Kindness: God's Costly Love Extended to the Hostile

He was kindness personified, and people beat him and spit on him and mocked him and jeered at him and made fun of him and crucified him. The hostility of humanity killed him. As we sing in the hymn, ashamed, I heard my mocking voice call out among the scoffers. It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished. When our kids were really little, we read the Jesus storybook bible to them. And, when our daughter was three or four, I remember at dinner we were reading the story of the crucifixion as we finished the story. With tears in her eyes, she looked up and she gasped and said, God is so kind. [01:07:08] (48 seconds)  #KindnessPersonified

So what is he saying? He's saying God's kindness towards us becomes the grammar for our kindness towards others. Kindness, as the Bible describes as it's not primarily a technique for getting along with others. It's not a moral rule to follow. It's not a way to feel better about yourself. Here's the definition that we're gonna work with this morning as we talk about kindness. Kindness is God's costly love extended to the hostile through us. I'll say it again. It's God's costly love extended to the hostile through us. [00:52:45] (36 seconds)  #KindnessAsGrammar

Meanness isn't just a failure of virtue, it's actually a system with rewards. People aren't mean merely because they're broken, they're mean because it works. I mean, researchers have confirmed this. They've confirmed that social dominance behaviors, putting others down, landing the cutting remark, winning the argument, these activate real reward pathways in the brain. There's a dopamine hit of being good at being mean that is psychologically real. Like the world didn't accidentally become mean, it became mean because meanness pays. And there's a social currency in both being mean and right. Like, if you are good at it on social media, you get followers, and then you get notoriety, and then you get a book deal. [00:56:49] (45 seconds)  #MeannessPays

But what if that other kid did mean it? What if that other kid is running in the same spiral that Paul describes in verse three, the malice, the envy, the self hatred pointed outwards, and your child just walked through your kitchen door with a gospel opportunity, kindness, God's costly love towards the hostile through us, that could go forward on that school playground, but instead, we tell them to play nice and we shut the door. Why do we do this? We do this because we're doing the same thing in our own lives. We're so committed to the social contract of niceness that we've lost the ability to name reality. [00:59:50] (39 seconds)  #ChooseKindOverNiceness

The bible is not confused about what's wrong with the world. It's not out there, it's in here. It's in every human heart, in your heart and in my heart. And until you understand that the problem isn't them out there, but it's me in here, you have no hope of rescue, And you have no capacity for real kindness, because real kindness begins with honesty about your own hostility. And the good news of the gospel is it doesn't stop there. Someone quoted to me a song after the first service. You probably know it. Someday, I'll be living in a big old city, and all you're ever gonna be is mean. [01:04:38] (40 seconds)  #HeartProblemNotWorld

There's a woman named Rosaria Butterfield, who was a tenured professor at Syracuse University. This is how she tells her story. She writes, she was a committed lesbian, a post modern literary critic. She was openly hostile to Christianity. And one day, she published an article attacking the religious right, and she expected hate mail in response. And instead, she received a letter from a local pastor named Ken Smith. And she later described this letter as the kindest letter of opposition she had ever received. She said it was warm and civil and probing, and she didn't have categories for it. And so it just sat on her desk for a week. [01:10:47] (40 seconds)  #RosariaButterfieldStory

Now, niceness is self protective. It performs generosity without risking anything. Right? You can be impeccably nice and never once be kind because kindness requires something that niceness never asks of you. That's vulnerability. To be kind means you actually have to care what happens to the other person. Even when caring costs you something, even when it exposes you, even when the other person might not receive it well. Christopher Wright, who's a biblical scholar, says this. He says, kindness goes beyond duty. It means doing something you don't have to do, but you just choose to do. [00:50:19] (37 seconds)  #KindnessRequiresVulnerability

God's kindness did not appear to people who were neutral towards him. It appeared to enemies. It appeared to you and me. And finally, it's extended through us. This is verse eight, which we didn't read together. I almost read, but we didn't read together, which Paul says, I want you to insist on these things so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. The kindness that appeared in Christ now flows outward through his people into the world. We are conduits of his kindness, not the source. [00:54:31] (33 seconds)  #KindnessFlowsThroughUs