Matthew pt. 22- The Centurion’s Faith

Matthew Chapter 8 The Bible is Awesome.

Matthew 8 · chapter mention

God is Awesome. If you think if you think he's

boring or you think the Bible's boring, you're wrong.

You're the boring 1. The Sermon on the Mount was

awesome. And then Jesus comes down off

the mountain, cleanses the leper, and now we go to verse 5,

where we pick up today, Matthew 85.

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'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,

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 the East, 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 outer

darkness. In that place there will be

weeping and gnashing of teeth and the centurion, And to the

centurion Jesus said, go, let it be done for you as you have

believed, And the servant was healed at that very moment.

God, thank you so much for your word already.

As your word has just been delivered and read, faith has

been delivered along with it. The ability to believe, the

ability to receive, travels with your word, because it is alive,

because it is the very thing that you created.

Everything with everything that is visible was made out of that

which is invisible. The word was spoken in the

beginning, God said, and then it was.

God says, And then it is God. You still speak and you still

move things. You tell it to go, and it goes.

You tell it to come and it comes.

Nothing can stop your word. Help us, God, to trust and

believe, not to examine, to to take ourselves to a place of

unbelief, not to question, not to doubt, but to trust, to

expect, to learn to be instructed and to walk in a

greater obedience to you. We love you, God, We thank you

in Jesus name. Amen.

So here in Matthew 8, we've got a centurion.

Remember the scenario in Israel at this time?

The Romans have taken over. The Romans took over a lot of

places and then they would, they would have their soldiers, they

would have troops, they would have them ruling over people and

they would kind of let them have their subculture.

Hey, everything's Roman, but you can still do your Jewish thing

or your other thing or your other thing as long as it

doesn't violate any of our other Roman standards.

So the Jews are operating in this environment.

They don't like the Romans to say the least.

Racism is a very, very old problem.

It was very prevalent among all people throughout all of human

history. So here we've got a situation

where a high-ranking Roman Roman soldier centurion, he he's

ruling over at least 100 people. He had power.

He had experience. He had influence.

He is not a Jew. He is there to rule over the

Jews on behalf of Caesar. He has authority over the Jews.

He can take their property. In certain instances, he can

arrest them. And if he's like a normal Roman

soldier, he despises the Jews as just another people group under

the boot of Rome. They're just looked down upon.

They're just. I got this outpost.

They're just. I'm in Capernaum.

Oh man, I hope I get new orders to get shipped to whatever, but

we see thankfully that this centurion is not a normal Roman

soldier. Luke gives us the same account,

Luke. Luke actually clarifies and

brings even more detail and shows us that the centurion

didn't even feel worthy enough to approach Jesus himself, but

he sent other Jews to say, hey, would you do this?

So the exchange that we're reading actually happened

through mediators, but we know that this centurion is actually

a believer. He actually loves God.

He has actually helped to build the synagogue there in

Capernaum. He has actually contributed to

the work of God in this region, and he recognizes who has come.

The fact that he's even coming to Jesus though, as a centurion.

Apart from those other factors, which is already remarkable, the

fact that a centurion, a Roman, is coming to a Jew is

remarkable. The disciples are probably

shocked. A Roman soldier has never done

this. This powerful man recognizes

someone far greater than himself.

It's hard to emphasize or it's hard to overemphasize the

cultural craziness that would have been happening in this

moment. Jews would come to Romans to

seek approval, to seek permission, to seek help with

something. The Romans don't come to the

Jews. They're not going to stoop.

They're not going to go down that low.

We're above you. We're superior to you.

And certainly this man, he's not even an average soldier.

He's a leader. This man is an experienced man,

but instead now he recognizes somebody far greater than

himself, and this is revealed in verse six of chapter 8.

Lord. The very first word he uses when

he speaks Lord is the word that he uses.

Lord is a term used to address someone of higher status than

yourself, a master, an owner, a sovereign already putting

himself in submission. He understands the authority

structure that he's a part of. He recognizes who he is.

He says, yeah, I understand these social structures.

Sure, in the social structure, Roman centurion far outranks

Jewish rabbi, Jewish rabbi outranks other Jews, but Roman

centurion outranks anybody else. So he has he has summoned

authority over him, but the Jews are certainly under him.

But he recognizes that's just a social structure.

That's not the actual reality that God sees.

He knows that he's coming to someone higher, someone bigger,

someone stronger, someone who is actually worthy.

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

terribly. And then of course, right away

in verse 7, Jesus. Typical Jesus.

I will come and heal him. Look at the complex exchange.

You know, if you study it out, you know what might you really

find is going on here? Lord, someone needs healing.

I'll come and heal him. The response to Jesus.

The response of Jesus again and again and again and again and

again. Believe the word of God.

Believe Jesus. Believe the word of God.

Believe the word of God. Because Jesus once again shows.

And we're going to, as we go through Matthew, we're going to

count up all the times that Jesus says no when someone asks

him for healing in Matthew 15. We're going to come the closest

that you'll ever come, so you can go read ahead if you want.

I encourage you to do so. So Matthew 15, we'll come to a

scenario where it's like, is he saying no?

And then still you'll see how the story ends.

Spoiler alert, he heals. So over and over and over Jesus

keeps healing. That's what Jesus wants to do.

He says I will come and heal him.

Just to pause here and remind you, Jesus doesn't love this

centurion or the centurion servant more than he loves you.

Jesus doesn't love the centurion or the centurion servant more

than he loves the loved one that you're praying for the person

who we want to see healing manifest and show up in their

body. They're not an exception.

There's not something going on. Unless the Lord would reveal

that something is going on then there's no reason to expect that

something else is going on apart from the curse that Jesus is

broken, that Jesus is defeated it's anti Kingdom and Jesus is

made come to make the Kingdom come.

So that's our purpose as well. So even another thing that

stands out to us in this passage is we see the centurion is the

go between. He cares for his servant.

There is reason to believe there's some cultural things

here, there's some language things here as well.

There's reason to believe that he actually cares for his

servant and he actually loves his servant.

And it's not just hey this is my best employee.

Oh, it would be such a nightmare to go through the hiring

process. Again, there's there's a lot of

reason here to believe in, in, in deeper context, that he

actually cares compassionately for this person.

Which is why he's also willing to humble himself and expose

himself in this situation and say, hey, I'm seeking the help

of someone else, I'm going to Jews asking them if they'll go

to another Jew on my behalf because I'm not even worthy to

approach him, certainly not worthy to have him come into my

home. So he gives us a great example

of what it's like to stand in the gap, to stand in between.

This is exactly what you were just doing as you were sharing

prayer requests. You're not.

You're not. You're not the go between for

this loved one and your pastor. You're not the go between.

You say, oh, you have a need. I'll go to my pastor with that.

You're the one who stands between your loved one and the

Lord. And you say, Lord, won't you do

it? And so, yes, you shared it with

me so we could pray together. And that's a good thing.

But you understand that it's not your pastor.

It's the Lord who actually does the work.

It's the Lord who can only do anything.

And you are that go between. Just like Gordon was sharing

with us. We are that go between.

We are that minister who is to stand up and say no farther, no

farther. Lord, I am asking.

I'm seeking, I'm knocking. I believe.

I believe. I believe your word.

And now I have an expectation because I see what you've said.

I know what you've done, and I know exactly what you want

because your word reveals it to me.

We want to be like this centurion who sees the needs of

somebody else. And because we love them, we

move. We believe God's word, and we

believe that no one has a unique circumstance or that might be an

exception to the rule. No, that's called doubt.

That's called unbelief. You didn't get that from the

Bible. You got that from your

experience. I think discouragement

influences a lot of our beliefs. I think our past influences a

lot of our beliefs. I think a lot of times I'm not

going to pray for that. Why not, Joe?

Michael? Well, because I've prayed for

the oh, oh, so you're so you're you're the king.

Your life experience is the standard upon which you should

live. Now.

No, I'm not saying that. Well, you don't have to.

That's how doubt and unbelief work.

They're subversive. They just kind of creep in.

And I don't realize that. I just kept backing up.

And I keep backing up, and I keep backing up and I keep

backing up. We were discussing this

recently, Adam and I, talking about how, man, it seems like

there have been times, there have been seasons in life where

I've I've, I've had such confidence in the word of God,

particularly in this subject around healing, such confidence

in Jesus, such expectation. And then there have been other

seasons where I find myself allowing things and just

permitting things. There's a word for that.

It's called unbelief. Because if I believed then I

would be asking, I would be seeking, I would be knocking.

Maybe it's laziness, maybe it's distraction.

Either way it's the anti Kingdom has gained a little bit of

ground and we constantly want to push this back.

Why? Because of what Jesus said.

I will come and heal him. We just saw Jesus with a leper,

so he's another outcast, the Roman centurion not typically

going to be loved by the Jews. This one is because of his

goodness and his kindness to the Jewish people.

But the leper is another outcast, another man outside of

the camp, so to speak. And now Jesus shows the will of

the father, even for the Gentiles, that he will go and

heal a non Jew. This is the first time in the

Gospels that we see this happening.

So far it's all the context tells us that it's just been the

Jews, the Jews coming to their rabbi.

Jews are having their own little revival.

Isn't that nice? But Jesus is already starting to

show people and he gets very explicit in this passage.

Here he's saying the Kingdom of heaven and the table is open to

whoever will put faith in the king of heaven.

And the sons of the Kingdom, so to speak, will be thrown into

outer darkness if they don't believe.

So he brings stronger strong rebuke and we'll get there in a

moment. So this is wild.

What happens here though? So after Jesus gives his line he

says verse seven, I will come and heal him.

But now it gets crazy, because the centurion says I'm not

worthy to have you in my house, lowering himself continually.

What else can we learn from the centurion?

I am not an entitled brat. I am humble.

I am expectant. I have full confidence in you.

And yes, I should make bold declarations of faith, but they

are not a demanding expectation. They are just a joyful

expectation, he says He makes a bold declaration.

He says, Jesus, just say the Word and my servant will be

healed. It's wild to me how people in

the Bible just determined that the Lord, how the Lord would do

something and then the Lord did it.

That's wild. But what it really is, it's just

faith. It's not hung up on the methods

of faith. Faith will always find an

expression when faith is real. When faith is present, it will

have an expression. It might look spontaneous.

It might look weird. I wouldn't have done it like

that. Look at the woman with the issue

of blood, she says to herself. She says to herself, If I could

just touch the hem of his garment, I will be made well,

says who? We are just making stuff up.

No, it's not about the methods of faith.

It's about the source of faith. She had such confidence in

Jesus. She's like it.

Don't. She could have said if this then

then it will happen because her faith was so pure and that's

that's why Jesus talks about look, a mustard seed is the

thing because if the mustard seed is applied in the right

soil, the soil of Christ, then you can expect everything to

happen. You can expect anything to

happen. So it's a strange place

sometimes. Sometimes people, they have seen

the example of faith in others lives and they have seen how

bold it was, but they didn't recognize that that was a living

faith inside that person. So the spectator to this

person's great faith watched it and all this person learned was

presumption. This person said, I'm going to

demand something like that too. It's like you need faith in

Jesus and rock solid confidence in him.

And then the methods aren't going to be the most important

thing, because God deliberately does not give us a formula to

faith. Which is why throughout the

Gospels, Jesus never heals the same way twice.

And the particular examples that were given now he may have, when

He's healing thousands and thousands of people, maybe there

was patterns, but in all the particular examples, it's spit

in the dirt and rub it on somebody's eyes.

It's But you don't see that again, do you?

So we see so many different ways that the Lord moves back to the

point here. Y'all got me distracted.

I know what you're doing. You just want me to keep

preaching. Let me come back here.

We just people determine how the Lord would heal them.

The woman with the issue of blood.

If I just touch the hem of his garment, I'll be made.

Well, the centurion just say the word and my servant will be

made. Well, bro, who are you telling

Jesus how it's going to be? But the centurion is so

confident. What do you think?

You can just write your own ticket.

But these people understood it was about who their faith was

in, not the method of their faith.

So not. Well, what's the?

How am I supposed to? You don't have to get hung up on

all that when there's real faith present, because you just have

such an expectation. You just say the Lord's done it,

the Lord's doing it, or the Holy Spirit might even give you a

prompt. And I believe that the Holy

Spirit did in both of those examples.

I don't think this woman was just drawing stuff out of a hat,

like touch the hem of his garment, shout at him from a

distance. But I believe it was a prompt

from the Lord. But that also comes with faith.

And I just know the Lord's going to do it, man.

I just have this sense that it's going to happen like this.

Well, the way you heard the Lord move in that other person's

testimony is not a prescription for your future.

You can expect the power of the Lord to show up for sure, but

you don't know for sure that you also are going to get the phone

call at the 11th hour. In your situation, that makes

the thing go away. You have to press into him, and

then faith is there. Peace comes and you go, It's

done, it's settled, and then people come up against you.

Opposition. And in this example, we're

talking healing, healing, all kinds of things come against you

and you go. It's as good as settled.

And your body keeps talking to you and you say it's not

settled. I still hurt, or we still have

this symptom And you go, I I'm not denying the fact that there

are symptoms. I'm just denying the fact that

they're permanent. And I have an expectation that

the Lord is bringing His deliverance.

Lord, what would you have me do? Is there anything you'd have me

do? Not to earn it, not to deserve

it. But is there anything you just

had me do, walk to, to walk out my faith?

And maybe you'd say, touch the hem of his garment.

Maybe he'd say, I mean, it could be anything that the Lord would

say. But faith will always have an

expression. Faith will have something.

Sometimes faith is simply just speaking.

That will be the response to faith.

It will be a a deliberate speaking.

Things that are not as though they already were acting like

your father, behaving just like him.

Again, not from a place of presumption, but from a place of

actual belief and confidence. Faith in God's word, real

confidence in God's Word will always find an expression, and

the Lord will respond to that. Faith in God's Word will cause

you to be like the Ethiopian who Philip was teaching in the

chariot, and he's rolling along, and he's teaching him from

Isaiah, and he's like, do you know what that means?

He goes, no. How could I know him unless

somebody teaches me? He says, let me teach you all

about it. And then the Ethiopian believes

they're rolling past water in the chariot.

The Ethiopian goes, here's water.

Why shouldn't I be baptized? He didn't wait to be instructed

by the disciple maker who should have been The Who should have

brought some instruction. But that's another key

indicator. You'll know when faith is

present in somebody's life. There's a, there's a, there's a

prompting within them. There's something coming.

There's an unction within you. And you're not like somebody.

Just tell me what to somebody tell me somebody tell me what to

somebody tell. Go to the Lord.

Go to the Lord. Go to Jesus.

He has your answer. Amen.

Nobody else is going to. There's going to be days where

you're going to stump your pastor.

Some of you've already done it. There's going to be other days

where Where? If you haven't, I will let you

down you go. Hey, Joe.

Michael. Well, I'm going to pray with

you, but the best thing I can do is say let's go to the Lord.

Amen. That's preacher talk for I don't

know what to do and that's a good place to be.

Let's just pray right now like that's code for I got nothing.

That's not a bad place to be. And that's that's all mature

Christians know that somebody hits you or something.

You're like, you know what? Let's just pray like, oh, that's

is that a cop out? No, that's that's the humble

place to be. Lord, just like the centurion.

What can I do? My servant's paralyzed.

He's at home stuck. He's suffering terribly.

What am I going to do? Who am I?

What am I going to do? Call the doctors?

We did that. Now what?

Lord, we come to you? Yes, man, that.

Won't that be embarrassing? What if?

What if you're praying? What if you're praying in the

hallway at the hospital? What if the.

What if? What if people see you praying?

How bad do you want it? Don't kid yourself, though.

How bad do you want it? Centurion.

Well, I'm a centurion like I, you know, I've got AI.

Can't go to the Jews, you know, like we'll call some other

doctors. We'll try some stuff out.

I'm sorry You're dying. Servant, You know.

I'm sorry I did everything I could.

Did you? Did you really run to the

master? Maybe you did.

But we we're people who ask. We're people who seek.

We're people who knock. Faith will always have an

expression, just like the Ethiopian Look, why can't I be

baptized? You can be baptized.

And then right then, he's baptized.

The Lord provides the power to believe His Word.

When you hear His word, it's a spontaneous delight, and it is a

certain trust. Whatever measure you receive,

act on it. Whatever measure of faith you

receive, act on it. You're receiving a measure of

faith. As the word of God has preached

this morning, you receive a measure of faith.

Anytime the word of God comes with the word of God is always

delivered faith. To receive and believe the word

of God. I just can't believe that.

Yes, you can. Yes, you can.

I I call you a liar and I call God true.

You can believe the word of God because he provides the power to

believe it. Well, I won't believe it.

Now we're getting. Now we're getting down to the

truth of it. I refuse to believe it.

Yeah, I know. There's such a thing as hard

heartedness. There's bitterness.

Which is why we want to pray that the Lord would make us the

good soil. That we would be the tender

soil, that we wouldn't have the word choked out by thorns, that

we wouldn't be rocky and that we wouldn't be a hard path where

the enemy comes and steals it. It's why we pray for clarity.

It's why we pray for revelation. So we're not just coming with

We're not. When we say revelation, we want

revelation in our heart. That's not the same thing as

explanation. There's a difference between

explanation and revelation. The Lord has given us a bunch of

free stuff this morning that I was not smart enough to think

of. There's a difference between

revelation and explanation. There's a big difference.

We need revelation. Whatever measure of faith you

receive, you should act on it. Get in the habit of acting on

it. Lord, what would it?

What would obedience like this? What would obedience to this

look like? Maybe it's just a baby step of

obedience. But take a step of obedience.

Don't just be a knowledge getter, man.

I know more stuff. I know more stuff.

You don't need to just know more stuff.

You need to believe. Believe.

That's what we're missing. That's what impresses Jesus.

Jesus marvels in the Gospels. He marvels at faith, and he

marvels at unbelief. Those are the two things it

says. And he marveled at the his faith

and he marveled at their unbelief.

Like those are the things that really get his attention in

either direction, for good or for bad.

Wow, That's faith. This guy.

This guy comes to me, seeks my help.

He's already got faith. He already calls me the Lord.

I'm coming. I said I'll come and heal.

And he says no, no, no, don't do that.

I know how authority works. Jesus and you have all the

authority. Another example of his faith.

The guy shows faith in Jesus in like layers.

There's lots of faith in Christ, not just not just, you know, I

think it can happen from a geographical distance of of a

mile or more. But it was your Lord.

You have all authority, and yes, Even so, your word is powerful.

Your word is enough, Christian. God's word is enough for you.

The word of God. Well, I'll never believe, Thomas

said. I'll never believe unless Thomas

the word was enough. And Thomas lost a blessing that

you have Saints. You have a blessing that the

apostle Thomas didn't have. Because Jesus said, Thomas.

You believe now because you've seen.

I've showed you my hands. I've shown you the wounds I've

shown you. My you see it all.

But blessed are those who haven't seen and yet still

believe. Why?

Because the word of God is enough.

Because He delivers faith for us to believe.

Don't be doubting, Thomas, but believe, don't be, don't be

doubting St. but believe. Faith isn't a formula.

The Lord knew if He gave us a formula, we would be locked in

on it. Like Lab Rats who learn to push

a button to get cocaine. This is a common experiment.

They can teach rats to do stuff and like, yeah, give me, give

me, give me. They give them tiny doses of

different drugs, but the rats learn this.

We would be the same way if faith was a formula.

This and this and this. This is the steps.

Oh, thank you, spiritual Santa Claus, for giving me everything

that I need. I know how to push the button.

I'm a trained lab rat. Instead, he gave us a Savior to

love, a master to serve, and His Word to believe.

We're not married to a method. We're married to Christ.

And he is the husband who always keeps his word.

Faith isn't about believing in your faith.

Faith is about the object or the person that your faith is in.

Faith is about believing in God and God's Word.

The Centurion believed in the Word made flesh.

Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, the Logos, and he

believed in the words of Jesus to also make things happen.

So he says, I believe in you. I know you're the Word of God

made flesh. And I also know now that when

you speak, everything can happen and anything can happen.

All things. I'll prove it to you.

Go to Colossians, Colossians chapter one, verse

15. He is the image talking about

Jesus. He is the image of the invisible

God, the first born of all creation.

For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth,

visible and invisible, whether Thrones or dominions or rulers

or authorities. All things were created through

him and for him everything was made by Jesus.

Everything was made for Jesus, and he is before all things, and

in him all things hold together, and he is the head of the body,

the church. He is the beginning, the first

born from the dead, that in everything he might be

preeminent. For in him all the fullness of

God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to

himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace

by the blood of his cross. Jesus is preeminent.

Jesus is sovereign. Jesus is enough.

That's why it is literally enough to speak the name of

Jesus over somebody over something.

It's not religious superstition. It's not vain repetition.

It's the name above every name. And if you understand who he is,

then you can say Lord, Lord, look, I just speak Jesus over

there. It's not a he's not a

philosophy, He's a person and he will bring his power to bear.

So your faith in Jesus will have an expression that pleases the

Lord and the Holy Spirit will guide you into the details.

The centurion trusted the word made flesh and he believed in

the words of Jesus to make things happen.

Verse 7. Jesus said I will come and heal

him. Verse 8.

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.

I say to 1 Go, and he goes into another.

Come, and he comes into my servant.

Do this and he doesn't. Little bit of a explanation

there to Jesus. No, Jesus, you don't have to

come into my house. I understand how authority

works, Lord, I get it. You don't have to come all the

way to my house, which is just kind of funny when you're

telling Jesus what to do about how to heal the person that

you're begging him to heal. It's just interesting to me.

And and what's absent from the text is Jesus's rebuke of the

man for doing it. Instead it's his congratulations

and holding him up as an example.

Again, careful because recognize that's a genuine faith that was

bubbling up out of this man. It's not a presumption.

It's not a. Let me instruct the Lord

Almighty as much as it is Lord. Let me just let me just draw as

little from you as possible. Because it's just so easy for

you. It's just so small for you.

God, it's so easy. All you have to do is speak.

Don't bother your day. Don't waste your time coming all

the way to my home. And by the way, I'm not worthy

to have you in my roof. Not worthy others.

Others would have thought. Oh yeah, the religious leaders

that were thought. Of course.

Like he's lucky that to be invited to my banquet and the

centurion goes, no, I'm not worthy to even have you come

around. I wasn't even worthy to

approach. You just speak the word.

The Centurion understands how authority works from the role

that he's in. The Centurion has a commander

that just speaks and things happen.

The centurion himself can just speak, speak.

Do you see the connections? He speaks and things happen.

He's certain that the Word made flesh needs only to speak the

Word and things will happen. Just like the Roman leaders

could dismiss someone and call someone else.

So it is at the Word of God. Disease is dismissed.

At the Word of God, healing is summoned.

The Word of God is enough. Psalm 107, verse 20.

Psalms 107:20

We read it already for our magnification this morning.

He sent out His Word and healed them and delivered them from

their destruction. Just by the word of God.

God is so eager to heal. He has provided us many, many

ways to receive healing from him.

The most obvious is the way he's even designed our bodies that

they that they heal themselves. You don't get a cut on your arm

when you're 8 years old and you're like, well, that stinks.

That's with me for life now. Yeah.

Hope. Hope to try and keep that

protected. Can you imagine?

We'd be a mess, wouldn't we? All of us.

But the body. Oh, thankfully, all that.

My body just did that. Oh, your body all by itself.

Amazing. How did that happen?

That's just the evolutionary process, right?

From the monkeys that we came from, from the mud puddle that

they came from, from the nothingness that they came from,

right. No.

God in his good design, built and designed even the human

body, says, you know what, my grace?

He causes his reign, which is a good thing.

In scripture. He causes his reign to fall on

the righteous, and on the unrighteous he blesses

everybody. So even those who hate his name,

and who hate the name of Jesus and who don't bend the knee to

the name of Jesus, he still blesses and heals their bodies

with an immune system and with processes that, bless the Lord

is more eager to heal than we are to receive.

And then last week, of course, we looked at and we looked at

and we practiced the laying on of hands and the anointing of

oil. And again, that's where I'm

tempted. I want a formula.

Oh, is that the one? Is that the formula?

The Lord's like, well, it's it's one way, it's one, it's one way

to do it. But today we see that His word,

spoken or written, is more than enough.

His word is more than enough. His word is more than enough.

I tell one go and he goes, come and He comes.

The idea of the centurion is sharing with the Lord.

He's like Lord you. You just tell it to go.

It has to obey you. You tell his sickness, his his

paralysis, his pain. You tell all that to go, and

it'll go, and then you tell his healing to come, and it'll come.

And Jesus didn't even go into anything elaborate after that.

Jesus, Jesus says go, and may it be as you have believed it would

be. Jesus said it'll be what you've

said. Why?

Because his faith was in Christ. Again, not presumption, not

writing his own ticket in the way that you could misinterpret

and the way that you can miss. Oh, so I can just make stuff up

as I go. Put faith in Jesus.

And yes, then there will be spontaneous clarity, there will

be spontaneous direction. And then Jesus congratulates.

Basically, he emphasizes this man's faith to everyone 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 just humbles everybody, all of his disciples and they're

like, oh centurion's coming asking Jesus, Jesus said he's

going to go heal him. Oh that's surprising Jesus

really nice. He's even going to go to

gentiles and take care of them. Oh my goodness.

This centurion just sent back a message saying don't even come

to my house and he's telling Jesus how it's going to be.

I wonder what Jesus going to say next.

Jesus says this is awesome. This is better than everything

I've seen from any of you. This is the best faith that I've

seen. This is the purest faith that

I've seen so far in the life. Oh, OK.

The people who had the scriptures.

So the Bible is your safety, right?

No. The Bible believed is your

safety. The Bible on your shelf isn't

your safety. The Bible in your brain isn't

your safety. The Bible believed is your

safety. The word of God believed is your

protection. The word of God believed is your

promise. The word of God believed is the

fruit. And Jesus said, this guy, this

guy's fate, it beats everything else that I've seen from the

Jews, like, whoa, sick burn, he marveled, instead of 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 the

table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, east and West.

He's talking about the whole earth, He's saying not just from

right here in Israel. Many will come from all over the

earth and they will recline at the table in heaven.

We will, we will enjoy the marriage supper of the lamb.

You and I, Gentiles, think everybody, anybody.

You're Jewish, All right. Well, even if you are, you have

to repent and believe the gospel so you don't get into the

Kingdom. You don't get to sit at the

table with the Lord. Unless you have bent the need of

the Lord Jesus and put faith in him as Lord, He says many are

going to come from all over the world.

So this is, this is back to his disciples.

So he's teaching his disciples. They're like centurions, more

faith than us. And he goes, and let me tell you

something else. Many are coming.

This is all through the Old Testament, too, by the way.

This wasn't a new message. This wasn't like, I only love

the Jews before, but now I want to reach everybody.

That's just how people understood it.

Because the Jews were so closed off, they didn't recognize their

opportunity for salt and light. Jesus is correcting his

disciples. Hey, actually guys, yeah, he has

great faith, by the way. Many are going to come and sit

at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Many will come into the Kingdom in the Kingdom of heaven.

The sons of the Kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness.

The Jews in a place where there will be weeping and gnashing of

teeth. Whoa.

So he's just bringing strength. He's bringing clarity.

Why? Well, because anyone who calls

upon the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved.

And anyone who doesn't, won't. So, I mean, of course they begin

to see this throughout Jesus's ministry that the religious

Jews, the ones who should have been rolling out the welcome.

Magog. Finally, this is him.

Lord, what an honor that we get to be here to introduce you to

the world. We're the very ones who fought

him the most. They're the ones who pushed for

his crucifixion. Those are the ones in outer

darkness and anyone who doesn't call upon on the name of the

Lord, Gentile or Jew. Nobody nobody gets in without

coming the same way the centurion does.

Lowly Lord, Lord, Master, Sovereign, Ruler, King.

He makes an example of his faith in a good way and then goes

farther and he brings rebuke to those who don't have faith.

So Jesus takes a healing example and then also references a

salvation example. So this is kind of funny.

A lot of commentators, a lot of preachers when they're preaching

on healing passages they will over spiritualize those and and

make them not be about healing. So like a lot of times you'll

hear the the passage with the leper and and so they'll read it

about the healing of the leper and then they'll say this

scripture is really about the disease of sin in our hearts.

You're like what? Like, I can see that secondary

application, but like, hey bro, do you think that the leper

thought that that was about the sin in his heart or do you think

that he thought he got healed? You know, so it's a it's a

distortion, it's unbelief. It's a it's a it's a scholarly

unbelief, but it's unbelief. So there are places though, and

we're going to see it again later, where Jesus heals people

and does connect. He wants to show his authority

and he wants to show his clarity.

But we don't want to minimize the healing that's taking place

in this passage, nor do we want to minimize the salvation that

Jesus is teaching on right here as well.

So all the both things matter, both things are true.

Both things are important. Is one more important than the

other? Well, yeah.

Oh yeah, My sins being forgiven is more important than my body

being healed. And yet I still know how to

read. So the Bible still says what it

says and I'm still going to contend for the promises and

believe on Jesus. So he does reference salvation

there. He's talking about he does make

a pivot to talk about being in the Kingdom and being out of the

Kingdom. And then verse 13 to the

centurion, Jesus said go, let it be done for you as you have

believed and the servant was healed at that very moment.

Faith brings you to the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in

the Kingdom of heaven. But lack of faith brings you

into outer darkness and torment. Hebrews 11/6 says without faith

it is impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to

God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who

seek him. So to come to God, you can't

just believe that he exists. Well, I believe God exists.

OK, congratulations. So does the devil.

So do all the demons. Like existence of God is not

really up for debate. You're a fool if you say there's

no God. God says so.

So that's not a compelling argument to I believe in God.

I'm like, not to mock you, bro, but it's not that big a deal.

Open your eyes. Of course you believe in God.

How did you get here? There's no other way.

Nothing else makes any sense. God is king.

His creation preaches and proclaims who he is.

Now moving on. You must also believe that he

rewards those who seek him. He rewards those who seek him.

That's what the woman and the issue of blood already knew.

If I could just touch the hem of his garment, What makes you say

so? I just.

I know. I just know that he will reward

me for seeking him, even though Jesus didn't even know who did

it. What?

That doesn't jive well with my theology.

Like, I'm sorry, it's still there.

Didn't say we can make a pattern out of it, but we should make a

pattern out of faith. Not out of not out of methods,

but yes, out of faith. He rewards those who seek him.

The centurion believe that. I believe the Lord will reward

me when I seek him. I believe the Lord will answer

me when I seek him for my servant.

The Lord will reward those who ask, who seek and who knock,

right? If you ask, it will be given.

If you seek, you will find if you knock, the door will be

opened. That gives you more confidence

to ask, to seek and to knock believe God's word.

One of my favorite quotes of all time is from a dead preacher

named Leonard Ravenhill. He says one of these days some

simple soul will pick up the book of God, read it and believe

it. Then the rest of us will be

embarrassed. That's the simple approach to

take to the scriptures. The simple approach to take to

the word of God. Well, is this historical

narrative? Is this poetry?

Is this, this. You know what?

It's the word of God and it's good and it's true.

Well, I just want to study it more.

Is your study leading you to believe it more, or is your

study leading you to doubt or unbelief?

That's leading me to believe it more than dive in head first.

Go nuts. But if your study, quote study,

ever causes you to go, I now have less confidence in this

passage that you have run in the wrong direction.

This is a call for repentance. This is called unbelief.

This is not safety. This is knowledge, and it puffs

up. One of these days, some simple

soul will pick up the book of God.

They'll read it, they'll believe it, and the rest of us will be

embarrassed. The religious leaders in Jesus

Day, This is me again. Now, the religious leaders in

Jesus Day were focused on knowing the word of God, but

they were not focused on believing the word of God.

And the difference is fatal, as they found out and as Jesus

taught, the Kingdom is, for whoever would believe, gnash,

weeping and gnashing of teeth. That's sadness, That's anger.

That's pain. That's torment.

So approach Jesus like the centurion did Lord.

Call him your master. Be humble.

Have you settled the lordship and authority of Jesus in your

life? I know many of you have.

Have you gone to him in humility?

From there, show your confidence is in him, not in yourself, not

in your circumstances. I encourage you put all of your

eggs in one basket. All of them in one basket.

And trust His Word to heal you. Trust His Word for everything.

Amen. Whatever it may be.

Yes, we're talking healing. That was our passage.

That was what the centurion pursued and received.

The word is enough. God speak the word only.

So Saints would you stand.