Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] All right.
[00:00:04] Tonight we are talking about unity, which can be complicated, but in other ways. It can be very simple. But welcome to East Rock. I'm super excited to have the opportunity to preach this weekend.
[00:00:18] A few weeks back, I was able to introduce us to chapter three in Ephesians, and it just so happens I get to start us off in chapter four now.
[00:00:26] So I'm pretty excited about that. We see a bit of a transition here in chapter four from what Paul has been doing. He's been kind of laying down this theological foundation, chapters one through three, and he wraps up his prayer at the end of chapter three. And in chapter four, he opens almost with the exact same line that he starts with in chapter three, with just a slight difference. In chapter three, he introduces himself as a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and here he introduces himself as a prisoner for the Lord.
[00:01:00] So pretty similar. And there are a few reasons why I think he repeats himself here. The first is to reiterate that he sees himself not as a prisoner of Rome or of Caesar, but as of God, but rather in that he's on mission from God even in his imprisonment.
[00:01:19] And he doesn't see his imprisonment as a burden either, but rather the divine will of God entrusts in that. I know last time I talked about this, I mentioned this, but, man, it just blows me away. So I had to mention it again, especially because he uses the same line, just his faith and his trust in the Lord in the midst of his circumstances.
[00:01:40] I seem to struggle with the Lord trusting in the Lord, you know, on much simpler things rather than imprisonment. I struggled in trusting the Lord this week because my AC went out. So, you know, I was praying and I didn't understand why, what his purpose was for it maybe to get me praying more could have been, but, you know, I was frustrated with how hot it got. Luckily that all got fixed. So I am blessed with air conditioning once again at my house.
[00:02:08] And I have a cool place to work from and prepare my sermon.
[00:02:12] But it really showed me how much I value my own comfort, is what I took away from that. And the Lord has really been working on my heart recently in trying to understand not comfort, but more contentment and joy.
[00:02:26] And as somebody that struggles with anxiety and depression, you know, this has been a particularly hard lesson for me, but it's one that I am taking a day at a time from the Lord. I'm hoping to actually be able to share a little bit more about what the Lord's been revealing to me with contentment and refuel next month. So There's. There's the plug for refuel. Come next month. I'm leading discussion on contentment.
[00:02:47] Thanks, Casey.
[00:02:50] But back to Paul.
[00:02:52] His suffering gives weight to his words here, right? And as such, I think that should be an exhortation for us. We are called not to despair, you know, even when the AC breaks, but to trust in the Lord, you know, and I joke, but as a culture in America, we seem to be moving to a more post Christian ideal. And it's possible that our suffering for Christ will increase as believers.
[00:03:16] I don't see it getting as bad as some other countries, at least for a while.
[00:03:20] We're called to be like Paul here in that he's being Christlike in his suffering by trusting in the Lord.
[00:03:29] I see this culture shift even in my daily workplace with different trainings that I have to take, and affirming personal truth instead of objective truth. And, you know, this is subtle pushback, though, on Christianity. And I want to be able to be speaking the truth here and in my workplace around everyone. But as first Peter tells us to do so with humility and gentleness, which are a few things we're going to be talking about in tonight's passage, is being humble and gentle. So if you haven't already, open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter four and we'll go ahead and dive in. Not a ton of verses tonight, just the first three.
[00:04:11] And if I got room. There we go. All right.
[00:04:15] 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.
[00:04:41] So, as I mentioned before, chapter four is a bit of a transition from theology to application now that we've established kind of all these facts that Paul's been talking about in Ephesians 1 through 3, you know, like being saved by grace through faith. How do we live those out? Is what we're starting to move into.
[00:05:01] Specifically, how do we live those out in the church?
[00:05:04] You know, to jump ahead a bit, verse three talks about maintaining the unity of the Spirit. And this shows us that we aren't the source of the unity. Right? The Spirit is what unifies. But we are called to do our best to maintain that unity.
[00:05:18] And that's what these characteristics are supposed to help us with.
[00:05:24] We'll talk more about that a little bit later on. But all these commands on how to live must be in the context of us maintaining the unity of God's people, and the initiator of that work is the Spirit, not us.
[00:05:38] So our main point tonight is the first one here that we're going to jump into. Because of the Gospel, we are called to walk in a way that reflects Christ humbly, gently, patiently, and in pursuit of unity.
[00:05:55] Now, we're going to talk about each of those individually. But man, some of those are tough.
[00:06:02] So let's be clear here before we move forward, doing these things, walking humbly, gently, patiently will not earn our salvation.
[00:06:14] Amen. Please, From Tim already said something. Never mind. I had in my notes to ask for an Amen there.
[00:06:20] Tim's ahead of the ball. All right, all right. So as we talk about how we should act, we're talking about how we should act in response to what has been done to us for us.
[00:06:31] So when I talk about walking in worthiness, I'm not saying that we can be worthy of our redemption in Christ, right? We're not going to be able to earn that through our own works. That is why Paul spends so much time earlier in the book of Ephesians, talking about how emphasizing salvation through grace by faith and not by works. If we aren't earning our salvation through our worthiness, you know, so then why does Paul say walk in a manner that is worthy?
[00:07:00] Well, just because it's not effective for our salvation doesn't mean that it's not good for our sanctification.
[00:07:08] So as adopted sons and daughters in God's household, we're called to live differently, you know, than before we were saved. Before we were slaves to sin, and now we must be slaves to righteousness.
[00:07:23] You know, as Romans tells us here. I think I got it on the screen in Romans 6:15. What then are we to sin because we are not under the law, but under grace?
[00:07:33] By no means. I love it. Do you not know that if you present yourself to anyone as obedient slaves, you, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to slaves of righteousness.
[00:07:59] I'm sorry. To the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness. I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, leading to sanctification so there's a whole lot there. But the big thing that I want us to know is we're going to start talking about these virtues. We're going to be talking about why these virtues are important and why they're good for us to live them out. But it's very important that we know that's not where our salvation comes from. Our salvation comes through faith in the work that Jesus Christ did on the cross, that we are saved by grace, not through works.
[00:08:49] So the next point that we have this evening is as the church, we aren't earning grace through our works, but rather we're aligning with it.
[00:08:58] So I really like the phrasing here of us kind of coming into alignment with the works of God. And it really reminds me of the idea too of like repentance. Right, repentance. A lot of people think he just means, I'm sorry, but that's not it. It's coming into alignment with God's way of thinking. And that's what we're called to do here with these virtues as well, as well as how we maintain unity in the church is being in align with the will of God.
[00:09:25] So as Paul urges us to walk worthily, we must keep this in mind. And there's a bit of a tension here, right? We see in the book of James, he lays out that we should see good works as evidence of salvation, not the source of salvation.
[00:09:43] So it's an order of operations issue for me to nerd out about for a little bit since I work in data. You know, what comes first? Anybody remember Pemdas from math?
[00:09:55] Yeah. Parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division. Anyways, yeah, so that comes first. Salvation comes first. And then we should do good works because of that.
[00:10:06] So why are we saved?
[00:10:10] Why, why does this even happen? You know, as Paul urges us to walk, we keep this in mind. But we're called to a type of work. He tells us what we're called to do something. So what is it?
[00:10:22] Well, the nice word for it is soli deo gloria, for the glory of God alone.
[00:10:28] But a discussion we started actually in our LT group this week, which is a subtle plug also to go to an LT group. So we've got refuel and LT covered. So, you know, get plugged in, do something.
[00:10:41] But Friday night was, you know, what does that mean practically, like when we say worship God, what does that mean? Does that mean coming here and singing songs? Yeah, but is that all of it? No.
[00:10:54] So I think we get a pretty good picture, funny enough, is actually In First Chronicles, where David tells Asaph how to worship. And he just kind of lays it out and he says, you know, that then on that day David first appointed that thanksgiving, he sung to the Lord by Asaph and his brothers, give thanks to the Lord.
[00:11:16] Call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people.
[00:11:21] Sing to him. So we do have singing in there. Sing praises to him, tell of his wondrous deeds.
[00:11:27] Or we could go with how marvelous his deeds are, as we just did, John. Yeah. Seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his presence continually. That one's a little harder. But we're called to do that because continually means when, sometimes, all the time. Yeah.
[00:11:45] Remember the. The wondrous works that he's done, his miracles and the judgments that he's uttered. So we have this breakdown here where we can kind of see, you know, what is worship practically. And we know that it's giving thanks to God, it is singing, it's giving glory to him, it's seeking his presence. And we seek his presence through His Word, you know, and remembering the good things that he's done for us and just being joyful in those things.
[00:12:12] Now, I almost went down and had like a whole side sermon series about how we glorify God, but I'm not going to do that so everybody can breathe. But to sum it up, we see David tells Asaph to glorify God through giving thanks, seeking his presence, remembering what he has done for. So as God initiates grace, we're called to respond in faith and obedience to his commands as a form of worship.
[00:12:38] So now we've kind of set the ground, right?
[00:12:41] Paul says, hey, we're called to a work. What's that work?
[00:12:46] We want to worship God. Right.
[00:12:48] We're called to worship. What does worship look like? It's all those things we just talked about. We also talked about how doing good things isn't how we earn our salvation. Right. Doing these virtues that Paul is talking about and we're about to start talking about ourselves is not how we earn our salvation.
[00:13:03] So let's talk back to the first virtue that Paul brings up, which is humility.
[00:13:11] So back to the practicality of what things look like. We get a template here for how we should act. The first virtue that Paul lists is humility. And I usually get this wrong in my own thoughts. I tend to think humility is like this idea of thinking little or poor morally of myself.
[00:13:30] And that's not it.
[00:13:32] Humility is, you know, having the right view of yourself.
[00:13:38] So it's not having a self deprecating view or a false modesty or weakness.
[00:13:45] So yes, being humble is not thinking that I have no worth, but rather knowing the worth that we have in the Lord. And then how do we act humbly from a practical aspect again. And that's one of the things that I'm going to continue talking about as we go through each of these virtues is practical application of what we can actually do. It's one thing to say be humble. How do we actually be humble? Remember our template here and what Paul is telling us to do is to be like Christ.
[00:14:15] So we're to think of others needs before our own. We demonstrate mercy and self control, all things. And as you can see here on the screen, we've already got humility is the personal quality of being free from arrogance and pride and not having a low opinion, but having an accurate estimate of one's worth.
[00:14:37] Right.
[00:14:38] I really love that that definition actually came from Holman's Bible Dictionary for the definition of humility. I really liked it mostly just because it spoke to me so personally, because I do struggle with this idea of thinking, well, I'm not good, right? And amen, I'm not, but I've been saved and there is value in that.
[00:15:00] So being humble, we want to be able to demonstrate mercy to others and to show self control in all things. And speaking of self control, the next virtue that Paul brings up is gentleness, which you might be thinking, Steve, that's not self control, that's gentleness.
[00:15:21] But they're linked. Bear with me. Come on, we'll get there. If we have the right estimation of our worth, then we act in accordance with that view through gentleness.
[00:15:34] Now there is this preconceived notion in our world of gentleness and even of humility being weakness, but it hardly means weakness. Again, Christ shows us gentleness. We're called to be Christlike. Was he lacking in power or weak?
[00:15:53] To quote Paul from above, from Romans, by no means.
[00:15:58] You know, Matthew tells us in his gospel, you all probably are familiar with the passage where he says, come to me all who labor and are heavy, who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
[00:16:10] Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
[00:16:17] Christ is God, and as such full of the most power possible, and yet he exercises gentleness.
[00:16:26] So what is gentleness then? Gentleness is power under control.
[00:16:32] So what? Gentleness is not avoiding confrontation or being a pushover.
[00:16:42] And again, I'm preaching to myself here because I do like to avoid confrontation and there are times when I need to be boldly speaking the truth.
[00:16:49] Remember, Jesus was gentle, but he also spoke the truth in boldness.
[00:16:54] Gentleness is not affirming lies to spare someone's feelings.
[00:16:58] It is avoiding being needlessly cruel in sharing that truth, though. Though other examples of gentleness from Scripture that we see here are. We see Jesus's interaction with the woman caught in adultery in John Paul's appeal to Philemon for Onesimus, gently restoring somebody caught in sin from Galatians and leading a family or a church with a tender shepherding heart, as we see in First Thessalonians. We don't have time to go to all those verses, so we're not going to all those verses. But hit me up after the service if you want, and I'll give you the.
[00:17:31] The exact verse. You can go look them up. All right. We can be gentle without being weak is what I want you to understand, though we must be able to exercise self control, though, to ensure that we are not being brutal.
[00:17:48] So we've got humility, gentleness. What comes next?
[00:17:56] Patience.
[00:17:58] I know. Get on with it already. Steve. I understand patience. Paul told us to be humble and gentle, and now he follows with another virtue, and that of patience.
[00:18:10] Of all the virtues here, this is the one I said. I struggled with the others, but patience I really do struggle with a lot.
[00:18:19] Like, my mind is always racing, right? It's always going from one thing to another, you know, in one direction or another. I have this really annoying habit, if you know me, of sometimes trying to finish the sentence that somebody is speaking because I've been like, okay, I figured it out. We're done. Let's go.
[00:18:37] Tammy isn't here tonight, but if she was, you could ask her and she would tell you that that happens time and time again. When she's trying to say something, I'll be like, okay, I got it. And then she'll be like, no, you don't.
[00:18:49] So it's a pride thing too. I think there's a lot wrapped up in that. But, you know, this idea of patience and this idea that I have stems from kind of this need to always feel productive.
[00:19:02] So the faster and more efficiently I can process information or accomplish a task, the better.
[00:19:09] And I apply the same thought process to my co workers as well.
[00:19:14] Orey, are they accomplishing something?
[00:19:16] No, no. Actually was not thinking specifically of Ori. I just happened to look up and see him. Are they accomplishing something efficiently? Are they wasting time? It's one of the things I really struggle with at work because I'm like, time is money, let's go. Are we actually being productive? What are we doing here? You know? And so I lack patience when they struggle, even if it is an opportunity for them to learn, which is what I should really be looking at for a lot of those opportunities.
[00:19:43] But the intolerance of shortcomings is an ugly thing. And that's what I struggle with with some folk at work.
[00:19:51] And it's right for Paul to warn us away from this and instead to lean into patience. And I never really thought of impatience kind of in this way before as looking at people as if they had a shortcoming or they're missing the mark, you know. So when we talk about patience, what again do we mean by that word? So let's define it here. Patience is the active endurance of opposition, not a passive resignation. And the big thing I want you all to pull out from this and I probably should have made it. The fill in word would have been active. But patience is an active thing that we do. It is not passive.
[00:20:33] Typically this is similar to being gentle in that it's often thought of being patient as kind of a weakness, or maybe not even a weakness, but an apathy like a lack of caring.
[00:20:45] However, it is much the opposite.
[00:20:48] I really like the description above. Patience isn't something passive, but it's an active thing that we must practice.
[00:20:56] It's not an indifference or a passivity. And as such we should not avoid confrontation or enabling sinful behavior in the guise of being patient. And this is going to come up later on because we're going to talk specifically about unity in the church. And right now I'm talking about division. There's some tension there. We'll have to talk about that.
[00:21:19] We are taught to be long suffering with or patient with others. As the Lord is patient with us.
[00:21:27] Exactly. I oh man, what he's been patient with me with. I should not be struggling at all with any of the folks at my workplace.
[00:21:38] So I repent Orey my bad.
[00:21:41] You can hold me to it tomorrow when we do our stand up meeting. If you haven't figured out, I work with Ori.
[00:21:48] So it's not an indifference or passivity. Right. We're taught to be long suffering. The key to patience is that it's meant to serve a purpose, though there is an eventual outcome that has to be decided.
[00:22:02] So another passage from Romans tells us. This is in Romans 2 tells us that. Do you suppose, O man, you who judge, who practice such things and yet do them yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God?
[00:22:17] Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
[00:22:28] And what I love about this passage is it tells us why God is patient with us. It's so that we might repent.
[00:22:36] It's also a call against hypocrisy. As God is patient with us in our own struggles, we too called to be patient with others in their struggles.
[00:22:46] Now, again, we need to be careful with the words that we're using here because this isn't affirming sinful behavior. I intentionally use the word struggle because it should be a struggle against sin, not a celebration of it. What are some practical examples of patience that we can do in our everyday lives, though? You know, waiting on God's timing is a practical example when we want immediate results. I want a thing now, God, will you give it to me? You know, whole sub sermon there on how God's not a vending machine. But we don't have time to get into that walking with someone who's struggling with sin or addiction.
[00:23:25] Or how about parenting with grace and truth? That's one I struggle with even when it seems that the progress is not happening and I'm still correcting over and over again.
[00:23:37] You know, it's an activity of endurance that we're called to and a key for us as a church to maintain the unity in the spirit that God has given us.
[00:23:49] So lastly, nope, not the last point, just the last virtue. Ha ha, Fooled you.
[00:23:56] We come to the final virtue that Paul speaks of, which is bearing with one another in love.
[00:24:01] You know, what is love and how do we bear with each other using it? Well, I'm actually going to quote Tim here, and this is something that he told me during my marriage counseling that we went through. And he said, with love, when you talk about love, it's not a feeling, it's an action that we take.
[00:24:20] So much like the other things that we're talking about, about them not being passive, bearing with one another in love is an active thing that we must do. It is an action that we must take.
[00:24:31] It's not passive.
[00:24:33] Love isn't just a feeling. It's what, in what ways can we show love to each other through our actions and not just our words is what we need to be thinking through. You know, it's one thing to say, hey, I'll pray for you on that, you know, and good on you. If you remember and actually do, that's good. But what can you actually do to help in that situation? Has God equipped you or gifted you in a way to be able to help?
[00:24:58] If so, he might be trying to call to you then and letting you know.
[00:25:02] But bearing with one another. We bear with one another with love as the motivation and foundation of our actions.
[00:25:12] We see this is how Jesus would bear with his disciples because, yeah, they did not have it all together. Thank goodness. That's a good example for me because I too do not have it all together.
[00:25:24] Paul tells us to be ear.
[00:25:26] I'm sorry, the disciples, doubts and failures. There were many of them. We can bear with one another by actively choosing compassion and seeking reconciliation when with people when possible. Much like we said before, this isn't a license to affirm or condone sinful behavior, but rather a calling for us to endure difficulty for love's sake while pouring our brothers and point. I'm sorry, by pointing our brothers and sisters to truth and growth in Christ.
[00:25:56] So bear with one another actively. What actions can we take to help each other to love on one another?
[00:26:07] Okay, that was the first half.
[00:26:12] So we talked through the virtues.
[00:26:14] I don't think it's really a half. I think. I think we might be further along than that. But really what we want to talk about is unity, right? That's what this whole thing starts with, is keeping the unity of the Spirit in this verse as we get down to verse three. So now that we've extolled the virtues of what we're supposed to do to be able to maintain unity, Paul tells us to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. And so I want to take some time and I want to sit here, here on this verse and discuss a few different things and what it reveals to us. And then I want to have a discussion on are we to acquiesce always to unity?
[00:26:54] And I would say no, there is a place where we have to draw the line. And so our final point for tonight will be this, is that we must seek unity, but not at the expense of truth.
[00:27:07] You are probably thinking, okay, that's all well and good, but you didn't answer the question of where we draw the line.
[00:27:16] And that's the hard one to answer. There are Christian denominational differences between churches all over the place, you know, but that doesn't mean those individual churches are not saved by Christ.
[00:27:27] So first of all, we need to understand kind of the idea. And we talked about it. Casey, in your call to worship with case. Kind of this idea of the church, Catholic, right there is the universal church. Again, not Roman Catholic, Catholic as the word meaning universal.
[00:27:42] So when we talk about unity in the Church, we're talking about the Church invisible or Christ's Church, which, spoiler for everybody here, doesn't necessarily mean everyone who shows up Sundays at church.
[00:27:57] It takes regeneration from Holy Spirit. It takes your belief in Jesus Christ and the work for what is, of what he has done for you on the cross in order to be saved.
[00:28:07] It's not just showing up now because of that. The nature of the Church is not a building or the people that gather there. Some of them are part of the Church, for sure. Conceptually, we view the Church as those whom we speak of as being God's elect.
[00:28:28] These are the people who are saved. And the invisible church is known to no one but God. And this is affirmed by 2 Timothy, where he talks about those who have strayed from the truth and how that was upsetting to some. So there's kind of this idea that some do wander away and leave the faith. He continues, but God's firm foundation stands bearing the seal. The Lord knows who are his.
[00:28:52] And let everyone who knows or who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity. Which is another call for us to walk, as Paul has called us to walk here with these virtues. Here we see that God knows who all are His.
[00:29:06] That is what we mean when we say the Church Catholic.
[00:29:10] While we are united by a shared faith in Christ and foundational gospel truths, we do not all have to look, worship, think or serve in exactly the same way.
[00:29:25] I am not the same as Casey. I'm not the same as Tim.
[00:29:29] I couldn't keep up with Tim if I tried.
[00:29:32] So I know I would have said that even if you weren't here tonight.
[00:29:39] No. But, yeah, it's okay to be different, right? So what are some examples of like, so you know, it's okay to be different? This diversity is actually not a threat to unity, but can be a strength, right? That we can be rooted in love and truth. A unified church would include multiple generations, ethnicities, styles of worship, theological preferences on secondary matters or tertiary matters. But what binds us in Christ?
[00:30:08] So let's get into the meat of the question. Then you hear my caveat when I say, like, secondary and tertiary issues.
[00:30:13] We talk about the primary issues, and that's where we need to be drawing the line.
[00:30:20] When are we not to acquiesce for unity?
[00:30:23] So we're to do our best to seek unity in the church extolling these virtues, living them out, as Paul has said.
[00:30:32] But when are we to say no? It's too much.
[00:30:37] The easiest way to determine a primary issue, the church and whether or not we should be seeking unity or seeking the we should always be seeking the pursuit of truth. But when we might have to again, not acquiesce to unity is when it compromises the gospel.
[00:30:54] We're called to make every effort for unity, but not at the cost of compromising the gospel.
[00:31:03] So again, what are examples of that? Because, Steve, you can say primary tertiary issues. Those are fun words, but what does that actually mean practically? You know, what are examples of what compromises the gospel?
[00:31:16] I would say when core doctrines such as the deity of Christ, salvation by grace through faith, or the authority of Scripture are denied, I think those are all primary concerns that we need to agree upon.
[00:31:28] When sin is being tolerated, justified or hidden for the sake of harmony or unity, I think that's a problem when church leadership abuses authority or silences correction for the sake of unity. Also a problem when pressure to conform leads to enabling cultural compromise in a place of biblical conviction.
[00:31:52] When pressure to conform leads to enabling cultural compromise in place of biblical conviction, that's when we have a problem.
[00:32:03] That's when we cross that line. Paul speaks more on certain points. We should maintain on unity a little bit right after this, but I'll leave that to John for next week to talk a little bit about.
[00:32:14] In some of the specific points that Paul calls out about being saved with one one God, one faith, we see Paul in one of his other letters actually reaffirms that it's okay for differences. So it's not simply this idea that I've got that Paul says you should seek unity, and I say, well, you shouldn't seek it. In every circumstance there is a line to be drawn. In Galatians, he tells us that, I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
[00:32:56] So I challenge you all here.
[00:33:00] Teach your family, your church, yourselves, discernment. Learn the difference between the unity of what Paul is talking about and a peacekeeping or even a fear that leads to spiritual compromise.
[00:33:15] You know, I pray this for all of you and for myself as well, to have the courage to love truth, to seek truth more than our own comfort.
[00:33:24] And now we're back to me talking about my air conditioning Again, it's comfort. No, it is. It's seeking the truth. We should be seeking that first, obeying God first, and then seeking unity.
[00:33:40] Okay, so are we eager for these things?
[00:33:52] Are we eager to, because of the Gospel, walk in a way that reflects Christ humbly, gently, patiently, and in pursuit of unity, especially in maintaining unity, are we eager for peace or are we eager to prove ourselves right?
[00:34:13] And I've shared before, and you know, I always, with this before, I always teach our rock solid students, you know, that I can teach them how to win an argument. We could do that, but that's not what our goal is, right? Our goal isn't simply to win arguments. Our goal is for us to seek truth and to go to know God more.
[00:34:33] So are we eager, Are we eager to share the gospel?
[00:34:40] Do you know the gospel?
[00:34:42] The good News?
[00:34:44] That's what it means. That's the translation there, that Jesus was born. He lived a perfect life, died on the cross to pay for our sins, and rose again to show that death had been defeated and restored us to a right relationship with God.
[00:35:00] The gospel, again, as Paul says earlier on, is not an act of our works. It was an act that done by Jesus. It was Jesus and God's actions that saved us, not our own.
[00:35:14] If you don't know the gospel or have questions about it, hit me up. I'm always happy to talk about it. Like I said before in previous sermons, I'm awkward but always willing to talk about Jesus.
[00:35:26] So that's my tagline.
[00:35:32] The peace that if you know the gospel believer, are you sharing it? The peace that Paul talks about here comes through living a life like Christ, which involves telling the good news, not avoiding hard conversations.
[00:35:48] The Christian walk is not easy, but it is possible because of the Spirit who empowers us.
[00:35:56] Paul calls us not to this life of perfection here in these verses or these passages. He's not saying that we need to be perfectly patient all the time and that we need to never make a mistake, but to a life, he's calling us to a pursuit of those things we should pursue. Humility, gentleness, patience and unity.
[00:36:17] The kind of life.
[00:36:19] And this idea is so strange because it's deeply countercultural to what we've been taught.
[00:36:26] You know, what would it look like?
[00:36:31] You know, it's not about asserting yourself, but laying yourself down as Christ did, you know, and in our culture today, that's radically different. We're called to, you know, you do you to do what makes you happy, allow others to do what makes them happy. Right? And that's there's this whole Russian relative truth behind that, and I don't have the time to break down into all of that this evening, especially since I'm trying to wrap up doing my best.
[00:37:01] But, you know, it's countercultural. We are called to lay ourselves down.
[00:37:07] So ask yourself, what would it look like to walk in a manner worthy of the calling that we've received?
[00:37:14] Again, we cannot be worthy of what God has done for us. It is not earned by our works.
[00:37:20] But what can we do to pursue humility, gentleness, patience, unity in our homes, in our workplaces?
[00:37:31] You know, so I'll stop calling Ori out.
[00:37:36] And in our churches, don't strive to walk alone. This walk, this walk of unity, this walk for humbleness, this walk for patience, it's done in community, and it's guided by the spirit, and it's anchored, its core is anchored in the gospel.
[00:37:57] Rest in this truth.
[00:38:00] You are already called, you're already loved, and you're already equipped.
[00:38:08] Now we just have to walk it out for God's glory.
[00:38:12] And that's the tough part.
[00:38:14] All right, we'll go ahead and pray. John, I got nothing.
[00:38:21] Lord. Thank you for your word, man. Just thank you, God, that we can be humble and gentle and patient. Give us a heart for these things. Give us a heart for your truth, God. Let us know when we Give us the wisdom. Give us the discernment to know when to seek unity and. And when not to acquiesce to that out of fear or a fear of confrontation even. Help us know when it's okay not to squabble over little things either. Help us know when it is okay for us to seek unity and perhaps to lay ourselves down and put our own thoughts to the side and acquiesce to unity in that and all. For all of these things, in your name we pray.
[00:39:06] Amen.
