No Lockdown For Jesus

Jesus has Authority

The New King James Version Chapter 8

5 Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, 6 saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.”

7 And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.”

8 The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

10 When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! 11 And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” 13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that same hour.

I love this passage, and the first thing I want to clarify just to get you thinking a little is that the word for servant in this passage is Pais and Pais could also mean child. This person could be more than a servant, it could very well be the centurion’s Son or Daughter.

So this Roman Centurion comes to Jesus and begs him to heal possibly his own child and Jesus replies with I will come and heal him. At that point any normal human being would be like thank you so much, let’s go.

The centurion didn’t do that though, the centurion said, I’m not worthy for you to come under my roof but speak a word and my servant/child will be healed.

He did this because he understood the authority that Jesus had.

He goes on to talk about how he understands authority because he too is a man of authority.

God has really been challenging me through this period to not underestimate his authority. It is so easy for us to become complacent and to view Jesus as less than what he is.

Don’t underestimate his authority, the Roman centurion received a miracle without Jesus even moving because he didn’t underestimate Jesus’ authority.

Humble Before Him

It took great humility for the centurion to come before Jesus and say that he wasn’t even worthy of Jesus coming to his house.

It took humility for him to realise that he was helpless in this situation in the first place and needed help.

It also took humility for the Centurion to understand the authority of Jesus and more than that to understand that the authority of Jesus was greater than his own.

I have been challenged recently to humble myself before Jesus. The King of Kings the Lord of Lords.

To understand and accept that not by my power but through his power and authority we can still bring Jesus to our city and the people around us.

Unrestricted Miracles

Following on from this I want to encourage you that in this time of restriction, Jesus can still perform miracles.

Don’t stop believing, don’t think that just because we are resticted he is too. Jesus healed the Roman Centurion’s child without even moving. He just spoke and the miracle happened.

Later on in Matthew 8, Jesus calmed the storm again just by speaking.

We may be restricted in what we are doing, we may have had to get a bit creative in the way that we do things but Jesus is never restricted, Jesus still has authority and Jesus is still on his throne.

Stories

Vineyard London - Bad back and shoulder in a lot of pain and struggled to move, healed instantly over zoom

Derek 88 - Covid 19 on death bed, his daughter had died and he couldn’t attend the funeral, wife Elizabeth was at home alone waiting for the call that Derek had died. The next day she got a call to say he was ready to be discharged and he no longer had Covid 19.

In our own context, Darren healed from Covid 19 and his story has reached almost 2K people on YouTube, many of which may not know Jesus

The man that Callum knows more about than I do, but he gave his life in hospital because of an encounter he had with a Christian nurse.

Our online services are reaching anywhere from 400 to 1200 people. Many of which wouldn’t ordinarily come to church. Some of those being Laura’s friends where the last experience of church they had was our wedding almost 4 years ago.

God is still on his throne and we may not be made for a life like this but God is still very much at work and is in no way restricted during this time.

No virus can stop Jesus from doing what he wants to do and in fact often the greatest miracles happen in times where we are most helpless and we are forced to fall at his feet.

So be full of faith and full of humility, make sure you don’t underestimate or restrict the authority of Jesus and keep believing that Jesus is still moving, he is still speaking, he is still doing miracles and he is still on his throne.

Pray.