Everything's Possible - 9

Philippians 2:1 Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? Any comfort from his love? Any fellowship together in the Spirit? Are your hearts tender and compassionate?
2 Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one mind and purpose.

I know; we talked about this yesterday. However, I don’t think we have plumbed the depths of this text, so I thought we could spend one more day discussing it.
I am most interested in this phrase: “Are your hearts tender and compassionate?” I wonder what that means?

Some people might shy away from the idea that their hearts should be tender and compassionate. These words are sometimes seen as less than masculine, as soft, as weak, or as less than worthy of chasing after. But is this really the case? Jesus’s words push us towards rather than away from these words.
 
I have sometimes heard Christians, people that I really like, and unfortunately, mostly men, push back on these ideas of compassion, mercy, grace, and love as if they are not manly enough or masculine enough to be attributes worthy of Christian men. I want to push back on that notion.

These two words in Greek, translated here as tenderness and compassion, are actually used in Greek as a qualifier for compassion (splagnizomai), which means from the “bowels of mercy” or from the “heart of compassion.” Compassion is seen as something that we are to strive for again and again.
 
Compassion and mercy are qualities so deeply embedded in the idea of Christianity that to think they are anything less than the highest of goals is not to understand the story that Jesus was telling us the whole time he was here on earth. These values, this kind of love, and this kind of heart are what we are to strive for rather than to be seen as weak, soft, or less than optimal as humans.

But that is just it; we are humans, and we are built to transcend just survival, retaliation, and revenge. We are built to forgive, to help, to share, and to love. We are made in the image of a creator who loves us more than anything, and we show the image of God through that same self-sacrificing love. If we do anything less, then we sully the good name of God.
 

1. What are the values you are most interested in expressing to the world? 
2. What can you do to make those values incarnate into the world? 
3. How do you want people to talk about you when you are gone? What do you want your lasting legacy to be?