COMPASSION An old Hasidic rabbi, Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev in the Ukraine, used to say that he discovered the meaning of love from a drunken peasant. Entering a tavern in the Polish countryside, he saw two peasants at a table, both gloriously in their cups. Each was protesting how much he loved the other, when Ivan said to Peter: "Peter, tell me what hurts me?" Bleary-eyed, Peter looked at Ivan: "How do I know what hurts you?" Ivan's answer was swift: "If you don't know what hurts me, how can you say you love me?" (Lion and Lamb, Brennan Manning, pg. 126--Many of the ideas in this sermon come from this book). Our culture has mangled, manipulated, and turned the word "love" upside down. We add to the confusion by using the same word describing the infinite sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary as we do to refer to the intimate union of husband and wife or the sins of promiscuity and pornography. Please turn to your Bibles to 1 John 4:7-12 "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. {8} He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. {9} In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. {10} In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. {11} Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. {12} No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us." There is one word which summarizes this passage of Scripture--and that word is love or COMPASSION. Matthew 9:36: "When He saw the crowds, He had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." James 5:11: "The Lord is full of compassion and mercy.: Psalm 103:8: "The Lord is compassionate and gracious." When David prayed for the Lord to forgive him of his great sin, he prayed, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion (tender mercies) blot out my transgression" (Ps. 51:1). The Greek word (splangchma), means intestines, bowels, entrails--the insides--from which you get "gut level" reactions and feelings. The related Hebrew word for compassion is (rachamin), which refers to the womb of YAHWEH. It is the deep, personal, powerful, emotional center. Today I want to take a closer look at this God who is compassionate. And how we should relate to his compassion. First, I want to do a quick comparison with some of the gods of mythology. We have Thor who threw lightning bolts when he got angry. Then Kali is worshipped in the East. Kali likes to rip the head off of things and drink their blood. Then there the evil spirits in Africa that keep their followers in fear of some kind of terrible retribution. We could go on. But what does it mean to have a compassionate God? To me it means that God is not just come kind of cosmic goodness, some ethereal figment of a kind imagination. My God is real, and He really cares about me. He moved with compassion for this world. He moved from heaven in the form of his son Jesus Christ down to this earth and became bodily human. Then he did not remain aloof and aristocratic, but rather became involved with us on an emotional level. At the tomb of Lazarus Jesus wept out of his empathy with those who had lost a friend. He never rejected a plea for healing, and even understood the heart cries of those who did not speak out. As he foresaw the destruction and devastation of Jerusalem, his heart was torn, his gut wrenched as he viewed the horror that would take place. And in Gethsemane, he experienced the sheer terror of eternal separation from God because of our sins. God sent his Son into the world to be human and to provide an atoning sacrifice for our sin to be Emmanuel -- "God with us." Jesus so really became human that He became hungry with the hungry, thirsty with the thirsty, despised with the despised, lonely with the lonely. He knows what it is to be "touched with the feelings of our infirmities." In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus told his disciples, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Mt. 26:38) He knows what hurts you. By the way, do we have any sinners here this morning? Have you accepted the concept that Christ died for you personally? Have you accepted His compassion? Unless you have experienced the compassion of Jesus yourself, you are unable to be compassionate to yourself. Our compassionate God, knowing our frailties accepts us as we are. It was "while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Have you ever asked yourself, "What does Jesus think of me now -- how does He feel about me?" It is shocking how Christians are so impatient or irritated with their mistakes and shortcomings and mediocre progress -- crushing themselves with guilt and discouragement, when perhaps this is not the opinion of Jesus at all. It is true that Jesus calls me to repent of my sin, to acknowledge my failure. But once that sin is confessed we need to forget it as He does, and get on with living in the power of His Spirit. How many of you have watched a child begin walking. We clap and cheer when they take those first shaky steps. We don't fuss at them when they fall. And any baby that refused to try again would never walk. You may stumble and fall, but like that child who is learning to walk, it doesn't do any good get overly disturbed about it. We just need get back up and go again. Remember it is the enemy who wants you to remember every mistake that you make. It is the enemy that wants to keep you from walking in the Lord. Well, someone always asks, what if you intentionally choose to sin? Is there any forgiveness available for me? Yes there is. The only sin that can not be forgiven is the sin that is not confessed and repented of. So repent well. But while you are repenting, consider what sin cost Jesus. Then seek forgiveness and believe in God's compassion and move on in faith. Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations: "I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore have hope: Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness" (Lamentations 3:19-23). Now having said all of that we read the text in Mt. 5:48--"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." That is a pretty heavy text. But once again as in our first text we need to look back and see exactly what the context for being perfect is. Matthew 5:43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 "that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 "And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect In the gospels, perfection is a relational term. How do you relate to other of God's creatures? Do you have love/compassion? Can you love the unlovable? EGW wrote that we are never more like Him "than when we are choked with compassion for others" (p. 133). Which brings us to the next step. Those who have truly understood and accepted God's forgiveness of themselves will be equally understanding and forgiving of others. I have noticed something. When I am most unhappy with myself, I am most critical and condemning of others. How do you feel when you're criticized? For the Christian, to be criticized is not nearly as painful as realizing that you may still have the desire to criticize in return. Those who criticize you are in need of compassion. Jesus was not severe or judgmental of those who were caught by human weakness or addicted to sins of the flesh. The Bible says, "He receiveth sinners." But Jesus was tough on those who were guilty of hypocrisy. We read this in Christ's Object Lessons, page 388: "He permits us to come in contact with suffering and calamity in order to call us out of our selfishness; He seeks to develop in us the attributes off His character--compassion, tenderness, and love." Remember..."By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye love one another." Our culture is caught in the desire to be better dressed, more educated, wealthier, or whatever than the next person. We climb social ladders and have power-plays so much we fail to realize that we're doing it. We forget that Somebody is keeping score even if we are self-deceived into thinking that He is not And He uses a different method of score-keeping than we so often do. "By this shall all men know"--"he who would be great... must become the servant of all." Compassion does away with ideas of superiority, competition, and prejudice. It eliminates the conceits and prideful vanities. It calls us to a shared humanity with those whom God loves and for which He has compassion, accepting them with all their emptiness, personality quirks, character defects... However the compassion that Christ would have us show is not just a murmur of assent. When the Gospels record Jesus being moved with compassion, they describe what He did about it: He fed the hungry, healed people, forgave sin, delivered the demonically oppressed. 1 John 3:17-18. Jesus said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." The compassion of Jesus working in you causes you to feel for, suffer with, and endure alongside of others of fallen humanity. Because, "There, but for the grace of God, go I." "Whatever our profession, it amounts to nothing unless Christ is revealed in works of righteousness" (COL 313). This is more than just to be of help. Compassion involves a desire to carry their burdens for them, even to suffer for them. Isn't this what God did for us? There have been times when I didn't want to help somebody because I thought they were undeserving, wouldn't appreciate the help, and may even misuse or abuse the gift. But I also realize, that I too am undeserving, don't appreciate enough, and even misuse and abuse God's gifts of love and mercy to me. In His parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus indicates clearly that two out of three people passing the injured Israelite were fellow Israelites but flunked the test because they didn't do anything. It was a betrayal of the compassion of Jesus to fail to do something when given the opportunity. We have all probably listened to long arguments about what perfection in the Christian means. We try to make it so hard. We let our theology get in the way of reality. The bottom line is this: In the context of the verses we read today, perfection is caring for others as God cares for them. As we read those verses, they doesn't discuss doctrine, as we so often see it. They are an encouragement to have compassion as Jesus had compassion. A prod to measure our Christianity in a different way than we are so inclined to do. We may make any profession that we wish, but if we don't love each other, and we can't have compassion, we are not growing Christians. "If we would humble ourselves before God, and be kind and courteous and tenderhearted and pitiful, there would be one hundred conversions to the truth where now there is only one. But, though professing to be converted, we carry around with us a bundle of self that we regard as altogether too precious to be given up. It is our privilege to lay this burden at the feet of Christ and in its place take the character and similitude of Christ. The Saviour is waiting for us to do this." {9T 189.4} Paul sums it up very tidily in: Colossians 3:12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, long-suffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.