Good morning! I’m glad to welcome you to worship today at Hillcrest Baptist Church. 

As we continue examining our lives with the nine virtues of the Holy Spirit, we come to the virtue of Kindness. Kindness is a virtue that is desperately needed, especially in the busy, fast-paced, impatient, short-fused, and angry culture we find ourselves living in today. We are losing what it means to treat others with kindness and respect.

Our culture screams of the absence of kindness, as is evidenced in the news and our life experiences each day. Its absence causes people to neglect others, be rude, hateful, vengeful, and even murderous of others. The need for kindness is not new. On August 18, 1988, when President George H. W. Bush gave his acceptance speech for his party’s nomination for President of the United States, he called for a “kinder, gentler nation.” That same call is ringing out louder than ever in every area of life.

The key, as we have learned in our study of the fruit of the Spirit, is that each virtue is not a result of our own strength, ability, or character, but it is revealed in and through our lives as believers, by the person of the Holy Spirit living in us. How about you, how kind are you? Do you need to become a kinder, gentler person?

Today we will learn from Galatians 5:22–23 and various texts about Kindness.