Jesus and the "Enemy"
Matthew 8:5-13
September 25, 2005
Introduction
Our passage of Scripture contains an episode in the life of Jesus that is familiar to most, if not all Christians who have been going to church for any length of time or gone to a Sunday School class as a kid.
It’s the story of Jesus healing the centurion’s servant, and in my experience, the emphasis is usually put on the faith of the centurion when it’s told.
And we’re going to talk about that some. But I’d really like to spend the bulk of our time looking at Jesus, if that’s okay with you.
As we read this passage, I’d like you to see if you can pick up anything we can learn about Jesus and how responds to the request of this soldier.
Our passage is found in Matthew 8:5-13. If you’re using the Bibles in the seats, this is found on page 686.
5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering."
7 Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."
8 The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 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. I say to my servant, ’Do this,’ and he does it."
10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour.
The centurion exercised a great deal of faith in this carpenter from Nazareth. There’s no question about that, and we can learn from it. Later in the message I’ll be discussing a couple things we can learn and apply.
But one of the things that fascinates me about Jesus is how he dealt with the various people who crossed his path.
He didn’t insulate himself from anyone. He related to everyone, no matter who they were or what their background.
Now we find him interacting with an official agent of the hated Roman Empire. How is Jesus going to work through this?
Let’s find out, shall we?
And it’s my hope that we can all take something away from this example of Jesus that we can make a part of our lives right away.
First, we find that Jesus walked through some barriers.
Jesus walked through the barriers of...
* Politics.
The centurion was employed by the hated Roman oppressors.
Earlier in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had discussed that we should love our enemies. And now, he’s demonstrating just what that means by helping the enemy that most assuredly had come to everyone’s mind when he talked about it earlier.
After all talk, here he was, putting his words into practice. No one could accuse Jesus of being all talk and no walk, that’s for sure.
Over the past few presidential elections, political divisions have hit the church like a sledgehammer.
It’s almost to the point where people are wondering if you’re a real Christian if you don’t belong to X political party or voting for a particular candidate.
And in spite of my best efforts to help people see that God is not a member of any political party, and that voting should be an extension of our relationship with Christ, politics still seems to be a dividing force in the church, especially in the US.
And it pains me to see the way people with strong political convictions treat those who disagree.
In the case of our Bible passage today, two opposing political forces were face to face and it would take something other than political compromise to bring a solution.
Jesus saw the "enemy" coming to him for a favor. But Jesus didn’t see the uniform, the sword, or anything else. He saw the need.
He heard the cries of a man who was concerned about someone he cared for deeply. And that’s all that mattered to Jesus.
Jesus didn’t care who he voted for in the last election. He didn’t care if he was a demopublican or a republicrat.
It just didn’t matter. He walked through the barrier of politics to help someone in need.
He also walked through the barrier of...
* Ethnic differences.
Jesus was a Jew, the centurion was a Gentile, probably an Italian.
Jews and Italians probably had a few differences, if only in outlook on the relative worth of the other culture, not to mention the issue of food - I don’t think Israel was the world’s pasta hotspot, know what I mean? Italy, on the other hand, was not the first choice for mutton at Passover.
In our area, we have people from lots of different ethnic backgrounds. From Native Americans to Norskies, and everything in between. Red and yellow, black and white.
And without a doubt, each of these has some inherent differences between them. And that’s okay.
The issue comes when we see differences as problems rather than opportunities for growth and learning.
Jesus didn’t care about the differences between him and the centurion. He saw someone in need of help, and he helped him.
He didn’t say, "Boy, I don’t know. You’re not the right shade of skin. You don’t speak the right language. You don’t dress the way I do. You’re not from here, originally, so I’m not going to help you. Go back and tell your servant that because you’re a Roman centurion that I refused to help him."
Can you imagine Jesus doing that? I can’t. That’s not the Jesus of Scripture.
A black man and a white man were driving down the road, debating the topic of whether Jesus was black or white. On and on they went. Back and forth. "He was white" says the white guy, "because he was jewish, and the shroud confirms, that he was caucasian. "No he was black." says the black man. "Noah’s decendants settled in ethiopia, and the lineage of Jesus is from there." The two men were so busy arguing, they weren’t watching the road and slammed into a semi, and killed both of them instantly. The two men wake up in heaven, Jesus comes around the Pearly gates and says, "BUENAS DIAS SENORS!" (SermonCentral.com, Contributed by: Shane Brooks)
The Jesus of Scripture walked through the barrier of ethnic differences to help someone in need.
And he also walked through the barrier of...
* Social standing.
Jesus could have reserved his miracles for "special" people like kings or the governor or the Jewish ruling counsel.
He could have aspired to make sure that only the "important" people got healed, so his popularity would be even greater. He could have looked at this guy and said, "Come back when YOU need help, not some lowly servant."
But that wasn’t Jesus’ attitude. He was more than willing to heal whoever needed the help. He healed the leper, he forgave the adulteress, he tried to win over the rich man. It simply didn’t matter to him.
He ate in the homes of the rich Pharisee and the lowly sinner. And the ironic thing is that Jesus caught more flack about that from the religious people than from the sinners he was trying to reach.
Jesus was willing to walk through those barriers and bring them the good news of forgiveness and freedom from the sin that was enslaving them.
What we couldn’t learn from that, hmm?
Jesus didn’t see the centurion’s politics. He didn’t see his ethnicity or citizenship. And he didn’t see his social standing.
But he did see something in this centurion that made him stick out, even from all those around him who were from Israel and knew the God of Scripture.
Our passage tells us what it was: his faith.
Let’s look now at just how Jesus responded to it.
Jesus responded to the man’s faith.
The key words that illustrate the centurion’s faith are in verse 8 -
"...just say the word, and my servant will be healed."
We see two parts of the response Jesus had to the centurion’s faith:
1. He was shocked by it.
Remember Jesus’ words?
"I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith."
The centurion understood that Jesus could simply command the sickness to be gone, the same way the centurion could command someone to leave or do something.
And so he exercised that faith by simply asking Jesus to say the word.
This story is also told in the gospel of Luke, and in that telling it adds something: it says that there were some Jews who interceded on behalf of this centurion, because he had built a synagogue for them.
Now I find that a bit interesting. This guy was not a Jew, yet he was sensitive to the Jews, and kind to them. And upon hearing that a certain Jewish man could possibly help his servant, he didn’t waste any time in calling for him.
But back to his faith for a second. Don’t you find it a bit curious that this Gentile was exercising faith that seemed to be lacking among the very people God had given his word to?
The Jews were followers of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and they knew of God’s dealings over the past centuries as he rescued them from the Egyptian and the Philistines, and finally brought them back from captivity in Babylon.
Yet their faith was lacking. And that brings me to this little note I want to bring to your attention:
- Just because you "belong" to the kingdom doesn’t mean you’ve got it all together.
These words of Jesus are a warning to those who think that their spiritual heritage is a automatic pass to heaven. He says that people are going to find out the hard way that it’s not their spiritual heritage or background, but their faith in him.
But I also think that there is something else we can take away from these words, and it’s this:
You might be a Christian, but that doesn’t mean you’re done growing in faith and Christlikeness. No one’s done. Not even Doug Harms, and he’s about as close as they come, if you ask me.
These "children of Abraham" should have been able to exercise the same faith as the centurion, but they weren’t able to.
They needed to grow. So do you, and so do I.
But Jesus didn’t stop at being shocked by the man’s faith - he moves on to the second part of his response, where...
2. He heals the man’s servant.
Duh, Pastor Brian! Tell us something don’t already know, okay?
(Small interlude here...)
I got to thinking as I was working on this message that I really do enjoy preaching. I really do. I don’t know if everyone enjoys hearing it as much as I love doing it, but that’s okay.
There are some people who say you shouldn’t give outlines in the bulletins, because then people won’t work hard enough to get the notes on their own, and so the message loses some value.
I’m not so sure that the word "value" necessarily applies to my sermons, but oh well.
Actually, the reason I do that is because I want you to have something you can take and look over during the coming week, asking God to help you remember something from the message that you can use that week.
But the other reason I do it is because people can sit through just about anything if they can see that it’s going to end at some point...
Back to the message. Jesus healed the man’s servant. This is no big deal for Jesus, because he has the power over sickness and death.
He healed people all the time. But there was always a condition: faith. Someone always was exercising faith in Jesus’ ability to heal.
In the Mark 6, we find Jesus unable to heal many people there, and he was amazed at their lack of faith.
Now listen very carefully, because there are people who will tell you that if you are sick, disabled, or somehow impaired that it’s due to your lack of faith.
While faith is necessary for this type of healing, it does not obligate God to heal. There are times when God chooses not to heal, and the reasons are his alone. So don’t ever let anyone try to browbeat you for not having enough faith. That’s not a correct application of Scripture.
Let’s move on now and see what we can learn from the centurion and Jesus.
What can we learn from...
the centurion?
* Treat others kindly, and they’ll have your back.
Remember how I said that in Luke’s telling of this episode that some of the Jews pleaded this guy’s cause because he had built them a synagogue? This centurion had treated the people kindly, and they had his back.
They went out of their way to try and convince Jesus that the man and his request were worthy of his attention.
Folks, this is huge in today’s world. We’re so focused on number one, and that attitude affects the Church in almost every area.
But the lesson is plain: treat others kindly, and they’ll stand with you in your need.
The second lesson we can learn from the centurion is to...
* Approach God with faith and humility.
This guy would have had the authority from Rome to order Jesus to heal his servant. Not sure what Jesus would have done.
If he had ordered Jesus to do it and he refused, Jesus would have found persecution from another avenue rather than just the religious leaders.
But the centurion said, "I’m not even worthy enough for you to come into my house." Does that sound prideful? I think not.
I’ve addressed this before, so I won’t belabor the point, but you have to remember that God owes you nothing. And you have no cause to demand anything from him. He hears the cry of the humble, but sets aside the orders of the proud.
Come to the Lord with faith and humility.
What can we learn about Jesus in this encounter with the centurion? I find a couple things we can take away from this great story:
Jesus?
* Don’t let man-made barriers stand in the way of helping people.
We are an incredibly diverse area. We have people from all sorts of different ethnic, political, marital, social, and religious backgrounds.
But no matter what differences are, and no matter how significant they appear to be, we all share a couple common traits: we’re made in the image of God, and Jesus died for us.
We had a blood drive here a couple weeks ago. And everybody who gave was a unique person.
But I’ll give you one guess as to what color their blood was: red!
Everyone out there bleeds red. The same color of blood that Jesus shed so we could become children of God no matter whose children we are on earth.
I’ve made it known in the past how it makes my head spin when I contemplate how people who claim to love Jesus will use that same "love" to justify hating other people because of such things as their skin color or where they came from.
And in case you’ve never heard it from my lips before, let me just say this as clearly as possible.
There is absolutely nothing in Scripture that justifies racism or hatred toward anybody.
Don’t ever try to convince me otherwise, because unless you can show me that Jesus was lying about loving the whole world, then you’re barking up the wrong tree, baby.
And if you can’t see past things like skin color, political affiliations, or country of origin, then you’re the one with the problem, not them.
Here’s the second lesson we can learn about Jesus, and it’s that...
* He looks favorably on the faith of all who call on him.
I hope that’s become fairly obvious throughout the message. The Bible says in the book of Hebrews that without faith it’s impossible to please God.
Well, the corollary of that is that faith pleases God. Makes sense, right?
And here’s another great part of that: if you don’t have enough faith, God wants to give you more. All you need to do is ask. I like that about God. He goes the extra mile to help us please him and enjoy life on earth through life in his son.
Conclusion
Folks, here’s the bottom line of what I’m trying to communicate to you today:
When seeking to meet needs around us, we need to be like Jesus. When coming to Jesus with our needs, we need to be like the centurion.
If you try to put up artificial, non-Scriptural barriers to those who come to you for help, whether it be physical or spiritual, then you are not being Christ-like.
And if you come to God with a bunch of demands, insisting that he answer you’re prayers because you "deserve" it somehow, then you’re in for a world of disappointment, my friend.
But when we seek to internalize what we can learn from both Jesus and the centurion, then we can grow in our faith an in our effectiveness in reaching people for Jesus.
Boy, I hope that’s where you’d like to be today.
I hope you’re not satisfied with the status quo of your life with Christ and your service for him, in whatever situation God has placed you.
My prayer for you this week is that you will never look at this story in the same way. My prayer is that every time you read it from now on, the Holy Spirit will move in you to become a person who reflects both Jesus’ compassion to an "enemy" as well as the centurion’s faith and humility.
And you can rest assured that if that happens in you, you will grow in spiritual character, and God will be glorified.
Let’s pray.
