GRACE FROM HARSH WORDS

On April 14, 2015April 10, 2015 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Christianity, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

When we recognize that we are sinners, that we are in desperate need of Jesus, but with no right to ask anything of him, then we can receive the only grace that will save us. I don’t mean that we should spend a lot of time feeling guilty. But the truth is, we cannot receive grace until we believe that we are in desperate need, and yet we deserve nothing. And in this situation, faith inspires us to ask anyway, assures us that there is grace for the humble and repentant.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part 49

Matthew #49 . Matthew 15:21-28

This is one of those places in scripture that is very troubling when you read it through quickly. It just doesn’t sound like Jesus, at least, not until we stop and consider it more carefully.

Jesus is in the region of Tyre and Sidon, the area, where long ago, Elijah healed the dead son of a Gentile woman, while the nation of Israel suffered under famine. A Gentile woman comes to Jesus, asking for help for her demon possessed daughter. Now, I would think this would be right up Jesus’ alley. He has delivered people from demons before and there is no question that he has the power to do what she asks. It is in the tradition of the great prophet, Elijah. In addition, demonization represents the one power that all Christians would call “the enemy.” It seems obvious that Jesus would want to strike a blow against this sort of thing. Not only that, but we have come to see Jesus as a person of great compassion, and this is an opportunity to combine that gracious mercy with a blow against the enemy.

And yet, when this Canaanite woman comes to Jesus, he flat-out ignores her. And when he finally does pay attention to her, his words are almost insulting, and appear to be designed to send her away in shame. But I do not think that what we see on the surface truly reflects the heart of Jesus. In fact, in this incident I believe, we have again an example of how he sees into the heart of each one, and endeavors to give each person what they truly need.

The woman continues her pleading until the disciples are so distracted that they ask Jesus to do something. Jesus’ reply, when it finally comes, sounds harsh: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Somehow, the woman gains admittance into Jesus’ presence and again she begs him to heal her daughter. Again Jesus’ reply is appears unsympathetic, quoting what some commentators believe was probably a common proverb. In any case, it certainly sounds severe. The woman replies, comparing herself with a dog licking the crumbs from the children’s table. Jesus, apparently satisfied, grants her request.

How shall we understand this incident? Is Jesus truly so uncaring? Why did he deal with woman as he did? Ole Hallesby offers some insightful words about this incident:

Every time Jesus sees that there is a possibility of giving us more than we know how to ask, He does so. And in order to do so He often has to deal with us in ways which are past our finding out……

Jesus had somewhat the same thing in mind with the Canaanitish woman when He delayed and postponed the answer to her prayer, first by remaining painfully silent and then by using some sharp, harsh words. he wanted to give her more than a healed daughter. He wanted to give her something for herself besides.

Jesus is seeing something here that we don’t initially see: the heart-need of the Canaanite woman. In his response, he is seeking to address that need. I’m not sure the woman herself was aware of the need in her heart until Jesus got her attention by responding so strangely.

She comes to him initially because she has an obvious external problem: her daughter is tormented by a demon. I think most sensible people understand her position. She has a problem. It’s a serious one; a spiritual one, and here is Jesus who has shown himself willing and able to deal with issues like this. That’s all she wants from him: to heal her daughter. To her (and, I suspect, to us) this seems fairly simple and straightforward.

But Jesus wants to do more than simply fix her problem. This is another aspect of something Jesus said earlier:

“Don’t collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matt 6:19-21, HCSB)

The woman is looking at the here and now. What she wants is not bad, but it is not eternal. The healing of her daughter is not a treasure that would last forever; in fact, we know this for certain, because both the woman and her daughter are now dead. Jesus wants to give her something that will last forever, a treasure that will neither spoil nor fade.

Let’s look at the progression. I admit, I am reading between the lines a little bit here, but when we are done, I think you’ll agree that looking at the passage in this way gives us a satisfactory understanding of why Jesus would behave like this.

At first, the woman is upset about her daughter. Her mind is focused almost entirely on her daughter’s situation. When she comes to Jesus at first, she is not interested in him for his own sake; she simply wants her daughter to be healed.

When Jesus does not respond at all to her request, it creates tension for the woman. Now, for the first time, she is thinking about something besides her daughter’s condition. She is now also wondering why Jesus won’t even speak to her. In this way, by ignoring her, Jesus is beginning to get her attention. She was upset about her daughter; now she is also upset about Jesus. He has started the process of moving her focus away from her problem and toward himself.

As I believe Jesus had hoped, the woman does not give up, and keeps asking for help. I think, however, that now she was interested not only in the help of Jesus, but also in his behavior. The disciples appear to have less patience than Jesus, and finally they plead with him to respond to her, if for no other reason than to simply get her off their backs.

Jesus’ response, when it finally comes, must have been very unsatisfactory to the woman:

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

However, this does not deter her. She kneels before him, and says simply, “Lord help me.” Again, this is reading between the lines, but this is not the same as her initial request. She does not mention her daughter this time. She simply asks him to help her. I think she is beginning to see that she has a bigger need than simply the healing of her daughter.

I think Jesus sees the change in her. However, he wants to make sure she really understands, so his response is still apparently very callous:

He answered, “It isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to their dogs.”

Jesus is trying to help her understand grace. She has no more right to ask anything of him than the dogs have to the food of children. The first lesson of grace is that we desperately need it; the second lesson is that we do not deserve it, cannot demand it, and could never earn it. Her response shows that she gets it:

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

She understands that she has nowhere to turn but Jesus, and no hope apart from him. She understands also that Jesus owes her nothing, and she has no right to ask. The greatness of her faith is that with this understanding, she asks anyway.

When she acknowledged that she was indeed in the position of “the dogs” – completely dependent on the grace and favor of the Master – then she received the very unmerited grace and blessing that she desired. And because Jesus had brought her to this place by her harsh words, she received God’s grace not only in the healing of her daughter, but in the healing of her soul, as a helpless, needy sinner. Though his response seemed harsh, he succeeded in giving her not only what she wanted, but what her deepest need required.

This is one of the reasons it is so important for Christians to remember the seriousness of sin. If we do not recognize that we are sinners, that we are in desperate need of Jesus, but with no right to ask anything of him, then we cannot receive the only grace that will save us. I don’t mean that we should spend a lot of time trying to make people feel guilty. But the truth is, we cannot receive grace until we understand that we are in exactly the same position as that Canaanite woman: we are in desperate need, and yet we deserve nothing. And in this situation, faith inspires us to ask anyway, assures us that even though our Savior sometimes gets our attention with harsh words, there is grace for the humble and repentant.

There’s something else about this passage that I think is quite important. If we walk with Jesus long enough, sooner or later he will appear to us in the same way that he appeared to this Canaanite woman: unresponsive, distant, and even harsh. We might want something from him that appears to be simple, straightforward and like something he would obviously want to do for us. And yet, sometimes he doesn’t seem to respond at all, and at other times he appears to respond with a harsh or callous answer. When this happens, I want us to remember this Canaanite woman. From Jesus’ response she learned and acknowledged her true position of dependency upon grace; and yet her faith led her to keep seeking Jesus, in spite of the disappointment with how he was initially.

I think it may help for us to remember that sometimes Jesus has a vision that is bigger than our vision, that he often wants to give us much more than the small things that we ask for. The Canaanite woman was not looking for saving faith. She wasn’t looking for eternal life, even though that was so much better than the temporary healing she sought for her daughter. However, because she persisted in faith, she received both things. Sometimes, the Lord appears distant, or even harsh, because he is trying to get our attention. Our focus is so often on present things that will not last, while He wants to give us something eternal. He’s trying to get our eyes off of our problems and onto himself.

Will you allow him to do that in your life today? Allow him to remind you of your desperate need, and the fact that you deserve nothing from him. Allow the Scripture to strengthen your faith however that even when we have no standing, the Lord is gracious, and his heart goes out to those who seek him in humility and repentance.

Hallesby is a source of rich application for this text. How many times have we stormed heaven with an unanswered prayer request, crying out again and again, in distress, because the Lord says not a word to us? How often the Lord’s response to our prayers seems delayed so long, or harsh when it comes. Yet, we see in the way he dealt with the Syro-phoenician woman that his intent is always to give us more than what we ask for. He desires not only that are needs are met, but that we live in greater and closer reliance on Him and His promises. He wants us to see that we have no other hope.

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DO YOU REALLY RECEIVE WHEN YOU ASK?

On July 29, 2014July 25, 2014 By Pastor TomIn Bible, Bible Teaching, Jesus, Matthew, Podcast, Religion, SermonLeave a comment

The reasons for not receiving what we have asked for in prayer are real and legitimate. Sometimes we become discouraged because we aren’t able to see the entire picture, just as our children are sometimes disappointed with our answers to their requests, even when our answer is good for them. But Jesus does promise a good response from our heavenly Father, and we can rely on that!

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Matthew Part

Matthew #22 . Chapter 7:7-11

There are many parts of the Sermon on the Mount that are challenging in many ways. Jesus’ standards for morality are challenging. Words like “Blessed are you when men cast insults at you and persecute you,” are not easy to digest. But the words of Matthew 7:7-11 are difficult in another way. They are wonderful words, gracious words. The difficulty is they seem almost too good to be true. Let’s take a look.

“Keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who searches finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. What man among you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! (Matt 7:7-11, HCSB)

The truth is, brothers and sisters, this is just plain good news. We have a Father in heaven who loves us. He is the Creator of the universe, the one true Supreme Being, and he cares about you. He loves you more perfectly than you love your own children. And he wants to give you good gifts. He wants to answer your prayers.

There isn’t much that this particular passage needs by way of explanation. It says exactly what it seems to say – that God loves you, and he will answer your prayers in accordance with his love for you.

But I (and I assume others) sometimes have a difficult time with this passage, because so often it appears that God is not answering our prayers. Sometimes the gift doesn’t seem to come, that which is sought is never found and the door is not opened. Why does this happen at times? Can we really rely on Jesus’ words?

The answer is yes. The reasons for our experience of what we call “unanswered prayer” are several, but I believe is starts with God’s desire to answer us by giving us “good gifts” (NIV), or “that which is good” (NAS).

Jesus makes the comparison to earthly parents, so let’s start there. Sometimes my children ask me for things that are not good, or things that are good only in small measure. Candy is a great example. It sure feels good going down, and a little bit of it is fine, but too much of it is bad. When my kids were young, and they asked for candy when they had already had as much as was good for them, I said no. Now, even though my answer to their request is negative, that “no” is a good gift to my children – it protects them, and keep them healthy. I am giving them something good in response to their request, even though it wasn’t what they wanted. God deals with us the same way. So we need to understand that sometimes the good gift God gives is the answer of “no” to our prayers.

Sometimes the problem with candy is the timing. Maybe my kids haven’t had any sweets all day, and they ask for candy right before supper. Even though they haven’t had any candy yet, I will say no, because to give it to them now would prevent them from receiving the healthy nutrients I’m going to give them for supper in just a few minutes. Again, it is this way with the Lord. At times we may not see that he is withholding one request in order to grant another, after which he can also give us the first request.

Another issue that sometimes comes up is capacity. When they were little, and we lived in the city with a yard about the size of a pickup truck, the kids wanted a Saint Bernard dog. I knew, however, that neither they nor our yard had the capacity to deal with that gift at that time. There was simply not enough space for dog like that and our kids were not yet responsible enough to take care of it by themselves; I also had serious questions about how much it would cost to feed a Saint Bernard. So the answer was “no” for that time. I felt that as their capacity to handle the gift increased, hopefully the answer could become “yes.” In the same way, we often pray for good things that are beyond our capacity to handle. Perhaps we want fame or fortune when our character is not yet equipped to deal with it. Fame and fortune have destroyed many a soul. Maybe we want to be married, but we aren’t emotionally or spiritually ready for it; perhaps we want to own a business or get a promotion that would end up sucking up so much time and energy that we would drift away from God. Maybe we want a job that we would only end up losing because we aren’t really capable yet of doing it.

Think of God as an all-wise bartender. One person asks for a drink, and the Bartender gladly serves her. Another asks, and the Bartender won’t serve him, because even one drink would make him drunk. Another can handle one drink, but once she starts, she won’t quit until she’s feeling the buzz, and she has no one to give her a ride home; the Bartender refuses her also. Another has already had a drink or two, and Bartender won’t serve him, because he’s had enough already. People drinking in a bar are rarely good judges of their own capacity for alcohol. Sometimes we are also poor judges of what we really need from God, and whether we can really handle what we are asking for.

Not even Jesus’ first disciples always knew what they were asking for:

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached Him and said, “Teacher, we want You to do something for us if we ask You.” “What do you want Me to do for you? ” He asked them. They answered Him, “Allow us to sit at Your right and at Your left in Your glory.” But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you’re asking. Are you able to drink the cup I drink or to be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with? ” (Mark 10:35-38, HCSB)

They thought they were asking for glory; Jesus knew that what they were asking for meant incredible suffering for them. Sometimes the greatest good God can give us is to answer us with a “no” or a “not yet.”

Another possibility with unanswered prayer is that what you are asking God for is not good at all. Believe it or not, there are people who ask God to aid or support their sinful lifestyles, and then become bitter when he doesn’t. A classic example of this is the Indigo Girls song Hey Jesus. In the song, a woman is praying to Jesus that her unmarried live-in lover doesn’t leave her. She becomes bitter toward God when the prayer is not answered the way she wants it to be. But you might as well not pray if you are asking God to help you sin. This goes along with what James says in James 4:3

“When you ask you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”

Also, the apostle John writes:

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him.” (I John 5:14-15)

Obviously, if we want God to help us sin, that is not according his will. On the other side, John is saying, “If your prayer falls within Biblical guidelines of what God desires, you can be sure that he pays attention to it.” Prayers which are within God’s general will, as revealed in the Bible, will be answered with something good (remember, “no” or “not now” can be as much of a good answer as “yes.”)

One more reason we may not receive the good thing we have asked for is because it involves another person’s choice to reject God. When our prayers involve the decisions of other people (for example, suppose you are praying for someone to come to know Jesus) we ought to remember that the Lord still gives people the option to say “no” to him. God chooses not to force people to do what he wants; he wants our love to be real, and so we all have the freedom to choose. In other words, sometimes you cannot find what you seek because someone else has chosen to ignore God.

There is a final issue that is part of the difficulty of Matthew 7:7-11. James identifies it when he writes:

If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.” (James 1:5-8)

The truth is, “ask and you shall receive” is very simple, direct and gracious. But often we have a hard time believing it. The very fact that we don’t believe it prevents us from taking advantage of this promise. We don’t believe it, so we don’t really ask in faith or expectation, if we even ask at all. And since we don’t ask in faith and expectation, we don’t receive what we ask for. And since we don’t receive what we ask for, we feel that our lack of faith has been justified, so we have even less faith next time we ask. It is a vicious cycle of unbelief. Often we enter into this cycle because our starting point is skepticism. We read Matthew 7:7-11 and our first response is: “I’m not so sure about that. Prove it God!” And because that is our starting point, we don’t give God a chance to really prove it, because we aren’t really praying with the faith that he is good and that he answers prayers to our benefit. It comes down simply to faith. God said it, do we believe it?

These reasons for not receiving what we have asked for in prayer are real and legitimate. Sometimes we become discouraged because we aren’t able to see the entire picture, just as our children are sometimes disappointed with our answers to their requests, even when our answer is good for them. But I think that the Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB) captures an important part of what Jesus says. The Greek verbs “ask, seek and knock” are each in the present tense, active voice and imperative mood. That’s why I think the HCSB has it best, because it translates it: “keep asking, keep searching, keep knocking.” To capture the imperative mood, we might even put an exclamation point after each phrase: Keep on asking! Keep on searching! Keep on knocking!

Yes, there are times, when because God is a good Father, his answer will be “no” or “wait.” But clearly, Jesus wants us to understand that many times God will answer “Yes!” or “Of course! I’d love to!” God really does want us to come to Him with our requests. And He delights to respond to them with good things even more than we delight to give our children good things. The Father wants us to keep on coming to Him, keep on searching, keeping on knocking.