Transcript
I'd like to invite your attention to the Word of God, to the Gospel of Mark, chapter 7. The Gospel of Mark, chapter 7. We'd like to begin reading at verse 24. Mark 7, 24.
From there He arose and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And He entered a house and wanted no one to know it, but He could not be hidden. For a woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about Him, and she came and fell at His feet. The woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phoenician by birth, and she kept asking Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. But Jesus said to her, ‘Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs.’ And she answered and said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs.’ Then He said to her, ‘For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter.’ And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed.
Let me tell you about the most incredible Christmas bonus that I've ever heard of. But first, I have to tell you about the two men who gave it. Their names are David Sun and John Tu.
David Sun was reared in Taiwan. His father walked out on the family when he was five years old. And his mother, a high school biology teacher, raised him and his two sisters. David Sun became an engineer for computers. John Tu was a native of Shanghai. And his family fled to Taiwan after the communist takeover in China. Later, he was educated in Germany and came to America and made money in Arizona real estate.
The two men met for the first time in Southern California in the early 1980s. Together, they founded their first computer memory company, which they called, “Camintonn.” Camintonn prospered and in four years, in 1986, they were able to sell it for six million dollars.
But then tragedy struck. Most of their profits were wiped out by the stock market crash in 1987. But John Tu and David Sun were not the type of men who gave up easily. And they scraped together four thousand dollars. And they founded another company, which they called, “Kingston Technology Corporation.”
Tapping into a boom in memory upgrades for aging computers, their company grew rapidly. By 1995 their sales topped 1.2 billion dollars. The next year, in September of 1996, they sold 80 percent of their interests in Kingston Technology to a Japanese software distributor called SoftBank Corporation. The sale price was a staggering 1.5 billion dollars.
Now, by this time David Sun and John Tu had 523 employees in their business. And when Christmas came that year, they set aside as bonus money for their employees the grand total of 100 million dollars. A lot of that money they gave upfront to their employees in cash. And the average bonus that year was seventy-five thousand dollars, which in some cases was three times what the employee earned all year long. The rest of the money was set aside for educational and other employee programs.
David Sun told the media that his high school teaching mother had always taught him that a man is made by his friendships and not by his money. And he added, “And it's true isn't it?” He says, “I have 523 friends who work very hard for me.”
In a December issue of USA Today a photograph appeared of David Sun and John Tu surrounded by a small group of their employees, every one of whom had a very happy smile on their face. And no wonder. Who wouldn't smile over a bonus of $75,000? And I have to say this, that if there were any such thing as a Christmas Bonus of the Century Award, I think that would go to David Sun and John Tu.
But this morning, I want to call your attention to another Giver of bonuses, whose bonuses are so splendid, so lavishly generous, or so enormously impressive, that it is easy to forget about David Sun and John Tu. And of course, I'm referring to our gracious and loving and generous Heavenly Father and to His Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
And this morning, I would like to give you an insider's tip. On Wall Street that would probably be illegal. But in the Christian experience it is perfectly legitimate. And here is my insider's tip to each of you, “Look for the Bonus.” And since that tip happens to be also the title of my message to you this morning, I don't want you to forget it. So, I'm going to repeat it one more time. My title today is “Look for the Bonus.”
Now, I'm sure you don't realize this. But this past Friday, I observed an anniversary of sorts of the very best bonus that I have ever received in my entire life. You see, 27 months prior to this past Friday, I was lying on a gurney in the emergency room at Baylor Hospital Richardson. And I saw the ceiling begin to swim and fade. And the next thing I remember, I was looking up into the face of an anxious ER nurse. And she said to me something like this, “We just gave you electro cardiac resuscitation.”
And do you know that the 27 months that have followed since then are a bonus that God has given to me? If I had been anywhere else but in the emergency room, if I had been anywhere else but in an ambulance (I had been having symptoms for hours), I probably would not be speaking to you this morning. But God gave me a bonus that so far has lasted for 27 months.
And if you want to ask me whether I would rather have $75,000 or the bonus of life itself, I'll take life any day of the week. And I think my experience of this bonus has prepared me to empathize with another person who received a very marvelous bonus from God.
I'm sorry I don't know her name, but we read about her in the passage of Scripture just a few moments ago. Her name is not given to us. And Bible readers down through the years have referred to her simply as the Syro-Phoenician woman. She was a Greek by race. She was Syro-Phoenician by culture.
I think that's too bad. I don't think we should refer to her as the Syro-Phoenician woman. I think we should refer to her as the Syro-Phoenician mother, the Syro-Phoenician mother, because it is the motherhood of this woman who is a key to the story that we have read.
I don't need to tell you, do I, that as you look around in this marvelous creation that God has made, it's really hard to find a greater miracle in creation than the miracle of motherhood. Stop and think about it for a minute. The conception of life, a child growing in the womb of its mother, giving birth to an eternal person, because every person that is born into this world will live forever. They will either live in the presence of God or they will live away from the presence of God. But everyone who is born into this world is eternal.
Motherhood is one of the great miracles of creation. And which of us needs to be told that normally God has given to mothers a very abundant supply of unconditional love, of compassion and care and concern.
And therefore, I want you to focus for a moment on the Syro-Phoenician mother. Yes, she had the joy of giving birth to a daughter. But then a tragedy had struck her home. The little girl to whom she had given birth (we don't know how old she was when it happened to her) was now possessed by an unclean spirit. She was now possessed by a demon of Satan.
We don't know how this demon possession expressed itself. But if we can judge on the analogy with other cases of demon possession in the Bible, it probably expressed itself in wild and dangerous behavior, perhaps even in self-destructive behavior. And this woman, my friends, was living a nightmare. She was living a nightmare.
But it is evident that she had also heard about Jesus of Nazareth, that famous Jewish Rabbi who is traveling all over the land of Israel, collecting great crowds, healing the sick, and what was important to her, she had undoubtedly heard that He cast many demons out of many people who had them.
And maybe there were times that she considered the possibility of taking her daughter to Israel to see if she could bring her daughter into the presence of Jesus. But apparently that wasn't possible for her. And maybe there were times, my friends, when she fantasized that somehow or other, some day Jesus would come to her area of the world, because after all, it wasn't very far north of the land of Israel itself.
And then something incredible happened. He came. Jesus came into the regions of Tyre and Sidon. And I want you to grasp how significant and unusual that was. Totally apart from the trip that Jesus took to Egypt as a little baby in the arms of His mother, so far as we know this is the only occasion during His earthly life when He left the soil of Israel. And Jesus went from Israel into a Gentile region, not to collect crowds, because the Bible tells us that He didn't want His presence to be known.
But the word got out, as I'm sure He understood that it would. And the word reached this troubled mother. And now for the very first time in her whole life, Jesus was within reach of her. Jesus was within reach of her. And she brought her problem to Him.
And here we are this morning, my folks. And I look out at this audience. I don't see a single Jew in this audience. If you have Jewish blood in it and I don't know it, tell me about this after the meeting. Nothing wrong with it of course, but we're all Gentiles, aren't we?
And we are thousands and thousands of miles away from the Holy Land of Israel, where Jesus lived and preached and died and rose again. And yet, wonder of wonders, my friends, Jesus Christ is within reach. He is within reach of each person in this audience this morning.
And if you happen to be here this morning and you're not absolutely sure that you're going to heaven, Jesus Christ is within reach of you. And He wants you to understand that when He died on the cross, He died and paid for all of the sins that you would ever commit in your entire lifetime. And all He's asking you to do is to believe on Him for the free gift of everlasting life.
Jesus said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.”
And if you're a Christian this morning, it doesn't matter what your burden is. It doesn't matter what your problem is. It may be that you too, like the Syro-Phoenician woman, have concerns for your children. Whatever your need, whatever your concern, whatever your problem, Jesus Christ is within reach of you. And you can bring your burden to Him.
The Bible says, “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
So the Syro-Phoenician woman brought her need to Jesus Christ. And it is right here, my friends, that we encounter an unexpected and stunning surprise. This woman comes to Him. She falls at His feet. She beseeches Him to heal her little girl, to cast the demon out.
And Jesus does not say to her, “My dear mother, I know what a burden and what a concern this is for you. And I am deeply sympathetic with your problem. And of course, I am willing to help you.” No, my friends, Jesus doesn't say anything like that at all.
Instead, He says this. He says, “Let the children be filled first, because it is not good to take the bread of the children and to throw it to the little dogs.”
Now folks, if I may use the modern jargon, that answer is not politically correct. It's not politically correct. In fact, it sounds very much like a racial put-down. The children, of course, were the children of Israel. And the little dogs were Gentiles like this woman.
And if this woman had been like a lot of people are today, you know what she would have said? She would have said, “How dare You talk to me like that? How dare You call me a little dog? I want You to know that the Gentiles are every bit as good as the Jews and they deserve the mercy of God just as much as the Jewish people do. And if You don't understand that, You are not a representative of the true and living God.”
She could have said that, couldn't she? But she didn't. My friends, I want you to understand that the reply that Jesus got from this woman is one of the most wonderful responses that He got from anybody, anywhere during all of His earthly life.
Do you notice how she begins? She begins with the words, “Yes, Lord.” “Yes, Lord.” Those two words go together. But do you know what a lot of Christians do? In effect, they say, “No, Lord. No, not me. Not this. Not that way. No. No. No.” And “No” does not go with “Lord.”
And this woman begins, “Yes, Lord.” And then she adds this. She says, “For even the little dogs who are under the table eat from the children's crumbs.”
Now, I can't prove this to you. But I got a strong suspicion that this lady had some little dogs at home. In fact, if things were as they normally are in that culture, she probably had other children besides the daughter that she was worried about.
And I'm guessing that there were times that she sat or reclined at the supper table with her children. And she saw the little household dogs nosing their way around the table and wagging their tails as rapidly as they could, to give this signal, “Give me something. Give me something.”
And as a mother, she could watch the joy that came across the face of her kids as one of them would give a dog a scrap of meat, or another would toss them a piece of bread. And even if these things didn't happen in her household, she knew they happened in many households. It was part of the culture.
And so this woman says to Jesus, “Yes, Lord. I agree with everything You say. The children of Israel deserve your bounty. But just remember that we Gentile little dogs can eat from the crumbs that fall from the table.”
Wow! Wow! Are you impressed with that? I am. I'm very impressed.
Listen to me. You know what a lot of people do when they come to God with their problems? They come to God with an attitude in their hearts that they deserve His help. After all, I'm a believer in Jesus Christ. I'm trying to live a good life. I go to church. I read my Bible. I say my prayers. God ought to do this for me.
And if we're bringing the problems of our children to Him, we can feel the same way. Look how much time I put on these kids. Look how I try to teach them in the right way. Look how I've seen to it that they get to church. God ought to do this for me. God ought to do this for me.
And folks, if that's the way you come to God, be prepared to wait a long, long, long, long time for the answer to your prayer.
We can learn a great deal from this woman. She says, “I'm no better than what you say I am. And the only thing I want to do is to remind you that when the children are eating, there's always a bonus for the puppies. There's always a bonus for the little dogs under the table. And all I'm asking is for a bonus.”
Christians, when you come to God, don't come like a little kid. You know how little kids are. I want it now. I want it my way. I want it this way. I want you to do this for me. Please do this for me.
No, my friends, when we come to God, we must come in complete humility. We must come in complete submission to His will. And we must come with the realization that if we're all that we really are, sinners saved by His matchless grace, and that He's already done so much for us, that if He does anything else at all, it's a bonus. It's a bonus.
The Bible says, “God resists the proud, and He gives grace to the humble.”
So, what do you think happened? You got it. A crumb fell from the table. And Jesus says to this woman, “For this saying (because of the attitude that you have expressed in these words), for this saying the demon has gone out of your daughter.”
Did you notice something? Jesus didn't say the demon will go out of your daughter. Jesus said, “For this saying, it has gone out. It's done.” And the woman went home. And she found that the demon had gone out of her daughter. And her little girl was lying peacefully on the bed.
Now folks, have you ever wondered why God sometimes delays the answers to our prayers? Well, there are a number of reasons. But one of the reasons is that prayer is not for God's benefit. God already knows what we need. God already knows what we are going to ask for. He doesn't need information. He doesn't need time to figure out what He's going to do. He doesn't need to make a plan.
Prayer is for our benefit. And sometimes our prayers are delayed because we have not yet learned the lesson which prayer is supposed to teach us. We have not yet learned that we are unworthy sinners who deserve nothing from the Living God and we are casting ourselves upon His marvelous and liberal generosity.
So when you come to God, my friends, come with humility, come with submission to His will. And realize that anything He does for you is a bonus or to put it another way, “Look for the bonus.”
Late one night, a salesman came into a strange city. And he went into a hotel to look for a room. The desk clerk in the hotel informed him that there were no vacancies. And as he turned around and was about ready to walk out of the hotel lobby, a distinguished-looking gentleman asked him if he would be willing to share his room with him. The gentleman offered to share his own accommodations with this salesman. The salesman gladly and gratefully accepted the offer.
As they were about to retire in the room, this distinguished-looking gentleman got down on his knees and he prayed out loud. And as he prayed he mentioned the salesman's name to God and asked God to bless the salesman.
The next morning when they woke up, this distinguished gentleman said to the salesman that it was his custom to start the day with the reading of a portion of the Bible and with communion to God and would the salesman like to enter into this with him.
Well, by this time, the Holy Spirit was working in the salesman's heart. And he entered into this time of devotion with the man. Very tactfully, very skillfully the man shared with him the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The salesman believed on Him and then the man's prayer was answered, wasn't it? Because God had blessed the salesman with the greatest blessing of all, the gift of eternal life.
And as they were about to part, they traded business cards. And the salesman, who was now a newly born again Christian, looked down at the business card that he had received and he was amazed, because on the card were these words, “William Jennings Bryan, Secretary of State.”
My dear Christian friends this morning, it doesn't matter whether you are a construction worker, a teacher or the Secretary of State, what matters is whether you can come to God in humility, in submission to God, in lowliness and whether you can expect only a bonus from Him.
The songwriter has captured the true spirit of prayer, it seems to me, very nicely. All the way my Savior leads me; What have I to ask beside? Can I doubt His tender mercy, Who thru life has been my guide? Heavenly peace, divinest comfort, Here by faith in Him to dwell! For I know whate'er befall me, Jesus doeth all things well; For I know whate'er befalls me, Jesus doeth all things well.
Shall we pray?
Help us Father to be humble and grateful men and women of prayer. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.