WALK THIS WAY (Eph 4:1-3)

All right, I'd like to welcome everyone this morning.

If y 'all could make your way in, if you're standing out front.

If y 'all could make y 'all's way in here this morning and we'll get started.

What a beautiful day that God has made, amen, for us to come together and worship him, amen?

I wanna welcome everyone.

In Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews told us to not neglect meeting together and to

encourage one another.

All the more as we, all the more as we the day

drawing near, amen?

We're honoring him this morning.

We're honoring our savior by obeying and worshiping him together, amen?

Bringing our gifts to encourage one another, praise the savior.

If you're a visitor with us this morning, we wanna thank each and every one of you for coming in,.

Amen?

We're so glad to have you.

We hope y 'all enjoy your time with us this morning.

We've got some visitor cards, our visitor cards out.

We've got visitor cards out front.

Visitors, if you're visiting with us, please get one of those connection cards.

Fill it out, okay?

Fill it out.

We wanna connect with you and get to know you, okay?

Couple of announcements.

Tuesday morning, meeting prayer, seven to eight a .m.

Every Tuesday morning, right here, these doors are open.

Wanna encourage you, if you're a member here, come, pray, it's awesome.

We have a good time and do a lot of praying, amen?

Midweek gathering, Wednesday nights, 6 .30 p .m.

If you have not came and went through Bible study with

us on Wednesday nights, I encourage you to come.

That's my, personally, my favorite service.

I love Sunday morning.

Sunday morning's awesome.

Wednesday night is killer, okay?

Nathan, Jeremiah, Keith, we have several.

I think my dad is doing this Wednesday night.

It's a great time.

We learn, it's awesome.

I encourage you to come, if you haven't been coming on Wednesday nights.

Right now, on Wednesday nights, systematic theology.

Why Christians believe what we believe, amen?

Very important.

The youth are in First John.

They're meeting, Jeremiah takes the youth over and meets with them.

Awesome youth, they're learning a lot.

Children's ministry, this is a big one.

Children's ministry's coming soon.

If you didn't know, I guess we signed on the last day.

We're gonna be moving to our new building.

Fortunately, we're gonna have, amen, we're gonna have room now,

once we get in there, we're gonna have children's on Wednesday night.

We're gonna have a cry room on Sunday mornings.

We're gonna have, the youth is gonna have, gonna be under the same roof as we

are on Wednesday night.

They're gonna have their own room, okay?

So we're really, really super excited about that.

A lot of exciting things going on here at 12 .5, amen?

Like we do every Sunday morning, we pray for a local church.

And this one is not too local, but it's local.

Olive Branch, Mississippi, Mercy Hill.

And Nathan told me before service this morning, he said, I just wanna let you know that that is a very,

very good reformed church, okay?

So these guys are doing great things.

Nathan and Jeremiah have both visited this church.

They've got friends at this church, okay?

So we need to remember them.

That's who we're praying for this morning.

If you would bow your heads as we pray.

Our most gracious heavenly Father, Lord, we come to you now humbling ourselves before you this

morning, Lord.

Lord, we love you so much, and we're so grateful for what you're doing here, Lord, at 12 .5, Lord,

and the growth that we're experiencing, all the exciting things we've got going on,

Lord, and for this new building, Lord, that you've blessed us with.

Lord, this morning, we also wanna thank you, and we wanna pray for this church

over in Olive Branch, Mississippi, Mercy Hill.

Lord, as I'm sure they're getting ready to start their service right now as we speak, Lord,

we pray that you'll just continue to bless this church, bless this group of people,

Lord.

Lord, I pray that you would be with the leadership there, Lord, pray that you would be with the pastor this morning.

Lord, we love you, we praise you, Lord.

We're so unworthy and so undeserving of your grace that you pour upon us.

We're so grateful, and we're so thankful.

We love you, in Jesus' name, amen.

Sorry.

Well, saints are gathering all over the world today to worship the one true God,

amen, amen?

And so that's why we gather today.

Let's go ahead and stand for our call to worship.

This is a way for us to look to God's word, to read out God's word in a read -in response

so that we can be reminded of what we're gathering to do today and set our minds, our

affections, our focus, our attention solely on the one that deserves it all, amen,

amen?

Well, our call to worship comes from Ephesians chapter four.

As we've been going through Ephesians, we would like to look at verses four through seven where Paul

says, there is one body and one spirit

to one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and Father of all,

grace was given to each one of us,

and all of God's people said.

My dear heavenly Father, once again, we come to you, Lord.

Lord, we praise you.

We stand here in awe of you this morning, Lord.

Lord, we praise you for rescuing us from all of our spiritual enemies, for you

are the rock of our salvation.

We praise you for giving us access into your presence, that you allow us

to come before you with joyful and thankful hearts, and also with hearts

when our hearts are sad.

We praise you for your supremacy and your greatness.

You have no rivals.

You alone are the great God and great king who rules over all,

including all other spiritual beings.

We praise you for creating all things and sustaining them and holding them by your hand.

We praise you for the pinnacle of your creation, us, man.

You are our mighty maker.

The only fitting response is to kneel and submit in humility

to you, for you have made us and created us to worship

you, Lord, and we just praise you, Lord.

You are awesome.

We love you, Lord, and we just praise you.

We pray, I pray this morning that you would unite us as a body

of believers, as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Unite us this morning as we worship and sing praise to you.

You are so worthy of all of our praise.

We love you, we praise you, in Jesus' name, amen.

♪ Worship our king.

♪ Come let us bow at his feet.

♪ He has done great things.

Be what our savior

has done.

♪ How his love overcomes.

♪ He has done great things.

♪ He has done great things ♪.

See this with me.

♪ You and me.

♪ We'll conquer the grave ♪.

Yeah, yeah.

You have done great things

Our savior has

done great things

His

yes

and

amen.

All creatures of our God.

Confession and assurance.

This is a beautiful time where corporately we can confess our sins together because ultimately all

sin is against God and him alone.

But when we confess our sins, we know that he restores us.

He gives us that peace and that joy, that koinonia is restored, and we rest in that, in

the assurance of God's promises that he does not fail to do what he intends to do.

And so this morning, I wanna read a prayer from one of the Puritans.

And so sometimes reading a prayer can be dead and we just kinda go through the motions.

No, if these are true biblical prayers, if this is in spirit and in truth, that this still rings in our hearts

today.

So if you would, please bow your head with me as I read this prayer from one of the Puritans of old.

Holy Lord, we have sinned at times without number and been guilty of pride and unbelief, of

failure and find our minds not being in your word.

We neglect to seek you in our daily lives.

Our transgressions and shortcomings present us with a list of accusations, but we bless you that

they will not stand against us because all these accusations have been laid on Christ.

They go on to subdue our corruptions, but Lord, we pray that you would allow us to have grace to

live above them.

Let not the passions of our flesh, nor the lustings of our mind bring our spirit into subjection, but

you Lord rule over us in liberty and power.

We thank you for our many prayers have been refused.

We've oftentimes asked to miss and we do not have.

We have prayed from lust and have been rejected.

We have longed for Egypt and have been given a wilderness.

Go on with your patient work, oh Lord, answering no to our wrongful prayers and fitting us to accept it.

Purge us from every false desire, every base aspiration, everything contrary to

your rule.

Lord, we thank you for your wisdom and your love for all the aspects of discipline to which we are subject,

for sometimes putting us into the furnace to refine our gold and to remove our dross.

No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin.

If you should give us choice to live in pleasure and to keep our sins or to have them burnt away with trial,

Lord, give us sanctified affliction.

Deliver us from every evil habit, every accretion of former sins, everything that dims the

brightness of your grace in us, everything that prevents us from taking the light in you.

Then we bless you, oh God of Abraham, for helping us to be upright, amen.

And if I could get a couple of ushers to come up and take up our offering this morning.

Now, if y 'all wanna be seated while we take up the offering here.

Dear Heavenly Father, Lord, we praise you this morning, Lord, for this offering that we're taking up, Lord.

We just praise that you would just, just bless it, Lord.

Lord, we love you, we praise you.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Every

blessing to

my heart to

sing thy praises Streams of mercy never

ceasing Call for songs of life

Go to God's word, are you?

Let's go to God's word.

You may be seated.

Let's open up your copy of God's word to Ephesians 4 as we see what it

truly means to be in Christ.

In Christ and in Christ alone.

Ephesians chapter four, we're finally making it through the halfway point of our study through

this great epistle where the Apostle Paul

says there in verse one, he says, I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord,

urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,

eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that

belongs to your call.

One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, who is over all

and through all and in all.

This is the reading of God's word.

Let's stop once again, let's go to him and ask that through the power of the Holy Spirit we can understand,

we can grasp, and then we have the power to obey God's true words.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you once again and we thank you.

We praise you for who you are.

We love your word, for your word is truth.

We love your law, for your law is good.

And it is for our good, because it is who you are, Lord.

And so we pray as we look at your word, Lord, and as we look at, particularly here in this section of

Paul's words, we know that this is inspired by you.

And so I pray that we could comprehend it.

I pray that you would give me wisdom.

I pray that you guard my words from error.

I pray that you guard the ears of the hearers if I speak an untruth.

Oh, but God, if I speak truth, and when your word cuts through that bone and marrow and

gets right to the heart, I pray that you use it to mold your people more into the image of your

Son.

Oh, Father, that's what we long for this morning.

We long to be sanctified.

We long to be more like our Savior.

So help us, mold us, work in us, in Christ's name, amen.

Well, now that we've reached the second half of the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus, it's

obvious that he has switched gears as to the subject matter in

certain ways.

If you were with us two weeks ago, you'll remember that I mentioned that the first half of this letter to the

church in Ephesus, chapters one through three, these are primarily what we would refer to as indicatives.

This is conveying information.

This is theological information about God, how God saves,

why God saves, and who he is.

Whereas the second half, in which we are starting today, chapters four through six, are primarily what we call

imperatives.

These are simply application.

This is a call to action of that truth that we've learned in the previous three chapters.

And because of this, in this particular letter, many preachers will skip right to this chapter.

They'll jump right to these verses and say very little, if anything at all, of the rich, deep

theology of the previous three chapters that we have just spent the last 27 weeks looking at.

They'll skip over that part.

They especially love these first six verses that we just read, wherein Paul is calling for

unity.

And I understand this desire.

It makes sense that they would want to jump right to this.

After all, we all long for unity, don't we?

Each one of us is hungry for unity.

We long for unity because unity just, it eludes us more often than not, doesn't it?

Unity just doesn't last.

It's like holding sand in your fist.

The tighter you try and hang on to it, what happens to it?

It comes through your fingertips and falls back to the ground.

And so often, within the church, unity is that.

And pastors want to go to this text without the previous three chapters in order to drive us to unity.

And it just falls through our fingertips.

And the reason for that is that we treat unity like that sand.

We treat it as something external, something outside of who we are and what we

have in us.

And we approach, our approach to unity is no different than our reaching down and picking up that

handful of sand.

It's something mechanical.

It's something that I must do.

The sand is outside of me.

Reaching down and grabbing the sand is an action that I must take.

And imperatives in scripture, these applicable things that we see all over the

New Testament as to what we're to be and what we're to do, often lead to this type of approach when

detached from the indicatives.

It leads us to something external and mechanical when detached from the theology that Paul has

laid out over the past three chapters.

Because you see, imperatives, like what we see here in chapter four, this does not create

a hard division between the indicatives in chapters one through three and the

imperatives here.

There's not a hard division between the theological information and the application to that

information.

Notice that Paul doesn't skip a beat.

He doesn't bring closure to the theology.

He doesn't close out the theological.

And the reason is is that we cannot separate the theological from the practical.

You can't do it.

It's impossible.

It's all theology.

And it's all practical.

It's just communicated differently to us because we need the information in order to reach the

application.

And those two things go hand in hand together and you cannot detach them in any way and

neither does Paul, of course.

But when we create that division, it leads us to come to texts like this and treat them as something to

do that is external and mechanical instead of internal and organic.

What do I mean by that?

Well, I'm gonna try and let the Word of God, I'm gonna get out of the way and let the Word of God explain that to us as

we go through here.

I want us to see there in chapter four, verse one, how Paul introduces this call

for unity.

Unity.

He says I, therefore.

Now, hold on, Paul's getting ready to urge them to walk in a certain manner.

He's getting ready to urge them to walk in a manner worthy of this calling, yet he ties this

urging to what he has previously said.

You see what I mean?

You can't detach it.

Therefore, this, for what?

Because of.

In light of, I urge you.

In light of, because of, therefore, what?

What is he pointing to?

Well, it could be in light of the doxology that we just looked at last week, verses 20 and 21 of chapter three,

couldn't it?

Where Paul declares that God can do far more abundantly than all that we could ask or think.

And of course, he is speaking of these verses.

However, those verses are a culmination of praise over what has been

written all throughout chapters one through three.

And so you can't detach it.

You can't say, well, the apostle Paul is saying, therefore, because of the doxology, because of this praise, I urge you.

No, he is speaking of it in totality.

I want you to notice what Paul goes on to say there in verse one, look at it.

He says I, therefore, prisoner for the Lord, urge you.

I, therefore, because of this, in light of this, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the

calling to which you have been called.

Paul's been talking about this all throughout these chapters, hasn't he?

Back in chapter one, if you've got your Bibles, I'm gonna be flipping around through Ephesians a lot here.

So just stick with me.

Hopefully, we won't be jumping around too much all over the New Testament.

But in Ephesians, I want you to see that how everything is tied in.

In Ephesians chapter one in verse 18, the Apostle Paul goes to his first prayer, his prayer for the saints there.

And he's praying, he says, I pray that you have the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know

what is the hope to which he has called you.

So what has he called you to?

It's a hope.

What is this hope?

Well, look back at verses four through six in chapter one there.

It's when he's laying out the theology here.

He says, even as he, who?

God the Father.

Even as God the Father chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should

be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as

sons through Jesus Christ.

He has chosen us.

This is the hope that he has called us to, adoption as sons.

He has brought us into glory.

This is what he's called us to, isn't it?

Paul goes on to hash out this glorious truth, ultimately using it to

thoroughly dismantle the disunity between the Jew and Gentile believers.

Because that's what this whole thing, this letter is to Gentile believers in Ephesus, remember?

And so he's dismantling the disunity between these two groups, saying there's not these super

Christians and sub Christians, there's not Jew and Gentile Christian.

It's all in one and he's bringing it all together.

And then ultimately in chapter two, in verse 12, he says, remember that you, who?

Gentile believer, Ephesians, church in Ephesus.

You were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the

commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope in without God in the

world.

But now, in Christ Jesus, you, who once were far off, have

been brought near by the blood of Christ.

This is what we've been called to.

And then finally in verse 22 of chapter two, what does he say?

He says, in him, in Christ, you also are being built together

into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

And now Paul says, therefore, in light of this,

I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

Because of this, you and I have been set apart, haven't we?

We've been set apart, we've been loved by the Father from eternity past.

We've been purchased by the Son and we have been sealed with the promised Holy

Spirit.

We have been called.

We've been called to this glorious hope, this great truth that Paul has just been laying out in

all this theology in chapters one through three.

And with that call comes a calling.

What is that calling?

What's this calling that Paul is talking about that he's urging them to walk in a manner worthy of?

Well, I think we see it summarized in this statement that Paul makes in between this appeal

to walk in a manner, right?

He says, I, therefore, urge you to walk in a manner, but he says something in between that.

Look at it, look at your Bibles.

He says, I, therefore, a prisoner for the Lord.

I find it interesting that the Apostle Paul is always reminding the readers that he's writing

this letter from prison.

And we've talked about it before many times, is every one of his prison epistles, every one of his

letters that he's writing, he is constantly reminding them through the letter of his position in

imprisonment.

But he doesn't refer to it as being a prisoner of Rome.

He never does, does he?

He always acknowledges that his imprisonment is because of, for the sake of, and by the

will of the Lord.

That's his whole purpose, is constantly reminding them.

And why does Paul do this, particularly in statements like this?

Why is this just thrown in?

I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of this calling.

I, therefore, because of this urge you.

But he throws this in, a prisoner.

It's not like he's randomly throwing this into the conversation because he wants sympathy, is it?

That's not like Paul.

Paul's not after sympathy.

No, he's purposeful with it.

It's here for a reason.

And the reason is, is that his life is an example of this calling.

It's a subtle reminder of what this calling is.

Meaning, you and I, the people that he's writing to, essentially, and this letter's for us, isn't

it?

You and I are called to suffer.

That's what we're called to.

That's what Paul's saying here.

I'm a prisoner for the Lord.

I'm suffering for the sake of the Lord.

And I'm calling you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

You may say, well, hold on, Pastor.

I thought we encouraged people to come to Jesus because Jesus makes everything good.

Jesus fixes all your problems.

Jesus makes your life good, makes you happy all the time.

It gets rid of all of your problems.

Unfortunately, that's what much of Christianity today has brought salvation down to, so that they can get more

numbers in, so that they can build bigger buildings, so that they can make more money and build bigger staff members

and do all of this stuff that they justify because they're just trying to get you to make a decision.

And in order to make a decision, you've got to think that you're coming to get something of benefit

to you in this earthly sense.

But that's not what Scripture teaches.

I'm gonna tell you right now, if you're a lost person in here, if you do not know Christ or you don't know that you know Christ, I'm telling you right now,

I'm gonna give you a good sales pitch.

Come to Jesus so you can suffer.

Come to Jesus so you can suffer.

And you say, well, that just doesn't seem right.

Well, according to Scripture, it does.

Peter himself said it in 1 Peter 2 in verse 21.

He says, for to this.

To what?

To suffer.

For to suffer you have been called.

There's that word again, called.

What have you been called to?

You've been called to suffer.

Why?

Because Christ also suffered for you, leaving an example so that you

might follow in his steps.

It's pretty clear, isn't it?

Called to suffer.

So if this is the calling to which we have been called, what is Paul telling us to do here?

When he says to walk in a manner worthy of this calling, to walk in a manner worthy

of this suffering, what is he telling us to do?

Paul uses this word walk often.

That we see this all through Scripture.

Paul uses it in all of his letters.

But in this particular case in Ephesians, I think he uses it eight times throughout.

We see it used back in chapter two.

Again, you can look back at it in chapter two, verses one and two.

And he's correlating this walk that we are currently to walk on with what he had previously told us

we currently walked in, right?

He says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked.

It's the same word there.

And what were you doing in this walk before?

He says, you were following the course of the world.

Following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work and the sons of disobedience.

This is how you formally walked, isn't it?

But what happened?

What happened?

Verse five happened.

Look at verse five.

He made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved.

You once walked according to the prince of the power of the air.

You once followed him.

You once followed the things of this world.

You walked in that way.

But now you've been brought into salvation.

By grace you've been saved.

And now in verse 10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus.

For good works,.

Which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

You see a pattern here that Paul's calling us to.

You once walked this way, now you walk that way.

So what does Paul mean by walk?

When he says to walk in a manner worthy of this calling, well, he's referring to the direction,

the trajectory.

He's referring to the pattern and appearance, the expression of our lives

being seen through where we are headed and walking.

So the question is, is that walk, is it worthy of, is it an expression

of, is it in light of and in line with this glorious calling?

Is it?

Is your life in line with this glorious calling to which you have been called?

Well, the question is, how do you know if it is?

How do you know if this glorious calling is where you are walking, if you are in line with this?

Look at verse two.

With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one

another in love.

Paul gives us a list of things that will be present if we are walking in a manner worthy of our calling.

We have a list of things that are, that we are to look like if we're walking

the direction that God has called us to.

The first of which is humility.

Some of your translations may say lowliness.

Humility has actually been called the first, the second and the third essential of the Christian life.

It's vital to the walk of a Christian, humility.

James says that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Paul said in Philippians chapter two, he says do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility

count others more significant than yourselves.

And Jesus' own words during his earthly ministry in Luke 14, he says for everyone who exalts himself

will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

I don't know about you but when I read texts like this, it becomes discouraging to me.

Have you ever tried to be humble?

Have you ever truly tried to be humble?

You can only maintain it for so long if you ever really had it in the first place because what happens when you try

and be humble?

By the time you realize or even deceive yourself that you actually obtained it, you've already lost it.

You are now prideful in your humility.

That's the nature of trying to be humble, isn't it?

Just a constant vicious cycle of pursuing humility to only find yourself prideful

with what you obtain in that humility or more than that, find yourself

discouraged in how incapable of humility you actually are

if you're honest with yourself.

It's impossible.

You can't try to be humble.

And so I read texts like these and I think that's discouraging to me.

I've tried that and it never works.

Am I not a Christian?

Is that my problem?

Am I not in Christ?

Because I can't seem to achieve this humility that scripture keeps pointing me to.

And Paul, he tells us to walk humbly.

This is one of the characteristics of where we're walking that shows us that we're walking in a manner that's worthy of the

calling to which we've been called is humility.

How is this possible to maintain?

It feels impossible, doesn't it?

Again, humility is very much like unity.

It's like grabbing sand.

By the time you squeeze tighter and tighter, that sand is all gone, slipping through your fingertips time and

time again.

And so when pastors continually skip the first three chapters of this book and they wanna jump right to unity

and they give you a bunch of principles and they tell you be unified, love each other, be humble, be

this, be patient, be gentle, all you do is feel the weight of the law, don't you?

That you're incapable of fulfilling it over and over again.

So what does it mean?

What are we looking at?

Because Paul's not making humility the goal.

What do I mean by that?

Why is Paul not making humility the goal?

We often do that.

That's what we aim for.

We aim for humility because we see it.

We go, well, we're supposed to be humble.

I'm gonna aim for humility.

But Paul ties it to being worthy of a calling.

The calling that you and I have been called to, right?

That's what he's tying it to.

And what is that calling?

Remember, what's the calling?

It's to suffer, right?

The calling is to suffer.

Because of why?

Because your Savior suffered.

Your calling is to suffer because your Savior suffered for what purpose?

To redeem you.

He didn't suffer for nothing.

He suffered to purchase you, to buy you back from sin, from death.

He redeemed you.

And here's the point.

Here's why the theology matters.

That great truth naturally drives you to humility.

You wanna know how to achieve humility?

Look to the cross of Christ and look and praise him.

Just as we talked about last week with the doxology.

You praise God for who he is.

Then and only then do you ever even approach achieving humility in any sense.

Lasting humility.

But here's the problem.

We're sinners.

And as soon as we look to Christ and we remind ourselves of the Savior and we remind ourselves of this great theology,

like I walked according to this world.

I was blind, I was dead in my sins and God loved me before he'd even created the world and he sent his son

and he purchased me and he awakened me and he brought me to life and now he's adopted me as a son and

now he's sealed me with his Holy Spirit and you look at that beautiful truth and you remind yourself of that beautiful truth and the humility

sets in and the unity comes in and all of it comes in.

And then you quit looking at Christ again.

Pride creeps back in.

Disunity creeps back in.

It's a constant battle, isn't it?

And then what do we do?

I want the humility back.

I gotta grab the sand, grip it tighter.

I gotta grab and grip that humility tighter.

I gotta achieve it.

But that's not what Paul's calling us to.

This is simply an outworking of what Paul has been getting at through all of this theology.

Our goal should not be humility.

Our goal is to remember what the triune God has done for us.

And when we long to walk in a manner worthy of that, this will produce that humility.

The second evidence that Paul points to is very closely related to humility.

Look at it.

Some of your translations say gentleness and some say meekness.

Both great translations.

Gentleness and meekness, true humility always leads to gentleness.

Always leads to humility.

You wanna know if you've achieved humility?

It comes with gentleness.

It comes with meekness.

Every time.

You can't have one without the other.

You can't achieve gentleness and meekness without humility.

Humility is a prerequisite for gentleness and meekness, true gentleness and meekness, right?

A gentle, meek individual is slow to insist on his rights.

Think about that for a second.

A gentle, meek individual is slow to insist on his rights.

Why is that?

It's because they realize that all of their rights have been secured by grace.

If you've been looking to the cross of Christ and achieved humility in

that, in looking to Christ, then you know that all of your rights have been secured by

grace.

They're done.

They're there.

And God cares for you.

And God is taking care of your rights, which leads you to be willing to be wronged,

not to fight for them, because you say, look what

a God who's able to do far more abundantly than all that I could ask or think, has done to redeem

me from sin and death.

He is more than capable of vindicating me.

He is more than capable of caring for me and for me to let go of my

rights and respond with gentleness and meekness in that humility.

This is one of the elements that Paul's saying, hey, if you're walking in a manner worthy of this calling, it

will come with humility.

It will come with gentleness, meekness.

Paul expresses this heart of meekness in his letter to the church in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 6, 7.

He says, to have a lawsuit at all with another, he's talking about other

believers, is already a defeat for you.

You see, the church in Corinth, what were they doing?

They were suing each other.

Like this person would deal with this one with a bad business dealing.

Or this person would steal from another.

And they would go and they'd take each other to court.

And Paul says, no, no, no.

As Christians, you're not allowed to take each other to court.

It doesn't work like that.

It doesn't work like that.

What does he say?

He says, why not rather suffer wrong?

Why not rather be defrauded?

How can Paul say this?

How can Paul say, why not rather suffer wrong?

Why not rather be defrauded?

Because he knows his eternal position in the one that saves, the one

that creates everything, the one that sustains everything, the one that owns a cattle

and 1 ,000 hills, right?

So what, a person, my neighbor, my friend, my family member

defrauds me of a few thousand dollars in a business dealing.

So what?

My God owns everything.

Those dollars that he defrauded me of, they're not even mine in the first place, they're God's.

Everything belongs to him.

Why in the world am I gonna go seek vengeance?

Why am I going to try and seek what's mine?

Because that's not what a Christian does.

Now, often we do, let's be honest.

Often I do.

More often than not, I want vengeance.

I wanna make them suffer.

I wanna twist that knife in their back and make them suffer as I suffered.

Don't look at me with a holy look.

You know good and well you felt that, right?

We feel that, and you know what that tells me when I do it?

It tells me that I'm not walking in a manner worthy of the calling to which I've been called.

I'm not looking to Christ.

I want mine.

That hits, doesn't it?

You see, outward, or humility leads to an outward expression of gentleness, to meekness.

And you know what great grace you've been given you don't deserve.

And so we suffer in this way.

Let's be honest.

You don't go after someone that has wronged you.

You're suffering, aren't you?

But again, what's he called you to?

Suffer.

He called you to suffer.

And we do so, as Paul points out next.

Look at this text.

What's the next thing he points to?

Patience.

Some of your translations say long -suffering.

And this is correlated to what he says next.

Patience, and he says bearing.

Or again, some of your translations say enduring.

Bearing or enduring with one another in love.

It's interesting.

Paul, the way he writes this, he's actually combining two virtues together.

He intertwines two virtues together as though they are interchangeable and cannot be

done one without the other.

And what are the two virtues?

Bearing, or enduring, and love.

Bearing with one another in love.

We read that in English and we're like, yeah, I kinda get it.

But no, in the Greek, these two things, what he's doing is he uses language that makes them interchangeable.

You cannot detach those two things.

He's basically saying one thing with two words, with two virtues, is what Paul's getting at.

And he does this for a reason.

The derivation of the word bearing in the Greek is referring to holding oneself up.

Not shaken up, but continuing to keep firm.

Holding myself up.

If I just said, if Paul just used the word bearing or enduring, what is Paul saying?

Paul is just saying, hey, endure or bear this burden.

Keep yourself up and firm so that you do not fall here.

And this is what we do when we merely tolerate something or someone.

We grin and bear it.

Again, it's like humility, right?

We try and achieve it on our own, and we go, okay, so I'm gonna endure this brother or

sister and what they're doing.

I'm gonna stand firm in spite of it.

Someone does us wrong and we simply choose not to retaliate.

And then we think that we're being godly in our actions, even though our heart longs for vengeance.

Are you trekking with me?

Even though our heart longs for vengeance, we're just gonna endure it.

You ever tried that for very long?

It reminds me of what Peter asked Jesus when he came to him.

He said, how many times should I forgive?

Right, seven, right?

Seven times, is that how I should forgive?

And Jesus basically just gives him an answer.

He's like, no, it's like infinity.

And so this obviously blows these guys' minds because he's thinking, man, I've

just doubled what the Jewish law requires of me to forgive.

But now Jesus says, no, just continue.

And this blows their minds, and the reason is is because they can't even begin to comprehend what it means to endure because

they see it as just pure endurance.

They see it as just taking one on the chin for the team.

I'm strong enough to bear it.

I got big enough shoulders.

I can handle this.

I'll be the bigger person.

All the while in your heart, anger, disunity,

bitterness, vengeance stews.

So the next time you have to take it on the chin, chips away at you, chips away at you until

finally disunity burst open.

And the floodgates open and disunity just floods in

because you're not made to bear it.

Paul doesn't tell us to bear with one another, to endure one another.

He combines it here.

Notice he combines this enduring, this bearing to love.

And oh, that changes things.

That changes things drastically here.

We say, oh, I thought that an outward adherence of humility and gentleness and forbearance was enough for unity.

That's what it's taught like when a pastor just skips chapters one through three, jumps right into chapter four and verse

six and says, hey, church, be unified.

Okay, well, all right, let's get our bearings here.

I can't stand so -and -so, but I'm gonna tolerate him.

I hate my brother, but I'll fellowship with him

for the sake of unity because that's what's most important, isn't it?

Actually, I had a pastor one time tell me, he goes, I know I've said this before, it drives me crazy.

He said, here's the thing at our church, we are gonna seek after unity at all cost.

And I was like, what?

Unity at all cost?

Like, so we're just gonna like throw out the gospel?

Like everything?

Because that's the way the world thinks.

It's like we've got to just, we've gotta achieve unity no matter what, pull ourself up by our bootstraps,

be humble, be gentle, be patient, bearing with one another as we

grit our teeth and just take one on the chin for the sake of unity.

And then just like that sand, what happens?

And we squeeze tighter and tighter and tighter and the next thing I know, all of us go, oh no, I gotta pick up

more sand.

That's what happens in the church.

That's why unity eludes us.

And you may say, well, I thought this was enough, but you're telling me that I have to do all of these things

in love?

What does that mean?

What does it mean to love?

Is love just something that I conjure up this feeling inside of myself for

my brother?

Because again, you're asking me to pick up sand and hold it in my fist, because that's impossible.

We just keep digging ourselves into the hole, don't we?

We just keep going, we're hopeless in this.

But do you see how this is unattainable?

If all of these things, including love, are external and mechanical,

but praise God they're not.

Praise God that all of these things are internal and organic.

What do we mean by that?

Look at what Paul says next, look at verse three.

He says, eager, this word just means make

every effort to, strive after, be hungry for,

to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

It's interesting, when we read this, we think, well, automatically we read our self -effort into it again.

Automatically we go, okay, so pastor, you told me we're not to be just

fighting for this and trying to force these matters of humility and patience and all of this bearing.

You just told us that, but Paul says to fight for it, to be eager for it, to strive

after it.

But what does he tell us to be eager for?

This word in the Greek for maintain means to guard,

means to guard.

It doesn't mean to conjure up.

Paul is not saying that we should create unity, and that's how we get it backwards.

We say, we are a church and we must create unity.

We must create a unified front.

Now, everybody pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do your part so that we can be unified.

Just be selfless all the time.

And it fails, but Paul is not saying that.

He's not telling us to create something.

He's saying that we should guard, that we should maintain it.

In other words, it's already here.

It means we already have it.

It means that it's already a part of us.

It means that it's already inside each one of us.

It's already present within the church.

It's already all around us.

What is it?

Well, look at it.

The unity of the Spirit.

Notice in your Bibles that that word is capitalized, isn't it?

What does that mean?

It means it's the Holy Spirit.

It means that Paul is referring to the unity of the Holy Spirit.

And remember, we've already all been given the promised Holy Spirit within each one of

us who are in Christ as a guarantee, as an inheritance.

An inheritance of what?

An inheritance as what?

Sons, heirs, children of God that inherit this.

And what does that mean?

It means that we're brought into one body.

We're brought into a family.

Remember, he's torn down that wall of hostility.

And he's brought us, Jew, Gentile, male, female, black, white,

all together as one body.

The body of Christ with the unity of the Spirit already within us.

It's just as Jesus prayed in John 17.

He says, I in them and you in me, Father, that they may become perfectly one.

Perfectly one.

Not imperfectly one.

Perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you loved me.

There's a unity already built within the DNA of a new creation.

It's the unity of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God that is in perfect union with the Godhead.

In perfect union, and we are brought into this.

This unity is internal, it's organic.

And see, here's the problem.

We're the ones that lose sight of it.

We're the ones that distort it and pervert it.

We're the ones that forget that that unity is already there and that our job is to guard it.

Our job is to look to it, to rest in it,

to fervently strive after it.

Because our sinful, selfish desires, they distract us at every turn.

It's just as James said, what causes quarrels among you?

What causes fights among you?

Is it not that your passions are at war within you?

We are the ones that distract from that internal, organic unity that is already ours.

Do you want unity in this church?

Let's be honest.

Do we want 12 Five Church to be unified?

Do we wanna be a people that die to self and live for each other?

Do we wanna be people that when we're wronged, we overlook it, but we don't just overlook it by taking one on the chin.

We overlook it out of love because we so passionately love each other because of our great love

for God.

That we gladly, gladly overlook an offense.

Is that what we wanna be?

If that's what we wanna be, then people, we gotta look to Christ.

Remember that he's done it for us.

He has purchased this unity for us.

He has brought us to it.

And we are to walk in a manner that is worthy of that calling with all humility, with all gentleness, with patience,

bearing with one another in love.

Being eager to maintain, eager to guard the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace.

We've been granted peace.

Peace with God, peace with each other.

Peace with creation.

The wall of hostility has been torn down.

Now live in light of that.

You see, we have to have all that theology that we've been talking about in order to even get here.

We have to have it all together because all of this is theological.

We don't live on the power of the Holy Spirit so often because we're trying to do

better and be better.

Only Christ did better.

He did perfectly.

And now he says that my righteousness is imputed upon you.

Now live in light of that.

Rest in it.

Rest in what I've done for you.

And I've granted you peace, and now the Holy Spirit has indwelled you.

And if the Holy Spirit is indwelling in me, then the Holy Spirit is indwelling in you.

The Holy Spirit is indwelling in you.

And we are all brought into one as a family.

And what do you do when a family, what do I do when my children dishonor me?

I chasten them.

But my love for them never wavers in the slightest.

I don't seek out after selfish desires to smite them back.

It's not in my nature as a father.

Why can't we see the church body in that way?

Because that is infinitely greater than even that.

That is what Paul is calling us to.

This is how this church will be unified.

We guard it.

It's not that we create it, but we can't.

It's already here.

Now rest in it.

Don't seek to pervert it and distort it with your own sin.

It's perfect unity.

In light of this, we go to the ordinance of the Lord's Supper every week

so that.