Saving Faith – Luke 7:1-10

STUDY GUIDE

Saving Faith

An Orderly Account: Encountering Jesus in the Gospel of Luke

Luke 7:1-10

Introduction

“Somewhere in the last century, Western man suffered a catastrophic loss of faith in himself, in his civilization, and in the faith that gave it birth.” Pat Buchanan wrote those words in 2001. I want to focus on that last phrase, “in the faith that gave it birth.” Twenty-five years ago, many believed secularization and science would eliminate faith.

Yet, a quarter-century later, and “Science” acts as a pseudo-religion, and technology, while solving problems, creates new ones.. And though main-line doctrinally compromised churches have withered, religious faith has not evaporated. In fact, there is more interest in the claims of Christianity today than at any time in the last 25 years.

Many now see secularism as a failed experiment. It’s not just that religious faith isn’t going away: it can’t. Faith is deeply human. We’re all religious. It’s not a choice of whether you’ll be religious. The question is which: which religion will you put your faith in?

Raise the Need, State the Destination, Give Signposts:

In Luke 7:1-11 we explore what Christians mean by the word, “faith.” Our passage is the healing of a centurion’s servant, and at the end of the passage Jesus says this: “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” Luke tells us that Jesus marveled at the faith of the centurion; he was amazed. It’s only one of two places in the entire New Testament that Jesus was amazed. In Nazareth, his hometown, Jesus was amazed at their unbelief—their lack of faith. And here, Jesus is amazed by the faith of a centurion.

So, if you want to know more about faith, this is the place to look. It’s a living breathing example of what real faith looks like, and what you learn here may surprise you. In this text we see that:

1. Everyone Has Faith
2. Faith Often Arises from Crisis
3. Faith Needs a Proper Object
4. Faith Admits Unworthiness.

The Text

After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. ² Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. ³ When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. ⁴ And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, ⁵ for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” ⁶ And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. ⁷ Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. ⁸ For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” ⁹ When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” ¹⁰ And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.

1. Everyone Has Faith

Everyone in the story has faith. They don’t all have the same faith, but everyone has faith. The Jewish leaders that the centurion sends to Jesus as a delegation have faith. Their faith isn’t in Jesus, himself; they have faith in the centurion’s good deeds. The centurion has faith, not in his own record, but in Jesus himself. But everyone has faith in something.

Many once divided people into two groups: religious people and irreligious people. In other words, there were those who had faith and those who didn’t. In reality, we all have faith, and the only difference is whether or not you acknowledge it.

You say, “We don’t need faith because we have science. The universe is governed by laws.” Ok, but science assumes those laws operate consistently across time and space, but there’s no way to prove those laws are uniform. Science assumes that human reason and perception are reliable. In other words we assume that our physical faculties like sight and touch are reliable. We trust our minds to process data and draw valid conclusions. Science trusts that the material world exists but cannot step outside it to prove its existence. In other words, science isn’t omniscient, it rests upon a host of assumptions that it must accept by faith.

You say, “Well, science may not be able to answer all those questions, but what really matters is that we believe in human rights and fairness.” Ok. Fine. But from what do we derive human rights? What is a human? Why do humans matter more than animals or plants? Seriously. Plenty of people today believe they don’t.

You say, “Well, it doesn’t matter which religion you believe in. We really just need to all hold the principle of doing no harm. You’re free to do as you want so long as you don’t harm anyone.” But wait… who decides what’s harmful?

Western cultures believed abandoning Christianity would free them from faith altogether. But that hasn’t happened. When we abandoned Christianity, we embraced faith in man and we’re now a culture riddled with contradictions. Because man, rather than God, is the organizing principle of our faith, our faith is self-contradictory.

G.K. Chesterton, a century ago wrote that because modern man has revolted against everything he’s lost the ability to truly revolt against anything.

As a politician, modern man will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then as a philosopher, he’ll argue that all life is a waste of time. We’ll denounce a policeman for killing a citizen, but then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the citizen ought to have killed himself. Modern man goes to a political meeting where he complains that savages are treated as beasts, then he takes his hat and goes to a scientific meeting where he proves by evolution that they practically are beasts. In a book on politics, he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his ethics he attacks morality from trampling on men.

In the last twenty years, our culture has not moved on from religion. We’ve not abandoned faith. We’ve embraced faith in man, and it’s led us to utter confusion. We’ve exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator. (Romans 1:25) It’s no good denying the need for faith. Your faith is in something. It’s either in God, or science, or your own intuition, or Humanity.

It’s time to stop acting as if you don’t need faith. Faith is unavoidable. In one sense, we all walk by faith. The question is what we’ve placed our faith in.

2. Faith Often Arises from Crisis

Getting back to the story, notice the occasion for the centurion’s faith. His valued servant lay terribly ill. No doubt this centurion knew who Jesus was before this event. This story unfolds in Capernaum. It’s a city on the north side of the Sea of Galilee and we know this was Jesus’ home base for his ministry. He’d performed miracles there. He’d just given the Sermon on the Plain to a large multitude. This centurion no doubt knew about Jesus. But he did not call to him until now. He doesn’t ask for Jesus to come until a crisis arises: his servant is ill. The centurion doesn’t come to Jesus until there’s a need. He doesn’t come to Christ until his need is great.

Now, lightening can come out of a perfectly blue sky, but it often comes from a storm. And it’s often the case that faith arises in times of crisis. A diagnosis of a life-threatening disease, the loss of a loved one, the collapse of your career, and civil unrest all shake us and sober us up. They force us to face questions we normally push to the extreme corners of our mind. Most of us don’t obsess over questions about our own existence, the meaning life, or the existence of God all day, everyday. We’re focused on mundane things like breakfast and our daily checklist.

The Screwtape Letters, is a fictional account of an older demon named Screwtape giving advice to his nephew, a demon named Wormwood on how to properly tempt a human being. And Screwtape basically says, “If you ever have a human who is beginning to ask really important questions about life and death and God… for goodness sakes, don’t start arguing with him! Don’t engage his reasoning. Just distract him. Help him focus on the bus driving by or suggest that he’s hungry.

In other words, says Screwtape, don’t let him dwell on his sense of need, or loss, or hopelessness, because that’ll drive him to search for God.

Now, I want to tell you that many agnostics say that the existence of suffering in the world is the greatest argument against the existence of God. I think the reverse is true. If it’s true that evil and suffering exists, then there must be a God who gets to define what evil is and who can somehow deliver us through our suffering. If there is no God, then we can’t even define evil. Listen, if there is no God, if this world is all there is, then we have no hope for the suffering of this world.

I don’t know all the reasons that God allows suffering in the world. But I do know that one reason he does allow it is to wake us up. C.S. Lewis says this in his Problem of Pain:

We can ignore… pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world….No doubt pain as God’s megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. it removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul.

Friend, whether or not you are experiencing a crisis today, do you sense your need? Don’t wait until tragedy strikes. Don’t be dissuaded or distracted from the most important questions of existence by comfort or entertainment. You are here, right now, today, being given an opportunity to ask yourself:

What is my life?

Why do I exist?

What will happen to me when I die?

Is there a God and what does he require of me?

I’m not suggesting you stop eating until you know all the answers… but don’t let this moment pass you by and be lost in the business of the week.

3. Faith Needs a Proper Object

In verse 6, Jesus is on his way to the centurion’s house, and we read:

When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. ⁷ Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. ⁸ For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

What’s going on here? As a centurion, he rose from an ordinary soldier to command 100 men. (Century = 100) and he relates his own experience to Jesus. He puts his faith in Jesus, but I want you to see that he does so imperfectly.

He does not truly understand all that Jesus is. He says, “I see that, like me, you’re a man under authority.” In other words, he says, “I know how this works. I’m a centurion. I have people under my authority, and I am under the authority of another.” He’s right to see that Jesus has authority. He has some correct knowledge about Jesus, but it’s imperfect. Jesus has authority, but his authority is unlike the authority of the centurion. Because Jesus is not just a man with authority. In reality, Jesus is the authority from whom all others derive their authority.

This is crucial to understand: it’s not the perfection of your faith that matters most. It’s not the intensity of your faith that matters most. So many of us think that what matters most is that we have perfectly knowledge of who Jesus is. Too many Christians worry that their faith isn’t intense or strong enough. Worse yet, many non-Christians here in the West still hold the idea that all religions are equally valid. So, it doesn’t matter what you believe, so long as you’re sincere.

This story shows us that on the one hand not all religions are equal. There is only one savior in the story. The univocal claim of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God incarnate, who lived a sinless life, died a sinner’s death, and was raised three days later. The Apostle Peter says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) That’s an exclusive claim, and there’s no way around it. Either Jesus Christ is the savior or he is not. Not all religions are equal.

On the other hand, this story also shows us that it’s not the perfection of our faith that brings Jesus’ healing into our lives. The centurion’s understanding is imperfect… he doesn’t hold to Nicene theology like we do. He does not confess:

One Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God,

Begotten of the Father before all worlds,

God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God,

Begotten not made, of one substance with the Father…

And yet, Jesus comes and his healing comes into this man’s life. Friend, this teaches us that it is not the perfection of our faith that saves us. Rather, it’s the object of our faith that saves. You must believe, you must have faith, but your faith must be in the proper object. It’s not the perfection of your faith, it’s the direction of your faith that matters.

Two mountain climbers suddenly trip and they fall onto a ledge, and there’s only two ways off the ledge. There’s a little rock outcrop over here and a little rocky outcrop over here. One climber says, “I’m going to the right! I am confident that ledge will hold me. I am filled with assurance!” The other says, “I think the left is the right way, but I’m not so sure. I’m terrified. I don’t want to fall.” The first climber steps to the right, and its unstable and he falls. The second climber steps that way and it’s just fine and he lives. Now, who was saved? The man who believed with all his heart? No, the man who chose the right rock!

Here’s the comfort. It’s not the strength of your faith or the perfection of your faith, it’s the direction of your faith. It’s the object of your faith! And you must take a step. You have to make a choice.

John Bunyan, the famous Baptist Puritan who authored Pilgrim’s Progress describes periods of extreme anxiety about his salvation. He feared he had committed unforgivable sins, or that he was not among the elect. He was tormented by intrusive thoughts despite his desire to live for Christ. And eventually, Bunyan realized that in this life, he would never be fully satisfied with the strength of his own faith. He slowly began to realize that he would always feel weakness, but that it should not stop him from going forward. And here’s what he writes:

I am for going on, and venturing my eternal state with Christ, whether I have comfort here or no; if God doth not come in, thought I, I will leap off the ladder even blindfold into eternity, sink or swim, come heaven, come hell, Lord Jesus, if Thou wilt catch me, do; if not, I will venture for Thy name.

There it is! You must have Jesus Christ as the object of you faith, and if you do then it doesn’t matter how strong it is. Put your faith in him today.

There’s a hymn that says, “Just as I am, though tossed about, with many a conflict many a doubt. Fightings within, fears without… but I still come.”

4. Faith Admits Unworthiness

When the centurion’s servant falls ill, he sends a delegation of Jews to Jesus. Verse 3:

³ When the centurion heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. ⁴ And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, ⁵ for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.”

They say, “Jesus, you need to do this. Look at how worthy he is.” And, there’s no doubt that from a human perspective, this centurion is a virtuous man. You didn’t become a centurion without being a reliable and noble person. He’s a generous man. He paid out of his own fortune to build the synagogue for the Jews. He’s far kinder to his servants than the average Roman master. The Roman Cato had said slaves were like tools, and when one wears out, you can throw them away. But here is a many who is caring for his slave the way you’d care for a family member. His actions reveal a virtuous, generous, and loving man. All the elders say, “He’s worthy. Do this for him.” Yet, when Jesus is coming to him, he sends out another servant to Jesus and says, “I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy of even being in the same room with you. But do this anyway, because this is who you are.”

Do you see what he’s saying? “Jesus, I’m not worthy. I’m nothing. But you are worthy, and I’m asking you to bring your healing into my life based on some other foundation than my morality.”

Why does Jesus marvel? It’s not because the centurion has a perfect understanding of who Jesus is. It’s because he has an accurate understanding on who he himself is: he’s unworthy. Everyone else says, “Jesus, you have to do this. Look at how good he is.” The centurion says, “Jesus, please do this, though I’ve done nothing to earn it.”

And this is the center of saving faith: it is the transfer of all your hope from yourself to Jesus Christ. It’s the admission that you are hopeless and helpless. You are utterly needy. And when you admit to Jesus that you are utterly needy and confess that only he can rescue you, he pours his saving power into your heart.