Good evening. It is a wonderful blessing to be with you all here this evening. I'm so thankful to get to do this. Originally, whenever I knew we were going to be in town, there's so many loved ones we like to see, and I told Ronnie we were coming, and my plan was just to come and spend time with you all here this evening, and he asked me if I'd like to preach, and I'm really thankful for the opportunity. What I'd like to ask you to do if you're able is if you could open your Bibles and stand with me. I want to read a section of scripture and then pray once again, and then we'll work through it together. And so if you're able, open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 15. We'll begin reading in verse 21, down through verse 28. Matthew 15, 21 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, 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. And his disciples came and begged him, saying, Send her away, for she's 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. And he answered, it is not right to take the children's bread and to throw it to the dogs. She said, 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. Thank you. You may be seated. As you're being seated, I'll ask you to bow with me once again in prayer. Heavenly Father, oh Lord, I thank you for this time now that you've given us. Oh God, I thank you for your patience and your long suffering with us. That your mercies are new indeed every morning. God, I pray that you would meet with us now as we look into your word together. That you would stir up in us a desire and a conviction to seek after you in your word and in prayer. Father, show us the meaning of these things. I pray you would guard me from misspeaking and protect me from error. Oh God, that you would give clarity and boldness and authority to speak what's true for the sake of your people. Oh God, please, that you would be glorified and that your son, Jesus Christ, would be exalted. I ask these things in his name. Amen. The title of this sermon tonight is just a simple question, two word question. Why pray? Why pray? You may find that to be an odd title in light of our text, because do you see anybody praying in your text here in front of you? What we see in this text is maybe not an explicit prayer, but what is it whenever we lift our voices and pray to God, what difference is there from what we see demonstrated in this woman in Matthew 15? She's coming to the Lord Jesus Christ and specifically on behalf of someone she loves, her daughter, who's oppressed by this devil. And so my point is there is a direct parallel in this woman and her consistent faithful appeals for her child and our prayers to God, especially for our children and lost loved ones. I'm going to go ahead and this is being recorded so I suppose this is on record and say I believe the most neglected thing in the life of the church for all ages is prayer. Prayer. You go to churches around the world and throughout the history of the world and you'll find this pastor after pastor after pastor is heartbroken because his people won't show up to pray at the regular prayer meeting. And you see, it's not something where any pastor wants to look at his people and grab them by the scruff of the neck and say, you better be here. Nobody wants people coming together for that. We want people to want to be here. And so I hope you don't take this as a strong in your face kind of a rebuke so much as a call and a demonstration in these verses tonight for why it is that we ought to be urgently and fervently seeking God together in prayer. This is a neglected thing, and not just for meeting places, but what in our own homes? How many of you, you think about your own life before God, how often do you spend seeking God in prayer? Why not? Why not? There are a number of different reasons that keep us out of the prayer closet, and I'm wanting to hope, I'm hoping to take some of those things that keep us from prayer and cast them away, that we might be free and feel free in seeking God that way. And so without anything any further ado, I'll ask you to begin looking with me in verse 21. We see, and Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon. Now, immediately before this in Matthew's gospel, Jesus has been wrestling with Pharisees and scribes, not literally, but figuratively. He's been engaged with and rebuking these people, these people coming against him, trying to undermine him. And he's having to deal with them. And so in our text, Jesus and his disciples had went away to Tyre and Sidon in order to rest before continuing on in ministry. And you can take the scripture down from Mark 7, 24. The same account tells us this. And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. You see what's going on here? Jesus has been healing people, performing miracles, and then arguing with Pharisees. He's slipping into the countryside to go and get away and get some rest. He really was a man. He's truly God, but he's truly a man who needed rest from time to time, just like all of us do. And in this text, he's going away to rest. He's entered a house to avoid and to really escape the constant beating at the door of people wanting to see him and be engaged with him. Now, I want you to realize something. It says that Jesus did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. In case you're not sure about this, Jesus could have kept anyone from seeing him that he wanted to. There's nothing that says that Jesus could not hide himself. As a matter of fact, many times in the scripture, we see Jesus disappearing almost magically. It seems supernaturally to be sure. One time they want to make him king after he feeds 5,000 people and they... Where'd he go? He's gone. Other times they come to kill him and all of a sudden he escapes supernaturally through the crowd. Jesus could have been hidden if he wanted to be hidden. What this is telling us, though, is that Jesus, when it says He did not want anyone to know, it's indicating that He was taking a break from the constant flow of people that He had been ministering to, that He might rest. He without question knew that he was going to have this encounter with this woman. And you might even say that Jesus went to Tyre and Sidon to this region in order to meet with this woman. He had a purpose in being there. When it tells you that Jesus went into the house in Mark 7, that he might not be seen or found out, what it's telling you is this. that Jesus Christ in this text has positioned Himself in such a way that only those who were truly seeking Him and only those who were desperate about reaching Him are going to find Him. Anyone who would be easily deterred by an apparently closed door was not going to reach Him. Think about that for a minute. Jesus is there. This woman, if she gets to the door and the door is closed, well, I guess it's time to just go home. How much of our prayer lives are marked by that? You pray to God and it doesn't happen immediately, so you, well, must not be the Lord's will, huh? Well, maybe not, but you're not gonna know if you don't press on through that thing the way this woman does here. What does that tell you about your own attitude towards God? Jesus is in a house, he's trying to rest, he's separated himself from his regular flow of ministry, And it just strikes me that oftentimes we feel, much like this woman surely felt, that the Lord has other things going on. He's too busy. He's got something else, a bigger priority. His rest is more important than my issue that I'm facing. You wonder if you're worthy of being heard by Him. The next verse we see in verse 22, we're going to spend some time in this one. It says, 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." First thing in verse 22 we see is that this woman is a Canaanite. That means that she would have been treated as a Gentile and unclean by the Jews. She was of Canaan, the people conquered during Joshua's conquest, descendants of Noah's grandson here, these Canaanites. and she would have been seen as cut off and completely separated from God's people. You see, the majority of us in here, I don't know if there are any ethnic Jews in the room here tonight. If there are, I would question whether you could demonstrate and prove that historically, but that's beside the point. Point is, most of us are probably Gentile people. What expectation can you and I have of the Jewish Messiah taking an interest in our prayers? Jesus can't. And he came to the Jews and you and I look at one another and say, why would he listen to anything I have to say? What interest does he have in me? I'm no more clean as it relates to Jew and Gentile than that woman was. Why should, why should he hear me? And certainly this is what's going through the mind of these disciples of his. Here comes this Canaanite woman. The master does not have time to deal with this lady. She's not getting to him. He's here to rest. She's got to get away from us. And perhaps a more fitting application, if the Jew-Gentile distinction's giving you a little trouble, think about it in this way. When it comes to prayer and seeking God in prayer and whether or not He hears you, think of it this way. Many of you maybe didn't come up in a Christian home. You ever listen to somebody else pray and their prayers are so eloquent? And almost there's something significant about it. There's depth and weight in what they're saying and you sit there and think, How do they do that? I don't know those words or I don't know that truth. You'd be terrified to death to pray in front of another person because you're not going to sound like you're that great a prayer. You're going to sound like someone who's come out of the world. That's the context of this woman coming to Jesus as someone separated from God's people, hoping for an audience with him. Does God listen to you? The next part of 22 says this Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying. Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David. The next thing we see is that there is a desperate and an urgent nature to this woman's burden. It says that she was crying, crying out. This paints a picture of something, of a reckless kind of disregard for how other people might look at her. And I'm convinced that if you're not at this point almost of weeping and wailing before God, of not having any concern about what anybody else might think, How interested are you really in having this thing happen? How urgent are you? How far are you willing to go in prayer? You read the scriptures, Jesus says in Matthew 7, a while before this, He said, Ask, seek and knock. If you ask and seek and knock, there's this desperate pursuit of a thing. Why is it that we don't pursue God that way in prayer? This woman's daughter is oppressed by a devil. It was an urgent situation. Why is it that we don't seek God that way in our own prayers? Why don't I? She was urgent. She's crying out. She comes with no national ties to the Jews, no money to purchase her request. No material goods to trade. All this woman had to barter with as she comes to Jesus Christ is her tears and broken heart for the state of her daughter. That's all she has. She has nothing to plead, nothing to say about herself in order to convince Jesus to do what she's asking, except this. Her tears, her sorrow, and her trust in his mercy, that he is a merciful Messiah and merciful son of David. She's crying in this way. Psalm 51, 17 says, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Whenever we come to God with humility and honesty and contrition, He is ready to hear us. It says she was crying out. Now, what is she crying out? What is the basis for this woman's plea to Jesus Christ? She says this, have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. The next point we see is that this woman's petition is rooted in the fact that she realizes that she doesn't deserve it. And if you'll notice that, it bookends her appeal. The first thing she says is, have mercy on me. The last thing she says is, even dogs eat crumbs that fall from their master's table. Both of them aware, she's aware of the fact that whatever she's seeking from Jesus Christ is not on the basis of anything she would ever deserve. Have mercy on me. She's not saying, Jesus, I'm here, give me what I deserve. Mercy. Have mercy on me, she says. You see, although she repeatedly disregards the rejections, she doesn't come to Jesus with any entitlement or demand. Far from entitlement, she's actually asking Jesus not to give her what she deserves, and she's fully aware that she herself didn't even deserve to have her child rid of demons. That's tough, isn't it? You see a little baby suffering miserably, or a young child that you have, do you think, is there something in your head that says, they don't deserve that? That they're innocent, they're guiltless perhaps? The scripture would have us to know that every child, every person born is born in sin, and we don't deserve God's mercy, we don't deserve His goodness. This woman knew she didn't deserve it, but she knows God's character is one of mercy. Do you find in yourself any notion that you deserve for God to answer your prayers? Think about this, you ever are asking God for something, maybe you want a raise of some kind, or there's just some issue that you're seeking You want God's help, and you find yourself asking again and again and again, and whenever He doesn't give you the thing you're asking for, do you ever find yourself starting to measure and think through your life and try to figure out, well, what things am I not very holy about? Well, maybe if I just would read my Bible a little more, God would... You see, it's so easy to slip into a mindset that says, I'm going to do this in order to get God to do this. And if He's not doing this, well, I must be doing something wrong. I haven't found the right formula. That's the way that we're prone to think. I didn't do good enough. Our pleas to God must always be recognized as pleas for mercy. The last thing we see in this request for mercy is that she's asking for mercy for herself. Do you see what I'm saying here? The text, you would maybe expect it to say, have mercy on my daughter, wouldn't you? It's the daughter who's oppressed by the devil, right? Why is she saying have mercy on me? Well, any of you who have ever been a caregiver of any kind, whether for a young person or for an elderly person, you know that when they're suffering and you're the one taking care of them, for them to be healed, for them to be restored would be mercy on you, wouldn't it? One of you parents had better say amen about that. If your children's behavior was fixed in the blink of an eye by the Lord Jesus Christ, that would be mercy for you. And here's on a serious point, though. Why do you think it is that she's asking the Lord to have mercy on her? The reason is because she's the one who has an audience with Jesus. Think about this. This is very important. There's a foundation established here. You have a child that's lost, that's not walking with God and your soul's burdened because of the condition of this child or loved one? When you go to God in prayer as one who loves the Lord, who knows Christ, you're the one with an audience before God. He hears you. And He's already demonstrated to you that He loves you. You're the one you're praying for. They're separated from God. They haven't been reconciled yet. You have. And so you're pleading to your father to have mercy on you. He's the one who's given you this burden for this person. God, you've given me this burden for this child. Please help me deliver me from this burden by saving them. Romans 8.32 says he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Do you see that? If you're asking, does God have an interest in hearing me at all when I come to him in prayer? Or do you believe that He had an interest in you whenever Jesus Christ went to the cross? And you say with Wesley about, there's this, how can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood? Do you have an interest in the Savior's blood? Do you have a place before God because of the love of God shown at the cross? If you say, yes I do, then God has already proven to you that He loves you. And so when you come to him in prayer, you're going to one who has already shown you with absolute clarity his love. You don't have to wonder. And so when you ask these things, especially for another person, you're appealing on the basis of the love that God has already shown to you. He's already shown you that that's what Paul is saying. He didn't spare his own son. How is he? How is it that he's not also going to give us all things? He's already had mercy. He's willing to do so again. The next thing she says is, have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. Now, that's a little bit shocking, isn't it? This is a Canaanite woman. This is a Gentile woman. This is not someone who was a Jewish woman. Why does she know to call Jesus the son of David? How did she know that? We could speculate. We could say, well, she's living in a nearby region and she probably was at least somewhat familiar with the Jewish scriptures or she'd heard people talking about Jesus and all His miracles and saying, hey, this could be the Messiah. All those things are possible. But let me suggest to you that the most evident truth as we see unfold in her appeals that she's making is this. that God himself had shown her that Jesus was the son of David. This means that she knew, she saw that Jesus is the promised Messiah. He is the one sent from God, the only one able to help her child. Think of this. Here's God in the flesh before you. And you know He's the only one able to help my child. What could cause you to uproot and leave without getting an answer to your request? She calls Him the Son of David. And I wonder, I wonder when we bring our requests to God, do we come to Him As a last resort, we come to the Lord hoping that he might kind of supplement our own efforts. OK, God, I've done all that I can do. Now it's your turn to take over. No, he doesn't need our feeble efforts. We need his mighty hand. And this woman saw something of that in Jesus. She saw something of that. This woman recognizes him as the son of God who's able to help her. And what we're starting to see is She comes to the Lord, not saying, look at me, not saying, look what I've accomplished, not saying, look what I'm going to trade with you. She comes and says on the basis of who you are, she says, have mercy on me, son of David, not because of me, but because of who you are. You are the son of David. You are the son of God. I need you as a Messiah to be the one to have mercy on me. That's her appeal. That's what she's saying. The last thing in this verse, she says, my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. Finally, in this verse, we see that this is a severe case, severely oppressed by a demon. This is not a small thing. This is a devilish thing, a demonic thing. When we pray, especially for our children and our loved ones, Do we realize how hopeless and how desperate they are without the hand of Jesus Christ working in their life? We are desperate. We're unable to do anything about the problem ourselves. You know, not every person in the world is oppressed by a demon in this severe way, and I suppose even those who are oppressed or possessed by demons, that you even in that in the scriptures, you see a variation of degree of severity. You see some who seem always constantly one young boy constantly thrown into the fire and into the water from the time he was little. And you see a severe case like that. Now, on the other hand, you see a Judas who seems to live most of his life driven by his own greed and desires. And one day the devil enters him, enters his heart to betray Jesus. You see variations in degree of demonic activity. But here's the point. Not every person is possessed or oppressed by a demon, but every person in the world has just as significant a need because of devilish forces. There is a veil from the devil that shrouds the minds of every unbelieving person. This woman is urgent because the case is urgent. And if you're praying for someone who's lost, their case is urgent. Second Corinthians 4.4, speaking of those who don't believe, Paul says, in their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not. Those who don't believe the gospel, they don't believe because they're sinners and they're sinful in their own hearts. They don't believe because the devil has them blindfolded. There isn't a need for someone who's mightier than the devil. If we're going to see these people delivered, if this woman's child is going to be delivered, Jesus was the only one to do it. It is God alone. who can cause the light to shine out of darkness and remove this blindfold of the devil. Well, now we begin to look at Jesus' response. We've looked at what she said to him, her appeal, why she's saying what she's saying. Verse 23 says, but when he did not answer her a word, but he did not answer her a word. That's a little bit anticlimactic, isn't it? She's pleading. She's saying, have mercy on me, son of David. Her theology is good. I know you're the son of David. I know I need mercy. And yet he did not answer her a word. How often have you gone desperately and urgently to the Lord in prayer and felt that your requests weren't being heard at all? We're talking a lot about the salvation of youngsters tonight, and that's a very fitting thing. We've got many of you youngsters with us. And I hope you're listening. But this isn't the only place this comes home. There are many areas where they're praying for someone who's lost or praying for your spouse who's constantly struggling, praying for someone who's been severely mistreated and their heart shattered because of it. Praying to even have a child when you can't. You've asked God how many times and it hasn't happened yet. She seeks Him. He did not answer her a word. Exodus 2, 23-25, listen to this. He says, During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery. And they cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning. And God remembered His covenant with Abraham, and with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel and God knew. You wonder, does God hear you on your prayer? Your cries go up. Does he hear them? God heard and he knew. Now, here's what's interesting. The time, the amount of time that had passed between the origination of Israel's groanings and God sending Moses to deliver them was over 400 years. Up to 430, if you go back far enough to the origination of this people, 430 years of people crying out to God. It doesn't happen all that time. And the scripture tells us God heard and God knew what was afflicting them. Jesus knew he heard her, but he did not answer her a word. You should not assume that God has not heard you. that God is not disinterested in your prayers or burdens because He doesn't answer you immediately. The next part of verse 23 says, And His disciples came and begged Him, saying, Send her away, for she's crying out after us. You see, these disciples were obviously growing tired of this woman. She's constantly there, crying out. They're getting annoyed with her. We probably would as well, wouldn't we? Someone coming like this, considered to be severely unclean, not accepted before God's people. They come in, get them out of here. That's the attitude of these disciples. And we can safely assume that Jesus all along is planning on helping her, since He eventually did heal her daughter. And that tells us something, that Jesus had a greater purpose than what His disciples knew about. You can almost imagine the smug look on the disciples' faces. This woman's crying out, And Jesus is not answering her and they're thinking, yeah, she's driving him nuts too. This woman's no good. She doesn't belong here. That's surely what they were thinking it would seem in the text. The disciples begged him saying, send her away. Are we ever guilty of discouraging people and taking their prayers and their concerns to God? I'm serious. Do you ever do you find it that whenever someone comes to you with a need and you think that's a trivial need in light of the needs that I have, that that doesn't belong here? What a wicked thing to dissuade people from taking their concerns to God in prayer. If the disciples had known what Jesus had planned for this woman, I think you might see a little bit different response for them from them right here. The next thing in verse 24, he answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now think about this. You've come to Jesus because you know you need his help. And you're there around a bunch of people that already don't accept you. The Jews, they don't like you. You know they don't like you. You've come anyway. You found the house he's staying at. You've got him out there. And first, the disciples, his closest followers, try to run you off. And then he doesn't answer you. And finally, when he does, he says, I was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Again, these disciples, I'm sure hearing that saying, yeah, the master, he's thinking the same thing we're thinking. She needs to get out of here. She's unclean. She's not a Jew. She's not one of God's people. Was that what Jesus is doing here? Is that what Jesus is saying? Is he completely rejecting her? You see, it's easy to read this section and to think that Jesus is basically telling her some really hard, nasty things to see how real her faith is. I hope you come to see the mercy of God in Christ deals much more tenderly with his people, especially when they come broken and in need. Hang with me on this. This is going to be a big point we'll return to at the end. Jesus does appear to be rejecting her. And Jesus is seen, the scripture we know, we know that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. But that's not exactly what we're seeing here. You might look at this and think, oh, this pagan Gentile woman, she just happened to slip in. I guess she just was so annoying that Jesus let her come in when he was really only trying to see Jews converted at the time. You might think that. Well, hold on to that thought and see where we end up at the end of all this. John chapter 10 and verse 16 says, And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice. So there will be one flock and one shepherd. The indication of whether you are one of Christ's sheep is not determined by whether you're a Jew or not. Whether you're one of Jesus' sheep is not determined by the family you grow up in. It's not determined by anything you could ever possibly do. The question is, it's not what do you do? It's what has been done to you. If you're one who hears his voice, that's what he says in John 10. The ones that are my sheep, the ones I'm bringing in, they listen to my voice. So ask this question, is this woman listening to Jesus voice? Is she dependent on him in that way? Verse 25. This is how she responds. Jesus says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She said it says, but she came and knelt before him saying, Lord, help me. That seems like a stumbling block, doesn't it? Jesus has come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. She's obviously not a Jew. How is she supposed to take this? You see. It's as though she's drawn even nearer. She comes close to the Lord. Notice this. She's not content to even continue asking from a distance. She draws near. She came and knelt before him. How many of you parents you ever with one of your kids and they're trying to tell you something and you're busy and you're not paying attention and finally they get fed up and they'll come and grab your face and make you look down at them. They want your attention. They want to know that you're listening to them. They want to know how serious. They want to know how awesome the thing that they want to show you is. They want you to get excited for them. They want that closeness. She comes and kneels and draws close to Jesus and says, Lord, help me. James 4, 8 says, draw near to God and he'll draw near to you. You see, if we're urgent and desperate in our needs before God, surely we must also be willing to draw near to him. We must be willing to come close and intimately before him. And here's the troubling thing with that. You can't come intimately before God and not be aware of your sin. You realize this? This is what keeps us. I can remember my own dad as a young man. Anytime I was ever in sin, I was always in sin. But when I was ever in grievous sin, he knew it. You know why? I wouldn't talk to him. I wouldn't call him. I wouldn't answer when he called. There was something there. And it's the same with the Lord. That same scripture, draw near to God, and He'll draw near to you. It says, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Here's the point. If you're going to draw near to God, if you're going to say, I want God to hear my urgent plea before Him, you've got to be honest. That's why so many of us are afraid and uncomfortable praying in a public way. You know why that is? It's because it's a vulnerable thing. How are you going to offer a prayer up that's disingenuous when you know you're coming into the presence of God when you pray? And other people are going to see you squirm before Him. But it's a good thing to be forced to evaluate and see yourself as you come before God. I say again that if we are sincere and urgent about coming before God in this way in prayer, surely we must be willing to do the same thing this woman does. Now let me ask you, where is it that we are able to draw near to God. You can almost imagine her as she kneels down before the Lord, reaching towards him as she gets close to him. Where is it that you do that? And I can tell you it's not with me and it's not with Ronnie and it's not with any other man. Where is it that you draw near to the Lord in this way? Where do you see God face to face? 2 Corinthians 4.6, For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. So where are you going to see this face of Jesus Christ? Where are you going to look? But in His Word. His Word. Recently preaching through John 14 back home, verse 23, we saw where Jesus says, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My Word. And my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. You want to draw near to God. You want to know the presence of God in your life. Jesus says that those who love me, they keep my word. They're in my word. They're abiding in my word. That's where you're going to see the Lord. If you're filled with burdens in your soul and you want to know the presence of God, bring your request before him. Seek Christ in His Word. Verse 26 says, And Jesus answered, and he answered, It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. Now again, does it look like Jesus is receiving this woman? Do these not look like heavy and impossible, almost burdens and stumbling blocks being set before her? How would you respond if the Lord said that to you? I'm going to tell you this right now. If you were before the Lord Jesus Christ and hearing these things come out of his mouth, if there's anything trusting in yourself when you hear them, you're turning around and going home. You see that? If you think you're not a child, you're a dog. If that's what you're thinking, you're leaving if you're trusting in yourself. Why doesn't she? Why does she stay? Why does she keep asking? He says it's not right to throw the children's bread to the dogs. You see... The use of the word dog here is a clear reference to the fact that she's a Gentile and Jesus is essentially saying that it's wrong to give something that's meant for the people of God to someone who's not one of God's people. You see that it's not right to do that. It's not good to take something that belongs to its promise to God's people and rip it away from them and give it to someone that it's not promised to. That's what Jesus is saying to her. And that's true. And that doesn't change. And one thing we're working towards is Jesus is saying some very critical things. And when at the end of this story, whenever he actually does restore the child and heal the child from this demon, these things are still true. Jesus is not going to go back on his word. That's very important for us to see. Well, how does this lady respond to the Lord Jesus here? Verse 27, she said, Yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. That's a supernatural expression of honesty and humility to say, I'm an unworthy dog. Lord, you said you said. It's not right to give the children's bread to dogs. Well, if I'm a dog, I still know I'm going to trust and appeal to your character. Even even a good master lets the dogs eat the crumbs. I'm just asking for a crumb. What sense do we make of these things? How do we come to understand? this and what it has to do with us in our own prayer life. You notice this woman doesn't even try to deny that she's an unworthy dog. He says, it's not good. I heard Charles Leiter say this one time, Jesus called her a dog and she barked. Now I've since come to disagree with that statement and I'll tell you why in just a moment. So hang with me. After her response to Jesus in this way, after she says, yes, true Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table, Jesus answered her, oh woman, great is your faith. Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantly. Think about this. What we've seen. Jesus doesn't answer her at first, and when He finally starts talking, He says to her, He's only come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now, do you think that after she's just such a good arguer, that after all this, Jesus says, well, I guess I'm not just coming after the lost sheep of the house of Israel. I'm going to go get some other sheep. Did He change His mind and go against what He had originally said? No. No. Here's the picture we're seeing here. The first thing, the first person, the first people we see this woman interacting with when she comes to Jesus is his disciples. And they're ready to send her away at the very beginning of this entire encounter. She's unworthy. And some of you here tonight right now are feeling pretty unworthy to come into the presence of God. See what God says to them and see what he says to you. These disciples are not in favor of it. Jesus says, I'm coming for the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And the disciples are thinking, she's not a lost sheep of the house of Israel. There's no way she belongs to God's people. She's not one of us. And then we see Jesus saying, it's not good to give the children's bread to dogs. They're thinking, yes, Lord, she's a dog. And then all of a sudden, Jesus heals her. You know what that tells you? Those disciples were wrong all along. This entire scene is unfolding as a rebuke to his own disciples. Jesus, the moment that he answers this prayer, you can almost imagine these disciples saying, wait just a minute, but I thought you were saying, yeah, I was. It's still not good to throw the children's bread to the dogs, but she's one of my children. That's why she's here. She's demonstrating a confidence, not in herself, not in what she has externally, but in me, that I'm the son of David, that I'm the good master, that I am her Lord. She is continuing to come to him. and constantly aware of her own unworthiness. This woman is demonstrating that to us. So again, I ask, why ought we to pray? That's the overarching question. That's the title of this message. Why pray? You see, Jesus did not need this woman's prayers in order to do this. He can heal this child of hers without going through all this. What's the point? What's teaching the disciples something, teaching us something, One of the things it's teaching us is that God uses prayer. How many of you thank God whenever you sit down for a meal? Thank you, Lord, for providing this food. All of you, I assume, I hope. And yet you still get up every day, go to work, make the money, drive to the grocery store, buy the food, take it home and cook it. An atheist makes fun of you for thanking God for that. Why? God uses means. God uses means. An illustration and I thought of some time back actually. Suppose you were at a, uh, working a job and you knew that you're looking at your bills for the month, had some unexpected expenses and all of a sudden you realize I'm going to be like $500 short of being able to pay my bills this month. And you start praying, Lord, I need some help here. It's getting tight. I don't know what I'm going to do. And then the supervisor at work comes to you and says, hey, I need somebody to volunteer for some overtime here in the next couple of weeks. And you say, that's okay, I'm praying that the Lord would take care of me. We'd say, what a foolish person. God's given them an opportunity to be a means towards what they're asking for. It's still all of God's grace and goodness, and yet we still do what He's called us to do. And we see how means work. God uses means to accomplish His purpose. Prayer is one of those things. Our petitions to God are something He's pleased to use to accomplish His will. Do you get this? I mean, I know many of you would work your fingers to the bone in order to earn a little extra money. And how often do we spend in prayer, ask, seek and knock? And I wonder how much of how many of us would be prepared to at least in a spiritual sense, be knocking on the door to the throne room of God until your knuckles are bloody. There's an urgency about this, and I know you'll do it for material gain. Why don't we pray this way? There's only a couple of possible options here. Prayerlessness. prayerlessness. Either you think you're not worthy. Well, this woman here demonstrates to us. God is merciful to the unworthy. Either you think I'm not good enough. God won't hear me. Well, we've seen he will. And he does. Or you think that God isn't strong enough, that he's not mighty enough to answer your request? Or you think that God doesn't care about you at all? Which is it? We give, I thought of this recently, we give the prosperity preachers a hard time that say they can heal somebody. And I submit to you that if you've got the power of healing and you're not living out every day in a children's ward at the hospital, a cancer treatment center, you're a monster of iniquity. If you can heal people and you withhold that. Do we believe God answers prayer? Do we believe there's evil in the world that needs to be addressed? Do we really want people to be saved? How urgent are we? Do we really believe God's pleased to answer prayer in this way? You see, don't forget the key to this. I mentioned the Scripture before from Romans 8 in the beginning, that how will He, who spared not His own Son, not also freely with Him, give us all things? You think back, does God love me and care about me? Jesus Christ, His Son, died under His wrath in the place of sinful people that didn't deserve mercy. And how can you not look at His cross and see what His Son has done for His people? How can you look at that and wonder if God cares? If you're going to come to him in this way, I'm not saying go boldly before God as if you already know everything and God owes you something. I'm saying go as a ruined and worthless, sinful person that God has brought into his family and shown love to already. He already loves you if you're his. He's ready to listen to you and to answer your request, and he is able to do so. The last thing I want to call your attention to is this. We're seeing that the basis of our requests and our prayers to God is not in our own merits, and we couldn't be more clear about that. Couldn't be more clear. She says, have mercy on me from the beginning. She says, even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. My question to you is, What could possibly keep you from prayer? You think about this. How many of you, when you pray, you close your prayer by saying, in Jesus name, why do we do that? Is it just the Christian, you know, magic formula, kind of like abracadabra, open sesame. We just say G in Jesus name. Cause that's what we've heard other people do. Well, Jesus specifically told us anything you ask, You pray, you ask in my name, it'll be done for you. But this is what that means. When we pray in Jesus name, we're saying according to his merit, according to his power, it's because of what he's done. That's my appeal, God, through your son. And let me ask you this. If you believe that the one that God is looking at when deciding whether or not to answer your request, if you believe that it is Jesus Christ, What reason would you ever have for not believing that God would answer your prayer in the name of His Son? Unless it's opposed to His will, unless it's self-centered and sinful? Examine yourself in these things. And if you're one listening to these things tonight, and the entire time you felt unworthy, disconnected, God doesn't love me in the way that you're saying, oh, let me tell you this. The disciples' error in our text was assuming that there was some sort of an external merit or qualification in them and their Jewish roots that kept this woman separated from God, though they had access to Him. Jesus rebukes them. And if you think you have no access to God tonight, here, right now, you're in the same error. You're in the same ditch. He is pleased to have mercy on sinful, unworthy people. because his son is worthy. His son, the one who died, the one who rose, is worthy. I pray, church, that you'll be encouraged to take your petitions to God with urgency, with fervency, and often ongoing, and that you will trust him as you do. That'll ask you now to go ahead and bow with me and we'll close in prayer. Heavenly Father, Oh, Lord God, I thank you for your goodness and your mercy. Thank you for your son and the testimony of your word. God, I thank you that you have mercy on those who are not worthy of it. None of us are. Oh, Father, I praise you for that. I ask that you would continue working with us, stir us, that we might long to come together and pray together and seek your face. Oh, God. We ask these things in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.