The King of Authority

The sermon today will be coming from Matthew chapter 8, verses 5

Matthew 8:5–13

through 13. If you don't have a Bible, it'll

be in Page 762 of the Bible under your seat. 762 This is

what God's Word says. When he had entered Capernaum, a

centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, Lord, my

servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.

And he said to him, I will come and heal him.

But the centurion replied, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come

under my roof. But only say the word, and my

servant will be healed. For I too am a man under

authority, with soldiers under me.

And I say to 1 Go, and he goes, and to another come, and he

comes, and to my servant do this, and he does it.

When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who

followed him, Truly I tell you, with no one in Israel have I

found such faith. I tell you, many will come from

east and West and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and

Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the Kingdom

will be thrown into the outer darkness.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth

into the centurion. Jesus said Go, let it be done

for you as you have believed, and the servant was healed at

that very moment. This is God's word.

What's going on? Port City family and friends.

How are we doing? Good.

My name is Tanner. It's good to be with you at Port

City All. We are on a mission to empower

people. Empower means you can do it and

we can help. We want to help people follow

Jesus. We believe that the gospel

changes everything in your life and God actually made you to

multiply your life. You might not feel like you're

some apostle or super Christian or something like that.

Well, the good news is you don't need to be like God multiplies

the lives of those who know him. So whether you've known Jesus

for 5 minutes or 50 years, we believe God wants to multiply

your life and we want to help you.

You can do it and we can help. So what I'm going to do is I'm

going to pray for our time in God's Word that we would hear

what God wants us to hear. And even over just this vision

that we believe God wants to multiply our lives.

Will you pray with me? Our Father, we believe God, that

you want to multiply our lives, that because of what Christ has

done that God, your normal means of taking your mission

throughout the earth is by people just embodying this

message, by people knowing you, by the Spirit and God that you

give new life, that new life comes to the next generation

through the one before it. So God, make this a church that

multiplies disciples. God, would you make us a

training center, a hub, a boot camp, if you will, Lord, where

people are just pumped out who love you, know your word,

understand the church, and are on mission, on fire for you.

So God, open our eyes to understand your word right now.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen. I know the last time you thought

about how much authority is baked into your daily life, you

tell your Mama, yes ma'am, or you should you tell your coach

yes coach. You know some of those usually

isn't it crazy? The yes coaches seem quicker

than the yes Mams, don't they parents?

The coach ones were like, yes, coach, we'll run 100 miles for

coach. But employees listen to their

bosses. You know, there's, there's a

sense in which authority is just baked into the design of way,

the way things are just supposed to go.

OK, Now that could go one of two ways.

When somebody is a bad authority, it just creates

anxiety. They have the positional

authority and they have the power to kind of everybody under

them is looking over their shoulder.

They're not at ease. There's no peace.

There's a sense of just tension, right?

But when somebody is in that position, has the power, the

approachability, the kindness and their thinking of the good

of those under their care and leadership, authority is a good

gift. And if you've never been under

good authority, part of you wants to be.

Maybe your parents were were awful.

I know that happens. Maybe you've experienced some

bad things at the hands of authority.

But what we all long for is this safety that good authority was

designed to give us in creativity and rest, in joy.

And what we're going to see in today's text is a Roman military

official who knew the top of the food chain in the worldly power

did not go there, did not go to that authority.

He's going to go to Jesus, who is not the authority over

religious topics. He's the authority over all

authorities. He is the king of kings, and he

approaches him in a posture of childlike faith, like a kid

going to their dad. He just approaches Jesus with a

giddiness because he's seen something in Jesus that he is

both approachable and able. He's kind, he's good, and he's

powerful. We're going to see in Jesus what

authority was meant to do, which is produce in us a childlike

trust, independence. OK, so in our text today, we're

going to take it from 4 angles. We're going to take it from the

angle of the centurion, the crowd who Jesus turns and talks

to, the servant who the centurion came on behalf of, and

lastly from Jesus himself. If you are ready, let me hear

you say I'm ready. Point #1 the centurion.

We see in the centurion just the audacity of faith.

We we read here in verse 5, when he that's Jesus had entered

Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to

him, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home suffering

terribly. And he said to him, I will come

and heal him. But the centurion replied, Lord,

I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the

word and my servant will be healed.

For I too am a man under authority with soldiers under

me. And I say to 1 go, and he goes

into another come and he comes into my servant.

Do this and he does it. When Jesus heard this, he

marvelled and said to those who followed him, truly I tell you,

with no one in Israel have I found such faith.

And then in verse 13, after kind of turning to the crowd, Jesus

turns to the centurion and says, go, let it be done for you as

you have believed. And the servant was healed at

that very moment. OK, context matters.

Remember, like Jesus finishes the Sermon on the Mount.

He's coming down the mountain, Leper approaches him.

Last week, you go back and check that sermon if you missed it.

And then this week it says he's walking into Capernaum.

So I want to show you that on a map real quick.

Remember, the Bible is real life.

It's not just a a book that somebody made-up.

This happened. OK, So the region like the area

is Galilee and Capernaum is there.

You see the Sea of Galilee towards the top of the screen

and Capernaum is right by the Sea of Galilee.

Galilee is where most of Jesus's ministry happened in his three

years. And the Bible says that a

centurion approached him. OK, somebody say centurion, I

made y'all do that so I y'all won't feel as silly during the

sermon when I mess it up. It's a weird word to say

centurion. So if I mess it up, just know I

heard some of y'all just slip a little bit, OK?

I love you. God bless you.

OK, so a centurion is a Roman military official of about 100

soldiers. OK, so he's in charge of about

100 soldiers. And he comes before Jesus and he

says, I got a servant. I got a servant that needs

healing. Will you come and heal him?

Just like, oh, I'll come. He doesn't say will you come?

He says, I have a servant, will you heal him?

And he says I'll come. And he says, Nah, I've got

authority over some people. When I say the word, it gets

done. You just say the word and Jesus

is amazed. So there's a couple things about

faith that I think the Lord wants us to grab from this text.

OK, First is the object of faith the object of faith?

OK, notice that the the centurion does not look to

himself as the reason why Jesus should intervene.

He literally says, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come

under my roof, y'all, that. I mean, we just read over that.

Of course I'm not worthy to have the Lord come over, y'all.

We tend to think we're worthy of a lot.

We don't struggle with thinking too much of ourselves.

OK, But this man, he comes to Jesus not on the basis of his

worthiness, but Jesus's willingness, y'all.

This story is rooted in what he'd seen in Jesus's heart and

power and kindness, not in what he brought to the table.

Lord, yesterday I read my Bible. Will you heal my servant?

You know, like there is no sense in which he feels valid to ask

What? A picture of faith?

Many people don't ask because they don't feel worthy.

Do you see the irony? You might think I don't ask God

to do anything 'cause I don't feel worthy.

And it's like the point of the gospel is that God makes

unworthy people worthy, right? It's in our unworthiness.

We come to the Lord because of who he is, not who you are.

So if I could sit with you and hear about your sin and all the

things I'll be like, that's great.

Let me tell you mine, OK? We don't come to the Lord

because we're worthy. We come because he's willing.

So what the. And let's think about this real

quick, OK? Because there's something

assumed in the text, right? What we get in the text is how

he relates to Jesus is based on Jesus authority, right, his

power, like when Jesus says I'm willing to come and he's like,

no, no, no, no, I got authority. And so we get this image of like

him really understanding authority.

But why he came to Jesus is because Jesus is good.

That make sense. What the centurion is modeling

for us is why we come to Jesus and how.

But if we run with how first we forget why, OK, He came to Jesus

because he had a problem he could not solve on his own, and

he knew Jesus was good. You know, we've said this a lot.

Somebody can have all power and not be good enough for you to

approach, you know, some power you ain't approaching.

Oftentimes we associate power with unapproachability.

But do we see how he appeals to his authority?

And that's wrapped up in his person, his presence, the person

of Jesus is approachable and able.

He's willing, he's able. So in his examples, he says, I

have AI say to 1 soldier go, he goes, I say to 1 come, he comes

and I say to my servant come. And he does.

So he appeals to the concept of authority, which he himself gets

to do. And he says that's at play here.

Do you see that? Which is kind of a cool thing to

think about. It's like he was just a Roman

soldier, y'all. He didn't know the Old

Testament. He didn't know no stories, but

he knew something. He knew enough that Jesus,

you're good, I've seen something, I've heard something.

You are good and you are able. And he comes to him.

He says based on what I know, you don't even need to come.

And again, his understanding is rooted in who Jesus is, not who

he is. But this is what's cool too.

The centurion is a lesson for us that you don't need to know a

ton. You just have to live in light

of what you know. Some of us keep learning things

and don't live in light of what we know, right?

Isn't the goal to live what we know?

What he knows is you're good and you're able, and he operates

according to that, right? The object of his faith is

Jesus, and the object of his faith is big.

So he's asking this big object that is Jesus to do something

big, right? So before we go on, we can't get

in our heads that this story makes it so that we can just run

around saying words like in demonstrating what his faith

looks like, you have to catch what he saw or you'll never do

what he did. Does that make sense?

He saw the Christ, He saw Jesus. His ask is big because his God

was big. Show me your asks.

I'll show you your God. He went to the Lord and just saw

Him. The way your faith grows is by

looking at a big object of your faith.

Your faith does not grow by focusing on you having big

faith. It grows as your understanding

of His trustworthiness, His goodness, His approachability

and ability grows. Second thing about faith is the

grab of faith. So we got the object, but there

is something about this grab He does here, right?

Jesus says I'm willing to come do it, and He cuts him off and

says, Nah, just say the word. That is some bold faith.

There's an element of he is grabbing God himself and saying

do it different than you're intending to do it right now and

changes his mind, which is amazing.

There's a sense in which what the grab of faith does is, is

grabbing God and letting him be God.

You got to let God be God. It's not enough to know that he

is what faith is is saying God be who you are.

I'm living like that's true. So do it if you are so please be

so OK, so I want to talk around just kind of the again, the

culture, American faith culture, y'all.

What this man is not doing is flexing his faith.

Y'all. He's just demonstrating it.

It's the vehicle to get who he wants, which is Messiah on

behalf of his servant. Y'all faith is not to be our

brand. Does that make sense?

Unhealthy faith culture can go one of two ways.

One is faith just becomes your brand such that you want people

to pay attention to how big your faith is.

You are center of your faith. That is not healthy faith

culture, OK, because it's the opposite of what we're talking

about where you're not convinced by the other, you actually some

kind of way or into yourself and it becomes a means to get what

you want. And then when the nose come, you

stop because actually what you wanted was it and not him, OK.

But the opposite side of unhealthy faith culture is when

you don't ask. Does that make sense?

The flip side, we can use our brains to guard our heart.

I'm talking to some people who know a lot of Bible, like

myself. OK, listen, what we can

sometimes do is we can take our brain and make excuses for God

and not engage our heart in a childlike manner the way he

does. He don't know much.

He just takes his heart as it is.

He has a need he can't meet and he goes to the source who can

handle it and he says handle it. Handle it in accordance with who

you are and what we do through our experience and through our

our just inner jadedness or critic or even in the name of

not wanting God to look bad. I can't have the Lord looking

bad out here. So let me not ask something big

in front of people who might then question how good he is,

right? And that's what I do is I become

God's bodyguard through theology.

I don't want you to look bad, Lord.

So let me not demonstrate faith so that you don't look bad.

Think about that sentence. Let me not demonstrate faith so

that you don't have to look bad, Lord, because I don't actually

leave. You will show up.

You see how that works? And So what happens is what

childlike faith does is it just puts your heart on the table

with God and you just live with God where you're at.

If you need God to show up, you beg him.

When he doesn't, guess what you do, You weep.

Is this text a promise that your life is coming true if you ask

hard enough? Absolutely not.

Not at all. That's not Matthew's intent.

It's a window into who Messiah is.

It is not a promise of what he'll do in every situation,

always. Many people did not get their

miracle when he walked the earth.

Many. This is not a formula for you to

get your miracle, period. But there is a window here into

what faith is. It's just taking life on its

terms and just go with it. When it's painful, live in pain.

When you need him to show up, ask him to show up.

But I don't see anywhere in the text where we explain for others

how God isn't really who he could be.

And let me stop you there. So guys, I think healthy faith

culture is just let God be God. Let him be a healthy authority.

Let him be the dad to your child likeness.

Let him just be the one you ask. My kids have learned there's

certain things that will happen if they ask me and there's

certain things that won't. If they won't, why'd you give

them that? They asked, right?

There's something about the ask that is just so powerful and

there's a reality to verse 13. You cannot duck which says let

it be done for you as you have believed.

You just got to sit in that. So you can't.

You can't run with the faith theology that runs to God will

do all things and you can't run with one that says he will do

nothing like there's a reality that there's some stuff he'll do

if we ask. That's the life of faith is

trusting him that he is the prize, not ultimately what he

gives, but and particularly y'all notice how big his faith

is on behalf of somebody else. He ain't even asking for his own

sake. There's love of God and neighbor

right before our eyes right here.

Notice how bold his faith is on behalf of somebody else.

But Jesus takes this moment and turns to the crowd.

Look with me, let's talk about the crowd.

There's there's some some scandalous stuff gets said right

here in verse 10. When Jesus heard this, he

marveled and said to those who followed him, truly I tell you,

with no one in Israel have I found such faith.

I tell you, many will come from east and West and recline at

table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven,

while the sons of the Kingdom will be thrown into the outer

darkness and that place there will be weeping and gnashing of

teeth. Got to speed up a little bit.

Three points about the Kingdom. First, the access of the

Kingdom, y'all, the Kingdom is available to all, everybody, by

grace through faith. OK, what this is communicating?

This is a Roman soldier, OK, Jesus came down the mountain.

He's fulfilling the the story of Yahweh all the way back to the

Exodus. He went up on the mountain,

taught the law, the Moses picture, all that.

Go back and listen. If you don't see all those

connections, it's OK. But what is being communicated

to us? Think about it.

The first miracle, which there are 10 in Matthew chapters 8 and

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

9, was with a leper, OK? A leper had no access to God,

was declared unclean. And the second miracle is to a

Roman military official, y'all, what is being communicated to us

is the the party has arrived and who wants to join it is

different than who you thought. You would think there'd be a

line of a certain type of people, but who Messiah is

drawing to himself is the people that the Jews would have been

like, Nah, lepers and Roman military officials.

No, Roman military officials probably had a list of stuff

they'd seen and done. Let me just put it like that.

They use their authority in interesting ways in the name of

Rome. We can't know for sure what he

did. But you don't get that position,

no kind of way. And you got to do certain stuff

when you have it. It's just reality.

And Messiah is letting this man be on his team.

So what Jesus does in this moment is he is declaring

definitively all the Kingdom is not inherited by blood.

And what Yahweh was doing all the way back with Abraham, who

is y'all's guy. Abraham Once Upon a time was a

Gentile. Want to know how he became a

Jew? Because God called him it

renamed him and he demonstrated faith in me before he ever had a

system of trust and sacrifices and covenant of circumcision and

all the stuff. It was always by grace through

faith always. And so he names drops all the

people that the the the Jews were homies with Abraham and

Isaac and Jacob. He's saying I'm a be chilling

with them one day with guys like my man right here and a lot of

y'all won't be. What he's communicating is the

the Kingdom is available to all who think they need grace.

Y'all grace offends you if you don't think you need it.

Y'all the the the air in heaven, if you will.

You still can't see it. Isn't it amazing?

You can't see air, but you are constantly interacting with it.

It's grace. The way you access grace is by

the nose of faith, OK, Your nose takes in grace, breathes it in,

breathes it out, OK. That's how we access it.

It's what God does for us that we can't do for ourselves.

And where God is not, obviously God is omnipresent.

Y'all know what I mean? The other air option is self

righteousness. I stand on my own, I do what I

did this, I'm a good person, I know the stories I went to

church. That heart posture is just

antithetical to the Kingdom. That's what Jesus is

communicating. And by and large, the people of

Israel had gotten to a place through the leadership and all

the different things where they just, they were not by grace

through faith, trusting in in Yahweh.

And the evidence is the fact that they want to kill Messiah

and don't want him, don't want to follow him.

They wouldn't let God be God. Ironically, they had a whole

system but weren't demonstrating childlike faith.

They weren't asking him to demonstrate his goodness to the

Romans. They wanted the Romans dead, you

know. They wanted to overthrow him.

God is looking for people who will trust Him by grace through

faith. God is looking for people who

will worship Him as spirit and truth.

He's looking for people who don't stand on their worthiness

but know that he still wants them.

That's grace. Second thing, the texture of the

Kingdom. I can't help but notice how

relational the text is. Think about it.

The centurion comes on behalf of the servant.

Jesus cares about the servant. He cares about the centurion.

Then the centurion shows the faith.

Jesus turns to the crowd and teaches them what the centurion

just told them that they should have paid attention to but

missed. And then after he turns the

centurion, it says, you're good, your guy's good.

Go. It's very relational.

And in his little speech, he brings up Abraham, Isaac and

Jacob. Y'all kind of the the imagery

here, y'all is literally of like a heavenly banquet where they're

eating food and chilling the heroes of the faith and

potentially those in the crowd if they will repent and stop

trusting in their works, but in what Christ has done, they could

be in on the action. Here's the idea, y'all, you know

what you do when you eat food? You share stories, you share

stories of heroes. The good news of the Bible is

there's one hero. Just one is King Jesus.

It's this imagery of us in a heavenly banquet just chopping

it up, talking about how good Jesus is.

They ain't sitting around toasting to themselves.

Abraham, you remember when you that ain't that ain't the

conversation. OK, There's an air here of

relational invitation. Jesus is saying, so we're going

to talk about hell in a minute, but just hear me that behind

Jesus's words of warning is a posture of invitation to the

banquet. Are you with me?

Sometimes you won't hear an invitation, so you got to hear a

warning. But the posture is please be at

the table celebrating the one hero, which is not you.

And if you think you're the hero, let's go to coffee after

service because I'm like, listen, none of us is the hero.

There's one hero and he wants to chop it up with you and break

bread with you. And then lastly, the timing of

the Kingdom. You know what the Bible teaches

that in the person of Jesus, the Kingdom has come and it is still

coming. It's known as the here and not

yet, the now and not yet. OK?

It's this idea that it broke in and it's still breaking in.

There's this overlapping that is started that will come to

completion one day. And so in some sense, heaven is

a final destination of sorts, but it's already at play.

It's just eternal life in our midst now.

And it goes to another phase, if you will.

And in a similar way, hell is similar.

People talk about it as a final destination, which it is, but

it's just the it's the byproduct of an ongoing default.

Does that make sense? Like if you want nothing to do

with the Lord, you're going to experience the side of him which

is judgment. That's that's how that works.

Hell is real. It just is is coming.

We need a good judge to make a lot right that we see wrong all

the time and ourselves structurally all across the

world. We need that it will happen.

If for some of y'all it's time to wake up and smell the roses,

that is grace. Grace is available to you to

stop standing under your own strength and come to him.

OK, let's talk about the servant.

Let's talk about the servant, y'all.

The servant is ironically the easiest person to forget about

in the story, isn't he? Verse 6 Lord, my servant is

lying paralyzed at home suffering terribly.

Verse 13 And into the centurion Jesus said, go, let it be done

for you as you have believed, and the servant was healed at

that very moment. It's easy to forget He's the

reason this story happens, isn't it, y'all?

And in many ways, I, I don't know who you identify with in

our story. Maybe you feel like the

centurion. You want to have more faith.

That's great. I resonate with that too.

Maybe you, maybe you're kind of just checking Jesus out.

You don't know where you're at with him yet.

You feel like you're in the crowd and he just told you some

hard stuff. I feel that too.

But y'all, in a lot of ways, the person we have the, the most in

common with in the story is the servant.

Let's think about the need we have and our path to wholeness.

Let's think about the need we have and the path to wholeness,

y'all. This man lies at home,

paralyzed, cannot move, brings nothing to the table, nothing,

just sitting there. If he is not radically

intervened on behalf of another, his situation is hopeless,

right? That's the idea.

He's suffering and paralyzed. What that kind of did in my mind

is kind of that phrase. Like a dead man dying.

You're you're a dead man, you just don't know it yet.

That kind of phrase, y'all. That really is what the Bible

teaches about us apart from Christ, we are dead in our sin.

We feel so autonomous. We're alive, we're making

choices. We think we're a king.

We think we're a queen. We think we run in the show.

If I could just get this, I'm living for Friday.

We feel like such an original. We feel so alive.

But when the gospel good news comes upon you and tells you

you're dead in your sin, you're like, I mean, obviously you can

reject that. But if you really think about it

a little bit, as autonomous as you feel and as much control as

you feel over your life, what you'll begin to notice is that

the Bible's assessment of you is more true than your own.

You know, the Bible is telling us this is hard, that we are

dead in our sin, that we are not an original.

We're actually slaves to sin. We only want to do what our sin

nature wants us to do. And at best, if we get involved

in religious activity is to feel a little closer to God,

spiritual but not religious. Whatever phrase you want to use,

where you're like, man, I'll do my thing.

You know, like I'm willing to man, I'll even check the word

out. But we remain the head honcho in

control. And we think we are in control.

But the Bible goes so far as to say we're dead in our sins,

slaves to sin and to Satan. There's a sense in which his

main strategy is to hand you the, the, the, the instrument as

it will. And you start playing it and you

think you're an original and you never even think about where do

I get that? That makes sense.

And that's kind of how he operates.

He will let you be your own king as long as you want to be in

whatever form you want that to take.

You can even get a little more religious long as you stay in

charge. And in that way, you are still

just a dead person dying. You are not an original apart

from God's intervention. You will suffer terribly and you

can't move. That's hard, but it's freeing

truth if you will let it resonate.

Now let's think about the path to wholeness.

So that's the that's the need every human being has in the

path to wholeness. Think about it.

How is the servant healed? By nothing They did at all.

They did nothing, somebody else. So they lied.

Dying dead, dead man dying. There's somebody willing and

able to heal, and somebody intervenes and pulls that

willingness out on behalf of the one who's not even present to

make it happen. Y'all, in some ways the

centurion's faith and stuff, what Jesus did was pure grace.

But there's a greater intervention in the gospel, what

Christ has done. Y'all, the Son of God stepped in

and took upon himself the wrath of God in such a way that when

he goes to the Father, he gets a yes.

He is worthy to be heard from the Father.

And what He did in dying on the cross and appealing on our bath

is so that when we turn to Him in faith, God will not say no.

He will say yes. It's not a wish.

It's not your worthiness that makes you worthy.

It's the intervener that makes you well.

You bring nothing. He's back home.

He just gets healed. He's like man, He did it for me.

You see how that works? My man leaves to go get some

coffee. By the time he comes back he can

walk. Isn't that crazy?

But y'all think about it. He did nothing somebody else did

for him. I just want to appeal to some of

y'all. The path to your wholeness is

not through anything you do. Somebody say anything.

You're like anything T anything, anything, nothing you do.

You know what I'm saying? It's what Christ did and you

just receive it by grace through faith.

Repent, turn from your sin and acknowledge he is a hero.

He runs the full 100 yards. He don't take it 99 and you take

it one. Your faith isn't even really

what saves you. It is receiving a gift.

You get no credit for taking a gift because otherwise that

makes your faith the means of your salvation.

It's just receiving what Christ has done.

It's turning, it's acknowledging, it's

surrendering. Some of y'all need to do that.

Let's talk about Jesus and we don't.

Not great. Let's talk about Jesus.

Let's talk about Jesus. Jesus is the standard of

authority in this text. What a king we have, y'all?

A king who gets giddy over what he sees in other people who

probably have lived as wicked of lives as you and me.

He's not a person with authority, just hammering you

like how dare you sinners ask me for anything.

Like I think that's what we think God is like.

But look at this man. I got three things about Jesus I

want you to see that I hope make you giddy about him 'cause he is

giddy about you #1 Jesus is the Incarnate King.

Somebody say Incarnate. OK, the Christmas story is the

story of the incarnation, but in the backdrop of this story is

the assumption that Jesus wanted to be there.

Y'all, if the Son of God did not want to be in our midst, he

would not have came. We just take that for granted

when we read a text like this. He came to make situations like

this happen. This is why he came, was to make

scenarios like this one go down. So He came so that this could

happen. Y'all.

The incarnation is the idea, the truth, the reality that the

eternal Son of God, He's eternally been Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit. The Son took on flesh, OK, So he

became human as we are, So as God, God cannot be surprised.

As man. He marvels because he's

surprised. That's the incarnation.

It's a mystery. He lived a human life just like

us. So it's a legit marveling from

the God who came for us. He's Emmanuel.

I just want you to hear God came for you.

I remember I was in a chorus one time.

Sister act anybody. You came, you came from heaven

to earth. Come on, shut away.

They made me be the little boy trying to do the little La La,

la, la, La La. I just got up there.

I was like, I was so scared. Go watch sister act 2.

God bless you, OK? But yo, he did, He came for you

#2 Jesus is the Son of the Father, OK?

He is God. He's man.

He's the God man. He is the Son of the Father.

Yo, listen to me. The Trinity is inherently

relational. He's one God in three persons,

three persons, one God. When I see the one, I see 3.

When I see three, I see one. Here's the idea.

The goal of the entire Bible is relational.

It started relationally. In the end, in Revelation 21,

God says the dwelling place of God is with man.

That's where we're going back with him in fullness.

He's Emmanuel, God with us. So is the goal miracles for

miracle's sake? No.

Is the goal morality for morality's sake?

No. The goal is life with God.

That's it. So you're going to get every

miracle? No, God wants to live with you

by grace through faith. All of it is pointing to that.

And he's a good Father as demonstrated through the sun by

the Spirit, so that you could be brought into life with this God

who wants to live with you. Heaven is a place of

relationship #3 Jesus is the King of kings.

Y'all, let me tell you something.

It's obvious in the text. But who did the man not go to

that he had the power to go to? He did not go to Caesar Want to

know why Caesar don't care? Caesar can't help.

Let me tell y'all something. Caesar don't care.

And Caesar, Caesar still can't help you, OK?

There's a lot of things that we go to Caesar for without even

realizing it. And y'all, we got to be careful

we don't create a sacred secular divide in our mind.

God has made all things. All things are good.

All things are from him and through him and to him.

I'm talking about the posture of our heart.

Who do we go to when we're in a time of need, even through the

good gifts? But there's many things I do

where I don't go to him. I go to it.

OK, But the idea in the text is that he did not go to Caesar

because Caesar don't care and he can't help.

He would have been annoyed by this request.

Even 5 minutes on Caesar's Google, Google Calendar for the

day would have annoyed him with this.

Brother, get this man out my face.

The idea of power at that time was to leverage power to get

your freedom. Get these peasants out my face.

Let's throw a party y'all. I want us to see that the King

of Kings, how he uses his power is to move towards you, not away

from you. Y'all.

Parents, let's get real for a second.

How often do we act like even our kids are a burden to us?

I need some time. I need some me time and you and

your finiteness. You do Amen.

So let me. I'm just saying the one with all

power and authority is moving towards you, not away from you.

For some self-care. God is full, He's overflowing,

He's good. He's full of authority and power

and goodness and he uses it on behalf of others.

How crazy is that? That is so different than what

we think of. Who is this man who gets to call

the shots on heaven and hell? Jesus.

Who gets to do that? Jesus does.

Who gets to call the shots on what the Kingdom is like?

Jesus does. Who gets to heal somebody

without even going there? Jesus does.

Y'all? There is one who has such power

in such approachability, in such kindness that your soul craves.

You crave somebody you can trust.

You crave somebody who cares because sometimes you pick up

the phone and you call somebody just because you know they care.

The people in your life you love most, you know care about you

most. Big facts.

I don't know who it is, but there's somebody.

The 3:00 AM friend, right? If something was going down,

that's who you'd call. Yeah.

I just want you to hear your soul was made for somebody who

would take the call, who cares and who can and sees where it's

going and is forever committed to your good.

Irregardless of how they handle that call.

They're not just a friend to bring in on the know, not just

I'm just letting you know, I know there's nothing you could

do. That's not this friend.

This is the friend who cares. Who can doesn't mean that it's

going to happen the way you think it should.

If they care and they can't, that's where we struggle, but go

to them and childlike dependence of faith.

This is the king of kings. This is what your heart craves,

is an authority you can trust, who has all power, who has all

approachability, who has all kindness, who cares?

And I love he marvels at Jesus's faith.

He marvels at him. I think the question the text is

asking us is, are we marveling at Jesus?

Look at this guy. He's impressed with a Roman's

faith. He turns to the crowd and is

just like, please go. I love how he ends it with go.

You see how go was one of the words he said.

He says to his people. He says go, let it be for you as

you believe. I think that's funny.

I just think Jesus is funny. He could have been like it's

done. He could have said anything, but

he said go. I would have been walking home

like he said what I said. Jesus is just the man.

Jesus is giddy about this man's faith.

Are you giddy about Jesus? If you're not a follower of

Jesus here today, I just want to invite you to know this King, to

know this authority who has all power, who is all approachable,

all kind, forever committed to your forever good.

They're not just trying to get you out their way so you stop

annoying them. They want you.

They came for you. That's this king.

And your path forward is repentance and faith and

trusting in him, into the faith family in the room.

Listen, maybe just start with one area in your life where

you're not approaching God and childlike dependence and just

let Him be him. Stop being his bodyguard.

Just let him be Him. And there might be pain that

comes from that as every child has to wrestle with of Daddy.

You could give me the candy right now.

You might not think what you asking for is candy.

He knows whether it is or not. He knows the plan.

But go to him and ask Him for His hand.

Let's see what He does in our midst, particularly all on

behalf of others. There's asks, our city needs

y'all. There's asks, our communities

need y'all. There's ask, our friends need

y'all. And let us not be ones who could

have asked them and didn't because we were afraid to make

God not look good. Y'all, our city needs us to ask.

Our friends need us to ask. We need to ask Jesus to save

them, to open their eyes, to change communities, to help

people to, to change generational sin.

God can do it. Let's ask him.

Let's go to him in childlike faith.

We all pray with me. Our Father God, you are amazing.

God, this is just just so much amazing stuff going on in this

text. I just pray you would open our

eyes. God, you're so kind not to

overwhelm us with truth. We can't handle it all at once.

But I just pray breakthrough right now in the name of Jesus

for somebody. They would see with clarity that

they're not an accident. God, I don't know their story.

I don't know what they've been through.

I don't know what's been said to them, but I know that you

created us to rest under a kind, good, powerful, able authority.

God, when the when the when our righteous 1 is an authority, the

whole city is blessed. It's it's it just comes to life.

God, we pray that under your leadership we will come to life

and thrive. God, we pray that over our city

got many need to come to faith in Christ.

Many things need to change many sin patterns need to be broken.

We just pray you would do it by the power of the Holy Spirit and

God, I pray. For we your church, God, that we

would be askers, childlike, dependent.

God, forgive me for the ways I don't go to you because I'm

scared. God, give us childlike faith and

dependence. God, save in our midst.

Do this all for your glory and the good of our neighbors, the

good of our city who needs it, and for our own joy.

We pray in Jesus name, Amen.