 Luke 7 and verse 1 we're going to read from there and parachute into a phenomenal moment in Jesus's life and take something out of here that I hope will help you in your walk with God. Jesus entered Capernaum and there a centurion servant whom his master valued highly was sick and about to die. The centurion heard about Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him asking him to come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus they pleaded earnestly with him. This man deserves to have you do this because he loves our nation and has built our synagogues so Jesus went with them. It was only his way to the house when the centurion sent friends to say Lord don't trouble yourself for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. This is why I didn't even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word and my servant will be healed for I myself am a man like you under authority with soldiers under me. I say to this one go when he goes and this one come and he comes. I say to my servant do this and he does it. When Jesus heard this he was amazed at him. Everybody say amazed. He was amazed at him and turn into the crowd following him including the disciples. He said I have not found such great faith even in Israel even amongst you. Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well. I've had to invent a term to speak to you from this passage because often when we turn to familiar passages our own familiarity with a passage means that we often run ahead of the speaker in an assumption of what he's going to talk about from that passage. One of the things we have to do that are communicating all the time from same passages other preachers have for generations is to creep up on you is to surprise you by taking a facet and angle from within something familiar and to find something within the familiar that is perhaps unfamiliar to us. But if we if we call it an ordinary name it ceases the moment we announce it to be unfamiliar. I'm going to speak to you about something I am calling the centurion factor the centurion factor. Note that term because if the titles thought through your recollection of it later this week should contain within it the full content of this concept I have for you today the centurion factor. I call it this because this passage we misled to believe it's about the servant the subheadings in the Bible are not inspired by the Holy Spirit. It was what the translators of the Bible thought best described that piece of scripture. This is subheaded the centurion servant and of course the centurion servant is the one that's sick and needs the miracle but we know nothing about this servant. We don't know whether the servant was male or female how old the servant was. Why this staff member mattered so much to the centurion that he will go to the lengths he did to help this person. We don't know what was the nature of the illness we don't know what happened to the point of recovery and beyond. All of those things and more we do know about other people Jesus healed but we know nothing about this individual in fact the miracle is like a poor script at the end of the story that's how incidental this person's miracle was. So this passage is really not about the person that received the miracle it's about the person who came on behalf of that person which was this fascinating individual who behaved in a way who said and did things on this day in Jesus' life that was completely amazing to Jesus. I had you say the word amazed again for a moment everybody say amazed because I think this don't you that if you are omnipotent and if you are omniscient all knowing and if you are omnipresent everywhere at once that's just three of God's omnis. I think you must be hard to impress. Anything that amazes someone that is so amazing as that anything that can amaze the creator of the world I think is certainly worth further investigation and something this man brought to the table that day and I want to bring to the table to you today amazed Jesus. He is a man of clear means and connection and influence because he is senior in Roman military no doubt that brought to his life a range of connections and resources. He has a problem in his life that all of that can't fix despite his considerable wealth too because we saw didn't we in the passage that he doesn't know Jesus so he approaches someone that does know Jesus which was once all of us someone on his behalf someone on our behalf approached Jesus for him and maybe because they were concerned Jesus would not be comfortable being in a centurion's home because Jesus spent all his life in trouble because he hung out with people that the church and the religious people would not welcome. So maybe the Jews of the synagogue the elders thought we need to say to Jesus hey he's a good guy he loves us he loves our church so much so he wrote a check for the synagogue he built our synagogue did you spot that line in there this centurion clearly then had a lot of wealth in order to write a check for the church building as it were how many would like somebody in London to write a check for Hillsong Tower church building how fantastic would that be you know why they don't write checks for our church buildings people like these centurions because they're not in our circle of love we exclude them we stereotype them we often demonize them and the truth is that all of our resources are in our relationships everything you need in life somebody's got and if you don't know those people then they will keep a hold of it and it will be a struggle to access access it because sometimes what you need is just a phone number just somebody to smile on you someone to open a door for you someone to speak up for you sometimes that's the most important thing to your life right now but if you don't know who that someone is because we've categorized them as the type of people we don't like we don't associate with we wouldn't welcome then they keep the resource that the church often desperately needs these Jewish elders were smart because they had built a relationship with someone that wouldn't be welcome in most churches and to the point where eventually someone in that relationship he decided to say you know what I want to help you I'm going to finance your church building so this is a man of influence and finance and wealth and connection but he has a problem he can't fix and he has a sick staff member and he loves and appreciates this staff member so much that he asks them to ask Jesus to help him so Jesus sets off to the man's house we don't know how far the journey was from Jesus hearing this to going maybe it was a couple of hours maybe half a day's journey we don't know he couldn't just get on the tube so he sets off to the man's house with his team of disciples with him no doubt in the entourage were religious people trying to catch him out like that fake news people and as he gets towards the man's house the centurion sat at home thinking what he's set in motion and he has another thought and his next idea superseding the first one is that he sits thinking you know what I am a man of authority and under authority like this guy Jesus apparently is you know when I want something doing I don't go and do it myself I tell a staff member to go and do it and they go and do it when I'm told to do things by those that are senior to me in a letter that comes from them it's an upgrade in some military rules or orders or procedure or protocol or I get something from someone higher up than me politically I get a letter and on that letter is a signature in the form of a seal that Roman seal that belongs to the person that sent it is the authority and the power of the person is in that seal and he thinks to himself maybe he's looking at his desk and thinking of how he just told somebody to go and do something for him I think he's thinking well hang on a minute this is how authority works now granted it is a very black and white military idea of authority but it was so obvious to him and so uncomplicated to him that he decided you know what I don't I don't go and make sure people do what I've told them to do I figured out this he said to himself I figured out this that for power for power to operate it does not require physical presence he'd figured that out because he lived in a world where power operated without presence the presence was in the seal the presence was in the letter and the command if you did not do that your liberty your role your position or your life could be on the line so he figured out this sky Jesus didn't need to come to my house so he sends another delegation to intercept Jesus who's on his way to his house why is he on his way to his house he's on his way to his house because this is how people get healed the elders must have said to the centurion okay this is our department okay we're going to get Jesus we're going to persuade him to come to your house and the centurion may have said well why is that because he's going to come lay hands on your sick servant then the good stuff happens and the miracle happens trust us this is how this stuff works this is how God gets stuff done so he's like okay cool whatever I just need a miracle the clock's ticking the servants get in sick of perhaps I'm desperate whatever so this is set in motion then this delegation comes and announces to Jesus what I just said to you about his understanding of authority this is what amaze of Jesus okay two things one who's saying it a complete outsider this guy has this massive insight about authority that even the guys that are with him 24 seven they get to do Q&A with him over the fire at night don't get these guys that are with him behind the scenes that are privileged to be on the inside track with Jesus they don't even know and get what this guy gets so this guy comes with this idea don't come just speak a word because he's saying metaphorically when I send a staff member to do something in the same way your words are like a staff member your words are your servants all of our words are our servants or our masters so he said in the same way I send a person why don't you stay where you are and send a word don't need to come yourself don't have a dog embark yourself as we say so Jesus is staggered about who's saying it because the team with him don't know what's going on haven't figured that out because they're all walking down the road with him and he's staggered because this man came up with an idea that no one no one knew was even an option because up until this time no one has ever been healed by Jesus without him been physically present every miracle he's done to this point he has been physically present that's why he's going to the house again to be physically present that's how this stuff gets done and had he gone to the man's house and laid a hand on the servant it would have still been a great outcome it's still a win-win scenario that wouldn't have finished as a bad day at all we wouldn't have felt cheated or something's missing at all until on this particular day this man that brought what I call the centurion factor to the mix a centurion factor kind of faith to the mix into Jesus's life now let me just stop and say this to you okay you do know don't people in the Bible did not know they were in the Bible I think we think that when we read the Bible we kind of think that they knew they were acting something out that we would all need 2000 years later as if we think the centurion has got a script sent to him and in the script you say this and you say this and then and then it gets to Jesus and Jesus part is you've got to look amazed so he's like look amazed oh I'm amazed I've got to be like that because that's what the that's what the script is these people were just like you doing stuff in real time so when we read our Bibles here's the problem we read in our Bibles we read our Bibles in in hindsight it's like oh Jesus was amazed oh lovely next page the dead were raised oh that's interesting next page I think we read stuff and we've lost the shock and all because he's old we've heard it a thousand times we've read it a thousand times and and hindsight breeds familiarity and familiarity breeds carelessness and casualness towards things that are phenomenal so my job is to make you stop my job is to hold out this invisible remote control that you are and put you on pause hang on Jesus was amazed are you kidding me at what what amazed him just in case the possibility is present that we could amaze him that you could come up with something that our churches come up with something in our towns and cities and our continent in our generation that we could come up with something that would stop Jesus in his tracks and amaze him because he is what's staggering no one knew that this was even an option because no one had heard of it no one had seen it like the woman with the issue of blood who touched the hem of his garment no one even knew that's possible it was unprecedented until she touched the hem of his garment no one knew you could get a miracle by doing that or that have all been doing it these people were precedent setters these people were possibility realizers listen to me this is where this gets challenging and scary for us on the human side of this equation the only person who knew he did not need to go to that man's house the only person who knew that he could speak a word and not have to go lay on a hand the only person who knew this was an option was Jesus but he did not say anything how remarkable how odd how unhelpful is that you would think wouldn't you if you had three years to get out what's in your life not 33 or 53 if you had three years to get out what's in your life from the age of 30 to 33 when you're going to die and Jesus knew that if you had three years to get out what's in your heart and touch the world you would not want to be taking any unnecessary journeys and yet it seems to me this is where it gets scary for us the god would sooner walk down roads he does not need to the god is willing to take journeys he does not need to for our sake rather than force something on us that he knows is an option but because it did not come from our faith and from our asking and from our hunger and from our curiosity and from our outside the box thinking because he didn't come from us he is confined to doing it in the way that we expect him to do it because that's how this thing works this whole thing we're involved in called Christianity it works according to your faith not according to his ability but if there's a gap between our faith and his ability my worry is it leaves a lot of stuff on the table that we never accessed that we don't even know was there because we're so used to defaulting to business as usual which still may give a give a good outcome but I worry about where in our lives under our churches God is walking down yet another road wishing to be amazed hoping someone today would a human being would intercept him because centurion fact of faith is is human interruption human interception human hijacking of divine intention the divine intention is to go to the man's house and a human being intercepted him with another idea and Jesus said cool I could do that this message I've carried all over the world and I still I'm very challenged by its implications I still feel something about is is beyond me to grasp to say to you because this turns the whole faith thing on its head we have been taught that faith our role in faith is just to believe no one told us we can believe and have suggestions we've been told that that's God's way God decides how and where and when and if you get a miracle it's just divine selection as to whether you get a miracle and when and where all we can do is pray and fast and shabbat abadu but this is a game changer because this is not even a churchgoer this is a complete outsider who had the audacity the naivety the cheek the stupidity whatever religious people would call it to come up with an idea that was just shocking and amazing and outside the box I can imagine the disciples when they heard the delegation saying it these centurions these Romans who did they think they are you just watch Jesus put these people straight this is hilarious telling Jesus don't come speak a word are you kidding me get out the way you're wasting time we're gonna get to your house listen if you know anything about the disciples you all know don't you they were very capable of that kind of conversation as are all of us I guess when something unusual and rare and different is happening they say in corporate world when you are brainstorm in a creative meeting it's it's the rule of three horses in the suggestions we need a thoroughbred suggestion one that's reliable predictable we normally know what the outcomes are that's the reliable worked every time let's do that again but then we want a Mustang something wild unknown little bit untamed little bit scary we want one of those kind of suggestions too but the third horse is a unicorn we want something so crazy so outside the box we want one of those in the mix too because you got to know that what's happening around the world in many spheres of life is the result of somebody having a unicorn idea but you won't find many in the church we killed all those unicorns ages ago we love the thoroughbreds let's just do it again safe reliable and you got to know that Jesus is not a thoroughbred he's not tame and he's not safe so don't try and saddle him and put a bit in his mouth our church found that out the hard way as we often do in our walk with God and this guy is a piece of work because he comes up with this idea that Jesus knew was an option and he didn't say anything how rude is God how unhelpful is God for God to know there's a better way to do something and not tell us he's borderline bad parenting think about it he ever thought you know someone really really well and then they do something or say something and you're like and you're shocked to the core this happened to me a few years ago because a friend of mine called Bill and I were at the university talking about reaching into the campus and the students we've been there about an hour having a coffee and talking and making some plans and before we left in came about a dozen Chinese students and they came in and sat down and all because talking to each other and Chinese and having fun I guess they just come to the city for their degree program and we got up to leave the coffee shop what happened next was shocking Bill as we left the coffee shop Bill moved over to the right where the kids were walked in the midst of them and started speaking to them in fluent freaking Chinese I use the word freaking for emphasis though I do not have enough time for the emphasis the story requires because Bill is not just a few words he's not just a few words he learned that he's trying out with these kids in case you're thinking is that what you mean no no no I mean fluent freaking Chinese these kids faces lit up mine did not because I'd known Bill for 15 years anybody you know for 15 years you consider wouldn't you you would know that about them by the way in case you're thinking there must have been a clue about Bill's Chinese leanings listen we are from Yorkshire or the Shire to you we're from the Shire think Shire think Hobbit that's Bill think how Chinese is Shire and Hobbit as an image in your head that's Bill in case you're thinking there was a clue there was no clue I'm outside the coffee shop building up my frustration my shock my anger I'm venting waiting for Bill to come out Bill comes out I'm like Bill Bill what Bill what Bill you Bill 15 freaking years I've known you Bill and why didn't you tell me why wouldn't you tell me how come you never told me why didn't you tell me Bill you speak Chinese Bill that was famously calm cool collected borderline boring look to me with his unflustered calm way and said because you never asked to which I said why would I why would I freaking ask do you speak Chinese what clue was there God he's like Bill I don't like it about God God speaks Chinese but he won't tell you and if Chinese is a metaphor for something you desperately need God to do but you don't know how to articulate it because you've not seen it you don't know what to call it you can't point to it anywhere and say I think it's that I think that would be a better way you have you have no precedent for him not coming to your house and just speaking a word no more than the centurion did if God speaking Chinese is the very thing our churches and lives need to move us into centurion factor living you heard pastor Brian on that video clip talk about it's not about what we've achieved in the past or what we've done in the past that for us to continue to have a voice that's relevant in the world it is about stepping forward it is about reinventing it is about change and being changed friendly and forever looking at the horizon and to the next thing he talked about the fear that we all have as leaders of parking up into business as usual because this scripture and others let us all know that God speaks freaking Chinese but he waits and waits and waits and will wait generations and keep coming to your house for generations God will keep walking down the same road with the same people and in the same countries the same nations God will keep coming to your house and someone still gets healed it's still a good outcome but God is waiting for us to intercept him interrupt him with a centurion factor kind of faith that amazes him again and says I can do that well if you could do it why didn't you do it why didn't you tell us because there's something about this aspect of faith where God says it will be business as usual and that could be good and that could be great but it won't change it won't get better listen Hillsong can't have come to where you've come to without this this is in your DNA but I tell you this today because we are never far from defaulting to comfort we're never far from defaulting to safety and achievement and settling and we can lose that edge of pioneering we can we can be threatened by unicorns outlaw them theologize them away from us oh that's nasty you know your own need to know that sane is overrated when you need a breakthrough when you and your life and we corporately need a breakthrough need a game change and need to move to a next level sane is overrated that's why you should all have some crazy people in your life in fact you should all have at least one crazy friend in fact before the day is out you should text someone and say you are my crazy friend thank you for bringing crazy to my life whatever they are in the world wake them up with that text you are my crazy friend today I realized what a joy you are to my life because we've outlawed and demonized crazy in the church remember the guy that was on the stretcher and he got to the meeting late because the building was full and he's come for a miracle and his four friends brought him when they got there the place he's packed out and he can't get in they could have said well we tried we've got to go home we'll try another day that would have been a good outcome to the day they tried there's virtue in that but what happened next is what I'm talking about what happened next is centurion factor stuff what happened next is someone came up with an idea and it had to come from a crazy person someone said I've got an idea it's not a thoroughbred it's not a mustang it's a unicorn what is it let's vandalize the property what yes we're going to dig a hole in the roof it's not a small hole to put a body through okay are you with me this is like me here now and the roof starts to cave in as the body comes down on ropes all of our eyes would be what the heck is going on as this man gets lowered down and lands on the stage in front of Jesus and all the crowd are there this man's lowered down he's clearly needs a miracle he's desperate for a breakthrough crazy people said let's vandalize the property here it is boom gets there in front of Jesus here's what Jesus didn't say there's a cue you know hello hello one of our great bridges exports to the world cue him god help you if you jump a cue he didn't say you know what people came early people said I'm more desperate than you I can't be praying for you go back to the cue I'll get to you later didn't say that neither did he say neither did he say hey I can't pray for you because if I pray for you I'll be seen to be endorsing vandalism you know what Jesus did he went high five I can do that and all the people who were in the cue were like oh my gosh I should have jumped the cue as well I should have been rude and crazy I should have been impolite some of you are stuck because you're too polite stop being polite this week you can tell him I told you stop standing in line this week stop waiting for your turn this week ain't nobody gonna give you one i'm gonna make your own turn go to find your own voice gotta step up but take an opportunity nobody's gonna give you a turn you've been waiting for years some of you keyboards playing to give you hope we finished who knew that a man could get the sun to stand still how whacked is that see again read in the bible and joshua said son stand still and he did who interesting next page whoa whoa hang on hang on hang on joshua has a natural dilemma which was not uncommon they're in a battle and they're winning but it's getting dark and if it gets dark they're going to lose the advantage the enemy will run for the cover of dark and lift a fight another day it would not have made that day a weird ending had it ended that way not uncommon at all but somehow for some reason on this day joshua has this i don't know what it was this thing in his head he needs more daylight he needs more time he needs to stay lighter longer than ever so he looks at the sun and shouts at the sun to stand still i bet his generals and leaders were like oh my gosh this has crossed a line we all knew we knew he was a bit fried a bit burnt out you know he needs a sabbatical he needs a spa vacation maybe he's that still struggling in the shadow of moses that makes him come up with such grand things sun stands still crikey i'm glad the troops didn't hear it the morale would go through the floor as they realize general joshua has lost the plot do you know what god did this was not god's idea god didn't suggest it sun stands still and god went high five i can do that what if you can do it why didn't you suggest it because you never asked why would i well because i'm god and i can do stuff joshua 10 records this that had never been a day like it or since when god listened to a man about freaking planetary alignment because think about it you do know don't you i can't see your eyes right now in a moment when seeing your eyes really matters because i get the fun out of it when i tell you you do know don't you the sun doesn't move when i say that people are going like oh really think i knew that but now you say it that way sun stands still the sun isn't moving there's nothing to stand still what it's actually asking for is the rotation of the earth around the sun to be delayed this is a massive planetary alignment issue to which god didn't say i'm gonna make it joshua that's a bit elaborate i mean to kill a few more bad guys you kidding me move move move the universe interrupt the galaxies for what kill a few more bad guys get real dial it down a little bit you pentecostals out of control high five i can do that this was not god's idea it was centurion fact of faith from a man that just came up with an idea and shouted it out and god said i can do that what what can god do what is god not doing how many roads is he tired of walking down as it were because we have not asked him not to we have not said can you do something else can we do something new and fresh and different and this may be a small thing it starts with in your life today or it could be something larger it could be something huge and corporate where we have the audacity to again intercept business as usual interrupt divinity with an idea a suggestion that gets god to speak chinese in our generation god knows in this country and in our continent we gotta get god to speak chinese we need something unprecedented and new and brilliant and fresh and crazy and unicorn if we are gonna make a mark on our generation that doesn't look very similar to what god's done in generations gone by we want to do something that is outside the box that the critics have no language for that generations from now may be called a great move of god maybe nobody applauding it now and we'll suffer the consequences of that but we will forge something in this country and in this continent that has never been seen before let's stand to the come on times