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The Lord Was Impressed With The Roman Centurion’s Faith | What Can Learn From This?
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Feb 20, 2025
visit https://tayibs.com/ for more lectures I have been exploring the subject of faith and what it really means for the past six months. What led me to really dig deep into this subject is Hebrews 11:6”And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him”. So far we’ve looked at Genesis 19 (the account of Lot), Genesis 4 ( the account of Cain and Abel), Genesis 8 ( the account of Noah) to understand “Faith” and today we’ll be looking at the account of the roman centurion, recorded in the 7th chapter of the book of Luke, the physician. Scripture References: Luke 7: 1-10 Luke 18:9-14 Genesis 1:3 Hebrews 11
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Hello, good morning and this is Taibat Taibs.com
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And today we're going to be talking about an event recorded in scripture for us in the seventh chapter of the book of Luke
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This has to do with the Roman centurion and his faith. And he was actually commended for his faith by Jesus himself
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So we're going to be looking at that today. And this is a series that I've been looking at for the last few months
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I've been looking at the concept of faith and what it really means to have faith
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So I looked at several chapters already. I've looked at the account of Lot in Genesis 19
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the account of Canaan Abel in Genesis 4, and the account of Noah in Genesis 8
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And what really led me to this Odyssey is Hebrews 116. It says
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and without faith, it's impossible to please God. God. For whoever we draw near the God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him
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And that has led me to really want to understand what faith really is
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And we've looked at like several accounts. If you haven't seen it on my website yet, I will invite you to go to taubes.com and check it out
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So today we're going to be looking at another account. And that's in the seventh chapter of the book of Luke, the physician
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Okay, so we're going to be looking at that and we're going to read the chapter first and then we're going to dive into understanding what's important here
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All right. So it says I'll read from verse 1 to verse 10
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All right, so follow with me on the screen. After he, that means Jesus, after Jesus had finished all the sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernum
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now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death who was highly valued by him when the centurion heard about jesus he sent to him elders of the jews asking him to come and heal his servant and when they came to jesus they pleaded with him earnestly saying he is worthy to have you do this for him for he loves our nations and he is the one who built us a synagogue and jesus went with them and when he was not far from him
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the house the centurion sent frane saying to him lord do not trouble yourself for i am not worthy to have you come under my roof therefore i did not presume to come to you but say the word and let my servant be healed for i too am a man set under authority with solius 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 when jesus heard these things he marvelled at him and turned into the crowd
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that followed him said, I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith
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And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well
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And this is an incredible story. And there's so much stuff that I don't even think I can unpack all that
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I just don't even know. You know how sometimes you read the scripture and God just give you understanding about it but you just don know how to express it This is where I am this morning I really like I shaking ground because I don really know how to even unpack that But I do my best by the help of the Holy Spirit to try and explain the things that he has revealed to me
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All right? So let's do that. So the first thing is this
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What is the centurion? The centurion was a high-level Roman officer who knew how to read and write
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And he usually commanded about a hundred people. That's what a centurion. centurion, sentry comes from, in French, size 100
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So I just want to give you that quick understanding. Now, what do we learn about the centurion's character
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What kind of man was it? So in Luke 7, if you look at Luke 7, which I'm going to look at now, verse 2 to 3
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we read this, now, if Centurion had a servant who was sick and at a point of death
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who was highly valued by him. when the centurion heard about Jesus
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he sent to him elders of the Jews asking him to come and heal the servant
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so what do we learn he cared about his servants those who were subject to me
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and he was genuine he actually cared about his people that worked for him
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so he interceded on behalf of his servant by sending elders of the Jews
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to Jesus with this specific request to heal his servant so we can infer from that that he loved
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servant. This was a man that actually cared about people that were working for him
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We also learned from the scripture that this man was a worshipper of God, an appellation usually used for non-Jews who acknowledged that Yahweh was the true God
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I said this because Romans were known for their pagan religions, and this man did not run to the various idols for help
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So scriptures also add that he actually built a synagogue for the Jews
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so he showed that he truly worshipped the God of the Hebrews. So that's what we learned about this man
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Next thing. How did the elders of the Jews view the centurion
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Now if you look at Luke 7 and verse 45, he says, and when they came to Jesus, they mean the elders of the Jews
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They pleaded with Jesus earnestly saying, He is worthy to have you do this for him
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for he loves our nation and he is the one who built us a synagogue
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Now from scriptures, we can see that they highly respected the guy, the centurion, and that's because of the things that he had accomplished
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for them and the most important thing that he did was build them a synagogue so they loved and appreciated the man in general but especially for the things that he could do for them so they wanted to return the favor by pleading jesus to come heal his servant and there is one word they use that reveal a lot about their view of god they use the word worthy which means deserving or deserves the man was definitely worthy of a lot of honor but was he worthy of god coming to his house to serve him is the question
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You see like they use the word he is worthy for you to come do this thing
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He deserves that you come to his house and do this thing for him. But the question is this
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The earliest of the Jews may have not quite understood who Jesus was, God incarnate
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or they would have never made that statement because God owes no one anything
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For from him we've received all things. And that leads me to the next question
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The next question. So how did the centurion view himself before you Jesus See unlike the elders of the Jews the centurion did not have a transactional view of God right
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And let's look at the statement to Jesus to understand exactly how he viewed himself
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In Luke 7, verse 6 to 8, it is recorded, and Jesus went with them, and when he was not far from the house
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the centurion sent frames, saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not
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worthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore, I did not presume to come to you, but say the
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word and let my servant be healed. I don't need to elaborate on this, like I said. The statement alone
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shows us the humility of the Roman centurium. He understood that God owed him nothing, and he also
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understood that God gave grace to the humble, but resisted the proud. He wasn't presumptuous. He didn't
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think he deserved to have Jesus come to his house. As a matter of fact, he didn't. He didn't
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didn't even think he could approach Jesus because he saw himself as unworthy and that's why he sent the elders of the Jews because he think I can't approach his man so I need to send his people to code there and that reminds us of the prayer of the tax collector in opposition to the prayer of the Pharisee
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The tax collector, let's look at that actually real quick if time permits. Let's look at that
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that's in a he also did the ferri this a parable right he also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt two men went up into the temple to pray one a ferrigi and the other tax collector
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the ferrigi standing by himself pray it thus god i thank you that i am not like the other man extortioners unjust adulterous or even like this tax collector i fast twice a week i give tithes of all that i get
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But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift up his eyes to heaven
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but bid his breast saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner
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You see, I'll tell you, this man went down to his house justified, meaning the tax collector
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rather than the other, for everyone who exalt himself will be humbled
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but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. So the Roman centurion understood humility, and he understood that kind of stuff
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He knew that he wasn't worthy of God doing anything for him. Okay
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But the eldest of the Jews misunderstood the centurion's intentions. And we'll see that in the next slide
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The centurions grasp of faith. That's what we're going to be looking at next
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So let's look at that. So what do we learn about the centurion's understanding of faith
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Now from Scripture, we understand this man knew what faith meant. He understood that faith came by hearing and hearing by the Word of God
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So he knew that God's word was living. inactive and that's because he himself gave orders and commands and they were executed
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right so he understood that God creates what he commands that's one thing that he
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understood that God creates what he commands so in his case all Jesus had to do was say
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the word and his servant will be healed so the Roman centurion understood that because he himself
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was under under authority and he also had people under his authority so all he had to do was say the word
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and they would execute his commands. So he understood that in the spiritual realm that the same way he worked that all Jesus had to say was say the word and his servant will be healed So his grasp of faith was just incredible You see that He trusted in the power of the word of God He trusted in the power of the word of God So he trusted in the word of God itself known that God is his word So all God had to say he said the word and my servant will be healed
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and might i suggest that he was familiar with let there be light and there was light so he probably knew and believed in genesis one three like i said
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and jesus was pleased with his faith and commended him for it once again without faith it's impossible to please god i want us to just sit and then just contemplate this passage again this man understood what he meant to have faith in the word of god he read it and that word when he read it when he read it when he read it when he
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understood the word of God, he believed it because God gave him the ability to do that
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God created that desire in him. So he believed the word of God. So he said to Jesus
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you don't even have to come to my house. You see, Mary and Martha didn't understand that
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when Lazarus was sick. They sent to Jesus and they wanted Jesus to come to heal Lazarus
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They didn't know, they didn't even think that Jesus could say the word and he could be healed
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from Jesus just saying Lazarus be healed. And Jesus went back there, allowed Lazarus to die
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but then when Lazarus was buried after three days he said Lazarus come forth and Lazarus came so they learned that the word of God is powerful and active and this is what we have to learn for ourselves today God is immutable he hasn't changed and his word is still the same today
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so do we believe that is the question and how do we believe the word of God is by faith God has to create that in us so we just have to come and say humble ourselves so Lord please
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lead us to believe your word because that's the question without faith is impossible to please God
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and faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God so unbelief is the main question
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unbelief that stone cold unbelief is deeply ridder in our heart and we are so hard of hearing because we don't hear the word of God with faith
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so we have to pray that God enables us to receive those words and believe them
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and it's only by faith by us humbling ourselves and so Lord please
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break us in order to form us again. I'm going through that right now
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Believe in the Word of God. It is hard because the flesh cannot do
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The natural man hates the things of God. We can believe the Word of God in our own strength
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in our own natural abilities. We have to ask the Holy Spirit himself to transform our thinking
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Scripture says in Romans 12, I think verse 1, present your bodies as a living sacrifice
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holy unto the Lord, being set apart for God, and being set apart for God's to believe his word
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So faith has to come from God himself that creates that in us and we have to humble ourselves and say, Lord
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we have no power to even grasp this. Please change us from the inside out
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so that we can reflect your character by believing your word because your word is true
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I hope this passage gives you that desire. Okay? And again, thanks for watching this and have a wonderful day today
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My God bless you. Thank you. Thank you