| [Sermon at the 6pm Healing Service in St Andrew’s Cathedral, Sydney by Canon Jim Holbeck. Wed 13th Feb 2002] |
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| St Paul once wrote to the Thessalonian Christians praising God for the increase in their faith and love (2 Th 1:3) We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing. So faith can grow. What would make Jesus say to one woman “Great is your faith!” Tonight we look at some of the features of her faith so that we might learn what great faith is all about. |
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| She was a gentile (non-Jew) woman whose daughter had an evil spirit. The daughter was suffering terribly from its influence on her life. As soon as the mother heard that Jesus had gone into a local house, she came and fell at Jesus’ feet, begging that Jesus might heal her daughter. We look at the seeming obstacles she had to overcome to receive healing for her daughter and how her “great faith” persevered in spite of them. |
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| 1. The Obstacle Of Belonging To A Despised People. |
| This woman was a Greek, born in this gentile territory where Jesus now was resting. |
| In approaching Jesus was she going to suffer the antagonism and the rejection that had always characterised the relationships between the Jews and the people of this area? Rejection is never easy to face up to, but she was willing to be rejected in her quest for healing for her daughter. |
| (Some of us may feel that we are despised. We may have terrible problems with our negative self-images. They may have developed as a result of the rejection by other people as we or our family were not accepted by those whom we hoped would accept us. The wonder of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is that God accepts those who accept Him. “It was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us.” Rom 5:8. The cross of Christ tells me that none of us need ever feel despised, when we realise that Jesus, the Son of God, died upon that cross for you and for me. He wants us to turn from our sins in repentance and ask Him to come into our lives that we might become the children of God. Jesus is only a prayer away, for it’s through prayer we ask Him into our lives to be our Saviour and our Lord. |
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| 2. The Obstacle Of Being A Woman In The World Of That Day. |
| In that day, women had no rights, no privileges. The scene of a gentile woman approaching a Jewish teacher like Jesus to ask for help, would have scandalised many of the Jews, and shocked many of her own people. Perhaps throughout history women have been more discriminated against than any other group in society. But discrimination is any form against anyone is ugly and unjust and hurtful. Those discriminated against can feel resentful and rejected. But that resentment can turn inward and do nasty things to our health if it gets out of control. Here was a woman who pressed on in faith in spite of any rejection she might face. If God accepts us all equally in Christ then we need to accept one another and not put some into the category of unacceptable so that we reject them. It does them and us no good at all. |
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| 3. The Obstacle Of Having A Daughter With A Problem. |
| There was a way of thinking in the world of that time that said that if someone was ill, or had some physical problem, then it was due to sin in that person, or in the parents of that person. |
| If some people had known that the woman had a little daughter with an unclean spirit, they would have blamed the mother for sinning in such a way that the child was afflicted. She made herself the possible target of misunderstanding, even abuse and ridicule, by coming publicly and asking for her daughter to be healed. But she was more concerned with the welfare of her daughter, than with her own reputation. |
| We need to be reminded that having a family member with some problem or other does not disqualify us from receiving the grace of God in our lives. We don’t have to live with unnecessary guilt about decisions that others have made for themselves. We just need forgiveness for our own sins. |
| If it’s through the wrong behaviour or attitude of the family member that they have misused the opportunities they had, or have opened themselves to illness or to the powers of darkness, then we don’t need to carry the guilt of that. They are responsible. They need to repent and to ask for God’s forgiveness and for His healing. Our responsibility is to keep on praying for them, that they may come to the Lord, and experience His grace and healing. |
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| 4. The Obstacle Of Facing 3 Seeming Setbacks From Jesus. |
| Jesus gave no reply when she asked Him to cast out the demon from her daughter. |
| The disciples’ solution was to get rid of the problem by getting rid of the woman with the problem. “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” They had wrongly prejudged Jesus’ attitude. There are times when it seems that the Lord has not heard our prayers. But He has. His ears are always wide open to the cries of His children or to the cries of those who want to become His children. John wrote in 1 Jn 5:14-15 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.15 And if we know that he hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of him. He did hear and we have those things we asked of Him in prayer but they will be released in His way and in His time, not ours. |
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| Jesus spoke what could have been seen as a racially motivated remark, {24} He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”(meaning the Jews.) But she wasn’t put off by His reply. She came and knelt before Him, asking “Lord, help me!” She may not have understood all that was happening, but she was desperate enough to continue to ask Jesus to help her. Her request for help had turned into worship and prayer. There are times when we think that we have to be someone special in the eyes of God or of other people, before God will answer our prayers. But the promises of God are for all those who will accept them in Christ regardless of their background. He hears the prayer uttered in a beautiful cathedral by a faithful servant of God who has loved God and served Him faithfully for decades in His church. He also hears the prayer of a destitute alcoholic crying out to Him for help in the gutter in some undeveloped nation. |
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| Jesus’ response to her could have been off putting. “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” He meant that His ministry on earth was to be mainly aimed at His own people, the Jews, and not aimed primarily at the Gentiles, who were called the “dogs ” by the Jews. This was a challenge to her faith. If she had been a prejudiced person she could have been anti men, anti-Jews. But we see her faith in the way she responded to this seemingly hard saying of Jesus. She could see His words as a test to her own faith. She believed that He could and that He would help her. Her reply shows her faith and her expectation that He would heal her child. “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” |
| She recognised that His love and compassion weren’t going to be for the Jews only. It was a wide embracing love that must reach out to those gentiles like herself. It could reach out to her daughter. |
| It wouldn’t run out in ministering to the Jews, there would be plenty left over (like crumbs from the bread that fell from the children’s table), for the needs of those in other nations as well. She believed He could and would heal her daughter! |
| You and I need to recognise that God has blessings for all those who need them. When we ask for His healing or His blessing we are not depriving someone else of blessing. He has enough for everyone. Never think your needs are too small or insignificant for Him to deal with. |
| He loves to bestow His blessing on those who will receive them. |
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| The Answer To Prayer |
| Then came the wonderful ending to the story, as Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” We read, “And her daughter was healed from that very hour.” Great faith had overcome the obstacles and brought the healing. |
| What then are the elements of “great” faith? Put briefly they include the following:- |
| i. A persevering faith in Jesus’ ability to heal; faith in His power. |
| ii. A persevering faith in Jesus’ willingness to heal; faith in His love. |
iii. A persevering faith in God’s promises, which enables us to look beyond the obstacles, to expect and to see the power of God being released in answer to believing prayer.
The greatness of faith ultimately derives from simply trusting in the greatness of the Person in whom we have faith, the incomparable Lord Jesus Christ.
Blog No.491 posted on Tuesday 25 July 2023 |
holbeck 
491. Sermon on Matthew 15:21-28. Title: “Great is Your Faith.” [Based On Lectionary Reading In Many Churches On Sunday 20 August 2023.]
The greatness of faith ultimately derives from simply trusting in the greatness of the Person in whom we have faith, the incomparable Lord Jesus Christ.
Blog No.491 posted on Tuesday 25 July 2023
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About Jim Holbeck
Once an Industrial Chemist working for the Queensland Government but later an Anglican minister in Brisbane, Armidale and Sydney. Last position for eighteen years before retirement in 2006 was as the Leader of the Healing Ministry at St Andrew's Cathedral Sydney.