Mat 8:5-17; Expect the Impossible Will of God.

Class Outline:

Thursday October 24, 2024

 

Main idea: Faith sees the unseen and counts on the impossible, according to God’s will. 

 

Jesus sets up His home base for His life changing, history changing, earth shattering ministry in a little place called Capernaum.

 

Capernaum is beautiful, but in the world of Rome, Jerusalem, Egypt, etc. it is nothing and nowhere.

 

It was prophesied that Jesus would headquarter here - described as a dark place in which a great light would shine. MAT 4:12-17.

 

Many miracles were performed in this little, backwater place, but for the usual reasons, the small population who had seen Him among them like a neighbor, rejected Him. Let’s all be grateful and fear, MAT 11:20-24.

 

MAT 8:5-17. 

 

Centurion’s servant is lying immobile and in great pain.

 

The meaning to us is the effects of original sin - personal sin and inability to do what we’re called to do, serve our Master. 

 

Jesus’ response - could be a question: “I Myself come and will heal him?” Not conclusive, but parallel to MAT 15:24, the Canaanite woman.

 

The emphasis is placed on Jesus being willing to go into a Gentile house. He was willing to touch a leper. 

 

Jesus marveled - only person in the Gospel to which this is said.

 

Faith is what puts you on the guest list to the banquet (REV 19:7-9). 

 

As you have believed, it will be done. God looks for faith and then He acts. 

 

Peter’s mother-in-law. Bethsaida is 6 miles from Capernaum. 

 

She is also, like the servant, “lying” same verb in the same perfect tense = she’s been bedridden and still is. 

 

He touches her hand and the fever leaves her (apheken = free or forgive). The image is being freed to do what we’re all designed to do: serve the Lord.

 

Faith sees the unseen and counts on the impossible, according to God’s will. 

 

Faith is the key. God acts when people believe in Him.

 

Qualification to sit at the banquet table is faith. The servant has a future glory to rest upon. He, therefore, can easily resist the temptation to present, personal glory that all servants face. He will sit at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Rev 19). He will hear the hallelujah chorus.

 

Jesus has not gone to the Sanhedrin or the Roman senate or emperor’s palace offering His miracle services. A leper, a Gentile soldier and his servant, and a poor elderly woman from a common fishing village.

 

In fulfillment of much prophecy, the Messiah went to the outcasts, the sinners, the poor, etc. and that is you and me. All believers should know their poverty and their Savior.

 

 

Faith - as you have believed, it will be done for you.

 

Who among us would not like to be counted among those who had “great faith?” I’ll encourage you - they persisted and they were both Gentiles. 

 

Consider yourself in light of Him. You will come up short, but do you boldly draw near to Him and ask the Father to give you His heart? Do you seek out that heart in your everyday life, to all others, to yourself, to every circumstance? Do you go long without prayer, a communion garden stroll here and there in the day, every day? Do you seek the opportunities that He will set out for you, doors for you to knock on? 

 

So many have gone before us who, common people in nowhere places, had great faith and the Lord did great things in their lives. Their lives are nowhere recorded on earth. Cannot any of us be in their class? 

 

Do you admire it? Do you have the faith to make it so? 

 

Reread the centurion and read the Canaanite woman in MAT 15:21-28 and meditate upon them, and think of your future chapters - are the days of great faith yet to come?