Living-loving like Jesus: Gentleness, episode 133 (rebroadcast)

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If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right

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here at When You Love a Prodigal and also help and hope for your own life journey.

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I trust our conversation last week with Ron Deal about blended families was helpful

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to you.

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If you missed it, you can go to any platform or my judydouglass.com site to listen to it.

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If you have a blended family, it could really be helpful to you.

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Today we are continuing our study of what it looks like to live and love like Jesus.

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For certainly, if we could relate to our wanderers as Jesus would have, we just might see a

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difference in the atmosphere in our home and relationship.

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We have already considered compassion, kindness, and humility.

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Surely as we exhibit those qualities of Jesus, we could anticipate more peace and positive

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connection with our prodigals.

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This passage in Colossians 3 continues to be our guide.

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Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion,

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kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

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Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.

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Love as the Lord forgave you and over all these virtues put on love which binds them

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all together in perfect unity.

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Today we take up gentleness.

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So today in our world things seem harsh, angry, strident, contentious.

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Actions fly across social media, over the airwaves, in the streets, even in families.

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Actions follow and violence sometimes erupts.

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We can easily be drawn into the debate, the disagreement, the conflict.

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Our opinion is right, of course, and we must affirm it.

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So we join the cacophony.

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This scene that I just described displays anything but gentleness and surely doesn't

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live out this word from Proverbs.

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A gentle answer turns away wrath.

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And most of us have experienced this result at some time in our homes and with our prodigals.

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Yes, they, our wanderers, may start it.

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But for it to continue we will often let ourselves be drawn in and pursue our very right point

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of view.

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And sometimes we even initiate the conflict and draw them in.

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Yet Paul reminds us that all followers of Jesus are to put on gentleness.

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What does gentleness look like?

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How is it possible with a loved one who's choosing to rebel?

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How do we become gentle by learning from the tough but gentle Jesus himself?

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See how he disarms discord and affirms the malign and encourages the despairing.

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First of all, we're going to look at how he reacts to children.

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When people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray

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for them, but the disciples rebuked them, Jesus said, let the little children come

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to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

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And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.

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Now the children that are yours may not be little children anymore, but Jesus is still

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saying, let the children come to me.

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And so we need to have gentleness.

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Jesus in his interactions with a woman with an illness and an invalid, again displayed

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gentleness.

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This woman had been bleeding for 20 years and she reached out and touched his cloak

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and was healed.

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Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his

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feet because he had asked, who touched me?

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In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been

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instantly healed.

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When Jesus said to her, daughter, your faith has healed you.

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Go in peace.

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There was a man who had been an invalid for 38 years.

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When Jesus saw him lying there by the pool and learned that he had been in this condition

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for a long time, he asked him, do you want to get well?

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Sir, the invalid replied, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred.

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While I am trying to get in, someone else gets there first.

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Then Jesus said to him, get up, pick up your mat and walk.

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At once the man was cured.

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He picked up his mat and walked.

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Then there was the sinful woman caught in adultery.

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The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery.

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They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, teacher, this woman was caught in

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the act of adultery.

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In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.

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Now what do you say?

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Then Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.

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When they capped on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, let any one of you who

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is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.

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Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

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At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time.

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The older ones first until only Jesus was left with the woman still standing there.

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Jesus straightened up and asked her, woman, where are they?

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Has no one condemned you?

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No one, sir, she said.

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Then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared.

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Go now and lead your life of sin.

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There was a blind man.

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They came to Bethsaida, Jesus and the disciples, and some people brought a blind man and begged

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Jesus to touch him.

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He took the blind man by the hand and let him outside the village.

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When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, do you see

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anything?

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He looked up and said, I see people, but they looked like trees walking around.

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So once more, Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes.

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Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly.

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And then a leper came to him and bowed down before him and said, Lord, if you're willing,

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you can make me clean.

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Now lepers shouldn't have been where the people were or where Jesus was, but he had heard what

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Jesus could do.

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And that Jesus would not reject him.

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And so he came to him and Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him.

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No one touched lepers and touched him and said, I am willing, be clean.

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And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

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Jesus welcomed children, spoke gently to women in pain, touched lepers.

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Healed the blind, fed the hungry.

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He loved people, felt compassion for them, and treated them with great gentleness.

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But Jesus was also quite tough.

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He stepped out of heaven to become like us.

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He stood up to the Pharisees, accepted the flogging and a crown of thorns, endured the

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cross.

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He was the greatest model of doth.

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He will give us the needed toughness that we should have and the wisdom to know how to

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use it.

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He is also the greatest model of gentle.

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And that gentleness that he has exhibited in all these interactions that I've talked

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about, that gentleness is available to you and to me.

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Hard to believe, isn't it?

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We don't have to be drawn into the demanding, mocking, quarreling that prevail today.

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We have a promise from Jesus that every one of us who loves a prodigal needs.

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This is a promise that he's given for each of us.

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Take my yoke upon you and learn from me.

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For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

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And so Jesus, who could be so gentle with people who were going against everything that the

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culture called for, he still loved them and reached out and was gentle with them, whether

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in his words or in touching, in healing, in restoring, he was gentle.

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And he was tough, obviously, with what he endured because of his love for us.

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And he says, if you'll come to me and become increasingly like me, I am gentle and humble

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in heart.

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And that will bring you rest for your souls.

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And you will increasingly be able to be gentle with people you encounter, but especially

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with your prodigal.

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You can work with them, talk with them, encourage them, treat them with gentleness, not harshness.

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So now we have added gentleness to compassion, kindness, and humility as what we should be

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wearing.

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It's how we should clothe ourselves.

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It's what we should have on all the time.

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Compassion, kindness, humility, and gentleness.

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Next week we will look at another challenging one, and that is patience.

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So what about you?

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Is there a possibility that you could use a little more gentleness from the Lord as

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you interact with your loved one?

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I find that that's really true so often.

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We may love them very much, but it's so easy to let our frustration and even our anger

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come out.

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Jesus says, come and let me be in control, and I will enable you to be gentle.

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God bless you.