Amelia Church of Christ - Christian Church in Amelia, OH near Cincinnati in Clermont County

That scene from the movie Patch Adams hits me every time I see it. It hits me because it’s so honest. Patch has seen the suffering in the world around him. He’s experienced the tragic death of a close friend. And he stands on the cliff and asks God, “Why? There’s so much pain, there’s so much suffering. Why is there no compassion?”

Just so we all know what we’re talking about, we’re defining compassion as “understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it.” That’s an easy working definition of compassion. And as Patch Adams discovered, compassion seems to be in short supply in our world.

If you need proof of that, think about this true story. A lady was shopping on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. She tripped and broke her leg. Dazed, shocked, and in pain, she called out for help. Not for two minutes. Not for twenty minutes. For forty minutes! Shoppers, business executives, students, and merchants all walked around her and stepped over her, completely ignoring her cries. After literally hundreds of people passed by, a cab driver finally pulled over, hauled her into his taxi, and took her to a local hospital.

More dramatic than that was the case of a young woman who was brutally attacked as she returned to her apartment late one night. She screamed for thirty minutes as she fought for her life, yelling until she was hoarse as she was beaten and raped. Thirty-eight people watched the half-hour episode in fascination from their windows. Not one walked over to the telephone to call the police. She died that night as thirty-eight people watched in silence.

Stories like this may make us feel just like Patch did. When we look at our world, we might want to question God, too. God, why is there no compassion for the hurting people all around us?

Sometimes we may be able to relate to Woody Allen’s character in a movie called Love and Death. In the movie, he said, “You know, if it turns out that there is a God, I don’t think he is evil. I think the worst you can say about him is that, basically, he’s an underachiever.”

Sometimes with the amount of hurt and suffering in our world, sometimes when we see the glaring absence of compassion, we may secretly begin to believe that Woody Allen may be right. Maybe God is an underachiever. Even if we know that’s not true in our heads, we may begin to believe it in our hearts.

This morning we’re chasing after the truth. Is God an underachiever, or is there more to the story? Today continuing our series called What’s God Really Like? In each session in this series, we’ve been exploring a different characteristic of God. As we explore the Scripture today, we’ll see that God, in fact, is a God of compassion.

Psalm 111:4 tells us, “The LORD is gracious and compassionate.” (NIV) That’s a great verse, but it’s not enough for us just to say that God is compassionate. If God is really a God of compassion, then it has to go beyond words. It has to be demonstrated. There must be evidence of it. It has to be shown.

For example, if I were to tell you that I am a great athlete, you would probably want me to show you, right? You’d want to see evidence that I’m a great athlete. You would want to see me hit a baseball over the fence. You’d want to see me outrun somebody on the football field. You want to see me take somebody to school on the basketball court. You’d want to see it. But the problem is, I can’t do any of those things. The fact is I’m not a great athlete. In fact, I stink. I can tell you that I’m a stud on the court or in the field, but I can’t back it up. There’s no evidence to back up the claim.

The Bible says that God is compassionate. But it goes beyond just making the claim…It gives us evidence of the fact. The Bible tells us how God’s compassion is demonstrated. God’s compassion is shown in at least three ways.

First of all, God’s compassion is shown through His character. Compassion is part of His makeup. It’s hardwired in His DNA. It’s just who He is.

In 2 Corinthians, the apostle Paul called God, “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort.” (2 Corinthians 1:3, NIV) God is driven by compassion. God is motivated by compassion. He is the Father of compassion. God IS compassion.

Psalm 56 gives us a great glimpse of God’s compassionate character. “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” (Psalm 56:8, NLT)

You’ve never experienced a hurt that God hasn’t felt. You’ve never cried a tear that he hasn’t stored, kept, and remembered. Compassion is at the core of who God is. God’s compassion is shown in His character.

Secondly, God’s compassion is shown through His Son. When you look at Jesus’ life, you can’t miss the compassion that He demonstrated. Compassion was a driving force in His life.

Check out this story from the book of Mark. “A man with leprosy came to [Jesus] and begged him on his knees, ‘If you are willing, you can make me clean.’ Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man.

‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.” (Mark1:40-42, NIV)

Leprosy was a dreaded disease during Jesus’ day. This incredibly painful skin disease would quite literally eat away your flesh. People with leprosy would lose fingers and toes, and sometimes even arms and legs before the disease killed them. Leprosy could also cause people to go blind. It’s easy to see why people were so afraid of this incurable disease. The fear was so great that people who contracted leprosy were forced to live outside the city. They were forbidden to enter the city gates. They were forbidden to touch anyone else. Anytime someone approached a leper, the person was supposed to shout, “Unclean! Unclean!” It was a warning to stay away. It was an admission by the leper that he was an untouchable outcast.

So not only did people with leprosy experience physical pain, but imagine the pain of being permanently separated from your family and friends, and from society in general. If you had leprosy, you were the ultimate outcast.

This is why Jesus’ response to this leprous man was so incredible. “Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’” (Mark 1:41, NIV)

When Jesus said, “be clean,” the man was healed on the spot. This obviously demonstrates the power of God, which Brian is going to dive into in his message next week. This is an obvious power demonstration, but don’t overlook how Jesus healed the man. Jesus could have simply healed the man with a word. He performed other healings that way. But he was so moved with compassion for this man that he reached out and touched him. This was the first human contact this man had experienced in years. Jesus wanted to heal more than just the man’s leprosy. He wanted to heal the man’s spirit. He wanted to mend his soul. So he touched him. Jesus reached out and touched this untouchable man because of His compassion.

Some of you know that the New Testament was originally written in Greek. A lot of times when the Bible speaks of Jesus’ compassion, the Greek word it uses implies that when Jesus saw people suffering, it made him sick at his stomach. It literally says that he felt it in his bowels. He felt pain so deeply that it made Him sick. That is still true of Jesus today. When we’re in pain, He feels it, down to His very core.

Let’s go back to a verse we read earlier in 2 Corinthians, except this time let’s add a little bit of the context surrounding the verse.

Paul writes, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort…” (2 Corinthians 1:3, NIV)

Paul directly links God’s compassion to God’s Son. In other words, we know that God is “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort” because of “our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Jesus is God’s compassion on full display. Compassion was a driving for in his life, and it was a driving force in his death. The cross wouldn’t have existed if it weren’t for God’s compassion lived out in the person of Jesus Christ.

In his book, Heaven’s Dream, Max Lucado wrote, “God on a cross. Humanity at its worst. Divinity at its best…God isn’t stumped by an evil world. He doesn’t gasp in amazement at the dearth of our faith or the depth of our failures. He knows the condition of the world…and loves it just the same. For just when we find a place where God would never be (like on a cross), we look again and there he is, in the flesh

God on a cross? The creator of the universe sacrificing himself for his creation? How could this be? Who was this Jesus?

He was—and is—a God with tears. A creator with a heart. Bloodstained royalty. A God who became earths’ mockery to save his children.

How absurd to think that such nobility would go to such poverty to share such a treasure with such thankless souls. How incredible to know that God himself died on a cross for his children.

But he did. Incredible. Yes, incredibly, he did.”

You and I were the reason for the cross. God looked at us and saw us as we really were…lost.

This verse from Matthew really applies to our lives. “When [Jesus] saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9:36, ESV)

A sheep without a shepherd is in a lot of trouble. Sheep are ultimately stupid animals that need help and direction at every turn. They have a great gift of getting themselves into trouble that they can’t get out of on their own.

And this is how Jesus sees us. Sheep who have gotten themselves into a mess. Sheep that are lost. Sheep that need to be saved. And because of that, he looks at us with compassion.

Understand that he had every right to look the other way. He had every right to turn his back on us because of the sin in our lives, but compassion is His character. He couldn’t sit idly by while his sheep wandered around lost. He had to do something. The something that He had to do cost Jesus His life. The cross was the ultimate act of compassion.

There’s a third way that God shows His compassion. God’s compassion is shown through His people. When Patch Adams was standing on that cliff, he angrily asked God why there was no compassion in the world. Later, I think Patch learns the answer…God’s compassion is shown through His people.

Let’s go back to our verse in 2 Corinthians, this time looking at even more of the context. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles,

so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, NIV)

God uses His people as the tool to demonstrate his compassion to the world. We are his chosen vehicle to bring his compassion to a world that is hurting and floundering and searching. God has shown compassion to His people, and then He expects His people in turn to show compassion to others.

Paul tells us of the natural progression. When you are comforted by God, you then continue the cycle of passing that comfort on to others.

This is why it’s so critical that we not waste our experiences. We talked about this in our Developing a Servant’s Heart series earlier this year. One way that we serve is that we serve out of our experiences. Even the painful experiences.

Earlier this year, Nicki and I experienced a miscarriage. I had no idea what that experience would be like until we were in the midst of it. When some of our friends experienced a miscarriage a week before ours, I arrogantly told Nicki that, if that ever happened to us, I’d be able to handle it. Then, literally a week after that stupid comment, it actually did happen to us. I discovered how difficult an experience that actually is. It hurt. It hurt worse than I imagined that it would.

As people found out about it, we had lots of expressions of love and sympathy, which were great. But then, there were a few people who looked at us and said, “I understand. I’ve been there.” And they ministered to us, they poured into us out of their experience. And that provided real comfort. Though their experience was painful, they had received comfort from God. And now they were passing that same compassionate comfort on to us. That’s the cycle that God has in mind.

Your experiences are uniquely yours. Some of those experiences have been incredibly painful. In fact, the word “troubles” in these verses from 2 Corinthians literally means “crush.” Paul isn’t talking about minor inconveniences or petty problems. He’s talking about crushing experiences. It’s in those experiences that the compassion of God shines. And as you remember those experiences, you can see the comfort that God provided. Your job is to be there when someone else is being crushed. It’s the way to make sure that your painful experiences were not in vain. If you can comfort someone else who is hurting, then your hurt and your pain are being used to serve God’s purposes because you have become an agent of his comfort and compassion.

God’s compassion is shown through his character, his Son, and his people. It’s something that the Scripture teaches with great clarity. But we need to be sure we know how to apply this Scriptural truth in our lives. And that’s where I want to spend the rest of our time. In every message in this series, we’ve talked about impact points. Points where this truth of God impacts our lives in practical ways. We’re going to explore two impact points today. They’re both pretty obvious, but they’re both critically important.

First impact point: God’s compassion can comfort me when I’m hurting. I’m in my 12th year of vocational ministry. When I think about all that I’ve learned over those years, there are a few things that top the list. One of the top things that I’ve learned is that there is only one kind of person in the world…a hurting person. Every person on earth has been wounded, is being wounded, or will be wounded in the future. Hurt and pain are universal.

You have either been hurt, you are hurting, or you will be hurt in the future. It sounds kind of bleak, but it is the truth. That’s why this first impact point is crucial for us all to begin to grasp in our lives. God’s compassion can comfort you when you’re hurting.

Look back at Psalm 56 again. “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” (Psalm 56:8, NLT)

When you cry, God saves your tears. When you hurt, God deeply feels your pain. Maybe school hurts because you feel rejected. Home hurts because your relationship with your spouse is broken. The mirror hurts because you don’t like what you see. Relationships hurt because you’ve been burned before. The past still hurts because of what you’ve done, or what’s been done to you. Every day hurts because you feel like you’re trapped in a sin that you can’t escape. Life hurts because you feel like you have no hope. Whatever your hurt is, God feels it deeply.

I want to encourage you to do something difficult. If you’re in a painful season in your life, tell someone. Remember, one of the ways that God shows His compassion is through His people. I want you to encourage you to talk to someone. God wants to show His compassion through His people, but that can’t happen if His people don’t know the hurt.

God’s compassion, in all its various forms, means that our pain is never overlooked. We never hurt alone. You don’t have to look any further than the nail-pierced hand of Jesus to know that He understands pain. But that same nail-pierced hand also tells us that He understands compassion. He is compassion.

Speaking of Jesus’ death on the cross, the Bible says, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows…” (Isaiah 53:4a, NIV)

Our view of the cross is often far too small. We see it as God’s chosen method to bring us salvation, which is obviously the reason that Jesus died. He died in our place, taking the punishment for our sin. But he didn’t just take our sins on himself. He took our sickness. He took our sorrow. He took every sin, and regret, and hurt, and pain you have ever experienced and absorbed it into his body on the cross.

I love the way The Message paraphrase reads in Hebrews 4:15. “We don't have a priest [meaning Jesus] who is out of touch with our reality. He's been through weakness and testing, experienced it all--all but the sin.”

Jesus understands your weakness. He understands your struggles. He understands your pain. He understands because he felt it on the cross.

It’s why Jesus understands divorce even though he was never married. It’s why he understands what it’s like to have a wayward child even though he never had kids. It’s why he understands the guilt of your abortion. It’s why he understands the pain of your addiction. Even though he never experienced these things throughout his earthly life, he understands because he did experience them on the cross.

You have never endured a moment of loneliness, a bout of depression, or a struggle with temptation that Jesus hasn’t felt. You’ve never shed a tear that he hasn’t shed first. Your anguish and agony are not yours alone, because Jesus felt them first. He felt it on the cross.

Look at this verse again. “Surely (absolutely, completely) he took up (he experienced before us) our infirmities (our diseases and sicknesses) and carried our sorrows (our regrets, our grief, our hurt, our pain)…” (Isaiah 53:4a, NIV)

It’s a beautiful picture of the cross. The cross, in all it’s offensiveness and ugliness, is a beautiful picture of God’s compassion. It is the moment in history when God owned our pain. And because he owned it, because he experienced it, his compassion is a very real source of comfort in our lives.

Our second impact point: God’s compassion compels me to pass it on. It compels me, it pushes me, it forces me to pass it on.

Whenever there is a mass tragedy, we see compassion in action. If you’ve been watching the news, you know that there was a massive bridge collapse in Minneapolis this week. Several lost their lives in the collapse, but it could’ve been much worse. There was a school bus loaded with 60 kids on that bridge when it fell. All of the kids survived because people started running to the bus and pulling them out. Instead of running for secure ground, people stayed on this dangerous collapsed bridge to help these kids to safety. That’s awesome. That’s compassion.

But most of the time, compassion doesn’t make the news. All morning we’ve been saying that one way God’s compassion is demonstrated is through His people. That means me, and that means you. God wants to use you and me as vehicles to bring His compassion to someone who needs it.

In the Bible, Jesus is called “Emmanuel,” which means, “God with us.” Jesus was God in the flesh. In other words, He was “God with skin on.”

The call to all of us today is to follow in his footsteps. Will you be “God with skin on” to someone who needs compassion? Will you be God’s agent to breathe compassion and love into a life that is hurting?

That may mean simply listening. It may mean crying with someone. It may mean sharing out of your experiences like we talked about earlier. But more than anything, it means being available. Being available for God to use you to extend his compassion to someone else’s life.

This is not easy, and it’s not tidy. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Things can get messy when we show compassion. We get all mixed up in someone else’s life. It’s a lot easier to just steer clear, but that’s not what we’re called to do. We’re called to the do hard, messy work of compassion.

Remember the verses we’ve been exploring all morning. “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles,

so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, NIV)

As we receive comfort and compassion from God, it is our responsibility to keep passing that on to others. It’s not a choice or an option. It’s our call as Christ-followers to find ways to give away God’s compassion to people who are in pain.

God is a compassionate God. It’s shown through His character, His Son, and His people. And this great compassion comforts me when I’m hurting, and it compels me to pass it on.

Brian Jones tells the story of a time when he was sitting in an airport lobby waiting for his wife to return from a trip. He said, “My oldest daughter, Kelsey, who was fourteen months old at the time, sat bouncing on my knee as we waited. An elderly lady with a thick eastern European accent sat down near us, and she and Kelsey laughed and played peek-a-boo for a long time.

Later, she leaned over and smiled and said, “You good father. You love. You touch. You hug. You play.”

Then her entire demeanor suddenly changed and she sternly said, “I had no good father. He kick. He hit. He say stupid. I seventy-nine years old, and because of father—no lucky day whole life! Whole life!”

Brian said that she turned away, clutching her purse like it was a baby and rocking back and forth, mumbling to herself. He said that his eyes welled up, wondering how long she had been carrying this wound.

A few minutes later Brian’s wife walked through the gate. Brian kissed his wife, they put their daughter in the stroller, and started walking off. Brian looked back to say goodbye to the woman, and she waved her finger and him and yelled, “Whole life! Whole life!”

But that’s exactly what Jesus came to save. Your whole life. Because of the cross, he compassionately understands your pain. He knows your shortcomings and sins. And he loves you anyway.

The woman in the airport had a father who was cruel and hateful. He caused her pain her whole life.

We have a Father who is good and loving and compassionate. He wants to heal your whole life.

Mike Edmisten

Tags: 2 Corinthians 1, compassion, cross, crucifixion, God's compassion, God's nature, hurt, Jesus, Mark 1, pain, suffering, What's God Really Like