The Compassion of Jesus Christ

Brethren, let me ask you. When I say Jesus Christ, what comes to mind for you? Now, if you're like me, several things might come to mind that might include His sacrifice.

He came in the flesh and He paid for the sins of all mankind. He paid for my sin. He paid for yours. You might think of John 1.1, where it says, in the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God, existing eternally with the Father as God before anything else was created. He's the one who spoke the words, Let there be light, and it was so. Or you might think of Him during His earthly ministry, and remember Him as that strong leader who went out and rebuked the Pharisees, called them hypocrites and snakes, and he made a scourge and ran all the animals out of the temple, said, How dare you defile my Father's house? You might also think of Him in His second coming. He came in of kings and Lord of lords. He's going to return to the earth with armies of angels following Him, and a sword will proceed out of His mouth. He'll rule the nations with a rod of iron. Now, we tend to look at that rule of His quite a bit during the fall holy days. Of course, the Feast of Trumpets is coming surprisingly soon, and we're going to look at Jesus Christ as a ruler who's going to banquish all the armies of the earth.

But today, I want to focus a little bit on the gentler side, a part of Jesus Christ that I haven't always appreciated as much, and that's one of the reasons I wanted to speak on it, that He demonstrated this part of His nature, especially when He was in human form on earth. I want to talk about the compassion of Jesus Christ. Now, first of all, I'm going to note that when I say His compassion, His gentle side, we always should know that He still would mix that with strength. When Jesus was compassionate or gentle, it wasn't because He ever lacked the ability to be strong, but it was because He was feeling and caring.

If you will, let's turn to Matthew 12, verse 16 to start off. Matthew 12 will begin in verse 16. I will note that this is a quote directly from the book of Isaiah. The book of Isaiah talked about, Behold my servant. Well, I'm going to read where it says that.

This is a prophecy of the coming Christ, the Messiah that was to come. Then here in Matthew 12, it will be quoted to show that this was true about Him. Matthew 12, beginning in verse 18, says, Behold my servant, whom I have chosen, my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased. I'll put my spirit upon Him, and He'll declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break. A smoking flax He will not quench till He sends forth justice to victory, and in His name the Gentiles will trust. That's interesting. He said, My servant is coming. He's going to have my spirit, but you're not going to hear Him crying out.

He's sort of saying He's not going to be a rabble-rouser. He's not going to be marching on the street, carrying a sign, and raising His voice. A bruised reed He won't break.

That's sort of like a staff that you might lean on, and if it's got a damage, He's going to treat it gently enough that it won't break under His hands. Or if there's a smoldering fire, He's not going to be putting that out. He's not going to deal roughly.

At that particular time, at least especially in the beginning of Christ's ministry, He was keeping somewhat of a low profile. That's interesting because we know the opposite would happen later, but at first He was gentle, soft. But as I said, I want to contrast. Let's turn to the book of Zephaniah. We're going to look at Zephaniah 1 and verse 2. Zephaniah is one of those books we don't turn to very often. It's in the latter half of the minor prophets right after Habakkuk, which is another one we don't turn to very often. There's a startling contrast, and I wanted to make that contrast. Zephaniah, beginning in verse 1, the word of the eternal, which came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, the son of Amoriah, the son of Hezekiah, and the days of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah.

Now, Josiah, remember, was a reforming king who did good during his reign, but it would be temporary. There would be destruction coming because even when the king Josiah, and I'm mentioning this now because it will tie into the Bible study later, he was trying to lead the people back to good, but the people were dragging their feet wanting to worship idols.

There is the punishment that's coming later on. Verse 2, it says, I will utterly consume everything from the face of the land, says the eternal. I'll consume man and beast, I'll consume the birds of the heaven, the fish of the sea, and the stumbling blocks along with the wicked. I'll cut off men from the face of the land, says the eternal.

I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and I will cut off every trace of Baal from this place. Baal being a false god. The names of the idolatrous priests with the pagan priests. Those who worship the host of heaven with the housetops. Those who worship and swear oaths by the eternal, but who also swear by nulcom, another false god. Those who have turned back from following the eternal and have not sought the eternal nor inquired him. Be silent in the presence of the eternal god, for the day of the eternal is at hand. The eternal is prepared as sacrifice. He is invited as guests. And it shall be that in the day of the eternal sacrifice, I will punish the princes of the king's children, and all such as are clothed with foreign apparel. Now, think of that stark contrast earlier as talking about my servant who won't raise his voice, who won't quench a smoldering flax. And here is the god who says, I'm going to consume everything. I'm going to wipe him out. And that's because when there's time for punishment, God can punish very strongly. But he also shows that it's not always that time that God, Jesus Christ as God, has a tender side. Let's turn to the book of Luke. Luke 4, beginning in verse 16. And I'll let you know I'm going to turn back and forth a little bit here at the beginning, and then we'll settle down and not be flipping around quite so often.

So you can exercise your fingers now and rest them a little bit later. Luke 4, beginning in verse 16. Now, this is early in Christ's ministry, and he came into synagogue. Matter of fact, let me begin in verse 15. He was taught in the synagogues and glorified by all. So he came to Nazareth, where he'd been brought up. And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day. And he stood up to read. And that was the way they did that. They didn't necessarily have a pastor who did all the talking. Different men in the congregation might have opportunity to read from Scripture. So he's handed the book or the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And when he'd opened it, he found the place where it was written this, The Spirit of the Eternal is upon me, because He has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who were oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And then He closed the book.

And He gave it back to the attendant, and He sat down, and everybody was looking at Him. And you might not realize at this point they're looking at Him because He stopped partway through the passage. And so everybody's looking and saying, Why'd you stop there?

And He said, Today the Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Let's go to Isaiah 61 and look at the part that He left out. I think it's significant, and it shows, as I said, that tenderness and gentleness of Jesus Christ, or at least the part that He definitely wanted to show here during His earthly ministry. Isaiah 61 will begin in the first verse, and we'll see that it's early on. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Eternal has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Eternal. Now that's where Jesus stopped, because the next line says, And the day of vengeance of our God. Now Jesus is the one who would bring vengeance, and we just read in Zephaniah when the time comes, boom! It can happen. But Jesus made it a point of saying, that's not the time that's here today, as He was there. He wasn't there to talk about vengeance of God. That would come for another time, but here He was focused on, as it says next, to console those who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes. Beauty for ashes. The ashes, you know what, ashes are just the other destruction.

You don't think of them as beautiful, but He wanted to replace that with beauty, with the oil of joy for mourning. While we're in the back here, let's turn to Jeremiah 4.

I'm looking towards the back. Jeremiah 4, verse 27. It's something I always appreciate about just God's way, that He's always merciful. Even when the time for punishment comes, He's looking beyond the punishment to what's going to happen afterwards, to the redemption, to bringing back. This is the prophecy of when Judah was going to be punished because they were following after false gods. This is after Josiah's time, when things were going better.

And there's a very simple phrase here, or sentence, for thus says the Eternal, the whole land shall be desolate. The whole land will be desolate. Like in Zephaniah, I'm going to consume everything. And He says, yet I will not make a full end. It's going to be desolate, but I won't make a full end. He says, I'm going to redeem some, and I'm going to rebuild afterwards. That's the destruction, almost every prophecy of punishment and destruction that you read in the Old Testament. There will be a place where it says, but I'm going to bring some back. I'm going to save some. I'm going to redeem them. And of course, we know that there's going to be a resurrection, that all who have ever lived are going to have that chance to turn and know God in a way, know His understanding, His patience, and His forgiveness. That's the important part of God's personality, the way He does things that we should remember. And I say that, that I should remember. One of the reasons I like to point this out is it's not always in my nature to be that kind and gentle person.

And so, I like to read these parts of Jesus Christ's ministry to build it in myself. So thus far, I've looked at these words. Let's look at some examples. There's an old adage in journalism where they say, show, don't tell. I can tell you something, but if I show you the picture of it, it's much better. So let's look at some of how Christ shows His compassion and His mercy. And a lot of these come out in stories of His healing. Let's turn to the book of Mark 1. Mark 1 will begin in verse 39.

Okay, once again, we're early in Jesus' ministry. And it says, And he was preaching in the synagogues throughout all Galilee, casting out demons. And now a leper came to him, and imploring him, kneeling down to him, and saying, If you are willing, you can make me clean. So this leper comes up. We need to consider what Christ was facing. We read about lepers in the Bible. We don't meet lepers in our common experience today, do we? Now we have much more understanding. We know that leprosy is caused by a bacteria. It is a contagious disease, but there's treatment for it, and it can be dealt with, and that's why we don't see it very often. It was very different in that day and age. Leprosy was this terrifying disease because people knew that it was contagious, but they didn't understand exactly how. So they ostracized lepers. They were kept separate. They had to wear special clothes, often living in special colonies or what we would consider now a ghetto in a city. And they were often hideous to look at. It would destroy their physical body slowly so that their eye cavities could be sunken in, their cheeks might be decayed in. They often had sores and ugly tumors looking, and of course their fingers and toes could rot away and sometimes fall off. And I haven't read an account of it, but I think if that's happening, there's probably not a pleasant smell about them. So this leopard did something he wasn't supposed to do. He comes into the crowd and comes right before Jesus, and he's basically asking for healing.

Now Jesus knew he was supposed to keep his distance. He could have shunned him. He could have said, get away from me. I'm not dealing with you. And nobody would have thought the less of Jesus, because everybody did that. But he did something different. The man said, if you are willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus was moved with compassion. I like that phrase. He was moved with compassion. He didn't just make a calculated decision.

Here's the pros, here's the cons. I'm going to make a decision of what's best. But he had this in-the-gut feeling, this emotion that he felt for this guy. He wanted to help him. And so he did. And it says he reached out and he touched him. That's something nobody touched, a leper, because you might get the disease. You didn't want leprosy yourself.

Rather, you wanted to keep as far as possible. But Jesus Christ had this feeling. He saw this man suffering. What kind of suffering? Besides the fact that he's physically wasting away his body's decaying, people are shunning him because he's probably ugly to look at.

Who knows when the disease came on him? He might have had a wife at one time, but because he has to separate from people that don't have leprosy, he'd be separated from his wife. Wouldn't be able to spend time with his children. So Christ must have sensed all that in him. And he was moved with compassion. He touched him. And of course he was healed.

He said, I am willing. You be clean. Be cleansed. And of course as soon as he spoke, the leprosy left him. Now Christ, of course, he wasn't doing this for show. He could have said, look, everybody how great I am. But instead, he quietly told him, see that you don't talk to anybody about this. Don't make a big deal out of this. Remember, the scripture we read earlier where it said his voice wouldn't be heard in the streets. He wouldn't be a rabble rouser. He wasn't trying to get publicity. But he said, just go show yourself to the priest. Offer the appropriate sacrifice. Now that's something to me that moved with compassion.

Let's turn to another scripture. We're going to go to the book of Luke. Luke 8, beginning in verse 40. I'll say, all the occasions we're going to look at today are not well. They're all well known because the Gospel accounts are only just so long. I'm guessing all of you have read them many times. But I want to look at them perhaps a little bit differently this time. Luke 8, in verse 40. Now the story begins focusing on something different than what I want to look at. Once again, Christ is going about His work and His ministry.

It says, Jesus returned and a multitude welcomed Him. They were all waiting for Him.

Behold, there came a man named Jairus. He was a ruler of the synagogue. He was a leader there in the congregation. He fell down at Jesus' feet and begged Him to come to His house. For He had an only daughter about twelve years of age, and she was dying. So Jesus agrees to go. And as He went, the multitude thronged Him. You think of it, you see this on television when someone's trying to move and everybody wants to get to Him. It's like these rock stars or somebody who's so popular. Everybody wants to get to Him and it probably slowed down his progress quite a bit.

And one person in that multitude was single out here. She was a woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years. She'd spent all her livelihood on physicians and yet couldn't be healed. Now I'm not sure exactly what this disease is and I've never talked to a doctor.

I don't know a flow of blood. Did she have some kind of sore or was something to do with her menstrual cycle? Only it wasn't a cycle. It was just continuous. It was something that was very bad because she spent everything she had trying to be healed. And there's another account in the Gospel where it said, she thought to herself, if I can just touch the hem of His garment, I can be healed.

And it says, she came from behind and touched the border of His garment and immediately the flow of blood stopped. She was healed suddenly. And Jesus stopped. He's there with all the crowd. He touched me. And everybody denied it because He probably was so abrupt.

They thought, uh-oh, whoever did this is in trouble. Who touched me? Now, I think it's interesting because Jesus perceived something that happened. I'll mention here, Peter says, Master, the multitude throng impressed you. You're saying, who touched me? He says, somebody touched me, for I perceived power going out from me. So Jesus felt it happen. I wonder what that was like. I don't know, but He felt that something happened. Somebody was healed. Now, He could have just said, well, that's great.

That's what I'm here for. You know, somebody's healed. Good, good luck to Him. But He wanted that personal touch. He wanted to see who it was and talk to that person. So He was going to stop everything and find out who it was. Now, compare His reaction. I need to know who this is.

I want to talk to them, to Peter's. Peter said, and I wonder how it came across. Jesus Christ is going on this important mission, going to heal this man's daughter. And He stops and says, who touched me? I think Peter was a little bit annoyed. He said, I'm not sure. He said, Master, boss, what do you mean, who touched me?

There's a whole crowd around here. Everybody's touching you. How are we supposed to know who touched you? That's not the attitude that Jesus had, though. Peter had a long ways to go in growing. So Christ said, no, somebody touched me. I perceive something that I healed someone. Now, the woman saw that she was not hidden, so she came trembling and falling down. Maybe she heard the way Peter talked and the way he was annoyed. So she thinks, oh, I'm in for it now. But she knew she was going to be found out. So she declared to him in the presence of all the people the reason she touched him and how she was healed immediately.

Probably thinking, maybe he's going to take it back. Maybe the blood will start flowing again. I don't know. But he said, Daughter, be of good cheer. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace. He was kind and gentle. He just wanted to have that connection with her personally, not impersonally. If he cared about what happened, I wonder if Peter or the other disciples, did they learn their lesson right then?

Or would it take more years? And probably, to some degree, the Holy Spirit working in them, living in them, before they really changed. There's another case of a pretty stark contrast to the apostles. If you look ahead in Luke 9, verse 51, it said, The apostles needed to learn that gentle side of Jesus. Just the way all of us do to some degree, and I think I do more than many, more than most. Now, Jesus is getting ready to go to Jerusalem here. It says, It came to pass. Time had come for him to be received up. So he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. He sent the messengers before his face, and they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for him.

So basically, they're not in a car or taking a train, so it's going to be a journey that takes some days, and he wants people to arrange for him to be able to stop along the way. In one of the villages of the Samaritans, they wouldn't receive him. They said, We don't want him staying here. He's just going to Jerusalem. He's not one of us. And when his disciples, James and John, saw this.

James and John, remember, they're the ones that he nicknamed the Sons of Thunder because they were like this. They said, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them just like Elijah did? Come on, Jesus! Let us burn them up! Now, you might say, Where in the world did they get an idea like that? Well, it's in the Old Testament. And I did a little, and it said, Like Elijah did. Now, Elijah brought fire down from heaven actually more than once. We know when he confronted the priests of Baal and had this showdown between the true God and these false gods, he called fire down.

There is another occasion where he was sitting on a hilltop and an army commander came with 50 men. He was sent to get him. He said, You, come on down here! You man of God. And Elijah said, Well, if I'm a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and burn up you and your 50 men. And it happened. So God burned up 50 men just to prove a point. And to make sure they got the point, another commander came with 50 more men. Elijah called fire down and burned all them up, too. Of course, the next man, and I don't know, the King of Israel was a little hard-headed at that time because he sent another 50 men with another commander. That commander fell down on his knees and said, Please, be merciful. These other men got burned up, but please let us, our lives, be precious. And so God told Elijah, Well, you can go with him. Now, I got sidetracked there, but the show James and John didn't just make this up. But they were focusing on God's power. We can wield fire from heaven.

That's not what Jesus was about at that time. I lost where I'm going. And he turned and rebuked them. He said, You don't know what manner of spirit you're of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And they said, God can be powerful at times. You know, Elijah didn't make that fire come out of himself. It was God that sent it, the one who would become in the flesh Jesus Christ. But Jesus Christ also knew that there was a time to be gentle. And he said, I didn't come here to destroy men's lives. I came to save them. And he was basically telling James and John, I want you to learn that aspect of being God as well. You know, they had a lot to learn about compassion.

Now, let's flip back to chapter 7. Because one of the things that strikes me the most about Jesus showing compassion is when he did it without planning. When he would heal people that he had no intention of doing so before, he saw the suffering and felt the compassion. And that's the case here. We'll begin in verse 11. Luke 7, verse 11. I didn't realize I was doing 7-11, but they have those still around here? You never see them in Ohio anymore. You know, the store is 7-11. Anyways, that has nothing to do with the sermon. But here, we'll see, once again. Now, it happened the day after that he went into a city called Nain. Many of his disciples with him in a large crowd. So once again, he's walking down the street and there's a crowd around him. And they meet up with another crowd. They come near the gate and behold, a dead man was being carried out, the only son of his mother. And she was a widow, and a large crowd from the city was with her. So it's a funeral procession. And they've got this dead body. And when I think of this, I don't know if it was like this, but if you see in the Middle East now, when somebody gets killed, they have this big throng of people and they're carrying it. And usually, I think they're staging it for the cameras to protest America being there. But still, even without the cameras, there might be a lot of people following to show respect. Nowadays, of course, we get in our cars and we turn on our headlights and a lot of times we have the little flag on the fender. But a crowd will go to show respect to this person. But one person stood out that the dead fellow's mother was there. And she had, apparently, no one left. He was her only son and she was a widow. So she'd been widowed before. She has no husband. Her only son is gone. Imagine how she must have felt. She had this grief within her and she was probably, well, we know she was crying because when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her.

And he said to her, do not weep. He probably saw her crying and he had compassion. At this point, I was thinking, what does the word compassion mean? It's a combination. Passion is a strong feeling. And the prefix com, c-o-m, means with or together. So to have compassion is to feel that strong feeling that someone else has. And I didn't mean to make a joke, but it reminded me of President Clinton where he famously said, I feel your pain. I don't know if he was showing off or not, but Jesus Christ felt this woman's pain. He saw her crying and suffering and he stopped what he was doing. He was going off somewhere else.

It was just a coincidence that they intersected with this funeral procession. But he said, don't weep. He didn't want to see her crying. He wanted to be able to stop what was causing that. So he came and he touched the open coffin. And he said, young man, I say to you, arise.

And he was dead, sat up, and began to speak. And he probably sat up and said, what's going on here? What are you all doing? When you're dead, you don't know anything. So last thing he knew, he was wherever he was when his life left him. And suddenly now he's there with a crowd of people. And of course, fear fell upon all of them. And they said, a great prophet has risen up. But Jesus had compassion. He didn't want to let someone suffer in his presence. Now, I wonder about the young man. Maybe he'd done something where he deserved to die. Maybe he hadn't taken good care of his health. Maybe he'd offended some. I don't know. And it doesn't say that Jesus said, oh, he didn't deserve to die. But Jesus healed that man to stop this woman's suffering. Jesus must have hated to see people suffer.

Just probably tore him up inside. Which makes me think he probably still hates to see it when we suffer. It's not that he can't see. Now, I wonder, because we ask him for healing at times, and sometimes it doesn't happen right away. Is he any less compassionate now?

I don't think so. I suspect that maybe it really hurts him to let us suffer when it's for our own good. And I'm seeing that a little bit now as the father of a young baby. Sometimes we put him to bed, and you'd think we ripped his arm off the way he's crying or something.

He doesn't want to go to bed yet. And I think, oh, I just want to go and pick him up and not let him cry. But I think, well, he needs to learn this lesson. He's not really hurting.

He just wants to get his own way. So a little lesson like that still is hard for me. How much harder for Jesus Christ and the father when they see us suffering and they have to say, no, I'm not going to heal you right now. I've got a reason that you don't understand, but he must feel that suffering. Let's look at another example of healing before we move on to something else in Matthew 20. Matthew 20, and we'll begin in verse 29.

Now, as they went out of Jericho, a great multitude followed him. And behold, two blind men sitting by the road, when they heard that Jesus was passing by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, Son of David! And the multitude warned them that they should be quiet. And these two started making a nuisance out of themselves, because they'd heard, It's Jesus that's coming by. So, no, have mercy, have mercy! And we got, they drew attention to themselves and as I said, made a nuisance because they knew that this was somebody that could do something for them. And I lost my place. The multitude warned them to be quiet.

So Jesus stood still, and I wondered if he's by the side of the road and they're over there and said, Hey, what do you want me to do for you? And they said, Lord, that our eyes may be open. And it says, Then he had compassion and he touched their eyes. I wonder if in a moment he saw them sitting there and realized, these guys are doing all they can do. They're just making a noise. They didn't come to me because they had no idea, they couldn't see.

You know, they're just, Jesus is somewhere, help, help! They're just making a noise and they hear a voice coming and someone over there saying, Well, what do you want? And he said, Lord, that our eyes might be open. And perhaps at that point he thought of what their lives must have been like and how difficult it was because then he had compassion. He had that feeling for them and he knew that he could do something. And so he healed them.

And immediately they received sight and they followed him. Followed him means they became his disciples, not just that they got up and followed him down the road, but their lives were going to be changed because of this. Now I wonder, you know, sometimes we say that one of the reasons Jesus did healings was to get attention. So people would pay attention to his ministry. But actually I think that's more true of after his crucifixion. We read accounts of several healings in the book of Acts where I think God worked great healings through the apostles so that people would pay attention because then God was ready to build a church and add thousands to their numbers at times. But Jesus Christ, he didn't have to do healings to get attention. He could have done one or two and that would bring all the attention he ever wanted. As a matter of fact, he would do that significantly later on when he healed Lazarus, actually resurrected him from the dead. That brought him so much attention and so much hatred from the Pharisees that they would plot to kill him. So I don't think he was doing it to get attention. It was because he felt compassion for suffering people. He wanted to make their lives better. Let's look at another way that Jesus did this.

We're in Matthew. Let's turn to chapter 14. I want to look at a couple of the cases where Jesus fed the multitudes. Now these are well known cases, but I want to put it in this light by which we're looking at Jesus' work. Matthew 14, beginning in verse 13. We're breaking in part of the story because we're transitioning here. When Jesus heard it, he departed thereby boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the multitudes heard of it, they followed him on foot from the city. So Jesus needed a break. I'm going off to a deserted place.

Anybody that works with people a lot, after a while they needed a little time to recharge, so to speak, get away from people, be by myself. Who would see Jesus did that at times? He'd go off into a mountain to pray, or he'd take the disciples aside to a quiet place. Here he goes to do this, but the multitudes heard of where he was, and they followed him. Jesus went out and saw a great multitude, and once again, he was moved with compassion. And he healed their sick. So even though he wanted to get away, he couldn't just ignore them.

Because we know Jesus, when a crowd wanted to kill him, he just passed through the crowd without being seen. He looked so average that he could do that. He didn't do it here. No, he felt the compassion for them. He wanted to end their suffering, so he stays there, and he starts working to heal them. When it was evening, the disciples came to him, saying, they were in a deserted place. Send the multitudes away that they can go to the villages and buy themselves food. And Jesus said, no, they don't have to go away. You give them something to eat. And Jesus was already feeling compassion about that. Now, I wonder, when he says, you give them something to eat, we know he really meant, I'm going to give them something to eat. He already knew what he was going to do. But here is an important lesson for the disciples who were helping him. And I thought about this in a way I'd never had before, still I started looking at this. Because we'll read later, there were 5,000 men besides women and children. So there were at least 5,000 men. Now, we don't know, maybe it was only a few women and children, or maybe equal numbers. But say there's anywhere from 6 to 10,000 people. That's a big crowd. You know, when a big crowd like that gets together for a whole day, it takes some organization. Has anybody here been to a feast site that had two or three thousand people or more? Mr. Collins has. I was thinking, my first feast I'll never forget because I was only 12 years old going to the Ozarks and I think it was about 5 or 6,000 people. This huge crowd. Wow, that takes some organization. 14,000.

Okay, so I was trying to remember how big they got. Now, you saw a lot of ushers there.

People with an aim badge because we've got to take care of getting people where they're at. If you volunteered for ushering at a big feast site, you know it's like you've got to pass out papers, you've got to work to people, help them find seats. Parking was a nightmare at the Ozarks and other places. So, I imagine it was like this for the disciples.

Here they're in this deserted area. They can't all see Jesus at once. So, they probably work okay, this crowd is here we've got to deal with. We're going to organize them someone.

Perhaps they were doing triage. That's where you divide people that need help because they're coming because they need healing. Okay, there might be some people that are going to die within the next few minutes or hours if they don't see Jesus soon. So, let's move them to the front. Other people have some lingering pain. They can wait a little while. Others are in the middle. Now, while there's waiting, we want to organize people. This is a chance because Jesus came to preach the gospel. He probably instructed them. Now, talk to people.

Teach them about God's way of life while they're waiting. And then maybe they led them in prayer and read from the scriptures that they had them. This is an all-day thing. We're going to look at another count where it goes on longer. So, it's a lot of work organizing these thousands and thousands of people. Trying to get this orderly movement. Okay, now is your time. You can move closer to Jesus and you people, you can come in. After an all-day of this, imagine, like I said, if you were ushering at a feast with 14,000 people, you're only there a few hours. Weren't you ready to be done? Imagine it goes on and on, and now it's starting to get dark. You're ready to say, Jesus, send these people out of here. We've had enough. And he says, no, we're going to give them something to eat.

I wonder if the disciples went, we're going to give them something to eat now? We've been doing this all day. But Jesus, you know, he was probably tired. Remember, he might have been God, but he was God in the flesh, having to deal with these people all day.

And you know how it can be draining to be on someone who's suffering and hurting. You know, every person who was giving someone himself, too. But we know what happened next.

We don't even have to read it necessarily. He had them divide by thousands, and he took five loaves of bread and two little fishes. He asked God's blessing, and then he fed them.

So he showed them. Now, am I taking license? We know that it was healing them because he felt compassion. Was the feeding, was he just showing off or something more? If we turn ahead to one chapter, Matthew 15, and beginning in verse 29, we'll see almost the same thing happens. Matthew 15, verse 29, Jesus departed from there. He skirted the Sea of Galilee, and he went up on the mountain and sat down, and then great multitudes came to him, having with them the lame, the blind, mute, maimed, and many others, and they laid them down at Jesus' feet, and he healed them. Imagine there, if you see someone who's blind or maimed, they lay him down at your feet, if you have the power to heal, how could you not? But he was there, and this wasn't just one day. So the multitude marveled, of course. They saw the mute speaking, the maimed, made whole, the lame were walking, the blind seeing, so they glorified the God of Israel. Jesus called his disciples together. They might have had a huddle. It's like send out the Word, bring in all the disciples. Leave the people where they are. And remember, I'm guessing they must have all had job assignments they'd been working on. And he says, I have compassion on the multitude. So Jesus here at his own words, I'm having compassion. It wasn't anybody imputing his motives, but he felt for these people. He says, because they've continued with me three days and have nothing to eat.

Now, these people really wanted to see Jesus. They'd come out three days, and they didn't bring provisions, at least apparently most of them. Maybe a few planned in advance. But when we looked at when they came out, he says, he departed, was skirting the Sea of Galilee, and great multitudes came to him. Probably just, hey, Jesus is in the area.

He's healing people. You just pick up and go as fast as you can. You don't know how long you'll be there, or if you're going to catch up with him. So they didn't, maybe if they had brought food, did they bring three days worth? I don't know, but you know what it's like at the end of atonement when you're, you've gone one day without eating. I know at least how I feel. I don't feel very good. So Jesus looks at them and says, I feel their pain once again. I'm not going to send them away fasting. You know, they might faint on the way.

And his disciples, it's funny that they asked this question, where are we going to enough bread to feed all these people? And he said, well, how many loaves do you have? Seven, and a few little fish.

So once again, command the multitudes to sit down, get them organized, and he asks God's blessing, passes are around. And of course, what's left over is far more than what they started with.

He had compassion. Now, he didn't have to work a miracle. He'd been doing that all day for people individually. But there, he took something on. And there's, once again, I want to make a contrast.

Jesus saw people and the needs they had. The disciples tended to see obstacles. They saw a huge task that had to be done. Jesus saw an opportunity to use God's power to serve people.

You know, there's an opportunity I can help. Whereas the disciples just saw a task.

And once again, I'll say, I know which way I tend to fall between these two views. My own tendency is to be task-oriented. I like to make lists and then check them off. I got that done. I got that done. I tend to see problems, and I need to be more like Jesus and see people and see opportunities.

Jesus wants me to see that and wants me to help people. And then I wonder, what about you? I hope you're more like him than I am in that particular respect, and you can help me to be more like him in that way. But we all need to see people and chances to serve and not just the jobs to do.

And we want to see how heartfelt Jesus was. I want to look at a couple more examples.

If you want to turn towards John chapter 11 is where I'm going.

Because it's well known, and you might not have remembered the actual number of the verse, but everyone knows the shortest verse in the Bible says what? Jesus wept. Now, I wonder, you know, it's in there. That's John 11 verse 35 where it says that. I wonder if this might have been arranged by the translators when they were putting this into English to make it that way. Or, you know, we know it was years later that they inserted the chapter breaks and the verse numbers. Maybe they thought, well, let's make something really cool. We'll make Jesus wept a separate verse, and it'll be the shortest verse of the Bible. So maybe it was a novelty or a gimmick, but I think it's important for us to know that Jesus did weep and to understand why. You know, they didn't make the part up that it says that. So let's review the story. John chapter 11. I mentioned this is the story of Lazarus. Now, a certain man was sick. Lazarus of Bethany, the town of Mary and her sister Martha. It's interesting. He's in the town of Bethany where Mary and Martha live. We only find out later it mentions that Lazarus was their brother. This was the Mary who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. Therefore the sister sent to him, that's Jesus, saying, Lord, behold, he who you love is sick. So Jesus had a special relationship with all three of them, and we've seen that throughout the Gospels. He really had a close friendship with Mary and Martha, and Mary and Martha had very different personalities.

Martha was the server who was busy. She was like me, task-oriented. Mary, perhaps, was the one who was more like Jesus and having that compassion for people. And then I wonder about Lazarus. We don't hear about Lazarus other than that he was dead, and then, of course, Jesus would raise him. But Jesus hears that he's sick, and he says something interesting. He must have commented this to his disciples because they wrote it down. He said, this sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it. Jesus said that, you know, if you didn't know what was going to happen, he said, what are you talking about? And the sickness isn't for him to die, it's for the glory of God. Well, Jesus knew that he was going to resurrect him, and that's why it says he heard that he was sick. He stayed two more days where he was. Now, Lazarus is some distance away, so if he's going to get there in time to heal him before he dies, he'd have to take off immediately.

But he doesn't. He waits. Now, I commented earlier how God must feel the hurting. Now, I don't know if Jesus, as a human being, was able to know exactly what was going on with Lazarus, but he knew that he was going to die, and he waited.

Now, later on, he said to the disciples in verse 7, let's go to Judea again. Now, the disciples said, they were trying to kill you there. I'm summarizing here. They're trying to kill you down there. You're going to go back again? Jesus said, well, there's only so much time where there's light to work, and I'm going to go down there. I've got to do the work. And they say, okay, he's going to die. Let's go with him, and we'll die also. Now, we think they're not talking about Lazarus being dead.

They're saying they're going to kill Jesus. We might as well go get killed with him.

In verse 11, Jesus said, he said, our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.

The disciples said, well, Lord, if he sleeps, he'll get well. But Jesus was speaking of death.

They thought he meant he was resting, taking some sleep. So Jesus told him plainly, Lazarus is dead.

I'm glad for your sakes that I wasn't there that you might believe. In other words, Jesus said, this is going to be a great learning lesson. So that's why it's good we weren't there.

And I wonder, maybe Jesus said, I'm glad for your sakes, because Jesus might not have been able to resist healing him in advance. I wonder, because it must have been hard to suffer and feel pain if you were around Jesus, because he just didn't want to see people suffering. That's why he kept himself away. He wouldn't have been able to stand there and just let Lazarus die. So they go to him.

And that's where Thomas said, well, let's go die with him. Let's skip ahead to verse 28.

Well, actually, I lost track of where I was here. Well, yeah, well, I'll just summarize. Once again, Jesus meets with Martha. She hears that he's approaching. Martha goes out and talks to him and said, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died. Jesus said, well, don't worry, he's going to live again. She doesn't realize that he's talking about he's going to live again soon.

She says, well, I know he'll come up again in the resurrection. Jesus explains, I'm the resurrection. I can bring your brother back to life. So he tells Martha, go get your sister Mary.

And there in verse 28, when he said these things, she went her way and secretly called Mary, her sister, saying, the teacher has come, he's calling for you. And as soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came to him. So Mary hears, oh, Jesus is here, he wants me to see him.

So she rises up and goes out. Now Jesus hadn't come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met him. Now, looking back at the house, it says, then the Jews who are with her, that's Mary in the house, comforting her. When they saw that Mary arose up quickly, she went out and followed her saying, they said, well, she's going to go to the tomb to weep there. So this tells us Mary is going through this grieving process. Her brother had just died. So Mary is crying. And there are Jews there that live in the village who probably also cared about him and the family in their end years. And when Mary came to Jesus, she saw him, she fell down at his feet. She's just torn up inside and says, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother would not have died. And then Jesus saw her weeping. And the Jews that came out with her, they're all weeping. And he groaned in his spirit, and he was troubled. Jesus groaned in his spirit. He was troubled. Why was he so troubled?

Was he troubled because Lazarus had died? No, he knew Lazarus had died, and he knew that he could save him, and he knew that he was going to resurrect him. What Jesus was so troubled about was that they were so hurt. He saw Mary crying and these other people crying, and it just, he was grieved in his spirit. And that's one place I can relate to. You know, I tend to think I'm sort of a hard shell in some ways. I don't know, maybe I'm not as much as I think, but I can stand tough things. I can look at movies where people are crying, and that doesn't bother me. You know, my wife Sue is the opposite. She sees something, and she'll get in tears right away. She's like her dad, actually. I'm looking forward to whenever I can get Sue's parents here so you can meet them.

They're wonderful people. And Sue's dad, although he's a big, strong man, he'll come to tears rather easily. And I'm not like that. But the one thing that'll bring me to tears is being around other people who are crying. And I'm not sure why it is that way, but if I'm with someone that's here crying, the tears will start to flow for me. I just can't stand it. It reminds me of when my step-grandfather died. And remember, my grandmother had remarried. They were together near 30 years, and were very close. And I was with him shortly before he died. You know, and I'll talk about this later, because there's some important lessons in the way he died in his life. But I wasn't that sad, because he'd been suffering with cancer, and he'd been in a lot of pain, and he was looking forward to the resurrection. And he was at the point where his life was set. We were all confident where he was going to be. But then I came, we came to the funeral home. I'd been strong. I helped grandma make arrangements. We came in, and she broke down in tears. And it wasn't my sadness for him, as much as when she started crying, it just tore me up inside. And I started just having the tears roll down and stream, and I got all messy. And I think Jesus was like that. He wasn't sad for Lazarus, but when he saw Mary weeping, and these people around here, then it says, you know, he said, Where have you laid him? They said, Come and see. And Jesus wept. He started crying, because he just hated the suffering that they were going through. It was just something he didn't want. He was torn up inside. I figure if he hadn't already planned to heal Lazarus, he probably would have then and there. And we know what happens next. Jesus says this brief prayer. In verse 41, it starts, he says, Father, I thank you that you've heard me. I know that you always hear me, but because of the people who are standing by, I said this, that they might believe that you sent me. Then he said these things. He cried out with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he did.

Now, there are a lot of lessons in the story of Lazarus's resurrection. Didn't think it was hard to say Lazarus is. A lot of lessons we could look at. Of course, there's God's ability to heal, that he can raise the dead to life. There's the jealousy and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. If we read ahead about how they wanted to kill Jesus so people wouldn't believe in him.

There's a lesson about the disciples needing to have faith. But I think it's important not to overlook the example of God feeling compassion. When we read that Jesus wept, there's something about him that we can learn from that. Now, I want to look at another time when he wept, sort of to expand this out. If you'll turn to Luke chapter 19. Luke 19 beginning in verse 28.

So, another case of Jesus shedding tears. This time not for an individual suffering, but for more of a group. And of course, here in Luke 19 verse 28 is when Jesus is coming to Jerusalem and preparing. These are going to be his last days on earth. He knows that he's going to be crucified. So he said these things. He went to Jerusalem, came to pass when he drew near Bespagi and Bethany at the mountain called Olivet that he sent two of his disciples saying, go into the village opposite you and when you enter you'll find a colt tied on which no one has ever sat. Loose it and bring it here. With amazing the specificity because this is a very important moment. If anyone asks why are you loosing it, you'll say because the Lord has need of it. So they went their way and they found it just as they'd said and they were loosing the colt and the owner said, what are you doing? Loosing my colt. And they said the Lord has need of him.

So they brought him to Jesus and they threw their own clothes on the colt. So they put something soft for him to sit on. As he starts heading towards Jerusalem riding this, many people took off their, it'd be like if I took off my jacket and laid it down on the ground so the colts, there's not the clip-clop on a hard road and there's not dust rising, but it's a soft ride and there's no dust. And other people went and got palm fronds and laid them on the road.

Which I don't think it says here, that's in another account. As he's drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives. And remember, if you're at Jerusalem, and I haven't been there, but I've been told of the accounts and looked at the naps. Jerusalem is up on a hill or a mountain, but the Mount of Olives is even a bit higher. So he's riding down to the valley, so he sees the city of Jerusalem as he starts to descend. And this is his triumphal procession.

And they start saying a loud voice. People began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for the mighty works they had seen, saying, blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. And the Pharisees said, teacher, rebuke your disciples. He said, if these were to keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.

And as he drew near, remember, he comes around to bend, perhaps seize the city.

And you've seen photos of Jerusalem. Of course, it would look a little different now, but it must have been striking as the light hits, and he sees the outline.

And he saw the city, and he wept over it. It brought him to tears, because he thought of what was coming. And he said, if you'd known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace. He said, boy, if you only knew what would make for peace, but you don't. And he said, the days are coming when your enemies will build an embankment around you and surround you and close you in on every side. Jesus felt this compassion. He could have been relishing, oh, everybody's praising me and all this, but instead he thinks of the suffering that's going to happen to these people. Maybe this punishment is deserved. And here's where I think similarly for the people of this nation. We can look ahead at the prophecies and say, yeah, you know, there's going to come destruction on this nation. The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are going to get their due, so to speak. But do we cheer at that? I think most of us don't.

It's enough almost to bring us to tears, because Jesus says, if you only knew the things that would bring peace, don't we read the newspaper sometime and think, if only you people would realize it's not that hard to have things that bring success, to have our government do things the right way, and people wouldn't have to suffer. And that's the way Jesus felt right then and there, even when the Pharisees were plotting to have him killed, he was moved to tears for the suffering that he knew was going to come on the general people. Now, that's not to say, and I wrote this in Red Ink, so I wouldn't overlook it. When we are moved to compassion over the suffering that's going to come on our people, we don't accept the evil that's in this world. We don't make excuses and say, oh, well, just because they sinned, God should overlook that. We never accept sin, but we want the people to repent and to do what's right and good.

Now, let's look at a passage of Scripture that I saw as a new light, or saw in a new light, as I was working on this in Matthew 9. I think this sheds some light on our role in the work, and I think a lot more of it is based on Jesus' and God's compassion than maybe I thought of before. Matthew 9, beginning in verse 35.

Now, there we are. Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Of course, that's an important thing. He's preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion. Once again, that in-the-gut feeling he had, he saw these people because they were weary and scattered like sheep, having no shepherd.

And since I looked up other translations for where it says scattered could have been translated harassed. He saw these people and they were weary. They didn't have good leadership. They're being harassed. And he felt compassion for them. He was looking at the people. He thought they need more than physical healing. They need guidance. They need teaching. They need protection from harassment.

They needed hope that life could be better. Isn't that the state of the world around us?

You see the people and they're stressed out. Of course, we're watching the news and people on the east coast are preparing for a disaster. And a lot of them don't know that there's a God in heaven who could stave off that disasters like this. Or we see the arguments in Washington and in state capitals. They're arguing about money. They're arguing about policies. And we don't have good leadership. And the few who might be good leaders are forced to compromise because they don't have the right, the power in their hands. Or there's so many corrupting influences trying to bring them down. Too often, the government takes advantage of people instead of serving them.

So our world is kind of like this. Jesus sees these people. I almost imagine it like a scene in a movie where you see these crowds of people and they're suffering. And in the movies, it's always slow motion and the sad music starts playing. I think, I don't know if Jesus heard sad music or saw it in slow motion, but he probably felt this way. He sees them scattered, harassed, needing a shepherd. And what do you see? He says to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful. There is work out there to be done, but the laborers are few.

Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers to his harvest.

Jesus could heal their physical ailments, but he was looking beyond and saying, let's send more people to help. Pray that God will send more laborers. Now, we refer to this often as far as our work. Let's pray that God will add to the church so we can increase the circulation of the Good News magazine so we can get on more television stations and share this message of hope. Well, Jesus did more than just say, pray to send laborers to the harvest.

Remember, the chapter breaks were added much after this was written. If you just keep reading in chapter 10, after that it says, He called to Him twelve disciples and He gave them power over unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all kinds of sickness. Jesus said, pray, but then He did something also. He sent them to work. Let's skip to verse 7 as He gives them instructions.

He says, As you go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Heal the sick. Cleanse the lepers. Raise the dead. Cast out demons.

Freely you have received. Freely give. If the world around us has a lot of the same needs as in Jesus' day, then we should try to be like the disciples. We only have just so much power to heal. I wish Jesus would give me the power to just heal anybody I lay hands on like He did then, but He doesn't put any limit on how much we can pray for people or the ministry, how much we can anoint with oil and call on God's promise for healing. And He says, Preach the gospel freely. As I said, Jesus was healing people. He said, These people need this message of hope, and our world needs that. So you've been given to it freely? Freely give. Raleigh was showing me earlier before services that he's putting out good news magazines with free marked on them. And of course, anybody can call or write to headquarters or send an email. Headquarters. We call it the home office now, but you know what I mean? You can get booklets and literature sent out free of charge.

You know, we provide a paid ministry to help counsel people without charge because we want to help.

There's a cost, but we're bearing it because we've been freely given.

Jesus saw the troubles of the world. He was moved with compassion. So should we be. Now, our compassion again doesn't mean that we excuse sin, but it does mean that we want to help people.

Jesus taught the disciples in his time on earth that they should strive to be like their master.

Jesus taught them to follow me. Paul later would say, Follow me as I follow Christ.

So we should strive to have the faith of Jesus Christ. We should struggle to put on the mind of Jesus Christ. You know, we want to attain the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But I think it's important also that when the time is right that we try to have the compassion of Christ as well, and that we feel it inside the way he did. So, as I said, that's something I'm working on, and I'll invite you all to work on it with me to feel and share that compassion that Jesus Christ has for all of us.