August 6, 2025 • 18 mins
Kingdom Faith goes beyond external appearances to transform hearts, challenge persistence, and build on God's past faithfulness in our lives. Pastor Brandon explores Matthew 15 where Jesus confronts religious hypocrisy, rewards persistent faith, and demonstrates consistent provision.
• Jesus challenges the Pharisees for valuing traditions over true heart transformation
• External religious activities mean nothing if they're used to circumvent genuine righteousness
• Understanding the cultural context of Jewish teaching through respectful questioning
• Jesus wasn't being racist to the Gentile woman - he was gently testing her faith with a smile
• True Kingdom Faith persists through resistance rather than giving up
• Even after seeing Jesus feed 5,000 people, the disciples still doubted He could feed 4,000
• God rarely repeats Himself in exactly the same way - He's creative in His provision
• Faith requires heart righteousness, spiritual resilience, and remembering God's faithfulness
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, hello everybody , welcome back to the Bible
Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today, matthew
, chapter 15, and today's titleis Kingdom Faith, kingdom Faith,
and we're going to get to allthat in just a moment.
So, if you have your Bibles, Iwant to open up with me to
Matthew, chapter 15.
While you're doing that, makesure you take just a moment to
(00:21):
like, share and subscribe to theYouTube channel and the podcast
.
Make sure you leave us afive-star review on the podcast
it really does help and itdoesn't cost you anything and
make sure you're going to theBible Breakdown Discussion on
Facebook.
There's an amazing group ofpeople doing a wonderful job.
And, for those of you who arenew and we've had a lot of new
listeners recently on both theYouTube channel and the podcast,
(00:42):
especially the podcast, whichis good, because you are always
going to be my favorites but wehave done something that we are
slowly doing, and that is we'vecreated a website called
TheBibleBreakdowncom, and themain reason for that is
BibleBreakdowncom was notavailable, but we have created
this as a kind of a hub where weare putting the daily podcast,
(01:05):
the YouTube channel anddevotionals and stuff like that,
and one day we're going to tryto move all of the conversation
from Facebook so that it'shappening on Facebook and on the
blog, because we have more andmore people all the time who are
telling us that they want toengage but they don't do the
Facebook thing.
So we're trying to find a wayto interact with as many people
(01:27):
as possible.
So if you don't do the Facebookthing, then you can go to
thebiblebreakdowncom and you canengage there.
Okay, all right.
Well, if you have your Bibles,want to open up with me to
Matthew, chapter 15.
Remember, the overall goal ofMatthew is to help us understand
about King Jesus, and as we'vebeen talking about is there are
(01:49):
four Gospels Matthew, mark, lukeand John, and all four of them
are a different point of view onwho Jesus is, was, what his
ministry was, and you know Markis talking about a lot of the
suffering of the Savior.
Luke was an orderly tale of thegospel.
John was really focused on themessage of Jesus, and Matthew
(02:11):
was primarily written to aJewish audience and so he was
all about telling them thatJesus is the king.
That's why, in chapter 1, hebrings receipts and he says, at
the very least, you know, jesusis the king of, of our world
Right.
He's the.
He is the earthly right to rule, but he is so much more than
that.
That's why chapter two throughtwenty eight he is talking about
(02:34):
all the rest of the thingsabout Jesus and, as we have been
talking about just to kind ofremind you a little bit we've
been talking about the idea thatMatthew could really be
subdivided into five differentcategories, and this category
right now is really now talkingabout what the kingdom of heaven
looks like in action.
And so as we get into chapter 15, we're going to see this
(02:57):
pattern that is developing, andwhat the pattern usually is is
you will have two or threechapters where Jesus will teach
about the kingdom of God, andthen there'll be two or three
chapters where he goes about anddoes the business of the
kingdom of God.
Chapter 15 is one of thosechapters, and so he is going to
cover various different aspects,or various different aspects
(03:18):
are going to be covered, and Iwant to tell you about something
really quickly I'm taking alittle time here because there
is something that is verymisunderstood about the
Pharisees.
Now we're going to open up withthe Pharisees questioning Jesus
, and I want to make sure weunderstand I am not a fan of the
Pharisees.
Okay, they were openly againstJesus, all the stuff.
But there is this idea that thePharisees completely discounted
(03:42):
Jesus the whole time and thatthe fact that they were
questioning Jesus meant thatthey were constantly attacking
him.
Now, that is true, but in theculture of the time, part of how
a teacher would teach would beto debate, answer questions and
that kind of stuff.
As a matter of fact, there is afamous Jewish rabbi who was said
(04:02):
to have gone into a communityand started teaching the Torah,
the first five books of Moses,to the people.
Famous Jewish rabbi who wassaid to have gone into a
community and started teachingthe Torah first five books of
Moses, to the people, and no onewas saying anything, no one was
questioning him, no one waspushing back on him, and all
this and he kept teaching, andhe kept teaching and finally he
stopped and just yelled out ifno one disagrees, how are we
going to learn anything?
And so in the culture it wasexpected, as almost a form of
(04:27):
respect, to ask questions to theteacher and the rabbi push back
, dig deeper, challenge so thatyou could learn.
That would give the rabbi achance to go deeper.
And so it was not out of orderat all.
There's this mental idea thatJesus is teaching in a synagogue
somewhere and then thePharisees speak out and ask
questions and that was like rudeor something.
(04:48):
No, they were actually wellwithin their right and well
within what they were supposedto do to challenge Jesus.
What they didn't expect is thewisdom of the King, and so we're
gonna see some of that today.
So we're gonna jump into thisand see how Jesus is being asked
these questions by thePharisees.
But I want to just give creditwhere credit is due, like call a
(05:10):
spade a spade, whatever.
They're not out of order atthis, but this also gives Jesus
a chance to show who he is.
So if you're ready, kind of alittle bit different perspective
now on what's going on, let'sread Matthew 15.
Here we go.
Verse one says this SomePharisees and teachers of
religious law now arrived fromJerusalem to see Jesus and they
asked him why do your disciplesdisobey our age-old tradition?
(05:34):
For they ignore our tradition ofceremonial hand-washing before
they eat.
Jesus replied and why do you,by your tradition, violate the
direct commandments of God?
For instance, god says honoryour father and mother, and
anyone who speaksdisrespectfully of father or
mother must be put to death, butyou say it is all right for
(05:56):
people to say to their parentssorry, I can't help you.
I have vowed to give to Godwhat I would have given to you.
In this way, you say you don'tneed to honor your parents, and
so you cancel the word of Godfor the sake of your own
tradition.
Hypocrites, isaiah was rightwhen he prophesied about you,
for he wrote these people honorme with their lips, but their
(06:19):
hearts are far from me.
Their worship is a farce, forthey teach man-made ideas as the
commandments from God Now pause.
What are they?
What is he talking about?
Well, what was apparentlybecoming a common thing is
people would go to the templeand they would tell the priest
hey, I want to give this portionof land over to the temple and
(06:41):
it can be sold and the money betaken to put in the temple.
And then agreement would happenwhere, as long as that person
was living, the land would betheirs.
However, they no longer couldsell it, they no longer could
give it to anybody else becauseit was promised to the temple.
And by doing this, what wouldhappen is they would get around
having to take care of anyoneelse, because they would say you
(07:03):
can't come live on my land, Ican't give you the money that is
taken from the land becauseI've already given it to God
when I die.
So it was a sneaky little wayof them kind of cheating those
people around them.
And Jesus is saying you actlike you're doing something holy
, but really you're actuallydoing more harm than good.
So it's a very kind of sneakyway of doing this right.
(07:24):
Verse 10,.
Then Jesus called the crowd tocome and hear.
Listen, he said, and try tounderstand.
It is not what goes into yourmouth that defiles you.
You are defiled by the wordsthat come out of your mouth.
Then the disciples came to himand asked Do you realize you
offended the Pharisees by whatyou just said?
In other words, do you realizeyou just kind of told their
(07:46):
dirty laundry out loud?
Jesus replied Every plant notplanted by my heavenly Father
will be uprooted.
So ignore them.
They are blind guides leadingthe blind, and if one blind
person guides another, they willboth fall into a ditch.
Then Peter said to JesusExplain to us the parable that
says people are not defiled bywhat they eat.
(08:07):
Do you not understand?
Yet Jesus asked Anything youeat passes through the stomach
and goes into the sewer.
So, in other words, theft,lying and slander, these are
(08:28):
what defile you.
Eating with unwashed hands willnever defile you.
So in other words, jesus issaying if you want to put things
in a list of hierarchy, whatmatters most is what comes from
the inside.
Then think about what is on theoutside.
A form of godliness is nowherenear as important as what you
(08:49):
are truly doing in your heart.
All right, this next part is oneof the most controversial
passages in the New Testament,so we're going to take some time
with this one.
Verse 21 says Then Jesus leftGalilee and went north to the
region of Tyre and Sidon.
This is where the Gentileslived, people who had open
hostility to the Jewish people.
A Gentile woman who lived therecame to him pleading have mercy
(09:11):
on me, o Lord, son of David,for my daughter is possessed by
a demon that torments herseverely.
But Jesus gave her no reply,not even a word.
Then the disciples urged him tosend her away.
Tell her to go away.
They said she is bothering uswith all of her begging.
Then Jesus said to the woman Iwas sent only to help the lost
(09:37):
sheep, god's lost sheep, thepeople of Israel.
But then she came and sheworshiped him, pleading Lord,
help me.
And Jesus responded Isn't it?
It isn't right take food fromthe children and throw it to the
dogs.
She replied true, lord, buteven the dogs are allowed to eat
scraps that fall beneath themaster's table.
Dear woman, jesus said to heryour faith is great, your
(09:57):
request is granted.
And her daughter was instantlyhealed.
Now pause, take a moment withthis, because I have had
conversations with people whosaid I don't think I can serve
Jesus.
Well, why is that?
Look at how Jesus was so veryracist and mean to this lady.
Can you explain that to meplease?
And they would say well,obviously she is a Gentile.
(10:18):
And he says I was only sent tothe lost sheep of Israel.
And even more, he calls her adog.
And that's terrible, because itis true that there were types
of dogs in the time, wild dogs,that were dangerous, and so
people would just struggle.
But this is why digging deeperis so important.
That's, first of all, not thekind of dog that he was talking
(10:41):
about, but also understandwhat's happening here.
This lady is not a God fearing,god worshiping person.
Most likely, she's a Gentile.
She's from Tyre and Sidon, sheis most likely polytheistic or a
pagan, and she is coming toJesus and she is saying only you
can help me, only you can helpme.
(11:02):
And she's worshiping and he'ssaying it isn't right to take
what is intended first for thechildren of God and throw it to
the dogs.
Well, think about it for amoment.
He isn't talking about theGreek word for this.
If you do the etymology of thisand the morphology, you look
deeper into the meaning.
This and the morphology.
You look deeper into themeaning.
This isn't a stray dog that isdangerous.
(11:22):
It's a family pet, it is anhonored member of the family,
it's a lap dog, it's the spoileddog.
And so actually, what he'ssaying, and so you can imagine
Jesus is saying this with asmile on his face, kind of a
wink wink, whereas other peoplewould have called her a dog, but
a different type of dog.
He is saying a sweet littlepuppy.
(11:42):
And so he is smiling when hesays this and he's saying you
know, it's not right to givewhat is intended right now,
cause he cause he says at thisparticular season, I'm here to
preach to the Jewish people, butit is going to go to the rest
of the world, like that'salready been established in the
book of, in the book of Matthew.
(12:03):
But he's saying during thisseason, you know, I'm supposed
to be here just for the peopleof Israel.
It's not right to give it tosweet people like you.
And then she says I know, buteven people like me need what
you have.
And he says, okay, there you go.
You said it right.
So he's not, he's not beingmean to her, he's pushing on a
(12:24):
little bit.
He's.
He's, he's actually kind of,he's being sweet to her.
In a way, if you really look atthe definition of what's going
on, he's not being hateful.
He's saying do you, you knowwhy?
Do you think I should do this?
You know, I'm only supposed tobe here for the Jewish people
right now.
And she's like I know, but weneed you too, jesus, you're
right, you do Go ahead.
So, if you look at it verydifferently, this is not a story
(12:45):
of Jesus being mean to her.
He's actually being very kindto this lady.
All right, verse 29,.
Jesus returned to the sea ofGalilee and climbed a hill and
sat down.
A vast crowd brought to himpeople who were lame, blind,
crippled, those who couldn'tspeak and many others.
They laid them before Jesus andJesus healed them all.
(13:06):
The crowds were amazed.
Those who hadn't been able tospeak were talking, those who
were crippled were made well,the lame were walking and the
blind could see again, and theypraised God, the God of Israel.
Then Jesus called his disciplesto them.
I feel sorry for these people.
They have been here with me forthree days and they have
nothing left to eat.
I don't want to send them awayhungry.
(13:28):
They will grow faint along theway.
The disciples replied wherewould we get enough food here in
the wilderness for such a hugecrowd?
Well, how much bread do youhave, jesus asked.
They replied seven loaves and afew small fish.
And then Jesus told all thepeople to sit down on the ground
and he took the seven loavesand the fish, thanked God for
(13:49):
them and broke them into piecesand he gave them to the
disciples, who distributed thefood to the crowd and they all
ate as much as they wanted.
Afterward, the disciples pickedup the seven large baskets of
leftover food and there was4,000 men who were fed that day,
in addition to women andchildren.
Then Jesus sent the people homeand he got into a boat and he
(14:10):
crossed over to the region ofMagadon.
Well, wow, there's a lot thereto look at.
We could look at how Jesus sayson the first part.
He says hey, make sure that youdon't do things just to be seen
by others.
Make sure you don't do goodthings in order to cheat people
of what's actually right,because you can do the right to
be seen by others.
Make sure you don't do goodthings in order to cheat people
of what's actually right,because you can do the right
things for the wrong reasons.
Then he looks at this lady andhe challenges her to really push
(14:36):
in a little bit deeper.
Do you want this healing?
Well, push in, seek after mejust a little bit more.
Don't give up the first timeyou experience some kind of
resistance, but seek a littlebit further.
And then, when he ends it, hechallenges even his disciples
let's feed the people.
Well, remember, he's alreadyfed 5,000, but they're still
going.
How are we going to feed thesepeople?
(14:57):
By trusting what God's alreadydone in the past.
That's why we call this chapterkingdom faith, because faith
causes us to be righteous inwhat we do.
Faith causes us to not give upat the first sign of resistance
and faith causes us to rememberwhat God has done in the past,
to trust what he's going to doin the future.
(15:18):
So my question for you is whatnext step do you need to take?
Is it possible that sometimesyou find yourself caught up in
doing the right things but, forthe wrong reasons, thinking that
the end justifies the means?
That's not what the kingdom ofheaven is all about.
The kingdom of heaven is aboutrighteousness, peace, joy and
(15:38):
the Holy Spirit.
You need to take a coursecorrection.
Maybe you're one of these peoplewho, because of trouble you've
experienced in the past, at thefirst sign of resistance you
tend to fold, tend to give up,you struggle with having
spiritual resilience.
Can I tell you, don't give up.
If God has given you a promisein his word, he will perform it.
(16:01):
And so just because youexperienced resistance doesn't
mean that God has changed hismind.
It might just mean that it'stime for you to dig in a little
bit deeper.
And then, if God has donesomething before, he is fateful
and will do it again.
Now it'll look different.
The first time when Jesus fedthe 5,000, he used five loaves
of bread and two fish.
(16:21):
This time, with 4,000 people,he used seven loaves of bread
and it says a few small fish, soit wasn't the exact same thing.
We should never expect God todo the exact same thing the
exact same way every single time.
God is a creative God.
God is the king over all theuniverse.
He'll always do things a littlebit differently, just because
he can.
Our job is to not figure Godout, even though we never stop
(16:43):
seeking after him as a form ofworship.
Our job is to trust him that ifhe did it before, he'll do it
again.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much for today.
Thank you, god, for your wisdomand your kindness toward us.
Thank you, god, that you nevergive up on us.
Thank you, god, that a sign ofresistance is not a sign of
failure.
It's not a sign you're notgoing to do something.
But even in those moments, god,you're doing more than we
(17:06):
realize.
My prayer today, god, is thatyou will help us to trust you
more.
You are faithful in all things.
In Jesus' name, we pray, amen,amen.
Well, god's word says inMatthew 28, verse 19,.
If you've got it memorized, sayit with me.
All authority in heaven and onearth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, therefore, andmake disciples of all nations.
(17:28):
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow forMatthew, chapter 16.
Well, hello everybody , welcome back to the Bible
Breakdown podcast with your host, pastor Brandon, today, matthew
, chapter 15, and today's titleis Kingdom Faith, kingdom Faith,
and we're going to get to allthat in just a moment.
So, if you have your Bibles, Iwant to open up with me to
Matthew, chapter 15.
While you're doing that, makesure you take just a moment to
(00:21):
like, share and subscribe to theYouTube channel and the podcast
.
Make sure you leave us afive-star review on the podcast
it really does help and itdoesn't cost you anything and
make sure you're going to theBible Breakdown Discussion on
Facebook.
There's an amazing group ofpeople doing a wonderful job.
And, for those of you who arenew and we've had a lot of new
listeners recently on both theYouTube channel and the podcast,
(00:42):
especially the podcast, whichis good, because you are always
going to be my favorites but wehave done something that we are
slowly doing, and that is we'vecreated a website called
TheBibleBreakdowncom, and themain reason for that is
BibleBreakdowncom was notavailable, but we have created
this as a kind of a hub where weare putting the daily podcast,
(01:05):
the YouTube channel anddevotionals and stuff like that,
and one day we're going to tryto move all of the conversation
from Facebook so that it'shappening on Facebook and on the
blog, because we have more andmore people all the time who are
telling us that they want toengage but they don't do the
Facebook thing.
So we're trying to find a wayto interact with as many people
(01:27):
as possible.
So if you don't do the Facebookthing, then you can go to
thebiblebreakdowncom and you canengage there.
Okay, all right.
Well, if you have your Bibles,want to open up with me to
Matthew, chapter 15.
Remember, the overall goal ofMatthew is to help us understand
about King Jesus, and as we'vebeen talking about is there are
(01:49):
four Gospels Matthew, mark, lukeand John, and all four of them
are a different point of view onwho Jesus is, was, what his
ministry was, and you know Markis talking about a lot of the
suffering of the Savior.
Luke was an orderly tale of thegospel.
John was really focused on themessage of Jesus, and Matthew
(02:11):
was primarily written to aJewish audience and so he was
all about telling them thatJesus is the king.
That's why, in chapter 1, hebrings receipts and he says, at
the very least, you know, jesusis the king of, of our world
Right.
He's the.
He is the earthly right to rule, but he is so much more than
that.
That's why chapter two throughtwenty eight he is talking about
(02:34):
all the rest of the thingsabout Jesus and, as we have been
talking about just to kind ofremind you a little bit we've
been talking about the idea thatMatthew could really be
subdivided into five differentcategories, and this category
right now is really now talkingabout what the kingdom of heaven
looks like in action.
And so as we get into chapter 15, we're going to see this
(02:57):
pattern that is developing, andwhat the pattern usually is is
you will have two or threechapters where Jesus will teach
about the kingdom of God, andthen there'll be two or three
chapters where he goes about anddoes the business of the
kingdom of God.
Chapter 15 is one of thosechapters, and so he is going to
cover various different aspects,or various different aspects
(03:18):
are going to be covered, and Iwant to tell you about something
really quickly I'm taking alittle time here because there
is something that is verymisunderstood about the
Pharisees.
Now we're going to open up withthe Pharisees questioning Jesus
, and I want to make sure weunderstand I am not a fan of the
Pharisees.
Okay, they were openly againstJesus, all the stuff.
But there is this idea that thePharisees completely discounted
(03:42):
Jesus the whole time and thatthe fact that they were
questioning Jesus meant thatthey were constantly attacking
him.
Now, that is true, but in theculture of the time, part of how
a teacher would teach would beto debate, answer questions and
that kind of stuff.
As a matter of fact, there is afamous Jewish rabbi who was said
(04:02):
to have gone into a communityand started teaching the Torah,
the first five books of Moses,to the people.
Famous Jewish rabbi who wassaid to have gone into a
community and started teachingthe Torah first five books of
Moses, to the people, and no onewas saying anything, no one was
questioning him, no one waspushing back on him, and all
this and he kept teaching, andhe kept teaching and finally he
stopped and just yelled out ifno one disagrees, how are we
going to learn anything?
And so in the culture it wasexpected, as almost a form of
(04:27):
respect, to ask questions to theteacher and the rabbi push back
, dig deeper, challenge so thatyou could learn.
That would give the rabbi achance to go deeper.
And so it was not out of orderat all.
There's this mental idea thatJesus is teaching in a synagogue
somewhere and then thePharisees speak out and ask
questions and that was like rudeor something.
(04:48):
No, they were actually wellwithin their right and well
within what they were supposedto do to challenge Jesus.
What they didn't expect is thewisdom of the King, and so we're
gonna see some of that today.
So we're gonna jump into thisand see how Jesus is being asked
these questions by thePharisees.
But I want to just give creditwhere credit is due, like call a
(05:10):
spade a spade, whatever.
They're not out of order atthis, but this also gives Jesus
a chance to show who he is.
So if you're ready, kind of alittle bit different perspective
now on what's going on, let'sread Matthew 15.
Here we go.
Verse one says this SomePharisees and teachers of
religious law now arrived fromJerusalem to see Jesus and they
asked him why do your disciplesdisobey our age-old tradition?
(05:34):
For they ignore our tradition ofceremonial hand-washing before
they eat.
Jesus replied and why do you,by your tradition, violate the
direct commandments of God?
For instance, god says honoryour father and mother, and
anyone who speaksdisrespectfully of father or
mother must be put to death, butyou say it is all right for
(05:56):
people to say to their parentssorry, I can't help you.
I have vowed to give to Godwhat I would have given to you.
In this way, you say you don'tneed to honor your parents, and
so you cancel the word of Godfor the sake of your own
tradition.
Hypocrites, isaiah was rightwhen he prophesied about you,
for he wrote these people honorme with their lips, but their
(06:19):
hearts are far from me.
Their worship is a farce, forthey teach man-made ideas as the
commandments from God Now pause.
What are they?
What is he talking about?
Well, what was apparentlybecoming a common thing is
people would go to the templeand they would tell the priest
hey, I want to give this portionof land over to the temple and
(06:41):
it can be sold and the money betaken to put in the temple.
And then agreement would happenwhere, as long as that person
was living, the land would betheirs.
However, they no longer couldsell it, they no longer could
give it to anybody else becauseit was promised to the temple.
And by doing this, what wouldhappen is they would get around
having to take care of anyoneelse, because they would say you
(07:03):
can't come live on my land, Ican't give you the money that is
taken from the land becauseI've already given it to God
when I die.
So it was a sneaky little wayof them kind of cheating those
people around them.
And Jesus is saying you actlike you're doing something holy
, but really you're actuallydoing more harm than good.
So it's a very kind of sneakyway of doing this right.
(07:24):
Verse 10,.
Then Jesus called the crowd tocome and hear.
Listen, he said, and try tounderstand.
It is not what goes into yourmouth that defiles you.
You are defiled by the wordsthat come out of your mouth.
Then the disciples came to himand asked Do you realize you
offended the Pharisees by whatyou just said?
In other words, do you realizeyou just kind of told their
(07:46):
dirty laundry out loud?
Jesus replied Every plant notplanted by my heavenly Father
will be uprooted.
So ignore them.
They are blind guides leadingthe blind, and if one blind
person guides another, they willboth fall into a ditch.
Then Peter said to JesusExplain to us the parable that
says people are not defiled bywhat they eat.
(08:07):
Do you not understand?
Yet Jesus asked Anything youeat passes through the stomach
and goes into the sewer.
So, in other words, theft,lying and slander, these are
(08:28):
what defile you.
Eating with unwashed hands willnever defile you.
So in other words, jesus issaying if you want to put things
in a list of hierarchy, whatmatters most is what comes from
the inside.
Then think about what is on theoutside.
A form of godliness is nowherenear as important as what you
(08:49):
are truly doing in your heart.
All right, this next part is oneof the most controversial
passages in the New Testament,so we're going to take some time
with this one.
Verse 21 says Then Jesus leftGalilee and went north to the
region of Tyre and Sidon.
This is where the Gentileslived, people who had open
hostility to the Jewish people.
A Gentile woman who lived therecame to him pleading have mercy
(09:11):
on me, o Lord, son of David,for my daughter is possessed by
a demon that torments herseverely.
But Jesus gave her no reply,not even a word.
Then the disciples urged him tosend her away.
Tell her to go away.
They said she is bothering uswith all of her begging.
Then Jesus said to the woman Iwas sent only to help the lost
(09:37):
sheep, god's lost sheep, thepeople of Israel.
But then she came and sheworshiped him, pleading Lord,
help me.
And Jesus responded Isn't it?
It isn't right take food fromthe children and throw it to the
dogs.
She replied true, lord, buteven the dogs are allowed to eat
scraps that fall beneath themaster's table.
Dear woman, jesus said to heryour faith is great, your
(09:57):
request is granted.
And her daughter was instantlyhealed.
Now pause, take a moment withthis, because I have had
conversations with people whosaid I don't think I can serve
Jesus.
Well, why is that?
Look at how Jesus was so veryracist and mean to this lady.
Can you explain that to meplease?
And they would say well,obviously she is a Gentile.
(10:18):
And he says I was only sent tothe lost sheep of Israel.
And even more, he calls her adog.
And that's terrible, because itis true that there were types
of dogs in the time, wild dogs,that were dangerous, and so
people would just struggle.
But this is why digging deeperis so important.
That's, first of all, not thekind of dog that he was talking
(10:41):
about, but also understandwhat's happening here.
This lady is not a God fearing,god worshiping person.
Most likely, she's a Gentile.
She's from Tyre and Sidon, sheis most likely polytheistic or a
pagan, and she is coming toJesus and she is saying only you
can help me, only you can helpme.
(11:02):
And she's worshiping and he'ssaying it isn't right to take
what is intended first for thechildren of God and throw it to
the dogs.
Well, think about it for amoment.
He isn't talking about theGreek word for this.
If you do the etymology of thisand the morphology, you look
deeper into the meaning.
This and the morphology.
You look deeper into themeaning.
This isn't a stray dog that isdangerous.
(11:22):
It's a family pet, it is anhonored member of the family,
it's a lap dog, it's the spoileddog.
And so actually, what he'ssaying, and so you can imagine
Jesus is saying this with asmile on his face, kind of a
wink wink, whereas other peoplewould have called her a dog, but
a different type of dog.
He is saying a sweet littlepuppy.
(11:42):
And so he is smiling when hesays this and he's saying you
know, it's not right to givewhat is intended right now,
cause he cause he says at thisparticular season, I'm here to
preach to the Jewish people, butit is going to go to the rest
of the world, like that'salready been established in the
book of, in the book of Matthew.
(12:03):
But he's saying during thisseason, you know, I'm supposed
to be here just for the peopleof Israel.
It's not right to give it tosweet people like you.
And then she says I know, buteven people like me need what
you have.
And he says, okay, there you go.
You said it right.
So he's not, he's not beingmean to her, he's pushing on a
(12:24):
little bit.
He's.
He's, he's actually kind of,he's being sweet to her.
In a way, if you really look atthe definition of what's going
on, he's not being hateful.
He's saying do you, you knowwhy?
Do you think I should do this?
You know, I'm only supposed tobe here for the Jewish people
right now.
And she's like I know, but weneed you too, jesus, you're
right, you do Go ahead.
So, if you look at it verydifferently, this is not a story
(12:45):
of Jesus being mean to her.
He's actually being very kindto this lady.
All right, verse 29,.
Jesus returned to the sea ofGalilee and climbed a hill and
sat down.
A vast crowd brought to himpeople who were lame, blind,
crippled, those who couldn'tspeak and many others.
They laid them before Jesus andJesus healed them all.
(13:06):
The crowds were amazed.
Those who hadn't been able tospeak were talking, those who
were crippled were made well,the lame were walking and the
blind could see again, and theypraised God, the God of Israel.
Then Jesus called his disciplesto them.
I feel sorry for these people.
They have been here with me forthree days and they have
nothing left to eat.
I don't want to send them awayhungry.
(13:28):
They will grow faint along theway.
The disciples replied wherewould we get enough food here in
the wilderness for such a hugecrowd?
Well, how much bread do youhave, jesus asked.
They replied seven loaves and afew small fish.
And then Jesus told all thepeople to sit down on the ground
and he took the seven loavesand the fish, thanked God for
(13:49):
them and broke them into piecesand he gave them to the
disciples, who distributed thefood to the crowd and they all
ate as much as they wanted.
Afterward, the disciples pickedup the seven large baskets of
leftover food and there was4,000 men who were fed that day,
in addition to women andchildren.
Then Jesus sent the people homeand he got into a boat and he
(14:10):
crossed over to the region ofMagadon.
Well, wow, there's a lot thereto look at.
We could look at how Jesus sayson the first part.
He says hey, make sure that youdon't do things just to be seen
by others.
Make sure you don't do goodthings in order to cheat people
of what's actually right,because you can do the right to
be seen by others.
Make sure you don't do goodthings in order to cheat people
of what's actually right,because you can do the right
things for the wrong reasons.
Then he looks at this lady andhe challenges her to really push
(14:36):
in a little bit deeper.
Do you want this healing?
Well, push in, seek after mejust a little bit more.
Don't give up the first timeyou experience some kind of
resistance, but seek a littlebit further.
And then, when he ends it, hechallenges even his disciples
let's feed the people.
Well, remember, he's alreadyfed 5,000, but they're still
going.
How are we going to feed thesepeople?
(14:57):
By trusting what God's alreadydone in the past.
That's why we call this chapterkingdom faith, because faith
causes us to be righteous inwhat we do.
Faith causes us to not give upat the first sign of resistance
and faith causes us to rememberwhat God has done in the past,
to trust what he's going to doin the future.
(15:18):
So my question for you is whatnext step do you need to take?
Is it possible that sometimesyou find yourself caught up in
doing the right things but, forthe wrong reasons, thinking that
the end justifies the means?
That's not what the kingdom ofheaven is all about.
The kingdom of heaven is aboutrighteousness, peace, joy and
(15:38):
the Holy Spirit.
You need to take a coursecorrection.
Maybe you're one of these peoplewho, because of trouble you've
experienced in the past, at thefirst sign of resistance you
tend to fold, tend to give up,you struggle with having
spiritual resilience.
Can I tell you, don't give up.
If God has given you a promisein his word, he will perform it.
(16:01):
And so just because youexperienced resistance doesn't
mean that God has changed hismind.
It might just mean that it'stime for you to dig in a little
bit deeper.
And then, if God has donesomething before, he is fateful
and will do it again.
Now it'll look different.
The first time when Jesus fedthe 5,000, he used five loaves
of bread and two fish.
(16:21):
This time, with 4,000 people,he used seven loaves of bread
and it says a few small fish, soit wasn't the exact same thing.
We should never expect God todo the exact same thing the
exact same way every single time.
God is a creative God.
God is the king over all theuniverse.
He'll always do things a littlebit differently, just because
he can.
Our job is to not figure Godout, even though we never stop
(16:43):
seeking after him as a form ofworship.
Our job is to trust him that ifhe did it before, he'll do it
again.
Let's pray together right now.
God, thank you so much for today.
Thank you, god, for your wisdomand your kindness toward us.
Thank you, god, that you nevergive up on us.
Thank you, god, that a sign ofresistance is not a sign of
failure.
It's not a sign you're notgoing to do something.
But even in those moments, god,you're doing more than we
(17:06):
realize.
My prayer today, god, is thatyou will help us to trust you
more.
You are faithful in all things.
In Jesus' name, we pray, amen,amen.
Well, god's word says inMatthew 28, verse 19,.
If you've got it memorized, sayit with me.
All authority in heaven and onearth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, therefore, andmake disciples of all nations.
(17:28):
I love you.
I'll see you tomorrow forMatthew, chapter 16.
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