Set Your Mind Above

S2 E62 - Compassion or Cover Your Ears?

September 28, 2022 Season 2 Episode 62
Set Your Mind Above
S2 E62 - Compassion or Cover Your Ears?
Show Notes Transcript

We are getting used to a family of 5 now with the addition of our third child, and of course it is chaos but in a beautiful way. One thing our oldest two are getting used to is how much a newborn cries. On the way home the other night, they each had very different reactions to her ongoing screams in the car. My daughter, in a motherly way, was trying to talk to her sweetly and calm her down. My son? Well, he was covering his ears and telling her to "shhhh". Well...their polar opposite reactions are often the same ones that are displayed by Christians to the needs of others. While Jesus calls for us to respond with action out of love when we see others in need, often we simply cover our ears and look the other way. But my friends, how can we do this, in view of what God has done to address our greatest need? May God give us hearts to respond to the needs of others, not simply ignore them or wish them away. 

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Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Set Your Mind Above Podcast! I’m your host BJ Sipe – I’m a Christian, a preacher, a husband, and a father. In this podcast we take everyday, ordinary events and explore how they can teach us extraordinary, eternal truths. I’m so glad that you joined me for this episode. Now, let’s open up our minds, our hearts, and our Bible’s together. 

 

Well, I’m back. It’s a day late, yes I know, but I’m back behind the microphone for the foreseeable future. I want to again express my gratitude to Jacob Hudgins, Scott Beyer, & Hal Hammons for filling in during my absence, as well as Kenny Embry for organizing that effort. I want to thank you, the listeners, for all of your prayers and well wishes as I have been away on paternity leave. I have simply cherished these last few weeks at home – not only getting quality time with my oldest two children Ava & Dane, but spending countless hours with my newborn daughter Finley Grace. Going from two to three children is quite the experience, as we were told to expect. We are officially outnumbered at this point, and chaos is already ensuing. At our latest appointment for Finley, we asked our pediatrician – who has three children – exactly how they handled the transition from two to three children. He laughed and said with sympathetic glee, “Well, you’ve got to kind of handle it like triage – what’s the most urgent need right now? He's got a marker – okay, bad but not urgent. She’s got scissors – okay, I should probably deal with that first.” Man was he right. Our two oldest absolutely love their little sister, and have spent a lot of time wanting to be with her and have her attention. But at the same time, they are also vying for our attention, and pushing every boundary in order to get it. Everything has changed at home, and so they are testing to the waters to see if all the rules still apply and if they are still special to us. Well, yes and of course yes. So, we are navigating all of that together. There are so many lessons that I could share with you from these past two weeks, but there is something that happened this past Monday night that I simply have to share with you. It pertains to two very different responses from my oldest children to the ear piercing cries of their newborn sister. We loaded up the car late after our gospel meeting on Monday night with Luke Chandler, and by this time all of the kids were tired – particularly Finley. We have not taken her out much at all yet, this was probably just her second or third time out of the house, and by around 9 PM she was ready to be home and asleep on her momma – and boy was she letting us know it! The pitch that a baby can scream in is unlike anything else in this world. It is loud, it is constant, and she did it the entire way back home. As we pulled up to the lone stoplight on our way back home, I turned my heard to look back and check on the kids – and I discovered that both Ava & Dane were having very different reactions to the nonstop high pitch cries. My daughter, sitting in the very back, was doing her very best “mommy” impression, saying the sweetest things to calm her baby sister. “There, there,” she said, “Don’t cry Finley, I’m right here. It’s okay, it’s okay Finley.” Watching her comfort & console her little sister was one of the sweetest things to see, leaving a big smile on my face. My smile then broke into a laugh when I looked at Dane. Dane was not so sympathetic – who by this point had both hands cupped over his ears and was saying, “SHHHHH!” as loud as he possibly could toward Finley. I get it Dane – a screaming baby for 10 minutes straight is hard to listen to, especially for a 2-year-old. Kylie and I got a kick out of their complete opposite reactions – one ready to help, the other not so much. 

 

As we got the kids down for bed, my mind kept thinking about this incident on the drive home. It seemed all too familiar to me, as though I had seen this before. And I have, not with my own children, but with the children of God.  In Matthew 25, Jesus is going to give a parable about his people’s drastically different reactions to those who are in need, and how Jesus will respond. Let us begin in vv. 31, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. “‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a stranger and you took me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you took care of me; I was in prison and you visited me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or without clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick, or in prison, and visit you?’ “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ “Then he will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink; I was a stranger and you didn’t take me in; I was naked and you didn’t clothe me, sick and in prison and you didn’t take care of me.’ “Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or without clothes, or sick, or in prison, and not help you?’ “Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” 

 

I want you to ask yourself – how do I respond to the cries of others? When I see someone in need, do I respond with compassion to comfort them – or do I place my hands over my ears, so to speak? In my lifetime, I am sad to say that far too many times I have ignored the needs of others when they were crying out. I am sure that if you examine yourself honestly, you will admit the same. Like the priest or the Levite in the parable of the good Samaritan, we see the hurt of those around us and we just look the other way. In our case it’s not a man beaten and bruised on the side of the road, but it’s other things. It’s the woman with a sign that says, “anything helps” outside of the Walmart, but we just lock our doors and stare the other direction. It’s the homeless man who is sleeping at the part you take your children to play at, and you make sure you do your best to stay as far away from him as possible. It’s the person who walks through the doors to your assembly saying he needs money, and you quickly direct them to the leadership because that’s not your problem. Can you relate to this? Far too often when others are in need, rather than stopping to help, we cover our ears. Why do we do this? Because it’s uncomfortable and hard, just like listening to the ongoing cries of a newborn. Bearing one another’s burdens takes sacrifice, time, energy, and is often outside of our comfort zone. It is far easier to look away than it is to show compassion. We would much rather refer them to someone or somewhere else, because then the burden is not upon us to do anything. But let me ask you…is Christ pleased with this? Given what we just read in Matthew 25, I believe the text emphatically teaches that no he is not. 

 

My friends, we must learn the love of Christ. In fact, John teaches that if you have personally experienced the love of Christ, the only way we could respond to the needs of others is through compassion and action. He writes, “Everyone who hates his brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him. This is how we have come to know love: He laid down his life for us. We should also lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has this world’s goods and sees a fellow believer in need but withholds compassion from him—how does God’s love reside in him? Little children, let us not love in word or speech, but in action and in truth.” (1 John 3:15-18) To see someone in need and do nothing when we have the ability to help is unloving. Actually, John says that such actions are “hateful”, “murderous” even – and that such neglect will not be rewarded with eternal life. How can this be? Isn’t that a bit harsh, Jesus? Well, let’s think about it for just a moment. Let’s stop thinking about the needs of others, and let’s now focus on our own. What is your deepest, most desperate need that we have? Is it not the salvation of our souls? We have cried out to God, plagued by our sin and our shame, and what did God do? Through love, he acted. Moved by compassion God did not simply ignore our great need, covering his ears and looking the other way. No, because of his great love for us, Jesus suffered and died for us. Nothing about what God did for us was easy, convenient, or comfortable. It took the greatest of sacrifices to address our need. If God has loved us in this way, how could we not respond in love and compassion to the needs of others? How can we not endure any hardship or sacrifice in service to the needs of others for the sake of Christ Jesus? And that there is the key, the motivation. As Jesus says, “when you do it to the least of these, you did it to me.” You’re not just doing it for them…you’re doing it for Jesus, in response to the love he first has shown you. May God humble and soften our hard hearts to learn his love & compassion. Don’t use your hands to cover your face, use them to reach out and lift others up just as Jesus has done for you. 

 

Thank you for tuning in for this week’s episode, and I would invite you back every Tuesday for a brand-new episode each week. If you haven’t already, be sure to find us on Facebook for occasional announcements and special video sessions. If you have benefited from this podcast, please if you’re able to be sure to share it with someone else that you think could benefit from it as well. Until next time, know that I love you, that God loves you, and may we all each & every day set our minds above.