Faith in Unlikely Places

Let's go to Luke chapter 7. We're continuing our series in the Gospel of Luke, Luke chapter 7, and we'll read verses 1 through 10. Luke chapter 7, reading verses 1 through 10. Now, when he concluded all his sayings in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. And a certain centurion's servant, who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die. And so when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to him, pleading with him to come and heal his servant. And when they came to Jesus, they begged him earnestly, saying that the one for whom you should do this was deserving, for he loves our nation and has built us a synagogue. Then Jesus went with them, and when he was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I'm not worthy that you should enter under my roof. Therefore I did not even think myself worthy to come to you, but say the word and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, having 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. When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at them, and turned around and said to the crowd that followed him, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel. And those who were sent returning to the house found the servant well, who had been sick. And so this passage begins with saying that now when he concluded all his sayings, and this is referring to the Sermon on the Mount, which is in chapter 6, which we've been dealing with for a long time. And so having finished the Sermon on the Mount, as it were, he then goes to Capernaum. Capernaum was now his home base. Remember, he had come from Nazareth, he had grown up in Nazareth, and now he, for whatever reason, we don't know the reason, the scripture doesn't give us the reason, but he now makes Capernaum his base. Capernaum is named after Nahum, possibly the Nahum the prophet of the Old Testament. The city doesn't exist anymore. There is, in fact, no evidence of its existence. And the reason for that is because Jesus prophesied, because of their arrogance, that they would be destroyed and their memory would be destroyed. So the only thing we know about them is that they're on the Sea of Galilee, northeastern shore, and so this becomes the place where Jesus now is operating from. And so he comes back to Capernaum. It's not far from where he was preaching. It's an easy walk from where he was preaching the Sermon on the Mount. And so a certain centurion servant, who was dear to him, was sick and ready to die. A centurion was, obviously, a Roman, what we would probably call a captain. He was a centurion from the word centuri, meaning a hundred. And so he would have a hundred men under him. The Roman army was divided into legions, legions consisting of six thousand men, and that was further divided into divisions of six hundred men. And then the six hundred was divided into hundreds with centurions over them. So you would have sixty centurions in a legion, and there were several legions. It was a very powerful army. Now not all of them were Romans, and this man probably was not a Roman, but he was clearly a Gentile. There may have been some Jews that served in the Roman army, maybe not many, but some. They had co-opted, they had taken on board men from all the various nations that they had conquered. This man was probably a Syrian, one of the enemies of the Jews, and a centurion became a centurion because he had proven himself in battle, and had proven himself to be a good leader and loyal to the Empire. Those were the things that caused him, so he was not of noble birth. He would work his way up in the ranks from a common soldier to being a centurion. A centurion was a very, very powerful position. Even though he only commanded a hundred men, a centurion was paid probably equivalent of four hundred times what the foot soldier would be paid. And that was a considerable amount, about seventy-five thousand denarii a year, when you consider that a laborer earns 300 denarii a year, 300 pennies a year. So he is wealthy, they are wealthy, they are powerful, and they are stationed all over the world. At this time he is stationed at Capernaum for no known reason. We're not sure why he is there, but obviously he is there with his hundred men. And these posts were permanent. They're not like modern armies here in the United States and many other nations. Men are posted for periods of two, three years at a time, and then they get moved. It's a rough life. But these guys would be semi-permanent in their environment. And so he was a centurion, he was a Gentile, and he has a servant. The word servant, remember, is generally translated servant, but it should be translated slave. The Greek word doulos, so he has a slave. He may have had more than one slave. Remember, he's wealthy, but he has one particular slave, and he says that he was very fond of his slave. Now I'm going to come back to that idea in a moment, because you'll see that this was a man who loved. He loved his servant, and he loved the people of Israel. And when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to him, pleading with him to come and heal his servant. And so he had heard about Jesus. Jesus was pretty famous in those parts in Galilee at that time. He had performed many, many miracles. People had come from all over to hear his preaching. Remember that there were thousands following him on the Sermon on the Mount, that he had just preached that. There may have been five, six, seven thousand people. And so he had heard about Jesus, and he clearly believed in Jesus. We're going to see that in a moment. And so he sends the elders of the Jews to him. Now that shows his influence. The elders of the Jews would generally not act on behalf of a Gentile, but clearly he has a relationship with the elders. Remember that the Jewish system was that obviously you had the religious system where you had priests, and then you had the towns were managed by elders, what we would call a town board, or a city board, or a city council today. And these would generally be the older men in the city, and they would govern the city, obviously under Roman authority. So he sends the leaders of the Jews to plead with Jesus to come and heal his servant. So he's expressing faith. He believes that Jesus can heal his servant. And so when they came to Jesus, they begged him saying, the one for whom you should do this was deserving. So they're saying, you know, he's a Gentile, but he deserves your attention. He deserves your help. Remember that the Jews and the Gentiles didn't get along. In fact, they hated one another. And obviously the Roman overlords were hated even more than anyone else. And so if Jesus heard that this man was a Gentile, and particularly that he was a centurion, well then he would probably not even give him the time of day, let alone heal his servant. And so they said, no, you need to help this man because he loves our nation, and he has built us a synagogue. He loves our nation, and he has built us a synagogue. So he is a strange character in the sense that generally the Romans despised the Jews. They believed that they were filthy people. They looked down on them as uneducated and superstitious because they worshipped God. And yet he loves Israel. And so you can see the first thing about this man is that he loves. He servant. He slave. Now remember slaves were not things that you loved. Slaves were no better than animals as far as they were concerned. In fact, the Romans had a saying that the only difference between a cart and an animal and a slave is that the slave can talk. That was their understanding of a slave. And yet he loves his slave, and he loves Israel. So there's something about him that causes him to love what is not human or not normal to love, what is not natural to love. Clearly this is a spiritual thing that's happening in his life. And he proves his love. Remember we've spoken about this a lot in these last couple of years. That love that is only in word and not in deed is no love at all. John speaks about this and he says show your love by doing, by putting into practice. And so this man doesn't just say well I like Israel. I like their spirituality. I like the things of God. And clearly it seems that he is actually a believer. He is what we would call a God-fearer. Remember that amongst the Gentiles there were really three kinds of Gentiles. There were those who were just straight-out Gentiles who had nothing to do with the things of God. Then you had the God-fearers. They were people who believed in the God of Israel, in Yahweh or Jehovah. They believed that he was God and they followed the teachings of the Old Testament. They lived to a large extent by the law of the Old Testament. But they were still Gentiles. They were not absorbed into the life of Israel. And then you got those who were assimilated and who had gone through the process of circumcision and of baptism, the Jewish form of baptism, and were now proselytes. In other words, they were now fully accepted as being part of the Jewish nation even though they were Gentiles. So that would be the equivalent of what we would call naturalization. So I am not a born American. I don't speak American. I don't have American traditions and culture. But I am an American by naturalization. I have accepted American citizenship. And so they would be absorbed into Israel. And obviously we understand this is not for Israel. This is not just a thing of citizenship. This is a thing of serving God, of worshiping God. And so the proselytes would be fully accepted. They could come into the synagogues. They could come into the temple, up to the gate of the holy place. They could make sacrifices. They were, for all intents and purposes, accepted fully as being Jews. So he is not there yet. He is a God fearer. He accepts in theory and in faith, but he has not put that into practice by following circumcision, baptism, and full absorption. And so he loves our nation, and he has proven it by building us a synagogue. Now remember, for those who are new, synagogues were a human invention in that sense. It wasn't ordained by God. God had ordained the temple. But during the captivity in Babylon, they had no more temple. The temple had been destroyed at that point. And so what they did is they instituted a makeshift plan, and that was to have synagogues. The word synagogue is based on the word gathering or assembly. And this would be places where they could meet together, and they could pray, and they could be taught the Word of God by the rabbis. The rabbis were also instituted in the time of the Babylonian captivity. And so this is where the Jews would meet together on the Sabbath. This is where they would be taught the Word of God. This is where they would worship. This is where the kids would go to school. And so this was really the heart of the life of the Jew. Many cities would have more than one synagogue, depending on the size of the city. And in Jerusalem, you remember, there were Greek-speaking synagogues for those Jews who did not speak Hebrew, and for those who were Gentiles who didn't speak Hebrew. And then there would be Jewish synagogues, Hebrew-speaking synagogues. So he's built us a synagogue, and I suppose we could translate that and say he built us a church. And we just said earlier, he was wealthy, he had money, and clearly he used his own resources. He didn't have that kind of status to be able to use the Roman Empire's resources, like Herod, who built the temple, not with his own resources, but with the resources of the Empire. This man built out of his own pocket. And then Jesus went with them, and when he was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him, saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. And so the moment Jesus hears from the elders that this man is deserving, Jesus begins to go towards his house. Don't know how far that is, how long the walk would be, but as he is still traveling, walking towards the man's house, the man sends friends. So the first lot that came were elders of the Jews. These are friends. They could be Gentiles or Jews. And so they come to him, and I want you to see this. Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. Now, remember who this man is. This man is a centurion. He is very wealthy. He is hundreds of times more wealthy than anyone else in the town of Capernaum. He is the wealthiest man. He is the most powerful man. He was there to enforce law and order. He could have people arrested. He could have people beaten. He could have people sent to higher courts. He had tremendous power and tremendous authority. And in the Roman system, of course, he was not a... while he was not one of the top dogs, he was a man of power and of authority and of influence. There was nothing about him that would suggest that he was in any way inferior to Jesus from a human point of view. And yet he recognizes that Jesus is more than him. He recognizes that while he was... and he's clearly... these guys are used to authority, and he's going to begin to speak about his authority. They're used to authority. They're used to power. They're used to money. They're used to being literally the top dogs in society. And yet he says, I'm not worthy that you even come into my house. Now, Jesus was living, we don't know where, possibly with friends or family, probably in a two-room house, in a mud house. This man's living in a palace. And yet he says, you can't come into my house because I'm not worthy. And so we can see what happens when someone has really met the God of Israel. Now, at this point, he's not a Christian. We must understand that. He is a God-fearer. He believes in the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But he also recognizes, as based on what he had understood of the Old Testament, that he was not worthy to enter into the presence of God. And he recognizes that Jesus is, if he is not God, at least he is a great, great prophet, and that he is inferior. So we can begin to see two very contradictory things in the sense that, first of all, for him to be a lover—and I'm using that word in the pure sense—to be a lover is contradictory, because these are hardened soldiers. He had not become a centurion by pushing a pen behind a desk somewhere. He had become a centurion by being successful at war, in killing people. He had fought in other parts of the world, I'm sure. He had been loyal to Rome. These are hardened men. These are hardened soldiers. And yet he loves. That's not natural. That is only something God can do. Only God can change who we naturally are. Only the gospel can change our human nature and change us from sinners into saints. And then the second thing is, it's not natural for him to be humble. These guys have power. When they walk down the street, people clear the way for them. They are incredibly powerful and have, in fact, the power of life and death. And yet he is humble, because he's come to understand that there is someone greater than him, that he is not the end of the world. And if we look at that, and we look at the state of the world today, we look at people in the world today, why are people so arrogant, when in fact they have very little to be arrogant about? Because they've not come across true greatness. They've not come across the Lord Jesus Christ. They've not met the God of the universe and understood that, in fact, they may be top dogs in the financial world, or in the entertainment world, or in whatever area of this life. But in comparison to the Lord, they are nothing. And it's only when we come to see him—and remember the passage in Isaiah that I love to quote from so many times—Isaiah sees the Lord, and he says, woe is me. Isaiah was a great man as far as God was concerned, much greater than the centurion was. And yet when Isaiah sees the Lord, he says, no, I'm nothing. I'm filthy, my mouth needs to be cleansed, because he sees the Lord. So this man had met God in some way or the other, even if just through the teachings of the Old Testament. And so he is a lover. He is humble. He has clearly been affected and changed by the gospel. Well, not the gospel, but by the Old Testament, by the scriptures. And, you know, when I looked at this guy, and I looked at this passage, I wondered about so many Christians, and I'm going to call them so-called Christians, who claim to be men of God, who claim to be born-again, who claim to be Christians. And yet these things are not present in their lives. They don't love. Some of them hate more than they love. They speak about love, but they don't put it into practice, and they are not humble. And it's no wonder Jesus ends, or that passage ends with saying, Jesus says, I haven't found even in all of Israel faith like this. And no wonder Jesus pronounced a woe to Capernaum, because they had all the opportunities of their tradition of Israel, of God's dealings with the nation of Israel. They had all of the law. They had all of the prophets. And yet here come people like this, who are of the opposite end of the scale, as it were. And yet they exceed in their love, in their humility, in their faithfulness, all of what the Jews did. And this really puts us Christians to shame, because here's a man who didn't even have the New Testament. This was before the cross. This was before the resurrection. And yet here's a man who has clearly been affected by the scriptures, and by the nature of God. And so he says, Lord, don't come. I'm just not worthy. And then he says, therefore I did not even think myself worthy to come to you. Now again, just picture this. Here's this man. He is in his robes, with all of the accoutrements, all of the trappings of his status, and of his standing. And here's Jesus, a simple preacher, a rabbi. He doesn't even have anywhere to live. Remember he said, birds of the air have nests, but son of man has nowhere. He's dependent on gifts from his friends to survive financially. And yet this great, powerful man says, he says, I didn't even think I could come to you and ask you anything. Remember again that story that Jesus told of the Pharisee who came in to pray, and he is so proud of his achievements and of what he has done. And then there's the sinner there, and the sinner says, I'm not even worthy to look up to heaven. Lord, just be merciful to me. And the Lord Jesus says, his prayer was heard before the prayer of the righteous man who felt that he had achieved so much and that he was worthy of anything. And so, I didn't even think myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. This is amazing. This had never happened before. He had no example to go on and say, well, you know, there was this time three weeks ago that Jesus spoke, and somebody a long way away got healed. Jesus said, if you wanted healing from Jesus, you had to come to him, and he would pray and do whatever he did. But you had to be in his presence to receive anything. It had never happened that he had healed someone by remote control, if you will, at a distance. And yet he believed that Jesus could do that. And again, he puts Israel to shame, because they had seen the miracles, and yet they didn't believe. This man had not seen anything, and it doesn't sound like he'd ever seen Jesus, because it just says that he had heard of him. But there was real faith. He really believed. And I pray that today we would be those who really believe the way this man does. Not just say that we believe, but have extraordinary faith—faith to trust God and to trust in his ability to heal. I think today there are those who claim to be faith healers, but they can't send the word. You always have to write in and order the cloth that they've prayed over, or the oil they've anointed, or put your hand on television, or do something. But this man said, Jesus, you could just speak. You could just speak. Was he able to make the connection between the creation that in the beginning God created by just speaking things into being? Had he made the connection that John spoke about, that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God? I don't know. But what he had recognized was what no Jew had recognized, what no scribe and rabbi and Pharisee had recognized. He recognized that Jesus' word was creative, that his word was able to heal, and it was able to heal at a distance. And then in verse 8, I also am a man placed under authority. 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. So he's recognizing authority. He is a man of authority. Of course, we've spoken about that. But he recognizes that Jesus has authority. Now again, just go back to the picture. Here's this itinerant preacher. He has nothing. He doesn't have riches. He doesn't have power. He really has some followers, but the followers are fickle, because they'll turn against him too long from here. But he recognizes that Jesus has authority more than he has, and that Jesus has authority over sickness. What an understanding! In fact, there are many people in the world today who claim to be Christians, and they don't believe that Jesus can heal anymore. So they don't believe that he has authority. In fact, not so long ago, I had to deal with a situation with a preacher who says that God has no authority in the world anymore. Don't believe in God's authority, but he has authority. And this man recognizes that he has authority. And so verse 9, when Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turned around and said to the crowd that followed him, I say to you, I've not found such great faith, not even in Israel. But now, I want to take a diversion briefly, and look at this issue of authority that he is speaking about. He says, I'm a man placed under authority. And obviously, we understand the military system, where you have ranks, and that you have people above you, and you have people beneath you. Unless, of course, you're just a dog's body at the very bottom, well, then you don't have anyone beneath you. The best you can do is kick the company dog. But you have no authority. But we know that there is ultimately authority, and in theory, even the top general is under the president's authority, and the president is supposed to be under the nation's authority. So there's always, there should always be some kind of authority above, some kind of below. He says, I understand that system. And he says, I recognize where you fit into the system, that in fact, you have all authority, because you can speak to sickness, and you can heal sickness. Now remember, Jesus had proven himself to his disciples in that he has authority over the wind and the waves. And we're going to see next week that he has authority over death as he raises the dead. But this man understands the authority of Jesus. But I want you to see that he says, I say to one, go, and he goes. Obviously, he's soldiers, and he's slaves. And to another, come, and he comes. And my servant, to my servant, do this, and he does it. But he says, I am placed under authority, but I have authority. One of the things that drives people is the desire to have power, to have influence. And to a greater or lesser extent, when you get to politics, that becomes the most powerful driving force. They want power. They want influence. And it may be for the good or for the bad, but that's the desire. But even from very small, it's a matter of power and influence and authority. And the battle of the wills between children and their parents is about authority. The children want to have authority. A lot of what's been going on in the world in these last few weeks is about power, and about control, and about influence. And I'm not making any statement about that. But that's one of the most powerful forces in the human nature, is the desire to have control, is the desire to have power, and to have authority, to have influence. And it is present in the church also. And it is one of the biggest problems in the church, because the Scripture uses a term, selfish ambition. Now when we have ambition to make a difference in the world for the sake of the gospel, that's one thing. But when we want power for our own selves, that's another thing. But the principle of authority that he is highlighting here, which is I believe very important, and that is that unless you have learned to submit to authority, you will not be able to wield authority. Let me say that again. Unless you have learned to submit to authority, you will not be able to wield or to use authority. He says, I am under authority, and I am able to exercise authority. The problem is, many people want to exercise authority, but they don't know how to be under authority. And of course, again, we can take that from the little toddler, all the way through to the highest levels of power in our country. But we want to focus on the church. Many people want to be something in the church, either the local church or the broader church. They want to have some ministry. They want to have some influence. They want to have some authority. But they are not themselves willing to submit themselves to authority. You can't have authority unless you've learned submission. Those two things go together. And until we have learned submission to those that God has set as leaders amongst us, but ultimately to the Lord, we will never have authority. The two things are connected. Unfortunately, and that's where preachers go wrong. When they become a law to themselves, that's how cults develop. Because you have leaders who will not submit to authority, who've never submitted to authority. And of course, we can drive through the valley here. And while we rejoice in every place that preaches the gospel, my theory is that a majority of the storefront churches that you'll see in every street corner here, that the majority of those churches are born out of rebellion. Because somebody grew up in a church and came to a point where he felt he was more important, that he had something more to say than the leaders. And so he breaks away and he starts his own church. And it's not long, it's a few months later when somebody else gets a big head and hives off and starts his own church. And so we have a proliferation of struggling little churches, and I'm all for independent churches. We're an independent church, but we're under authority. There are those that I submit to in a very, very real way. Unless we learn to submit to authority, we will never have personal authority. And so these churches continue to struggle with the same issues. Because it is born out of rebellion, rebellion will come up in that church again, and it will split, and again, and again, and again. And so you end up with division after division after division, because of this principle of not being able to be under authority, and therefore being able to use authority correctly and in a godly way. All right, so Jesus, when he hears this man's statement, when he understands that, or hears that this man understands what it's all about, understands ultimately the authority of God, and the authority that Jesus has, he turns around and says to the crowd, and obviously we don't know how big this crowd is, but it's hundreds of people, I say to you, I've not found such great faith, not even in Israel. And those who were sent returning to the house found the servant well, who had been made sick. It seems that Jesus didn't even speak the word, that the man is just healed. He may have spoken a word, I don't know, but the man is healed. But I just want to touch on two things before I close on this verse. The first is that Jesus is amazed at his faith. He's astonished. He says, I have never seen this before. This shows us the humanity of Jesus. Remember, Jesus is perfectly God, perfectly man, and here he's operating within. God is not surprised by anything. Nothing surprises him, because he knows everything. But clearly Jesus, as a man, is surprised, because he's never seen this before. He almost can't believe that there is such great faith, because he hasn't found it in Israel. And then the second thing I want to touch on very briefly as we close, and that is that nobody has a franchise on God's blessing. What I mean by that is that Israel had every reason to be entitled to God's blessing, and yet Israel acted without faith, and Israel is ultimately rejected. And here is this Gentile—and remember that the book of Luke deals with Gentiles a lot, and we're going to see more of them—but here is this Gentile, and he receives a miracle second only to the raising of the dead, which we'll speak about next week. One of the greatest miracles that Jesus did, by just speaking a word and the man is healed at a distance, he gets what none of the Israelites got. And we would say, well, you know, he's a Gentile. He's not entitled. But remember what Jesus said. Even the dogs are entitled to the crumbs that fall off the table. And every one of the Gentiles that Jesus helped and healed and ministered to had exhibited faith unprecedented in Israel. And so it doesn't matter who we are. It doesn't matter, even if you think that you're not entitled to anything from God. But if you will believe, he will help you. He will minister to your need. And above all, he will save. There is no one so bad that cannot be saved if we will only believe. And when we look at our ethnicity or our Christian heritage, and we say, well, you know, God should help me because I'm a Christian. I'm born in a family. I go to church. I was baptized. I was whatever. I'm an American. Therefore God must bless me. No, we are entitled to nothing outside of faith. And this man was entitled to nothing, but he believed. And God helps him. The Lord Jesus touches his servant and gives him this powerful miracle. And so the question this morning simply is, do we believe? I remember all of Israel. If you ask them, do you believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph? They say, of course we believe. Do you believe the law and the prophets? Yes, we believe the law and the prophets. But they still crucified their Lord. Here's this man who didn't have any of those advantages, but his faith exceeded. Now remember, we're not saved by our own faith. We were saved by what Jesus did at the cross of Calvary. But faith is necessary to come to God. If we come to him, we must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who faithfully or diligently seek him. And so maybe you're sitting here this morning or watching, and you say, well, you know, I don't have education. I don't have a background. I don't have this or that or the other thing. It doesn't matter. What God is looking for is faith. That's all. Doesn't matter whether you're a Roman or a Jew. Doesn't matter whether you're a soldier or a rabbi. What he's looking for is those who will believe his word. And this man clearly believed God's word, and believed God's word more than most of those who were in Israel at that time. Do we believe? Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the wonderful grace of the Lord Jesus who set aside the prejudices, the ethnic prejudices of his fellow Jews, and reached out to the Gentiles also. And Lord, that even today, those of us, and Lord, all of us in this assembly this morning are Gentiles. And yet because of your grace, you've extended your grace to us, and we've been able to be partakers of your goodness and of your mercy. And so Lord, I pray that you would help us to be those who believe. Help us, Lord, not to be like Israel, who had all the opportunities, and all the background, and all the privileges, and all the access, and yet didn't believe. But Lord, that we may be more like the centurion. Even though we may not have all of those things, we believe with all of our heart. Lord, I pray for real needs amongst us, Lord. We pray for Mickey, who's in nursing, and Lord, for Roger, who is visiting her twice a day and struggling to come to terms with these things. And Lord, for others, Henry, who's getting older and struggling with physical issues also. And Lord, for others amongst us, we thank you that you still heal, and that you're still able to touch hearts, and that you're able to touch bodies, and you're able to change circumstances. And so Lord, I pray that we would be those who trust you and believe you. And Lord, we pray that—and we understand, Lord, that we can't force you to do anything. We can't manipulate you. It's because of your grace. But Lord, we pray that we may be people of faith who believe you, not just for spiritual salvation, spiritual healing, but also believe you for physical healing. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Pray that you'd go with us now, keep us, protect us, bless us, bring us together safely on Thursday. And Lord, we pray for the many who are joining us on live stream and watch the videos. We pray for your blessing on them also. Many, Lord, who are not in fellowship, who can't find a church, and others whose churches are closed at this time. Lord, we pray for them, that you would minister to their needs. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.