This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. If you have your Bibles, let's open up to the Gospel of Luke. The Gospel of Luke chapter 7. We'll be picking up in verse 1. This is the reading of God's Word. After he had finished all his sayings and the hearings of the people, he entered Capernaum. Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, he is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue. And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore, I did not presume to come to you, but say the word and that my servant be healed. For I too am a man set under authority. with soldiers under me. And I say to one, go, and he goes. And to another, come, and he comes. And to my servant, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him. And turning to the crowd that followed him, said, I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well. This is the reading of God's word. Oh, so we have finally, after two months, made it out of the sermon on the plane. And so now you'll find that the flavor of the book changes a little bit because we'll cover more passages, because we're now into these narrative stretches more than the recounting of one of Jesus's sermons. So you'll find it has a different feel. It's kind of fun to change it up in a gospel. And our passage today, starting in chapter 7, we're in verse 1, if you lost your spot, our passage begins with this urgent appeal. And I want to go through these scriptures with you one more time. We'll chunk them out and make them a little more bite-sized like that. Pick up with me again in the Word. Let's read those first five verses. So after he had finished all his sayings and the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly saying, he is worthy to have you do this for him for he loves our nation. And he is the one who built us our synagogue. an urgent appeal is made. An urgent appeal is made and it's a different sort of situation, isn't it? It's a centurion who is making the appeal. A centurion with a dying servant and clearly this servant mattered very much to the centurion. Now who was he? Who was the centurion? Well, we know just the things we can get out of this passage. I mean, on the one hand, it's simple. He's a man with some authority. A centurion is someone who commanded roughly a hundred people. That's some authority for sure. But he is also a man of character. He demonstrates a good reputation in the community. And actually centurions were known for being men of character. And clearly he was a man also with some money. He had actually built a synagogue for the Jews, whatever size it was, that's not your normal enterprise. And so he had built this synagogue for the Jews and already you're starting to get this suggestion of what kind of man this is spiritually. We don't know yet, but the hint. And so he had heard of Jesus and he had heard of his healing and here he is, he's got this dying servant on the one hand, and this miraculous healer just showed up to town. And so you just have to imagine what the math going on in his head. He says, I have to, I have to reach out to this man. I have to reach out to Jesus. And so what he does is he puts together the very best people he can gather for the occasion. He gathers Jewish elders with whom he's, you know, in pretty high esteem. He gathers these Jewish elders and he sends them to Jesus. Now, if you read your scripture slowly, it'll throw curious questions your way. And you read the scripture slowly and you ask yourself, so this is really important to you. It's so important to you that you sent someone else to do it. Right? That's curious. That's curious. Why does he do that? Why doesn't he go himself if this is so important? And the answer to that question is going to be one of Luke's critical points from this passage. But more on that on a minute. So the elders come to Jesus with these glowing reports of this centurion. This centurion loves our nation. This centurion even went so far as to build us a place of worship. And his synagogue was, it wasn't even just a place of worship. It was a cultural hub for these Jewish communities. And so they say, look at what he has done. Look at what kind of man he is. He is worthy of this healing. I'm going to say that for you again, because this is going to come up. because of who he is, because of what he has done, he deserves to be helped. You might say the centurion has earned your help, Jesus. Luke doesn't comment on it. He doesn't tell us what Jesus thought. All we know is that Jesus says, okay, I'll go with you. So Jesus goes with them. And we draw closer to the centurion and we begin to see who he really is because in verses six through eight, we see the centurion's humble faith in the request that he makes. Picking up in verse six, and Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore, I did not presume to come to you, but say the word and let my servant be healed for I too am a man set under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to one go and he goes and to another come and he comes and to my servant do this and he does it. So we begin to see a little bit more, and it's curious still, but we're seeing a little bit more of what the centurion is like. It's a funny exchange. First, he doesn't go himself to go make the request. Then Jesus is on his way, and I don't know how far he is, but he's near the house. He's gonna be there really shortly. And you picture this guy, I don't know what's going through his head, but maybe he looks around and he's like, what am I doing inviting him here? So he gathers another group, and this time his friends, and he sends them. And he sends them with a message in two parts. A message in two parts. Part one is who the centurion sees himself to be. Who the centurion is in his own eyes. Part two, who he believes Jesus to be. So part one, who the centurion is in his own eyes, he starts out, Lord, do not trouble yourself. Lord, do not trouble yourself. And you hear the way this guy talks and you're thinking, you don't make a lot of sense, right? You don't understand what's driving this guy. Lord, don't trouble yourself. Who's most important in a statement like that? Who does the centurion view as most important in that kind of statement? Well, clearly not himself. Not himself. You could imagine an entirely different kind of appeal. Him saying, hey, I'm kind of a big deal in these parts. Would you come and do me a favor? Is that what he does? Lord, do not trouble yourself. I'm not that big of a deal is kind of what's coming out of him. And you remember, what does he want Jesus there for? It's not like he's inviting the guy to dinner. Real life is happening. Life and death are happening. He has this valued servant and he's dying. And not even that rises to the height of being more important than what Jesus wants. I mean, someone dying is an all-important event. It was back then. It is still now. And you could picture an urgency that just takes over with Jesus, not with Jesus, with the centurion. Where you have him saying, I know you're a really big deal, but can you please hurry up? This guy is dying here. Is that his appeal? No. The centurion so values Jesus, that he treats Jesus' convenience as being of the first importance. Lord, don't trouble yourself. Furthermore, I'm not even worthy to have you come under my roof. I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, which is interesting because who had just declared his worthiness? These Jewish elders. He is worthy, they had said. He is generous. He is compassionate. He is helpful. Jesus, this guy is worthy, and yet this man, as they draw near, says, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. He claims no such worthiness as those Jewish elders put forward. He claims none of it for himself. And it turns out verse seven, his lack of worthiness is the reason he didn't presume to come to Jesus. This is that key. When you start seeing the centurion for who he really is, this is the answer to that mystery earlier. Why did he send envoys? Why did he send someone else to ask him to do what he very well could have done? Why not go himself? He didn't think he was worthy to go himself. He did not think that he was worthy to go to Jesus. He didn't think that he had any standing before Jesus. And part of me wants to say, but wait, he did all of this great stuff. What about those contributions he made to build that synagogue? Do you think he forgot about all the things he had done to bless the people of God? Maybe he forgot that he has such a loving heart toward God's people. Aren't those the kind of things that allow you to sort of call in a favor from God from time to time? Don't those earn you God's help from time to time? Sure don't. Sure don't. And the centurion claims no leverage. Jesus is under no obligation to him and he knows it. Nothing he has done has made it so that Jesus has to do anything for him. So if he's not appealing to Jesus on the grounds of his good deeds and on the grounds of his loving heart, on what ground does he appeal to Jesus? He's asking for what he does not deserve. He is asking for what he has not earned. Brothers and sisters, we have a word for this. He is asking for grace. He is asking for grace. Grace. What a beautiful truth from God, isn't it? If you're a believer of any sort of history in the faith, can you remember when grace first sort of shook you up and showed you what it really meant? It's profound when we first glimpse even just a little bit of what grace means. Because grace teaches that you cannot earn your standing with God. And grace is driving home the truth that God owes us nothing. Or at least nothing good. When we celebrate a salvation that is by grace alone, we are messing up everything that we thought we knew. Grace destroys the way that we want to think. Grace wipes out the ground upon which we thought we stood. Grace upsets the whole moral order we thought we knew. And it is wonderful. It is wonderful. The grace of God is stunning. The grace of God is glorious, and brothers and sisters, the grace of God is absolutely our only hope. And in some small measure, the centurion has grasped this. I don't pretend to say he could have recited all these banners. but he has grasped something of grace. He has left his so-called merit at the door, and he comes to Jesus like a beggar. Think of that, a centurion comes to Jesus like a beggar. That's why you have the quote in your bulletin, that before Jesus, the most significant man pales in comparison. When he comes to Jesus, all he has is his need for Jesus. That is a good place to be. The first half of this message that he sends to them then is that in his own eyes, the centurion is totally unworthy of Jesus' help. And that gets us to the second part of the message, who he believes Jesus to be. I'll read just the second half of 7 and into 8 for you to remind you. But say the word and let my servant be healed. For I too am a man set under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to one, go, and he goes. And to another, come, and he comes. And to my servant, do this, and he does it. See, he knows that Jesus has authority. And he illustrates it in a way that probably most of us couldn't. Most of us never commanding a hundred people. He says, I know what authority is like. I am under authority and I wield authority. And already again, his humility cannot help itself. It keeps coming out. It would have been entirely true for him to say, I understand authority. I'm in charge of a hundred people. That would have been totally true, right? But he also throws in the side of it. I know what it is to be under authority, just as well as I know what it is to wield authority. In his humility, he includes that part too, that he is subject to authority. No pretenses here. He says, though, I can go, I can say to a soldier, go, and the soldier goes. I can say to another soldier, come over here, and he's going to come over here. I can say to my servant, do this, and he does it. And so this is his reasoning. If even I can accomplish my will with a word, then certainly Jesus can accomplish this healing with a word. If this is true of me, an insignificant, unworthy centurion, it must also be true of this healer from God. He knows that Jesus only needs a word. To accomplish something with just a word, that is a power that only God possesses. We've seen it from creation, a creation that came out of nothing. He speaks and there it is. We see that power here on display again. The one who can make something truly happen with only a word is wielding power that God alone possesses. And we know that's true because we see what our words accomplish. Yelling at the TV doesn't make your team win, does it? but you still do it. Have you ever told the dishes to clean themselves? Go home and try it. Tell me how that goes. It never works. Our words by themselves can't make anything happen. They just can't. Yet the centurion knows that all Jesus needs is a word. He doesn't have to come and mix up some magical potion. He doesn't have to come and perform some ceremony where he lays hands on him. There is no physical limitation to Jesus's power. And the centurion is recognizing, again, we don't want to read back into him as if he knew, you know, Paul's letter to the Romans. He didn't. The centurion is recognizing something about Jesus, and at the very least, he knows that Jesus is much more than a mere man. The centurion recognizes that Jesus's authority and his power outstrip any man alive. And then you see how Jesus responds. Verses nine and 10. When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at the centurion. He marveled at him. And turning to the crowd that followed him said, I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. Not even in Israel have I found such faith. Read it slowly. The son of God, marvels at the centurion's faith. The son of God, Jesus Christ marvels at the centurion. Sometimes you get these minor figures in scripture and they're known for something that is glorious. We wish we were known for this. What a privilege. Jesus Christ looked at his man's faith and he marvels. Wow, that is faith. Huh, what a privilege, what a privilege. Twice Jesus is said to marvel at something, just twice. Mark 6, 6, and in that case, the marveling is negative because he's marveling at the unbelief of his hometown Nazareth. He marvels there in the sense that he is disturbed by their unbelief. But here, here and also in the parallel story in Matthew 8, Here he marvels at the centurion's faith. Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ is extraordinarily impressed by this man's faith. Man, that's cool. What a thing to go down in the history books for. Who wants a three-point record when you can go down as being a faithful, believing man of God? It is a gracious thing. It is an incredibly gracious thing that Jesus Christ marvels at faith. Have you thought about that? I mean, he's God. He is God. He is completely trustworthy. In other words, actually everyone, not just, it's a good idea to trust in him, to believe in him. Everyone should actually trust in him. And yet Jesus marvels at this man who simply trusts in the one in whom he is supposed to trust in. Do you see how that's gracious? A cynic would look at this and say, you're just doing what you're supposed to do. Why do you want, do you want extra credit for that? Jesus marvels. that this centurion, not even one of Israel, this centurion has faith. And Jesus wants the whole crowd. There's a crowd following him these days. He wants the whole crowd and us by extension to understand something about faith. This centurion's response, it surpasses anyone, even in Israel. This is remarkable. Israel is the privileged people of God. They have been across history. They were entrusted with the oracles of God. They have been the canvas upon which God has painted the enduring picture of his faithfulness. If anyone should excel at having faith, it's supposed to be an Israelite. They are the ones who are supposed to be good at faith. But what's this? A Gentile, a Gentile is the best example of faith that Jesus had seen. To say this is unexpected is an understatement. It's actually a little bit more like outrageous. How can an outsider be the model of faith that is supposed to characterize God's people? This is a glimpse into what God has always intended for the Gentiles. It's interesting. Every time we read our Bibles again, you come to it with new questions. Questions you weren't asking the other time around and go through your Bible sometime and read the Old Testament looking for the times that God is promising something to the Gentiles, to the nations. What you'll find is that those promises, those passages are all over the place. And here Jesus is acknowledging that very same plan for the Gentiles. You see in this centurion the proof that the goodness of God could not be limited to one people. You see in this the hope that we relish in a community of Gentiles. We relish this hope that God had a plan for all the peoples of the earth. God's plan was that people of every tribe and every nation would believe. People across the world and people across time would trust Him. And they would follow Him. And here, in this unassuming, unworthy centurion, that plan is front and center. And as this passage concludes, I want you to notice that the healing actually is an afterthought. Verse 10, one verse. And then those who had been sent returned to the house, or when they returned to the house, they found the servant well. That's all that Luke feels the need to include there because healing actually wasn't the point of this passage nearly so much as faith. Faith is the important point of this passage. That's what Jesus wanted to call out. He could have had a different point in this teaching. He could have said to the crowd, behold, this man gets it. My power is not limited. I will heal without even going in the servant's presence. That actually could have been glorious. That's not what Jesus did, did he? I want all you to take a look at this man's faith. He marveled at this man's faith. which is so fundamental, but actually it feels like a reset button for my own heart and maybe for yours too. Because it turns out that if we were to pursue one thing that pleases our God, trusting him seems to be at the top of the list. Believing him seems to be at the top of the list. Our God across time has always been calling his people to simply trust him. trust him. The centurion then is the role model of faith for us. He is the role model of what it means and what it looks like to trust Jesus Christ. In faith, the centurion lived in light of the greatness of Jesus. Jesus's convenience was more important than his valued servant's life. Jesus's dignity was more important than the honor he might've felt about having Jesus visit his home. And this centurion, he's not play acting at humility. Humility is actually a very natural outflowing of knowing who you are before the greatness of God. If you will see yourself clearly, and then you will put that next to seeing God clearly, actually humility is natural. Sometimes we think that humility is something we have to sort of fake. We have to sort of put on, no. Humility actually comes quite naturally from simply seeing yourself and God clearly. A centurion was not play acting. He knew who he was. Is the greatness of the Lord obvious in your life? That's a different kind of question, isn't it? Is the greatness of the Lord obvious in your life? Would people be able to tell from your life that Jesus is your reason for living? Is it obvious that your Savior is the firstborn of all creation, the creator of all? And the reason even for all of creation is Jesus Christ preeminent in your life. Does Jesus Christ rule in your life? Words are easy. If I asked you to say, oh yeah, Jesus is the most important person around, more important than anyone in anything. Oh, Jesus is my reason for living. We could all say it. The words are there and even the desire is often there. But more than words, what do your actions say about what you believe regarding the greatness of our God? What does the way you spend your time say about the greatness of God? What does your heart say about the greatness of God? What do your dreams for your life and the goals you have for your life, what do those say about how you view the greatness of God? The more that you are putting your everyday practical trust in him, the more that your life will bear witness. When we see clearly his importance, when we see clearly his greatness, the distractions of this world, and then the self delusions, they begin to wither away. They begin to fade into the back. Then we realize that his desires and his goals are the ones that matter. We stop seeking our will for our life and we start seeking his will for our life. We stop seeking merely our wellbeing. We start seeking his glory. We are meant to live out our understanding of the greatness of God. In faith, the centurion knew that his worldly accomplishments meant nothing to Jesus Christ. For all the good he had done the Jewish people in Capernaum, He saw, he understood that he still had no rights before Jesus. He could only ask for grace. He could only ask for what he did not deserve. Now we, we are a people who revel in grace. We celebrate grace, don't we? We named our church after grace. We named kids after grace. We talk about grace being the best thing ever about the gospel. But even the people who delights in grace find that the law is built right into our hearts. We always find ourselves slipping toward thinking that our life and our motivations and behavior, that they are somehow earning us some goodwill with God. It is so natural to us. And we see that truth. It gets squeezed out of our hearts, almost forced confession out of our hearts. When we go through trials and we look at God, we look to the heavens and we say something like, God, how could you do this to me? That's not a cry of grace, is it? It's a cry of, I deserved something. I deserved better than this. We see it when we're angry with God because he didn't grant our prayers. And at the very heart of it, we are saying, God, I've been faithful. God, I have trusted you. God, I have been loving. At least I've always tried to be. Why wouldn't you do what I asked? Why wouldn't you do what I asked? That's the law in our hearts saying, I've stored up some merit here. Lord, I'm trying to cash in. Why are you refusing me? It's not a cry of grace. We have to keep striving to come back to the grace of salvation. Receiving grace means surrendering all the good that we think we have done. Receiving grace means we forsake ourselves because we trust God when he tells us that the filthy rags of our righteousness will merit nothing good from him. We forsake ourselves and we embrace the one who was forsaken for us. We forsake our works and we embrace the work of a savior who lived and died for us. We forsake our worth because brothers, sisters, we didn't have any. We didn't have any. We forsake our worth and we embrace that precious savior whose worth is beyond anything we could have imagined. We will forever be dependent upon pure grace. In faith, the centurion also knew what Jesus was capable of. The centurion knew that Jesus was powerful over all creation. The centurion knew that if Jesus was willing to help, that that was all that mattered. And this confidence in Jesus, it is entirely well-founded. It is totally something we should imitate. When you know the power of the Lord, you know then that there is nothing outside his ability. We may not know what the Lord intends to do in any given situation, but we know that the limits are not there because of some limit in his power. So when you seek the Lord, when you think about the Lord, I'd encourage you, let his power frame your approach. Let it shape your understanding. Approach him as the all powerful one who in comparison makes you feel small and humbled. Approach him in awe as the one mightier than you have ever known, as the one mightier than anyone you've ever heard of, and approach Him in confidence, knowing that your God is not limited like we are. Whatever He wills, He will do. There's so much to learn from the centurion as far as the model of his faith, But there's actually a lot he didn't know. There's a lot he didn't know. I mean, compare what the centurion knew to what we know thanks to the scriptures. He knew something of the worth of Jesus. He knew something of the ability of Jesus, but we know far more. The centurion knew that he wasn't worthy to host Jesus, but we know. that all of creation was unworthy of the privilege because it was God himself who graced his needy creation. The centurion knew that Jesus could heal with a word, but we know that Jesus can do more than heal. He can save. He can do more than preserve life. He can conquer death. are God's glorious. But despite knowing so much more, we're still called to the very same simple faith. Jesus marveled at the faith of this humble centurion who simply sought from Jesus what he knew Jesus possessed. That's not fancy, is it? He just sought from Jesus what he knew Jesus possessed. And that pleased Jesus. That delighted Jesus. Jesus delighted in pure, simple faith. If you want to delight your savior, trust him. If you want to delight your savior, trust him. Trust him for the salvation that he alone possesses. We never go past that point, assuming everyone believes it. Every Sunday we have among us those who haven't trusted him yet. Those who haven't found forgiveness, those who haven't found salvation. And to you, this is all you need to hear. Trust him for the salvation that he alone possesses. That's what you need today. Trust him for the peace and the hope that can be found nowhere else. Trust him to satisfy your starving soul. Trust Him with all of your life. Trust Him with all of your heart. Trust Him and finally surrender the parts of yourself that you have been holding back all this time. Trust Him that He is faithful, even in your worst trials, which may be right now. And trust him for the grace that he alone offers. We're going to take one point from this text. Here it is. Trust the Lord Jesus Christ. For he alone is worth trusting. Let's pray. Our Father, we have not trusted you as we ought, but we want to. Our Father, help us with our unbelief. Help us with our weak and wavering hearts. Help us to trust. We pray for those who don't know Christ today. Lord, may today be the day. May that faith that's eluded them, may that faith that's never made sense to them, may today be the day that they take ownership of that faith. May today be the day that you grant them that faith. May they see things that they have never seen. May they understand things that they have never understood. And may Christians who have been walking in your ways for decades today find that their faith is strengthened. Lord, we want to trust you and we want to trust you with everything. Truly, we repent of keeping back parts from you, saying that there are things that we will not give you, things that we cannot give you. You are worthy. You are worthy to be trusted. Lord, may your people believe that today. We pray this in the name of our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.