With our teenagers we try to not only speak to their spiritual needs, but their physical needs as well. And I’m not talking about feeding them when we have some sort of program or event. What I’m talking about is helping them with life skills. I can’t tell you how many times I have had a teen not know how to vacuum, or sweep, or wipe down a table, or even use a fork and knife properly.
I had one student several years back named Cobey. For three of our In-Town Trips in a row I had him do the same job, wipe down the floor edges of the kitchen. The first year I told him what to do, and then I had to go back and redo it. The second year I told him to do it and then had him redo it with me. It wasn’t until the third year that he did a satisfactory job to where we didn’t have to go over it again.
But that wasn’t the only instance like that. The second year we were asked by a lady over in Quail RV Park, to clean her the areas on both sides of her single-wide. I had a simple job for Codey, move the pieces of furniture, knock down the spider webs, sweep the area, and put everything back. I went back three times to tell him what needed to be down. Finally on the fourth time I did it myself because we were running out of time. Now either Codey wasn’t getting it, or he played me for a foul because I ended up doing the work.
But I have to tell you that in the third year, when he was able to accomplish his task without help, I was ecstatic. He finally got it. I love telling that story because gave me hope that if Cobey could finally get it, any teen can.
And it’s this idea of hope that people can grasp something that brings us back to our Matthew series where we’ll pick it back up in Matthew chapter 15, verse 1. And as we open up to chapter 15 of Matthew, let’s remind ourselves of where we are.
Last week we started in on section 4 of Matthew’s Gospel account of Jesus’ life, where we talked about how Jesus was calling his disciples to exercise their faith. Too often we as disciples abdicate our role as ministers of the Gospel. Jesus original disciples were given ab opportunity to be a part of Jesus’ Kingdom work in the feeding of the five-thousand, but they faltered. Peter then took the initiative and walked with his Master on water, and still faltered. Yet in both cases, Jesus didn’t abandon them, but moved them forward in their faith. We too need to respond to the calling of God, though we may falter, so that we can move forward in our relationship with him.
With that in our minds we continue into chapter 15, where we’ll see a full circle moment. Let’s read together starting in verse 1.
“1 Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!’
“3 Jesus replied, ‘And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For God said, “Honor your father and mother” and “Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.” 5 But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is "devoted to God,” 6 they are not to “honor their father or mother” with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8 ‘“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.”’
“10 Jesus called the crowd to him and said, ‘Listen and understand. 11 What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.’
“12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?’
“13 He replied, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. 14 Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.’
“15 Peter said, ‘Explain the parable to us.’
“16 ‘Are you still so dull?’ Jesus asked them. 17 ‘Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? 18 But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. 20 These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.’
“21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, ‘Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.’
“23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, ‘Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.’
“24 He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.’
“25 The woman came and knelt before him. ‘Lord, help me!’ she said.
“26 He replied, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.’
“27 ‘Yes it is, Lord,’ she said. ‘Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’
“28 Then Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed at that moment.
“29 Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. 30 Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. 31 The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.
“32 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.’
“33 His disciples answered, ‘Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?’
“34 'How many loaves do you have?’ Jesus asked. ‘Seven,’ they replied, ‘and a few small fish.’
“35 He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. 37 They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 38 The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.
Coming out of chapter 14 we saw Jesus calling his disciples into his kingdom work. Here we now see two groups: those that are not apart of that kingdom work, and those that are; something we’ll see again in chapter 16. These two groups are the religious leaders, the Pharisees and scribes, and the Canaanite woman.
Let’s take them in order. First we have the Pharisees and scribes. This is the third time that Jesus has a direct conversation with this group. We saw Jesus in chapters 9 and 12 dealing with them in connection to forgiving sin and the Sabbath. In both cases, Jesus claims to be the God of Israel because he can forgive sin and he is Lord of the Sabbath.
In the encounter we see in chapter 15, Jesus is challenge by these religious leaders for breaking the tradition of hand washing before a meal. Here we see Jesus’ response as a pretty harsh rebuke when he chastises them for dishonoring parents and then quotes Isaiah to drive home the point, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.”
But this is the m.o. of the Pharisees and other religious leaders, they are so concerned with a tradition to keep them on the straight and narrow that they miss the actual purpose of the Word of God. In the case that Jesus brought up, the religious leaders thought that by giving the money that was needed to take care of parents to God, it was honoring God. But the reverse was true. They were actually causing people to dishonor God by not taking care of the need of the parents.
James picks this up in his second chapter where he writes, “14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it (v.14-16)?”
The religious leaders had a distorted understanding of what God desires from us, but the action is not key here. If it were, Jesus would not follow up with what he tells the crowd, “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
What is key is the motivation of the action. The Pharisees think that if we just do these certain actions then we will be accepted by God, but Jesus takes it deeper as he did with his first sermon we saw back in chapters 5-7. Our motivation is what’s important and that’s a heart issue.
David in his Psalm of confession wrote this, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me (Psalm 51:10).” The prophet Ezekiel records God saying this, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26).”
It’s a heart issue, and so a heart transplant needs to occur. A rebirth needs to occur. That rebirth can only happen when we accept Jesus as our Savior, are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, and follow what God says in his Word.
That takes us to the second group, the Canaanite woman. To put this moment into perspective, if the Israelites had done what they were suppose to do back in the early days of Israel, in the time of Joshua and following it, there should be no Canaanite woman. Her people would have been driven out of the land long ago, and this moment wouldn’t have occurred. Yet God works, even when we do not follow through on what he has told us to do, and he brings goodness out of it.
And so we have the Canaanite woman in desperation. She hounds Jesus and the disciples because her daughter is possessed. The disciples want to send her away, something that has become common for them to do. Send away the five-thousand, no miracle, send away this woman, no miracle.
So what does Jesus do? He states, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” This is a statement of Jesus’ mission. This is what he was supposed to be doing. He was there to call the covenant people of God, the nation of Israel, back to himself and thereby fulfilling the covenant and prophecies of the Old Testament. But he didn’t send here away like the disciples requested. And because of this statement, we see something that we haven’t seen in the last two chapters, an unfaltering faith.
Jesus told the disciples to feed the five-thousand and they faltered. Peter walked out of the boat and faltered. Here is a woman who is being dissuaded to see Jesus, and she keeps at it. She comes to him and has an interaction.
“‘Lord, help me!’…26 He replied, ‘It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.’ ‘Yes it is, Lord…Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.’
This Canaanite woman, who, for all intents and purposes shouldn’t be here, exercises a persistent faith that even the disciples have not shown of being capable of doing. Now Jesus isn’t being mean, or calling this woman a dog, but rather is being analogous to what his purposes are and where she finds herself in connection with those purposes. Yet she persists because she realizes that depth of love Jesus has. How many times at this point have we heard that Jesus has compassion on the people? She realizes this and pursues him.
Jesus’ reaction is telling, “‘Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.’ And her daughter was healed at that moment.”
Immediately Matthew takes us from that triumphal moment to the feeding of the four-thousand. If we’re paying attention, hearing or reading this for the first time, we should be excited, because now the disciples will surely step up and do the feeding.
But nope. They find themselves in an almost identical situation as before, and their response to Jesus’ compassion is the inability to see that God can do miracles. It’s kind of a let down. It seems that we were building to a great epic moment where the disciples, seeing the feeding of the five-thousand, seeing the walking on water, seeing Jesus call them to a heart transformed faith, and seeing the persistent faith of the Canaanite woman, and then the disciples, don’t do anything except doubt.
This doesn’t stop Jesus from performing the miracle, and what I find interesting is that Jesus doesn’t chastise them about it. Why? Because I think Jesus knows that they are close. They are close to having light bulbs go off, but their just not there yet.
The disciples are still trapped in the religious leaders’ mindset. There are certain outward performances that can and cannot happen. They have not realized that it begins with inward transformation of the heart, through accepting Jesus as Savior and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
In Ezekiel’s recording of God speaking about having a heart of flesh put in us, God follows that up by saying, “And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws (36:27).” It’s not enough to have a working knowledge of God, the Pharisees had that. No we need a transformed life. A life that isn’t based on thinking if I do certain things that’s what gets me right with God. No we need a life that is being transformed by the Holy Spirit. Not just no cussing, but having God transform our desire to cuss. Not just not getting drunk, or not having sex outside of marriage, but having a transformation of the desire to not do these things.
If we think that God just wants us to be good little boys and girls, then we’ll miss it. We’ll be the weeds pulled up by God who thought we were doing it the right way, fulfilling our religious duty, but in reality, missing the transformed life that Jesus died to bring us.
It’s easy to fall into the thought that if I perform these comfortable rituals, ff I go to church, if I say my prayers, if I read my Bible, if I give money to the church, God will be satisfied. When in reality, God wants us to follow his Word which transforms us from the inside out by the work of the Holy Spirit. It’s uncomfortable stuff, that brings us face-to-face with the sin in our lives, but unless we have a rebirth in this way, we will not walk with Jesus in his Kingdom to come. This is the whole conversation that Jesus has with Nicodemus in John chapter 3.
My challenge for you this week is to read through the two groups, the Pharisees’ and the Canaanite woman’s stories, going before God seeking his transformed life. Asking God to create in you a heart of flesh, a heart that seeks him and desires to be transformed. These challenges are not to give you a false idea of, well if I just do them then God will be happy. No, these challenges are to challenge you to lose your comfortable life and embrace the transformative work of God. This can only be done through submission to the work the Holy Spirit, but when we do we will see the walking on water, the feeding of the multitudes, the freeing of those in bondages of all types. Because that’s what Jesus desires, and what we will see more in the weeks to come.
Let us go out from here people seeking the transformation of God by his Holy Spirit to bring glory to our Savior, and honor to our Father. Amen.
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