Be Available

The ability to care about people is something that the Holy Spirit develops in us. The love of Christ drives us. Seek God until you're refreshed. When you do, He'll bless your soul, cleanse your conscience, and lead you to those who need help.


Scripture: Mark 6:30-44, Romans 5:5, 2 Corinthians 5:14

Transcript

Alright thank you very much, and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing all right? I’m happy in the Lord, so grateful for His blessing upon me and so, so thankful that you are there on the listing end. I’ve just been praying that God might put His truth and His power and His love and His comfort and His inspiration and His blessing into every word that I speak, now as we fellowship together on what’s commonly known as the Kings hour. Not an hour really, but it’s a time when you and I get together around the word.

We’re looking at Mark chapter 6 and our Lord Jesus has just said to His disciples, “Come on rest a while”, so they were going to this place that was out in the country somewhere, but the people saw them departing, “Many knew Him ran afoot thither out of all cities about went them and came together on to Him”, and Jesus when He came out, that is out of the ship, saw much people and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were sheep not having a shepherd. He began to teach them many things. When the day was now far spent, His disciples came said, “This is a desert place and now time’s far past, send them away, they may go into to the country roundabout and into villages and buy themselves bread, for they have nothing to eat”. He said, “Give ye them to eat”, and they said, “Shall we go on buy 200 pennyworth of bread and give them to eat?”, He said, “How many loaves have ye? Go and see”. When they knew they said, “Five and two fishes”. You know the rest the story. He commanded them to have the people sit down on the green grass by 100’s and by 50’s, took the loaves and the fishes, blessed them gave them to His disciples, the disciples gave to the people and said, “They did all eat and were filled and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments and of the fishes”. Five thousand men had a meal there. What about all this? I think the first thing to notice is that shortly after you have had any time alone with God, you are faced, not surprisingly, with the need of other people.

Will you learn this lesson? Learn it early in life. Don’t wait too long to learn it, that one of the blessed results of seeking God is that He makes you available to people who have a need. Don’t fight that and don’t detour around it, and try somehow to preserve your own privacy and avoid becoming vulnerable to other people’s needs. That isn’t the way God works. Instead, realize that when you seek God and you are blessed of God and you’re refreshed in your own spirit by the spirit of God, when that happens, as it must from time to time, or else you run out, when that happens God also makes you available to other people who have a need. You take the story what we commonly call the Transfiguration ,you find the root Matthew. Peter and James and John were with our Lord Jesus Christ thereupon the mountaintop and they saw Moses and Elias talking with Him about His decease, which He had, which He was to accomplish in Jerusalem. Remember? Peter not knowing what to say, said it. Peter always answered and said. Nobody ever asked him anything, but he always answered and said. He said, “Lord let’s make three lean to shacks here.” Three tents, three tabernacles, that word tabernacle’s our word tent, or our shack. One for you, one for Moses, one for Elias, and God the father said, hey you’re talking about the wrong thing. This is my beloved son. Hear Him. Now, that was a marvelous revelation of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ because He had been transfigured before them, His face was shining like the sun, His clothing was shining in the light. This was the “a turning up” my old seminary Prof, Dr. Champion used to say, “Just as you turn up the wick in a kerosene lamp, so God in that moment turned up the light of deity, so the people could see shining through, the humanity of our Lord Jesus, the glory of His God head”, and so it must have been. Now they come down from the mountain. What happened? When they were come down, there came a certain man kneeling, saying, “Lord have mercy on my son, he’s a lunatic. I brought him to Thy other disciples, they couldn’t cure him”. Jesus said, “Bring him hither to Me. Believe, only believe”. He healed the boy. Remember that? Now, what happened? They were on the mountaintop, they saw this glorious transfiguration of our Lord Jesus Christ, the turning up, so to speak of the light of deity, till it shown through all of His humanity and when they came down to the mountain, bang what happened? Human need. Would you learn that lesson with me? I have to relearn that oftentimes. I tend, like you I think, to preserve my own privacy and not wanting to be vulnerable to the needs of everybody else all the time. Humanly we’re selfish enough to want not to be bothered all the time. Isn’t it true? And I have to learn and I hope you’ll learn with me, that when I seek my Lord and He refreshes my soul, He also reserves the right to share me with somebody else. Let Him do it. Let Jesus share you with somebody else today. Will you?

So anyhow, here came the people, and it said, “The Lord Jesus saw them and was moved with compassion”, Greek verb splanidzomi, my which means it hurt him in his middle. The old-timers used to feel that emotions were centered in your viscera, that’s everything that’s in the middle your body, you know. They felt that the seat of the emotions were there and it said, “He was moved with compassion”. It hurt Him in His heart, we would say today, because they were as sheep, not having a shepherd. Poor, lonesome, wandering, uncertain people with no fixed goal, nobody to care about them, looking for an answer to the inevitable questions of life and death. There they were and His heart went out to them.

Small thought here, just little detour. How do you look at people generally? We’re always so busy about our own concerns that we don’t bother to take time to notice other people. Have you observed that? You’re busy going to work, you don’t bother looking at other folk, you’re on your way to work. So it’s time to go to lunch and you put on your hat and coat go out and you don’t bother the look at people around you. You’re on your way to lunch. That’s important isn’t it? Come on back to work, go home at quitting time. Get on the subway or the bus or get in your car, whatever it may be, and you’re going home. You don’t bother to look at people except when they get in your way.I heard the other day of this lady who had on the on a bumper, her rear bumper of her car, had this sticker, said, “If you love Jesus honk”. So, she stopped at a stoplight and the person behind her was a believer and he was delighted to see that there was a Christian ahead of him, and he blew a loud blast on his horn. She got out and looked at him and said, “Can’t you see the light is red, stupid”? People, we don’t pay all that much attention to them unless they bother us. Am I right? Now, would you beginning today, form the habit of looking at people as they really are. It said, “He saw them as sheep, not having a shepherd”. He cared about them. Lost sheep, “So began to talk with them and teach them”. Now, of course you can’t go around or go up to a total stranger and say, “Look, I care about you”. That isn’t my point. You do that too often and the men in white coats will come and take your away. No, no, no. God wants you and me to be ordinary, normal human beings and to observe the niceties and the courtesies of life, I’m sure of that, but oh, the ability to care about people is something that the Holy Spirit of God can develop in you. Paul says in Romans 5:5, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is given unto us”, and he says in 2 Corinthians 5, “The love of Christ constraineth us”, that means drives us, makes us do what we do. If you’ll wait in God’s presence, here’s my point, if you’ll wait in God’s presence until He refreshes your own soul, He’ll give your eyes to see the people with whom He wants to share you, and as you go on through life they’ll be people that are thrown together with you, even momentarily, to whom you can say a word that they will never forget. The word of encouragement, the word of compassion, a word of love, a word of the gospel truth, whatever it may be. Jesus was moved with compassion because He cared about them. Would you learn to observe people, not simply as folk who get in your way, but to observe people as the human beings that they are, with needs and burdens, and hurts and heartaches and tears, joys and sorrows. Human beings that need God. Look at them that way. I can promise you, it will make a great deal of difference in the way you treat people as you go on through life. Jesus saw them as sheep not having a shepherd. Well, that was a long detour wasn’t it, but well I did it and I’m glad I did it.

Now, what’s happening? He says, “When the day was now far spent, the disciples came and said, ‘This is a desert place and the time is far past. Send them away’”. They had a burden for the benediction, get rid of them, get rid of them. The mark of the uncaring heart is that it wants to get rid of human need, rather than meet human need. In other words instead of trying to do something for somebody you say, call the social worker, call the police, call the Red Cross, call somebody. Don’t bother me, get rid of them, send them away. That’s the mark of the uncaring heart. Our Lord Jesus said, “Give ye them to eat”. The responsibility always comes back to the individual. What can I do about millions of people who are starving in Ethiopia or the Sudan or some or some of the other nations where starvation is routine? What can I do? I’m only one? Yes you are one, but you can do something. Responsibility for human need always comes back to the individual. If you’ll seek your Lord, He’ll tell you what you can do. He’ll tell you where you can begin. He’ll guide you in obeying Him so that what you do will have eternal dividends attached to it. Do you believe that? All of this comes out of the idea of seeking God until you’re refreshed. When you do, He blesses your own soul and quickens your life through a cleansed conscience. Remember, a clean conscience leads to energy to do God’s will. Second, He’ll make you available to other people’s needs. Third, He’ll put it right on you to do what you can, to meet that need, and when you will obey, you’ll see the blessed miracle. Well, we’ll get at this the next time we get together.

Dear Father today, make us available to people with needs, through Jesus Christ our Lord, I pray this, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!



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