Mike,
 
Can you also explain this verse:

Mat 15:24 I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel

Hi J____,
Thanks again for your question.
To answer any question about scripture properly, you simply must keep this one verse in your mind at all times:

Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

I have explained that verse so very many times that I will not do so again right here except to remind you that the words which the holy spirit teaches compare spiritual things with spiritual, and never physical words to spiritual and certainly never physical to physical.

1Co 2:12  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God [ Christ’s spiritual words]; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. [ Not even one word of it means what it says physically]
1Co 2:13  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
1Co 2:14  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

The meaning of every word Christ taught is “spiritually discerned.” When we forget this we miss what He is teaching us. So with this principle in mind let’s look at your question. You ask:
“Can you explain this verse:
Mat 15:24 I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Yet Christ granted this woman’s request. Why would He do that if He were sent “only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? He did it to show us who is “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Mat 15:21  Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.
Mat 15:22  And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.
Mat 15:23  But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
Mat 15:24  But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Mat 15:25  Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
Mat 15:26  But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.
Mat 15:27  And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.
Mat 15:28  Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Israel lived under the law of Moses. This woman lived in “faith.” Whose is that faith?

Gal 2:20  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

That is right, it is Christ’s faith, it is not ours:

Eph 2:8  For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

I have already written volumes on who is Israel and who are the lost sheep. To see what the holy spirit teaches about these two subjects, just type those phrases into the search box on iswasandwillbe. com. Jesus appears to be making a physical statement about His ministry, but it is not a physical statement as His ministering to the Samaritan woman at the well demonstrates. Christ knew, long before the apostle Paul, who were the true “lost sheep of the house of Israel. the Israel of God” and who is a “Jew.”

Rom 2:28  For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:
Rom 2:29  But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.
Gal 6:15  Can’t you see the central issue in all this? It is not what you and I do– submit to circumcision, reject circumcision. It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life!
Gal 6:16  All who walk by this standard are the true Israel of God– his chosen people. Peace and mercy on them! (MSG)

The “lost sheep” are God’s elect and Israel is what Paul calls “the Israel of God.” Rom 2 and Eph 2 and many other verses of God’s Word demonstrate that these words are no longer “words which man’s wisdom teaches,” but are now “spiritual things” which must be “compared with spiritual” things, if we hope to come to know what Christ meant when He told the Canaanite woman that He was sent only to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Luk 15:7  I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

Those who know that Truth is found only in the sum of God’s Word, know that “there are none righteous no not one,” and there is not one  single “just person which needs no repentance.”

Mar 2:17  When Jesus heard [ it], he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

We are one and all born spiritually blind from our mother’s womb, and we all “need a physician to heal us of our blindness. But once again, who is truly blind?

Joh 9:35  Jesus heard that they had cast him out; and when he had found him, he said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God?
Joh 9:36  He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I might believe on him?
Joh 9:37  And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen him, and it is he that talketh with thee.
Joh 9:38  And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped him.
Joh 9:39  And Jesus said, For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind.
Joh 9:40  And [ some] of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
Joh 9:41  Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.

Again, Christ’s words are always spiritual. One more example of how the holy spirit teaches us of Christ’s words.

Mat 8:21  And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Mat 8:22  But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.

I hope this helps you to see that the kingdom of God is within you:

Luk 17:20  And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21  Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

As hated as it is in Babylon, both Christ and Paul were what Babylonian ministers disparagingly call ‘replacement theologians.’ I
hope this helps you to see that you are God’s Israel, and you are the true Jew, that you are the “lost sheep” and that you are “the Israel of God” to whom Christ was sent.
Your brother in “God’s Israel.”
Mike