Having Compassion for Souls:
Study Text: Matthew 9: 35 - 38
Introduction:
- Our text describes the compassion of Jesus for lost souls.
- When Jesus saw the people, He did not look past them, ignore them, or turn away from them, but Jesus took notice of their condition.
- They were tired and lost in the world.
Jesus compared them to sheep without a shepherd. They go astray, get into trouble, and are destroyed by enemies.
- Jesus was moved with compassion for them. He understood them, He sympathized with them, and He loved them.
- Do you know His compassion in your life? Do you have compassion for those who are lost in sin?
- As Christian, we were once lost as they are today. It is our responsibility to show them that there is Someone who cares, the Saviour Jesus Christ, and can help them find their way.
- The heart of Christ, the greatest soul-winner ever, overflowed with compassion for the lost.
- Simply put, compassion moves us to passionate action. Genuine compassion will be tangibly expressed.
- A soul-winner with the heart of Christ will express compassion in two ways:
i. Compassion to Pray for Souls and Soul-winners:
- The one prayer request Jesus gave us is for more labourers for the harvest of souls. Matthew 9:37–38
- Has this prayer request made it to your prayer list? Are you asking the Lord to raise up soul-winners with a heart of compassion for the lost?
ii. Compassion to Plan to Preach to Souls:
- The compassion of the Lord moved Him to see the need and take the lead.
- Many times well-meaning Christians fail to be active soul-winners because they simply do not plan their time. Soul Winning is not an activity to fit in as it works or an opportunity to take advantage of if it happens across your path.
- It is a divine commission from Christ, and it is a priority to purposefully schedule into your regular routines.
- What a joy it will be to stand before Christ with the fruit of souls! It can only happen as we develop the compassion of Christ for souls.
- We shall be discussing the topic under three subheadings:
1. The Pictorial Explanation of Compassion.
2. The Perfect Example of Compassion.
3. The Purposeful Evaluation of Compassion.
1. The Pictorial Explanation of Compassion:
- The Book of Jonah gives us a pictorial understanding of what compassion is and what it is not.
- The unwillingness of Jonah to go to Nineveh at the first call, demonstrated a lack of compassion for souls.
- Even when he yielded, and eventually did the preaching, his unhappiness at the repentance and restoration of the people to God is a clear manifestation of lack of compassion.
- It is written in Jonah 3:1 "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time". Praise the Lord that when we fail once, the Lord gives us a second chance. That is one of the great messages that comes to us from the book of Jonah.
- Have you failed the Lord? God is waiting to give you another chance. Have you failed Him a second time? He will give you a third chance. He is not only the God of the second chance, He is the God of another chance, no matter how many times you have failed.
- It took Jonah three days to walk through that huge city, proclaiming in every street that Nineveh would be overthrown in 40 days. Amazingly, the people of Nineveh repented immediately.
- This was the greatest and quickest revival that ever took place in the history of the world. One of the things that should encourage us here is that even when a wicked city like Nineveh repented, God was merciful.
- When God had mercy on Nineveh, one would have thought that Jonah would have been excited. But he wasn't.
- To teach Jonah a lesson, the Lord allowed a plant to grow up over his head. Jonah was very happy for the plant. But the next day because God made a worm to eat up the plant, and it withered up. Jonah was very angry again because the sun was beating down on him and he said, "It is better for me to die than live."
- Then God said to Jonah , "You had compassion on a plant which came up overnight and perished overnight. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?" Jonah 4:11
- In this verse Jonah 4:11, more than in any other verse in the Old Testament, we see God's tremendous compassion for lost souls. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that no one should perish. John 3:16
- Jonah somehow did not get into fellowship with God in this matter. There are many preachers today too who preach and see revivals like Jonah did, but who like Jonah, are not in fellowship with the compassionate heart of God. Such preachers do not fulfill their ministry as God wants them to.
- You may preach and get people saved; and yet at the end of it all, like Jonah, you may have no fellowship with God at all. The proper basis for an evangelistic ministry is fellowship with the heart of God. God has such a great compassion for those who don't have light.
- The Bible says God wants all men to repent, to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. He longs for that. The more we come into fellowship with God's heart, the more we will share His burden.
- God has called everyone saved, to go to all the nations and preach the Gospel. Matthew 28: 20, Acts 1:8
- We need to have compassion for lost souls to be able to carry out the assignment willingly, diligently and joyfully.
- Fellowship with the heart of God in sharing His compassion is essential if we are to fulfill our ministry effectively.
2. The Perfect Example of Compassion:
- The Lord Jesus is our perfect example in all matters of life concerning our dealings with God, and this includes our compassion for souls.
- “When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them” (Matthew 9:36).
- The Greek word translated “compassion” means “to feel sympathy, to pity, to be moved with tender-hearted mercy”.
- It is expressive of the deepest emotion; a striving of the heart, a yearning of the innermost nature with pity.
- Christ’s heart was ready to burst with pity for the sorrow upon which his eyes were gazing. He was moved with compassion for the sufferers before him.
- If you would sum up the whole character of Christ, it might be gathered into one sentence, ‘He was moved with compassion on them’”
- There are two things to learn about Jesus about compassion and soul winning from our Text:
i. The Feeling of Jesus:
- To be a soul winner you must feel what Jesus felt. If you are truly converted, you will want to have Him as your model, because he came, “leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps” (I Peter 2:21).
- Christ is our perfect example. We should try to follow Christ as our model. We are even instructed to have the same attitude as Christ. Philippians 2:5.
- We should strive to think and feel as Jesus did. Over and over in the Gospels we read about the compassion of Jesus, His sympathy and pity toward the lost. Some of the references include:
- “And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them...” (Matthew 14:14).
- “Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude...” (Matthew 15:32).
- “So Jesus had compassion on them...” (Matthew 20:34).
- “Jesus, moved with compassion” (Mark 1:41).
- “And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them...” (Mark 6:34).
- “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat” (Mark 8:2).
- “And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not” (Luke 7:13).
Soul winners must feel what Jesus felt. If you feel no compassion, no sympathy or pity for a lost person, there is little chance that you will win him.
ii. The Actions and Doings of Jesus:
- To be an effective soul winner, you must do what Jesus did.
- Jesus didn’t just feel compassion for the lost, He did something about it.
- The Disciples left Jesus by Jacob’s well in Samaria while they went to buy food. When they got back Jesus was surrounded by Samaritans who were being converted. The Disciples tried to get Jesus to stop and eat. He said He had food already. John 4:34-35
- The Gospel message naturally requires compassion for the lost.The supreme sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, His dying love, ought to melt our hearts.
- The story of how the Saviour left Heaven, of His poverty, His humility, His betrayal, His bloody sweat in Gethsemane, His dying agony on the cross, are such themes as cannot be discussed properly except with the deepest moving of the soul.
- These should awaken a flow of love, of gratitude, of holy surrender, of glad service in the true believer.
- If there is a Heaven to gain and a Hell to shun; if death and eternity and salvation and damnation are the themes of such magnitude as the Gospel of Christ teaches, then surely every born-again child of God should be willing to pay any price to keep poor, doomed sinners out of Hell.
- Indifference in compassionate soul winning brands church members as hypocrites in the eyes of the world. People sense, “If these church people really believed what they say, they would do more to help others become Christians.”
3. The Purposeful Evaluation of Compassion:
- We have seen how Jonah preach the message of God to the people without being moved with compassion for them, and we have seen the examples of compassion demonstrated to us by our Lord Jesus Christ.
- We can evaluate whether we have compassion and if it is the kind the Lord Jesus Christ is expecting from us by critically examining the words of Apostle Paul.
- Paul, in Romans 9: 1-3, says :
"I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,
That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.
For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh."
- These verses allow us a glimpse into the great heart of this man. He was a man of great compassion for his kinsmen, his brethren.
- There are three things we can see from the compassionate heart of Paul:
1. The Significance.
- We can see the significance of the compassion of Apostle Paul.
- Paul had been a Pharisee, but turned to Christ. The Jews now see him as a traitor and an enemy of their religious beliefs.
- Every Christian must realize that he or she was once lost but found by the grace and mercy of God, and must be willing to arise for the salvation of others. Ephesians 2: 1-6
- For us to truly understand the state of the unbelievers and their dangerous end if not saved, we must always remember who we were and where we were heading to before we met Christ.
2. The Sincerity:
- We can see the Sincerity of the compassion of Paul.
- Paul was very sincere in his heart about what he felt for the people and what he said concerning them.
- He wasn't doing it to be noticed, to receive the praise of men, or for any selfish interest or motive, but he wanted them to be turned unto God sincerely. Romans 10:1-3
- He sincerely wished he could give his life, his salvation so that the people could be saved, if it were possible at all.
- Paul loved his people but he did not shy away from the hard truths. He gave them tough love. But it is love. He gave them hard truths but not harshly.
- Oh, we must give the truth and not shun away from reality, from what God declares. But at the same time, let us be mindful, as Paul reminds us here that we give the right truth in love. The message and the motivation must be right.
- If you are a believer today, if you are a follower of Jesus, that should be the compassion within your soul because Jesus lives in you.
3. The Sacrifice:
- We can see the sacrifice of the compassion of Paul. He sincerely wish that he could be lost, if that will lead to the salvation of his brethren.
- What this means is that, when we consider the price paid by the Lord Jesus for the salvation of mankind, we must come to the conclusion that no sacrifice is too great for us to make for others to be able to enjoy the free gift of salvation we have enjoyed.
- We must be willing to sacrifice our time, our money and resources and everything within our power in other to reach the lost with the gospel of peace.
Conclusion:
We are called as Christians to go out and preach the Gospel to the lost souls all around the world.
- We need a compassionate heart borne out of sincerity and sacrifice to be able to carry out the assignment willingly, diligently and joyfully.
- This compassionate heart was demonstrated to us by our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and we need to look up unto Him as our perfect example.
