7:1 After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2 Now a centurion had a servant1 who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. 3 When the centurion2 heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, 5 for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” 6 And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. 7 Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. 8 For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers 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.” 9 When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”10 And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.
Jesus Raises a Widow’s Son
11 Soon afterward3 he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus4 gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” 17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
Footnotes
[1]7:2Or bondservant; also verses 3, 8, 10 [2]7:3Greek he [3]7:11Some manuscripts The next day [4]7:15Greek he
17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” 19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20 And he cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this child’s life1 come into him again.” 22 And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” 24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”
7:1 After he had finished all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2 Now a centurion had a servant1 who was sick and at the point of death, who was highly valued by him. 3 When the centurion2 heard about Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him earnestly, saying, “He is worthy to have you do this for him, 5 for he loves our nation, and he is the one who built us our synagogue.” 6 And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. 7 Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. 8 For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers 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.” 9 When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”10 And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well.
Jesus Raises a Widow’s Son
11 Soon afterward3 he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. 12 As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. 13 And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”14 Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”15 And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus4 gave him to his mother. 16 Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!” 17 And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
Footnotes
[1]7:2Or bondservant; also verses 3, 8, 10 [2]7:3Greek he [3]7:11Some manuscripts The next day [4]7:15Greek he
17 After this the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, became ill. And his illness was so severe that there was no breath left in him. 18 And she said to Elijah, “What have you against me, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son!” 19 And he said to her, “Give me your son.” And he took him from her arms and carried him up into the upper chamber where he lodged, and laid him on his own bed. 20 And he cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by killing her son?” 21 Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the LORD, “O LORD my God, let this child’s life1 come into him again.” 22 And the LORD listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” 24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the LORD in your mouth is truth.”
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:
If you would, open your Bibles to Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7, and we're gonna read the first 17 verses. After he had finished all his sayings and hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. Now a centurion had a servant who was sick and at the point of death, who is 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.
Joel Brooks:
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 nation and he is the one who built us our synagogue. And Jesus went with them. When he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends 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 soldiers under me.
Joel Brooks:
And I say to 1, go, and he goes. And I say to another, come, and he comes. And to my servant, do this and he does it. When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at them. And turning to the crowd that followed him, said, I tell you not even in Israel have I found such faith.
Joel Brooks:
And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the servant well. Soon afterward, he went down he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold a man who had died was being carried out. The only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a considerable crowd from the town was with her.
Joel Brooks:
And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, do not weep. Then he came up and touched the buyer and the bearers stood still and he said, young man I say to you, arise. And the dead man sat up and he began to speak and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all and they glorified God saying, a great prophet has risen among us and God has visited his people. And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
Joel Brooks:
Pray with me. Lord, we ask that you would honor the very reading of your word, that through your spirit, the words we just read would find root in our hearts. Lord, we need to hear from you tonight and not me. I can be a distraction. I often lack clarity of thought.
Joel Brooks:
And God, even with my best words, all I can bring is death. But Lord, you bring life. So god I ask that you would speak. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but Lord, let your words remain and may they hit their mark and change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
Amen. We're back to our study of Luke. We took a 4 week break to go through the book of Jonah. So let me just catch us back up to speed and give you a quick refresher of where we are in Luke. Doctor.
Joel Brooks:
Luke, he wrote this book to a educated Gentile named Theophilus, in order that Theophilus might have certainty concerning the things that he believed, the things that he's been taught. And so Theophilus is apparently a believer, but he still had a lot of confusion concerning the life of Jesus. What really happened? What exactly did Jesus say? And so Luke does some investigative reporting.
Joel Brooks:
He goes and he finds the eyewitnesses and he he carefully crafts these story to present a accurate account of what happened. So what we get here is a very detailed accurate account of the life of Jesus that Luke presents to an educated gentile who is removed from the events themselves. In the hopes that this person, this Theophilus, that his belief will be strengthened, that we will have certainty in his beliefs. And so I think that's why Luke is a great book for us, Gentiles, educated Gentiles, Christians who are very removed from the events themselves, we can read Luke and we could gain more certainty according to the things that we've been taught and the things we believe. And so we just did the Sermon on the Mount, and now we are at chapter 7.
Joel Brooks:
And chapter 7 is all about faith. And actually a lot of the rest of the book, is about faith. Faith is the one thing that I have found that Christians all the time are wishing we had more of. I don't know about you, but I'm always thinking if only I had more faith, I just lacked faith. But it always seems elusive to me.
Joel Brooks:
The author of Hebrews, he defines faith as, the evidence of things hoped for, the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. It's being certain, absolutely of certain, of something you don't see, certain of something that you can't prove. That's faith. And it's important for us to realize that everybody in the world, not just Christians, but everybody in the world has faith. We all operate according to some faith based system.
Joel Brooks:
Everybody in the world operates according to something that they cannot see or they cannot prove. If there's somebody here who's not a Christian, I know that we we have a number from the neighborhoods, a number of people have come and they've said that, you know I don't believe in God at all but I'm curious and I know some of you are here. If that's you, even an atheist, that's a faith based position. It's a faith based position. Even if you're one who says, well I will only believe in something if you can verify it, only if I can see it, or only if scientifically provable.
Joel Brooks:
That's based on faith because that very theory that you will only believe something, that something is only true if it's verifiable, can't be verified. Your belief system is based on faith. Everybody operates on faith. And so any well thought out atheist will openly confess that their belief on, and their lack of belief in God is a faith based belief. It might be well thought out, but it's based on faith.
Joel Brooks:
And it's extremely important to understand this, if you're gonna get the rest of Luke. That every person already has faith in something or someone. And Luke wants you to think about your faith. He wants you to examine your faith. Faith is not the absence of reason.
Joel Brooks:
He's not saying throw a reason out and just blindly believe. Faith is the is the opposite of sight, but it's not the opposite of reason. That's why he carefully investigates. That's why he puts together this gospel and says, read this, examine this, think about this, so that you might increase in your faith. Think about your faith.
Joel Brooks:
If you're not a Christian, think about your faith, what you're believing in. And Luke's aim is not to create faith in you because he knows he cannot create faith. What he wants you to do is to, to take away the faith that you are putting in something, some person, or something that's not God, not Jesus, and he wants you to take that faith and he wants you to now turn it towards the Lord. And he wants to give you very reasonable arguments as to why you should do that. So let's take a closer look at this story of faith.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus just finished preaching his most famous sermon in the Bible, and now he's entering into Capernaum, which was kind of his headquarters in a sense. And a centurion sends to him some Jewish elders, asking that Jesus would come and heal his servant who was at the point of death. And Jesus, he goes on his way, he's gonna do this, and and as he's going there some friends of the centurion comes to meet him and says, Jesus don't bother, don't come. He's not worthy for you to come. Just say the word and his servant will be healed and Jesus says the word.
Joel Brooks:
And before Jesus says the word, he marvels at this person's faith. And Jesus only marvels 2 times in scripture. He only marvels he marvels here at this story, at the centurion's faith. And in Mark 6, he marvels at people's lack of faith. But he's amazed at this.
Joel Brooks:
And so I want us to look at what about this person's faith produced this reaction in Jesus. And we'll look at 2 things. 1st, it was faith in the power of Jesus. Second, it was faith in the personality of Jesus. And I'm gonna go ahead and apologize right now that both start with p, because that's just so not me.
Joel Brooks:
I it's it just worked out that way. I promise I will not make a habit of it. But, first is faith in the power of Jesus and second is in the personality of Jesus. So let's look at the power of Jesus, which is pretty easy to see. That's one of the reasons he marveled.
Joel Brooks:
A lot of people up to this point have believed in the power of Jesus, but but not like this man. This man, you know, all the others, they wanted Jesus to be physically present to to either speak over the person or to touch the person to heal them. But Jesus knows, no, or the centurion knows that Jesus can heal from afar. He could just speak the word. I don't know about you, maybe you can't relate to this, but I can remember when I was in college, and I thought if I could just get a certain person to pray for me, you know, one of those super spiritual preachers or leaders, you know, campus ministers, if you could just get one of those super spiritual people to to pray for you, or to maybe lay hands on you, then you will truly encounter the Lord.
Joel Brooks:
If you could just get them to do that to you. And the reason that I used to think that and I would pursue that when I was in college is because I lacked faith. It's not because I had faith. I thought that the only way that God would really touch my life is if I went to another person who seemed to have God touching their life. And you kind of see a different form of this now when people, they come up and they said, you've got to come to my church.
Joel Brooks:
You know, you've got God is working at my church. You need to come and hear my preacher. You need to have the people at my church come and pray for you. God is working here. And there's this pull that unless you are part of this group, unless you go to this building, you will not encounter the lord.
Joel Brooks:
And that when people would say that, it's not because they have faith, it's because they lack faith in the sovereign lord. We all feel that pull, at least I do. You know, I'm realizing more and more how much exactly that I lack faith. When I pray, I use titles, you know, like, almighty God. Perhaps you pray that way too, you know, say almighty God, or God Almighty.
Joel Brooks:
And then you go on to ask God things that a mere human could give you. Almighty God, but here let me ask some little petty things that any human can give me. Now I believe in the sovereignty of God, I do. I I believe in the absolute sovereignty of God. I'm a good little Calvinist, you know.
Joel Brooks:
I I I believe that God, he spoke the universe into existence. I believe Jesus did that. He holds the universe together by the word of his his power. I believe those things, but when I look at how I pray, or somebody else were to look at how I pray, I'm not sure if they would come to the same conclusion. Because I ask things that a mere human could answer.
Joel Brooks:
And I think I actually mock him by the things that I ask. I use this example a few months ago, but it really fits so well, I'm gonna share it again. It's a story about Alexander the Great, and it is probably a legendary story, but it fits so well. I'm gonna share this. It gets the point across.
Joel Brooks:
A general in Alexander's army came up to Alexander and said, my daughter is having a wedding. Can I have some money to throw her a wedding? And Alexander said, great, go to my financial secretary and tell him I sent you and he will give you everything you need. And so he goes to the financial secretary and he says, I want all of this money here so I could throw a wedding for my daughter. And he asked for 10 times more than any person has ever come and asked for.
Joel Brooks:
And so the financial secretary runs to Alexander and says, did you know that the general came and asked for for money for his wedding? He goes, yes I know I sent him. He goes, but did you know he asked for 10 times more than anybody else has ever asked? And Alexander's response was, how wonderful. Because he has treated me as both a generous and a wealthy king.
Joel Brooks:
How wonderful. If we believe that Lord Jesus is a generous and loving king, we would come to him with greater request. I often think we don't have a clue as to the power we invoke when we pray to Lord Jesus. King of kings, Lord of Lords. If we did, we wouldn't balk at saying things like, Lord change this person's heart, but really I know this person can't even change.
Joel Brooks:
You know, you know, are praying things like, God bring repentance to this nation. I mean, we pray something like, bring repentance to the nation, and we almost kind of laugh because we think, that's idealistic, that's pretty big. Or God, bring such a spirit of generosity and and and service to the city of Birmingham that poverty's eliminated, that schools are changed. Lord do that. We kind of chuckle almost at the thought of praying that.
Joel Brooks:
Because we just don't see God as almighty. And so we ask him for things that a mere human could answer. And we need to begin asking God for things that only the Lord of the universe can do. When we do that, we honor him as king. We recognize him as generous.
Joel Brooks:
And if we're not gonna do this we need to be honest with our titles. Maybe we should drop almighty God from our prayers and say, you know, God who has less sway than our president, God who has less financial resources than our government, What do you maybe think about doing this? When looking at my prayer life, I'd say that I borderline take the name of the Lord in vain, in my very prayers. Because I treat the titles of Jesus as so commonplace, and I have divorced them from their meanings. And when I call him almighty God, then I look at my requests, they don't match up.
Joel Brooks:
I lack faith. You know, when Jesus taught us to pray, he taught us to pray the small things. Lord, give us this day our daily bread. Lord, take care of me today. These are good things to pray.
Joel Brooks:
And then he prayed big things, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Basically, God changed the world. Change the entire world. Make this world just like it is in heaven. That's a pretty big prayer, and he taught us to pray that way.
Joel Brooks:
And when Jesus looked at this man, he recognized, wow, this man has faith in my power. And it's not even a perfect recognition because the Centurion, he kind of gets it wrong. He says, you know, I too am a man underneath authority and so therefore because I'm under authority I can give authority in that name. He says, and so you're, Jesus, you're a person under authority but Jesus isn't under authority. He's his own authority.
Joel Brooks:
He's the Lord. He doesn't get perfect faith here. But the centurion's less than perfect faith is greater than mine. That's one of the reasons Jesus marveled. But I don't believe this is the main reason that Jesus marveled.
Joel Brooks:
Let's look at this story a little deeper. The Centurion, he first sends Jewish elders to go and to tell Jesus to come and heal his servant. And they do, they go to Jesus and they say, this Centurion is worthy, Jesus, for you to do this. He is worthy. A centurion was one who was over a 100 soldiers and, they were kind of the backbone of the Roman army.
Joel Brooks:
They were very well paid and, they were often hated. Often they hated the Jewish people that were around them. There were exceptions. But here is a centurion, a Roman soldier, mid ranking Roman soldier, and the people really like him because he loves the nation of Israel. He actually is given so much money that he's built a synagogue and so he's a really good man.
Joel Brooks:
And so the Jewish elders, they go to Jesus and they say this is a really good man. He's worthy of you to come and to do this. And so the centurion, he apparently hears that Jesus is on his way and apparently he gets worded as to exactly what the Jewish elders told Jesus. And he thinks no, no. And so he sends his friends to go to Jesus with a different message.
Joel Brooks:
Jesus, I'm not worthy for you to come. I'm not worthy. And notice he doesn't send the Jewish elders this time because he knows what they're gonna say to Jesus. This time he sends his friends, his gentile friends, go to Jesus, give a different message, tell him I'm not worthy for him to come. So they tell Jesus the opposite of what he had heard before, but then he says, just please please heal my servant from where you are.
Joel Brooks:
I'm not worthy for you to come, heal from where you are, and then Jesus marveled. You see, the the Jewish leaders, the Jewish elders, they approached Jesus the way that all the Jewish leaders have been approaching Jesus up to this point in Luke. We do good things, we earn your approval, and then Jesus, you owe us. God, we're gonna live a good life, we're gonna live a good moral life, we're gonna work really hard, do these things, and then God, you got to pay us back. We're gonna work for your goodness.
Joel Brooks:
We're gonna work for your salvation. And they approach Jesus in this way. Jesus, you owe him something. He's worthy. They don't see salvation by grace.
Joel Brooks:
They don't, they see it by merit. And here comes this centurion, he says, I'm not worthy. But then he doesn't say, therefore don't come. I'm not worthy for you to come, therefore don't. He says I'm not worthy, therefore come.
Joel Brooks:
And so he's operating in a completely different faith based system than these Jewish elders had at all. Because they think that you have to merit God's favor and he says, no you can never merit God's favor. And so I'm not worthy, but I'm still gonna ask. I am not worthy for you to come, but Jesus I know who you are. You are a gracious and merciful healer.
Joel Brooks:
So do this. Not because of me, but because of you. And when Jesus sees faith like that, he marvels. He marvels. Jesus delights in bringing salvation to those who know they don't deserve it.
Joel Brooks:
He praises his faith, he's pointing out this faith. This is an example of the type of faith that you should have. A faith that believes in the power of God, and a faith that knows that the power of God is unleashed in a person's life, not because of what they do, but because of who God is. So this story here shows us that we're to believe that God is mighty, and we're to ask him to do great things, even though we're a failure, even though we're unworthy, even though we are full of sin. We're to ask him to come into our lives.
Joel Brooks:
Now quickly, let's look at the next story here because it builds off of this one. Once again, we're going to see the power of Jesus. Once again, we're going to see the mercy of Jesus. He goes into the town of Nain, which is about 5 miles southeast of Nazareth, which was his hometown. This is a very small town, and there was a funeral in procession.
Joel Brooks:
Now, on this day, people were usually buried the day of their death, And so the the morning here would have been very fresh, the grief. People would have still almost been in shock at this, as this funeral procession is going. And and these processions were loud, there would have been lots of wailing. They would have professional mourners there. You would hire somebody to to wail and to weep as loud as they could.
Joel Brooks:
And the reason that they did this, was so that the family would have freedom to mourn themselves without being embarrassed. That without people just knowing that they're all looking at, you know, at them as they're just wailing. This time, they're just one of many wailing. And so this would have been a loud funeral here and and the whole town is gathered out because it's a small community and everybody knows one another. It's likely that Jesus knew some of the people here since he was only 5 miles away, also in a small little town.
Joel Brooks:
It's likely he recognized some of the faces, perhaps even the boy. And so he sees this procession going here. In verse 13, it says, and when the Lord saw her, this this widow, He had compassion on her. And He said to her, do not weep. Jesus sees this widow weeping over the loss of her son.
Joel Brooks:
She's already lost her husband. This isn't just an emotional lost loss. This woman here is now completely destitute. She has no financial means of making it now, with her husband gone, and her only son gone, and her being in her older age. This is it.
Joel Brooks:
So she's in physical need, she's in emotional pain, and Jesus has compassion on her. This is one of the reasons for the incarnation. This is one of the reasons that Jesus became flesh. He wants to show he's a powerful God, and he is at the same time not a distant God. But he comes and he has compassion, and he walks with us in our hurts, and he feels our pains.
Joel Brooks:
So God came as the person Jesus. There is not another God like this in any other religion. Jesus, he tells the buyer to stop. He actually touches the buyer, and that's that's not a casket. They didn't bury people in caskets in this time, it's more like a, like a basket there holding the body and he stops, and the moment Jesus touched that, he would have been defiled, He would have been unclean.
Joel Brooks:
He just broke ceremonial law there. But Jesus doesn't care because whatever he touches actually becomes clean, not the other way around. And then Jesus speaks to the dead person. He tells him to arise, and the dead person just comes back to life. There's only 6 resurrection stories in the Bible.
Joel Brooks:
You would think that in the Bible there'd be tons of resurrection stories. There's only 6, Jesus does 3 of them. All of them, faith is one of the central themes. Luke here wants to compare this resurrection story with another. Resurrection story found in 1st Kings 17 about Elijah.
Joel Brooks:
Elijah also raised a widow's son from the dead, and, after that miracle happened, it has the exact same phrase. It says, when this, when Elijah, when this boy rose from the dead said dead, it said Elijah gave him to his mother, just like it says in Luke here, and Jesus gave him to his mother. And the result afterwards was, now they know that a great prophet is among their men in their midst. And so Luke is warning you to draw the comparison with the resurrection that Elijah did with the widow's son there. Except there's a big difference.
Joel Brooks:
When you read that story, Elijah, he goes and he has compassion on this woman, and and he lays down over the child. It says he stretches himself out over the child 3 times, calling out for the Lord. And then the Lord raises him. Jesus doesn't wave his arms, he doesn't stretch out over the child, he doesn't even pray. Jesus simply looks at the boy and says, get up.
Joel Brooks:
Because Jesus is in a completely different league than Elijah. Elijah had to call out to God for power, Jesus is God. And so he could just speak to the dead boy. In the story of the centurion, you see Jesus healing a sick person because that sick because the centurion had faith. Here, you don't see any faith at all.
Joel Brooks:
Everything's done completely by Jesus' initiative. In the story about the centurion, you see Jesus having the power just to heal. Here, you see Jesus having the power to raise the dead. So before you it was faith and it was just a healing. Here there is no faith and Jesus raises from the dead because Luke wants you to show it show you exactly who Jesus is.
Joel Brooks:
Exactly who he is. So the Jesus we worship, a powerful but not distant god, a god who has compassion on us. A God who is merciful and gracious. It's interesting when you compare more the story of Elijah with Jesus. The woman makes a really interesting comment, that widow.
Joel Brooks:
She says, is is, tell me Elijah, is my boy dead because of my sin? Is tell me, is this the penalty for my sin? And she she had a great understanding of, you know what, I am a sinner and God demands penalty, and and the the payment is death. And so this was very reasonable to her that her sin was gonna cost her her son. And Elijah says no and he raises this woman's son back to life.
Joel Brooks:
But basically, you know, she was right in that her sin does demand payment. It's just gonna be a delayed payment. And I'm certain that when Jesus here is healing this boy, bringing him back to life, he is thinking of one time where he will be paying the payment. He will be the only son that dies. As he is raising this person up, I'm certain he is thinking of the death that awaits him.
Joel Brooks:
The payment that is due for sin. The payment that has been delayed and delayed and delayed until Jesus, the only Son of God, dies on the cross. Where he shows himself as both a just and a gracious and merciful God. This is one of the things that we're gonna celebrate tonight as we partake of the Lord's table. And before we do this, I want us to just take another moment of silence and meditation.
Joel Brooks:
Ask God to reveal to you a number of things. Show him the the areas where you use his title so flippantly, almost borderline and vain, when you cry out things like almighty God or Lord Jesus or King Jesus. And yet your requests that follow are something that any human could answer. Go to him and say, Lord, I am absolutely not worthy to ask anything great of you. Therefore, I ask because you are a gracious and you're a good God.
Joel Brooks:
So take some time to pray and then we will take communion together.