When Jesus, it says He in the
King James Version, but it's really speaking about Jesus.
When Jesus was come down from the mountain, great multitudes
followed Him. And behold, there came a leper
and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make
me clean. And Jesus put forth His hand
and touched Him, saying, I will be Thou clean. And immediately
his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus saith unto him, See
thou tell no man, but go thy way, show thyself to the priest,
and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto
them. Verse 5. And when Jesus was entered
into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him. Beseeching means begging him.
and saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home, sick of the palsy,
grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will
come and heal him. The centurion answered and said,
Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof.
But speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For
I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say
to this man, go, and he goeth. And to another, come, and he
cometh. And to my servant, do this, and
he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marveled
and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have
not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto
you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall
sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.
But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer
darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing
of teeth. And Jesus said to him, said to
the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be
it unto thee. And his servant was healed in
the selfsame hour." So let's turn now to Luke chapter 7. The
very same incident occurs in Luke. And I'll start with verse 1.
We'll read through verse 10. It says, now, when he had ended
all his sayings, referring to the Sermon on the Mount, when
he had ended all his sayings in the audience of the people,
he entered into Capernaum. And a certain centurion's servant,
who was dear unto him, the servant was dear to the centurion, was
sick and ready to die. And when he heard of Jesus, he
sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching him that he
would come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus,
they besought him instantly, saying, that he was worthy for
whom he should do this. For he loveth our nation, and
he hath built us a synagogue. Then Jesus went with them. And
when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent
friends to him, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself, for
I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof. Wherefore,
neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee, but say in
a word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man
set under authority, having under me soldiers. And I say unto one,
Go, and he goeth, and to another, Come, and he cometh, and to my
servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard these things,
he marveled at him, and turned him about, and said unto the
people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so
great faith, no, not in Israel. And they that were sent returning
to the house found the servant whole that had been sick." So the servant who Jesus said
he would heal, and in Matthew 8 told him that it would be unto
him according to his faith, he was actually healed. So, I want
to look at these things with you because it's a very important
transition now in the book of Matthew. Up to this point, we've
seen several things in Matthew. We saw the genealogy of Jesus
Christ. He's the son of David, and he's
the son of God. His name is Jesus, which means
Jehovah is my salvation, or Jehovah saves. He saves his people from
their sins. And we saw that he was Driven
by the the Lord first to be baptized to show how he would save his
people and then tempted by the devil in order to show his victory
over Satan and Then we saw him go up into a mountain and teach
and we've been going through Matthew 5 and 6 and 7 in the
last few weeks and when you when you Conclude in your reading
of the first those first three chapters 5 6 and 7 of the Sermon
on the Mount I could never read through them and read right into
this chapter here without wondering that these people who are mentioned
here in Matthew chapter 8 must have heard what Jesus said on
the Sermon of the Mount. Certainly it's meant to give
us a transition from His sermon to what He did, what the Lord
Jesus did. And when you read the Sermon
on the Mount, even though there are many things in there that
cause us concern because we know we're sinners and Jesus requires
of us things we don't think we can possibly give and we can't.
Yet what we see here in this transition is that immediately
people who need the Lord Jesus Christ, who are sinners like
the leper and the centurion and his servant, these come to Jesus,
and they don't come as if they're coming to Moses on the Mount
Sinai. They were fearful, and they prayed
that God would not speak to them anymore. They come to Him trusting
and believing that He only can help them and that He, in fact,
will help them. And so they come to Him. It's
amazing, the first account here, the leper comes to Jesus. Lepers
were forbidden, even from coming near people, and yet he comes
to Jesus. And we'll go through that next
time. But here is this man coming to Jesus. Now, in Matthew's account,
it sounds like the man came himself to the Lord. But when you read
Luke, you realize that he didn't actually come personally. He
sent messengers, and the messengers he sent were Jews. So I just
want to give you the overview. And the place where Jesus had
come was Capernaum. So I want to talk to you first
about this place, this place of Capernaum, and then secondly,
the condition of this centurion servant. Because we need to look
at the condition of this servant from the different ways that
he's described as sick and sick of the palsy and so on. And then
three, I want to look at the love that this centurion had
for his servant when he said that he was dear to him. And
then fourth, I want to see how this man had faith. Where did
his faith come from? Because Jesus said he had not
found such great faith, no, not in Israel. And then I want to
look at what the nature is of this great faith. And finally,
the last thing is that Jesus said to him, be it unto you according
to your faith. What is it that he was given? So first of all, the title of
this sermon today is Great Faith. Great Faith. I want faith, don't
you? Faith is described in the scripture as precious. Precious
faith. It's a gift of God. If we don't
have faith, it means God has left us to ourselves. If we have
faith, it means God has bestowed something on us of infinite value. Great faith. It's precious and
we all need it. We all must have it. Faith in
the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to understand what that
is. But first of all, look at this place where He was. It says
in verse 1 of Matthew 8, When Jesus was come down from the
mountain, great multitudes followed Him. And then in verse 5, And
when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto Him a centurion.
The centurion met Him, or he sent servants to Jesus, when
Jesus had come to Capernaum. Now Capernaum was a place on
the outskirts. It wasn't in the core of the
land of Judah and Judea. It was in the borders of Zebulun
and Naphtali, or Naphtali, however you say that name. It was inhabited
by Jews and Gentiles. And if you read, and we won't
do that now, but if you read in Isaiah, chapter 8 and chapter
9, you see that the Israelites were worshipping the idols of
the Assyrians. They were seeking help from the
idols of the nations God had told them to destroy and that
were their worst enemies. Assyrians were ruthless and cruel
enemies, but they were worshipping their gods. And so God delivered
the Israelites into the hand of the Assyrians, who then displaced
the Israelites and replaced them with other people, not native
to that land, and so the land was mixed over time. It became
mixed with people who were complete foreigners who didn't know God
and were rank idolaters, and with those who were Jews who
came back and intermingled with them in marriage. And so this
was the land of Capernaum. And in Isaiah chapter 9, if you
look at Isaiah chapter 9, You see this wonderful promise, and
you'll probably remember it as soon as we read it, but it speaks
of this time when Jesus came into Capernaum. It says in Isaiah 9, verse 1,
"...nevertheless," in spite of all the things that God had spoken
against Israel for their sins, He says, "...nevertheless, the
dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at
the first He lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land
of Naphtali." and afterward did more grievously afflict her by
the way of the sea beyond Jordan in Galilee of the nations." That's
the Gentiles. Verse 2, "...the people that
walked in darkness have seen a great light, and they that
dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the
light shined." That's speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's
no question about it. This prophecy was fulfilled when
He came in the flesh and came specifically to Capernaum and
preached the gospel. So he's coming to Capernaum,
and here this man meets him. This is the nature of God's saving
grace. The people that were in darkness,
in the darkness of idolatry and in the slavery of worshipping
false gods, these people, under the oppression of the Assyrians
and then now the Romans, Now have the very gift of God coming
to them. What grace is this? That Christ
came to them. You see, salvation is for sinners. And that's what we read on in
Matthew 9. Look over at Matthew 9, verse 10. He says, "...it came to pass,
as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners
came and sat down with Him and His disciples." Publicans were
tax collectors. They were the people who worked
for the government. And they were known to be dishonest. And so they took more than was
their due. And they were hated. They were regarded as the greatest
kind of sinners, thieves. Only they did it under the protection
of the government. And so there were these people,
and then there were adulterers, all kinds of sinners. And these
came and sat down with Jesus and His disciples. It was almost
like they thought they had the right to sit with Jesus and His
disciples. You would think, what are these
people doing here? And when the Pharisees saw it,
they said to his disciples, just like we probably would have if
we were there, Why does your master eat with publicans and
sinners? When Jesus heard that, he said
to them, They that behold healthy need not a physician, but they
that are sick." You see, he's comparing the publicans and sinners
to those who are unhealthy and sick. And then he says in verse
13, "...but go ye, and learn what that meaneth. I will have
mercy, and not sacrifice. For I am not come to call the
righteous, but sinners to repentance." What we have in these chapters
before us now in the Gospel of Matthew, is that the Lord Jesus
Christ has left the mountain and sinners are flocking to Him. This is true. This is amazing.
We might be intimidated as we read the Sermon on the Mount,
but these people properly understood it, didn't they? If they didn't
properly understand it, they wouldn't have gone to Jesus.
But they did properly understand it, and so they came to Him knowing
they were sinners, knowing that only He could help. And that
That act of coming to Christ in their spiritual need is reflected
by the condition of men in the sickness of their body. You see,
God does this a lot. He uses a physical condition
to illustrate a deeper problem. And so the sickness of our body,
God is saying, is a direct correlation to the sickness of our soul.
And Christ is the only one who could heal people. Back then,
when they were sick, and especially the servant here that we're going
to get to, or the leper here, they had nowhere else to go.
They were absolutely without hope. The next thing it says
here in Matthew, if you look at verse 6, he says to the Lord,
he said, "...my servant lieth at home, sick of the palsy, grievously
tormented." And so he was in a bad state, which we're going
to understand in more detail in a second. But the Lord Jesus
Christ came. He came to Capernaum, a land
of darkness, where people who were idolaters, Gentiles and
Jews, completely ignorant and in the dark, the grace of God
came to them. And this is exactly the way God
saves sinners. He comes not to the healthy,
not to the spiritually healthy, but to the spiritually sick.
In fact, He only comes to the sick. If we're not sick, we don't
need a doctor, do we? If we're not spiritually sick,
we don't need the Lord Jesus Christ. We don't need a Savior.
It's just like it says in Ephesians 2 verse 4, when he describes
our condition, being dead in sins and in our minds alienated
from God. He says, but God, but God, the
greatest words in all of scripture, but God. And here we have this
scene before us. Verse 5, where it says, Jesus
came to Capernaum. That's an indirect way of saying,
but God, the grace of God, came in the land of darkness. And
here is an amazing thing. This centurion comes beseeching,
begging the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's the first thing. The
first thing is where Jesus came. He came, the light of the world,
into the darkness of sin. Into this world's dark place.
Now I want to look at the condition of the servant, the centurion's
servant, which we'll see more particularly in Luke's account
in Luke chapter 7. Look at this. There's actually
five different ways, at least, that the servant is described
here in his condition. He says in Luke 7, verse 2, "...and
a certain centurion's servant, who was dear unto him, was sick
and ready to die." Sick, the word sick there is, it comes
from a word, a root word that means worthless, depraved, bad,
evil, wicked. So it's a sickness that has to
do with a sin sickness. It has to do with sickness brought
on by sin. And we don't know what that sin
was, but we know it was the kind of sickness that was synonymous
for the sickness attributable to a cause of sin. I think about that because Jesus had just said in Matthew
chapter 9, He didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance. And so He's calling for sinners
to come to repentance. He's calling for men and women
who are sinners to come to Him. And here the centurion servant
has a servant, a centurion has a servant that's sick, and he
comes to Jesus, he sends messengers to Christ, he comes to Him beseeching
on behalf of his servant who was sick, and he was morally
sick, evilly sick. But the second thing here says,
"...and he was ready to die." Ready to die means the doctors
have said, He's only got a few, a certain amount of time to live.
There's nothing else we can do. All human help had been exhausted. All human hope was lost. And
so that's the nature of our sickness when we're truly sick and need
the Lord Jesus Christ to heal us. Spiritually, we have nothing
that we can point to that gives evidence of spiritual health.
How many times have I heard someone say, I'll mention something about
the gospel to them, and they'll say at work or wherever, they'll
say, you know, I'm a really spiritual person. And I know that they
don't know the gospel. They want to describe themselves
as a spiritual person, even though I don't think they really think
about what that means. But the Lord Jesus Christ didn't
come for spiritual people. That's the part we miss. 1 Timothy
1.15 it says, "...this is a faithful saying, that Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners." And then Paul says, "...of whom
I am chief." Isn't it encouraging? Don't you find it the most It's
almost like you're tied up in a knot. You're stressed and you're
in despair because of the struggle of sin in your heart and the
guilt of sin in your conscience and the looking forward to the
judgment of your sins. And even though you might find
times of ease where you don't think about it because of the
busyness of life, when it comes upon you, there's nothing more
Comforting than to know that Jesus Christ came actually only
to save the worst kind of sinners. Sinners who are ready to die.
They have no help, no hope in themselves. They're going to
die. The next step for them is death
and damnation. And here, that's the way this
man was described. Morally sick and ready to die. Doesn't that describe all of
us? We fell in Adam. We fell in our father Adam and
we exhibit the nature that Adam had in our behavior and in what
we think and say and do. We're sinners. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, the Sermon on the Mount, if it does nothing else, it's
got to shut us up and silence us. You cannot do what he said. You are a sinner. And here's
this man. He says this and the Lord describes
him. in the words of the centurion.
He's sick and he's ready to die. But look down at verse 10 in
Luke 7. It says there, "...and they that were sent returning
to the house found the servant whole that had been sick." And
the word sick here is a different word. It means without strength,
impotent. He didn't have, not only was
he sick, not only was he ready to die without hope, but he didn't
have any strength. And look back at Matthew, Matthew
8, where the description is given in verse 6. He says, Lord, my
servant lieth at home sick of the palsy. So he was without
strength in Luke 7, 10. But here in verse 6 of Matthew
8, he's sick of the palsy. And palsy is another synonym
for being a paralytic. So he, I can't imagine what it
would be like to be paralyzed. I think of all the things that
give me the greatest consternation about a physical ailment, it
would be not being able to breathe or being paralyzed. Because I
would just feel like I had to crawl out of my body and you
couldn't move. And here's a man, he's paralyzed
and his state of paralysis says he was grievously tormented. So you see these things. Morally
sick, ready to die, impotent, without strength, paralyzed in
himself. A paralyzed person can't stretch
out their hand. They can't get up and walk. And
that describes us spiritually. We cannot do one thing God has
told us to do. That's what our nature is. And
he was grievously tormented. Not only was he in this condition,
but he was aware of his condition. Painfully aware of it, so that
it bothered him all the time. To be grievously tormented, it's
like the word for tormented there is like you're torturing someone
when you're questioning them. Or, the word is also used in
Matthew 7, where it says that a man who does what Christ says
is like a house built on the rock, and when the winds come
and beat on that house, the house stands, because it's founded
on a good foundation. So that's what this tormenting
is. It's a grievous tormenting of his illness and his condition. It causes him pain in his mind
and in his soul. You know what physical sickness
is like. It gives you a sense of despair,
fear, anxiety. In weakness. You're just not
yourself. And you feel like, what will
happen if I don't recover? I'm losing it. And that causes,
I mean, you lose a tooth or you lose whatever you lose. That
ability. And you suddenly feel like, I'm
one step closer to just being in the grave. I'm ready to die.
And it tormented this man. In fact, in Luke chapter 5. There
was another man who was also grievously tormented in this
state, Luke chapter 5, and I think that this It ties in here because
it comes before Luke 7 and it's in Luke 5.18 where it says, "...and
behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a
palsy..." That's the same thing, sick of the palsy. "...and they
sought means to bring him in and to lay him before Jesus."
This man was in a bed, he couldn't move, he couldn't get up, he
couldn't walk, he couldn't bring himself. "...but his four friends
brought him to Jesus." His four friends brought him to Jesus,
and they couldn't get in because there were so many people around.
So they removed the roof and they let him down. They found
a way to get him there. What a story. A man paralyzed, brought by his
friends to Christ. And look what Jesus did in verse
19 of Luke chapter 5. He says, "...when they could
not find by what they might bring him in because of the multitude,
they went upon the housetop and let him down through the tiling
with his couch in the midst before Jesus." Right there in front
of him. I would have liked to have been that man. Lowered down. Right in the midst. And when
He, the Lord Jesus, saw their faith, the faith of the four
men, He said to him, the man who was sick, Man, thy sins are
forgiven thee. That's not what he was expecting.
That's not what the men were expecting, was it? Your sins
are forgiven you. You would have thought he would
have said something like, rise up, walk. But he said something
much better than that, didn't he? Your sins are forgiven you.
You see, this man also was tormented by his sickness. And until our
sin sickness is a torment, such that the only relief that
we can have for our sin sickness is to hear Christ say to us,
Man, your sins are forgiven you. Until that's the only medicine
that gives us peace in our soul, then we don't know our sin sickness. We'll think we'll be happy if
He just raises us up from our body. But that's not going to
do it. I don't want a temporary fix for my sin. I want an eternal
fix for it. I want God to forgive me of my
sins. And notice what they said here
in Luke chapter 5 verse 21. And the scribes and Pharisees
began to reason and said, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God
alone? And when Jesus perceived their
thoughts, He didn't say, I'm not God, you shouldn't blaspheme
like that, calling me God. He didn't say that, did He? It's
easy to say anything, if you don't have to do it, right? And men are used to saying things
all the time, because they don't have to worry about no one's
going to hold them to account. But here, Jesus is standing before
these men and these people, everyone's around Him, so many people, they
heard what He said. He just told this man, your sins
are forgiven. Well, how do you know his sins
were actually forgiven? Well, He asked them, which is
easier. For them, it's easier to say anything. But it's harder
for them to say, rise and get up and walk, because people would
be able to know whether he was true or not. So, they didn't
answer him. But that you may know that the
Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, he said to the
sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, arise, take up thy couch,
and go into thine house. And immediately he rose up before
them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own
house, glorifying God. because he had been forgiven.
This is another proof that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of
Man, is both God and man. Because who can forgive sins
but God only? So we see here the condition
of this centurion servant. He represents our condition. We may not know it, but until
we know it, the Lord won't show himself to us as the Great Physician,
the Savior, the Balm of Gilead. Now the third thing I'd like
you to see here is the love that the centurion had for his servant. Look at verse 2 of Luke chapter
2. It says, "...a certain centurion's servant, who was dear unto him,
was sick and ready to die." A centurion is a great man. The Jews said
that he had built them a synagogue. To build a synagogue is a huge
undertaking. I can't imagine what that meant.
in terms of financial cost, and time, and commitment. He loved
that nation, and he loved these people, and he was able to do
great things. Being a centurion meant he had the respect of his
men. A centurion, we think of that
as a captain over a hundred. But as I read other things, I
saw that it may be a lot more than that. Maybe two hundred
or more. But he had command as a captain over all these men,
and he had a servant. And he was the kind of captain,
the centurion, that men loved. Because he loved them. He loved
his servant. And he said to Jesus, my servant
is sick. His concern was for his servant. He understood his servant's condition.
His servant also did, too. And this means a couple of things,
I think, as I think about this in a spiritual interpretation.
Because, first of all, on the plain surface, you have to see
that the greatest love a man can have for another man is to
be concerned for his sin-sick soul. Understand that. The second thing is that this
gives us all the greatest comfort and hope. that we can go to the
Lord Jesus Christ and beseech Him on behalf of those we know
and love who are sick from sin. Doesn't it mean that? And no
doubt it can also be applied to our own case. Because we know
our own sin-sick soul, don't we? And we can go to the Lord
for ourselves. And that's probably the first
application that I would give this. That God is teaching us
through this man, first of all, Recognize your condition, that
you are morally sick, ready to die, without strength, paralyzed,
trapped in your body, a prison in your own self. You can't get
out. And sin is like a tormentor.
It says in Romans chapter 7, "...sin, taking occasion by the
commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me." That's a monster,
isn't it? Isn't sin a monster? I was thinking
about this matter of sickness and the way that sin is to us. And for me, and for all of you
I know, that sin for you is the greatest
possible disease, the plague that you could ever have. My
sin is a disease from which I need to be healed. Isaiah 53-4 says
that the Lord Jesus Christ, by His stripes we are healed. He
was wounded for our transgressions. That's what it says in Isaiah
53-4. He was wounded. In other words,
He took the beating that my sins deserved. He took the tormenting,
the assault that my sins deserve before God. The guilt and the
shame and the indignation from God for them. And by His stripes
we are healed. So my sin is a disease from which
I need healing. And Christ in His death is the
only way I can be healed from my sins. Sin is a cruel tyrant
from whose dominion I need to be set free. Romans 5.21 says
that sin hath reigned unto death, like a cruel, evil tyrant, killing
everyone. That's what sin is. Sin is a
tyrant. It's a curse out of which I need
to be released, Galatians 3.13. The law, Christ has redeemed
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. Sin
is a crime from which I need to be pardoned. And it says in
Micah 7.18, who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity?
Sin is a guilt from which I need to be forgiven. We just read
about the paralytic man. Ephesians 1.7 says that we received
from the redemption of Christ forgiveness of sins. Forgiveness
is a release, it's a liberty. God releases us from the debt
of our sins because he received a payment of ransom from the
Lord Jesus Christ. Sin is a prison from which I
need to be liberated. It's a chain from which I need
to be loosed. An enemy from whom I need to be delivered. Paul
said, Oh wretched man that I am. He's describing his entrapment
to the body of this death. Who shall deliver me? He says.
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. No man can deliver
himself, and there's only one who can help, and only one who
can help, as I said before, but God. It's the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, we see these things in the sickness of this man, and in
the love he had for his servant. And I like this song, at least
this part of the song, it says, there is a bomb in Gilead. a
bomb in Gilead. It comes from a verse in Jeremiah
that says, is there no bomb in Gilead? But this song says there's
a bomb in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm
in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul. And I don't have it written
down here, and I probably won't be able to remember it, but there's
another song that says that his blood reaches deeper than the
stain has gone. Remember that? Deeper than the
stain has gone. And that's the way sin is. It's
a... Sin is like a parallel. Our sickness is like a parallel
to what sin is. Sin starts on the inside and
then shows up on the outside. And it leads to death. And it's
like being trapped in a prison house. You can't get out. A cruel
bondage. A chain from which you can't
be freed. Nothing you can do to deliver
yourself from your own sins. But we need to be healed. Look
at Psalm 103. I'll give you some verses that
hopefully you will find precious to your soul as you meditate
on your own condition. What can be done for a heart
like mine? What can be done for a case like
mine? Lord, I've sinned against light. I've sinned against love. I've sinned against clear revelation. I've denied the truth. I've gone
my own way. I've done what I shouldn't do
and I haven't done what I ought to do. All these things describe
our case. And it's not a matter of accepting
Jesus to get out of this. That is the solution that what
is best described as free will works religion proposes, that
Jesus has died for everyone, and what you need to do is accept
Him. And when you accept Him, then
He'll save you and He'll forgive you. But that's not what the
Bible teaches. Our problem is so deep that we're
blind We're paralyzed. We're dead in sins. God has to
speak life to us. And that's what he says in Isaiah
53 when the Lord Jesus Christ bore the sins of his people. He says it was by his stripes
we're healed. But look at this in Psalm 103. He says in verse
1, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless
his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all his benefits. Pay attention to verse three,
who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases. That's the parallel. Iniquities
and diseases, forgiving and healing, those things go together. You
see, in that verse, God combines them to teach us. Who does this?
The Lord. Who is the Lord? The Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the only one. The centurion
knew this. How did the centurion come by
this faith? How did he come to believe this?
Look at Luke chapter 7 with me again, and we'll see it there.
We've already read it, and I just didn't point it out to you at
the time, but I want to point it out now. Verse 2, it says,
I'm sorry, verse 3. After it says in verse 2 that
the centurion's servant was dear to him and was ready to die,
it says in verse 3, and when he, the centurion, heard of Jesus,
he sent to him the elders of the Jews. He heard of Jesus. I wonder if he heard about what
he did to the other paralyzed man. I wonder if he heard that
he told that man, your sins are forgiven, and then told him to
rise, take up your bed, and walk. Did he hear about those things?
Was that what he heard about Jesus? Maybe he heard of what
he taught on the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe he heard of other
miracles. The point is that faith comes
by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. There's no way that
we can be saved unless God commands our salvation. But if He commands
our salvation, then we will be saved. And so here's a man who
hears about the Lord Jesus Christ. He hears about Him. And he heard
a lot about Him because of the way He acted. And that hearing
of Him... led him, I believe, to this faith
that he had. This is the way he obtained this
faith. There's no question but that
faith comes by hearing, and it's evident that this man was a believer.
So, let's see now what the nature of his faith was, because if
we see the nature of his faith, then we'll understand how God
used what he heard to teach him about the Lord Jesus Christ.
Look what he says here in Luke. We'll stay with Luke chapter
7 while we're here. It says in verse 6 of Luke 7, "...then Jesus went
with them, the messengers He had sent, and when He was now,
Jesus was now, not far from the house, the centurion's house,
the centurion sent friends to Jesus, saying to Him, Lord, trouble
not thyself, for I am not worthy that thou should enter under
my roof. What's the first thing we know
about great faith? It's right here. This man thought
himself unworthy of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I think about
that. Would I have said something like
that? Jesus is coming. Or do we naturally think, well,
He should just come here. And so I can receive Him. We
naturally think that, why wouldn't He come to me? Or, God has seen
something good in me and He's going to save me. Doesn't God
see something good in all people? We hear it all the time on TV
shows and stuff. There's something good in all
of us. But it's not true. That's not what the centurion
thought. He saw nothing good in himself that would merit Christ
coming to him. It was the Jews who used this
lame excuse in verse 4, and they came to Jesus and said, He's
worthy for whom you should do this. He loves our nation. He
built a synagogue. This is the way the Jews thought
about life. Let's try to bring out all the credits we have in
order to motivate Jesus to come and help this man. But that's
not what faith is. Faith starts with this attitude. I'm unworthy. I'm not worthy
that you should come. Peter said it this way. Lord,
depart from me. I'm a sinful man. Job said, I
am vile. Paul said, everything I counted
before as being righteousness, now I consider it dung. It was
worthless. It was worth less than nothing. So here's the first point about
faith, is that faith, great faith, speaks of itself as being unworthy. And you see this in many ways
in scripture, and it's important that we consider some of these,
so I'm going to take you to a few of them. Look at James chapter 1. James chapter 1, verse 9, he
says, Let the brother of low degree
rejoice in that he is exalted, but the rich in that he is made
low." That's the first one. You see the importance? Humility
is something that God does to us. God does this to us. It's not something we can work
up. The publican in Luke chapter 18. Look at Luke chapter 18. I want to take you to this because
these are not meant for us to read these verses and to go out
and say, I've got to work up some humility. And that way the
Lord will receive me. It's to encourage us. that if
we're broken and contrite before God, then we have every reason
to come to Him as sinners. Look at Luke 18, 13. The publican
standing afar off wouldn't lift up so much as his eyes to heaven,
but smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me. sinner
or the sinner as it's as it should be and then he says in verse
14 I tell you this man went down to his house justified rather
than the other four everyone that exalts himself shall be
abased and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted and now look
at Isaiah 57 Isaiah 57, this is an amazing
verse, an amazing encouragement for sinners. Never think to be
able to prepare yourself to receive the grace of God, except by owning
what you actually are in yourself, unworthy. He says in Isaiah 57,
verse 15, For thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth
eternity, whose name is Holy, "...I dwell in the high and holy
place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the
contrite ones." Contrite means that you've been broken by your
sin. You've been broken before God. In Proverbs 15.33 it says,
"...before honor is humility." And we just read, before the
service, The Lord heareth the poor, and despiseth not his prisoners."
Psalm 69 and verse 3. And didn't we just go over this?
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven. This is the way the centurion came. He came broken. Lord, I'm
not even worthy that I should be received by you. You see, faith, and we need to
understand this, very important, faith is a self-emptying grace. That means it divests itself
of all value, and it ascribes all merit and value to the object
of its faith, faith's object, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is so important because so many times, and this is where
the error comes, where in 99% of Christendom today, a person
is saved because they accept Jesus or make a decision for
Jesus, because they see value in the virtue of their faith.
God's going to give me faith, that faith has some virtue, I
exercise my faith, and therefore God looks on me, and He sees
that, and He saves me. That's not the way it works.
Faith rests on what's already true, what God declares to be
true. And faith completely empties
itself of any reason why God would ever save the person who
exercises faith. Faith not only is a self-emptying
grace, but it is a Christ-only exalting grace. Look at Romans
chapter 3. Romans chapter 3, verse 28. He
says, after arguing not only for the universality of our condemnation
before God and our total inability to come to God by what we do,
and then describing the righteousness of God, which is the Lord Jesus
Christ and His obedience to God to save His people from their
sins, verse 28 says this, of Romans 3, that a man is justified by faith
without the deeds of the law. It's important that we join these
two things together, because if we just said, we're justified
by faith, we would naturally run off into the Arminian camp
and say, see, we're justified by what God thinks of what He
sees in us. But it's not true. Without the deeds of the law,
it means we have no value in ourselves and we can provide
no obedience to God to cause God to find any reason in us
to save us. The reason has to come from outside
of us. That's why it says in verse 24
of the same chapter, being justified freely. By His grace, no cause
found in us, all the reason found in God, freely, without any merit
of our own, He justifies us by His grace, through the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus. He found in Christ what He needed
from us. And faith says that. That's what
faith does. It says, Lord, I'm not worthy,
but Christ is worthy. Look at Romans chapter 4, verse
16. Therefore, it is of faith that it might be by grace." And
if you take out in the King James, those are italicized words, it
just says this. Therefore, of faith that by grace
to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed. How
is God's promise sure? Guaranteed, no possibility, it's
by grace. And how is it ensured that it's
all by grace? Because it's by faith. And if
it's by faith, it has to be all of God. Because if it be of works,
then it's no more of grace. But if it's of grace, then it's
no more of works. That's what it says in, I think
it's Romans 11, 6. And so all these things teach
us what this man did. It's of faith. that the promise
might be sure, and the promise can only be sure if all the conditions
are met and guaranteed by the performance of another, the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so the centurion understood
this, and he may not have understood it, articulating it, but he exhibited
this in his attitude. He said, Lord, I'm not worthy
that you should come under my roof. And the second thing about
this great faith that we must understand, not only does faith
divest itself of all value and thinks lowly of itself, I'm not
worthy of Christ. I have no reason to expect that
He would save me, a sinner. What am I? I'm ready to die.
I'm under the condemnation of my sin justly. I have no strength. I'm trapped in it. I'm trapped
by an enemy I invited in. And here He is, guilty. And this is His condition. Why
would He expect any favor from God in that condition? He has
only this. I'm in the hand and at the mercy
of God. Look at 2 Samuel chapter 24. David understood God's mercy. And when he messed up, when he
messed up big time, and had Joab go out and number all of Israel,
and it was a sin against God, in 2 Samuel 24, And God said to him, you know,
he saw what was going to happen. And Gad, the prophet, came to
David in 2 Samuel 24 13. And told him, and said to him,
shall, because of his sin, he said, shall seven years of famine
come to thee in the land? Or wilt thou flee three months
before thine enemies while they pursue thee? Or that there be
three days pestilence in the land? Now advise and see what
answer I shall return to him that sent me. to God. And so
David is faced with this apparently bad choice no matter what he
says. In verse 14 of 2 Samuel 24 he says, And David said to
Gad, I am in a great, straight, tight, squeezed together place. He says, Let us fall now into
the hand of the Lord. for his mercies are great and
let me not fall into the hand of man." That's what the centurion
understood. I have nowhere else to go. No
one else can help. The case is hopeless. and not only is my servant impotent,
but I have nothing to give him. Only Christ can help." You see,
great faith not only sees itself as nothing, but it sees Christ
as everything. And this is the important thing.
Without these two things together, we don't have faith. If we say,
oh, I believe in Jesus. I believe in Jesus. Well, what
do you believe? And they begin to talk and you
realize that they have some ability to come to Christ. You just have
to decide. You just have to accept a few
things that we've told you. And everything will be okay.
No, it's not okay. God has to work individually
on our hearts and show us that we are sinful before God. And He has to show us that we
have no way of getting out of our condition unless He has mercy
upon us. And we come like David in 2 Samuel
24, or like the publican in Luke 18, or like all these other men
and we say, God have mercy on me, a sinner, the sinner. I can't help myself. If you don't
do something, nothing can be done. My case is helpless and
hopeless. Only God can save me." And he
comes to Jesus with those things. And so he says in Luke chapter
7, and I want to read this in both Luke
7 and also in Matthew 8, he says in verse 7 of Luke 7, Wherefore,
neither thought I myself worthy to come to thee, but say in a
word, and my servant shall be healed." And now, I'll read this
to you out of Matthew 8, comparing these two chapters. Matthew 8, he says, in verse
8 of Matthew 8, the centurion answered him and said, Lord,
I'm not worthy that thou shouldst come under my roof. And I like
the way it's said here in Matthew 8 best. He says this, but speak
the word only and my servant shall be healed. Speak the word
only. That's, that I think is the greatest
statement of faith that you could ever find in scripture. Speak
the word only. You know what, and he gave the
analogy, I understand authority. I have servants. I'm a man under
authority. I know what it means to be told
what to do. And I know what it means to tell
people who are under me what to do. Because when you have
authority, and you tell someone what to do, they just do it.
And when you're under authority and you're commanded to do, you
just do what you're told. That's what it means to be under
authority. And this man said these things. He says, Lord,
just speak the word only. You see, great faith not only
sees itself as nothing and says so much about the Lord Jesus
Christ, but great faith also does this. It knows that if the
Lord Jesus Christ merely speaks the commandment to save me, my
salvation is history. It cannot not be. And so it comes
to Christ because only Christ can command me to be saved. now has given commandment to
save me," it says in the psalms. And I can't remember the chapter
right now. I think it's Psalm 84 or something. I'll find it
another time. Speak the word only. I want to
look at a couple of verses that you see this. Look at Psalm 71. It's only. It's not just Christ
and. It's not like I've got a few
things I need to do in order to get God to save me. There's
only one hope that I have. Look at Psalm 71 16. I will go
in the strength of the Lord God. Verse 16, I will make mention
of thy righteousness, even of thine only. You see that? Verse 16 of Psalm 71, I will
make mention of thy righteousness, even thine only. Remember last
week? What did the men make mention
of in judgment? They made mention of their righteousness. That
won't do. Depart from me, you workers of
iniquity. I never knew you." Because when
we have faith, when we have the faith of God's elect, we only
mention Christ's righteousness. That's all we have. Look at Psalm
62. Just a couple of verses along
this line. Psalm 62. I like this verse. Get there. Verse 1. Truly, my soul waiteth
upon God. I have nowhere else to go. Not only do I have nowhere else
to go, but it's not like I'm going to get just a barely salvation
by waiting upon God. Salvation is not just a little
bit, or the skin of the teeth thing. We're saved to the uttermost. When we're saved, we're more
than conquerors through Him that loved us. We're presented before
the throne of His glory without fault, spotless, with great joy. There's no barely salvation about
it. So I'm going to wait on the Lord. From Him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not
be greatly moved. Here comes the terrorist. Here
comes my sin. Here comes the political whoever. It doesn't matter. My salvation
is only in Christ, and being only in Christ, there's no possibility
that I will not be received into glory. It cannot not happen. Jesus said this in John 6, 37, "...him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out." When we come to Him only, we're laying
everything on Christ, and we have no backup plan. Our ships
are burned. We're on the remote island. The natives are coming to take
off our head. I have no hope. He's my only hope. Everything
is tied up in Him. If He died for me, that's all
I need. If He died for me, if He intercedes
for me, I need no other advocate. I need no other answer. Christ
only. So many things. Remember in Matthew
17 when Peter, James, and John went up to the mountain with
Jesus and He was transfigured before them and His face shone
brighter than any describable light. And they heard a voice
and Peter said, Lord, it's good that we're here. Elijah and Moses
were there. Let's make three tenths. No,
the voice from heaven came and said, this is my beloved son
in whom I'm well pleased. Hear him! And when the cloud
lifted, all they saw, it says, was Jesus only. They just saw
him. The point of the gospel is that
yes, you're empty, you're condemned, you're corrupt, you're helpless,
but Christ is all. The fullness of the Godhead dwells
in him. It's Christ only and Christ is
everything. And so the man knew this. He
said, speak the word only in Matthew chapter 8. Just speak
the word. Lord, if you command, you have
absolute sovereign authority over all my, all sickness, all
sin, all over everything. If you find a way and you can
give that commandment, then I know my servant will be healed. And
then it says in Matthew 8, 10, when Jesus heard it, he marveled
and said to them that followed fairly. Isn't it amazing that
the Lord Jesus Christ would marvel at anything? He marveled. He brings something to your dad.
Dad, I've really made something good for you. You show it to
him and he goes, it's nice son, it's nice. You know he's giving
you a compliment. He's not really impressed, but
he says it for you. But here Jesus marvels. You know why He
marveled? He marveled at His own work.
This is very good. This is exactly what I mean. Look, this is great faith. So here He says, "...verily I
say to you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
And I say unto you that many shall come..." And this one is
a Gentile man. many shall come from the east and west, not just
the centurion, but many shall come, and they will sit down
with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Capernaum, Gentiles and Jews
mixed together, former idolaters in darkness, many shall come
from places like this. And they'll sit down in the kingdom
of heaven, but the children of the kingdom, the Israelites,
by nature, who physically were Israelites, they'll be cast out.
And then he says in verse 13, And Jesus said to the centurion,
Go thy way, as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And
his servant was healed in the same hour. What did he believe?
He believed that if Jesus just spoke the word, his servant would
be healed. What do you believe? That's what will be done to you.
I believe that if the Lord Jesus Christ died for me, God's going
to receive me just as He is. He's going to say, enter thou
into the glory of thy Lord. Well done, O good and faithful
servant. And He's going to look at His Son, and He's going to
receive me just like Him. I can't help but smiling. I'm
convinced of this. God looks at His Son, and He
says, I'm well pleased with Him. And Jesus says, him that cometh
to me, I will in no wise cast out. Christ is able to save to
the uttermost them that come unto God by him. Nothing can
prevent him from his purpose. Once it's spoken, I was down
visiting my grandkids in Southern California. They had memory verses
in their refrigerator. One of them was Psalm 33 9. Psalm
33 9, you know what it is? Let's read it. Psalm 33 9. I
like it. I thought of this verse as soon
as I read it. I love this verse. This is something
that the kids can remember. It's good to remember scripture. Remember what it says in Psalm
119? I will never forget thy precepts, for with them thou
hast quickened me. We're looking at Psalm 33. We're
trying to. It says this in verse 9. For he spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. God said to Abraham, your name
will no longer be called Abram, but Abraham shall be your name. For a father of many nations
have I made thee. God spoke as if what he said
was already done. He calls those things which be
not as though they were. And the centurion believed that
if the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the sovereign, absolute sovereign
of the universe, just merely spoke, his servant would be healed.
I believe that if the Lord Jesus Christ spoke from the cross and
said, it is finished, then it's finished. That's all my hope. That's all my desire. All of
my confidence is in the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. His
word can't fail. Speak the word only. Let's pray.