back to index2021-03-21 Humble Faith
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It's always so blessed to hear the testimony of a young man of recognizing his state before 00:00:09.960 |
Today we're going to be continuing to learn about how powerful that faith is. 00:00:17.640 |
Over the last, in the course of the many weeks, we've been walking through the book of Hebrews 00:00:24.240 |
and specifically going methodically through chapter 11 on what is faith. 00:00:31.180 |
And it has been so good to meditate on how powerful, truly powerful that faith is. 00:00:37.040 |
Now the faith that we exercise is so incredibly powerful, not because it's a powerful key, 00:00:43.960 |
as some would say, as though this is a special key you use to turn certain things on or off. 00:00:50.040 |
It's not powerful because through it you end up making giant leaps and bounds. 00:00:55.720 |
But scripture tells us faith is powerful because what God gives to us in the faith is to be 00:01:05.720 |
And the greatest truth that ever existed is the truth of God, that this is who God is. 00:01:12.080 |
And by knowing Him and seeing Him as He is, then you now have light to everything else. 00:01:17.640 |
You have the light of truth to show you yourself in relationship to this God. 00:01:22.320 |
You have faith to see what the world really is. 00:01:25.920 |
You have faith to see how things fit into the grand scheme as God has made things and 00:01:31.440 |
So as opposed to, let's say, what is perhaps a popular way of thinking about faith is just 00:01:36.320 |
like this leap into the darkness or leap across a bridge. 00:01:39.400 |
No, no, faith is actually you being able to see God for who He is. 00:01:47.520 |
And it causes us then to say, "God, I need you. 00:01:50.840 |
We've been learning about how Jacob, in seeing God's promise, then sees it for what it is 00:01:55.240 |
and so therefore values it above everything else and pursues it with everything he has, 00:02:04.080 |
And so today we're going to be talking about that in the book of Matthew chapter 15. 00:02:11.200 |
We're looking at kind of an interesting story and learning from an unexpected individual 00:02:16.160 |
character about what it means to have humble faith, a faith that is strong, a faith that 00:02:23.760 |
is powerful because it helps us to see reality for what it is. 00:02:33.200 |
And the word says, "Jesus went from there and withdrew into the district of Tyre and 00:02:40.520 |
And a Canaanite woman from the region came out and began to cry out saying, 'Have mercy 00:02:52.600 |
And his disciples came and implored him saying, 'Send her away because she keeps shouting 00:02:58.120 |
But he answered and said, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' 00:03:03.880 |
But she came and began to bow down before him saying, 'Lord, help me.' 00:03:08.920 |
And he answered and said, 'It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it 00:03:18.220 |
But even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their master's table.' 00:03:22.920 |
Then Jesus said to her, 'O woman, your faith is great. 00:03:35.360 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your truth. 00:03:39.000 |
And God, we eagerly desire to keep growing in our faith in the way that we see you, Lord, 00:03:46.080 |
that God, it would become more and more accurate and detailed. 00:03:50.320 |
And by doing so, God, I pray we're not just simply learning intellectual facts, but God, 00:03:58.760 |
And Lord, it is to our blessedness, it is to our grace that God, we're able to see you 00:04:13.920 |
So, as we take a look at this passage, because we have to kind of jump down into the scene, 00:04:21.480 |
you know, it's Matthew 15, and Jesus has already been doing the work of ministry, of teaching 00:04:32.600 |
Healing the group that he has, the 12 disciples, and making sure that they're being prepared. 00:04:38.960 |
And what ends up happening is as Jesus is withdrawing, so from the crowds, he's trying 00:04:45.560 |
He's withdrawing into an arena, and the story already should, if you were like a Jew listening 00:04:49.800 |
to the story, already be like, "Oh, no," because he's entering into a region where it is all 00:04:57.600 |
And according to the customs, so to speak, of the day, you just don't mix. 00:05:02.000 |
And what's more, those specific cities, Tyre and Sinai, they are Canaanite cities, of which 00:05:09.360 |
you could see them as like arch-nemesis, you know, that kind of stuff. 00:05:13.320 |
The Canaanite people, they were destroyed by the Israelites. 00:05:16.520 |
So Canaanite people were like, "Oh, welcome, friends." 00:05:18.800 |
Like, they wouldn't be receiving them in that fashion anyway. 00:05:27.680 |
So if you're reading, Jesus and the disciples are entering into this region, already you 00:05:35.680 |
But what's happened here is the story describes then this Canaanite woman, so her lineage 00:05:40.720 |
is Canaanite, but she is Syrophoenician, meaning she's from this area, she's Greek by culture. 00:05:46.560 |
And most likely, her upbringing, her language, her religion, all that stuff is Greek, pantheons, 00:05:56.200 |
But what's interesting is, as we jump down into this scenario then, is you have an unlikely 00:06:00.240 |
individual who is unlikely going to approach a posse or entourage of a high, I guess, profile 00:06:08.800 |
celebrity, if you will, because news about him is spreading everywhere. 00:06:12.840 |
And you have basically 13 Jewish men trying to go in a secluded region so that they can 00:06:19.440 |
have time to prepare and et cetera, maybe even have a respite from the ministry that 00:06:28.240 |
This woman comes with cries, with screams and shouts. 00:06:33.640 |
And we quickly learn, she says that her daughter is cruelly demon-possessed. 00:06:40.080 |
Originally for some reason, I thought every time I think about a demon-possessed person, 00:06:43.880 |
it's some adult who is out of control, angry, right? 00:06:48.560 |
Destructive and violent, because that's a lot of times the way the Scriptures has these 00:06:53.120 |
But the Gospel of Mark adds the detail that this was a child, it was a little daughter. 00:07:07.160 |
But at the same time, we jump into her desperation and we quickly recognize sometimes there's 00:07:12.880 |
a kind of suffering that goes beyond your own pains. 00:07:16.200 |
This is a kind of desperation where it's for her little baby girl, right? 00:07:20.080 |
And I quickly, as I thought about this, I remembered our first son, Josiah, when he 00:07:25.240 |
was two, he's now turning 10, but when he was two, we had this incredibly desperate 00:07:35.360 |
And it was, he had this high fever that spiked rapidly. 00:07:37.680 |
It went up to about 105, and then he walked into a seizure. 00:07:41.960 |
His knuckles curled up, his eyes rolled back, his face turned blue, his lips turned blue. 00:07:47.200 |
And Bia held and looked at me and said, "He's not breathing." 00:07:56.040 |
I opened it, I ran back, I looked at her, grabbed the bag. 00:08:01.720 |
Like if your child's not breathing, what are you supposed to do, you know? 00:08:05.680 |
A lot of you guys who know me, you know I have horrendous memory. 00:08:11.840 |
But those moments of desperation, it's seared into your brain, right? 00:08:16.760 |
I can tell you how I felt, where I ran to, what I grabbed, right? 00:08:23.800 |
Because sometimes in the moments of desperation, especially here, it's kind of inexplicable, 00:08:32.160 |
And so maybe we can kind of more humanistically relate to her and say, "We get you, right? 00:08:41.000 |
And this is the kind of suffering that's not like you hurt yourself, but a kind of suffering 00:08:44.540 |
where it truly makes you feel desperate because you know the limitations that you have even 00:08:49.960 |
You're going to protect your children, but you know your shield is only so big. 00:08:55.440 |
And clearly you're out of your own element here. 00:09:05.320 |
I think falsely we believe that suffering somehow refines and humbles us and grows us. 00:09:16.720 |
I think my own experience in life teaches me that when you're hurt or you go through 00:09:21.100 |
suffering you end up becoming more scabby, somehow hardened. 00:09:27.640 |
The natural human being when faced with difficulty, hardship, and suffering, they typically turn 00:09:35.920 |
What I've seen just trying to help people overcome their suffering and hardships, sadly 00:09:40.860 |
to say, is that there's a hardening of the heart. 00:09:45.760 |
What is actually required to walk through suffering is faith. 00:09:51.960 |
And that's why it was such a, when I said earlier that faith is powerful, it not only 00:09:57.640 |
overcomes the scenario and the suffering, it overcomes the crustiness of your heart 00:10:06.620 |
The natural inclination for man is not to come out of suffering greater in benevolence, 00:10:19.160 |
Walk with anybody who's felt like their back was up against the wall. 00:10:22.520 |
They've already tried everything that was in their power. 00:10:35.800 |
And so the first thing I want to highlight as we see this narrative is that humble faith 00:10:48.040 |
What I mean by that is this woman's faith as we exhibit it in the midst of her desperation 00:10:53.540 |
is leading her to a humble posture of asking. 00:10:58.740 |
Because what I said just a moment ago is that actually if you, through experience of counseling 00:11:04.080 |
or even just experiencing your own life, your temptation in the moment of suffering is rage. 00:11:17.380 |
And then sometimes not only do you feel justified, you compete with people. 00:11:22.680 |
Do you have any idea the suffering I went through? 00:11:27.100 |
Hear any of the stereotypical grouchy older people kind of mentality. 00:11:30.540 |
I feel like, again, I feel blessed to have lived this life that I've lived. 00:11:36.060 |
But having been, yes, an immigrant, having been through hardships of seeing my parents 00:11:41.520 |
and having hardships of divorce or my parents going through divorce, et cetera, et cetera, 00:11:48.080 |
I feel the temptation to be like, dude, my life is this, this, and this. 00:11:54.500 |
Don't you dare even tell me about your suffering. 00:11:58.540 |
Because that's what the natural heart does in the midst of hardship. 00:12:02.820 |
But what I'm trying to sell you is this woman is already being expressed. 00:12:08.460 |
You might say like, what an obvious point to make. 00:12:11.220 |
She asks the question, like, what kind of point is that? 00:12:13.540 |
But that's a point because what I'm trying to say is every one of us are tempted in the 00:12:24.700 |
But in the desperation, if it's met with a heart of faith, then she is going to ask and 00:12:33.820 |
So if you look at the narrative here, it comes where she's crying out to the Lord Jesus, 00:12:41.140 |
Even her words are already humble, is it not? 00:12:45.460 |
This Canaanite woman from the region came out and began to cry out saying, "Have mercy 00:12:54.340 |
She implores him and desires that he would give her that grace and mercy. 00:12:59.900 |
And that level of desperation, it didn't produce what is natural to the human heart, but rather 00:13:09.620 |
And I got to say, honestly speaking, if you meditate on that a little bit, being in a 00:13:14.820 |
posture or if you're ever required, like by necessity you're put into a position where 00:13:19.460 |
you have to ask, it's humbling in and of itself. 00:13:24.060 |
I mean, I'll confess, and I'm pretty sure if I take a vote right now, how many of you 00:13:34.060 |
But the thing about it is, think about our faith. 00:13:37.260 |
We are in a position where by necessity we are taught, "Pray to the Lord for daily bread." 00:13:47.540 |
I need to pray to my Father in heaven because I am his child for daily sustenance. 00:13:54.220 |
But sometimes, and let me ask you, in your times of difficulty, in your moments of hardship, 00:14:01.820 |
Do you resort to, "I got to power through this"? 00:14:06.500 |
You might not verbalize it, but do you express that kind of attitude? 00:14:15.300 |
Just like I need to ask you for my daily bread, for everything that I need in this 00:14:19.540 |
moment, I also need in my greatest needs, in my greatest moments, and here and now in 00:14:28.740 |
And that's why I think the story is powerful because she comes to the Lord, again, against 00:14:39.500 |
I don't know if there was a massive crowd around her. 00:14:46.740 |
Clearly by this time that she's asking, they're already annoyed. 00:14:50.940 |
She's making a scene of it, not intentionally, but because she knows, "I am in this position 00:15:01.140 |
And it's in those moments, for me, I'm thinking about it. 00:15:04.180 |
I realize when I give advice now, like, there was this weird time when I think when people, 00:15:09.500 |
you know, excited about, let's say, parenting, excited about wanting to help people in, let's 00:15:15.380 |
say, tangible advice and practical things that we can do to help parenting. 00:15:20.020 |
I would always give, like, "Well, did you try this? 00:15:23.600 |
But now I realize, like, "Hmm, I need to stay off the, like, giving, like, typical 00:15:34.340 |
Because my guess is this woman probably has already tried everything. 00:15:37.940 |
If we're jumping down into this story, sympathizing with her, she's in a desperate situation where 00:15:45.260 |
her daughter is cruelly, Scripture says, it's cruelly, like, malintent, bad, horrendously 00:15:56.620 |
And so, again, as a quick, quick admonition for you and me, recall that we ask the Lord 00:16:06.380 |
We ask the Lord in beseeching, with humility, outstretched hands. 00:16:11.140 |
Psalm chapter 51, verse 1 and 2 is a famous one. 00:16:13.900 |
It says, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your 00:16:19.900 |
Blot out my transgressions, wash away all my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." 00:16:27.900 |
She calls out to the Son of David, asking for mercy. 00:16:31.420 |
Now, I'm going to just highlight this for a second here. 00:16:35.540 |
The reason why I'm essentially commending her faith, so to speak, is because in the 00:16:40.100 |
way that she's approaching the Lord, I don't think it is just simply a humanistic, "We 00:16:44.580 |
get it, you're desperate, so therefore you're coming, running over here for Him." 00:16:51.860 |
Clearly, she is recognizing Him for the stature of who He says He is. 00:16:59.500 |
Whereas the Pharisees would never, ever dare acknowledge, "Oh, you're the Son of David." 00:17:03.620 |
No, they call Him, "Rabbi, good teacher, maybe miracle worker." 00:17:08.660 |
But they will never confess that He is the Son of David, because to do so would be to 00:17:19.220 |
But here and now, she says, "Have mercy on me, Son of David." 00:17:24.100 |
And so we're going to highlight that as we go. 00:17:26.500 |
So what we recognize here is first that she, in her humility, overcomes the desperation, 00:17:32.060 |
so to speak, not by wallowing, not by fleeing, not by fighting, but by asking. 00:17:36.900 |
Point two, this woman's humble faith in the midst of silence is patient. 00:17:43.500 |
It's because if this woman is coming with such humility and asking the Lord, you would 00:17:47.580 |
think the Lord Jesus would be like, "This is what I was looking for." 00:17:52.180 |
Those Pharisees who just got finished accusing Him for X, Y, and Z, do not think of themselves 00:18:03.940 |
They asked me for, "Prove this and prove that." 00:18:07.740 |
But the Lord said, "I have come for sinners." 00:18:11.700 |
So you would think that the Lord Jesus would say, "Right here, guys. 00:18:20.060 |
Go over to verse 23, and it says, "But He did not answer her a word. 00:18:27.540 |
And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, 'Send her away, because she keeps shouting 00:18:41.180 |
It's completely contrary to what you would expect, especially in a day and culture for 00:18:44.820 |
us when it's like you never ever turn away anybody. 00:18:48.100 |
As a matter of fact, you just make sure that anybody and everybody can come. 00:18:54.940 |
Well, one thing, we could just kind of hypothesize some stuff. 00:18:57.580 |
Maybe one of the things was that Jesus, it says that He was withdrawing from the people, 00:19:06.380 |
A passage I want to highlight to you, Mark chapter 7, verse 24 through 23, it says that 00:19:11.860 |
Jesus got up and went away from there to this region of Tyre, and when He entered into a 00:19:16.620 |
house, He wanted no one to know of it, yet He could not escape the notice. 00:19:22.220 |
And that's when this woman hearing of it came and said, "My daughter has an unclean spirit." 00:19:27.760 |
So the whole scenario is Jesus was trying to take His disciples and go and isolate, 00:19:35.420 |
All day long, He would preach, He would heal, He would exhaust Himself. 00:19:43.320 |
Many times in Scriptures, Jesus said He was tired, but He would always go to pray. 00:19:47.020 |
So maybe this was one of those moments where it's like, this is actually at a point in 00:19:51.220 |
time when He had so many people already try to manipulate Him, so many people falsely 00:19:56.380 |
accuse Him, He had so many people try to essentially violently force Him to do things that they 00:20:06.420 |
He had enough of the like, "You know, you just come to me because of bread. 00:20:10.900 |
You come to me because you're the wicked generation, all you guys want is miracles and signs, and 00:20:15.060 |
in the end, you want me to feed you and lead you into nirvana." 00:20:20.860 |
I don't know, I can't speak on His behalf because He doesn't say, but clearly Jesus 00:20:28.140 |
But that also tells me that potentially Jesus was testing Him. 00:20:34.100 |
But another thing Jesus says, if you look down to the next verse, take a look at this, 00:20:37.380 |
verse 24, "But He answered and said, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of 00:20:51.860 |
He has His own progression of how He is going to exhibit His grace in His ministry. 00:21:06.300 |
Can you imagine you going to any store, walking up to the counter, people looking up at you, 00:21:21.500 |
The inner rage monster might potentially come out, especially if you saw the one you were 00:21:27.740 |
trying to get the attention of, the manager, right? 00:21:31.660 |
Talking about you to the other individual, saying, "I didn't come for them," right? 00:21:39.460 |
I want to ask you, like, we can all relate to this. 00:21:44.100 |
Potentially many of you in here, maybe you are going through some really difficult times. 00:21:49.620 |
Do you feel like the Lord is silent with you? 00:21:52.860 |
Do you feel like there's – you've been asking, you know, "Okay, I heard the admonition. 00:21:57.700 |
I can't just sit there, and I can't just peruse about my sufferings. 00:22:05.260 |
But then in the end, you don't hear anything. 00:22:09.620 |
Do we have the humility then to just continue to persist? 00:22:14.700 |
Do we have the humility then to have and exhibit patience? 00:22:18.380 |
And every single one of us, we've experienced the strange feeling of disrespect. 00:22:38.260 |
Thank goodness you're a godly individual because if you weren't, then you would just 00:22:47.340 |
Or even in some of the most romantic, like, intimate settings, you feel like you say something 00:22:52.220 |
and the other person is completely oblivious, right? 00:22:56.260 |
You're saying something, and the person, "Oh, yeah." 00:23:08.260 |
This woman is exhibiting an incredible perseverance, but I would also say a humility. 00:23:14.660 |
To feel like you have someone's back on you is very degrading, but yet she persists, and 00:23:26.380 |
Point number three, the woman's humble faith in the midst of harsh realities is yielding, 00:23:33.260 |
I hope you guys are seeing that there's a reason why, as I was meditating on this passage, 00:23:38.300 |
part of me wanted to say, "Look at this woman's persevering, powerful faith," right? 00:23:45.020 |
But actually what I see is this woman is being tested, and part of the testing is the natural 00:24:00.300 |
But the faith that she exhibits is powerfully humble, and this is what I mean. 00:24:05.020 |
I want you to think about this scenario again, and I want you to think about the scenario 00:24:09.900 |
of Jesus saying, "I have only come for the house of Israel," and he's not even talking 00:24:16.560 |
He is answering the disciples, complaining like, "Jesus, did you do something? 00:24:25.740 |
They're just so frustrated, they want her to just be gone. 00:24:29.500 |
And to that, Jesus is teaching or reacting to the disciples saying, "I've only come for 00:24:47.300 |
My application is just as good as the Jews," right? 00:24:56.100 |
I thought you were an equal opportunity lender. 00:25:04.780 |
How dare you say that I've only come for the Jews? 00:25:12.700 |
And if you think that was bad, look at the next passage, because it gets worse. 00:25:28.900 |
Verse 26, "And he answered and said, 'It is not good to take the children's bread and 00:25:41.300 |
And then if you were to picture yourself reacting in the flesh within this scenario, it'd be 00:25:56.220 |
Do you remember how I talked about how asking is a humbling thing? 00:26:00.700 |
And I've counseled like, even again, married couples, where they're just like, "I'm not 00:26:15.860 |
To be in that posture where you're forced to ask is really, really humbling. 00:26:21.740 |
But here and now, Jesus says something different than just that. 00:26:35.540 |
There was a book I was reading, Last Name Reichen. 00:26:41.220 |
He made sense of it like this, and he said, "To us, we may think that this is cruel, this 00:26:47.060 |
is harsh, but you can think of it another way. 00:26:56.020 |
And what he said was, "The reality is that God has made," and I love this kind of example 00:27:04.220 |
"The reality is that God had made a covenant, unique, exclusive relationship with the nation 00:27:13.300 |
Which means he has a relationship with the nation as a man would have as with his wife. 00:27:19.900 |
Weird that other people will come and expect God to treat them like his own wife. 00:27:28.760 |
He describes in the book of Ezekiel that the nation was like a naked and abandoned child 00:27:39.020 |
And God had mercy, came down, washed the baby, clothed the baby, raised the baby, and now 00:27:49.080 |
That's the beautiful picture that God describes his relationship with Israel. 00:27:53.560 |
But weird, weird that people come to God and say, "But where's my bed? 00:28:01.640 |
I thought you would have a savings account for my college. 00:28:11.360 |
And this is where I say this woman's faith and her humility is shining. 00:28:17.840 |
First, her answer in verse 25 is that she came and began to bow herself down. 00:28:29.040 |
It means to prostrate oneself all the way low, face to the ground, I'm not worthy of 00:28:39.720 |
She worshiped him even in the midst of this is not your time. 00:28:43.820 |
But also even in the midst of it's not good to take the children's bread and throw it 00:28:59.640 |
But even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from the master's table." 00:29:18.820 |
She fought against, I'm assuming because we're human, perhaps that natural inclination. 00:29:26.640 |
By faith, Jesus said that our natural state is always going to be this, this struggle. 00:29:33.840 |
He who desires to save his life will lose it. 00:29:39.920 |
And in that way, we have this weird presumptuousness that God highlights many times through scripture 00:29:45.520 |
where we demand, "God, you protect me because I need to survive. 00:29:57.760 |
Because that's in our own heart and our ambition. 00:30:08.280 |
She did not have as her priority to combat him. 00:30:19.240 |
She did not make it her priority to demand that God acknowledge her as also a valuable 00:30:30.800 |
By faith, she beseeched the Lord, crying out and desiring that he minister to her with 00:30:40.720 |
Brothers and sisters, one of the things I want to highlight to you is, yes, we have, 00:30:46.800 |
whether, you know, I see it in myself, this strange expectation. 00:30:53.120 |
All throughout like the biblical history, sinful man has invoked the name of God and 00:31:02.840 |
And so many times, God would say through the prophets, "Why do you act so presumptuously? 00:31:11.520 |
You go into battle, keep constantly invoking my name. 00:31:18.400 |
And even Moses said, "We are a presumptuous people." 00:31:22.740 |
Even here in the New Testament, we're so presumptuous. 00:31:26.400 |
I want to highlight this interesting passage to you. 00:31:29.720 |
If you've heard me preach before, I've hit this passage many times because it is one 00:31:34.920 |
And it comes from the book of Hebrews 2, verse 14 through 18. 00:31:44.600 |
And the Word of God says this, "Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, 00:31:50.360 |
he himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death he might render powerless 00:31:55.440 |
him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear 00:31:59.880 |
of death were subject to slavery all their lives." 00:32:05.640 |
He's answering this question, did Christ have to come down, be incarnate, and be flesh and 00:32:20.600 |
For God to just be like, "I forgive you all and pardon you," then he's just simply pardoning 00:32:30.080 |
But because we are flesh and blood, he had to come, take our place, pay our penalty, 00:32:36.880 |
and by his righteous atonement, we are truly, truly free. 00:32:42.760 |
So the answer to the question, did Jesus have to come, is yes, amen. 00:32:51.240 |
Verse 16 says, "But for surely he does not give help to the angels, but he gives help 00:33:00.680 |
Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in all things, so that he might become a merciful 00:33:04.920 |
and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins 00:33:17.520 |
The demons are looking at this like, "What in the world is going on? 00:33:22.600 |
Why are you helping creatures lower than us?" 00:33:26.000 |
To the question of, did Jesus really have to come down, in one sense it was a resounding, 00:33:30.600 |
"Of course, yes, and without it there is no justice. 00:33:35.040 |
Without it there's no freedom and there's no grace for you." 00:33:41.680 |
Is God in any way obligated to help fallen angels?" 00:34:04.760 |
It's some weird presumption on our end that says, "You have to be like the store where 00:34:13.000 |
not only do you provide goods and services to the best of your ability being fair and 00:34:17.960 |
equitable, but if I'm disappointed, you better hear me." 00:34:38.480 |
As one of my friends here says, "I want you to remember that we are Gentiles and we dare 00:34:53.080 |
Do you recognize that in Ephesians chapter two, because of the length of time, I can't 00:34:57.920 |
read the whole chapter, but it begins with, "You are not only dogs, but you're dead corpse. 00:35:17.000 |
And then later on, it describes, "You have no promise like the Israelites do. 00:35:21.520 |
You're outside of the commonwealth of Israel. 00:35:24.920 |
You have no inheritance because you have no God." 00:35:32.840 |
And by faith, this woman is getting the glimpse of that and beyond and above what the other 00:35:42.320 |
"Right, Lord, and that's why I am willing to take whatever you give me. 00:35:57.120 |
Sometimes when I have a hard time, I'm all stressed out, and then I say these words, 00:36:01.200 |
"I've been praying about," I think I need to rephrase that. 00:36:06.240 |
I've been mulling, daydreaming, and complaining about. 00:36:10.520 |
I'm a man of like, I have deep thoughts that I don't like to share with people, and I overthink 00:36:15.280 |
So what I typically do is if I have a problem, I trace every scenario down to its nth degree 00:36:20.840 |
and think about all the pros and cons down the line. 00:36:23.680 |
That's why it takes me a long time to decide something. 00:36:27.640 |
If this, then B. If this, then C. I'm just sitting there, right? 00:36:32.560 |
And then at the end of that, I tell people, "I prayed about it." 00:36:36.280 |
Brothers and sisters, your ruminating about your hardships is not the same as humble requests, 00:36:45.040 |
But this woman, even in the midst of that, I guess you could say, rude and harsh reality, 00:36:51.840 |
she comes, says, "Yes, Lord, but would you help me?" 00:36:58.320 |
She overcame that innate, which every single one of us, because I pray that I would have 00:37:08.160 |
I place myself in her scenarios, and I say silly things like, "How dare you?" 00:37:18.280 |
And that's why I say, I think she's doing much more than just desperately coming to 00:37:29.720 |
And that's why when Jesus is looking at this, He commends her and says, "You have great 00:37:38.400 |
Because starting from men of old, the great Christians, the great faithful behaved like 00:37:46.000 |
I want to highlight for you a passage in Isaiah chapter 6, verse 5. 00:37:49.700 |
You know that when Isaiah came before the Lord, he came actually with a complaint. 00:37:54.680 |
Because at that time, kings were being assassinated. 00:38:02.400 |
And what he sees is the amazing picture of God on the throne. 00:38:16.640 |
Because when you have faith and you see God, you see yourself in reference to God. 00:38:20.040 |
And next thing you know, he says, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people 00:38:26.320 |
Peter, when he saw the power of Jesus in Luke chapter 5, verse 8, Peter sees Jesus. 00:38:32.960 |
He sees power that he has command over everything. 00:38:38.880 |
He gets down low and he falls at his feet and says, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am 00:38:47.320 |
The person of faith sees the reality and says, "Not like the Pharisee." 00:39:07.120 |
And so I asked, like, you think about this whole scenario, and it's pretty profound. 00:39:10.840 |
Jesus is withdrawing to teach his disciples, preparing, he's constantly preparing them 00:39:26.680 |
Why in the world do you not keep the traditions?" 00:39:29.320 |
And then you basically are defiling yourself. 00:39:35.120 |
And Jesus says to them, "It's not what goes into your mouth that's making you unclean. 00:39:39.560 |
It's the stuff that's coming out of your mouth that makes you unclean." 00:39:42.360 |
And the disciples are like, "Can you explain that for us? 00:39:55.960 |
And that's why I think our Lord, he's a merciful Lord. 00:40:00.480 |
I believe he was drawing the faith out of them. 00:40:17.120 |
It's not mega like the way we use mega, but it does mean massive. 00:40:24.240 |
For her to say, for her to be able to say, not only, I'm assuming, if Jesus like made 00:40:36.600 |
If he said something like, "Not only do you not give the food to the dogs, but you don't 00:40:39.680 |
bring in the stray," she'd be like, "Yes, Lord." 00:40:47.720 |
It's not like she doesn't know, 'cause she's a Canaanite woman, have nothing to do with 00:40:58.400 |
It was not her ambition to be Jesus' highest priority at the moment. 00:41:07.840 |
In that way, guys, brothers and sisters, would be our humble faith. 00:41:14.800 |
First, I ask, how are you struggling with your sufferings, your hardships? 00:41:19.680 |
But I want to ask, how are you genuinely coming to God? 00:41:27.320 |
God, you don't say enough in your Bible about this." 00:41:30.160 |
You think of faith as like some kind of switch, where like if it switched, then everything 00:41:36.800 |
By faith, yeah, I would know what I would do about my business. 00:41:39.140 |
By faith, I would know if I should do this or not. 00:41:42.360 |
And then you just switch it on, it's like, "Ooh, I get it," right? 00:41:48.040 |
Use God's given discernment that He's given you. 00:41:51.840 |
But by faith, we recognize, "Lord, everything I have, it's nothing of my own. 00:42:02.880 |
Everything I have is from your gracious, merciful hand. 00:42:05.700 |
And so every suffering I'm experiencing now, I request of you grace and mercy. 00:42:12.040 |
And you know what an incredible privilege we have." 00:42:16.200 |
Are we in a situation where we're just going to extend our hands and who knows when He'll 00:42:23.640 |
We have the privilege of knowing that our God, His heart is so kind, He lavishes us. 00:42:30.960 |
And we know that as a good father, He is going to answer us according to His good fatherly 00:42:37.600 |
And so that's why for us, this humility is going to produce every fruit of thankfulness, 00:42:46.440 |
This humility then is tied to every other spiritual fruit we're going to produce in 00:42:52.120 |
And so I pray that we would recognize my way of conclusion. 00:42:57.080 |
Again, I don't want to just simply, you know, see this as like my attempt to stick her into 00:43:06.040 |
I don't want to just simply like commend her, but what a challenge to have that kind of 00:43:11.960 |
But let's turn it now to our God, our loving Heavenly Father. 00:43:18.320 |
When He's thinking about your strong faith, He's not thinking, "Go, right? 00:43:26.960 |
And Pastor Peter has been preaching this heavily like, "It's not contingent on you, right? 00:43:36.720 |
She didn't bring anything to the table because what God desired of us, He said, "What do 00:43:59.000 |
Thank you for lavishing upon me every grace and every love."