Matthew 8:5-13 - Finding Unlikely Faith (a short Bible Study)

Sometimes spiritual lessons show up from the most unlikely of people.  We expect to learn from people who have studied for years and look the part but then someone who doesn’t fit those expectations comes along and undeniably demonstrates faith, even humility. No, I’m not actually talking about the poorly dressed, unbathed person that darkens the door of a pristine church. We’re in Matthew 8:5-13, the part of the story where someone with power and authority humbles himself before Jesus and exercises faith that caught Jesus’ attention.

Transcript

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Sometimes spiritual lessons show up from the most unlikely of people. We expect to learn from people who have studied for a long time, people who look the part. But then somebody who doesn't fit any of those expectations comes along and undeniably demonstrates faith, even humility. And no, I'm not talking about the poorly dressed, unbathed person who darkens the door of a pristine church either. Hmm. On that happy note, welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am genuinely glad that you've joined us today. We're in Matthew chapter 8, verses 5 through 13. It's the part of the story where somebody with power and authority comes and humbles himself before Jesus, a Jewish rabbi. Let's read this passage together. So go ahead and open up your copy of the Word to Matthew eight verses five through thirteen. But before we do anything else, let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this amazing day that you have given us. God, we rejoice in the reality that you you recognize us and see us for who we are. God, you you are uninterested in facade. You are uninterested in the way things appear to be, but rather you care about the way things are. Meet with us now, we're here to meet with you. Amen. All right, Matthew chapter eight, verses five through thirteen. When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him asking for help. Lord, he said, My servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly. Jesus said to him, Shall I come and heal him? The centurion replied, Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed, for I myself am a man under authority and with soldiers under me. I tell this one, go, and he goes, and that one, come and he comes. I say to my servant, do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then Jesus said to the centurion, Go, let it be done just as you believed it would. And his servant was healed at that moment. Let's pause and take a moment to listen to God. All right. Let's make a few observations about this really cool story, isn't it? Kind of it's just an amazing moment that happens uh in the in the course of the gospels. Uh I think it ranks uh right up there in terms of my personal favorites, uh, just because of the way that the whole exchange happens. I just I think there are layers in this story, and uh my hope is that we can appreciate some of those layers as we go through it together. So on the surface, this is a really good encounter, right? Like just reading it through and going, like, oh, that's that's awesome. Uh a centurion comes on behalf of his servant. I like that already. He's coming there on behalf of somebody else. He's not just being like a good, a good person. He's being, I guess, a good boss, almost would be the way that we would think about that, about that today, but he's caring for his person. Uh Jesus offers healing, kind of right out the gate, and then the man exercises faith and and Jesus heals his servant simply based on that centurion's faith. And and just on that level, I love this story because it reminds me that you know, sometimes our faith isn't as stout as we would prefer it to be. But there are other people, hopefully friends of ours, people who are in our corner, and and their faith is going great. And sometimes we just need to lean on those people. And we don't really know anything about this centurion's slave or his servant. Uh, we just know that he came and showed up, and we we see him, the centurion, exercising that kind of faith. Sometimes we need somebody like that to exercise faith for us. Now, as we kind of get into the layers a little bit, there is, I think, some richness that comes out. You know, the relationship between Rome, and I'm talking about Rome as an empire, as a military presence, as a government that was not always necessarily oppressive to its subjects, but certainly in a in a taxation kind of a way. Yeah, that was oppressive. And there was this kind of cautiously cooperative relationship between Rome and the Jewish people. So most Jews, including the disciples, had messianic hope. They were looking for Messiah. But their view of Messiah included, and for some people it was only this uh the opportunity for political uh independence, to to throw Rome's oppression off, not necessarily to overthrow Rome completely, like to take them over, but but certainly for Israel to become its own nation, again, to be sovereign, to to have total control. That was part of the dream, right? That was part of the dream of Messiah, was to return to the glory days of of David and Solomon when when things were rolling, so to speak. And and so that was part of what was going on there. So then here comes one of them, not one of us, right? From a Jewish perspective, not one of us, one of them, one of the Romans, one of the people who, never mind the man's personal character or or the way he conducted himself. And I'm I know that they could discern between those two things, but just on the surface again, there is this person, a centurion, a man of military might, a man who, by his own words, is a man under authority but also over others. He comes in and and he and he comes asking Jesus for help. He comes to this Jewish rabbi and and he recognizes a few things about him. So he is a man who understands authority and he recognizes it in Jesus. So he's not just looking at Jesus as somebody who is a great teacher. Certainly he was that, but this centurion recognizes that Jesus was more than a teacher, that Jesus had authority, and I think he recognized also that he had spiritual authority. He had the ability to speak it, and it would become so. And then he comes with humility, right? He even expresses that there. I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. And perhaps he's acknowledging the cultural tension or maybe the predicament that he might have put Jesus in if he were to say, Come to my house. I don't know. Maybe that's what he's thinking, but maybe he's just recognizing the goodness of Jesus and going, I understand that this man is different than me. I understand that this man is good in a way that I am not good, and I am not worthy to have him come under my roof. And so he acknowledges, uh he acknowledges uh Jesus, his goodness, his authority, his holiness, and and he's still there asking uh for for help. And then, and then this Gentile, right, which is the way that Jews would have looked at him, he's a gentile, he's somebody else, he's not us, he exercises this great faith. And it's faith that's big enough, that's great enough. By the way, those are Jesus' words, that Jesus not only honors that faith and heals the centurion's servant, he takes a moment to speak to his followers, presumably Jewish, about this man's faith. And I find that absolutely fascinating. By the way, you can find this particular story in Luke's gospel as well. And it doesn't have the little uh the little teaching moment that Jesus gives here in Matthew, and that's I'm just pointing that out. But Matthew includes it, and and the teaching moment is actually pretty significant. It it's another layer, right, of what's of what's taking place. So Jesus starts off by saying, Nobody in Israel has this kind of faith. Verse 10 there. He says, Truly I tell you, I've not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. Verse 11. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. So there's this recognition that people are coming from all over to this great feast that they would have thought of in terms of, I guess, glory, right? And in terms of the end, this goodness that's there, the feast that they anticipated. But then it says, but the subjects of the kingdom, well, who is that? It's the Jews. The subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now that's not to say that every Jewish person was condemned. In fact, we know that all of the first believers were Jews, right? And the the birth of our faith as Jesus followers started with Jewish people. So it's not necessarily about that, but it is a recognition that many of them have closed their hearts off and have not exercised faith as it pertains to Jesus. And that's what Jesus is essentially driving at. By the way, this is this is not a reason for us to uh to be mean-spirited or in any way prejudiced towards our Jewish brothers and sisters uh at all. It is uh a point of emphasis that we recognize that the kingdom of heaven, the one that Jesus ushered in and is ushering in ultimately in the end, is based on faith, not lineage, not heritage, not who your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was, not any of those sorts of things. It doesn't have anything to do with any of that. It has everything to do with where is your faith. Jesus takes this moment, a moment where a Gentile, a Roman, a centurion, somebody who would have caused his followers a little bit of like, oh, oh, just a little bit of nervousness, he points out his faith and he says, This is the kind of faith that that I want. This is the kind of faith that should be celebrated. And so we recognize that that we get to be a part of what Jesus is doing based on faith, based on believing that Jesus is exactly who he claimed to be, based on this idea that we're in need of healing, just like that centurion's uh servant needed healing. Our healing might be different, uh, but it is nonetheless needed and important. Again, the spiritual message is clear. Jesus' kingdom is all about faith and and all of that is there. So it would have it's a very interesting moment that happens. Uh that that Jesus' followers probably got a little bit uncomfortable with with what just happened, and and I'm sure they processed it and figured it out. And by the way, we don't know if it was just the 12 or if there was, you know, kind of a general sense of Jesus followers here, but they would have been like, oh, uh, oh, okay, what is what does that mean, Jesus? And and I'm sure that there was opportunity to to figure that out. All right, let's reflect a little bit. What about you and me? How do we process this for our context today? I just really want to leave you with with one reflection point. So do our requests, our prior requests, do our requests reflect the kind of faith and humility of that centurion. And what I mean by that is sometimes we come in and and we we we're going great guns because we're filled with faith, and that's a good thing. And I'm not trying to push that down in any way. But but do we have that same reverence? That same aspect of going, look, I recognize the goodness of Jesus, and I recognize his authority. And I absolutely believe that that should he choose, he can he can heal me, he can heal my friend, he can do any of the things that that I'm bringing before him. Nothing is too big for him. And and so we come in, but we we do it with that sense of I recognize you for who you are, Jesus, and and I'm acknowledging you, I'm lifting you up. It's not about my will, it's not about my, you know, my faith, it's not about that, it's about him. It's really all about Jesus. So do our requests, reflect the kind of faith and humility of that centurion. Just keep that with you as you go about your day today. Hey, I sure appreciate you tuning in. My hope is that you find encouragement uh through our time together. And um, since you're still listening or watching, please consider following or subscribing. It makes my day. I hope that you have a fantastic day. Let me pray for us. Jesus, thank you for today. God, thank you for the faith of that centurion. But more than that, Jesus, thank you for your goodness. Thank you for the way that you see people and understand more than just the way that they look. You see to the very center of who they are, of who we are. God, we want to delight ourselves in you. Would you be with us today? We ask this in your name. Amen.