Good morning, everybody. If you'd
like to, turn over to Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7. Our text is going
to come from the first 10 verses here. This is a familiar story.
This is that Roman centurion, that high-ranking Roman officer. At the end of this, the Lord
will comment that he has the greatest faith in all of Israel.
and this man is a Gentile. Take a look at verse 1, Romans
chapter 7. Now 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, 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 pay attention
to that real quick. He gives them a real simple message, right?
Beseech him. Cry unto him. Beseech him to
come and heal my servant. That's the message. That's it.
Let's see what they say, verse four. 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. And Jesus went with him. 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 one 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. The God of glory, he who controls
all things and commands all things with the word of his mouth marveled
at a man. Does anyone else find that shocking?
Heard a lot of messages out of this, and everybody says about
the same thing. It's like, well, he marveled at his faith. He mentions his
faith. He mentions that it is the greatest
faith in Israel, coming out of this Gentile soldier. But what
it says particularly in the verse there, in verse nine is, when
Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him. The God of glory
marveled at a man. And my question is this, in what
manner did he marvel at this man? I'll give you an example of how
he did not marvel. So a couple weekends ago, I think
some of you know, Macy, my daughter, shoots trap. And what it is is
little orange discs that they launch in the air and you shoot
it with a shotgun. If you've never done it, it's great. You
should try it. Everybody should do it. In any case, we went to the state
tournament, right? This year, and the year previous, the same
guy won the tournament, right? He is from some podunk town in
eastern Kentucky. Found his granddaddy's shotgun
in his closet, started shooting, he's a savant, right? And he
went out that day, on Saturday, and he hit 100%. Didn't miss
all day, 100 targets. And then later on we found out
he didn't miss all season. Went 500 shots in a row, folks.
This is amazing, right? So I went in line, I was talking
to him. He's the nicest kid you ever met, right? Really nice
guy. And I watch him shoot and it's effortless. There's ice
in his veins. He's not worried about anything.
He's got perfect form. Hits every single target and
he's just having a blast, right? I marveled at him. I admired
him. There was a sense in which I
looked up to him. I wanted to be able to do what he could do. He could do something I couldn't
do. Something I really would like to. I admired him. I marveled
at his skill, his prowess, and his ability. And that is not
how the Lord marveled at this man. I'll give you the illustration
of how the Lord marveled at this man. Let's say you have a master
sculptor. And he approaches this big piece
of jagged natural rock. And he goes to work with his
chisel. and he goes to work with his etching tools, and with his
sanding stone, and his polishing stone, and he does all the work.
And then once he's done with his masterpiece, he stands back
and he marvels at what he sees. What is he marveling at? He's marveling at what he has
done. Look what I made. Look what I
created through my handiwork, through my workmanship, through
my skill, through my intelligence, through my wisdom. Through me,
this thing is the way it is. And that's how our Lord looked
at this man. Yes, he marveled at this man. He marveled at what
he had done. This great faith, probably the
greatest faith that is mentioned in all the New Testament, maybe
even the Old, this great faith this man had, who gave it to
him? Our grace are ye saved through faith, that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. I gave him that. The fact that
that man stood sinless in Christ Jesus before the Father. I did
that. The fact that that man was righteous
before the law in Christ, I did that. The fact that that man
was regenerated, sanctified, there was a new man inside of
him, a new heart, a new spirit from which that faith flowed,
I put that in there. He was marveling at his work.
The reason I wanted to start there is because we're going
to spend a few minutes this morning examining the centurion, right?
Some of his attributes, some of the things he says. In no
way does this man get any credit for any of the things that he
had. Everything he was, it was because of Christ in him and
Christ for him. What he had done for him and
what he had done in him. This man did not earn anything.
He did not deserve anything. And you're going to hear that
from his own lips here in just a minute. Everything he had and
everything he was, it was the power of Christ. It was his will.
It was his work. This is not the story of a marvelous
man. This is the story of a marvelous
Savior who can save a man like this. Now, first thing I'll have
you pay attention to is that wherever you find great faith,
you will also find great unworthiness. Now look down at verse 2 again. 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 description
of the entire human race as we are born into this world, this
is it. It's real simple. Sick and ready
to die. We are born dying. From the day
we are born, we are simply in the process of dying. This life,
folks, is real short, and we are sick. And some scriptures
are harder to interpret than others. This one makes it real
easy on you. That word sick there, you know what that means, what
the actual translation is? Evil. That's the entire human race.
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. That's everybody. That's all of us. It actually
gets worse. Look at verse 10. And they that were sent, returning
to the house, found the servant whole that had been, there's
the word again, sick. Different word. You know what
it means? Impotent. Without strength. Can't do it. Not only are we evil, and that's
a strong word, right? That's the perfect word, because
that's the word God uses, evil, incapable of doing that which
is good, incapable of changing those circumstances from being
evil. We have no strength. Can't keep the law, can't work
our way out of these circumstances, can't change at all, can't believe
God, can't repent. This is about the most hopeless
state a man could possibly find himself in, and we're all that
way. evil, impotent, ready to die
if there is no intervention for the Lord Jesus Christ. I find
it interesting, this centurion had compassion on his servant.
He seems, humanly speaking, this centurion seems like a nice guy.
He had compassion on a man who was of a lower estate. You don't
find that very often. But I suspect when he sees his
servant sitting in that bed or lying in that bed, sick and ready
to die, he's looking in a mirror. That's what I am. That's who
I am in and of myself spiritually. I'm sick. I'm ready to die. I need a savior. I need someone
to intervene on my behalf and make peace with God on my behalf. This man, this centurion, he
believed that about himself. He believed that he was an unworthy
sinner. He believed that he was an evil
man that was in need of a great savior to accomplish his salvation. And here's the evidence of it.
what he had to say to our Lord. Look again at verse three. And when he heard of Jesus, that's
where it all begins, he sent unto him the elders of the Jews,
beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant. Now,
once again, very simple direction here, very simple message. He
goes to the elders of the Jews. Remember, he's not a Jew, he's
a Roman soldier, high-ranking enough. He's their occupier,
their foreign occupier. And he gets these men together,
these elders of the Jews, and he says, Go, beseech him, cry unto the
Lord, cry unto Jesus of Nazareth, beseech him that he will come
and heal my servant. Any ambiguity there? Can anybody
mistake what the message was supposed to be? No? It's pretty easy. Look at verse
4. 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. It was
the simplest message in the world. Cry unto him to come and heal
my surgeon. And they show up, and they say,
Master, he wants you to come and heal his surgeon. We're begging
you to come heal his servant. And by the way, he's earned it.
He's worthy of this. You know, for a foreign occupier,
he loves our nation. He's a pretty nice guy. He even
built us that synagogue over there. Look at all these great
things he did, right? He's worthy for you to come down
and do this thing he's begging you to do, right? They didn't
get it. Even though our Lord had spent
all his time eating with publicans and sinners, Even though he had
spent all his time casting out demons from people who couldn't
cast them out of themselves. Even though he spent all his
time giving strength to people who had the palsy, who couldn't
rise, who were lame, who could not, giving them strength so
that they could, and they had nothing to pay with. Even though
he spent all his time embarrassing people who thought they were
worthy. The Pharisees. They still thought you've got
to be worthy. You've got to show them something.
You've got to come up with the goods. Our Lord being so merciful,
he went with these folks anyways. He goes anyways for the centurion's
sake, right? But the centurion's going to
send them back with another message. And I'm going to take a liberty
with this story here because it's incomplete. It leaves this
part out, but I have no doubt this is what happens. Obviously,
the centurion finds out what these men have said to the Lord
because he sends other messengers back to set the record straight,
right? So here's what likely happened,
right? Our Lord says, yes, I will go.
I'll go back down to the centurion's house. I will heal his servant.
So he's walking with these elders, the Jews, and one of them gets
excited. Right? He's completed the task the centurion
gave him to do. Very excited. I'm going to run
ahead. I'm going to tell him that the master is going to come.
He's going to come heal his servant. So he runs down to the centurion's
house and he says, Master, good news, good news. We told him,
we told him, we asked him to come down and heal your servant
and he said he would. We put in a good word for you.
We told him that you're worthy. We told him about that synagogue
you built. We told him about the fact that you're really nice
to us and things like that. We told him you were worthy and
he's coming. He's gonna heal my servant. What do you think
the centurion did at that point? Gave you a simple message. Get
out of here. And he calls for his friends.
And he sends his friends back with another message. 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, saying unto him, Lord, trouble not thyself, for
I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof. Those boys
told you I was worthy. I had some value. I'm telling
you, I'm not worthy. I don't have any value. Verse
7, wherefore neither thought I myself worthy to come unto
thee, but say in a word and my servant shall be healed. I want
to get the record straight. I'm not worthy. He didn't come
talking about the synagogue he built. He didn't talk about the
fact that he could have been mean to the Jews, but he was
really nice to them. He didn't even bring up the fact that right
then he was advocating for his dear servant. Right? Didn't bring
up any of that. Why? Because he knew he was evil. He knew that even his best works,
his best works, tainted, malicious intentions, self-serving motives,
self-glorying, take the best thing I've ever done, you take
the best thing you've ever done, what is it? It's worthless, completely
and utterly unworthy. He approaches as an unworthy
sinner. Why? Because he knows this, same
thing everybody who has great faith knows, that with Christ,
worthiness is only found in unworthiness. Let's see an illustration of
that. Turn to 1 Kings 1. I'll give you a little bit of
a backstory here. King David is near death. His body can't
hold any heat. And so the sharks start circling,
right? Anytime there's going to be a hole in leadership, there's
a power vacuum. So everybody who thinks they
have a claim to the throne or might have an interest in it,
they start circling. And his oldest son, Adonijah, He decides
he's going to make himself king. Now, the Lord had already said,
when David goes down, Solomon's going to take his place. David
has already proclaimed this. But Adonijah says, nah, I'm the
oldest. I'm going to go after the throne. So he goes out, doesn't
tell David, doesn't tell the priest or the prophet or anybody
like that. He forms a cabinet, right? And he goes out and he
holds a rally and he offers sacrifices. And he proclaims himself to be
king. And the people are like, well, it's one of David's sons.
Okay. You know, whatever. They go along. And so David finds
out. David goes to Nathan and Zadok,
the priest and the prophet, says, you take Solomon, you put him
on my mule, you march him downtown, you hold a rally, you offer sacrifice,
you anoint him king in front of the people, you set this thing
straight. So they go down and they do just
that. And the people are so excited to have Solomon, they throw this
huge party in the streets, right? This great noise go out that
can be heard all over the kingdom. Adonijah and his cabinet are
sitting inside his house having a meal when they hear the racket
And so they ask, they say, hey, what's going on out there? And
the messenger tells them Solomon just got anointed king. People
are really happy about it. That's the noise you hear out
there. Uh-oh. Not only is Adonijah not king,
he's a usurper, right? He tried to usurp the king's
throne, which means he's got to die. He's got to suffer, right? So Adonijah gets scared, right? Now, Solomon will deal with Adonijah
twice. He will deal with him once in
mercy, and he will deal with him once in judgment. The one
in mercy, the first one we will see here, we will see the worthy
approach. Everybody who approaches this
way, they find that mercy. The second one, the judgment,
that's the unworthy approach. Now, look at verse 50. And Adonijah feared because of
Solomon, and arose and went and caught hold on the horns of the
altar. He gets scared. Solomon's going
to come after him. He goes down to the tabernacle.
You have the altar. What is the altar for? Sacrifice. What are the horns of the altar?
It speaks of the power, the power of the sacrifice of the Lord
Jesus Christ to his people, the power to take away sins, the
power to make peace with God for everybody he died for, that
great power. He goes down and he clings on
to the horns of the altar. See what happens next, 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 that 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, go fetch him. If
he's worthy, I'll spare him. Any wickedness found in him,
he dies. 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 thine house. Anybody feel like that was anticlimactic? Solomon said, we're gonna find
out if there's any wickedness in this man. Doesn't interrogate
him. This is all this man did. He
came down, bowed himself before the sovereign king, didn't say
a word, and he clung to the horns of the altar. What is the picture? Adonijah, what do you have to
say for yourself? Can you offer any excuse? Is
there any reason whatsoever that Solomon should show you mercy?
Crickets. Silence. Say something. Say something. Defend yourself in some way.
Crickets. He said absolutely nothing. Why? He's guilty. What was he going
to say? Hey, Solomon, you remember when
we were friends and we had some good days together? That makes
up for, you know, trying to usurp your throne. I probably would
have killed you and your mother when it was all said and done. What's he
going to say? He's guilty. He took his rightful place as
a guilty man before the sovereign king. He bowed down saying, whatever
you do with me is right. Guilty as charged. We agree with
God. Evil, guilty, worthy of punishment
right there. This is the only thing I've got.
This is my only plea right here and he clings on to the horns
of the altar. What do you got? What does a
sinner have? A man who is evil and impotent
A man with no hope standing before a sovereign and just king, he's
got Christ and him crucified alone. That's all he has, Christ
and his power to save, his power to make peace with the Father.
That's a worthy approach, folks. I've got no argument. I've got
no other plea. It is enough and it's everything. that Jesus died and that he died
for me. That is the worthy approach.
He lived. Solomon spares him. Let's see
the unworthy approach. Go to 1 Kings 2. David dies. Solomon rules in his stead. Adonijah
wants something. He will approach Solomon again,
but he won't do it directly. He knows that he's lost something
with Solomon, so he won't approach him directly. He works through
Bathsheba, Solomon's mother. And he's going to make a request
here. Look at verse 13. 1 Kings 2, 13. And Adonijah, the
son of Haggith, 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. Howbeit, the kingdom is 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 said
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 through this request,
Solomon executes Adonijah. What's he asking for? Abishag
is David, his father's concubine. And that's wrong. By law, that's
wrong. The son is not to have his father's wife. He's wrong
in this, but that's actually not the issue. You know what
the issue is? Entitlement. He goes to Bathsheba
and he says, listen, you and I both know that I was supposed
to be king. I'm the oldest son. I have it by birthright. And
you and I both know that all the people wanted me to be king.
The only reason Solomon's got it is because the Lord got involved,
right? It was supposed to come to me. It was mine by right.
So here's the thing. We both know I got gypped on
the deal. Go have Solomon give me Abishag to a wife and we'll
call it even, right? He owes me. I'm entitled. Give me, I brought
something to the table, now you give to me. This is the unworthy
approach, approaching with any sense of entitlement whatsoever. If I have any good works that
are to be recommended, that will recommend me to God, that means
he owes me. on some level. If there is something
about me which honors God, if there is something good about
me, then he must reward me for having that good thing. That's
entitlement. That gets you killed every single
time. But if this is your approach,
I'm guilty. I deserve to go to hell. That's
what's right. That's what's fair. That's what's
just. I have no entitlement whatsoever. There's nothing I can say. I
simply prostrate myself before the sovereign king. One thing
I have. I got the altar. Christ in him
crucified and that power to make peace and remove sin. Turns out
that's all you need. That is the worthy approach. Whoever you have great unworthiness,
you have great faith. Where you have great faith, you
have great unworthiness. They go hand in hand. This man
is said by our Lord to have the greatest faith in all of Israel.
Probably the greatest faith recorded in all of scripture. You know
what I'm most thankful for about this story? The brevity of it. It's 10 verses. and it gives
us the greatest illustration of faith in all scripture. You know what that tells me?
It tells me that great faith is not complicated. It is very,
very simple. There's three elements to it,
according to our story. Now to show you that, I want you to
go over to Matthew Chapter 8 and look at Matthew's version of
this. I'm going to show you here where
these three things are said, and then we will go back and
talk about them. I want you to get Matthew 8, look at verse
8. These are the three elements of great faith. Matthew 8, 8, the centurion answered
and said, Lord. Let's stop there for a minute. How do you address him? Lord. He believed Jesus of Nazareth
was God. That was the first element of
faith. Go on reading. 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 believed
that whatever the Lord spoke, that was a promise. and he always
kept his promises. Whatever he said could be relied
on. If he said it, if he promised
it, he had to make good at it. Next thing, look at verse nine.
It says, for I'm a man under authority, having soldiers under
me, and I say unto this man, go, and he goeth, and to another
come, and he cometh, and to my servant do this, and he doeth
it. It's the third element of great
faith. He believed that Christ had the ability, the sovereign
command authority and ability to do all that he required. Three major elements right here.
The first one, he believed Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, a
man, a God man that lived on this earth physically 2,000 years
ago was God. What is God? Say, you asked the
wrong question, it's who is God? No, we know who God is, it's
Jesus Christ. My question right now is, and I'm choosing this
carefully, what is God? God is I Am. He is the Alpha
and the Omega. He is the Beginning and the End.
He is the Sovereign One. He is the Omnipotent One who
holds all power and wields all power and is the source of all
power. He is holy. He hates sin. He has a perfect
sense of justice. He is altogether righteous. He
rules and reigns and controls. He is before all things and by
Him all things consist. That's God. That's Jesus Christ. Now I think it's interesting
if we had to pick an attribute to focus on this morning it will
be sovereignty because that is the overwhelming attribute that
is talked about in this passage of scripture. And it makes sense.
This centurion is a military man. He is a very primal individual. If he is standing next to another
man, one or two of them is in charge. There is always a pecking
order, and you know how that's come about, how that's decided?
If you can impose your will on me, you're in charge. If I can
impose my will on you, I'm in charge. That's how it works.
It is a very primal lifestyle. I'll pose this to you. If Jesus
of Nazareth can be acted upon, if another entity can impose
their will on him, he is not God. If Jesus of Nazareth can attempt
to impose his will on someone else and they can resist him,
he's not God. If Jesus of Nazareth can impose
his will on everyone, And none can resist His will. And everybody just does according
to His good pleasure and purpose. And nobody can act on Him. He's
God. That's what the centurion saw.
Whoever imposes His will, that is in fact God. Well, is Jesus
of Nazareth God? And all the inhabitants of the
earth are reputed as nothing. And he 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 Jesus of Nazareth. Can
you believe that? Can you believe he's God? That's the first element.
Here's the second element. He believed that he was able. That's a real simple point, folks.
He believed that what he required, he needed to be made whole. He
needed to stand before God without guilt, even though he was an
evil, wicked man. He needed all these things. He
needed a real righteousness. He needed a new heart, all these
things. He believed Jesus of Nazareth was able to do all that
was necessary for him to be saved. This is what Paul said. He said,
I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is
able. to keep that which I have committed
unto him against that day." And I'll tell you what folks, if
you got the first one nailed down, that Jesus of Nazareth, He's
God, makes this one real easy. Is He able? Isaiah 42, 4, He
shall not fail. Don't be discouraged. It's impossible
for Him. If He purposes to save you, you
must be saved because He cannot fail. He cannot lie. Notice,
I did not ask, do you think He's willing? has absolutely nothing
to do with it, because that would have everything to do with you.
My question is, do you believe he's able? Do you believe he
is able to save you with absolutely no help from you whatsoever?
Your hands off. That's the second element of
faith. He can. This God-man, Jesus of Nazareth,
he can. Here's the third one. He believed
that he was good to his word. What is going to happen tomorrow?
I have absolutely no idea. This is what Proverbs 27 once
says. It says, boast not thyself of tomorrow for thou knowest
not what a day may bring forth. I know it will be the will of
God. I know it will be whatever is best for all his people and
it will be whatever brings him the maximum glory. Outside of
that, I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen tomorrow.
You know what I am dead sure of though? More sure of than
anything else on the face of the earth Whatever he says in
his word, whatever promises he makes in his word right here,
they're done. They've already been accomplished. Whatever he says, he must accomplish
because he is God who cannot lie. Now, I could go through
a Rolodex of promises he made, but I'm gonna give you one so
we can focus it. Matthew 11, 28. Come unto me, all ye that
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Come, believe upon me. Trust me for everything in your
salvation. Don't look anywhere else. Who's
it to? Those who labor and are heavy
laden, weary sinners, tired, can't work their way out of this
mess. got a pack of sin on their back and he's just weighing them
down, can't shake it. He says, you come unto me and
you trust me, I'll take care of everything. It's all done. Now, this is where we split things. Either he's lying and a sinner
can come to him and trust him and he can end up in hell anyways,
or he is telling the truth and every single sinner bankrupt,
evil individual that comes to him and believes on him must
be saved because he is God who cannot lie. He always keeps his
word. Which one is it? This is what
it says. For all the promises of God in
him are yea and in him amen unto the glory of God by us. He made
that promise, therefore it must be kept. And if it must be kept,
and it has been kept, then you know what? Why would you not
come? I was talking to a man a couple
months ago, and we were talking about this very topic, and he
said, based on what I've heard this morning, it is utter disrespect
not to trust Jesus Christ. It is a slap in his face. Am
I allowed to come? Am I allowed to trust him? No. You're commanded to. It is an
out-and-out demand that you trust this God-man, Jesus of Nazareth,
and it's for this reason, because he is utterly trustworthy. All
his promises are yea and amen. I'll give you this last one.
Do you have anywhere else to look? Believe he's God? Believe he's able to save you
with no help from you? You believe he's good to his
word? Do you have anywhere else to look, or are you just clinging
on to the horns of that altar? Because you got that, folks.
You know what, you have great faith. You may have weak assurance,
which you shouldn't, but if you have that, you have great faith. Wherever you find great faith,
you always find unworthiness. Wherever you find unworthiness,
you always find great faith. And our Lord marveled at this
man. He marveled at what he had built, what he had made, what
he had created. And that creation, we marvel
back at him, that his great God, man, would give himself and do
these things for people like us. I'll leave you there. Happy Father's Day.