May 27, 2001

June 1, 2003

Service Theme – "Our God is Kind"

Galatians 5:16-26

Temptation and Kindness

Introduction

Illustration – Brian La Croix writes, A man working in the produce department was asked by a lady if she could buy half a head of lettuce. He replied, "Half a head? Are you serious? God grows these in whole heads and that’s how we sell them!" "You mean," she persisted, "that after all the years I’ve shopped here, you won’t sell me half-a-head of lettuce?" "Look," he said, "If you like I’ll ask the manager." She indicated that would be appreciated, so the young man marched to the front of the store. "You won’t believe this, but there’s a lame-braided idiot of a lady back there who wants to know if she can buy half-a-head of lettuce." He noticed the manager gesturing, and turned around to see the lady standing behind him, obviously having followed him to the front of the store. "And this nice lady was wondering if she could buy the other half" he concluded. Later in the day the manager cornered the young man and said, "That was the finest example of thinking on your feet I’ve ever seen! Where did you learn that?" "I grew up in Grand Rapids, and if you know anything about Grand Rapids, you know that it’s known for its great hockey teams and its ugly women." The manager’s face flushed, and he interrupted, "My wife is from Grand Rapids!" "And which hockey team did she play for?" (as cited on SermonCentral.com)
We don’t really understand the power of true spiritual kindness, and we’ve got to if we’re going to defeat the cycle of sin outlined in James 1 by Bill Perkins. We need to understand what true spiritual kindness is if we're going to see the evidence of that fruit in our daily lives. So let’s first read Galatians 5:16-26 and see the contrast between counterfeit kindness and true spiritual kindness.

Scripture Passage

Galatians 5:16-26 (from the New Living) - So I advise you to live according to your new life in the Holy Spirit. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. [17] The old sinful nature loves to do evil, which is just opposite from what the Holy Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are opposite from what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict. [18] But when you are directed by the Holy Spirit, you are no longer subject to the law. NEW SLIDE [19] When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, [20] idolatry, participation in demonic activities, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, divisions, the feeling that everyone is wrong except those in your own little group, [21] envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other kinds of sin. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. NEW SLIDE [22] But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives, he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law. [24] Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. [25] If we are living now by the Holy Spirit, let us follow the Holy Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. [26] Let us not become conceited, or irritate one another, or be jealous of one another.

What is true spiritual kindness? What does that look like? How can we describe it? I did a word study on peace and found some interesting passages.

(NEW SLIDE) Exodus 33:19 says The Lord replied, "I will make all my goodness pass before you, and I will call out my name, ‘the Lord,’ to you. I will show kindness to anyone I choose, and I will show mercy to anyone I choose. True spiritual kindness is a gift of God.

1 Samuel 24:16 says Who else would let his enemy get away when he had him in his power? May the Lord reward you well for the kindness you have shown me today. True spiritual kindness is rewarded by God.

(NEW SLIDE) Romans 2:4 says Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance? True spiritual kindness brings people to repentance.

Psalm 145:17 says The Lord is righteous in everything he does; he is filled with kindness. True spiritual kindness is a character trait of God.

(NEW SLIDE) Romans 11:22 says Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is severe to those who disobeyed, but kind to you as you continue to trust in his kindness. But if you stop trusting, you also will be cut off. True spiritual kindness requires that we trust and obey God.

Romans 12:8 says And if you have a gift for showing kindness to others, do it gladly. True spiritual kindness requires us to have the right attitude.

(NEW SLIDE) 2 Corinthians 6:6 says We have proved ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, our sincere love, and the power of the Holy Spirit. True spiritual kindness is an evidence to the faith of a believer.

(NEW SLIDE) 1 Timothy 1:9 says It is God who saved us and chose us to live a holy life. He did this not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan long before the world began—to show his love and kindness to us through Christ Jesus. God called us for the purpose of showing His true spiritual love and kindness to our world.

Let me share some definitions of what true spiritual peace is.

(NEW SLIDE) The Bible Knowledge Commentary (Logos): "benevolence in action such as God demonstrated toward men. Since God is kind toward sinners (cf. Rom. 2:4; Eph. 2:7) a Christian should display the same virtue (cf. 2 Cor. 6:6; Col. 3:12)."

(NEW SLIDE) Theological Dictionary of the NT (Logos): "God’s gracious action for the mutual relationships of believers." "The experience of the love of God that is manifested in Christ and shed abroad by the Spirit works itself out as kindness toward others."

(NEW SLIDE) The bottom line is that true spiritual kindness is dependent on relationship with God and how we choose to live out that relationship in the world. It is an attitude of the heart that we choose to allow to flow through us by the power of the Holy Spirit. True spiritual kindness has the ability to cut through the callused heart of a non-believer and allow them to experience the love of God in Christ as it is lived out by a believer. That is one reason it is so imperative that we allow the Holy Spirit to produce this fruit in us. If this is true, and it is, then what are the alternatives we are tempted with?

The Cycle of Sin

(NEW SLIDE) Preoccupation/Enticement – the only stage where we can stop ourselves from sinning. I thought and prayed long and hard about how it is that we are enticed to counterfeit kindness. I believe one area where we are tempted to counterfeit kindness the most is manipulation. In other words, we’re tempted to be kind to people who we want to do something for us. We like to call it "buttering up" but it really is a form of manipulation. When someone has something we want or can do something we need done, instead of just politely asking them we are sugary sweet and kind to them, maybe not quite so obviously, but we do it nonetheless. Another area where we’re tempted in regards to kindness is rudeness, which, like any other sin, is rooted in selfishness. We’re rude because we’re selfish and someone has crossed the line and violated our standards in one way or another. Either way our obsession lies in our motivation. We become obsessed with being kind to someone for our own benefit, and unless we stop obsessing, we’re going to sin by manipulating them. Or we become obsessed with having things our own way, and if we don’t stop, we’ll sin by being rude and harsh.

(NEW SLIDE) Ritualization/Conception – we begin setting the sin process in motion. We can’t just be blatantly rude to someone, I mean, after all we’re Christians. And our pride doesn’t allow us to just ask someone else for help, I mean, after all we’re independent Americans. So we approach the person we need something from, and as we do we think of ways to compliment them (which may or may not be true, but we exaggerate those compliments anyway). And most of the time we do it subtly enough that we don’t set off too many red flags. But the ritual here involves the scheming and dreaming up of false-hearted compliments for the purpose of getting the other person to do what we want. When we start that ritual and get that far, we’re sunk as soon as we open our mouths. Same thing applies with being just plain rude. Our selfishness gets us in trouble the second we open our mouths. Once again, we’re sunk.

(NEW SLIDE) Acting Out/Birth – the unthinkable is what we wind up doing. We get to the person, open our mouths, and the sugary sweet, false-hearted compliments start pouring out of our mouths. If we aren’t too overt about it, the person will just think we’re being nice. But shaded in those compliments are subtle manipulations of what we want the person to do. Sometimes in the end they even think it was their idea in the first place. And we have just sinned because we’ve deceived them. It doesn’t have to be asking someone to do something to be counterfeit kindness. It can also be the conditions we set for helping someone out. The process is similar, and the end result is the same: sin. Any time we are kind to someone else for our own benefit, we are sinning. And any time we’re rude to someone because we’re being selfish, we’re sinning.

(NEW SLIDE) Shame/Death –we have to face the pain of shame because we’ve just committed spiritual suicide. We have just used another person for our purposes. Or we’ve just selfishly degraded them through our boorishness. And whether or not we’ll admit it, the shame is deep. There are only two ways of dealing with coming back to life and with our shame: bringing it before the cross of Jesus by confessing our sin and asking for forgiveness and turning our backs on that sin; or to medicate the pain of the sin even further by sinning again. Medicating ourselves only locks us into that vicious cycle of sin that, by ourselves, we are helpless to get out of.

Help and Hope

God has graciously given us the power of the Holy Spirit to defeat sin in our lives. We can start defeating it the second we begin to be tempted, and that’s good because the enticement stage is the only place we can defeat sin. Here is what we must do.

(NEW SLIDE) First, we’ve got to pray a prayer thanking Jesus for the victory He is giving us, and continue to spend quality time in prayer each and every day. Jesus died and rose again to break the power of sin and Satan over our lives. Jesus already won the victory. All we have to do is appropriate its power through prayer and relationship with Him. We begin by praying a prayer like this, as Bill Perkins suggests: "Thank you, Lord, for saving me from this sin that I’ve tried to medicate my pain with (and list it specifically). Right now I’m looking to Jesus and trusting Him to live His life through me. I’m now trusting Him to use His Word to purify my mind." Claim the victory in prayer and continue in prayer.

(NEW SLIDE) Second, we’ve got to focus our minds on what we should focus on, not what we shouldn’t by memorizing Scripture. The more we focus on not thinking about temptation, the more we’ll think about it. We have to focus on thinking about God’s Word. The Holy Spirit will bring those verses we’ve memorized to mind when we need them the most. Scripture memory is hard work, but we can do it if we work hard at it. You can, too. So what Scripture do we use to fight the temptation to indulge in counterfeit kindness? (NEW SLIDE) How about Philippians 2:5-8 from the New Living? Your attitude should be the same that Christ Jesus had. 6 Though he was God, he did not demand and cling to his rights as God. 7 He made himself nothing; he took the humble position of a slave and appeared in human form. 8 And in human form he obediently humbled himself even further by dying a criminal’s death on a cross. We’ve got to memorize Scripture, using the same tool Jesus used to defeat Satan when He was tempted in the wilderness.

(NEW SLIDE) Third, we’ve got to have accountability. When you have to look other Christians in the eye and tell them the truth, it really helps keep you from giving in to temptation. We have to ask ourselves this question and answer truthfully. Is there anyone in your life who you have given permission to ask you about how you spend your time and your money, and about how your relationships are going? We can’t resist temptation without accountability. Prayer is great, and memorizing Scripture is great. But we won’t consistently use them in our walk with God and we won’t consistently walk closely with God without accountability. It just won’t happen!

We’ve got to learn to allow the Holy Spirit to give us true spiritual kindness so that we can defeat the cycle of sin in our lives that fills us with counterfeit kindness.

Conclusion

Please bow your heads and close your eyes. Where are you at in the cycle of sin? Have you been effectively defeating it at the first stage, not allowing yourself to become preoccupied with temptation, praying and focusing on God’s Word in your heart and making yourself accountable to fellow Christians? Or has the sin cycle been getting the best of you? If you are struggling with sin, remember what 1 John 1:9 says: If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Right now we’re going spend a few minutes checking our own hearts and allowing God the Holy Spirit to show us any areas where we’re struggling with sin.
What has God been saying to your heart? If you want to begin the process of defeating the cycle of sin in your heart and life, now’s the time to start. First, you must have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, otherwise the Holy Spirit has no power in your heart. If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and you want to begin to appropriate His power to break the cycle of counterfeit kindness or any other sin in your heart and life, pray right now and repeat after me. "Thank you, Lord, for saving me from that. Right now I’m looking to Jesus and trusting Him to live His life through me. I’m now trusting Him to use His Word to purify my mind. Amen." If you prayed that prayer, I challenge you to do two things. First, start working on memorizing John 14:27 today, not tomorrow, not sometime this week, but today. Second, find someone who will lovingly but not permissively hold you accountable, and find them today. Confess your counterfeit kindness and the rituals you practice. Then meet with them weekly if at all possible, confess to each other, strengthen and encourage each other. But get started today, or you simply won’t do it!