Growing in Kindness

All right, now I want to invite you to grab your message notes that look like this as we continue our series, Miracle Grow. That is what we call our series going through the fruit of the spirit in the Bible. That's what the Bible calls this list in Galatians 5. We've been studying this book called Cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit by Chris Wright. We've kind of had like book clubs, Bible study book clubs all over the county. Got hundreds of people in these. You can pick up a copy of this book at the info desk and you can pick up a list of open small groups so you can get into the Bible study, you can get into fellowship as we continue our series, Miracle Grow.

And I just realized why God wanted us to wait before the sermon began because I want to put up the verse that's the key verse for this series. Look at this on the screen. It's Galatians 5:22–23. Let's all read this together. Let me hear you say this. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I just realized what was happening because we just are concluding our week studying patience. And I for one am so glad for this week to be over. How many have had the most frustrating week of your year last week? And God's just saying, "Yeah, this is kind of a little nice bye-bye to the week on patience as God develops that character in our life."

This is a list in the Bible of attributes that Christians should be displaying and I don't think there is a more important, more counter-cultural, more relevant verse of the Bible for this church to be studying in the place we live than Galatians 5:22–23. Because when the outside world looks at Christians these days, they don't say, "You know, that is a group that is just full of love and peace and joy." They're just so gentle and so kind and so faithful. What they are seeing, rightly or wrongly, is a bunch of people with clenched fists and angry faces and judgmental hearts. But God says, "This is how I want you to reveal my good news to the world."

And we've been going through this list one at a time, one character quality at a time. Last week we were on patience, glad that's over, and this week we are focusing on kindness. Now how needed is this virtue in our culture right now? You know, it's funny, when I planned this out, I'll be honest with you, when I planned this out about a year ago, I thought, "Well, you know, a lot of these things are hard. Love and being at peace and having patience, that's super hard." But this week on kindness, that's gonna be kind of a light week. Because kindness, you know, there's nothing radical about kindness. Nobody's against kindness. There's nothing counter-cultural about kindness. And then last year happened. And then the last couple of weeks happened. And it seems like this character quality has been all but forgotten in our culture, right?

And if you feel like that, it's not just you. Wall Street Journal Wednesday had a column reporting, "During the past week, the phrase 'civil war' has been used by media to describe US society more than at any other time since 1968." It seems like everybody is forgetting how to be kind. Like incivility is the order of the day. And sadly that includes a lot of Christian behavior. As I study for this this week, and often the way I study for these topics, you know, I choose the topics and the verses maybe a year in advance, but then at the beginning of the week I got a pile of books on the topic and I'm watching podcasts and I'm kind of researching it and I'm sort of a human reader's digest kind of spilling all my the result of my research out to you.

And I had a stack of books and I was getting kind of claustrophobic in my office. So in the late morning I took the stack of books down to the harbor and I thought it's a beautiful day. I'm gonna sit on a bench and I'm just kind of kind of breeze through these books. And I picked up the first book on top of the pile and it was this book called Loving Kindness. This is by a man named Barry Corey. He's the president of Biola University. I literally picked it up and I did not put it down until I finished every word of this book. Hours later the sun had gone down and I was freezing on that bench by the harbor. I was riveted because he's the president of Biola which is a Christian university down in LA and several students from TLC attend there.

And he says far from being a soft topic, kindness is what we need right now in this cultural moment in America. Do you mind if I read a paragraph from this book? I just found it so riveting. He says this, "To be a Christian kindness must shape us and define us, but this powerful virtue seems to be characterizing us less and not more." He says, "Christians often bypass kindness to begin a shouting match. We have ranted before we've related. We've employed combative strategy and it's not working. In fact our increasingly shrill sounds of the public square are not strengthening our witness but weakening it. We have lost an understanding of the power of kindness. Kindness has more power to change people than we can imagine. It can break down walls. It can repair relationships, empower people. Kindness will help us to be stronger leaders, more winsome neighbors, healthier spouses, better parents, truer friends, more effective bosses, and faithful disciples.

The way of kindness is the answer for how Christians need to position themselves especially today in an increasingly fragmented society. Kindness is countercultural. It's risky. It's costly, but these are also the adjectives that describe what it truly means to follow Jesus, right? And so he wraps up with this, "It is time, it is time for us to rediscover the revolutionary force of this fading Christian virtue." And I read that. I'm closing the book. I'm freezing, but I'm standing up at a little bench by the harbor going, "Yes, I'm ready! Are you ready to rediscover kindness? Then let's get going. I want to look at three things today. Let's look at why be kind. How can I really be kind and where do I find the strength to be kind?

First, why be kind? And this is a pretty good question, you know, why not be a jerk? Why not? Why not be in just in constant combat mode because that seems to be working for just about every talk show host that exists, right? I mean if you're unkind, if you're rude, it gets you attention. If you got a website, it gets you clicks. If you've got a podcast, that gets you listeners. Why not be combative all the time? Well, there's three biblical reasons to be kind. First, it's who God is. It's not just what God does, it's who God is. Are you aware of the fact that the first time God ever defines himself to a human being in the Bible? It's in Exodus 34. He reveals himself to Moses and he says, Moses says, "I want to see your glory, God, like your nuclear-level glory." And God says, "Here it comes." And he describes himself and he describes himself as a God of loving kindness at his core. That is who he is.

And there's so many verses like this, 1 Chronicles 16:34. In fact, let's read this verse out loud together. Let me hear you. "Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His loving kindness is everlasting." I love that. The word translated here "loving kindness," it describes God 182 times in the Bible. 182 times. It says God is, God has at his core kindness. It's who God is and it's how God works. It's how God works. He reaches out to us to get us to turn our hearts toward him with kindness, showering blessings on us, giving us grace. The Apostle Paul got this when he wrote in Romans 2:4, "The kindness of God leads you to repentance." Let's say this out loud together too. Can I hear you? "The kindness of God leads you to repentance."

And you've experienced this. I've experienced this. It's when we're going our own selfish, ego-driven way, just focused on our own needs and wants, and we're destroying ourselves, we're destroying our relationships, and it's God's kindness. When I see the kindness of what Jesus did for me on the cross, that he died for all my sins, and when I see his kindness showered on me every day with one blessing after another, that's what breaks my heart in a good way and it turns me toward God. I repent. That means I turn from my own way and I turn toward God and I receive his love and then his son Jesus into my life. And what activates that is his kindness. This is a very important concept. It's God's kindness that leads us to repentance.

And by the way, do you want to change the world? Do you want to make the world a better place? You know what has changed the world and has changed humans and has changed families more than any other single thing is personal repentance. Conversion. And it happens. It's activated by kindness. Now, I want to stay on this point for just a second. It's helpful to think of what God is like and how God is when you think of kindness because it also helps us to find what kindness is not. Look up here for a second. Kindness is not the same as niceness. Kindness as a virtue is all over the Bible. Niceness is not in the Bible one time. Niceness has been kind of nice to people. I mean, that's great, but it doesn't really require sacrifice. Kindness absolutely does require sacrifice. It's interesting as I've been studying this, I realize I'm pretty consistently a nice guy, but I'm not always a kind guy. And there's a difference. Let's explore that more.

Kindness does not mean you are soft on your convictions because again we said God is kind, right? And God acts in kind ways and God's not soft on his convictions. Here's a way to look at it. Barry Corey in his book says it like this. Basically, you've got three options to approach life. One is niceness. Niceness has a soft center and soft edges. Niceness is just all mushy. Everything goes. It won't stand for anything and so it falls for everything. Your second option is aggression. That's a hard center and hard edges. Just combative all the time, right? Now look at those two options because in today's culture, today's polarized culture, you and I are being pushed to one of these two options. It's like you can either be a person of aggression and like stand for what's right and just be hard at your center and hard at your edges or if you don't like that, if you want to back away from that, you go, "Well, I just want to be a nice person and you're okay and I'm okay and I'm not really gonna stand for anything because I don't want to be the aggressive person." You're gonna give up and be super nice with no conviction or be super aggressive and hard and we're being told that those are our two options.

But Jesus lived a third way. Not the harshness of hard centers and hard edges, not the mushiness of spongy centers and soft edges. Jesus in his life showed us the way of kindness, a firm center with soft edges. Your core convictions are rock-solid. You know what's right, you know what's wrong, you know what really is important. In fact, you will die for your core convictions but as you spread the good news, you radiate God's love. Think, just picture Jesus at work. Jesus was wildly welcoming, wasn't he? Jesus was epically kind, kind to sinners, kind to the sick, kind to little children, even when dying on a cross, kind to his own mother. When he's dying, making sure that she's cared for, Jesus's kindness drew crowds to him so that he could teach the hardcore truths about his father and the beautiful truths about his father that he never compromised on. He had a rock-solid core of conviction, more solid than anyone on earth, and he was just wildly, widely welcoming. That's what biblical kindness looks like.

Kindness, it's who God is, it's how God works, and it's what God wants. It's what God wants. I want to show you a fascinating verse. There was a prophet in the Hebrew Scriptures in the Old Testament named Micah, and Micah asks on behalf of Israel this question in Micah 6:6 with, "What shall I come before the Lord?" And what he means to say there is, and he's saying in poetic language, what does God want from us? What does God require of us as human beings? What's he looking for from a good life, right? And then he answers it with a series of suggestions, kind of all these external religious rituals, and each suggestion is more grandiose than the one before. He says, "How about a burnt offering of calves?" Or, "How about 1,000 rams?" Or, "How about 10,000 rivers of oil?" Or, "How about our firstborn children?" Obviously, none of those is what God requires, and then he gets to the answer. Here is what God longs to see in our lives. Micah 6:8, "He has told you, O mortal, what is good and what the Lord requires of you to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God." Not just to do kindness, to love kindness, not just kind of like as an obligation to love it.

And I want you to notice something here. Notice that loving kindness is paired with doing justice. You hear a lot these days, especially from younger believers, about doing justice, about doing what is right, and that's super important, but we've got to do it in a way that is kind like God. Okay, so look up here for just a second. What does this look like? How, if that's what God wants, how can I be like this? You know, in my real life? Well, flip your notes over because if you take all the Bible verses about kindness, every single one of them falls into one of three categories, and this is what God looks for. This is what God wants to see in your life and in my life, so this is hugely important to study.

How can I be kind? Number one, kind communication, kind words. How needed is this in our culture right now? How needed is this in our culture right now? Kind communication. I, something really, really bothered me, really struck me this week. I don't even know how I fell onto this web page, but I was looking at a Huffington Post columnist who writes a regular column on the Huffington Post site, but she's a teenager, just kind of your classic red-haired, freckled, kind of student body president type, but she writes this regular column like a teenager's view of the world, you know? She's a very good writer, but she wrote this the other day. She said there's an epidemic of cruelty in our teenage culture in the social networking universe, and as evidence she posted actual screenshots of Facebook comments that she's received just so far this year, and this is just a normal kid, right?

Here's some of them. "I wouldn't wish your hair on my worst enemy. Hideous! Looks like they," they're talking about her arms in a picture she posted, "looked like they mean some son. Being an albino must suck." "If you're gonna publish a pic of yourself in a bikini, at least lose 10 pounds first." "Spoiled girl, why are you still alive?" "Shut up! Gag me!" And it went on. Now most of us in this room may not be teenagers in high school, and you may not be getting these posts on your Facebook page, but some of you heard things very much like this, growing up from your own family. I hear this many, many, many times every year as a pastor, where somebody who is maybe a half a century removed from their childhood says, "the voice of my father, or of my grandfather, or my mother, or my brother still echoes in my mind. I can't get their voices out of my head," and it's like these quotes. "You're worthless. I'm sorry we ever had you," and you may have heard those voices in your own mind, and I guarantee you people you encounter have heard things like this from their family, or you may have not, you may have had a wonderful family growing up, but you hear things like this in your own mind from yourself. You're your own worst critic, calling yourself, "what a failure! Failed again! You'll never be a success! You're so ugly! You're not hearing it from anybody but your own self!" And there's a lot of people you meet that are just like that.

So here's a question. Imagine all these people hearing things like this about themselves, and now imagine them encountering you, and you open your mouth and you say something to them. Are you a breath of fresh air? Because they need it. Look at what the Bible says in Ephesians 4:29 starting in verse 29. This could be like God's guidelines for the comments section on a blog. Don't use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. And in verse 31, "get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead be what? Kind to each other. Tender-hearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. Kind words can really change somebody's whole life."

I'll show you something that went viral last May. This little boy, nine year old Noah, saw a police officer at breakfast in a coffee shop. Noah had just received his allowance for the week. It was about seven bucks, and he's got it with him, and he has an idea. He goes to the teller, and he asks for the officer's receipt before the officer got it, and then this nine-year-old boy pays it, pays the guy's bill, and he writes this note, "I want to be you when I grow up." Well, the officer, Eddie Benitez, was so moved, as you can see, he asks to take the kid's picture. He posts it. It goes viral, millions of hits, and a reporter this summer asked him, "Why? What did those simple, that little sentence, what did that mean to you?" And listen to this. Here's this grown-up tough cop. Those words meant everything to me. Those words meant, "I'm supposed to wake up every morning and put on this uniform and go out there and do what I do." It meant, "I'm supposed to do this." One little sentence gave a grown-up cop a sense of meaning, because you can imagine he's probably a good guy, but he's feeling the pressure that any cop would be feeling right now, right? Under a lot of scrutiny and a lot of stress, and this little boy's words lift up his heart.

The Bible says, "Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up." If you've got the power with just a word to lift somebody's spirits, and in most instances it's not even gonna cost you seven bucks and change like it did for that little boy, it's gonna cost you nothing. So here's my question. Why don't we do it more often? It's free. It's effective. We probably walk right past a hundred opportunities to do this every week. Well, here's one reason. Look back at that Ephesians verse for a minute. Paul talks about forgiving each other. Why'd you talk about that in a verse about being kind with your words? Well, one reason, follow me here, one reason we are not as kind as we could be with our words is that we get so hurt and so irritated by stuff that other people have said or done to us that our anxiety about that spills out and we become unkind to people who had nothing to do with the original problem.

Have you ever had somebody be unkind to you at work or in the store and then you come home and you're all unkind to your spouse or to your roommates or to your kids? They had nothing to do with it. It's spilling out of you because you're still holding on to that grudge. You've heard the phrase "holding on to a grudge." That is a great picture because watch this. For example, if I take this fruit crate here and I'm holding on to it, what happens is my hands aren't free to do anything else because I'm holding on to it. This represents a grudge. Now I don't have an opportunity to have open hands to somebody who needs my help, an open heart to somebody who needs kind words, open hands to invite somebody into church, open hands to bring somebody to Jesus. They're occupied because I'm holding on to that grudge. That's why Paul talks about this in this context. He's saying you've got to learn to let go of the grudge so you can have open hands to other people who need your kindness. That is huge.

Now, kind words do not mean you only say nice words. Kind words do not mean you only say words that other people want to hear about how awesome they are. Look at this. The Bible says, "A good man will rebuke me in kindness." Kindness speaks the truth. Kindness even corrects, but it speaks the truth in love. Man, I guarantee you, opportunities are going to be all around you all week long. Have your eyes open for an opportunity for kind communication. Then second, there's kind action. Kind action. The BBC had this great example the other day of the power of kind action. Watch this. I didn't want to commit suicide, but if it wouldn't have woke up, I wouldn't have been bothered. I felt pathetic. I was pathetic. And I went in the archway to set me back down because I didn't want people to see me. And I didn't want to see anybody else. I've seen that look before and that's when you know someone's at rock bottom. There was a miracle because it was strange, this angel has come to help me. So I owe it to him, but more so, I owe it to myself. Over the years I was sleeping in the doorway. Now thanks to a fellow soldier, I'm a legend, I haven't moved forward yet. I can tell you that you made a huge difference to my life. Absolutely. Would you like to meet him at some point? Yeah, I'd like to, I'd love to hear from him and meet him. Stephen, Phil. Good to see you. How are you? Looking well, man. Looking well. Look at you. I just want to tell you what you're doing for me. You've done everything for me. I just didn't get any love. I didn't really have any friends and just the loneliness and despair and feeling. And then you came along. I can't thank you enough. I can barely, I can't. You just saved me life. Isn't that powerful? It's awesome.

How would you like to have an opportunity to do that for somebody? You can and I'll tell you how in just a moment. But I want you to notice, what were words that he was using to describe that man's actions? He was like he was an angel. It was like it was a miracle. He uses that word twice. Even people who, watch this, even people who don't come from a church background, when they see a remarkable act of kindness, they see God working through that act. And you saw that there and you see this in Jesus' words when he says, "You are the light of the world. Let your light shine before others in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." When you do your good works, they will see them and they'll go, "It's like a miracle. It's like he was an angel." They start to glorify God. It's his kindness that leads them back to him.

Now watch this. Just kind of put your brains in gear here. Jesus also said, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these, my brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." So what's interesting is Jesus not only says, "You're the light of the world. You're my representatives to the world." He also says, "And the people to whom you are my representatives, they're also my representatives." Like, do it as if I am doing it and as if the people to whom you're doing it are also me. Chris Wright in our book we've been studying has a great couple of questions. He says, "Ask yourself," in other words, "What would I do for people if I were Christ?" And also ask, "What would I do for people if they were Christ? Aren't those great questions? What would I do for people if I were Christ? And what would I do for people if they were Christ? And then you do those things." Now I gotta just tell you, this will not always be convenient to be kind.

Let me tell you a quick story. So I'm on my way into the DMV a week before last. I know, already you know what's coming, right? And I had put it off and I literally, by the time I got there, I had about five minutes left before they closed and locked the doors. And so I am hustling, rushing in, and as I'm rushing up to the front door, I got five minutes, I gotta make it. I see right in the closest parking spot for people with the disabled parking hanger, there's a man there in that spot, the blue curb, and it's a very elderly man. And he's got the door open and he's trying to get out of his car into his aluminum walker that he's got outside his car. He's trying as hard as he can to get out and he's not making it, and he's trying hard, and he's rushing in too. And I'm passing him up and I'm literally doing this, my body is doing this, because I knew I was going to be preaching on kindness. And so I'm thinking, I gotta be the agent of Jesus, but but God, Jesus needs a driver's license, Lord, you know, I gotta go.

And finally, I, okay, I really gotta help this guy out. So I help him into his walker so slowly, and then I help him kind of move him along toward the door and look, stealing glimpses up my watch. I got four minutes to go now, three minutes to go. He's moving so slowly, this dear man. He was, did you remember Tim Conway on The Carol Burnett Show? He's just like literally like this. I was, at one point I really did look around like, are they rebooting candid camera because I have got to be on candid camera right now. And he's going like this, and I'm like two minutes, two minutes left. Here we go, the front door, it's got getting further away, and we get to the front door and I'm going, we made it. Two minutes to go, and I'm about to open it, and he goes, oh, I forgot my papers. And he goes, and I go, I'll get your papers! And I go running to the car, totally true story. I grab his papers, I come back, here's your papers, and we go to the front door, and it's a minute after five. We miss it by one minute. And there's a guy standing at the DMV behind the smoke glass door, and he clicks the lock, and he's looking at us like this, holding the door shut. And I told this gentleman, I said, well friend, looks like you missed it. Correction, looks like we missed it, brother. You know, and I'm like, oh, now what? Then the DMV guy clicks the door open, click like this, opens there, just a crack, and he says, I've been watching you, Pastor René. True story. And since you've been so kind to this elderly gentleman, I'm going to let you both in. Come on in to the DMV.

I said, God, do you have these weird things happen to me, just so that I'll have sermon illustrations, right? But watch this, watch this now. Because what happened right there, isn't it true? Listen, kindness opens locked doors. Kindness opens locked doors, especially the doors of hearts that are locked to the gospel. And this is one of the reasons that we as a church have as one of our highest values, to go out into our community and we look for ways that we can simply be kind. And let me just tell you why. There are people, a lot of people in Santa Cruz, who never go to church, and they judge us not on our theology, but on our kindness. Even though it's our theology and our doctrine that's so dear to us, because we know how that has changed our lives. There are people out there who are uninterested in church, or have a bad attitude toward church, or especially toward large churches, or especially toward evangelical churches, or especially toward Christianity in general. And they are forming their initial Santa Cruz County opinion of us, not around our theology. They could care less about our theology. They're forming their opinion of us around our kindness. That's just the truth.

And so I would love for us, as we talk about kindness today, in the next five weeks before Thanksgiving, to go out and just unleash kindness, a wave of kindness, into Santa Cruz County. How? Flip your notes over. Here's some not so random acts of kindness we want to do over the next five weeks. I'm so excited about this. At the very top, our food drive for second harvest, and you can see the envelope in your bulletins too. Our goal is one million meals. I say that instead of pounds, because I just think that pictures it so much better. Now I don't want to kid you here. We've reached this goal a couple of times, but it's hard, and it's costly. But kindness is hard, and kindness is costly. But if every single person who attends TLC gives 50 pounds and 50 dollars, or any combination that adds up to 100, 100 dollars, whatever, we can get there. Now I understand not everybody can do that, and I understand some of us can give a lot more than that. But we're going to be collecting food and food bins for the next five weeks in the lobby, and you can return this envelope anytime before November 11th. I want you to take this, put it somewhere you're going to see it every day, pray about how you can help. Let's unlock some hearts. It really, really, really does that.

And now look back at this lift. One of our big kindness projects, I love this one, we want to give a gift bag to every, listen to this, to every single staff member at Aptos High School. It's been a brutal couple of years at Aptos High, and I'm talking about all the teachers, all the administrative staff, all the facility staff. Teachers get complained about non-stop. So do the lunchroom ladies. So do the facilities guys who are overburdened. We want to put together gift bags with gift cards and for the teachers school supplies and notes of encouragement saying we know it's tough, but we, your neighbors at Twin Lakes Church, we want to say thank you so much. Don't you think that's going to make somebody's day and maybe unlock somebody's heart? We're stuffing bags next Saturday, and by the way, if you want to donate something to be in the bag, just let us know the contact info. Is there lots of other ideas?

We're adopting the Winter Shelter Homeless Project for three weeks. Quick explanation, you might have been following this in the news. We have a homeless problem here in Santa Cruz that's not news to anybody, but what's fallen apart is what to do in the wintertime, because there was a winter shelter at the armory that fell apart, and then there was a winter shelter project last couple years that fell apart, and then the city and the county tried to put something together. That didn't quite work out for the winter the way they needed it, and so a few churches, Twin Lakes is one of them, said, you know what, we coordinated the fact that the Veterans Facility on 7th Avenue said you can use our facility, but we can't staff it. So we said we will adopt it, we'll staff it. This church is adopting it for three weeks of the two and a half months of the Winter Shelter Project. That means we need volunteers for 21 days. There's no funds for this. They just need the Christians to step up and help, and it's, gosh, I'm sorry I'm so emotional about it, but I know people, I have friends who go here to Twin Lakes who were on the streets homeless, and now they live vibrant lives, fulfilled lives, and they may never thank you when you're doing this, although there's a lot of grateful people, but we do this because it's God's kindness that turns us around, and eventually I believe that for some of these people it's kindness that's going to turn them around.

If you'd like to volunteer, we just need people to help prepare the food, serve the food, and then the most important part is after you've served the food, you grab your own food, you sit down at a table, and you just sit with people who are homeless, and you just talk to them like they're real people, like how are you, what's your name, where are you from, did you have any brothers and sisters, what you know, what do you hope to do in life. They've got goals and dreams too, just like you and me, and we, but they've been dehumanized. This can be, if you are down by the way, if you have the blues, this can be the most powerful way for you to overcome that, to step out and really help somebody else. You can sign up for those in the lobby today and help out with the Winter Shelter Project, or look at the bottom, you can go for a kindness grant. If your small group has an active kindness idea but you don't have the funds, we want to give out kindness grants to actually help you make that happen, and Robin's email is there, get creative, go for it.

Why do we want to do this? Again, kindness is central to the gospel, because God's kindness leads us to repentance, and this is why I would love for us to be known as a church that just exudes kindness, because that is going to bring people back to God here in Santa Cruz County more than, sorry, it's so, it's more important than we can even begin to imagine for us as Christians to counter what for many people is their narrative about Christians, that they're judgmental and exclusionary and unkind. We want to say no, we are kind not so that they'll like us, but because it's kindness that brings people to God that leads us to repentance. It's a crucial part of the gospel.

Now, let's wrap this, amen. There's kind communication, there's kind action, and there's finally kind reaction, kind reaction, and here's where we get to the really counter-cultural part. Jesus said in Luke 6, "Love your enemies, do good to them, lend to them without expecting anything to be..." Who? Your family? No, your enemies. For some of you, that's the same thing. "Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the most high, because God's kind, the ungrateful, and the wicked." I wish we had time to get into this, but this means people who think that Christians are wrong and crazy and narrow-minded and prudish. You reach out in friendship and bless them and pray for them. Now, obviously kindness doesn't mean I endorse your choice in every case. Kindness means I listen to your voice. Kindness doesn't mean I endorse your choice. Kindness means I listen to your voice, because you too are created in God's image, and I honor you.

Now, all of this is not easy, so how am I going to find the strength to do this? Well, let's just wrap this up, bring this in for a landing. Let's go back to our key verse for this series. We've been talking about growing and all these things, love and peace and patience and kindness. It says these are fruit. Fruit doesn't appear on a branch automatically overnight. It grows gradually, and the fruit of the Spirit grows gradually in your life too, so don't be too hard on yourself. Be patient with yourself, because it doesn't happen overnight, but incrementally God is changing you. But even more importantly, this says they're all fruit of the what? Fruit of the what? Spirit, not works of the flesh. I'm going to exhale kindness when I inhale what the Holy Spirit is breathing into me. You breathe in the beauty of what Jesus did for you on the cross. You breathe in the beauty of how He showers blessings on you every day. And as you breathe that in, you come to believe you can trust Him, and then you receive Him into your life, and He sends the Holy Spirit into you, and He changes you.

And in response to God's kindness, not to earn His favor, not to earn brownie points so I can get to heaven or something, but in response to His lavish kindness to me, then I grow kindness in my own life. That's our final verse. "In response to all God has done for us, let us outdo each other in being helpful and kind to one another and doing good." It's in response, so you see where I find the strength to be kind, it's in God's lavish kindness to me. And that starts with my reception of that kindness. As I say, "Lord, I want to receive Your mercy, receive Your grace," and then He starts to work in my life, and that means all of this we've been talking about, it all starts with a prayer. And so let's pray right now. Would you bow your heads with me? I want to just invite you in your heart to pray silently, "Holy Spirit, produce kindness in me." And maybe for the first time some people here want to pray, "God, it's Your kindness that is leading me to repentance right now, and so I'm turning from myself unto You as my Lord and my kind Savior. I give myself to You, change me from the inside out, and God help me to see other people with the same kindness that You showed me. Even if they're very different than me, help me to be kind to all, because that's how You are. Change us into that image of Christ-likeness, in Jesus' name, amen.