The Unworthy Made Worthy

Introduction

(Good Friday/Dawn to Dusk prayer/Easter)

(Zack &Karissa Zimmerman - Trenton, Izabel, Axel, Vivian)

I’ve never been a huge garage sale guy. There’s some people that I know that just love to go garage “saleling,” but I’ve just never been one of them. I mean, I know this isn’t what garage sales are, but I just feel like when I go to one that I’m just rummaging through people’s trash can and then saying, “Ooo, can I give you money for this?”

Like, a garage sale to me feels like someone was about to toss something in the trash can and they thought, well, let’s see if our neighbors will give us money for this.

I’ve probably just offended so many people here already who love garage sales and you know what, a story I came across recently may just change my mind.

About 20 years ago a man was rummaging through a garage sale near his home in Fresno, California. He loved to collect antiques and so he was just seeing what these people had that maybe he could salvage.

So, he stumbled upon these two boxes that were filled with these old glass plate photo negatives. He pulled one of them out and looked at it and noticed it was a picture of Yosemite park. Well, he had worked at Yosemite as a young man and so he thought these were a pretty cool find.

So, he haggled with the seller and talked him down from $70 to $45 for both boxes.

He took them home and stored them under his pool table for a few years. He began though to do some research on them and started to discover that these negatives that he bought for $45 may be worth more so he had some experts begin to look at them.

After about 6 months of inspection they discovered that these were long-lost glass plate negatives from none other, than famed nature photographer, Ansel Adams. And these were negatives of some of his most famous work ever done.

The entire collection within these two cardboard boxes that this guy bought for $45 was estimated to be worth over 200 million. That’s not too bad a return.

Most of the time, yeah, a garage sale is going to be nothing but rummaging through worthless items but sometimes in the midst of those unworthy items, something is found, that put in the right hands is of great value.

This story we’ve heard read this morning from Mark 7 is one such story.

It’s a story of a woman who in the eyes of the culture of that day, especially the Jewish culture, was a nobody. Someone who wasn’t worth a second glance. A person to be avoided and ignored. Someone who was seen to have no intrinsic value or worth whatsoever.

But in the right hands, the hands of Jesus, she shines. The unworthy are made worthy.

Problem

Here was a woman, as we’ll see, who understood her intrinsic unworthiness when compared to the holiness of Jesus. She knew there was nothing good within her. She knew she needed God’s mercy. And she knew that Jesus was enough for her.

Just like those Ansel Adams glass plate negatives, if they would have just remained in those boxes for decade after decade they would have done nothing. They had no ability within themselves to be seen, to be useful and admired. It wasn’t until they were placed in the right hands that all of a sudden the world saw their beauty.

This is an interesting story to read especially after what was studied last week and what Jesus taught. You remember? Jesus said,

Mark 7:15, “There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”

He’s teaching them that it’s their heart that needs redeemed. There’s nothing they can do externally to fix themselves, to make themselves right before God because they’re internally depraved, they’re sinful, their hearts are “desperately sick.” No, they need another. They need a Savior. They need a new heart. They need to be in the hands of a Redeemer who can make them whole.

But again, how often do we try to clean ourselves up before God? How often do we try to pretty ourselves up through moralistic, religious performance rather than belief and faith in a Savior who is our righteousness?

I believe Mark put this story in here to show his readers exactly what Jesus was teaching earlier.

Main Aim

He puts this story in here to show us, I think a few things as we’ll look at. But the one main thing we see in this story is the scope of the gospel.

You see, the Jewish people had such a narrow view of God’s kingdom. A narrow view of God’s salvation. A narrow view of God’s Messiah.

To them, ultimate salvation was Rome being overthrown and them establishing their king once again on the throne just like king David to rule over the Jewish people. But they failed to recognize that David was nothing but a picture of the eternal King of kings that the people truly needed. They failed to recognize that the kingdom that God was establishing was not a temporary earthly kingdom but an eternal heavenly one.

And they failed to recognize that this Kingdom of God would be filled with worshippers redeemed from every tribe, every language, every nation.

Their view was narrow and internally focused. Jesus is showing them the scope of the gospel, the scope of God’s kingdom. He’s showing them that all are welcomed around the table to feast upon the goodness and mercy of God.

And so, what do we see?

Big Idea

No one is too unclean to receive mercy from an abundantly generous God.

Body

So, let’s examine this story of the Syrophoenician woman. Let’s see the scope and breadth of the gospel.

Follow along with me, starting in verse 24, page 698 if you’re using one of Bibles in the pew racks in front of you.

Mark 7:24, “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.”

So, what do we see here regarding God’s glorious gospel? Well, we see that,

The Gospel was God’s idea from the beginning

Now, just to make sure we’re all on the same page here in understanding what I mean when I say the word, “gospel” let me just take a few minutes to explain what the gospel is before I then walk through this first point.

There often is a misunderstanding among people of what the gospel actually is.

And so, Scripture explains it this way.

1 Corinthians 15:1-4, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.”

Mark 10:45, “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Isaiah 53:5, “He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.”

Romans 4:25, “[He] was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”

Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

So, taking these passages and many others like it, what do the Scriptures teach us regarding what the gospel is?

Well, we see that the gospel is good news, it’s a message or announcement about how we have been rescued from certain danger or as Romans 6 says, “death.” This is an eternal death, an eternal separation from God in an eternal and literal Hell. And not only have we been rescued from peril, but we have been set right or reconciled with God, our Creator. Through faith in Christ we have been justified.

Which means this. Tim Keller does a great job in his book, Center Church of breaking this down.

This means,

The gospel is good news, not good advice.

The gospel is not primarily a way of life. It is not something we do, but something that has been done for us and something that we must respond to.

It means, secondly,

2. The gospel is good news announcing that we have been rescued or saved.

So, we’ve been saved from the coming wrath of God (1 Thess. 1:10). We’re out of fellowship with God, our relationship with Him is broken. We’re sinful, rebellious, idolaters in need of redemption.

Thirdly, it means,

3. The gospel is news about what has been done by Jesus to put right our relationship with God.

The gospel announces what Christ has done to reconcile us back to God through his life, death, and resurrection.

Becoming a Christian, then is about a change in status.

1 John 3:14, “We know that we have passed out of death into life.”

And so, we are either in Christ or we aren’t. We’re either pardoned through Christ and accepted by God or we aren’t. We either have eternal life, or we don’t. There’s no in-between.

Martyn Lloyd Jones used to ask a diagnostic question to determine a person’s spiritual understanding and condition. He would ask, “Are you now ready to say that you are a Christian?” (On a scale of 1-10…)

Many people, upon hearing that question would hesitate to answer with certainty. They would say something like, “I do not feel that I am good enough.” Or “I’m working on it.”

Hear his response.

“At once I know that they are still thinking in terms of themselves; their idea still is that they have to make themselves good enough to be a Christian. It sounds very modest but it is the lie of the devil, it is a denial of the faith. You will never be good enough; nobody has ever been good enough. The essence of the Christian salvation is to say that He is good enough and that I am in Him!”

This is the gospel. It’s what Jesus has done for us to make us right with God. We simply, believe and rest in Christ.

And so, back to our point here, this working of God through Jesus was God’s idea from the beginning. And the word beginning is even misleading. It was God’s plan from eternity past.

Have you noticed in Mark that there’s been a few times when Jesus tries to escape from the crowds or be hidden? Or he heals a person miraculously but then tells them, “Don’t say anything to anyone.”

Well, it’s happening again here in verse 24. It says, he entered a house and didn’t want anyone to know. Why this secrecy? Well, it’s because God had sovereignly appointed a time at which Jesus would go to the cross and now, wasn’t the time. Not yet.

Jesus had just had this epic smackdown with the Pharisees that we went through last week. The Pharisees hate Jesus and were looking for ways to kill him. But, in God’s timeline, the time wasn’t right just yet because Jesus needed to teach and heal and reveal the kingdom of God. He needed to explain the necessity of his death and resurrection even though his disciples didn’t understand. He knew they would afterwards. And so Jesus withdrew to get away.

What we see from Scripture is this perfect plan of God to redeem humanity from their sin and this plan was put in place before even the creation of the world.

We see in Ephesians 1 God’s sovereign choice of those who would belong to Him before the creation of the world.

Ephesians 1:3-4, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”

God the Father knew the cost of our redemption before the creation of the world.

1 Peter 1:18-20, “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.”

God the Father knew exactly when He would send Jesus into the world.

Galatians 4:4, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law.”

God the Father promised this redemption through the Son before the creation of the world.

Titus 1:1-2, “Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God’s elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began.”

The gospel, the sending of Jesus into the world was not a response put together by God after the fall of humanity in the garden of Eden. It’s been his plan from the beginning. From eternity past. Why? There’s mystery in this for sure, but it’s to reveal the full glory and character of God. In God’s treatment of sin and the redemption of humanity we see his holiness, his wrath toward sin, but we see his grace, his mercy, and his abundant love in saving underserving sinners.

And so, the gospel was God’s idea from the beginning.

Let’s keep going. Verse 25.

Mark 7:25-26, “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.”

The second thing we see regarding the scope of the gospel is that,

The Gospel knows no bounds

From what we can tell from the four gospel letters, this is the only time Jesus travels beyond the borders of Israel.

The cities of Tyre and Sidon were inhabited by Gentiles. In fact, this region had a long history of strong opposition to Israel. If you’re familiar with the Scriptures this is the region where Jezebel came from. So, it was a deeply pagan area.

James Edwards, a New Testament scholar says,

“Tyre probably represented the most extreme expression of paganism, both actually and symbolically, that a Jew could expect to encounter.”

So, we have to ask ourselves. Why did Jesus go here?

Now, Jesus went here intentionally. No doubt about that. I believe he picked this region specifically. Because think of the context of what we’ve just studied through last week. Jesus confronts the Jewish religious leaders with this strong teaching that purity, cleanness, acceptance with God does not come from acts of external righteousness. It’s their hearts that need to be changed and only God can do that.

The Jewish people believed that through works of morality they could be clean and pure and accepted by God. Not only that, they believed that salvation was only for the Jewish people. They despised the Gentiles, they treated them as second/third-class citizens.

They had nothing but disdain for the people in Tyre and Sidon. They were pagans. Incapable of receiving God’s love and acceptance.

But Jesus goes to this most extreme pagan city to show that the Kingdom of God, the gospel of Jesus Christ is for all people. To reveal that acceptance with God does not come through nationality, upbringing, or your morality or lack of morality but through Him and Him alone.

Jesus is the Savior for all people. He’s not the Savior for just one nation but all nations, all people groups, all tribes, all languages. Our God is a God redeeming people from all corners of the earth and we should be just as zealous to see the gospel go to the ends of the earth.

Psalm 66:1-4, “Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to him glorious praise! Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you. All the earth worships you and sings praises to you; they sing praises to your name.”

Psalm 67:1-4, “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you! Let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.”

Matthew 28:19-20, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The gospel knows no bounds. It is for all people.

The third thing we see regarding the scope of the gospel is found in verse 27.

Mark 7:27, “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.”

In the movie, “A Christmas Story” there’s that scene where Ralphie is helping his dad change a tire on the side of the road and he accidently knocks all of the lug-nuts into the road and he then says something inappropriate. What’s his dad’s response? “What did you just say?!”

Anybody get that feel here in verse 27? “Jesus, what did you just say to this woman? Did you just call her a dog?”

In this interaction with Jesus and this woman we see though that,

The Gospel is necessary

Throughout the past several chapters Jesus has been teaching what the gospel is, what the Kingdom of God is, who He is and everyone seemingly misses it. His disciples don’t quite get it. The crowds don’t understand, the religious leaders completely miss it.

Jesus heals a paralyzed man in Mark 2 and then says to him that his sins are forgiven. The Pharisees lose it. “Only God can forgive sins!” And Jesus is like, “Yes, make that connection then…I’m God.”

They miss it.

He feeds 5000+ people in Mark 6 and all the crowd wants the next day is another free meal and Jesus says, you’re missing the point. I’m the bread sent from heaven. Feast on me, take on me, and you’ll never go hungry again. They miss it. The disciples don’t get it.

Even last week. Mark 7 Jesus says you need a new heart. Your fleshly heart is dead and wicked and sinful. You need new life. You can’t clean yourselves up. You need a Savior. They don’t get it. What are you talking about?

The Jewish people just could not get past works-based righteousness. The failed to recognize their true neediness for redemption.

But you have here a pagan, Gentile woman, from an area of the world that had a long history of opposition to Israel coming to Jesus, and Mark’s account doesn’t say this, but Matthew’s account of this story says she came to Jesus saying,

Matthew 15:22, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David.”

You have a woman here, from outside the Jewish world recognizing the Lordship of Christ and her need for mercy.

Jesus said these words, not to insult her but what he was doing was drawing out the faith that we would see in her of her dependence upon Christ to save her and her daughter from demonic oppression.

Yes, Jesus called her a dog but we’re only offended when we wrongly assume that all people are basically good. But if we recognize, as Scripture says, that all of us, in our flesh, apart from Christ are wicked, depraved, sinful, idolatrous people, then that term not sound so harsh but accurate.

The gospel is necessary because we are all dogs. We’re all filthy sinners in need of grace and mercy.

And her response to Jesus statement here shows where her hope was found. Was it found in her goodness or in Christ’s life?

Let’s finish up today.

Verse 28,

Mark 7:28, “But she answered him, “Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

I love her response. It’s beautiful and reveals to us one more thing regarding the scope of the gospel.

The Gospel is sufficient

Here’s what she just said. “Yes, I know I’m a dog. I know I’m unworthy. I know I’m unclean, I know I’m unfit to sit at the table but I also believe there’s enough mercy on the table from you that even the scraps of it are enough for me to be made right.”

This is the abundance of God’s mercy and grace. It is enough. It is sufficient.

This means for us that a scrap of God’s mercy is more than enough than all of our moral goodness stacked up together.

A lifetime of good works compiled together would never come close to being enough to make us right with God but a crumb of Jesus’ mercy is more than enough to satisfy the wrath of God and to set us right with Him.

Application

Like this woman, are you hungry for God’s mercy and grace?

Like this woman, are you humble and broken before God because of your sin?

Like this woman, are you being eternally filled with the bread of life that comes from Jesus alone?

Conclusion

Yes, we are all dogs. Yes, we are all unworthy. Yes, we are all unfit to sit at the table with Jesus. But through Christ, we’ve been invited. Through Christ we now have a place at the table. Through Christ we now are filled with eternal joy. Through Christ we now have a new identity. We are no longer dogs but children of the King.

This woman did not just say, “I am a sinner.” She also said, “But your mercy is deeper than my guilt, wider than all my wanderings, stronger than my weakness, greater than all my sin.”

This is the scope and breadth of the gospel.