Just Say the Word

Welcome again this morning. My name is Megan and my husband Michael and I are the senior pastors here at Alive Church and I am so happy to be in church today this morning with you. I'm so thankful for our church. You know, there's something about being here together that really just grounds me and centers me. And um life can be crazy. Life can be quite chaotic. If you don't know, we have five kids and so um just the schedule sometimes is so much to keep up with just getting people where they need to be and then also picking them back up from those places because that's an important part of it. You can't just drop your kids off. You have to actually pick them back up and get them home. And so just the logistics of what's been going on. We've been in a season of ending winter sports with kids who all played winter sports and beginning spring sports and all of the tryyouts and all the new new practice times and everything. In addition to that, uh Michael and I have had a lot of travel. I've had some travel for school. And this past week, in fact, I got to go on a trip with my 16-year-old daughter, which um when you have five kids, it's really great when you get to spend some one-on-one time with one of your kids. But we were on a road trip to Ohio. It was a really long drive. And um but it was great because she's 16 now and she has her driver's license about it for a little over a month. And so she's like, "Mom, I'll help with the driving." And I'm like, "Awesome." And so we were driving back late Friday night cuz we both were just like, "We want to be home. We want to get in our beds. We'd rather get home late than stay another night out." So we're driving late and she's like taking a shift and it's dark and um she's like, "Mom, you don't seem very relaxed." And I'm trying I'm trying to be relaxed over here. You know, we're driving on the interstate. She's driving 70 miles an hour and I'm trying to relax. But man, I don't know if you're a parent who's ever taught a child how to drive and you suddenly give the control of the car over to them. Like letting go of that level of control is really hard. And if you are a teenager whose parents have taught you how to drive, you know it's hard for them because they like have that imaginary break on the passenger seat that didn't used to be there because they're just constantly trying to be in control of the car even though it's all in our minds. It's totally in our imagination. But we like being in control. We like being able to control our schedules. We want to control our finances. We want to control the plans for our future. We want to control the outcome of every situation. We are people who like to be in control. And I don't know about you, but most of the time I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job keeping it all together, keeping it under control. But then sometimes some things happen that we just can't control. We have no control of a diagnosis that comes or a relationship that's broken, a problem with one of our kids, maybe an adult child making choices that you can't control. You can't make them choose different. No matter how hard you want, a job situation suddenly changes and what we thought was going to happen in the future is totally different. We can't control it. And it's a in those moments that we realize the unsettling realization that we actually have far less authority over our lives than we like to think. We reach moments like this and we start asking some deeper questions. Things like, who actually has authority to change this? Who has the power to speak into the things that I can't fix? And we're in Luke chapter 7 today and we're going to be introduced to a man who in the natural he had more control, more power or authority than almost anyone else in his world. He was a commander of soldiers. He enforced the rule of the dominant political party of Rome. And when he spoke, people obeyed. But his servant becomes sick and he's close to death. And this powerful man comes face to face with the limits of his authority. And in that moment, it leads him to discover something. He discovers that there is a greater authority than any power on earth, the authority of Jesus. So, would you stand up with me today as we're going to read scripture from Luke chapter 7, if you want to turn in your Bibles, Luke chapter 7, beginning in verse one. We stand to honor God's word as the authority, as the truth for our lives. So beginning in chapter 1 or beginning in Luke 7:1 when Jesus had finished saying all this to the people who were listening he entered Capernaum there a centurion servant whom his master valued highly was sick and about to die. The centurion had heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him asking him to come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus they pleaded earnestly with him. This man deserves to have you do this because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue. So Jesus went with them. He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him, "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That's why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I tell this one, "Go," and he goes, "And that one, come and he comes. And I say to my servant," do this, and he does it. 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." Then the men who had been sent returned to the house, and they found the servant. Well, let's pray. God, I thank you for your word. Lord, I pray that you would reveal yourself to us today in your word. That you would teach us who you are. That you would teach us about your authority and your power. God, I pray that we would see you clearly today in Jesus name. Amen. You can have a seat. So, we pick up this story. It begins as Jesus enters into Capernaum. Capernaum is um a place where Jesus did a lot of his ministry around the Sea of Galilee. And he he had says after he had said all this, so that was um last week we even talked about some of the teaching that Jesus did. He had been teaching and talking about loving our enemies being blessed when people hate you. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are those who hunger. Now he's been teaching all these encouraging things that we all are so excited to hear. Jesus is constantly teaching us it's not what you think. And then he enters into Capernaum and we see this lived out. We see this Roman centurion whose servant is ill. And like I said that this time uh the Romans held political authority in the region. They were like the occupying authority of the region. And a centurion was a military officer who commanded around about a hundred men or 100 soldiers. And he was used to giving commands. He was used to receiving commands. He was used to giving commands and he was used to having his commands obeyed because his word carried authority. But when his servant comes sick and says he's about to die, he enters into a situation that he cannot control. He can't command this situation. His authority here doesn't mean anything. He can't force sickness to leave. He can't force healing to happen with one of his commands. And in that moment, instead of even attempting to use his power or use his influence to try to um get someone to do something, to call on a doctor to make them come or to um even to appeal to the Roman gods. There was lots of Roman gods that they worshiped. And he didn't even appeal to the Roman gods. Instead, he turns to Jesus, this guy that he had heard about. And Jesus response to the centurion is that he was amazed. The scripture says he saw his faith and was amazed at him and he said,"I have not found such great faith even in all of Israel." When he says Israel, he's talking about the Jewish believers, those who have been studying scripture, the religious. He said, "I haven't even found such great faith in them." And the word used in the original language here, the Greek language, it for great great faith. It doesn't just mean big faith. It doesn't just mean he had a lot of faith. It means um Jesus is saying something more like I haven't seen faith like this. I haven't seen this kind of faith. So it raises an important question for us as we read this. What kind of faith is this? What is this great faith? What does this man understand about faith that catches the attention and the amazement of Jesus? That's the kind of faith I want to have. So what is this great faith? The first thing we see is this great faith begins with humility. Did you notice the contrast in the two different approaches to Jesus? When the elders, the Jewish leaders, the religious, they come to Jesus, listen to how they present the situation. They say to him, "This man deserves to have you do this. He loves our nation. He's built our synagogue." his their argument here is based on merit. They're saying, "Jesus, this man deserves a miracle because of what he's done." They're like submitting his resume. He's a good guy, Jesus. You should do this for him because he's a good guy. He deserves it. But then later, the centurion sends his friends to Jesus with a message and he says something totally different, completely different tone. He says, "Lord, don't trouble yourself. I am not worthy for you to come into my home. And I think it's so interesting that Luke places these two statements right next to each other. I think he wants us to see the contrast. The difference between the religious saying he deserves this and the centurion, the gentile saying I am not worthy. Jesus looks at his humility and calls it great faith. If we're honest, I think many of us approach Jesus, we approach God the way the religious elders do. We think we deserve something because we've been good or we think we don't deserve something because we haven't been good enough. We interact with God based on like his favor is connected to our performance. We think I'm I'm doing the right thing. I'm following God. I'm I'm obeying the scriptures. And then it's so confusing and disorienting when things begin to fall apart. When the diagnosis comes anyway, when there's that big detour in our lives that we weren't expecting or the disappointment shows up, suddenly we ask questions like, "God, how could this happen? I'm a good person." You ever find yourself asking, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" We all ask that question. And those questions reveal something about what we believe about Jesus. And that somewhere inside of us, even if we wouldn't say it, we kind of still think that we can be good enough to earn something from God, that it is based on merit. But the truth is, grace does not work that way. Grace is receiving something we did not earn. We cannot earn. We can't earn God's love. We can't earn his mercy. We can't earn a miracle. The grace of God is getting better than we deserve. We are not worthy. And yet he is still good. Over and over again in the gospels, we see Jesus trying to teach people this. The religious leaders believed if they behaved well enough, if they followed the rules to the tea, if they just did everything exactly right, they were so fixated on the external behaviors of doing everything right to earn God's favor. And he's constantly flipping that upside down, saying, "You're missing it. That's not who I am. That's not what faith is about." The kingdom of God doesn't operate on your merit. And it's ironic that it's the Roman centur centurion, the religious outsider who seems to understand this so much more clearly than they do. He sees what they do not. And he says, "I'm not worthy." He realizes he has earthly authority. He can command people to come and go, but he can't do anything to save his servant. He can't command sickness. He is not worthy. This is humble faith. This humble faith is what Jesus takes note of notice of. And one of the things we learn about his humble faith is that humble faith begins where our self-sufficiency ends. I think this is a place that a lot of us resist. I like being self-sufficient. I praise my kids when they're self-sufficient. I'm like, "Good job. You got yourself ready for school." Like, be self-sufficient. Our culture encourages it. Be self-sufficient. I like it. I like being able to solve a problem. When someone comes to me with something, I want to be like, "Here, do these one, two, three things. Let's fix this problem." We're problem solvers. But sometimes life brings us to moments where we realize uh we don't have an answer. I was reminded uh this past weekend of a trip I took to Africa uh several years ago and we stayed in this remote village. And what reminded me of it is that my uh college age son, he's he's a freshman in college and he has taken to hiking with his friends into the mountains and then camping in hammocks. Um no tents. I'm like, "Do you know there's bears? Are you are you aware there's bears in the mountains?" Um and I'm like, "Gosh, come on. I hope he I hope he knows what to do if a bear comes or a snake or whatever. Um, and he did this again this weekend, which is why it was on my mind, but it reminded me of the time that I was in Africa and we were out in this remote village for several days and we slept on cotss in the open air with just mosquito nets to cover us. And honestly, it was amazing. I love a trip like that. I love getting to be in just completely different places. Um, but that's not the point of the story. So, we were in Africa. We were in this really remote village and um we had been there a couple of days and we were getting ready to leave. We were packing up our stuff. We were getting ready to leave and this woman brought a little boy to us. I imagine he was seven or eight years old and he had a heart defect and I'm I didn't know that because I'm a doctor. I knew it because we could see his heart physically beating out out of his chest. We could you could see it with your eyes. It was beating rapidly. And um most of us were just completely alarmed of our mothers or fathers. We look at this child and we immediately start asking questions. Where's the nearest hospital? Can we get a helicopter? How do we get him out of here? Let's find a doctor. Who can we call? What can we do? And we're trying to solve the problem. And I remember the missionary who we were with, he said, whoa, whoa, whoa. We don't have that kind of access. There's not a children's hospital down the corner. We aren't going to do what you normally do in a situation when you're in the United States. We're going to pray. We're going to pray and ask Jesus to heal this boy. We don't have the expertise. We can't in our own selfsufficiency fix this, but we can appeal to Jesus. And man, I was humbled in that moment. I was humbled because I realized how often in my daily life, I go to what I can do before I go to what he can do. I go to what I can do to fix the problem before I seek Jesus. And sometimes he gives us wisdom and he gives us answers and he sends us to to uh resources and places. But man, we can go to him first. The second thing the second thing we learn about faith today from the centurion is this great faith trusts in the authority of Jesus. He recognizes something about Jesus that other people are missing. It's not just that Jesus c can perform a miracle, but Jesus has an authority. The centurion says um he talks about his authority. He says, "I'm a man under authority. I recognize what authority is." Like I said before, he was in the military and authority came from the higher throne and it moved down and it it was like a chain of command and when the commander spoke um the commands were carried out and when he he knew that his word carried the authority of someone higher. He was obeyed because of the authority he had, because of the alignment he had with the Roman authorities. He understands how authority works. And I think it's interesting that they include these details, these details about how what he was saying, about how his reasoning for why he went to Jesus. And there was this one little part that I missed the very first time that I um walked through this or read through this passage, but it caught my attention again. It says in verse three, the centurion heard of Jesus and that's why he went to him. And it made me ask the question, what had he heard? He didn't he hadn't seen Jesus perform a miracle. It wasn't that he had seen it. It wasn't that he was it that he had heard about his teaching that he had heard he had all this great teaching. What had he heard about Jesus that made him go to him first that made him seek him with this humility to talk about his authority when he had never even met him? And I I flipped back a little bit and I looked and I noticed in chapter 4 of Luke, we see this story where Jesus drives out a demon out of a person. Says that Jesus told spoke and the demon came out of him. We're in uh in 4:31-36. But here's what the people said. Oh, and and this is important. This happened in Capernaum, the same place where the centurion lived. this had happened there. And what the people said about this healing, about the way that Jesus spoke, they said they were amazed and said to each other, "What words these are with authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out and the news about him spread through the surrounding area. What Jesus or what the centurion had heard about Jesus was this is a man with authority." And because of the authority that he walked in, he recognized that this was an authority that was greater than his authority, greater than any authority that he had ever seen. He recognized he carried a different authority. So he says to him, "You don't even have to come to my house. Just say the word. I see your authority. I understand that you have a greater authority than any other authority. Just say the word. The third thing we learn about the centurion's faith is that great faith trusts the power of Jesus word. We see this where Jesus words carry authorities in the go authority in the gospel just like this story in four in Luke chapter 4 and in Luke chapter 7 and throughout scripture we see when God speaks things happen all the way back to the beginning of the Bible Genesis begins and God said let there be light and light filled the darkness. God spoke and the heavens and the earth were formed. God spoke and life itself came into existence. There is authority and power in the word of God that creates life. There's authority and power in the word of God that sustains life that heals. And we see this pattern over and over again. Psalm 33 says, "By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made." Psalm 107 says, "He sent out his word and healed them." And we see it in Jesus. He rebukes demons with a word. He calms storms with a word. He speaks to sickness and it obeys with a word. Again and again we see that when Jesus speaks, when God speaks, the reality responds. And so the centurion says just say the word, he is trusting in the authority of Jesus that it carries authority from heaven itself. This kind of great faith is not just optimism. It's not just pretending that our problems don't exist. The the centurion didn't even see Jesus. He never even in this whole account, he never even comes face to face with him. Jesus doesn't come and lay hands on his um servant. He doesn't come near him. He doesn't even have a conversation. But he, the centurion, believes that Jesus has authority even when he can't see it. Hebrews 11 defines faith saying faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is the kind of great faith that the centurion had. And he didn't grow up in the synagogue learning the scripture like the religious had. He didn't have a perfect theology, but he recognized something about Jesus many of the religious insiders were missing. Great faith is not about the size of our faith, but about the object of our faith. It's not about believing harder, but great faith trusts who Jesus is. The centurion here probably he he potentially understands something that he might not even realize that he understands who Jesus is. He's recognizing this authority is a greater authority than one of the earthly authorities. But he may not even quite be fully recognizing that Jesus is God. But we know because we live on the other side of the cross and the resurrection. And Luke writes this gospel account on the other side of the cross and the resurrection after Jesus has taken our sin and our punishment on the cross. He's defeated death and rose again. He knows. And if you remember back to when we started this series at the beginning of Luke, he opens his gospel account saying I am writing what he tells us why he wrote this book. Why he wrote this gospel account. He said I have I have studied all of this. I have carefully investigated and I want you to know the certainty of what you have been taught. He wants us to clearly see who Jesus is. That's why he includes this in here to show clearly who Jesus is. So the question for us today is not just what did the centurion believe and how do I how do I do that? How do I get that miracle? But the question is do we trust Jesus like this? Do we trust his authority like this? Do we trust his word like this? We don't have to see it to believe it. This is the kind of humble faith that says, "I'm not worthy, but your word is enough." It faith, it's faith that recognizes that Jesus has a greater authority than anything I can do on my own. Anything I can come up with to solve this problem, Jesus authority is greater. It's a It's a faith that stops trying to control every situation and do things in my own power, but puts my trust in Jesus. When life begins to feel out of control and those situations arise and the diagnosis comes or there's a disruption in our life and we're thrown into a loop, the question is, will I place my faith in Jesus and his authority and his word above everything else? You know, this passage is it's talking about miracles and about God's authority, Jesus authority to heal, to perform miracles. And if I'm honest, sometimes it's hard to wrap my mind around miracles. I've seen miracles. I've seen people be healed. I know God can, but yet I don't know why he doesn't always. And that's a hard thing to wrestle. and and we're not going that deep into that today, but it's just it's a hard reality for us. But that doesn't mean we don't believe. That doesn't mean we don't put our faith in Jesus and ask anyway. Because what I do know and what this scripture teaches us is that miracles are not rewards for good behavior. We don't earn miracles. If if someone hasn't been healed yet, it's not because they didn't do it right or pray hard enough or believe bigger. We're not called to just believe more. We're called to place our faith, to place our trust in his authority, in his word, and in his power. And a miracle begins to happen when the authority of Jesus comes into contact with my human impossibility. Tim Keller says, "The gospel is this. We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe. Yet at the very same time, we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope. That's good news. That is good news. The gospel in produces both humility and confidence. Not a humility that says, "Oh, Jesus, I'm not worthy." And doesn't even ask. No, humility says, "I'm not worthy." But then there's the confidence that comes and says, "But I'm going to ask anyway. But I'm going to trust that you're going to do it anyway, even though I'm not worthy." Because it's not about my worth. It's not about my merit. It's not about what I've done. It's about you, Jesus. We know we don't deserve it, but we're going to have the confidence to ask for anything. The centurion had faith to believe that Jesus could heal at a distance. He said, "Don't even come to my house. I don't even need you to come to my house. I know your authority, and your authority is not limited by boundaries of space and time." In Matthew 28, we see where Jesus tells us um after he is risen, he gathers together his disciples and he says to them, "All authority on heaven and earth has been given to me." Do we believe that today? All authority, everything has been given to him. Not just some, all authority. That means that the authority that the centurion was just glimpsing here, it's been fully revealed to us that Jesus is not just a good guy with good things to say. He's not just a guy who healed some people. He's the risen king. He's the risen Messiah. And when we pray in his name, we declare his name. We align ourselves with his authority that's greater than any authority on heaven, in heaven or on earth. And I have a feeling that there's people here today, there's some of you here today and you need a miracle in your life. There are situations and circumstances that are out of your control and you don't know how it's going to work out and you don't know what to do next and you need a miracle. And I want us to declare today that our faith is in his authority, in his power. Our faith is in who Jesus is. Not limited by time, not limited by space, but believing that he can speak life into a broken marriage. He can speak life into a broken relationship where there's been hurt and betrayal. Jesus can heal. He can speak healing into a sick body and speak freedom to addiction. He can speak hope into our situations that feel beyond hope. That's who he is. So would you stand up with me today? As we close this morning, I just want to spend a few moments praying and declaring Jesus authority, Jesus power, his ability, not in our own strength. And you know, maybe just for a moment before we do, I just want to invite you, if you've not surrendered your life to the authority of Jesus, now is a great moment. You might be here and you're still just trying and holding on tightly, trying to make it work. You're trying to put the pieces together. You're trying to make things happen all on your own. And you're feeling that tension of recognizing, "I can't do it because we can't." But we can humbly submit ourselves to Jesus and say, "Lord, you are enough." So if that's you, I just would you just close your eyes and I I just want to pray for anyone who who maybe you're in that place today and you want to say, "I want to put my trust in Jesus today." Lord, I thank you that we were not meant to do this on our own. We were never meant to struggle and try to control every situation in our own authority and our own power. But that we can come under your authority. We can submit our lives to you. Surrender to you, Jesus. To your authority, to your power. We receive forgiveness this morning. We receive your grace. Not because we earned it, but because you are so good in Jesus name. Amen. And maybe you are here today and you need you're one of those people you're like, "I need a miracle. I need God to move in my life. There's something that I just can't figure it out. I'm stuck and I want I'm tired of trying to figure it out on my own." So, I want to invite you. Let's pray. Let's pray for those miracles. You can open up your hands in front of you or lift your hands up just as a posture of humility saying, "God, I'm surrendering this thing to you." Like almost visualize putting it in your hand and saying, "Lord, it's yours. I'm giving it to you. I surrender it to you, Lord. This morning, we come before you humbly and we release control of the things that we've been trying to figure out on our own. God, we believe in your authority. We believe in your word that when you say it, it will be done. We're asking for miracles, Lord. We're asking for you to perform miracles in the house today, miracles in our bodies, miracles in marriages. Lord, it's your name above every other name. Lord, I thank you that the name of Jesus is greater than autoimmune diseases. And your name is greater than cancer. Your name is greater than divorce. Your name is greater than addiction. Lord, your name is greater than anxiety. We declare the name of Jesus over everything that might come against us, try to hold us back from living fully into who you say we are. We release these things to you this morning. We thank you, Lord, that there is healing in our bodies. Lord, you can heal our pain with just one word. God, the things that we've been through, maybe they feel like they're just chasing us down in life, and we can't seem to let go of the trauma or the hurt of our past. Lord, one word and you can heal us. God, we come before you the way the centurion came with humility, with faith in your word, faith in your authority, trusting who you are, saying, "Jesus, just say the word and we believe it will be done." It's in your name we pray. Amen.