The Sin of Empathy

Silicon Valley Reformed Baptist Church

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Please remain standing and if you do have your Bible turn to Hebrews 4 and we're going to be reading

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Hebrews 4 14 through 16 Hebrews 4 14

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Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus the Son of God Let us hold fast to our confession

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For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness But one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin

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Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace and help in the time

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Of need this is the Word of Lord You may be seated Lord we do thank you for the opportunity that we have to come and to think about what you have to say to us in your words today

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Thank you for sending Jesus to die on the cross for us And we pray that you help us to be a people who understand

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The entailments of that and know how best to follow your example your son's name. I pray Amen It's difficult to imagine a more comforting passage of Scripture than Hebrews 4 where we are told that Jesus is our great high priest who is able to sympathize with Us in our weakness

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Yet if the psychologists are to be believed The very idea that Jesus can sympathize with us in our weakness should be met with scorn contempt and ridicule and when

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I say that I'm not suggesting that the psychologists as a group en masse are looking at this passage and Reading it in a particularly negative light

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But I am suggesting that there has been a move over the past hundred years to treat Sympathy as if it is the inadequate emotional response in Contrast to empathy which is where the the real love the real compassion is to be found so as you read the

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Bible in light of These cultural trends you might come away thinking that what we really need is a high priest who can empathize with our weakness not one who can merely sympathize with it and Yet despite with the pop psychologists say

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Jesus's incarnation is a profound source of comfort for the believer Price precisely because he is able to sympathize with us in our weakness

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Sympathy is a good word not at all inferior to empathy It's a word that needs to be reclaimed and defended and empathy is a word which needs to be held in derision by faithful Christians Today we're going to hear what

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God has to say about the sin of empathy now when I when I speak this way

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I want you to understand that I understand that Empathy is not a biblical word but that doesn't mean that if you follow the instructions given to you by those on the outside who are putting empathy forward as The chief emotional response that you should have that you won't necessarily be led into sin

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So addiction is not a biblical word either But if you give yourself over to addiction

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What you'll find is that you commit a great many biblical sins of omission and commission

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When the same way empathy is not a biblical word, but if you give yourself over to the world's idea of empathy you're going to similarly be giving yourself over to a variety of sins of omission and commission and in fact

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What the Bible calls us to is not to pursue empathy in the way that the world understands it

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We are called to pursue Christ -like Sympathy, which will be a subject of our discussion today

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So what is empathy? I've said that empathy is a negative word even though it's put forward as the positive

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Word and not only the positive word is put forward by many people today as the chief emotional reaction

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That you're supposed to have which is in many ways contrasted with sympathy Well, what what does this word mean?

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Well empathy was a word that was coined in 1909 by a British psychologist named Edward Teichner as a translation of a

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German term Einfalung meaning feeling into so is introduced to describe a profound level of emotional connection

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That's more profound than sympathy So it's basically the next step of emotional connection

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That's how it's packaged where one not only feels for another person. So in sympathy you normally feel bad for someone else

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In the language of modern pop psychology that's seen as patronizing and bad, right? So empathy is is put forward as an emotion where you not only feel for another person but experience their emotions

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Alongside them. So empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person

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It involves putting oneself in someone else's shoes to emotionally resonate with their experience not just cognitively

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Understand their situation. So that's how it's put forward and presented today Brené Brown a research professor known for her work on vulnerability courage shame and empathy provides an analogy for this

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This is the common analogy she uses which she describes as the silver lining analogy

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So empathy she describes empathy as climbing climbing down into a hole with someone who has fallen in To sit with them in their experience

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So you acknowledge their pain or struggle by saying something like I know what it's like down here

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You're not alone. So you understand the situation? She you imagine someone sitting in in a dark hole by themself empathy would involve going down the hole and getting in there with them and Sitting with them and emotionally resonating with them feeling what they feel sympathy on the other hand is contrasted by her and It's contrasted by an individual basically looking down into the hole that the person is in and throwing a silver lining so you're looking down into the hole and instead of joining them you stand on the edge and say something like At least you can get some rest while you're down there

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Which doesn't really address their emotional state So what you'll notice if you if you were to do a series of internet searches after the message, hopefully

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What you'll find is that if you if you were to search empathy verse sympathy

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Sympathy is all almost universally painted in this negative kind of light almost as if it's patronizing

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Condescending and inferior to empathy where where the real action is that now notice?

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I mean you think about that analogy for just a brief moment and you'll realize that If you have someone who's fallen down into a hole and you want to help them

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It might be important to not jump down into the hole with them Okay And so you may want to stay outside the hole and extend a hand and say

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I'm ready to help you if you want to Help, but it may not be completely and totally wise to jump down in the hole and put yourself in the same kind of situation

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That they're in and yet, you know at the level of pop psychology these kind of Simple distinctions really aren't being made at all and really empathy as it's packaged today is

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Packaged as a total like a person entering into whatever

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Difficulty in situation the person finds himself in and completely giving themselves over to the same kind of experience almost with no breaks at times now you'll notice as I said in discussions about empathy verse sympathy sympathy is often disparaged and Presented as the less helpful version whereas empathy is presented as the ideal and all that has

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Ramifications for when you read the Bible and we see that Jesus is our great high priest Who is able to sympathize with us on our weakness if you're coming to the

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Bible with these? preconceived notions of empathy being the good thing sympathy being kind of the negative almost condescending

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Emotionally detached distance version of that then you're going to read the Bible in a particular way now as I said you'll notice in discussions about empathy verse sympathy that sympathy is often disparaged and presented as as as less helpful and this

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Perspective has been shaped by several factors over time So with the introduction of empathy empathy was put forward not as a complete and total critique of sympathy but as an expanded vocabulary that's helped that's

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Intended to make a harsh distinction between the two but provide kind of a

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Next step which is even further but then in post -world War two psychological and philosophical developments the

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Exploration of human psychology and emotional responses became more nuanced if you want to put it that way after World War two

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Carl Rogers and other humanistic psychologists in the mid 20th century emphasized empathy as the key component to therapeutic relationships subtly positioning it as more valuable than Sympathy Rogers client -centered therapy highlighted the importance of empathetic understanding for personal growth

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Which contributed to sympathy being seen as the less effective or superficial by comparison if you?

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Pay attention to the world that you live in to any degree at all one of the things that you're going to see is that empathy today is presented as Like the key component the key emotional response that you need to give yourself over to if you're going to help

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Anyone so in the 1970s and 1980s in the in social political context

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There was a social movement of the 1960s and 70 70s focusing on civil rights feminism and later multiculturalism

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This these movements they brought forward the importance of undershare standing and sharing in the lived experiences of others so that this period marked a cultural shift towards valuing empathy over sympathy and if you just if you think about any of the social political

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Kind of struggles that we've had as a nation you'll notice that there's this emphasis place on My lived experience, and you can't like if you haven't lived my experience.

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You can't understand What it's like for me, and you can't speak into my situation unless you have totally the same kind of shared experience

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And so empathy is put forward as the key to helping people. It is put forward as a necessary precondition

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For being able to help fix their problems or even have the ability to speak into situations, okay?

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By the late 20th and early 21st century Through social media self -help literature and education materials empathy began to be celebrated as a critical skill for personal and professional success

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Sympathy was increasingly depicted as patronizing or distancing particularly in the works of scholars like B 'nai

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Brown who explicitly discussed the differences and why empathy drives connection while sympathy fosters

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Disconnection so today in many discussions around emotional intelligence Conflict resolution leadership social justice empathy is often positioned as the preferred emotional response with sympathy which is critiqued for not

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Engaging deeply enough with another's experience So why does this matter?

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Why am I talking about these things? Well why it matters and why I'm talking about these things is because I want you to understand what

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Jesus did when he came to earth and took on flesh and dwelled among us

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The Bible describes this in the language of sympathy The Greek word for this is the word sympatheo

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Which means to have or to show sympathy to sympathize with I Want you to in the first instance?

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I want you to understand what the Bible means By sympathy and what you and how that relates to what

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Jesus did But I also want you to be able to identify the expectations that other people put on you as it relates to this topic as well, so It's it's very easy once you understand the difference between these two terms to think of many different situations

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Where individuals help is being dismissed? Because it doesn't fall into the category of empathy as what it should be expected, so I consider empathy to be a threat to The doctrine of the sinlessness of Christ And I consider the concept of empathy to be a barrier to helping people to live lives that are

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Christ Focused and God glorifying and exalting whereas. I think sympathy is a good word, which we need to reclaim and And pursue and a

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God honoring in Christ centered way So these are some of the reasons why some of this matters now did

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Jesus empathize with us That's the question that we're going to ask The answer is no Jesus didn't empathize with us

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Jesus sympathize with us now I say that why I say that as I said because the word in this passage is sympathy

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Oh and that means to have sympathy with show sympathy with Empathy as I said it's a word that basically

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Has early 20th century has an early 20th century origin. There was a word in Greek Empathy Oh that you may not be aware of that was available at the time

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But then that was a word that had particularly negative connotations and it had some of the negative connotations that I'm going to mention

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It had the connotations of giving oneself over to emotions and an inappropriate way

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But that that word doesn't find its way into the Greek New Testament It's not a word that's used here But the word sympathy is a word that is used there and what's happened over time is you have this word that we understood to be a good thing

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That with the advent of empathy as a way of distinguishing two different kinds of emotional response the semantic range of Sympathy has begun to narrow and now it's treated almost as a bad thing and empathy the good thing

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But I want to talk about some of those things today. So did you sympathize with us? Here's the point No, he he didn't first of all the passage uses the language of sympathy, but second

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Jesus didn't have a sin nature so Jesus in in Hebrews 4 is

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Described as having been tempted in every respect as we are yet without sin

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So empathy and its modern psychological context encompasses more than mere understanding

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It involves experiencing the emotions of other people Now if you think about this for a few minutes

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One of the things you'll realize is that this idea of experiencing the emotions of other people

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This isn't a neutral concept in a biblical worldview. So the Bible and psychology they start from different presuppositions

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Okay so secular psychology does not start with the assumption that man is evil and that he is

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Totally depraved that every human faculty is thought his mind his will and his emotions are corrupted by sin

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That is not the foundation for secular Humanistic psychology they don't start with the assumption that man is totally depraved

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Whereas in the biblical worldview, we believe that every single part of ourself is corrupted by sin So our mind is corrupted by sin

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Our will is corrupted by sins our emotions are affected by sin. Our affections are affected by sin

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This is basic Christian theology Even so even though at times as Christians we pretend as if sin is simply an act of the will

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We know on the basis of our theology that sin goes deeper than mere acts of the will

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That the entirety of our being is corrupted by sin The effect of depravity upon us is total like in terms of the extent of it

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The extent of the depravity is total That doesn't mean that we're as bad as we could be It just means every part of ourself is corrupted and what that means is that our emotions are not off limits to criticism in a biblical worldview

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There are plenty of emotions that you can experience as a Christian That are ungodly

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Because they're based on ungodly assumptions They're they're

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Not tied towards a recognition of God's glory. They're self -focused self -pitying kind of emotions that you can have

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They're out of proportion at times So if you think about your emotional responses to life, you have the great capacity to give yourself over to the wrong emotions in the wrong occasion and Then when you give yourself over to the right emotions, you can give yourself over to the right emotions with the wrong intensity

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For the long for a wrong length of time, right? So if I were to get in a wreck as an example if I were to get in a wreck

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And I were to grieve Like the wreck that the loss of my car as if I were grieving the loss of a child

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And I were to carry on with that grief indefinitely For a year where I'm lamenting the loss of that car

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It's not simply true that grief is simply neutral The kind of grief that I'm experiencing is not the kind of grief that God wants me to have

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Those emotions of sadness are out of proportion They're out of proportion

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They're not attached to the right kind of thing and they're carrying on way too long

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You understand so as a Christian as a Christian our emotions aren't neutral like if I were to go to a funeral just to carry on with this analogy and I were laughing at the person who's laying in a coffin

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You can't simply look at a Christian and say laughter is a neutral emotion. Therefore. There's nothing wrong that's happening there that laughter would reveal a callous kind of heart

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That doesn't respond appropriately in the motion in the moment in the same way

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If I'm if I'm weeping over something in an out -of -proportional way I'm weeping over the wrong thing.

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I mean you can imagine a situation where a man has having is committing adultery with someone and His adultery comes to an end

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He can no longer commit it anymore and he's weeping tears of sorrow over the fact that he can no longer sin The fact that that those tears are there.

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They're not neutral either. So here's the thing When we think about the we think about our emotional response to life the

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Bible holds our emotional responses to Examination, they're not always good

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Like all every emotion is not just to be sheltered and coddled and treated as valid and respected

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Just Because we feel it and it's authentic and valid to us. That doesn't mean that it's valid to God Do you understand now on the other side of things in?

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modern secular psychology Your emotions are treated as if they're neutral Emotion you're like if you feel something then it's it's you're supposed to praise that feeling as if it's valid and authentic Simply because you feel it but but that's because there's no objective moral standard that underneath that undergirds the project.

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Okay? So what I'm trying to say is did Jesus empathize with us? No, because he didn't have a sin nature

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Empathy in its modern context means more than mere understanding. It means experiencing another's emotions and If you think about how this works with Christ coming to earth

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In order to be tested in the same ways that we are and yet without sin Well, what you understand is that Jesus didn't have the same kind of Emotions as we had in the same kind of way

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I'm sure there are emotions that are common to human experience Happiness is common to the human experience

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Sadness is common to the human experience. Jesus knew what it was like to be hungry Jesus knew what it was like to be thirsty.

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Jesus knew what it was like to be happy Jesus knew what it's like to be sad, but you know what Jesus never gave himself over to despair

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Jesus never had hopeless sadness Jesus never experienced the guilt that comes from you know in shame that comes from violating

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God's standards Jesus certainly didn't come to earth to lust with those who lust

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And to be sinfully angry with those who are simply angry and Jesus didn't come to earth to empathize with our every feeling

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Jesus Absolutely came to earth in order to sympathize with us but he didn't come to earth to climb down into the pit and be depressed with those who are depressed and To be anxious with those who are anxious

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Okay So when you think about empathy in the modern psychological context as I said it encompasses more than mere understanding it involves experiencing another's emotions

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This can be divided into several categories. So you have cognitive empathy Which is insight into another's perspective.

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This is kind of a neutral like just ask I mean in general there's distortions that can happen at every single one of these points, but that's just insight into another perspective

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That's not just showing sympathy from a distance. That's basically just Asking questions gaining getting a better understanding of the situation you have compassionate empathy

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Which is a motivation to help alleviate another's distress That can be done in a good way in a bad way

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But the real culprit here is emotional empathy and that's actually feeling what another feels

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Which presents some challenges for Christians as it suggests?

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sharing in sinful emotions So for Christians emotional empathy poses a dilemma because it implies

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Jesus would have to share in the sinful emotions of humanity which would

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Conflict with his sin this nature. So the Bible doesn't present all emotions as neutral and Jesus didn't see his job as the great, you know therapist to come down and to feel what exactly what we feel in the same way in as As we're feeling it and it would do us well to think about what our passage here today is actually

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Saying is it relates to these things because there is a there is a great deal of confusion When we're looking at our passage today

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With what Jesus was actually doing. Okay, so Hebrews 4 14 says since we then we have a great high priest who's passed to the heavens

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Jesus the Son of God we should hold fast to our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize

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With our weakness, but one and one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin

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And when you think about this language of Jesus being tempted as we are yet without sin It would be helpful to explain the sense in which

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Jesus is tempted, okay Temptations come in many different forms

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So when you think about the like Jesus's temptation in the literal sense of being tempted by the devil in the wilderness

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What you'll realize is that Jesus was presented offers to sin in an external sense

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So there's different kinds of temptations. There's what's called external temptations And then there's what's called internal temptations

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So in the language of this passage, we're talking about external temptations Offers to sin we're not talking about internal temptations

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Okay, so think about those two different categories external temptations internal temptations when when when

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Satan tempted Jesus There was no sense in which Jesus internally felt the pull of a sinful heart

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Towards those wicked acts So James once tells us that God is

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God Cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts. No one but each one is tempted when they are lured and Enticed by their own desire

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James is talking about internal temptation There is a kind of temptation that you experience that Jesus never experienced

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Jesus never had a sinful heart internally pulling him towards wicked acts

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Jesus never was walking through the market and felt the sinful pull of a sinful heart

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Telling like trying to entice him like he didn't have that internal temptation that was enticing him to take

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Something that didn't belong to him. Jesus never felt the pull of lust in his heart.

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Jesus is sinless So Jesus didn't have this internal pull towards wickedness

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Now if you can imagine some kind of food that you absolutely hate I won't tell you what mine is just because There is a particular food that I hate that I know

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I'm not allowed to hate I know it's not good to hate because I should be thankful for all food that God has given me But I just don't like it and I'm trying to work on it, but I'm not as sanctified as I should be

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But if you imagine that food and someone were to come along and say to you You want to eat it don't you don't you want to eat it, you know, no

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Why would I want to eat it They would be trying to tempt you with eating that food But you wouldn't feel any pull towards it whatsoever

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And in fact your whole body would repudiate that offer. So are you be are you being tempted in that moment?

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Yes in the sense that you're there is an external offer to sin that you're experienced that you're being presented with But are you tempted in the internal sense?

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No, right? So you're tempted in the external sense not in the internal sense. The thing is what is

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Hebrews talking about? Well, geez like this passage is not talking about Jesus being tempted in the eternal in the internal sense

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That temptation that comes from the pull of a sinful heart. Okay? This passage is talking about Jesus knows like with respect to bodily weakness

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Jesus knows what it's like to be tired. Jesus knows what it's like to be sick.

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Jesus knows what it's like to be hungry Therefore he can relate with our experience

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He can sympathize with our experience because he he has faced all the same trials that we've faced

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But the good news is that Jesus Not only did he not give in To the temptations that we might experience from those trials.

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He didn't even feel the pull towards sin so we know he's a high priest who can understand what we're going through because he's been put in the same kind of situations as us and We can also trust that if he has come to help us with our problems

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He actually overcame these problems and so there's hope for us to overcome these problems as well and Sympathy when it's understood in that kind of concept is a very powerful concept provided you don't have

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Psychologists in your ears telling you that that's not sufficient and you need something more than mere sympathy.

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You need Jesus to wallow with you in the depression and Jesus to wallow with you in the lust and Jesus to come along and affirm and validate

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All of your misguided misplaced out of proportion Emotions as the key to helping you and you have to understand that you're living in a world right now

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That you're predisposed to think that way that you don't feel understood unless someone comes along and tells you that what you're feeling is right and You know that they felt the same thing with you

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So this is often a struggle that people have when they're grieving There are temptations brothers and sisters that come with grieving and I'm just using this as a common analogy

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But there are temptations that come with grieving to where an Individual who's just experience experience a loss if they expect

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That the only way anyone is going to help them with their grief is for them to climb down into the pit of grief with them and Experience their grief with them for as long as they experience it with no breaks.

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No end if that's what you feel like is going to be the the way that you're going to be helped and the only people who are qualified to help you are the people who

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Feel that loss just the way that you feel it Then you're going to open yourself up to all sorts of temptations and some of those temptations are to be to be upset with other people

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Because they're not climbing down into the pit with you Indefinitely and then you're going to disqualify anything that they have to say you're going to stand in judgment over them

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Because you have an expectation That they need to you know if they really care

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They're going to grieve with you for just as long as you grieve in the same way that you grieve with the same intensity

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That you grieve and what you'll understand like if you just think about it for a few moments if everyone did that The world would stop

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We'd all have to quit our jobs and give up If that's what the

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Bible means when the Bible says we put those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice Then what that means is like if there's no breaks on the project

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If every time one of your brothers and sisters are sad You have to be equally sad with them with no ability to challenge the nature of their sadness but you have to What what ends up happening is you

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There's an expectation that you have to give yourself over to the same emotional responses that all your brothers and sisters have

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Indefinitely there's no spiritual stability in that So what does it mean to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice?

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What doesn't mean that you're Trying to pretend like you have the same experience as them in the same relationship as them to the person that they have

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It would be it would be much better to understand this in the language of sympathy where you look at your brother

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Or sister who is hurting and you feel bad for them, and you know what you may have your own grief towards the

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Towards the loved one who has lost the same that you have to process in your own kind of way but your goal really isn't to try to Experience the same kind of emotional

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Pain that the other person is experiencing you feel bad on behalf of them because You have a similar human experience

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That you are drawing upon that allows you to process what they're going through In a distant kind of way, okay, so my point here is just to say did

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Jesus empathize with us know This passage uses the language of sympathy Jesus didn't have

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Sin nature and Jesus's temptations they were they were external they were not Internal so so what are the problems with empathy?

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I've said a few What are the problems with empathy? problem with empathy is that There are many fruits of the spirit that God has given for the

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Christian, which should characterize us For the spirit is love joy peace long -suffering gentleness meekness kindness faithfulness self -control

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Bible gives us fruit of the spirit. We're supposed to be stable in the Christian life Our emotional responses to life are not as I said above criticism

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God wants us to feel the right things in the right moment to the right intensity for the right reasons

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For the glory of God and all those things are open to scrutiny When you think about empathy and its demands in the in the sense of popular psychology there is this command that you basically

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Feel what another person feels and when you think about that and apply that to your own life

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You realize that there may be many ungodly Feelings that your brother brothers and sisters are feeling that you simply can't share with that You're not supposed to relate to that.

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Maybe at times you're supposed to be repelled by that. Maybe at times you're supposed to confront

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Everything that your brother feels is not valid simply because they feel it Just because you're living in a world right now

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That's telling you that it's your primary job to validate all these feelings put yourself in their shoes

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Climb into the pit with them and Just sit there and emote with them. That doesn't mean that that's a biblical response to life or really truly helpful

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I mean imagine your brother and sister drowning in the pool We're told that the way to help them is to jump in there with them

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But you know that if you're ever been a lifeguard There are dangers with them taking you down with them

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And there's a lot of dangers with empathy related to this point to where not only are we giving people?

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Completely blank check to emote and feel whatever they feel You're also opening yourself up to the temptations of feeling those those inappropriate kind of emotions

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With them and being dragged down with them Now as I said, but aren't we supposed to weep of those who weep?

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Yes, you're supposed to weep of those who weep, but that's very different than you're supposed to Feel exactly what they feel to the same intensity to what they feel it for as long as they feel it in a non -judgmental

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Posture where you infer affirm it and validate it yet certainly if you see your brother or sister

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Appropriately grieving you should appropriately grieve with them But then there is a category for inappropriate grief

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And you shouldn't inappropriately grieve with the brother and sister who are inappropriately grieving you shouldn't

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Inappropriately laugh with a brother or sister who is inappropriately Laughing you shouldn't give yourself over to grief

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Indefinitely forever just because your brother or sister has given themselves over to grief inappropriately forever

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You shouldn't give yourself over to inappropriate Laughter forever just because a person is giving themselves over to inappropriate laughter forever

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There's a time to weep. There's time to mourn. There's time to laugh. There's time to dance like certainly there's a time and place for everything and God sets the parameters for our emotional responses and Certainly if you love your brother and sister

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You shouldn't be characterized by apathy Towards their emotions meaning having no emotional response

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What you should be characterized by here's the point of the lesson here today is to say you should be characterized by sympathy

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Meaning you should feel on bad on behalf of the trial that they're going through and you should be a means

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Seek to be a means of help to them in that trial But that the kind of help that you should be given is going to be informed by the scriptural standards at that point

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Not it's not going to be It's not going to be informed simply by the expectation of the person who is in pain, okay?

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So how do we respond to what Jesus has done for us in this passage? Well, I think the primary way that we respond to what

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Jesus has done is to pursue Christ like sympathy

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So notice Jesus wasn't characterized by apathy He cared about he loved us he cared about us he had a plan to to save his people he came to earth

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He was tested in the same ways that we are he had a shared kind of experience with us

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He didn't just stay back in a distance as some people character make a caricature of sympathy.

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He didn't do that He came to earth in order to experience the same kind of trials that we experience

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But he didn't he didn't experience these same kind of trials that we experience in the same way

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We should pursue Christ like Sympathy when you see your brother or sister in pain you should be moved with compassion to try to truly help them

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If you feel nothing at all if you feel apathy when your brother or sister is in pain

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Then there you have a moral problem In that moment you understand so we need to be pursuing

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Christ like sympathy our response should be to feel bad on behalf Of someone else who is in undergoing a different difficult trial and depending on the nature of their trial we might have our own bad feelings that are associated with the loss of The person that they are also simultaneously experiencing pain that's from the loss of as well

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So we're called to grieve the loss of our loved ones We may be grieving the loss of their loved one at the same time that they're grieving the loss of their loved one

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We're called to have sympathy towards them, and that's what we should be pursuing You know if you don't have any sympathy towards people

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That's a good indication That you're living a self -focused life

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That's all about you So sympathy isn't the bad word in fact if there's an absence of sympathy that means you're selfish

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And You wake up in the morning, and you think about how to take care of yourself And in the primary person that you're trying to please in life is

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Yourself you're not following Christ example at that point so what I'm trying to say is we need to pursue

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Christ like Sympathy and what that means is actively loving other people You're not going to feel any sympathy at all for anyone in any situation

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You're going to be totally unable to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice if all you care about is yourself

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So if all you care about is yourself You'll feel nothing you're gonna feel apathy We should be pursuing

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Christ like sympathy the way you do that is learn to sacrifice for other people and love Other people and orient your life in such a way that you're not just taking care of your own needs

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But taking care of the needs of other people and when you do that you'll realize that you're going to be growing

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In Christ like sympathy, which should be stopping short of this

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Lofty emotional empathy concept that we're told is so important So how do we respond pursue

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Christ like sympathy? What else what are the applications? We see in the passage Hebrews 4 14? Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens

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Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast to our confession the fact

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That Jesus went to such great lengths although, they're not great to him.

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They're great to us, right? There's nothing that is too difficult or impossible to God Coming to earth for us would be a great ordeal

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We serve an omnipotent God How do we respond to what he's done we hold fast to our confession

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Why should you hold fast to your confession of faith on the basis of what Jesus did well because you know that Jesus came to Earth to do what you couldn't do

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And if the Creator of the universe has come to live inside of you and bless you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places

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He knows what it's like To be tested in all ways as we are and yet without sin

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He knows what it's like and he's given us everything we need in order to be faithful in those moments

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That should encourage you to hold fast to your confession of faith

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Because you know that Jesus is not giving you answers that don't fit the situation He's not asking anything of you that he's not supplied the resources for you to have we know that no temptations

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Overtaken you but was common to man. God's faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted Beyond your ability but with that temptation he'll provide a way of escape that you may bear it

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You can trust that Why because God's been tested in every way as we are without sin

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That should inform our trust to God for some to some degree right and God is omniscient and he knows all things in general, but then he provided in the person of Christ an example for us to see that This is not

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Impossible with God's help that's not to suggest that with our own willpower We're somehow able to keep ourself from sinlessness or something like that But in the moment you should understand that there will be no temptation that's overtaken you

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But what's common to man and God's blessed you with every spiritual blessing and the heavenly places in Christ And he's given you everything you need.

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He's held nothing back from you. You can run from that temptation and And knowing that you haven't probably resisted that temptation to the point of bloodshed yet So how do we respond to what

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Jesus has done for us pursue Christ like sympathy? Hold fast to our confession and finally draw near to the throne of grace with confidence

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So verse 16 let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace That we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need far from sympathy

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Far from God's Christ for the sympathy of Christ Far from it being this patronizing

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Condescending in the negative sense act certainly it was an act of divine condescension, but not in the negative sense certainly

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Far from this being some patronizing condescending cold indifferent

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Kind of action you have a great high priest Who knows what you're going through and he wants you to approach him?

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You shouldn't expect that when you approach him brothers and sisters He's going to tell you that everything that you think and feel is perfectly valid and okay

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Because it's your feelings God isn't like the cosmic Oprah in the sky who's

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Come to basically tell you that you're special and everything you feel is right contrary to what we expect him to do

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So God doesn't do that, but you don't need that You don't need to tell you don't need someone to tell you that everything that you feel is right

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You don't need people in order to help you to climb down into the muck with you in a moat with you

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You may want that from other people, but that doesn't help you If you want to be helped you don't want to stay in that hole by yourself

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Indefinitely you want to get out of the hole Wouldn't it be helpful to see someone who's seen holes before and knows the path to keep from getting into the hole

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If we want real help, what do we want? Do you want someone just to tell you that it's okay? you're sitting in a hole or do you want you want someone who's going to tell you how to avoid falling into the holes and How to get out of the hole when you're in there we shouldn't just want people to affirm us and to praise us and validate us and Knowing that God has been tempted in every way as we are yet without sin that should give us

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Confidence to boldly approach him for help in our pride

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We don't often want help. Okay when Jesus saw the Paralytic laying by the pool.

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He asked him. Do you want to be helped? And the reason why is because there's a great many people who do not want to be made.

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Well They want to sit in their sickness and they want to sit in their pain and feel justified by it and validated by it

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But here's the point The Fact that Jesus is able to sympathize with our us and our weakness means we should approach him with confidence

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Knowing that he's going to provide grace and help in the time of need

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Amen, let's pray Lord we thank you for what you've done

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Sending Jesus to die on the cross for us We know that if you would count iniquities that none of us

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Could stand we thank you for example We know that without you we are hopeless and lost.

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I Pray that you would help us to turn to you for help in the time of need and understand

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The divine gift of sympathy that you have given to us. Thank you for all you do in your son's name.