>> Good morning, church family. Happy Lord's Day. We will now begin our service. Jesus, you're the sweetest. Jesus, you're the sweetest name of all. Jesus, you always hear me when I call. Oh, Jesus, you pick me up each time I fall. You're the sweetest, the sweetest name of all.

Jesus, you're the sweetest. Jesus, you're the sweetest name of all. Jesus, you always hear me when I call. Oh, Jesus, you pick me up each time I fall. You're the sweetest, the sweetest name of all. Jesus, how I love. Jesus, how I love to praise your name. Jesus, you're still the first, the last, the same.

Oh, Jesus, you died and took away my shame. Jesus, you're the sweetest, the sweetest name of all. Jesus, you're the soon and coming king. Jesus, we need the love that you bring. Oh, Jesus, we lift our voices up and sing. You're the sweetest, the sweetest name of all. Good morning, everybody.

I want to extend a warm welcome to all of you. If you're visiting us for the very first time, please do stop by our welcome booth that is located just right at the entrance of the parking lot. We'd love to connect with you and just provide any information and answer any questions that you may have.

When you entered into the sanctuary today, there's this card on your chair. Please do use this as first opportunity to share with people in your life. You know, perhaps you have a co-worker you're going to go out to lunch with. Just keep it in your car or something and give that to him or her as a means to just remind us of the things that are happening this week.

It's an occasion where we're specifically remembering the sacrifice and resurrection of our Lord. So an opportune time to make an invitation. Also, our outreach team is continuing to want to join you in prayer. So if you have specific people you're lifting up on our Facebook site and our app, there's a link for submissions so that you can submit someone's name and then that way we can pray alongside you.

Also, at the very least, this will be like a reminder card for you for the things that are happening this week because there's quite a bit. Again, please note that from Monday through Thursday, there are devotions that will be live streamed and we're going to open up the sanctuary for people to come.

And then Friday, that's going to be Good Friday service with communion and all the things happening Monday through Friday at 730 p.m. The early rise service is going to be outside in the courtyard. Please make sure you come prepared for that. It's going to be a little chilly. That service will not be live streamed, but we will have our 9 o'clock and 11 o'clock regular services for Easter service that day and that will be live streamed.

More details will continue to be kind of sent out and posted as reminders for us as that week approaches. Another announcement I'd like to highlight is we have our membership class that will start April 18th. And again, that class runs for eight weeks from 9 a.m. to 1030 a.m.

in the Upper Room Cafe. And that class is designed specifically for people desiring to enter into membership, going through the important doctrines of the church and how that translates into and that's why we do church this way. So a very important class. Make sure you sign up. The link is there again on the Facebook and the app as well.

Lastly, I just want to mention that so after our worship set, our brother Mark will come up after the worship set to give his testimony and he'll be baptized. At this time, let's bow our head in a word of prayer as we take time to give our offering. Our Father, we thank you for this day and God, our hearts are grateful to you.

Lord, you have granted to us all things in life. God, every single practical thing, tangible thing that you have granted to us, we know we receive from your grace. But what's more, we're so grateful that we have from you all riches and eternity. Lord, God, we have an eternity with you to receive your grace, to know you, to worship you and to serve you.

We recognize that that is valuable beyond anything we can even begin to quantify. And so we thank you and lift this time up to you. We want to lift up our worship, our praise, the attention, our affection, all of it, Lord, to you during this time. And right now as we give to you our offering, we pray, Father God, that you will continue to bless the ministry here.

Lord, would you continue to use everything that we give in terms of service and time and our finances to further your cause of spreading your gospel and doing the work of ministry. We thank you, Lord, it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Let us all rise as we sing these praises.

♪ ♪ Come praise and glorify. ♪ Come praise and glorify our God, the Father of our Lord. ♪ ♪ In Christ He has in heavenly realms His blessings on us poured. ♪ ♪ For pure and blameless in His sight, He destined us to be. ♪ ♪ And now we've been adopted through His Son eternal.

♪ To the praise. ♪ To the praise of Your glory, to the praise of Your mercy and grace. ♪ ♪ To the praise of Your glory, You are the God who saves. ♪ ♪ To the praise of Your glory, You are the God who saves. ♪ Come praise. ♪ Come praise and glorify our God, who gives His grace in Christ.

♪ ♪ In Him our sins are washed away, redeemed through sacrifice. ♪ ♪ In Him God has beckoned to us the mystery of His will. ♪ ♪ That Christ should be the end of all, His purpose to fulfill. ♪ To the praise. ♪ To the praise of Your glory, to the praise of Your mercy and grace.

♪ ♪ To the praise of Your glory, You are the God who saves. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Come praise and glorify our God, for we believe the Word. ♪ ♪ And through our faith we have a seal, the Spirit of the Lord. ♪ ♪ The Spirit guarantees our hope until redemption's done.

♪ ♪ Until we join in endless praise to God the three-given One. ♪ ♪ To the praise of Your glory, to the praise of Your mercy and grace. ♪ ♪ To the praise of Your glory, You are the God who saves. ♪ To the praise. ♪ To the praise of Your glory, to the praise of Your mercy and grace.

♪ ♪ To the praise of Your glory, You are the God who saves. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ Wonderful, merciful Savior. ♪ Wonderful, merciful Savior. ♪ ♪ Precious Redeemer and friend. ♪ ♪ Who would have thought that a lamb could rescue the souls of men? ♪ ♪ Oh, You rescue the souls of men.

♪ Counselor, Comforter. ♪ Counselor, Comforter, Keeper. ♪ ♪ Spirit we long to embrace. ♪ ♪ You offer hope when our hearts have hopelessly lost the way. ♪ ♪ Oh, we hopelessly lost the way. ♪ You are the One. ♪ You are the One that we praise. ♪ ♪ You are the One we adore.

♪ ♪ You give the healing and grace. ♪ ♪ Our hearts always hunger for You. ♪ ♪ Oh, our hearts always hunger for You. ♪ ♪ ♪ Almighty Infinite Father. ♪ Almighty Infinite Father, faithfully loving Your own. ♪ ♪ Here in our weakness You find us, falling before Your throne.

♪ ♪ Oh, we're falling before Your throne. ♪ ♪ You are the One that we praise. ♪ ♪ You are the One we adore. ♪ ♪ You give the healing and grace. ♪ ♪ Our hearts always hunger for You. ♪ ♪ Oh, our hearts always hunger for You. ♪ You are the One.

♪ You are the One that we praise. ♪ ♪ You are the One we adore. ♪ ♪ You give the healing and grace. ♪ ♪ Our hearts always hunger for You. ♪ ♪ Oh, our hearts always hunger for You. ♪ ♪ Oh, our hearts always hunger for You. ♪ Amen.

You may be seated. Hi there. My name is Mark, and many of you may not know me, but that's okay because I've only been coming to Berean for a few months now. And so today I have the privilege of sharing my testimony. So I was actually raised up in the church by my parents, and growing up I never really liked it or felt passionate about it.

It was something that felt like more of my parents' faith and not mine. And so as I grew up, I actually slowly started to despise it. But as I got older, I started having thoughts like, "Why do I have to follow all these rules that don't apply to most people?" And as I got--sometimes I even felt like I was an outsider at school, but I just chose to ignore this feeling because I just tried to fit in.

So actually, because I was raised up in the church, it's always made me recognize how there is a God, yet I chose to just ignore Him because I didn't want to feel guilty about any of my sins. It seemed like a burden having to repent when I know that I'm just going to be making the same mistakes or sinning again in the future.

And so I chose to just ignore Him. I forgot about Him. And sometimes I even twisted what God meant to me so that I can use Him to serve myself instead of serving Him. And for a majority of my life, I've continued to think this way. But recently this summer, God actually made me realize just how sinful this world is and also how I am just so much like it.

All I cared about was myself and what made me happy. So last semester when I was dorming at Cal State Long Beach, I wasn't attending any churches because quite honestly, I didn't feel like it. I wondered what it was like having an entire day of the weekend all to myself.

Again, as you can see, my selfishness. But thinking about it now, I realized that God was working in my life to bring me to Berean. Berean caught my eye with the realization of just how much there was to learn about God and honestly also just how welcoming everyone was.

At first, this welcoming of the large ministry that I'm not used to was what kept me attracted to Berean and I kept coming because of it. But as I kept coming, I learned more about God and His Word. And ultimately, I also just realized how short my understanding was in Christianity.

Before all of this, I actually thought that I was already saved because I knew that God died for me on the cross as a mere fact. But what I didn't know was like I didn't live my life as if He was actually my Lord. And so God made me realize just how great my sins were against Him and how Jesus is actually the only one who's able to save me.

So just as it is written in Ephesians 2:8, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. He's shown me grace by giving me a new heart and making me alive so that I can now follow and love Him by faith.

He's made me recognize what He's done for me and just how grateful I should be because of it. Now it's all about living a life that's glorifying to the Lord and having my own relationship with Him. Without Him, I'd still be just as dead in my sin and an enemy of God.

But because He opened my heart--or opened my eyes and gave me a new heart, I now no longer desire to follow the world, but I follow Jesus as my Lord and Savior." Thank you. >> Mark, thanks for sharing your testimony with us. Mark, do you understand that by entering into the water, you're expressing your union with Christ and His death, and that by coming out of the water, you're expressing your union with Christ and His resurrected life?

>> I do. >> And I baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. >> It's always so blessed to hear the testimony of a young man recognizing his state before the Lord and coming to faith. Today we're going to be continuing to learn about how powerful that faith is.

Over the last--in the course of the many weeks, we've been walking through the book of Hebrews and specifically going methodically through chapter 11 on what is faith. And it has been so good to meditate on how powerful, truly powerful that faith is. Now, the faith that we exercise is so incredibly powerful, not because it's a powerful key, as some would say, as though this is a special key you use to turn certain things on or off.

It's not powerful because through it you end up making giant leaps and bounds. But Scripture tells us faith is powerful because what God gives to us in the faith is to be able to see what is reality, what is truth. And the greatest truth that ever existed is the truth of God, that this is who God is.

And by knowing him and seeing him as he is, then you now have light to everything else. You have the light of truth to show you yourself in relationship to this God. You have faith to see what the world really is. You have faith to see how things fit into the grand scheme as God has made things, and so on.

So as opposed to, let's say, what is perhaps a popular way of thinking about faith is just like this leap into the darkness or leap across a bridge. No, no, faith is actually you being able to see God for who he is. And that's why it's so powerful. And it causes us then to say, "God, I need you.

I want you." We've been learning about how Jacob, in seeing God's promise, then sees it for what it is and so therefore values it above everything else and pursues it with everything he has, right, by being able to see. And so today we're going to be talking about that in the book of Matthew chapter 15.

So please take a moment to turn there. We're looking at kind of an interesting story and learning from an unexpected individual character about what it means to have humble faith, a faith that is strong, a faith that is powerful, because it helps us to see reality for what it is.

So let's take a moment to read this passage. And the word says, "Jesus went from there and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon. And a Canaanite woman from the region came out and began to cry out, saying, 'Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David. My daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.' But he did not answer her a word.

And his disciples came and implored him, saying, 'Send her away, because she keeps shouting at us.' But he answered and said, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' But she came and began to bow down before him, saying, 'Lord, help me.' And he answered and said, 'It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.' But she said, 'Yes, Lord, but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their master's table.' Then Jesus said to her, 'O woman, your faith is great.

It shall be done for you as you wish.' And her daughter was healed at once." Let's take a moment to pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your truth. And God, we eagerly desire to keep growing in our faith. In the way that we see you, Lord, that God, it would become more and more accurate and detailed.

And by doing so, God, I pray we're not just simply learning intellectual facts, but God, our hearts and eyes are being changed. And Lord, it is to our blessedness, it is to our grace, that God, we're able to see you and know you in greater intimacy. So we thank you, Lord.

It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Okay. So as we take a look at this passage, because we have to kind of jump down into the scene, you know. It's Matthew 15, and Jesus has already been doing the work of ministry, of teaching of the kingdom, healing, right? Discipling the group that he has, the 12 disciples, and making sure that they're being prepared.

And what ends up happening is as Jesus is withdrawing, so from the crowds he's trying to actually get away, okay? He's withdrawing into an arena, and the story already should, if you were like a Jew listening to the story, already be like, "Oh no." Because he's entering into a region where it is all Gentile, right?

And according to the customs, so to speak, of the day, you just don't mix. And what's more, those specific cities, Tyre and Sinai, they are Canaanite cities of which you could see them as like arch nemesis, you know, that kind of stuff. The Canaanite people, they were destroyed by the Israelites.

So Canaanite people were like, "Oh, welcome, friends." Like they wouldn't be receiving them in that fashion anyway. Already there was cultural divide. Already there was animosity. The history is against them, so to speak. So if you're reading Jesus and the disciples are entering into this region, already you should be thinking, "Oh, that's a no-no." But what's happened here is the story describes then this Canaanite woman, so her lineage is Canaanite, but she is Syrophoenician, meaning she's from this area, she's Greek by culture.

Then most likely her upbringing, her language, her religion, all that stuff, is Greek, pantheons, and et cetera, et cetera, right? But what's interesting is as we jump down into this scenario then is you have an unlikely individual who is unlikely going to approach a possible entourage of a high, I guess, profile celebrity, if you will, because news about him is spreading everywhere.

And you have basically 13 Jewish men trying to go in a secluded region so that they can have time to prepare and et cetera, maybe even have a respite from the ministry that they're doing. And this woman comes, desperate. This woman comes with cries, with screams and shouts. And we quickly learn she says that her daughter is cruelly demon-possessed.

Originally for some reason I thought every time I think about a demon-possessed person, it's some adult who is out of control, angry, right? Destructive and violent, because that's a lot of times the way the Scriptures has these accounts. But the Gospel of Mark adds the detail that this was a child, it was a little daughter.

And then part of you goes, "Demons," right? Tormenting even little ones. But at the same time we jump into her desperation and we quickly recognize sometimes there's a kind of suffering that goes beyond your own pains. This is a kind of desperation where it's for her little baby girl, right?

And I quickly, as I thought about this, I remembered our first son, Josiah, when he was two, he's now turning 10, but when he was two we had this incredibly desperate moment where I genuinely felt desperate. And it was he had this high fever that spiked rapidly. It went up to about 105, and then he walked into a seizure.

His knuckles curled up, his eyes rolled back, his face turned blue, his lips turned blue. And Bia held and looked at me and said, "He's not breathing!" I panicked. I started running like back and forth. Like I don't know why I ran to the door. I opened it, I ran back, I looked at her, grabbed the bag.

Because what am I supposed to do? If your child's not breathing, what are you supposed to do? A lot of you guys who know me, you know I have horrendous memory. I can't even remember what I did yesterday. But those moments of desperation, it's seared into your brain. I can tell you how I felt, where I ran to, what I grabbed, how I drove, all of that.

Because sometimes in the moments of desperation, especially here, it's kind of inexplicable what you're going to end up doing. And so maybe we can kind of more humanistically relate to her and say, "We get you." "We get you that you're suffering here." And this is the kind of suffering that's not like you hurt yourself, but a kind of suffering where it truly makes you feel desperate because you know the limitations that you have even as a parent.

You're going to protect your children, but you know your shield is only so big. And clearly you're out of your own element here. What are you going to do? Of course you're going to go cry out, right? But here's the thing. I think falsely we believe that suffering somehow refines and humbles us and grows us.

No. That's not true. I think my own experience in life teaches me that when you're hurt or you go through suffering, you end up becoming more scabby, somehow hardened. The natural human being, when faced with difficulty, hardship, and suffering, they typically turn to things like anger. What I've seen just trying to help people overcome their suffering and hardships, sadly to say, is that there's a hardening of the heart.

What we're actually required to walk through suffering is faith. And that's why it was such a--when I said earlier that faith is powerful, it not only overcomes the scenario and the suffering, it overcomes the crustiness of your heart in that suffering. The natural inclination for man is not to come out of suffering greater in benevolence, greater in modesty, greater in humility.

No. Walk with anybody through suffering. Walk with anybody who's felt like their back was up against the wall. They've already tried everything that was in their power. It doesn't just naturally cause humility. Humility comes by faith, amen, the work that God is doing in our hearts. And so the first thing I want to highlight as we see this narrative is that humble faith in the midst of desperation requests mercy.

What I mean by that is this woman's faith as we exhibit it in the midst of her desperation is leading her to a humble posture of asking. Because what I said just a moment ago is that actually if you, through experience of counseling or even just experiencing your own life, your temptation in the moment of suffering is rage.

You feel justified to rage. You feel justified to let it loose. And then sometimes not only do you feel justified, you compete with people. Do you have any idea the suffering I went through? Here any of the stereotypical grouchy older people kind of mentality, I feel like, again, I feel blessed to have lived this life that I've lived, but having been, yes, an immigrant, having been, you know, through hardships, seeing my parents and having hardships of divorce or my parents going through divorce, et cetera, et cetera, and all of that, I feel the temptation to be like, "Dude, my life is this, this, and this.

Don't you dare even tell me about your suffering." Because that's what the natural heart does in the midst of hardship. But what I'm trying to tell you is this woman is already being expressed. You might say like, "What an obvious point to make. She asks the question. Like what kind of point is that?" But that's a point because what I'm trying to say is every one of us are tempted in the moments of suffering to flee, flight.

Second is to fight. But in the desperation, if it's met with a heart of faith, then she is going to ask and request. So if you look at the narrative here, it comes where she's crying out to the Lord Jesus, and what does she say? Even her words are already humble, is it not?

Look at verse 22. "This Canaanite woman from the region came out and began to cry out, saying, 'Have mercy on me, Lord, son of David!'" She implores him and desires that he would give her that grace and mercy. And that level of desperation, it didn't produce what is natural to the human heart, but rather it produced this beseeching.

And I got to say, honestly speaking, if you meditate on that a little bit, being in a posture or if you're ever required, like by necessity, you're put into a position where you have to ask, it's humbling in and of itself. Right? I mean, I'll confess, and I'm pretty sure if I take a vote right now, how many of you guys have a hard time asking for help?

But the thing about it is, think about our faith. We are in a position where by necessity we are taught, "Pray to the Lord for daily bread." Think about that. I need to pray to my Father in heaven because I am his child for daily sustenance. But sometimes, and let me ask you, in your times of difficulty, in your moments of hardship, do you harden up?

Do you resort to, "I've got to power through this"? I don't need your help kind of mentality. You might not verbalize it, but do you express that kind of attitude? Or is this challenging to you? "Lord, help me." It's like I need to ask you for my daily bread, for everything that I need in this moment.

I also need in my greatest needs, in my greatest moments, and here and now in my greatest aspiration to ask you. And that's why I think the story is powerful because she comes to the Lord, again, against certain barriers and obstacles. She's making a scene. I don't know if there was a massive crowd around her.

There must have been others. Clearly, the disciples that are watching. Clearly, by this time that she's asking, they're already annoyed. She's making a scene of it, not intentionally, but because she knows, "I am in this position where I need to ask you." And it's in those moments, for me, I'm thinking about it.

I realize when I give advice now, like, there was this weird time when I think when people, you know, excited about, let's say, parenting, excited about wanting to help people in, let's say, tangible advice and practical things that we can do to help parenting. I would always give, like, "Well, did you try this?

Did you try that?" But now I realize, like, "Hmm, I need to stay off the, like, giving, like, typical advice. Did you try giving him some water?" You know? Maybe he's just angry, you know? "Did you try giving him some food?" Because my guess is this woman probably has already tried everything.

If we're jumping down into this story, sympathizing with her, she's in a desperate situation where her daughter is cruelly, Scripture says it's cruelly, like, malintent, bad, horrendously demonized. And so she comes to the Lord to ask. And so, again, as a quick, quick admonition for you and me, recall that we ask the Lord for mercies.

We ask the Lord in beseeching, with humility, outstretched hands. Psalm 51, verse 1 and 2 is a famous one. It says, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion. Blot out my transgressions, wash away all my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." She calls out to the Son of David, asking for mercy.

Now, I'm going to just highlight this for a second here. The reason why I'm essentially commending her faith, so to speak, is because in the way that she's approaching the Lord, I don't think it is just simply a humanistic, "We get it, you're desperate, so therefore you're coming running over here for Him." I think she's exhibiting faith.

Clearly, she is recognizing Him for the stature of who He says He is. Whereas the Pharisees would never, ever dare acknowledge, "Oh, you're the Son of David." No, they call Him, "Rabbi, good teacher," right? Maybe, "Miracle worker," but they will never confess that He is the Son of David because to do so would be to say, "You are the coming one.

You're the promised one, the Messiah." But here and now, she says, "Have mercy on me, Son of David." And so we're going to highlight that as we go. So what we recognize here is first that she, in her humility, overcomes the desperation, so to speak, not by wallowing, not by fleeing, not by fighting, but by asking.

Point two, this woman's humble faith in the midst of silence is patient. Why do I say this? It's because if this woman is coming with such humility and asking the Lord, you would think the Lord Jesus would be like, "This is what I was looking for." Those Pharisees who just got finished accusing Him for X, Y, and Z do not think of themselves as sinners.

They never asked me for help. They asked me for, "Prove this and prove that." But the Lord said, "I have come for sinners." Amen? So you would think that the Lord Jesus would say, "Right here, guys. This is what I was looking for." But take a look at this unusual response.

Go over to verse 23, and it says, "But He did not answer her a word. And His disciples came and implored Him, saying, 'Send her away because she keeps shouting at us.'" Right? This is really weird. Why would Jesus do this? It's completely contrary to what you would expect, especially in a day and culture for us when it's like you never, ever turn away anybody.

As a matter of fact, you just make sure that anybody and everybody can come. What is this? Well, one thing, we could just kind of hypothesize some stuff. Maybe one of the things was that Jesus, it says that He was withdrawing from the people, so He's just withdrawing from her.

A passage I want to highlight to you, Mark 7, verse 24 through 23, it says that Jesus got up and went away from there to this region of Tyre, and when He entered into a house, He wanted no one to know of it, yet He could not escape the notice.

And that's when this woman hearing of it came and said, "My daughter has an unclean spirit." So the whole scenario is Jesus was trying to take His disciples and go and isolate, and Jesus repeatedly did this. All day long, He would preach, He would heal, He would exhaust Himself.

Many times in Scripture, Jesus said He was tired, but He would always go to pray. So maybe this was one of those moments where it's like, this is actually at a point in time when He had so many people already try to manipulate Him, so many people falsely accuse Him.

He had so many people try to essentially violently force Him to do things that they wanted, make Him king. So maybe He had enough of it. He had enough of the, like, "You know, you just come to me because of bread. You come to me because you're the wicked generation.

All you guys want is miracles and signs, and in the end, you want me to feed you and lead you into nirvana." No. I don't know. I can't speak on His behalf because He doesn't say. But clearly, Jesus was withdrawing, right? But that also tells me that potentially Jesus was testing Him.

Are you like every single other person? But another thing Jesus says, if you look down to the next verse, take a look at this, verse 24. "But He answered and said, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'" Clearly, our Lord, He has His own timetable.

He has His own progression of how He is going to exhibit His grace in His ministry. But imagine the woman hearing that, right? This woman is exhibiting patience in that. Can you imagine you going to any store, walking up to the counter, people looking up at you, and then looking away?

The inner Karen would come out, right? The inner rage monster might potentially come out, especially if you saw the one you were trying to get the attention of, the manager, right? Talking about you to the other individual, saying, "I didn't come for them," right? Think about that. I want to ask you, like, we can all relate to this.

Potentially, many of you in here, maybe you are going through some really difficult times. Do you feel like the Lord is silent with you? Do you feel like you've been asking, you know, "Okay, I heard the admonition. I can't just sit there, and I can't just peruse about my sufferings." I need to ask you, so you did.

But then in the end, you don't hear anything. Do we have the humility then to just continue to persist? Do we have the humility then to have and exhibit patience? And every single one of us, we've experienced the strange feeling of disrespect. I asked, "Where is it?" And this is something I want to highlight.

Every single one of us knows that feeling. Moms in here, you know this feeling. Dinner is ready, not a single reply, right? Like, nobody does anything. Guys, we got to get going, nothing, right? Thank goodness you're a godly individual, because if you weren't, then you would just take that dish and frisbee it over, right?

Or even in some of the most romantic, like, intimate settings, you feel like you say something, the other person is completely oblivious, right? You're asking a question, you're saying something, and the person, "Oh, yeah." The rage that comes up. "How dare you!" Right? I want to challenge every single one of us.

This woman is exhibiting an incredible perseverance, but I would also say a humility. To feel like you have someone's back on you is very degrading. But yet, she persists, and it continues to go forward. Point number three. Point number three, the woman's humble faith in the midst of harsh realities is yielding.

It is yielding. I hope you guys are seeing that there's a reason why, as I was meditating on this passage, part of me wanted to say, "Look at this woman's persevering, powerful faith!" Right? But actually, what I see is, this woman is being tested. And part of the testing is the natural human reaction to this could be so prideful.

But the faith that she exhibits is powerfully humble, and this is what I mean. I want you to think about this scenario again, and I want you to think about the scenario of Jesus saying, "I have only come for the house of Israel," and he's not even talking to her.

He is answering the disciples, complaining like, "Jesus, did you do something? Tell her to shoo! Lady, please stop!" Right? Like, they're just so frustrated, they want her to just be gone. And to that, Jesus is teaching or reacting to the disciples, saying, "I've only come for the house of Israel." But imagine her hearing that.

Imagine us in our day hearing that. "What? Discrimination! My application is just as good as the Jews!" Right? "That's not fair! What kind of compassionate leader are you? I thought you were an equal opportunity lender. Let me talk to your manager!" Right? The Karen would go nuts at that statement.

"How dare you say that I've only come for the Jews?" And if you think that was bad, look at the next passage, because it gets worse. Look at what Jesus says. Jesus says in verse, let's see here, 26. I know I skipped a verse there. I did that purposely.

Verse 26, "And he answered and said, 'It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.'" Gasp! Right? And then if you were to picture yourself reacting in the flesh within this scenario, it'd be like, "What did you say?" Right? "How dare you! Is that the way you see me right now?" Do you remember how I talked about how asking is a humbling thing?

I've counseled, even again, married couples, where they're just like, "I'm not even going to ask anymore! I'm not a dog!" Like, "Whoa, whoa." Why? Because I'm not going to beg. To be in that posture where you're forced to ask is really, really humbling. But here and now, Jesus says something different than just that.

He didn't say, "You better beg." He didn't say, "You better ask." He said, "This is not even proper." Whoa. I want you to think about that. There was a book I was reading, "Last Name Reichen." He made sense of it like this, and he said, "To us, we may think that this is cruel, this is harsh, but you can think of it another way.

This is reality." Right? And what he said was, "The reality is that God has made," and I love this kind of example and explanation. He said, "The reality is that God has made a covenant, unique, exclusive relationship with the nation of Israel." Which means he has a relationship with the nation as a man would have with his wife.

Weird that other people will come and expect God to treat them like his own wife. God uniquely adopted the nation of Israel. He describes in the book of Ezekiel that the nation was like a naked and abandoned child in its own blood. And God had mercy, came down, washed the baby, clothed the baby, raised the baby, and now is leading the child by hand.

That's the beautiful picture that God describes his relationship with Israel. But weird. Weird that people come to God and say, "But where's my bed? Where's my clothes? I thought you would have a savings account for my college. Where's my wife? Where's my husband? Where's my job?" Weird! And this is where I say this woman's faith and her humility is shining.

Because look at her answer. Her answer in verse 25 is that she came and began to bow herself down. That's proskuneo. You guys have heard that term many times. It means to prostrate oneself all the way low, face to the ground. I'm not worthy of you kind of mentality.

To worship. It's synonymous to worship. She worshiped him even in the midst of this is not your time. But also even in the midst of it's not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. Look what she says. Verse 27. Take a look. Yes, Lord.

Gospel of Mark says, "Truth, Lord." But even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from the master's table. And I was like, "Wow. Lady, you're witty." You know, like, "That's so good. You're so sharp and cunning." No. She was yielding. She fought against, I'm assuming because we're human, perhaps that natural inclination.

By faith, Jesus said that our natural state is always going to be this, this struggle. He who desires to save his life will lose it. That is every single one of our struggle. And in that way, we have this weird presumptuousness that God highlights many times through Scripture where we demand, "God, you protect me because I need to survive.

God, you heal me. You do this for me. You provide for me. You acknowledge me." Because that's in our own heart and our ambition. But she didn't do that. She did not have as her priority to combat him. "Oh, I don't think your laws are fair. Let me talk to you about your policies." She did not make it her priority to demand that God acknowledge her as also a valuable human being and made it about her identity.

No. By faith, she besieged the Lord, crying out and desiring that he minister to her with help. Brothers and sisters, one of the things I want to highlight to you is, yes, we have, whether, you know, I see it in myself, this strange expectation. All throughout, like, the biblical history, sinful man has invoked the name of God and just demanded, "You be on my side, okay?" And so many times, God would say through the prophets, "Why do you act so presumptuously?

When I say judgment, you say peace. What in the world is going on? You go into battle, keep constantly invoking my name. When I told you, I'm not going with you. Why do you do that?" And even Moses said, "We are a presumptuous people." Right? Even here in the New Testament, we're so presumptuous.

I want to highlight this interesting passage to you. If you've heard me preach before, I've hit this passage many times because it is one of my all-time favorites. And it comes from the book of Hebrews, chapter 2, verse 14 through 18. So please take a look there. Hebrews 2, 14 through 18.

And the Word of God says this, "Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives." Take a moment to pause there.

He's answering this question, "Did Christ have to come down, be incarnate, and be flesh and blood like you and me? Did he have to do that?" And the answer is a resounding yes. For God to just be like, "I forgive you all and pardon you," then he's just simply pardoning criminals.

He would be an unjust judge. But because we are flesh and blood, he had to come, take our place, pay our penalty, and by his righteous atonement, we are truly, truly free. Amen? So the answer to the question, "Did Jesus have to come?" is yes, amen. But then take a look at verse 16.

Verse 16 says, "But for surely he does not give help to the angels, but he gives help to the descendants of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in all things, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." What?

What am I saying here? The demons are looking at this like, "What in the world is going on? Why are you helping creatures lower than us?" To the question of, "Did Jesus really have to come down?" In one sense, it was a resounding, "Of course, yes!" And without it, there is no justice.

Without it, there is no freedom and there is no grace for you. But on this sense, it's like a, "No!" Is God in any way obligated to help fallen angels? And the strange answer is, "No." Is God obligated to you? Is God obligated to me? Does he owe us anything?

And the scripture is really, really clear. He owes us nothing. It's some weird presumption on our end that says, "You have to be like the store where not only do you provide goods and services to the best of your ability being fair and equitable, but if I'm disappointed, you better hear me." We're approaching it with little faith then.

That is small, small faith. We should be shocked. He's offering help to who? As one of my friends here says, "I want you to remember that we are Gentiles and we dare not be uppity about our salvation." He says that, I laugh, but it's so true. What do I mean by this?

Do you recognize that in Ephesians Chapter 2, because of the length and take of time, I can't read the whole chapter, but it begins with, "You are not only dogs, but you're a dead corpse. You're dead in your transgressions. You're children of wrath. You have your own father." You're walking in disobedience.

And then later on, it describes, "You have no promise," like the Israelites do. "You're outside of the commonwealth of Israel. You have no hope. You have no inheritance because you have no God." That's the state of affairs. That's the reality. And by faith, this woman is getting the glimpse of that.

And beyond and above what the other Pharisees were thinking, she got it. "Right, Lord, and that's why I am willing to take whatever you give me. Have mercy on me. Help me," she asked. I think to me, that's powerful. Can I confess something? Sometimes when I have a hard time, I'm all stressed out, and then I say these words, "I've been praying about." I think I need to rephrase that.

"I've been mulling, daydreaming, and complaining about." I'm a man of, like, I have deep thoughts that I don't like to share with people, and I overthink everything. So what I typically do is if I have a problem, I trace every scenario down to its nth degree and think about all the pros and cons down the line.

That's why it takes me a long time to decide something. I'm just ruminating, "If this, then B. If this, then C." I'm just sitting there, right? And then at the end of that, I tell people, "I prayed about it." Brothers and sisters, your ruminating about your hardships is not the same as humble requests, right?

But this woman, even in the midst of that, I guess you could say, rude and harsh reality, she comes, says, "Yes, Lord, but would you help me?" That's powerful. She overcame that innate which every single one of us-- because I pray that I would have my pride overcome like that.

I place myself in her scenarios, and I say silly things like, "How dare you?" Because that's natural. But by faith, she's overcoming the flesh. And that's why I say I think she's doing much more than just desperately coming to find medicine for her daughter, right? She's giving God worship.

And that's why when Jesus is looking at this, he commends her and says, "You have great faith." Because starting from men of old, the great Christians, the great faithful, behaved like her. I want to highlight for you a passage in Isaiah 6, verse 5. You know that when Isaiah came before the Lord, he came actually with a complaint.

Because at that time, kings were being assassinated. Potentially, there's no king on the throne. What in the world are we going to do, Lord? And what he sees is the amazing picture of God on the throne. And that's when he says, "Yes!" No, no, that's not what he says.

That's when he says, "I am ruined." Because when you have faith and you see God, you see yourself in reference to God. And next thing you know, he says, "I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. I am undone." Peter, when he saw the power of Jesus in Luke 5, verse 8, Peter sees Jesus, he sees power that he has command over everything.

And what does he say? He looks down low and he falls at his feet and says, "Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man." You guys know the story. The person of faith sees the reality and says, "Not like the Pharisee. Thank goodness I'm not like all of you.

No, like the tax collector. Lord, have mercy on me, for I am a sinner." That's great faith. And the woman exhibited it. And so I asked, like, you think about this whole scenario, and it's pretty profound. Jesus is withdrawing to teach his disciples, preparing. He's constantly preparing them for the cross that he's going to endure.

But what an incredible object lesson. He just got teaching the disciples. The Pharisee is asked, "You folks are unclean. Why in the world do you not keep the traditions?" And then you basically are defiling yourself. Unclean people, they accuse them like that. And Jesus says to them, "It's not what goes into your mouth that's making you unclean.

It's the stuff that's coming out of your mouth that makes you unclean." And the disciples are like, "Can you explain that for us? We don't really get it." It's really funny. The disciples are great. It feels like them. It's like, "Huh? What's going on?" What an object lesson. And that's why I think our Lord, he's a merciful one.

I believe he was drawing the faith out of her. Disciples are annoying. "What are we doing with this girl? Let's kick her out." Right? Like I don't know what they were thinking. But then Jesus says, "Great faith." In the Greek, it's mega faith. It's not mega like the way we use mega, but it does mean massive.

It's mega. It's massive. For her to say, for her to be able to say. Not only, I'm assuming, if Jesus made the analogy even worse than a dog. Right? If he said something like, "Not only do you not give the food to the dogs, but you don't bring in the stray." She'd be like, "Yes, Lord." I am the stray.

I was out of the camp. I know I have no place here. It's not like she doesn't know, as she's a Canaanite woman, have nothing to do with this Jewish Messiah. She absolutely knows. It was not her ambition to make it fair. It was not her ambition to be Jesus' highest priority at the moment.

She was seeking mercy. And in that way, guys, brothers and sisters, would be our humble faith. I want to ask you, how are you--first, I ask, how are you struggling with your sufferings, your hardships? But I want to ask, how are you genuinely coming to God? Are you coming with sentiments of complaint?

"God, no one's reaching out to me here. God, you don't say enough in your Bible about this." And you think of faith as like some kind of switch where, like, if it switched, then everything would be grand. By faith, yeah, I would know what I would do about my business.

By faith, I would know if I should do this or not. And then by faith, should I marry her? And then you just switch it on, and it's like, "Ooh, I get it." Use your wisdom. Use God's given discernment that he's given you. By faith, we recognize, "Lord, everything I have, there's nothing of my own.

Everything I have is from your gracious, merciful hand. And so every suffering I'm experiencing now, I request of you grace and mercy." And you know what an incredible privilege we have. Are we in a situation where we're just going to extend our hands, and who knows when he'll answer?

I don't know, right? No. We have the privilege of knowing that our God, his heart is so kind, he lavishes us. And we know that as a good father, he is going to answer us according to his good fatherly wisdom. And so that's why for us, this humility is going to produce every fruit of thankfulness, praise, confidence, joy.

This humility, then, is tied to every other spiritual fruit we're going to produce in our lives. Does that make sense? And so I pray that we would recognize my way of conclusion. Again, I don't want to just simply, you know, see this as like my attempt to stick her into the hall of faith, you know?

I don't want to just simply like commend her, but what a challenge to have that kind of humility. But let's turn it now to our God, our loving Heavenly Father, when he's thinking about your strong faith. He's not thinking, "Go, right? Convert Africa for me." And Pastor Peter has been preaching this heavily like, "It's not contingent on you, right?

It's God." She didn't bring anything to the table because what God desired of us, he said, "What do I require of you, man? To love mercy and to walk humbly with me." And this is where we get to say, "Yes, Lord. I trust you. I've got nothing to bring to the table.

So I request of you mercies. Thank you for lavishing upon me every grace and every love." Let's pray. Lord God, what incredible thanks and appreciation and gratitude we owe to you. Lord, one can say that left to ourselves, we do not even have the privilege or right to lift up a word of request to you.

But thank you, God, that you hear our prayers. Thank you, God, that you extend your grace upon us. I pray, Lord, that we would be a people marked with this faith where we see the state of our being. We are lost sinners graced by you. And I pray, Father God, that I will produce in us incredible, incredible love and affection for you.

We thank you, Lord, for this day. It's in Christ's name. Amen. Let's take a moment of time of prayer as we reflect on the sermon. Let us all rise as we sing our closing praise. Amen. Let's all bow our heads for a word of prayer. Our God, we thank you so much.

Lord, we thank you for the healing that you bring for the many who have suffered. We thank you, God, for the grace that you impart on us, that you would change our hearts internally. Thank you, God, for the strengthening that you give. And Lord, we can just continue to go on and on and on, for we know, Father God, that we have everything in you.

Lord, as we looked at the passage today, I pray, Father God, that we would be challenged, that even in our everyday, Lord, that we would continue to exercise great trust in you, and what's more, we would keep learning what it means, then, to live in dependency upon our Father, to humbly request things, and God, to have the proper attitude, the humble attitude that is also in Christ.

And so I pray in that way, Lord, may it continue to give glory to you, and may we, Father God, continue to grow in our relationship with you and honor you. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and keep you in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.

Amen. God sent his Son, they called him Jesus, he came to love, he loved for good, he lived and died, to buy my poor soul, an empty grave is there to save your head, because he lives, I can face tomorrow, because he lives, all fear is gone, because I know, he holds the future, and life is worth the living, just because he lives.

Amen. If you would just take a seat for one moment. The people that are on this side, actually you are excused to go ahead and exit out that side door. So you can go ahead and do that now. For the people in the courtyard, please take this time to go ahead and exit towards the back.

We're asking this group just to give it a minute or two for the courtyard to exit out, and then you guys are excused as well. So just after a minute or two, please go ahead and just start proceeding to exit out the main entrance. Thank you so much.