It's good to be with you all this morning and as I'm sure you guys know, but as I was reminded this weekend during Presbytery just how blessed you all are to have this man as your pastor. I was able to sit under his leadership as he was the moderator of our presbytery meeting this weekend or these past few days. And I've told him before that it seems like every time I talk to him without him intending to do so, he scratches some sort of itch or answers some sort of question that I was wrestling with. So you all should be thankful for this man and thank the Lord for him consistently and abundantly. Nevertheless, though I could go on to praise him we have come to hear from our God this morning So if you would turn to Paul's letter to the Ephesians if you are using one of the chair Bibles And we'll be looking this morning at Ephesians chapter 4 verses 1 through 3 and you can find that on page 977 in the chair Bible You may well be aware, but Ephesians can be pretty easily divided into two sections. In chapters 1 through 3, Paul principally teaches you many things you are to believe concerning God and in chapters 4 through 6 he teaches you primarily those duties which God requires of you and in this section right before the section we'll look at this morning in chapter 3 verses 14 to 21 Paul, as he's concluding the section on beliefs concerning God and preparing to transition into the section which consists of those duties God requires of us, he prays essentially that God the Father, through the Son, And by the Spirit would more and more sanctify you through faith so that you would more and more grow and be more and more characterized by and steadfast in love. so that you could and would more and more know in your head and in your hearts the infinite love of the Lord Jesus Christ, all so that you would be more and more conformed to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. And with that prayer for your sanctification, Paul makes the transition to begin to teach you about those duties that your God requires of you. And so with those thoughts in mind here now, God's infallible and most holy and pure word from Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. 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. Sends the reading of God's word. May he be pleased to bless it. Paul does begin by referring to himself as the prisoner of the Lord. And this is something he referred to himself as in chapter 3 verse 1. And he goes on in chapter 3 verses 2 to 13 to basically expand upon and to exposit what he means by saying that he is a prisoner for the Lord. And basically for Paul what that means when he says that is he's telling you that he is a man who has been taken captive by the Lord Jesus Christ. That he is a man who in a special and unique way is bound by the chains of the will of Jesus Christ to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. And Paul gloried in referring to himself as such a prisoner for the Lord. He gloried in being a bondservant bound by the chains of such a perfect master. And he goes on to say, I there Four, essentially what he's saying is in light of everything that I just told you about what God has done for you in chapters one through three. And because these things are true of you, and when Paul says you in Ephesians, in a general sense, he is speaking about true Christians. So you who have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, because everything I just said is true of you, I therefore beseech or urge you here in the ESV. I urge you. And this word here does not refer to some bare, mere urging. Rather, it's the word that Paul uses in Philippians 4, 2 to 3, when he implores or he urges Iodia and Syntyche to be reconciled. And the word there paints the apostle Paul The picture of the Apostle is of him bringing Jodea and Syntyche in close to him under each arm and warmly yet firmly urging them to be reconciled one to another. And so the word speaks of warm yet firm urging by the Apostle and he urges you then to walk in a manner worthy. And walk here is in the Old Testament sense of maintaining a certain pattern of life or conduct. And the word for worthy was used in Paul's day of something that would balance a scale. So you would have a standard on one side of the scale, and if you put something on the other side and it balanced the scale, it was deemed worthy, it corresponded to, it was equal to the standard that was on the other side. And the calling then with which you were called, we see from 1 Thessalonians 2.12, which reads that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into his kingdom and glory from 1st Thessalonians 4 7 which reads for God did not call us to uncleanness but in holiness and then 1st Peter 1 15 which reads but as he who called you to holy, you also be holy in all of your conduct, you see that the calling to which you were called is the calling from the Holy God unto holiness. And so Paul warmly and firmly exhorts you, true Christian, to live in a manner that corresponds that is worthy of that calling from the Holy God unto holiness. And there's a sense in which the rest of this letter, the rest of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, can be seen as a detailed exposition of this initial general exhortation. And so in the beginning portion we'll be looking at this morning, we'll see that Paul begins to unpack this general exhortation to detail for you what it means to walk worthy by calling you to put on three virtues and to obey two commands. And that's essentially how we'll walk through the passage, looking at the three virtues and the two commands that Paul calls you to put on. And that he's calling you to put on these virtues is seen from the parallel passage in Colossians 3, 12 to 13, where Paul says, put on. put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another. And thus we see that the first virtue that Paul calls you this morning to walk in and so to put on is humility. And as Paul goes on later in Ephesians to teach, we see that any call in the scriptures to put on a virtue is at the same time a call to put off that virtue's opposite. And the opposite of humility is pride. The opposite of humility is pride. And in Philippians 2, 3, Paul essentially defines pride by way of contrast. He says, let nothing be done through selfish ambition and conceit But in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. So we see there by way of contrast with lowliness of mind, pride is essentially highness of mind. Pride is a focus upon and a pursuit constantly of self-exaltation and self-glorification. Pride is essentially a self-centered disposition. Pride puffs up. Pride is constantly seeking elevation. The prideful heart is constantly envious of all which it would see as better than itself, and thus the prideful heart to ensure that none ever excel and exalt above self. is constantly favorably comparing itself to others, which it sees as a threat to its self-exaltation. So you and I need to ask ourselves, you need to ask yourself this morning, do you consistently find yourself thinking highly of yourself? Do you consistently find yourself dwelling upon your own strengths. I want you to think about this especially in regards to what you do, what you do for a living or in regards to something which you are objectively good at. In the field of what you do, do you find yourself consistently and constantly criticizing others in the same field as you? Do you find yourself consistently, more often than you would like to admit, favorably comparing yourself to others in the same field? Maybe you speak, you preach, you teach for a living. or you give a lot of presentations in whatever workplace you find yourself in. Do you find yourself, when you're sitting under the presentation or the preaching or the teaching of others, all too busy, more often than not, criticizing the man or the woman who's speaking, or favorably comparing yourself to him or her, instead of, in the moment, trying to get the message that's being presented into your own heart and mind. And you could apply that to whatever you do. Whatever you do, maybe you're in management, you're in tech, you're an engineer, you're an architect, you're a laborer, you drive a lot, you're a stay-at-home mom. Whatever it is, do you find yourself more often than not being a spec inspector more often than not favorably comparing yourself to the others who do likewise in life. And if you do, that's pride. That's pride. That is highness of mind. And so you who think such things, you who have such great thoughts about yourself, you who favorably compare yourself constantly to others, you who are envious of others, you who all too often are all too quick to take any opportunity To speak highly of yourself or you who love the praise of men, how sinful you and I are, how sinful we are in these things when we think and speak and walk in such ways, how unworthy We are of the calling to which we have been called, and we must strive. The Spirit is calling you through the Apostle to strive to put off this highness of mind and this pride, and to put on humility. And humility is essentially, by a contrary, defined as not a high-minded or selfish disposition, but as a lowliness of mind and as a servant disposition. It is to be, to think of yourself, to understand yourself in head, but not only in heart, as someone who is utterly unworthy and utterly inadequate. And from that, mixed with that, to have a true desire, a sincere desire to be unnoticed and unpraised. It is to see yourself how the Lord Jesus Christ tells you to see yourself as a little child. It is as one who is utterly dependent and who is at all times in submission to others. It is to have a servant disposition, to be others-oriented, to in a sense be self-forgetful. In 17th century reformed theologian Wilhelmus Abrakel gives you and I three books, if you will, by which we may learn humility, by which we may be taught by Christ humility. And the first book he refers to is what he calls the book of sin. That is the book, the record, the role of your own sinfulness and your own particular sins. And you're to read this book, you're to reflect upon your own sinfulness with the specific intent of humbling yourself. You're to reflect and to call to mind your sin and especially your pride. that you may see that in fact you are utterly inadequate, that you are utterly unworthy of even the least of Christ's mercies to you, and in doing so to be humbled, and so to learn humility. So the book of sin The second book he calls you to read is the book of crosses. The book of crosses. And by that he means the book of your own trials and chastisements from the Lord. You to reflect upon the trials and the afflictions of your life upon those times when the Lord is chastising you. And to remember during those times your own weakness, your own selfishness and your own impatience in the midst of such trials and chastisements. You're to be reminded of how big God is in the scheme of things and how small you are. You're to be reminded that He and He alone is good and by nature You are not, and in so doing again to be humbled, and so to learn humility and lowliness of mind." So the book of sin, the book of crosses, and then the book of blessings. And the book of blessings is the book, the role. of God's abundant graces and blessings to you. And as you reflect upon His goodness to you and to His blessings to you again, you're to be reminded of your unworthiness of even the least of His blessings, even the life, the breath that He gives you every day. And in so doing and reflecting, to be reminded not only of your own unworthiness of those, But the weakness of your and my gratitude to our God for those blessings and of our own inadequacy to steward those blessings properly in our lives. So the book of sin, the book of crosses, and the book of blessings. And the second virtue then, which Paul calls you to put on in our passage is that of gentleness. And just as with humility, this means that you must first put off its opposite. And the opposite of gentleness is harshness. It's harshness. And to be harsh means to be unpleasant. It means to be disagreeable, to be a rough. rigid and irritable person. It's to be someone who is easily provoked and irritated by the weaknesses and the faults of others. It's to be a quick-tempered person, to be someone who has a short fused to be someone who unwaveringly insists upon their own ways and their own rights. Matthew Poole described the harsh person as someone who is childishly fretful, that is irritable as a child is irritable. And so do you find yourself, again ask yourself this morning, do you find yourself expressing your frustration rather consistently at the weaknesses of others? Expressing frustration at your spouse, or your children, or your friends, because due to their very real weakness as fallen creatures, they constantly and consistently fail to live up to and to perform according to your unrealistic standards. Do you find yourself as an uncompromising person? And that not in a good way. Do you find yourself easily lit, easily blown off when someone say cuts you off as you're driving down the road? Do you find yourself frustrated when someone disrespects your rights? And so you who get so frustrated at the weaknesses of others, you who have such a short fuse, you who are so easily provoked to anger by others. In children, you need to hear this because there's a reason that Matthew Poole calls harshness, refers to it as being childishly fretfulness because as children, as young sinners, you do easily succumb to the sin of being easily provoked and irritated by others. And so shame, shame on you and shame on me. Shame on all of us when we fall into such sins. on our harshness. We all need to repent of such harshness and to strive to put it off, to put it to death in the strength of Christ and to put on, to put on gentleness and gentleness. Then the gentle person is the person who is pleasant and delightful to be around. They're an agreeable person. in the sense that they're reasonable. They're the person that is willing to yield to others when something is not contrary to the revealed will of Christ. The gentle person is an even-tempered person. They're stable in understanding and they do not get easily frustrated by the weaknesses of others because they know themselves to be a very weak person. So I would ask you, are you? Are you such a gentle person? Would your spouse or would your children, with the word gentle, even come to mind if they were asked to describe you? The people in your workplace, would the word gentleness even come to mind? Your brothers and sisters in these congregations, if they were asked to describe you, would gentleness be on the forefront of their minds? The person who waits on you at a restaurant or who makes your food in the drive-thru, especially if something's messed up. What they think of you as a gentle person, the people that drive in front, around, behind you, especially if they make an error. Would they think of you, would they know you from that short encounter as a gentle person? Brothers and sisters, the truth is that none of us, none of us are as gentle as we are called to be. But some aids to help you to grow in gentleness is to take note of those times when you fail to take notes of those instances in which you are harsh, to reflect upon them, and to resolve to repent of them. And if you're someone who struggles with this inordinately, we could say, seek out accountability. Seek out accountability. Ask those closest to you to call you. gently to repentance. And so if you're asked to be such an accountability partner, it's going to require a gentleness of you. And it may require that you let something slide in the moment to let the person calm down, but do bring it to their attention later once they're in their right mind. Brother or sister, you were harsh. Trusting they're a believer, it will cut them to the heart. It will cut them to the heart. And so it is good for you to take note of your harshness. And then second, pay attention to your company. Proverbs 22, 24 to 25, make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul. If you find yourself being someone who struggles with harshness, and yet you unnecessarily spend much time around harsh people, it ought not to surprise you. For as you know, bad company corrupts good morals. And yet the converse is also true. Good company purifies bad morals and thus strive to avoid unnecessarily associating with harsh and angry people and make an effort to be around gentle Christians, gentle people. The third virtue with which Paul calls you to walk in and so to put on is patience, or you may see it long suffering. And this virtue certainly does have much overlap with gentleness, but it is nuanced enough. And the opposite of patience is rashness, what you must put off is rashness. And to be rash means to be one who acts hastily or without due consideration and especially in an emotionally impulsive way. It's to be someone who lacks emotional self-control, and thus to be someone who is impatient in their dealings with others, someone who is utterly impatient with the weaknesses and the faults of others, and thus, if you are a rash person, you are unable to bear with others, and thus unable to obey the command that we're going to see the Spirit call you to in a moment. And so do you find yourself, again, do you find yourself constantly reacting in an emotionally impulsive way? and especially emotionally consistently reacting with impulses of anger, of anger specifically. Do you find yourself or are you known as someone who more often than not speaks without thinking or who texts or emails without thinking? Someone sets you off and you can't help it, you speak or you text, you fire something off. only later to regret it. Are you someone who may be willing to forgive once, maybe twice on your best days, but absolutely unwilling to forgive seventy times seven times? And again, if this is you, or if you see this in your own heart, we must say, How sinful we are. How sinful you and I are in these things. And this morning we should grieve. We should grieve over these things in our hearts. We should lament. our rashness, our inability to bear with one another, as we'll see, in love. So we must strive in the grace of God to put off rashness. Put on patience. The word here for patience is literally long-souled. The soul here in context is seen as the seat of your emotions. So it is to be emotionally long, we could say. To have a long emotional fuse. It is to be one who is slow to anger. One who is reflective and wise as opposed to impulsive and foolish. It's to be someone who knows not only to rebuke, correct, and instruct, but to be someone who knows when and how to rebuke, correct, and instruct in any given circumstance. And so to aid you, if you are someone who struggles with rashness, resolve, simply resolve to speak less for a time and to pray for self-control. The Proverbs tell us even the fool, the fool is seen as wise in the fewness of his words. So resolve to speak less for a time and especially when you do get those impulses of anger, Or if something contentious is being discussed, resolve in your heart beforehand to speak less, or perhaps not at all. And then second, resolve to be patient with those who sin against you. Resolve now in your right mind, in the power of the Spirit, to be patient with those who sin against you. This is what Christ teaches in the parable of the unforgiving servant. It could be, it could be if someone consistently, constantly is sinning against you, that they are never really repentant of any sins that they commit. But it could also very well be the case that they're simply a weak sinner, just as you are. And it is not your job in the moment, if someone sincerely repents and confesses, to judge the heart. If they come to you, Christ says, and offer sincere repentance, confess their sin, and ask your forgiveness, brother or sister, you must forgive them, even if it is 70 times, 7 times. So having urged you then, Now, to put on these three virtues that you may walk worthy of your calling, Paul goes on to give two commands, two duties that you must obey if you are to walk worthy of your calling. And the first duty that he calls you to this morning is to bear with. one another in love. And to bear with simply means to endure, to tolerate, or to overlook. And so to bear with one another simply means to endure, to tolerate, to overlook one another's weaknesses or faults or differences that you may have amongst one another. And Paul calls you to do this in love, that is as one characterized by and steadfast in love. And he calls you to this because in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says, he says, love suffers long, is not puffed up, is not provoked, it bears and endures all things. And he describes love like this. Because just as love is a sum of the commandments, so love is a sum of these virtues which he calls you to this morning. It is devotion to God and others. It is others oriented. And so this call to bear with differences and weaknesses with and in one another, out of love for one another, we can apply briefly in two ways. First, relationally, and second, doctrinally, relationally, and doctrinally. And relationally, you bear with, you endure, tolerate, and overlook differences and weaknesses amongst one another by bearing with personality and social weaknesses with one another. So we're not talking about sin, we're not talking about tolerating sin, but we're talking about tolerating personality type weaknesses. So if someone is socially awkward in your midst, bear with them. If someone is a gloomy person, bear with them. If someone in your midst is unsocial, bear with them. If someone is disorganized and you're an organized person, bear with them. If someone has physical ailments, making them really hard to care for and deal with, Paul says, bear with them, endure, tolerate, overlook, bear with them in love. And this is not to say that weaknesses can never be addressed or you can never seek to correct weaknesses, but it is to say that you must be willing. If these weaknesses, even if they are never corrected, you must be willing to endure, tolerate, and bear with and love. You must be resolute, resolute and resolved to love them and to seek to do them good, even if these weaknesses are never corrected. So first, relationally, second, doctrinally, you are to endure, tolerate, and overlook non-essential doctrinal differences amongst one another. And non-essential doctrines are those upon which one's salvation does not hinge. And so we can define, delineate in our minds essential doctrines by the creeds and the solas, the creeds and the five solas. So we're thinking things like there is one, only one true and living God. The Trinity, the doctrines of the person in the work of Christ and the fact that salvation is by grace alone. through faith alone, in Christ alone. These are the essential doctrines that distinguish theologically between Christians and non-Christians. It's important for us to remember in the RPCNA, in our congregations, amongst our membership, so amongst you, You are only required to submit, not to subscript, to our confessional standards. Members are only required of them submission to our confessional standards, not subscription to every jot and tittle of our system. And that means you are allowed to be a member who may not agree with infant baptism or who may have disagreements on things, non-essential things like church government or whatever it may be. And though we can never tolerate divisiveness, submission means you are not to teach publicly contrary to or to seek to divide through teaching. Nevertheless, though we can endure and seek in humility and patience and gentleness to persuade one another of these things, even if we fail, we are to be willing to endure, to tolerate, and to eventually overlook differences in non-essentials amongst one another. And in doing these things, you are fulfilling this command to bear with one another in love. And in so doing, also implicitly fulfilling the second command, which is to endeavor, or we have it here, to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit. And here, to be eager, it means to strive, to be bent upon, to be making every effort toward. And it's in the present tense here, meaning this is something you are to be about continually and consistently. And the word here for keep or maintain we have here, it means to guard and to preserve, you see. And that which you are to guard and preserve is the unity of the Spirit. And here grammatically in the Greek, Paul is referring to that unity of which the Spirit is the author, that unity produced by the Holy Spirit, and you are to strive to maintain this, Paul says, in the bond of peace. And the word here for in would be better translated by. He's giving you the means by which you are to maintain the unity of the Spirit, you see. And the bond refers to a binding agent. to that which binds, to an adhesive. And again, grammatically here, Paul's giving this, the peace here, of the peace, as an explanation of the binding agent. So it's the bond which is peace, the bond that is peace. And so Paul is saying that peace is the binding agent. by which our spirit produced unity is to be diligently and continually maintained, or to say it another way, by keeping the peace that Christ has purchased You thus maintain the unity that the Spirit has produced in peace. Peace can be defined, then, what you are to be striving for is the absence of hostility and the presence of harmony. The absence of hostility and the presence of harmony, and you keep this by endeavoring after, being eager to reconcile whenever conflict comes. And the word for reconcile, very similar to peace, refers to the exchange, the exchange of hostility for peace or for harmony. And you attain reconciliation essentially, primarily by following four steps to reconciliation. You know, Matthew 5 and Matthew 18, both the offender and the offended are called to go and to be reconciled. But before you go, you must first examine yourself. First step, examine yourself. As Jesus calls you to look and to see if there are any logs in your own eye before you go to remove what may be a legitimate speck in your brother's or sister's eye. And assuming, because in most cases as sinners there generally is some sort of sin we've contributed to the conflict, Upon finding said log, you must repent. Step two, you must repent in that before the Lord before you even go to a brother. You must repent of your sin. You must hate and forsake it. And you must apprehend anew the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. and you must endeavor after new obedience. And then you must go to said brother or sister, and step three, you must confess. You must confess your sin to them. That means you must go to them, express the repentance of your heart, confess the sin and do so specifically, and then ask for their forgiveness. And upon doing so, to bring the reconciliation full circle and to complete it, whoever has been asked for forgiveness must eventually forgive. And forgiveness consists of lifting, lifting the burden of guilt and declaring it to be lifted. And then it consists of the promises, the promises to never again bring up the forgiven offense in your own heart, so to yourself, to the forgiven brother or sister, or to anyone else. So essentially, in that sense, to forgive is to promise to forget after repentance has been sought. And in doing so, and in pursuing reconciliation, you will obey this second command from the Apostle Paul. You may be sitting here this morning, hearing all of these things, examining your own heart, And thinking as I look into my own heart, I see so very little. I see so very little of these virtues that you have just called me to. And I see so very much of their opposites in my heart. And you sit here this morning, and all you can do is reflect upon your failures to obey these commands. But beloved of the Lord, you are called this morning to despair not. Despair not, because if you have trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, then He has taken the punishment for every single sinful thought, word, and deed that you ever have. ever are or ever will commit. If you are in Christ by faith, then your sins have been utterly forgiven, and God has cast them as far as the east is from the west, and He has clothed you in that perfect righteousness of the Lord. Jesus Christ and so flee to him anew this morning and let your guilt-ridden conscience for your failures be cleansed anew by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and so despair not because in Christ you have been forgiven and you have been counted as righteous but then also despair not Because on that cross, when He was nailed to that cross, He was purchasing for you the Holy Spirit. And He has sent the Spirit from on high into your heart, enabling you, beloved, to stand, to be raised up, and to walk, to endeavor after new obedience. And so you must grieve your sin this morning. but not as one without no hope. Strive, strive, but not in your own strength. And this morning, you may not know this Jesus Christ. You may be sitting here this morning as one who has never trusted in this Jesus Christ. You don't know, in a sense, the one of whom the Scriptures speak, who came into the world to save the chiefest of sinners. And so if you know in your heart this morning that you do not know Him, then you must be warned this morning. You must be warned that the prideful, the harsh, and the rash will by no means, will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Only those whom have had these sins of theirs forgiven and whom have been clothed in the righteousness of Christ. But know as well this morning that this Jesus Christ is freely offered to you a sinner, which means that you do not have to clean up your life before you come to Him. You come to Him and He will cleanse you. You come to Him who is gentle and who is lowly. So friend, if you are burdened with your sin this morning, Guilty before the throne of God, come to Jesus Christ and He will give you rest for your soul. Let us pray together. Our God and Father, how we thank you for the gift of your son, for that gentle and lowly Savior, the only one who can satisfy the unrest of our souls, who can give us that rest we so desire, that only one who can break down the barrier of our sin, that only one through whom the law is a covenant of works, has no power over us any longer. So, our God, we thank you this morning for sending your Son, that we may be forgiven our sins, that we may be perfectly righteous. No, Holy Spirit, we do pray that you would stir up in us your fruit, that we may walk in humility and in gentleness and in patience, bearing with one another in love and being eager to maintain the unity which you have produced in our midst, by striving to keep the bond that is peace. And we do lift these things up through our one mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in His name we pray. Amen.