Faith Displayed

Welcome to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. Check us out online at www.sharonrpc.org. We pray that this message will be a blessing to you and that the Lord will use it to transform your faith and your life. Will you turn in your Bibles to Mark chapter 7 by turning? I mean whether you're in the New King James Bible in front of you, which you'll find Mark chapter 7 verse 24 on page 890, or if you're using your Bible app, go ahead and go there. Mark chapter 7, beginning at verse 24. Mark chapter 7, beginning at verse 24. Brothers and sisters, this is the Word of God Himself. Let's pay attention.

From there He arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon, and He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden. For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she kept asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

But Jesus said to her, let the children be fed or filled first. For it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs. And she answered and said to him, yes, Lord. Yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs. Then he said to her, for this saying, go your way. The demon has gone out of your daughter. And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out and her daughter lying on the bed.

Prayer for Illumination

Thus ends this portion of the reading of God's word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. It has been read and we know that it does not return void. And so, Father, now we pray for the preaching of Your Word that You would please let us understand these things, not just intellectually, but, Father, we pray that we would know them in the depths of our souls, that You would be our exceedingly great reward. In Jesus' name, Amen. Well, I'm not sure if you realized it, but according to a story like this, we got a real problem on our hands. Just going to survey the congregation for a second. I'm pretty sure I can say this with some amount of certainty.

Sermon

I don't think any of you are Jewish. So what right do we have, if we're not Jewish, to think that somehow we have a claim on Jesus? To somehow think that we get to be children sitting at the table. What right do we think we have? I mean, Genesis chapter 12 specifically says it's not the whole world who's going to get the blessings of Abraham, but it's only the family of Abraham. So what hope do you have? What right do you have at coming to Jesus's table? Where do we get that type of hope? Where do we get that type of expectation?

Because the reality is that most Jewish people would see you, and even today if you went to Israel, if you met an Orthodox Jew there, they wouldn't sit at a table with you. Go to a Hasidic Jew's house in Brooklyn, you won't sit at their table. They'll have a separate one for you. So how do we get to come to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb?

That's what this passage is looking at this morning. And so what I need you to take home with you is that Jesus extends His grace even to Gentiles by faith. Jesus extends His grace even to Gentiles by faith. First, let's look at verse 24 and notice what happens.

Jesus, He's trying to get away from here, right? Jesus heads north to find rest. He's been down by the lake of Galilee. He's been down doing ministry there, arguing with the Pharisees and the scribes. Remember, they had just tried to argue with him about what is clean and what's unclean in the first part of chapter 7. And now, in the midst of all of that, Jesus does what? He heads up north to an unclean town. This is way up north in Phoenicia, near Syria. It's not clean. This is not a Jewish city. This is a fully Hellenized Gentile city. Jesus goes there to find rest.

And just like, have you ever wondered why celebrities own mansions and stuff like that in places like Wyoming or Montana? They want to get away from everyone. Well, if you're popular in the countryside, what do you do? Well, you go to the city where you don't know people.

So Jesus goes and he's going up to Tyre. He's going there to find rest, but there's no rest for Jesus. His reputation has preceded him. And so he goes to Tyre. Now, Tyre in the ancient days, David was actually friends. with the king of Tyre. He was one of the people who sent materials down to help build the temple. But then as things progressed and continued in Tyre's history, what we would find is that the northern kingdom would get one of the most infamous women in all the Bible from Tyre, Jezebel herself. And then the prophet Isaiah and Ezekiel both condemned Tyre because the king of Tyre actually proclaims himself to be God. Things don't get much better in Tyre as Alexander the Great goes on his conquest. He actually besieges Tyre.

He takes it over and it becomes a fully Hellenized and Greek city. It's very, very different than anything down in Israel. And Tyre becomes a great port of wealth and finance. But the issue is they can't support themselves either by labor or by materials. And so what history teaches us is that what would happen is often they would take advantage by unfair trade of the rural folk down in Galilee. The people in Tyre would actually deal with slave traders who had stolen Israelites from Galilee and made them serve in Tyre.

And this is where Jesus is going. This is the climate that Jesus is going up to Tyre with at this time. And so Jesus is going and his reputation is preceding him. There's this tension. Why is he going to Tyre? This is not a place that good Jewish people go and relax. You would go down by the Dead Sea if you want to do that. What's going on here?

Well, God knows what's happening. In verse 25 and verse 26, we see that Jesus has approached by humility. For a woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard about him, and she came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth. She kept asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter. Now, we need to recognize a few barriers to this story.

First Point

First, she's a woman. Women don't often have interactions like this with men, where they have direct discourse with them.

Second problem, she's a Greek. She speaks Greek, she's in Greek culture, she serves Greek gods, everything about her is Greek. Third strike against her, she's Syrophoenician. She's not just a Jewish person who's been Hellenized living up in Tyre, but she is actually by birth way outside the covenant. And yet what does she do?

For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit about her, she came and she fell at his feet. Being a woman didn't matter, being a Greek didn't matter, being a Syrophysician, a Phoenician didn't matter. What mattered was that Jesus Christ was there. And so out of this humility, and out of this desperation, and out of love for her daughter, she goes to Jesus, she throws away all the cultural norms, and she throws herself at Jesus' feet. Makes you wonder what was the previous attempts like for her as she sought healing for her daughter.

As she was a Greek, she was a Syrophoenician, there was plenty of priests that she might have taken her daughter to, to no avail. How many temples had she gone and sacrificed to, to no avail? How many physicians in Tyre had she visited, but her daughter remained tormented by this unclean spirit? So she hears about a Jewish rabbi who's coming up who casts out unclean spirits and who feeds from nothing. She throws himself at his mercy. She goes to the great physician. At his feet, what we see is that she is no Jezebel, but she is far more of a Rahab or a Ruth. She trusts in Jesus Christ. She has a humble faith.

The same type of humble faith that would lead you to pray for your children. The same type of humble faith that would make you plead with God for your teen children who are unruly and hard to control and lead. The same type of faith that would make you go to God and fall at His throne and plead with Him for your grown children who are making decisions you might not agree with. It's the same faith that many of you, even though you have family members you don't believe, you take them to the throne of grace and you say, God, I cannot change their hearts, please save my sister, my brother, my aunt, my nephew, my uncle. It's that same faith that grows up in us, this absolute desperation that there's only one place we could possibly find to bring healing for that person we love.

It's a humility that she brings to light. And yet Jesus challenges her. Jesus never says things that we expect. I was listening to a man out north of Pittsburgh, Matthew Eberhard, and he brought this out in something he was talking about, and he was saying, you know, when you read the Gospels and you think about it, he doesn't say things that you expect him to say. This woman throws herself at his feet, she's begging him for mercy for her daughter, and you would think he would say, oh, well done, daughter, this is beautiful, great. But instead he says something jarring in verse 27.

But Jesus said to her, let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs. Man, this is offensive. I need you to understand, Jesus is calling this woman a dog. I'm not sure about you, but when you were a kid, if your brother called you a dog, I'm guessing those would be fighting words.

But this is what Jesus says here. She's unclean. There's a socio-economic and ethnic division between these people, and Jesus is putting it on the microscope. He's bringing it to the forefront. You see, Jesus is there to bring the gospel and work it out for the Jews. That's what He's saying. But I think what Jesus is also doing is challenging her.

Now I have a boy, he's seven years old and he's learning to play a new game. Somebody taught him how to play checkers. And I'm not sure if you've ever played checkers with a kid who's seven before, but sometimes you want to pull out your hair and sometimes it's fun. And sometimes you'll want to play checkers with a kid and you'll just want to really wipe them out. But there's other times that I like playing with Daniel and I like to make A little bit of a wrong move. Or maybe what might look like an aggressive move, but what I've really done is I've set it up that if he'll see it, if he'll recognize it, he gets a triple jump.

I think that's what Jesus is doing here. It might seem aggressive, it might seem like he's coming down hard on her, but really what he's doing is he's seeing, is she going to rise up to this? Is she going to hear what he's saying to her? He's plumbing her understanding. How is she going to respond?

Right? Is she going to say, Jew, I'm out of here. I'm going home. This rabbi doesn't love anybody. What's her attitude going to be? Is he just like another magic man? You know, people just touch the hem of his garment and are healed? Or will she persevere? Will she stick around? Does she have true faith? She responds in verse 28 in one of the most brilliant, wise responses imaginable.

And the Syrophoenician woman answered and said to him, Yes, Lord. Notice the respect and humility. Yes, Lord. Yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs. She says, even if I was a dog underneath the table, even if I was this house pet, even there cared for.

In Matthew chapter 15 verse 28, the parallel to this story there, Jesus says to her, Oh woman, great is your faith. Let it be as you desire. Jesus sees this answer and he sees her faith. Jesus sees this answer. He sees her humility. He sees her willingness to still call Him Lord. She sees that she's not going to be turned back from pursuing His grace. And He perceives that as faith.

This is why the... this is the beginning, right? This is the beginning of what we're going to see come to full fruition later. Romans chapter one, verse 16, for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. It starts here. It starts here with a woman who's Greek, ethnically not a Jew. She's motivated by humility and trust in who Jesus is and in His love.

And if we're honest with ourselves when we're best in our faith, we know that even though we might be dogs underneath the king's table, even the crumbs are still made by a royal chef. That even though we might just get a sip of the cup, it's enough to know that He is good. Even though we might just get a glimmer of His glory, it's enough to make us long for eternity. Because even though we might not get the full meal now, we know that just to taste and see that He is good, we just need a morsel of it.

That's what this woman sees. It doesn't matter to her if she gets a nosebleed seat in the Kingdom of Heaven as long as she's there. This is the same thing we feel in our hearts. This is the same faith that we express when we humbly come to Jesus. In your humility, trust, and love, this is where as this woman came to Jesus because her daughter was sick. Not just sick, worse than sick, she had an unclean spirit. It's that same type of love, trust, and humility that she shows coming to Jesus that you can show coming to Jesus.

Why do we, I don't have a bulletin with me, but why do we have all these prayer requests on the bulletin? Because we pray by faith. That God can actually heal. That Jesus does actually care for his people. That even though we might have difficulties, discouragements, and challenges, We are not to become despondent, but we can humbly bring our faith in Christ. We can go before Him and trust Him. Though death, depression, and grief might be real, we can go and we can look to Jesus Christ. Though sickness might continue in your life, if you are humble in your sickness, if you are filled with faith in your trials, you can still come to Jesus Christ and know that His grace is sufficient for you.

Suffering in this life, as she's going through, even with her daughter, serves a purpose. Because it brings her face to face with Jesus Christ. The Lord uses this daughter and her mother to show that mercy is found at the feet of Jesus Christ, grace is found at the feet of Jesus Christ, even for Gentiles.

So the question is, are you humble? Do you see yourself as a comrade to Jesus? Shoulder to shoulder, equal in arms, or is He your Lord? Is He the one that you throw yourself at His feet, bow to Him, and worship the Lamb who was slain before the foundations of the world? Will you humble yourself?

You know, I love Sinclair Ferguson in his book, The Whole Christ. And in it, he gives a very hopeful clarification. Many of us, if we try to define the gospel, we might say many different things about the gospel, but I think Ferguson is spot on here when he says that the object of the Christian faith, the object of the gospel, of the good news, is Jesus Christ himself. That's what this woman shows us. Her faith is in Jesus. Her hope is in the person of Jesus. Will you go to Jesus? Will you bow your knee to Him? Will you go to Him? Will you submit yourself to Him?

Because the key here, what we're describing as faith, and Jesus acknowledges faith. Look with me at verses 29 and 30. Then he said to her, for this saying, go your way, the demon has gone out of your daughter. And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out and her daughter laying on the bed. This woman goes to Jesus and what Mark makes implicit Matthew makes explicit.

Mark is describing faith or showing faith. Matthew says that is faith. He points it out. Faith is a humility and a trust in Jesus Christ, a hoping in Him only. And what we find here in this woman of faith is the same thing that we had found in Joshua. When Rahab by faith hid the spies. It's the same faith that we saw in Ruth. When she says to Naomi, your God will be my God and your people will be my people.

It's that this wholehearted grabbing onto and that this is my God and active, as the Westminster Shorter Catechism says, arresting and receiving Jesus Christ alone as he is offered to us in the gospel. Jesus himself is offered to you in the good news. Do you receive him and rest upon him? If you do, that's how you have a seat at the table.

Do you see it by faith that we are adopted as children? It's by faith. By faith, we are no longer given a spirit of slavery. But by faith, he calls you daughter. By faith, he looks at you and he calls you son. By faith, he pours out his spirit in you that does not cry out, tyrant, Baaba, father. It's by faith that he brings us into the family of Abraham.

And that is why I am able to survey the congregation and look at you who have faith in Jesus Christ. And I'm able to look at you and hearing your profession of faith in Jesus Christ. I'm able to be convinced that he says to me, or he says to you, come to me, son and daughter. For the wedding feast was spread for such as one of you. We don't just get the crumbs, but Jesus invites us to the banquet of the King. Not by birth are we made children of God, by faith. This is how Jesus extends his grace, even to us Gentiles, because he gives us faith.

Closing Prayer

Will you cling to Him? Will you rest in Him? Will you go to Him and know that He cares for you? Let's pray. Father, we cannot drum up faith. We cannot emotionally manipulate ourselves into believing in You. So Father, we pray. that even this hour your Holy Spirit might be working strengthening those who do have faith and calling to faith those who have not yet professed it. Lord we thank you for your Holy Spirit and the work that you have done adopting us as your children. Lord we pray that you would fill our hearts with thankfulness that we're not just given the crumbs but you invite us to your table.

In Jesus's name. Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.