How To Influence The Lord Mark 7:24-30
If you did not know this before, it is important for you to know now that you can influence the Lord. Certainly, He should influence you, but you can influence Him.
We are going to learn how to influence the Lord from a woman known as the Syrophoenician woman!
• Mark 7:24-30 will tell us her story.
This history follows two passages where Jesus intentionally broke from the ceremonial law. That is significant as He will break from the law again as He encounters the Syrophoenician woman.
Jesus went to the Mediterranean coast to the area around the city of Tyre. Jesus goes into a house to get away from the crowds. Again and again, Jesus was trying to get some peace and quiet. He was going to a different area to get away from the crowd.
Jesus was not able to keep his location a secret and a woman who was a Greek from Syrian Phoenicia found Him. The woman comes to Jesus with a huge problem. Her daughter was possessed by an evil spirit, and she wanted Jesus to heal her.
This woman is called a Greek, meaning she was a Gentile from an area away from Israel and spoke Greek, probably.
She got in front of Jesus while He was trying to get away from people and begged Him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
Jesus' response to her is strange. He says, “first, let the children eat all they want.” What is that about? He is telling her that the Jews get His ministry first! She is not a Jew, and it is not right to give her ministry that goes to the Jews first.
Jesus goes further yet by saying that it is not right to give the children's bread to the dogs. He is saying that it is not right to take the ministry that is for the Jews and give it to the Gentile dogs.
The image He is using is that of a home with a pet puppy. You don't take the food that is for the children in a home and feed it to the pet puppy.
The children are the Jews, and the pet puppy represents the Gentiles.
It is like Jesus is saying, “you are a Gentile Dog, and I am not going to give you the food that belongs to the Jews. They go first and you don't really count.”
Next the woman begins to influence the Lord Jesus Christ. She tells him the following in Mark 7:28, “’Yes,’ Lord,’ she replied, ‘but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs.'” (NIV)
“Jesus, I get it. Your ministry is to the Jews first, but don't the Gentiles dogs like me get the leftovers?”
Jesus tells her that for a such a reply as that she can go, and her daughter will be healed. The demon will leave her daughter. She headed for home and found the child laying on the bed with the demon gone.
She influenced Jesus in spit of the fact that she had a lot of things working against her.
First, Jesus was trying to get away from people and she found Him anyway, which is exactly what He was trying to avoid. She brought Him her request anyway.
Second, she was a woman. Rabbis, like Jesus typically did not speak with woman in public. But she brought her request to Him humbly anyway as she was pleading for well-being of her child.
Third, she was a Gentile and a Greek. The Jews did not care for Gentiles at all. But she brought her request before Jesus anyway.
Fourth, she was from Syrian Phoenicia and probably spoke Greek as her primary language. Jesus' primary language was Aramaic and He probably spoke some Greek, but it would have been a secondary language to Him.
Regardless the language difference she brought her request to Jesus.
Fifth, Jesus told her that He was there to minister to the Jews first and not to her. But she came back with the fact that as a Gentile wasn't she worthy of the children's crumbs? Such a statement recognized that Jesus was telling her the truth, but humbly influenced Him to help her anyway.
The Syrophoenician woman influenced Jesus and changed His mind! There were five reasons for Him to reject her request, but she influenced Him to say “yes” to her request. How did she pull that off?
I have spent 17 years of my 73 years in sales and over 55 years of life influencing people. Sales is influencing people, if it is done right.
In about 2010 the auto industry was trying to come out of the toughest economic time since the Great Depression. I was in auto sales at Sanderson Ford in Glendale, Arizona.
I was working with a lady who was buying a new F150. At that time, there was a rebate of $7,500 on the truck she wanted to buy. My job was to influence her to buy the truck honestly.
Part of my job was to try not to discount the truck beyond the $7,500 in rebates to hold as much profit for the store as I could and increase my commission as much as I could.
When I presented her with the numbers on her deal, I showed her the price less the rebates and the payments based on her good credit. She said it all looked good to her, but that she wanted a discount.
Guess what I said next. I said, “what would you call a $7,500 rebate?” She said, “I would call that a discount, I guess!” She bought the truck at the numbers I presented! I influenced her over her question.
The Syrophoenician woman did the same thing with Jesus. She influenced Him to toss the demon from her daughter over His questions and objections.
For you and me today, this becomes a lesson in prayer! How can we use the lessons taught by the Syrophoenician woman to influence the Lord in prayer?
You might be thinking, “is it right to influence the Lord in prayer?” The answer is “yes.” Why do I say that? If you are asking wrong, He won't be influenced! If you are asking right, He can be influenced. He will never do the wrong thing.
Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:78, “(7) Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. (8) For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” (NIV)
Asking, seeking and knocking is about coming before God in prayer to influence Him to act on our behalf. It is exactly what the Syrophoenician woman was doing.
Take three steps to influence the Lord:
First, Ask Him specifically for what is needed. The Syrophoenician woman asked specifically for Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter.
One of the things that I have brought to the Lord to influence Him about is the need for rain and snow in Central California. Our area grows 25% of the world's food. Our government lets much of the needed water for agriculture run off into the ocean.
I have talked to farmers who have lost their crops for a couple of years because the lack of water has destroyed their crops. They are living on agricultural loans. If they don't get water this year many of them will go out of business.
Three times a day and more, I ask God to provide rain and snow to build up water to keep our farmers in business. He has been coming through this year.
Like the Syrophoenician woman, I am being specific about the need and asking Him for it directly. You can never influence the Lord without asking Him for what is needed.
Second, be humble about your request. The Syrophoenician woman fell at Jesus feet in humility and asked Him for what she needed.
When Jesus told her that the Jewish children got the bread before the Gentile Dogs, she came back with the reality that the dogs got the crumbs left over on the floor. Her request was nothing less than totally humble.
We need to always be direct with our request, but humble about it, like the woman was.
Third, tell the Lord why He should honor your request. The Syrophoenician woman told Jesus that, “yes, the Jews get theirs first, but don't the Gentiles get the crumbs?” She was telling Jesus why He should do it and doing so with great influence and humility.
Jesus should meet the Syrophoenician woman's daughter's need because the Gentiles are worthy of the crumbs that fall from the table.
She was willing to tell Jesus why He should honor her request and He did it. Why should Jesus provide water for the Central Valley? Because no one else can and if He doesn't come through farmers are wrecked and can't grow food for people.
One word of caution. The Lord does not always heal people when we ask. If He did, no one would ever die, and we all do.
Never fear trying to influence the Lord. Tell Him what you need. Ask humbly and make it clear why He should act on your behalf.