75 Sermon Illustrations on Care

But go and learn what this means, “I desire compassion, and not sacrifice” (Matthew 9:13).

I used to ask my seminary students two questions:

1 What attributes, strengths and characteristics would you look for in a person with whom you could share your deepest personal problems?

2 Would you be willing to commit yourself to become that kind of person–someone others could confide in?

The essential prerequisite for a Christian counselor is to become the kind of person with whom others feel confident in sharing the problems of their present and past. Christian counseling doesn’t require a college degree, although those who counsel professionally can be greatly helped by receiving Bible-based training. Whether you sit on the platform or in the pew, whether you sit at a desk in a counseling clinic or at a dining room table, God can use you to minister to people with problems if you are compassionate.

You can’t really help a person unless you hear his whole story, and you won’t hear it unless you are the kind of person he can trust. People don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care. Compassion is not a question of learning a professional technique; it’s a question of Christian character and love.

Counseling seeks to help people deal with the present by resolving conflicts from the past. Many of these conflicts relate to areas of bondage where Satan-induced strongholds have been erected in the mind. People cannot grow and mature because they are not free. The goal of Christian counseling–whether done by a pastor, a professional counselor, or a friend–is to help people experience freedom in Christ so they can move on to maturity and fruitfulness in their walk with Him.

Lord, increase my compassion so I can be an effective counselor of others. Keep me from jumping to self-righteous conclusions.

1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1

The Beauty of Ruth

Boaz’ Care for Ruth

Ruth 2:8–17

– - – - – slide above, notes below – - – - -

2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2

The story thus far …

A. Elimelech and his family leaving Judah to go to Moab

B. The reign of deaths: Elimelech, Mahlon, Chilion

C. The three widows left: Naomi, Orpah, Ruth

D. The return of Naomi and Ruth to Bethlehem-Judah

E. Ruth goes out to work

F. The introduction of Boaz

– - – - – slide above, notes below – - – - -

A. For the sake of those visiting this morning, let me recapitulate Ruth to this point

1. The famine in Judah in the time of the judges and Elimelech’s decision

2. Death, marriage, death and 10 years have passed

3. The sad state of 3 widows

4. Naomi’s decision and conversation with her daughters-in-law

5. Ruth’s decision and desire to work

6. Boaz comes to the field and sees Ruth

3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3

Verses 8–9: Boaz speaks to Ruth

A. Here we read Boaz’ invitation to Ruth to continue to glean from his harvest

B. What does Boaz’ way of greeting Ruth imply?

C. What privileges does Boaz give to Ruth?

D. What care does Boaz take of her?

– - – - – slide above, notes below – - – - -

A. 8 And Boaz said unto Ruth, ‘Have you not heard, my daughter? {idiomatic for ‘Listen to me!’} Do not go into the fields of another in order to glean, and moreover, do not pass on from here; also stay close to my maidservants. 9 Let your eyes be in the field where they harvest and go after them. Have not I commanded the reapers not to touch you? And if you be thirsty, you shall go unto the vessels and you shall drink of that which the young men are drawing.’

B. Boaz’ greeting

1. Cannot be taken as a casual statement; approaches being a command

2. Uses same term for Ruth as did Naomi; recognition of family relationship; avuncular

C. Privileges accorded

1. He opens his harvest to her

2. He provides for her refreshment

D. Cares taken

1. His own maidservants to be her companions … for what purposes? … protection, know the way

2. Warning to the men to be careful how they treat her

4 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 4

Verses 8–9, cont’d.

A. Boaz' relation to Ruth was that of Go‘el (although there was one nearer than he); this means …?

B. In what ways are Boaz’ actions typical of Christ?

1. Cf Hebrews 2:11, Matthew 12:48-49

2. Cf Matthew 11:28-30

3. Cf John 6:35, 48, 51

4. Cf John 4:10-11, 7:37-38

– - – - – slide above, notes below – - – - -

A. Go’el means Kinsman-Redeemer. This person held a responsibility for those who were part of his clan. It was he who would seek justice on their behalf, who would pursue a man-slayer to bring him to judgement, and would rescue (redeem) them from debt. This is the word that Job used when he said “”And as for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth.” (Job 19:25 NAS), meaning that Job’s Go’el would vindicate Job’s position. Jesus Christ is our Go’el, or Kinsman-Redeemer.

B. Christ

1. Considers those following Him to be His family

2. Issues a gracious invitation to those in need

3. Provides to man spiritual food

4. Provides to man spiritual water

5 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 5

Verses 10-12: Boaz, Ruth, and Grace

A. Here we read

1.Ruth’s question of why Boaz’ grace

2.Boaz’ answer

B. What principal element impressed this grace upon Ruth? …what other factors would do so?

C. What things motivated Boaz’ grace?

D. What position is Boaz assuming with respect to Ruth?

– - – - – slide above, notes below – - – - -

A. These are not 3 people! —

1. 10 And she fell upon her face and bowed herself to the earth; and she said unto him, ‘Why have I found favour (Hen – Grace as in Gen 6:8) — I being a foreigner — in your eyes to pay attention to me?’

2. 11 Then Boaz answered and said to her, ‘Truly it has been told to me all which you have done for your mother-in-law after the death of your husband, that you forsook your father and your mother and the land of your birth, and you came into a country which you had not formerly known. 12 May Yahweh reward your works, that your reward may be complete from Yahweh, the God of Israel, to whom you have come in order to seek refuge under His wings.’

B. That she was a foreigner. Other possible factors would be his wealth and importance (see Ruth 2:1 and note Boaz’ credentials: “a mighty man of wealth”; “wealthy and influential man”)

C. What Ruth did

1. Her acts for her mother-in-law

2. Her willingness to leave her family

3. Her coming to a new country

4. Her works before Yahweh, her seeking refuge under His wings

D. His attitude: that of the head of a family blessing one of the family

6 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 6

Verses 10-12, cont’d.

A. What does Exodus 33:19 tells us about God’s grace?

B. What actions and attitudes lead to God’s graciously showing Himself propitious to an individual?

1.Deuteronomy 4:29 (also Jeremiah 29:13)

2.Acts 10:34-35

3. Isaiah 55:7

4.Hebrews 11:6

5. John 1:12 (vv 5-18)

– - – - – slide above, notes below – - – - -

A. Grace is the unilateral action of God

B. Yet God in grace shows Himself propitious to those

1. Deut 4:29 – who seek Him with a full heart

2. Acts 10:34f – who fear (respect) Him attempting to do what is right; John Gill: “though God accepts of such who fear him, and work righteousness from a right principle, and to a right end, without any regard to their being circumcised, or not circumcised, or to their being of this or the other nation, yet their fear of him, and working righteousness, are not the ground of their acceptance”

3. Isaiah 55:7 – repentance, turning from sin to God

4. Hebrews 11:6 – faith and seeking God

5. John 1:12 – accepting the Person of God’s Son by faith

6. Ephesians 2:8-10 says “8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, [it is] the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, that no one should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (NAS). While there is no way that we can earn salvation, we must not take this to mean that we have no responsibility in the matter of apprehending the salvation that God offers to us.

7 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 7

Verses 13-14: Further developments

A. Now we read of

1.Ruth’s response to Boaz’ kindness

2.Boaz’ further care for her

B. Ruth’s words:

1. Having found favour, her desire is …?

2.What ways does she see that Boaz has shown favour?

C. What kindnesses did Boaz show at meal time?

– - – - – slide above, notes below – - – - -

A. The conversation:

1. 13 And she said, ‘Let me find favour in your eyes, my lord, because you have encouraged me and because you have spoken kindly of your maidservant; although I am not as one of your maidservants.’

2. 14 At meal-time Boaz said to her, ‘Draw hither and eat from the food and dip your morsel in the vinegar.’ So she sat down by the side of the reapers and he took to her roasted grain. So she ate, was satisfied, and had some left over.

B. Ruth:

1. If she has pleased him that she may do so further

2. He has

a. Encouraged her

b. Spoken kindly

c. In his attitude elevated her up to the position of one of his own maidservants

C. At meal-time Boaz

1. Had her eat with this people and share of the refreshment

2. Served her himself

3. Saw that she had more than enough

8 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 8

Verses 13–14, cont’d.

A. How ought a Christian respond to God’s grace?

1. 1 Thessalonians 4:1; by seeking …

2. Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 5:25; by recognizing …

3. Galatians 1:10; by perceiving …

B. Boaz reveals a Christ-likeness in

1. Matthew 10:45, Philippians 2:7

2. Psalm 23:5

3. And he elevated Ruth to be as one of his own people

– - – - – slide above, notes below – - – - -

A. Ruth can be seen as a type of the church or the believer

1. 1 Th 4:1 – In seeking to further please (find favour) with the One who has shown grace to her

2. Gal 2:20, Eph 5:25 – In recognizing the kindness He has shown to her in love and giving Himself for her

3. Gal 1:10 – In perceiving the high privilege of being a servant of Christ

B. Boaz acting in a Christ-like fashion by

1. Matthew 10:45, Phil 2:7 – His servant attitude

2. Ps 23:5 – giving to her in abundance

9 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 9

Verses 15-17: The rest of the day

A. Finally we read of

1.Boaz’ instructions

2.Ruth’s working until evening

B. What three instructions did Boaz give?

1.Let her gather AMONG the sheaves

2. Deliberately leave extra for her to glean

3.Do not rebuke her

C. How did Ruth spend the rest of the day?

D. How do you evaluate Boaz’ “care package”?

– - – - – slide above, notes below – - – - -

A. The story continues,

1. With Boaz’ instructions: 15 And when she arose in order to glean, Boaz commanded his menservants, saying, ‘Also among the sheaves let her gather, and do not reproach her; 16 as well, be sure to draw some out for her from the sheaves and leave them that she may glean; and certainly do not rebuke her.’

2. And Ruth’s efforts: 17 So she gleaned in the field until the evening and beat out that which she had gleaned; and there was about an ephah of barley.

B. His instructions

1. Confirms his foreman’s acquiescence to letting her gather AMONG the sheaves – in some way this seems to have been a privilege for a gleaner

2. Made the work easier for her

3. Make this humbling task easier for her by their words

C. Ruth

1. Worked while it was still light – busy;

2. Gained an ephah of barley – approximately ½ bushel – 5 gallons (Imperial) – ¾ cu ft – 30 lbs – 22 litres – 14 kgm; figure that out as flour and how much is it in loaves of bread, etc?

10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 10

John Kevin Hines’ birth parents were poor, troubled people who had their baby taken away by social service officers after they left him alone in a flophouse room. He was 9 months old when Pat and Debbie Hines took him home with them. They were native San Franciscans who had known each other since elementary school. As time passed, Pat prospered as a banker, and he and Debbie adopted two other children. They had a nice home west of Twin Peaks, and a smaller place at Clear Lake.

When Kevin was 10, he had an attack of epilepsy and was put on a medication called Tegretol, which seemed to work. Kevin was a sensitive boy who wore his emotions on his sleeve and loved acting. He had freckles and short hair, and his fingers were delicate and expressive. But he was also tough and determined. Despite having asthma, he was on the Riordan High School wrestling team, and played nose tackle on the football team.

When Kevin was 16, two things happened to change an apparently happy boy into something else. Pat left Debbie. And because Kevin had suffered no more epileptic episodes, he was taken off Tegretol. “Very shortly,” says Pat, “Kevin went down Alice’s hole.” What none of them knew was that Tegretol also suppressed those frighteningly dramatic mood swings symptomatic of bipolar disorder. Kevin had a breakdown while onstage in a school play. He seemed altogether different, in need of psychiatric help and cocktails of medications to stabilize his mood swings and ameliorate his paranoia. “He was never the same after that,” says Debbie.

After a furious fight with his mother, Kevin moved in with Pat in January 2000. Father and son also butted heads. Kevin was often irritable and hard to control. He was rocked by the suicide of his drama teacher. His depressive cycles seemed to come at regular intervals, and Thursdays and Fridays were usually worst. On Friday, Sept. 22, Kevin’s girlfriend broke up with him.

All weekend he had hallucinations and heard voices. He didn’t tell Pat, though he remembers saying: “I don’t want to be here anymore,” and his dad’s replying: “You have an obligation to be here. We love you.” That was on Sunday, and he spent the night in his room writing suicide letters and throwing them away. On his seventh try, he got it right. A good suicide note. Monday morning a worried Pat offered to bring Kevin to work with him, or take the day off so they could go to the movies. But Kevin said he was fine, he wanted to go to classes.

“I was actually very happy that morning,” Kevin says now, five years later. “Elated. I was going to end the pain.” He persuaded Pat to drop him at City College on Ocean Avenue. He kissed his father goodbye and gave him a rare hug because he thought it was going to be the last time he saw his dad.

He went to Walgreens for his last meal -- Skittles and Starbursts. Then he boarded a 28-19th Avenue bus headed for the Golden Gate Bridge. He was sitting in the rear when it hit him: “I’m actually going to do this. I’m going to die today.” That made him a little sad. But the voices persisted: “You must die! You can’t go back! You are a burden to those who love you!” He wanted to end his life by leaping off the bridge because he thought a gunshot or an overdose of pills would hurt too much. He had heard that jumping was the easiest way to die. The ride seemed long.

When Kevin disembarked, he stood for a while in the parking lot. Then he walked out onto the span, looking for a good spot to jump, where he wouldn’t hit a pillar on the way down. The sun was breaking through the fog, creating a hazy, golden light. He was crying as he walked. A female police officer on a bicycle passed him without stopping, and then two bridge workers in buggies. Kevin’s voices were insistent now: “You have to die!” He thought if only somebody would show he or she cared, he wouldn’t jump. Just then, he was approached by a glamorous woman wearing huge sunglasses. “It’s OK!” he thought. “She cares.”

The woman held out a camera and in a German accent asked him to take her picture. She ignored his tears. When she walked away, Kevin turned, took three running steps, and plunged toward the green, calm water.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

At the very moment Kevin Hines launched himself over the guardrail and plummeted toward the water below, he changed his mind: “Oh s--,” he thought. “I don’t want to die! What am I going to do?”

He plunged headfirst, gaining velocity until he was speeding far faster than the traffic above him crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. The distance from bridge to water is the equivalent of 25 stories, and he was conscious the whole way. The descent passed quickly, as if he were flying. Yet in mid-fall he was strong enough to turn his body into a sitting position, so he hit feet first. He sank beneath the calm, frigid water. Deeper and deeper. Far scarier than the screamingly silent fall was the darkness beneath the surface of the bay. The deeper he sank, the darker it became.

The pain was indescribable. The impact had broken his back and shattered vertebrae. And then he began, with the instinct for survival of any animal, to swim upward toward light and air. When he broke through the surface of the water he was stunned to be alive, and momentarily thought he was hallucinating. He tried to swim toward a bridge pylon, but his pain overwhelmed him and he began to sink beneath the water again, struggling against dying. He managed to bring his head above water when he felt something -- something alive, a creature -- brush his legs.

“I didn’t die,” he thought, “and now I’m going to be eaten by a shark.” The creature kept circling him, nudging him, preventing him from sinking back into horrifying darkness. He was aware of the echo of traffic, and car horns. Then he heard a boat motor. All of a sudden, hands were grabbing him, hauling him up, laying him on a board. A man in uniform -- it was the Coast Guard that rescued him -- was asking questions.

“What did you do?”

“I jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to kill myself.” He was 19.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Debbie Hines, a public health nurse, was in a class on “Understanding Depression” on Sept. 25, 2000, when she received a call on her cell phone that her eldest son was in Marin General Hospital after surviving a leap from the bridge. Then she was driving and crying and praying: “Please, God, don’t let him be like Christopher Reeve.” When she reached Kevin, he was still on the board the Coast Guard had brought him in on. He looked crumpled but managed to say, “Hey, Ma. Hi.”

She helped the other nurses lift him onto a hospital bed. She said to him, “Kevin, I don’t know what it is, but God has you here for a reason.”

Kevin’s father, Pat, also arrived alone. He and Debbie had been separated for about two years, after 18 years of marriage. Pat didn’t begin to lose it until his son looked up at him and said, “I’m sorry.” When he remembers that moment now, Pat, a private banker who prides himself on having come up from poverty and being nobody’s fool, sighs deeply. On the drive to the hospital he kept thinking that Kevin was dead and the hospital wasn’t telling him.

His memories of what happened next are blurred. There was a machine monitoring Kevin’s heartbeat, and he knows he touched his son’s foot and felt no reflexive reaction. Hours later, a nurse said to him, “You have to go.” Pat answered: “I’m staying.”

For three weeks, he slept on a cot in Kevin’s hospital room. One thing he does remember is that the next day, or the day after, a nurse asked for his help -- another boy had jumped and survived, and she thought he might have been a friend of Kevin’s, one of the kids who came and stood forlornly around the waiting room. It wasn’t. The boy was a stranger. The nurses knew that among the more than 1,200 who had jumped from the bridge, only 26 are believed to have survived. They began to joke among themselves in the morbid way trauma workers have of sustaining themselves. “The survival rate for jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge,” they said while laughing, “is 100 percent.” And for those two days it was.

Doctors screwed a metal plate into Kevin to replace his shattered vertebrae. But Kevin was having a terrible time -- not just physically but emotionally. He was tormented, hallucinating. Soon he was moved to a psychiatric ward at St. Francis Hospital in San Francisco. It was months before he was released.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Kevin, Pat and Debbie have all been changed by what Kevin did. “Going through the experience of a suicide and coming out the other side alters a family,” says Eve Meyer, the executive director of San Francisco Suicide Prevention. “Some families can become angry, especially if they had no warning -- he left the house in the morning and bang! And if you’d known, you’d have done something -- you become very, very angry. Furious.”

On a recent morning, Kevin was sitting on a sofa in his dad’s living room, telling his story. He is now a compactly built young man of 24, with gentle, dark eyes and a thin reddish beard shaved to follow his jawline. He is polite, accommodating and articulate. Five years after jumping off the bridge, he still has flashbacks. He sees himself plummeting toward his death and his body shakes violently. Last May, he cut into his right shoulder with a box cutter and was hospitalized for two months. Since then, he has lived in a psychiatric residential care facility. But he likes to come to his dad’s small townhouse to read and watch TV. He calls it his sanctuary.

Kevin takes eight pills at night -- mood stabilizers, antidepressants, another to control side effects -- and one antipsychotic every morning. He is acting in independent films made by friends and has found a direction in life as an advocate for a suicide barrier to be built on the Golden Gate Bridge. During the first 18 months of his recuperation, he kept his story to himself. But a conversation with a priest helped convince Kevin that his survival was a gift he was meant to share. He does not consider himself to be religious so much as spiritual. He believes in God.

The sea creature that saved his life by circling beneath him -- he says it was a seal -- he now thinks of as an angel. Its appearance in the frigid water is not something he has talked about in public, although he has often appeared on television and been interviewed by reporters. He has never even told his mother.

When she was asked about the sea creature that saved her son’s life, Debbie was taken aback. “I think that’s made up,” she said. “I never heard about it until today. It’s either miraculous or imaginary.”

About that, as about most things, Kevin’s parents remain in conflict. Pat, who has joined his son in advocating for a barrier, says a man on the bridge that day photographed Kevin being circled by a sea lion -- not a seal. But the pictures were so painful to look at, Pat says, he put them away and now can’t find them.

The differing memories are to be expected, says Meyer, of Suicide Prevention. “A trauma like this happens and then memories get all slippery,” she says. “Nobody can remember from moment to moment what did happen.”

In his Montgomery Street office, Pat keeps a framed poster of the bridge facing his desk. “Helps you focus,” he says.

Pat says that statistics, combined with the footage filmed last year by Eric Steel of 19 people taking their lives, “have provided irrefutable data that at least one person a week” is jumping. “It’s morally reprehensible that the walkway isn’t closed,” he says. No matter the cost, he wants a barrier erected.

He supports his son’s advocacy role as therapeutic. “Surviving, and having the ability to talk about it, gave Kevin a reason for life. In many ways, this issue validates his existence.”

Debbie Hines isn’t so sure that’s a good thing. In the immaculate living room of her home, Debbie, who has never spoken publicly about Kevin, says: “Initially, I thought it was probably a good thing. But I also said to Kevin, ‘You’ve gotten to this point and done some good things. But it’s time to move on. I wouldn’t want you to make a career out of it. Because if you jumped off the bridge at 19, and are still talking about it at 45, and that’s all you’re doing, I’m not thinking that’s a great success.’”

She is opposed to a barrier. As a nurse specializing in kids at risk, she thinks the money would be better spent on treating mental illness. “When you’re hearing voices, you’re psychotic,” she says. “You have a chemical imbalance in your brain. All bets are off. You’re not going to fix that with a barrier.” Kevin’s advocacy, she adds, “got him a tremendous amount of attention, which is what Kevin needs.”

Kevin, though, feels he has found his mission. He recently changed his major to communication.

“I was at an awards banquet,” he says, “and this gentleman asked me to sign an enormous picture of the Golden Gate Bridge. He said, ‘You saved my life. I was going to kill myself before I heard you make a speech.’ I do it for that, not to get attention. To help other people. If I could take it all back, I wouldn’t. The places I’ve gone, the people I’ve helped, I’d have never met. I had heard that this was the easiest way to die, almost serene. It’s not like that -- you have a heart attack on the way down, or your limbs fall off and you drown in your own blood. And this cause I’m trying to fight for, I wouldn’t have had a reason to fight for.”

See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise. —Ephesians 5:15

I’m getting pretty good at math. That’s because every day my son Steve and I have a little math session. He does his 30 junior high math problems, and I help him check them over. Sometimes we even get them all right.

As I go over Steve’s math, I notice that he understands how to do his problems. In fact, in some areas he’s better at it than I am. But occasionally, despite knowing how to do the problem, he gets the wrong answer. He either gets a little sloppy in using the right formula or he just doesn’t check his answers carefully.

Aren’t we all a little like that in our Christian life? We know what we should do. We have a good understanding of how to live the Christian life, but we get careless or lazy. We know better, but we fail.

For instance, we know we aren’t supposed to gossip. But before we know it, we’re roasting a fellow Christian. Or this: We know God wants us to keep our mind and heart pure, but we let down our guard and watch a TV program or movie we know is not edifying.

It’s true, isn’t it? We all get a little sloppy in how we live for God. Let’s be more careful and pay closer attention to our Christian walk (Ephesians 5:15). Let’s make sure we’re doing quality work for our heavenly Father. —JDB

Lord, help me to apply Your Word

And move it from my head

To actions that won’t shame your Name

But honor You instead. —Sper

Give your all for Jesus, He gave His all for you.

Here is an example of a different kind of power: Jesus, a young carpenter, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. His disciples vie for the best seats and he takes a towel and basin to wash their feet. On the cross he meets their evil with a prayer of forgiveness.

The one time Methodist Bishop of Mississippi Jack Meadors tells a wonderful story of an incident that occurred during the Special Olympics. Nine children lined up for the 100 yard dash. The gun sounded and the race was off. But only a few yards into the race, one of the children fell and began to cry. For some reason these challenged children did not understand the world’s concept of competition and getting ahead and taking advantage when a competitor was down. The other eight children stopped running and came back to their fallen comrade. A young girl with Down’s Syndrome kissed him and brushed him off. The children lifted him up together, arm in arm, they ran over the finish line. The audience rose to their feet in applause. There was not one winner, there were nine winners.

For a fleeting moment these children showed us what the Kingdom of God is like. They challenged the world’s concept that first place is everything.

The world says defeating, even destroying one’s competitor is the way to go. The world says that competition and success is an indisputable law. Competition is touted. On Palm Sunday, and then again in the upper room, and then again on the cross, Jesus challenged the world’s concept of power.

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. — 1 Peter 5;7.

Though doubt and dismay should enfold you

And hope and relief become dim

Remember that Someone has told you

To “cast all your care upon Him”

If sorrows or troubles o’ertake you

And grief fills your cup to the brim

There is One who will never forsake you

So “cast all your care upon Him”

When mourning the loss of the dearest

And tears make your couch seem to swim

‘Tis then that the promise is clearest

So “cast all your care upon Him.”

If worried and worn, you’ve neglected

The lamp that He gave you to trim,

E’en then by His word you’re directed

To “cast all your care upon Him.”

One cold, rainy night, I found my daughter Ann sitting on her bed staring at the rug. I'd come for our nightly bedtime reading, bringing Ann Ashford's book, If I Found a Wistful Unicorn. But now I set it aside. "Whats the matter?" I asked, tilting her chin up to me.

"I left Scruffy in the tree house," she muttered, referring to the beloved stuffed dog she'd slept with for years. I looked toward the window. Icy rain washed across the black pane. "how many times have I told you to bring in your toys?" I said. in an annoyed tone. "Well it's too late now. You'll have to sleep without him." Ann nodded solemnly. "Come on, let's read," I said. So we opened the book and here is part of what we read:

If I found a wistful unicorn and brought him to you all forlorn, would you pet him?

If my cricket coughed and got the flu and needed warmth and comfort too, would you hold him?

If my rainbow were to turn all gray and wouldn't shine at all today, would you paint it?

If my birch tree were afraid at night and couldn't sleep without a light, would you bring one?

If my nightingale were a monotone and much too shy to sing alone, would you hum with him?

If any of these things you'll do, I'll never have to say to you, "do you love me?"

I closed the book and looked at Ann. Then I went and found a flashlight and umbrella and waded out into the wet winter night. I tucked Scruffy beside her sleepy face. "I love you," I said. She hugged the dog to her cheek. "I know," she replied. Give me the courage to show my love for another, Lord, especially when it demands sacrifice.

Read: Matthew 9:35-38

As [Jesus] drew near, He saw the city and wept over it. — Luke 19:41

Actor Bruce Marchiano wanted to see the world through the eyes of the character he was playing. So as he prepared for the role of Jesus in a presentation of Matthew’s Gospel, he prayed, “Lord, show me what it all looks like through Your eyes.”

That prayer was answered one day while Marchiano was filming the Lord’s heartbroken denunciation of the unrepentant cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida (Mt. 11:20-22). The actor began to weep uncontrollably as he looked at the people around him. He said that he “saw people living their lives in ways that God didn’t plan.” He likened his reaction to what parents might feel if they saw their toddler walking into the street as a truck was coming. Marchiano realized that compassion is not just feeling sorry for people; it’s a heartache so intense that it moves us to action.

As Jesus walked among people, He saw them as shepherdless sheep — spiritually ignorant, without hope, eternally lost. Moved with compassion, He taught them and used His supernatural power to meet their needs (Mt. 9:35).

Do we see people through the eyes of Jesus? Are we moved with compassion, not with just a passing twinge of pity but a profound reaction that motivates action? — VCG

Beautiful lives have they who bear

The burdens of those heavy laden with care;

Earnest are they who daily show

Compassionate service wherever they go. — Anon.

Compassion is love in action.

Dr. James Dobson’s experience at the public school system was from 1960-1963. At the final year, he had to say goodbye to 25 to 30 teary-eyed kids. One young lady whom he said goodbye to in 1963 called him in 1975. Julie had grown up. James remembered her as a seventh grader with a crisis of confidence in herself. Her Latin heritage embarrassed her and she was overweight. She had only one friend who had moved away the following year. She and Dr. Dobson talked on the phone about the good ole days.

“Where do you go to church?” she asked. He told her, and she asked if she could visit. He told her she could, and the next week she came. In the coming months, she became a Christian.

A few months after her initial visit, Dobson asked her, “Julie, I want to ask you a question. Will you tell me why you went to so much trouble to obtain my unlisted number and call me last fall?”

“Because when I was a seventh-grade student in junior high school, you were the only person in my life who acted like you respected and believed in me, and I wanted to know your God.”

1. The King of love my Shepherd is,

Whose goodness faileth never;

I nothing lack if I am His

And He is mine forever.

2. Where streams of living water flow

My ransomed soul He leadeth,

And where the verdant pastures grow

With food celestial feedeth.

3. Perverse and foolish oft I strayed,

But yet in love He sought me,

And on His shoulder gently laid,

And home rejoicing brought me.

4. In death’s dark vale I fear no ill

With Thou, dear Lord, beside me;

Thy rod and staff me comfort still,

Thy cross before to guide me.

5. And so through all the length of days

Thy goodness faileth never:

Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise

Within Thy house forever.

[Tune “Dominus Regit Me”]

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Sermon in 1 Peter series. Don't be anxious. 1 Peter 5:5-11

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GOD IS STILL ON YOUR SIDE

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I. "It's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?"

II. Christians need to hang together. 5:5

A. Cooperation between generations.

B. Humility is for everybody. 5:6

C. Ultimately, we humble ourselves before God.

III. God's grace can sustain us in our most difficult hour. 5:7

A. Don't be divided.

B. The worst is past, the present is brighter and the best

is yet to be.

C. A caring God is unique.

IV. Christians are responsible for their actions. 5:8

A. Our dependence on God's care doesn't preclude our own action.

B. Devoured by sin.

V. God is stronger than Satan.

A. Devil is against us.

B. Make sure your faith is stronger than your fear.

C. God is calling us to glory. 5:10

VI. How strong is your faith?

#4187

*

“But I trust in the Lord that I myself shall also come shortly. Yet I considered it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, but your messenger and the one who ministered to my need; since he was longing for you all, and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick. For indeed he was sick almost unto death; but God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.” (Php 2:24-27 NKJV)

Epaphroditus

• trust — confident

• I…shortly — he trusted that he would be able soon to follow Timothy

• Epaphroditus — Phil 4:18 — (Venus-like, beautiful), possibly Epaphras, a Colossian — Col 1:7, 4:12, Phm 1:23 — Nothing certainly known of him, beyond this passage

• because…sick — he was sorry that their trials should be increased by a knowledge of his

• he…death — his illness was likely to be fatal

• but…hirn — Ps 103:2-4, 107:21, 116:15 — restoration to health, one form of Divine mercy

• and not, etc. — Isa 27:8 — mercy to those who are dear, to be regarded as a mercy to us.

Epaphroditus — M. Henry

I. His sickness — nigh unto death.

II. The sorrow of the Philippians on hearing of this — they loved and respected him.

III. His recovery — “God had mercy on him” — they could ill spare so good a minister.

IV. His desire to visit the Philippians.

V. Paul’s recommendation of him — he caught his illness in the holy work, therefore they should esteem and reverence him more.

Human friendship transient — For my own part, I found such friendships, though warm enough in their commencement, surprisingly liable to extinction; and of seven or eight whom I had selected for intimates out of about three hundred, in ten years’ time not one was left me. The truth is that there may be, and often is, an attachment of one boy to another that looks very like friendship, and while they are in circumstances that enable them mutually to oblige and assist each other, promises well and bids fair to be lasting — but they are no sooner separated from each other, by entering into the world at large, than other connections and new employments, in which they no longer share together, efface the remembrance of what passed in earlier days, and they become strangers to each other for ever. Add to this, the man frequently differs so much from the boy — his principles, manners, temper, and conduct, undergo so great an alteration — that we no longer recognise in him our old playfellow, but find him utterly unworthy and unfit for the place he once held in our affections. — Cowper

“Live as if you were rescued from death, and seize fleeting enjoyments, and thus your recovered life will not have lost a single day.” — Martial

“If thy friends be of better quality than thyself, thou mayest be sure of two things: the first, that they will be more careful to keep thy counsel, because they have more to lose than thou hast: the second, they will esteem thee for thyself, and not for that which thou dost possess.” — Raleigh