Does Jesus Show Prejudice to the Canaanite Woman In Matthew 15?

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, my daughter won't allow me to see my grandchildren if I attend shirt services.

What should I do? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of CORE Christianity. Hi, this is Bill Meyer along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. With your question at 833-THE-CORE. That's 1-833-843-2673.

You can also post your question on our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter accounts, and you can email us with your question at questions at corechristianity.com. Hey Bill, I know that two of your children work for Chick-fil-A, and I just wanted to ask you, do you guys get the hookup with chicken sandwiches? You know, every once in a while they bring a few extras home, and sometimes the brownies too, which are really, really good.

Oh, nice. My wife, she's a huge Chick-fil-A fan. I feel like if one of our kids worked at Chick-fil-A, they would be smuggling nuggets home every day, you know, that kind of a thing.

So that's good self-control on their part. So I understand you're a big fan of the Frosted Lemonades, huh? Yes, I am, actually. I mean, I go with the spicy chicken sandwich and a Frosted Lemonade. That's my order. Okay, you want to know about a little off-menu item secret? Yeah, give it to me.

Here's what you do. When you go through, if you want, they will add an extra flavor to your Frosted Lemonade. So you could say, could you add strawberry to that? And then at the bottom of your Frosted Lemonade, you get these little strawberry chunks and some strawberry syrup, and certain times of the year, they'll even do mango. So there you go.

I think I just prefer the normal lemonade flavor. Thanks for that, though. Okay, so I know we probably have some Chick-fil-A owners or managers listening to the program. So you want to say hi to them? Yeah, well, if they want to shoot us a sponsor, I would love to promote them, that kind of a thing. Would you wear the cow costume during the program? No, there are enough sort of clown cow pastors out there that I think we don't need anymore. Well, thank you to our friends at Chick-fil-A. Let's get to our first question of the day.

This is from one of our listeners who watches our live stream on YouTube. And she says, as a new Christian, I find myself ashamed of myself for turning my back on Christ. How does one return to the faith by overcoming the sense of shame and accept the love of Christ once again in my life? Yeah, a lot of believers really struggle with this, and I think the first thing that you need to realize is that the love of Jesus is bigger than what you've done. No matter how many times you've turned your back on the Lord, I think that it's easy for us when we're conscious of our own sins, the struggles that we have, the things that we've done in the past to feel like I'm beyond forgiveness, or even if I have been forgiven, I'm pretty worthless, that kind of a thing. We have to rest in the fact that God didn't love us or pursue us because we were righteous or holy.

I mean, the scripture says the opposite. It was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us. And so the love of God for you is there. It was exhibited first and foremost in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, what he did for you, what he accomplished for you on the cross, that sacrificial death.

Don't let your past keep you from laying hold of that love. Now, I think I'm talking to more people than just you right now. There are others listening who, you know, you say to yourself, I can't come to Jesus right now because I'm so dirty, I'm so broken, he'll reject me, that kind of a thing. And we allow our sins to keep us from the Savior, but you need to remember that Jesus himself said, I came to seek and save the lost and his blood, his salvation is stronger than your sin. One passage I like to go to, and I already sort of quoted from it, but it's from the book of Romans. It's the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter five. It's so important for us to grasp this because I think we oftentimes do think that God loves us because of our performance. Paul said in Romans chapter five, beginning in verse six, for while we were still weak, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person, one would dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since therefore we have been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. And so look, it wasn't when you were strong, holy, righteous that God pursued you, that he sent his son into the world to die for your sins.

It was when we were the opposite of all those things. And if God's love for you then, prior to your conversion, prior to believing in Jesus wasn't dependent upon your performance, then his love for you now isn't dependent upon your performance. And when you feel weighed down by shame, by guilt because of what you've done, like you're unlovable, you need to go to the cross because it's there that God showed you very clearly that he loves you. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. So important to go back to the core truths of the gospel when we are feeling this way. Somehow we've turned our back on God or he turns his back on us. I once had a pastor say to us regularly in his services, there's nothing we can do to make God love us more and there's nothing we can do to make him love us less. He just loves us. The key thing there is I think really not rooting it in our performance is his creation and God loves his creation. Now he doesn't love sin and the Bible is absolutely clear that God hates sin and there are even passages in the Psalms that talk about God hating sinners and so you kind of have this tension where God loves us. He sent his son into the world in John 3.16.

What does the world consist of? It consists of sinners and yet he sent his son into the world to redeem sinners so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. So God takes sin very seriously. Bill, you were talking about what a pastor friend of yours used to say. I had a pastor friend who would say there are only two places where sin is taken seriously, in hell and on the cross.

Sin is very serious to God and yet he loves us so much that he sent his son into the world to deal with it. That's our hope. That's what we preach. That's what I preach as a pastor and it's so important for us to lay hold of that hope. Give us a call with your question.

We're live right now. 833-843-2673. You can talk to Pastor Adriel anytime live with your question.

833 the core is the number. Here's a question that came in from Patricia and this is a tough one, Adriel. She says, How do you comfort someone whose teenage son died unexpectedly and the parent has no assurance of their son's salvation? Bill, I don't know if I've mentioned this on the program, but one of the most difficult pastoral situations I've ever been in, it was actually when I was still interning. I wasn't even an ordained pastor yet. The church that I was interning at, there was a phone call that we received from Children's Hospital in San Diego. The chaplain wasn't there at the time and there was a family that had just lost, not a teenager, a little girl. She was about four years old and she had just died and they wanted a pastor, someone to come and pray with them.

And so I got the phone call as an intern because the pastors on staff of the church were all occupied. And so I went to this hospital and I remember walking in the room, I mean the entire way there, just praying and asking God, please give me wisdom, please give me the words to say, please pour your mercy out on this family. But getting there and walking into this room and the parents there obviously devastated so many family members around the bed and a little girl, four years old, her lifeless body.

And what do you say in a situation like that? There aren't words that can communicate the pain, the grief. One, you pray and you mourn. The Bible talks about weeping with those who weep and so there was a lot of that there. And yet I do think that you can go to the Lord in prayer. You don't want to make assumptions and just give people a bunch of platitudes. Sometimes I think that that's what people do and that can be really unhelpful, but you can also point out God's sovereign power and the call for people to trust in that and the fact that God is good and that he's in control. And there are two passages of scripture that I would go to. One, a passage that emphasizes God's care for all of his creation. I'm thinking of the book of Matthew. In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus said these words and I think that this is just really a huge comfort and can be a huge comfort to us when we're facing situations like this. Matthew chapter 10, beginning in verse 28, listen to what our Lord Jesus said. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny and not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your father.

But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows. You point people to God's care, to his sovereign power, to the fact that God is in control. Yes, even in these devastating situations, God is in control and he loves us and we're of more value than the sparrows. He knew what was going to happen.

He knew and we can cling to him. We're not making assumptions about an individual's salvation but we're saying that the Lord knows. And then I also think of one other verse that I would go to and that's in the Psalms. This is a verse that I frequently go to in situations like this, Psalm 139, and again it highlights the very same truth that God knows, that he has an intimate knowledge of his people, of their life and of their death.

Psalm 139 beginning in verse 13. For you formed my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. And so I think that the one thing that we can comfort people with, those who have lost someone near and dear to them, is the hope, the knowledge, one that God knows all things that he's in control and that God cares for us, cares for his creation, and clinging to that reality so that we don't feel like God was caught off guard or think that God was caught off guard by these circumstances. The Lord knows he's bigger than our suffering, and that's why we can cling to him through it.

Amen. This is CORE Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Here's the phone number to call if you'd like to talk to Pastor Adriel. 833-843-2673.

That's 833, the CORE. Let's go to Christina calling in from Nashville, Tennessee. Hi, Christina.

Welcome to CORE Christianity. Hi, thank you for taking my call. Christina, what's your question?

So I'm purposely trying to... Are you there? I think we lost Christina. I was reading in Matthew, and there's so many times where it says that Jesus healed all who were sick, but there's a story of a woman who I believe she wanted healing for her son, and Jesus was kind of... I can't remember if he told her no or was kind of ignoring her, and then he made a statement to her, and then her response was something along the lines of, even the dogs will eat the scraps from their master's table, and then he healed her son.

And I was just wondering what your take on that was. I believe she was a Gentile, and I saw a reference that there was something about that he was trying to minister to Israel first, but I just thought that was interesting and wanted to hear your thoughts about that particular moment. Yeah, you're referring to Matthew chapter 15 beginning in verse 21, and Jesus went away from there and withdrew to the district of Tyre and Sidon, and behold, a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, son of David.

My daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. But he didn't answer her a word, and his disciples came and begged him, saying, Send her away, for she is crying out after us. And he answered, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

And that, Christina, is what you're referring to there, the priority of Jesus' mission there as he came to the world, focusing on Israel there. But she came and knelt before him, saying, Lord, help me. And he answered, It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. And she said, Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table. And Jesus answered her, O woman, great is your faith.

Be it done for you as you desire. And her daughter was healed instantaneously. You know, this is a verse that gives people a lot of pause. Why is Jesus speaking in this way to this particular woman? But one thing that he's highlighting here is the contrast between Israel, which was rejecting him. I mean, he's going to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and they're faithless, so many of them.

John says at the beginning of his gospel, he came to his own, and his own did not receive him. And yet here you have who? A Canaanite woman. Remember the Canaanites in the Old Testament, sometimes referred to as a sort of negative way.

These were the bad guys, you know, always at war with Israel. And yet here's this woman who comes to Jesus, a Gentile, and she has faith. And she sort of stops Jesus in his tracks. And what's being focused on here is one, what we sometimes refer to as the Gentile inclusion, the fact that the Messiah came for the Jews, the Jews rejected him. And now what you essentially have is the nations flocking into the kingdom of God, beginning with people like this Canaanite woman, that even by faith, she too is being welcomed into the family of God, and she is accepted by the Lord. He heals her daughter.

And so, you know, it's one of those stories, I think, that for us, kind of in our context, we read and we just think, well, what is going on here? But we have to remember, right, at that time in history, all of the things that were going on, and for many of the Jews, their assumption was, the Messiah is going to come, he's going to establish our kingdom, he's going to make us great, and the nations are going to come and bow down before us. And Jesus is welcoming the Gentile nations, even this Canaanite woman. And so I think what we need to focus on is what Jesus focuses on there at the end of the text, her faith, and her being commended for that faith, and her request being granted by the Lord, Christina.

Thank you for that question. You're listening to Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and today we want to tell you about a very special resource that Adriel has produced. It's called Seeing Jesus. Yeah, and you know, I hope Christina is still listening, because one of the things that I highlight in Seeing Jesus, this sort of four-week devotional that I've written, is the fact that Jesus is the bridegroom. And who does Jesus pursue as the bridegroom? Well, we get a really clear picture of who he pursues in places like John, Chapter 4, where he goes to a well and meets a Samaritan woman.

Someone who in that day would have been identified by the religious leaders as sort of an outcast, you know, someone who would not have been commended by the Lord or pursued by God, and yet Jesus pursues her, and forgives her, and welcomes her into his family. And so one of the things that I do in Seeing Jesus, and I think it'll be a really helpful resource for you to check out, is I focus on these stories in the Gospels that give us a glimpse into the ministry of Jesus, things that we oftentimes miss. And so get a hold of Seeing Jesus. I know that it'll encourage you in your walk with the Lord. To sign up to receive a free copy of Seeing Jesus, just head over to corechristianity.com forward slash Jesus. You can also call us at 833-843-2673 for help getting any one of our offers.

That's 833 The Core. By the way, if you go to our show notes page for today, you can find more about that offer and any of the resources that are mentioned on today's program. Well, here's an email we received from Lowell, and Lowell says, Because of COVID-19, my daughter does not want me to attend church. If I attend, I cannot see my grandchild. I've not been going to church so I can see him. But then I think about Jesus saying that we are not worthy of him if we're not willing to give up relatives for him. Am I sinning by choosing visits with my grandson over church attendance?

Hmm. Wow, what a difficult situation to be in. I mean, you hope that you never have to make a choice between your biological family and your spiritual family, your brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ.

And so, brother, this is a really difficult situation. I mean, part of me thinks, you know, I would first encourage you to just appeal to your daughter and to focus on, I mean, hopefully the church that you go to has taken precaution during this time that they're trying to make things safe so that when people gather together, they're not getting sick. I mean, and so if that's happening, I would say, look, we're trying to do everything that we can in order to be safe. It's hopefully no more dangerous to gather together for church and to worship the Lord than it would be to go to the store to get groceries, that kind of a thing. And so emphasizing that, and I don't know what your church is doing, it could be that, you know, if they're not doing anything, that her concern is, well, maybe there's going to be an outbreak there, and I don't want you bringing that into our home. And I think that's a genuine, serious concern. We've had people in our congregation who have gotten sick with COVID-19, thankfully none of them from the church gathering. It's been something typically outside of the church, and it's no joke.

I mean, this is a serious thing. But I also don't want to downplay what Jesus said, and you referred to it, that on a couple of occasions, Jesus highlights the importance of following him no matter what the cost is. I think of his words in Matthew chapter 10, beginning in verse 34, our Lord said, Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Jesus said when we have to choose between obeying him and pleasing others, including our family, we should always choose him. And there is suffering involved there, brother.

I mean, that's part of suffering with Christ. I remember back in, I think it was the late 2008, around there, there was a young man who converted to Christianity. He was the son of one of the main leaders in Hamas. And I knew about this because he was actually attending a church in San Diego where I lived at the time, and I knew his pastor. And it was big news because you had, you know, the son of this Hamas leader who came to faith in Jesus Christ, left his family behind, and he was asked in an interview, you know, how difficult this was for him to leave his family behind. And he said something that just stuck with me.

He said, it was like taking the skin off your bones. I mean, this is a difficult thing. I mean, to have to choose, to be in a position where you feel like you have to choose between your biological family and whether or not you're going to obey God. I don't want to minimize that, brother, but I also want to say, listen to what the Lord Jesus said. I mean, our call is to follow Christ. And hopefully with the way things are trending, Lord willing, things are going to start opening up again.

And this won't be an issue, something that you'll have to decide between. But we are called to follow the Lord and to be faithful to the Lord. And that also means gathering together with the people of God. Now, I know that this has been a crazy season with the pandemic and everything related. And as I said, I hope that your church is taking the proper precautions.

And so I would pray and continue to have conversations with your daughter and assure her that you guys are being safe so that you potentially could spend time with your grandchildren. May the Lord bless you, brother. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Let's go to Lonnie from Grand Island, Nebraska.

Lonnie, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Hi. I just want to say I really love your show, first of all. Thank you. Thank you, Lonnie.

Yes, I do. It really relates to me for some reason. And I'm a little nervous, but I've been a believer most of my life since I was a little girl.

I mean, my mom instilled that in me. And I mean, I've strayed off and on for, you know, back and forth for years. But for some reason, when I go to church, I feel like I'm still like I'm being convicted or I feel guilty, like I'm not doing enough or like the sermon.

I don't know. I just feel like then I think, well, maybe I should even go to church. Maybe I should just stay home and read my Bible or do my own thing, because then I don't feel as convicted as I do when I go there.

Yeah. Well, look, one, when we're under the preaching of the word, we are going to feel convicted at times. That's really what the law of God does is God speaks to us through his word. And there are times where as we're hearing the word of God, it's like we're seeing ourselves in a mirror and we're seeing all the areas where we fall short.

And if that's all you're getting is sort of the law over and over and over again, then you're going to feel really guilty a lot of the time. That's why it's so important, Lonnie, that you also hear the gospel, the truth of the gospel, the truth of God's word, which is not what you need to do, but what Jesus has done for you to forgive you. And so the question that I have for you, Lonnie, is are you hearing that message?

Are you being reminded of what Jesus has done for you to forgive you so that you're not filled with shame over and over again, but that you're filled with the grace of God in Jesus? Thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. To request your copy of today's special offer, visit us at corechristianity.com and click on offers in the menu bar or call us at 1-833-843-2673. That's 833 the CORE. When you contact us, please let us know how you've been encouraged by this program and be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.