Introduction – When the Heart Grows Numb
Our text comes from the Book of Lamentations. Jeremiah stands amid the ruins of Jerusalem and cries,
> “How deserted lies the city, once so full of people!
How like a widow is she who once was great among the nations…
All her people groan as they search for bread…
‘Look, O Lord, and consider, for I am despised. Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?’”
Picture it – smoke rising from broken walls, toys of children scattered in the rubble, and the prophet weeping as people step around the devastation without a tear. They saw, but they didn’t feel. Their hearts had gone cold.
Jeremiah’s question is the same one the Holy Spirit still whispers to His people:
“Is it nothing to you?”
Is it nothing when a child goes to bed hungry?
Is it nothing when a neighbor’s marriage collapses?
Is it nothing when souls drift from Christ and no one notices?
The book of Lamentations is more than ancient history; it’s a mirror for our generation. We live surrounded by headlines and images of pain – and like those who walked past Jerusalem’s ruins, we risk becoming observers instead of intercessors.
So the proposition of this message is simple but searching:
> If we are children of God – if we claim to follow Jesus – then we must be loving, caring people.
Everything that follows turns on that one truth.
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I. THE WORLD IS FULL OF UNCARING HEARTS
It doesn’t take long to find them. Every newsfeed scrolls with stories of cruelty, neglect, and apathy. But the danger isn’t only “out there.” The greater danger is that indifference moves quietly into our hearts and takes up residence behind a smile.
Sometimes we stop caring because caring hurts. When we open our hearts to another’s pain, we feel their ache. So we build emotional armor. We call it “boundaries,” or “being realistic.” Yet Jeremiah’s voice cuts through every excuse: “Is it nothing to you?”
A Modern Scene
I once read about a woman who drowned in Lake Michigan while people on shore watched. They said the water was too cold. The rescue squad pulled her body from the waves, and their explanation was almost clinical: “The water was too cold.”
That phrase still chills me. Sometimes the water isn’t the only thing cold.
Why We Grow Numb
Part of our numbness is exposure. Viktor Frankl, survivor of Nazi concentration camps, wrote that when a person witnesses endless suffering, something inside begins to shut down: “You murder your emotions to survive.”
We scroll through famine, war, disaster, and eventually compassion fatigue sets in. We’ve cried all the tears we can cry. So we build distance. But the gospel calls us the opposite direction – to draw near, not withdraw.
Jesus never avoided pain. He walked straight toward lepers, outcasts, and crosses. The closer He came to suffering, the more love flowed through Him. To follow Him is to choose the same road.
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II. CARING COSTS SOMETHING
Caring is beautiful, but it is never cheap.
The Good Samaritan
Jesus told a story about a traveler who was beaten and left for dead. A priest and a Levite – religious men – passed by on the other side. They were on schedule. They had clean hands and full pockets. It cost them nothing to keep walking.
But a Samaritan stopped. He gave his time, his oil, his wine, his donkey, and his coins. It cost him his reputation – maybe his next appointment – but it bought another man’s life.
Only one character in that story is called good.
Love always carries a receipt. It will cost us time, comfort, convenience, sometimes reputation. But it’s the only currency that matters in the Kingdom.
Dawson Trotman
Many years ago, Dawson Trotman – founder of The Navigators – was boating on a lake when two young women fell overboard. He dove in, lifted one to safety, went back for the other, and never surfaced. Time Magazine later wrote: “He was always lifting somebody else up.”
That’s what it means to live like Christ. Sometimes caring costs everything. But whoever loses his life for Christ’s sake shall find it.
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III. WHEN GOOD PEOPLE DO NOTHING, EVIL GAINS GROUND
C. S. Lewis, in The Screwtape Letters, imagines Satan telling a junior devil:
> “Don’t waste time making people bad. Just keep good people comfortable. If they do nothing, we’ll have all the help we need.”
It’s chilling how accurate that sounds in every generation. The devil doesn’t need us to hate – just to ignore.
William Wilberforce fought slavery in Parliament for decades. The first two votes failed. On the night of the third attempt – when victory was finally within reach – twelve supporters skipped the vote to attend a new comic opera in London. The bill lost 74 to 70. Twelve people’s apathy prolonged human misery for years.
Today, the same pattern repeats in spiritual form. The greatest threat to the church isn’t persecution – it’s preoccupation. When the saints are too busy, too distracted, too tired to love, the darkness wins another district without firing a shot.
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IV. THE BLESSING OF COMPASSIONATE PEOPLE
Thank God the story doesn’t end with indifference. There are still good and caring hearts in this world, and God delights in using them.
Henry Dunant and the Red Cross
In 1859 a young Swiss businessman named Henry Dunant traveled to meet Napoleon III. On his journey he passed a battlefield littered with 40,000 wounded men. He couldn’t keep walking. He gathered villagers, turned a church into a hospital, and tended soldiers on both sides for weeks.
Later he wrote letters to the leaders of Europe calling for permanent compassion in warfare. Out of those letters grew the Geneva Convention – and the symbol of mercy the world still knows as the Red Cross.
It all began because one man refused to shrug his shoulders and say, “It’s nothing to me.”
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V. WHAT LOVING, CARING CHRISTIANS LOOK LIKE TODAY
1. They Notice.
The first ministry of compassion is attention. Jesus noticed Zacchaeus in a tree, a widow dropping two coins, a woman touching His robe, a thief on a cross. The world changes when we begin to see again.
Pray the prayer of Elisha’s servant: “Lord, open my eyes.” Let the Holy Spirit interrupt your routine long enough for you to see what God sees.
2. They Move Toward Need, Not Away From It.
When Jesus saw the leper, He reached out and touched him. Love crosses lines others draw. We may not heal with a touch, but we can bridge distance with presence. A phone call, a meal, a quiet visit, a prayer in the hallway – these are holy acts.
3. They Give What They Can – and Then Some.
Sometimes caring is a donation; other times it’s forgiveness. Sometimes it’s mowing a neighbor’s lawn or mentoring a child. Love is inventive. It always finds a way.
4. They Refuse to Quit.
Paul wrote, “Let us not be weary in well-doing.” Caring Christians may slump with fatigue, but they never shrug with indifference. They know who first cared for them.
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VI. CHRIST – THE PATTERN OF COMPASSION
Ultimately this sermon isn’t about humanitarianism. It’s about Christ. He is the standard and source of all true compassion.
When Jesus saw the multitude, He was “moved with compassion.” The Greek word means His insides churned. He felt it deep. He wept at Lazarus’s tomb; He touched the blind; He carried our sorrows to the cross. He didn’t just feel sympathy; He did something.
And on that cross the question was reversed. Humanity passed by – and God could have said, “Is it nothing to You, all You who pass by?” Yet He stayed there, bleeding love into our indifference, refusing to give up on a world too numb to notice.
That is why the church must never trade its rescue boats for comfortable chairs. We exist to love because He loved us first.
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VII. A PERSONAL CALL
So, beloved, how sensitive are we? If we were to take an S.Q. – a Sensitivity Quotient – how would we score? Are our hearts still moved by what moves God? Do we feel anything when we hear that neighbors are lost, when missionaries plead for help, when injustice crushes the weak?
Some of us used to care deeply. Then life got busy, disappointment bruised our hope, and we quietly closed the blinds. But the Spirit of God specializes in resurrecting feeling in tired hearts. He can make us tender again.
Let Him.
When you feel the Spirit nudging – “Call her, pray with him, share your lunch, sponsor that child, forgive that wound” – obey the impulse. That’s Jesus passing by, giving you a chance to answer Jeremiah’s question with your life:
“No, Lord. It is not nothing to me.”
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VIII. CONCLUSION
We may become weary in well-doing, but we will continue to do well. Our shoulders may sometimes slump because we are tired, but they will never shrug in indifference. When the world asks, “Is it nothing to you?” the child of God replies,
> “It is something to me. I cannot pass by on the other side.
I care because He cared. I love because He first loved me.”
Let this be our prayer:
> “Lord, give me eyes to see, a heart to feel,
and hands willing to serve.
Break what is hard in me until Your compassion flows through.”
Then the world will once again see living proof that Jesus still walks among men – through loving, caring Christians.
