Galatians 5:22-23;
Ephesians 4:3;
1 Corinthians 13:4-7; Luke 6:35; Colossians 3:12
How would you finish this sentence – Be kind to…
Would you answer be people,
your neighbor, everybody? I
often heard the phrase be kind to animals. You can, I believe, discover a lot
about a person by the way the treat animals.
Twice in recent weeks I’ve been in an interesting traffic
situation. Cutting across from
Shelbyville Road to go to Baptist East via Bowling Boulevard there is a pond
and a marsh area. There’s a group
of geese always gathered there and occasionally they decide to cross the road.
A couple of weeks ago a large group of them walked into the road and
all the cars stopped. Of course, I
had to take a picture (by the way, I was not moving when the picture was taken. I don’t take pictures or text while
driving. I like the bumper sticker
that says honk if you love Jesus; text
while driving if you want to meet him). Most of the drivers were very patient, but as the geese
decided to stop in the middle of the road and just stand there, one driver
started honking his horn. That
doesn’t work for geese. Why? Because geese honk! They just start looking around and
wondering which one of us is honking. It took a while before traffic could
get moving again and I think everyone actually enjoyed watching the antics of
those geese.
A couple of days ago, I was driving the same route and a flock of
geese decided to step into the road again. This time, someone driving a pickup truck was not so
kind. He sped up, laid on his
horn, and just about ran down the entire flock. It was really an unkind action.
As we continue our series of messages Nurturing A Healthy Heart, today we come to kindness.
Kindness seems very simple, doesn’t it? Be kind to animals.
When a flock of geese is trying to cross the road, let them cross. When a person needs help across the
road, help them out. Hold the door
for someone who has their arms full.
Speak to people with kindness.
That’s how we generally view kindness, isn’t it? And all those actions, and many more,
are indeed examples of kindness.
But as we talk about kindness this morning, we will see that in the
Biblical sense, kindness is a far deeper matter than how we generally conceive
it to be. Kindness, in the
Biblical sense, is much more profound than just helping someone across the
street or holding open a door. As
we will see, kindness is very deep, very profound, and, most of all, very
challenging.
Scripturally, kindness is a synonym for other things, and I have
selected several passages of Scripture this morning that define kindness for
us.
Kindness leads to forgiveness.
Paul writes in Ephesians
4:32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as
God in Christ forgave you.
I don’t think that Paul just
casually put those particular words together. I don’t think that as he wrote he was thinking, oh this
sounds good together – be kind, be tenderhearted, forgive one another. That’s a nice string of things to say. Paul puts those words together, I
believe, for a very specific reason – he does so because Christian kindness
brings about forgiveness.
There are stories often in the
news about people forgiving others, even when a horrendous crime has taken
place. There are stories of people
forgiving the person who murdered a loved one and other amazing stories of
forgiveness. And I don’t know if I
have ever heard or read one of those stories where faith was missing. It is always faith that leads a person
to grant forgiveness, even in horrific circumstances.
Now, I want to add at this point
that you should put out of your mind the old saying forgive and forget. I think you should put that saying out
of your mind because it leads people to the wrong conclusion – that if you have
not forgotten, you have not forgiven.
That is not true. You do
not have to forget in order to forgive.
In fact, some hurts are so deep it is highly unlikely that we will ever
forget them, but that does not mean we cannot forgive.
Kindness is an expression of love.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 says
that
love is patient and kind…
It is impossible to fake real
kindness. You can get by for a
while, but if kindness is not rooted in love, it will become obvious sooner or
later.
Kindness is a synonym for
love. In fact, the King James
Version sometimes puts the words kindness and love together – lovingkindness
– as a reminder of the intrinsic link between the two.
This is where kindness becomes
far deeper, and more difficult, than mere surface actions, such as holding a
door open for someone, because that’s easy to do. It doesn’t cost us anything other than a few moments to hold
open a door, or to speak to someone in a polite manner, or to offer directions.
I prefer the type of kindness that
only asks me to hold open a door for someone. What about you?
I prefer it because it’s so much easier.
But to love someone, that’s very
different.
Kindness is love
personified. Kindness is love made
visible, which is not always easy.
Sometimes it is. When
someone loves us, it’s wonderful and easy, isn’t it? But Jesus says what is the greatness of that type of
love? We can all love those who
love us. In Matthew 5:46-47, in
the Sermon On the Mount, Jesus says, If you love those who love you, what
reward will you get? Are not even
the tax collectors doing that? And
if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others?
As I was preparing for Zola
Kephart’s funeral Laine brought her mother’s Bible by the office. People often do this when I’m working
on funeral messages and I always appreciate it. It’s very interesting to go through a person’s Bible to see
what passages they highlight and to read the many notes they often place within
the pages. Among the notes in
Zola’s Bible was a prayer she had written. About a paragraph long it included many of the things we
often find in prayers – asking forgiveness for our sins and giving thanks for
our blessings – but ended in a very interesting way. Zola concluded with these words – and help us Lord to
love others, even our enemies.
We often ask for help in loving others, but we don’t always add the
request that we love our enemies, but this is exactly what Jesus asks of us.
The real test, says Jesus, is to
love the one who does not love us.
The real test is to love the one who despises us and even works to our
detriment. The real test of love
is to love even the one who is our enemy.
In Luke 6:35 Jesus says,
But
love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your
reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind
to the ungrateful and the evil.
Kindness leads to compassion.
Compassion is the ability to see
others in the way that God sees them.
Imagine it this way – it’s the
difference between another child and your child. Imagine a child that is hungry, and then imagine it is your
child that is hungry. Imagine a
child, that is lonely, and then imagine it is your child that is lonely. Imagine a child that is ill, and then
imagine it is your child that is ill.
Imagine a child that is frightened, and then imagine it is your child
that is frightened. Imagine a
child that is poor, and then imagine it is your child that is poor. When it’s your child, your
actions and
feelings are much different, aren’t they?
There is no one – no one – who is
not a child of God, and it is God’s desire, I believe, that we develop the
capacity to see others in the way that he sees others – as his children.
I watched a news story the other
day about an 11-year-old young man who has spent his summer mowing lawns. That’s not a big news story, but his
purpose was. His goal was to earn
$1,000.00 over the summer to give away to people who had lost homes from storm
damage. That’s a big goal. That’s a lot of yards to mow. What was especially inspiring about the
story was how he inspired others.
Because of his efforts, friends and neighbors had contributed
$16,000.00, without anyone asking them to do so.
We think the world is a tough,
difficult, and terrible place, and it can be at times. But there is a lot of goodness – a lot
of kindness still in our world. It
is a kindness born of the Spirit of God that touches the hearts of people.
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