Sermon Tone Analysis

Jesus has Compassion

Matthew 15:21–39 (NIV84)

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!

My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.”

Jesus did not answer a word.

So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

The woman came and knelt before him.

“Lord, help me!” she said.

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

“Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith!

Your request is granted.”

And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee.

Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down.

Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them.

The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing.

And they praised the God of Israel.

Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat.

I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”

“How many loaves do you have?”

Jesus asked.

“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”

He told the crowd to sit down on the ground.

Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people.

They all ate and were satisfied.

Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

The number of those who ate was four thousand, besides women and children.

After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.

“Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people.”

What a wonderful statement this is and what a wonderful word “compassion” is!

The word has a Latin root “compati” which means to ‘suffer with.”

It is a feeling of deep sympathy, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the pain of another and remove its cause.

Indeed the Greek word for compassion here splanchnízomai is from an earthty and crude derivative, descrbing the innards of an animal sacrifice; its entrails and its gut, the innards and thus used metaphorically of the gut wrenching feelings and pain that you feel when you are “moved with compassion” like the Good Samaritan, who saw the man lying in his blood of the road to Jericho(Lk 10:33) or the father of the Prodigal Son who was ‘filled with compassion” as his long lost son returned home broken and humbled by sin(Lk 15:20).Or like Jesus Himself who “when he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”(Matthew

9:36).

And this is what is in the heart of Jesus as he saw people in their need!

He felt sympathy and sorrow and had a strong desire to see the trouble of their pain and suffering removed.

When Jesus has compassion, he feels your pain; he sympathises with your weaknesses; He dies for you to forgive your sin and even now, He cries out to God for you - Hebrews 4:14-16, “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven,[f] Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

As we listen to the word of God today, I pray that the compassion of Jesus; His heart for you might draw you to Him for comfort; for grace; for forgiveness; for mercy; for healing and for deliverence from your pain and suffering!

Jesus had Compassion on the Outcast!

“Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!

My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.”

Jesus did not answer a word.

So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

The woman came and knelt before him.

“Lord, help me!” she said.

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

“Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith!

Your request is granted.”

And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”

Jesus, as we have observed in recent sermons from Matthew’s Gospel was experiencing increasing hostility and opposition.

It came mainly at this stage from the religious establishment, the Pharisees and the Chief Priests and political establishemnt, like Herod Antipas who was stuggling with his guilt and shame at having John the Baptist killed and thinking Jesus was John the Baptist, raised from the dead!

So Jesus, left Galilee, and withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon,outside of the borders of Israel and into foreign territory of Pheonecia, which today would equate to the southern mountains of Lebanon, up to 50 miles north of Galilee, to an area in which the climate would be cooler and the air fresher!

This was a deliberate withdrawal:

It was not because he was frightened but in order to gain some rest and respite from the relentless nature of His ministry and to prevent the religious and political establishment, prematurely carrying out their threats to kill Him, for His “time had not yet come’(John 7:6).

He did not go to minister there because Matthew 15:24 makes it clear “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

Indeed Mark 7:24 makes it clear that “Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre.

He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret.”

Though, He was aiming at a secluded place of respite, His fame had spead beyind the borders of Israel and was widely known in these foreign parts(see Mark 3:8)!

Even as far back as Matthew 4, when Jesus was first beginning His ministry in Galilee, Matthew 4:24 says that people were gathered out of that area north of the border of Palestine as far as “Syria” and were coming down into Palestine, into Galilee, bringing their sick with them for healing and deliverance.

This paints a picture of the minsitry of Jesus which though primarily focuded on Israel for now was overflowing in grace to the regions beyond

Indeed, Jesus was only too well aware of the Gentiles and their readiness to receive them in contrast to the Jewish rejection, saying in: Matthew 11:21-22 “Woe to you, Korazin!

Woe to you, Bethsaida!

If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.

But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.”

So although Jesus is NOT YET widening His ministry to the gentiles, nor changing the priority of preaching to “the Jew first”(Rom 1:15,16), He is nonetheless ever open to people who seek Him, whatever their race; gender; ethnicity or human characteristic!

Examples of this are included in the Gospels for example in Matthew’s Gospel with the Roman Centurion in chapter 8 and also in John 4 with the ministry to the Samaritan woman!

This is a reminder that the “gospel” is “GOOD NEWS” to anyone who believe, the “power of God for the salvation of anyone who beleives, first for the Jew, then for the Gentile”(Rom 1:15-16) because the compassionate heart of Jesus is ever open and responsive to all who cry out to Him!

Now consider the woman - a Canaanite according to Matthew, that is to say, one of a race of people who preceded Jews in the land of Israel, as its original inhabitants.

Mark describes her as a “Syro-Phoenician”, from the area of Syria and Phoenicia, which is today known as Lebanon.

She belonged to a people who were pagan idolaters, with a long history of hostility with the Jewish people.

She’s not in a position of covenant privilege; she is to use the language of Paul in Ephesians 2:12 “excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.”

She’s an outcast, she has no claim on the covenant, no right to ask anything of Jesus, and she knows it, so all she can do is cry out “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!’

She is a perfect example of a sinner who comes to Jesus without merit; without claim; unworthy as they are and simplyc cries out for mercy! - “God have mercy upon me, a sinner!”(Matthew 18:13).

On the 10th March 1748, John Newton, an African slave trader explains in ‘a day much to be remembered by me; and I have never allowed it to pass unnoticed since the year 1748.

For on that day the Lord came from on high and delivered me out of deep waters.’

The storm was terrific: when the ship went plunging down into the trough of the sea few on board expected her to come up again.

The hold was rapidly filling with water.

As Newton hurried to his place at the pumps he said to the captain, ‘If this will not do, the Lord have mercy upon us!’

His own words startled him.

‘Mercy!’ he said to himself in astonishment, ‘Mercy!

mercy!

What mercy can there be for me?

This was the first desire I had breathed for mercy for many years!’

About six in the evening the hold was free from water, and then came a gleam of hope.

‘I thought I saw the hand of God displayed in our favour.

I began to pray.

I could not utter the prayer of faith.

I could not draw near to a reconciled God and call him Father.

My prayer for mercy was like the cry of the ravens, which yet the Lord does not disdain to hear.’

‘In the gospel,’ says Newton, ‘I saw at least a peradventure of hope but on every other side I was surrounded with black, unfathomable despair.’

Newton hoped for mercy; he sought it and found it -

Amazing grace!