Compassion: The Need of Every Person

Last night after the Wednesday night service at Salem Baptist Church, a member asked me to write a statement about how pastors can exhibit compassion toward people in their sermons. In our discussion about his request, he said that many church members feel brow-beaten by the sermons of pastors. They enter the service as sheep needing to be loved and cared for but leave feeling beaten down and verbally assaulted.

I am not certain that I am qualified to fulfill the member's request, but I agree with him about the need for congregants to feel compassion from a pastor. I promised to honor his request and write a statement about displaying compassion toward people when we preach. This blog is my attempt to share my thoughts.

First of all, we need to continually exhibit compassion in all of our relationships. Preachers need to exhibit compassion when they preach. Church members need to be compassionate toward each other as they interact and minister together. Compassion is needed in the workplace between coworkers. Across the political landscape, political leaders would benefit by exhibiting more compassion toward each other.

Secondly, compassion is not something we manufacture through our own initiative and efforts. The Lord enables us to be compassionate through the working of the indwelling Holy Spirit living in us. Consider the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 6:22,23, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. against such there is no law." The fruit of the Spirit has a decidedly compassionate quality. It is impossible to exhibit compassion towards other people when you have no love, no kindness and no gentleness. Without patience to be longsuffering toward others and the self-control to not lash out at others, we will never be compassionate people. Compassionate comes from being filled with the Holy Spirit.

Thirdly, compassion towards others comes from emulating Jesus. He is our example and the One we should be emulating. Jesus consistently demonstrated compassion throughout His early ministry. "A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench" (Matthew 12:20). To paraphrase, Jesus is in the helping business rather than the piling on mode. The church member that asked me to share these thoughts stressed that church members are sheep in need of care. Indeed, they are, and this reminds me of another example of Jesus showing compassions. "But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd" (Matthew 9:36).

The belief that compassions toward others flow out of an attitude is the last thought I have. Someone who stands before people to preach the gospel has been described as a beggar offering the bread of life to other beggars. This puts the preacher on a level field with those to whom he is speaking. The only reason he can say anything to them is because he has the same needs they have. If he has tasted the bread of life that addressed his hunger, he still just a beggar speaking to other beggars who has the same needs he has. There is no place for anything other than compassion. Richard Baxter was a great English Puritan preacher. He once said, "Still thinking I had little time to live, my fervent heart to win men's souls did strive. I preach'd, as never sure to preach again, as a dying man to dying men." Preaching as a dying man to dying men is impossible without an attitude of compassion.

I'm not sure that these words are in any way a definitive statement about how a preacher can have compassion for the people to whom he speaks. I do believe that all of us should be compassionate toward each other, especially when we speak to each other. Through the indwelling Spirit and by following the example of Jesus, may God give us compassionate hearts.