The sermon today will be coming from Matthew chapter 8, verses 5
through 13. If you don't have a Bible, it'll
be in Page 762 of the Bible under your seat. 762 This is
what God's Word says. When he had entered Capernaum, a
centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, Lord, my
servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.
And he said to him, I will come and heal him.
But the centurion replied, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come
under my roof. But only say the word, and my
servant will be healed. For I too am a man under
authority, with soldiers under me.
And I say to 1 Go, and he goes, and to another come, and he
comes, and to my servant do this, and he does it.
When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who
followed him, Truly I tell you, with no one in Israel have I
found such faith. I tell you, many will come from
east and West and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the Kingdom
will be thrown into the outer darkness.
In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth
into the centurion. Jesus said Go, let it be done
for you as you have believed, and the servant was healed at
that very moment. This is God's word.
What's going on? Port City family and friends.
How are we doing? Good.
My name is Tanner. It's good to be with you at Port
City All. We are on a mission to empower
people. Empower means you can do it and
we can help. We want to help people follow
Jesus. We believe that the gospel
changes everything in your life and God actually made you to
multiply your life. You might not feel like you're
some apostle or super Christian or something like that.
Well, the good news is you don't need to be like God multiplies
the lives of those who know him. So whether you've known Jesus
for 5 minutes or 50 years, we believe God wants to multiply
your life and we want to help you.
You can do it and we can help. So what I'm going to do is I'm
going to pray for our time in God's Word that we would hear
what God wants us to hear. And even over just this vision
that we believe God wants to multiply our lives.
Will you pray with me? Our Father, we believe God, that
you want to multiply our lives, that because of what Christ has
done that God, your normal means of taking your mission
throughout the earth is by people just embodying this
message, by people knowing you, by the Spirit and God that you
give new life, that new life comes to the next generation
through the one before it. So God, make this a church that
multiplies disciples. God, would you make us a
training center, a hub, a boot camp, if you will, Lord, where
people are just pumped out who love you, know your word,
understand the church, and are on mission, on fire for you.
So God, open our eyes to understand your word right now.
We pray in Jesus name, Amen. I know the last time you thought
about how much authority is baked into your daily life, you
tell your Mama, yes ma'am, or you should you tell your coach
yes coach. You know some of those usually
isn't it crazy? The yes coaches seem quicker
than the yes Mams, don't they parents?
The coach ones were like, yes, coach, we'll run 100 miles for
coach. But employees listen to their
bosses. You know, there's, there's a
sense in which authority is just baked into the design of way,
the way things are just supposed to go.
OK, Now that could go one of two ways.
When somebody is a bad authority, it just creates
anxiety. They have the positional
authority and they have the power to kind of everybody under
them is looking over their shoulder.
They're not at ease. There's no peace.
There's a sense of just tension, right?
But when somebody is in that position, has the power, the
approachability, the kindness and their thinking of the good
of those under their care and leadership, authority is a good
gift. And if you've never been under
good authority, part of you wants to be.
Maybe your parents were were awful.
I know that happens. Maybe you've experienced some
bad things at the hands of authority.
But what we all long for is this safety that good authority was
designed to give us in creativity and rest, in joy.
And what we're going to see in today's text is a Roman military
official who knew the top of the food chain in the worldly power
did not go there, did not go to that authority.
He's going to go to Jesus, who is not the authority over
religious topics. He's the authority over all
authorities. He is the king of kings, and he
approaches him in a posture of childlike faith, like a kid
going to their dad. He just approaches Jesus with a
giddiness because he's seen something in Jesus that he is
both approachable and able. He's kind, he's good, and he's
powerful. We're going to see in Jesus what
authority was meant to do, which is produce in us a childlike
trust, independence. OK, so in our text today, we're
going to take it from 4 angles. We're going to take it from the
angle of the centurion, the crowd who Jesus turns and talks
to, the servant who the centurion came on behalf of, and
lastly from Jesus himself. If you are ready, let me hear
you say I'm ready. Point #1 the centurion.
We see in the centurion just the audacity of faith.
We we read here in verse 5, when he that's Jesus had entered
Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to
him, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home suffering
terribly. And he said to him, I will come
and heal him. But the centurion replied, Lord,
I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the
word and my servant will be healed.
For I too am a man under authority with soldiers under
me. And I say to 1 go, and he goes
into another come and he comes into my servant.
Do this and he does it. When Jesus heard this, he
marvelled and said to those who followed him, truly I tell you,
with no one in Israel have I found such faith.
And then in verse 13, after kind of turning to the crowd, Jesus
turns to the centurion and says, go, let it be done for you as
you have believed. And the servant was healed at
that very moment. OK, context matters.
Remember, like Jesus finishes the Sermon on the Mount.
He's coming down the mountain, Leper approaches him.
Last week, you go back and check that sermon if you missed it.
And then this week it says he's walking into Capernaum.
So I want to show you that on a map real quick.
Remember, the Bible is real life.
It's not just a a book that somebody made-up.
This happened. OK, So the region like the area
is Galilee and Capernaum is there.
You see the Sea of Galilee towards the top of the screen
and Capernaum is right by the Sea of Galilee.
Galilee is where most of Jesus's ministry happened in his three
years. And the Bible says that a
centurion approached him. OK, somebody say centurion, I
made y'all do that so I y'all won't feel as silly during the
sermon when I mess it up. It's a weird word to say
centurion. So if I mess it up, just know I
heard some of y'all just slip a little bit, OK?
I love you. God bless you.
OK, so a centurion is a Roman military official of about 100
soldiers. OK, so he's in charge of about
100 soldiers. And he comes before Jesus and he
says, I got a servant. I got a servant that needs
healing. Will you come and heal him?
Just like, oh, I'll come. He doesn't say will you come?
He says, I have a servant, will you heal him?
And he says I'll come. And he says, Nah, I've got
authority over some people. When I say the word, it gets
done. You just say the word and Jesus
is amazed. So there's a couple things about
faith that I think the Lord wants us to grab from this text.
OK, First is the object of faith the object of faith?
OK, notice that the the centurion does not look to
himself as the reason why Jesus should intervene.
He literally says, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come
under my roof, y'all, that. I mean, we just read over that.
Of course I'm not worthy to have the Lord come over, y'all.
We tend to think we're worthy of a lot.
We don't struggle with thinking too much of ourselves.
OK, But this man, he comes to Jesus not on the basis of his
worthiness, but Jesus's willingness, y'all.
This story is rooted in what he'd seen in Jesus's heart and
power and kindness, not in what he brought to the table.
Lord, yesterday I read my Bible. Will you heal my servant?
You know, like there is no sense in which he feels valid to ask
What? A picture of faith?
Many people don't ask because they don't feel worthy.
Do you see the irony? You might think I don't ask God
to do anything 'cause I don't feel worthy.
And it's like the point of the gospel is that God makes
unworthy people worthy, right? It's in our unworthiness.
We come to the Lord because of who he is, not who you are.
So if I could sit with you and hear about your sin and all the
things I'll be like, that's great.
Let me tell you mine, OK? We don't come to the Lord
because we're worthy. We come because he's willing.
So what the. And let's think about this real
quick, OK? Because there's something
assumed in the text, right? What we get in the text is how
he relates to Jesus is based on Jesus authority, right, his
power, like when Jesus says I'm willing to come and he's like,
no, no, no, no, I got authority. And so we get this image of like
him really understanding authority.
But why he came to Jesus is because Jesus is good.
That make sense. What the centurion is modeling
for us is why we come to Jesus and how.
But if we run with how first we forget why, OK, He came to Jesus
because he had a problem he could not solve on his own, and
he knew Jesus was good. You know, we've said this a lot.
Somebody can have all power and not be good enough for you to
approach, you know, some power you ain't approaching.
Oftentimes we associate power with unapproachability.
But do we see how he appeals to his authority?
And that's wrapped up in his person, his presence, the person
of Jesus is approachable and able.
He's willing, he's able. So in his examples, he says, I
have AI say to 1 soldier go, he goes, I say to 1 come, he comes
and I say to my servant come. And he does.
So he appeals to the concept of authority, which he himself gets
to do. And he says that's at play here.
Do you see that? Which is kind of a cool thing to
think about. It's like he was just a Roman
soldier, y'all. He didn't know the Old
Testament. He didn't know no stories, but
he knew something. He knew enough that Jesus,
you're good, I've seen something, I've heard something.
You are good and you are able. And he comes to him.
He says based on what I know, you don't even need to come.
And again, his understanding is rooted in who Jesus is, not who
he is. But this is what's cool too.
The centurion is a lesson for us that you don't need to know a
ton. You just have to live in light
of what you know. Some of us keep learning things
and don't live in light of what we know, right?
Isn't the goal to live what we know?
What he knows is you're good and you're able, and he operates
according to that, right? The object of his faith is
Jesus, and the object of his faith is big.
So he's asking this big object that is Jesus to do something
big, right? So before we go on, we can't get
in our heads that this story makes it so that we can just run
around saying words like in demonstrating what his faith
looks like, you have to catch what he saw or you'll never do
what he did. Does that make sense?
He saw the Christ, He saw Jesus. His ask is big because his God
was big. Show me your asks.
I'll show you your God. He went to the Lord and just saw
Him. The way your faith grows is by
looking at a big object of your faith.
Your faith does not grow by focusing on you having big
faith. It grows as your understanding
of His trustworthiness, His goodness, His approachability
and ability grows. Second thing about faith is the
grab of faith. So we got the object, but there
is something about this grab He does here, right?
Jesus says I'm willing to come do it, and He cuts him off and
says, Nah, just say the word. That is some bold faith.
There's an element of he is grabbing God himself and saying
do it different than you're intending to do it right now and
changes his mind, which is amazing.
There's a sense in which what the grab of faith does is, is
grabbing God and letting him be God.
You got to let God be God. It's not enough to know that he
is what faith is is saying God be who you are.
I'm living like that's true. So do it if you are so please be
so OK, so I want to talk around just kind of the again, the
culture, American faith culture, y'all.
What this man is not doing is flexing his faith.
Y'all. He's just demonstrating it.
It's the vehicle to get who he wants, which is Messiah on
behalf of his servant. Y'all faith is not to be our
brand. Does that make sense?
Unhealthy faith culture can go one of two ways.
One is faith just becomes your brand such that you want people
to pay attention to how big your faith is.
You are center of your faith. That is not healthy faith
culture, OK, because it's the opposite of what we're talking
about where you're not convinced by the other, you actually some
kind of way or into yourself and it becomes a means to get what
you want. And then when the nose come, you
stop because actually what you wanted was it and not him, OK.
But the opposite side of unhealthy faith culture is when
you don't ask. Does that make sense?
The flip side, we can use our brains to guard our heart.
I'm talking to some people who know a lot of Bible, like
myself. OK, listen, what we can
sometimes do is we can take our brain and make excuses for God
and not engage our heart in a childlike manner the way he
does. He don't know much.
He just takes his heart as it is.
He has a need he can't meet and he goes to the source who can
handle it and he says handle it. Handle it in accordance with who
you are and what we do through our experience and through our
our just inner jadedness or critic or even in the name of
not wanting God to look bad. I can't have the Lord looking
bad out here. So let me not ask something big
in front of people who might then question how good he is,
right? And that's what I do is I become
God's bodyguard through theology.
I don't want you to look bad, Lord.
So let me not demonstrate faith so that you don't look bad.
Think about that sentence. Let me not demonstrate faith so
that you don't have to look bad, Lord, because I don't actually
leave. You will show up.
You see how that works? And So what happens is what
childlike faith does is it just puts your heart on the table
with God and you just live with God where you're at.
If you need God to show up, you beg him.
When he doesn't, guess what you do, You weep.
Is this text a promise that your life is coming true if you ask
hard enough? Absolutely not.
Not at all. That's not Matthew's intent.
It's a window into who Messiah is.
It is not a promise of what he'll do in every situation,
always. Many people did not get their
miracle when he walked the earth.
Many. This is not a formula for you to
get your miracle, period. But there is a window here into
what faith is. It's just taking life on its
terms and just go with it. When it's painful, live in pain.
When you need him to show up, ask him to show up.
But I don't see anywhere in the text where we explain for others
how God isn't really who he could be.
And let me stop you there. So guys, I think healthy faith
culture is just let God be God. Let him be a healthy authority.
Let him be the dad to your child likeness.
Let him just be the one you ask. My kids have learned there's
certain things that will happen if they ask me and there's
certain things that won't. If they won't, why'd you give
them that? They asked, right?
There's something about the ask that is just so powerful and
there's a reality to verse 13. You cannot duck which says let
it be done for you as you have believed.
You just got to sit in that. So you can't.
You can't run with the faith theology that runs to God will
do all things and you can't run with one that says he will do
nothing like there's a reality that there's some stuff he'll do
if we ask. That's the life of faith is
trusting him that he is the prize, not ultimately what he
gives, but and particularly y'all notice how big his faith
is on behalf of somebody else. He ain't even asking for his own
sake. There's love of God and neighbor
right before our eyes right here.
Notice how bold his faith is on behalf of somebody else.
But Jesus takes this moment and turns to the crowd.
Look with me, let's talk about the crowd.
There's there's some some scandalous stuff gets said right
here in verse 10. When Jesus heard this, he
marveled and said to those who followed him, truly I tell you,
with no one in Israel have I found such faith.
I tell you, many will come from east and West and recline at
table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven,
while the sons of the Kingdom will be thrown into the outer
darkness and that place there will be weeping and gnashing of
teeth. Got to speed up a little bit.
Three points about the Kingdom. First, the access of the
Kingdom, y'all, the Kingdom is available to all, everybody, by
grace through faith. OK, what this is communicating?
This is a Roman soldier, OK, Jesus came down the mountain.
He's fulfilling the the story of Yahweh all the way back to the
Exodus. He went up on the mountain,
taught the law, the Moses picture, all that.
Go back and listen. If you don't see all those
connections, it's OK. But what is being communicated
to us? Think about it.
The first miracle, which there are 10 in Matthew chapters 8 and
9, was with a leper, OK? A leper had no access to God,
was declared unclean. And the second miracle is to a
Roman military official, y'all, what is being communicated to us
is the the party has arrived and who wants to join it is
different than who you thought. You would think there'd be a
line of a certain type of people, but who Messiah is
drawing to himself is the people that the Jews would have been
like, Nah, lepers and Roman military officials.
No, Roman military officials probably had a list of stuff
they'd seen and done. Let me just put it like that.
They use their authority in interesting ways in the name of
Rome. We can't know for sure what he
did. But you don't get that position,
no kind of way. And you got to do certain stuff
when you have it. It's just reality.
And Messiah is letting this man be on his team.
So what Jesus does in this moment is he is declaring
definitively all the Kingdom is not inherited by blood.
And what Yahweh was doing all the way back with Abraham, who
is y'all's guy. Abraham Once Upon a time was a
Gentile. Want to know how he became a
Jew? Because God called him it
renamed him and he demonstrated faith in me before he ever had a
system of trust and sacrifices and covenant of circumcision and
all the stuff. It was always by grace through
faith always. And so he names drops all the
people that the the the Jews were homies with Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob. He's saying I'm a be chilling
with them one day with guys like my man right here and a lot of
y'all won't be. What he's communicating is the
the Kingdom is available to all who think they need grace.
Y'all grace offends you if you don't think you need it.
Y'all the the the air in heaven, if you will.
You still can't see it. Isn't it amazing?
You can't see air, but you are constantly interacting with it.
It's grace. The way you access grace is by
the nose of faith, OK, Your nose takes in grace, breathes it in,
breathes it out, OK. That's how we access it.
It's what God does for us that we can't do for ourselves.
And where God is not, obviously God is omnipresent.
Y'all know what I mean? The other air option is self
righteousness. I stand on my own, I do what I
did this, I'm a good person, I know the stories I went to
church. That heart posture is just
antithetical to the Kingdom. That's what Jesus is
communicating. And by and large, the people of
Israel had gotten to a place through the leadership and all
the different things where they just, they were not by grace
through faith, trusting in in Yahweh.
And the evidence is the fact that they want to kill Messiah
and don't want him, don't want to follow him.
They wouldn't let God be God. Ironically, they had a whole
system but weren't demonstrating childlike faith.
They weren't asking him to demonstrate his goodness to the
Romans. They wanted the Romans dead, you
know. They wanted to overthrow him.
God is looking for people who will trust Him by grace through
faith. God is looking for people who
will worship Him as spirit and truth.
He's looking for people who don't stand on their worthiness
but know that he still wants them.
That's grace. Second thing, the texture of the
Kingdom. I can't help but notice how
relational the text is. Think about it.
The centurion comes on behalf of the servant.
Jesus cares about the servant. He cares about the centurion.
Then the centurion shows the faith.
Jesus turns to the crowd and teaches them what the centurion
just told them that they should have paid attention to but
missed. And then after he turns the
centurion, it says, you're good, your guy's good.
Go. It's very relational.
And in his little speech, he brings up Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob. Y'all kind of the the imagery
here, y'all is literally of like a heavenly banquet where they're
eating food and chilling the heroes of the faith and
potentially those in the crowd if they will repent and stop
trusting in their works, but in what Christ has done, they could
be in on the action. Here's the idea, y'all, you know
what you do when you eat food? You share stories, you share
stories of heroes. The good news of the Bible is
there's one hero. Just one is King Jesus.
It's this imagery of us in a heavenly banquet just chopping
it up, talking about how good Jesus is.
They ain't sitting around toasting to themselves.
Abraham, you remember when you that ain't that ain't the
conversation. OK, There's an air here of
relational invitation. Jesus is saying, so we're going
to talk about hell in a minute, but just hear me that behind
Jesus's words of warning is a posture of invitation to the
banquet. Are you with me?
Sometimes you won't hear an invitation, so you got to hear a
warning. But the posture is please be at
the table celebrating the one hero, which is not you.
And if you think you're the hero, let's go to coffee after
service because I'm like, listen, none of us is the hero.
There's one hero and he wants to chop it up with you and break
bread with you. And then lastly, the timing of
the Kingdom. You know what the Bible teaches
that in the person of Jesus, the Kingdom has come and it is still
coming. It's known as the here and not
yet, the now and not yet. OK?
It's this idea that it broke in and it's still breaking in.
There's this overlapping that is started that will come to
completion one day. And so in some sense, heaven is
a final destination of sorts, but it's already at play.
It's just eternal life in our midst now.
And it goes to another phase, if you will.
And in a similar way, hell is similar.
People talk about it as a final destination, which it is, but
it's just the it's the byproduct of an ongoing default.
Does that make sense? Like if you want nothing to do
with the Lord, you're going to experience the side of him which
is judgment. That's that's how that works.
Hell is real. It just is is coming.
We need a good judge to make a lot right that we see wrong all
the time and ourselves structurally all across the
world. We need that it will happen.
If for some of y'all it's time to wake up and smell the roses,
that is grace. Grace is available to you to
stop standing under your own strength and come to him.
OK, let's talk about the servant.
Let's talk about the servant, y'all.
The servant is ironically the easiest person to forget about
in the story, isn't he? Verse 6 Lord, my servant is
lying paralyzed at home suffering terribly.
Verse 13 And into the centurion Jesus said, go, let it be done
for you as you have believed, and the servant was healed at
that very moment. It's easy to forget He's the
reason this story happens, isn't it, y'all?
And in many ways, I, I don't know who you identify with in
our story. Maybe you feel like the
centurion. You want to have more faith.
That's great. I resonate with that too.
Maybe you, maybe you're kind of just checking Jesus out.
You don't know where you're at with him yet.
You feel like you're in the crowd and he just told you some
hard stuff. I feel that too.
But y'all, in a lot of ways, the person we have the, the most in
common with in the story is the servant.
Let's think about the need we have and our path to wholeness.
Let's think about the need we have and the path to wholeness,
y'all. This man lies at home,
paralyzed, cannot move, brings nothing to the table, nothing,
just sitting there. If he is not radically
intervened on behalf of another, his situation is hopeless,
right? That's the idea.
He's suffering and paralyzed. What that kind of did in my mind
is kind of that phrase. Like a dead man dying.
You're you're a dead man, you just don't know it yet.
That kind of phrase, y'all. That really is what the Bible
teaches about us apart from Christ, we are dead in our sin.
We feel so autonomous. We're alive, we're making
choices. We think we're a king.
We think we're a queen. We think we run in the show.
If I could just get this, I'm living for Friday.
We feel like such an original. We feel so alive.
But when the gospel good news comes upon you and tells you
you're dead in your sin, you're like, I mean, obviously you can
reject that. But if you really think about it
a little bit, as autonomous as you feel and as much control as
you feel over your life, what you'll begin to notice is that
the Bible's assessment of you is more true than your own.
You know, the Bible is telling us this is hard, that we are
dead in our sin, that we are not an original.
We're actually slaves to sin. We only want to do what our sin
nature wants us to do. And at best, if we get involved
in religious activity is to feel a little closer to God,
spiritual but not religious. Whatever phrase you want to use,
where you're like, man, I'll do my thing.
You know, like I'm willing to man, I'll even check the word
out. But we remain the head honcho in
control. And we think we are in control.
But the Bible goes so far as to say we're dead in our sins,
slaves to sin and to Satan. There's a sense in which his
main strategy is to hand you the, the, the, the instrument as
it will. And you start playing it and you
think you're an original and you never even think about where do
I get that? That makes sense.
And that's kind of how he operates.
He will let you be your own king as long as you want to be in
whatever form you want that to take.
You can even get a little more religious long as you stay in
charge. And in that way, you are still
just a dead person dying. You are not an original apart
from God's intervention. You will suffer terribly and you
can't move. That's hard, but it's freeing
truth if you will let it resonate.
Now let's think about the path to wholeness.
So that's the that's the need every human being has in the
path to wholeness. Think about it.
How is the servant healed? By nothing They did at all.
They did nothing, somebody else. So they lied.
Dying dead, dead man dying. There's somebody willing and
able to heal, and somebody intervenes and pulls that
willingness out on behalf of the one who's not even present to
make it happen. Y'all, in some ways the
centurion's faith and stuff, what Jesus did was pure grace.
But there's a greater intervention in the gospel, what
Christ has done. Y'all, the Son of God stepped in
and took upon himself the wrath of God in such a way that when
he goes to the Father, he gets a yes.
He is worthy to be heard from the Father.
And what He did in dying on the cross and appealing on our bath
is so that when we turn to Him in faith, God will not say no.
He will say yes. It's not a wish.
It's not your worthiness that makes you worthy.
It's the intervener that makes you well.
You bring nothing. He's back home.
He just gets healed. He's like man, He did it for me.
You see how that works? My man leaves to go get some
coffee. By the time he comes back he can
walk. Isn't that crazy?
But y'all think about it. He did nothing somebody else did
for him. I just want to appeal to some of
y'all. The path to your wholeness is
not through anything you do. Somebody say anything.
You're like anything T anything, anything, nothing you do.
You know what I'm saying? It's what Christ did and you
just receive it by grace through faith.
Repent, turn from your sin and acknowledge he is a hero.
He runs the full 100 yards. He don't take it 99 and you take
it one. Your faith isn't even really
what saves you. It is receiving a gift.
You get no credit for taking a gift because otherwise that
makes your faith the means of your salvation.
It's just receiving what Christ has done.
It's turning, it's acknowledging, it's
surrendering. Some of y'all need to do that.
Let's talk about Jesus and we don't.
Not great. Let's talk about Jesus.
Jesus is the standard of
authority in this text. What a king we have, y'all?
A king who gets giddy over what he sees in other people who
probably have lived as wicked of lives as you and me.
He's not a person with authority, just hammering you
like how dare you sinners ask me for anything.
Like I think that's what we think God is like.
But look at this man. I got three things about Jesus I
want you to see that I hope make you giddy about him 'cause he is
giddy about you #1 Jesus is the Incarnate King.
Somebody say Incarnate. OK, the Christmas story is the
story of the incarnation, but in the backdrop of this story is
the assumption that Jesus wanted to be there.
Y'all, if the Son of God did not want to be in our midst, he
would not have came. We just take that for granted
when we read a text like this. He came to make situations like
this happen. This is why he came, was to make
scenarios like this one go down. So He came so that this could
happen. Y'all.
The incarnation is the idea, the truth, the reality that the
eternal Son of God, He's eternally been Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. The Son took on flesh, OK, So he
became human as we are, So as God, God cannot be surprised.
As man. He marvels because he's
surprised. That's the incarnation.
It's a mystery. He lived a human life just like
us. So it's a legit marveling from
the God who came for us. He's Emmanuel.
I just want you to hear God came for you.
I remember I was in a chorus one time.
Sister act anybody. You came, you came from heaven
to earth. Come on, shut away.
They made me be the little boy trying to do the little La La,
la, la, La La. I just got up there.
I was like, I was so scared. Go watch sister act 2.
God bless you, OK? But yo, he did, He came for you
#2 Jesus is the Son of the Father, OK?
He is God. He's man.
He's the God man. He is the Son of the Father.
Yo, listen to me. The Trinity is inherently
relational. He's one God in three persons,
three persons, one God. When I see the one, I see 3.
When I see three, I see one. Here's the idea.
The goal of the entire Bible is relational.
It started relationally. In the end, in Revelation 21,
God says the dwelling place of God is with man.
That's where we're going back with him in fullness.
He's Emmanuel, God with us. So is the goal miracles for
miracle's sake? No.
Is the goal morality for morality's sake?
No. The goal is life with God.
That's it. So you're going to get every
miracle? No, God wants to live with you
by grace through faith. All of it is pointing to that.
And he's a good Father as demonstrated through the sun by
the Spirit, so that you could be brought into life with this God
who wants to live with you. Heaven is a place of
relationship #3 Jesus is the King of kings.
Y'all, let me tell you something.
It's obvious in the text. But who did the man not go to
that he had the power to go to? He did not go to Caesar Want to
know why Caesar don't care? Caesar can't help.
Let me tell y'all something. Caesar don't care.
And Caesar, Caesar still can't help you, OK?
There's a lot of things that we go to Caesar for without even
realizing it. And y'all, we got to be careful
we don't create a sacred secular divide in our mind.
God has made all things. All things are good.
All things are from him and through him and to him.
I'm talking about the posture of our heart.
Who do we go to when we're in a time of need, even through the
good gifts? But there's many things I do
where I don't go to him. I go to it.
OK, But the idea in the text is that he did not go to Caesar
because Caesar don't care and he can't help.
He would have been annoyed by this request.
Even 5 minutes on Caesar's Google, Google Calendar for the
day would have annoyed him with this.
Brother, get this man out my face.
The idea of power at that time was to leverage power to get
your freedom. Get these peasants out my face.
Let's throw a party y'all. I want us to see that the King
of Kings, how he uses his power is to move towards you, not away
from you. Y'all.
Parents, let's get real for a second.
How often do we act like even our kids are a burden to us?
I need some time. I need some me time and you and
your finiteness. You do Amen.
So let me. I'm just saying the one with all
power and authority is moving towards you, not away from you.
For some self-care. God is full, He's overflowing,
He's good. He's full of authority and power
and goodness and he uses it on behalf of others.
How crazy is that? That is so different than what
we think of. Who is this man who gets to call
the shots on heaven and hell? Jesus.
Who gets to do that? Jesus does.
Who gets to call the shots on what the Kingdom is like?
Jesus does. Who gets to heal somebody
without even going there? Jesus does.
Y'all? There is one who has such power
in such approachability, in such kindness that your soul craves.
You crave somebody you can trust.
You crave somebody who cares because sometimes you pick up
the phone and you call somebody just because you know they care.
The people in your life you love most, you know care about you
most. Big facts.
I don't know who it is, but there's somebody.
The 3:00 AM friend, right? If something was going down,
that's who you'd call. Yeah.
I just want you to hear your soul was made for somebody who
would take the call, who cares and who can and sees where it's
going and is forever committed to your good.
Irregardless of how they handle that call.
They're not just a friend to bring in on the know, not just
I'm just letting you know, I know there's nothing you could
do. That's not this friend.
This is the friend who cares. Who can doesn't mean that it's
going to happen the way you think it should.
If they care and they can't, that's where we struggle, but go
to them and childlike dependence of faith.
This is the king of kings. This is what your heart craves,
is an authority you can trust, who has all power, who has all
approachability, who has all kindness, who cares?
And I love he marvels at Jesus's faith.
He marvels at him. I think the question the text is
asking us is, are we marveling at Jesus?
Look at this guy. He's impressed with a Roman's
faith. He turns to the crowd and is
just like, please go. I love how he ends it with go.
You see how go was one of the words he said.
He says to his people. He says go, let it be for you as
you believe. I think that's funny.
I just think Jesus is funny. He could have been like it's
done. He could have said anything, but
he said go. I would have been walking home
like he said what I said. Jesus is just the man.
Jesus is giddy about this man's faith.
Are you giddy about Jesus? If you're not a follower of
Jesus here today, I just want to invite you to know this King, to
know this authority who has all power, who is all approachable,
all kind, forever committed to your forever good.
They're not just trying to get you out their way so you stop
annoying them. They want you.
They came for you. That's this king.
And your path forward is repentance and faith and
trusting in him, into the faith family in the room.
Listen, maybe just start with one area in your life where
you're not approaching God and childlike dependence and just
let Him be him. Stop being his bodyguard.
Just let him be Him. And there might be pain that
comes from that as every child has to wrestle with of Daddy.
You could give me the candy right now.
You might not think what you asking for is candy.
He knows whether it is or not. He knows the plan.
But go to him and ask Him for His hand.
Let's see what He does in our midst, particularly all on
behalf of others. There's asks, our city needs
y'all. There's asks, our communities
need y'all. There's ask, our friends need
y'all. And let us not be ones who could
have asked them and didn't because we were afraid to make
God not look good. Y'all, our city needs us to ask.
Our friends need us to ask. We need to ask Jesus to save
them, to open their eyes, to change communities, to help
people to, to change generational sin.
God can do it. Let's ask him.
Let's go to him in childlike faith.
We all pray with me. Our Father God, you are amazing.
God, this is just just so much amazing stuff going on in this
text. I just pray you would open our
eyes. God, you're so kind not to
overwhelm us with truth. We can't handle it all at once.
But I just pray breakthrough right now in the name of Jesus
for somebody. They would see with clarity that
they're not an accident. God, I don't know their story.
I don't know what they've been through.
I don't know what's been said to them, but I know that you
created us to rest under a kind, good, powerful, able authority.
God, when the when the when our righteous 1 is an authority, the
whole city is blessed. It's it's it just comes to life.
God, we pray that under your leadership we will come to life
and thrive. God, we pray that over our city
got many need to come to faith in Christ.
Many things need to change many sin patterns need to be broken.
We just pray you would do it by the power of the Holy Spirit and
God, I pray. For we your church, God, that we
would be askers, childlike, dependent.
God, forgive me for the ways I don't go to you because I'm
scared. God, give us childlike faith and
dependence. God, save in our midst.
Do this all for your glory and the good of our neighbors, the
good of our city who needs it, and for our own joy.
We pray in Jesus name, Amen.