Great Faith

Would you bow with me in prayer once more, please? Father, thank you so much for this sweet congregation, blessing these churches to us and to this community. Lord, as we open your word now, we pray that you would strengthen us as a church, give us deeper insight into you, give us a stronger commitment to be diligent and stand against this world.

Convict us and encourage us according to our need. We pray your spirit would be our teacher, we would be worthy listeners. We commit this to you in Jesus’ name, amen. This morning we’re going to be thinking about great faith. And our text is Matthew 8, five through 13. I invite you to turn in your copy of God’s word, see for yourself what he says to us. The great faith that we’re going to see in this text is tied up in the subject of authority, which you may find interesting. I think about how we all are.

I think we all know that genuine believers are not all in exactly the same place regarding the maturity of our faith. Impossible that we would be. Among those who have real faith, There’s a wide range on the level of trust and confidence in the Lord that we enjoy. And there’s such a thing as weak faith mentioned in Romans 14 and one other place.

And there’s the great faith mentioned in our text for today. And in between those two, we’re all on the spectrum, hopefully heading toward great faith, sometimes sliding backward and having to try again. But the great faith that we’re going to see in our text is tied to the subject of authority. And the man who demonstrated the great faith had a wonderfully clear understanding of how authority works in this world.

Now, this event took place just after the Sermon on the Mount. Right after that sermon, Jesus worked a series of miracles. Our text for today is the second of those, but much more important than the miracle. is Jesus’ statement regarding great faith possessed by this man that we’re going to read about. Matthew chapter eight, starting with verse five.

Scripture says, and when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, imploring him and saying, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented. Jesus said, I will come and heal him. But the centurion said, Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed.

For I also am a man under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to this one, go, and he goes. And to another, come, and he comes. And to my slave, do this, and he does it. Now when Jesus heard this, he marveled. and said to those who were following, truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. I say to you that many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness, and that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Jesus said to the centurion, go, it shall be done for you as you have believed.

And the servant was healed that very moment. So after preaching the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was approached by a leper. He healed the man of his leprosy. And then he entered Capernaum and was approached by another individual. This was the guy who had the great faith. The first thing that we might notice about him is that the great faith was not found where we might expect to find it. This man was a centurion. Means he was a soldier in the Roman army. He was in Israel to carry out the goals of the Roman Empire. The primary goal was to keep the Jews in subjection to Rome. And that was what he was there for.

The man’s title indicates that he was in command of 100 soldiers. That’s the cent part in centurion. Most of those guys came up through the ranks to have that position. So this would be like a master sergeant or a first sergeant in our military. Very strong position, somebody really confident, really able to command soldiers. He was accustomed to giving orders, having those orders be obeyed. He was a powerful man from another system, from another culture.

Whatever religious background he had, it would almost certainly not have been Judaism. But he came to Jesus for help. The guy didn’t let the difference in background stop him from approaching and asking what he needed. He doesn’t seem to have been put off by any sense of embarrassment or inappropriateness in asking for something from a guy who was a Jew and not a Roman.

If there was any hesitation at all, he said at the side, he came to Jesus and he asked for what he wanted. Now in the sermon that Jesus had just preached, it’s recorded in chapters five, six, and seven of Matthew, he commanded us to ask and seek and knock, promised that if we would do those things, we would receive what we were asking for. Shortly afterward, God provided this man as an example of what he had commanded all of us to do. Now, whether the guy heard the message or not, we don’t know if he heard it. But he understood somehow that he could come to Jesus, he could ask for what he needed, and he understood that Jesus had the power to grant his request.

Verse five says that the centurion was imploring him, imploring Jesus. Now imploring is a pretty strong word, and it very accurately captures the sense of the original Greek. It tells us that there was more said than the single quote that is here. Imploring means that he’s repeating, he’s asking, he’s calling out, he’s being persistent, he’s urging Jesus to hear his request.

That’s exactly what we’re told to do. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7-7, Jesus said, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. Those are present tense imperative verbs in the Greek and they carry a sense of continuing action. They taught us to translate them, keep on. Keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. The reason it’s not that way in your Bible is there’s so many present tense verbs that You’d keep on going crazy trying to read it.

But understand that this is the sense. It’s not a once and done kind of thing. We’re to keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking. And this guy got it right. I mean, it’s pretty basic, right? We just ask the Lord for what we need. This is not the part that demonstrated great faith, but it is faith. He’s asking Jesus. He’s asking with some intensity. Basic, but we don’t always do it, do we? How many times, even having real faith, have you tried something else first? Or second? Or tenth? How far down the list of possibilities have you gone before you go, oh, I should have just asked?

How desperate do you have to feel before you stop trying to fix it yourself, stop complaining to your friends, stop stewing about what your other options might be, you just ask. So many times I’ve done all those things, I’m telling you to write those words. Maybe you’ve done that too.

This guy got it right. He asked Jesus for what he needed. Now, we should also note that what the centurion was asking for is absolutely impossible from any human perspective. Nobody can fix paralysis. That’s what the quote here tells us the guy had. He was paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented. This guy came and asked and expected an answer, expected a solution.

This is also not why Jesus said he had great faith, but again, it’s real faith, it’s really good faith, it’s above average faith. What is a mere impossibility when you think about Jesus’ power? Somehow this man understood what Jesus can do because of who he is. Somehow he had come to believe that Jesus had the power to do this impossible thing that he was asking for.

There’s no hint of doubt in the way he approached. He didn’t say, if you can, like someone else did in the New Testament. He doesn’t seem to be just trying to cover all the bases. This doesn’t read like the guy in the antique store rubbing an old lamp just in case genies are real. He’s confident.

He believed that Jesus could do what he was asking for, and he was imploring him to do it. I wonder how many needs go unmet among Christians because we don’t do this. We don’t keep on asking. Jesus was and is ready to bless. Look, if you would, at verse 7. It says, Jesus said to him, I will come and heal him. What a gracious response. I’ll come and heal him.” Jesus was ready to bless. He was ready to go out of his way to bless, to interrupt his schedule. He was ready to minister to the centurion by going with him to his house, going inside his house and healing his servant.

Now the Jews typically didn’t have much in the way of dealings with Gentiles. And they were very careful not to go inside the home of the Gentile because they thought it made them unclean. Then they couldn’t worship until they did stuff. And so there was just this tension with everybody else.

Jesus is ready to go. Ready to go into man’s house where the servant is lying at home, fearfully tormented, and heal the man. A Gentile. a Roman soldier. Now, so far, this is still pretty normal. Other than the guy being a centurion, this is not unusual. A lot of people asked Jesus for what they wanted. A lot of people came to him and asked and got personal attention from him. But at this point, the centurion did something very unusual, something that we certainly wouldn’t expect.

Look at verse eight. But the centurion said, Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed. Now scripture is very precise and we want to pay careful attention to the wording because it matters. This is a very precise statement. The guy didn’t say, oh, it’s not necessary for you to do that. He didn’t say, I don’t want you to go to any trouble. He said, I’m not worthy. What’s that about?

You don’t get to be in the position of commanding 100 soldiers by lacking confidence. There are people you might not want under your roof. And there are people that you would welcome into your house and maybe be a little nervous because you think they’re really important people. But is there anyone on earth you would say, I’m not worthy for you to be under my roof? No person stands that high, certainly not in the eyes of a Roman soldier.

This part of the interaction seems to indicate that the centurion knew that he was in the presence of someone who was not just an ordinary man, not just a great man, not just a great teacher. This attitude in a man with the confidence to command soldiers wrongly implies the understanding of Jesus’ deity. The only explanation that I can make any sense of these words with, he knew he was standing before God himself, and who wouldn’t say I’m not worthy in light of Jesus’ deity? No one’s worthy until he transforms us. Jesus is Almighty God in human flesh, and although this man was bold to approach and ask for what he needed, he kept his own position in perspective. He seemed to understand who he was approaching, and he had demonstrated appropriate humility. Jesus is God.

This man was unworthy by comparison, like all of us. Now, among those who are weak in faith, This kind of humility is often lacking. Weak faith is often accompanied by an attitude of entitlement, as if God owes us something. God should do this. God should do this. God should fix this for me.

Weak faith is often very proud faith. This guy had humility. And that’s remarkable, but even that is not what made Jesus declare him to have great faith. We’re moving in that direction and you can tell this is getting better and better. It’s what the centurion said next that prompted Jesus to marvel. Look if you would at verses eight and nine.

Centurion said, Lord, I’m not worthy for you to come under my roof, but just say the word and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to this one, go, and he goes. And to another, come, and he comes. And to my slave, do this, and he does it.

The centurion knew that the only thing necessary for his servant to be healed was for Jesus to say the word. Jesus didn’t have to get close. Jesus didn’t have to perform a ritual in the presence of the guy who was paralyzed in order to be able to heal him. And he certainly didn’t have to get the guy worked up into some kind of spiritual frenzy so he would produce enough faith to be healed. That’s not how it works. Jesus just had to say the word. None of that other stuff was necessary. He was going to go there just to minister to the centurion. The centurion knew that proximity wasn’t why it was gonna work.

And it was the why that made Jesus marvel. It was his explanation of why he knew that. He explained his understanding by using his own role as a soldier. He said that Jesus’ ability to heal was like his own ability to command these soldiers and have them obey.

The reason that people obeyed him as a centurion was because he was a soldier under authority. Note carefully what verse nine says. It didn’t say, I also am a man of authority, or I also have authority, or I also know how to use authority. He said, I also am a man under authority. The only reason the soldiers had to obey him was because he was in the system. He was under other authorities higher than himself.

He had derived authority from them to do certain things. And ultimately, the authority came down from Caesar for him to do his job. That’s what gave him the power to command soldiers. No soldier would have been obligated to obey him, follow his orders, if he were not in that system. That’s the nature of authority in this world. Had he stepped out from under Caesar’s authority, he would have no right to command any soldier to do anything.

You have to be under somebody’s authority. Centurion understood how it worked. But what is really remarkable is that he understood that Jesus exercised authority in exactly the same way. He knew that he had power to do the impossible because he kept himself under the authority of the Father. So when the centurion said, I also am a man under authority, he’s recognizing that Jesus was under authority. Now Jesus is God in human flesh. How can he be under authority?

How can that be? Don’t feel bad if you have a little trouble getting your mind around it. This guy had a better understanding than anyone in Israel. This is hard to get your mind around. It took a long time for the disciples to understand this. It was after the resurrection that they started figuring this out. This guy already knew.

He walks onto the pages of scripture from who knows where, and he knows Jesus is under divine authority while he walks on the earth. Jesus did describe his ministry in those terms. In John 5, 30, he said, I can do nothing on my own initiative. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me. That just went right by the disciples over and over and over.

Trying to understand all of the details of Jesus’ deity and humanity and how those things work together will stretch you until your brain hurts. And when you get to the end of your ability to understand, you’re still gonna have a lot of questions. Trying to comprehend an infinite God. Well, do all you can, but don’t expect to arrive. And be wary of anybody who has arrived in their mind. You reach a point where you just can’t know anymore, at least not yet. But there are some basics that we need to understand. Some fundamentals.

Let’s start with the members of the Trinity have always been in perfect harmony with each other within the Godhead. There’s never been any conflict, never any disagreement. Jesus lost none of his deity when he became flesh. He lost nothing. God is immutable. God cannot change. He cannot be diminished. He cannot change in any way. And so all of his attributes and characteristics, including his humanity, were already there in the Godhead. He didn’t lose anything. But he did become truly human.

And he’s going to the cross, and he has to present a sacrifice of a perfect human life on the cross, without sin, having fulfilled everything Adam and Eve should have fulfilled and didn’t. Only a perfect life would satisfy a perfect God. He had to live a perfect human life. A human is to be submitted to the Father.

That’s how Jesus lived his life. To demonstrate perfect humanity, he had to demonstrate perfect submission to the Father. The centurion understood that. That’s where Jesus’ power came from. Oh, he was fully God. He could have just done it himself. then he wouldn’t have been living a perfect human life. He submitted himself to the Father. He had the power that way because he was submissive to the Father.

He was doing the will of the one who sent him. So in John, in chapter eight, verses 28 and 29, Jesus said, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing of my own initiative, But I speak these things as my father taught me.

He who sent me is with me, and he has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” That’s how Jesus lived in the flesh. In all eternity, he’s been in perfect harmony with the Father and with the Spirit. That didn’t change.

But in taking on human flesh, in demonstrating perfect humanity, he submitted himself to the Father. Jesus had the power to heal that man because he was submissive. And this is what’s so unusual. A Roman soldier understood that. The 12 knuckleheads walking around with Jesus every day didn’t get it. Now this means that great faith includes a deep understanding of who Jesus is. That doesn’t come quickly. Well, maybe it did in his case. It comes by diligence and effort. We need to understand Jesus in his perfect humanity. He didn’t step out from under the Father’s authority even once. He didn’t desert himself. He didn’t seek prestige. He didn’t try to be the final authority in anything. But to demonstrate perfect humanity, he submitted himself to the Father.

So great faith certainly includes those other factors of real faith that we that we mentioned, confidence, confidence to ask, humility. Great faith includes a deep understanding of who Jesus is. And it includes an understanding of authority and humble submission to God’s authority.

In verses 10 through 12, Scripture says, now when Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who were following, Truly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. I say to you that many will come from east and west and will recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness, that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Jesus marveled at this man’s understanding Then he used the occasion to use the man as a teaching point for the people around him. Now the statement was a challenge to Jesus’ disciples because they were all Israelites. When he says, I have not seen such great faith with anyone in Israel, there’s 12 guys standing there who didn’t have this kind of faith. And maybe this is the main takeaway for this crowd. for most of us.

Do we understand authority the way the centurion did? Do we understand how godly it is to submit ourselves to the authorities over us? Even in their imperfection, the authorities over us are under divine sovereignty. And when we submit to them, we’re submitting to our Heavenly Father.

That includes imperfect elders. It includes imperfect husbands. It even includes imperfect governments. All of those have derived authority from God, even the governments. That authority comes with boundaries. There are things your elder just needs to mind his own business on. Stay in the lane God laid out. Same for husbands. You have authority.

Don’t go outside the boundaries God has set. And Lord willing, well, one day we’ll know government that doesn’t go outside those boundaries. An example of those that your government can’t command you to sin, you’re not to obey that kind of command. It can’t command you to stop coming to church. It can’t command you to stop loving other believers.

But within the things that God has given them, we can submit to them. Can you imagine what it was like for Jesus submitting to imperfect authority? It’s a little different because we’re all imperfect too. He pulled it off anyway. We can push back against imperfections, we can refuse to obey ungodly commands from government or anyone else, but understand that great faith includes godly submission. One of the most unfortunate Artificial breaks in your scripture is between Ephesians 521 and Ephesians 522. Every English Bible I’ve ever seen has a break there with a new heading that’s not part of scripture.

Verse 21 is what the rest of the chapter is explaining. Verse 21 says, be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Then it says, wives, be submissive to your own husbands. Then it says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. But the thing that is overarching all of that is verse 21. For every Christian, be subject to one another in the fear of Christ. Submission is godly. Submission is Christ-like.

An indispensable part of great faith. So Jesus challenged, at least, lands on most of us like it would have the 11 disciples who actually were believers. We need to understand Jesus deeply. We need to understand authority. That’s an integral part of our faith.

That part’s subtle compared to the rest of the application because Jesus was mostly talking to the rest of the people around him who were Jews who were not bound for heaven. The Jews were assuming that they were going to get in heaven because of their racial and religious heritage, as if heritage can save you.

Nobody goes to heaven by heritage. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. These people around him were not bound to heaven, bound for heaven, thought they were. They weren’t going to get in. So he was talking to them. He said, people from the East and the West are going to be in heaven at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. That means non-Jews, Gentiles, going to be in heaven. But the sons of the kingdom are not going to be there. This is one more wake-up call. One more wake-up call for a spiritually dead generation.

And so the distinction that Jesus made between the centurion’s faith and what he was finding in Israel is very important. There were believers in Israel. 11 of the 12 disciples were real believers. There were others. But most Jews were not headed for heaven, not in that generation. They just assumed they were in good standing because they were Jews.

And it’s a very common way of thinking even now. I don’t know how much witnessing you’ve done, but the answers are still the same, even for non-Jews. Many people believe that they’re in good standing with God because they’re Americans, a Christian nation founded on godly principles. Surely that’s all I need. Many people are sure that they’re fine because they belong to a church, missing the point that all those religious Jews were not bound for heaven. Maybe they don’t even belong to a church, but they occasionally attend a church, or maybe they have positive disposition toward a church that they almost never attend, but that’s enough, they think. Or if they like the Bible, theoretically, have nostalgic feelings about the Bible, surely that’s enough. Enough.

A lot of people that I’ve witnessed, too, thought they had a good standing with God because of a godly family member. I marvel at how many people had a grandfather who was a pastor, and they thought that’s why they were going to heaven. I’ve talked to dozens of those people. Godly parents had godly grandparents. somebody godly somewhere, and I’m gonna pick that one out, and that’s gonna be how I get in.

It doesn’t work. How much more would those tendencies tend to manifest themselves among God’s chosen people, the people that Jesus was talking to in the moment? They were descended from Abraham. They had numerous promises from God regarding the future of their nation. There were a great many godly people in their past, and they knew their lineage. You know that before 70 AD, when the temple was destroyed and all the records were burned, most Jews would track their lineage to Adam and Eve name by name. That’s what was lost in that fire.

That was one of the ways Jesus shut down Judaism. It could not be practiced anymore. Surely that qualified them for heaven, but it did not. And Jesus was pointing out to them that nobody gets to heaven that way. It was never enough to be born to the right family or in the right race. And so Jesus took his opportunity to remind these Jewish followers, you’re not gonna be in heaven unless something changes. They were still trying to come in under their own power because of their status, because of their heritage, because of their good works within their religion.

Most of them never faced their own sin, never even realized that they were personally and individually a horrible offense against God. Never knew that, so they never asked for mercy. So this warning is still very much necessary because if a person believes they’re going to heaven by some casual thing, some human connection or action, how will they ever repent and believe the gospel?

So in his great mercy, Jesus used the centurion as an object lesson. This is what real faith is. This is great faith. Why does nobody here have this? Real faith in the real Jesus is the only way to heaven. And we must never allow that truth to be eroded or neglected among us. The one requirement for going to heaven is to depend on Jesus alone for your salvation. It means that you have to repent of every other hope of heaven. Every one of them. You have to forsake that and depend on Jesus alone.

And many of these, in this audience that Jesus was talking to, had the most privileges, the most opportunities, and they were bound for destruction. But the guy who came from who knows where, the wrong background, the wrong race, is in heaven, had great faith. He was welcomed there. Because entry into heaven hinges only, only on what you believe about Jesus.

And what you believe, obviously, has to be proven in the follow through. Not the way some people use the word faith now. Faith-based organizations can be anything, but the Greek word translated faith means trust, rely, depend. Trust and rely and depend on Jesus. Is that your hope of heaven? The only one that’ll get you there.

Well, there’s one more characteristic of great faith here. Great faith is confident to ask, humble, and understands deeply who Jesus is. It is submissive to the Father and the authorities he has set up. And great faith is rewarded. After marveling at his great faith and using him as an object lesson, Jesus says this in verse 13. To the centurion, go. It shall be done for you as you have believed.

And the servant was healed that very moment. Jesus had the power that the centurion thought he had, believed he had. He could heal what no human could heal because he committed to the Father. He could do it even in his humanity. The centurion’s great faith was rewarded. His servant was healed. Remarkable. Jesus came in the flesh, bring salvation to all who would believe.

Not just to Jews, but to all who would trust him for salvation. Some of you, well, you still need to do that. I don’t know who, but I know if there was one in 12, there’s more than one in here. Received in your salvation, still just thinking it over, or just thinking, I’m going to deal with that later. Ask him for mercy, and he will receive. Put it all. The rest of us need to learn from this example.

If we could understand authority as clearly as the centurion did, what would that do for our testimony? If we could really keep that in mind, how evident then would our godliness be? What would it do to our confidence? What would it do to our walk with Christ?

Just to be mindful. A father is in authority over us in all of these ways and we We should submit to him joyfully. How would it change how we relate to the world around us? We can just keep that in mind. And then if we can understand Jesus’ characteristics as clearly, even as the centurion did, to realize how he lived on this earth and to know more and more about his character, what would that do to us?

This is great faith. May the Lord grant us to have it. Bow with me. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word, for this vivid example of real faith, even great faith. Help us to be challenged by it, help us to process your word and apply it to our hearts and live it. Lord, we ask your blessings on this congregation. that you would be glorified in our lives yet more as a result of what you’ve shown us today. Amen, Jesus.