Well, here we are in the series on the fruit of the spirits, and
these are the marks that'll be shown in the life of the Christ
follower. Now remember, we don't simply
manufacture these virtues by by our own willpower.
I can't will patience into existence.
It's something that has to be grown inside of me.
I can't force myself to love. It's not actually love when it's
forced, but love is the emotions and actions that come from my
life surrendered to God's working.
Interestingly though, the majority of these fruits are
also attributes of God. These aren't simply qualities
God asked his followers to live out.
God himself is the actual embodiment of each of these.
God is love, God is joy. God is said to be peace.
He's he's patient. And that brings us to this week.
God is kind. God is kind.
He is the epitome of kindness. Thinking back to our study a
couple months ago in Psalm 145, it is awesome to say that was a
couple months ago. Like here we are three months
in. It's like, wow, this is cool.
A couple months ago in Psalm 145, verse 17 said the Lord is
righteous in all his ways and kind in all his works.
The word that's translated as kind is hesed, God's loyal,
steadfast love. The translators of the ESB tried
to distill all that is encapsulated in God's hesed,
God's loyal love. They tried to distill it all
down to one word, and they said kindness is that word.
God's kindness is also shown in one of my favorite books, Hosea.
Hosea was a prophet to northern Israel and his life became a
metaphor for God's relationship to his people.
As Hosea was told to marry a prostitute, Gomer, she
represented Israel in this metaphor.
Hosea 1111 verses one through 4. Read it there on the screen.
When Israel was a child I loved him, and out of Egypt I called
my son. The more they were called, the
more they went away. They kept sacrificing to the
balls and and burning offerings to idols.
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk.
I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I
healed them. I LED them with cords of
kindness with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who
eases the yoke on their jaws. And I bent down to them and fed
them. This was a a brief history
lesson for the people Hosea had been sent to.
God had delivered his people out of Egypt.
He'd called to them, but they just ran farther away from him,
and they kept offering idle sacrifices.
Yet God, God still had compassion on them.
He cared for them, and in spite of their waywardness, he showed
them extraordinary kindness and love.
In the book of Titus, Paul told his young protege about the
impacts of God's kindness. Titus 3/4 through 5.
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior
appeared, he saved us not because of works done by us in
righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing
every generation and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
It's God's goodness and kindness that brought about our
salvation. It's not about anything we've
done. Self righteousness isn't
actually righteousness, but only because of God's great mercy
He's given us His life. As we continue to examine
kindness this morning, we need to establish what Scripture has
in view when it talks about kindness.
So what kindness? Kindness is the is the quality
of being friendly, generous, considerate and treating people
with respect. Kindness is the quality being
friendly, generous, considerate and treating people with
respect. Kindness isn't attitude or
spirit that sees someone's need and is then motivated to help
them out. These needs could be physical,
emotional, social, or spiritual. When we treat someone with
kindness, we see their need and respond with with with whatever
is necessary to meet that need. Whether it involves just being a
friend, offering resources, or or being understanding of their
situation, we respond in a manner that is fitting to the
situation. The opposite of kindness is
someone behaving in a way that's rude, self-centered,
disrespectful, or obviously violent.
I'm sure most of us have seen videos of the Karens, right?
These Karens as they're called. I don't.
Do we have any Karens in this place?
I don't. Oh yes, I'm sorry.
My heart goes out to all the women whose names are Karen
these days. But these, these, these, these
women are are rude to to other people and for seemingly no good
reason. They're unkind.
They're insulting and demeaning to the people that they
confront. I'm sure unlike Karen is so in
the 90s there was the saying practice random kindness and
senseless acts of beauty. This was a bumper sticker you
would see all over the place. I'm sure many of you remember
this. It was a counter to news reports
of random acts of violence and senseless acts of cruelty.
The goal was to spread joy by being kind to people who don't
expect it. It involved actions of some
sort. When I think of kindness and
scripture, my attention is drawn to the Apostle Paul.
In Acts 28, Paul and a number of prisoners had had been
shipwrecked and and they were finally brought to shore.
In Acts 28, two Paul says the native people showed us unusual
kindness. How did they do this?
They kindled a fire and welcomed us all because it had begun to
rain and was cold. These were the native people
there. They they, they saw these
prisoners. These were prisoners, probably
people that they could easily cast aside and ignore.
But yet these people decided to show kindness to them.
They didn't simply wish them well.
Well, it's cold. It's rainy.
Hey, good luck dealing with that.
Figure out how you're going to build some shelter.
That's on you. No, they stepped into this
situation and brought them fire and did what they could to help
these prisoners warm up. They took action.
So kindness is the quality of being friendly, generous,
considerate, and treating people with respect.
It's also a command. God requires kindness, He wants
us to to show the same hesed to others that He has shown to us.
Micah 6-8 says He has told you, O man, what is good and what
does the Lord require of you but to do justice and love kindness
and to walk humbly with God. This is God's expectation for
his people. We're to humbly walk with him
showing justice and and some translations will say mercy and
kindness to others. OK, great, I'll be kind.
I can be kind to my friends. I can be kind to my family,
maybe even my Co workers if they're nice.
But what does Jesus say on the in the sermon on the mounts,
Matthew 5 verses 43 through 44, you have heard that it was said
you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But Jesus says, I say to you, love your enemies and pray for
those who persecute you. This is where the rubber meets
the road right? Love your enemies.
I don't know about you, but this isn't a natural inclination for
me to just naturally love somebody who I might be at odds
with and I'm opposed to. But Jesus called his followers
to love their enemies. We're also to show kind.
We are to show kindness to our enemies.
That's the next point. The people we least want to
extend kindness towards are the people that Jesus has called us
to extend kindness to. As we've looked at God's own
kindness and call to demonstrate kindness, it's good for us to
consider what keeps us from kindness.
What are some of the barriers to kindness?
As we do this? It's we can begin by looking at
Ephesians 4. There in Ephesians 4, we get an
idea of some of the virtues we're called to show in the body
and and then we can understand the opposite of these virtues as
being barriers to our kindness. Ephesians 4.
There on the screens. Verses one through 3.
I therefore a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a
manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.
How do we do that? Verse 2.
With all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
In reading these verses there there are two particular
qualities that that stand out to me.
Humility and patience. These are key to maintaining
good relationships and an absence of these will inevitably
lead us away from kindness. So the first barrier to kindness
is pride. Pride keeps us in a place where
we only think of ourselves. Everything I do in life is
looking out for #1I prioritize my own needs and desires over
everything and everyone else. When I walk in, pride
compromises difficult if not impossible.
Exuding compassion is out of reach, and pride can lead to
lying, manipulation and holding grudges against others.
Philippians 2, three through 4 Do nothing from selfish ambition
or conceit, but in humility count others more significance
than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to
his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
If if I count others as more significant, more important than
myself, if I look out for for the interests of others, then
kindness is a logical step, right?
Another barrier to kindness is impatience.
Impatience. When impatience takes over, my
demeanor veers away from kindness.
I can become short, difficult, and grouchy.
Thank you for not saying Amen. An impatient attitude can can
lead to anger, bitterness and conflict in my interactions with
others and when I become impatient, compassion and
understanding or out of reach. Looking at Abraham and Sarah at
75, Sarah was quite advanced in years as it pertains to
conceiving and bearing children. Being barren was a shame in
their culture so so Sarah hatched her own plan to have a
child. If Abraham could impregnate her
her servants then then that would count as Sarah's child and
and her shame would be removed. She was impatient and and she
took matters into her own hands and she gave Abraham her
servants Hagar. Abraham was able to get Hagar
pregnant but not without consequences.
There were strained relationships in the family.
Sarah thought she would find joy in Hagar having Abraham's baby,
but the reality is that Sarah actually began to despise Hagar.
The consequences for Sarah's impatience was tension and
division, causing Hagar to leave the home and run away because
she was despised. Unfortunately, God heard her
crying and he met her there and and told her to return.
But impatience focuses too much on personal desires and in
timelines rather than considering the needs and
feelings of those around us. Impatience leads to poor choices
and can cause irreparable damage to relationships.
And impatience is exchanging our trust in God for trust in people
or things. Another consequence of our
impatience is anger. Proverbs 1429.
Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who
has a hasty temper exalts folly. When impatience occurs, we've
we've left the realm of understanding and entered into a
territory that is largely devoid of logic.
Sure, we may be able to rationalize things in our head
and and excuse away our angry response.
This happened so, So I have the right to respond like this,
right? But that's not how other people,
when they're looking from the outside, can look at the
situation and they realize this action did not need to elicit
this angry, impatient response. When understanding has gone out
the window, kindness will soon make its exit.
Ephesians 4 verse three said to be be eager to maintain the
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
Now kindness and unity in the body cannot be achieved when
there's selfishness. Selfishness is our next points,
our next barrier. Charles Spurgeon once said
selfishness is as foreign to Christianity as darkness is to
light. The darkness of self
centeredness is the opposite of Christ and his gospel and it
under undermines every aim in the Christian life.
I think you could say that that selfishness is the most
destructive disease of the human soul.
Absolutely nobody on this planet except for Jesus escapes this
disease, and there are countless opportunities for selfishness to
manifest itself in our lives. So how do we defeat the sin of
selfishness that that resides in US?
I love how 2nd Corinthians 5 verses 14 through 15 puts it For
the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this,
that one has died for all, therefore all have died, and he
died for all, that those who live might no longer live for
themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.
Jesus died so that we could live in and for him.
Because of what he did, we're able to think outside of
ourselves and think about other people.
Generosity is one of the best ways for us to defeat
selfishness. Generosity reflects God's nature
and helps us shift the focus from ourselves to others, and it
leads to greater fulfilment in life.
There's a reason Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University
encourages both Christians and non Christians to live
generously. You see, when when we live with
an with an open hand, as he calls it, when we live with an
open hand, then this increases the fulfillment on our life and
it also increases our reliance and trust on God and His
provision. Pride and patience and
selfishness are significant barriers to us extending
kindness to others. So what does it look like for us
to show kindness? 1st, we demonstrate kindness in
our speech and in a word we can call this edification
edification. Words have meaning and and
power. We're all familiar with that old
lie. Sticks and stones may break my
bones, but words will never hurt me.
Our adolescent selves tried to believe those words, but our
more mature, seasoned selves understood the potential and
deep impact words can have on others.
Ephesians 429 reads. Let no corrupting talk come out
of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits
the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.
Some words are more beneficial than others.
Putting someone down and berating them is the exact
opposite of kindness. The corrupting talk is talk that
harms and destroys people. Instead, what we want to come
out of our mouths is language that builds up and imparts
grace. Language that imparts grace.
When our speech imparts grace, we're showing kindness.
I was recently talking with someone in our church who served
as a teacher, this gentleman, and I'm sure everybody's like,
oh, I know who you're talking about.
There are several gentlemen in this church who served as
teachers. Take your pick.
This gentleman told me a story how he had unknowingly
completely changed a student's life.
The student, you see, had a bad morning and they decided after
school they were going to commit suicide.
They went to school that day and through a kind interaction with
their teacher, they felt valued and encouraged as this teacher
lifted them up. And when that happened, when
when life was spoken into this students, it completely changed
the course of their day and life.
That's the power that we can have when our speech imparts
grace. Another category for
demonstrating kindness is compassion.
In our hearts we have compassion.
Ephesians 432 says be kind to one another, tender hearted.
The word tender hearted isn't 1 that we use very often.
My natural inclination when I hear the word tender heart, it
is to think of someone who's who's just a pushover.
You can walk all over them. However, that's not what this
word means. There is a softness to it.
But tender heartedness means that that we are well
compassionate or we are tenderly compassionate.
It means to have softness in our hearts.
When compassion is present in our hearts, we can do as it says
in Romans 12/15, rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with
those who weep. Compassion helps us understand
others needs and respond appropriately to that need.
When we have empathy, we're able to step into whatever emotions
as someone is experiencing, whether they be sorrowful or joy
filled. The next area for us to show
kindness is difficult as as it involves us being wronged.
We show kindness even in the midst of our hurts.
And how do we show kindness in the midst of our hurts?
Through forgiveness. Forgiveness is vital to the
health of our relationships and even to the health of our own
souls. Without forgiveness we we risk
becoming bitter. Picking up again at ephesians
432 be kind to one another tender hearted that it goes on
and says forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.
The Greek word for forgiving is carrizo.
My, It comes from that same Greek word that joy came from.
And I know you all remember this word.
No, just kidding. Sometimes I don't even remember
what I preached last week. Sometimes.
No, that word was chorus. Chorus is the same word you may
recall for grace. So when we charisma someone,
we're gracing them. We are giving them something
that that they don't deserve. We're we're extending them
grace. We're extending them
forgiveness. When we forgive them, we can't
control the actions of others. But in choosing to forgive, we
establish control over our own responses, our own thoughts, and
in our own actions. Real offences hurt when we've
been hurt. We can be tempted to hold on to
that. But what we need to do instead
is to take every thought captive and and submit those thoughts to
God. As we submit those thoughts to
God, we'll be driven to forgive and keep our and keep our hurts
from turning to resentment. So sometimes we're slow to
forgive, though, because we may have a sense that if I forgive
them, that means they don't have to experience any consequences
from the wrongs that they've done.
But that is not what it means to forgive someone.
You may or may not have it in your power to release someone
from from justice for for the wrongdoings.
Choosing to release the person isn't saying there's no
consequences. That's not what you're saying.
Sin has consequences, offences will have consequences.
Forgiving someone is choosing to say I'm not going to hold this
offence against you and I am not going to allow this offence to
control me. Forgiving somebody is saying I'm
not going to hold this against you and I'm not going to allow
this to control me and to make me bitter.
In church culture, unforgiveness is a leading cause of conflict
and division. When people don't demonstrate
forgiveness and choose to hold on to past hurts, then they
start driving a wedge between themselves and and other people.
If we hold on to a grudge, then we're allowing that offence to
take control of us, rather than taking control of that offence
and releasing it. Over the years, I've heard of
many petty offences that at a moment's notice, can be pulled
up from the garbage disposal and hurled at somebody, pulled out
of the resort recesses of our minds, and then thrown back at
somebody. I myself have been on that end.
So why, why do we forgive? Verse 32 said As God in Christ
forgave you, the biggest offence is not how somebody has treated
me. The biggest offence of all is
how I have treated God, the holy Almighty God.
But he forgave me. He forgave us, the soul we can
then the hurts, the hurts and offenses we've experienced may
be valid, right? But we're following God's
example. When we choose to forgive, it's
it's an appropriate response to Christ's love and His
forgiveness being poured into our hearts.
We forgive others because He's already forgiven us.
The categories of kindness we have so far edification,
compassion and forgiveness. And lastly, I hinted at this a
little bit earlier, We can be generous generosity with our
actions. This means in the in the sharing
of our resources. This certainly does not strictly
mean financial resources, though financial resources are included
in this. We have all sorts of resources
at our disposal. Our time, abilities, gifts, all
of these things are our resources that we can be
generous with. Hebrews 1316.
Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such
sacrifices are pleasing to God. According to this verse, sharing
with others pleases God, and demonstrating kindness through
generosity is at God's heart. One of the great conundrums of
Scripture is Israel's stark 180 from being oppressed in Egypt to
becoming the oppressor later on, after the kingdoms had split
into the northern and southern kingdoms.
You'd think they had would have vowed to have have never want to
be like the Egyptians, right? But the sins snuck in and and
they morphed over time into becoming the oppressor.
And so God called for them to stop and, and this was one of
the topics that many of the prophets addressed.
And then Zechariah 7, nine through 10 says, thus says the
Lord of hosts, render true judgments, show kindness and
mercy to one another. Do not oppress the widow, the
fatherless, the sojourner, the poor, and let none of you devise
evil against another in your hearts.
These verses show us kindness to the vulnerable.
Scripture refers to these four classes of people.
They're often grouped together no less than 40 times.
God said stop oppressing them. Don't plan evil against these
people. And I think it's easy for us to
sit here and think, oh, surely they weren't really like
actually oppressing people. You know, these are people who
were just down on the luck, having a hard time.
But no, there were actual systems in place.
They were actually oppressing the poor and widows.
They were engaging in actual oppression.
Even today, these classes of people can experience great
injustice. Now, there are some systems in
place to help with those injustices, but unfortunately,
we live in a society that often doesn't want to be concerned
with someone else's problems. As Christians, we're called to
see these groups of people and demonstrate generosity to them.
When we step into a situation and help to bear the burdens of
others, we're showing kindness. For us in this body, that can
mean paying special attention to the needs of our many widows.
Some people will find themselves called to adoption or making
their home available as a safe family.
World Relief is a great way to to help show generosity to
immigrants and refugees. And as a church, we're able to
provide financial assistance to those who might be down on their
luck and need need a helping hand.
And some of you I know will engage with that on occasion as
well. But generosity is a great way
for us to show kindness to the vulnerable.
As we close this morning, consider what steps you need to
take in kindness. I'd like to remind you, don't
take all that I said this morning and say I'm going to do
every single point. Not to be rude, but you'll
probably fail. There's a lot there.
Pick one thing. What is your next step?
The best thing for you to engage in?
It's so that you can become friendly and generous,
considerate and treat others with respect.
As you get a grip on one thing, then you can move on to the
next. Let the Holy Spirit continue to
do His work in you. I myself look at this list and
it's easy to feel overwhelmed when I look at the the barriers.
Pride and patience, selfishness, that's me.
But press into God and let Him do His work in you.
We're the body of Christ and we want to walk in unity and love
extending God's kindness everywhere we go.
We need to be people who have traded hostility for
helpfulness, offense with forgiveness, and brokenness with
compassion. When we walk in these virtues,
the body will be built up into the body that God desires us to
be. Let's bow our heads and close
our eyes. God, this morning as we conclude
this message, my prayer for all of us is that you would give us
a vision of of how best to step forward.
What's that one area that we need to address?
How can we be edifying? How can we show compassion?
Is there an area where I need to forgive someone?
Do I need to be more generous? God, would you reveal your will,
your desire in our hearts this morning?
Make us kind. Grow this fruit in us.
We thank you that we have the Holy Spirit to lean into, to
rely on. So we say, Holy Spirit, come
fill me up. Empower me for your service.
Make me like Jesus. It's in his name we pray.
Amen.