Untitled Sermon (21)

Big Time Talk

Be Kind and Forgive One another

Introduction and Welcome

Good morning! My name is Connor Coskery and I serve as the Youth Minister at Redeemer Community Church. A few things about myself:

I grew up, here, in Birmingham and went to Hoover High School. I played football [linebacker] but I scored one touchdown and it happened to be against Mountain Brook. Unfortunately, my claim to fame from high school is that I was involved in a blindside collision while we were playing on national television and – as of this writing – has 1.8 million views on YouTube. Find me afterward and we can watch it.

I went to college at Ole Miss. Any Rebs?

I haven't taken a Math class since my first semester of college and learned recently when helping one of my students with his algebra homework, that I still can’t find X.

On a serious note, I’m excited to be with you guys this morning and excited you are here. When I was your age I didn’t know Jesus. My middle and high school years were exhausting. I was determined to build my tiny kingdom and be great. It was all about me and if I’m honest, I was a prideful jerk.

I’m grateful for guys like Skip and Clinton because it was dudes like them who sought me out, desired to know me, called out my sin, and led me to the life-transforming grace of Jesus.

We are going to continue the “one another series” you have been walking through and this morning we are going to talk about being kind and forgiving of one another. So if you have a bible, open with me to Colossians, chapter 3, we are going to read verses 12-14.

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

What’s happening?

In these verses the apostle Paul encourages the church in Collosae to put on hearts that are compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient. And when there is a disagreement, Paul commands them to forgive one another.

The main point Paul is trying to drive home is that they are new creations in Jesus. And if they are new creations then that means the old person has died and they are new people.

And part of living as new creations means they need to “put on” different clothes. This is what Paul means when he says, “ Put on then…” He’s saying, “You are done with that old life! Those old and ragged clothes are in the trash, don’t go back to them! Instead, Jesus has given you new and fresh clothes, custom-made by the Creator of the universe!

Have you ever bought a new pair of shoes or shirt or whatever, and felt confident? To quote the great, prophet of our age Deion Sanders: “If you look good, you feel good, If you feel good, you play good…”

When we trust in Jesus and put on this new life it changes how we walk; how we talk; how we treat others. We have to look different! It’s not just clothes. It’s a new life!

Paul commands us to put on kindness and forgiveness. The world we live in struggles to be kind and has a hard time forgiving, which means when we are kind and forgiving we demonstrate to the world that we belong to a very different Kingdom – the Kingdom of God.

I want to frame our chat under two headings: Why we are kind and forgiving & How to be kind and forgiving.”

Why we are kind and forgiving

If we look closer at Paul’s words, we are kind and forgiving because we are God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved. This is where we start. This is who we are – and we always start with who we are before we talk about what we do.

If you are here this morning and you have surrendered your life to Christ, then he calls you chosen, holy, and beloved. You are washed and made clean; righteous and forgiven; an adopted son in God’s family. That is who you are! And it isn’t based on anything that you bring to the table.

You aren’t a child of God based on your goodness but on God’s grace. You aren't a child of God based on your loveableness but on God’s love.

We are kind because we have experienced the most incredible kindness from God the Father. Instead of leaving or forgetting about us, God sent Jesus to rescue us!

We forgive because we have been forgiven. In our sins, we are guilty and deserving of eternal punishment away from God’s presence. But Jesus took our debt and paid it in full on the cross. Our guilt is replaced with innocence. Our shame is replaced with love!

God shows us kindness and forgives us and that makes us people who can now be kind and forgive. The vertical moves to impact the horizontal. We were dead and Jesus made us alive into new creations! And as new creations, we are meant to live differently.

II. How to be kind and forgiving

Okay, but how? How can I do this in real life?

How Can We Be Kind in an unkind world?

If we look around, our world is really unkind and divided. Think about where you go to school, the clubs you are a part of, the sports teams you play on – would you say there is a spirit of kindness?

The Bible roots “kindness” in the steadfast, self-sacrificing love of God. God is described as being slow to anger and abounding in steadfast lovingkindness (Neh 9:17). Kindness is more than just being nice. That’s not how God relates toward us. Instead He fiercely pursues us to save us and bring us back into relationship with Him.

And so when He commands us to be kind to one another he desires us to be vessels of that same type of enduring love towards others!

This means that you can love people who believe very different things than you. I think that one of the most compelling ways that you can be the salt and light of Christ at Mountain Brook Jr. High is to love instead of cancel. We are being taught to cancel those who offend you and to shun those who think differently than you.

But the gospel tells a different story. The gospel humbles us to love across difference – to love even if we can’t affirm. It is possible for you to love the person in front of you and disagree with them on major issues!

If you want to be kind, do this:

Consider others - look for that kid who is in the shadows and draw near. Be a friend!

For those whom you disagree with (maybe its a rival friend group, sports team, political affiliation, etc.) Draw near and be curious instead of taking the bait to just shut them out. There is always more to our stories!

Pursue peace on social media instead of stirring up strife. Social Media is real life and it hurts people. If you are going to be on it, make it a place of beauty and peace and not a place to bully others while hiding behind a screen.

When we put on kindess we participate in God’s project to restore what sin has broken and bring peace to a world filled with pain.

As kindneses flows out forgiveness follows close behind….

How Can We Forgive in an Unforgiving World?

Do I have any Ted Lasso fans? There is a scene at the end of Season 1 when Rebecca, Richmond FC’s owner, opens up to Ted about how she set him up to fail. If you have been watching, you’ve anticipate this moment. You have seen Rebecca scheming behind the scenes. And then she drops the bomb – it was a set up! But Ted’s response is remarkable. The conversation goes like this:

Rebecca: Ted, I lied to you. I hired you because I wanted this team to lose. I wanted you to fail. And I sabotaged you every chance I’ve had… Ted, I’m sorry.

Ted Lasso: I forgive you.

Rebecca: You –What?! Why?!

Ted: Divorce is hard… It makes folks do crazy things… You and me… We’re okay.

The scene from Ted Lasso is shocking because our world has no concept of forgiveness. As we’ve already talked about, “if someone hurts us then we are taught to cast them away.”

Forgiveness, instead, means we pursue reconciliation instead of revenge. It means looking at the other person and desiring peace instead of trying to destroy them – phyically, emotionally, or socially.

The gospel humbles all of us. We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God. We are saved by grace and not by how awesome we are. As forgiven-people, we are called to forgive. The vertical forgiveness that we receive from God based entirely on his grace is meant to flow through us and enable us to forgive others.

But how? Two ways you can “put on” forgiveness:

First, when someone offends you – parent, sibling, friend –forgive them right away in your heart. This is gospel-forgiveness. It might feel undeserved. But this is how God forgives us and commands that we forgive others.

Second, we talk about it with the other person. Jesus told us in Luke 17:3: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.” If we don’t bring it up to our friend then seeds of bitterness are going to grow. You must push against the temptation to let it slide or avoid it. We should be honest and humble, hoping that what is broken now God will restore.