Pastor Ralph Douglas West - A Blessed Interruption | Matthew 15:21-28

0:01 Amen. Thank you, choir, for reminding us that God has kept us. Let me say it again. Thank the Lord that He has kept us. This morning in preparation for the morning's message, thank you choir for encouraging us. Also those of you who have led worship, thank you so much for your prayers and your readings as we focus our attention on God's mercy. Glad to have Coach Bubba here today. Mac, it's good to have you with us, because he's no stranger to this church. And his days are playing for the Oilers.

0:56 He and Marcus Robinson and D. Lou and all that group were members of the church. And so I told him last year how excited I was to have him as the coach at Preview. Man, what a real joy. Yeah, real joy. Players, this is your church when you're away from home. You don't have to leave your church, but this is your church when you're away from home. There's quite a few of Prairie View alums in this church. Yeah, quite a few. So we're glad to have you here. And the Watson crew. Man, what's going on? You know, I'll be in New Orleans tomorrow speaking, and then I think for y'all citywide in a couple of weeks. So good to have you here today.

1:51 Thank you for worshiping with us. I told you're pretty smart to sneak in. When they told me, said, Pastor Watson going to be here this morning, I said, yeah, he's pretty smart. Because, you know, I would have told you, man, be ready to preach, you know. Yeah, and my church, no, I would have done that to you, too. My pastor, Pastor Patterson. Now, when he was on vacation, I tried to do to him what he did to me. I had flown back from Asia one night and couldn't sleep. I got up and went to church, and he said, I'm glad to have my son here today. He's going to be preaching.

2:41 I don't know where that sermon went that morning. any of you who have ever flown across the international date line you may not want to preach the next morning but I tried to do that to him I would say pastor is here he's going to preach and he'll just sit there and look at me so now that's what I try to do to people when I go places they say Ralph is here he's going to preach I just sit there and look at him glad to have you with us today Matthew chapter 15 In a series of messages of cries of mercy, this is one of the strangest cries of all the cries that we'll study. Beginning at verse 21, this is an uninterrupted blessing.

3:30 That sometimes God will test you to see if you really want mercy. Hear how Jesus accomplishes this in Matthew 15, beginning at verse 21. Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

3:55 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. 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.

4:26 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's 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.

4:58 Then Jesus said to her, woman, you have great faith. Your request is granted. And her daughter was healed at that moment. This is the word of God. You may be seated. the shadows are lengthening the clouds are thickening as Jesus moves to Calvary four times in the gospels Jesus is looking for a place a respite. He's trying to retire away from his friends and foes.

5:55 He's trying to seek asylum from his adversaries and advocates. Jesus is trying to steal a way to be alone somewhere away from the political and the religious figures. As the ecclesiastical leaders who are coming after him, Jesus is trying to find someplace where he can retire and be alone to enter into silence and solitude. My spiritual mentor of over 40 years now, Father Henry J.M. Nowen, defines solitude as a furnace of transformation. It's a cell that you enter into and lock yourself in, not to be distracted from any of the busyness that knocks at our doors.

6:55 All of us know something about that. Of all of the disciplines spiritually to master, probably the most challenging one is silence and solitude. We're just a noisy group of people. In fact, one of my favorite things to do in church, and I shouldn't do this, I shouldn't tell you. I know confession is good for the soul and ain't much for your reputation.

7:25 Sometimes I would say, shall we enter God in silence? May we go to God in silence. As soon as you say that, the organists start playing. And I'll say, shh, silence. Somebody on the front row say, yes, silence Somebody in the balcony, scream out, pray to the Lord, silence It's because to be quiet and silent and still is nerve wracking It's the hardest thing to do, is to be quiet That's what Jesus was trying to do One of the things that you pick up when you read any page in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, Jesus is always going somewhere and people are always with him. And when he tries to steal away, the people that he's trying to steal away from find him wherever he be.

8:27 Silence. that's what's taking place in what I've just read to you that Jesus is trying to go somewhere to be quiet to prepare himself for the demands of ministry, his life's work one of the big three in the Old Testament, Elijah is always on the mind of Jesus and maybe he's following the footsteps of the prophet Elijah, who too took the same travel route that he's taking, going north and then west, and maybe exercising the very same kind of ministry. Well, Elijah went to a woman's house with a sick child. Now Jesus is entering to a place and he too will encounter a woman with a sick child.

9:24 and there she will cry and ask God for something that only God can give after reading this what are the lessons that we can learn from this story in the life of Jesus what can it teach us about mercy but one thing that it can teach us is that mercy may be found in the strangest, unexpected places. When you're reading through the scriptures and you come across these names like Tyre and Sidon, they don't mean anything initially until you give some attention to them. You know that they're not just named there for any reason. And they're not to be read over. The same way some of you come from obscure towns. You don't come from Houston.

10:19 You come from some borderland. Or you're in Louisiana and you come from some town on the outskirts of New Orleans. But with the same reverence that you give New Orleans, you want people to give to your town, to your city, to your people. That's what Tyre and Sidon is. They don't mean anything initially when you read them, but when you look at them, you say, oh, I know where Tyre is. That's the place up north and west from where Jesus normally would be. He would be south of this place, east of it. And now he's traveling north and west and he's entering into a Gentile territory. He's going into Tyre. Tyre was a big city.

11:14 It was a wealthy city. It was an ancient city. It was a city full of culture. it was in fact as large as Jerusalem in population and this is where Jesus is going now Tyre and the twin city Sidon you've met it in Genesis chapter 10 it's not as populated anymore at this time but it was one of the great cities of the ancients Tyre and Sidon is where Jesus is going to retreat to find respite away from the busyness of life, to get away from the political and the religious, to go still away and be alone. And that's where we find him now, in this little place. You can see him walking the streets. Just outside the skirts of the city of Tyre is a temple where they worship an idol god.

12:11 he makes his way and to one side you can see the blue azure waters of the Mediterranean here's a place where the prophets of old have come to conflict with the God of Baal and this is where Jesus is you get the point you're not supposed to find mercy in a place like this mercy is supposed to be found in Jerusalem, in Capernaum, by Galilee. You're not supposed to find mercy in some out-of-bound borderland, and yet God has a mysterious way of showing up in the least expected places to bring mercy to us. Maybe that's too far away from many of us. Maybe this will come closer to your street.

13:10 There are many of us who are here this morning. We are here maybe from some obscure place. Yet we had a grandmother, a mother, a grandfather, a coach, a teacher, a Sunday school teacher. somebody who prayed for us and we are the recipients of God's mercy today all because of some strange environment that we come from. I thought you would get that and that's where Jesus is at this particular time and he makes his way into a town in a house. In his house is a mother and her daughter.

13:59 One writer, Romanus Clements, one of the early church father, gives them a name. He calls the mother Justa and calls the daughter Bonas. To these two, Jesus comes into their midst and here he sees a woman caring for her daughter exemplifying mercy. Mercy can show up in the strangest places. In the least expected places mercy can show up. Not always in suburbia is it? Not always where the elites are. Are they educated? Are they cultured?

14:53 God can show up in the backwaters of life and bring people from the back room into the front room. Yes, he can. Many years ago in the highlands of Scotland, a protracted revival took place for several weeks and only one person was converted and the pastor said to the revivalist, this has been a complete failure. The only soul to be reached is young Jimmy Moffat. Moffat didn't know, the preacher didn't know, the revivalist didn't know how mercy would come to that little boy, Jimmy Moffat. Moffat would grow up to be a New Testament scholar. Moffat would go on to be the first to translate the New Testament text in a language that you can grasp.

15:53 if you go on your phone now to Bible settings and look up translations, you'll see Moffitt's translation. People who work my side of the street in preaching, rarely do we ever read New Testament texts without hearing what Moffitt has to say. One conversion, one salvation, one act of mercy has now affected millions of people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. You don't know where mercy might show up. I tell people all the time, be careful how you treat these children. You might be walking past your next pastor. Be careful how you treat children.

16:49 They may be the surgeon that has to preside over your surgery. Be careful how you treat people. They may be the judge on your bench. Be careful how you treat people. So mercy can show up in the most unexpected places. Can I tell you something else about mercy? Mercy can encounter the strangest responses. This is where the story gets juicy. It does. Because now you have a mother and she's cried out in verses 21 and verse 22. Son of David have mercy on me. Quickly, she at least identifies though she is not of the house of Israel she is a Gentile.

17:42 She is a Syrophoenician, a Canaanite woman. Her ancestry comes from North Africa probably from Carthage. Here's a woman who is not supposed to know what she knows but she knows enough to know that the one who has healing in his garment is called son of David. And she uses the right language to arrest the attention of the disciples and Jesus. Thou son of David, have mercy on me. My daughter is demon possessed. And look at the first response that she gets. Verse 21 or verse 23. I have to read it so you don't think I'm making it up. She cries out to Jesus because you've been told if you cry to the Lord, he'll hear you. He'll answer your prayer.

18:39 And then in verse 23, it says, Jesus did not answer a word. Now this is a time where you don't want to start moving too much Because you know you'll leave out saying Pastor Wes said that the Lord won't hear you No I'm serious This is how people get misinformed on stuff He didn't say a word It's the cruelest response in all of the scriptures probably other than for all the chapters that Job cried out and God answered him not a word. And yet sometimes in silence is where God speaks the loudest. God spoke to Abraham at the time, Abram, when he was in the Ur of the Chaldees.

19:45 He said, walk west, and he went journey. but when the nation faced the famine, God didn't say a word, and what about Moses in Mount Sinai? He speaks loud. in the mountain and give him the Torah.

20:07 And yet, when he's facing his first contest with Pharaoh, God doesn't say a word. What about Jesus? God spoke at his baptism when the heavens opened up and said, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. And then on the cross he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why haven't you said a word to me? And yet just because God is silent does not mean that God has abandoned you. Somebody needs to know that right now. My years in this church, I have stood by now literally hundreds of thousand funerals.

20:58 Over my years in this church, and I've watched people break under the pressure of death and I've heard people wail out angrily toward God because they felt like God had abandoned them because God did not answer them the way that they thought they should be answered and yet I'm here to tell you that you are here now because God though he may not speak in the way that you want him to. God has never abandoned. God has never forsaken. God has never left you alone. No, never alone. No.

21:45 Never alone. So that's the first thing. I'll just move on. So the first reply is, is that you may get the strange response of silence. But the next one might be the response of refusal. Listen to what the very next line says. Time doesn't permit me to talk about the disciples who made the comment that they're coming and crying after us. Jesus says well the Lord didn't send me here for you I want you to hear this because this is probably answering some hard questions for people to say the reason why I'm not a Christian you people go around you sing these songs the preacher get up doing all this preaching and I called to the Lord and the Lord didn't answer me it seemed like God refused me and Jesus says, and I want you to hear what he says, well, God didn't send me to your house.

23:00 He sent me to the house of Israel. That is, God had a specific plan on how he was gonna get you 2,000 years later to be in this room in relationship with him and he didn't change his plan and he didn't mean that Israel was better than any other place. is just how God worked out his plan. It wasn't that they were better, smarter, nicer, more ethical, more moral. It was just God says, I'll choose this group and I'll send myself through this nation and work that way. And then when Pentecost come, I will open a door that everybody who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And he refused it. This is tough.

23:51 Let me give you one more. I'm just speeding up now because I know you can't handle too much. So let me just speed it. No, let me just speed up. You know. Three responses. Silence. What's the next one? Refusal. Here's the last one that I'm done. Reproach. In verse 26. he says so it's not right get this to take what belongs to God's children and give it to the dogs he's not calling the woman a dog this is where this thing gets all twisted up but he's using this term dog because this is how many in that day would have referred to somebody not in the house of Israel and they would belittle them by calling them a dog.

24:48 The term that Jesus used is the word carryon in the Greek which refers to a diminutive dog. You say you don't know what I'm talking about. Yes, you do. Some of y'all guys, I'm a senior in my own church. You got them Louis Vuitton purses with a dog inside of them. That's the exact picture that Jesus is painting of a pet dog or animal that one would treat and have in their homes. dog don't get much play I shouldn't tell you all this but in Revelation 22 ain't no dogs going to heaven I know y'all are mad I just thought I would tell you that I was at old Willie G's many years ago And a lady was having a meltdown And she found out I was preaching So she hijacked my lunch By wanting to talk to me about her dog that had died I shouldn't have done it And I just went right to Revelation 22 And just said well I can't help you Because there ain't no dog that's going to be in heaven I was just being mean that day.

26:11 Lord have mercy. So when the woman heard that, just like you, you sit down and say, that's a tough statement. A dog?

26:34 Because when you look at 1 Samuel and you see David going out to fight Goliath, Goliath says what? am I a dog? And then he said to David, then I'll send you back a dead dog. So the whole term is insulting, it's demeaning. And what about Lazarus when the dog lick his saws at the gate? These are not sanctified spiritual dogs that's doing something nice. these just old dogs and what about Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount when he says don't throw that which is holy unto the dogs or Paul says beware of the dogs here Jesus is using this term because this woman would identify with it and says it's not right to give that which belongs to God's children.