MELVIN M. NEWLAND, MINISTER
CENTRAL CHRISTIAN, BROWNSVILLE, TX
ILL. I want to read a letter this morning that was written to Ann Landers & printed in one of her columns.
"Dear Ann Landers, I am a 46-year-old woman, divorced, with 3 grown children. After several months of chemotherapy following a mastectomy for breast cancer, I was starting to put my life back together when my doctor called with the results of my last checkup. They had found more cancer, & I was devastated.
"My relatives had not been supportive. I was the first person in the family to have cancer & they didn’t know how to behave toward me. They tried to be kind, but I had the feeling they were afraid it was contagious. They called on the phone to see how I was doing, but they kept their distance. That really hurt.
"Last Saturday I headed for the laundromat. You see the same people there almost every week. We exchange greetings, & make small talk. So I pulled into the parking lot, determined not to look depressed, but my spirits were really low.
"While taking my laundry out of the car, I looked up & saw a man, one of the regulars, leaving with his bundle. He smiled & said, `Good morning. How are you today?’ Suddenly I lost control of myself & blurted out, `This is the worst day of my life! I have more cancer!’ Then I began to cry.
"He put his arms around me & just let me sob. Then he said, `I understand. My wife has been through it, too.’ After a few minutes I felt better, stammered out my thanks, & proceeded on with my laundry.
"About 15 minutes later, here he came back with his wife. Without saying a word, she walked over & hugged me. Then she said, `I’ve been there, too. Feel free to talk to me. I know what you’re going through.’ Ann, I can’t tell you how much that meant to me. Here was this total stranger, taking her time to give me emotional support & courage to face the future at a time when I was ready to give up.
"Oh, I hope God gives me a chance to do for someone else what that wonderful woman & her husband did for me. Meanwhile, Ann, please let your readers know that even though there are a lot of hardhearted people in this world, there are some incredibly generous & loving ones, too."
A. There are a lot of different kinds of people in the world, aren’t there? The apostle Paul wrote these words in his letter to the Ephesians: "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen... Get rid of all bitterness, rage & anger, brawling & slander, along with every form of malice" [Ephesians 4:29,31].
ILL. There are times, when I come to church on Sunday, that I notice faces. You would be amazed at how sometimes people come to church with scowls on their faces, angry at the world. Husbands & wives walk in, almost afraid to look at each other, & children are staring daggers at one another. It makes me wonder what kind of conversation they had around their breakfast table, or on their way to church.
Even more, I wonder what kind of worship they are going to have if they come into God’s house in that frame of mind.
B. We see people all around us bitter & angry: angry at the world because it hasn’t given them enough; angry at God because they think He hasn’t treated them fairly; angry at their spouses because marriage is not everything they expected it to be; angry at their children; angry at their neighbors; angry at their job. Angry!
So Paul gives a survival message that says, "If you want to make it, you can’t live like that any longer because it’ll eat you alive."
Then he gives the antidote. To get rid of your hostility, your anger, your unwholesome words, here is what you do - "Be kind & compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" [Eph. 4:32].
PROP. Did you catch that? The 3 essential ingredients in getting rid of hostility & anger are: #1, be kind to one another; #2, be compassionate towards one another; #3, forgive one another.
I. BE KIND TO ONE ANOTHER
A. #1, "Be kind to one another." Kindness is almost a lost art today, isn’t it? So many people are rude & self-centered, worried about themselves, & not worried very much about others.
ILL. I have a friend who, with the help of his wife, teaches a young married couples class. He grew up in the era when men were supposed to be polite to the female gender, back when you were supposed to open doors, hold the chair, & treat the women with great respect, whether it was your mother, your wife, your girlfriend, or even your sister. No matter who they were, you were always supposed to be kind & courteous to women.
He & his wife are trying to teach those young married couples, "If you learn nothing else in your home, learn to be nice, to be kind to one another." They tell the husbands, "Open the door, hold the chair, be considerate." Well, you would think that would be standard operating procedure for Christians. But yet, simple, basic kindness is almost a forgotten art today.
B. Listen to these words in Titus 3:3-4 where Paul talks about God’s kindness. In vs. 3 he says, "At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by all kinds of passions & pleasures. We lived in malice & envy, being hated & hating one another."
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It is almost a carbon copy of what we read in Ephesians. Paul even includes himself. He said, "We were hated & we hated one another. That’s the way the world behaves."
Vs. 4, "But when the kindness & love of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of His mercy."
Did you hear that? It is only because of the kindness & mercy of God that we are saved. If God reacted to us the way we react to one another, He would have washed his hands of us long ago. But instead, He reached out to save us.
ILL. A missionary returning after serving many years in the jungles of New Guinea was asked, "What was it like? Tell us what you found there."
"Found? I found a mission field that looked more hopeless than if I had been sent into a jungle of tigers." "What do you mean?" "The people there were so fierce & degraded that they seemed utterly devoid of moral sense. If a mother were carrying her little baby & the child was crying & wouldn’t stop, she would throw it into the ditch & let it die. If a man saw his own father break his leg, he would just leave him to suffer by himself. They had no compassion whatever. They didn’t even know what the word meant."
"Well, what were you able to do? Did you preach to them?" "No, not at first. I thought it better to show them my faith by my works! When I saw a baby crying, I picked it up & consoled it. When I saw a man with a broken leg, I sought to mend it. When I found people distressed & hungry, I took them in, comforted & fed them.
"Finally they began to ask, `What does this mean? Why are you doing this for us?’ Then I had my chance. I preached the Gospel, & many of them came to know & love Jesus, too."
SUM. Paul said, "Be kind to one another because God has been kind to us."
II. BE COMPASSIONATE TO ONE ANOTHER.
A. Paul then says, "Be compassionate to one another." The word "compassion" simply means that your feelings become a part of my life, & I begin to share & understand what you feel, what is going on inside of you.
ILL. J. R. Packard wrote a short story entitled, "The Trouble Is." In that story there is one very moving scene. A riot is in progress with blacks & whites fighting each other. The mother of the little black boy who is telling this story has been hurt. Her family has just gone down & picked her up off the ground & carried her upstairs & placed her in bed.
Now, the little black boy is standing by the window with his grandmother watching what is going on below. As they watch the fighting they notice a white boy running away from a group of blacks. It seems that he’ll get away until he makes a fatal mistake. He turns down their alley, not knowing that it is a dead end. Too late, he realizes his mistake & he turns with a look of horror on his face towards the black youths who are coming after him.
As the little boy watches, he sees a door open below & his grandmother standing there beckoning the white boy to escape through the open door. The little boy says, "At first I was glad because my grandmother had opened the door so the white boy could escape. Then I remembered my mother bleeding & suffering on the bed, & that white people had done that to her. Then I was angry at my grandmother for opening the door."
He goes on, "The trouble is that when people hate each other, that the people who are the objects of the hate want to hate the people who hate them, & hurt the people who hurt them, & insult the people who insult them. Soon we find ourselves in a vicious cycle of hating, hurting, & insulting. And nobody opens the door. So we just keep on hurting & hating & insulting."
APPL. You see the cycle will not be broken until there is kindness & compassion, until we begin to understand what is going on inside & open the door.
III. FORGIVE EACH OTHER.
A. The third thing Paul says is to forgive each other, & I believe he had a reason for putting this last, because I don’t think we can really forgive somebody until we have learned to be kind to them, until we have become compassionate, & understand what is going on inside of them.
But maybe after we have learned the lessons of kindness & compassion, then forgiveness can come.
ILL. Jesus told us a story about this, didn’t he? He told about a man who owed an overwhelming debt. Finally, he stands before the master to whom he is indebted & says, "I can’t pay the debt. I don’t have the money." The master takes the note & stamps it "Paid in full." Then he hands it to him & says, "Here, it is forgiven. You don’t owe me any more."
And that is exactly what God does. In His kindness he reaches down, takes our overwhelming debt & erases it. He takes it all away.
But you remember the rest of the story, don’t you? This same man then went out into the street & met someone who owed him a much lesser amount. He grabbed him by the neck & said, "Pay me now, or else!"
Too often we behave just like that, don’t we? Yet, Paul says, "Forgive one another because you have been forgiven by Christ."
ILL. A preacher by the name of Shelby tells the story that one day, as he went to work at the church, the janitor said to him, "I want you to see something I’ve just found." He takes him into the sanctuary & shows him an old torn pair of jeans, a blood stained T-shirt, & a pair of tennis shoes with holes in them.
They had been left in the pew, & with them a note scribbled on the back of some of the church bulletin sheets. The fellow had written these words, "God, please forgive me," & underlined the words three times. Then very briefly he had written about how he had been out the night before, & gotten embroiled in a drug war on the streets. He found someone that he hated very much, & had beaten him nearly to death.
But as he looked at the bleeding body lying on the ground he was suddenly stricken with guilt for what he had done. So he took the man to the emergency room of the hospital & then came to the church building. And he spent the whole night in prayer, asking God to forgive him for what he had done.
He said that as he prayed & sought God, he felt an overwhelming peace. So he took off his dirty clothes & left them there, putting on new clothes, clean ones out of his knapsack. And he wrote, "Now I’m going to go out & try to right the wrongs that I have done."
B. Paul said that when you are baptized into Christ you put on Christ. You are clothed with Christ. All the filthy rags of self righteousness that we have been wearing are no longer important. We are new & we are clean because we have been forgiven.
Paul said, "Now you forgive one another just as God, in Christ, has forgiven you."
CONCL. I wonder if we can behave like that today? I wonder if these words are just words written to people in the 1st Century who didn’t know any better, or if they are written to people today whose behavior hasn’t changed all that much?
I wonder this morning if you need the kindness of God, if you need to feel His tender touch? He understands you. He knows what you think. He knows your worries, your concerns, your disappointments, your joys. And He is anxious to forgive you & to forget your sins.
We offer His invitation with great confidence because we know that God waits to see what you will do with His love. I pray you will do something with it as we stand & sing.
