Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
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Intro:
**Philly airport story**
-have you ever recieved help you didn’t deserve?
-I want you to think about that, as our sermon today really just has a simple point and message that we’re going to get to at the end, so stick with me
Background:
-Gospel of Matthew was written by the Apostle Matthew
-This Gospel is very Jewish
-The Gospel begins with a geneology linking Jesus to Abraham and David
-There is a great amount of quotes from the OT
-Matthew usually prefers the Jewish words and phrases
-Even though this Gospel is very Jewish, Matthew is also very concerned to show that the mission of Jesus will in fact reach the Gentiles
-The wise men
-The Great Commission
Whenever we do exegesis in the Gospels, we call each separate narrative account a “pericope”
-That’s just a fancy word for an account in the Gospels
-For instance, the pericope of Jesus feeding the 5,000 or healing blind Bartimaeus
Whenever we’re doing exegesis in the Gospels, we always want to ask ourselves why is this pericope placed where it is?
-The Gospels are not just some random placement of stories about Jesus with no connection to each other
-The Gospel writers are actually very calculated about the selection of their accounts of Jesus, and their arrangements of these accounts
-So we always need to take stock of the surrounding context
-We need to be thinkers when it comes to the Scriptures
-Almost like detectives or journalists, asking many questions of the text
-So let’s look at the surrounding context of this pericope and maybe get a clue at the message that Matthew is trying to communicate, not just from our 8 verses, but also from this section of His Gospel
In chapter 15, we have very scathing and very sad indictment against the Jewish leaders
-They come to Jesus at the beginning of chapter 15, essentially accusing the disciples for not holding to the tradition of the elders (vs.
1-2)
-It’s actually a back-handed way to accusing Jesus of not being a good leader and teacher
-Notice they’re not confronting the disciples, they’re confronting Jesus
-Jesus then exposes them for their hypocrisy and disobedience to God’s commands by pointing out that they give people an out to not honor and take care of their parents, thus breaking the 5th command (vs.
3-6)
-He then applies Isaiah 29:13 to them
Jesus then tells the whole multitude that it’s not when enters a man that defiles him, but what comes out of a man
-What he’s saying is that keeping these traditional instructions and holding to these ceremonial cleansings is not what makes a person pure or impure to God
-it’s what is in the heart that comes out in our speech and actions
The disciples tell Jesus that He offended the Pharisees with this saying of His, to which He responds:
-What an incredibly scathing thing to have the Judge of the Universe say about you
“Let them be”
Jesus then goes on to explain his parable
-He tells them that whatever is eaten is ultimately expelled and doesn’t defile someone
-But the sin in one’s own heart that comes out, that’s what defiles a man
-So, we have the failure of the Jewish leaders to recognize their Messiah
-They draw near in outward appearances, but they reject the Promised One
-And Jesus says, “let them be”
And it’s in this context, that we find our pericope
Let’s read through the text, and then we’re going to sit in it:
**READ TEXT**
Vs.
21
-Jesus withdraws out of the territory of Israel into a Gentile place
-This is incredibly rare in Jesus’ ministry
-When Jesus’ commissions the 12 in Matthew 10, he tells them
-This is a very rare thing
-And notice, it’s not even like he’s going to Samaria, which he did a few times during his ministry
-The Samaritans were at least partly Jewish
-He goes to the completely gentile region of Tyre and Sidon, who were honestly not any friend of the Israelites or Yahweh in the OT
-You can go to Ezekiel 26 and find there a pretty intense prophecy against Tyre the Yahweh Himself gives
-And Jesus leaves the area of the Israelites and goes into Gentile territory
Vs. 22
Now, notice how Matthew describes this person
-First of all, she’s a woman
Matthew and his readers are living in a day and age which women are not very highly thought of
-Back then in this culture, women and men had very little social interaction with men
-Men often wouldn’t even address their wives in public
-At times, women were viewed as little more than property in this culture
Second of all, notice how Matthew describes this woman:
-she’s a woman of Canaan!
-This is the ancient enemy of Israel
-This is the people that God told the Israelites to completely
-What I think Matthew is trying to do here is to is show the contrast between her and the religious leaders of the day
But she comes to Him in desperation, crying out to Him for the healing of her daughter
Notice that she calls Him “Son of David”
-This is a Messianic term
-This is what the Jewish people would have called their Messiah
-This is what the crowds cried out at Jesus’ triumphal entry
And this woman is crying out, seeking to lay hold of the help of the Jewish Messiah because her daughter is severely demon-possessed
Now think of it:
-This woman is so far outside of the covenant community
-She really has no claim on the Messiah of the Jews in the eyes of those near Jesus
-I mean, she’s a woman, she’s a Canaanite
-What hope does she have??
-And yet she throws herself on the mercy of the King of the Jews, begging Him to heal her daughter
Vs. 23
-And notice Jesus’ response to her:
“But He answered her not a word.”
Why is that??
-Doesn’t that seem hard or cold or calloused by our Lord?
-I mean, this woman is crying out for help, and He doesn’t do anything
-He kind of just ignores her
-Why would He do that??
-I want you to think about that
The disciples get tired of it!
-They ask the Lord to “send her away for she cries out after us”
Now, it’s interesting to note the context and Jesus’ response here
-Are the disciples asking to Jesus to turn her down and send her away?
-Or are the saying, “just grant her the request already so she’ll leave us alone!”
it’s actually the latter!
-They’re asking Jesus to grant the request and then send her away
-In vs. 24, as DA Carson, notes, Jesus gives a reason as to why He isn’t helping her, not why He isn’t sending her away
Vs. 24
Jesus’ answer is that He is sent only to the lost sheep of Israel
-He’s giving the reason why He hasn’t helped her and answered her request yet
And the reason is this:
**He’s been sent to the house of Israel
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