Seeing the One in the Crowd

2/20/2026

Learning to See People With Compassion Like Jesus

I am a missionary and spend time in the States in missions’ conferences and hear lots of good preaching about our need to go to the lost and share Christ with them. It is my life’s passion to point people to Christ. But it is easier to speak about that in generalities in relation to the masses of people. I have stood on a street corner in cities like London, Rome, and Bangkok and watched the masses of people move from place to place. I don’t know these people, but I know that, more than likely, the vast majority of them need to hear the truth of the Gospel. How do we make the need to share the Gospel with the masses personal? I believe one answer is found in Matthew 8-9.

How do we get to the heart of the compassion seen in Christ’s great prayer request for more laborers for the harvest in Matthew 9:36-38? We see people as individuals and meet each one where he is with compassion, pointing him to Christ.

Let’s set the scene. Matthew 5-7 is the great Sermon on the Mount! Jesus has just preached what some call the best sermon ever recorded. It is probable that in His humanity, He was tired, and yet there are masses of people to deal with according to Matthew 8:1. He could have slipped away to rest, but instead He meets a leper and shows Him compassion and healing. Don’t miss the fact that the sinless Son of God TOUCHED the leper! He could have spoken healing and forgiveness to this faith-filled leper, yet He touched the diseased man and made him whole again. Lepers were the outcasts of society in this day. There was no cure for their horrible disease, but Jesus saw this man as an individual and healed him. Most of us, including me, would have moved as far away from this man as possible for fear of contamination. But Jesus’ compassion transcended his disease and gave us a perfect example of seeing the individual and showing compassion.

This is only the first example of many in these chapters of Jesus’ dealing with individual people with great compassion. Matthew 8:5-13 recounts the centurion who came to Jesus with the request for his servant’s healing. This was an important man in command of at least 100 soldiers, but he had a problem that he could not solve on his own. Jesus offered to come to his house and heal his servant (8:7). This centurion believed that Jesus had the power to heal without the need for Jesus’ actual presence. Jesus commends his faith in Matthew 8:10, and He heals the man’s servant, again showing compassion for an individual among the masses.

Matthew 8:14-15 describes how Jesus ministered to Peter’s mother-in-law, who was sick with a fever. He deals in compassion with the fear of the disciples when the sea becomes tempestuous while they are in a boat (8:23-27). Later in the chapter, Jesus meets and delivers two men who were possessed by demons (8:28-34). Returning to His own city, Jesus meets and heals a man who is paralyzed both physically and spiritually (9:1-8). He chose to reach out to those whom people hated, the tax collectors, and even sat down to eat with them because they needed His compassion (9:9-13). He heals the daughter of a ruler in the town who brought his need to Jesus even in the face of the crowds who mocked Him (9:18-19, 23-26). Jesus compassionately healed the woman with an issue of blood that had plagued her for twelve years. He recognized her faith and showed her compassionate healing (9:20-22). Upon leaving the ruler’s house and healing the young girl there, two blind men cried out for Jesus to help them. Was He too busy to meet their needs? Of course not. He stopped and dealt with the blindness of their hearts and their eye,s showing great compassion (9:27-31). He restored the speech and mind of a man possessed by a devil in Matthew 9:32-34. All these things and more He did in compassionate ministry to individual people. You might think that these people were picked out of the crowd to demonstrate Christ’s compassion, and you would be right, but only in that they are the specific events recorded for us in Matthew’s Gospel. Matthew 8:16-17 and 9:35 tell us that there were countless others who experienced this same compassion face-to-face with Jesus. He saw each person and the need each one had as He met it with perfect compassion.

So, then we reach the famous passage in Matthew 9:36-38 – “But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.” I believe that as He saw the multitudes, Jesus looked into the faces of each person and knew their needs. It was in this context of showing compassion to each individual that we see Jesus advise His disciples and us today to see the individuals and pray for laborers to reach them.

What does this look like in our lives today? What individuals are in your line of sight amongst the multitudes that need you to show them some Christlike compassion today? We can’t heal the people of their diseases, but we can follow Christ’s example and see the individuals around us and seek to show them compassion. Guess what? This takes time. It might mean we have to stop to help someone when we are tired and want that rest time after a long day at work. It might mean that the person who shares a row with you at church needs to hear you compassionately ask, “How are you?” and really mean it! There might be someone who we would normally ignore because of their occupation or lack thereof that needs us to show some compassion. If Christ’s people won’t follow His example to see the people as individuals needing compassion, who will do it? May the Lord help each of us to see the faces of people and not just the masses that need Christ, and then go do something about it!