Introduction & Background:
Today it a wonderful day for many of us here in Grenada and elsewhere in the world, while many over are suffering and are going through trials and time of testing.
We look at the Haiti situation where just a some time ago, that 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated the Capital, city Port-Aux-Prince, with tens of thousands ending dead.
The suffering is just heart rendering. From the old to the young; from the blacks to the not so black; from the powerful and influential; to the poor and seemingly insignificant, this crisis has touch almost every sector of their population.
Yet in reality many countries are no different from Haiti, because while Haiti would have gone through a natural (physical) disaster, these countries are experiencing spiritual disasters.
It therefore goes to show that we are living in crisis times and these crises requires compassion to help alleviate same.
Our true spiritual state:
Today like so many countries, Grenada appears to be Christian nation, but instead it’s a nation of religious people.
In essence we are fill of lively church goers, but spiritual oppressed, blind, wounded and dead people.Consequently for such a time like this, we need compassion more than ever-because both here in (Grenada), and all over the world, crises are being experienced. The word of God tells us in Luke 4:18-18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, 19To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Definition: Crisis
What exactly is a crisis? A crisis can be defined as an unstable situation of extreme danger or difficulty; from the Greek κρίσις) it may occurs on a personal or societal level. It may be a traumatic or stressful change, yet it may come slow and unknowingly.
Works and Faith:
Brothers and Sisters, as we look at the scripture passage before us, James tell us that one can claim to have faith, and doesn’t have works (works of righteousness) to show for it.
Just what is works? Works is the grace and privileged to carry out the gospel in a practical Biblical way (Ephesians 2:10).
Like in Haiti, we too have many brothers and sisters who are spiritually naked and destitute of the spiritual food, and we say to them depart in peace, be warmed and filled.What a tragedy! What a disaster!
Friends,I am here to tell you that there are still many spiritual victims around us, and if the people of Grenada,are dying for lack of spiritual food, the people of St.Vincent,Cuba,United Stated,Canada,Brazil,Denmark and China, if this people have not made a decision to serve God, they are truly in crisis and we must handle this crisis.
So let me reiterate, if these people are hungry and depending on us for spiritual food, we cannot, we must not- tell them “depart in peace, be warmed and filled.”
Because friends, giving them food for their body is good, but what they really need is food for their soul. "It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.’ Matthew 4:4
Friends,when we pass persons on the street, when we visit persons, and we donot share the gospel with them, because of our own selfish ways, lack of, ignorance or hard-hearted, basically what we really saying to them “depart in peace, be warmed and filled”.
But I want to tell someone today,that persons who depart this life without Christ, will neither be warmed, nor be filled, for hell is a not a warm place in any sense of the word, but instead a fiery furnace that will torment those who end up there. Luke 16:23, Mark 9:43,47
Think for a minute therefore. What kind of faith do you have? Do you really want to sit back and watch your love ones remain victorious in this life,but spend their eternity in hell?
Or do you want them to spend their eternity in the presence of God, their maker?
Friends, when we looked at Jesus life/ministry, it was a life/ministry of compassion. As he dealt with all the personal crises, he dealt with them from a heart experience. More so he dealt with them with a sense of “now”/urgency.
He dealt with the leper-the woman at the well
References : Mark 1:40 And a leper came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, "If You are willing, You can make me clean." New Living Translation (©2007)
Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. "I am willing," he said. "Be healed!"
Mark 6:34 When Jesus went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and He felt compassion for them because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things
People are dying and going to hell
Friends, I am sure within your country, that the funeral agencies are busy.It means people are dying. Many are dying and going to hell.
To some,we knew them. To others we showed no compassion on them, because of business, laziness ,carelessness or hard heartedness, for although some of us had the opportunity to share the gospel with them, we told them nothing-or by our lifestyle we told them “silently”, be warmed and filled. Our faith was dead. Our faith still continue to be dead, thus the reason many are warming benches in as many churches.
But in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, God is asking us to wake up. Be involved in some works of righteousness. Go out to the highways and byways.
In spite of the crisis that happening in the world,show compassion, by spreading the gospel.
As the apostle declared, "For I delivered to you as of first of all ,what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1Cor. 15:3-4).
Friends,all some of these people needed was for someone to show compassion on them, like Jesus did during His walk on earth.
The urgency
Too many in Christendom has lost “now” -the urgency of the gospel. The fact is , we are either always tired or always busy. I tell you if the world donot find time of their busy schedule to intervene in the lives of the Haitian people, many more will die.
As Christians,we must intervene into the lives of the unsaved, lest hell be their portion.
Are you willing for hell to be their portion?
Well my God is not willing. He said in 2 Peter3:8/9 King James Bible
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
The Gospel
Friends, you can say you have an experience of the gospel, but God wants you to be transformed by the gospel. I want to tell you that those who are transformed, donot have a dead faith, those who are transform , acts immediately (without procrastination).Those who are transformed shows no favoritism in sharing “spiritual food”.
Like Jesus, they minister both to the needy and the “haves”, both near and far off, simply because they have a heart for people, a heart of compassion.
The problem of sin
As I close,let me say that mankind crisis is sin. Yet, in spite of the cost,Jesus show compassion in the midst of this crisis,by dying on the cross,so that all who believe may be saved.
Men and Women,boys and girls,like Haiti, many are in crises, one way or the other. If you come to Jesus for food, He will not say depart, but instead He will say, enter into rest, my beloved daughter or son.
Though you are heaven laden, I will show compassion and give you rest. Will you seek Him today?
New Living Translation (©2007)
Micah 7:19 Once again you will have compassion on us. You will trample our sins under your feet and throw them into the depths of the ocean!
Jeremiah 31:34 "They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,' for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the LORD, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more."
