Over the course of six weeks, I’m posting a series of devotional reflections for children on Matthew 8. This is the second devotional. Here is a link to the first. These are free for your use as devotionals for your family.
Have you ever helped your mom or dad, or grandmother or grandfather make a cake? What is the first thing that you do? Usually, the first part of a recipe is a list of ingredients. To bake a cake, you need to have milk, eggs, flour, and sugar. You can only make something new when you have all of the supplies that you need.
The same is true for fixing something that’s broken. If my lawnmower stops working and refuses to crank, I check the gas tank and the oil. I’ll clean the air filter and spark plugs. Sometimes I need to go to the store and buy some supplies in order to get it working again.
But God isn’t like us. When he makes something new, or when he fixes something that’s broken, he just says the word and it’s done.
Read Matthew 8:5–13
After healing the leper, Jesus encountered a centurion, a commander of a subdivision of Roman soldiers. The centurion asked Jesus for help, “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.” Jesus responds to what the commander asked him with a question, “Shall I come and heal him?” Jesus is asking if he, a Jew, should go to the home of the Gentile commander and risk becoming impure according to Moses’s law. Jesus wasn’t actually concerned about becoming ritually unclean (he’d just touched and healed an unclean leper after all), but he wanted to find out exactly what the centurion was after. Jesus was testing the quality of the soldier’s faith.
And the centurion passed the Savior’s test with flying colors! He said, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
Up to this point in his Gospel, Matthew had not recorded any evidence that Jesus had performed a healing miracle like this from a distance with just his word. So the centurion’s faith is profound. Notice the comparison he makes between Jesus and himself. The centurion didn’t say, “I know what it’s like to have authority. I’m in charge, too. I can tell people what to do, and they do it.” No, the centurion instead says, “I myself am a man under authority.” You see the centurion served the Roman emperor, and the emperor had delegated his authority to the centurion. People obeyed the centurion because to disobey him, wasn’t just disobeying their commander; it was also to disobey the king!
The commander recognized that Jesus’s position was similar. Jesus was a man under God the Father’s authority. Not only that, Jesus had the same authority as God the Father’s authority. So when Jesus spoke, demons and diseases and death obeyed him. Why? Because to disobey Jesus would be to disobey God.
Bible Reading and Game: God made things with just words.
Assign three members of your family to read the following Scripture passage aloud. The reading is adapted from Genesis 1 (NLT):
Reader 1: In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Reader 2: Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good.
Reader 3: Then God said, “Let there be a space between the waters, to separate the heavens from the earth.”
Reader 1: Then God said, “Let the waters beneath the sky flow together into one place, so dry ground may appear.” And that is what happened. God called the dry ground “land” and the waters “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Reader 2: Then God said, “Let the land sprout with every sort of seed-bearing plant and trees that grow fruit.” And that is what happened. The land produced all sorts of seed-bearing plants and trees with fruit. Their seeds produced plants and trees of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.
Reader 3: Then God said, “Let the waters swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind.” So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird—each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.
Reader 1: Then God said, “Let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind—livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and wild animals.” And that is what happened.
Reader 2: Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.”
Reader 3: So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!
Say: Do you see what happened in the passage? God spoke, and it happened! God said “Light!” and… IT HAPPENED. God said “Earth and Sky” and then it happened! God said, “Giraffes, tigers, lions, bears, lizards!” and then it happened. What did God use to make them? Just his words! What else? Nothing.
Game: Let’s all try to do that. We’ll yell out together something we want to make. Let’s try to make a cat. At the count of three, let’s all yell for a cat and see if we can make one with just our words. One.. Two… Three… CAT!!
You might try a few more items such as a dog, a piano, a rhinoceros, or a duck-billed platypus. Be sure to include some funny, weird stuff.
*This responsive reading and game are adapted from a Bible lesson written by Mike Cosper and Scott Ramser for the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship.
Think, Pray, and Apply
The centurion knew that Jesus spoke with God’s authority. If Jesus spoke, his servant would be healed at his word. There are two ways to respond to Jesus’s great authority.
First, we can respond as the centurion did—with faith. No one expected him to respond that way. He was a Roman commander from Capernaum; not a Jew who worshiped the one true God of the Bible. No, he was a man who was more likely raised to worship the Roman gods or the emperor; yet he responded with faith, recognizing Jesus’s great power and submitting himself humbly to obey whatever Jesus said.
Or, we can respond like many Israelites had—without faith. Jesus lamented, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” How sad to be part of God’s chosen people and be invited to feast with him in the kingdom of heaven but then to be thrown out, because we fail to trust him.
What keeps our hearts from trusting in Jesus? Sometimes it’s the sin of pride. We love ourselves more than we love Christ. We don’t want to be under his authority; instead, we want to be our own authority. We wish that we could create and heal with our words alone. But we are not God. The only way to share in the authority and power of his kingdom is first to submit to him.
Pray and ask God to help you to submit to Christ’s authority with faith and trust.
Gospel-Centered Family’s mission is to help parents and church leaders share Jesus with the next generation. Below you’ll find information about our upcoming coaching cohorts as well as a link to my upcoming release, Keeping Your Children’s Ministry on Mission.
If you ever want to ask a question or give me feedback, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. And if you’re loving the newsletter, please forward it to your friends.
Thanks again for subscribing and reading!
Jared Kennedy
Registration Is Open for 3 Fall Cohorts!
There’s nothing like doing ministry to expose our anxiety and weaknesses. We feel it on those days when the stalled check-in computer and the missing medical release form stress us out. But in the midst of our weakness, there’s great glory in knowing and sharing Jesus with the next generation.
One of the most helpful ways to keep your leadership and ministry centered on and—more importantly—shaped by the gospel is to get help through coaching. Our coaching cohorts will help you improve your personal leadership health as well as your ministry capacity. Opportunities are open for children’s ministry, special needs ministry, and student ministry leaders this Fall.
New Book: “Keeping Your Children’s Ministry on Mission”:
When building a children’s ministry at a church, there is so much to consider: Which curriculum should we use? How many volunteers do we need? How do we keep parents in the loop? And that’s before we run into stalled check-in computers, missing activity sheets, and floors that need to be vacuumed. While all of the tasks of children’s ministry are important, leaders can get easily distracted with the everyday work of doing ministry and lose sight of the main focus—the gospel.
In Keeping Your Children’s Ministry On Mission, I share a four-fold approach for gospel-centered, missional children’s ministry: hospitality, teaching, discipleship, and mission. This practical resource covers a variety of topics ranging from creating child protection policies to putting together lesson plans to catechism, helpful for children’s ministers and volunteers alike as they disciple children with the powerful message of the gospel. The book releases next March, but it’s available for pre-order now.