Love Is Kind Series

Clovis Chappell, the great Southern preacher, told this story of a Christian man who

bought a lovely home in the suburbs in one of the big cities of the South. He had his

furniture moved in one day, and the next day he arrived and was out walking over the wide

lawn of his new property. His next door neighbor came rapidly across the lawn to meet him.

He was glad to see he was eager to be a friend. But his neighbor did not greet him

peacefully, but instead, with a voice of anger asked if he had purchased this property.

"Yes," he replied. "Well then you have just bought a law suit. That fence is 7 feet over on

my land, and I'm going to have every inch of what is mine."

These provoking words encourage a response of anger and defense, but the Christian

man said, "There is no need for a law suit. I believe you are perfectly sincere in what you

say, and though I bought this land in good faith, I am not going to claim it. I will have that

fence moved." The neighbor was wide-eyed in amazement. "Do you really mean it?" "That

is exactly what I mean," was the quiet response. The neighbor said, "No you won't. This

fence is going to stay right where its at. Any man who is as white as you are can have the

land." They became good friends because hostility was met with kindness rather than more

hostility. We greatly underestimate the power of kindness because we look upon it as a mild

and superficial virtue.

You can study history and discover that almost everybody recognizes the value of

kindness. It is a universal virtue, and, therefore, because it is not unique to Christianity we

tend to minimize its importance. This is folly, for if the natural man can love on this level,

what a poor testimony it is if Christians do not. In Acts 28:2 we read that after Paul and all

the other prisoners had survived the shipwreck, and made it safe to the island of Malta, "The

islanders showed us unusual kindness." Here was a pagan people showing Paul and the

others great kindness which they much needed. Cicero the Roman said, "Nothing is so

popular as kindness." Sophocles the Greek said, "Kindness is ever the begetter of

kindness." The religions of the world all praise kindness.

Bertrand Russell, the famous atheist philosopher, wrote a book titled Why I Am Not A

Christian. In this book he surprised the world by saying that the key to a stable world is

Christian love. He wrote, "If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide in action,

a reason for courage, and imperative necessity for intellectual honesty." Here is a

non-Christian praising the value of Christian love, and the impact it can have on all

humanity by means of its kindness. If anybody can see it and have it, then it is too

commonplace to be a major significance is the way we sometimes tend to think. The only

problem with this logic is it has to ignore the fact that the Bible gives kindness a major role,

and the Bible is to be our guide, and not logic, or our feelings that it is too universal to be a

major Christian focus. And so the primary thing we want to consider is-

THE IMPORTANCE OF KINDNESS.

Paul writes in Eph. 4:31-32, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and

slander be put away from you, with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted,

forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgives you." Being kind is the opposite of all those

negatives, and so it covers all that is involved in being polite, courteous, tolerant, and

thoughtful. Peter does not hide this virtue in the closet, but puts it right up there with the

key virtues of the Christian life in II Pet. 1:7. He writes, "Add to godliness brotherly

kindness and to brotherly kindness love." You are playing in the major leagues when you are

being kind.

Eros love says I am in the world for my pleasure. Agape love agrees that pleasure is a

valid and vital part of life, but its vision goes beyond self-pleasure and seeks to give pleasure

to others, and that is why it is kind. Kindness is giving to others the pleasure you desire for

yourself. You like to be treated with respect and courtesy, for this enhances your

self-esteem. Jean De La Bruyere said, "The most delicate, the most sensible of all pleasures,

consists in promoting the pleasure of others."

During World War I Marshal Foch, the French commander, was approached by a noisy

Westerner who criticized the French politeness. "There's nothing in it but wind," he