Do you go to the Bible for guidance when you're faced with a really tough decision? Most Christians don't. And the reason they don't is because the Bible doesn't give specifics. It tells you God's will is that you be holy and that you be righteous and godly, but how does that help you when you're facing a decision between two godly options? Should I buy this car or that car? Neither one is sinful, neither is ungodly, so which one should I choose? What's God's will? The answer to that question is in the Bible, but not in the form you might expect. So let's take a look at today's clip from Sermon on Mark 6, and just to get you up to speed, we left off last time with Jesus changing his mind. about a decision he had made. He had made a decision to take the day off. There was too much chaos, they needed rest, he needed rest, the disciples needed rest, so he's going to take the day off. That was a good, godly, wise decision that Jesus made. He was in God's will. Then when he saw the crowd, he changed his mind, reverted to plan B, and decided to cancel the day off, do the exact opposite of a day off, and spend an arduous, grueling day ministering to that crowd. That was also God's will, and it was also a wise decision. So what we're going to see in this clip is the way that Jesus went about changing his mind is going to show us the key to how to make a decision when you're choosing between two godly options. Know that Jesus always did the will of God. Always, always, always. No exceptions. Now earlier he had decided that it was God's will for him to take a break from ministry and take a day off. Now he's deciding, well, it's pleasing to God to cancel the day off and minister to these people. Which is it? Was he wrong the first time? Or was he wrong the second time? No, he wasn't wrong either time. And this is a great example of how God leads us through life. When God gives you guidance, he doesn't just say, it is my will for you to do X. It's not how God works. What he does do is he works inside your heart and causes you to love the things that he loves. So that when you're presented with options, you tend to choose the things that are pleasing to him. And when you have to decide between one thing that pleases God and another thing that also pleases God, and you have to pick one, then you use wisdom to decide which one to pick. If the decision to take the day off was a good, wise, godly decision, and then Jesus changed his mind, what made him change his mind? What new information came that made him decide to change his mind? Did he get a prompting from God? No, it doesn't say anything about a prompting. How did he know that it was God's will at this moment for him to change course and cancel the day off? Well, it tells us how he knew. Look at verse 34. Look what it says. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and so he began teaching them many things. What changed Jesus' mind was an emotional response of compassion. That's what did it. This word translated compassion refers to pain in the midsection. That kind of compassion. You know how you feel when you see someone bleeding, somebody who's just really, really in a lot of pain, and it just actually hurts your stomach? You have to have a lot of compassion for it to actually hurt your stomach, but that can happen. We have a word for that, we call it gut-wrenching. That's what this word means, literally refers to the gut. A feeling of compassion has to be awfully strong for you to actually feel it in your stomach. This is such a strong word, it's never used of anyone in the whole Bible except for Jesus. But it's used lots of times to describe Jesus. He had this kind of compassion very, very often. He went around with lots of pain in his stomach when he saw people in trouble. And it's important for you to know that that's what Jesus is like. That's what he's like. All right, well, let's get back to the story. Jesus goes to plan B, cancels the day off because of the deep compassion for the crowd. What was it that elicited this compassion? What's so dire in this crowd? What problem do they have that makes him feel so sorry for them that he's gonna cancel his day off? Because again, you usually don't feel that pain in your stomach unless it's really something extreme, like someone's bleeding. Were they bleeding? They had broken bones? No. Were they poor and oppressed? No, it doesn't say that. Crowd this size probably has a whole range of financial, rich people, poor people, all that. What did Jesus see in this crowd that broke his heart and gave him this compassion? Verse 34, look what it says. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. That was their problem. It wasn't their physical conditions that moved him to compassion, it was their spiritual problems. Spiritual problems are infinitely more serious than physical problems. You know, when we give people money and food and housing and we try to take care of all their physical stuff, but we don't give them the gospel, we're not showing compassion. We're not really showing mercy. We're not giving them what they need the most. Jesus cared about physical problems, but he really cared about spiritual problems. So when all the people had physical problems and they wanted healing in Capraim area, he says, you know what? Goodbye, I'm taking a day off. But when he saw the spiritual problems on the other side of the lake, he just moved to compassion. He says, all right, I'm going to minister to these people. Because they were like sheep without a shepherd. That phrase comes from the Old Testament. It came from Moses. It refers to a group of people who are vulnerable and in trouble because they have no spiritual leader. The first person to say it was Moses, and it was when he was about to die. I think this is really interesting. Moses is going along, God comes and says, guess what Moses, you're about to die. You're going to die. You're not even going to go to the promised land. You're going to die. And if God said that to you, what do you think your first thoughts might be? Your very first thoughts. Is it gonna hurt? Can I say goodbye to my wife? When is it gonna happen or where? You might have a lot of questions. You know what the very first thought in Moses' mind was when God told him that? Moses, you're gonna die. Numbers 27, 15. Moses said to the Lord, may the Lord please appoint a man over this community so that the Lord's people will not be like sheep without a shepherd. That was his first thought. Don't leave them without a shepherd, God. Send somebody else. He knew that without a leader they were vulnerable and helpless just like sheep. That's what this phrase refers to. And in the book of Ezekiel, God rebuked the spiritual leaders of Israel, at the time he calls them the shepherds of Israel, and he rebukes them for failing to take care of the people spiritually, to teach them and to nurture them spiritually. Here's what he says, Ezekiel 34 to 23, after he rebukes them and says, I'm gonna punish you, you're not taking care of the people spiritually, then he says this, I will place over my people one shepherd, my servant David, that's talking about the Messiah, and there will be showers of blessing." God blesses his people, showers blessing on his people through a shepherd. So Jesus sees this massive multitude of Israelites on the beach and his stomach is wrenched with compassion because they have no shepherd. They don't have any spiritual leader. Yeah, they've got priests and all that, but they don't have anyone who can really shepherd them. No king, no Moses-type leader that can take care of them. And that broke Jesus' heart. When Jesus was facing the whole crowd of people who were sick and diseased and needed physical healing, He was able to say, put them on hold, but not this. This, He had to do something. He couldn't say no to these people. He had to deal with this calamity. So what is He going to do? What's he gonna do? I mean, it almost sounds like he's gonna step up and be a king, right? Sheep without a shepherd usually, in the Old Testament, refers to people without a king. And so it almost kind of sounds like he's gonna become their king. It's definitely the kind of shepherding they had in mind. That's what they wanted. But what about Jesus? What kind of shepherding, what kind of leadership is he gonna provide for these sheep without a shepherd? He sees the problem, he has compassion, now he's gonna do something about it. How is he gonna lead them? What is he gonna do? Verse 34, and this is surprising. Verse 34, when Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. That's how he shepherded them. They needed leadership, they needed shepherding. So what does Jesus give them? Political leadership? No. Military leadership? No. Organizational leadership? No. Does he give them food, money, houses? No. The only thing he gives them is teaching. Teaching. That's what they needed the most. Now, when Jesus comes back a second time, sets up the full kingdom, then that's when he'll provide all the physical needs, and the food, and the money, and everything else that they need. But at this point, his shepherding is the core of it. The most important part is the teaching. The instruction of the Word of God. Just like we're doing now. You know, we all love the 23rd Psalm. Don't you love the 23rd Psalm? Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads inside quiet waters. He restores my soul." And that's great stuff. And then, do you want that? Do you want Jesus to be that for you? To be that kind of shepherd for you? Give you all that? Green pastures and all that? The number one way to receive all that shepherding from Jesus is right here. It's in His Word. That's how He shepherds you. That's how you get the 23rd Psalm. That's how you get the green pastures and the quiet waters is spend time in His Word. Let it sink into your heart. This is His rod and His staff that comfort you, right here. Everything you need to be fully equipped for life and godliness, right here. Spend time in His Word every day and you'll receive His shepherding. And that's also an example for us when we show compassion to other people. Compassion is one of the great virtues of the Christian faith. We want to be like Jesus. He's compassionate. We need to be compassionate. And so the church is compassionate, right? Christianity is known for our compassion throughout the ages. Nobody has fed more hungry people. Nobody has had more leper colonies. Nobody has adopted more orphans. Hospitals, most of them started by Christians. It's the church. that has shown compassion on needy people. But more than that, more important than that, if we take after our Lord, what we're really going to do is give people this, the Word of God. We're going to give them the gospel. That's what they need. That's what will solve their long-term eternal problems. So after Jesus had made a good decision to take a day off, how did he know it was also a good decision to cancel that day off? How did he know? What led him to that decision? Answer? One word. Compassion. Compassion. Jesus made that decision based on a godly emotion. It's a very important principle to understand about how biblical wisdom works. God wants us to live by wisdom, and wisdom is based on values. It's very important. Wisdom is based on value, what your heart values above. Does it value this more than this, less than that? What you value will determine how you make decisions. When you're weighing the pros and cons of a decision, wisdom is the ability to assign the correct weight to each pro and each con. That's why, you know, you don't make a list of pros and cons and just say, well, there's 20 pros and only 14 cons, so this is the right. No, you have to assign weight to each one. Which one is more important? There might be a thousand cons, one pro, but that pro is so important, it outweighs all of the cons. So you have to assign weight. And that's why the book of Proverbs, which is a book that teaches us wisdom, has so much to say about which things are more important than other things. The relative value of things. For example, rest and leisure are good, but money is more important in life, so it's wise to work hard to sacrifice some rest and leisure so that you can earn a living because money is important. That's a biblical wise principle. But relationships are more important than money. So now if you're making a decision between making more money or godly relationships, well, you should value the relationships more than you value money in your heart, and that will help you make wise decisions. Then you find that, as you keep reading in Proverbs, fear in God is more important than human relationships. So now if you're making a decision, If those two, then you're going to elevate fearing God above any option that doesn't involve fearing God, even if it helps relationships or makes you money or something like that. So that's what wise living is all about, valuing various different things in life properly with the right weight. And valuing is not just an intellectual exercise. It's so important. It's also a feeling. You can tell yourself all day long, people are more important than money. But if you don't feel that way in your heart, you're still going to make unwise decisions. You have to have the right affections. It's hard to overstate how important godly emotions are in day-to-day life because Those are what will keep you inside the bounds of God's will when you're making decisions without even thinking about them, which is most of the decisions you make through the day. All day long, you're constantly making little micro decisions that your brain just makes on autopilot without consulting the reasoning part of your brain. So you don't even think about it. You just don't give them any conscious thought. You're thirsty, so you get up and you walk over and you get a drink and you don't even think about it. barely any conscious thought at all. And when you're walking over to get the drink, each time you put one foot in front of the other, that's another decision, a little micro decision that you give no thought to whatsoever. And those are most of the decisions you make in a day, only a tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of your decisions you actually think through. So if you're not thinking through all these little micro decisions all through the day, what determines which way they'll go? Well, they're mostly determined by how you feel, by your emotions, your affections. You have an impulse to act in a certain way. And if your brain doesn't throw up any red flags saying, wait, wait, wait, stop and think about this first, then you'll just do it. You'll do whatever the impulse is. It'll do what you feel like doing. So what made Jesus cancel his day off? He felt like it. Now he might've given some detailed thought to it. We don't know, the Bible doesn't say anything about that. What it does say though, what it does point our attention to is how he felt. That's what the Holy Spirit wanted us to see here, is he had a godly emotion, the emotion of compassion. And that's what drove this decision. That's the factor that the Holy Spirit is pointing us to. And you can see from that how important godly emotions and godly affections really are. If you're a compassionate person, then a thousand little micro decisions you make all through the day will go in a different direction than if you're not feeling compassion and love for people. John MacArthur once said that his definition of spiritual maturity is when your involuntary reactions are godly. When you're involuntary reactions, you just have a knee-jerk reaction to something without even thinking, and it's a godly reaction. That's spiritual maturity. And that's what will keep you in the center of God's will when you're making all these little micro decisions that you don't give any thought to. And one crucial key to getting to that point is godly emotions, like compassion. So you're driving down the highway and you see someone on the shoulder with a flat tire and you really don't have any time to think through whether you should stop and help or keep driving. You might see the person and think, hmm, should I stop? Do I have time to stop? Do they really need my help? Could I even help them anyway? And by that point, well, I'm a quarter mile past them, it's too late to stop now. I can't stop, I'm just keep going. That might go that way, but what if your first feeling when you see the person is compassion in your gut for the person, and then you hit your brakes, you stop, you pull over on the shoulder, and then you think through, well, do I have time for this? Should I just get back in the lane and go, or should I stop and help this person? And now you can think through on the shoulder. Two different things that happen based on what you felt, whether you felt compassion. Or another example, how about the things that come out of your mouth? I mean, how many times do we get in trouble with our words because we speak before we have time to think? Well, a lot of the time, if you're in a conversation, mostly you don't have a ton of time to think things through. And so the way you feel in the moment is gonna make a ton of difference in what you say. Do you think it's going to make a difference when you're talking to someone, you're interacting with a person, and you have this attitude of love and compassion? Or if you have the attitude of bitterness and anger towards them, do you think that's going to have an effect on the things that pop out of your mouth without you thinking? Or maybe you're at home and you toss something in the trash can and you notice, wow, that's pretty full. I don't know if it's all the way full. Maybe you can fit a few more things in there. I don't know if I need to take the trash out. And you're trying to just, it'll make a difference. If you have compassion, if you have love, what you're feeling in that moment is gonna make a difference on whether you do something that pleases God in that moment or you step outside of God's will in that moment. Don't ever underestimate the importance of godly affections and emotions on your Christian life. When you're trying to grow, when you're listening to sermons, watching things like this, reading books, reading your Bible, all the things you do to try to grow spiritually and make progress when you're doing all that, don't always make it all about your actions and your words. Don't let those be the only gauge of your spiritual maturity and your spiritual growth. Spend a lot of time focusing on how you feel, your emotions, godly, Christ-like emotions, because without those, you're never going to get anywhere with the actions and the words and all the rest. And one last thing, don't forget the principle about spiritual needs being greater than physical needs. What really, I mean, if you stop and help somebody change a tire on the side of the road, but you don't give them anything spiritual, what have you really done? You've done a tiny, tiny act of kindness, and that's good. Tiny acts of kindness are good. But when you meet a spiritual need that somebody has that can affect them for all of eternity, I mean, think about that, for eternity? You've really given them a gigantic act of kindness. And in an age of technology, giving somebody a spiritual gift that could help them grow spiritually is so easy. I mean, if you find this video helpful, it could be as easy as just forwarding this video to them or posting it somewhere online. And I'm not just talking about this video. Anything you find online that's edifying, a sermon or a song or anything that you find, don't just consume it. Consume it, let it build you up, but then pass it along to someone else, forward it, and give that gift to the people you love. I want you to know that the reason I spend the time I spend on these lessons is because I love you, and I want the Lord to pour grace on your life, an ever-increasing abundance of blessing. Thank you for listening. If you found today's episode edifying, why not share it with a friend? A simple post on social media can change a person's day. This season, the Food for Your Soul podcast features excerpts from our sermon series on the Gospel of Mark. Over 130 expository sermons covering every verse. You can find those and hundreds of other sermons for free download on drichardferguson.com. Until next time, rejoice in the Lord always, and set your mind on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.