Well, good morning. I give honor
to our God again, the one who's worthy of all glory, and I magnify
Him, Father, Son, and Spirit, our great and our eternal God,
God of covenant grace to sinners and His Son. And we are so thankful
again to be with you this day and this weekend. It's been our
privilege as we've been together to enjoy your fellowship, and
I'm glad for God's goodness to grant that to me and Terry again.
And I want to express my thanks to you as a church for being
such a blessed host to Terry and me. It has been a great,
great privilege to be back among the Lord's people here. Blessed
are they that know, but blessed are they as well that love the
joyful sound. the good news of the Gospel,
and we're so grateful that God has given to us that great, blessed,
wonderful message of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. I want
to invite you in our hour this morning to turn to Matthew chapter
15, and I'll say as we turn there, Happy Mother's Day. And as we
turn there, I want us to look at the faith of a mother here
in Matthew chapter 15 that extends far beyond the faith of a mother. The Lord Jesus speaks of this
faith that we read of in Matthew 15 as being great faith, and
so we see here in this portrait of great faith some of those
elements that would make up the kind of faith that God gives
to His people, the kind of faith in which God is honored by His
people. Let's look together please in
the words of Matthew 15 beginning at verse 21 and we'll read together
through to verse 29. and 28 really ends the passage,
but we see our Lord in His return back to Galilee in verse 29. Verse 21 of Matthew 15 reads,
Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coast 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 meet to take the children's bread and to 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. And Jesus departed from thence,
and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee, and went up into a mountain,
and sat down there. We trust our God will add His
blessing this morning, His stamp and seal to this portion of His
Word. May we just bow before Him again to ask His blessing.
Father, we unite our hearts as we bow our heads before Thee
in the worthy name of Thy dear Son. We're so grateful, Father,
for the gift of the Lord Jesus. Father, that unspeakable gift.
Father, we pray as we look at this portion this morning, by
Thy Spirit, You'd be pleased to bless this portion to the
glory of Your Son. And Father, to the good of our
souls, we magnify you, we bless you, Father. We ask you now,
be exalted in thine own strength, in Christ's name, amen. Well,
again, we see here the faith of a mother presented, but it's
a portrait of great faith because our Lord calls it such in verse
28. It's interesting in Matthew's
gospel to see a little bit of what is said there about faith.
Matthew 23, the Lord tells the religious people of His day,
scribes and Pharisees, ye have omitted faith. In other words,
they had no faith. They were marked by a knowledge
of the Old Testament scriptures, but they had omitted faith, our
Savior says. They lacked it. Sadly, there's
a lot of religion today that's characterized by that absolute
lack of genuine faith. But then our Lord spoke to His
disciples, remember, and He said, O ye of little faith. And we
think about that reality. But in Matthew's Gospel, there
are two instances where great faith is spoken of. The first
is found earlier in Matthew, Matthew chapter 8. It's a centurion. And here it's a Syrophoenician
woman. In both cases where our Lord
acknowledges great faith, it's on the part of Gentiles. And I believe there is in that
an indication by Matthew of the shift that would take place in
this age as the Gospel would turn away from Israel and come
to the nations. It's seen even in Matthew 2 with
the, the wise men visiting. They come from afar. The scribes
in, whom Herod consults in Jerusalem when they show up, they don't
make their way to Bethlehem, but these Gentile wise men do. And it's an anticipation of this
present Gospel age in, in large measure. but as we think about
this woman in particular, brothers and sisters, I want you to notice
some things that stand out relative to her faith. The first of those
is that her faith is a personal faith. Again, if you'll notice
with me, verse 21, Then Jesus went thence, and departed into
the coast 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. As we look at this, we see the
first thing that is important concerning our faith is it was
a personal faith. Now I want us to think about
that in a two-fold measure. She's praised, she's got a need
for her daughter, but her prayer is, have mercy on me, oh Lord,
thou son of David. The need for her daughter doesn't
eclipse the fact that she has a need for herself, a personal
need that she realizes. Now, mercy is something that
we take for granted a lot of times in the vocabulary. where
we don't sometimes think about it. But mercy speaks of the presence
of a need, but also alongside of that presence of a need, the
ability of the one from whom mercy is asked to meet that need. But also not just the ability,
but also a willingness is understood too. And that, brothers and sisters,
is something that marks mercy from generations of revolutions,
as the black preacher said. From Genesis to Revelation, the
matter of mercy is seen in terms of a need, first of all. And
that need addressed to one who has the ability to meet it, but
also one who has the willingness or desire to meet it. You see,
you may be poor and Bill Gates be a millionaire, he's got the
ability to meet your need, but I doubt he had any willingness
to do so. First of all, he probably doesn't
have any recognition of you. Oh, but how different it is with
our God. Amen. So good to know. And so this
woman cries out for mercy. So there's a personal need, but
that personal faith is not just with regard to her personal need.
It's regard to the way she petitions the person to whom her faith
is directed. And that, brothers and sisters,
makes all the difference in faith. You know, we hear it said so
much today. In our society where Someone
has said, everybody goes to heaven. Everybody dies, they go to heaven.
In our society, that seems to be the culture. And so in our
culture, where everything's so nondescript, you'll hear that
phrase, just believe. I don't wanna just believe. I
wanna make sure I've got the right objects of my faith. And
that's so vital. If I could illustrate it for
you, if we could imagine a creek, with a deep chasm in it, one
side of the ground, one, the other side of the ground. And,
and here's someone who's walking across a rotten plank. And as
they walk across that rotten plank, they're one of those positive
people who has faith in their faith. They know that they know
that they know that they're going to make it across. But if the
object of their faith is a rotten plank, it doesn't matter all
the faith they've got. The object of their faith is
wrong-headed, and so they're going to get wet. Here's somebody
who's got a footbridge that's strong and durable, and they're
one of those pessimistic types, you know. They were going to
be an optimist, but they were afraid it wouldn't work out,
you know, that kind of person. And here they are. I just don't
know if I'm going to make it across that way. I'm not sure. But as they put
foot to their faith and they walk across that firm, that strong
object, they're going to make it. And that, brothers and sisters,
is all the difference between faith in the right object and
faith in the wrong object. I don't care if you know, if
you know, if you know. If you have faith in your faith
that doesn't take hold of Christ the Rock, your faith is no good. And this woman, she has that
right object in that faith that is personal, in that it embraces
the right person. It doesn't embrace a doctrine.
She has some truth about Christ, but it's not just a doctrinal
faith. It's a faith that embraces the
person of the Lord Jesus Christ. I love the way it's presented
in that hymn. My faith has found a resting place, not in device
nor creed. I trust the ever-living one.
His wounds for me shall plead. I need no other argument. I need
no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died
and that he died for me. That, brothers and sisters, is
the faith that this woman evidences. She's living the other side of
the cross. but she has a faith that takes hold of the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, as we think about that,
I'd ask you just to consider verse 21 with me. We read there,
Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coast of Tyre and Sidon. The thence is Galilee. He'd been
ministering there. Chapter 15, verse 1 opens with
the idea that the scribes and Pharisees came to him, And, you
know, they've got a burning issue they need to discuss. Why do
your disciples eat with unwashing hands? Man, that, that is the
issue of the hour, is it not? And that's what religion does
so often. It, it, it, it takes us away
from the real issue, which is Christ. It, it, it misleads us. It deceives us. And sometimes
people will have 20 questions for the preacher, if they're
kind. A lot of times more like 100,
isn't it? Because of the fact that people don't know what the
issue is. The four Gospels, they're written
to do what? To show us that Christ is the
issue. that Christ is that question that you must answer. John Newton
said it so well in that poem that's been set to music. So
many of his hymns, so great, but he asks this, what think
ye of Christ? That's the test. To try both
your state and your scheme, ye cannot be right in the rest,
unless you think rightly of him. And I can just imagine our Lord
hearing, as he makes this trek, Tyre and Sidon was a good bit
north of Galilee. But I can imagine as he makes
that trek, he's thinking, oh, if I could just find some faith.
No more arguments about washing hands. No more arguing about
the tradition of the elders. If I could just find some faith.
Now we know that he's gonna find it because if he finds it, he
gave it. yet in this episode again, outside
the bounds of Israel, up in Tyre and Sidon, and we remember Tyre
and Sidon, don't we? That's where Jezebel was from,
King Ahab's wicked wife, wicked King Ahab's wicked wife. But
you remember what happened in Tyre and Sidon? Elijah was told
to go up there when his brook gave out at Cherith. And he went
up to the region of Tyre and Sidon, Jezebel's home area. And God was going to make a Belite
woman, a Belite worshiper, a woman worshiper of Bel, a follower
of Jehovah. When Elijah dwelt with her as
she was going out to gather sticks, remember, for her last supper,
Elijah said, make me a cake first. For the Lord God of Israel says
the cake will not, the crews of oil will not fail and the
barrel will not give out a meal until he sends rain on the earth.
And there was faith, faith that God had given to a Baal worshiper
up in Tyre and Sidon. Here we find this Syrophoenician
woman given faith by the grace of God and with that faith she
cries out personally to the Lord Jesus Christ and she says in
those words again that show her recognition of the object of
her faith, O Lord thou Son of David. Now there are some who
dispensationally will say she had no right to say Lord Son
of David. I don't understand that. I think there's some reason to
what Augustine said, divide the times and the scriptures will
harmonize. I believe there's a measure, but brothers and sisters,
she recognized him as Lord. And you know what the scriptures
say in 1 Corinthians 12, 3? No man can say Jesus is Lord
but by the Holy Spirit. God's Spirit has done a work
in this woman. In the sense of her need and
that of her daughter, she cries out and she says, have mercy
on me, O Lord, son of David. I know while many in Galilee
and many in Judea don't recognize you're the Messiah God promised
Israel. I know you're the son of David.
I know you're the one who has that pedigree. I know you're
the promised Savior. I know you're the covenant prophet,
priest, and king that God had said He would send. And she could
say, my faith has found a resting place. But as she speaks of that,
brothers and sisters, that, that, that personal faith is not going
to be without test. Now, aren't you glad that we
live this side of the cross where we don't have to face test of
our faith? I say that tongue firmly patted
in the cheek if you didn't catch that. That was satire, sarcasm. This woman finds some challenges
to her faith. Before we focus on that, though,
I want you to notice that which we see about her faith as well,
that it is a perceptive faith. As she cries out about her own
need personally, she also realizes the need of her daughter. She
says as she addresses our Lord, have mercy on me, O Lord, thou
Son of David. My daughter is grievously vexed
with the devil. You know, there's a whole lot
we're not told about her daughter here. We're not given her age.
Johanna's eight today. We're not told how old this young
lady was. We aren't told if she was pretty,
if she was Not so pretty. We're not told if she was smart. We're not told if she was not
smart. We're not told if she was tall. We're not told if she was short.
Because this woman's faith didn't look at those things. This woman's
faith was perceptive to realize whatever her daughter had going
for her, her daughter was possessed with the demon. She looked at
the spiritual deed of her daughter. You know, that's the greatest
gift I think God can give children, is a mother who is perceptive
in her faith to realize their greatest need is to know God
in Christ. And this woman, she catches hold
of that. Again, whatever may have been
the case about her little girl, And you know, doesn't matter
if she's 29, she's still mama's little girl, and daddy's too,
I would add. But it really doesn't matter. Whatever
she may have going for her, whatever her IQ, she may be a Miss America
contestant. If she doesn't know God in Christ,
she's missing life. And this woman has that perceptive
sense that makes her bring her daughter to the Savior. And that's
something that we all need to see relative to the need of our
children. Finances, prestige, power, looks, none of those things
really matter. The greatest need we have is
to see them know Him. And that should drive us to prayer,
if they don't know Him. I've heard sometimes people say,
concerning the doctrines we believe about God's electing grace, what
about my children? And what they mean by that is,
if I believe what you believe about election, I despair because
my children may not be saved. And you know what the implied
thought in that, behind that is? My children are safer with
free will than they are with the sovereign God. And one thing
I know is my children are not safe if they're left to themselves.
If God leaves them alone, they'll perish. I need him in mighty
grace to come and do what he did for me. I was going to hell
and happy of it when he arrested me on my mad rush to hell. And I needed him to do the same
for them. And the only hope my children have is electing love,
sovereign grace, brothers and sisters. For the one who snatched
me as a brand from the burning is able to do that for them too,
praise God. And that leads us to do what
this woman does, if we understand it rightly, that is to carry
our children to Jesus. Lord, would you intervene? Lord,
I know they're happy, they've got a good job, they're educated,
and they feel like they're living the life of Riley. But Lord,
they don't know you. Please interrupt them. Lord, if you have to take away
what they've got, so they'll have you. Lord, do what you must,
but bring them to yourself. woman has that kind of perceptive
faith. She, she, she sees beyond the
glitter and glamour of the world. And sometimes even believers,
especially, especially I believe in our country, are seduced to
think if their children have a good job, and if they've got
a good education, that's enough! And it's not enough! For there's
a next chapter after the final chapter of this May we intercede
to God for them. May we pray, Lord, let your name
be hallowed by sovereign grace in the conversion of my children.
May you do that for your glory. So this woman's faith was perceptive. She cried out first for herself,
but then she cried out for her beloved daughter. She asked of
God that he would work. He asked of our Lord that he
would do for her. Now we come to the larger part
of the passage, in which we see that which marks her faith as
being a persistent faith. It was marked by a persevering
character. And I love this scene because
it shows to us what genuine faith does. There was a song that used
to be sung in, I guess, more southern circles called, I Would
Not Be Denied. And I didn't like it. It says,
I would not be denied, I would not be denied, till Jesus came
and saved my soul, I would not be denied. I thought, that's
too free will. It says, like Jacob in the days
of old, I wrestled with the Lord, an instant with the courage bold,
I leaned upon his word. And I began to think through
that song. I said, that's not free will at all. That's a sovereign
grace song in application. Because when God works in the
soul of a sinner whom He will save, He puts with them a faith
that will not be denied till it lays hold of Christ. Everything
else is extraneous. It's unnecessary. I need Christ. I must have Him. And that's what
true faith says. And I see that in this woman
here, brothers and sisters. She's marked by that kind of
faith, by the grace of God in the gospel. That faith is hers,
the gift of God that says, I'll not let go, to bless me. She'll not be put off. great,
it's a great example for you and me, not just for mothers,
for every one of us as children of God. Let's notice it please
there, in the words of verse 23, we see silence exhibited.
This woman comes with this position, this petition, excuse me, crying
out to the Lord Jesus, and when we read the word cry in Scripture,
it would be something akin to what I just did, with the volume. My wife shook her head that way.
I don't know why. Maybe she's falling asleep or
maybe she thinks I'm too loud. I don't know. But, you know,
when you cry with a loud voice, there's volume, but there's also
intensity and there's urgency. I remember years ago hearing
Brother Dennis Ward tell about his wife, Brenda, when he was
pastoring in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. His nephew, his brother was in
the church, and his nephew, Michael Charles, wanted to go home with
Aunt Brynn. And he'd ask his parents, and
they said yes. And so he was running over there,
outside the parking lot, over to where they were parked across
the street. Auntie, Auntie, I can go! And she saw a car coming.
She yelled out, Michael Charles, Michael Charles! And he stopped
dead. She didn't just say, Michael
Charles, excuse me, please stop your run." She cried with urgency. This woman's crying out like
that, and yet the Lord answered her not a word. Silence was what
she received. And I love the disciples here. I don't love the response, but
notice, And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send
her away, for she crieth after us. Boy, were they mistaken.
She wasn't crying after them, she was crying after him. They got the big head, I guess,
you know. She's crying after us, Lord. No! Get it right, Peter. Get it right, John, Andrew. She's
crying after Him. She realizes what He alone can
do for the need of her and the need of her daughter. And as
they say that, the Lord says, He answered and said, I am not
sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. We find
something similar earlier in Matthew 10 when our Lord sends
the twelve out and He tells them, go not into the way of the Gentiles,
but go ye rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Here our, our Lord is, awaiting that time, I believe, when in
his glorification after his death, burial, and resurrection, the
gospel would go to the nations. And that's why he tells of that
as he ascends. He says, behold, I give you power. And
he says, as you receive that power, you're to be witnesses
unto me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts
of the earth. event of His death and resurrection and ascension
hasn't taken place. He says, I'm not sent but the
lost sheep of the house of Israel. And I'm sure she overheard our
Lord as He said that to the disciples, and we read this in verse 25,
Then came she and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, help me. Get a picture of that faith,
again, persistent, persevering, Can you imagine if we'd have
heard somebody say that to us in the flesh? We're a Gentile
and we hear them say, I'm just sent to the lost sheep of house
Israel. Well, I'm going to take my ball and go home. I'm not going to do that. That's
all right. Keep your stuff. But this woman
knows. That intensity's there because
she realizes there's no God in Tyre and Sidon who can do what
this one does. This is the one who has the power
to save in His hands. And so, as she falls before his
feet and cries, Lord, help me, the Lord Jesus, having explained
the silence to his disciples, goes on to explain it to her,
but he answered and said, it is not meet, that is, it is not
fit, it is not right to take the children's bread and to cast
it to dogs. Now at this point, most of us
probably would say, I am going home now. Do you hear what he
called me? But listen to true faith, listen
to what she says, verse 27, and she said, Truth, Lord, that's
right, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their
master's table. There's faith, brothers and sisters.
This woman says, Dog, yes, but I'm your puppy. You're my master,
I'm your puppy. I'm not asking you to rob the
children, because I know you're so great, you're so powerful,
that all I need is a crown from the table, and it'll meet my
need. Hallelujah. That's faith, brothers
and sisters. Faith that lays hold of Christ. Now, when we think about dogs,
we live in a society that's eaten up with dogs. Terry and I know a woman in the
church, she and her daughter have pedigree dogs they sell
for $3,000 to $5,000. I'd never pay that for a dog. Some men will pay a lot of money
for a good hunting hound. You've got all kinds of dogs.
You've got Pedigree dogs that have papers they got more papers
than then than people have they know their generations You've
got dogs that are hinds 57 we call them the Duke's mixture
kind that you don't know what they are You can guess but you
don't know if you'll hit it. We've got big dogs. We've got
short dogs. We've got hunting dogs, we've
got pleasure dogs, we've got lap dogs, we've got dogs in Alaska
that pull sleds. We've got all kinds of dogs,
but you know they've got one thing in common, they're all
dogs. And you know, it's similar. We've
got white sinners and we've got black sinners. We've got red
sinners and we've got women sinners. We've got men sinners and we've
got rich sinners. We've got poor sinners and we've
got educated sinners. We've got dumb as brick sinners.
But they've got all one thing in common. They're all sinners. And that's what this woman realizes
when she's called a dog. She says, Lord, that's right.
but I'm your dog. And here's the thing that we
must realize. Every one of us are sinners,
but brothers and sisters, as sinners, we need to be His sinner. We need to be one of those sinners
whom Jesus came to save. You know that song, Tell Me the
Old, Old Story has a stanza in it. Tell me the old, old story
in earnest tones and grave. Remember I'm the sinner whom
Jesus came to save. You see, there are plenty of
people in this world that hear that statement, this is a faithful
saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the
world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. And they hear that
and even though they're sinners, they say, that's not me. But
oh, when the Spirit of God ever opens the heart of the sinner
to see, that's what I am. and we're brought to rest ourselves
to go before His feet in worship and say, truth, Lord, but I'm
your puppy. I'm your whelp. I need your grace. And here, brothers and sisters, a woman of Canaan becomes a mother
in Israel. By the way, she's not the only
one. We mentioned that woman in 1 Kings 17 from the same area,
the coast of Tyrenside. But some of you may remember
a harlot from Jericho. She'd heard a 40-year-old rumor
about these people who'd come out of Egypt, and she believed
that Jehovah was God. And she's enrolled in the registry
of the ancestry of our Lord Jesus, Matthew 1. She's not the only
one, though. Before that's Tamar. She was
a Canaanite girl, too. Married Judah's son. Some of
y'all remember the sordid tale. She's enrolled, too, because the father of her child was also
the grandfather of her child. Not technically, but if you follow
the storyline, you know what I mean. Then we have that woman Ruth,
a Moabitess, who was a worshipper of a false god, but she said,
Thy people shall be my people to Naomi, thy God my God. What is God showing to us, brothers
and sisters? It's writ large there in the
genealogy of Matthew, the genealogy of our Lord, that God saves sinners. And I'm glad to tell you this
morning as we bring the message to a close, and I give you a
few minutes early, I'm glad to tell you I'm tickled to be one
of his whelps. I'm tickled to be one of his
puppies. And eternity will never find
me growing tired of being one of his whelps, one of his pups,
one of his little ones, to use another word from Matthew's gospel.
And I'm glad this morning that he's able to meet my need. I'm
glad he's able to meet my children's need. I'm glad he's able to do,
brothers and sisters, what no one else can do. May this faith
be our faith. Whatever we meet with in life,
in the midst of circumstances, may our faith be a persistent
faith that clings to Christ. I remember years ago reading
this little couplet in Spurgeon's sermons. I finally asked a brother
whom we know who does a lot of research to find it for me. He did. I think it's in Gadsby's
hymnal, but it said this, sink or swim, I go to him. That's
what persistent faith does. This woman is marked by that.
May hers be, by his grace, that kind of persevering faith that
takes hold of the Lord Jesus. Thank you. Our middle name is Caleb. Caleb,
that's right, dog. Amen. All right.