Michael Todd - Kill 'Em With Kindness
All right, well, I’m going to tell you something that, in my many years of walking with God, has been an agent of change for me. This is not at all how I planned to come into this, but the Holy Spirit is doing His thing today. One of the things that starts working out of me what’s in me is when God challenges me to give, and it has nothing to do with what I get out of it. It’s going to get quiet in the church, and that’s okay. Many of us have had greed and selfishness worked into our hearts at such a level that when God asks us for something, we act like it’s our untrustworthy, unworthy cousin. Y’all know those people—like, «You ain’t never driving my car!» Many times, that’s the attitude and heart posture when God asks us for something, as if His grace and mercy haven’t been new every morning, as if He hasn’t put us in positions and places we know we didn’t qualify for but somehow got into.
I was thinking about how, as a church, we step in every year to this season of crazy faith, and this year we’re calling it crazy fruit. I just wanted to take five minutes at the top and tell you why this is important. I don’t want to convince anybody of anything; some people have already decided in their hearts that they are giving or they’re not. I believe it’s my duty as the pastor of this church, which God has been so good to, to at least allow you to get in on this level of blessing and not gatekeep for you. There were too many people gatekeeping the blessing of God from my life because they wouldn’t give me the information and the real, raw facts about what God’s Word said and how it worked in their lives. All we often saw was everybody in the church giving and then the pastor rolling around in a big Cadillac, and we never knew what happened.
I want to tell you how God changed my life in the area of finances, trust, generosity, and surrender. I read scriptures for years of people telling me that everything belongs to God, and then I started working and realized that it felt like it belonged to me. Oh, y’all going to be fake with me—it felt like I worked really hard for this, and that’s my name on that W-2 line. It feels like this is mine, and God said, «As long as you feel that way, that’s what you’ll have—keep doing it.» I realized I loved God—listen to what I’m about to say—but I did not trust Him. I loved God; I did not trust Him with my future, and I did not trust Him with my finances. I want you to ask yourself: Do you love God, and do you trust Him? Or do you love Him, excluding trust? I know that sounds crazy right now, but if I got up here and said, «Man, I love my wife,» I mean, she’s so beautiful and gracious and kind. I love her with all my heart, but I don’t trust her. Everybody would be like, «Red flag! Why did that man just get up here and tell us that he loves his wife but doesn’t trust her?» In church, we think it’s synonymous. We think loving God and trusting Him is the same thing, and it’s not.
For decades of my life—this is for all the people who be like, «Give us the real; tell us the truth"—I’m telling you right now, for years of my life, I loved God but did not trust Him. I didn’t even have any money. It’s the wildest thing—making $22,000 a year. That ain’t no money! If you’re making that, we are praying for you, 'cause I was there. Making $22,000—that’s no money—and I still loved Him but didn’t trust Him. What I learned is it wasn’t because I didn’t want to trust Him; I just didn’t have enough understanding, and I felt like anytime anybody talked about money, they were trying to manipulate or con me into something. So, I’m going to give it to you the coldest, most simple way in three minutes, and I’m going to use these stairs.
When we come into a relationship with God, everybody starts at this place—they start at the floor with their ability to trust God in the area of finances. Then God says, «All right, I want to take you up levels.» Somebody say, «There are levels to this!» What I found is, there’s a trick to trust, and I want you to hear me say this: God says in His Word, «I want everybody, no matter who you are, to designate 10% of your increase to come back to the house of God.» Now, there are people who feel all types of different ways about this. All I want to say is that in March, I’m going to teach about finances; I’m going to give you the whole thing. But I want to let you know that tithing is Old Testament, before the Covenant and after it. Argue with your mama; I got scripture for all of it. But the truth of the matter is, us fighting about whether it’s scriptural actually comes down to a deeper heart issue.
When people say, «10%—why not 20%? Why not 30%?» You don’t give that. People try to convince me and go back and forth with me about how they give more than 10%. You’re a liar, because if you won’t give the bare minimum, it’s the floor, not the ceiling. So what God has everybody do is, watch this: tithe. What is a tithe? It’s obedience. I need to make this clear distinction: tithing—giving 10% of your resources back to God’s house—is not, listen to me, it’s not generosity. You might say, «I’ve been generous.» No, you haven’t; it’s returning. If I give you my keys or my credit card, and you give it back to me, you weren’t generous to me; you just returned to me what I already gave you. Yes, sir! Yes, sir!
And so the cool thing about tithing is it’s the only place in the Bible where God says, «Try it. Test me; see if you don’t trust me in this area consistently. See what I won’t do.» So many people make it like this thing where God is religiously trying to bless you, but this takes you being obedient. The first level is stepping from here and saying, «I’m going to tithe.» I want everybody to hear me say this: in this crazy fruit offering, I don’t want you to think about giving some big amount if you have never been consistent in tithing. I would rather a long-term transformation for your life than «Oh, yeah, I gave God $500; I gave him $5.» He said, «That’s like going to the gym one time a year.» Sir! Some of us go once, and it doesn’t matter if you stay there for 24 hours and lift all the weights; tomorrow, your body fat will be the same.
I just want to be real with you. I don’t want to gatekeep this. One of the greatest things you could do for your life, your family, your mind, and your future is to make a decision: «From this point on, I am going to be consistent in trusting God with the tithe.» I want everybody to say this word: «Try.» But there’s another level; this is where generosity is unlocked—when you give an offering. Now, hear what I’m saying, 'cause nobody in church ever told me this. Tithing is required to go to God’s house; offerings happen wherever God says. Hear me: pastors and churches have made it to where, if you tithe here, when God tells you to give something else, you give an offering here—stop that! That may be manipulation. I’m supposed to, once I’ve settled what God has told me to settle in the tithe, then He knows I can be a conduit wherever I’m at. So I can be on the street; I can be at the basketball game; I can be at somebody’s mastermind; I can be at a school, and God says, «Give them $50; give them $100.»
Yes, sir! «Hey, go up to that lemonade stand where those girls are selling lemonade to raise money for their trip. They’re trying to raise $200, but they need $2,000! Go find out what the need is.» Those are considered offerings. The reason we don’t get to this place is that this place takes trust. See, down here, going from here to here is just a try—but when you go from here to here, you’ve got to try, 'cause sometimes it doesn’t make sense.
«Hold on; that $2,000 was for my kids to go on family vacation, and You just told me to give it to those kids who don’t look like they love You, Lord.» Then we start trying to qualify where our offerings go like, «Well, they look like they’ve got money.» Come on! Have you ever felt compelled to do something, and then you start adding and subtracting on people, like, «Well, that hair is $300, and then my lashes are $150»? And y’all know—it’s easy! God said, «I want you to be a river, not a reservoir.» Offering is about, watch this: down here was obedience; it’s trying, but right here, watch this, it’s about future abundance, 'cause offerings are called a seed.
All I’m trying to do at this level is plant for the future. Amen? There are too many people that get to their future and are disappointed—not because they’re not good people, but because when it was time to plant, they never put any seed in the ground. What I’m trying to encourage every person in here— the Bible tells it; I’m not going through a bunch of scriptures today because this is supposed to be my opener, and I’ve got 22 minutes left to teach y’all the message I got to teach you—but I’ve got to keep going because somebody needs it.
I wish somebody would have told me at 19 when I was spending money on fake Jordans, pulling up at the gas station, dudes popping their trunks, taking $80 for the Jordans, and the Jordans ain’t even all the way real! Y’all know what I mean. Don’t look down; don’t look down; don’t look down! I had no clue that I was giving away my seed; I didn’t know that mattered to my kids' future. Nobody was telling me, «Plant, plant, plant!» One day you’re going to live in the forest of the seed you planted; your kids will find shade in the seeds you planted; your kids will eat from the seeds you planted. But everybody was making it like I was losing when I obeyed God.
I’m just trying not to gatekeep right now. We stand in lines for Black Friday sales that are really gray—they’re not even black anymore! 20% is not a good sale; next year, it’s going to be called «Grace Great Friday» because I’ve got to do something. But literally, we feel like we’re getting a bargain to get something that was overpriced at a moment. It’s cut down, and we go out of there feeling like we won, and we ain’t sown any seed for future abundance. I would have rather you go out there and look for who you were going to bless; some of y’all should have taken that $500 and broken it into $20 bills and walked through those stores: «Holy Spirit, lead me; show me who’s about to go into debt.»
You give me resources to give an offering, and just to say, «God loves you, and He told me to come.» I’m just saying, 'cause you never know if one of those people turns into your child or you. Y’all hear what I’m saying? So down here, right? He says, «Just obey Me; try it—tithe.» You step up to a new level, but then He says, «Go another level—give every time I tell you to give. Be ready at any occasion to give.» See, even just that small thing—do you prepare to give? I used to be lazy, and I would not have any cash on me. So if I didn’t have any cash on me—I’d say, «Oh man, I don’t even"—oh man! Giving yourself a full body massage but you didn’t plan to be generous? The people who roll with me know, «Mo, I’ll tell them, 'Hey bro, go get this out of the account; put it in my bag, I need it for something.'» I just gotta be ready. And sometimes it sits there for months, and sometimes it sits there for minutes.
No, no, no! I want you to hear what I’m saying—sometimes it’s there for months, and sometimes it’s there for minutes because God said, «I’ve got need of it—you said it was mine!» Right here we go. But then there’s one more level! Yes, sir! I only found out about this level about seven years ago. I thought it was tithe, offering, and then you’re good. Then I started reading in the Bible. The Bible is kind of one of those things that’s crazy, 'cause the more you start reading it and the more time you spend in it, you start seeing stuff you’ve read before, but it didn’t talk to you like that before. I was reading how Solomon, when they went to build the temple, the customary requirement was one bull sacrifice. Do you know what this man pulled up on the scene with? One thousand! When the requirement was one!
I just want you to come with me on the journey to wrangle up a thousand bulls. This is what we call a sacrificial offering. This one is going to take something from you that you may never see back in the same way. We have no record of Solomon getting a TH1 bulls back, we have no record of 100f on bulls because a lot of times when we give sacrificially, we’re like, «All right, we gave God a thousand; 100,000 would be nice.» But the sacrificial offering goes past denominators and monetary value; it gets into the supernatural. It involves the things money can’t buy and operates in the realm that allows for solutions that even if you had all the money in the world, it couldn’t provide.
I stepped into this about seven years ago, realizing that this is where God was calling me and this church to live. I don’t know if you realize it, but the way we give as a church is not typical. Three weeks ago, we gave $600,000 away to other churches. Now, it’s so funny; we live in such an alien world at Transformation Church that we don’t even know that’s crazy, which is good, but it may also desensitize us to the level of house we’re called to. I believe the majority of this church is meant to live at the level of sacrificial giving.
Now, before some of you think, «Oh, I may need to leave the church,» I felt it too. But let me tell you two things: God never asks for what He hasn’t already given you. There hasn’t been one time that God has asked me for something I didn’t already have; the question was whether I was going to give it. So, no matter how much the amount was, no matter what the number was, He had blessed me to the point where I could consider it. He’s not unjust. Sometimes, did it take me selling or parting with some things? Yes, but it was a sacrifice. And this is what I’m going to say to everybody: when you get to this place, remember at the bottom, it’s trusting God. At this place, this is God trusting you. You missed it.
Let me go back. I didn’t even really know if God was going to do it, so I’m going to try. Everybody say, «Try.» I’m going to try to tithe. All right, Lord, You have been faithful; You’ve always met my need. Like, dang, where I was three years ago and how I’m still here—what You did! Golley, no, it’s not as much as I really want, but wow! So then He says, «Trust Me. Get what I tell you.» Offering—oh man, it felt really good to actually believe. You see Him do it and then see the fruit of that in another season. This last one, sacrificial—oh snap, this is not me trusting You; this is You entrusting me. Remember the story of the talents? It says the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who goes away and entrusts his wealth to three different servants.
What would it look like for everyone in this church to not just trust God but to be trusted by God? Hear what I’m saying to you. It’s wrapped up in how we view what God has already given us the ability to have. So what I’m asking everybody to do as a church is to pray. Whatever level you’re at, I want you to take a step to the next level. So if this is your first time coming to church, if you’re in your twenties or sixties and you’ve never tithed before, you may think, «Look, you have enough money, Pastor Mike. It looks like the church is doing fine; look at that big old screen!» It looks like this has nothing to do with the screen. Absolutely. No, I really want you to hear me say this: this has everything to do with your heart. This isn’t about the church; the church is going to be all right; this is God’s church.
But it’s your house that’s not under the blessing it needs to be because you won’t take this step. And everybody say, «Try.» If you’re here, all I’m asking you to do is take one penny on every dime. If you made $4, your tithe would be 40 cents, and God looks at that the same way He looks at someone giving $40,000. They don’t even get it. How can I prove it to you? At the time when everybody in the town was giving big bucks, Jesus called attention to one woman in front of all His disciples. He said, «Everybody look at her!» I said, «What? She’s giving two mites; that ain’t nothing!» Jesus replied, «She gave out of her poverty.»
The reason this connects with me is because there have been many times where—uh—I told Charles this story earlier when Bishop was about to pay off the building. We came to a space where people were giving sacrificially, and I remember I just bought a home. We were taking advantage of it, and it was our first winter. We just brought home Bella, and we went to turn on the heat, and the heat didn’t work. It was the coldest winter that Tulsa had seen up until that point. We were literally in the house with ten space heaters, which everybody knows is a hazard, but we were cold, and our newborn was inside. God told us for the first time to move into sacrificial giving.
Natalie and I had been doing this; we were stepping into it, and I said, «Lord, it’s cold, and why does the exact amount it costs to fix the heat equal the exact amount You’re asking me for?» This is the devil! Can I be honest with you? He said, «The devil never asked you to give.» Natalie and I looked at each other, and we gave for the first time in our lives as a young, newly married couple who weren’t about to take over the church. We didn’t know it at that time. None of this was in the forecast; we didn’t have a crystal ball or any prophetic insight; y’all might think, «Oh, you knew?» We didn’t know anything. Relationships weren’t even established. I didn’t have a car at that time.
Now I’m having a flashback; hold up! I didn’t have a car; Bri was letting me use her Sonata—that’s a real thing! God said, «Mike, when you give this, it’s going to break something over your life.» I can tell you from that moment to this moment, God has done something supernaturally in my life that proves He trusts me. So whenever it comes time to give to Him, I can’t. I mean what I’m about to say today—I’m challenging every person under the sound of my voice. This is going to be prophetic for your future. Whatever step you need to take, if you need to tithe, tithe; try God. If you need to step into giving offerings, trust God. If God’s requiring you and your husband or wife or children to come together or if you by yourself need to step into sacrificial giving, listen to me: one is not better than the other.
There is not a level that God then says, «Yay!» He says obedience to what I told you to do. I don’t know if I told you all this, but one time, I did too much and God was displeased. Y’all have never heard a preacher tell this story, but God told me to pay off half of somebody’s car, and I paid the whole thing because I had it. He said, «You’re disobedient, and you stopped the blessing.» I said, «Lord, I thought more was always better.» He says, «Obedience is always better than your sacrifice. I meant for you to do half, and I had three other people that were going to contribute; you took away their opportunity at the level they were at to walk in a blessing. You did it out of pride and ego because you had it, and you disobeyed Me.»
Y’all, this is not about anything except obedience. Amen? Amen. So, as we come together next week, families are going to join us; people are going to fly in; there will be people who give online. I believe this is going to be a holy thing. Some of us know we need to go ahead and do it this week because if it sits there, it’s going to burn a hole. Y’all already know; it’s already that Amazon cart is full of disobedience. Did y’all hear me? I mean, come on, let’s be honest. All right, this is what I’m going to do today. I had an assignment, and I believe I just finished it. But I have to give you one piece of the message I was going to speak, and I believe God wants me to speak it. I’ve tried to speak this three times—twice this is the third time—um, I love God because when He allows you to prepare, then He can just do what He wants to do. I’m just in His hands.
So let me say this: everybody just listen to me. I got 13 minutes; this is going to be the shortest message I ever preached. I wanted to preach a message today called «Kill Them with Kindness.» Write it down: Kill Them with Kindness. And we’re going to leave all of this, everything I just did, as the sermon, so just keep it all. Kill Them with Kindness. The subtitle of this message is «Behave Like Christians.» Say it with me, «Behave Like…» Look at your neighbor and say it like you’re a mama: «Behave like a Christian!» Okay, pick your other neighbor, who I don’t know why you didn’t pick them the first time, but now you’ve got to pick on them and tell them, «Behave like a Christian!»
I didn’t pick this subtitle; this subtitle picked me because it was the title in the Bible. When I looked at the scripture in Romans 12:17, it literally said «Behave Like a Christian.» In verse 17, it says, «Repay no one evil for evil; have regard for good things in the sight of all men.» If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men. Beloved, do not avenge yourselves—that’s a hard one to swallow—"but give place to wrath.» Now hold on, wait! Don’t avenge yourself, but give place to wrath, which means wrath is not a human response. Wrath is something we have to leave space for so something divine can happen. The thing that needs to happen to the people who are coming after your sanity, your peace—do not avenge it yourself, but rather give room; give place for God to do whatever He wants to do. For it is written, «Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,» says the Lord.
Therefore, this is your job and this is my job—this is what God is saying: My job is wrath; get out of the way! Your job, if your enemy’s hungry, feed them; if your enemy’s thirsty, give them something to drink. For in doing so, you will heap hot coals of fire on his head. Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good. Christians aren’t leaving space for God to be God and for you to be kind. Come after me? I’m going to back up and ask you, «Are you thirsty?» You talk about my family? I’m going to back up because I have to leave space.
What I want to do is get real close to you and let you know I ain’t no punk, you understand? Okay, can we be honest with real feelings? I’m going to let you know, but I can’t even do that. You need to back that thing up! Some of y’all knew where I was going; just in case some of you didn’t: y’all knew. What I’m telling you right now, when evil starts to rise in your heart, you better back that thing up! Now I have a whole song in my head. All I’m trying to say is too many believers now are going towards it, which is disobedience to what He said to do. He said, «Don’t repay that evil with evil. Don’t get on your Twitter finger. Don’t start making rebuttal videos; don’t start getting a new podcast; don’t do that. You better back that thing up!» He said if you don’t make space, both of you will get the wrath.
If you don’t make space, when I decide to judge, you’re in line too. And too many believers, God’s holding His hand like, «Get outta there; get out of those comments; get out of that email; get out of that rabbit hole; stop!» Because what you’re doing is putting yourself in the line of fire. I’m just protecting my family name— you can’t do that anyway. There’s nothing you’ve ever said that has made your family name go to the top of the list, like, just think about it. Make space. And this is where I just need to tell everybody: kindness isn’t conditional; it’s a command. When we talk about fruits of the Spirit, some of us think it’s a personality trait. «Oh, they’re just a kind person.» No! This is something that is produced by the Holy Spirit.
And I just need to say this as a point: kind isn’t a personality type; it’s a principle of the Kingdom. So if you profess to love God and you are not kind, you are a fraud. I’m going to say it clearly. I just want to be direct with people: if God were as direct with you as you are with people, would He be considered a kind and merciful God? Well, they just need to know—hold on, wait a minute! Everything can be done wrapped in love. «Well, they need to feel the sting of this.» Did you feel the sting of sin? I’m just trying to figure out if we are playing with different metrics here. What I’m saying is that if you’re a Christian, you are supposed to be kind. Everybody say, «I’m kind,» even if you’re not. By faith, no, no, no, no, no, no, no; I see some of y’all aren’t even watching this.
Some of us haven’t even thought kindness was a trait to be admired because all the kind people you know get played, and so you don’t even think it’s something to be admired. Yet out of everything the Bible says we should possess as fruits of our relationship with the Holy Spirit, He said we should be kind. Oh my God! The reason I had to bring this up is that kindness is often confused. It’s confused because people mistake nice for kind, and I’m about to teach you in the four minutes I have left the difference between nice and kind. Will you put it on the screen? Remember, kindness is a fruit of the Spirit. You can’t be kind without Him. I need you to keep this at the forefront of your mind: you cannot be kind without the Holy Spirit. You can be nice without the Holy Spirit, but you cannot be kind without Him. People have distorted definitions, but God tells us a fruit of the Spirit is kindness.
So when somebody is nice, put it up there; they can actually be polite, but to be kind is a heart posture. My heart posture has to be like: no matter what I’m about to walk into, no matter how they’re about to treat me, and no matter what’s about to happen, thank you, Holy Spirit, for transforming my life so much that I used to be like them. I used to look at people like that. God, I thank you that you’re expanding my heart for grace for people who don’t even understand what I’m going through and that I’m this close to the edge and they don’t know me. I used to be an MMA boxer, and I’d break their neck in another season; but God, I thank you that You have brought me a mighty long way. I thank you that I don’t fight with my fists anymore. I thank you that I fight, and what ends up happening is my heart posture.
We meet a lot of nice people, but when you’re kind, that’s empowered by the Spirit—go to the second point. When you’re nice—because I want to clarify this for us—nice people keep it surface. «How you doing?» «Oh, look at that! Where’d you get that? That’s nice.» You meet people that you think are nice, but you don’t know them enough to give them any different definition. So nice is superficial. My barista? They’re so nice! Yet to their spouse, they’re abusive. It’s because you only know them on the surface. Nice is surface, but kind is a sacrifice. To be kind to some people—like to be kind to my wife, to be kind to my kids. These are my kids; they look like me! You just spilled the last of the juice! It shouldn’t be hard! I don’t know if there are any parents that’ll back me up in here. I’ve been waiting to eat for two hours, and I saved everything specifically for this moment, and that’s my juice!
«I’m so sorry, Daddy; I didn’t mean to.» I know you didn’t mean to! I’m talking, but what does it look like to be kind? Watch this: when you’re in conflict, that’s empowered by the Holy Spirit. Let me keep going. Some people are nice, and when you’re nice—it’s an acknowledgment, like, «Ah, you did good! Oh, that was so nice for them to notice me!» It’s like, «Oh man, nobody ever does that!» That’s a nice thing, but when you get to kind, it’s active. Kind requires something of me. «Okay, nobody’s ever done it like that, so I’m going to call the three people that I know will take that to the next level for you and set up a meeting for you.» I know this has nothing to do with me, but I know the people that can take what you just did to the next level.
So I’m about to get active. I’m about to do something that is a sacrifice; that actually is not just polite, it’s my heart posture. I’m walking into the room, looking at how I can help, how I can give, and I’m about to get active! They didn’t answer my first phone call; let me text you back. I did call them, but I know they’re out right now. So let me get back to you. I’m about to get active. There are too many believers that are nice but not kind. You have a couch that could furnish somebody’s apartment, and you’re sick of the couch, and you’re going to throw it away because you don’t want to take the time to put it on a truck to get it to somebody. I didn’t say it; you said it. She said that’s lazy. I didn’t say it.
One thing it is not is kind. Okay, let’s keep going. We’re almost there. Do y’all hear what I’m saying? Nice is being considerate. «No, you can have the parking space.» «No, no, no, you.» You know what I’m saying? You’re doing a little inch forward, and finally y’all are about to get in a car accident because nobody goes, «Okay, it’s considerate.» Kind is compassionate. It’s being in the parking space, and then seeing—uh, uh, uh. You didn’t even notice that they had a special needs sticker on the back of their car. The reason they needed that parking spot is because if you would have seen the special needs sticker, you would have been nice, but that conviction of the Holy Spirit made you compassionate.
You didn’t even know why; but it was something that came on the inside of you, and you saw that she—oh. Because you don’t know what it is to lift up that 80-pound boy into the wheelchair. The church can’t just be nice; we have to be kind, and kindness is only empowered by the Holy Spirit. Many of us let our preferences, opinions, beliefs, political parties, and the color of people’s skin make us nice to people and not kind. There are a lot of white people that are nice to black people. «I’ll even let you talk to me! I’ll come to your church!» But «I’ve never been to your house.» Y’all saw how quiet it just got? We can live in a world where we’re nice to each other, but you could give me a job, and you could promote me too, because you see how I work. But you’ve been nice to me, and the Holy Spirit hasn’t allowed you to be. Oh, and black people, do not think for a second you’re like the man.
No, no, no, come here. You can be nice to your boss but make jokes about them behind their back all the time. You can talk about—uh. Oh, my analogies just went very real, so I’m going to come back. What I’m saying is this: racially, spiritually, maybe we don’t just need to be nice to each other; maybe we need to be kind. There’s no better story than the Good Samaritan, where this man gets beat up and literally gets mugged, everything stolen from him. The pastor walks by and prays for him on the move. «I hope God does something for him.» Then the worship leader walks by and says, «Late in the midnight hour, God’s going to turn it around.» Then, somebody that was a different ethnicity who didn’t even know what was happening, the Bible says they felt compassion, and their compassion made them go to this person. Y’all just have to see it! This is my last scripture.
Okay, I want to go to Luke 10:30. Then the despised Samaritan came along, and when he saw the man, he felt compassion for him. Going over to him, the Samaritan, watch this, soothed his wounds with olive oil and wine and bandaged him. He had to take something he already had and give it to someone he didn’t know. All of that would have come from his resources—he gave to somebody with no guarantee of getting it back. Then he put the man on his donkey and took him to an inn where he took care of him. The next day, he handed the innkeeper two silver coins, telling him, «Take care of this man. If his bill runs higher than this, I’ll pay you the next time I’m here.»
Think about this! Think about going to the most expensive hotel in this city, putting somebody in the hotel knowing they’re broke down, and then saying they don’t have a time limit! Let them stay here as long as they need to, and if they run it up, I’ll take care of it when I come back. Most of us would have been like, «Hey, give them two nights!» «No, come on, give them two nights and a continental breakfast on the way out.» «What time do y’all start charging to make sure they’re gone at 1:30?» But this man was kind! He said, «I don’t know how this is going to impact me, but I’m moved with compassion.» Look what it says—this is Jesus talking—"Now which one of these three people, the pastor who prayed for him on the move or the worship leader who sang to him but didn’t stop for him— which one of these would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by the bandits?» Jesus asked. The man replied, «The one who showed him mercy.» Then Jesus said, «Yes! Now go and do the same.»
See, being nice—put that back on here; we’re about to close—is selective. You can be nice to people in your group, nice to people who believe like you, nice to people who go to your church, nice to people your kids play soccer with. Nice is selective; kind is selfless! This is the fruit of the Spirit. Many of us, watch this, to be kind, we’re going to have to face the culture that has raised us. Your complex of how you view the culture of your life is going to come into conflict with being kind to people. Because if somebody has on a «Make America Great» hat, there are people in this room and listening to me that would not help them. «Oh no, Christians.» Please know I’m not talking to anybody other than believers, and please don’t act shocked! Because there are certain people if they wore an Obama shirt or a Kamala Harris shirt, you wouldn’t even think twice about inviting them to your church!
It’s so crazy that a person can be dehumanized to the point that what they wear or what they believe currently makes them no longer your brother or sister in Christ. The claps are weak and weary, and it’s not me; this is the Bible. The truth is most Christians aren’t acting like Christians. I had a stat in my message that said in the '50s, 78% of America went to some type of religious experience yearly, and now it’s less than 30%. Do you know why? The number one reason of all the people polled is because they say Christians are judgmental and unkind. How in the world is the thing Jesus is known for, we don’t look anything like it? No, I’m for real, y’all! You’ve been mean to people for years and won’t apologize.
If they’re on the worship team, you’ll make it right so you can use their gift, but the person who has no consequence on what happened on the platform— but as a child of God, where’s the compassion? It’s time for us to not be selective, for us to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to be selfless. Two more: being nice is being passively agreeable. «Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I kind of believe that. Yeah, come on. Yeah, that’s okay; that doesn’t offend me.» So, okay, cool! Being kind means that you can completely disagree with me and I’m powerfully anchored. I do not have to agree with you to actually be kind to you. There are people that think things about me in this church that are nothing but fabricated ideas— I’m being very kind with my words—straight-up lies! Yet God tells me to give to some of them. «Now you want to do lunch?»
I don’t want to go! Okay? I don’t want to go because the Lord’s still working. But I’m going to start by sending you a video. I’m okay! I’m being too real right now. I’m saying to give to somebody—put them on the list—ooh, not them! God said, «Exactly them!» Oh but Lord, I have screenshots of what they said about me! Somebody sent it to me; I didn’t even ask for it, but they told their whole congregation in the same city to give to them. Lord, be kind. Holy Spirit, activate! Come on, y’all! This will not just be me! And God says this is you backing up and making space. «Hey Doc, just want to thank you, brother! You don’t know what this means to what God is doing. Yeah, hey bro, just want to let you know God’s thinking of you, and I was going to lie and say I’m praying for you.» And so—watch what I’m telling y’all; this is a real story—so, I feel naked up here, okay? And in my mind, I was like, «Tell them you’re praying for them!»
The Holy Spirit said to pray for him now. I get so weak in the knees I can hardly stand. Y’all, it almost took me out because I was about to lie. I was about to say, «Hey, I’ll be praying for you,» when I haven’t been praying for you. Can I be honest, y’all? Hey bro, you’re on God’s mind; that’s right, because you weren’t on mine. And bro, let me pray for you. Father, thank you for blessing this man of God. Thank you for blessing their ministry. Thank you that their marriage would be strong, Father. And just thank you, Lord, that somewhere in the middle of me making that video, it broke my heart. It was almost like I saw myself, and I saw my friends, and I don’t know what made him say that, but Lord, I just thank you that anything that’s been a pressure on him, any lies that have ever been spoken, God would change. I mean, it just started gushing out; that wasn’t me, that wasn’t my flesh. That was me being empowered by the Holy Spirit to be kind.
Standing all over this building, the last thing is something that you make an idea, and it becomes self-improvement. I’m going to be nicer. I’m going to be nicer to people. But being nice is self-improvement; being kind, listen, is Spirit-empowered. Don’t just make a decision to be nice. Every person in this room, if you are a believer in Jesus, you should be kind. I’m going to pray for every person that you would allow the Holy Spirit—watch this, everybody listen. I know you’re excited to leave, but hear what I’m saying because this would all be for nothing if you go out of here and act the same way. I want you to ask the Holy Spirit what ideas you have to let go of to actually be kind.
One of the ideas, let me give you an example. I don’t have time to go all into it, but an example was I was weak if I was kind in the face of adversity. Bring that thing real fast in my closing; can you bring that real quick? Just bring it, just bring it real fast. You don’t even have to bring it on the table; just bring it. Because this is what tends to happen: when people get in a hot situation, a pressure situation, a tense situation, what ends up happening is it’s trying to change your character. Hear what I’m saying to you. We are not supposed to allow the situation to turn us into something we’re not supposed to be.
So this is burning hot water, and when I put an egg in it, it becomes hard on the inside. There are too many people that when God puts you in a tense situation or a boiling situation or a pressure situation, you do not look like God; you become hard. Yeah, and there are people under the sound of my voice; your heart, something that’s supposed to flow, is now very stationary. And today, I believe by the power of the Holy Spirit, there’s something that’s going to change in your heart. And then there’s another group of people, when they’re put under pressure, you just become soft and mushy. Nothing in you will stand for anything. When you’re put under pressure, you lose your convictions because you can be kind and still have a conviction. Most people think that letting anything happen is kind. No, no, no, no, you can’t talk to my kids any type of way. I’m telling you, no, no, no, no, you can cuss to your kids, but I’m kindly letting you know that language is not okay around them.
So many people think we have to let anything that anybody does go, or we’re not being kind. The goal is not to get hard or to get mushy; the goal is that when there is something that is hot and pressure is put on us, we would release an aroma. See, if you were close to this right now, you would smell the raspberry and the jasmine. You would smell the things because when I get put into hot situations, what comes off of me smells like Him. Y’all don’t hear what I’m saying! It’s in His kindness and His mercy. So you can say all you want about me; all you’re about to smell is something sweet. This is what the believer should be—not hard, not soft, but let it be a sweet, sweet smell. Let it be a sweet, sweet smell at your job, with your family. Let it be sweet with your wife, with your husband. It’s time for the church, Christians, to be kind.
Everyone under the sound of my voice, I’m charging you that this next season is not just about how much power you can produce in your life; it’s actually about getting a new definition from people around you. Let it be one of your goals that people would say about you when you’re not in the room, «That’s one of the kindest people I know.» Now listen, you may never hear it, you may never hear these words, but on your vision board this year, don’t put a car; put «kind.» I mean, you can put the car, too, but I’m just saying, what if the fruits of the Spirit were the vision board? What if, this year, love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness was what you wanted to be more like Him?
Because Titus 3:3 says, «Once we too were foolish and disobedient; we were misled and became slaves to many lusts and pleasures. Our lives were full of evil and envy; we hated each other.» But when God our Savior revealed His kindness, the reason we’re saved is because God was kind. When He revealed His kindness and love, He saved us not because of the right things that we had done, but because of His mercy. He washed away our sins, giving us new birth and new life through Him. I love how the Bible brings everything together. The only way He did it was through the Holy Spirit. Would you lift your hands all over?
Father, I thank you that today we are all making a decision to be more like You and allow the Holy Spirit to develop kindness—not just in our thoughts, but in our actions. God, will You help me be kind? Come on, I need you to just ask the Holy Spirit right there. Help me to be kind; help me to be kind not just to those who are far from me and don’t have a close view of me. Help me be kind to my wife, to my children, and to my roommate. Help me be kind to my boss and my coworkers. Help me be kind to people, Father, who have told me they’ll stay. Because many times we take advantage of those who are committed to us. Father, would you allow us to be kind to those who don’t believe like us—those who just don’t believe, who actually hate what we love? Father, this is hard, but I’m asking You, Holy Spirit, to give me empowerment that is not generated by me wanting to be better. Holy Spirit, I need Your help. Holy Spirit, for every person making comments and videos, would You allow me to be kind? Give me the opportunity to be kind to them. Father, I make space for You to be God and for me to give them drink, for me to feed them. Father God, will you help me remember this message? Oh, y’all, I’m praying real prayers right now. Father, I need You; whether it’s the lavender, whether it’s the flower, whether it’s the egg or the carrot, help me remember this is Your will. This is what You want from me; You want me to be kind. I’m not Your soldier in a way to make You look big and bad; I’m Your soldier when I’m kind to people. That proves I’m in the army of the Lord. Help me be gentle and kind and still be in joy. Thank You, Father, for doing a work on the inside that shows up on the outside. We’ll give You all the glory, honor, and praise for it.
Even in this moment, I was thinking, like I was about to do my jacket, enjoy, and I was like dang, I didn’t put it there today. See, we decided to live in joy. Uh-oh, it’s still on me. Now, it may take different positions; it may not be. Some of y’all are like, «What is he talking about?» We decided we’re going to live in joy. I usually have it right here, but as long as it’s on me, don’t lose your joy. Today, I want to give people an opportunity to receive Christ because it was His kindness. I know there are people here, and you’ve heard big topics today. Like, you heard us talk about finances; you heard me talk about the church not being right, and you’re like, «Dang, I kind of like he going off on them.» But what I’m saying is, join us and represent! The reason we’re talking about it is because we’re not going to live that way; we’re trying to do something different.
This week, as you go, I want you to be kind to people, but some people don’t have the power to be kind because you have not accepted Jesus and you have not received the Holy Spirit. So today, if you’re in this room, on the count of three, I’m going to give you the opportunity to give your life to Christ or rededicate your life to Christ. And this is the thing that took me from being a liar, a manipulator, addicted to pornography, someone with very dark stuff in their heart. It didn’t make me a perfect man, but it made me a progressing man that transformed everything about me. Today, even as we’re here, there are people around you who need to give Jesus your life.
I need the church to begin to pray. There are people watching right now online; you’ve been feeling this tug. It’s the Holy Spirit drawing you with His kindness right now. On the count of three, I just want you to lift your hands if you want to accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. One, you’re making the greatest decision of your life. Two, the Holy Spirit is about to enter your life and transform you for the better. It’s about to change everything. Three, shoot your hand up in the air if you want to give your life to Jesus. I saw you right there; I see you right there. I see you! Oh, Transformation Church, I see you! More than that, God sees you. I see you, my brother. Hey, TC, I see you! Glory to God! Y’all don’t know what this is; heaven is turning up right now! Hey listen, TC, we’re family; nobody prays alone. I want everybody to say this prayer together:
Say, God, thank You for, in Your kindness, You sent Jesus. Today, I give You my life; change me, renew me, transform me. I’m Yours! I repent of my old ways and I turn to You. I’m all Yours. Make me more like You. In Jesus' name, amen.