The Extraordinary Power of Kindness

Thank you for that special music, and I'd like to add my own greetings

to all the fathers. I'm so glad you're here today. This is a

special sabbath for you, and I had you in mind when I was preparing

this sermon, because my goal today is to start a movement in your life

with your permission and cooperation, and to continue this movement in our church.

And I'll tell you why towards the end. So I was thinking of you

when I wrote this, and I want to just tell you about a quote

from Ellen White where she says that there's a special call for fathers to make

our homes centers of kindness. And when I think back on my experience as

a father, I know our home was not always a scent of kindness.

I could have done better, but I think we just go from where we

are and do better with the Lord's help. So, father's my challenge to

you is make your homes centers of kindness, as the prophet asks us to

do. Let us pray, Father, you have set the ultimate example for

kindness. There is nothing that can compare with your kindness to each one of

us in sending your son to come to this earth and begin at the bottom

and give his life so that all of us can have eternal life. Thank

you for this kind act, Lord, and may we be inspire today to

exemplify your example in our lives and in the lives of others. In Jesus

name. Amen. In nineteen ninety two, Larry Trapp of Lincoln, Nebraska

made national headlines. He renounced hatred. He tore down his neo Nazi flags,

and destroyed many cartons of hate literature that he had accumulated. Larry Trapp

was the Grand Dragon of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for the

Realm of Nebraska. Now. A few months earlier, in the same town,

cantor Michael Wiser, his wife, and three teenage kids moved into their

new home on fifty eight ten Randolph Street in Lincoln, Nebraska. A cantor

in the Jewish faith is a person who's trained to sing solo passages along with

the choir or the congregation. Now, much of their training is very similar

to that of a rabbi, and cantors can be rabbis in places where there's

no rabbi, and that is how cantor Wiser became the spiritual leader of one

of the synagogues, one of the two synagogues in Lincoln. The joy and

excitement of moving into their new home after years of rentals came to an abrupt

end with a phone call. Most of the family and friends were around the

kitchen table and the phone rang. Cantor Michael picked up the phone and said

hello. The conversation in the room stopped to allow Michael to take the call,

but the look on Michael's face told the others that this was not a

pleasant call. The man's voice on the line was harsh and hateful, and

he pronounced each word distinctly. You will be sorry you ever moved into Randolph's

Street, jew Boy. Then the phone went dead. It did not take

the family long to conclude who was behind this hateful call. The local press

had been reporting on hateful calls that other groups had received. Each followed a

pattern of intimidation intended to make the group or the leader of the group back

down in the face of hate and the fear of violence. For years,

Larry Trapp had orchestrated a campaign of deadly terror against groups that the local k

KK decided did not belong there, Jews, African Americans, Vietnamese, Native

Americans and others tasted the venom that Trap dispensed. The visors had a decision

to make. How were they going to respond to this action of hate and

bigotry that the k k K and its leaders were dispensing. Fight fire with

fire? No, fighting hate with hate would just play into the hands of

the k KK. Something different was needed. They decided to fight hate with

kindness. Motivated by love, Michael used the rich teaching of the Torah to

combat this evil. Trap took the other road. He became more extreme in

his threats and projected violence. He even targeted Michael's synagogue for bombing. After

getting numerous hateful calls, Michael decided that his calls would be of a different

nature to Larry Trap. Larry was used to instilling fear in his targets,

but Michael decided that he was going to respond with kindness now. In the

calls to Trap, Larry did not identify himself, but for every message that

he received, he would leave a complimentary message that was very different from the

type of message he received in se spreading hate. He talked about reason,

tolerance, and cooperation. Perhaps with us meeting, we could make things different.

One day, Trap happened to be by the pahone and he had heard

this voice before when it went to the answering machine, and he recognized this

as a person who was sending him messages of kindness. And so he picked

up the pahone before the person could finish his message and said, who is

this? And so Michael identified himself and told Trap who he was, and

he said that his turn. His goal was to make sure that Trap received

kindness that he deserved and that Michael that Trap would stop his calls of hate.

Actually, the messages that Michael was leaving were having an effect on Trap.

You see, Trap was a very sick man. He was a Type

one diabetic. That means he got diabetes as a child. And Trapp's intemperate

life had left him with amputations and now he was going blind and he realized

that he was going to face death very soon. And the sad part in

his life was he didn't have anybody to take care of him. Michael talked

with his family and came up with a plan. They were going to invite

the Grand Dragon of the local KKK to come and live with them for the

rest of his life. Now, this was very revolutionary, and not everybody

was initially on board. Maybe we need to think about this carefully, they

suggested. But in the end they agreed that the Torah calls for tolerance and

love in the sight of hate, and so the invitation was made to Trap

that they would be happy to welcome him in his home, into their home,

and take care of him for whatever life he had remaining. Larry thought

long and hard, I mean Trap thought long and hard, and then he

accepted their invitation. Can you imagine the first meeting they had in the house.

Here were the five people who in the house who were targeted for death,

and into their house inviting the grand dragon who had promised to do away

with their lives. But they were able to overcome that. In fact,

they doted on Trap. The teenage kids fought with each other to take him

in his wheelchair from place to place, and the family just loved on him

and made him feel a member of the family. Trapp spent his last months

of life seeking forgiveness from groups and individuals that he had targeted, and before

his death he converted to Judaism in unity with the cantor and his family.

This is an indication of the power of kindness. Few of us will be

called to show kindness to a local grand dragon of the KKK, but all

of us will have opportunities to practice kindness in our everyday lives. And that

kindness can change you, and change the other person, and change the world.

And that is the movement that I speak about today. What is kindness?

Here is a definition that I think captures the essence of kindness. Kindness

is a type of behavior that's marked by acts of generosity, consideration, rendering,

assistance, or concern for others without expecting praise or reward or something in

return. Kindness is a topic of interest in philosophy, in religion, in

psychology. Kindness is also one of the main topics of the Bible. When

I actually went to look at how many times the word is used, I

was pleasantly surprised to see how many times it's used in the Bible. And

the theme is throughout the Bible and the story of God's love to us as

one of kindness. Now, what does the Bible say about kindness? Actually,

it says a lot. And from our scripture reading, we are two

passages which all of you heard, and I think from those two scriptures,

we can conclude that kindness is an attribute that God words, that God's word

commands us to acquire and to use. Here are a few others. And

be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God

in Christ forgave you Ephesians for thirty two. Now, some of these passages

of scripture are quite direct and simple, and they don't need any commentary.

Here's another passage from Colossians three two. Therefore, as the elect of God

Holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness,

long suffering. In Proverbs eleven seventeen, the wisest man has this to say.

A man who is kind benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself.

So obviously, practicing kindness has some distinct benefits to each of us,

and not practicing kindness or unkindness hurts us in some ways. And we'll see

how. Here's another statement from Mayo Angelo. Here's what she said. People

will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they

will never will forget how you made them feel. This is why people hung

around Jesus and why they followed Jesus. They enjoyed his company, and the

teaching that he shared with them made them feel good about themselves. Now,

remember it was the sinners and the publicans who were very comfortable in Jesus's presence.

The Pharisees and the Sadducees were not the ones who felt very comfortable.

And that is the reason why they were comfortable, because Jesus made them feel

like they were the most important people to him, and that's exactly how he

treated them. Jesus is the perfect characterization of kindness. As followers of Jesus,

we two should be dispensers of kindness. We open ourselves to the supernatural

work of the Holy Spirit when we ask the Holy Spirit to produce in us

kind hearts that overflow through kind lips. Now, one of the things that

makes kindness such a powerful force in the world is that there is a science

behind kindness that our Creator planted in each one of us. If we understand

how this kindness works, I think we'll be better practitioners of kindness. A

study from the Cedi Cedars Sinai Medical Center says that we all seek paths to

happiness, and one of the best ways to achieve this happiness is to practice

kindness. When we practice kindness, when we witness kindness, even when we

hear about kind acts being committed, the body releases to feel good substances.

One of them is oxytocin and the other is dopamine. Both of these modify

the brain chemistry to lower blood pressure and relieve stress. And this is why

you get that good, happy feeling when you do something for another person without

any expectation for recognition or reward. And the more times it's done, the

more times we continue to enjoy these healthful benefits in our system. Now,

the strange thing is not this comes to the person not only to the person

who practices the kind act. It also is left behind in the person who's

the recipient of the kind act, and also to anybody that's witnessing the kind

act. Let me illustrate this with a story. Officer Larry Deprimo was a

twenty five year old policeman in the city of New York City. His beat

was Times Square. Now, if you know anything about Times square, is

one of the things you'll know is that in Times square you can meet any

type of person. Nothing is going to shock you. In times squares and

Larry Deprima was walking on his beat. It happened to be an extremely cold

day. He was twenty five years old, in the prime of his health,

and he was feeling cold. He had two pairs of socks on his

feet, and even with that, he was feeling the cold in his feet.

And as he turned a corner, he saw a homeless man sitting down

there with no socks and no shoes on his feet. Larry could not believe

this, so he went to the man and asked him if he could be

of help, and the man said, he's homeless. He didn't have any

socks, he didn't have any shoes. Larry immediately thought and jumped into action.

He went to a local sketcher's store shoe store, and he bought warm

boots and thermal socks. He when he talked to the homeless man, he

had found out his size size twelve, and so while he was paying for

this, the you know, the store clerk asked him what he was you're

going to do with this because it was obvious he didn't wear size twelve.

Size twelve is a big size, and so he he told him that he

was going to take it for this homeless person, and the sales clerk was

so impressed. He said, listen, this pair of boots cost one hundred

dollars, but I'm going to give you my employee discount, so it's only

going to cost you seventy five dollars. So Larry was happy. He took

that pair of boots along with the thermal socks, and he went and helped

the homeless man put on these socks and shoes. The homeless man was so

happy and he went on his way. He started walking and went on his

way, and that would have been the end of the story. But there

was a person who were a tourist all the way from Arizona who happened to

be there and witnessed the interaction that took place between the policeman and the homeless

men, and she took a picture of this, unknown to them, on

her cell phone, and a few days later she sent the picture with a

note to the New York Police Department, and the police department then put this

on their Facebook. And you know what happened with the story. It went

around the world and millions of people saw it. Now here's the strange thing,

not so strange from what we have told. What we have said already

Larry Diprimo was so happy that for the rest of his beat he was ready

to help anybody that needed help, because kindness just left that nice feeling with

him. The homeless man was happy that his feet were warm now in this

bitter call, and he went away happy. The tourists who saw this,

she was happy, and she just felt so good about what he had seen.

And every person who went on that Facebook page, I remember reading about

the story when it happened, and it just left a warm feeling in me,

and unknown to us, this inspires us to practice acts of kindness.

So you see how an act of kindness can literally have a ripple effect and

spread around the world. And that's the movement that I'm talking about today now.

Now, it's obvious from the scripture reading that was read to our Sinculations

five twenty two that the fruits of the spirit are fruits that we need to

cultivate into our lives. So how does joy I mean love, joy,

peace, love, suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self

control become second nature? The Bible very clearly says that we need to have

love for one another, and this love needs to be second nature. It

cannot be love that is acted out. It has to become a part of

us. So my question to you is, how does kindness? How does

love? All these other attributes that are listed in the Fruits of the Spirit.

And by the way, I don't think this is an exclusive or exhaustive

list. I think this is just a list which tells us the kind of

fruits that we need to look for in our lives. But how do these

become second nature? It's very easy. The answer if Paul gives us isn't

Galatians six seven, and basically hear what it says, do not be deceived.

God is not marked for whatever man souls that will he also reap.

So here's the secret to gentleness and the fruits of the spirit. Making that

a part of our life, doing it often enough that it becomes second nature.

That's how things become second nature to us. Now, all of us

started out as infants, and all of us learned some tremendously complex things very

early in our life. The ability to walk, the ability to speak.

It's quite complex when you think about language and how to use language, but

children learn it, and we learned it as infants. How did we learn

it. We learned it by repetition, and that is how it's done.

Now I have four stages of excuse me, four stages of competence, which

I think we'll explain what I'm talking about and hear you on the screen.

You have the four stages of competence. The first stage is unconscious incompetence.

This is where the child or an infant may see the parents speaking, but

this child doesn't understand that we have something called language that helps us communicate with

others, and the child is unable to do it, so unconscious, not

aware how to use language, and cannot use language. That is unconscious incompetence.

Conscious incompetence is when the child is old enough to maybe say a few

words, but not speak in a language, and so the child is conscious

that there is something called language. When I say mama, my mother responds

to me. But I can't speak a language. I can't use language to

communicate, and so I'm still incompetent. So conscious incompetent you know something,

but you can't do it. Conscious competence is you can do it, you

know you have to do it, and you can do it, but you're

not an expert. At it, and then the ultimate stage of competence is

unconscious competent, where you can do things without even thinking about it. Now,

I come from a country where we have a national language, but we

also have regional languages around there, So every person growing up can usually speak

three or four languages quite well, well enough to be understood because it's heard

often enough. Now, I'm always amazed when I go there because I only

speak one language, and even that not so correctly right now and then,

But when I go home, I see people seamlessly switching from one language to

another without even thinking of it. That is unconscious competence. You don't have

to think about it. It just happens in the mind. And that's how

we need to make things second nature, including kindness and loving people. I

want to close with a story that illustrates the power of kindness. In nineteen

twenty five, a missionary couple named David and sweet Flood went with their two

year old son from Sweden to the heart of Africa. As missionaries, they

went to a place that was called Belgian Belgian Congo, now the country of

Zaire. They met up with another Scandinavian couple, the Ericsons, and the

four of them set out to take the gospel to a remote part in Belgian

Congo. They went to the village of Endolero, and when they went there

they did not receive a warm welcome. The chief made it known that he

did not want them in their village for fear of alienating the local guards.

The two couples opted to go about a mile up a slope, and there

they built their mud huts. The only contact the villagers had was a young

boy who was allowed to sell them chickens and eggs twice a week. Sweet

Flood was a tiny woman, four feet eight inches tall. She decided that

if she couldn't talk to this African teenager about things of the Bible, then

she would lead him to the Lord by practicing kindness. In fact, she

succeeded beyond her wildest dreams without her realizing it. In time, the Ericssons

left and so this left just David and Sweet Flood into this village with hardly

any contacts and hardly any success in their missionary efforts. Not long after they

came to this village, Swear found out that she was pregnant, and soon

she was going to give birth to a child. The village chief softened his

hard stands and allowed a midwife to help with the delivery when it was time

for her to give birth. The delivery, however, was exhausting, and

Swear died after seventeen days after giving birth to her child. Inside David Flood.

Something snapped at that moment. He dug a grave, buried his twenty

seven year old wife, and took his children back from the mountain to the

mission station. When he got to the mission station, he gave the child

to the Ericson's, the other couple that was there with them for a short

while. He gave them to the Ericsson's and shouted, I'm going back to

Sweden. I've lost my wife. I obviously can take care of this baby,

and God has ruined my life. With that, he went to the

port at He rejected his calling, not only his calling, but also the

God that had called him to this. So within eight months after leaving,

the Ericsons, who had taken this baby in both died mysteriously. And so

there were some American missionaries who were at the mission station, and they adopted

this Swedish baby and named her Aggie and eventually brought her to the United States,

and Aggie grew up in South Dakota as a young woman and attended the

North Central Bible College in Minneapolis. And there she met a young man named

Dewey Hurst, and they enjoyed a very fruitful missionary life. Now, for

the hearst twenty fifth wedding anniversary, this was Aggie and Dewey For the twenty

fifth wedding anniversary, the college presented them with a vacation to Sweden. Now,

when they had this gift, Aggie was wondering whether she should try to

see her birth father. She was not sure she should, and so she

was debating and couldn't make up her mind. And one day before they were

supposed to leave, she got a magazine that made up her mind. She

looked at this magazine and it obviously was in Swedish, because there were a

lot of Swedish families around the college where they were working, and she understood

a little Swedish. She could recognize some words, but she couldn't read enough

to understand what was in the magazine. So she looked at this magazine and

which just was thumbing through it, and one photo in the magazine just stopped

her cold. There on the magazine was a primitive setting, and there was

a grave with a white cross, and on the cross where the words swear

flood. Her birth mother, Aggie, jumped into her car and went straight

for a college faculty member who she knew knew Swedish. She put the magazine

in front of her and said, soon, tell me what this says,

and the faculty member read the story very quickly and summarized. She said,

this is a story about missionaries who had come to this village known as Endolera

long ago, the birth of a white baby, the death of the young

mother, the one little African boy who had been led to christ and how

after the whites had all left, the boy had grown up and finally persuaded

the chief to let him build a school in that village. The article went

on to say that gradually this little boy, who grew up to be the

teacher, won all of the students in his school to christ Even the parents

were won over to become Christians, and the chief, who had such animosity

to the missionaries before, became a Christian. Today, the article said there

were six hundred Christians in that village as a result of that little boy who

had the contact with swear for just a short time, all because of the

sacrifice of David and Sweah Flood. When Swea heard this, she knew she

had to go and meet her father. So she went to Sweden, and

first she met her half brothers and half sisters and told her that she intended

to meet with their father. Now they didn't strongly encourage it. They didn't

discourage it. They said, you know, our father is a very sick

man, you know, so I'm going to leave. We're going to leave

that up to you. But Aggie was determined. She said, don't worry,

I will see him. Everything will be fine, and so so.

But they warned her. They said, you know, when you talk to

him, don't ever mention the name of God, because as soon as somebody

mentions the name of God, he flies into rage and he gets very angry.

So just leave out any reference to God in your conversation. But Aggie

knew what she was going to say, and she nodded, and so she

went to the home. Her father was seventy seven. He had had a

stroke, not in the best health, and it was obvious that he was

relying on alcohol to get him through a tough time in his life. But

as soon as she went there, she greeted him and said, Papa.

And as soon as he heard her, he began to cry, and he

said Anah. That was her Swedish name. He said, Anah, I

never meant to give you away. And she said it's all right, Papa.

God took care of me. The man instantly stiffened, the tears stopped.

God forgot all about us. Our lives have been like this because of

him. He turned his face back towards the wall. Aggie stroked his face

and then continued undaunted, Papa, I have a little story to tell you,

and it is a true one. You did not go to Africa in

vain, Mamma did not die in vain. The little boy that sold you

chickens and eggs, he gave his heart to the Lord, grew up to

win the whole village to Jesus Christ. The one seed you planted kept growing

and growing today that there are six hundred African people serving the Lord because of

your faithful call to God in your life. Papa, Jesus loves you.

He has never hated you. The old man turned back to look at his

daughter and his body relaxed, he began to talk, and by the end

of that afternoon he had come back to the God that had that he had

resented for so many decades. A few years later, the Hearst were attending

a high level evangelism conference in London, England, and in this conference they

heard about a report from the country of Zaire, the former Belgian Congo,

the person who was in charge of the work in that country, said that

the national Church had now one hundred and ten thousand baptized believers, and spoke

eloquently about how the gospel was spreading so fast in his nation. Aggie wanted

to meet him afterwards, and so she did, and she very you know,

was eager to ask ask this man. And she asked him, She

said, have you ever heard of David and swear Flood? And he said

yes, madam. He was speaking in French and his words were being translated

into English. He said, it was sweet Flood who led me to Jesus

Christ. I was the boy that brought food to your parents before you were

born. In fact, to this day, your mother's grave and her memory

are honored by all of us. He embraced her in a long sobbing hub

and then he continued, you must come to Africa to see because your mother

is the most famous person in our history. And that is exactly what Aggie

and her husband did. They went to Desire to this little village and there

they saw the people who were won over to Jesus because of the kind act

that her mother showed to this boy. Now, there's no way to know

how many people are in this chain that Sweet Flood started. It is estimated

to be in the millions now. But one day soon, when all the

saints of Earth are gathered together on the Sea of Glass, I think the

Savior is going to call David and Sweet Flood and take them to this vast

throng of people who the result, who are the result of their efforts,

and introduced them to all of them, all because one person was willing to

be kind to a young African teenager. Today, I am challenging everyone to

join me in a kindness ministry that I am calling the Kindless Evangelism Ministry and

begin to start a movement of doing random acts of kindness. Now, this

ministry is just something that I've thought about. It needs a leader, and

if God has impressed any one of you to take this upon, I'll be

happy to work with you. And we need to create a ministry that will

promote this ministry in our church. Now, this ministry can be done by

anyone who wants to. There's no requirement, it doesn't require a budget.

It can be done in addition to any other ministries that you're currently engaged in.

It doesn't cost anything. It has fantastic results. And here are two

statements from Ellen White that gives you the potential and the extraordinary power that is

in kindness. Here's the first of these. Kindness the key to greater evangelism.

If we would humble ourselves before God and be kind, courteous, tenderhearted,

and pitiful, that is, being full of pity for others, not

pitiful ourselves, they would be one hundred conversions to the truth where there is

only one. Let me repeat that again. If we humble ourselves before God

and be kind, courteous, tenderhearted, and pitiful, there would be one

hundred conversions to the truth where there is now. Now, I'm a simple

country boy from India. I can't figure out very complex things, but this

I understand. So if you have ten baptisms this year, and all of

us start practicing this next year, we can have a thousand. That's incredible.

Very few things in life give us a hundred return of hundred fold.

Even the farmers, the best farmers in the world, don't enjoy a return

of one hundred fold. But that is the promise that the scripture has,

and that is the promise that is given to us. And the second statement

from Ministry of Healing, page seventy four seventy says this the strongest argument in

favor of the gospel is a loving and lovable Christian, loving other people and

practicing acts of kindness needs to become second nature to us. We are not

by nature led to this, because by nature we are all sinners. But

this can be done if we believe the promise of the Spirit of prophecy and

the Lord's word. So that is what I'm calling on each one of us

to do. By joining hands, we can fill this sanctuary so that there

will be no empty seats. And when we fill the sanctuary, we engage

in church planting so that all of the people that are brought to us will

have a place in the church. I'd like to leave you with a rhyme

that you can take with you for the rest of the week. Kindness is

more than words we can string. Kindness is love in action. So kindness

is everything. So go out this week and practice random acts of kindness and

change yourself and the world. God bless you Lord. Our request is that

we be more like Jesus. Make each individual this week be more like Jesus,

and let us change ourselves and the world with your help. In Jesus name,