JESUS: A FRIEND OF BELIEVERS

Luke 7:1-10

I want to begin a new series of messages today on Jesus the Compassionate Friend.  Over the course of the next several weeks we’re going to study a number of examples of Jesus befriending people who were in trouble or who were hurting.  And hopefully, as we study these various encounters in the Gospel of Luke, we’ll come to know Jesus more intimately as our own personal Friend.  But it’s important for us to understand that beginning that while the Lord loves every person, there is a qualifier to his friendship.  In the book of James the 4th chapter, verse 4 we read, “Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God. And anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.”  We’re either a friend of God or we are a friend to the world, but we cannot be both.  And if we want to sing, “What A Friend We Have In Jesus” and to have that be a reality in our life, then we have to trust in him and obey his instructions,.  In John 15:14 Jesus said, “You are my friends if you do what I command.”

Now we’re going to look today in Luke 7 at a Roman centurion who become a friend of Jesus because he chose to believe in him.  This centurion was a man who really pleased the Lord because of his great faith. So let’s look closely at the story and then learn some helpful lessons about putting our trust in Jesus Christ as our friend.

I.  THE REQUEST OF THE CENTURION

Beginning in verse 1 we see the request of the centurion.  Verse 1 says that Jesus entered Capernaum. And verse 2 says, “There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die.  The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some leaders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant.”  Now this centurion was an influential man. A centurion was a Roman soldier who had oversight of at least 100 soldiers.  Remember the Romans were ruling the world at this time, so he was a prominent figure in the community.  One commentator calls him, “a man among men.”  He was a man accustomed to giving orders and seeing them carried out.  It’s kind of interesting to note that all the way through the New Testament every time a Roman centurion is mentioned he’s mentioned in a favorable light.

·         The centurion at the cross who said, “This is the Son of God.”

·         Cornelius, in Acts 10, the first Gentile Convert to Christianity.

·         Then there are 2 centurions who assist the Apostle Paul and save his life.

·         And here in Luke 7, this centurion was respected by his peers as a leader, but he was also admired by the Jews for his generosity to them.

Verse 4 says, “The Jews pleaded earnestly with Jesus to help him.  “This man deserves to have you do this because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.”  So this Roman centurion is highly respected in the Jewish community because of his kindness towards them and that was rare.

He not only was an influential man, he was a compassionate man.  He had a servant, apparently a slave, who was deathly sick. Now in Roman law, a slave was just a living tool, with no rights. A master could mistreat him, even kill him with no repercussions.  William Barclay quotes a Roman writer on estate management who recommended that the farmer examine his implements every year and throw out those that are old and broken. And then he adds, “Do the same with your slaves.”  So, normally, when a slave could no longer contribute to the workforce, the owner would just discard him.  But somebody has defined compassion as, “your pain in my heart.” And this centurion loved this slave so much that he felt his pain in his heart.  And he went to great trouble to restore his health.

He was also a humble man.  Verse 6 says that when Jesus started towards the centurion’s home, he sent friends to Jesus to say, “Lord don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve top have you come under my roof.”  Now, it was really unusual for a Roman soldier to tell a poor, Jewish Rabbi that he was unworthy to have him in his house.  The Romans were not known for displaying humility, especially before their Jewish subjects.  This centurion was uniquely humble.  You know, folks, faith always begins with the humble admission, “I am inferior to God.  I don’t have all the answers. I can't solve all of my problems on my own. I need a compassionate friend.” And the biggest barrier to faith in many people’s life is pride. That’s why Jesus once sat a little child in his lap and he said, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will not be able to inherit the kingdom of God.  Whoever becomes humble like this little child,” Jesus said, “will be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  And this centurion had a child-like humility that attracted Jesus. 

But the characteristic that impressed Jesus the most was that he was a man of faith.  Evidently, he’d heard stories of Jesus performing miracles.  He’d heard that Jesus had healed a man with a withered hand, that Jesus had cleansed a leper, and that Jesus had raised up a man who was paralyzed and caused him to walk. And he believed these accounts were credible. And since he had nowhere else to turn, he sent some of his friends to Jesus to request that he come and heal his servant.  He believed that it would happen.

He said, “I’m not worthy for you to come to my house.”  But in verse 7 it says, “You just say the word and my servant will be healed.  For I myself am a man under authority with soldiers under me.  And I tell this one, ‘Go’ and he goes and this one ‘Come’ and he comes and I say to my servant ‘Do this’ and he does it.”  In other words, he’s saying to Jesus, “I know what it is to exercise authority. But I also recognize that you have a whole lot more authority than I do.  And I don’t want you to bother to come to my  house.  You just give the order, for a distance, I believe my servant will be made well.”  Now, what a remarkable faith this man displayed.  He’s a Gentile with a pagan background.  He’s a Roman soldier trained to be self-sufficient, but he believed if Jesus just spoke the word his servant would be healed. 

Now I am a man of some degree of authority. I can just say something and it will happen sometimes.  I can say, “Let the service begin on time” and we’ll start on time.  Or, I can say, “Let’s all stand, and dozens and dozens of you will stand at my prompting.”  But my authority is limited.  Sometimes I say things and nothing happens.  I’ll say, “Young people, don’t get up to go to the restroom during the sermon, it’s too distracting”, and they keep going.  Or I’ll say at home, “Let there be no complaining for one hour”, and it doesn’t happen.  But God has all authority.  We read in Scripture that when God speaks, even the inanimate universe obeys him.  In the beginning God said, “Let there be light.” And there was light. God said, “Let the dry land appear” and it was so.  God said, “Let there be vegetation” and it began to spring forth.  Now, Jesus was God in the flesh.  He said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” And when Jesus spoke, the universe obeyed him whether it was demons, or diseases, or storms, or even trees.  And this centurion recognized that Jesus had a unique authority. And he requested that Jesus exercise it; “Just say the word, without even coming to my house and I believe my servant will be healed.”  That’s a remarkable faith.

But verse 9 and 10 relates the response of Jesus, “When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him and turning to the crowd following him he said, ‘I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.’”  Warren Wiersbe points out that there are only two times in Scripture where it says Jesus was amazed:  here in Capernaum it says he was amazed at the faith of this Gentile, and in Mark 6:6 the Bible says he was amazed at the unbelief of the Jews, his brothers. 

Now the centurion's friends thought the man deserved to be helped because he was generous.  Jesus helped because the man had such great faith.  Hebrews 11:6 is a key verse that you ought to have committed t o memory.  “Without faith it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”  If we want to be a friend of God, we’ve got to believe that he is real, and we've got to believe that he is good, loving, and that he rewards those that come to him.  James 2:23 says, “Abraham believed God and he was called God’s friend.”  Now, Abraham was not a perfect men.  He lied on a couple of occasions about his wife’s identity.  He got ahead of the will of God and had a child by his wife’s servant girl.  But Abraham had an amazing faith that God was going to do what he said he was going to do.  God said he was going to give them a child and even though he and his wife were far beyond childbearing years, Abraham believed that was true and acted accordingly and he’s called God’s Friend.  That kind of faith is what makes friendship with Christ.  The Lord’s friend is one who like Abraham or like this centurion who says, “I believe that your word is true and I will act accordingly.”

So Jesus responded to this man’s faith with healing.  Verse 10 says, “Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and they found the servant well.”  Now, I cannot explain how that happened.  Other than to say it was a miraculous display of God’s authority and power.  Psalm 107:20 says, “He sent forth his word and healed them, he rescued them for the grave.”  Have you ever thought about some of the technological advances of today that we take for granted but people 100 years ago would have thought were miracles? 

·         You push a button inside your car and the garage door goes up!

·         Or, you put a little plastic card in a slot and punch a button and $20 bills come rolling out.

·         Or, you could be sitting on the deck of a condo in Hawaii looking at a beautiful sunset.  You could take a picture of that sunset with your digital camera, and email the picture of that sunset via your laptop computer back to your friends and family on the mainland. 

100 years ago people would have said, “A garage door goes up without you lifting it?  That’s amazing.”

You put a plastic card in a slot, punch a few buttons and money comes out?  That’s magic.

“You’ve got a live picture of a sunset in Hawaii in your family room? That’s a miracle.”

Now, as mind-boggling as some of today’s technology would appear to a Benjamin Franklin or Abraham Lincoln, how Jesus could heal a sick servant from a distance is beyond my ability to explain or comprehend.  But I believe in Christ.  I believe he knows all things.  And I believe he has all authority and power.  And the simple explanation for us is that it was a miracle and nothing, nothing is impossible with God.

Let me close with a few relevant lessons we lean about faith from this account.  Number one, faith is believing what you cannot see and cannot prove.  Faith is believing what you can’t see or prove.  Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we cannot see.”  Apparently this centurion had never seen Jesus heal anybody.  And certainly he had never seen Jesus heal anybody from a distance, but he believed that it could be done even though he hadn’t seen it.  Faith is examining the evidence and then putting your confidence in what you have not seen and can’t really prove.  Now, when you think about it, we Christian people ask other people to believe some things that are pretty remarkable.

·         We believe that there is a God, a supernatural Being over this entire universe.  But we have not seen him.

·         We believe that his God is so powerful and all-knowing that he created this entire universe out of nothing.

·         And we believe that even though we have gone against the standards of this God, he loved us and he came to the earth in the form of a man, Jesus Christ, even though we have not seen him.

·         And we believe that Jesus allowed himself to be executed on a cross as a substitute death in order to pay for our sins. 

·         And we believe that after 3 days in the tomb, he came back from the grave even though we have never seen anybody do that. 

·         And we believe that he, then, miraculously ascended into heaven and that if we put our trust in him, one day he’s going to raise us from the dead even though we cannot prove that that is possible.

Wow!  We’re either crazy or those things are supernaturally true.  Mark Twain once said, “Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”  No.  Faith is examining the evidence and then making a choice.  God doesn’t ask that we have blind faith.  He does ask that we examine the Bible and look at creation, study the life of Christ, the testimonies of answered prayer, transformed lives and then choose to believe. 

That brings me to the second faith-lesson we learn; faith does require a personal choice.  This centurion didn’t have more evidence to believe than other people of his day.  I don’t think he even had more intelligence than other people around him.  He just chose to believe.  Faith is a choice, folks. We choose to believe these things about God are true, or we chose to go through life as a skeptic.  Acts 19:9 speaks of people who became obstinate and it says, “They refused to believe.  And they publicly maligned the way of Christ.”  I think there are two primary reasons why people choose not to believe.  The first is that some people consider themselves s a little smarter than others around them and they have a hard time believing because when they accept all these claims of Scripture by faith, they are on the same level with shallow believers who have blindly accepted those same ideas but have never thought them through. So their pride prevents them from believing.  Faith doesn’t require intellectual suicide, but it does require the crucifixion of intellectual pride.  Others refuse to believe because to place faith in Christ would necessitate repentance and a dramatic change of lifestyle and it’s much easier to refuse to believe and repent than it is to believe and change.  That's why Psalm 10:4 says, "In his pride, the wicked does not seek him .  in all his thoughts there’s no room for God.”  The wicked doesn’t want to believe because he or she would have to change.  That's why Jesus said, “This is the verdict; light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light because their deed were evil.” So faith is not so much a matter of evidence, it is a matter or your will.  We choose to swallow our pride, we choose to repent of sin and believe, or we stubbornly refuse to believe.

The third lesson is, Faith is measured by degrees and it’s increased by actions.  Jesus said, “I've never seen such great faith. This man has more faith than you disciples.”  On another occasion he rebuked his disciples for having little faith.  On another occasion he said, “If you had faith as small as a grain of mustard seed you’d be able to say to this mulberry tree move and it would be moved.”  Now, some of you here today have great faith.  Your life is one of believing. And some of you have 20% faith and 80% skepticism. 

Remember in Mark the 9th chapter when that father brought his son to Jesus because he was possessed by demons and he would have what seem to us like epileptic seizures.  He would throw himself into a fire or throw himself into water over his head and try to commit suicide.  And the father was distraught and he said, “Jesus have pity on us.  And if you can, help us.”  And Jesus responded, “If I can. All things are possible to those who believe.”  And the man responded in Mark 9:24, “I do believe.  Help me overcome my unbelief.’”  Isn’t that like us? Our faith is a matter of degrees.  There’s some faith, but at times it seems to get clogged up with skepticism.  Now, if your faith is not a great faith, you can increase your faith by acting on the faith you already have.  The grain of mustard seed has to be planted in order to grow. The small muscles of faith have to be exercised in order to be strengthened.  When you drive your car at night, your headlights don’t shine 5 miles ahead of you.  They might shine 75 yards ahead of you. And you will never get to your house if you sit there and wait until the entire route to your driveway is illumined by your headlights.  As you proceed you see further. Likewise, you won’t increase your faith by sitting around waiting for God to zap you so that you instantaneously comprehend the Bible and everything is proven.  But when you act on the faith that you have, God provides additional light so that you can proceed beyond what you can see now.  That is why faith and action are always interwoven through the Bible.  James 2:26 says, “As the body without the sprit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”  If you don’t act on the little bit of faith that you have, it will never grow or increase. 

That brings me to the final lesson; Genuine faith is always rewarded by God in his time.  Jesus honored this man’s great faith by restoring the health of his servant. We’re told in Hebrews 11:6 that God rewards those who believe in him and earnestly seek him.  Now faith doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll always receive an immediate healing or financial security or marital bliss.  It does mean that the seed we sow in faith will one day reap a positive harvest for God.  That’s why the Bible says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 

We all know the song, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.”  Most of us don’t know the circumstances that initiated that song.  In 1857 Joseph Scriven’s fiancée drowned the night before their wedding.  He was so grief-stricken that he left Ireland came to Canada.  But he was a Christian and Jesus Christ was his personal friend because he knew that Christ had suffered too.  And while in Canada Joseph Scriven wrote a note back to his mother who was ill.  Out of his anguish, in that letter he wrote a poem that would later become that hymn.  And particularly powerful is the words to that second stanza,

“Have we trials and temptations?  Is there trouble anywhere? 

We should never be discouraged. Take it to the Lord in prayer.

Can we find a friend so faithful?  Who will all our sorrows share.

Jesus knows our every weakness. Take it to the Lord in prayer.”

As we come to our invitation time, I know there are some here today who have never responded in a personal way to Jesus Christ.  You have never pledged your loyalty to him.  You have never publicly confessed that you believe that Jesus is God’s son and that he died to forgive your sins.  You have never used your lips to confess the name of Jesus as your personal Savior.  Some of you here today have asked the Lord to come into your heart, but you’ve never been immersed into him.  You’ve never been raised to walk in a new life with him.  It’s time to change all of that right now.  As we sing our hymn of invitation, we invite you to respond to the salvation, the Lordship and the friendship of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Come as we stand and sing . . .