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A Roman centurion steps forward with a faith so stunning that it leaves Jesus Himself marveling—faith greater than anything He had found in all Israel. What could possibly cause a hardened Gentile soldier, despised and unclean in Jewish eyes, to approach the Messiah with such humble boldness and absolute trust in His authority? And how does one dramatic moment at a packed Brandon Lake concert reveal the same heart-stopping invitation Jesus still extends today? Watch Youth Pastor Andy Kirstein's sermon to discover the three kinds of faith that change everything and how God may be asking you to take your own leap right now.
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LearningTranscript
00:00A Sunday school teacher had a conversation with her class. If I sold my house and my car,
00:04had a big garage sale, and gave all my money to the church, would that get me into heaven?
00:09The teacher asked her students. No, the children all answered. If I cleaned the church every day,
00:14mowed the yard, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into heaven?
00:18No, again was the answer. Well then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children
00:23and loved my husband, would that get me into heaven? She asked again. Once more, the answer
00:27was no. Well, she continued, thinking that they were a bit more theologically sophisticated than
00:32she had given them credit for. Then how can I get into heaven? And a five-year-old boy responded,
00:36you have to be dead. Elijah would disagree, but that's beside the point. You know, I'm just, you
00:47know. Okay, so I've always been kind of a movie guy. I love movies. You know, ever since I was tiny,
00:55you know, back in the VHS era, I just, I loved movies. You know, you go to the movie store,
01:01and you pick out the box and everything. Well, some of my favorite movies are the Indiana Jones
01:06movies. I love the Indiana Jones movies, specifically 1 and 3, and we ignore everything
01:11after 3. They don't exist. But number 3, The Last Crusade, I liked 1 and 3 because, you know,
01:18he was finding Bible stuff. You know, I always wanted to be Indiana Jones and be like, I want to find
01:22the Ark of the Covenant. And now that I know it's in some warehouse in Mexico, I'm going to go get it
01:26later. But that's beside the point. And number 3, he's supposed to find the Holy Grail, and he's with
01:32his dad. And they finally, they go, they filmed it at Petra. I don't know if you've ever seen it.
01:37It's amazing. It's kind of cool. And they go in there, and the bad guy shoots Indiana Jones' dad,
01:43you know, because he's a bad guy. That's what he does. And he says, the only way you're going to save
01:48your dad now is you have to go through all these trials and get the Holy Grail and bring it back
01:54because that's the only thing that can save your dad at that point. And he's stuck. I mean, you know,
01:59he could stay there, but he's probably going to get shot. So Indiana Jones is like, okay, and he goes
02:02to find the Holy Grail. And he goes through these different things, and he comes out of this tunnel.
02:08And when he leaves the tunnel, he comes up to this big chasm.
02:15And his dad is a Grail scholar, is what he calls himself.
02:19So in his notes, it says, the only way that you're going to get through this is with a leap of faith.
02:26And Indiana Jones is like sitting at, you know, those are his feet right there, in case you couldn't tell,
02:30right there. Right? He's standing at the edge, and there's just, there's no way you're going to
02:36jump across this thing, and it's this bottomless pit. And even if he backs up and takes a run at it,
02:41there's just no way he's going to get there. And he's starting to sweat, and he's freaking out,
02:44and he's going, I just don't get it. How am I supposed to do this? Like, it says here that I'm
02:51supposed to take a leap of faith. I'm going to leap down into the nothingness. That's all I'm going to get.
02:56And he sits there, and finally he's like, okay. So what he does is, he sticks out his foot,
03:01just like that, you know, he just sticks out his foot, and he takes a leap of faith. And then
03:09Steven Spielberg does this, like, cool 1989 camera shot, right? And it goes sideways, and he finds out
03:17that there was a bridge there the whole time. It was just camouflaged, so you couldn't see it.
03:23And all he had to do was take a step forward, and if he took a step forward, he would have landed on
03:27this bridge like he did, and he was safe. And it took him all the way across. As Christians,
03:34we should know that God won't ask us for anything, that he won't help us cross. Yet, instead of
03:39trusting him, instead of saying, okay, we get you, we sit there with sweat on our face going,
03:43there's no way I can cross this thing. Christianity in a nutshell is, I was trying to think of what
03:51Christianity in a nutshell was, you know, just trying to narrow it down. How would I explain to my
03:56youth group? And imagine you're going on a road trip. We've all been on road trips,
04:01I'm assuming, in the past. You have to have your snacks, and they better be good snacks,
04:05you know, not a lot of water. If there's kids in the car, you don't want to stop 15 times.
04:10You know, you got to make sure it's gassed up. The car has to be packed, and it has to be packed
04:14properly. Man, you know what I'm talking about. It only fits in one way. This is why God invented Jenga,
04:20right? And then you go to Google Maps, you get your Google Map, and it tells you exactly where to go,
04:26or, you know, if you're sophisticated, you can use your... Now, that's just crazy. No, I'm just
04:32joking. No, or if you're really sophisticated, you know, your phone has the map on it. You give it
04:37the address, and it tells you where to go. It even tells you how long it gets there.
04:41That's Christianity in a nutshell. Jesus says, I'm going to give you everything you need to get
04:46where you need to go. I'm going to give you the Bible. I'm going to give you prayer. I'm going to give
04:50you the Holy Spirit. I'm going to give you all the directions you need to go to get to your
04:54destination, which is to be with me. He gives us everything that we need, but then we get to the
05:01chasm, or something happens, or, you know, we hit that rock in the wall, and we go, I'm going to sit
05:08here and sweat about it. I'm not going to take that step, because if I take that step, I'm right down in
05:12the dark. Well, I gave you God maps, you know, it gives you directions. It even tells you how long
05:18it's going to take to get there. Just follow it, you know. I gave you everything you need,
05:23but we can't do it. This morning, we're going to look at a man who reached the destination that
05:27God wanted, despite what others believed of him. We're going to be in Matthew chapter 8, so if you
05:33have your Bible or your device, whatever you're using today, go to chapter 8. But before we get to
05:38chapter 8, chapters 5 through 7 is Jesus up giving the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes.
05:45It's an amazing, amazing sermon. We actually, we had a youth group a couple weeks ago where
05:51we call it Question and Worship Night, and it's fun. We, you know, sing some worship songs,
05:58and then I have some questions, like some pre-written down questions that I like to ask
06:01the students, and then they can ask whatever they want, too. And one of the questions I asked was,
06:06if you could go back to any time in Bible times and see anything, what would you see?
06:09I saw a lot of, I heard a lot of, you know, the birth of Jesus, or, you know, some said the
06:16resurrection. I think one person said the ascension. I would love to go, if I could go, I would love to
06:22go and listen to the Sermon on the Mount. I just want to sit there in the grass and listen to Jesus,
06:27you know, give this amazing sermon. And so in chapters 5 through 7, Jesus is giving the sermon,
06:35Jesus is teaching these people with authority, and it's such authority that it's amazing,
06:40and it amazes people, and it also kind of ticks off the Pharisees, right? So the question then
06:45becomes, who do you think you are? The Pharisees, you know, they're trained. They went through all
06:51this Bible schooling, and they know the Bible inside and outside, and they have these amazing
06:58theological discussions with each other during the daytime where they can argue things.
07:02And here we have this so-called teacher that's out there that all these thousands of people are
07:10going to listen to, and he's telling them how to live a good life, how they can please God. Like,
07:16who do you think you are? By what authority do you have to talk to people like this?
07:24Chapters 8 and 9 that we're going to see here is the answer to that question, and Jesus is going to
07:27explain to them, let me tell you the authority that I have. A, I'm God. B, I came from heaven. C,
07:35because of that, I have all authority. It wasn't enough for Jesus just to sit up there and talk.
07:41Granted, that should have been enough, but Jesus is like, I'm going to prove by my actions what I say
07:48out of my mouth. Matthew shows us that Jesus had the right to say this and then proved it by those
07:54actions. Let me give you a bit of history before we dive into the story of the centurion this morning.
08:00At the time of, at the time that this happened, disease was rampant in the area. And it kind of
08:08makes sense because at the time, there was no way to stop it. If you had a cold, you had to just wait
08:13it out. If you, you know, if God forbid it was something else, if you had, you know, a brain tumor,
08:20it's, well, you know, God's going to do what God's going to do. And we just have to deal with it.
08:26You couldn't go to the hospital. You couldn't, you couldn't go to the doctor's office. You couldn't
08:31do these things. They didn't have those options. You had to write it out and hopefully you survive.
08:38And it was everywhere. And people, you know, people freaked out. Sorry, my iPad went away.
08:44We're winging it. No, here we go. And it was everywhere. I mean, if you had a headache,
08:47we, if we have a headache now, I go to the cupboard, I get out an aspirin. I take an
08:51aspirin. Guess what happens to my headache? Hopefully it goes away, right? They didn't
08:55have that option. None of them had that option. People were terrified of getting a disease and
08:59they were doing this for a good reason. Because if you lift past 20, usually at this time, you were
09:03lucky. It was dirty. It was filthy. There were rats everywhere. There was, it was just, it was gross.
09:09We don't understand that because we live in a time where we have all these, you know, all these
09:17different ways where we can be well. And they just didn't have it back then. Jesus was the answer to
09:22that problem. Now I had one of those, what I call theologically duh moments this week. I don't know
09:29if you've ever had those. You know, when you've read the Bible about, I don't know, 50 times and then
09:34you read something like, oh, how did I miss that? You know, one of those that I call my, I call it a
09:39theological duh moment. The Bible is full of stories about Jesus. Jesus, right before this, right before
09:47this story, Jesus heals the leper, right? And we see these stories of Jesus healing people or Jesus
09:52doing these amazing things. And we say, Jesus did this amount of stuff. Jesus did these amount, this
09:58amount of miracles. Because that's what the Bible gives us. The Bible, this is what the Bible says.
10:04The Bible says Jesus did this and this and this. But if you read a little closer, you're going to
10:08see that Jesus did far more than we realize. Look at Matthew 12, 15. I'm going to put up on the, or
10:13it's going to be up on the screen. Teresa's going to put it up on the screen. Thank you, Teresa.
10:17Matthew 12, 15 says, Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there and many followed him and he healed them
10:23all. Matthew 14, 14 says, when he went ashore, he saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them
10:30and healed their sick. Luke 4, 40 says, now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who
10:37were sick with various diseases brought them to him and he laid his hands on every one of them
10:43and healed them. Jesus had pretty much a conveyor belt of sick people that would come to see him
10:50and say, I'm sick. I need healed. Everybody's like, this guy is healing people. This guy is out there,
10:56you know, I've got the sniffles or I've got a backache or I've got something worse, right?
11:03We know the story of the woman who was, who was bleeding for 12 years and she touched Jesus's
11:08government and she was healed because of her faith. All these people are sick and they're coming to
11:13Jesus and he doesn't turn anybody away. It just, if you do some like basic, you know, basic,
11:22basic math, right? Uh, you know, the feeding of the 5,000. Let's say a fifth of those people were
11:28sick with some type of ailment, a sprained ankle, a cold, the flu, cancer, who knows? They come to
11:37Jesus. They say, can you heal me? And Jesus is absolutely. And he heals every one of them. He's
11:42healing thousands of people. Thousands. We read this much. Matthew gives us a couple of examples
11:54of the work Jesus did in chapters 8 and 9. Turn with me, if you will, to Matthew 8. We're going to
12:00be, uh, starting in verse 5 this morning. It said, when he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came
12:07forward to him, appealing to him, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.
12:13And he said to him, I will come and heal him. But the centurion replied, Lord, I am not worthy to
12:17have you come under my roof, but only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man
12:22under authority with soldiers under me. And I say to one, go. And he goes. And to another, come. And he
12:27comes. And to my servant, do this. And he does it. When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those
12:34who followed him, truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such a faith.
12:41I think I might change my mind. I think I'd like to meet this guy, this centurion.
12:48There's a, there, there's four specific things that will tell you a little bit about the centurion.
12:53Number one, um, this centurion would have been considered unclean to the Orthodox Jews because of
12:59his race. Number two, the centurion would have been despised because he was a leader in the Roman
13:06rule. And they were above the Jews. They were controlling the Jews at the time. Let's strike
13:12two. Strike three, he was a Gentile. I mean, he's not even a Jew. He's a Gentile. I don't care
13:20what he believes. He's a Gentile. We don't even associate with him. And number four,
13:27the area that he was at, he worked for Antipas. He was a soldier under Antipas's, uh, Antipas's
13:37authority, which means that he was most likely a Samaritan on top of it. So he has four things
13:44already against him that make him not just like look down upon, but make him you like he's
13:50a pariah. He's just nasty. I don't want him around. I don't want to see him. I don't want
13:54him near me. He is not what I would call my friend. Let's put it that way. And this
14:01guy has the guts to come into a room with Jesus and ask him for anything to talk to him,
14:10let alone be in the room with him. He actually spoke to Jesus.
14:16Then he says something. He says, uh, the, um, the centurion says, Lord, I am not worthy
14:22to have you come under my roof. He's not saying that as, as, as a, as a, um, title. I'm just
14:28going to call you Lord. When he's saying that it means that he believes Jesus is exactly who
14:32Jesus says he is. When he says, Lord, I am not worthy. He's saying you are God. You are
14:40the son of God. And I am not worthy to have you under my roof. I'm not worthy to be around
14:45you. I'm not worthy to be in your room. I'm not worthy to talk to you. That's who you
14:50are. The slave in question was most likely not just a slave, but also the centurion's
14:59son. Now we sit there and in, in, in, in our society, we go, um, you know, we, we look
15:06at our, our kids and our kids are, you know, we love our kids. We want what's best for our
15:10kids. Right. The idea of, you know, we might make them do chores and they might think that
15:15we're treating them as slaves, but believe me, we're not. Right. But in those times,
15:20uh, the centurions would often sleep with slaves and they would have kids. And when
15:25those, when those kids were born, they would become slaves too. And it really
15:29didn't matter. It didn't matter if they were, if they had my DNA or not, they're a
15:33slave. That's just the way it is. In fact, to give you an idea of what the Romans
15:38thought of slaves, look at what Varro says. Varro says that the only difference
15:44between a slave, a beast and a cart is that the slave talks. If a slave dies, even
15:53if that slave is your son, you just go get another one. It doesn't really matter. Yet
15:58this centurion not only cares for this slave, but he cares enough that he's willing
16:05to go into a bunch of Jews and talk to the teacher of these Jews and beg for help.
16:15I tell you this because I want you to know that the man who was approaching the savior
16:18of the world was a man who believed in the savior of the world and he knew it.
16:25This man was coming to Jesus out of desperate, out of desperation. There's a good chance that
16:31this centurion was not exactly hurting for money. So my guess is that he spent all the
16:39money he could trying to, trying to help this, trying to help this, uh, son, trying to help
16:43this slave. Took him to doctors, did everything he could until there's nothing left. There's
16:48no other choice, but he has to go to Jesus. At this point, he has to stick his foot out and he
16:58has to take that step because that's the last thing he's got to do. I like what John MacArthur
17:06said. John MacArthur said that this centurion had a beatitude attitude. I like that. I want to have a
17:13beatitude attitude. I'd get it tattooed, but I'm afraid of needles and I don't want to do that.
17:18Maybe one of those temporary ones so I can look tough, but I'm not really tough, you know?
17:27This, this, this, uh, this story is also in the book of Luke and Luke actually says that there
17:32were some Jews that loved him and it goes, and I'm showing this because I wanted you to know
17:36the character of the centurion. Luke seven verses three through five says, when the centurion heard
17:40about Jesus, he sent him, uh, he sent to him elders of the Jews asking him to come and heal his
17:46servant. And when they came to Jesus, they pleaded with him, earnestly saying, he is worthy to have
17:50you do this for him for he loves our nation. And he is the one who built our synagogue.
17:57Listen, maybe if I send some, some actual Jews that are respectable Jews there, then maybe, uh,
18:03Jesus will help me. Right. And they come to him and I go, Jesus, I'm telling you, this is a good guy.
18:09Give him a shot. I'm, I'm telling you, he's a good guy. He built a synagogue.
18:16You know, this powerful man comes to Jesus hat in hand and gives Jesus all the information. He says,
18:26I have a slave at home who's sick. He's paralyzed. You know what he doesn't do?
18:33Please come save him. Please come heal him. Please, please, please, please. He doesn't ask what he
18:40does is he gives Jesus the information. This is what's going on in my life right now. This is what
18:44this is. This is, this is, this is why I'm here. Cause at home right now is somebody that I care
18:50about at home is, is somebody that, that, that, that's, that's, that's struggling with this sickness.
18:54And, and I'm giving you this information, but because you're you, I trust you, whatever you want
19:01to do, I trust you, whatever you decide to do, I know that's the right move.
19:08That's faith. That is absolute gigantic faith.
19:17So Jesus agrees to, as soon as he says it, I have this, I have the servant at home.
19:21He's super sick. What does Jesus say? I'm on my way. Let's go.
19:26I'll go right now. And to, to further show his, his character, the centurion responds. He says in
19:39verses, continuing chapter eight, he says, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof,
19:44but only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority with
19:50soldiers under me. And I say to one, go. And he goes to another, come. And he comes and to my servant,
19:54do this. And he does it. The centurion knows he's not worthy. He knows that if Jesus comes to his
20:05house and enters his house, the Jews will say, Jesus is unclean because Jesus stepped inside of
20:10his house. He says, I don't want you to do that. I don't want you to be unclean. I don't want you to
20:18come and, and, and soil your perfect feet in my dirty, dingy Roman house.
20:26But let me tell you, I know who you are. I know what you're capable of. I know what authority you
20:30bring because I know that you are God. I understand authority. This guy's not, this guy's not pilot.
20:38This guy's not, you know, Caesar. So he knows what it's like to be under authority, but he also knows
20:43what it's like to be in authority over people. A person in the centurion, a person in his state
20:49in the Roman army would, would probably need about a hundred men. And in the time, I mean,
20:56the Roman army, we're not, the Roman army is no joke, right? I mean, it's, they're not to be messed
21:02with. He says, I understand what it is. I get it. I don't want you in this house. I don't want you
21:10in my house because I don't want you to, to, to, to, to, to make yourself dirty because that's what
21:15they're going to think just because you're in my house. But let me tell you what I do know. I do
21:18know that all you have to do is say the word. All you have to do is say, absolutely. He's healed
21:24and he'll be healed. I know that of you. I know that's what you're capable of. I know that's the
21:29authority you hold. The centurion knows what authority is. Now look at this from a different
21:41point of view, right? Just hold on, hold on to that thought with the centurion. The centurion's
21:46done everything that he can do. At this point, it's up to Jesus, whether or not the servant's
21:51healed. It's up to Jesus, whether or not he even looks at the centurion. Now let's look at it from
21:56the point of view of the believers and the people that were with Jesus. When Jesus heard this,
22:02he marveled and said to those who followed him, truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel,
22:06have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from East and West and recline at the table
22:12with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. While the sons of the kingdom will be
22:16thrown into the outer darkness. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
22:20The centurion said, go, let it be done for you as, oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And to the
22:25centurion, he has no power to heal. And the centurion, Jesus said, go and let it be done
22:34for you as you have believed. And the servant was healed at that very moment. First, let
22:40me just point out, how many of you have had a cold lately? If you're a lady in the room,
22:51chances are the cold lasted, what, about three days? If you're a gentleman in the room, the
22:55same cold probably lasts, what, two weeks? Let me tell you, man, colds hit worse with
23:01guys. I'm telling you, it's terrible, right? But what happens? We take medicine and it just
23:05takes, it takes a while. You know, it just, Jesus says, it's going to be done and it's
23:11done. Oh, you have cancer? Gone. Oh, brain tumor? Gone. Broken toe? Healed. No waiting,
23:23no aspirin needed. Put the Alka-Seltzer away. Sorry, gentlemen, you're going to have to get
23:29out of bed. You know, Jesus heals. And when Jesus says for it to happen, it happens. It
23:36doesn't wait around. But the Jews needed to hear from the master teacher. And Jesus dropped
23:43some knowledge on the Jews that probably shook him a little bit. Because Jesus is talking and
23:48Jesus says, I tell you that there will come from the east and west and recline at the table
23:51with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be
23:55thrown into the outer darkness. What he's saying is, I got some news for you. There's going to be
24:01a time where we're all celebrating together and we're up in heaven and we're sitting at a table
24:06and he brought up, he brought up the pillars and the Jewish, you know, these are the, these are
24:10the cornerstone. He brought up Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And he said, we're all reclining at the
24:14table. Guess who else is going to be at that table? Gentiles.
24:21Real Gentiles?
24:24Yeah. Because there's going to be a time
24:27that everyone is welcome at the table.
24:33The disciples needed to hear it.
24:35I struggle to, uh, I, I, for those of you, you know, God bless you. I'm still in my master's
24:43program. Those books are really dry. I mean, it's, it's amazing. And, and I love, but sometimes I,
24:51I, and I struggle to, when I'm reading the books, you know, I struggle to absorb, I struggle to absorb
24:55what I'm reading and I'll read a chapter two or three times and I'm just in there. I, you know, I,
24:59I'm one of those guys that I'm reading and I'm reading and you get to the end of the page and you're
25:02like, what I, yeah. Right. So, so what I've been doing is I get the audio book of the textbook and
25:10then I listen to it while I'm reading it. So it's like double whammy, you know, because I'm just one
25:16of those people that I can't get it out of the book. I need, I need it kind of said to me. And
25:20that's how I absorb it. Or, or sometimes I need it explained to me in a different way. Poor pastor
25:24Mark every Thursday. I'm like, Oh, here we go. I got another one, you know, and we'll spend an hour
25:28talking about some, you know, just bizarre theological thing that, that I'm learning in school,
25:32because, you know, I'm reading it and I'm just going, you know, I don't know what this
25:37guy's talking about. So, so we'll talk about it. Jesus realized that his followers needed
25:43to hear more than just words. He could have easily said, listen, there's going to be a
25:47day where I die on a cross. After I die on the cross, I'm going to raise, I'm going to raise
25:51from the dead three days later. Okay. That's going to bring on what I call salvation. After that
25:57salvation is there, let me tell you what's going to happen. Be around for about 40 days. After that,
26:01I'm going to ascend to heaven. I'm going to leave. When I leave, I'm going to give you the
26:05Holy Spirit. I'll explain him later. Don't worry about it, but he's going to come down. He's going
26:09to help you. Now, what you're going to do is you're going to take everything that I taught you,
26:13and you're going to take that to everybody, not just the Jews. You're going to take it all over
26:18the world and you're going to share what I have done with the entire world. And the reason you're
26:23going to do that is because people are going to hear my call. And when they hear my call,
26:29they're going to accept me as their savior and they're going to go to heaven. And you know what
26:32the disciples would have said? Can you say that one more time from the beginning? I missed it,
26:38right? That would have been me. Is there an audio book of this? I missed it.
26:46Let me give you an example of how this works. Jesus washing the disciples' feet. We all know the
26:51story, right? Last supper, the disciples show up. Feet were just nasty back then. I mean, nasty,
26:57right? They didn't wear shoes or they wore sandals. They were gross. And they show up to the last
27:02supper and nobody washes feet. And what does Jesus do? Jesus gets down on his hands and knees. He
27:06disrobes and he washes the disciples' feet to their utter horror that their master's washing their
27:13feet. And listen to what Jesus says in John 13, 15. He says, for I have given you an example that you
27:20also should do just as I have done for you. I guarantee you later on when the disciples are teaching about
27:26what it means to be a servant, guess what's going to come to their minds? Do you remember when Jesus
27:31washed my feet and said, this is what a servant looks like? When they're out there talking to the
27:37Gentiles and the Jews come up and they say, what are you doing? You can't talk to Gentiles. Gentiles
27:42are bad. Gentiles are evil. You don't want to talk to them. They're the enemy. And the disciples go,
27:48let me tell you about a story. Let me tell you about the centurion guy.
27:50Why? Jesus taught by example.
27:58The disciples saw the centurion come in and you got to wonder what's going on because
28:02you can't think that the disciples liked the Romans any more than the rest of the Jews did,
28:08right? I mean, they were under the same laws that everybody else was. And so this Roman guard comes
28:14in. Not only is he a Roman guard, he's a Roman leader. Then he has the audacity to talk to their
28:18teacher. And my question is, is that they see the faith that he brought into the room? Or did they
28:22see red? I don't know. If it was Peter, probably red. Right? Later on in life, when they were converting
28:32Gentiles, they probably thought about it. And Jesus' words taught the disciples what true faith looked like.
28:40I'm going to try to get through this.
28:48Like I said, on Sunday, I had the opportunity to take Emma to Brandon Lake and it was amazing.
28:56Um, and, uh, I took this picture and what you see there, see all those, uh, little dots, um, all
29:06those purple dots when you walked in and you guys will understand this. Um, they handed out these
29:13bracelets to everybody. Mine broke because that's what I do. I break things. Um, and what they did was
29:20there was a guy in this booth and they would light up. And as he's, as, as he's singing, you know,
29:24they did all sorts of different colors. So, so what you see here are hands raised in worship with
29:29these bracelets on. It was amazing. And, um, about halfway through the concert, three quarters of the
29:36way. First of all, I've got to tell you, I've been to plenty of, of, um, events in the arena. I've never
29:41seen it that packed. Never have I seen it that packed. I do not think there was an empty seat in the
29:47place. So, you know, everybody's worshiping and it's, and it's an amazing time. He just finished
29:53gratitude. Um, it was, it was, it was, it was, you know, and everybody was just worshiping God
30:00and Brandon like stops the concert and he said, you know, and he explains that he says,
30:03I'm not a theologian. I'm not a pastor. I don't claim to be. He said, but I've been given an
30:07opportunity by God to come and to share his message. And he said, if I come to an arena with
30:15all these people that came to hear me sing and I don't, I don't tell them about Jesus, he said that
30:20I'm failing. So he gave everybody the salvation message. This is what salvation is. And then he
30:26did something that, uh, everybody raise your hands and everybody raised their hands and, and, and the
30:35arena is dark and you can see how kind of lit up it is. Like, like when you're raising your hands,
30:39uh, it lights up the arena. He said, so here's what I want you to do. And they turned off the lights on
30:44the stage. And there was only a light on, on Brandon Lake at the time. He said, here's what I want you to
30:47do. He prayed the prayer with everybody. You know, everybody, of course, everybody said it out loud.
30:53He said, now, here's what I want you to do. I want everybody to take your hand that has the bracelet on
30:57it. And I want you to put it behind your back. And everybody put it behind their back. Guess what
31:04happened? It went dark. He said, I'm going to count down from three. And when I get to one, if you said
31:11that prayer, whether it was for the first time, or if you said that prayer to, to recommit to God,
31:20he said, I want you to take a leap of faith. And he said, I want you to raise your hand in the air.
31:25And it's dark, you know, and everybody's just kind of sitting there. And then they,
31:28they turned the light out on, on, on, on Brandon, Brandon Lake and, um, counts down from three.
31:32He says, three, two, one. And all over the arena, hundreds of hands start raising up
31:46and the arena gets brighter and brighter and brighter.
31:53And I don't know how many people can fit in the arena, you know, 12, 13,000. I don't, I don't
31:58honestly, no, but that arena was bright and I'm sitting there and I'm watching this and
32:04you know, I got a tear in my eye and Emma looks at me and Emma goes, are you crying?
32:12And I said, yeah. She goes, why? And all I could say was, because look what Jesus did.
32:24There's three examples of faith that we learned about today.
32:28The first example is the impossible. That's that, that's that chasm faith. That's that
32:35faith that's in front of you that, that, that looks like you can't deal with it. That's that
32:39faith that you're just going, I don't know how I'm going to do it. That's that faith that God's like,
32:43just put out your foot and take a step and I will carry you the rest of the way. That's that faith.
32:48That's that faith that it's just not going to happen unless God takes you across. That's that
32:52impossible faith. The second type of faith is the no matter what faith. And that's the centurion's
32:58faith. That's the faith that I don't care if I have to go in and people are going to hate me and
33:04people are going to judge me and people are going to look at me like I'm crazy. And I don't care
33:08because that's the faith that says, as long as I can get to Jesus, he's going to do what Jesus wants
33:13to do. And then there's the surrender faith. And that's the faith where you're sitting there and
33:20you've got nothing left. And God says, just lift your hand up. Show everybody that I'm here.
33:32God's teaching us the same way he teaches his disciples. Whether it's a chasm or simply just
33:43raising your hand, God wants us to trust him, to take leaps of faith that seem impossible.
33:48But we need to remember that God will never ask us to take these leaps of faith
33:51without knowing already that he's there to catch us and we'll never fall. Let's pray.
33:57Father God, I thank you. I thank you for not giving up on us even though we deserve it. I thank you for
34:10sticking by us even though we sit there with doubt in our minds and we don't trust that you're going
34:19to catch us when we fall. Father, I thank you that we have the opportunity to worship you
34:24even though some places don't. And I just pray, Father, that whether it's a chasm in front of us
34:30or whether we just simply need to raise our hands because you've got this, I pray that we take that
34:36leap today. I pray that we don't let doubt govern what we're doing. I pray that we trust you and we
34:44just know that you're there. As we enter this Advent season, Father, I pray that we share with
34:51everybody that this is the season that you were born. This is the season that we celebrate the
34:55fact that you came to earth to save us. Father, everybody needs you. The world needs you so much
35:00more than we ever can fathom. And I just pray that we take that time and we honor you with that, Father.
35:09I thank you and I praise you in your name we pray. Amen.
35:11Amen.
35:11Amen.
35:11Amen.
35:11Amen.
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