SPEAKER_00 0:00

So the real question that we want to answer this morning is what color is the dress? Right? Anyone like tired of hearing about the dress? Uh oh yeah. Well, if you don't know what the dress is, uh go find somebody cool and talk to them about it. They'll tell you what's going on, okay? All right. I'm not gonna spend any of our sermon on it, all right? Um no, actually, that's not the question we're gonna answer today. Um in fact, what uh we're gonna continue to through our study in the book of Mark. And so if you have a Bible with you, if you go ahead and pull that out. Uh if you do not own a Bible, uh there are some Bibles underneath the seats. And if and truly, if you don't own a Bible, uh, we'd love to give you one. Um I'm getting a little ring up here. Is this did y'all hear a little ring out there? It's just really weird sounding right here. I don't know why. Maybe it's just new speakers. Um, so anyway. Um, but if you don't have a Bible, there's one of the seats. And if you if you really don't own a Bible, please come find me afterwards. I'd love to give you a copy of the Bible uh because I think that it's important for us to read the Bible for ourselves. Hopefully, uh you don't just get a diet of the word on Sundays, but that in everyday life you got a steady diet of truth. And uh if you're having a struggle like trying to figure out what in the world is this saying and what is it saying to me, uh, we'd love to even help you uh learn how to read the Bible for yourself. But just know this when you come with a humble heart and you say, God speak to me, He will. He will. And uh it'll really change the way you see your everyday life. Okay? Um when you guys think of the idea of compassion, there's probably people that come to mind. And so just right there around you, uh, we're just gonna be a little interactive for a second. I want you to tell the person around you, maybe it's your spouse, maybe it's a friend, uh, who comes to mind when you hear the word compassion. Okay, what person comes to mind when you hear the word compassion? Ready? Go. And you can't use Jesus, okay? Start over, everybody. All right. Okay, alright, that's it. Let you off the hook. What's the names around the room? Let's hear them.

unknown 2:19

Mother Teresa.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Mimaw. There we go. Mimaw is compassionate. I heard Mother Teresa. The church. Awesome. What's that? Sandra. Hey, that's good. That's really good. Sandra's not in here to hear that. We'll have to make sure she hears that. Somebody else. Susie. Hey, way to go. Brownie points for you, your husband. Husband getting to selling the wife. Yeah, that's good. Richard, way to go. Yeah, Uncle Richard. What's that?

unknown 2:47

Gloria.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Gloria, yeah. You husbands, man, you get some brownie points in here this morning. That's good stuff. All right. Setting the table for you. All right. Here's the deal. My guess is that for most of us, if we said compassion, you didn't think of like the highest level leaders. Like you didn't think of the CEO of the company that you work for, or you didn't think of the president, or you didn't think of like a king or a key leader of a world country, probably, right? Because in general, we don't tend to think of the highest level of leaders and compassion going hand in hand. And actually, we would probably say it's the opposite. We'd probably say, you know, if you're going to be a really high-level leader, you kind of have to detach yourself from everybody and you have to be kind of a mean dude or just at least be able to make a decision and really disconnect from compassion. Now, that may not be true for every high-level leader, but I'm just saying in general, would you agree that we don't tend to see high-level leaders, people that are leading at the biggest, most influential level, being compassionate? But I want you to hear this morning that when you look at King Jesus, Jesus, who is the highest level of leader, who has all authority, he is compassionate. He's full of compassion. He defines compassion. And here's the cool thing: when you think about Jesus, you think about his life, you think about him coming on the earth, he said this. He said that if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. Okay, for some of you that have been in church, you you understand that if you're new and you're searching and you're just kind of exploring faith, welcome to the conversation. We're glad that you're here. This is a safe place to do that. You don't have to be a believer to show up here at Point Community Church in any of our environments, okay? But if you have ever spent much time around church, you probably have heard, you know, Jesus embodies who God is. So when you see Jesus, when we read about Jesus in the Gospels, we are understanding with increasing amounts who Jesus who God is. Because he is God in flesh, right? And so it helps us to understand who God is as we look at Jesus' life. And one of the characteristics, one of the attributes of Jesus' life that stood out so starkly against the other leaders of his day, and even the leaders of our day, was that he was full of compassion. Full of compassion. And we're going to dig into that today in Mark chapter 6. And so if you have your Bible, we're just going to unpack four little sections of this, and then we're going to come back and talk some of the implications of it. So Mark chapter 6, the verses are also on the screen in the HCSB version, which is what I tend to read and teach from. Alright? Verse 30 in chapter 6 of Mark says this. Now let me give you a little backdrop because if you've been reading through the book of Mark with us, you understand what's just happened previously in this chapter. But Jesus has been training and equipping his disciples, those twelve that were right around him. And then there are others on top of that. We know that there were more than just the inner twelve, that there were um roughly 70, 72 of them, that he then sends out and says, Hey, listen, I want you to go out in pairs, and I want you to go and to implement the things you've been watching me do. So I want you to go and preach the good news. I want you to go and heal the sick. I want you to go cast out demons. And so these guys are like, this is awesome. We're gonna get to participate. We're gonna be this is gonna be hands-on, right? We've been listening to this, like been in the classroom. Now here's the actual put it into practice into everyday life. And so earlier in the passage in um in chapter 6, in verse 12, it says, so they went out and they preached that people should repent. That's what Jesus had been preaching. So they went out and preached that message. And they were driving out demons, and they were anointing many sick people with olive oil, and they were healing them. Now, how many of you would love to participate in that kind of ministry? We're kind of not sure, right? Because on the one hand it's like, oh, that'd be awesome. On the other hand, like, casting out demons, uh, healing people, like putting olive oil people. I'm not real sure I'm into that, right? Because it feels a little bit awkward, but he sends them out and he says, here's what I want you to go do. They go do it, and man, they're starting to see some awesome things happen from this. Now, here's what's cool. Uh, it doesn't say this because as I said on the front end of the book of Mark, Mark moves really, really fast. So he doesn't give us a whole lot of detail. But can you imagine what that conversation was like as they've gathered back up around Jesus? It's like, hey man, you you you you've got nothing on me. I was at this lady's house, and like this, there were six demons in her, and I cast them out and it was crazy. And this other guy's no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, I was at this house and four of the people in the house had demons, and I was casting them out. It was amazing. Or, hey, I I got to lead 42 people to Jesus. And the other person, no, wait, wait, wait. I had 61 people to Jesus, right? So they're having this probably one-up conversation. And if you've ever uh seen uh uh Brian Regan, you know, it's like finally somebody says, Well, I walked on the moon kind of thing. You know, it's like we just kind of keep one up and one up and one up. They're probably having this whole conversation about everything they had just experienced. But you know as well as I do that even when you're doing good things, you get tired, right? And in fact, there's a good tired that we can go through. We can get to a place where we where we're tired, but it's a good tired. Uh I remember many, many times in ministry, every year, even we do a thing called kids' clubs, and we'll be talking about that in the next uh few weeks and about how you guys can be a part of that, and we'll go out into the community around us and we'll serve. And every night people get off work and they go and they serve in a kids' club in a particular park, and then all week long we're training kids and we're investing in them, and then we finish out the week with a uh kind of a festival we call Summerfest, and it's really fun. But you know what? You end that week and you are tired. You're like, man, I could just sleep for a week, right? We're just going hard at it. Even when you're doing good things, you get really tired, don't you? And Jesus knew that, and he has compassion on his disciples as they're sitting there and it says, Hey guys, let's get away. Let's get away and let's find, let's get some rest. Sometimes the most spiritual thing that we can do in our lives is rest. Because you and I were not made to go hard at it 24-7, 365, for our lifetime and actually survive. Because you guys know as well as I do that you either choose to rest or what? You're gonna be forced to rest. And people in our culture crash and burn all the time because they just keep going hard, hard, hard. But Jesus says, let's get away, let's rest. Now, here's what's fascinating to me about this passage because I jumped over another section that was right before this section, and it's the story of John the Baptist. John the Baptist, as we said in week one of this series, he was the one who was prophesying that Jesus was coming. He was announcing, hey, listen, there's one coming after me. I'm not even fit to tie his sandals. Uh, he is the one who I baptize with water, he's gonna baptize with fire and the Holy Spirit. Uh, he is the Son of God, he is coming, the Messiah is coming, kind of thing. He's out there declaring this message, and he is Jesus' cousin. And in this section of scripture in Mark, we just find out that he is beheaded, that he loses his head because he is a threat to the leaders. And so I can only imagine that Jesus is mourning the loss of his cousin, he's mourning the loss of this front runner, and he knows like that his disciples have just come back from all this great ministry, but he's personally probably hurting. Wouldn't you agree with that? And you think about that, in that moment, Jesus could have said to them, Listen, guys, I'm I'm really just not at a good place right now. I I really just need to like get away from y'all. Y'all just are sucking the life out of me. He could have said that. And I'm sure a lot of times Jesus felt that. Because he didn't really ever have life-giving people around him. They were all life suckers. You know what I'm talking about? They were life drainers. And yet he says to them, hey guys, let's get let's get away. Let's go rest. He has compassion towards the weary in the story. But let's continue on. They get in the boat and they head out from a remote place. And it says this as they get onto the other side. Um, that as they they are they're moving around the lake, and it says in verse 33, but many saw them leaving and recognized them. And people ran there by the land. So can you picture this? Here they are in this boat, and there's a whole big mob of people running around on the shore. Okay? And it says that they that when the boat gets to the other side, they step out and they look up and then what? The huge crowd's there. They tried to get away from them, but the crowd has moved around to the other side of the lake and is waiting on them. And and notice what I said while ago. It says in the in the text that literally they had been so busy they hadn't even been able to eat because they've been so busy doing ministry. They were tired from doing ministry, they were hungry. Now, I don't know about you men in the room or women, but when I am tired and hungry, I'm grumpy. Anyone there? I mean, my my wife and my children know like Nick can be a grumpy bear when he is has not been fed and he has not gotten enough sleep. Like we really don't get beyond infancy, right? It's the same thing we need when we're a baby. Feed me, put me to sleep. Well, I guess change me, but that's a whole other thing. So feed me, let me get some sleep. And so in this passage, we're reminded that Jesus and his disciples, they haven't even been able to eat, they haven't been able to really think straight. And here's this crowd, which makes what Jesus says or what the what Mark records here even more amazing to me. Because it says he steps out of the boat and he sees the crowd. He sees the crowd and he has compassion, he has compassion on them. Now, I think it's important to understand this word compassion a little bit because we're gonna unpack this as we go through the rest of this passage. But the idea of compassion here is they literally saw it as uh this feeling that came from the gut. Uh, to be a little bit crass, they literally meant from the intestines, from the from the very innards of who you are, there was this emotion, this deep pity, this deep feeling of feeling sorry for people or for others. And so when Jesus looks out, he sees this crowd and he feels this deep pity for this crowd of people. That he feels this deep emotion. But notice what Jesus does. It doesn't stop at the emotion, right? He doesn't just feel sorry for them, he does what many of us struggle to do. He actually acts on his compassion. He sees them, he sees their need, and he describes them this way. He says he sees them like sheep without a shepherd. Now, if you've read the Bible much, this idea of sheep and shepherding, it comes up a lot. This is not the first time we've heard this or seen this. And let's just be completely honest. Being called a sheep is not very endearing. Okay? Sheep are dumb. And in fact, sheep are so much uh so difficult to manage and to uh to take care of because literally sheep will go to a particular area you put them and they will eat the grass down till there is nothing left to eat, and then they will stay there and they will starve to death. Sheep do not even like move on their own to places to get more food. Sheep are not bright animals, and yet we are consistently compared to sheep. Thank you, Jesus, for that, right? Thanks, God, for calling us what we are. Because sometimes we're pretty smart in our own minds, but the Bible tells us that even our greatest attempts to be wise is really foolishness. And so in the scripture we see him saying that they are like sheep without a shepherd. So he's making some assessment of us as people, as humanity, as he sees that crowd. I think we can identify with this, but I think there's a bigger issue that they're not just sheep that are not quite bright, they're not the sharpest pencil in the drawer, right? But that they literally are directionless. They're directionless, they're just wandering around. And they're hungry, they're spiritually hungry, they're they're they're wanting nourishment, they need truth. Isn't that humanity? I mean, when you stop and think about it, think about all the people that you know, they're just kind of wandering through life. They're just kind of moving through life and they're and they're they're doing stuff, but they're not really doing it for any real purpose. It's like they're going to their job, they're raising their kids, they're making some money, they're they're building a 401k, they're preparing for retirement, but for what purpose? Like what's the bigger picture here? Like, what's going on really that's deeper? What's what's gonna last? And you see so many people uh in the world today, and they're just wandering like sheep without a shepherd. And maybe even this morning, uh, some of us in this room are wandering like sheep without a shepherd, just going from thing to thing, doing our stuff, but really not connected to something deeper, something more something more transcendent. And he says, We're like sheep without a shepherd. And what does he do? He begins to teach them. And we said last week, Jesus is an amazing teacher. And when he opened his mouth, he began to give them truth that brought direction and clarity. Began to bring to them substance that they were longing for. They didn't just need a diet of some more acute phrases, they needed something that they could hang their hat on, they needed something they could build their life on. And that's what Jesus brought. He brought this teaching that was it was substance, it was a foundation, it was a rock. And we even see that in one of the parables in the future, that Jesus' teaching is like a rock. That when the storms come, you have something to cling to. And so Jesus teaches and he shows compassion towards their directionlessness. But then he goes on in the passage that says this when it was already late, his disciples approached him and said, This place is a wilderness. Okay, so they're away from town, they're away from McDonald's and Burger King and Chick-fil-A, okay, they're away from all the stuff. Just go with me, okay? So, whatever they had back then, Peter Joe's. And so basically, like here they are, and they're away from all that. And notice what the disciples do. They come to Jesus because why? Because they're hungry and they're tired, and so they're grumpy, and they say to Jesus, look, you gotta send these people away. Now, just a word here. Don't ever try to command Jesus to do anything. That's just not gonna go well for you, right? We we are not in charge, we are not the ones in charge here. But his disciples say, You gotta send these guys away. You gotta go give them something to eat, right? And Jesus, what does he say back to them? I love this. He's compassionate, but his compassion does not mean he doesn't challenge, that he doesn't push, that he doesn't call us to kind of have a wake-up call to go, hey, look, like you you got you got this all figured out. You go feed him. He just looks at him and says, You go feed him. Now, what do you think you're gonna do as a disciple? Like, yeah, right. Like, we've got thousands of them. I mean, it tells us later in the story there's five thousand men. We don't even know how many women and children, but a lot, I'm sure. Five thousand men on the scene, and he's got thousands of these folks, and he says, Jesus says, 'You go feed them.' And what do they say? Should we go and buy $200 or 200 denarii, which is actually a one-year salary? Like anybody feel like you want to give up your whole year's salary just to pay one group of people one day? Right? He's saying for a whole uh year's worth of salary, we can buy that, uh, buy enough bread, maybe, to feed them all? Is that what you want us to do? And he asks them, come on guys, how many loaves you got? How many loaves you got? And they go out and they say, Well, we got five loaves and we got two fish. They're thinking, like, that's real helpful. You know? We basically got a couple hamburgers here. All right? And he looks at it and he says, All right, sit down. And have them sit down in ranks of hundreds and fifties, and so he gives them his organizational plan. And notice Jesus has a plan. He's organized and he's orderly, and he says, Sit them, have them sit down at fifties and hundreds. Gives them some direction on it. And then he takes the five loaves and the two fish, and he looks up to heaven and he blesses it, and then he breaks it. And by the way, this is where we, from this point forward as the church, when we celebrate communion and we break bread, this is really where they this whole thing started. They saw Jesus breaking the bread and blessing it, and it multiplied. And so we we see that it they were able to feed everyone. Five thousand people. Are you are you tracking with me this morning? This is miraculous. Five thousand people. Have you ever been in a crowd at a concert? 5,000 people or more? It's a sea of people, right? It's a sea of people, and he feeds them and all their wives and all their children, and when he finishes feed them, feeding them, they collect 12 baskets full. Now, here's the problem with me. I've heard this story too many times to be wowed by it. Are you are you hearing? He feeds all these people with five loaves and two fish, and they all have enough to eat, and there's 12 baskets full left over. That's crazy. God can do that stuff. He is a miraculous God, a miracle-working God. But Jesus has compassion on their physical need. He shows compassion towards their physical need. You know why this is so profound? It's because Jesus put our skin on, he put our flesh on, he walked among us, and he knows what it's like to be needy. In fact, it says in the scripture, Jesus didn't even have a place to lay his head at night. He didn't have a fancy house to go home to. He didn't have a car to drive or a camel to drive. He didn't have any of the things that we have. He didn't have any of the stuff that we, he didn't have all of the luxuries that we have in the United States, right? Because he chose to just go with his disciples and move from place to place, trusting the Father's provision. But he sees these people, he sees their need, he cares about the need, and he meets the need. He shows compassion towards their physical need. What a compassionate leader. Because he could have just said, you guys figure it out, and then not done anything about it and walked away. But his compassion moved him into action. And everyone ate and was filled. Everyone ate and was filled. But the next thing we see as we continue on in the story, is actually verse 45. And it says this, and immediately, once everybody had been fed, once all the baptism had been collected, it said immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side to Beth Seda. And while he dismissed the crowd, and after he said goodbye to them, he went away to the mountain to pray. Which, by the way, I would just say to you if you want to have a compassionate heart. If we want to be like Jesus, we've got to spend time with God alone. Because who we are in public is a direct reflection of who we are in private before God and how we are connected with Him. That's a whole nother sermon for another day. When evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he was alone on the land, and he saw them being battered as they rowed. Because the wind was against them. Around three in the morning, he came toward them walking on the sea and wanted to pass by them. I think that's an interesting phrase. He's just going to walk on by, like, hey guys, hope you're doing well. You know, like I'm thinking, like, what? He's just going to walk right by them. They're like, we're just rowing away, trying to survive the storm. And he's like, hey, peace out. You know, keep on walking, right? He says, he was going to walk by them, but what does he do? He says, when they saw him, they thought it was a ghost and they cried out, and you would too, so don't make fun of them, right? All of us would. This guy walking on the water. For they all saw him and were terrified. And immediately he spoke with them and he said, Have courage, it is I. Don't be afraid. And then he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. They were completely astounded. So here they are, getting beat down. That was kind of interesting. Down. I was like, um, getting beat down by the wind and the waves. They are afraid. They are freaked out. And what makes makes them even more freaked out is they look up and there's a ghost walking across the water. But he comes to them and he has compassion towards their fearfulness. He is compassionate towards the fearful. Now here's the thing. It says there that he gets into the boat and then the wind dies down. He gets into the boat and then the wind is down. I don't want to move past this because, truthfully, today, there are some of you that are full of fear. You're stressed and you're anxious to the max. Because today you came in and you're not sure that you are going to be able to have a job much longer. You're not sure that your marriage is going to make it much longer. You're not sure that your kids are going to like you much longer. You are sure that life is going to keep going and be sustainable. And so there's fear that overwhelms your heart. And I want you to know that more than you need Jesus to fix the storm around you, you need Jesus in your life presence. And the truth of the matter is that if you know him, if you have put your trust in him, he is present. He is with you. And he says, call on him. He will never leave us, he will never forsake us. He is with us. Whatever it is we're facing, whatever storm, whatever hardship, whatever difficulty, and then notice he gets in the boat and the wind dies down. Now, I just want to go back and recap these because I think this is really profound because Mark is clearly trying to paint a picture that Jesus is not your average Joe leader. He's not just another king. In fact, this is juxtaposed set up against the previous passage where we see Herod and we see the type of leader he is. What kind of leader is Herod? He's just on this banquet that's all about luxury and all about himself. He's made it all about how he gets to show off his wealth and how he's got his his uh his daughter, uh, this this uh this young girl dancing for them to entertain them. And then he's got all this just wealth that's being slung around and and it's all about him. He centers it all on him. And then Mark goes, but Jesus, he gives. Jesus sees needs and he meets needs. Jesus doesn't make it about him, he makes it about them. Jesus doesn't make it about how, hey, look at me. Even in the feast, even in the breaking of the bread and and feeding 5,000, he blessed the bread. And he said, Father, bless us and multiply this. It was about the kingdom, not his kingdom, not about him getting recognition, but about the kingdom, the big kingdom, about his father in heaven, getting the honor and the glory. He's so different, isn't he? But he's compassionate. He's compassionate towards the need for rest. In fact, in Matthew chapter 11, Jesus says this. This is his very words in Matthew chapter 11, verse 28. He says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you what? Rest. All of you, take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest. Here's the truth. Some of you are tired today. Some of you are beaten down and worn out. Physically you're tired, mentally you're tired. I was just talking that conversation with Jada this morning. It's like sometimes you don't realize how mentally your wills just don't stop sometimes, and you just go, I am tired. And I don't feel like I'm exerting myself physically, but mentally, you're just tired because your brain is just going, going, going, going, trying to figure out life, trying to prepare things, trying to do this, trying to do that, trying to think about parenting, trying to think about marriage, trying to think about work. And you're just your brain's going and you're tired. And Jesus says, if you are tired, come to me and I will give you rest. I will give you rest. And not just superficial rest, but soul rest. At the deepest level of your heart, you can find rest in Jesus. While we wait for ultimate rest in him, while we wait for the day when we will no longer have to strive and work so hard and to just make it and to survive, he will give us rest. Isn't that good this morning? Because some of you need to hear that Jesus, he sees your need for rest and he says, Come and find rest in me. Come, because my yoke is easy, my burden is light. I am humble, I am gentle, you will find rest. But notice we said he was not only compassionate towards that, that he was compassionate, compassionate towards the directionless. And some of you this morning, you're struggling for direction. Some of you are struggling with what's the next decision we need to make? What do I need to go? Where do I need to be? What about uh what about my desires for a spouse one day? What about my desires for a child? What about what we're gonna do in educating our children? What are we gonna do about managing our crazy busy schedule? What are we gonna do about managing our our funds, our finances that seem to just continue to run over us and we've got a growing amount of debt? What about all these things that are going in our lives and there's so much anxiety, and we're like, we need direction, we need clarity. And Jesus says to me, and says to you, I can give you direction. I can help you prioritize, I can give you instruction that will set you free from thinking you've got to figure it out all on your own. Isn't that good? Because this morning some of you came in and you're thinking to yourself, I've got to figure everything out. I've got to do it all myself. And if that's you this morning, know that there is a compassionate leader who's saying, Come to me, I will give you direction. I will shepherd you, you sheep. But he goes on, and we know he says he shows compassion towards the physically needy. Some of you this morning, financially, you're you're struggling, like I said, and it's not just stressing you out, but but financially, you're like, I don't know where I'm gonna get enough money to do life. I mean, it's expensive to live. Just to eat, to be clothed, to have shelter. It's expensive. Some of you, this is not your stress, but some of you it is. And there's some of you in this room, you just need to know that Jesus cares and that he's compassionate towards your physical need. And some of you need to know today that health issues that you're facing and the people in your family are facing, Jesus is compassionate towards that. He knows what it's like to hurt and to suffer and to deal with physical pain. And he cares, he is compassionate towards it today. And he can minister to your physical needs today. He knows them, he cares about them. He cares about what's going on. In fact, Matthew chapter 6, verse 26 says it this way Look at the birds of the sky. They don't sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly father feeds them. Aren't you worth more than they? You know what he's saying there? He's like, look, God cares about the birds. He, you know, if he cares about the birds, he cares about you. And he does. And some of you just need to hear that this morning. God cares about you, and he will meet your needs if you will turn to him. But kind of like the disciples, you gotta think, like, sometimes we're coming, we're going, okay, you know, figure this out, whatever. Send them away. We don't know how we're gonna fix this problem. And Jesus is like, I can fix this problem. And we need to trust him, and we need to know he is compassionate in that and that he can minister to us in that. But also he's compassionate towards our fear. Some of you today are freaked out with life. You're stressed, you're anxious, like we said a while ago. And God is compassionate, he knows what you're dealing with, he is aware of your suffering, he is aware of your hardship, he is aware of what's going on in your life that's got you so afraid. Some of you are waking up in the middle of the night and your mind is racing. Some of you are waking up and you've got you've got dreams that are like messing with you. You've got people saying things to you that are just messing with you, and there's fear that is gripping your heart. And there's no amount of money, there's no amount of comfort, there's no amount of things in this world that are gonna get you through that fear. But Jesus can. He can because he will be with you, and he will remind you that your eternal security is found in him, and he is present with you in that storm and that difficulty that you're facing right now. And just a word on that. If you're not currently in a storm, just hold on, your storm's coming. Right? I mean, sadly, the world we live in is not getting fixed just yet. One day it will, and I look forward to that day. But if you're not going through a storm right now, hold on. Your storm's coming. I've seen it in my life again and again and again. But thankfully, God never changes, regardless of our circumstances. He is faithful, he is good, he's always there. He brings a peace that passes understanding, as the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 4. So why is all this important? Well, because he is all those things, but also Jesus is our example. And if we are Jesus' followers, if we are his disciples, if we said we are to live like Jesus, if he is the picture of true maturity and he's our target, he's what we're aiming for, then we ought to be compassionate like he is compassionate, right? We ought to follow his compassion. And here's the thing: Jesus shows us in this picture, Mark, that Mark paints for us, that Jesus has shown us how to be compassionate towards others, how to see people the way that he sees people, how to see our spouse. And rather than saying, what can I get from them? What can I give to them? And seeing our children, which by the way, in our culture, tend to either become elevated where we try to get our life out of their performance, right? Or we are like just burdened by them because they're just always bothering us. And they become so needy. I mean, uh, just joke, joking, uh, all joking aside, even yesterday I've tried to get a uh a nap at my house. You know how hard it is to get a nap with six kids? I can't even get a 15-minute power nap, right? Because every 10 seconds I got a kid running in the room. I need this, I need this, and I'm like, get away, needy people. I want to just take a nap. And God was reminding me yesterday, like, that's how we are to him all the time. But he's not like us. Thankfully, he's not the dad that I am. Thankfully, he's like, come here. What do you need? I'll help you. I don't need naps. I'm thankful for that, aren't you? There's no point, there's no time, there's no place that we can't come to him and say we need help, and he does, and he rescues us, he gives us help, he gives us strength. What about the poor? Showing compassion towards the poor, the marginalized, those who are outsiders, those are outcasts. Jesus shows us how to do that. He shows us those things. And he shows us that compassion is not simply a stirring of emotion, but real compassion is revealed in our actions, the way we live in everyday life, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in our homes. Compassion is there. In fact, there are so many needs around us that sometimes it's overwhelming, so we just kind of shut it off, right? We just kind of shut it off and say, I just don't want to have to see the needs around me. So it's just easier to just keep my head down and just do my thing and just not look. Somebody brought up Mother Teresa earlier that she's a person who we identify with compassion. And a guy named Shane Claiborne went and spent some years of his life with her just to study her and to walk alongside and be discipled by her. And he wrote this, he recorded this. He said, Mother Teresa always said, Calcuttas are everywhere if we only have eyes to see. Find your Calcutta. Isn't that convicting this morning? You know what he's saying? You know, if you know Mother Teresa, she spent her life in the slums of India, loving the poor, loving the least of these. But she's saying, you don't have to go to Calcutta to find need. Because it's all around us. So why don't we embrace that? Why don't we see people? Because I think ultimately our biggest issue in this area of compassion is that we have forgotten how compassionate God has been to us. If I'm really dead level honest with you this morning, the problem with Nick's shock, the problem that I have with being compassionate towards you in this room, my family, others around me, is because I have forgotten that God has been compassionate to me. I have lost sight of that. And you're saying, what are you talking about? Well, because we said that we are like sheep without a shepherd, but the Bible consistently tells us time and time again that we have a good shepherd. And I don't think there's any passage in the Bible that says this more clearly than Psalm 23. So I'm gonna ask you to do something this morning. I'm gonna ask you to close your eyes. Don't fall asleep on me. I want you to close your eyes and I want you to just hear the words of this Psalm and ask God to give you fresh ears to hear it this morning. Because you and I are constantly in need, and we need a Savior, a leader who can identify with us and who can be compassionate toward us. Hear these words. Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd. There is nothing I lack. He lets me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters. He renews my life. He leads me along the right paths for his name's sake. Even when I grow through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live. He restores because he is our rest. Jesus guides us. He is our shepherd to truth. He feeds us because he is our provider. And he protects us because he is our protector. This morning we have a compassionate Savior to celebrate. And as we embrace his compassion, we become conduits of his compassion to the world around us. We begin to see those around us through his eyes.