Sermon Central
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God Wants To Help Us Have Great Faith! Series
Contributed by Rick Crandall on Jul 10, 2021 (message contributor)
Summary: God wants to help us have great faith, and this Scripture can help us get there. We need to: 1. Feed our faith on God's Word (vs. 1-7). 2. Humbly compare our life to Christ (vs. 5-8). 3. Get eternal lessons from earthly things (vs. 8-9). 4. Learn the blessings of believing (vs. 9-13).
God Wants to Help Us Have Great Faith!
The Gospel of Matthew
Sermon by Rick Crandall
(Prepared July 10, 2021)
*Would you like to have more faith in God? What Christian could say no to that question? Of course, we want more faith! The good news is that God wants to help us have more. He even wants us to have great faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And tonight's Scripture can help us get there.
*It tells the stories of two great healing miracles. The first miracle happened to a leper who was sure that Jesus could heal him. The second miracle happened to the paralyzed servant of a Roman soldier. He was a "centurion," the commander of a hundred men, and that soldier had the greatest faith Jesus had ever seen. We know he had great faith in the Lord, because it showed up in some obvious ways.
*First, the centurion went to Jesus for the help he needed. Then when he found Jesus, the centurion passionately pleaded for the Lord's help. Verses 5-6 tell us that "when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, 'Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented.'''
*We also see the Roman's faith in vs. 8. Jesus said he would come to heal the man's servant, but the soldier humbly replied, "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof." Also in vs. 8, the Roman soldier fully believed in the Lord's miraculous ability. There he told Jesus, "Only speak a word, and my servant will be healed."
*But the best proof of the man's faith was the Lord's reaction in vs. 10. When Jesus heard what the soldier said, "He marveled, and said to those who followed, 'Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!'" The original word for "marvel" there means that Jesus was amazed, and He greatly admired the soldier's faith.
*There is no doubt that this Roman centurion had great faith. How can we get faith like that? How can we get more faith?
1. FIRST: WE HAVE TO FEED OUR FAITH ON GOD'S WORD.
[1] WE NEED TO FEED OUR FAITH ON THE TRUTH THAT GOD IS GREAT.
*That's what the leper and the Roman soldier must have done. The miraculous healings of the leper and the paralyzed servant did not take place in a vacuum. When Jesus came down from preaching the Sermon on the Mount, vs. 1 tells us that "great multitudes followed Him." Many people had already seen and heard about the amazing things Jesus could do.
*Just before Matthew wrote about the Sermon on the Mount, he said this back in Matthew 4:23-25:
23. Now Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.
24. Then His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who were demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics; and He healed them.
25. And great multitudes followed Him from Galilee, and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.
*The news was spreading like wildfire, as people told all the great things Jesus had done. Undoubtedly, this leper and the Roman soldier had heard some of those testimonies, and they began to believe in Jesus. (By the way: This is one reason why our testimonies are so crucial for the Kingdom, and why 1 Peter 3:15 tells us to always be ready to explain the hope we have in Christ.)
*Today, we can still hear great testimonies about how God is at work in people’s lives. But the best way to find out about God is in His Word. Thank God for the Bible! Thank God that the good news about Jesus Christ was written down, and preserved for us in God's Word! But we have to feed our faith on His Word. Romans 10:17 tells us that "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."
*So, if we search the Scriptures with an open mind, the Lord will give us faith. And the Lord will grow our faith as we find out more about His greatness. This must be what happened to the man with leprosy. We can't be sure that he studied the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus. But we can be sure that he heard the good news about Jesus, as it spread through the nation.
*In vs. 2 the leper went to Jesus, worshiped Him and said, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." I love that. He was sure: "Jesus, YOU can make me clean!" In other words: "Jesus, You can completely heal me from this hopelessly incurable disease."
