The Compassion of Jesus | Luke 7:11-17
Sermon Transcript
Good morning. Nothing warms my heart than seeing children flee the sermon. No, it's good that they have a place to go to. So we're happy about that. This whole year, we've been looking at the life of Jesus as our preaching series. For the whole year, we started out looking about all the circumstances surrounding his birth and his birth, and then we moved into his early ministry, when he called his first disciples. And then we took the summer to look at the sermon on the mount where Jesus gave much of his teaching about what it means to be a Christ follower. And now for a few weeks, this is the third week we have two more weeks, we'll be looking at some of the works of Jesus, some of his miracles, some of his signs, some that you might be familiar with, some like today, perhaps you didn't know were in there and that he used these works to authenticate who he was, his identity, that of being the son of God. So today, we're specifically looking at Jesus who brings a young man back to life. Well, my little kindergartner Now, John David, has been in kindergarten for seven days, and he went the first two days, Thursday and Friday, and came home that weekend. And he loves to be in school. He loves to be around people. So I said, How was school? He told me it was terrible. I said, Really, all day long, it was terrible. He said, Yeah, I can't talk whenever I want to talk, and I can't play with any toy I want to play with. And, you know, I just, they just said, I can't ever talk. I said, Well, they're teaching you, you how to talk. And so the next week was a little bit better, and he told me that he came home and told me that he he signed a contract with his body. And I thought, kindergarten, it's a little young for that, right? And but what I meant, what he meant was they're teaching him how to control his his body, right? How to control his thoughts and everything like this and and he was, I was giving him a bath, and he was staring up at the shower head, and he said, Dad, you know what I'm doing now. I said, what he says, I'm looking at my focal point, which was something they taught him. Look to control your body and look at a focal point. And then a few days later, he was staring at me, and he said, You're my focal point. I was like, I don't think you're supposed to people move. You know, is what I was told later. But anyway, he's learned how to do that. He's having to learn how to control his body and focus and things like that. I'm thinking, you know, there's a lot of adults that would need this type, actually of teaching. He's learning how to do something different as he transitions into kindergarten. When we become Christians, when we follow Christ, we also have to learn new behaviors. Self control is one of them, but other behaviors as well. Now we have the Holy Spirit helping us and changing our hearts and leading us into these things. We also have to learn and replace old behaviors with new behaviors, and one of these is actually the idea of developing compassion. You might think, Well, I have compassion, you know, you might, but developing it to look like the Jesus type of compassion. And you might think, you might say, well, you know, I'm not just, I'm just not a very compassionate person. And you know, it's, I'll do things for people, but I it's hard for me to empathize. Well, I'm telling you that Jesus wants you to learn, and he wants you to learn to have compassion for people. So today we're looking at a passage of scripture where Jesus displayed compassion Luke, chapter seven, starting in verse 11. The Bible says that soon afterward, he went to a town called Nain and his disciples, and a great crowd went with him. And as he drew near to the gate of the town, behold a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said to her, Do not weep. Then he came up and touched the beer, and the bearers stood still, and he said, Young man, I say to you, arise and the dead man sat up and began to speak and fear and Jesus gave him to his mother, and Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying a great prize. That has arisen among us, and God has visited his people, and this report about Him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country, Father in heaven, as you bring us in here today, Lord, I thankful that you brought us here. I'm thankful that we can learn about your works. Lord, we all come in here today with different worries, different fears, different struggles, different anxieties. The Lord, You are our focal point. You are what we are looking at today, and so show us, Lord how, by looking at you, you can show us how to be more compassionate, how we can model Christ like compassionate father. I pray that you give me the words that we need to hear today, that your word is preached correctly, that your Spirit fills this place, and we receive it in Jesus name, Amen. Now in the Bible, there's three records of Jesus bringing people back to life. We know that in one of the gospels that says that that there are many, many more works that Jesus had done, and all the books could hold them all. So we think that there could have been more, but we know at least three, and that's a pretty major miracle. Three people bring bought back to life, the daughter of a man named Jairus Lazarus, who you may have heard that story, and then the son of the widow of Nain, which is what we're looking at today. And in this passage, I want to show you three things about the compassion of Jesus that we can see here today. Three things about the compassion of Jesus. First, Jesus noticed people with his compassion, or through his compassion, or by His compassion. He noticed people with his compassion. Verse 11, says, soon afterward, he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples, in a great crowd went with him. Now this is the only time in the Bible that Nain is mentioned, which may be why there's not many towns named after nain. I never heard of one. I'm sure there are there. There was a town near Nazareth in Galilee. So it's logical that Jesus and his disciples would travel there as he continued teaching about the Kingdom of God. Verse 12 says, and as he drew near to the gate of the town, behold a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. Now, why were they taking the body out of the town gates? Well, she was a widow, as we know, and a dead body could not be around the people in this time and and so they're bringing it out. But Plus, he would have been her protector. So it was a very tragic situation, and Jesus referred to him as a young man. So that means he was later on. So he's probably between the ages of 18 and 29 in Jewish culture, if you were 30 and above, you're an old man. So much of us in here are old men, but 18 to 29 was considered a young man, and he was her protector since her husband had died, Jesus took time to notice this funeral procession, so to speak. Notice bringing the man out, notice the grieving widow. Notice the grieving mother. He slowed down to see how he could show compassion. How can you make time to notice others? How can you make time to to notice people? Maybe it's just that of listening to them, being attentive when someone is speaking with you, with without interrupting or or thinking about how you are going to respond. When author says that that most people do not listen with the intent to understand. They listen with the intent to reply. I think that is the case many times. I. We activate our listening. We listen with the the emphasis of the importance of truly understanding who's speaking to us, with empathizing with the speaker, with looking at them eye to eye, with cellphones. Now that's almost impossible to do. Was the last time you were talking to someone and they just broke their cell phone out, right? I've set it to where my wife's the only person who dings or buzzes my cell phone, and so if I get a buzz, I know it's her, so I'm never talking to you, and I pull it out, it's my wife, right? But I had took me a day to figure out how to do that. How can we slow down and listen to others? I heard that Saint John's Academy has taken their cell phones away from the children when they get there, and so now the children are forced all day to learn how to socialize the old fashioned way, which I think is probably a good thing, how to listen to people, how to react to people, how how to actually talk to people and notice people, right? You can notice people by listening to them. You can notice them by by being interested in what is happening to them and about them and and their interests and their life, asking them questions. That's how you know, if someone is interested in you, are they asking you about what's going on in your life? Jesus noticed people. He was present. Secondly, Jesus also helped people with his compassion. He helped people with his compassion, verse 13, and when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and he said, Do not weep. Now, I've been to a lot of funerals and receiving lines, and not once have I said or I heard someone tell someone who's grieving, don't cry. That would not be the thing you would say, Don't weep. Why are you crying? But Jesus says this to her, which would be a strange thing to say, but it says that he has, and I'll tell you why he said in a second. We'll see. But he had compassion on her, and compassion involves not only feeling sorry for someone, but but stopping and empathizing with them and and being there and supporting them. So he says to her something very, very interesting. He says, Don't weep. And I'm sure she probably thought That's the craziest thing someone could have said to me. Verse 14. Then he came and he touched the beer, which was this piece of wood the body was on, and the pallbearers stood still, because they're thinking, Why are you touching this? Why are you stopping us? And he said, Young man, I say to you, arise. So they're carrying him out on this beer, this frame, and he touches it, which is so he wouldn't touch the dead body, which would make him unclean. Although he didn't care so much about those laws, he he conceded to them, and he spoke to the man, and he told him to raise up. I remember my grandfather when he died. My grand My mother grew up in the funeral home that her grandfather ran and he was a jokester. And I remember seeing him in the casket and and he was always a jokester. My mom said to me in a light hearted moment, she said, I keep expecting Paul, Paul just to pop out of there and say, We're Joe. I'm joking, right? It's a joke. When this man popped up, it was not a joke. He popped up and started speaking, and the Bible says very clearly that he was dead. He wasn't just sick. He was dead, and the compassion of Jesus enabled him to help that widow. What did she need the most at that point in time in her life, she needed a protector. Her husband had died, her son had died in that culture, she would have been very vulnerable, so Jesus did what he could do to help her in that moment, and that was to raise her son back to life. That is how he helped her. Charles Spurgeon says that you have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you. You've not lived until you've done something for someone who can never repay you. In september 2019 some of us may forget September 2019 because most of us don't remember anything that happened before covid But hurricane Dorian a cat five hurricane hit the East Coast. We've had again, so many hurricanes, to me, they all seem to run together. And this storm tore through the Bahamas, killed over 50 people. There's a young little boy who was six years old named Jermaine Bell. He lived in Jacksonville, Florida, and he was traveling up the coast of South Carolina to be with his grandmother, and he was getting ready to go to Disney World to celebrate his seventh birthday at the magical, most magical place on Earth, right? And when he had learned that the storm was was going through and had killed people, was heading toward the coast of South Carolina, and he saw people being evacuated and leaving and all this kind of thing. He asked his parents if he could use that birthday money that he was going to use to go to Disney World to instead set up a hot dog stand and buy food and water for those who were forced to evacuate their homes. So he did it. Jermaine Bell, six years old, my other son's five, so he's got some growing up to do. Anyway, set up a hot dog stand along that highway evacuation route. Gave out hot dogs and chips and water through the evacuees. Well, that would have been just good enough, but Disney, course called, and they started paying, and they said, We're company, and we're going to give you money as well to put it to a savings account so you can continue to help people who need it. How can you do your best to act on these opportunities? Now, if Jermaine wasn't visiting his grandmother, he never would have had that opportunity, and he would have gone to Disney World and paid for it, and had been fun, but he found himself in a place where people could use some compassion, where, where has God put you, where you can use your gifts to give people compassion. And I'm not just talking about giving people money or food or clothing, or you can do that resources. That's something you can do. There's all things you can do. You can help people that way. You can guide people. You can support people, you can encourage people. I got two phone calls this week, two phone calls this week, that were just super encouraging. I didn't know I needed it, but apparently I did. God knew I needed it. They didn't have to do that. They didn't have to encourage me, but someone thought to do so. Encourage people. You can spend time with those individuals who, who are sick, and those individuals who who can't leave, who, who are isolated. Give them that emotional support. Give them that companionship. As I get older, I realize that I have a not lot of knowledge of things that that are useless, but a lot of knowledge of things that that I know, that maybe my children don't know. And part of parenting is teaching your children things that they don't know. And as you get older, you can teach all kind of people things that they don't know how to do to to help them. You know, I think about the blessing it is to be born in the family I was born in. None of us, and I've said this many times, none of us got to choose where we were born or the family we were born into. Some of us were born with advantages. Some of us weren't. Some of this, some people, they haven't figured out or been told or know how to help themselves, sometimes. So you can be that compassionate person as Jesus was. You can help them as Jesus helps people. And finally, number three, Jesus blessed people with his compassion. Jesus, blessed people. We noticed them, we helped them, but we bless them. You know, you can help someone without being a blessing. Did you know that there's a name for people who do that? And I don't know. I can't think of it right now, but I will. You can help someone without being a blessing. Maybe you've helped them, but you've not blessed them. But when we help them, we need to bless them. Look at verse 16, fear sees them all, and they glorified God, saying A great prophet has arisen among us, and God has visited his people when Jesus helped them, that fear sees them, fear that they saw a dead person, raised a dead person talk that would be scary enough, but also the fact that they knew that only the power of God could do so that God had visited them. So they felt blessed to know that God had visited their little town of Nain and given them this incredible work of God to see and to go tell and to go share people God has. Visited his people. When God moved, they felt cared for. They felt loved. They felt valued because Jesus noticed and he acted. One pastor says, Don't underestimate how much your kindness can do for others or your indifference can undo sometimes we're indifferent to something, and that can actually have a negative effect, but our kindness can help people. And look at verse 17 and the report about Him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country because of the work of Jesus. News spread about God through the region. You know, if we're doing things as First Baptist Church and as individuals and as collectives, we don't want people to say, man that Pastor Charlie, I'll take it. Man that Pastor Charlie is great. Alright, we don't want people to necessarily say that. We don't want to necessarily people say, Man, the First Baptist Church is great. We want people to say Our God is great because he's using these people, and they're following him, and they're making a difference, and they're and people are being saved and people being discipled and people being a help. How great is our God? That's what we want people to say, that they bless. They're blessed. So they tell people about how great God is. As we close today, I want to give you several ways that we can bless others through our compassion, several ways we can bless others through our compassion. First, we need to be able to empathize with people. We need to be able to put ourselves in their shoes. Put themselves in their shoes. My son is actually wearing my shoes today. He's empathizing with me today right now. So that's kind of funny. I looked down. I said, there's my shoes anyway. So he's he's empathizing it with me. Put ourselves in their shoes, right? This means that we, we try to understand their feelings and their emotions. Look at Romans 1215, rejoice with those who rejoice. Weep with those who weep. Here's what this means when some with that, somebody has something to celebrate. You celebrate with them. You know, I got a job promotion. Well, congratulations, but you probably won't be liking it in the next year. Have you heard something like that? Right? When your hours increase? My wife's pregnant, well, enjoy it. Now, when they're young, they grow up. That's not rejoicing with people who rejoice. I'm engaged. Well, congratulations. Now in 30 years, you might not talk. That's not rejoicing when they're rejoicing. That's not empathizing. You can empathize positively, and then you weep with those who weep. Jesus told her not to weep, but that was Jesus that was different, because he was about to raise her son. But when there's tragedy, you weep with them. You don't just say, I ought to be okay. Oh, walking off. Oh, grow up. Oh, toughen up. Back in my day, we didn't cry over that kind of thing. No, you weep with them. That's how you empathize with people. That's how you bless them with your compassion. Secondly, be kind. Ephesians 432 says, Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. For our heart to be tender means that we can't harden it. It's you can live life with a hardened heart, and you have no friends, and you never get hurt, because you keep everybody out. But if you're going to love people, you're going to have to open your heart up, and you have to be tenderhearted, and when your heart's tender, you're going to get hurt. You're going to get the arrow in the chest, you're going to get the knife in the back. But that's how you're kind to people. And you just pull that arrow right out and you take that knife right out, because that was what tender hearted people do. You're kind number three, encourage First Thessalonians, 511, therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. Can I touch on this already? Our goal as disciples is not to tear each other down. Our goal is to build each other up. Now, if someone's in sin, yes, we can lovingly rebuke them and say, Listen, there's a problem here. I want you to help you with. God's not going to help you with, bless you with this. Let me help you. But overall, we are called to build up, not knock down. This is a bit. Principle that we are called to encourage others. Encourage each other up just as you're doing. He's saying, Don't get stuck where you quit doing it. Keep doing it. Think about the last time you were encouraged. When was it I mentioned to you that's been several times this week already for me? Well, you've been encouraged recently. And finally, fourth, forgive Matthew. 18 says this. Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I have to forgive him? Seven times? Is it eight? How many times? And Jesus says not seven times, but 77 times or 70 times seven. Some people say so 490 times. No. That means every time you have a tender heart, you're going to get sinned against. So like I said, You take that arrow out, you take that knife out, and guess what? Just like Marvel Superheroes, you heal right back. You heal right back, because you're called to forgive, because that's Jesus working through you sometimes the best way you can show someone compassion is to forgive them. So forgive them, and you show them the love of Jesus, and you keep on living your life because you've forgiven them. Today, as we close, maybe the Lord is calling you to make compassion your focal point. As you look at Jesus today, maybe that's where God's calling you to be. How can you notice people this week. How can you help people this week? How can you bless people this week? As God has blessed you, if you're a believer, Your sins have been forgiven on the cross. Jesus Christ came into this world. He lived the life you could not live. He died, the death that we all deserve on the cross, through His death, through His burial, through His resurrection, he bought you eternal life, and he gave you the ability to be saved, to be born again, to be filled with that spirit, to have the abundant life and the eternal life that is the gospel, and that is what You are saved into. There's a reason when you're saying, God didn't just take you home. He puts you out to be a little Christ, a Christian, to other people, to bless them the way you have been blessed. Heavenly Father, as we close our time together today, we thank you so much for being a compassionate God and show and letting us see this compassion in the life of Jesus, He could have just walked right past that grieving widow who lost her son and her husband. He could walk right past her and just thought, well, I'll be praying for you and just walk right past him, but he had the power and the ability to help her in a way that she can never repay. And Lord, he did. He changed their lives. Father, show us where in our own lives, we have the ability to help people in ways that only we can. You've all gifted us in different ways to be that helper with people you place in our path, Father, there's one here today that's never placed their faith in you, that today will be the day of their salvation. Today will be the day that they receive that gift. Today will be the day Lord Jesus, that you would lead them to follow you, Father, as we leave here today, show us, as we look at you as our focal point, that we would zoom in, zoom in, and zone in on your compassion at work that we would have that type of heart we ask these things in Jesus. Name, Amen.
