Matthew 15:28

Great is your faith

Will you pray with me? Heavenly Father, Lord, you are gracious and you are good. Lord, your grace goes beyond our understanding. We pray tonight that your word will strike our hearts, will shape our desires, will enlighten us and help us strive for greater and greater faith. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Tonight, we continue our series by looking at Matthew 15, 28. In this verse, Jesus praises the Canaanite woman for her faith. As I read the passage, for those of you who are Christian, I would like for you to reflect on your journey to faith and your conversion and the realization of your sin's weightiness. Every Christian has been brought to moments of despair, and moments or periods of humble crying out to God are a natural part of a Christian's journey. In this way, we all can hear our own voice in the Canaanite woman's cries. We all can relate to her. We all have moments where we approach the Lord in brokenness and humility, seeking even just the crumbs of God's grace from his table. And for those who are not Christian here tonight, the Canaanite woman is a model for us to approach Christ with boldness and faith. She shows us that our rank, our social status, our appearance or race creates no barriers to God's grace. Matthew recounts in verse 28, writing,

then Jesus answered her, oh woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly.

This verse requires a bit more context as it's the climax of Jesus' interaction with the Canaanite woman. If we start back in verse 21, we can better understand why Jesus praises her. In the passage directly prior to this one, Jesus teaches that words reveal a person's heart and they can display a person's defiled nature. In verses 21 through 28, however, we see how words can reveal a faithful heart. Matthew writes, starting in verse 21,

and Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. But he did not say, or he did not answer her a word. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, send her away, for she is crying out after us. He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. But she came and knelt before him, saying, Lord, help me. He answered her, it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. She answered, yes Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered her, oh woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly.

Before we look at three points that teach us about faith from this passage, I want to highlight two important interpretive points from the passage. First, the Canaanite woman addresses Jesus using two titles, Son of David and Lord. These titles show her faith in Christ as the Savior. By using the title Son of David, the woman acknowledges Jesus' Jewishness and his messianic role. She is an outsider to Judaism, but she trusts that the Messiah who begins his salvific work in Israel will extend that to Gentiles. By calling Jesus Lord, she not only communicated her respect for Jesus, as saying Lord is similar to saying sir today, but she also expressed belief in Jesus' divine nature. The disciples also used Lord when referring to Jesus, and they knew that he was the Messiah. In sum, these two titles display the Canaanite woman's knowledge and trust in Jesus as the Jewish Messiah. Second, Jesus' association of the Canaanite woman and her daughter with dogs is rather jarring to our modern ears. There is no doubt that this could have been a very offensive thing to say. Yet a few historical and textual features help us better understand what Jesus communicates. Jesus is setting up a household analogy. The Greek word here, kunariois, is a diminutive of kuon, which means something like dog or wild dog. The word Jesus uses in this passage means something more like a little dog, household pet, or puppy. In English, we use the word kitty when referring to a familiar or smaller cat. Similarly, in our passage, Jesus does not simply use the Greek word for a mature or wild dog. Rather, he means something like a household pet in his analogy. of the children and the dogs. Jesus is using household imagery to affirm the distinction between Israelites and Gentiles, and he wants to show the pattern through which God's grace will go out into the world. The center of salvation history begins with Israel, and then goes out to the Gentile world. In this way, while Jesus' use of the word dog may have been an offensive thing to say. He was not using a racial slur or derogatory term. Rather, he communicated the order through which salvation would go out into the world. Jesus' salvific work begins in Israel and then goes to all nations. Having discussed some of the key interpretive points, we can now move to consider the three points that we can learn from this passage about faith specifically. First, faith humbles believers. Second, faith reorients desires. And third, faith provides knowledge. Faith humbles believers, faith reorients desires, and faith provides knowledge. To our first point, that faith humbles believers. The Canaanite woman is a Gentile believer in Christ, perhaps one of the earliest Gentile believers in the Gospels. One of the most notable features of her faith is her humility. She trusts in the pattern of God's plan that the household of Israel would first experience Jesus' salvific work. She humbly acknowledges that she is coming second in the course of salvation history. Yet, she has humble confidence in God's good nature. Her humility is marked by confidence and persistence. While she knows that she's making a scene and that the disciples simply want her sent away, Jesus attends to her, engaging her in conversation. The Canaanite woman has humility before Jesus because she has faith. Secondly, faith reorients desires. Notice that she does not try to mitigate her desire. Acting out of faith, she boldly pursues what she knows best as a mother, the care of her daughter. Jesus ultimately affirms her desire to have her daughter healed, and he connects her faith to the righteousness of her desire. Faith and righteous desires coincide. When we have faith in God, our desires should be oriented properly. Third, faith provides knowledge. It seems that one of the reasons for the woman's boldness is her knowledge of Jesus' nature. She knows that he is good and gracious. As a result, she's not shy about her request. While she does not know if her request will be granted, she trusts that the Messiah would not reprimand her because of his character. He delights in being generous. Without this knowledge, she would not have been as bold. Perhaps she would have walked away once the disciples were visibly annoyed. She has a trusting knowledge due to her faith that Jesus will extend grace to her situation. This does not mean that we can expect all our problems to be fixed. Instead, faith grants us the knowledge about God that frees us to approach him as needy and lowly children. The facts that faith provides knowledge, reorients desires, and humbles believers lead me to two points of application for us. First, ask your spouse or your closest friend if your faith is marked by humility. Are your spiritual conversations and activities identified by triumphal pride or by God honoring humility? Do people leave your presence thinking more about Christ or you? We should take the Canaanite woman's lead and walk with humble confidence in our faith. Second, take a survey of your desires. Spend time considering your prayer requests this past week. Do they align with God's revealed will in scripture? Clearly having properly ordered desires does not exclude material needs, as the Canaanite woman's daughter needed to be healed. Whether we have desires for spiritual or physical things, the key point is that our desires align with God's own will. and we can know his will through his word. A strong faith includes strong desires that God is eager to affirm. If you've been comfortable or complacent in your faith, allow the Canaanite woman's example to shake you out of your sleep. We all come to God far more needy and far more desperate than we imagine. Walk with bold faith before God and humble yourself before him. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for this passage. Thank you for the example we have in the Canaanite woman and her faith. Lord, we pray that we can Learn from this so we can be struck to grow in our faith, to seek more confidence, more humility, and greater knowledge of who you are. Lord, we pray that we'll go out for the remainder of this week and from here on out, just pursuing you more and deepening our faith. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.