Fruit of the Spirit: Kindness — with Ross Roberts

Welcome to the Grace Church Weekly Podcast. We're an international church right

in the heart of Stockholm, Sweden.

Each week, we share a message that's rooted in the faithful teaching of God's

Word and open to the vibrant work of the Holy Spirit among His people.

Here's this week's message.

Hello everyone, I'm Ross, if you haven't already met. Good to see you all.

I'll be sharing our teaching with you today.

I'm just going to hand it straight away to Ruan, who's going to read our passage today. Thanks, Ruan.

So the passage today is Philippians 2, verse 1 to 4.

Philippians 2:1–4

And I'll read from the ESV.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love,

any participation in the Spirit,

any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind,

having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more

significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Thanks, Aaron. Wonderful. Shall we pray? And then we'll start with that.

Heavenly Father, thank you for your word and this truth for us written down in our hands.

We value it so highly, Lord. Would you speak to us through it today?

We open up our hearts to you, the true vine dresser.

Would you speak to us? Would you remove every branch that doesn't bear fruit?

And would you prune every branch that does that we might all bear more fruit

for your kingdom and your glory? Amen.

Amen. All right, so we are about halfway through a series on the fruits of the Spirit.

You might have seen that in some of the slides previously. Today we've come to the fruit kindness.

Yeah, so I thought I would just give a little brief interim background to the

fruits of the Spirit or a bit of context to where we are.

And I'm just going to read through Galatians 5, 16-25, that section where we

find these fruits of the Spirit.

It'll probably come up behind me But just listen We'll just have a quick read

through So that we know where it's coming Coming at us in what context,

But I say walk by the Spirit And you will not gratify the desires of the flesh,

For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit And the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh,

For these are opposed to each other To keep you from doing the things you want

to do But if you are led by the Spirit You are not under the law,

In other words the flesh are evident sexual immorality, impurity,

sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger,

rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, borgies, and things like these.

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,

goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Against such things there is no way.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

So Galatians 5, here Paul is calling the Galatians to walk by the Spirit in contrast to the flesh.

To keep in step with the Spirit. And so what the fruit of the Spirit is not,

is it's not a Pastor Paul's nine-step plan to becoming a virtuous person, right?

It's not a checklist to be mastered or specific character attributes that we

need to actively work at in order to achieve them ourselves.

But the fruit of the Spirit is rather the result or the evidence of a life walking by the Spirit.

In verse 94 it says, Now the works of the flesh are evident.

He talks about the evidence of a life by the flesh, and then evidence of a life

walked by the Spirit in step of the Spirit.

And so,

A life lived by the Spirit will display certain passive

evidence These different fruits that Paul mentions And they indicate a general

state of the heart Like a tree bearing or not bearing fruit So this made me

think Immediately the picture came to mind of a tree back in Zagwabwe Where I'm from,

at a house where my brother used to live And we've got a few trees then Describing

different states of the heart maybe,

This is a, can you already guess what kind of tree that is?

Oh, close.

It's a bit hard to see. Whereas an avocado tree, if you look like furthest to

the left, you might see one or,

And I kid you not, there was a tree at a brother's house that was probably a

good six, seven meters high.

Enormous avocado tree with more than you could ever eat as a household.

Just incredible, you know. Living here in Europe, that's not what we're familiar with.

Maybe it's the 10, 15, 20 crowns per avocado at the grocery store,

right? This is an abundance of fruit, so much that your whole family couldn't eat it all in a year.

It's almost dangerous to sit under the tree because there's so many and fall.

That to me is just an amazing picture of a fruitful tree. It's so laden with fruit.

It's large. It provides shame. It's healthy and green.

Yeah, that's what popped into my mind when I was thinking about the fruit of the Spirit.

And then there's other ways of a tree and fruit is talked about in Scripture.

And so briefly to connect to some of those, there's a barring tree.

And Jesus also talks about bad trees or bad fruit.

This was just there. There you have it. A bad tree, it's quite hard to find

specifically what a bad tree was.

This, if I'm interested, is a man chenille tree from Central South America.

Yeah, almost everything of that tree is toxic in some way, leaves,

fruit, bark, it's very much don't touch tree, but it does produce fruit, interestingly.

We're not getting too deep into a metaphor here, but Matthew 7.15 says us,

Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing,

but eminently are ravenous wolves.

You'll recognize them by their

fruits. Our grapes gathered from thorn bushes or fixed from thistles.

So every healthy tree bears good fruit. A diseased tree bears bad fruit.

A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a diseased tree bear good fruit.

Why mention this? Why delve into this? Well, I just really get the feeling that in our day today,

there has never been so much false misleading teaching so readily available

at our fingertips, on our screens, in our phones, everywhere.

And that's one way to think about the fruit of the Spirit, is to look at somebody

who we might see as a leader or somebody who's influenced in our lives or an

opinion leader, whatever you might call it.

And to be aware of who they are as a person, the fruits in their life.

To not blindly consume everything that we see on YouTube, the blogs we read,

the next book you might pick up and start reading, the person you might choose

to follow on some social media platform.

We're not to consume blindly. We're to be aware of what's influencing us,

what's speaking into our minds,

and to think about what evidence do we see in this person's life that we're

choosing to follow, to listen to, to receive their thoughts and their opinions.

Can I see fruit, the fruit of the Spirit in their lives?

And a lot of what we see on the internet is people that live thousands of miles

away. So maybe the answer then is, no, I can't see their lives at all. I actually don't know.

All I see is what I see them providing on the internet in some way.

So Proverbs 4.23, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

A little aside, when we think about the freaks of spread, they're useful in many ways.

Think about the people that are leading you, influencing you,

and the opinions and thoughts. Is that entering your mind?

Alright, so that's maybe a bad tree. If we go back up to a barren tree, add a picture of that.

What does the fruit of the Spirit teach us? If I'm living by the Spirit,

keeping in step with the Spirit, then there will be fruit in my life.

The Spirit is at work in us, and the Spirit produces fruit.

It's going to happen. But sometimes life might not feel like that.

It might feel like we're not being so fruitful.

What do we do then? What do I do if I don't see so many of these fruits that we read of?

Maybe you feel like you're living through your Christian life,

like regularly anxious, not so much joy.

The passion's gone from your faith.

Maybe you snap more readily and more angrily at your kids when they misbehave.

There's a sense that that spark has gone from your life.

Maybe that's because you're unfit, you're not walking in step with the Spirit.

So if you're lacking kindness, what do you do?

Well, the first answer is to not try harder to be a kind person with all your might.

To get up and think how to, in any way you can, in your flesh,

in yourself, be a kindling person.

No, the answer is to walk in a step with the Spirit.

At the end of that passage you read in Galatians 5.

That feeling you might have maybe of a dryness, maybe you can think of that as being unfit.

You know, when you haven't trained for a long time, you haven't been for a run

or you haven't exercised at the gym, then going up a flight of stairs or a couple

of flights of stairs might suddenly feel extremely taxing.

You know, or in the same way, going through a moment where your kids are misbehaving

might immediately push you into an angry response.

You know, where's that softness or that heart of flesh that would help me respond in a godly way.

So it's not hard to change. What do you do if you're feeling unfit?

Put your shoes on, take yourself out. Start with two kilometers, go for a walk.

Start the next day with three kilometers or walking a bit faster and do that for a week.

And then do it for another week. And then maybe they'll start to get a little

bit boring. Okay, let's try three kilometers at a slow peak, Manila Cayenne pace.

Do that for two weeks. Wow, that's starting to feel a little boring as well.

Maybe I should find a different route. Do four or five.

Take small steps to build up your fitness, right?

And the same with your faith. It doesn't need to be complicated to get started

on a road out of dryness, onto a road of producing fruit.

All it takes is beginning with a small step, a small reach into the river of

life, the Holy Spirit, the Father, His Word, seeking God.

Pray without ceasing, it says in 1 Thessalonians. Converse with God throughout the day.

Just start with 10 minutes a day in God's Word.

Or on your journey to work, 10 minutes of praying.

Or on your journey home, or on your lunch break. Whatever it might be,

find a way to start with 10 minutes a day.

And then see how that goes. You'll find God speaking to you, encouraging you.

Start to feel a little bit of life in your life. Okay, maybe you can manage

15 minutes the week after, or maybe you change it up and add in a reading through

one of the books of the Bible.

Start small, ask the Father to speak to you, to produce fruit in you,

to fill you with the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes thinking about 50 minutes or half an hour reading the Bible is hard.

But most phones, like mine, have a screen time, right?

You will keep track of your screen time, how much it is. Record of how much

time you spend on your phone each day.

I had a brief look at mine today. Guess how many hours a week I spent on entertainment camps?

That's what we can count. You know what it gets? 35. Whoa!

Thanks, Rajesh. Okay, 30 going, 30 going, 30, everybody, 30.

No. Okay, it was a bit lower than 35, Rajesh.

About four hours, okay, on Instagram apps like YouTube or things like that.

That's a lot of time, right? So that's half an hour a day.

So come on, put the phone down. pick up a bible you got half an hour a day not

it's not hard you might find that you suddenly start feeling the dryness creep

away and fruit start appearing in your life fruitful trees what do we want to

be we want to be fruitful trees psalm 1 verse 3 houses for picture,

Psalms 1:3

he is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season,

and its leaf does not wither.

Isn't that what we want to be? We want to be that avocado tree with so much

fruit that its branches are heavy. All right.

Should we talk about kindness?

All right, we've got three quick short points. I don't have a huge amount specifically

on kindness, maybe half.

I think we're halfway maybe or around there. Three points.

We're going to define kindness. and then see how kindness is defining and.

Than kindness divine. So first of all, defining kindness.

Godly kindness is so much more than random acts of kindness.

You hear that maybe became a bit of a buzzword?

Godly kindness is more costly at sacrificially meeting needs.

It's not often free and not generally random either.

The difference between love as

one of the fruits of the Spirit that Steve talked about a few weeks ago,

love and kindness sometimes fall in a similar category or place when we talk

through this fruit of the Spirit.

Love is maybe you can think of as more general and kindness more specific.

Or, another thing you can say is kindness is loving actions and love is the

general collection of actions and words and attitudes.

So loving actions, kindness is meeting real needs, being useful,

giving what is really needed, being quick to be helpful.

And kindness, it often costs to be kind rather than the fleshly, earthly,

natural option of responding in kind to something somebody does against you.

We talk often with Dan, our son, he's starting to learn to say sorry and to

be kind in the playground.

You know, sometimes when he's pushed on one or done something wrong and we try

and help him to say sorry, what does he say?

He's actually saying it a few times, Dad, it's hard.

It's really interesting, isn't it? And then I think even as adults,

we find it hard to be truly kind and to display godly kindness. It costs us something.

It costs us taking that step back to saying, look, I'm sorry, I made a mistake.

Please, would you forgive me? It takes a humility.

All right, that's a little bit to define kindness.

It's useful when you have children's water bottles,

all right kindness is also defining it's a defining attribute of our crystal walk,

What is it that immediately defined the early Christians after Peter's sermon at Pentecost?

Remember, there's a wonderful couple of verses in Acts.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, this is of the new Christian

believers, and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer.

Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.

All the believers were together and had everything in common.

They sold property, possessions to give to anybody that had need.

Tim Keller speaks of the early Roman emperor, Julian, a little bit longer after

this time, but still around the early church, AD 300, somewhere there.

And he really hated Christians.

And he wrote to his pagan priest, Christ, nothing has contributed to the progress

of the superstition of these Christians as their charity to strangers.

The impious Galileans provide not only for their own people, but ours as well.

Isn't that amazing? The emperor of Rome was acknowledging that the Christians

were so incredibly open and giving and kind that it made him look bad as the emperor.

Because the Christians, the Galileans, the average folk were so incredibly giving

and generous that even the Roman people were being looked after by the Christian believers.

Not just the Galileans, not just the Jews, not just the Greeks, even the Romans.

And this is starting to make the Roman emperor look bad because of the extent

of it. Isn't that incredible?

Yeah. Can you imagine the stats minister of Sweden making a comment about how

incredibly generous the Christian church is?

What are we going to do? We can't get rid of the money or budget for Sheikha'i's

custom and our decimating because the Christians are giving too much and nobody has any need.

It's that extent. This is the Roman emperor having a problem because the Christians

were so incredibly generous and kind.

So Kayla goes on to say a little bit about that. And that's not the reason the

early church grew fast, because Christians were generous, per se, specifically.

It was the preaching of the word of God, the power of the word,

and believers filled by the Holy Spirit, walking in step with the Spirit,

producing fruit of which kindness is one. You follow? Yeah?

And so Kenneth goes on to say, the thing that really baffled the early Roman

world about Christians, how they were so absolutely different from everybody else was two areas.

One, they were sexually restrained. Very unusual in that day.

They had sex only inside a marriage.

And two, they were unbelievably generous to the poor. So much so that it was

obvious throughout the region.

Isn't that incredible?

So kindness is a defining attribute of Christians living and walking by the Spirit.

All right, let's look at what he burnt to you, how defining it is.

Matthew 25 verse 31.

Matthew 25:31

Hey, Dan. Escaping.

Do you want to say hi? He's on his bottle.

I don't know, I think maybe dad should apologize later.

All right, Matthew 25, verse 31, Jesus speaking about the final judgment.

Matthew 25:31

When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him,

then he will sit on his glorious throne.

Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people from

one another as a shepherd separates sheep from the goats.

And he will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

And then the king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed

by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.

I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.

I was naked, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you visited me.

I was imprisoned, and you came to me.

Then the righteous will answer them, saying, Lord, when did we see you hungry,

and feed you, or thirsty, and give you a drink?

And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothe you?

When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?

And the king will answer, then truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the

least of my brothers, you did it to me.

Wow. Isn't that incredible?

So we know that acts of kindness is no means of salvation throughout the Gospels and the Bible.

But acts of kindness show whether or not your faith is real.

It's evidence the result of a heart living by the Spirit, instead of the Spirit.

It's showing that our faith is not just lives in us.

It's real. It matters to us. It affects our lives. We give our property.

We open our wallets, our phones, our bank accounts.

We give our time, our resources. We are open and available to help those around us. Amen.

All right, so if you're living by the flesh, then you might see someone in need

immediately harden your heart.

You might self-righteously think, come on, just pull yourself together,

go clean yourself up, get a job, make something of your life. You know, don't be lazy.

And that's such a common sentiment around the world, especially in the Western

world. and every man for himself, selfish attitude, right?

But by the Spirit, we live opposite to that.

We are earnestly listening and seeking God's voice in our lives about people

that He might want us to help.

Who, Lord, would you like to put on my heart?

What need would you like me to meet?

What would you like me to give of my resources, time, money,

emotional energy, whatever it might be,

our hearts are soft, softened by the spirit.

All right, so just near closing,

James is not here today,

James is there, Simon points out that this must be an important book for Grace

Church, the Barefoot Church.

I don't know if anybody's read it but I'd just like to read a section about

it it's an incredible story about.

A pastor realizing just this.

I'll read some of it I think it was helpful just to think about practicalities around,

living by this word being giving and helping those in need I'll just jump through

a little bit of the introduction this is written by Brandon and hat maker,

God sent me on a journey that, to be honest, was not much fun.

He was doing annoying things like confronting me with my own selfishness.

He was pointing out the fact that my faith had morphed into religion.

And after a Bible degree and a handful of years in full-time ministry,

it had become way too professional.

I was leading a mega church in a post of my dreams with a multi-million dollar

budget, state-of-the-art facilities, a legion of programs and amazingly gifted staff.

Yet I was in a personal rut. I was dry.

While I'd literally given all that I had to the church, I had lost the joy of my calling.

And he carries on to describe an occurrence where God really spoke to him in a prophetic way.

And then just moving on from that, it's a bit long to read, but you're welcome

to come and have a look at it afterwards. I'd love to read it with you.

And then afterwards, it's like, hey, God spoke to him and gave him this prophetic

word about living his life more for those in need around him in his community.

And then this was like a personal example that occurred a few weeks later.

So he says, a few weeks later, after a few more unexplained God moments and

some hours spent volunteering downtown with the homeless community,

I was standing on my front lawn, absorbing our impending journey.

I realized for the first time that I was really beginning to care about the homeless.

I never had. I had always seen them as lazy, most likely criminals,

and probably drug addicts.

But after serving for several weeks, I began to put names with faces and hear

stories that could derail any of us.

I began to realize that my stereotype was not only unfair, but it was untrue.

My heart had begun to change toward them. Bottom line, I was changing.

Finally, it was incredibly refreshing.

Right at that moment, I was distracted by my neighbor's lawn.

It was about knee-high, and it was annoying.

The only thing more annoying than their grass was their landscaping.

And the only thing more annoying than their landscaping was worn-out tie-on

locks, where their 24-year-old son parked when he came home.

I quickly became distracted from my noble, righteous journey me,

and my pious thoughts were replaced with judgment and disdain.

I live in a really nice neighborhood, why in the world do I always seem to end

up living next to the only house that looks like this?" And then he goes through

like a whole discussion between him and God as he's praying,

with God saying, that really bugs you, doesn't it?

And he says, oh yeah, it does.

What did I ever do to deserve this?

God, why don't you do something about it? Me? Why would I? It's not my lawn.

God? Because she's actually a widow who lost her husband five years ago to cancer.

She doesn't know how to start a lawnmower.

Her son takes advantage of her and doesn't help. Because not only are you a

Christian, you're a pastor.

But you're so self-consumed that you didn't seem to see your need.

And this is exactly what you need to do to change your heart.

So a bit further on, he says, So I got out my lawnmower and I started cutting.

I wept again, even harder than I did at the altar, where he had given his boots in the story before.

And I did it every week. I cut her lawn and I cried.

It took a whole five minutes. Quite a sacrifice.

But God made his point. And one day I noticed a plate of homemade cookies sitting

by my front door. But there was a note from my neighbor that read,

Brandon, I just don't know what I'm going to do with you. Thank you so much for cutting my grass.

I only hope one day I can repay you for your kindness.

Isn't that a special story?

It's a neighbor who had lawn that was growing out of control.

God just said, hey, go mow the lawn for her.

It took him five minutes. and just doing that one small thing completely changed his perspective.

And God led him into many other things because of that.

It doesn't have to be a big action of kindness for us to make a difference.

And you might find that you suddenly feel the rush of Holy Spirit water running in your veins.

The thrill of living in step of the Spirit.

So ask God what what do you want me to do Lord and just wait for him he'll tell you,

all right so to finish off kindness divine just a few more minutes Titus 3 verse 4 to 7 he says this,

Titus 3:4–7

but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our savior appeared he saved

us not because of our works done by us in righteousness,

but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewal

of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out of us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,

so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the eternal life.

But when the goodness and lovingkindness of God our Savior appeared,

He saved us, not because of anything we had done, but by His own mercy,

by washing with His Spirit, which was poured out richly for us.

And we were justified by His grace and welcomed as heirs into His family.

Though he is God, he gave up perfection of heaven and came down as a man and walked among us, Jesus.

Though he is our creator and master, he became a servant.

Though he was rich beyond all wealth, he became poor.

So that though we are poor in every spiritual sense without Jesus,

we might become rich in every spiritual blessing. Though we were undeserving

of God's mercy, He died for us on the cross.

Once we were strangers, now we're welcomed as sons and daughters.

Thank you Jesus. Thank you Jesus for your kindness, that you showed the way,

that you, you stepped out of humility, you came down to earth,

you lived a life that we could never live.

You died the death that we couldn't pay for our sin to make us clean.

Thank you for your mercy. And thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit that

you poured out richly through Jesus.

Jesus, teach us the humble kindness that you showed.

Fill us with your Spirit, that we might walk in step with the Spirit.

And follow your voice however you lead.

Help us not to be overwhelmed by the great need in our world today,

but just show me what you would have me do in my community.

Thank you that you're always with us, Holy Spirit. Help us to walk and step with you. Amen.

We hope that this sermon has encouraged you. If you'd like to learn more about

us, visit us online at gracechurch.se.

Thanks for listening.