The Fruit of the Spirit: Kindness

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 105:1-5
• Hymn — All Creatures of Our God and King (#115)
• Shorter Catechism — Questions 15 & 16
• Hymn — More Love to Thee (#649)
• Pastoral Prayer
• Sermon
• Hymn — What a Friend We Have in Jesus (#629)
• Benediction

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Sermon Title: The Fruit of the Spirit: Kindness

Scripture: Jonah 4:1-4

I. The Position of Kindness

A. The Spirit gives a heart of flesh in place of a heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26)

1. Israel was indicted throughout the first half of Ezekiel for cruelty and unkindness, especially toward the poor and widows
2. The heart of stone is manifested in unkind, cruel actions; the Spirit replaces this with a heart of flesh
3. To not have the Spirit is to be inhuman; to have the Spirit is to be truly human — the Greek term in Galatians 5 means "an obliging, yielding, kind disposition"

B. Jonah's inability to receive God's kindness made him stony toward the Ninevites

1. God's commission to Jonah was itself an act of kindness — warning Nineveh of judgment rather than simply pouring out wrath
2. Jonah explicitly confesses he knew God to be "gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love" (Jonah 4:2) — yet he could not receive that kindness

C. The gospel is the immeasurable riches of grace found in God's kindness toward us in Christ (Ephesians 2:6-7)

1. Kindness must first be received before it can be practiced
2. As we daily soak ourselves in the undeserved kindness of God in Christ, it flows from us into daily life
3. The Holy Spirit, like stadium lights, illumines Christ to the heart; as we fix our eyes on Christ we become more like him — more kind (J.I. Packer)

II. The Practice of Kindness

A. The indicative-imperative pattern of the New Testament epistles applies directly to kindness

1. The indicatives (facts of who we are in Christ) must lead to imperatives (how we are to live) — waiting to "feel" the indicatives before obeying is an abuse of this pattern
2. Practice makes perfect — even Christ grew in wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52) as he practiced godliness, perfecting kindness at the cross

B. Jesus modeled the practice of kindness

1. He did not come for the righteous but for sinners — he entered the homes of tax collectors, prostitutes, and sinners, dined with them, washed disciples' feet
2. His opponents called him "a friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Matthew 11:19)
3. Application: becoming a friend to those with whom we disagree is more productive than remaining enemies

C. Kindness is distinct from niceness

1. Niceness exchanges pleasantries: "I'll make sure to pray for you"
2. Kindness moves toward the person: "Can I pray for you right now?"
3. Illustration: a neighbor who, upon hearing of a health crisis, came to the door, placed his hands on the preacher's shoulders, and prayed — crossing the threshold from niceness into Spirit-wrought kindness

III. The Perspective of Kindness

A. Busyness and deadline-driven thinking are the greatest enemies of kindness

1. Illustration: a father at his computer gives his son candy, then a toy, but never himself — the son wanted to be with him
2. Of the nine virtues listed as the fruit of the Spirit, not one is work, busyness, or productivity — Martha learned this the hard way

B. Jesus demonstrates the eternal perspective required for kindness

1. While trekking toward Jerusalem to accomplish the hardest work ever demanded, Jesus stopped for blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10) when the crowd rebuked him
2. When the disciples turned children away as an interruption, Jesus rebuked the disciples, took the children in his arms, and blessed them
3. Stopping to extend kindness was not a detour from his destination — it was the very path to it

C. Christian kindness flows from an eternal, not a 24-hour, perspective

1. The worldly person is bound by the clock and has no time for kindness
2. If we are in Christ, we trek toward eternal glory — the path there is the path of kindness
3. Like the Good Samaritan, we can set aside our schedule and cross the threshold from niceness into Spirit-wrought, Christ-like kindness toward all image-bearers — beginning with one another in the church (Galatians 6:10)