Matthew 15:21–28

0:00 Good morning. It's good to be with you. My name is Chris Gaiman. I'm an elder here at 3rd Avenue. And it is a joy to bring the word of God to you this morning. We will be, as said before, we will be in Matthew chapter 15, verses 21 to 28. Matthew 15, 21 to 28 is the story of Jesus' encounter with a Canaanite woman. I think it's on page 821 in the Pew Bibles, if you would like to turn there. So have you ever had one of those experiences in life where you're going about your day and you kind of look in a particular direction and you see something that's just bizarre, it's just baffling, it's just mind-blowing, but it doesn't quite register at first, and so you kind of go back to what you're doing and then you stop two seconds later and you're like, wait, did I just see that? Did that just actually happen?

0:46 A couple weeks ago at work, I was in our parking lot, and I was doing something, and I looked over at the road, and a car was going by, and its front left tire was gone. It was just riding on the rim, and sparks were just flying up the side of this car, just like covering the car in sparks. And it just didn't register. I looked back and continued what I was doing, and then I was like, wait, hold on a second. And I look over, and he's just flying down. He's not going slow. He's just flying down the road. Sparks are flying all over the place. and I was like, does somebody want to tell that guy or girl, I don't know, I couldn't see because of all the sparks. Does somebody want to tell them that that's like really dangerous and they're going to catch their car on fire? Have you ever had those experiences where it just, it like shocks you and you just have to look at it and stare at it again? Well, this text does that. This text, you're kind of reading in the long and you think, okay, we're just going to have a miracle text.

1:37 It's going to be awesome. And then suddenly Jesus just goes kind of cold. And then he starts saying things that you're like, Jesus, why are you saying that? What's going on? And we have to pause and think about it and ponder it. And if we do, we will come to find that this text is glorious and encouraging for your soul. Let's read this text and dive in, starting in verse 21. And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sedan. 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 but he did not answer her a word and his disciples came and begged him saying send her away for she's crying out after us and he answered i was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of israel but she came and knelt before him saying lord help me and he answered it's not right to take the children's bread

2:40 and throw it to the dogs she said yes Lord yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table then Jesus answered her oh woman great is your faith be it done for you as you desire and her daughter was healed instantly let me pray Father may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight you who are our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Well, you saw it in there, right?

3:11 I mean, this story seems to be heading in the direction you expect any miracle story to go, and then suddenly Jesus doesn't answer her a word, and then he says, you don't give to the dogs what's meant for the children, and it just jars you, it stops you. Well, that's what we're going to be looking at this morning and trying to pick this passage apart and understand what's going on. The main idea of this passage, as we look at it this morning, is simply this. Faith, as opposed to religious pride or works, gains the favor of the Lord. Faith, as opposed to religious pride or works, gains the favor of the Lord. I'm going to break that down into two points this morning. First, we're going to be looking at the facets of faith. We're going to pick up the diamond of faith, and we're going to look at it. What is faith? When Christians talk about faith, what is faith? Faith is a very nebulous, hazy term in our culture today. Many people use the word faith. I'm a person of faith, all sorts of things. But in Christianity, faith has got some substance to it. It's like a rock.

4:07 It's like a diamond. You can pick it up. You can look at it. And we're going to do that this morning with the faith of this woman. The second point we'll be looking at is the fruit of faith. So if we actually have faith in Christ, what are the results? What's the fruit? What comes from it? The facets of faith and the fruit of faith. This is a, if you will, faith alone sermon. The five solos of the Reformation, scripture alone, God's glory alone, Christ alone, grace alone, faith alone. That's what we're going to be looking at this morning, faith alone. All right, so point number one, the facets of faith. What are these facets of faith? So quickly, just to set the context, this comes on the heels of Jesus teaching about legalism and where sin actually comes from.

4:45 And if you were here last week, you would have heard Alex Duke actually preach on that text. Now, he preached on the version from Mark chapter 7. I'm in the Matthew version, but it's the exact same story. So if you're here, you understand the background. By the way, I chose this text before I knew what he was doing. So in the strange providence of God, for all the thousands of verses that you could have chosen today, this was chosen just randomly, and bam, it just fell right in line. So perhaps that's the kindness of the Lord to us this morning. At any rate, as Alex explained to us last week, Jesus just is going hard on the Pharisees for their legalism.

5:18 He's saying to them, you're trying to wash the outside, but it's the inside that's corrupt. Sin rises up from the inside and Jesus is just attacking them and going at them for it. But then the question kind of becomes at the end of that, okay, well, if it's not legalism, if it's not works, and if we're sinful from the inside and that wells up into our actions, then what's the solution? What's the hope that we have? What do we do? Well, the answer is this text. It's faith. The woman of faith, the Canaanite woman, is the answer to the question, And what is the antidote to legalism?

5:52 What is the hope for a sinful heart? It's faith in Christ. So that's how the story functions in the book of Matthew. So let me give you up front the three facets of faith that I want to discover with you. And then we'll go through the text and explain them. Three facets of faith, of this diamond of faith. First, faith is a humble recognition of who Jesus is. Faith, the humble recognition of who Jesus is. Second, faith is desperate for the Lord to act. And third, faith is utterly confident that he will.

6:25 It's humble, it's desperate, it's confident. Those are the three facets. Let's check them out. So hopping into our story here in verse 21, and Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. So Jesus here leaves the land of Israel and he heads up into the country of Lebanon. It's the only time in the book of Matthew that he leaves Israel and he heads up into Lebanon. It's kind of, the early reader would be like, why is he going up there? Well, for most of us, Tyre and Sidon probably mean nothing. But for the first readers, it would mean a whole lot. Tyre and Sidon have a long, long history.

6:57 They're some of the oldest cities in the world today that we know of. And historically, they were trading partners with Israel under the reign of King David and Solomon. They were trading partners. Tyre and Sidon are on the Mediterranean Sea. They're maritime cities, and they're phenomenally wealthy because of all of their trade. So they're trading partners for a while, but as time goes on, things start to take a turn for the worst. For example, Sidon is the hometown of Queen Jezebel, the most wicked queen in the Old Testament. And she brings all of the paganism of Sidon down into Israel and destroys the land with the paganism of Sidon.

7:34 Tyre gets an even worse rap. In Ezekiel chapter 28, Ezekiel is walking through and he's judging the various nations. and he picks up the king of Tyre and he says, this man is so filled with pride. And he starts comparing him to like a cherubim that falls from the mountain of God. Almost like, well, Christians for thousands of years have seen that text as a picture of the fall of Satan or perhaps the fall of Adam out of the garden. I'm not interested in the debate, but it's a picture of absolute pride. And who's the guy that they pick up to describe it? The king of Tyre. Like this guy is filled with pride. And so when you hear Tyre and Sidon, you're to think paganism. You're to think pride, pomp, wealth, worldly might, worldly power. Jesus heads up to the realm of Tyre and Sidon. He's not on home turf here. Why is he there? Well, he's there to meet who we meet in the next verse, verse 22.

8:30 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. Matthew instantaneously wants to paint this woman in a negative light for his early readers. She is a Canaanite woman from that region. That would mean a lot more than probably what it means to you. The word Canaanite would remind the early Jewish readers of everything, of their whole history. They should have gotten rid of the Canaanites out of the land and then the paganism, the Canaanites rose up.

9:02 He's a woman and they were told, don't marry Canaanite women because their idolatry will pollute your household. So Canaanite woman is something to be like a virgin. It would be like a conservative picking up a book and like the first page it's like, John was a communist. And you're like, oh, you know, instantly you're like, I'm not sure about that. She's a Canaanite woman. Matthew's writing this in such a way to try to pull his early readers in and to dislike her. She's from this region of pride. and pump well she comes to Jesus and she begins crying out to him have mercy on me oh Lord son of David and we begin to see this first facet of faith coming through it's a humility to recognize who Jesus is look at how she addresses him she calls him Lord and son of David now Lord can mean sir it can just be a polite term of sir in the Bible and sometimes it is just that it just means sir But I think because she links it with son of David, which is clearly a majestic term, clearly a royal term, that she means a little bit more by Lord than what at first blush.

10:11 I think she's putting actually a good deal of authority in him because she seems to think that he has authority over the demonic realm, which is polluting her daughter. So I think there's a lot going on in there. But even more so, Matthew wants you to remember what happened a couple chapters ago in chapter 12. I'll just read you a quick story. This is in 1222. the jews brought him a demon they brought to jesus a demon possessed man who was blind and mute and jesus healed him so the man could both talk and see and all the people were astonished and said could this be the son of david you see what's happening here there's like this spark happening in israel this could be the son of david he he has all this power of the demonic realm this could be the long-awaited messiah this could be the one there's a spark it's kindling it's it's growing. And then the Pharisees, idiotically, come along and just take a massive amount of water and just quench that fire out. When the Pharisees heard this, they said, no, no, it's not the son of David. It's only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.

11:17 So when, so the Pharisees are so against Jesus that they're willing to attribute his works to demonic activity. But Jesus can travel to a historic pagan area, Tyre and Sidon, and meet a Canaanite woman, and how does she address him? Son of David. She's meant to be contrasted with these Pharisees. She's meant to be the person who's a picture of recognition, of humble recognition of the authority and the majesty of Jesus Christ. So already this woman is absolutely beyond remarkable in just how she addresses him. Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah, son of David, king of Israel, lord of the earth, lord over even demonic activity. And in that realization, she comes to him addressing him with these true titles and all of it, her humility. Does the majesty and lordship of Jesus Christ stir in you that sort of humility? Do you look at him and know who he is? Do you know how majestic and wonderful he is? And does that drive you to humility?

12:22 Would it drive you, as it does this woman, in a few verses, to come and kneel before him? Many religions teach that we should be more humble. And all of us know particular people in our lives that are filled with a lot of pride. And they're kind of annoying, right? And so we all say, okay, well, humility is good. Humility is better than pride. But how do you get it? How do you get there? How do you actually overcome your own pride? Well, she's telling you how. You have to see something glorious. You have to see something majestic.

12:53 You have to see something that's so much greater than you. And it makes you smaller in comparison. It's like in Psalm 8. When I look at the heavens, the work of your hands, who is man that you're mindful of him? This is what's happening with her. She sees the majesty of Jesus and it humbles her before him. And you, brother and sister, should take time and reflect on and have wonder and awe at Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, the Son of Man, crucified for us. and that will stir up in you more humility so she comes to him humbly we move on to our second facet of faith is this desperation for him to work so why is she looking for mercy well she tells us right there my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon now we modern people focus very quickly on the word demon possession and we want to like interrogate it and check it out and and try to figure out what's going on and Matthew just doesn't seem to care that much he says demon possession. He doesn't give any symptoms. He doesn't say what's going on. He just kind of

13:53 states the fact and kind of moves on. Demon possession often comes in the New Testament and even Matthew with things like superhuman feats or convulsions or insanity or loss of self-control. But we're not told any of these things in this text. Because the point of the text is not to tell you what's going on. The point of the text is to show you that this woman is just utterly at the end of her rope. She has no other options. I mean, you can imagine she's tried everything. She's gone to all the doctors and asked them what to do. She got onto all the mommy blogs. She became crunchy. She looked up essential oils for demonic possession. She did the whole nine yards. She's got nothing. The only thing she has is perhaps the son of David, the Lord of the earth, might be able to do something about it. So she comes to him. And then we have verse 22.

14:46 But he 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 he answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She came and knelt before him, saying, Lord, help me. The story takes a wildly surprising turn at that moment. We expect a compassionate Jesus to lean in and care for this woman. But Jesus instead comes across as almost dispassionate or uncaring or aloof or even callous.

15:19 And Matthew wants you to focus on it. He doesn't say he didn't answer. He says he didn't answer her a word. Like he's really pressing in on this. You're supposed to stop and just be shocked by what you see. Because wasn't it just a few chapters earlier in chapter 11 that Jesus spread wide his hands and said, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And here's this woman, weary and heavy laden, and she comes to him and he doesn't. answer her a word. What do you do with that? What are we supposed to do with that? Well, the thing that you are emphatically not supposed to do with that is to make up some sort of theology or perspective or characteristic of Jesus that from time to time he just gets sick and tired of your prayers. From time to time he just shuts down the office, puts on the clothes sign, kicks back in his chair, and ignores your knocking and ignores you. That is emphatically not what you're supposed to do with it. Because of Matthew 11, Jesus identifies himself as the one who is willing to take you, the one who wants to hear your prayers, the one who wants you to come

16:19 in humility to him. So take what Jesus says about himself, and then deal with the narrative. But for all of that still, even though we aren't to take a theological principle from that, I think this text is here because it just resonates. It just resonates with us. All of us have times in life where this just seems to land. Christians have called this over the years the dark night of the soul, perhaps the silence of God, but we all know what it is. If you've been a part of a home group for any time here, you might know of prayer requests that have gone on for years and years and years, and it seems like there's no answer. It just seems like the prayers at the ceiling and fall back down on your face. We are members of a home group with a couple here. They're still here, wonderful couple, great friends of ours. And this sister prayed for years for family members. And the home group prayed for them for years, begging the Lord, crying together, asking for him to move. And it just didn't seem to change. If anything, sometimes it seemed to be worse.

17:26 We connect with this story, not because Jesus is actually aloof or callous, but because our experience in a fallen world sometimes feels like that. And this story is trying to draw us into that and feel what she's feeling. But this then is where the text actually begins to show us who this woman is all the way down and how remarkable her faith is and what we're supposed to do in the midst of even that hardship. Here, faith marked by desperation doesn't lead her to just throw him off and say, okay, fine, if you don't want to talk, I'm out of here. But instead for her to lean in and push in further.

18:02 We have to look and see why she does this. She comes to him there. Oh, sorry. So she comes and she's crying out for him. And the disciples, Mark gives a few more details here. Jesus is in a house and it seems like the disciples are going in between the house and back out to the woman. So the disciples come into the house and say to him, Jesus, just send her away. She's crying out after us. And Jesus says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, which seems to be his response to her, which once again just seems to load on this feeling of why isn't he answering?

18:36 So they go out and tell her, and then neither Mark nor Matthew tell us what happens other than that she just is able to get past the disciples and come and kneel before him. I don't know how that happened. I don't know if she stormed the door. I have no idea, but she somehow gets in front of Jesus, and she just says these gut-wrenching words, Lord, help me. It has to be one of those gut-wrenching sentences in all of the Gospels. Lord, help me. I mean, we can all imagine this, right? Is there anything that makes your stomach turn as much as seeing a mother's love for a child and yet a lack of control to be able to help that child?

19:13 It is a gut-wrenching scene right here. She falls before him, kneels before him, and begs for his help. And in this line from this woman, we see the deepest and perhaps maybe the most authentic, real claim of what it is to be a Christian. Lord, help me. At the end of the day, the Christian is the person who looks at God and all of his wonder and glory and majesty and holiness and judgment and says, I don't have the resources to deal with this.

19:46 Lord, help me. You know, we sometimes have to stop and wonder, why does the world not come to Jesus? I mean, we're offering a really good gospel, right? We're offering people full forgiveness of all sin. We're offering people eternal life with God. We're offering people joy that's never ending, tears washed away. I mean, this is a good gospel. And yet, for some reason, maybe even some of you here this morning, reject that gospel. Why? Well, I think she shows us why. We reject that gospel because we still believe that we have something in ourselves to offer to God, that we still believe that we have resources within ourselves to solve our own problems.

20:26 This is why Jesus goes so hard against legalism and on the sinfulness of man in the previous text, because legalism always fundamentally looks internally for a solution to our problems. And out of the pride of life, the pride of man, almighty man, it wants to present something as if it can solve our problems. But if you can actually recognize how sinful you are against the majesty and holiness of God, this will lead you to the kind of desperate faith that this woman has.

20:59 Maybe you're here this morning and you're not a believer, and I just challenge you this morning, go home and just ask some good questions. Like, am I actually a decent person? If I were to stand before a holy God that can see all my thoughts and deeds and actions and all of it and judge it all, would I be able to stand? And if the answer to that question is no, which it is no, then maybe that would start to spark in you the sort of desperation that this woman shows you. And maybe you would actually find that he is so merciful that if you come to him and plead, Lord, help me, he will not turn you away.

21:36 Well, for believers, this might hit us hard too in thinking about our prayer lives. A lack of prayerlessness is a lack of humility. It's a lack of desperation. When you encounter problems in life and you say, I can take care of this, I got this. And we don't pray. We're saying to the Lord, we don't need you. We're not dependent on you. But we're dependent on him for every breath. We're dependent on him for every heartbeat, for every action. We must come to the Lord in humility. We must come to the Lord in desperation and pray. Let the majesty of Christ and the desperation of your own soul be a reason for you to go to the Lord in prayer. May we be a praying church. The third facet of faith, then, is confidence.

22:20 And the story takes another huge surprising turn. He answers her. I mean, the high moment of this text, I mean, the tension is so high, she's weeping before him, and he answers, it's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. She says, yes, Lord, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. So after all of that, and she gets to him and gut-wrenchingly asks for his help, he just seems to once again just drop another line. It's like, Jesus, this is hard. So what do we do?

22:52 What do we do with this? This line has been debated a lot. There's a lot of ink spilled on this line. So what do we do with it? Here's three things to think about. Okay. First, somewhat hard, on its face, the line is just absolutely and completely true. Just take it out of the context for a second and just say, it's not right to give to the dogs what's meant for the children. Almost nobody would disagree with that. If I came home tomorrow night, my wife had made this wonderful meal and I go in and I pick up the tray of all the food and take it outside and chuck it outside. We don't have dogs, we have a cat, but whatever. You know, chuck it outside. Maybe neighborhood dogs come and they eat, you know, this food. I mean, it's an insult to my wife. It's an insult to my children. I'm saying to my children, your sustenance, your growth is not as important as the dog. So the statement on its face is just absolutely true.

23:38 Still uncomfortable with it, but it's absolutely true. What Jesus is doing here is he is saying there is a clear distinction, this agrees with the entirety of the Bible, there is a clear distinction between those who are the children of God and those who are not. And you don't give the blessings of the kingdom to those who are not the children of God. That's what Jesus is saying. And it's true. But we're still not comfortable with it because, I mean, she seems humble and she seems to be coming to him and she doesn't seem like she's a dog or an outsider. So commentators run all over the place trying to deal with this. Liberal commentators absolutely love this passage.

24:12 They love this passage because it cuts Jesus down to size. This is a quote. This is blaspheming. This is a quote. Even the Son of God, this text teaches us that even the Son of God had to overcome his sociocultural biases when he was on the earth. As if Jesus, the Lord of glory, the creator of this woman, needed to overcome a bias that he had against her. It's absolutely ridiculous, but liberals love it because it cuts Jesus down. If you can cut Jesus down, you don't have to worship him. Conservatives, on the other hand, run their fingers through their hair and wring their hands and wonder why Jesus would ever say something like this.

24:43 And they run around just nervous. Oh, man, I can't believe you said that. So they come up with all sorts of things. They say, well, the word's a diminutive, which just means little dog. That's what it means. It's not right to give to cute puppies what's meant for the children. As if that helps at all. Or she responds and says, well, I'm like a house pet that gets the crumbs falling from the table. So maybe Jesus is talking to me like a house pet. Oh, it's a house pet. As if once again, that's helpful. No, it doesn't help the problem at all. None of this reduces the blow.

25:14 You have the children and you have the not children. And that's what Jesus is saying. Secondly, though, notice that this woman is completely not offended by Jesus saying this. She enters into the parable and starts responding as if she's in the parable and agrees with Jesus. She's not offended. And we, as a general rule of thumb, should be really reticent or nervous about being offended for someone who's not offended for themselves. You don't need to get in the way of Jesus and this woman. Don't get between the two of them.

25:45 What we do is we get in between. We say, Jesus, you can't say that. My goodness, what are you thinking? And we're like, oh, you know, sometimes he just goes off the wall. I mean, he is the Lord, so he can say what he wants. But I don't know. I don't know. And you know what she says to us when we're so upset about this? She says, excuse me, he is my only hope. He is the only answer to my problem. If you could just get out of the way so I can keep talking to him. That's what she says to us when we try to shield this woman from Jesus. Don't do that.

26:16 If Jesus is convicting people, if Jesus is chasing people, don't get in the way and soften the blow. Jesus has his methods, and he will bring this woman home. Thirdly, though, most interesting, Jesus actually isn't indicting her. He's actually not trying to insult her. He's actually after Israel. And he's trying to shame Israel. Wait, how does that work? What's going on? I mean, with the context that we've been looking at, it's totally clear. There's the legalism of Israel. And so what he's saying, it's like he's saying this to her, but what he's actually saying is something like, Israel, pay attention, gather around, look at this. Israel, I have come to you. I have prayed for you. I have preached the gospel to you. I have loved you. I have wept over you. I would gather you like a hen gathers her chicks. I'm going to die for you. I'm going to rise for you. And all you do is call me the prince of demons and will one day call out for my crucifixion and my death. Israel, I can go up to Tyre and Sidon, historic enemies of

27:22 you and the epitome of Gentile pride and paganism and pomp and riches. And a Canaanite woman whom you, O Israel, would mock and scorn would try to get to me. My disciples will get in her way and she'll keep coming. I'll be silent to her and she'll keep coming. I will say it's not right to give to the dogs, it's meant for the children, and she will keep coming. Because that's what faith is. She knows the promises of God, and she keeps going. Oh, Israel, this is the faith, Jesus says.

27:55 This is the faith that I am looking for. This is what it means for you to come to the Messiah. And even if it's a Canaanite woman who you would scorn, she's the picture of what true faith is. I actually remind you of what Jesus says in Matthew 12. He's pronouncing woes on particular cities, and he says, Go to you, Chorazin and Bethsaida. Those are cities in Israel. For if the miracles done in you would have been done in where? Tyre and Sidon. They would have repented and believed. And then he travels up to Tyre and Sidon.

28:26 And what does he have? A Gentile repenting and believing. It's meant to shame Israel. It's meant to awaken in them jealousy so that they would come to the Lord. This verse is absolutely shocking to the Jews and the early readers. They would lean in when Jesus calls her a dog and say, Finally, go get her, Jesus. And then two verses later, she's the one of great faith, and they have no faith at all. That's why Jesus says this. But then, look at her response. It's absolutely amazing.

28:58 She says, yes, Lord, but even the dogs eat the crumbs. Do you see how utterly amazing this response is? She's the only person in all the New Testament that enters into a parable that Jesus shares with her and responds with another parable. She's the only one. Everybody else is just either angry at Jesus or confused. She's like, I'm tracking with you. Let's have this conversation. I'm in. Let's go. And I don't disagree. I'm a dog. I'm not historically a part of Israel. I'll totally grant it. But Jesus, I believe some other things as well.

29:33 I know other things are true. Somehow, someway, she's familiar with enough of the Old Testament promises to know that when the Messiah comes, even Gentile dogs will receive the blessings of this man. It's like she's saying, Jesus, I fully admit that you are here for the lost sheep of Israel. But I also believe that God intends to make his blessings come as far as the curse is found. I know what the Psalms say. I know what the prophets say. And I know that you will bless the Gentiles. And so Jesus, this is what I'm asking. I think that you're going to load this table for your children so much that scraps will fall down to the Gentiles.

30:08 And I'm asking for a scrap right now. And that's her faith. You see, this woman wants food from the table even if she's a dog eating the crumbs. While if you follow the analogy, the children, the Israelites sitting at the table are picking up the food and saying, I don't want this father. I don't want him. And throwing it back in his face. It's better to be a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord than to dwell in the tents of the wicked. Do you see the confidence of this woman?

30:41 Like, let this instruct you to see the confidence of this woman. She really believes that God is good and merciful and kind and eager to share his blessing, no matter what the circumstances, no matter if it feels like he does it. She's confident. Somehow she knows, and she is confident that he will. And so she leans in. Brother, sister, does this describe your confidence in the Lord? Have you read his word and you just say amen to it over and over and over again? He says you're forgiven. if you trust him. Amen. Yes, it's true. I know some of you, I talk with you, and I know some of you have deep doubts about your salvation, deep doubts about faith. Brother, sister, this woman has a million reasons why she should not be invited to the table. She's got reasons even seemingly from Jesus himself, and yet she believes. She keeps pressing in. Let her encourage you.

31:41 Brother and sister, Jesus is not against you. He is for you. Amen. And you should come to him and continue to believe. This is also a motivation for prayer, for missions, and evangelism. Jesus said he's going to take the nations. Jesus said that he's going to rescue people from all the nations. And so what do we do? We say, well, he said it. Let's do it. Let's go. Let's pray. Let's evangelize. Or it's a motivation for you in your fight against sin. Jesus said that he's given you a new heart. Jesus said that he has given you his Holy Spirit.

32:12 And so you confidently say, I will continue to pursue obedience to the Lord, confident because of his promises. This is what this woman is instructing us in. So those are the three facets of faith. It's humble, it's desperate, and it's confident. It brings us to our second point more briefly. Well, what's the fruit of faith? So when we believe, when we trust, what do we get? Well, that brings us to our last verse in the passage. She gets two things that I see from this text from Jesus for her faith.

32:52 First, she gets praise from Jesus, the pleasure of Jesus. And secondly, the granting of the request. Praise from Jesus and the granting of the request. He tells her, oh woman, great is your faith. There are only two people in the book of Matthew that are told to have great faith. One's a centurion, that'd be a Roman soldier who the Jews would also despise, a Gentile. And her, two Gentiles in the book of Matthew are the ones to be said to have great faith. And the point is simple.

33:23 I've been trying to make it all along. It is not religious action or pride or genealogy or status that is pleasing to God. It is faith. Faith alone. It's faith to trust him. You might have noticed the call to worship this morning was from Galatians 3, 15 and 16. It was supposed to be Galatians 2. I sent that text about 5.15 in the morning and hit 3. And then, what do you call them, Alex? The Bulletin Overlords printed all this up. And then I asked, I humbly submitted to the Bulletin Overlords to change that, and they said no.

33:57 We're getting a bad rap. The bully pulpit on the Bulletin Overlords. No, it's totally my fault. It's my fault. It's not your fault. Okay, my fault. It's supposed to be Galatians 2, 15 to 16. Let me read it for you. we ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. Yet, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law. Because by works of the law, no one will be justified.

34:28 What is pleasing to God? It's faith. It's faith. It's coming to God and trusting God. The Bible says, without faith, it is impossible to please God. Do you realize, brother and sister, that when we come to the end of ourselves and we throw everything on God, that's what's pleasing to him. We often, like the Pharisees, spend years trying to prove or make a case before God that he should be pleased with us, that he should like us. But what is pleasing to him is humility. What's pleasing to him is coming to him and throwing up our hands and pleading for his mercy and being confident that he will answer our requests.

35:05 And he looks on that and smiles. God, I cannot help myself, but I am confident that Jesus is a merciful Savior. That is pleasing to God and is the fountain of favor from him. We're about to celebrate the Lord's Supper here. You know the Lord's Supper is an act of faith. I mean, are you really invited to the table of the Holy One of Israel? Yes. Are you really guilty and shouldn't be there? Yes. Does faith in Christ give you the merits to be there?

35:39 Yes. We come to the table by faith. And you know what Jesus does when we come to that table? He smiles and says, you are so welcome here. It is pleasing to the Lord when we walk by faith. Great is her faith. Secondly, he grants the request. He says, be it done for you as you desire. Now, this text is emphatically not meant to be a template for how to overcome an illness or something. This is not a prosperity gospel text.

36:10 Some people take it that way. Look, she had faith, therefore she got what she wanted. And it's not a prosperity gospel text because clearly the text is meant to oppose the legalism of the previous passage. It's an answer to legalism. It's not a template for getting healed from some form of sickness or something like this. In fact, what's so pernicious about making this a prosperity gospel text is that the prosperity gospel is basically the legalism of the Pharisees. It basically says the reason you don't have is because you don't have enough faith. Prosperity gospel is legalism all the way down.

36:42 It should be hated, it should be abhorred, and it should be completely cast off. This text is not trying to teach us something like that. It's trying to oppose us to the legalism of even what that is. Brother and sister, don't go down that road. There's nothing there for you. But this text is a picture. And the picture is simply this. Christ does not turn away those of faith. He doesn't turn them away. He grants the request. And ultimately, like in the end, all of this is absolutely true.

37:16 My son Zeke and I have been recently starting to read the book Revelation. He wanted to read the book of Revelation. And so I've been scrambling to try to understand the book of Revelation before we're reading it. But anyway, we were in chapter 2 the other night where Jesus talks to the seven churches. And I just want to read off the list of the rewards to those who conquer by faith. The one who conquers by faith. I will grant to eat the tree of life which is in the paradise of God. The one who conquers by faith will not be hurt by the second death.

37:49 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations and he will rule them with a rod of iron, even as I myself have received authority from my father. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my father and before his angels. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from God out of heaven, and my own new name, the one who conquers. Brother and sister, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne.

38:26 Do you know what Jesus is saying? The one who conquers by faith, all of this, all of the sin, all of the suffering of this present age, all the things that you struggle with, there is coming a day when it will be conquered by Christ. Every tear will be wiped away. And by faith, you will see and understand and know the goodness of God in everything. Christ grants to those of faith the blessings of eternity.

38:59 And this is a light momentary affliction in comparison to that eternal weight of glory. Last thought. That little phrase there at the very end, her daughter was healed instantly. Her daughter was healed instantly. I love this line. When Jesus wants to heal someone, he can just do it. He can just do it instantly. When Jesus wants to justify or save someone, I mean, you just do it instantly. The difference between Christianity and everything else, all the other theologies and philosophies, especially when it comes to salvation, is simply this.

39:31 It's done by God. Everyone else depends on the person trying to be saved, but Christianity is salvation through God instantly. You go from dead to alive instantly. You go from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of the beloved Son instantly. You go from the highway of hell to the road of righteousness instantly. You go from sick to healed instantly by faith because he has the power to do it. and it doesn't require anything else. This isn't Roman Catholicism. It's not, well, okay, yeah, I can do that, but if you just, you have to keep up these things. No, it's instant, and it's a gift that's received by faith.

40:10 Brother and sister, trust him. Love him, come to him. Put your faith in him. Because don't you know, little flock, It is the Father's pleasure to give you the kingdom. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this text and we thank you for how it instructs us. We thank you that Jesus is eager and willing to hear us. We thank you that this woman shows us a picture of what it is to have faith, to be humble, to be desperate, but to be confident in your word.

40:45 We pray, Father, that hearts in this room will be strengthened in faith this morning as we look to Jesus and trust him and love him. We pray that you would do that good work in us. And we pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.