is only the beginning of the story, for the Bible also reveals the
grace and mercy of God that led Him to provide a way for our sins to be
forgiven. None of us is “worthy” to receive any good thing from God, including
that kind and noble Roman Centurion so well-spoken of by the Jewish leaders.
Verses 6-7: Now Jesus started on His way with them; and
when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to Him, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not
worthy for You to come under my roof; 7 for this reason I
did not even consider myself worthy to come to You, but just say the word,
and my servant will be healed.”
·
We
see that Jesus was willing to do what He had been asked, to go to the home of
the Centurion, despite the Jewish rule about a Jew never entering the home of a
Gentile. His heart of compassion made Him willing to go out of His way to save
that slave’s life. And apparently, the little band made up of Jesus and His
disciples plus the Jewish elders sent to ask Him to come were now not far from
the house.
·
Suddenly
Jesus was approached by another group of representatives coming from the home
of the Centurion with a second message. The people with Jesus probably assumed
that they brought bad news, perhaps that the servant had already died.
·
But
it seems that in the interval of time from when the Centurion dispatched the
Jewish elders to go find Jesus until now, he had had some time to think. It
must have suddenly dawned on him that if Jesus truly was who people said He
was, the Messiah, the Christ, the God-Man, then distance was no issue. He
suddenly realized that if Jesus wanted to, He could heal his slave from afar
off just as easily as if He were standing by the man’s bedside. So, he quickly
sent some friends to take a message to Jesus.
·
And
just look at the message: “Lord, do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not
worthy for You to come under my roof.” Did you catch that? He
directly contradicted what his Jewish friends had said about him. They said
that “he was worthy.” But the Centurion recognized that he was NOT worthy. And
he said it twice: once in verse 6 then again in verse 7. “I am not worthy to receive you into my home,”
and “I did not feel
worthy to even come and speak to you.” Do you have any idea how out
of character this was for a Roman officer? The man understood his own
unworthiness and humbled himself before Jesus.
·
He
also had incredible faith! He never doubted Jesus’ ability to heal: “…But just say the
word, and my servant will be healed.”
·
Moreover,
he understood the concept of authority. You see that in verse 8.
Verse 8: “For I also am a man placed under authority,
with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to
another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.”
·
This
Centurion was a man who obeyed orders, and a man who gave orders. Jesus, too!
He came from Heaven to do the will of the Father. He was in subjection to the
Heavenly Father and His ministry motto was, “Thy
will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” But Jesus also had great
authority to command. We see this in Matthew 28:18-20 where Jesus said to His disciples,
“All
authority has been given to Me in Heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore
and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to
observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even
to the end of the age.” The Centurion, upon reflection, realized
that Jesus had the power and authority to merely rebuke the illness and it
would have to flee. If Jesus was indeed the Son of God then no power on earth,
no illness, no demon, no wasting disease could stand against Him, and he was right!
If Jesus, by the word of His mouth, could speak the universe into existence,
then what could stand against Him? Indeed.
Verse 9: Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled at
him, and turned and said to the crowd that was following Him, “I say to
you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith.”
·
I
love this verse! How many times can you remember in the Bible when Jesus was
surprised by anything? But the faith of this Roman officer left Jesus totally
gobsmacked, astonished, astounded. The text says, “He marveled at him.”
Believe me, it took something very special to make Jesus marvel at anything. He
had seen the outer rings of Jupiter, because He formed them Himself. He had
seen the Grand Canyon. He might have even carved it out with His finger. He had
seen the Himalayas. When He made the earth, He may have pushed them up there
together like a child pushes sand around. None of those things impressed Him,
but “He marveled”
at the faith of this Roman soldier. Only one other time in Scripture do we read
that Jesus marveled. That was in Mark 6:6 when Jesus was in Nazareth speaking
in the synagogue and we read that, “He marveled because of their unbelief.”
It is interesting that both examples were about people having faith or lacking
it.
·
His
immediate response was to turn to the crowd and exclaim: “I say to you, not even in Israel have I found
such great faith.” Even after all He had done for the Jewish
people, all He had taught them, all the miracles He had done, all the people He
had healed, yet the faith of this pagan Roman soldier put them all to shame.
Verse 10: When those who had been sent returned to the
house, they found the slave in good health.
·
The
Centurion’s faith was well-placed. He knew what the Jews and even the disciples
did not understand. Indeed, Jesus did not need to be present to heal the servant.
He could just as easily have done it from a million miles away. Moreover, He
did not need to lay hands on the man. He did not need to say magic words over
him or press on his forehead or sprinkle holy water on him.
·
Notice
that when they returned to the house, “they found the slave in good health.” He was not
just a little bit healed. He was not still weak and wobbly from his ordeal with
the killer illness. When Jesus healed the man, He returned him immediately to perfect
health. Jesus never did things by half-measures. He never left the job only
partly resolved.
CONCLUSION:
So, what are we to take away from
this passage? The point of the story is the remarkable faith of a man who we
would not expect to show such faith. From his example we can glean some important
principles:
1.
Faith
is not believing that God can; it is knowing that He
will.
2.
Faith
is deaf to doubt, dumb to discouragement, blind to impossibilities, and knows
nothing but success in God.
3.
Walking
by faith means being prepared to trust where we are not permitted to see.
4.
Faith
allows God to do for us and with us what we could never do alone.
In our text for today Luke takes us inside true
faith and shows how and what faith does. Though he was a Gentile, the Centurion
understood who Christ was and is. Even Jesus would remark that this man’s faith
was amazing.
This is the truth Jesus wants to pass on to His
disciples. If you are His disciple, this is what He wants you to learn. Great
faith in great promises leads to great results. If you want results, you first must
know the promises. You first must understand God, and how He works. You first must
know what He has said in His Word. Without a knowledge and understanding of
those things, you will never have great faith. Romans 10:17 says that faith
comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Without hearing and
understanding the Word of God, you will never have great faith. And without
faith, it is impossible to please God.
Our faith in God is an indicator of how well we
know Him. If we know Him but little, our faith will be anemic. Daniel 11:32
says, “…but
the people that know their God shall be strong and do exploits.”
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