Praying in Faith: A Parent’s Prayer

Matthew 15:21 – 28

 

Recently, an online interaction led me to reflect on where I came from and to reflect more deeply on my father and his impact on my life. I think about him almost daily. My dad was the hardest working man I have ever encountered on this earth, and to this day I haven’t met anyone who I’d say worked harder than he ever did.

 

When he immigrated to this country he didn’t know how to even speak English or have a single American dollar to his name, and yet eventually he started his own dairy business. Every business has its life cycle, and after 40 years it reached its end even though none of us wanted it to. What I couldn’t see at the time was how God was using my dad and his hard work for good, according to His good purpose.

 

My dad has been gone now for 7.5 years, and I can’t deny that he left an impact. I can still hear his voice in my head. When I look in the mirror I can see him looking back, and when I parent my kids, I sometimes find myself groaning much like he did when he was raising me. I just did it the other day, one of my boys was being a kid and I let out a groan and then started laughing.

 

And that’s what I want to talk about today, the impact we have on our kids, both young and adult children. Specifically, how we can have an impact on them, an eternal impact, by ceaselessly praying for them out of our persistent faith in God and what only He can do.

 

Our kids, young and old, find themselves in trouble more often than we’d like, and if we’re honest, it’s usually their own fault. Sometimes kids do rebel because parents can be objectively too strict or worse, very hypocritical, but often it’s because of their own sin nature, the same sin nature we’re all born with.

 

Today we’re in Matthew 15 reading about a mother relentlessly pursuing a way to restore her daughter through Jesus. I know I have struggled with understanding Jesus in this passage before because He kind of comes off as rude. His response to the woman on the surface seems out of character, but as we’ll see God always has a higher purpose in mind.

Now, the daughter in this passage who is demon-possessed, and presumably young, is likely not demon-possessed because she did something wrong. Rather, sometimes bad things happen to good people, and good kids, like cancer or other deadly diseases, or a traumatic injury like a car accident.

 

In either instance, the prodigal in need of repentance AND the sick child, the mother in our passage today is a shinning example of how we are to pray for our children. Let’s read God’s Word: Matthew 15:21 – 28.

 

The first coming of Jesus Christ set off what is known as the Great Reversal. Luke highlights that well throughout his Gospel, but it’s visible throughout all the Gospel’s, and we see it clearly here in Matthew.

 

Leading up to this Jesus had just called out the Pharisee’s for their hypocrisy. They literally came to Galilee from Jerusalem and had complained to Him that His disciples break tradition by not washing their hands before they eat. They were quite indignant about that. Jesus responded by calling out their own hypocrisy in setting aside the fifth commandment about parents that I talked about last week.

 

Jesus made it very clear that what defiled a person had nothing to do with what they put into their bodies, but rather what came out of their heart. Jesus distanced Himself ideologically from Israel’s religious elite.

 

Now we see Jesus further withdraws Himself from Israel by geographically withdrawing Himself. From Galilee, which is on the northern end of Israel, He went even further north to the region of Tyre and Sidon. Those were two port cities that today would be parts of Lebanon and Syria, and they were about 35 miles northwest of Galilee. On foot it would have taken Jesus and His disciples about a whole day walking, 12 hours.

 

If it wasn’t enough that Matthew emphasized the location being far from Israel, he then tells us about a Canaanite woman from there who came looking for Jesus. Understand this, the term “Canaanite” wasn’t commonly used in Jesus’ day anymore. The Canaanites were the people that the nation of Israel under Joshua’s leadership in the OT were supposed to expel from the land that God had given them.

 

 

We often talk about how much the Israelites of Jesus’ day hated the Samaritans, the people of Samaria, because they were once Israelites who had intermarried with pagan foreigners. Israel despised Canaanites even more. Matthew’s use of the term was meant to evoke strong feelings of a long ago time.

 

And so right away we see something amazing in that woman. Matthew simply says she came to Jesus, but Mark also records this interaction, and he says in his Gospel that when she heard about Jesus being there, she came and fell at His feet.

 

There it is. This woman comes to Jesus and she’s a Canaanite, and Jesus has gone into her area. And there is Jesus, and she hears about Him and the He can deliver people from demons, and that the demons obey His very word. Even in that day, news about Jesus traveled that far.

 

She had to overcome her own religion, her own culture, and go and seek help for her helpless child from this Jesus. And he wasn’t there alone. In the male-dominated culture of her day this woman had to approach thirteen Jewish men who were travelling in the area. There’s Jesus and His twelve disciples and she doesn’t care, her child needs deliverance.

 

So, she comes to Jesus, and she knows who He is. Not just that he’s a healer and that he drives out demons, but more than that. Matthew tells us she cried out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me!” This pagan woman has some good theology doesn’t she. She can recognize who Jesus is, even when the Pharisees refused to see it. Wow.

 

She goes on to beg Jesus, “My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.” And Jesus remains silent. That doesn’t sound like the Jesus who has been going around having compassion on people precisely in her situation, healing people of decades old afflictions, illnesses, deformities. Would you have been put off by that if you were seemingly ignored when seeking help for your child?

 

Those of you who are praying for your children, young and grown, are you put off by the silence of God? Are you put off by the seemingly indifference of God when your very own child is out there needing help, deliverance that only God can bring, and it doesn’t come? This woman knows that the silence of God, write this down, the silence of God is never a sign of the indifference of God. Even here in silence, Jesus has a plan.

He remains silent, but His disciples don’t, they come to him and speak up, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us,” they urge Him. Are they dismissing her too? Are they refusing to help her too? What’s going on here?

 

These twelve strong men could’ve easily driven her away themselves, but rather they show a self-centered annoyance of their own! Notice they said to Jesus that she’s crying out after “us,” not after “you.” They essentially tell Jesus to just give her what she wants so she’ll leave us alone. They know Jesus can drive out demons and heal people from a distance, they’d seen it before, remember the Centurion?

 

You know, given the attitude of other Jews to “Canaanites,” she could hardly be surprised by the silence from Jesus and the annoyance from His disciples. She shows remarkable persistence, likely the desperation of a mother with a sick child. The woman isn’t deterred by any of it.

 

Jesus finally speaks. He answered that He “was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” Wow, Jesus still isn’t showing much compassion here. Instead of immediately healing her daughter, He remains silent. At the further urging, albeit selfish urging, of His disciples Jesus finally answers with this! Now, today we know better, we know that salvation had to come first to the Jew, and then the Gentile.

 

But this woman didn’t know that, and up to this point in Jesus’ ministry he’s worked miracles in both Jews and Gentiles, so what is He getting at here? This pagan woman approached Jesus desperately needing help, and she did so in a way that demonstrated some understanding of the Jews since she referred to Him as the Son of David, a common Jewish term for the Messiah.

 

God does this often, doesn’t He? He stretches our faith to grow us, to bring us closer in relationship to Him. God always has a purpose for what He does and it’s always good, even if it’s painful to us in the moment, even if we don’t understand it in the moment.

 

To this point, the woman has been coming at them crying out from a distance. But then she catches up to them. Verse 25 tells, “But she came and knelt before Him. This Gentile woman desperately seeking to help her child, kneels before the man she recognized as the Jewish Messiah.

The Pharisees, who were so caught up with ritual purity and in keeping the law of Moses and all their “additions” to it, couldn’t recognize what this Gentile woman did. If only this had been done in their presence, she could have taught them a thing or two about recognizing God’s Messiah.

 

She again pleads with Jesus, “Lord, help me.” Can’t you just hear the desperation in her voice? The pain and anguish of watching her child suffer. We have no idea how long her daughter had been possessed by a demon, but I imagine even one second is one second too long. Surely, now Jesus would answer her prayer, wouldn’t He?

 

He answers her, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Did He just call her a dog? Did Jesus Christ just call this woman a dog. You can see why this passage is hard to read and wrap our heads around. Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, has been quietly refusing to help this woman and then even refers to her as a dog.

 

But what ends up being even more appalling is that the woman doesn’t even flinch! Understand this, it was common for the people of Israel to refer to their enemies as dogs. The Jews frequently insulted the Gentiles by calling them dogs, using the word for dog that implied wild, homeless, savage scavengers.

 

Not that it makes much of a difference, but that’s not the word that Jesus used here. No, he used the word for dog that implies household pet, and the woman’s unflinching faith just rolls with it, she doesn’t get indignant and tries to refute Him. She responds with a yes it is, Lord. Yes, it’s right for the dogs to get the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.

 

Jesus certainly demonstrates and stretches this woman’s faith. She is convinced that He is the Jewish Messiah. She’s on her knees at His feet, begging for just a crumb of His healing power for her daughter. She’s unphased by His silence, undeterred by the disciple’s selfish annoyance and Jesus’ dismissal, and unbothered by an insult. Nothing was getting in the way of this woman getting help for her daughter.

 

But what rises to the occasion, what Jesus was really after, is her faith. Jesus knew her faith, He is God incarnate after all. He wanted to draw it out of her and draw it out He did.

 

She believed who Jesus was, God’s chosen Messiah, and she knew that she had no right to eat at the table with the children of God, but she knew that even just a crumb of what Jesus offered would save her daughter.

 

Remember the promise God made to Abraham in Genesis 12:2 – 3 when He called him, “and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” The election of Israel wasn’t just for their own blessing, as they forgot, but to bless the people of the earth. Therefore, their Messiah wasn’t just sent to save them, but all who would believe in Him.

 

She went to Jesus seeking mercy, Jesus saw her faith. She begged Jesus to work in her daughter’s life, and instead Jesus worked in her life too. It is ultimately receptive faith, not outward religiosity that determines the children of God, the determines the blessing of God.

 

The Pharisees right before this passage were so concerned with their tradition and outward religion that they failed to receive Jesus by faith. This woman, considered to be an unclean pagan with no outward expression of religion, received Jesus by amazing faith. Because God gives grace to the undeserving, you can put your faith in God by entrusting your prayers to Him.

 

Can you imagine this woman, this desperate mother? And Jesus responds to her and says, “O woman, great is your faith!” Let’s pause here for a moment. Only twice in the Gospel of Matthew is Jesus recorded as saying to someone, “You have great faith.” He said to this woman, a Gentile, and He said it to the centurion with a paralyzed servant, also a Gentile.

 

To two Gentiles Jesus commends them for their great faith, and to the disciples, what does He say? When Peter was walking on water and begins to sink, what does Jesus say to him after saving him? “O you of little faith.” To the disciples as well when they were afraid of the storm on the sea he said the same. These were the children, the elect. They were Jews, and they had little faith. To this woman Jesus says you have great faith, let it be as you wish. And He instantly healed her daughter.

 

 

 

 

At what point would you have stopped asking Jesus for help? Would you have stopped at the silence of God? God’s not answering, and years have passed. Why should I continue to pray? Would you have stopped because of the influence of other people in the church, like the disciples who were selfishly annoyed by her persistence? God’s people can sometimes be hard to live with. Would that have stopped you, and would you have said, “I’m not going to intercede for my child anymore?”

 

Someone has said that this woman scaled the walls of heaven and touched the heart of deity. Martin Luther said she used the Master’s own words against Him and won His heart. This woman was absolutely desperate. Ther was no way her child was going to be healed without Jesus. God often does His best work in us when we’re utterly desperate. By the time her persistent faith proved genuine, Jesus was able to say, “great is your faith!”

 

I want to briefly touch on a few principles, a few truths, about praying for the prodigals in our lives. The first is this, you ought to first pray for God to change YOUR heart. Yes, yours. God wants to do a work in your heart just as much as He wants to do a work in theirs. He cares just as much about your walk with Him as He does about drawing them back to Himself.

 

The first thing you have to say to God is, “Lord, change me.” When you look at the Canaanite woman in our passage toady you can clearly see that Jesus wanted to do a work in her as much as her daughter. He wanted to draw out from her the kind of brokenness, the worship, falling at His feet, the kind of faith He could commend. Jesus wanted that in her life as well.

 

The second thing is you must give the outcome up to God. You pray, “Lord, she’s yours.” There comes a time when you just have to relinquish control over the outcome of their lives and just entrust them to God. Folks, God can do what you and I can’t.

 

I go back to this woman, again in utter desperation she comes to Jesus, “God, there’s nothing I can do for this child. God, I can’t drive out this demon, I can’t do it. Say the word, God just give me a crumb.” She gave her child up to God; she left her in His capable hands.

 

 

The third principle is like the second, pray for God to change their heart. Whatever the affliction, the addiction, the sin, the biggest challenge is changing their heart, and that is entirely in the realm of what only God can do. Don’t you wish you could truly compel obedience? Wouldn’t it be great if we as parents could make the decisions for them so at least they’d get it right?

 

We can demand compliance, and we’ll get some measure of compliance, especially if our kids are still at home. But do you know why you and I can’t compel obedience? It’s because we can’t compel the human heart. What you need to be praying is, “Oh God, change his heart.” No matter how much we wish we could do that, we can’t, that’s something only God can do.

 

And sometimes, you just have to let sin run its course. And that’s hard, but some of us must learn things that hard way. Too often our innate desire to protect our kids extends to protecting them from the consequences of their choices. Just look at Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. Do you remember what brough him home? Imagine if his father followed him to that far off country and bought him a good meal every day. What brought the son back home was being so hungry he wanted to eat what the pigs ate! Sometimes, sin just has to run its course.

 

But what do you do then? Here comes the even harder part, and it involves a tremendous amount of trust in God. You wait. You wait with open arms. You pray to God, “Lord, I’m going to wait. I’m going to wait to welcome him home.” You’ll wait even though it may take years, and when he’s ready to come home, you’ll be there to welcome him because you love him and you’ve prayed for him, and you’ll rejoice and celebrate because Jesus said to you, “O you of great faith! Let it be as you wish.”

 

That’s the power of a praying parent. Whether it’s a Canaanite woman 2,000 years ago, or your own life, God wants your faith to take a stand, to be front and center in your lives and for your trust to be entirely and only in Him. In the end, God will work it out according to His will.