Walking in Unity

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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As we look into our text today in Ephesians chapter 4, I want to introduce the text by an illustration and a quote if I could.

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In 1942, about a decade before he published the Chronicles of Narnia books, the

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English author C .S. Lewis published a lesser known and a far more ominous book that he entitled

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The Screwtape Letters. And in this book, C .S. Lewis writes a series of fictional epistles from the perspective of a demon who is known throughout the book as Uncle Screwtape.

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And in each of these carefully crafted letters, Screwtape writes to his young nephew whose name is

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Wormwood to help him in his diabolical work of destroying the soul of a young Christian.

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A Christian that Screwtape cruelly refers to as Wormwood's patient.

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And though it is an unsettling book, I listened to it on audiobook a number of years ago. It's chilling, in fact, in some areas.

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I think that Lewis offers a stunning insight into how the devil and his fallen angels might seek to shipwreck the lives of believers.

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And writing about hell as an example, Screwtape gives this counsel. He says,

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Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

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The best way to lead a person to hell is not through great difficulty, where they might be tempted to look to God, but on a bed of ease.

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Another point that Screwtape makes is the benefit of promoting ease as an end or as a design towards worldliness.

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And he writes, and think about how we might be tempted in this way. Prosperity knits a man to the world.

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He feels that he is finding his place in it. But really, it is finding its place in him.

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Or seeking to encourage a soul -numbing lukewarmness in Wormwood's patient, Screwtape advises this.

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He says, A moderate religion is as good for us demons as no religion at all.

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And it is more amusing. But it is on the subject of our text that Screwtape also has some advice.

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Screwtape, as he's writing to Wormwood, he says, My dear Wormwood, you mentioned casually in your last letters that the patient has continued to attend one church, and only one, since he was converted, and yet that he is not wholly pleased with it.

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May I ask you what you are about? Do you realize that unless it is due to indifference, this going to one church, even though he is unhappy with it in some areas, is a very bad thing?

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Surely you know that if a man can't be cured of church -going, then the next best thing is to send him to all over the neighborhood, looking for churches that suits him until he becomes a taster and a connoisseur of churches.

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And then to assist Wormwood in sabotaging this young Christian soul, he says this,

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In the first place, the church should always be attacked.

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And if your patient cannot be kept out of church, he ought at least to be violently attached to some party within it, so as to divide it.

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The whole premise of this letter from Screwtape to Wormwood is that if his satanic nephew wants to have success in destroying the soul of his

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Christian patient, in the first place, he should fiercely attack, assault that patient's church.

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He should leverage the trivial weaknesses of that church against it. He should sow discontentment and send this

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Christian on an endless pursuit of his ideal church, always searching, but never submitting, always shopping, but never membering.

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But if he cannot finally thrust his patient, this young Christian, out of the church, then he should keep him there.

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And he should make him a continuous source of division until the church itself rots from the inside out.

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Now on this point, I think Lewis's observations are penetrating. They are uncomfortably accurate.

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One of the best ways that our enemy could render each of you useless in this church is by tearing you out of this church, placing you in the world, and placing you there to live alone in the world.

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But if one cannot remove you out of the church, then the next best thing that they can do is to splinter this church, your church, the local church, into 10 ,000 different pieces.

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If one wants to undo many of the blessings that Christ has for his people, he needs only to destroy the local church.

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And if he can't destroy the local church, then he needs only to divide that local church.

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The unity of the local church is perhaps one of the most precious things in all the world.

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We have been looking at this over the last number of weeks of what Christ has done to achieve the unity of his body, of his bride, of his house.

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And yet it seems that no matter how precious it is, it is yet still one of the most fragile things in all of the world as well.

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And so today as we approach this text, we find the Apostle Paul building on what he has just written.

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He's written at length about Christ dying on the cross to tear down the dividing wall of hostility.

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He has relayed the unity that Christ has purchased for his people at the cost of his own blood, how

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Christ has made the church now one, not two or three or four or ten, but of one in himself.

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And now Paul provides us not just with theology, he's been giving us theology, but now practical counsel so that we might protect this unity that Christ has secured for his bride, the church.

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So this afternoon we get to talk about one of the most wonderful things about the church, the unity of Christ's bride, the blessing of a fellowship that we have together, and of the fearful responsibility that we have of pursuing, of maintaining, of protecting that unity that we have.

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So this afternoon as we look at the text, we have six verses before us. I think we see the text neatly divided into at least three sections.

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And what I want to take us through is this. We're going to look at the foundation of what it means to walk in unity as a church.

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We're going to look at the daily practice. What does it look like with boots on the ground to preserve and to pursue unity in Christ's body?

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And then we're going to look at, if I can call it this, the blazing center, the continual force behind our persevering in unity as a church.

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And so we're going to turn first to the foundation of walking in unity.

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In verse 1, Paul writes, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

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In verse 1, Paul begins with these words, I therefore. It's interesting, you can look at any number of commentaries, it's almost universally recognized that this

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I therefore marks the transition in this epistle to the Ephesians from instruction on Christian doctrine to instruction on Christian duty.

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You see, for the first half of this letter, chapters 1, 2, and 3, Paul has concerned himself primarily with laying a theological foundation for the

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Ephesian church. Now, there are only a couple of kids here, and I know the answer to this question, but kids, you have been to the orthodontist.

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And adults, I trust that some of you have been to the orthodontist. What is the job of an orthodontist?

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When an orthodontist does his job well, he makes your teeth straight. He makes them upright.

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They're corrected. They stand in the right place. The Greek word ortho means to straighten, to correct, or to make upright.

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And now Paul is not an orthodontist, but what we might call him in this letter is an orthodoxist.

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He has laid out now three chapters of biblical Christian orthodoxy.

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His whole preoccupation up to this point in chapters 1, 2, and 3 is to establish a vigorous understanding of Christian orthodoxy, that is, straight or correct living.

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And then, moving on from that, Paul understands that Christian orthodoxy then necessitates

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Christian orthopraxy, that is, straight or correct living. So from straight and correct teaching to straight and correct living.

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And while the first half of chapters 1 and 3 are all doctrine, we see that Paul sees to it that this doctrine, only once it has been sufficiently expounded, is he able to shift to upright living, to the practice of the

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Christian life. And this is a recurring theme in the letter of Paul. This is one of the things that's so fantastic about preaching through the epistles, is that in the first half of some of the books, or the first three quarters of the book, we see doctrine.

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Good, glorious, fantastic, foundational doctrine. And then, Paul, knowing that orthodoxy in itself is only dead orthodoxy, builds upon that doctrine with a lifestyle informed by that orthodoxy.

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And so in Romans chapter 12 and verse 1, we see this transition, where he goes from that monumental doctrine in Romans to the therefores and the applications.

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We see him doing it in Galatians chapter 5, in Philippians chapter 2, our brother read it this afternoon, in Colossians chapter 3, in 1

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Thessalonians chapter 4. You see, there's something here that Paul is doing that I wish that every single church on this planet would discover for themselves.

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It's something that Paul understood well, but few churches today, I think, have a true grasp of it.

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And it is this. That if we are to live a truly faithful Christian life, it must be a knowledgeable Christian life.

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Paul understood that a truly Christian lifestyle is not, and I'm not trying to criticize too many people here, but it's not built upon 15 minute sermons that teach 10 practical lessons for Christian living.

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Faithful Christian living is not founded upon coy, juvenile -ized preaching that consists primarily of anecdotes and silly stories.

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Lively Christian living that promotes an unshakable unity in Christ's church does not spring forth from chicken noodle soup for the soul

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Christianity. It is like trying to build your house on a foundation of peat moss.

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But Paul understood that true Christian living must be founded on the bedrock of a robust doctrinal understanding of the nature of God, of the work of Christ and the

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Holy Spirit, of the nature of man, of the application of redemption, of the doctrine of the church, even of the doctrine of the future.

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And only once this has been established can a person live in a truly Christian manner. And so this is how

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Paul starts his plea for the church. I'm expounding on the first three chapters here with these words,

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I therefore, and then he says, a prisoner for the

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Lord. Now this is a reference to Paul's imprisonment, likely what we see in Rome in Acts chapter 28.

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And then in reminding the Ephesians that Paul was a prisoner in the

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Lord, what is he trying to accomplish? If you were writing to a church and you had a particular plea for them, and you found yourself in prison, why would you include that note, a prisoner for the

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Lord? I think we see at least a couple of different reasons. First, I think that Paul is showcasing what it means to faithfully live as a

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Christian in a contrary world. That there is a cost to faithfully walking, as he's going to use that term in a minute, walking with Christ.

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But second, he is adding a new level of intensity to his exhortation.

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As Paul makes his plea, he is not asking the church in Ephesus to do anything that he has not already been prepared to do.

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He's already been able or been willing to pay the price for Christian faithfulness.

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And so as a prisoner, he says, I urge you. It's the

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Greek word parakaleo. If you're familiar with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is sometimes referred to as a paraclete.

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Paul uses this word, urge, 50 times in his epistles. And almost always to shift gears to exhort his readers to faithful Christian living.

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It is a term that a superior would use to a subordinate, to someone of a lower rank, excuse me.

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And it is a term of strong appeal. It is to insist, to implore, to plead, to drive home.

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This must be done. And this word, which implies his authority, that conveys urgency and that is paired with his mention of his imprisonment.

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He is meaning to hit the Ephesian church like a ton of bricks. We should hear it like the

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Ephesian church. I plead with you. To do what?

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He says, to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called.

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The concept of walking is a figure of speech that Paul uses to speak to moral conduct.

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We saw him use it in chapter 2 and verse 10 as he speaks about our new life in Christ. But then this ramps up now after we get through chapter 4.

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We see in chapter 4 and verse 1, he speaks of walking. And then again in chapter 4 and verse 17.

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And then in chapter 5 and verse 2. And then in chapter 5 and verse 15, he's exhorting

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God's people not to stand, not to sit, but to walk in faithfulness.

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And leaning on the calling. Here again, he emphasizes a factual calling.

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A calling not just to salvation, but a calling to a holy life.

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And in this whole context, we know what Paul is after. He's after the unity of the church.

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Now brothers and sisters, I thought of different ways that we could apply even just this one verse.

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And one of the things that came to my mind in particular was this. That this one verse should lead us to understand that the ministry of the church and that the life of the everyday saint of God is one that needs to be marked by a careful balance between orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

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Sound doctrine, a robust understanding of who God is and of what he has said.

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And a sound and a robust life of living in light of that truth.

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Sound doctrine, as I said a moment ago, is simply... Sorry, sound doctrine without sound living is dead orthodoxy.

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And yet at the same time, to establish true Christian living, apart from a robust foundation of Christian doctrine, is like trying to build a rope out of sand.

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And at this point, brothers and sisters, I want to exhort you to two things. First of all, let us be students of the full counsel of God and of all the doctrines that we can know and study in the scriptures.

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To be diligent students of Christian doctrine. Some of you have heard that the doctrine divides.

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I'm sure some of you have heard that at some point. That the reason why we shouldn't wade too deep into doctrine is because we begin to understand how we are different.

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And we begin to understand how we are different. Then comes the first rift.

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Let me tell you, those who say the doctrine divides will only ever know a kind of Christianity that is at its very best shallow, superficial, and fragile.

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And we will talk about the weather. And we will be miserable. Martin Luther said,

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Cursed be that unity for which the word of God is put at stake. Where we don't tell people what we truly believe.

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Where we don't tell people where we stand on this issue. Where we don't seek out to know, to study, and to live difficult doctrines from scripture.

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That is one of the very reasons why our church goes to great lengths to detail our statement of faith in our membership classes.

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Because we want people to know what it is that we believe. Because when we share these convictions, then and only then do we have real fellowship.

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John MacArthur writes, he says, Church renewal does not come with new programs, buildings, or organization.

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Church renewal comes first of all through the renewal of the mind. And I recently heard something about maybe the sorry state of affairs when it comes to doctrine in the church.

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Over the years, I've shared various polls about how many people believe that Christ himself is divine.

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Who hold to a biblical understanding of the Trinity. We're not going to go in that direction today. But I heard one well -known preacher, quote from a church research firm, who said that when they studied the content of sermons in most churches today, that they found that most sermons are delivered to, or are geared toward children somewhere in the junior high age.

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That most adults who work in professional worlds, who have gone to post -secondary, who have done some kind of employment training, that on the

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Lord's Day when they come to church and they sit under the preaching, they are sitting under preaching that is aimed at grade six and grade seven students.

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Though the assembly of God's people ought to be a place where the Christians, where Christians can love the

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Lord, their God, with their heart and soul and mind and strength, and for these faculties to be stretched and strengthened.

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It has become a place where many Christians put their minds in neutral in favor of a purely emotional experience.

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Mark Knoll writes, and some of you might remember this quote from a couple of years ago, I shared it.

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He famously wrote about the dumbing down of the evangelical church when he said the evangelical, or the scandal of the evangelical mind, is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.

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And so, many of the churches and many of the believers in this world might be aptly described as those who the author of Hebrews, in Hebrews chapter 5 and verse 12 describes.

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He says, for though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God.

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You need milk, not solid food. But brethren, that ought not to be the case.

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Is that not why the author of Hebrews writes that? And it wasn't always the case.

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I remember going to, on a family vacation to Hawaii. If anyone's ever been to Lahaina, that's the city that burnt down last year.

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And in the heart of Lahaina, there is an old missionary house, just a couple hundred feet away from the ocean.

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And as we were walking down the street in Lahaina, I had a look at one of these plaques that was in front of this missionary house.

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And it spoke about the nature of the church and of Christian missions just a couple hundred years ago.

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On that plaque, I'm reading here from that plaque, it says, the missionaries founded a seminary at Lahaina Luna to teach reading, writing, agriculture, and mechanics.

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Missionary teachers established a standardized phonetic writing system for the previously unwritten

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Hawaiian language and used it to print textbooks, currency, bibles, and hymn books.

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As a result of the missionaries' labor, by the 1800s, the late 1800s, Hawaii was one of the most literate nations in the world.

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Why? Because the church was there. And they sought to teach the people sound doctrine, and the scriptures, and medicine, and every good thing that they would need.

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And when they found that they didn't have a written language, by God's grace, they established one.

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And then when they found that the people couldn't read that language, they taught them to read, and to tend to their fields, and to sit under the preaching of God's word that they might know

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God deeply. And then knowing God deeply, that they might live rightly.

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J .C. Ryle said 200 years ago, it could have been written yesterday, we need

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Christianity with doctrinal bone, muscle, and sinew, not a jellyfish

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Christianity. And dear saints, when we have that kind of Christianity, the bone of doctrine, and muscle, and sinew, then we will have right living, and then we will have unity.

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Let us pursue that. Let us walk in that. The next that we see is this.

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The daily practice of walking in unity. Here Paul lays this out in Ephesians 4, in verses 2 and 3.

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He says, with all humility and gentleness. This is their walking. Walking 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.

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Here Paul lays out what we might call five fundamental practices for faithful walking, faithfully walking in Christian unity.

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These are five things that you can do now. Starting at this very moment, waking up and doing tomorrow, seeking to do the day after, and on the next

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Lord's day to practice that also, that our church might be united. And that any church that you find yourself in, in the future, praises you for bringing with you a spirit and a disposition that promotes unity in the church.

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And number one, he says, with all humility. That is an interesting word when you look at humility in the original language.

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Because if you were to look at that Greek word, humility, from verse 2, in a

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Greek dictionary prior to the first century, you would not find it.

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It has been pointed out that neither the Greeks nor the Romans had in their vocabulary this word that would convey humility.

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The idea of humility as we understand it today was so unusual and foreign to them that they had no term to describe that kind of hard attitude.

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And so what we see here is that Paul uses a compound word made up of two separate

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Greek words which when combined convey something of, if we could define it this way, thinking or judging with lowliness.

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And linguists and scholars have looked at the history of this word and they have found that outside of the

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Christian church in the first century, there is no reference to it. And for the first several centuries of the church, the only time that this word is used is when it's used by pagans to describe

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Christians in a pejorative manner. The typical Greek and Roman mindset was one of pride, of self -assurance, of arrogance, of boastfulness.

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It was a good thing to be arrogant. But to be a

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Christian and to embrace this word and to embrace all that it stood for, this

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Christian invented word, was to think with lowliness about oneself. To be humble and contrite in spirit.

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And because this word is a new word, at least in Paul's vocabulary and in the

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Greek vocabulary to those around him, we can look back then at the early church and see how they defined this word.

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Augustine said, if you should ask me what are the ways of God, I will tell you that it is first, humility.

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And second, humility. And third, humility. Not that there are no other precepts to give, but if humility does not precede all that we do, our efforts are fruitless.

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A lowliness of thinking about oneself. A few centuries later, another writer said, the virtue, humility is the virtue by which a man becomes conscious of his own unworthiness and with a low view of himself, willingly submits himself to God and to others for God's sake.

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Brethren, I want to ask you, would you describe, not what people see, but of the disposition of your heart as one of humility.

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Of having a right understanding of who you are in relation to God. That God is high and exalted and mighty and worthy of all praise.

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And where are you? Humility, I believe, starts with a high understanding of God.

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A high knowledge of God. But more than that, Paul adds to this gentleness.

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And gentleness might be, the word that he uses might be defined as to be mild -spirited, to be self -controlled.

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The opposite of vindictiveness and vengeance. It was actually, again, we see

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Paul, he makes up a word, or the Christians at least, make up a word for gentleness.

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Or, sorry, for humility. And then in gentleness, he borrows another word from a different context to refer to how

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Christians are to behave in the household of God. And it's actually a term that was used to describe the taming of wild animals.

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Particularly horses. Now has anyone here ever broken a horse? I thought maybe we might have at least one.

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One commentator writes, he says, This is what this encaptures.

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A tamed animal still has its strength and spirit. You fire a gun next to a horse, at least a partially trained horse, it'll stand still, it'll go where you lead, but when you fire a gun, you will see the force of that horse.

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A tamed animal still has its strength and spirit, but its will is under the control of its master.

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The tamed lion still has power, but its power is under the control of its trainer.

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The horse can run just as fast, but he runs only when and where his master tells him to run.

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Meekness is power under control. Biblical meekness, or gentleness, is power under the control of God.

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Men, I want to address you for a moment. Do you have a gentle disposition when you greet your brothers and sisters in Christ?

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When you live before a watching world, in all humility before God, are you a gentle man?

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I think we need to appreciate this, that biblical manhood is not entering into every room that we enter into like a bull storming into a china shop.

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It is not walking around with chests puffed out, raising our voices at every opportunity.

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But biblical manhood that is gentle, that is peaceable, that is unity loving, unity preserving, at least in my brothers

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I'm addressing you now, is taking the power and strength that is characteristic of the

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God -appointed manliness that you have been given and it is submitting it to God.

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It is not picking or continuing a fight at every moment of opportunity. But it is speaking gently, speaking gently to the saints, speaking gently to your wife, speaking gently to your children.

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We see this kind of gentleness in the life of David. In the Old Testament when

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David had the opportunity to smite Saul, not once but twice, what did he do?

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But he was, if I can describe him this way for a moment, like a tamed animal under control, self -controlled, submitted to who?

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Submitted to God. Or Christ, when he found himself in the garden of Gethsemane and the

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Sanhedrin's henchmen came to arrest him in the garden, what did he say to Peter when

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Peter picked up his sword? In Matthew 26 and verse 52, he says, put your sword back in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.

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And then he adds, do you think that I cannot appeal to my father and he will at once send more than 12 legions of angels?

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Here's a Christ who is all -powerful, more powerful than any untamed animal.

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You hear that debate, would you rather meet a man or a bear in the forest? Well, would you rather meet a man or a bear or God himself in human flesh in the forest?

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Well, here is Christ, the very God -man, who has 12 legions, more certainly at his disposal.

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Do you know how many consist of a legion? That's about 5 ,000 soldiers. He says,

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I can call 60 ,000 angels at this very moment to intervene. But what did

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Christ do? He submitted that God -given power, that power,

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I'm gonna back that up, that power that he possessed in himself to the

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Father. Brothers, that is gentleness. And sisters, with every wave of new feminism that comes, you have been taught to suppress the beauty of Christian gentleness in your conduct, to put aside pure and reverent and godly conduct, and to become rough and assertive in your speech.

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But what does Peter say? A godly woman is not one who wears big boots and tramples where she wants.

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But in 1 Peter 3, in verse 3, he says, Do not, sisters, do not let your adorning be external, the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry or the clothing you wear.

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But let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.

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Oh, dads, from a young age, soon -to -be dads, if the

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Lord blesses you with daughters, it is a fantastic gift. Raise your daughters and say that beauty does not consist of pearls.

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It does not consist of the latest hairstyle or the trendiest clothing. Dear daughter and dear sister, beauty consists of this, a gentle and a quiet spirit.

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And when God sees that, he sees it as a very precious thing in his sight.

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And yet in all of this, we must admit there is a place for righteous anger. Christian gentleness is not tantamount to being a

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Christian pushover. But no, within the context of Christian meekness, when the situation calls for it,

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Christians are expected to be angry and yet to not sin.

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And yet, Proverbs 16, 32 says, Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty.

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And he who rules his spirit better than he who takes a city.

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The next thing that we see, humility, gentleness. Paul lists patience.

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Patience is, again, a combination of two words. Macro, thumia. Macro, if you think about a macro picture, something that is big.

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And then thumia, to suffer. What Paul is saying is that the Christian should live as one who is long -suffering.

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I think the Lord gives us this particular word because he knows our disposition.

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And because he knows that, without offending you, hopefully, that brothers and sisters, we are sometimes difficult people to be around.

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That I am at some point, if I haven't already, I'm looking at the clock, if I haven't already at this moment, I'm going to test your patience.

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And I trust that sometime you are going to test my patience as well. And then one to another.

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And brethren, we need to be, with each other, long -suffering.

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And I tell you, if you belong to a church and you have a conversation with someone, and maybe in that moment, that conversation requires extra grace on your part, do not go home and say, oh, it is suffering to be there.

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But if you find yourself suffering in the presence of a brother or sister, rejoice that you are obeying

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God's word in relation to that brother or sister. Long -suffering.

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And if you think that it was somehow easier to be a long -suffering Christian in the first century, that is a wish dream.

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Aristotle, when he wrote about this idea of patience, it said of him,

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I think this is a paraphrase of what he said, he said, the greatest Greek virtue is the refusal to tolerate any insult and the readiness to strike back.

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Imagine being taught that on the Lord's day. Dear saints, do not tolerate anyone that would test your patience and when necessary, strike them.

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What does the word say? We are to be patient. James says in chapter 5 and verse 10,

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James 5, 10, as an example of suffering and patience, brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the

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Lord. And you see the prophets. Think for a moment of Isaiah.

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I always thought that was interesting. I recall sitting on a park bench, praying actually about planting this church and if the

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Lord would have us to plant. And I found myself in Isaiah chapter 6.

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And initially, Isaiah chapter 6 is a very encouraging verse, isn't it? Let's turn there together.

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Isaiah chapter 6 and verse 8. This is in the context of Isaiah's vision of the

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Lord, the thrice holy God of the Bible. And then in Isaiah 6 and verse 8, we see this scene.

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And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us?

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Then I said, here I am, send me. Now, if we were to end just on that verse, we would say what a triumphant picture that Isaiah sees this holy

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God. And then that God says to him, who will go? And Isaiah says,

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I am ready, send me. But what does God say next? And he said, go and say to this people, keep on hearing and do not understand.

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Keep on seeing, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their ears heavy and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turned and be healed.

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You know what he's saying? Who will go? And when Isaiah says, here I am, send me, he says, now go to a stubborn and obstinate people who will not hear you.

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And that is what James says is suffering and patience. The prophets who spoke in the name of the

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Lord. There's a picture of this in the history of the church. In 1871, a man named

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H .M. Stanley went to Africa to report on the work of David Livingston. Anyone heard of David Livingston?

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He was the primary, the first major missionary to the African people, a

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British missionary who lived on the frontiers of world missions in Africa.

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And during this assignment, Stanley had the job of going to Africa, of carefully observing

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David Livingston, and then reporting back on all of his activities. And as Stanley arrived in Africa, and as he watched

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David Livingston, who was a medical missionary at that time, he was seeing something that was altogether unexplainable.

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He could not understand how David Livingston could be so patient and kind and loving towards such a backwards people.

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In his own words, or sorry, in the words of one biographer, Livingston, it said, Livingston literally spent himself in untiring service for those whom he had no reason to love, except for Christ's sake.

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And even though Livingston did not speak to Stanley even a moment, for even a moment, about spiritual matters, as Livingston saw, or Stanley saw

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Livingston's patient care for these primitive pagan people, a switch flipped in his heart.

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You see, Stanley arrived in Africa as an unbelieving reporter. And he later wrote, after watching

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David Livingston patiently care for these African people, he said, when

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I saw that unwearied patience, that unflagging zeal,

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I love this phrase, and those enlightened sons of Africa, I became a

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Christian at his side, though he never spoke to me even one word.

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H .M. Stanley saw David Livingston's patience in action. And that is what

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God used to bring him to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

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And he didn't even see the full specimen of Livingston's example, of his patient example.

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He endured such trials, trials that we could not even begin to comprehend. He endured prolonged periods of severe illness.

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Many of us, if we contracted malaria once, we would think, this is terrible,

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I'm getting out of Africa. Or I'm going to invest in everything that I can to preserve myself from getting malaria again.

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And David Livingston got malaria again and again and again. He lived with chronic dysentery, so much so that at times he was close to fainting.

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As a frontier missionary, one of the most hostile places in the world, he had to endure prolonged periods of separation between him and his dear wife and children.

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And then when his wife came back to visit, he buried her at the age of 41. After he buried his wife, he watched as Arab slave traders came into the interior of Africa and they killed the people of 27 villages.

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Not 27 villagers, all of the people in 27 villages seeking out their slaves.

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And when Livingston wrote a letter back to report what had happened, as the men in parliament were working to abolish the slave trade, that letter that came back and was read by the people of Britain was the nail in the coffin of the

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British slave trade. It was done after that. He was so long -suffering in his love for the people of Africa and his patient pursuit of their salvation that he became the first European in the modern history, the known history of the world, to cross the entire

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African continent from west to east before planes, trains, cars, or any kind of other mechanical transportation.

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And yet at various points, he felt so useless, so unprofitable in his service.

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Maybe you feel like this other times, brothers and sisters. If you've ever thought about this as patience, being patient even with yourself that you might serve people for their benefit.

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He felt so useless, so unprofitable, that at one time he thought that God had put him on a shelf in Africa, that Africa was like a storage room just to keep the world safe from David Livingston.

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And he said, I don't know whether I am on the shelf or not, but if I do, I make

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Africa the shelf. There is a ruler above, and his providence guides all things.

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He is our friend, and he has plenty of work for all of his people to do. Dear saints, consider the patience of our brother.

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Paul continues. Humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love.

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There are four kinds of loves in the Bible that we find.

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We find store gay love. That is, it's a love of empathy, the kind of love that a father would have for his children.

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We find filial love. Filial love, a friendly, a friendship kind of love.

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Eros love, which is a romantic love. Paul could have used these three loves. And if you're familiar with loves, then you know exactly where I'm going next.

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But here Paul uses that word agape love. Patient of long -suffering, of unconditional agape love.

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Love that is, as Peter would put it, covers a multitude of sins. In Proverbs 10 and verse 12, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses.

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I like what Matthew Henry says, we find much in ourselves for which we can hardly forgive ourselves.

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Therefore, we must not be surprised if we find in others that which we find hard to forgive as well.

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And yet, we approach them with forebearing love. Unconditional love.

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Brethren, the reason why we sometimes find disunity and division in the church is because we find conditional love.

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Love that says, I will only be united with you if you hold to the same eschatological position that I have.

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I will only love you with agape love if I find you easy to talk to.

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If you're not socially awkward, whatever it is, fill in the blank. But Christians, we are to love one another.

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And then lastly, that fifth fundamental, eager to maintain unity.

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That word eager is to hasten, to hurry, to expend great effort to achieve something.

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Unity is not an accidental byproduct of mediocre

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Christian living. Unity is a goal and an objective.

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It's the object of our intense desire in laboring. And in any local church where there is peaceable fellowship to be enjoyed, where the bond of peace is intact, you will find a church where every member is expending energy to maintain that peace and unity.

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Sweet fellowship, genuine unity, sincere love can only come when the whole church hastens to create that kind of environment.

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We sing that song, that hymn sometimes, I will hasten to thee, hasten so glad and free.

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Brothers, as we hasten to God, let's hasten as well to preserve unity, to promote peace, to maintain, as Paul puts it, the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.

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But how, brethren, how are we to maintain this? We know that we live in a fallen condition.

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We know that we have a sinful flesh that still dwells within us that wages war against the spirit.

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How are we to persevere in this kind of unity? You might find it very easy to pursue unity this afternoon, but what about tomorrow and the next year and then when the next crisis comes and the leadership of the church don't decide exactly how you do it.

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It's not sin, but it's not my preference. Or when a brother or sister speaks rudely to you, or there's a miscommunication, how then do we persevere in unity?

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And I think that's where Paul points us to the blazing center of persevering in unity.

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In verse four, he says, there is one body and one spirit.

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Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one

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Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

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That word one is repeated seven times in verses four through six.

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I'm not sure if Paul was doing that intentionally, seven being the number of completeness in scripture, but seven times it is repeated one, one, one.

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And I want you to see with me because you know I love to point this stuff out, the blazing center of our unity.

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In verse four, one body and one spirit. Verse five, one

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Lord, one faith, one baptism. And verse six, one God and father. What do we have there, saints?

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The spirit and the Lord Jesus Christ and God the father. We have the

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Trinity at the very blazing center. Of our unity as a local church is the triune

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God and nothing else. That we find our unity just as the sun revolves, or sorry, the earth, excuse me, revolves around the sun and it cannot escape it.

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So we are in the orbit of that Trinity and we have union with that Trinity.

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That God who is, in verse six, over all and through all and in all.

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Brethren, we do not find our unity, our ability to persevere in unity simply by grinning, gritting our teeth, excuse me, and bearing it.

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But we find it by looking to the triune God and how the triune

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God, the triune Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in perfect unity without even an ounce of disunity.

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We have brothers and sisters in this church who are pursuing faithfulness in marriage.

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And the example that I have sought to give them at every turn is this. Men, look to Christ and see how

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Christ loves his bride and be like Christ. Wives, look at the church and how the church is to submit to the

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Christ, to the Son of God and be like the church. And dear saints, if I can say it this way,

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I won't say it very often, but brothers and sisters, to pursue unity, be like the persons of the

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Trinity. Now, on my way off base here, in John chapter 17 and verse 21, this is what

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Christ prayed to the Father. He said that they may all be one just as you,

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Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.

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Unity, Christ prayed for that unity. It is a unity that reflects the very triune

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God. And brothers and sisters, if I might say it, Christ is going to get what he prayed for.

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Oh, he has asked for unity and so he will get it. And brothers and sisters, let us not mar then the picture of the unity of the triune

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God by approaching each other with divisive spirits. But as the

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Lord has given us one faith, one baptism, one hope, one calling, let us, brothers and sisters, walk as one body in Christ, that Christ laid down his life that we might have unity.

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Brothers and sisters, if Christ died for unity in this church, let us not seek to discount that death, but let us die a thousand deaths in patience and in long suffering and forbearing love that we might preserve the unity of this church.

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I will conclude with these words from John Flavel. He said, what, at peace with the father and at war with his children?

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It cannot be. Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.

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And dear saints, we have unity in that spirit. Let us work, let us labor, let us pray, let us lean into the power of God to preserve that unity.

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Let's pray. Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church. If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church or our

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Instagram at Grace Church, Y -E -G, all one word. Finally, you can visit us at our website, graceedmonton .ca.