Today’s message is very simply entitled “Kindness.” Are you a kind person?
The Pharisees of Jesus day were very religious, but they were not kind. Their attitude toward other people was condescending, arrogant, and condemning. This attitude came out in John 7. Jesus was at the temple teaching during the Feast of Tabernacles. The Jewish leaders sent the temple guards to arrest Jesus and bring Him to them. But the guards came back without Jesus. When asked why they had not arrested Jesus, they replied, “No man ever spoke like this Man!”i Jesus was not only speaking with spiritual authority, but He was also working miracles. And many people were believing in Him. The Jewish leaders then compared themselves with the common people. They told these temple guards that none of them had believed in Jesus, and then said, “But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed" (7:49). They dismissed the common people as ignorant and cursed.
What a contrast that was with Jesus’s attitude toward the common people. Instead of despising and dismissing them, Jesus’s heart went out to them in compassion. Matt. 14:14 says, “And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick.”
Notice how Jesus’s attitude toward the people resulted in acts of kindness. He was moved with compassion “and healed their sick.” He brought relief to their suffering. The scribes and Pharisees brought no relief to the people’s suffering. They conducted religious services. But they did not act in kindness toward the people.
We cannot talk about kindness without first addressing the heart-attitude toward people. Jesus looked on the same crowd as the Pharisees but saw something very different in them. Mark 6:34 says Jesus was moved with compassion toward the multitudes “because they were like sheep not having a shepherd.” He saw them in the context of their need. Several times in the gospels when Jesus fed people or healed people, we are told He did it out of compassion toward them.
We see this contrast between Jesus’s attitude toward people and that of the Pharisee in John 8. There the Pharisees brought a woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus. John tells us their motive was to entrap Jesus. But they came with a condemning attitude toward the woman. There was nothing redemptive in their hearts toward her. They reminded Jesus that the Law demanded that she be stoned. Jesus did not answer them but simply wrote on the ground. As they continued to press Him Jesus answered them, “"He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first" (8:7). Then as Jesus continued to write on the ground, the Holy Spirit convicted the conscience of each accuser and they left one-by-one until only Jesus and the woman remained. John 8:10-11 completes the story, “When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, ‘Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?’ 11 She said, ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’” The Pharisees were there accusing and condemning her. Jesus was there freeing her from her bondage. She was not free to continue in her sin. She was free to live above it: “go and sin no more.”
The kindness that you and I show toward other people begins with an attitude of compassion toward them. It’s not an attitude that says, “Go, and continue in your sin.” It is an attitude that says, “Be free from the bondage of sin and all its destructive influence on your life: go, and sin no more.”
WHAT SHOULD KINDNESS LOOK LIKE IN OUR LIVES?
It should be manifested in our speech. The way we talk about one another and unbelievers should reflect kindness. Col. 4:6 instructs, “Let your speech always be with grace.” Season all that you say with a generous dose of kindness toward others. Our tongues can get us in a lot of trouble when we are not gracious in all our conversations. The person who wrote this brief poem had learned the lesson well.
“I’m careful of the words I say,
to keep them soft and sweet.
I never know from day to day
which ones I’ll have to eat.”ii
In Proverbs 31 we are given the description of a godly woman. One of her characteristics is stated in verse 26: “She opens her mouth with wisdom, And on her tongue is the law of kindness.” On her tongue is the law of kindness. Ladies, is that a good description of your speech? We should not limit the question to ladies for that law of kindness should be under the tongue of each and every one of us.
Jesus tells us “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34). Whatever is in the heart overflows into the speech. If our hearts are full of kindness, it will flow out in the way we talk to people and the way we talk about people. In other words, an evidence of kindness in the heart is the kind words we use in conversation with and about people.
Of course, kindness should be manifest in our actions toward other people as well. It’s not enough to just talk the talk; we must walk the walk as well. Over time church people can easily pick up a superficial sweetness as a cover for a fundamentally selfish mindset. It’s one thing to say, “We’re praying for you.” It’s another thing to earnestly pray for the needs of others. It’s one thing to say, “We’re here for you.” It’s another to actually be there for the person in their time of need. Their need seldom fits into our busy schedules. James addresses this difference in his epistle. He asks, “What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? 17 Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:14-17). Biblical faith is manifested in what the person actually does.
Perhaps the greatest teaching on this subject is Jesus’s story of the good Samaritan in Luke 10. Jesus told the story in response to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Two great commandments sum up all the law and prophets. The first addresses our relationship with God: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind.” The second has to do with the way we treat other people. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. In response to that second commandment, the young lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus’s answer was this story of the good Samaritan.
The story begins with a man getting mugged on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho—beaten so badly that he was left half dead. Presumably, the man was a Jew although we are not specifically told that. In the story three people encountered this man in his state of need. One was a Samaritan. The other two were religious people, a priest and a Levite. These two were representatives of God heavily involved in religious work. When the priest and Levite encountered the man, they both avoided the problem by going around on the other side of the road. We could speculate on the reasons and excuses as to why they did not stop to help the man. Decisions like this are regularly accompanied with self-justifying excuses. Jesus dealt with none of that in the story. The raw fact is that they did not help.
In contrast, when the Samaritan saw the man, he gave tangible help to him. Luke 10:33 says, “And when he saw him, he had compassion.” That was the motivation behind this man’s act of kindness. That compassion was absent in the priest and Levite. When we encounter someone in need, the first question is “Am I moved with compassion toward that person’s pain?”
Jesus confronted the lack of compassion in religious people in Matt. 12. There Jesus’s disciples plucked corn and ate it on the Sabbath. The Pharisees were upset that their religious rules had been violated. In response Jesus quoted Hosea 6:6 where God said, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” God looks upon the heart. He is looking for people who show His mercy toward others, rather than just perform religious acts.
So the kindness we’re talking about is not just a feeling. It is action! It is expressed in what we actually do for the other person. Here is what the good Samaritan did for the man in need. Luke 10:34-35: “So he went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine; and he set him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 On the next day, when he departed, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, 'Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I come again, I will repay you.'” All of that was very inconvenient. He immediately ministered aid. He put the man on his own animal and brought him to the inn where he could be cared for. That meant the Samaritan had to walk. If we only help other people when it is convenient, we will tend to respond like the priest and Levite.
We cannot meet every need people have. In fact, we are limited in what we can do. Even Jesus did not heal everyone at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5). The question is: “Do we do what God expects us to do?” There is inherent in this story a commendation of the Samaritan that he did what he should have done. He loved his neighbor as himself. Anytime we encounter a need during our journey, we need to ask God what He wants us to do about it. We need to allow His compassion toward that person to direct our behavior.
First Corinthians 13 lists kindness as a quality of love. “Love suffers long and is kind” (v. 4). The Greek word translated “kind” is chresteuomai. It literally means “to show oneself useful” or “to act benevolently.”iii New Testament kindness is practical in nature. The Samaritan’s kindness met the man’s need.
I don’t have to tell you how the world responds to priests and Levites who go to the other side of the road when they see a need. The world writes their religion off as superficial and worthless. And they may be right. A Christianity to puts no love in my heart for my neighbor is certainly suspect. James says, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world” (1:27). It expresses itself in acts of kindness toward others. But that is not all. It also includes keeping “oneself unspotted from the world.” The liberal church tends to leave that off. But the conservative church can get focused on staying undefiled by the world and fail to act benevolently toward those in need. Pure religion includes both.
Godly kindness is expressed toward others regardless of how they are treating us. God Himself provides the example for this. Jesus said in Luke 6:33-36: “And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back, what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much back. 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. 36 Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.”iv
A con artist can be kind as long as he expects to profit from his kindness. Godly kindness is done for the benefit of the other person. It is not doing a little to get a lot. It is giving without expecting to receive as much back. Jesus punctuates the point by saying in verse 35 that God “is kind to the unthankful and evil.” Even when He does not get so much as a thank you, God continues to be kind.
WHAT UNDERMINES KINDNESS IN OUR LIVES?
At the top of the list is selfishness. The opposite of love is not hate. The opposite of love is selfishness. The priest and Levite were pursuing their own agenda and would not let that be disturbed. Love has been well defined as seeking the highest good of all involved—not just my own good but the good of others as well. That is the practical outworking of loving my neighbor “as myself.” None of us have any problem with seeking our own highest good. We might be confused about what is in our best interest. But when the rubber meets the road, we are seeking our own wellbeing. The second great commandment is that we seek the wellbeing of others with the same passion.
Closely associated with selfishness is busyness. Everybody is busy. They may be busy going to the store for more custard ice cream. But they are occupied with something. We must be interruptible. Many of Jesus’s miracles were done while He was on His way to do something else. When the woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus’s garment, Jesus stopped and ministered to her need. Are you interruptible? Am I interruptible?
Jesus was not controlled by what others demanded of Him. He was led by what the Father wanted done for those around Him. He said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38). In Gal. 1:10 Paul said, “if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.” We do not become slaves to what people expect us to do for them. What they want is often not even in their best interest. But as servants of God, we do whatever God tells us to do. And we don’t excuse ourselves from that. We respond in compassion and love toward others, always seeking their highest good.
Bitterness and unforgiveness can steal kindness from our lives. How many have lived long enough to know that other people don’t always treat you with kindness? Joseph’s brothers did not treat him with kindness. On the contrary, they threw him in a pit and sold him to the Ishmaelites. Potiphar’s wife did not treat Joseph with kindness. She lied about him and had him thrown into prison unjustly. If you live very long you will be treated unjustly by somebody.
Your destiny depends on how you process that injustice. If you allow the offense to fester, instead of putting it in God’s hands and forgiving the person, a root of bitterness will spring up in your heart. It will harden you and will be expressed in your conversations and actions toward others.
Eph. 4:30-32 tells us what we must do. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
You cannot be a bitter person and a kind person at the same time. Your character will be shaped in one direction or the other. Because Joseph forgave his brothers for what they did to him, he could be kind to them when it was in his power to do so. He could have exacted revenge on them. But that revenge was not in his heart.
Bitterness and unforgiveness will not just affect your relationship with the person who did you wrong. It will affect your attitude toward people in general. You will not be able to hide that attitude. It will come out in a thousand different ways.
I don’t want to end up being a bitter person. I don’t want to allow the disappointments and injustices of life to create a hard shell around my heart. I want to live out Eph. 4:32 and be a person who is kind to others, tenderhearted, and forgiving.
C. S. Lewis wrote, “every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”v I hope and pray I am progressing into the image of Christ as a kind, compassionate person (Rom. 8:2).
HOW IS THIS KINDNESS DEVELOPED IN OUR CHARACTER?
Some people are naturally kinder than others. Some have received a gift of mercy from God and tend to extend mercy to those around them. But we can all be kind people. For some of us God has to bring us through experiences, some of which are crushing experiences, that soften us in our attitudes toward others.
When we suffer, we tend to have more compassion and understanding toward others who are suffering. Hebrews 5 tells us a high priest is taken from among men because he can identify with the human weaknesses and struggles. He can intercede for them with compassion. An angel cannot do that. An angel can observe the challenges that people struggle with, but he can only do that by external observation, not by personal experience. But another human knows by experience what it feels like to suffer. He knows the temptations that must be overcome. He can sympathize with the other person.
The fact that Jesus became a man and was tempted in every way possible, qualifies Him as a High Priest who is compassionate toward us. Heb. 4:15: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Aren’t you glad Jesus has compassion on you and, instead of condemning you, intercedes in your behalf? The verse tells us how to respond to this; “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Do you need mercy and grace? It is available to you through our Great High Priest Jesus.
The source of kindness is the Holy Spirit. Gal. 5:22 tells us that kindness is a fruit of the Spirit. It comes as God pours His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). When religious people try to be kind through their own willpower, they develop a superficial counterfeit. They develop a form of kindness that serves their own selfish purposes. On the surface it looks kind, but when you examine it closer, it has ulterior motives behind it. But kindness generated by the Holy Spirit expresses itself in sincere concern for the wellbeing of others regardless of what’s in it for me. If we want to be kind people, it must come as a fruit of the Holy Spirit’s influence in our hearts.
However, we must cooperate with that. There is the God side of sanctification. He must initiate the work by His grace. But we must respond in faith. Phil. 2:12 tells Christians to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” What God has deposited in your hearts by the Holy Spirit must be purposefully expressed in what you do.vi The foundation for that is stated in the next verse (Phil. 2:13): “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” If God is not doing that, all efforts toward kindness would only produce a superficial counterfeit. But if you are in Christ, He is working to produce this fruit in your life. Therefore cooperate! How do we cooperate? Let me read Eph. 4:30-32 again. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. [Instead cooperate with Him. How? Verse 31] Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 32 And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”
That verse focuses on our response to one another. But kindness is something we express to nonbelievers as well. The story of the Good Samaritan teaches that. Gal. 6:9 does give priority to our relationships with one another. “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.”
Are there any opportunities before you to good to others? Perhaps God would put something specific on your heart this morning. Maybe it’s a small thing, but it would be meaningful to the other person. May God develop His kindness in our characters.
ENDNOTES
i All Scripture quotes are from the New King James Version unless indicated otherwise.
ii Paul Lee Tan, Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (Rockville, Maryland: Assurance Publishers, 1979) 1425.
iii See Strong’s NT:5541.
iv Mercy and kindness go hand-in-hand. Many scriptures that exhort us toward mercy are indirectly telling us to be kind. Kindness is an expression of mercy toward others. The relationship between mercy and kindness is not being explored in this message.
v C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Harper Collins, 1952) 92.
vi Cf. 2: Pet. 1:7.
