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Matthew: The real heart of Jesus revealed: radical compassion. Let's talk about it on Key Life. This is Key Life. We're here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Steve invited our friend Jerry Cuparies to do the teaching this week. Jerry is a pastor, an author, and has served in the ministry for more than 35 years.

Jerry Cuparies: Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, Jeremy, my friend. It is so good to be here. If you tuned in expecting to hear Dr. Steve Brown, the old man full of wisdom, he has graciously allowed me to take over this week and sit in at Key Life for this great teaching. I am Pastor Jerry Cuparies, I'm one of the voices of Key Life, and every time that I have an opportunity to minister, I am tremendously grateful.

Thank you, Dr. Brown, for allowing me this opportunity to minister this week. Before I get started, I want you to repeat this confession over your life. Say with me: The favor of God is over my life. God is 100% pleased with me because of Jesus Christ. God is able to make all grace abound towards me. I believe when you make that confession over your life, you will begin to see great things happen because life and death is in the power of the tongue.

Today, I want to talk about unveiling the extraordinary power of Jesus' love. I want to share this because I have been thinking and watching social media, Facebook, and different things of that nature. I have to tell you, I'm a little concerned because what I am seeing from some of my brothers and sisters in the Christian faith today is not the love that the Bible tells us about or that we should have one for another.

You know what Jesus said? The world would know that we are His disciples if we have love one towards another. It's not your bank account. It's not the color of your skin. It's not the address where you live. None of those things matter. Real love breaks every barrier and sees only the heart of Jesus. You shall know that you are My disciples when we have love one towards another.

As I'm talking about the radical love of Jesus Christ, that love is supposed to permeate our hearts, and we are to love our brothers and sisters in the same way that Jesus loved us. I want to go to James, the second chapter, verses one through nine. This is from the New Living Translation. Listen to what the Word says: "My dear brothers and sisters, how can you claim to have faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ if you favor some people over others?

For example, verse two, suppose someone comes into your meeting, dressed in fancy clothes and expensive jewelry, and another comes in who is poor and dressed in dirty clothes. Verse three, if you give special attention and good seats to the rich person, but you say to the poor one, 'You can stand over there' or else 'Sit on the floor,' well, verse four, does this discrimination show that your judgments are guided by your evil motives?

Verse five, listen to me, dear brothers and sisters, hasn't God chosen the poor in this world to be rich in faith? Aren't they the ones who will inherit the kingdom He has promised to those who love Him? Verse six, but you dishonor the poor. Isn't it the rich who oppress you and drag you into court? Verse seven, aren't they the ones who slander Jesus Christ, whose noble name you bear?

Yes indeed, verse eight says, it is good when you obey the royal law as found in the scripture, and the scripture says, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you favor some people over others, you are committing a sin." That is a tough scripture to hear. But you have to make sure that we show the love of Jesus to all of God's children. When you pick to love people based on their position, how much money they have, or by race or by class, the Bible says that you are committing a sin.

We are all God's children. One of the things that I love about Key Life and I love about being here in the teaching is that we have a variety of people from all races, all backgrounds, all ethnicities, and there is such a love that represents the kingdom of God. That's what I am hoping that I challenge you this week: to be able to love people past how they look, where they live, and just show the real love of Jesus.

I want to challenge you to allow the Lord to cleanse your heart and purify your heart of unhealthy biases. Years ago, I was teaching a message on how we receive our information. There are three ways a person gets information as they're growing. The first way is that you get information by your family. If you were born in a family that believes certain things or morals, they teach you those things.

The second way you get your information is from your experience. Depending upon the things that you have experienced in life or experienced with people, you begin to draw different things that you think about those people. The third place you get your information is from your environment. If you were born or you live in a good neighborhood, you have different environments than if you were born, like we used to say, in the hood.

If you're born into a not-so-loving family, have not-so-great experiences, or if you have not-great environments, you're going to end up making bad choices. That's why the Bible tells us that we must be born again. When you're born again, you're placed in the family of Jesus. You're placed with Jesus' DNA. Old things are passed away, behold all things become brand new. If any man be in Christ, he becomes a new creature.

Our new environment is every Sunday morning when we go to church. We go into a place where we're hearing about the love of God. We're being preached to about how to love our enemies, love our friends, and love our family. Not only that, we learn to love people that are different than us. We may not all agree. Again, that's one of the things I love about Key Life here: Steve Brown and I often laugh about our differences in how we see things in the world.

The one thing that we see together is that Jesus is the center of our joy. When we understand that we are all God's children—when we were kids, we used to sing a song: "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world." That is a true statement. We are all God's children. Because we're all God's children, I want to see us as believers love each other because we are all family coming from one Father, and that is our Father which is in heaven.

The Bible says if we have people that we treat differently because of their class, because of their race, or because of who they are, we are committing sin. I know that as a believer, we do not want to be guilty of hurting God's feelings. One of the things my father-in-law said to me years ago—I remember this saying—he said, "Who am I to dislike somebody that God died for?" That was a powerful statement. If God thought enough to die for every man and every woman and He loves them, I'm going to love whom Jesus loves.

I want to encourage you today—and this is what my teaching is this week—I want to talk about unveiling the extraordinary power of Jesus' love. It's transforming. It will turn you into a new believer. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. God, create in us a clean heart and renew within us a right spirit. When you go to work this week, I want you to look at those people that kind of maybe rub you the wrong way. I want you to smile and say, "Hey, if Jesus loves them, I'm going to love them too."

I want you to go talk to your boss who's been getting on your nerves and just doing things that seem to be against you. I want you to just pray and say, "Father, if You can love them, so can I. I am going to love everyone that Jesus loves." When I do that, I am really being all that Jesus has called me to be. I want to encourage you to do that. Know that when you show the love of Jesus Christ to people who are hurting, people that don't look like you, or people who don't act like you, you are saying to them that my Daddy wants you to be a part of our family.

If we can do that together, I know that you are going to show that you are doing the extraordinary love that Jesus talked about. I want to challenge you this week. I really do. When you walk into work and you see somebody that you don't like or who may not be jiving with you, love on them like Jesus. If you do that, you will be blessed. As Dr. Brown says, you think about that. Amen.

Matthew: Ladies and gentlemen, Jerry Cuparies. Thank you, Jerry. He'll be with us all this week teaching a series called "Unveiling the Extraordinary Power of Jesus' Love." I invite you to continue on with us. If you didn't know, Jerry is a true multi-hyphenate: pastor, musician, entrepreneur, and author. He wrote a book called *Grace: The Real Good News of the Gospel*. In the book, Jerry goes verse by verse through the Book of Romans to explain why God is no longer mad or upset at us.

Check this out. For a gift of $15 or more to Key Life, Jerry's book is our gift to you. Just call us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at keylife.org to order that book. To mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, the name of the book is *Grace: The Real Good News of the Gospel*.

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