HG078-79a Matthew 15:21-31, Mark 7:24-37
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24 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. 25 For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet. 26 The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 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.”
28 And she answered and said to Him, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.”
29 Then He said to her, “For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
30 And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.
31 Again, departing from the region of Tyre and Sidon, He came through the midst of the region of Decapolis to the Sea of Galilee. 32 Then they brought to Him one who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech, and they begged Him to put His hand on him. 33 And He took him aside from the multitude, and put His fingers in his ears, and He spat and touched his tongue. 34 Then, looking up to heaven, He sighed, and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.”
35 Immediately his ears were opened, and the impediment of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plainly. 36 Then He commanded them that they should tell no one; but the more He commanded them, the more widely they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, “He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
.24
We all need to come apart for peace and quiet sometimes – and he went to the place where mainly Gentiles lived, to the North of Israel, to get away from the business of life. As we have seen in previous weeks there were various times when Jesus wanted to be alone and wanted his disciples to come apart for a time but, thus far there had been interruption after interruption each time they tried to get away. It is good to come aside from our busy schedules and retreat, as it were, so that we can get our bearings, to seek God, to rest and then to go back to the work with vigour.
The problem was that He was already very famous; such is the life of the celebrity for fame and fortune does not necessarily bring good things; in fact Scripture makes clear that these things leads to more temptation:
Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
At the end of this chapter, as many times before, Jesus did not want to be famous, as time and again he did not want the attention, He did not want people seeing him as some circus freak show but he wanted true followers.
If we try to court fame then the temptations are many and varied; if our aim is to be famous or popular it is likely that it can very easily lead to compromise. We can see this with people’s clamour to get on TV programmes, whether Jeremy Kyle, or X Factor, or Love Island but getting on any of these, whilst bringing you fame, can lead to unwanted attention that can literally be soul-destroying; to gain the world and lose one’s soul. In the last couple of weeks a former contestant and then her boyfriend committed suicide. This week, in the news, a young woman, Kylie Jenner, whom most of you will never have heard of, will likely become the youngest self-made billionaire - how? By simply being a celebrity. Just for being in the spotlight. But how how short life is and how quickly it is over and we are forgotten. Even celebrities are forgotten very quickly. Of course, some have a greater impact than others but they are no longer in our mind’s eye.
The advice to Timothy is to be content with what you have if, at least, you have food, clothing and shelter– what more do we have need of?
History teaches us these lessons but these are not easy to learn because we always want the next best thing whether it be an house extension, an iPad, a TV, a computer, new furniture, car, clothes or even in relationships whether it be a new girlfriend, or to have more exciting friends, or to become better looking, to reverse the signs of ageing or to be on the latest diet or the latest spot cream – I do not even touch the tip of the iceberg when I talk of these things. We see how ridiculous all this chasing is when we look at past TV shows and the prizes on offer in those days – BUT godliness with contentment is great gain: godliness is practical holiness, or living as set apart doing the will of God. All these other things just add more concern, more worries, each thing needs bigger budgets, and can eventually lead to more debt, more stress and more use of time.
Jesus did not go out of his way to gain riches or fame because both are fickle, they are here today and gone tomorrow and Jesus is our example, as disciples, that we should follow. Remember that Jesus said that he had nowhere to lay his head. We are unlikely to be in such a bad predicament.
I want us to get this, this morning: If we want money; if we want possessions; if we want to become well known, then these lusts are really going to hurt us for these are the lusts of the world; a world that is at war with God. Let us get our priorities right. Some people are so interested in gaining things that they are swamped. I heard a rich guy say a few years ago. “You can only drive one car, you can only sleep in one bed, you can only wear one set of clothes” So why are you trying to gain more than 2 of anything for we only have 1 life?
How do we measure success? By what possession we have? By whether we have been in front of 1000 people or been in the news? I tell you now that if that is how we measure success then we have got it wrong. Life is not in our possessions or ambitions. Success is doing the will of God.
25-30
So now, returning back to our passage: we know that Jesus wanted to get away from the crowds, and perhaps from the Pharisees who wanted to destroy Him but maybe it was also as an example. He had just been talking about how food does not make you unclean, as it was in Jewish thought, but those things that come out of the heart. Then, Jesus goes north, some think it was for between 6 and 8 months when we compare the other Gospels. But what was in the North? Not the Jews but the Gentiles. By going there the Jews would be much fewer in number. But was He also showing that the Gospel is universal, not just for the Jew? He was going to the ‘unclean’ in the eyes of the Jews, to the dogs, is what they thought.
And then we have this woman appear in the story, a non-Jew, a Greek living outside her own Country. Was this not divinely arranged? Her faith was the opposite of the Pharisees.
She had heard about Jesus and she was there to get his attention but this was no simple clamouring for attention, this was urgent for she was her wit’s end.
Preaching the Word: Mark—Jesus, Servant and Savior A Pleasing Faith ( Mark 7:24-30 and Matthew 15:21-28 )
She now believed that Jesus was her only hope—and that he could and would heal her daughter. She came in faith, and Jesus knew it. As Jesus drew her remarkable faith out, the first thing we see is that it was a persistent faith.
Jesus had taken time aside to be with his disciples alone. Jesus’ was only in Tyre for no one else but his disciples and ministering and discipling them - yet what is interesting is that she is not deterred – she was not going to accept ‘no’ for an answer, not only was she persistent she was noisy! This is faith at work. Yet, the disciples had had enough - send her away!
Then Jesus makes it clear to her that He has come for the Jews but all this does is make her cry: ‘help me!’
Preaching the Word: Mark—Jesus, Servant and Savior The Woman’s Persistent Faith (Mark 7:27, 28; Matthew 15:23-25)
Jesus Christ, the Creator, Sustainer, and Goal of the universe, was completely taken with her great faith.
Here the woman acknowledges that He was not there for her but He can minister to the people and she at the same time – no offence was taken here by the woman concerning the dogs, for the term Jesus used was of household ones not street ones; it was not a derogatory term Jesus was using of her and it is plain from her response that it was not taken as such.
Preaching the Word: Mark—Jesus, Servant and Savior The Woman’s Persistent Faith (Mark 7:27, 28; Matthew 15:23-25)
The kingdom of heaven is for those, like this woman, who are willing to spend untiring energy in pursuit of spiritual things. They are persistent. It is for those like the paralytic’s friends who, when they could not get him through the crowd, climbed the roof and tore through eighteen inches of sod and branches, lowering him to Christ’s feet (2:1–12).
He is after such faith:
6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Her persistence was a demonstration of her faith. And Jesus was merciful and gracious.
Matthew’s Gospel says:
28 Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.
The woman received the word she was after – she took the word and believed and left off asking Jesus for her daughter and went home confident that she had got what she had come for. Jesus’ word was confirmed – she found it exactly as Jesus had said – he can be taken at his Word.
Why is this whole scenario played out for us? Is it not to indicate that we can pray for others and get an answer? Especially if we have the kind of persistent faith that holds onto God for the answer as did this woman.
Sometimes those on the outside have greater faith in Jesus than those who are in the Churches and we have to be careful to not pour water on their fledgling faith. Jesus was willing to inspire faith in those who came to him and now as His witnesses here we are to point to Jesus as one who hears, answers prayers and heals today and when someone speaks of problems that they have and to be willing to pray for them in the precious name of Jesus.
Three things we learn from this stroy
1. To make sure we get the rest and spiritual refreshment that we need though to be willing to minister if the need arises.
2. To give up chasing this world and riches and fame and be content with what God has given us. Be careful for the riches of the world are deceitful for it is a trap we can all fall into – remember that we can be choked by the world and become unfruitful for the Kingdom of God in our chasing for fame and riches.
3. We will encounter incredible people like this woman who had great faith and would not take no for an answer. She must have become part of the Church fellowship otherwise we would never have known that her daughter had been delivered. Sometimes people do become believers as a result of genuine signs and wonders and therefore we should be all the more willing to pray for them and point them to the one who loves them.
This is made clear in the story of the deaf and mute man for Jesus looked up to Heaven (.34). Where there is no prayer, there is no power. Life is incredibly busy but without us in communion with God and praying for each other then we are going to achieve very little for the Kingdom of God. Time with God is of the essence and is probably the most important thing we do in a day. We are too busy not to pray. You always find time to do those things most important to you. Let’s make prayer such a priority.
So, let us pray.
Communion
Communion
The centre of our faith is based around what Jesus came into the world to do: to die and destroy all the works of the evil one. The whole of His life was around getting to the cross to pay a price that was too costly for us to pay. Without this we could never have been made right in the eyes of God. But Jesus became our propitiation. This is an old-fashioned word that is often translated as ‘atonement’. Atonement means to cover. Yes, our sins are covered. But ‘propitiation’ has more to do with appeasement. The wrath and anger of God was taken out on Jesus who became sin personified. The cross was a sacrifice that was a sweet smelling aroma to God. Because Jesus, His Son, suffered, God’s wrath and anger was turned away from us. The price of our redemption was paid in full. We have been made acceptable to God by faith in the work and name of Jesus. This is why we come with thankful hearts to the table to share in remembering what Jesus did for us.
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes.
The story of the cross does not end with the death of Jesus, but He rose from the dead, conquering sin and death and hell forever on our behalf, and is ascended interceding for us, even now, and will come back again to take us to be where He is. What a saviour!
Benediction
Benediction
Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Bibliography
Bibliography
McKenna, D. L., & Ogilvie, L. J. (1982). Mark (Vol. 25). Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc.
Hughes, R. K. (1989). Mark: Jesus, servant and savior. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books.
Leadership Ministries Worldwide. (1996). The Gospel according to Mark. Chattanooga, TN: Leadership Ministries Worldwide.
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 11:16 14 July 2018.