[0:00] This evening at verses 21 to 28, the account we have here of this anonymous woman, simply called a woman of Canaan, who came and cried out after Jesus and the amazing and interesting way in which Jesus dealt with her.
[0:17] Now we're looking at a short series of studies of encounters with Christ, and while there are many features that these incidents have in common, there is nevertheless substantial difference in many of them as we compare them.
[0:34] And this one has some features that are quite like the previous one when we looked at Bartimaeus, the blind man that Jesus met on the way out of Jericho, and as we saw, healed as he cried out after him.
[0:48] Well, this woman too cried out after Jesus. But in many ways, this is a unique way of dealing with this type of appeal by a person such as this woman.
[1:00] As we'll see, there are features of the passage that really make it quite unique in the way that Jesus went about dealing with her, and of course that means that there are points there that we need to take up and apply to ourselves and our experience of the Lord's dealings with us, and how we need to add to that and find as our experience goes on in the way the Lord treats us and the Lord deals with us, that we learn more and more to trust in him despite the fact that in many ways we come sometimes to fail to understand just why he does things in his own way.
[1:37] Well, he comes here to this district. We read here he came from the previous district he was in, where he was especially dealing with the scribes and the Pharisees and where he denounced them.
[1:49] And we read in verse 21, he went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Now, this was a district which wasn't Jewish. There'd be some Jews living there, but just Tyre and Sidon was essentially a pagan area.
[2:03] It was really, you might say, a Canaanite area, and that ties up with references to Canaanites, and this Canaanite woman ties up with references to the Canaanites in the Old Testament, as they were traditional enemies of Israel.
[2:18] So all of that comes to a head, really, in a sense, in the way that Jesus deals with this woman. So this area was a pagan area. This was not a Jewish area. This wasn't a place other than idolatrous.
[2:30] They didn't worship the God that Jesus had come to reveal, and yet she came out after Jesus. There's a lesson, even in that itself, for us to encourage us, that where you would not expect someone to come and cry out after Jesus for help, yet that's exactly what you find.
[2:50] And there are many people around us tonight who may not be, in our estimation, people who would look to Jesus and cry out for help to God. But we don't know what's going on in their hearts.
[3:02] We don't know just what exactly their thinking is. And sometimes you find that people who may seem outwardly to be totally disinterested or even actually antagonistic to Christ may have a crisis of conscience going on in their lives.
[3:18] They may deep down be seeking after God or answers to the deep questions of life. And for all we know, and we have to also remember this in treating, in dealing with them and in trying to come alongside them, that there may be things and issues in their lives that explain why they are the way they are outwardly.
[3:39] Maybe trying to cover for what they actually are feeling inside. Well, here's this woman, this Canaanite woman, came from that region and came out and was crying after Jesus.
[3:55] Now, three things we want to notice from the passage, and we'll build a few points around these three headings. First of all, she cried out to Jesus for help. That's a very simple point, but there's a lot in the fact that anyone cries out to Jesus for help.
[4:12] Secondly, she persevered despite setbacks. And we'll actually see that most of the setbacks, so-called, came from Jesus himself.
[4:27] They were barriers, they were hurdles that she needed to overcome. Not that Jesus didn't know what he was doing. Not that Jesus was doing this deliberately to discourage her.
[4:37] But he was leading her, as we'll see, to the point where her faith eventually came through strongly. And where, in fact, it was commended by Jesus himself.
[4:48] So everything that Jesus did with her was deliberate on his part. It was something that had his whole thought and his will in it. And that's because he knew so well this woman and her situation and her heart and her needs, as he does with all of ourselves.
[5:07] So she cried out to Jesus for help. And she persevered despite setbacks. And that's going to be the main part of our study. And thirdly, just in conclusion, she received praise or commendation from Christ in a way that is almost unique in the New Testament.
[5:27] There's indeed only one other instance where Jesus says this sort of thing, O woman, great is your faith. Jesus marveled more than once over unbelief in certain areas among certain people that he visited and spoke to.
[5:44] And they saw his miracles. He marveled at their unbelief. And Mark, in one occasion, tells us he could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief. But here is the opposite.
[5:55] Here is a commendation by Jesus over this woman's faith. She cried out to Jesus for help. Now we're told what her situation was, which is helpful for us to understand where she was coming from and what sort of situation brought her to cry out after Jesus.
[6:13] We have that in the plea or the appeal she made. Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed with a demon or by a demon.
[6:26] We saw a couple of studies ago of Legion, the man who was possessed by devils, out of whom Jesus cast these devils and brought them to sit at his feet in his right mind, as of course he should have been.
[6:41] But here is Jesus dealing with a similar situation, oppressed by a demon, she says. My daughter is severely oppressed by it. That was a situation she had at home. That's what she was living with.
[6:54] That's why she came to Christ with this appeal for help. We all have situations that sometimes are difficult. We sometimes, some of yourselves may have situations that are simply ongoing.
[7:10] Difficulties in your home situation, in your family lives, in your wider family life, your neighborhood, somebody you know as a friend. But an ongoing difficulty, an ongoing stressful situation.
[7:23] Well, just imagine if you can, as far as we can, the stress that this woman would be under. Here she was with her precious daughter, severely oppressed by a demon. That's all it says.
[7:34] We get clues from other references in the Gospels as to what sort of life people lived, if they were possessed by demons, which was the case in those days, as we see in the Gospels.
[7:48] The demon would sometimes make them do things which were just anguished, things which caused them hurt, which caused others hurt as well. Well, we can imagine that maybe something like that was in this daughter of this woman as well, that she had, but she in any case had this daughter, an ongoing stressful traumatic situation.
[8:09] And we can imagine that perhaps she had looked for help elsewhere amongst her own people. Nothing had been successful if she had done so.
[8:21] And she would probably have heard about Jesus as he actually spoke near that region. We read in chapter 12, for example, and at verse 15, that he actually went and preached in these areas, chapter 12 and at verse 15, where you read Jesus as a way of this withdrew from there, and many followed him, and he healed them all, and ordered them not to make him known.
[8:51] If you compare that, it's one of the things that we really benefit from having the three Gospels that are so often like each other and give us just different details about some of these events.
[9:03] If you compare that with Mark chapter 3 and verses 7 and 8, we are sure that that's the same circumstance or same situation. Mark chapter 3, verses 7 and 8, So he was drawing people to listen to him, even from within these pagan regions of Tyre and Sidon, as he went near to those areas.
[9:39] We don't read that he actually went into them, but this woman must have heard, or we think she would have heard of him, because she cried out after him, O Lord, Son of David! That's exactly the same description that Bartimaeus, the blind beggar, as we saw last time, that he cried out, Jesus, the Son of David, have mercy on me.
[9:58] And look how like it is to this. Have mercy on me, she said, O Lord, Son of David. Now we saw that was a messianic title that was given as Jesus the Messiah promised in the Old Testament.
[10:10] And so that title belongs to him as the Savior. That doesn't mean that this woman understood at that moment everything that was meant by that title, any more than Bartimaeus did at the beginning of things.
[10:24] But she had heard of him in these terms. And because she had heard of him in these terms, and perhaps had seen or heard about the miracles that he was able to do and had done elsewhere, well, she came, and this was her cry.
[10:37] Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David. My daughter is grievously oppressed with a demon. Who can understand a mother's situation in that context?
[10:56] Who can understand, other than mothers themselves, situations that cause them distress over and above us men or males.
[11:09] Because there are situations when women actually, especially as mothers, have situations where their offspring, their children, cause in some way or other distress or stress to them, or they are anxious about them in a way that is really indicative of that strong bond between the mother and the child that she has brought into the world and carried in her womb before this.
[11:36] And so you can imagine why she cried out and why it's saying that she cried out, that she was crying out to Jesus. It doesn't just mean weeping. She was crying out in this anguished way and making her appeal to Christ in this anguished way.
[11:52] Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. She was bringing her daughter's situation to Christ.
[12:05] And that's a great privilege that we all as parents and grandparents continue to have. What a privilege it is that God has given us that we know that we should and can bring our children to the Lord, that we can bring them in our prayers to the Lord, that can make our appeal to Christ about them, not just when they've got some crisis in their lives, not just when they've got some illness or something traumatic happening to them or in some danger.
[12:36] This is a privilege we have as parents and grandparents on an ongoing basis. We can bring our families, our children, as Job did with his family and pray for them and commend them to God and actually seek God's mercy and grace for them.
[12:56] And we sometimes don't stop really, as we should, to think what a great privilege that is. Thousands, millions of parents in the world tonight who never pray for their children.
[13:07] Who never think to bring their children before God in prayer. Who never teach their children to pray. Who never bring them into a context of worship. But you're not like that. You have that privilege.
[13:18] You know the benefit of having the gospel in your heart and therefore of bringing your children before the Lord. But even then, even if they're not our own children, we can see that this woman is actually making somebody else's case virtually her own.
[13:35] Because she's saying, Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David. She's not just saying, Have mercy on my daughter, for she is severely oppressed by a demon.
[13:49] She's making this really personal to herself as well because she's so bound up, of course, with her daughter's condition and her daughter's need that she's saying to Jesus, Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David.
[14:02] What a great privilege that is as well. When we're praying for others, we're not just doing it out of a matter of formality or because we know it's just the right thing to do.
[14:15] They're on our hearts. And we have to seek that people will be placed on our hearts by God, that we will come meaningfully to pray for them, that we'll make their case our case and bring that to God.
[14:28] We have a huge privilege as Christians of access to God in prayer to make the case of other people, even if they don't themselves come to God personally.
[14:41] We can go to God for them. We can bring them to Jesus. We can lay their case before Him. We can do it in the privacy of our thoughts, of our minds, of prayers.
[14:52] And that's what she's doing. Have mercy. And you see what she's saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David. When she says, Have mercy on me, she's conscious to some degree at that point that she doesn't have any right to claim the help of Jesus.
[15:14] She's not coming before Jesus and saying, Look, I have a right to your help and I'm insisting on my rights. Lord, this is surely what you need to give attention to.
[15:27] This is what I'm insisting on. She realizes, I have no rights in the presence of God, in the presence of you, Lord, the Son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.
[15:38] I'm casting myself on your mercy. It takes us, most of us, quite a long time in life to learn that our rights are actually just part of our selfishness.
[15:51] I don't mean that in the sense that we don't have some human rights that are shared out amongst all human beings. But actually, before God, we have to ask, What right do we have to His mercy?
[16:04] What right do we have to His blessing? What right do we have to His salvation? We've forfeited all our rights when we sinned against Him. But we have mercy in God to meet us.
[16:15] That's the psalm, isn't it? Psalm 130. We sing it, we quote it so often. Lord, if you should mark iniquity, if you are to write down in your logbook all that is to do with my sin, with my iniquity, and what is deserved, who could stand?
[16:32] But there is mercy, there is forgiveness, there is loving kindness with you. Isn't it a wonderful thing when you go on your knees and you come to pray to God that you are aware that you are conscious, not just in your mind and in your heart, but in your conscience as well, that you are actually going to meet with mercy.
[16:56] That you are meeting with the God who describes Himself in His words so often as abundant in mercy, with a fullness of pardon. So she comes and she says, Lord, have mercy on me.
[17:13] My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. And that's our great privilege tonight. We know that the Lord is merciful, that He has things to give us that we don't deserve, but that in mercy He will receive us and give these to us in His redemption, and His salvation.
[17:37] She cried out to Jesus for help. But secondly, she persevered despite setbacks. You see, immediately after she said this, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David, then verse 23 really hits you, but He did not answer her a word.
[17:56] That's strange. That's not like Jesus. That's not what you expect from the Lord, the Son of David. You expect Him immediately to say something different to this, or at least to say something.
[18:12] But she's met with a silent Christ. That's her first test. That's her first surprise, if you like, or setback.
[18:23] He did not answer her a word. What's she going to do? Is He just going to turn around and heal, and be disappointed, and say, Well, He's not the kind of person I thought, and He's not the kind of person others told me about.
[18:43] That's not the kind of Jesus that I was told about, so I don't want anything else to do with Him. I've tried, and He's silent to me, and therefore that's not the kind of Savior I want. You see, as we said, He's dealing with her step by step, so that her faith will gradually, increasingly, mount over these setbacks, and come out finally in the luster of its fullness, as He commends her faith for her eventually.
[19:10] So, maybe that's the case indeed with yourself as well. Few of us, if any of us, have our prayers answered instantly, or have our prayers answered as we ourselves think they should be answered.
[19:26] And there are many times when we come and pray for something, and it seems that we're dealing with a silent Christ, an unresponsive Christ, a Jesus who's not interested in us, a Jesus who doesn't hear us, or doesn't want to listen to what we're saying.
[19:43] Then, of course, we have to think that He is the wise Savior, He is the one who knows how we should have our case dealt with. That's the beauty of looking at these encounters with Christ.
[19:55] There's such a variety of ways in which Jesus dealt with people because He knows exactly who they are, where they're coming from, what their need is, and how they should be dealt with.
[20:05] And nobody else can do that but this Jesus. And He's like that to this day. If you were to actually listen to all the voices in this building tonight, coming to appeal for help, in all the variety of need that is represented there in you as an individual compared to the other individuals here, you cannot imagine that Jesus is simply going to take a standard template in the way of dealing with needy sinners and He's going to apply that to everybody in exactly the same way.
[20:33] No, He needs, He knows your needs and He deals with you accordingly. He knows your personality. He knows every single thing about the way you think, the way your aspirations are said, everything about us inwardly and in the privacy of our own hearts even, Christ knows.
[20:51] And so He begins here, He did not answer her a word. So what does she do? Well, she actually presses on. That's what we need to take note of here as well.
[21:04] If we feel that Christ somehow is silent towards us, don't turn around and go back from Him. Press on, go back again. even more boldly as this woman does.
[21:16] But before we come to that, there's something else. That's a setback. The disciples then came and begged Him saying, send her away for she's crying out after us. She's met with a silent Christ.
[21:29] Now she's meeting with a selfish church. Here's a woman in need. Here's a woman who's crying out after Jesus and all the disciples can do it. Really, that's the church of the time, at least in miniature and the disciples that are with Jesus there.
[21:45] They say, well, send her away for she's crying out after us. Now, if you give them the benefit of the doubt, which we will do, it's not easy to really know exactly what they meant by that and we're not saying all they wanted to do was just be rid of this woman without Jesus doing anything for her.
[22:02] We're not going to say that. That may have been the case. But let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt to the extent that they're really asking Jesus to give her what she wants.
[22:17] But you see, it's just so that they'll be rid of her. She's annoying. She's a bit of a nuisance. She's interfering with the company of disciples as she keeps crying out after Jesus.
[22:29] And even if they do want Jesus to do for her what she is asking of him and pleading for, it's really to the extent that they want her sent away. What an important point that is in itself.
[22:47] We must never put our own comforts ahead of people seeking Christ. We must never deal with people in a way that just simply treats them as somewhat annoying or plead that Jesus will do what they are actually in need of, but that we won't want any more part in their lives or anything else to do with them.
[23:14] There are people that have constant problems that will come to seek access to help through ourselves, not just ministers, but yourselves. We never want to be like these disciples in this situation.
[23:29] And even if they did want help for this woman in the way she wanted, they really did want rid of her. They really wanted to put her away for Jesus to send her away in a way that would no longer interfere with their lives.
[23:44] It's not why Jesus has established us as a people, as a congregation, as Christians. That's not why he saved us. That's not why he showed mercy to us. That's not why he made us as disciples.
[23:56] but so that we would as far as we possibly can by his help. Be patient. Be long-suffering. Be the way he was. And not think of our own comforts ahead of the needs of other people who may come to us for help.
[24:13] And that's a lesson from that point itself for us. So she met with a silent Christ and she met with a selfish church. And then she met thirdly, with what we can call a specific salvation.
[24:29] Because the matter doesn't get easier for her. You would think, well, it's bad enough meeting with a silent Christ and then meeting with a selfish church. But surely Jesus is now going, knowing what's happened, surely Jesus is now going to make the going a bit easier for her and come to actually draw her into answering her prayer and her plea.
[24:50] Well, he answered and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And there's another setback for her as she's trying to get access to his help.
[25:03] Here is Jesus saying, you're crying after me. You're a Canaanite woman. I know who you are. I know you're from a pagan background. I have come only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
[25:14] I was sent to them, to the people of Israel, to the Jewish people. That's my priority, he's saying to her. That's why I came into the world. In the meantime, that's my position. I'm sent to these people.
[25:26] I'm dealing with these people, the lost sheep of the house of Israel. You're not one of them. You're a Canaanite. That's really the implication as far as she's concerned of what he's saying.
[25:36] And you might think, well, surely now she's going to be put off. Surely now she's going to give up. Surely now she's going to find offense with this and say about Jesus, that's it, I'm done.
[25:55] I'll go somewhere else. But that's not how faith works. That's not how real desire after Jesus works. Despite the setbacks, she then comes and kneels before him and said, Lord, help me.
[26:13] It's in a specific act of worship, really, when you look at it. She came, she knelt before him, not just in a way of still pleading with him more to help her, but actually in an attitude of worship, it seems.
[26:26] She's there on her knees, acknowledging him, as indeed the Lord, Son of David, as she's called him. And that as she begs for help, you might think, well, surely that's it.
[26:41] Surely the Lord is not going to put any more barriers before this woman. Look at what she's had already to surmount. Look at the way that she's overcome these setbacks up to now. And she's now in the presence of the Lord on her knees and she's saying, Lord, help me.
[26:56] And he says, it's not right to take the children's bread and to throw it to the dogs. Now, you mustn't think that Jesus is calling her a dog because she's not a Jew.
[27:10] What Jesus is doing is taking illustration from an ordinary household where there are pet dogs around the table as the family are involved in a meal.
[27:24] And just as is often the case, especially then, with such an open house from the street outside and the dogs there around the table and people eating very often by hand, some of it would be spilled onto the floor.
[27:39] Some of the crumbs, some of the food that would be on the table specifically for the family would actually spill onto the floor and the dogs would lick that up and eat that up. And that's what Jesus was saying.
[27:51] The bread that's there for the children, in other words, I've come for the people of Israel, that's what the bread, that's where the bread is for. It's for these people. It wouldn't be right for me to take that bread and to cast it to the dogs as if in an ordinary setting in a household you would see somebody coming to a table with food for those around the table of the family and then just throw it on the floor to the dogs.
[28:17] He's saying it's not right, it wouldn't be proper, that wouldn't be fitting. And what a test that is. Silent Christ, a selfish church, a specific salvation to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
[28:34] How the children spread, he said, it's not right to take that and just cast it to dogs just to put it out beyond the children. And then she said, yes, Lord.
[28:49] I want you to listen to these words. Yes, Lord. Because there's so much packed into these two words.
[29:02] What she's doing by saying, yes, Lord, and we'll see what she adds to that, but these very words themselves, yes, Lord, show that she's accepting of everything that Jesus has said up to this point.
[29:15] That she's prepared to go along with every single word he said and he's saying, yes, Lord, everything you say is just as it should be. And I accept that and I bow before that.
[29:29] But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. There is the woman's, if you like, the insight that she has into the imagery that Jesus used.
[29:44] She caught on to the image that he used of a family sitting around the table and sometimes crumbs going on the floor and the dogs coming and actually having something from these crumbs. She caught on to that as an illustration.
[29:57] She said, yes, I accept all that, Lord, everything you've said. The children, yes, the food belongs to them. You came to the people of Israel. But just as in the ordinary sense where crumbs fall onto the floor, Lord, even if you have some crumbs to give after you fed the children, that'll be enough for me.
[30:14] and you would need to have faith to reach that far having had all of these setbacks and be able to pick out that point and say, yes, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table.
[30:37] Christ's overflow, if you like, will do for her. If there's anything like, well, the words really could be taken in different ways of describing what is built into them spiritually and theologically is really saying, well, Lord, feed the children and if there's anything left over, that's fine for me.
[30:57] Do you have that view of Christ tonight? That sees him as so precious to you that even the very crumbs that he might dispense to your soul would do you.
[31:12] Because a crumb from Christ is full of life. And even if you say of yourself, Lord, I don't deserve anything more than that.
[31:22] I don't need anything more than just that you help me in the way that you know my need. Whatever you do for others, whatever you're able to do in an even greater way for others, whatever you have to give to others, do that, but please, even if there's a crumb, that will suffice for me.
[31:39] If it's from your hand, if it's your crumbs, if it's from your table, I'll take that. That'll be sufficient. That's our faith.
[31:51] That's our view of what Christ can do. You know, I don't know if it's right, really, to speak of the least that we can get from Christ. Because everything you get from Christ is never small.
[32:04] it's always great, it's always life, it's always to be described in maximums rather than minimums. But if you can use the language, the least that Christ will give to her will be full of life for her.
[32:23] And tonight, you may say of yourself, I'm no great person. I don't deserve much from his hand. But I know that if he gives me even a crumb from the gospel, it'll be life to my soul.
[32:43] Matthew Henry, there's a comment here which is worth thinking of. Here's what he says. Many of the methods of Christ's providence and especially of his grace in dealing with his people, which are dark and perplexing, may be explained with the key of this story, which is for that end left upon record to teach us that there may be love in his face and to encourage us though he slay us yet to trust in him.
[33:14] Of course, he's saying this, we said all along that Christ was bringing this woman through these stages of her experience and through these setbacks and overcoming the setbacks one after another.
[33:26] She came eventually, as we'll see, to hear this commendation, O woman, greatest your faith. And Henry, Matthew Henry was really saying that when you take the passage and when you apply it to the difficult and dark incidents and events of life, then this passage is left for us in the scriptures to teach us that there is love in the face of Christ even when he seems to be dealing with us harshly and not answering our petitions and leaving us to surmount more setbacks before finally he comes to assure us of his love.
[34:01] I mentioned to you the American Christian songwriter Ellie Holcomb whose songs are really worth having.
[34:13] They're full of very deep experience and that's drawn from her own experience and there was one occasion when she and a group of her friends were going through very traumatic experiences together.
[34:25] one of her friends having expected a child and was pregnant but the child died within a year within a day rather of its birth and they weren't even able to take the child home.
[34:42] You can imagine the trauma of that that some mothers have to experience and maybe ask questions well why? Why did this happen? Why did the Lord ordain that for me?
[34:52] and we know people close to ourselves who have had and have that trauma and at the same time as that another of her friends who couldn't have children herself because of medical reasons she hoped to adopt a child and they had set up all the processes for that and the woman that was carrying the child and was putting it up for adoption for whatever reason I don't know but that child was premature and the woman miscarried and was never brought into the world as a living child and all of that was shared by this group with Ellie Colcombe and her friends and instead of that that she wrote a song that she called Red Sea Road and one of her albums in fact is called after that song Red Sea Road and she takes the imagery of the Red Sea and God parting the Red Sea when all seemed to be lost for the people of Israel the Red Sea ahead of them mountains on each side and the hosts of the Egyptians closing in fast behind them and Moses as he lifted up his rod and said stand still and see the salvation of the Lord and the seas parted and she called it
[36:09] Red Sea Road and part of it goes like this this is after the bereavement and the sorrow and the loss that I mentioned we buried dreams laid them deep into the earth behind us said our goodbyes at the grave but everything reminds us God knows we ache when he asks us to go on how do we go on then she has this chorus we will sing to our souls we won't bury our hope where he leads us to go there's a Red Sea Road when we can't see the way he will part the waves and we'll never walk alone down a Red Sea Road we will never walk alone down a Red Sea Road and that's what this woman found out for herself this anonymous woman of Canaan she came to that
[37:09] Red Sea Road when all seemed lost when all hope seemed gone when it seemed that she was never going to get through these setbacks these difficulties these barriers that were set in her way this is eventually what she came through to Jesus answered her oh woman great is your faith be it done for you as you desire and her daughter was healed instantly or literally from that hour now there's only one other instance where that's said in script where Jesus said this that's in Matthew chapter 8 and at verse 10 and that too was somebody who wasn't a Jew it was actually the faith of a centurion and where he too had somebody who was ill his servant was paralyzed at home really suffering terribly and Jesus dealt with him in a way that brought a cure to him he said go let it be done as you have received and Jesus actually commended the faith of that person truly I tell you with no one in Israel have I found such faith and that's what he did with this woman too woman great is your faith we stand and admire that faith tonight faith overcoming setbacks setbacks faith overcoming setbacks in the arrangement with which Jesus arranged her life for that short time at least faith overcoming setbacks as we apply that to the setbacks of life but if you're perplexed that he said to this woman great is your faith and you yourself are saying well I don't have great faith well work at it might come to be great faith one day but what's essential for you now is to have real faith faith in Christ trust in him the faith that unites you to him the faith that draws help from him you have to begin with real faith and move on you hope to it becoming great faith may God bless his word to us again let's conclude by singing to God's praise we're singing from Psalm number 62
[39:43] Psalm 62 and verses 5 to 8 that's page 294 again in the Scottish Psalter tune this time is Amazing Grace 62 verses 5 to 8 my soul wait thou with patience upon thy God alone on him dependeth all my hope and expectation he only my salvation is and my strong rock is he he only is my sure defense I shall not move it be these verses 6 5 to 8 to God's praise my soul wait thou with patience upon thy God alone come in the land that
[40:47] OH tego my hope and expectation he only my Only my salvation is, and my strong rock is He.
[41:20] He only is my sure defense. I shall not prove it be.
[41:39] In God my glory, blessed is, and my salvation sure.
[41:58] In God the rock is of my strength, my refuge most secure.
[42:17] Ye people, praise your confidence, and Him continually.
[42:38] Before Him, full, ye now pure heart, God is our refuge high.
[42:58] I'll go to this side or to my right this evening. Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you now and evermore.
[43:10] Amen.