Begging Jesus

According to Mark, chapter seven. The gospel according to Mark, chapter seven. And you may remember that last week we also were in mark seven. And we're actually picking up right where we left off from our reading from the previous week here. So notice these words.

00:00:21

And let's see here. We're starting with verse 24. So, 724 of Mark. Go ahead and stand when you found that we always stand for our gospel reading out of honor to God's holy word. Hear these words this morning.

00:00:37

Powerful, powerful story. I really can't wait to share this with you. This is one of my favorite ones right here. All right, you ready? Here we go.

00:00:43

Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice. But a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now, the woman was a gentile of syrophoenician origin.

00:01:13

She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. But she answered him, sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. Then he said to her, for saying that, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.

00:01:40

So she went home, found the child lying on the bed of and the demon gone. Then he entered from the region of Tyre and went by the way of Sidon towards the sea of Galilee. In the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech. And they begged him to lay his hand on him.

00:02:08

He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears. And he spat and touched his tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, Ephphatha, that is, be opened. And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then jesus ordered them to tell no one.

00:02:43

But the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, he has done everything well. He even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. Lord Jesus, thank you for your holy word. Would you make it holy to us in this place today and apply it so that we might be those who not only are hearers of your word, but doers also?

00:03:14

We pray in your most holy name. Amen. And you can be seated.

00:03:22

Well, have you ever read that text? That's an interesting to come across, right? I mean, like, what in the world is going on in this text? What an odd sort of thing to read this morning. In both of these stories we kind of have, if you noticed here, part one that deals with the syrophoenician woman and then part two that deals with the deaf guy who obviously then has a speech impediment because of his deafness.

00:03:51

And, man, it's kind of weird how both of these miracles happen, isn't it? I mean, what an odd thing for Jesus to say to this woman upon her request for her daughter to be exorcised from this demon, to say, well, actually it's not proper for the food. That's for the children to be given to the dogs. And because of what she says, then Jesus says, hey, that right there, that was it. Now your daughter is healed.

00:04:28

We're thinking, I don't know what's going on. Okay. And then in the second story, of course, we kind of run into the same thing. Jesus takes this guy away from everybody, which normally he does the miracles publicly. If they ask publicly, he does them publicly.

00:04:43

But now he takes him away in private and then he gives him a wet Willie. I don't know what to call it. I mean, right? I mean, that's what it sounds like to me. Upon my first reading was I was thinking, holy Harold, this guy, he's got his hand in his ear, he's spitting, an

Transcript

According to Mark, chapter seven. The gospel according to Mark, chapter seven. And you may remember that last week we also were in mark seven. And we're actually picking up right where we left off from our reading from the previous week here. So notice these words.

00:00:21

And let's see here. We're starting with verse 24. So, 724 of Mark. Go ahead and stand when you found that we always stand for our gospel reading out of honor to God's holy word. Hear these words this morning.

00:00:37

Powerful, powerful story. I really can't wait to share this with you. This is one of my favorite ones right here. All right, you ready? Here we go.

00:00:43

Jesus set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice. But a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now, the woman was a gentile of syrophoenician origin.

00:01:13

She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. But she answered him, sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. Then he said to her, for saying that, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.

00:01:40

So she went home, found the child lying on the bed of and the demon gone. Then he entered from the region of Tyre and went by the way of Sidon towards the sea of Galilee. In the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech. And they begged him to lay his hand on him.

00:02:08

He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears. And he spat and touched his tongue. Then, looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, Ephphatha, that is, be opened. And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then jesus ordered them to tell no one.

00:02:43

But the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, he has done everything well. He even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak. Lord Jesus, thank you for your holy word. Would you make it holy to us in this place today and apply it so that we might be those who not only are hearers of your word, but doers also?

00:03:14

We pray in your most holy name. Amen. And you can be seated.

00:03:22

Well, have you ever read that text? That's an interesting to come across, right? I mean, like, what in the world is going on in this text? What an odd sort of thing to read this morning. In both of these stories we kind of have, if you noticed here, part one that deals with the syrophoenician woman and then part two that deals with the deaf guy who obviously then has a speech impediment because of his deafness.

00:03:51

And, man, it's kind of weird how both of these miracles happen, isn't it? I mean, what an odd thing for Jesus to say to this woman upon her request for her daughter to be exorcised from this demon, to say, well, actually it's not proper for the food. That's for the children to be given to the dogs. And because of what she says, then Jesus says, hey, that right there, that was it. Now your daughter is healed.

00:04:28

We're thinking, I don't know what's going on. Okay. And then in the second story, of course, we kind of run into the same thing. Jesus takes this guy away from everybody, which normally he does the miracles publicly. If they ask publicly, he does them publicly.

00:04:43

But now he takes him away in private and then he gives him a wet Willie. I don't know what to call it. I mean, right? I mean, that's what it sounds like to me. Upon my first reading was I was thinking, holy Harold, this guy, he's got his hand in his ear, he's spitting, and in touching his tongue, you know, like, what in the world is going on?

00:05:01

And that heals him. Okay. I don't know. Sometimes we read the scripture and we just ho hum. I think we should read it with new eyes sometimes.

00:05:10

And I don't know. Upon reading this one, boy, it's a tough one. Okay. And there's actually been a lot of controversy over in biblical studies how we might interpret Jesus language to this woman. In fact, some have wrongly proposed that Jesus was under the sway of cultural sensibilities and mistakenly calls her a derogatory name.

00:05:38

Now a christian hermeneutic. Begin hermeneutic. Just his interpretation of the Bible. A christian hermeneutic will always begin with Jesus being God and thus I, sinless. He doesn't make mistakes, in other words.

00:05:52

So any interpretation that leads us to say Jesus is using a locally offensive word here for this woman and mistakenly uses it is ridiculous and wrong. He is God. And something else is going on here because this was a bit derogatory to say. So then we have to ask ourselves the question and wrestle with this. What in the world is going on here?

00:06:20

Why would Jesus use this sort of word for this woman? Calling her a dog? Right. Like, what is going on? Okay.

00:06:27

And so our hermeneutic must begin first and foremost with the fact that Jesus is the greatest teacher to ever live. And probably he's trying to teach something here. All right? Now, I think, by the way, when you're interpreting the Bible, this is just for free this morning, okay? If you come across a difficult text, always read what comes before it and what comes after it.

00:06:52

It'll help in dramatic ways. If we just isolate a passage, you often get yourself in trouble. Make sure you know what's happening before. And by the way, if you were here last week, you know what's happening before. Remember what Jesus has this strong teaching.

00:07:06

I'll remind you of where he ultimately ends up saying, evil comes not from what is without us, outside of us property, what might go into us, even come into our minds. Just because we see something doesn't mean we have to sin because of what we have seen. What comes into us, that is not what makes us sinners. It's what comes out of our hearts, the intentions of our hearts that makes us sinners. And so it's a fascinating teaching, and I called it the anatomy of a sin.

00:07:46

In other words, when we dissect, how is it that we all sin? And by the way, if you don't know yet, we all sin. We all are called sinners. And it's not because God has designed us like that. Did you know that too?

00:08:03

Like we need to couple that teaching, that teaching of what we call original sin, which has to do with the original sin that then is passed down to us. So that not only are we guilty because of Adam and his sin, but we are guilty because of our own sin. That is to say, no one dies and is alienated from God because of Adam's sin alone, but because of your own sin. And we have to own that. And that's why to be saved.

00:08:37

That's why to become a Christian, to be born again. The first move is to confess your sin, to repent as the Bible says, and turn away from our way and to God. In other words, if you're going to turn to God, you must be turning away from something else. And that is that sinful heart condition. Now we get a sneak peek of this in Genesis six.

00:09:06

Do you remember this? Before the flood, humans are described as even every intention and imagination of our hearts are evil and that continually. That's a pretty damning diagnosis of humanity, isn't it that even the imagined, like, even in our imagination, which has to do with our psyche, our mind, we're imagining how we can get our own all the time. Well, of course, the good news is our minds can be renewed by the Holy Spirit. The good news is, before chapter three, brothers and sisters of Genesis, there's chapter one and two, where God creates us good with his good creation, in his image, after his likeness.

00:10:06

And only in chapter three do we go our own way and then become darkened. You see, we have to weigh this into the factor of who we are as humans. Oftentimes we hear in preaching or in teaching from Christianity, you are just sinners. And while that is true, we just, I just confessed that to you. We just agreed on that.

00:10:29

In fact, by the way, GK Chesterton, who at the turn of the century, he wrote, and he said, you know, original sin, the doctrine of original sin, is the one doctrine that can be proven empirically, you know, by the senses, demonstrated scientifically. Just turn on the news, just look at your own life, take 1 second to look at your life, and you'll prove to yourself and all around us that, yes, something's wrong with the world. If there's one thing that in politics everybody agrees with, it's that something's wrong. We don't agree on how to fix it. Everybody knows something's wrong, something's not right.

00:11:15

Okay? Original sin can be proven all over the place. It's easy to look around and see. What we have to know by faith is that we were not created to be sinners, that only the word of God, we can't read the mountains or look at the clouds, or look at each other and know that automatically that must be given to us by God himself. And he tells us that we were created first notice, first good, and that determines our end.

00:11:49

The beginning, where we start, is gonna determine how we're gonna end up in the end. We're not sinners in the beginning. Instead, we're made holy, made righteous, we're made good. God didn't make a bad thing. All right?

00:12:07

Now, all of us, unfortunately, participate now in the sin of our first parents, and in doing so, in what's even passed on to us by not anything of our own doing is a darkened mind, a twisted will, a will held captive to ourselves. We could say it like Saint Augustine famously did, incur vatus inse, a will turned in on itself. We see this in the smallest of children, don't we? You know, that famous thing that they do mine?

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It's like, hey, buddy, why don't you share with little Timmy? No, it's mine. Forget Timmy. You know, that's kind of what they're saying.

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I didn't do that. I saw you do it. Nope, that wasn't me. You're lying at three years old, man, what's wrong with you? Yeah, yeah, what's wrong with us?

00:13:09

It's not just you, it's us. You see, here's the thing we must confess is that the line of evil, we say the world is evil. Culture is evil. This is evil. Listen, that line runs right through us.

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And Jesus comes to take away the sin of the world. He comes to transform that evil into good. He comes to untether us from that tangled knot that our will is in so that it is for God and then subsequently for others. This is why I think I've come to love. St.

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Thomas's definition of love is this, to will the good of another.

00:13:57

Now, when you find in yourself that thing working again, not coming from the outside, it's not the devil's fault. That's what Jesus is saying here, right? I mean, in plain language, he's saying, it's not the devil's fault, it's not your parents fault, it's not the government's fault, it's not that situation's fault. Sin comes from within. It's us.

00:14:23

It's us. We've got to come to terms with that. All christians do. And then when we do, we then turn to God and plead. Beg for his mercy.

00:14:39

Did you notice in both our stories today, there's begging going on? Did you catch that? She comes and begs of him. And notice. And notice.

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You can prove here the love she has for her daughter because she's not begging for herself. Lord, give me a new mercedes. Give me a new raise. No, let's not be ridiculous in our praying. No, no.

00:15:04

She's begging for the life of her daughter who has now got caught up into demon possession. What about the other story? Remember, there's begging there. Who? It's his friends, remember?

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They bring him to Jesus. It says, they begged of Jesus. They begged of Jesus. Heal this man. We know you can do it.

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What are you begging for?

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Some of us, unfortunately, think we're too proper to beg. That's not for me. I have a job. That's not for me. I have a house.

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That's not for me. I have a. Have a safety net. Brothers and sisters, as christians, we are in desperate need of God's grace every single day. In fact, if you're not aware of that desperate need.

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That is the desperate need, Lord, open my eyes to see the little places where I play games with people's feelings where I try to get out on top at any cost where I use others for my will not willing the good of the other, but willing my good.

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Oh, God, help us. And thanks be to God that grace, God's grace is greater than sin. So I know we kind of went down in talking about original sin and what we call kind of the doctrine of total depravity that is to say, every aspect of our life from our heart to our mind to our actions to our will to our emotions. All of this is tangled up in a web of sinfulness, self centeredness, self being, self interested, curved in again on itself. Oh, God.

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He can, by his grace, open us up. He can open us up to himself first and foremost and then to others.

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That's what holiness is. That's what love is. That's who God is. God is not closed up. This is mine.

00:17:33

Oh, my, you know, Gollum column. Column. You know, l o t r. L o t r. I'm watching the.

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What's it called? Rings of power. You know, you should watch it too. Just saying. You should also read the book.

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But you remember Gollum is this character who used to be a hobbit, but now he looks nothing. You just, ugh. And mine, all mine, just obsessed. He's even noticed, deformity wise, curved in on himself. If we could see ourself, if we could see some places in our life we're guarding what is ours.

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This is mine.

00:18:14

God says to us, give that to me. Would you give that to me? And when we do, he'll take it and transform it because his grace is greater than sin. Okay, first point. Good.

00:18:32

Now let's deal with this lady. Now, first of all, in the ancient world, in the first century world, she's already got that going against her, right? She's a woman in the first century world talking to a man. Which was kind of inappropriate. All right?

00:18:47

So she busts up in this house, and it seems as if, and by the way, this text shows up again in Matthew. And in Matthew, it's even more clear that Jesus had gone up. You know where tyre is? Is up on the mediterranean coast. Let me just make a point real quick about Jesus.

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He likes the beach. He does. I mean, he hasn't told me directly, but I can tell from where he spends most of his ministry. He ministers around, what? The sea of Galilee?

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Well, guess what? That is a beachy kind of town. You know, maybe not quite like 30 a, but, you know, it's beachy. Okay? And then when he goes up to get away, because that seems to be.

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He goes up to rest, it seems. And in Matthew, it backs it up again. He's kind of getting away from people, okay? Because that's gentile land, by the way. That's gentile land.

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Not jewish land, not traditional jewish land. He gets up and guess where he goes? He goes to the Mediterranean, which is beautiful, by the way. Right? And he's at Tyre there.

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And then he even goes up to Sidon, we hear on the second story, right, which is the long way around back to Decapolis. Okay, so Decapolis sits on top of the sea of Galilee, kind of this area. So he's up here at Tyre. Then he goes on up further to Sidon, which is still a beach town. Beautiful beach.

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So here he is. Let's just imagine here he is relaxing, you know, put on his sunscreen. He's chilling. We're told he's in the house, but let's just bear with him for a second. And then this lady comes up, you know, he's on vacation.

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Okay, we get the sense of this, don't we? He's on vacation, yet he could not escape notice. Notice he entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. That's interesting in itself, isn't it? Jesus takes time to rest.

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He does. Even in his earthly ministry takes time to rest. But he's never going to miss a moment to teach his disciples and draw something out of this lady that even influences us today. All right, now watch this so he doesn't escape notice. And I wonder.

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I wonder if this could be an application today. How many of us miss jesus just because we don't notice? We're not pursuing him and we miss him? She doesn't. He does not escape her notice.

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No. She shows up and she bows at his feet and begs him. And then Jesus says, this thing, let the children be fed first. For it's not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs. Now, what is going on here?

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Okay, simply put, and this is a complicated text, but at least interpretively, it's complicated. But here's the thing. Gentiles were known as dogs. Now, dogs in the ancient world don't have the notion they do in our american society. Trust me when I say that, okay?

00:21:37

Neither did kids either, by the way. Kids were of no concern in the first century or in the ancient world. Like, no concern, okay? Now, our culture has flipped both those things on the head, and kids are what it's all about to the destruction of marriage. I might say.

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Could I just press on that for a second and say some people put their kids before their marriage, and that is wrong. I didn't figure I'd get any amens. That's okay. You don't have to. But they put the kids at the center of the family.

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And the center of the family should be marriage because the family comes from the marriage, and it's biblical. I don't have time to go into that. But it is, okay? I've seen a bunch of marriages destroyed because somebody's putting the kids first. The kids are not to be first.

00:22:21

They're not. Not in order. Okay? Now, a lot more could be said about that, and I hope you don't misunderstand it, but let's just put that out there because that can be misunderstood. Okay?

00:22:30

But gentiles, dogs. Dogs, not great in the ancient world, okay? In fact, even in the Bible, they're eating dead bodies. Like, they're kind of roaming around. Wild dogs, you know, kind of thing.

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Like they're not really seen in a positive light like they are today. Okay? Because trust me when I say our culture is obsessed with dogs. If we're obsessed with kids, we're obsessed with dogs. I mean, look at this.

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I mean, just look at that. This is our dog. Gabby, by the way, I'm not immune from living in my own culture. Throw stones if you may, but I'm not immune primarily because I have a little girl that convinced me, okay? The power of children, right?

00:23:20

And a wife, by the way, and a wife who really wanted a dog, okay? So now, dogs in the ancient world, they weren't like this. They didn't come with handkerchiefs, and they didn't get their hair fluffed every two weeks, okay? Not happening in the ancient world. In fact, if you go to modern day India, which I've been there, dogs are pretty the same received as in the ancient world.

00:23:39

You don't want to touch those dogs. In fact, you're told, as an american, don't pet the dogs because most of them just eat whatever they can find. They're skinny, they're nasty, they're flea infested, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Okay? That was dogs.

00:23:51

So for her to. For Jesus to say this to her, it's like, okay, but you have to understand, this jewish gentile split. Now, what is the jewish gentile split? Well, simply put, a God elected one family, one family out of all the families of the earth. If you really want to boil down the old Testament, it's about one family that grows into a nation that God attaches himself to that says, I am calling you as priest.

00:24:19

Think of it as a pastor, okay? And you are to represent me in the world in such a way that blesses. Notice this, all nations. Now that's the trick here. Notice when God comes to Abraham in chapter twelve of Genesis, he says, I'm gonna bless you so that you'll be a blessing to others.

00:24:48

Election has to do with the salvation of the whole world, not individual salvation. I want to just go ahead and slide that on the table for anybody interested in that discussion about election. And again, that's a can I would love to open up, but it would take 30 minutes, and you don't have that kind of time. God elects one family to bless all the families of the earth. Now did they do a good job of that?

00:25:14

Well, you have to read the Old Testament to see that they did not, all right? They did nothing. And this is why by the time of Jesus, things are turning. Things are turning. And in fact, our previous text last week was kind of the turning away from anything that goes in you that does not defile you.

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What is Jesus doing? He's fulfilling the law. That's what he's doing. Literally fulfilling the law. Okay?

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You can eat bacon. In other words. That's the point, truly, okay? Not just for us, but for jews, all right? And so the Jews were chosen of God to represent him in the world.

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Now, whether they obeyed or disobeyed, they were representing him, because we get to see how God deals with them, which is fascinating, isn't it? All right? And so when he says this, he's actually giving a parable to this lady. He's not actually calling her a dog in a demeaning way. He's actually giving her a parable here.

00:26:09

He's saying, look, and what's fascinating, this woman's a canaanite, okay? That's a whole history in the Old Testament. First of all, if you don't know which. Fascinating. But then he says this, he says, look, the children come first.

00:26:24

That's the children of Israel, right? And the dogs then are those who are at the foot of the table, just like this dog does, waiting for something to drop, pleading for something to drop right? And out. Notice this. Hear this.

00:26:39

Out of the overflow of what's happening on this table depends on who gets blessed at the bottom of the table. He's giving a parable here. And instead of being offended, you know what she does? She lives into the parable. Now, this is fascinating.

00:26:53

Look what she does. She goes, okay. No. And by the way, this is probably the only place in the Bible that I'm aware of where somebody talks back to God and he's like, touche. Right on.

00:27:04

Right on the money, lady. Notice what she says. She says, sir, even the dogs, the gentiles, okay, under the table. Eat Israel's crumbs.

00:27:18

He says, for saying that, you may go. Your daughter's already healed. In other words, he heals from a distance here, based on this woman's greatest faith, who's not even in the family proper. She's in the extended family. You see?

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Just like. Think about it. Just like Esther. Esther. No.

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Who am I missing here? Not Esther. Help me out here, somebody. Rahab. Yes, but then also, what is that book of the Bible.

00:27:56

Ruth. Thank you. Finally we got a biblical scholar. Somebody needs to get this guy off the stage. Ruth, you remember this, Ruth?

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Do you remember what she is? A moabite. A moabite. And yet she comes into the family of God. And think about this.

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Is in the very genealogical line of Jesus. Think about that. Not purely jewish. Interesting, isn't it? The point is, God's salvation was never to pick and choose one or the other.

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No, no, no. He's chosen the whole world, but he's chosen some of us out of the world, just like pastors today, priests today, to represent him in a particular way that should be out of an overflow where you're blessed, out of the blessing that I receive, being able to study the word of God in the way that we are able to do it. Not everybody has that kind of time, and that's okay. But out of the overflow of that, we all eat. And ultimately, Jesus is our high priest, isn't he?

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Because we're all called to be priests. In other words, each and every one of you have that very same election upon you that you are called and blessed. Whatever God has blessed you with, your job, your money, your talents, your gifts, your health, et cetera, is meant to be a blessing to you so that you can bless others. And that brings me to friend day. Right.

00:29:20

That's why you should be concerned about your neighbors, be concerned about your coworkers in such a way that if God is blessing you, then bless others. Don't keep it for yourself. Don't draw it in. That'll kill it. It's meant to flow in and out.

00:29:38

And so a lot more going on with this lady. But that's the gist of it, okay, we'll have to move on because I'd love to stay there more. And I actually preached on this last year too, by the way, from Matthew. So if you wanted to go revisit that, you could. Part two.

00:29:55

What about this guy, this deaf guy. Now, you know the reason he's got a speech impediment is because he can't hear, right? And so he can't then speak because he doesn't know how to pronounce the things similar but not quite exactly the same. It's like when one of my kids have their ear pods and I'm like, Jackson, what, buddy, calm down. Right?

00:30:14

Like you don't know if you can't hear. You don't know how high or low or how it actually sounds. And so he's got this impediment because of his deafness. Now who does this guy represent? Well, he's us.

00:30:30

We're the deaf ones. Actually. Now it's interesting. Jesus is in capernaum. Remember, say, a Galilee, jewish jewish place.

00:30:38

Then he goes up to tyre, gentile land. Now he's in the Decapolis, the ten cities is what that means. And they're kind of jewish, gentile mix. You see what's happening here? It's beautiful what Jesus is doing.

00:30:54

He's bringing it together, trying to show us something here. And what he's showing us is this guy. We're not told if he's gentile or jewish. No concern here. But here's the thing.

00:31:03

If he is jewish, he's living in the midst of the gentiles. He's meant to be a light. He's meant to be speaking the word of God, but he can't because he doesn't hear the word of God. Sound familiar? We don't speak plainly the word of God because we don't hear it.

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And in order to speak it, we must hear it first. This is why it's so important for us to put this word in us, the imparted word of God.

00:31:35

And it's what we're doing here this morning, reminding each other, hearing from God, hearing from his word, so that we can speak. And here's the thing. You'll never be able to hear. Have ears to hear. Remember how Jesus always says, have ears to give us ears to hear.

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Right. Whoever has ears to hear, are you hearing the word of God in your life? If not, come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. Maybe a friend brought you right again, plugging for friend day.

00:32:10

But this is literally what happens here. They bring him to Jesus and then Jesus touches him, puts his finger in, touches his tongue. That's pretty intimate, right? The first miracle, a distance, this miracle. Come in private.

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Let me do. He almost plugs himself into this man. And by his power, the man's notice, he can hear and then his tongue is released to be able to speak plainly. Are you plugged into Jesus? Do you have ways in which every day, every week, you're plugging into Christ so that you can hear?

00:32:56

Remember what CS Lewis said about it? You can hear the secret? He said, what we're doing here is really. It's like we're an elite group of soldiers that are coming to get our command for the week, you know, and this is a secret meeting for us to then move out from this place. That's why we dismiss you.

00:33:11

You know, we don't want to just keep you in here all day. You don't want to be in here all day, but we always bring you in to officially, we do a bunch of awesome stuff in here to load us up and then we move out from this place. You're sent out. In fact, Ekklesia church in Greek means to be the called out ones. You are called out, but called out not for yourself.

00:33:33

Yeah, I'm saved. To hell with everybody else. No. What in the world. No, it's we are saved to serve.

00:33:42

We are saved to serve.

00:33:52

Now, it's interesting too that the Aramaic is retained here. Did you notice that he uses every once? There's three times, in fact, in the New Testament where the Aramaic, which was the common language that would have been spoken, you know, Jesus would have known multiple languages, but one of them would have been aramaic. And here fda fatha, which is be opened. I wonder if we need to hear that today.

00:34:16

Hear Jesus words to us be opened. Ephathah. You remember the other one? It was teletha kum, which is get up, little girl. Remember when she was dead?

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Get up, little girl. Beautiful. And then the final one was at his crucifixion. Eloi elo leme sebachthani. My God.

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My God, why have you forsaken me? We get here, and by the way, that's the reason we still use in church old language sometimes. Because sometimes it's that word and not another. It's that way and not another.

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So this morning, what are you begging for if nothing, then beg to hear God's voice. Because here's the thing. When we hear his voice, he'll give us a burden to carry. That's worth begging for. And if you don't have a burden, are you really hearing his voice?

00:35:17

Sometimes we can get in our own lane and just live our own lives for ourselves. And I'm just telling you, many people have done it before you. Many people will do it after you. It will never lead to true life. Life.

00:35:30

Because only Jesus holds true life. And as we just saying, nothing is greater than him. There's so many voices, so many influencers, so many voices just everywhere, politically and at work and in our family, in our own head. We need the highest voice, the greatest voice, the one who loves us more than we love ourself. The one who died for us before we ever even knew his name.

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While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

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Beg him of his mercy. Beg him for your neighborhood. Beg him for your friends, your family, your children.

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And then talk back to Jesus. Let's not just hear him, let's talk back to him, just like this woman does. Let's understand the word and live into it. And then, just like the guy does here, it's interesting. Jesus says, be quiet.

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Don't tell anybody about this. And all the more he told people about it. I can finally speak plainly. Nobody's going to tell me, you know, even Jesus. And he keeps speaking.

00:37:03

Have you been transformed by his grace? If not be opened up today, be opened up.

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Remember that grace is always greater than sin. So no matter what you've been dealing with, grace, grace is greater. He can open us up and turn us outward toward others, and then we'll be fulfilled. Then we'll be satisfied. Then dare say, dare say we'll be happy.

00:37:39

Happy in Jesus when we trust and obey. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.