- Understanding God’s compassion is vital for living an authentic Christian life.
- It shines most brightly in the N.T. in Jesus, but there are some remarkable stories in the Old, demonstrating that God does not change.
- Many of us have trouble receiving this compassion and grace, which makes it hard for us to show it to others, and to experience joy ourselves.
Play Audio:
- Paul has just experienced an amazing deliverance when he had totally given up hope and was in despair
1. Stories of Compassion & Comfort, especially to those who cry for help
- Jesus tells us that to know what the Father is like, all we need to do is to look at him!
- Jesus exemplified this compassion:
- Compassion not for people who were committed to him but to people in general.
- One of Jesus’s main roles was to reveal to us the full revelation of the character of GodHis compassion is a true and balanced expression of the Father’s heart for humanity
- In the N.T. we have very clear parables like the Good Samaritan, teaching us that we should also have compassion on those not in our social groupbut the same ideas are there in seed form in the old
- All three of them are seen in the O.T. but brought into much clearer focus in the New
How should we respond to this?
- We should be like God in this way
- James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
- Why is it hard for us to think of God as tender & compassionate?
- It can almost seem like a weakness to be soft-hearted!
2. Grace & forgiveness to everyone who asks for it
- The next thing I want to consider, is showing compassion to someone who has treated you badly.
- It is much easier to be kind to someone who is innocent and does not hate you...
- But isn’t God sometimes very angry?
- Sometimes he destroys people in a frightening way. Where is the compassion & comfort?
- There is not a single recorded instance in Old or New Testament of someone who comes humbly to God and is turned away.
- This is the story of Manasseh, the son of the good King Hezekiah,but Manasseh was probably the most evil king of all of them
- But once again, Jesus is the full revelation of God’s compassionate love
As the Kingdom grows, there’s an evil man who Satan is using to attack and kill God’s people.
- One day when this wicked man is travelling to kill even more Christians, God strikes him down dead?
- No, he shows his love and grace to this man, Paul, who ends up being one of the greatest apostles.
How should we respond to this?
- A Christian is someone who has received God’s compassion and grace
- You can receive this so easily!
- Admit that you need his forgiveness, you need his help, you can’t do it yourself
- Trust yourself to his leadership for your life. Surrender control to him, trusting that he will give you life
3. Being a person of compassion & comfort
How should we respond to this?
- It’s very important that we relate to God as someone who is ready to forgive us
- I want to strongly encourage you to work on the image of God in your mind
- Especially that he is forgiving! (back to the O.T. again…)
- God’s very nature is to have compassion—be like that!
- gentleness and tenderness
- If someone were to describe you, would they use those words:
- compassionate, merciful, gentle, tender, kind
- If God is like that in the core of his being, and we are to be like God,
- Then that should describe us!
- There are consequences to sin, but God is ready to hear you any time
- We feel he is angry with us, but we need to remember these stories of his compassion
The voice in your head that criticizes you
- Three personal stories
- Do you ever do it? Would people be shocked if there were a “microphone”?
Psalm 103
by David
Call to Praise - Let’s sing blessings with all that is in us!
- Bless the Lord, O my soul,and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
- Bless the Lord, O my soul,and do not forget all his kindnesses.
1. SAFE — For health and physical blessings
- who forgives all your sins,who heals all your diseases,
- who delivers your life from the Pit,who crowns you with faithful love [chesed] and compassion,
- who satisfies you with goodso your youth is renewed like an eagle’s.
2. SECURE — The way God rules: just, kind, compassional, fair & forgiving
- The Lord does what is fair,and executes justice for all who are oppressed.
- He revealed his ways to Moses,his deeds to the people of Israel.
- Merciful and compassionate is the Lordslow to anger and abounding in faithful love [chesed].
- He will not always chide,nor will he keep his anger forever.
- He does not deal with us according to our sins,nor repay us according to our iniquities.
3. LOVED — The grace he shows when we constantly fail him
- For as high as the heavens are above the earth,so great is his faithful love [chesed] toward those committed to him;
- As far as the east is from the west,so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
- As a father shows compassion to his children,so the Lord shows compassion to those committed to him.
- For he knows our frame;he remembers that we are dust.
4. ETERNAL VALUE — He gives us immortality, and our lives will count in his kingdom forever
- A person’s life is like grass.Like a flower in the field it flourishes,
- but when hot wind blows, it’s gone,and no one even remembers its location
- But the faithful love [chesed] of the Lord is from eternity to eternity for his faithful followers,and his faithfulness to their descendants,
- to those who follow his covenant,who remember his commands.
- The Lord has established his throne in heaven;his kingdom extends over everything.
Call for the whole universe to praise and bless the Lord
- Bless the Lord, you his angels of great strength,who do his word, obedient to his command.
- Bless the Lord, all you his heavenly warriors,you servants of his who carry out his desires.
- Bless the Lord, all that he has madein all the places of his kingdom.Bless the Lord, O my soul!
- The distinction between failing because of sin
- And failing because of human weakness
- Satan wants to falsely accuse you!
- He loves it when you attack yourself
- Even when you have done wrong, we must not allow the voice of the accuser!
- We are out of alignment with what God is saying about us.
- This is actually very serious because we tend to mix up this inner critical voice with God’s voice
- If we allow ourselves to do these self-attacks, we’ll damage our relationship with God
- People who don’t receive God’s compassion, rarely know how to give it to others
- Self-critical people are critical of others. (e.g. other drivers)
- My grandfather was a very angry man
- We reduce our effectiveness as Christians who are to reflect God to this world.
- Catch yourself when you say these things to yourself“No, that’s not what God says about me”
- I need this message as much as you do!