SERMON TITLE: What is Faith?
TEXT: Mark 7:24-37 (ESV)
SPEAKER: Josh Hanson
DATE: 1-18/19-20
It’s great to be with all of you this weekend at Gateway Church. And one thing I want you to know is that God loves you and I love you too.
We’ve been in the gospel of Mark for the past few weeks — looking at different stories from the life of Jesus. And what we’ve been discovering is that God is more concerned with what goes on inside of us than he is with what goes on outside of us. Meaning our motivations — our desires — what the Bible calls our “heart” — is what God is after. Because — when God has our heart — when our desires are in line with his desires — when our motivations are renewed — then and only then will our behaviors — please him.
And the reason why this is important for us to understand is because we live in a doing culture. Reflection — sitting in silence to think about what motivates you — journaling about your emotions and desires — these aren’t things that are pushed in our culture. Gettin’ stuff done is.
“What do you do” is a question we ask to get to know someone. But think about how odd it’d be to ask someone — or to have someone ask you — “What do you desire?” That sounds kind of weird, right? So how about using that question for your conversation starter at lunch today — “what do you desire?” — and don’t give a fake “I know as a Christian this is what I’m supposed to say answer” — answer honestly. And then — if you’re really brave — ask someone close to you what they see as your desires and motivations.
Now one of the more mysterious aspects of Christianity — and this is one of the parts of Christianity that we often talk about — even when we’re not sure what we exactly mean when we talk about it — is faith. What does it mean to have faith in Jesus?
Now — to be clear — faith can mean doctrine — the truths we believe about God, salvation, and so on. But that’s not how we’re using the word today — we’re talking about the “do you have faith in Jesus” kind of faith — what does that mean? Well whatever it means, here’s what I want to help you see about faith today. Faith is an internal thing — and there’s a mystery to it — because faith — is a matter of the heart.
And — something you may or may not have thought much about — is that faith is both something we do AND faith is something that’s done to us. So let’s gain some clarity on what faith is and what it means — and what it doesn’t mean — to be a person of faith.
So let’s turn to our passage for today.
If you have your Bible please turn with me to Mark chapter 7. We’ll be finishing the chapter today as we look at verses 24-37. And these verses contain two stories of faith — which are also two stories of healing as well. But we’ll read the stories and then talk more about faith — and some about healing.
Here are the words found in Mark chapter 7. Beginning in verse 24.
“And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden. 25 But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet. 26 Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 And he said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 28 But she answered him, "Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." 29 And he said to her, "For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." 30 And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him. 33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue. 34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." 35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, "He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."” (Mark 7:24-37 ESV)
For many people — and maybe you know someone like this — but for some people — these Bible stories are the reason why they reject Christianity — maybe this is you. You read stories like these and think, “This is exactly what’s wrong with Christianity. It gives people a false hope that God is some sort of genie in a bottle who will miraculously heal their sickness or make deaf people hear — and guess what folks — I’ve never seen anything like that before. But I have met people who are disillusioned about God because they — or someone they loved — weren’t healed. And some jerk of a Christian told them it was because they didn’t have enough faith.”
Now — I want this to be a safe place — a place where we can be honest. So some honesty. I don’t know if you ever pay attention to Christians who have TV shows — or big Internet ministries — but some of them claim to witness miracles happening all of the time. Some of them — not all — but some of them tell people, “If you send in a check for so much money God will heal you.”
So here’s me being honest — I think they’re weird — at best — and deceiving — at worst. They’re like the crazy aunt or uncle who you know you have to invite to the family gathering — it’d be rude not to — but you secretly wish they’d just stay home because they’re bonkers. But we have to be careful not to throw out the baby — that God does heal — with the bathwater — “If you send in three payments of $19.95 I’ll send you this handkerchief that’s been anointed with the healing power of Jesus.”
Now part of the reason — not the only reason — but part of the reason why things — like these healings stories in the Bible — become a reason that people reject Christianity — is because we live in a rational leaning culture. So it’s easy to read a story — like these in Mark’s gospel — and think — “Don’t you Christians know how the world works?” So us — believing stories like these — becomes a way for people to invalidate belief in God as being something that a rational person would do — because — it seems that we’ve set God up to be a disappointment — when someone isn’t healed — or we set him up to be a liar — because the Bible says he can heal, but apparently he can’t — or doesn’t. You may have even been asked, “Why did your God do things like this — supposedly — in the past — but he only disappoints people today — when it comes to healing?”
Now we do need to be careful with how we understand stories from the gospels. Miraculous stories — especially stories of healing — in the Bible — have been used in some pretty awful ways. Especially when people connect faith to healing in a way where faith becomes solely something we do — where if you “only have more faith” — then God would heal you or someone you love. That kind of teaching — in the church — has led many to wonder if they have any faith in God at all and has left many feeling guilty for apparently not having enough faith because their loved one didn’t get better.
So — to avoid these pitfalls — we need to better understand what faith actually is so we don’t unintentionally set people up to be disappointed by God. So let’s return to these two stories and learn more about what true faith is.
Back to verse 24. “And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
So Jesus is in an area that’s primarily inhabited by Gentiles — which are non-Jewish people. And — in Mark’s gospel — this is Jesus’ first time back in a Gentile area since he was asked to leave the Decapolis — where he healed the man with a demon back in chapter 5. And — you’ll notice — he returns to the Decapolis area in our second story.
And he entered a house and did not want anyone to know, yet he could not be hidden.
Now why did Jesus want to remain hidden? Now there’s some disagreement over Jesus’ reason for wanting to remain hidden, but a theme — that we find over and over again in Mark’s gospel — is that Jesus knew God’s plan and timing for the culmination of his ministry — his death on the cross. And — sometimes — it’s as if his popularity was disrupting God’s timeline.
Now everything happens according to God’s timing — but — there’s this mystery when it comes to God’s sovereignty — him being in control of all things — and our freedom — the decisions we make. In fact, if you ever run into someone who has a black and white answer — here’s how the whole sovereignty of God and human freedom works — kind of answer — run. As rational folks — we don’t like mystery — but God is beyond our rational understanding and if you don’t have any space for mystery in your beliefs then — rational thinking — and not Jesus — may be what you’re really worshipping.
OK. Off that soap box and back to our regularly scheduled sermon. Jesus — wanting to follow his Father’s plan for his life — didn’t want to upset the religious leaders too quickly — he wants the peak of their hatred towards him to line up perfectly with God’s plan for his sacrifice on the cross.
Now — back on the soapbox — one last time — because I can imagine the questions being texted in. God’s in charge — he’s in control of all things — so no one and nothing will disrupt his plan. And Jesus is so committed to his Father’s plan — that he didn’t want his popularity to be a potential source of disruption. And — that — is how mystery works ladies and gentlemen.
25 But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of him and came and fell down at his feet.
Jesus wants to remain hidden — but — because of his popularity — he can’t stay hidden — people keep finding him. Now — something I find interesting about this story — is that this area of the world — Tyre and Sidon — is the same location where the Old Testament prophet Elijah performed a miracle for a Gentile woman. I bring this up because Jesus’ ministry is often compared to Elijah’s ministry. And one of the reasons for this is because of stories — like this one — where even the locations of miracles — and who the miracle is being done for — overlap with each other.
26 Now the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth. And she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
Something else — I find interesting — is how much the woman in this story — reminds me of the woman from chapter 5 — the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. I’m sure you remember how she came to Jesus — she approached him — to be healed. And — because of her bleeding — the woman was considered unclean — she was impure — because of her condition — yet she approached Jesus anyway. And — we learned that when someone unclean touches anyone else — whoever they touch becomes unclean — except for Jesus.
And when that unclean woman touched Jesus — instead of her uncleanliness rubbing off on him — she’s healed. Because Jesus makes the unclean clean. Our sin doesn’t rub off on Jesus. His holiness rubs off on us. And that’s some of the best news you’ll ever hear.
I bring up her story — because the mom in our story — is a Gentile. And being a Gentile she would have been considered unclean according to Jewish law. Yet she — like the other woman who approached Jesus — she goes to Jesus believing that he can heal her daughter. But Jesus doesn’t exactly reply to her in a way that we expect him to, does he?
27 And he said to her, "Let the children be fed first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."
OK — so Jesus just called the woman — or maybe her daughter — a dog — and that’s not polite — “Where are your manners, Jesus?” And there’s not really a way to put a positive spin on what Jesus has said. His PR staff are in for a late night — he legit called someone a dog.
And his response — makes it seem like her hopes should be crushed — I mean — if you didn’t know how the story ends — his response doesn’t make this seem like things are going to go the way she hopes, right? So what’s Jesus doing?
Well — we’ve read the story — we know that Jesus is going to heal her daughter. And Jesus is God — so he knows everything — he knows that he’s going to heal the girl — so why did he reply the way that the did?
He’s testing the woman’s faith. “Do you really believe that I can heal your daughter? Even after the kind of reply you’ve been given — do you believe that I — not only can heal your daughter — but do you believe that I’m kind and merciful and will heal her?” So a somewhat rude response is a test of her faith — does she see Jesus as some sort of “genie in a bottle” type of healer or does she have faith in him? And look at her response.
28 But she answered him, "Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."
And — with her reply — the woman steals the scene. She responds to his test by highlighting the kindness and mercy of God. “Yes, Jesus, you have come for the Jews. And technically — they’re your family — they’re the ones who sit down at your table to eat — not me, a Gentile woman. But I know that you’re kind and merciful and gracious and never turn away those who come to you hungry and in need — you never turn away those who come to you in faith — even if they’re considered to be more like the family dog hanging out under the table than relative who has a seat at the table — you’re gracious to all who come to you.”
Now — because the topic is feeding — the readers of Mark’s gospel may’ve immediately thought of how Jesus fed over 5,000 Jewish people with a few fish and some pieces of bread and still had 12 baskets of leftovers. And — coming next week — we’ll see that he feeds Gentiles in a similar way. The point being that Jesus isn’t limited in his grace and mercy — he gives grace and mercy to all who come to him in faith.
29 And he said to her, "For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." 30 And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
And her daughter is healed. Then we have the story of the man who’s deaf.
31 Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. 32 And they brought to him a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment, and they begged him to lay his hand on him.
Again — word has spread about Jesus. And here we have some people who bring a friend of theirs — who’s deaf — to Jesus. How do I know they’re his friends? Only friends care enough to do what they do for this man. They remind me of the friends who bring the paralyzed man to Jesus and — when the house is so full that they can’t get in through the front door — they dig a hole in the roof and lower their friend down in front of Jesus.
33 And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears, and after spitting touched his tongue.
Why did Jesus put his fingers in his ears and spit and touch the man’s tongue? I don’t know. Some scholars think these actions were part of demonic exorcisms — maybe — I don’t know. What I do know is that Mark is describing to us what happened. He’s describing an event — he’s not prescribing steps — “Here are two steps to heal someone who’s deaf — step 1) put your fingers in their ears, step 2) spit and touch their tongue.” Though some have confused descriptive stories — like this one — as prescriptive.
34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." 35 And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. 36 And Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. 37 And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, "He has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."” (Mark 7:24-37 ESV)
Now this second story reminds me of a few lines from Charles Wesley’s hymn O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing…
“Well — you may be thinking — these are nice stories and all — but what are they teaching us?” Are the healings the point? I’m not so sure — we’ll talk about the work that only Jesus can do in a moment — but I think — for us — what these stories primarily teach is what it means to have faith.
Now I said earlier that the word faith is something so commonly used by Christians that often we use the word and don’t know what it means. One definition — that I really like — is by an author who describes faith as “an allegiance to Jesus as king.” (Matthew W. Bates, Salvation by Allegiance Alone: Rethinking Faith, Works, and the Gospel of Jesus the King (Grand Rapids: Baker Academics, 2017), 214.) Another author has said, “Faith is not the belief that God will do what you want. It is the belief that God will do what is right.” (Max Lucado)
You see — faith is more than just believing some facts about Jesus or salvation or the Bible. You can believe facts about George Washington and not have faith in him. Same for Michael Jordan, Robert Downey Jr., or me. But believing facts about someone isn’t the same as having faith in them. So faith in Jesus is more than just knowing some facts about him.
And if we take both of these definitions — where biblical faith is an allegiance to Jesus as king — and by allegiance to him — I mean — where we treasure him above everything else. So faith is a treasuring of Jesus AND it’s a belief that he will do everything that he’s promised to do — and everything that he does is good — everything he does is right — so he can be trusted.
So faith boils down to treasuring Jesus and trusting him. So let’s look at both of these.
First — what does it mean to treasure him? Well — when I read these two stories — what grips me — what gets my attention — is how — even when Jesus tells people to not talk about him — because some of them treasure him — they can’t help but talk about him to others.
We really do talk about what we treasure most — what we value most — what gives us joy. And — man — this can be such a difficult thing to wrestle with — I know it is for me — because I find myself talking about so many other things that I know reveal that there’s a war going on for my heart’s allegiance. And — for me — the conflict is that I want to talk about Jesus more. I want him to be the treasure that comes up in every conversation I have. And I fall so pathetically short of this — because my inward person — my heart — is still being renewed and transformed — I’m still learning to treasure Jesus more and more. And — if you can relate — even with as pathetic as I may sound — let me encourage you because even this internal wrestling shows that your heart does treasure Jesus.
What grips your heart? What do you talk about? What do you think and dream about? What gives you joy? To treasure Jesus means you want him to be the answer to these questions.
So that’s treasuring Jesus — but what does it mean to trust him? Well to trust Jesus means you see the futility in trying to earn God’s love through what you do and instead trust what Jesus has done for you. In our “you have to earn it” society, trusting Jesus is countercultural to everything we’re told. I mean, how are you supposed to close the business deal between you and God? You don’t. Jesus does it for you.
And you have to trust him — completely — not trying to add anything to the work he’s done — if you want a favorable relationship with God. But everything in us wants to be our own savior — because — as one woman recognized — “If me being right with God is 100% based on what Jesus has done for me — well — then he’s got all of me — I owe him everything.” (Tim Keller recalls a woman in his church telling him something like this.) And that’s trust — not just trusting Jesus to make you right with God — but trusting that he will do what’s right to and for you today and tomorrow and the next day and forever.
And in our stories — we see the work that only Jesus cando — in verse 29.
“And he said to her, "For this statement you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter." 30 And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.
The woman did respond to Jesus — but he healed her daughter — that’s the work only Jesus can do. And in the second story — we see Jesus’ work in verse 34.
34 And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened."” (Mark 7:29-30, 34 ESV)
The woman came to Jesus trusting him to do good to her daughter. The people came to Jesus trusting him to do what’s right to their friend.
And though — in these stories — the good includes a physical healing — the greater good was the inner healing Jesus did as they demonstrated a trust and treasuring of Jesus. This is the work that only Jesus can do. He heals — not just physically — but he raises the spiritually dead to new life. Faith — treasuring and trusting Jesus — even faith is a gift we need Jesus to give to us. That’s why faith isn’t solely something we do — it’s also something done to us — it’s a gift given to us.
Now — having said all of that — and this may make you think that I’m irrational — but I do believe that God heals today. In fact, he’s healed people here at Gateway whom I’ve personally prayed for. Now that doesn’t always happen — but it has happened.
And the tension we’re in — as God’s people living in a culture that sees religion as “an opiate of the masses” (Thanks Karl Marx! Not really, though.) — the tension we find ourselves in — is to not be so consumed with whether or not God will heal someone — that our trusting and treasuring of Jesus becomes conditional.
And — I know — that for some of us this is a huge obstacle in our faith.
So — if this is you — please know that I so sympathize with you because I so easily find myself wanting live by sight — which is so much easier — than living by faith. But my encouragement to you would be to remember that — as followers of Jesus — we’re to live by faith and not by sight.
And again — honest, safe place here — so I’ll be honest for all of us — living by faith and not by sight — can be really hard. It’s so easy to have doubts — to have more questions than answers — when we live by faith and not by sight. So instead of focusing on the things we don’t have answers for — let me remind you of what we do know.
And as Christians, we need to be reminded that Jesus is worth trusting because he is the definition of trustworthiness.
And even when he comes off seeming to be a bit absent — or disengaged — or even if it seems that he’s treating you like a dog — know that what he may be doing is working on your faith. He may be wanting you to see that your trust isn’t in him, but is in something else. That you’re treasuring something else more than him. And he tests us and works on us because — what Jesus is most concerned about — is what’s going on inside of us — what motivates us — what we trust — and what we treasure. And Jesus isn’t satisfied until you trust is him. And he won’t quit until he is your treasure. And trusting and treasuring Jesus is what it means to have faith in him. Let’s pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for giving us reason after reason after reason to trust you. You are good. You always do what is right. You are just. And you care for us. Help us to trust you because you are trustworthy.
Jesus, thank you for offering yourself to us to be our treasure. To be our source of joy. To be what motivates us. To be who we live for. We don’t deserve you to be our treasure and yet you gave yourself for us anyway. Because of your unconditional, eternal, stunning love for us.
And, Holy Spirit, help us to treasure and trust Jesus. Help us to work on knowing our motivations, being aware of our desires, to not be so focused on what we do that we’re unaware of who we are becoming. We are human beings — not human doings — so help us to be those who treasure Jesus. Help us to be people who trust the One who is trustworthy. Help us to be those who are secure in the eternal love and mercy and kindness and grace of our King, Savior, and Lord. For it’s in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen.
May you go trusting and treasuring Jesus. Amen.
God loves you. I love you. You are sent.
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