SIGNAL CHURCH CAPE TOWN
Jessie Hayden:- Jesus: Jesus’ Passion For People Pt.26
Hi everybody, how many of the women in this room are coming to her story next Saturday? Your hands up, amazing, we're so excited for this, we've got nearly forty people signed up already, so please do sign up today if you haven't, I feel such an expectation for what God wants to do in releasing our voices and not just to each other in the room which is always so wonderful to get to know each other and hear each other's stories but actually wider and broader as well and I really felt like the Lord's been speaking to me a lot over the last three years actually about the stories of the women that are in this room and the power of the testimony, the power of the stories to be released into the world and into Cape Town and so this is that moment to come together and start to do that, so very, very excited for that next Saturday, sign up if you haven't already but today we are continuing with our series on Jesus looking at every facet of who he is and it's been so incredible to do this over the course of this year and particularly last week how many of you were here to listen to Nati speaking about the humility of Jesus, what an incredible message if you happen to miss that one please do listen to the podcast, it's a foundational word for our church and it's really challenged me and I know it's challenged many of us to step into greater compassion actually which is what we will be talking about today, Jesus is passion for people and throughout the Gospels we see Jesus as passion for people, he releases his wisdom, he releases healing, he releases freedom everywhere he goes, he can't not, he is compassion and we know from his words that what he really wants is for us to receive that compassion, receive his passion for us and then to release it to other people who wants us to pass it on and actually he wants that so much that he says every single time you give a drink of water to somebody who is thirsty or you feed someone who is hungry or you visit somebody in prison or you clothe somebody that needs to be clothed it's as if he receives it as if you are doing it to him or for him, that's what he tells us and actually that makes so much sense to me because I know that one way that you can love me is if you love the people I love, so if you are kind to Samuel my little son or if you are kind to my husband I receive that as if you are being kind to me, can't we all relate to that, if you love, somebody loves the people you love, you do receive it as if they have loved you, so today we are going to talk about Jesus' compassion and we are going to think about how to release that to the people around us and what I'm going to do is I'm going to first just ground it in our South African context, in our context of Cape Town because when we listen to his words we need to be able to take them and put them where we are and think about how do we become compassion in our context. So let's have a look at some of these stats that will come up on the slide. In the greater Cape Town area it is estimated that there are 14,000 homeless people. A report by UCT recently said alarming food insecurity levels in the city with an estimated 250,000 households experiencing hunger and yet 10 million tons of food go to waste every year, that's a third of the food that is produced goes to waste and yet we have 250,000 hungry households. We know that South Africa is the most unequal country in the world and we are constantly living between this what feels like a first world and a third world reality, we're sitting on Clifton Beach but then we could be in Kylie to the next day and it's a completely different reality that's inequality sits with us every single day and to sit in these realities is overwhelming. I know because I've spoken to many of you, we talk about this often, how do we sit in the reality of these tensions? Henry Noen says the following, let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely and broken but this is not as spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it. It's very hard to actually sit in it but it is Jesus's very willingness to go towards the broken, to sit into the tension, to not shut down, to not disappear, to not try and find a quick cure that releases the kingdom and the impact through him. You can't have impact without first sitting in the discomfort of compassion. But staying open is hard and I find that for myself and for other people I've spoken to when you leave you go and spend some time in Europe or somewhere where there isn't this incredibly, I mean there's poverty everywhere but there's incredibly stark contrast. You come back and it just, compassion hits you quite hard when you first step back into the reality of what we live in every day. But over time we become familiar and we get distracted by our own struggles. Most of the world is suffering from within a cost of living crisis so at every economic level we're feeling, a lot of us are feeling a struggle. We all have our challenges and our things that we are dealing with in life and it's very easy to sit back and think, you know what, I'm just going to care for my family because in the kingdom we care for our own family first and it is biblical and it is kingdom to care for our own, to be a good mother, to be a good wife, to be a good husband. But God asked us to care for his family, not just our own family. And I think he's asking us today and I'm absolutely preaching to myself as well to remove some of this familiarity and to actually allow compassion to flow through us again because he wants us to be people of impact. He has given us a kingdom within us and he wants us to release that to the world around us. And he wants us to feel empowered and not overwhelmed to be able to do that. So we're going to read the verse for today and unpack that in two parts. The first, Jesus' compassion for the crowds and the second, Jesus' plan to send out workers into the harvest field. So we're going to read Matthew 9.35, Jesus went through all the towns and villages teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds he had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. The Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest field." Jesus' compassion on the crowds was limitless. We see throughout the gospel stories of the crowds pressing in on him. He carried something tangible that would answer the desires of their heart. He knew that they were like sheep without a shepherd. They didn't even know what they wanted but he knew what they needed and he knew how to preach into that space and give them the wisdom. Give them the healing. Give them the freedom that they didn't even know they needed. He brought something brand new. He saw them more deeply than anyone else had ever seen them. When he looked at people he didn't see their sin, he didn't see their sickness, he didn't see their behavior, he didn't see their pain only. He looked deep into their heart and he saw their entire journey and he also sees where they're going. He always sees restoration. I believe that he's training us if we'll be open to see through the eyes of restoration as well because that's how you avoid overwhelm. If you're looking at somebody and thinking, "I have no idea how to help you," of course it's easier to look away but if you're looking at someone with the faith of Jesus, the restoration in mind, then the overwhelm isn't so easy. He looked at them as a crowd but he looked at them individually. He looked at each person and carried true compassion and hope for them. Many of you will be familiar with the stories like when the paralyzed man gets lowered through the roof by his friends so that Jesus will heal his legs or perhaps the woman with the issue of blood for 12 years. He's considered unclean by everybody around her and yet she touches Jesus' garment and he heals her. But what about when he weeps with Mary because her brother Lazarus has died? He lets that compassion flow through him and he weeps with her even though right afterwards he goes to the tomb and he says Lazarus get up and Lazarus is raised from the dead. What about the practical needs like when the 4,000 and the 5,000 were hungry and he multiplied food so that they would eat? You could tell a hundred other stories of Jesus' compassion and that is because Jesus' compassion wasn't something that he did. Compassion was something that he was and compassion is something that he still is. He cannot not be compassionate. Dan Orton puts it this way, what he is, he does. He cannot act any other way. His life proves his heart. Charles Spurgeon tells us that the English word for compassion doesn't do the justice of the Greek. The literal meaning of the word is to be moved as to one's bowels or the more palatable, gut-wrenching compassion. Gut-wrenching. When you feel gut-wrenching compassion you cannot not act. Jesus' natural instinct when he sees brokenness, suffering, sin and disease is to run towards it. And in that time and in that culture that was unusual because the religious teachers would run away from brokenness, from uncleanness. They were living in this very complex and complicated moral purity culture where you were clean or unclean based on what you had or hadn't done and then you had to give sacrifices to make yourself clean again and everyone was very nervous because if somebody who was unclean came towards you they'd make you unclean as well. But Jesus comes and introduces a completely different way because He says you come to me and my cleanness makes you clean. It's a completely different system. And this is still who Jesus is. And this is who Jesus is for each one of us. No matter where we are broken, hurting, in cycles of destructive thinking, in sin or pain or suffering of any kind, when we come to Jesus, He makes us clean. He brings us into restoration. And we can't be in a room the size without there being people here who are grieving in pain in destructive ways of thinking. In depression, we cannot be in a room the size without people that need the compassion of Jesus. But when we draw close to Jesus, He will also embrace us and He will bring us close and He will put us on the journey of restoration. His gut-wrenching compassion is focused on you. His gut-wrenching compassion is moving towards you and His compassion moves in action. The first thing you need to know about Jesus is that He is wildly passionate about you and the second is that His compassion can change your life. But there's one thing that can really block our compassion for others, and that is not receiving compassion from Jesus and not being compassionate on ourselves. I was reading a story in a parenting book the other day. And it was about challenging behavior. What do we do with challenging behavior in toddlers specifically? And the woman started to talk about how it's not about the challenging behavior. It's actually about the heart. How do we address the heart of what that toddler is going through? And I must say my first instinct was, "No, I think we need to address the behavior." But then she put it in the context of me and she said, "What about you? What about if you had been having the most terrible day at work and it was so stressful you under so much pressure then you get home and the house is a mess and somebody is rude to you and then just you've cooked this whole meal for your toddler and they throw it in your face and you just get so crusted, all bubbles up and you throw a cereal box across the room and burst into tears. What do you need from your partner in that moment? Do you need them to go? It is unacceptable to throw cereal boxes across this kitchen. Do you go to your room or do you need in that moment for that person to come and just wrap you up in a big hug and go, "Gosh, what's going on for you? This is unusual." And I think we all know the answer and the reason why I give this illustration is because I think sometimes the church is a bad reputation for being all about our behavior, for being first and foremost like how are we behaving and perhaps the church deserves that reputation. But Jesus is about the heart and Jesus will always draw you in no matter what you've done, no matter what's happening for you or how bad your behavior is or how much pain you in and how that's manifesting and he will draw you in and he will say, "What's going on for you? How can we move you forward? How can we heal you? How can we remind you who you really are?" He might not be with us as a person in the bodily flesh as he was in the stories we told earlier, but through the Holy Spirit he is just as present to us. He's just as close to us as he ever was for them and he's just as willing to let his compassion change you as he was then. So let's return to the verse. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers of few ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into the harvest field." So what is he talking about? Jesus is saying that there are so many people that need healing and restoration on the earth and he knows that he needs a bigger solution than himself. He needs a systemic solution in order to reach everybody you need. In the very next verse Jesus inaugurates more workers into the field by giving his disciples the authority to do everything he had been doing. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have left received, drive our demons. He encourages them freely you have received, freely give. And later that same authority is given to the church to all believers. Jesus makes them first and then us his hands and feet of compassion because we have received his love. One John 3, 17 says, "If anyone sees a brother in need and does not have compassion on him, is the love of God even in that person." And while through a particular lens that might sound condemning, what it actually tells us is the more of Jesus' love that we can receive, the more we know how to go to him, receive his compassion, the more his love flows through us. So there's an identity piece to this because otherwise the danger is we just hear be better and we're back at behavior, be better, be more compassionate, give more, do more, pray more, tithe more, and then we feel overwhelmed and guilty because we can never do enough. Will power will always exhaust you, love and identity realize will ignite your passion. We want to be people who walk as passion ignited, not being beaten by a stick to just be better. The real spiritual work is to better understand who you are and what you've received so you can freely give it away. And this is a lifelong journey. So instead of feeling bad about what you're not doing as we go into this next section, I want you to think me fully revealed carries the same heart of compassion as Jesus. However, this doesn't mean that we do nothing because in the kingdom our whole hearted yes to God manifests in our choices. We have a choice to use our authority and follow the example of Jesus. So we're going to take the identity piece and the love of Jesus and return to our South African context where we are placed and called to be compassionate and to bring the kingdom of God. Colossians 3.12 says, "Therefore, as God's chosen people clothe yourselves in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." Or there's a paraphrase of this verse that says, "Sync into this beautiful new person as into an exquisite tailor-made garment delicately embroidered within her compassion." Very poetic. But don't you like the idea of sinking into it? Again, it just takes us away from that, be it, sink into it. This is who you already are. There are two strategies that I see in the life of Jesus that we can apply in our South African context. The first is, "Jesus stopped for the one." In the stories we mentioned above, what we see most of the time is Jesus stopping for the person that presented themselves in front of him. Yes, the need around us is overwhelming, and you can't stop for everyone, but you can stop for somebody. And importantly, Jesus doesn't allow us to close our hearts. It's easy to start to compartmentalize, or that's them over here and this is me over here. It's easy to want to turn away. It's easy to even want to escape. I hear plenty of Christians talking about how they'd like to go live somewhere else where there's no poor people, unacceptable in the kingdom of God. There is an opportunity to be the hands and feet of compassion in this place. We do not close our hearts of compassion. That doesn't mean we have to give to everyone who asks us for money. In fact, the Western Cape government asks that we don't give money to people on the street because they want to encourage people to go and use the shelters and to get into the system to help bring greater restoration. But that doesn't mean we never give money. It means we follow the Holy Spirit. It means we keep our heart open to be nudged by Him. 90 so beautifully encouraged us last week to take care of our community. To stop for the one means to open our eyes and take the time to be there for the people that are in front of us. Who is in your household? Not just in your own family, but who works for you? How is your life impacting them? How are you different from the person who doesn't know Jesus and how you treat the people that work for you? How do you think about how their children are experiencing education? How do you give them opportunities that can level them up in a way that they wouldn't have necessarily had if you weren't there? Can you imagine if every single one of us just took responsibility for one other family of just helping one other family to just come up one level? How would our city change? But part of it is unlocking our thinking that we don't think like everybody else. We don't think like the world and we don't think with entitlement and we don't think like people who are entitled to a particular lifestyle. We think like Jesus and we allow our gut-wrenching compassion to flow through us and to do something completely extraordinary. I have a friend who had somebody knock on her door quite late at night about 15 years ago and this woman was desperate and she was knocking on doors just going please somebody help me and everybody closed the door and Mary my friend Mary looked at this woman and she was so moved by compassion for her that she just gave her all the money that she had in her wallet at that time and she said come back tomorrow and I'll give you a job. Mary was living in a one bedroom flat and she didn't actually need somebody to clean it but she allowed this woman to clean her flat for years. She then got her two or three other jobs this woman wasn't a particularly good cleaner and I think she was quite a challenging person in some ways but she died two years ago and Mary looked after her that entire time even when she couldn't work anymore and she lost her eyesight and she was at home and she had no retirement to live on her children couldn't find work she was completely destitute and Mary didn't owe her anything but she chose to make a difference to somebody's life over the course of 15 years and to her family's life she was moved by gut wrenching compassion to extraordinary action and we can all do things like this we can all stop for the one who is in front of you and wears the Holy Spirit nudging you and I would encourage you to just and I've had to do this myself so I really am preaching to myself as well we have to look into our heart and ask the Lord to dismantle the places in us that are blocked from compassion the places in us that are seeing through a particular viewpoint that shuts out our ability to help others we have to ask him to unlock and those wells of compassion that he wants to flow through us and we have to trust that we will not become overwhelmed because we have every resource available to us in him and I'm not going to go into this and I wasn't going to mention it but you can go and look this up at home. Brenny Brown actually talks about how she's done a lot of research into compassion and the most compassionate people are boundaries people so this doesn't mean that we don't have boundaries and that's actually how we avoid the overwhelm we learn how to be boundaries in the space and yet from that place allow that compassion to flow through. So the phrase stop for the one was made famous I think originally by Heidi Baker who is a missionary in Mozambique and this is her encouragement to us there are people in need where you are just as they are people in need where I am. Another thing I've learned I'm not qualified to do what I do I'm far from perfect in and of myself I can do nothing it is only Christ in me that empowers me to stop for the one and then do something practical for that person but I have found that as I make the decision simply to stop and pay attention Jesus unleashes miraculous power beyond my imagining. And then the second thing that applies to us that I see Jesus doing is Jesus changed the system. Jesus didn't only stop for the one he brought a whole new system of blessing into the world and that was called the kingdom of God and he's put that kingdom in each one of us and a kingdom isn't just about following a king and a kingdom isn't just about living in that kingdom and trying to get other people to come and live in that kingdom a kingdom is a system of governance that is designed to bless everybody underneath it. And God has strategies for us and he has authority for us that can release systemic change into the places that we live. So yes we stop for the one but also let's be asking God for systemic solutions some of us are called to go upstream and to stop poverty way further up than in this outcome where somebody is experiencing a tritear. Some of us are called to ask God for strategic and systemic solutions. And I think in church we overemphasize the stop for the one sometimes and we overemphasize what we can do to help us we can pray and what we can do to help us we can tithe and we can give to this charity and occasionally we can help somebody practically. And it's really really good to emphasize those things but what I want to just remind us today is that God also has bigger strategies for us. He has strategies for systemic change. He has strategies to change the system. We all talk about that I think most of us would have heard about the starfish on the beach you know the man throws the one starfish in and he says oh I've made no difference and the starfish says you've made a difference to me. That's beautiful and it's true we must make a difference. But what if he wants to rescue the entire beach of starfish? What if he wants to release a bigger solution through you? And I think sometimes we forget to pray for that. We forget to pray God use me to be the person that can release systemic change. And it's because we're thinking in terms of lack sometimes we're thinking well I don't have the capacity I'm not qualified I'm not a politician I don't have the resources for that but God doesn't need you to have any of those things he just needs your yes. And then you take the first step and then those resources come and then you're in the midst of this incredible adventure of faith of watching what God can do just with your yes. That's why Jesus asked us to disciple nations. Author Ed Silversa says one of the hallmarks of the expansion of the kingdom of God is the reduction and then the elimination of systemic poverty. This will tell us that everything is redeemed. So being his hands of feasts of compassion sometimes requires dismantling the systems of this world that are keeping people in poverty. I understand that perhaps not everyone is called to this but my God tells me that more of us are called to it than are stepping in. And I want to give you the confidence today that if that's something that you think is burning in your heart start to pray into that start to ask God for the strategy. Give him your yes and allow him to show you the next step. Cape Town needs systemic solutions. I work with an incredible man and friend his name is Jeremy Sweetland who six years ago was living in Bristol and was bothered by the fact that there were refugees in the city that didn't have homes, just bothered him. And he started to talk to a few friends and he had seen that you know people were using containers to house people in innovative ways and he went to go speak to the mayor and said could we not just you know get some containers for some refugees. And six years later that little thought that being bothered has become a strategic solution for the city of Bristol that has led to the releasing of a strategy with the goal of ending child homelessness in the whole of the UK. It's a strategy and a playbook that is impacting not only local government in the UK but regional government and now central government. And all he did was say yes. He just let something bother him and have to say God show me the next step. And there's been lots of ups and downs in that journey and that's a story for another day. And he's finally stopped saying for the first five years I heard him say so many times I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. I know nothing about the built environment. This is not my field and yet the Holy Spirit knew what he was doing and he knows how to take what we have and he knows how to multiply that into incredible incredible impact. If he was here he would tell you that each of us have something in our hand. Many of you will know the story of the boy with the loaves and the fishes that Jesus used to feed the five thousand. And if my friend Joe Sweetland was here he would ask you about what's in your hand and then he would pause and say how will you deploy it. What if the little boy with the loaves and the fishes just fed the five people in front of him. What if he just broke it and gave it away to the people that were right there. Those people would have been fed and he would have felt better because he'd shared his lunch. But it wouldn't have been miraculous and it wouldn't have fed the five thousand. But instead what he did was he took that to Jesus and he let Jesus do with it what he could never do himself. So with whatever it is in our hand let's be bringing that to Jesus and let's trust him not only for the solution for the person who is in front of us but also for the systemic solution that blesses so many more. God has solutions and resources for all of the world's problems and he's authorized us as a people. So for each of us today let's be excited by the solutions God has for the context we're in. Let's keep our hearts soft and feel the feels even when it's uncomfortable. And let's let those feels, let's let the feeling of righteous anger upset at injustice. Sadness when we see people suffering, let's sit in those tensions, let's wrestle with them, let's not shut them down and compartmentalize them. But let's allow them to bring what we have to Jesus so that he can do incredible things with them far beyond what we could do ourselves. Jesus has always been looking for people, it's always been people that spread the kingdom he wants to partner with us. We love to come to church on a Sunday but you know the church is not a Sunday event. The church is this body of people, all of you and what you do every day of your lives to bring the kingdom. Jesus love and passion flows through us and we get to be the hands and feet of that compassion to see the whole world redeemed. So let's thank God for the privilege of living with the opportunity to be his hands and feet. So why don't you stand with me and let's pray. When I was preparing this message I really felt that there were people in this room that there's a desire to go upstream and see systems changed, tugging at your heart. And you don't know how to do it and you're not even sure you have what it takes but you've been feeling a tugging and I believe the Lord just wants to release courage and anointing on you for that today. So if that's you I want you to raise your hand and we're going to pray. Raise it nice and high. Yeah thank you God for each one of these that has raised their hand. Lord I thank you that you are releasing something new this morning. Lord I thank you that you are setting a new foundation this morning for these people to live their lives on. Lord I thank you for the passion in each of their hearts and how you've moved them God. And Lord I just pray that you would anoint each one of them today. Lord I pray that you would just send courage today. That you would send resource today. Lord I just pray that your voice would resound in their ears. I feel like he's saying to you fear not the Lord is with you. Fear not the Lord is with you. Every resource is available to you. Everything you need will be given to you. Lord I pray that you would show them the next step. Just show them the next step Lord. And I pray that you would take them by the hand and you would lead them step by step into the great things that you want to do through them. If you're around them and they've got their hands up just lift your hands up once more. Let's just bless them as a community and put your hand on their shoulder. Our Lord as a community we just come alongside these people that want to impact the systems of this world and God we just lend our strength and our support. And Lord we just pray that you would release everything that they need. Thank you God I just feel like he's releasing strategy. He's releasing passion and he's releasing courage and this is going to burn in you. This is going to burn in you from today. Thank you God for what you're doing. Thank you Lord for what you're doing. Thank you for your world redeemed. Thank you for the authority on each of us. Thank you for the authority on each of us. Lord would you just even make this more apparent to us. Help us to see everything that you've given us Lord. Open our eyes to see kingdom reformation. Thank you God. And then I just want to pray secondly for people who if you feel like your heart has been shut down to compassion. I've gone through a process in the last couple of weeks of just praying like God where have I shut down to compassion because I'm overwhelmed with my own life and I just don't know how to find room. If that's you won't you raise your hand as well and let's just pray that the Lord would release compassion in you Lord where we've shut down, where we've compartmentalized, where our desire is to escape or run away or for quick fixes. Lord would you just release our hearts again to receive your compassion and to let it flow freely through us Lord would you just give us your gut wrenching compassion. Would you open our eyes to the people in our lives that need to know your love, that need to know your kingdom through us God. Would you nudge us Holy Spirit? Would you nudge us Holy Spirit? Open our eyes God. [Music]