So glad you can join us for this time of worship and teaching from God’s Word with the Immanuel Baptist Church. Today Pastor David Dixon will preach on the challenge of the human dilemma that has but one real solution: fixing our eyes on Jesus. A summary of today’s sermon is available below. We hope you will be moved to pick up a Bible and read the key passages for yourself. Our streaming service begins at 11:00 h
How do we carry the burden of other people’s tragedies, empathize without being overwhelmed, persevere in
caring for the weary and wounded (even when your own wounds may be festering)? What do we do when the
attempt to empathize and help others carry their burdens wears us down? What comeback do we have when the
enemy confronts us with the claim that the foundations are being destroyed – and the world situation seems to bear
it out – and the conclusion seems logical that there’s nothing to be done but shrug our shoulders and fall into mere
“survival mode”? How does a Christian respond to a world that seems determined to destroy us all? How do we
keep our sanity in the midst of so much chaos going on all around us? Compassion fatigue is a term that describes
the physical, emotional, and psychological impact of helping others (often through experiences of stress or trauma),
without adequate breaks or support. Our world’s many hotspots of violence, terrorism, war, starvation, and other
human tragedies can quickly bring us to the border of compassion collapse. One prominent psychologist tells us
that trauma victims will be the new missions frontier of the 21 st century (Diane Langberg).
How do we keep our sanity in the midst of so much chaos going on in our world right now? There has to be a
reference point for it that’s much bigger than we are. In Ps. 11, the answer to the question about what can the
righteous do seems to be that there’s nothing to be done; the cause is hopeless; we may as well give up and just
focus on self. But the psalmist’s answer is about affirming the truth of God’s sovereignty: He’s on His throne, in
His holy temple; no matter how disastrous the outlook, He sees, He tests the children of Adam, He examines the
righteous, but He despises the wicked and their violence; they will not ultimately triumph.
