Jesus’ Day Off - Spoiled by 5000 People.

Thursday May 1, 2025

Main idea: Main idea: Jesus allows His sanctified time of isolated rest to be interrupted because He has compassion for the suffering of mankind, and will act for them. 

Application: Compassion and healing other’s hearts is a foundational part of every believer’s heart. 

Intro: Jesus has compassion on His interrupters and He heals them. Jesus’ power and His compassion that motivates its use is much more than healing a body. It is victory over all that went wrong with the cosmos. 

Mat 14:13-14

Scene: The Lord and His disciples are able to settle down for a while, but then, just as relaxation and quiet is sinking into their bones, a great multitude of very needy people arrive. 

Healing: 

God’s healing is not earned or paid for as the pagan gods (Act 17:25). 

Jesus has all power to heal (Mat 4:23; 9:35)

His healing is prophesied (Mat 8:16-17, quoting Isa 53:4). 

The Son of God is the Great Physician. The Lord our Healer (Exo 15:26) and the context of Exo 15:26 is the bitter waters of Marah, Rut 1:20 = heals her bitterness. How? 

Naomi shows us where God truly desires to heal - the heart (the inner you). 

The point of this power in Christ Jesus was never to fix people’s bodies. The real miracle is His ability to overcome forces that seek mastery over His cosmos (world). 

Christ has done the work to heal your heart right here, right now. 

God heals because He is compassionate. 

Compassion (splagchnizomai): Mat 14:14

It is almost always in the Bible that the act of compassion comes from God, but it is demanded of us all.

Application: The Scripture therefore reveals that only God can do it, and when you consider that He demands that you do it, you have to concede that only God in you can do it when you submit to Him. 

The Lord’s compassion is not an isolated occurrence (Mat 9:36-38; 15:32-33; 20:29-30; 20:34; Luk 7:13-14).

He touches (leper) when it is clear that He doesn’t have to (Centurion’s servant). 

Since compassion is equated with the heart, it has an emotional component, but it is the whole person (heart represents the seat of the inner you). 

Compassion becomes an integral component of the Christian heart and therefore should be a distinctive mark of the Christian community. 

Application: Compassion is a foundational component of the life of the believer in Christ (church age). 

Compassion is one of the heart’s necessary virtues (Col 3:12-17). 

Paul equates it with the heart and sees compassion as being the whole person.

If your heart doesn’t look like this, or is not on its way to, then you’re not pursuing the new and living way of life that Christ gave you. 

Self-evaluate: do you seek to heal others? 

Think of all the people in your life that you have contact with - have you thought about what healing they may need? Can you call, write to them, visit them? 

Your compassionate self looks for need (1Jo 3:17).