Faith in Christ is Great!

Matthew 15:21-28

Scripture Readings

Genesis 32:22-32
Romans 5:1-5

Hymns

145, 522, 408, 528 V:1-6

Hymns from The Lutheran Hymnal (1941) (TLH) unless otherwise noted

Sermon Audio

Prayer of the Day: Lord Jesus Christ, merciful Savior, You did not turn away the crying mother but drew out her faith so that she might cling to Your mercy alone. When You seem silent and our prayers appear unanswered, keep us from despair. Teach us to seek You, to wrestle in faith, and never to let You go, trusting that Your love is greater than our weakness and Your promises truer than our fears. Fix our hearts on Your cross, that in every trial we may hold fast to You until the day You grant us the full blessing of eternal life; for You live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Text: Matthew 15:21-28 (EHV)

Jesus left that place and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon. There a Canaanite woman from that territory came and kept crying out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! A demon is severely tormenting my daughter! But he did not answer her a word. His disciples came and pleaded, “Send her away, because she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But she came and knelt in front of him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered her, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to their little dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “yet their little dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, your faith is great! It will be done for you, just as you desire.” And her daughter was healed at that very hour. (EHV)

How do you feel about the month of February? “What are you talking about, Pastor? It’s just another month of the year…” Is it? There is always something about this month that just seems depressing to me. The joy and warmth that go along with the holidays are a distant memory, long in the rearview mirror. The weather typically isn’t great. It’s the shortest month of the year, yet to me it always feels like the longest. It’s a month that reminds us just how far away we are from spring and summer. Getting through February can be a struggle. But struggling can be a good thing.

This can be a hard point of view to maintain. The only way to maintain this point of view is by faith. Only by this point of view of faith do we know the simple truth… FAITH IN CHRIST IS GREAT!!! Faith seeks, faith wrestles, and faith clings. We pray: SANCTIFY US, O LORD, BY YOUR TRUTH; YOUR WORD IS TRUTH! Amen…

February is also a common month for vacations, which isn’t very surprising. It is very common for people to want to get away from the cold and dreary places where they live and go somewhere nicer, somewhere warmer. There is a natural tendency inside all of us to just get away for a while, and it often exercises itself during this month.

Jesus was no exception to this. He too sought to get away… Jesus left that place and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon. By all indications, this is the farthest north Jesus ever journeyed on this globe. He wanted to get away from all the bustle in Galilee and Judea.

And yet, as needed as a break would have been, He still never stopped His ministry. There a Canaanite woman from that territory came and kept crying out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! A demon is severely tormenting my daughter!”

Here we have this woman, who comes to Jesus, and she has a serious problem—something she can absolutely do nothing about on her own. The one and only answer to this problem is to seek out Jesus. She knows this. She is desperate. She hears that Jesus is in the area and seeks Him out personally. Only Jesus can heal what ails her daughter. Her plea is a good one: “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David!”

Faith seeks Jesus. What this woman does here is something that we do. It’s also something that we need to do more.

Have you ever heard or used the phrase, “Well, all we can do now is pray…”? Oftentimes prayer seems like a last resort, or something not much more helpful than hoping or wishing. How many times have you or I thought about prayer like that? “All we can do now is pray?” That should be the first thing we do. Prayer is not a last resort. It is taking your problem to the throne of God. It should always be our instinct and our first resort. But we like to think that we can handle things ourselves.

Sometimes God gives us reminders about this. He shows us how helpless we truly are. It is in these moments that we know we are not in control, when we know that we cannot handle it ourselves. Have you ever had such a moment? If not, just give it time. It is an illusion that we have some kind of control in life. It is also an illusion that we have the strength ourselves to handle whatever life throws at us. Life here is hard. We need faith that seeks out Jesus to help us in all of our problems. There is no problem too big or small to take to Jesus.

How Jesus responds to this woman’s plea for mercy is downright fascinating. I do not believe Jesus responds this way anywhere else in the entirety of Holy Scripture. How does He respond? He doesn’t…

But He did not answer her a word. His disciples came and pleaded, “Send her away, because she keeps crying out after us.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Whoa. What a cold way for the Savior to react to someone’s daughter being demon-possessed. Even the disciples were trying to get Him to deal with this. This woman was making a scene, and Jesus was seemingly doing nothing to address it. What a cold response—one He does not even say to her. Perhaps she hears it as He remarks to the disciples, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Was Jesus truly ignoring her? No, it just seemed that way. Sometimes it can feel this way to us as well. We have these problems, these tribulations we are going through, and we take them to God in prayer. And then… nothing happens. We still struggle. We are still suffering. Our loved one for whom we are praying to Jesus doesn’t get better, or our own earthly problems get worse and worse. Is He ignoring me? What have I done to upset God? Why is He letting me suffer this way? Doesn’t He care about me?

Sometimes faith wrestles. Sometimes God answers our prayers in a way we do not expect, or in a way we do not enjoy. But that doesn’t mean that He isn’t doing what is best for us. How did Paul put it in our epistle reading this morning?

“And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

This can be quite the thing to wrestle with. We wrestle against the devil, the world, and especially against our flesh. But we also need to wrestle with God. What? Wrestle with God? Why? Certainly not for the same reason we wrestle our spiritual enemies. They want to drag us to hell, and God wants us to be saved and come to a knowledge of Him. But we still must wrestle, because our human nature tends to forget who our God is. We struggle to understand why it seems like our prayers go unanswered. We struggle to remember that He is in charge and that He wants what is truly best for us. And we struggle to remember what He has promised us. We must wrestle with God because of our weaknesses.

Look at our Old Testament lesson. Jacob literally wrestled with God. He said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” God responded and said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” And then God blessed him.

We also will struggle. But in that struggle there are blessings to be found. We find out from wrestling that God truly hears us and answers our prayers. We find out that all things work together for good to those who love God (Rom. 8:28). We find out that His promises are real and true. The struggle is worth it because it reminds us of the blessings God gives each one of us…

This woman also had to wrestle here, and like Jacob she would not let go! But she came and knelt in front of Him, saying, “Lord, help me.” He answered her, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to their little dogs.”

I think if it were me and Jesus said that to me, I would probably just go away sad—sad and convicted. But this lady did not. This lady had faith! This faith did not quit. She would not believe that Jesus didn’t care about her and her daughter. “Yes, Lord,” she said, “yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” What is she essentially saying here? “I am a dog?” Most people would be pretty offended by that comparison. Dogs were not thought of as highly back then as they are today in our society. But she didn’t care. “OK, fine, I am a dog. Yet even a dog gets to eat the scraps that fall from the table. That’s all I want—just a scrap, Lord.”

And you see the amazement from Jesus here at her response. “Woman, your faith is great! It will be done for you, just as you desire.” And her daughter was healed at that very hour. When someone’s faith amazes Jesus, you know it’s remarkable. In this wrestle of hers, she would not let go until Jesus blessed her and her daughter. She clung tightly to the fact that this was her Savior. Despite all the looks she must have gotten, despite all the embarrassment from being rejected, despite the debasing of being compared to a dog, she didn’t care. She was going to cling to Jesus!

How would Jesus react to your faith? Would He say something similar? Or would you depart sad and convicted? How would you do in this situation? How is your wrestling going?

So, how can we apply this to our spiritual lives? Is the lesson, “I must not have prayed as hard or as much as I should have when that bad thing happened to me in the past?” NO.

Sure, we all need to pray better, and yes, we should all be persistent in our prayers. But the takeaway is this: Faith in Christ is great! Faith in Jesus is great because Jesus is great. Faith in Him can accomplish great things. Have your faith cling to the Word of God. All those things that God says to you in there are true. Cling to them, wrestle with them, and never let them go!

And we have an awesome opportunity to do that in this Lenten season. See Jesus. See Him there, clinging to His cross in agony. Witness Him doing for you what only He and He alone could possibly do—pay for your sins. When you see Jesus on the cross, the takeaway is not, “Man, what a bummer, I am such a sinner that Jesus had to do that.” That is a fact, but that is not the point! Instead, see your Lord dying for you on the cursed tree and realize, “Look how much Jesus loves me! This is what He went through to personally give me eternal life and heaven itself! What wondrous love! My sin is forgiven! Praise be to Jesus for loving me in this way!”

He does love us—just look and see. He does care about us—just look and see. But don’t just look and see; rather, CLING! That cross is your salvation! Cling to it no matter what you wrestle against. He has given you faith. It is faith that seeks Jesus, that overcomes all tribulation, that clings to the promises He has made to you. Faith believes, and faith receives.

Will we struggle? You can count on it. But all that matters is that we have that cross, and it will sustain us throughout any circumstance! Praise be to Jesus—faith in Him is great! Amen!!!

—Pastor Pastor Ben Libby

Redeemer Ev. Lutheran Church
Cheyenne, WY

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