Disconnection & Connection

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We're highlighting again, Simply Jesus, where the Gospel of Mark is the simplest of all the four Gospels and presents Jesus. The main question that happens in the first eight chapters of the Gospel of Mark is, Who is this? Who is this guy? Who is this who can calm the winds and the sea? Who is this who can speak and his word is accomplished? Who is this who can cast out demons? Who is this who can heal? Who has this who has authority to forgive sins? We've answered all those questions all along in the different stories. He's always being challenged along. Today is a bit different. He's being challenged in a different way. The question that's really being answered today is, How do you connect with someone like this? How do you connect with someone like this who can calm the storm, who can cast out demons? And we're going to read about a remarkable encounter that Jesus had with a Gentile woman, where we find out in the end how amazing Jesus is, but also how he is himself amazed at this woman. So you can follow along in Mark chapter seven. We'll read verses 24 to 30. 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 that he could not be hidden. But immediately a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit heard of 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. So how is it that you approach God? How is it that you connect with the divine? There have been basically two answers throughout human history to this. The first one we're not that familiar with anymore. It's not part of our culture. But it's like, how do you approach the inscrutable, the divine, the omniscient, the omnipotent, the most powerful, the holiest of holy God? And the best thing is to not try. And if you're going to, you better grovel. You better find a way to appease God before you approach him. So people over the ages and different religious traditions try to find a way to kind of bridge the gap, to make a moral effort, to do a sacrifice or do something to get God to pay attention or to approach him because he was so utterly different. They saw God as more of a tyrant and someone who could be very vindictive. And so it's like, yeah, it's best just to avoid. And the only time I'm doing, I'm going to have to come groveling and maybe some way have some connection. So that's one approach. The modern approach that we're very familiar with is that God is our therapist. He's the person we can talk to at any time. That we can go to and drop any problem on. And he's always going to be affirming, always going to be loving, always going to be at our beck and call, do whatever we want. He's there for us and he will just lift us up and encourage us. And no matter what background, no matter who we are, he will never contradict. He will never do any of those things. So we just think we naturally have a connection to the divine. What we find out in this text is neither. This woman does not think she naturally has a connection. And she does not fear trying to bring about some connection. So we're going to actually explore these two points today. Just only two. Disconnection and connection. First of all, the disconnection. Mark writes this. 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. So already last week, by the way, we were in Mark chapter 6 and the feeding of the 5,000. And we saw at the beginning of that text that already the ministry of Jesus had become so hectic. That it said this, that Jesus said, come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while. For many were coming and going. They had no leisure even to eat. There just was no time. There was no way to rest. They were exhausted. And Jesus said, come away. They went to the hill country. But we said last week, yes, an entire thousands thronged into the hill country. And they wanted a revolutionary. Someone like a Maccabean leader who would fight and kick out the Romans. Who would be like King David or Joshua or, well, Moses even. To fight and to bring about a revolt. And we said, yes, Jesus is a revolutionary, but not in that way at all. He feeds with bread and with his word. So last week he couldn't get away. This week he decides to now go to the farthest reaches actually outside. T...