SPEAKER_00 0:11

Good morning, church. It is good to see everybody here. Um maybe I think this church has been praying for our family, if I'm not mistaken. So thank you so much for praying for me and Jackie and Hill Community Church. Uh, the Lord rather surprisingly spoke to us in early November and asked me to ask the church to release us by the end of the month. And by God's grace, we we closed up everything beautifully and with the blessing of the church. And as of early December, uh we've been just visiting churches and taking a sabbatical rest in the Lord. And I must say, after 15 years of church planting, it is not natural for me to rest. And so I could still use some ongoing prayers. Uh we don't know what the next assignment is, uh, but whatever he has, I'm sure it's gonna be far beyond what we can think or imagine. So please turn with me to Matthew chapter 9, verse 35. Matthew chapter 9, verse 35. And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Amen. Please join me in prayer. Father, we thank you that you are a compassionate God. And we see this so clearly in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the full and picture-perfect representation of God. We see how throughout his earthly ministry he is moved with compassion. So today, Lord, we pray that you would give us a little glimpse of your heart for us in the church and for others outside the church who are like sheep without a shepherd. We thank you, Lord. We pray that you speak to us. We are all your children. We lift up the name of Jesus, our chief and good shepherd. We pray that as sheep, all of us, would hear your voice. Thank you, Lord. Fill this place with your presence. Holy Spirit, soften hearts, open eyes and ears. We want to meet you, Lord. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Psalm 145, verse 8. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding and rich in love. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. Amen. The Lord is just full of compassion for us. Full of compassion. The word compassion, if you break it down to its root word, the first part is with. And as you know, passion is suffering. The Lord, he suffers with us. The Lord, he is near those who are suffering. And he embraces our suffering. And at times, many times, he lifts and takes away our suffering. I don't know if you know the Lord this way. He is full of compassion. He wants to suffer with you, alongside of you. We read in Hebrews 13, verse 9. The Lord says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And these are just shocking, shocking verses for sinners like us. Because you know you, I know myself, and there are, aren't there many days when you are not that delightful? When you are in a bad mood, a little bit sour, a little bit irritable, a little bit moody. And yet Jesus says, I am with you. I will never leave you, nor forsake you. Just an amazing thing because there are many days I wouldn't want to be with me. And Jesus says, I'm with Ray. Just a shocking thing. Just a shocking thing. What I see in Scripture is Jesus is so full of this compassion, this emotion of I see people suffering. I see the helplessness and the harassment of my sheep. I see the they're living in a broken world and sickness and disease and affliction and sinners all around them, wronging them, and false teachers leading them astray. And all of this is what Jesus says is suffering. He sees it all emotionally, it says in Mark 9, that he is moved with compassion. This is gut-level sympathy and emotional turmoil that he receives in himself. Jesus, as a perfect representation of God, he is not aloof. He is not far away, he is close. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Even on your worst day, he is with you. When Elijah was running from Jezebel and in a cave, we might think, well, God would be upset. Why do you fear, O great prophet, after you've seen my mighty works before the prophets of Baal, and now he is fleeing because of a threat of this wicked woman. But because the Lord is filled with compassion, comes and visits with him, tells him to sleep, makes him some food, and he whispers. And the fact that he whispers means he's close. You can only whisper when you're close. Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you. He is with you. He is close. Even on your worst day. Even when things are difficult, he is with you. There's a father with a boy who is suffering from convulsions in Mark chapter 9. And he's uh this boy is being thrown into the water and fire, and the father is just doesn't know what to do. And he says, in verse Mark 9, verse 22, no, verse 22. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us. And Jesus addresses the first part. If you can, of course he can. He is God. Of course he's able, he is God. But what is implied here is the Father says, Have compassion on us, me and my boy. And without even saying a word, you just know through his actions that Jesus has compassion on this father and his boy. So God is not just feeling this compassion, this internal emotion of compassion. He also outwardly moves toward you in compassion. Because he is full of compassion. And in that case, Mark chapter 9, this mute-deaf spirit was commanded to leave the boy and never to enter again, and this boy was delivered and healed. So if we know that Jesus is like this, that he has compassion for you and me, that his emotional state is not annoyance. He's not upset. He doesn't have a stick, and the first time you fall into sin, he's gonna whack you over the head. That this is not his emotional state. He doesn't see you this way. He is full of compassion. Emotionally, he is moved by your suffering. And he doesn't just have sympathy, but he comes toward us in compassion. And he delivers you. Not only does he embrace the suffering, he removes suffering oftentimes in the lives of believers who are suffering because of sickness and disease and unclean spirits. And if we know Jesus is like this and God our Father is like this, then the question is, how do we look at one another? How do we view one another? It says in Ephesians 4, verse 32, be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. The word for a tender heart is compassion. What kind of heart does God have toward us? He is compassionate, which means his heart is tender. His heart is tender. I'm here to just testify. This is God's heart for you. It is tender towards you. He is moved in his bowels, in his gut, with deep compassion for you and me. And if we know God is like this, how do we view one another in God's house, in his church? How do you view your friends, your family members? How do you view the crowd, the people out in this world who don't know Jesus? Is there compassion? Is there a tender heart? I don't know if it's just me, but there are certain people in my life, when I think about them, my heart is not tender. That might just be me. You remember what they did when you were a child. You remember what they said. You remember how they treated you. And as you think through these memories and these conversations, slowly our heart begins to harden toward them. And not only is our heart hardening toward this person, I think it is hardening toward the Lord. Because we're losing sight of his tender heart toward us. Because how can we say we love God and we know God and He is this compassionate, this tender toward us? He never leaves nor forsake us. And yet we say, Oh, that person, I cut him off. I never want to see that person again. I forgive him in my heart, but he's as good as dead to me. I don't want to see him again. And we know as a Christian we can't do that, so we pray, but our prayers for that person are so cold. So cold. We're doing the right motions of prayer because we have a duty to pray for our enemies and people who hurt us, and even intellectually, we know we should forgive them, but when you look at your heart toward certain people in the body of Christ or your family, is in our heart hardened and cold and indifferent. And God is saying, This heart issue, I see it. Not only does he see your suffering, he sees your heart toward his lost sheep. When Jesus sees a crowd, he moves toward them with compassion. And he wants us to pray for harvest workers to go to the harvest fields. There's so few. But his heart is just grieving for those who are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. And when I see a crowd on the 405, I'm just annoyed. Like, where did all these people come from? Why can't I just get to my destination? Why am I stuck in traffic? When someone cuts you off, do you do you get so bothered or you say, okay, this person doesn't know Jesus? I should, I should pray for this person who cut me off. This person who was rude at the at the at the coffee shop. Do you get annoyed? Do you think they didn't treat me well? I'm gonna give them a one-star review on Yelp. Or do you say, this person doesn't know Jesus? I they need prayer. Maybe you're the only person who would ever pray for them, and God would hear that prayer one day and answer that prayer. We need tender hearts, we need compassionate hearts toward one another in the body of Christ. As a pastor of a local church, I know it's hard because there's many people out in the world. It's just one encounter. You can get through that. But when you're meeting with the same people week after week, and they are driving you crazy, our heart can grow cold to that person. And the Lord sees it. He says, that's not right. That's not right. That's not the kind of heart that I want from my children toward each other. If we can't even love each other in the body of Christ, how can we love a lost world or enemies of Christ? So God's heart to us is. He is moved with compassion. He never leaves you or forsakes you. Even on your worst day. He's always close. We may depart from him, but God is always close. He's always chasing, he's always waiting. And he's inviting us today to soften our hearts, to bring our hardened heart, our heart of stone, as it says in Ezekiel 26. He wants us to bring hardened hearts, indifferent hearts, cold hearts, to the Lord so that he can remove that hardness of heart and give you a tender, soft heart. The most loving verses in all of Scripture to me are in Matthew 11, 28 and 29 and 30. It says, Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I encourage everyone here in the body of Christ to bring everything that is causing you suffering. Whether it's physical, whether it's mental, emotional, whether it's trauma from your past, anything that is causing you to feel heavy, anything that is making you feel weary and helpless and tired, Jesus invites you and me to give it all to him. And there will be a divine exchange as you pray this prayer that Jesus in return will give you. Himself, he will embrace your suffering, he will take it off of you, he will put it on himself, and instead he will give you something that is so light. His nature, his heart, his freedom, his joy. It is a divine exchange that you find at the foot of Jesus. Bring everything that is causing suffering in your life. Bring it to Jesus, ask him to take it and receive from him a light, light burden. Okay, let's pray. Father, we're so thankful that we can catch a glimpse of the Father's heart today, that we see perfectly expressed in the life of Jesus Christ. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich, abounding in love. Lord, when you see each of us in our suffering, in our sin, in our rebellion, in our indifference, in our sickness, in our mental depression, in our anxiety, Lord, you see it, Lord. You're not oblivious to it. Emotionally, you're moved in your gut, in your bowels. And not only are you emotionally stirred, but Lord, you move toward us. And you invite us to meet you halfway and to cast all of our heavy burdens, all of our sickness, all of our mental, emotional baggage and trauma, and at the foot of Jesus to leave it with you. In exchange, we pray that your divine life would start flowing into us and we would leave this place lighter and brighter. We pray that you would exchange a heart of stone with a heart of flesh. We pray that those who harm us, we wouldn't just mouth the words of forgiveness and prayer, but we would feel what you feel toward that person, that we would also be tender-hearted toward one another. Those in the body of Christ whom we pray for, those in our family members who are lost, that annoy us, that we want to be tender toward, and also the harvest fields in this world that are ripe. But so few workers are being sent out. We pray that we would be your hands and feet, we would be the few workers you can count on to be tenderhearted to a lost and dying world. Thank you, Lord. We pray that you minister to us as we close this service. In Jesus' name you pray. Amen.