Galatians 5
Reading from Galatians chapter
5 at 16, this is the Apostle Paul, and he says, But I say,
walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the
flesh. For the desires of the flesh
are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against
the flesh. For these are opposed to each
other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But
if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. down
to verse 22, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, and then this evening our study is kindness. And then
it says in verse 24, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified
the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit,
let us also walk by the spirit. Let us not become conceited,
provoking one another and envying one another. May the Lord add
his blessing to his scripture. Well, you’ve probably seen the
bumper sticker on the back of somebody’s car. You know how
it is when you’re in traffic and you’re not reading your text
messages or fooling with the radio. You’re reading the fruity
bumper stickers on the car in front of you, and you’ve no doubt
seen the one that says, practice random acts of kindness. And you’re scratching your head,
wondering what in the world that is. You’re supposed to hand $5
bills out to people at random, or you’re supposed to you know,
feed random cats. What does that exactly mean? But it gives you some food for
thought. Anyway, think about kindness
in this way. Go down here to the middle school,
Turntown Middle School. Can you imagine there’s some
acts of kindness that go on in that place? Middle school, grade
six through eight. Well, you can imagine that In
one instance, somebody’s gonna have their whole stack of books
knocked out of their hand, right? That’s a middle school thing
to do, juvenile thing to do. But in the next moment, someone
may be kind and pick up those books. You read things on the
internet, you know, you get these little soupy stories and you’re
supposed to forward them and if you don’t forward them, you’re
a bad person and your computer’s gonna self implode, something
like that. But you read things like recently a man on an airplane
picks up a little baby who’s screaming and squawking, and
we all know how that goes on airplanes. Everybody’s mad at
the mother. What business do you have traveling? You’re supposed
to be at home for seven years, and your children aren’t allowed
to go anywhere. Are you with them? But this man
picks up a little baby, and while he’s rocking the baby, the mother
is able to tend to her other child. And so there’s a video
of it. It goes viral, but the man shows
kindness. Or just a week or two ago in
South Carolina, A young teenager sees an older lady struggling
to get out of her car and make it into the local dollar store.
He helps her out of her car, he takes her in the store, holds
the door for her, and he pushes the cart around and he helps
her shop, helps her through the checkout, and returns her safely
to her car and sends her on his way. What teenager does that?
But there’s kindness. We think about how many people
have overlooked our foolishness, how many people have overlooked
our rudeness. I remember my parents telling
a story. They had a good family set of
friends up in Virginia where my dad was first a pastor. The
man was a gentleman. They lived on a horse farm. They
had good southern manners. And at one particular meal, there
was a man invited to the table. And he didn’t really have any
manners. And so this man, my parents’ friend, took up the
manners of the guest and ate just like he did so that he wouldn’t
feel ashamed. He drank out of his soup bowl
like the man had done and did some other things. And my dad
said, it’s always stuck with me what an act of kindness. Instead
of being a snob, instead of being offended or highly whatever,
he showed kindness. But we see opposite of this.
Just the other day, I think it was in Walmart, I watched a lady,
a cashier, and there was an older gentleman having a lot of trouble
and she was impatient with him. She was unkind to him. She couldn’t
get him out of the line fast enough. He wasn’t moving at a
very high rate of speed and I watched from two lines over where I was
and nobody helped him. They just let him suffer in his
torment and nobody stepped up. to help, not even probably an
employee who should have been kind and gone the extra mile.
So we live in a world where kindness is not always the norm. We live
in a world where people can be very brutal, people can be very
difficult. But what’s the bottom line for
us? The fruit of the Spirit is kindness. But the behavior of
new creations in Christ Jesus is the behavior of kindness.
And the behavior of kindness is our duty, even in the face
of hostility, even in the face of difficulty. You’ve probably
seen someone who’s just getting it from every different direction,
from customers complaining, maybe you see a restaurant that’s busy
and the food service isn’t great that night, and you see these
waiters and the waitresses just taking it from customers. Or
you see somebody, a shopkeeper, and things aren’t all going with
the flow. But as new creations in Christ
Jesus, we’re to be kind to others, even in the face of hostility,
even in the face of an angry parent when we’re a teacher in
school or an angry customer when we’re a shopkeeper and that sort
of thing. So we remember the old is gone, our unkindness,
and the new has come, our kindness. One of the things we ought to
remember well is that kindness is an attribute of God. God is
kind. The Apostle Paul speaks of that
over and over in the New Testament. In the book of Ephesians, he
says to us that in God’s kindness, he saved us in Christ Jesus.
The book of Titus tells us the same thing in chapter three.
The kindness of our God saved us in Christ. Exodus chapter
34 says over and over, the Lord, the Lord, he is gracious, he
is merciful, he is kind, he is full of his steadfast love. Think of a couple examples in
the Bible. David wanted to see if there
was any kindness he could do to the house of Saul. Now Saul
was wicked. Saul was evil. Not only did he
profane the temple of God and profane the sacrifices, he pursued
David and attempted to kill him multiple times. But what did
David do? He didn’t return evil with evil. He returned evil with
kindness. And he looked after Mephibosheth
of the house of David, the crippled a grandchild, I believe, of King
Saul. David showed kindness. Or how
about Boaz? You remember Ruth? She loses
her husband, her sister-in-law loses her husband. There’s the
mother-in-law, Naomi, who’s now bitter, and they return back
to Bethlehem after the sojourn. during the famine, she sticks
with her mother-in-law. She’s kind to her. But do you
remember her predicament? When her mother-in-law dies,
she’s gonna have nothing, and so she’s gleaning in the fields.
She’s receiving the kindness of Boaz, but Boaz finds out who
he is, and his great act of kindness is that he redeems her. He redeems
her and purchases the land that is available, and he redeems
her. It’s a picture of Christ. It’s
a picture of God’s love. Remember, when we think of kindness,
of God’s kindness to us, he makes a covenant with us, a covenant
to love us with an everlasting love, a covenant to love us with
a love that will not let us go. And so kindness is rooted in
the attributes of God. Now, how is kindness displayed? Well, we see a great example
of it in the Good Samaritan, where the man fell into the hands
of robbers. He was beaten, left for dead,
all his possessions taken. The priest walks by. Too busy,
not today. Levite walks by, gotta get home.
But the Samaritan, man of another race, man of a hated race by
the Jewish people, he stops and he binds up the man’s wound,
he places him on his donkey, he takes him to an inn. He spends
the evening, he cares for him and he has to leave on business.
He sees to it that the man is cared for. When I return, give
me the bill and I will pay it. And so we see in the story of
the Good Samaritan someone who’s ready, willing, and able to help
somebody, to show them kindness. So what is kindness? Well, kindness
is feeling what others feel. It’s hurting when others hurt.
It’s sympathy when it’s necessary. It’s service when it’s needed.
It’s being generous. It’s being benevolent. It’s giving
of ourselves to those who have need. I imagine in the midst
of these storms, I’m sure there’s been some looting and some theft.
I’m sure there’s been some wickedness, but can’t you imagine and picture
in your minds all the kindnesses? People have helped people. People
in need have helped other people in need, and they’ve served one
another. But we give of ourselves to those who are in need, and
for sure it takes effort. For sure it’s costly, but for
sure it’s a needed thing. Where will our world be when
we’re no longer kind to each other? when we no longer show
kindness towards one another. Well, where can our kindness
display itself? Well, our kindness can display
itself in all the contexts where God calls us. It can come in
the home, kindness towards our spouse, kindness towards our
children. It can take place in the context of church. We’re
kind towards those that we worship with and that we’re members of
the same household of faith. We can be kind towards our neighbors.
We can be kind towards the lost, those we work with. We can be
kind towards strangers. We can be kind in the marketplace.
There are all kinds of ways that we can show kindness. Now what
is the opposite of kindness? Well, it’s being selfish. I don’t
have time. It’s being selfish. Somebody else will come along.
It’s being selfish. You know, I really don’t want to get my
hands dirty or I’m not dressed for changing this flat tire or,
oh, they’re without food. Well, they should have saved
up their money and gone to the grocery store. The opposite of
pride is being unavailable, too busy. I don’t have time to take
out of my day to serve here. The opposite of kindness is also
pride. We’re too good to help. We’re
too good to serve. the professionals to do. Won’t somebody come along?
Won’t the professionals come by and
assist here? What is the nature of being unkind? Well, it’s saying
me first. It’s saying and saying, I need to be served
too. I don’t have time to serve. I need to be served. The Pharisees,
they were good at unkindness. Imagine the Pharisees, they could
stand around looking for somebody to do something wrong so that
they could point it out. Hey, that was wrong. And then
pick apart why the person did that wrong thing and how they’re
more righteous because they didn’t do the wrong thing. They always
do the right thing. 99 times out of a hundred when
given the chance. What about What about fake kindness? Have you ever been manipulated?
Oh, you’re so wonderful, you know, pat you on the shoulder.
You’re so wonderful and so kind, you know, and it would be really
great if you could do this for me. And the next time you see
that person, they’re like, who are you? But they were kind as
long as they needed a little something. So there’s people
who are kindness, show kindness to get benefits. We used to go
to church with a lady who would say, Brian and Mandy, don’t you
want a date? I’ll keep your kids if you’ll
do this. And it was always something that benefited this person. You
look back on that and say, what manipulation? But there’s manipulation
for gain. You ever been hit up by an insurance
salesman? You’re such a nice person, good
to see you. They work you over, pat you on the back, grease the
skids, all that rest. And then all you realize is they
want to sell you some life insurance or car insurance. or something
like that. There’s manipulation for gain.
Now, those kind of people have to be nice. They have to do those
sorts of things to get business. We understand that. But that’s
not true kindness. They’re going to make money off
of you. But kindness is just simply being available, being
useful, being able to serve. I think of kindness in relation
to the office of deacon. Do you know what our form of
government says about the office of deacon? It’s one of sympathy
and service. And that’s really the nutshell,
the definition of kindness. Kindness is both motivation and
action. What motivates us to be kind?
Sympathy. What motivates us to be kind?
A need. What motivates us to be kind? Christ. And then what
does it do? It leads to action. It leads
to action. Kindness is a fruit of the Holy
Spirit. I found a little interesting
saying and it’s this, very simply, kindness takes place in the context
of another’s troubles. It takes a mess to be able to
show kindness. It takes somebody being in difficulty. And I’m sure many of you who,
have served in public places, you’ve worked in hospitals, you’ve
worked in the school system, public servants like police officers,
you see opportunities to be kind. You see people in probably the
lowest of situations, and it’s a chance to be kind. The world
would be no good if we didn’t have gracious people. Let me
encourage you in a couple ways to think about being kind. Seize
the moment. Sometimes you feel like there’s
an opportunity to do something. And you stand there and you look
and you look and you look and you’re kind of saying, is it
me, Lord? Should I do this? Maybe you’re standing in the
line and your cart is full of groceries. And you know that
your bill’s gonna be $100, $150. It only takes about eight items
to do that these days. But you look in front of you
and you see a young mother has worn out. Probably making an
hourly wage. And her cart has fewer items
in it than yours. But her checkbook also has fewer
dollars in it than yours. And she’s probably, probably
terrified. What am I gonna have to put back?
And who’s gonna see that? But you know, there’s extra few
bucks in your purse, and we’ve all got them. We think we don’t,
but we do. They could make somebody’s day. Maybe you’re standing in
the drugstore getting your prescription, and you’re not being particularly
thankful that you’re well cared for, but you see a young family
come in and they really need that prescription, but the funds
aren’t there. But you could be God’s instrument of kindness
in their life and say, you know, for today I got this. This might
cost me 20 bucks, 30 bucks, something like that, but I can take care
of this. Seize the opportunities. They
don’t come by again, generally. And people are in need of kindness.
People are in need of some bit of relief. People are in need
of a simple thank you. Just yesterday, I guess it was,
we were over at one of the local stores and there was somebody
who seemed to have a lot of misfortunes in life and just looking them
in the eye and saying hello, showing them some dignity is
a wonderful, wonderful thing. But remember your own life. When a little person or a young
person or a youthful person is getting on your nerves, remember
that you were once in their shoes. Remember when you’re facing a
non-Christian and they’re obnoxious, how would you put it, pagan ways
are an offense and affront to you, as Paul says to Titus. Remember that you too were once
foolish. Walking in darkness in Christ and his kindness saved
you. But think about the context. Think about the person and the
situation they’re in and remember, remember when you were there
before. Remember what it was like when you were making a few
bucks an hour and those few bucks an hour didn’t go very far. Maybe
now times are a little better for you, but you’re gonna bump
into somebody who’s who’s struggling, and you can be kind. Think about
your kindness providing a bit of warmth for somebody. And they
live in a cold world, a cold world that, for all they know,
is against them. And you, by your kindness, can
provide some warmth, and you can be gracious to them. Nobody
may ever be gracious to them for quite a while, but you are
given that opportunity. Here’s another little thing to
think of. When you’re agitated, when you’re aggravated, when
the checkout line isn’t going fast enough, or the food service
at the restaurant isn’t quick enough, or when one of your students
at school is driving you nuts, and they’ve worn you out, and
they’re on your last nerve, that sort of thing, think of the word
instead. Instead of anger, instead of
impatience, instead of pride, instead of being selfish, instead
of whatever it’s you are thinking of doing, Show kindness instead. Show grace instead. You’ll be
glad that you did. And people are generally very
receptive to it. I wanna end by reading to you
from Ephesians chapter four, verse 32. It says this, be kind
and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another just as
God in Christ has forgiven you. Let’s pray together. Heavenly
Father, we thank you that you’re gracious to us. You’re more gracious
to us than we deserve. And we ask and pray that you
would help us to bear your image in our daily lives. When given
opportunity, we might be kind to others and that our kindness
might show the love of the Heavenly Father that is real to us and
real in heaven. It might be real to these people.
Through Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.