Acts of Kindness
Galatians 5:22; 2 Samuel
10:1-5
Dr. Rich Peterson
“The ancient prophet Micah isn’t
exactly a household word,” writes Charles Swindoll. “Too bad. Though obscure,
the man had his stuff together. Eclipsed by the much more famous Isaiah, who
ministered among the elite, Micah took God’s message to the streets.
Micah states what many to this day,
wonder about pleasing God. Teachers and preachers have made it so sacrificial,
so complicated, so extremely difficult. To them, God is virtually impossible to
please. Therefore, religion has become a series of long, drawn-out, deeply
painful acts designed to appease this peeved Deity in the sky who takes delight
in watching us squirm.
Micah erases the things on the
entire list, replacing the complicated impossibilities with one of the finest
definitions of simple faith:
He has told you, O man, what is
good;
And what does the Lord require of
you
But to do justice, to love kindness,
And to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)
God does not look for big time,
external displays…What is required? To do justice…to love kindness…and to walk
humbly with your God. Period.”
One of the most obvious ways we
display Christ likeness in our lives is to “love kindness.”
The fruit of kindness is one of many
practical results harvested from the Holy Spirit’s crop of behaviors listed in
Galatians 5: 22-23
“But
the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no
law.”
Like
the other fruits of the Spirit, kindness is an attitude we choose to exhibit or
not. In contrast to “the acts of the sinful nature” which are obvious, “those
who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified (put to death) the sinful nature with
its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with
the Spirit” (Galatians 5:19-25).
Earlier
in this same letter Paul writes, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and
dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness
and patience.”
Clothe yourselves – put it on – Ask
yourself what kind of attitude you are going to wear today. Because to love
kindness, to be kind is something we DO. Kindness is love in action. Or as
someone has suggested, “Find a need and fill it. Find a hurt and heal it.”
That’s
kindness!
·
Why is kindness so important to God?
·
Why should we love kindness?
·
Why should we be kind?
Two
very good reasons.
First, we should be kind because God
is kind to us. Ephesians 2:8 in the Living Bible says, “Because of His kindness
you have been saved through trusting Christ.” Grace and kindness appear to go
together hand in hand.
The
poet Robert Burns said that the kind heart most resembles God. We should love
kindness and be kind because God is kind to us.
Second reason we should be kind is because we want people
to be kind to us. Jesus said, “Do to others what you would have them do to you”
(Matt. 7:12). Proverbs 21:2 says, “Be kind and honest and you will live a long
life; others will respect you and treat you fairly.” Proverbs 11:17 says, “Your
own soul is nourished when you are kind; it is destroyed when you are cruel.”
In the Old Testament we meet a man
who was both King and kind, both tough and tender at the same time. The Bible
calls him courageous, a mighty man of valor, one of the greatest warriors of
all time, a great military strategist, and a risk taker. His name? King David,
and though very kind, he was no stranger to the school of hard knocks.
He had grown up the youngest of many
brothers. He had been on King Saul’s hit list for many years. Many foreign
kings wanted him killed. And later in his life, his own son attempted to have
him murdered and started a civil war to take David’s throne.
David knew how tough the world could
be. But through it all, David maintained a tender and sensitive – kind – heart
in the midst of a tough world.
In a somewhat obscure passage found
in 2 Samuel 10:1-5, we see how the Holy Spirit can make a tough person tender.
READ 2 Samuel 10:1-5.
In this seldom-noticed passage,
David wanted to send his regrets to a neighboring king after the death of the
king’s father. So he sends emissaries to attend the funeral of the foreign
dignitary. But instead of meeting kindness with kindness, the dead king’s son,
who was the new king, was counseled by his military leaders and advisors to
mistrust David’s intentions and his representatives. The new king decided to
have some sport with David’s personal representatives, so he had half of their
beards shaved off and cut their robes at the waist so they would be naked from
the waist down.
In that time, a man’s beard was a
sign of masculinity. If you shaved a man’s beard, you had robbed him of his
dignity. The same went for cutting off their robes. There are laws in almost
every culture against disrobing people. It destroys someone’s dignity to be
stripped without his or her consent.
One of the greatest acts of
disrespect paid our Lord occurred as He was crucified, He was stripped naked and
suspended between heaven and earth as everyone gawked. That was one more way He
was humiliated.
David’s men were forced to come back
to Jerusalem in front of their peers, friends, and family half-shaved and
exposed. When David got word of what had happened, his heart went out to these
men. He hurt for them. And his tenderheartedness moved him into action.
The story begins with David
expressing care and tenderness for a neighboring king who had lost his father,
by the end of the story; David is extending care and concern to his own men.
The passage shows us three important things about kindness.
I.
Kindness is tender-heartedness in action (vv. 2, 5)
David sincerely wants to extend a kindness toward a
foreign dignitary with whom David had entered a peace treaty. David was able to
empathize with this foreign king because David himself knew what it felt like
to lose someone close.
David had experienced the great loss of his great
friend Jonathan and was concerned for those “still left in the house of Saul to
whom he could kindness for Jonathan’s sake” (2 Sam. 9:1).
Though a great warrior, David hadn’t allowed a
tough life to callous his heart. Though strong, the Holy Spirit had made David
sensitive.
The Holy Spirit’s goal is to make every follower of
Christ a sensitive person. His first step is to help us to learn how to
empathize easily. You see, insensitive people have a reflex reaction when they
see others who are hurting. They say, “It’s not my problem. Glad it didn’t
happen to me. Hope he lands on his feet, I hope she pulls through. Time has a
way of healing things, you know.”
Insensitive people don’t empathize. They don’t walk
in someone else’s shoes. They are completely unaffected by the plight of other
people.
But the Holy Spirit won’t settle for that if you’re
a Christian. The Holy Spirit is going to work us over on the inside and remind
us that God was deeply moved by our plight. Moved so deeply that He sent His
only Son to die for each of us. The Holy Spirit is going to remind us that He
is still moved by our prayers and our cries for help. Over time, God’s Spirit
will soften our heart, slow us down, make us tender, increase our vulnerability
and teach us to empathize with others in the middle of their pain.
But the Holy
Spirit doesn’t want us to empathize only – He desires that we act. Kindness is
love in action. It is something we do.
A story is told of Gandhi, that great leader in
India, that as Gandhi stepped aboard a train one day, one of his shoes slipped
off and landed on the track. He was unable to retrieve it, as the train was
moving. To the amazement of his companions, Gandhi calmly took off his other
shoe and threw it back along the track to land close to the first. Asked by a
fellow passenger why he did so, Gandhi smiled. “The poor man who finds the shoe
lying on the track will now have a pair he can use.”
Kindness is tenderheartedness in action!
II.
Kindness is participating personally in acts of compassion (v. 5)
One of the
greatest indications of the authenticity of God’s work is when tough people
become tender. When callused people grow more compassionate. When people get
off their self-centered “bench” and onto the others centered “playing field”.
We may get some bumps and bruises along the way, but that is the price of
living as fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.
David knew there was really no substitute for
personal participation in someone else’s pain. He could have ignored the news
of how his messengers had been publicly humiliated. After all, he was a very
busy man. He had a kingdom to run. People to see places to be. But David knew
some situations demand personal involvement, so he reached out to these men and
cared for them. Not only did his heart soften toward them, but he entered into
their pain and felt the shame they were feeling.
So often we would prefer to do our mercy work by
mail. We would rather send a card or a check or a word of encouragement. And
those can be appropriate means of expressing concern. But, the Holy Spirit may
lead us to see that those actions alone may not always be enough. We may start
with empathy but move, if we are able, to actual personal participation in the
pain of another human being.
There are very few people who feel comfortable
around the wounded, the hurting, the needy, or the grieving. One of the most
difficult things for me when I first began ministry were those times I had to
go visit in the hospital, or comfort a grieving loved one. Most of us take a
step or two back when confronted with the pain of another person. Being an introvert
by personality, I have a difficult time meeting people – especially people hurt
in some form or fashion. But guess what the Holy Spirit started doing in me –
same thing He will do in you if you’re open to it. He will begin to say, “Come
on, tough guy. Real courage is what it takes to reach out to a stranger
standing alone in the lobby of the church, visiting a prisoner in jail, going
to a hospital room not knowing what you’re going to say, visiting a nursing
home, working in a food bank, caring for a homeless person, or reaching out to
a unwed mother. Real courage is allowing your heart to be tender in a world
full of hard-hearted people, caring for an orphan and/or a widow.
Kindness is participating personally in acts of
compassion.
III.
Kindness is acting appropriately with the assistance of the Holy Spirit
(v. 5)
When David heard
of the public humiliation his friends experienced, he could have responded in a
variety of ways. But David said to the men, “I know you have been greatly
humiliated. Therefore, go to Jericho until your beards grow back. Take the time
you need so that you will suffer no additional humiliation.” You see, the Holy
Spirit not only helped David empathize and desire to participate in the pain of
these men, but the Spirit also gave David assistance in knowing the appropriate
course of action to take in this situation.
If all this talk about kindness seems a little
unnatural to you, just remember growing sensitive and tender will never happen
“naturally” – it only happens supernaturally. All of the Christian life is
supernatural. It starts with a supernatural salvation and ends in a
supernatural hereafter. And in the meantime, God, because of His great love for
us, will give us the supernatural strength to become caring, sensitive, kind
people.
We may fear that as we venture to empathize with
others and get involved in their problems that we won’t know what to do, won’t
know what to say. But as we trust an Almighty God, the Holy Spirit will give us
exactly what we need to carry out our acts of kindness. We’ll find ourselves
comforting people with words that are not our own. Listening with an
attentiveness that isn’t typical. Confronting people with courage we never knew
we had. Counseling people with wisdom that comes from the Spirit of God
Himself. Upholding people with strength beyond ourselves. We will even find
ourselves serving people with a kindness that only comes through the
supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.
CONCLUSION
Jesus Christ seems always to be
calling His followers to engage themselves in supernatural activities. He seems
always to be calling us to live life in radical fashion for His glory.
And so when it comes to acts of
kindness, Jesus never limits those activities to only those who would return
the favor. No, listen to the radical teaching of our Lord.
“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 ‘siners,” expecting to be
repaid in full. 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, because he is kind to the ungrateful and
wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Luke 6:32-36).
If kindness is tender-heartedness in
action then nobody emulated that better than our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave up
his throne of glory, became a human being, gave his life as a ransom for many
on the Cross.
If kindness truly is participating
personally in acts of compassion then nobody emulated that better than our Lord
Jesus Christ, who gave up his throne of glory, became a human being, gave his
life as a ransom for many on the Cross.
It is an interesting fact of history
that the Romans confused the Greek word christos (Christ) with the word crestos,
which means “kind.”
That’s because one of the most
obvious ways we display Christ likeness is to “love kindness.”