Untitled Sermon (4)

Richard Lovelace looked once did a deep dive on the spiritual life and disciplines of some of our greatest leaders. This led him to read through their diaries and such…he looked at both leaders of the past and even talked with some present leaders. And you know what he found?

Many have a theological commitment to the fact that they are accepted by God but in their day-to-day existence they rely on their sanctification for justification....drawing their assurance of acceptance with God from their sincerity, their past experience of conversion, their recent religious performance, or the relative infrequency of their conscious, willful disobedience.

He went on to say...

Few know how to start each day with a thoroughgoing stand upon the truth that “you are accepted, looking outward in faith and claiming the wholly alien righteousness of Christ as the only ground for acceptance, and relaxing in that quality of trust which will produce increasing sanctification as faith is active in love and gratitude.

In Christ, you are accepted. You have an audience with God. Period. Through Christ…if you come through Christ then you are ALWAYS accepted…always have that audience…always have that care. And that’s what we are going to see this morning as we interact with two stories in Luke 7.

We have centurion. This guy is a big deal but he’s a big deal in the Gentile world. On the face of it would he be accepted? He’s an enemy. But as we read the story we realize that he’s one of the good guys…he’s one of the good enemies. Sure he’s a Roman…but he’s not that kind…he’s different. He’s taking care of us. He’s worthy of Jesus’ care…that’s what we will hear the Jewish leaders say.

Then we are introduced to a widow woman at the funeral procession for her only son. Her social status, her worth, her livelihood, so much is being lost on this day. Outside looking in, she has a sorry story…but wills he turn the head of the master. Is she worthy? You won’t hear any Jewish leaders encouraging Jesus to do anything. The situation seems hopeless. She doesn’t have anyone in her corner pleading for her. She’s not one of the “worthy” ones…but what will Jesus do.

And those questions will be what we look at today…let’s listen in and see how Jesus responds.

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Before we jump into Luke 7, I want us to go way back to the Garden of Eden. Here we see God and man in full unity. No guilt. No sin. No broken fellowship. Everything is good. It is good between God and man and it is good between man and woman. Then we have the fall.

Immediately after the man and woman eat of the fruit we see brokenness. Chapter 3:7…”and they knew that they were naked (guilt, shame, fear). And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths (self-atonement…the only time in the Garden that man has had to ‘provide for himself’). Then we see man’s relationship with God. Rather than intimate fellowship it is marked by fear, hiding, and lying. We see the blame game crop up for the first time. Adam blames God and his wife. Eve blames the serpent. And then we read of all the curses. Pain in childbirth, a fight between man and woman for authority, unfulfilling labor, a broken world. The result of the Fall are broken people in a broken world. And we still are living today as broken people in a broken world.

Yet, I think some of us—especially I think believers—can live as if we are still in Eden. And I don’t think we are going to be in a position to really feel what is taking place in this text. If we come into this assuming that we have a place with Jesus—based upon our merit, our status, our nationality, our performance, our religious credentials, whatever I think we aren’t going to be in a good place to receive this.

I read these words from Larry Crabb a few years ago and they really stuck with me:

“But I wonder if most people who look good all the time are really out of touch with themselves, unaware of how they impact others, and covering up deep pain with the pleasures of activity and achievements. Perhaps much of what passes for spiritual maturity is maintained by a rigid denial of all that is happening beneath the surface of their lives. Maybe in this life it’s impossible to be as together as some people look.

And so I want to labor to not clean the outside of the cup but to be honest that we still live as broken people in a broken world. Yet, we are also being redeemed by Jesus. And so we also want to be people who celebrate grace. As we come to this text…I think it’s important for us to think and feel like a few of the people in these stories.

Who are the characters in these stories?

You have the centurion. A powerful man. We’ll see a few verses down, “he tells people what to do”. But is he worthy of the kingdom of God coming into His life?

You have the servant. Is he worth being healed? He’s a servant. Will Jesus care about him?

You’ve got the disciples looking on. They are like us…we’re asking questions of this story. We are watching in. Who is this Jesus? What is he like? What is he doing? What is this communicating to us about who God is? What does this show us about the Father’s heart.

You’ve got a lowly widow. She’s truly lost everything.

You have the dead son. There’s no hope there, is there? What can be done about this one. His story is over....right?

You also have the Jewish leaders and you have Jesus. In some ways that is the real contrast here in these stories. And it’s going to go back all the way to something we saw in Luke 4.

Remember when Jesus was in Nazareth? Remember how he was rejected…and the people got really mad at him and wanted to run him out of town? Why did they do that? Well he shared a couple OT stories and they didn’t like how he applied them.

He talked about a Gentile leader who was healed from a distance. Naaman. Healed by the Lord through Elisha by his instruction to bathe in the Jordan. He also talked about how God rescued a foreign widow when she and her son were starving. They didn’t like that story because Jesus was pointing out that God’s blessing isn’t limited to their performance, their nationality, etc. God’s blessing was different. And we’re going to see something similar here. Let me show you.

He’s in Capernaum again. He was here in chapter 4. And we saw him cast a demon out of a guy in a synagogue. Now in our story we are introduced to a centurion and his servant, sick to the point of death and highly valued by him. As I mentioned earlier if I only told you he was a Roman solider…you’d say that the Jewish leaders probably wouldn’t have been going to bat for this guy. He’s not worthy of healing. He’s a Gentile. But we see here that there is something different about this guy. He’s not that type of Gentile.

Look at verse 4 and 5. The centurion has heard about Jesus. He sends elders to the Jews asking him to come and heal his servant. What we see in verse 4 and 5 changes our expectations of the story. This isn’t just an ordinary centurion. This is a good dude. As the Jewish elders say, “he is worthy.” Let that sink in. You know what that means....it means there are some people who AREN’T worthy in their estimation. But this guy is. He’s helped them. He’s one of the good guys. He built the synagogue.

That synagogue that Jesus was in a few chapters ago…chapter 4…where Jesus cast a demon out of a guy. This centurion…he paid for it. So what they are saying is…he deserves this.

Now we need to know a little about that culture too. This is what you call patronage. By doing this for them they are indebted to him. He’s taken it upon himself to provide for them to care for them…and as a result they are loyal to him…and so what you’re seeing here is just that. His servant is sick. He’s calling on the elders…he calls in a favor.

Now notice what is happening here. When they make the appeal they aren’t employing language of need. They aren’t framing their appeal in a connection with Jesus’ sermon on the plain…what we saw in 5 and 6. Instead they are still thinking in those old world categories. Categories of insiders-outsiders…honor and obligation that is prevalent all throughout the Empire. As one commentator put it:

Their words betray their captivity to a world system whose basis and practices run counter to the mercy of God. Even though they apparently seek the welfare of the centurion’s household, within Luke’s narrative world their motives are suspect.

They aren’t acting as God’s children…they are kind of acting as people who are trying to cut a deal, gain even more favor with a powerful guy…and using Jesus the prophet to accomplish this.

But there is more going on here. Because as Jesus goes....now what you’re thinking here if your hearing this for the first time...”of course he goes. He has to go. It is his duty. He owes this centurion…but look at what happens here.

He’s close to the house and the centurion sends his friends…you don’t have to come in. Now it’s not that he has a messy house. It’s that insider-outsider stuff going on. But there is more than meets the eye here.

“I’m not worthy to have you come under my roof”. Now connect those dots there. The Jewish elders. “he is worthy”. The centurion. “I’m not worthy”. I didn’t presume to come to you…but say the word.

Now what’s happening here. Why does he say here, “Just say the word, Jesus.” Where does that type of thinking come from. Well, go back to Luke 4:31-37. See if you can listen for some key words here. Listen for some similarities....

Luke 4:31–37 ESV

And he went down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee. And he was teaching them on the Sabbath, and they were astonished at his teaching, for his word possessed authority. And in the synagogue there was a man who had the spirit of an unclean demon, and he cried out with a loud voice, “Ha! What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.” But Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent and come out of him!” And when the demon had thrown him down in their midst, he came out of him, having done him no harm. And they were all amazed and said to one another, “What is this word? For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out!” And reports about him went out into every place in the surrounding region.

Did you hear it. Authority. With a word. That’s the synagogue that this centurion paid for. He’s heard this story before. He knows that Jesus has the power to cast out a demon with a word and he knows that from a distance Jesus has the authority to heal his servant.

This centurion has learned the lesson from the earlier healing and has taken that step of humility into deeper discipleship.

The Gospel of Luke 4.4.1. The Healing of a Centurion’s Slave (7:1-10)

In effect, this episode presents these Jewish elders as captive to a world system that has been nullified by the dawning of salvation, this centurion as possessing remarkable insight into the character of Jesus’ mission, and Jesus as behaving graciously toward outsiders (an enemy!—cf. 1:71) in a way fully congruous with his earlier, spoken word.

And with a word it happens. Healing happens not because somebody is worthy. Healing happens because of who Jesus is. It happens because of his compassion. It’s connected with faith. Jesus responds to faith with excitement. We’re going to see more of the heart of Jesus in the next story...

”Soon afterward”. His disciples and a great crowd. They get to the gate....and you’ve got a funeral procession. They had to bury them pretty quickly during this time, shut their eyes, close their mouth, put them on kind of a cart and take them out to the places of the dead. There are sanitary things happening here—but also Jewish laws concerning cleanliness and such.

But notice something about how Luke words all this. “The only son of his mother”. He turns his attention to this woman. The story is about her.

The Gospel of Luke 4.4.2. The Raising of a Widow’s Son (7:11-17)

Surprisingly in a social context in which females are typically identified in relation to males, this dead man is presented as “his mother’s only son.” Following this, the focus of attention is on her: she was a widow, the crowd was with her; Jesus saw her, had compassion on her, spoke to her, and, finally, gave the dead man brought back to life to her. She who is husbandless and sonless and in mourning, she who epitomizes the “poor” to whom Jesus has come to bring good news, is the real recipient of Jesus’ compassionate ministry. In fact, it is not too much to say that “healing” in this instance, although it entails the miraculous raising of this young man from the dead, should be interpreted as the restoration of this woman within her community.

He sees the woman and he has compassion.

Is that our response to need? What do we do when we see pain, hurt, social outcasts, the “unworthy”. Do we respond with compassion?

Note how with this Gentile—Jesus is amazed at his faith. He’s astonished by it. Here he is moved to compassion. He responds to faith with excitement and he responds to pain with compassion. That’s what kind of Jesus we serve. What are you coming to him with this morning?

He touched the bier…that’s the rolling cart thing that they’d use to either transport a coffin or to just transport the body. Him touching this is once again crossing that line. You aren’t supposed to do this. He’s making himself ritually unclean.

Here again…with a word. Not prayer as Elijah did. Not laying over his body or anything like this. He just says, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”

Oh man....Ephesians 2. That’s what is needed.

The dead man sits up…and as can be expected they are all afraid. But also glorifying God—a great prophet has arisen among us. God has visited his people. Immanuel. Moses. This is seeing some of the fulfillment of those things prophesied about him in the beginning of Luke. And the report about him spreads everywhere.

What do we make of this story?

First the connection between this and Luke 4. Naaman. Elijah and the widow’s son. Jesus isn’t bound by old world structures. He isn’t bound by those old ways of thinking....just as God wasn’t in the OT. They don’t have the market cornered on Jesus. AND YOU NEED TO KNOW THAT. YOU have access to God through Jesus. You don’t need a religious system. You don’t need some other mediator. You have access because of Jesus and Jesus Christ alone.

Second, Jesus is for you.

Suppose I could find out a sinner so vile that Jesus Christ could not reach him; why then the devils in hell would take him through their streets as a trophy; they would say, "This man was more than a match for God; his sin was too great for God's grace." What says the Apostle? "Where sin abounded"—that is you, poor sinner;—"where sin abounded"—what sins you plunged into last night, and on other black occasions,—"where sin abounded"—what? Condemnation? Hopeless despair? No, "Where sin abounded grace did much more abound." I think I see the conflict in the great arena of the universe. Man piles a mountain of sin, but God will match it, and he upheaves a loftier mountain of grace; man heaps up a still huger hill of sin, but the Lord overtops it with ten times more grace; and so the contest continues till at last the mighty God plucks up the mountains by the roots and buries man's sin beneath them as a fly might be buried beneath an Alp. Abundant sin is no barrier to the superabundant grace of God.

Third, do we live as if the Jewish leaders or the mission of Jesus?

Lastly, we need this new life. Ezekiel 37.