Minister's Message

YOUR FAITH IS GREAT

Sister Serafina was on a much desired mission assignment to the Apache Indians. She was so excited that she drove past the last gas station without noticing that her gas gauge was on “empty”. She ran out of gas about a mile down the road, and had to walk back to the station. The attendant told her that he would like to help her but he had no container to hold the gas.

“Can’t you find anything at all?” she asked.

Sympathetic to her plight, he agreed to search through an old shed in the back for something that might suffice. He was doubtful, but the grateful nun told him that the bedpan he’d found would work just fine. She carried the gasoline back to her car, taking care not to drop an ounce.

A truck driver pulled alongside the car as the nun was emptying the bedpan’s contents into the tank. He rolled down his window and yelled, “I sure wish I had as great a faith as you do!”

Our text is the story of a woman who had great faith, like we need to have. We read in Matthew 15.21-28: Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession. 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.” He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Here comes this foreign woman with no earthly reason to think the Jewish teacher and miracle worker would take time for her. Yet, whether out of despair for because somehow she realized something about Jesus’ acceptance of all people that most didn’t yet grasp, this woman gets her miracle and demonstrates truths we need if we’d have great faith like we should.

LIKE THIS WOMAN, LET’S HAVE GREAT FAITH.

Consider three characteristics of great faith in Jesus as seen in this woman so that you can have this great faith, too.

First, GREAT FAITH IS A HOPEFUL FAITH. (Matthew 15.22: A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon possession.”)

Her faith caused her to envision something better that only faith could bring: getting the demon out of her daughter. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson’s blissful marriage was almost derailed by the presence in the household of old Aunt Virginia. For twelve long years she lived with the Johnsons, always crotchety, always demanding, always critical, never satisfied. Finally, the old woman had a stroke and died. On the way back from the funeral, Mr. Johnson sadly confessed to his wife, “Darling, if I didn’t love you so much, I don’t think I ever could have stood having your Aunt Virginia in the house all these years.” His wife looked at him, aghast, “My Aunt Virginia!” she cried. “I thought she was YOUR Aunt Virginia!” We could draw all kinds of lessons from that including about communication in marriage. But the thing that applies here is that this interloper, Aunt Virginia, apparently moved in uninvited and she had no intentions of leaving. So had these demons. They weren’t going to leave. The woman had faith Jesus could free her daughter and bring a better day. She had HOPEFUL FAITH.

Faith that brings answered prayer is hopeful. In Matthew 21.21-22 we read: Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea.’ And it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.

Also in James 5.14-15 we read: Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.

Hopeful faith lifts prayer from rote religious ritual to beneficial life experience.

Most important, faith that brings salvation is hopeful. It’s like in Hebrews 11.8-10, 13-16: By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city which foundations, whose architect and builder is God. All these people were still living by faith when hey died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on the earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

Faith that brings salvation lets us see Calvary and Jesus’ empty tomb as clearly as if they just happened in the past three days. Hopeful faith is faith that sees the door OUT of the tomb is the door INTO heaven….no, I’ve got a better one than that…hopeful faith is faith that sees the ONE who came out of the tomb, Jesus Christ, is the door into heaven. In John 14.6 we read, Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That’s where our hopeful faith needs to be, securely in Jesus.

Next, we see GREAT FAITH IS A HUMBLE FAITH. (Matthew 15.25: The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she cried.)

Great faith humbles us in worship. This takes care of the going to church question. It gets us past the “do I need to?” stage and even the “Yes, I have to because grudgingly I have to admit the Bible says I have to” stage. It’s faith that realizes Jesus is worthy and able so much so that we can’t hold back from worship…we’d get up and come even if we DIDN’T have to. zNew American Standard Bible says, “She bowed down.” In the New American Standard margin it says, “or worshipped”. I wish they’d> switched that. The NIV translators, cited here, certainly didn’t do a very good job by rendering this “she knelt”. The King James and the NASB marginal note nail it by saying, “she worshipped Him”. The word in the original Greek which this was firstwritten in literally means “kiss toward”. It is the main word in the New Testament for “worship”.

As an aside notice that Jesus accepted this worship. The apostles NEVER accepted worship; always told people to get up and that they were mere men. But Jesus ALWAYSaccepted worship. This is an evidence that He is indeed God in the flesh, the very Son of God.

Notice this Canaanite woman, amid all her concerns and problems with her daughter, amid all he hustle and bustle and even hostility in the crowd, took time to worship Jesus. This WAS BEFORE SHE GOT HER MIRACLE. She reminds me of people who come to church the day after a reminds me of people who come to church even when they or a family member are going through a terrible health crisis or some other problem.

Her faith humbled her to see things in the right perspective…that Jesus was greater than her problem and deserved worship even amid her problem. So should we.

Great faith humbles us in asking. She cried out, “Lord, help me!” there in Matthew. There are people who would go hungry rather than ask for help. Now I’m not suggesting people should ask for help casually and without first trying to work for it. I’m talking about people who HAVE worked and now are too old or genuinely disabled. I’m talking about people who have endured a tragedy that has left them with needs far beyond what they can meet despite the fact that they ARE working. It takes a lot of humility to ask for what they can’t do for themselves. Many of us are also like that about our spiritual need, eternal life. It’s hard to admit we can’t get salvation for ourselves. That’s exactly what salvation by grace through faith calls us to do. Ephesians 2.8 tells us: For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith –and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God. This woman humbled herself to ask Jesus. His strange, borderline harsh, remark in verse 26 about not being right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs, may not in any way have been meant to put her off but rather to test whether she, a Canaanite, came out of presumptuousness or humility. She passed the humility test in verse 27 when she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” She was not presumptuous about who God’s people were at that time, but she was realizing that even the scraps of His blessings were sufficient to meet her needs. This is a problem I see with these “faith healers” who demand healings. Great faith always sees God in the position of power and HUMBLY asks.

Finally, GREAT FAITH IS A STUBBORN FAITH. (Matthew 15.23,26-27 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.” He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”)

In verse 23, she just keeps on. She wasn’t like this six-year-old boy who came home dejected from his first day at school and announced, “I am not going to school tomorrow.” When his mother asked “Why?”, he responded, “I can’t read, I can’t write, and they won’t let me talk – so what’s the use?” Sometimes we give up too easily. Maybe it’s a prayer not answered immediately. The Bible indicates sometimes it’s meant that we ask over a longer period of time. Even worse is when we hit a snag and we essentially give up our faith in Christ. We might still say we believe but we don’t live like it.

In the text, this woman is arguing with Jesus. She meant no disrespect. She had determined He was the only one who could meet her need even when it SEEMED like He didn’t want to meet her need. She demonstrates and defines what it means for us to “keep the faith”. A person with faith like hers is not likely to flush her faith down the commode the first atheistic professor she encounters at college or the first atheistic stuff he gets on the Internet. Let’s have that kind of faith that’s centered in God and Jesus even when life imitates the action of a vacuum cleaner and it seems They don’t even want out faith. Let’s says like Job in Job 13.15, “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;”

This woman doesn’t know the meaning of “quit”, “stop”, “give up” when it comes to faith. Never mind she’s alone in a crowd. Never mind others are not happy with her. With faith like that how can any circumstances get us to stop living our faith? Not tragedies in life; not friends or family stopping going to church; not a decision by the church leadership we disagree with; not getting to a certain age when the world says it’s time to go wild; not being let down by a Christian friend or a Christian leader who falls away and proves to be a hypocrite; nothing should get us to stop living our faith! I love Dr. Suess’ book about Horton the Elephant hatching the egg. Ol’ Horton says, “An elephant’s faithful 100%.” So is a Christian with stubborn faith. As Paul says in I Corinthians 15.58, lets, “Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”

Is your faith great? Christians, it will be as we live lives filled with hope amid chaos and sorrows; as we live lives of humble obedience and service; and as we live lives that simply won't give up in our walk with Christ.

If you are still lost in your sins, you need to come to faith in Christ. In Mark 1.15, Jesus says, “Repent and believe the good news.” In Romans 10.9-10 we read, That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. Finally, in Mark 16.16 Jesus tells us, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Saving faith requires you to believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and on the basis of that faith, repent from your sins, confess your faith in Jesus, and be baptized into Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

If we can answer your questions about your relationship with God through Jesus Christ or assist you in completing your obedience, contact us at Licking Christian Church. If you are not from our community we will be glad to refer you to faithful brothers and sisters in Christ near you. If you live in or near Licking we look forward to seeing you with us soon.

Our baptistery is nearly always full and ready. You do not have to wait until Sunday to become saved. Feel free to contact us if you need to make Jesus Christ your Savior today!

“Nun With Bed Pan” and “Aunt Virginia” illustrations adapted from Encyclopedia of Humor.

“No Need for School” illustration adapted from 1001 More Humorous Illustrations.