[00:00] Speaker 1: (music)

[06:09] Speaker 2: (instrumental music plays)

[11:14] Speaker 3: Our call to worship are these words from Psalm 138, starting at verse four. The psalmist says, "May all the kings of the earth praise you, Lord, when they hear what you have decreed. May they sing of the ways of the Lord, for the glory of the Lord is great." And what is that glory? "Though the Lord is exalted, He looks kindly on the lowly. Though lofty, He sees them from afar. Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life. You stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes. With your right hand, you save me. The Lord will vindicate me. Your love, Lord, endures forever. Do not abandon the work of your hands." Thanks be to God.

[12:04] Speaker 2: (instrumental music plays)

[12:19] Speaker 4: It is good to sing your praises and to thank you all the time. Showing forth your loving kindness when the morning lights the sky. It is good when night is falling on your faithfulness to tell. While we're sleeping all these praises, songs of adoration sound. You have filled my life with gladness through the worst your hands have brought. You have made my life victorious, bring your words and keep your light. You alone are high exalted, great forever glorified. All your enemies shall perish, simply vanished from your sight. What good shall live before you planted in your holy place? Fruitful season ever perfect, nourished by your boundless grace. In his goodness to the righteous, God his righteousness displays. God my rock, my strength, my refuge, just and true are all your ways. Amen.

[15:18] Speaker 3: It is good to praise our God in the morning, and it also good to come before him in the evening and praise his name. And when we come together, he greets us, and he says, "Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God the Father, from Christ His Son, through the mighty and powerful work of His Holy Spirit."

[15:37] Speaker 4: Amen.

[15:41] Speaker 3: Welcome everyone to our worship service at La Grave Avenue Christian Reformed Church. Welcome to all you members and you evening regulars. Welcome to guests, everyone here, we are so glad that you're here. We know that the Holy Spirit is here moving among us and will bless our time together. Tonight's service is, uh, centered around the theme of kindness, one of or part of the fruit of the spirit, kindness. And so our songs and, and my readings will, will take up that theme, including the reading from Ruth that I'm planning. Uh, Ruth 2:8, and I'm going to read through verse 23, not just to 21. This is, uh, in the middle of the story of Ruth. As you remember, Ruth and Naomi at this point, um, are destitute. They've come back to Bethlehem. Ruth is wondering, "How are we going to get food?" And she's gone out into the field of Boaz, and in that field what she finds is not only wheat, barley, but kindness, and it turns her life around. Listen.

[16:45] Speaker 3: "So Boaz said to Ruth, 'My daughter, listen to me. Don't go and glean in another field, and don't go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting and follow along after the women. I have told my men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go get a drink from the water jars that the men have filled.' At this, Ruth, at this, Ruth bowed down with her face to the ground and she asked him, 'Why have I found such favor,'" could also be translated kindness, "'in your eyes that you notice me, a foreigner?' Boaz replied, 'I've been told about all that you've done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, how you left your father and mother and your homeland and came to live with a people that you did not know before. May the Lord repay you for what you have done.

[17:45] Speaker 3: May you w- be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.' 'May I continue to find favor in your eyes, my lord,' she says. 'You have put me at ease by speaking kindly to your servant, though I do not have the standing of one of your servants.' At mealtime, Boaz said to her, 'Come over here. Have some bread and dip it in the wine vinegar.' And when she sat down with the harvesters, he offered her some roasted grain. She ate all she wanted, and she had some leftover. And as she got up to glean, Boaz gave orders to his men, 'Let her gather among the sheaves and don't reprimand her.'"... even pull out some of the stalks for her from the bundles and leave them for her to pick up. And don't rebuke her." So Ruth gleaned in the field until evening, and then she threshed the barley she'd gathered and it amounted to about an ephah. She carried it back to town and her mother-in-law saw how much she'd gleaned.

[18:47] Speaker 3: Ruth also brought out and gave her what she had left over after she'd eaten enough. And her mother-in-law asked her, "Where did you glean today? Where did you work? Blessed be the man who took notice of you." Ruth told her mother-in-law about the one who s- at whose place she had been working. "The name of the man I worked with today is Boaz," she said. "The Lord bless him," Naomi said to her daughter-in-law. "He has not stopped showing his kindness to the living and the dead." She added, "That man is our close relative. He's one of our guardian-redeemers." Then Ruth the Moabite said, "He even said to me, 'Stay with my workers until they finish harvesting all my grain.'" Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, "It will be good for you, my daughter, to go with the women who work for him, because someone else's field, you might be harmed." So Ruth stayed close to the woman of Boaz to glean until the barley and the wheat harvest were finished. And she lived with her mother-in-law.

[19:50] Speaker 3: Thanks be to God. (organ music)

[19:55] Speaker 5: Holy, O Lord, for far Your praise, till endless giving I will bring. With all this people I will raise my voice and of His glory sing. His saints delight to search and trace His mighty works and wondrous grace. Majestic glory, boundless grace, in righteousness His worth display. Countless deeds of faithfulness, His people ever keep in mind. His words of love and graciousness reveal that God, the Lord, is kind. By God's own hand we can't repay, His love is sure, won't change and go. Let love be here, His glory lay in heav'n above and earth below.

[22:21] Speaker 3: Our confession tonight is from the Apostles' Creed, which is, of course, the story of God's saving work for us. It could also be characterized as the story of God's kindness towards His people. Let's rise and say it together. Let us say with heart and voice, I believe-

[22:39] Speaker 5: ... in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, His only son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. The third day, He rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From there, He will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

[23:53] Speaker 5: (organ music) From the father now of

[24:36] Speaker 4: God of glory, love us sinners, through His holy name. Let us tell our children, age to age the same. For they died all living, O Lord of all, let me die his holy name. Let me die his holy name. With the fallen feed the hungry, God provides for every need. He is fair and full of kindness, saving those who call Him dear. Let us tell our children, age to age the same. For they died all living, O Lord of all, let me die his holy name. Let me die his holy name. By His side, He keeps us better, He's proclaiming His mighty power. Interwoven with compassion, is His strength for every hour. Let us tell our children, age to age the same. For they died all living, O Lord of all, let me die his holy name. Let me die his holy name.

[27:03] Speaker 3: Let's join our hearts together in our evening prayer. Please pray with me. Lord, you are the author of awe-inspiring deeds of splendor, and those awesome deeds of yours really are woven, interwoven with compassion and with strength. Father, in you, all surpassing power sits right next door to kindness. In you, cosmic lordship and gentleness are not incompatible. Father, your gentleness is our comfort, and your all-surpassing power is our hope, and that's why we bring you our prayers again tonight. Hear our prayers of thanks. We are so grateful for the warmth of Friday and Saturday of this weekend. We went outside and we could feel the gentle push of spring. It was there in the sunshine and in the softening of the earth, and in the first sign of tulips pushing through the soil. All these things proclaim and magnify your holy name. We sometimes take these things for granted, but not tonight, Lord. Tonight, we praise you for these good things.

[28:20] Speaker 3: Father, also hear our prayers of need, because everywhere we turn our eyes, whether it's towards our families, or whether we turn our eyes towards the workings of our culture, or the grinding of our politics, Father, everywhere we look, we see things to worry about. We see places where we throw up our hands to you and say, "Lord, have mercy. Lord, help us." Father, we pray for our country. May truth and love and hope and kindness be the words that describe our social order. May anger and bitterness and fear and deception be far away from us. We need your help with this, Father. We have not been doing well with this as a people. Holy Spirit, please help us. We pray for our church. We thank you for La Grave Church and for all the resources you've given to it. We thank you for our leaders, whether those are ministry staff or committee chairs or council members. But mostly, Father, I thank you for the small acts of kindness and prayer and mercy that flow naturally between believers here.

[29:33] Speaker 3: Thank you for the way your Holy Spirit uses ordinary interactions and blows through the hearts and hands of members who lift each other up. Holy Spirit, continue to make La Grave a church where we care for each other that way. Finally, Lord, we pray for some of the very specific needs that we have. I pray for Steve Palazzolo, who started his bone marrow transplant. I pray that you will give him body, strength of body and, and soul as he faces that. Bring him healing. Father, we pray again for Mamuani and for Rich, her husband, and for her kids. Lord, she is so needed in that family. Please give her healing. Bless Carol as she receives hospice care and gets close to her end. Let your resurrection promises be strong for her. I pray for others who are in hospice right now. I pray for Sylvia, and for Bev, for George. I lift up Jim Kroll, who goes through another course of radiation.

[30:39] Speaker 3: May this hard medicine have its intended results.I pray for our brother, Dan Goris, who was hit with a stroke yesterday. Please be close to him and Debbie, and Lord, we're bold to pray for a full recovery for him. Father, we pray for Millie Rend as she recalls, as she recovers from her fall. Give her strength. Pray for Dick Canton, said goodbye to Sherry this week. Sustain him in his loss. And I pray the same for Mary Lou and Jim Reafers, they say goodbye to Jim's brother. Lord Jesus we, we trust you completely with our needs. You're good, you're kind, and you are eternally strong. So hear these prayers we pray, and hear them in Jesus' name, amen.

[31:30] Speaker 3: (organ music)

[31:53] Speaker 4: Lord, what petition be, thou help me in my need, or else I die. I am thy servant, Lord. My trust is in thy word. Mercy to me accord, to you I cry. Great is thy love to me, from death you set me free, when fools alike, your grace I truly know, your anchor holds firm. Your loving-kindness, Lord, saved me from harm.

[33:19] Speaker 3: Two scripture readings tonight, uh, both from letters of Paul. First I'll read Ephesians 2:1-10. And then we'll go back a few pages and I will read just two verses from Galatians, Galatians 5:22-23. Here's Paul talking to us about how God has saved us in Christ. He says, "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work amongst those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were, when we were dead in our transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved.

[34:25] Speaker 3: And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Now just back a little ways to Galatians 5. I'll read verses 22 and 23, which is the famous list of the fruit of the Spirit, which includes kindness. Paul says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law." This is the word of the Lord.

[35:38] Speaker 4: Thanks be to God.

[35:39] Speaker 3: Kindness. What, what is kindness? How can we understand this part of the fruit of the Spirit that Paul talks about in Galatians and, and other places in his writings? When I think in some ways we all know what kindness is. We all have a sense for it. It's, it's sort of a thing that we have an intuition about. But Christian kindness and, and defining it and, and really drilling down on it, is, is more complicated than you think. So I would like to try to define it with you today and see it more clearly. And to do that, I would like to start with, with a story. A story of kindness displayed in its most simplest form. Um, this is a story told by, uh, Walter Wangeroen, I don't know if you remember that name. Walter Wangeroen is a Christian author. His books were, you know, probably a generation ago were more popular. Um, but it's a story that he told, uh, long ago when he was on a trip with his family, and, and kindness experienced in the ordinary activity of getting gas.

[36:41] Speaker 3: So Wangeroen was out on the road with his family in his Chevy Nova, shows that this is an old story.He's in a Chevy Nova and it's cold and it's raining and it's uncomfortable and he's running low on gas. This is a family trip. So he pulls over to get gas and it's, it's one of these small, little rural stations. It doesn't have a canopy, it's just a couple gas pumps. And he's not properly dressed, he doesn't have a good coat on, he's got no gloves, so he's out there freezing in the rain, filling the car with gas. And the pump is going really slowly. And this would have been, uh, a recipe for, uh, misery except that the gas attendant, who was sitting in one of those, remember those little booths, those old booths? He came out of the booth in the rain and came over to Wangerin and greeted him and asked where he was from and where he was going and commented on the weather and just engaged him in very pleasant conversation.

[37:41] Speaker 3: And when the gas was finished being pumped and Wangerin paid him his 17 bucks, which is what it took to fill the car back then, the attendant looked him in the eye and said, "Thank you so much for stopping at my station." Now that wouldn't be a very remarkable thing except for this. When, when Wangerin got back in the car and he was dripping wet and he was, like, water coming off his beard, but he was smiling. And his wife looked at him and said, "Why (laughs) are you smiling?" And he realized how much the kindness, the simple kindness of this attendant had affected him. Not long afterwards, Wangerin went to the gas station again, a different gas station this time, and he pumped outside and he had to go inside to pay because this is before pay-at-the-pump, okay? So he had to go inside. And he came inside to pay and there was a woman there behind the register and she was, like, reading People magazine. The door dinged, she didn't acknowledge him.

[38:49] Speaker 3: He went over to the counter, took out his money, she didn't acknowledge him, she just kept reading her magazine and finally he said a little (clears throat) , held out his money, and she said, "Well, what do you want?" "Well, I'd like to pay for my gas." "Well how much was it?" "It was $17." She took it, gave him change, and didn't say another word to him and he walked out. And as Wangerin got back in his car, he realized this time he felt very different. This time he felt, yeah, down, irritated. There was a little bit of, yeah, grief in his spirit. Two very different interactions. One of them you see a hostility that sows negativity inside, one of them positive that manages to lift up. This is what simple kindness is about. We exercise kindness, or not, in all of our human interactions. In all of our human interactions, we have an opportunity to exercise this part of God's good fruit.

[39:58] Speaker 3: And this is based upon something that I don't think we think about but every single one of our human interactions, our spirit is contagious. Right? Human spirits interact with each other and there's a kind of contagion. Whatever spirit you bring into a conversation has some effect on that other person and vice versa. So there's basically three options you have in every human contact, okay? Uh, you can bring kindness, like that gas station attendant. You can bring positivity and lift that person up. You can bring indifference. You just sort of ignore the other person. Get on a subway in Chicago or any big city, right? What do you have? You have a sort of infectious indifference, right? Everyone is indifferent to each other. They're neither negative nor positive and so this indifference sort of spreads like a contagion through the subway car. Or you can come with contempt and anger and bitterness and sow a seed of bitterness inside of the person you're with.

[41:06] Speaker 3: Every human interaction you will have today and tomorrow, you have the opportunity to sow one of these three things. So based on this story and based on what I just said, a definition of kindness might be something like kindness is active love that's used to build up another person. Now I say that and a thoughtful person here might say, "Okay, that sounds good, but come on Peter, that sounds a little, you know, that sounds a little flat, a little weak, a little simple. Is that all there is to kindness? I mean, isn't this a fruit of the Spirit, right? The F- Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God. Are we really talking about something so simple and so basic as that? This seems like a thin virtue. All sorts of people are friendly like that. How is it different when we're Christians showing kindness? Is there something deeper about Christian kindness?" The answer is absolutely.

[42:03] Speaker 3: We said that all kindness tries to bring something positive and upbuilding into the life of the person we're interacting with. In Christian kindness, the thing that you come to build, the kindness you come to bring, the upbuilding that you bring, is to build them up towards Jesus Christ, to have some of the life of Christ in you and send that life towards them, whether they acknowledge Christ or not. It's his life and his goodness and his way and truth that you are trying to send to that person. We are bringing the abundant life of Christ and it is rooted in the kindness of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. That's what Ephesians 2 tells us.Ephesians 2, I think you heard it, talks about God's kindness towards us. Verses 6 and 7.

[42:57] Speaker 3: "God raised us up with Christ and seated us with, with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus and ordered that in the coming ages, He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Jesus Christ." What does God's kindness to us look like? It looks like Him sending Jesus. Looks like Jesus and His life of self-sacrifice, His death of self-sacrifice. A kindness that lifted us up as people, and in the end, will lift up the whole world. And in the whole flow of this passage, you have this sense of how Christ's kindness, God's kindness through Christ, does lift us up and inflate us, right? At the beginning of the passage, what are we? We're dead. We're deflated. We're nowhere. But then the kindness comes, and where do we end up at the end? We're seated with Him in the heavenly realms, right? God's kindness to us in Jesus Christ fills us up and lifts us up to the heavenly realms by grace.

[44:02] Speaker 3: Now clearly, Jesus' grace to us and kindness to us is much more than a smile and a grin and being friendly, right? There's something much more meaty and gritty about what Jesus did. It involved, for Jesus, speaking the truth in the face of opposition, right? Kindness was sometimes confrontation for Jesus. It involved hard work and terrible sacrifice and long days. It was a gritty and wonderful sort of kindness. And that means that our kindness will also take diverse forms. Sometimes it'll be as simple as smiling at the checkout girl or cheerfully greeting some new person who comes to church or telling a friend at work that they look nice today. Often, our kindness will look like that, but sometimes our kindness will look like parents of a difficult child who insist on a certain kind of discipline and do not veer from the right or the left 'cause they know what's good for this kid. Sometimes it will look like a firm confrontation of a dear friend who we think has lost their way.

[45:15] Speaker 3: Sometimes it will look like a teacher who daily absorbs the difficulty of one of her students and returns it with gentle discipline and kindness. In other words, it'll look like Jesus, right, who did both things. Sometimes His kindness was as simple as welcoming a little child on his knee and blessing them. And sometimes His kindness was as gritty as opening His arms and dying for our sins. But it was all kindness. It was all a way for Him to lift us from death up into the heights of life. Clearly, we are not always kind. We don't always take advantage of these opportunities in our interactions to build the other person up. Why is that? Why does our kindness sometimes fall short? I think there's a couple reasons. Um, I think often, we aren't kind because we feel in our souls that we, we have no kindness to give. Uh, we're just tired.

[46:17] Speaker 3: Like, the weight of our problems, the weight of the things that are happening in our life, the weight of the things that are happening in this world, we feel like we are emptied out. We feel like we could not possibly be kind because we are so exhausted. Sometimes our kindness fails 'cause it's counterfeit and distorted. Sometimes we invest our kindness instead of spending it. You can't invest kindness. You can only spend it. By investing kindness, I mean we show kindness 'cause we have an agenda. We're kind to another person 'cause we're kind of expecting that we'll get something back or this will help us ultimately in the situation. The teenage boy who is very kind to the stunning redhead who comes into his math class may or may not be selflessly motivated. The preacher who is extra kind to the wealthy person who comes into church and thinking of joining may or may not have selfless motives. That's not kindness.

[47:19] Speaker 3: That's selfishness in kind clothing, and there's a lot of it about these days. In both these cases, I think our kindness fails because we think of it as a scarce resource. In both these cases, we fail to be kind because we think that, that will run out if we give out too much. We treat it like it's time or money. Like it's the same kinda currency. Because with time or money, that's the way it is, right? We only have a certain amount of money, so we can't buy the most expensive car. We can't buy the most expensive house. We have to, we have to limit ourselves. We have to contain ourselves. And with time, too, right? We can't say yes to everything. As an adult, you gotta learn to say no. Otherwise, you're gonna... Just 'cause time is a finite resource. We transfer that finitude to kindness, but is kindness a finite resource? Not in Scripture.

[48:11] Speaker 3: Verse 7, when Paul speaks of God's kindness, he s- talks about, right, the incomparable riches of God's grace expressed in His kindness to us in Jesus Christ. Incomparable riches. Never-ending riches. The well of kindness never runs dry. The river of kindness never stops flowing. Incomparable riches. It's not a scarce resource. And that's not just something s- suggested in our passage. It, it shows up in other places. Ephesians 3. "Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to His power, which is within us."Immeasurably more power within us, incomparable riches, not finite. Romans 11, "Oh, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. His judgments are unsearchable. His paths beyond all tracing out." Incomparable riches.

[49:12] Speaker 3: Or Ephesians 3 again, "I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all God's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, to know this love which surpasses knowledge." Incomparable riches. We don't have to budget our kindness. We don't need to measure it out, we don't need to be frugal. There is an endless supply in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And it's so strong when we show it. I don't wanna harp on the state of our society. I think I say this, and preachers say this all the time, but we know, right? Trust is down, anger is up, um, people are afraid. All that's out there. What are the remedies for that? Surely kindness is one of the most effective. I think of that opening story of Walter Rangerin pumping gas in the rain. In these adverse conditions, all it took was a little bit of kindness, and he was able to smile in the face of all that. What would a little Christian kindness do for this world?

[50:24] Speaker 3: We don't need to budget it. At every human interaction that you have this week, there is no reason for you to withhold your kindness, because in Christ, it is eternal. Amen. Lord, we praise you for your kindness to us in Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that this kindness may be the center of our lives. It's, Lord, it's so easy for us to center our lives when we get up in the morning on our worries and on our fears and on the bad news. Lord, help us to center our lives on your incomparable riches, your grace that goes on and on, your grace that is eternal and will carry us into eternity. Lord, out of that richness, help us to walk your way of kindness. In Christ's name we pray, amen.

[51:20] Speaker 3: (piano music plays) (congregation claps) (organ music plays) (congregation sings)

[52:20] Speaker 4: Christ is made the sure foundation, Christ our firm and cornerstone, Chosen of the Lord and precious, binding all the church in one; Holy Zion's help forever, and our confidence alone. True Ascent, for where we follow, humble your approach and stay; Come with all your loving-kindness, hear your people at any prayer, Let your holy spiritation, shed within these walls today. Here is so one of your servants, what they seek from you to gain, What they gain from you forever, give the blessing to retain, And hereafter in your fold be evermore with you to reign. Praise and honor to the Father, Praise and honor to the Son, Praise and honor to the Spirit, Be to them all ever done; As one Lord three in God are seen, Three in one God seen and three in one God seen.

[54:51] Speaker 4: (organ music plays) (congregation claps) Receive the blessing of your Lord tonight. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord lift up His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn His face towards you, smile upon you, and fill you with His peace, both now and forevermore. Amen.

[55:42] Speaker 6: Amen.

[55:47] Speaker 7: (music)

[01:00:06] Speaker 6: Amen.