Oh No He Didn't

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Don Filcek; Matthew 15:21-28 Oh No He Didn't

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You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called
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Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in. Here at Recast Church, we highly value
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God's word. We see it as the primary source of truth regarding who God is and how he reveals himself.
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So you want to know God, you want to know what he wants of you, what he desires of you? Then turn to his word.
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And that's the reason why we dig into a portion of the Bible each week when we gather together and we most often just march straight through books of the
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Bible, paragraph by paragraph, in order to understand God better. Because I'm convinced that the more that we come in contact with God, the more that our lives will be transformed into his likeness, the more we trust him by faith, the more we will walk according to his words during the week.
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And occasionally we run into what I would call a not -my -Jesus kind of passage.
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Do you know what I'm talking about? How many of you have ever heard that phrase, my Jesus would never fill in the blank?
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And this is one of those passages that we're going to be looking at. These are passages, not -my -Jesus kind of passages are the ones that maybe are not very familiar to us because they didn't really make the top 10 list of Sunday school lessons when we were kids.
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These weren't the stories that the teachers wanted to highlight or that the church wanted to highlight because we wanted to spin a little bit of PR for Jesus and we thought that that passage might make him look bad or might not reflect well on him.
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These are passages that you are not going to find on a coffee mug. You're not going to find it on a motivational poster.
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They're often skipped by teachers and pastors and preachers who want to avoid controversy. And the text that we're looking at this morning is a pretty strong not -my -Jesus kind of passage.
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I mean, put yourself in, before we even read it, I just want to ask you some questions. Can you imagine Jesus ignoring a woman who is crying and pleading for help?
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Not my Jesus. My Jesus wouldn't ignore somebody who's crying and weeping and pleading for help, right?
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Can you imagine Jesus telling a woman that he's not called to minister to her people because she's not of the
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Jewish race? Not my Jesus. My Jesus wouldn't do something like that.
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Can you imagine further Jesus referring to an entire group of people with the metaphor dogs?
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Not my Jesus. My Jesus wouldn't say something like that. And that's why we need to come to the text of Scripture each week to see who
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Jesus is. To see what Jesus is really like. To see how he rolls. To see what he does.
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You see, without Scriptures, we would easily slide into making our own Jesus. My Jesus.
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And I think that Jesus that we would make, if we were to craft a Jesus that makes us comfortable, he would like the things that we like.
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He would hate the things that we hate. And I would suggest to you that he'd probably be pretty soft on the sins that we struggle with.
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A lot of the hard edges would be rubbed off and he'd be pretty soft toward us.
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So as we read this passage today, it's going to require a lot of explanation. Even as I read it, you're going to go, whoa, wait a minute, this is really in here.
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Be willing to sit in the discomfort of the way that Jesus interacts with this Canaanite woman here in the text.
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The discomfort is not accidental. We are meant to feel something as we read this text.
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But I want you, as I read it, I want you all to pay special attention to the way that the text ends.
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Because this is an entire story that needs to be taken from beginning to end in its entirety to be understood. And the way that it ends is significant.
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So I want you to open up in your Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew chapter 15, verses 21 through 28 is our text for this morning.
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Again, Matthew 15, 21 through 28, navigate in your device, pull out your phone and open your app.
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But if you happen to not have a Bible or a means to navigate to the Bible on your lap this morning, we want everybody to be able to follow along, to dig in, to see the things that we're saying are coming from God's word.
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And Mike is back here and he's got some Bibles already open to this passage. If you don't have a way to navigate the Bible, please just raise your hand and he'll just bring you one.
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It's just that simple. So if anybody doesn't have a copy of God's word, Mike's got those back there.
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Just slip your hand up and he'll bring it to you so you can follow along as we read Matthew 15, verses 21 through 28, recast
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God's very word to us, what he desires to communicate to us. I don't believe that anybody is here by accident today, so this is something that he specifically desires for everyone that's gathered together here, including myself.
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He wants us to hear from him. So let's respect the word and listen carefully to what
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God wants to say to us. Verse 21 of Matthew chapter 15,
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And he answered, Then Jesus answered her,
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Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for crumbs.
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I thank you for scraps that come off of your table. And I recognize that I am just a dog.
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I'm a beggar. I'm needy. Father, I think that defines everybody in this room.
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All of us are dependent on scraps from your table. And yet, Father, you have been so gracious to us that we who have come to your table to sit under, hoping that scraps would fall, you have seated us at a banquet of your grace, a banquet of your blessing, a banquet of your mercy.
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And we have hope that one day we will sit in an eternal kingdom, in an eternal banquet with you, simply because we've come to you for mercy.
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We've acknowledged that we have nothing to bring, and we've come with empty hands, and you have provided abundantly for us.
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And so, Father, I pray that that would move us, that we would be moved and shaped and changed even as we have an opportunity to worship you, to sing songs to you, that this would be so much more than singing songs, but it would be a movement of our heart and gratitude and thankfulness that we who came for crumbs have been given so much more.
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And so, Father, I pray that you would help us in humility to acknowledge our place before you and worship you as our glorious and awesome
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Savior this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. I encourage you to get comfortable, just like every week.
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If you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donuts while supplies last, take advantage of that.
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You're not going to distract me. And also, I say this most every week, I recognize that the seat you're sitting in is not the most comfortable one invented by mankind.
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And so, if you need to get up and stretch out in the back or just kind of head back there, again, it's not going to distract me and I just don't want anybody to be sitting there in discomfort.
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So, take advantage of that. And then one other change, one indicator, we're very grateful for this building, but there was a lot of water that came in this end of the building in the stairwell and it's kind of dangerous back there.
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And usually, the men use the restroom upstairs on this end. We'd ask that you don't use that restroom. Use the one down here this week.
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And that's, I got a sign out there just for men. So, out the doorway, down the hallway, and it's right up there on the left.
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So, we'd ask that you use that just for safety's sake. Again, there's just a lot of water there and we tried to mop it up, but it's still coming in.
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So, and I think that's the case in a lot of places in Kalamazoo this weekend. But keep your
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Bibles open, please, to Matthew chapter 15, verses 21 through 28, and that's going to be our text for the week.
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And that's what, I'm going to just walk through that. We didn't just read that just to kind of get it in our minds, but that's the format for this morning.
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And I want to just point out to start with that there's two kind of aspects to every conversation. There is both what is said and the way that it is said.
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There's body language. There's facial expressions. There's tone of voice. So, in other words, there's the content of what's communicated and then there's also the nonverbals that are a part of that.
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How many of you already knew that? You already had that on board. Yeah, you got that. And I would suggest to you that I think we all can identify with this.
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The written word is very weak with those nonverbals, right? You don't get a chance to see the facial expression of the person who is writing you a note or writing you a letter or even the facial expression of Jesus when he says some of these things that we see here in this text.
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Now, most of us who are married know exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to tone of voice or body language, right? Like me, many of you have said one thing with your mouth while communicating something different with your tone or with your body.
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And so, my wife is faithful to let me know when I'm confusing her with content that isn't lining up with my nonverbals.
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Any of you ever run into that? I mean, a couple of people are very eager on that one. We've all done that.
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It's mostly men that raised their hand on that one, interestingly. But equally, I think many of us have been misunderstood in what we've written.
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Has anybody ever written a text or an email or even a post to social media that was completely misunderstood? You're like, well, how do they get that out of that?
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Anybody? A few of us? I have a couple of friends, and I think maybe everybody in this room has a couple of friends who seem angry in every single email that they write.
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You guys are laughing because you know what I'm talking about. Maybe it is you if you don't have a friend like that. Maybe you're the one. But, you know, they assure me that they're not upset, but because they're so direct and they've got really strong opinions, every time they write an email, it's just kind of like, you sounded really angry there.
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So, you have to work through that. But the reason I'm saying all of this is that our text this morning is one that required me to wade through a lot of scholars and a lot of writers, assuming that they understood or would teach us the tone of Jesus in this text.
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What was going on? Like, he said this stuff with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face.
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And, you see, some biblical scholars rush to Jesus to protect him from the way that he comes off as pretty harsh in this text.
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When I read it earlier, did that cross anybody's mind that this felt a little harsh? Being honest, it did me.
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The first time I read it, I was like, wow, Jesus, chill for just a second. I mean,
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I thought you were supposed to be polite and nice here and saying some of these things. Others, though, other scholars have used this text to discredit
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Jesus as a product of the ethnocentric culture around him in which he was raised, where the
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Jews thought that the Jews were awesome and everybody else was really bad. And so here's an example of Jesus just being like the product of his culture and generation.
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But before we walk through the text, I would like to caution all of us from basing our understanding on assumptions of tone and body language or facial expressions that are not recorded for us.
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If Matthew wanted us to know that Jesus said this with a smile on his face, the text would read, he said, with a smile on his face.
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Right? Like, how many of you know that Matthew is capable of communicating that and God, through the Spirit, is able to inspire that?
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But I think that God in his Spirit wanted us to focus more on the content of what Jesus says and then the end result of what he does here in the text.
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To identify what is actually happening here requires us to look at the words and see what he is actually saying, the content of what he's communicating.
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So we should move quickly past the tone conversation to the beauty of what Jesus is doing here in this text with this
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Canaanite woman. In verse 21, we see that Jesus withdrew from the area of Galilee north to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
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This was a trip of at least 60 miles further north from the Sea of Galilee. Remember that we saw last week some people came up from Jerusalem to basically try to corner
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Jesus with questions. The religious leaders, the scribes, the Pharisees were trying to corner him there. So they made that 60 -mile trip.
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And I likened it to West Michigan. Israel is really set kind of in a good context between Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids.
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A lot of the things that happened there happened in that space and that distance, that type of area.
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And we've got, of course, Lake Michigan on one side. They have the Mediterranean Sea on the other side. But that is to scale. So I don't know how much you can see that picture there, but that kind of puts it a little bit in perspective.
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That's the Sea of Galilee there. And then he went up north to Tyre and Sidon in that area.
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And that's where this entire text takes place. By the way, this area that he goes to would be well outside of the pathway of the average
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Jew. They would not be comfortable traveling to this space. I imagine the disciples uncomfortable with this trip.
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They're not super excited to have taken this trip up into Gentile territory. Tyre and Sidon are firmly in Gentile territory, and the majority of the people there would have been considered unclean by the
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Jewish religious leaders. When it says he withdrew, he went to a place where these scribes and Pharisees that he was talking with last week will not follow him.
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He's literally withdrawing and trying to get some aloneness and some space and some time. And so it's in this foreign land that Jesus has an encounter with a woman that would have surprised any
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Jewish reader. The way that he interacts with her, the fact that he interacts with her, all of this would have been shocking and startling to the
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Jewish mind, let alone his disciples. We're going to see his disciples actually expressing some concern about the way that things are going up there.
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But Matthew starts off verse 22 with the Greek equivalent of, check this out. The word behold there is one that is intentionally a word in Greek that's like desperate to draw your attention to the next thing that is said.
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So Matthew writes, check this out, a Canaanite woman that was born and raised in the region of Tyre and Sidon came out begging
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Jesus for mercy. Like just a phrase, check this out, shows that this was kind of out of the ordinary for Matthew and he's a little bit surprised by this and he wants you to pay a special attention to this woman who comes out.
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And that she came out, the word phrase that's used there is significant because she is coming out to seek out
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Jesus. She came out of her house, she came out of her town, out of her place of comfort seeking for help from the
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Jewish Messiah. How she knew who he was, how she knew that he was even there, the text doesn't give us, but she already has quite a level of depth of understanding about who this
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Jesus is that has come up to this area. Maybe word was just spreading about him all over the region and it's like Jesus has come.
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But a couple of things can be pointed out that we know about this woman from verse 22. It gives us a pretty good or fully or view of who she is.
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First and foremost is that we see that she believed Jesus could help her. She believed that Jesus could help her.
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The second thing that we know about her is she knew she needed mercy. In other words, she knew she needed help and she didn't deserve help.
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You see what she's calling for from him, mercy. Give me mercy. Something that I don't deserve.
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I know I haven't earned this. I know I'm not worthy of this. But have mercy on me. The third thing is she was desperate.
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She's desperate for help. We see in the text it declares what her problem is. Her daughter is severely, wickedly, is another translation for that, severely or wickedly oppressed by a demon.
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We don't know all the ins and outs of what that looked like, but we know that she is desperate enough to come out and seek the help from one of those people, a
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Jew. Fourth thing is she knew Jesus was worthy of respect. She calls him
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Lord. Not that she probably had a fully formed understanding of his divinity.
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Not every time that you see the word Lord in the New Testament is it used of divinity. Lord was a term of respect, a term that would have been,
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I'm less than you and I want to show you respect, kind of like sir would be today, only with a little bit more of an edge to it, a little bit stronger than that.
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But she knew Jesus was worthy of respect and called him Lord. And the fifth thing is she knew something of his role as the
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Jewish Messiah. She called him the Son of David. This kind of knowledge and understanding outside of Israel shows that the concept that the
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Jews were waiting for one who would fulfill the promises made to David that one would sit on his throne forever and ever.
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For her to call Jesus Son of David is a significant understanding that probably blew,
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I mean she was shouting that at Jesus. Like what? Out here someone is identifying him?
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Someone who was raised in Tyre and Sidon, a Gentile is identifying him as the Son of David?
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It took the disciples a while to get that truth. It took them a while to actually recognize that he is the
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Christ, the Son of the living God. But the last thing that we identify about her is maybe the most significant in their eyes about her.
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That is simply at the face value that she is a Canaanite. A virtual curse word to them.
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That is a terrible word to the Jewish mouth. A Canaanite. One need not read very far into the
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Old Testament. If you've ever read it, you've studied it or even just kind of looked into it, you don't have to read too far to see the animosity building between the
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Israelites and the Canaanites. To put it in perspective, the Egyptians, you know, they had been slaves in Egypt.
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Israel was slaves in Egypt and then they are released under Moses and all of the plagues and then they're set free and they begin this exodus thing.
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And not just a few days into the exodus, do you know who attacks them? Little known story, again it doesn't make the Sunday school lessons very often because you've got to get to the party of the
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Red Sea and all that stuff and all that really cool stuff. But the Canaanites attack them early on.
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Before they even get out of the Sinai Peninsula, the Canaanites are there harassing them and haranguing them all along the way to attacking, attacking, attacking.
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They warred against Abraham and Lot back in the day. They filled the wells that Isaac dug.
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Isaac would dig wells and the Canaanites would come in behind him. How many of you know water in the desert matters? You want your wells to stay open?
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And they'd come in and fill them in behind him to cause problems for him. They committed, according to the prophets in the
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Old Testament, the Canaanites committed abominations against God, even sacrificing their own children on altars of flame to their pagan gods filled with idolatry and all kinds of wickedness.
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And they were supposed to be conquered under Joshua. All that context just to say this woman, this
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Canaanite woman, to the eyes and ears of the disciples who were there with Jesus was far, far, far outside of the kingdom.
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I don't even know if the disciples would have had a category of understanding that she could be welcomed into the kingdom.
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The stereotype for this woman among the Jews would have been horrendous. The assumptions about her would have been dark.
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And here she stands at a distance crying out to the Messiah of the
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Jews, Jesus Christ. She's crying out to him. She's crying, she's weeping, she's shouting. And she wants one thing.
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Mercy. Mercy. She knows she doesn't deserve anything from this
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Jew. She knows that hatred that is the custom between their people, that he would revile her is her full reasonable expectation, that he would curse her.
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Ignoring her would be gracious compared to the expectation between these two cultures that he would dismiss her with curses.
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But she comes to Jesus in her desperation. Her daughter is wickedly, severely demon -oppressed.
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We don't know, again, what all that looked like or how this demonic influence manifested itself in this little girl's life, but we know that in the end, we don't see that she has exercised, she has healed.
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So there was some kind of physical manifestation of this demonic influence in her life. But her mother is desperate for help.
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And so Jesus speaks softly words of comfort to this desperate woman. He follows her home and casts the demon out from her.
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Isn't that just like my Jesus? Always eager to heal, always eager to help, always speaking in soft, hushed tones with a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye.
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Not quite. In verse 23, he ignores her pleas.
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He ignores her pleas. And the Greek is emphatic. The sentence structure, the words that are used in Greek are emphatic.
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He didn't respond to her. Even a word, not even a word to acknowledge her presence.
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Nothing. And they apparently continue to journey down the road.
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She follows at a distance. He is doing something, by the way. Jesus is responding in a way that the disciples would have thought gracious.
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He hasn't dismissed her. He hasn't cursed her. He hasn't told her to go home. He is just ignoring her.
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What a gracious and kind response from their rabbi. Wow, he's teaching us a lesson here.
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But they betray their discomfort. They're not quite as comfortable as Jesus with the situation.
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As she follows them, weeping, crying, shouting and begging, have mercy, have mercy, have mercy. And so they begin to also plead with Jesus.
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Now Jesus has her pleading and the disciples pleading. And they say, please, please, please, oh please,
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Jesus, send her away. She's a Canaanite. She's getting on their nerves.
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And by ignoring her, Jesus is now getting under the skin of his disciples. Could you just take care of this,
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Jesus? And so the disciples tell Jesus what to do. Do you see that in the text? They command him.
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They tell Jesus what to do here. I mean, you know, I picture the disciples kind of having this thought process in their minds and the way that this whole thing goes.
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I mean, maybe Jesus hasn't encountered a Canaanite before, so he needs their advice on what to do with one. And so they offer that freely.
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They're free in their advice to Jesus, telling him what to do. I mean, we've got to be careful telling
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Jesus what to do, right? You've got to be very careful about that. But these disciples are pretty bold.
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So Jesus, in case you didn't know, we don't associate with these kinds, says the disciples.
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We dismiss them. We get rid of them. We send these kind away, Jesus. And she's annoying us.
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Anybody see the obvious thing there in the text? How cold, how callous must a person be to watch another person weep and beg for mercy and not be moved beyond your own discomfort, to not be moved beyond your own, she's annoying me.
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Could you just get rid of her, Jesus? How cold. The followers of Jesus, but before we cast our judgment on the disciples, what about us?
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What about us when others are crying and begging for help? To turn a blind eye.
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Or even worse, to just be annoyed by them. Jesus is setting up a little something for the disciples that has radical implications for them and even for us here where we live today.
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He takes everyone on a rollercoaster ride to get there. I think it's all intentional. It's all on purpose. He didn't say anything here off the cuff.
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He wasn't shooting from the hip. Jesus answers the disciples with a straightforward statement of his mission. They're like, could you get rid of her?
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And they're like, oh, now you want me to talk to her? Because she's inconveniencing you. Now you think my mission is to the
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Canaanites. Now all of a sudden you want me to do something with this woman? His first coming was indeed to come to Israel and bring healing for sin, to keep the law and to suffer and die for the salvation of all who would believe.
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See, I mean, that mission statement, I've come to Israel. That's my purpose.
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Jesus didn't come to Rome. He never went to Athens. He didn't come to earth among the
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Chinese Han dynasty that was going on during the same era. He came to Israel to work among God's chosen people and to fulfill the prophecies made about their
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Messiah from their ancient writings. And that's the truth. But again,
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I want to be careful. We don't know the tone of verse 24. But we do know fully that he did this in response to the disciples wanting him to dismiss the woman.
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To say, oh, so now you want me to address the Canaanite woman? Don't you know I'm called to the lost sheep of the house of Israel?
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Now you want me to talk to her? And further, we know that he said this to his disciples as they have a chance to observe what he's going to do next.
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How he's going to respond. What's he going to do? His affirmation in verse 24 would have likely made them feel settled that he was going to dismiss her.
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So that what comes next would be all the more shocking to them. They're like, oh yeah, okay.
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So he's acknowledging he's called only to Israel. We're going to get rid of this woman. We're going to just be able to go about our merry way in peace and quiet.
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Their ears would get relief from her wailing and they could just go on. But no, she came closer.
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She knelt down before Jesus saying simply, Lord. She's respectful.
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She's deferential. And extremely simple in her trust of Jesus. She has gone to great lengths and to great social risks to come and kneel before this
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Jewish rabbi. This is more than a long shot. It would have seemed utterly foolish in her culture that she would think that this
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Jewish man would help her. But she comes in such humility. She comes in such need.
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In such a deep place of desperation. I picture the disciples. By the way, they've just received a lesson in the last text.
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Last week we talked about it. They received a lesson on the fact that defilement doesn't come from outside of you.
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But comes from inside of you. Out of the heart flows all of these evil thoughts and wicked things. And the speech that defiles us.
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That comes out of our hearts. I still picture the disciples recoiling.
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And again, I'm just seeing a little bit of a sanctified imagination here. But I still picture them fearing the cooties of this woman.
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Afraid that something from her is going to jump off onto them. Some defilement. Some wickedness. Some evil that she's committed as a
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Canaanite. And now they're going to be implicit because they've helped her. She's one of those immoral, impure people.
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And Jesus, with the disciples present, answers her request for help with this statement from verse 26.
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It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. What? The metaphor, by the way, is not lost on anyone that is present in the hearing of this.
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They understand, I believe, fully what he's getting at. The children are the Jews. The bread is the blessings and the benefits of his kingdom and miraculous ministry.
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And the dogs are all of those others outside of that kingdom. The Gentiles, particularly.
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The Canaanites, specifically. And most all of us in this room, from our heritage, are found within this metaphor as dogs.
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We are the Gentiles. We were the outsiders Jesus is referring to here. Probably every one of us in the room would fit into that category.
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That isn't very kind, Jesus. Right? That's not very kind. Didn't your mother teach you manners?
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I mean, Mary, really? He's calling people dogs here? I don't want to soften what he says here, but I also don't want to enhance the offense.
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And I think that a lot of people in our hearts, in our minds, we probably have a greater tendency to harden the offense unless you really like dogs.
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And then you're like, well, I wouldn't mind being a dog. Dogs are cool. I mean, I think that there's a little bit of a balance in our culture between our love for pets and on the flip side of that is like, well, you don't call people names, right?
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So it's like, I don't know which way this goes, but I don't want to enhance the offense. And here's the reason why.
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I look at the text and I look at the way that the people around responded, and they just roll with it. I mean, the
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Canaanite woman doesn't miss a beat. Look at the context to determine how offended you should be by what
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Jesus says here. And she just rolls with it. She doesn't begin to weep at his reply and go, oh, you hurt my feelings.
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She doesn't storm off in disgusted anger. Why did I even come to you for help anyways? She's okay with the image.
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In her humility, she's okay with recognizing what she is in the face of what she needs.
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Do you hear that? She's okay recognizing that before him, she is nothing.
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A dog is a promotion. A dog is a promotion compared to what we are before the
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Almighty God. And she recognizes she is just a beggar. She is just pleading for crumbs at the table of the king.
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She's okay with the image, and she runs with it. Sure, she says.
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Yes, you said rightly. I agree with you. You shouldn't take food away from your children to feed the pets, right?
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Is that a pretty good principle to live by? Don't take food from your kids. I think we all would agree.
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Raise your hand if you agree with that statement. Don't take food that belongs to your children and give it to your pets. If you're at the store and you only have enough money for either cereal for the kids or purina for Fluffy, buy the cereal, says
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Jesus. That's a given, right? Like we understand that. But look with me in wonder at this woman's creativity and faith in verse 27.
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She's creative, and she has intense faith. Yes, Jesus, you're right. But even the dogs can eat from the scraps or the crumbs that fall off the table onto the floor.
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Surely, she assumes, there are on God's table enough that the scraps could fall to a lowly person like me.
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She displays immense humility and just a crazy, deep, great level of faith.
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She's asking for deliverance for her daughter, and she assumes it's really nothing but a scrap for the divine
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Son of God to do so. She believes it would really be nothing. It wouldn't take much for Him.
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It would be like crumbs swept off the table after a great banquet of His power and glory and blessings.
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Just a crumb, she says. Just a scrap. Can you spare a small crumb for a dog such as me, says the woman in humility.
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I'm convinced, by the way, that Jesus loved this woman from the very beginning. From the beginning of our text,
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I believe He loved her. But I'm also convinced that He has intentionally brought the disciples and her on a journey with Him through this dialogue.
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He ignored her at the start, which pushed the disciples to a response to her. He reminded them of His ministry and mission so that they would be reminded and realize how utterly out of the box
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His response in verse 28 really would be. He challenged the social relationships implied by her request.
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And through it all, she remains humble, persistent, and resolute in her faith that He can do this thing that she's requesting.
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And Jesus exclaims with accolades in verse 28. Oh woman, great is your faith.
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She stands as a model and an example to you and me down through the ages. Oh woman, great is your faith.
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There are only two times that a person is credited with great faith in the entire book of Matthew.
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And both of them are Gentiles, interestingly. Both of them are people like you and me. Both of them are people who in humility recognized what they were before the
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Almighty. One was a Roman centurion. A guy who you could say was a worker for the man, so to speak.
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And he exhibits great faith. And then you have this woman who's down and out and lowly and in desperate need.
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And she's credited with great faith. Contrast this commendation, by the way, for this woman.
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And I don't think it was lost on the disciples because for us what was a few weeks ago was just two days ago for them.
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Peter was just walking on the water. He was just walking on the water the day before this happened. Actually the night before.
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A couple nights before this actually happened. And I don't imagine that it was very lost on them that he's just called this woman's faith great.
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And he responded to Peter and called him you of little faith. There's a contrast there.
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The people who think they deserve much, oh, they have a hard time showing great faith.
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But those who recognize who they are in the light of a holy and righteous God who come to him with open hands, saying, just a crumb, please.
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Just a crumb, if I could just have a scrap. Oh, great faith. Not little faith.
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And he speaks these words in verse 28 at the end. Be it done as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly.
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It almost kind of implies that to some degree maybe she was even with her. We don't know. We don't know the age of this daughter.
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We don't know what her circumstances exactly look like. But instantly she's healed.
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And what appears at face value to be a harsh interaction between Jesus and this Canaanite woman actually proves to be a challenge to the prejudices of his disciples.
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Further, it ends in an amazing display of faith from one who was assumed to be far outside of the kingdom of God who is actually so, so, so close.
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So as we come to apply this text to our daily lives, we should look to the disciples. It's one category of understanding.
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Look to the woman as one area of application and the way that she responded to Jesus and then look to Jesus and what he's doing.
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Consider what God is telling us about each one from the text. First, consider the disciples.
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Think about them. They come to this text with bias. They come to this text with very little concern for outsiders.
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They're annoyed by the pleas for help of another image bearer of God. Help me,
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Lord, she says. Have mercy on me, Lord. And the disciples are thinking in their mind, could somebody make this stop?
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Could somebody make this go away? So a question for you.
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Where is your compassion? Do you love the least of these? God is calling each and every one of us to bring the blessings of the kingdom of God to those around us.
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That annoying coworker is a person in need of a Savior. That neighbor whose dog keeps doing his business in your front yard is a person in need of a
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Savior. Those people who are in a rough circumstance right now and are down and out that we have the opportunity to minister to through the
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Matawan Area Pantry, they're people in need of a Savior. And even though they may not be running and kneeling before Him for mercy, as the woman was here in our text, they're people that God has put into our journey to teach us something about His mercy and grace and love.
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Namely, that nobody is outside of the reach of the grace of God. Further from the disciples, we should consider this text addresses our understanding of the reason why
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Jesus came to earth. The disciples thought it was all about the Jews, that that was His main focus and that was going to be
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His only focus and He was just going to save my people and that was it. But in this text, Jesus responds with grace, compassion, and commendation for a
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Canaanite woman. How far does His grace extend? Who do you consider to be outside of the reach of the grace of God?
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Jesus wants to correct your misunderstandings and your sinful prejudices. His grace extends to all who would put their trust in Him regardless of background.
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Second, let's consider the woman and her response to Jesus. Her faith is exemplary. She is not commended for her persistence.
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She's not commended for her humility. She could have been and those are very impressive. And you see that in the text.
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She's very persistent. She follows. She goes out to Him. Her humility is a model to us.
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But Jesus commends her specifically for her faith. She believed firmly that Jesus was able to help her in her need and it was that faith that drove her humility, that faith that drove her persistence.
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She believed she had come to the right man who would be able to provide the healing that her daughter needed. And that just begs the question, where are you going for your hope and for your help?
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Are you running to Jesus? Are you asking Him for mercy? Are you coming to Him for help?
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I encourage all of us, wherever you're at in your journey of life, run to Jesus. Put your trust in Him.
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When hardships are there, run to Jesus. When you're going through good times, run to Jesus. Keep trusting
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Him. Thank Him in the good times and ask Him for help and mercy in the tough times. Also, this lady shows us something of a proper approach to the king.
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She comes with humility. She calls Him Lord. She recognizes her unworthiness. That she begs
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Him for mercy first shows that she knows that she deserves absolutely nothing from Him. And unfortunately,
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I would suggest to you that the human default is to shake our fist at God because He hasn't given us what we think we deserve.
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We think we deserve uninterrupted high -speed internet. We think we deserve cushy jobs with advancement potential and a boss who understands that we have a family.
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We think we deserve health. We think we deserve wealth. We deserve prosperity, safety, and security.
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You name it. We invent things that we think we deserve. This woman came to Jesus crying and shouting,
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Have mercy. Have mercy. She knew she needed help and didn't deserve it.
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Further notice that this woman showed up with empty hands. The person who shows up trying to purchase
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His favor doesn't recognize how unworthy they really are. But the one who comes and pleads for crumbs from His table, they are the one who will find that they are granted a feast together with Him in His eternal kingdom.
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The one who comes and begs for crumbs is given so much more than crumbs. Have you experienced that?
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Have you seen that in your life? I think anybody in this room who has come to Him with the attitude of this woman and has come and said,
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Please, please, just a crumb. Just a scrap. Any little help that you could give has found that He is gracious to give so much more.
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Have you experienced that? Celebrate that. Rejoice in that. Give thanks for that.
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That the hope is that not that everything goes better in this life but that there is a better life out there for you.
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There's an eternal life that is waiting for you. There is an eternal banquet, an eternal feast. Have you come to Jesus like that?
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To come to Jesus admitting you need help and just saying, Just a scrap for a dog like me.
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Lastly, look at Jesus in the text and then we'll wrap up. Jesus goes out of His way to meet with people who are not
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His own, who don't run in His circle. He goes outside of the box to reach the lost. He goes far outside of the realm of the comfort of His disciples.
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Even as a church, my hope is that we will reach out to others with love and care and that we will seek creative ways to spread the glory of Jesus Christ and His worship to more and more people.
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I pray that we will find creative ways to use our building as a tool to serve others as the
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Lord is blessing us with a facility. That we will make disciples as we are going where He calls us to live and to work and to be day in and day out in our neighborhoods, in our workplace.
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And that we will spread the love of Jesus indiscriminately to all. Not with prejudice or not with assumption about who would or wouldn't respond.
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Not judging for them, but just spreading the love of Christ to others around us.
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We know that Jesus came and died for us. We come to the tables of communion each week to remember that, that glorious truth.
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And I hope that you take time before you get up out of your seats this morning to reflect on the great price that Jesus paid to cover your sins.
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We were once outside of the kingdom of God. We were once far off from the hope of the gospel.
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And by His grace He came. And He sought us out and He rescued us. He went outside to find us.
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Went outside of Israel to find us. If you're all in with Jesus, I'd encourage you to come to one of the tables during this next song and take the cracker as a reminder of His body broken for us on the cross.
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And take the cup of juice to remember His blood shed for us on the cross. Remember His great love for us recast.
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He loves us. And then I'd encourage you to leave this place with a renewed commitment to spread the good news to any and all who will listen.
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To be bold with it. But if you're here and you're not all in with Jesus, you're still trying to figure things out, then
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I'd encourage you to just please skip over communion, just take some time to pray and remain in your seat and listen to this next song.
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Feel free to come and talk with me at the end of this service if you'd like to know more about how you could start a relationship with Jesus Christ.
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Let's pray. Father, I thank you again. Just even as I thanked you earlier,
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I'm a recipient of just crumbs and scraps from your table. And I know that that's the hope for all of us that we could approach you in the way that this woman did.
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The way that she with humility came and recognized in faith that you are the one who can make a difference.
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You are the one who can fix our broken hearts. You are the one who can take care of the greatest and deepest problems that face us in our lives even today.
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So Father, I pray that the result of this message would be more running to you, more of a focus in humility toward you, more an approach of faith and trust that you are the one who we run to.
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Father, I pray that you would help us to go out as your ambassadors to a world that is in desperate need of this truth.
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That the news is simply this, it's good news, and that is that in our faults, in our brokenness, we're hopeless, but hope has been granted.
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Hope has come. He lived among us. He lived a sinless life. He lived an exemplary life in the way that he taught and in the things that he did and in the way that he loved.
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He paid the price for us by dying, the sinless in place of the sinner, the king in the place of the dogs.
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So Father, I pray that from that position, we would exalt, we would rejoice, we would celebrate this table that we have before us.
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We would celebrate the bread as just a reminder, just a little morsel, just a little scrap, just a little crumb of remembrance of the great and glorious and beautiful and awesome sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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His body as the feast laid out for us. And Father, the blood that was shed in our place, where we deserve punishment, where we deserve death, where we deserved your wrath, he took that wrath for us.
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So Father, I pray that you would help our hearts to rejoice, to celebrate. We go free because Christ died for us.
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Go with us through this week and be with us in these next moments while we take communion to just reflect and rejoice and thank you.