The Father Has Compassion on His Children

In honor of our fathers, I want to share a Word based on the example of the Father par excellence, our supreme, unsurpassable model, who is our heavenly Father.

In Psalm 103 there is an example that has always had a great impact on me and that I have always wanted to be one of the foundations of my ministry and of my own pastoral work. Psalm 103, verse 13, says: “As a father has compassion on his children”—as a father has compassion on his children—“so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.”

I am going to leave it there, and later I may have an opportunity to discuss the other verses a little more, but last week, during my times of personal visitation, I was struck by that verse, which I have read so many times, meditated on so many times, and pointed out so many times in public and private prayers; but as Father’s Day approached, it spoke to me in a stronger, more direct way. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.

And He adds in verse 14 that He has compassion on us in that way because He knows our condition, because He knows our condition. I like the basic English translation: “Because He knows our frame.” He knows our frame, He knows our structure, He knows what we are made of. He knows the foundations of our soul, our mind, our biology, our spirit; He knows the very constitution of our being, and it adds: “He remembers that we are dust.”

In other words, His insight into what we are, His penetration into our nature, allows Him to see that we are dust. There is nothing more evanescent, nothing more fragile or more easily dissipated—to use an invented word—than dust. Dust is the essence of what once was and is no longer, what has been pulverized and reduced to almost nothing.

So the Psalmist tells us that when God perceives our intimate nature, what we are made of, what we are, and when He intimately knows our being, that knowledge moves Him to have compassion on us; and I believe that therein lies the essence of the revelation this Word gives us. I looked up the use of the word “have compassion” in the original Hebrew, its etymology. The word is raham, which means: to love, to love deeply. These are the connotations of that word as the Psalmist uses it: to have mercy, to be compassionate, to have tender affection, to have compassion. A compassion that leads Him to do things on behalf of His children.

For example, in Deuteronomy chapter 30, the Lord uses that same word, raham, when speaking about how, as He looks toward the future, He knows that the Hebrews will sin against Him, will turn away from His ways, and, as a consequence, will be scattered among all the nations. That is a consequence of sin. God, who gave the land to the Hebrew people, always told them: If you follow My ways, that land is irrevocably yours; if you become corrupt by pursuing foreign gods, you will be scattered and driven out of your land.

And the Lord prophetically tells His people—even while they are still in the wilderness, but already seeing this people’s disobedience and their tendency to sin—that when they turn back in those places to which they will be driven, when they repent of their evil ways among all the nations, He says, “where I have driven you,” He says: “Then the Lord will bring back your captives and have mercy on you”—there is that verb raham again—“He will have mercy on you and gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. Even if your exiles are in the farthest places beneath heaven,” wherever the Hebrews may be scattered because of their sin, the Lord says: “From there the Lord your God will take you to the land your fathers inherited, and it will be yours; and He will do you good and multiply you more than your fathers.”

That merciful, compassionate God. You are going to offend Me; that is your tendency, that is your weakness: allowing yourselves to be deceived by foreign gods. But I will have mercy on you. Cry out to Me, and I will be there to gather you again wherever you may be. I will not forget you. And that was fulfilled in the twentieth century with the return of the Hebrews to their land.

So, that God of mercy. As we always see, God presents Himself as the Father of mercy; He has the right to do so—He is perfect. He is the Father whom we fathers must imitate in our own fatherhood, but mothers must imitate Him as well, because God has made us protectors in our capacity as fathers and mothers. But I want to address you, present and future fathers, and also our entire Christian community, concerning that quality of God, that paternal quality defined by mercy and compassion. The characteristic highlighted here in Psalm 103 is precisely that: mercy, becoming attuned to someone’s true condition.

Because that is the idea, isn’t it? He remembers. He is always actively remembering, causing Himself to remember: what can be expected of these tadpoles? They are going to mess it up, as the Mexicans say; they are going to offend. But that is the characteristic we see here in Psalm 103, isn’t it? Becoming attuned to someone’s true condition, feeling their fragility, and sympathizing with the individual—that is what it means to have compassion. Needless to say, brothers and sisters, God wants us to imitate Him and to be a community of compassionate men and women, because, after all, that is the call of this message. It is a call to identify with others, to feel what they feel, and always to be willing.

I believe every believer should have a 360-degree radar that, whenever they encounter the drama of an individual—whoever that person may be—immediately activates so that they instinctively feel what that person feels. We must ask the Lord to give us discernment. One of the most important qualities of a child of God is the ability to become immediately attuned to the individuals God brings around us.

Above all with our children, compassion must be instinctive in every father and every mother. That idea, isn’t it, of sympathizing and identifying with another person’s fragility is the idea of compassion. It is about feeling what someone else feels in their condition at that moment when we come into contact with them, and adapting the way we treat people according to what we perceive about them through the grace of the Lord dwelling within us.

Incidentally, I believe that this is the distinctive mark of Christianity. I do not believe compassion is a monopoly of Christians, but I do believe that what characterizes Christianity, apart from everything else it may possess—it is a great theological system of great moral and ethical truths and profound insights into the composition of the human being—is that mercy, that identification with the other person. It is the very origin of the Incarnation, of Christ’s coming into the world. It is precisely because God identified with us, and the way out of His dilemma between His holiness and His mercy was the cross, the Incarnation, Christ coming into the world and feeling what we feel. Later I will speak a little more about that.

Let us look at some examples of Jesus’ compassion, of the compassion of the Father and the Son, and we will have a better idea of how we should demonstrate that mercy, that compassion. I thought of Mark chapter 10, verse 17 and following, but I am going to focus on only a couple of them.

Do you remember the story of the rich young man? This young man came running to Jesus, filled with anxiety; he was deeply concerned about how he could be saved. His money had not given him peace, nor had his social influence. His importance, his success, his morality—none of it had given rest to his soul. He approaches Jesus and says: Lord, what must I do to be saved? And the Lord sets a trap for him, and he says: But Lord, do I have to keep the commandments? That’s it—I have done that all my life. The Lord tells him: Then the only thing you lack is this: take your money—I imagine He might have said in parentheses, which you love so much—take your money, take your possessions, sell them, take the entire fortune and give it to the poor, and you will find the salvation you are seeking.

Look at what it says here when this young man tells the Lord: “I have kept all these things since my youth.” Verse 21 says: “Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him.” That is what struck me; it has always struck me: “Looking at him, He loved him.” Why does it say there that, looking at him, He loved him? Again, there is that ability first to look, to become attuned to a person. When the Lord tells him to keep the commandments, He knows that he has kept them, and He knows what He is going to tell him after that. He is going to tell him: Sell your possessions, give the money to the poor. And He knows that this young man is going to tell Him: No, I cannot, because I love my money too much.

So when the Lord sees him, he says: I have kept all the commandments. And He knows that the true bondage of this young man is his love of money and of men, of society, of what they think of him. He is entangled in the vanity of the world and cannot get out of it; he is in a great dilemma. And because the Lord knows and perceives this young man’s bondage and his inability to find happiness—because he is like a caged animal; he wants his freedom, but he cannot get out of his cage because his cage has dictated it—the Lord understands.

So the Lord looks at him. I believe that when He looked at him, it was truly a look of compassion; it is the father who sees his son going down the wrong path: I cannot stop him. Looking at him, He loved him; He had compassion on him. And then, in the end, the young man goes away sad because he cannot part with his money. Perhaps one day he did, and I hope so, but at that moment the Lord knew his condition, and instead of criticizing him, attacking him, or condemning him, He loved him, because He knows that it is difficult to let go of the things one loves.

For a person to find the freedom they need, there is a price to pay, and that is the struggle we face. I believe that when we minister to people, shepherd them, and deal with them, one of our instincts must be this: to understand each individual, their struggle to free themselves from their bonds, their struggles from the past, their fears; and we must walk with that individual. We can diagnose them, we can prescribe the medicine, but there is a process those people must follow, and we must be willing to accompany them through that process. Instead of striking them, prodding them, or condemning them too quickly, we must love them and walk with them.

Now, always keeping the truth firm and clear—the Lord did not yield on that. He told him: This is what you have to do, but it is going to be difficult for you. Looking at him, He loved him. Another passage I like very much is Luke 7, verse 13, the passage about the widow of Nain. Do you remember? It says that this woman had lost her only son; they were burying him, the only son of his mother, who was a widow. And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her and said: Do not weep. Then He proceeded to raise her son from the dead. The Lord had compassion on her because He understood: a widow. Do you know what it meant to be a widow in biblical times? Completely helpless. There is no social security; you are a burden on your family; you do not have much prospect of remarrying; you are truly helpless. But on top of that, they take away your only son. Perhaps he was your hope for support, but more than that, your source of companionship and simply the one you love so much.

The Lord sees that scene. He could have remained still, but He understood this woman’s situation; He was deeply moved by her helplessness, had compassion on her, approached her, and used His vast and unlimited power to raise your son from the dead. “Young man, I say to you, arise.” The dead man sat up, began to speak, and He gave him to his mother. What a beautiful detail.

I always see that Jesus is the Shepherd of details. He did not simply heal him and say, well, goodbye, take care. He took the one who had been raised from the dead and gave him back to his mother—what a beautiful gesture. It makes me think of another act of the Lord’s mercy, when He healed the woman with the issue of blood, who came up behind Him and touched His garment without authorization—she did not ask His permission. She touched the Lord’s garment and was about to slip away into the elusive life she had lived all her life, when the Lord turned around and said: Who was it who touched Me?

And then it says that the woman told Him everything, her whole life: her years of being an outcast from society, of having been worn down and rejected. And the Lord did not want this woman to leave with merely physical healing, but also to be healed mentally and spiritually. And when the woman finished telling Him her ordeal, He said to her: Woman, your faith has saved you; go in peace.

The Lord always likes to add those finishing touches. We must be like that—people who handle souls delicately. When we see people’s pain, when we see their helplessness, we must express that compassion and remain for as long as necessary, stitching things together finely until the work is complete. There is no limit for the man or woman with a pastoral heart. We must be like that with our children. Fathers, I am speaking to myself as a father and to you as well, man. That compassion, that delicacy, that tenderness—we must try to find it. It is there within us, but we have to find it.

The last text I like—because all these texts reinforce for us this idea of a compassionate God who reveals Himself through His Son Jesus Christ—is Mark, chapter 6, verse 34, in the famous passage about the feeding of the 5,000, the multiplication of the loaves and the fish. In this passage we see Jesus and His disciples getting ready to go on vacation after a period of ministry, and He says to His disciples: Let us go to a secluded place. Let us spend a little time there; let us swim in a pool; let us eat well; let us put on a little weight after those days of work; let us listen to good music. And off they go, as excited as can be.

They get into the boat, and when they reach the other side, all the people are there wagging their tails, asking Him to heal them, minister to them, and touch them, because they realized that He had gone to the other side, so they ran there and waited for Him on the other side. Listen, when you are looking forward to some time of rest and then this happens—as it sometimes does to those of us who minister—sometimes we want to slip away for whatever reason, and perhaps I am revealing too much (laughter). But we realize that we still have more time left in which to minister, and there are no words; in fact, words hurt. It is literally a pain in the brain; sometimes even your fingernails hurt, and your nervous system is already burned out.

But do you know how the Lord reacts when He sees that crowd waiting for Him while they are there in that boat? It says: “Jesus came out and saw a great multitude,” verse 24, “and He had compassion on them,” because they were like sheep, and He began to teach them many things. He attuned Himself to them; He saw these people. I imagine that He overcame His initial annoyance and saw these people with their eyes yearning for a word of comfort, affirmation, and encouragement. Their religious leaders had betrayed them, neglected them, and made them feel as though they were worth nothing; they had used the law like a club with which to beat them over the head. And here was Christ telling them that God loved them, that there was a Father to whom they mattered and who would teach them; He touched them and healed them.

At that moment, when He saw the eyes of this multitude, He attuned Himself to them and sensed that they were like sheep without a shepherd; that was the diagnosis His compassion dictated to Him. He lowered His arms, rolled up His sleeves, and said: Let us get to work. He spent the entire day ministering to them, and in the end He even realized that they were hungry. That, then, is the difference between the disciples and Jesus, between the pastoral and the non-pastoral heart. At the end of the day, when everything was already over—imagine, they had already finished—what more could they want? Let them go home and leave us in peace.

The Lord said: No, no, give them something to eat. They are hungry; we must give them something to eat. We cannot send them away like this; let us feed them. Compassion, mercy. How can we manifest that in our pastoral care of our families, in our fatherhood and our motherhood? We would run out of time if we spoke about Zacchaeus, the apparently powerful, corrupt man: He attunes Himself to his predicament—come down from there, Zacchaeus; I am going to eat at your house. Bartimaeus: Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me. The disciples: Leave Him alone; that is enough, the shop is closed. What do you want Me to do for you? Lord, heal me. Receive your sight. A merciful and compassionate God.

There is one last passage that is very revealing and theologically profound. Turn with me for a moment to Hebrews, chapter 4; I will finish with the illustrations. Verses 15 and 16—let us start with 14; why not? I will throw that one in as a bonus. It says: “Therefore, having a great High Priest who passed through the heavens”—how did the Lord pass through the heavens? He came from above to below—“passed through the heavens.” Let us pause in our progression; look at what it says: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our needs.”

I imagine that the Lord—there is a slight implied criticism there of the high priests who had used their priestly position to exalt themselves, enrich themselves, separate themselves from the people, and fail to understand their needs. The High Priest whom you and I have in Christ Jesus knows how to sympathize with us, with your weakness. He knows your condition and remembers that you are dust, and therefore you can come confidently to the Throne of Grace; and we must give that same privilege to our children.

It says: “Who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was tempted in all things as we are,” yet without sin. “Let us therefore come confidently to the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace for timely help.” In other words, through His incarnation the Lord Jesus shared in all our afflictions and temptations. In His incarnation, the Lord is a microcosm of humanity; that is why they called Him the Son of Man, because He was man in His very essence.

He subjected Himself to all the temptations of a nervous system; He experienced every tendency and temptation for a moment—without sin, the Bible says—but He recorded them all in His computer. When He ascended to heaven, He had them with Him. Although God knows them objectively and abstractly, experiencing something is not the same as knowing it. God wanted to feel, and that is why Christ intercedes for us when He is up in heaven. He knows intimately.

We must—fathers, men of God—as far as possible, feel the predicament of our children, because each of our children has a predicament within, has a calling, has struggles, has a path to follow, and has contradictions. Each will have tragedies, suffering, and afflictions, and there are things that boy or that girl will have to suffer that we will not be able to spare them. Each one is made differently, and we must understand their predicament, care for them, love them, forgive them, and have compassion on them, even when this is affected by the self-sufficiency of young people today.

They think that because they know about iPads and iPhones, they know more about life than we do, but humor them, then. We must show them mercy and have compassion on them, because we have been where they are, haven’t we? We have been where they have been. That does not mean that we should not tell them the truth, confront them, correct them, or discipline them; that is also part of love and compassion. If you allow your child to run wild, you do not love him, do you?

But even while you discipline, confront, speak clearly and lucidly, administer the truth, and provide the truth, you also have compassion and understand that you are dealing with a human being who will have to be seized and broken by life. You must have compassion on them; you must remain close to them. So we see this, don’t we? The Father and the Son are characterized by that deep compassion.

Again, it is that willingness to attune oneself to the children’s condition, to feel what they feel even when they themselves may not be aware of their true condition. The merciful father goes even beyond the awareness and introspection the child possesses. That same passage I read from Psalm 103, when you read it in its entirety, says: “Merciful and gracious is the LORD, slow to anger and abounding in mercy.”

So, brother, regarding the application of this passage, I tell you again: We men—women as well, but I am addressing you, father, man—must do everything possible to make that same characteristic our distinguishing mark too, especially as it relates to our fatherhood and to the way we treat our children and families. Instead of exploiting, oppressing, intimidating, being selfish, and thinking of ourselves first, we must be the exact opposite. We must love, serve, affirm, sympathize, protect, and think first of our spouse and our children, as Christ did.

Do you know what Ephesians says? It says: “As Christ loved the Church,” so we must love our wives. It is a tall order, a lofty prescription for us, but think about how Christ loves and loved the Church. He gave Himself for her, it says, and unfortunately many fall far short. Men do; women have their own issues—another day it will be your turn (laughter)—but I assure you that I myself feel deeply implicated in what I am telling you, don’t I? You know, those of us who are counselors sit in counseling offices and listen; we hear the pain of women who do not feel understood by their husbands.

They feel sexually used by their husbands, disregarded, and treated harshly and physically. Abusive men and abusive women. Daughters sexually abused by their fathers; children with distant fathers, traumatized by the abuse their mothers endure. And it pains us, Father, as several women have said, because we often know that they are passing on to us the pain that was passed on to them.

Generational curses that we carry in our cultures: underestimating women and regarding them as second-class citizens in marriage; believing that a woman is a being who must be tamed and accustomed to our rule—that is how people are taught. And the Word of the Lord completely turns that upside down. It is a call for man to be like Christ, a servant leader—one who leads by example, not by decree, and who gives himself for those over whom he has a certain degree of authority.

That exploitation of our leadership, that abuse, is a loss of our own humanity, and it robs us of the privilege of being like God, of going out of our way for those whom He has placed under our leadership and bringing them to the highest level of their own potential. I believe that every man must be a protector of life; that is what we are: protectors and facilitators of life. That is what you are; that is what Christ has called you to do; that is what your Father has called you to do. We must begin with our children and with ourselves.

Brothers and sisters in our congregation, people in our community: The Church of Christ must be like this; to me, that is the most important thing. If we do not love and have compassion, we are good for nothing—forget it. No matter how much Bible you know, no matter how much money you flaunt, it is worthless to you, filth in the eyes of the Lord. Love—against such, it says, there is no law. The devil does not know what to do with a person who loves, you know? Someone who loves in Christ and in the spirit of Jesus. The most powerful weapon we have is love in Christ—not merely love in an artistic and romantic form, but love in Christ.

So the last thing I will say is this, isn’t it? Compassion and mercy must distinguish us in everything we do. I think of this passage, and I leave you with it: Philippians, chapter 4, verse 5. Philippians 4:5 says: “Let your gentleness be known to all men.” Let your gentleness be known to all men. Do you know what should distinguish a community like this one? Gentleness.

The original Greek is epieikes, which means generosity, grace; it is the same idea. This weekend we had some brothers and sisters from the Free Methodist Church with us here, a denomination here in the United States, and they asked whether they could use our sanctuary for their annual convention in this Northeastern region. We said: Of course; welcome, use it. We invested our Church’s resources—the space, human resources, and talents—and said: This place is yours; use it. On Saturday morning, the brothers and sisters spoke about how deeply impressed they had been by our generous attitude.

We did not know them. We were introduced through someone we know, but brother, I have always believed that a community like ours must distinguish itself by being generous; wherever the Lord allows us to share what we have freely received, we must be present and say: Yes. And when we live this way, emptying ourselves and giving, do you know what happens? God never grows tired of giving to us.

Do you want to be happy? Be a cheerful giver. Share, have mercy, forgive, forget about yourself, and give in the Name of Jesus, and you will never lack anything. The Lord will always give you more so that you can give more.

I believe that we should never be either too busy or too lacking in resources to give; we must always have something to give. Take that plantain, split it in half, and give a piece to someone else, and God will give you the satisfaction you need. Live compassionately, mercifully, tenderly, and generously toward others, and the Lord will delight in giving to you and opening the windows of heaven until it overflows. That is the secret to happiness.

Therefore, in our fatherhood, our friendship, and our brotherhood, we must be compassionate and merciful people, always attuned to the needs of others. Every person who has truly been dealt with by the Spirit of God is characterized by that ability to anticipate and continually feel the pain of others and to treat human beings with love and compassion. I leave you once again with the words of the Psalm.

“Merciful and gracious is the LORD, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. He will not contend forever, nor will He harbor His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our iniquities, nor repaid us according to our sins. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His Mercy toward those who fear Him. As far as the East is from the West, so He desired to remove our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him, for He knows our condition; He remembers that we are dust.”

May the Lord bless you. Men of God, women of God, let us make compassion a distinctive art, our essential characteristic, that for which we are known. People of mercy, people of compassion, forgiving people, people who are not continually collecting debts. As the Father forgave us, let us also forgive; let us have compassion on others. May the Lord bless you, and may the Father’s compassion flood our hearts.

I ask you to bow your heads for just a moment, now that He has spoken to us about compassion, about feeling what the other person feels, identifying with the other person’s weakness, not holding people’s debts toward us against them. Father, make us this way; make me this way now. Fill my heart with compassion now. May I first be able to feel what You feel; may what breaks Your heart break my heart, and may what brings You joy bring me joy.

Lord, give us the ability to sense the pain of others; give us eminent discernment of people’s hearts and condition, so that as we have compassion, feel, and speak out of our compassion, our words may have the power to heal, restore, and lift up the fallen. Make us a Church of truth and condition. Fill us with Your Holy Spirit, Lord Jesus; let cruelty have no place here. Let legalism have no place in this place, but rather the upright, vertical, perfectly plumb spirit—Your Word, Jesus.

Fill us right now with Your compassionate character, Lord. Help us to be fathers, tender men, servant-hearted men, men like Christ, men of mercy, men who are fragile and yet strong in You, Lord; transparent, emptied of ourselves, so that Your oil, as we hollow ourselves out—so that Your Power may enter us and manifest itself through us. On this day we celebrate You as the Father par excellence; there is no other father like You, Lord. Thank You for putting up with us and having compassion on us, and thank You, Jesus, for coming into this world to feel what we feel and then ascending, listening to us, and having compassion on us. We praise You. Thank You, Lord, in the Name of Jesus, amen and amen. I bless you, my brothers and sisters. May the Grace of the Lord be with you, amen.