Live While You Live(19June2011)

2 Peter M8 11 06 19
Speaker Ken Shigematsu, with Tetsuro Shigematsu
Title: Live While You Live
Text: 2 Peter 3:10-14; Revelation 20:11-12
BIG IDEA: We worship God by living in such a way that prompts his applause.
If you follow sports, you know that you at some point in a game a goal, a save, even a hit can change the flow of the game – and even the flow of a whole series.
So it is in our lives.
From time to time, we have we have game-changing moments.
If you have been part of our community for a while, you likely aware of what was the most important game-changer in my life.
I was a teenager. I had invited my friend Charlie, the middle linebacker on the school football team and one of the most popular kids at school, to go to Kmart (a smaller version of Wal-Mart) with me. I was going to show him how easy it was to shoplift. I had a Canucks jacket with holes in the inside liner of the pockets, so I could steal things and hide them between the outer shell and the inner liner of my jacket (show how I did this). We walked over to the sporting goods section and I slid a baseball batting glove into my pocket, I lifted a small rubber ball, and started stealing things that I didn't need, like ear rings, just to show off.
We walked out of the store together, someone walked up behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I am a store detective, come with me.” My friend Charlie looked at me and said, "I gotta go.”
The store detective takes me to a small back room, and says I don't know if I should call the police or your parents… He ends up calling just my parents and telling them what happened. That night I remember sitting in my room Asian style (kneeling like this) with my parents. They told me how I had brought shame on them and our whole family. My mom was crying and my dad struck me a couple times (it was good for me, I deserved it).
I remember later that night standing at the top of the stairs in our house and thinking to myself-- my life must change – I don't want to ever do anything that will bring that much pain to my parents. About a year later, my dad who had just been introduced to Jesus Christ took me to a Christian youth conference here in Vancouver. On the last day of the conference, the speaker explained that because Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, we could have a new beginning, a clean slate with God. The speaker invited us to receive the gift of a new life with God, by offering our lives to God. I hesitated because I knew that doing this would likely compromise my social life. But I did it.
And as I look back across my life, I see the biggest game changer for me was being caught shoplifting, and my dad and mom disciplining me and opening me to the way of God.
Now years later, as an adult (and I don't just say this because it's Father's Day), but one of the things that motivates me most to tend not screw-up (or F up) my life is the desire not to bring pain to my dad (or mom).
For me, it's not a negative thing. It's not like I am afraid that my dad will reject me or kill me or hire someone to kill me. It's just that I have such a healthy respect for him and that I don't want to do something that would bring him a lot of pain or disappointment.
I'm really grateful for my dad and part of the motivation for my life stems from a desire – I think it's a healthy desire – to honor him.
As a community we've been in a series in 2 Peter, Chapter 1.
Peter says in Chapter 1 out of gratitude for God's grace in your life, out of gratitude for being adopted into the family that is God, the family of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as Lee put it, out of gratitude for being enveloped in God's love, and receiving a new heart, we need to make every effort to progress in our friendship with God…
So at the beginning of the letter Peter says out of gratitude for the love that your perfect Father in heaven is shown you, make every effort to progress in your journey with him.
But at end of the 2 Peter he says our motivation to develop our life with God also comes from our anticipation of the final Day of Judgment.
At the end of 2 Peter, we read about a judgment that we will all experience at the end of time. Peter writes in Chapter 3, vss. 10-11:
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives
One of the most respected commentators on the book of 2 Peter, Richard Bauckman, points out that while the language of fire and the earth melting are dramatic and are likely metaphors, Peter’s emphasis here is not on the precise details of what will physically happen to the earth at the end of time, but rather how on a coming day of judgment everything will be revealed and laid bare and where the works of human beings will be made known.
I recently heard a new metaphor for this judgment day from a source an unexpected source—my younger brother.
One of the liabilities of being the sibling of a pastor is that you might get asked to speak on faith. My brother who is a filmmaker spoke on art and faith recently at a City in Focus breakfast at the Vancouver Club:
TETSURO:
I wonder if any of you are familiar with Chick Tracts. Those irresistible miniature comic books that Christians hand out to strangers in order to spread the Word.
(Show powerpoint).


When I was a young boy, we had these in our home.
My favorite Chick Tract of all time: This Was Your Life. The premise of this particular tract is from a verse in Revelation 20:12: “And the dead were judged according to their works.”
In this little comic book this verse was dramatized in a vast celestial movie theatre where God, all the angels, and every person who ever lived gathered to watch the Movie Of Your Life.

As someone who has always been interested in cinema, this has always been an intriguing premise. It made me wonder; what format of film would my life demand?

• Is my life such an epic adventure that it would take a 6-storey Imax screen to capture all the action?

• Or, am I leading a life of such quiet desperation that a stationary black and white security camera would suffice to document the narrow scope of my existence?

Throughout my life, especially when I’m about to take yet another major risk, I’ve always found, that the experience of my reality feels split down the middle. I have the sense, that not only am I existing here and now, but that another half of me is existing within the realm of eternity.

Because once you begin to see your life from the perspective of eternity, and if you knew
that in the end, we all make it safely to the other side, if you knew that’s there’s a velvet seat, and a tub of popcorn with your name on it; wouldn’t that impact the way you wanna live your life? For me, it makes me want to live my life according to whatever makes that numinous audience out there stand up and cheer.
Sometimes it means, standing up against a bully in public, sometimes it means doing the right thing. But almost always it means not taking the safe route, taking a risk.
KEN:
The Bible teaches that the end of time, we will give an account for how we have lived.
God is our Father and because of that, and you’ll know this from deep experience if you are a parent, our lives can bring him either pleasure or pain.
Part of the way we honor God is by living before him in such a way that brings him pleasure and makes him want to stand up and applaud.
Let me clarify. Our motive should not be fear or duty as if we were relating to an angry, impossible-to-please dad. Our motive instead should be love, respect, and gratitude. If you had a good father (or mother), as I did, or if you had a good teacher or a good coach or (or if you can just imagine this if you never had this experience), out of a healthy respect and gratitude you wanted to please your dad (or mother) or your teacher or your coach. So it is with God, our desire to please God and have him stand up and applaud in the stands of our life is motivated out of a healthy sense of respect, and gratitude for all that he is done for us.
Part of the way that we please God is by truly living while we live. We don’t tend to think of sin this way, but to not truly live while we live is a great sin.
In our society, in a way that probably wasn’t as true in Peter’s first century world, we have the temptation to not live our own lives, but to vicariously or imaginatively live through the life of someone else as we watch them live their life. God wants us to move from being a spectator in life, if that has been our posture, to being an actor in life.
I was recently talking to my younger brother Tetsuro at his place.
He was telling me that when our family was living in Montreal, our sister Setsu took him to a play put on by the National Theatre School in Montréal.
He was so struck by the magic of that theatrical evening, he realized it wouldn't be enough to continue sitting in the audience. No, he would have to step on stage and walk beneath that proscenium arch and join his new family. He became an actor.

KEN: “Can you tell us is there a difference between watching the play and being in the play? What is the difference?”
Tetsuro from the audience with a wireless mic (Ken Nixon please make sure he has one) banter back and forth):
When you are on stage suddenly your time horizon tanks down to just a couple of seconds. There is no past or future, there is only the present. It is a heightened state of awareness, and you have no choice but being mindful of everything that is going on. It is a state of quiet exhilaration.
KEN:
The point is not to encourage all of us who are theatre-goers or movie-lovers to become actors, but this is really a metaphor to encourage us to become actors in the play of our lives, not just spectators.
Isn’t it true that we live in a time where so many people seem content being a spectator of some kind or another, rather than an actor in the play of their lives? The television shows The Bachelor

and


The Bachelorette (powerpoint)



have been wildly popular for nearly a decade now. There is a big difference in being entertained by someone else’s romance, someone else’s heartbreak, watching love unfold for two other people, and experiencing it for yourself. The show Survivor (Powerpoint)

has been hugely popular, but there is a big difference between watching someone else experience an adventure and tasting it yourself from direct experience. (Yes, some of you are saying, “I’d rather watch someone else being voted off the island than experience being voted off myself.”) There are risks to being a participant, rather than a spectator.
As we have just witnessed through the Stanley Cup finals, almost everyone in our city has been riding this hockey wave. The banners in Rogers Arena have proclaimed, “This is what we live for!” (Powerpoint).


I can understand those words coming from an actual player like Ryan Kesler, Henrik Sedin, or Roberto Luongo because they are playing the game with great dedication, skill and effort (playing goalie in the NHL must one of the most challenging roles in sport).
Players who believe in God are seeking to play that game as a way to honour their Maker. But, if we are not actually playing that game, the slogan “This is what we live for!” is not the best slogan for us because it suggests that we are living through someone else’s story, when God wants us to live our own story. (There is nothing wrong with being a fan. I have been a fan of the Vancouver Canucks since I was a boy. I remember going to some games at Pacific Coliseum and during the pre-game warm up going down to the blue line, standing on the boards, and stretching over the glass looking (when the glass was lower) and shouting out to people like Don, Harold, or Caesar, “Can I get your autograph?” and they would actually come and sign our programs.)
But if we live for what our sports team does, or live for what some reality TV show character does, or even for what a pastor or some well known spiritual figure does – we will fail in some way to live our own lives. Part of the way that we live our lives in a way that honours God and and causes him to stand in the stands of our lives and applaud is by truly living the life that God has given us.
Peter here is a great example of how to live. Peter was one of Jesus’ closest students and disciples. One night at about 2:00 am, Peter was on a boat. He was a fisherman. He was with some of the disciples when a furious storm broke out on the lake.
They could hear the howling of the wind and feel it whipping in their faces. The waves looked taller than they were. They looked out on the water and saw what appeared to be a ghost gliding on the water. These rugged fishermen are terrified. The one gliding on the water looks at them and says, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
They wondered, “Could that be the LORD?” Peter asks, “LORD, if it is you, tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” says Jesus. And Peter climbs out of the boat and begins to walk on the water and move toward Jesus. He looks at Jesus and for the first time in his life Peter, who has obviously never water-skied or barefoot-skied in his life, feels the sensation of the water under the soles of his feet. Part of him is deathly afraid, but another part is excited. He senses that something or someone is holding him up. And then Peter turns his head and focuses on the wind and the waves, and he thinks, “What am I doing? This is impossible! Am I crazy!” And he begins to experience all kinds of doubt and anxiety. He literally feels himself sinking into the cold water... Jesus comes to him and grabs him by the arm and pulls him up. I imagine Jesus’ face smiling and laughing.
We can look at Peter and say he was a failure. He took his eyes off Jesus. He began to doubt. But that picture of Peter walking on the water for a brief moment is a great picture of what it means to live while we live. It makes me want to stand in the movie theatre of Peter’s life and applaud.
It would have been much safer if Peter had simply remained a boat-potato and watched Jesus walk on the water himself from the side of the boat.
But he got out of the boat and began to walk on the water. And for a short time in his life he walked on water--did something that could only be explained by God.
I don’t know about you, but I want to live the kind of life where from time to time I walk on water—that is, where I do something that can only be explained by God’s presence in my life.
For that to happen I can’t simply be a boat-potato. I can’t be a spectator of someone else’s journey. As John Ortberg says, “If ever I hope to walk on water, I need to get out of the boat.”
So what does it mean for you to get out of the boat and walk on water… to live while you live... so that you God stands up and applauds?
Pause:
Let me share some ways in which I feel led to step out of the boat… and live while I live:
Ever since we became followers of Christ, Sakiko and I have been committed to giving financially to the work of God—to tithe, give the first tenth (plus). We now feel called to practice what has been described as proportionate giving, where we basically want to cap our life style. As some more resources come our way (and as pastor it’s highly unlikely that I am going to be financially rich in North American standards. I don’t play Lotto 649 either.), we will give those extra resources away to God and others.
Here’s another way we feel called to step out of the boat.
It looks like we are going to be able to do something next month that we have never done before. When I read the passage in the gospel of Luke chapter 14 where Jesus says when you have people to your home, don’t invite just your family and your friends who will repay you, but also invite the disabled, the poor, those who can’t advantage you in any way. I felt that has been a lack in my own life. I lead a church which is known for its justice and compassion, but I don’t really have friends in my life, acquaintances, but not really friends that are truly destitute and poor. Next month, through friendships we have with Servants Vancouver, we have the opportunity to host some homeless people in our home for dinner. What a privilege that will be.
I also feel called in a fresh way to be open to sharing about the difference Christ has made in my own life with others as opportunities naturally come in my life.
As some of you may know, a couple months ago I tore the ligaments in my left ankle while running. I am hoping to participate in a triathlon next month so I've been getting some laser therapy.
I asked my laser therapist Dan how he became a laser therapist. He described how as a teenager he had been a big partier and drinker and how he ended up dropping out of school… After a few years, he realized that his life was headed in the wrong direction. He began exercising and experienced his exercise as a form of meditation. He ended up going back to school and became a kinesiologist.
I was interested in this story and reflected on how I had had a kind of conversion experience myself. I related the story of my shoplifting, being caught, dad’s discipline and how he took me to a Christian conference where I was exposed to a new path with God...
I love to hear the stories of others, and as the opportunity presents itself I love to share the difference that God has made in my own life.
(For 9:30 a.m. and maybe 10:30 a.m. only: Julie Joe, a mother of a couple of youth here at Tenth, in her Practicing the Presence article last Sunday wrote about how a dad in the youth group had shared with the other parents how he had come home exhausted from work and really just wanted to chill out and watch the Canucks, but his teenager boy came to him out of the blue and asked him to talk. Torn, he chose to spend time with his son. They talked late into the night for the first time in ages. That father chose to not be a boat potato, but to be a player in his son’s story and in his own.)
Do you sense God calling to you to step out of the boat and live into something new?

When I was a teenager, one of the positions that I played on the football team was wide receiver. Around that time, and I don’t remember all the details of this story, but I remember hearing the story about a high school player who was a also receiver maybe second or third string, but definitely not a starter. One day before a game he asked his coach, “I I am not a starter. Other players have more talent than I do, but would you please just let me start today?” The coach, seeing the passion and the earnestness and the desire, figured, “Well, even though Steve is not my most talented guy, he looks like he really wants to play today and maybe that passion will spill over and inspire my other players to play their best.” But in the first few plays of the game, Steve threw some great blocks. He ran his passes with such precision he got open. He caught every ball that was thrown in his direction. The coach kept him in for the whole game. I don’t remember; whether the team won or lost, but he became what you call an impact player. He made a difference in the game.
After the game, the coach said, “Steve, you played a great game. What happened to you? I have never seen you play like that. If you played like that all the time, you could be a starter. You could be a star.” And Steve said, “My dad has always been my biggest fan, but today was the first time he actually saw me play.” The coach was puzzled. “How come he has never seen you play?” Steve said, “… my dad was blind and last week he died. So today was the first day he was able to see me play. Today I was playing for him.”
You live your life before God who is your biggest fan, who loves you more than you can imagine.
As with Peter, with the gift of God’s love and kindness and in light of the day of judgment, make every effort to climb over the side of the boat and walk on water. Get off the bench and on to the field. Get out of the theatre seat and into the play.
Live your life while you live…
Do it for your Father who loves you and sees you.

A New Kind of Kindness(05June2011)

2 Peter 1 M6 11 06 05
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: A New Kind of Kindness
Text: 2 Peter 1:1-8
BIG IDEA: By receiving the kindness of Jesus Christ we will see others as brothers and sisters and show kindness to them.
In the summer of 1989 I was traveling through Romania when it was still behind the Iron Curtain—when it was still under the iron-fisted rule of Nicolae Ceausescu. I was part of a covert mission to teach the Bible and smuggle medicine. I remember how we had been driving for hours through the winding roads of the countryside, occasionally passing by small villages, and how on a country road in the middle of nowhere we ran out gas.
We didn’t know what we would do. There was a small grey shop on the side of the road. So, I walked over and approached a young man who has working there and said (gestured) can you come with me. We walked to our car and I said, “We’ve run out of gas.” (I pointed to the gas tank and gestured that it was empty.) He said, “Wait” (we had nowhere to go). But, he came back 15-20 minutes later, with a container of gas (I think he was a kind of mechanic or at least worked on cars) and he had taken apart one of his cars to give us some of his gas.
We were so grateful, we offered him money, but he refused it.
He said in broken English, “We must be kind to each other.”
He was a young man who by our standards was very poor, a complete stranger to us but showed kindness to us – believing that we must be kind to one another.
In our world, we tend to define greatness as: having a certain kind of appearance, of being able to move really fast across ice and slide a black circular piece of rubber into a net, or being able to make a great film or book, or having the ability to make lot of money.
But, in God’s eyes, true greatness is showing kindness.
Our world doesn’t really regard kindness as that important—but God does.
God pays King David the highest compliment by saying, “David is a man after my heart” (1 Samuel 13:13-14). Part of the reason he says this is because David, though a man of real power and charisma, was also a man of great kindness.
When David became King of Israel, it was at a time when it was customary and strategic for new kings to kill all of the family members of the previous dynasty—so as to eliminate the possibility of any member from the previous royal family from making a claim to the throne. But, David, out of gratitude for the way God showed kindness to him through his friend Jonathan, went to the house of the former King Saul, who was the father of his friend Jonathan, and asked a servant named Ziba, “Is there anyone in the house of Saul left to whom I can show kindness?” (2 Samuel 9:1)
The servant in Saul’s household answered: "There is still a son of Jonathan: Mephibosheth, but he is lame in both feet."
David has Mephibosheth brought out to him and Mephibosheth was cowering in fear certain that King David would have him executed. Instead David says, “You will always eat at my table”—which in his culture it was a way of saying, “I want you to be part of my family.” “Because God showed kindness to me through your father Jonathan, I will show kindness to you.”
David was a man with a heart after God, in part, because he was kind. And he was kind because when David was a nobody, when he was just a lowly shepherd in a small town then unknown called Bethlehem, God had shown kindness to him.
Kindness is one of the fruits of God’s character. According to Galatians 5, Paul says the fruit of the Holy Spirit, or the fruit of God’s character, is (among other things) kindness. Peter in our text today says add to your faith, kindness or mutual affection.
If you have your Bible, please turn to 2 Peter 1:1-8:
1 Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours:
2 Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In vss. 1-4, Peter says because of the grace, the sheer kindness of God, we can participate in the divine nature, that is, we can become part of the family that is God. We can join circle of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and be enveloped in his love and experience the gift of a new heart—and as that happens one the things we do to respond is add the quality of kindness to our lives (vs. 7).
It’s a natural response to God’s gift.
St. Augustine defined sin as Incurvatus in se – turned in on oneself.
This is a theological phrase which describes sin as a life lived "inwardly" for self, rather than "outwardly" for God and others.
Experiencing the love of God can help us straighten our soul so that instead of us living only for ourselves we live for God and others (show this through a gesture).
Having received the gift of the love of God, Peter says now respond to this by adding brotherly or sisterly kindness, or as the TNIV renders it, “mutual affection.”
The Greek word that Peter is using here is philadelphia—which, as you may know, means “love of brother” or “love of sister.” When I was a boy, I remember how the hockey commentators called Philadelphia’s hockey team the “Broad Street Bullies” because they were tough and mean. They commented that it was ironic the Philadelphia Flyers were such bullies because they played for the city whose name means “brotherly love,” but there wasn’t much love coming from these brothers.
Peter, in verse 7, says, “Add to your faith brotherly or sisterly love (mutual affection).”
Now agape love (which Jade will elaborate more on next week) is not a completely different kind of love from philadelphia. Agape love has less emphasis on our emotions, and more on our will, but philadelphia suggests an affectionate love among brothers and sisters who follow Christ.
Family in biblical times was defined much more broadly than the way we define family today. For most of us here, when we think of family we think of the nuclear family—mom, dad, son, daughter. (As theologian Rodney Clapp points out, our idea of the nuclear family streams down to us primarily from a model of the 19th century European bourgeoisie family. The average household today in North America is between 2 and 3 people, but the average Hebrew household was often between 50 and 100 people and included non-blood relatives)
Jesus called people beyond his nuclear family--his family. He said anyone who does the will of God is his “brother, sister, mother.” (Matthew 12:50).
So, the word philadelphia means—brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, moms, dads – but it refers to something that is broader than just our nuclear, biological family – it refers to our brothers and sisters – may be of different races, social, and economic backgrounds who have a common Father in God.
In the first centuries the love that Christ’s followers had for one another was so powerful that the Roman world took note.
Lucian of Samosata, a writer in the second century, was complaining about how unbelievably openhanded and generous the Christians are to everyone. He wrote: “The earnestness with which the people of this religion help one another in their needs is simply astonishing. They spare themselves nothing for this end. Their first lawmaker put it into their heads that they were all brothers [and sisters].”
In the ancient world, when you walk past garbage dumps you probably find on those garbage heaps newborn babies left out to die. The sewers of ancient Antioch were clogged with one-day-old discarded baby girls. We have letters from the ancient world, where people say, “If it's a boy keep the baby, if it's a girl discard the baby.” And those babies would be consumed by dogs and crows. In some cases owners of slave houses would come and take the babies to raise so they could sell them as slaves; or people who ran brothels would come and take the babies to raise them to become sex slaves. But then along came the Christians who rescued the babies and raised them as their own because they knew that these babies were made in the image of God and had a common Father.
In the second and third centuries two great plagues swept the Roman Empire. People fled in the thousands from cities to try to find safety in the countryside. They often abandoned sick relatives on the way. If a family member seemed too sick, they would just throw them off to the side of the road.
One group that was different was Christians. Some of the Christians would stay behind to care for these sick people, and often all that was needed was just a little bit of care and they would come through.
The Church Father Tertullian reported that the Romans would exclaim about the Christians “see how they love one another!”
When early Christians did not have enough food for the hungry people at their door, the entire community would fast until everyone could share a meal together. The world had never seen this kind of love before. It is estimated that in the year 250 A.D. in Rome under Pope Cornelius, 10,000 Christians fasting 100 days a year may have provided a million meals to the poor.
We might say, “Those people were incredible.”
In one sense they were. In another sense they were ordinary people like you and me, who were touched by an extraordinary God, and saw people as brothers and sisters and treated them with kindness.
You don’t need to be a “super saint” or a fully matured person to show kindness.
When my wife was a ___ year old girl she won a writing contest in Japan and the prize was the opportunity to meet Mother Teresa. Though she was just a girl she remembers vividly how Mother Teresa told a story of visiting a very poor town in India and a 5 year old boy coming out stretching out a fist to her and saying “This is for the poor children.” And he opened his fist and out poured a small handful of sugar. Later his mother said to Mother Teresa, “When my son heard you were coming to town, he said I want to give sugar to her for the children.” (They were so poor that they didn’t have any candy—but each day the mother let her son lick his finger and dip in the sugar and have a finger of sugar as a treat. He told his mom to take the sugar he would have eaten for 5 and give it to Mother Teresa.)
You don’t need to be this seasoned, mature person to show kindness.
You just need to have experienced some kindness from God to show it, or “pay it forward.”
And you start to see your fellow human beings as made in the image of God—they are your brothers and sisters—and show them kindness.
When we have been shown the kindness of God as Peter says, we can “pay it forward.”
As have seen in this series our love and kindness for others is rooted in God’s love for us. It is a response to grace. One of Peter’s good friends the apostle John writes:
“We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
In this series, we've seen how in response to the sheer kindness of God, his sheer kindness of opening his arms to us and inviting us to enter into the family that is God, that is, the circle of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and to receive the gift of being included in the love of God, we are to then respond by adding certain things to that gift. One of those additions, according to Peter, is kindness.
As was true of David, we show kindness to others because God has shown kindness to us.
And in some cases that kindness might be dramatic like rescuing babies, or advocating on behalf of a sex trade worker, or standing beside a person who is very sick.
It might be as simple as offering someone a smile, showing hospitality opening our home or heart to someone. It might mean that you talk to someone after service that you don't know, or invite someone to do something with you – I don't necessarily mean it has to be out on a “date” just invite someone to do something with you.
(note to Penny—this will seem like a tangent--but I’ve been asked recently by a few different people to address this—let me know if you have some feed-forward here):
(I did my undergraduate studies at a private school just outside of Chicago--I have a feeling this story will make into an all church camp skit!--at a place in the Midwest, and a time when young people still dated. I remember how during my first semester my RA named Rob--the student head of the dorm-- said, “Ken, I think you're experience here will be enhanced if you take the time to date.” I thought about it. I thought about how in my high school students really didn't date. We hung out in groups and occasionally students paired up as couple. I hadn't dated in high school; I just hung out with friends. But, I took Rob's advice, and I decided I would not let my natural shyness and very real fear of rejection hold me back, and I started asking girls out. They weren't romantically charged dates, I didn't spend a lot of money… it was more hanging out, going somewhere I want to go anyway, but just with a girl. Sometimes I'd have two dates on a weekend, sometimes one--often none. And occasionally it could be a little awkward, because I was in the habit of asking girls out that I didn't really know. I remember a couple of cases where I asked girls out and they responded, "Uh, I’ll get back to you.” And then a few days later after classes she would say “can I talk to you for second” and she’d pause and say, “Uh, I have a boyfriend… but I'm glad you asked me out. It feels really good to be asked out.” I never had a serious girlfriend as an undergraduate, but going out with girls from time to time was one of the best things about my student experience – I should've studied a little bit more. Now, I know that Vancouver is not a dating culture, but if you're like me and are naturally shy and are afraid of rejection why not overcome that and invite people out for coffee, or go for a run, whatever it is you like to do – and even if the person can’t make it, it’s nice to asked out when you ask someone without any pressure.)
So kindness could be advocating on behalf of a woman or a child who is vulnerable to the sex trade, sitting down and having a meal with the homeless person, but it could also being gracious to a hotel maid as Ken Pierce said last Sunday, inviting someone out to do something with you with no pressure. It could be showing kindness to a member of your family.
At this time, I will ask Penny Crosby, who’s been an active member of our community here at Tenth as a Bible study teacher and as someone who’s opened her home many times to the Tenth Church board and staff and others in our community, to come and share part of her journey.
PENNY’S testimony:
Growing up my Mom has always been my greatest fan. She totally adores me and while I don’t think she is blind to my failures they just don’t matter – maybe they make me even more lovable to her. I realized one day a few years ago that our conversations were always about me. How was I doing? It was Mom asking me questions, taking an interest in me and my kids, telling me I looked good, supporting, encouraging, and delighting in me.
Well Mom is now 87 years old and has Alzheimer’s leaving her disorientated from loss of memory and confusion. She went through a very challenging stage where she seemed to have a hard time even thinking a nice thought let alone saying one. It was a big blow to me. The kid who could do no wrong became the adult who did EVERYTHING wrong. Mom was threatened by me, angry at me and just plain old didn’t like me. It was at this point that I was really called by God to step up to the plate with Mom. It is pretty easy to love a person who is loving to us but what about someone antagonist? It was a very painful transition for me…
As I think on this I realize that this was just another way Mom and I were being asked to change roles. So the Mom I grew up with is my role model in loving her now. I think of all the teenage years where I rolled my eyes and looked with antagonism at Mom. The times I was so consumed with myself and just accepted that she was there for me that I did not support her personally. Now the tables have turned. It is my turn to notice that mom looks beautiful – and she does! It is my turn to ask her about her day, to be interested in what she is interested in, to draw her out… Yes, even to take care of her physically. Recently Mom and Dad moved into the apartment building that Wayman and I live in so that we can be close. So that I can cover for Dad and see her out of bed in the morning and give her her medications. To make her breakfast while she showers and to sit and engage her about her day. I take her to doctors appointments, help with her personal care and care for their home. I am so blessed to have had such good training in this from the one who now needs it.
This loving stuff in the Bible is not always easy or pretty! Sometimes I get really frustrated when she tells me the same thing for the 20th time. I don’t always understand why she can’t make her own cup of tea. I get irritated when I want her to move faster. I am impatient and can easily be mean. There are times when I have to do what the passage here tells me – to make every EFFORT and it is great effort – to be kind, to be gracious, to be patient. My Dad is the most amazing role model for me. I refer to my Dad as the grace tap. The more challenging my Mom’s situation becomes the higher the grace tap gets turned on. These days he seems to gush out grace to mom.
One of the biggest blessings through this is the indescribable joy that comes from loving another. It is not the kind of delight that comes from “I help you so then you help me” and there is an “evenness” to the give and take. It is a kind of joy that fills you just I think because you are doing the thing that God has told us to do. In the movie Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell says, “I feel God’s pleasure when I run” – I feel God’s pleasure when I love and care for my Mom. I think that this is the part of second Peter that we have been talking about that God has given us a new nature, it is the God part. Sure I am required to make every effort to care for another but I am blown away sometimes as I recognize the joint effort of God and I working together.
The more firmly I am grounded in the Lord’s great love for me, the more I am connected to Him as my source, the more able I am to love unconditionally, to not get caught up in the emotions and ups and downs of the other and to be drawn into their moods, frustrations and trials. As I rest in the Fathers love for me I am free to give and to care without worry for myself… that is a lovely place to be!





Thomas Merton once said the great Saints were not those who love much, but those who knew they were loved much by God.
Do you know that you are loved much by God? Have you received this grace of God? If so, extend that grace to others through acts of kindness.