A Rare Find

Series on Luke

III The Initiation

D The Activities of His Ministry Revealing That the Kingdom Is:

1 Few Indeed

Text: 7:1-10

Introduction

It is no secret that Jesus earthly ministry was directed to His own people, the Jews. On a few occasions he stated this explicitly, for example when He was near Tyre and Sidon a Canaanite woman pleaded for help for her daughter and we read Jesus response in Matthew 15:24, He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” On another occasion in Matthew 10:5-7, He was sending out the 12 on a mission and He said, Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ However, in spite of the fact that He came to His own people, they rejected Him in the end. Much of the New Testament is taken up with the theme of the good news being for the Gentile as well as the Jew, and Paul was called to be an Apostle to the Gentiles. After all, the Old Testament had prophesied that the Gentiles would be gathered in and that Yahweh was the Lord of all nations. Thus, even in Jesus ministry Gentiles were attracted to the Lord God of Israel, and to Jesus the Jewish Messiah in spite of the fact that the mission was not primarily to them. We find an exceptional one in our text, and we learn much about faith in this Scripture. We see the entrance of faith, the example of faith, and the essence of faith.

I Entrance of Faith

Our story begins in verses 1-5, When Jesus had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. There a centurion’s 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.” The Jewish nation was the repository of God’s revelation to mankind. Paul tells us in Romans 10:16 and 17, But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our message?” Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. There were, however, Gentiles who heard the message that Israel’s God was the true God and became proselytes during the Old Testament period. We do not know all the circumstances concerning this Roman centurion, but we do know that this Gentile built a synagogue for the Jews and when he heard of Jesus’ coming, He sent the elders of that synagogue with his plea for his sick servant. I think one can make a good case for the fact that faith had entered the life of this centurion through the message of the Word of God. That is the way it must enter every life. This was true even in Old Testament times before Jesus came in fulfillment of those Scriptures, for David writes in Psalm 119:105, Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

II Example of Faith

We see an example of faith in verses 6-9, 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 him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” It is, of course, a source of great astonishment and pleasure to Jesus that He finds such strong faith in this Gentile while His own people are rejecting Him. What is even more amazing is the nature of the Centurion’s faith. He sends his request from a distance, and he expects Jesus to act from a distance, and the reason is that he recognizes the Lordship and authority of Christ. The centurion is a man who obeys orders, and gives orders, and since Jesus is Lord he expects Him to order the healing. Jesus is his general. Do we see that true saving faith in Jesus Christ is not saying yes to some little formula so that we can be assured that we’re saved. True saving faith is vital repentance and turning control of one’s life over to the living God. It is not about me; it is about Him and who He is.

III Essence of Faith

Of course Jesus responds immediately to such a faith driven plea and the servant is healed as we read in verse 10, Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well. The intent of the Holy Spirit in giving us this story is to reveal to us the essence of true saving faith. The Bible is about authority. We tend to think the Bible is about salvation, but the salvation in the Bible is basically a means to an end. The end is the glory of God. The tragic thing about easy-believe-ism and preaching that does not demand commitment is that it misses the whole point of Scripture. The whole Bible is about what God wants. What we need comes to us only because it will enable us to be what God wants. He is holy and He demands obedience. He created us to obey and our forefather Adam disobeyed. The whole creation and history of Israel is to lead up to the Messiah who will be the last Adam and will obey for His people. This is why Jesus never separates the call to believe from obedience in His evangelizing. He asks men to forsake all. He asks men to take up the cross and deny themselves. We can do no less. Authority is the issue. Lordship is the issue. Glorifying God by doing what he says is the goal of all creation and of the redemption we have in Christ Jesus. The Gentile centurion is a true son of Abraham because he understood what Abraham understood. Faith means obedience to God. This is why James says in 2:20-24, You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? Was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone. In a word you cannot receive Jesus as your Savior unless you receive Him as your Lord. Thus Jesus is amazed that the Gentile centurion understands the essence of faith better than His own people.