If Jesus were to make a Netflix special, what would the topic be?S31e106 mt8:5

Let's say Jesus produced a Netflix Special. What is it that Jesus uniquely admires enough to want to share it with the world?

We get the answer from His interaction with a soldier. Jesus tells him that he is the #1 example of this characteristic in the whole country! 

So would it be about money? power? or beauty? Listen 7 minutes to find out who Jesus would feature on His Netflix Special. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Brothers and sisters. If Jesus were to make a Netflix special, what would the topic be? What gets Jesus all jazzed up? We're gonna look in Matthew chapter 8 to get the get the answer. We've been studying this little passage about a centurion. Now he's a guy who understands authority. He understands being above people, he understands being below people, he understands submission, which is the voluntary placement of yourself under a person in an organizational structure. Now there's something that charms Jesus in the story, and I want you to watch for it as we read it here. Now, most of the New Testament is people marveling at Jesus. This is a story where we have Jesus marveling at a person. So we best pay attention to what he's marveling at. I think when we find the answer, we'll see that's what Jesus would make his Netflix special about. This is from Matthew chapter 8, and we're going to start in verse 5. When he had entered Capernaum, a city in northern Israel, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly. And he said to him, I will come and heal him. But the centurion replied, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. For I too 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 servant do this, and he does it. Verse 10. When Jesus heard this, he marveled, and he said to those who followed him, Truly I tell you, with no one else in Israel have I found such faith. I tell you, many will come from the east and the west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into outer darkness, in that place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. And to the centurion he said, Go, let it be done for you as you have believed. And the servant was healed at that very moment. So we emphasized yesterday that Jesus was making, is making, a united nation. And it says that many from the east and the west, that is the whole world, many nations, the United Nations, will come and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, three prominent Jewish uh superstars. But this man is one of the one of the nations. This man is a Gentile, probably a Roman, a foreigner, and yet God still sees him, God still hears him. And he's kind of given the time of day by Jesus, but more than that, he's the one that Jesus looks to and admires and commends for his faith and makes note of it to the all the people around and kind of makes note of it to us here today, a couple thousand years later. So here we get this marveling from Jesus. And what does he marvel at? Well, it is his faith. So faith is this trust in the person of God before the promises, before the payoff happens, before we can see the end. Verse 10 When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who follow him, Truly I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. So I want us to ask the question today is what does Jesus value the most? And kind of by contrast, what do we value the most? So what is Jesus marveling at? So things in our society that we admire, and this is not an exhaustive list list, but I'm thinking about great athletes. You know, when we used to have newspapers, there was an entire section, usually section three, of a newspaper entirely devoted to admiring this aspect of a person's life, how fast they could run and jump and hit a baseball and catch a football. I just looked up the most recent negotiated NFL contract was for $110 billion. So that's one thing we admire. And we also admire political power and influence and military power. Another thing we admire is beauty, you know, Fashion Week and Project Runway and L Magazine and the Kardashian clan. Uh I was even thinking humor. I'm thinking a little stuck on the network Netflix specials. The humor, there's a whole industry on on, you know, stand-up comedy. And then, of course, money, our obsession with billionaires and now trillionaires when what used to be millionaires. But here's my question: is where is the Netflix special on faith? Where's the section of the newspaper? You know, section four of the newspaper is all about faith. Or maybe an Apple News section data dedicated to those who in their lives feature faith, not money, power, beauty, humor, athletic prowess. So today we have Jesus himself identifying and honoring and taking delight in a man who excels in this sort of forgotten benchmark, which is faith. So if Jesus were to make an Netflix special, what would it be on? So it's not hidden here. His faith, this man's faith is being demonstrated frequently to the the soldiers and his family and his um and his servant. In a sense, this guy wins at the only thing that matters, at least to Jesus and at least in the story, which is faith. He wins the the contest, if you will, of faith. So I think a good conclusion is how can I be like this man? How can I be commended at the end of my life and maybe marveled at in the Lord? You know, first of all, do you have submission right in your life? Otherwise, you'd be straining at uh, you know, all these authority structures. Uh, are you barking up the wrong tree? Money, beauty, humor, influence, celebrity, and power? Or are you winning at the game that Jesus says we should be playing? The only game that counts, do you have faith right? Do you have the right recipient of your faith? Is your target correct? And is your target not in what, but in who? That is Jesus. What is faith? It's that trust in the person of God before the promises of God are evident. So for this situation, knowing that Jesus could do this and he didn't need to walk him to the door, there's so much faith here. And this guy wins the battle. He gets number one in faith. So if Jesus were to make a Netflix special, what would the topic be? He loves people, probably would be a person. What kind of a person? Is it going to be the beautiful or the politically powerful? No, it's going to be the one who has faith. So the centurion would be on Jesus' cable show.