Please be turning in your Bibles to Matthew 15. Matthew 15 is where we'll look in just a moment as we begin this morning, at least as I begin this morning, let me do what Patrick did, and that is welcome you. It is the time of year where we had have a lot of coming and going, and today we have a lot of going. I counted a lot of folks among our regular members, of those who are here all the time, there are a lot of people gone. I exceeded 50 pretty quickly, but we've had a number of you who have come to kind of take up their place, and we're very, very glad to have you this morning. I know some of you are traveling, and you're here for the holidays, and so we're always glad to see you, but it is good to be together. And also, as Patrick said, it says something about the fact that you're interested in things that relate to your spiritual well being, and I think that speaks volumes about you, and I think God feels the same way. So thank you very, very much for being here today.
We're about to read a story, and we're about to read an exchange between Jesus and a woman. It's a particular woman. It's a woman who I don't think Jesus had another conversation with her, at least that we read about. Mark records the same story. But when I read this story, it's not but five or six verses. But when I read it, my question was this, what is, what's the point? I don't mean that as if there isn't one, but it seems like such an odd dialog between Jesus and this woman, and I want to read it in your hearing this morning, and I'd like for you to follow along. It's going to be on the screen, but I want you to ask as we read this, I want you to ask, what is the point? What is -- what is Jesus trying to teach? And is this not an odd story? Let's read it. Okay. "Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David, my daughter is severely demon possessed. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, Send her away, for she cries out after us, but he answered and said, I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And then she came and worshiped him, saying, Lord help me. But he answered and said, It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs. And she said, Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their master's table. And Jesus answered and said to her, oh, woman, great is your faith. Let it be to you as you desire, and the daughter was healed from that very hour." Is that not one of the strangest Jesus stories you've ever heard? That seems like such a different Jesus to me. When you read that, what exactly crossed your mind? It's not typical of the Jesus that we've come to know, of the gentle Jesus, of the compassionate Jesus, of the compelling Jesus, of the Jesus who would take in anyone and talk to anyone. There's too many things about that story that are different, right? Not just Jesus, it's his disciples. They're harsh. They're harsh to me. That doesn't sound like Jesus. Now, it sounds like the disciples, but it doesn't sound like Jesus to me, and I think that's very interesting.
There's a miracle in this story, right? But this story is not about demon possession. I don't think this story is intended for us to say, You know what, Jesus cast out demons. In the casting out demon stories in Scripture there's a lot said about the demons and what it causes the people who have the demons to do. A lot's said about that. That's not what this story is about. Now it's in there, and her daughter had a demon, and Jesus cast the demon out. All that's true. So there is that supernatural element, but I think it's a lot more than that. Story's about something else, it seems to me, and that something else is what I want to talk to you about for a little bit this morning. This woman's daughter needed help. If you're a parent, you get this. When you're a parent and your child is hurting, what will you do to help alleviate that hurt? Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. And we can't relate. I don't think we can relate to what this woman was going through, her daughter was demon possessed. We can't relate to that, but her daughter was hurting, and she was going to do everything that it took to eliminate the hurt in her daughter. And she knew what it would take, and so that's what she pursued, whatever it takes. And so that's the woman. But what I want you to think about is Jesus. What about Jesus demeanor? Was he having a bad day? She asked him, Can you heal my daughter? He didn't say a word to her. Was he just rude? Was he just being rude? Was he having a bad day? Was he on vacation because he had left Galilee, he had gone up into what is called the, what Mark calls, Phoenicia. The towns of Tyre and Sidon, what is modern day Lebanon. He had gone there from an area of the world where he liked, where he was from, from Galilee, and he goes up, was he on vacation? Had he gone up there to get away from these kind of requests? Well, I don't think that works with his demeanor. I don't think that works with who Jesus is. I don't think he was putting her away and saying, I don't want to have anything to do with you. Although he said, I haven't come, I think it's implied he was basically, I haven't come to you. She wasn't a Jew. She was a Gentile. And basically said, I didn't come for you. I've come for those people who are the house of Israel. That's who I've come for. And so he, in essence, kind of put her off until finally something happened, and he said, well, great is your faith.
In Mark's account says in verse 30 of Mark seven, she went home, and when she got there, her daughter was lying on the bed, healed. There's the miracle What did the woman done? First thing it says was she cried out to Him. When your child hurts and you know there's someone who can fix it. What do you do? You cry out please, please come. Her daughter was demon possessed. Of all the people she knew, there was nobody else who could take care of her daughter's problem except the Lord. And she recognized that, and when she cried out, he didn't say a thing to her. So she, the text says, so my text in the New King James says, so. She worshiped him. The I think the English Standard says she knelt in front of him, or she bowed down in front of him. She got right in his path so that he couldn't go anywhere, right there in front. She bowed. She bowed down.
And then there was this conversation about what your children get to eat and what the dogs get to eat. Now I want you to think about that. Jesus said to her that statement, "it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." Think about that. On the surface, that just seems rude or it seems racist. What are you talking about Lord? Can you imagine what the disciples are thinking when they hear Jesus say that, and yet she responds. She's the one that tells Jesus what he is going to hear when she says, Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from the Master's table. Isn't this an odd story to you? Is it almost like, Well, Lord, something's going on with you. This doesn't sound like the Lord I know. This doesn't sound like the Jesus. I know, and I think there's a reason for it. We don't know exactly why, what happened. Why? We don't exactly know why Jesus did everything he did. We don't know everything why he said everything that he said. But here's what I think he wants them to see. I think he's telling, he's showing his disciples, because the text says that she was was urging the disciples. She was coming to the disciples. The disciples told Jesus, she's crying out after us. She's making the scene. She everybody knows what she's doing. Can you send her away? It's almost as if to say, just do what she says and tell her to be gone. But even the disciples said, We got to take care of this. And I think what Jesus is doing, this is me, I think what Jesus is doing is he's showing you disciples the very kind of attitude that the Pharisees had toward people like her. I'm not going to talk to you. I didn't come to you. I'm going to take care of mine before I take care of anybody else. That's the attitude that the Pharisees, not just the Pharisees, but primarily the Pharisees, would have. And so when he talks about the dogs, he's talking about, not a pet. In the first century, dogs were not mainly pets. Dogs were scavengers. Dogs were out on the streets and they were eating crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. They were eating whatever they wanted. They were abrasive creatures, not pets. So what he's basically saying is, you're not worth anything. Is that what he was saying? Would that, would that be what Jesus is saying? And of course, the answer that is, I don't think so.
What's he doing? Let's get to the question. My question, what do you think Jesus is doing? I think he's teaching persistence. I think he wants his disciples to understand this is what. this is what I want. I want people who are-- will pursue me. I want people who stay after me. I want people who know who I am and what I can do and what I can offer them, and they stay with it. Now that's not said in there. It's not said in the story. That's why I ask you, what do you think the story is about? Because it's really not said. Jesus didn't say, here's the lesson I'm teaching. He just did this, and all of a sudden he said, Your faith is great. I'm going to heal your daughter. So we're left then to come to the to the conclusion about what it is that we think, and I think that's what it is . Now, persistence in my life, and persistence in what God wants from us is shown a lot in our prayer life. And we're going to look at that this morning, because I think it has a lot to do with who we are as Christians. Because sometimes I think God handles us to show whether our hearts hardened or whether it's humble. Imma say that again. I think God handles us to help us understand whether or not our hearts humbled or hardened. I think that's what he's doing here. And what happens is he very quickly, I think, and the disciples very quickly understand, wow, here's a woman who's exactly what God wants her to be. And I think what what God does in providence, and I think he works in our lives. I think the Bible is clearly works in our life. You heard me talk about this numerous times. The problem with providence is we don't know how it works. But the reality of providence is we know he does, we just don't know how.
But I believe God acts, and I believe he acts on our behalf, and I believe it shows in our true nature. I'm going to give you an example. You remember the pharaohs. You remember Moses going to Pharaoh and said, God sent me. Said, Let my people go. And Pharaoh said, No. Who are you? Moses said, Well, you're about to find out. They said God's going to do some things, and God's going to expect your heart to change. And you remember that, and you remember the text saying, God hardened Pharaoh's heart. You remember that from the Old Testament? Do you think God did that? Well, he may have, but I'll tell you why he did that. He did that to show what was in Pharaoh's heart. You know how I know that? I know that because even after the last plague, and he said, I'm going to let him go, and they left. And once they left, what happened? He changed his mind, and he went after them. What happened to his army? They were all killed in the Red Sea. Why? Because that shows Pharaoh's heart. Shows Pharaoh's heart. And here was a, in our story, here was a Canaanite woman. You know, you know, that the word Canaan. It's the only time the word Canaan's used in the New Testament is here in Matthew 15. It's the only time. She was a Canaanite. You just, you just think about the Canaanite in the Old Testament, the Canaanites were the ones driven out of the Promised Land. This is who she was. And she was a woman. So she had, in reference to the first century, she had two strikes against her, if you were a Jew, she was a Canaanite, and she was a woman. And yet the Lord said, this is exactly who I want.
So let's talk about it now for just a minute in reference to prayer, because, I think, and while, while I don't know that he had prayer in mind here in this story, I think prayer teaches the very thing that Jesus is showing his disciples. This woman stays at it. And we know from Scripture that that's what he wants us to do in reference to prayer, and I think that's one of the hardest things for a Christian to do. As a matter of fact, it may be the hardest. Persistence in prayer may be the absolute hardest thing for us to do as a Christian. Would you say your your prayer life is exemplary? What could you say today, would you be willing to say, You know what? I don't know how everybody else's prayer life is, but man, mine is outstanding. I don't know that I've ever met anybody who would tell me my prayer life is outstanding. I wouldn't about myself. And yet I think prayer maybe, maybe I'm not saying it, but it may be the one thing that really tells us about our faith. How often do you pray, excluding meal time? Anybody interested in standing up and telling us? You feel real good about that? And I'm not saying that it's all about frequency, because I'm not sure it's necessarily about frequency, although frequency tells us something about that. But prayer, my friends and you know this, it's all over scripture. Romans 12 devoted to prayer. Ephesians six, with all prayer. James five, pray for one another. Philippians four, everything by prayer. First Thessalonians five, Pray without ceasing. Prayer equals persistence. That's part of what prayer is about. I think that's exactly what First Thessalonians five is saying, pray without ceasing. I think it's specifically saying you need to pray persistently. And that's a hard thing for us. I'll tell you when we pray. We pray when we need it. Most of us. Most of us pray when we need it. And that's exactly what Paul is saying, don't do in First Thessalonians five. He's not saying don't pray when you need it. He's saying, Don't only pray when you need it, but pray all the time. Pray persistently. Pray consistently. That's what he said. I think that's exactly what pray without ceasing is. Just be consistent. Why? Because you always understand your need for God, whether things are going well, or things, whether things are going poorly. You always know that's the mark, it seems to me, of a heart that's true. I always understand how important God is, and always understand he wants me to pray to Him.
Let me ask you a question. Why do you think God wants us to pray persistently? I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know that he says. But he says you need to pray persistently. And I'm going to show you in a minute, I'm going to show you a passage that's one of my absolute favorites. But it may be because it helps us stay focused. If we're consistently and persistently praying to God, then it shows that we're remaining focused on what our minds are consistently about him. That may be part of it. It may be simply a matter if he wants to purify our minds and by going to God in prayer, that typically does that. But God does want persistence. And I'll tell you how I know that. Because of this story in Luke 18. You remember the story of the unjust judge, and the woman had a and had somebody who was troubling her, and she went to this unjust judge, and she basically said, Would you please take care of this? And the story Jesus tells is this judge didn't care about anybody. He didn't care about man, he didn't care about himself. He didn't care, he didn't care about God, he didn't care about anything. And when she finally got to him, the text says that he said in verse five, "yet, because this widow troubles me, or because of her persistence, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me." Anybody ever pestered you to death? Anybody just ever pestered you to death? Said you know what, I am, sick and tired of you coming to me. So here I'll do what you want me to do, but get out of here. That's what this man did. And I love this story because Jesus said, Hear what the unjust judge said. And the story, that's not really a part of what I want to talk about this morning, but the story is, listen to what he said. "Will not God, who is not like this unjust judge, will God not hear those who cry out to Him day or night?" Don't you love this story? This is, this is a story about persistent prayer. That's what this story is about.
But I want you to think about persistence in a little different way for just a moment. Think about it in a little different way. Let me offer a couple of ideas about this. What if God gave us everything we wanted immediately? You ever thought about that? What if I prayed right now and happened? What if you prayed for something right now and it happened. And what if this afternoon you prayed for something and it happened, and tomorrow you prayed for something and it happened. You get my drift, right? Well, what if that happened to you? Well, what would you think about God? If that happened, I'll tell you what we think about God. God. Your purpose is to do my bidding. Your purpose is to do what I want, when I want it, how I want it, but your purpose is about me. Obviously, it's because every time I ask for something, every time I need you to do something that you do it and you do it immediately. That's what I think we would think about God. He is a pushover. That's not what happened in Matthew 15. What happened in Matthew 15 is when he turned away from her, and when he did not even answer her, she fell before him and worshiped him and got on her knees and fell before him, and she would not take no for an answer. Maybe we ought to start praying from our knees right at the beginning. When have you ever gotten on your knees to pray? You ever done that? If you have, I'm going to tell you when it was my guess is. My guess is when you were desperate, not before. She was desperate. She was desperate, and she got on her knees. Maybe we should start getting on our knees.
In my life, I remember two men in a public assembly when I was with him, and I wasn't with him a lot, but occasionally I'd be with him at different meetings or whatever. And anytime we prayed, wherever they were, they were sitting in a seat out here. They would move to the to the aisle, and they would get on a knee. They weren't praying but somebody else was praying. They'd get on a knee, or if they were on the front row here, they would just get on a knee right here. That wasn't, it wasn't show, because they did it all their life. I remember that, and I'm going to tell you right now, if there were people here who, when we prayed, got down on their knees right here during this assembly, you'd remember it. I think it says something. I'm going to let, I'm going let that go. I'm just going to let that resonate for a little bit.
What else about persistence? Well, what does real pain cause us to do? It causes us to be persistent. What if you're sick? What if you've been diagnosed with some disease? What if you've been diagnosed even with some disease that's terminal? What do you do? You pray. How consistently, persistently you continue to pray. That's what happens. How about, how about when there's emotional pain. You've been there? I've been there. It's a different kind of prayer. It's a different kind of prayer than Lord, thank you for lunch today. Appreciate you bountifully providing. That's a good prayer, but when your mind hurts and when your heart aches and when you don't see how you can get through the next minute, you pray a different prayer, because pain creates that for us. Pain creates that for us. Or what about this? Do you really want all your prayers answered? Do you really want all your prayers answered? I was with somebody this week, and she said, You know what? I used to pray my boyfriend and I would get married. And she said, but you know it didn't work out. And you know what she said after that? I am so glad. I'm so glad! You ever prayed for something and you're so glad it didn't work out? And all God's people said, Yes, we have. Why is that? Because God knows different than we do, and because we forget sometimes that he doesn't take orders, he gives orders, right? God doesn't take orders. God gives orders. God determines what happens in our life. His Will will always be done. I don't want somebody always doing what I want. Do you want to go to a doctor who, when you go to him or her, you say to them, you know what I've been looking on the internet, Doc, you know, here's what's wrong with me, and here's what I'm going to do, and here's what I want you to prescribe. Is that what you do? Well, if you do, let me suggest that you not do that. And I'm not suggesting that you don't have a conversation with him or her, but I'm saying you don't always do that, right? Why do you spend the money? You go to them so they who understand better than you, here's what I need you to do, and if you don't want to go to them, then don't go to them. But they're the experts, right? They don't know everything. I'm not saying that they do, but I'm saying the reason we go to them is because they know better than we know. God knows better. God knows better than we know. Let us remember that.
So let me ask this question, and then I'm going to very quickly make just four really brief observations. Here's a question I want to ask you. How do you approach the God of heaven who is completely other? That's the way I wanted to say that sentence. I didn't not finish it. It's finished. It's not other something, it's other. How do you approach the God of heaven who is other? Whether we're talking about prayer or whether we're talking about worship or whether we're talking about attitude toward him, how do you even approach him? I've been thinking about this. I mentioned it to Beth last night. I said, I'm working, I'm gonna work up a series, and this is going to be the name of the series. How do you deal with the God who is other? So be ready for it. You may get 20 lessons about it. How do you do that? Let me quickly mention these things. This will help us. I think this will help us be persistent. Because some of these things I'm about to mention, I think sometimes they're hard for us. When you pray persistently, remember this, you need to have a good relationship with God. You know what's clear in Scripture? What's clear is he hears those who are his. Right? I'm not suggesting that he doesn't hear those who want to pursue him. I think there's some idea we think, Well, if a person is not everything they ought to be, God's not going to hear your prayer. I don't think that's the case. But I think God is looking for people who want to pursue him, and people who are his, people who have a good relationship with him, I think he clearly wants to listen to them. And I think he clearly wants to help them. If your child's been bad all day, if they've not listened to you, and they come to you in the afternoon and say, You know what, hey, can we go get ice cream? What are you going to do? You going to say, there ain't a chance in the world we're going to get ice cream. Why is it? Because they've not been the kind of person they ought to be. I mean, there's some correlation, isn't there between who you are and the relationship that you have and the request that you make? Isn't there some sort of correlation there? I think so. I think biblically, there's some level of correlation there. There's nothing wrong with coming to God in a crisis. A matter of fact, that's how a lot of people come to God. There's a crisis in their lives. They understand, you know what the what I've been doing is not working. I need to come to God. I need to go to God. I need to ask Him to forgive me. I need to turn him. There's nothing wrong with that. He wants that. Psalm 66 a passage that Josiah read, "come and hear all you who fear God and I will declare what is he's done for my soul. I cried to him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue." Or praised. Extolled means praised. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear" Verse 18 in these four verses, verse 18 is the outlier. Verse 18 is what happens, while I don't trust God. 16, 17, and 19 is what happened when I do. 19 says, "but certainly God has heard me. He has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God who has not turned away from my prayer, nor his mercy from me." You see all that? What's that saying? It's saying there's something about having a relationship and there's something about not having a relationship. So that's number one, have a relationship. Have the right relationship with God.
Be authentic. Be real. Jeremiah 9:24, tells us that, "But let him who glories glory in this that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD exercising loving kindness, judgment and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight, says the Lord." Here is a fact. God knows you better than you know yourself. You ever thought about that? And that goes back to my point about how do you deal with a God who is other? You say, Well, nobody knows me like I do. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. God knows you. God knows you better than you know yourself. God knows everything about you. So you need to be authentic. You're not fooling God by being something that's inauthentic or not genuine. You're not fooling God about that. I read this week, I read a fairly long post by a man who is a friend of mine. I don't know him well, but I know him, and he's going through a very difficult time in his life, and a lot of people would just never have, would never have said what he said about himself for the world to see. Now, I'm not suggesting that we just start posting everything about ourselves, and I realize there's a lot of things that come into play. But this man is desperate. He's desperate. He's hurting the point where he's desperate. And a lot of people responded, and a lot of what they said was, I appreciate your honesty. I appreciate your genuineness. I appreciate you sharing so we can be praying. We just need to be authentic with God, because we're not going ,we can't fool him. So just be authentic with him.
Let me say this, it's not the words. If you're worried about praying, because you don't have the words. I'm glad. I'm glad I made this point. You forget that. Words-- words are just words, folks. Words are just words. I've heard people pray before. I can think of two or three over my lifetime when they prayed in public. I thought, wow, that was outstanding. And for a while I was so impressed with words, and I don't know why they used those words, and I don't know why they did what they did. That's between them and the Lord, but I can tell you this, I was impressed early on in my life for the wrong reasons. But all that's changed. I know other people who've prayed too, not just publicly, but even privately, and they're just expressing their heart. Matthew six, Jesus said on the Sermon on the Mount, he said, When you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think they will be heard for their many words vain repetitions are meaningless repetitions. He's not saying that the words are vain. He's not saying that the words are meaningless. The vain repetitions are not about the words. The vain repetition is about the heart. Do you see that? Some of the most genuine people that I've ever known, I think from at least, from all I can tell, I could quote their prayer verbatim. I could, I could quote this. They say the same prayer all the time. Does that make that prayer wrong? No. What makes that prayer something that God won't hear? The heart with which it's said. It's not the words, it's the heart.
And then this will help us. Not only You've Got Mail, but you've got help. You've got help. I love, I love what Paul says in Romans eight. I've thought about this. And I think, I think, if I've, if I've read this right, and if I've thought about this right, this is his point in Romans eight, he said, "but if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for, as we ought." Welcome to my world. "But the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." other translations which say with words that are too deep. "Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." Thank you, God. "And we know that all things work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." When you don't know how to pray, just pray, the spirit will help you. I'm not suggesting that the spirit somehow supernaturally comes down upon you and you feel a certain thing, and you start saying words that you don't even know what that my saying that. That's not biblical, but the Spirit will help you. He helps us in our weaknesses. What else does that mean? "We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." He can say things to God because He is God. He understands me better than I understand myself. And when we've got that going for us, when we've got that working for our benefit, what else do we need?
I just think all of this relates to then, how we approach the God of heaven, who is completely other. How do we do that? Well, I think we say, Lord, even the little dogs, even the little dogs can eat crumbs from the Master's table. That's humility. That's what I think God wants from me genuinely. He doesn't want, well, you know, Kenny talked about So Lord, I'm humble, I'm genuine. Can I have a few crumbs? He's not talking about that. He's talking about, Lord, I know who I am and I know who you are. I'm asking you to help me, please. That's what that's hard for me to sometimes understand. It's hard for me to think about my own life, but I pray that I will, and I'm gonna pray maybe the lesson this morning will help you reevaluate where you stand in reference to your own prayer life. And let this story, a story that says nothing about prayer, let this story resonate in your mind, and let it teach us to stay the course, because God will ultimately help us if our hearts what it ought to be, there's a key, and may that be the case with all of us. If you're here this morning and your heart is such that you're humble and that you're willing to say to God, I need you. I want you to solve the greatest problem in my life, which is the sin that I've held on to for so long. I need it gone, and I'll turn myself over to you because of what Jesus Christ has done. That's a great promise. And if you'd like to begin that kind of walk today, we'd love to help you, if you'll make that known by coming forward as we stand and as we sing.
