Unity

And hearing by the Word of God And that message That the Holy Spirit used to draw us, Lord And Lord, I just pray that if there's anyone here Among us that we may be able to hear you Among us that don't know you, Lord We love you And God loves you even more Than we can even imagine to do so Let him have you Where else would we go, Lord If we sought to leave your love behind? This dog Restores Aged you Aged you only It's your Epoor Our Praise Our hearts Wounds Will sing Out your Praise Our hearts Will cry These bones Will sing Your breath So we pour out our praise to you

Your name is great, Lord

Your mercy extends to all of us, Lord And your unmerited favor is available to all By grace we are saved Through faith Faith that channel As we believe and accept, Lord Our hearts Your Holy Spirit comes and fills us afresh Just fill us afresh this morning, Lord Overflow us with your Holy Spirit, Lord Overflow us with your Holy Spirit, Lord Overflow us with your Holy Spirit, Lord Overflow us with your Holy Spirit, Lord Overflow us with your Holy Spirit, Lord Overflow us with your Holy Spirit, Lord Overflow us with your Holy Spirit, Lord We can't live this life without you, Lord At least not one of any fulfillment, Lord And so move So Father, we pray As Louis comes up and teaches your Word That you would anoint him by the power of your Holy Spirit

We pray that as the Children's Church teachers teach the youngsters That you would just overflow them by the power of your Holy Spirit To bring forth your Word to them We lift up the nursery workers, Lord As their looking after those little ones in that early stage of life, Lord. May they just sense your presence, Lord.

Every area of the ministry, Lord, we ask for your blessing, Lord. We'd also ask that you bring Ryan and his family back safely, Lord, too. Father, we thank you that you are faithful to us, Lord. You love us with a divine love. And in spite of love, I remember the first time I ever heard all that love stuff. It was simply explained that if love, that because love, and that in spite of love.

God doesn't love us if we're just a certain way or because we're a certain way. He loves us in spite of us. And is doing a work in each of our hearts. Father, bless now our time in Jesus' name. Amen. The Lord bless you all. Have a little fellowship.

All right. Good morning. Good morning. If you guys could go ahead and make your ways to your seats, that would be awesome. We'll go ahead and get started. Just a quick announcement for everything that usually happens throughout the week. From men's studies to ladies' studies to home fellowship. All of those things are going on. Next Saturday, September 17th, we are having the men's breakfast in the Agape room just in the back.

And then one last announcement from good old Nick Rizzio.

Hey, good morning. Super excited about this. We're going to have a wiffle ball. And a potluck dinner here at church on October 8th, which is a Saturday. As you can see, I'm not the most competitive. But it will be fun. So all ages, even if you have little kiddos, bring them in. We'll have some games set up. But this will just be a lot of fun for families to come in.

We'll think of it like our own field of dreams here in Kansas. But as you know, anytime we do an event at church, we always have to have food. So please bring a dish. Bring a chair. And we'll have a great time playing some games. Some wiffle ball. So thanks.

Reading together in the book of Psalms 61. So if you want to flip there, we're going to be reading in the New American Standard Version. And if you want to stand in the honor of reading God's Word, I'll go ahead and read the odd verses. And my friend Nick will read the even verses if you want to follow along with Nick.

Psalm 61, verse 1. For the choir director on a stringed instrument. A psalm of David. Hear my cry, O God. Give heed to my prayer. From the end of the earth, I call to you when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been a refuge for me. A tower of strength against the enemy. Let me dwell in your tent forever. Let me take refuge in the shelter of your wings.

Selah. For you have heard my vows, O God. You have given me the inheritance of those who fear your name. You will hear my cry, O God. You will prolong the king's life. His years will be as many as generations. He will abide before God forever. Appoint loving kindness and truth that they may preserve him. So I will sing praises to your name forever that I may pay my vows day by day.

And Father God, you are our refuge. You are our hiding place, Lord. You are the shelter that we need, Lord. And we pray that you would open up your word to us. That you would speak to us. That you would speak to us today. In Jesus' name, amen. Go ahead and take your seats. We're going to be in Ephesians chapter 3 and the end of chapter 3 and the beginning of chapter 4.

The book of Ephesians was written by the Apostle Paul. It was written by the Apostle Paul to a certain set of people. Right? He addresses them as the saints who are in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus. The saints means those who are set apart unto God. So he's writing here and specifically the book of Ephesians is not like a gospel, the gospels. But it's written specifically to the believer.

It's written to the believer to bring maturity. It's written to the believer so that the believer would walk in the fullness of God. But make no mistake about it. It's written to the believer. So first and foremost, if you are an unbeliever here. If I could be so blunt, and I want to say this with as much grace as possible. But this book is not necessary for you.

It will have nothing for you until you become a believer in Jesus Christ and you accept him as your Lord and Savior. This book has nothing for you. With that being said, it was one of the prison epistles. Paul wrote this book about spiritual richness. In prison. Homeboy had absolutely nothing. And he's writing about spiritual riches. Spiritual riches. He either believed it or he was crazy.

I think he knew it was real. So the first, I'm going to try to give a quick outline. This is my outline. It's not an extensive outline. It's a very simple outline. It's an outline for dummies like me. But the first. The first part. The first part of this chapter. Paul writes to them and says, God chose the believer. God chose the believer. It says, before the foundations of the earth, God chose the believer.

So if you're a believer here today, you can rest assured knowing that God has hand selected you. He hand selected you. Selected you before a stone was laid on the foundations of the earth. Before anything was ever created. He had you on his mind and he chose you. The second point is Christ redeemed the believer. Christ redeemed the believer. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death.

And it also says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So the only payment for our sins is death. Sin brings death. We are all born into sin. We have a sin nature that has to be dealt with. But it says here that Christ redeemed the believer. He paid the price that we could not pay with his perfect and holy life. He died on the cross. The blood covered us.

Number three, the Holy Spirit sealed the believer. The Holy Spirit sealed the believer. It says that the Holy Spirit is a seal of a guarantee. A guarantee of our inheritance in heaven. That means the sealing of the Holy Spirit that we have, the relationship that we have with the Holy Spirit is proof of the inheritance that we will have in eternity. He's a little taste of the riches of the inheritance in heaven

that we can have now. That is how awesome God is. So the believer has been chosen by God the Father, redeemed by Christ. He's the son and sealed by the Holy Spirit. My question to you is, do these things mark your life? Do you have the seal of the Holy Spirit on your life? Do you have the peace in your heart knowing that you've been reconciled with God the Father?

Have you come to that place? And then he ends chapter one with a little prayer. He prays that they would have, that they would have wisdom and the knowledge of Christ. That they would know Christ. That they would understand, that they would know the hope of his calling and what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. He's praying that they would know how rich they are spiritually in Christ.

Do you know how rich you are spiritually in Christ? Do you understand that the creator of the heavens and earth, he's created gold, right? Like, he has more than you need. There's nothing that you're ever going to need when you are with him that you won't have that he need. So one last thing about that. Paul makes it clear that he's talking about every spiritual blessing in verse three.

So you have every spiritual blessing that you need to live a victorious Christian life. Everything that you could ever ask or need to live a victorious Christian life. Life is what you have. So chapter one, chapter two, it says that God made the believer alive who were dead in their trespasses. We were once dead in our sin. We were once separated from Christ,

but he gave us new life by his spirit. John three, Jesus tells, not Josephus. He tells Nicodemus rather that you must be born again of the spirit. You must be born again of the spirit. And that alone is a miracle, right? To me, the biggest miracle that can ever happen is someone coming to the saving knowledge of Christ and being born again. There's no greater miracle.

I don't care if someone sees and doesn't get saved. Like a blind man, uh, getting his sight is, is not as impressive as, as someone moving from death to life. As someone who, whose eternal destination was once hell and is now heaven. That is the greatest miracle. So he makes the believer alive. And then it says that he brought the Gentiles into the fold by the blood of Christ.

He restored the, the differences that the Jews had with the Gentiles, right? The Jews, uh, weren't a big fans of Gentiles. They would walk on the other side of the street. They, they felt like they were better because God chose them. But if they would have read the scriptures and said, God didn't choose them because they were special, but because they were small and insignificant,

but he brought the Gentiles in through the blood of Christ. And then Christ unified the Gentile and Jew in the church. Now the Gentiles are a part of the family of God. They're not just, you know, uh, the third cousins that we invite to the family reunions. I mean, I'm a Gentile and I'm, I'm assuming all of us are Gentiles. So we're not just the third cousin that's invited to the family reunion.

We're, we're seen as, as sons and daughters of the King. We are welcomed in by the blood of Christ. And then, uh, the first part of chapter three, Paul switches to, um, explaining who he is as the, the apostle, uh, to the Greek, to the, to the Gentiles rather, um, with the sole purpose of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. This was God's plan for him. And then that,

um, the, the goal was basically to reveal to all followers of God, how awesome and mighty his wisdom is in, in what he wanted to accomplish. And then this is where we're going to start in verse 14. He starts, and he prays for the believers. Uh, one last thing. The book of Ephesians is split up into two parts, two parts. The first three chapters are doctrines that we can learn things that as a believer in Jesus Christ,

we should know, and we should, um, you know, begin to understand. These are truths that are objective. Despite our feelings. These are, these are written word of God that we need. This is the written word of God that we should, learn and begin to know. And then the last three chapters are due is the, the Christian's duty because of what they've learned, what we've learned,

what the, the believer has learned in the first three chapters. So how do it's, it's what you've learned. And then how does it apply to the believer is the last three chapters. So in between the doctrine and the duty that Paul has is this little portion of seven verses from 4 to 5. It says from 14 to 21 in chapter three. Um, and, and this is where we're going to start.

Verse 14. It says, for this reason, I bow my knees to the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend what with all the saints, what is the width, length and depth and height to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us to him, be glory,

in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Uh, let's pray one more time. Heavenly father, we thank you for your word. We ask that you would speak to us all now personally and individually and corporately and collectively. Lord, we love you in Jesus name. Amen. So Paul starts off and, uh, starts off this prayer, um, specifically to God,

the father. Uh, but he, he identifies God, the father as the father of our Lord Jesus, our Lord Jesus. So this word Lord in the Greek can be translated as curious, which means ruler, absolute ruler. Paul is able to say and call Christ that because that's who he was to Paul. He was absolutely in control of Paul's life. My question to you is, Oh, uh, I'll preface this by saying,

uh, I believed in God my whole life, pretty much my whole life, pretty much, you know, I, I, I accepted Christ as my savior from a very young age. I welcomed him. I wanted him to be my savior and I believed he was, but it wasn't until later on when I finally surrendered to the idea of him being my Lord. Having absolute authority over every life decision, every relationship, every friendship, everything that I was going to do.

He has absolute authority to throw it out or put it in. My question to you is, is, are you able to say with confidence? Are you able to say with confidence that Jesus Christ, the Messiah is your Lord? Are you able to say that he has absolute authority over everything, every life decision I make, every friendship I have, every place of, of work that I will, I will be, does he have authority?

Does he have control? Does he have the ability to say, Hey, get out of that line of work. And are you, are you willing to be like, all right, makes no sense, but I'll do it. If God told you to move to Alaska today, would you pick up and go or would you sit down and wait? Would you be like, Jonah go, go to, you know, South America?

My prayer for, for each one of us here is that we would begin to surrender to Christ as our Lord. I've heard it said you either surrender now or get conquered later. Cause the Bible says that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. That's sinner and saint. Everyone will do it. So you either choose, choose to surrender now or be conquered later.

And my prayer, my prayer for each one of us is that we would begin to take the first steps of surrendering our whole lives over to Christ. It's not easy, right? We can all be believers from a very young age, but there's a difference between having Jesus as my savior and as, as my Lord. So that's my prayer. It's for you guys. And then it says from whom the whole family in heaven is named.

So a whole, the whole family in heaven and earth is named. So all of the believers have identity in Christ, in God. He gives them their, their, his identity. So as believers, you now have identity as sons and daughters of the King. You're no longer a slave to sin. You're no longer a slave. You're no longer a slave to the things of this world. Now you are, are,

are, are grafted into the family of God.

So he's the first two verses of these 14 and 15 are him identifying who he's praying to the father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the first request in 16 that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. So Paul, so one last thing, one quick preface to this. Um, I realized that this is Paul, uh, explicitly detailing all of the things that take place when a believer is filled with the Holy Spirit.

Well, when a believer has the empowering of the Holy Spirit in their lives, he's basically praying what we would pray for, for, for any one of our brothers and sisters. That they would be filled with the Holy Spirit. He's just giving us a little bit more detail into what that looks like, what that really means. And he's given us an idea of, of being able to test our own lives to, to compare it against this, to see if I'm being filled with the spirit or not.

So he asked that they would, that God would grant them, grant the believers according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might through his spirit in the inner man. He wants them to live a life that is empowered by God rather than empowered by themselves. Zechariah four, six says not by power, not by might, but by my spirit says the Lord. And if, and if anyone wants to live a life that glorifies and honors God, or anyone wants to do a work that glorifies and honors God, it must be led and empowered, and strengthened by the power of his spirit, not by man's strength or ideas.

We cannot enact the book of Ephesians in the last three chapters. If we have not the spirit of God living in our hearts, empowering us to live.

I've, I've learned the Lord has showed me in the last few weeks, personally, how weak I am apart from the Holy Spirit. I, I, I, I confess that I'm probably the laziest man I know. And if it wasn't for God, and if it wasn't for his spirit, um, pushing me and empowering me to do anything, um, I would be perfectly happy, uh, sitting on my butt, vegging out on TV all day, every day. But it's by the power of the Holy Spirit and his strength inside me that has helped me, to not veg out.

My, my question to you is, has God strengthened you with his spirit in your inner being, in your soul? Are you constantly being strengthened by him? Or are you constantly being moved by your own ideas and your own self will, your own self determination? That's what the world teaches, right? The world says, go, you know, find your truth. Be your own self, right?

Be your best self. It's not about that in the body of Christ. So are you being strengthened with might through his spirit in your inner man or inner being? Here's the second request in 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. It's not that Christ would just, you know, come down from heaven and just hop into your heart and live like a little person in there.

But it's through faith by the power of his spirit that he makes a dwelling place inside of our hearts. He makes a dwelling place inside of our hearts. What is a dwelling place? It's a home. It's a place where someone wants to rest, right? It's a place where someone could kick their shoes off and get comfortable. My question to you is, is your heart like that for Christ?

Is it a welcomed place for Christ to rest and to come? And to have fellowship with you? Or is there a lot of junk in the way, right? I mean, the Lord has showed me recently that I'm a hoarder in my heart, right? Like there's a lot that the Lord has to deal with in my heart. And I, and I've been praying and I encourage you all to pray as well that Lord, this is your heart.

This is your home. Whatever you want to do with it, whatever you want to throw away, go ahead. If you want to, if you want to, if you want to take the house down to the studs, go ahead. If you want to just get a whole new plot of land and rebuild, go ahead, whatever you want to do, Lord. But Paul is, Paul's requesting that Christ would make his dwelling place in their hearts

through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints. What is the width, uh, length and depth and height to know the love of Christ, which passes, passes knowledge. So that you being rooted and grounded in love, Christianity, it, it, it's a religion, right? It's a religion, but it's not a religion of rules.

Excuse me. It's not a religion of regulations. It's not a real religion of what I do and what I don't do. It's a, it's a religion founded on the love of God. It's a religion that God loved me first. Before I could love him, right? First John four 19. He, we love him because he first loved us. And even in Ephesians two, he talks about him. Uh, um, even when we were dead in trespasses,

we're made alive together with Christ. God's love extended past my position before Christ. God's love brought me out of death and into life. And it's God's love that pushes me to do anything that's a value. And Paul wants the believers, the believers faith to be established in that love so that when he calls you to do something, it's not, man, I got to go do this for the Lord.

You know, it's my burden to bear. But it's man, God called me to do something sick. Sick. Let's get started. When, when you know that God loves you unexplainably and uncontainably, and he calls you to do something, why wouldn't we want to do, do whatever he asks me to do? So he wants the believer to be rooted and grounded in love. And then to know the love of Christ,

which passes knowledge. So he uses two types of words of Greek words, for the word, no, uh, for knowledge. It's simple, uh, basically like book knowledge or like earthly wisdom. You, what you would get in a school book, right? Um, like stats. Like I know all the stats about the Cowboys or whatever your team is, right? Oh, chiefs. Sorry. Um, it's all of the stats,

but the first word to know the love of Christ is the Greek word. Ginosko. Ginosko, which means, which means intimate knowledge of whatever it is. So Paul wants the believer to have intimate knowledge of the love of Christ. He wants the believer. Let me put it this way. Let's say Sophia. She's my sister, right? Let's say I didn't know much about her. We went to the same school.

That's it. I know of her. I know she's wrote shorter than me, right? I know, you know, a few things about her. She's got good style. That's cool, right? But I don't know her, but if I was her best friend, if, if I spent time with her, I could tell you Sophia's favorite color is red. She loves sunsets, right? Her favorite car is a Mustang GT. I could tell you all of these things about her that I've experienced personally.

I could tell you that she hates lettuce on her burgers, right? So Paul wants the believer to have that kind of knowledge of the love of Christ that you've experienced his love on a personal level. On a personal level, not just you can have a really cool theological conversation about God's love. You can use all of the $10 were theological words. Right? You can talk about justification,

sanctification, right? All those Calvinism and all that stuff, right? You could say really cool words and you might even know the meaning behind them, but you don't know the love of Christ. Paul wants it to be the other way around. He wants you to know the love of Christ so that when you speak, your words have meaning so that when you speak, people know that you've gone through it,

that you really know what you're talking about. Right? Not just know what you're talking about. So he wants them to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge. It's not understandable. It has to be experienced. It has to be learned through time spent with Christ. So my question to you is last before I move on. My question to you is, do you have that kind of knowledge of Christ?

Do you have intimate knowledge of his love? Do you have that kind of understanding of God's love for you? Do you have a personal understanding on a, on a intimate level of God's love for you?

What you say on that for a second? No, I'm just kidding. Um, but this is what Paul is praying for. And then he ends the request with that. You may be filled with all of the fullness of God, that you may be filled with all of the fullness of God. So each of these requests that he would grant you a strength with might through his spirit, that Christ would dwell in your heart,

that you would be rooted and grounded in love is all contained in this being filled with all of the fullness of God. That's a whole lot of stuff, right? How can I fit Christ in my heart? How can I, you know, uh, have the Holy spirit of my heart, right? How can I, you know, be rooted in grounded love? That's a lot of things to do. And all of those three things,

four things, three things are complicated things to put into practice.

When it's the filling of the Holy spirit, he takes control of all of that. He does all of that for you. He leads you into an intimate relationship with Christ where you can experience his love on a personal level. He leads you to be rooted and grounded in a gap, a love from God, the father, because you're having your own relationship with God. And he gives you the strength that you need to just live,

not do cool things, but just live a godly life. It's that's all God wants. If you live, I was like Augustine. One of my favorite quotes is Augustine. He says this, love the Lord with all your heart and soul mind and do what you want. If, if you live your life, loving God over anything else on this world, anything that you're going to do is going to be honoring and glorifying to him.

Right? You're going to, you're going to enter into the body of Christ by through Christ, right? If you really love God, you're going to say, Hey, this is the way he said, okay, that's where I'm going to go. If you really love God, you're going to love his people because he tells us to.

So Paul's desire is that they would be filled with all the fullness of God. Verse 20 and 21. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. So last thing he does is identify once again who he's praying to.

And then he, he magnifies the power that God has and what he's able to do, right? He's able to do more than anything that I could imagine. It's basically the idea. And he's, able to do more than anything that I could even think about requesting from him. He's not contained by human imagination, right? He's not contained by any one of my needs. He's able to do more than anything that I could ask.

And he's able to do more than anything. Any one of you guys could ask. This is the God we serve, right? This is the God we seek. And this is the God who Paul is praying to. And I love that it says, according to the power that works in us, excuse me. Um, I don't have the address, but, um, it says that the same power that works in us is the same power that rose Christ,

brought Christ from the grave. The Holy spirit, the same Holy spirit that works in me is the same Holy spirit that brought Christ up from the grave and resurrected him. That's some power. Right? I don't know about you guys, but I haven't tried to resurrect anyone's life and I don't think I could ever, but God is able to do that with his spirit. God is able to do that apart from human intervention.

Um, but he's able to do this. And that same power is the same power that works in us, which is the Holy spirit. And then he ends the prayer by offering, uh, hoping, and desiring that God would be glorified in the church, in the body of believers, in the body of Christ, that ultimately God would be glorified throughout all generations. Right? He, he ends it with forever and ever.

Amen.

This is, this is, these are one of the main reasons why Paul has written so much, uh, why, why almost of the new Testament is written so that the church would grow and that the church would glorify God. Not in that order. Now the church doesn't glorify God with a bunch of numbers. Like, right. Like just because we have a mega church, which we don't, but just because we have a mega church does not mean automatically glorifying God.

Just because we have a sick worship team and a super hit pastor doesn't mean automatically glorifies God. What glorifies God is the church being filled with, with the Holy spirit and moving accordingly and being led by the spirit. And then verse one. So he moves from, from doctrine to the prayer, praying that they would be empowered by the Holy spirit to the call to action.

What the believer is supposed to do with all that he's just been shared with him or her. Verse one. I, therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the, the calling with which you were called. So Paul identifies himself here as a prisoner of the Lord. As I said in the beginning that Paul at this point was, was a prisoner of Rome. He was a prisoner of Rome.

And I think it's really cool that although he was a prisoner, he was able to write about the richness in Christ, the spiritual blessings given to us by God, the father. And he was able to, to not identify as a prisoner of Rome. He's not like us. I'm an American Christian, but he's like, no, he wasn't a Roman Christian. He was a prisoner of the Lord. He was a identified in Christ first.

He would not be identified by the world. My question to you is where do you find your identity? Do you find your identity in your job, in your place of work? Do you find your identity? Um, with the good things that you do? Do you find your identity in, in the accomplishments that you can find? Or do you find your identity in Christ? Who do you identify in yourself or Christ?

When, when people ask about you or they hear about you, what is the first thing that they hear? Oh, he's a great guy. Oh, he's really sweet. Oh, he's really strong, right? What do they hear? Oh, that man loves God. That man is a believer in Jesus Christ. That man is being led by the spirit. What do they, how are you identified? How do you identify yourself?

Paul identified in the Lord. And then it says, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called. So he's exhorting them. The believer has a high calling. They have called, been called. The believer has been called by a holy God, by a perfect God, a being outside of time who has supreme intelligence and supreme, supreme knowledge and supreme presence,

right? He's everywhere. He's outside of time. The believer has been called or invited by him. And Paul's saying the, there's a, there's a, a way to walk worthy of that calling. There's a way he doesn't call him to perfection. Now spoiler alert. Um, but there's a way that, that a believer would live their, their lives that is worthy of the calling that God has for them.

And this is what it looks like. Paul writes in verse two with all lowliness and gentleness, the first, uh, Mark or characteristic of a life that is following after God. He writes here as lowliness, all lowliness, which can also be translated as humility, which what is humility? Is it just, you know, how would you explain humility? Well, humility is thinking of self less putting others first.

I've heard it described, uh, that joy is Jesus. First other second, you last humility is placing the needs of the others in the body. First, when, when the body of Christ as a whole is walking in humility, when confrontation comes and when, when all right, let's say we, if we locked everyone in here, uh, for three days, I promise you just three days, there'd be so many arguments. People suck.

You guys, someone's feet are going to start to stink, right? The AC is going to go out. Um, someone's going to have bad attitudes, right? There's going to be a lot of conflict and with pride. There's not a lot of reconciliation or anything being resolved. So a good friend of mine once told me, do you want to be right or do you want to make friends? And at the time I was like,

that's stupid. I want to be right.

But humility is, is not choosing to be wrong, but it's choosing friendship and relationship over being right.

And if you have, uh, a conflict with a brother or sister here today, right? If you have an issue with someone, I encourage you, to take it to the Lord in prayer. Take it to the Lord. Pray for that person. Pray for that person. Pray that the Lord would change their heart. First, I would encourage you, pray that the Lord would change yours. My mom always told me,

uh, and I didn't like hearing it, that whenever I had something, I felt like I had something wrong with someone. She said, check your heart first, check your heart first. So I would encourage you if you have anything wrong with someone or, uh, any issue with someone, take it to the Lord in prayer, ask him what he wants you to do to resolve it. And then be humble enough to take credit for where you went wrong.

Even if you feel like you didn't do anything wrong, take, take credit where you can and humbly go before the person and ask for forgiveness. Um, so humility, humility will bring a lot of reconciliation. And then it says, and gentleness, gentleness, gentleness, gentleness, gentleness, the second Mark of the life of a believer is gentleness. I, I always imagined gentleness as like a, a grandfather with his grandchild, a really big and burly guy and a little, uh, you know, toddler girl and him being like, what up?

And gently picking her up. Because if he was like, you can toss her to the moon, but he has to be gentle to come alongside and pick her up. And, and Paul says the Mark of the Mark of, of the church and the Mark of the believers should be marked with gentleness. Is your life marked with gentleness or are you a little abrasive? Do you have a little bit of personality or are you gentle?

Would people call you gentle? So the life of a believer, the first two things. And, um, one of the things here is like these, these, uh, three characteristics are all, um, you can find those in, in the, the Paul's definition of the fruit of the spirit, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. So all of these will be taken care of if you're filled with the spirit and led by the spirit.

But nonetheless, he says with long suffering, the word we don't like, right? Patience, suffering for a long period of time. It sucks. I have to be honest. If you've known me for any, any period of time, I am not the best of persons, right? I absolutely do suck. And, and if, if, if you're going to be in a relationship with me, a friendship or anything, you're going to need a lot of patience.

And it's going to be, uh, what you need from the Lord, because I don't think any human can have enough patience. For me. So patience, patience is a mark and a characteristic of a believer. Then it says bearing with one another out of obligation. No, it says in love, right? Cause if it stopped right there and it just said bearing with one another, we would have just been like,

guess I got to take care of Bryson. Cause I got to bear with one another. He's my cross to bear, but no, he wants them. To bear with one another in love in this agape love that we received from God, the father through his son, by his spirit to be shared with each other, to carry each other's burdens, to help each other through life. Cause life sucks. Life gets hard.

I don't care if you're a believer or not. Life will hit you. So bearing with one another in love. And this is the main portion of the text. The main idea of what I wanted to speak on today. And I don't even know if I'll spend a lot of time, but it's verse three endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. The Bible doesn't talk a lot about.

Sorry. The Bible doesn't talk a lot about striving and working for and endeavoring to in good light, right? It doesn't really talk about working hard. Hard for something always in the best of lights, but here it's a good thing here. He's saying to exert yourself for the purpose of keeping the unity of the spirit. What is the hardest thing about a relationship?

Right? Lack of commitment on one side, right? Lack of commitment on one side of the friendship of, I don't want to be all in, but Paul calls the believer to be fully committed to, to the relationships built in the body of Christ. My question to you is, are you exerting yourself? Are you working towards building relationships with one another? It's not easy.

I had a friend talk to me the other day talking about, well, let's just say he was in a place where a lot of believers were, but he didn't know any of them. He didn't know any of them. He walked in, and no one said hi to him. And he's like, man, these people suck. Like, well, did you go out of your way to say hi? Did you endeavor to, to keep to peace? Did you,

did you go out of your way in humility to say, Hey, I don't, I don't know you. You don't know me, but you're a believer. I'm a believer. Let's be friends. Let's connect. It's absolutely uncomfortable. And I think somewhere along the lines, we as the church have gotten a little too old and cool to go out of our way to build relationships with one another. Right?

We've gotten too busy with life to build relationships with one another. We've got, I've got too much going on this week, so I don't have time.

Paul's desires. That wouldn't be the case. Paul's desires that the goal would be, the unity in the, in the spirit, the unity in the spirit, the beauty about the church is that it's filled with so many people that are different. Unity doesn't mean uniformity, but unity means being together. And there's, there's room for a bunch of different kinds of people. I have told the kids in my college group that if it wasn't for Christ,

I would not like any of you. I have nothing in common with you. I'd probably make fun of some of you or whatever. Right? But it's the Holy Spirit and the blood of Christ that brings us together. That gives us a common ground to build a relationship. Now, what we do with that relationship is entirely up to us, but the Holy Spirit would, would desire us to, to focus on,

on building that relationship. And, and cultivating that relationship with one another. And like I said, it is not comfy going out of your way to, to make a new friend. It's not. I don't care how old you get, how extroverted you are. Maybe, maybe it's different for an extrovert, but for me, not at all. Every time my hands get sweaty, I got to go shake someone's hand and my hands are getting sweatier thinking about it.

And I'm like, Oh no, what are they going to say? Are they going to accept me or not? But endeavoring to keep this, the peace endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Peace. Isn't it beautiful when the body of like, okay, well scratch that the mark of a, of a healthy church, the mark of a, of a beautiful church is not a bunch of people gathering in a building.

The mark of a healthy church is how they dwell together. Jesus said this. They will know that you're my disciples by your what love for one another, love for one another. And that's my prayer for you guys. That's my, that's my desire for each one of you guys and me too. Cause I don't want to love all of you guys all the time, especially you Jared. No, just kidding.

Um, but, um, yeah, my desire is that that would mark our lives, that we're endeavoring, endeavoring to build relationships in the body of Christ. We're seeking to love each other by the power of a spirit. We're seeking to have peace with one another. There's already so much going on outside the body of Christ. We don't need to bring that in here with each other in our relationships.

So, so heavenly father, we thank you so much for your word that it's living and active and sharper than any two edged sword. We thank you that you speak to us here today. You speak to us today, even Lord. And I just want to lift up my brothers and sisters here. Father, that there, if there is any issues going on in their lives, uh, with friends or family, Lord,

that you would give them the humility and gentleness needed. Lord, that you would, fill them afresh with your Holy spirit. Would you, uh, give them the love that they need for each other, Lord, that we need for each other. We love you in Jesus name. Amen. Cool. In the morning when I rise, in the morning when, in the morning, give me Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. He comes to die. He comes to die. Oh, Jesus. And how this world can.

Yes, Lord Jesus. Father, just thank you so much.

Jesus name. Have a blessed week, y'all. God bless.