I Am Compassionate

Well, good morning and welcome. It's so wonderful to see your faces in here. Thank you for those of you who have joined us in the auditorium and for those of you on the live stream. Again, we wanna say welcome to you also. We hope you all feel right at home.

Well, my name is Sarah Bentley. I'm one of the pastors here. In fact, I'm the associate care pastor, but I go by a couple of other titles or names as well. One of those names is Mrs. Sarah Bentley. I have the privilege of being married to an amazing man, Jeremy Bentley, who serves up at Mount Herman, Christian Conference Center full-time. He's running family camps this summer up there, so he is busy, to say the least. And then I also have the privilege of going by the title of Mom. Jeremy and I have two amazing kiddos, two boys. We have Dylan, who is 11, and just graduated from fifth grade. So now I guess technically we have a middle schooler on our hands, and we also have Luke, who is six, and they are simply a joy to parent.

Well, if you were with us last week, you know that we kicked off our new series called God's Guide to God. In fact, I hope you got some message notes on your way in today, or if you're joining us online, you can download those notes at tlc.org/notes, and you'll want those as we follow along today. But in this series, we are looking at Exodus 34, specifically verses five through seven. And as René pointed out last week, these verses are really God's self-disclosure. They are in God's words what is most important for us to know about God.

What's more, Exodus 34 verses six and seven are the most quoted verses in the Bible by the Bible. We find it repeated or paraphrased over and over again throughout scripture. And so this summer, we are dedicating eight weeks to study not only God's name as revealed in this passage, but God's attributes, God's character as revealed in this passage. And an amazing resource we would love to encourage you to pick up as well is a book by John Mark Comer. It's the book, God Has a Name. And it has deeply informed our study on this topic and is a wonderful read if you want to go a little bit deeper into what we're gonna be talking about in this series and that you can purchase outside in our lobby, in our bookstore on your way out today.

Well, this last week, we studied the name of God, Yahweh, as it's revealed here in Exodus 34. And today we wanna jump into God's attributes. What God tells us is true about who he is. And today I wanna look at the very first word, descriptor that God gives us of his character. And it's the word, compassionate. In fact, here's what we read in Exodus 34 verse six. And he passed in front of Moses proclaiming, the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

Now let me ask you a question. And you can just either answer this question in your mind or if you want, you can jot your answer down in the margins of your notes. But what is the first word that comes to your mind when you think about God? The very first thing. A.W. Tozer says that what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us, why? Because we become like the God that we worship. In other words, we said last week, if you worship a God who is unpleasable, chances are you become somebody who's unpleasable. If you worship a God who is indifferent to suffering, chances are you become a person who is indifferent to suffering too. So what we think about God matters.

And so with that in mind, let's dive into this very first descriptive word God gives us to help us understand his character, that word, compassionate. Now for some of you, it may not be surprising that God starts by describing himself as compassionate. However, to the Israelites first hearing this descriptor of God, this idea of a compassionate God would have left them stunned, absolutely stunned. And here's why. Let's take a moment to put ourselves in the shoes of the Israelites. In Moses' day, there were lots of gods and goddesses, small g, gods and goddesses. And they were not nice. In fact, the history books tell us that they were generally regarded as mean, finicky, angry. They were considered to be ready to fly off the handle at the smallest of stake. Bottom line, if you lived in the ancient world, you lived in fear of these gods. They were not kind and definitely not compassionate.

But then Yahweh comes to your rescue. Yahweh brings you out of slavery in Egypt. Yahweh leads you through the Red Sea. Yahweh provides food and water for you as you are traveling through the desert. And the amazing thing is you've done nothing to deserve this. And it leaves you speechless because no other God has ever treated you this way. And then you realize that Yahweh is inviting you into relationship. He tells you his name. Apparently Yahweh wants to know you and he wants to be known by you. And you begin to see that Yahweh is different. Yahweh is personal and Yahweh is responsive. And then after Yahweh tells you his name, he begins to describe himself. And again, the first word he uses is this word, compassionate.

Now in order to really understand this word in context here, we need to get a little bit familiar with how the Hebrew language works. So stick with me for just a minute as we look at some Hebrew here. There are three things we need to know about the Hebrew scriptures. First, in Hebrew, word order matters. You see, in Hebrew, the most important thing is always listed first. You know, I was recently going through some old files of mine and I came across a file that listed resumes at the top and I opened that file up and I found a number of old resumes dating back almost 20 years. And I pulled out the very first resume which was my very first professional resume when I was applying to become a pastor right out of seminary. And I had a flashback to writing that resume. And I remember scouring websites trying to figure out the most effective way to write my resume, what words I should use, how I should describe myself in order to be the most compelling to this church that I wanted to work for.

Well, in a sense, Exodus 34, verse six reads like God's resume. And just like on a resume, you would put your most important descriptive word first, here God gives us His most important descriptive word first. You know, there's a lot of things God could have started with. He could have started with how He is all powerful or how He knows everything or how He has existed before time and space. Of course, all of those things are true. But apparently to God, the most important thing He wants us to get into our minds and into our hearts is that He is compassionate. It's the dominant character trait that is gonna inform everything else we are going to learn about Him in the weeks to come. Order matters.

The second thing to know about the Hebrew scripture, word pairing matters. You see, in Hebrew, oftentimes similar sounding words would be placed side by side in an effort to help explain each other, in an effort to help intensify each other. And we see a word pairing right here in verse six. It's the phrase in our Bibles, compassionate and gracious, or your translation may say merciful and gracious. These words, compassionate and gracious, are the English translation of the Hebrew words, racum, ve'hanun. And racum and hanun are a word pairing. This week we're gonna be looking at the compassionate part of that word pairing and hang on, 'cause next week we'll get to the gracious part of that word pairing. But for now, just know that these two words are inextricably linked. We need to view them as one whole.

Third, the Hebrew word for compassion, racum, shares the same three-letter root in Hebrew as the word for womb, rachem. And this relationship between compassion and a mother's womb helps us build our definition of the word compassion as God intends us to understand it. You see, rachem, compassion, can be rightly defined as this intense, visceral love, kind of a womb-like, almost motherly response from a parent to a child in order to meet that child's need. It's how a loving parent feels about their child. It can also be translated as deeply moved or deeply stirred out of love.

In fact, there's a story in 1 Kings 3 which helps us to better understand this idea of rachem, compassion. Here's the situation. In 1 Kings 3, we find ourselves witnessing a custody battle that has been brought before King Solomon. And this custody battle involves two moms, each of whom has just had a newborn baby, and then tragically one of those newborns dies. And the mom who has lost her newborn in her grief begins to claim that this other baby belonging to the other mom is actually hers. And this case now is brought before King Solomon to resolve. Now, as you can guess, this is a tricky situation. There aren't DNA tests back in the ancient world. There's no scientific way to prove who the baby belongs to. It's simply one mom's word against the other mom's word.

But King Solomon, known for his wisdom, comes up with a brilliant, albeit quirky, somewhat strange plan to try to figure out who the real mom is. He says to the women, "How about we do this? You guys can't decide who the baby belongs to, so I'm gonna bring a sword out. We'll cut the baby in half, and you can each have half." Knowing, believing that this is going to flush out the true mother, which it does. Look what happens in 1 Kings 3, 26. The woman whose son was still alive was deeply moved out of love for her son. And she said to the king, "Please, my lord, give her the living baby. Don't kill him." That phrase, deeply moved out of love, comes from, you guessed it, Rahum. In other words, it was the Rahum of the true mother that moved her to take dramatic action, to do whatever it took, even if it meant giving her baby away, if it would keep her child alive.

Now, rest assured, King Solomon recognizes that only a true mother would respond that way, and the baby is returned to the rightful mom. But the point in sharing this story is this. It gives us a picture of what Rahum, this intense visceral love, looks like at a human level. It's a deep stirring that's tied to helpful, redemptive action. In fact, let me share a simple story for my own life that demonstrates a Rahum moment for me that happened just a couple weeks ago. A couple weeks ago, we got the news that we were gonna have to move out of our house because we had some major plumbing repairs that needed to be done. And by major, I mean the kind of repairs that was gonna necessitate taking down a ceiling and replacing pipes, drywall dust everywhere. Some of you are shaking your heads. You know how horrible that is.

And on the day we needed to move out, I was running around like a crazy woman. I had both kids home, I was fielding work calls, I'm trying to move furniture, cover furniture, do all the things. And in the midst of this chaos, my youngest son, Luke, my six-year-old walks in and says, "Mom, I just perfected this perfect flip on the trampoline in the backyard. You have to come see it right now." Now I would love to tell you that I set my to-do list aside and bounded out into the backyard to watch my sweet boy. But I didn't do that. My first reaction was to go, "Oh buddy, Mommy wants to see it, but do you see this list? There's like 20 things on it, and I've only checked off two, and we only have so many hours, and I've gotta keep going." And in the midst of my explanation of why I had no time, Luke looked up at me and he put one hand on my arm, and with the other hand, he motioned for me to pick him up and I scooped him up, which is getting harder these days 'cause he's getting bigger, and he gave me a huge hug and he kissed me on the cheek. Didn't say a word. But in that moment, I was deeply stirred. Something inside of me shifted, and I was compelled to set aside that to-do list and to head out into the backyard to be with my boy.

You see, when it comes to my children, whether it's to Luke or to Dylan, I understand raccoon. I have an intense love for them that leads me to want to respond to them in kindness, to help them, to be with them, and my guess is you've experienced that same kind of deep stirring at some point in your life, whether you're a parent or not. We can all understand this deep stirring. Sorry for just a second. I'll get my socks off my face. Are we okay? Okay, I think we're good. Thanks for your patience. But as amazing as our human examples of raccoon might be, they're just a faint glimmer of what God's raccoon looks like for us as his children.

And so I now want to consider a story that showcases God's compassionate heart in action. And so meet me, if you would, in the New Testament book of Luke 15. And I want to look at Luke 15 because it contains an amazing parable told by Jesus that beautifully showcases God's compassion. Now, if you're not familiar with that word parable, a parable is simply this. It's a teaching story that has two functions. First, parables act like a mirror. They help us to see ourselves. Second, parables act like a window. They help us to see who God is, what God is like. And we're gonna see in just a moment how Luke 15 accomplishes both of these functions.

Here's what we read beginning in Luke 15, verse 11. "A certain man had two sons, the younger of them, inappropriately said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me.' So he divided the estate between them. A few days later, the younger son gathered together everything he had and traveled to a distant country. And there he wasted his fortune in reckless and immoral living. Now, when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country and he began to do without and to be in need. So he went and forced himself onto one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his field to feed pigs. He would have gladly eaten the carob pods that the pigs were eating, but they could not satisfy his hunger and no one was giving anything to him.

But when he finally came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have more than enough food? Well, I am dying here of hunger. I will get up and go to my father. And I will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Just treat me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quickly bring out the best robe for the guest of honor and put it on him. Give him a ring for his hand and sandals for his feet and bring the fattened calf and slaughter it. And let us invite everyone and feast and celebrate. For the son of mine was as good as dead and is alive again. He was lost and has been found.' And so they began to celebrate.

Now, the older son was in the field and when he returned and approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. So he summoned one of the servants and began asking what the celebration meant. And he said to him, 'Your brother has come. Your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.' But the elder brother became angry and deeply resentful and was not willing to go in. And his father came out and began pleading with him. But he said to his father, 'Look, these many years I have served you and I have never neglected or disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me so much as a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this other son of yours arrived to have devoured your estate with a moral woman, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.' And the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me. All that I have is yours.'

We'll stop right there. I think it's easy to read this story and at first glance think that it's primarily about the younger son, or maybe about both sons, but at its core, this parable is really about the father. You see, the father in Luke 15 is that window designed to help us see the character of God, to understand more of what God is truly like. Now, if you were with us last week, we talked about some common misconceptions that many of us have about who God is. You may have, this may ring true with you, maybe at some point in your life you have viewed God like a strict librarian, you know, the rigid enforcer who's all about the rules, or maybe like a magic genie, somebody who will give you what you want if only you know the right formula to ask for it. Or maybe you viewed God as a talent judge, somebody who is always critical of your performance.

But here's the deal, none of those images of God are what we see when we observe this father in Luke 15. Instead, return to verse 20 again. Let's look at it one more time. While the younger son was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. Did you catch what moves the father to respond in kindness? It's his compassion. And I believe there are three things that are essential that we can learn about God's compassion by observing this father, and they are life-changing if you will let them sink into your head and your heart.

The first thing is this, God's compassion is rooted in unconditional love. You know, again, we hear this story often told in terms of the younger son's poor behavior, but in reality, neither of these sons models great behavior. In fact, both sons, each with their own flavor of arrogance, abandon their dad. First, the younger son arrogantly abandons his dad by physically leaving to indulge in the selfish lifestyle. You know, when he goes to his dad and asks for his inheritance early, in the culture of that day, that was like that younger son saying to his dad, "Dad, I wish you were dead because your money is more valuable to me right now than you are." It was deeply hurtful, deeply dishonoring. And yet, despite the offensive nature of that request, the father gives the son what he asks for and the younger son leaves.

Meanwhile, the older son, even though he's been home with his dad, also abandons his dad, but on an emotional level. We see this when the younger brother returns home and the older brother takes on this ungrateful, resentful attitude when his dad chooses to throw a party to celebrate that younger son's return. In other words, the older son's uncaring response at the end of the story proves that he has failed to grasp the compassion that his father has had for him all along. And so the father gets knocked down not once, but twice by each of his sons. Both fail to see their dad's compassion. And yet, because of the father's unconditional love, he is still moved to respond compassionately towards each of those boys.

Second, we see here that God's compassion looks like forgiveness and restoration. Compassion looks like forgiveness and restoration. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever disappointed or failed somebody and then felt like you've had to kind of earn back their love or earn back their kindness? Well, that's definitely how this younger son feels as we view him here in Luke 15. We see that as he prepares to head for home, he's already rehearsing his apology, practicing what he's going to say ahead of time. But then something staggering happens. Verse 20 tells us that the father sees him in the distance and the father is moved with compassion. Now, the word for compassion here is a Greek word. It's the word splaknezomai, and it holds a similar meaning to the Hebrew word rakum. Again, it means to be moved in the inward parts, this time literally to be stirred in the bowels.

And here's what that stirring does for this father. It motivates him to take off running down the road to get to his boy. And when he reaches him, he throws his arms around him and he kisses him, just as Rembrandt attempts to capture in this amazing painting. And the son in that moment does try to get his apology out, but the father doesn't even let him get his apology out. Before the son can say what he wants to say, the father is already lavishing gifts on this boy. And the gifts that he's giving are not stingy. First, he gives a robe. Well, why is this significant? Well, robes signified honor. Second, a ring. Well, rings were a symbol of authority and trust. Third, sandals. Sandals at that time were not worn by servants. They were not worn by the hired help. They were only worn by members of the family. Fourth, a party with the fattened calf. Well, the fattened calf was reserved for only the highest celebration. So don't miss this. Each of these gifts is an unmistakable indication that this son has been forgiven, that this son has been completely restored, that he is not being welcomed home as a servant. He is being welcomed home as a son with all the rights and privileges that come with that position. Do you get how incredible this is? God's compassion looks like forgiveness and restoration.

Third, God's compassion is not a temporary mood. You know, this is important because I think there's this temptation when we talk about compassion to think that it can kind of come and go. We think about it as this fleeting emotion, and probably we think about it that way because in a human sense, that's what our compassion looks like. We can feel compassionate one moment, and then it's out the window the next moment. But that is not the case with God. A.W. Tozer puts it this way in his book, Knowledge of the Holy. He says, "If we could just remember that the divine mercy compassion is not a temporary mood, but an attribute of God's eternal being, we would no longer fear that it will cease to be." You see, in the context of Luke 15, I believe the same kindness and compassion that propels the dad to run out to his youngest son is the very same kindness and compassion that first allowed the father to let go of the son. And let him go off at the beginning of the parable. It's also the same compassion that allows the father to respond in kindness to his older boy when his older son is so frustrated with his dad. You see, God's compassion is not a temporary mood, it's constant. Why? Because God's compassion is a part of who he is, it's a part of his eternal nature, and it will not change. I don't know how you feel about that, but that's good news for me.

Let me make this even more personal as we prepare to close. I know that for some of you in this room or some of you watching today, that this idea of God is compassionate, it doesn't resonate very easily. And perhaps the reason it does not resonate is that you didn't have a mom or a dad who was compassionate. In fact, you had a dad who was angry, who you could never really please, you had a mom who was nagging, whose expectations you could never live up to. And maybe those messages from childhood still linger deeply inside of you. And if that was your experience with your earthly parent, I wanna say I am truly sorry because that is not the impression that God intends for parents to leave on their children. But if that is you, please also hear this. Yahweh is not flawed like those of us who are earthly parents. We may not get it right, but Yahweh is the perfect parent, and Yahweh loves you fiercely and unconditionally, and Yahweh is deeply moved to respond to you. Yahweh is compassionate.

And God's compassion for you and for me looks just like it does here in Luke 15. God's compassion for you is rooted in unconditional love. God's compassion for you plays out as forgiveness and restoration in your story. God's compassion for you is not a temporary mood. You can count on his compassion as a constant. Last week, René shared a quote from Dane Ortland's book, a book called Gentle and Lowly, The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Suffers. And I wanna read this quote again this morning because it's so powerful and speaks so directly to what we have been studying here today. Ortland writes this, "God's heart of compassion confounds our intuitive predilections about how he loves to respond to his people if they would just dump in his lap the ruin and the wreckage of their lives. He isn't like you. Even the most intense of human loves is but the faintest echo of heaven's cascading abundance. His heartful thoughts for you outstrip what you can conceive. He intends to restore you into the radiant resplendence for which you were created, and that is dependent not on you keeping yourself clean, but on you taking your mess to him. He doesn't limit himself to working with the unspoiled parts of us that remain after a lifetime of sinning. His power runs so deep that he is able to redeem the very worst parts of our past into the most radiant parts of our future. But we need to take those dark miseries to him."

So my hope for all of us today is twofold. First, that each of us will be encouraged to draw near to our compassionate God right now, believing that he is deeply moved to respond to you and to me with unconditional love, with forgiveness, and with restoration. And then second, that we will be motivated to go out then and offer the same compassion that God has shown us to others in our life who need it. In fact, right now, maybe a name is coming to mind, somebody in your family or in your sphere of influence who you know could use a compassionate friend or family member to come alongside of them in their time of need. If that name comes to mind, would you act on that this week? Would you show them some love, some help? Show up for them in a tangible way.

As we consider God's great compassion for us this morning, let's go to that compassionate God in prayer. You know, maybe you are with us today or you're listening or watching today and you have not yet personally experienced God's compassion but you want to. If that's you, then I want to invite you to pray along with me and you can just pray this in the stillness of your own heart. You can simply say, God, I don't understand it all but I see now that you are compassionate towards me. I see that you are deeply stirred out of love for me and I want to know more. And so in faith, I choose to believe that as the ultimate act of compassion, you sent Jesus to die for me so that my sins could be forgiven. So that I could experience the promise of eternal life, I invite you to come into my life and to begin my restoration process today.

And for those of us who are here who already have a personal relationship with the Lord, Yahweh, our loving heavenly parent, we want to thank you for your compassion. Thank you that you see our pain and you see our needs and you are moved to respond in love on our behalf. Empower us by your spirit to love others, to lavish compassion on others as you have first lavished it on us. And we pray all of this in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen.