Gentile Faith (Mark 7:24-37)

All right, Mark chapter 7, starting in verse 24.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

He got up and departed from there to the region of Tyre.

He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but he couldn't escape notice.

Instead, immediately after hearing about him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit came and fell at his feet.

The woman was a Gentile, a Cyrophoenician by birth.

She was asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

He said to her, Let the children be fed first, because it isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

But she replied to him, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

Then he told her, Because of this reply, you may go.

The demon has left your daughter.

When she went back to her home, she found her child lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.

Again, leaving the region of Tyre, he went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decapolis.

They brought to him a deaf man who had difficulty speaking, and begged Jesus to lay his hands on him.

So he took him away from the crowd in private.

After putting his fingers in the man's ears and spitting, he touched his tongue.

Looking up to heaven, he sighed deeply and said to him, Aphatha, that is, be opened.

Immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly.

He ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more they proclaimed it.

They were extremely astonished and said, He has done everything well.

All right, please have a seat.

And as we do so, we're going to pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for today.

I ask that you would be glorified as we study your word.

I ask, Lord, that you would speak to us, that you would fill me with your spirit to teach your word and to say everything you want me to and nothing that you don't.

I ask that you would be glorified.

And I thank you so much for your love and for your goodness and your faithfulness.

In your name.

Amen.

Okay.

So, a strange thing about humans.

Okay, raise your hand if you are human.

Okay, I have a lot of questions.

Because that ratio was not as high as I thought it was going to be.

So, strange thing about humans is that when we gather often around a common purpose, we tend to create specialized languages and rituals in order to when we do that.

And that's common.

That is very, very common because I mean there's there's good reasons for that.

It actually means that whenever you have a conversation, you don't have to start from scratch because you have language that does that.

A couple of examples of that.

Number one, uh, music is a great example of this.

There's this whole alternate language that we speak.

And so a couple weeks ago, when Tom and I were practicing, and we're going through a song and it's saying, and I'm giving instruction on what is happening.

I'm saying, okay, after the submedian, there's going to be a secondary dominant, and then when we go to the G, I am going to linger before I hit the seven of the dominant.

And he's like, Yeah, check, good.

And he understood what that meant and then actually corrected me when I did it wrong.

So, and that's the amazing thing.

So, another thing, which was a perfect example, I love watching baseball with my son.

And we were watching the A's game yesterday, and an A's uh batter hit a home run.

And here is the quote from the commentator: The A's have a couple of chefs in the kitchen, the big lefties serving up apo tacos tonight.

And we literally had to pause it and go back.

And Joshua was like, What?

What and it's just like the A's are hitting well, they're lefty hitters who are normally pole hitters are hitting home runs to the opposite field.

Okay, that's what that is in that language.

But that made per that makes perfect sense to some people.

Umhere do we see this more than here in church with Christians.

And that's a neutral thing.

So the same thing can be used for good and can be used for bad.

And so just the laying the foundation here, I'm not saying that all churchiness is bad.

So there are good things to that and bad and uh less ideal things to that.

And so with some of the churchiness, we can create a language, terms, uh, different ways that we speak, different uh rhythms and rituals that we do that make perfect sense sometimes from church to church and make no sense at all outside the doors of the church sometimes.

And that can be those those words, that vernacular, all that stuff, can actually be a good thing because it helps with communication with those things.

It also can uh really help nail what we're trying to pray when we're praying, when we're actually trying to understand and speak to the Lord.

There are certain words that's like that nails what I'm trying to say without having to parse that all out into common speech.

So that's the that's the good side.

The less good side of that is that um sometimes it's that language we might as well be speaking in tongues to people outside the church.

So basically, what we speak in in church or Christianese sounds like apo tacos being served up to a certain extent.

And so, and also, say somebody gives their life to Christ, comes into the faith, and they're like, what on earth is going on here?

And then it's very, very easy in that moment to equate spiritual maturity with churchiness.

You have to learn the language, you have to get the rhythms down, and that can be seen as this is me progressing as a believer because I have the system down.

I know how this works.

And so a lot of times, believe it or not, you get to this point where if we're not careful, we can go, if I know the lingo, and if I know the rhythm to the things, I play the game well, and I am on the inside circle of the leadership, then I'm a spiritually mature Christian.

Where what we want to see in our lives is Christ-likeness, is spirit-filledness, is uh actually denying self, putting in others first, humility, gentleness, lowliness, meekness.

Does that make sense?

And so uh I was able to find something that was a very, very specialized skill I didn't know existed.

I found a guy named Nathan D.

Smith who has a degree in New Testament Greek and is a computer programmer.

That's a Venn diagram with a very small dot in the middle.

And uh he actually ran a program taking all of the words of Jesus and seeing what is Jesus' most common vocabulary.

Are you ready for this?

Super churchy, okay.

One, like the number one, is the most common used word of Jesus.

Father, tell, man, God, things, come, son, go, also, know, like to know, may, kingdom, see, Lord, said, Therefore, give and heaven.

So Jesus fails the church in his test right off the bat.

So having that said, it makes it interesting with the passage that we're going to talk about.

Because you're going, like, where is he going with this?

And uh that is, I think, important because Jesus spoke to the common folk.

He spoke to people who were not necessarily full, like highly, highly educated.

He spoke their language, he spoke to them, he met them where they're at with agriculture references, with uh farming references, uh, all these different things that he did.

He actually got to the point where they seem to understand him more than the super churchy people of the day.

So, okay, that's where we're at at the moment.

Hold on to that thought, and we'll get back to that.

So, here in verse 24, Jesus got up and departed from there to the region of Tyre.

Where is there?

What just happened in this uh chapter, what we just missed in the last week.

If you didn't get a chance to listen to that sermon, please go back and listen to it on our website.

It's amazing, I highly recommend it.

And I got a ton out of it.

And uh at that moment, Jesus has a little bit of a showdown with the religious leaders of the day regarding their rituals, regarding their um traditions, and they're looking and going, Why are you doing this wrong?

Because you're not doing our traditions.

And they they had a little bit of a back and forth with that.

And then his disciples were like, What are you talking about?

And then he had to give them that.

So, what does Jesus do?

He goes north directly after that into the region of Tyre.

So here's the thing from your perspective, here's Judea with Jerusalem, Bethlehem, above that is Galilee, where Jesus does most of his ministry, where you have the Sea of Galilee, aptly named, and you have places like Nazareth, and you have places like Capernaum.

Okay, above that is Tyre.

So that's where we're that's where he heads.

It's the only time that we see him head into this place in scripture, recorded in scripture.

And why is that interesting?

This is a Gentile area.

This area was never owned or governed by the nation of Israel.

In fact, at the height of its kingdom, when David and Solomon were kings, kind of a good time for Israel.

And uh, they actually traded with the king of Tyre to get things like cedars and such sent down.

So Jesus' heads goes from this super uh complicated ritual conversation straight out of Israel into an area where Israel has never owned, has never actually occupied.

And that's where we're at at this point in time.

I find that interesting what's going on with that, that he's like, I could see him, I don't see it doesn't say this, but I could see him being like, I gotta get out of Israel for a moment.

And so he goes up into Tyre.

And we encounter our first character here.

The context here, he went there and he entered a house.

He didn't want anyone to know it.

So he's trying to get away.

Does that ever work for Jesus?

No.

And so, even in this area, he couldn't escape notice.

And our first character here, immediately after hearing about him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit came and fell at his feet.

The woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she was asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

Okay.

What do we know about this woman here?

Number one, she's a woman.

Okay, check.

Number two, she has a little daughter who is demon-possessed.

How many of you are parents?

How does that hit you?

Like, thinking about that moment to moment, day by day, week by week.

I cannot, I don't have a category to understand that.

So sometimes it seems that way.

But uh ultimately, in reality, I don't, I cannot imagine what that would be like.

She is, they specifically mention a Gentile.

They just come out and say, she is a Gentile, she is a non-Jew.

She is Syrophoenician by birth, Syria, Phoenicia, that mixture by birth, and she was asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

So we know specifically that this woman has a very specific and very intense need.

We know that she is a Gentile, and we know that she's coming to Jesus.

This story is also in Matthew 15, and we need to pull a little bit of information out of there as well to get the full picture because it really adds a little bit of color.

So I'm going to reference two verses specifically, and so feel free to check on that on your own.

But as a whole, here's what she says when she comes to Jesus.

In Matthew 15, 23, have mercy on me, Lord Son of David.

That's what she leads with.

Okay.

What do we know about this woman?

Gentile, Syrophonician, have mercy on me, Lord Son of David.

That statement right there.

She pulls out her best Israel ease right there.

Because why is that the case?

Okay, the statement son of David is a very common phrase if you are Jewish.

Because son of David means heir to the throne.

So she's saying, have mercy on me, Lord, Master, heir to the throne of Israel, rightful king.

And she's a Gentile living in a place that Israel has never occupied.

So it's one of those strange statements that she pulls out of like, Where did you hear that?

But it's amazing what Jesus does.

Nothing completely ignores her.

Jesus does not say a word according to Matthew 15, 23.

And that's pretty intense in that statement.

So why would she say that?

Why would she pull out this information, Lord Son of David?

Well, this is common.

This is what we can tend to sometimes do as people.

Is what do I do to try to really super get God's attention because this is important to me?

How do I speak what he wants me to say so that I how do I appease him in that way so that I can get what I need?

That's very normal, transactional, human.

That's what that's how honestly that's how idolatry works.

How do I appease this thing so that it can give me what I want?

So, what gift do I give?

And so what she gives is a language that she thinks he's going to respond to.

And Jesus just like, it's like he didn't even hear that.

Interesting.

So, couple things we can think about this.

Either Jesus is a jerk, or there's a bigger thing at play here.

Please don't choose option number one.

There is another uh group of people in this story.

The disciples.

In Matthew 15, 23, the same verse.

We hate to hear the disciples.

What they say at this moment is send her away.

She's crying out after us.

Like, Jesus, this lady is driving us insane.

Can you please do something about this?

So it's interesting because perspective on that.

Because here this woman has a horrific need of a demon-possessed child she needs deliverance from.

And here the disciples are saying, Can you please get rid of this woman?

And I don't want to be too hard on them because number one, they've left everything to follow Jesus.

Okay?

Number two, they uh have probably had a really long day.

They've just traveled into nowhere land for them, places that they would probably never go following Jesus.

And now here's this situation where this lady just will not be quiet.

And so, in this situation, if I am honest, they're probably being more patient than I am.

So, having that said, a little bit of grace there.

But they're saying, hey, can you please get rid of this woman?

They also, if we're honest, have a little bit of a dodgy relationship with Gentiles and Samaritans who have this ministry that grows, obviously.

Uh, spoiler alert, Book of Acts.

So, with that, the disciples who represent Israel in this situation to these people, they're the they are the Israelites coming in here, going, Can you please send her away?

Can you please get rid of her?

I have such a headache right now.

We haven't eaten in a long time.

I don't even know what this food is.

It's kind of weird.

Can you please get rid of her in that sense?

And so it's interesting what Jesus says here.

Jesus in verse 27 of Mark chapter 7, he says, Let the children be fed first, because it isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

Wow.

Um, this verse right here is the exact verse why I'm convinced that Jesus did not incarnate on the earth in a time when cell phones existed.

Because what would have happened right there in this day and age is that somebody would have been filming that, no context, and then depending on which side of the line you want, Jesus is either canceled or boycotted, which is the same thing.

So, having that said, it is amazing what he says there, because that's a stark statement.

Let the children be fed first, because it isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

So we have to sit here for a second on what on earth is going on here and pick this apart.

Um, there's something called confirmation bias.

That is rampant.

It is in every one of us, in fact.

So, what on earth is that and why am I bringing that up?

Confirmation bias is that when you look at information, you look at it through the lens of your own experiences and beliefs, and therefore you receive the information that matches those beliefs and experiences and reject everything else.

So, depending on our personalities when we read this passage, we tend to do two a couple of different things.

Because it's like when we teach these passages, it's amazing how Jesus' ministry always, uh and his attitude and his motives always somehow magically match up with my own.

And then the other things that are a little more troubling.

So, with that, we can either go, like if we if we are more of the encouraging sort, we go into damage control at this point in time as Jesus' PR person.

Being like, he didn't really mean that, okay?

He said that, I know that's what it said, didn't mean that.

What he really meant was this, it's okay, he was doing these things, don't worry about it.

Okay.

Or if we have a little bit more of an intense personality, we want to put the sword in his hand and be like, Jesus tells it how it is.

Let the chips fall where they may.

And it's like, I think there might be more going on to the story than that scenario.

Because and so we kind of gotta sit there and go, what is happening here?

What are the facts in this information?

Number one, Jesus is entire, right?

He is in a Gentile area.

I do not think that he traveled all the way there to insult a local and leave.

Because this is the only person we see recorded him speaking to in this area.

So I really don't think that that's what's happening here.

Um there's gotta be more to the story than that.

That would be, to a certain strange extent, like going to Canada, and when a Canadian asks you for directions, say sorry, I only talk to US citizens.

You'd be like, You're in Canada! Why?

That's the quote that I want you to take out of this segment title.

But it just makes no sense at all for him to be going in just to drop a line like that and leave.

There's gotta be something else going on with this situation.

And it makes me think that he's setting a stage here.

That's what I'm guessing.

There's a bigger picture happening here because he also could have gotten rid of her a lot sooner.

At the beginning, when she's crying out, Lord, son of David, have mercy on me.

He could have been like, No, please go away.

Or he could have left.

Didn't do it.

When the disciple said, Get rid of her, he didn't, because she's still going.

So, think about that for a second.

There's got to be something happening here in this situation that he is playing out here.

Because he's pretty much answering her the same way that she spoke to him.

So, Lord, heir to the throne, have mercy on me.

And he's like, Look, let the children be fed first, because it isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

This gives us this metaphor where clearly she's understanding, everyone is understanding, the children would be Israel, the dogs in this story would be the Gentiles.

Now, I'm gonna say it because it's important to say the word for dogs there is a diminutive term, it's not the same racial slur for Gentiles that was used back in the day.

So, having that said, he didn't go full bore with that.

But at the same time, here that's a really hard that that's like, well, that's a little comforting, the rest of it's not at all.

So here, let the little children be let the children be fed first because it isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

Okay, no.

What would you do if you were the disciples in this moment?

I'll tell you, I'll I'll just you know reveal the sickness of my own heart.

At that point, I'd probably be like, thank you.

Finally, I would also be like, that's right.

He's here for us.

He is our king, not yours.

We have waited all of this time for this, you have not.

We have suffered in this area waiting for deliverance.

You have not.

He's not your king.

I can imagine if it was me, I would at that point in time feel really good about myself there.

Be like, we're the kids, you're not.

So interesting scenario there.

What does this woman do in this moment?

She says, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's cups.

So she does not leave.

Pretty impressive, right?

She is persistent.

And I see here uh there's a scenario where Jesus tells her.

Parable of the persistent widow, where she just keeps going to the judge saying, Give me justice, give me justice, give me justice.

And he's like, Look, I'm so tired of this.

Oh, yes, okay, yes.

Another uh scenario, I see Jacob wrestling with the angel, saying, I will not let you go until you bless me.

And that just again, this idea of not giving up because in her desperation, she has one hope and one hope alone, and he's not going to be here much longer.

So I really admire this woman in this scenario that she sees her desperation and does not give up and continues to go forward, even when seemingly being insulted at a situation.

Let's pull apart her statement a little bit though, just to get a little more information there.

Because uh I mean it could have been a little bit of a different response with what he just said.

Today, that would have been when she said, Can I please speak to your manager?

But here, she says, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

Here's what I think is beautiful about that statement.

Number one, she doesn't push back on that statement.

Because what is her goal here?

Deliverance.

She's not going to sit there and argue with them, like, how can you talk to me that way?

How dare you?

Or who do you think you are, Jew speaking to me that way?

But with something even more beautiful in this scenario, cutting through all of that Israelese, she's when I see that statement, Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

She says something immensely profound that could be summarized, I'm in your house too, Jesus.

I'm not saying I'm the children, but I'm in there.

I'm in your house.

That's a pretty profound thing to be coming out in Mark chapter 7, when we haven't gotten to the book of Acts yet, and different situations like that, to where this Gentile woman is when he's saying, Hey, I'm here to feed the kids, not to give that bread to the dogs.

Mark 7 · chapter mention

And being like, he's like, you can call me a dog, but I'm still yours.

I still belong to you and I still need you.

And isn't that beautiful?

It's such an amazing thing with that.

And his response in Matthew 15, 28 is, Woman, your faith is great.

And he says, because this reply, you may go, the woman, the demon has left your daughter.

And she went back to her home.

She found her child lying on the bed and the demon was gone.

Isn't that amazing?

And just like pulling out the situation, setting a stage for everybody to see this woman's faith on display, saying, No, no, no, I'm not giving up, and I am yours.

You are my only hope.

And I am coming to you and I am asking you this.

I love that.

It is such a beautiful thing.

It's uh it's interesting because in um Romans 11, when Paul is speaking about Israel and the Gentiles and such, he talks about how the Gentiles, uh, the salvation of the Gentiles provokes Israel to jealousy.

That you have hard hearts of the stereotype of the of the people of Israel, hard hearts who reject the Messiah.

And then you have the Gentiles getting saved, and then those those same hard hearts being like, wait, what just happened here?

I missed out on that.

No, I want that too.

And there's a certain bit of um bringing them in through using that.

And I wonder what this did to the disciples at this point in time, that they had to see this.

I wonder how this paved the way for them for the future, seeing Jesus' response here, acknowledging the faith of this woman in the middle of nowhere, up top in the Gentile area.

So that's part number one of this story is a woman who leads with her best Israelese, and when that doesn't work, does not give up and go straight to the heart of the matter and say, No, no, you are my Lord.

You are the only hope I have, and I need you.

Here's part two.

In verse 31, again, leaving the region of Tyre, he went by the way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee through the region of the Decapolis.

Okay, that is an interesting statement that you're like, okay, yeah, good.

Okay, he went somewhere else.

He went way, way out of the way at this point in time, still staying out of Israel turf here.

It's kind of interesting.

So, again, from your perspective, Judea, where Jerusalem is, Galilee, where he does most of his ministry, Sea of Galilee.

He was up here in Tyre.

Now he's gonna go down across Sea of Galilee over into Decapolis, which is another predominantly Gentile area.

Which is interesting.

So that's a really big journey.

That again the disciples are probably like, you know, I was a really good fisherman.

I could have no okay.

So, anyway, having that said, they arrive at the Decapolis.

They brought him a deaf man who had difficulty speaking and begged Jesus to lay his hand on him.

There's a little bit of information in here that is so, so cool.

Okay.

The Decapolis.

Crazy pop quiz.

Does anyone remember what happened the last time they were in the Decapolis?

Pigs! Who said pigs?

Yes! Jesus heals a demon-possessed man, pigs, the demons go into the pigs, pigs run off the cliff, and what happens?

They beg they die, they and they beg Jesus to leave.

And however, Jesus leaves someone there.

He leaves a formerly demon-possessed man who was plaguing that area to tell everyone there about him.

And then here, we get to this story.

They're begging him again, but rather they're begging him to help somebody.

So I wonder if that demon-possessed man had a very fruitful ministry in his hometown.

Of the prima facie evidence of his own conversion and wholeness, as he's telling his people, because before that they're saying, Jesus, get out, please.

And here they're saying, Jesus, help this man, please.

So it's really cool how that plays out.

The little threads that go through there.

And they brought to him a deaf man who had difficulty speaking and begged Jesus to lay his hand on him.

That's intense.

This is a this is a two-for-one healing, by the way.

This is like the you know, it's crazy enough if someone's blind, if they're deaf, they can't speak, they can't walk.

This guy has two things going on.

He's deaf and he can't speak.

Interesting statement there.

This is also a really good way to expand your brand if you're Jesus.

This is a good moment because he can do this, nobody else can.

Huge crowd there.

Except Jesus takes this man and took him away from the crowd in private.

Isn't that interesting?

That is contrary to a lot of things that we see there, because this would be a good moment for him.

This would be the other good video moment to clip and show there of Jesus healing this guy, when he instead he's like, okay, come with me, disappears from the crowd one-on-one with this man.

Imagine what this man is thinking right now.

He can't hear, he can't speak.

Now he's just face-to-face here, nobody else around.

And again, just a side note: how awesome are they is it that he has friends that take him to Jesus and beg, heal this man.

Because he has, once again, no hope.

How do you interact in a society back then when you can't hear and you can't speak?

That is like a prison of one.

How crazy that is.

And he's standing in front of Jesus.

Jesus put his fingers in the man's ears and spitting, he touched his tongue.

And looking up to heaven, he sighed deeply and said to him, A faftvah, that is, be opened.

So, put his fingers in the man's ears, he spit, touched his tongue, looked up to heaven, sighed deeply, and said to him, A faftha.

So if you're taking notes on how to heal somebody, that's the way to do it.

No.

He does it differently every time, it seems.

And that's the thing is like, if we want to sit there and we want to go, what's the answer?

What's the and the answer is thank you, Jesus?

The answer is Jesus.

He's the one who did it.

Now, what happens immediately his ears were open, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly.

The word aftha, it's Aramaic, shows up in the book of Daniel a couple of times.

Turns out it just means open.

Be open.

There is a little irony here though, that the first word that this guy heard was afa.

Like, that's a high bar.

Every other word that comes afterwards is probably like, okay, I can do that one, but afa?

Uh that's a that's a tough one.

So his ears were open, his tongue was loose, and he began to speak clearly.

He ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more they proclaimed it.

And they were extremely astonished and said, He's done everything well.

He makes even the deaf hear and the mute speak.

So, immediate healing, this man who is absolutely, completely desperate.

No hope, no, no medical intervention is going to help here.

And he encounters Jesus and is healed.

His friends bring him.

You're the only help.

Beg him, beg Jesus, please help our friend.

And Jesus does so.

And he says, Okay, don't tell anyone.

And they're like, I just started talking.

I'm telling everybody.

And they and so the more he ordered them, the more they proclaimed it.

They were extremely astonished and said, He has done everything well.

He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

And I just I just again I love that there's the possibility that this could be the same crowd who earlier was like, Jesus, can you please just leave?

You killed my pigs, man.

And here it's he does everything well.

Look at what just happened.

That is so amazing.

He makes the deaf hear, he makes the mute speak.

And it continues forward in that way.

So, two interesting stories, right?

What's the thread that runs through all of this?

How do we how do we uh take this information?

What do we learn from it?

Well, I have two people here, and the words that I would say are desperation and need.

You have a woman here with a child who, a daughter who with an unclean spirit, desperate and in need, and she comes to Jesus relentlessly for him, and saying, like, I'm not, like every barrier put in her way, she's like, I am not giving up.

I need you.

You are the answer.

There is no other answer.

This next person, they're begging Jesus, can you please help him?

He has no hope, he has no future here.

He cannot hear, he cannot speak, he's stuck.

And they begged him to lay his hand on them.

Let's contrast this, those two things against the rest of the chapter earlier, where we had people who were very religious, very um churchy.

They they had it down, they had the traditions down, and they came to Jesus, not out of need, but wondering if he's going to fit into their paradigm.

Isn't that interesting?

The first 23 verses, I do not see need.

I see, Jesus, why are you doing this wrong?

Why are your disciples, you guys, you you don't, you haven't played the game correctly.

And it's interesting.

Because you have two people who are like, Jesus, you are all I have.

I have no hope apart from you.

And here, they uh you have these religious leaders who are so full in their own rituals that there's no room to pour in the light of the world.

And we can be that way as well.

But I'm trying, I'm not trying to like, I think you know me well enough by now to know that I'm not like the Pharisee basher guy, because that's the best way to become a Pharisee, by the way.

So, having that said, I think something that is interesting is that what this passage ended with was a man who had difficulty speaking.

And here when Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees earlier, he talks to them about how they're not speaking right.

How they are uh in Mark 6 and 7, they worship me in vain, teaching his doctrines and commandments of man.

They honor me with their lips, but they're teaching in vain.

Their words are impotent in that sense, teaching in vain.

And then we have a man here who can't speak, and yet Jesus set him free because he needed to be set free.

He knew he needed to be set free.

Throughout Isaiah, and then also in Romans 11, 8, uh Israel as a general people here are spoken of having ears that cannot hear.

They have ears, but they don't hear to this day, is to that day, at that point, is what that statement was.

And you have a deaf man who cannot hear until he encounters Jesus, because that's the answer.

But then when you when we have hard hearts full of our traditions, we think we hear fine.

And at the same time, the cure is standing right in front of us.

So here's where that took me.

Uh, that was is a uh really good picture of this in the book of Revelation, and everyone's like looking at their watch now, going, Oh great, we're going to Revelation.

Um Revelation 3, Jesus is speaking to the different churches, and he speaks to the Church of Laodicea.

In 17 and 18 of Revelation 3, he says, For you say, I'm rich, I've become wealthy, and I need nothing.

You don't realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

And then what does Jesus say next?

He doesn't say, Well, you're out of luck, or go fix yourself.

He says, Buy from me gold refined in the fire so you may be rich, white clothes so you may be dressed, and your shameful nakedness not be exposed, an ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see.

He tells his church, Come to me.

I am the cure.

I am the remedy to this problem that you don't even see that you have.

Isn't that crazy?

So I'm making a really strong contrast here, obviously, between two people who were very clear about their desperation and were coming to Jesus in their need, going, You're all I have.

And then a group of people who are like, Oh, we have our traditions, we have our rituals, we have our churchiness, we have everything we do.

I got the lingo down.

I drop it on Monday, but on Sunday, I got that lingo down, and I have the uh traditions, I have all those things down.

I'm in good with leadership, I'm looking pretty good here.

And it's like, what's my but what do I need?

God.

We can very easily go, I don't, I I have grown to a point where I no longer have a need.

So, uh just as a whole, if we are still breathing, we desperately need God.

Doesn't matter in the good days and the bad days and the high times and the low times, in the times of rest and the times of trial, we desperately need him.

And I love the example that this woman sets.

Because she does not give up, does not cease to cry out for him, to deliver, to save, to bring wholeness.

They begged Jesus to lay their hands on him, this uh deaf, mute person to do not leave here unless you've helped him.

Please.

He can't hear, he can't speak, he needs you.

And so, as I wrestle with this passage, as I wrestle with all these different things, and that crazy contrast, because I see all of that inside myself.

I see the potential for all of that, definitely.

And what I need more of is God.

In any situation, any circumstance, any trial, any difficulty, the answer is not more churchiness.

The answer is not that, the answer is not legislation, the answer is not getting our bubble tight together.

The answer is not the answer is God.

No matter what the question is.

And so uh I've been reading uh The Pursuit of God by uh A.

W.

Tozer, which sounds super spiritual, except I'm reading it because I'm really bad at reading those books, and it's a discipline.

So having that said, what it's it's something I'm trying to grow in, but I was really hit by the pat this passage as I was preparing this quote.

He says, between the scribe who has read and the prophet who has seen, there is a difference as wide as the sea.

We are today overrun with orthodox scribes, but the prophets, where are they?

The hard voice of the scribe sounds over evangelicalism, but the church waits for the tender voice of the saint who has penetrated the veil and has gazed with inward eye upon the wonder that is God.

And yet, thus to penetrate, to push in sensitive living experience into the holy presence is a privilege open to every child of God.

Lot of words there, but boiling that down is that what we need is more desperation for God and less uh scribedness here of the clinical understanding of how the game is played, and more, God, I will not let you go until you bless me.

And that's my prayer today as I as I sift through this and I ask God, like, what do you want to show me?

How do you want to challenge me in this?

How often do I pray, Lord, I need your Holy Spirit to douse me, to douse my context, my town, my state, my country, my world.

That is the only remedy for anything, no matter what the question is.

We need outpouring of the Holy Spirit to change hearts, to change my heart, by the way.

I'm not talking about the other people because I got it all down.

Uh, to change hearts, to turn eyes to him.

We need us to have gone through and entered his presence boldly and have known God as a friend, rather than just knowing the rituals, getting getting the lingo down, which is a that's always a that's a battle back and forth.

That's not an either or, by the way.

That's a that's a week-to-week battle.

But with that, how often do I do really good things, like I wake up, spend a little bit of time in prayer, I read my Bible, and then I turn on the news.

And then I complain to everybody else who is like-minded me about every problem that we have, get really upset, and then go off and do something like that.

And how often do I say, God, we need you?

How often throughout the day do I say, Jesus, I need you, I need more of you, I need your spirit to penetrate us.

I need your presence to change my heart, to change our world in that way, because that is the only remedy that will actually work.

We are the Gentile woman here saying, I'm in your house too.

I am yours.

Please help me.

Please send your presence and deliver.

We are the person who is blind or who is deaf and has trouble speaking, saying, God, I need you to touch me, to do things that are might be uncomfortable, like putting fingers in my ears and such, but spiritually to make me more like you rather than more like my bubble.

So that's my challenge to today that I for myself, I'm really changing.

How can I this day make it a habit to beg Jesus for more of his spirit?

Because it doesn't matter how, you know, we could be full and be more full, if that makes sense.

It's not always a dire thing of like the world, you know, basically we're flatlining, we need him.

It could just be, I'm having a great day and I need him.

So, and the beautiful thing is there is nothing we can do to make that happen.

And this, so therefore, it is nothing that can be done to be earned.

And as his children, he is already delighted with us.

Isn't that amazing?

When my children come to me, I don't sit there and go, Oh my goodness.

What?

What?

You talked to me yesterday! No, it's a delight for that to happen.

So, good thing to mingle that.

That desperation comes with a father on the other side who wants you to come to him, who wants me to come to him.

Let's pray.

Lord, I thank you so much for your faithfulness in all things.

That even when you're faithless, you remain faithful for you cannot deny yourself.

I am thankful that you do not turn away your children.

I thank you that you want us to enter your throne room with boldness.

I thank you that when we ask, you give freely without reproach.

And whether it's our spiritual high point or a moment of crisis, Lord, we need you.

I need a fresh outpouring of your spirit to soften my heart, to make me more like you.

I ask, Lord, that you will work.

Please instill within us that cry.

A cry that a parent knows from across a room as their child.

I thank you that you are good and that you are faithful, that you are loving, that you are gentle and lowly.

That you have that you exhib uh exhibit meekness.

Lord, we need you.

And I thank you that you are here and that you are accessible.

Be glorified in your name.

Amen.