Great faith

I got a double whammy today. I actually taught a discovery class this morning and so I'm trying to pivot mentally from teaching in one aspect to teaching in another. If you have your Bibles with us, we're going to be looking at Matthew chapter 15. We are traveling our way through the Gospel of Matthew. And we're going to be looking at Matthew 15 verses 21 through 28. Matthew 15:21-28.

Let me just pray for a second as we enter in once more.

Lord, as always, I'm reminded it is about you and your glory. And even this morning Lord, I pray that the aim of this time is not to delight or to entertain, but to rightly uphold your word. And I pray Lord that in this time that you would increase, and that I would decrease, and that your word would be the main voice for us today. I pray that you give me the ability to articulate what I think that you have shown me from this text. And I pray that our hearts would be open and our ears and eyes for all that you have for us today. So, we just pray this in the mighty, faithful, loving name of our savior Jesus. Amen.

Scripture Reading

Matthew 15:21 to 28:

And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon." But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, "Send her away, for she is crying after us." And he answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, help me." And he answered, "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." And she said, "Yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table." And then Jesus answered her, "O woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly.

This is God's word.

Intro

We often talk about faith in terms of belief. We might say, "My faith is important to me," or "I'm a person of faith." But what is faith? When we talk about faith, and more importantly, what does it mean to have great faith?

The woman in this passage is described as a person who has great faith. And she's ironically only one of a couple people that Jesus attributes this to. You know, Jesus is oftentimes talking about the littleness of faith, especially of his disciples in the various passages. And yet there are times when others believe and because of their faith, they have healing. But this is the only one that specifically Jesus says, a Canaanite woman who is not of the land of Israel—he has left the land of Israel, gone to the land of Tyre and Sidon—that her faith that is exhibited here is the one that he calls great faith.

Now, there was also a Roman Centurion who he said, "I have not found faith like this in all of Israel." So, we would also imply that he had great faith. But, what does great faith actually look like?

And it's interesting because in a land of faith and among a people of religious faith who worship Yahweh, there seems to be a lot of little faith in their land and among their people. Little faith can lead to little living. See, faith is more than just believing. It's an act. It's a posture. It's an attitude. It's something that is exercised and lived out. And faith, deep faith, strong faith, much faith, leads to much heart and much action. Much faith leads to much heart and to much action. It leads to bold living.

The disciples can't seem to grasp that kind of faith. They seem to always be confused and bewildered. They're frightened in the midst of the storm. They look at the waves and the wind around them, and they're constantly distracted. Their faith is small and untethered and unrooted in many ways. And so, they wither and crumble. Jesus has just a few loaves of bread and a couple fish, and they think it incapable for him to do great things. Even when they've seen the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000, they once again find themselves struggling with the faith that is necessary.

Yet, here is this woman who Matthew highlights and describes as a Canaanite woman. Now, if you remember, the Canaanites were the people that were driven from the land of Israel when Israel came out of Egypt. They were people who were wicked. They even, we know historically, practiced child sacrifice. Canaanites did not exist at this point in time. They had long been gone as that land had been swept through by the Assyrians and the Babylonians and all of these different people groups, except the Israelites, had been essentially hauled off. Well, the Israelites were hauled off, but they came back. But, these people groups did not exist anymore. And yet, for some reason he wants to highlight that her lineage is an ancient enemy of Israel. People that are probably the farthest removed from the deservingness of great faith and such a title. And yet, here we have her described as one of great faith.

Maybe just as a side note to you, we can often times feel like we need to qualify in order to be a person of God. That we need to be of a certain lineage or certain family or we need to be good enough. And here is this woman who comes from a pagan descent who is outside the covenant people, the religious people, and yet she exercises great faith. And at the end of the day, Jesus grants her request.

And I think that in this passage, we're going to see that among all the people who do not want to exhibit great faith, Jesus wants to highlight her faith. My aim often times when I'm teaching from the scriptures is to hold high Christ. To really point us to him. And we're going to do that today. But, in the midst of this passage, I actually think that Jesus, through his deferrals and his put offs and his actions in this passage, is showing the disciples as well as us today what great faith looks like. And the lengths and the perseverance and the qualities that it possesses. And so, as we look at this passage today, we are going to be looking at that faith.

Avoiding the pitfalls in faith traditions

Now, there's one thing that anytime we talk about great faith, we always need to remember that it needs to be balanced. There are two sort of pitfalls that I think often happen in the conversation about faith.

One of the ways that I would say is that we can come from it—I'll categorize it as proud. We can be so bold in our beliefs and the passages that we claim from scripture about how God will essentially do anything that we ask of him if we have enough faith, that to the extreme when that is carried out, we believe that we can twist the arm of God in some way to do what we want. And we have to always hold that in tension with the fact that God is sovereign, that God is working his plan, and yet we can ask of him. We can come to him. Moses pleaded with God to not annihilate the Israelites when they had turned from him so quickly after they were delivered, and the Lord changed his mind. David had pleaded because he knew that the Lord was merciful and might change his mind after his adultery with Bathsheba when he prayed for the child. And there are instances in scripture constantly where they pray and the Lord hears. And the Lord moves.

So, on one end, we should not run to the pride and say, "I can bend the will of God, and he's going to do anything that I say, and if it didn't come true, it's because I didn't have enough faith in those moments." Because then we're lost when it doesn't happen. And we're discouraged.

But the other end of it is to hold to some sort of cold, logical sovereignty of God that only sees a deterministic God. God has outlined a will, and this is only the things that he will do. And that's all that he will do and there's no really changing that. God's just going to do what God's going to do. But then the question is, why pray? Why ask?

See, scripture holds both in tension. As so many theological things are held in tension. It tells us in one sense that God is working. He does have a will. He does have a plan. He knows what he's doing, and yet somehow he wants to graft us into that plan and remind us: come to me. Ask of me. Seek me. And scripture's filled with these things about how he listens and how he acts in accordance with the things that we ask of him.

So we want to hold these things in tension. And the reason that I say that, and I don't want to belabor the point, is because many years ago I was in a tradition in which there was a man in the church who was dying of cancer. And the people prayed with faith. They prayed boldly. They prophesied. They claimed scriptures. And it's good. We should wrestle with God. We should pray passionately those things. We should beg and ask of the Lord. This was a guy that was in his late 40s, four kids, married. And it was a tragedy. Been on the mission field. He loved the Lord. He was an elder in the church. But he died.

And the people that had prayed with faith struggled. Because they only saw that "I can bend the will of God if I have enough faith." And they didn't balance that in tension with God is sovereign. And I'm just going to trust that he knows best and that even when it doesn't come out the way that I want, even when the outcome isn't like I think it should be, I can trust that he works all things for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28. And that I will trust that he can still make good the tragedy and the pieces that this is.

But we don't need to just kick that audience, because the thing that I love about that camp is they pray with fervency. They pray with boldness. And sometimes when we're just theological or we just think about it from a cerebral cold religious standpoint, we forget that we serve a living God who does hear the prayers and who says, "Ask of me," and "You have not because you ask not." And we should come with fervency and heart and meaning and beg of the Lord. And we know from scripture that he hears us. We just need the balance.

So, as we look at this passage today, and as I mentioned, I believe that Jesus is highlighting qualities of great faith. So, what does great faith look like? I'm going to break this into three things. We're going to look at the posture of great faith, the persistence of faith, and the object of faith. The posture of faith, the persistence of faith, and the object of faith.

The Posture of Great Faith

So, the posture of faith. The woman, her faith is an informed faith. She says right here in verses 21 and 22, "And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, 'Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.'"

This woman does not live in the land of Israel. She is from a pagan people group. This woman is from a pagan people group. She's outside the religious people, the religious teachings, the religious center. This is to the north of the land of Israel. Jesus has left the land, and she identifies this guy. If you look at the book of Mark, Mark 7, it talks about how Jesus was essentially probably leaving the land of Israel to take a break. A sabbatical. Ministry life was hard. And so, he journeys here to the north in a place that he's not going to be as well known, and yet somehow this woman knows who he is.

But, she doesn't just know him as the great healer. She calls him the Son of David. She is applying a title, a Messianic title, to him. She's saying, "I know your lineage. I know that the one who was promised to come, the Messiah, was to be of the lineage of the house of David, a son of David." And when she calls on him by that name and calls him Lord, she's saying, "I know who you are. I know who you are. And I know what you're capable of, because I've heard the stories. But, I also know that you are the Messiah and that you are of God. And I know that God is a merciful God."

"And I know that God is merciful not just to the people who deserve it, or to the religious people. I know that even in ancient times this was also a God of sometimes a Philistine and a Moabitess and a Canaanite. In fact, I even know that in your lineage, Jesus, there are some of those people." Matthew will list that out in chapter 1 if you want that for reference. Even in Jesus' story.

And here this woman knows who he is. And her posture in coming to him is number one: understanding who she is addressing. It's so important to know who we are addressing and who God is and to be informed by that, to have that right balance about a God who is sovereign. But also a God who is merciful and loving and hears his people.

And that's what we find here, is that she also expresses a balance in the way that she approaches. She comes with boldness. She comes with heart. She comes in the sense of like, "I know that you're sovereign, but I know who you are and I know what you're capable of and I know that you're merciful." And so she comes with that sense of that boldness that we should all have when we exercise great faith. Coming to God, pouring out our heart to him, not being so cerebral that we forget that he does listen and that he does move and that the Lord does do things on the behalf of his people. And sometimes he's waiting for us to care enough and to petition enough and to exercise great faith on behalf of ourselves and for people that we love and around us in life. Waiting for that.

Not as if God needs our prayers, so that he might include us. Because when you pray and exercise faith like that, it changes your posture. It changes you. To pray for someone, to petition for someone day in day out, it does something to your heart. Because more and more through those prayers, you are aligning with the spirit and the heart and the will of God. And God is shaping you. More and more are your prayers shaped into what he desires, more in line with his will.

And she comes with that, but she also comes not as one who thinks she can bend God's will. And we see this very subtly: Jesus never tells her no. The disciples, because they are Jews, would really love for any Samaritan or non-Jew person to please leave the room. They would love for Jesus to finally send her away because they're probably like the Secret Service trying to kind of protect Jesus and keep her at bay. And Jesus is not answering at first, and they're like, "Man, she just keeps begging. Would you please send her away? Tell her no. Like, officially close the door."

Yet Jesus doesn't. And then Jesus finally speaks a word to her, and he says—well, we'll just look at it. He says to her in verse 23, "But he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, 'Send her away, for she is crying out after us.' And he answered, 'I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'" But she came and knelt before him, saying, "Lord, please help me."

She sees this not as Jesus putting her off. "Oh, he's talking to me now. He's opened the door. This is the opportunity." And she steps and leans in. And she has this posture, but not of pride. Notice that. "I'm not going to bend God's will. I'm not going to twist his arm. I'm going to exercise faith, but also humility."

And I think that's the big thing with us, is that as we exercise great faith, we just must remember the balance of not being too deterministic about a sovereign God, but also not being proud. Continually asking of God, but doing so with a humility and a trust in his plan.

I've seen people, and I shared a story and I won't share another one, but I have another one in mind of a similar thing where people prayed and God did not answer the way that they wanted and their faith was shaken, shipwrecked. You know, at the end of the day, we can exercise great faith, and part of great faith isn't just getting what you want. Hear that? Part of great faith is not just getting what you want, but trusting God when you don't get what you want. Trusting that he is still good. That he has a bigger plan. He knows the bigger picture. And we can walk in accordance with that. So, we pray, pray with heart. We should ask and expect, but we trust the result to God.

The Persistence of Faith

The second thing is the persistence of faith. The persistence of faith. The woman shows persistence in the face of no answer. She shows persistence when Jesus essentially gives her an answer like we just looked at where he says, "I was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Meaning, you're not an Israelite. I'm only sent here for Israel. This is where God begins to first work is among his covenant people. Eventually, it'll come to you guys, but not yet. And yet she sees this not as a put off, but as an opportunity in which he is engaging her. So, she slips past the secret service disciples, draws a little bit closer, and begins to talk to him.

And then Jesus makes that remark, and then as she said, "Help me," he answers another time to her in verse 26, "It is not right to take the children's bread and to throw it to the dogs." We'll talk about that in just a second, but just once again, she is not going to be put off by this, either. She shows persistence in all of these things. "Have mercy," she cries out. "Lord, help me." Just constantly, relentlessly coming.

I heard a woman one time, and I just love this, she used to say, "I'm praying about it. And I'm going to keep asking until he tells me no." That's great faith.

Now, there are sometimes where the Lord says, "Not now. No. This is not part of my will or my plan." That's okay. We hold it before the Lord. But until he does, just because God is quiet, just because he does not immediately answer, doesn't mean that we need to lose faith or that we need to be disheartened. Sometimes God—because we are part of the journey of faith—sometimes his silence or sometimes his sort of put-off-ness can be mistaken for a no.

And oftentimes what God is doing is he's trying to teach and to grow us. How can you be a great prayer warrior unless you learn how to persevere in your faith? Unless you learn how to trust when not what you can see and not on the circumstances around you, but on the God who promised things. And there's part of the journey of learning to chase after God and to lean in and to persevere boldly before him, crying out and calling and doing so with endurance that grows you.

We're not just people that are called to run sprints. We're to run marathons. The Christian journey is long and it's hard. But it's also not just for that. See, if you learn to persevere in prayer for one thing, you learn to persevere in prayer for other things and for bigger things.

And if God just gives us the answer right away, how much glory does he really get? Did it really mean something if we can just like kind of like rub the lamp and ask the genie and then he answers? Now, God does answer sometimes quickly. But many times he doesn't. And sometimes we have to learn to walk the journey. And sometimes when your heart gets engaged in that and you've asked so much of the Lord and you plead to the Lord, and then what happens when he finally answers? I mean, we rejoice. We're amazed. We're so happy and glad. And we glorify God. The amount of glory we give him in those moments also is greater. God is working a work in us as we journey oftentimes in exercising that faith in persistence and in the pursuit of him.

And we see this woman operate with that same persistence. We're reminded here that James reminds us that the prayer of a righteous person availeth much. Or in the ESV it says, "The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." That we can petition. We can pray. We can pursue the Lord with that same persistence.

Do we pray with persistence? Do you pray with persistence? Are you easily discouraged when you don't see the immediate answer? Or is your heart maybe a little bit cold in prayer? "After all, God's going to do what God's going to do." Or do you believe for the things that God has laid on your heart, that we won't come to him coldly? But whether on behalf of ourselves or more importantly like this woman who is petitioning for the life of her daughter, the spiritual livelihood. She's not on death's door now. She's suffering from spiritual and demonic oppression.

Do we care enough for the lives of people who are under spiritual and demonic oppression in their lives? Do we think about our family members, our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers? Do we care? Is our heart in it? Is God just going to do what God does? Or is he waiting for a people who passionately pursue him to call out to him, to pray?

You'll find that the greatest revival moments in history, the moments where the spirit of God moved powerfully, almost always were preceded by times of great prayer by a group of people. And prayer changes things. Man, I've seen in my own life—I don't want to just go off on a tangent here, but I have seen in my own life times where I've fasted and prayed for people, and I've seen God open doors in conversations with coworkers and with family members that were shut. And God does move powerfully, but he wants to invite us into it. He doesn't just want to do a nice work out there in people's lives. He wants to invite us to share in the joy and the glory of it. That's why Paul looked at the Thessalonian church, who he had led to Christ and planted that church, and said, "You are my joy and glory." Why? Because God let him play a part in it.

So, quality of faith is persistence. Do we pray with that same persistence, that same heart, uncontent for the status quo of a culture that is constantly confused and disoriented, that even what is right or wrong is constantly—I'm not here to badger the culture. It's always been lost. Do we care about it? And in a time that is so ripe for the gospel, where the gospel makes so much more sense than it ever did, when false religion is out the door, you're either in or you're out more and more in our culture. There's such an opportunity where the gospel can shine so bright. It is the answer to people's loneliness, to people's confusion. It fills those types of voids with a message that is unlike anything else that this culture can produce.

But do we care that God's light might shine in the hearts and lives of people? Do we care enough to petition, to pray with persistence and boldness to him?

The Object of Our Faith

Finally, the object of our faith. This woman holds to God's character. She knows his identity. She knows that he's merciful. She knows that he's powerful. Her object of faith is not on other things. It's not on idols. It's not on the disciples. You know, it's not on some sort of best practices. She knows this is spiritual oppression. And there is going to take an answer that is beyond physical means to deliver her daughter from this. It needs something that has the power and the mercy to do so. And she knows that's Jesus.

See, the object of faith, what we hope in, determines the outcome. If you've started to hope in idols, they do not free you. They do not accomplish what you want. They may give you a little bit, but ultimately, you're caught in a system of slavery to them. Because you're always trying to get the output from the idol. And what do you do? You offer the sacrifices. You give your life. You pursue it. And you do all of those things, and then you're caught in this cycle of constantly trying to do what the idol needs of you so that you can get from the idol.

You can do that with your career. You can do that with all sorts of false hopes in this life. You can think that money will insulate me from the dangers of this world. "Maybe I can buy the best things and buy my friend or myself out of the troubles and the bondages of life and the unhappiness if I have enough money. Maybe those things will help resolve this loneliness or this brokenness that's going on inside of my life or the life of people around me." And we can turn to so many things in this life. Maybe I can drown it out with a number of entertainment in this life. Doomscrolling over and over and over and thinking that will feed my soul, and it doesn't. We can turn to false hopes.

The object of your faith and what you place it in, it determines that outcome. It matters who you look to. This woman has chosen who she will look to and she will not let go of it. The disciples keep looking to waves. They keep looking to impossible circumstances. She sees the possibility because she's looking to the one who makes all things possible. Great faith has to have an object that is possible and capable of great things because it will dictate the quality of your faith. It will shape your faith. The object of her faith is driven in a God that makes all things possible. Faith looks to what is possible, not to what is impossible.

I'm reminded of Hebrews 11 which says, "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Not living by the circumstances and not looking at those waves or other things around you, but looking to the one who makes all things possible. And she acknowledges all of this. And as we see here at the end, she is not put off by Jesus in any of this.

I want you to look at this last thing in this passage, right here where Jesus says in 26, "It's not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." And she says, "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table." And then Jesus answered, "O woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire." And her daughter was healed instantly.

There's a lot of focus among Bible commentators on this exchange. And often times, they focus specifically on the fact that he uses a metaphor, an illustration of a dog. And the children would be the children of Israel sitting at the table. They're the people that get the bread. They get the blessing, they get the healing, they get the covenant, they get all these things. And everything outside of that table, including the dogs that are sitting beneath it, are outsiders. And he in this illustration is saying, "They get the bread, and it's not right for me to take that bread off the table and to give it to you. They're the people of the covenant. They're the ones that I was sent to."

And there's like this almost focus on the fact of like, is he insulting her? And some theologians look and say, "Well, he's not talking about a traditional dog. This is more of like a household pet that was a puppy." All true, he does use specific Greek words about that. And so, the metaphor doesn't land as strongly. But the problem that I think all the biblical commentators get wrong is that we miss the forest for the trees.

See what Jesus is implying in this passage? Watch this now. What he's implying in this passage as he talks to this woman is he's saying, "Well, you know, the work of God, the works and the miracles and the things that are available, it's not right for me to take like that bread and to throw some of it to the dogs and give it to the outsiders, the Canaanites and the Philistines and the Moabites and the people that are not of the people of God." And there's like this almost playfulness of Jesus where it's almost like, "See, don't you see? It's like I've got 100 loaves of bread, and if I give one to you, that means somebody's going to miss out because there's only 99 on the table."

And she sees the absurdity of this. This is Jesus. This is the Son of God. This is the one who took loaves and fish and fed 5,000 and then they picked up leftovers. You are the God that supplies more abundantly beyond all that I can ask or I can think. I'm not going to be lost on some metaphor as if like, "Oh, there's not enough now because you gave one to me." I know the truth and I know who you are and I know there is overflow and plenty. You can give me crumbs from the table and there's still plenty for those around us, and there's still plenty for people on the table. Do you see it? The faith that she has.

This just landed so hard for me today as I read this text this week because I was so struck by her faith. A faith that I often times don't have. I mean, if I'm honest in my own heart, I can be cold, theological. And "sometimes God's just going to do what God's going to do." And sometimes my heart can grow so cold in that. And yet there is a world and people that I know around that I love. And I don't want to just leave it to like, "Well, God's going to do what God's going to do." He told me to ask. He told me to come to him.

And he told me that just like in Matthew 7, he said, "Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, you who are broken, you humans, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him?"

And asking for people to come to faith, asking for them to meet Christ, asking for their hearts to be open, it's a good prayer. I don't want to be cold about that. I want to love. I want to believe. I want to seek, because I know the power of the gospel, because I know it in my own life. I was not interested. And then the Lord got hold of me. And it changed everything.

And this woman's faith is one that she knows and she knows what he's capable of and she will not be deterred by his playfulness with her. There is more. "Lord, give it to me. Show mercy." And Jesus heals. He brings the deliverance to the daughter. He answers.

And with balance, we trust the process and the sovereignty and the will of God. But we remember that we are called to ask. I had more passages. I'm not going to read them all. Just constantly in scripture, we're told to petition, to ask, to seek, that the Lord might hear and move on behalf of his people.

And today I think that Jesus upholds that. He says, "Remember who I am. Remember what I'm capable of." That's me holding God high. That's me holding Christ. I want you to see that and know that. He is the object, the author and the perfecter of our faith. But ironically today he turns and points and says, "This is what that's carried out like. Go and do likewise. Go walk that out."

Are you unbalanced? Too deterministic? Too proud? Are your prayers cold? Or maybe so much so that you think you can arm wrestle God into doing what you want? Remember to hold the tension in balance. Is the object of your faith in Christ and something else? Because we love to pair it: Jesus and something else. We can place the object of our faith even for the fact that for the Lord to change the world or to do things, and we can put it in Christ and a person, Christ and in laws, Christ and in systems. It's only in Christ.

The woman, she knew that there was no human power that could deliver her daughter. She needed a spiritual solution. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 10, "For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds."

Those are the weapons that we fight with: with prayer, with petition, with heart. Faith is less about manipulation and more about perseverance. Because we do not fight with the weapons of this world. We call upon the one who is able to do abundantly beyond all that we can ask or can think.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you for your word and thank you for moments like this where we see great faith exercised and the beauty of you answering. And I pray to God that in our own life, Lord, we would be people of great faith. It is so easy to be like the disciples or like all of these people in Israel who you often said, "Oh, you have little faith," instead of being like this one who seems far from God and yet who he says, "That's the one with great faith."

And I pray God that we would have that same posture, that same perseverance and persistence, and that our hope would never be on anything else, but on you and your power. We would trust that. We would hold that at all times. And that the journey of faith, the journey of asking of you, would shape us and leave us changed, different, and with stronger faith. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.