19 Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. 20 Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires. 21 So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls.JAMES 1:19-21 32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.LUKE 6:32-36“A new study finds nearly one in two people believe they’re the best person they know.”COMPARED TO WHAT?32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. LUKE 6:32-34NATURAL KINDNESS IS EARNED NICENESS32 “If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.LUKE 6:32-33Harshness: the quality of being unpleasantly rough or jarring to the senses; the quality of being cruel or severe.IF WE SEE KINDNESS AS SOMETHING TO BE EARNED, THEN WE WILL VIEW HARSHNESS AS SOMETHING THAT CAN BE DESERVEDNow the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil[a] has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.JONAH 1:1-3A pyramid of heads I reared in front of his city. Their youths and maidens I burnt up in flames. KING SHALMANESER II I pierced his chin with my keen hand dagger. Through his jaw I passed a rope, put a dog chain upon him and made him occupy a kennel. KING ASHURBANIPALHe [Jonah] goes around the city preaching a one-sentence message: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” That’s it. No three-point sermon. No cute story about his kids. No altar call. One sentence: Yahweh is going to kill all of you.JOHN MARK COMER1. HARSHNESS CAN BE JUSTIFIED10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.JONAH 3:10But it displeased Jonah exceedingly,[a] and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city.JONAH 4:1-52. HARSHNESS ISOLATES US3. HARSHNESS IS FORGETFUL10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”JONAH 4:10-11Most of us want mercy for ourselves - and justice for everybody else. But it doesn’t work like that. God shows mercy to all.JOHN MARK COMERGOD’S STANDARD OF KINDNESS IS DIFFERENTKindness: compassionate, others-centered generosity. The writers of scripture defined kindness as the virtue of the person whose neighbor’s good is as dear as his own.MAXIE DUNNAM34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. 35 But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. 36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.LUKE 6:32-361. KINDNESS STARTS WITH GOD AND LOOKS LIKE GOD.2. KINDNESS RECOGNIZES THE REAL ENEMY 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. EPHESIANS 6:12 3. KINDNESS STEPS INTO THE MESSThe cumulative testimony of the four Gospels is that when Jesus Christ sees the fallenness of the world all about Him, His deepest impulse, His most natural instinct, is to move toward that sin and suffering, not away from it.DANE ORTLUND

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