The Education of Jesus' Disciples

Matt. 15:21-28.

RESPONSIVE READING: MATT. 15:29-39.

The purpose of the church is to be the second version of EMMANUEL – God with us. The Church is the earthly manifestation of Jesus Christ. Paul told the Ephesians, “for we are members of his body.” We are Jesus’ hands, feet, head and heart on earth. His holy Spirit abides in us, upon us and goes before us. The church is to be the gate to salvation. We are salt and light, the outsiders, the non-conformists, and the sacred community to the world.

The world makes us look like hedonistic, hypocritical, uninformed followers of a dead messiah and a dying religion.

We are the one community on earth that is comfortable on the grinding mill. Our mission is to tear down, root out, throw down, and destroy cultural scaffolds and dead traditions that glorify carnal things. We are to build the priestly kingdom through faith and love in Jesus Christ.

We’ve gone off course. We’ve strayed away from our purpose through Satan’s schemes. We have become selfish, intolerant and slothful. The real church exists on the other side of comfortable. The real work of the church is on the other side of the sanctuary. We are all here to catch fish, and clean them, no matter how hard.

You have the power to bind and loose. With a little faith, a little courage and a little patience, we can change every neighborhood and city where we worship. No need to stress. Miracles await us outside of our comfort zones.

Matthew 15:22 (NIV)

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

The woman fell down at Jesus’ feet pleading for him to heal her demon possessed daughter who is suffering.

“Jesus did not even answer a word.”

Jesus knew the heart and soul of the woman who came to him, but he first had to dismantle all the stereotypes his disciples held towards people like her.

The key verse in this story is verse 23.

Matthew 15:23 (NIV)

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

This was racial. The woman was a Canaanite- a Greek from Syrian Phoenicia. She was a Canaanite. The conflict between Israel and Canaan went all the way back to Moses.

Deuteronomy 7:1–2 NIV

When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you—and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.

No Mercy. The Jews held on to a historic hatred of all Canaanites. The Canaanites were more despised than the Samaritans. She’s from the land of spiritual idolatry.

Jesus said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

“She fell down before him. Lord, help me.”

Jesus said, “it is not good to give the CHILDREN’S bread and cast it to the dogs.”

I always thought Jesus was intolerant with this woman. Out of all the cultural structures Jesus tore down in the gospel, he treated this woman like nothing. Then I looked further. Jesus used this women to address the disciples prejudice.

Was Jesus referring to her as an animal? What was Jesus doing by addressing this woman with such humiliation? These are strong words. He was expressing what his disciples are really thinking. The disciples felt the woman did not deserved God’s mercy. She was from Canaan. This was racial.

Jesus Christ is not making an example of the woman, but of his disciples. Jesus will show his disciples how important it is to get past prejudice. Once you do, you will find there are true and hidden values in other people.

The disciples saw this woman as an unclean. This gentile woman had no right to come in and personally appeal to Jesus to help her. She was embarrassing herself.

They were Father Abraham’s children. The Law and the prophets belonged to the Jews. Jesus illustrated their bias so that he might expose it for what it is.

We all deal with our own bias in our own lives whether it’s someone’s opinion, someone’s appearance, someone’s history, or someone’s lifestyle. We tend to care about what people think, not who they are. Jesus has enough grace for every person.

We get caught up over the color of one’s skin, their ethnic or cultural identity. People do not care about the color of your skin if you can help.

The disciples were waiting to see if she would walk away after such insults. But Jesus knew why she was there. The love for her daughter and her faith in the son of David. She was not leaving. She would let nothing come between her and God’s mercy. Jesus thought about another woman who did not deserve God’s mercy.

In Luke, Jesus said,

I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. Luke 4:25-26.

When the brook dried up for Elijah, God said,

“Go at once to Zarephath in the region of Sidon and stay there. I have directed a widow there to supply you with food.””

All she had was a handful of flour and a little oil. She was going to make a biscuit so she and her son would eat it and die. But She fed the man of God first. They survived until the famine ended. Later, her son took ill and she cried out to Elijah.

The sorrowful woman fell down before Jesus beseeching him for her daughter. The woman was in pain because of her daughter is possessed by an impure spirit.

Sometimes we pray and seek God because the people we love are in pain. We suffer out of our love for them. People do not know what you are carrying, who you are carrying, and why you are so heavy-laden. Your pray may not be for you, but for someone you love. Satan has them in his grip and you will have no peace until they are free and healed.

What is this desperate woman asking Jesus for? She’s asking Jesus to restore her daughters’ sanity. And in times like these, we all need more sanity. She wanted what we all want and need- sanity.

When misjudge people when we are outside of a culture. We really have no idea of their desperation and need unless they demonstrate it. if someone we consider unacceptable comes in need, let them prove they need help before we respond. This is one of the lessons Jesus wanted his disciples to observe.

She said, “But the little puppies eat the crumbs from the children’s table.”

This Greek woman is willing to be referred to as a dog for her daughter’s healing. She knew she was not inferior to anyone, but she needed the Son of David to cast out Satan. No matter how desperate you are, maintain confidence in yourself and have faith in Jesus Christ.

THE CRUMBS FROM UNDER THE TABLE.

All my Ministry I’ve looked at the crumbs as a blessing God. The smallest actions of God lead to blessings. I would gladly accept the smallest things God gives us are worth it. but I see something else in that passage.

The crumbs are not the point. The point is that this woman had such faith in Jesus Christ, that she refused to be denied.

The disciples received an education. They saw someone outside of their tradition and outside of their race who had greater faith than themselves. They learned that God’s grace is free to all. Jesus is the Messiah of every race. They will learn this lesson over and over again as The Holy Spirit will fall all over the world in Jesus’ name.

Matthew 15:28 (NIV)

Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” Her daughter was healed at that moment. Healing comes the moment your faith is activated. There may be no outward signs, but the power of God is working according to God’s will.

The city of Tyre exported, a special purple dye known all over the world. You had to take 100s of mollusks like oysters and press them down to get 1 teaspoon of this exotic purple dye.

Sometimes God puts us under the greatest pressure to extract from us the richest resources of the soul. Thank God for the pressure you are under. It is with this pressure that God extracts, the deepest and richest elements of your life and character. When he has tried you, you shall come for like pure gold.

Great faith is you can be in one place while God is working in another.

Great faith will always get a strong response from God. He is the rewarder of them who diligently seek him.

The other day, my granddaughter, MADISON called me and asked me if I was going to pick her up from school. I was already at school waiting for. When you have great faith in Jesus Christ, you’ll find out that he’s already there. He’s already here he’s just waiting for you to acknowledge him.

We tend to evaluate the great churches by their attendance, by their financial report, by their production; Great churches should be evaluated by their ability to recognize those in need.

What if we all said, at the same time, in unison, that we are going to bare one another’s burdens?, That the strong shall be the infirmities of the week; that those who are spiritual, will restore those who have fallen in the spirit of weakness.

This story is a picture of our glorious future in Jesus Christ, where there is no male or female, no Jew or Gentile, no bond or free, and everyone in the kingdom of God is healed.

Everyone can come under the Cross.