Love is Kind

Introduction
Yesterday, on September 11^th, many remembered what they were doing in 2001 when two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, one crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth was brought down in a Pennsylvanian field by passengers who bravely fought back against hijackers.  I can remember exactly where I was and what I was doing the morning of September 11^th.  A more hopeful memory comes from that evening when I attended a church services at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta.  We poured out lamentations for the death and destruction  caused by evil and we prayed for our country.  They cut in with a broadcast of  a brief message from President Bush on the screens in the church.  I was struck by how the President quoted Psalm 23 and his obvious faith in God that fortified his resolve to lead the nation through the crisis.  While the terrorists sought to destroy America, their evil act united us as we set aside all our differences and came together as Americans--at least for a few weeks. 

Twenty  years later, we are under attack from a different kind of enemy—a virus so small you cannot see it.  What’s more, we’ve been under attack for a year and a half.  People are weary.  We just want our world to go back to normal. Unfortunately, normal seems a long way off.  At this very moment, they are conducting a funeral at Salem Baptist Church for Rodney Lee, a beloved PE teacher from Varnell Elementary School, who died from COVID.  It is clear that we have not returned to normal yet. 

Will we ever return to normal?  I don’t know.  God hasn’t shared those details with me.  However, God has reminded me that what the world needs now, more than anything else, is love.  Whether we find ourselves under attack from terrorists or a virus, love is the answer.  Some may think it is just like a preacher to say something like that.  “What an empty, cliché!”  

Friends, don’t mistake my statement as froo froo, pie in the sky religious nonsense.  The love of which I speak is not some empty, worldly platitude.  The love of God described in the Bible is as deep as the ocean and more powerful than an atomic bomb.  It not only changes people, it changes generations and alters empires.  And biblical love, God’s love, is not the same as the love offered by the world. 

God’s love was demonstrated when Jesus died on the cross for our sins, not because we deserved it, but because we desperately needed God’s grace and forgiveness.  And so Jesus, God’s only son, who was perfect in every way, atoned for our sin.  Jesus died in our place, to pay the price for our sin, even though He was totally innocent.  In Christ, we see the picture of real love.  For he said in John 15:13, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” 

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 defines the kind of love Christ demonstrated, the kind of love that changes people and generations and empires.  It is the kind of love the world needs now and Christians are called to give at all times and to all people.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
⁴ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ⁵ or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ⁶ It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. ⁷ Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. 

Kindness
Today, I want to focus on only the second element of divine love—love is kind.  Kindness is being friendly, generous, and considerate.  It’s not hard to understand kindness.  It’s so simple, even a child understands it.  The challenge with kindness is doing it and doing it to all people, even those who are unkind to you.  We get so wrapped up in ourselves it is hard to turn our gaze outward to others who need kindness.  When we struggle to meet our own needs and wants, who has the energy to be kind to someone else?  The ironic thing is that I find showing kindness to be energizing.  When I am depleted and show kindness, it doesn't empty me.  Somehow it fills me up. 

Jesus was kind.  In his day, like our own, they practiced strict social distancing.  In particular, you were not to come near anyone who was unclean.  While they weren’t worried about COVID-19 in the first century, there were many things that made a person unclean.  The most obvious was leprosy.  Leprosy is a contagious skin disease that causes severe, disfiguring skin sores and nerve damage in the arms, legs, and skin areas around your body.  Lepers were required to live apart from the rest of society, so as not to spread their disease to others.  While in quarantine, they couldn’t work normal jobs, couldn’t go to worship, and couldn’t visit with family and friends because that would make them unclean too and they would have to quarantine for 7 days—even if they didn’t get sick (see Leviticus 13).

Of course, being that Jesus lived in the first century, a time with little understanding about how to properly diagnose one disease from another, any skin disorder could be mislabeled as leprosy.  I have heard it said that even a teenager with severe acne could be labeled as a “leper” in first century Israel.  People were irrationally afraid of leprosy, because it was a social stigma as well as a legitimate health risk and it was something they didn't understand. 

Luke 5:12

¹² In one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground, begging to be healed. “Lord,” he said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.”

Here was a leper who was required by law to stay away from people.  He was supposed to stand off at a distance whenever people came around and yell out a warning that he was “Unclean! Unclean!”  But this leper has already committed a social taboo by approaching Jesus.  He is desperate.  He begs Jesus to heal him.  And Jesus loves him and is kind.

Luke 5:13
¹³ Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared. 

The Antonine Plague (165-180 AD)
Jesus was the Son of God, imbued with miraculous power.  We might think it was easier for Him to put His health on the line by reaching out in kindness to touch and heal a leper.  Surely, God would not allow His only begotten Son to be infected by leprosy because of an act of kindness. But what of Jesus’ followers?  Are we to show similar acts of
kindness, even if it risks our own health? 

To be sure, Christ does not wish Christians to be cavalier with their life and health.  I believe Jesus would encourage American’s today to take proper precautions to limit the spread of COVID-19.  It is an act of kindness to the community to wear a mask, take a vaccine, and limit physical contact with others.  However, Jesus is clear that His followers are to be willing to suffer and even risk their lives for the sake of the Kingdom.  For Jesus said, “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” (Matthew 10:39) 

Early Christians in the first century showed incredible loving kindness in the face of plagues far deadlier than COVID-19.  The Antonine Plague during the second century killed 1/3 of the population of the Roman Empire.  the plague, thought by modern historians to have been measles or smallpox, killed 25% of the people who contracted the disease.  Non-Christians Romans were so scared they fled from the infected cities, which merely spread the pandemic further because they took the disease with them wherever they fled.  Pagans abandoned their sick to die alone, while “the earliest Christians would stay and tend to the sick and dying, knowing full well that it would likely result in their own deaths. They showed works of unreasonable, sacrificial mercy that simply dumbfounded the pagans. In Rome, the Christians buried not just their own, but pagans who had died without funds for a proper burial. They also supplied food for thousands of people on a daily basis.”[i]  In another plague in the fourth century, the Emperor Julian, who was not a Christians, said pagan priests needed to act more like the Christians and show love and kindness.[ii]  

Christians’ loving kindness during the darkest plagues of disease and death during the Roman era  changed society so much that the Roman Empire itself adopted Christianity as the official religion in the fourth century.  Christian ideas about forgiveness, love, kindness, and sacrificial service changed Rome and the world forever. 

Two thousand years of Christian influence teaching people to love to the point of putting your own life on the line for the sake of others has left an indelible mark on our world—even among non-Christians.  It is Christian core values that led firefighter and first responders to rush toward the burning twin towers on September 11^th, putting their own lives at risk for the sake of others.  Whether they were Christian or not, whether they were conscious of it or not, their bravery and self-sacrifice traces roots back through the centuries to those early Christians and to Jesus himself, who died on the cross for the sake of a world who desperately needed His love, even though they didn't deserve it.  Some might think self sacrifice is a universal human trait.  It is not.  It was not normal for people to do this before Christ taught the world to do so by his teaching and his actions. 

If you are a follower of Christ, you are called to love one another and to exhibit Christ’s love to the world—even to your enemies.  Last week, we learned that Christian love is patient.  Today I tell you love is also kind. 

When I think of our world today, of how mean-spirited we are with one another, and how we are so quick to condemn and argue and accuse and think the worst of each other, when I think of I think of how we call each other names and demean those with whom we disagree and call people evil, it breaks my heart.  We are tearing each other apart.  We are destroying each other in way the 9/11 terrorist could not.  And self-professed Christians are sometimes the worst.  We must repent and do better.  We must follow Christ.

The Kindness Challenge
I challenge you to be more kind this week.  Make a commitment to be kind.  Start each day with a prayer that God would help you be kind.  The type of kindness real love requires is something beyond human capability.  It must be empowered by God’s Holy Spirit.  So choose today to follow Christ as your Lord that He may save you and fill you with His love. 

What are some practical things you could do this week to be kind?

• Write a note to someone to encourage them. 
• Pray for someone and pray that God would show you one way you could do something kind for them. Then do it.
• Buy for a stranger’s meal if you are out to eat.
• Offer to return a stranger’s grocery cart to the front of the store.
• Don’t take the closest parking spot in the parking lot. Leave it for someone else.
• Sponsor someone to receive and Operation Mercy Drops grant.
• Bring treats to your local fire station.
• If you use social media, use it to be kind to others. Wish someone a happy birthday. Say a kind or encouraging word to someone online. Be creative, but don't be mean.
• Be kind to yourself. Sometimes, we are our own harshest critics. Cut yourself some slack. Be kind to yourself.

What are some other things you can do to be kind this week? Share your ideas in the comments.

[i] https://midtowncolumbia.com/blog/early-christians-and-the-plague

[ii] https://biblemesh.com/blog/the-compassion-of-early-christians/

The Last Days

Introduction

2020 may go down as the worst year in the last century! 2020 will always be remembered as a unique leap year. It had 29 days in February. 300 days in March. Five years in April. (And we stopped keeping count after that.) 

It’s been bad y’all.  I cannot believe that “Tiger King” was the most normal part of 2020 so far.  If 2020 was made into a drink, it would be a colonoscopy prep.

There have been a lot of jokes made about 2020 being a bad year.  But “the year 2020” is the worst joke

of them all.  Can we just skip to 2021 and start over? (But then, how do we know if 2021 will be any better?) 

With all that’s been going on, I’ve been getting a lot of questions from people like this: “Pastor, is this the end of the world?  Do you think Jesus is coming back soon?”

It’s on everybody’s mind—especially

if you grew up with a Christian background.

Jesus said he would come back one day and create a new heaven and a new earth and the world we live in now will be destroyed and replaced (see Revelation 21). 

So I want talk about the last days and get to this question:  Are we living in the Last Days?

 The Apostle Paul wrote about the

“End Times” to a young man named Timothy.  Paul perceived the end was near for him and he wanted to giv some advice to the next generation of Christian leaders.  Paul knew, as we all do, that the next generation will not do things exactly the way we do them.  That's as it should be; they will live in different times and must adapt to their times.  Even so, we hope the next generation will hold fast to the essential values we've help dear, even as they adapt for their context.  Paul wrote to advice Timothy to be true to the essential elements of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to be ware of those who would try to lead people astray by changing the message and living in ungodly ways in the last days. 

2 Timothy 3:1-5

¹ You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. ² For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. ³ They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. ⁴ They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. ⁵ They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that!

Does It Seem Like the End is Near?

With all that’s going on, it’s no wonder that people are asking if the end is near.  And when we read what Paul wrote to Timothy here, it may sound very familiar.  And other places in Scripture teach similar themes about the “Last Days”.

Paul wrote Timothy: in the last days there will be very difficult times.  These are some of the most difficult times we have faced in a long time.  And we definitely see a lot of selfishness and greed all around.  So much of the public discourse, business practices, and even personal behavior of people today is saturated with selfishness and greed.  And Paul told Timothy in the last days, people will be puffed up with pride and scoff at God.  That's a very accurate description of the way people act these days.  Scoffing means to make fun of or ridicule someone so as to discredit them.  People don't even listen to each other anymore and they certainly don't listen to God.  Instead, they write God and others off as stupid and not even worthy of giving the time of day.

And Paul told Timothy when the end is near, people will love pleasure rather than God.  I see this so clearly right now.  I always knew the attitude was there, but I see it so clearly during this pandemic.  People are "afraid" to come to worship God in a public gathering.  And I get that it is risky and some people because of health issues or other legitimate reasons do indeed need to avoid public gatherings like a church worship service.  However, I see some of the same people who are avoiding church because it is too risky also quite willing to go to entertainment venues for pleasure.  It's to "unsafe" to worship God but "worth the risk" for the sake of pleasure.  Really?  It seems we have our priorities all out of wack!

Paul writes, in the last days, people "...will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly."  You can see this clearly in America today.  While church attendance has been declining for decades, we actualy see a surge of interest in spirituality among the population.  People are intrigued by things like new age religious philosophy, eastern religious techniques, yoga, and self help.  There have been television series made about spiritual mediums who contact the dead and talk to them.  So it's not that people aren't "religious"; it's just that people prefer to dabble in religion as an intriguing hobby.  They will try a little religion they way they will try a fad diet.  They take a little bit of Christianity and a little bit of Buddhism and a little bit of this or that and blend in all up into a cool little cocktail they can sip and and show to their friends like the latest, hippest craft beer.  And if their "religion" or "spirituality" ever comes into conflict with something they want ro like, they can always just set their cocktail aside and grab something new that's more pleasant.  Hardly anyone is ever deeply committed.  Few ever turn to Christ and fall on their knees and completely surrender and say, "Jesus, You are Lord!"  Your Lord is the absolute sovereign of your life.  You do what your Lord says, even if you don't want to, even if it challenges you or changes you. And so, may people today act religious, but they reject the power that could make them godly.

These are all characteristics of the “End Times” and we see them clearly in our world right now.

And I pray that everyone reading this will repent of any of these attitudes and actions, immediately, because we do not know how much time we have left.  Jesus promised he would return.  And he will return in your lifetime.  Either he will will return for the whole world or he will return for you.  One thing is certain, you will come before Jesus at the end of your life.  The question is:  will that be a very good thing or a very bad thing?

Are we living in the Last Days?  Yes!  But so was Paul when he wrote these words to Timothy nearly 2,000 years ago.  God has been working for a long, long time to save the world from the devastation and death humanity’s sin brought on Creation.  The plan God details in Scripture goes all the way back to Genesis—some four or five thousand years ago.  The most important aspect of God salvation plan was for His Son, Jesus, to come preach the Good News of God’s salvation, to give His life on the cross for our sins, and to rise from the grave.  Jesus did all these things.  We are in the last stage of God’s plan.  But God is being patient.  2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.” 

We are living in the last days, but no one knows when the end will come.  Jesus is full of wisdom and power.  If people knew the day and hour Jesus was coming back, they would procrastinate.  Probably, mo people would get worse before they thought about getting better.  If they knew they had two years left, they would think, 'Why worry about that now?  Let's have some fun before we need to get serious."  They would be even more selfish and greedy and prideful.  They would live sinful lives for as long as they could—turning their backs on God—and then, at the last minute, they would turn to God and beg for forgiveness.  That’s why Jesus said, “No one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself.” (Matthew 24:36).  And he warned, “You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.” (Matthew 24:44)

How Bad Are Things Right Now, Really?

I know when we look around at the world today, it seems like it may all be unraveling and the world is coming to an end. I get that.  I understand that feeling.  However, as bad as 2020 has been for us, I want to help you keep things in perspective.  According to Google, there have been 727 thousand deaths worldwide from COVID-19.  That's awful.  Every one of those deaths represents someone's mother or father, sister or brother, son or daughter.  My heart goes out to them.

At the same time, let's compare the difficulties in our times to those of other eras.  50 Million people died worldwide from Spanish flu in 1918.  And near the same time 40 Million people--soldiers and civilians--died around the worldwide during WWI.  And between 1941-1945, six million Jews died in the holocaust (nearly six times as many as have died so far from COVID-19.)  These are staggering figures.  I'm sure many people living through those tragedies looked around and thought, "These must be the last days."  Maybe they were even praying for it so God would come and get them out of that mess.  

And of course, right now, things are for people financially in our country.  The economy is suffering from months of shutdown and disruption.  Many people have lost jobs.  And I know it's a struggle.  At the same time, again, let's keep it in perspective.  Do you realize that Americans--even in financial difficulties--have it way better than most of the rest of the world?  I googled this and found out that the average annual income for Sierra Leon (where our church sponsors Nick and Heidi Griffiths as missionaries) is only $504.  (That's not a typo. That $504 per year, not per month).  And this is not just the case for Sierra Leone.  Similar poverty for the average person exists in Kenya, Guatemala, El Salvador... and the list goes on and on and on.  And People in third world countries have been living that way for decades.  Don't you know someone living in those conditions would look at us in our country and think, 'So you think the end of the world is coming because you lost your job and you're on unemployment?"  Meanwhile, they're digging through trash at the city dump trying to figure out how they can get they next meal.

Or what about the young boy in our own country who lives in an abusive home and has for years?  Or what of the teenage girl in Atlanta who is being trafficked for sex?  Do you think a year ago they were thinking everything was fine, but know because of COVID-19 it must be the end of the world is coming?  It's all about perspective.

Paul, writing to Timothy nearly 2,000 years ago, thought the end was eminent.  He wrote his letter with that perspective.  Interestingly, most church historians believe Paul lived for several more yers, even traveling to Spain to preach the Gospel of Christ. So even Paul was a bit misled in his perspective in regard to when the end would come.  However, Paul was martyred--along with thousands of other Christians in the first century.  Some of them were were even fed to lions in the Roman coliseum.  Don't you think that kind of cruelty made them wonder if they were living in the Last Days?

We don’t know if the signs of the times mean that Jesus is coming back today, tomorrow, or even this year. What we do know is: His return is closer today than it was yesterday.  And we don't know how much time we have left.

Conclusion

Well then, what difference does it make?  

Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!” (Mark 1:15) It was his first sermon recorded in the Scripture and it was His message throughout his ministry. And we need to take it to heart, because we do not know how much time we have.

If you feel nervous because of all the bad stuff happening, good! You need realize how vulnerable you are and how important it is that you repent and turn to God through Jesus Christ. This is the whole point of the Bible’s warnings about the last days.  You need to get your heart right with God.

If you are not a Christian, you need to recognize that Jesus is Lord. Turn to Him. Follow Him. Live the way He said we should live. Trust Him. You will find salvation. You will also find peace—even in the midst of bad times.  And if you are already a Christian, times like these ought to remind you and motivate you to get busy doing the things Jesus told us to do—loving God, loving our neighbors, making disciples, praying and working for God’s Kingdom to come on earth as it is in Heaven.

What do you need to do today?  What commitment are you going to make?