“An Order of Service”
Matthew 15:21-39
“But He answered and said, ‘I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’” – [Matthew 15:24]
Jesus came for His own [Israel], and His own rejected Him. It is an interesting realism to ponder, but one that is obvious in the Gospels. There was indeed an order of service in Christ’s earthly ministry, and it was Israel first.
In our text we find a Canaanite woman coming to Jesus in need. Her daughter “is severely demon-possessed.” Notice, though, “He answered her not a word.”
He fed the multitude and healed every disease and sickness; and yet here He remained silent. Notice, too, that this woman was not an enemy of Christ [like the religious leaders]. She called Jesus “Lord, Son of David.” So why didn’t Jesus respond?
It is because she was a Gentile. “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Does that mean that Jesus did not want to minister to Gentiles? Absolutely not. We see Him ministering to the Centurion’s Servant in Matt 8. But His response reveals an important aspect of His ministry: An order of service.
That order began with the Jews, and it is a pattern seen throughout the New Testament. It began with Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels and continued through the book of Acts and on into Paul’s ministry. Even Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, looked for a synagogue in every town to begin preaching Christ.
This pattern, however, began all the way back in Genesis 11. God revealed Himself to Abraham so that He would be revealed to the world through Abraham’s offspring. It was a clear arrangement even back then of the Jew first, and then the Gentile. The problem, however, was that Israel rejected Jesus.
And thus, the dynamic that we see in our text this morning. It is the rejection of Jesus by the religious leaders from Jerusalem [Christ’s enemies] that has pushed the door open for ministry to the Gentiles. Sound familiar? That is exactly the dynamic, and record, of Paul’s ministry in the book of Acts.
Jesus went on to heal the Canaanite woman’s daughter. He also healed “great multitudes” of every disease and sickness; and fed “four thousand men, besides women and children.” [v.38] But notice that these were all Gentiles!
The pattern for ministry must come from the Lord. And while His word calls us to make disciples of all nations, His way and timing are key components in His order of service.
It must be a Spirit-filled and Spirit-led order, and not simply a cookie-cutter method we read in a book on the Internet. We must be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading, and this is more important now than ever before in this divided and divisive world that we live in today.
