Participants: Don Pate
Series Code: FC
Program Code: FC000026
|
00:29 Hello, friends, and welcome
00:31 to another few minutes with Jesus. 00:33 We're going to spend some time in the gospels again 00:36 and it's my privilege to join you 00:39 and many people around the world 00:41 as we open ourselves up to the experiences 00:44 of Christ walking in streets with His people 00:47 and how He lived the life and the things 00:51 that He sought to teach us 00:53 that even to this day, you know what? 00:54 I haven't outgrown it. 00:56 And I probably am never going to and neither are you. 00:59 And so it's appropriate for us to spend time 01:02 in the word to come to know Christ better, 01:04 but more than that, to allow Him to give us 01:06 the building blocks the foundation 01:09 of understanding what we are in his mind. 01:13 The value that we have 01:15 within in His sense of economy-- 01:17 within the scope of eternity. 01:19 And what He dreams us to become. 01:22 That's really our goal. 01:24 As we open up the text of the gospels together. 01:26 So join with me as we pray. 01:30 Father, thank you so much 01:31 for our wonderful and rich opportunity to go 01:34 under the surface of the text. 01:36 To open up this word, this word 01:38 that thousands have died so that we might have it. 01:42 That there are blood drops on these pages of people 01:45 who gave their lives that we 01:47 might have the privilege of opening the word. 01:49 We ask that we would cherish the moments 01:51 that we have together as we do this again. 01:54 This is our prayer in the holy name 01:56 of Christ, amen. 01:59 I'm Don Pate from Between the Lines, 02:01 and if you know anything about me 02:03 or know anything about Between the Lines, 02:04 it's just distinctly a passion with me 02:08 to more for my own growth than almost anything else, 02:11 I know it sounds selfish to go under the surface 02:14 of the text to look back at it. 02:16 Some of the stories that may be we've heard forever. 02:19 To see if we can find things 02:21 that we haven't seen before 02:22 to look across the field of flowers 02:24 where maybe we have admired 02:26 this massive field of flowers from a distance. 02:28 And maybe to go and to pick 02:31 some of the individual petals and really study them. 02:34 To appreciate and get an odor 02:36 of the flower one single flower. 02:38 And so that's what we're going to do. 02:39 We're going to spend time 02:41 with a gospel story from Mathew. 02:43 I invite you to take a Bible 02:44 and turn to the Gospel of Mathew. 02:47 We're going to look at a story 02:48 that is only told by two of the gospel writers. 02:52 For whatever reason this one just gets 02:54 brushed by in the Book of Luke. 02:58 Luke generally often mirrors 03:01 what we have seen in Mathew or in Mark, 03:04 all though certainly adding some flavor each of them 03:06 adding their own little spice to the story, 03:09 their own little perceptions and intuitions 03:12 that the spirit has given them. 03:13 Certainly we see that, but for whatever reason 03:16 and, oh, it may very well be that because Luke 03:20 and this is just a little speculation, 03:22 Luke often has such an affinity 03:26 for how the gentile sees Christ. 03:30 For how the Gentile world comes into interaction 03:35 with the gospel that this story 03:37 is so decidedly gentile, 03:40 that Luke may have backed off a little bit 03:42 and said you know, everybody expects me 03:44 to do that and it will have more power 03:47 if you hear the story from Mathew 03:49 and Mark and I don't deal with it. 03:50 I'm not sure exactly why Luke is not as amazed 03:56 or chooses not to review this story for us. 03:59 But we find it in Mathew Chapter 15 04:02 and then again the parallel passage in the next gospel, 04:06 in the Gospel of Mark Chapter 7. 04:09 Now it is a problematic story. 04:12 It's a story that raises some interesting concerns. 04:15 In fact the truth is, if you don't know 04:17 what's going on between the lines. 04:18 If you don't know what's going on 04:19 under the surface of the story, 04:21 you can back off and be a little frustrated 04:22 with Jesus in this one. 04:23 I mean, really, you can say, "Lord, 04:26 I'm not really comfortable with this. 04:28 And actually I feel not super-- 04:32 you know, as though I'm better than you, Lord. 04:34 But there's--obviously we got a problem here. 04:36 We've got something I don't understand 04:38 about the story, Lord." 04:39 It's a story when Jesus, it seems, 04:43 looks at a poor little sinner 04:47 and just cuts him to shreds. 04:49 You see, excuse me? 04:52 You know, that's not what I expect of Jesus. 04:54 And at first reading that seems 04:57 to be what's happening in the story 04:59 and of course as a result many Christians 05:01 reading this story immediately start-- 05:04 we put up our defenses and we say 05:05 I'm not comfortable with that, 05:06 therefore I don't wanna deal with it. 05:07 You know, since I can't easily understand 05:09 why Jesus would do this to somebody. 05:11 I think we'll just act like its' not there. 05:13 But of course its there for a reason. 05:16 There are things in there for us to discover 05:18 that will make a difference in practical insights 05:21 to enrich our lives even this far removed 05:25 from the original event so many generations later. 05:28 And so I'd invite to take your Bible 05:29 and turn to Mathew 15. 05:31 Now, again, it's often--I don't know 05:35 I probably sound like some old broken record 05:38 or CD that keeps skipping back 05:39 if you wanna go to more modern technology. 05:42 I probably loop around to this often, 05:45 but it is so important and I'm sure you know this. 05:47 It is so important for us always 05:49 to take the Bible stories, 05:51 the episodes, the thoughts, the concepts, 05:54 the discussions, to take them in context. 05:57 Don't, you know, pick something out of the text 06:00 and set it over here independently 06:02 and assume that as a result 06:04 I can really grasp the power of that story. 06:08 We have to put it back into its context 06:11 to see what leads up to this moment. 06:13 And literally it is important in this story. 06:15 In Mathew Chapter 15 and you find 06:17 the same thing when you get to Mark, 06:19 because you see Jesus almost contrasting something. 06:24 It's like He says something to the disciples here 06:28 and then shortly after that He exhibits it. 06:33 He lives it, that up to this point 06:36 we just talked about it. 06:37 Now we're gonna have a living practical lesson, an example 06:41 of what I was just saying back here. 06:43 That's what seems to be happening 06:45 in this passage because as you start the chapter, 06:47 you will find Jesus involved in a discussion about-- 06:51 what is it that really causes a person to be defiled? 06:55 What is it that sets a person 06:57 out of the norm of heaven's acceptance? 07:01 And there's some difficult discussion in this. 07:04 Now in the Mishnah which is the codified 07:09 black and white, written down 07:11 oral tradition of the world of Jesus. 07:14 This book was done in Hebrew obviously. 07:18 It was done or Aramaic, it's debatable. 07:21 But the book was done originally 07:24 because the Jews when they lost the temple 07:27 in the year 70 and then in the Bar Kokhba rebellion 07:30 65 years later in the year 135 after Christ. 07:34 Judaism was so temple based, 07:37 was so tied to what we call the Jewish temple cult, 07:40 and that term cult is not a negative. 07:43 They were so tied as a Jewish temple cult 07:45 that as a result of the fact 07:49 that they just passed on the traditions 07:51 father to son and rabbinic arguments 07:53 back and forth with the minority report 07:54 against the majority report and things like this 07:56 of the great scholars and Rabbis. 07:58 The school of Shammai, the school of Hillel, 08:01 Rabbi Judah Hachasid, Rabbi Elazar disputed, 08:05 this was all oral tradition. 08:06 Just passed on word of mouth 08:09 until about 60 or 70 years after that final revolt 08:15 against Rome a 135 years after the birth of Jesus. 08:19 What we would say 135 A.D. 08:22 When it was evident when the Romans 08:24 made it a capital offense, 08:27 literally, you may not know that. 08:28 It actually under Hadrian the emperor, 08:30 it became something 08:32 for which you could be crucified if you were Jew. 08:35 A Jew was not even allowed to get to the place 08:37 where he could see the city of Jerusalem, 08:40 where he could even be within view 08:42 of the city of Jerusalem. 08:43 The reason being is the Romans 08:45 had caught on the Jews whenever they got around Jerusalem, 08:48 they got so super patriotic 08:50 that they sort of lost their sense in the empire. 08:53 And so it came to the place where Hadrian finally said 08:55 "That's it, I've had it," you know, 08:57 Jerusalem was destroyed 65 years ago in the year 70. 09:01 and they kept crawling back and you know 09:03 they came to this rebellion again in 135, 09:05 of course they weren't using those dates. 09:07 But, you know, we now have put down 09:10 this second revolt under Bar Kokhba. 09:12 This great second revolt against Rome we put it down. 09:14 And that's it, we're not dealing with you again. 09:16 We are going to scatter the Jews out away 09:19 from the city of Jerusalem, 09:20 because that way we can break up 09:21 some of your patriotic fervor. 09:23 And so he made it a capital offense penalty 09:26 of crucifixion for a Jew to even get to a place 09:28 where he could see the city of Jerusalem. 09:30 Well, when that became true the Jews realized, you know, 09:35 temple's gone and it's been gone for 65 years. 09:39 And it looks like we're not getting it back 09:40 not for a longtime, so who are we 09:43 when we don't have a temple? 09:45 That had been a problem within Judaism 09:48 even into the First Temple era. 09:50 You remember 137 Psalm. 09:52 We grew up by the rivers of Babylon 09:53 and we're singing the Lord's song in an alien land, 09:56 but we don't even, how we can do that? 09:58 Who are we as a people when we are not tied 10:01 to the temple? To this, the chosen land. 10:05 In fact, there's a Hebrew phrase 10:07 it's called shakintiple luta. 10:09 And what that means is the exile 10:11 of the presence of God. 10:13 God settled down to Jerusalem to bless 10:16 that place uniquely on the earth 10:17 and then when the temple was destroyed 10:20 where did God go? 10:22 The exile of the presence of God. 10:24 This became a perpetual problem of discussion 10:27 within Judaism any time they came to the destruction 10:29 of the city or the loss of the temple. 10:31 And so the Jews decided we better nail down 10:35 who we are as a people 10:37 and the Mishnah came into existence. 10:39 And what may surprise you is probably the final third 10:43 of the Mishnah actually deals with the same issues 10:47 as Jesus is very distinctly discussing here 10:50 in the introduction to our story. 10:53 In chapter 15 of Mathew, Jesus is discussing 10:56 the things that defile, 10:59 that which renders you Tomah 11:02 that you become unacceptable, unfit. 11:07 Jesus has to deal with that 11:09 because it's a discussion of His world. 11:11 It's a major hot point. It's a flash point. 11:14 It's a triggering within His world 11:17 about what is it that really defiles a person 11:19 that sets a person out of the approval of heaven 11:23 and so we see Jesus doing that. 11:25 Now, when the discussion ends in verse 20, 11:29 immediately it says after that discussion right here, 11:34 Jesus then took the disciples to go show them 11:38 how the lesson played out. 11:41 "Jesus went thence, and departed 11:44 to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon." 11:47 Now if you go to Bible map, 11:49 you're going to notice something. 11:50 You've got the Galilee over here 11:52 with the Jordon River coming out of it 11:53 going down to the Dead Sea and Jerusalem is here. 11:56 You've got the highlands, you've got the trans-Jordon 11:58 over across the other side past Jericho. 12:01 You go to the Mediterranean side 12:04 even back into the days of Joshua 12:07 that Northwest coast was pretty much frontier. 12:13 Yes, there were some tribes up there 12:14 like Asher and this kind of thing, 12:16 but it never really was part of the main 12:20 of the nation of Israel. 12:22 Even in the days of David or Solomon 12:24 that it was always 12:25 a little bit sort of the hinterland. 12:29 That it was never fully incorporated 12:31 within the main body of the nation of Israel, 12:35 that Northwest coast of Tyre and Sidon. 12:38 That was always a little bit compromised 12:41 as far as the mentality 12:43 of the mainstream and the orthodox. 12:46 We see that in the Old Testament, 12:47 we see it in the New Testament. 12:48 And what is very clear and curious to me 12:51 is that Jesus decidedly turns and He says, 12:54 "Okay, we're heading west." 12:57 The disciples-- this was not common. 13:00 And when you read the gospels through and through, 13:02 you find Jesus spending lot of time in the Galilee. 13:05 You find him even fractionally going 13:07 through Samaria few times. 13:08 You find Him around Jerusalem. 13:10 But you rarely find Jesus turn off 13:13 to that Northwest coast. 13:15 You rarely find Him going anywhere 13:17 that direction after the hinterlands, 13:19 that wasn't really Israel. 13:22 And there's a reason for it, I think. 13:24 Jesus Himself said, "I am come to the lost sheep 13:28 of the house of Israel," which is only fulfilling. 13:31 You remember the prophecy of Daniel 9 13:33 that when Messiah comes, he will reconfirm 13:36 the covenant with the house of Israel. 13:39 That, yes, the gospel is good for the world, 13:42 but the Messiah's specific and distinct goal 13:46 will be for the boundaries of Israel. 13:49 That was the prophecy and Jesus basically stayed 13:52 within the boundaries of the mainstream of Israel, 13:55 only barely going through Samaria few times, 13:58 only just rarely going off into the frontier. 14:02 Jesus, for whatever reason, and the reason appears 14:05 to me to be the first 20 verses. 14:07 He is going to show His disciples 14:09 a practical living lesson about issues of defilement. 14:14 That's what He just got in discussing. 14:17 He turns immediately from the discussion 14:18 of defilement and He starts heading west. 14:21 The disciples are going along, a little surprised. 14:24 There isn't much out there. 14:26 And certainly it isn't good Judaism, you know, 14:28 I mean, we're not gonna make a dent in Jerusalem 14:30 if we're heading northwest there, 14:31 but his Lord will go wherever he wants. 14:34 As they headed out toward that coast, verse 22, 14:36 "Behold, there was a woman of Canaan 14:39 who came out from that region from the same coasts, 14:42 and she cried out to Him. 14:44 'Have mercy on me oh Lord thou son of David.'" 14:50 What an amazing thing. 14:53 How long a journey was it? 14:55 A day or two day's walk, three day's walk. 15:00 We find no other appointment for Jesus on this trip. 15:04 Now, don't get me wrong. 15:07 You cannot categorically say 15:08 Jesus didn't do anything else on this trip. 15:11 I mean, the scripture is silent. 15:13 And so you can't categorically 15:15 just black and white say 15:16 Jesus only went out there only for this 15:18 and He didn't do anything else, 15:19 although in the scripture it doesn't give anything else. 15:21 And some of me, I kind of like the idea 15:24 that Jesus had once specific appointment in mind. 15:27 One thing that He was going to do 15:29 and He set His eyes to go do it. 15:31 And it was have a rendezvous with this woman. 15:34 He was going to cross pass with that woman. 15:38 And that's why He headed west. 15:40 A woman, a Canaanite. 15:43 She was not Jewish. 15:45 More than that, of course 15:47 when you put this together with the Gospel of Mark, 15:49 you find out that she's got 15:51 about five strikes against her. 15:53 You know, when you play baseball 15:54 you get only three strikes and you're out. 15:56 This woman's got about five against her. 15:57 And some of them, you know, 15:58 in our cultural sensitivities today, 16:00 we're not real happy with it. 16:02 But the truth is if you wanna take the text 16:04 in its real context, in its real world, 16:06 the way it really was back in those days. 16:08 You've got to recognize that some of these things 16:10 were real even if they make me uncomfortable. 16:12 One is, and I'm sorry for half of our audience. 16:17 You know, I'm sorry she was a woman. 16:19 Sorry about that, this was an age 16:23 when women to a great degree, 16:25 it was not an egalitarian society. 16:27 I mean, woman to a great degree 16:29 were just a half a step above 16:30 property in many cultures. 16:32 That wasn't universally true. The Egyptians, 16:36 the Egyptians were fairly equal. 16:38 In fact that you may or may not know 16:39 that in the Egyptian world some of the pharaohs 16:42 were women and everybody knew it, 16:45 I mean, it wasn't like it was a secret. 16:47 Now granteded, artistically, they were still portrayed 16:49 as though they had beards and things like this. 16:51 But everybody knew it was a woman, 16:52 this wasn't a secret. 16:54 Egyptian women in many ways had some opportunities 16:58 that nobody else in the world had. 17:00 Which by the way should open up some windows 17:02 of understanding to you about a story about a woman 17:05 who is married to a man name Potiphar, and Joseph 17:09 and if you understand the equality of women 17:12 in Egypt that opens up a just whole new vignette 17:15 to you in that story. 17:17 But in most of the world, that was not true. 17:21 As so much so you get into the Book of Acts 17:22 and it speaks about of Lydia, the seller of purple. 17:25 It's the Bible's way of saying, 17:27 this is unusual. A woman who is making it on her own. 17:31 Independently, she doesn't need a man. 17:34 She has her own business, she's got employees. 17:36 You know, that this was a woman 17:38 who was making it on her own, 17:39 that was unusual for that world. 17:41 This woman has one thing going against her, 17:43 and number one, she's a woman. 17:45 I'm sorry. Number two, she's an alien. 17:49 She's not Jewish. She isn't going 17:52 to be accepted by the disciples. 17:54 They're not gonna reach out to her and say 17:55 "Oh, sister," because she is not their sister. 17:59 She is an alien woman. 18:01 Number three, not only is she an alien woman, 18:05 but she is of mixed race. 18:08 And in most cultures around the world, you know, 18:10 that had some problems 18:13 and not everybody is comfortable 18:15 with though she is Syrian and she is Phoenician. 18:21 She is both, she is mixed race, 18:23 which if it plays out anywhere 18:26 near what we see with much of the world 18:30 they're going to look at this and say. 18:32 You know, I'm a Syrian 18:34 and I don't really accept you. 18:36 You know, and the Phoenicians 18:37 might look and say, I'm a Phoenician, 18:39 and you know what? You're not really one of us. 18:42 That could have been some of the interplay 18:45 of the story. That's strike number three. 18:49 Strike number four against this woman 18:51 is that she's got a daughter 18:53 with a publicly known problem. 18:57 I have next door neighbor 18:58 who is a really nice lady who has a daughter, 19:02 who from early, early childhood it was evident 19:05 that there was something wrong with this girl. 19:07 And she's blind, 19:10 she's very severely mentally handicapped. 19:14 She has very serious physical limitations. 19:16 And our next door neighborhood 19:18 who is actually talked to me just fractionally 19:22 about--she's a divorcee and you know, 19:26 it's one thing to be a divorced woman 19:28 and hope that maybe a man will date you. 19:30 My own mother, you know, she had a-- 19:33 the most incredible gentleman 19:34 cross our life when I was seven years old. 19:37 I mean here she was a single mom 19:38 with three runny-nosed brats 19:40 and I was the youngest and I was the worst. 19:43 And, you know, what kind of man 19:45 is gonna introduce himself 19:46 into that mess to take that responsibility? 19:49 It's a very unusual person who'll do that. 19:51 And you know Lord bless my dad, my step dad. 19:54 You know, it's best dad anybody could ever have. 19:56 What an amazing act for him to move into our family 19:59 and just take us as his own, 20:02 but that doesn't always happen. 20:03 And my next door neighbor shared, 20:04 you know, it's one thing to be a single mother. 20:07 And maybe hope that some day a man will, 20:10 you know, want to-- you get married, 20:11 and you know, life works that way. 20:13 She--but with her daughter, it raised 20:16 a whole different spectrum of issues 20:19 to have a mentally retarded, blind, you know, 20:21 that just--that's more than most people can handle. 20:24 This woman in the story she has a daughter 20:28 who is a public embarrassment without question. 20:35 And that is part of her curse. 20:36 And the fifth strike against her is, 20:38 she doesn't have any God who is gonna help her. 20:42 As you read the story both here 20:44 and in the Book of Mark. 20:45 It gives us this expression that she sought you know, 20:48 resolution not just of doctors, 20:49 but she'd appealed to the gods. 20:51 Now think about it. 20:53 Who could she have sought as far as gods go? 20:56 She could have appealed to the Greek gods, 20:58 because it was a Greek world. 20:59 She could have appealed to the Roman gods, 21:01 because it was the Roman Empire 21:03 and there were Roman temples around. 21:04 She could have gone in and made sacrifice 21:06 before Syrian gods, because she was half Syrian. 21:09 She could have gone and made sacrifice 21:11 to the seafarian gods of the Phoenicians, 21:13 you know, because she was half Phoenician 21:16 and none of them did her any good at all. 21:20 She had appealed to the gods 21:23 and the gods remained silent to her. 21:27 What was there in this woman? 21:29 That when she heard the rumor of a new prophet 21:33 within Israel and now remember, these people 21:35 of Israel they're kind of bigoted. 21:38 I mean, they look down their noses at the gentiles, 21:41 at those who were not of the house of Israel. 21:45 What is there that caused her to step out 21:48 of her own prejudice against the Jews 21:51 who were prejudiced against her 21:54 to approach the Son of David? 21:57 Isn't that what she says? 21:59 "Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David;" 22:03 I have no claim to anything 22:05 of the house of David, in any way. 22:08 I'm a woman, I'm a alien. 22:11 I am mixed racially. 22:14 I have a daughter that's an embarrassment. 22:17 I have no claim to appeal to you 22:19 or to the line of David. 22:22 But out of her desperation she sought Jesus, 22:26 sort of I think as a last resort. 22:29 And of all the rude things, 22:31 Jesus looked at her and called her a dog. 22:35 Ouch... read it. 22:37 He answered her not a word. 22:39 At first, he didn't even respond to her, 22:41 which I think Jesus was playing 22:42 against the disciple's bigotry. 22:44 They kind of hoped, she would just evaporate. 22:46 And when Jesus just kind of walked on by, 22:48 they thought, "All right, Lord, 22:49 you're finally catching on. 22:50 You know, there're certain kind of people 22:51 you just don't want to get too close to, Lord, 22:53 if you want a make a dent in Israel. 22:54 And you don't want this woman around." 22:57 He answered her not a word, it was a test of her faith. 23:01 And it was also going to be a confrontation 23:03 to the bigotry of His disciples. 23:07 He answered her not a word 23:09 and the disciples came and said, 23:12 "Let's get rid of her, send her away. 23:14 This is embarrassing, we don't need 23:15 this kind of problem around us. 23:16 Not if we are going to impress the people 23:19 that we need to impress." 23:22 And Jesus said, "I am not sent." 23:24 Verse 24, " I am not sent to anybody 23:27 but the lost house of Israel." 23:29 "To the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 23:30 And they said, "All right. 23:31 You know, that's good Lord, thank you very much." 23:33 But the woman pressed Him. 23:35 She wasn't going to give up. 23:38 She came and she worshipped Him, 23:40 "Lord, help me." 23:42 You know, somewhere along line, I guess, 23:44 we're just gonna catch on someday. 23:45 That when a sinner approaches Christ 23:48 and says help me, Jesus responds. 23:51 He just, He can't help Himself. 23:54 It's just the kind of God we deal with. 23:57 He can't help Himself. 23:59 When she said, "Lord help me," Jesus responds. 24:02 "He answered and said, 'It is not meet 24:04 to take the children's the bread 24:05 and cast it to the dogs.'" 24:10 You know what? That's not what she heard. 24:13 I really believe that's not what she heard. 24:16 The disciples expected her to be called a dog. 24:21 The disciples--because that's what they thought of her. 24:24 They thought of her nothing, she's just a dog. 24:27 But Jesus was again playing against their bigotry, 24:30 and by the way, she had her own bigotry too. 24:31 She had her own prejudice against them. 24:34 Jesus plays in the bigotry and He says, "It is not meet 24:39 that we cast the children's bread 24:42 and cast it to the dogs." 24:43 The word in the Greek is kunerion. 24:48 That is not the Greek word for dog. 24:51 The Greek word for dog is kuon. 24:54 A kunerion is a puppy. 24:57 Does that tell you something about Jesus? 25:00 That Jesus when--yes, He played 25:02 with the prejudice He was bringing 25:04 to the surface the prejudice about the concepts 25:07 of defilement within his disciples 25:08 and even within this woman herself. 25:10 He brings this up to the surface, 25:12 but He does it in such a way 25:13 that He is not gonna wound her. 25:15 When he says do we cast the bread to puppies? 25:18 The disciples heard dog. I'm sure they heard dog. 25:22 But she knew, "He's not trying to hurt me. 25:23 Who's gonna hurt a puppy? 25:25 He doesn't want to wound me. 25:26 He's called me a puppy." 25:30 And a result, she presses Him and she says, "It's true, Lord. 25:33 Yet even the dogs find crumbs under the master's table." 25:36 And Jesus answered and said, "Oh, woman." 25:39 Verse 28, "Great is thy faith, 25:41 be it unto thee even as thou wilt. 25:45 Whatever you want. 25:47 Your faith is so sweet and rewarding to me. 25:49 Thank you, thank you for approaching me. 25:52 Thank you for stepping out in faith 25:54 and more than that, thank you for ignoring 25:56 what was your own bigotry and the defense system 25:59 that you might have cast up in front of me, 26:02 because of what I said 26:04 to teach my disciples a lesson. 26:06 Thank you" and she went home and her daughter was whole. 26:09 You remember Victor Hugo's wonderful story, 26:11 classic literature, Les Misérables, you remember 26:14 there was the little street urchin Cosette, 26:17 and how that Cosette was the rejected, 26:20 the abused and in the story because of 26:24 Jean Valjean's magnanimous heart he determines 26:28 this child is going to be something. 26:30 It's kind of like the story of Ezekiel 16. 26:32 He determines this little girl 26:34 is going to be something and he raises Cosette 26:36 from being the little street urchin 26:38 to being a lady, a privileged lady. 26:42 You've got in this story 26:43 Jesus looking at Syrophoenician women 26:47 who's got five strikes against her. 26:48 And He looks at her as though she is his Cosette 26:52 As though she is the one that should expect rejection 26:55 and nothing but rejection, 26:57 but He just can't do it. He can't it do it 26:59 because of his own incredible magnanimous heart. 27:02 Jesus cannot give her the rejection she expects. 27:06 And He shows His gentleness with her 27:08 when--playing the prejudice 27:10 of His disciples and her own prejudice. 27:12 He said, "Do we feed puppies?" 27:17 When I first read this and I saw Jesus 27:18 call this woman a dog, I thought 27:19 I don't want to hear that. 27:21 He didn't called her a dog. 27:24 I don't know if you feel 27:25 disfranchised at time, my friend. 27:27 I don't know if you feel as though 27:29 you're on the outs with God. 27:31 I don't know if you feel like you're not good enough. 27:32 I don't' know if you feel like you got 27:34 seventeen strikes against you, 27:35 it is irrelevant when you read this story. 27:38 You find Christ coming to you, looking at you 27:41 and saying, "Look, you may see yourself only as this. 27:45 But I can't see you that way," and out of His gentleness, 27:48 Jesus reaches out to the most rejected, 27:51 reaches down to pull them up and say, "Come on, 27:54 be a child of the kingdom. Join me." |
Revised 2014-12-17