Dr Greg Bahnsen - The Fruit of the Spirit: Kindness and Goodness (Part 7)

This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. Let's begin with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you again for your love, for your mercy toward us, for your patience with us. We thank you that you continue to uphold us, take care of our every need. We thank you that you've given us not only life here that we might enjoy, but you have given us eternal life and the prospect of living with you forever. We ask that you would help us to prepare our hearts and that your spirit would work through us to prepare our hearts. Do it. Live with you forever. And toward that end, we ask that you would bless our study of your Word tonight. In Jesus name, amen. Well, we're still in the fruit of the Spirit, and so let's turn to Galatians, chapter five, and I'll just read from the 19th verse. Now, the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. Fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, parties, envyings, drunkenness, revelings, and the such like of which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you that they who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self control. Against such there is no law. And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts thereof, and that's why they're reading God's Word. We've been looking at each one of these elaborations of the fruit, singular, the fruit that the Spirit brings, the life of a believer. And tonight we're going to try to deal with three of them, which I think are a very good illustration of how these different character traits really blend into one another. There are some distinctiveness, but obviously you can't really be a person who is peace, loving and patient if you're not loving. Joy is going to accompany true patience, so forth and so on. We look at love, joy, peace and patience. Tonight I'd like to look at three closely related character traits. Kindness, goodness and faithfulness. These different traits, as I've said, blend into one another, showing again that there's a singular fruit of the Spirit among these various traits. We don't say the fruits of the spirit as though you can have one without the others. And so let's first of all talk about kindness. I've been following John Sanderson's book the Fruit of the Spirit and you know, his threefold breakdown of each one of these has to do with what the weed is, what the artificial fruit is, and what the true fruit of the spirit is and how it should be cultivated. Sanderson suggests that the weed corresponding to kindness is selfishness. A person who is kind stands over against the person who is selfish. And then he goes on to point out that the selfishness of which we can all be guilty grows out of pride. So you have kindness over here and pride developed into selfishness on the other hand. And I think just that observation alone is worth reflecting on for quite a while. It's been very helpful. I mean when we find ourselves, and I know this happens to all of us sometimes doing things we don't think was very kind, you go back and look at it and say, did that not arise out of a proud attitude in one way or another? Could humility have produced that kind of remark or that kind of attitude or facial expression or behavior? The weed of selfishness growing out of pride stands over against what God wants in our lives and that's kindness. Let me give you three examples of pride that becomes selfishness. 3 John verses 9 and 10. You might look in your Bibles at 3 John verses 9 and 10. Paul says, I wrote somewhat unto the church. But Diatrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, received us not. Therefore if I come, I will bring to remembrance his works which he does, prating against us with wicked words and not content therewith. Neither doth he himself receive the brethren and them that would he forbiddeth and casteth them out of the church. Now here is a man that was really proud and self centered. Diotrephes. He wanted the preeminence and people who didn't go along with him, he wanted to throw out of the church. You know, the kind of personality or character we're talking about. And what does such a man do? Paul says he unjustly accuses others. This man who wants to be first is not kind, but rather brings unjust charges against others. Those things go together. That kind of self centeredness where you want to be number one, you want to be the leader in the church, leads you then to say things against others you ought not to be saying. Another example is found in numbers chapter 12, verses 1, 2 and 3 and then numbers 16, 1, 4. Let's look at both of those incidents, these having to do with the leadership of Moses. Numbers 12 tells us the story of the Opposition of his own brother and sister to his leadership. And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Cushite woman whom he had married. Brave, married a Cushite woman. And they said, hath Jehovah indeed spoken only with Moses? Hath he not spoken also with us? And Jehovah heard it. Now, the man Moses was very gentle above all the men that were upon the face of the earth. And then the story goes on how God judged Miriam and Aaron for their jealousy over the authority and the leadership that was given to Moses. They were thinking of themselves. And because they had that kind of pride, they were led to do unkind things. Moses wife now gets criticized. And they put down Moses as though he thinks he's the only one that has direction from God. A third example of how pride turns to unkindness, a selfish unkindness, is the example of Jonah found in Jonah the fourth chapter. We'll read the first five verses of that. Jonah 4, beginning at verse one. By way of background, Jonah had been told to go preach repentance to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire. The Ninevites and the Assyrians in particular, were hated for their cruelty. They ruled over the Mediterranean with that very, very harsh iron fist. And so Jonah thinks, there's no way I want these people to repent. I want the judgment of God to come on there. So he tries to run away and doesn't get away with that. He finally goes and he preaches and he says, you know, they're not going to repent. They're wicked people. God shows how gracious and powerful and sovereign he is. Because then they do repent. When Jonah sees that, here's what he does. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed unto Jehovah and said, I pray thee, O Jehovah, was not this my saying when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish. For I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Jehovah, take, I beseech thee, my life from me. For it is better for me to die than to live. And Jehovah said, dost thou well to be angry? Then Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth and sat under it in the shade till he might see what would become of the city. Jonah does not want these people to be saved. He wants the Judgment of God to come on them. And so he doesn't want to preach repentance. And when he does, he says it's not going to work. And then when it does work, he goes out and he pouts. He sulks. When you think about that is such an ugly attitude. Where does it come from? From pride. Jonah thought he was better than the Ninevites. He was a Jew. They were pagans, gentiles. He didn't live the kind of cruel, debauched life these people did. And he didn't want to see them enjoy the same privilege he did. And it's amazing. He says, I knew this would happen. God is merciful. God is kind. You would think he would say so I should be merciful and I should be kind. But he didn't. He sulked about it. And so these are three illustrations. Diatrephes, Moses, brother and sister. We didn't look at number 16, did we? Let's go back and look at that. I'm sorry. Numbers 16 gives another illustration of Moses authority being challenged. And pretty much along the same lines as the brother and sister of Moses. People thought Moses was too exclusive with this holiness and special place that he had. Now. Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dason and Abiram, the sons of Eliab, and on the son of Heloth, sons of Reuben, took men, and they rose up before Moses with certain of the children of Israel. 250 Princes of the congregation called to the assembly, men of renown. And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and Jehovah is among them. Wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the assembly of Jehovah. When Moses heard it, he fell upon his face, and he spake unto Korah, unto all his company, saying, in the morning, Jehovah will show who are his and who is holy, and who will cause him to come near unto him? Even him whom he shall choose will he cause to come near unto him. I won't read the rest of the story. I think you probably know it from Sunday school days and read it yourself. In the morning, the earth opened up and swallowed the revels rather clear sign from God that he didn't like their attitude. Their attitude was, you should share some of this authority with us. All of us are holy. All of us have a special place. You're not the only ones. And so you see, there's Selfishness, right? They wanted something for themselves, there was pride, and so they acted unkind. They tried to foment a rebellion and God put a real clear end to that rebellion with the earth swallowing up the rebels. But we need to know that in ourselves, if we are without humility, if we are selfish, if we think about getting things for ourselves, being self centered, we will never be kind individuals. But now there's an artificial type of kindness as well. It isn't enough that we just get rid of the pride and self centeredness that keeps us from being kind. Not all men are unkind all the time. All right, Some people that you know that you would say are generally are unkind people you wouldn't say everything they do is unkind. Even people that are generally unkind can find a place in their life for a type of kindness which has its own selfish value. What kind of kindness am I talking about? Manipulation. We all know people who can be nice to other people to get their own way to manipulate them, to kind of bring people around so that the person who is expressing the alleged kindness is really the one who's going to be the winner in the end, not the person to whom that expression of kindness is given. Remember Jacob gave pottage to his older brother Esau? Very kind person, Jacob. Right. You know, I mean, it was just blatant. He said, yeah, give me your birthright and I'll give you some something to eat. Delilah was sweet to Samson. Was that because she was being kind? She had ulterior motives. She was manipulating him. And there are more subtle examples, forms of that. Bribery takes place not only in politics or probably at the office. There's even a kind of bribery. I think it takes place sometimes in families. It may not be financial, it might be, but I'm thinking of the kind of emotional bribery. Flattery is often used to manipulate people. So the Bible puts us on our warning that not every outward expression of kindness is true kindness. Where is true kindness found? Who is the model of kindness? Well, God. He is the one that shows this genuine kindness. Look at Titus 3:4, Titus 3 and the fourth verse. But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love toward man appear not by works done in righteousness, which we did ourselves, but according to his mercy, he saved us through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, which he poured upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by grace, we might be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. That's all an example. The way of salvation through grace and faith. God's mercy being expressed to us in Christ is the kindness of God. That's not hypocritical, manipulative. That's rather done for the good of the party receiving the favor for ourselves. How would we express this divine kindness? I think Jesus illustrates it for us in the story of the Good Samaritan. For the sake of time, I won't read it, but it's found in Luke, the tenth chapter. You know that there was a man who had been mugged and left for dead on the Jericho road. And a number of Jewish people walked past the man in need, having their own rationalizations for why they wouldn't get involved. Then a Samaritan came along and showed the man kindness because he was not only available to a person in need, he was useful to the person in need. He was benevolent. And more than benevolent, he was generous. Took him to the inn and said, he'll pay the bills for this guy, and so forth. Really went out of his way. That is selflessness. That is true kindness. When we make ourselves available, useful, benevolent and generous toward others, and particularly to those who need us, it's a sad thing to confess. I confess it for me and probably for you as well. It's not terribly hard to be available, useful, benevolent, generous for those who are close to us and our friends and a jump at the opportunity to be good to them. But to make ourselves available to anyone who is in need that actually come through our life, that shows a kind heart, the kind of kindness that the grace of God in the Gospel demonstrates from God himself how God chose his own generosity to us. And so if we would cultivate kindness, we need to have less of ourselves and more concern for others. Humility and a tender heart will go a long way to make us kind people. Humility and a tender heart wouldn't be a bad idea to take a year. And every morning pray that prayer. God, give me humility. Humility and a tender heart. And you'll find that by the end of the year you're a much kinder person. Available, benevolent, generous toward those who need you. Closely related to this kindness that we've been talking about is another aspect of the fruit of the Spirit that Paul calls goodness. Interestingly, the Galatians had already seen an example of this trait of goodness. Because when Paul came and established the church in Galatia, do you remember who was traveling with them? Barnabas. And what does the Bible tell us about Barnabas? Look at Acts 11:24. Acts 11:24, speaking of Barnabas. For he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And much people was added unto the Lord. He was a good man. You know, I'm not sure that that idiom as it's used today is really all that the Bible has in store when it says that of a man like Barnabas. I think in our culture today, we have a tendency to write off the defects, especially the kind of crotchy attitudes of an older person. Well, he's a good man. You know, it's almost a dismissive kind of thing, kind of crusty, and there's a lot of stuff you wouldn't like. But basically, he's a good man. That isn't what's being said of Barnabas. It's being said he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and faith. What's the opposite of goodness? What will the weed with respect to goodness? This should be obvious. The opposite of goodness is evil, right? Wickedness. I'm not sure that our culture has the ability to appreciate the biblical teaching about wickedness. We just seem so jaded to everything, and we use words like unrighteous and wicked and bad. We slept with so flippantly. And we almost find humor in the fact that people can be wicked. You know, that doesn't please God at all. When the Bible uses the term good, as I said a minute ago, it has real solid, positive connotation. It isn't just some kind of passing, well, he was a good man. And when it uses evil and wicked, it's to be taken very seriously. In Exodus 17, verse 14, you will read of God's judgment on Amalek. Amalek and his people were enemies of the children of God. And as the Israelites were traveling through the desert, they got to rephidim in Exodus 17 and were told that Amalek attacked them from the rear. You know what that means? It means he attacked them where those who were least able to keep up, those who were probably sickly or elderly, the children and so forth, who had to go more slowly than the rest of the people of Israel were there. And so that's where he chose to make his attack. And the Bible says that he was terribly evil man. Another example of an evil man would be Judas, who is called the son of perdition. In John 13:27, the gospel writer tells us that Satan entered into Judas. Jesus called him the son of perdition, the son of damnation. That's how wicked he was. Here's somebody who betrayed the very Lord of glory. And then in second Thessalonians 2, verses 8 and following, we have another biblical example of evil and wickedness. And that is the man of lawlessness who fights against everything that is religious. He wants to have divine worship given to him, sets himself up in the temple of God and so forth. The fruit of the Spirit is goodness, which means we aren't going to be like Amalek or Judas or the man of lawlessness if we are born again. When we look at those three examples, by the way, I think we're reminded of something about wickedness that totally escapes our secular culture and brutality today. And that's that wickedness is religious. Wickedness is not just in some thin, shallow sense, ethical wickedness is a religious matter. Wickedness is at bottom antagonism to God. Like the man of lawlessness who opposes all that is divine, evil is essentially religious antagonism toward God. And it's out of that antagonism toward God that evil becomes degrading and ugly and destructive, painful to others. What is the antidote to evil, to our antagonism toward God and our destructiveness toward others and degrading this toward ourselves? What is the antidote? Galatians 1:4 tells us, since we're studying the book of Galatians, be a good text to consider. Galatians 1:4, who gave himself, our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us out of this present evil world according to the will of our God and Father to him be the glory forever and ever. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the only antidote to evil, to that antagonism toward God, destructive desire toward others, and the degrading attitudes and behavior in ourselves. Evil can only be escaped. We can be delivered from evil only through the work of Christ. And the amazing thing is that there are testimonies that we can't go into tonight. But you've all heard them, you know, famous ones from history, but in your own experience. I know you've heard them in churches and so forth. People who would tell you they were the most wicked and you knew the things they did not think, the things we did and things we thought and so forth. Wicked people can be changed by the gospel. There isn't any other power in the world like that that can turn someone around from individual who doesn't care for anybody else, who's leads the most degrading life and is so hateful toward God. And the gospel can Change that. Galatians 1:4 tells us that we can be delivered from this present evil world through the work of Christ. But now how Many evil men, do you know, that will want to appear evil, that is to just openly display their wickedness and say, yes, I am wicked, I am unrighteous, I am terrible. I mean, apart from saying that in a snide or funny way, how many people want others to think of them as evil? Most evil men learn to put on a better face than what their true character is. And so there is truly an artificial fruit, genuinely artificial fruit of goodness. And that's what evil men do so that others won't think of them as evil. So what we call hypocrisy, play acting, putting on a mask. We mustn't think that we have become good people when all we have attained is the level of hypocrisy. That is hiding from others the true character of our heart and the character of our deeds and our words and so forth. Let me give you some examples of this kind of hypocrisy that is artificially good. Look at Jeremiah 3:10, 11. Jeremiah 3, 10, 11. And yet for all this, for treacherous sister Judah hath not returned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith Jehovah. And Jehovah said unto me, backsliding Israel hath shewed herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. Man, what a dreadful indictment Israel was. The liberal end of the Jewish division of the kingdom. Israel broke God's law, was defined against God's promise, had taken things into its own hands, was idolatrous. Jehovah says, backsliding Israel shows herself more righteous than treacherous Judah. And why is that? What leads to that assessment? Verse 10 tells you Judah did not return to God with their whole heart, but faintedly. That is hypocritically. They went through the motion, but their heart wasn't in it. And for that reason God considers Israel more righteous than Judah. Hypocrisy is not acceptable to God. Ananias and Sapphira were guilty of hypocrisy. They wanted people to think a certain way about them. They put an outward front there. And how did God respond to that? God said, oh, now children will be children. You really shouldn't do that. It's not a good idea. He struck them dead. We need to take seriously when our goodness is only of the outward variety. That's for the sake of pleasing men rather than from the heart pleasing God. Who in the Bible is the best example of hypocrisy, though? What do we think of? Well, I wasn't thinking of a particular individual, but what group of men? The Pharisees. In Matthew 23, Jesus goes line by line after them and he calls them hypocrites over and over again. Hypocrites, he says. Hypocrites. The Pharisees did a good job of trumpeting their righteousness before men. What Jesus says, you know, they don't just go do a good thing, but they blow the trumpet. So everybody will look and say, see, here's what I'm doing. They say their prayers now rather than, you know, being quiet in their bedroom in the morning having their devotion. They go out on the street corner and they pray their prayers and, you know, so forth so that people will see how religious they are. And they fast and let everybody know that, you know, so they have the gaunt face and everything outward display without any true goodness inside. They are hypocrites. Well, what is it then? To be good? That is one aspect of the fruit of the spirit. If we aren't going to be like the Judases of this world and the Amaleks, we're not going to be hypocrites like the Pharisees. We need to be truly good. Before I tell you, I think what the Bible means by man's goodness, let's remember that when the rich young ruler came to Jesus and said, good teacher, Jesus said, why do you call me good? There's none good but God. Now, Jesus is God, and so he should be called good. But Jesus reminds us of this theological lesson. In the absolute and unqualified sense, only God is good. Only God is good. We do not match up to the goodness of God. So all of our discussion of human goodness, I hope, will not let us forget the context in which we say these things. We are good in a relative sense, in a subordinate sense. God alone is truly good. But when we are good in a human sense, what does that mean? It means either we are faultless, we are good in the sense that there's nothing to be laid against our record. We are faultless. A good example, part of the pun there. A helpful example of such faultless goodness would be Daniel. You know, when the political intrigue in Darius court led to people plotting against Daniel, they wanted to bring him down and they couldn't find anything. He was faultless. And so they had to make up a new law that he would be breaking because they knew it was religious piety. Just think about that. That alone ought to teach you something. Tonight, be a Daniel. Be in a situation where if people wanted to bring accusation against you, they'd have to go after your religious power piety and make a law against it because they can't find fault with anything else in you. Pretty good. The second kind of goodness that the Bible refers to in the human sense is being good in the outgoing way, being generous and benevolent toward others. Luke 6:35. Jesus says, but love your enemies and do good to them, and lend never despairing, and your reward shall be great, and you shall be servants of the Most High, for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil. Being good means loving your enemies, doing things for them that they don't deserve. Are you a good person? Well, I mean, the more I study the fruit of the Spirit, I mean, it really leads me to repentance. I know I'm not a good person. I'm not good to my enemies. I don't love them, I don't pray for them, not nearly enough. And if they were to come and want to borrow from me, I'd say take a hike. But that is what I should do. Now, who's the example of goodness? God is. Does God give good things to his enemies? Let's take as an example Acts 14, verse 17. Acts 14:17. Here Paul is at Lystra, and the crowds have wanted to deify him and Barnabas, and he wouldn't have anything to do with it. He talks to them about the living God who created the heaven and the earth. And then verse 17 says, and yet he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with food and gladness. Isn't that a remarkable verse? Here's what God does to those who are idolatrous pagans. His enemies he gives from heaven, rain, fruitful seasons. He not only gives them food to eat, but fills their hearts with gladness. This may be a good time of year for us to make mention of this feature of God's character, because I know it often can be a matter of irritation or something that we criticize in our culture. There are a lot of people who around Christmas time seem to have happy hearts, yet they have no reason to be happy. But they seem to take just a little bit of joy and that people slow down and at least talk about peace and being outgoing. They remember family values, they like to give things to their children, and it brings a smile to their face. You know, it's God's common grace to allow pagans those moments of happiness. I know why it bothers us, because they're not remembering what many people want Christmas to be, a remembrance of the advent of Jesus Christ. But whether it's at Christmas or other times of year when you see unbelievers have those, remember how kind and good God is to man. He says, you should be good too. You should do good to those who are your enemies. And one more thing about goodness. It does appear that faithfulness will have to wait till another study. I have done it again over prepared, but there's a lot of good stuff on faithfulness. So you come back to the next lesson, please. How do we cultivate goodness? Well, obviously thinking about who God is, reflecting on the gospel, praying for the power of God's spirit in our hearts. There's one way in which the Bible tells us to cultivate goodness, though, that I don't think we often think of or desire, at least at first. And that's found in Romans 15:14. Let's end by turning then to Romans 15:14. Paul says, and I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that you yourselves are full of goodness. Now listen how he defines that. Filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another. How do we develop goodness? By admonishing one another. Of course we have to be full of knowledge as well to know God, his character, and so forth. But we help each other to be good people by admonishing each other. Do you like it when people come and admonish you, exhort you, remind you that you need to change your ways? Or here would be a better attitude to have, or a better way of putting things or doing things. Not ordinarily, but yet. Though we don't like people to point out, even in a loving way, how we should improve our Christian walk, we will say immediately, I know I need help. I'll say, I know that I'm a weak Christian. I know that I don't do everything God wants me to do, and I really want to strive after that. And then God says, okay, here's one of the ways I'll help you do that. I'll give you Christian brothers and sisters who will admonish you, say, oh, I don't want them to come. And you know, you're telling me what's right, what's wrong with my life and telling me what to do. We kind of have this dialectical tension, don't we? And that we admit that we need help, but then we don't really want to take the help. But if we would be filled with goodness. Paul reminds us in Romans 15 that we are able to admonish each other, and that's how that happens. We don't bear grudges against each other. But we go to one another when we see that there's something wrong, there's some weakness or failing in our lives and we try to build each other up. And sometimes that comes from faithful or the wounds of a friend. We aren't faithfulness, but when we are friends to each other, we remind each other. You need to be careful. You tend to lose your temper in situations like this. So pray about them. Rather than losing your temper because someone reminded you you lose your temper, you need to say, well, thank you. I hope I can be a better, a good person because I have you here admonishing me, coaching me and helping me along. We've only talked about kindness and goodness, but have I said anything that you'd like to comment on or ask questions about? Okay, without looking at your notes, if you've been paying attention, how will you cultivate greater kindness and goodness? What do you need to pray for if you would be a kinder person? Ah, humility and a tender heart. And then what is the kind of surprising way in which we cultivate goodness among ourselves? Through admonition? Exactly. The willingness to be friends and to pull each other along and to exhort each other other to a better lifestyle. And who above all is the model of kindness and goodness? Who is absolutely good and above all, kind? Well, that's the easy one, obviously. God and his graciousness toward us. Next time we come together, Lord willing, we'll take up the trait of faithfulness. This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute. Duplication, sharing and distribution is encouraged. For more information about the life and Ministry of Dr. Greg L. Bonson, visit our website, bonsoninstitute.com where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.