Jim Harper - The Work of the Holy Spirit in New Testament Times - Class 6 - Exhortation

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:01

   This is a special privilege, brothers and sisters, for Sister Esther and myself. We sit on the other side of the North American continent and we read about you in the magazines and we know some of you, and this opportunity to become acquainted or reacquainted is a privilege that you may not fully appreciate. How much we are enjoying this and are glad to be in your presence.

2. 0:30

   About 3 hours ago, your brothers and sisters in the Meriden meeting met, as we do now, to break bread and to drink the wine and remembrance of our Lord and now. As this circle of remembrance continues, it began in the Eastern Hemisphere many, many hours ago today. And it’s our turn, brothers and sisters, to join that circle of remembrance and to do this before our God on high and our Lord Jesus. We’re glad to be here. 40 years ago. I can still remember and see the little girl in my mind’s eye, in her shabby pink coat and her thin cotton jersey. And she might have been about eight or nine years old at that time, which was about the beginning of December 1966. I was just finishing up some work in Chicago. And I was living on the South side of Chicago in the YMCA, about to go back east after that, and it was a bitterly cold day in Chicago, just about the beginning of winter. For a reason that I can’t remember right now. I went out of my room at the Y and went down the street. Possibly to mail a letter.

3. 2:10

   I can’t quite remember why I was outside at midday, but because of the cold I took off and I ran. I could do that a bit better in those days and. Coming up the street in the other direction. Was this little girl and she was quite a little imp.

4. 2:36

   She got right in my way, probably half a block. She got right in my way. She planted her feet and she spread out her arms like this and she had this huge smile on her face as if to say I’m not going to let. You get by and I think about that and had a child today wouldn’t dare to do that. You know the the world has robbed its children of their innocence.

5. 3:02

   Or the right to be innocent. Well, I ran up to this little girl with her holding her territory, and I stopped. And of course, I’d already noticed that her her coat was wide open. And I thought, oh, you poor child. And I squatted down in front of her, and I grabbed the twins of her coat and I pulled them together around her. And I can’t remember just what I said, but something probably about, you know, sweetheart, it’s way too cold. And then I realized why her coat was open. There were no buttons on her coat. A little thread here and a little thread there where the buttons used to be and it didn’t matter what the temperature was because my heart melted.

6. 4:02

   And I looked back on that, brothers and sisters, and I didn’t do anything if there had been a. Store there. Would I have gone in? Would I have had the faith to do something? You know? Those were hard times, I suppose. I was in Graduate School. I didn’t know what a credit card was.

7. 4:22

   Never owned one at that point in my life. Probably being a graduate student didn’t have much cash in my pocket either. And I don’t know what I have had the faith to go into a store and try to convince the store owner to to give her something and and to just give me a bill.

8. 4:40

   But it didn’t happen, and it didn’t happen and. It passed and the little girl skipped off down the street and basically disappeared in time and space. As far as I know, I’ve never seen her again in our culture and in our language, it would be fair to say. That I felt a tremendous sense of compassion for that little girl, the brothers and sisters, from a biblical standpoint and from God’s standpoint, I’m not sure that’s true.

9. 5:28

   I’m not sure that’s true. You see in the Bible. In the Bible, there are three. Old Testament words that are translated compassion. Now you think about that for. And they’re all. Us in our language and our. Language often shapes the way we think and therefore in a. Lot of respects is related to our cultural way of doing things and thinking of things. In our language, if you go to the dictionary and you open it up and you turn to the word compassion. What is it?

10. 6:15

    It’s a noun, isn’t it? It’s a noun. It’s a concept. It’s an intangible thing. And in our culture, yes, I had some compassion. But not in the Bible, You. Come to the New Testament and there are five different words that are translated. Compassion. And they’re all verbs, because compassion. In the Bible is something that we do. It’s.

11. 6:49

    Something that we do. Can I show you another example like this? Open your Bibles to Matthew 11. It has. Occurred to me that the Old Testament language and the New Testament language are both. And I don’t know how else to say this because I don’t want to sound technical, but they are both very verb intensive languages I set out one time to just.

12. 7:19

    Satisfy myself on that and and gave up after a while because there. Was so much evidence for it. But here’s another case, and you know the passage well and in its own right. We’ll come back to compassion. In just a moment, but in its own right, it has a tremendous exhortational value for us. It’s the end of Matthew Chapter 11. It’s at verse 28.

13. 7:45

    Come unto me, all ye that are laden and heavy labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. You may or may not be aware, brothers and sisters, that that word rest is a verb. In fact, if you go in and do a little bit of your own, you know, Bible searching I.

14. 8:16

    Will give you rest. Keys off of just one verb in the Greek, and that made me think. And may I share my thoughts with you? What that means is that rest is what Jesus does to us. It isn’t as if we can say, well, I can come to Jesus and I can. Have some rest if I want if I feel like I need it. Or or not.

15. 8:52

    If the case may be rest is what Jesus does to us. When we come to him and that just. Puts a discipleship in my mind on an entirely. New level Because I say to myself, how often do I believe you know I’m I’m in the truth. I. Have a relationship to God in Christ.

16. 9:16

    And yet I’m agitated. I’m, I’m, I’m bothered. I’m annoyed. I’m distressed. I’ve got all these problems. Brothers and sisters, rest is what Jesus does to us this. Isn’t just an intangible concept that? We can take or leave on the shelf as we like if we. Truly come to Jesus. It’s what he does to us. And that just, well, to say it frankly, it blows me away because I.

17. 9:49

    Can go through my daily life and perhaps. You can feel this way, too, believing I’m in the truth. And so we are brothers and sisters, and God be merciful to us, so we are. But I can go through life without rest. What does that say about my? Relationship with Jesus at those low points in my life.

18. 10:12

    God help us. That’s what he does to us. He gives us rest now. Compassion. Let’s come back to it. It’s a verb as well. Let’s just go back into the Old Testament for a moment.

19. 10:26

    Go back to Isaiah 55. And I just want to give you a couple of illustrations from the Old Testament, a couple from the New, and that will be the essence of this exhortation.

20. 10:54

    Isaiah 55 and verse 7. Or we can go back to verse 6 for connection. Seek ye the Lord while he may. Be found. Call ye upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord. And he will have mercy upon him and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon now that word.

21. 11:37

    Mercy in our King James Version is one of those Hebrew words compassion return to. Him and he will compassion us. With God, it’s not just an abstract concept, it’s what he will do to us. And the parallelism, because there is a parallelism in this verse tells us how God does it. You see, I would have had compassion on that little girl if I could have. Found some buttons for her coat.

22. 12:21

    If I could have done something. He will have compassion. He will abundantly pardon. That’s the parallelism in that passage. And the one phrase interprets the other. God doesn’t just feel sorry for us. He pardons us. If we just simply will turn to Him. He pardons us. That’s how he does it, Micah. Chapter 7 verse 18 Mica 7 verse 18 Who is a God like unto thee? That pardoneth iniquity and passeth by transgression of the remnant of his heritage.

23. 13:32

    He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, and he will have compassion. It’s all one word in the Hebrew. And it’s all a verb which we have spun out a verb phrase or our translators have. He will have compassion on us. He will subdue our iniquities, and thou will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou will perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, which thou has sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. But there it is, brothers and sisters and young people. God doesn’t just feel sorry for us in our plight, in our mortality, in our frailty.

24. 14:27

    In the the temptations that we all feel. If we but turn to him, he will turn again, and compassion us, and subdue our iniquities. Tread Them Under Foot, Genesis 315. Tread them under foot, He will put our enemies under his feet. That’s what God is doing for us in his compassion. We come to the New Testament and we come to the Lord Jesus. We come to the Gospels.

25. 15:13

    Matthew 14. And when we look at our Lord and we know this, don’t we? When we look at our Lord, he interprets God for us and we come to the feeding of the 5000 in Matthew chapter 14 at verse 14.

26. 15:42

    And the rest that he sought with his disciples, by escaping, as it were, to a desert place, is all taken away from him. And the Lord could have feel felt distressed. He could have felt annoyed. He He could have felt put upon

27. 16:00

    and so can we in life. Brother Russ and I were just talking yesterday a little bit about how we like in our lives, brothers and sisters, to create a comfort zone around ourselves. And it and and it’s a it’s a no man’s land. You’re not to encroach on that. Jesus had no comfort zone.

28. 16:22

    He had no comfort zone. And he had the mindset that could cope with that. We need to reduce, we need to shrink the size of the comfort zones that we build around ourself, to insulate ourself from the cares of this life because our Lord has cared for us. And he wants us to do the same. He wants us to find the buttons that I never found. Verse 14.

29. 16:54

    Well verse 13. When Jesus heard of it, he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart, And when the people had heard thereof, 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. Healed their sick. It’s all one word in the Greek was moved with compassion. It was a verb and not.

30. 17:26

    Just a noun. Compassion wasn’t something that he just could take off the shelf and and look at it or think about it the way we do in our language and our culture. But it was the. Very part and parcel of his being and what he did, what he did. And he did something about it. He healed their sick and he fed them. Matthew 15 verse 30.

31. 18:00

    Two, and this is the other feeding. Now of the 4000 the 1A compassion A compassioning of Jews and. Now a compassioning of Gentiles. This is the Lord with whom we have to do verse 32 Then Jesus called his disciples with him, and said unto him, and said, I have compassion on the. Multitude, because they continue with me now three days. And have nothing to eat, and I will not send them away. Fasting, lest they faint in the way. Remember how he.

32. 18:50

    Challenged his disciples on the earlier occasion. How are we going to find bread to feed such a multitude? And somehow their answer. Should have come back. We don’t know, Lord. Help us to find a way in him. But you’ll do it. You’ll find a.

33. 19:08

    Through him help us to find a way. And so he did. He did something about it. He fed them and we. Could go on through the lessons. Let’s let’s take another because these are telling us. About our Lord Luke 7, they’re telling us what we need to know.

34. 19:38

    Because the Lord has compassion on us, we brothers and sisters. In his eyes are the little girl with no buttons on her coat. He met a mother in her deepest morning, verse 11 of Luke 7.

35. 20:03

    It came to pass the day after that he went into a city called Name, and many of his disciples went with him and much people. Now when he came nigh to the gate, to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead. Man carried out the only son of his mother, and she was a. Widow and much people of the city. Was with her, and when the Lord saw her. He had compassion on her, how we need this Lord brothers and sisters, because compassion was something he did and he said to her weep not.

36. 20:55

    And he came, and touched the bear, and they that bare him. Stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up and began to speak. And there came a great fear on all. And they glorified God, saying that a great prophet has risen amongst us, and that God has visited his people he interprets.

37. 21:33

    God’s compassion for us. God has visited his people. One more Luke 10, verse 33. You’ll relate to this right away. You’ll see the point. Instantly, you’ve seen it. Before, I’ll just remind you but a certain Samaritan, Luke 10. Verse 33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed came where he was and when he saw him.

38. 22:23

    He had compassion on him. He compassioned him. Every now and then some of our. English translations will use the word pity instead, and we say what a. Pity, because compassion really does have a warmth to it. But the reason? The translators. Have done that is because pity is something we can do.

39. 22:50

    We can pity someone and that’s. That’s active. It’s a verb. We don’t tend to use the word. Compassion, that’s why. I’m sure that’s why the. Translators have substituted that, and we love the good old King James compassion, but we need to be. Careful because we must compassion. Someone and not just. Have it in an abstract way, He came near to him. Where he was and he had compassion on him and brothers and sisters and young people that totally. Totally encroached on the comfort zone of that Samaritan. Totally.

40. 23:32

    He had to abandon all of his. Plans to help this man, to give them up, to make the effort to take him to the inn, to tend to his needs for some hours. You’d get the sense and to offer to the innkeeper, if it costs any more, to bring this man to health again. I’ll pay it when I come again.

41. 23:58

    He totally stripped himself of any comfort zone and he found the buttons for that. Little girl’s coat, the father of the prodigal. He was out looking for him, wasn’t he? And when he came back when the son. Showed the first signs of coming back. The father ran because he had compassion on him, and the father had to abandon all the disappointment that he had in his son.

42. 24:38

    Perhaps the sense of betrayal that he had felt for this lad, that he had invested in, and the lad had gone off and squandered it. All of those things that the Father could have been aggravated by, gone, discarded, thrown by the wayside. His son was coming back and the simple. Word is there again.

43. 25:07

    He had compassion on him and he ran to meet him. And so I hope you under you, you appreciate the the metaphor that I’m using when I say he found the buttons for the code.

44. 25:24

    He did something about it. And so, brothers and sisters and young people, listening patiently, the table now speaks to us. Tangibly, tangibly, we’re going to take in our hands. We’re going to take into our between our lips and into our mouth. Tangibly, we’re going to take. It to ourselves the tokens that Jesus asked us to take and when we do as we do, it is.

45. 26:09

    An ongoing reminder. Of the compassion that our father has for us. And he has made living in the Lord. Jesus and the Lord Jesus has to the very death done something. With that we if only we will. Turn to him. Find rest for our souls. And have the pardoning of our iniquities may we take the.

46. 26:42

    Emblems to ourselves, brothers and sisters, and somehow, by His Grace, be able to find the buttons for a little girl’s coat.