Jesus: The Heart Surgeon - [Matthew 15:1-28]

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Well, it seems these days our culture's capital sin is not lying or idolatry or murder or slander.
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The capital sin, it seems in our culture these days, is offending people. The virtues of our post -Christian era are tolerance, acceptance.
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Nobody's supposed to disagree and especially don't offend people because they, in fact, might feel hurt.
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They might feel upset. They might feel angry. We've got categories now for offensive speech, hate speech, and the list goes on.
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I think part of this is Satan's grand strategy. I think
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Satan's fueling this. Why? Because when we evangelize people and we're telling them about the good news, that Jesus forgives sinners, it means that, in fact, though, that they are sinful.
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It's offensive to hear, I am sinful and I am unrighteous and you mean to tell me that my civic duties, my religious activities are not good enough to get me to heaven?
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When you're preaching the Bible to people and you're evangelizing them and you're showing them the law of God, the standard of God, that law exposes hearts.
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That law is a mirror. That law offends. That law judges and people don't like it, especially with our culture full of self -esteem and trying to feel good about ourselves.
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When an unbeliever understands his or her sinfulness and God's holiness, they're either going to respond with,
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I'm offended and I'll push back. Or if the Spirit of God is working in their heart, yes, that's true.
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Yet I'm thankful that the Son saves sinners like me. I don't know if you've ever evangelized and had somebody get really mad at you.
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Not for how you've said it. We've all probably been too aggressive at times. But what we've said, they become very offended by.
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I remember once Kim and I were back in Nebraska. I thought my grandfather was going to die. He was in the hospital.
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He ended up living for a while longer, but he was in the hospital. We thought he was going to die and Grandma was there. She loved
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Grandpa and was there to serve him. But I needed to have Grandma go so I could preach the gospel to Grandpa because they were entrenched in Lutheranism and they didn't want to hear anything about the
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Bible. We're good enough. So my mom and Kim took Grandma down to the cafeteria and I began to preach to Grandpa.
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I said, Grandpa, this is going to be difficult for you. I know you don't want to hear this, but I have to tell you about forgiveness.
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And if you're running off a cliff blindly, I would tackle you to stop you and it might knock the wind out of you, but I must tell you.
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So I began to tell him about the Lord and Savior Jesus and how his baptism wouldn't save him. The Lord had to save him and he needed to trust in Him.
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And then Grandma must have figured it out with her Grandma senses because I remember she came running back and she knew what
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I was doing and she's screaming out loud, Mike, Mike, Mike, meaning stop doing what you're doing.
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She loved me. She was a kind grandma, but she was very mad at me then. You've probably had circumstances like that as well.
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And maybe you've had the flip side where you're preaching the gospel to people and the Lord is working on their hearts and softening their hearts.
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And all of a sudden they're saying, yes, that's true. And tell me more about the Lord Jesus. What's the difference between the person that gets offended when they hear the law of God and the person who says,
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I agree. Is the difference in the preacher? Of course not. Is the difference in the person?
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Of course not. The difference is in the Lord God Himself. Please turn your Bibles to Matthew chapter 15 this morning and we're going to look at the work of God in the life of people as He both uses
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His word to offend people and to save people.
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Two heart responses. One heart's been prepared by God, another one has not. The book of Matthew, we're going to just be in here today.
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Next week we'll be back to Hebrews chapter 9. I have been mesmerized by this text.
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I have been consumed by this text. I've just been thinking about it every single day. And if I have to think about it every day, and if I have to stay up in the middle of the night thinking about this text and how great
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Jesus is, have fun tonight. I just want you to grasp it.
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Here is the Lord Jesus. And remember, Matthew, just to set the table before we get to chapter 15, talks about Jesus as the
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King. Out of all the kings, He's the King. Out of all the lords, He's the Lord. And everything in the book of Matthew shouts,
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He's King. And by the way, this is the kind of message everyone needs, but this is the kind of message especially
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I love to preach to men because men will follow this kind of King. There's a reason why 60 % of evangelical churches,
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I mean the churches are full of 60 % women because I don't think the men need to, I don't think they hear enough about this great
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King who's not only powerful, but He's forgiving. Of course, women will follow this
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King too, but this is the King of kings and this man Matthew writes about this King, the
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Lord Jesus. Probably if I was defending Matthew's kingly idea,
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I would say here's a good summary statement of Matthew, chapter 21, verse 5,
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Behold, your King is coming to you. Everything about this is He's the King. And remember, the backdrop is going to be everyone who's reading
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Matthew, the writer wants them to say, yes, in fact, He's the King. Yes, in fact,
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He's the Savior. What Jesus does, I believe. What He says, I believe. And I will repent and trust in Him.
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That's the backdrop so that you might believe, and if you believe, to keep believing. Chapter 2 starts,
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He's the King of the Jews. Chapter 27, it ends with the inscription above His head, This is
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Jesus, King of the Jews, after He was crucified. So we come to chapter 15, and you see probably in your liner notes in your
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Bible, Traditions and Commandments, and we'll start there in Matthew 15, verse 1, as we watch
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Jesus, in this section, reveal that in fact He is the King. He's King over false teachers.
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He's King over every heart. And you're going to watch Jesus with these people, and you're going to say, there's nobody like Jesus.
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Nobody talks like Him. Nobody preaches like Him. Verse 1,
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Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?
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For they do not wash their hands when they eat. Now, this has nothing to do with, you have your children wash their hands after they've played outside.
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When I was a kid, we grew up and we played either Tarzan or Batman, and Mom made sure those crew cut kids would wash their hands.
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This has to do with ceremonial cleansing, things that they have to do so that they're right in God's eyes, clean in God's eyes.
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And do you notice the text? Break the tradition of the elders. This is not
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Levitical law back in the Old Testament. This is not God's regulations for Israel and Leviticus.
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This is extra stuff, because when you're not going to submit to God's word and His regulations, you begin to make up more things, and make them up, and make them up, and make them up.
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And they had a thousand kind of washing things, and they had one particular rule that you had to wash your hands in such a way so this demon named
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Shibda wouldn't get onto your hands, and then you would eat the food and it would get into you. So you have to wash properly.
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I keep putting my hands like this because I'm thinking about scrub sinks in operating rooms, right? And the iodine, and they're scrubbing their hands, the surgeons and the scrub nurses, and then they're walking over rightly, you know, and the water's dripping off their elbow.
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Jesus, your disciples, it's not like they were breaking Old Testament law. Jesus would not want them to do that, but they're breaking the law of the tradition of the elders.
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And what does Jesus do? Remember, all eyes on Jesus. There's one spotlight.
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Don't take your eye off of Jesus. Verse 3. Watch how He exposes their heart with His words and the
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Old Testament word. He answered them. I mean, buckle up.
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It's like, okay. And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
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For God commanded, honor your father and your mother, and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.
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But you say, if anyone tells his father or mother, what you have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father.
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So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites.
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Well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, this people honors me with their lips.
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We love God. We love God. God's our father. The Lord our God is one. But their heart is far from me.
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In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
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And here's what He's saying. You guys even take the tradition and elevate it over Scripture so that you don't have to honor your parents.
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You can give the money that was supposed to go to your parents when they're older. You'll take that and say, you know what, it's dedicated to God.
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And that's just more tradition. And you are hypocrites. Hypocrites are seen by Jesus as people who do things by tradition and not
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God's word and do things externally. You know, if you have traditions in life, that's fine.
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When you elevate them to Scripture, that's not fine. And when you elevate them over Scripture, it's even worse.
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You men are walking around trying to say, I don't want to be defiled and I have to keep myself clean.
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And you rob your parents for the sake of tradition. And that's just hypocrisy.
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What really defiles a person? Verse 10. When he called the people to him and said to them, hear and understand.
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Pay attention. Listen up. Mark 7's account. Listen to me, all of you, and understand.
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It's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person. I mean, you eat with unclean hands and it gets on the food, some kind of demon or some kind of, you know, dirt.
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But what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a person. The Pharisees tell you this.
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I'm going to tell you the exact opposite. He's contradicting the Pharisees. I think of Psalm 24.
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Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands and a pure what? Heart.
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This is all about the heart. What is going on in the heart? You can say over and over, I love God. I love
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God. I love God. I love God. I do things for God. I tithe for God. But it's the heart he's after.
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Then the disciples came and said to him, I mean, you just have to look at this. I just laughed. Do you know that the
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Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? Jesus could have said, yes, I do, because I meant to offend them.
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Matter of fact, I do. These Pharisees aren't from me.
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Do you notice how Jesus says that in verse 13? He answered. Every plant that my heavenly father has not planted will be rooted up.
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My father never planted these. They're going to be rooted up because they're not from the father. And then three words in English that you never want to hear ever from God or your friend or your spouse or anyone else.
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Let them alone. Let them be. Let them go to their own devices.
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You'd rather have somebody mad at you than say that. Let them alone. They're blind guides.
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And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit. Peter said to him, verse 15, explain the parable to us.
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And he said, are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled?
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But what comes out of the mouth is connected to the heart, proceeds from the heart. And this defiles a person.
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And he has the Pharisees in mind right here, of course. And it's true for all of us for out of the heart come evil thoughts.
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Verse 19. You know, they had evil thoughts about Jesus murder. You know, they wanted to kill Jesus and did adultery.
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I don't know if Jesus knows what they are doing or what they're thinking or how they're looking at women. But I get the idea.
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These are all directed, of course, universally, but particularly to the to the Pharisees. Sexual immorality.
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Theft. Right. They're stealing money from their father. False witness about God himself. And slander. Slandering the son of God even.
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It has nothing to do with how you washed your hands over and over and over ceremonially and make them unclean.
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What's coming out of your mouth shows me you're defiled. And these Pharisees are defiled. They're blind guides. Let them be.
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Verse 20. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone. When you have a low view of sin, you think these rules are going to work.
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We have a low view of of God's holiness. You think these rules are going to work. Jesus declares all foods clean.
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Mark, Chapter seven says of this account and what he means by that is he's also declaring all hearts.
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Unclean. Foods are clean. Hearts are unclean. And you can just imagine what would the
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Pharisees be thinking with all their self -righteousness? Show me hypocritical people and then fueled by self -righteousness.
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It is a disaster. What do you mean? My religion is helping me.
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It's not damning me. Remember what Jesus said in Luke five? It's not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.
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I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. They had this religion.
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And this is what religion does. It inoculates against a need for a Savior because you think you're
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OK with God by doing the externals, by doing what your lips will do without your heart close to God and your heart honoring
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God. I'm going through the motions. If anybody went through the motions, it would be the Pharisees and scribes.
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They were fastidious. They were meticulous. They were conservative. They were evangelicals, as it were.
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They're going to synagogue. They're doing the rules. We even love the rules of God so much. We'll make up extra rules.
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And so you've got these hypocrites with this language of religion and they're stiff arming
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Jesus. And instead of saying, let's kill Jesus, they should have said, yes, in fact, that's true.
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You're right. Help. Have mercy. Spurgeon said the greatest enemy to human souls is self -righteous spirit, which makes men look to themselves for salvation.
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Self -righteousness exclaims, I will not be saved in God's way. I will make a new road to heaven.
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I will not bow before God's grace. I will not accept the atonement which God has wrought out in the person of Jesus.
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Think about Pharisees. Think about us if we're not careful. I will be my own redeemer.
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I will enter heaven by my own strength and glorify my own merits. Spurgeon said
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God is angry with that self -righteousness. William Secker said many have passed the rocks of gross sins who have suffered shipwreck upon the sands of self -righteousness.
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I can get to heaven, the Pharisees said, and many people today without Jesus's death.
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He's a good teacher or maybe he's got a follower. Maybe he's even demon possessed. I don't know, but I can get to heaven my own way.
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No wonder 1 Corinthians 1 says, For the word of the cross, the atonement about Jesus Christ dying on a cross for sinners is folly to those who are perishing.
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It's dumb. It doesn't make any sense. It's moronic. What do you mean Jesus is going to die on a cross in my place?
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That whole idea is crazy. And it was to the Pharisees, especially if I'm not that bad.
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You mean to tell me that if Jesus is a substitute, he dies on the cross in my place.
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That means I should have been dying on the cross. I should have been the one tortured by God, the father, not just for three hours on the cross.
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All eternal hells combined and dumped out on Jesus. But for eternity in hell, you mean to tell me that my sins, even one sin is so against the holiness of God.
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I deserve to go to hell for it. You don't understand me. I go to church. I've been baptized.
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I've been catechized. I've been confirmed. I go on mission trips. I attend church. I work in Awana. I do all these things.
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That's repulsive to me. That's the idea that the Pharisees had. The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.
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I mean, I might believe in Jesus if he could save himself, but he couldn't even save himself. I mean, kids, we don't say the word cross,
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Cicero said. We don't look at the cross. We don't gaze upon the cross, let alone worship the
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God who is on the cross. You think I'm going to sing the old rugged cross and some kind of sentimentalized hymn or wear a cross around my neck?
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You've got to be kidding me. I tithe. I wash my hands. When you preach the gospel, by the way, and you're telling people about God's holiness and God's standards, this is often what you get.
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They might be polite to you externally. They might not be doing anything externally to you. But deep down, this kind of heart says,
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I'm good. Thank you, Mike, Mike, Mike. We don't need that. We're fine.
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We've been baptized and confirmed in all these kind of religious things. It's good enough.
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Don't take it too far. Verse 21.
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But there's a different kind of heart. Now, by the way, this is the fun part right here for me. Most people know 15, 1 to 20, but they come to 15, 21 to 28 with this
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Canaanite woman and they don't know what to do. What do they do? I'm telling you, the issue is the heart.
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The heart. Verse eight. The heart. Verse 19.
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The heart. Verse 18. What's in the heart when you approach somebody with evangelistic intentions and you begin to talk to them about the law and how far they fall short of that law?
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And where they stand in God's eyes, the one heart that's all self -righteous and religious and thinks that they're good enough will be offended.
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But the other heart that God's been working on has a different response. And here we see this response.
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Friends, it's the best. Keep your eye on Jesus. The story's hero is not the
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Canaanite woman. Heart two. Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
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The Pharisees would be going wild. Tyre, it's up in the ocean,
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Mediterranean, 30 miles away. Unclean people live there.
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Sidon's another 25 miles up on the ocean. Unclean people live there. Gentiles live there.
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By the way, if you eat food with your hands not washed a certain way, you become defiled.
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And if you go to a Gentile area and you eat food that they have or touch them or see them in the marketplace, you're defiled as well.
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You better not be defiled. And Jesus talks about the issue of defilement is in the heart. And now he goes into the heart of defiled land, the
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Pharisees would be thinking. He does it on purpose. He went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon.
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Josephus said Tyre contained Israel's bitterest enemies. I mean, this is where you get
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Baal worship from. These people are Gentiles. They're certainly not circumcised.
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And what does Jesus do? Who does he meet? Verse 22, and behold,
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I love how Matthew does that. He regularly does that. And look, a Canaanite and not just a
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Canaanite, not just a pagan. A person from a pagan area, but a woman, a
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Canaanite woman. You can think about how they talk to women back in those days and men and rabbis and women and all the stuff that goes along with it from that region, from that unclean region came out.
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And the text is in a perfect tense means it's going on and on and on and kept crying out over and over and over.
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Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.
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And by the way, the text wants you to make sure you get it. Have mercy on me.
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Have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. Have mercy on me over and over and over.
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Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord. Oh, son of David. Son of David. Son of David. My daughter have mercy on me.
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How do you show mercy on me? Heal my daughter. Lord, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me.
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Have mercy on me. By the way, three miles away, there was a pagan god of healing. She could have gone to that temple, but she didn't.
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She kept shouting over and over and over, have mercy on me. I don't deserve it.
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I haven't earned it. You don't owe me, but would you please take pity on me?
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I bring nothing to you. I have no money. I have no alms. I have no track record.
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I have no genealogical merit. I don't deserve anything.
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Would you have mercy on me? Notice she also calls him Lord. I'm not
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Lord. Baal's not Lord. Eshron God isn't Lord.
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You're the Lord. You can give me pity if you want and mercy. You don't have to, but I'm asking. And you're the
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Lord. And she also says, son of David, think
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Matthew the great king that he wants to show in this book. You are a descendant of the
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King David. You are a descendant of King David. You're the Messiah. You can give sovereign pity. You've got the power to do it.
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You're the Lord of all. And you can do that because you're the Messiah. It's the same thing that the blind man said.
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Blind man said in chapter nine, in chapter 20, have mercy on me, Lord, son of David. She's unclean.
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She lives in an unclean area. The Pharisees would have probably said what? No. Mark says she fell at his feet.
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She know Jesus is coming to town. She has heard about him. Luke in the sermon on the plane talks about people from different areas hearing that.
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I'm sure she's got the news. He can have pity on me. He's got power. He's the Lord. He's the son of David.
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He can help me. She's at his feet, worshiping him. Mark says she was a
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Gentile of the Syrophoenician race. And she kept asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
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Now there's something interesting here. Arkent Hughes talks about rabbis back in those days can't talk to ladies.
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And there was a bunch of rabbis called the bruised and bleeding Pharisees. Because every time they saw a woman, they'd cover their eyes and then they'd bump into things and bruise themselves and cut themselves.
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And then they were proud about it. Look, I just ran into that wall there and hit my head because there was a woman there. I didn't want to look at a woman.
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They were called the bruised and bleeding Pharisees. How pious I must be that I have a black eye.
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I mean, you can tell the Pharisees know about this. Jesus is talking to a woman. He's in an unclean area, talking to an unclean woman.
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What is going on here? This is what you don't do. So verse 23, "'Are you sure you know
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Jesus and how he acts?' But he did not answer her a word."
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Really? She kept saying, "'Have mercy on me. Have pity on me.
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Have mercy on me. I'm at your feet, O Lord, Lord, Lord, Son of David, Son of David, my daughter.'"
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And what does the text say? Emphatically, by the way, in the Greek with the word word, he did not answer her a word.
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He ignored her. By the way, commentators can't stand this. Some, the liberal commentators say this, "'Jesus was rude.
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Jesus did the wrong thing.'" Now remember, back up for a second. Jesus is the perfect Messiah, right?
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As our representative, he has to perfectly obey the law and does. He came not to break the law, but to what?
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Fulfill the law. "'The Father says of the Son, "'This is my beloved Son in whom
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I am well pleased.'" Right? "'The Son says to the Father, "'I always do what's pleasing to you.'" We know
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Jesus was sinless because the Father raised him from the dead. If he had sin, he would still be in the grave because he'd be paying for his own sin.
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But since he was just a sin bearer, a sin offering, he assuages the wrath of God and God says, "'Thank you,
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Son, for doing the work.'" And he raises him from the dead. Jesus didn't sin at all. So whatever Jesus does, here's the point.
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He's doing the right thing. You can't say, Jesus, you should answer her when you're not answering her. He didn't answer her a word.
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She's begging. He's got the power to help her. He's already healed other people. And his disciples came and begged him.
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Send her away. She's crying out after us. You're not paying attention to her.
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So now she's coming to us and she keeps going and going and going. And she's begging us so much.
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Now, Jesus, we're begging you. Would you stop this? Either tell her to take a hike or is that what they say?
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Is that vernacular back in those days? Take a swim in the Mediterranean or heal her.
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It only takes a word. Matthew does not explain
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Jesus' silence. And in light of the last passage, what do you think Jesus is doing?
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Send her away. She's crying out after us. It gets worse before it gets better.
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He answered, I was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
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Oh, Jesus. Do you know what you're saying? She's begging, she's begging, she's begging.
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Lord, Lord, Lord, have mercy, have mercy on mercy. Son of David, Son of David, I didn't come for the Gentiles.
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She's right there. Commentators fall on themselves all the more because they don't want
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Jesus to do something wrong. They don't want him to be rude. They don't want him to be doing something politically inaccurate, incorrect.
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The first words he tells her, I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. Think about that language there, sent.
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Jesus was sent, the Father sent him, remember in eternity past. And Jesus doesn't just become existing when he's born.
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He's arriving. It's better to think of the arrival. Jesus is always existed as the
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Son of God. And now he's added humanity by the Holy Spirit's work in the womb of Mary.
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And now Jesus is born and he came for a reason and he was sent for a reason and he's going to fulfill his mission.
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So much he'll say at the very end, it is finished. And he's on a mission and the mission is not for the lost sheep of the
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Gentiles, primarily for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. That's why I was sent.
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Now, if I were you, I mean, in my notes, I have these acronyms, A -C -L -U and C -N -N.
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I mean, the Messiah, he doesn't answer, doesn't answer, doesn't answer. And then now she needs help.
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Finally, he says, okay, but I didn't come to heal people like you. Now, if she had the heart of a
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Pharisee, if God hadn't been working on her heart like God did with Lydia, who opened Lydia's heart to respond to the things of the
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Lord, if God wasn't working in this woman, she would have been offended just like some readers are, just like the
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Pharisees are. Who do you think you are? I can't believe it. And maybe I'll help coordinate some of the spying up here to help kill this
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Jesus. Because when you preach the word to people, when you preach the law to people, there's two main responses.
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Response number one is, who do you think you are? And response number two is, you're right.
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I am what you say I am. I am what the word of God says I am. Verse 25, what was her response?
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What's in her heart? Is she gonna honor him with her lips? Is her heart far from her?
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Is she gonna in vain worship him? But she came, knelt before him saying,
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Lord, help me. You owe me.
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I deserve it. I'm better than the other people that had demon possessed children. Lord, help me.
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And he answered, here we go again. It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
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You say, yeah, but the commentators know that there's a dog that's a mongrel out in the street and it's vicious.
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And you have like a little house dog. And I know Jesus called her a dog, but he didn't call her the vicious mongrel.
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He just called her a little house dog. True, but he called her a dog.
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You're a dog. That's exactly what Jews would call Gentiles, dogs. People said, commentators,
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Jesus's answer is on the surface a harsh one. And then
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William Barclay, you probably have his commentaries. He doesn't believe in anything supernatural, right?
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Jesus walked on a sandbar. He didn't walk on the water. The Egyptian army, they drowned in a few centimeters of water.
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Barclay says this, the tone and look which a thing is said makes all the difference.
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Even a thing which seems hard can be said with a disarming smile. We can call a friend an old villain or a rascal with a smile and a tone which takes all the sting out of it and which fills it with affection.
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We can be quite sure that the smile on Jesus's face and the compassion in his eyes robbed the words of all insult and bitterness.
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And I have just two words, two letters here, N -O. You think about evangelism.
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We talked about the message last week. Now we're talking about the methods. And when you're preaching and think about yourself, if you're a
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Christian, there were times that people came to you and preached the word of God to you. And you said, no, stay away.
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That's not true. Or I don't want to believe it. I have my own faith. I'm spiritual. I don't need any of that.
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No, no, but you really need to be saved. And you're worse than you think. And your entire life has not counted for anything positively.
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It's actually gone negatively. And you're going backwards. And God's going to hold you to the standard. And he's going to judge you.
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There's an eternal hell. And you're like, that's enough. And they just keep going and going. The one heart says,
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I've had enough. Get out of my face. The heart that's being worked on, your heart, when you started to be drawn by the
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Father, by the Spirit's convicting work to the Son, you started to think things like this.
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I am sinful. I deserve to go to hell. And if I die right now,
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I'm probably going to go. Romans 3, verse 19, we might look at it in a minute. It's the law is supposed to silence men and silence women so that they don't give any more excuses.
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I have no excuse. If what you said is true, I've sinned against God by omission and commission.
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I haven't loved Him. I've loved my neighbor, not as myself. And I deserve to be judged justly by a righteous
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God. I stand condemned. That's the heart that's being worked on by God.
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That's her heart. She's not trying to push back in any way, shape or form.
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Jesus can say, I don't owe you anything. I can act that way rather. And she would say, that's true.
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You're the Lord who's sovereign. He can say, I mainly came for the Jews, primarily to the
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Jews, to the Jews first and also the Greeks. Romans 1, verse 16. And she would say, true.
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I'm sinful. I'm Gentile. I'm unclean. I'm a woman. You don't owe me. You're the
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Lord. My sins deserve eternal punishment. Whatever you say, it's true. It's true.
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It's true. That's a heart that's being worked on by the triune
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God. One man said, Jesus is brutal here. Another man said, he replies more brutally here.
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That is not true at all. It's one thing to be silent and it's another thing to say things like here.
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It's amazing. Verse 27. She said, how dare you?
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And for the third time, she calls him Lord. Yes, Lord. And isn't this sweet?
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Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. If truth be told,
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I'm a dog. I'm worse than a dog. But once in a while, those Jews that are eating have some food that fall off and the dogs are right there to lap them up.
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I'll take whatever you got, Jesus. She didn't say I'm offended. She didn't say hate speech.
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Can you imagine? Yes, Lord.
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I'll take the crumbs. I agree that your messianic mission was for the
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Gentiles. No, for the Jews. Yes, there's a spillover. And I think about Abraham and chapter 12 and all these other things in Psalm 117.
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I know you mainly came for the Jews. I get it. I just want some mercy, please. Shouldn't say, why'd you say that?
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You could do better than that. That's unfair. No, I'll just take whatever you can.
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And then how does Jesus respond? Verse 28. Oh woman, great is your faith.
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Don't forget faith has an object. The object of your faith. The one that you knew was sovereign.
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Please have pity on me. The one that you knew was Lord and sovereign King. The one that you said was the son of David.
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The one that you said had a messianic mission for the Jews first and then the Gentiles. That's right.
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You're believing in the right God. You're believing in the right Messiah. Be it done for you as you desire.
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And her daughter was healed instantly. Now, so many people say, the reason why
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Jesus answered prayers and did these things the way he did and did this three -step kind of thing, it seems almost rude.
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He's trying to make her persistent in her prayer. I don't even think that has anything to do with it. What does he commend her for?
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Thick skin? Perseverance? Sacrificial love for the daughter?
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Not at all. He is commending her for one thing and one thing only. She's believing in the right person, the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew doesn't sling around the word great very often, but when he does and hear through the words of Jesus, it's important.
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Mark 7 says, "'Because of this answer, go your way. The demon has gone out of your daughter.'"
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Friends, when you evangelize, some people are gonna say, I'm offended. We can't help that.
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We don't wanna be offensive, obviously. But the word is the word. But there are some people that God is going to draw and you're gonna probably even be able to experience as you preach the word to them and they're gonna just go, you know what?
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You're exactly right. And my only hope is the Lord Jesus. Her faith was in Jesus, the Lord, the son of David, who has mercy and pity on people.
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Remember we talk a lot about the right kind of faith, knowledge, assent and trust. Do you think she had those things? Knowledge of Jesus, she knew who
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Jesus was. Assent to Jesus, she's on her knees asking and a commitment to Jesus.
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She had it all, knowledge, assent and trust. What else did this lady know about her faith?
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There's only one who can give me mercy. It's not the Baals and Canaan. It's not places up in Tyre and Sidon and Erashtu and all these other gods.
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There's one object in my faith, the exclusivity of Christ Jesus for her. There's only one way
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I can get mercy, not just for my daughter, but mercy for my soul and forgiveness. Tasker, quote, a commentator named
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Tasker says, quote, she does not stay to argue that her claims are as good as anyone else's.
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She does not discuss whether Jew or Gentile is better. She does not dispute the justice of the mysterious ways by which
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God works out his divine purpose, choosing one race and rejecting another. All she knows is that her daughter is grievously tormented and that she needs supernatural help.
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And that here in the person of the Lord, the son of David is the one who is able to give her that help.
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And she is confident that even if she is not entitled to sit down as guest at the Messiah's table,
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Gentile dog that she is, yet at least she may be allowed to receive a crumb of the uncovenanted mercies of God.
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Isn't that great? I think often we just read the Bible and we just read too fast and we just not, we don't sit back and think, you know what?
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The focus is on the Pharisees and the focus is on the woman. The focus is on this, that and the other. Her heart was just as bad as the
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Pharisee's heart, just as bad as our hearts before we're saved. But the Lord was doing something. And by the way,
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Jesus knew he had to go up there because theologically speaking, there was an unregenerate elect lady and he needed to go up there and save her.
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That's amazing. Romans 3 .19,
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now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be stopped and the whole world may be held accountable to God.
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The heart that's getting worked on by the father is a heart that says, you're right. I'm sinful.
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I have no defense, no excuse, no spin control. I'm not gonna mince words.
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I am guilty. I have no defense. Haldane said, everybody is standing in front of God, the judge, the records are read.
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And as it were, one by one, the accused are given an opportunity to answer the charges made against them.
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However, their guilt having been exposed, they have no answer. Their mouths are silenced and stopped.
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That's what the law does. She doesn't say what we hear a lot of people saying and maybe what we said before we were saved.
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Well, my good is gonna outweigh my bad. I'm just not as bad as those other people.
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I do religious things. I do civic things. I'm nice to people. I have etiquette.
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I'm upright in society. I'm not a murderer. I'm not any of those things. But the heart that's being worked on by the
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Lord, the heart that Ezekiel 36 says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit.
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I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. The heart that Jeremiah 24 talks about,
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I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord and they shall be my people and I will be their God for they shall return to me with their whole heart.
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That kind of heart says, I now hate what I used to love and love what I used to hate. The enemies aren't the
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Pharisees necessarily. The enemy, the good person in this story isn't the woman. It's the object of faith who comes and gives the law and the response is either hardness or an openness.
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And if there's an openness, you know behind the scenes that God is working because it's by grace you've been saved. Her faith was not meritorious.
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Her faith said, I have no merit. I'm trusting in you. I think as you watch this passage and read it later today, by the way, that's one of my desires.
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Whenever I hear a sermon and I have to go home and reread the passage, I think, I was glad for that sermon.
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Glad for that sermon. I wanna go back and reread. You can reread and see if I'm right. Double check.
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But I think as you reread it, here's what you're gonna see. It's not enough to honor
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God with your lips. Your heart has to be close to him because if you're not, you're gonna in vain worship
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God. And then you're gonna come up with all kinds of rules to make you think you're right in God's eyes.
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And dear Christian, in light of that, the only standing you have legally before God is based on the personal work of Jesus and his perfect law keeping, true?
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Don't do what Galatians says to then somehow think, now the way my standing before God is, it's based on my quiet time and my ministries and what
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I do and what I don't do. That's not true. That's a good fruit, amen.
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That's a good evidence, amen. But your legal standing has to be perfection. Therefore, your legal standing has to be justification and the work of Christ Jesus.
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Say, well, I'm saved by the work of Christ Jesus, but I keep my standing, I keep my status,
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I keep my sonship by obeying. Friends, A, it's not true, and B, if you're really true to yourself, how you doing?
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Two options, self -righteousness, I'd cry too. No, just kidding. Yeah, you can say it.
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You either go to self -righteousness or despair. When you look at your life, how am I doing? That's why I said with the communion table last
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Sunday, for the Christians that are here, I'm not talking about unbelievers, but for the Christians, no matter what you do, your standing is based on perfection, what
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Jesus did. And out of that, you have fruit and evidence, but you can't confuse the two, because if you do, you're gonna lower
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God's standard to think you can actually meet those. And I'm gonna stay a son and a daughter of God by having my quiet times and reading my
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Bible and serving and ministering and all those things, which by the way, are fine things to do in light of this position, but not to keep this position.
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Does that make sense? How can we have our lips honor
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God and our heart follow? I'm just trying to tell you something simply, that even when our hearts aren't all there, dear
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Christian, Jesus' heart was all there. Did Jesus ever honor God with his lips, but his heart was far from God?
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Never. Did he ever add traditions of men? Never. In vain did Jesus ever worship the
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Father? Never. So you trust in Jesus, you believe in this risen Savior, you stand in him and God sees you as somebody who worships from the heart.
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And because he's so great and he's so faithful and so generous and so gracious, then we respond with prayer and Bible reading, et cetera.
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Never confuse fruit and legal stand and never read the
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Bible like you know everything that's going on, because like Matthew 15, maybe just like me this week, you'll be surprised and think,
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Jesus is a greater Savior than I thought last week. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your son, the
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Lord Jesus. And we would admit even this morning, I'm sure the
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Canaanite woman would admit, it's not her faith that she came up with. It's not something she did, that would be a work.
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But it's something that receives, it's something that rests, it's something that trusts in an object, the
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Lord Jesus himself. And so that would be our testimony this morning, Father. We would realize that we stand here today, cleansed and forgiven and justified and reconciled, not because of anything we did, we did the opposite.
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And we should be condemned like the Pharisees, because out of our hearts have flowed all kinds of wicked things.
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But because grace incarnate, the Lord Jesus, has cleansed us and made atonement for us, we stand as your children.
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And I pray that you'd give us boldness this week to evangelize others, knowing that most likely the
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Pharisees' response will be the people's response. But we can still talk about the great