Father, we do adore you this morning through your Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, who lives and reigns within us. Turn us now to your holy word, Father, and let your presence be known through the preaching and proclamation of this, your word, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. And you may be seated. For those of you who are visiting, we've been many weeks, few months in the Gospel of Matthew when we got to the place of Matthew chapters 5, 6, and 7, which comprise what is known as the Sermon on the Mount. And we've been talking about the precepts Jesus taught there in the Sermon on the Mount. We got through that. last week and entered into chapter 8, and we'll begin again with chapter 8 this morning. So if you'll turn to Matthew chapter 8, I will read to you from verses 5 through 13. 5 through 13. And so Matthew writes, when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him pleading with him. saying, Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented. And Jesus said to him, I'll come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only speak a word and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this 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 this, he marveled and said to those who followed, assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. And I say to you that many will come from east and west Sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And Jesus said to the centurion, go your way. And as you have believed, so let it be done for you. And his servant was healed that very hour. Father, we praise you for this, the reiteration of one of the great gospel miracles. Make it new and fresh to us this morning. Through your word, we pray in Jesus name. Amen. And so we have a Centurion, a Roman presumably, who was in the city of Capernaum. That was where Jesus headquarters was at this time in his ministry in Galilee, Northern Israel. And so this Centurion, this great man, as we'll find out as we go through the story of his life here in Matthew, and of a sliver of it that Luke gives us as well on the same man, we will find that this is a man who came out who probably could have demanded some things among the Jews, but we find him not to be that at all. We find him to be a man well-versed in Scripture. a man who actually recognized something special about Jesus, perhaps not his deity, but certainly his prophet status. Jesus had, of course, by this time healed many people. He had demonstrated his power and his compassion. And so this man felt as though he could come out and ask a favor from the Lord. And so we read, the centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, but only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. This is the quintessential gospel message. It has all the elements of a true salvation message. Like any real confrontation with the Savior, it begins with humility. We can't come before the Lord as we are. We have to humble ourselves before the Lord. And this man seemed to recognize that. And also he recognized it on behalf of another needy, we could say needier person. And you see the compassion, not only in Christ here, but in the centurion himself, who's very concerned about a servant, probably a slave that was in his household. But like any real confrontation with the Savior, it begins with humility. It begins with a confession of our own unworthiness. Jesus once said when the religious elite of the day accused him of fraternizing with sinners or those who are undeserved, he said, only those who are sick need a physician. What they probably didn't realize is their own sickness, which is unfortunate. But a confession of our faith always begins with a confession of our own unworthiness. Why would we ask for grace of God if we already had it? If a man is worthy, he has no need of a savior. If a man only needs a physical cure, he can go to human physicians. You saw some of that in the scriptures where they went. But for a spiritual cure, there is but one place to go, one source of healing. And so the story in the scriptures that we have before us is a story of power. It's a story of divine power spoken into the world. It's the power of God to call things that are not as though they were. But it's more than this. It's the story of a man who begins with a plea and ends with a blessing. It's the story of the graciousness of a holy God who, we're told by the Apostle Paul, is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. So there are a number of considerations that I'd like to elaborate on this morning. This will be Should we have time? A four-point sermon. We're going to break the mold. Number one, I'm concerned with the man's view of his own unworthiness. This is a man of power and status, a man who's used to demanding things, a man who understands authority, as we've seen, who at the same time knows the extent of his power and the worth of his status. Solomon wrote these words, even the king is served from the field. Friends, the servants pick the potatoes and wash the potatoes and get the dirt off them, and maybe they even mash the potatoes, but the king's still eating from the same field that the servants and all the rest of us eat from. It's humbling to recognize that. This is a man that seems to recognize that. A second point, he said, I'm a man under authority. I think the whole concept of authority has fallen on hard times in our age. The whole reason in medieval times why the saints of God broke away from what was universally recognized as the Church of God, the Roman Catholic Church. The reason they broke away was on the basis of authority. Who indeed is authoritative? Who really speaks for God? Is it his written word? Or is it a man in Rome? Authority is important. We have to go back to understanding what this man understood, and that is we are under authority. Someone gives us orders, and if we obey them, we please him. In fact, he marvels at us. If we disobey, we disobey for the moment, but there will be consequences. And so he recognizes he's a man under authority, so he claims his own unworthiness, But he doesn't claim ignorance. He knows that the people of God must come to a place where they recognize the authority of God. For what is a God who is not sovereign? What is a God who cannot call light from darkness? It's the very essence of Christianity. If you must know, it's the very essence of all religion. Every religion claims exclusivity of divine authority, don't they? And so do we. The difference, it seems to me, is our God claims us for himself. Our God gave himself for our salvation. So we're men and women under authority. It seems to me today that the church would rather revel in antinomianism. You familiar with that? It means lawlessness. We think today lawlessness is freedom. I'm free to do anything I want. I'm free to be anything I want. It's not a righteous authority that we look to today. A third point, and this is the reason I chose the passage again. We've already looked at this passage somewhat, but I chose it because I was driving along in the truck the other day down the highway, 495, and I was listening to last week's sermon. And I heard myself on the recording say that when Jesus heard it, he marveled, and it was like a thunderbolt from God. I wonder, have I ever made God marvel? And why wouldn't it be the purpose of our lives to make him astonished at the things we believe and the things we do, the things we're willing to sacrifice because we're men and women under authority to God? Have I ever made God Marvel, it's time to make the Savior marvel. Imagine doing something and impressing Jesus, and he's there with a smile on his face, looking at the work you had just done, and looking at these other people around and saying, this is the kind of thing kids get mad at their parents about, why can't you be more like your older brother? Why can't you be more like this centurion? I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel, where everyone's supposed to have faith in me. What a truly wonderful thing it would have been for the Lord to say of us what he said of the centurion that day. I have not seen such faith, not even in Israel. A fourth point, should we get to it, Something tells me we will. If there is a fourth point, it would be this one from the reading today. How do we know who is truly born of God? The sons of the kingdom, he said, will be cast out. Do you find that troubling? I do. That means you can think you're in the kingdom of God. All your life has undoubtedly every Jew in that company that day thought of themselves. And he said, the sons of the kingdom will be cast out. Clearly, there are those who believe they belong to the kingdom who do not belong. Amen? I think there's a lot of people who think they belong who do not belong. Friends, there is a lot of bad theology floating around. Have you been to a funeral lately? Renee has been to one. It's a lot of bad theology floating around. Friends, we can't afford bad theology because our lives depend on the truth. There are those who believe they belong to the kingdom who do not belong. Jesus even calls them sons of the kingdom, and they'll be cast out. John wrote of this very thing when he said, these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. Friends, assurance of salvation based on truth is almost as good a gift as salvation itself. It's good to go through life knowing you have a Savior who died for you. You have a Savior who has invited you into the very throne room of grace. And he didn't say tiptoe in like some undeserving servant. Come in as a son of God and ask favors of God and God will hear you. And you can be expectant to receive what you ask. And so John said, I wrote these things that you may believe that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. So let's take the first point first. I am not worthy, the man said. Now I am certain from the two accounts in the gospels of this man that he has a genuine understanding of worthiness. A genuine understanding, a biblical understanding. This is a man who reads the Bible. And what was the Bible? It was the Old Testament. It's all that they had then. Matthew wasn't written. He's writing it years after this event happened. This was a man well-studied in the Word of God, and we know that for a fact. And Luke makes that a little more apparent than Matthew does, so we'll compare the two. But friends, why do I say he has an understanding of worthiness? Because he's the man in charge on the scene. He's a centurion. What is a centurion? It's a man who is in charge of a century. And a century is a hundred men. He can command a hundred men. They are at his disposal. He could enforce his will on that population of Capernaum. But instead what he sees when he sees the savior is not only his divinity, but his own unworthiness. That's a gospel message, friends. That's the relationship we have to have. We don't get into the presence of God by having a higher view of ourselves than we must have, and we don't get into the presence of God by having a lower view of Christ than we must have. It is through Christ, and Christ alone. Worthiness comes from the Greek word ikanos, and it has to do with weight. Worthiness is weight. The lexicon compares worth to weight as if the worth of goods at the market or the weight of a precious metal. That's where the concept of worthiness comes from. Its actual definition in this context is sufficient or satisfactory. What the man is saying, I am not satisfactory, Lord. I need help. I am not sufficient. A born again believer, which I think we all claim to be, infilled with the Holy Spirit of God and renewed in his own spirit has to grapple with this concept of human unworthiness. We have to wrestle with that because our own spirit wants to exalt us and we must not let it have its way. So a born-again believer who has the Holy Spirit in him and is renewed in his own spirit grapples with this sense of unworthiness that this, quote, great man had reconciled. He knew he was unworthy. And in biblical theology, no one measures up, do they? We have a wonderful doctrine called total depravity, don't we? None of us has what I'm going to call intrinsic worth before God. None of us has intrinsic worth. God has to impart our worth to us. We don't come to God on the basis of our own credentials. At the judgment, you're not going to hold up your resume. Please don't try that. I love you too much to have you try something like that. I've got experience in all these things. I've done all these things, Lord. I laid at your feet. And then you start walking in the door and it's like, hold up just a second while I read this to you. We dare not hold up our resume for him to see that we are valuable to him. We would rather throw it in the dirt and declare our utter worthlessness in the moral realm. Worthlessness friends is helplessness. Until the disease is probably diagnosed, the cure remains a far off. Many of us know that in the human realm, don't we? They try things and try things and they're doing tests to find out what's wrong. Finally, they hit it. Finally, the right medicine and the disease is cured. I've been there a few times. Paul quotes from the psalmist for this very thing when he writes to the Church of Rome, he said, there is none righteous, no not one. He could have stopped there. That's pretty final. You know, I understand those words, don't you? They're very simply stated. There's none righteous, no not one. See you next week. But he went on, he said, there's none who understands, there's none who seeks after God. They've all turned aside, they have together become unprofitable. There is none who does good, no not one, and that's not even the end of his diatribe. Isaiah said it this way, all we like sheep have gone astray. Sheep love to go astray. My pastor Ken used to compare us to sheep all the time. And when he said, we're like dumb sheep, I always knew he meant somebody that was sitting right there. Probably me, I don't know. Something tells me, though, as I read this passage, that the centurion is not simply mouthing off doctrine. He's not giving us the first point of his reformed theology. He's not just mouthing off doctrine. He feels this in his heart, in his soul. He knows men are unworthy before God. Yet he has observed that Jesus heals anyway. Jesus healed other people. He knew they were unworthy, but by compassion and mercy, he chose to heal them anyway. So why not me? That's what we all ought to ask. That's what the gospel preacher ought to prompt us to ask of God. Why not me? I know my unworthiness and I recognize who you are. This is what he's saying. So he knows we're unworthy, but he's observed that Jesus heals anyway. So why does he heal? Must be love. Who knew the Messiah would come with love? He provides the cure out of mercy. He could do anything he wants, but this is what he chooses to do. He could strike us dead, but instead he heals. He could tell us we're unworthy and send us to perdition, but he doesn't. He makes the offer, the gospel offer, and not for anything that we deserve. What a merciful, wonderful story. I've said to you many times, God's love is not deserved because it's not deservable. You couldn't possibly deserve it. How do you deserve a gift? It's too bad we corrupted Christmas time with the whole gift thing. If you're naughty or nice, the nice kids get the gift. God doesn't work that way. The bad kids get the gift too. Because the nice kids should have recognized they too were unworthy of the gift, right? God's love is not deserved because it's not deservable. It is a gift. Friends, you can't deserve a gift. Once you deserve it, it's a payment. It's wages. Right? It's a gift. It's like a tip that just came to me. A tip. If a thing is deserved, it ceases to be a gift, and the real healing is the gift of God, not of works that anyone should boast. So when we finally receive the gift, we recognize it comes from God, and it's only out of his mercy. Having said all those things, however, what is undoubtedly the notion that the centurion's concept of worthiness contains is his concept of Jewishness. This is a man who's read the Old Testament. He knows that the Jews are the people of God. They are the receptacle. They are his own special people. They're the custodians of the Word of God. It was given to them and their prophets wrote it down. He sees them as special. He sees that a Jew cannot have a Gentile in his house or vice versa. A Gentile can't invite the holy man in. He's not allowed to come. Do you remember at the crucifixion? They, they went to, uh, they went to Pontius Pilate's house, essentially his place of living, but they couldn't go in. It was Passover. If they went in, they were unworthy and couldn't partake of Passover. And you can't be a Jew and not partake of Passover. That's your atonement, right? I don't think Pilate thought too highly of them thinking his house would defile them. This man understood his concept of worthiness was connected to his concept of Jewishness. This is a man, as we shall see from Luke's account, that is respectful of all things Jewish. He's undoubtedly immersed in the old Testament. He recognizes God from the written word. a man under authority. All these concepts are working in this man's mind. And so he recognizes that the Jews are the special people of God. Surely this man has read Moses, and Moses wrote this, for you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. And here's this guy, I am but a mere Roman. And he found out that the God isn't one of the Roman gods. It's the God of the people that he is given charge over. They are the chosen race, by God's own words. And like so many examples of this thing in the Bible, It provides for us, it gives us hope that close proximity with this Jewish prophet will put him in the favor of the God he has read about. He knows Jesus will bring him closer to God. So he tries to get closer to the Lord. Now it seems odd to us in the present time, these issues of race. This man knows he's the wrong race to get into heaven. There, I've said it. That today we're so fearful and sensitive in our culture. We're always very careful what we say because matters of race are ignite whole riots in the streets today. We're always trying not to put people into classes of being. We're careful not to interpose stereotypes in order to offend, in order not to presume that one particular person with all of his personal characteristics represents a whole race or ethnic group of people. But this man, this man is very content with this differences of race, and he's the wrong race to be worthy before God in his own view. Now I say race because that's the way they said it. We would say ethnicity today, or ethnic background, right? But they're really, historically, a kind of interchangeable. And we know that there is one race, the human race, and all are from one blood. And we've got that because we have a New Testament, and this poor man doesn't have that. All right? So we're confronted with the testimony of a man, a socially powerful man, a man of honor and achievement, a leader of a hundred soldiers, who claims that he's unworthy. And he's unworthy because he's un-Jewish, in his view. And Jesus is going to straighten out his theology and he's not going to be plagued by this anymore. He's humbly respecting the prevailing racial ethnic differences pertinent to his time. He didn't say, make me Jewish. In fact, he didn't even say, make me worthy. He said, you're showing mercy to some. Maybe you'll show mercy to my friend. He's Roman, friends, and the Romans have their own gods. You know, by this time, if you're very careful in your reading of history, the Romans were getting kind of savvy about all this god stuff. They were discontented with the idea of these many capricious, lustful gods who rape women and do other wicked things in the earth. The Roman and Greek pantheon is full of those. This man's come to know the God of the Bible. He has heard the God who called the universe into being just by declaring it. By fiat, we like to say in Latin. He just decided one day to create a universe. So he called it into being. This man's read about that God. And he's recognizing this is an emissary of that God. He's heard of the God who called the universe into being, and so he pleads for a miracle from this new Jewish prophet who's already demonstrated his wisdom in the Sermon on the Mount, right? And his power by healing the multitudes who came before him. Why not me? The gospel should inspire that in everyone. If you can be right before God, why not me? Instead, our pride tells us, what makes you think you know something I don't know about God? And so he pleads for a miracle from this new Jewish prophet. He may or may not know that he's face to face with the Messiah. He may not know that, but he knows that the prophesied one will come with healing in his wings. He's read that from Malachi. Or maybe he's read Isaiah who wrote, by his stripes we are healed. These prophets of God come with healing. He read about Elijah and Elisha who did great healings for people, right? The widow's son, Naaman the leper, right? Did great healings. So he respects the mores of the moment, that's the social norms of the moment, with regard to racial barriers. It reminds me quite like the prodigal son. Remember the prodigal son? His life became so unbearable that he remembered a few things about his father. He remembered if he's rejected as a son, you know, the servants are treated pretty good over there too. Maybe he'll take me in as a servant. It's a demotion, but it's better than nothing. It's better than being with the swine, right? So he reminds me of the prodigal. If he's rejected as a son, he would be content to be a servant or a guest in the master's house. Just let me in. Let me have close proximity to you. Proximity is almost as good as affinity. It's a nice phrase, isn't it? I coined that for you. So remember it. So he says to the Savior, I'm not worthy that you should come under my roof. If this man lived in our day, he'd be marching around with signs, beating on five-gallon drums, gathering a following to protest his racial barriers to unworthiness. And he and his supporters would be shouting those inane, rhyming protest slogans. I tried to think of one to put it in there, and I thought, that'll just be stupid. You know, they beat on a drum, and they say, one, two, three, four, however, you know, and they have this rhyme. Christians, we don't do that, right? But I'd like to point out that this is not what this man did. He didn't protest that the Jews have greater access to God than him. This man didn't claim humility, i.e. unworthiness as a badge of honor. It's just who he was. He simply displayed it. He owned his humility. He didn't claim his right as an official of the occupying force in Israel to have my servant healed. If you're going to heal them, then you must heal him. He didn't do any of that. But rather he brought himself lower than he otherwise might have for the sake of another man's healing, a beloved servant, an obvious friend. Now Luke's version of the event gives a little more detail. We find that the centurion is utterly respectful of the racial barriers between he and the Jews. But still, he gives his whole life to help the Jews of his town of Capernaum, presumably. So in this version, rather than ask the Lord for a favor, he sent friends among the Jewish elders to prod the Savior to help a non-Jew. He was a non-Jew, but a good non-Jew. There were some of those around. He's a Roman officer who's not only friendly to the Jews, but who's genuinely inspired by Jewish wisdom and respective of Jewish custom. If this man could become Jewish, he would. And so we read this from Luke, a certain centurion servant who was dear to him was sick and ready to die. So when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to him, pleading with Jesus to come and heal his servant. And so in order not to defile the new Jewish prophet, when he arrived at his house, we read this. And when these Jewish elders came to Jesus, they begged him earnestly saying that the one for whom he should do this was deserving. Their view was the centurion was deserving of the gift. Why? For he loves our nation and has built us a synagogue. So now we know something else about him. He's rich. He built a synagogue for the Jews. A synagogue, he built a place of worship that he's not allowed to go in. So there's the concept here that to love the people of God and to do well by them is a favor of God. And why wouldn't you have thought that if you read the Old Testament where God said to Abraham, I'll bless those who bless you. So he's blessing them because he believes that God is good for his covenant word. So when the Lord gets closer to the dwelling place, the centurion confronts Jesus. He's fearful. This new prophet might actually walk into my house. I can't have that. So he stops them. And then the civil rights groups all came out, clamoring for justice. And the state legislator would enact a bill to outlaw anyone claiming to be Messiah if he's not an equal opportunity Messiah. And if the Messiah was genuine, they would have only seen the personal insult and missed the divine test. It was a test. And once again, he would be crucified, i.e. canceled. Those of us who glory in our cause will forever miss the cause of Christ, friends. Demand your rights from government, if you will, but before God, we have no rights. We only have debts. Never demand justice from God. You might get it. demand nothing, ask for mercy, and receive his grace. The centurion cared only about Jesus' identity and nothing for his own. Verse 9 says, for I am a man under authority, having soldiers unto me, and I say to this one, go, and he goes. I say to another, come, and he comes. I say to my servant, do this, and he does it. Seems to me that there are Circumstances in everyone's life that help us understand divine things. In this case, this man's military service made him have access to the meaning of authority. True, legitimate, absolute authority. And he knew it wasn't Caesar. I don't know if you picked up on those nuances. But maybe that's why Jesus uses so many parables, because he knows these things give us access into understanding things like divine authority. He compares the spiritual world with the physical world all the time, doesn't he? He compares eternal life with our day-to-day lives. He talks about agricultural things. He speaks about seeds and soils, doesn't he? He speaks about wheat and tares and mustard seeds, right, and vineyards. He talks about monetary things like debts and revenue. He talks about loans. He talks about profits. You should have deposited what I gave you with the bankers and at least I'd have back with interest. He talks about familial things like fathers and sons all the time. If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your son, how much more will your father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him? So when I saw this, I said, this man's soldiering gave him access into an attribute of God, understanding authority. It's from the top down. And I said, what in my life gives me an understanding? And I've told you this many times. And you look at your life and you'll find something similar. But I always thought of my own advantage in understanding theological things because I'm a builder. And what does a builder do? You start with a design. And if there is a design, there has to be a designer. And then there's a plan, a print, something written before you. And you have to accomplish what's on that paper, or you don't get paid, quite frankly. You don't get approved. And so there's a plan, and all the specifics of the project are laid out for me on that plan. And I have to start here and go to the end. And when I get to the end, I can collect my payment, because I've built according to design. You learn quickly that when you build, you must build according to the designer specification or the work will not be approved. The inspector will come in and give you the X. It's the same with the great designer of the universe. There is a design for our lives. In the case of the Centurion, he had his own view into divine reality. He understands hierarchy of authority. He's a man under authority and there are men under his authority. He gets that. He knows how authority works. I give an order. No Roman soldier would dare question an order. You know, in the military you don't question orders. You don't say, well, can we talk about this? Go take that hill. Well, let's sit down first and have a conversation. You don't get to do that. No conferences, right? So you don't get to question the order, much less refuse the order. Christians think they can refuse God's commandments all day long and believe it's not indicative of what's in your heart. And so his personal life path prepared him for this face-to-face encounter with God. It was his authority, it was his understanding of the military. He knows he's in the presence of the designer or the general or the king. He knows that orders come from the top down. And so he has this dilemma. He pleads for a favor from the only one who has the power. Yet the one to whom he pleads is above him in the order of command. He knows that an officer of the status of Jesus is too great a person to enter into his humble dwelling as a Gentile. But he also knows that an officer with such power and esteem need not be in the presence of the servant to heal him. He can just say a word. He doesn't. He's worked this out because he understands authority. He knows that the power of that God of the Old Testament does not have to go into his house. He can heal him just by speaking a word from outside the house. And being a military officer gave him all this insight. There's things in your life that'll give you insight into the character and purposes of God. He knows that this new prophet on the scene simply needs to speak As he spoke in the beginning, as he called light out of darkness, and the earth out of nothing, and how he breathed the life into the first man. This is the God who breathed the life into the human race. He knows that. He's seen him heal. He's seen that this great authoritative personality is also a compassionate personality. So he fears to insult this Jew by not asking that he enter the home of a Gentile, but he respects his position as the only one who can speak to the fever, speak to the infection, and the servant would be healed. So he's worked it out. My servant can be healed without the prophet coming into the house and defiling himself. In other words, I'm not asking too much, asking just enough. It's best to come to Christ with no sense of personal worthiness. It's best to come with an understanding of how authority works, how ultimate authority works. Ask, plead, beg if you must, but never, never demand, and perhaps the Savior will hear you. Verse 10, when Jesus heard it, he marveled. And he said to those who followed assuredly, I say to you, I've not found such great faith, not even in Israel, where you would have expected to find it, right? Not even in Israel. There's nothing so affirming in life as a father's approval. Maybe you have a mean father. Maybe you have a father that very rarely said anything affirming to you. Fathers can be demanding. Fathers can be unreasonable. Perhaps you had the kind of father that was not given to encouragement or exhortation, not a lot of attaboys. But such men, when they finally offer approval, their words are highly esteemed by the son or the daughter. When a hard father, a hard man, finally gives his approval, it's worth more than the father that's handing out participation trophies all day long. Right? Scarcity adds to the value of a thing, doesn't it? And approval is a thing that must not be too easily uttered. There are no participation trophies in heaven, and if you can hear it, there are really none in the earth either. They're worthless. And so from this verse, I'll make my application. This is the application. This is the point of the passage that moved me to preach a whole sermon on it. Set out in life to make God marvel. The Greek word for marvel is thamazo. It's a nice word, famazzo. And the first definition in the lexicon is this, to gaze in wonder. Jesus gazed in wonder at this man's profession of authority. He made Jesus marvel. Imagine the Lord Jesus Christ, who always pleases his father, expressing his approval of a simple, earthly creature, a sinful, earthly creature. And he's pleased. Imagine hearing the Savior say such a thing in your behalf. I wonder has he ever thought that of one of my sermons? I guess I can't know. I wonder if he ever thought that of one of my sacrifices, something I gave up so someone else could have something. And so the application of the passage is this, with every moment of your life, strive to reap the Savior's approval. Make Jesus marvel. And note this, divine approval is the product of faith. What made him marvel? The faith. The great faith of the man. I have not found such faith. And so it is written, without faith, friends, It is impossible to please God for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Hebrews chapter 11. I wonder if Jesus ever said such a thing in my behalf. Do you ever wonder that? Well, now that I brought it up, gee, I wonder if I ever made a marvel. I wonder if a single faith filled act might cause the Lord to stand up and take notice of how we approach him. or how we esteemed him, of what we dared to ask of him, of what we were willing to sacrifice for the sake of a godly approval. Make this one note, though. The faith that pleases God is diligent faith, but let's not throw out the word diligent. He's a rewarder, not of those who seek him, but of those who diligently seek him. Diligence is the hard part of faith, isn't it? Diligence is zeal. It is fortitude. Diligence speaks to continuance. It bespeaks a spiritual tirelessness in the face of a trial or deep concern, such as the concern the centurion had for the one who he loves, for the one he pleads for comfort for, like we do on Sunday mornings. We want our friends who are sick to be comforted, Lord. Will you comfort them, we say. And we know comfort can only come from God. It has to come, it has to go inwardly. Show your tireless faith in the hard places and receive the commendation of God. Job said to his friends who urged him to curse God, in his moment of affliction, Job said, though he slay me, yet I will trust him. That's diligent faith. Verse 12, and this is the hard part, I think. The sons of the kingdom will be cast out. And I said to you before, the reason I add this is there's so much bad theology in the world today. So much bad theology in the church today. Friends, the United States has birthright citizenship. Heaven doesn't. Heaven is not like the United States. And I've just done some traveling and I can tell you, I hope the United States is not like heaven. I hope heaven's not like what I've seen. It never ought to be rightly questioned as to whether a believer can lose his salvation. We cannot lose something that God gives. He didn't give it to you for anything in you. He doesn't take it away from anything in you. You can't make God love you more than he already does by doing great things. And you can't make him love you any less. It's like a child to a parent. So the question isn't, can I lose my salvation? It's, did I ever have it in the first place? That's the only right question. Israel fell for the lie, friends. That's why the Baptist warned them. See, the reason the Centurion thought it was by race is because the Jews thought it was by race. I let them off the hook because I think if all I had was the Old Testament, I wouldn't have figured it out either. The New Testament is the best exegesis of the Old Testament. John, the first New Testament prophet or the last Old Testament prophet comes on the scene and what does he say to the leaders, religious leaders of the day? He said, bear fruits worthy of repentance and don't think to say to yourself, we're sons of Abraham. That means less to God than you might think. He can raise up sons of Abraham from these stones. He doesn't even need Abraham to raise up sons of Abraham. Paul writes of this faithlessness of the Jews. He offers it as a warning for us not to follow. And he said, with most of them, God was not well pleased. Mr. Centurion, don't keep trying to be Jewish for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. You remember that, right? Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall." Don't have a higher opinion of yourself and your worthiness and your salvation than you might have. Look at your works. They tell the tale. And so Paul can write to the Romans, therefore consider the goodness and the severity of God on those who fell severity, but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness. Diligent faith, continuance. Otherwise, he said, you also will be cut off, and they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God's able to graft them in again. We get second and third chances, it seems to me, before God. When we stand before him, we'll have no excuse. He said, look at all the chances I gave you. And so the apostle writes to us saying, examine yourselves as to whether you're in the faith. It's one thing to proclaim it. It's another thing to examine and find some cracks in it. Things that trouble you about your own faith, about your own diligence. Test yourselves. Paul wrote, do you not know yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless you are disqualified. In other words, if he's not in you, you're disqualified. You can't come of your own righteousness. He has to be there, but we're not left hopeless. Not by any means. We're not left without assurance because once we find in the examination that we are truly the receptacles of the Holy spirit. that were new creatures that all things have passed away and all things become new, then we have assurances like this, and I'll close with it. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Or he could have said, for those in whom Christ Jesus dwells, which he said other places. They are those who do not walk according to the flesh or the desires of the flesh, but according to the dictates of this spirit. born again by the Holy Spirit. Father, we praise you for your word. We praise you for these tests, Father, and also for the assurances. We praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.