When God Visits His People – Luke part 20 – Grant Vissers

Good morning, good morning. Hey, if you are new or visitor

guest just testing out church special welcome to you.

My name is Grant and I'm one of the pastors here at KPC and it's

good to be with you and it's good to be together.

We are in a moment going to open up Luke Chapter 7.

Luke 7 · chapter mention

Luke is a gospel one of the books that accounts for and of

Jesus's life. It's kind of like a like a

documentary or a biography of many of the events of Jesus

life, this one written by Luke and we're 7 chapters in to

working our way through the entire book of Luke.

So to some of you who are jumping in, you, you may you

know, you may think that's not very far and you'd be correct 7

And like we've been here for a while, but this is one of the

things that I love about the church.

And I don't know if I think about it this way all of the

time. I don't know if maybe if you

have thought about it this way or not, but there aren't many

places in my life that encourage me to slow down, right?

And if you've seen me move, it's usually not slowly.

Having three kids at the various ages that they are also

encourages me to move quickly. Maybe you've had that

experience. Maybe if you grew up with

siblings, you had to eat quickly because you're like, if I want

seconds, I got to get the first down fast because, you know,

competition. But there aren't many places in

my life that that encourage me. And maybe you feel the same way

to slow down. And I love that this would be a

place like that that encourages us to slow down and to breathe

slowly and maybe a little deeper and to feel your feet on the

floor, your backs into the seat, maybe to feel your heart beating

and even to slow down. Because works probably not gonna

tell you slow down the highways aren't you're driving, everybody

flying past you. So I love that as we gather, one

of the things we get to do is interrupt all of that and slow

down. So I'm going to read through the

opening verses of Chapter 7 after we pray together, and I'm

going to do it hopefully slowly if I can manage it.

And then we're going to work our way through these verses because

I think there's something pretty powerful to say to us.

And I hope that you can settle into that, can slow yourself

into it. Let me pray, God, thank you for

your life and for your love. Thank you for your presence with

us. Yeah, thanks for that.

Your invitation is to a slowed down way of living and moving

and being. And thank you for rhythms and

habits and even disciplines that encourage us to do it.

Thank you that gathering together is one of those habits

and routines and even disciplines that invites us to

slow down and to listen. And so, God, I pray that you

would speak to us not because we managed to do things like in the

exact right way. So you know you answer, but

because that's your heart and that's your intention and

inclination toward us, toward those you created and love.

So God, slow us down. Let us hear your spirit.

Let us listen to these words, be it for the first time or for the

100th time. Yeah, they're pretty.

We would hear you in this, in your heart, toward each one of

us. I pray these things in the

strong Name, the name of Jesus, Amen.

So, Luke writes, when Jesus had finished saying all this to the

people who were listening, he entered Capernaum.

There a centurion servant, whom his master valued highly was

sick and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and

sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal

his servant. When they came to Jesus, they

pleaded earnestly with him. This man deserves to have you do

this because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.

So Jesus went with them. He was not far from the house

when the centurion sent friends to say to him, Lord, don't

trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under

my roof. That is why I did not even

consider myself worthy to come to you.

But say the word, and My Servant will be healed, for I myself am

a man under authority, with soldiers under me.

I tell this one go, and he goes, and that one come, and he comes.

I say to my servant, Do this and he does it.

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to

the crowd following, he said, I tell you I have not found such

great faith even in Israel. Then the men who had been sent

returned to the house and found the servant.

Well, soon afterward Jesus went to a town called Nain, and his

disciples and a large crowd went along with him.

As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried

out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a large

crowd from the town was with her.

When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her, and he said

don't cry. Then he went up and touched the

beer they were carrying him on, and the bearers stood still.

He said. Young man, I say to you, get up.

The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to

his mother. They were all filled with awe

and praised God. A great prophet has appeared to

us, they said. God has come to help his people.

This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the

surrounding country. And so for for each of you, for

each of us, whether you come today to Scripture skeptical or

wondering, curious, with a little bit of faith mixed in

with doubt or full faith, boldly declaring, if you've ever asked

God for something, if you've ever wondered if he would speak

to you, I think these verses are for you.

And if you've wanted to ask God for something, if you've come to

him and you're not quite sure how to do it, you don't know

how, these verses are also for you.

And if you've ever been afraid to ask God for something, I I

think these verses are equally and also for you.

When Jesus had finished saying these things, this is how it

begins. When Jesus had finished saying

all this to the people who were listening, he entered Capernaum.

So have you been tracking with us?

Jesus has been teaching and he's taught quite a bit.

He has spoken words about the Kingdom.

He has sat with his disciples, some of whom he called apostles,

with the crowds who had gathered to unveil the Kingdom of God, to

say this is how the Kingdom is, how it looks like, what it means

to be a part of the Kingdom of God.

It's not a this is what it will be like.

It's not a if you can all manage to do this, then it will be

here. He says this is how the Kingdom

is. This is what it is like to live

inside the Kingdom. So we talked about the Sabbath,

and he's just finished saying all this to the people who are

listening. All of this is a whole lot of

teaching. It's teaching about the Sabbath.

It's Jesus calling the 12 apostles.

It's all of the sermon on the plane.

It's blessing to those who are hungry, who are poor, who are

grieved, hated, excluded, insulted.

Its woes to those who are rich. Warnings of grief to those who

are well fed, laughing, well spoken of, who are rich, he

says. Love your enemies, bless those

who curse you, pray for those who persecute you.

Turn the other cheek, give your shirt.

Also, don't judge, don't condemn, stop judging, stop

condemning. Just don't have anything to do

with it, he says. Choose your teacher wisely.

Be ones who forgive and give extra measures.

Be ones who bear good fruit. Choose your Kingdom wisely, he

says, and build your entire life around it.

His teachings touch on a lot of different things.

Jesus finishes saying all of this to the people.

And then he entered Capernaum. This is an intention.

There's intentionality here. There's connection.

And, and what I want us to see just from the very beginning by

way of entering into these two stories of healings is that for

Jesus, they're not separate, they're not distinct, They're

not, I'm going to say the words about the Kingdom and then I'm

going to go and I'm going to live my life and see what

happens. Jesus speaks words about the

Kingdom. This is how the Kingdom is.

This is what it looks like, This is how you live into it.

And then he simply continues living out what he has just

spoken. There's no difference.

There's no disconnect between Jesus speaking the Kingdom and

Jesus doing the Kingdom things, living the Kingdom life.

He enters Capernaum, he carries the Kingdom with him, and as he

goes, we're going to see a couple of significant things.

Today we get to see what the Kingdom is like in fleshed

housed in a human body, in action.

But it's also gonna confront sickness and death and it's

going to include a Gentile or someone who is considered at

that time a complete outsider to the will and act and move of

God. So it's going to confront

sickness and death and it's going to include those who are

historically excluded. So he goes, we're having said

all of this finished the teaching, people who are

listening, Yantis Capernaum, their centurion sermon servants

on sermon who his master valued highly was sick and about to

die. So sick not only sick, he is

sick unto death. He's sick at the brink of death.

The centurion heard of Jesus and then sent some of the elders to

the Jews, or of the Jews to him, saying, Come and heal Jesus.

Would you come and heal his? My servant, the centurion was is

a middle ranking officer stationed in Capernaum.

He's a gentile. He's non Jewish.

This is a way to think about it. He's a Roman citizen.

Here's the reality of somebody in this position of centurion in

Capernaum. He probably typically the person

in that position wouldn't have liked the people around him very

much, wouldn't have liked the people that he was ruling or

that he was controlling. Chances are, actually, he would

have despised the local people and devalued them.

They wouldn't have felt much different about him in return.

That was the general relationship between these

commanding officers, these centurions, and the people that

they were tasked in subduing and ruling.

He, the centurion, was part of the Roman occupation in Galilee.

He was an occupier, They were occupied.

He was a symbol of oppression. They were the oppressed.

He was a reminder of their lack of freedom that they lived with

every single day. He commanded the soldiers that

kept them in line, that reminded them of their place.

He was, for lack of a better word, their enemy.

Or should have been. And they were his enemy.

And so here's one of the reasons why there's no disconnect.

Jesus has just said love your enemies and pray for those who

persecute you. And immediately Jesus goes and

encounters one who would have been considered an enemy, one

who persecuted the people where the rubber meets the road for

life inside the Kingdom. Except that we're told this man

wasn't an enemy. He wasn't their enemy, and and

they weren't his enemy. The Centurion had come to love

and respect the people, not despise them and and they had

come to respect him and to not live in fear of him.

This centurion, he's heard about Jesus likely simply just because

he lived in Capernaum and worried about Jesus is

spreading. In Luke chapter 5, there's an

Luke 5 · chapter mention

opening line that said word about him spread and they were

sending to him people who were sick and demon possessed.

He healed them. So word about Jesus is

spreading. People are hearing, including

this centurion. People knew who Jesus was.

They saw what he could do. And so this man, like many of

them, does the same thing. He sends the sick to Jesus only

in his case he sends people to Jesus asking if he would heal

the sick servant. There's some level of faith in

this centurion. In fact, in my Bible, this story

is not called Jesus Heals the Centurion, Servant or servant.

It's called the faith of the Centurion.

This is a story about faith and and so the centurion he sends

for Jesus, he sends these messengers on his behalf to

bring Jesus back to where he was staying to heal the servant.

I love this line. When they came to Jesus, they

pleaded earnestly with Him. On the one hand, I think you

want friends like this. You wanna be a friend like this?

You want friends who will go to Jesus on your behalf and plead

with Him. One of the things that I so

appreciate about our church and our church culture, and it's

growing and it seems to be contagious, is the way in which

we pray for others on their behalf.

The way in which you pray for others on their behalf every

Sunday morning. Just as one example, there are

many every Sunday morning as I'm praying and preparing and

rereading and sometimes rewriting sermon messages and

trying to just tweak little points and how is this going to

sound and how is this going to land?

And praying through all of that movement toward the service.

And as our bands are gathering and tuning instruments and

warming up and practicing and praying their way through,

preparing to lead us in worship, there's a group of people who

meet in one of the rooms to pray and who prey on your behalf

about all that will happen this morning.

About everything that takes place from the moment your foot

hits the the the pavement on our property until the moment you

leave and beyond, people are praying on your behalf that you

would encounter God. That as God shows up, that we,

each one of us, would do the work necessary to to calm and

centre and still ourselves so that we can be met by Jesus.

Everything we do on a Sunday morning soaked in prayer.

None of it, I'm convinced, worked without prayer.

Maybe more urgently is the way in which you many of you, pray

for one another during times of crisis, illness, sickness and

even death. The way in which words spreads

and prayers happen on behalf of others.

The centurion, he has a a servant who is sick and he is

about to die. That's what we're told.

And so he sends these Jewish elders to go and, and to

persuade Jesus to come in to heal the the servant.

They are ones who on his behalf are pleading to Jesus.

Jesus come and heal him, they're pleading on the servants behalf.

Jesus come and heal him. And there are moments in your

life where you need this kind of friend or intervention, where

somebody drags you to Jesus or goes on your behalf in an

attempt to bring Jesus to you and pleads to him on your behalf

for him to come and heal you. You need ones in your life who

will plead with Jesus on your behalf for God to show up and do

the thing that He is capable of, forgot to heal and amend and to

restore and bind together what is broken.

What the Church for centuries have called prayers of

supplication and prayers of intercession, prayers that are

given on your behalf. But on the other hand, when I

read this, I see these these people come to Jesus and they

plead earnestly with him. But this is their prayer, He

says. This man deserves to have you do

this because he loves our nation and he has built our synagogue.

They plead with Jesus based on the merit of the centurion, what

he has done for them. They say he loves our nation.

He's built our synagogue. He's acted with love and

kindness toward us. He's provided us with a place of

worship. He respects our religion and our

culture. Therefore, God, would you do

this? Would you do this for Him?

And so as much as we need to be ones who go and plead with God

on others behalves, and as much as we need others to go on our

behalf and to plead with God, God, would you do this?

I wonder if we can fall into the same relationship with God that

these first messengers do and think that maybe if we rack up

enough points, then then God is gonna do the thing.

We ask. If we can list enough things

that we've done and that we've completed inside of the week,

then maybe, just maybe, God will answer my my prayer on Sunday

morning. If finally I just I show up to

church and I do the thing, then maybe God will answer me if.

I can rack up enough points or we do the like Visa credit card

approach to prayer, right? So the like if this then that

like God, if you do this then I will owe you and then maybe I

will do that God, like if you do this for me, then I will what

does it sound like? Then I will live my life in a

certain way. Then I will commit to a certain

thing. Then I will give a certain

amount. Then I will do certain things.

Insert whatever bargaining chip you may try to use.

We think we need to earn the response we want from God.

But here's where I love how Jesus acts.

Says so. Jesus went with them.

That was it. There's no like intervening

sermon. There's no message.

There's no hey, wait, like you gotta get this thing correct

first. I'm gonna do this, but let me

tell you why Jesus just goes and says, So Jesus went.

We see Jesus as love and we see Jesus as compassion for them,

for the servant who is sick, for the centurion.

I don't think Jesus is convinced.

Like, OK, I mean, he's done Tell me again this he's built a a

synagogue. And you know, how is he acted

again toward you? And has he acted with love and

kindness? Like he doesn't chronicle a

whole list or check things off a box.

He simply goes, and I think he goes because what do we see many

times in Scripture? He goes because he has

compassion on them. It's a line repeated over and

over again. Jesus goes with them where he

was not far off from the house when the centurion sent friends

to say to him, Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not

deserve to have you come under my roof.

That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come

to you. But say the word and my servant

will be healed. So Jesus is on his way.

He's going. He is in the process of doing

what this centurion has begged him to do, which is heal the

servant. And the centurion sends a second

group. And this second group is

fascinating to me. AOK friends.

So he's sending another group. He's sending this time a group

of friends to say to Jesus, Lord, don't trouble yourself.

I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.

That's why I didn't even consider myself worthy to come

to you. And so I wonder if another error

or another false belief that we can act in as we approach God is

in some ways the opposite of the first.

Not a let me show you how worthy I am, but in a you know what?

I don't even deserve a second thought and and I wonder if we

can fail to pray and ask and request and plead on our behalf

on others behaves out of shame and guilt because we don't feel

worthy like God's not gonna pay attention to us.

Says don't trouble yourself. I don't deserve it, but then we

get this beautiful statement, he says.

This say the Word and my servant will be healed.

See this This belief in his worthiness or unworthiness

doesn't waver the Centurion's faith.

If anything, it emboldens him. He says listen, just say the

word and he will be healed. I think the centurion recognizes

Jesus as authority, even over sickness and death.

He believes that it's not the touch of Jesus that will heal,

it's Jesus doesn't need to show up.

All he needs to do is speak the Word and his servant will be

healed. I like to read this story and we

won't read it, but I like to read it in parallel with Jesus

raising Lazarus from the dead. Because in that story, Jesus is

sent for. Lazarus is his friend, his good

friend, and he has sent for. Lazarus is sick, he's dying, and

Jesus stays. It's this really odd passage.

Jesus, we're going to get there eventually.

Jesus stays there and then a couple days go by and then he

goes. Lazarus in those days has died.

And what is the one thing that Jesus is confronted?

Yes, he, he's he, he comes. Lazarus is dead and and marries

there and they say if you had been here, if you had been here,

Jesus goes into that tomb, he speaks a word and Lazarus comes

out of the grave. So yes, Jesus's presence is

important and powerful, but Jesus needs to speak the word.

He doesn't need to be there in this century.

And he recognizes that authority that Jesus has over all of the

created order. And to your right puts it like

this. He says this faith isn't

abstract. It's not an abstract belief

about God or the learning of dogmas.

It is the simple, clear belief that when Jesus commands that

something be done, it will be done.

He regards Jesus like a military officer like himself, right with

authority over sickness and health.

If Jesus says that someone is going to get well, they will.

What could be simpler? He says, Except I read this and

I go, yeah, the centurion is a gentile.

Where does his faith come from? He didn't have the cultural

memory or the religious tradition of Israel.

He didn't have a framework for understanding Jesus as Messiah

and Savior and all of what that meant for him to heal and to

raise up dead to life. He, the centurion, didn't have

the stories. He didn't grow up in church or

synagogue. He was an outsider, but we're

told he had great faith. He had heard about who Jesus was

and what Jesus could do and trusted that Jesus would do it.

He saw God's authority at work in Jesus and believed that it

could be for him too, that all of what Jesus represented and

brought and brings into the world could also be for him.

You don't need to have grown up in the church, or have a

cultural memory of Christianity, or think yourself to be perfect,

or rack up a list of credits to your name to understand that

Jesus is for you, too. But we do need to see Jesus's

authority as absolute, the centurion.

He risks his name, his career, potentially his life, because he

saw that God's ultimate authority was at work in Jesus

and he recognized that that authority, God's authority in

Jesus, excuse me, was greater than the authority that had been

given to him by Rome. He trusted that Jesus could do

something that no emperor or Caesar could do, that he could

heal the sick with a word. And so I wonder if, like this

Centurion, we need to risk a little more in the way we pray.

I wonder if we need to pray prayers that are a little less

safe because I don't know about you, but I like, I catch myself

praying these prayers and some of these prayers, they sound

like this. God, would you please do this?

I'm gonna beg, I'm gonna plead, I'm gonna sit here and I will

pray. Would you do this?

But only if you want to. And then we plead with God and

say, like, if only if you, if only you will God, would you

heal him? Would you do it if you are able

God free me from if you just maybe could, if I could

inconvenience you for a second. Listen.

Like the reality of prayer is that not every prayer is going

to get answered. Anybody who has prayed for

longer than one prayer will be able to tell you that.

And I think to myself, like, thank God for that.

Sometimes my prayers shouldn't be answered the way I want, and

absolutely prayers are only answered the way God wills them

to be answered. Yes, that's true.

But I think the danger is that we pray those prayers not

because we ultimately and absolutely believe that God will

do it if He wills. We pray those prayers to keep

ourselves safe and to distance myself from an outcome that I

don't want. Because if I pray and then I

said, but if you will, that's a safe prayer for me because I can

dismiss whatever happens if I don't like it or if it doesn't

happen, if it's not answered in the way I want it to be

answered. I remember praying for a kid and

this kid was 8 years old and he had had cancer since he was 6.

And we prayed and we prayed and we prayed and we prayed and we

prayed for this kid to be healed and eventually that that kid

died. And it's with Jesus.

And we wrestled with that reality.

And how teach us? How do we pray bold prayers that

aren't safe for me to pray and also surrendered to the absolute

authority of Jesus. Because again, the reality is

not every prayer is going to be answered the way you want.

But I think our task, if you call yourself a follower of

Jesus, is to pray boldly. Jesus sees the faith that's of

the centurion, the faith of of an outsider, of a Gentile, of

one who has his own authority, has his own mechanisms and

pathways to attempt to heal this servant.

And he sees his bold faith and his bold request for Jesus to,

with a word, heal him. And then it says, when Jesus

heard this, he was amazed. He was amazed.

Jesus is amazed by the man's faith.

He's amazed at him. Turning to the crowd following

him, he said. I tell you I have not found such

great faith even in Israel. The ones who have the stories

and the cultural memory and the faith handed down generation

after generation. Then the men who had been sent

with him returned to the house and found the servant.

Well, I find it interesting that Jesus doesn't even speak the

word. He doesn't say be made well.

What does he say? I tell you, I've not even found

such great faith even in Israel. And they return, and the servant

is healed. So yes, Jesus can speak a word

and they can heal. But Jesus doesn't need to speak

a word and he can still heal. The healing is significant.

Don't get me wrong, the healing is significant.

Jesus is love and compassion, is for the sick, and moves him to

heal the sick. But the point that we are meant

to see here that Luke is really trying to shape for us is to see

the faith of the Gentile centurion.

What ought to encourage us who are curious about faith in Jesus

but who didn't grow up in the church, is the faith of the

centurion. Well, not to challenge us who

did grow up in the church with the stories and the songs and

the prayers, is the faith, the bold faith of the centurion, the

faith that recognizes Jesus, faith to ask boldly and trust

that Jesus is who he says he is, that he will do what he says he

will do and that he is Lord of the world.

Again, NT right? And one of his commentaries, he

says, he says this is the question like is Jesus Lord of

the world, the entirety of it, all of it or not?

Because if he is, then it's game on.

Finished with, if this works, our last story.

Soon afterward Jesus went to a town called Maine, and his

disciples in a large crowd went along with him.

As he approached the town gate. A dead person was being carried

out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a large

crowd from the town was with her.

When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her, and he said

don't cry, his heart went out to her.

This story is different. At first glance, there's no

faith. So we've just had this big

healing, this big story of a miraculous healing, all of it

centred around faith, bold faith, bold request of Jesus.

And here we have no faith seemingly present.

No one sends messengers to Jesus.

No one asks Jesus to raise the dead man.

No one pleads on his behalf. No one lists out everything that

this mom has done. Jesus, would you please come and

heal like this is her only son? Would you do it?

No one pleads on his behalf. The widow now alone, no family.

No one trusts that Jesus can do what he says except Jesus

himself. When the Lord saw her, his heart

went out to her and he said, don't cry again.

This is Jesus's compassion on full display.

This is the generous life giving over abundance.

Push back the darkness. Blessed are those who mourn now.

Way of the Kingdom on full display, the story concludes.

Then he went up and he touched the beer they were standing on,

or they were carrying him on and the bears stood still.

He said with the word young man, I say to you, get up.

The dead man sat up and began to talk and Jesus gave him back to

his mother. They were all filled with all

and praise God, a great prophet has appeared among us when they

said God has come to help his people.

There's a couple different ways of translating that line.

God has come to help his people, and one of those ways is quite

literally God has visited his people.

And that might not make as much sense to us today as it did to

people in Luke's time that he was writing to the way in which

he's crafting this story. Because God has visited his

people, His Old Testament language.

This is the language of God coming to save and rescue and

restore and redeem, coming to bring life to his people.

It's not just like God shows up and then leaves and nothing

changes, as God has visited with purpose and intention His people

to do the thing that He says He will do.

Excuse me? God still visits his people.

God visits you to lift you up and to restore you, to heal and

to bring life. Because the Kingdom of God isn't

just breaking into the world. The Kingdom of God is breaking

into your world. I wonder, though, if sometimes

we create lives that are too noisy to hear when God does

visit. I wonder in the midst of the

busyness and the chaos, we lose an ability for quiet

contemplation and prayer. And ultimately prevent ourselves

from hearing when God does show up.

And So what I want to do this morning is read that last story

again, slowly and quietly, and I want to provide a little bit of

space for you to pray and wonder and ask and listen for God to

show up. Only instead of listening and

hearing and seeing God show up for this widow and her dead son

and raising her dead son back to new life and giving him back to

her, I wonder if you can listen for where God might be showing

up in your life. And I wonder what it might look

like for you to allow God to show up in whatever situation

and circumstance that is leading toward death, Right?

It could be literal death and grief.

It could be sickness and fear. It could be anxiety and

depression. It could be addiction and shame.

It could be relationship and brokenness.

It could be life changing decisions decisions and and

paralysis like analysis paralysis.

It could be mundane and wrote. It could be messy diapers and

sleepless nights. It could be loneliness and

isolation. It could be hospital visits and

unknown futures. It could be sin and darkness and

death. There could be any day of your

life because Jesus's desire is to break in and to disrupt and

to shape and to form and to build and to rebuild and to

mend, to heal, restore, bring life.

Jesus's desire is to break in, and So what I hope we can do is

pause. Quiet.

Pray in the silence and plead with God to boldly show up as we

read. Soon afterward, Jesus went to a

town called Maine, and his disciples and a large crowd went

along with him. As he approached the town gate,

the dead person was being carried out, the only son of his

mother and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town

was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart

went out to her and he said don't cry.

Then he went up and touched the beer they were carrying him on.

The bearers stood still. He said.

Young man, I say to you, get up. The dead man sat up and began to

talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother.

They were all filled with awe and praised God.

A great prophet has appeared among us, they said.

God has come to help his people. This news about Jesus spread

throughout Judea and the surrounding country.

Amen.