Person of Compassion in Culture of Callousness 3

Becoming A Person of Compassion in a Culture of Callousness

John 4:1-42 Countercultural Faith Series # 3

We’re thinking about confronting our culture in faith. And we’ve been talking about the fact that we are molded by someone. We looked at Romans 12:1-2 and thought about the idea that we are either molded by the culture that we live in, or we are molded by the Word of God. The bad news is, we are in someone’s mold. The good news is, we can choose our mold. We can be molded either by the culture, or by the Word of God. It’s up to us. We talked also about renewing our minds, intentionally working to think God’s thoughts, looking at the Word of God to say, Am I thinking the way God thinks? Who does He want me to become? And how do I become that person?

Last time we talked about the issue of being a person of integrity in a culture of duplicity. The idea that God is calling me to be one person—the same person on Saturday night that I am on Sunday morning, the same person when people are watching as I am when no one will ever find out—calling me to be one single person, to be projecting one image and to be that very same image inside, privately, quietly, when no one can check on me.

Today I want to think about a second area in which our culture impacts us, and that is specifically, calling us to be a person of compassion in a culture of callousness.

If you have your Bibles, I’d like to look at John chapter 4 to think about this issue together. We’ll be looking at John 4:1-42. I’ll read this story for us, one which may be familiar to many of us. John chapter 4. The Lord Jesus is on an itinerant ministry traveling around with His disciples. He comes into this town and has an interaction with a woman, which just has incredible impact for our own lives. You understand that this is a chapter you could write a whole book about. You can relax, I’m not going to preach the whole book today. I’m just going to deal with one little principle out of it. John 4, beginning in verse 1.

“When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, 2  (Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,) 3  He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee. 4 ¶  And he must needs go through Samaria. 5  Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6  Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour.” That means it was around high noon.

7  There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. 8  (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) 9  Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. 10  Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. 11  The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? 12  Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? 13  Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: 14  But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. 15  The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.”

There is a lot more to verse 15 than you might imagine. Part of this woman’s problem is, she is an outcast who cannot come and draw in the cool of the day, when all the other people are here. Apparently, she comes by herself, comes at the warmest time of the day to be away from other people who would ridicule her. Verse 16.

“Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. 17  The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: 18  For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly. 19  The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. 20  Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. 21  Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22  Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 23  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”

In other words, it won’t matter what mountain you are in, or what valley you are in, or what town you are in—it will matter what’s going on in your heart.

“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. 25  The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. 26  Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. 27 ¶  And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her? 28  The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, 29  Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? 30  Then they went out of the city, and came unto him.”

There is apparently a big crowd of folks coming out of Sychar, headed out to the well, and Jesus is speaking to His disciples, saying, verse 31 …

“In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. 32  But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. 33  Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?”

Now, think about what He is going to say in light of this huge crowd of people coming to see Jesus.

“Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.

35  Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”

In other words, look at this crowd coming—they are white for harvest.

“And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. 37  And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. 38  I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. 39  And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did. 40  So when the Samaritans were come unto him, they besought him that he would tarry with them: and he abode there two days. 41  And many more believed because of his own word; 42  And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.”

This is not a story to entertain us. It is a story that is designed to motivate us to obedience, and give us a new understanding about why we are here, and why we are alive.

Seven or eight years out of high school—and this has been a number of years ago now, and the condition I describe can be magnified perhaps many times. Several years out of high school, I had been invited to the school by a student of the school who was a member of the church I served, to come and speak to a psychology class. What struck me as I registered my presence at the appropriate office and was directed toward the classroom I needed to be in, was the callousness which permeated that place. I remember in particular, the time I arrived was between classes. The halls were filled with students and teachers, making their way to different locations in a rather large complex. What arrested my attention almost to the point of panic, was a large trash can in the hall with fire blazing out of it. Students, teachers were whizzing by without any concern, as if a trash can on fire was a normal, everyday occurrence.

As an adult walking down those halls with high school students, I also heard all kinds of absolute hostility. I heard all manner of vile language. I heard all kinds of kids cutting down other kids. And I was thinking to myself, I need to pray more for this young lady in our church who comes into this war zone setting every day. Every day, she experienced in her life the hostility, the callousness of this setting.

If you think about the culture that we live in, would you define it more as compassionate or callous?

As I think about our culture, I would certainly define it more as callous than compassionate. I want to ask you to think about some of the pressures that are brought to bear on us that try to mold us into being callous people rather than compassionate.

Pressure # 1. The news media shows to us on a regular basis death and tragedy and destruction. And we see so much of it that we get to a place of compassion overload. You just can care any more for that many people. You just can’t feel bad any longer for those number of things that are happening. And so it is possible to look at an earthquake or a monsoon or a tsunami or a flood and to hear of x-thousands of people who died, and it makes about as much impact on us as hearing a plane fly overhead.

Pressure # 2. The entertainment industry shows us so much violence that it has become as common as a sneeze. One researcher discovered that the average American child sees 16,000 murders on TV before they are eighteen years old. This is the average child. Think of it. So that if you have watched 16,000 sanitized, unrealistic, distant, desensitizing murders, it doesn’t make that much difference to you any more.

Pressure # 3. Late night TV hosts take towering personal losses in the lives of individuals and use them for national comedy. They take, for example, a man who has committed adultery, he has jeopardized his marriage, he has completely discouraged his wife, he has completely discouraged his children, he has ruined his national reputation, he is facing towering personal losses because of his own sin. And these TV hosts take that loss and make it into national comedy. They make millions of people laugh every evening, thinking about towering loss in a person’s life.

Pressure # 4. In our culture, abortion and illegal euthanasia have made human life, in many cases, less valuable than a discarded soda can. There are people who are more sad about putting to sleep a long time family pet than they are sad and shaken to the core about the court-ordered murder of Terri Shiavo, or the 4,000 people a day who lose their lives in America, because a medical doctor can make money taking their lives. We have become a calloused nation.

Pressure # 5. Our children play video games in which the object is to blow away an enemy in an underground maze. You get ahead in life by blowing someone away. That’s what the game is training them. If you can blow this person away, you can move to the next level and have a chance to blow someone else away.

Pressure # 6. We live in a culture that has adopted a language of callousness. I don’t know how much you hear, but there are phrases like, “I wasted him.” Phrases like, “grow up, I blew him away.” Phrases like, “deal with it, get a life.” People saying to one another, “I trashed him.” The language of callousness.

We have become familiar and common with it and it begins to teach us not to care. In fact, I think even as a Christian, it is very easy sometimes to look at people who have been battered because of their own ugly choices and to say, “he got his.” To look at a person like the guy who was an open homosexual and who went apparently on a murdering spree and killed five or six people across the nation—to look at his death and think “he got his—that’s what he had coming to him.” To look at people whose politics or lifestyle or appearance don’t agree with mine and to think, “whatever they get, they deserve.” The culture is attempting to mold us into being calloused people. It trains us not to care.

God wants to mold us into being compassionate people, training us to be people who care intensely about the lives of others, and who care intensely about lives that are not even like our lives, to care intensely about people whose lifestyle we would never condone. God not only commands compassion of us, but He also models it.

John chapter 4—let’s look at the passage. And I want to think about one simple principle here, where Jesus Christ modeled compassion for us. And the principle is this: Jesus has compassion for everyone, even for the most repulsive down-and-outer. Jesus cares about every person. Period. He doesn’t define what kind of people they are. He doesn’t define what kind of choices they have made, but there is great evidence in this story that Jesus has huge compassion, even for a person that our callous culture might label a low-life.

I want you to think about this evidence. I begin with Exhibit A, verse 4. The evidence that Jesus is a God of huge compassion, and the first piece of evidence, verse 4, is that Jesus had to pass through Samaria.

“And he must needs go through Samaria.” The words “must needs” in the Greek language means, it was necessary to do so. There was a compulsion in Him to send Him through Samaria. And you have probably heard many times the reality that Jewish people, at least orthodox, practicing Jewish people at the time of Christ, did not go into Samaria. If they had to travel from Jerusalem up to Galilee, they would travel out across the Jordan River, go up the side of the Jordan River and back into Galilee, because they did not want to go through Samaria.

They hated the Samaritan people. It was a long ways out of their way, but they went out of their way to avoid those people. They hated the Samaritans, first of all, because they were half-breed Jews. When the Assyrians had come back and resettled that part of Israel they had intermixed with the Jewish people, and so the Samaritans were half-breeds. They did not like them for that. Secondly, they hated them because they had perverted the religion of Jerusalem. They had perverted Judaism. And thirdly, they didn’t like them because they promoted worship in Mt. Gerizim instead of down in Jerusalem, on the mountain which David had set to build the Temple. So, they hated the Samaritan people and they would never go through there.

In the mind of a Jew, a Samaritan was a 9th class citizen. You avoided them at all costs. It was important for Jesus to interact with those people. It was important for Him to give them the message of salvation, and He went right smack through the middle.

In fact, in just a few years in the book of Acts, the Jewish people who had trusted Christ are going to be debating again, do we go into Samaria, do we share the Gospel with these people? Jesus said in Acts 1:8, Yes, I want you to be My witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, SAMARIA. Go in this place that you consider to be a second-class place. I went there, and I want you going there.

It is really a moot point, because Jesus said, I want you to be people who pass through Samaria.

I suppose the application is to say, Am I a person who ever passes through Samaria? Or am I very careful to avoid that? Am I very careful to stay comfortable?

Exhibit B, the second evidence that Jesus is a God of huge compassion, verse 7, verse 9, and verse 27. Jesus demonstrated His compassion by building a relationship with an outcast, immoral, despised Samaritan woman.

This woman has at least three strikes against her. Number one, she was a Samaritan. She was a half-breed. She was perverting Judaism. Number two, she was a woman. She was below social station in that culture. Men did not talk to women. If you see the reaction of the disciples when I read the story, they came back and they said to themselves, “Why is He talking to her?” None of them had the courage to ask Him about it, but they were shocked. Strike three, she was immoral. She was a woman who by her own confession was immoral.

Jesus cared deeply for that woman, even though she had three strikes against her. It mattered to Him what was happening to her. So He made a connection with her.

I thought to myself, just way of illustration, just by way of “what if”—what if this man I mentioned earlier had not killed himself. What if he had escaped and made his way across the country and ended up here, and somebody identified him and put him in prison here. What if this nationally known man were in prison in our town. Would we feel any compassion for him? Would a down-and-outer like that be a person that I would have any compassion for? Would it matter to me?

It mattered to Jesus Christ what was happening to this woman. And the question is, am I a person who is willing to offer compassion to people outside of my station?

You see, Jesus was a Person who was not striving for a station. Jesus was not keeping up with the proverbial Joneses. Jesus didn’t care what His station in life was defined as. Therefore, He was willing to relate to people in whatever station.

Exhibit C, verse 7. Jesus is a person of huge compassion, and He demonstrates that because He asked a drink of water from a water vessel that was owned by a Samaritan. And for a Jewish person, drinking from a water vessel owned by a Samaritan, according to them, was to make them unclean. He was asking to drink from this vessel, which according to cultural correctness, was a very wrong thing to do.

The Jews would say, if you drank from that vessel, you’d be ceremonially unclean. You would have to go through this whole series of cleansings. You could not go into the Temple for so many days. It would be a mess. Jesus was not concerned about the cultural correctness of His day. And He asked her literally if He could drink from that vessel. To Jesus, the cultural correctness was spiritually ridiculous! His issue is the woman’s need, not the culture’s idea.

The question to ask in terms of application is, do I allow myself contact with uncomfortable people? Because Jesus said to us and to His disciples in Acts 1, I want you to go to Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. The paraphrase is, you’re going to have to cross some comfort lines if you are going to contact the people who need to hear this message. You not only need to cross some boundary lines, some national boundaries. You need to cross some comfort lines, if you are going to share the message that I am giving you to share, if you are going to spread the message around the world. Somebody has got to talk to people with whom they are uncomfortable.

Evidence D. Verse 10. Jesus demonstrated Himself to be a person of huge compassion because He offered living water to this down-and-out, outcast woman.

He offered her full forgiveness. He offered to this woman the forgiveness of sins, clean slate, no doghouse time, as He offers to each one of us, simply saying to us, If you trust in Me, and stop trusting in whatever works or other things you thought were going to get you to Heaven, if you say, I give up on all that, I will put all of my hope on what Jesus did for me on the Cross, He is offering to you as He did to this woman, full forgiveness. Clean slate. No doghouse time. No working it off. He is offering to her continual thirst-quenching. He said you will have inside of yourself the Holy Spirit. You will continually experience joy in relationship with Me. He is offering to her the indwelling of the Spirit of God. And I am convinced that the highest act of compassion we can show to a person is to offer them what Jesus offered, which is simply a relationship with Christ.

We are never more compassionate than when we are trying to bring a person to trust in Jesus Christ. We are never more like God than when we are reaching out to share the message of Good News about Jesus Christ.

When I was in Bible College, one Wednesday evening, a friend of mine and I were making our way toward the building where the service was to be held later that evening. We were just talking over some class that we were taking. And we noticed sitting there on the steps a man, disheveled looking, hadn’t shaved for a while, had a bottle in his hand. He was sitting on the steps near the building. We went over and began to talk with him, asking if we could help him in some way. Eventually, we shared the Gospel with him. He did not make any Christian commitment at all, and eventually, he left and we went on into the building and prayed for him.

Some weeks later we were to make a shocking discovery, as a result of a letter this man sent to the Bible college officials. It turns out this derelict was a derelict by design. He had come to the school because he had heard reports that people there cared enough to share the Gospel, and he wanted to see for himself. He had disguised himself in old clothing, actually grew a scraggly beard, and positioned himself on the steps, liquor bottle in hand—just to see what would happen. Turns out, my friend and I had witnessed to Dr. Roy Fish, professor of Evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Are there people that God brings into our path, that we need to try to present the Gospel of Christ to? We are the most like Jesus Christ when we take an opportunity to demonstrate how a person can spend eternity with God. And the question is, Am I practicing the highest act of compassion? Am I speaking to people about Jesus Christ?

Exhibit E is in verses 16-18. Jesus demonstrates His compassion because He was willing to address head-on, the most sinful, the most embarrassing, the most destructive aspects of this woman’s life. Jesus did not beat around the bush about the things she would struggle with. Jesus was willing to deal head-on with the ugly parts of her life. He didn’t steer clear of them. He specifically said to her, “Bring your husband here,” and she said, “I don’t have a husband.” Here is the woman’s basic belief, as demonstrated by her lifestyle, she basically believed that she could find joy and life and fulfillment if she could just find the right man. She was out in search of the perfect man who would deliver to her joy and happiness and real fulfillment. She was on her sixth man in search of the perfect man. And all the women here are thinking, Now that is a futile search! That is going to a long look, looking for the perfect man. And I would have to agree with you—it’s going to be a long, long look. In fact, the reality is, this woman was demonstrating herself to be very foolish by looking for joy in a man. By thinking to herself, “If I just found the right man, I would be a joy-filled person.”

God’s basic belief is that joy and real happiness are only in available in relationship with God Himself. If you find the perfect woman, if you find the perfect man, if you get the perfect amount of money, if you get the college degree, if you get the promotion, if you get all those things, you will ultimately find they do not deliver. His message is, Joy is found in relationship with Me. Psalm 34:8. That is exactly what Jesus is trying to teach this woman. You’re on your sixth man; it’s not working! I’m offering you a relationship with Myself. Psalm 34:8, “O taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Not taste and see that some man is good. Not taste and see that some wife is good. Not taste and see that some amount of money, or prestige, or popularity is good. Taste and see that God Himself and alone is good. He is inviting this woman into relationship with Himself, and He is saying to her, Everyone is thirsty, and thirst is quenched by a relationship with God.

The question is, what is your basic belief, what is my basic belief about the source of life? How do I really think I can deal with thirst?

Some people will say, I will be joy-filled, full of happiness, if I get rich, if I am pretty, if people like me, if I have absolute control of my life and my family and my finances, if I collect nice things—then I will be joy-filled.

Jesus’ message to her is, Taste and see that the Lord is good. The Lord alone offers that kind of fulfillment.

Verses 19-24, Exhibit F. Jesus is willing to continue in grace and truth with this woman, even in the face of blatant defense mechanisms. Jesus had gotten to the core of her struggle. He had gotten to the core of her ugly beliefs about men, and she tried to steer away from that. She tried to change the subject to religion, worship. And Jesus was willing, even in the face of that kind of a defense mechanism, to stay connected with her, to stay gracious her and to stay truthful with her.

I believe that most people, especially people who do not know Christ, are very accustomed to being abandoned when their defense mechanisms come out. They are accustomed to getting into bad relationships with individuals to being very defensive, very angry, and then to being abandoned.

One of the powerful testimonies we can have with people that we know is to stay connected with them when they have been defensive with us. To stay friendly in grace and truth with them, when they have been angry with us. Jesus didn’t miss a beat in ministering to this woman when she attempted to send Him away. He stayed connected with her.

Exhibit G. Verse 25 and 26. He demonstrates His compassion for her by also offering Himself in a loving relationship to her. She is a person whom the American culture would label as a loser, a nobody, a confused mess, a basket case. Jesus approached this woman. It mattered to Him what was happening to her, and He offered Himself in relationship to her. Verse 25. “The woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ: when he is come, he will tell us all things. 26  Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he.”

He offered her conversation, and He offered her relationship. Jesus Christ has never met anyone that He didn’t care about.

Remember the famous statement of Will Rogers, “I never met a man I didn’t like”? I’m not sure what the rest of it is, but Jesus’ message is, I never met a man, a woman, a child for whom I wouldn’t die. I never met a man, woman, or child whom I did not care about, that it didn’t matter to Me what was happening to them.

Jesus never met a person that it didn’t matter to Him what was happening to them. In Jesus’ opinion, this woman had towering value.

One final piece of evidence, Exhibit H, verses 28 to 42. That Jesus Christ is a God of huge compassion, and that is, He taught His disciples to be compassionate, and He taught them to find nourishment in the will and the work of God.

I think one of the most profound verses in the Bible is verse 34. Jesus said to His disciples, “My meat [in other words, my source of nourishment] is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.”

Genuine nourishment for my soul, really feeling filled up in dealing with hunger and thirst, is found in pursuing the will and the work of God. And everything else that I might be pursuing as a source of nourishment is really fast food gone bad.

It’s like going to Taco Bell late at night just before they close and ordering a bean burrito, and you get a tortilla that’s been in the warmer all day reduced to a piece of cardboard, and you get these beans that have been refried and refried and refried—they’ve been in the warmer all day, and they are clammy and a little like Playdough. And the cheese is the same way, and they put it together and give it to you—it’s fast food gone bad! It’s like eating a piece of Playdough wrapped in cardboard.

God’s message to us is, if you want real nourishment, the real nourishment is found in seeking My will and My work. Everything else is fast food gone bad. Everything else will not deliver.

One of the incredible ironies of the Christian life is that when I pursue relationship with other people, when I demonstrate compassion to them, as a by-product, God ministers to me. As a by-product of being compassionate toward other people, God reaches out and ministers to me.

I am convinced that we live in a culture of callousness, a culture that is teaching us not to care. And God is saying to us, I want you to be a counterculture person in your compassion. I want you to be someone who cares for the people who are not lovely, who cares for the people who are different, who cares for the people who are below your station, who cares for the people in Samaria. I want you to be a person who cares about anybody that you encounter, who literally says from your heart, it matters to me what happens to that person. It mattered to Jesus what happened to everyone that He encountered.

I want to close today with one very simple, very straightforward application. I want to encourage you today to be a person who is imitating the Lord Jesus Christ in the area of compassion by challenging you to purpose that you will seek at least to minister to someone that God brings across your path, that ordinarily, you would not take the action to minister to or serve. I am calling us today to say, it matters to me where that person spends eternity.

We are never more like Jesus Christ than when we are compassionate, and we are never more compassionate than when we are inviting someone to spend eternity with Christ.

—PRAYER—