The Faith the Lord Looks For: The Gospel for All

Introduction

This Sunday, February 15, 2026, evangelist Judith of Agape Church (Tokyo) invites you to open Matthew 15:21 to 39. The title she chose : "The Faith the Lord Looks For, the Gospel Is for All." Two scenes, one thread running through them. First, a Canaanite woman, a pagan, who falls at Jesus' feet for her daughter tormented by a demon. Then a miracle of seven loaves in the heart of pagan territory, with 4,000 men fed. Through these two accounts, Judith wants you to see two things together : a radical humility before God, and an equally radical boldness in drawing near to the throne of grace. And behind it all, an immense love that Jesus has for the pagans, for you and for me.

Outline of the message

1. Jesus withdraws to Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15:21)

Just before this passage, the Pharisees and scribes had come from Jerusalem to trap Jesus. So Jesus sets out with his disciples to find a little quiet. He leaves Jewish Galilee and heads north, into the region of Tyre and Sidon, in what is now southern Lebanon. This is pagan land. There, the Pharisees will not come looking for him. The parallel account in Mark 7:24 even notes : "He entered a house and did not want anyone to know." He truly sought silence. It is in this context of withdrawal that a pagan woman is about to turn everything upside down.

2. The cry of a Canaanite mother (v. 22)

"A Canaanite woman from that region came out and cried to him, 'Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David ; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon.'" She already knows something enormous. She calls Jesus "Lord, Son of David" : she recognizes in him the Messiah promised to Israel. A pagan woman confessing this is already a miracle in itself. And she asks nothing for herself. She carries her daughter's suffering.

3. Three refusals from Jesus, a heart that perseveres (v. 23-27)

Jesus, who usually stops for a blind man or a leper, here answers not a word. Then, when the disciples urge him to send her away, he says : "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Finally, when she comes and kneels before him, he adds : "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs." Three refusals in a row. Judith underlines this : Jesus never tells her to go away. He never treats her with contempt. He never says she is worthless. These three refusals are deliberate. As he did with many others, Jesus first wants to enter into dialogue, to search out faith, to know the person. If he healed everyone instantly, the crowd would go away satisfied, yes, but anonymous. What Jesus is looking for with you is a real relationship.

The woman's answer is stunning : "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." She accepts everything. She acknowledges that Israel is the chosen people, that she is only a pagan, that she deserves nothing. And yet she keeps insisting. Judith invites you to hold on to this lesson : "Let us persevere. Satan is relentless in trying to bring us down ; let us be even more relentless in drawing near to the Lord."

4. Four attitudes we learn from her

• She believes Jesus is the Messiah. By crying out "Lord, Son of David," she confesses the deity and limitless power of Jesus. She is convinced he can heal her daughter.
• She understands the image Jesus gives her. Where even the disciples fail to grasp his parables (Matthew 16:7-12), she immediately grasps the image of the children and the little dogs, and builds her answer on it.
• She accepts her place. "Yes, Lord." She knows that, as a Canaanite, she has no right to Christ's blessing. She is deeply humble.
• She has understood the mercy and grace of Jesus. She knows exactly who she is dealing with. A little like the Roman centurion of Matthew 8, of whom Jesus said : "I have not found such great faith even in Israel." Maybe she knew that story, maybe not. But she knows, from Israel's history, from Ruth, from Rahab, from the foreigners who left Egypt with the people, from those who trusted the Lord during the exile in Babylon, that God has always opened his grace even to the nations. So she comes forward with boldness toward the throne of grace.

5. Radical humility and radical boldness, together

Here is the double posture Judith wants you to take on : total humility, and at the same time, total boldness before God. It is not humility to say, "No, no, not me, I am not worthy," and to refuse the blessing God wants to give you. Gideon answered that way. Moses, at 80 years old, answered that way. Even David, when Saul offered him his daughter in marriage, drew back : "Who am I? This is not for me." That is not humility. In God's eyes, it is out of place. It is even, in a way that is hard to see, a form of pride, because we make ourselves the measure of what God can do.

The other extreme, at the opposite end, is just as dangerous : coming before God waving your own works, your own righteousness ("I did this in your name, I did that, I deserve your blessing"), is pure pride. And that is not the way God responds either.

6. "You were born to be loved," a warning not to stop halfway

Judith takes a moment to speak about a hymn she loves, "You Were Born to Be Loved." The line is true. We were all born to be loved by the Lord. But we can settle into it and swell up by repeating "I am loved, I am loved" until we forget that God also calls us to obey. The people of Israel were chosen, and yet, when they disobeyed, it ended badly. Saul was chosen, then rejected because of his disobedience. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram challenged Moses and Aaron : the earth opened and swallowed them (Numbers 16). Achan took forbidden plunder in Jericho, and he died in the Valley of Achor with his whole family (Joshua 7). Judith therefore invites you to receive the whole Word, without cutting it short, without stopping at the one verse that pleases you. It is by receiving it whole that we are protected from drifting away.

7. The starting point : recognizing that we are sinners

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:23-24) Judith insists : to understand God's righteousness, you must first recognize your own unrighteousness. The starting point is "sinner," a total sinner. The cross of Jesus, in all its horror, reveals in the negative the horror of our sin. The great criminals of history (Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot) are not the only ones who deserve judgment. The quiet, ordinary person that I am is no better in God's sight. They are exactly the same sins, the same roots, requiring the same blood of Christ to be washed away.

This work of the cross, the Father offering his only Son as a sacrifice of atonement to satisfy his righteous wrath, is what Jesus did. It is like the cancelling of a crushing debt, the debt of 10,000 talents in the parable (Matthew 18) : the creditor himself absorbs the loss so that the debtor can go free. That is grace. Receiving what we do not deserve. The Canaanite woman had perfectly understood this principle : that is why she humbles herself to the very end, and at the same time, presses forward without drawing back.

8. "Your faith is great : let it be done for you as you desire" (v. 28)

"And her daughter was healed instantly." The woman has not yet seen her daughter standing before her. She goes home with nothing but the word of Jesus, like the centurion in Matthew 8 who, without seeing his servant, believed that one word would be enough. This is the biblical definition of faith : "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) And without this faith, the letter to the Hebrews adds, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Put differently : with faith like this, we please him. This pagan woman, like the centurion, is praised by Jesus himself. And the contrast with the religious leaders of Israel (at the start of chapter 15) is striking. The true "children" had hardened hearts ; the "little dog" had a broken heart, humble, turned toward grace. God delighted in that kind of heart.

9. What follows : Jesus extends his ministry to the pagans (v. 29-31)

Jesus sets out again, walks along the Sea of Galilee, and goes up a mountain. A great crowd comes to him with the lame, the blind, the mute, the crippled. He heals them all. And the crowd does something very particular : it "glorifies the God of Israel." Judith points out that if this crowd had been Jewish, the text would simply have said "they glorified their God" or "they glorified God." That the text specifies "the God of Israel" almost certainly indicates that these are pagans. The very same miracles he performed for Israel, Jesus now grants to the nations. This is a turning point. The faith of the centurion, then the faith of the Canaanite woman, announced that God's time was full, and that the gospel could now cross every border. Our turn, we the pagans, is coming.

10. The miracle of the seven loaves for the pagans (v. 32-38)

"I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. I am unwilling to send them away hungry, lest they faint on the way." Two things strike Judith in this verse 32.

First, here it is Jesus himself who takes the initiative. He calls his disciples over. In the parallel account of the five loaves and two fish (Matthew 14, for the Jews), it is the disciples who come to him and say, "Send them away." Here it is the opposite. Jesus says "I have compassion," "I am unwilling to send them away hungry," "they will faint on the way." His tenderness for this pagan crowd shines through.

Then, the disciples' reply is surprising : "Where are we to get enough bread in such a desolate place?" Yet they had just witnessed the miracle of the five loaves for 5,000! Judith dares to offer a reading : perhaps this was not simply a delay between learning and applying. Perhaps, as with the Canaanite woman a little earlier, there was, deep in their hearts, a bit of irritation toward these pagans. "They are foreigners, let them fend for themselves." That is human, but Jesus goes beyond it. He refuses to send them away hungry. Judith sees in this an echo of Boaz, who refuses to let Ruth go home empty-handed and gives her six measures of barley (Ruth 3, a type of Christ). Jesus cares about your physical hunger too, not only about your soul.

11. The lesson of the baskets : 12 for Israel, 7 for the nations

The Greek word for "basket" is not the same in the two miracles. In Matthew 14:20 (the multiplication for Israel), it is kophinos : the small covered basket that Jews carried while traveling, to keep pagan dust from falling into it. Twelve kophinoi, one for each tribe, to signify that even the poorest and most labeled "sinners" of all Israel fully belong to God's people.

In Matthew 15:37 (the multiplication for the pagans), it is spuris : a large basket, the kind non-Jews used, without a lid, large enough for a man to almost fit inside. Seven spurides. The number 7 in the Bible speaks of fullness, completeness, the fulfillment of God's plan. Seven baskets full of crumbs : the sign that God's salvation is now complete, ready to be offered to every nation.

12. What this changes for you

Since Adam and Eve, God has been preparing this day : that through the cross, all people (Jews and pagans, yesterday and today, down to the very last one who will come to faith) might be saved. This God, who was under no obligation to look at you, the pagan, the "little dog," loves you enough to have given his only Son. Judith tells you, very simply : "That love must be answered. It is not enough to stand there trembling. Draw near."

"Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again." "I am the bread of life." Jesus does not want to send you away spiritually hungry, for fear that you will faint on the way. Go to him, every day, to receive this water and this bread. That is what carries you through the week. That is what keeps you standing.

Key takeaways

• Jesus withdraws to Tyre and Sidon, into pagan territory, and it is there that a Canaanite woman confesses her faith and sets off a turning point in his ministry.
• Jesus' three refusals are not contempt : they are a deliberate dialogue meant to bring out the woman's faith and build a real relationship.
• The right posture before God : radical humility (I deserve nothing) and radical boldness (I draw near to the throne of grace anyway), held together.
• Telling yourself "I am loved by God" without ever receiving the whole Word is dangerous. You must also receive what calls you to obedience.
• The miracle of the seven loaves, with its seven pagan baskets, speaks of the fullness of God's plan : the gospel is now for everyone, including you.

Personal application

• Where are you with this double posture of humility and boldness? Which of the two are you limping on right now?
• Is there a prayer to which Jesus seems not to have answered for a long time? Can you, like the Canaanite woman, come back once more, kneeling, without letting go?
• Do you still take the time to receive the whole Word, or do you settle for the verses that reassure you?
• Do you ever treat certain people the way the disciples nearly treated this pagan woman, too different, too far off, "not our problem"? Who, this week?
• At what point in your day do you regularly come back to drink the living water and eat the bread of life? Does that moment actually fit into your real schedule?

Verses cited

• Matthew 15:21-39 · the Canaanite woman and the multiplication of the seven loaves.
• Mark 7:24 · "He entered a house and did not want anyone to know."
• Matthew 8:5-13 · the faith of the Roman centurion.
• Romans 3:23-24 · "For all have sinned... they are justified freely by his grace."
• Hebrews 11:1-6 · the biblical definition of faith.
• Matthew 14:14-22 · the multiplication of the five loaves for Israel.
• John 4:14 · "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again."
• John 6:35 · "I am the bread of life."

Frequently asked questions

Why does Jesus start by refusing to help this woman?

Judith is clear about it : this is neither contempt nor rejection. Jesus never tells her to go away and never calls her worthless. These three refusals are a deliberate dialogue, meant to bring out the woman's faith, to enter into a personal relationship with her. Jesus cares more about your heart than about your list of requests. If he granted everything at once, you would leave satisfied but with no relationship to him.

What do the "little dogs" mean in Matthew 15?

In the language of the time, the Jews saw themselves as the "children" at God's table and sometimes spoke of pagans as "dogs." The word Jesus uses here is softened, "little dogs," the household kind. He picks up the image to test the woman, not to humiliate her. She understands the image, accepts it, and turns it around : even the little dogs eat the crumbs. She takes the lowest place, and it is precisely there that she receives the greatest promise : "Your faith is great."

Why is the miracle of the seven loaves so important, when we mostly know the one with five loaves?

Because it concerns the pagans. The first miracle fed Israel with 12 kophinos baskets (one per tribe) to say that even the most rejected of Israel fully belong to the people. The second feeds a pagan crowd, in non-Jewish spuris baskets, seven of them : the biblical number of fullness and the fulfillment of God's plan. In other words : salvation is now offered to the whole world. It is our miracle, we who are pagans.