The Compassion of Jesus

Sermon for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity

July 19th, 2026

In the beginning all things were perfect as God intended. There were good trees to eat from and one tree not to eat from. A simple command. No reason to question or doubt or try to figure out why not. How beautiful, simple and perfect life was in the beginning. But then the devil brought his deception and sin into the world and now death is the only way out. And on our way out the flesh is in a constant battle against God and His Word and His Spirit at work to save us.

To know God rightly is to know what is good and right and true according to God’s Word. God’s Word reveals the good and exposes the evil. It saves us from sin and death through the Gospel which is Jesus Christ crucified and risen. Jesus Christ crucified is the free gift of God that gives eternal life.

But even as Christians baptized into Jesus, we still doubt, we question, we push things a bit too far. Just a little look, a little touch, a little taste, what’s the harm. It looks good, it tastes good, and it makes me happy. prefer my own opinions about this life and what is good and right and true over what God has spoken. So we take the forbidden fruit, and we eat and we are satisfied for the moment. But it doesn’t last, we always want more. And the end of the forbidden fruit is death.

Adam and Eve despised God’s Word, ate the forbidden fruit and the world fell into sin. Ever since man has been wandering about in desolate places, broken, corrupt, and dying. We suffer hardship and affliction. We are not satisfied with our work our pay and the simple things in life. We always want more and better things. We slander, we fight, we lust, we indulge, we hate and we kill.

On top of that we get sick and injured, every day the grave a bit closer. We hate death and we fear the grave and we blame God for all of it. Some days we are strong. We choose the good over the evil. We feel invincible, able to take on the world. The next day we are weak and succumb to every temptation. We become emotionally, mentally and spiritually exhausted. We tire of the struggle. We get scared and look for a way out.

How beautiful, simple and perfect life was in the beginning. How far we have fallen from that day.

The ravage of time and our sinful, dying flesh takes its toll. Our life is headed in a direction that we have no control over. We need deliverance out of this mess and this desolate place. Help we can’t find in ourselves or in earthly treasures or in mortal kings. Left alone in this world, death is the only destination.

We’ve earned death by our sin, our most grievous sin. We’ve acted just like Adam and Eve. We push aside God’s Word for our own thoughts and ideas. Our opinion is our truth. Our feelings and emotions lead the way. Our sin wants to destroy us.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Sin does not have the final say. God does and His answer is Jesus. He is the patient and compassionate One. God doesn’t abandon His creation even though in the flesh we reject His Word and choose our own way. He sees us in our sin and corruption in our sickness and dying. He sees the battle against the flesh that despises the good fruit and chases the forbidden fruit. And yet our God still desires to gives us good things and save us. It is the reason He descended into our mess in our flesh to bring us out alive.

He comes and He speaks His Words of Truth. He breathes His life into us and brings us from death to life. He opens our eyes to see that we’ve chosen the forbidden fruit. Then He feeds us good food from His Tree of Life, the bloody Cross of Jesus. That food gives us the strength to endure the journey home.

Jesus is our hope when all seems lost. Jesus is God’s love and compassion who abides with us in the desert. He is the cool shade in the heat of the day. He is our food when we are weak and our drink when we thirst.

The Feeding of the 4,000 is a picture of us and Jesus. The crowds were following Jesus to hear His Word. Jesus knew what He was doing when He took that poor miserable mix of sinners, men, women, and children. The lame, the blind, deaf and mute, the sick and dying, and everything in between three days out into that hot, desolate, waterless region. Not a good place to be so far from home without food and water.

But Jesus was there with them. He suffered, He felt their suffering, hungry and thirsty. No relief from the sun. The flesh getting weaker. Despair rising over the reality of the situation. But Jesus was there with His Words.

Jesus had compassion on those people and acted to save them. To give them strength to make it home. He took seven loaves and a few fish and fed thousands. A simple miracle that shows Jesus cares not just about the big things, but even the little things. Like a simple meal of bread and fish so you can have the physical strength to journey back home.

If Jesus cares enough to make sure a bunch of tired sinners had earthly food to make it home from the desert, we can be assured Jesus cares enough to give us eternal food to get out of this world and into paradise alive.

Those people followed Jesus into the desert to hear His Word. God’s Word is the reason they abandoned all earthly comforts and trusted in Jesus alone. His Word was healing the body and the soul.

Jesus compassion seen in the Feeding of the 4,000 is the same compassion that took Him to the Cross to die for the sins of the world. Your sins. It’s a compassion that cares not just about the soul, but about the whole person, body and soul. He cares about everything that happens to you. The physical, mental and the spiritual.

And He knows what you need above and beyond what you think you need.Often this means Jesus is going to take you out into the desert to show you how weak and unable to save yourself you are. To show you your sin and need for food that only He can give.Jesus compassion is a compassion that desires to restore us back into the image we lost when Adam and Eve rejected God’s Word and fell into sin.

It’s not an easy process. It takes our whole life, and it will not be complete until the resurrection. We endure the journey only by hearing the Words of Jesus and feeding on His body and blood until our final day.The hot, water less, desolate places in life are not fun. We find ourselves in those places often. But Jesus suffers with us. He hears our pleas for mercy. He speaks His words of peace and comfort. He feeds us Bread that is Himself.The journey will be long and tiresome. Some days good, some days exhausting and death will press hard. But along the way Jesus will speak. He will bear our burdens and He will feed us. Jesus is the Word of God we hear and He is the Bread of Life we eat. We will endure the journey in this desolate place until our course is finished and we make it home. Thanks be to Jesus. In Jesus name. Amen.