The Gospel is for Everyone

Alright, let's take our Bibles. Let's turn to two places in two different Gospels. Turn to Mark chapter 7, Mark that portion of Scripture, and Matthew chapter 15. We'll read some verses in both those Gospels here in a moment. Mark chapter 7 verses 24 to 29, Matthew 15 verses 21 to 28. Now just like last week, I do not feel we need to be in our study in the book of Acts. I said this last week, I say it again tonight, I have been excited about getting into Acts chapter 10 and the conversion of Cornelius the Centurion, but I feel the great, great need for us to look at something else tonight. Let me explain.

Friday night, we have the biggest outreach and evangelism event in the life of our church. That is our trucker treat which is all about taking advantage of Halloween so as to share the Gospel in a besalt in light to a great number of people that will literally be just outside the door of our church. If I can use a fishing analogy, it's hunting season so forgive me. It will be like fishing in a bathtub. Thousands of people, literally over a thousand because we know we touched over a thousand children the year before last. Over a thousand people will come by our church. We will be sharing the Gospel with many who are lost.

Many lost people will be coming into direct contact with us as believers and they know that we're a church. So tonight I feel the great need to remind us of a biblical fact. Well here is the fact. The Gospel is for everyone. The Gospel is for everyone. The Gospel is not for just a select few. The Gospel is not for a select race or class or nationality. The Gospel is not for a certain theological persuasion or more for a particular denomination. The Gospel is for everyone. I'm thinking back to a particular time in our American history.

Sadly there was a day when the racism between the white community and the black community just raged and there weren't white people who felt like the Gospel wasn't for black people. Sadly there are people in America today who view Muslims as the enemy for political reasons. But sometimes people can see the Gospel as for Americans but not for those Muslim kind of people. Sadly there are some in what we would call the Reformed camp who maybe feel like the Gospel is more for them and not as much for the quote unquote non-Reformed people.

There are people who come maybe from a middle class background and maybe they feel like the Gospel is more for them and not the poor. Now that is an incomplete list and we could add to that list but I'm just pointing out how some people can whether they know it or not feel like the Gospel is for a certain group and not for another group. So tonight I want us to look at a time when a particular woman came to Jesus with serious, serious needs. And there are two things about this woman that cause us to see her desperate need. One thing will be very easy to see while the other is not. First she had a daughter that was demon possessed.

We'll read about that here in a moment. Second she was a Gentile but not just any kind of a Gentile. She was serophoenician. She was serophoenician. Your Bible could have some kind of a heading there that indicates that. Now this does not mean anything to us but for the Jews in Jesus' day there was one thing that all saw this woman and this one thing caused any good Jew to reject her. They rejected her. Not because her daughter was demon possessed but because she was a Gentile. She was serophoenician and I'm going to explain the significance of that here in a moment.

But let's read the two portions of Scripture because the message comes out of both. I'll just combine both throughout the message. Mark 15 verse 21 to 28. And what we have here is Matthew gives certain details. Mark gives certain details. It's not contradictory. We put the stories together to get the full story that the Lord wants us to have. And Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sedan. And behold a Canaanite woman came out from that region and began to cry out saying, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David. My daughter is cruelly demon possessed." But he did not answer her a word.

And his disciples came to him and kept asking him saying, "Send her away for she is shouting after us." Now the original language tells us that they didn't just do this once. They kept on. They kept on because she kept on. But he answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." But she came and began to bow down before him saying, "Lord help me." And he answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." But she said, "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from the master's table." Then Jesus answered and said to her, "O woman, your faith is great.

Be it done for you as you wish." And her daughter was healed at once. Now let's look at Mark's account. Verse 24, Mark chapter 7. "And from there he arose and he went to the region of Tyre and when he had entered a house he wanted no one to know of it yet he could not escape notice but after hearing of him a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately came and fell on his feet." Now the woman was a Gentile of the serophoenician race and she kept asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter. Again, the language she kept on. She kept on. She kept on.

And he was saying to her, "Let the children be satisfied first for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." But she answered and said to him, "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children's crumbs." And he said to her, "Because of this answer go your way. The demon has gone out of your daughter and going back to her home she found the child laying on her bed the demon having departed." Now if we know what is happening in these events we know that Christ and his disciples traveled deep into Gentile territory.

Jesus took his disciples 35 miles or so from the Sea of Galilee to the northwest to Phoenicia and their travel into Gentile territory would have made them ritually defiled because of their contact with Gentiles. This is context. I always try to give you context. But before we continue I need to give a brief explanation about Phoenicia. This is a little more context. Phoenicia was on the edge of the boundary of the tribe of Asher's territory. Originally the area was comprised of nomadic peoples or Semitic Canaanite peoples. At one time the Phoenician territory was dominated by the Persians and King Darius II.

In 334 BC Alexander the Great, the great Greek military leader invaded Asia Minor and overran the Persians. The region of Phoenicia fell to the Greeks and was soon Hellenized thoroughly. Hellenized means they imported Greek culture. Hellenization is a term to describe the purpose of saturation of a taken territory by the Greeks with Greek culture, Greek religion, Greek language, and Greek people. So look at what this region was like. It was comprised of people of Canaanite descent and peoples who were influenced by the Persians yet they were thoroughly Greek in language, culture, and religion.

They were almost totally Greek so they would have been considered Roman. Of course the Romans had assimilated Greek culture. And this was the environment that Jesus took his disciples into. These were Gentile peoples who spoke a Gentile language. They had Gentile pagan religions. They were thoroughly Gentile and pagan in their culture. Everything about these people, everything about this culture, everything about this place was unclean. It was against the teaching of the Old Testament. This was against the teaching and the traditions of the Jews and the Jewish leaders. And they were unclean in every way by even going into the region.

Now this reminds me of when I went to India. In almost every way, India is a country filled with pagan religions that have formed a thoroughly pagan culture and pagan people. Let me give you one little example that will just show you how the paganism has permeated the culture. The Indian pastors that we were there with warned us that if we were ever driving, it kind of shocked me because we were not to drive. But they warned us that if we as Americans were driving that it was really and truly safer to run over and kill a child from the lowest class or caste, the Dalits, than to hit a cow.

The children from the lowest class, the Dalits were seen as and still are as untouchables, unfavored in Hinduism, and historically and socially almost completely isolated and discriminated against. While in Hinduism, the cow is very sacred. So it was actually safer when it came to the authorities and the people to run over a child from the lowest caste or class with a car than to hit a cow. We can't fathom that. But that's just how the paganism had infiltrated that part of society in thinking. Maybe that helped you, helps me.

Now I want to quickly look at three things in these verses which remind us of the fact that the Gospel is for everyone. Number one, let's look at the woman. Now we need to see and understand that Jesus was trying to teach his disciples quite a lot by going into the region and by teaching this woman and encountering the woman and dealing with the whole thing. Now I do not say trying to teach like Jesus struggled to teach. It was the disciples who struggled. It was the disciples who struggled to get what Jesus was doing in teaching. There's a lesson right here for us. I say it often.

We struggle just like the disciples to get what Jesus and the Scriptures teach us. And we struggle to remember what we do get. If I were to use an analogy, we're like a bucket with a hole in it. We just leak. We just leak. That's why certain teaching, we have to be reminded of certain teaching. But Mark 7.24 says that Jesus entered a house and he wanted no one to know that he was there, but he could not escape being noticed. Now I want us to see six things about this woman. These are six observations. They'll be rather short. First of all, she heard of Jesus.

Now we do not know how she heard of Jesus, earthly speaking, but no matter how she heard of Jesus, we know this was a work of God, a work of the Spirit, a work of the providence of God that she knew Jesus was there. Maybe she heard Jesus was there through the grapevine. Maybe she heard that he was there through a friend or when she was in the public square. We just don't know. But no matter how she heard Jesus was there, this was a work of the Spirit. This is a work of the providence of God. There's no such thing as a coincidence when it comes to the things of God. And notice how this works today.

People here of our church, you've come here, many of you, because you've heard of our church through a person. But spiritually speaking, it's a work of the Spirit that enables people to hear of our church. Some would say, "Well, I learned of you and the church and people at Grace Life Church from a person." But as a believer, we would say, "No, God used those circumstances as God's providence that brought people into our church." That kind of stuff happens all the time. But second, she had a crisis. Her daughter was demon possessed.

Matthew's account says the daughter was cruelly demon possessed, and this was common in Jesus' day, and we see that all throughout the Gospel accounts. Third, she was a Gentile. I've touched on this some, but this is very important. Matthew's account says she was a Canaanite, but Mark tells us she was Phoenician or Serophoenician. And putting this together shows us that she was a Gentile and unclean in three ways. She was Greek by Hellenization. She was Phoenician by nationality. She was Canaanite by physical descent. To use a baseball analogy, she had three strikes against her. Three strikes against her.

She was Greek because her culture was thoroughly Greek. That meant she was born and raised in a Greek culture, a pagan culture, an unclean culture. She was Phoenician in her nationality, you see. So her nationality was pagan. It was Gentile. She was Canaanite in her physical heredity, who she was a descendant from. So through her heredity, she was a Gentile and a pagan. So she had three strikes against her. But fourth, she was humble. Verse 25 says she fell at her feet. She fell at Jesus' feet and she accurately called herself a dog.

As she called herself a dog, and she called herself a dog because the Jews regarded them not as Gentiles, but they regarded the Gentiles as Gentile dogs. They even called them dogs, which was horribly prideful and demeaning. As a matter of fact, that doesn't even describe how wretched that was. Fifth, she made an accurate confession in Matthew 15, 22. In Matthew's account, she said to Jesus, "Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David." This simply means her confession of Jesus was perfect. She confessed Him as Lord and she confessed Him accurately from the Old Testament as a descendant of David. Sixth, she acted in faith.

Matthew Henry said, and I'm quoting, "Those that would obtain mercy from Christ must throw themselves at His feet." I like that. "Those that would obtain mercy from Christ must throw themselves at His feet, must refer themselves to Him, humble themselves before Him, and give themselves to be ruled by Him," which is a perfect description of what she did. So we can say that this woman did everything right in her words to Jesus and in her actions towards Jesus, she did everything right. She did everything right when she went to Jesus, even in the secret thoughts of her mind, even in the motivations of her heart.

And look, this is a great picture of how a sinner should relate to Jesus. The prodigal son was just like this woman. He related to his father just like this woman related to Jesus. And look, we must learn from this encounter or we will fail miserably in dealing with the lost. You must learn from this woman or we will fail horribly in coming to Christ if you are lost. If we do not expect the lost to come to Christ like this woman, we will encourage sinners to come to Christ holding on the sin, holding on the pride, holding on the self.

If we do not expect our lost children to come to Christ just like this woman, we will encourage our children to come to Christ in the wrong way, with the wrong heart, with the wrong motivations. We can say that the zero Phoenician woman is the example, the prototype, and how a lost sinner is to come to faith in Christ. And those of you who were genuinely born again and looking back at her and examining her, you can see yourself in her. You can remember when you were like her. Maybe you can remember when you were like Matthew Henry where he said those who would obtain mercy from Christ must throw themselves at his feet.

Maybe you remember when you threw yourself at his feet, must refer themselves to him, humble themselves before him. Maybe you remember when you humbled yourself before Christ and give themselves to be ruled by him. Maybe you didn't have the words to say it, but within your heart of hearts you just said, "Lord, here I am. I'm yours." But think about how this relates to many of the people we will encounter Friday night. We need this now. We will come into personal contact with so many who are in great crisis in life, not just one crisis, but crisis after crisis after crisis. Their whole life is one big crisis.

We will interact with people whose lives are filled with sin, great problems that have come about because of sin. We will interact with people who obviously are victims of generational sin. So many are in crisis and they're looking for hope and they're looking for hope in the wrong places. We will come into personal contact with so many who are even considered unclean because of their sin. They're considered unclean because of their social and economic standing. We will interact with people who just may feel uncomfortable because they feel unclean when they're compared to us church folks. And the challenge for us is this.

Will we see them like Jesus saw this woman? Will we interact with them like Jesus interacted with this woman? Or will we be like the disciples? They said over and over, "Lord, get rid of her. Get rid of her. Get rid of her." They never liked dealing with Gentiles. So the question is, will we be like Jesus or will we be like the disciples? And every one of us has some of the disciples in us. We all do. Number two, let's look at the Savior. Now notice something that Jesus did not do. Jesus never placated her. He never seemed to feel sorry for her. He never tried to lift her up from her low position.

He never seemed to care about her self-esteem or maybe if he insulted her. If you read the text and think about it, it really seems that he insulted her. Simply she came to him low, very low, and he kept her low. And there is a two-sided lesson here for us. First, we must never lift the lost out of their low sinful, hell-deserving place. We must never make people feel better when they are in their sin and rebellion against God. And they deserve hell and damnation for all eternity and more. Second, it is God the Holy Spirit's job and the life of the sinner to bring them out of their hellacious pit of sin.

But he does that only after the sinner comes to saving faith in Christ and they are forgiven and that is when they feel better. It is the Spirit who brings them to the place where they can feel better, not our job. I will give you an example. I have shared the story before, but I have had to deal with sinners like this before in the past. Many of you know that God used me to help bring Keith to faith in Christ. It was only God that did it. I just happened to be the tool.

But I can remember when he came to me and he said, "Man, I don't know if I'm lost or I'm saved." Now his background is he was very religious, grew up very, very religious, so he was wrestling with a lot of religion and religious pride. And I knew that, but he came up to me and he was very, very distraught, very distraught. And he said, "I don't know if I'm lost or saved," and I never made him feel better. I said, "I can't do anything to help you. I know people who will tell you you are lost. I know people who will tell you you are saved. I can't help you." And I quote, unquote threw him back on God.

I said, "You've got to pray and get in the Scripture and seek God because I knew that only God could save him. I knew and I reacted like Jesus did with the Seraphoenician woman. He came low. He came low. I never tried to pull him out of the pit. That's God the Holy Spirit's job." And look folks, the only way people can come out of their pit is when they come to faith in Christ, okay? But look at Jesus' interaction with the woman first. He proclaimed that salvation was first for the Jew. Jesus used this word first and it's clear to see.

And it was not that Jesus was saying that the Gentiles were excluded from salvation just like many of the Jews assumed, okay? Many of the Jews assumed that. Jesus was saying that he came first and foremost for the Jews but not exclusively for the Jews. He was saying that he came first to the Jews and then second to the non-Jews, those people who were outside of the nation of Israel. We see this in Paul's ministry. Although he was the apostle to the Gentiles, every time he went to a city he went to the synagogue because he understood that Jesus came first to the Jews, first to the Israelites, first to the Jewish people.

But notice, "He thus Jesus acknowledged her great faith." Matthew 1528, "Then Jesus answered and said to her, 'O woman, your faith is great. Be it done for you as you wish.' And her daughter was healed at once." Notice he granted her request. Again, verse 28, "Then Jesus answered and said, 'O woman, your faith is great. Be it done for you as you wish.'" And look at what we see here. A crust of bread from the master's table can cure only if they see themselves as a Gentile dog. Only if the one comes to Jesus as a Gentile dog. Do you see?

Just a crumb of bread from the table of Christ Jesus can save the most grievous of sinners only if they come, just like this woman, as a Gentile dog. And if they come as something more than a Gentile dog, well then they won't get a crumb. The problem with most who come to Jesus is this. Most never come humbly as a dog and they are looking for something other than a crumb. And this was the problem that most of the Jews had in Jesus' day. They never came humble as a dirty dog in their sin and sinfulness. They always came to Jesus in their pride, never needing anything.

So many of the times we see this in the Gospel when they would puff up their chest and say, "We are descendants of Abraham." I am referencing another Bible story. Remember that the edge of Jesus' cloak can cure a person's deepest spiritual sickness. The problem with most is that they are too prideful to seek after and to accept a crumb from the Master's table. Most are too self-sufficient to simply touch the edge of the Master's cloak. And that is because most do not see themselves as a Gentile dog. And look folks, this is a great and mysterious work. This is what cannot be explained and understood, but it should be expected and commonplace.

I am speaking of what happens when one receives the crumb from the Master's table. John 8, or excuse me, John 3.8 says, "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit." Do you see what Jesus is teaching? "The wind blows where it wishes. The Spirit in saving comes and blows where the Spirit wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. It is mysterious. God saves some for a while and He doesn't save some for a while." And look church, this is what we should be praying for.

This is what we should be witnessing towards and expecting as we interact with the lost. I have told you my testimony. I had someone in my family who came to faith in Christ and they began to pray for me and they began to witness to me and they witnessed with urgency using the personal program. You were a sinner. This is what is wrong with you. You were going to hell. They never made me feel better. They made me feel worse. And then behind that family member was a whole church who felt the same way. And they were praying.

They had this urgency that lost people were going to hell right now, but they had to witness and tell them about Jesus because there were dirty Gentile dogs everywhere that they loved. Now think about the people we will come into contact with Friday night. Yes, we must love them, but we cannot sugar coat the gospel in their true spiritual condition to make them feel better. We must share the gospel using the personal pronoun "you" when God gives the opportunity. This is what is wrong with you. You are dead in your trespasses and sins. You never pull people out of their grievous sin and sinfulness.

Remember folks, when we share the gospel, we always start with man's sin. Always start with man's sin. You keep men in their sin. We never take them out of their sin and sinfulness. You will never get a person to take chemotherapy unless they are convinced they have cancer. I think you understand what that means. Number 3, let's look at the disciples. Matthew 15, 23 says, "And the disciples came to Him and kept asking Him, saying, 'Send her away.'" The language communicates this. They kept saying, "Send her away, send her away, send her away." Notice the second part of the verse, "For she is shouting after us." Look at this picture.

She is shouting after Jesus. She won't go away. They are saying, "Lord, get rid of this lady." Look, they didn't get it. They could not understand these things. They did not want her around. They kept asking Jesus to send her away. They did not want to be there in Phoenicia to begin with. Look, church, this is a preview of what is to come. This is a preview of what we will study in Acts 10. The Gospel is for the Jew and the Gentile. We will see that when God sent Peter to the house of Cornelius. Notice we are going to see they still struggle to see that the Gentiles were coming into the kingdom. Now the lesson for us right here is this.

The Gospel is for the Jews and the Gentile dogs. The Gospel is for those who are religious and those who have everything together, seemingly. It is for those that society calls the dogs. On Friday night we are going to come in contact with many people that seem like sinner Gentile dogs. We will come into contact with some that we would not want to bring into our home around our children. We will come into contact with some that if they were to walk into the door of the church we would feel uncomfortable possibly. But the question is, will we see them and interact with them like Jesus did or like the disciples?

Remember we all have a little bit of the disciples in us, including me. Question or two to ponder. What has kept you from being just like this serophoenician woman? Maybe you were. What keeps you from being just like the worst, the dirtiest, the lowest sinner that we will see Friday night? Maybe you were. Well, what keeps you from being like the serophoenician woman is the love of God, the grace of God, and the goodness of God. If you were and God saved you, well, that came out of the love of God because of the grace of God and the goodness of God.

Now as a close, I want to look at a few lessons, great lessons that we need to take away from these verses. There is a lot more that we could pull out of this teaching. First of all, we are all Gentile dogs and the lowest of sinners, not because of our genealogy, but because we are all sinners against the holy God. Now let me say something here. You could be sitting here thinking that you were just like the serophoenician woman. You could be sitting here thinking that you were just like the woman at the well. Look folks, we all were. If we've committed one sin, we've committed them all.

God does not look down and see certain sinners worse than all. What I mean is this, the ground is level when it comes to the pit of sin and lostness. We are all Gentile dogs, all the lowest of sinners. Second, we all must approach Christ just like this nameless serophoenician woman in great humility knowing accurately who we are and accurately who Christ is. Now notice that. She knew just exactly who she was and exactly who he was. Third, we must expect all lost sinners to approach Christ this way. If not, we encourage them to come in their pride and sin, especially our children.

Look, I've said this before, never try to raise your children to be Christians. They're born dead under trespasses and sins. You don't raise Christians, they're born again. We raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, but it's God who saves them. We cannot raise Christians. Fourth, we must see that the gospel is for those who have it all together in life and for those who are the dogs of society and who just may have demon-possessed children. Fifth, we must see that an event like Trunkertree puts us right in the pathway of all sorts of unchurched lost sinners. And in this event, we're looking to do several things.

First, we want to do an act of goodwill in the community. Here before last, when I was out among the crowd, a Brookhaven police officer came to me and was talking and when he found out I was the pastor here, he thanked me. He said, "This is nice. Thank you." We live in a day when so many bad things are happening. We need some good things in our community. He saw it as an act of goodwill. Second, we want to interact with the community and lost people as a church. This puts us in a place where we as the church get to interact with people. Third, we want to witness to the lost in our community. We don't want to just do an act of goodwill.

We don't want to just interact with the people as a whole. Specifically, we want to interact with the lost. And it could be that you have one, what I call, Holy Spirit appointment. You could talk to a hundred or people, a hundred people or more, but you could find yourself talking to one person and it's almost like the Lord touches you on the shoulder and says, "The whole night was just for you and them." Fourth, we want God to use us to reach people with the gospel and to put them in our church.

It would not be audacious to pray, "Lord, could it be that we have people in our church who came to faith because of trunk or tree or because of vacation Bible school?" There were people who came to faith in Christ because Jesus took the disciples deep into Gentile territory. So Friday night, let's go into this event with the right mindset. You know what that term means. Let's go into this event with the right mindset. Our hearts and minds right, working and desiring to be like Jesus so as to impact people with the love and the gospel of Jesus. So the title of what I'm sharing tonight is, "The Gospel is for Everyone."