Truth For Life

Announcer: Every time Jesus performs a miracle, God's glory is put on display, but there is more going on. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg shows us two miracles that revealed Jesus' compassion for the hurting and the lost, even those who are often overlooked. We're looking at the opening verses of Luke chapter 7.

Alistair Begg: Well, we've looked—we looked yesterday at Jesus in terms of his humility, seeing him as a humble servant. And we want to look today at Jesus in his compassion, if you like, seeing him as a compassionate shepherd—keeping in mind what we've said so far, namely that the great issue is to be in Christ, and having been placed in Christ, to become like Christ, and like him, here this morning as we think in terms of compassion.

We stopped at the 17th verse. In the section that follows, we discover that John the Baptist, that is John who had been so clear in pointing to Jesus as the Lamb of God, is actually, apparently, having second thoughts. And he has called two of his disciples to him, there you will read in 18 and 19, and he is dispatching them to the Lord Jesus to ask what appears to be a very strange question. He wants them to go and just check with Jesus, are you the one who was to come, or should we be looking for someone else?

If you examine his preaching, it was very straightforward. It was about destruction, it was about wrath, it was about fire, it was about judgment. It was all good stuff. It was very striking and very clear. And now as he is observing the ministry of Jesus, what he's finding is that the notes that he has sounded seem so strangely silent in the preaching of his Master. That Jesus himself seems, actually, to be on about something entirely different. And all the things that John had said—the axe is already at the root of the trees, the fire is already kindled for burning—John says, well, I don't see any trees getting chopped down, and I don't see the fire blazing the way I expected it.

No, because you see John the Baptist had to learn, and we have to learn too, that the coming of the kingdom of Christ was not in this early instance in spectacular and dramatic victories over the powers and authorities of political forces and so on, but in actual fact, the coming of the kingdom of God was being seen in works of mercy. That it was in the compassion of Christ that this great transforming impact was being felt throughout the world. It is as Paul, when he writes in Romans chapter 2, as if Jesus embodies what Paul writes. And he says to the Jewish people, he says, are you so crazy, are you so dull, that you don't even realize that it would be God's kindness that leads you to repentance? Yes, his kindness.

Is it possible that some of us have a wee bit too much of the spirit of John the Baptist about us, wanting to call down fire and destruction on people, and wondering why it is that they seem so disinterested in our story, find our appeals so unappealing? It may well be that we need the counterbalance by pursuing Jesus' approach. And in these little incidents to which we've turned—and of course, you know your Bibles well enough to recognize that we could turn to a number of places—in these incidents, the power of Christ is revealed and the compassion of Jesus is extended beyond man-made barriers of race and respectability. And you will see that as we look at these two households.

Both of them are sad households. First one is a household of a centurion. And this centurion was a man of prominence in his community. This man has slaves within his house according to his status. Slaves in Roman law had no rights at all. That's why they could be bought and sold and even killed. Now that's the environment, okay? Centurion, strong, in control, running his household, ready for every challenge. And here he is. And in his house, one of his servants, you will notice interestingly, whom in verse 2 we're told his master valued highly.

This is an interesting centurion. Interesting on a number of fronts, but this one too. There is a centurion servant. And he would come down in the morning, as it were, and he would have said to one of the other people in his house, how is Gaius this morning? How is Gaius my servant? I just invented his name, Gaius. One of the most common names in the Roman Empire, I believe. A bit like Fred or Joe. How was Gaius this morning? Well, there's no obvious change in him, I'm afraid. No, dear. In fact, he's sick and about to die.

Then look at this interesting little phrase at the beginning of verse 3: the centurion heard of Jesus. The centurion heard of Jesus. Doesn't that just pique your interest? Now you don't want to go off on these things, because all that we need is in the Bible, and nothing has been left out that we need. But it is interesting, isn't it? Just as he heard of Jesus. We don't know how he heard of Jesus. But what he heard of him, obviously, was of importance because having heard of Jesus, he sent some elders of the Jews to him.

This is a clever chap. He didn't get to be a centurion just by falling out of his bed. No, no. He says to himself, now, Jesus, Jewish; me, not Jewish. How about I get some elders of the Jews, and I'll send them? You're religious folks, you're in his camp. Could you please go and represent me to him? That's what's happening. The centurion heard of Jesus, he sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. Where did he get this from? Where do you get this faith from? How does a man have such faith? This is amazing. If you don't think it's amazing, Jesus thought it was amazing. He actually says so.

So he sends them. He's clear about the objective. As a soldier, he should be. This is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it. And so they come to Jesus, and look at how they plead. And they plead earnestly in verse 4. And they plead on the basis of patronage. They're completely wrong, but nevertheless, this is their approach. Jesus, we'd like you to come to this man's house because he actually loves our nation and has built our synagogue. Therefore, he's done a lot of stuff for us, so why don't you do something for him?

It's not uncommon in Christian circles today to try and build into the lives of people on the strength of patronage. But actually, that is not going to cut it. And indeed, while he was still far from the house, the centurion sent friends. First, he sent the religious elders. Now the word may have come back, we don't know what the distance was. They're boasting about you, boss. They're saying this man loves our nation, this man built our synagogue, this man is a big shot, and they're appealing to Jesus on the strength of all the things you've done. Oh, he says, that wasn't what I had in mind at all. Hey, come here, let's get a couple of my friends and go down there and clean this act up for me, will you?

So the friends come down. And the friends come down with a very different message. Lord. Lord—it's a good start, isn't it? Lord, don't trouble yourself. I don't deserve to have you come under my roof. That's why I didn't even consider myself worthy to come to you. You see, when grace grips a man or a woman, we come to Christ on bended knee. We may present ourselves in business, in academics, in athletics, in military matters, on the strength of our stars and our stripes. But when we come to Christ, we come face down. And the centurion understood what the religious Jews could not get. Why? Because Pharisees always come to Jesus on the strength of how well they're doing.

That's why the boy would not come into the party. For all these years, he says to his father, I have slaved in your house, and you never even gave me any kind of party. But this son of yours, who made a hash of things, has come back up the road, and look at all this singing and look at all this dancing. You see, Pharisees will never understand such compassion, never understand such mercy. That's why we will never then be the conveyors of such mercy until we understand that it is with mercy and with judgment my web of time he wove, and I the dews of sorrow are lustered by his love.

And Jesus steps forward, responding now to this entreaty. And we're told in verse 9 that Jesus was amazed. The humility of the man is wonderful, isn't it? Notice how he introduces himself: for I myself am a man under authority. Not of, not of—prepositions matter, not only when you're playing Scrabble. For I am a man under authority. I'm able in my limited sphere to say you can go and another can come. But you, Jesus, you can actually say to disease, go, and it will go. Now say it, Jesus, for my servant's sake.

And when Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him. And turning to the crowd that was following him, he said, I've never found such great faith, even in Israel. And then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well. That's so wonderful. I'd love to have been there for that, wouldn't you? Especially the first group that came back, taking credit for it all. Well, if we hadn't gone down there in the first instance, I'm sure—yeah, oh shut up, please. Please, just go and get yourself a donut.

Let me just make three observations. Observation number one: the prophecy of Simeon in this instance is being fulfilled. What does the prophecy of Simeon say? someone asks. You have to go back to chapter 2. Simeon, remember the ancient man in the temple, takes the child Jesus in his arms and he prophesies over him. And part of what he says of this child in his arms, he says he is a light for revelation to the Gentiles. And people say, well, I wonder what that's going to mean. Well, here we've discovered part of what it means, right here in the home of the centurion.

That's observation number one. Observation number 2: Jesus does not draw insider-outsider distinctions, even when confronted with a possibility of potential defilement. He doesn't draw insider-outsider distinctions when confronted with the possibility of defilement. What do you mean? It was a defilement for a Jew to go into the home of someone who was a Gentile without the necessary preparations. But Jesus apparently was quite prepared to make the journey as necessary.

And the third observation is that we find in this little incident two essential requirements for receiving true blessing. Number one: deep humility. Number 2: a steadfast faith in Jesus. We have to turn to our next incident, leaving behind the question, what kind of faith did this man have? Did he have faith only to believe that Jesus could heal his servant, or did he come to faith in Jesus himself as not only the one who would heal his servant of physical disease, but also who would cleanse his evil heart from sin? We're going to have to wait until eternity to find out. But I have him on my list to look for early on in my experience of heaven. I'll be wandering around going, has anyone seen the centurion from Luke chapter 7? Jesus was so kind to him.

Now to the second one, and we've got very little time left, but it's a briefer account of Jesus' compassion. Soon afterwards, verse 11, Jesus went to a town called Nain. This is another sad home. Six miles southeast of Nazareth, a day's journey from Capernaum, which is where we began in verse 1 of this chapter. Archaeologists, we're told, have found tombs in the rocks along the roads leading to Capernaum, and particularly around the eastern gate of this little village.

The sounds of sadness would have been present from the dawn of that morning. Many of her friends, that is the widow, would have gathered outside her home. The plaintive songs from the flutes, the cymbals, would have reminded the lady, even before she could get out of her bed, what the day held for her. This was the saddest of all days. And once again in this little incident, the focus, like before, is not so much on the healing as on the centurion's faith, and here not so much on the raising of the dead son as it is on the compassion of Christ for the woman in her need.

She is a woman first of all. She is a widow, therefore she has no husband. And now she is sonless. Isn't that what he says? So this is the end of the line for her. She is the epitome of the poor. We say the poor, is that significant? Well, I think it is, because we're back at our pivotal verse in Luke 4: the spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. There couldn't be anybody poorer than this lady. She has now no means of protection or provision. Few openings for such a woman in this kind of environment.

From a human perspective, she now faces sadness, loneliness, and the end of the family line. Her predicament is well understood by the community, hence Luke tells us that a significant crowd, a large crowd, had come along with Jesus, and there was a crowd that had gathered, a large crowd had gathered from the town and was with the lady. They were there as a sign of mutual support. Poor woman, she's a widow and now she's lost her only son. It's a bit like the experience of Naomi as it's recorded in Ruth, isn't it? And all of the potential bitterness that floods in upon her.

Interestingly, in this incident, there's no request. Nobody's sending anybody to do anything. No one has the idea, why don't we get Jesus involved in this? No, the events are unfolding as per routine. And then we read in verse 13: when the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her. Seems that he saw her before he heard her. We would expect this of a compassionate shepherd, wouldn't we? Because Luke also tells us that in relation to crowds, when Jesus saw the crowds, he was moved with compassion, not simply because the crowds made him feel a certain way, but because when he looked at them, he saw them as sheep without a shepherd.

Just like when you sit at a football game and you look at your one end zone and you look down to the other end zone, and you see all of these people, all whom the Bible says will stand before the bar of God's judgment and give a reckoning for their lives. At least once in a while, if there is anything of Christ in us, we must have been moved with compassion. But is it not true that depending on our social status and our background, when we see people who are in a mess, often a mess of their own making, we may be a lot quicker to the methodology of John the Baptist than to the compassion of the Lord Jesus?

Look at that, I can't believe—can you believe somebody's like that? Look at that. You're looking at yourself apart from the grace of God. At one time, we were foolish and disobedient, without God and without hope in the world. By our very nature, all of the sins of humanity wrapped up in our evil hearts. The fact that we never gave rein to them all is only an indication of God's amazing grace to us. And when the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her. And he said to her, hey lady, don't cry. She didn't know that he saw her, but he did.

Into the extremity of this little lady's life comes Christ, the compassionate shepherd. And Luke tells us that he halts the progression of the coffin to the grave. He's halting the tragic progression to the grave. Halting the tragic progression to the grave. He's doing, you see, what no one else can do. He's doing what Buddha never did and never could because he is in the grave. He's doing what Muhammad could never accomplish. He's doing what only he who is the resurrection and the life could ever do. He halts the tragic progression to the grave.

This is who Jesus is. This is why he's revealed to us in all of his power and in all of his authority. And this is what makes his compassion all the more magnificent, that somebody as vast in his resources would stoop to the level of this, to some no-named woman in her miserable circumstances on a routine day as she buries her only boy. Who really cares, ultimately? Oh, the people come for a while as they do at funerals, and they'll send little notes for a while, but she's going to live with this for the rest of her life. And into the middle of all of that, Jesus comes and speaks.

I don't—you wish that you could have seen the eyes of the people? First, as he touches the coffin, and Luke says, and those carrying it stood still. Young man, I say to you, get up. The dead man sat up and began to talk. Why? Because he speaks, and listening to his voice, new life the dead receive. And notice, here's the key to this whole thing: and Jesus gave him back to his mother. That's compassion. He says, listen, your mother needs you still. Now don't get all hung up on how Jesus spoke to the dead and everything else. He's the Lord of life and death. He possesses power over the invisible sphere of the spirit world to which the soul goes. He of all people is able to call back that which is apparently gone. He is the only one who could do it, and he did it. And the fellow looked up, and I guess he just said to his mom, hey. And she said, hey, I'm glad—I'm glad to have you back.

Observations go like this. 1: Unlike others, Jesus doesn't simply comment on the great enemies of mankind; he overcomes them: sin and sickness and death. Number 2: he hears the cries of the sorrowful. And he knows your heart, and he knows your cries. Number 3: he's the loving comforter. He's the victor over death, he's the reuniter of separated dear ones. Number 4: what he did here, he will one day do for all the faithful in a final, perfect form. And fifthly: he will bring full and final comfort on that day, raise all his people, reunite us with our loved ones and all who have died in him.

Announcer: We are learning about Jesus, our compassionate shepherd, on Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. I hope you are benefiting from Alistair's exploration of what the Gospels teach about the character of Jesus. If you've missed any of the messages in this series, you can catch up easily online at truthforlife.org. The series is called To Know Christ.

And to supplement the series and help you cultivate a deeper connection with Jesus, we're recommending a brand new book called Christ Our All, Gaze at Him. This is a 14-day devotional that takes a closer look at who Jesus is and how much he cares for you. Each daily reading focuses on a specific role that Jesus fills in our lives, from prophet and savior to shepherd and friend.

Ask for your copy of the book Christ Our All, Gaze at Him when you donate today to support the Bible teaching ministry of Truth for Life. You can give online at truthforlife.org/donate or call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for joining us today. Tomorrow we'll hear an exhortation from Jesus to his disciples that every generation needs to hear and take to heart. Join us tomorrow to find out why. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.