Compassion of the Holy Spirit – Part 2 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Welcome friends to the broadcast. I am so glad that you’re here. We’re gonna be talking today about Jesus ministered with compassion. He healed the sick through compassion. He worked miracles through compassion. It was the compassion of God that motivated Jesus to action. So open your heart and receive the good word of God today. Thanks so much and blessings. Friends, it’s great to have you here today. And we’re sharing on the compassion of Jesus. And we began yesterday, and when we began, we talked about when you get a revelation of the love of God or the grace of Jesus Christ, the compassion of Jesus, it causes two things to happen. Number one, it causes you when you fail to come boldly to the throne of grace. That’s what the Bible says in Hebrews 4:16. When you understand the grace of God, it doesn’t cause you to run from God if you mess up, to run from Jesus, it causes you to run to him. The second thing that it does is it causes you to have, the Bible talks about this in Hebrews 5:2, compassion on those who are ignorant and out of the way. So not only do you have grace and run to Jesus or run to God when you fail, but you’re more compassionate with those who are ignorant, right, who don’t know the truth, and those who are out of the way, either wayward children or those who are not saved. And there’s a lot of crazy in the world. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff you look at and just like, my goodness, what’s wrong with them? But plainly they are blind to the truth. But God, you know, God commended his love toward us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. So if God loved us in that state, we can love each other. And then we went in and began to share how Jesus taught with compassion and we read that in Mark 6:34. He was moved with compassion and began to teach them the word of God. You know, really, if people get ahold of the truth of the word of God, it’ll free ’em. John eight talks about that. But the next thing is Jesus not only taught the word of God with compassion, but he ministered with compassion and healed those who were sick. So we’re gonna go to Matthew chapter nine and begin reading. And Aaron, I’ll have you read in Matthew 9:35 on down through verse 38. And this is talking about the ministry of Jesus. And Jesus had a preaching, teaching, healing ministry, but he did it through compassion.

 

  It says here, “Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion for them because they were weary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.'”

 

  So, you know, this is awesome. But Jesus went about teaching in the synagogues, preaching the good news, the gospel of the kingdom. Thank God the gospel is the good news. And it says healing. This was Jesus’ ministry, teaching, preaching, teaching to bring instruction, preaching to bring conviction and healing. Jesus healed. Some people criticize us when we preach healing, but healing’s a major aspect of the gospel. When you look into the life of Jesus, you can’t get away from healing. And it says he healed every sickness and every disease. Other places it says he healed, this is like every one, but every kind of sickness and every kind of disease. So when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion. Compassion motivated Jesus to action. I know John Osteen years ago, he was a Baptist minister, but John got baptized in the Holy Spirit and he began to sense the love of God or the compassion of Jesus flowing out of him towards people. And as he would minister to them, the power of God would come and, you know, the gifts of the spirit would flow and people would be healed and set free. And we still need to minister with compassion. We see a lot of crazy, but we still need to minister with compassion. And he says he had compassion on them because they fainted and they were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. When he said to the disciples, then he said to the disciples, the harvest is truly plentious, but the laborers are few. And pray that the Lord of the harvest, thank God Jesus is the Lord of the harvest, would send forth laborers into his harvest.

 

  I actually just quoted this. A young man came to me asking for some advice ’cause he was thinking about going into full-time ministry. Adam in England. He reached out to me and, you know, he went to school for writing for English and thought about being a teacher, but those doors weren’t really opening. And you know, he was presented with an opportunity to maybe step into ministry and I just told him that, really like, it’s very true that there is a plentiful harvest, but the laborers are few. And I kind of realized that here, actually. You know, I’ve been here seven years now, but a few years ago, I was in charge of looking for a new worship pastor, and I did a pretty big extensive search. And I was actually a little disappointed just with just the lack of labors, you know, people really willing to work. I think a lot of people want to be famous, have a stage, have a platform but they don’t wanna labor, do the work of the ministry.

 

  You know, I have a background in classical music. You know, the last professional audition I took was for the South Dakota Symphony, you know, principal flute there, and there were 120 flutists that paid their own way to audition there, you know, and it only pays like 25,000 a year. So you’d have to do stuff on the side, you know, to be able to survive. But there were 120 flutists that paid their own way, their own flights, hotel, people from Julliard, Yale, top music programs. And they were like fighting over this, you know, position like, you know, just like a pack of hyenas, you know? But, you know, and you know, I put together a really good job description for a worship pastor here, to be a full salary position, living in Colorado Springs, one of the best places to live in the country. And I sent it to, you know, 15, maybe 20 different, you know, schools of worship, you know, universities, people who have similar, you know, theology to us. And we had five applicants, I think, and one or two of them didn’t even really want the job. Like you could just tell they just want to be somebody, but not really actually.

 

  They don’t wanna work.

 

  Don’t wanna work. They just wanna be given a platform and you’re gonna pay me to do my own thing. But God was faithful and took care of us. You know, we actually have two great worship pastors now that rotate and do a great job leading and-

 

  And you’re raising up a whole team. You’ve got other people.

 

  But no, it’s really true. The harvest is plentiful. There’s plenty of work to do. There’s plenty, but the laborers are few. You know, it’s really true. So he actually made the decision to go into full-time ministry and-

 

  Oh, that’s great.

 

  I was really excited for him, but-

 

  That’s restoration in his life.

 

  Yeah, and I told him, I told him, he’s actually a very sweet person. He’s maybe 25 years old and, like, they haven’t announced it to the church yet, so I’m not saying too much, but he’s gonna work for his dad. And so I said, “It’s a win for you, it’s a win for your dad, it’s a win for, you know, your church.”

 

  Dad’s an awesome man.

 

  It’s a win for the body of Christ. So I’m really, and he talked to other people. He has other mentors in his life-

 

  Yeah, that’s great.

 

  that he spoke to, but I’m really glad he decided to do that.

 

  That’s awesome.

 

  And he didn’t wanna feel like, you know, he’s not able to accomplish something just apart from working for his dad. But I said, it’s gonna be really great. And I told him that God will give you some things to do on the side where you can grow with your writing and things like that too and, you know, still teaching maybe as a tutor, so.

 

  We need good ministers of the gospel. And his dad has a great ministry, has a number of churches, and it’s a really great. Who’s his dad?

 

  I’m not gonna say too much because it hasn’t been, he doesn’t want me to announce it, so.

 

  All right, so we’ll wait and tell people. When it happens, we’ll tell people and they can check out this ministry over in the UK. Praise God. So God is so good. And you know, Jesus ministered with compassion and compassion motivated him to action. It motivated him to heal the sick. It motivated him to minister the word of God. John chapter 14 is a real, or Matthew chapter 14, excuse me, is a really great example. In Matthew chapter 14, we see the death of John the Baptist. And it’s a tragic thing that Herod actually because of, you know, this crazy thing. It was his birthday and the daughter of Herodias danced before them and he said, “I’ll give you whatever you want.” And she said, she talked to her mother and said, have John the Baptist, she hated John the Baptist. ’cause man, he was telling ’em, you guys need to repent. And have his head in a charger. And so, because he made, you know, that commandment, he did it. And it says, the disciples of Jesus in verse 12 came and took up the body and buried it and told Jesus. And Jesus, when he heard of it, departed thereby ship into a desert place apart. I mean, I’m sure he wanted to get away. I’m sure he wanted to rest. And when the people heard there, they followed him on foot out of the cities and Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them and he healed their sick. Jesus was a healer and he healed these sick people. So when we look at this, you know, just thank God, you know, for Jesus and the way that he responded when something, you know, John was close to him, he cared. But when something he really cared about, you know, he responded by going out there and ministering, healing to those who were sick and those who were hurting and those who were dying. And you know, I think that’s how we need to respond because there’s a lot of times in the gospel when you’re doing things and it, you know, you see things that are wrong and, you know, if you don’t respond in the right way, it could produce negative fruit. But Jesus just responded with the grace of God, responded with the compassion of God. And Jesus went and healed the sick.

 

  And this is really a powerful principle too. You know, Jesus was dealing with a lot of emotion, I’m sure that, you know, with John the Baptist, that terrible news, you know, him hearing that. So sometimes when you’re going through hurt and going through difficulty yourself, that’s actually a great time to step out and minister to others and just see the power of God happen. You know, I’m reminded of a great testimony actually. When I was going to school in Houston, I went to Lakewood Church, one of my favorite pastors there was Joel Osteen’s sister Lisa Comes Osteen. And you know, she once, I heard her minister on a Wednesday night and she shared her testimony. Her whole life growing up, it was her dream to marry a pastor. You know, she loved that her dad was a pastor and she wanted to have a family just like her dad did. And she got married young to a pastor, But this man left her within a month of marriage and it just completely devastated her. And she moved back home and just dealt with, you know, very, very heavy depression, won’t even come out of her bedroom. But God eventually led her to actually starting a ministry to divorced people right there at the church. And she said she actually was able to recover and find healing just by starting this ministry and ministering to other people that, you know-

 

  And Aaron, you’re just talking about the grace of God. The love of God, you know, there is so much, you know, religion, and if somebody’s had a divorce, some full gospel denominations, you can’t even be an usher. You can’t even pray, you know, in a church. It is terrible. And, you know, recently I know someone and they were pretty, you know, high up in Christian leadership and they had a divorce and I really don’t know what went wrong. And, you know, later they told me about it and I said, “Listen, I’m not the judge. I’m not even gonna try to be the judge.” But I know, you know, they got remarried to another person who’s high leadership in the body of Christ. And there’s been so much criticism against them and, you know, it’s really a terrible thing that, you know, half of the body of Christ has dealt with divorce. And, you know, when the Bible says, let us be husbands of one wife, they’re talking about plurality of wives is the literal aspect of the scripture. So you’re not supposed to have over one wife at one time, but you know what, in the Old Testament, God allowed them because of the hardness of heart to have, to write a bill of divorce in the law. So if that happened in the law, wouldn’t there be grace in the New Testament towards people who’ve had that happen? And I’m not trying to condone things, but at the same point in time, I don’t wanna be the judge. Jesus is the judge. And there’s a lot of times that we are not compassionate like Jesus is compassionate and we need to be compassionate, you know, towards people outside of the church. maybe that have went astray or maybe they haven’t went astray. You don’t know the exact situation and people inside the church. So we need to let the love of God, the grace of God, motivate us and compel us. And you know what? We need to, you know, a lot of times, we judge ourselves by our intentions and other people by their actions, and we ought turn that around and just let the love of God be the guide and realize, people, you aren’t in that situation. You don’t know everything about everybody everywhere. So you’re not God, so let God be the judge. We’ll come back. We’re gonna talk more about how Jesus ministered through compassion, so stay tuned. Blessings. 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, charischristiancenter.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. We had the blizzard of a century and I had over 3,000 cattle scattered around the country. Most of them were in Lamar, Colorado. But what God told me to do, he said, “You need to look at what you have and not what you lost.” And as I did that, God brought me completely out of that. Friends, I’m glad that you stayed with us. We are right here and we’re talking about how Jesus was moved with compassion and healed the sick. Jesus was moved with compassion and ministered to people. Here’s an example in Matthew 15:32, it says, “Then Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion on the multitude because they continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat.’ Man, Jesus just had compassion on them because they were hungry and they’ve been listening to the word of God for three days. He said, “I’m not gonna send them away fasting less they faint in the way.” And Jesus took seven loaves and a few little fish and fed over 4,000 people. So thank God for the grace of God, thank God for the compassion of Jesus and compassion motivated Jesus, right, to heal the sick, compassion motivated Jesus to teach the word of God. But here, we see that compassion motivated him to work a miracle and just take care of these common needs. Another example, if we go over to Luke’s gospel in chapter seven, in verse 11 through verse 15, it says, “it came to pass the day after that he went into a city called Nain. Many of disciples went with him and many people. And when he came near the gate of the city, there was a dead man carried out. He was the only son of his mother.” Now this is a key because they didn’t have welfare like we have welfare today. They didn’t have a social service system like we do here. And so basically in the Bible, if, you know, somebody died, a father died, then it was the oldest son’s responsibility to take care of his mother. And in this case, she was a widow and he was her only son. And so he died. So it was a pretty dire situation and many of the people of the city were with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Weep not.” Well in that situation, you could see why they might be weeping. And he came and touched this, the body of this, you know, this boy that was dead, and they that bear him stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And he that was dead sat up and began to speak and he delivered him to his mother. So I mean, there are many, many miracles that we see when Jesus moved with compassion. And here he was moved with compassion and raised a man from the dead. So it’s the love of God really working through us that ministers the people. It should be the love of God that moves us to teach the word of God, to teach the gospel, to teach the grace of God, and it should be the grace of God that’s ministering through us to minister to the needs of people. So we just see lots of examples. Another one is Mark 1:40-42. And this is, there’s two lepers, and Aaron, you can go there to Mark 1:40-42 and read this. This is good for us to see.

 

  It says in Mark 1:40, “Now a leper came to him, imploring him, kneeling down to him and saying to him, ‘If you are willing, you can make me clean.’ Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out his hand and touched him and said to him, ‘I am willing, be cleansed.’ As soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.”

 

  Praise God. So the man had this question, if you will, you can. Well, today, you know, faith begins where the will of God is known, and we know the will of God. We know it from the promise of God, we know it from the atonement, from Jesus dying on the cross. And Jesus took stripes for our healing. We know it from the life of Jesus. 14 times in the New Testament, it says Jesus healed them all. Jesus healed every one of them. So we know that from the nature of God, God said, “I am the Lord who heals you.” So we can know the will of God without a doubt concerning healing because of the nature of God, the promise of God, the life of Jesus and the cross. Amen.

 

  Yeah, just the other day, I was having breakfast with my wife and our toddler at a restaurant and just a stranger, you know, middle-aged man approached us while we’re eating at the table and he just said, you know, “Is this your last name?” He thought I looked like someone he knew. And I said, “No.” And he’s like, “Well, you look like the son of a pastor that I know.” And so he asked me if I was this, you know, son of this pastor at another church and it’s actually another church in town, like a very large church that doesn’t believe in the power of God. And some of their pastors even said that, that we’re cessationists. We believe that the power of God is ceased. So he was asking me if, you know, I’m a son of a pastor at that church. And I said, “No, but I’m actually a son of a pastor and work at a church, you know. I’m a Perdue and I’m a pastor at Charis Christian Center.” And he actually knew of our church, he knew right where we’re at. And he’s like, “Are you guys related to, you know, affiliated with Andrew Wommack?” ‘Cause Andrew Wommack has Charis Bible College. And I said, “Well, we have a close friendship, but we’re two separate, you know, ministries. Like they’re a bible school and television ministry whereas we’re a church.” And he asked, “Well, is your theology like Andrew Wommack’s?” And I said, “Yeah, it’s very similar.” And he just said, well, “I just don’t have faith for healing like he does.” And I just, and I actually kind of talked to, mentioned this scripture and I said, just really healing, like the faith for it starts with knowing that it’s God’s will. And I just said, it’s always God’s will to heal people. Because God has a heart of compassion. It’s always his will to heal people. So you can see that-

 

  Just like our children. You know, years ago, Aaron, when I started pastoring, I had a man come to me and he wanted me to pray for him for healing, and I said, “Well, if you’ll believe that God will heal you.” And he said, “Well, I don’t know, you know, maybe he will.” I’m like, “Now listen,” you know, maybe God’s put this on me to teach. I said, “You love your daughter, right?” “Yes.” I said, “Would you take a vial of AIDS and shoot it into her body to teach her something?” He’s like, “No, I never did that.” I mean, he just like got explosive with me. And I said, “How could you accuse God of doing that to you as his child? Doesn’t God love you more than you love your children?” That’s what the Bible says. I mean, that’s Matthew chapter seven, Luke chapter 11. That’s all over. That’s New Testament. That’s gospel. And, you know, but sometimes we gotta get that bowl with people because they really don’t know. And but healing is the nature of God and because God loves us. God said, “I am the Lord who heals you.” Exodus 15:26, “I am Jehovah Rapha.” And then Jesus represents everything that God is. And you’ve taught some great teaching along that subject on the names of God. You can get that on our website, charischristiancenter.com, free of charge. Great teaching. Phenomenal teaching. And you’ve taught in that Exodus passage, Exodus 15, where that is a law and it’s finished. It’s like it’s the finished work of Christ when you begin to understand the cross. And the Bible says by Jesus stripes that we were healed in 1 Peter 2:24. And that word healing, in 1 Peter 2:24 means healed. Praise God. People have tried to teach around this in Isaiah 53:5, Matthew 8:16 and 17, you can see this all over the scripture. You know, healing is the will of God. Psalm 103:3 says, “He forgives all of our iniquities and he heals all of our diseases.” You can see healing and forgiveness tied together all through the scriptures. James 5:14, “If there’s any sick among you, let them call for the elders of the church and let them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick. And if they have committed sins, they shall be forgiven.” So thank God, you know, Jesus healed because he loved. He was moved with compassion and healed the sick. And now we have this, you know, this gospel, Jesus ministered. He taught through compassion, he healed through compassion, he ministered with compassion, and we need to be the same. Praise God, and when we begin to understand that, it changes the way that we minister. And when you get a revelation of the grace of God, number one, you come to him, come to Jesus. Number two, you become more compassionate with others, but then you can begin to minister to others through the grace of Jesus Christ. Amen. So we’re gonna be back tomorrow. We’re gonna be sharing more on the same thing. Aaron, what do you got to share?

 

  Yeah, just God really loves you, you know, and he is really present to heal. You know, I just actually recently came across a video on YouTube of people, you know, blasting false prophets. And Andrew Wommack was actually amongst this blast video. And it had just had, you know, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of views. And it was kind of disappointing to me that people are just really trying to tear, I don’t know who all the other ministers were, but with Andrew there, their issue with him was that he preaches on healing. And they actually in this video made a point saying, “This is false teaching because Isaiah 53:5 and 6 isn’t really about physical healing. And I just made, I usually don’t even bother arguing with these fools, but you know, Matthew himself quotes Isaiah 53:5 and 6 after Jesus physically healed people and saying, and said, that it might be fulfilled that which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah saying.

 

  Isaiah 53:4-5 and Matthew 8:16 and 17. Go read the, go get your Strongs, read the Greek, read the Hebrew, and quit lying about the scriptures. Start believing what the Bible says.

 

  But Matthew interpreted Isaiah to mean physical healing, so it’s-

 

  You know what? If you need healing today, I want you to give us a call. You know what? We’ve had people who’ve called in, who’ve had tumors disappear when our prayer ministers prayed for them over the phone. We had somebody the other day, mom gave a word while we were on television, someone called in when mom gave the word and that person, they were healed. They said, “It’s exactly what I had. I received it.” And we have people that will pray for you and minister to you and so we’d love to hear from you. We’ve got hundreds of hours of teaching on the internet for free about the subject. Blessings.

 

  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 charischristiancenter.com.

 

  Friends, I certainly hope that you’ve enjoyed the program today and it’s ministering to you to move into that which God has for you. And I wanna say a great big thank you to all of our partners for helping us share this gospel across the United States and across the world. It’s because of our partners that we can take this message of grace and faith around the world. If you would like to join our partners and receive that blessing, give us a call today. Blessings.

 

  Thanks for watching “Grace for Today.” This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000, or to partner online, go to charischristiancenter.com/give. You can write us at P.O. Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on “Grace for Today.”