Word of Salvation – Vol.39 No.22 – June 1994

 

A Man Under Authority

 

Sermon by Rev. R. Brenton on Luke 6:46-7:10

Reading: Luke 6:46-7:10

 

My brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ,

Good health is among life’s most cherished blessings.  Those of us who have healthy bodies and minds enjoy an active and abundant life.  Good health gives us the capacity for fulfilment and satisfaction in all our endeavours as we strive to live meaningful lives which bring praise unto our God.  The blessings of health holds forth the promise not only of a fulfilling life, but of a long life, too – surely a hope all of us harbour in our hearts.

Yet, not all of us realise that hope.  Some of us are frustrated because we are not in good health and do not have a sense of well-being.  A few of us are plagued by diseases which are truly life-destroying, and we have seen the high quality of our own lives devalued before our very eyes as we have become a shadow of who we once were.

Today we are particularly mindful of (……………..) suffering sickness (or disease).

What shall we do on behalf of our brothers or sisters?  Someone suggested ‘we ought to pray!’  Everyone agrees that we ought to ‘take it to the Lord in prayer’ in order to ‘cast all our cares’ on the One who truly cares for us.

Let us suppose that we agree to go to God on behalf of our brothers and sisters.  When we pray, what should we ask for?  Dare we ask for the sick to be made well?  Or, is that asking too much?

I’m going to push harder now.  When we pray, what should we expect from our God?  Dare we expect the healing of our brothers and sisters?  Or, is that expecting too much?

Let us suppose that we dare to ask the most and expect the most of God because we believe that God is able to heal and that He may also be willing to heal.  On what grounds are we going to make our request known to God?  In other words, what gives us the right to ask for healing in the expectation that He will answer our request?  Do we have any ground for our great expectations?  Have we any hope for the healing of our brothers?

Let me submit to you that the ground of our great expectations is the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: the good news concerning His coming kingdom – a kingdom of light and life which banishes the devil’s domain of darkness and death where disease and decay hold sway.

Our Bible tells us this good news from four points of view.  One viewpoint belongs to a man named Luke.  Evangelist Luke records how Jesus, God’s heaven-sent Son, was anointed by the Holy Spirit at His baptism to do the work of God.  Significantly, the first thing on the Spirit’s agenda was to drive Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the devil for a period of forty days.  Jesus passed the test by refusing to pledge allegiance to the devil.  He proved Himself loyal to His Heavenly Father by adhering to God’s Word.  Jesus repeatedly appealed to that Word and staked His life upon it.

Having passed the test, Jesus inaugurated His ministry from His hometown, Nazareth, by reading the following passage from the scroll of prophet Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me
because the Lord has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the Year of the Lord’s favour.

When Jesus had finished reading, He said, ‘Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.’  Today marks the beginning of a new era in history.  It is now the Year (or Age) of God’s Favour.  A new day has dawned: God’s Day of Salvation in which the Lord heals and restores and releases people, leading them into the glorious freedom of the children of God.  Yes!  The Year of the Lord’s Favour!  God’s benediction of grace, mercy, and peace upon all His people.

My brothers and sisters, if Evangelist Luke has succeeded in writing an ‘orderly account’ according to his intention (stated in Luke 1:1-4), then what would you expect to read in his account after his recording of Jesus’ inaugural address where he sets His agenda for the New Year?  I’ll tell you what I would expect of Luke.  I would expect him to set forth a series of actions which show us Jesus working through His agenda, doing what He promised to do.

So, I read Luke’s ‘orderly account’ with an eye for those actions.  Guess what?  Luke did not disappoint me!  After giving us Jesus’ Inaugural Address, Luke goes on to show us Jesus in action: driving out demons, rebuking diseases, healing sicknesses, cleaning lepers, forgiving sinners, and calling the faithful to discipleship.

There can be no doubt that the new year of God’s favour was here.  Heaven’s Kingdom had come down to earth.  The devil’s work was being destroyed as God’s Son plundered his house at will.  In the midst of a sin-cursed, disease-filled world, the kingdom of health, life, and peace was taking root and growing.

God’s house was clearly under construction.  Carpenter Jesus was at work building the heavenly kingdom.  And many would-be builders gathered around Him to participate in His project.  Multitudes rejoiced in the showers of blessing being poured out through Jesus.  They said, ‘A great prophet has appeared among us; God has come to help His people’ (Luke 7:16).  Oh, to have a part in building that house!  Oh, to bring in the Kingdom!  Yes, many would-be builders gathered around Jesus.  They respectfully paid him ‘lip service’.  They called Him ‘Lord.’  But they had their own ideas on how the house should be built, their own thoughts on authority and whose right it was to give the orders.  These would-be builders obviously wanted to get in on the good thing God was doing through Jesus, but they wanted ‘in’ on their own terms.  They wanted to build by their own blueprint.  In their hearts they were saying something like this: Sure, we’ll call Jesus ‘Lord, but you don’t really expect us to do what He says, do you?

Can’t you see how such divided loyalty to Jesus leaves you in a precarious position?  How can you say that you are working for Jesus when you refuse to build His way?  How can you say that you have solid ground upon which to build when you ignore the Master Builder’s blueprint?  Sure, go ahead and build!  But don’t expect your house to stand in stormy weather.

Sad to say, in all of Israel there was precious little solid ground suitable for faith’s foundation.  Most of the would-be builders of the heavenly kingdom had no grounds for expecting anything great of God, no real basis for believing God would bless their efforts.

Yet, in the midst of Israel’s shaky ground stood a lone centurion; a commander of soldiers in the Roman army.  This centurion had a servant whom he valued highly.  His servant was suffering from a life-threatening sickness and was at that moment on the verge of death.  Having heard Jesus’ power to heal and restore, this gentile centurion sent some elders of the Jews to Him, asking Him to come and heal his dying servant.  When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with Him.  They argued: If anyone is deserving of your healing help, it is this man.  Look how he loves our nation!  Why, he has even built us a house of worship here in Capernaum (Luke 7:2-5).

Jesus listened to their plea and went with them.  As He made His way to the centurion’s house He was met by some friends of the commander with the following message from their master: Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.  That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you in person.  Lord, don’t trouble yourself.  Just say the word, and my servant will be healed.  Just say the word, and it will be done!

How dare this gentile centurion presume that Jesus, by merely saying the word, would heal His servant?  What grounds did he have to make such an appeal to the power of Jesus’ word?

My friends, this lone centurion stood on the ground vacated by the elders of Israel.  He took the higher ground they had given up for the fertile-looking flood plains of self-righteousness and pride.  Clothed in humility, he stood alone on the Rock and there appealed to Jesus on the basis of His authority.

Of all people, this lone centurion understood the way authority is structured and how it is exercised.  How did he know?  He knew from his own experience as a commander in the Roman army.  ‘For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me’ (Luke 7:8).

It is imperative that we take his full statement into account and look beyond the obvious.  What is obvious about the centurion is that he is a man in command of other men.  He is a man who tells this man to go over there, and that man to come here.  We observe the soldiers under his command coming and going at his will.  He says to his servant, ‘Do this,’ and the servant obeys.  We see a man who gives orders and gets obedience from the soldiers and servants under him.  That’s obvious.  What is not so obvious is the fact that the centurion, like the 100 soldiers under him, is also under authority.  When we look at the centurion and his 100 men, we do not see the power and might of the entire Roman Empire.  That awesome power is not obvious, but it is there nonetheless.  Above the centurion stands the sovereign power of the state.

Do you know why 100 soldiers obey their centurion’s every command and stay in line?  Let me put it another way.  Let us just suppose that the centurion gives a command that his soldiers don’t want to obey.  Why don’t they refuse to obey it?  Why don’t they just gang up on their commander and get rid of him?  It’s one hundred against one!  Why don’t they dispose of him if they don’t like him?

I’ll tell you why.  It’s because the commander, the man in authority, is also the man under authority.  He has the whole weight of Rome on top of him.  He must give an account of his actions to Rome.  By the same token, he has the complete backing of Rome.  Rome stands behind the centurion, prepared to enforce his every command.  That is why when he gives orders, he gets obedience; no questions asked!

The centurion understood authority because he himself was under authority.  He knew the structure of authority, and he used the authority that had been conferred on him within the Roman chain of command.

Now you know why the centurion, when he looked at the Lord Jesus, recognised someone like himself.  Jesus was also a man under authority!  How could he tell?  Well, he had it figured like this: Just as I, a man under Rome’s authority, give my word of command to send my soldiers here and there to do this or that, so also does Jesus, a man under heaven’s authority, give His word of command by which he orders anything under Heaven’s Rule to obey.

You see, the centurion had just heard of Jesus.  He has heard that Jesus was driving out demons and commanding sickness to depart.  What did the centurion make of that report?  What he had heard concerning Jesus convinced him that such diseases resided in the realm of authority in which He operated; and in that realm Jesus served as a commanding officer under the Crown of Heaven!

That conviction, my friends, constituted the grounds for the Centurion’s faith.  That is why he could say to Jesus without a shred of doubt or hint of hesitation: Just say the word and my servant will be healed!  And sickness, upon hearing the marching orders of Jesus, would straightway depart.

My brothers and sisters, what I have just told you is really and truly what the centurion believed in and expected of Jesus.  No less than a complete deliverance!

Was he asking for too much?  Were his expectations too high?

What do you think?

Now, let me tell you what Jesus thought.  Jesus was amazed at the man – astonished by his faith.  He had never seen any faith like it before.  Not anywhere.  Not even in Israel (among those people who were being called to live by faith) was such faith found.

So amazed was Jesus that He turned to the crowd in order to commend the faith of the centurion to them.  Jesus said: This is great faith!  Would to God that you, my people, were as faithful as he.

The original sons of the kingdom should have manifested such faith themselves.  They should have recognised Jesus as God’s man under authority in command of the Armies of Israel.  But they refused to see Jesus in this role.  They would not see, so they did not believe in Him.

Surely, Israel is to be condemned for her unbelief.  Read Evangelist Matthew’s account of the centurion’s faith and you will find the following words of woe from the mouth of our Lord Jesus recorded: I say to you that many will come from the East and the West and will take their place at the Feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven; but the subjects of the King will be thrown outside into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:11,12).  What does this mean?  It means that Israel’s lack of faith would eventually lead to her exclusion from the heavenly kingdom.  The faith of the gentiles, on the other hand, will grant these outsiders a place among God’s people.  If Israel is condemned for the absence of faith, then surely we can understand why Jesus commends the faith of the centurion to us.  It is just such faith, my friends, that opened the door of God’s house to the gentiles in the first place.

If this is so, then is it not our right – yes, even our solemn duty to the King of heaven – to commend this same faith to God’s people today?  It seems to me that this is the crucial point.  Do we have the right to ask as much and to expect as much of Jesus today as the centurion did yesterday?  Are we still living in that New Age inaugurated by Jesus?  Are we yet in the Year of the Lord’s favour?  That time of release and restoration?

If your answer is ‘no’, if you believe that the year of the Lord’s favour has come and gone, that there was once a Golden Age some 2000 years ago when the earth was kissed by heaven’s glory; but that this glory has departed.  If you believe that the ground on which the centurion stood has since been pulled out from under our feet, then you will find little comfort in the fact that Jesus commended the faith of the centurion to the crowd of his day.  What good is such faith today if the Lord will not reward it?

But if your answer is ‘yes’.  If you truly believe that the Lord Jesus is still working through His agenda; that He remains our commander under the Crown of heaven; that every creature in Heaven or on earth either is now subject to Him or will someday be made subject to Him, then surely we can go to our God in Jesus’ name and make our appeal on the same ground as the centurion did.  We can ask of our God with the confident expectation that He will regard those who diligently seek him, for Jesus’ sake.

My brothers and sisters, I do not know how God will answer our prayers.  I only know what God is able to do.  And I know what He will do eventually; for even now as He rules from Heaven, He is bringing all things in subjection to Himself.  This means that One Day all sin, all sickness, all disease, and even death will be destroyed under His feet.  When that happens, we will know the true meaning of God’s benediction.  Tomorrow we will know the fullness of Heaven’s grace, mercy, and peace.  Just because tomorrow is another day, a better day, does not mean we should not pray: Lord, Your Kingdom come, today!  Why not draw from our own confession when we pray?  Like this;

‘Rule us by Your word and Spirit.  Keep Your church strong and add to it.  Destroy the devil’s work.  Destroy every force which revolts against you and every conspiracy against Your Word.  Do this until Your Kingdom is so complete and perfect that in it You are All in All’ (Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 48).

Can we pray that way concerning the health-destroying diseases that sap of us of our life?  I believe we can.  Can we claim the higher ground of the lone centurion in this day in which we live?  Why not?

Let the inspired word from the pen of Paul be our answer.  In 2 Corinthians 6:1,2 he writes: As fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain.  For He says, ‘In the time of my favour I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.

AMEN