Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on September 1, 2024.
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Audio Transcript
To Luke, chapter 7, verses 11 through 17. It will be on the screen for you. But we love to have you join us by looking in God’s word yourself. The title of the message is the Lord of Life and Resurrection Hope. But what I really felt like I want to concentrate most on today is the compassion of God.
We think of the question, does God really have a personal interest in me? Does God really care about me when I’m sad, hurting, devastated, harmed, hungry, or sick? Does God really consider my emotions? Does he feel anything when I am having intense emotions in my life? And because of mankind’s broken relationship with God, people generally tend to think that if God exists, that he really just doesn’t care about us.
And we see this in the rise of the belief in idols and the gods that the Greeks and the Romans had. And their idea of what the gods were like was a false narrative of who God really is. Those religious systems believe that gods are mostly separate from us. They just do as they please to please themselves. And they’re not interested in us humans unless they need us us to do something for them.
They’re just as likely to hurt us to please themselves as they are to help us. And in that system of religion, we have to appease these gods. We have to beg them for help. We have to give them offerings and sacrifices and rituals and then understand that they may hear us or they may not. But Scripture tells us this is not the God we serve.
He always hears us. He doesn’t need anything from us. So there is nothing with which we can bribe him to help us. And he doesn’t inflict pain on us just to please himself. Scripture tells us that he cares for us, especially when we are hurting, as we’re going to see in the narrative today about Jesus.
Compassion for a woman, for a widow who has lost her only son. May we read the text? Luke 7. Afterward, he was on his way to a town called Nain. His disciples and a large crowd were traveling with him.
And just as he neared the gate of the town, a dead man was being carried out. He was his mother’s only son, and she was a widow. A large crowd from the town was also with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said, don’t weep. Then he came up and touched the open coffin.
And the pallbearer stopped. And he said, young man, I tell you, get up. The dead man sat up and began to speak. And Jesus gave him to his mother. Then fear came over everyone and they glorified God saying, A great prophet has risen among us, and God has visited his people.
And this report about him went throughout Judea and all the vicinity. What has been happening here? Before we walk onto the scene of this situation, Rod Mattoon describes what it was like when someone died in that day. He writes that when someone died, the family members would let out a loud death wail. That’s W a I l, not a whale that swims.
It was so loud that all the neighbors could hear. And this would inform friends and neighbors that a death had just occurred. Mourners were hired to weep for the deceased. They were mainly women who made a career out of doing this. They were profound professionals at crying and wailing.
They did this because the family and loved ones wanted to show their grief. They also wore itchy, scratchy black sackcloth made from the hair of goats. They would tear their clothes, and those in mourning would often take off their shoes and cover their heads. Dirt was thrown over their heads, and they would sit, sit and roll around in ashes. And things like silver, gold jewelry, daggers, or costly ornaments were not worn.
Men and women didn’t mourn together. They sat apart because both the men and women would uncover their breasts and beat their chest. The men would also shave their heads bald or cut their beards. Mustaches were covered. And those who mourned would observe a fast up to the time of the burial.
And then afterward there would be a mourner’s feast when food and drink were offered to comfort those in sorrow and to help them forget their grief. Sometimes the grieving process would start before the death of the person. And people had tear bottles that were used to gather the tears of those who were weeping. And a priest would go to the people at the height of their grief and use a piece of cotton to collect their tears. And then he would squeeze them into the bottle.
They had some false beliefs that these tears might be the last resort to heal somebody from death.
They offered up cries as to honor the person who had died. They demonstrated that the person was loved and greatly missed. And the mourners then would wash the body. They’d clip the hair and trim the nails of the deceased. Strips of linen were wrapped around the body and were laced with hyssop, rose oils, rose water, myrrh, aloes, cinnamon or olive oil.
And the spices and the paste that covered the body would harden the layers of the linen and forming a shell or a cocoon around the body of the deceased loved ones. And then a linen napkin was placed over their face. This is what has been going on with this family before Jesus comes onto the scene. And we go back to the text, Luke 7, verses 11 through 17. And before we look at that, I want to ask you a question.
How often do you stop your activity to attend a funeral for somebody you’ve never met before in your life? Have you ever done that? You’ve been on vacation and you’re driving down the road to a family reunion and you see a funeral and you say, oh, I’m going to go join the funeral. That’s just not something that we do. But that’s what was going on here.
Jesus is surrounded by this large crowd of people. It’s as if they’ve come out of a stadium event and there’s a lot of noise and they’re listening to Jesus and he’s talking, and they’re so crowded around him. We know from other passages that it’s possibly difficult for him to move. So this really large crowd around Jesus is coming into the city gate, and coming out at the same time is another large group of people of all these that are concerned for this widow whose son had died. It’s this large crowd and a large crowd there together.
And you would think that they would just kind of squeeze through that gate and not pay attention. But in the midst of all this, it tells us that Jesus did something unusual. He looked over and he saw the woman and he had compassion on her. What does it mean that he saw her? He didn’t just glance and say, oh, that’s a lady there.
He looked over and he realized and he understood what was going on. The word here, to look means to see or to notice. It indicates that you want to be involved in what’s going on. You’re trying to determine what must be done to help the situation. You have a deep regard for the person, and you’re going to possibly ask questions to try and figure it out.
Jesus dropped everything, all this excitement to be concerned about one woman that he had possibly never met before in his life. And what we’re looking at today is the compassion of God. How when he looked at her, he had this compassion. And when we’re talking about this compassion, it means to feel deeply in your bowels or in your stomach or in your intestines. Have you ever been so upset that your stomach gets upset?
You’re going to an interview or you’ve got a final test? I mean, you just get really anxious and your stomach is bothered. Jesus has so much compassion on her that it may mean here that he feels like vomiting because he’s just so upset with how hurt she is, but yet she’s a complete stranger to him. It was not merely pity, but he was moved by compassion to get involved and to do something for this stranger. That is the compassion of God.
The lady was a widow. That meant she didn’t have a husband. And this was her only son. And according to the language here, this is a younger child, maybe a young teenager that’s passed away. He is her only hope for income in the future.
Because during this time, women usually were taking care of things at home, and it was their husbands or their sons that would provide income. So she’s got this double whammy on her. She’s lost her only son, who’s a child at a young age, and she’s wondering, what am I going to do now? And Jesus is there to show her compassion. He understands her need.
Let’s go to Exodus, chapter 34, 57. This is where Moses had gone up into the mount to get the Ten Commandments. And he wanted to see God. And God said, well, I will cover you and I will pass by just so you can see a little bit of my glory. Otherwise you would be killed by seeing me.
It says, the Lord came down in a cloud, stood with him there and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And the Lord passed in front of him. And the Lord himself proclaimed about himself, the Lord. The Lord is a compassionate and gracious God.
Slow to anger, abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving iniquity, rebellion and sin. What is the very first word that God uses to describe Himself? You tell me he’s compassionate. He could have said, I’m powerful, I’m awesome, I own the universe, I can strike anybody dead. I’ve created all things.
But what he emphasizes is that he is compassionate. And that leads to him being gracious, slow to anger, abounding and faithful in love and truth, forgiving iniquity, rebellion and sin. You know, when Jesus came, he was God in the flesh. And what people had known intellectually about God the Father and what they had read about him, what he had revealed about Himself, all of a sudden was something that could be seen and something that could be heard and something that could be touched. Jesus Christ in the flesh is the picture of what God’s compassion is like.
He showed us what compassion means when it is displayed in a body of flesh.
God is a God of compassion. The first thing I want you to see about God’s compassion, that God’s compassion is for individuals. And we’re going to see in two passages here that he’s concerned and has compassion for individuals who have physical limitations. And he has compassion for people with illnesses. I go to Matthew chapter 20.
I will read more than is on the screen. But it says, as they were leaving Jericho, a large crowd followed him. And there were two blind men sitting by the road. And when they heard that Jesus was passing by, they cried out, lord, have mercy on us, Son of David. The crowd demanded them, keep quiet.
We want to hear Jesus. But they cried out all the more, lord, have mercy on us, son of David. Jesus stopped, called them, and said, what do you want me to do for you? And they said, lord, open our eyes. And I’m sure the crowd thought, yeah, Jesus opened their eyes because they’re yelling and they’re just.
They’re disturbing everything. We want to hear you. But Jesus didn’t heal them because he wanted to quiet them. It tells us he was moved to what you say it with me, compassion.
He wasn’t healing them to prove anything, but it does help to prove that he is the Messiah. But he did this because he had compassion on them. He touched their eyes and immediately they could see and they followed him. Jesus has compassion for individuals with physical limitations, but he also has compassion for individuals with illnesses. I read another incident in Mark.
Chapter one says, he went into all of Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. And then a man with leprosy came to him and on his knees begged him, if you are willing, you can make me clean. If you were a leper, wherever you went, you had to call out, unclean, unclean. Because the disease was so terrible, though, that your skin and your bones and your muscles would just rot and drip off of you. So they continually had to wrap all these places with cloths to catch the ooze and the gunk.
And it tells us here in verse 41, you read it with me. Moved with compassion, not to prove anything, but because he was compassionate for this man with an illness, Jesus did the unthinkable. He reached out his hand and touched someone that was highly contagious, knowing that it would make him spiritually unclean and also risking the chance that he would get the disease himself. But Jesus reached out, he touched him and he healed him because he had compassion on him. Now you may say, that’s great.
Jesus showed compassion for individuals in his word. But does he really care about me? Does he really care for everyone? Or is it just certain individuals that are special to Him? I want us to see next that the Compassion of God is also for the masses.
Let’s go to Mark, chapter eight. We’re going to read here and see that Jesus is compassionate for people just because they’re hungry. And it’s not for one here or there. It’s for everybody there in the crowd. Jesus said, I have compassion on the crowd.
Remember, he’s hurting in his stomach, not because he’s hungry, but because he’s so concerned about them. Because they’ve already stayed with me three days and they have nothing to eat. If I send them home hungry, they will collapse on the way. And some of them have come a long distance. The compassion of God is for the masses.
He cares when people hungry. Let’s go to Matthew chapter 18, and we’re going to see here that the compassion of God is for the masses. It’s shown when Jesus is concerned about not just the individual emotional pain of those close to him, but he’s feeling it for everybody. He says when he saw the crowds, he felt compassion for them because they were distressed and dejected, like sheep without a shepherd. If you have someone that you love and they are having emotional pain and you have compassion and you feel with them, just think how much that drains you just to have compassion for one person.
Jesus was having that amount of compassion for everybody that was in this group of people. Because the compassion of God isn’t just for individuals, but it’s for everyone.
The compassion of God I also want you to see today is extensive. If we were going to Luke chapter 10, we would read a familiar story about the Samaritan just briefly. We won’t read it, but review the story. There is a Jewish man who has hated Samaritans all of his life and has walked all the way around their towns to avoid even being in their presence. And that Jewish man has been beat up by robbers.
He’s been left for dead. And there are some supposedly spiritual Jewish men that walk by and they’re too busy or they don’t want to get contaminated. Whatever reason, the Jews themselves don’t stop to help them. But this man that has been an enemy by the Jewish man’s choice as Samaritan comes by and Scripture tells us that on his journey came up to him and when he saw him, he had compassion. And the Samaritan took care of the man.
He took him to an inn and he paid for all of his needs. God’s compassion is like this. It’s so extensive that it even reaches out. Like this Samaritan’s compassion went to somebody that he knew hated him and all his life would have cut him down and never would have stopped to help him. This is the reason why.
John 3, 16, 17 we read about the extensive nature of God’s love for us that comes from his compassion for God loved the whole world. In this way he gave his one and only Son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world, the world through Him. God’s compassion demonstrated in the life, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a demonstration of his compassion for the entire world. His compassion is extensive and unending.
But I also want you to see that the compassion of God is extremely valuable. In Matthew 18, we read this story. I only have one verse up there, but let me read the context to you. Peter approached Jesus and asked, lord, how many times must I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? As many as seven times.
Now, during Jesus Day, it was a common thought that if you’re a spiritual person that you’ll forgive someone three times, then after that you don’t have to forgive them anymore. Just like in baseball, three strikes and you’re what, you’re out? So I’m sure Peter probably thought, I’ll be really magnanimous here. I’ll double that number and I’ll add one for good measure. So he says, so if I forgive seven times, is that enough?
Imagine baseball games where you had seven strikes before someone was out. Okay? But Jesus said, not just seven times, but 70 times seven. And he wasn’t saying at time number 491, you don’t forgive anymore. He’s just saying, your forgiveness should never end.
And then he gives this story that tells us about how extremely valuable God’s compassion and forgiveness is for us. For this reason, the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he began to settle accounts, one who owed 10,000 talents was brought before him. Since he did not have the money to pay it back, his master commanded that he, his wife, his children, and everything he had be sold to pay the debt. At this, the servant fell face down before him and said, be patient with me and I will pay you everything.
Yeah, like that’s really going to happen with this amount of money. But then the master of that servant head, Scripture tells us compassion, he had this stirring in his bowels he felt for this man. So he released him and he forgave him the loan. And as the story goes, he immediately goes out and grabs someone by the neck and says, give me back this little bit of money that you owe me. But I want you to see here the extreme value of God’s compassion, how it is pictured with this king.
There have been several attempts to value this amount of money. One attempt is to try and figure out what were the average wages back during this day. So this is what one commentator wrote. A talent in Jesus time was worth a significant amount of money. And remember, we’re talking about 10,000 talents here.
But just one talent was equivalent to about 20 years of a day laborer’s wages. So according to that calculation, this man would have had to work 20 years in order to get back enough money to only pay for one talent, not 10,000 talents. And if the average lifespan back then was only 29 to 35 years, that meant that this man would have had to start start working somewhere between age 9 and 15 and literally worked all of his life just to get back enough money to pay for one talent, not 10,000. So if you multiplied by 10,000, you have an amount that is impossible to imagine. If we’re talking about somebody making $50,000, you’re talking about $10 billion that this servant owned.
But I looked up today another way to figure out the value. How many of you know what the value of silver is right now this morning? It’s $28.86 per troy ounce. And I’m not sure what that is, but it’s a measure. So if you invested in silver and something less than that, please wait till after the service to sell it.
Okay, but $28.86 per troy ounce, if we take that figure today, and we know that 10,000 talents was a measure of weight, that equals 375 tons. And I don’t know if those are long tons or short tons.
And we also know that there are 29,166 troy ounces in one ton. So if we take that $28.86, we multiply it by 29,166 troy ounces, and then we multiply that by 375 tons, we get $315 million, $649,035. That’s a large amount of money. Happened to be listening to Dane Ortland this week, and he pointed out something interesting. That amount of money could have bankrupt a king.
Okay. I mean, Elon Musk has more money than this, but there are probably a lot of people that don’t have $315 million this is how extremely valuable God views the compassion he pours out on us. He was willing to bankrupt himself by sending Jesus Christ because of his compassion. Jesus was given an exaggerated amount here, but it shows us that our spiritual debt that we owe God is very, very large. The debt that we owe for our sin is unimaginably worse than our best estimation of how sinful we are.
We have no understanding how evil we are in our nature, how God views that from his perfection. But it also points out the price that what God paid is unimaginably higher than our best estimation. We don’t understand fully how much God has done and given for us. And that’s what Jesus is trying to tell us in this parable. God’s compassion is extensive.
God’s compassion is extremely valuable. Next thing, I want you to see that God’s compassion is available to you and I take us back to Genesis, chapter 16. It’s not there on the screen, but I want to remind us of a story about Abram and Sarai. God had promised them a child. They had been called by God to go and to start a new nation in another land.
And the only problem was they hadn’t had any children yet. So Sarai, who later becomes Sarah, she said, here, take my slave woman, Hagar, and bear a child through her. For me, it was her idea. But as soon as Hagar gets pregnant, Sarai changed her mind. I don’t like this one bit.
She got upset and went to her husband. I don’t like that woman now, even though it was her fault and Abram’s fault that he went through with the idea. So Abram said, here, your slave is in your power. Do whatever you want with her. So Sarai mistreated her so much that Hagar ran away.
Scripture tells us that while she is out in the wilderness, she’s all alone and she’s pregnant. She has no source of income. There isn’t anybody there. And if she goes back, she’s going to be beaten and abused and unappreciated. But the angel of the Lord found her by a spring in the wilderness.
And he said, hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going? She replied, I’m running away from my mistress, Sarai. Then the angel of the Lord said to her, go back to your mistress and submit to her authority. The angel of the Lord said to her, I will greatly multiply your offspring, and they will be too many to count. The angel of the Lord said to her, you have conceived and will Have a son.
You will name him Ishmael, for the Lord has heard your cry of affliction. And then it goes on in verse 13. So she Hagar named the Lord who spoke to her. She said, you are El Roi, for she said, in this place, and have I actually seen the one who sees me here? We have a slave woman.
God had chosen Abram. God had chosen Sarah. That was the special place. But even their slave, a very low person in that society, someone who wasn’t related, she’s out in the wilderness and God does what he sees her. Just as Jesus saw the widow.
He saw her, he understood her, he knew what her need was. And he became involved in her life by giving her this great promise. If God is considerate about the slave woman out in the wilderness with nothing, if he can give her compassion, his compassion is available to each and every one of us. God’s compassion is available to you.
We also need to know about God’s compassion, that it is our responsibility to share it and to show it to others. And we go back to Matthew, where Jesus had compassion on the people because they were distressed and they were dejected like sheep without a shepherd. And he’s thinking, my time here on earth is only going to be a short while longer and my compassion needs to be preached to more people than I’m going to be able to reach today. So he’s looking out on this great group of people. He refers to them as a large harvest, like looking over hundreds of acres of corn or wheat.
And he’s saying, it’s there, it’s ready, it just needs to be brought in, but I can’t do it all myself. So he tells his disciples, you’re going to have to carry on my ministry. And he knows that they’re going to die someday. So he’s also telling them, you need to pray that the Lord of the harvest sends even more workers out into his harvest. The compassion that Jesus felt for those people today that were distressed and dejected and without a shepherd.
He’s saying, those of you that follow me, you need to have compassion. Likewise, you need to tell them about my compassion. You need to show them my compassion. The compassion of God for all believers is our responsibility to share and to show. This is reiterated by Paul and Peter in Ephesians 4:32.
Paul writes, Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ. And then Peter reminds us, finally, all of you, be like minded and sympathetic, love one another, and be compassionate and humble. You know, followers of Jesus Christ have the Holy Spirit residing in them. And therefore we have this supernatural capacity to show compassion that is outside the bounds of this world. And that’s compassion that Jesus wants us to.
To share with others and also show them. We talked about the compassion of God, but we also need to see here in the text, there’s this confirmation of God, confirmation that Jesus Christ truly is the Messiah, the appointed one. When he came up and he touched the coffin and he told the young man to get up, it tells us in verse 16 that fear came over everyone and they glorified God, saying, a great prophet has risen among us and God has visited his people. This report then went throughout Judea and all the vicinity. We’re talking about either hundreds of people, if not thousands, that see this young man that’s wrapped up in a cocoon and his face is covered and he’s probably starting to smell.
And they’re taking him out to bury him. And he’s raised from the dead hundreds and thousands of people. They’d never seen this before. So, you know, they went out and they were spreading. Caused them to fear God, which means not to be afraid of him, but to honor him and revere him.
It caused them to glorify God. And they also recognized that Jesus Christ was something special, that he was a great prophet. But we’re going to see here as we go forward in the text that this resurrecting the young man from the dead also had another purpose. It was to show that he is the Christ. And we go to Luke 7, 18, 23, and John the Baptist has been imprisoned, and he’s very distressed and down, and he’s starting to wonder, is Jesus really the Savior or not?
And this is what we read. John’s disciples told him about all these things that Jesus had been doing and teaching. So John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord asking, are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else? John is in prison. He’s in a dungeon.
So he has to send others to try to get some encouragement and clarification. And when the men reached Jesus, they said, john the Baptist sent us to ask you, are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else? It tells us at that time, Jesus healed many people of diseases, afflictions, and evil spirits, and he granted sight to many blind. Luke is just reiterating what he’s been telling us so far in six chapters. And Jesus replied to them, go and report to John what you have seen.
And heard. The blind receive their sight. The lame walk. Those with leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear. And here it is, another proof of who he is.
The dead are raised and the poor are told the good news. And blessed is the one who isn’t offended by me. This was a miraculous confirmation that Jesus Christ is the Messiah.
The compassion of God, the confirmation of God. Lastly, I want to look at the certain future of believers. Because Jesus Christ was able to raise this young man from the dead. We know that he can raise us from the dead. And we see in his own death, burial and resurrection that he raised himself from the dead.
That’s. That’s even more proof. We have to think, if someone were to have a heart attack here today are people that are ems. People would run and they get our AED device and they would come and they would apply that and shock the person and hopefully bring them back to life. That’s what Jesus did for this young man.
He touched him and he brought him back to life. But in his own death and resurrection. That would be like an EMS person having a heart attack and dying and then he himself runs out. I’m thinking of Matt here. And he brings it back in and shocks himself and comes back to life.
I mean, that’s even more ridiculous. It’s how much more of a proof it is that Jesus Christ could raise others from the dead. And so we have the future hope he will do that for us. So we have this encouragement in 1st Thessalonians 4. We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, those that are dead, so that you will not grieve like the rest.
He’s saying we shouldn’t grieve when our loved ones die. Yes, it’s a sad time, but it’s not the grief that the lost world has, because we know, because that we have hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again in the same way through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. Disregard those last two lines. That’s my fault.
They’re up there and they’re not supposed to be. But our certain future is that we will be raised from the dead just as this young man was. And just as he was restored to his mother, we will be restored to fellowship with all of those that have come to know the Lord and are part of the family of God. John 14:1 3. Again, my mistake.
I apologize. It should be, don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me, in my Father’s house are many rooms. And if it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you.
If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself so that where I am, you may be also.
For over 2000 years now, Jesus has been preparing a place for us to live with him in eternity. And I have to ask the question, how many of you would go out and build a house for a dead person? Raise your hand. Be honest. We don’t build houses for dead people because they can’t enjoy it.
If we’re not going to live for eternity, Jesus would not be building a home for us. But we had this certain future because God had compassion on us. He sent Jesus Christ to die so that when we place our faith in him, we can have eternal life. I take us back now to Exodus, chapter 34, verses 5 through 7, where we kind of started out earlier, where it tells us that the Lord came down in a cloud. He stood with him there and he proclaimed his name.
The Lord and the Lord passed in front of Moses and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord is a compassionate and gracious God. He is slow to anger, abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, and forgiving iniquity, rebellion and sin. The worship team is going to be coming and leading us in a song. And where does this leave you during this last song?
You may choose to sing, but you may just want to think about these questions. Do you need God’s compassion for yourself? Maybe there’s something terrible going on in your life today day God is concerned for you. Ask him to show his compassion to you and know that he will give it. Know that he is feeling in his bowels this compassion for whatever distress is happening in your life.
The second thing is, do you know others that need God’s compassion? If there’s someone that you’re aware of that is going through some traumatic experience, your heart needs to go out to them as a believer and you need to do like Jesus did. He didn’t just wave at the woman and feel compassion. He did something for her. He met her need.
We need to look at others and not just notice them, but really try to figure out, do they need my compassion today? And show that maybe there’s someone God will lay upon your heart that you need to do that for. Do you believe that Jesus is the chosen one? This passage should lead you to that point. If you’ve never accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, Today is the day to do that.
All you have to do is tell God. God, I know that I’m a sinner. I need what Jesus has done for me. I believe that he died on the cross and now I want to live my life for him. And lastly, are you sharing and showing compassion to others, not just to the individuals, but is your whole life about telling other people how much God loves them and also showing them that you love them too?
Let’s have a word of prayer. They’ll come up and lead us. Please remain seated during this time of thinking how you need to respond today. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your great love, for your great compassion that you have for us. Let us realize it today if we haven’t how much you care for us.
And we ask that your Holy Spirit would reveal that in people’s hearts and minds in a special way today if they need your compassion. Father, we also pray that if there are individuals in our lives that we need to see their need and show them compassion and proclaim your compassion for them that you will lead us to think about them today. Lay them upon our hearts. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.