Compassion
by Darrell W. Johns
2022 · Atlanta West Pentecostal Church (Lithia Springs, GA)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Hebrews 5:1-2, 2 Timothy 3:1-5, 1 John 3:17-18, Matthew 9:36, Matthew 14:14, Ephesians 4:32, Colossians 3:12-14, James 1:27, Hebrews 4:14-16, Hebrews 5:3-4, Lamentations 3:22-23

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/darrell-w-johns--compassion
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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hebrews 5 1 for every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to god that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins he can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray since he himself is also subject to weakness i want to speak to you tonight on compassion thank you for standing i'm compassionate god bless you please be seated [Music] so there are some people in our culture who work in rigorous manual labor and develop calluses on their hands those calluses are designed really to protect your skin from further injury sometimes a blister will turn into a callus they are formed by pressure and friction they're not a bad thing uh i know a few guitarists my dad was a guitarist ryan's a guitarist and calluses are a good thing to protect their fingers from the strings while they play over and over but calluses on our heart spelled differently if you read my article are not a good thing in the life of a christian so we need to ask ourselves has our heart become calloused have we been hurt and tried to cover over that hurt with a callousness that protects us from being hurt again from the feeling of being wounded by friends or by enemies or just by the regular stuff that happens in life this callous condition is not a good thing at all and when i started studying this i really started thinking about what calluses are in your hand or on your hands what they are on the heart but to be calloused spelled differently is to feel no emotion and to show no empathy or sympathy for other people some people once had a tender heart as i said but now their heart is calloused to try to protect themselves callous people become hard-hearted they become indifferent to the suffering of other people and calloused hearts have no place in the life of a christian we are to be compassionate not callous and the apostle paul was writing about the last days to timothy he spoke about the callousness that would exist in the minds and hearts of people that our culture would be marked by a callousness instead of compassion second timothy three and one new living translation you should know this timothy that in the last days there will be difficult times the king james says perilous times for people will love only themselves and their money they will be boastful and proud scoffing at god disobedient to their parents and ungrateful they will consider nothing sacred that sounds a lot like our culture they will be unloving and unforgiving they will slander others and have no self-control they will be cruel and hate what is good they will betray their friends be reckless be puffed up with pride and love pleasure rather than god now that is not a picture of the end time church it is a picture of the end time culture i've thought a lot lately in the last few months i guess about noah's day that the earth was filled with violence i've referred to it in preaching sometime in the last few months if we think our world cannot get worse it can get worse and one of the symptoms of a world just prior to judgment is a violent world an uncaring world it's a dangerous condition you think about what paul wrote the callousness of the world affecting the tenderness of the hearts of people and and i'm speaking about this tonight because several weeks ago when i prayed and thought about what i should write in the august newsletter it's back to school there's a lot of things going on i really felt strongly that i should write about and teach about being compassionate the irreverent attitude of ungodly people toward god is manifested in selfishness and a callous treatment toward other people in other words what we see in the treatment of people to other people is merely reflective of their attitude toward god for we know the two great command the two great commandments and jesus said that the entire law and prophets hang on these two commandments you can take the ten commandments divide them four and six and these two commandments sum up the entire ten commandments the entire bible you love god with all of your heart you love people as yourself that sums up the message of the bible so when you see this callousness toward people it is a reflection of the attitudes of people toward god in verse 5 of the same passage paul is writing to timothy and there's a whole context here he says in verse 5 that some of these people will act religious but they will reject the power that can make them godly and he tells timothy and i want to tell you stay away from people like that now we love to say and i'm teaching on compassion but there's a lot of things in the bible about people we should avoid and they're not the sinners they're typically hypocrites they're people who have gone into apostasy who did not receive a love of the truth and have fallen into delusion sometimes in our culture we can be saturated with needs and knowledge of needs you know an overload of the problems of our world just the news of any given day i try to make sure that i know what's going on in our city first and then in our country that's my daily habit to just kind of see what's happening because i love our city and i care about what happens in our city there's a there's a factor called compassion fatigue and another related idea called the bystander effect in the course of life and ministry we can experience so many needs that we actually experience what is called a fatigue of compassion i think about people that work in healthcare who see so many sick people every day counselors that counsel people every day funeral directors that work with people going through grief every day preachers people involved in ministry who deal with many needs every day it is important that we do not allow the fatigue of so many needs cause us to have a callous heart prior to the digital age these travel much more slowly and it typically did not reach as widely but you know today in a matter of seconds we can know that a public official died in a car wreck we can know that in a matter of seconds in 2022. there's another thing about this compassion or a lack of compassion that is called the bystander effect i talked about it several years ago but i went back and read about it again to refresh my understanding of it but the bystander effect is a paralyzing phenomenon that causes people to do nothing in a crisis such as an assault you hear about people being attacked you know sometimes in new york on the subway on the subway station and people standing around doing nothing about it psychologists say that there is a perceived diffusion of responsibility in other words the bystanders believe that someone else should intervene that is not their job it is not their problem i believe that this affects larger churches that people just have this feeling that someone else will pick up the paper serve in that ministry take care of the kids in the nursery or whatever type of ministry it may be there's plenty other people to take care of that so i can just stand by and watch that's typically not the wednesday night congregation but i'm talking to you about this bystander effect that we can be affected in our world by so many problems so many needs that we feel either helpless to do anything about it or we don't feel a sense of responsibility to intervene the bible makes compassion personal calling every believer to action the apostle john wrote about this in first john 3 that whoever sees has this world's goods and you see your brother in need and shut up your heart from him how does the love of god abide in him my little children john says let us not live in word or in tongue but in deed and in truth in other words john said that when you see a need and you have the resources to do something about it if you shut that down if you lock up and feel like you can't do anything about it or excuse me you're not going to do anything about it it shuts the love of god from flowing into you because love flows through us not just to us we are not the end user of the love of god we are to be a conduit through which the love of god flows so when we're overwhelmed by the magnitude of bad news by so many problems in our world it can affect our personal involvement in no needs in proximity to us and we can suffer from compassion fatigue or the bystander effect and do little or nothing at all but we need to pray that god would soften our hearts and give us compassion being compassionate as being like jesus christ the bible said in matthew 9 36 but when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd when jesus saw needs something was triggered inside of him to do something about it matthew 14 14 and jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them and he healed their sick i'll come back to this idea a little bit later but it was compassion that triggered the miraculous in the ministry of jesus there was a time when the disciples of jesus were really tired they had worked all day taking care of everybody it was toward evening so the disciples said to jesus you know let's send all these people away so they can go find something to eat in other words they're hungry but it's not our problem they're hungry it's late in the day but you know we're ready to punch the clock and go home we've just kind of done all the ministry that we can stand we're just saturated with taking care of business so let them figure out what to do but jesus fed the multitude because he was moved with compassion one time the disciples of jesus suggested that they call fire down from heaven and destroy people who are rejecting him just like the prophet did but jesus said you don't know what spirit you're of for the son of man has not come to destroy men's lives but to save men's lives in other time after the miracles and when they were on the ship jesus rebuked them because their heart was heartened he said have you your heart yet heartened has all of this caused you to not have faith that i can still provide your needs and i don't have time to go into the context of that story so i just want to remind you that callousness is not christ-like to be like jesus is to be compassionate in the epistles we're taught to be tenderhearted ephesians 4 32 and be kind one toward another tenderhearted forgiving one another even as god for christ's sake forgave you you know in our culture uh little boys growing up are often told you know men don't cry teach our kids to be callous and tough it's not just boys anymore and i think it's great to be tough and strong and brave but that doesn't mean that you can't be tender and compassionate at the same time in colossians 3 paul said that you're the elect of god you should put on tender mercies kindness humility meekness long suffering for bearing one another forgiving one another if any has a complaint against another even as christ forgave you so you also must do but of all of all these things paul said put on love which is the bond of perfection it's like it's like the belt that wraps everything together in the christian's life james said that pure religion and undefiled before god and the father is to visit orphans and widows in their affliction or trouble and to keep yourself unspotted from the world in my article i did not reference hebrews 4 but this morning as i was praying and thinking about this message and turning an article into a message and i've done quite a bit of study but hebrews 4 14 came to my mind pretty strongly this passage so we're going to walk through this passage briefly this is written about jesus christ the theme of the book of hebrews is better we have better blood better covenant better high priest better hope you know everything in the new testament is better than the old so that's what the writer of hebrews is aiming toward he said in verse 14 of chapter 4 seeing then that we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens jesus the son of god let us hold fast our profession for we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses but was in all points tempted as we are yet without sin let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need for every high priest now he's going to talk about human high priests for every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to god this priest is a go-between he's an intercessor of sorts he goes to god on behalf of people and we know that jesus christ is the son of god according to the flesh there is one god there is one mediator between god and men the man christ jesus that was his mediatorial role that he would stand between us and god as our father and he would bring us together he would make atonement a reconciliation so that was his role humanly the high priest served a similar role he would be a go between us or men and god and i want to draw a parallel and application of what we're reading here to our role to come and reach for a person and bring them to god and try to bring them together so here's what it says about them that men is appointed for men in things pertaining to god that he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sins he can have compassion on those who were ignorant and going astray now this word ignorant in the original language means ignorant without knowledge not you know you know anybody who's ignorant that's our job our job is to be compassionate toward people that don't have a clue i know you're nudging your neighbor right now don't do that he can have compassion on the ignorant not condescending not elitist not holier than thou this high priest is taken from among men and he's compassionate toward the ignorant and he's also compassionate on those who are going astray since he himself is subject to weakness this man also knows what it is like to feel weakness i'd see that you have the king james on the screen he is compassed with infirmity he knows how to be compassionate because he's been there too he's a human too because of this verse three i'll read it off the screen instead of my notes and by reason hereof he ought is for the people so also for himself to offer sins in other words he's required to offer sacrifices for sins for other people and himself and verse 4 says that no man takes this honor to himself but he was called of god just as aaron was so you don't put yourself into a position of ministry you have to be called of god but i want to make just a few applications i've kind of done it along the way here we're not the high priest jesus is the great high priest but this role was to stand between god and men as i've said there were qualifications but one of the qualifications was that he had to be a human being he had to be someone who experienced what other people felt that he was supposed to minister to he wasn't beyond human suffering he wasn't beyond the temptation to sin he wasn't beyond being ignorant or being led astray so he could be compassionate this is a humility that has to be in every christian where we don't look down our noses at people who are not doing well who are struggling with sin who are struggling with life and it's easy to be judgmental they may have abandoned themselves in that situation by their own poor decision making but compassion is merciful and looks past responsibility i believe in personal responsibility but it looks past that to love them anyway to be able to feel infirmities that's the context of this passion passage that we can come to the throne of grace we can come to jesus christ and find mercy and help in time of need because that's what jesus did for us and our role in the world has some similarities we're human and should never forget it we should always remember that we're not impervious to temptation i've already said it but we shouldn't feel holier than other people and when people come to us for help they should find what we found when we came to god mercy and grace to help in time of need compassion is often always a trigger of the miraculous i mentioned this earlier but when jesus was moved with compassion he healed their sick as god in flesh he was very compassionate and i have some psalms in my nose psalm 78 psalm 86 lamentation 3 22 that that his mercies are new every morning his compassions fail not god in flesh jesus christ had the nature of almighty god he was god there's so many old testament scriptures that speak of god's compassion but i want to share a story and if you read the newsletter and if you didn't you should you should it'll take you less than five minutes um you know my wife and i spent almost 10 years serving in ministry in jackson we went to bible college there my brother t.l craft is a deeply compassionate man when we moved to st louis uh to work in the youth division justin was born had heart issues brother craft jumped on the next flight came to be with us assured us everything would be okay pray with us and went back home i have watched him over and over be so compassionate but there's a story in the history of that church there's a young boy who was in my youth group his name was jimbo before i was youth pastor when he was a young kid he had a problem with warts he was covered with warts if you read about warps it's a virus they can be contagious they're bothersome and embarrassing but jimbo had lots of warts all over his body his parents brought jimbo to brother craft brother craft tells a story of how he prayed for him he said i knelt down by jimbo and i put my arms around him and i just imagine how it would feel to be a little boy covered in warts compassion and then he said i prayed for him it's widely known in that local church that god miraculously healed jimbo of his wars because very often compassion is a trigger of the miraculous that our love for people are feeling what they're feeling becomes a conduit for the miraculous power of god to flow through us to them i know that god responds to faith the prayer of faith shall save the sick but we want to be compassionate people and i pray that over the next few weeks that the lord would help us work on this facet of our walk with god that he would help us love people like he did for he was above it all came to join the fray and be one of us and how can we not become one with our brothers and sisters in the world i'm not talking about in christ try to do what we can i pray that we would ask god to cut away a callous heart and help us be more compassionate