Matthew chapter 15:21-31 (continued)

“Then Jesus went out from there and departed to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a woman of Canaan came from that region and cried out to Him, saying, ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! My daughter is severely demon-possessed.’ But He answered her not a word. And His disciples came and urged Him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she cries out after us.’

But He answered and said, ‘I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’ Then she came and worshiped Him, saying, ‘Lord, help me!’ But He answered and said, ‘It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs.’ And she said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.’ Then Jesus answered and said to her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Jesus departed from there, skirted the Sea of Galilee, and went up on the mountain and sat down there. Then great multitudes came to Him, having with them the lame, blind, mute, maimed, and many others; and they laid them down at Jesus’ feet, and He healed them. So the multitude marveled when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed made whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel.”

We ended last time talking about the need for a heart transformation from God. We first of all need to be born-again in Jesus and then we need to present our bodies as living human sacrifices to God for His transformation. He will take us, break us down and rebuild us in the image of Christ. Beware, the old man does not die easily. Even if you constantly surrender and submit to God, that old man may not die. In fact he/she will not die completely until you get your new glorified body from God. But, that old man/woman will begin to lose strength and influence in how we live our lives and use our bodies.

Today we will look at the area of faith. This is an area of expansion that I have had to explore over the past few years. As a young man, at age 14, I put my life and eternity in Jesus’ hands when I asked God to forgive my sins and to save me. At that time, I was taking a baby step of faith. Over the years God has expanded my understanding of His faithfulness to me and my family, as He has faithfully provided for us—even as we had another child. As the expenses of raising children has grown, so too, has God’s faithfulness and provision.

God has met every need and beyond for us, often meeting our needs before we know they are needs. And all the while, He has led us to give more than we have ever given before. We (my wife Marny and I) have learned that you cannot out give God. And we have learned to be faithful in giving, even when it appears that we don’t have enough. But God always makes sure that there is enough. He simply does.

A Gentile’s Woman’s Faith, Verses 21-28

We all know that Jesus came primarily to the Jews. He was sent by God to Israel to reveal Himself to them and to be rejected by them. In this action, they set up the opportunity for the sinless Jesus to be executed and die for the sins of all men. The just dying for the unjust. Jesus reiterates this fact. In verse 24, Jesus states that He was sent to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But then this woman launches into a leap of faith that shames most believers.

She reminds me of a certain Centurion that we meet in Matthew 8. He trusted that Jesus did not have to come into his home to heal an ill servant. He, Jesus, simply had to speak the word and the servant would be healed. Jesus marveled at his faith and understanding of Jesus’ power.  He commented that He has not seen this kind of faith even in Israel (Matthew 8:10).

As we travel through the Scriptures we are met with great men and women of faith. God in particular challenged the faith of the people that called Him God. From the call to build an Ark, to a baby born to Abraham when he was 100 years old, to the parting of the Red Sea, to the fall of the walls of Jericho, and on and on we could go.

One situation in particular that stands out to me is found in 1 Kings 17, where Elijah instructs the widow of Zarephath to make him some food from the last flour and oil that she has, and to trust God to supply her needs. When she obeyed, God was faithful to her. She had to look beyond what she could see and trust the God she could not see.

This woman in our account could see God. Jesus stood right before her. She had to believe that He was who He said He was and that He could do all that God does.  She accepted that He was/is the Almighty One of Israel and so she acted.  Faith requires action.  Faith requires obedience.  Further, she refused to relent in her asking simply because she was not from Israel.

This woman understood that she did not need the full power or attention of Jesus to make her daughter well. What she needed was just a little of His power, the little bits that no one misses, just like the crumbs that the dogs ate.  Jesus actually ignored her and his disciples wanted her to be sent away (verse 23). They were annoyed.

So how did she get Jesus attention? First she came and worshipped Him (verse 25) and then she asked for His help. This got His attention. Sincere worship and an honest cry for help and Jesus was immediately engaged in conversation with her. How many of us sincerely worship Jesus?  And how many of us sincerely ask for His help?

This woman had no other solution, she had no plan “B’” and no way in her own power to save her daughter. She was totally reliant on Jesus and she was unashamed to admit it publicly. She worshipped Him in front of everyone there, and asked for help openly. She was not ashamed to call Him Lord. Jesus healed her daughter and commended her “great faith” to the people there in the crowd, and to us for all eternity as recorded in the Scriptures.

I will confess that this passage and others like it hit me very hard. I have never had someone instantly healed by me praying for them. People that I have prayed for have been healed and some truly miraculously. No one expected them to get better and they did. We glorified Jesus and praised Him, but I have never gone into a room with an ill person and had them healed instantly.

I know Jesus is God, I believe that He is the Almighty and I know that He alone can raise a person up and so I call on Him to heal. Some have recovered over time and some have died. But this is not what we see here in the Scriptures. We see an instant healing. Full and complete restoration.

So what am I missing?

I have been asking this questions for some time now. What I can attest to is that Jesus is faithful to me. He has answered my prayers 100 percent of the time. Sometimes I get an instant answer, other times I get an answer over time and sometimes He just says “NO” and that is often audible to my heart and ears.

There are times when I have asked God a question and I get an answer right in my head almost as if He is right there next to me. There are times when I have thought a certain thing and immediately the Spirit of God in me speaks to me about the way I am thinking. I have fought God on many occasions, and He has been patient with me and in the midst of my rebellion.

He remains faithful and He miraculously reveals Himself to me in so many ways.  My mother is ill with Alzheimers. What if I could just go and ask Jesus to heal her and He did. I have asked, over and over and she is still ill. There is that nagging query in my heart, that maybe if I had more faith she would be okay.

The Word of God challenges us to seek God every day and every moment to make sense of this life that we have. One day I hope to have faith like this woman. But let me also encourage you doubters, me included, she had a faith of sight. She saw Jesus heal the sick and maybe even saw Him cast out demons first handed.

She knew it could be done by Him, we walk by faith and not by sight.  We have not seen and still believe, we have not seen these miracles and still call Him Lord, Master and Savior.  Even if Jesus never did another miracle in my life, the truth is He has done more than I deserved, in truth I deserved to die and go to hell. He rescued me, He redeemed me with His precious blood and

He keeps me where I cannot keep myself. He has healed my sickness of sin and given me a peace and comfort that is greater than all I could imagine. I hope that you have Him, rather I hope He has you! If He does, rejoice, for He has raised you from the dead and you are truly alive.

The Multitudes Still Need Him, Verses 29-31

We live in a world that tries to be so self-sufficient. Even we Christians want to live independently of Jesus. We want to be “self made” fixing our lives without Jesus.  What a mess we have created.  These folk, these multitudes came to Jesus because they had no other solution.  He was all the hope that they had and had He not helped there would have been no one else to help them.

Like these multitudes we simply need to bring our broken, ailing lives and families to Jesus.          He alone can fix all the ailments we have. Broken homes, wasted lives, depression, anxiety, loneliness—you can name the list of troubles for which we need Jesus. We just need the Master’s touch. We need His compassion and help. If we could just get out of the way long enough for Jesus to simply be God, our lives would be so different.

I love the phrase “They laid them down at Jesus’ feet and He healed them” (verse 30).

When is the last time that you laid your hurts at Jesus’ feet? Was it when you had nowhere else to go, no one else to help, when you had exhausted books, doctors, potions, prayer even and worry.  Was is when you were empty from trying to fix whatever it was, and you came simply to lay the issue, the person, the need at Jesus’ feet.

Even if He did nothing to help the situation, at least He carrying the load for you now. That burden is off your shoulders. Why do we /I try to carry these burdens by ourselves? We are frail and made of dust, our finite minds can barely handle the normal burdens of life. Furthermore, the troubles that come with this life let us run to Jesus and make this verse our own.

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

Could you imagine the rest these people felt when Jesus touched them or their loved ones and not only healed their broken bodies, He healed their lives and they finally had a leader that they could depend on;  someone who loved them and cared for them. Someone who had real power and real presence. That day there was rejoicing when Jesus came and fixed them.

Let Him fix you. Look at the response; they glorified the God of Israel. For the first time in a long time these few Jews had the right opinion of God.  That is what the Word to glorify means, they had the right opinion of Him.

When you carry burdens that only Jesus can take or try to fix things that only Jesus can fix, you begin to have the wrong opinion of God.  But, when you simply lay your burdens at Jesus’ feet and stop trying to be God, He can be God and you will stand in awe of Him.  You, too, will glorify the God of Israel. Let Jesus be God, your God.

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

www.mississaugamissionarybc.com

 

Matthew chapter 15:10-20 (continued)

When He had called the multitude to Himself, He said to them, ‘Hear and understand:  Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.’ Then His disciples came and said to Him, ‘Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying? But He answered and said, ‘Every plant which My Heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into a ditch.’

Then Peter answered and said to Him, ‘Explain this parable to us.’ So Jesus said, ‘Are you also still without understanding? Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.’”

In our last post we looked at the idea of religious hypocrisy.  In particular, we looked at the scribes and Pharisees and how they had been teaching the ‘doctrines of men’ rather than the Laws of God.  They had added such a burden to the people with all these new rules that most of the people were more familiar with the rules of men than the laws of God.

Today we have the same kind of thing happening, New Testament churches have added such rules and by-laws to the clearly written laws of God that the laws of God are choked out and forgotten.  In this particular case the Pharisees complained to Jesus that His disciples ate without first washing their hands.

This is not about using the right soap, but a ritualistic course of washing their hands that was designed to tell the world and their peers that they were super religious. This is so typical of religion, there is such a focus on the outside and Man’s abilities that the true power of God is either negated or forgotten. Thus the outer man looks very religious and holy, but there is no real transformation inside.

Today we will continue in this lesson. Jesus uses the hypocrisy of the Pharisees to teach a lesson about what really defiles a man/woman. Let us be real and clear, Jesus is God, He understands the need to wash your hands and to be clean. God knows about germs and how they are transmitted so please do not get the idea that we do not need to wash our hands before we eat. Jesus has moved on from that and so should we.

What You Say Reflects Your True Inner Man, Verses 10-11

Jesus made the point that it was not eating with dirty hands that made a man/woman unclean. Rather it was what came out of your mouth, referring to our words that made us dirty. The writer James puts it this way in James 1:26:

“If anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one’s religion is useless.”

So if your tongue is not controlled, then your religion is useless. This hits me very hard. I often have a hard time controlling my tongue. I am not one to swear, but I can be sarcastic at times and painfully so— to those I profess to love. How are your words? Do they help or hurt others?

Later on, we will deal with speaking offensive words and when that is okay. But in general, how is your mouth? Does is speak life or death? Do you tell sexual jokes? Do you use profane language? Are you involved in crude conversations about the other sex?  Do you use the Lord’s name as a swear word?  Do you curse your parents and dishonor them behind their backs? These are all sinful and evil words from our mouths. Our religion is useless. In James 3:5-12 we find these verses:

“Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.

For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and creature of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by mankind. But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God.

Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear fig? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.”

Wow, these are harsh words that I/we need to take heed of. We speak a lot about religion and about Christianity but in truth if we were to gauge our progress in Christ, if we measured our maturity in Jesus against these verses, then how mature are we? Verse 10 in particular strikes me, how can blessings and cursing come out of the same mouth?

James concludes that these thing should not happen. So where is the balance? How do we bridge the gap? How do we grow in the area of the mouth? First we must realize that we cannot tame our own tongue, see verse 8, thus we must surrender it to God. Romans 12: 1-2 reminds us that we need to be transformed from our lost and fallen state to the saved state that Jesus has redeemed us into. The Holy Spirit alone has the power of the living God to tames our tongues.  But we must obey the prompting of God to shut up!

The Truth Is Offensive, Verses 12-15

Jesus spoke absolute truth. His words “cut to the bone” as they say. Jesus’ disciples had a reverence for the religious leaders of the day. It is no different than today. Today many in the “Christian” world pay homage to the Pope, or some other religious leader and we have this awe about them because of the pomp and show that surrounds them.

They are treated like gods and no one dares to call them out. This was what it was like even in Jesus’ day, the disciples were all in awe of the religious leaders and from a young age they would have been taught to have reverence for their religiosity. Their robes, head gear, wealth and apparent knowledge of God’s word.  But Jesus knew better.  He knew their inner man, not the persona that they played out each day in the streets and synagogues of Israel.

The truths that Jesus spoke offended the Pharisees, Sadducees and the Scribes. Jesus went on to point out that the reason people got offended at the truths of God were that they were not part of God’s family. They were not indwelt by God and they had closed themselves off to the power of God. Jesus then calls them blind, not physically but spiritually, these were blind men. They were blind to the truths of God and then Jesus tells the disciples to “leave them alone” (verse 14).

It is pointless to argue with blind men who refuse to accept that they are blind. Let them walk and fall into a pit, and let those that follow them do the same. This is hard for us to do; we want to argue religion with them either to boost our selves or convince them of the truth. But the only way for this to happen is if they fall, and fall hard.

Their entire belief system has to be uprooted and proven false. I have spoken to people in false religions, even ones that name the name of Jesus and they are blinded by their beliefs and truly they are being led by blind men. But the truth is that they choose to be blind.

The Bible is a book that makes its case for our faith. We are not called to have “blind faith” in God.  He has proven Himself to us in His Word and in our lives, in fact in the very creation around us His power and glory are declared.  People simply choose to be blind and there is no one as blind as those who refuse to see.

There will be many people who chose hell. They simply could not accept  what God has to offer, although very good—is for them. Thus they reject it and try to find another way.  There is NO OTHER WAY but Jesus Christ. John 14:6 declares this very clearly, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Our Hearts Are the Root of the Problem, Verses 15-20

In Jeremiah 17:9 we find this very sobering verse, “The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable–who can understand it?”

We live in a world that tells us to follow our hearts. We have books and movies and slogans and on and on telling us the very opposite of what God says. We are intrinsically evil.  Just the other day I was able to listen to the recording of a 3-year-old little girl discussing with her dad that the Barbie doll had told her to use the nail polish in her room. She insisted that the doll had spoken to her over and over again, and even though she had said no, no, no, the doll would not listen. This little girl was lying to her dad and blaming it on the doll.  She was only 3 years old.

The sin nature shows up early and often. From birth we are sinners, to the core, that little, cute, precious and priceless bundle of joy your call your son or daughter will lie to you, steal from you, sneak around behind your back and disrespect you to your face because they—like you, are sinners. Their hearts are deceitful and wicked just like yours and mine. They get their sin nature from us, their fathers.

Thus what comes out of our mouths is a reflection of the evil in our hearts, Jesus goes on to describe those things in verse 19:

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.”

What is needed is not a religion, that only changes the outside, kind of like paint on a rusting car. It only covers up the rust for a while, but eventually the true nature of the rust comes out and you see the rust. What is needed is a rebirth. We need for God to kill off me and make a new me in Jesus.

Then and only then can I become like Jesus. But we do like the guy in the mirror, we think he is okay and we think that all he needs is a little sprucing up—like a spring cleaning and we will be okay. That is the Devil speaking.

God says unless you be born again, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven. Jesus told Nicodemus that in John 3.  Remember that it was the religious people who called for Jesus’ death. They plotted and schemed and bribed one of Jesus’ associated to betray Him. Religion kills and destroys truth.  In turn truth destroys and exposes religion to be just a band-aid on a dying man.

We need to be renewed in Jesus, by Jesus and for Jesus. Stop depending on your own righteousness, you have none; zero, nada, zip and nothing.  Only Jesus’ righteousness is enough to satisfy God, and salvation simply means that you repent, stop depending on your own righteousness and put your full trust and dependence on Jesus’ righteousness for you.

You and I have no other hope for salvation. Once we have been born again, then Jesus goes about giving us a new heart, one that is righteous. His Holy Spirit moves into us and begins to convict and chide us about the way we think. He begins to point out sinful thoughts and evil ideas. He disciplines us with shame and guilt when we think sinful things. Then we start to take our thoughts captive, we begin to say no to certain thoughts. In 2 Corinthians 10:5 we find these powerful and hopeful words:

“We are destroying sophisticated arguments and every exalted and proud thing that sets itself up against the [true] knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought and purpose captive to the obedience of Christ.”

As a new creation in Jesus we begin to learn in Jesus and by the power of His Holy Spirit how to take our thoughts captive, to tame them and discipline ourselves to not think certain ways or if we do think a certain way, not to keep that thought for a long time.

For example, I am a married man, I see a cute girl at work. I acknowledge that she is cute and then move on to some other work and series of thoughts, no sin has been committed. But if I continue to look at that girl, find ways to get to talk to her and start to imagine myself with her, then I have committed sin in my mind. If I allow that sin to go unchecked in my mind, then I will act on it and commit a more overt sin either in my talk (mouth) or with my body.

It is essential then that we give ourselves over to the power, conviction and discipline of the Holy Spirit. True Christianity begins in your mind, as God changes the way you think because you have been born again in Jesus. God changes the way you think with His Word—the Bible. Careful and disciplined reading and study of the Bible will give you and the Holy Spirit the tools to change your way of thinking and bring you into submission under God.  We have this plea from God through the pen of the apostle Paul in Romans 12:1-2, let us be obedient:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies [dedicating all of yourselves, set apart] as a living sacrifice, holy and well-pleasing to God, which is your rational (logical, intelligent) act of worship. And do not be conformed to this world [any longer with its superficial values and customs], but be transformed and progressively changed [as you mature spiritually] by the renewing of your mind [focusing on godly values and ethical attitudes], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His plan and purpose for you].”

Missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

www.mississaugamissionarybc.com