Matthew-015

We will read today’s passage in Matthew 8:5-13:

The parallel passage of this is in Luke 7:1-10:

We systematically expound the teaching of our Lord Jesus every week, because the words of the Lord Jesus are spirit and life, and because today there is such a lack of understanding of what the Lord Jesus taught. This passage is not strictly limited only to the teaching of the Lord Jesus, but it contains very important teaching of the Lord Jesus for our understanding of the meaning of faith, as well as our understanding of the Lord Jesus. That is why it is not surprising that it is included in what is known as the “Q” section of the New Testament. The word “Q” is simply coined by some scholars, which comes from a German word Quelle which means “Source.” “Q” is almost entirely concerned with the passages of the Lord Jesus’ teachings where Matthew and Luke correspond with each other. Although this passage is not strictly the teaching of the Lord Jesus, it is included in “Q,” which shows that it is concerned with the teaching of the Lord Jesus.

The centurion: the only man praised for his faith in the New Testament

Let us look at what is happening in this passage, which is concerned with a place in Israel called Capernaum, right on the north edge of the Lake of Galilee. And here we meet with a centurion, a Roman officer, whose very name tells us he is in command of a hundred soldiers. The interesting thing is that in the New Testament, every one of the five or six centurions that we meet turns out to be a rather good man. That shows us the quality of the Roman army was largely based on the quality of its centurions, who were its backbone. They had very strict standards for people who were accepted to be a centurion.

The more I study and think about this centurion, the more I find that he is truly a man of outstanding character. As we go on, we are going to learn many things from his life, about what a Christian should be. But why it is important for us is that he is the only man (not the only woman) who the Lord Jesus says, “This kind of faith I have not found anywhere, not even in Israel.”

So the question we want to ask is: What does the Lord Jesus find in his faith to say these words? If we say he had faith to believe that Jesus could heal his servant, many people brought their sick to Jesus as they obviously believed that he could heal them. What is so remarkable about his faith? We notice that he said, “All you have to do is speak the word, and my servant will be healed.” Certainly, there is significant faith here, but was the centurion the only one who believed that Jesus could heal by a word? No, it doesn’t appear that he has to be the only person who believes it.

What was it about his faith that Jesus said, “This kind of faith I have not found anywhere, not even in Israel”? Why does he say, “not even in Israel”? The people of Israel were taught the Word of God since childhood from generation to generation. Surely, you would expect to find faith in the people of Israel! You would hardly expect to find faith among the Gentiles who had not been taught about God. Yet Jesus found in this Gentile, this non-Jew, the kind of faith that he could not find in Israel. So it immediately becomes important to us to analyze what kind of faith this person had, and to see whether the Lord Jesus will be able to say to us, “You have genuine faith.” We want to look at three things:

1. What is the object of faith?

2. What is the nature of faith?

3. What are the consequences of having or not having faith?

He treats his slave as family, and loves the unlovable Jews

What made his faith remarkable? He was a Roman officer, a foreigner, but immediately, we notice something remarkable about him. Why is he so concerned about his slave? Slaves were nobodies. In those days, if you had money you could buy a slave just like you would buy a car. Of course, if you have a nice car, you care about it. But when you have used it for a few years, you might get to like it so much that it is something you are concerned about, The Roman books of law tell us that masters looked after their slaves in the way that they would look after a piece of property, like a car for example. You keep them if they are good, and throw them out if they aren’t. There was very seldom concern for a servant as a person. Some peo­ple even beat their slaves to death. Slavery was a wretched system where human beings were not treated as human beings but only as property.

But we notice something different about this centurion: he doesn’t treat his slave as a piece of property, but as a person he loves. Now when a slave dies, you could buy another one, so a slave is replaceable like a car, only much cheaper. When you are reading this passage, you notice something about the centurion’s character: he was distressed about his servant who was so sick that he was almost dying. You must have been puzzled why a centurion should be so concerned about his servant. The very fact that you are puzzled about this shows that your character and mine are not quite the same as his. In other words, we notice that he is an exceptionally loving person.

The next thing we notice in this passage is his love for the Jews. This again is very unusual. You could hardly find in history any Roman who loved the Jews, because they always gave the Romans a lot of trouble. The final revolt in A.D. 70 cost the Romans a great many, many lives. The Romans on the whole, hated, despised, and were disgusted with the Jews. Often, they just tried to be diplomatic and polite, as they had to tolerate them, but love was not a consideration.

I will concede to you that the Jews are not an easy people to love if you have tried loving them. I have studied for a time in Israel, where I got to know the Jewish people first-hand in their own country, and I often said to myself, “My! Are these people hard to love!” They all seem to be full of complexes. They either have an inferiority complex, or a superiority complex, or a mixture of both, whatever that is. They are so difficult to love.

On the whole, their character is very argumentative. Try living with them for a few months and you will understand how very easy it is to get into an argument with a Jew. One day, I was visiting a Jewish friend, a doctor, and his friend, an engineer came to visit him too. He had hardly come in through the door for two minutes, and the two of them argued for about an hour, getting very hot under the collar. I understood that they were good friends, not enemies. Maybe Jews are argumentative because they have very active minds. I am filled with memories of my very special stay in Israel at that time.

There is another occasion I will never forget. I was walking down the road in Jerusalem, and a group of women blocked the entire side­walk because they were all chatting with each other. They never thought to be a little considerate to stand to one side, so that they didn’t block the sidewalk. Consideration is not part of their charac­ter. They take care of themselves but not others. So if they block the sidewalk, you can take your choice of either standing where you are; or stepping on the road and risk being killed by the heavy traffic; or you do it in good Jewish style, wade through and push everyone to the side. I had not learned to “swim through the crowd.” Having come from England, I was full of English courtesy. So having come up to this crowd, I cleared my throat wanting to say, “Excuse me, can I step through here?” In the mean time, some heavy lady stepped back and landed right on my toe. Normally, if you step on someone’s toe, you would say “Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it.” As for this lady, she happily remained on my toe. I had to say, “Excuse me! Do you mind getting off my toe?” So she turned around and sort of said, “Why do you put your toe there for me to step on?” If you are the one who gets your toe stepped on, that is too bad for you; it’s your mistake not hers!

As for getting on the bus, you don’t courteously stand in line as the English people do. If you do that, you might as well forget about getting on the bus. When the bus comes, it is “survival of the fittest.” And you are mistaken if you think that the fittest are the men. The fiercest of them are the women! They tear past everyone and pull you back. And I said, “Dear me! How do you love a people like this? These people are barbarians! They haven’t got culture!”

Yet, this dear Roman officer loves the Jewish people. When you understand the Jews, that really is something. When you look at the history of the Jews at that time, you are really amazed how anyone could love them. In the siege of Jerusalem, they not only fought the Romans, they were really good at fighting and killing each other. That is why when Paul said that before we were transformed, we were “hateful and hating one another” (Tit. 3:3). I often puzzled about these words. I don’t think of Chinese people as being hating and hateful before they became Christians. Yet when you know the Jews, you will understand exactly what the apostle Paul means.

He did not have religious narrow-mindedness

Not only does this Roman officer love the Jews in the sense of thinking, “We will tolerate them; we will even like them,” but he also built a synagogue for them which must have cost him an awful lot of money. This is also very remarkable because why Gentiles often so hated the Jews was precisely because the Jews thought themselves to be so religiously and spiritually superior to other people. In other words, it is much easier to love a non-religious Jew than a religious one. In my experience in Israel, I found that the non-religious Jew was much easier to love. He was “liberal” in the sense that his mind was widely educated; he did not have “religious narrow-minded­ness.”

Often, I almost think that the same is true for Christians today. We find that so many Christians are bigoted, selfish and arrogant. They often don’t show the greatness and love of God, and it is so hard to love them. Brothers and sisters, if your religion makes you hard, arrogant and bigoted, you are not the kind of Christian that God wants. Many Christians are very exclusive; they only want to mix with their select groups. This is exactly what was wrong with the Jewish religion. Many Christians are narrow-minded because they are very defensive and insecure. They are afraid to mix with non-Christians because they are afraid to lose the little faith that they have. When your faith is so weak that you feel insecure among non-Christians, there is something wrong with your faith.

There are many Christians who feel insecure when they go to a place full of non-Christians. Immediately, they feel they must leave or else they are going to lose their faith. Have you ever felt threatened in this way? For example, your company or your college has a party, people are drinking and dancing, and someone says, “Come on! Join in! Have a glass of champagne or sherry.” Immediately, you feel afraid and think, “Oh dear! I’ve just watched people dancing and my faith is already fading away!” You want to flee. When you see the glass of wine passing in front of you, it’s almost like “the cup of death,” the temptation to die. I have many times observed Christians who feel so utterly insecure, who feel that their faith is going to collapse any moment in the presence of non-Christians. That is exactly the mentality of the Jews, they are arrogant, and yet aggressive and insecure. The arrogance is a defense mechanism. You’ll say, “I’m the elect! I’m secure! You’re all sinners.” You have to be arrogant as it were, to save your little faith from collapsing.

Otherwise, you will have to have faith that is so rooted in God that you can mix among non-Christians, who dance to music that is so loud that it hurts your ears. These are all sinners. Do you feel secure in their midst? If you don’t, it’s because you have not yet arrived at that strength of faith that this centurion has. Now by the grace of God, I don’t in any way feel threatened at a sherry party or a dance. It doesn’t disturb me at all. I am there to shine as a light for God. They can dance all they like. The presence of any crowd of sinners does not frighten me. It doesn’t threaten my faith. Why should it?

You might say, “Well, when you were a non-Christian, you went to dance parties and so on, so you’re used to such people. I’m not. I was brought up in a Christian home.” If you come from a Christian home, is your faith so weak that you dare not be in the company of sinners? I stress this point because I can see Christians are so defensive when they are with non-Christians. If you have the faith of this centurion, you won’t have such insecurity.

In order to “survive”, as it were, among the non-Christians, many Christians change their tone. When they are in church, they are very “Christian”; they know all the Christian clichés. When they are among non-Christians, they suddenly become one of the non-Christians. They put their Christianity carefully into their pockets to pull out when they get back to church. So they change their color like a chameleon. They are not Christians anymore while they are among non-Christians. When they go to the office, they talk with a non-Christian like a non-Christian.

I would like you to remember that all this is so different from the Lord Jesus. Notice how he went out to the sinners; he was not threatened by the unbelief of the sinners. His faith reached out to the sinners to turn them to salvation. But how is your faith? When you go out to the non-Christians and they suddenly ask you, “Are you a Christian?” Do you say, “Well, em, well, I go to church on Sundays. If you mean am I a fanatical Christian? No, no, I’m a very sane, well-balanced Christian.” Then you quickly change the subject to the latest events. Your faith is not the kind that goes out like the Niagara Falls to conquer whatever is in front of it. Little wonder the non-Christians often wonder, where are the Christians? We don’t see them. They are all hiding in church on Sundays!

I hope that by the grace of God, your faith will become the kind like the centurion’s, that isn’t defensive, but can go out to have a transforming effect on others, and causes the Lord Jesus to marvel, “Such faith I haven’t seen in Israel!”

1. The object of the centurion’s faith: Jesus, the Christ in whom God lives

The reason why you have this fearful faith is because you have not yet seen the glory of God in Christ as this centurion has. Not many of the Jews even believed in Jesus, and yet this foreigner, this centurion was not afraid to confess his faith in Jesus in front of the Jews. He said to his Jewish friends, many of whom probably didn’t believe in Jesus, “Would you go to Jesus on my behalf, and tell him my servant is sick, and I believe he has the power to heal my servant?” (Lk. 7:3) I wonder how many of these Jews became Christians precisely because this centurion asked them to go to speak to Jesus for his sake!

Why didn’t the centurion go to Jesus himself? What did this centurion see in Jesus to be able to say in verse 6, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof”? He is a high-ranking officer, a Roman, and these Jews are subjects. Why is his house not worthy for Jews to go to? Why is he not worthy of Jesus to come?

Then this remarkable conversation takes place. He explained what he has seen in Jesus. He said, “For I am a man 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 slave, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

This Roman army officer is used to authority. Officers get so used to commanding that it becomes their second nature.

In London, I got to know a Chinese man who was a general in the days of the Nationalist government in China. You could see that even though he had no more army or power, but having been a general for so long, he still behaved like one! He used to sit in a private car as though he were sitting in his command jeep. He sat straight as though all who were around him were still his officers. He had lived like that for so many years that it became his lifestyle.

Therefore, it is all the more remarkable for a person who is used to commanding on the battlefield to be able to say to Jesus, “I’m not worthy that you should come to me.” What has he seen? He has seen in Jesus his superior. He has seen that just as he can give orders and the soldiers will obey, Jesus only has to give the order and everything will obey.

This is really something that takes some understanding! He is saying, “I am a man set under the authority of the Roman Emperor with soldiers under me, so that when I command my soldiers, they obey me. (Lk. 7:8) But you are under the authority of God to command the universe. You only need to give command to this disease, to death, and it will be done.”

Where did this man get such faith from? His servant is dying, and he says to Jesus, “I believe that you can say to death, “Step back! And my servant will be healed and not die.” Where in Israel did Jesus ever see such faith? But let me ask, where in the church can he see such faith? Do you have that kind of faith? Do you have the faith to say, “Today, Jesus can say the word and it will be done”? When death is about to seize his servant and take him away, the centurion said, “Jesus, just give the word of rebuke, and death would let go of its victim!” Do you have that kind of faith?

Do not idolize Jesus

In Matthew 28:18, the Lord Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” God has given Jesus all authority in heaven and on earth. Not only does Jesus have all authority in heaven but also on earth. Can you see that God has already made him Lord? (Ac. 2:36) If you believe in Jesus, then you believe in God who sent him. (Jo. 17:3)

Jesus is the object of this centurion’s faith, but not just any kind of Jesus! Many people have the concept of Jesus which is not the same as what this centurion has. At the beginning of this century, Albert Schweitzer, a missionary doctor in Africa, wrote a book about Jesus in which he showed that many people believe in a Jesus of their own making, for example, a Jesus who is gentle, meek and mild, a Jesus that is very good for children but not much use for grown-ups. And he said, “Every person has his own idea about Jesus, and they write books about him.” The object of this centurion’s faith is not in any kind of Jesus, but the Jesus that is revealed in the Scriptures. He has seen who Jesus really is.

Do you see who Jesus is? What is the object of your faith? Is the Jesus you believe in the Jesus who is able to save you by God’s power? Or is he simply a Jesus that you have cut down to suit your own taste? That is to say, there is a faith that is actually not far from idolatry.

The last words in 1 John 5:21 are, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols,” and the apostle John is speaking to Christians. But you say, “Christians don’t believe in idols! Why is it necessary to write to Christians, ‘keep yourselves from idols’?” We can create idols in our own minds, just like you can create an idol of a person, a movie star. You have wonderful devotion and love for this movie star that you have idolized in your mind. But the problem about the idol is that it is not real. That means to say, the individual you’ve idealized in your thoughts may not fully align with the reality of who that person truly is. So you have worshipped an idol, not the real person. This is why people idolize movie stars, much like how some teenagers idolize a beautiful girl or a handsome man. However, if the person doesn’t match your perception of them, you’re essentially idolizing an image rather than the true person. I have said before that if you were given the chance to spend a day or two living with your movie star idol, you could be profoundly shaken up! Humans have a tendency to overestimate others, which often leads to idolization.

The strange thing with the lack of faith is that we under-estimate the objects of our faith, that is, we always under-estimate Jesus Christ in whom is Yahweh God, therefore we don’t experience God’s power.

2. The nature of the centurion’s faith is concrete

Notice what this centurion said, “I give the word of command and my soldiers obey immediately. If I say, “Charge!” they charge, even if that means that they die.” You can say that the power of the officer over his soldiers in time of battle is almost absolute. He is virtually in the position of God to his soldiers for he can send them to death and they will go and die. Do you see the comparison that the centurion is making with the Lord Jesus? He says, “Just as the Roman Emperor has given me authority in the army, God has given you absolute authority in this universe. You speak the word and it will be done.”

I say it again, not only do you hardly find such faith in Israel, you don’t find it even in the Church. And you may say, “No, that’s not fair. I do believe Jesus has absolute authority given by God.” I did not say that Christians don’t believe this in their heads. I am now talking about concrete faith, and that is something very different from hypothetical faith. Notice the nature of this officer’s faith. I want to describe the nature of his faith as concrete. That means he not only believes that Jesus can one day save his soul, but also that Jesus has the authority over everything that is in the universe and in the spiritual world here and now. And he has this complete confidence to say to Jesus, “Jesus, you don’t even have to touch the person, just speak the word and it will be done.” Just as this centurion doesn’t have to push the soldier, he just says, “Go!” and the soldier goes. Do you think you have this kind of faith? Think about it. If you are in financial trouble, do you believe that God who gives Jesus all authority can just speak the word, and you will have sufficient funds? If you believed that, you would never worry about your finances.

I find that so many people say they want to serve God, but they haven’t got the concrete faith to serve him. Theoretically, they believe that Jesus has all power in heaven and on earth. Then why don’t they serve the Lord God who has given Jesus all power and authority?

They say, “I have a wife to look after, I have children to feed, how can I serve God? How can I survive and feed the family on my own? I can’t do that. I earn $20,000 a year now, but if I preach the gospel, I’ll get 7,000 a year.” So he is worried he cannot maintain his standard of living. He not only has to cut the standard of living, but his children may also have to risk not having an education, or go to university. You have concrete faith, do you? Let’s have a look at it. Do you believe Jesus has authority to say, “I can see your children through university” and it will be done? You will say, “Faith is spiritual; it has nothing to do with money. Since when will Jesus supply school fees for my children?” If you are always hiding in spiritual phraseology and excuses, it shows that you don’t have a concrete faith. Notice how concrete is the faith of this centurion. He said to Jesus through his Jewish friends, “My servant is at the point of death, but Lord, I am absolutely confident that he will be healed when you say the word.”

Concrete faith believes Jesus can save us

If your faith is not confident to face the challenges in everyday life, how can it face the crisis of death? If you don’t believe Jesus can save you physically, how do you believe that he can save you spiritually? In other words, if you don’t believe that Jesus can save you on earth, how can he save you in heaven? Is your faith only a wishful ideology, where you don’t believe Jesus can save you on earth, but perhaps, he is able to save you in heaven?

The centurion’s faith is essentially different. He believes that Jesus is the Lord today by the authority God has given him, not some day in the future; and he can do all things this very day. He can save your body and spirit today. This is the only sensible faith to have. You may be thinking, “One day, he will be the Lord, a long time in the future, but he doesn’t have too much authority right now.” If you cannot believe that Jesus can save you in a concrete, physical way even when you need it, what is the use of vaguely believing he can save you spiritually one day? If Jesus cannot save you from the power of death today, where is your guarantee that he can save you from death some future day? Doesn’t that make perfect logic?

I never forget my grandfather was a pastor, and he had concrete faith that Jesus is Lord. What do I mean by this? He was from the province of Fujian and he preached in a place there. There are many tigers in the mountains of Fujian, but he walked through them alone without any weapons, to preach in the villages. People said to him, “The tigers in the mountains are very hungry these days and they are killing people.” But he continued to go out into the mountains happily and faithfully. He wasn’t afraid of the tigers.

You will say, “That’s foolhardy! I’ll go with a high-powered rifle. I trust in God but I also trust in my gun – a little bit more in my gun most of the time. God can save me in heaven, but I’ll have to save myself on earth.” Little wonder the non-Christians think that Christians are ridiculous, because they figure that if God can’t save you on earth, how is he going to save you in heaven? After all, he did not only create heaven but also created the earth according to your Bible. We make fools of ourselves, don’t we? I feel so embarrassed among non-Christians because so many Christians come up with these silly notions. Non-Christians will also ask, “Does God help those who help themselves? But another question that you forgot to ask is, why should God help you when you have helped yourself?” If you go into the jungle with a high-powered rifle, a bullet-proof jacket and an army of soldiers around you, why does God need to help you after that?

We have to ask the question, Is your faith concrete or not? Could it be that as I express these thoughts, you are promptly conjuring up excuses? “Come on! You are exaggerating! We have faith, but this is tempting God! When you can go into the mountains with a high powered rifle and you don’t, you are saying to God, ‘Come and save me! I’ve put myself among tigers without taking a high-powered rifle.’ This kind of faith is not good.”

Let me ask you, what is the true motive you’re harboring? Is it because you are afraid to tempt God? Or don’t you really have the faith to believe that God can save you? When you go out to serve God, do you dare to trust him to safeguard you? Do you have the confidence that if you have to go through the jungles infested with tigers and snakes to preach the gospel, they are never going to touch you? Do you have concrete faith? That is what I’m interested in.

Then you might inquire, “What became of your grandfather? That’s when I’ll gauge if I have concrete faith. When did the tiger devour him?” He was never eaten by a tiger. He frequently encountered tigers, sometimes at close proximity, yet he never experienced a single tiger attack. You will ask again, “Why does God save him when he is tempting God?” He never tempted God; he did exactly what he ought to have done.

I wonder what the non-Christians would have thought if he arrived with his sub-machine gun on his back to preach the gospel! What would you think if you were listening to the gospel and the preacher said, “God has made Jesus whom I’m preaching to you both Lord and Christ (Ac. 2:36). Everything listens to him except the tigers”? Their reaction would have undoubtedly been: “What’s the point of preaching the gospel if you imply that Jesus can save you from sin, but he cannot save you from tigers? Why worry about sin if tigers are more dangerous?”

I think that we, Christians have a definition of faith which does not exist in the Bible. In the Bible, we find that people were sent out to preach the gospel with no fear of anything, not even of poisonous snakes, so that when Paul was bitten by a poisonous snake, he just threw it back into the fire (cf. Ac. 28:3-6). Today, we get absolutely flustered and yell, “Help! Help! I’ve been bitten by a snake! Where’s the anti-poisonous serum?!” Certainly, we should at least take sensible, normal precautions. If you are bitten by a snake, you don’t just look at it. It may or may not have put poison in the wound, but at least you have to take proper medical precaution. Paul did not even use the simple common sense to consult Luke the doctor, who was right beside him. Does it mean that we can never go to doctors? We are not saying that, but we are simply saying, notice the mental attitude of Paul. The poisonous serpent did bite Paul, and nowhere did Luke mention he attended to Paul’s wound. There was no panic. The poison would kill Paul within one minute, but he just went on doing his job.

Only concrete faith is the Biblical saving faith

We are not talking about some special form of faith; we are talking about the saving faith in the Bible. This saving faith is always a concrete faith. Do you believe that Jesus is Lord here and now? Are you convinced that the Lord Jesus is able to take you out of any physical and spiritual problems?

I need to further explain about concrete faith. It doesn’t mean that in the course of serving God, we expose ourselves to disease and trials just for the fun of seeing whether or not Jesus can protect us. My grandfather did not try to see if the tigers would kill him; he had concrete faith that Jesus could protect him. In other words, when you have concrete faith, you are not afraid of any danger physically or financially.

Sundar Singh preached the gospel in India and Tibet, so he made an important contribution to our country, China. He spent the majority of his life residing in the Indian jungles, which you know are infested with tigers, leopards and snakes. Thousands of people in India die from poisonous snake bites every year, and hundreds die from being killed by tigers as well as leopards. Yet Sundar Singh always walked through and slept in the forest unarmed, but he was never ever hurt by any wild animal! Was he tempting God? Certainly not! He had the concrete faith that this centurion had. He knew that as he served and lived for God, no animal, snake, or anything would harm him.

Do you have this kind of concrete faith? Do you have faith that God, who gives Jesus all authority in heaven and on earth, is in control also of your financial need? Concrete faith is when you dare to stake your life on him. I have shared with you before that I have done this year after year. I’m not talking theory. I know that our faith in Jesus must be concrete if it is to be a saving faith. Only this kind of faith is a faith that is going to make an impression on the world where the non-Christian can say, “Well, if you have that kind of faith in Jesus, I know your God who sent him must be true.”

My testimony brought my mother to God

I could have preached my mouth dry to my mother and she would never have believed in God. She was one who absolutely rejected the gospel because she was a great skeptic. If you have a mother or father, or a son or a daughter, who doesn’t believe the gospel, you can preach till your mouth is dry and they still won’t believe. The only thing that caused my mother to come to God was that she watched what God did in my life. She watched year after year, and it took several years until she said, “Wow! This God who you believe in is true! I can see with my own eyes that such a God is the real God!” It was my testimony that brought her to God.

In all her life, she has only heard me preach one message. She has never sat in a congregation to listen to my preaching. Before she became a Christian, she never heard one message that I preached either on tape or anywhere. It shows you that she did not become a Christian through what I said. When I first witnessed to her, she was so hard against the gospel that I did not say anymore. I did not want to try to force the gospel down her throat. I knew the turning point in her life came when she wrote me a letter after my graduation from university. In the letter she said, “After observing you for all these years, I can see that your God is real not because of what you’ve said, but because what God has been doing in your life exactly as he said he would.”

She knew me and she knew I had no money. How could a person who has no money study for six years? How do you do this? She knew I had no work permit in England so I would not be allowed to work. She knew that England is so overcrowded, that anyone who tried to work, like myself, would immediately be deported. Every time she asked me “How do you live?” I said, “God is the One who looks after all my needs. He looks after me like his son.” Year after year she asked me, “How do you live?” And I said, “My God. He does it.” She saw it and said, “I don’t know how it’s done but your God is real! He is concrete!”

Then slowly by slowly, her heart changed until one day, she knelt down with me, with tears running down her face, and committed her life to God, who forgives sin through cleansing by Jesus’ blood. That is concrete faith; faith that is not just spiritualizing away. It has got the object of your faith clear. You know that Jesus is Lord, and God has imparted all power and authority not only in heaven but also on earth to him. Do you believe that?

Brothers and sisters, do you know that Jesus is in command in your daily life, knowing that he said, “so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (Jo. 15:16b)? Is that your faith? You will ask, “Why ask God in Jesus’ name?” It is because God has given him all authority in heaven and on earth. That is the Jesus that I trust in. That is why I have the confidence that “Jesus rescues us from the wrath to come” on that Day (1 Thess. 1:10). I have experi­enced his power not once, not twice, but day after day, year after year.

Since this centurion believed that Jesus’ God-given power is concrete, and could heal his dying slave by his word, he had the saving faith. So when you address Jesus as “Lord,” what do you mean by “Lord”? Is he or isn’t he Lord? If Jesus is not Lord of all, how can he be Lord of your life? What is his qualification? What’s the use of believing in him who has no power to do anything?

3. Result of saving faith: It transforms, making worthy to become God’s child

Notice also the quality and the result of this faith. I said right at the beginning that this centurion was a loving man. That is exactly what concrete faith does to you. Saving or concrete faith transforms your character. Do you wonder why so many Christians in the church are no different from what they were when they were non-Christians? As you observed, their lives before and after becoming a “Christian” are just the same. The only difference is that they had no label of being a “Christian” before, but now they do. This so-called “faith” has no power; it is not effective. When you have concrete faith, the power in you is enormous, and it makes you a different person! The Holy Spirit of God will come into your life and make you new. That is why only concrete faith is saving faith, that is, it makes a new creation out of a person. God does it through this kind of faith.

If you are a “Christian” today, if you notice that you are really not much of a Christian, but you say you are a new creature in Christ, it is a very bad joke. Before you became a Christian, you quarreled with your wife or husband, and after being one, you are still quarrelling. What’s the difference in the “Christian” you and the non-Christian you? What kind of Christian are you if your behavior and character have not been transformed? When you have concrete faith, there will be many changes. I don’t mean that you will become perfect overnight, but you will know there is a real change. “I’m different now. Something has happened to me.” That is the effect of that faith.

Notice also, what happens if you don’t have this transforming, concrete faith in your life? If you think, “I’m not a spiritual Christian. I’m content to be some sort of “Christian” rather than be no Christian at all.” You are wrong! The Lord Jesus says in Matthew 8:12, if you don’t have this concrete faith, the day will come when

The sons will be thrown out! In other words, you can manage to deceive yourself but not God. You may have a certain faith that is not concrete faith. You may be a “Christian,” you may be a “son,” but there are sons who are thrown out. I didn’t say that; the Lord Jesus did. In the Bible, “outer darkness” is just another word for hell. I am not here to hold to doctrines but to expound the Bible. The words of the Lord Jesus are so absolutely plain, that I ask you to decide for yourself whether this is what he says, and whether to hold to your doctrine.

The sons of the kingdom of God should inherit his kingdom, but they don’t because they have to prove themselves worthy. That is another aspect of the teaching of the Lord Jesus that we will come to in due time. Right now, we are on probation for sonship; we are not yet sons in a complete sense. The apostle Paul says, “The whole creation is waiting for us to be adopted as sons.” (cf. Ro. 8:19-23) So there is a sense in which we are now sons, and this sonship has yet to be finalized. Matthew 8:12 may make you feel very uncomfortable and insecure, but if you don’t have concrete faith, you’d better feel insecure. It is better to feel insecure than to be deceived.

We have been talking about faith in many messages because the Lord Jesus is constantly teaching us about the nature of faith, and the consequences of not having the true, concrete faith. So in closing, I ask you again, have you got the object of your faith right? Do you believe that the name of Jesus crushes Satan? Does your faith dare to trust God for anything every day of your life? Or do you start worrying when your health and financial circumstances are not favorable? Your anxiety tells you that you don’t have this concrete faith. If you are thinking of venturing out to serve God, do the obstacles ahead frighten you? If you worry, you don’t have concrete faith. Have you been changed in your character since you became a Christian? Have you become more loving in your relationships, starting with your husband or wife and children? If you haven’t been changed, your faith is not a concrete faith.

Finally, bear in mind that even if you claim to be a son now, when the Lord Jesus judges that you don’t have concrete faith on that Day, you will be thrown into the outer darkness. The Lord Jesus speaks the truth whether or not it pleases us. If you don’t have concrete faith, then pray, “God, please give me this saving faith that I need. Change the superficial faith that I have into true faith!”