iLove: Kindness
iLove: Kindness
Thesis: Kindness is meeting someone’s needs with the resources available despite the cost
Goal: That God’s kindness for us would motivate us to be kind in return
Text: Topical
Introduction
Title Slide
A. Review
1. Last week, we kicked off the iLove series on relationships by looking at a list of virtues commonly called the “Fruit of the Spirit.”
These fruit are qualities essential to relationships: our relationship with God as well as with people
2. Knowing that it takes more than a worship service and a Sunday morning message to grow spiritually, we’ve put together everything from scripture memory cards to recommended reading lists to adult education classes on relationships.
But, probably, the most important means we have of studying and applying these concepts is in our small group ministry. Ask people who are doing the study to raise their hands.
3. A new technology that we thought we would try – texting to an email – some of the questions:
a) What if the hokey pokey really is what its’ all about?
b) If the professor can make a radio out of a coconut on Gilligan’s Island, why couldn’t he fix the hole in the boat?
c) When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?
d) Do fish get thirsty
e) Why do kamikaze pilots wear helmets?
I’m kidding! Those come off of www.boston.com – an article listing stupid questions in honor of “Ask a Stupid Question Day”
This idea of texting a question during the sermon is real – I’m open to your questions – we know that you are out there texting – we can see you – at least put your texting to good use.
B. Last Week’s Topic
1. I told you last week, how excited I was to be studying this fruit of the Spirit because these virtues are all different aspects of God’s love – like a prism that breaks color free from light, the fruit reveal the colors of God’s love
2. Studying these fruit has also heightened my conviction that they are the greatest demonstration of our spiritual maturity.
a) In Matthew 6 – Jesus said you could be fasting, praying and giving to the poor but not honoring God
b) In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus said you could drive out demons and perform miracles and be unrecognizable to Him.
c) In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says you can practice supernatural spiritual gifts, possess tremendous knowledge, give away fortunes to the poor and die a martyr but still gain nothing.
d) All throughout the bible, each one of these virtues is equated with God’s love. Each one is also equated with Christ’s very character. To pursue godliness, to truly become like Christ, spiritually mature, we need to grow this spiritual fruit in our relationships.
3. Last week, we looked at Patience.
Transition: This week, we’re looking at Kindness – LET’S PRAY
I. Surrender to God’s Kindness
A. Defining Kindness
1. Typical Kindness
a) We like kind people, primarily because they do nice things for us
(1) Open a doors
(2) Carrying heavy parcels
(3) Say nice things to us
b) These are good things but once again, our English translation of the term that Paul used is woefully inadequate. Kindness as the bible uses it means so much more than doing some nice things.
2. Biblical Kindness
a) This is what I think he means by kindness:
Slide 2
Kindness is meeting someone’s need with the resources available despite the sacrifice involved.
b) Paul’s term is more synonymous with words like “charitable and compassionate”
Think of the work that we’re doing in Malawi:
(1) This tiny village is overwhelmed by a tragedy that they can’t manage. They don’t have the resources to meet their desperate need. They had no one to help them.
(2) Our response to their need ($10K at year, $60K for disaster mitigation, sponsorship of over 100 children, sending team across the globe to visit & encourage them) cost us quite a bit of sacrifice and is what Paul means by ‘kindness’
Transition: But when we think of God as being kind, He takes our definition in a direction we couldn’t imagine.
B. God’s Kindness
1. Listen to Christ’s description of kindness (it comes from your bible study)
“If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even ‘sinners’ lend to ‘sinners,’ expecting to be repaid in full.
Slide 3
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, (why) because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. (Luke 6:32-36 NIV)
a) Christ’s description of kindness is an over the top demonstration:
In the larger context of this passage, He talks about giving away clothes, lending money freely, submitting to injustice and praying for our persecutors.
b) I have a movie clip that demonstrates the kindness that Christ is describing:
The movie, “To End All Wars”, tells the true story of Scottish prisoners in a Japanese POW camp during WWII. In this clip, a truck load of wounded Japanese soldiers is brought into the camp:
VIDEO CLIP
This is not simple kindness – but it is God’s compassion and charity.
Transition: How does God demonstrate this type of kindness? Who are enemies, the ungrateful, the wicked that He loves with kindness?
2. Let’s look back to last week
a) Last week we said that God’s patience is the power He exerts to hold back His wrath in order to rescue our souls.
b) We asked the question, “What makes God so angry?”
It’s a big question that we answered with a little word: “sin”, describing it as:
(1) Totally ignoring God, mostly ignoring God or rejecting Him outright
(2) Using Him to get what we want out of Him
(3) Making Him into what we want Him to be instead of accepting Him as He truly is
(4) Anything that uses people for our own gain, callously ignores their needs, cheapens their dignity and disregards their worth
(5) For the most part, sin is mutiny – saying to God, “I don’t want you, need you nor will I follow you. I want to be in charge of my own destiny – like we have the power to do that
c) I also said God held back His anger against sin for centuries as He waited through human history for Christ to come – then He poured it out on Christ as they found the means to bring justice and compassion together
3. Here’s the issue for today: how did God bring justice and compassion together? – His kindness – think of the definition:
a) meeting someone’s need – what’s our greatest need?
(1) Our greatest need is to take care of that sin. Sin has
(a) deformed and corrupted our nature – we have to be healed in order to reach our full potential as humans
(b) amassed a great deal of injustice that needs to be addressed
(c) broken down our relationship with God beyond our repair
(2) sin has us messed up that we are
(a) the enemies that oppose His work and His ways
(b) the ungrateful who receive His gifts daily without any appreciation
(c) the wicked that hurt, deceive, manipulate, control and wound
(3) We are the enemies that God has chosen to love
Transition: that’s our need but what is the resource God has to meet it?
b) with the resources available despite the sacrifice involved - God met our needs through Jesus Christ
Slide 4
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:6 & 8 NIV)
(1) Our souls needed rescuing because of our sin – sin has so captured our souls that we are prisoners of hell – we may be alive but we’re only on yard detail
(2) That is what the cross is all about – the innocent man and holy God, Jesus Christ, choosing to die as the means by which He would enter into hell in order to rescue us
(a) This sin has a powerful influence over us, it breaks, destroys, devastates and mutilates – it reaches all aspects of our humanity as well as all human beings
(b) Christ broke the power of sin at it’s source
(c) He paid the debt created by our sin and released us from it’s hold
(d) He satisfied the justice required for our wrong
Transition: the cross is God’s greatest act of kindness – Christ met our needs from our sins through the sacrifice of the cross
4. Christ lived out the Luke 6 passage that we’ve been studying:
a) “pray for those who mistreat you” – on the cross, He prayed, “Father forgive them they don’t know what they are doing”
b) “striking on the cheek” – He was beaten by temple guards and Roman soldiers but didn’t resist
c) Give them both your shirt as well as your coat – Roman soldiers gambled over His clothes as He hung naked on a cross
d) He gave everything He had to those who would care less and didn’t take anything back
e) The whole time, He was doing good to those who despised Him, loving those who hated Him.
The Kindness of God is the Cross of Christ
Communion
Transition: How do I respond to that kindness?
! II. Becoming Kind People
Pt. 2 Slide 1
While we were God’s enemies, he made us his friends through the death of his Son. Surely, now that we are his friends, he will save us through his Son’s life. (Romans 5:10 NCV)
God’s kindness is a source of love that He wants to continuously pour into your life on a daily basis. It’s not just a one time shot.
Our experiences of His love should continue throughout His life – we should have new and deeper experiences of God’s compassion as the years progress.
A. Practice Kindness to Experience It
Pt. 2 Slide 2
If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. (John 15:10 NIV)
1. Two Examples
a) Experiencing the Kindness of God
Summer Missions transformations: God’s love flowing through me, changes me – trip to VT – Paul L – the impact on his life
(1) See Kristi Cooper for ideas on a Summer Missions Trip
(2) Call Carol Mitchell for Salvation Army
(3) Stop in at Project Just Because in Hopkinton to help
b) Palestinian Pastor: Experiencing Kindness towards People
Bible College professor Yohanna Katanacho pastored a small church in the Israeli city of Jerusalem. As a Palestinian living in Israel, and a Christian to boot, he faces a wide variety of persecution. One of the more dangerous forms of harassment comes from the Israeli soldiers who patrol the city, looking for potential terrorists. These soldiers routinely impose spontaneous curfews on Palestinians, and even have the legal right to shoot at a Palestinian if he or she does not respond quickly enough to their summons.
Christ's command in the Sermon on the Mount to "love your enemies" seemed impossible to Yohanna. And yet there it was—unambiguous and unchanging. "For me, love was an active and counter-cultural decision, because I was living in a culture that promoted hatred of the other," Yohanna says. "And not only did the context promote hate, but the circumstances fed it on a daily basis—the newspapers, television, media, neighbors, everything. One of the markers of the Israeli Jews and the Palestinian Arabs is alienating the other. To break that marker, I must have some other worldview."
At first, Yohanna tried and failed in his attempts to feel love. Instead, the Israeli soldiers' random, daily checks for Palestinian identification cards—sometimes stopping them for hours—fed Yohanna's fear and anger. As he confessed his inability to God, Yohanna realized something significant. The radical love of Christ is not an emotion, but a decision. He decided to show love, however reluctantly, by sharing the gospel message with the soldiers on the street. With new resolution, Yohanna began to carry copies of a flyer with him, written in Hebrew and English, with a quotation from Isaiah 53 and the words "Real Love" printed across the top. Every time a soldier stopped him, he handed him both his ID card and the flyer. Because the quote came from the Hebrew Scriptures, the soldier usually asked him about it before letting him go.
After several months of this, Yohanna suddenly noticed his feelings toward the soldiers had changed. "I was surprised, you know?" he says. "It was a process, but I didn't pay attention to that process. My older feelings were not there anymore. I would pass in the same street, see the same soldiers as before, but now find myself praying, 'Lord, let them stop me, so that I can share with them the love of Christ.'"
"When Love Is Impossible," Trinity Magazine (Fall 2005), p. 16-17
B. Change the Focus of Your Kindness
Pt. 2 – Slide 3
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:37-50 NIV)
1. Secret: when you change the focus of your kindness from the person to Christ, you don’t need to be concerned about the person’s response
2. Example: the “pregnant” woman who called my house last Christmas
3. Ask the Question: What would I do for this person if I found out it was really Christ?
C. Praise God to Generate Kindness
Pt. 2 – Slide 4
They will celebrate your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of your righteousness. (Psalm 145:7 NIV)
1. It is always easier for me to be kind when I’ve been praising God for His kindness
2. Ideas:
a) How does the music you are listening to affect your spirit – do you feel uplifted, kinder and more compassionate?
b) How do you start your morning? Start your morning by focusing on God’s kindness – iPod devotions – religion section – listen when you commute
c) How much scripture have you memorized?
Conclusion: Help for Specific application to relationships in the Bible study this week