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Well, hey friends, it's me again. Yeah. You're welcome. Used to that yet. Man, I'm excited to uh continue this conversation. Um Sundays are really important and they're so cool. It's one of our values here, which is people in process, and that's this being in this process of spiritual journey that you're kind of welcome and invited wherever you're at, but we're all going in this journey together, which is ultimately to our mission, which is to become a wholehearted follower of Jesus Christ. And Sundays is just one of those ways that we get to do it. And we've been going through what I think is a pivotal conversation, especially when it comes to the spiritual journey and process that we all go through, which is what do we believe in? Who are we as a church and a faith community? Who is God? What does that look like? Some fundamental pieces of that whole puzzle and deeper understanding beyond just what tradition maybe has told us, we don't really know why, but challenging us to ask difficult questions, especially in small groups and in circles, to the things that we really believe in and what we do believe in them and why we believe in them. And so we've been using this book. Um this is one of your first times with this. You get to grab one of these for free. That's how important it is to us on your way out. Um and again, at the end of the service, I'm even going to challenge you. Grab one for five bucks and hand it to somebody else and say, let's talk about some of this stuff. Let's really figure out what we believe in. And we've gotten to walk through some of these big topics. Last week we walked through the topic of humanity, real small, real simple. Um, so sometimes they're not that big. Um, but we covered this whole idea of humanity and what that looks like. Who is humanity to God, what's representative in that? Um, and we talked about too, John 3.16, for God so loved the world, the whole world, everyone, and what the world looks like, and that sometimes we can kind of get stuck, that it can kind of become our world, our little sphere, our little group of people, and that everyone isn't really part of the world, but God has a table that He invites us all to participate in and is and then challenging us to open up our table to let other people sit there and sit with us. And even to see just the dirty and the messiness that we have in common, how beautiful that is. And so today the topic uh is kind of gonna be um piggybacked right on top of it. But today's topic is compassion. What does God think about compassion? And compassion, I think, uh can be confusing for some of us. We relate it to different things. I think some of us relate compassion to empathy or sympathy, being compassionate for someone. Maybe um acts of goodness or kindness can be compassionate, or um something far away, distant, or good thoughts. You know, have you heard that? Kind of give us good thoughts or prayers for someone can be compassionate. And what I wanted to do this week as we kind of tackle this, is just dive in and look at what compassion is and what this means through God's lens and this view of what compassion is. And really, um compassion is at the heart of Christianity. It's at the heart of Christianity because this is what happened, this is how compassionate God was about humanity, about you and I, and that is that God became one of us and dwelt among us. That is compassion. That God, the God of the universe, became one of us, and then he dwelt with us. There's a writer named John, he writes the Gospels. He also writes a couple letters later on in the New Testament, and he was, John was a friend, one of the closest friends, the beloved of Jesus, God in human form, and he got to hang with him and wrestle what he believes with and watch him live this life out and figure out did this really happen? Um, what does this really mean to us? And even says in 1 John, this first book that he writes in the Gospels, and the word became flesh. This whole idea is that not just this idea, this written theology, this uh orality story of God happened, and that's how it continues to happen, but that word became flesh and it dwelt among us. That God had such compassion on us that he dwelt among us, that God took human form. Why? Why would God need to do that? Why would God need to show this compassion to us? And it's because Jesus himself needed to come and show us something. God needed something to show us something bigger. Jesus didn't claim to have the best explanation of God, just to talk about who God was. This is who God is and how he was. He didn't have just the best explanation of who God was. He specifically claimed to be, to be it, to live it. The best explanation. As an example, and that's the beautiful example we have of God in human form through Jesus. His compassion for us. He claimed to be that explanation, and then this is where we get to see what compassion is lived out. Many of you have heard common phrases or big words of this whole idea of God is love, right? God is love, and you know, you hear other people say that to you, God, who's God? He's love, and it equates to that, and have had conversations about it. Some of you have even heard something like God loves everybody, maybe you even saw a bumper sticker, and you saw, you know, God loves everybody in somebody's window or you know, on a tweet or uh social media, God loves everybody, and uh many of you are probably even familiar with this idea of everybody matters to God. You hear this idea too. So we get these three concepts that God is love, God loves everybody, and everybody matters to God. Well, I want to tell you that this idea, this frame of thought, this ethos, is uniquely Christian. And it was uniquely given to us and brought to us through Jesus. Jesus introduced this whole idea that God is a loving God, that he loves everybody, and everybody matters. That means everybody. It's me and you, everybody. Matters to God. Jesus brought this unique idea. God himself, because he had compassion, said, hey, I'm gonna like flip the thing upside down. I'm gonna change the way people are thinking. This is a new idea, not just a spoken idea of who God is. And this was so antithetical to that time and that period and that day uh and how they frame things, they frame things through polytheism, which said there were many different gods, these mythical gods from Mount Olympus, and that it was a god of all these different things, and specifically that the gods didn't care for people. The gods didn't care for people, and in likewise they didn't require people to care. So the gods didn't care about other people, didn't require you to care, and what they cared about, they cared about themselves, and therefore people then were very self-serving. It was, you were marked by how many servants you had, how well you served yourself or gained power and wealth and statue. That was how you were defined, that's who you were, that's how people understood, and that was the culture that lived there, and God came into this world through Jesus because he's compassionate, and said, No, no, no, time out. God is a loving God, he loves everybody, and everybody matters. And that's antithetical because the gods then said, everybody doesn't matter, you matter. We don't care about everyone. He uh, when he came into this world, he also even through some of the religious systems that had started grabbing pieces of that, this idea of karma or the caste system, this idea of karma when he came in, of you get what you deserve, like um you would have somebody who was unclean or sick or disabled, and it was because obviously you had sinned, God didn't have favor on you, and you had done something to break relationship with him, and so this is what your punishment was. Um, and this is how uh you were treated if you made a decision, or even you would see this as an individual would then be marked by their parents. Your parents must have sinned. That was why you were born this way or with this disability. And so he flipped that upside and said, even in the religious religious culture, there was even a caste system in the way, excuse me, in the way that people were treated and cared for or not cared for, that men especially were elevated, and it was about cleanliness and wealth and power, even amongst the religious, the people who followed God, and Jesus is saying with God, no, no, no, you have this wrong. He took this whole caste system idea specifically with women and dumped it on its head. Women were like the least of these. And Jesus came and he had elevated them. He allowed them to do ministry, he called them out to do ministry with them. Women, in fact, were the first bringers of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ and his resurrection, while the men hung out in some room. So if you're a woman in here, just that alone says Jesus is a person to follow because of the way he sees you and elevated you and took this caste system and said, time out, time out, you have this all wrong, because along came this rabbi from Galilee, Jesus. He elevated everyone. He elevated everyone. Compassion was an expression of strength, not weakness. He switched that whole idea that compassion, friends, can be uh a representation of strength, not weakness. Where before it had been seen as weak to have favor or to care for the least of these, or those who were far from you or outside of your sphere, or to dine and have a meal with someone who is a sinner, an outcast in this caste system. And we get to see this, this expression, through his story and his teachings. His teachings, Jesus' teachings, these are some of the more familiar ones to many of you. Some of you I'm going to tell you real quick. His teachings on the good Samaritan. He made a Samaritan man the hero over a priest and a Levite. He made him the hero over these. Not only that, Jesus at this time came in and redefined something that we still have yet to come to grabs with, and that is the definition of who our neighbor is. In this season, we come to find a new, clear understanding that our neighbor is not just somebody who's like us or likes us, but our neighbor is anyone who has a need to be filled. Anyone who has a need to be filled. The idea that our neighbor widens and spread out in such a huge way, as he redefined that through making a Samaritan man, a least of these, a hero over a priest or a Levite, and redefining who a neighbor is. The trilogy of lost things, we see through many different teachings of his that God doesn't view sinners as someone to chase down and to punish, but yet he views them as someone to chase down and not go after him to pay them back, but to win them back. There's no distance you can run. There's nothing so broken that I can't get you back. To win you back. Rather than uh just letting it go. You're making your own decision, and what's going to happen to you is what you deserve. God's saying, no, no, no, no. That's not the way I view people. The Sermon on the Mount really flips things upside on the side. On the Sermon on the Mount, we not only hear that we're not to hate our enemies, which is already a big pill to swallow, but that God invites us in to pray for our enemies and even do good for those who don't do good to us. Like that one's a tough one that we still struggle with today. Excuse me, what are you saying? He's saying, hey, this is what compassion looks like. We're gonna flip this thing up on top on top of its head. Not only are you not to hate your enemies, I'm inviting you into this space to pray for them and then to do good for those who don't necessarily do good for you. I'm telling you. It's a game changer. The widow's might, he's with a group of his disciples, and they're watching people in this long line go and they give money into a bucket, which is to help support the temple, which is to help support those in need and to keep that going. And he watches, he says, Whoa, whoa, whoa, watch this as he watches this old lady hunched over, walking up, and she drops what she has in the buck. You can't even hear it. It's the it's that's so minimal, but it is so sacrificial to what she says. And he says, Now, now look at that. Now there is a woman who is rich in the kingdom of heaven because she gets the generosity and giving those and being compassionate to those who have nothing. Yet she gave something of her nothingness so someone else could get it. If you want to know what someone means by what they say, you have to watch what they do, right? Those of you who've raised kids or you've been around kids, you know this. If you want to know what someone means by what they say, you gotta watch what they do. You would tell a child the same thing. You don't just say, I'm sorry, sorry doesn't fix it. You've probably said that line, you've heard it, maybe even as an adult. You need to change your actions, right? Or you need to see that your actions play to what you actually mean when what you say. And that's exactly what we get to see Jesus do when it comes to this idea of compassion. See, there was this there was this clear idea that cleanliness equals holy. You're cleaner. The cleaner you are, the more separated you are, the more holy you are, the more elevated you are, that you're not, that you don't have sin, that you don't have disease, that you don't have hurt, that you don't have brokenness, that you don't have unrighteous relationships, you're clean and you're holy. And Jesus said, no, no, no, no, no, you got this all wrong. Dirty hands equals a holy heart. Dirty hands equals a holy heart. You gotta get your hands dirty, and that's where holy really happens, because that's what I'm a God all about. A God of compassion. You see this through his interactions, not just his teachings. You see the Samaritan woman getting dirty. He goes up and he's spending time with a Samaritan woman, which is already crazy taboo, and he asked that Samaritan woman to take her Samaritan pill and to put it into water so he can take that Samaritan pill and put them up to his Jewish lips and drink this water that this woman gave to him. This is completely and utterly taboo. He got his hands dirty and he got into her life. And he said, I have something better for you. Dirty hands, holy heart. Sick people. He touched the sick. People would stay away from them, they aren't clean, they kept their distance from them. Even a shadow could make someone clean. They had specific cleaning ceremonies, and like I said, even the caste system of what created someone and made them uh outcast in that system because of their sickliness. He touched the blind, he touched the crippled, he touched the liberals, he got around them. I have a personal story about this. Um, just over uh eight years ago, my wife and I went to Ethiopia to receive our son Malachi, um, and we stayed in Addis Ababa and through um a different uh a few different interactions, became good friends with the translator, had some different experiences, and he invited me um to come to where he grew up. And in Ethiopia is one of the largest leper colonies in the world with over 80,000 people stuck in this little teeny spot that's completely outcast. Um, where they're living amongst their own dead, I mean they're just burying them right underneath them. Um you cannot imagine. And so when he invited me to come to the lepers colony, what did I say? Yes, dirty hands equals a holy heart. I had no idea what to expect. I'm in a third world country, I don't speak much of the language, uh, and I'm trusting him, and I'm going to this place. I can't explain to you the poverty, I can't explain to you the smell, I can't explain to you the looks, the things that you're seeing other human beings go through and how outcasts they truly are and separated from the world or even these local communities. And I remember vividly I had just gotten there and uh something happened that was a little unusual. Um, the usual that would happen when you would go around these places in Africa is that all the little kids would come in and they would see you, especially white people, they're very interested. They run up to you, and what are they most interested in is actually your armhair. They don't have arm hair, and so they're like, whoa, check out your armhair. And you're like, I know. It's crazy. Uh they were like you just pet your arm. It was like a school thing. Um, and I represented something a little different. I was a big guy, and so they were like, whoa, big guy, and arm hair and all this stuff, and they would always like flock to you and hang out and want to hang on you, and you'd throw them around, and it was just fun, and you'd play. And I went to this colony, and there's this little kid with one shoe on, barely any clothes on, and he's looking at me, and he could tell he wanted to come over, and so I kind of told him, I was like, Hey, you can come over, buddy. Armhair, huh? No. I said, Hey, you can come over here. And he was he was like timid and he was scared. And uh so I reached out and I touched him, and all of a sudden, whoa, it just sucked right into me and hung out with me, and I got to hug him, and I knelt down, and all of a sudden I didn't even know these kids were on. All of a sudden these kids started coming out of everywhere and kind of come over and touching me and hanging out and was touching them sitting there. And the translator told me, he goes, You just did something for these children that hasn't been done before, that you're the hands of Jesus because you're touching them. People don't touch them, they don't know what touch is like. Dirty hands equals a holy heart. And I experienced a holy moment of compassion, of a silly touch and arm hair. Dirty hands equals a holy heart. And Jesus did that. He said, No, no, no, touch people. Go to people. You see this with the tax collectors. Um he went and saw Matthew, uh, who was a tax collector, and said, Hey, you're gonna follow me, you're gonna be a disciple with me. And he says, You're not only gonna do that, Matthew, um, but you're gonna invite me over to your house to have a meal with you. I'm gonna sit at your table at the intimate space in your home and spend time with you and get to know who you are. And uh the disciples at that time said, No, we're not. That is not okay. He's a tax collector. You don't sit at the table of a sinner uh and someone who's disconnected and devalued in this community. And Jesus says, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Dirty hands, holy heart. We're gonna flip this whole thing upside down. I'm gonna come and I'm gonna break bread with you, I'm gonna spend time with you, and I'm gonna eat with you, I'm gonna touch your utensils, I'm gonna eat your food, I'm gonna get to know who you are and who the most important people are in your life because you're loved, because I'm a God of compassion. You see it also, uh Zacchaeus, he was a wee little man in a fig tree, and Jesus went and he called him down, said, Zacchaeus, come down here, guess what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go to your house. And the disciples were like, doggone it. Not again. Jesus, we don't do that. This is why the Pharisees and the Sadducees don't like us. The religious people don't even like us because we're hanging out with the least of these. And he goes, That's the point. You got it wrong. I'm gonna go sit with people. We're gonna make our table bigger, we're gonna make it wider, we're gonna invite people in because y'all got something in common. Y'all need me. You need a God of compassion, not just one, a God of compassion. And then along came a centurion. Uh, and uh he had a servant who was sick, and the centurion represented this power thing that had be thwarted the Jewish people was a representation of what had happened in their community and their people, and then they're enslaved. And the centurion came along looking for help from this guy named Jesus, and they said, No, you're not, Jesus. Don't even like there is the foot down. That is the line. You are not gonna help that soldier. And Jesus said, No, no, no, no, no, no. You don't get it. Dirty hands, holy heart, and healed a centurion servant because of his faith. Jesus went out of his way to value the people that society decided had no value. That's the game changer when it comes to compassion. That is compassion. Going out of your way to value people that society deems has no value. Friends, who have you deemed has no value? Who maybe do you need to give value to? What is our response when it comes to this? See, the church, these men and women who hung around and watched God change the game through Jesus by showing compassion what this life was like, they got it. They got it. And the first century church had this no strings attached, compassion and generosity that became the hallmark of the first century church. No strings attached because they got it, because they watched it, they breathed it, they lived it, they ate there, they watched them touch, they spent time there. And friends, that's our response to. They got it so much that it changed everything. They didn't fear death anymore. The Christians then became the people that helped one another and saw value in those who society had deemed had no value. When plagues would climb through and Like, just blast out a whole community. And there was poor and there was sick there. No one wanted to touch them. Everyone was fleeing that area. The Christians are the ones who said, no, no, no. We hung out with this Jesus guy. We understand what compassion is all about. And they were the ones who went in to take care of the children, the sick, and the poor. And many of them would become sick themselves and lose their lives for the sake of another brother or sister that they didn't even know, but yet love and compassion told them to do so. They also did this really beautiful thing. Back then it wasn't uncommon and it wasn't illegal to do something called exposing a baby. If you didn't want your child or something was going on and you just couldn't take care of your child or decided you didn't want it, you could take your child out to the edge of the forest or near a creek or a river, and you could do something called exposing your child to the elements, and it would be left to its fate. And if fate had it, the child would roll off and fall into the water and drown. That was that child's fate. If fate had it, an animal would come along and dispose of the child, that was that child's fate. If it the weather turned and uh the weather disposed of the child, that was that child's fate. And this wasn't illegal. And it happened all of the time. And so the Christians, the Christians saw this, said, no, no, no, no. We're gonna value what the society has decided has no value. And the Christians were the ones, friends, who responded with compassion and showed up to the edge of the forest on a regular basis and to the edges of the creeks and the rivers and the lakes, and would go and receive those children. Although they did not have room in their own homes or enough money or food to take care of them, they took them in because God said, I'm a God of compassion, and I'm gonna value those, and I'm gonna be a generous person. No strings attached, compassion and generosity. So, what is the church's role today in this generation? Church's role in our community and all over the world, friends, is to remind the world and our communities that through our personal behavior and our corporate behavior, that red, black, yellow, and white, they are all precious in God's sight. That our response through our personal behavior and our corporate behavior is to be compassionate, that everyone, all of humanity, is welcome and should be taken care of. And though, and while we may be criticized for what we believe, we should be famous, infamous for our compassion and generosity, just as this first century church was. I don't understand what they do, I don't understand why they do it, but man, they do it. What would happen? You know, we've said these things before, what would happen if this church just disappeared from this community? Would the community mourn because a pillar is missing? Because of the way this group of people behaved. Although we might not understand it and criticize, what are they famous for? What are we famous for? It says in Psalms, says in Psalms 82, defend the weak, the fatherless, uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed, rescue the weak and the needy, deliver them from the hand of the wicked. Friends, everyone matters to God, whether God matters to them or not. What a beautiful example, Sunil and Amy are in another country representing a table that we have the opportunity to resource. Sometimes our response is to widen our own table here in this community, which we do and we talk about a lot, because that's how we live a compassionate, generous life that God's called us to do because He's been so compassionate and generous to us. But what if we responded by looking for other people's table and saying, How can I resource and put the tools necessary on your table because God, because Jesus, because of humanity, because of God's compassion, so they might know themselves the Father and be welcome at someone else's table. What a beautiful opportunity and response that we have today, friends. Our theology, no matter what we're talking about, is very simple. No matter what we talk about here on a Sunday or a weekend experience, it all comes down to this that we serve a compassionate God, that He's so compassionate that it does not matter how lost you feel, how broken you may feel, or how dead you may feel. There's nothing so lost in your life, there's nothing so broken in your life, there's nothing so dead in your life that God cannot find it, that he cannot mend it, and that he cannot redeem and resurrect it. In fact, sometimes a full death in someone's life needs to take place of something before it can receive a full resurrection and redemption. It's God's beautiful theology and how compassionate he is because he saw you lost, he saw you broken, he saw you dead, and he said, nope, there's nothing, there's nothing that you can do to keep me from you. And some of you needed to hear that today. Some of us need to be reminded of that today, as we're challenged to resource maybe other tables or expand our own tables because of God and his compassion and love. And some of you just need to start that journey with him today. Would you bow your heads? God, I don't even get you. There's parts of me that doesn't even want to get you. Because I don't want to take away from the beauty that you are, how gracious you are, how loving you are. How you can give peace like no one else can give peace. God, thank you for including all of my friends in this place, in this space today at your table. Thank you for including our friends in other countries that don't even yet know you. A place at your table. God, may we be challenged to resource that. May we be a people of compassion. Infamous for generosity and compassion of others and humanity. In your name we pray. Amen. Would you stand with me?

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Thank you for listening to this week's message. We trust that you'll join us again soon for another uplifting message from North Gate Christian Fellowship, located in Venetia, California.