Trinity Lutheran - Town of Berlin

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Psalm 121:1-8 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the LORD, the Maker ...
09/06/2026

Psalm 121:1-8 1 I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; 4 indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD watches over you— the LORD is your shade at your right hand; 6 the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will keep you from all harm— he will watch over your life; 8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore. (NIV® 84)

On my recent trip to Rocky Mountain National Park, I drove through the Rockies on Trail Ridge Road. It was absolutely breathtaking and beautiful to see all those giant mountain peaks, but the road took you basically to the top of some of them, and there would be a narrow road with no guard rail to your side, no shoulder, just a sheer drop off of many hundreds or even thousands of feet. You think about times where maybe you drift a little while you are driving onto the rumble strips on a road, and that loud buzzing sound makes you jump and realize you’re not really in your lane anymore. On this road, there would have been no warning, just a sudden plummet to death for me and my family.

I hiked 5 and half miles up a mountain in the park to a mountain lake, and there were some places where the trail was pretty narrow, and there were similar drop-offs just a little bit to your side. It’s probably the most careful and deliberate I have ever been with my steps in my whole life, as I’m thinking it just takes one little slip of my foot, one little loss of my balance, and that will be it.

Isn’t that the way life can sometimes feel though? Whether it’s at our workplace or in our group of friends or with a boyfriend or girlfriend a husband or wife, whether it’s with our finances, we might sometimes feel like we are in a situation where we need to do things just right, like if we make the slightest error, it’s all going to be ruined: we are going to lose our job, we are going to ruin that friendship or that romantic relationship, we are going to lose all that money.

Sometimes we might face situations that are dangerous or scary and there was really nothing we could do about it. We might work for some big company, have the most amazing job, one we love to do and one that really takes care of us and our family financially, and yet at any moment, that company could be bought out by another one, it could be shut down or downsized, and that job would be gone, and there was nothing we ever could have done to change it or prevent it from happening.

One time I, myself, was driving home from somewhere during the winter, just like a short 35-minute drive, and it just started to snow, and all of a sudden, it really started to snow. I found myself on a country road, with whiteout like conditions, where I had to drive as slow as 5 miles an hour just to make sure I stayed on the road, and even then it was tough, where I was worried if someone drove in the other direction at me if they would even see me, if we would run into each other, but it didn’t seem like there was a good place to stop where I wouldn’t have to worry about someone running into me from behind. I felt like I was in terrible danger and didn’t have any good options for what to do.

Imagine the people who have had almost no warning and all of a sudden a tornado is outside their house or they are hiking in the woods and all of a sudden there is mountain lion on the prowl or mama grizzly bear intent on defending her cubs. Think about the people who received a cancer diagnosis, and it stemmed from something that for years everyone thought was safe, like asbestos.

Of course, it’s not just physical danger or earthly problems that we can face in life. As much as this world is a dangerous place with all sorts of hazards that can greatly harm us or even bring physical death upon us, it is also a place where we are surrounded by spiritual dangers. We Christians have the great benefit and blessing of having been brought to believe in Jesus, to enjoy the forgiveness and eternal salvation he won for us on the cross through faith in him. But think about all the things that are trying to tear us away from Jesus.

The devil is using every opportunity he has to hold some sin in front of our eyes, to try to get us to commit it, and then to use it to take us further and further down a path that leads away from God, to despair that he could forgive us for it, or to lead us to think we don’t even want God’s forgiveness for it, that we just want to do it and don’t want to be sorry for it or have to ask for forgiveness for it. Our own sinful nature loves and wants those very sins. It doesn’t want to feel like we need forgiveness or need a Savior. It wants to feel like we can earn our own way before God. This world is tempting us with all sorts of sins, with the idea of being accepted by them if we just act like them, if we just turn away from God and forget him along with them.

When we have spiritual failures, commit sins against God, fail to trust him in some way, it can feel like we are bound to lose this battle in the long run, that in the end the devil is going to get us and lead us to stop being repentant for our sins and trusting in Jesus as our Savior, that he is going to lead us to walk away from Jesus and his salvation.

In so many ways, we might feel like we need help from someone, someone or something that can protect us from all these dangers, that can keep us safe and free from all these harms. Well in our text, the writer of the psalm says, “I lift up my eyes to the hills— where does my help come from?” (NIV® 84) He could be looking to those hills as a source of danger, just like I felt danger when I was high in the mountains whether I was in a car or going by foot, but he also could have been looking to the mountains as a source of strength like a stronghold that protects you from an attacking army.

But look at the answer he gives. He says, “My help comes from the LORD the Maker of heaven and earth.” (NIV® 84) It can be a good thing for us to recognize the talents and abilities God has given us, to know his promise to be with us and help us at all times, and thereby have a confident, can-do spirit in tough circumstances that I can do this tough thing with God’s help. But that is the part that matters the most, God’s promise to be with us and help us. We could have the greatest abilities, come up with the greatest plan, execute as well as anyone ever could, and yet if God doesn’t bless it, it is going to fail. And yet with God’s blessing, with his decision to grant it success, it has no chance of failing. We might not even have a plan or anything we can even do, and yet if God decides to fully deliver us from a problem or challenge, it won’t be able to harm us or affect us even in the least.

The writer of the psalm tells us that God, the LORD, is the one who watches over us, that he is our shade at our right hand, that, “He will not let your foot slip— he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep,” (NIV® 84) that, “the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night,” (NIV® 84) that he “will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.” (NIV® 84)

We get this sense of total and complete protection from God. It says that fear I had of slipping on the mountain, that God isn’t going to let that happen, that he will be the one who keeps my footsteps firm, that he will be the one who protects me from the danger and harm I can bring upon myself by making a misstep. You parents, have you ever had a moment where you took your eyes off a child just for a short moment and all of a sudden they got themselves into some danger? At those times it might feel like we were a watchman who fell asleep during our watch and something terrible almost happened, but not God. God never slumbers or sleeps. He never lets his guard down when it comes to watching over us but is always doing the perfect job at it. He’s watching over both our coming and going, protecting us from dangers both of the daytime and the nighttime, basically saying that he is watching over and protecting us at all times, from all potential dangers we might face. The result of all this is given to us in verse 7: “The LORD will keep you from all harm.” (NIV® 84)

That might not sound right to us. All people, even believers, are harmed at times. All people, even believers, will eventually die, excepting those who are still alive when Jesus comes back on the Last Day. When we look at all the promises God has given us, though, we can say that no physical danger or threat, that no earthly bad thing will ever truly harm us. For one, God does step in at times and give us a complete deliverance from the problem we faced. It may have looked impossible for us to be saved from it, and yet God steps in and does the impossible. Nothing that threatens us will ever be able to harm us if God decides to keep us from that harm.

But even when we suffer some sort of earthly harm or even die, we know that God has promised to use all things for our good, ultimately to preserve us in faith until we are with him in heaven, that no earthly harm can take away the eternal life we have through faith in Jesus, and so none of these things we face in life can truly harm us. All of them will work together for our good, most importantly our ultimate good of being brought home to heaven.

Now think also about the spiritual danger that we face in life. These things can entice us to sin and threaten to lead us away from God, away from enjoying his forgiveness and salvation for our sin through repentance and faith in Jesus, and yet God has promised that he is our help in this regard as well. He certainly warns us about falling away from faith, a warning that we need to hear and that applies when we are arrogant in our faith, when we are lazy in feeding it, or when we needlessly let spiritual dangers linger, but he has also promised to preserve us in our faith in the midst of the spiritual dangers that we face, even in the midst of the failures we have in our battles against sin.

It is a promise we can trust when we are weak, when the devil and the spiritual dangers we face seem too strong for us, and we can know that he will keep it, that it will be the most important way that he watches over and keeps our life, our very soul, now and into eternity, that he will keep us repentant for our sins and trusting in Jesus as our Savior all the way until we are with him in heaven. What a great comfort it is to know that with repentance for our sins and trust in Jesus as our Savior, we enjoy the forgiveness he won for all our sins, even as we sadly continue to lose battles against them.

Are you facing a danger right now? Something that threatens to harm you physically, to harm your life financially, to harm your relationships? Are you facing some spiritual danger? Remember where your help comes from, that it comes from the LORD, the maker of heaven and earth. Turn to him for his help. Trust all the promises he has given to watch over you and protect you, to never let anything truly harm you, and know that he will keep them, that you will be safe in his hands, now and into eternity.

09/06/2026

Here is the sermon video for this week. The sermon text is Psalm 121:1-8. The sermon theme is: The LORD Will Watch Over You Now and Forevermore.

Matthew 16:13-20 13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the ...
08/31/2026

Matthew 16:13-20 13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?” 14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. (NIV® 84)

How much money did you give in your offerings to God this last year? How many times did you step in and help someone when they needed it? How good of a job did you do at not committing that one sin that is especially hard for you to resist? At turning away from sin in your life in general? These are all questions that might come to mind when we think about a person’s spiritual health and welfare, where things stand between them and God, whether or not things are good with him.

Jesus asked his disciples a very different question in our text: “Who do you say I am?” (NIV® 84) This came after he asked them about what people were saying about him, about who he is. They answered to Jesus, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” (NIV® 84) All those answers, all those ideas of the people, recognized Jesus as someone special from God, a messenger, a prophet sent by him, but they all stopped short of recognizing just who Jesus truly is.

But look at what Peter said, when Jesus turned the question towards the disciples, when he said to them, “But what about you?...Who do you say I am?” (NIV® 84) Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (NIV® 84) Peter doesn’t expound on those terms, so it might be hard to know exactly what he meant down to the finest detail when he said them, but think about what the Bible means when it calls Jesus the Son of God. It means that he is himself true God from all eternity, that he is the second person of the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that he is the one through whom all things were made, that nothing we see was made without him. The Bible tells us that he took on our flesh and blood and became one of us, so that he is true God and true man in one person, so that Mary could hold him as a baby in her arms and at the same time be holding the almighty creator of the universe.

Peter also calls him, “the Christ,” a word that literally means the anointed one. When kings or high priests were put into their office, they would be anointed to be set aside for it. The Bible talks about 3 offices Jesus has on our behalf: our prophet, priest, and king. These are all offices he holds as our Savior, and the term Christ is used in that very way, to indicate that Jesus is our Savior, the one that God sent to live a perfect life in our place, to die on the cross for all our sins, to rise from the dead to win us forgiveness for all of our sins and the gift of eternal life. By saying what Peter said, he was confessing that Jesus is the true God, whom God sent to be our Savior.

You think about those questions that I asked at the beginning of the sermon. The answer to them might give some evidence about whether or not things were good between that person and God. Someone who has come to be on good terms with God will have an effort to serve him in life, which includes things like giving to him in their offerings, helping other people when they need it, trying hard not to commit sin, but none of those things can make someone right with God.

In fact, you might come across someone who gives lots of money to God, who is always doing outwardly good things for other people, who relatively speaking might not seem to have a lot outwardly bad things they do compared to others and yet things between them and God are just as bad as they could be for anyone else. No matter how hard a person might strive to do those things, how outwardly good of a job they might do compared to others, they could never do a good enough job to make it so God would say they have lived up to his perfect standards and deserve to be on a good footing with him thereby. No, we all have sinned, and by our own record, we only deserve God’s punishment.

But saving us from this predicament is what the Savior is all about. God promised a Savior to come and die for our sins, to win us forgiveness for them and the right to be on good terms with God through his work on our behalf. Every Old Testament person who lived under God’s special love and favor and blessing as his own child, as a part of his eternal people, did so by believing in that coming Savior that God had promised, by repenting of their sins, being sorry them, and trusting in God’s promise of forgiveness in the coming Savior.

But of course, once the Savior came, once he revealed himself, and did the saving work God sent him to do on our behalf, true saving faith would mean believing in the Savior God had now sent, in the specific work of living a perfect life in our place, dying on the cross for our sins, and rising from the dead in victory. And so, Jesus’ question to his disciples is the one that matters more than anything else, “Who do you say I am?” (NIV® 84) The belief and confession that Peter gave is the answer that matters more than anything else, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (NIV® 84)

Think about what the Bible says about Jesus. It says, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (NIV® 84) It says, “All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” (NIV® 84) It says, “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (NIV® 84) It says, “Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” (NIV® 84)

What does this mean? Well on the one hand, it means that the world’s religion of just try to be a good person and everything will be good for you isn’t going to work. It could never get a person to heaven. It means that as much as other religions that don’t recognize Jesus as the Savior may teach some good morals and even lead to some outwardly good behavior, they could never lead a person to heaven by their teachings.

But think also about what it means for us believers, us who are sinners by nature like anyone else, who as a result of our faith in Jesus and out of love and thanks to him have it in our hearts to fight against sin in our lives and to serve God, but who also have a sinful nature that sadly gets the better of us more often than we would like. It means that we can know simply through repentance for our sins and faith in Jesus as our Savior that we have the forgiveness and salvation he won, that all is well between us and God in spite of our sinful failures, because just like God blessed Peter by leading him to know and believe in Jesus as the promised Savior, he has blessed us in the same way, that through faith in Jesus, we are connected to all he did for us and therefore all is well between us and God. We live under his special love and favor and blessing right now and will be taken to heaven when we die.

Jesus says to Peter, “I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (NIV® 84) The name Peter means “rock” and so there is a play on words here. The traditional Lutheran way of looking at this passage is that the rock Jesus would build upon was not Peter himself, but the confession he just made that Jesus is the Christ. There’s no doubt that this is what makes a person a part of the Church, the community of people who are on good terms with God, who have his eternal salvation in Jesus, the status of being God’s forgiven and holy sons and daughters now and into eternity. In that sense, Jesus, himself, is the one foundation the church is built upon, something clearly stated in Scripture.

I think it’s possible to take what Jesus said here as potentially referring at least in part to some special role Peter may have played in the way God built his New Testament church in its early days, which would then be similar to the passage that says God’s household is “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.” (NIV® 84) Or the way that Revelation has a picture of the New Jerusalem and the foundation of the walls has the names of the twelve apostles written on it.

But even if that were true, it wouldn’t support Peter being the first Pope or the claims that are made about that supposed office and the power popes today are supposed to have. That idea isn’t clearly stated in this passage, and the rest of Bible would consistently and clearly show that couldn’t possibly be true.

Look at what Jesus tells Peter. He says that he will give to him the keys of the kingdom of heaven, that what he binds on earth will be bound in heaven and what he looses on earth will be loosed in heaven. Jesus says something similar another time to all his disciples, saying, “If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.” (NIV® 84) The Bible elsewhere makes it clear that any believer can proclaim his forgiveness to another repentant believer in his stead and on his behalf and that it will be valid.

This was a key tool Peter would use as he carried out the role God gave him in leading people to believe in and confess Jesus as their Lord and Savior, as the Christ, the Son of the living God, and helping to preserve and build them up in that belief and confession. Jesus for the time being told him and the other disciples not to flat out and directly tell others he was the Christ, perhaps because his time hadn’t yet come, or because people had some misconceptions about the coming Savior and what he would do, but later on he would want them to clearly and explicitly declare that to people in their job of leading people to believe in him as the Savior.

Not only can you rejoice over the forgiveness and salvation you have in Jesus through faith in him as your Savior, through your belief that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, but you too have the great privilege of having a role to play in helping others to enjoy that same blessing. You can show the kindness of your Savior to others in your life and lead them to be curious about him thereby. You can be ready to tell them that he is the Savior. You can be ready to invite them church so they can learn about Jesus here. When it comes to your fellow believers, you can respond to their repentant faith and the confession they make about their sins, by forgiving their sins in Jesus’ place and under his authority, declaring to them that through faith they enjoy the forgiveness Jesus won for them on the cross, and bringing to them the sweetest comfort a person could ever have in the face of their sins.

Who do you say Jesus is? That is the question that matters above all else. My fellow believers, thank God that he has blessed you by leading you to believe and confess that Jesus is your Savior, that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, that he has led you to repent of your sins and to trust in Jesus as your Savior. It means that you enjoy his forgiveness for all your sins, that all is well between you and God, and that you will go to heaven when you die. It means that you too have a role to play in leading other people to believe and confess the same thing and to enjoy those same blessings thereby. Continue to believe in Jesus as your Savior and be ready to do what you can to help others do the same.

08/30/2026

Here is the sermon video for this week. The sermon text is Matthew 16:13-20. The sermon theme is: Who Do You Say I Am?

Matthew 15:21-28 21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that ...
08/23/2026

Matthew 15:21-28 21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” 23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.” 24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” 25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said. 26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” 28 Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour. (NIV® 84)

What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to face in life? Was it a cancer diagnosis for you or someone close to you? Was it a terrible accident you went through that involved a long recovery? Was it a time where you and your family desperately needed money for something important and you didn’t know where it would come from?

Well, the problem the woman in our account faced was probably about as tough as they come. She had a child, a daughter, who was suffering terribly from demon possession. Now, it’s hard to know exactly what that looked like in her life. In one case of demon possession in the Bible, the demon would cause the child to convulse and foam at the mouth, it would throw him into the fire or the water to try to kill him. Demon possession could lead a person to be terribly violent or the demon could use that person’s voice to speak their own thoughts or words, so that people around them would be listening to a messenger from hell speaking to them through that person. On the other hand, in one case, being afflicted by a spirit simply seemed to mean that a woman was crippled and hunched over. Very likely, in our account, this was an extremely awful thing, that affected this woman and her daughter in a truly terrible way. Not only would the woman have felt absolutely awful for her daughter, but very likely whatever symptoms her daughter had might have led people to judge her as a mother.

But what does this woman do? She comes to Jesus and says, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.” (NIV® 84) Look at the great faith already she shows. She does exactly what Jesus would want her to do. Even though she is a Canaanite, a Gentile, not one of God’s chosen earthly people, she recognizes Jesus as the Savior, calling him the Son of David, apparently showing that she believed in him as her Savior for her eternal salvation, for the forgiveness of all of her sins. But she also recognizes that Jesus is the one who has the power to help her with the problems she faces in life, even this terrible one that was before her at the moment. She goes to him for his help, asking him to take mercy, just like Jesus wants us to bring our every problem to him in prayer.

But sometimes can’t we be confused about his answer to us when it comes to our prayers? Sometimes, we might wonder why we are still facing the problem even though we have brought it to him in prayer over and over again. Sometimes, we might wonder why he chose to help us in a different way than the way we asked him to help us. Even when he does exactly what we asked for, sometimes we might wonder why he waited so long to do it for us.

This woman could have easily been confused about Jesus initial response to her. Everything he did at first could have easily been interpreted as Jesus indicating to her that he had no intention of helping her. When she cries out to Jesus for help, it says he didn’t answer her a word. Only when his disciples said something to Jesus, which was probably meant to indicate to him that he should do what she asked for simply so she wouldn’t bother them anymore, he said to his disciples, not to her, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.” (NIV® 84) When she pleaded to him for his help, he said, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” (NIV® 84)

But of course, Jesus never said he wouldn’t help her and what he did say and do could also easily be interpreted as him being open to helping her in some way. It might seem pretty harsh to us that Jesus would basically call her a dog, but even there the word he used was not the type of mangy dogs that would roam the streets and were a nuisance to everyone, but rather the little dogs that were kept as pets in the house in their society, the ones that people would have been close to and might have been almost considered a part of the family.

In another account of this event, Jesus is quoted as saying, “First let the children eat all they want” (NIV® 84) before he says, “for it is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.” (NIV® 84) This would go hand-in-hand with what the Bible says about Jews and Gentiles, that God’s plan was to have the Savior come and primarily do his work among God’s chosen earthly people, the Israelites, the Jews, to perform his miracles among them, preach the word to them, to show himself to be the Savior to them, to die on the cross in their midst, and then after he had died and risen again, that those largely Jewish believers in him would go out and take the message of salvation in him to all people, that his intention was not for the blessings of him as Savior to be limited to one people, but to be enjoyed by people from every tribe and language and nation and people. Even in Old Testament times, we see the Word being brough to various Gentiles and them being included in God’s eternal people and enjoying the blessings the coming Savior would bring them through faith. God’s chosen earthly people, the Jews, did have a special role in salvation history, but the Savior and his salvation were always intended for all people.

The woman seems to catch on to much of this. After Jesus says, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs,” she says, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” (NIV® 84) Jesus says to her in response, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” (NIV® 84) From that very hour, her daughter was healed.

Think about all the different ways this woman showed great faith. As we’ve already talked about, it appears that she believed in Jesus as her Savior, calling him the Son of David. She trusted he had the power to help and came to him for help, just like God wants us to in prayer, but also she was bold and persistent in her prayer, not giving up when it seemed as though she was not going to receive help from Jesus, asking for great things from him. She also appears to have accepted her role in God’s plan of salvation. She doesn’t get mad about the fact that the Jewish people had a special role, that the Savior’s ministry during his earthly life was to be primarily done not among her people, but the Jewish people, but is content with the blessings God had in store for her through Jesus and seems to know and trust that Jesus was for her too, that his help in life was for her too.

These are all things you can emulate in your faith. Jesus is your Savior too. He is the one who has power to help you in anything you face in life and wants you to turn to him and ask him for that help, to trust him to help in the way he has promised. He wants you too to be bold and persistent in your prayer life, to accept whatever God’s plan and will is in regard to you and your life, to know that through faith you are a part of his eternal people, that you too share in his blessings of eternal salvation and his promise to help you in all you face in life.

It might be good for us to remember what he has promised to do for us, how he has promised to help us, when we bring a problem we are facing in life to him. He has promised to deliver us from everything we face in his way and in his time. Sometimes he might take a problem away right away and do it in the way we asked. Sometimes he might not do exactly what we asked for, but deliver us in a way he knows is better. Sometimes he might allow the problem to stay and give us his deliverance at a later time, but if he does, he will give us the strength to endure it and will use it for our good, ultimately to preserve us in our faith until we are with him in heaven. Sometimes he may allow the problem to stay our whole life, but ultimately will deliver us from that problem and all our problems when he takes us to heaven to be with him.

We still might wonder, “Why?” Why does Jesus sometimes do what I want right away and other times he has me wait? It’s clear in this account that Jesus treats us as individuals. This isn’t the only time Jesus was approached for help by a Gentile. One time another Gentile asked Jesus to heal his servant, and Jesus did it right away. Another time Jesus even initiated a conversation with a Gentile woman himself to help bring her to faith.

Jesus knows what each one of us needs in every situation we face in life. The way he interacted with this woman in our account likely gave her a chance to put her faith on display. Most likely it was something that strengthened her faith, led her to trust and cling to God’s Word even more firmly that she had been before. Jesus knows whether it would be better for you and your faith to receive his deliverance right away in the way you want or whether it would be better for you to have to wait. You can go to him in prayer and trust that he is going to do what is best for you as an individual in your unique and specific situation, as someone who loves you more than you could ever know, more than anyone else ever could.

No matter what you are facing, Jesus is for you too. He died for all of your sins. With trust in him as your Savior, you have the forgiveness and eternal salvation he won for you. You have his promise that you can turn to him with any problem, no matter how big, that he will hear your prayer, and that he will deliver you in his way and in his time. Take your problems to him, continue to trust in his promise to help you, and know that he will help you in the way that he knows is best for you, that he will deliver you in his way and in his time.

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