Children’s Sermon

Luke 7:1-10

The Soldier Who Surprised Jesus

By Dr. Carol J Miller

Jesus was special in a lot of ways. For one thing, Jesus had power to make sick people well. God gave Jesus this power so that Jesus could show the people that God wants health for God’s people. That is important to know!

One day a soldier came to the Jewish synagogue, which is like a church, to ask the leaders of the synagogue to help him. The soldier had a servant who was very, very sick. The soldier wanted Jesus to heal the man, but he did not think that he was good enough to go ask Jesus himself. So he asked the Jewish leaders to ask Jesus for him. The leaders went to Jesus and said, “This soldier is a very good man. He is the one who had our synagogue built for us. Please, Jesus, help him.”

So Jesus started off to the soldier’s house to heal the servant. But some more people came to talk to Jesus. They had another message from he soldier. The soldier did not feel that he deserved to have someone as wonderful as Jesus come to his house. The soldier said that he knew about power. He had 100 soldiers who worked for him. If he told them to do something, they did it. The soldier said he knew that Jesus had that kind of power, too. All Jesus would have to do is say ‘be healed” and the servant would be healed.

Well, by saying that, the soldier did something almost no one else had ever done! Can you guess what it was [respect all answers]. I’ll tell you what he did: he surprised Jesus! Jesus was surprised at how much this soldier trusted him. He was glad that the soldier had such faith in him. Jesus healed the soldier’s servant and everyone was glad. Then Jesus told all the people who were following him around that they should learn to have the kind of faith that the soldier had; they must learn to trust Jesus as much as that soldier did—the soldier who surprised Jesus!

Copyright 2012, Richard Niell Donovan