[Machine transcription]
In the name of Jesus, amen.
Dear saints of God, if I’ve learned something as a pastor, I’ve learned that it is often
more difficult to watch someone suffer than to suffer yourself.
There’s a prayer that comes from those who are suffering, it’s this, Lord help me.
But the prayer that comes from those who are watching people suffer is like this, Lord
why?
And, and maybe even more, that there’s probably not a worse suffering for a Christian than
And to see those that they love, children or grandchildren or parents or brothers or
sisters or aunts or cousins, to see those that they love wander from the faith, wander
from church, wander from the Lord, quit believing and quit trusting in Christ, to quit coming
to church, to grandchildren that aren’t baptized.
This is just a heartbreaking thing for Christians.
You’d rather lose your own life than to have those that you love lose their faith.
And as I’ve sat and prayed and thought about this, I think that there’s two particular
passages in Scripture that give us comfort.
There’s two places, because one of the problems, right, is we think, well, look, here’s this
person that I love, and they don’t come to church.
I try to talk about the things of God, and they just ignore them, or they’re just not
interested.
And they won’t come and sit with me in church, and so they won’t hear the Word of God.
And if they can’t hear the Word of God, how is the Lord Jesus going to rescue them
and save them and deliver them?
How is it going to happen?
Now I want us to hold to two particular passages of Scripture, and these are the passages that
I like to call Jesus’ long-distance miracles, where Jesus heals someone at a great distance.
The first is Matthew chapter 8, remember where the centurion comes to Jesus and says,
could you come and heal my servant at home, paralyzed and about to die?
And Jesus says, lead the way, let’s go.
And the centurion says, no Lord, you don’t need to come into my house, you just speak
the word and my servant will be healed.
I’m a man, the centurion says, I’m a man with authority, I’m under authority, I say
to this servant, soldier go, and that one come here, and they follow and obey orders
except for the one who is paralyzed, but I know that you have an even greater authority
than that.
You just say the word and my servant will be healed and Jesus says in very similar words
to what he will use this morning, he says to the centurion, great is your faith, let
it be so as you desired and at that moment the servant was healed at a great distance.
In this way when we come to church not only are we here so that Jesus can deal with us
and teach us and rebuke us and comfort us and give us His courage and His wisdom
and fill us with His Spirit. Not only are we here for that
but we are also bringing in our prayers those who we love
who are not here and we’re bringing them before Jesus
and we’re calling in His mercy and we’re calling in His help
and we’re saying Lord heal them also. I want you to think about this when you
come to communion.
In fact gentlemen if you have a
pocket on your shirt you can even write the names of those people that you love
and put it right there in your pocket and bring them with you up to the rail
and up to the altar and say Lord they belong to you I’m giving them to you
heal them rescue them deliver them look kindly on them the Lord loves to answer
that prayer he loves that work of intercession we’re in fact we’re gonna
have time in the prayer today and I talked to Pastor Davis, Pastor LeBlanc
about this and we’ll add time in the prayer of the church every week for a
a time to just pause and to bring those names before the Lord, those that we wish were here,
and to say, Lord, we’re bringing them to you so you can rescue them.
The second passage that gives us this long-distance miracle is the passage that we have before
us in Matthew chapter 15, where Jesus has gone up to Tyre and Sidon, and seemingly He’s
gone up there for this purpose, so that He might meet this Canaanite woman whose daughter
is severely oppressed by a demon.
Can you imagine that?
Can you just imagine the home life?
Can you imagine the conversation?
She’s talking to her daughter and in one moment
she’s sweet and kind and in the next moment
she’s raging,
violent.
The demon has her
and she’s tried everything
but she heard
that there is in Israel
a Messiah, a Savior,
Christ, the Son of David
who can heal and can deliver.
Both Matthew and Mark give us this account.
Matthew gives us more details than Mark,
but Mark gives us a couple of things that Matthew doesn’t,
and here’s an important one.
Mark tells us…
Sorry, reverse that.
Mark gives us this detail.
Mark says that the woman heard of Christ,
and that’s key.
She heard the preaching of this Messiah.
She heard the word about Jesus,
and she believed it.
She trusted the Word. Her faith was born of the Word. Faith comes by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of Christ. And she heard that Word, and she believed that
Word, and she went to find this one that she had heard preached. And she came up
to him and prayed, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me. My daughter is severely
demonized. Now here’s the beginning of a contest, and this is important
because as we bring our prayers to Jesus,
not only for ourselves,
but also our prayers for other people
and those that we love,
as we bring those prayers before him,
it is not, let’s just say it like this,
it is not easy.
What’s about to happen to this woman is,
I do not think how she expected things to go.
She finds the one that she heard of,
this Jesus, this friend of sinners,
this one who’s filled with compassion,
this one who loves the whole world,
this one who’s healing people and rescuing people,
she found him.
You can imagine that she sees him at a distance
and she starts running, aha, he’s there,
this is the one, I can’t wait.
I’ve been hoping and longing for this moment
that I could meet him and she runs up to him
and she prays, Lord, son of David,
have mercy on me, help my daughter.
And Jesus doesn’t say a thing.
He doesn’t even acknowledge that she’s there.
He completely ignores her.
He answered her, this is what it says in the text,
he answered her not a word.
Now begins the contest.
Now begins the struggle.
Now begins the prayer.
And it’s gonna be something like this.
Is this Canaanite woman gonna believe the word
that she heard preached?
Or is she gonna believe what she sees right in front of her?
Is she gonna walk by faith or is she gonna walk by sight?
it.
Jesus ignores her completely.
So she says, okay, I know what to do.
I see he’s got some disciples there, I’m going to go ask them.
And so she goes and she starts asking the disciples, hey, can you help me?
Could you get me in front of Jesus?
Could you go and ask him if he could help my daughter?
Could you?
And she’s pestering the disciples.
This is what Jesus teaches us to do, to be pestering in prayer, to knock and not stop.
So she does it.
She’s the perfect example of this.
She goes around to all the disciples and Jesus still is ignoring her.
so finally the disciples get so frustrated
that they go to Jesus and they say,
could you send her away, she won’t stop.
How do they say it?
She keeps crying out after us.
Now what I can’t tell, I used to think
that the disciples were just saying,
could you get rid of her?
I’m starting to think that the disciples
might be saying, could you help her?
And in that way get rid of her?
I’m not sure.
But the disciples come and intercede for her, and here comes round two.
If round one was the silent treatment, here’s round two which is even worse.
Jesus still doesn’t talk to the woman, but He says to the disciples, I came only for
the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
In other words, I’m not here for you.
Him.
Jesus again looks like He’s sending her away.
He again looks like He’s not answering her prayers.
Now we might wonder, Jesus, if you’re only here for the lost sheep of the house of Israel,
then what are you doing in Tyre and Sidon, huh?
And I think this lady’s on to Him.
I think this woman has a sense that she’s just not going to let go.
But I’m not sure I would have made it past round one.
I think if I would have come up to Jesus in this great need and I would have cried out
to Him and He just completely ignored me, I would have been like, okay, fine.
I would have left and turned around.
But certainly now, if I finally got the disciples to bring my case to His attention and His
response was, I didn’t come for the Gentiles, I came only for the lost sheep of the house
of Israel.
In other words, tell her she’s out of luck.
I think I would have said, okay, I’m walking away, but she does not.
She follows Him.
In fact, here’s another detail that Mark gives us, it’s not in Matthew.
Jesus goes into a house, and she follows Him into the house.
And she falls down at His feet, and she worships Him.
That’s what the Gospel of Matthew is about, the worship of Jesus.
us, we worship Jesus, she falls down and worships, Lord, and she prays the same prayer that Peter
prayed last week when he was sinking in the water, Lord help me, help me, you can do it,
you will do it, help me, and then Jesus finally turns to her, and this is the hardest yet,
Jesus says, is it right to take the food
from the children and give it to the dogs?
First you ignore me
and and then you tell me that you’re not for me
and then you call me dog.
This is exactly what the woman was waiting for
exactly what she was looking for
exactly what she was hoping for. She’s not offended,
she’s not put off, she’s not troubled by it. She says,
yes, Lord,
but even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the master’s table.
In fact, that word master there is the word Lord.
Even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the Lord’s table.
If you call me a dog, great! I’ll be the dog
under the table. Just give me the stuff that the kids don’t want to eat. Just give me the
crumbs, that’s all I’m after. Because your crumbs are better than the devil’s feasts.
Because your scraps are better than the world’s delicacies. Because your crumbs are all I’m
after, I’ll be a dog in this master’s⦠in this master’s house.”
And can you see it?
I hope you can see it, as Jesus, who I imagine this whole time has been stone-faced and barely
looking at her and severe and maybe even angry with a furrowed brow, is that Jesus now turns
to her and his face softens and he smiles and he looks at her and he says with the tenderest
kindness, most loving voice, oh woman, it’s the same word that Jesus uses when he looks
at Mary from the cross, oh woman, he looks at her, oh woman, great is your faith.
He commends her like he commends no one else in all of the Bible, let it be done for you
you desire, she catches Jesus in His Word, and that’s exactly what He wants.
And at that very moment, her daughter is healed.
I imagine her getting home, and there’s her daughter there to meet her, and she says,
what happened?
I was in terrible mourning, I was being tossed every which way, and then all of a sudden,
I’m free, and I’m myself again.
What happened?
And she tells her daughter how she went to Jesus, what he didn’t talk to you, and then
what happened?
And then she goes, the dog, he called you a dog, and then what happened?
He says, I’m happy to be the dog.
And then what happened?
And then he looked at me with a smile on his face, and he told me that you were rescued,
and I knew it was true, because his word is true.
And He loves me, and He loves you, and He came to rescue us, and He came to die for
us, and now we are going to live forever with Him, that all of our sins are forgiven.
He gives us a clean conscience, Jesus, that Saviour, that Son of David, He is our Saviour
too, our Deliverer too, the Rescuer of our home.
And they would rejoice and sing His praises.
Well I mean can you, you know dear saints, one day we are going to meet this woman and
her daughter in the resurrection, and they’re going to tell us the story themselves.
They’ll be like, well, pastor kind of got it wrong about what happened when I got home,
but we’ll be able to tell.
Can you imagine?
Because Jesus is saving them just like he’s saving us, and rescuing them just like he’s
rescuing us.
But it’s not easy.
Prayer is not easy.
We pray, and it sounds like Jesus is saying no.
We pray, and it feels like He’s completely ignoring us.
We pray, and it looks like He hasn’t even heard our prayer, and He hasn’t even tried
to answer them.
But we walk by faith, not by sight, and we believe this Word, and it’s true for you,
And it’s true for those you love true for those that you’re praying for Jesus came to save sinners
He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world
He is the one who loves the world so much that by but that he carries our sins and our sorrows that he’s loaded
Down with our failures and our guilt and our law-breaking and he suffers all of it
for you and
And for those that you’re praying for, it might not come when you expect it.
The answer might not come soon enough for us, but the Holy Spirit has given us this
Canaanite woman as our teacher, and by this text has enrolled us in prayer 101.
Maybe it’s prayer 407, I’m not sure.
That we hold on to the Lord according to His word and we don’t let go.
That we trust the promise that Christ died for sinners.
And in that word we live and we die.
In that word we weep and we fight.
And in that word we rejoice and sing and with that word we pray and we trust that the Lord
hears our prayers.
It looks a lot like no, but underneath all those no’s is the Lord’s yes, and we hold
on to it with our whole heart.
May God grant us this spirit and this confidence in the name of Jesus, amen.
The peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds through Jesus
Christ our Lord, amen.
