Spiritual Health: Compassion

was my coach at that time. That tells you a little bit about Tony's age. He goes back a long way. But to the best of my knowledge, from the time I was 14, on that day when I broke my collarbone, a guy we were hitting head on, a guy hit me with his helmet right in my shoulder, broke my collarbone. I cried a little after my collarbone was broken.

But to the best of my knowledge, for about the next 20 years almost, I don't think I shed a tear. You know, guys, we don't cry, do we? About anything. You know, I took one of those little tests when I was in my 20s. We Baptists have these little spiritual gift inventories you can take.

It was a Baptist spiritual gift inventory, meaning it left off about half the gifts. but it was a it was a an inventory of seven gifts and i took that test and you know my gift that i was dead last in was the gift of mercy i almost didn't even get on the scale on the gift of mercy but to tell you the truth i was kind of proud of it you know you know i could hear these stories about people starving in Africa and all these people would start crying. And I'm saying, come on, what is this? I was tough. I didn't show that.

But then one day, God broke my heart and showed me that if we're going to be his people, we are going to be people of compassion. And if we're not, we're not hearing his message clearly. today. Let's pray as we begin. Lord, I pray that you will help us today to understand more clearly how you want us to live, how you want us to behave, what is important in your scheme of things, and I pray, Lord, when we see what's important in your scheme of things, that you will help us to understand it needs to be important in our scheme of things. Mold us, melt us, break us, shape us to be the way that you want us to be.

Do not let us be the same. Break us of our pride. Break us of our hard-heartedness. Break us of our self-centeredness and help us to feel compassion for others this day. For it's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen. We're in a series called Assessing Our Spiritual Health. Seven essential questions if we really want to know. We've had several questions so far,

but before I tell you those questions, let me tell you another story. Peter Kreeft. Peter Kreeft is a graduate of Calvin College. He's been a professor at Boston University for many years and now is a professor at King's College. He has a little cartoon that he keeps on his door.

It's a cartoon of two turtles. The two turtles are talking to one another, and one turtle says the other. I'd like to ask God why he allows poverty, famine, and injustice when he could do something about it. And the other turtle looks back and says, you know, I'm afraid God might ask me the same question. In other words, why do we allow poverty, famine, and injustice when we can do something about it?

If you have your Bibles, I want you to turn to one phrase at Colossians chapter 3, verse 12. Colossians chapter 3, verse 12. We look at this passage a couple of weeks ago, and I'm going to hone in on just one phrase in this passage. Colossians 3, 12.

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion. Assessing our spiritual health. The second question we asked ourselves was this, are we broken and mournful over our sin? The second question we asked in this series was, are we increasingly governed by God's word? The third question we asked in assessing our spiritual health is, are we quick to forgive?

A very important indicator of where we stand from a spiritual health standpoint. we are asking in assessing our spiritual health is this. Are we growing in our compassion for hurting people? Are we growing in our compassion for hurting people? I'll give you another one.

Clothe yourselves with compassion. The admonition is a very clear admonition. Clothe yourselves with compassion. Here's what it means. First, it is a command. It is not an option. It is in the imperative in the text.

It is not an option for us as Christians. We must clothe ourselves with this. And the picture is that this is something we're to wear every day. It's a quality that is to always be with us in our lives. Secondly, the command is a plural command to God's chosen people.

You know, from the beginning of time, before the beginning of time, God had a plan. And the plan was, brothers and sisters, that we would be God's people. Consecrated to Him, dedicated for His service, and as His chosen people we are to exemplify a certain character. And part of that character is that we as His people are to be people of compassion. So it's not enough that you individually are a person of compassion.

That's good. But what God is after is for this people, all of us, his body, to be a compassionate body. People should look at Greer First Baptist Church and say, wow, what a caring church. Those people really are compassionate. He has put together a new humanity called Christian for the purpose of carrying out his mission on earth.

and part of the quality we should exude as we carry out his mission is the quality of compassion. Thirdly, the command means that we are to see and understand the pain of others. You can't have compassion for somebody if you don't see their pain or understand their pain. So we as Christians need to open up our eyes. We need to understand what other people are dealing with, not only those who are close to us, but those who are outside the body of Christ even.

they facing what are they dealing with what are their lives like each day this command means that not only are we to see and understand the pain of others we are to deeply feel that pain when they hurt we're to hurt we are to feel their pain you've heard the term bleeding heart folks we as christians are to be bleeding hearts bleeding hearts we're to hurt when other people hurt and if you don't hurt when other people hurt you need to ask am i as spiritually healthy as god wants me to be the third thing is compassion is not only seeing and understanding it's not only feeling deeply the pain of others but true compassion is always active it is moving us to do something about the pain that others are definition for compassion. Compassion is a deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the desire to relieve it. Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the desire to relieve it. That deep awareness, the text literally, if you read this passage in the Greek text, it says, clothe yourselves with bowels of compassion. The bowels were where the intestines is that deep down inside of us, we are supposed to be compassionate people.

It's supposed to be an inward reality, but an inward reality that gets expressed by action when we feel the hurt of others. You know, this compassion is a great virtue, and it is a Christ-like virtue. When we are people of compassion, we are exemplifying our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who was a person of compassion. Look at some of these passages. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd.

These folks were spiritual drifters and Jesus knew they needed a shepherd and he had compassion on them. When Jesus landed and saw the large crowd he had compassion on them and healed their sick. And you see Jesus' compassion not only for the spiritual condition of people but for their physical condition. Matthew 15, 32, Jesus called his disciples to him and said, have compassion for these people. They've already been with me three days and have nothing to eat.

I don't want to send them away hungry. He was even concerned that people have enough food to eat. Matthew 20, 34, he had compassion on the blind, those who had physical maladies, and he healed their blindness. And then Mark 1, 41, another example of compassion where he healed lepers. So when we are people of compassion, we are exemplifying our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

There are five related biblical principles to this idea of compassion that are very important principles that I want you to jot down as you think about your own spiritual health. First principle is this, we are to love one another. And the word is the agape love. The opposite of agape love, the opposite of agape love is self-centeredness. I know you hear a lot of it.

You hear it's hate. You hear it's indifference. The opposite of agape love is self-centeredness because agape love is always first and foremost concerned about the other person, how they can be helped, what's best for the other person. We are often very self-centered people. Agape says, you're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself.

In other words, that self-centered love is supposed to be turned away and turned toward others.

Well, I'll pick up that thought right here. Love your neighbor is the second one. We're to love our neighbors. And you know anyone is our neighbor. It's love your neighbor as yourself.

The biblical command there is not telling us to love ourselves. In fact, that is to turn the teaching on its head. In the scriptures you will see that love of self is not a good thing. Last days, men will be lovers of self, the scriptures teach us. Yes, we are to have self-esteem.

We are made in the image of God. But this self-love is a problem. It causes us to be selfish and self-centered. And that self-centeredness is to be turned out to others. And we're to love our neighbors.

Thirdly, the principle of the good Samaritan. We all should be good Samaritans. When we see someone hurting, we should stop to see what we can do about it. That's part of being compassionate. The principle of the golden rule is another biblical principle related to this idea of compassion.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you were hurting in pain or in difficulty, would you not want someone to reach out and help you? And the fifth related principle is faith in action. Faith, the NIV says it this way, faith by itself if it is not accompanied by action is dead. and Jesus said to his disciples after washing their feet now that you know these things you'll be blessed if you do them uh first john 3 reminds us that if we have material possessions and see our brother in need and yet turn away and do nothing the love of God is not in us biblical love biblical compassion is always active got the principle we are to be people of compassion and And these related principles help us know how to live our lives in relation to other people.

Now here are my lessons for life, and I'm going to flesh out this idea of compassion.

The first thing I'm going to argue is we should, as Christians, be moved by the statistics. And I'm going to give you some statistics that are statistics that ought to move us as people of compassion. 1.1 billion people live on less than $1 a day in our world. a day is the World Bank's definition of absolute poverty. 1.1 million live on less than a dollar a day. If you raise it and ask how many people in the world live on less than $2 a day, the number is 2.7 billion people in the world live on less than $2 a day. There are about 6 billion people in the world now, roughly. Huge number in absolute poverty. 840 million people are chronically undernourished. And the World Bank, if you go read their statistics, they actually have statistics about how many calories on average people should get a day to avoid chronic undernourishment.

They say on average people should get at least 1,900 calories, and if you're falling below 1,600 calories per day, they consider you chronically undernourished. That's a lot of people in the world who aren't getting enough to eat. 500,000 women die each year in childbirth in developing countries. Half a million women dying in childbirth. A woman in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying while giving birth to a child. In the U.S., it's 1 in 2,800. That's a huge, huge difference. 42 million adults and 5 million children in the world live with HIV and age. Seventy percent of them are in sub-Saharan Africa. A real tragedy. About 30,000 children die daily from malnutrition and related causes and over 55,000 people die every day without ever hearing the name of Jesus Christ. It is estimated about 1.7 billion people in the world are not evangelized. So as people of compassion we should be concerned not only about the physical need but of course the spiritual needs as well and we have people every day dying who never even hear the Never even hear the name of Jesus.

Africa, Ethiopia. As you know, I have more familiarity with Ethiopia than a lot of other countries, so here are just some quick statistics. Ethiopia is in sub-Saharan Africa. Fifty percent of the people live in absolute poverty. Life expectancy at birth, 40.88 years.

It's almost double that in this country. The median age in Ethiopia is 17.4 years.

over 17.4 years of age as there are below 17.4 years. So the median is right in the middle of those numbers. So what does that tell you about Ethiopia? You don't live real long. You die young.

Infant mortality rate is 10%. In 2003, it's estimated there were 120,000 AIDS deaths.

You feeling some compassion? seeing a lot of blank stares here you know the numbers sometimes don't move us to compassion alright how about let's be moved by the stories let's be moved by the stories let me tell you a couple of stories first Mrs. Alarren Filipino woman was visited by the president

the president of World Vision and here's what he wrote

tears washed Mrs. Alarren's dark sunken eye sockets as she spoke. I feel so sad when my children cry at night because they have no food. I know my life will never change. What can I do to solve my problems? I'm so worried about the future of my children. I want them to go to school, but how can I afford it? I'm sick most of the time, but I can't go to the doctor because each visit costs two pesos, 28 cents, and the medicine is extra.

What can I do? She broke down into quiet sobbing. I admit without shame that I wept with her. The former president of World Vision went to visit Mrs. Maria Nascimento, a poor Brazilian woman, and he wrote these words, My emotions could scarcely take in what I saw and heard.

The three-year-old twins of Mrs. Nascimento were lying naked and unmoving on a small cot. in the last act of their personal drama. Mercifully, the curtain was coming down on their brief appearance in life. Malnutrition was the villain. The two-year-old played a silent role, his brain already vegetating from a severe form of malnutrition. Maria, the mother, cannot talk about her children's condition. She tries, but the words just will not come. Her mother's love is deep and tender and the daily deterioration of her children is more than she can bear.

Tears must be the vocabulary of the anguished soul. Sammy and Tesfai. Sammy on the left was a young boy living on the streets of Ethiopia. He was living with a woman who was not his biological mother and the church, the Gubai Xavier church, took him in and he lives with the church. Now Tesfai sitting to the right, your right, the far side.

Tesfai is an orphan. Both his parents died of AIDS in Ethiopia. He was left alone. The church again took him in to care for him. Gregory Floyd and his boy Johnny.

Gregory Floyd has written a book called Grief Unveiled. It was one afternoon his young son named Johnny, five years old, was playing in the yard. Car coming down the street, normal day. the car goes out of control, jumps over the curb, hits his five-year-old son, and kills him. Just like that, out of the blue.

And Gregory begins to talk about the pain he felt as a father losing a child. How about Beslan, Russia? Another story. Last year, Samaritan's Purse delivered shoeboxes to a school in Beslan, Russia. A number of children received the boxes.

A number of children received Christ as the gospel was presented. And then, as you may know from news reports, there was a terrorist attack on the Beslan Russian school. It's interesting, two pastors that helped deliver shoeboxes last Christmas were the Tatyev brothers. They had eight children, the Tatyev brothers had eight children between them that were in the Beslan Russian school the day the terrorists took it over. Y'all remember this story on the news?

330 people were killed in that terrorist attack. Most of them were children. The Tatia brothers, of their eight children who were among the hostages, only two of their children survived. The picture you see on the screen is a picture that was taken after the attack. Bullet holes in the wall.

The Samaritan's purse box carton still there from this past Christmas were delivered. It is said, according to Samaritan's Purse, the survivors who were there during the hostage taking over by the terrorists, a number of the children actually led the rest of the children in prayer during the time that they were being held as hostages. Some of the surviving children were so traumatized by the event they can't even remember their own names. Do you feel any compassion? Sometimes the stories are important for feeling compassion.

So I say to you Christians, as you hear statistics, as you hear stories, I say to you, let's do something. Let's do something. And one thing we need to do as Christians, particularly evangelical Christians, is we need to start talking a little differently. I want us to continue to talk about the need to evangelize the world. But I want us to also talk about the need to help the poor, the sick, and the disadvantaged.

They go glove in hand, hand in glove, as part of the gospel. Compassion for the spiritual condition of people, but also passion and compassion for their physical condition. There's a story I read about a man who visited one of Mother Teresa's centers in Calcutta. And he went in and he was getting ready to work with one of the nuns, but he didn't know what to do. There are people lying around on the floor.

You know, these are the dying poor of Calcutta that were treated by Mother Teresa and the nuns who worked with her. And this man goes in and he looks at one of the nuns and he says, Well, what do you want me to do? And the nun, as I imagine only a nun could do, looked back at this young man and said, look around and do something. She was so busy working with others. And she said, do something. There are people hurting, they're bleeding, they're bandaged, they need to be bandaged. Just get started. And I think sometimes Jesus wants to say to us as the church, do something. Don't just sit there. Have compassion on people and get started somewhere Maybe it's as simple as what was done for Gregory Floyd's, by his friend J.J., when his son Johnny was killed by that car in the front yard.

Here's what Gregory Floyd wrote his friend J.J. did for him. When Johnny died, J.J. called his secretary and said, cancel my appointments for the week. J.J. came with bagels in the morning.

He came to hug the children and my wife Maureen. He went to the bank and handed me some money saying, here you'll have expenses. He stood in the driveway and wept. Somehow he had room in his heart for the endless pain in mine. J.J. was there with me like a sentinel at his post.

I was experiencing the body of Christ. So I say to you folks, do something. Some of you are doing something. but maybe first thing we need to do as a church is we need to budget more for outreach and for aid to the poor and disadvantaged in our 2004 budget this church budgeted to give 5.2% of the total budget to help the poor and disadvantaged

5.2% over 80% of the budget is spent on ourselves I think it is a crying shame and one day we will be asked to account for that. Some of us need to just give more individually out of our own pockets to help. Maybe you could sponsor a needy child. There are a lot of programs to do that for a very modest amount. What you spend on hamburgers and Coke in one meal will sponsor a needy child somewhere in the world.

Maybe you could volunteer for Meals on Wheels here in our community. You could support organizations that are seeking to help others. Maybe you could just go next door and visit your sick neighbor. who just lost the child who died of cancer. I would say think globally and then think globally again, not just locally.

We need to think locally, but folks, our problems are molehills compared to the Mount Everest of problems the rest of the world is facing, particularly sub-Saharan Africa. And if Christians aren't moved to do something, nobody else is going to do it.

let's live more simply so that we can be more generous the Lassan Covenant which is a covenant that was drawn up in the early 1970s by people meeting to talk about how to evangelize the world the covenant says in part this those of us who live in affluent circumstances accept our duty to develop a simple lifestyle in order to contribute more generously to both relief and evangelism.

You know, this Christmas I've already decided I'm going to let folks know, and as you know, family members and folks sometimes buy for you. Anybody who's family here, you can hear this. I don't want anything for Christmas. I want you to give money to Joshua's way so we can help take care of some children. Do I need anything else?

Are you kidding me? More stuff?

I've already got an attic full and a garage full. What more? Would I just collect it and add more? Begin to think about those major purchases we make that we think we have to have. We can't live without.

We have convinced ourselves in this country that our needs are things that are really not needs.

And you know you can start to make yourself a little uncomfortable, but I think it's a good thing when you start to question some of the expenditures that are being made compared to the great needs in the rest of the world. I think as Christians we need to think about how can we live more simply so that we can then give more generously to help others. Our stuff will one day testify against us.

it's because you've chosen to be wealthy.

You hear me? If you're wealthy, if you have a whole lot of stuff, it's because you've chosen to be wealthy. Why is that true? Because you could give it away. Right?

You don't have to keep it. You don't have to have mega, mega, mega amounts. You can give it away. How much is too much? I don't know.

There's not a legalistic principle. But I think we need to start wrestling with that issue of living more simply so that we can then give more generously so we can be those people of compassion that God wants us to be follow the agape principle the agape principle says you always think about the needs of others first the needs of others first that begins at home that begins with our friends that begins within the church we need to have that principle as part of our lives let's learn from our spiritual ancestors the early church you know the model of the early church, Acts 4 34, there were no needy among them. There were no needy among them.

That is a powerful statement. In the body of Christ, there should be no one needy. It's not that we lack resources to take care of everybody, it's that we don't allocate resources to take care of everybody. We've got plenty of resources. If you look at the great leaders of the Christian faith, you will see how they were always concerned and compassionate people. William Wilberforce, when he saw the plight of the slaves in Great Britain and throughout the United Kingdom, he dedicated his life in the late 1700s, early 1800s to working to the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in Great Britain.

He first got the slave trade abolished working in Parliament, and then four days before his death, he learned that slavery itself was being abolished throughout the British Empire. Spurgeon, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, one of the great preachers of the 1800s, built a number of homes for widows, built an orphanage that took care of hundreds of children. He had that compassion in his heart. And John Wesley may be the greatest of all examples. Wesley's theology isn't always exactly on the mark, but his practice of the Christian faith may be about the best I've ever seen.

For four years in his life at one point he ate primarily potatoes, no meat, because he said what I save by not buying meat I can give to help care for someone. His theory was that as your standard of living increased, excuse me, as your income increased, your standard of living should not. Your standard of giving should. of income goes up your standard of giving should increase not your standard of living he went in a four-year period in his life and seven starting in 1731 when he didn't have enough money in his pocket to help a poor chambermaid he resolved at that moment he was going to live more simply so in 1731 he made 30 pounds he lived on 28 the next year he made 60 pounds he lived on 28 the He lived on 28. And then the following year he made 120 pounds and lived on 28.

Great model for how we should think as Christians.

Well, let's remember that one day we will give an account. You remember the two turtles? I wish I could ask God why he allows poverty, famine, and injustice in the world. The other turtle says, well, you know, I'm afraid that God might ask me the same thing. Our Lord said this.

teaching about the sheep and the goats. Jesus says, Then he will say to those on his left, the goats, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. And why are they being banished to hell? For I was hungry, and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink.

stranger and you did not invite me in i needed clothes and you did not clothe me i was sick and in prison and you did not look after me they will answer lord when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison and did not help you he will reply i tell you the truth whatever you did not do for one of the least of these you did not do for me then the go away to eternal punishment.

But the righteous, those who did help, will go to eternal life. Are we saved by our works? No. But if Jesus Christ is Lord of our lives, if he is Lord it will be proven by what we do and Jesus is going to use our actions as the proof that we were who we claim to be because if he is Lord we will do what he has commanded so the converse is true if we're not helping the poor, the hungry, the naked, those without clothing it is proof that he is not our Lord because he has made his commands very clear. We are to do those things.

Do you hear me? Do you hear me? A sign of our spiritual health is that we are more compassionate when we think about hurting people. Let's do it. Let's do it.

Let's pray.

lord help us to be more compassionate help us first to see the needs help us to open our eyes help us not to be blind to what's going on in our world what's going on around us but help us to be people who really truly hurt when others hurt may we feel their pain and take action in the name of Christ. May our good deeds go forth in the name of Christ. And it is our prayer, Lord, that as we go forth in your name, proclaiming your name, caring for the poor, caring for the sick, caring for the disadvantaged, that you will get the glory as people hear that we come because our Lord has sent us to help. For it is in Christ's name we pray. Amen.