Don't Just Kill 'Em With Kindness

If you have a pulse you’ve been hurt by somebody in your life.  All of us have.  For some of us, the hurt happened in our homes growing up; through words or action, or even inaction.  For others the hurt began in our pre-teen years with the words of bullies or people that we thought were our friends.  As we’ve grown into adulthood, we’ve been hurt and betrayed in ways too numerous to count. 

Hurt can linger in our hearts for years, decades or even a lifetime.  I know that the hurt in my own life bubbles up from time to time, resulting in anger and resentment and can leave me reeling with feelings of self-loathing because I believe the words of the ones who have hurt me. 

One of the ways that many of us have been taught to deal with people that hurt us or offend us is to kill them with kindness.  We’ve all had that co-worker, neighbor or acquaintance that always makes our blood pressure rise when they walk into the room.  And we’re told to rise above it, put on a happy face and to be sickly-sweet in their presence, as if that will change them for good.  To some degree, this can work in our favor, but it’s not a complete picture of what we’re called to do as followers of Jesus. 

In today’s reading from 1 Peter 3, God’s word says this in v.v. 8-11: “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.  Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.  For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech.  He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.”

So what does all of this mean?  How is it somehow better than just killing ‘em with kindness?  I’m glad you asked.

V.8 paints a picture of an important reality in life.  Not everybody is going to be just like us.  To live in harmony means that we realize that we’re all different.  Harmony in music is achieved when different notes of music are played or sung at the same time and yet produce a beautiful sound.  We’ve got to learn to harmonize our lives with the people around us that are different than we are and realize that there can be beauty in that as we learn to live, work or play together, and ultimately be in life-giving relationships with them. 

Sympathy, love, compassion and humility are rare characteristics in our culture today, and characteristics that only come about in our lives when we’re rooted in the love of Jesus.  This is far more than just killing ‘em with kindness.  When we kill others with kindness, we’re doing something on a superficial level while harboring feelings of resentment or even hatred.  Sympathy, love, compassion and humility require an all in, radical abandonment of our desire to get even.   

As we seek to live like Jesus, there’s no room in our lives for retaliation, sarcasm and getting even – which, really, is at the root of killing someone with kindness.  These are the ways of the world and not the ways of the Kingdom of Heaven.  The relational priorities of God’s Kingdom are magnified for us when we look at the sympathy, love, compassion and humility of Jesus. 

Imagine if instead of radically abandoning everything to reconcile us to God, Jesus came instead to kill us with kindness.   What would that mean for us?  It would mean that we’re still dead in our sin, because the cross goes far beyond killing us with kindness.  It would mean that we’re still enemies of God and not reconciled to him through the blood of Jesus.  It would mean that there’s no healing of the deep scars in our own hearts.  We would still be lost people, wondering and wandering in our sin and brokenness. 

In v.11 God’s Word tells us that we “. . . must seek peace and pursue it.”  Doing this isn’t easy.  And it isn’t fun.  It wasn’t for Jesus, and it won’t be for us.  I’ll admit this: I like to live with a chip on my shoulder and a “screw you” kind of attitude.  During my time in Colorado last week (which I wrote about here), I was confronted with this reality.  I’ve experienced some deep emotional and spiritual hurt and pain in my life over the last 10 years that I didn’t realize had so deeply scarred my heart and mind.  Too much of the past 5 years of my life and ministry have been spent insulating myself from people so that they can’t hurt me and living with a chip on my shoulder and a screw-you attitude.  Because I haven’t sought and pursued peace, I’ve pushed the hurt deeper and deeper and it’s messed me up! 

Sometimes we don’t have the opportunity – and sometimes we shouldn’t even try to create the opportunity – to seek peace and pursue it.  Being hurt by careless words and actions is not the same as being hurt and destroyed by intentional physical, sexual or verbal abuse.  I’m not suggesting that we should pursue face-to-face peace and reconciliation in those situations.  Sometimes our pursuit of peace has to come from a distance, and only from the deepest reservoirs of the grace of Jesus in our hearts. 

But sometimes, as followers of Jesus, it’s good and right and healing to go back to some of those people that have hurt us as we seek to “turn from evil and do good.” (v.11).  In The Message, a paraphrase of the Bible, it says in v.13, “If with heart and soul you're doing good, do you think you can be stopped?”

God is honored and Jesus is glorified and magnified when we seek to do good in our relationships by pursuing peace and reconciliation.  Three of the most powerful words that a person can hear are, “I forgive you.”  Think of what it meant in your own life when you really believed that God, through Jesus Christ, forgives your sins and wipes away your past.  How healing was that for you?  How freeing was that for you?  How beautiful was that for you?

Think of what that could mean for the people in your life that have hurt or wounded you.  Killing them with kindness won’t heal them.  It won’t free them.  And it won’t show them the beauty of Jesus.  But pursuing peace and reconciliation with them will. 

I'm Not Home Yet

Last week my wife Jessie and I had the incredible opportunity to spend 3 ½ days at The PottersInn at Aspen Ridge outside of Colorado Springs with 4 other couples from around the US at a Pastor and Spouse Retreat.  We tacked on an extra day of rest and relaxation at the beginning of the week, and neither of us realized quite how much we needed all of it! 

There is an incredible beauty about the Rocky Mountains that I can’t even begin to explain or comprehend.  For those of us who have spent the majority of our lives in the eastern 2/3 of the US, we can’t really even begin to imagine it until we’ve been there.  This was my fourth trip to Colorado, and here’s what I particularly noticed this time:

·      Although oxygen is a little bit tougher to come by at 9,500 feet in elevation, the air is so clean and crisp.  When you ascend a flight of stairs or walk a hill, the burning in your lungs almost feels good.  It reminded me that every breath we take is a gift from God. 

·      Here in Western PA, I’ve heard that 75% of the days throughout the year are cloudy or overcast.  I don’t know if that’s true, but it sure feels like that for most of the days from November through March.  In Colorado, it seems that the sun is always shining, and despite the chill of being at elevation and the wind, the sunshine is always warm and inviting.  It reminded me that even in times of darkness and gloom, that the light of Jesus is always waiting to burst forth.

·      The terrain around Colorado Springs is a study in contrasts.  In the high plains at the foot of the Rockies, when you look to the east, everything is drab – tans, browns, olives, and muted greens.  Even most of the buildings and houses are built to blend in.  It’s funny to see familiar franchises – McDonalds, Starbucks and Walmart – that are built to blend in to their surroundings.  At the Potters Inn, we were in the shadow of the snow dusted Pikes Peak and could see the stunning snow covered Sangre de Christo mountains to the south.  The evergreen forests were a deep, rich green.  From one of our vantage points on a hike to The Crags in Pike National Forest, we could look out over the landscape and see three of the most shimmering, crystal blue reservoirs that I’ve ever seen.  It reminded me that even in the wilderness when most things seem dead and hopeless, that there is abundant, beautiful life all around.

Our time in Colorado last week was incredible.  It was incredibly refreshing and rejuvenating from a physical standpoint.  How wonderful and beautiful it was to spend 4 days alone with my wife away from our kids and to reconnect in ways we haven’t connected in years.  As parents with kids who are 12, 10 and 3, physical rest and times of peace and solitude are at a premium.  We had permission to rest physically, mentally and spiritually.

But our retreat also included some intense, even exhausting work, in our own hearts and minds and in our relationship as a husband and wife.  It was work that otherwise probably wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t made the commitment to get away from home and our kids for a few days. 

Despite being absolutely amazed by my surroundings, each time I’ve visited Colorado, Colorado has never felt like home to me.  I’ve always enjoyed my time there, but it’s never felt like home.  As we boarded our flight from Denver to Pittsburgh last Friday night, I knew that I was going home and I was looking forward to it.

One of the greatest challenges of our faith journey with Jesus is learning how to take what we’ve experienced in those deep, life-changing, mountain top experiences with God and to live them out in our daily lives.  In today’s reading from 1 Peter 1 in our Daily New Testament Reading Plan, the Apostle Peter talks about this in the first chapter of his first letter.  He begins his letter with this salutation in v.1: “. . . To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia Bithynia . . .”

As followers of Jesus, we’ve always got to remember that we’re not home yet.  As people “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ . . . (v.2),” we are strangers in the land in which we live. 

In the days since I’ve been home from Colorado, I’ve had a deep longing to go back.  Not to live there, but to drink in more of what I was experiencing in my journey with Jesus in a place and time that wasn’t cluttered with the demands of daily life.  It’s certainly not a complaint because I’m blessed to be able to do the things I do and live the life I live, but there is a longing to escape again and to just be still and quiet with God.  It’s good to be on the mountain top – literally and metaphorically – because that’s what we’re made for.  That’s when we’re most alive and aware of the transforming work that God needs to do in our lives. 

But that’s not where most of us live.  We live in the Pontuses, the Galatias, the Cappadocias, the Asias and the Bithynias.  We live in places and have demands in our lives that constantly remind us of the fact that even though this might be home on earth, this is not the home that we were created for.  Although we don’t get to live on the mountain top, the grace and majesty of God that we experience there helps us to navigate the daily grind of our lives.

One thing that Scripture always promises to followers of Jesus is this: we will have trials and face problems in life.  Peter says so in v.6.   But look at God’s promise to us in v.7.  “These (trials) have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be prove genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

Our faith in our daily life is a precious gift – more precious and of greater worth than gold.  Realizing that we’re not home yet and that we’re not yet all that God has created us to be, is an exercise in faith building.  One of the deepest things I learned in Colorado last week is that I still have a long way to go in believing and living out the promises of God in my life in every area of my life – as a follower of Jesus, as a husband, as a dad, as a friend and as a pastor. 

There are days when I hate the fact that I’m not home yet.  I hate the fact that I’m a stranger in a strange land.  And yet as I endure the process of becoming like Jesus and being transformed, my hope is in Jesus and what I have in him – new life because of his resurrection; the riches of heaven as an heir of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords; the power of God that shields my life; and the joy that I can have in all of these things (v.v. 4-6). 

As you and I struggle to live this life and to become like Jesus, we have incredible hope as we journey towards our heavenly home.  Jesus isn’t an escape from this life, and isn’t an escape from our trials and problems.  The power of Jesus at work in us transforms us as we long to be home.  As Rick Warren once said, the power of Jesus at work in us turns our test into a testimony; our mess into a message and our misery into a ministry.  This is what it means to live as strangers in a strange land longing to be home while we hold onto the hope that we have in Jesus. 

The Supremacy of Jesus

If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you probably saw something I posted earlier this morning.  There has been an article making the rounds for the past few days called, “Marriage Isn’t For You.”  It’s good.  It’s nice.  It points us in the right direction.  But for me, it’s really just kind of ho hum.  In my post, I shared Ephesians 5:22-28 and said that it’s much bigger, better and beautiful than the article that’s been going around.

Why?  Some might say I’m a killjoy or curmudgeon.  Many that know me would say you’d be right on the curmudgeon part.  But it’s because I believe that the way of Jesus – which is the way of the Word of God – is far superior to some words written by a mere man about not being selfish in marriage.  Ephesians 5:22-28 is far superior to “Marriage Isn’t For You” because Ephesians 5:22-28, and the entirety of Scripture, is about Jesus and his supremacy and superiority over everything.

Today’s reading from Hebrews 8 continues on with the overarching theme of Hebrews in laying out the supremacy of Jesus.   The focus today in this chapter is about the supremacy of the priesthood of Jesus. 

Hebrews was written to a group of Jews who had become Christians.  Shocking, I know, especially given the name of the letter.  We see throughout Hebrews that God is providing instruction to these people, and to us today, about the efficacy of the priesthood of Jesus and how it is far superior to the Levitical priesthood established under the Old Covenant in the Old Testament. 

Verse 1 establishes the fact that the priesthood of Jesus is superior because he is a priest ministering on our behalf in the throne room of heaven, at the right hand of God.  This is great news for us today, just as it was for this group of Jewish Christians nearly 2,000 years ago.  Many followers of Jesus today have a limited understanding of how atonement for sin was accomplished in the Old Testament under the Old Covenant that God established with his people through the prophet Moses. 

Because God is perfectly holy and righteous, He cannot tolerate sin.  To be in right relationship with God requires atonement for sin, and under the Old Covenant, God demanded a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin.  The demand of a blood sacrifice for sin is an incredible picture of the reality of sin in our lives – sin leads to death.  Through the sin of Adam and Eve, sin brought the punishment of physical death for the human race.  And sin also brings with it the punishment of spiritual death in our separation from God.

Under the Old Covenant, priests were continually offering sacrifices on behalf of the people of God.  The book of Leviticus prescribes many different types of sacrifices for different types of sin, many of which required that the blood of perfect animals be offered as atonement for sin. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever killed and cut open an animal before.  As a hunter, I have many times.  It’s messy.  It stinks.  It’s labor intensive with an animal as big as a deer.  This was life for the Israelites.  Day after day.  Week after week.  Month after month.  Year after year.  It was a never ending process.

And what made it all the more difficult was that many of these sacrifices were required to be offered by a priest who was a sinful and broken as the people for whom he offered the sacrifice. 

I would imagine that for the people and for the priests, the process of offering sacrifices caused a lot of anxiety and fear.  Is my animal perfect?  Did I offer the right sacrifice for the right sin?  Are there any sins I forgot to make sacrifices for?  Am I offering this sacrifice with a clean heart and clean hands?  Will God accept my sacrifice and offering?

All of these things – the process, the doubt, the never-ending nature of offering sacrifices – point to the supremacy of Jesus as our Great High Priest.  John the Baptist called Jesus “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  Jesus not only stepped into the role of priest and performed the function perfectly, but he was – and still is – the only perfect sacrifice that has ever been made for sin. 

V.3 tells us that, “Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer.”  What Jesus offered was Himself.  On our behalf.  Because he loves us and wants to free us eternally from the punishment of sin.  This is why, “. . . the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is the mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.” 

What does it mean for us?

It’s a matter of the heart.  Verse 10 tells us this. “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.”

Our right standing with God happens when our hearts and minds are made new by the power of Jesus and the supremacy of his sacrifice for our sin. It means that Jesus is all that we need to be made right with God, and to experience forgiveness that is full and complete and eternal.  Our forgiveness and our right standing with God come through Jesus and Jesus alone.  No priest or pastor makes us right with God.  No ritual or ceremony makes us right with God.  Good works and being a good person don’t make us right with God.  Only the sacrifice of Jesus, and trusting fully in that sacrifice make us right with God.

In a culture whose highest virtue and value is tolerance, what God’s Word teaches us is dangerous and world-tilting.  Jesus is our only hope.  Jesus is our only salvation.  Jesus is the only way to be made right with God.  This is the supremacy of Jesus.