2024-08-18 - San Jose CRC - Sermon Only - Gil Suh - Mavis prays

Transcript

Luke 7:1-10

The Centurion

 Mavis-prayer:

Please bow your heads and join in prayer. Our Father in heaven, we begin this prayer with gratitude. There are so many things to be thankful for. Thank you for this place that we live in. Thank you for the awesome places of beauty, like the ocean, the hills, the nearby mountains, the cities full of people and events, the fields full of fruits and vegetables.

We live in a beautiful, bounteous place, and it all comes from your generosity. There are many people we are grateful for too. Thank you for loving friends and family. Thank you for those who give us jobs to enable us to live and thrive. Thank you for those who serve others. First responders, those who serve in the military, those who help the people in the margins like the homeless, the mentally ill, and others who need extra help.

We thank you personally for this church family we are a part of. Thank you that we can come to this church on Sundays and worship together surrounded by loved ones. Thank you for those who serve during worship, help prepare, and welcome people to your loving family. Thank you for this experience of love and support when emergencies come up or when we need extra help.

Thinking more broadly, we ask for your blessing for those who are going back to school, those who teach or are on staff, the students beginning a new year of learning. Grant traveling mercies to those like John and Mary and others who have to travel to other places for their education. Bless and keep the students and staff and those who love and support them strong and steady in their desire to grow as they prepare to live as citizens of your kingdom in this world.

We pray for all those involved in the political activities, especially now in our country. People really show their weak humanity during these times. Help those who are running for office. Remember that they are serving you through serving others, not themselves. Give us grace as we see and hear the many opinions and accusations that get spread around.

Give us discernment as we try to determine what is your will. There

are wars and suffering in this world too. We ask you to be with the troops. And with the others who are suffering from those wars. We think especially of the children and other innocent people suffering injury, food deprivation, the loss of their homes, hospitals and other institutions. We all need to survive.

We don't understand why this suffering happens. We trust you to show up and give us and them comfort and bring peace. We pray for those with special needs, Arlette and her caretakers, as she grows more and more dependent on help from others. Karina's sister's breast surgery helped her to recover completely from that.

And Lennon, the Vina and others who are traveling, give them traveling mercies and keep make this a joyful experience for them. Now, as we continue our worship. Let us feel the wind of your spirit hovering among us Bless the words coming from pastor gill as he explained expounds on your word May we open our hearts and minds to hear and understand And may we leave here and show those around us your love in all we say and do In your son's name we pray Jesus the greatest gift of all amen

Joey-scripture:

Today's scripture reading is Luke 7, 1 through 10. The Faith of the Centurion. When Jesus had finished saying all this to the people who were listening, he entered Capernaum. There, a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him.

Asking him to come and heal a servant. When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him. This man deserves to have you do this, because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue. So Jesus went with them. He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him, Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come to under my roof.

This is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word and my servant will be healed. 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. When Jesus had heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.

Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well. This is the word of the Lord.

Gil Suh-sermon:

So we are going to do this sermon series called unnamed heroes of faith in the Bible. So we've already learned about few individuals in the scripture. We don't know the name, but their ordinary faith somehow God saw and God took and God accomplished extraordinary things. So there's a pattern in these stories.

The boy who gave up his dinner, the five bread and two fish. And also this, there's a, the servant girl who had compassion on Naaman, and there is this woman who broke the jar. And there's these four friends who show their faith in action. So they're all this pattern is they have this faith.

But the people around these individual didn't see it, didn't get it. And actually they complain like, why are you doing this? So it's, their faith is ordinary, but it's a counter cultural because cultural around them did not see the value. Why waste? But they did it out of faith, out of compassion, out of devotion.

Then God saw, and then God was their defense. And then God used that ordinary faith for his extraordinary purpose. And today's story continue that pattern and then encouraging us and challenging us to that. Sometimes we feel like, Oh, I'm nobody. I don't have much faith. I don't have much. But when we give whatever we have against the ties and patterns of this world, God will see it.

And then God can come accomplish. something that we cannot even imagine. So today's story is about this centurion. Now I want to just ask this question. It's out of nowhere. But have you ever been upgraded when you fly from economy to business class? How many of you have that kind of? Yeah, we did to some of you, right?

How was that experience? It's nice. Yeah. But how many of you have experienced the reverse? Not probably not any of you, many of you, meaning you book a business class or somehow, or your company did it. But then when you show up to check in, they said, sorry, overbook. All the business classes are taken. So we have to downgrade you to the economy.

Sometimes it happens, maybe not to you. People say sure, of course. Or oh, no, I deserve this business class. You are downgrading us. We don't do that when we are upgraded from economy to, oh no, I love just economy, I'm going to stay here. No. What does this tell you? It tells us our human nature, that we love upgrade.

Actually, we actually work hard for this. We call it upward mobility, right? We want promotion. We want to get our position, our possession, bigger, higher, right? That's very common human nature. Why? Why we want that? I'm just explaining why we want that. Because there is more power at the top. And the power is sweet and enticing.

Because we can do more with the power. That's why once you gain power, you don't want to let it go. Why? They're dictators. Why? They're politicians who do not want to give up their position once you have that power. And it's not just only dictators and politician. Trust me, you and I have that tendency, too.

And remember, power tends to corrupt. However, Their exceptions come along. You hear the story of this famous athletes or celebrities and politicians using their powerful position to serve others and do good for others that they don't have to, but they're using that power not just for themselves, But actually for others.

And we may say I don't have that kind of power. So maybe I don't have much to do, but you know what? We all have some power of influence in our life. Question is, how are we using that? So what's our perception and relationship with the power either we have or the power we pursue or perceive. So today's story introduced someone with power.

An unnamed centurion, another unsung hero of faith. So let's learn about him a little bit. So what do we know about this centurion from the text? So he was a Roman commander of hundred soldiers. Under him there are hundred soldiers. So he's a kind of captain, and that's a big deal. At that time, it's a Roman Empire centurion.

Oh, he has all kinds of power and yet we learn he's respectful of others culture and custom. He was sent by Roman actually emperor to be stationed in the land of Judah, but he was respectful of the culture that he was in. We heard from Jewish elders, this man loved our nation and he built a synagogue.

That's a big deal because he himself is not a Jew. It's only Jews built the synagogue, but he did it for them because he understood how important that is for them. So we learn about this man and he's a, as a Gentile, he believed also he had no access to rabbi, because he understand the Jews are very particular about who they associate, who they eat with.

So instead of what kind of custom is that? Forget about it. That's what a lot of people at that time with power, dictators would do. But he was very respectful of that. So even when he wanted to talk to Jesus, he sent delegates because he was sensitive enough to this Jewish rabbi. So members of local Sanhedrin on his behalf.

And he also care for his servant so much that he took pain of sending two sets of delegates to Jesus. We can easily just took this very lightly what he was doing. But at that time, a slave is not important like person. This is just property. And he got sick and terminal illness.

Which means what? It's useless. So he can just discard it and get another servant, right? But he didn't do that. Here we say, we heard, he value him highly. But that word, value highly, It's not just something that you value property, but it has connotation of honoring as a person. So in other words, this centurion somehow is counter cultural and counter intuitive.

At that time, the slaves are just considered to be the properties. Or if you're useful, yeah, it's good. But if it's not useful to Chuck, but he valued this person as a the servant as a person, honor that person. So that's why he took pain of sending delegates to Jesus and just interacting with Jesus.

So we learn about his, he just cares so much. And most importantly, he humbly recognized Jesus and his authority. He called Jesus, Lord. Big deal. Because he's a Roman, Captain. And this Jesus, carpenter's son, Jewish rabbi. Oh yeah, rabbi. But he recognized his authority, and he called him Lord. He gets it.

Somehow he gets it. Unfortunately, people around that time, even Jews themselves, they didn't get it. They have different kind of motive and all, but this Gentile commander of hundred men gets it. So we learn from him here. He is a leader, but he has this servant leadership, what our modern days people call the leader who cares about people under his leadership.

So whatever decision, whatever he does, he's thinking about how this will benefit not me or only my company or my group, the individual employees or the people. So he had that servant leadership and he had true humility. What I mean by true humility is not false humility. He understands. There is the order.

He knows that like on people under him, he command and they do what they do. what he what they're told to do. So he understand this power dynamic. Of course, he did not use that power dynamic to abuse them or to dominate them. But he understand that when they when he ordered, they do it. So then he applied that principle to his relationship with Jesus.

He recognized Jesus as the Lord Superior. That's why he said, Lord, I do this command to my soldiers, and they do. My word has power, authority. I recognize that you do the same. So he has the true humility. And of course, also he has a spiritual discernment. He was able to recognize God's movement in this person of Jesus.

That's why he called him Lord. And he's just also recognized that he, you, if you speak, there will be a power. If you speak your word, there will be authority, spiritual authority. So he has that spiritual discernment. But on the contrary, Jewish leaders, they did not have that. How do I know? Here, when they came, what did they say?

Oh, this man, this this centurion deserves your action. You have to come and help him. He deserved because he loved our nation. He built synagogue.

On surface, that sounds very innocent, or sounds really, oh yeah, this, what is, what they're saying? By saying, that is it, what it imply, what they're saying is that this centurion, gentile centurion, deserves a merit only because he did a great favor Because as a Gentile, he does not deserve God's mercy, which is only for Israel.

He should not actually deserve your mercy or your work, but because he did something favorable, something, useful for us, so he deserves. In other words, they're still operating out of this married system. It's a moral system. If you do something good to me or to us, or you deserve something, as a, as just default, you don't deserve it.

You have to prove your kind of whether you deserve or not. But this Gentile God fear on this story, he's operating out of something different. He's operating out of humble faith. Because when Jesus heard that, okay, I'll come, he's going. But then he sent another delegate. saying that I do not deserve to have you come under my roof.

So there's a lot of the reference of deserve. So this Jewish elder said he deserve your mercy and your work because he did something good, but he himself doesn't see that way. I do not deserve, that the message version translate this basically why it's master, do not travel yourself to come.

I'm not a person. That's how they translate. He has the self recognition of I'm not worthy of your mercy or your goodness. And that's the common response when we really truly understand who we are in light of God's holiness. Throughout the scripture, Isaiah, he was very holy man, prophet. But in the light of God's holiness.

He said what? Woe to me.

Oh, I'm not worthy of your presence. I'm a man of unclean lips. And Peter, I'm just giving you a couple of examples. Peter, when he saw what Jesus did, and then he realized this is not just ordinary man or just rabbi. There he sensed some kind of divine presence with Jesus. Then what did he say? Oh, Lord, he knelt down.

He just collapsed. Lord, go away from me. Depart from me, for I'm a sinner. I think the centurion has somehow had that, in spite of his powerful status and position in this world, but somehow he had the spiritual gift of recognizing who he really was in light of God, no matter what other people say. So that's why he said, I'm not a good man.

I don't deserve your coming into my place.

And then he believed that Jesus can command, and then his servant will be well. He recognized. So he says what? Lord, say the word, and my servant will be. He believed there was a power in Jesus word. As a military officer, as I mentioned, he knew the power of command given and received. And you know what?

This is good news to us. Because the fact that he didn't come in contact he didn't meet with Jesus here. He just asked Jesus to speak and then there will be power that will have some effect. It is a good news because it is a story of millions and millions of believers after this who have not seen Jesus, but who have believed his word as having the power of his presence.

The scripture says, you believe because you see me. Blessed are those who have not seen me, who will not see me in person, but who still believe. because the word of God has a power. When people hear the word of God, even though Jesus is not there in person, but somehow that word has a power. So this centurion is a prototype of all of us who believe.

Not because, of course, sometimes some people believe Jesus, they saw Jesus in their vision or dream. Very rare. All of us, most of us, we believe somehow the Spirit of God moves in our hearts, that the Word of God has that impact. And the centurion had that faith. So what we can learn from this story, there are many.

First of all, it's about the power dynamics and the servant leadership. The faithful centurion, the story of his, this humble faith, encouraged you and me to use our power, however, that it big or whatever we have and influence to serve others out of love. That's very counter cultural. As if you are part of any the company or institutions, that, that power dynamic is all about upward mobility.

But in, in church, in family of God, Jesus made it very clear. The rulers, the Gentiles, that's what they pursue, but not so with you. Even the son of man came to serve, not to be served, and gave his life for ransom for many. So we are following the servant king, and he's telling us how we follow him, how we relate to one another.

So this story's underlying theme is divine mercy, undeserving like you and me. Slave, here, he didn't deserve the centurion's extra care. According to the cultural norm, he didn't deserve, he can be discarded. And according to the Jewish elders, the centurion deserved God's mercy through his merit. But according to his self awareness, the centurion insisted He's not worthy of Jesus presence.

And the final verdict and final word of Jesus. All this matter is that according to truth about God and about you and me, we don't deserve any merit from God. We rather deserve his wrath against us because of our sins and our rebellious ways. Both our hearts inclination and or actually actual behavior and actions.

But living in this merit based society, you and I can easily lose our sight of this essence of the good news and gospel. The good news is God sent his one and only son to show his love and his grace for us. And Jesus Christ is the servant king who gave himself for us. So we exalt him, we worship him, and we follow him.

So in the light of the example of the centurion and this story, this is a question for us, at least one question for us to ponder now and this coming week. What does it mean to follow the servant king

and reflect him like the centurion in this world?

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we come before you with hearts filled with gratitude for your divine mercy and love. Just as the centurion humbly recognized his unworthiness and sought Jesus healing power, help us to acknowledge our own need for your grace. And teach us to use the influence and power you have given to us to serve others, to reflect the servant leadership of Christ.

May we live counter culturally, valuing humility and faith. Over worldly status and follow the example of our servant King Jesus in his name we pray.