New Salem Baptist Church

Kindness

June 9, 2024

¹² Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, ¹³ bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. ¹⁴ And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.^[1]

In verse 12 the apostle commands the Colossians to “put on” certain attributes. The very first one, compassionate hearts, shows that these attributes are not merely to be put on like a shirt, where it is merely outward and your torso under the shirt remains unchanged. So, if you had an ugly tattoo, its still there, just covered up. Or, if you had a flabby tummy, a loose shirt might hide it. But, your flabby tummy is still there. No, the fact that the apostle describes our hearts shows that, when we put on these attributes, they are real and reflect a changed heart.

At the same time, since we are told to put these attributes on, this shows that we don’t wait around for some kind of magical endowment to change our disposition. We are able to choose to have these attributes. We choose them by willing them. They will still come from the Holy Spirit if they are genuine, but we choose to put them on. The Spirit will then grant what we choose.

According to verse 14, the best thing that we can put on is love. I think we all know this. We only need to practice it more! But I wish to speak this morning on the second attribute he lists: kindness.

From this list of attributes we can see that they go together:

• If one has a compassionate heart then kindness comes easily.
• If our hearts our humble we are more apt to possess kindness.
• Similarly, if we are patient it is easier to be kind and we will forgive one another.

Consider this verse:

⁸ He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

       but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God? ^[2]

The underlying Hebrew word that is translated “kindness” here is the word hesed.[3] This is a precious and beautiful word!

Most Hebrew scholars state that there not one single English word that can adequately translate the word hesed. There are several words or phrases in English that are used to translate this word. “Kindness” is the word most often used to translate it. But these words are also used:

• steadfast love
• mercy
• favor
• goodness
• faithfulness
• lovingkindness

Translators will often rely on the context of a passage in order to render the best translation.

This word, hesed, is very often used to describe God’s relationship to his covenant people. He has a special love for those who belong to him and this love is expressed with the word, hesed! When God appears to Moses he describes himself as abounding in hesed:

    6      Then Yahweh passed by in front of him and called out, “Yahweh, Yahweh God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth;

    7      who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”^[4]

Hesed is an essential and reassuring part of God’s character.

Consider this astounding passage where Nehemiah recaps the experiences of the first generation of Israelites in the wilderness, after leaving Egypt:

READ Nehemiah 9:15-21.

See how the prophet characterizes the first generation of Israelites. They were:

• arrogant (NASB)
• stubborn
• disobedient, even “refused to obey” the Lord!
• ignored the wonders that were performed among them
• disloyal to Moses and Aaron, trying to find another leader to take them back to Egypt!

Despite how egregiously recalcitrant they were, Nehemiah by the Holy Spirit writes that God was “ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and did not forsake them.”^[5]

The two-word phrase, “steadfast love,” is from hesed. Not only does the Lord continue his steadfast love towards them (that is why it is steadfast!) but he abounds in it!

Now, it is true that that generation would not be allowed to enter the promised land, but he still forgave them and he did not forsake them! Don’t ever confuse the Lord’s discipline with a lack of love! He may discipline you for your treachery but he does not forsake you. Praise his name!

Those Israelites committed idolatry and blasphemy, yet the Lord continued to:

• guide them through the wilderness
• lighted their way at night
• gave his good Spirit to them to instruct them
• fed them
• gave them water in the desert
• their clothes did not wear out
• they had no physical ailments because of the arduous walking
• they lacked nothing!

Do you see the amazing kindness of our God? This is the kindness that we, too, are to possess!

God has always desired us to be kind:

⁸ And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, ⁹ “Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another,^[6]

3 Do not let kindness and truth leave you;

Bind them around your neck,^[7]

  22            What is desirable in a man is his kindness,

And it is better to be a poor man than a liar.^[8]

In the famous passage describing an excellent wife, Proverbs 31, we read:

²⁶    She opens her mouth with wisdom,

and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. ^[9]

It is so clear that we ought to be kind. We are directed by God to be kind. I would like to provide some reasons why we should be kind.

1. Because God is kind to us, we should be kind to one another.

³¹ Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. ³² Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. ^[10]

We should always be kind, but it is especially necessary when we are sinned against. Many times we are not even sinned against, we are just offended. But, either way, we must be tenderhearted, forgiving each other, as God has forgiven us! God is tenderhearted to us, so we should be. God is kind to us, so we must be.

2. We should be kind because acts of kindness are well remembered long after other memories have passed away.

Years ago a Missouri country congregation listened to a sermon by a young preacher who had walked twenty miles to deliver it. Tired, hungry, this youth faltered, floundered, and failed. The people were disgusted; they did not know he had walked the weary miles. When the service was over nobody offered him food or shelter, but as he started down the long road with a breaking heart, the colored janitor asked him to share his humble meal in a nearby shanty.

Years passed. The young exhorter became Bishop Marvin of worldwide reputation, and after a full generation he once more stood in that spot to dedicate a great country church. The whole community was assembled; it was a tremendous event in their lives. When the service was ended, many crowded about offering lavish hospitality, but the Bishop waved them all aside, and called the old colored janitor saying, “When I was here years ago I was none too good for you, and I am none too good for you today.”

3. We should put on kindness because it changes our heart! We do not always feel kind, but because we do not feel kind does not mean that we should not speak kindly or act kindly. Indeed, one of the great insights of C.S. Lewis was this:

Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him (or her).[11]

This is absolutely a true observation. I have experienced this. This is true because the Bible presents admonitions to act in certain ways more often than it does to seek changes in our hearts. This would not make sense if it were not true that our actions influence our hearts.

Of course, what is true about love is just as true for kindness. When we speak kindly, when we do kind acts, then we discover that we feel kind because our hearts become kind!

4. We ought to be kind because acts of kindness can open amazing doors of opportunity!

In the city of Philadelphia there was a little third-class hotel. Into it one night there came two tired elderly people. They went up to the night clerk and the husband pleadingly said, “Mister, please don’t tell us you don’t have a room. My wife and I have been all over the city looking for a place to stay. We did not know about the big conventions that are here. The hotels at which we usually stay are all full. We’re dead tired and it’s after mid night. Please don’t tell us you don’t have a place where we can sleep.”

The clerk looked at them a long moment and then answered, “Well, I don’t have a single room except my own. I work at night and sleep in the daytime. It’s not as nice as the other rooms, but it’s clean, and I’ll be happy for you to be my guests for tonight.”

The wife said, “God bless you, young man.”

The next morning at the breakfast table, the couple sent the waiter to tell the night clerk they wanted to see him on very important business. The night clerk went in, recognized the two people, sat down at the table and said he hoped they had had a good night’s sleep. They thanked him most sincerely. Then the husband astounded the clerk with this statement, “You are too fine a hotel man to stay in a hotel like this. How would you like for me to build a big, beautiful, luxurious hotel in the city of New York and make you general manager?”

The clerk didn’t know what to say. He thought there might be something wrong with their minds. He finally stammered, “It sounds wonderful.” His guest then introduced himself. “I’m John Jacob Astor.” So, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel was built, and the night clerk became, in the years to follow, the best-known hotel man in the world.

In 1976, the 47-story Waldorf-Astoria in New York City served three-quarters of a million guests in its 1,900 rooms.

5. By being kind we are then able to see God as he really is! This is amazing, but it is true! Because we are fallen we often do not see God as he really is. We sometimes see him in an untrue way.

  25            With the kind You show Yourself kind;

With the blameless You show Yourself blameless;^[12]

Do you see it? If you are kind then you will see God as he really is…kind! But the very next verse says that if you are devious then God appears shrewd or contrary (see NIV or NLV). But God is kind! We have seen that. Hence, if we are kind then we get to see God as he really is!

I wish to end with an application. To whom should we be kind?

We began today with Colossians 3:12-14. Let us read verse 13 again:

¹³ bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

And, verse 12 begins with “chosen ones.” So, we are to exhibit kindness in our speech and actions towards our brothers and sisters in Christ.

These are the easiest ones towards whom we exercise kindness. For one thing, we only see them once or twice per week. And, hopefully by God’s grace, they themselves have a measure of kindness.

The more intrinsic reality is whether we are kind to our family members: our wives and our husbands, our children. “A kind word turns away anger.” (Prov. 15:1; NCV) How especially is this true among husbands and wives! What good is it to speak kindly to people at church if you don’t speak kindly to your wife or husband?

Speak kindly to those closest to you and you will cultivate a kindness that extends to all of life. Kindness is like almost everything else in life. The more you practice it the easier it comes.

Finally, we ought to be kind not just to the faithful ones, not just to our family. We need to be kind to all:

²⁴ And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, ²⁵ correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,^[13]

We are to be kind to everyone, even those who oppose us, who are against us, who speak harshly to us. Just return kindness. If we do this it is a positive testimony that the Spirit can use to touch their conscience.

Watchman Nee tells the story of his friend and brother in Christ who owned a rice field on a gently sloping hill. It took some inventive engineering, labor, and money to construct an irrigation system that watered his rice field. His neighbor, downhill from him, would often break the earthen divide between their properties and the water would flow out of the Christian’s rice field to the neighbor’s. The man had talked to him about it, but the neighbor continued the dishonest practice. Then one weekend while the neighbor was absent, this brother gathered some of the church members and they constructed a separate irrigation system for the neighbor. When he returned he was so amazed that he became a Christian saying, “I want the kind of life that you have!”

That’s not to say that every act of kindness will result in people’s conversion. But it is the way we are commended to be and, when we are, beautiful things can happen.

[Conclusion and Application] Why ought we to be kind? Let’s review:

• We should be kind because God is kind to us.
• We should be kind because acts of kindness are well remembered long after other memories have passed away.
• Being kind actually changes our heart!
• We ought to be kind because acts of kindness can open amazing doors of opportunity!
• By being kind we are then able to see God as he really is!

What wonders kindness brings to us!

So what ought we to do? Be kind! Even when you do not feel like it, speak kindly and do kind things. You may not end up managing a world class hotel and you may never see someone come to faith. But there is at least one thing you will see. You will see the love of your wife or husband grow and flourish. Be like God.