Can We Opt Out of Gentleness?

I would like for you to pray for VBS next week. Angie and I will be teaching the lesson. The funny thing about teaching in the church is sometimes you have be in a position where you have to swing on the pendulum from acting like an idiot in front of kids and to spending thirty minutes to an hour to make a point to adults. Now some you who know me and have heard me teach may think I have those roles reversed.

But weather young or old I have always found that my sweet spot was in college ministry. This has always been closely tide to how I came to Christ. And perhaps I can share that story with you someday in the future.

We had a great first year on the campus of our local university with the organization. We do have needs in the ministry. As we gear up for our second year I hope you will pray that God will continue to grow and bless in that endeavor.

The goal of Ratio Christi is always to create an environment of kindness and gentleness as we have important conversation and answer tough questions about God & culture. But the further I go on my walk with Christ, I find myself reflecting more and more on how we communicate to one another. How we engage in conversation.

Because I meet a lot of people these days, both in the business world, the university and in even christians in the church that just seem so uptight in their conversations. So this is what God has laid on my heart to share with you this morning.

Bit before we look at our text this morning. I want to read you a quote.

…the “negative world” is a different place. Tough choices are increasingly before us, offense is unavoidable, and sides will need to be taken on very important issues. Recent events have proven that being winsome in this moment will not guarantee a favorable hearing…..To many, like me, it appears that moment has passed.

Now I have a question for you. And you don’t have to answer out loud. But does this quote appears to come from a Christian? Or non-christian? Do you agree or disagree with the statemen?

This is a quote from James Wood, who is professor of theology @ Redeemer University in Toronto Canada. And he wrote this in an article in 2022 about Tim Keller. Who was until he recently passed away, the Pastor at Redeemer Church in New York City. One of the largest churches in NYC.

Keller was know for his winsomeness approach to evangelism.

Now James, who is a believer says, "Look, Keller's sort of model and the idea of winsomeness and of painting a Christianity that was attractive to the world worked back in the day of the neutral world, but it doesn't seem so viable in the negative world."

And James worries that when winsome, meets with hostility, it tends towards self-doubt, a weakness of conviction, and then just succumbs to the temptation that you just kind of kowtow to whatever the prevailing powers is at the time.

So he is saying that these are hardly the qualities that you need in the Christian world today. If he's right. And I think that the observation he made, that we have moved from more neutral to more negative as a culture in terms of perception Christianity is correct. But I think he’s only half right.

The question that comes to mind is twofold.

Number one, does that mean that gentleness no longer works or civility or kindness or other similar virtues?

The second question that's even more important is the question, "Even if it didn't work, aren't we still supposed to be that way?

In other words, are we supposed to be gentle regardless of whether or not it pays off? We're supposed to be humble even if it doesn’t benefit us, our power or our agenda." Perhaps we're supposed to even be kind and good, whether or not it pays off. And in fact, the question of paying off or not is never assessed by have we obtained power in this present world, but rather by have we pleased Christ and done the things that he would call us to do for the next world? Have we laid up treasure in heaven or have we obtained power here on Earth?

Would gentleness work in the face of opposition where a person's being anything but gentle towards us?

Does that mean we get to opt out of the biblical command to be gentle?

And here's the way that we should think about this. We have to ask the question,

"Are we moral relativists when it comes to gentleness?"

How many of you know what moral relativism is?

And to just make this clear, the idea of moral relativism, if you're a moral relativism say regarding sexuality, it doesn't mean you go and have sex with everybody or anybody. It doesn't mean that you violate all the laws about adultery or premarital sex or whatever your sense of sexual ethics is. It just says you're happy to honor those laws whenever it works, whenever it's convenient, whenever it matches up with your desires. But if it looks like you don't want to have to do that, or if it looks like honoring that commitment will deny you something you desperately want, then you just say, "Oh, that goes out the window and I'm going to pursue the thing that I desire or do what feels good natural to me."

And that's just what we mean by moral relativism in this sense. It isn't the person who's necessarily anti-moral, amoral and the evilest person in the world, it's the person for whom morality doesn't measure high enough to actually control and guide their behavior.

And that's my question. Have we become that way with virtues like gentleness, kindness, goodness, patience, being loving in that kind of a sense of treatment of other people? And my worry is the answer to that question is exactly that. Yes, we have.

We have become people for whom those commands are viewed broadly as irrelevant. Let me just give an example of how this may work for both on the progressive and conservative side of politics. These are things I have heard people saying directly. Not that I agree with either one of them. On the progressive side, it might sound like, "Look, you can't invoke gentleness and respect when someone's knee is on your throat."

The real reason people appeal to gentleness and respect is they don't want to confront the structures of oppression. Civility is a tool that's used to silence the voice of the disenfranchised.

Now on the conservative side, I've heard people say things like, "Look, when elections are stolen, there's no time for gentleness.

The time for civility has passed. we're not going to bow to that cultural elite any longer. We're going to own the libs, we're going to speak boldly,

So let me just point out one thing before we get to our text for today, and I am going to camp out on this idea of gentleness for three reasons.

Number one, it's a handy way of talking about a whole set of other virtues. So everything I'm going to say could apply equally as well to kindness, goodness, humility, patience all those sorts of things. The second reason I use gentleness is I think that is the most irritating virtue to people. Not that I'm trying to be irritating. In other words, I can find people who say, "Yeah, we probably should be kind." They nod their head. But if I say, "Well, should we be gentle?" maybe sometimes...But I I think the biblical view of these virtues is delivered as a package that travel together.

But number three, is today in our culture. And dare I say even in our Churches, we really are almost anti gentle.

So now to our text. Matthew 11.28-30

Matthew 11:28–30 ESV

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Let me begin by just pointing out that Jesus models gentleness and not by accident, but literally when he gives himself a self-description.

1. Jesus describes himself as gentle

He describes himself as gentle and lowly in spirit, and he is exhorting us to imitate him exactly that. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I'm gentle and lowly in spirit, the effect of that will be that you'll be able to find rest for your souls.

Now, we could pause right there and say, how are you doing on experiencing rest for your soul? If you're feeling restful and tranquil, well good. If you're feeling agitated, upset, concerned if you're daily angry, if you get more angry as the day goes long, if every time you read something, maybe this would be one of those moments to say, "What does Jesus say about having a soul that's not feeling restful?"

And I'd suggest that what he says is, well, you should probably take his yolk upon you and learn from him and become gentle and lowly in spirit.

Now, having talked to people about this, I discover, I think people think that maybe Jesus took the strength finders test and found out that he was a gentle. And he just happened to get that like it was his personality. It was just part of his human side. That just happened to be his personality.

Here's the really weird thing.

Let’s move down to chapter 12.

Matthew 12:17–21 ESV

17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: 18 “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. 19 He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; 20 a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; 21 and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

If you keep reading in Matthew, into Matthew 12, you suddenly discovered that his gentleness was not a personality trait, but actually literally a fulfillment of prophecy.

This is a crazy passage.

In our current circumstance, I think what is most shocking about this passage, it would seem that gentleness was not only a prophesied quality of the Messiah that apparently in Matthew's mind needed to be fulfilled by the genuine Messiah, but it was also Jesus' favored way of advocating not only for social justice. But for the salvation of the gentiles. That is you and me!!

I am by no means are we suggesting gentleness doesn't mean we don't advocate for what is right?

We are called to doing that, but in a particular kind of way.

It has nothing to do with not speaking up. I mean, Jesus was a speaking up sort of dude. But the interesting thing is that the prevailing impression we get of Jesus through the gospels is one that he did it in a way that was largely gentle. Yes he was blunt at times. And we'll talk a little bit more about that before we're done.

I think our sense of Jesus overall really is that of gentleness and kindness. He's a friend of sinners. He's a friend to kind of all the ordinary people. And interestingly enough, he's actually a friend to a lot of Pharisees. He goes to dinner, and the episodes that are recorded are sometimes awkward, but they generally aren't marked by anger or wrath.

What is also important is that, it isn't just Jesus who plays the gentleness card. You find the apostle Paul, in Ephesians 4.1-3

Ephesians 4:1–3 ESV

1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

So now we should be thinking, "What does that mean?" And it says, "Well, it should be unsurprising, that the characterization of the Christ-like manner is one of humility and gentleness." That's the way we imitate Christ.

Galatians 5:22–24 ESV

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

2. Gentleness is not optional.

Now in fairness, I've always viewed the fruit of the spirit as being optional.

Wouldn’t you agree with me? I mean think about it. Often what we say is…"Well, I'm going to pick among the fruit"? We don’t get to do this.

There is the difference between gifts of the spirit plural and fruit of the spirit singular. So the fruit of the spirit is just what happens when the spirit takes root in your life. These are the things that emerge. It's a little bit like saying, what comes out of an orange tree? Oranges.

What comes out of a spirit tree? Well, spirit fruit. What in the world is a spirit fruit? I'm so glad you asked. Let me give you the list. So these are things that we as Christians should view as the central project of our discipleship. We have to learn to cultivate ALL of them.

One of the things I find disturbing in our conversations is this resistance to people (and man y in the church today) who are primarily centered on their political concerns. That for them, they may be Christians, they may not be Christians, but when they rise in the morning, they aren't thinking Christianly. They aren't thinking of themselves necessarily as a disciple.

They're more like, "I'm a politician, I’m a teacher, or I'm an advocate, or I'm a this or that or whatever. I may happen to be a Christian. I may not happen to be a Christian," but my driving force, what I see through the windshield of my life is my accomplishments or my ambitions, my agenda or whatever your profession may be. And I'm not surprised at all that people like that push back on being gentle. But if you're a self-professed Christian, what you should be saying is, "No, my central concern on a daily basis is actually pleasing Christ and walking with him." I think it's passages like this that should really give you pause if you're suddenly just okay on a daily basis living in the absence of the practice of gentleness and kindness and civility.

Gentleness truly can be a diagnostic marker of where we are in our Christian walk. Our typical perspective is you treat me well, I'll treat you well.

Because one of the problems that we tend to have when we see this word gentleness, is that we think of this word as weakness or passivity. That is not what gentleness is, or we tend to think that gentleness is the thing that we display only to those who are with us, only to those who share with us a common identity or a common agenda or mindset. But of course, that's not distinctively Christian at all. That is Darwinian at it’s core. Even in a Darwinist understanding of the world, we show kindness and gentleness to those with whom we have a natural bond.

No, The scripture says, be kind to every one, show honor to everyone. Paul says this...

2 Timothy 2:22–26 (ESV)

22 So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. 23 Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, 25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. So that God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, 26 and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

We show this kindness and gentleness to your opponents. Why? Because for the scriptures, for the apostles, for the believing community, gentleness and kindness is not a break from fighting.

3. Gentleness is how you fight.

Other people are not your enemy. They maybe your opponents but they are not your ultimate enemies because the scripture says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, we wrestle against principalities and powers in the heavenly places, and we speak to them with truth, with conviction, but we speak, Paul says, with gentleness and kindness. Why? Because our ultimate objective is not to win an argument. You can win an argument but completely loose a person in a heartbeat.

If all we wanted to do is to prove that we are smarter than the people who disagree with us, then we could find that killer argument, say it, spike the football and turn around and walk away. But that's not the mission we've been given. He says so that God may grant them repentance and come to the knowledge of truth. How do people come to repentance and to the knowledge of the truth? How did WE come to repentance and to knowledge of the truth? The people we're talking with are the only ones who've been held captive by the devil to do his will. All of us were hiding from the voice of God. We hide behind different things. Some people hide behind satanism, and some people hide behind Hinduism, Buddhism, atheism, Darwinism, and some people hide behind self-righteous, but unregenerate, Christianity. We all hide somewhere.

So the first thing that Christian will push back on with idea of gentleness this is the question of , “didn’t Jesus get angry”? What about where he turned over the tables?

So let's just talk a little bit about this. I think it's really good to say at the outset that gentleness cannot mean a lack of discernment and an absence of moral conviction. Whatever we're saying about Jesus turning over the table in the temple, gentleness is not a wishy washiness, or ambivalence. That is absolutely and clearly not descriptive of Jesus. So whatever version of gentleness you have. This is not the Jesus versus version of gentleness. Now more directly on this issue of Jesus turning over the tables, is that an example of Jesus jettisoning gentleness because of extreme circumstances?

Well, here is the issue. Matthew describes these as people as ones who are shutting the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, those who neither enter nor allow others to go into the kingdom of heaven. To put it simply, what's at stake is a matter people's eternal destiny, there's language in these passages about the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the one unpardonable sin. So Jesus' perception of these folks and what he is speaking so harshly against is the people's eternal souls are being shut out because of their behaviors.

So, here is the question for us today. If you're getting your rage worked up because you're literally seeing people with the doors of heaven being shut in their faces, you've got a much better case than if you're upset because of how we do immigration policy, because of mask mandates, because you don't think COVID vaccines are legit or because you believe they are and everyone should have them. Those are the kinds of things where I want to say, "Well, there's a big distance between the things that were triggering this for Jesus and the things that seem to be triggering this for us today." The other thing is, one of the common reframes of the gospels, when Jesus is talking to people, particularly to Pharisees, particularly these people he has the antagonistic problems with is this phrase, "But he knew what was in their hearts or knowing what was in their hearts."

And so when he was saying that perhaps someone was resisting the Holy Spirit or on the verge of committing the unpardonable sin or shutting the doors of heaven, he wasn't just angry. He was making a considered moral judgment based on actual divine knowledge he had about what was going on in that person's heart and soul. Jesus was omniscient. And here is the point. We are not!

I think our tendency is when we lack gentleness is to act a little bit omniscient. We try to mind read the other person. But that prerogative belongs only to God.

Instead, what we need to say is, "Hey, I need to make a concerted effort to first understand what this person's actually saying, what they mean, why they're saying it before calling them a whitewashed sepulcher and turning over all of their tables."

So as I think on all of these things, we really have to take a moment and step back and say, "What was going on in that context with Jesus," and be really careful one about making that the universal picture of Jesus. He's always running around turning all the tables. When many and even most of his other confrontations are actually remarkably gentle, even if they are at times awkward. He isn't doing those sorts of things. And it's based on His divine knowledge. And he seems more concerned with the things that are absolutely foundational issues of the Gospel, not issues that are perhaps important, but nonetheless not matters to eternal salvation.

So Yes. Jesus got angry. But who was he angry with? It was with those people who claimed to speak for God to the rest of the world. Never to those in need of rescue.

So as we wrap this up. This is almost taking a page directly out of Aristotle who said, "Are you charitable when you tried to understand why a person did what they did?" And again, Jesus absolutely knows what was in the heart of a person. We don't. But as I try to ascertain what's in your heart, do I do so charitably or do I give a negative interpretation of what you're trying to do to this country, this church, or my community?

We don't have this divine knowledge, we do have partial knowledge and we do need to approach people as other made in the image of God in order to open up these productive conversations

At the end of the day, , what we should be trying to do is to engage on the issues that are dividing communities, churches, and even our nation, and to do it in a way that is civil, gentle, and ultimately productive. Not that we set aside our values, but we pursue them in a way that people can receive it and have a helpful conversation. But always with an eye on their eternal destiny and ours.

Please stand and pray with me!