I'm going to read 1 Corinthians 13, verse 1-8. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge and I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor and I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, it is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Let's pray. Father God Almighty, we ask that You would teach us this morning. You would instruct us in the more excellent way of love. Teach us this path of love so that we might follow it. Lord, and we pray for a special work of Your spirits, Your powerful spirits, to grace us with an increased measure of love. Lord, You say in Your Word that the fruit of the Spirit is love. And so we ask that Your Spirit might grace us with love this morning, and that it might emanate from us and reverberate back towards You for Your glory and for Your praise. Amen. What is the sum of all your responsibilities before God and before man? It can be summed up in one word, love. Either love towards God, vertically, or horizontally, love towards your fellow man. Remember, Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment is what? To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like unto it, to love your neighbor as yourself. To love God and to love others. And this section in 1 Corinthians is probably the most extensive section in the Bible on love. In fact, we saw in verses 1-3 last week the priority of love. The priority of love, that if you have the most eminent of gifts, the most prominent of spiritual gifts, but do not have love, it profits nothing. Or you can have the greatest acts of sacrifice, in giving your body to the flames, or giving all your money to the poor, but if you have not love, you are nothing, and it profits nothing. So we saw the priority of love last week, and now verses 4-7, we're going to look at the practices of love, and then in verses 8-13, the permanence of love. But for our intents and purposes this morning, we're just going to look at the first two practices of love, that love practices patience or long-suffering, and love practices kindness. And one thing that you must understand when you look at this section in 1 Corinthians 13, especially in verses 4 through 7, that when he speaks of love and says, love is patient, love is kind, And love is not arrogant and so on and so forth. He's not using adjectives in the original language. He's using verbs. And so he's saying that love practices patience or love practices long suffering. Love practices kindness. God does not practice arrogance. And so these are all verbs. And not only that, you may not see it from your English text, but as verbs in the present tense, in the Greek language, the tenses speak more of the duration or the aspect of the verb rather than the time of the verb. In English, we call them tenses because we speak of either past, present, or future. But in the Greek language, when you use the present tense, it speaks of an ongoing action. So that love is continually practicing kindness. Love is continually practicing patience or long-suffering. So let's first look at the beginning of verse 4. Love is patient. I'm calling this that your love must manifest patience or long-suffering. Some translations say long-suffering, and that's a more accurate translation. To be long-suffering. The word is almost always as well in the context of kindness. In fact, when you think back to the fruits of the Holy Spirit, it speaks of love, joy, peace. Patience, or some translations say long-suffering, and kindness, right next to kindness and the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Also in Romans chapter 2, it speaks of God's patience or His long-suffering and His kindness towards those who do not believe. But this word, when we think of patience, We usually think of being patient maybe at the checkout line, at the grocery store, or being patient in traffic, or being patient when the CD player is not working, or something like that. But this word for patient speaks almost exclusively of patience with other people. And in specific, patience with other people when you are being wronged. That's why the King James translation of long-suffering is a good translation, because it carries the idea of suffering long, bearing with somebody's ill-treatment towards you. In fact, Robert Thomas, a former professor of mine, said, quote, this is the temperament that patiently accepts injuries without a desire for revenge. the temperament that patiently accepts injuries without a desire for revenge. The older Puritan commentator Matthew Henry says, it can endure evil, injury, and provocation without being filled with resentment, indignation, or revenge. This is a non-retaliatory attitude. In other words, God calls us To be a lover and not a fighter. To be a lover and not a fighter. To not be one who retaliates, who's short-tempered or short-suffering, but one who is long-suffering. Somebody who's willing to bear with the evils and injustices that somebody dishes out towards us. This is what love practices. You may ask the question, well, Was any of this going on in the Corinthian church? Did they need to be instructed that love practices long-suffering? We better believe it. Turn back to 1 Corinthians 6. Earlier on in this book, Paul has to give them instructions on how to bear with one another. 1 Corinthians 6, verse 1. What was going on in the Corinthian church was that they were suing each other. They were sue happy. They were taking each other to court. Verse 1, does anyone of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts?" In other words, he's saying, why do you air out your dirty laundry before the world? Why are you taking each other to court and suing each other? Isn't there somebody wise amidst the congregation? Somebody who could be a peacemaker or an arbitrator and decide this case amongst you? Why do you need to air out your dirty laundry before the watching world? Verse 3, Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? Verse 4, so if you have law courts dealing with the matters of this life, do you not appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? I say this to your shame. It is so that there is not among you, is there not one among you a wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren. But brothers go to court, but brother goes to law with brother and that before unbelievers. Actually then it is already a defeat for you that one have lawsuits with another. Why not rather, here it is, why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? On the contrary, you yourselves wrong and defraud. You do this even to your brother. You see what he's saying? Evidently, I mean, this happens all the time in the world, that there's evils and injustices even amongst brothers and sisters in the Lord. That's what happens. And what was happening in the church at Corinth was they were taking each other to court. They were suing each other. And Paul has to instruct them and say, love suffers long. Paul says, why not be defrauded? Why not be wronged? You see, this is love. Love practices patience or long-suffering with people. Love is willing to endure ill-treatment for the cause of Christ and out of love towards other people. Now, that doesn't mean that there's never a case to bring up injustices against one another, but Paul said there is a place for that, but do it amongst the brethren. And friends, this is so very counter-cultural, is it not? I mean, it was counter-cultural back then. In fact, in the ancient world, this term, to be long-suffering or to be patient, was considered a weakness. It's a strong person. who gets revenge. It's a strong person who sticks up for his rights. In fact, one commentator says, in the Greek world, non-avenging patience was considered weakness, unworthy of a noble man or woman. Aristotle, for example, taught that the great Greek virtue was refusal to tolerate insult or injury and to strike back in retaliation for the slightest offense. Vengeance was a virtue. The world has always tended to make heroes of those who fight back, who stand up for their welfare and rights above all else." End quote. And is it any different today? Is it any different today? I mean, think about the work situation if you have a manager or a supervisor who is almost unbearable. And then you get news of a fellow co-worker who gave that manager a piece of their mind. Everybody applauds and says, yes! And then you think, wouldn't I like to have been a fly on the wall in that room. We applaud the vengeance, the retaliation, the getting even. We go to hockey games so we could see a good fight, a good retaliation. We watch movies where our heroes like Jack Bauer get revenge. And all this is inbred and ingrained into our thinking so that when we receive insult and injury, we're quick to retaliate and we think that that's okay before God. But it's not. Or we live in a culture that speaks of our unalienable rights, our rights to privacy, our rights to such and such. And once those rights are trampled, you need to fight for those rights. I challenge you. I challenge you to think biblically on this issue. That according to the Bible, we are called to be willing to give up our rights. In fact, Jesus Himself said, in Matthew chapter 5 verse 38, you have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, do not resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, Take your shirt, give to him your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Whoever asks of you, do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. You see the picture? Jesus is saying that you ought not to applaud revenge. The Pharisees had misinterpreted the principle, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It was a civil principle given for the law courts, but they had used it for personal revenge. But Jesus says, It's not supposed to be that way, friends. Love practices long-suffering patience. Love is willing to forego perceived rights for the good of another. Love is willing to take the low road and be trampled on even if that means being stepped upon for the cause of Christ and for the good of that person. Now, that doesn't ever mean that there's not a time to address evil or address injustices or sin in somebody's life, or even possibly get law courts involved. But as far as on a personal level with people, we must be long-fused. We must be long-suffering. There's a story of a man, two men, who are walking alongside of a high mountain. They're walking towards each other. narrow path that's only a foot wide. And to the right of the one man stands a mountain that goes thousands of feet high, and it's too high to scale. And to the left on the path is the rest of the mountain that goes thousands of feet down. And as they come towards each other, they realize something's got to give here. We cannot both cross this path, it's too narrow. It's too hard to get across. So what the one man does is, as he looks around, sees no other options, he smiles at the man and he lies flat on his belly and the other man walks over him. You see, that's being willing to be stepped on for the benefit of another. This is what love practices. It practices long-suffering. God calls us not to be a fighter, but to be a lover. And so think. Think with me on this. Think about your workplace relationships, your relationships with others. Are you quick to retaliate when things don't go your way, or somebody offends you, or somebody does something you think is wrong? Are you quick to retaliate? Or are you long-suffering? Do you have a long fuse or a short fuse? Think about your relationship with cell phone companies or insurance companies, and the telephone conversations that you have to wait online for 15 minutes, and the evils and injustices that businesses practice during our times. How do we respond in those situations? Are we long-fused, long-suffering? Or are we short-fused and short-suffering? Think of your relationships with your spouse. If they don't do something the way you like it, They don't respond in the way that you would like? They don't give you the respect that you think you deserve? Are you quick to lash out at them? Or, are you long-suffering? In fact, if somebody was standing there, an innocent bystander with a stopwatch, and somebody did something harmful or insult or injury towards you, and they hit click on it, and they timed how long it would be before you responded or retaliated, how long would it be? Well, you may say, well, Matt, I'm not the type. I just clam up. I don't speak. Well, that's retaliation, is it not? Oh, you wouldn't kill that person, but you would do what I would call silent a fascination. You'll act as if they're dead, so you won't talk with them for hours on end. That is retaliation. That is short-suffering. That's not long-suffering. Love is long-suffering. It's willing to be wrong for the good of another and for the glory of God. Now that doesn't mean, once again, that there's never a time to address sin or help someone to see their own sin. or if there's evil and injustices in society, to get law courts involved. But nonetheless, on a personal level, love practices long-suffering. Think of your relationships in the home with parents, with your children. If your child lashes out or talks back against you, Are you long-suffering? Not that there's not appropriate discipline that needs to be done, but when you do that discipline, are you patient and long-suffering with them? Or are you just trying to get back at them? And also children with parents. It's the same way. If your parents, you think they're doing something injustice or harm or injury towards you, are you long-suffering? Patience. But then also, the body of Christ. It's easy for us to have these high and lofty visions that, this shouldn't happen in church. People don't do nasty things to you. We're Christians. Oh really? You haven't read your Bible well enough. First Corinthians, they were taking people to court. They were suing each other. That's why Paul wrote 1 Corinthians chapter 13. And so, sooner or later, maybe it's already happened amongst us, somebody is going to do something harmful towards you. Somebody is going to say something you like. Somebody is going to insult you, whether they realize it or not. And how are you going to respond to that? Are you going to be long-suffering and withhold the retaliation? Or... Are you going to be short-fused and retaliate? There will be a time when you will feel like somebody has injured you. When you will think that someone overlooked you for a ministry opportunity, or you will think that someone didn't appreciate you, or somebody didn't exuberantly greet you like you thought you should have been greeted. This is the world that we live in. And so how will you respond in those situations? There's a story told about Abraham Lincoln, and his chief political enemy was a man named Edwin Stanton, who hated his guts. In fact, Edwin Stanton would say of him, he called him a low-cunning clown, and he called him the original gorilla. Edward Stanton would say of Abraham Lincoln, it was ridiculous for people to go to Africa to see a gorilla when they could find one just as easily in Springfield, Illinois. But Lincoln never responded to his slander. Never retaliated. In fact, when the opportunity came, and Lincoln needed a Secretary of War, He appointed Edward Stanton to the position. And the friends around Lincoln said, why would you do such a thing? He said, he's the best man for the job. Years later, when Abraham Lincoln's body lay dead in the coffin, Stanton looked into the coffin and said through tears, there lies the greatest ruler of men the world has ever seen. Stan's animosity was broken by Lincoln's long-suffering And friends we as Christians need to to seek to be long-suffering. Because love practices long-suffering. I mean, that's what love does. Love is other-focused. It's willing to die to self, to die to your own rights or your own perceived rights for the good of somebody else or for the glory of God. Patience demonstrates exercises, or love exercises patience and long-suffering towards others. And we know this well. If you're a parent, and your child talks back to you or says something nasty towards you, you're patient with them. Oh, you may inflict the appropriate discipline, but if a stranger said those same things to you, How patient would you be? Why? Because your love for them wants to exercise patience and long-suffering towards them. Love demonstrates patience and long-suffering. And also realize this, that love that exercises kindness or exercises patience is the fruit of what? That's a fruit of the Spirit of God. So this love that exercises long-suffering is not dependent upon your circumstances. So you may be saying to me this morning, Matt, you don't understand what I'm going through. You don't understand what I'm putting up with. You don't understand the people I have to deal with. Well, the Bible says that this grace, this love that practices long-suffering, It doesn't depend upon your circumstances. It is a fruit of the Spirit of the living God. And so that it's possible when you receive insult, when you receive injury, that you can exercise this long suffering. But you see, long suffering not only exercises Love not only exercises long-suffering towards others, but exercising this long-suffering demonstrates love towards God Himself. Do you realize that? When you demonstrate this kind of long-suffering, you're demonstrating love for God. Well, how so, Matt? Jonathan Edwards says, first, love to God disposes us to imitate Him, and therefore disposes us to such longsuffering as He manifests. The longsuffering of God is wonderfully manifest in His bearing innumerable injuries for men, and injuries that are very great and long-continued. If we consider the wickedness that there is in the world, and then consider how God continues the world in existence and does not destroy it, but showers upon it innumerable mercies, the bounties of His daily providence and grace, causing His Son to rise on the evil and the good." You see, exercising this kind of long-suffering demonstrates love for God because it sees the long-suffering and the patience in God Himself and says, I want to be like that. And we understand this when a child, a son, sees his parent, his dad, and he wants to be like his dad. He wants to do the same things as his dad. He wants to eat the same kinds of foods as his dad. Because he loves his dad. And the Christian, as a child of God, sees the long-suffering in God, sees what appears to be almost inexhaustible long-suffering in the God whom he calls Father. And he says, I want to be like my Father. I want to be like this God who is willing to be insulted, to endure the evils and the blasphemies of this world, and to exercise great patience. and longsuffering. Let us go hard after longsuffering out of love for our Father. But also, longsuffering demonstrates love for God because it cherishes that which exists in God. You see, if we really value who God is, if we value the long-suffering patience of God, then we will want to exercise long-suffering towards others. Do you understand then? If you yawn at God's long-suffering towards you, then how long-suffering are you going to be with others? But when you realize the immense long-suffering and patience that God has demonstrated towards you, Then you want to be long-suffering towards others. I mean, have you ever pondered that? I mean, if God treated you on the basis of how you treat others when you suffer injury and harm, what would your relationship with God be like? But because, God, you have sinned against Him over and over, perhaps even before you were a Christian, there was many years which you lived in rebellion against God, shaking your fist at God. And He suffered long with you. And then even after you were reconciled to Him, after He implanted in you a heart of love for Him, even now, there's still remaining rebellion with you. And He suffers long. He continues to exercise great patience. And He is a God who loves holiness more than any of His creatures. And yet he continues to exercise great long-suffering. And so then, that ought to give us motivation to say, I cherish God's patience and long-suffering with me. Therefore, I want to exercise love that manifests long-suffering and patience towards others. So God calls us to be a lover and not a fighter. We're not to retaliate. We're not to get our pound of flesh. We're not to try and get even. We're to exercise long-suffering. Mature love should manifest not only patience and long-suffering, but also notice, look at your text, verse 4, love must manifest kindness. Love is patience. Or love, like I said, it's a verb. Love continually exercises patience, long-suffering. And love also continually exercises kindness. Kindness. Doing good to others. The word kind means to be useful. to be gracious, to be useful to somebody else, to do something towards somebody else that is useful to them. And Paul, no doubt, strategically places this word right next to long-suffering, because long-suffering, on the one hand, is willing to endure the ill-treatment, it's willing to endure the injury, But then kindness reaches out and seeks to be useful to somebody else. It's one thing to be willing to endure the ill-treatment. It's another thing to reach out in a kind of loving kindness and exercise being useful towards somebody else. And we see this throughout the Scriptures. In fact, turn to Ephesians chapter 4 and verse 31. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 31 says, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all mouths. All those things would be the opposite of longsuffering. So you're in a situation, instead of being longsuffering, you would be bitter, you would be wrathful, you would be angry, you would be clamorous, you would be slanderous. But notice he says, put those things off. So he's advocating here, be long-suffering. But then the positive, what do you put on? Verse 32, be, notice the first word, kind to one another. Tender-hearted, forgiving each other just as God in Christ has forgiven you. You see it? It's the negative. Be long-suffering. Don't respond in anger. Don't respond returning with slanderous speech. But then the positive. Be kind toward one another. This is what love practices. Also turn over to Romans 12. Romans 12 verse 19. Romans 12.19 says, Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God. For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. So here's the long-suffering part. Do not retaliate, do not take revenge. But do what? Leave room for God's judgment. God will deal with them. You don't need to act as judge. You don't need to be Charles Bronson, be the enforcer. You need to leave that in God's hands. But then the positive, verse 20, be useful, be kind. But if your enemy is hungry, feed him. If he is thirsty, give him a drink. For in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. You see it? It's all throughout the Scriptures. The negative, to be long-suffering, to endure injury, to not retaliate, to put off the anger, the malice, all that. But then the positive, to be kind, to be useful. If your enemy is hungry, feed him. To do something good for them. This is what love practices. This is what love engages in. And think about it, friends. This is great love for others. But it's also love for God. When we engage in kindness, once again on the principle that we imitate the God that we love, guess who? is the most kind being in existence. God the living God. And so if we love God, we see God's great kindness and we say, I want to be like that. I want to exercise not only that kind of long suffering, but I want to exercise that kind of kindness. And we understand this principle in the world as well. I mean, when I was growing up, I would love to see a baseball player hit a baseball 400 feet over the fence. So I would see people like Jim Tomey, Albert Bell, Andre Thornton, when they would hit that baseball, hit a 95 mile per hour fastball and knock it out of the yard, I said, wow, I love that. I want to be like that. And so even sometimes we would do the same motions in the batter's box that they would do. We would imitate them. Why? Because we love that. We admire that. In the same way, I ask you this morning, do you admire the kindness of God? Do you admire a God who responds with the evils and blasphemies of this world with not only great long-suffering, but even kindness. I mean, have you ever pondered that? Romans 2 verse 4 says, Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? There it is. Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance? And there's our word, patience. Kindness and patience. Kindness and long-suffering going hand in hand in the character of God. I mean, think about that. Most of this world lives in out-and-out rebellion against God, the living God. Thumbing their nose up at God. And who is the one who gives them the food that they eat? Who is the one who gives them the air that they breathe? Who is the one who gives them the spouses that they enjoy, the friends that they enjoy? Who is the one who gave them parents who loved them? God's great kindness. In all this kindness, this patience, this long-suffering is to lead them to repentance, but the rest of the text says, as it is, they are storing up wrath for the day of wrath. But each time an unbeliever receives God's kindness and God's long-suffering towards them, and they continue in their rebellion against God, they're just adding pieces of wood to the fire. that they will endure for all eternity. But yet it's a real patience, it's a real long-suffering, and it's a real kindness that God exercises towards all of humanity. Not only that, in Luke 6, verse 35, it says, 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. Why? For He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. God Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. The kindness of God. So that when we exercise this kind of kindness, we are demonstrating that God is our hero. God is the one we love. God is the one we admire. And we want to be like Him. And we want to be like Jesus as well. Jesus, the one who said in Matthew 11, verse 30, Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. And then he says, For my yoke is easy. And the word that's translated easy there is the same word we have for kindness here. For my yoke is kind and my burden is light. The kindness of Christ. But not only love exercises kindness, love towards God, but also love towards others. And this is obvious, but it's worth reminding ourselves that love exercises kindness towards others. And it's right hand in hand with long-suffering. So that when we receive injury and ill-treatment, we can respond with kindness. We can respond with doing things that are useful and helpful to others. So that if our enemy is hungry, if we see a need in them and we can be useful to them, then we can be kind. And we can imitate God. Francis Schaeffer used to talk about opportune moments of love. You see, we don't always have opportunities to love others. But sometimes, somebody mentions a need, somebody mentions a difficulty, somebody mentions something that's going on in their life, and we have to have open ears to what's going on. Perhaps it's a prayer request. Perhaps it's just a mention of something in conversation. And that should be our opportune moments of love to then say, what can I do to be kind towards that person? If it's a physical need, if it's just being there to befriend them, if it's just being there to listen to them, if it's being there to give them instruction and counsel from the Scriptures. Opportune moments to love. But even if it's our enemies, we can still be kind. We still must be kind. And we have a great opportunity then to mimic and imitate the God whom we love. Because no one exercises more kindness towards his enemies than God Himself. so that if someone is harmful or evil towards you, then you can, like Romans says, not take revenge, or like this passage says, be long-suffering, and you can, if your enemy is hungry, you can feed them, you can look for that need, and you can be useful to them, you can engage in an act of kindness, and perhaps win them over. But once again, you need to remember, That this, like longsuffering, comes from where? Comes from the Spirit of the living God. Because the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, and kindness. Long-suffering and kindness comes from the Spirit of the living God, so it's not dependent upon your circumstances. So once again, you may be saying, Matt, how can I be kind at work? You don't understand these people. But you see, your kindness is not dependent upon how people treat you. In fact, people's ill-treatment of you may be exactly what God is using in your life to teach you the fruit of kindness. So, how are you doing with long-suffering and kindness this morning? With patience and kindness towards others? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you measure up with these practices of love. And if you're seeing that you're weak in these areas, then you need to have some honest dealings with the Lord God and ask Him by the power of His Spirit to infuse you with greater love that would manifest itself in greater long-suffering and patience towards others, and also greater kindness and being useful towards others. To be kind. To be useful towards others. Ask yourself, am I useful towards others? I mean, if all of a sudden I died and people around me, the people around you, would they notice? that you were useful, you were helpful towards them. There's something that's now missing because you're not there. Because you engaged in many acts of kindness and many helpful deeds towards them, and now you're not there. It's engaged in long-suffering and kindness. But this 1 Corinthians 13, ultimately, It's a portrait of the Lord Christ Himself. In fact, someone has said that it's a portrait of Christ painted by the Father in the glowing colors of the Holy Spirit. A portrait of Jesus painted by the Father in the glowing colors of the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus Himself is the ultimate example of long-suffering and kindness. I mean, He was slandered when He was here on earth. They spoke of Him. When they spoke of Him, they would say, you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed. You're a drunk. You're a glutton. And how does He respond? Long-suffering. Remember, even when you go to the cross and He's being crucified, those Roman soldiers mocked Him. In Mark 15, verse 16, it says, the soldiers dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on Him and began to acclaim, Hail, King of the Jews! And they kept beating His head. with a reed and spitting on Him, and kneeling and bowing down before Him. And after they mocked Him, they took the robe off Him, and they put on Him garments, and they led Him to crucify Him. How did He respond? Like a lamb that was led to the slaughter. Long suffering. Even when He was hanging there on the cross, remember, one of those persons, one of those thieves who was next to Him on the cross, even he was hurling abuse at Him. But even those who were walking by, according to Mark 15, 29, it says, those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads and saying, Ha, you who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself and come down from the cross. And how did he respond? Long-suffering patience. And then, those vile religious hypocrites who are thorn in Jesus' side all throughout His ministry, how were they responding to Him while He was hanging on the cross? In Mark 15, verse 31, it says, In the same way, the chief priests also, along with the scribes, were mocking Him among themselves, saying, He saved others, He cannot save Himself. Let this Christ, the King of Israel, now come down from the cross so that we may see and believe in those who were crucified with Him were also insulting Him." They're saying, why don't you come down from the cross? And you know what amazes me? Perhaps more than anything, You see, and he tells Peter on one occasion, Peter, don't you know that I could call down twelve legions of angels? Thousands of angels I could call down at a wink, and they would incinerate all these people. You see, not only Jesus was He long-suffering, but He had the ability to retaliate. He had the ability to hurl abuse. He had the ability to pour down His wrath upon them. But He was long-suffering. But not only that, He was kind. He was kind. Even as He's hanging on the cross, He says, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Father, forgive them, because they don't have a clue what they're doing. And even while He's on the cross at His moment of greatest weakness, you know who He's concerned for? His dear mother. He says, John, you take care of her. Kindness! And even in that greatest act of weakness at the height of long-suffering, He's giving His very life on the cross. He's having the wrath of God poured out upon him. So each and every one of them who is hurling abuse could have the opportunity for forgiveness if they cast themselves upon his mercy. This is Christ. None has demonstrated more long-suffering. None has demonstrated more kindness towards others. And I commend him to you this morning to follow in the way of Christ. 1 Peter 2 says to follow that example, who endured ill-treatment, and he kept his mouth closed and entrusted himself to Him who judges justly. Long-suffering and kindness. Let's imitate our Savior. Let's pray. Father God, we come before You. We acknowledge You are the long-suffering One. Christ is the long-suffering one. You are the kind one. Jesus Himself bearing the wrath of sinners. A great act of kindness. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us. He saved us. Lord, help us to grow in this kind of love. Lord, this is so foreign to our thinking, so alien to who we are. It can only happen by the power of Your Spirit. And I beg that Your Spirit might give us increasing measure of love that manifests itself in long-suffering and kindness. And Lord, even now, as we come before the elements, as we celebrate Your death and resurrection, Might we cherish Your patience and kindness in a new and fresh way this morning. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.