The Boundary-Crossing King (Matthew 15:21-39)

[00:00:05] Thank you for listening to the Calvary Church Podcast. For more information about our church, please visit calvary.com. For more resources from our lead pastor, Nate Holdridge, please visit jesusfamous.com. Teaching today is our lead pastor, Nate Holdridge. Nate Holdridge All right. Good morning, church. Great to see all of you today. Let's take out our

[00:00:30] Bibles as always, and we'll turn to the book of Matthew. We're in Matthew chapter 15 this morning. And we're going to continue our study through the gospel of Matthew that we started about 14 months ago. And I think we'll probably end sometime next summer. So we're continuing our study through Matthew's gospel today. We're in verse 21 to verse 39. And before we get into the word today,

[00:00:55] I want to pray. I do this before every teaching. And I just wanted to say, I felt led this weekend to say that this is not just a warm up to the teaching for me. What we want to do when we pray before opening the word together is we want to be asking the spirit of God to use the word of God in the lives and hearts of the people of God. Okay? So it's us coming to him and saying, we want you to use this book in our lives

[00:01:24] today. So let's pray together to that effect. Lord, we come to you thanking you for this wonderful book that you have given to us, the things in it that are easy and the things that are hard. And Lord, today as we come to this particular text, we pray that we might know our God better as a result of interacting with these episodes in the life of Jesus. Thank you, Father, for your word.

[00:01:52] Thank you for preserving it for us. And we pray that your spirit would be with us as we interact with your word today. We thank you, Lord, and we praise you. In Jesus' name, we pray together. Amen. Amen. Okay, in last week's passage, Jesus gave a huge diagnosis about the human condition, didn't he? If you were here

[00:02:15] last weekend, you heard Jesus saying at the beginning of Matthew chapter 15 that uncleanness does not come from what we consume, from the outside in, what we eat, but that it comes from the inside out, that it comes from the heart. And we tried to deal with the response to that diagnosis from Jesus.

[00:02:39] Let's turn to Jesus. Let's let him cleanse our hearts. But he didn't say any of those things himself. He just simply moved on. These next episodes that we're about to look at are going to highlight two very biblical and important subjects that help us understand how that heart transformation takes place. The first subject we're going to look at is going to be the subject of faith.

[00:03:09] The subject of faith. Trust in Christ. And we're going to see that portrayed in the life of a woman that Jesus is going to minister to. Secondly, and this is another big Bible word. We're talking about two of the five solas from the Protestant Reformation today. The second word is the word grace. And we're going to think about that in the second episode of our passage today, where Jesus is going

[00:03:35] to extend grace to the crowds on the mountainside, and he's going to feed those who are hungry and in need. So faith and grace this morning, starting with faith, and then we'll conclude with grace. So this really is a two-point sermon today. And the episode that we're going to look at first takes a bit of thought, okay? Because Jesus is going to say some things that appear mysterious or borderline offensive.

[00:04:03] And so we need to think through his logic, what he's saying. We'll do that together. And then we'll think about the woman's faith before moving on to thinking about the grace Jesus extended to the crowds, okay? So this first episode that we're going to read, Jesus is going to have someone come at him four times in a row. Three times it'll be the woman. One time it'll be his disciples. And Jesus will

[00:04:30] respond in different ways four times. So we're going to look at each of those four interactions in successive order today. So let's start off reading in verse 21. It says, 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,

[00:04:55] Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon, but he did not answer her a word. All right? This is the first time that Jesus responds. And each of his responses in this passage is going to be, as I said, slightly mysterious, if not offensive. As we're reading this beginning interaction, we might be thinking of all the other episodes we've already

[00:05:24] seen in the gospel of Matthew, where people who are demonized or people who are sick or people who have leprosy or people who have some kind of bodily ailment or injury come to Jesus or are brought to Jesus. And Jesus responds in the affirmative. He's been healing people. He's been casting out demons. He's been delivering people. This woman comes to Jesus. She's very desperate. She's a mom crying out

[00:05:49] for her daughter. There's great pain, pathos in this passage. And Jesus replies without a word. He doesn't say anything to this woman. And the question, of course, is why? Why is Jesus responding in that way? Now, let me give you a couple of background things that are important to understand. Matthew tells us that this occurred in the region, did you notice it there, of Tyre and Sidon. Now, for many of us,

[00:06:17] we just read these words and we're like, oh, Bible place, another Bible place. But if you were a first century Jewish person, Tyre and Sidon would have stood out to you as a place that the Bible had marked for judgment in previous eras. It was not part of the promised land, not part of the Jewish people. It was outside of the land. And Tyre and Sidon by the prophets of Israel themselves had been rebuked by

[00:06:44] the living God time and time again, mostly for commercial oppression of their neighbors, trading, buying, and selling in nefarious ways, including human trading, trading slaves. And God judged Tyre and Sidon continuously, especially through the prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel. In fact, in Ezekiel's prophecies

[00:07:08] against Tyre and Sidon, he rebukes the king of Tyre and then says some mysterious things about the king of Tyre that many theologians believe is him talking about Satan himself as personified in the king of Tyre, alluding to the fall of Satan and his reign. So all that to say, if you're there with Jesus in this

[00:07:35] episode, you're thinking, Jesus, what are we doing going to Tyre and Sidon? The worst princess that Israel ever had, the worst queen they ever had was a Sidonian princess. Why are we going to this place? The other thing I want you to notice is that Matthew refers to this woman who cries out to Jesus

[00:07:58] as a Canaanite. When Mark tells this story, he calls her a Syrophoenician, which was the way people in the first century would have talked about people from Tyre and Sidon. It was the appropriate designation. Canaanite is an Old Testament designation. This is the only time in the New Testament anyone is called a Canaanite. It's like Matthew is reminding his readers of the

[00:08:27] original Canaanite people who inhabited the promised land, worshiped false gods and did abominable things as a result of their worship of these false gods. So if you're one of Jesus' disciples on Jesus' team, you're wondering to yourself, Jesus, why are we going to this dark place? Why are you

[00:08:50] letting this woman speak to you? What are we doing here in this place? Okay, but Jesus' answer to this woman who cries out to him and calls him the Messiah. She says in verse 22, Lord, son of David. That's important. She's noting who Jesus is. It's like she's saying, you are the Messiah. You are the

[00:09:13] Christ that Israel is waiting for. He did not answer her a word. He didn't say yes. He didn't say no, but he said nothing. All right, that's interaction number one. Let's look at number two. You guys ready? In verse 23, it says, and his disciples came and begged him saying, send her away for she is crying

[00:09:37] out after us. Like side note, disciples, she's not crying out after you. She's crying out after Jesus. He answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now last week I made a side comment or a couple of weeks ago, I made a side comment that the disciples are often depicted when

[00:10:01] it comes to the crowds or people coming to Jesus, telling Jesus or asking Jesus to send them away. And this is another one of those moments. They don't like what this woman is doing. The way that Mark describes her actions is as a continuous crying out after Jesus. In other words, they're annoyed. They're bothered. Their peace has been upset. And they tell Jesus, send this woman away because she's

[00:10:27] crying out after us. And Jesus's response to this second request is also very mysterious. I've been sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Like what does that have to do with what we just asked you to do, Jesus? They're like, send her away. And he's like,

[00:10:55] I've only been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now we don't really know what they were asking. Were they asking Jesus to do a quick miracle for her and send her on her way? Or because she's a Canaanite and a Sidonian, send her away without a miracle. Either way, what they wanted was for Jesus to send her away. And Jesus responds like this. Some people think that Jesus wasn't even talking

[00:11:19] to them and that he wasn't even talking to the woman, but that he's there in the midst of this chaos, a woman crying, his disciples pleading. And he has a moment where he declares his original mission, saying something like, in this first coming of mine, my attention is to be paid to the people of Israel.

[00:11:44] Jesus knew, of course, full well that the gospel would go to the whole world. The book of Matthew would conclude with him saying, go make disciples of all nations. The whole book of Matthew began with a genealogy that included people from the nations. Jesus himself had Canaanite great, great, great grandmothers in that list. It starts with magi from the nations coming to worship Jesus. Jesus knew where his ultimate

[00:12:14] target was going to be, but his first mission to get to that broader mission field, he says it, I came for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Okay, that's the second interaction. Interaction number three, it says in verse 25, but she came and knelt before him saying, Lord, help me. And he answered,

[00:12:40] it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. All right, notice what's happening here. Jesus, this woman keeps pressing forward to Jesus. She comes and kneels before him like the magi in Matthew 2 or the disciples in the boat when he calmed the waters in chapter 14. And here she truncates her prayer. Before it was, you're the Lord, you're the son of David,

[00:13:10] have mercy on me. But here she just says, Lord, help me. And Jesus replied in a way that I think any honest observer would admit sounds a little harsh. I mean, you should see some of the linguistic gymnastics that people try to go through with Jesus's response when he said, it's not right to take the little children's bread and throw it to the dogs. You know, people want to say stuff like,

[00:13:39] well, the word dogs that Jesus used, he could have used a word for dogs that meant like ravenous street animal, but instead he used a word for little household puppies. And so that's meant to be like a term of endearment or something like that. But listen, we, even in our society where we love our dogs so much, I mean, you go to a restaurant with Carmel as a, in Carmel as a dog owner, you walk up to the

[00:14:06] podium, the host or hostess will say, table for two when it's just you and your dog. I mean, we're, we're those kinds of people, but we know instinctively it's better to be the child than it is to be the dog. What in the world is Jesus doing when he says this? Is he confused as he lost himself or is there some lesson, some test, some hope that he is giving to this desperate

[00:14:35] mother? Well, she seems to think so. That's why we have interaction for. So let's read it. Together. It's the final interaction between Jesus and this woman. It says in verse 27, she said, yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. Then Jesus answered

[00:14:57] her, oh woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly. I want you to notice what happened. Notice first of all, how this woman responded to Jesus. Jesus is blown away by it. He's impressed by what she has to say. She says, yes, Lord. Yet even

[00:15:23] the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. Notice there's no offense. There's no argument. There's no from her back to Jesus. Like, how dare you talk to me like that? You just equated me to a dog. That's what you're saying about me. No, there's a acceptance from this woman towards Jesus's words.

[00:15:47] Only humility flowing from her. No offense. No argument. What is she doing? She's agreeing with Jesus's salvation program. She's saying, I agree. You are the Jewish Messiah. You came as the Jewish savior, the Jewish king. But what I'm confident about Jesus is that you are so good in that position

[00:16:13] that there is enough of you to overflow from Israel into someone like me and my life. She's confident of that in the Lord, expecting enough left over for her and for her people. You see, Jesus's hard words to this woman were not a door. He was not trying to get out of ministering to her. But this was a doorway,

[00:16:41] not a closed door, but a doorway into receiving ministry from Jesus. You see, God had promised Abraham that through his offspring, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And Jesus is that offspring who came as Israel's Messiah so the blessing could overflow to the world. Israel was not a wall to keep the nations out, but the route that Christ would use to reach the nations. In fact, in the New

[00:17:11] Testament, in the book of Romans, Paul compared the people of Israel to an olive tree rooted in the promises of God. He said, through unbelief, some in that olive tree have been cut off, branches cut off, and wild branches have been grafted in. That was his way of describing the nations who would believe in Jesus. You're getting the Jewish Messiah, he's saying. But he said there in Romans 11 verse 18,

[00:17:41] it happens by mercy. It's not you who support the root, but the root that supports you. Earlier in Romans, Paul said it this way, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It's the power of God to salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. So when the woman heard Jesus saying these

[00:18:06] things, she accepted his salvation plan for the world. She's not arguing with it. She's not objecting to it. She just presses in and believes that there is something still there for her. Now think about if you had been there that day. If you had a request before the Lord that day. I think for many of us,

[00:18:31] that first response of silence, we would have felt like, well, I don't know. I made a request. He's saying nothing. I guess this is a no. But for the woman, she's like, well, he didn't say no. He didn't say yes, but he didn't say no, so I'm going to keep going. Then he's like, I've been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And she's like, okay, I guess maybe the son of David thing didn't work. So

[00:18:58] I'm just going to go with Lord, help me. And then he says, it's not good to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs. And she's like, okay, I'm going to cling to that word. And I'm going to say, but even the children's crumbs, I'm willing to partake of that. And she got Jesus right where he wanted her to be. In fact, some scholars point out that when Matthew talks about Jesus's

[00:19:24] responses, response one, he says, he did not answer. Response two, he answered. Response three, he answered. Response four, Jesus answered. It's like the real Jesus stepped forward in that final movement. Yes, this is where I wanted you to be believing and trusting in me. I love it. There

[00:19:49] was no pride in her, no outrage, just quiet acceptance in the Lord. Now Jesus is blown away by her faith, which should cause us to want to inspect her faith. So this is really the first thing I want to show you in this passage. Jesus loves faith that asks for crumbs. All right. And we're going to think about this woman's faith now for a few minutes. And I want to show you four things that I see at least

[00:20:17] about her faith. Number one, her faith came to God with nothing in its hand. You know, last week we saw the Pharisees. They thought that with their special hand-washing ceremonies, they were bringing something real special to God. Like God in heaven was just like, whoa, that is amazing what you're doing with that sweet little hand-washing thing. I am so blown away by that. They thought they were bringing something to God. This woman comes to Jesus with nothing in her hand. Many people define faith

[00:20:46] in that way, an empty hand before God. I'm not here based on my works. I'm not here based on what I've done. I'm here empty before you and in need. I was talking to my 19-year-old nephew a few months ago, and he's an eater just like I'm an eater. And so we were talking about the tenuous moment when you're

[00:21:12] standing in line at Chipotle and you get your order started and you're kind of at the mercy of the server, you know, like as to how big the portion you're going to get is going to be. And you're kind of like, notice me right now. I'm not a small man and I'm really hoping that you go the distance for me, you know, kind of thing. And we were just talking about like, it's a real wild moment. You're just kind of at their mercy. And he was sharing with me some of the tactics that he's

[00:21:39] learned to try to get as big of a portion as possible, you know, and some of them I already knew about, but one of them really impressed me. He's like, yeah, you know, if you're going to order double meat, which I often do, he's like, what you do is you just order the meat that you want, you know, barbacoa, and then they put it in there. And then after they put it in there and they've committed to that being a single portion size, you then say, oh, you know what changed my mind. I'm going to go double meat today. And so it kind of, it's an accountability system for

[00:22:08] the Chipotle worker. But one of my favorite ones that he said, he said, you know, you can, you can, if you want to, you know, when, when it's your turn, you could pull out your phone, start filming yourself and be like, what's up my people. I'm here at the sand city Chipotle, just putting my order in. Let's see how it goes. And man, when they think they're on the internet, they're just loading you up, taking care of you. You know, I was like, I think the Bible says something about lying. So,

[00:22:37] you know, you might want to think about that one, but what's happening there. We, we, we, we, we think that way. I want something, but in order to get something, I've got to give something. If I, if I give you all these accolades, I give you future customers, I give you high ratings, you'll give me what I want.

[00:23:01] And a lot of times we approach God in that way, but this woman, she knew I have nothing to give to you. I'm just here pleading for mercy. Have mercy on me, son of David. That's faith. It comes with an empty hand. But number two, her faith was radically humble. She didn't argue with Jesus's plan.

[00:23:25] She just hoped she could receive leftover crumbs. And I say this because I think many people miss out on God working in their lives because they think they're smarter than God, or they think they're better than God. If I were God, I would do this or that. I don't know why he's not doing it. I'm better than him. This woman doesn't say stuff like that. She doesn't want to be in the God seat.

[00:23:55] She just says, I accept. If that's your plan, if it's to the Jew first and also to the Greek, if you're the Jewish Messiah, if that's your wild plan to save humanity, I take it. I just want to eat the crumbs that you've got for me. It's a humble spirit before the Lord. In her faith,

[00:24:19] number three, was also completely undeterred. Did you notice that there? I mean, his silence would have turned away most people. His odd sayings would have turned away many more people. But through all of it, this woman apparently was hearing an invitation from Jesus. The great reformer, Martin Luther, who helped the church recover the biblical concept of faith in the first place,

[00:24:46] loved this passage. Preached from it often. And he gave a message saying that what this woman heard from Jesus through his silence and through all of his answers was she heard the secret yes from Jesus. Jesus. No one else is hearing yes. No one else is hearing something positive, but she's hearing it.

[00:25:10] I'm going to keep moving forward. I'm trusting in him. He truly is my only hope. She was completely undeterred. Like Jacob in Genesis, who when he wrestled with God said, I will not let you go until you bless me. That was the attitude of this woman. And finally, fourthly, her faith was parental. Her faith was parental. Notice what she says originally. She comes to Jesus and says,

[00:25:40] have mercy on me. As she is crying out for her demonized daughter. This is what parents do, man. They internalize the pain, the agony, the suffering of their children to the point that when she comes to Jesus, it's, if you work in my daughter's life, you'll be having mercy on me. Have mercy on me.

[00:26:09] And I love this from this woman. Rebecca McLaughlin once said that living as a parent feels like sending out your heart into the world without your body unprotected and out of your control. And listen, I don't think you need to be a biological parent to experience this parental version of faith.

[00:26:39] It's anytime we're ministering to someone else to the point that their pain becomes our pain. And our cry to God on their behalf would be merciful from God to us. This is beautiful faith from this woman. And I pray we would operate in this brand of faith. I just finished a book recently

[00:27:04] by Don Carson or DA Carson. You might not know that name, but he's a very famous Christian. He's a prolific author. I think he's written around 200 books. He's a widely regarded theologian. He started the gospel coalition with a few other people. He's kind of right up there with Tim Keller and men like

[00:27:27] that. And he, for all his famous or he's well known, he had a father who was a pastor for many years before he went home to Jesus, who was the exact opposite, not known by hardly anyone. And DA Carson wrote a biography on his dad's life. His father was a pastor in Quebec and loved ministering to the

[00:27:54] French speaking Canadian population. He served Jesus in all kinds of difficult places. And he had these prayer journals where he just kept asking God for a revival, that God would move among the hearts of these French speaking, Roman Catholic people who had not yet really heard or known the gospel. He was praying and praying, but all the while seeing hardly any fruit at all, pastoring these

[00:28:23] minuscule churches. You know, 25 people was a massive Sunday kind of thing. And it came to a point in his life in his early fifties, when many pastors are at the peak of their fruitfulness that he had to actually leave the full-time pastorate because he just couldn't make ends meet. He couldn't survive. He was living in poverty. And so he took a job with the government as a translator and was working,

[00:28:50] but just kept praying. And eventually God's spirit in the Jesus movement days began moving through that part of Canada. Many young men and women were coming to Christ and younger pastors were being used mightily by God. The very things he wanted to do, he was watching other people do until a prolific young

[00:29:10] pastor invited him back into the ministry. And for free, for the rest of his life, he served as a full-time pastor while also working full-time for the government, training up this new generation of young men to go out into the mission field in that part of the world. But what I'm saying is, it was a faith that was undeterred.

[00:29:35] That was my impression, just reading this man's prayer journals. This was a life of crying out to God in faith. And eventually he got to see God work in that powerful way. So let's have a faith like this woman. Amen. Okay. But let's look at the next story. This one won't take us nearly as long to pick through. It's very straightforward. So let's read it all together. Verse 29 through verse 39. It says,

[00:30:03] When Jesus went on from there and walked beside the Sea of Galilee, and he went up on the mountain and sat down there, and great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others. And they put them at his feet, and he healed them. So that the crowd wondered when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing, and they

[00:30:28] glorified the God of Israel. Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And I am unwilling to send them away lest they faint on the way. And the disciples said to him, where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place to feed so great a crowd? And Jesus said to them, how many loaves do you

[00:30:57] have? They said, seven, and a few small fish. And directing the crowd to sit down on the ground, he took the seven loaves and the fish. And having given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples. And the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up

[00:31:18] seven baskets full of the broken pieces left over. Those who ate were 4,000 men, besides women and children. And after sending away the crowds, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan. Now, some of you have not been here in the previous weeks. And so you're thinking, oh, this is that story

[00:31:43] where Jesus feeds thousands of people out in the wilderness. But if you've been here traveling with us through the gospel of Matthew, you might remember that Jesus already fed the 5,000 in the wilderness back in Matthew chapter 14. This is a second very similar miracle that Jesus produces. What I want to say as a backdrop to this miracle is that it seems as if this group of thousands

[00:32:13] are from the nations. They're not Jewish people, but are Gentile people. And the reasons that we would think that are manifold. First of all, Mark in his gospel tells us that this happened in the Decapolis, which was a Gentile territory. Also notice that they glorified the God of Israel. An Israelite

[00:32:37] or Jewish person would just more normally glorify God. But a Gentile person from another nation is saying, I'm worshiping the God of Israel, my neighboring country. In the first episode, when Jesus fed people, 12 baskets were left over for the 12 disciples and of course the 12 tribes of Israel. Here we have

[00:33:05] seven baskets left over, which may indicate something like completeness. It's time for the time of the Gentiles to come in. Even the type of basket that's used. Some Greek scholars say the kind of basket Matthew describes in the feeding of the 5,000 was common in a Jewish household. This type of basket that

[00:33:28] he uses in his wording here describes the kind of basket used in a Gentile household. But probably the biggest clue of all is that when Jesus fed the 5,000, I'll remind you how it went, the crowds came out. And at the end of day one, the disciples came to Jesus and said, these people are hungry. Send them away to get some food. We can't feed all these people out here in the wilderness. For this group, it says

[00:33:58] that it took until the third day for Jesus to come and say to his disciples, these people are hungry. What am I hinting at? A possible prejudice from the heart of the disciples towards this particular crowd. We really cared about the 5,000. We don't care about this group as much. We don't even care if they're hungry. They can

[00:34:22] hang out for days and we're not bringing it up. And so maybe it's because it's a Gentile group and they're uncomfortable in that territory. This is all starting to make sense though. Jesus said defilement comes from the heart. He crosses a boundary to minister to a Canaanite woman and now he sets a table

[00:34:46] for thousands of people from the Gentiles or the nations out in the wilderness. Isaiah said in Isaiah 25 verse 6 to 8, he said, on this mountain, the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food. He will swallow up death forever. And maybe that's what Jesus is doing right there.

[00:35:10] Gathering the nations, giving them food on that mountain. But what I want to say is that here we see Jesus giving grace that fills baskets. This lady came asking for crumbs. This crowd is walking away with baskets. It's grace. It's overwhelming. And so let's pick apart grace as we wrap up our time

[00:35:34] together today. Number one, his grace is for broken, hurting people. Don't you see that all throughout this passage? You know, it's just people that have all kinds of maladies coming to Jesus. All kinds of pains coming to Jesus. All kinds of imperfections coming to Jesus. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 9, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. And the sick are coming to Jesus in droves.

[00:36:03] And I think as Jesus ministers to them in their bodily illnesses and brokenness, it shows us what the New Testament teaches us. The New Testament teaches us that Jesus can mend not just broken bodies, but broken souls made whole through regeneration and forgiveness. You know, this last Friday night, we celebrated and are

[00:36:27] celebrating this weekend the 20th anniversary of the Bridge Restoration Ministry. Isn't that wild? 20 years of God doing that work. I've had a front row seat to this work for the entirety of those two decades. I remember in their early days going over to their first original house and teaching Bible studies in their little tiny garage to three or four

[00:36:52] residents at a time. It's a hard ministry. Lots of failure. Lots of brokenness. But man, when the gospel catches in a man or woman's life, that story of grace, when someone stands tall, healed by Jesus, it's just powerful to watch. This is part of his

[00:37:19] ever abounding grace. It's for broken, hurting people. Christ's grace, though, secondly, is for hungry people, we learn in this passage. And I'm not just talking about hungry, like spiritually hungry, or you gotta want it or something like that. I'm talking about hungry, hungry. Like, we don't have enough food hungry. We have need hungry. Jesus is showing himself not just as a

[00:37:46] shepherd of souls, like, I'm here and I can help you deep down within. He comes to actually alleviate a real pain as he sees it in these people. They call it God's mercy quadrant. There are four groups of people that from the Old to the New Testament, God

[00:38:05] always holds out to his people as people that should be cared for. He always holds out the widow and the fatherless and the poor and the foreigner. Over and over again, God tells his people, these are the people I want you to extend grace towards, mercy towards. I want you to care for that mercy quadrant. And Jesus shows up, and that's exactly who he's

[00:38:35] caring for. The nations, the foreigners, the herding, the single moms, the poor, the sojourner. He's caring for all of them. He feeds the hungry. He'd already built or established a makeshift hospital out in the wilderness. Why not also build a kitchen? And feed everyone? And I know for many of us, we want to extend grace in that kind of way

[00:39:00] ourselves. Yet we feel overwhelmed. I mean, you look out and we're more conscious of the needs in our time and in our world than any previous generation. And it can be overwhelming. We might even ask the question, what can I do? What kind of difference can I make? What can I do? But I think that can be, in one sense,

[00:39:25] the right question to ask. What can you do? Jesus said of Lazarus's sister when she broke the alabaster flask and anointed him for his burial, he said, she has done what she could. There's not more. She just did everything that she could do. And perhaps for us, we need to pray and look around in our own lives. And

[00:39:50] for maybe some of you, it's time for you to look around as the New Testament saints did at the household of faith. It is an honor to partner with single parents. It's an honor to partner with underserved kids in our church family. It's an honor to partner with people in need and to help care for them and see them through in life. And Jesus, he shows us that God's grace is for that hungry people,

[00:40:20] people in real need. Number three, Christ's grace is for all types of people. We've already talked about that. These people came from the nations and Jesus did not feel at this point restricted. The door was open for everyone. And finally, number four, Christ's grace is for forgetful people. We'll talk about this more next week because Jesus is going to have a little chat with his disciples about how

[00:40:46] they didn't seem to remember the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000 very well. But here, Jesus's disciples notice it even though they're super surprised at Jesus being able to do this kind of thing, even though he'd done it a few chapters earlier. They're like, where are we going to get bread out here in the wilderness? This is crazy. Where do you think it's going to come from? Jesus is like,

[00:41:11] I'm right here. You know, we've already done this. This is a rerun that's happening right now. Even though they did not remember or maybe did not believe that he would work for people like that, Jesus let them be part of the whole thing. He breaks the bread, hands it to them, they deliver it to people. That is God's grace that he uses

[00:41:39] forgetful, flawed, imperfect people like us to dispense his grace to the world in which we live. Oh, I'm not good enough for it. I can't be. Look at the disciples, man. Jesus can use even those who are forgetful like these men. So our episode begins with this Canaanite mom asking for crumbs and a Gentile

[00:42:08] crowd walks away with leftover massive baskets of bread. Meanwhile, the Pharisees, they get nothing from Jesus. We'll see next week that all they get is the sign of the prophet Jonah. They're not getting him working in their lives right now in this moment. It's the outsiders, the empty-handed, the trusting,

[00:42:31] the relentless who are given such extravagant grace from the Lord. And you guys, Jesus is still looking for people to extend grace to today. There's a story in the life of David, just to wrap it up, where David becomes king in Israel and he starts asking around, are there any relatives of Saul, the previous king, that are still alive? And someone says, yeah, Saul had a grandson through Jonathan. His name's

[00:42:59] Mephibosheth. He got injured when he was a little boy in both of his feet. And so David sends for Mephibosheth. Mephibosheth is brought to David and he's terrified. He calls himself a dead dog before David. And David's like, no, none of that. I'm going to care for you. I'm going to care for your whole household. I'm going to restore the land that your father had to you. And you are going to eat at my table

[00:43:28] for the rest of your life. Like you're one of my sons. It was, it was David looking for someone to extend mercy and grace toward. And that was just him doing it for one guy. Jesus comes along in this episode and it's like, he wants us to see. Yeah, I did that for that one woman, but look, she thought

[00:43:52] just some crumbs would spill over. Thousands of people are no problem for me. I am looking for the masses to minister to. I want to bring you to my table so that I can care for you all the days of your life. Thank you for listening. For more information about our church, please visit calvary.com.

[00:44:21] For more teaching from our lead pastor and a holster, please visit jesusfamous.com.