Sympathy From The Gospel
“Sympathy From The Gospel”
--from March 17th --
--from March 17th --
Day 1
Read Hebrews 2:10-18
The Incarnation is the teaching that Jesus, fully God, also became fully man. How can you be “fully” two things? We would say that only God can do such a thing and that it is not in the realm of human math. We could spend so much time in the weeds of trying to understand that complex truth and work out all of the details, but for our devotions today, we simply want to spend time in awe and wonder at the truth and what it teaches us.
What the writer of Hebrews is saying here, deserves a really long time of meditating and unpacking. There is no compassion quite like the compassion that gets down in the dirt and hurts beside you. A cheap lesson from our own culture would serve great here. I can be compassionate about something that I read on social media and even experience hurt from understanding the pain someone is feeling as they post a prayer request on our church’s app. That is even a good thing to experience and it shows a measure of love. But a compassion brought out for a loss with a quick reply or acknowledgment on that computer or phone, is different than a compassion that sits face to face and cries with you. Jesus did even more than leave the social media like distance and sit knee to knee with us, he even took on death and the one who was beyond and above temptations, took them on beside us, so that when He comes beside ours, he gets us more than any other. I love the thought of verse 17 that shows us His mercy was born out of the idea of Him becoming like us, not just for us or beside us.
How do you use this thought to explain the idea of Biblical sympathy?
What is a time that you felt a stronger love when those people were beside you rather than when those people were just responding to you?
Who is around you right now that needs this kind of sympathy?
How does this become your prayer?
The Incarnation is the teaching that Jesus, fully God, also became fully man. How can you be “fully” two things? We would say that only God can do such a thing and that it is not in the realm of human math. We could spend so much time in the weeds of trying to understand that complex truth and work out all of the details, but for our devotions today, we simply want to spend time in awe and wonder at the truth and what it teaches us.
What the writer of Hebrews is saying here, deserves a really long time of meditating and unpacking. There is no compassion quite like the compassion that gets down in the dirt and hurts beside you. A cheap lesson from our own culture would serve great here. I can be compassionate about something that I read on social media and even experience hurt from understanding the pain someone is feeling as they post a prayer request on our church’s app. That is even a good thing to experience and it shows a measure of love. But a compassion brought out for a loss with a quick reply or acknowledgment on that computer or phone, is different than a compassion that sits face to face and cries with you. Jesus did even more than leave the social media like distance and sit knee to knee with us, he even took on death and the one who was beyond and above temptations, took them on beside us, so that when He comes beside ours, he gets us more than any other. I love the thought of verse 17 that shows us His mercy was born out of the idea of Him becoming like us, not just for us or beside us.
How do you use this thought to explain the idea of Biblical sympathy?
What is a time that you felt a stronger love when those people were beside you rather than when those people were just responding to you?
Who is around you right now that needs this kind of sympathy?
How does this become your prayer?
Day 2
Read Hebrews 4:14-16
I get nervous when I start to think through verses like this. How far can I take this and what would be out of bounds when applying this passage? You see I have a healthy respect and fear of God, so when I think about Him being tempted “in every respect” it starts to feel very non-God like. Sure, you can go too far here, but it is also good to push up against the line and think through the idea presented here. For a tame version, I can realize that Jesus may not have experienced that specific anger I felt and wanted to react to when I felt I was belittled or bullied the other day, I can say that Jesus surely felt the draw to react as the temperature of His anger rose in situations that He faced. He is Jesus that was tempted to fly of the handle. He is acquainted to anger, and I am too. So when He compels me to remain self controlled in my anger, I hear it was different than I would from a calm God unlike me. I can’t scream back in frustration “You wouldn’t understand!” Because He does.
Yet…without the sin. That’s the next level of this thought experiment. It is one thing that Jesus gets it and knows what I am going through, it is another thing that He gets it, has been through it, and knows the best way through it. To continue the thought experiment of anger, He has experienced it, has called me to control it, and has controlled it Himself.
Remember, our application for the idea of Sympathy From The Gospel, is about how we can be like Jesus to other people in this context.
How does meditating on this truth about Jesus make His relationship with you seem so much deeper?
If you were to take this idea, and start to apply it to the relationships that are difficult around you, what are you starting to see?
How does this become your prayer today?
I get nervous when I start to think through verses like this. How far can I take this and what would be out of bounds when applying this passage? You see I have a healthy respect and fear of God, so when I think about Him being tempted “in every respect” it starts to feel very non-God like. Sure, you can go too far here, but it is also good to push up against the line and think through the idea presented here. For a tame version, I can realize that Jesus may not have experienced that specific anger I felt and wanted to react to when I felt I was belittled or bullied the other day, I can say that Jesus surely felt the draw to react as the temperature of His anger rose in situations that He faced. He is Jesus that was tempted to fly of the handle. He is acquainted to anger, and I am too. So when He compels me to remain self controlled in my anger, I hear it was different than I would from a calm God unlike me. I can’t scream back in frustration “You wouldn’t understand!” Because He does.
Yet…without the sin. That’s the next level of this thought experiment. It is one thing that Jesus gets it and knows what I am going through, it is another thing that He gets it, has been through it, and knows the best way through it. To continue the thought experiment of anger, He has experienced it, has called me to control it, and has controlled it Himself.
Remember, our application for the idea of Sympathy From The Gospel, is about how we can be like Jesus to other people in this context.
How does meditating on this truth about Jesus make His relationship with you seem so much deeper?
If you were to take this idea, and start to apply it to the relationships that are difficult around you, what are you starting to see?
How does this become your prayer today?
Day 3
Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-31
The body of Christ, the church, the followers of Jesus are described in so many different ways in the Bible. We are a family and therefore we can expect that “difficult relationships” label we have been talking about in this series to impact us. The gospel is important in the church as it is the foundation of what we believe saves us from our sins, but also in communicating to all of us how we exist together in a community that interacts in many different ways.
Here, Paul is getting ready to launch into his most famous chapter, the chapter about love and what it means. So much in the area of sympathy can be gleaned from that chapter, but let’s stop short of it and look at the lessons of sympathy found here in this part. Verse 26 gives us our word in Greek, even though most of the English versions don’t translate it that way. It says, “And whether one member suffers, all the members (sympascho, sympathize) with it…” In other words, being a part of the body of Christ is to be sympathetic with all of those with us. If we don’t get that, it won’t work long. People are hurting and some are even rejoicing. I can hurt with those that are hurting and I should rejoice with those rejoicing. In order to do that, I also need to know those around me and be involved in their lives. I have to become aware that this church is not a place that I attend and then leave when the “show” is over, but rather its a place I learn to be in community with people while walking beside them in all that they are going through.
Who are those that you go to church that you do not really know right now? Why do you not know them?
Who is someone that you know may be going through a great time and you need to congratulate them? Who is someone that you need to hurt beside and how can you show them that you care?
How does this become part of your prayer today?
The body of Christ, the church, the followers of Jesus are described in so many different ways in the Bible. We are a family and therefore we can expect that “difficult relationships” label we have been talking about in this series to impact us. The gospel is important in the church as it is the foundation of what we believe saves us from our sins, but also in communicating to all of us how we exist together in a community that interacts in many different ways.
Here, Paul is getting ready to launch into his most famous chapter, the chapter about love and what it means. So much in the area of sympathy can be gleaned from that chapter, but let’s stop short of it and look at the lessons of sympathy found here in this part. Verse 26 gives us our word in Greek, even though most of the English versions don’t translate it that way. It says, “And whether one member suffers, all the members (sympascho, sympathize) with it…” In other words, being a part of the body of Christ is to be sympathetic with all of those with us. If we don’t get that, it won’t work long. People are hurting and some are even rejoicing. I can hurt with those that are hurting and I should rejoice with those rejoicing. In order to do that, I also need to know those around me and be involved in their lives. I have to become aware that this church is not a place that I attend and then leave when the “show” is over, but rather its a place I learn to be in community with people while walking beside them in all that they are going through.
Who are those that you go to church that you do not really know right now? Why do you not know them?
Who is someone that you know may be going through a great time and you need to congratulate them? Who is someone that you need to hurt beside and how can you show them that you care?
How does this become part of your prayer today?
Day 4
Read Matthew 9:35-38
Sometimes I find myself just living in my own world. I wake up and go to work. I come home and rush through Wal-Mart or somewhere else and just fight through the crowd. I drive in the left hand lane and blow past all of the cars that seem to be in no hurry or not sure how to handle the roads that I know so well. I got chores to do and fill my time with so much that I end the week with still more to do on my plate. I will even confess that sometimes I find myself annoyed that I have to adjust things that I am doing to pull someone through a tough situation, again and again…wondering why they won’t just do what they said they were going to do.
I could go on, but I think I am convicted enough here to see that I don’t see crowds the same way that Jesus does. Sympathy involves compassion. But we are not talking about the crowds this week, like the hundreds of strangers all around me, but rather those that are closer than that. Here is the hard part for me, if I struggle to see the crowds of hundreds of people around me with compassion, I can also see that I am struggling with these sort of Jesus’ eyes to see the people much closer around me. I get frustrated at some of the things that I have to parent those kids out of and I tend to just do the parenting auto-pilot thing that is the emotional response born more out of aggravation than anything else. That same example works with our spouses and even our friends. Much of the time we forget to stop and look at them through the Jesus eyes we are called to see through. It is in those eyes that we see the harassed and helpless person that is more than in my way, on my nerves, or annoying me.
How does this become part of your prayer today?
Sometimes I find myself just living in my own world. I wake up and go to work. I come home and rush through Wal-Mart or somewhere else and just fight through the crowd. I drive in the left hand lane and blow past all of the cars that seem to be in no hurry or not sure how to handle the roads that I know so well. I got chores to do and fill my time with so much that I end the week with still more to do on my plate. I will even confess that sometimes I find myself annoyed that I have to adjust things that I am doing to pull someone through a tough situation, again and again…wondering why they won’t just do what they said they were going to do.
I could go on, but I think I am convicted enough here to see that I don’t see crowds the same way that Jesus does. Sympathy involves compassion. But we are not talking about the crowds this week, like the hundreds of strangers all around me, but rather those that are closer than that. Here is the hard part for me, if I struggle to see the crowds of hundreds of people around me with compassion, I can also see that I am struggling with these sort of Jesus’ eyes to see the people much closer around me. I get frustrated at some of the things that I have to parent those kids out of and I tend to just do the parenting auto-pilot thing that is the emotional response born more out of aggravation than anything else. That same example works with our spouses and even our friends. Much of the time we forget to stop and look at them through the Jesus eyes we are called to see through. It is in those eyes that we see the harassed and helpless person that is more than in my way, on my nerves, or annoying me.
How does this become part of your prayer today?
Day 5
Read Mark 8:1-10
Linking this passage to yesterday’s reading, we see this is another “crowd” passage. Linking this story in the rest of the gospels, we see this is another feeding of a great crowd story. There are some easy layers of understanding here, but there are also some deep hidden gems that require a bit of knowledge. When Jesus feed the 5,000, they took up 12 baskets full of leftovers. Here, when Jesus feeds 4,000, there are clear marks about the number 7 and also the idea that there were 7 baskets of leftovers taken up. I think there is significance in these numbers past just the inventory count of baskets the disciples had to carry out of this pace. The first miracle and the 12 baskets of leftovers represent the 12 tribes that made up Israel and who were waiting for the Messiah. The 7 baskets of leftovers represent the 7 other nations, or Gentile nations that also made up the promised land inhabitants in Deuteronomy. That is a fun thing to chase and look up, but we won’t focus there for this devotion.
Both of the mass feeding passages are born out of the narrative of sympathy for and in crowds. Remember, we have defined Biblical sympathy a bit different than the clinical and modern way of saying it. We have combined the ideas of sympathy and empathy to create the hyper idea of Biblical sympathy. We talked about the Incarnation, or the idea of Jesus becoming man and the implications of how that means we are to do ministry and care for people around us. We have wanted to expand our audience to the big crowds, but we have also pushed back to keep our view small and close to home so we don’t lose responsibility in the crowd. You can’t feed 4,000, but work through the implications of a compassion for the crowd of one next to you today and see what Jesus is trying to say to you here.
In your house, in your (difficult?) relationships that you are responsible for, where do you see a hunger that needs a compassionate response? Look at your spouse or kids or even parents or grandparents and see a need to be heard or to be helped.
Now look at your work or school. Where is there a person that needs heard or helped?
How does this become part of your prayers today?
Linking this passage to yesterday’s reading, we see this is another “crowd” passage. Linking this story in the rest of the gospels, we see this is another feeding of a great crowd story. There are some easy layers of understanding here, but there are also some deep hidden gems that require a bit of knowledge. When Jesus feed the 5,000, they took up 12 baskets full of leftovers. Here, when Jesus feeds 4,000, there are clear marks about the number 7 and also the idea that there were 7 baskets of leftovers taken up. I think there is significance in these numbers past just the inventory count of baskets the disciples had to carry out of this pace. The first miracle and the 12 baskets of leftovers represent the 12 tribes that made up Israel and who were waiting for the Messiah. The 7 baskets of leftovers represent the 7 other nations, or Gentile nations that also made up the promised land inhabitants in Deuteronomy. That is a fun thing to chase and look up, but we won’t focus there for this devotion.
Both of the mass feeding passages are born out of the narrative of sympathy for and in crowds. Remember, we have defined Biblical sympathy a bit different than the clinical and modern way of saying it. We have combined the ideas of sympathy and empathy to create the hyper idea of Biblical sympathy. We talked about the Incarnation, or the idea of Jesus becoming man and the implications of how that means we are to do ministry and care for people around us. We have wanted to expand our audience to the big crowds, but we have also pushed back to keep our view small and close to home so we don’t lose responsibility in the crowd. You can’t feed 4,000, but work through the implications of a compassion for the crowd of one next to you today and see what Jesus is trying to say to you here.
In your house, in your (difficult?) relationships that you are responsible for, where do you see a hunger that needs a compassionate response? Look at your spouse or kids or even parents or grandparents and see a need to be heard or to be helped.
Now look at your work or school. Where is there a person that needs heard or helped?
How does this become part of your prayers today?
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