The Posture of Compassion

I don't really know exactly what brought you to church today.

I found out from my son.

I have three kids, two girls and a boy.

And when my son, who is now 12, when he was six, he informed me or I learned that there were actually a lot of different reasons people came to church.

He was sitting at the table and he was playing with one of those miniature gumball machines.

You know, you put a little penny in and you move the lever and a little gumball comes out.

He had purchased this with his jewels from the kids' store here at church.

And he's playing with it and he stops and he looks at me and he says, Mom, thank you for telling me about God.

What mom doesn't want to hear that?

I'm like, Harrison, oh buddy, you're so welcome.

And he said, Well, mom, because you tell me about God, we go to church.

And because we go to church, I get jewels at the kid store.

And because I get jewels at the kids store, I got my gumball machine.

So thank you for telling me about God.

So whatever brought you here today, if it's gumball machines or children, I am so glad you're here.

And it's because I believe so clearly that the word that God has for us today is an in-season now word.

Where this message was birthed from was a very personal journey for me.

And to share it amongst all of you is a little bit vulnerable for me because it exposes a little bit of my heart that possibly needed a little bit of correction.

And so it's a little vulnerable, but I feel like it's so necessary.

And I felt really compelled that God was saying this was the message for the body this weekend.

And so what happened is I was coming into my quiet time with the Lord one day, and this was on the heels of some things that had happened in our nation recently, and it just felt like every time I was turning on the news or on social media, there was just something new letting me know that we are moving further and further away from God's principles.

And I came into this quiet time burdened and heavy and frustrated and maybe even a little bit fearful.

I just came in heavy and I said to the Lord during this time, Lord, come quickly.

So I just said, Lord, come quickly.

Now, of course, as believers, we are so excited about the time that we will be reunited with the Lord.

But on this particular day, it wasn't that excitement of wanting to be with him that I was really saying that.

I was saying it out of an idea of I just wanted everything to stop.

It just felt like things were getting out of control and I just wanted it to stop.

And since I know that in the end I'll be on the winning side, if he would just come today, it would all be really great.

But the Lord so preciously began to speak to my heart.

And he began to stir in me an idea.

He had me close my eyes and he said, Belinda, I want you to just see something.

And immediately I had a vision in my mind of a sea of faces, just a sea of endless faces, some that I recognized even.

And he said, Belinda, these are all people who, if I were to come today, would be eternally separated from me because they've not chosen to follow me.

And what ended up happening in my heart that morning is I began to grow a sympathy and a compassion for anyone, any of those people who, for whatever reason, in their lives, the heartbreak, the circumstances, the experiences that they had, whatever happened to them, that made them decide that they wanted to turn away from God.

That wanted them to decide in their lives that they could do it on their own.

And I began to grow a huge compassion.

I was actually overwhelmingly burdened, that I began to cry uncontrollably.

And I'm not a super over-emotional person.

So this was very unique for me to have that type of feeling.

But that is how I felt when I thought about all of those people.

And then the Lord reminded me of this.

In 2 Peter 3:9, he says this the Lord is not slow in keeping his promises, as some account slowness to be.

2 Peter 3:9

But instead, he is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but for all, for all to come to repentance.

And he said to me, Belinda, when you're saying come quickly, it's not that I'm being slow, it's that I'm being patient.

Because I want all to come to repentance.

So today the title of my message is The Posture of Compassion.

I believe that we have to be people who walk in the knowledge of Christ's love, who live in the freedom that Christ's forgiveness brings, who are committed to the Word of God to direct our thoughts and actions in our lives, so that when we encounter the lost and the hurting and even the rebellious, we are able to have our response, our posture, be of that of the compassion that Jesus Christ showed us.

Because what we know is that what He did for us, He will do for others.

And so we have to ask ourselves: are we living and walking with a posture of compassion toward the hurting and loss?

If for some reason in your life you feel like you're in a war, maybe it's a culture war, maybe it's in a relationship war, if you are in some sort of war, may I ask today that compassion be your commanding officer.

May compassion lead the charge of that situation.

Because we cannot confuse who the real enemy is.

In Ephesians 6.12 of the New Living Translation, it says this for we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies.

Sometimes we feel like we are, but we're not.

We are fighting against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.

We cannot embrace the teachings of Jesus Christ and not live as compassionate people toward the hurting and lost and brokenhearted.

So today we're gonna spend some time in the book of Jonah.

If you want to turn to Jonah, it's in the Old Testament, toward the end, in between Obadiah and Micah, or you can use your electronic device if that's what you have.

But we're gonna spend time in Jonah.

Now, Jonah is made up of four chapters.

The first two chapters of Jonah, more than likely, are the ones that you think about if I talk about Jonah.

But we're spending time today in chapters three and four.

I'm gonna summarize for you chapters one and two in case you're not familiar.

Jonah was an Israelite prophet.

He was a prophet sent by God to go to the city of Nineveh, which was 500 miles east of Israel.

And he was sent to go tell the Assyrians that lived in Nineveh about the forgiveness of God so that they would turn from their evil ways and follow God.

What you need to know about Nineveh is that these Assyrians had been terrorizing the Israelites for hundreds of years.

They had brought death and destruction upon them for so many years.

They were literally the archenemy of Israel.

So God was essentially telling Jonah to go into the enemy's camp.

The ones who probably killed people that he knew.

Go into their camp and tell them of my love and my forgiveness.

Well, Jonah wants nothing to do with it.

Probably for a couple of reasons.

One, he probably thought he'd get killed if he went to Nineveh.

Two, he didn't think they deserved it.

They've been terrorizing his people for many years.

So he says, No thanks.

I'm out.

So he flees to Tarshish on a boat, which is in the opposite direction west.

He's on this boat and a terrible storm comes while he's on the boat.

And everyone on the boat's like, What's gonna happen?

This storm is terrible, we're gonna die.

And Jonah kind of raises his hand and he's like, Yeah, I think this might be my fault.

So you're gonna have to throw me over for this storm to stop.

And so they do, they throw him over, the storm stops, but a big fish comes and swallows Jonah up and keeps him in his belly for three days and three nights.

And while he's in the belly of this fish, he has this epiphany.

Oh, you were serious, God, about me following you, about your about obedience.

And I God's like, yeah, no duh.

So he spits Jonah out, and Jonah is given a second chance to obey God.

Aren't we thankful for second chances?

So thankful.

God is a God of second chances.

So he gives Jonah a second chance to follow.

And this we're gonna pick up in chapter three of uh, verse one of chapter three.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach to it the message that I tell you.

So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.

Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, a three-day journey in extent.

And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk.

Then he cried out and said, Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown.

Okay, so I don't want to assume that I know Jonah.

I mean, we clearly were born a few years apart, and I never met him personally.

But I do know in chapters one and two, he's quite reluctant to obey God, and he still hasn't had a change of heart about the people of Nineveh.

So I feel like, you know, if you're commanded by God to go tell someone about forgiveness, you might go with some excitement, some zeal, because you're about to give them some good news.

But see, I don't think Jonah, I don't necessarily think that's exactly how he went to them.

I believe he went more like this.

So in 40 days, Nineveh will be overthrown.

Let me know what you decide.

Like that's how I feel he went, very reluctant.

But do you want to know the amazing thing about what happened?

It's all of Nineveh came to the decision to turn from their evil ways and ask God for forgiveness.

Even the king declared that everyone in the city would wear sackcloth and fast, even the animals.

They were having the animals fast, so they would ensure that God would forgive them.

This is good news for you and me because God is going to accomplish on this earth what God wants to accomplish.

And he is going to use whoever he needs to use it.

He can use a donkey, he can use a reluctant prophet, he can use you and me to accomplish his purposes on this earth.

That's good news.

That's good news.

So today I want to talk about three components that I believe it takes for us to walk in a posture of compassion so that the hurting and the broken and the lost can know the forgiveness that we have known from God.

And the first is this we must know the character of God.

See, we are loved because of the character of God, not because of our behavior.

We are loved because of the character of God, not because of our behavior.

I feel like many of us, we are all sent, but many of us go into the places that we've been called to, our businesses, maybe our schools, the football field, basketball courts, whatever it is we've been called, and we go with the attitude of Jonah.

A little bit reluctant.

Maybe it inconveniences us just a little bit to step outside the box.

Maybe the people we're surrounded by, we don't necessarily feel they deserve God's love and forgiveness like we deserved it.

For whatever reason, we go with the attitude of Jonah rather than going with the compassion of Christ.

But in Romans 5.8, we find this.

But God demonstrates his own love toward us that in while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 2.4.

Or do you think lightly of his riches, of his kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?

People need to understand the character of God is kind and tolerant and patient.

He is prepared a way for sinners to come to him.

He is all-knowing, all-powerful.

God is full of love and mercy.

He is supreme and sovereign.

He is unchanging and wise.

He is faithful.

He is just.

God is trustworthy.

He is forgiving.

He is our salvation, and he is everything we need to conquer the circumstances that life brings us.

That is the character of God in our lives.

And if we don't understand the character of God, then it's really difficult for us to have compassion toward those who might hurt us or who are feel like they're against us.

We have to know the character of God.

Then we're going to pick up in chapter four.

So here we are, then the people of Nineveh have just decided to turn their hearts toward God.

And this is verse 1 of chapter 4.

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry.

Okay, so you know when you go to a foreign country and you have the word in English that you want to say, but you don't know what their word is in that country for that, or trying to find out what it is.

I have a mom word.

See, I've been speaking mom for many years because I have um children that are 14, 12, and 9.

So I've spoken mob language for a long.

I don't know what else to call him except that he's being a little toot.

Jonah is being a toot, but it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry at these people asking for God's forgiveness.

Let's read on.

It says, So he prayed to the Lord and said, Oh Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country?

Therefore I fled previously to Tarshish, for I know that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm.

Therefore, now, oh Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

He's a little dramatic.

This is literally how I feel like he's talking to God.

You are so kind and you are so gracious and you are so patient.

It is so frustrating.

It sounds hilarious, but have we ever, ever done this?

Have we ever felt this way?

And then here's what God says.

Then the Lord said in verse 4, Is it right for you to be angry?

So Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city.

In mom language again, this is Jonah throwing a temper tantrum.

Okay?

God asks him, Is it right for you to be angry?

And he's like, Huh! And he runs.

Timper tantrum.

There he made himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade till he might see what would become of the city.

And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery.

So Jonah was very grateful for the plant.

Oh my goodness, if you've ever wondered what kind and compassionate God we have, here is a little toot that is frustrated and throwing a temper tantrum.

He runs out of the city and God grows a plant to bring him shade.

He's a really kind, kind God.

I've had a child throw a temper tantrum.

I didn't give him any shade.

But it was for purpose also.

But as morning dawned the next day, God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered.

And it happened when the sun arose that God prepared a vehement east wind, and the sun beat on Jonah's head so that he grew faint.

Then he wished death for himself and said, It is better for me to die than to live.

Again with the drama.

Then God said to Jonah, Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?

And he said, It is right for me to be angry even to death.

I'm not talking to God that way.

This is Jonah talking to God that way.

But the Lord said, This is powerful, you have had pity on the plant for which you have not labored, you did not make it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night.

And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left, not to mention all the livestock.

So God is pointing out to him that he had more compassion on a plant that was only around for 24 hours than on an entire city of people.

Now I make an interesting observation here, because what I see about this plant is this plant helped Jonah in some way.

The people of Nineveh did not.

How often is it easy for us to find compassion because we get something in return?

What about when we don't get anything in return?

The true condition of our hearts is revealed when God asks us to do something that we don't want to do.

The true condition of our hearts is revealed when God asks us to do something that we don't want to do.

So the second component of walking in a posture of compassion, the first was knowing the character of God.

The second is knowing the closeness of God.

Trusting God with our lives can only happen in a close relationship to Him.

This is done by spending time with Him in His Word in prayer.

We need to passionately pursue the Father so as we get to know Him, we can accept His methods, His ways, and His timing.

It's really hard to trust a God that you don't know.

The practice of living in nearness is not just for us to be a light to the world, but it is for our personal journey.

So when we are faced with the dark times, when something comes against us and we need peace, we need something to sustain us, we need comfort, we are able to draw on the nearness and closeness of God to bring us the peace in an unstable situation.

When you have not spent time getting into a relationship with God where you feel near to Him, then when you need to draw on that peace of God, you feel empty.

But when you can draw on the nearness of God because you've cultivated a close relationship with someone that you trust, then any time that life comes against you, any time that you feel unstable, He brings stability.

The closeness of God will allow you to have compassion on others because you will be able to overflow from the relationship that He's pouring into you, and you will be able to overflow that to others.

So recently I went to my hair salon to get my hair done, and it's been a salon I've been at for years.

They know me well there.

In fact, the owners are members of Gateway.

We love them, they're precious, and we love the salon.

And I had gone into the restroom to put on a smock, and as I went into the restroom, I found a lady's handbag sitting on the counter.

And I looked around and there was nobody there, so I thought, oh, somebody left their handbag.

I'm gonna go turn it into the front desk.

So I grabbed the handbag and I'm walking to the front desk and I am met in the hallway by a woman, and you can tell by the way she's looking at me in the handbag that it's her handbag.

And I say, Oh, is this yours?

And she says, Yes, it is.

Why are you stealing my purse?

Oh no, ma'am, I wasn't stealing your purse.

I found it in the in the restroom and I'm turning it into the front desk.

No, you're not.

You're stealing my purse and you're headed out the front door.

No, ma'am, I'm I'm really not.

Would you come to the front desk with me?

Sure.

Absolutely, I'll come to the front desk.

So we go to the front desk and she begins telling her story of what she has seen.

And she is very convincing and explaining that I am stealing her handbag.

That I actually had to stop and ask, was I stealing her handbag?

I might have, I didn't know me to be a kleptomaniac, but I might have been stealing her handbag.

She was very convincing.

And so she begins looking into her purse and she pulls out her wallet and she opens it and she says, All my money is gone.

And she rattles off the bills that she knows that she put in her wallet.

I had a 50, I had a 20, I had a 10, and she says, I want to see her wallet.

Well, at this point of the story, some of you might have been frustrated, but see, I actually knew something she didn't know about me.

This was gonna be my ticket to freedom.

Because normally this is not a positive thing about me, but today it was gonna work in my favor that this mama never remembers to carry cash.

I just forget to carry cash.

And so I have never been so eager and happy in all of my life to show someone my empty wallet.

Look, I have no money.

Look, see, there is no money in here.

And so, of course, the salon acknowledges that they're so apologetic that I, you know, had to go through that experience.

They sent me on their way.

I'm not sure exactly how they resolved that with her.

But through that experience, two things happen.

The first was this I realize it never feels good to be misunderstood.

It just doesn't.

Have you ever been misunderstood?

It doesn't feel good to be misunderstood.

How often is God misunderstood in his motives, his actions, and his intentions toward his children?

How often do we misunderstand what God is doing?

And then on the second side of that, I thought about this woman.

Now I never had a reason to get frustrated or to feel defensive toward her because I knew I hadn't done anything wrong.

But when I thought about her, I thought, she doesn't know me at all.

She doesn't know my character.

She doesn't know that I was had the intention and the motive to do something good, to try to restore something to her that was lost.

She had no reason to believe that my intentions toward her were good.

From her perspective, all she could see is that I was trying to harm her in some way.

This is what happens in our life when circumstances come against us.

If we have not cultivated a closeness to God, then we can very easily misunderstand his motives and intentions toward us.

God's intentions toward us are always good.

His thoughts toward us are always good.

But when life comes against us and it doesn't feel right, we could have a tendency to say, God, why are you against me?

This is why it's so important that we develop a closeness to God.

Psalm 73, 28 says this, but it is good for me to draw near to God.

I have put my trust in the Lord God that I may declare all your works.

So we have to have a knowledge of the character of God.

We have to know the closeness of God.

And then third, we have to know the charge of God.

The basis of Jonah, the entire book, is God saying, go.

That's what he says to us.

We must go.

We can hold nothing back.

We cannot compartmentalize our belief in Jesus Christ as just something we do on the side, but it has to be infiltrated into every part of our lives.

It has to be infiltrated into our work, into our schools, into the recreation that we do, so that when we are encountering somebody who believes differently than us, has chosen a different lifestyle than us, that has seemingly rejected God, what oozes out of us, our first response is that of compassion.

That is the charge because this is by definition what compassion is: a feeling of deep sorrow for another accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering.

Compassion requires action.

Being compassionate is not being weak.

Jesus is not weak, yet he is the most compassionate person we've ever known.

See, we have to understand that the weapons that we fight with, they are not the weapons of this world.

They are supernatural weapons that have the ability to demolish strongholds.

That's the weapons we get to fight with.

Compassion is a supernatural weapon that can demolish strongholds if we let it.

If you read the New Testament, you will find that throughout the entire New Testament, when any miracle of any kind was done, many times before it will say Jesus was moved with compassion.

There's so many examples, but let me give you a few.

When feeding the 5,000 in Matthew 14, when the prodigal son came home in the parable in Luke 15, the healing of the man with the withered hand in Mark 3, the raising of the widow's son in Luke 7, the two blind men gained sight in Matthew 20, all of these say that before the miracle happened, Jesus was moved with compassion.

Can I submit to you today that on this earth we are Jesus, hands and feet?

And there is a world out there who needs the miracle of salvation.

They may need physical miracles, they also may need emotional miracles, but we know they need the miracle of salvation.

And can I submit to you that possibly is God showing us through his example that we, as his hands and feet, must be moved with compassion first before they get their miracle?

Compassion precedes the miracle.

This is a charge for the church because we are the ones who have the ability to tell them.

Spurgeon says sinners do not come to Christ themselves.

We have to tell them.

It is our duty, it is our job as believers to walk in a posture of compassion.

Because I believe that it will be the compassion, the kindness that leads them to want to know God's love.

Because it's the kindness that leads them to repentance.

We've never been in a greater position to love in our country than we are right now.

We've never been in a greater position to love.

Love, compassion, takes action.

But what I love about the end of that scripture in love, in deed and truth, is this that when we love in action, we don't have to compromise our convictions.

That's the truth part.

And we know the truth will set them free.

So we don't have to compromise our convictions to love them compassionately, love them boldly, love them with all the compassion that Christ loved us.

Because what he does for us, he will do for others.

So on that day, and during that quiet time for me, I was changed.

God shifted some things in my heart.

And I want to challenge you today.

If there is an area in your life, maybe you're battling a relationship, maybe you're battling some sort of issue that has not been resolved, maybe there's an injustice going on in your life and you're looking for justice.

Can I charge you today that whatever area that is, if you would first allow yourself to be moved with compassion, I believe you might see your miracle.

So if you would bow your heads and close your eyes, Father God, we first want to thank you.

It was your kindness that led us to repentance, and God, we are so grateful for the eternal life that you gave us through your Son, Jesus Christ.

And because we are so grateful, it is our pleasure, it is what we want to do on this earth to tell others about you.

Would you please grow in us a heart of compassion where our eyes can see and our heart can feel your heartbeat for every person that does not know you?

God, renew in us if there is an area of our lives that we have held back from you in any way.

Would you renew a right spirit in us?

Would you give us a clean heart, oh God, so that we can love like you love.

We can serve like you serve.

Father, we commit to you today that we will live extraordinary lives for you.

And we will walk with a posture of compassion.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.