For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)
Jesus came with a purpose. To get His sheep. In doing so he wasn't just getting a few sheep running around Judea in around 4 - 30 AD. He wasn't just hoping to collect a few that he could capture at random, or that ‘wisely’ chose Him. The Sheep He came for had names. And He knew their names.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (John 10:27)
His sheep gathering wasn't just limited to the days of His incarnation. It included all sheep that would ever be made (1) - You (I hope) and me included. He preached, He taught, He prayed, He trained disciples, He sent Apostles, He bore the wrath of His Father (2) in order for His sheep to be acceptable to God. All of them. From the creation of the World to the last trumpet. All of them. John 17:20 makes that clear.
How can we possibly know this is true?
Luke 19:10 tells us what He was doing on earth: looking for His sheep, and preparing them and all the future sheep. He knew who He was looking for. "According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will," (Ephesians 1:4-5). God did not create a contingent universe, as much as unbelievers and free-will advocates might like to think.
Mark 7:24-31 (3) gives us one example – the Syrophoenician woman. Read the whole passage, its a bit long for the body of this post, but its in the notes. Imagine the Son of the Living God, the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel. He took a roughly 30 mile trip by foot and by boat to a pagan area Tyre and Sidon, where he probably couldn't eat the food. Just to find a nameless pagan mother. A mother who just happened to be one of His sheep. He went way out of His way to find her. And he went out of His way to test or prove her. Are you offended that He called her a dog? Would you be offended if the Lord called you a dog? This woman heard His voice and she followed him. With the tenacity of a sheep following her shepherd - she wasn't going to let Him go because she knew His voice. She knew she was a dog. She knew she didn't deserve anything but God's wrath. How could she know? God gave that gift to her. How does any son or daughter know their Lord? They know His voice (John 10:27), and they follow. NO MATTER WHAT. She believed, her daughter was healed, and then Jesus left and never came back. No big Tyre rally, no big city event, no herd of pigs. He came, tested and tried his daughter, got her safely into His sheepfold - saved her, and left.
How many hundreds of people did Jesus walk past that day ignoring them? How many hurting, sick, and dying people still hurt, were sick and died without the Lord. But not this pagan mother. No. She was called, she answered the call, she withstood the testing, she clung to her Lord.
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. (Hebrews 11:6) And, But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. (Deut. 4:29) But lest you be tempted to admire her faith, her smart selection of Christ, her exercise of righteous free-will, consider this:
In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will: (Ephesians. 1:11)
Why is this story here? Why the insult, why the humiliation? What did this poor mother do to deserve this kind of disrespect? Jesus came to find her. Jesus engaged in conversation with her. Jesus challenged her. And Jesus gave her all she wanted and needed, and more besides. Don't be surprised by this. Jesus called Peter 'Satan'. He had many choice words for the religious leaders of the day. The important thing is that Jesus came to seek and to save those of His that were lost.
Jesus came to her so that she could seek him. He chose her, gave her faith before the foundation of the world, He presented Himself to her, so at the proper time she could express that faith for salvation. She lacked the means and ability to go forth to find Him, so He came to her. She lacked faith in her fallen state, so he gave it to her: But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
A picture of the impossibility of free-will proponent's hope - it is impossible for us to freely go find God, unless He first comes to us, unless He first awakens us from the dead.
So, brothers and sisters, remember this woman. The nameless pagan mother. Remember her. She wasn't too proud when dealing with her master. She wasn't demanding when she was disrespected. She was humble, but she also was persistent. She knew, as all children know, that their Father loves them and will take care of them. (4) And she wasn't afraid to ask for what she needed. And neither should you. And when you are insulted, mistreated, seemingly put through and endless gauntlet of meaningless nonsense and humiliation, remember this woman. Remember this kunapion in Greek, house dog in English. When you get to Glory, you have trusted Christ haven't you?, when you get to Glory call her out: Kunapion! I suppose she will proudly wave and smile at you. You may wish you had been so fortunate as her to have met with the Lord and have Him call you a name. I know I would. How do you say Goof Up in Koine Greek? That would be my name.
But wait. There is more.
Lets go on to an even more difficult sheep round-up in Luke - the bleeding woman. She would be the lowest of the low in almost every conceivable way. Even today.
"And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched. And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace." (Luke 8:43-48)
This woman was perhaps only slightly above the lepers. A stranger in the crowd. Do you suppose Jesus just happened to go to only heal Jairus' little girl, and this woman just accidentally touched Him? He went to heal Jairus' daughter, true, but He also came to find and heal His daughter. There would have been hundreds touching Jesus either on purpose or by accident. But only one was His sheep, only one had been called, only one had been brought to life and given faith to believe. And Jesus was there to be touched.
Both incidents show that Jesus was seeking out his own sheep. And they were surrounding Him by hundreds - those that were not his sheep. In both cases he didn't just heal them. He made them confess for salvation. He made them take a stand and ask for help in the face of resistance. The Syrophoencian woman endured being segregated out for her race, and the bleeding woman was called out for her stealth. Both gave a confession, both were accepted, both were healed, and both are our sisters in the Lord as a consequence.
Don't get hung up on the language and the apparent harshness of these incidents. This is the Gospel, its not soft and soothing, not concerned with our feelings and other vanities. It is concerned with flushing out Jesus' sheep, who when found by God, almost demand God's attention (Matthew 11:12) And also in Luke 18:7-8, Jesus shows us that saving faith is evident in those that relentlessly cry out to God for justice and mercy; just like the Syrophoencian mother, just like the bleeding woman. These aren't the genteel rules of our fake sophistication, they are the raw rules of true life. If you are seeking God, seek Him with your heart and soul (Deut. 4:29), if you are seeking after God's mercy or help, relentless pray for Him to act. (5)
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Notes
(1) see my Substack on Spiritual Genealogy: https://randallbachman.substack.com/p/spiritual-genealogy
(2) See Westminster Shorter Catechism questions 27 & 85 for starters, but there are many more.
(3) "For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs. And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed. And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis." (Mar. 7:24-31)
For the parallel account see Matthew 15:21-28.
(4) See Westminster Shorter Catechism question 100.
(5) 1 John 5:14-15