Welcome to the For the Gospel Podcast, where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn. And whether you're listening to this on your favorite podcast platform or watching on our YouTube channel, I'm really thankful that you've joined me for this episode. For the next two episodes, I want to unpack a much-needed quality for the Christian, and it's one of the fruit of the spirit. Now, it may be, and I think it is, one of the more rare qualities in the world today, including the church. But when this quality is present in our lives, we reflect Christ and it has powerful results. It can also be one of the more challenging characteristics to exhibit. So we desperately need Christ to help us with this. I'm talking about kindness. Kindness is a little lost on our society, to put it nicely. From online bickering about politics to road rage to church splits, you have doctrinal division. You've got us firing our opinions and our criticisms without good reason. There's a lot of unkindness everywhere. And I would say this it's not necessarily what we believe or that we differ with others on issues in life. That's normal. That should be expected. But it's how we interact with others and deal with those differences. Kindness in thought, in deed, in word, in action is in short supply today. Now, there is a problem for us as Christians if it's in short supply, because it's one of the fruit of the spirit. It should not be in short supply. So if it is, well, then we're not bearing the fruit of the spirit in a way that reflects Christ and his work in our lives. And here's where the rub really kind of settles in on us. And it can be a lot like sandpaper. Maybe if you've never heard this before, it makes you uncomfortable. But we at times view the fruit of the spirit as the fruits of the spirit, as though there's nine. And like a grocery store, you know, you got a lot of love or you've got a lot of patience or not a lot, and you've got a uh a little bit of faithfulness, and we think we can part and parcel the fruit of the spirit. Well, it's actually fruit of the spirit in that it's uh singular but plural, meaning you can't pick and choose one or the other. Like I'm really good at this one, I'm not, so I need a little more of that. No, when you have the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, you are filled with the Spirit and therefore ought to be bearing the fruit of the Spirit, all of them. And so sometimes we split this up and go, I'm really doing good at this one, I'm not doing good at that one, so I'm gonna focus on that one. No, it's all of the fruit of the spirit in our life as a consistent pattern. It doesn't mean we're gonna be perfect, of course. And so if in if it's in short supply, or we're viewing it as a compartmentalized list of fruit we kind of have and some we don't, well, we are in problematic territory theologically, but also relationally. So consider this and next week a kindness tune-up for all of us, myself included. And I want to reflect on these together. In this episode, I'm gonna give you three keys to being kind. Now, number one is the right source. The right source. What do I mean? Well, our kindness as Christians doesn't come from a transactional desire to get something from someone. I'm not kind because they have something and I want to get it, but from the fact that we've been given something by God. And I'm talking about our salvation, the grace of God and the kindness of God, all of that is where we source our own. And if you have trouble with being kind, you have forgotten the kindness of God to you through the cross of Jesus Christ in Romans chapter two, verse four. Paul warns, he says, or do you think lightly of the riches of his, meaning God's kindness and his tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance. You can't divorce the gospel, living in light of it, having it close to your heart, experiencing it, and your kindness. If you have a kindness problem, you have a gospel remembrance problem, or perhaps a gospel salvation problem altogether. Christians are the ones who can be kind because we are saved and redeemed by a kinder savior. We must never get far from the gospel if we are to possess the characteristic of kindness. By the way, one of my favorite aspects of R. C. Sproul's ministry, besides his great teaching, is something more associated with his death after the fact. And it's on his gravestone. If you've ever looked this up, you know what I'm gonna say. If you haven't, you can Google R. C. Sproul gravestone and you will see underneath his name and the dates of his life and birth and his death, it'll say a kind man redeemed by a kinder savior. Rooted in the gospel, okay? You gotta have the right source if you're gonna be kind. Now, number two, with that in mind, cultivate kindness. There's a cultivation aspect to this. I want you to think of the agricultural type of illustration or analogy here. When a farmer cultivates soil, he tills it, he turns it over, he's churning it up, he's mixing it together, he's breaking up callous clay, stubborn weeds, and the hard pack that keeps seeds from settling in. And now, if you take that farming analogy and you spiritualize it, we're talking about the hard work of heart work. When Jesus tells the parable of the sower, he explains four types of soil. If you remember our parables series this last year, you remember we talked through this one. By way of review, or perhaps for the first time for some of you, let's think through these four. You have the path, you have the rocky soil, the thorny soil, and then you've got the good soil that produces a harvest. The first soil was the path. It was too hard to take anything in. The rocky soil was too shallow and it hadn't been tilled to a healthy depth. The third soil, it was too overgrown. It had these thorns and thistles that were growing up with the good growth, then choking it out. But the good soil was that which had been cultivated and prepared to receive. It was poised for an abundant harvest. So if we're going to be kind, we have to till the soil of our heart. We've got to churn it up, pull out weeds like bitterness and selfishness and hatred and impatience and jealousy and malice. And by the way, that's exactly what Paul contrasts in Ephesians chapter four, verses thirty-one to thirty-two. He writes this Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you. And then he goes, along with all malice, and so just this big list of bad behaviors, be kind to one another, he says. So, in contrast to those actions, I'll be tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you. Again, he roots it in the gospel, the idea of being kind to one another. You know, the the the layman's terms by definition means take it easy, taking it easy on people. It doesn't mean you're easy on the truth or overlooking transgressions or lies or abuses. No, but with people not being so wound up and intense and just uh fire blasting everyone, but take it easy. Tenderhearted, this idea of having in your innermost self, your your bowels, good bowels is really the phrase, good feelings towards someone, a good feeling in your stomach, if you take the original Greek word for that phrase, tender hearted. That's the idea. It's deep down inside of you having this deep-seated compassion and good feelings towards someone. And of course, forgiveness means releasing them if they've hurt you. Why? Because God has done that for us. Now, these are impossible to be unless God changes who you are. And if you are changed, and many of our listeners you are, then in light of the gospel and the fact that you're under new ownership, you've been given a new heart, seek the Lord's help with cultivating healthy soil within your heart. Confess your sins like bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor. Confess a desire for malice and really to do someone in and then receive forgiveness and put on the new self and walk in it through Christ. And then number three, plant kindness. Kindness is not merely a feeling, it's an action. It's one of the keys to being kind because you got to do something. You focus on sowing seeds of kindness in the lives of others. Again, in line with the farming analogy, I would liken this to planting because it's the idea of intentionally taking action to sow a seed after cultivating your heart through prayer and the word. And then, like a farmer, you're gonna trust the Lord with the results. And this is why kindness cannot be detached from love. And I'm talking about agape kind of love. It's the kind of love we see in scripture, unconditional love. Just a couple verses later in Ephesians 5, 2, Paul says, and walk in love just as, here we go again, you root it in the Lord Jesus and his example and his life and the gospel, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma, meaning that our love is rooted in God's love. Our acts of love reflect his ultimate act of love. And our choice to love unconditionally is rooted in his unconditional love towards us, in that while we were still sinners, we were dead, we were lost, Christ died for us. And so, because of that, you and I we no longer plant kindness whether someone deserves it or not, we no longer pursue it and decide to cultivate it because someone has something we want. No, we plant kindness because it's what our Savior has done. Kindness can be difficult, and the enemy will not go down without a fight. If you decide today, I want to nurture and focus on these three keys. I want to find my source of kindness in the gospel in Christ, and I want to cultivate my heart and deal with sin and the ugliness that's in me. And I want to plant seeds of kindness. I'm gonna go out of my way, take initiative to plant seeds of kindness in the lives of other people around me because that's what Christ has done for me. Understand that you will become a target for Satan. He will fight tooth and nail to hinder your kindness and to put barriers between you and being kind so that you don't operate in a way that brings glory to Christ. And so in the next episode, I want to unpack the barriers to kindness and some of the enemy's strategies for seeding not kindness but bitterness and a heart that doesn't want to play well with others. And then I want to give you some solutions for how to overcome those. One of the casualties of our own lack of kindness can be children. They often, as much as we tell them what to do, they don't do as we uh say, they do as we do. And so, in order to help you and really in order to help ourselves in our own home, my wife and I wrote this book. It's called The Farmer Who Chose to Plant Kindness. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm holding it up. And we wanted to give you a tool that could help kids learn about kindness. It's appropriately called the farmer who chose to plant kindness because it's a farmer. His name is Hadley, and he learns a great lesson about kindness. And it's a gospel-centered way to disciple your four to eight-year-old kids, your grandkids, Sunday school classes, or an elementary class if you're a school teacher or a homeschool mom. And this is one of, as part of the whole package, the fruit of the spirit. And so I hope this is an encouragement to you. If you've already read it and it's been a blessing, uh, feel free to share it with others or drop a review on Amazon or wherever you purchase your books. But my hope and her hope is that a book like this will stir up and help to cultivate hearts of kindness, not just in our children, but in ourselves, because nothing better to bring conviction on you and I than to be teaching about something to others and realize, you know, I need this too. Uh the book's available on Amazon or wherever books are sold, or if you prefer to buy it from us, you can go to our store for thegospel.org, and a link will be in the show notes here on YouTube. Thanks for listening, thanks for watching, thanks for your support. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Keep on living for the gospel.