October 7, 2007

Pastor Meyer

Luke 7:7

Dear Friends in Christ; I think all of you know that we are now in the nonfestival half of the church year. That’s how you look at it if you are into liturgics. There are no great church festivals which we celebrate. We did that in the first half of the year. There we remembered Jesus coming to be the Redeemer of the world. He was born into the human race. Then we looked at His being shown as the Savior to all the world in Epiphany. We saw how He suffered and died because of our sins. He rose again to prove to us that now we are set free from our sins.

This non-festival half of the year gives the church a chance to see how people reacted to Jesus and His suffering and death. We learn how God wants us to react to the Savior.

Today we look at a centurion and learn about faith from him.

A FAITH WHICH JESUS CALLS “GREAT”

I. It Thinks of Others First

Our text takes us to the city of Capernaum, along the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus stayed in this town many times. Several of the disciples also came from this town. Here we see a roman centurion. We can assume that he was a convert to the Jewish religion and that he was a believer.

First of all, he had a deep concern for his servant. This man was about to die, and the centurion looked for help- from God. He asked some elders of the synagogue to go to Jesus and ask for help.

Normally the Jews looked down upon the Gentiles. The fact that these elders went, however, shows they had a high regard for this man. Out of his own pocket, he built a synagogue for them. That’s what faith does.

Jesus always told those who followed Him to love one another. They were not to be fighting and bickering among themselves. They were to help each other. When people have true faith, that is what they do. That’s why we work together to keep our church going. We work together to see that our synod can do its work teaching pastors and teachers and sending out missionaries. We want to join hands with each other to get our Lord’s work done.;

II. It Looks To Christ

This man could have gone for the best doctor money could buy. He firmly believed that Jesus was God’s own Son. He could help! Everything is in His hands.

That’s what faith does. We cannot do anything without our Lord Jesus. He paid the price of all our sins before God. He took all the punishment that the law demand for each sin which we have committed. We are saved only by Jesus Christ has done.

III. It Is Humble

When this man heard that Jesus was on His way to his house, he sent friends to Jesus to tell Him not to come. He sent his friends to talk to Jesus. He say himself as a sinner and he saw Jesus as God. It meant nothing that he was a centurion and held a high honorable place in society. It made no difference that be was a rich man. He could not himself stand in the presence of the Almighty God. He was a common sinner, along with all other people

So faith sees all the blessings which God gives, as “grace”. We are all alike in this respect, that we are sinners and deserve only God’s anger and punishment. We owe all our life to God. We owe to Him every minute of every day of every week. We must give Him first place with our time. We also serve Him with our possessions, and our abilities. We are indebted to Him.

IV. It Trusts God’s Word

Jesus is God. The centurion knew that Jesus only needed to speak a word and his servant would be healed. He trusted the Almighty power of His god.

So it is with true faith. We trust the power of Jesus. He did indeed redeem us from all our sins. When Jesus died on the cross, all sins were indeed punished. You can know that about all of your sins and I know that about all of my sins. We can say the Apostle Paul (II Tim 1:12) “That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.”

Our eternity is safe in His hands! This is the faith which Jesus calls “Great”. He said “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.”

AMEN