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Great Faith
At a burning building in New York City’s Harlem, a blind girl was perched on the fourth-floor window.
The firemen had become desperate.
They couldn’t fit the ladder truck between the buildings, and they couldn’t get her to jump into a net, which she, of course, couldn’t see.
Finally her father arrived and shouted through the bull horn that there was a net and that she was to jump on his command.
The girl jumped and was so completely relaxed that she did not break a bone or even strain a muscle in the four-story fall.
The blind woman who jumped from the burning building exhibited great faith in her father’s words.
In a similar fashion, Jesus said of the Gentile woman in Matthew 15:21-28, that she had great faith, especially in contrast to the Pharisees mentioned in verses 1-20.
The Wrong Faith
In verse 21, it says,
Jesus went away from the conflict and confrontation with the Pharisees.
In the first twenty verses, Jesus confronted the Pharisees misguided worship.
They were very pious men who believed their righteous actions, righteous living, made them clean before God.
In this context they were stuck on ritual hand-washing.
Although the bible says nothing about requiring ritual handwashing , the Pharisees have made handwashing a requirement to remain clean before God.
Jesus refutes by saying it is nothing what goes into man that defiles, but what comes from his heart.
In doing this, Jesus reveals that true rightness before God is a heart matter, which makes it s faith matter.
The Pharisees tried to be justified before God by their works, proving they had the wrong kind of faith.
Their faith was pursued Judaism, not Jesus.
It could not perceive Jesus as the Messiah, the true Son God.
They persistently collided with him being pretentious and ultimately rejecting God provision for salvation.
So, Jesus withdrew from the Pharisees and went into the district of Tyre and Sidon.
Tyre and Sidon have a long history with the people of Israel.
Both cities were territories of ancient Phoenicia, which is now southern Lebanon.
Both cities were extremely wealthy and had little to no love for Jews.
Tyre was a hotbed of corruption and sexual immorality.
The prophet Ezekiel prophesied against Tyre because of its exploitation of her neighbors and its immense idolatry.
At the heart of Tyre and Sidon’s sin was pride.
Walter Elwelll noted, “Foremost among Tyre’s sins was pride induced by its great wealth and strategic location.”
Ezekiel prophesied that for its pride, Tyre would be completely destroyed to the point it would be like “the top of a rock” and a place for spreading nets (Ezk 26:4,5).
Tyre’s destruction came many years later by Alexander the Great and ultimately later by Muslims in 1291.
During Jesus’s day, Tyre had regained some status as a commercial power after Alexander the Great’s siege of the city.
Its population equaled that of Jerusalem, but consisted mostly of pagan Gentiles.
John MacArthur notes, “most of the native Gentiles in and near Palestine were less religiously and intellectually proud than their Jewish neighbors.
They had long since lost their military and commercial power as well as much of their religious and cultural heritage.
Their pagan religious systems had repeatedly failed them and now had little influence on their living.”
And oddly enough, it is here, in this setting, Jesus finds great faith.
We meet a pagan Gentile woman whose great faith outshines the righteous deeds of the Pharisees, and deserves to be honored on a day we honor women in the church.
The main theme of Matthew 15:21-28 is faith.
Faith is a constant and consistent trust and dependence toward God.
Faith is believing God and trusting him for all of your life now and in the life to come.
Jesus says the Canaanite woman had great faith.
What made her faith so great?
How can our women, and men, learn from her faith?
There are five marks for of faith I see in this woman that should be emulated.
And because it is mother’s day, I will focus the sermon toward the women of the church.
That being said, men, take note.
These Faith-filled marks are relevant to your walk with Jesus as well.
Five Marks of a Faith-Filled Woman
A Faith-filled Woman Runs After Jesus (Matthew 15:22a)
Matthew 15:22 (ESV)
And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me...”
The woman enters the scene somewhat frantically.
The Canaanite woman was desperate for Jesus to save her daughter from the grips of demonic possession.
She new her pagan idolatry was empty and worthless.
She was desperate for her daughter’s life.
We know its bad because of the adverb “severely” in verse 22.
The little girl was suffering very much, being tormented to the point of possible death.
When the Canaanite woman heard Jesus was in the area she rushed to meet Jesus on the eastern border of the Phoenician area.
She did not casually run into Jesus as a bystander on the street.
She ran to Jesus.
She desperately pursued Jesus.
She believed Jesus could bring life to her daughter like nothing else.
Was this blind faith?
No.
By this time Jesus’s reputation had grown into the Gentile regions.
Earlier in gospel of Matthew, it says
and in the gospel of Mark
]Mark 3:8
The Arch Bishop of Trent said of Jesus’ fame spreading,
“Like perfume betrays itself, so He whose name is perfume poured out cannot be hid.”
Arch Bishop of Trent
Jesus was bringing the kingdom of heaven to the broken.
People who were impacted, maybe who heard the gospel and believed, who took the Great Commission seriously, we telling the people Tyree that Jesus was the Son of God.
The woman cries out to Jesus, “Have mercy on me.”
Her cry is profound for a couple of reasons.
keep in mind, she is a Canaanite woman.
She is the descendent of a people whom God said to utterly destroy in Deut 7:2.
She was an enemy to Israel and had no religious ties to God’s promises, his word, or His blessing.
As matter of fact, the people of Tyre were descendents of a prince who spoke like Satan.
Through Ezekiel, God describe the prince of Tyre,
This woman grew up in a culture of arrogance and pride likened to Satan.
And here she is, asking Jesus, a Jew for mercy, hoping (believing- exercising faith) he will give it to her.
Secondly, she shows a spirit of repentance by asking for mercy.
Mercy is God’s compassion on people.
Knowing that fallen man had no ability to fix his fallenness, God decided to glorify his grace by giving sinners mercy.
Through his mercy and grace he offers salvation by faith.
Paul says as much,
I love the way Thomas Cranmer ties mercy and faith together.
eh says,
“He who has assured hope and confidence in Christ’s mercy has already entered into a perfect faith, and not only has a will to enter into it.
For perfect faith is nothing else but assured hope and confidence in Christ’s mercy.”
Thomas Cranmer
The woman’s cry for mercy is a cry of repentance.
Isn’t mercy what all repentant sinners ask God for when we realize we are unworthy of His grace or favor?
Have mercy on me, oh God, for I am a sinner.
It is worth noting how repentance and faith are tied together.
You cannot have perfect faith without repentance.
Faith without repentance is not saving faith.
That is Pharisee faith or religious faith or wrong faith.
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