Post Sunday March 15 2009

Ephesians 4:32 “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”

Over the past three weeks some very prevalent and common traits have been put forth and we have challenged ourselves to leave them behind, to let them die in order to move closer toward that resurrected life, that brand new life in Christ that God so desires us all to live and lead. To live lives worthy of the gospel of Christ. (OK be honest how many of you are sick of me saying this?)

It can certainly seem unattainable, unrealistic, unfathomable and I’m just going to undo my faith because this is too difficult. My first words are please don’t give in the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence for any lawn that does not include Christ may have the appearance of greeneness (not a real word) but it is not TRULY green. Stay steadfast and planted in the lawn of Christ no matter how difficult.

Secondly, would it help if I spoke Greek for a minute? No, not the, “that’s Greek to me, “ signifying that we have no clue what is being talked about, but Biblical Greek.

In the above verse we are told “And be.” When we see this we immediately think, great another commandment, another thing I must instantly become. And be, be kind, be tenderhearted, be forgivers. We think instantaneous being. Sort of like my son Ben and I were talking about today. We were talking baseball and he mentioned the fact that a certain adult male must BE (there is that word again) good at baseball because they are an adult and they are male. Ben’s assumption was that that anyone that was both big and a man were instantly good at baseball. They just were to BE. I explained to him that we don’t suddenly arrive at a certain point of life in this example “bigness” by accident and find ourselves good at baseball. We must listen to those that know how to play baseball and learn from them. We must take what we learn and apply it, to practice it over and over (he thought one or two times was enough), then as we get more skilled we are able to allow this skill to flow naturally from us as it actually BECOMES a part of us and we BECOME good at baseball. It is a process not a simple BE.

The word BE in Ephesians 4:32 is the Greek word ginomai (ghin'-om-ahee). It is translated as be in some places but it also means “to become.”

In Christ we now have the power to be potentially kind. We learn from God what kindness is all about and begin to practice it and over time it will naturally begin to flow out as we have truly BECOME kind and thus we now can BE kind.

We are told to BE forgivers. For those people that we deeply struggle with forgiving we may need to practice forgiving them in private 5000 times before we can finally do it that one important time face to face with them. It is at that point that we BECOME forgivers and thus we now can BE forgivers.

So is it OK that you struggle with kindness and forgiveness for example. It is OK to struggle with if you are sincerely striving toward BECOMING truly kind and forgiving. Did you go to your learning source today to learn more about kindness and forgiveness? Did you go into the batting cages of life and begin practicing kindness and forgiveness? If you are learning and practicing then you are sincerely BECOMING.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF:

1. What sort of things are you doing to learn and to practice BECOMING the person that lives a life worthy of the gospel?

2. What sort of things do you think you can do to improve upon your current learning and practice habits?

pastor e