SPEAKER_00: So we're in Matthew 15, 21 through 28.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 15, 21 through 28.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to read the text to you in a minute, but I want to ask you this question as we open up.
SPEAKER_00: What if the kingdom of God is bigger than just this church?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It is, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's broad, it's big.
SPEAKER_00: And the followers of Jesus, the disciples, needed to have their perspective broadened.
SPEAKER_00: And so the way that Jesus didn't teach his followers in a classroom, he brought them with him as he did ministry all over Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And today we're going to see that he's going to go into what's now modern Lebanon.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of teaching that Jesus is doing as he's doing ministry.
SPEAKER_00: What if those invisible walls that separated us from them have no place in the heart of God?
SPEAKER_00: Today, as we look at this passage, we'll see how Jesus not only heals a woman's daughter, but he also expands this vision for his disciples and ours, showing us that true faith, it transcends those us versus them borders.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to see just how Jesus doesn't play by the us versus them rules.
SPEAKER_00: And in a fascinating way, Jesus is challenging those boxes, those invisible boxes that can be put up.
SPEAKER_00: Now, some of us have followed Jesus and walked with Jesus for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're familiar with this story.
SPEAKER_00: And all that I want to encourage us at a minimum is that we want to be praying as we go through this text, Holy Spirit, show me, am I limiting the extent of your work?
SPEAKER_00: Am I believing you for all that you want to do as a kingdom work around me?
SPEAKER_00: Or am I pigeonholed in like a comfort zone, or am I limiting the work of God in some way?
SPEAKER_00: That's the underlying principle that exists here in this text is just this idea of that the kingdom is limited, and Jesus is taking those that are following him, and he's saying, Let me push you a little bit further.
SPEAKER_00: And so we want to say, Holy Spirit, we're willing to be pushed in that way a little bit further.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read the text and then we'll pray.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus left there, he withdrew to the area of Tyre in Sidon.
SPEAKER_00: Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came and kept crying out, Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David.
SPEAKER_00: My daughter is severely tormented by a demon.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus did not say a word to her.
SPEAKER_00: His disciples approached him and urged him, send her away because she's crying out after us.
SPEAKER_00: He replied, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But she came, knelt before him, and said, Lord, help me.
SPEAKER_00: He answered, It isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Lord, she said.
SPEAKER_00: Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.
SPEAKER_00: Then Jesus replied to her, Woman, your faith is great.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be done for you as you want.
SPEAKER_00: And from that moment her daughter was healed.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we just ask that you would speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: We are followers of you.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us are actively wanting this morning and this new year to just lean in and again to hear your voice.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be obedient to your voice.
SPEAKER_00: And so, Lord, as we surrender ourselves, submit under this scripture, this text, this teaching this morning, we we pray that you'd personalize it into the nitty-gritty of our life, the warp and woof, into where only you know and only where you can go in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We we give you permission to speak to us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have a what is admittedly a difficult text.
SPEAKER_00: Here we have Jesus using a kind of a metaphor or a um a riddle that calls this woman a dog.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, let's not beat her on the bush.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's kind of what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's wrestle with this.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of those texts where you kind of read it and it feels like you're driving along on the road and all of a sudden you hit a speed bump.
SPEAKER_00: Or in Baltimore, you hit like a pothole, right?
SPEAKER_00: Which, by the way, can I just say, like, if Baltimore, instead of just fixing all the potholes, what they should do is we should just invent inverted speed bumps.
SPEAKER_00: And we could just call the potholes upside down inverted speed bumps and just put signs up, we would be like brilliant.
SPEAKER_00: Forget.
SPEAKER_00: No?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
unknown: You try.
SPEAKER_00: So the text feels like driving down.
SPEAKER_00: The text feels like you're riding down the road in Baltimore, and all of a sudden Jesus the Messiah calls a woman a dog.
SPEAKER_00: And so we got to sit here with this text and see what in the world is going on.
SPEAKER_00: So let's start in verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus left there, he withdrew to the area of Tyre in Sidon.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you remember, you guys have been here, most of you have been coming for a while.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is doing most of his teaching in a northern region of Israel called Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: There's a major body of water there.
SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch of like little towns around the Sea of Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is going around.
SPEAKER_00: He's healing people, he's a guest speaker in the synagogues, which are Jewish little churches.
SPEAKER_00: He's speaking there on the Sabbath mornings, teaching, and uh healing people, and he's gathering a crowd.
SPEAKER_00: And he has just recently, where we left off at the end of November, was there is a conflict that Jesus has with the Pharisees where they're going at him for the behavior of his disciples, and they're saying, Why don't your disciples wash their hands?
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus just drops this bomb in the room, and he says, Look, it's not what goes into a person that defiles them.
SPEAKER_00: Or, yeah, it's not what goes in, it's what comes out of the person that defiles them, what comes from the heart.
SPEAKER_00: So, like it's what's going on inside of you, and then comes out of your mouth and comes out in your actions, that's what's defiling.
SPEAKER_00: That is what is sin, giving in to that temptation.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's on the heels of that teaching that Jesus then leaves.
SPEAKER_00: Um, imagine on a map, or you can pull it up on Google Maps, because these two cities are still there on the map in Lebanon.
SPEAKER_00: He goes north to Tyre and Sidon.
SPEAKER_00: In Mark's account of this story, he says it's just Tyre, it's this region.
SPEAKER_00: But we've already come across Tyre and Sidon in the text.
SPEAKER_00: Tyre and Sidon are these two notoriously Gentile pagan cities.
SPEAKER_00: They're not Jewish cities.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus leaving Israel proper and going to a Gentile area, which in and of itself is fascinating.
SPEAKER_00: Because you go back to chapter 10, and um Matthew says that Jesus brought his disciples together and he had them go out, preaching the gospel message about the kingdom, healing, casting out demons, but he specifically tells his disciples don't go to the Gentiles, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Like this ministry, this Messiah ministry is for, it is specifically intended to be for the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what we're, that's that is the moment that we're in.
SPEAKER_00: God has promised the Jews a Messiah, the Messiah has come, and the epicenter of that ministry is focused in on the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: And yet here's Jesus taking his physical body, and he's leaving Israel and going to Tyre and Sidon, which is pretty an interesting moment.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of this curious moment.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get a lot of commentary, but we get this one, this story coming from that region.
SPEAKER_00: And um I will say this though.
SPEAKER_00: Um we have at the beginning of Matthew, early on, Matthew 4, uh Matthew's telling a summary statement of Jesus' ministry in Galilee.
SPEAKER_00: He says that Jesus is preaching the good news of the kingdom, healing people, casting out demons.
SPEAKER_00: Um and it says in that context, and the end of Matthew 4, I think I have it in my notes or in my slide deck somewhere, that there were those who were from Syria that heard this message early on.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus wasn't there yet, but what he was, uh, he was, there were people from this region that were hearing uh this kingdom good news.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' journey to this region, it demonstrates his international movement beyond traditional Jewish boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: This location emphasizes the radical nature of the encounter.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus meets a woman of faith, a woman with faith, in the most unexpected places, and it foreshadows the gospel's expansion to the Gentile territories.
SPEAKER_00: If you're not familiar with the scope of the Bible, is that God creates the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: He loves humanity, but he zeros in on his rescue mission through the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And the nation of Israel was intended to be ground zero for God's work that was intended to spread out to the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_00: That be it was through them that this blessing would come on the whole world.
SPEAKER_00: Now they failed as a nation and as individuals to be the blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And ultimately it's that's that promise is fulfilled through Jesus, but he doesn't want to just personally, Jesus doesn't want to just personally be the blessing to the world.
SPEAKER_00: He wants his followers to carry the blessing to the world, and so the expansion of the vision that has to take place.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if any of these individuals had read through the latter portions of the book of Isaiah in their Bible, they would have known that God is the God of the whole earth.
SPEAKER_00: And there's plenty of times where in the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, where it talks about God caring for more than just the nation of Israel, but the process by which God is going through, the process that Jesus is following here and speaking to is this one that starts with Israel and then spreads to the surrounding nations.
SPEAKER_00: By choosing to travel to Tyre and Zidane, Jesus was making a powerful statement about the expanding scope of his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: This geographical detail sets up the theological lesson about faith transcending ethnic and cultural boundaries.
SPEAKER_00: One commentator says this, this passage, it's a turning point from a Jewish-based mission, which we see in 10, 5, and 6, to a universal mission to all nations, Jews and Gentiles, hinted at in 8, 16, and 17, 10, 18, in the context of 10, 5 through 6, and made explicit in 28-19.
SPEAKER_00: At the end of Matthew, Jesus is going to preach the um gospel to all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I put in here the wrong text.
SPEAKER_00: It's the following, it's verse 24, which talks about him going into Syria.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to verse 22 in our story.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is in this Gentile region.
SPEAKER_00: Just then a Canaanite woman from that region came and kept crying out, Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David.
SPEAKER_00: My daughter is severely tormented by a demon.
SPEAKER_00: So this mom, who is a Canaanite, finds herself in a desperate position.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, many of you are parents, some of you are older parents, but you can remember having young kids.
SPEAKER_00: And when anything goes wrong with your kids, you know that it puts you in just the most helpless, vulnerable position.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it even feels just socially embarrassing to be, to just have your own inadequacy, your own ability to like fix something with your kids.
SPEAKER_00: It's just tough because you want to be like the one that like just taking care of everything.
SPEAKER_00: And so this this woman, this mom finds herself in a very painful position where her daughter is tormented.
SPEAKER_00: She's literally the word is she's demonized.
SPEAKER_00: There's just this demon that's like harassing her.
SPEAKER_00: I wish we had more of an explanation of how that manifests itself or what it what it looked like.
SPEAKER_00: How did she know it was a demon?
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's that's as far as the text goes.
SPEAKER_00: What I want to draw your attention to, though, in in this text, do you see here that it says that she's a Canaanite woman, um, which who are the Canaanites in the Old Testament?
SPEAKER_00: These are the enemies of God, right?
SPEAKER_00: So God sends Israel into the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: The Canaanites are the those who are in the land of Canaan.
SPEAKER_00: So so when Matthew writes this and records this story from the life of Jesus, Matthew um identifies this woman with a different um term than Mark does in his.
SPEAKER_00: So in Mark, it's she's a Syrophoenician woman.
SPEAKER_00: Here, Matthew says, this is a Canaanite woman.
SPEAKER_00: This is like uh saying, this is a term, if you are Jewish, of saying, like, um, this is not the politically correct way of referring to this group.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say that, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like a slur to call her a Canaanite.
SPEAKER_00: Just shows like how she's totally other than the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So this Canaanite woman, what is she doing?
SPEAKER_00: She comes to Jesus, but she keeps crying out.
SPEAKER_00: She keeps crying out.
SPEAKER_00: One of the qualities that Jesus praises in his ministry is persevering faith.
SPEAKER_00: This woman is going to be a good example of this persevering faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is a theme.
SPEAKER_00: So again, for those of you that are learning what does it mean to follow Jesus, one of the qualities that is a repeated theme for how to be a follower of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, that was a lot of spit.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good thing you're way back there.
SPEAKER_00: One of the qualities that Jesus praises is this idea of persistent faith.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: He talks about this with a persistent widow in Luke 18, 1 through 8.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells this parable.
SPEAKER_00: Now he tells parables to teach lessons, right?
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus tells a parable about this widow who persistently pleads with a judge for justice, basically is harassing this judge over her case, and the judge, even though he's not, he's an unrighteous judge, he eventually gives in and grants her request because of her persistence.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus tells that story to encourage his followers, keep persevering, keep being persistent with your requests of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: There's another one in Luke 11, the Luke 11, 5 through 10, Jesus describes a scenario where a man persistently is knocking on his friend's door in the middle of the night, asking for some bread, though the friendly, though the friend initially refuses, eventually the friend's like, okay, fine.
SPEAKER_00: He gives in, he opens the door, and he gives the bread to his friend because of the persistence of this man.
SPEAKER_00: You can look that story up in Luke 11.
SPEAKER_00: But again, Jesus is telling those stories to just go, look, perseverance is an essential piece of follow being a follower.
SPEAKER_00: You want to follow Jesus, you need to be one who is persistent, like I guess the word is like dogged.
SPEAKER_00: Do you use that word?
SPEAKER_00: Or do you what other qualities?
SPEAKER_00: Relentless, that's a good word for it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's relentlessness, like pushing forward.
SPEAKER_00: Like some of you have watched other people maybe start a business, or you've started a business, and you just you come up against hard things.
SPEAKER_00: You just kind of keep pushing forward and pushing forward and pressing in.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you have like faced difficult legal challenges, or maybe you've been incarcerated for a long period of time and you had to be dogged and relentless with your case to get your own, your freedom to get out.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know in your own context what the the word relentless or dogged, but the question is, the question that that the Spirit may pose to you this morning is, what are you supposed to be holding on to in the kingdom, holding out for?
SPEAKER_00: What does God want you to be relentless and dogged for and persistent with?
SPEAKER_00: What is it?
SPEAKER_00: What is it that He has for you that He wants you to persevere on?
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew chapter 7, in Matthew chapter 7, Jesus is teaching from the Sermon on the Mount and He says, ask, seek, and knock.
SPEAKER_00: He encourages, keep seeking, keep knocking, keep asking.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, does God know everything?
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: But there is this process, that's the thing to understand is when you're a follower of Jesus, you don't get it all in one day, right?
SPEAKER_00: There is a method of God, there is a plan of God that transpires over this timeline.
SPEAKER_00: When Adam and Eve screwed up in the garden and they fell, God didn't just immediately step in and fix it.
SPEAKER_00: No, he initiated a process of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: And we are we are the microwave generation.
SPEAKER_00: Like stick it in, stick those frozen burritos in the microwave, put it on two minutes, and boom, they're ready to go.
SPEAKER_00: Like they're from Taco Bell, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's how we handle stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Like, forget like cutting up, you know, detaw the meat, and then make it all tasty, and then, you know, add it to the tortilla, and then add the cheese, and then you add the sour cream, and then a little bit of salsa.
SPEAKER_00: You guys are getting hungry.
SPEAKER_00: I knew you were getting hungry, right?
SPEAKER_00: But that's a process, right?
SPEAKER_00: We are not into process.
SPEAKER_00: We're like, give it to me now.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we work.
SPEAKER_00: That's how that's how we want things.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: Even Jesus told this parable about the sower who goes out, he sows seed.
SPEAKER_00: And there's some people that respond that the seed is the word of God going out, and the the soil represents hearts.
SPEAKER_00: People are responding to this message of the kingdom, and they're like, I love it.
SPEAKER_00: And and you've known people that get excited about.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus and they're passionate, they're pumped up.
SPEAKER_00: Woo, I love it, right?
SPEAKER_00: But they don't account for the process.
SPEAKER_00: They don't account for like, oh wait, we gotta go through some hard stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Character formation.
SPEAKER_00: Just the process of living by faith.
SPEAKER_00: It is a thing that unfolds over a period of time.
SPEAKER_00: You can't get away from that.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we see here in this story, because Matthew could have picked a lot of stories, right?
SPEAKER_00: There was a lot of things that were going on with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But here we have this story of this Canaanite woman representing kind of the enemy of Israel coming and being persistent with Jesus, crying out, Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David, my daughter is severely tormented by a demon.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, we got to go on to the next section.
SPEAKER_00: The next verse, Jesus, it says, Jesus did not say a word to her.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what is our term for this?
SPEAKER_00: We left her on red, right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus left her on red.
SPEAKER_00: You know what that means if you're a little bit older?
SPEAKER_00: You have like the little thing when you text message and it says that your text message got read, but you don't get her, you don't get a reply back from the person, right?
SPEAKER_00: That means you were left on red.
SPEAKER_00: You have to be a little bit younger to understand that.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: You don't do that.
SPEAKER_00: That's not like that's not very polite to leave somebody on red.
SPEAKER_00: But here Jesus is refusing to respond.
SPEAKER_00: He's not responding back to her.
SPEAKER_00: And so his disciples step in and they urge him, saying, Well, send her away because she's crying out after us.
SPEAKER_00: Like, so the the followers of Jesus just ask, like, could you just get rid of her, right?
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus responds to, well, before we talk about that, let me just say, on Jesus, like not responding.
SPEAKER_00: Like he doesn't say a word to her.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't the only time.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we're talking about the we're I think we would like it if when we read the Bible, we encountered a Jesus who was like the best customer service ever, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like the nicest, happiest, like it just goes not to a like you gotta talk to a machine or anything, but it's like the happiest reception person ever.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what we have in our head for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is like silent.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not the only place.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus with Lazarus, he finds out that Lazarus is sick, and he intentionally delays going to heal Lazarus.
SPEAKER_00: And um and Lazarus dies.
SPEAKER_00: And he explains, like, I put a pause on going to heal Lazarus so that the power of God could be demonstrated, so that the power of God could be seen.
SPEAKER_00: And in another time in Mark chapter 4, there's this the Jesus and his disciples, they're in this boat, and a horrible storm comes up, and the disciples are like, we're gonna die.
SPEAKER_00: And these were not like amateur sailors, like these guys were fishermen, they knew the water, they knew a bad storm versus a good storm, and it was a bad situation.
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, we're gonna die, and Jesus is just like sleeping up at the front of the boat.
SPEAKER_00: And it seems like he's not responding to the immediate need.
SPEAKER_00: And again, the Holy Spirit would say to you and I, as we see this, is like, sometimes it feels like God is not responding to you.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is silent to you.
SPEAKER_00: You will go through seasons where you feel like God's not talking to you.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you anytime you want to hear God, you can pick up your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
unknown: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: But there there is this um experience in our relationship with God that is beyond just academic reading.
SPEAKER_00: It's this relationship.
SPEAKER_00: And there can be seasons in our relationship with God where it just feels like, man, I'm not getting anything.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just not feeling it, man.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if God's up there and or if it's just like, yeah, it's just like a cement ceiling that my prayers are bouncing off of.
SPEAKER_00: And the psalmist, the psalmist says sometimes, you know, why are you so far away from me?
SPEAKER_00: Why have you abandoned me?
SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was the prayer of Jesus from the cross.
SPEAKER_00: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: There are times where God is silent.
SPEAKER_00: And if you want to be a follower of Jesus, you have to be comfortable with that fact.
SPEAKER_00: You did not sign up for that perfect customer service experience, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is not the four seasons hotel that you're following or that you're enrolled in.
SPEAKER_00: You're a follower of Jesus and he has a process, and that process is for your good and the good of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And he promises in James chapter one that the testing of our faith, that's that's that period where it's silent, the testing, the trying of our faith produces perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: There's a production that goes on, there's a growth that occurs in our life as we go through those types of difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: If you're going for it with the Lord, if you persevere as this woman did.
SPEAKER_00: So they ask Jesus, send her away, because she's crying out after us.
SPEAKER_00: It's disruptive, it's kind of messy.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus replies, and it seems like Jesus replies to the disciples, maybe to her as well, but this is the initial, this is kind of this whole first scene of the story.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is almost a word-for-word quote from Matthew chapter 10, when he sends his disciples out and says, only go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Again, the um work of God is happening through the nation of Israel, spreading out through um through Israel to the rest of the world.
SPEAKER_00: And he's in this season where it's Israel now.
SPEAKER_00: That's who I'm sent for.
SPEAKER_00: Is Israel going to respond to the promises, to the work that God is doing?
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, we know because we've read it, they don't respond, right?
SPEAKER_00: They reject Jesus as the Messiah, they crucify him, he's raised from the dead, and then he commissions his disciples, wait in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: But then I want you to take this message.
SPEAKER_00: After you're filled with the Holy Spirit, we're going to go from Jerusalem to Judea to Sumia, those are half Jewish breed, right?
SPEAKER_00: To the rest of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: But for right now, he's like, no, I'm called to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: This is um, this is that text from uh Matthew chapter 10, where he gives the instructions don't enter any Samaritan town, instead go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But the woman, back going back into our story in Matthew 15, she came, knelt before him, and said, Lord, help me.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, help me.
SPEAKER_00: He answered, It isn't right to take the children's bread and to throw it to the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus has already said, I'm only called to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He may be giving that just as a um boundary to say, okay, nope, it's not your turn, like we do with food distribution.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, nope, now's not your turn yet.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta wait till it's your turn.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it could be, and what one commentator says is there's a test going on here.
SPEAKER_00: And and this is that first statement there is it's um if Jesus said that to the disciples, if you're a disciple, here you're you're saying, okay, this woman is a nuisance, she's making she's just a racket, this is a mess, and Jesus is like, I'm sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a disciple, you're like, yeah, okay, but then he's gonna heal her.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this thing that's going on with his followers that's really kind of like um, he's not following his own rules, essentially.
SPEAKER_00: Are you tracking?
SPEAKER_00: He it's like Jesus is like saying, This is what the process is, but then he's gonna break his own process to heal this woman's daughter.
SPEAKER_00: And in the pro in that process, it's going to add a new puzzle piece uh to the picture for the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna be like, oh, well, wait, wait.
SPEAKER_00: So God has this thing with Israel, but this woman has faith, and she gets, so let's keep going, okay?
SPEAKER_00: So um he says to her, it isn't right to take the children's bread and to throw it to the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: So the children's bread, so the children would be the Jews, the bread would be the ministry that's being given to the Jews, and the dogs would be um the everybody outside of Judaism, the Gentiles, right?
SPEAKER_00: That that would, he's saying, in the home scenario, uh, especially if you have stray dogs or dogs that are not like your pets, like even for us, we've got some dogs.
SPEAKER_00: Like, if I make a meal for my kids, like I don't take that meal and just like give it to the dogs.
SPEAKER_00: Like, that would not be appropriate.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is using this picture saying, like, it's not appropriate for me to take what is for Israel and give it to um the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: Here's this quote from uh Craig Blomberg.
SPEAKER_00: He calls this a test or a prompt of some kind designed to draw out the woman into further discussion to see what kinds of belief this woman has.
SPEAKER_00: And so she responds to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: She says, Yes, Lord, that is true.
SPEAKER_00: So she agrees with Jesus, but she says, Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.
SPEAKER_00: She Jesus gives a lot of these kind of like challenging sayings in his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of the few times where somebody like outriddles Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: She like rises to the occasion of this test, and she plays off of Jesus' own metaphor of the children's food and the dogs, and she comes and she goes, Yeah, but there is even a place where sometimes the dogs get the food.
SPEAKER_00: And it's when the kids drop the food on the floor.
SPEAKER_00: There is in this response humility, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's this recognition that God, you get to decide what the process is for the humanity being rescued and redeemed.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you have chosen the nation of Israel to be the special, your special people with a promised land and to receive the covenants and to receive the law from Moses.
SPEAKER_00: They are special.
SPEAKER_00: But there is also this scenario, if you want to use this picture of food and dogs, there is this scenario where sometimes the dogs get some food.
SPEAKER_00: And so this woman embodies the quintessential attributes that access the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: If in your life you're like this woman, maybe you don't have a demon-harassed child.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may feel like your child is demon-harassed, but maybe that's not your issue.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe whatever issue you have, whatever problem you face, you need God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says there's only two ways to get the grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: One is through humility, and the other is through faith.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that God resists the proud.
SPEAKER_00: So if this woman came to Jesus and said, I'm offended, how dare you call me a dog?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Which she could have done.
SPEAKER_00: She could have misunderstood the scenario.
SPEAKER_00: She could have said, I don't like, I don't like the way you're packaging the process, you're explaining the process.
SPEAKER_00: She could have responded to Jesus with pride.
SPEAKER_00: Her pride could have been offended, but instead she embraces humility, which recognizes that God makes the plan, that God determines how things work.
SPEAKER_00: And she fully embraces this position of humility when she says, Yes, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But then she also, she also embraces this idea of faith because she pushes the matter forward.
SPEAKER_00: She's already been crying out repeatedly.
SPEAKER_00: She has already knelt at the feet of Jesus saying, Lord, have mercy and help me.
SPEAKER_00: And now Jesus is engaging her and she's responding to this riddle saying, I've got a riddle back for you.
SPEAKER_00: I've got a scenario where my case works.
SPEAKER_00: That's faith.
SPEAKER_00: That's that perseverance, that pressing in of faith, standing and saying, God, I'm gonna hold out for that grace that I need.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's Jesus' response.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's a commentator who says the woman's humility is striking.
SPEAKER_00: She willingly admits and accepts her secondary status to the Jews and shows a perfect willingness to partake of the crumbs left over from Jewish preeminence in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The woman is certain that Jesus has more than enough authority and power to care for her daughter with what is left over.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like there's a rule that Jesus can't heal this woman.
SPEAKER_00: He's not forbidden, but there is a work.
SPEAKER_00: It's like when you go to a special event and they say it's a black tie event, so there's a dress code that's appropriate for that event.
SPEAKER_00: So if you come dressed, not with your black tie on, you got like baggy jeans and a sweatshirt, you know, kind of like me, then you are being inappropriate for the moment, right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is essentially saying, it's not time.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the time for this to uh to occur.
SPEAKER_00: Something else is the focus of God's work.
SPEAKER_00: And yet this woman presses in and finds this incredible response from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: She replied to her, woman, your faith is great.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be done for you as you want.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00: He identifies what she's doing as faith.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you want to know what it looks like for me to live by faith, there is a bit of obnoxiousness here.
SPEAKER_00: Not rudeness, but but really this relentless perseverance with God.
SPEAKER_00: That God, you've promised, you're able.
SPEAKER_00: I'm asking, you um have not, you know, like what could this woman stand on?
SPEAKER_00: What are the promises that she could stand on when she's got this daughter being harassed by a demon?
SPEAKER_00: That God, you you didn't design this little girl to be her fruitfulness to be disrupted by a demon.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't design her to be the object of a demon's torment.
SPEAKER_00: That isn't what your kingdom is about.
SPEAKER_00: You have the authority, you have the power to heal this little girl.
SPEAKER_00: All of those things this woman is is tapping into, pressing into.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus identifies this and says, that's faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's great faith.
SPEAKER_00: Let it be done for you as you want.
SPEAKER_00: And from that moment, her daughter was healed.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible tells the story in a way that is almost offensive.
SPEAKER_00: It tells the story in a way that you have to be willing to follow the master.
SPEAKER_00: Remember um the karate kid, it's like, you know, paint, what is it, wipe on, wipe off, wax on?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, good, you've seen the movie, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: You guys are always so helpful.
SPEAKER_00: There was there was a sense in that kid.
SPEAKER_00: What was his name?
unknown: Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel, right?
SPEAKER_00: Was it Daniel?
unknown: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: I think so.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel's son, that's right, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's coming back to me.
SPEAKER_00: I should remember not to use illustrations I can't remember half of it from.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but there's an offense in it, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's offended.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you having me wax your car and paint your fence?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what does this have to do with karate?
SPEAKER_00: This is slave labor, right?
SPEAKER_00: The same thing is the case with following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There is a part of these stories and a part of our life where it just is like an open loop where it just feels like this doesn't fit God with your kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to just encourage you, there are pieces of your life right now where it's like, that doesn't look like the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: It could be a character quality that you're working on, it could be a habit that you're trying to break, it could be a relationship in your life, it could be your finances, it could be your health, but you look at that thing in your life and you're like, man, that sure doesn't look like Jesus is king in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to encourage you, based off of this woman's story, to persevere for the grace of God, to press in, to go through the process as a follower, not as the dictator of how the process should be.
SPEAKER_00: Because you can either, she could be offended, she could have just been like, I'm out of here, right?
SPEAKER_00: We do that with people sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: She could have done that, and she would have not had a daughter that was healed.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus, Jesus is wild.
SPEAKER_00: This is why, this is one of the stories why I wanted to go through Matthew and the Gospels, is because these stories are weird.
SPEAKER_00: Like, this is like wild that this is how Jesus is.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I commend this text to you, whether you're a new follower of Jesus or you've been walking with him for a while.
SPEAKER_00: As we go through this year, we go into this year, we may want it something to happen faster, we want something different.
SPEAKER_00: And like Jesus wants his kingdom to come on earth.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he tells his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: Pray, pray for my kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He wants that.
SPEAKER_00: So when you look at those things in your world where it doesn't reflect the kingdom, you need to press in for the grace of God and be relentless in your praying for those things.
SPEAKER_00: Don't give up.
SPEAKER_00: Respond back to the riddles that Jesus throws to you and go for it with him.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you, he absolutely loves you, and he loves, but he loves this type of dynamic where he gets to put on display your faith in him and his response back with this miraculous power.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we um just commit this reading of the text to you and our meditation on it.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for um being so different, almost offending our sensibilities.
SPEAKER_00: We repent and say that sometimes we make demands of you for the nice pretty Jesus or the nice customer service Jesus, and we're putting you in a box.
SPEAKER_00: And you're the king, and we're your followers.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, there are things that are also in our life where it could be a demon, it could be Satan's kingdom showing its head rather than your kingdom, or it could just be us or some other human's kingdom, just but you're missing from the picture.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, we pray and ask that you would help us to develop habits and rhythms and character like this Canaanite woman that presses in, that presses forward.
SPEAKER_00: That embodies faith and humility, that you would work by your grace.
SPEAKER_00: And we ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.