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Why Don’t You Try A Little Kindness
Galatians 5:22-23; Matthew 10: 25-33
Fruit of the Spirit The Mark of Maturity
(Have one shoe on and carry the other.)
Galatians 5:22-23 But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
(NLT)
So far we’ve examined love, joy, peace, and patience.
These are part of what’s known as the fruit of the Spirit.
When we put our faith in Jesus Christ God sends His Spirit to live in our hearts.
Then God begins the process of maturing us into his image.
His Holy Spirit begins to produce the nine characteristics in us.
We literally take on the character of God, in whose image we were created.
This character formation does not happen instantaneously.
Everything that we need to live godly lives is within us as followers of Christ, but most of us don’t immediately see the fruit of the Spirit.
I trusted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior when I was 21 years old.
I knew without a doubt that I’d been forgiven and accepted by God.
I knew that he would grant me eternal life because of my faith in his Son.
Nevertheless, I still wasn’t the person God intended me to be.
I had Christ, but not his character.
For years I had real problems with my temper and thought it was my place to put people in their place.
Even as a pastor I was not always as diplomatic as I should have been.
At that point, I still had not taken seriously the essential role of kindness in relationships.
Without kindness, the faith that we profess is hypocrisy.
I wish I’d known then what I know now.
You can be a sincere follower of Christ and sincerely fail to be kind.
You have to intentionally put it on.
Look at the advice of Colossians 3:12 “Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”
(NLT)
Notice that kindness, like all the characteristics listed here is a choice.
We must choose to put them on.
In the morning we must clothe ourselves with kindness.
During that period of my life when I wasn’t kind, I carried a lot of anger and hostility and my Christianity was like walking around with one shoe on.
I had my faith in Jesus as one shoe that I put on and never took off.
But the other foot was where kindness was supposed to be.
What happens when you only wear one shoe?
You walk funny.
What else?
People wonder if you’re hurt?
Does your shoe not fit?
Are you just dumb?
Faith without kindness is just like that.
It hinders your walk with God and it makes people wonder about the validity of your faith.
We must choose, each day, to put on kindness.
Let’s dig a little deeper.
What, exactly, is kindness?
\\ The Character of Kindness
I think the best way to see it is in a story rather than merely by definition.
But we can boil it down to this understanding:
1. Kindness is love in action.
It is essential to faith, so much so that Jesus elevated it to a prominent position in one of the most famous parables he ever told.
Luke 10:25-29 One day an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus by asking him this question: "Teacher, what must I do to receive eternal life?” Jesus replied, "What does the law of Moses say?
How do you read it?”
The man answered, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’
And, `Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Right!” Jesus told him.
"Do this and you will live!”
The man wanted to justify his actions, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?”
(NLT)
This religious expert had all the head knowledge about God that a person could hope for.
He agreed with loving God, but he had some trouble with the neighbor part.
He was like most of us.
It’s relatively easy to respond to an invitation or pray a prayer to trust in Christ.
It’s sometimes hard to express that love to others through our actions.
Jesus says, in no uncertain terms, that love for God expresses itself in kindness toward other people.
Here’s where loving action begins.
2. Kindness notices needs.
Here comes the story: Luke 10:30 Jesus replied with an illustration: "A Jewish man was traveling on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he was attacked by bandits.
They stripped him of his clothes and money, beat him up, and left him half dead beside the road.”
(NLT) This is a man in need.
He been robbed and beaten and there he is lying beside the road.
What are you going to do about it?
That’s the key to kindness.
A truly kind person will find a need and fill it.
Find a hurt and heal it.
The kind person is able to put aside their own desires and look out for others.
If you’re a follower of Jesus, you recognize that God met your need not only for food, shelter, clothing and other material things, but He knew your need for forgiveness.
God knew that you could never be good enough for him, so he sent his only Son to live a perfectly sinless life for you.
He died on the cross paying the dept that you owe, but could never repay.
God sought you and gave this life changing Good News in a way you could understand and respond to it.
The expectation is that we who have received God’s love reach out to love other people.
Even having this knowledge, it can still be difficult.
The author of Philippians had to remind good church folks of this: Philippians 2:4 Don’t think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing.
(NLT)
It’s really a matter of selfishness vs. selflessness.
To be kind we must focus on the needs of the other and put our own aside.
More and more I find that we opt for self rather than kindness.
There’s a reason for this.
The cards are stacked against us in our culture.
3. Busyness is the enemy of kindness.
In our culture we think, busyness is next to godliness.
The reality is that busyness is the death of kindness.
Here’s how that looks in the story: Luke 10:31-32 “By chance a Jewish priest came along; but when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to the other side of the road and passed him by.
A Temple assistant walked over and looked at him lying there, but he also passed by on the other side.”
(NLT)
Here are two religious guys who see the need.
Don’t imagine that these were heartless, cruel people.
In their own towns they probably had reputations as generous and godly people.
They probably gave to the Salvation Army at Christmas.
Their lives were just too busy and important to help this man in need.
They had their religious duty to take care of at the church.
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