A Discerned Faith Leads to Discipleship // Mark 7:24-37

In this sermon, Pastor Evan Bialk explores Mark 7:24-37, highlighting Jesus' interactions with a Gentile woman and a deaf man, emphasizing compassion and the inclusiveness of Christ's ministry. He discusses the significance of these acts within a cultural context, demonstrating how Jesus broke societal boundaries to fulfill his mission of salvation for all humanity. Pastor outlines that true faith requires discernment and humility, which is illustrated through the faith of the Syrophoenician woman who recognized Jesus as Lord and acknowledged her place in the divine schema of grace. Despite being considered “less than” by society due to her gender and ethnicity, her faith prompted Jesus to act, teaching us that no one is beyond redemption.Furthermore, Pastor Evan uses the healing of the deaf man to symbolize the spiritual deafness that many experience, inviting listeners to actively engage with Jesus' call to discipleship. He calls on believers to reach beyond their comfort zones and engage authentically with those seen as outsiders by society. The sermon stresses the importance of showing love through actions, rather than merely inviting others to attend church, framing authentic relationships as the key to sharing the Gospel. Ultimately, Pastor Evan challenges the audience to reflect on how they can embody Christ’s compassion and break down barriers in their own communities, reminding everyone that God's love and grace extend to all people.

Transcript

Well, this morning we are continuing on in Mark 7. We're in our series on Mark following the King, and we are in Mark 7:24 through 37. So if you have your Bibles, open them up to mark 724 through 37. If you have your phones, hit that do not disturb. So you don't get those text messages or news alerts or when the Chiefs game starts.

I don't think they play till later. Right? Yeah, later. We're good. Now, my Green Bay packers play at noon today and against the Bears, so it's a big rivalry game.

So you're saying, wrap it up. My Henry told me to wrap it up, too. Henry's excited about the game, so he was like, we gotta watch it.

So maybe I'll. Maybe it'll be a shorter message this morning. Anyway, we're gonna be looking at mark 7:20 through 37. And in this passage, Jesus interacts with a Gentile woman and a deaf man. And he is demonstrating his compassion and the expansive nature of his ministry beyond cultural and societal boundaries.

These encounters that he challenges. In these encounters, in these encounters and through these encounters, he is challenging his followers to embrace a faith that transcends traditional constraints. Kevin, I meant to ask you this, and I'm sorry, do you have the map up? That was. You do?

Okay. All right. Not yet. We'll get there in a second. Sorry.

My hope this morning is that in this message, that through this message that we can help understand. It helps us understand that faith requires discernment and courage that can only be acquired through seeking a deeper relationship with Jesus. I hope that it also reminds us that a true disciple often, and true discipleship often involves reaching beyond our comfort zone and embracing those who are different from ourselves. In doing so, I hope that we can find strength to engage in our community and break barriers and also build authentic relationships. This morning is going to focus on that a discerning faith leads to an authentic and active discipleship walk and how a discerned faith is not limited by cultural or societal boundaries, but rather encourages us to practice empathy and compassion toward others as we follow and pursue Christ's example.

This passage points to Christ's mission to save all of humanity and breaking down the walls divide. If you've studied scripture, you probably hear that the walls that divide. And it reminds you of that passage In Ephesians, Ephesians 2, 13, 16, that says, but now in Christ Jesus, you who are once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments, expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And so this passage in Ephesians is talking about the hostility or the dividing wall between the Jew and the Gentile, the Jew and the Gentile, and how Christ in himself is breaking down this dividing wall of hostility in this dividing wall was built on the law of commandments that were expressed in ordinances. And we'll talk about that as we move forward today.

Jesus actions here that we're going to read in a moment in Mark provide a foundation for what we just read in Ephesians from Paul. So this passage 724 through 37, is giving us a foundation for the passage in Ephesians 2. And Jesus is revealing his identity as the Messiah, one who comes not only for the Jews, but for all people, fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies of hope for the nations. Ultimately. Ultimately, the mission of the church to spread the Gospel universally.

And it's not just to the Jews, which is a good thing, because I don't know if there's any Jews sitting in this room today. There might be a few, but we are all Gentiles. So we would not have hope, we would not have hope for salvation if it wasn't for this passage, for these passages, for these actions that Jesus took in demonstrating that it was hope not just for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles. So as we jump into Mark this morning, remember that a discerning faith is essential for authentic discipleship, and that it calls all believers to reach beyond their boundaries, that they are comfortable in and embrace a community shaped by the love of and grace of Christ. So let's read it together, if you don't wouldn't mind standing.

We're going to read 724 through 37 together.

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. But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard him and came and fell down at his feet. Now, the woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 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.

But she answered him, yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. And he said to her, for this statement, you may go your way. The demon has left your daughter. And she went home and found the child lying in bed and the demon gone.

Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee in the region of Decapolis. And they brought him to him, a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. And they begged him to lay his hands on him. And taking him aside from the crowd privately, he put his fingers into his ears and after spitting, touched his tongue. And looking up to heaven, he sighed and said, ephephothia, that is, be opened.

And his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Jesus charged them to tell no one. But the more he charged them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. And they were astonished beyond measure, saying, he has done all things well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

You may be seated. All right. Before we jump in to Mark, remember last week we talked about how Jesus dealt with ritual purity. The ritual purity. Remember, we talked about the traditions of the elders and how Israel was more focused on the idea of ritual purity or the law of the Commandments through ordinances than they were about moral purity and following the actual.

The law of God and being morally righteous by following God's commandments. They were more interested in the ordinances and traditions that they had put forth. And so this is a story that's contrasting. It's continuing this theme, but it's contrasting what we saw last week. I want to talk about.

Oh, you want to put the map up. I also want to talk about. Give you a geographic idea of where we're at. And so remember we talked about how Capernaum down there, kind of in the center by the Sea of Galilee, on the north side of the Sea of Galilee, was kind of Jesus home base. Right.

A lot of his ministry had to do in Galilee and around Capernaum. Well, in this, in. In chapter 7:24, it says he. He's moving up to Tyre and then up to Sidon. And so this is all Gentile land up here.

This is all Gentile land. And then he comes back down. And so you see up there on top left? This is kind of where he's approached by the Greek woman. That's what we're talking about this morning.

And then he travels back down, goes through Caesarea Philippi and kind of goes around the Sea of Galilee into the region of Decapolis, which is all Gentile land. So we've talked about Decapolis before and how he's been there and ministered to there. That was where he cast out the demon legion and he was kind of chased away from that area. And so but he's over there again doing ministry in gentile lands. This is important for us to know this morning.

So Tyre and sidon, they're about 35 miles north of Capernaum. Gives you kind of a distance wise, so you can kind of judge. So it'd be maybe the distance for Topeka to Lawrence. I think Lawrence is about 25, 30 miles away or something like that. All right, you can take that down.

All right. This morning, first I want to, as we look at verses 24 through 30, I want us to see how Jesus is crossing cultural chasms.

In verse 26 it describes the woman who comes and talks to Jesus. In verse 26 it says the woman was a Gentile. Right? It says now the woman was a Gentile and then she was a Syrophoenician by birth. These are important, these are important details about the woman because from the perspective of a first century Jew, she had everything going against her.

If you're a first century Jew reading the Gospel of Mark and you hear this and you read this and you see that this is a woman, not only was it a woman, but she was a Gentile. And not only was she a Gentile, but she was Syrophoenician. You would say that everything, everything in the world was going against her. Because women, even among the Jews, were viewed as inferior to man. This is why a woman's testimony alone would not stand in a court of law.

And so there had to be multiple women who witnessed something for it to count. Women in general were considered less than to a man. Gentiles. So Gentiles had no way of salvation. So for the Jews, they looked on the Gentiles as unclean animals.

Remember we talked about how Jesus gave the instructions to the. His disciples that when he. When they were to leave the. When they were to leave an area that did not accept the Gospel message, did not accept the message of repentance. Repentance.

They were to brush their sandals off from the dirt. And that was a tradition that was traditionally done by Jews as they traveled through Gentile land because they saw even the land as unclean. And so these, these were people that the Jews saw as less than they were God's. The Jews were God's chosen people that salvation was to them and the Messiah would be to them. And the Gentiles were unclean pagans.

And so they looked down on them. And the next thing that Mark records is that she was Syrophoenician. So Phoenicia, which is a territory north of Israel at the time, had been annexed by Syria or annexed to Syria under Rome. Around 65 BC, a Roman general came in and conquered Phoenicia and annexed it to Syria. And that's why it's called Syrophoenician.

But According to Matthew 22, the Phoenicia area, in the parallel telling of the story in Matthew 15:22, the Phoenician area was the area of the Canaanites. And so the parallel telling says that she was a descendant of the Canaanites. And if you remember, if you, if you read scripture or if you study scripture in the Old Testament, the Canaanites were the ancient enemies of Israel. And so as a Jewish, a first century Jew reading this passage, you're seeing, okay, she's a woman, automatically inferior, she's a Gentile, automatically unclean, and then she's Seraphinician or a Canaanite, an enemy to Israel.

She came from an area that was engulfed in pagan idolatry and was undoubtedly an idol worship, idol worshipers herself. John MacArthur's commentary on this section says that in the minds of the Jews, no self respecting rabbi would ever allow a Gentile, especially an idolatrous woman, to remain in his presence. The Lord wanted to show his disciples that the message of salvation was for the nations. Those whom they had been taught were outside of God's grace and blessing. I want you to think about the person that is so outside in our minds that we've been taught so outside of God's grace and blessing.

And I know there's probably somebody in your mind that you're thinking of that, that you're sitting there saying, I don't see how God could ever take this group of people and ever redeem them. I don't see how God could, could ever reach this community because they are so far removed from, from the truth of the gospel. For some of us that might be people who are atheists, some people that, that might be in the current culture. A lot of Christians have, have this idea about the LGBTQ community where they are so far removed from God's grace and blessing that there is no way to reach them. And it is only intensified with that community or some in that community because there's a lot in that community that don't agree with it, with the idea of transitioning children.

And we sit here in churches and we rightly have righteous anger toward abusive children and the idea that children can be transitioned. And we. YouTube might actually take this video down because of what I'm saying, but we rightly have righteous anger toward that. But a lot of times our righteous anger turns into this idea that these people can never be saved. We watch videos on social media of them and their sayings and it creates angers in us.

And we're sitting there saying, man, in some cases, we don't even want them to be saved.

We don't want them to save. We want them to burn in hell for what they are doing.

For murderers, you know, we said, how can God forgive a murderer, A serial killer that's been in prison for how can God forgive a serial killer? It makes no logical sense to us, but these are the people that are so outside of God's grace and blessing that the Lord is wanting us to see that no one, no one, if they come to God, is outside of his grace and blessing now. And if we can wrap our heads around. If we can wrap our heads around that a person who is actively advocating for the abusive children through transitioning them as a minor, if we can wrap our minds around that God can save and wants to save that person, if we can wrap our heads around that, then we can definitely say that God wants to forgive and save our neighbor who maybe drinks a little bit too much on the weekend. And while he's watching football and says some cuss words, he could definitely save the cashier that has no hope in her life or his life and is struggling.

God can definitely save anyone.

Jesus is so Jesus is teaching that no one is outside of God's grace and blessing. As we move forward now, it doesn't seem like that from the beginning because in verse 27 it goes into one of the most controversial verses in Scripture. Because in verse 27, as she's begging him in 26, she's begging him to cast out the demon of her daughter. Verse 27, he responds to her and says, let the children be fed first. It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.

And so it's controversial because people read that and say, did Jesus really just call this woman a dog? And I'm going to let you sit in that uncomfortability because that's what scripture says. We're used to Jesus being super kind and super nice and stuff, but Jesus is Doing something right here. All right? He wasn't being unkind to her.

He wasn't. He wasn't being unkind or calling her names. Jesus is testing her faith. In this moment, Jesus is testing her faith because she comes up as wanting her daughter, the demon class of her daughter. And he is responding in a way that she expects him to respond.

And she is testing his. Her faith. He is wanting to allow space for the robust character of her faith to be put on display. The barriers that he is putting here are not meant to push her away, but to showcase the authenticity of her faith. Unlike.

Unlike the. Unlike the young, rich ruler that we see, the many others, many other Jews that we have witnessed, where they have a superficial base of superficial faith based oftentimes that ritual cleanliness, the ritual cleanliness that we talked about, the superficial faith where it. Where we're. We look like we have faith, we dress right, we say the right things, we do the right things, but morally we're impure. Ritually, we might look pure because we follow all the traditions that we put in place for ourselves, right, that we create out of our preferences.

And so we look ritually clean, but we're not morally clean. This. This lady looks ritually unclean.

To any Jew, she would be ritually unclean. And yet he is allowing space for her moral purity to shine through.

Her response here. Here she was. And her response demonstrates an immense faith, but also an immense humility. Her response demonstrates an immense faith, but also an immense humility because she answers him, yes, Lord. Yet even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

So immediately, immediately this woman picks up on everything that Jesus is saying, even more than the disciples and the. And the nation of Israel. And we know this because this is the one and only time in Mark, in all of Mark, that Jesus is declared Lord and called Lord by anyone in the Book of Mark. Now, there are times where he is referenced as Lord or he speaks of himself as Lord, or scripture references his Lord. But this is the only place that Jesus is called Kurios, Lord, by someone else in the entire Book of Mark.

And this is a Gentile woman who looks ritually unclean, is recognizing his authority, his divinity, his power, that he is the Messiah. And she also picks up on the bread motif that he uses, the bread motif that started several chapters ago about Jesus being the bread for Israel, the bread of life. She picks up on that, and she uses that. And she says, yes, even the crumbs. Even the crumbs would satisfy.

I don't need the whole loaf. I just need the crumbs. She's demonstrating humility in saying that I recognize Jewish priority, that you came for the Jews, that the Jews are your priority, that his ministry was first to Israel. In Romans 1:16, it says, For I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, but also to the Greek.

And so she is sitting there recognizing Jewish priority, putting herself in a humble position.

She's recognizing that he is the bread of life. And I want us to focus on the term of dog real fast, because I talked about how it's not meant to be an insult. There's two ways of talking about dogs in Israel, and oftentimes they refer to gentiles as dogs. And Jesus uses the one that contrasts with the feral dogs that typically is used. He uses canarion, which just means.

It was usually meant little dog or a household pet. And it contrasts the other Greek term that means feral dogs that lives on the streets. And so when they're using dogs, they're talking about kind of these little dogs or household pets. And I had a little dog who did exactly what she is describing. Tinkerbell.

We love Tinker Bell for multiple reasons. But one of the probably the things that we miss most about it is that she would hang out, usually under where the kids were eating, especially when they were little toddlers or sitting in their baby seats, high chairs, thank you. And she would just sit there, under there, under their underwear. They're eating. And as food dropped, she'd gobble it up.

And we called her the vacuum. And when she wasn't around and the kids were eating, we would call her and say, tinkerbell, come, come pay your rent. And she loved it. She loved it because she got to eat some table scraps. We loved it because we didn't have to vacuum as much.

Obviously, we still vacuumed, but she would grab those big table scraps. And so we actually missed one thing that we really miss about her. And it's very noticeable in our household because we have kids that make huge messes. But this is exactly what she was talking about, this little dog household. Peter.

They would sit under the table and eat the crumbs that fell off. And so she recognized that Jewish priority was first. But she responds to them, that even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.

She responded in humility, poor in spirit, without self righteousness that we see so often. The Jews responded with. Jews so often responded with self Righteousness when confronted by Jesus. And when confronted by Jesus, this Gentile woman responds in humility, meekly, horn spirit saying, even the crumbs would be sufficient. And God always, always intended for the Gentiles to receive the overflow.

That was always his plan. His plan was for that through the nation of Israel, that all of the world would be blessed, including the Gentiles.

So if you. And this is even more significant if you think about how little she knew but the faith that she had. She was raised in a pagan land. She did not share in the privilege of the Jewish people, but she came to this understanding of who Jesus was. She discerned who Jesus was and she responded in humility and meekness.

Dwight Moody is reported to have said that Jesus sent no one away empty except those who were full of themselves.

And so while many Jews responded with self righteousness, they were full of themselves. This Gentile woman comes and she is empty of herself.

She is in need of Jesus, and she's not taking no for an answer. She says, I get it, you're here for Israel.

But even the dogs eat the crumbs and the crumbs will be sufficient. And so he hears this and he sees her faith, her enormous faith, a faith that he has not seen in Israel, a faith that he has not even seen, and an understanding of who he is and a discernment of who he is that he has not even seen in his disciples. And he grants her request, saying that you may go on your way and the demon has left your daughter. Now he doesn't go with her, he doesn't go to the home. He just says, the demon has left your daughter.

And she takes him at his word. She takes him at his word and obeys. And again showing tremendous faith in obeying the command to go. And she goes and finds her daughter lying in bed with the demon gone. And so this passage 24:30, again demonstrate to us that God is looking at our faith and our willingness to obey God and our discernment of who Jesus Christ is, not what we look like on the outside.

Not if we're all tatted up or we come in looking shabby or if we look come in looking sharp. God doesn't look at the outside. The ritual purity that we so often put on that we often times build for ourselves through our preferences and traditions. God is more concerned about who we see Jesus as who we say Jesus is and how we follow Jesus, how we respond to Jesus.

And then as we continue on in verse 31 through 37, we continue to hear Jesus heartbeat for the lost, for those that the world would call ritually unclean. We see his heartbeat for them.

He returns to the region of Tyre, going through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, to the region of Tichopolis. And he's met there by a group, group of people that bring him a man who was deaf and mute. And they beg him. They beg him to take mercy on him and to heal him.

And Jesus is healing of the deaf man is a testament to his compassion and power and how this. This act invites us into a life of active faith that reaches out to those in need. The healing signifies this. Healing signifies the opening of our ears to hear, the opening of our hearts, the opening of our ears to hear and respond to God's call to discipleship. Beyond our comfort zones.

It challenges us to listen and act because we are to be inspired by Christ's example, His example of reaching out in love.

I love this, that this story right here in 31 through 37, it parallels things that we've seen in the Old Testament. If you remember. If you remember, in Exodus 4, God is calling out Moses to go be his voice to the Egyptians, to take his people out of Egypt. And Moses responds that I can't do that. And he gives a whole bunch of reasons.

And one of those reasons is that he's not an eloquent speaker. And God responds in verse 11 of chapter 4 when he says, who has made man's mouth? Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? And then in Isaiah 35, 5 through 6, looking forward to the Messiah, to the return of the king, looking forward.

Isaiah prophesies that the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. God is in this. In this passage 31 through 37 is demonstrating that Jesus is God again. Because.

Because in chapter four of Exodus, the Lord declares that he is over the mute, the deaf, the blind. In Isaiah, it is testified that when the one comes who. When the king comes, the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unstopped. And so he is literally doing that physically. In this passage, he's laying his hands on him.

He's. It might seem weird to you that he's sticking his fingers in his ears and he's spitting on his hand and putting it on his tongue, but there is an expectation of. Of an expectation of. Of healing. Just as like if you Went to the doctor.

Today in modern times, if you went to the doctor and walked in, the doctor looked at you and said, yep, your heart sounds fine. And you'd be like, what, you're not going to use the staph, the soap, like to listen to it? You know, your blood pressure, pressure looks fine. You're not going to. What do you mean?

How do you know that? The cuff. There's an action that people are expecting to see. And so he's sticking his ears or sticking his fingers in the ears. You spit on the tongue.

So people can see what is happening in the healing, that the ears are being opened, the tongue is being unfurled, that there's healing going on.

And you'll notice that.

You'll notice that he takes him aside from the crowd privately. That doesn't mean that the crowd can't see what's going on. But he wants people to see that he's focused and attentive on this person in need.

Isaiah 35, 5, 6. When it's talking about, the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. This is physically happening right now, but it also has a spiritual meaning. And this passage has a spiritual meaning for us as well, because they go off and they celebrate after the healing that he has done all things well. All things well, which is obviously, you look at creation in Genesis, and God does all things well.

He declares all things good. They declare that he has done all things well, and that he even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.

St. Ambrose says that everything that we hear, everything that we believe, comes through either sight or through hearing. Sight is often deceived, but hearing serves as a guarantee. So the opening of one's ears is vital. And Jesus places so much emphasis on the ability to hear his words.

In mark, it's mentioned 12 times. 12 times the reader is exhorted to hear Jesus or to listen to him. So this passage where Jesus is physically opening a man's ears is so vital because Jesus places so much emphasis on the ability to hear his words. And that's because we all suffer from a spiritual deafness. We all suffer from a spiritual deafness.

And we need to be able to hear the gospel, hear Jesus, hear his words. And I don't mean that we physically can't hear. I mean that the spiritual deafness, that we might hear the gospel, but we don't actually hear it because we don't understand it. We are not discerning who Jesus is and how he can transform our life. I Hear that?

I see this over and over again. When people who have lived and grown up in churches and they've gone to church for 20, 30 years and they come and they have a testimony. And their testimony is, I grew up in church, I went to church every Sunday, listened to the pastor preach, and then one day the pastor preached the gospel. And I can, I mean, for some pastors maybe it is once in a while, but I can almost guarantee if they're going to a Bible believing church, that they've heard the gospel before. It's just that Sunday their ears were opened and they heard the gospel and they respond in a positive way, recognizing and discerning who Jesus is.

This is like I, when I was thinking about an example of this, I was thinking about toddlers. We've got a couple of toddlers in my house and we've gone through a couple of toddlers where they can't talk yet and they can't really comprehend sometimes what you're saying. You're talking at them and they're looking at you like blank stares. I have no idea what you're talking about. And that's even worse in my house because as you've probably noticed, sometimes I say big words and sometimes those big words, my kids have no idea what I'm talking about.

And I've actually, I mean, I've had to catch, I've started getting better at this where I catch myself, I'll say a big word, be like, do you know what that means? And they're like, nope, I have no idea what you're talking about. But toddlers, they can't talk yet. They can't really comprehend. They can't hear, right?

They can't hear, not physically. They can hear, but they can't hear and comprehend. They can't discern what they're saying. So they're screaming and yelling because they're not happy and they want something and they're trying to communicate and you're trying to communicate and they're not understanding you and you're not understanding there. And so as parents, we want them to be happy, want them to stop screaming, right?

Because nobody likes a toddler who's screaming at you sometimes. If you're punishing them, that's okay.

Discipline is important. I'm just talking about, I was thinking about actually, probably two nights ago. Actually it might have been last night. Gideon is sitting in his, in his high chair and he's pointing at things and he's screaming and yelling because he wants something and we're eating and so we're giving him everything on the table. His water cup, we're giving.

We had bratwurst last night. So give him a slice of bratwurst, give him a piece of bun, give him some tater tot, give him some apples, give him some peppers. And he's throwing them all over, and he's pointing, and we're like, we don't understand. And he's. He clearly can't comprehend what we're saying to him.

Like, what do you want? Okay, we're providing him with solutions, but none of them are working. And this is so often what the world does. A person is hurting. A person needs Jesus.

They're in need of Jesus. And they can't comprehend that. They can't comprehend that the only thing that will satisfy them, the only thing that will turn their life around is Jesus. And so the world does. The world does.

And they throw things at them. You've got alcohol, you got drugs, you got therapy, you've got, you know, sex, you've got money, you've got work, you found your value, and all these different things. And the world just throws these solutions at people, hoping that people will be happy. And yet we know that the only joy comes from Jesus.

We are like that toddler sitting in the high chair, pointing at things, thinking they're going to make us happy. And then when we get them, they don't. They don't satisfy us. And so we scream a little louder and we point at the next thing and go get the next thing. And it isn't until we mature enough and our ears are opened that we can discern who Jesus is and respond to him.

And so we suffer as unbelievers with a spiritual deafness. There might be some in this room right now who suffer from that. They don't know who Jesus is, that Jesus loves them, that he cares for them, that their suffering can be counted as joy, and that even those words they can't comprehend. How can suffering be counted as joy? That does not make logical sense to them.

But as a believer, it does.

And so we should pray that their ears are opened to the gospel, that they might hear that Jesus Christ came and lived a perfect life, died on the cross, taking up their sin so that they might have a relationship with God, raised three days later so that we might have hope of eternal life.

But we also suffer that we suffer a spiritual deafness as a believer, too.

And that's because we have so much noise in our lives. We have so much noise, especially today in our lives. We have TV we have sports, we have social media, we have Christian influencers, celebrity pastors, Christian bookstores. We have all of these influences in our lives that are telling us all of these things. And, you know, it's the one thing I didn't say is as pastors, because in the midst of all that noise, my experience, and I would say the experience of a lot of my pastor friends is that a lot of times our voices get drowned out in that noise.

We have a lot of noise happening in our lives that distract us from the gospel of Jesus Christ and what the Holy Spirit is wanting to do with our lives, in reaching people, in demonstrating love to our community, in having conversations with people. And so as we're looking at 724 through 37, and you're asking yourself, what does this mean for me in my life? How can I apply this passage of Scripture in my life if I recognize that there's spiritual deafness in my life? And I'm wanting that. I'm wanting the Holy Spirit to.

I'm wanting to give space for the Holy Spirit to speak. And I would say, go and give time. Give time over to the Holy Spirit.

You'll notice multiple times, Jesus goes off and he prays alone. And I'm not saying that you have to sit in a closet somewhere and with your Bible open and a candle lit and be like, holy Spirit, give me your wisdom. I'm not saying. I mean, you can do that if you want. I'm not saying that it might be.

Turn the radio off. Stop listening to talk radio for a moment. Turn the radio off. And as you're driving to work, spend 10 minutes and say, lord, is there anything you would like me to do today? Is there anything going on in my life that you want to challenge me on?

Is there anything in my life? Is there a person that you want me to go and talk to? It doesn't even have to be for 10 minutes. It could be. It could be for five seconds.

Our phones are a detriment to our society because we are never without them. And so we are never bored because we are always wanting to be entertained. And if we're always wanting to be entertained, then we are leaving no space for the Holy Spirit to talk to us. And so I would say, number one, find some space for the Holy Spirit to talk to you.

Number two is that we can sometimes see the other side as dogs. We can sometimes look. And especially with this election cycle, and I'm not saying that you specifically, but there is a division in our country, both on the right and the left, where we can look at the other side and view them as dogs or less than we can view them as unclean, without hope, without any redemption. And we should remember that at some point we were those people. That is only God's grace that you're sitting here today cleaned of your unrighteousness because of Jesus, not because of anything you did, but only because of Jesus.

We can sometimes forget the grace that was shown to us and we are not gracious to others.

Go and have a conversation that with somebody that is outside of your comfort zone, and this one is probably going to be tough for people to hear. But inviting people to church is not evangelism.

It's evangelistic. But inviting people to church is not evangelism. God didn't say, go and and make disciples by never sharing the gospel with them, but take them to your church so the pastor can share the gospel with them, right? No, it says you. You go and make disciples.

You go and teach them all of these things.

Inviting the people to church. I would much rather you not invite somebody to church, but invite them into your home for a meal.

If your inclination is, your first inclination is, hey, we should invite this person to church. I'm going to say, stop doing that. Your first inclination. When you meet somebody who may be lost, that you want to see, find Jesus, I want you to say, hey, come over and share a meal with our family. Let us get to know you.

Let us love you as Christ loved others. And sure, you can invite them to church eventually. We'd love to have them here. But inviting people to church is not evangelism.

I want us to be a church that shows people the love of Christ, shows our community the love of Christ. I want us to be thinking about how we can be impacting our community around us. Those are big words. How can we do that? Right?

I want us to be thinking about the people that live on Kansas Avenue, our neighbors. How can we show them love? How can we show our neighbors love? How can we show the local schools and the children who attend there the love of Christ? How can show the teachers who pour their lives into kids every day?

How can we show them the love of Christ? How can we show the administration that we love them when they've been yelled at constantly by parents?

How can we show the homeless in Topeka that we love them?

How can we show the drug addicts in Topeka that we love them? How can we show the prostitutes in Topeka that we love them? How can we show, even worse, the politicians in Topeka, that we love them and there's a lot of them.

The point is, this passage shows us that God is wanting us to go and reach those people. Show love to those people, the people that we think are outside of God's grace.

Let's pray.