The Compassion of the Christ — Mark 1

0:00 Well, it is truly good to be with y'all this morning. If there is a language barrier, you just see me afterwards and I'll try to repeat something that I said. Or if you think I said something heretical, see me afterwards. It might just have been something miscommunicated by the draw. I don't want to call out any of your young people publicly but we had a great meeting last night at the Hilton's place and Tim came over and talked to my wife quite a ways last night and just and I thought this seems like a nice young man.

0:40 And then I came to the Lord's supper this morning. And Tim gets up and he says, I was listening to mister Hollingsworth last night and I've been thinking about this and then he goes and proceeds to go through all these verses on compassion. Well, that leads me to three conclusions. Either Tim was not listening to me last night. When I told the youth group that I was going to be speaking on compassion this morning and so he he just genuinely wanted to steal my message accidentally.

1:13 Or he's still sore that the Bulldogs beat the Buckeyes and he wanted to publicly put me in a bad spot by stealing my message. Or you people really need to learn something about compassion. So, I'm not sure which one of it it is but we are going to be looking at compassion this morning and I I am thankful that that Tim was listening last night. He just missed the statement either on purpose or not that we would be preaching on compassion this morning. My name is David Hollingsworth.

1:52 I am a college professor from I live in the great state of Georgia. I work for University of Cumberlands in Kentucky. I have two wonderful children. One's at Emmaus Bible College, one's at Asbury University in in Kentucky. My wife, Tammy, is in the back.

2:09 She is a licensed counseling social worker and we've just begun a ministry out of the assembly there in Augusta called Augusta Counseling Ministry. It's licensed professional counseling for any number of things. The heart of it is the gospel to go forth to people that want to hear the gospel or don't know about hearing the gospel. They they need help and so they'll come. They'll learn about the lord Jesus through Tammy's work.

2:35 Second is for Christians that want to go see somebody because they're going through some real hurt and they and they need help but they don't want to go to folks that don't know the lord Jesus and so that's an opportunity for them and then we've been working with Seaman Mel and others to offer help to full time workers and elders that run into situations where they're not exactly sure how to approach what's going on and so that's what brought us north. We were Emmaus Bible College for the Christian Ministry Seminars over there and then Andy has been bugging me about getting up here. I don't know if you recognize on the map but it's a long way from Georgia to Northern Ohio and this was only five hours out of the way versus a twenty four hour turnaround. So, I'm here. It's great to be with you.

3:24 Thank you for not freezing me to absolute death while I was here and let's look at compassion this morning. I want you to see this first slide though because I know that some of you are afraid. I don't know what I have to do but I I I did raise my hand. The introduction. You're probably thinking that I'm trying to bring back the 1960s with this look.

3:49 I I I realized that causes a lot of trepidation that perhaps I am trying to unleash another wind of of of the friends of Jesus in a chartreuse microbus but that's not what's happening here. In the South, we have Memorial Day for the dead during the war between the states in April. I'm a historian. My my... I'm a PHD in history and I get asked to do a lot of speeches or presentations in April when we honor our dead, go to the cemeteries, clean up, that sort of thing.

4:25 The Memorial Day in the South is in in in April. So, if you look at the general on the right and then you look here, I'm just trying... This is the this is the sixties that I'm bringing back. The eighteen sixties, not the nineteen sixties. On the right, you'll see me and my son in my normal my normal attire.

4:46 So in case any of you were not going to listen to me because you were listening to a hippie, that's not really not really the case. This is this is, this is part of a a garb for what I'll do in April. Enough of that. Let's go on to what we want to talk about today. Compassion.

5:51 You're actually doing something about it and so when we look at this and we look at the New Testament, we see that every time that word is used in the gospels, from Matthew to John, it uses a particular Greek word but before I go any further, I want to go to the lord and ask him to help this morning as we open his word. Dearly father, we need help. We are in a world that is absolutely destroying itself, devoid of any hope, people around us are hurting. In mighty ways, Folks, in our buildings, in our meetings are hurting. Folks have lost loved ones.

6:45 Families have broken. Our teenagers and our college folks are are questioning all kinds of things. Lord, help us to see in your word this morning that your son loved us so much that he took action and he did this because you wanted him to take action. That you're a god of compassion. That your son is a god of compassion.

7:22 And help us to imitate. You in our lives so that others will see him and come to know you. We thank you so much for loving us. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.

7:37 Yeah, I'm not a Greek scholar. I'm I'm really not a history scholar. I just kept going until they kicked me out of the door. I'm I made it to the end, okay? They gave me the piece of paper but the Greek word that is used in the gospel is used 12 times and my wife laughed at me when I tried to say it yesterday.

7:56 So, I'll let you laugh with her at me as I try to say this but it's it's basically how it said. It's kind of a German sounding thing but is 12 times in the gospels and it's related to the noun and which are literally your inward parts, your bowels, okay? We don't talk that way today or at least we think we don't talk that way today, okay? We we say that we don't talk that way but you'll see that we do talk that way. We've just moved the wording around a little bit.

8:35 In the New Testament, it's translated figuratively 11 times. The second part, not the but the the noun root of it is 10 times in the New Testament, Luke, Paul, and John figuratively as tender, sympathy, affection, or inward feelings. It's used one time literally and you'll remember the story because all Sunday school kids love the story of Acts one when Judas went out and hanged himself and then he fell and he burst asunder. We all remember that part of the Sunday school lesson. That part is the literal interpretation of this word.

9:19 Other than that, in the New Testament, it's used as a metaphor or or a likeness for these feelings. In the New Testament, when you see the first word, the one that we're going to be looking at, spagnismo, my, as you said, I can't even say it more than once. It means a yearning of the bowels. In the New Testament context, this is the belief that emotions originated from the innermost being of the human being. Now, all of us know that our emotions don't come from our stomach or our intestines.

10:06 We we just know that's not the case. We know this but in that era, that was the idiom that was used to show that a person was deeply moved regarding a plight and then took action in order to meet the need of the person for whom they had this sympathy or this compassion but in some of the more modern translations, you'll see this word, heart went out to. Well, folks, we see that. We say that. All the time today, don't we?

10:49 My heart really hurts for you. I've got a broken heart. For those of you celebrating Valentine's, that's how I spent most of my Valentine's. Not so much with the candy and the the it was with the till I finally finally found my beautiful wife who unfortunately will be traveling on Valentine's Day so we'll probably stop at McDonald's. I'm just warning you so that I don't get, you know, it is what it is but we use this idiom today.

11:20 My heart goes out to you. My heart is broken. We're not so much different than the people that walked around with the lord Jesus using phrases that we say, your inward bowels. And yet, we ourselves use my heart went out to you. So, that is the word that we will be looking at in the gospels this morning.

11:48 These are the text. You don't have to memorize all of these. There are 12 of them. I'm not going to go to all of them. I don't have time to go to all of them.

11:56 If you need more of them, just see Tim and have him speak at the lord's supper next week and he'll take up the rest of them, alright? But we're see in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we see this word used over and over again to demonstrate the lord either having compassion, someone asking for compassion, or the lord using a story to illustrate some form of compassion. So, this is the word that is seen over and over again in the New Testament. Now, if you don't remember anything that I tell you today, I mean, and and I I've spoken enough in this world to know that I'll be lucky if you remember this by next Sunday, okay? But I do want you to practice something this week.

13:23 These are the three major categories that we're going to hang the message on this morning. And as you can see, we'll we'll have to move through it rapidly, but you can follow along. I love this picture. I found this yesterday. I raised cows.

13:40 They're killing me, alright? I just last night before youth group, I got a call from home. Your cows are out. I'm in Ohio. I'm not Superman.

13:50 I couldn't get back to get my cows. My cows often look at me with this same look but what is this? They're they're absolutely lost. They're they're staring at something like, what is that? Where do I go?

14:05 And what do we see in the in in in the New Testament? Turn to Matthew chapter nine verse 36. We'll read a few of these scriptures to let you see We'll pick up in verse 35 for context but we see these words and Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. So, the first thing that we want to see is that the lord Jesus had compassion on people's spiritual needs.

15:00 He saw in the multitudes that were around him. Thousands upon thousands of people coming to get physical needs met, other types of needs met just to hear him. But he saw through that to see that they were lost and had no hope. They were sheep without shepherds. Now, I stole this.

15:27 It's not really a direct quote. So, that's why the stars are. I like to attribute that I didn't come up with this phrasing. I kind of put this together but they were harassed by predators. They were guided by religious leaders who had no care for their actual spiritual needs.

15:44 Remember what he says? This blind leading the blind. Woe unto you, you hypocrites. Woe unto you. I mean, see what he says about the Pharisees over and over and over again and he looks out at this multitude.

15:59 What did the people say? He speaks as one who has authority. That was our savior. And so, he looks out at the people and he knows this crowd is lost and in spiritual danger. Lost and in spiritual danger.

16:23 And when he saw them, his heart went out to them. His inward yearned after them. When's the last time your heart or my heart yearned for the lost? Our savior who we are supposed to emulate looked at the masses who he knew every thought. He knew every weakness.

16:59 He knew every mental disturbance, physical ailment, marital woe. And He said, They are lost without a shepherd, and my heart yearns for them. When we look at our Savior, we think about compassion. The first thing we need to center our compassion in is a deep love, a deep inner yearning that they meet the Savior. We'll talk more about application later, but the Lord Jesus says this, uses His phrase when He's talking about their spiritual needs.

18:18 And he healed their sick. Now, we don't have time to go and read every passage here on all of the times that he was moved with compassion to heal their sick. But here's some illustrations. It was read this morning in the Lord's Supper in Matthew twenty thirty four. There were two blind men.

18:37 We we know later that the the most famous of them is Bartimaeus. Okay? And they cry out, Son of David, have mercy on us. Have mercy on me. And everybody said, no, shut up.

18:49 Hush. Be quiet. Don't bother. And what did they do? They cried the louder.

18:56 And what did the Lord Jesus do? He heard. He stopped. And He said, Bring them to Me. And then He touched their eyes.

19:11 He touched their eyes, immediately they received sight, and they followed Him. Lord Jesus cared about their physical needs. He cared about their physical hurts. If we look over in Mark nine twenty two, I love this story because I'm so much like this daddy. I really am.

19:35 He wants desperately for his son who has a dumb spirit, a mute spirit, but one that... This is a violent thing. Casts the boy back and forth into the fire. Takes him into the water, believe this one. Just absolutely treat...

19:51 This is a terrible thing that this child is going through. As a father, I've seen different things that my children have gone through, and you just want to fix it. Right? You just want to fix it. And in this case, this man just wants to...

20:05 He says, If you can, if you can, please have compassion. This doesn't say Jesus was moved with compassion. This is a man coming to the Lord Jesus. Have your heart go out to me, please. And the Lord says to him, if you can only believe...

20:32 The man says, Lord, help my unbelief. I believe, but help my unbelief. And what does the Lord Jesus do? He takes the son and he cast out This foul spirit leaves him and everyone is amazed. Lord Jesus saw the hurt, the physical, the emotional needs of this father, the son, and this father is asking for compassion.

21:03 And the Lord Jesus says, He doesn't say, I have compassion on you. What does He do? He heals him. He heals him. I love this one in Mark chapter one verse 41.

21:17 We read it this morning, but let's go turn there because you really need to see this if you weren't here this morning or skipped by you. But in verse 40 of Mark one, we read these words. And there came a leper to him beseeching him and kneeling down to him, and saying unto him, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will be thou clean. And as soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy departed from him, and he was cleansed.

22:12 I'm sure you've heard thousands of times at Waist Lake Bible Fellowship about leprosy and how dreaded a disease it was. I'm not going to go into all of that but you young people, if you haven't heard that, check what leprosy is on your little phone computer and you can do that at dinner time. It'll make you not spend as much money. Leprosy was a terrible, awful disease. An awful disease that you didn't ever reach out and touch someone.

22:44 Never. Because it could be communicated that way. What was the punishment or punishment? What was the treatment of leprosy? Nothing except for as we were told this morning, isolation.

22:55 You had to go out from amongst the people. You had to cover your face. You had to cry. Unclean. Unclean.

23:05 And yet this man comes to Jesus, falls down before him. Jesus is moved with compassion. When he asked him, if you will, you can make me clean. The lord Jesus says, I will and not only did he say, I will with his voice, with his mouth, our lord Jesus. Remember we read in John one this morning, the lord's supper where it says, he is full of grace and truth and that he, a few verses later, it says, he declares the father.

23:36 That is our god. And we forget that. Our god reaches out and touches us in our leprosy, in our filthiness, in our woes, and saves us. He cares about physical needs. He cares about spiritual needs.

24:00 He cares that you and I actually imitate, emulate His Son. So many times we're willing to help with a check. Please don't misunderstand me. A check is absolutely necessary for helping. Do not feel bad because all you could do was write a check.

24:20 But it's not the same thing. It's not the same thing as rolling up your sleeves and meeting the needs. You're not going to go to a leper colony in India, most of you. You're not going to go to Madagascar. You may not go to the mission field, but I guarantee you there are people in this very meeting right now that have physical and spiritual needs, emotional needs, that if you actually look, all they need is you to reach out and touch them.

24:52 I will show compassion. I will not just speak, I will live. I will act. I will touch. Our Savior in this illustration reaches out to the very vilest of diseases and touches this man.

25:14 What a savior we have. And it's our fault for forgetting that when we look in the mirror. The Lord Jesus heal the leper. It wasn't just the diseases. We go to Mark eight twenty, eight two, or or Matthew fifteen thirty two.

25:51 But we see in verse two, verse one for context. In those days, the multitudes being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called his disciples unto him and say it unto them, I have compassion on the multitude because they have now been with me three days and have nothing to eat. If I send them away fast into their own houses, they will faint by the way for diverse of them came from afar. Lord Jesus cared that the people that came to hear him were hungry and not just because they were hungry. Yeah.

26:27 Right? It was he knew they were far away from home. They were hungry. They didn't have sustenance to make it home without there being physical ramifications. We don't have that capability of understanding that but god does and he was moved with compassion And then he took the loaves and fish and did what?

26:51 He fed thousands and thousands of people. It's not simply that he cares about us when we're going through our diseases. He cared about these people when they had illnesses, that he that he that he healed children, that he reached out to fathers, that he touched lepers. He looked at folks that had just a mundane need of earthly physical sustenance and our savior yearned in his bowels. His heart reached out to meet the need of this group of people.

27:34 So, we've seen that our savior in his moving with compassion or having compassion sees the spiritual needs. They're lost without a shepherd. He reaches out to them. He's moved by this. He sees their physical needs whether it's diseases, broken immune systems like with leprosy or or the the the deaf mute spirit that was casting the the child into the fire.

28:11 But he also meets emotional needs and sees emotional needs. Now, you might say, well, the big need that he hit that was the dead man, right? Well, the dead man was gone. He was he was gone. He didn't have any emotional needs or physical needs at that time.

28:26 He was gone, alright? Now, I don't know if he was in glory. So, he wasn't in glory then he he he wanted to come back and I'm sure once he came back, he he met the savior that brought but who was he concerned with? He was concerned with the mother. If you turn over to Luke chapter seven, Luke chapter seven, we read these words.

28:51 Verse 11 for context and it came to pass the day after that he went into a city called Nain and many of his disciples went with him and much people. Now, when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out. The only son of his mother and she was a widow and much people of the city was with her. And when the lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said unto her, weep not. And he came and touched the beer and they that bear him stood still and he said, young man, I say unto thee, arise.

29:45 And he that was dead sat up and began to speak and he delivered him to his mother. You think our savior compared, you know, do you think our savior cares about our emotional needs? I mean, I grew up... My daddy's hero was John Wayne. Some of you older people will remember who that was.

30:11 Alright. Some of you young younger people probably have no idea what a man looks like. That was a joke. There's probably lots of you in here that are more manly than John Wayne. But when I was growing up, you know, the first VCR movies we saw were like True Grit and never he loved John Wayne.

30:34 The the the point with that is in that day men were responsible for their families. You you were to take care of your mama. There was no government safety net. There was no welfare or social security or any of those things. Nothing.

31:11 So, the lord Jesus sees woman whose only son. Now, how does he know his only son? Because he knows he's god. He knows it's her only son. That only son is dead on a beer, on his way to be laid in a sepulchre.

31:36 And it's obvious that the woman's weeping because what does the lord Jesus say to her? Weep not. And John Wayne might have hit his emotions and done those sorts of things but believers in Jesus Christ need to be willing to get down with people that are suffering emotionally and love them where they are. Now, that I'm not saying everybody has to be the same. If you were to ask me, how compassionate are you?

32:02 Doctor Hollingsford, mister Hollingsford, how compassion? I try to be compassionate but I'm I'm not the world's greatest at it. My my wife who's incredible at dealing with people, if if she was not as strong as she is, she couldn't be in social work for twenty five years. It's a hard field. So, people act differently and are motivated but it's simply this folks, believers in Jesus Christ, when they see their savior, when they see the one they're supposed to imitate, see a mother who is weeping because of the loss of her child and they cannot stop and suffer with that mother.

32:45 They have missed the opportunity to show to her Jesus. To my point here is, we can blow off the emotional needs of the world around us, and we will blow off opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to these people. And we will miss the opportunity to be helpful, loving brothers and sisters in the Church of Christ. And how do we do this? We do this because we get blinkered.

33:27 We've got enough emotional issues in our own lives and I don't want to step up. And again, there is discretion. There is not being a busybody. There is... There there...

33:38 All of those things... That's not what we're talking about today. What we're talking about is we have needs here. I have needs at Believer's Gospel Chapel. Every assembly, every church, every unsaved person in this city and county deals with something that is emotionally difficult for them.

33:58 The Lord Jesus saw a woman weeping. He walked over. He touched the beer. They stopped. He knew what would bring her joy, what would bring her back, what would help her.

34:10 And He healed the son. He healed the son and returned him to his mother. Alright. We're towards the end, so let's move on. I don't have time to go into these, but if you want to look this week, look at the stories in which the lord uses the word compassion.

35:10 The man goes out, sees somebody that owes him $50 or so, and throws him in prison because he demanded that he pay the debt. What happens? The ruler hears about it and throws him back in the jail. What is the moral of the story? How how how forgiven are you?

35:34 Look at the mirror. How forgiven are you? Am I going to get into heaven because I'm 85% forgiven? David Hollinsworth is 100 forgiven by the blood of Jesus Christ and my trust in him. Done.

35:53 So, what should I be willing to do? Where should my heart go? Where should my willingness be? What should my energy tell me to do? To forgive those that have wronged me.

36:06 Now, I can thunder that like a good Southern Baptist preacher and you will walk out and go, man, my ears are ring. You can, I can thunder that? It's hard to live that. But that's the story that the lord Jesus told using the word compassion. We're all very familiar with the good Samaritan, right?

36:23 Who had compassion on the man that was beaten down? Folks, it was a 17 mile walk from Jerusalem down to Jericho. It was a bad trip and this man was beaten up and left for dead. Remember the priest passed by? The Levi passed by?

36:42 But who didn't pass by? The Samaritan and he bound up his wounds. He poured oil in. He did all of these things and he said to the innkeeper, if I owe anymore, I'll pay it. He had compassion.

36:57 His heart went out to the physical. I guarantee you that man that was beaten up had emotional needs too, right? You're dying beside a road open to the air, the fright, and the pain, and the suffering. That Samaritan was moved with compassion. The third son is the prodigals, the third story is the prodigal son.

37:20 You remember what happened? The father is waiting for the son. Remember that that part of the verb, that part of the story? And when he saw his son afar off, he was moved with compassion and he ran to him. Now, why was he moved with compassion?

37:39 I'll tell you why. Doesn't doesn't specifically say it, but what is the first... The verses of of before that? Where had his son been? In the pigpen.

37:48 Absolutely destroyed by sin. All of the bad choices he had made had wrecked that man's life and the father saw him. Not in his new robes, not in his... He had none of that. And did his father say, Go get a bath first.

38:06 No. He ran and embraced him and showed compassion on him. Go study those stories this week and compare... Bring those into what we talked about this week. But I want to finish with the application for us.

38:21 Now, we can't heal the sick. I know some of you are studying to be doctors. Awesome. Great job. It's a wonderful way to serve the lord.

38:29 Thumbs up for you but you can't go in there and touch somebody and all of a sudden, they they be healed. It's not going to happen. We can't feed thousands of people miraculously. Yes, we can have coffee and donuts. Yes, we can be hospitable.

38:43 All those things are important. But you and me are not going to a loaf of bread and picking it out and all of a sudden feeding 5,000 people. Not happening. Alright? I can't even catch two fish, so I don't know how I would get them.

38:56 Anyway, we can't raise the dead. These are all illustration of how the Lord was moved with compassion. But look at what we can do. Look at the story of the good Samaritan. Look at the tie in there.

39:10 We can be good neighbors. We can minister to the emotional and physical needs of those around us in our assembly first, but also outside of our assembly. Showing to the world around us that our Jesus, our Lord is a compassionate God who has for them life eternal. And if we're not telling them the message or we're not showing them the message or we're not acting like Jesus, do they want to hear it? The answer to that is no, they don't.

39:41 It's hard enough when you do all of these things for a lost person to come to Jesus, much less not displaying compassion, not displaying love and mercy. We show Christ all the while when we do what Christ did in reaching out to the emotional and physical needs of those around us. But this last thing I wanna leave you with is we wanna be good imitators of God's depth of forgiveness for us and his heart of love for those ravaged by sin. Don't come to Westlake Bible Fellowship unless you have on a suit and tie. Don't come here unless you bathe properly.

40:28 Don't you dare. Is that what Jesus did? He reached and touched the leper. I could say that about believers gospel chapel in Augusta, Georgia. Don't you dare come in here.

40:43 Until you're cleaned up Is that what we're supposed to be doing? Now, again, I'm not saying that folks shouldn't clean up. Alright? There's supposed to be a change. But our lord Jesus reached down and touched the leper.

41:03 Our Lord Jesus said, you know how much you've been forgiven? All of it. All of it. So be willing to forgive. All of it.

41:41 Just like I can reach old guys that some of you might not be able to reach. The lord has us where we are. Show compassion, show him, and in doing so, a soul may be saved this week for eternity. Dear heavenly father, help us, we pray, to love like you did, to show compassion like you did, to be like that good Samaritan. Help us to be like that father and run.

42:10 Run to those that have been ravaged by sin so that their lives might be changed. Father, we have so much need of help from you, your son, your spirit in accomplishing this. Help us this week to take baby steps in that direction. Pray these things in Jesus name. Amen.