What Would You Do For The One You Love?

Moms will do just about anything. Just about anything for their kids, And I actually posted on Facebook this week asking what moms had done. Did you anyone see that post? Just a couple of you, asking what moms had done or would be willing to do for their kids.

I had to put a clarifier.

I posted it on my personal page with no clarifier. Then I posted it on what's happening in Buckeye with a clarifier that said: please do not criminate yourself, by sharing. Just you know what's happening. Buckeye can get pretty, it's, it's.

The local Facebook group can be get pretty crazy sometimes.

Sometimes people post and I'm like, why, like, why would you pose that? But you might. If you're a mom, you close your eyes and think of the craziest thing you done for your kid. All right, All right.

Now you would eyes closed.

I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. I'm not going to do that to you today. We're going to, actually, during the second half of the message, we're going to have a little panel of a couple moms where I get to ask them some questions and see them squirm up here for a moment. But here's a few that I got in the comment section of my post.

One person said: "I flew across the country to help my or flew across the country to help their daughter move in the middle of a divorce".

One moved across the country for a deaf school and another for better autism resources. So they changed states in order to provide for their child. One waited at school seven days straight to confront a bully that their kid was dealing with And the police were called because she was trespassing. And then later in the post she said that she was good, Like they resolved it.

And I don't know how they resolved it.

They resolved it. Another filled out college applications. Some others filled out job applications, Some because their kid was shy. They talked to the doctor on their behalf.

You got to have a close relationship with your mom to talk.

Let them talk to the doctor for you. One person had a son who was in prison and because they wanted some, McDonald's egg muffins while they were on community service detail, they threw him out their car window. That's, That's love right there. It's not that expensive.

You get two- what do they call grles- for five bucks at McDonald's these days?

They should, they should. I should get sponsored for that statement. One person, multiple people- actually caught throw up in their hands. Y'all like that's gross, but for your kid, Amen, Somebody.

Come on.

You know you do it Half y'all doing it for your dogs. You let your dog chew in the mouth but you're acting like it's gross to catch kids throw up Sucking out boogers when their kids are sick. But you ain't got a little, You ain't got the. You can reel in this phrase: Raise your hand if you've done that for your kid before.

Y'all didn't think it.

I didn't think there were that many who love their kids like that. You would do anything. I had to look up some because the ones weren't crazy enough on my Facebook post. One person, she fought off a mountain lion.

Another one punched a bear.

One mom studied neurosurgery for years and got eventually helped a specialist discover a new approach to brain surgery. It worked. Can you imagine being on the receiving end of that mom, It's like. But eventually it worked.

That's crazy.

She was willing to take off all them doctors till she finally found one, A lady named Wanda Holloway. Her daughter was in cheer. Y'all heard of Wanda Holiday. Her daughter was a cheerleader and she had some rivals who had better position than her, So she hired a hitman.

Oh yeah, Yeah, Y'all heard about that.

They called it the cheerleader hitman mom or something like that. Y'all heard a couple years ago about that college admission scandal. I didn't think that was much of a scandal- I'm not and I would do it- But what they did was they were paying off colleges, so the daughters kicked into college and they just happen to be super rich And these women serve jail time because of this. Isn't that crazy?

Yeah, Y'all think it should happen.

But I'm sitting here like I mean you just paying extra tuition, It's I don't know. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying like it doesn't it doesn't? It surprised me that a mom would do that for their kid. I've made the joke before and I think it's true.

One person actually said on the comments they said they were an alibi for their kid.

And you know I'm not suggesting y'all should operate that way. In fact, this isn't kind of a moral question for a lot of you moms. You're like "Morals go out the window when it comes to my kids". I'm not saying should be the, I'm not saying it's right.

Need you to hear me?

I'm just saying what I've seen, And I've seen moms go crazy on behalf of their kids. They will do just about anything Being an alibi. I make a joke about my mom and I don't think she would do it cuz she's like moral. But I make a joke that my mom would bury a body for me.

I'm not saying she would, I just make that joke.

But at the same time I think as a parent too, And fathers in the room, we're kind of like "Nope, they did the wrong thing. They can sit in prison for what they've done". That's dad's, maybe some of you, I, I don't know. I'm pretty gracious and generous toward kids.

I love them to death and would do just about anything for them.

But knowing my wife, I know she would do more. Hus husbands in the room willing to say amen to that, No, Okay, Yeah, Woo, I know my wife would do more than me. My kids all the time want something from us. They want to bring the dog to school and I'm "No, the dog can sit at home.

I don't need to bring that dog.

Clean up my car afterwards, I don't need to bring the dog". And my wife: but you got to. But they love it so much And I'm just like I don't care. That's I mean, I love my dog, I love my kids, but I'm going to put the dog in the car so that I can make my kids happy on every single day.

But she's like, "No, today we're going to do it".

But I'm like, "No, we stuff to do, We can just go home". I'm like, "No, no inconveniences on the part of bringing a dog to make my kids happy today". And I found a Scripture-, that's about as crazy as you moms And I was reading in Matthew, chapter 15. In fact, if you have Bibles, I'd encourage you to turn there.

If you read it in Mark, it's the Sarapheneian woman.

If you read it in Matthew, it's the Canaanite woman. And this is a mother whose child is in a dire circumstance. She approaches Jesus and when I look at her activity, I am reminded so much of many of the moms in this room and moms in the room along with this mom. I want you to know that the love you have and the willingness you have to do things for your children, while sometimes immoral and you probably shouldn't do those things- The heart behind it, I think, is an embodiment, in a lot of ways, of the character of God.

And so, in Matthew 15, 21-28, I'll read it for you- Says this: Jesus, leaving that place, withdrew to the region of Ty and Siden.

This was a gentile region. If you don't know what a gentile is, it simply means, non-Hebrew, non-Jewish. These are people who would believe in different gods. Verse 22, .

A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him crying out: "Lord, son of David, have mercy on me.

My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly. Listen to this. This is an interesting passage. Jesus did not answer a word.

So his disciples came to him and urged him: send her away, for she keeps.

Now, this is, this, isn't the continuous present right? She keeps crying out after us. Picture the position of this woman whose child is at arrest and she keeps asking, even though Jesus is kind of big murder. I could talk to you about that in a few minutes, But she keeps asking.

He answered: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel".

The woman came and she knelt before him. Picture the posture of this woman. "Lord, help me", she said. He replied: "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs".

"Yes, it is, Lord" she said.

Whoa, Now the moms in this room. You can picture it, and I'm sure, dads, you would operate this way as well, But it's Mother's Day, so you can have fun later, in June, when we talk about you. But I'm seeing a lot of the moms in this room what they would do for their child in this situation. She said: "Yes, it is Lord.

Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table".

And then Jesus said to her: "Woman, you have great faith, your request is granted, and her daughter was healed. At that moment, I want to give you my main question for today that I think moms embody better than me, at least. What would you do for the one you love? That's the wrong question back there.

I don't know what that is.

Is that last week's sermon? Do we have this sermon? All right, I'm going to give you the points. Without that, What would you do for the one you love?

And I'm gonna give you a couple questions that you should maybe ask yourself today as you're processing.

Now, this isn't just for the moms. This is for the, the dads, the kids, everyone in this room. What would you do for the one you love? The first question I want to ask you is: would you break protocol?

If you look at what this woman did.

She broke protocol. Now Matthew is really helpful. Now, if you look at the gospels, you have Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The first three of those are told very similarly.

We call those the synoptic gospels because they very similar Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Now scholars will tell you that Mark was the first Gospel that was circulated. Then you have Matthew and Luke coming a little bit later. So the way that I read the Bible, I read it the way Mark says it and then I look at Matthew and I look at Luke, because they're all true, but I'm trying to gauge it. The word there is called redaction criticism.

You don't need to know all that.

What you need to know is this: Mark calls her a serenician woman. Now that simply tells us where she was from. He said- it says here that she, that Jesus, went to Ty and Siden. Those are areas just north of present day Israel.

Present day Syria is where they are.

And the Ty and Siden, they were seafaring people. If you've ever heard of the Phoenician- not the ones who live here, but the ones who live way back in the day- those were a seafaring people And they came from the city of Phoenicia which is in at that time, Tyer Siden. They are gentile group of people. Now Mark calls her a Sarapheneician woman.

That tells us where she's at, where she's from.

But Matthew comes in and many scholars believe that Matthew wrote a Gospel specifically to those who had more of a Jewish background And he calls her a Canaanite woman. Now, if you haven't read the Old Testament, let me tell you this really quickly: the Jews and the Canaanites, they've got some history. They've got some history. Now when Matthew says that she's a Canaanite woman, he is eliciting that memory from the people who would be reading the Gospel of Matthew.

And so she's not only a Gentile, but religiously she was the exact opposite of the Jews who entered into the promised land.

She was part of that tribe, from the group of people who were there when the Jews entered into Israel. They were the people that God said to drive out because of their following of other gods. And scholars will tell us that there were sacrifices made, not just animal sacrifices but human sacrifices made from the tribe of the Canaanites. And so when Matthew says this, he's telling us that this woman, there's a loaded background for this woman and she approaches Jesus, who at the time, everyone knew at least, was a rabbi- We know him as the Messiah- But she approaches a male authoritative rabbi in the ancient world, She broke protocol.

She broke protocol in this area.

She was a gentile. Not only a gentile, she was a Canaanite, She was also a woman And, whether you like it or not, back in the ancient world it was not standard protocol for a woman to approach a man, especially while he was teaching. It just wasn't something you did. But because of the arrest her child was under, she was willing to break protocol.

She spoke in a public setting.

Again, I know it doesn't work for us in 21st century United States, It doesn't work for us or Western heritage, but back then, if you were a woman, you did not speak out loud in public in the same way that we can do now. I'm not judging it. I'm just telling you how it was. And she did it.

She broke standard protocol.

She even approached a rabbi. What would you be willing to do for the one that you love? Now let me take it for your kids into your relationship with Jesus. And we live in a world where people want to introduce Jesus into their life because he gives a little bit more peace and shalom than they had formerly.

Yet when Jesus calls them to do something, we're like, "Hold up, I don't know if I'm willing to do that much" And you might not say it out loud because it's socially acceptable, but the way that we operate on the regular, Are we really willing to break protocol for our savior?

Are you willing to do that? I remember when I trusted in Jesus that I found it very difficult to break protocol. I had to change the way that I operated around my friend groups- Now I was in eighth grade- A little bit easier than when you're a full grown adult who has a job and a family that's established. I know it's a little bit more difficult, but even then I remember I had to break some protocol.

My friends wanted to go do something because of my relationship with Jesus.

I'm like I don't feel like Jesus wants me to do that. They're like what? What happened to you, bro? Why are you all different?

All of a sudden going to church Now you're better than us And I'm like figuring like how do I deal with that?

How do I break that social protocol? Because I love Jesus, but I also love my friends, be willing to break some of that protocol in order to obtain a deeper and more connected relationship with Jesus. But because I can't preach to you a full, long sermon today, because we got to, I'm going to move on. You can let that simmer, All right.

The next one: would you do the research?

I? I. I don't know if this is a great point, but I think it's helpful because when I was reading the passage, something stood out that had never stood out to me. Now, their entire inciden.

Now, I'm not crazy.

There is a Jewish population up there in the city of Phoenician. As you go further into Antioch. There is a Jewish population because of what we call the Jewish diaspora in the second century before Jesus. However, if I look at the present day, we're all around church.

Anyone grew, grew up down the street from church.

I'm not saying: you went there, Did you grow up down the street from a church? Okay, the rest of you didn't. Hey, glad you're here today, Hallelujah, This is good. But most of us grew up down the street from a church or we knew of a church, Even here in Arizona, where it's more unchurched than it was where I grew up back in the south.

We had a church on every street corner and for some reason, they never got along.

I don't know why. It's just they. They one split from another one and then this one had one right across the street. It's like they were just competing.

It was like Walgreens and CVS in the church.

I couldn't figure it out, But we all grew up with church at some level in our culture. Even if you never went, it's around us. This woman is very similar. She grew up with some Jewish people around her, But likely she wouldn't have known much unless she was just going and hanging out at synagogue every day.

But Matthew calls her a Canaanite, So I'm willing to bet her breaking protocol like this.

She looked like someone who didn't fit in the category of what you would call a God-fearer, And so when she comes up, she addresses Jesus as the son of David. Now, when you address Jesus with a title like that, that perfectly fits who he is. I'm willing to bet this woman did a little bit of research. Now there's a possibility.

She grew up around it and she immediately understood how to reach out to him and how to talk to him.

But my assumption is that she did a little bit of research. I think this woman was like that lady who researched brain surgery until she bothered that surgeon enough to do this new surgery. You know, I think this woman is kind of like: "Okay, I heard about this miracle worker. He's coming to town.

I'm going to address him properly, I'm going to prep my spiel.

I'm going to be ready for anything that he might say. I'm going do the research for the one that I love". And for many of us, you would do it for your kids. I can't tell you how many times I sent my mom a tax document that I didn't know how to figure out, And I've been.

I was in public accounting, Like I went to college for this stuff, But I sent it to my mom cuz I didn't feel like dealing with it.

And within two seconds she's like "Gotcha". He was willing to do the research for the one she loved. Are you willing to do the research for the one that you say that you love, Jesus, Or you going to walk around your entire life? I don't know.

I don't understand this stuff.

I'm not saying you need to be a scholar. I'm saying what research are you willing to do for the one that you love? Would you do the research? Number three: would you tell him fully what your needs are?

And it's interesting.

She goes to him, She says: "Lord, son of David, have mercy on me". And she's so clear. My daughter is demon-possessed, suffering terribly. Now I don't want to expound on this point too much because I don't want to read into something into the Scriptures, something that's not there.

But she did fully tell him the problem And many of us, we operate with this perspective.

Between us and God that's like: well, if God loved me, he would bless me, But we haven't opened up a conversation. You, you operate from this perspective that says: well, if God does this, then I'll feel better about it. Or we walk through our week. We have a good week, we ignore God, We have a bad week.

We're leaning into God and we're asking him why, But very rarely, and know this because I know people, this is how they interact with me.

Many of us haven't put forth the effort enough to understand the problem that we have so that we can articulate to God the problem that we have. I quoted this last week and Jesus, God, says: you do not have because you do not ask, and when you ask, you ask with impure motives and ill intent. Now for us, when we ask God, it would benefit you to know what you're asking him for. Sometimes we ask God for this nebulous blessing, but this woman's specific, This woman's specific.

Many of us say "I feel bad, Lord", And what we could do is we could be more specific.

We could go to the Lord, think about it, ponder, meditate for a moment, just in this compl, contemplative state, and say "Lord, it's not just that I feel bad, I feel shame for something that happened. Lord, it's it's not just that I feel bad, I actually I feel very deflated because of a conversation that I just had. Lord, this thing at work, specifically, is bothering me, or this person seems to be against me. Very specific- We say in the church that specific is powerful.

Why?

Because not only does it articulate to the people involved what you're needing, but it helps you understand truly what you're needing. Many of us in the room, God's been providing for you every single day, but you don't have a full estimation of your needs And so, while God's meeting your needs, you're still frustrated at him because you've never even articulated or thought through what your needs are. This woman knew exactly what she was looking for. My daughter is demonpossessed.

I need you to heal her.

You might need to write down a list of your needs, articulate them and bring them to God. What does Paul say? He says: "Make your requests known to God". Let's do that.

Let's tell him fully.

The next one: would you remain persistent, Like this has got mom's name written all over it? Would you remain persistent- I'm not as patient as you, Hannah- Or persistent, Like, two times the kids say no to something. I'm like "All right, yeah, you can have that snack". I didn't want to have that snack.

I need to be more persistent.

This woman kept asking, to the point where the disciples were like: "Jesus, you just got to send this woman away. She keeps asking". It reminds me of Jesus's parable, of this woman who kept going to the master and kept bothering her with a request. It was a judge kept bothering her with a request, And it wasn't the judge just wanted to help her.

It was, all of a sudden, this woman had bothered him so much with persistence that he said: "There you go".

And what God's saying is: it's not that he's bothered by your requests, It's that your persistence shows your faith. Your persistence reveals your faith. This woman continually coming to Jesus that she had called the son of David, who was a miracle worker validated to him that she really believed that he could do something about it. Many of us we call on God, didn't work.

I'm going to go to all the things that never work, but I continue to do.

God, will you help me with this? Oh, you didn't immediately do it. All right, I'll go back to my Netflix and chill and tell I can enjoy this thing and get lost in this reality show. I'm going to go to my, my sister-in-law- I, I would, I don't know, just a random one.

I'm going to go to my family member who I feel good talking to.

Never gave me a lick of good advice ever, but I'm gonna keep going to her because I feel better about it, because the Lord terried a little bit too long for me. Persistence, Persistence, If you can commit for a time and not give up too easily in your relationship with God. I don't know, Hannah, are you more persistent than me with those kids when we trying to teach them to read? I don't know, Maybe it's cuz I've been preaching sermons way too long, But when they can't read words like articulate, I'm just like: "What are you?

You're stupid".

I don't really. I don't say that, I'm just I'm, I'm. You know the feeling, though. Right, It's like "Come on, Can't you just get it" And my wife's like "Oh yeah, you're getting it, You get this, You're doing really well".

This is, This is us in our walk with God.

We get like we get so frustrated so quickly And so we bail on our walk with God. But what God wants you to do is continue to linger a little bit longer with persistence, because he wants to do something for you. He says: "Knock, and the door will be open to you", But you're just tapping Knock on that door. Be persistent.

This woman is persistent.

The next one, when he responds, will you listen fully? Many of us, we get the response of God and we're like "Nope, not what I was looking for. Y'all been praying for patience". Then he gives you an opportunity to be patient.

He's like: "No, I wanted supernatural patience, Lord, Not this opportunity to learn patience".

You've been praying for a kid. Then you got it, And he gives you patience all at once. And you're looking at this kid and you're like I love him to death, But also it requires patience. And this woman- what does Jesus say to her?

I'll call you back to it.

First he didn't answer, but then he did answer in verse 24. He said: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel". Then the woman kneels before him. She says: "No, that's not good enough, I'm going to keep asking".

And then he replied: "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs".

Yo, that's harsh. Right now I want to give you some some clarity. I always struggle with this passage because it's like: come on, Jesus, That's a little mean. She's coming to you, She's got a sick kid.

Like: come on, Give her a demon-possessed kid.

This is, this is messed up on you, Jesus. But something clicked to me fairly recently, that in this situation, Jesus is trying to navigate two different situations. He's trying to navigate the fact that he was called to the Jews in order to raise up disciples that would then bless the world, including the Gentiles. He's he's called to them, and he has to understand that world, And so it's important for him sometimes to break protocol.

But also it's important for him to maintain some status quo, And as a rabbi in the Jewish world.

If you just let every single thing, even if it's unimportant, go, then you're missing opportunities with the people you came specifically to reach. So in this situation, Jesus, hearing her come, knows she's breaking protocol and is waiting until her faith is strong enough to make sense for him to break protocol, because when he does this he's going to tick some people off. And so he's waiting and he's giving her opportunities to prove to the people around him that it was worth, breaking protocol for. And he says: even for the dogs, says it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs.

And here's her response.

Here's her response. She listens to him. She says this: "Yes, it is Lord". She said: "Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the master's table".

Now, this clicked to me a long time ago, but fairly recently I learned something.

The Greek word for dog that is negative and derogatory, that Jews would use for Gentiles at the time, was kuon, But the Greek word that he uses here is kunarion, Comes from a similar root, but it's a different word. Kuon means the derogatory sense- You're the dogs that aren't inheriting the kingdom of God, But Kunarion is what they use to refer to a house dog or a pet, And so she could have been offended by hearing what he said- call me a dog. But she listened to what he actually said, and he used a different term than a Jewish person typically would have used. And she hearkened to that and she said: "Oh, I know what you're saying.

They're scraps.

There's something you can do. You're trying to maintain status quo right now. You're trying to recognize who you are and where you are right now. But the word you used and me listening to that enabled me to understand something about you: that you are capable of doing something for me.

And so she leans in.

She leans in and she calls them out. It's super clever on this woman And she- and this is the final one- would you respond boldly? Would you respond boldly? The woman repeats the same word that he uses, and it's bold, It's witty.

The cool thing about this mom and about you moms in the room is that you are willing to do whatever for your kids.

But my invitation to you today is to consider what it takes to lift up Jesus above everything in your life and consider him the one you love most, That you would be willing to do anything for him, Like we see with God, that that he's willing to do everything or anything for us. I think that's where moms get it, Like we see in Christ Jesus the willingness of God to do crazy things on our behalf, that he was willing to robe himself in flesh to boldly approach the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He sympathizes fully Husbands- we're not as good at that. He sympathizes fully with our weaknesses.

He intercedes on our behalf.

He was willing to break social protocol And, if you really think about it, God was willing to bury a body on our behalf, Because when his son came and did all those things, it came at much cost and he was crucified on a cross. He was buried And three days later he rose from the grave. And all he asks for us, when we confess that he is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the grave, is that we would offer our bodies as living sacrifices, that we would love him first. Bible says we would be called to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and he'll add everything else to our lives.

If you go back to the Old Testament, the greatest commandment is this: He says: "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, and then, like it, Love your neighbor as yourself".

I want you to consider today what it would be like for you to offer your entire life to him and see what might occur- cuz you know what it's like mom's in the room- to offer your life for something else or somebody else. And I want to invite you to take that same mentality into your walk with God today: that you would do anything for him, because he has done everything for you. So if we could bow our heads and close our eyes. Right now, we're going to pray a prayer together, out loud, for the benefit of those who are praying it for the first time, And the prayer is simple: It is confessing that Jesus is Lord and offering ourselves to him fully.

So if everyone would repeat after me: we're going to pray this prayer: God, I believe God.

I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Jesus Christ, the son of God. I believe he died. I believe he died, I believe he was buried And I believe he rose three days later.

Father, forgive me of my sin.

Father, forgive me of my s, Make me new. Make me new And I'll offer my life, I'll you, to you. It's in Jesus's name that we pray, in God's