Ephesians 431 through 52.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you with all malice and be kind to one another,

tender-hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children us and gave himself up for us a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

This text is so rich as I mentioned earlier that any of the phrases almost could be chosen and spoken about for an hour.

So we have to be selective and I've chosen to focus our thoughts around the little commandment in verse 32, be kind to one another.

And I have pondered how the rest of the things in the text fit together with this command and

have come up with five things about Christian kindness that I want to talk about with you.

Let me mention what the five things are and then we'll take them one at a time and think about them together.

First, there is the... and think about them together.

First, there is the extent of Christian kindness.

Second, we will look at the depth of Christian kindness.

Third, we'll look at the pattern of Christian kindness.

Fourth, the instrument of Christian kindness, and then finally the source of Christian kindness.

And my prayer as we look at these five dimensions of Christian kindness is that God would honor his word by causing

it to bear fruit in your lives and my life in Christian kindness.

And I feel inclined to just ask the Lord to do that right now with you. Let's just pray

pray and ask him to do that right now with you.

Lord, we are in great need.

Because... because the words of men produce nothing eternal or of any spiritual significance.

Only the words of God do that.

Here I stand, helpless, therefore, unless you would be pleased to do the miracle of making my voice an instrument of your grace to reach the hearts of your people or perhaps some

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