Faith of a Soldier

Matthew 8:5–13 CSB

When he entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, pleading with him, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible agony.” He said to him, “Am I to come and heal him?” “Lord,” the centurion replied, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, having soldiers under my command. 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.” Hearing this, Jesus was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with so great a faith. I tell you that many will come from east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then Jesus told the centurion, “Go. As you have believed, let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that very moment.

Tonight we are going to talk about what it means to have the faith of a soldier. We are all soldiers for Christ. As we go through this passage we are going to see thing that should stand out to you. To me they are amazing to think about when looking at it.

First in this passage lets talk about The back ground of the passage.

Capernaum

Jesus is traveling back to his hometown of Capernaum when he is stop by a centurion begging him to help his servant who somehow become paralyzed.

But it is this next part that should stand out to us.

Matthew 8:8–9 CSB

“Lord,” the centurion replied, “I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, having soldiers under my command. 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.”

Here we see the centurion speaking to Jesus and tells him he is not worthy and Goes in to how he know that Jesus has the power to say it be so and it would happen.

This passage is a very interesting passage because of this conversation that the centurion and Jesus are having.

Let’s talk about the centurion for a minute.

The Centurion

A couple of questions that need to be answer is first off what is a centurion does anyone know.

Centurion- An officer in the Roman Army in command of a unit of approximate 80 soldiers.

Now the centurions would have been raised in the religious belief of Rome. you had to grow up in roman and would have to passed test to be a centurion because they trusted you with 80 roman soldiers.

They believe in Gods like Jupiter and Mars and Venus also known as the Greek Gods.

It is important to understand this because in this passage a normal centurion would not have known who jesus was let alone believed in him.

He was so in need of help he found a source that could heal and had faith in him Jesus was amazed by his faith.

It leads to the question Where does your faith come from?

Your Faith

We look at this and we see faith from someone that wasn't his chosen people but a person that believed that as long and it was spoken his servant would be saved.

How many times in your life have you been in between a rock and a dark place. When we are given the example right now that God as have faith and ask and i will give you rest.

Where does your faith stand because if someone how would later be one of the people that had killed Christ could believe in him what is stopping you from having that kind of faith.

God is calling for you to come back to him and to just trust in him. He wants you to come back to him.