Great Faith

Introduction

Last week we looked at how our tendencies are sinful. We are all sinful all the time. We even see that our words reflect that of a true Christian while our hearts are far from God. We know that even through this we still have hope in Jesus, this hope is found in the salvation that he offers. We accept this salvation by putting our faith in Jesus. So what does the faith of someone who’s heart is close to God look like? We see in tonight’s passage just this.

Tonight we will see a woman that has great faith, her faith can be described as persistent and trusting. This is what our faith should look like but so often it doesn’t. The crazy thing is that everyone else should have had greater faith than her but they didn’t. Status, situation, location, or anything else does not have anything to do with your faith, it is all about your relationship with God. What kind of faith do you have? What kind of faith would you like to have? I want faith like the woman in this passage. Lets read the passage tonight and see the great faith of this woman.

Mark 7:24–30 ESV

And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” And he said to her, “For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.” And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

Lets start by breaking this passage down a little bit. The region of Tyre and Sidon is similar to the place where the crazy strong demon possessed man lives where the herd of pigs drowned. So it was not a Jewish region and according to the bad traditions that we talked about in the last few weeks Jews should wash themselves after just being in that region. Next we see that the woman is from this place and is herself a gentile, which just means that she is not from Israel. The people of Israel considered anybody that was not a Israelite unclean. To go even further she was a Syrophoenician which means she was a descendant of the Canaanites which were historical enemies of Israel. By the common Jewish standards of the day she was one of the most unclean people that you can have. In the last few weeks the controversies have been over the Jewish view of what is clean and unclean. See they took what the Bible says about this topic and added to is and it got out of control, Jesus comes into the picture and completely flips their view upside down.

We see that Jesus uses this term dog which is interesting because it is in reference to the woman. Because of her status Jews would have referred to her as a dog, this is typically a derogatory term meaning useless animal. Jesus uses a different term in the original language still referencing a dog but the term that he used means beloved pet. Once again shifting the view on the people that are outside of the nation of Israel.

Even through this we see that this woman is not like the the people that Jesus described last week where they honor him with their lips but their heart is far from him, we see that her heart is nearer to him than the people of Israel! We see in Matthews account of this same story Jesus say this to the woman; Matthew 15.28 “Then Jesus answered her, “O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed instantly.”

What if we had faith like this woman? This persistent trusting faith. Even when we feel as though we are not worthy, which we are often right, we still trust Jesus to fulfill all that he promises and we are persistent in our following and in our request. This kind of faith would change our lives and we should strive for it more and more each and every day of our lives. Faith like this comes from a heart that is close to God.

Pray

Persistent

Mark 7:26 ESV

Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

The first detail to notice about this woman’s faith is that it is persistent. What this means is that she did not give up in her faith. The word begged in this verse is in the plural form showing that she did not just ask once but she was asking over and over and kept on pursuing.

What if we pursued Christ like this in faith? Giving all that we have to go after him and follow him. This is what our faith should look like. The constant pursuit of Jesus and growing in Christlikeness. but what might this look like in our lives?

The first thing that should be evident in your life is the constant two way communication with Jesus. The first way is you talking to him through prayer. Prayer should be more than just something that you do but it should be a lifestyle. It says in 1 Thessalonians 5.17 “pray without ceasing,”. Prayer is something that you should be doing always and constantly. You should also not be afraid to pray about the same thing all the time. An example of this is praying for the salvation of someone, you pray for their salvation until it comes and it may never come. We need to be persistent in our talking to God.

The second mode of communication is God talking to us through his word. We need to read our Bible’s. The most important thing for any Christian to do is to read, meditate, and apply God’s word onto their lives. We can talk to God all day but if we never listen it is all pointless and self centered. Read through the entire New Testament, it is not that big and I know that you all can do it. There is more that comes out of reading the Bible than anything else you do. Persistence in Bible reading is persistence in chasing after Jesus and that is a persistent faith.

Even in her unworthiness the woman in the story was persistent and it is because of this that Jesus said “Great is your faith!”

Trusting

The second detail of this woman’s great faith is that it was trusting. She trusted Jesus in everything. She trusted that he could make her daughter well, she also trusted that she was who he said she was. Her faith had complete trust running through it all.

Mark 7:27–28 ESV

And he said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

Here the children is referring to Israel and the dogs is referring to the Gentiles. Jesus is saying that he came to the people of Israel first just like the children eat first but she says that the dogs still get the crumbs, asking for just a tiny portion of what the Jews get. Here Jesus said you are a dog, though not in a derogatory way like it often way, and she trusted that she was a dog. She trusted that she was who Jesus said she was.

This level of trust in Jesus is so great. She is persistent but in a full trusting way. So often we are persistent but in a way that we are trying to wear down God when instead we should be persistent with full trust that he will do what is good.

We can trust God so much right now and you can build this trust more and more. You can build this trust by looking back on what he has done before and trust in that for the future. My favorite example of this is from the life of George Muller, he trusted that God would provide for his orphanage and God always did. As the orphanage grew he kept trusting God for the provision because he knew God provided for it when it was small and he was confident that he would keep providing no matter the size of the orphanage. Through this after years and years of trusting in God and seeing the results then it was not that difficult to have a complete trust in God.

Our faith should be defined by complete trust in the one that we have faith in. Faith that completely trust is great faith!

Conclusion

Salvation comes by faith. We have sin and need forgiveness for our sin so that we can be made right with God and not have to suffer the penalty for our sin. Faith is how we accept this forgiveness. This faith is a persistent trusting faith, a faith that never lets up and never stops trusting, a complete faith. Some of you here tonight may have never put your faith in Jesus, this is what that faith is and if you would like to talk about this more any of us adults would love to do this. Some of you may have true saving faith but it doesn’t quite look like this, you need to come back to Jesus and be strengthened by him. You need to talk to him and listen to him while trusting him in every situation. Live out the great faith that you have available.

This passage shows us how an unlikely woman has great faith and she is not like the Pharisees and scribes who’s hearts are far from God. This passage also shows us something that will come in the future, in this time Jesus came to the people of Israel but upon his death burial and resurrection it was for all peoples. He came first to the Jews but now everyone is included in his promises! This includes us. We see this foreshadowed in this passage as the woman is commended for her faith and Jesus teaching how the dogs eat after the children. The promised made in the Bible are promises for us, not the nation of Israel but the household of faith. Are you a part of the household of faith?