It is not that I did choose thee,
Lord, for Lord, that could not be. Yuba-Sutter Grace Church
would like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now here's our pastor, Rick Warda. The scripture for today's sermon
is found in Matthew 15 verses 21 through 28. Then Jesus went
thence and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And
behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coast and cried
unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David. My daughter is grievously vexed
with the devil. But he answered her not a word.
And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away, for
she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am
not sent, but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then
came she, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he
answered and said, it is not meat to take the children's bread
and cast it to dogs. And she said, truth, Lord, yet
the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table.
Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy
faith, be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was
made whole from that very hour, I have entitled this message,
Saved by Sovereign Grace. I am so thankful for this scripture. I am especially thankful for
the last verse. The Lord Jesus gave this woman
everything by which she came to Him. This scripture teaches
the sovereignty of God in salvation. It teaches the opposition that
God's sovereignty naturally raises in the hearts of desperate sinners.
It teaches how God-given faith persists in coming to Christ. And it teaches that the Lord
Jesus Christ admires his own work of faith in those he saves. This scripture teaches the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ. The main point here is that the
Lord Jesus saves sinners by his sovereign grace in spite of what
we are and in spite of what we have done. It teaches that we
are saved in the way of inward trouble and struggle that comes
because of inward sin, the opposition of the devil, the light of all
that God requires of me and His Word, and in the face of His
absolute sovereignty. Grace triumphs over all of these
to save guilty, condemned, and helpless sinners. Isn't this
good news? Consider first that this woman's
great need drove her to Christ. Now this I know from the word
of God and my own experience. I will only call when I am needy. I only depend on God's strength
when I have none of my own. I only look to Christ when I
have nowhere else to go. I only believe Him when I see
that my sin is all my fault, and I see that He is the great
Savior of great sinners. But it is Christ who first came
to Tyre and Sidon. Notice how He says in verse 21,
Jesus went thence and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. The Lord comes to where sinners
are. We only come to Christ because
He first comes to us. Isaiah 65 1 says, I am sought
of them that ask not for me. I am found of them that sought
me not. I said, behold me, behold me
unto a nation that was not called by my name. If you are a believer,
you know this to be your experience. The Lord Jesus Christ sought
you when you were not seeking Him. I was seeking many things,
even seeking religion, but they were all false. I did not know
God. I did not know my lost, ruined,
helpless condition. And I especially did not know
and did not trust God's salvation. Just as those of Tyre and Sidon,
every believer knows this. God says, remember the pit from
which thou wast digged. He comes to me before I come
to him. He seeks me and then I seek him. I call upon him because he calls
me. I come to him because he draws
me and tells me to come. This woman needed mercy. She
sought mercy. And she cried to Jesus for mercy. We will never be saved until
we come for mercy to Christ. Mercy is God taking pity on me
when my sin deserves His wrath. I will only cry for mercy when
my sin is all my fault, and I see that He is the absolute Sovereign,
that I am in His hands to save or to leave to judgment, and
that He saves all by Himself with no help from me. I must
look to him in Christ and find everything he demands of me and
the answer to God for all my sins. Only then will I cry for
mercy." She called Jesus, Lord. She owned him as her sovereign. Jesus told his disciples, you
call me master and Lord and you say well for I am. She called
him Son of David, the anointed king over God's people. We need
a king to deliver us from the enemy of our sin, from the devil,
from death, from this world, and from the curse of God's law.
We need a king that provides all things for us. We need a
king that rules over all our enemies, especially our sin.
We need a King that commands our salvation. Jesus Christ is
that King. Only He can deliver me from my
sin, provide everything for me, command my salvation, and rule
me to cause me to believe and walk in His ways. I therefore
call upon Him as the Lord Jesus Christ. By Him alone God saves
His people from their sins. Her daughter was grievously vexed. She was troubled, tormented by
a devil. It was for her daughter that
she came to Christ. Believing mothers and fathers
have no greater concern than that the Lord save their children.
The great enemy of her soul meant to destroy her daughter. She
therefore comes to Him, who alone can save from evil, evil from
within, evil from without. The Lord taught us to pray, deliver
us from evil, but Jesus did not answer her, not even a word. This begins the experience that
sinners have in coming to Christ with their great needs and yet
finding God's own sovereignty in salvation to be an apparent
barrier. Only sovereign grace saves. We are not saved unless we are
saved by sovereign grace. When we hear of sovereign grace,
especially when we have a great need for this saving grace, we
become concerned that we might be excluded and left out because
our salvation depends entirely upon God's will to show mercy
and Christ's saving work to take away the sins of His people and
to make them righteous before God. And it concerns us that
God the Holy Spirit must give life from the dead. He must birth
us as God's children or we cannot see or enter the kingdom of God. He makes children to God as it
pleases Him. Jesus told Nicodemus, the wind
blows where it listeth, wherever it pleases. The woman then went
to Jesus' disciples and cried after them. When she heard no
word from Christ, she went to the disciples. When we want Christ
to save us and don't know that he has or that he will, we may
go to men, even those men who are his ministers. The disciples
had seen Jesus ignore her, and she was a bother to them, so
they asked Jesus to send her away. They prayed to Christ against
her. We will never receive from men
the mercy and the attention we need and must have from Christ
alone. In response to what the disciples
asked Jesus to do, and in the hearing of this woman, Jesus
answered and said, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel. God the Father gave His elect
people to Christ for Christ to redeem and bring to glory. He
made His Son a surety for His people. As Jacob entrusted Benjamin
to Judah to stand before Joseph and save Benjamin from prison
in Egypt and bring him again to Jacob, so God the Father gave
His adopted sons to Christ entrusting Christ to stand before God's
justice and answer every accusation, even substituting himself for
them under the judgment of God that he might save us from the
prison of our sin and unbelief and the wrath of God, the deception
of the devil, and at last bring us to glory as his beloved sons. God made Christ the surety of
His people. This is what that means. God
gave and entrusted them to Him. God looked to Him to answer all
for them, to pay every debt their sins deserve, and to fulfill
every requirement for their obedience. The lost sheep of the House of
Israel are those throughout time and history that were given to
Christ in eternity. Christ saves them only. He was sent for them only. When
we hear this, We may think that our salvation is less secure,
less possible, because it does not depend in any way upon us,
but depends entirely upon God's purpose, God's eternal will,
Christ's redeeming work, and the sovereign operations of the
Spirit of God, who gives life and faith as it pleases Him.
We may hear the truth of this from God's own word, even while
we have an immediate and desperate need to be saved. What should
we do? The one thing this woman did
was not give up. Her need was great. Christ's
mercy is great. His power is able to save sinners
to the uttermost. there is none other willing and
there is none other able to save but him. So she came to him in
whom alone all of her hope lie. Like Abraham, against hope she
believed in hope because the Lord, the King, God himself stood
before her in human flesh, the one mediator between God and
men and she needed salvation for her daughter. Having heard
Jesus say that he was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel,
and knowing that she was not of Israel, but was of a well-known,
idolatrous people, what did she do? She did not say, I have not
been an idolater like those in my city. She did not say, I'm
a believer and I know the right doctrine, therefore have mercy
on me. She did not say, I'm a loving
mother and have come for my daughter, therefore consider my love. She
didn't say any of these things. What she did, we must do. Every sinner who knows what they
are, that sin is all their fault, and who knows that Christ is
the absolute sovereign God, who alone can save at His will and
by His power, all these come and worship Him. So we read here
that she came and worshipped him. And what did she say? Lord,
help me. She worshipped him. She prayed
a perfect prayer. Yet, what did Jesus say? What
did she hear him say? What did she experience in coming
in this way to Christ? Note this well, that she truly
did worship Him, she truly did ask for help from Him, and she
truly did ask for mercy for her daughter. Yet he answered her
and said, it is not right to give the children's bread to
dogs. He said two things by this. First,
the bread of mercy is only for the children of God. Second,
he called her a dog. At this point, even before this,
I would have given up. I would have sunk in despair
of God's sovereignty being the cause of God leaving me in my
sin and turning from me and not saving me. But this scripture
is given for the very purpose of showing those who are undeserving
and naturally not part of God's people, who hear of God's sovereign
saving grace in Christ, come to Him as this woman did." Come
to Him as this woman did. That is the Word of God to us. Now, she answers our Lord and
she says, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall
from their master's table. She agreed with Christ. All that
you say is true. You are sovereign. I am not part
of that nation and that people whom God favors. I am not among
the children. I am a dog. She agreed with Christ. This is called confession. Confessing
what I am is agreeing with God. Confessing that I am a sinner,
that my sin is sin against God, is agreeing with God. It is agreeing
with God that He saves at His will, by His work, by His power
alone, for Christ's sake alone, out of His grace alone. But what
we don't realize as we face the terror of our sins and are frightened
by the prospect of God's sovereignty is that the way in which God
saves is in the way of faith. God gives faith. Faith is His
gift. And the faith that Christ gave
this woman is His gift to her. But faith is not known until
it is tried. He tried her faith in order that
He might glorify Himself in His person and His sovereign salvation,
but also that we might see the greatness of His work of faith
in the heart of sinners. When God finished creating the
heavens and the earth, in Genesis 1.31 He said that He looked upon
all that He made and saw that it was very good. This is what
is happening here. Christ has given this woman to
know that He is Lord, that He is Christ, that He is God who
deserves her worship. And He gave her to know that
He alone could deliver her daughter from evil. And He had given her
to know that the way in which He delivers is by coming to Him
in faith. But He tried her faith. The very
truth of His sovereign rule and how He saves becomes an apparent
barrier, an obstacle. I know I'm a sinner. I know I'm
a great sinner. I know that I sin because of
what I am. I know that my nature of sin
is the root problem, and I know it is all my fault. I see that
Christ came to save sinners and that He is able to save sinners.
Yet I know that He saves only those God chose from before the
foundation of the world and gave to Him to die for them and bring
them to glory. Now, my experience of this great
need and the truth of who Christ is and His accomplished redemption
stands before me. How can I enter here? What am
I to do? This woman does the right thing. She came. She cried. She worshipped. She asked for help. She agreed
with all that he said about himself and about her. She was a dog. He is the Lord. He saves whom
he will. But she did not stop. When she
was weak, she looked to him still. When all hope within and hope
without was lost, she looked to Him still. When my sin and
this world and the threatening peals of God's judgment and the
devil himself stand up against my soul, what does God-given
faith teach me to do? Look to Christ. Come to Christ. Believe Him. See that my salvation
is in Him alone." So she said, truth Lord, yet the little dogs
eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table. I need a
crumb of mercy. Let fall one crumb of your saving
mercy and it will be enough. I am a dog, but I am your dog. When we see the wisdom with which
this woman speaks, we are amazed. Yet this is the faith Christ
gave her, the faith to see Him as all and come to Him for all
when she had nothing and it seemed that even God's own word and
requirements stood as a barrier between her and His mercy. Remember
Jacob? A man came at night and wrestled
with him. that man was the Lord Jesus Christ,
the one who is God and man. Christ touched Jacob where he
was strong, in his thigh. When Jacob's thigh was out of
joint, he held on to the Lord Jesus with a death grip. And
he said, I will not let thee go except thou bless me. You
are my only hope. I need you to bless me. Without
your blessing, I have nothing. When he was weak, then he depended
on Christ alone. When this woman was held up by
Christ as a dog, then she took her place as a dog, begging for
a crumb of His saving mercy. Our Lord did what He did when
He created this world. He looked at her faith and said,
O woman, great is thy faith, be it unto thee even as thou
wilt. And her daughter was made whole
from that very hour. Christ gave her that mercy that
she came to him for. He granted to her all that she
wanted. in the depths of our guilt and
helplessness, in the face of all that would oppose our souls,
even in light of what God requires from us in His Word, repentance
and faith and love, what is the one thing we must do? We must
seek all in the Lord Jesus Christ. God says in Hebrews 11.6 that
the one who comes to God must believe that He is, and that
He is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Come to
Christ for everything, and keep coming. Faith doesn't come but
once. Faith comes continually. Faith
is not a decision. Faith is not accepting Jesus.
Faith is looking to Christ and coming to Christ for all. Faith
is finding all in Christ. When this woman came in this
way, even though the revelation of God's sovereign salvation
seemed to preclude her, her God-given faith caused her to come still. She kept looking. She kept coming. God's sovereignty doesn't keep
us from being saved. Our sin condemns us. It is our
sin that separates us from God. If we are lost, it will be all
our fault. Do you believe that? Do you believe
that if you suffer the eternal wrath of God for your sin, that
it will be all your fault? The wages of sin is death. Death is the payback for our
sin. The only thing that will keep
me out of heaven is my own will. But the only thing that will
bring me to heaven and keep me out of hell is the will of God.
My will alone keeps me out of heaven. Jesus said in John 5.39,
you will not come to me that you might have life. But it is
only God's will that keeps me out of hell. Jesus said, all
that the Father gives me shall come to me. That is the will
of God. But our experience in this salvation
is to learn over and over that we are nothing but sinners. Our
nature and our thoughts and our words and our deeds are full
of sin. Yet God comes to us in the gospel
of Christ and gives us this saving faith to look only to Him and
find our all in Him. And we hear this blessed promise,
Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. What is
sovereign grace? Sovereign grace is God being
God in salvation. What does sovereign grace mean?
Perhaps the shortest explanation in scripture is found in Jonah
2, 9. Salvation is of the Lord. Listen to what God says about
His sovereignty and salvation. Romans 9, verses 11 through 13. For the children being not yet
born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose
of God according to election might stand, not of works, but
of him that calleth. It was said unto Rebekah, The
elder shall serve the younger, as it is written, Jacob have
I loved, but Esau have I hated. What is your response to this
scripture? Do we try to explain it away?
Does it make us mad? Do we accuse God of being unfair? Do we make God to be a villain
and ourselves victims? All of these reactions and more
come from our natural sinful self. But faith says and does
what this woman said and did. This woman came face to face
with the sovereign Lord God. Did she say, well, if God is
sovereign, he'll save me no matter what I do, so I'll go my way.
And if I go to hell, it'll be God's fault. Did she take part
of God's word as true, that he is sovereign, but use that word
to accuse and hate God? No. Sovereign grace means that
God saves whom He will, and saves how He will, and saves when He
will, and saves because it is His will. Sovereign grace means
salvation from first to last is of the Lord. Sovereign grace
means God does everything in salvation, and we are the objects
of His saving grace. In Sovereign Grace, God wills,
not man. In Sovereign Grace, God decides,
not man. In Sovereign Grace, God chooses,
not man. In Sovereign Grace, Christ died
for and actually saved his people from their sins, not man. In Sovereign Grace, the Spirit
of God calls dead sinners from death to life. In sovereign grace,
God gives faith to His elect, those for whom Christ died. We
have no inherent faith. Faith is not natural to sinful
men. It is only the fruit of the Spirit of God. In sovereign
grace, God keeps and preserves us in faith. We do not keep and
preserve ourselves. In sovereign grace, God conforms
us to Christ's image and presents us to Himself without fault to
His and our exceeding great joy. Salvation is by sovereign grace. There is no salvation that is
not sovereign grace. When God saves a sinner, it is
in spite of all that we have done, in spite of all that we
are, and on the ground of the obedience and blood of Jesus
Christ alone, and by the almighty power of the Spirit of God through
the preaching of the gospel of His grace. The sovereignty of
God does not keep me from salvation. It is the sovereignty of God
that saves. I would not and could not choose
Christ, but God chose His people before time began. He gave them
to Christ to save, and our Lord Jesus Christ died for them. Jesus
Christ is God and man. God took the offense of our sin
that separated us from Him. He took it in His own person,
the person of His Son, and bore it in His own real human body
and soul. This is sovereign grace. He does
all. Not only does my salvation depend
only on His will and choice, and not only is my salvation
only because Christ actually made atonement for all my sins
and perfected me forever by His offering to God, But He must
bring the news of this sovereign saving grace to me, and persuade
me of my guilty, ruined, lost, and helpless condition, and convince
me that He has done all to save His people, that He actually
purged their sins by Himself, and He must give to me and cause
me to come and look to Him alone. In looking to Christ, I find
all that I must have to be delivered from evil, I find that all I
need has already been given me before the world began in Christ. And all that He did in living
and dying is all of my salvation. I therefore come to Him and call
upon Him and trust Him only. And when all inside of me and
all that is outside of me tells me there is no hope for me, I
look again and see that he has answered God with himself for
all that God requires of sinners. And I take his word to my bosom
that him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. And I see
in this woman that he gives mercy to those who thus come. And so
I look to him, I believe him, and I rely on him alone for everything
in my salvation. even and especially this saving
faith that enables me to see that my Savior is sovereign and
can save this perverse sinner in spite of all that I am, because
from first to last He saves by His will, by His work, by His
call, by His perfecting, by His preserving grace, and this alone
glorifies God. As the hymn writer said, loved
with everlasting love, led by grace, this love to know, gracious
spirit from above, thou has taught me it is so. Oh, this full and
perfect peace. Oh, this transport all divine
in a love that cannot cease. I am his and he is mine. You've just heard a sermon by
our pastor, Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone, or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our
website at YSGraceChurch.com.