Message Information
- Key Scriptures: Luke 7:1-10, NASB
- Series: Luke (2025-2027), no. 16
- Date: Sunday, May 11, 2025 (Morning)
- Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
- Speaker: Jared Byrns
- Audio File: Open/Download
Listen Online
Watch Online
Text
What Are We Trying to Impress?
I had what was, for me, an earth-shattering realization this week: most of what appears on social media is designed to impress people. You may be wondering where I have been if that realization surprised me.
There is a great deal I do not notice, and sometimes I can be a little slow. I don’t follow a lot of celebrities and entertainment type people on social media.
Most of my social media feeds concern farming and homesteading, which do not seem especially glamorous. This realization came while I watched an Instagram reel in which a woman showed something she had done on her chicken farm. I thought, “This looks nothing like where my birds live.” Everything was neat, attractive, and clean. She wore a spotless outfit, while we usually return from handling the birds looking as though we have been to war.
Madeleine, God love her, had to handle much of my work this week because the ground was so wet from all the rain. I saw the chickens sinking into the mud and realized there was no hope for me, especially since the galoshes did not fit. So she’s in there trudging around.
It’s just a mess. There’s nothing idyllic about it. I looked at that social media image and thought, “That is bizarre.”
How long did it take her to stage that scene? And then I started looking at a lot of these. Everyone seemed to have manicured lawns, clean porches, clean homes, and clean children.
That is not real life. I realized that although many people offer helpful advice, much of the presentation is designed to impress.
The point is often to impress the viewer. And then there are other things where they’re just open about the fact that they’re on there telling you how to impress other people. Somewhere, the algorithm that selects my content went wrong because it showed me advice on how to impress someone on a first date.
One of my goals is to live the rest of my life without ever going on another first date. Another post promised to explain how to amaze someone during a job interview.
I do not want to do that again either. Unless Instagram knows something I do not, I hope no job interview is in my immediate future. The common theme was how to impress other people.
It made me realize how much time we spend thinking about impressing others. We may say, “I do not care what anyone thinks about me,” but our actions sometimes reveal otherwise.
Most of us are very concerned to one degree or another about impressing people. Have you ever considered what it takes to impress God? Around the same time I reached this belated realization about social media, I was studying Luke 7 and encountered a story in which Jesus was impressed by someone.
I want us to consider what impresses God, because it is very different from what impresses people. And so we’re going to read this story where Jesus was impressed by somebody. We’re going to be in Luke chapter 7, and we’re going to start in verse 1.
Luke records this story about a man who impressed Jesus: Verse 1 begins, “When He had completed all His discourse in the hearing of the people”—referring to Jesus.
The discourse was the Sermon on the Plain, which we have studied over the past several weeks. So when Jesus had finished this sermon on the plain in the hearing of the people, he went to Capernaum.
And a centurion slave who was highly regarded by him was sick and about to die. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders asking him to come and save the life of his slave. When they came to Jesus, they earnestly implored him, saying, He is worthy for you to grant this to him, for he loves our nation, and it was he who built us our synagogue.
Now Jesus started on his way with them, and when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself further, for I am not worthy for you to come under my roof. For this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority with soldiers under me, and I say to this one, go, and he goes, and to another, come, and he comes, and to my slave, do this, and he does it.
Now when Jesus heard this, he marveled at him, and turned and said to the crowd that was following him, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith, And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health. We are going to examine what made this man impressive from a human perspective.
Some of those qualities probably already stand out from the text. Because we would look at the same things that people in that day would look at. On paper, this man appears extremely impressive.
But those were not the things that mattered to Jesus. We will compare what impressed other people with what impressed Jesus. Because we can learn from that difference.
When we are tempted to emphasize what impresses other people, this passage reminds us to consider what impresses God. There is nothing inherently wrong with earning another person’s admiration. There is nothing wrong with developing skill or doing excellent work.
There’s nothing wrong with those things. But those things must not become our emphasis at the expense of what matters to God. This story first shows that human beings are more concerned with attributes, abilities, and appearances than God is.
We see this from the description of the man in the first five verses. This centurion was an impressive individual. People would have looked at him and thought, “There is an important man. There is a good man.” He’s somebody that would have stood out to people.
Just by virtue of his rank, we can make some assumptions about what kind of person he is. Now, I’ve never served in the military, but I’ve been around enough of you who have, and heard enough jokes that being an officer is not a guarantee of any. .
According to the jokes I have heard, being an officer is not always a guarantee of any particular skill.
Still, I have heard particular leaders described with great respect. When my grandfather died, he was buried in our family cemetery, and there was no cemetery staff to place his grave marker. The Veterans Administration provided the marker, which arrived at the funeral home several weeks after the burial. I used my truck and trailer to transport the headstone to the family cemetery. Several men from the Choctaw Nation helped us set the marker in place. When I picked up the marker, one of the funeral directors and I spoke about what an extraordinary man my grandfather had been. The funeral director looked at the headstone and said, “If he was a first sergeant, he had to be.”
I did not fully understand the comment at first, but later learned that a first sergeant carries significant responsibility within a company. A first sergeant is not a commissioned officer but holds a senior enlisted leadership position. That position is not simply handed to someone.
He had to work his way to that position. I have heard people speak with admiration of someone from their church who rose to the rank of general. Military rank often reflects demonstrated ability and earned responsibility.
A leader must demonstrate qualities such as courage, leadership, administrative skill, and social or political judgment. The same was true of a Roman centurion. For this man to command approximately one hundred soldiers, he must have demonstrated significant ability and leadership.
His rank alone suggested that he was an impressive man. In addition, he seems to have been unusually compassionate. That’s not necessarily something that Roman centurions were known for.
Verse 2 tells us that he highly regarded his servant.
Kristie did not know how I would apply this text when she spoke earlier about honoring others.
As a free Roman man, he was not expected to honor an enslaved servant in his household. Yet he cared deeply about this man.
The text says he valued and esteemed him. He made the effort to seek help from a Jewish healer.
Jesus did not move within the centurion’s normal social circles. It may even have seemed humbling for a Roman officer to ask an itinerant Jewish preacher to help his servant.
He was also attuned enough to the situation in Galilee that he was aware of Jesus. It said he had heard about Jesus in verse 3. He also knew which people to send on his behalf.
The Jews and Romans did not always get along. It says much about his relationships that he could persuade Jewish leaders to approach Jesus for him, especially when they were not necessarily enthusiastic about Jesus themselves. The picture is of an unusually capable and respected man.
He appears unusually skilled at relating to people, leading them, and earning their cooperation. He’d shown great care and generosity toward the Jewish people. He’d built their synagogue.
He’d even earned the admiration of the Jewish leaders. The Jewish leaders may not have liked Roman rule, but they respected this centurion. Verse 5 tells us, so much so that they went to Jesus and they told Jesus that this man is worthy.
“He is a Gentile, a Roman, and part of the occupying army—but this man is worthy.”
They were, in effect, trying to persuade Jesus that the man deserved His help. “You should grant this request because he is worthy.”
For these elders, there were a lot of their own people they wouldn’t even have said that about. But there was something about this man that convinced them that he was worthy. The elders evaluated him the same way we often evaluate ourselves and others: by which boxes a person can check.
We examine characteristics, appearance, achievements, and abilities, then use those observations to decide how worthy someone is. That week, news reports were speculating about what kind of pope the newly elected pontiff would be. The discussion focused on credentials such as the school he attended and the organizations he had led.
People were making predictions based on the boxes he checked. We do the same thing on a smaller scale. I have served on ministry search committees where someone looked at a résumé and said, “I am not sure about this candidate because he attended that school.”
“Why does that matter?” “Everyone I have known from that school was somewhat arrogant.” “Do we know anything about this particular candidate?”
“No, but he attended that school.” At that point, we are reducing people to the boxes they check.
It’s unfortunate, but that kind of thing happens. We make determinations based on what we observe. God is different though.
God Looks at the Heart
Thankfully, God does not evaluate us that way. In 1 Samuel, God sent Samuel to anoint Israel’s next king because Saul had failed. At Jesse’s house, Samuel examined the sons and assumed the most impressive-looking man must be God’s choice.
He looked impressive and appeared qualified on paper.
And God tells him there in 1 Samuel 16, 7, God sees not as man sees, for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. God instead chose David, who was not the obvious candidate by human standards.
It was exactly the person God had in mind. Throughout Scripture, God does not choose people according to the boxes they check. God is not impressed by credentials, skills, education, family background, or income.
God is not concerned about checking those boxes. People focus on those things, but God looks at the heart. This man was impressive by human standards, yet even he recognized that he was not worthy before God.
Human Goodness Cannot Make Us Worthy
His response in verses 6 through 8 shows that all our goodness cannot make us worthy by God’s standards. Consider every ability, credential, and achievement that might impress other people. Every person has something that looks impressive on paper.
But those things are not enough for God because they are not what He examines. The things that impress us don’t impress God. Shortly after I earned my doctorate, someone told me how impressive the achievement was.
“You must be extremely intelligent to earn a doctorate.” I replied, “You might think that until you see a group of doctoral candidates struggle to arrange themselves alphabetically backstage at graduation and need someone to help.” And suddenly, some of those credentials are not as impressive anymore.
Our credentials do not impress God because He sees who we truly are. The centurion had second thoughts about his request. After sending the elders to ask Jesus to heal his servant, the centurion reconsidered—not because he doubted Jesus’ ability, but because he questioned his own approach. “Did I handle this correctly?”
So by the time Jesus got close to the house, the centurion was sending word through some friends in verse 6 that he no longer expected Jesus to come to the house. He said, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself. Do not come to my house.”
And it’s a strange thing for us. Why should Jesus not come to the house? Traditionally, Jewish people avoided entering Gentile homes, though I could not find an explicit Old Testament command requiring that practice.
It appears to have developed as a tradition based on broader concerns about ceremonial purity. Jewish people often avoided Gentile homes because of concerns about ceremonial uncleanness, not ordinary cleanliness. But traditionally, they just didn’t go into the Gentiles’ house.
It wasn’t an Old Testament rule, but it was a cultural thing that had developed over time. The centurion knew enough about Jewish customs to conclude that he should not have expected Jesus to enter his Gentile home. “I am not part of God’s covenant people.”
“What right do I have to expect Him to enter my house?” But his concern went deeper than cultural custom. It was not merely, “You are Jewish, and I am a Gentile.”
He considered himself to be personally unworthy. In verse 7, he says, “For this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You.” He was explaining why he had sent intermediaries from the beginning. He did not consider himself worthy even to approach Jesus personally.
His concern was not merely that Jesus should not enter his house. “I am not worthy even to come to You.” And that’s why he sent other people.
That’s why he sent the Jewish elders as intermediaries, because he recognized that there was something about Jesus that he was unworthy in contrast to who Jesus is. Why did he consider himself unworthy? If Jesus were merely a Jewish teacher, healer, or miracle worker, admiration would not necessarily lead someone to confess personal unworthiness before Him.
But look at how he describes Jesus in verse 8 and the authority that he says he recognizes Jesus has. The wording of verse 7 is even stronger in Greek than it appears in English. In English, the centurion says, “Just say the word, and my servant will be healed.”
That is already a strong statement of faith: Jesus did not need to come; He needed only to speak.
In Greek, however, the expression uses a third-person imperative, a grammatical form English does not express naturally. An imperative expresses a command.
For example, “Let us go” functions as a command. A parent might say, “Come on, we are going to the car. Let us go.”
A second-person command would simply be, “Go.” English does not have an equally direct way to command a third party, but Greek does. The force is close to saying, “If You speak the word, he must be healed.”
English cannot convey the force perfectly. The centurion believed Jesus’ word would command the illness itself and make healing necessary. His faith was even stronger than the English wording immediately suggests.
He is expressing enormous faith in the power of Jesus to do this. In verse 8, he adds, “I also am a man placed under authority.”
The Roman army had vested authority in him. By saying also, he compared his delegated military authority with the far greater authority Jesus exercised as One sent by God the Father. We recognize that Jesus is God the Son.
The centurion may not yet have understood all that truth. But he understood that, just as he acted with the emperor’s authority, Jesus acted with divine authority. He could command a soldier to go or come and order a servant to act, and they obeyed.
In the same way, he believed Jesus could command the illness, and it would obey. He did not view Jesus merely as a healer, teacher, or miracle worker. He recognized that Jesus was more than an ordinary man.
I believe he reached that conclusion because of what he had heard about Jesus’ works and teaching. Did he understand everything about Jesus’ identity? No, but he understood enough to know that Jesus was no ordinary man.
And he says, I was not even worthy to come to you. That was a remarkable admission from a man with impressive credentials. He looked at an itinerant teacher surrounded by an unlikely group of followers and confessed, “I am not even worthy to come to You, but I believe You can do this.” “If You speak, my servant must be healed.”
He reacted as many others did when confronted with Jesus’ power. He recognized his own sinfulness and unworthiness. And we see this pattern repeated all throughout Scripture.
When people glimpse God’s holiness and authority, they see their own sin by contrast and become painfully aware of their unworthiness. On Wednesday night, I mentioned Isaiah 6. Isaiah saw the Lord in the temple and fell apart under the weight of his own sinfulness.
The nearer we draw to the light of God’s glory, the more clearly it exposes our sin. I believe that’s what this man experienced. All the goodness that made this man impressive on paper was not what impressed God.
The Faith That Made Jesus Marvel
God is not impressed by credentials but by faith. We look at verses 9 and 10, and it says Jesus marveled at him. This wording requires care because Scripture teaches that Jesus is fully God and fully man.
Jesus was not surprised in the same way we are. He knew what was in people’s hearts and could read their thoughts.
Jesus is omniscient. Therefore, when Luke says He marveled, the experience differed from ordinary human surprise. We may say, “I cannot believe that,” because something caught us unaware.
We may admit, “I did not see that coming.” Jesus never lacked knowledge in that way.
Yet He expressed what we understand as amazement. Luke describes Him as marveling. Jesus marveled.
What impressed Jesus was the man’s faith. And he drew a contrast here between the faith of this man and the faith of all the people that he had encountered in Israel.
And he says, I have not seen faith like this anywhere, even in Israel. That contrast matters because Israel was the covenant nation to whom He had come as Messiah. For generations, they had lived in covenant relationship with God.
They possessed the Scriptures. They knew about God. They should have been prepared to respond to Jesus with faith.
Gentiles, by contrast, stood outside that covenant relationship. They were strangers to God’s promises and lived in disobedience.
They worshiped pagan gods. Their cultures largely ignored God’s Word and ways. Those who should have recognized Jesus often hesitated or rejected Him.
Yet this Gentile, far outside Israel’s covenant privileges, responded with greater faith than Jesus had found among many in Israel. Jesus marveled at it. The contrast would have shocked those who heard it.
We wouldn’t expect that. His spiritual background made his faith all the more remarkable. Jesus marveled at this man in a way He never marveled at the elders’ credentials.
The rituals and deeds of the Pharisees did not produce this response. Nor did the status of temple leaders or teachers of the law impress Him in this way.
Jesus marveled at a Gentile from a pagan background who trusted Him according to the truth he understood. What matters to God is not where we came from or what we have accomplished.
It’s not what boxes we check. It’s not how impressive we are on paper. You will never impress everyone.
I’m never going to impress everybody. One difficult truth I must remember is that even when we do everything within our power, people may still think whatever they choose. We must learn to accept that.
You’re never going to impress everybody, no matter how hard you try. You will never check every box. If your strategy for becoming right with God is checking enough boxes, you will always fall short.
But this passage makes one question decisive: Do we trust Him enough to take Him at His Word? Do we have faith that he is who he says he is?
Do we have faith that he can do what he says he’ll do? For us, the question is whether we believe His promises. Do we trust Him enough to walk by faith when He calls us to act without knowing every outcome?
We may not see how every circumstance will unfold, but we trust Him to do what He promised because we believe He is who He says He is. That is the kind of faith that pleases God. Perhaps you have come thinking, “I will attend church more often, try harder, and make myself right with God.”
Faith, Not a Checklist
We are glad you are here. But church attendance cannot make you right with God, no matter how often you check that box.
“What if I give money?” Generosity is good, and we are thankful for it.
But it cannot erase sin. “What if I try harder to be kind and do what is right?” You will never do enough to remove your guilt.
Those boxes do not address our problem of sin. You and I have sinned against a holy God, and that sin must be paid for. Jesus Christ came to take responsibility for that sin.
That is why He was nailed to the cross, shed His blood, and died—to pay for our sin in full. Only one decisive question remains: Do you believe that he died for your sins and rose again?
Do you trust him to be your Savior? Do you trust Him enough to follow Him?
