Cornbread Kindness

Becky Whitehead, the church secretary, she left for an early lunch. She usually has lunch a little earlier than I. And, usually, my habit is I bring sandwiches to work or sack lunch, and I eat at my desk and don't usually go out or bring a frozen dinner, stuff like that, and I stay behind. Well, when she returned on this particular day, she brought me back a steaming bowl of cowboy cornbread that her sister-in-law, Kim Wallace, who comes and visits with us very often, had been cooking that day. She told me that Kim decided that a hot meal was preferable to a sack lunch, and so she sent it along to brighten my day.

Well, the food certainly was delicious. I never had cowboy cornbread before. We we have another name for that thing in Canada. We call it Chinese pie and we make it a little different. But anyways, it was it was delicious.

But you know what? You know what brightened my heart? What brightened my heart wasn't just a good taste of the food. It was her random act of kindness towards me. Just out of the blue, there comes that delicious food in my office.

And I was so touched by her innocent gesture of goodwill that it made me begin to think about kindness and the great impact that kindness can have on people as well as those people who offer kindness. For example, kindness brings joy to the recipient. That's pretty obvious, isn't it? Paul the Apostle says, Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. Romans chapter 15 verse 2.

He's talking about kindness. An old Dusty Springfield song way back when I was young, some of you remember? Remember what the world needs now is love, sweet love. Now, not just for anyone, not just for 1, but for everyone. Remember that?

And that love that everybody needs is shown in kindness. I thought how different this world would become if people spoke more kindly to each other, How different this place would be if people treated each other more kindly. You know, I'm a pretty happy and satisfied person. I have the hope of salvation in Jesus Christ that constantly comforts me, constantly is a source of great satisfaction. I'm blessed with a wonderful, wonderful wife.

I have great children. I have a great job, a wonderful congregation that I work with and for. I have friends. I have relatively good health. I'm so blessed in every area.

There have been many nights when I've gone to bed when I've thought about it seriously. I mean, seriously. I've thought I'm the most blessed person in the world. I can't imagine if God said to me, what more do you want? I couldn't imagine what more I could ask for.

And yet, with all of these blessings, a simple act of kindness was able to increase my joy even beyond the level that it was on that day. Here I was, pretty happy, satisfied. And that act of kindness just made it overflow. Imagine what a little kindness could do for those people who are struggling. I mean, if it can do that for a happy guy, imagine what kindness can do for somebody who's struggling, somebody who's lonely, somebody who's suffering, somebody who does not have Jesus Christ in their lives.

Kindness has a tremendous impact on those people who receive it. Another thing about kindness that I thought of was this, kindness creates love and friendship. You want to make friends? Be kind. That's the fastest way of making friends.

You want to experience love? Everybody's looking for love. Be kind and you will experience love. The Bible says that what makes a woman beautiful are her good deeds of kindness. 1 Timothy chapter 2 verse 9 and 10.

A woman's good deeds of kindness make her beautiful not just to God, they make her beautiful to man as well. One of the most beautiful things about my wife, and I think my wife is a beautiful woman, but she's covered over with kind deeds that makes her so beautiful to me each and every day. People want the church to grow. People want the church to be united. We want strong teachers and dedicated leaders and all these things are necessary for church growth.

But I'll tell you what, all the good teaching in the world will not build the church unless there is love and kindness. And that's created by mutual acts of kindness by the members. Paul the Apostle says that the primary goal of Bible teaching is love. 1 Timothy chapter 1 verse 5, The goal of our instruction, he says, is love. What are preachers trying to preach and what are teachers trying to teach and what are the elders trying to lead us to?

They're trying to lead us to that point where we are able to love each other more and more and more. The purpose, the philosophical, technical, theological purpose of all of my teaching is to increase our capacity for love. We come in as Christians and our capacity for love is maybe this big. Hopefully, after years years of teaching, our capacity for love will become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. That's the purpose of the teaching.

We can teach all we want, but unless people are kind to each other, they have not learned the basic lesson and they will never find true love or true friendship because these are impossible without kindness. Kindness builds. Kindness enables growth. Another thing that I that I thought about when I was going to eat my cornbread, I didn't know. See, I was I was in the middle here.

I wanted to eat the food, but I had all these ideas running around in my mind, and I also wanted to write those things down. So I gulped the food down, then I wrote the ideas because first things first, you gotta eat. Another thing kindness does is that it provides a witness of a faith. You know, being at church regularly is an important way to tell the world that you are a Christian. But being kind, however, is the way you prove it.

You prove it by kindness. You tell it by attendance. You prove it by kindness. James says, faith without works is dead, James 2 verse 26. Another way of saying that is this, religion without kindness is useless.

Kindness is the basic characteristic of the disciple of Jesus. You can dress him up in church attendance, you can dress him up in Bible knowledge, but if he is unkind, he is an imposter. He's got a good outside, but the inside is empty. You know, most people are pretty ignorant about the Bible or a lot of the teachings of Jesus. You know, we come to church 2, 3, 4 times a week, and we get Bible lessons, and we just learn and learn and learn a lot about the Bible.

And sometimes we assume everybody else knows what we know. But you know that? Out there, people who are unchurched, people without Christ, they don't know a whole lot about the Bible, really. They just know general things. But you know what?

Everybody understands that kindness is an identifying feature of the Christian man or woman. No matter how much Bible they know, no matter how much doctrine they know, it don't matter. Everybody knows that kindness is an identifying factor of a Christian. Jesus said that the world would know us by the way we loved each other. This would be how others would recognize his disciples, John 13 verse 35, not by how big or how smart or how religious we were.

They'd recognize us by the way we loved each other. That's the identifying factor. James reminds us that true religion wasn't about ceremony or size. It was about kindness. He said it this way, to visit orphans and widows in distress.

This was true religion. This is kindness. And finally, one other thought I had was this, kindness glorifies God. You know, when I ate my cowboy cornbread that day, I not only thanked God for the food as I do, but I also blessed his name for the kindness that was done to me through him. Isn't this what God wants?

Isn't this what God wants? With her simple act, she accomplished the thing that God wants. That we salt the earth with kindness so that people will thank and honor God for the good done to them through his people. Isn't that what God wants? That other people will say, Dear God, you're great.

And I know you're great because I have been on the receiving end of your people's kindness. That's what God wants. God wants that we light up the world with good works so that people will see Jesus Christ in us and come to him in faith, Matthew 5 verse 16. You know, angels rejoice when sinners come home, but God himself rejoices when his children are kind to one another and especially towards those who are in darkness. You know, when Jesus taught the apostles to pray, he instructed them to honor God's name.

You know, he said, our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. That's honoring God's name. Well, the Jews taught that you could do this honoring of God's name by not pronouncing all the letters in his name. They thought that was a way of honoring God's name. They wouldn't pronounce the whole name.

You know, they would revere the name. You couldn't say it out loud. You couldn't say it in public. Or they would say prayers over and over and over and over and over again like a mantra thinking that was a way of honoring God's name. But Jesus showed in his ministry of service and healing and helping the poor and the outcast and the widows and the orphans, and by his many good deeds, that kindness is the best way to honor God's name, because he is the God of kindness.

John said, 1st John 416, for God is love. He is the God of love, the God of kindness. And when we are kind, we represent him perfectly to this world. Well, who would have thought that all these words and ideas would come from a little oaky cookie and one small gesture of kindness? Imagine what would happen if we really put our minds, really put our hearts, really put our hands to being kind to one another, as kind as we possibly could.

I'll tell you what would happen. We would be happier people, and we would grow closer than ever as a congregation. I think this is a pretty kind congregation. But if we stepped up our level of kindness, we would draw even closer together in brotherly love. We would grow because more people would want to be part of a family that is rich in kind words and deeds for members and strangers alike.

You know, people who come to church are looking for the love of God. Yes, we must teach them how to be saved, of course. And we must teach them how to live righteously, of course. But when they come, they're looking for a little kindness, because it's a cold, hard world out there. There's no room for kindness out there.

In the church of Christ, our main commodity needs to be kindness in the love of God. You know, I've often told you, evangelism is what brings people into the church, but it's love that keeps them in the body. Love. Isn't that isn't that what keeps you here? Your love for me has kept me here for these 4 years, And my love for you has kept me here for these 4 years.

And your love for each other is what keeps you here. Isn't it? And that's what will bring others here and keep them here as well. And then we would also be less afraid if we were kinder. I've noticed that people who are unkind are usually fearful, nervous, scared people.

We would be less afraid of dying. We would be less afraid of being lonely. We would be less afraid of condemnation. We would be less afraid of the future. We would be less afraid of our own weaknesses.

You know why? Because love casts out fear in all of its forms. 1st John chapter 4 verse 18, 1st John chapter 4 verse 18, John says, there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves punishment. And the one who fears is not perfected in love. Notice, one who fears, he doesn't say is not perfected in wisdom, in knowledge.

No. He says, the one who is afraid is the one who is not yet perfected in love, in God's love. And so brothers and sisters, let's not be afraid to be kind, to put ourselves out once in a while so we can show kindness to another, even when they don't return the favor or they don't deserve it, because kindness is the best antidote to your fear. Are you afraid? Are you a fearful person?

Try being kind. You'll see how that fear begins to dissolve. Remember that while we were sinners and while we hated God, he was kind to us in sending Jesus to die on the cross to save us. The ultimate act of kindness. And that act of kindness continues to bless us today in all who believe in Jesus, all those who repent of their sins, all those who are baptized will be saved, and they will enjoy God's kindness and love forever and ever in heaven.

If you've been unkind towards others, or if you need the kindness of the Lord for yourself, won't you come tonight and make things right while we stand and while we sing a song of encouragement.