Caring For Each Other

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. We invite you this morning to read in 1 Corinthians, the 12th chapter, a few verses here in this passage of scripture that speaks about the body, the different members of the body. That's not really what we're planning to talk about then, but we'd like to just get the setting and then go down to verse 25, verse 24. [00:00:39] He says here, for our comely parts, he's saying the body has different members, different functions, and maybe even different importances, I'm not sure about that. But he says our comely parts have no need. But God has tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which liked, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it. [00:01:13] Or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now if we go over to Romans, the 12th chapter, we find that Paul must have had the same thing in mind as he addressed the different churches. The Roman church and then the church at Corinth. Verse 15 he says here in chapter 12, Rejoice with them that do rejoice, And weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. [00:01:49] Be not wise in your own conceits, in your own thinking, or your own opinion about yourself. I'd like to think this morning about the words that he uses in Corinthians, especially when he says, have the same care one for another we're titling the message this morning caring for each other we talk sometimes about being a caring people we care for each other [00:02:21] I'm not sure if I have fully thought through what all that means a caring people has something to do with our heart I believe has something to do with our feelings as well and the word in Greek was Mariamnao or something like that which means to be anxious about, to take thought or maybe we would use the word compassion. Have compassion or feel for. It goes well with our Sunday school lesson as we discussed it at least in our class this morning [00:02:56] that we not only do the right things but that we do the right things for the right reasons. Now we have a caring heart. It's more than just the deeds. It made me think of the term about David and Jonathan. It says their hearts were knit together. We know it's very possible for all of us to just be together time after time and spend time together, but not really necessarily be knit together or have that feeling for each other. [00:03:30] We could say it perhaps like this. To care for each other means to be joined together in heart and soul. More than just responding the right way. If somebody has a need, we come and we have a frolic and we minister to that need. But it means that we come and minister to that need out of a heart of compassion. We don't just say the right things to each other, but we say the right things to each other because of how we feel toward each other. We care for each other. And this is not only true about the distresses that we face. [00:04:06] Last Sunday, I believe, was when Brother Glenn talked to us about the valleys that we go through and the effects of the valleys. And it was obvious that we have some valleys that we go through and we have experiences in those valleys that are personal to us. But today we'd like to as well think about going over the mountaintops with each other. He says, Rejoice with them that rejoice, and weep with them that weep. And I cannot really explain. I was thinking about this. [00:04:39] What is it that makes it better when it's shared? Why is it an improved experience if somebody rejoices with me if I have a success? Why does it help if I go through a distress and somebody shares his heart with me in my distress? What really? Circumstances aren't changing necessarily, but there's something about it that's helpful, that's a blessing. [00:05:10] And he tells us in these two passages, in fact he says in Corinthians that it's just an assumed thing. He says, when one member suffers, all the members suffer. When one member is honored, all the members are honored. It's just assumed. It's declared, but it's assumed that that's the way it is. Sometimes we think this is my problem, the thing that I go through. But it's not just my problem or my issue. [00:05:44] It's not just my victory. I've had a good experience. And so, I've had a good experience. But he says here, if I have a good experience, all the members are honored. And if I have a difficult experience, all the members are in difficulty. How is all that? I'm not sure how to describe it, but one thing I know, it feels good when there's somebody that understands and cares. [00:06:14] It's something we need. So as we think about the valleys that we've gone through or the mountaintops let's remember this morning that those experiences are always enhanced or improved when it is shared with somebody that cares. Certainly God wants to show us things in our valleys and He wants to show us things in our mountaintops. One of the things is that He wants to show us the value of the brotherhood. of people that care. [00:06:47] We're not really alone here in this life. Sometimes we may feel alone, but it's not true. We're not alone. And neither do we want to be alone. And if we feel alone, it is a lonely experience. It feels lonely to be alone. And it is. And sometimes maybe we are more alone than we ought to be in a brotherhood. It's very possible that I can be insensitive. In fact, maybe that's why I'm thinking about this subject this morning. [00:07:19] I don't sense in my heart always the caring that I'd like to experience for my brothers. So let's look a bit at this this morning. Even God himself recognizes that it's so. When he created Adam, remember what he said. He had created the wildlife, the nature, things that are about us. Then he made a man. There he was, Adam. And God said, it's not good for the man to be alone. We are social people that need to be cared for. In fact, it's an attribute of God himself. I'd like to just read to you a number of passages of scripture this morning that tells us how God feels about these things. [00:08:04] I don't always know how to interpret this either. Does God ever, is God ever sad? Bible says there are no tears in heaven. Does God hurt? I cannot fathom all the attributes of God in his perfection. But I'm wondering if we would not be correct if we would say if we hurt When our children, for instance, don't respond to us as we wish them to, doesn't God hurt even more? [00:08:38] He is perfect in His pain as well as in His love and His justice and holiness and all those. Isaiah 63, 9 says, In all their affliction, He was afflicted. And the angel of His presence saved them in love and in His pity He redeemed them. and he bared them and carried them all the days of old. In their affliction, God was afflicted. It's an attribute of God that he cares. The Bible says we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. [00:09:17] God can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. If we hurt, God is touched. according to that scripture in Christ. The Bible says in John the 11th chapter, verse 35, one of the children, tell me what it says in the shortest verse of the Bible. Jesus wept. That's all it says. Jesus ging in die Augen eber. It says in German. Something went over his eyes, it says in German. [00:09:49] Why did Jesus weep? It's because it's true like it says in other cases. In that situation, Jesus wept. I'm not sure if it was just because he was sympathizing with the bereaved or if it was also because the people didn't see all that Jesus had come for. But in any case, Jesus wept. It says in Matthew the 9th chapter, But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. [00:10:27] Jesus wept. Jesus was moved with compassion when he looked on the people that had no purpose in life. They were going through life. They were scattered. They really had no aim. They weren't striving for something. They were like sheep that didn't have a shepherd. One went this way. Another went that way. There was no togetherness among his sheep. And Jesus was moved with compassion as he sensed that need in their life. Again, the Bible says in Matthew the 14th chapter, [00:10:59] Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them. And he healed their sick. When Jesus saw people suffering physically, he had a feeling for those people. Though he was perfect. He knew no imperfections. Did Jesus ever get a childhood sickness? I don't know. He says he was in all points tempted like as we are. But Jesus seeing the people [00:11:31] and all the sick, the blind, the lame, the rejected, the suffering ones was moved with compassion and he healed them. and again in Matthew the 15th chapter Jesus called his disciples unto him and said I have compassion on the multitudes because they continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat I will not send them away fasting lest they faint in the way then Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes [00:12:04] why did Jesus do that? because he had compassion on the people people that were suffering want physically look at the suffering in our world today Jesus certainly must have compassion still on the peoples of the world today that are suffering need and to a measure we do in fact sometimes I think we do better in having compassion on the physical suffering than we do on the spiritual suffering if you show a picture [00:12:35] of an extended stomach and skinny arms and legs. People reach into their billfolds and give. We can as well give for missions in a general way and give it out. It's just like we discussed in our class this morning. We may give, but we may give without compassion. We may give to fill an obligation or we may give so people think well of us [00:13:07] or to soothe their own conscience. But behind all this, there is an ingredient that is of utmost importance, and that is that we give with compassion, a caring heart. How do you know if a person has a caring heart? I don't know, but I remember what they used to say at the rescue mission sometimes. Back there when Amos Bauman was the administrator in the faith mission in Elkhart, [00:13:43] being a unique man and saying it like it was, he would tell us often that these men that come in there, they can tell a phony from a real person. They just know. There is something about a caring heart that emanates from a person that goes out. You can just about sense it. Not always, but often, maybe the most of the time, you can sense if people are there because they care or if they're just there. [00:14:14] Now really, the caring heart is the heart of ministry. John the 10th chapter, Jesus said, the hireling fleeth because he's a hireling. That was about as far as I read or as far as I understood when I would read that scripture. Earlier, but I noticed something just in this preparation that it says further. The hireling fleeth because he's a hireling and careth not for the sheep. [00:14:49] He was filling an obligation. You know, I could be a preacher. I can preach Sunday after Sunday. I can get tired of preaching and I can get tired as I get older, but I can still preach. But there's a difference between preaching and caring. One can reach the heart. The other can be fulfilling the duty of an hireling. We can do that with a lot of things. We can get out into the streets and testify. But really the question is, do we care for the hearts of men? [00:15:26] It makes a difference in the effectiveness. The psalmist said, Psalm 142, those plaintive words haunt my heart time and again as I think of them. I think there's a song written something like this as well. I'd like to read to you the first five verses or so of Psalm 142. When David was talking here about, in fact, it says here in this heading that David was in the cave. Remember when David was hiding in the cave with his men? [00:15:59] I don't know if this was the same cave where Saul was also, or if it was another cave, but David was running, fleeing for his life. His life was in danger. And he was in there, he was looking at the circumstances of men, and he was just enumerating how that people are wicked, they live life here on the earth, and then they fly away like the grass. Life is short. Then he comes over. Well, let me just read the first five verses. [00:16:31] A prayer of David when he was in the cave. I cried unto the Lord with my voice and with my voice until the Lord did I make my supplication. I poured out my complaint before him and I showed before him my trouble. He reminded the Lord where he was and why and what had been happening. And the fact was that David was not against Saul, But he was suffering at the hand of Saul. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privately laid a snare for me. [00:17:03] I looked on my right hand and beheld, but there was no man that would know me. Refuge failed me. No man cared for my soul. No man cared for my soul. David was sensing something that I believe all of us naturally do. We sense loss if we do not find somebody that cares for us. It is something that the human heart reaches out for. [00:17:35] It's because God has made us this way. As we said, we are all affected by our brother's experience. When one is honored, all are honored. When one suffers, all suffer. Even when we aren't sensitive or aware of it, but David was here feeling dejection, even rejection from Saul who tried to take his life more than once. He felt so lonely in that cave, though he had a number of men around him that were very much his supporters, men that were capable. [00:18:12] But David was lacking this thing coming to him that we call a caring heart. Somebody that cared for his soul. He felt need of that. And I'm thinking about this this morning, not just what I am desiring or what I am made to feel, but I'm thinking, how can we be a caring people? How can we care for the souls of men? and how important it is that we do. [00:18:44] You have probably heard this statement at different times. Nobody cares how much we know until they know how much we care. It is what really opens the door for ministry. We may have it right down pat. We may have eloquence in speech. We may have fervency in our speech. We may have a lot of things that we can do well, but without the caring heart, it doesn't really minister help and healing to those about us. [00:19:19] So people don't really care how good I can say it, how often I say it, how loud I say it, how much activity I do, until they know that I do it because I love their soul. So some of you, quite a few of you probably know a lady named Miss Nancy. There's a new book out about Miss Nancy. That's the name of the book, Miss Nancy. And I just encourage you to read it from the standpoint that it is a testimony of a person who cared. [00:19:50] One of the things that expressed her caring is how that she suffered willingly to be misunderstood because she cared for the souls of people that were unlovely people. She cared for people that were against her. She cared for people when it hurt her, that is, it put her in a bad light sometimes. But she cared for people [00:20:22] And two of the things that are outstanding In her expression of care Were the tears she shed And the prayers she prayed Nobody cares how much we know Until they know how much we care The story is told of a Colonel Clark I don't know was this involved with the Pacific Guard mission in Chicago or not But in the early years, back in Chicago, there was this Colonel Clark who used to work six days a week so that seven nights a week he could keep a mission station open. [00:21:00] And he would every night speak to these men that came in. Five, six hundred of them would come in every night to his mission. And he would then speak to them. I think it was R.A. Torrey that said he went to this mission to hear him speak on occasion. He couldn't figure out how it was that when Colonel Clark would get up in front of the audience, those five, six hundred men who were drunkards, they were the off-scouring of the earth. [00:21:32] As it were, whenever Colonel Clark would get up to speak, those men would sit up and listen. Torrey couldn't figure out why because the way that Colonel Clark talked wasn't really that great. I don't know if he was sing-songing or how he was, but he called it prosy speech, kind of rhythmic, like a poem or something. He would give his lecture and the men would sit up and talk. Some of the great preachers of Chicago came to these meetings at times and they would preach. [00:22:06] But they never got the attention of the men, like Colonel Clark, who wasn't a capable orator. And finally, R.A. Torrey discovered why. There was a time when Colonel Clark, who often wept when he talked, who cared for those men, the reason he was doing this was because he cared. He would weep, and finally he became ashamed of his tears, and he tried to steal his heart, and he asked God to take his tears away from him. [00:22:40] and God conceded him what he asked so he stopped weeping but he lost his power with his men. Colonel Clark began to understand what was happening and he prayed that God would give him his tears back and God granted that prayer and the men listened. Caring hearts are the heart of ministry. If we want to reach our community, if we want to reach each other, all it takes is a caring heart. [00:23:15] A heart that honestly cares for people. It is not a matter of filling certain amounts of time and passing out tracts. And that's good. And it's good to testify, to warn, and to do all those things. It's good to go to a viewing. But let me say this morning, it's much better to have a caring heart. And then the good can be effective. That's what Colonel Clark was finding out by his experience. [00:23:47] We have an inner desire to be understood, don't we? We like to be understood. We go through a trial. And when the brethren function like Paul said to the Romans, As we rejoice with them that rejoice, we weep with them that weep, sometimes we don't have to say hardly a word, maybe no words, but we're just there and the love flows between brethren. It's healing, it's helpful, and that's my desire, that I can be a person that doesn't just do the right things, but that does the right things for the right reason. [00:24:30] and has a caring heart like our Lord did when he looked on the people and he lamented as he looked over Jerusalem. Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee as a hen gathers her chicks but you didn't want to. Did Jesus stop? No, he went on doing it but he had a heart that cared. He didn't just express those words. We all have a desire to be accepted. [00:25:05] We go through valleys and those valleys are real to us, aren't they? They are very real to us. But again, we want to say this morning, not only are they real to us, they're real to a brotherhood. Even when we're not sensitive to them, even if we may not know it, whatever happens in your life affects the rest of us. What happens in my life affects the rest of us. Because Jesus is not coming back for five bodies. [00:25:36] For five brides, there is one. And what happens in a brotherhood affects the brotherhood. Let us develop a sensitivity to have a caring heart. To think how a brother feels, how a sister feels, how it feels to be where you are. and then reach out. And in a measure, we can, caring hearts or compassion means [00:26:07] to feel a part of the pain or to feel a part of the rejoicing of the person. We just enter into that and our brother has experienced a good experience and we are just elated because of his good experience. Somehow that just builds it up. Increases it. And on the contrary, on the other side, if my brother or sister has a pain, and we somehow can pick up part of that pain and carry it, [00:26:38] isn't that really what intercession is? Standing in the place of another, beseeching God for another. I wonder if this isn't what happens sometimes. People have their experiences. And this is a two-way street, of course. We were told that last Sunday as well, I believe. That not only do we need to receive, but we also need to be open to receiving. We need to open our lives. [00:27:12] And as we open our lives, we share the pain. Oh, then that caring heart can reach in and minister grace and healing and blessing. I'm wondering if not sometimes people are amongst many people but this element of brotherhood may not be fully experienced or experienced very much at all and people get lonely in their hearts they feel alone [00:27:43] and then the enemy comes and he builds on imaginations and you feel yet more alone and more alone and then people disappear They just evaporate off the scene. What happened? It's a ministry of building the church. It's a ministry for reaching the lost. It's a ministry for worship to God. When our hearts care, God certainly is the one that has to, He's the one that says, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. [00:28:17] But doesn't God do a lot of his caring for people through people with caring hearts? I think so. So no matter the valley or the mountaintop, the experience is always enhanced when it is shared by caring people. God helped me to be a caring person, one that in my heart feels the pain and the joy of my brothers, of my fellow man. that when I look out there on the world I don't just see the degradation and all the ugliness and the bad things that people do [00:28:52] but I see a soul for whom Jesus died and my heart bleeds for him and maybe it weeps for him. The body weeps for him and my prayers ascend for him because I love him. James 1.21 says pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this To visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction. How can we express? What are things we can do in order to show a caring heart? [00:29:29] This is what I need. One of the things is to visit. Interaction. Visit. Visit. To be there. How do you show a caring heart? Well, it can be done perhaps on the telephone. Miss Nancy often, and this is not just in the book, I've seen this happen, and know it's true that many times when people have a pain, they call Miss Nancy and they'll talk on the phone and then they'll pray on the phone. [00:30:06] It's almost always with prayer. How do people know that Miss Nancy cares? Because she visits and prays. She takes time for the people. Galatians 6.2 says, Bear ye one another's burdens, and so what? Fulfill the law of Christ. This is the law of Christ. That's how you carry out the law of Christ. Bearing one another's burdens. 1 Peter 3.8 says, Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous. [00:30:48] A caring heart does those things. One mind, an awareness that we are interconnected, having compassion, feeling for, love as brethren. pity not the pity kind that we think of sometimes but the kind that is compassionate that loves the heart, that longs for the heart and then he says be courteous which includes the way we talk not just saying words but the way we say the words [00:31:19] the words that we say that we ask God to put a watch at the door of our mouth that we can say the right words that just minister grace to the hearers. Lord, teach me how to have a compassionate heart that I may be one of those that can not only be alongside a person, but that can join hearts with people.