Men are to see our good works in evangelism and discipleship and service. Dr. Tony Evans says God expects His people to be ambassadors of kindness, but that's more than just being a nice person.
Nice can be your personality. Kindness is your action. He doesn't just want you to be nice.
He wants you to be kind. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. There's a group of people on social media known as influencers, but every one of us is called by God to impact our culture with kindness, demonstrating His compassion and love. Let's listen in as Dr. Evans presents this timeless biblical teaching. We are having to deal today with a pandemic of meanness that is creating an atmosphere of vitriol, an atmosphere of hatred, dishonor, disrespect that is becoming normalized in our culture.
And so this meanness, this pandemic of evil, is tied to a grave sin in the Bible of selfishness. I want to do it my way. I know none of us is perfect, and there are going to be days when your game is not fully on. But I'm talking about how you roll. I'm talking about how you are known.
I'm talking about how you present yourself. And when people talk about you or me or us collectively as a people of God, can they say at this place or when they are around you, they sense the heart of God, the love of God, and what I'm calling the kindness of God. Psalm 117 verse 2 says that God's kindness is great.
Psalm 119 verse 76, His kindness brings you comfort and His mercies are new every day. It is in kindness that we are not destroyed, Scripture says, given the holiness of God. And so He expects His people to be ambassadors of kindness. He doesn't just want you to be nice.
He wants you to be kind. Nice can be your persona. Nice can be your personality. Kindness is your action. You can be nice just cuz you nice. That doesn't mean you exercise kindness. Kindness is what you do with your niceness. Because if you just nice to yourself, you may not be kind to others. Kindness is niceness on public display.
People ought to know how nice you are for how kind you talk, walk, and act. And so this should be the the mindset. We are to be penetrating the culture with a different atmosphere. We had a problem some years ago in our education center across the street. In one of the restrooms there was a continuous putrid smell. And great time and effort and money was spent to try to find out why this putrid smell lasted so long. And nothing we could do could solve it. We brought in external teams to try to figure out.
And we paid money for professional programs to change the atmosphere that was leaving the restroom, coming into the halls, and created a funk in the building. It didn't. It wasn't because we didn't fund the project. And it wasn't because we didn't engage the personnel. It's just that it wasn't working. Our culture is spending a lot of time, energy, programs, and money, and it's not working. Until one of our custodial staff happened to go in there one day and notice something.
Something very simple. He noticed that the fan in the ceiling was turning the wrong way. So instead of the fan pushing stuff out, it was driving stuff in.
All he did was turn the fan the right way and the problem was solved. We got too many people turning the wrong way and they are creating chaos and vitriol and all the money and all the effort and all the programs won't change things unless we turn. The motivation for turning the right way and us promoting a culture of kindness is in Philippians 2 where we're told we are to have, verse 5, this attitude in yourselves which was in Christ Jesus. What attitude? Verse 3, do nothing from selfish or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves.
Do not merely look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others. Have this mind in you that was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, but became a slave enduring the cross. If Jesus were selfish, no one would be saved. No one would be on their way to heaven, but he was willing to not be bougie in heaven, even though he had the right to hold that position.
But he recognized that there was a messed up folk down here. And God in his love reached out through the sacrifice of Christ and the gift of the cross beginning with the birth of Christ in order to provide redemption for men, for me, and you. He says have this mind in you that was also in Christ Jesus. God is not against self-interest. Self-interest is not sinful.
Selfishness is sinful. He says don't only look at yourself. Don't only do that. You can look for yourself. You can make sure you're okay.
You can make sure things are working out for you. That's not wrong. It is wrong to only be concerned about you, to only be concerned about how you are doing, and to have no sense to be a cul-de-sac Christian rather than a conduit saint. Where there is a way in, you want to be blessed, but you can never be looked at to be a blessing because you have become, we have become a selfish saint. First Corinthians 13 verse 4 says love is kind. If you're unkind, you do not love. You don't love your children if you're mean to them. You don't love your mate if you are cursing them out. You can use the word love, but he says the love that God has is kind. It's not meanness.
Certainly that's not a pattern. Love doesn't cuss you out. Love doesn't put you down.
Love doesn't reduce your dignity because love is kind, and kindness is niceness in function, not in philosophy. Thermostats are important because they regulate temperature. When it's cold, we want to be able to raise it up.
When it's hot, we want to be able to pull it down because the thermostat governs the atmosphere. Wherever you are, the thermostat should be adjusted because you're affecting the environment. Because of our church in this community, we ought to be affecting the environment here because we are setting the thermostat. We can't control the weather of the unrighteous, but we should be able to control the thermostat of the saints. The thermostat of the people of God creating an environment where people won't reject our message because they don't like us.
The way we talk, the way we walk, the way we act, the way we relate, the way we communicate on social media. He says love is kind. What God is expecting us to do is to demonstrate kindness through our good words and through our good works. Kindness is demonstrated through good words.
Paul talks about these words in Ephesians 4. He says in verse 29, He says, verse 31, Dr. Evans went on to talk about the relationship between God's blessing and good works, and we'll come back with that shortly. In the meantime, you can learn more about kindness and building unity in your church, in your neighborhood, and in our country with the help of our current nine-part message collection from Dr. Evans, as well as two powerful books we bundled to go along with the series. Stronger Together, Weaker Apart is a prayer-filled devotional book designed to help you develop a stronger love toward others.
Kingdom Kindness is an inspiring new book that will help you not only see the value God places on the attribute of kindness, but also give you simple practical ways to express that kindness to the people around you. Both of these books build on the foundational biblical principles Tony presents through the timeless lessons that make up his Returning to God in Unity sermon series. Right now, you can get all three of these powerful resources as our gift to you, and thanks for your support of the alternative broadcast ministry. To make your donation and request, simply visit tonyevans.org.
You'll find details right on the homepage. Again, that's tonyevans.org, or call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222. That's 1-800-800-3222, where a friendly member of our team is standing by, ready to help with fulfilling this special offer for you. I'll repeat that contact information for you again after the second part of today's lesson, and this. In a world shrouded by fear, prophecy seeks to make sense of it all. Dr. Tony Evans' latest book, Thy Kingdom Come, reveals the secrets to deliver us through dark times.
Now is the time to gain clarity in the midst of confusion. Be prepared for what's to come by picking up your copy of Thy Kingdom Come at tonyevans.org. Comes with a bonus sermon series, Staying Right with God.
Arm yourself against the impending storm. Well, let's hear more from Dr. Evans now in his timeless message on kindness in the culture. 1 Timothy 6, verses 17 to 19 says, those of you who have been blessed, you ought to be rich in good works. In other words, the more God has blessed you, the more blessing you should be to others.
Ephesians 2 10, after telling us in 8 and 9 that we've been saved by grace, comes in verse 10, says, We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which He hath created beforehand, that we should walk in them. Good works. Your good words should follow up with good works. Things you do and things you say that demonstrate kindness in a mean culture.
We need contagious kindness. Good works are different than good things. You don't need to be a Christian to do a good thing. Non-Christians build hospitals. Non-Christians build orphanages. Non- Christians do good things all the time.
You and I have not been called to do good things. He says, let men see your good works. What's the difference between a good thing and a good work? A good thing seeks to help somebody. A good work also seeks to help somebody in God's name. In other words, it's only a good work if God is clearly attached to it.
If you just did it because you're a nice person, that's a nice thing. It's not a good work. Let men see your good work and glorify your Father who is in heaven. If you don't attach God to it, you did a good thing, but you didn't do a biblical work.
A good work seeks to do three things. One, it seeks to bring people into the kingdom because you want to see people saying. Two, it seeks to help people become more useful for the kingdom. That's discipleship. Or it brings people the benefits of the kingdom to their situations in life. That is, helps them to improve a scenario or a situation in God's name.
Here it is. Kindness is needed because there's so much pain. To remind us of the story of Luke 10 verses 30 to 37 of the Good Samaritan, the lawyer asked Jesus, who's my neighbor?
Who's my neighbor? Because Jesus says the great commandment is to love God and to love your neighbor. To love God and to love your neighbor. And he says these two commandments go together. If you love God but don't love people, you don't love God. If you love God but you're mean to people, you're mean to God.
He says the two are attached. Don't just talk about, you know, your worship service experience and how you waved your hand in the air like you just don't care. Don't just tell me about how you shouted, how you loved God.
He says what I am looking at is what you also did with people. And Jesus tells the story. He says there was a man on the Jericho road who was robbed and he was beaten half-past dead.
It could have gone either way. Says the priest and the Levites are on the Jericho road. He tells us who they are because that tells us what they were doing. They were coming from the temple. In other words, they were leaving church. And they saw the man whose life had been put in shambles because he was robbed. He was in despair. Many people today have been robbed by evil structures, predatory loans, personal choices, catastrophes, foreclosures, abandonments, and all manner of evil.
The priest and the Levite were too busy praying and praising, coming from church to notice the man. Then comes the Samaritan. Ooh, a man of another race, a man that the Jews didn't like. It says that he saw the man, had compassion on the man, and went to work to change the situation. How do you know who your neighbor is? Three things. Any need you see, any need you feel compassion, and any need you can do something about. You see it, you feel it, and you can address it. You can't meet every need, but if you see it and then God tugs your heart, the Holy Spirit says, don't keep driving, the Holy Spirit says, pause.
He's not gonna say that with everything you see. He's only gonna say that from time to time, but when you see it and then you feel it and you have capacity to wisely address it, God just told you who your neighbor is regardless of their skin color. So if you black and they white or you white and they black or Hispanic, that's irrelevant. What good is it if you are Jew and you're Jewish priest in Levite, your brothers pass you by, and there's a person of another race who cares enough to help you. You want help.
You don't want to talk about race theory. You want help. So the needs you see, the needs you feel, and the need God gives you the capacity to address, when those three things coagulate and come together, you know the Holy Spirit has just told you do something right now. Hebrews 13 verse 16 says, do good and share because with this God is well pleased.
Let him see that you want to be a blessing. That's what it means that more blessed to give than to receive. The reason why it's more blessed to give than to receive is that you open yourself up to receive more the more blessing you are. That's why it's more blessed to give than to receive. Or as Luke 638 says, give and it will be given to you, pressed down and running over. What's the it? The it is the very thing you need.
You better give to somebody else. God wants to use us. You know, you make a call and they'll say, this call is being recorded for quality assurance, to make sure that you being treated like you supposed to be treated by our representative.
Guess what? When God looks at our lives, this life is being recorded for quality assurance. And when you and I stand before God and we go through the judgment seat of Christ and he looks at all the stuff that we messed up as Christians, and we looking at our tape being rolled, we going, ah, I thought that, I went there, I did that, I did that, we going, ah. You know, and we go, you know, we're there at the judgment seat of Christ to determine our reward.
And he checks out that side and it looks good. But there is another tape. And that tape will look at all the acts of kindness that you did.
All the acts of reaching out to others, of being kind to others that you did. And James chapter 2 verse 13 says, mercy will overrule judgment. So if it's bad on this side, but God saw that you knew how to love and be kind on this side, this tape can overrule that tape so that you can get a greater reward even though there are all kind of flaws in your own tape recording. He wants this to be a mantra. He wants this to be our atmosphere. He wants us to be how we want.
So, no, there are no celebrities in here. You may not be able to stop somebody treating you a certain way, but I'm talking about how you view yourself, how I view myself. Even if you are treated like a celebrity, you should think like a servant. Even if you're treated like a celebrity, you should function with the mindset of a servant. You can't help everybody, but you do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in every place you can, all the times you can, for all the people you can. You do the best you can. Dr. Tony Evans will wrap up today's program with a closing challenge in a few moments.
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Tony Evans Training dot org. Explore the kingdom anytime, anywhere. Now before we get back to Dr. Evans, don't forget to request your copy of our current nine-part teaching series, Returning to God in Unity. This series includes the full-length version of today's message, as well as eight others, including material we haven't had time to share on the air. As I mentioned earlier, when you make a contribution to support this ministry, we'll say thanks by not only sending you the audio series on CD or instantly downloadable MP3s, but we'll also include two special books along with the audio collection, the devotional prayer book, Stronger Together, Weaker Apart, and Dr. Evans newest release, Kingdom Kindness, a movement to bring calm to the culture. Together these resources will help you foster a much-needed spirit of unity, understanding, and kindness within your sphere of influence.
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Once again, that's 1-800-800-3222 or online at Tony Evans dot org. Jesus gave two great commandments that sum up perhaps the most important lesson the Bible has for us. In tomorrow's message, Dr. Evans takes a look at the kind of love God wants us to show others. Right now, we'll wrap up with his final thought for today. So I want to challenge all of us to help affect the atmosphere in your home by being kind to the members of your family or extended family. Tell the truth. Yeah, we don't skip wrong. We don't endorse wrong, but we are to look for opportunities to be kind in word and deed. you
