I also wanted to share from the memory
verse Matthew chapter 9 verse 13.
It is not, verse 12 he says, it
is not those who are healthy who need
a physician but those who are sick, but
go and learn what this means.
I desire compassion and not sacrifice, for I
did not come to call the righteous but
sinners.
I just wanted to underline a few phrases
in this verse.
Go and learn.
What did Jesus mean by saying go and
learn?
It could mean a few different things but
to me what it meant to me at
least was, Jesus was telling the Pharisees, Jesus
was telling the experts in the law, go
and learn what it means.
And he says in this verse in Matthew
9 13, I desire compassion and not sacrifice.
Go and learn what that means.
And one of the things that we can
go and learn is, as we've been taught,
to go to the Old Testament and read
what the verse means in the Old Testament.
And so that verse is from Hosea chapter
6 verse 6.
So I just wanted to read it there
because it reads differently than it reads in
Matthew 9 13.
And so as Jesus was saying go and
learn what this means, he was talking to
a group of people who knew Hosea chapter
6 verse 6 very well.
But the way he said it was different
than the way it read in Hosea chapter
6 verse 6.
And that's what Jesus went and learned from
the verse.
So let me read how it reads in
the verse and that's how I learned something
from the verse too when I went at
least going back to Hosea chapter 6 verse
6.
Hosea chapter 6 verse 6 says, for I
delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, and in
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
So I learned something very simple but powerful
that God calls loyalty and God calls compassion
the same thing.
How do I explain that?
How do I build that out, that thought?
God wants loyalty.
God says I want loyalty not sacrifice.
I want you to be loyal to me.
That's one of the most important words that
I think in my Christian life, that above
all else Lord I want to be loyal
to you.
How do I show that I love you?
The word that I've associated with love is
loyalty.
We talk about love the Lord our God
with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
To me that word loyalty is a very
important word.
I want to be loyal to you Lord
Jesus.
But here Jesus explains to me what loyalty
means because I'll tell you in my human
dictionary definition of loyalty the word compassion doesn't
come up.
When I think about being loyal to Jesus
what I don't automatically translate that into is
be compassionate to other people.
There's a difference and there's a big difference
between being loyal to God in my mind
and being compassionate to other people.
And I find that that was one of
Jesus's great revelations that he explained many times
when the scribes asked him what is the
greatest of all the commandments?
Again I'm sure some of them would have
thought love the Lord your God with all
your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
That's the greatest.
But the wisdom of Jesus was to combine
that with love your neighbor as yourself.
And the new commandment he gave combined the
two as well where he said love one
another as I have loved you.
So do you want to be devoted to
Jesus?
Lord I want to have my first love.
You know that phrase simple and pure devotion
to Jesus.
That's where deception begins when we lose our
simple and pure devotion to Jesus.
Do we want to keep that?
That's loyalty.
That's what Hosea said.
Be loyal to God.
I'm not interested in sacrifices.
I'm not interested in burnt offerings.
I'm interested in loyalty.
And the Pharisees took that loyalty and made
it ruthless obedience to the law.
Rigid by keeping all the detailed commandments but
missing out on love and mercy.
And Jesus changed that completely and he said
Pharisees you missed the mark because loyalty to
God is compassion.
And so that's the first reality that I
discovered.
Jesus said go and learn what it means.
You go and meditate on the book of
Hosea and think about the book of Hosea
where this prophet had to marry a woman
who was not faithful to him and bore
children and left the children alone while she
left him and deserted him.
And said you go and learn what loyalty
means.
I see how Hosea had to keep welcoming
his wife back and having compassion on her.
And he was showing from his own heart
how compassion was the mark of faithfulness and
loyalty.
And so to me that informs what loyalty
means.
What devotion means.
We exalt devotion as I mentioned 2nd Corinthians
11 3 Revelation 2 4 and 5 where
it says you've lost your first love or
simple and pure devotion.
These are words that are very important to
us.
But this verse tells me to go and
learn what that word loyalty means and it
means compassion.
And compassion to whom is also interesting.
It's compassion to sinners.
And the context of this in Matthew chapter
9 is he was spending time with people
who clearly were not obeying the law, were
not following God in any way.
What does that mean for our lives?
Does that mean that we have to spend
all of our time, do we spend most
of our time with sinners?
Because that's what Jesus did.
How do we show compassion?
What does that compassion mean?
A lot of, I know when I was
in my 20s I also sometimes have subscribed
to the view that oh you got to
be hanging out with the worldly people going
to wherever they're hanging out.
Because look Jesus did it.
Look there's verses that support it.
I've got to spend all my time with
them.
But I love the world.
That's why I was going.
It wasn't because I had a burden for
them.
I wanted to do what they were doing
and they were doing all the fun things
in my mind.
That's not what this means.
I read the Amplified translation of this verse
and it helped me.
Let me read the Amplified version of Matthew
9 13.
Go and learn what this scripture means.
I desire compassion for those in distress.
They're not animal sacrifices.
For I did not come to call to
repentance the self-proclaimed righteous who see no
need for change.
But I came to call sinners who recognize
their sin and actively seek forgiveness.
That helped me a lot because I can
hang out with a lot of Christians, non
-Christians at work, this and that, who are
not recognizing anything wrong with them.
Who are not actively seeking forgiveness.
And it relieves a lot of burden.
But for me to have compassion, anybody in
the world, no matter what their situation is,
tax collectors, horrible sinners, and to have a
deep burden and compassion for them over anybody
who is self-righteous or proclaiming to be
righteous.
I thought about Jesus's remarkable love for sinners
when he said that I did not come
to call the righteous but sinners.
That's a remarkable statement if you think about
this.
Jesus grew up in the purest of all
locations, which is heaven.
I mean, sorry, he was there for all
eternity.
He didn't grow up there.
He was there for all eternity.
And the purest of all places, heaven.
The cleanest, the sweetest smelling place.
Then he came down to earth.
And the places he seems to go visit
are the smelliest.
He obviously was not attracted to the smell.
He was, sorry, he felt a tug towards
it, but he definitely did enjoy the smell.
But he was willing to go to those
places.
And he said he came for the dirtiest
places.
And that gives me a sense of what
compassion truly means.
It's where it's inconvenient, where it requires me
to be bent beyond my comfort zone.
That's what compassion is.
I was thinking about this in the story,
as I think about love, you know, all
of us who are parents, when we have
children, we understand the word love in a
brand new way.
All even all definitions of love as even
as it relates to our spouses is thrown
out the window, when we see the love
we have for our children.
And whenever when all of us, I'm sure
we can relate to me when I have
when we have our firstborn child.
We look at that child and what is
what is the word adjective to use to
the love we have for our child?
Infinite, limitless.
There's no word.
You say I love chocolate.
You say you love different things.
Well, that's that's not the right word to
talk about that we love our children.
There's no word.
But how much how much do we love
our children, even as they're growing up?
Limitless.
There's no limit to it.
And I'm sure, again, we're talking about healthy
families, we're talking about functional families, we're talking
about families where there's that normalcy, not abusive
families.
That's how normal families ought to be.
They look at their children, and there's a
limitless love.
And then we have another child.
Well, so child number one had infinite love.
What happens when child number two comes?
There's also infinite love.
Wait, hold on.
I thought all that infinite love went out
of the first one.
There's no love to give to anybody else.
But somehow we find we can have infinite
love for multiple children.
And that is how we can understand the
heart of God, too.
We can have infinite love.
Of course, you understand what I mean.
It's not truly infinite like God is.
But there's no word to describe.
There's no limit to it.
Sacrifice and things like that come easy to
us.
But then some families have this.
Some families have a child where a child
has some defect.
A limb doesn't grow properly.
A muscle doesn't work properly.
Some defect where there's a challenge in the
ear or the tongue or the eye, can't
speak properly.
Or maybe there's a defect in the brain,
can't understand properly, what we call typical.
And you got this other child that doesn't
have typical capabilities.
What's the love that a normal parent has
for such a child?
It's not infinite.
It's more than that.
There's a special word that doesn't exist in
the dictionary.
It's different than the love you have for
every child that comes across.
For the child that has a ailment, that
has some shortcomings, that has some disability, for
no fault of their own were born with
a crooked arm or personality or something that
limits them.
And a loving parent does extra, goes over
and above for that.
And I thought about that as Jesus looked
at sinners.
So many of them, so many of them,
because of circumstances outside their control from a
young age.
When I look at my life, when I
look at what I have been given, what
I've been taught to me from the day
I was born, you know what that is.
But even beyond that, if you looked at
how my parents raised me to study, my
mom especially made me work hard, took away
the cricket bats, hid all of those things,
were willing to face shouting and ridicule and
all kinds of things to get me to
study, I would not be in this country
if it wasn't for that.
If it wasn't for my parents pushing me
to work really hard, I didn't deserve that.
I look at so many families whose parents
didn't give that to their children.
They have different situations, some of them, many
of them still in India or other parts
of the world, much better than I was,
much kinder than I was.
God gave me so much.
God didn't give all of them that much.
The question is, how do I look towards
them?
Is my heart a compassion?
Because God didn't give them what he gave
me, that's much I know.
How does God look towards such people?
People who've had abuse in their life from
a young age, people whose children have died
untimely deaths, children who grew up with poverty
and abusive parents and lack of education and
didn't have any opportunities for working, didn't have
the ability to grow their mind the way
they could have.
They're struggling to make it for all of
their lives.
How does God look at them with deficiencies
in their life?
God says, I came for them.
And just as God loves all of us
infinitely, God has a special love.
He says that, I care for the orphans,
I care for the widows, I care for
those.
And I care for those, I have a
special love.
And that's kind of where this verse has
meaning for me.
The question is, who is that maimed, handicapped
person?
It is those around us, and it is
us ourselves.
And God says, I came, I came to
call on people like you.
And to look at those people who have
less fortunate than God says, just like a
parent has special love for the handicapped child,
Jesus has special love for those who didn't
have much.
And so rather than complaining about our lot
in life, what if we saw Jesus as
having a special love for us?
For those who don't have much?
Who we feel God has given us a
bad deal.
God's given us a raw deal.
This is what this verse means.
Jesus says, I came not to call the
righteous, but to call sinners.
And I like that word that Jesus used,
I came to call, because it took on
a new meaning for me as I look
at my phone.
And I thought about Jesus is having a
phone in heaven.
And who does Jesus call?
Who's on his call log?
You want to get Jesus's phone, and you
go to his call history, and you say,
who's on his call history?
You know, it's on my call history, my
wife.
But Jesus said, you know who I call?
I call sinners, who know that they fall
short, and are seeking a way out.
If you're hearing this message online or in
person, you're probably thinking you fall short, and
you want a way out.
Jesus says, I want to call such people.
Hold on.
And you know, there's that verse in Luke
chapter 15, where he says, he leaves the
99 righteous to go find the one who's
a sinner.
That too, it was because the Pharisees were
grumbling.
As I was reading this passage in Luke
15, I was thinking, thank you God for
the Pharisees, for grumbling, because they gave me
this beautiful story of the prodigal son, and
gave me these beautiful verses.
If they hadn't been grumbling, I wouldn't have
gotten these things.
And I thought about Jesus talking to the
righteous 99, and then he hears a sinner
calling for help.
And he says, righteous folks, sorry, I got
to go.
I got to take this call.
Who's the important person Jesus is going to
take the call for?
For the sinner, who knows that he falls
short, and wants forgiveness, wants help.
That's the only thing Jesus wants for us.
That is true humility.
And what the Lord was also telling me
was, that's the humility we as Christians need
to have too.
We do fall short, but do we feel
like we've suddenly arrived?
That's what the sinners are to find when
they come into the presence of God, in
the church of God, when they find the
body of Christ.
They say that they too are sinners who
are in need of repentance.
And so they say, who comes to join
the altar call?
Well, everybody is at the altar call, because
we all fall short.
And so the sinners feel welcome to kneel
at the feet of Jesus, because that's where
all of us are there too.
Don't we want to be on Jesus' call
logs?
Don't we want to be one of the
favorites that Jesus calls?
Who are the favorites that Jesus calls?
And I saw from this verse, Jesus came
to call the sinners, who are saying, you
want help?
I'll call you.
I stand at the door and knock.
I'm calling you to repent.
Of course, He's not calling you to remain
in your sin.
And the woman caught in adultery was brought
to Jesus, but there was a cry inside
of her.
I don't want this life.
Who knows what she went through?
Lack of parents, abusive parents, whatever it is.
Do we think we're any better?
But there was a call, cry, an unspoken
cry that we don't read in the scriptures.
And Jesus said, I'm here for you.
I'll protect you from all the stones.
I don't condemn you either.
Go and sin no more.
And that's the heart God wants from all
of us, from the youngest to the oldest.
And as we become more obedient, we can
lose that cry, that we still need Jesus,
that we still...
And it's good to see who are the
people Jesus is calling maybe, and to ask
ourselves, Lord, are you calling me?
And, you know, we know that verse also,
Jesus is intimate with the righteous.
He calls those who fear the Lord, Psalm
25, 14.
God shares the secrets of the righteous.
He's intimate with the righteous.
When He calls those who fear the Lord,
what is He telling them?
I'll show you what I feel He's telling
them.
1 John chapter 4.
1 John is a letter written by a
fisherman who became an apostle and walked with
God for decades.
And near the end of his life, he
writes 1 John.
And this is the secrets, I feel one
of the secrets God shares with those who
follow Him.
1 John chapter 4, verse 7.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love
is from God.
And everyone who loves is born of God
and knows God.
The one who does not love does not
know God, for God is love.
So now let's describe what love is.
John, the apostle, inspired by the Holy Spirit,
defines what love is.
The love of God, the true, pure love.
But this is the love of God that
was manifested in us, that God sent His
only begotten Son, that we might live through
Him.
And this is love.
Not that we love God, but that He
loved us and sent His Son to be
the propitiation for our sins.
So here's the conclusion.
Verse 11.
Beloved, if God so loved us, let us
love Him back.
That's not what it says.
Read verse 11 of 1 John chapter 4.
Beloved, if God so loved us, and you
know that He loved you so much, love
Him back?
No, John picked up on the mystery that
Jesus also picked up.
Loyalty to God is love one another.
And see verse 12.
What an incredible verse 1 John 4, 12
is.
No one has seen God at any time.
We have no idea what God looks like.
We have no idea.
We think we know.
We have not the faintest idea.
But if we love one another, God abides
in us.
And here's a beautiful word.
Perfection happens.
Love God.
The love of God is perfected in us.
Not just we become great, we become excellent.
The love of God is perfected in us
as we seek to love one another, as
we seek to grow in compassion.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us find the
freedom that God wants to give us by
seeing that loyalty to God is compassion to
one another.
Let us be on God's call log history.
He says, you call on me and I'll
answer you.
Seek me and you'll find me.
And you seek me with all your heart.
And God's calling sinners all the time.
His phone log is full of people who
are just willing to say something simple.
Lord Jesus, I fall short.
I want to find a way out.
And He's calling you.
And He has a special love for such
sinners.
That's the only thing that separates us.
And He sets aside even the righteous, Luke
15, 7.
He even sets aside everybody sitting in this
room has been obedient this week or listening
online.
He sets all of them aside.
And He says the people in this room
who are saying, Lord Jesus, I fell short.
I'm estranged from you.
I don't match up.
I want the way out.
He rushes in.
He stops whatever He does and whatever He's
doing to call us.
This is the gospel that we must become
more and more familiar with.
This is the Jesus that we must become
more and more familiar with.
And God says, like I was in this
world, you go and be the same.
May God help us.