Faith that Moves Mountains - February 2, 2025

Uh if you want to turn your Bibles to Mark chapter 7, Mark chapter 7, I do want to encourage you, if this is your if you're a first-time visitor, if you're first time here, come back next Sunday.

Mark 7 · chapter mention Mark 7 · chapter mention

I'm not the lead pastor.

Uh you should all you would want I hope you would want to hear the lead pastor preach uh if you're checking out of church, seeing how it works.

And so come back next Sunday.

Pastor Jason will be here and he'll be preaching, and so you'll appreciate that.

Um and I just want to encourage you this morning, have an open heart, open mind, not because of me or who's speaking up here, but because I believe with all my heart that these are the true words of God.

This is the inspired word of God.

This is from God Almighty, the God who created you, the very reason you breathe, the very reason you exist.

And so we should take it very uh of utmost importance when we open the Word of God.

We shouldn't think of it as just another fun thing in church.

I love worship.

That's probably, I feel like that's where my gifting is.

I love doing that.

I love leading people in worship.

But I understand when the Word of God is open, that is the most important part in any Bible study or service out there.

And so uh just want to encourage you with that thought.

As we get into Mark chapter 7, we're just gonna read the short passage of scripture that we're in today, and then we'll we'll actually read through it, end up reading through it about three times.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

It's a pretty short passage of scripture.

And so we'll read through it once and then we'll pray.

Matthew, I'm sorry, Mark chapter 7, and if you're there, say I'm there.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

Sweet.

Mark 7, and verse number 24.

The Bible says this, and from thence he arose, that's Jesus, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it, but he could not be hid.

For a certain woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him and came and fell at his feet.

The woman was a Greek and a Syrophencian by nation, and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.

Verse 27.

But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled.

For it is not me to take the children's bread and to cast it unto the dogs.

And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord.

Yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.

And he said unto her, For this saying, go thy way.

The devil is gone out of thy daughter.

And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.

Lord, we come before you now with a thankful heart.

Thank you for joining us and inhabiting our worship and praise.

Thank you for being the object of our praise and worship.

I pray now that you would speak through your word.

And through this passage that I think some might find difficult and sometimes difficult to understand.

I thank you that you're not here to confuse us, you're not here to create chaos, but you're here to teach us.

And I pray that you would move in our hearts.

And if there's anybody in here, again, Lord, I ask if there's anybody here that does not know you, that through these words of scripture, as we look at your life while you were here on earth, that they would be moved to come to know you.

I pray that you would bless us, help me not to get in the way of you moving in Jesus' name.

Amen.

How many of you played sports?

Anybody here?

Can I just see a raise of hands?

Alright.

How many of you had a coach when you played sports that sometimes spoke some difficult words into you?

Is anybody here a coach?

Alright, maybe?

How many of you ever had a parent that would say hard things to you that at first you were offended and didn't like it as a kid, perhaps even as an adult child, right?

And perhaps you're still offended right now.

Okay, and you haven't gotten over it.

But most of us usually, yeah, he's still got his hand up.

Most of us, most of us, when we go through hard times, when we hear hard words, and we trust the person that said it, there's sometimes this kind of weird place where we're not quite understanding what's going on.

Imagine a young athlete who deeply admires their coach.

The coach has guided them, pushed them, helped them grow, not just in skill, but in character.

One day in the middle of practice, the coach looks the athlete in the eye and says, I don't think you have what it takes.

The words sting.

The athlete is caught off guard.

This is the person they trust, the one who's always encouraged them.

The natural reaction is to feel hurt and even offended.

But instead of walking away, the athlete chooses to prove the coach wrong.

They dig in, they work harder, and respond with persistence.

And later, the coach reveals something important.

The test wasn't in the words, but in the response of the player.

The challenge wasn't meant to push them away, but to pull something deeper out of them, a strength, a resilience, a confidence that would have never surfaced otherwise.

And to be honest, when we come to this passage of Scripture, it's one of those passages that you read in the Bible, and there's probably more of them in the Old Testament, but even in the New Testament, where you're just trying to wrap your mind around it because all of us have a perspective or a worldview of who Jesus is.

Right?

And typically when we ask about what are the attributes of who Jesus was, we think about holiness, we think about love, we think about grace, we think about peace, and all those things are very true.

So when we come to a passage of scripture like this, where he essentially calls this woman a dog, it doesn't compute.

And you might get offended.

And you might have a hard time with it.

And so I want you to understand that Jesus wasn't insulting this lady.

Alright?

He wasn't going at her.

He just wasn't in a bad mood and took it out on this poor lady.

Jesus didn't sin.

He never sinned.

If Jesus ever sinned, he couldn't save you and I.

He's not a savior.

Only someone who has never sinned can be your savior.

And so we understand that already.

But when we look at this passage, I want us to walk through this passage description and hopefully learn some things and find out what was Jesus doing here?

Why would he say that?

In what context was it?

Why would he say this to this lady?

Were his disciples there?

Who was all involved?

And hopefully we can learn from Jesus just as he was teaching there in that first century.

The chapter opens with a delegation of Pharisees.

Let's talk a little bit about just the scripture of context here in Mark chapter 7.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

And I want to give you this encouragement.

I understand sometimes some of these like context and history, if you're not a history or context person, it may be a little dry, but it's very important to understand who Jesus is speaking to, what the time is, what the cultural influence is, what society is thinking.

And so you have to, in order to really understand what's going on, you have to put yourself in the place of these people.

And you have to understand that these are true stories.

I say this every time I preach, every time we look at the Bible, this is a true story.

It's a historical record of what happened.

This isn't some fake story, it's not a moral story.

This truly happened.

Jesus, the Son of God, was really here on earth, and here he is speaking to this Syrophoenician woman.

And so the chapter, chapter 7, Pastor looked at this already, but I just want to give you a little context.

The chapter opens with a delegation of Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem challenging Jesus about his disciples' failure to observe the tradition of the elders.

Specifically, the ritual washing of hands before eating.

Now, side note.

I am.

Because this is a pet peeve of mine.

If you use the restroom, wash your stinking hands.

What is going on here?

What is going on?

Now, maybe the ladies don't understand.

I want to gross you out, ladies.

There's a bunch of dudes who don't wash their hands.

I'm just outing you guys right now, right here.

This is a confrontational moment.

You guys wash your hands.

It's so gross.

Right?

Now, I know I'm on the side of the Pharisee according to this context right now, but um I'm being a Pharisee right now because it's gross, it's disgusting.

Um if I see it, I'm gonna call it out.

Um goodness gracious.

The amount of times I go to the bathroom, I'm like, hey, hey, hey, hey, just walks out.

Anyways.

Nobody's gonna want to shake hands after this.

But in the historical context of what's going on here with the Pharisees, the Pharisees, here was their problem.

They looked at the law, they loved the law, they they adhered to the law, they they exalted the law, but then they went over and beyond.

And they started making their own interpretations upon the law, and there ended up becoming spoken word traditions, not traditions from the word of God, but spoken word traditions that started getting passed down.

And they started holding to these as if they were real doctrine.

And that was their problem.

How many of you ever had that, where someone had extra revelation or they made something up that wasn't in the Bible, and they were saying this is the law?

And you're like, no, this is not in the Bible.

That was the problem with the Pharisees.

And so Jesus actually objects to this.

This was not merely about hygiene, but about ceremonial purity, a deep issue tied to Jewish identity.

You have to understand that the thought process here of a Jewish person in first century Israel.

The Pharisees saw these traditions as extensions of the Mosaic law, reinforcing Israel's separation from the surrounding Gentile world.

I was sharing this message with my wife, and she was asking me, why was it like they it seems like in this chapter or just the way they were thinking, it's like they were selfish of Jesus, the disciples, the way they were acting.

Why was it like, why did they seem like they were selfish over who God was?

And it wasn't necessarily that.

I don't think there was ill intent involved when it came to the Pharisees.

I uh maybe for some of them, but I really think what it was is this is just what they believed.

This is what had been taught for centuries.

Everything that they believed, everything that they stood for was that we are the chosen people.

Now the Bible does say they are the children of God, they are the chosen people.

But they ended up getting sort of this elitist mentality where everybody else, nobody cared about everybody else.

I don't care about other nations.

And it got to the point where there was so much tension, they essentially thought of these other countries, especially the specific one that we're going to talk about today, as accursed.

They're accursed.

We are the chosen people, we are the children of God, and everybody else is accursed.

That was the mentality of this specific day.

And so Jesus ends up rebuking the Pharisees sharply.

And he quotes Isaiah 29, 13, where he says, This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

One of the saddest verses in the Bible, something we all should be careful of, because all of us have done this before, where we come to church, we praise, we worship, we honor God with our lips, but our heart is in a whole other place.

We have to be careful of that.

And so Jesus is accusing them of this.

He condemns their legalism, accusing them of elevating human tradition above God's commandments.

And this critique is not simply about ritual washing, it's an indictment of a system that prioritized external purity.

Listen to this, over the condition of the heart.

Jesus then gathers the crowd.

Again, this is all leading up to where we're at.

Jesus gathers the crowd, and he makes a pretty radical declaration, especially for that time and place.

There is nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him, but the things which come out of them, those are they that defile the man.

And his disciples had a hard time grasping this.

Essentially, this is what Jesus is saying.

Jesus is saying, you need to worry about what's inside.

Quit freaking out so much about what's on the outside.

Now it's really hard for us to do that because that's the first thing we see.

You don't really get to know about what's inside a person until you get to know them.

And so you can say, judge not, don't be judgmental, but all of us judge each other.

It's impossible not to.

It's the first human reaction.

When you see someone, you immediately decide who you think they are.

Now you may come to find out that's not who they are, but Jesus is trying to shift their entire perspective because for thousands of years the Jews had been so focused on cleansing and purity and everything was outside, outside, outside.

And Jesus is shifting that.

He's saying, No, no, no, you got it wrong.

You need to worry about what's in your heart, what's on the inside.

And let that change the outside.

Defilement is not about one who eats or touches, but what flows from the heart, evil thoughts, pride, and sin.

With this teaching, Jesus implicitly undermines the barrier between Jews and Gentiles.

Okay.

We need to lay this foundation.

I've talked about it a little bit already, but you have to understand that the amount of hate and tension and disregard for each other that was going on between the Jews and the Gentiles, maybe more specifically from the Jews towards the Gentiles, and then it was probably retaliated, is at such a level, I don't think we can truly understand where it was at.

It was high.

And so Jesus even mentioning some of these things, he's just starting to chip away at these barriers that have been set up.

Now we understand looking back, right, that the gospel is not just for the Jew, but to the Greek and the Gentile.

Just so you understand.

Greek, when the Bible says it talks about Greek or Gentile, that just means anybody who is not a Jew.

Alright?

Which the Jews were his focus during the Old Testament.

And so all of us in here probably are Gentiles.

I'm a Gentile.

And so I'm thankful that the gospel is for me as well, that Jesus is for me as well.

But this was not something that was well known.

It was not even known almost at all.

And we understand, now looking back, that later on Paul would become a missionary to the Gentiles, Peter would become a missionary to the Gentiles, or someone who would go and reach out to the Gentiles.

And so we understand all of that later on.

But you have to, I hope you can grasp this in your mind.

During this time, Jews and Gentiles did not speak to each other at all.

You ever heard of the Hatfields and McCoys?

Like, think of that times a hundred.

And we're talking about two nations, not just two families.

Alright?

And we we understand, like, a lot of this is still going on in some way, shape, or form, and it's sad.

But this was what was going on here.

It's so much tension, so much strife.

And they hated each other.

They didn't speak to each other.

They definitely never ever married each other.

And so that was the attitude in the spirit.

And so when Jesus is coming in, he starts messing with what's pure, what's impure, what's clean, what's unclean.

It starts ruffling some feathers.

And he's starting to set the foundation that, hey guys, I bring a gospel that is not just for you guys.

I bring hope and redemption that's not just for you guys.

I am the Messiah, not just for you guys, I am the Messiah for everyone.

And let me just remind you, that's still the heart of Jesus today.

Jesus is the Savior for everyone.

Doesn't mean everybody will accept him.

But Jesus is Lord and Savior for whoever will receive him.

So let's look at the verses, and then we'll just talk a little bit about each of the verses, and then I'm going to give five points and we'll be done.

I say that like it'll be really fast.

I'll try.

Alright?

Look at Mark chapter 7.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

I also want you to have ready Matthew chapter 15.

Matthew 15 · chapter mention

So Matthew chapter 15 is the parallel passage to Mark chapter 7.

Matthew 15 · chapter mention Mark 7 · chapter mention

We may pop over there a couple times.

Essentially, what that is is a parallel passage is the same telling of the same story, just from a different perspective.

Understand that Matthew was a disciple of Jesus.

Mark is someone who came a little later, but they both wrote books about Jesus, and so they're going to have slightly different perspectives.

Same story.

There's no contradictions, but they're going to have different perspectives and certain things that happened.

And so it's important to kind of look at the entire story.

Mark chapter 7, verse number 24.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

And from thence he arose and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon and entered into a house and would have no man know it, but he could not be hid.

So I want you to grasp this.

Right after Jesus has this debate and argument with the Pharisees, Jews, about what's clean and what's unclean, he then leaves immediately and goes to Tyre and Sidon.

Now we don't know this because we don't understand the geography of that time.

Some of you might, but Tyre and Sidon is a very pagan, very impure, very idolatrous area.

The Jews knew this, and so the very idea of Jesus, a rabbi, remember, Jesus was known as a great teacher during his time, a rabbi, the very idea that a rabbi Jew would go to Tyre and Sidon would have been very offensive to the Jewish people.

That he would be willing to leave Israel and go there.

This is the only time, to my knowledge, this is the only time that Jesus ever leaves the borders of Israel.

We understand that Jesus said, I am here for the lost sheep.

His ministry, first and foremost, was to the Jewish people who had refused him, and he's there to reach them.

But for some reason, and it's not really some reason, Jesus is very purposeful in his movements.

Right after he has this debate with these people about what's unclean, what's pure, what's impure, he ends up going right to a place that is considered by all of these people, including his disciples, as an impure, unclean place.

That's a big deal.

And Jesus, I believe, through this passage, is not just teaching us, he's teaching his disciples.

You know how we just had that conversation about these guys calling things unclean?

And I'm talking about the inside?

Let's head over to Tyre inside on.

And when he would say that to his disciples, they would have been like, ooh.

We don't go, we don't go to that place.

Right?

All of us have those places in our minds, right?

We're probably not gonna go vacation in that place.

Whatever it is that you have in your mind, I just don't go there.

Right?

I think that like times a thousand.

And so this is a big deal that they're going here.

Look at verse number.

I just love that last phrase in verse number 24.

He would have no man know it, but he could not be hit.

That's still true today.

You guys know that song, This Little Light of Mine?

And there's a verse in there that says, Hide it under your bushel, no, I'm gonna let it shine.

The truth is, you could try to hide Jesus all you want, it ain't gonna work.

Um, you you can try to hide him under a bushel, you can try to not proclaim him, his name is going to get out there, and that's what's happening here is Jesus.

I'm implying this, it's implied, he may have been coming here.

Of course, we understand the main purpose, but he may have come here to get a little rest.

He's been doing a lot of debating, he's been doing a lot of arguing with the Pharisees, he's been doing healing, he's been traveling around, and so he perhaps he thinks this is the one area maybe that he's gonna get a little bit of rest.

And so he goes there, he doesn't want anybody to know, and yet the word immediately gets out.

And I love that it says he could not be hid.

And that truth still stands today.

If you're not gonna shine Jesus, somebody else will, he will declare his name, he will be shown to the people no matter what.

Verse 25 for a certain woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, came and fell at his feet.

This is where it gets even crazier.

Okay, this is we're just reading like words, but this is an insane story to someone who's living during this time.

Not only are they going to a place they never should go, ever, they shouldn't be here at all.

But now, a woman, which culturally it was unusual for a woman alone to talk to a man, a woman who was from this area.

Now, get this.

This was not an area, again, that the Jews thought were good.

You know who came from Tyrant Saddam?

You know who was a Sidonian princess?

Her name was Jezebel.

Right?

Anyone know about Jezebel?

Yeah, not a great lady.

Married to an even worse guy named Ahab.

Right?

Both punks in the Old Testament.

You can go read it.

Pretty cool story.

Crazy story.

She gets eaten by dogs.

It's crazy, insane.

Alright?

Um, yeah, it's in there, I promise.

Jezebel's from there.

Alright?

Um they brought all kinds of bail worship.

They were just known as an idolatrous nation.

Uh Tyra had often been a trading partner and an oppressor of Israel.

This is talked about in Ezekiel 26, 28, where they exploited Jewish labor.

Many Jews saw the Phoenicians as spiritually corrupt outsiders unworthy of God's covenant blessings.

So Jesus' deliberate movement into this territory, it's striking.

For a Jewish rabbi to travel into such a region and then engage a Gentile woman in theological discourse was highly controversial.

But in my opinion, it's precisely the point.

Because remember, who is with Jesus?

It's his disciples.

They're seeing all of this.

We're getting to read it.

They're seeing all of it.

Verse 26.

The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation.

When it says she was a Greek, that just means that she was at some point in her life underneath the rule of Alexander the Great.

They called everybody underneath their rule Greeks, but she lived in the area of Phoenicia, which was conquered by Syria.

That's why she's called Syrophoenician.

And so that was the nation she was from.

And she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.

So here's the crux of the situation.

There's this woman who's a Gentile, but at some point in her life, in the short amount of ministry that Jesus had, this is still pretty early on in Jesus' ministry.

Remember, he doesn't go to the Gentiles.

That's not where his focus is right now.

Somehow, this Gentile lady heard, my daughter has a demon.

There's one guy that can fix this issue.

I heard about this guy from Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth.

And he just so happens to be in my town.

And so she gets over there as quickly as possible.

And how many of you would do anything for your child no matter what?

And that's the point here.

Remember, she's doing something crazy.

Going to a place she should never be, talking to people she shouldn't be talking to, and yet she is willing to do this because she cares about her daughter.

Her daughter is possessed with a demon.

The demonic warfare, pastor uh preached on this a couple weeks ago, is a real deal.

It's a real thing.

Alright?

You don't need to be enamored or fearful of them.

Jesus is way more powerful, but you do need to understand, not be naive.

Alright?

Demons are real.

Spiritual warfare is real.

And so this young girl is under demonic oppression.

And so she runs to and finds Jesus and asks him, besought him that he would cast forth the devil at her daughter.

Now, I'm just going to look at the parallel passage here real quick.

It says here in verse 23 of Matthew 15, He answered her not a word.

So before, remember, this is tough for us sometimes reading through this.

Before Jesus calls her a dog, he doesn't even speak to her.

So this lady cries out to Jesus out of anguish, out of pain, out of hurt.

She's crossing all kinds of boundaries she shouldn't be doing in order to save her daughter, and Jesus is silent.

Doesn't say a word.

And his disciples came and besought him.

They're getting annoyed.

They come to Jesus and say, Hey, send her away, for she crieth after us.

This gives the implication they might not have even been in the house anymore.

They've been, they might have been traveling away.

And she's coming after them, crying after, Jesus, Jesus, help my daughter.

And the disciples are like, Can you send her away?

Remember, we look at this and go, rude, but this is normal for them.

They don't have no idea.

Why is she talking to us?

She doesn't belong here.

And Jesus doesn't answer her, he answers them, and he says this in Matthew 15, 24.

He answered and said, I am not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

So he clarifies why he's not answering.

Now, I want you to understand, there's more that's going on.

Jesus isn't annoyed right now.

He's not feeling disrespected or insulted that a Gentile woman would ever dare talk to him.

He's teaching his disciples something.

And so he says, Look, my focus right now, I am here for the lost sheep of Israel, not the Gentiles.

And look at this lady.

It's pretty awesome.

In chapter 15 of Matthew, verse 25, then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

And in verse 26 of Mark 7, the woman was a Greek Syrophenician by nation.

She besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.

She's worshiping him.

I mean, this is crazy stuff.

Right?

Like we read this stuff, but if you saw this in real in real life, you'd be like, what's going on here?

But Jesus said to her, verse 27 of Mark chapter 7, but Jesus said unto her, let the children first be filled, for it is not meat to take the children's bread and to cast it unto the dogs.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

I remember when I first read this, even just studying for this message, I was like, great, thanks, Pastor.

Leave me this message.

You know, Jesus calling people dogs.

Like, how am I?

So it seems harsh and offensive calling her a dog, but I submit that this is not the case, that it was not harsh, it was not offensive, and I have two practical reasons, and then we're gonna get into some of the spiritual things here to close out.

Jesus didn't use, number one, it's under it's good to understand the original Greek in this language, uh, in this scripture.

Jesus didn't use the traditional word for dog that most Jews called Gentiles, especially those they particularly looked down upon, which was people at Tyre and Sidon.

So during this time, uh Jews would call Gentiles uh dogs.

And it was the it was the um the Greek word in the Koine Greek was ku'an.

And it essentially, I'm not gonna say it, but essentially it was like how we would use the B word.

Very derogatory, right?

Offensive.

And it was talking about like you're a mongrel, you're a street dog, you have no words, you're like nothing to me.

Like it was a very offensive, offensive term.

That is not the word Jesus is used here, Jesus uses here.

Because understand this, even though Jesus is trying to teach a lesson, he's not trying to be mean while he does it.

So he doesn't use the word that they would normally use.

So even though it translates to us, both of them, dog, dog, it's actually two very different words when they were speaking.

Okay, so he wasn't saying what we would think of like as the B word, something very derogatory.

Jesus actually uses the Greek Koiner word, the Koina Greek word kunarion.

I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right, but it's kunarion.

This is a completely different term.

Now we're getting a little bit in the weeds here, but it's really important because we should understand that in order to understand, we need a study.

Alright, this is uh actually what we would call a Greek diminutive.

Okay?

And a Greek diminutive is just a lesser term, uh, lesser use of the term that often conveyed affection and even triviality, altering the base word.

Best example I can give you, maybe not the best example, but maybe an easy one for you to understand, it'd be the difference between like me calling you the B word and me saying, like, what's up, dog?

Alright?

That's a big difference.

Alright?

If I came up to you in the middle of church and said, What's up, B word, you'd be like, Whoa! Right?

By the way, we have cameras, so we do listen.

No, she can't.

But if obviously that would be very offensive, but if I said, hey, what's up, dog?

You would take that almost, it's almost not a term of endearment, but it's it's affection.

It's it's trivial.

And so when Jesus uses this word kunarion, he's actually saying it like in that way, in that form.

He's actually saying it like a little dog, a puppy.

Alright, now that maybe it's hard for us to translate that, but that just first and foremost, I want you to understand, Jesus did not insult this lady with a derogatory slur.

Okay, he didn't sin.

And there's good reason for why he's saying it in this way.

So, number one, Jesus didn't use the traditional slur.

Number two, Jesus is actually teaching her, and he's helping us understand the order of how the gospel works.

And this is his plan.

This is not ours.

Everybody look very quickly at Acts chapter 1, verse number 8.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 1, verse number 8.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

Acts 1, 8.

Very well-known verse.

Thank you for listening well.

Acts chapter 1.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

But ye shall receive power, uh, verse number 8, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.

And there's multiple verses in the Bible that give an order of how the gospel was going to be spread.

It was going to always be to the Jew first.

Didn't mean they were better than anybody else.

That was just the order.

God was going to use this specific people to bring about his Messiah, to bring this beautiful story of the gospel.

And everybody was going to be impacted.

It wasn't just for them.

And it wasn't like they're better than.

This is just the order that God decided.

It's going to start with the Jew first and then to the Greek and the Gentile.

And so Jesus is actually describing that order through the analogy of when you eat supper and you have children and a dog.

Now I have children, child, children, and a dog.

Her name's Phoebe.

Alright?

If you've ever met her, she's a spaz.

She's named after Phoebe from Friends, that's why, because she's a Spaz.

Alright?

Um a guy, right?

She's a crazy dog.

Now, when we eat at the table, I don't feed Phoebe our food first.

Everybody has different rules, right?

Most people are like, the dog goes outside, and we try to do that as well.

But every now and then, you know, like sneak her some food.

She gets her way.

But she waits for the scraps from the table.

She's actually worse than that.

She'll actually steal the food from Emma, right?

It's one of the joys of entertainment at home.

You just watch Emma run around with a chip and Phoebe chasing her.

And Emma yelling at her, and it's it's great fun.

But here's the point.

He's using the analogy.

You would be a bad parent, right?

It would be wrong for you to feed your children, or not to not feed your children, and feed your dog first.

Now again, this isn't, it's hard for us to fully understand this because we keep thinking better than, better than.

It's not.

It's just he's showing this is the order of how I'm going to share myself.

But it actually goes even beyond those two practical points of why Jesus is not insulting her.

He really, he understands the full picture here.

And that's the beauty of this story.

Is he pulling out her faith.

And in pulling out her immense faith, he's teaching his disciples.

Because understand this, they had just been in conversation after conversation, debate, and argument after argument with people who thought of themselves as the chosen, who thought of themselves as the pure, as the clean.

Every single one of them disagreed and rejected Jesus.

I want to correct myself.

There were some Pharisees that received him.

But you get the point.

That has just happened.

Now they come to somewhere where she's unclean.

This place is unclean.

They're idolatrous.

We call them dogs.

And here is this lady literally worshiping Jesus, crying out in great faith.

You see the contrast.

You see this very interesting juxtaposition that this puts the disciples in, where they're now trying to wrap their minds around wait a second, the people that we revered, the people that know the law, the people that adhere to the Mosaic Law, the people that even add things unto the law, and everything that we've thought for so long, they reject you, Jesus.

But this lady who's supposed to be unclean in an unclean country from an idolatrous place is now worshiping you.

And you're not refusing the worship.

Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled, for it is not meat to take the children's bread and to cast it unto the dogs.

And then you see just this great faith pulled from her.

And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord.

Yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.

So he's essentially saying this.

I know I'm not supposed to be here.

I get this is culturally wrong.

I get you guys look at me, maybe not Jesus, but the Jew, you this, I'm unclean.

I'm unworthy.

And yes, maybe in the analogy, I might be the dog, but I'm willing to just get some crumbs from the master's table.

That's how much I trust you.

That's how much I believe in you.

That's how desperate I am.

My daughter is possessed.

My daughter is in pain.

My daughter is in hurt.

Nobody else can help her but you.

And okay, so maybe I'm not one of the chosen, and maybe I'm not one of the clean, maybe I'm not one of the pure, maybe I'm not one of the children.

I just want a crumb.

Maybe I don't get the full meal.

I'm willing just to have crumbs from the master's table.

In Matthew 15, Jesus says this.

It's not mentioned in Mark 7.

But in verse 28 of Matthew 15, Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith.

Be it unto thee, even as thou wilt.

And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

And in Mark 7, Jesus doesn't even go there.

We understand he just says, it's done.

Great is your faith.

And you can imagine, like, imagine standing there as a disciple.

You have just come from a place where people were absolutely tearing Jesus apart and complaining about washing of hands before eating.

And now Jesus is just rewarding this lady, saying, Great is your faith, and your daughter's healed.

And she went away, went home, and when she walked in her house, you can imagine as a parent how this would feel.

You've just been through some painful, horrific, scary things.

You just made a crazy decision to go talk to a Jewish rabbi that you shouldn't have you had no business talking to.

And then he says, She's whole, you come back, you walk in your house, and your daughter's perfectly at peace laying in her bed.

I want to give you five points.

Five points that we can take from this passage.

Point number one is perseverance in prayer.

Perseverance in prayer.

The importance of unyielding faith.

Perseverance in prayer, the importance of unyielding faith.

I think we have that up there on the screens, guys.

Mark 7, 26 through 27.

The woman was a Greek, a cyphernation by nation.

She besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her, but Jesus under her let the children first be filled.

In Matthew 15, we understand she continued to cry on.

I want you to understand this.

Faith that moves Jesus is not passive.

Faith that moves Jesus, it's not just an intellectual agreement with a set of doctrines.

Listen, it's a gritty, tenacious clinging to Jesus even when it feels like he's silent.

The Syrophenician woman doesn't just ask once, she pleads, she persists, she presses in.

And listen, this isn't about nagging God into submission.

It's about a heart so convinced of his goodness that it refuses to let go even when the answer seems delayed.

I want you to think about this.

What if unanswered prayers aren't a rejection, but an invitation?

What if silence isn't abandonment, but a call to deeper faith?

And you may say, why would you say that?

That's what we're literally seeing here in this story.

Jesus is silent, Jesus doesn't answer right away.

And when he does answer, it doesn't come across in the way that we think it should.

And it's not because Jesus is annoyed or tired and is just wanting to take a nap, just needs a Snickers bar.

That's not what this is about.

No, Jesus is calling for deeper faith from this woman.

The Bible says in Matthew 7, 7, ask and it shall be given you.

Seek.

That word seek means like you are on a mission.

It's not pat.

Most Christians, unfortunately, live their lives, and I've been guilty of this as well, with passive prayer.

Just very repetitive, nothing prayers.

And if we ever talk to our spouses or people close to us the way we often talk to God, there would be zero relationship.

And unfortunately, a lot of people who call themselves Christians just don't have a relationship with Christ because their prayer and their faith is completely passive.

There's no seeking in it.

There's no unction, there's no grit.

And the moment it seems like there's any kind of silence or any kind of rejection, we give up.

And that doesn't build character.

We know this.

You understand if we know as parents, like if you give everything to your kids immediately, it ruins them.

And God is a good father.

The Bible, uh, I want you to I want you to think about this subpoint.

Faith that moves Jesus is faith that overcomes silence.

This is a hard one.

God's seeming silence in response to prayer is an opportunity for our faith to grow and to be refined.

The woman's persistence in asking, despite initial rejection, shows that unanswered prayer does not equate to divine neglect, but invites deeper trust.

How do you respond when you pray and you feel like there's no answer?

There's just silence.

I've spoken about this before, but most of us in the world that we live in are extremely uncomfortable with silence.

Most of us have noisy, distracted souls.

And often, if you ever have a time where you read your Bible and pray, one of the best things that you can do is before you ever open your mouth, before you ever say anything, just sit there.

Put away the phone, put away the distractions, and focus intentionally on the presence of God.

This is a lost art with many Christians, including myself.

One of the hardest things to deal with as a Christian is when we are asking for something and there's no answer.

Sometimes silence is God's invitation to press in with greater faith, to trust his timing, and to deepen our relationship with him.

Now I want you to understand this isn't like some kind of weird silent treatment from God done in a wrong way.

Like my wife, when I get mad, I just get silent.

Alright?

I think everybody kind of is on the spectrum in different ways.

Some people get loud, some people get very vocal.

I get quiet.

And weirdly, I hum.

I don't know why I do that.

That's like my coping mechanism, I guess you could say.

The only problem is I hum when I'm happy too, so you don't really know.

Is Amos Matt or is he, you know.

This is not that kind of silence.

This isn't God angry with you, so he doesn't want to answer you.

No, no, no.

This is God calling faith out of you.

Because he's trying to grow and build you.

Perseverance in prayer.

Number two.

Humility before God, the path of the outsider.

Humility before God, the path of the outsider.

This woman had every reason to walk away.

She was a Gentile, an outsider, culturally, religiously, she didn't belong.

And yet she doesn't demand a seat at the table.

She kneels and worships him.

And in an age obsessed with self-assertion, her posture is counter-cultural.

She embraces humility, not self-deprecation or self-pity, but an honest recognition of her need for grace.

The world says, know your worth.

But the kingdom says, know your need.

And in that need, Jesus meets her, not with rejection, but with grace.

The Bible says in James 4, 6, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

I think a massive issue.

And again, preaching to myself here, a massive issue in specifically American Christianity is we are so prideful.

We just are.

It's kind of built into our culture.

Like we like, and look, I love winning.

Nothing wrong with winning.

Right?

We're competitive by nature.

We're very individualistic.

My car, my house, my business.

And all of those things are not necessarily wrong.

But what it can lead to is a very prideful viewpoint on who Jesus is and what Christianity is.

And so we start giving titles.

I'm a conservative Christian.

And that makes me better than fill in the blank.

And there's other people on the other side.

I'm a progressive Christian.

So that makes me better than fill in the blank.

I heard someone say very recently, you put an adjective in front of the word Christian and you messed it all up.

Because you just ruined the whole point of what the word is.

You don't need to put an adjective in front of I'm a Christ follower.

Being a Christian is enough.

You add something to that and you messed it up.

You ruined what the meaning is.

Now, again, I'm not against conservative values.

I have that.

This is not, I'm not trying to have a political message here.

I'm saying here in America, one of our biggest issues is we're very prideful.

And we want our way.

And when we don't get our way, we use godly terms to push forth very ungodly ideals.

And we have to be very careful of this because here's the truth true grace from God only comes from faith clothed in humility.

You want faith that moves Jesus, that impacts his heart?

You gotta clothe that faith in humility.

Not pride.

Not I'm number one.

This may be, I don't know.

I'm not trying to ruffle feathers here, but um.

Uh Jesus is not America first.

Now, if you are, that's okay.

Like as a citizen, you should be patriotic.

I encourage that.

I love that.

Love celebrating July 4th.

I love when I believe the ideals that our country was stood for was were founded upon are kept.

I love when righteousness reigns in a nation.

But Jesus is not America first.

And when you start thinking that way, you start taking on this attitude of the Pharisees.

Where we're at the table, because this is what Jesus is implying, they thought.

We're at the table, the rest of y'all are dogs.

Like we're the ones.

We're at the table, you serve us.

And I understand.

You know, we love, we we live in probably the greatest country on earth.

I I love living here.

I'm very thankful for that.

But don't let the pride of a patriotic American ruin the humility of being a Christian.

Because Jesus is always first.

And I'm a citizen of him first before anything else.

And let's just be honest, let's just be real.

We mess this up all the time.

And so that's just my encouragement to you, my forewarning to you, is to approach God with a sense of humility, recognizing that I have no claim to his blessings except by his grace.

I don't deserve this.

I don't get to say this is for me because of who I am and where I was born.

None of that matters.

I have to come with humility and say, no, this is because he is love and he has grace towards me.

It's nothing that I have done.

It's all because of him.

The woman's humble recognition of her unworthiness doesn't stop her from asking for mercy.

Humility does not hinder boldness.

Her response models the attitude of the heart that God honors.

Humility that knows its need yet trusts in his mercy.

So do you approach God with a sense of humility, recognizing who he is?

James 4.6 says this, but he giveth more grace.

Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

Micah 6.8 says, He hath showed thee, O man, what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee.

This is what God requires: to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.

Humility is a fundamental posture for anyone seeking to walk rightly with God.

Point number three: boldness in approach.

Boldness in approach, crossing boundaries.

This Syrophoenician woman, she didn't have to be there, and she honestly, culturally, shouldn't have been there.

A Gentile woman, we talked about this before, crashing into an area where Jewish men were gathered, and yet she comes unapologetically, boldly, desperately.

Jesus doesn't rebuke her for it.

He walks her through things.

He draws out her faith because real faith isn't polite.

It's not afraid to cross boundaries, to push past the limits that man-made religion, society, or even our doubts put in place.

Sometimes, sometimes faith looks like holy defiance, refusing to settle, refusing to be sidelined, refusing to take no for an answer when it comes to the things of God.

So even though she was humble, she was worshipful, she was persistent, and she was bold.

Like again, we can't really understand this.

We understand some of the tensions today.

This would almost be like a very famous Jewish rabbi today going and having a full-on conversation with a Palestinian woman in front of everybody.

With all of the hatred that goes on.

And we understand the tensions there, like they're high.

And even that I don't think we can really fully grasp what was going on here.

That she would have the boldness to do this.

The Bible says in Hebrews 4.16, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

By the way, don't get scared when people mention like the things that are going on today.

Like it's okay to say those nations.

Obviously, we believe that the Jews are the chosen people of God.

We believe in all of that as a Christian.

But just so you know, uh, Jesus died for the Palestinians as well.

Right?

And I and I know Pastor said that a while back when it was first kind of starting out.

But just make sure that we understand all of that.

And so don't get scared when we mention some of those things.

Understand this that as a Christian, we want all of them to be saved.

We want all of them to come to Christ.

We want the lost sheep and we want the gentile.

And thank God we want the gentile, because all y'all and me are Gentiles.

Alright?

Kingdom boldness.

The woman does not wait for an invitation or a welcoming space.

She boldly approaches Jesus, trusting that he is the only one who can help her.

Her actions challenge the social boundaries of her time.

Jesus does not rebuke her for her boldness but praises her faith.

Here's a thought to ponder.

Am I bold in approaching Jesus, even when society or my own doubts might keep me back?

This is what true faith is.

Like the man that cried, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief.

Even in the midst of doubt, me willing to pursue and persist and say, Lord, I still am willing to come boldly to your throne because I don't want to take this for granted.

I still have this access to you.

I want to seek your face no matter what.

And even though I don't understand, even though I have doubts, even though other people are telling me this is wrong, I want to seek your face because you're the only one that can help me.

Ephesians 3.12 says, In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.

Through faith in Christ, we are granted both boldness and access to God.

Point number four.

Two more and we're done.

Faith in Jesus' authority, trusting his power beyond the limits of our understanding.

This is a neat point.

In Matthew chapter 15, when she first calls unto him, you know what she calls Jesus?

Matthew 15 · chapter mention

She says, Jesus, son of David.

Now remember, she's a Gentile.

How she understood all of that, we don't know.

At some point in her life, perhaps very recently, she had an understanding of not just this is the person who can help me, but where some of his authority came from.

She was understanding of, we don't know if in full or not, but she understood in some ways that this was the Messiah.

Jesus, son of David, is a very Jewish term that would have been given to Jesus in an understanding of this is someone who has been given through the lineage of David, the King David.

Right?

And what a powerful statement that would have been.

And so here she comes humbly and immediately recognizes his authority, his lineage, his background, his foundation.

This is Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David.

And I love how, look at uh real quickly, Mark 7, verse 29, and he said unto her, This is Jesus speaking, for this saying, Go thy way, the devil is gone out of thy daughters.

Mark 7:29

And the very next verse just says this, and when she was come to her house.

You understand what that is?

That space between verse 29 and 30 is faith.

Well, what do you mean?

Well, he heard what he said, she heard what he said, and just went.

There wasn't any more pleading.

There wasn't any more, are you sure?

Can you show me, you know, can you we FaceTime her?

Can you prove to me?

She heard and she went.

Jesus said she's whole.

She's whole.

I'm gonna go see.

That's faith and trust in the authority of Jesus.

She doesn't need him to come and lay hands on her daughter.

She simply trusts his word.

No signs, no theatrics, just raw belief in his authority.

And that's what faith really is, isn't it?

Trusting that Jesus is who he says he is, even when we don't see immediate proof.

Even when our circumstances don't change right away, even when he works in ways that don't fit our expectations.

Can you imagine?

We don't know how far it was, but can you imagine that walk back all the way to her house?

As much faith as she had shown, I'm sure there was a little bit of apprehensiveness.

Is my faith really going to reveal a work of God?

Did the grace of God really reward my faith?

And as she walks in that house, her daughter is sitting up in bed at peace.

And I can imagine just the comfort and the relief that floods her soul.

Faith says, I don't have to understand it, I just have to trust him.

That's a faith that moves Jesus.

The woman's faith acknowledges Jesus' ability to heal even from a distance.

Her trust is in Jesus' power not to heal, not just the mechanics of his physical presence.

This is a reminder that Jesus' authority transcends time, space, and human limitations.

It's good for us to understand this because as human beings, we often seek a sign.

I need some kind of physical.

If you gotta come with me, Jesus, you gotta just lay your hands on her.

No, no, no.

She just trusted his word.

And that's a big part of faith.

Lord, you said it.

I believe it.

And not just I believe it, I will act on it.

I'll go and see if my daughter is healed.

My last point here, and we'll be done.

Point number five: grace and mercy for all.

Grace and mercy for all.

God's kingdom knows no boundaries.

At first, it seems like Jesus is reluctant to help her, but he's not pushing her away.

He's actually drawing her in.

And in doing so, he's making, again, a pretty radical point that the kingdom isn't just for the children.

It's not just for the chosen.

It's not just for Israel.

It's not just for America.

It's for the outsiders, the unexpected, the ones who don't fit the mold.

It's for the women from the wrong side of the tracks.

It's for the ones who are told they don't belong.

And if that's true, if that's true, then it's for us too.

The kingdom of God is not built on pedigree, privilege, proximity.

It's built on grace.

And grace always welcomes those who come hungry.

And the grace of God will always welcome those at his table who hunger and thirst after him.

Romans 10, 12, well-known verse, there's no difference between the Jew and the Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him.

Jesus does not restrict his grace to the children of Israel.

He extends it to this Gentile woman, demonstrating that God's mercy is open to all who come in faith.

This is a glimpse into the inclusive nature of God's kingdom.

A grace is available to all who seek it.

Understand this, though, even though it's inclusive, it also is exclusive to those who accept and trust in Jesus Christ.

Inclusivity without exclusivity is not inclusive at all.

It doesn't mean anything then.

But when there's a requirement to have faith in and trust the grace of God in your life, not only for your eternity, but for your life here on earth.

There's beauty in that.

And all of a sudden, that grace that is given to all means so much more because you get to take part in it.

Peter opened his mouth in Acts 10 and he said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons, but in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is accepted with him.

I want to close with this thought.

In the overwhelming mercy of God, when it comes to the story of the Syrophoenician woman, she was willing to be satisfied with just the crumbs.

But I want you to understand this.

Nowhere in the Bible does Jesus say, I'm just going to give you crumbs.

The crumbs side of it came from her.

This was her humility.

So Jesus was saying, I'm sorry, she was saying, I am willing to be satisfied with just crumbs.

But can I remind you?

He is not satisfied with just giving us crumbs.

No, no, he's prepared a table for us.

We have been given an invitation to a great banquet with him in eternity.

And listen to this.

We won't have to wait for the crumbs to fall for us to eat.

The Pharisees in this first century had a saying that went like this: to eat with an idolater is like eating with a dog.

And yet this woman comes from a land given to idolatry, and Jesus permits her to eat.

You may feel unworthy and barely worthy for crumbs at the master's table.

Let me encourage you.

Jesus wants you to eat.

No matter what you've done, the gospel is for you.

He prepares a table for you.

Jesus invites you to eat with him at his table.