We're opening back up to Galatians 5.22. We'll look at the next fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5.22. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness. And that's where we are tonight on gentleness. It's, as far as the word goes, if you were to look the word up, and just a basic definition of the word, it would be, better rendered here, kindness. The fruit of the Spirit is kindness. When we jump down to meekness in verse 23, that would be what we would tend to think of as gentleness. So the fruit of the Spirit is, the KJV is gentleness, but kindness, it's kindness. Now. We we have been saying this all along and hopefully by the time we're done, it'll be what one of the things you automatically think about when you think about the fruit of the Spirit. But when we think about the fruit of kindness and the life of the believer. It is a result of the spirits what? Work. And the Christians. walk both of those things. It's a joint participation. The spirits work and the Christians walk. The Christian cannot do it without the power of the spirit. The spirit has to be working in the life of the believer and at the same time the Christian must be walking in the power of the spirit because these things aren't just automatic. It takes effort on the part of the believer. This is as we're thinking about the fruit of the spirit. It's just a product of sanctification and the sanctification process is long. It's a lifelong process, but it's a process where you are exercising effort under the power of the spirit. the word here for gentleness or kindness, it just means to be useful, to be kind, to be good. It's the opposite of harsh or ill-tempered. We saw this a little bit whenever we were looking at 1 Corinthians 13, whenever we were thinking about the fruit of love when we first started in 522. Love is Patient, verse 4, love is kind. It's the same word there. Love is kind. Now, a good definition here, and I'm going to read it. It says this, that kindness is not so much a sweet disposition, that's part of it, but it's not so much a sweet disposition as it is the practice of being useful, beneficial, Friendly. A kind person is one who is helpful, who's serving others, whose life is useful because he is seeking to promote the happiness of others. And then the writer here contrasted and says, what then is characteristic of the person who is not kind? And here's what he says. He is drawn into himself not reaching out to serve others. He pleases himself and is not disposed to be useful or helpful to his fellow man. He is not primarily involved in making other people happy. He is often more involved in protecting himself from being hurt." So I think that's a great practical definition as far as just thinking about it in that way. What does it mean to be kind? Well, most of us, and he gives the contrast at the very beginning, most of us would think of it as a disposition. And there's a disposition to kindness for sure. But all of these words as far as love, love's an action. Patience, this is an action. Again, kindness, goodness, we see faith, but it's faithfulness. These are actions. Joy, peace, these are things that you experience. So love is, I'm sorry, not love, but kindness is an action and it is a usefulness. So I want to think really in two big categories tonight. Number one, The fruit of kindness. Like every other spiritual fruit. Reflects the very character of God. I mean the fruit of the spirit. The whole point of that is the. the attributes of God are reflected in the believer. I mean, they're coming from God, the Spirit, and they're being displayed in the life of the believer who's being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ. So if we want to know what this looks like and if we want to know where this comes from, God is the source and God is also the one whose very character is perfectly displaying this fruit. We could go to a lot of passages, but I want to go to two for this. So Exodus chapter 34. Exodus 34. This is where the Lord elaborates on himself to Moses. We've been in this passage fairly regularly on Wednesday nights. So Exodus 34 verse 6 says, And the Lord passed by before him, before Moses, and he proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty, and so forth and so on. But for our purposes tonight, I want to get two words out of this section. In Exodus 34, verse 6, it says that He is abundant in goodness and truth. Now, our word goodness there is the same Hebrew word that's translated mercy in verse seven. Keeping mercy for thousands. These two are the same Hebrew words. And the Hebrew word is, and our ladies will be familiar with this because it's what their book study is all about. The Hebrew word there is hesed. It's God's covenant loyalty, or we could say God's covenant love for his people. Now, 26 times in the Old Testament, 25 of those are in the Psalms, 4 in Jeremiah, 1 in Hosea. This word is translated into English as loving kindness. Loving kindness. It's a love that expresses itself in God being kind. heard me say as far as mercy goes, this hesed kind of mercy. One of my favorite definitions is that it's just it's unnecessary kindness. It's kindness to the extent that it's just completely unnecessary. You would look at it and you would just think, what are you doing? Why would you keep doing that? It's not necessary that you would continue to lavish your people with that kind of kindness, with that kind of love. Well, when we think about this fruit of kindness. Part of what should motivate us as we get into what it is that we're we're actually talking about. Part of what should motivate us to be useful to be. Good and kind. to others is to just acknowledge, reflect on, think about how kind God has been to us, how good God has been to us in so many unnecessary ways. As we get to more of the practical aspects of this, we're going to think about the circumstances in which we see some of this coming up. But if you were to just think about the circumstances of your life in general, think about God's Hesed, God's loving kindness to you. When you think about before your conversion, God had His hand on you the whole time. God's providence was at work in your life the whole time. God was orchestrating and leading you up to the point that He would reveal Himself to you. And He preserved your life up until that point. It's unnecessary. And then after that, how much the Lord has blessed you? As far as the spiritual blessings that you've received, the material blessings that we enjoy, the relational blessings of being part of a church, we could go on and on and on and on and on. And again, we think about this and it's undeserved in the sense that it's just It doesn't make sense as far as God's not doing that because we deserve it. God's not doing that in response to our kindness to Him or our goodness toward Him. As we think about the fruit of kindness in our life, it's the same way. It's not reciprocal in the sense of it's not kindness for kindness. It's not if you're kind to me, I'll be kind to you. That's not the kind of kindness that God displays toward His children. So we could think about that also out of Titus chapter 3. And this is just a New Testament passage that will essentially illustrate what I just said. Titus chapter 3. And in Titus 3, I'm going to read the first six verses. Titus 3, 1-6. Paul says, "...put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all meekness unto all men." for we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers' lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy and hateful and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy, He has saved us by the washing of regeneration or the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior." So Paul starts out in chapter 3 and he says, you put them in mind, that is the church, you put the people in mind, that they would be subject to principalities and powers and obey magistrates, that they would be ready to every good work And then also that they would not speak evil of anyone or be brawlers, but they should be gentle and showing all meekness gentleness as we think about it unto all men. And then the question is why? Why? I mean, he's not he's not talking about the interactions that they're having in the church between brother and sister, although you know it would apply obviously, but he's talking about the interactions that they're having With... unsaved government authorities. He's talking about the kinds of interactions that they're having between them and unsaved people in this society that they're dealing with on a regular basis. And he says, you need to put them in remembrance, to put them in mind, to be subject, to be ready for every good work, to be gentle, to be meek to all men. Why? Because we were sometimes just like them. Why are we not still there? Because of the kindness of God, Paul says. That's why. How did we become recipients? Well, he goes on to say it's not because we did anything. It's because of the the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, the washing of the Spirit that was given to us through the work of Christ. So. As we think about this fruit of kindness, number one, it reflects the very character of God. It's kindness shown not on the basis of another person's performance, but really it's kindness shown on the basis of the kindness you've received from God. God has been so kind to me. How could I not turn around and be kind to my brother and sister in Christ? Or how could I not turn around and be kind to someone who was exactly like I was before God saved me? So, practically speaking, I want to think about four aspects. You could probably come up with more, but four aspects of the fruit of kindness. Now again, we're talking about this usefulness, doing good to someone. the opposite of dealing with someone in a harsh or ill-tempered way. So, four aspects. Number one, out of Philippians chapter two. Let me just read Philippians chapter two, verse four. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. So a couple of things here. Number one, just based off of this, the fruit of kindness is the opposite of being self-centered. You cannot be self-centered, self-protective, Self anything. And display the fruit of kindness. This is a selfless fruit. Now the opposite of that is just this. The fruit of kindness is thoughtful of others. Thoughtful of others. I'm not just thinking about me. I'm thinking about you and it's not just that I'm thinking about you, but I'm thinking. I'm thinking of you in a way that informs how I'm going to respond to you or how I'm going to act toward you. This would be a little bit different as it relates to if you were going to interact with a stranger. But if I'm going to be useful, if I'm going to be helpful, I need to know a little bit of something about you if I'm going to be able to do that. You know what I mean when I say that. So just for an example, Whenever Paul says, husbands love your wives the way Christ loved the church. And we say, well, how do we do that? How do I do it? Well, it depends on your wife. It really does. It depends on your wife. Some wives like flowers and some get upset that you wasted money on flowers. Some wives like this and some like that and so forth and so on. How is it that we love our wives? Well, Peter would go on and add at least to our understanding of all this and say, you need to live with your wife in an understanding way. Live with your wives according to knowledge. You need to understand them if you're going to be the kind of husband that you need to be. Well, if we're going to be useful to somebody, We need to understand that person a little bit. We need to have some sort of an understanding of what it is that would be helpful. Sometimes we let our personalities do the thinking for us. So some of us are doers and we think, well, if I'm going to help, I'm just going to take charge and take over and do this for somebody. And it's not helpful for them at all because that's not at all how they wanted it to be done. Some of us are not. We're not doers at all. And we think, well, if I'm going to be helpful to somebody, I'm just going to give him a good word of cheer and let him do their thing. Well, it may be helpful. It may not. It just depends on the person. So the point here is the fruit of kindness is not formulaic. It's thoughtful of others. I'm considering the person who's in front of me. What do I know about them? What would be helpful, at least as far as I can discern? in this particular situation. Secondly, we're thinking about thoughtful. From a practical standpoint, the fruit of kindness is helpful. I just said it, but I will say it again. The fruit of kindness is helpful. Now, in Matthew 20, where I'm going to try to anchor this, It's helpful in the sense that the fruit of kindness is ready to serve. I'm ready to serve where I have opportunity. Matthew 20. Where Jesus says in verse 25, It says, "'Jesus called them, His disciples, unto Him, and He said, "'You know that the princes of the Gentiles "'exercise dominion over them, "'and they that are great exercise authority upon them, "'but it shall not be so among you. "'But whosoever will be great among you, "'let him be your minister or your servant. "'And whosoever will be chief among you, "'let him be your servant. "'Even as the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom for many." Jesus says, I didn't come to be served, but I came to serve. Now, if we're being conformed more and more into the image of Jesus Christ, we know that's what God the Father is doing in us through the Spirit and the Word and the sanctification process. And part of that fruit that He's cultivating is kindness, usefulness, helpfulness, Well, that's going to be expressed through acts of service. Now, like I just said earlier, it's service that's informed its service that you've been thoughtful about. But nevertheless, it's service. It's not useful. For you to plan to do something helpful and not actually do it. It's only useful if you get to the point of execution, where you've actually done something. So the thinking is a good part of it. It's a necessary part of it. But then you actually have to serve. You actually have to help be useful. Now, number three, and this is probably where we struggle most with this in just our day to day. Number three, The fruit of kindness values people over plans and agendas. The fruit of kindness values people over plans and over agendas. Look in Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18. Verse 35, Luke 18, 35. It came to pass that as he that was Jesus was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the wayside begging. And hearing the multitude pass by, he asked what it meant. And they told him that Jesus of Nazareth passeth by. And he cried, saying, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me. And they which went before rebuked him, that he should hold his peace. But he cried so much the more, Thou son of David, have mercy on me. And Jesus stood and commanded him to be brought unto him. And when he was come near, he asked, saying, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? And he said, Lord, that I might receive my sign. And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sign. Thy faith has saved thee. And immediately he received his sight and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people, when they saw it, praised God." Now, the reason that I go to this passage, we could go to several different ones, excuse me, several different ones, is Jesus is on his way somewhere, going through Jericho, getting close to Jericho. And this certain blind man slows him down. Jesus, son of Nazareth, son of David, help me, help me, son of David, help me. Now, I don't know exactly how urgent it was that they got to where they were going, but they were on a mission so much that the disciples said, will you please hush? Leave us alone. We're headed somewhere. And then Jesus stops and he calls the man over to him. and says, what would you have me to do? And then he heals him. Now. How many times? In Jesus's ministry. Did he get interrupted by someone? While he was in the middle of doing something else? One man said that a fruitful study would be to go through the Gospels, study the life of Christ and develop a theology of interruptions because his life is full of them. The woman with the issue of blood, that was an interruption. The leper, that was an interruption. He is constantly being interrupted as he's on his way to do something else. And he responds in kindness. He responds in kindness. How do you typically handle interruptions? This is kind of where the meditations go south, don't they? This is where it's hard. This is where it gets difficult. I mean, common responses to interruptions. We can get harsh. We can get irritable. We can become impatient. just like with several of these other things, why does this always happen to me? Why? Am I just a magnet for difficult people? How do they all find me? Really, this kind of response is sometimes as we're interrupted and we respond in self-pity, Why is it always me? Why does it always happen like this? That's really a symptom of an inflated sense of self-importance. I had my agenda nailed down already. I knew what I was going to do. I was going to be productive. And you are messing me up. Maybe we help the person who's interrupted us, but we help them in a way that lets them know they've been an inconvenience. You ever done that? Maybe not, but I bet you have. Or maybe we just dismiss the person altogether. We just keep on going. Well, the fruit of kindness really does shine in this area of inconvenience. This is where we see it pop up often in Jesus's life. Now, here's, I think, a connection for us. One of the reasons why Jesus could always respond in gracious kindness to these interruptions is because He did not come down from heaven to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. Right? The will of the Father. And many times, what gets in the way of our kindness is in the moment. We're not here to do the father's will. We're here to do our will. Already had my ideas already had my plans and you're getting in the way. So the fruit of kindness values people. Over plans. And agendas and we see that throughout the Gospels and then last. The fruit of kindness is expressed through both words and actions." So this is a fruit. It's something that's expressed, it's received, it's displayed, and it's expressed through both words and actions. So the first one, I'm not going to turn there, but in Ruth 2.13, Ruth mentions the fact that Boaz had spoken friendly to her, or we could say kindly to her. He treated her with kindness and she goes on to describe what he did and how this was displayed. But what she hones in on is the way that Boaz spoke to her. It was a display of his kindness. Well, I mean, we use our words all the time, don't we? But it's more than just words. It's more than just the words that you piece together. It's our tone. Our facial expressions. Our body language. All of that. Is. All of those things are tools that we have to express this fruit of kindness or not. one way or the other. Now again, as we're thinking about this, you know, you may think, well. Brothers, are you really saying? We could use. Every word every time. To express kindness. Well, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we could. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we could know we're going to fall, that's for sure. The question is not necessarily will we, but can we? Can we? Yes, if you're a born again believer and you have the Spirit of God living in you, your words, your tones, your expressions, your body language could be used to communicate kindness to someone. And then the second one is actions. Actions look in Luke Chapter 10. Let's be our last place here. Luke Chapter 10. The parable of the Good Samaritan that Jesus gives. story of the Good Samaritan. Luke 10, verse 30. Jesus answering said, a certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thieves, stripped him of his raiment, wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance, there came down a certain priest that way. And when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise, a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was. And when he saw him, he had compassion on him and went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine and set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And on the morrow when He departed, He took out two pence and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him, and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee." Now, I'm just going to stop there. Jesus makes His application as far as who was merciful and who was His neighbor. But here we have this story of this complete stranger who goes into Jericho. He's overtaken. He's injured. He's stripped of his goods and so forth and so on. And the two guys pass by on the other side of the road. The Samaritan, who was a half-breed, comes along. And what does he do? He shows kindness. How? Well, number one, by drawing near to the guy who needed help. Number two, by realizing what needed to be done and doing it. And then number three, by making sure that the guy had what he needed. And then some. Right, I mean, this is a perfect illustration of this unnecessary kindness. You would have thought after he took care of the wounds and took him to the end and paid for him to stay there for a night or two that that would have been that that would have been enough. We would have said that was a. You know, That was above and beyond. Then he says, whatever else you need, keep tabs on that. And when I come back, I'm going to pay it. What is that? Well, that's someone who's being helpful, who's being useful, who's being unnecessarily kind. In a way that that really he goes out of his way to do. So the fruit of the spirit is kindness. Now this fruit more than likely is not going to be displayed in your life as you find somebody beat up and thrown in a ditch in Jericho. It's going to be with your parents. It's going to be with your spouse. It's going to be with your children. It's going to be maybe with your coworkers. It's going to be with your extended family. I mean, this is a good passage to hit right before Thanksgiving and everybody gets bunched up in the same room, right? Kindness, kindness. The fruit of the Spirit is kindness. Let's pray. Father, we do thank You for Your kindness toward us. We thank You, Father, that we have received an abundance of kindness that we just have not deserved. And so in turn, I pray that we would cooperate with the working of the Spirit in our lives and that we would display the fruit of kindness through our words, through our actions, as we seek to be helpful and useful to those around us. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.