Compassion of the Holy Spirit – Part 4 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Friends, I’m so glad that you tuned in. I’m so glad that you’re with us. We’re gonna be teaching later in the broadcast today about John’s revelation of Jesus. You know, John the apostle calls himself the disciple that Jesus loved. And because of that, John sees things differently. Because of that, he sees Jesus differently. And if you get a revelation of God’s love, it’ll change your life. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. I have Aaron here, and we’re teaching today on the ministry of compassion, the ministry of Jesus. Jesus ministered with compassion. And we talked about beginning in Hebrews chapter four, verse 14 to verse 16, how when you get a revelation of the love of God, of the compassion of God, of the grace of Jesus Christ, it causes a couple things to happen. Number one, it causes you to come boldly to the throne of grace, to obtain help in a time of need. And that’s what we want. That’s why we want to teach the grace of God, the love of God. The second thing that happens, it says in Hebrews chapter five, if you read verse one and two, in verse two, that because the high priest was compassed about with infirmity, he is able to have compassion on the ignorant and those who are out of the way. Those who are either wayward or not saved. And you know what? We live in a world full of ignorant people. We live in a world full of people who don’t know the truth of the word of God. And do you know what? God loved us so much that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. And Jesus loved us so much that he gave himself for us while we were in sin. And if God loved us that way, then we need to start loving other people with the same love that God loved us. We need to share with others the same grace that we receive. But this comes, it goes contrary to religion. And we’ve been talking about how Jesus taught with compassion, how Jesus ministered healing and miracles with compassion, how Jesus demonstrated compassion. But that does not just come naturally. In fact, if you’re legalistic, it’s very contrary to a legalistic nature. And when we look at, we’re gonna be today in John chapter nine. And in John chapter nine, there was a man that was born blind. And his disciples came to Jesus, this is in verse two, and said, master, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? You know, that is to me, one of the persistent problems of religion. Like who sinned, trying to judge people. That’s religion. And that’s what religion is constantly doing. Constantly trying to point the finger at somebody else. And Jesus said, neither has this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifested. This was not a result of a specific sin. This, he was born blind. This was not his parents’ sin, it was not his sin. This is because of the original sin in the garden, because of Adam’s transgression. Do you know Adam’s transgression in the garden when he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, opened the floodgates of sin, sickness, sorrow, poverty, loss, death, disease, all these things. Anxiety on humanity. So Jesus said, it’s neither, but the works of God. Now, what is the works of God? The works of God in the man is when he got healed. And then Jesus says, I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day, John 9:4. The night comes when no man can work. As long as I am in the world, I’m the light of the world. When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground and made clay of the spit and anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. Now, a lot of people say, was Jesus’ spit anointed? I don’t think Jesus’ spit was any more anointed than my spit’s anointed. Jesus was a man anointed by the Holy Ghost. But to spit on someone was to curse them. When Jesus was on the cross, they spit on him and cursed him. I think this was Jesus cursing that disease. And he told the man in verse seven, go wash in the pool of Siloam. So he sent him to the pool of Sint. It’s called the pool of Siloam or Sint, which by interpretation is sin. And he went there for and washed and came seeing. Now, even with this act of grace in Jesus healing this young man, it took his faith. He had to have enough faith to go to that specific area that Jesus sent him to and to do what Jesus said. So even in the received, this was the working of miracle. The definition of the working of miracles is when God works through a person or instrument to perform a supernatural act in an instant. And so this is the working of a miracle, but it still took faith on the part of this man to receive this.

 

  I love something that’s kind of mentioned here, you know, in John nine, verse two, they’re asking who sinned, rabbi, who sinned? They’re just really looking for sin. They’re looking for the wrong thing. I think a lot of people, a lot of people, you know, I recently talked to a young man who grew up going to church, but has since, you know, deconstructed. That’s a very popular word today. And, but I kind of realized he, this person is just looking for everything wrong he can find. And like, I’ve seen miracles happen. I know, I know he has too. I know he’s seen miracles happen, but if you’re just constantly looking for what’s wrong, you’re not gonna reach a good place.

 

  No.

 

  And they were looking, who sinned? They’re just looking for what’s wrong rather than looking for what’s right. And, you know, you need to be looking for what’s right. Look at, if you want to find God, you need to look for what’s right.

 

  Amen.

 

  You need to look for the good things he’s done in your life. You know, if you’re just constantly focused on what’s wrong and the negative, and God isn’t the author of a lot of the junk that’s in the world today. He’s not the author of sickness. He’s not the author of disease. He’s not the author of people hurting other people. He’s not the author of strife. He’s not the author of hatred. He’s not, he is love. He’s not the author of hatred. You know, I saw someone like a funny reel on social media, a little short video of a man kind of pretending he’s like a deconstructionist and like saying, oh, I grew up in church and I was, you know, the pastor said, you know, I’d be on the team to help volunteer and, you know, set up, tear down chairs. But we’re supposed to be done by noon, but it, you know, we didn’t get done until 12:10. And I’ve just been so hurt by the church. You know, some people who say they’ve really been hurt, and this is like, some of those hurts are so minimal. Like, I can’t believe that people make such an issue out of things that really are nothing.

 

  I have a man that’s one of the closest people to me in the world. And this man said he’d do some things for me years ago, and he forgot about it. And you know what? I just, he’s a human being. He forgot. And you know what? I just let it go. And you know, on the, and it was a time when I was in really, really in need. So I could have got offended. I could have got hurt. I could have parted ways, but I just let it go. And you know, on the backside, this person came and did so much more for me than he ever said he would do in the beginning. It’s not even funny. I can’t put a value, a monetary value on it. I can’t. But when you’re, if you look for what’s wrong, you can find it. You know, I have-

 

  No, that’s a great way to destroy any relationship is to just constantly be on a witch hunt.

 

  It is true.

 

  Because you’re gonna find plenty of things that are wrong in someone’s life. And you know, sometimes people are just so looking for what’s wrong, they actually imagine things that are wrong that really aren’t there. Some people are just looking for what’s wrong with God. And they just imagine things that are wrong that have nothing to do with God.

 

  You know, I had somebody the other day with me and this man walks up to me on a Sunday morning and he’s like, you told so-and-so you were gonna do something. And he told me that, you know, you haven’t kept your word to him. I’m like, you know what? I did. And I forgot. And I went and got a check that day. I mean, I had the checkbook here at the church. And I wrote a check to that person for that ministry that I said, and I had just forgot. And I gave that check to my assistant and I said, you text this person and you tell him right now that you have something for him from Pastor Lawson. But then I told this person who attacked me about it. I said, now you tell that person. I said, I just forgot. I’m a human being. Just like, you know what? I gave this person grace years ago that forgot something he told me. I just forgot it. Just let it go. Just get over your bad self. And people are human. And, you know, I said, now you tell that person if I do that again, to either come to me and tell me personally or to tell my assistant and I’ll correct it. And then actually he wasn’t able to come in that day but he came in a couple of days later. And I happened to see him when he walked in the church office to receive this. And I went and personally talked to him. And my assistant, she knows that I forget things sometimes. I said, now, listen, if I ever, and he, you know he knew better. He said, I’m so sorry, Pastor. I didn’t mean it that way. You know? And I said, by the way, come and see me in six months and I want to help you again, help this ministry again. And I said, you know, but I’m just human. We’re just human. We’re just, listen, you’ve known me. I’m not perfect. I’m a human being. I’m a passionate person. There’s good things about that. There’s also challenging things about that. But you know what? We look for the good.

 

  They’re just saying, you know, Rabbi, who sinned? This man or his parents? And I guarantee both that man and his parents had some type of sin at some point in their life. And you know, that’s, that’s very, you know, religious, very legalistic kind of reasoning.

 

  Everybody’s sinned.

 

  Yeah.

 

  We’ve all sinned.

 

  Just trying to find someone to blame. And really the devil is the one to blame with so much.

 

  Yeah. That’s right. Amen. And people, you know, and there’s a spiritual battle. Sometimes it’s the devil just trying to throw a fit and make an issue and get you off track. Because God knows you’re, you know, going. I mean, you’re going somewhere. You’re about to have a breakthrough.

 

  If you have a, and also if you have a revelation of grace, even when people are being really hurtful and kind of harmful and toxic, you’ll often be able to just see through that and minister through that, because you realize like that, like there’s something that’s causing that. There’s a root issue.

 

  I’ve had that a lot. And, you know, you just showed me a deal by Ed Young. He’s a great pastor in Dallas, Texas. But he says the average person, you know, in the world loses seven key relationships in their life. The average pastor loses seven key relationships a year. And, you know, you just gotta, you gotta look beyond that. And, you know, a lot of times we’re a grace church. We try to minister the grace to people and sometimes they receive it and sometimes they don’t. And for most people, I think I forgive them. You know, there’s one or two that I’m still working on. I’ll be honest with you. Sometimes it takes a little bit. And, but praise God, we can have the grace of God. God’s been gracious to us. He’s forgiven us everything. And we need to have grace towards others. So we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk about John’s revelation of Jesus. John saw things in a different way. The gospel of John is quite different than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And John saw things in a different way. And I believe it’s because he had a revelation of the grace of God. He had a revelation of the love of God. And if you get a revelation of the grace of God, it’ll change how you see people. It’ll change how you see things. So thanks so much. Stay tuned. We’ll be back in just a few seconds. And there’s great revelation that you’re going to receive this week. Friends, we’ve been teaching on the ministry of compassion. And recently I taught this in church and I feel like this is one of the best teachings that I’ve ever done. And so I want to invite you to go to our website, caroscriptioncenter.com, to download not only the teachings that we do here, live in the studio, but to download the live services from church and watch those. I believe that you’ll be blessed. David said this, he said, I would have fainted unless I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. You see, the Bible says, do not be weary in well-doing for in due season you will reap if you do not faint. Some people faint. Some people give up before they receive their harvest, but you got to keep believing in the goodness of God. Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. We are in talking about the compassion of Jesus. And we talked from John chapter nine in the first part of the broadcast. And we talked about how, you know, the disciples came to Jesus when there was a man born blind and said, who sinned? And many times we’re focused on the wrong things rather than being focused on the grace of God, how God wants to minister healing and minister forgiveness, minister to compassion. We’re looking at the people and their shortcomings and we all have them. But Jesus ministered, you know, in that situation, said neither this man nor his parents and ministered the grace of God to him. And the man picked up on it and went by faith and washed his eyes after Jesus, you know, put mud on his eyes and sent him, praise God. And the man came back saying, but you know, we’re gonna talk to right now in this last half of the broadcast about John’s relationship with Jesus. John had an amazing relationship with Jesus and John saw things differently than Matthew, Mark, or Luke and focuses on a lot of different areas, but I believe it’s because he had this revelation of the love of God. He actually calls himself, and this is, you know, at the last supper, John 13, verse 23, the disciple whom Jesus loved. And when you get a revelation of the love of God, it will change how you see people. It will change how you see things. It will change what you focus on. In John’s epistle in 1 John chapter three, he actually says this in the first three verses, behold, what manner of love, think about the love of the father bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. Therefore, the world does not know us because it did not know him. They didn’t know Jesus. They persecuted Jesus. They’d probably persecute you if you get in love with him. He says, beloved, now we are the sons of God and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we will be like him for we will see him as he is. And every man who has this hope in himself purifies himself even as he is pure. You know, in that second verse, it says, when we will see him, we will be like him. I believe that a lot of people really don’t manifest the love of God and demonstrate the love of God because they haven’t really seen the love of God for themselves. But when you see the love of God, it can’t help but change how you see people and what you see. So a lot of instances in the gospel of John are different. John, you know, he’s the only one that says, you know, in John chapter one, verse 29, behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Matthew doesn’t say that, Mark doesn’t say that, but he sees Jesus, here is the spotless, sinless son, the Lamb of God. He says in John chapter two, he’s the only one that records the miracle at the wedding of Galilee, when Jesus works his first miracle and turns water into wine. But what’s unique, I mean, it’s an amazing miracle. Jesus makes like 150 gallons of phenomenal wine. But, and you know, it’s not that even big a town, but this is his mother. It’s probably a family member or close friend’s wedding that Jesus is at. And his mother says, you know, do whatever he says, you Jesus, it ain’t my time yet, but she puts a demand on him. So he says, go take the water pots and fill them up with water. And you know, it wasn’t, they were 20 to 30 gallons a piece. And there’s six of them and Jesus, they fill them up to the brim. Jesus says, now take out. And even though again, working a miracle, but took faith, take out and draw and bear it to the governor. The governor’s like, this is amazing. Usually they leave the worst to the best, to the last. And this person saved them, saved the best to last. John chapter three, John’s the only one that says this, John chapter three, verse 16 and 17. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Verse 17, for God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but the world through him might be saved. So he just constantly ministering the grace of God, constantly ministering compassion. And he just looks at things. John chapter four, he’s the only one that records the Samaritan woman, the woman at the well, and sends this woman who’s living with a man that’s not her husband, who’s been married five times. Man, Christians are so critical, so critical. And Jesus takes this woman, ministers the love of God to her, says, if you drink this water, you’ll never thirst again. And she goes out and brings not only her live-in boyfriend to Jesus, Jesus uses this woman as an evangelist, brings the whole town. And they come and they say, man, we don’t believe him because you said we believe him because we’ve heard him ourselves. You know, you brought this out, Aaron, John chapter five, the healing with the man at the pool of Bethesda. He’s laying there waiting for someone to put him in the pool and he’s laying. And an angel comes down and troubles the water and they’re healed. And you know, when he’s laying there, you know, and Bethesda means a house of grace. And Jesus said, will you be made well? Get up, take up your bed. Jesus ministers the grace of God. He’s the only one, John calls Jesus the bread of life. You gotta come into a relationship except you eat his flesh and drink my blood. Jesus said, you gotta personally experience me. So Jesus just sees things. In John seven, he talks about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. John talks about the Holy Spirit in John 14, 15 and 16 as the advocate, as the one called alongside. None of the other apostles really use that paracletos, the one who’s the helper, the intercessor. None of the other, you know, Matthew, Mark or Luke don’t really use that same terminology. So when you get a revelation of love, it changes you. It changes not only you, it changes the things you see and it changes how you see Jesus. It changes how you comprehend the gospel. He calls him, we talked about John 8 a couple of days ago. We talked about John 9 today. But in John chapter 10, he’s the only one who calls him the good shepherd. And the good shepherd, he’s, you know, all the disciples hear these teachings, but when you get a revelation of his love, it just resonates with you. And you begin to see Jesus and you begin to comprehend things in a different way. In John chapter 11, the resurrection of Lazarus, his friend, Lazarus is his friend. Nobody else records this. You know, John chapter 12, you know, he’s anointed for burial. John chapter 13, the only one who records the washing of the disciples’ feet. What an act of compassion, an act of mercy, an act of love. And when we get a revelation of love of God, man, I had two staff members for years that were at each other’s throats. I got them all together and washed their feet. And I told them how God brought them here. And I told them the good things that, you know, that I saw in them. And they all, when they got done, were hugging each other and weeping. One of them really repented, the other one didn’t. And the fruit of it would show just not long after that. We talked about John 14, 15, and 16. John 17, Jesus’ prayer. Nobody records that before he goes to the cross in the way John does. He prays for himself, he prays for his disciples. Then he prays for us. Those of us who believe on Jesus. John 18, the trial. John 19, the cross. John 20, the resurrection. And then John 21, nobody else says this. Feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed my sheep. So John saw Jesus in a different way. And it changed not only the way he saw Jesus, it changed what he saw, and it changed how he saw people. So, praise God, thank God. We get a revelation of the love of God. Aaron, I’m not the same person that I was before I got a revelation of grace.

 

  And oftentimes, I think, God will lead you with that sense of compassion, a sense of compassion in how to minister to other people. And often it’s because God wants to minister to you in a similar area. So maybe he’s giving you compassion for, you know, someone who’s dealing with financial difficulties to help them out, and you can just sense it’s not just your own emotions, but it’s the heart of God for them. It’s probably because God wants to give you breakthrough in that same area. Maybe God’s giving you a sense of compassion for someone who’s dealing with the loss of an important relationship. Maybe God’s trying to just minister to you and bring new relational things your way, new people into your life. But God will often minister through you with a supernatural sense of compassion, where, you know, it’s not just your emotions, your own understanding of situations, but it’s really the heart of God for people. But when you step out and do that, it’ll flow through you, and God will bring breakthrough in your life in similar areas.

 

  You know, I taught this series on the ministry of compassion, and this second message in it, I taught on this revelation that John had of the love of God. I’ve never taught a message like this. You know, I’ve probably taught way more than 10,000 messages, way more than 10,000 hours. And in my opinion, that message was one of the best messages that I’ve ever taught, that I’ve ever shared in my life. So I wanna encourage you, you can go on this. And not only are we sharing this here, you know, in our studio, but I taught this on Sunday morning at church. And I’d encourage you to get the Sunday series from the website. You can download it, audio or video. It’s free of charge. And if you can’t do anything else, just go to that second message on the ministry of compassion, Jesus, where I talk about John’s revelation of Jesus. And listen to that message. I believe if you get a hold of the heart of this, I believe it’ll change your perception of Jesus. And when you get a revelation of the love of God, it’ll change your life.

 

  Amen.

 

  Praise God.

 

  Awesome. Well, I just wanna thank everyone for joining us today and for just, I wanna say a big thank you to our partners too. We have a lot of partners here with our ministry and it actually enables us to make these programs, to put them out on television, put them on our website available for free. And we have a lot of-

 

  I pay about a million dollars of labor every year. Yeah, and it’s not a cheap thing to operate a ministry at this level, but we wanna say a big thank you to everyone who partners with us. Also, if you’d like to become a partner, I believe this is good ground to sow into. You know, we’re a ministry that preaches the full gospel. We preach the Bible. We believe in the Bible. We believe that Jesus is Lord and we believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, but we also have a strong emphasis on grace, which I think is super needed in the body of Christ today. And if you wanna sow into this, I believe that you’ll have a harvest that, you’ll have a great harvest in your life in many ways. So if you’d like to become a partner, give us a call. Also, if you just want someone to pray with you today, someone who has a heart of compassion, I know a lot of our prayer partners, prayer ministers here personally, and they have huge hearts for ministry, huge hearts for people. They really have God’s heart of compassion. So if you need someone to stand with you, agree with you in prayer, just give us a call. We’d be happy to pray for you today.

 

  I’m so glad that you’re watching today. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. And you know, God loves you. We love you. Again, you can call in, you can get on the website. If you can’t come to Colorado Springs and be here with us on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night, I wanna encourage you to go to our website and to livestream our services if you don’t have a church. Blessings. I believe God will help you.

 

  When Jesus comes into your life, you are fully redeemed. You are set free, and he gives you a great purpose and calling. Keep walking with Jesus, and the dream he placed inside of you will surely come to pass. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, Compassion of Jesus, a $15 value, free of charge. Download it today at charistchristiancenter.com.

 

  Praise the Lord, friends. I wanna invite you to church this coming Sunday morning, whether you’re in Colorado Springs or whether you’re wherever you’re at. If you’re in Colorado Springs, you can see us Sunday morning at 8:30 or 10:30 a.m. live, but you can also watch us with our livestream congregation at 8:30 or 10:30 a.m., or you can go to our website and get it anytime at charistchristiancenter.com.

 

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