And for our Old Testament reading, turn to the book of Psalms, where our reading will be Psalm 67. Psalm 67. Listen to this. This is the very word of God. to the choir master with stringed instruments, a psalm, a song. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us.
That your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth. Let the peoples praise you, O God. Let all the peoples praise you. The earth has yielded its increase. God, our God, shall bless us. God shall bless us. Let all the ends of the earth fear him. And then for our New Testament reading and the text for this morning’s sermon, turn to Luke’s gospel, where we will now begin chapter seven. Luke chapter seven. And the text will be verses one through 10.
After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. Now, a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, he is worthy to have you do this for him, for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue. And Jesus went with them.
When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I’m not worthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore, I did not presume to come to you, but say the word and let my servant be healed. For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, go, and he goes, and to another, come, and he comes, and to my servant, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him. And turning to the crowd that followed him, said, I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.
Thus far the reading of God’s word. Let’s pray for his blessing upon it now. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit who breathed out the scriptures would also now illumine their pages and illumine our minds and speak to us and be our teacher through this holy word. We pray that Christ would be exalted And we pray this in his name. Amen. There are numerous powerful themes in this passage, in this account from the life of our Lord and of his ministry. Several things that are worthy of our notice and of our emphasis.
And what I want to start with is by pointing out the fact that verse nine says Jesus marveled. Jesus marveled. What would it take to cause the incarnate Son of God to marvel? Well, there were things that caused Jesus to marvel, and Scripture tells us about them. There are basically two specific kinds of situation in which Jesus marveled, and they both have to do with faith. And there are two sides of a coin, really.
Jesus marveled when Gentiles had faith, and he marveled when Jews didn’t. He marveled that someone that had none of the privileges of the covenant community, nevertheless, has strong faith like the centurion. And then he marveled when people who had all the privileges, all the advantages, were brought up in the covenant community, had the synagogues and the reading of God’s Word, and so on and so forth. And yet, they had no faith, or their faith was very, very weak.
We read where Jesus was in the synagogue. There was a man who was sick, was in need of healing. And the people were watching Jesus to see if he’d heal him on the Sabbath, because they wanted to criticize him, they wanted to accuse him. And the Scripture says, Jesus looked around at them in anger, And it says that he was grieved, and he marveled at their hardness of heart. So, those are the two things that caused Jesus to marvel.
When people from the community of faith apparently have no faith, and when people who don’t have the advantages of that community of faith have faith and strong faith, like this warrior that we read about. And that’s what he was. He was a warrior. He was a centurion, a commanding officer in the legions of Rome.
We’re told in verse one that Jesus entered Capernaum. If you do a survey of the Gospels, you see that Capernaum was where Jesus spent much of his time during his earthly ministry. Capernaum, the city there on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, we could think of it as the home base of Jesus’ ministry, as he would go out and preach throughout Galilee. Capernaum was the place to which he frequently returned. He had a house there. We don’t know if it was his own or if it was maybe Peter’s house, but Scripture speaks of a house in Capernaum where they would return.
Chapter 7, as we’ve come to Chapter 7 in Luke now, having concluded the Sermon on the Plain, Chapter 7 especially highlights the compassion of Jesus. Next week, we’ll see him raise the dead son of a widow in the city of Nain. There are several snapshots in the life and ministry of Jesus in Luke 7 that exhibit and highlight His compassion. And the first of them is this one where there’s this encounter that Jesus has with a centurion. Now, We read of several centurions in the Bible.
These were men, the name comes from the fact that a centurion in the Roman armies and the legions had command over roughly 100 soldiers. It’d make him sort of the equivalent in modern army terms of being a captain, which means that he’d been in the Roman army already for a number of years, and he’d risen through the ranks. And he was an experienced war fighter.
Interestingly, not only the ones that we see in scripture, but as a general historical fact, most centurions tended to be men of good reputation. Most centurions were men of good character, they sort of had to be in order to be selected for the position. And that’s certainly true of the ones we encounter in the New Testament. Another thing about centurions, just in general is Historically speaking, with very rare exceptions, because there were exceptions, centurions were all Gentiles. That makes sense, doesn’t it? actually discovered, doing a little bit of study this week, that there are historical records of Jews who served in the Roman legions or served in the Roman armies, and a few of them actually became centurions.
So it wasn’t outside of the realm of possibility. But most of them were Gentiles, including this one, about whom we read today. He was certainly a Gentile. We can tell that from just from verse five, the way the Jews talked about him. And the fact that he’s a Gentile makes this event all the more remarkable.
And what I really want to highlight and what I want us to learn from this passage is that Christ Jesus accepts and rewards the faith of anyone from any nation who trusts in him. That’s the point of this passage. Christ Jesus accepts and rewards the faith of anyone from any nation who trusts in him. And as we consider these verses briefly this morning, I want us to consider the various aspects of this man’s faith, this man who came to Jesus.
We’ll see, first of all, that he had a virtuous faith. Secondly, he had a humble faith. And finally, he had a confident faith. So let’s consider, first of all, the centurion’s virtuous faith. The moral excellence of this man is shown in several things. First of all, the very fact that he had compassion for his servant.
He had a servant who was very sick, even at the point of death, the text says, and he sought help from the Lord Jesus Christ. This, the text tells us that this servant was highly valued by him. Now, we could take it several ways. That expression can could be taken several ways. But It’s not that this servant, that he paid a lot of money to purchase this slave. When it says that he was highly valued to him, that’s not what’s in view here.
The word in the Greek there is that this man held this servant in honor. where it says he was highly valued by him, the Greek word there, the root word is temeo, means I honor. That’s actually, it’s from that word that the name Timothy comes from. The name Timothy means one who honors God, and that first part of the name comes from this same word. In other words, this centurion had high regard for this servant of his who was so sick.
We should also note that In verse two, he’s referred to as a servant, and your Bible might even have a footnote that makes reference to the word that’s used there, a bondservant, a doulos is the Greek word. When he’s mentioned in verse seven, the ESV chose to use the same word, servant, there, but it’s actually a different word in the Greek. The word is pais, which means boy. So that teaches us a couple of things. He’s probably a young servant, but also the use of those two words for the same individual indicates that this servant was dear to him, that he calls him his boy. This man cared about his servant.
He had compassion for him, and that’s one of the aspects of his virtue, part of the moral excellence that’s be put before us in this passage. Secondly, his virtue is seen in the good relations that he has with the community in which he lived and served. He wasn’t a Jew, but in its wisdom, the Roman army had seen fit to station him among Jews. He had good relations with them. even as the member of an occupying army. He had good relations with the leaders.
In other words, the elders. When it says that he sent elders of the Jews to Jesus, those would be the community leaders there in Capernaum, the Jewish community leaders. The word there in the Greek is presbuteroi. They were the presbyters. Those are the ones that the centurion sent to Jesus. So, let’s not forget, that at this point in history, the Jews were a conquered and subjugated nation. Rome ruled over them. Rome was the occupier, and the centurion was sort of the representative.
Usually that kind of a relationship the leader of an occupying force. That kind of relationship tends to entail animosity, doesn’t it? Tends to entail mutual distrust. So the occupiers don’t trust the people they’re having to keep watch over and the people that are being held under the thumb of an occupying force don’t trust the representatives of that force or of that government.
But the case is significantly different here. There’s mutual respect, it seems, even affection. Did you see what they said to Jesus about this man in verse five? He loves our nation. He’s not just putting up with the fact that he got sent out here into the land of Palestine has to bide his time, babysitting our city or our region. He doesn’t seem to resent that he loves to people among whom he’s serving. This goes beyond simple goodwill. And you can see how they had mutual appreciation for him and affection, too, for him, because it says in their text that these presbyters pleaded earnestly. They advocated for him.
And you can use your imagination and picture a much different scenario, can’t you? the resident centurion who’s in charge of all the soldiers that are there to keep order and to enforce the power of Rome. He’s got a sick servant, wants his servant healed, so he calls the Jewish elders and said, I’ve heard about this Jesus, go get him for me. And the Jews might go to Jesus and say, this centurion wants to see you. But that isn’t the spirit at all with which they went to Jesus.
They pleaded, oh, please do this for him. He’s worthy. It’s really touching. So you see this man’s moral excellence in his compassion for his servant, in the good relations he had with the Jewish community, and also in his generosity. They testify, these elders testify to Jesus, this is the guy who built our synagogue for us. So he was a generous man. He gave material support to this community. And he gave material support to benefit the regular worship of Yahweh.
That’s kind of stunning. One commentator writing about this said, it’s true that some Romans helped religion out of a cynical regard for the best interests of the state. But this centurion was a man of faith, not a cynic. In other words, he wasn’t supporting the local synagogue just to keep the peace, just to toss a bone to the people. He cared. He supported the worship of the true and living God.
And because he’s obviously a man of faith, Jesus even says so, it’s very reasonable to think that he probably attended synagogue. Gentiles could do that. It wasn’t uncommon. Gentiles who were God-fearers would go to synagogue along with their Jewish neighbors.
This man integrated into the life of Israel, so much so that he provided the money to build their synagogue. Or if he didn’t provide it, entirely himself. He was what we might call a major donor. He helped them build that place of worship. And Jesus testified that this man had faith. In fact, he had exceptional faith. His faith was demonstrated, it was obvious, it was put on display. The fruit of it, in other words, was his moral excellence and his virtue.
And we read in 2 Peter 1, verse 5, as Peter’s talking about our faith, he commands that we make every effort to supplement our faith with virtue, and our virtue with knowledge. And you know that that list goes on. But when he says we’re to supplement our faith, he’s not saying that faith is this commodity that we have, and if we have it, then well, we need to make sure that we add to it virtue. And what he’s saying is that as we cultivate and pursue virtue, that will cause our faith to be on display. It will prove our faith. It will exhibit our faith through virtue, through moral excellence, knowledge, and all those other things the Apostle Peter mentioned. So this centurion had faith, and it was a virtuous faith.
We see it in several different ways in this short exposure that we have to him. And I want, before we move on to the second point, I want to make a point of application here at this time, having to do with the profession of arms. Because I’m still wearing the uniform of the United States Army for a little while longer, it might seem a little bit self-serving. But I think it’s important for us to take into consideration as this warfighter, soldier, centurion comes to Jesus, and we find that he was a man of faith. I think it teaches us very clearly that the profession of arms is an honorable one. It’s an honorable profession in which followers of Christ may serve with a clear conscience.
In Acts 10, verses 1 and 2, Peter enters the home of a God-fearing Gentile centurion. A number of months ago when we were back in Luke chapter 3, John the Baptist was preaching, he was calling people to repent, and people who came to him said, what must we do? Here’s what we do for, I’m a tax collector. As a tax collector, what should I do to repent? And different other categories of people came to him and asking those kinds of questions. Show us what repentance looks like in our context. And soldiers came to him and asked him that. Here, a centurion sends to Jesus.
And in none of those examples, Peter in Acts 10, John the Baptist in Luke 3, or here in the text we’re looking at this morning, in none of those cases were soldiers told to repent of being soldiers. If you really want to be serious about your faith, nobody ever said, lay down your arms, quit being a warrior. None of them were told that.
And yet some, in our day, even some that I’ve met in the United States Army, some people mistakenly assume that you can’t be a warfighter and serve a Savior who tells you to turn the other cheek or to love your enemies or to be peacemakers. I think they’re confused.
I think Scripture very clearly teaches that a godly person can serve in the military. in a godly way. Some of the godliest men in church history have been soldiers. I don’t have time this morning to lay out a theology of just war or to give a thorough exposition of the Sixth Commandment and explain why killing in warfare is not the same as murder, but I’ll just say Christians can be soldiers, and if they are, then they should be the best soldiers they can.
Well, secondly, this centurion not only had virtuous faith, but he had humble faith. And as we’re reading through the text, I hope you caught sight of this remarkable humility that he had. And for starters, it goes back again to this servant of his. He had regard for the life of his servant. He cared enough for this suffering servant of his to go and seek help from the healer.
Unlike, for example, the Amalekites who raided Ziklag when David and his men were away, took away David’s and all of his companions’ belongings. And so David and his men go in pursuit, and along the way they find this slave, slave of one of the Amalekites, and he becomes sick. What did those Amalekites do with this poor servant who’d become sick? They just ditched him. They left him there to die. He was too much of an encumbrance to them.
But this centurion valued his servant. He honored his subordinate as a person. Someone with worth, innate worth. So there’s this humility. He was a man who, if he’d wanted to, if he’d been so inclined, could just ignore the plight of a servant. He’s near death, just let him die. I’ll get another servant. That wasn’t his attitude. He cared for his subordinates. We also see his humility in the fact that he, in seeking the healing power of Christ, the way he went about it was he asked, he entreated, he didn’t command or demand. With his authority, it’s possible he could have done such a thing.
He could have given an order. come heal my servant.” The text doesn’t tell us anything about his job description. We don’t know why he was there in Capernaum. It was probably in some supervisory capacity over soldiers that were part of the occupying army. But it stands to reason, yeah, he was there to keep the peace and to be an enforcer of Roman authority. That was his job.
And you know, from other passages of Scripture, even, that Roman soldiers were allowed to make certain demands of the people. That’s where the whole phrase about going the extra mile comes from. Because if you were a Roman soldier, and you were walking along, and you had your gear with you, you could just press anybody you wanted into service and say, carry my stuff. And you had to carry the soldier’s gear for him for a whole mile. And it was in that context that Jesus says, if someone requires you to go with him a mile, go with them too. Rome was in charge, and they could make demands of the people.
And you see the humility of this centurion that he asserted no such thing. He didn’t exert any authority or attempt to exert any authority over Jesus. He didn’t place him under any kind of compulsion. He didn’t make any presumption. He even uses that expression in the text. Therefore, I did not presume to come to you. But we’ll get to that in just a moment. Because he considered himself unworthy. That’s the third aspect of this man’s humility. He considered himself unworthy. In fact, The way Luke describes the event, he never even approached Jesus personally. He probably never even laid eyes on him.
Now in Matthew, Matthew abbreviates the account. So for brevity’s sake, Matthew portrays the event as if the centurion went to Jesus. But the way Luke, in his more expanded version, renders it, he sent first the elders of the Jews. And then when he found out Jesus was actually coming to his house, he sent friends and said, don’t be troubled. He sent envoys. He didn’t even consider himself worthy to go to Jesus. He certainly didn’t consider himself worthy for Jesus to come into his home.
So he sent the Jewish leaders to mediate for him. And you notice the contrast here. In verse four, the Jewish elders, when they’re talking to Jesus, say, oh, he’s worthy. He’s worthy for you to do this for him. But then in verse six, what does the centurion say about himself?
I’m not worthy. Even then, he apparently sent friends. He never approached Jesus personally, as far as Luke’s account indicates. And he doesn’t appeal to his generosity either, does he? Lord, in case you weren’t aware, I built the synagogue for these folks, so I was wondering if maybe you could heal my servant. Didn’t even appeal to that. His whole approach to Jesus was, I am not worthy.
You might expect a man with governmental authority and military force on his side, at his disposal to be bold, to be assertive, to be demanding. Not this man. This man had a humble faith. But then finally, we see that he also had a confident faith. Confident faith. And isn’t really that the essence of faith? Confidence. Faith is confidence in what we hope for.
That’s the way the NIV renders Hebrews 11.1. That’s the definition of faith. It’s confidence in what we hope for.
And this man believed in the power of Christ to heal. So, he asked Jesus to heal his servant. Verse 3. Why else would he have sent for him if he didn’t think he could do it? He’d heard the reports. And here’s what he thinks Jesus needs to do. This is all he thinks Jesus needs to do. It’s captured in that statement where he says, say the word, Lord, just say the word and my servant will be healed. This man was sure that the only thing Christ had to do was say the word, give the order, and it’ll be done. And he was familiar with that kind of authority, because he exercised it on a lower scale.
I, in my present and final military assignment, serve at the headquarters of a military police brigade. We have companies or battalions under us in various different places all the way up the West Coast. Our headquarters, the one over us, and where the two-star general who’s in charge of our brigade and several other brigades, is all the way over on the other side of the country, on the East Coast. Do you suppose that that two-star general has to come over to Los Alamitos to tell us what needs to be done? General gives an order, and we do what the general says.
The centurion recognizes that Jesus has that kind of authority, but not just over soldiers. Jesus has that kind of authority. He has that kind of authoritative word over life and death and health. The centurion understood authority. That is one of the central themes of this passage and of this scenario. The centurion knew all about authority. He knew about submission to it. because he was a man under authority. And he knew about the exercise of authority because he had soldiers under him.
That’s what he says in verse 8. And it’s these things that he says to Jesus that caused him to marvel. any one of the 100 or so soldiers underneath him. If he says to any one of them, go, the guy goes. If he says to one of them, come, he comes. If he says to a servant, do this, the servant does what he says.
So he knew that in the military context, but he revealed the fact that he understood Christ’s authority that transcends that infinitely. Here’s what his faith told him. His faith told him that he knew Jesus held authority over life and death and health. We can’t know the full extent of his theological understanding, his theological knowledge. But what must have been his theology of Christ if he could confess First of all, that I’m not worthy, Lord, for you to come under my roof. Therefore, I did not presume to come to you, but say the word and let my servant be healed. That could even just as easily be translated, say the word and my servant shall be healed. He must have had a pretty robust theology of Christ to be able to say that.
So, is this man’s faith worthy of admiration? Jesus thought so. When he heard these things, he marveled at him. He turned to the crowd that followed him and said, I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith. Many people marveled at Jesus. They marveled at his teaching. Obviously, they marveled at the miracles that he performed. But here we see the Son of Man marveling.
Why? Because a foreigner possessed greater faith than anyone Jesus had encountered among the covenant community. In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus turned a lot of things upside down. He said, the people who are poor and hungry and mourning are blessed. That’s counterintuitive, seems upside down, seems backwards to us. But that’s what he taught.
And that upending of things continues as we move in out of the Sermon on the Plain and into these events recorded in Luke 7. The example that we’re seeing here is this upending in the sense that Jesus found greater faith in the heart of a Gentile than in God’s people. And his affirmation of the centurion’s faith underscores Luke’s emphasis that is woven throughout the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts as well. That Lukean emphasis on the acceptance of the Gentiles into the Church of Jesus Christ. This event also harkens back to what we saw in chapter 6, verse 46, where Jesus said, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don’t do what I tell you? The centurion in our text today, a military commander, addressed Jesus as Lord.
He was certain that Christ had authority over the wellness of his servant and that he could simply order him to be healed. Jesus has that kind of authority. And if we understand authority, then this means that, number one, all of us owe Jesus our complete obedience, our full, wholehearted obedience. We must do what he tells us. We must not be among those who say, Lord, Lord, and don’t do what he says. But we should obey him.
And secondly, because Jesus has all that authority, He has full authority to justify everyone who calls upon him. Christ receives everyone who comes to him in faith. He rewards that faith. He’s pleased to do that. Christ accepts and rewards the faith of anyone from any nation who trusts in him. And on the day of judgment, he will openly acknowledge and acquit every single one of them, including you, who have come to him for refuge, who sought refuge in his strong name. Thank God that Jesus has that authority.
Let’s pray. Father, we praise you for our Savior. Lord, we pray that you’d give us faith that would cause people to marvel. Work that faith in us. Lord, it is your gift, even as we heard in our words of pardon and comfort. Lord, strengthen our faith. Build us up in it. Give us virtuous faith. Give us faith that is humble, faith that is confident, confident in you. Thank you, Lord, for your great gospel. Apply it increasingly daily to us, we pray. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.