Father, we think we know our hearts, but we don't really.
We keep surprising ourselves.
And Father, we don't always know how we have unworthy thoughts of you.
And we don't always realize how proud and self-centered we are.
We don't always realize, Father, how easy it is for us to think that we are your judge
and that you do not measure up to our standards.
So, Father, we ask that your Holy Spirit would do a wonderful work in us this morning,
that your Holy Spirit would use your word to reveal our true hearts to ourselves.
And as you revealed our true hearts to ourself,
Father, may you bring Jesus close to us, ever closer.
May you bring his word close to us,
that he might form our hearts, heal our hearts,
so that we might perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name.
And this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
Please be seated.
So, we have a text that seems to talk about demons.
Not seems to, does in fact talk about demons.
And it seems as if to Canadian,
and I think I know we have at least one person from the great United States of America with us.
I think for most Americans, most Canadians, probably anybody from any of the Western world,
it seems in this story as if Jesus is rude, ill-mannered, unfeeling,
and it's very troublesome to us.
If you think about it for a second,
if I was to give you as an assignment
that you had to share this text with your next-door neighbors,
or your co-workers,
or some of the people you go to school with,
it would be something that you wouldn't actually look forward to doing,
because it's a text of the Bible
that doesn't seem to put Jesus in a very good light,
and it would put us sort of on the wrong foot.
So, we're going to look at the text.
But just before we look at the text,
there's a couple of things that we need to sort of clear out of the way.
And the first one is,
so it's in Matthew chapter 15.
It'd be good if you could find it in your Bibles.
It's the very first book in the New Testament,
Matthew chapter 15, verse 21.
Matthew 15, 21.
And the first thing to remember about this
is that what we're reading here
is it looks all fancy like it's a Bible,
but it's an eyewitness biography of Jesus.
That's what this is.
It's an eyewitness biography of Jesus.
If you could put up the first point, Andrew,
that would be very helpful.
Matthew was a very, very bad man.
He would be,
if you could just imagine
that you found out,
basically what he did is
the Romans had invaded
and taken over the Jewish people,
and they needed some Jewish people
who knew how Jewish people thought
and how they hid money
and who had money and who didn't
and how to know if somebody had money
and how to know if they didn't.
And so they would get Jewish people
who could figure that stuff out
and they would hire them
to help them collect taxes from people.
And the Jewish people
that they put in this position
to collect taxes for the Romans,
the Romans basically knew
that they'd be very greedy.
And so what they basically said is,
listen, you have this territory,
let's say it's Jerusalem,
and let's say we need a million dollars
in taxation from Jerusalem this year,
but all we care about is a million dollars.
If you collect 1.5 million
or 2 million or 3 million,
the rest of it's yours
as long as we get our million dollars.
And that's what the tax collectors would do.
They would figure out who had the money,
they would use the force of the state
to collect the money,
but they'd always collect more money
than the Romans asked for
and they would pocket it themselves.
So they were basically making money
for their oppressors
and pocketing lots of money for themselves.
And that's who Matthew was.
Matthew was a person who had done that
for his living for quite a few years
until one day he met Jesus
and his life was completely
and utterly turned around.
And what we're reading here
is an ancient biography
written by an eyewitness
while eyewitnesses were still alive.
And so Matthew in his claim,
there's some people in our culture,
I can think of many people
that I have conversations with.
If I was to look at this text,
beyond the apparent rudeness of Jesus,
their eyes would roll up like this about demons.
And I'm going to talk about that in a moment.
But the main thing we have to understand
is that what Matthew was claiming
is that he is writing
a true story about Jesus
and a real miracle.
That's the very first thing
we have to understand.
We might think he's wrong,
we might think he wrote it
because he was smoking drugs
or something like that,
but his claim is
that he is writing a true story
about Jesus
and a real miracle.
And just as a bit of an aside,
if you go back,
if you go online
to look at Dig and Delve,
the webpage,
and you go to the very first year,
there's a man by the name of Craig Evans.
And one of the things
that he shared with us,
this isn't actually very well known.
When you see things in the newspaper,
on CBC,
or in blogs or whatever
about how the Bible
is just so stupid
and the New Testament's all wrong
and it's all not history,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
One of the things
that he shares
is he gives a list
of the important
Jewish archaeologists
who use the New Testament
to make archaeological discoveries
in Israel.
Not Christian archaeologists,
Jewish archaeologists,
because the Jewish archaeologists
have found
how accurate
the New Testament is.
So they'll read the New Testament
not to learn about Jesus,
but to look to see
where a gate should have been
or where this might have been
or something.
And they use it
to actually make
archaeological discoveries.
And it's one of the many reasons
that from a scientific
and historical point of view,
we can believe
that this is actually
an eyewitness testimony
of Jesus
and what went on.
Now,
we'll start to read.
Actually, no,
we won't start to read.
If you could put up
the next image, Andrew,
that would be very, very helpful.
One of the things
we have to understand,
that's a picture
by Caravaggio.
I don't know
if I'm pronouncing this correctly.
Another thing
that helped us
to understand
the importance
of the fact
that Matthew here
is claiming
to write an eyewitness testimony
that he'd been
a very bad man
whose life was changed,
is that
to the extent
that we know anything
about what happened
to Matthew,
Matthew was not only
an eyewitness
of these different miracles
that happened,
he was also an eyewitness
of Jesus' death,
so to speak.
He knew that Jesus
was crucified.
He was an eyewitness
of the resurrection.
He was an eyewitness
of the ascension.
And that was all part
of the thing
which completely
and utterly
changed his life.
And Christian tradition,
which goes back
very, very long,
said that Matthew died
celebrating communion
in Ethiopia,
that he actually
was so concerned
to tell people
about who Jesus is
and what he'd accomplished,
he took the gospel
all the way to Ethiopia
and while he was
in Ethiopia
at the order
of the king
of Ethiopia,
he was stabbed
to death
while he was presiding
at the Lord's Supper,
something that we'll be doing
in a few moments.
And this, of course,
this isn't an actual
depiction of it,
it's an artist's rendering
from around the year 1600.
Just a little aside,
the painter who painted this
painted himself
as the one
who's doing the murder
of St. Matthew.
Well, let's look at the story
and if you turn
in your Bibles
to Matthew 15,
verse 21,
here's how the story goes.
And Jesus went away
from there
and withdrew
to the district
of Tyre and Sidon
and behold,
a Canaanite woman
from that region
came out and was crying,
Have mercy on me,
O Lord,
Son of David,
my daughter
is severely oppressed
by a demon.
Now there's a couple
of things here,
just pause
in the reading of the story.
So one of the things
I'm not going to do today,
I'm not going to give you
an argument
as to why you should believe
that demons exist.
We know that this is
an eyewitness,
Matthew is writing
an eyewitness biography,
a woman came
and said that her daughter
was oppressed
by a demon
and we're going to see
what Jesus does
about that.
So just a couple
of things though,
I'm going to be
preaching on the story
of Jesus
and the Gadarene demoniac
in a couple
of weeks time
and at that point in time
I'm going to say
more about demons.
But what I want you
to understand is this,
the Bible believes
that demons are real,
Jesus taught
that demons are real.
When I talk to people
who say that science
and medicine
has proven
that demons
don't exist,
I always tell them
that's completely
and utterly not true.
It's completely
and utterly not true.
They get very offended.
I say, no, no,
they assume
that demons don't exist.
They've actually never
tried to prove that they don't exist.
In fact,
they couldn't prove
that they don't exist.
But they just assume
that they don't exist.
To assume they don't exist
is a very different thing
than to prove
that they don't exist.
And the fact of the matter
is that there are scientists
and doctors
who do believe,
like most Hindus,
most Muslims,
most Buddhists,
most people
who practice
traditional religion,
most Canadians,
that in fact
demons are real.
And so we have here
a story
about a demon.
All I'll say
is that it's only
in the Bible
that we really understand
who demons are.
The Bible claims
that demons
are in a sense
pure spiritual beings
that are evil,
that at different times
interact with us
human beings
to harm us.
And so most of the depictions
in movies and television
about demons
are wrong
because they try
to connect them
with forms of energy
and matter
and that's just not,
doesn't actually
make any sense
if you really
think about it.
But that's what's
being portrayed here,
that there is in fact
an entity
like a demon
that can in fact
interact with human beings
and they only interact
with us human beings
in a way
that's going to harm us.
But they're pure spirit.
And what's happened
is that this young woman
has,
is being oppressed
by a demon
and her mother
comes to Jesus.
She's not going
to one of the shamans
or the local priests
or to heal the daughter.
She comes to Jesus.
Now there's a couple
of other things here
which are very important.
We're just very used to
when we watch a movie
or read a book
that there's certain things
that a movie director
will do
to help us
to understand
the character.
They might use it
to play with us
a little bit.
Often in movies
they'll either use
a visual cue
or some type of music.
They'll use music
to understand
that as you're walking
towards that door
there's something evil
at that door.
The music,
they use the camera angle
for the slow motion,
maybe something
a little bit out of whack.
The music comes
and as soon as we hear
the music emotionally
and imaginatively
we know that there's
something evil
which is going to be
going on there
or something wrong
which is going to go on
there.
And that's not just
a modern invention,
it's gone on throughout
as long as there's been
people writing
there have been
things like that.
And so one of the things
that Matthew does here
which doesn't do anything
to us but would have been
very important to his
early readers
is he says that she's
a Canaanite
and he says where she is.
And for the Jewish readers
who would have been
reading this for the first time
what they would have
instantly gone is
a Canaanite,
the ancient enemies
of the Jews.
So Jesus has gone
to the land
of the ancient enemies
of the Jews
and he's having
an interaction
with a person
who is one of the
ancient enemies
of the Jews.
It doesn't necessarily
mean she is
but that's
what it would be like.
It would be as if
you were watching
a movie set
in the 1940s
or 1930s
or 1950s
and you see
a black man
or a black woman
and they leave Detroit
or they leave New York City
or they leave Chicago
and they go to Alabama
into an area
which is all white.
And all of a sudden
you see the black man
and you see a group
of white men
coming towards him
and if you're watching
that movie
you start to feel
tension immediately.
And Matthew
is trying to communicate
that to us.
We've lost the sense
of imagery
but that's what
the original readers
they would have tensed
Jesus is being approached
by a Canaanite woman
and he's in
Canaanite territory.
In fact,
one of the things
that would be going on
in the Jewish person's mind
just as if we're
watching a movie
of somebody leaving
a safe area
in a big northern city
to go to Birmingham,
Alabama
which had
the highest number
of lynchings
and unsolved black murders
of any of the southern
states and cities.
Huge,
racist
stronghold.
And we would wonder
why are they even
going there?
And the readers
are wondering
why is Jesus
going there?
A Canaanite,
woo,
they get worried.
And she makes this call
and I'm not going to,
we've already said
much I'm going to say
about demons.
So what goes on?
What happens?
How does Jesus respond?
Does he run away?
Does,
well what happens?
Verse 23 and 24
tells us what happens next.
So she's calling out my,
and the original language
call out means,
I tried to imitate it
when I was reading it earlier
that she calls out
really loudly.
You know,
she's in a sense yelling,
have mercy on me,
O Lord,
son of David,
my daughter,
severely oppressed
by demon.
Verse 23,
but Jesus did not
answer her a word
and his disciples
came and begged him
saying,
send her away
for she is crying
out after us.
And then this next
little bit's very puzzling
because it's actually
not clear who he's
speaking to,
but what we see
is that Jesus speaks
and what he says
is,
I was sent only
to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.
Now this is,
for us Canadians,
a very disappointing answer.
In fact,
if you read
the scholarly literature
on this subject,
believe it or not,
many of you
will maybe easily
believe it,
there's a whole range
of scholarly opinion
that believes that
this woman is
confronting the racism
of Jesus.
And that's completely
wrong,
by the way.
As you'll hear
the rest of the thing,
they're misreading
the text.
In fact,
they're actually
failing to read the text
and see what's actually
going on here.
But we see this
very, very disappointing
answer.
I mean,
on one level,
all of a sudden,
I mean,
we're basically
sympathetic with this woman
whose daughter
is in trouble.
And we expect,
I mean,
let's just be honest,
we expect that
when somebody
comes to Jesus
crying out
for their daughter,
that Jesus
will at least
answer her,
that he'll at least
speak to her.
And then it's
very troublesome
that the disciples
just want her
to go away.
And then,
when Jesus
finally starts
to speak,
we think,
okay,
well,
here's going
to be something
good,
but instead,
he seems to say
something which
completely and utterly
dashes her hopes
and crushes her.
This statement,
I was sent only
to the lost sheep
of the house of Israel.
On one hand,
this is a very
powerful story
for all of us
because every
single one of us
here,
maybe not right now,
but at some time
in our life,
those of us
who are Christians,
we have puzzled
over the silence
of Jesus
in our prayers.
Like,
it's a very common
Christian experience,
often not talked about,
why the way it is
that we call out
to Jesus
and call out
to Jesus
and call out
to Jesus
and he just
seems to be
completely
and utterly
silent.
And in a sense,
you see that
being acted out
right here.
Jesus is silent.
And even when
he answers,
he doesn't say
something like,
well, demons
don't exist,
it's just a type
of mental illness
or he just
makes this
cryptic comment
that doesn't
really satisfy
his disciples
and you'd think
would be very,
very crushing
and insensitive
to the pagan
woman.
Now,
one of the things
which I didn't
mention earlier
but it's very,
very significant
in this whole text,
it's a puzzling
thing about this text.
I mean,
not only is it puzzling
that she's come
to Jesus
not to one of the
priests
of her own religion
or not to one of the
shaman of her own religion,
not to a doctor
of her own religion
but to Jesus,
but one of the things
which is also
very puzzling
about this
is that she gives
Jesus the title
of the Messiah
of the Jewish people
which is the significance
of her calling him
Son of David.
In our language,
we would say
that she's affirming
or acknowledging
or addressing him
as if he is the Messiah
of the Jewish people
and he responds
this way.
So how does she respond?
How does she respond?
You know,
it's very interesting
in a lot of the ways
that we try to talk
about how this,
what goes on
in the dynamics of this,
we project things
from our culture
onto her
and in our culture,
we get in his face
and say,
how come you're talking
to me like that?
You can't talk
to me like that.
You're in my country.
Why are you talking
to me like that?
You know,
she'd be assertive.
She'd be direct.
She'd be clever
or she'd be cunning
or whatever it is
that we'd try
to put something
where,
into it
where she's going
to respond to Jesus.
We're uncomfortable
with the apparent rudeness
of it
and some way
we want to sort of say,
go for it, girl.
You go.
You get it.
And she does something
almost to get something
over on Jesus
and that's sort of
what emotionally
we want to have happen
but what actually happens
is once again
very, very disappointing
to us.
Look what happens
in verse 25.
But she came
and knelt
before him
saying,
Lord, help me.
And his response
is unbelievably puzzling
to most Canadians,
most Americans.
He answered,
it is not right
to take the children's bread
and throw it
to the dogs.
rather than being
a feminist hero,
she falls on her knees
at Jesus' feet
and she calls out
for mercy
and he looks at her
and said,
it's not right
to take the children's bread
and throw it
to the dogs.
And for almost
every Canadian,
we would want
to say,
time out,
Jesus,
can we do a,
like,
can we do a do-over
for that?
Like,
that's not the way
you handle
this situation.
If we're honest,
emotionally,
that's how we react
to his response.
By the way,
the word for knelt
in the original language
in almost all
of the New Testament
is usually used
as a reference
to a way
of humbly bending
the knee
to pray to God.
And that's the word
that's used for knelt.
And there is something else
in this,
in the original language
which isn't captured
in the English.
There's basically
two words
that are used
for dogs
in the ancient language
which this was written in.
And generally speaking,
the most common word
for dog
was the word
for,
like,
mongrels,
scavengers,
wild dogs.
Dogs,
I guess,
had escaped
and they just roamed
in cities
and in the countryside
and they would
often have rabies
and be diseased
in other types of ways
and they would steal food
and they were a bother
and they were a hindrance.
And, of course,
to call somebody
that type of dog
was a great insult.
But the word for dog
which is used here
throughout the story
is a different word
for dog.
It can sometimes
be translated
as little dog,
sometimes it can be
translated as house dog,
but fundamentally
it's a pet.
So what Jesus
is saying to her
is it is not right
to take the children's bread
and throw it
to the pets,
which still
has a great deal
of a sting to it.
How does she respond?
But,
actually,
before we read anything,
I was talking about
this sermon
with somebody
just last night.
We had some company over
and they asked me
what I was preaching
on today
and I told them
and they said,
oh, that's a very
interesting story
and they began
to give me,
one of them began
to tell me
how they interpreted
the story
which actually
had a lot of the fact
that the woman
was able to sort of
do something to Jesus
and be assertive
and she really liked
how she was really assertive
and I didn't tell her
that's actually not
what the Bible text
actually says
that she falls on her knees
at his feet.
But, you know,
the thing I said about it
is it's really hard for us.
I mean, here we were
at our house
and if you know
my wife at all,
when my wife invites
people over for supper,
she needs to always make
at least enough
for twice the number
of people who come
that actually come.
So we'd had potato chips,
we'd had carrots,
we'd had hummus,
we'd had wine,
there was pop,
then there was barbecue,
we had lots of hamburgers
left over,
there was piles of salad
that didn't get eaten
and after that
there was blueberry pie
and vanilla ice cream
and there was enough
for seconds
and half the ice cream
went back in the freezer
and I just said,
you know,
when we read a story
like this,
when Jesus says
it's not right
to give the bread
to the children
and we're sitting here
at a meal like this,
like every single one of us
could have had
another hamburger
and we couldn't have all
had another piece
of blueberry pie
but if we divided it
we would have all
been satisfied.
In fact,
one of the people
did have a second piece
of pie.
We could have all had
at least a second
scooping of ice cream
and I said,
when we read a story
like this,
we don't really understand
but for most of the world
that's not what
a meal time is like.
For most of the world
at the time of Jesus,
in fact,
the entire world
at the time of Jesus,
they were one bad harvest
away from starving to death.
One bad harvest
away from dying.
That's,
and throughout most of the world,
even today,
you don't have three
or four or five meals
and you don't have a choice
as to whether you're
going to have a paleo diet
or this diet
or that diet.
You're just hoping
there's enough food to eat
and if you are in a world
where there's enough food,
see,
at our supper table last night,
Louise,
in fact,
Louise did feed the dogs
before she fed us
but not only do we have
all that food,
I mean,
the fact is we have
freezers full of food.
We could have just kept
cooking and cooking
for quite a while
just with the stuff
that we have in our house
but for much of the world,
that's not what life is like.
And if you are in a situation
where there's very little
in the cupboard
and you hope you get paid,
you hope that the landowner
that you're working for
doesn't stiff you
and not pay you
and you hope
that there's enough grain
and there's going to be
enough food
but you have enough bread
for today,
if you're in that type of world,
you definitely want to make sure
that everybody in the family
gets fed
before you start giving it
to the animals.
We emotionally,
because we are so
ungratefully wealthy
that we can't read
the Bible text
and understand
the reasonableness
on one level of what,
I mean,
still an insult
to many of us
about dogs
but still the reasonableness
of what he said,
just normal wisdom.
How does the woman
respond to it?
Well,
let's look.
that's verses 27 and 28.
It's the end of the story.
She said,
look,
she agrees,
right?
Just as I said,
we can understand that
if you have so much blueberry pie
that people can have seconds
and half the tub
of the vanilla ice cream
went in the freezer.
But she says,
yes,
Lord,
yet even the dogs,
even the pets,
eat the crumbs
that fall from their master's table.
And Jesus answered her,
oh woman,
remember she's a Canaanite.
she's the person
the scary music is about.
His response is,
oh woman,
great is your faith.
The only person
in the book of Matthew
who's told
that they have great faith
is this woman.
Only person.
Read it,
go back and read it
from Matthew 1 to the end.
She's the only one
that he says this about.
Great is your faith.
Be it done for you
as you desire.
And her daughter
was healed instantly.
Just as a bit of an aside,
just to start to try
to change the mood
of this story,
just ask yourself right now.
Some of you
have been going through
a very hard time.
Some of you are going
through a hard time right now.
Can you just imagine
right now
if Jesus was to show up
and in front of all of us
say to you,
oh woman,
great is your faith.
How would you view
your suffering?
If right now
in front of all of us
Jesus showed up
and said,
great is your faith.
Your faith is so great.
See,
critics who talk
about the racism of Jesus,
all they show
is they don't know
how to actually
read a story.
Ten PhDs,
I mean,
they don't,
but lots,
and they can't read a story.
They just can't.
So let's sort of bring this
even more home to us.
See,
the importance of this
is you read a story
and you read the whole story
to understand
what's actually going on in it.
You see,
one of the things,
remember,
some of you were here
when we were talking
about Jonah 3
just a couple of weeks ago,
the story of Jonah.
And in the story of Jonah,
and this is a very,
very common thing
in the Bible,
it seems as if
Jonah goes into Nineveh
and says,
in 40 days,
God is going to destroy
this city
just like he destroyed
Sodom and Gomorrah.
And he goes
and he proclaims this
and proclaims this
and it sounds as if
there's no hope
for the people,
but the king
orders that everybody fasts
and he says,
we're just going to
throw ourselves
on the mercy of God.
We're going to
humble ourselves,
we're going to stop
the evil
and the injustice
and the violence
and we're just going to
throw ourselves
on the mercy of God
and God in his mercy
sees their repentance
and they are not destroyed
like Sodom and Gomorrah was.
And in this story,
this woman who hears
this statement about Israel
and there's a little chink in it,
but she throws herself
on the mercy of the Lord
and her faith is great.
If you could put up
the next point,
here's some of the things
which is going on
in the story.
Salvation is from God
through the Jews
for the world.
Salvation is from God
through the Jews
for the world.
That's what this,
one of the many,
many things
that this story
powerfully brings home
to us in the shock.
If you go back
and you read Genesis chapter 12,
which is the beginning
of God choosing a people
for himself
and him choosing Abraham,
Abraham,
who was a worshiper
of the moon god,
that's who Abraham is.
He worships the moon god
and God chooses
this unlikely person
and says to him,
I'm going to make
a great nation out of you
and you are going to be
a blessing to the entire earth.
And if you go back
and read the Old Testament
time and time and time
and time and time again,
you see that God
is calling a people
for himself,
but he's not calling
a people for himself
just for himself,
but that through him,
through these people,
the entire world will know.
And so one of the things
that John,
you know how if you watch something,
I was just watching something,
a series the other day
and I was saying to my wife,
you know,
I sure hope that,
like why is this in it?
Why is this in it?
I sure hope that this
is a good series
that's going to tie
all of these things up.
And then when the series
was over,
as it's coming to the final chapter,
you go,
oh, that's why
it prepared us with this.
Oh, that's why
it prepared us with this.
And so if you go back
and you read
the entire gospel of Matthew,
how does the gospel
of Matthew end?
For evangelicals like us,
it's one of the most
important parts of the Bible.
The message of the Matthew
ends,
the final words are,
Jesus appears
after he has died,
he's resurrected,
he appears to all
of the disciples
and he says,
go into all the nations
and make disciples,
teach in them
to obey all
that I have commanded you.
And lo,
I am with you
to the end of the age.
And he,
and they're going to go,
Jesus went
to the Canaanite land.
He commended
the Canaanite woman
as being a woman
of unbelievable faith.
He was preparing us
for this remarkable claim
that we are to go
even to our historic enemies
and tell them
about Jesus.
And that some of them
are going to respond
and believe
and we are going to have
to get over the fact
that they are
our historic enemies.
Jesus,
in this little statement
to the Canaanite woman
embedded in a story
which we miss
because we're so concerned
about the rudeness,
which I'm going to talk
about in a moment,
he is helping us
as all stories
to enter emotionally
and imaginatively
in to not only
summarizing the entire
Old Testament,
but he's prefiguring
and preparing us
for Matthew 28
and the book of Acts
and all of the epistles.
And the fact is this,
at a political level,
yes,
we should be worried
about North Korea
and Iran.
We should be.
But you know,
as Christians,
we're not just Canadians.
You know what we should
also be praying?
That the gospel
will go to Iran
and North Korea.
That's what we should
be praying.
That should be our heart.
The world will have enemies
and divide the world
and we are to view
an enemy group
would be as wise
as a serpent
and his innocence
but our heart
is to break.
I think it is
a great,
wonderful
thing
of the humor
of God
that he would
put our office
and our ministry space
in the gay village.
Every day
I walk down Bank Street,
I am reminded
all the signs.
I go into the stores,
the rainbow.
I am to pray
that many people
who identify
in such a way
will come to know
Jesus as Savior and Lord.
They're not my enemy.
They're not the other.
I'm not to be afraid of them.
I am to pray
that they will come
to know Jesus
and so are you.
Salvation
is from God
through the Jews
for the world.
One of the things
which is very interesting
about the Jewish people
is that
if you were to go back
to the time of Jesus,
all the smart people,
you go to the
Oxford of the day,
you go to the
University of Toronto
today,
you go to the Yale
and Princeton of the day
and what do all
the smart people know?
There are gods
that exist.
That's what all
the smart people know
and not just the smart people,
the dumb people know that.
Everybody knows that.
There's only one people
on the entire planet
who are so stupid
that they don't know
what all the smart people know.
There's one people
that God has provided
through the prophets
and through the Old Testament,
what we call
the Old Testament,
through the law
and through the history
and through the prophets.
They've come to disbelieve
in the existence of gods
to understand
that there is only one God.
And in a sense,
all of the gods
of the ancient world
were like superheroes today.
It's a very,
very interesting thing.
You know,
we have all these
superhero movies.
They make billions
and billions of dollars
and then,
of course,
there's a small subcategory
of superhero movies
that try to imagine
what it would be like
if there really were superheroes
and in most of those ones,
people actually
don't like superheroes.
Why?
They keep wrecking
all the buildings.
They wreck the road.
They call all sorts of,
they cause endless
collateral damage
and if we actually
lived in a world
where all of a sudden
there's a superhero
and wham,
all of a sudden
they take the roof
off of this place
and some of us
are all captured
with the rocks falling on us.
We're all beat up
and banged up.
We'd say,
you know,
maybe there shouldn't be superheroes.
Like,
maybe we want to make
Ottawa a superhero-free zone.
So most,
you know,
when you actually look at it,
so here's the thing.
You have this people
who are trained
to understand
that there are no superheroes.
They're the only people group
who understand
that superheroes
are an invention
of the imagination
and now you have
a man who comes
and walks among them
and he can be standing there
and if you were there
you might see
the flakes of pita bread
in Jesus' beard
and you might see
that there's a little bit
of humus
right over here
that he didn't take away
and none of the other guys
said,
by the way,
Jesus,
you got humus,
right?
Right here.
Some tabouli in his teeth
like he's human
and by a mere act
of his will
he casts a demon out
and banishes it
and gives her peace
just by a mere act
of his will.
See,
the story
is teaching
deep theology.
If you could put up
the next point,
Andrew,
what this story
is teaching us
is only one
far greater
than a demon
can merely
will
the demon's
banishment
and bestow peace.
That's what happens
in the story.
It's done
and it's gone.
Who is this guy?
They of all people
would get
what we don't get
because we just think
it's just religious,
it's just spiritual.
But remember,
that's why I went on
at the beginning
of this thing
about what Matthew
is claiming
is that he's writing
an eyewitness biography
of what really
happened with Jesus
and if this really
happened to Jesus,
if Jesus merely
by willing it
can banish a demon
and bestow peace,
who on earth is he?
And what on earth
does it mean?
And it also
brings out to us
something a little bit
about our emotional
response to the
things that he says.
Bob Dylan had
two Christian albums.
I mean,
some people just
can't stand Bob Dylan.
If you can get over
his voice
or if you like his voice,
you should go listen
to his two Christian albums,
Saved and Slow Train
coming,
it's amazing
how good the theology
is in it.
And in one of the songs,
he has a line
that God is not
the errand boy
for our wandering desires.
God is not
the errand boy
for our wandering desires.
You see,
why are we bothered
with Jesus?
She wants to speak
to Jesus.
Jesus isn't speaking
to her.
We want him
to deal with
the woman right away.
He's not dealing
with her right away.
We want him
to say certain things.
He doesn't say
those certain things.
We want him
to not say certain things
and he doesn't say
those certain things.
And we just think
it's all appropriate
for us to have
that response to him.
But just think
for a second
if you saw me
treat Louise this way.
Louise?
Whoa,
I spoke to you.
Come back here
right now
and speak to me.
Whoa.
You'd all be shocked.
And then if
Louise said something
and I said,
whoa, whoa, whoa,
Louise,
you're not allowed
to say that.
And I did that
in front of you.
How would you react?
You all know
how you'd react.
So why is it
that I'm not allowed
to speak like that
to Louise
but it's all right
for us to
treat Jesus
that way?
You see,
in our heart,
the God
that we want
to have exist
is the errand boy
for our wandering
desires.
Jesus,
right now,
I'm snapping
my fingers.
Hurry up!
You can do it!
But the fact
of the matter is,
such a God,
why would we ever
worship?
On one hand,
we want God
to be the errand boy
for our wandering
desires,
yet at the same time,
we would despise
such a God.
So what we see
in this story
is one far greater
than a demon
can merely,
only person,
only one far greater
than a demon
can merely will
its banishment
and bestow peace.
And what we see,
if you could put up
the next point,
Andrew,
is what we're prepared
for is through
the series of stories
and through these
series of miracles
which are revealing
not only our heart,
and how we treat God
and how we think of God,
that we are over him,
that we are his judge,
that we want him
to be our errand boy.
And Jesus keeps being revealed
in ways that we can,
like in Colossians
and in Hebrews,
it gives you abstract
philosophical statements
of the truth,
but this story
is communicating
through story
at an imaginative
and emotional level
who Jesus is.
And what it's revealing
is that the Lord
has invaded
his demon-infested
creation
to begin
to put things right
and deliver
his fallen image bearers.
The world
has been invaded,
but not by,
in a hostile takeover,
but to restore order,
to bring back
healing and deliverance.
And with all of these things,
you know what,
if Jesus is revealed
as invading
his demon-infested creation
to put things right,
then how shall you
or I live
but secure in the gospel
to begin to try
to do the same thing?
to our Muslim
and Hindu
and Buddhist
and secular
and spiritual friends
who've gotten
entrapped
with spiritual forces
that are hostile
to them
and they don't know
what to do,
we are to pray for them.
I have a friend
who shared with me,
I kept mistaking
that he was
some type of a person
who didn't believe
in spiritual things,
and I discovered
that he in fact
believed the demons
are real
and it came up
in conversation
that he was experiencing
demonic oppression.
So I prayed,
get away.
Not because I have
any powers.
I have no powers.
Neither do you.
You and I
are all hopeless.
But we have
a great God.
We have a Lord
who has invaded
his demon-infested
creation
to begin
to set things right.
And in his name,
we can pray
into those situations
and should.
If you are here
and you believe
that you have
any type of
demonic presence
in your life
that needs to be
dealt with,
you should speak to us
and we will pray for you.
And you see,
the fact of the matter is,
is if
one far greater
than a demon
can merely
will its banishment
and bestow peace,
then how on earth,
how on earth
could someone like that
die on the cross?
And that's why
every miracle story
points to the fact
that the only thing
that can account
for Jesus dying
on the cross
is love.
His love for you.
His love for that
Canaanite woman.
If you could put up
the next point,
Andrew,
in the death
and resurrection
of Jesus,
he disarmed
and defeated
all demons
and he defeated
death
to deliver you.
In the death
and resurrection
of Jesus,
he disarmed
and defeated
all demons
and he defeated
death
to deliver you.
just in closing,
one of the things
I tried to talk
about last week
is how we
in our culture
get faith
all wrong.
And Christians,
we get caught up
in all the time.
We think about
how weak our faith is,
how impure our faith is,
how intermittent
our faith is,
but the thing
about the Bible
is that the Bible
is acting as a corrective
to help us
to understand
that what matters
isn't the purity
of our faith,
the constancy
of the faith,
the power of our faith.
What matters
is what we put
our faith in
or who we put
our faith in.
We have Matt
here in the congregation
who does climbing
of rocks
and all that type of stuff.
I'm afraid of heights.
But if I finally
ever agreed with him
to go and actually
try to climb
a rock face
and he sets up
all the ropes
and hooks me
into things
and helps me
to get up,
the fact of the matter
is it doesn't matter
if the entire time
I am so terrified
I'm hoping
I don't pee my pants
in front of him.
I have virtually
no faith.
What matters
is the strength
of the rope
and the strength
of the connection.
I know people
who can hardly fly.
They have a huge fear
of flying.
It doesn't matter
how much faith
they have in flying.
What matters
is that the plane works
and the pilot is good.
It's the object of faith
not the amount
that we have
and that's what's seen
here in the story.
That's her great faith.
If you could put up
the final point
and this is the wonderful
thing about the gospel.
This is the thing about
this is why reading
the gospel
and reading these things
like this
and remembering Jesus
and who he is
is so important
because we might have
only the tiniest bit
of faith.
Like when I became
a Christian
I didn't become
a Christian really
because I understood
how Jesus was Lord
of all of the earth
and how I was going to have
a resurrected body
and I didn't understand
everything about
the atonement
and I didn't understand
I was stupid.
I knew virtually nothing.
What I knew
is that my life
was messed up
and I needed peace
and I think he would
give it to me
and I was willing
to surrender to him.
That's all I knew.
If theology test
I would get 2%
out of 100.
But what matters
is that it was Jesus.
And here's the wonderful
thing about Jesus
and here's the wonderful
thing about the gospel.
Who Jesus is
and what he accomplished
for you
is always higher,
deeper,
broader,
bigger,
stronger,
greater,
and more glorious
than you can ever
imagine or believe.
and you touch
the beginning
of the hem
of his garment
and it's huge.
We'll spend
all eternity
just all eternity
trying to get
and we'll never
get to the bottom
of the depth
and the glory
and the height
and the riches
and the wonder.
And it's
and yeah,
my faith is impure
and yes,
my faith is intermittent
and yes,
it's often not strong
but it's in Jesus.
It's in Jesus.
Please stand.
If you have
not given your life
to Jesus,
if you are here
this morning,
whatever pressure
you feel in your heart,
that pressure
is to call out
to Jesus
and touch him
and ask him
to be your Savior
and your Lord
and you just
stop listening
to my prayers
and you just do
that business
with Jesus right now.
That's the Holy Spirit
pressing in on you.
It's Jesus knocking
on the door
of your heart
that you would
open the door
of your heart
and say,
Jesus,
come in
and be my Savior
and my Lord
and have the run
of my life.
Let's pray.
Father,
we thank you
so much
for Jesus.
We thank you,
Father,
that
we thank you
that he would
come into our world
and that he would
take upon himself
the doom that we deserve
and the death
that we deserve,
that he would
take that upon himself
and that in his death
upon the cross
he would bear the doom
that we deserved
and die the death
that we deserved
and he would
take that
and give to us
the destiny
and the glory
that only he deserved.
Father,
we thank you
that we have
a great Savior,
that he is worthy
of all our trust
and all our faith
and all our hope
and all of our service.
And we ask
that you would
make us like
this Canaanite woman
and that you would
grow our faith
in Jesus.
That you would
grow our prayer
to Jesus
and our persistence
and our faith.
Father,
we ask
that you would
grow that within us
and all God's people
said,
Amen.