Wiregrass Church
Those people can be the worst. You know who “those people” are, right? We all have them, and they are difficult to like, much less love. So it’s helpful to know that Jesus had “those people” too, and his love for them drove him to understand them.
We live life in our shoes, through our perspective. When we begin to see something from someone else’s perspective, it changes everything.
It’s easy to like and love Jesus.
If you read through the Gospels, you’ll see page after page of a guy that’s so easy to like and so easy to love.
For three years, the 12 disciples followed Jesus around and watched and learned all about the love that He kept displaying.
John 13:34-35 NIV
Leviticus 19:18 NIV
And Jesus says, "Yeah, I understand that's what we've been doing, but I'm gonna make it even more simple than that. I'm gonna replace all the commands with one thing.”
John 13:34-35 NIV
(The Apostles) had no idea how far reaching God's love was about to be.
Loving Jesus is way easier than loving like Jesus.
Loving like Jesus on this side of the crucifixion means that you give your life for people.
THOSE PEOPLE
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The group of people who are nearly impossible to love.
Oftentimes, those people are a category of people.
THOSE PEOPLE
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Who are your “those people?”
It's easy to imagine Jesus loving those people because He's Jesus.
John 13:34-35 NIV
Jesus had “those people,” too.
The religious elite were “those people” for Jesus.
Matthew 23:27-28 NIV
Matthew 26:3-5 NIV
Matthew 26:47 NIV
Matthew 26:50 NIV
Matthew 26:57 NIV
Matthew 26:59-61 NIV
Matthew 26:62-63 NIV
Matthew 26:64 NIV
Matthew 26:65-66 NIV
Matthew 26:67-68 NIV
The reason that Jesus had to hang on the across is because when someone sins something always dies. Jesus had lived a perfect-sinless-life for that moment so that he could be the final sacrifice for the sin of humanity...for the sin of me...for you.
Matthew 27:45-46 NIV
Up until this point, Jesus has been in perfect communion, perfect harmony with his heavenly Father, with God, because He was sinless, he has never been separated. But in this one moment, in this one very moment, as the sin of humanity piled onto the shoulders of Jesus for the very first time in his life, he felt what it was like to be separated from God.
For the first time, Jesus felt the full pain of being fully you.
EMPATHY
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The ability to understand and share in the feelings of another.
Sympathy and empathy are different. Sympathy is feeling for somebody, but empathy is feeling with somebody.
Empathy is what Jesus put on full display as he hung on that cross.
Loving one another creates a hunger to understand one another…
Loving one another creates a hunger to understand one another, which allows us to better love one another.
The more you're able to understand someone, the better you're able to love them.
Who are your “those people?”
Who are your “those people?”
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How can you better understand them?
Who are your “those people?”
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How can you better share their feelings?
How can you begin to share their feelings? Not dismiss their feelings but share in their feelings. Even if you don't feel the same way and even if you don't think what their feeling is true, if it's true to them, it's a valid feeling.
If you can lean into empathy with those people, it might not change those people, it will absolutely change you.
