Gateway Church Sermons
Ashley Road Site | 28th July 2024 | Liam Flint | Even the Dogs
down again leading by example. Great. We're so good to see you all this morning. For those who I haven't had the chance to meet before, my name is Liam. Great to meet you. We'd love to chat to you. I'm married to Prisca and I'm part of the leadership team here at 502. And yeah, it's my joy today to carry on our summer series, which we're calling God of all creation. So if you're here last week, you remember Rich was honing in on a few different aspects of creation. He mentioned pigs. Well, I'm kind of taking us a notch up this week and we're talking about dogs exclusively this week. So it's one for all the dog lovers in the room. And I have to be honest from the outset that most of my experience with dogs, my feeling towards dogs, goes back to my childhood running away from them being terrified. And I'm going to put that to one side for the next half an hour and show you how much I do love dogs in this passage that we're looking at. So as I said, we're looking at how God speaks to us through creation this morning, specifically the natural world. And even more specifically, how God uses the animals in illustration, in pictures that he teaches throughout the Bible and how we can be taught by that and apply that to our lives today. So that's the big picture of where we're going. And as I said, I'm giving a big shout out to dogs this morning and you'll see why very soon. And to help me do that, we're going to be in Mark chapter 7. We're going to be reading verses 24 to 30. And this is actually one of the few positive passages that reflects well on dogs. So deliberately strategically chosen to help us with this message. So it's very short. You'll be glad to know I'm going to read this to us. It will come up behind me as well. We do have Bibles on either side if you'd like to follow along with that as well. And I'll quickly read that to us now. So our title is Jesus honors a siro-foenician woman's faith. Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house. It did not want anyone to know it. Yet he could not keep his present secret. In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a woman whose little daughter was possessed by an impure spirit came and fell at his feet. The woman was a Greek born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. "First, let the children eat all they want," he told her. "For it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs." "Lord," she replied. "Even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." Then he told her, "For such a reply, you may go. The demon has left your daughter." So she went home, found her child lying on the bed and the demon gone. So, short passage, so much to unpack, a bit of a strange one. And so what we're going to do is just spend a few moments first of all just going through this and actually unpicking. What on earth is happening? What is Jesus doing? Why are we hearing about dogs? Why are we hearing about bread? What is going on in this situation? And then I just want to present two questions to us, two reflections that will help us to apply this passage to our current lives this morning. Hopefully it will encourage, hopefully it will pull at us a little bit and we'll leave in a better place than we did 30 minutes from now. So, as I said, your immediate thoughts may be, well, this is a bit of a shocking story. You should see how Liam's going to twist this one. How's he going to present this one? Would Jesus coming out looking good as a character in this story? And you're right, it is because you may be thinking, Jesus seems very cold, seems to deal quite harshly with this woman. What on earth is that analogy about with the dogs and the children? Is it just that he'd actually rather spend time eating food than helping this woman with a real life problem? What is going on? So, we have to start here and just start by unpacking a little bit of the context because we can read this at face value. It's always a danger. We read things, whatever comes to us we take and then we can get ourselves in a little bit of a mess, may affect how we see God, how we read Scripture. So, let's just think about what this actually says to us because it is actually a beautiful story. You may not realize this, but it's actually here to encourage us and you'll see that as we go. So, a bit of background, up until this point, the first seven chapters of Mark Jesus has been tearing things up in the first seven chapters of Mark. He's been turning heads wherever he's gone. So, we're still quite early on in his ministry at this point, but Jesus has been healing people. Jesus has been feeding people. Jesus has walked on water at this point. Jesus is slowly revealing his identity as the Messiah and why he has come to be with his people. Rich just said, we have a God who entered into humanity. He is not just there far off. You can think about other major world religions, think about Islam, where Allah is literally up here and it is your job to get to him through intellect, understanding, obedience. Jesus is not like that. Jesus came to us to humble himself. And so, we see this in the first seven chapters. Jesus just slowly sowing seeds. This is who I am. This is who I am. This is who I am. This is my power. Nature obeys me. Sickness obeys me. This is what he's been doing. So, then when we come to this encounter in chapter seven, this has been placed here deliberately and we'll see why as we go. And Mark instantly wants you to know one thing about this woman, not just that she is a woman, which in itself is countercultural, but that this woman is not a Jew, which has massive significance for us. He deliberately says where she's geographically from, which will immediately reveal that she is a Gentile, which means a non-Jew rather than a Jew. And why is this so important? Well, because Jesus came into a culture where the people of God were a very specific type of person, an ethnic group, the people of Israel. They came from a very specific history and a very specific law was given to them that they'd been working out through the Old Testament. So, things are quite narrow in terms of a gospel focus at the moment. But what this story begins to show us is this is Jesus, one of the first times that he outlines that actually he's come to knock that door wide open. The entry gates to come and to know Jesus, to receive salvation, to hear about the gospel, the gates are opening up. And for the first time, it's not just the Pharisees who are interested, it's not just the people who know the law, it's not just the Jews, not just the people of Israel, but actually even this woman we're going to come to see now realizes that the time is soon coming for her, even though she is technically right now in this story, what we'd consider outside the people of God traditionally. Jesus came to include all and that is going to be an encouragement for us this morning. So, through this encounter, the sorrow of Phoenician woman presents to us this in-breaking of Jesus' ministry that he is slowly revealing himself to us. So, geographically, as I said, he's gone to this region, he ends up in a house, primarily he's gone for rest. As I just said, he's already walked on water, he's fed, he's healed, people are flocking towards him wherever he goes. So, this is a bit of a stopgap for Jesus. He wants primarily to recharge, to go and be with the Father, and then go again in the next step of his ministry. So, he's there to be hosted, to be fed, a bit of an odd place for him to go, but we'll see why. And this woman hears about him straightaway. It says he didn't get away with it very long. Jesus was too famous, too well known. Everyone knew the stories of Jesus throughout the region, even in the Gentile region, the non-Jewish regions. And so, this woman, Bursin, Jesus is probably just about to sit down with his friends, have a long-awaited meal the last time you'd want someone really to come down and disturb you. I'm sure you'd feel the same as Sunday lunch. Someone Bursin, you're thinking, "We've just put the roast out. We've just got this ready. Can this person just wait for half an hour?" And then I'll give him a call back. He probably all said that at some point. But that's not what we see here. This woman is desperate because her daughter quite rightly is in need of emergency help. She has an impure spirit and she knows, "Okay, this is the guy who can help me. This is the guy I need to come to." Now, don't miss the significance of her being a woman. I've just mentioned that because as Jews, you would never socially associate yourselves with people who were Gentile. And this is what we have to understand through that first-century lens, exactly how people would relate, how culture would see each other. And you would not go into that house and engage that woman as a Gentile. So even the fact that Jesus doesn't ask her to be removed straight away, the fact that he actually gives her the time of day says a lot. His disciples would have been shocked. Everyone there would have been very shocked. She's a Gentile and she's a woman. But again, Jesus is kind of undermining what's gone before. He is highlighting that I have come to bring hope to the world. I've come to bring something new, to bring something different, to bring something better. And that is himself. So Jesus responds to the woman. She's clearly beside herself. And this is what I think will shock us the most. Jesus says this, let the children be fed first for it is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs. I think that's what will great with us. We think, okay, this poor woman wailing at Jesus' feet. And he seems to say, let's eat first. Let's deal with that later. What is going on here? But we have to think historically, once again, about the people of Israel and what that represents. By God's design, he has chosen in his providence that he is going to work things out from a very narrow starting point. He's going to have his people, if you trace it back from the Old Testament, he has his people, his ethnic group that he's going to choose to work through until we get up to Jesus. That's how he chose to work things. So here's gospel message is that it's going to be the gospel's going to be theirs first. And then everyone else is going to be included later down the line. So we start narrow. Imagine a funnel almost. We start narrow. And as Jesus comes, he starts to spread that funnel and include everybody. But that's not the starting point. That's not what people would have understood at the time. So when Jesus refers to the children in this story, he's referring to Israel, his original people, his chosen people. Israel is often called. They're referred to the children of God in Scripture. So it may be alien language to us, but it wouldn't have been alien language back then. And so that means when he refers to the dogs, saying they shouldn't be throwing the bread yet, that's a reference to the Gentiles, everyone else. So that's you and I. So in this scenario, we are not the children. We are the dogs. So again, some of you might be like, oh, how offensive? How could you say that to me? What does he mean by that? Am I some feral dog that Jesus doesn't care about? That's not what he's saying. And this is the beauty of this series because we're going to look at these animals, these interactions, these animations. And we're going to think about what is God actually trying to teach us through them, not just taking, well, I don't like the dogs I see out on the street, therefore it must be an insult. Jesus is using the dog illustration to illustrate that it's not right now the time of blessing for the Gentiles, for you and I, for this woman, it's not quite the right time. Jesus has still got his ministry to do, but, and this is the key thing, it will happen. It will happen. Jesus is on his way to the cross. She's met him early, but actually if she sees his direction of travel, he's going to go to the cross. He's going to die for the sins of all mankind. And then people are going to hear about it when he sends the disciples out to go and make disciples of all nations. Everybody is grafted in. The gospel invitation is for you this morning, as much as it was here as it is now. The gospel invitation is for you. Now the apostle Paul, when he later writes his book in Romans, he follows on with this point. This is the order of things that we've always known. So he says in Romans 1, verse 16, and it should come up, "For I'm not ashamed of the gospel, because it's the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes, everyone, first to the Jew, and then to the Gentile." So this was always God's plan. We were not to be excluded, we were to be grafted in, but there is an order of things in the power of God in his mind of how he wants to do it, and it starts with those people of Israel. Now even with this context, we could think, great, I understand that, but I still don't like this use of the word dog. You would still surely have taken offense to that. I couldn't have used another word, couldn't you have picked a bird or something else that we enjoy more? But this is where we need to understand again what the context was that Jesus was speaking into, and actually the original Greek word that Jesus uses for dog does not mean the feral stray dog that we all try and avoid, and if it bites you will give you rabies. The dog he's referring to is almost translated to little puppy. So this is actually a term of endearment. These are household dogs, these are domestic dogs, the kind of dogs that you would love, the innocent dogs, and so actually this is not a dig or an insult. It may appear like that to us, the reader, but actually this is a personalized and actually quite an emotive use of language. So yes, God is saying that the Gentiles are like these dogs that would have been present in the room as they were eating, but these were not dogs that you'd kick out the way or you don't like. These are dogs that you love, and these are the dogs that even us today would consider as precious. It was all an illustration for Jesus to teach into that moment, but what we see is even with Jesus seemingly saying no to this woman, she was not taking no for an answer. She's far from finished and note how she doesn't take offense, but actually what she does next impresses Jesus to the point where he gives it to her credit and it changes dynamic of the whole story. She's such an inspiring woman and character for us to think about, and this is where I want to put my first question to you really. A fraction on this story is how hungry are you this morning? How hungry are you? And avoid the temptation to think about Sunday lunch. I can see some people smiling at the thought of what they're going to eat. How hungry are you this morning? The Lord's reply was this, verse 28. Sorry, how a reply. "Lord's you replied, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs. Even the dogs under the table, Lord, eat the children's crumbs." Now before anything else, notice that she addresses Jesus as Lord. That's hugely significant. So she knows instantly after this conversation who Jesus is. This is not, this is now turned from, okay, Jesus can give me what I want to actually, he is the person that I want. He's the person that I need. I now understand who he is. I've been with him and now I understand his character. She hasn't been with him long. This is a fleeting moment. You think of the disciples who lived with Jesus and it's like battering their heads against a rock. They just don't get it. They don't understand Jesus' teaching so much of the time. The Pharisees just ridicule Jesus. They never understand who he is and what he's saying. This woman, maybe half an hour with Jesus, calls him Lord in her response. That is quite a statement of faith from her. Again, a Gentile, someone who should not be talking to Jesus culturally. She's not in the people of God per se and yet she recognizes that this man is the Messiah. He's the Lord that I need in my life. So far from being cross or upset, she actually agrees with his statement but she also flips it really cleverly. It's very cunning, clever, witty. Jesus sees that and he honors that and he replies in a way that sees her and answers her prayer. This is a lesson in prayer. It's a bit of a side note here but we may think well prayer is one of my home eyes closed, hands together, very formal. But any conversation we have with God is prayer because prayer is just a conversation with us and our Father. So what she's doing here is showing her persistence, she's showing humility and she's saying, Jesus, you are the one that I need. I come to you with this need today and we're going to talk this through. We're going to have a conversation. Such a good lesson to us in how to do prayer, how to actually relate and commune with our Father. It doesn't have to be a one-way message. Leave him a message. He'll get back to you. When you feel like you've heard from God, it doesn't have to be okay. We'll never talk about this again. You can go back to God. You can commune with God. He wants to hear from you and he clearly finds this answer really impressive, probably found it quite humorous, loves the wit involved from her and she was rewarded with the answer. Now, Mark Buchanan, who's written a really helpful book that I used to help me with this message, he wrote a book called God Speed and he talks about this story and he summarizes what she's basically saying in her mind and her reply, but find it really helpful. He says this, this is the woman, call me a dog, this plucky woman says, fine, I won't argue, but let me tell you, Mr. Jesus, what dogs are like. They waste nothing. Give me your crumbs. I'll treat them like steak. So I love that. So I think we'll just leave that up for a moment. But I love that because the woman takes what we perceive as a negative attribute of a dog. That dogs are scavengers. Dogs will never leave you alone. They always want more. They're never full. They're never satisfied. She flips that and that's what impresses Jesus because of her mindset is so determined. She sees through what most of us probably wouldn't have done sat at the table and Jesus rewards her for that. So Jesus saying that the Jews, God's chosen people are to receive my message, my salvation first, first being the key word, is the window that she needs, the tiny crack that she can peer through and the lifeline that she can cling on to. That's all she needs. The door has been left the jar for her and it's not a jar for us anymore. It's wide open as we sat here today. This is if we say, this is quite a human response to say, okay, so you're saying there's a chance in this situation. So I'm not going to give up hope. And this instantly made me think, I'm speaking to parents in the room or people who have exclusively hung out with children before in any social setting at this point. They want to judge everyone's parenting styles. But what came to my mind was often you can have two types of parents. Your child, you take them shopping, they always want stuff. They work on impulse. They don't understand that actually in three days they're not going to want this or actually you're going to be re-gifting it very shortly to someone else. It's going to be made into a hand me down. They just want it there and then and you have to make a decision. You say, yes, child, I'll give you your heart's desire. There's the card, go and do it. Or you say, perhaps, keep your eyes on the road. Don't even think about it. You're not getting this. No judgment. I know which end you are. Maybe you're lovely and holy in the middle. But ultimately, we all have different styles in how we would address that situation. Did we give our child what we want? Did we say no? Well, let me into, I'll let you into a little secret of my family background of how we did it growing up. So my parents are here this morning, so this is perfect. So I'm going to talk about Dad specifically because Dad would take me shopping so you can verify this statement, so whether I'm accurate or not. And what we do is, I would say, right, Dad, I'd love to have this. It might be pick a mix of Woolworths. It might be a sports kit. It might be playing cards, football for the garden, whatever. I would constantly say, I remember it saying, Dad, I really want this. And of course, that was the fifth thing I really wanted on that shopping trip. But I didn't think about that. I just thought, right now, that's on the shelf. Probably won't be here in 10 minutes. Can I have it? And I'll think about this. Dad's response wasn't. Yes, you can have whatever you want. I love you, which I would have appreciated. And it wasn't. No, forget it. You're not having anything. So it wasn't hand open or hand closed. What Dad would always say to me is, Liam, we'll come back. We'll come back. And so I'm there like, well, it's here. I want it. And there's three things that might happen here. We go away and never come back, and you trick me. Number two, we come back and it's gone, and someone else has got it, in which case that's the end of my life. Or number three, we come back and it is still there. And actually, then he's probably won because I now really, I really want it. And I think that's what he was doing. He was testing me to think, do you actually really want this thing? And I reckon 9% of the time, we'd move on to another shop. And I'd have my eyes on something else, because that's how kids work. I forgot about the pick-and-mix in Woolworths. And I was now thinking, oh, I've seen a Chelsea kit. I really want that instead. And so Dad would play that game with me, where he left the door ajar. It was a bit of hope. We'll come back. It's not a no, but it's not you're leaving the shop with it. So I would walk around with this, or I've got that in the bank. I've got that in the bank. We could go back. We'll Dad let me. I've heard most of the time we never went back, which, you know, questionable parenting. But there were some times where I did go back. I was grateful. I did get it. And there's probably a couple of times we went back and it'd gone. And Dad was like, oh, this is a lesson. I don't know what lesson it was, but it was a lesson. And in the same way, I just think we can learn so much from this woman, because she used that grain of hope. Jesus left the door ajar for her. And she wasn't just content to sit and to say, all right, thank you very much. I'll wait for a few months, see how this plays out. She pushed her way through the door and she said, okay, can I claim on that then? You're saying the door's ajar for me, and I'm going to persist in prayer with you. I'm going to keep this conversation going because I want your power in my life, not just to save my daughter, but for me at this point as well. So Jesus' response is amazing. He says verse 29, "For such a reply you may go, the demon has left your daughter." First 30, she goes home, and guess what? It's done. Why does Jesus end up healing her daughter then? Is it just because she's witty, she's quick, because she's pushed him into a corner, because she's worn him down? The reason that he answers her is because she showed unwavering faith and approached him with real humility. And she had no right to. She was outside of the people of God at that time. If the Pharisees were there, they'd have said, oh, you can't take this woman's testimony seriously, she shouldn't even be getting an audience with Jesus. But she was so humble. She agreed with Jesus when he said, okay, well, the dogs are going to have to wait. She says, yes, I know, but I know you are merciful. This woman, one of the major takeaways from today, understand this. She understood grace. She understood she didn't deserve anything from Jesus. It wasn't even the right time for her to receive anything from Jesus. But she understood that because Jesus is a loving messiah, we have a loving God that actually maybe he will answer me today. Maybe he will meet me where I'm at. Maybe he'll meet my physical need and also my spiritual need as well. That's how she saw things. And Jesus loved that in her. And he loves that in us. When we push through, we show persistence and humility to say, God, I just need a bit of you today in this situation. I need a bit of you in this relationship, really worried about this. This is going on at the moment, and we rely on him time and time again. So let me ask you this again. How hungry are you to know Jesus' power in your life this morning? How hungry are you when you walked in the door? How much do you need to be here? How much do you need to encounter God? How much do you need answers? How much do you need to hear from him? How much do you need to be here? And I think there's something to be said here between our hunger versus a dog's hunger, because the reason this story works so beautifully is because we know, all of us know, if you get up from a table, especially a low-seater table, maybe they were sat and closer to the floor, if you get up and leave and you have dogs in the vicinity, they will eat your food. I'm yet to meet a dog that will sit there politely and wait for, you know, a day before they are judged. They're probably not coming back, so I'll tuck in. They will just go for it. Dogs are often bottomless pits. They're grateful for everything. They're not fussy. They don't divide what they want on the plate. They'll take everything and anything. They don't moan. They don't grow in about it. And they always come back for more. And I was thinking about this in student 20s life group that we lead, Chris and I. We lead with a couple over older roads, Stephen Catherine Hunter, and what we do with our life group is we'll alternate one week will be at our place, one week will be at their place, and we always sense things around food because you'll know by now the only reason that this ministry works with students in 20s is because we bribe them with food, and we say if you come to us, instead of going elsewhere, we will feed you, and all of a sudden, our rates go up, and we have a full house every single week. It's exhausting for us, but it's just about worth it. So we'll have food on the plates. We'll be at Stephen Catherine's, we'll be sat around, they'll all have plates on our laps having a great time, but the thing is they have a dog. It's called Maddy. Now Maddy is an amazing dog, and we've had a complex relationship with Maddy, Chris Gurney. And at the first time you ever go round there, she will try and eat you. But if you break through that barrier, if you can actually remain in the house long enough, because she's trying to protect everyone in the house, then she will begin to love you. And I think the first time we went round, she tried to eat us, we then went downstairs, she slept on the sofa, and it seemed like we were making ground. She then woke up, forgot we were still there, forgot who we were, and then reattacked us. Well, I say attack. She wanted to eat us, but she didn't get near us. But gradually now, we've worn her down, and we realise when we go over now, she'll run up to us, and she loves us, and she wants to be with us, but it's funny how that relationship's changed. But Maddy will always take food in a very strategic way. She'll start with the people she loves the most, or she trusts the most to feed her, so it'll always be Steve and Catherine. I know that they will feed me, because they always throw me what they don't want. But there's about 20 of us in the room, some people drop things, everyone's eating, and it's funny, because Maddy always goes to the people who don't want her to go to them, everyone who's terrified of dogs, Maddy will gravitate towards. And what she'll do, once Steve, her dad finishes, she'll then move on to someone else, and she'll work down this pecking order of you're most likely to give me food, to the least likely, which is probably me and Prisca, because we just don't ever do it. And so what she'll do is she'll move on, she'll be sat there and her paws staring at you, and she will continually lock eyes with you, and she wants you to get that knowledge that I am here, I'm waiting, I'm being patient. And then if you do throw us something, she'll always eat it, it doesn't matter, it doesn't care what it is, she doesn't ask for the menu, it's just I will eat whatever falls off your plate. I think the only thing I've ever seen her reject is a salad leaf, which is a genuine rejection that we can all relate to, but she will eat, she will tolerate everything, she's not fussy, that's what dogs are like, you can rely on them to do that, and Jesus knows this and he uses it to teach us. And I can't just throw Maddy under the bus, I also am called a bottomless pit in my family, because I eat a lot as well. So growing up for me was all about dessert, it was all about, right, let's get the main meal out of the way so that I can have dessert, until I think there's a picture of me waiting for my food, here we go. So this is me and my granddad sat around the dinner table, we're about to tuck in, I've got my knife ready, it's the most annoying time when you're about tucking and someone says can we just get a family photo and you can smell everything but you have to just hold off. So that is a boy who is delighted, excited, happy and ready to eat, I don't want to do anything else at that point, I'm only about four or five, but I know what's going to happen, it's going to be amazing and I cannot wait to stuff my face. But for me dessert was always the best thing and we would always have a great dessert menu, Prisca learnt this when we invited her over and we'd bring out all of the cake, all of the sweet stuff for dinner, I think you fainted the first time with how much sugar we had, but we would always have cake, we'd have jelly, we might have chocolate and what I would do, because I love food so much, I would line it up, not only mentally, clock chew, clock chew, clock chew, I'm going to have you, I would also physically mark out my territory as well. So I'd start with a piece of Victoria's sponge in the middle, then I'd have jelly, literally stood next to it, then I'd have a chocolate bar so that everyone knows my intentions of where I'm going in this next half an hour and it got to the point where my family actually came up with a little tagline that was Liam, stop lining up, to the point where it's quite threatening, like stop lining up, you cannot eat that much food, you need to stop, but it reminded me how much I love food, but also how much easier it is for us to love things that are materially in front of us versus our appetite and our hunger for God. How many times have I been excited like this with my faith gleaming when I sit down at my Bible or when I come to church or when I'm out having a barbecue with church friends, does anything match my sense of arms excited when I'm sat down next to an amazing array of food? I mean I love feasting, feasting is biblical, it's great, we're going to do that in heaven a lot, but I just think there's something in that that we so love the physical and I'm not sure we give the same type of day to the spiritual in our lives. And this is why the sorry for nation woman is so such an important example for us because she was unashamed in her appetite for God. She knew only he could satisfy in what she needed two day. In that moment she wasn't concerned in what was on the table, whatever else could offer, she was making a beeline for Jesus because he was the answer. But I'm perfectly aware it's all fine to say that but great we'll have an appetite for God, we all should have an appetite for God, the reality is that not all of us will have a great appetite for God all the time. We go through seasons, life happens and even this morning you might be sat here like great. That's really good for you and everyone else who's gorging and feasting on God at the moment but I just cannot do that. And as I was preparing this part of the message I felt there were maybe two groups or camps of people that this particularly applies to so I love you to just take a moment to think is this you? Is what I'm describing you this morning? So I think some of us may be lacking a hunger in God because of hurt we've had. So of course all of us in our lives at some point we experience hurt, pain, this world is not a perfect place but that can also impact our relationship with God. Maybe we blame God for that, maybe we're in so much pain that we just cannot get to God. We don't have the strength to open a conversation, have dialogue, the Bible's got dust on it, maybe we're going to church one in four, whatever it is, however it works out we just can't quite come to God because we're hurting and that's a perfectly reasonable thing to be going through. And the second group is those of us who maybe just have a lack of appetite because of indifference. I think I struggle with this quite a lot where you just get so used to being self-sufficient and you can go through your Monday to Friday and you've not thought about God, you've not invited him into what you're doing. I can take my 9-4-5, I can get the car sorted, I can get dinner sorted, I can chat to Prisca and you can go through a whole week and think wow I've actually been really self-sufficient. I was worried about this, this relationship didn't go very well and at no point did I turn to God and invite him in. And this is a bit of an indifference, there's a lack of appetite to come to God with these things. But in both cases I want to encourage you this morning that God is 100% the only one, the only person who can nourish your soul and satisfy your need. Whatever you're going through, and I genuinely mean that, there is no extenuating circumstances, there's no one here that just falls slightly outside of the bracket, Jesus is the only one who can meet your need this morning. Says this in John 6, "Then Jesus declared, 'I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never go hungry, whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.' Jesus is the only one who can satisfy, doesn't satisfy just our physical need, but that is spiritual bread, he gives us the sustenance we need for every day to do this life with him. It's right there, whoever is hungry, come to him, whoever is thirsty, come to him and we're going to have some time shortly where we'd love to respond to this directly. And I wanted to finish with my second question to you, which is more of a practical one really, of where are you meeting with God in the crumbs in your life? Where are you meeting with God in the crumbs? And let me explain what I mean by that. The gentle woman met with Jesus in the crumbs of her every day, literally in the cracks on the floor. It wasn't a massive holy moment, it wasn't a formal moment of our weeks, you wouldn't have planned it in the diary, it was a chance meeting, wasn't spectacular, wasn't pretty, but she met God in the crumbs, in the granular moments of life away from other people, community, wasn't church life that brought her there. And I was thinking example for me at the moment where I think I've felt this the most, we've recently had a pest control guy come over quite a bit to our house, which is a lovely story, so we've got rats in our kitchen or A-rat in one of our food cupboards, which is more disgusting than it may sound when it's kind of rummaging through your pasta and eating all your food, but we had a pest control guy come over, really struggled to work out where the entry point is, where is this rat coming from? I think that's one of the few animals that I struggled to see, what purpose God made a rat for, how can a rat be given glory to God was eating my pasta in my cupboard, but I know David Attenborough, God, we're both putting them slightly like this, we'd both say there's a reason for rats to be, but they were in our kitchen, so we had three appointments with this pest control guy, lovely guy, and on the final visit I just noticed he lent over and he had a cross on his arm, and I thought oh, maybe this guy's a Christian, maybe I've just missed it, we've just kept it very surface level, chatting about rats and how we're going to kill this rat, and then I suddenly thought you know this is the last time I'm ever probably going to see this guy, unless it comes back in which case he doesn't deserve to come back, we'll get someone else, but I thought I'm going to talk to this guy, so I said to him oh, now I see you've got tattoo of a cross on your arm, are you a Christian, his face absolutely lit up, and he was like oh yeah I'm a Christian, are you, and I was like yeah I'm a Christian, yeah we're both Christians, and he said this is the reason I got it so I could have conversations with people as I go about my job, and we end up having 20 minute conversation about he's got a Facebook page where he just adds in pest control people and they chat about Jesus and he told me about the church that he used to lead with his wife and all this kind of thing, that was completely not on my radar, could have gone horribly wrong, could have been completely different symbolism and embarrassing for me, but I just chose in that moment in the crumbs we're both on our hands and knees trying to set a trap up in a corner cupboard that's not big enough for us to get through, and I just decided to say do you know what are you a Christian, and God's used that moment to encourage him, he left thinking oh I've met someone else who actually loves Jesus, and for me it was just a nice culmination of yeah this guy's been good to us, he's done a good job, really glad I asked that question, and I can say in that state that I met God in the crumbs of that moment, so my question again is do you spot those crumbs, do you spot those openings where God may be speaking to you or want to meet with you, meet your needs, in the small moments of your everyday, so perhaps some of you that's a dog walk this week, can't talk about dogs for 40 minutes without mentioning the dog walk, so if you do have dogs, perfect time to be out with nature, just you in nature and your dog, does God want to meet with you or speak with you in that moment, or are you just focused on my podcast, the dog, everyone else's dog, messing with my dog, whatever you're inclined to think about, does God want to speak to you there, for me in Prisca it's the sunset, we'll always go try and watch the sunset, maybe paddleboard for us, that's being out in nature, and it always gets a sense of wonder, of creation, a bit like rich preached on last week, looking at the stars, looking at the sun, the sky, the magnitude, the beauty of what God's done for a sunset, that's what works for us, but for you it could be, I don't know, a parent toddler group, or it could be getting your hair cut, or it could be checking in on a neighbour, or it could be listening to worship music at the gym, whatever it is for you, those are the crumbs moments, because they can so often say right, church on the shelf, Sunday, that's my Sunday life, Monday to Friday is now just me, I'm just out in the world doing my thing, why can't God meet you at the gym, why can't God meet you on the dog walk, why can't you see God in the sunset, and he can talk to you and meet with you in those moments, if the woman had just waited for the church we came away, or she'd waited for a worship night, she wouldn't have met with Jesus, she sought him out in a house that probably wasn't hers in a district that he wasn't supposed to be in, figuratively speaking, and she went to him and made something happen, we have to be humble enough to find Jesus there, so I'd love to encourage us as we finish, let's just be awake and alive to how God wants to speak to us in the crumbs this week, get away from the distraction, all of our urban living, put your screen away, get out the house, I know Lucas does fishing at night where he stands in the dark for six hours up to here, fishing a bit of a sad hobby, but if he meets with Jesus there, good for him, actually we all need to be getting out there and fishing in the dark and just removing all the distractions, so I just think what does that look like for you this week, is there a moment where you think yeah I know I'm on my own here or I know actually I need you in this situation, don't just wait for a Sunday, it's great for us to be together now and have these high moments, but you're here for an hour and a half every week, what are you doing for the rest of the countless hours to feed yourselves and to actually be nourished by God because just Sunday living is not enough, you're not a Sunday Christian, this is not just an event house for you to come to for an hour and a half and then go home, this is supposed to fuel you but then the rest of the week is up to you, you need to seek Jesus and my final point is that ultimately this is a message of sheer grace that we, unless you are Jewish in this room, you are part of that Gentile community where we have been grafted in by the grace of God, all of us this morning can say by the love of God he died for us on that cross so that all of us have the invitation extended to us, so that's on the table for you this morning, it's by sheer grace and as we finish we're going to do communion in a couple of moments and although we're going to be physically fed please just think about what's going on spiritually here, so Jesus died, his body was broken, his blood was shed for you on that cross so that you can know him, so although we're going getting a physical meal just think about what again are those spiritual needs that you'll bring into the table this week, where do you need that hunger and appetite for God, and those two groups I mentioned love to finish by just saying we're going to have people either side of me, we'd love to pray for you, if you have a lack of appetite this morning because you're hurt because circumstances in your life have just knocked you out then we would love to pray for that, for strength, for peace, for God to work and redeem in that situation and if you're just simply indifferent and you could be here this morning but actually could be on the beach doing a hundred other things and you want to know that hunger for God again again we're going to pray for you, we'd love to do that and if you're in a different camp we'd love to pray for you as well, so I'm just going to finish for us as the band comes back up, I'm just going to pray. Father thank you so much for this story, for your sheer grace, for the example that this woman is to us, thank you that she was bold, she was brave, that she was humble and that she was convinced that you are what she needed, thank you that you are what we need, that you are the bread of life, you sustain us, you are our only hope, you are the Messiah and we are your children and I pray that we would leave today knowing that we are loved, that we are valued and cherished and that in any way if we're lacking a hunger for you today, if we're feeling a bit cold, if we've forgotten what our Master's voice is like, if we are not coming to you daily with our needs for our sustenance, we just pray that Holy Spirit you would give us a fresh sense of belief of faith, that any doubts, any obstacles would be removed and that you would just give us fresh and bolderment to live our life, meeting you in the crumbs every day, not just today but in all that we do, would we honor you and bring you into our conversations our lives and we thank you for your words. Amen.