[0:00] Please have a seat. If you're new, visiting, I welcome you. My name is BK. I have the pleasure of serving as one of the pastors here.
[0:12] For some of you guys who have been wondering where I've been the last couple of months, I've been recovering. I've had a few ligaments that needed replacement in my ankles, so finally able to stand, and I'm very much looking forward to having this cast off.
[0:31] Actually, my wife is probably more excited because I sleep with it, and I tend to kick in the night, right? So, a lot less bruises on Daniela, but it'll be good for me to sleep and not hear her cry all night, but it's okay.
[0:47] Please turn with me to Mark chapter 7. If you do not have a Bible, please raise your hand, because we are a church that is based in God's Word, and this is where we get our Word from our understanding of life, our understanding of ourselves, and our understanding of future things to come, because we are going to be going through this text, and we're going to be pulling out certain qualities of who Jesus is.
[1:18] So, one of the things that I wanted to do the next couple of weeks is preaching on various sermons found in the gospel that reveal to us both the person and character of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
[1:32] So, once you please have it open to Mark 7, we're going to look at beginning in verse 24. I will read it for you. We'll be going down to verse 30.
[1:48] And from there he, this is Jesus Christ, and his disciples arose and went away to a region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know.
[2:02] Yet he could not be hidden. But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
[2:22] And he said to her, Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. But she answered him, Yes, Lord.
[2:35] Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. And he said to her, For this statement you may go your way. The demon has left your daughter.
[2:45] And she went home and found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone. If you didn't know it, there are certain stages to the ministry of Jesus Christ.
[2:59] In Mark, it begins in chapter 1. And after the baptism of John, he reveals what his quote-unquote mission is. It's to preach the word of God, call people to repent, so that they would come into the kingdom of God.
[3:15] So during that time, he travels all the way through the northern region of Israel, which is called Galilee. And he's preaching to a great many crowds. So here's a map of where he generally preaches.
[3:28] It's basically kind of that big little blue thing in the middle. That's his area. That's his turf. But then there's a point in the ministry of Jesus Christ where he begins to shift his focus from preaching to the crowds, and he realizes he needs to begin to prepare his disciples.
[3:49] Because he understands at this time in the text, six months from now, he will grow to the cross. And on that cross, he will die and bear the wrath, the burden of our sins.
[4:01] He will rise again, and then he will go into the Father. And guess who's left with the responsibility of taking Jesus' word to the world?
[4:12] The apostles, right? And as we know, the apostles have a few foibles. There's certain things that they're having a hard time understanding. So in this time, we are going to be looking at a text where Jesus is actually using this as a primary lesson to teach his apostles an important message about the word of God, about this gospel that he has been preparing.
[4:40] So take a look in your Bibles. It says, verse 24, from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. You can go back just a quick second on that, Ryan. As you know, on the map, we're going to cross over.
[4:52] So that's no easy journey. Just, I'll get to that other one in a second. But Jesus Christ had never left the region of Galilee to such an extent before.
[5:05] So instead of traveling south into Jewish territory, he actually makes his way north, which will end up being about 120, 150 mile journey through mountain passes.
[5:16] It's about 2,600 feet up, another 2,000 feet down and across. Scholars believe that this is a trip that would have taken maybe a couple of weeks, a couple of months if he's got a cast on like me.
[5:29] But, you know, he would have eventually got there, right? So two questions that we ask. Why did Jesus feel the need to leave Galilee?
[5:40] And of all places, why is he choosing to go to Tyre? Well, why is he leaving Galilee? I've already kind of answered that question. He wants a place where he can train his apostles.
[5:54] Remember, everywhere he'd go, there'd be crowds and crowds. Remember Mark chapter 2 when he heals the paralytic? He's actually coming to Peter's house for some rest.
[6:05] And before he basically gets in the door, there's a large crowd around the house. They want to see miracles. They want to hear him teach. There's just this ebb of excitement which doesn't lean towards doing some proper teaching, getting some downtime, and having this time together.
[6:26] So now we read that he's going to Tyre and Sidon. This is a purposeful decision. So what is so significant about Tyre?
[6:38] Let me give you an analogy about what it was like for Jesus Christ to go to Tyre. It's like a modern day Jew who lives in Israel saying, I'm going to Mecca for my vacation.
[6:53] Right? Or if you can relate back to the 80s, it's like an American saying, hey, I'm going to go vacation in Moscow. Right? There is this, it is a place that is exceptionally non-friendly to Jews.
[7:10] In fact, writers tell us that Tyre was an evil city. In fact, it was so bad that the prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah denounced it.
[7:25] If you're familiar with your Old Testament history, do you guys remember Jezebel? Jezebel, the one who tortured God's prophets. She married the king Ahab.
[7:35] They said there was no more wicked person in the world than her. That's her hometown. All right? So it was the place where the person who had done more evil in the eyes of God, it's like a Jew saying, I want to go vacation in Auschwitz.
[7:53] It's just a horrible, horrible place. It was also the center and source of Baal worship. The false worship that corrupted and polluted the northern king of Israel to the point that God punished them with exile.
[8:10] And eventually he did it to all of Israel. In fact, 200 years before, Tyre fought on the side of the Greek Empire against Israel, the Maccabeans, to help the foreign nations take over Israel.
[8:29] The Jewish historian Josephus says, they were notoriously our bitterest enemies. So by this time, it's a Greek, pagan, foreign culture ruled by Rome.
[8:44] Let's continue in verse 24. And it said, he had entered a house and did not want anyone to know.
[8:56] But yet it said, he could not be hidden. So here's Jesus Christ going in with this intention not to be known. Yet people recognize him.
[9:07] They've heard of him. We're going to take a look at Mark chapter 3, which I put up here, verses 7 and 8. This is earlier in Mark. And notice it said that Jesus withdrew with his disciples to the sea and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea, Jerusalem and Edomia, which is down to the southwest, and from beyond the Jordan, from around Tyre and Sidon.
[9:31] When the great crowd heard all he was doing, they came to him. So basically, the fame of Jesus has now gone into enemy territory.
[9:43] People who hated Jews and everything about Israel were now talking about this great prophet, this great rabbi. And in fact, they were now coming down into Israel to hear him, to see him with their own eyes.
[9:59] And now take a look at verse 25. But immediately, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came down and fell at his feet.
[10:19] We know what immediate means, right? It means there was no hesitation. She didn't consult her family and friends. Hey, this guy Jesus has come. Do you think I should go visit him? What do you think?
[10:30] What are the pros and cons? It's kind of late at night. I don't know if I want to do that. Maybe after I've done the shopping. No, no. She just goes, right?
[10:40] She hears, he is here. She's gone. And when you read that, she's at his door begging, right? But she's just not any normal woman who comes to Jesus Christ.
[10:58] In fact, one of the commentators said, of all the people in the gospel of Mark to approach Jesus Christ, Christ, this is the person who has the least going for her from a point of acceptance.
[11:15] Take a look at verse 26. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. Just by that, she would have been deemed unqualified, right?
[11:30] So one, she's a woman in a male-dominated society. And what's kind of interesting, entire women were, they had a lot more freedom than they did in Israel.
[11:41] But to a group of Jewish boys that a woman was out on her own without a male family member, completely unheard of, unseen of, no one given her protection.
[11:52] But all of a sudden, this foreign land, this woman is coming to the door. She was a Gentile. She's not one of us. She's not one of God's. People. And it says that she's Syrophoenician.
[12:03] What that means is she's a part of Tyre, but it's a part of the world where fire fought Phoenicia. And if you're familiar with your history, they were a great sailing people, great merchants.
[12:16] Matthew, in the parallel passage, simply states that she was a Canaanite. Remember the Canaanites? When Moses took his people to the river and Joshua took the leadership of Israel, he was to go into Canaan and absolutely wipe out all foreign people.
[12:38] They were false gods. They were idol worshipers. In order to protect God's people, that was the directive. They did not follow it. So this woman isn't even supposed to exist.
[12:51] Her religion is not supposed to exist. Her worship of idols and false gods is not supposed to exist, but it does. And not only that, she has an unclean spirit.
[13:06] Matthew would say that she has a demon-oppressed daughter in her house. Look at verse 26.
[13:18] And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. Matthew 15 records this.
[13:29] She came out and was crying. Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.
[13:42] This whole term of falling down is not a quiet way of begging that we might see on the streets where people put a little sign, I can't work, I'm not, you know, please give.
[13:54] No, this begging is actually almost an imperative. It's like, give me, give me, give me. It's not, please do you have anything. There is this, this command, heal my daughter, heal my daughter.
[14:10] So there's this, this begging. It's this, an attitude of demanding. In fact, the term could be used for like a donkey braying or the cry of a raven.
[14:24] You guys ever try to sleep outside where there's ravens? Trick question, you can't, right? Because they're just, caw, caw, caw, and they just keep you up all the time.
[14:34] So here's Jesus Christ in the house trying to teach his disciples and he's got this, caw, caw, caw. It's driving them nuts.
[14:50] She doesn't say, excuse me, Jesus. Can I have a minute? Maybe when you have time, I'll drop off a pie. No, right? It's just, caw, caw, caw.
[15:03] They can't think. They can't talk. And how does Jesus respond? Matthew 15, 23 tells us, but he did not answer a word.
[15:18] Just silence. This woman banging, begging, yelling, crying, screaming. No response.
[15:32] And here we read in Matthew 15, 23, and his disciples came and begged him. And it's interesting, it's the same type of beg, right? It's imperative.
[15:43] It's an imperative. Jesus, you got to do something about this. You have to, what does they offer? Send her away, for she is crying out after us. It's kind of funny when I was doing that.
[15:55] I was kind of, I thought it was humorous that they were begging him in the same way that she was begging him, right? They're kind of demanding Jesus to do this.
[16:07] Now, there's actually two ways that the disciples could have handled this. The first one is, Jesus, why don't you just go and do what she's asking you to do?
[16:20] Right? You guys are parents. You guys have had kids when they're annoying you. Can I please, please, please, please, please, please, please? And you know what? I'm just going to go, here's the pound of sugar.
[16:32] Go do whatever you want with it, right? You know, you're going to give in just to put it aside, just to give them what they want, turn on the TV. I don't know, let them play outside, or I don't know what kids like to do.
[16:43] But, you just give in, right? And it's not done out of maliciously, but they could have easily said, just heal her. But they don't.
[16:57] They say, even with all her crying, all her begging, everything that's going on out there, they're telling him, send her away.
[17:08] Why? Why is she any different than any other person that has come and begged Jesus for healing? We know.
[17:22] She's a Syrophoenician. She's a part of a hated people that hates us. There is no good in her. Now, this is an important lesson that Jesus is going to show the apostles here.
[17:44] I want you to imagine that you are this woman for a second. All right? Or a man. But you pursued after foreign gods.
[17:58] All right? Here's the punchline to this. How do you think her daughter got possessed? Okay?
[18:11] The Greek term there says it's a little girl. You think it was the little girl messing around with idols and demonic chants and getting into all those sorts of actions?
[18:26] It was the woman who was messing around with false foreign demonic influences and through that her 12-year-old daughter is now possessed.
[18:41] Okay? That is who this woman is as she's coming here. And the term in the Greek that's referring to the daughter, it's not my girl, it's actually an affectionate term.
[18:54] It's like my little baby. It's my precious one. How does she feel? How do you think she feels?
[19:08] I think she feels shame. Right? Can you guys relate to that? I think she feels shame. Have you guys ever felt shame?
[19:20] How about you ever felt a shame? I'm talking about gut-wrenching type of shame that you don't want to go outside or let anybody see you for the fear that they might see your shame.
[19:36] Christian counselor Ed Welch defines this word of shame for us. He said, shame is the deep sense that you are unacceptable because of something you did, something done to you, or something associated with you.
[19:54] you feel exposed and you feel humiliated. In a more extreme terms, he writes, you are disgraced because you acted less than human, you were treated as if you were less than human, or associated with something less than human, and there's witnesses.
[20:17] does anybody here relate to that term shame? Have you ever felt that you were unacceptable, either because of something you did, or someone did to you?
[20:37] I'm going to bet probably. And there's usually two extreme ways we deal with shame. All right?
[20:48] I'm going to tell you a story about how I deal with shame. All right? When I was in university, I was part of Campus Crusade. I've shared that ministry, and we're down on a mission trip down to Daytona Beach, and our whole ministry is walking the beaches, mine was actually playing beach volleyball, make connections with guys, and have an opportunity to share the gospel, right?
[21:13] So being a missionary in Daytona Beach, playing volleyball, that's tough work, right? Right? So we're down there. It's a good time.
[21:24] I'm having the time of my life. I really enjoy it. And we're getting home. We're going to take the bus home. And of course, the group is bigger than usual. And a woman who approaches me, nowhere near as pretty as my wife, but at that time I'm single, comes up to me and says, hey, can I sit on the bus with you?
[21:44] Wow, good looking girl who wants to ride 22 hours from Daytona back to London, Ontario? What am I going to sit with Jack who wants to do knock-knock jokes or Phil and talk about Pokemon?
[21:57] No. Right? Yeah, let's get to know you, right? And so I'm kind of like, why are you here? Well, one of the leaders in the group said that I should get to know you.
[22:10] Great. You know, I wonder what they told her. Right? He's a really great athlete. He's really smart. Man, that guy's got leadership potential. Man, did you see that guy?
[22:22] He was on fire on the beach. Right? You're just hoping something like this that I'm going to earn some type of, I don't know, worship from her, I guess.
[22:35] And she tells me, when I ask her why she's here, she says, oh yeah, one of the leaders said you were from a divorced family. Now, so that's the whole reason why this really good looking girl wanted to sit down with me.
[22:51] It's because I came from a divorced family. Now, you need to understand, for me at the time, and I'll explain, telling me you like me because my parents were divorced is like a girl going to Quasimodo, you know, the hunchback in Notre Dame, you know, and tell him she had a crush on because he had a big hump on his back.
[23:13] Right? This is, you know, the guy who puts the big cowl around it to cover it. He lives in a place where nobody's allowed to go see, there's no lights, there's no mirrors, right?
[23:26] He's totally embarrassed of this. That was me, right? Now, I need you to understand something. Like, if you were to ask any of my friends, and I'm sure if you surveyed some people, and you ever use that term, man, that guy or that girl's got baggage?
[23:46] You've heard of it, right? They've got issues is really what it's saying? That would have been me. That was my baggage. And you might be saying, why is it so bad being divorced?
[23:57] Well, I'm going to tell you why it was so bad being divorced. This is the 80s, okay? My mom gets saved, my dad leaves, then my mom gets saved and we go to a church. We're the only divorced family.
[24:07] I'm the only kid who's got no dad in the whole place, right? So I'm already feeling out of place. I know I'm different. I don't have a biblical background, so I'm feeling kind of awkward.
[24:19] But there was this popular Bible teacher at the time who would go around to these conferences teaching on the family. Some of you guys might know a little bit about him, but he said if you were going to have a holy family, one of the things were you have five kids.
[24:34] Did you know that? Five kids made for a holy family. Why? Because a quiver full of children from Psalms, right? So if you had five kids, you were going to be blessed.
[24:45] As far as I know, if I took that philosophy, I think the Wilsons are the only saved family in the church. Am I right on that? Right? You know? But you had to have at least five, okay? But the other thing that they told you to protect your children, if you wanted to keep your kid pure and keep them safe, don't let them marry someone who came from a divorced family.
[25:09] Why? Because they had this scripture that the sins of the father will be visited on the son. Right? So here I am. Not only do I got feeling weird in church anyway, but I've got this, my own sin that I have to deal with, that I struggle with.
[25:31] Now I'm told that I'm going to have to deal with and pay for my dad's sin. And my dad's sin was pretty bad in my eyes. So now I'm being held accountable for dad's sin. And then I'm told that no matter who I am, what I become, how much I love God, how much I can mature, any woman who marries me will be cursed and our marriage will never last.
[25:55] So when that girl says to me, I'm here because your parents are divorced, boom, that's what I'm feeling right at that moment. just, that relationship I think lasted six hours.
[26:10] Right? Just, it was shame. As much as I tried to hide it, I tried to act differently, but I tried to cover it up. I wouldn't tell people about it, but I covered mine with pride and judgmentalism.
[26:27] So if you were someone who grew up in a home that was together, oh, you were going to get in my crosshairs. Right? Ah, you know what? I know that guy is dating that really cute girl at Campus Crusade, but, I know he's from a Christian home, but, you know, the other day we were in Bible study and I saw the guy looking up Obadiah in the table of contents.
[26:47] What kind of mess of a man is that going to be, right? You know? You just start looking for little things to kind of cut at people that aren't like you. I wanted to be a good leader.
[26:59] I wanted to be a good Christian and I wanted to do those works that would bring me some type of value, but I had this big hump on my back.
[27:11] I'm going to tell you something that judging does. When I start judging other people, I show no grace and I show no mercy. And in the back of my head, you know what I know?
[27:24] If I start dating some girl who comes from a good home, I don't think they're going to give me grace and mercy. I think they're going to judge me because that's what I'm doing to everybody, right?
[27:37] So that's the lenses that you're living through this life. You have this shame. It's my identity and you don't let one in.
[27:48] You don't let truth in. And it's tough. Now the reality is maybe you judge too. Maybe you judge to make yourself feel better, to compare against what you don't have.
[28:05] Today, there was an interesting, or this week, an interesting article about one of the actresses at the Oscars, how she had ethically sourced gold. You know, we see it all the time, right?
[28:20] I only eat free-range chickens, right? It gives me an extra little status, right? I don't take the plane, I take a sailboat across Europe, right?
[28:30] I'm virtue signaling. I'm saying I'm different from you. In fact, I don't even water my lawn. That's how good of a person I am, right? I'm going to save water, right?
[28:44] Fact is, I felt shame, unworthiness, brokenness, and someone's trying to set me up with this person because of this. I fought the lies by my own means.
[28:58] What happens if that shame was my own fault? Maybe it was because of me that my parents divorced. Maybe I was such an irritable, horrible child that dad couldn't take it and I was such a brat that he laughed.
[29:13] Imagine what the shame would be then, right? What happens is we see this a lot. We accept the shame. We start believing that we have no value.
[29:25] We don't go the prideful way that I talked about. We destruct. Yeah, sure, I'll drink. Keep drinking.
[29:36] Drink some more to hide the pain. Maybe I'll do drugs. Maybe I'll go from one horrible relationship to another horrible relationship. Hoping, hoping that maybe there might be a little bit of value found in me, but if not, it's okay because I am a shameful person and I don't deserve anything.
[29:57] Okay. The two things that I'm telling you are two great lies that Satan tells us. Right? I accepted the first lie. Other people accept the second lie. All right?
[30:09] We feel sorry for ourselves. We don't care. Right? We give our bodies, our emotions away for others to use. He's hoping something might happen. So here is this woman.
[30:24] Before God, a Gentile, a Syrophoenician, a pagan worshiper, a child who is possessed because of her false God's worship, an enemy to God's people, begging, crying, pleading over and over.
[30:42] And she says in Matthew 15, 22, have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. Let me ask you a question.
[30:54] Do you feel sorry for her? Do you think in some way she might deserve her shame? that it would be understandable that the disciples would say, her people killed our people.
[31:11] They cursed our people. Why on earth would you want to do that? Okay, let me ask you this question in a different way. Let's just say we have a woman who grows up at this church, very loving, great mom, wife, she has three kids, and all of a sudden she gets struck with this deadly disease.
[31:29] Right? I guarantee you one of the questions that are going to get asked is, why God? Right? We're going to think that there's been some justice has been messed up.
[31:42] Right? We're going to wonder. Now what happens if I told you that there's this other man here in the church who dies of lung cancer, but you find out he's a 10-pack-a-day smoker?
[31:56] Do you ask God why? You probably don't, because in the back of your head, well, the reason he's dead is because he smoked 10 packs a day, right?
[32:12] You don't question God's justice. So you have this scale in your head of what is acceptable to be just before God and what is unacceptable to be just before God.
[32:24] She begs for mercy. Matthew 15, 22. She came out and was crying.
[32:36] Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. She doesn't cite any cultural credentials.
[32:50] She doesn't cite no moral credentials. She doesn't cite any gender credentials. But I want you to pay attention to the words that she says.
[33:02] Have mercy on me. Think about this. If Jesus shows up and you've got a little girl that's sick, who are you going to ask Jesus to have mercy on?
[33:17] You're going to show up with a picture of your little daughter, right? You're going to bring a little video of her. Hey, this is her crawling, playing ball.
[33:29] I know this is the picture of her burning the cat, but she's possessed at that point. Don't, you know, ignore that, right? But, but, you know, you're going to try to sell it that way. She doesn't.
[33:44] She comes to God and she says, have mercy on me. And what is Jesus' response?
[33:56] And this is an incredibly shocking parable in verse 27 of Mark. It says, and he said to her, let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.
[34:14] Okay. Now, if you are a Jew and a lot of culture, there's actually a lot of critics who've actually cited Jesus is actually sinning here because he's calling this woman a dog.
[34:26] All right. Now for the Jew, a dog was a mangy mongrel. Dogs were wild scavengers. They fed on dead things, lived in the dumps.
[34:37] They were unclean and thus to pet a dog rendered you unclean. And if you were unclean, guess who can't go to the temple? You got to go through this whole routine. So dogs were actually a really horrible thing.
[34:51] But she's not a Jew, is she? She's something else. The word that is going to be used here does not mean mangy mongrel. It actually means a cute, loving, faithful ball of fur that brings joy to everyone.
[35:04] How do I know that? This is the Greek word for dog. If you guys don't know, that's the name of my dog. Zeus. But okay, kidding aside.
[35:18] But the term for dog that he used there is a domesticated friendly pet. It is a dog that is a part of your household. King James Version uses the term little dog.
[35:31] So for her, this isn't a Gentile or an insult, right? Jesus is simply stating, is it proper to take some food from your own kids to feed the dog?
[35:44] Of course not, right? We all do it. Do any of you guys starve your dogs? No, right? Do you starve your kids? Of course not. Right?
[35:54] Now if you were only, there's all the food from your kids to feed the dog, there might be something wrong. But the lesson that Jesus is teaching his disciples, the lesson, the whole reason why Jesus comes to Tyre, the whole reason he hears this woman is to say, I love these people too.
[36:14] The blood that I will shed on the cross six months from now will be red enough to cover the shame of this most shameful person.
[36:30] It's not enough, but even the ignorant, even those that willingly came against my people, those that did shameful things or had shameful things done to them, my blood will cover your sin.
[36:51] I am here to give mercy. See, this has been the plan of God since the very beginning. When God called Abraham out of Ur, he called them to be so all the nations of earth will be blessed through him.
[37:12] Joel 2.32 says, and it shall come to pass that everyone, not every Jew, every perfect person who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
[37:28] We know this, right? We know the Old Testaments. We read the story. Remember Naaman, the Syrian general who gets leprosy? God, he gets healed by the prophet.
[37:39] We know the story of Moabitess widow named Ruth. There's a book named after a woman who used to be a foreign person. But the Jews struggled with this.
[37:55] You guys know the story of Jonah. He was told to go bring freedom to Nineveh to a people he hated. And what did he do? He jumped in a boat and went the exact opposite way.
[38:07] Why? He wanted to judge them. What about you? Has there been anybody that you think is outside the goodness of God's grace?
[38:23] The goodness of God's mercy? That you didn't think they were worthy enough? They weren't like you enough. Perhaps they were crude.
[38:36] They swear. Maybe they don't even recycle. Right? But somehow in your standard of justice, they don't measure up.
[38:50] Then again, maybe it's you. Maybe in your heart of hearts, you know you do not measure up. You still feel like the outsider.
[39:02] The hypocrite. You do all the religious things. You hang out with religious people. You come and sing religious songs. But in your heart of hearts, you still feel shame.
[39:12] You still feel... On the outside, you still feel condemned. You know what I say to that? Good.
[39:25] Maybe we need to feel shame for what we've done. But better yet, maybe we need to beg for mercy. Amen? Maybe we need to come to God and say, hey, I have no credentials.
[39:38] I have nothing that I can give to you will provide any value. You see, God just isn't the God of the Jews. He is the God over everyone. He is the Savior of all.
[39:50] The Jew, the Gentile, the Jew, the outsider, the hypocrite, the shameful. Even the child of divorced kids. So this woman who understands that Jesus is Lord, recognizes him as the Son of God, the Son of David, who is the promised Messiah, shows Jesus great understanding.
[40:08] He says, why would I take the food meant for the kids and give it to the dog? Amen. Verse 28, look what she says.
[40:22] Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. We know what that means. We don't feed our dog from the table, but my dog is smart enough to know that the best place to find the choices foods is to hang out on the floor around the table.
[40:42] Right? What she's saying is, yes, I know I am not your priority, but the bread that falls from the table is the same bread. The love you give the Jew is good enough for me.
[40:57] What the disciples did not understand, she perfectly understood. And it's the same very much with us.
[41:10] God's love and forgiveness is not for the just, the ones who have it together, who follow the laws and do well. But God's love is for the shameful, the shameless, the outsider, the one who needs mercy.
[41:29] The great reformer Martin Luther wrote, reality is you are more wicked than you ever believed, but at the same time, you are more loved and accepted than you ever dared to hope.
[41:42] So take a look at Mark 7, 29. He says, And he said to her, For this statement you may go your way. The demon has left your daughter. And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
[41:57] Matthew's parallels this. Then Jesus answered her, Oh woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire.
[42:08] And her daughter was healed instantly. Now I want you to pay attention to how her faith worked. This woman did not come to Jesus saying, If you can heal my daughter, I'll believe in you.
[42:20] The text actually says in the very first verse, Once she heard of Jesus, she believed and came. Do you get that? So by the time she gets there, the reason she's begging is because she knows that he's the one that can do what she needs.
[42:40] She doesn't believe in Jesus Christ because of what he does. She believes in Jesus Christ because of who he is. He's the son of David, the promised Messiah.
[42:54] The one who will bring peace. She's not asking Jesus to try and free her daughter. She heard, she believed, she came. She persisted when Jesus was silent.
[43:05] She reasoned when Jesus spoke. But this is what really happens when she talks about the crumb. She's saying that the most precious gift that you could ever give me, Lord, is this crumb.
[43:26] Because she understands that the mere crumb from the table of Jesus Christ, abundant love and powering, powering, is enough to fill her life forever.
[43:41] Salvation is dependent on two things. Your understanding that God is God and that you are not. And the second thing is, God is the one who brings value to your life and he's the only one who can save you.
[44:00] If you can understand these things, you are in a place of great faith. The great preacher and hymn writer, John Newton, once said, think not of your sin and it leads you to legalism.
[44:15] Think too much of your sin will lead you to despair. You know that word that I use, baggage? He's got baggage.
[44:28] Do you ever wonder why they don't say he's got luggage? Why do they use the word baggage? Right? The reason is, luggage has a purpose.
[44:41] You know, you pack it up, you take it and care it with you. I know some of you guys feel like past events in your life, maybe done to you, or you've done, has added baggage.
[44:54] Baggage is things that go on your back and they weigh you down. They drag. So when you try to do faithful things, they continue to act as an anchor dragging behind you.
[45:09] You know what luggage does? When you put it in, you're carrying it with you as you go and it's used as a tool for wherever God's taken you.
[45:22] See, I had to take that baggage from my parents' divorce. I had to deal with it biblically and put it in a luggage. So now when I'm using that, I now use that in my ministry, which helps me identify with people who are broken in that way.
[45:38] And we all have that in some way, right? There's always stuff there. But we need to understand that we come to Jesus.
[45:50] It doesn't just fix everything. He is the answer that begins with salvation. And then we need to learn and grow in his wisdom that comes from the word of God. So this woman comes to the right God.
[46:04] She comes with the right humility, the right brokenness, the right penitence, the right desperation, the right respectfulness, the right persistence, and even the right shame.
[46:17] My only question to ask you is, will you as well? Will you let Jesus begin the transformation process in your life that's been dragging you down as well?
[46:33] Let me pray. Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, we just read this incredibly loaded story that challenges us at the core of our being.
[46:45] In this woman, we see this person who's broken, who knows of her wickedness and her shame, and she knows that there's nothing that she can fix. It's not like she showed up at the house and says, hey, can I serve you meals?
[46:59] Can I clean up after you all? I'll make your beds. I will vacuum for you. Anything to gain your favor.
[47:12] We all think that way, Lord. We always get trapped in that lie that we have to clean ourselves up. But Father, as we know in you, we can simply come and say, have mercy on me, for I am a sinner.
[47:28] No excuses. No reasons why I did what I did or felt like I felt. I just humbly became you saying, before you saying, Lord, I need you.
[47:43] For those who think they do not know Jesus, Lord, I pray that you would protect them from the consequences of their ignorance. For as John Newton wrote, it is just as much rejection of the love of God to refuse to seek him, to refuse to come after his mercy, to refuse to accept it, to refuse to be content with it.
[48:07] It is as if to say, I'm too good for it. Father, I pray that the song that we sing right now would truly be an echo of our heart.
[48:18] In your name, amen. Amen. God bless you, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[48:31] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
[48:41] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.