Good morning, everybody. I expressed
this before Sunday school, but I want to say it again. I'm very
sad for the circumstances that led to me being with you here
this morning, but very happy to see you. It's been probably
over a year since I've seen you all, and so it's always great
to see your faces. And bring with me all the well wishes and
love and thoughts from everybody in Lexington, especially Todd.
He'll probably tell you hi, things like that. You're constantly
in our thoughts and prayers. Frank comes and preaches for
us so often. We really appreciate him being
able to do that, so our hearts are very much knit with yours.
If you would, turn over to Luke chapter seven. Luke chapter seven. This is a familiar passage. I'd
say most of us are probably familiar with it. It's the Roman centurion
whose servant is sick. And at the end of this dialogue
he has in this story, our Lord would comment that he has the
greatest faith that he had seen in Israel. So that means that
this is the New Testament illustration of the greatest faith our Lord
Jesus Christ comments on. And I'd also like to point out
that this man is a Gentile. He's not a Jew. Makes it all the more
interesting. So, let's read the first 10 verses.
Look up here. Luke 7, look at verse 1. Now
when he had ended all his sayings in the audience of the people,
he entered into Capernaum, speaking of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
a certain centurion servant, who was dear unto him, 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. Now this man is a Gentile. He's
not a Jew. He's the Roman leader for this province. And so, along
the way, he hears of the Lord Jesus Christ. He hears that he
can heal men miraculously. And he has this servant who's
very fond of him, he's very dear to him, and he wants to see him
healed. So he doesn't go directly to our Lord. He doesn't feel
worthy for that. He goes to the elders of the
Jews, people that are not his own. And he gives them a very
particular message. Very simple. Go, beg him to come
and heal my servant. Do that on my behalf. Do that
for me unto him. Beg him on my behalf to come
and heal my servant. Pretty simple message, right?
Hard to mess that one up. Let's see what they said. Look
at verse four. And when they came to Jesus, they besought
him instantly, saying that he was worthy for whom he should
do this. And look, they're gonna point
out his best works. For he loveth our nation, and he hath built
us a synagogue. Did I get the message right?
Well, they qualified it. Keep on reading, verse six. 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 shouldest 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. God marveled at a man,
and turned him about, and said unto the people that followed
him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, though
not in Israel. And they that were sent, returning to the house,
found the servant whole, that had been sick. God marveled at a man. Does anybody
find that astounding? Now, I've heard over the years
many messages, and I think most people focus on the same thing,
well, he marveled at his faith, and certainly our Lord mentions
his faith, and the greatness of it. But the exact wording
is, he marveled at him. God admired, he marveled at a
man. The God of glory. My question
is this, in what respect? In what respect did he admire
this man? I will first start out by saying
this is not how he admired him. This is my admiration. My daughter,
Macy, she shoots trap competitively. If you don't know what that is,
it's little orange discs they launch into the air, and you shoot it
with a shotgun. And if anyone's looking to relieve stress sometime
soon, I would suggest doing it. It's the best. Big boom. Very
rewarding. It's great. In any case, we got
into it, right? She's into it. I'm into it. She's
better than me. This is the way it is. We went to the state competition. And there's a kid down there.
And he's from, I mean, just some podunk town in eastern Kentucky.
And he went out there. And there was 100 targets. He
didn't miss one all day long. Didn't waste any ammunition.
Found out later at the award ceremony that he didn't miss
a shot all season. So 500 shots, 500 targets hit. This kid was a savant. And you
talk to him, the nicest guy you ever met in the world. And I
watched him out there shooting, and he had ice in his veins,
and it was effortless for him. He wasn't worried, no nerves,
anything like that. He was just all, right? And in that moment,
watching him, I marveled at him. I admired him. He's 16, 17 years
old. I looked up to him. I was like,
I want that skill, man. See if you can teach me how to
do that. That is not how our Lord marveled at this man. How
did he? I'll give you another example,
an illustration. Master sculptor. He walks up to a large, jagged,
natural, rough piece of rock. He has a masterpiece in his mind.
Takes his chisel and he starts chiseling away. He takes his
etching tools and he etches. He takes his sanding block, he
sands. His polishing stone, he polishes.
And he steps back after he's completed his masterpiece and
he marvels at that masterpiece. What's he marveling at? He's
marveling at what he had done. It was a jagged piece of natural
rock before he put his hands on it, and then the masterpiece.
That's me, that's my prowess, that's my handiwork, that's my
craftiness. I made that, that beauty I see. It's what I created,
it's what I have done. This man, we'll find out along
the way, this centurion, this man was a believer. He's a man
with the greatest faith in all Israel. Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. This man believed on
the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a saved man. That means
he was righteous in Jesus Christ. He was sinless in Jesus Christ.
It means he had the very spirit and essence of God dwelling in
him. This faith that he had, it was the very gift of the Lord
Jesus Christ, this great, perfect faith. He looked at all that
and he said, I did that. I gave him all that. What he
was was by the grace of God for what Christ had done for him
and what he had done in him. And I say all that to say this,
we're gonna spend a fair amount of time this morning talking
about the centurion, some of the things he says, some of the
things he does. I wanna say right off the bat, anything he said,
anything he had, anything he was, was simply and utterly by
the grace of God because of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. He gets
absolutely no credit whatsoever. But our Lord did marvel at him
because he had made him the way he was. Now, here's the first
thing I'll say about this. Whenever you find great faith,
you will also find great unworthiness. Now look back at verse two. I
wanna show you a few things. It says, and a certain centurion's
servant who was dear unto him was sick and ready to die. Now,
if you would like a two-fold description of the entire human
race, the way we were born into this world, naturally, it's this. Sick and ready to die. Some passages
of scripture are harder to preach from than others, but this one
makes it exceptionally easy on you. You see that word sick in
verse 2? You know what the direct translation is? Evil. Makes it real easy on us. And
God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. Every thought, every motivation,
every work, because it comes from me and this old man and
this old heart. It's evil. We are evil. It gets worse. Look at verse
10. And they that were sent, returning
to the house, found the servant whole that had been sick." There's
that word sick again. Different word. You know what
this one means? I can't make this up. Impotent. That's the
actual word. Unable. Not only is he evilly
sick, he is disabled sick. Unable sick. Impotent sick. That's
all of us. Can't do anything about our circumstances.
Can't change the fact that we're evil. Can't stop doing evil.
Can't do that which is necessary to make peace with God on our
behalf. Incapable of producing a work that he would be pleased
with. Can't make peace with God. Completely evil and completely
unable. Ready to die. We are born just
marching towards death and then the judgment in the hands of
a sovereign and holy God. This is the entire human race.
But this servant has two things going for him. Just two. You
know what they are? he's certain, and he's dear. That's it. He's not just anybody's
servant, he's the centurion's servant. A certain servant, he
belongs to a particular man, and to that particular man, he
is dear. That centurion loves this man.
I tell you what, folks, that's the only hope a sinner has. Born
evil, born impotent, born unable, ready to die, but this is the
hope we have. I'm not my own, I belong to somebody
else. I belong to Christ. I'm certain unto Him. He became
my surety before the world ever began, therefore I must be saved. And I am dear unto Him. And let
the world talk about their love for God as much as they want.
Folks, I am much more interested in God's love for me. That love
that casts out fear, that love that is not based on my love
for Him, that love that has always been there eternally, that love
that always saves. That's his hope right there.
And I'll tell you this, this centurion, humanly speaking,
he seems like a really great guy. And he is at very least
a very good leader because he is a man of high estate and he
is showing compassion on a man of lower estate. Humanly speaking,
this is his servant and this is good leadership. You're going
to be a good leader. You should care about the people who are
below you, much their wellbeing, much more than your own. But
he loves this man, this man of lower estate. But I think there's
something else here. I think when he looks at this
man, this servant, and he sees that he's sick and he's ready
to die, he's looking in the mirror. Because he knows something about
the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a saved man. He looks
at his servant and he says he's sick and he's ready to die and
that's me. He needs someone to come do something for him. He
needs someone to come who has the power, who has the strength,
who has the ability, because he doesn't have any, to come
to him and do something for him and to make him whole. And that's
exactly what I need too. What he is physically, that's
what I am spiritually. I need Christ to come to me and
do something for me and make me whole because I can't do it
for myself. And he proves that. Look down
here, verse three. And when he heard of Jesus, speaking
of the centurion, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews, beseeching
him that he would come and heal his servant. Now, you know how
this is going to go. He goes and he says, I know of
one man. I have heard of this one man, this Jesus of Nazareth,
that can miraculously heal the sick. I know of this one man,
and so he won't approach unto this one man. He recognizes,
folks, that he's God, because he recognizes I can't just approach
him. I have to have a mediator. I'm not worthy to approach unto
him. He didn't know he was Messiah,
the one who is approachable by a sinner. That's God. I can't
approach unto him, so I'm gonna go to the Jewish elders, and
I'm gonna give them a message here. Go to him on my behalf,
beseech him, beg him, come and heal my servant. It's a very simple message. Now,
look at verse four again. 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. Notice, they added to the message.
They went and they did what he told them to do. No doubt they
besought the Lord Jesus Christ to come and heal his servant,
but they added to it. They said, Lord, he wants you to come and
heal his servant. This man's very dear to him,
and if you're wondering, he's worthy for this. He's a real
good man. In fact, I'll give you a list
of the best things he's ever done. For a foreign occupier, he loves
our nation. Does a pretty good job, pretty
benevolent to us. And that synagogue over there, he built that for
us. So pretty good dude, pretty good guy. We're putting our stamp
on him. He's worthy that you should do this for him. I find
it interesting, the Lord Jesus Christ came to this earth and
during his adult years prior to his death, he spent all his
time casting devils out of people who couldn't cast them out of
themselves and couldn't pay him for it. He spent all his time
eating with publicans and sinners. He spent all his time healing
sick people who couldn't heal themselves, who couldn't do anything
for him. He spent all his time doing things for people that
they could not do for themselves, and they couldn't contribute
to him in any way. They could do absolutely nothing for him.
And they still didn't get it. They still didn't see that worthiness
was only found in unworthiness. In the kingdom of God, worthiness
is only found one way, in unworthiness. But they thought still, you got
to show them something. You got to prove it to them.
You have to have something. Salvation by works. No. Worthiness is found
in unworthiness. And I love this. Our Lord went
with them anyways. Even though they were wrong,
they went for Centurion's sake. Now, look over here. Look at verse six. Then Jesus went with them. And
when he was now not far from the house, the centurion sent
friends to him. Now, I want to stop there for
a minute. The story makes a jump, and there's a piece here that's
obviously left out, and I'm going to take a liberty here. I'm going
to speculate about what happened, right? So these Jewish elders go to
the Lord Jesus Christ. They deliver the wrong message,
and the Lord goes with them anyways, right? We're going to go to the
centurion's house. We're going to do this thing for him that
he's requested. And I have no doubt that these men thought,
this is great. The centurion, our leader in this province,
has given us a task and we fulfilled it. The Lord's actually going
to come and heal his servant. And so we're real excited and
we want this man to be happy with us. So I'm going to run
ahead, right? And I'm going to tell him about what's going on
and that way he can be ready to meet everyone. So one guy
goes ahead, right? And he thinks, maybe I'll get something out
of this. Maybe there's a position for me along the way, something
like that. Right? And he runs in and he goes to the centurion
and he says, Here's the thing, boss, we went, we delivered the
message, he's coming, the Lord's coming right now, he's gonna
heal your servant, he agreed to do it. And don't worry, we
told him, we told him you were worthy, that you were a really
good guy, that you love our nation, that you had built us that synagogue
over there, we told him that you were worthy for this and
he's gonna come and he's gonna heal your servant. How do you
think the centurion reacted to that? Get out. And he goes and he gets
his friends. He gets somebody he can trust.
and he sends him back and says, give him now this message. Read
again, verse six. 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 shouldest enter under my roof. Wherefore,
neither thought I myself worthy to come unto thee. He said, let
me set this record straight. Those other fellas told you I
was worthy, I had done all these great things. I'm not worthy
in the least. I'm not worthy to approach unto
you. I'm not worthy to have you under my roof. I am not worthy. There is absolutely no reason
you should do this for me. I have earned absolutely nothing. This Roman centurion couldn't
find anything in and of himself that would compel the Lord Jesus
Christ to do anything for him. And it turns out, that is the
one prerequisite for mercy. to be completely and utterly
unworthy of it. I'd like to show you an illustration
of that. Turn over to 1 Kings 1. This is an interesting story,
and I'll give you kind of the back story on it. King David
is near death. His body won't hold any heat.
And at this point, there's a power vacuum, right? Anytime anyone
in a leadership position steps away, walks away, things like
that, that power vacuum comes up and the sharks start to circle,
right? Everyone who thinks they might have a claim to the throne,
anybody who might be interested, they start making their moves,
right? Well, the Lord has already said that Solomon, David's son,
is going to secede him in all this, right? But David has an
older son. His name's Adonijah. And Donaja
sees this power vacuum and he says, I'm going to fill it. I'm
the oldest. I'm going to go ahead and take the throne. So he does.
He forms a cabinet. He's got advisors. And he holds
a rally downtown. And they offer sacrifices. And
he anoints himself king. And they throw a big party. And
the people are like, well, I mean, we thought it was Solomon. But
it is one of David's sons. So sure. Yay. Right? Great. No problem. So he thinks he's
won. But Donaja thinks he has this thing in the bag, right?
And so he's sitting there with his cabinet at a meal, and all
of a sudden they hear a commotion going on outside. And they call
for a messenger that says, what's going on out there? He said,
oh, well, Nathan and Zadok, the priest and the prophet, they
brought Solomon down here on David's ass. And on David's orders,
they anointed Solomon king in front of the people. And the
people are really, really excited about it. That noise you heard,
that's them celebrating. They think this is the greatest
thing known to man, right? They're going to get their king
back. And it's funny when you read it, because it talks about
each one of his cabinet advisors. They kind of see the writing
up on the wall. They back the wrong horse. And so they start
getting up and just kind of fleeing the area. And Adonager now is
in a tough spot, because not only is he not king like he planned,
he's now a usurper. He tried to steal the king's
throne. And so rightfully, he should be put to death than anyone
who was aligned with him. And so Solomon is going to deal
with Adonijah on two occasions. Once in judgment, first in mercy,
once in mercy, and the second time in judgment. And through
these two, you will see the worthy approach and the unworthy approach. Now look at verse 50, 2 Kings
1. Adonijah feared because of Solomon,
arose and went and caught hold on the horns of the altar." What's
an altar for? Altars for sacrifice, folks.
What about horns? What's that all about? Power. This man was terrified of Solomon,
so he went down to the tabernacle and the temple, and he clung
on to the horns of the altar. Christ and his power to save,
Christ and the power of his sacrifice for his people, he clave onto
that altar and the horns of that altar with all he had." Now look
at the interaction, look at verse 51. And it was told Solomon,
saying, behold, Adonijah feareth King Solomon, for lo, he hath
caught hold on the horns of the altar, saying, let King Solomon
swear unto me today that he will not slay his servant with a sword.
And Solomon said, if he will show himself a, what's the word? Worthy man, there shall not a
hair of him fall to the earth, but if wickedness shall be found
in him, he shall die. Solomon says, we'll find out.
If he's worthy of mercy, I'll show it. If any wickedness is
found in him, he will not have mercy. Let's find out where he
stands. Look at verse 53. So King Solomon sent, and they
brought him down from the altar, and he came and bowed himself
to King Solomon. And Solomon said unto him, go
to the Lamb's house. The end. Does anybody else find that anticlimactic?
Solomon makes this proclamation. He says he's gonna have to show
himself worthy. If he's worthy of this mercy, I'll give it to
him. If any weakness is found in him, I'm gonna punish him.
That's the way it is. And he comes, Adonijah just clings
on to the horns of the altar. Solomon says, what do you have
to say for yourself? And he doesn't answer a word. Why? Because he's guilty and he knows
it. He doesn't defend himself. He doesn't make any excuses.
He didn't try to offer something. Hey, uh, Solomon, you remember
when we were kids, we used to play together. We had some good
times. You know, surely you can forgive the fact that I was going
to steal your throne and probably murder you and your mother along
the way to make sure I didn't have any opposition. That can
be forgiven, right? No, he's guilty and he knows
it. He prostrates himself before the sovereign king and offers
no explanation. I have no entitlements. There
is absolutely no reason you should have mercy upon me. This one
thing I have. This one thing I have. That's
it. I'm just clinging on to the horns of the altar. All I have
is Christ and his sacrifice and its power to save. That's it. That's all I've got. Folks, that's
the worthy approach. Completely and utterly unworthy. I'm a guilty man. I'm a guilty
sinner. And I can't blame the sovereignty of God for my circumstances.
And I can't blame Adam for my circumstances. Well, I fell on
Adam, but I wasn't really there. This isn't on me. God's sovereign. He could have prevented all this.
You know, this is his fault, really. I'm being gypped on the
deal. No, I'm guilty. You know what that means? It
means if he saves everyone in this room and he passes me by,
you know what his name is? Justin Holy. a name to be praised
and honored and glorified. That's the truth concerning me.
What do you have then? What do you have? What worthiness
do you have? The horns of the altar. Christ
and him crucified, he promised. For sinners, I have died. Therefore,
I cleave because I am in fact a sinner. And you know what?
Go to your house, you're forgiven. Worthy, that's the worthy approach
through unworthiness. Let's see it the other way. Look
down at, we'll look at chapter two, verse 13. I'll preface this. So now at
this point, Adonijah wants something from Solomon. David's dead, and
he wants something from him, but he knows he's lost something
with Solomon, so he's not gonna work through Solomon. He goes
through Bathsheba, Solomon's mom. So he's gonna approach her
about this. Look at verse 13 of 1 Kings 2. And Adonijah, the
son of Haggath, came to Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, And she
said, comest thou peaceably? And he said, peaceably. He said,
moreover, I have somewhat to say unto thee. And she said,
say on. And he said, thou knowest that the kingdom was mine and
that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign. How
be it the kingdom has turned about and has become my brother's
for it was his from the Lord. And now I ask one petition of
thee. Deny me not. And she say unto him, say on.
And he said, speak, I pray thee, unto Solomon the king, for he
will not say thee nay, that he give me Abishag, the Shunammite,
to wife. And Bathsheba said, well, I will
speak for thee unto the king. Now, what he's asking for here
is to actually have one of David's concubines to be given to him
as a wife. And this is wrong on the surface. Wall said, man
should not have his father's wife. Really, though, that's
beside the point. Solomon would kill Adonijah after
this. He's gonna have him executed
for approaching in this way. And really what he's asking for
isn't the issue, the issue is how he asked for it. He goes
to Bathsheba and he says this, he says, listen, everybody knows
that I was the rightful heir to the throne, right? I'm the
oldest, that's the way things are. And everybody wanted me
to be king, right? Everybody thought it was a good
idea if I take it over Solomon. Everybody wanted that. And the
only reason Solomon became king was because the Lord intervened
on his behalf. But let's be honest, I kind of got gypped on the deal,
right? I've been done wrong here. So, you know, kind of as a consolation
prize, if he gives me Abishag, you know, I'll be satisfied.
My needs will be taken care of. And, you know, I won't hold it
against you, even though I've been done wrong in this whole
thing. Puts you at issue there. Entitlement. Solomon owes me. He owes me. I've been done wrong
in this whole thing. God sends you to hell. Have you
been done wrong? That's a real question. That is a real question
we need to ask ourselves. If he sends me to hell, have
I been done wrong? And the answer is no, not if you're a sinner.
No, it's his sense of entitlement. I've been done wrong on this.
He owes me something here. God doesn't owe me anything.
He doesn't owe you anything. He doesn't owe any creature anything. He's
God. Absolute God. And after this, he's executed
for the way he came. He came with a sense of entitlement,
a sense of worthiness. But in the kingdom of God, worthiness
is only found in unworthiness. Now, I've said this before, I
think. Wherever you find great unworthiness,
you will find great faith. They always go hand in hand.
Wherever you find great faith, you will always find great unworthiness.
They are two sides of the same coin. Now, in this scripture,
in Luke chapter seven, we have the New Testament illustration
of what our Lord described as the greatest faith he had ever
seen in all Israel. You know what I'm really, really thankful
for? It's this. It's the brevity of the story.
This is the greatest faith he had ever seen. This is the illustration
of the greatest faith our Lord Jesus Christ comments on in all
of scripture. It's 10 verses. That's it. Sunday school was
30 verses, right? This is 10 verses, illustration
of the greatest faith the Lord Jesus Christ has ever commented
on in the entire scripture. You know what that tells me?
It tells me that great faith is not complicated. It's actually
very, very simple. Now, to show you that, go over
to Matthew chapter eight, and I want you to see Matthew's version
of this story. As far as I can tell, there are
three elements to this thing of great faith, and we're going
to pick them out right here out of Matthew's account. Matthew
chapter eight. There's three of them here in
verses eight and nine. We're going to read both verses
and I'll point them out to you along the way. Then we'll go back and
talk about them. Matthew 8, verse 8. The centurion answered and
said, Lord. Now stop there for just one second.
Who do you call Lord? You call God Lord. That's who
gets called Lord. He believed that Jesus of Nazareth
was God. That's simple enough, isn't it?
Go back, read again. Look at verse 8 again. The centurion
answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest
come under my roof But speak the word only, and my servant
shall be healed. Here's the second thing he knew.
Whatever this God man said, whatever his word was, it was gonna happen. He was gonna keep his word. Whatever
came out of his mouth, whatever he said, whatever he wrote down,
you could write that down. That was gonna happen. It had
already happened because he's the one who said it. He believed
that he was always good to his word, being God. And here's the
third thing, in verse nine. He says, for I'm 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. You hear what he's saying
there? His ability. He says, I know what you're like.
I have some understanding of this. I'm in charge around here.
I tell one man to go over here, he does it. I tell another one
to go over here, he does it. Go do this, he does it. I get
that. You have power. Your power is different, though.
You're the source of all power. There's nothing outside your
control. You have all ability. There's three things there, right?
Great faith is really, really simple. First thing this, great
faith believes that Jesus of Nazareth is God. Now, that's
a simple point. Why don't you ask yourself this?
There is a man, there's a man, named Jesus of Nazareth, who
lived some 2,000 years ago, born in Israel. According to this
book, he's gone. That the trinity of Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit resides in that man that walked on this earth.
He was real flesh and bone like you and me. Don't think of this
as pie in the sky. This is a real man who walked
among us, and according to this book, he himself is and was God
incarnate. You believe that? Here's a better
question. What is God? That's an interesting one, right?
Because everybody anticipates who, but we know who. Jesus of
Nazareth. That's what the book says. He's
God. What is he? He is I am. He is alpha and omega. He is
the beginning and the end. He is eternal. He never had a
beginning and he will never have an end. He is completely and
utterly independent. You think about how dependent
you and I are. I have to breathe air right now. I can't get through
30 minutes of preaching without taking a sip of water. I gotta
eat here in a little while. He is utterly independent. He
has absolutely no needs. He's holy and just, a perfect
sense of righteousness, a perfect sense of justice. He's sovereign. He's in absolute sovereign control
of everyone at all times. He is. He is the very essence
of all things. He is before all things, and
by him, all things consist. Do you believe Jesus Nazareth
is God? I do. I absolutely do. And if there's a attribute of
his, that is more expressed than the others in this story, it
would have to be his absolute sovereignty and power. That's
what the centurion sees. He sees God, and he sees absolute
sovereignty and power. And identify with this a little
bit. This centurion, he lives a different lifestyle than most
of us, right? He's a soldier, very likely battle-hardened.
And in his world, things are pretty primal, right? If he is
standing next to another man, one of the two of them is in
charge at all times, right? And you know how that's decided?
Who can impose their will on who? So if I'm standing next
to the centurion and he can impose his will on me, he's in charge.
If I can impose my will on him, I'm in charge. That's just the
pecking order. That's the way it is. It's a very primal lifestyle. You think about
this. If Jesus Christ can be acted
upon, if someone else can impose their will on him, he's not God.
If Jesus Christ can attempt to impose his will on someone and
they can successfully resist him, he's not God. But if Jesus
Christ can impose his will on all of creation at all times,
and it is impossible for any creature to stop him, to resist
his will, you know what that makes him? That makes him God. This is what it says in Daniel
4.35 concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. And all the inhabitants
of the earth are reputed as nothing. And he, Christ, doeth according
to his will in the armies of heaven and amongst the inhabitants
of the earth and none can stay his hand or say unto him, what
doest thou? That's who we're dealing with,
folks. That's Jesus of Nazareth. Does he have the power to save
you? He has all power. All power's not even hard for
him. The centurion saw Jesus of Nazareth, this man was God.
That's the first element of great faith. Here's the second one,
this. He believed he was good to his word. He is God who cannot
lie. Now, this is what Paul said concerning
Timothy, or to Timothy, you know this, 2 Timothy 1.12, I know
whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that
which I have committed unto him against that day. He has the ability. He has all
ability, he has all sovereign power and all sovereign ability.
He can save any sinner he wants all by himself with absolutely
no help from them. He has that ability. And you
know what, folks, he's promised to do it. And this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came to this
world to save who? Sinners, of whom I am chief,
said Paul. Is he lying or is he telling
the truth? He is God who cannot lie. He is incapable of lying. He cannot give his word and not
follow through with it. It says this, Isaiah 42, 4. He shall not fail nor be discouraged
till he have set judgment in the earth and the isles shall
wait for his law. He can't fail. He can't make
a promise and not deliver on the promise. He would cease to
be God if he did, and since he can't stop being God, He can't
make a promise and fail. He can't not follow through on
what he said he would do. And if we take this down, we
will let down these promises, right? This is what he says in
Matthew 11, 28. This is a promise. It says, come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. It's a promise made by God. I
want you to recognize that. The audience is this. who labor
and are heavy laden with sin. I can't work it off. I can't
do anything about my circumstances. My sin is like a pack on my back.
I'm just adding to it. I'm drudging around. I've labored.
I'm heavy laden. I can't do anything about this.
This is a promise from God. Come to me. Believe upon me. Trust me right now. I will give
you rest. You know what that means? means
there has never been one sinner that came to Christ and simply
trusted him, let go of everything else and every other thought,
and simply trusted him that he turned away. That's his promise,
and he's always good to his promises. What are the elements? Real simple,
of great faith. That's it. He believed Jesus
of Nazareth was God. He believed that he had the ability
to save him. With absolutely no help from
him, And he believed that he was always good to his word.
I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen tomorrow. I don't
know what's going to happen 10 minutes from now. But I am absolutely
sure of this. I would bet everything I have
and everything I know on this. Whatever he said in his word,
whatever promise he has made, that's exactly what's going to
happen. Because he is God who cannot lie and who cannot fail.
Now, I would point this out. I didn't mention anything about
his willingness. It's not even something that should be considered,
because he's willing to save sinners. All that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. Oh, he's absolutely willing to
save a sinner. But really, that has everything
to do with assurance. Faith is this. You believe he's
God? You believe he has the ability to save you all by himself? You
believe he'll do what he promised to do in his work? You have great
faith. You know what you also have?
They always go hand in hand. You have great unworthiness,
and you know it. You're another worthy sinner
who is grateful for this great Savior who saw fit to have mercy
on you. He marvels at us. I find that
amazing, but when he's doing that, he marvels at his craftiness,
his handiwork, what he has done. And what do we do? We marvel
back at him, the great master builder. I've enjoyed being with
you all this morning.