I want to wish a special Father's Day, Happy Father's Day, to those of you who are dads, and really from a biblical perspective, every day, from a child's perspective, according to scripture, let me say that, every day ought to be Mother's Day, every day ought to be Father's Day, but of course in our country it's a unique time in which we acknowledge that, so we do want to acknowledge each of you that are here as dads. It's a joy for me to have my father-in-law here, along with my mother-in-law, visiting from over in the Santa Cruz area and we are grateful for each one of you who are dads and the blessing and the privilege the Responsibility that the Lord has given to you and even just to acknowledge men in general is a good thing even as we like to do that on Mother's Day with regard to not only mothers but women as well and Not only is it that but it's also Steven Nevins birthday today So I just wanted to give a special shout out to inevitably a future dad someday, which is a scary thing as well. But years to come, inevitably perhaps he'll be a dad. Well, I want to direct our attention back to God's Word as we are continuing with a series that we began last week, taking a break from our study in the book of 1 Peter and over the next couple of months looking at 1 Corinthians chapter 13. And really, in the providence of God, hadn't originally planned it this way, but it does coincide with the focus of our equipping hour class, which is considering fellowship. What is biblical fellowship in Christ and the shared life that we have in Jesus Christ? That has been the focus of our current equipping our class which began a couple of weeks ago and is continuing on and if you are a part of that praise God if you're not a part of that we really want to encourage you to come at 9 a.m. and to share in that time as well as we're looking into these matters of of what is biblical fellowship and as we focus in in our corporate worship here on 1st Corinthians 13 and these matters of God's holy love in Jesus Christ and what he has designed in our love for for one another within His love. Again, it very much coincides, overlaps, is interwoven with all that we're looking at during our equipping hour. But I'd like to draw your attention to verse 4. If you're using one of the Bibles, again, in the seats in front of you, this is page 959. And as we like to do, we want to highlight one particular truth that really will be the focus of where the sermon is going this morning and say just a few words directly to the children among us, just to help bring some focus and clarity to what I'm going to be looking at and what we'll be seeing from 1 Corinthians. So let me read verse 4. I really just want to read the very beginning of verse four because this helps to focus where we're looking at this morning. Here it is. Love is patient and kind. Love is patient and kind. Now, children, if you're taking notes, using those sheets that are in front of you designed for that, and parents, as always, please help your kids with this. Let me give you the big idea of what we're looking at this morning, and what I believe is ultimately reflected in those simple words, love is patient and kind. Here's the big idea. It's a little bit longer this morning, so parents, you may need to help your kids get this down, but here it is. Love looks beyond the offense to the need. Love looks beyond the offense to the need. Let me say it just one more time. Love looks beyond the offense to the need. And I believe that's ultimately the point that is being made with regard to the importance of understanding that love is patient and love is kind. Love looks beyond the offense to the need. Now, how might we illustrate that? Well, children, let me ask you, how many of you children have been to the dentist? The beloved, wonderful, exciting, okay, great, you can put your hands down, thank you. Isn't it fun to go to the dentist? Don't you just love to go to the dentist and go into that room where there's all those exciting little instruments and all the little things and have the dentist begin to poke around in your teeth? Isn't that exciting and fun and wonderful? No, it's not. I understand that. It's not at all. In fact, it can be very, very terrifying. And it seems especially for children when this is somewhat of a newer experience, it can be particularly that way. of course any of your parents and many other adults will tell you that it can still be somewhat terrifying when you have to go to the dentist and indeed it is because you know that he's there to help fix things in your mouth. Now kids if you've ever gone to the dentist and never had any particular issue like a cavity or something like that you know it might even get a little bit scarier in some ways and oftentimes when people go to the dentist and let's let's just say that you're going because you have to have a cavity fixed well you know what they have to do they have to sort of numb your mouth which isn't always the funnest process and then they have to drill in there and That's not always the funnest process. It's always kind of funny in some ways. Kids, I don't know if you've experienced this, but like with our dentist, he loves to talk and it's always a one-way conversation because he's just gabbing along and you're just there and you're back and you've got all these things going on in your mouth and you can't talk, so you just nod or ah. That's the dentist. But oftentimes what dentists experience from their patients, and children maybe this has been true of you, often what they experience from their patients is resistance. Resistance to what they're trying to do. And sometimes that resistance can become very, very strong. Yelling, screaming, crying, fighting, gagging, throwing up, biting. I mean, any number of things that can happen that a dentist has to deal with. But a good dentist, a wise dentist, a skilled dentist learns how to sort of look over all of those things and go beyond all of those reactions and resistances in order to meet your dental need, if that makes sense. They learn how to work through those things and to not just respond according to the way that you might be responding to them, but to go beyond that and to look beyond your reaction because they're trying to take care of your teeth and they're trying to do something good for you. Now that illustration hopefully gives a little bit of a sense of this whole point of the fact that love in being patient and in being kind looks beyond the offense that might come from other people and tries to respond to the needs of those people even when people might react against us, even when they may hurt us. And so kids, as you listen to the message this morning, really want to encourage you to try to understand that point. And we're going to be looking at what this patience and what this kindness is and what makes it distinct in Christ and how this is really a miraculous, supernatural way that we are to love one another with patience and kindness. And parents, as always, want to encourage you to help unpack these things with your kids. Maybe you can try to take them to the dentist even this week, and just to reinforce, no, I'm just teasing, you don't want to necessarily do that. Have them brush their teeth, how's that? But want to encourage you to process these things, try to unpack these things with your children as they understand the importance of Christ's patience and kindness toward us, and in turn, how we are to exhibit and demonstrate that same patience and kindness toward others, looking beyond the offense and to the need of the people that God would have us to care for. Well, with that, let me go ahead and dismiss our children, those grades three and below. As always, welcome families for them to remain in here, but many take advantage of this opportunity as well and those who will be sharing God's word. as they make their way across to the driveway. And for the rest of us, I want us to look at the broader passage, just to be reminded of the whole context of what we're looking at. I'm really gonna begin in chapter 12, verse 27, and read through chapter 14, verse 1. And I want to read this and then ask the Lord's help again, and then we'll continue on. But let me read beginning again in chapter 12, verse 27, and then we'll carry on through chapter 14, verse 1, just to really be reminded of the context. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? But earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And if I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. And when I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall be known fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love. Pursue love and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy. Our Heavenly Father, we do ask that you would meet us in your word, even as we trust you have been doing so in what we've already been sharing in. And we pray that you would do this through the power of your Holy Spirit, and you would give us grace to hear and to see by faith all that you would have for us, that we might fall before you anew in adoration and obedience. even as we recognize and would understand ever more fully the greatness of your patience and your kindness to sinners such as us. and that we might all the more be humbly inclined to exhibit and to demonstrate extravagantly the same extravagant patience and kindness that we have tasted from you. So we pray that you'd humble us all the more, that we may exalt you all the more, and that you would do this for your glory in Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, amen, and amen. Well, Alexander Strzok, who is a pastor in the Denver, Colorado area, has written a number of books. And in one of his excellent, helpful books called Leading with Love, he begins a particular chapter with this reflection. He says, imagine more than 300 Christians from 40 different nations and various denominational backgrounds living together 24 hours a day. Imagine them working together in extremely tight quarters, most of them for two years, some even longer. And imagine them doing all of this as unpaid volunteers. He says, such is life aboard the ship, the MV Dulles. For the past more than 30 years, the Dulas has sailed around the world stopping at ports in more than 100 countries, serving as a Christian book exhibit and conference center visited by 18 million people. The Dulas and two other similar ships are the result of a ministry called Operation Mobilization. It was one of the first short-term mission organizations has involved hundreds of thousands of people throughout the years of that ministry. But he says, the volunteers who serve on the ship are ordinary people. They have the same weaknesses and character flaws as other human beings, and they experience, aboard the Dulas, the same difficulties that people experience ashore. The only difference is that on the ship, there is no running away from conflict. How can they live and work together under such extreme conditions without destroying one another? The answer, of course, is love. They can't jump ship, and so they have to stay and work out things together. Well, friends and beloved, that is a consideration as we consider the local assembly of God's people, the local church, and what it is that he calls us to as his people in learning to love one another. And of course, this is the theme and the focus of all that Paul is addressing in 1 Corinthians 13, even as that is reverberating the focus of all of God's Word regarding the priority of loving Him and loving others in His love. And as I mentioned, we're taking a break from 1 Peter over these next couple of months to be reminded of these truths and to be encouraged in knowing and understanding and tasting and delighting in the fullness of God's love in Christ all the more, and hand-in-hand with that, rightly sharing that love with one another. Now, last week we introduced all of this, and I spent the majority of our time together just helping to provide the background, the framework, the context of the whole letter of 1 Corinthians, because as it is with any part of Scripture, we can't understand any one part apart from its whole context. And so I spent a lot of time last week doing that, and I want to just very briefly highlight a couple of things by way of review as we ramp back up into our text here to consider these matters. Certainly would encourage you if you weren't here last week You can find that message online on our website River City grace org or certainly if you were here would encourage you to continue to perhaps be reminded of that as we understand the context but among other In other things, what we do understand with the Corinthians that Paul is writing to is that in this context of chapters 12 through 14, which really provides one unit of thought, if you will, in connection with the whole letter, but they were using their spiritual gifts as means of selfishly boasting over each other and comparing themselves with one another and tearing down each other rather than building each other up. And this is reflective of many of the other problems that they're dealing with in their selfishness and in their arrogance and in sin that is being allowed to remain in the church without being directly addressed and considered and just the host of things that Paul addresses throughout his letter. And what's apparent as we look at chapters 12 through 14 is that the Corinthians were completely missing the true work of God's Spirit. They were abusing it and they were, again, using the Spirit's gifts for their own selfish ends and for their own self-promoting ends. And the reason I had us read through chapter 14, verse 1 is because there at the beginning of the verse, the very beginning of the verse is really the central command, the central imperative of this entire passage, pursue love. And that's the point that Paul is emphatically making, that in a right understanding of the work of the Spirit of God, and in a right understanding even of the gifts that the Spirit gives to the church, and understanding that the church is a body with many different parts, and yet they're all a part of this one whole, the body of Christ, that love is central to all of this. And so this is the focal point, the primary command, that we are to love one another. And again, this is reflective of all that is revealed in God's word over and over and over again, both in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament, this centrality of love. And really for the people of God, for those who have been born again, born from above by the Spirit of God, in the same way that the natural impulse of new physical life is to eat, so the natural impulse, if you will, the supernatural impulse of new life in Christ is to feed on God's love in Christ as revealed in His Word and to share the same with others. If you're truly born again, if the Spirit of God dwells within you, there is an inclination, there is a desire, however imperfectly it works itself out in our lives, to know this love of God in Christ all the more fully, and to share that love with others. With our brothers and sisters in Christ, with those who don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, and even with those who are aggressively enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's an impulse that way, and if there is no impulse that way, if these matters of knowing the love of God in Jesus Christ and being faithful to share that love with others, if that's not in you at all, dear friend, you are not a Christian. And again, this is not diminishing that any of us do this perfectly. We don't. But if there's not an inclination that says, oh God, help me grow in this. Oh God, I need your help in this. Oh God, I want to know your loving Christ and I want to be faithful to exhibit and demonstrate that love. If there's nothing there of that, you're not a Christian. You haven't been born of God, born from above. And really this matter of love is the most privileged and necessary ministry in the church that every believer is responsible for. It's the ministry of love. That we're to exhibit the same care for one another as Paul talks about in chapter 12. And that we're not to primarily understand our ministry in terms of function. You know, I work in the children's ministry, or I preach, or I'm an usher, or I do this or do that. All of those matters are important. But it's possible to do all of those things, right, without love. And we have to understand when people ask, what's your ministry? The immediate answer should be, well, I'm a minister of God's loving Christ. I minister His love. That's my ministry. Whatever particular function or arena that may flesh out in is wonderful, but that's not the essence of ministry, right? The essence of ministry is loving one another as God's people. And so Paul's clarifying in this whole section, chapters 12 to 14, the true nature of the work of the Spirit of God in the church. What the Spirit of God does, how the Spirit of God manifests Himself in the church, which is, of course, the body of Christ. So he begins in chapter 12, verses 1 to 3, speaking of the fact that it's the Spirit of God manifested, which is manifested in the conversion of sinners. Any believer is Spirit-born. This is the work of God's Spirit that brings us to faith in Christ. And then in verse 4, through the end of chapter 12, he speaks of the Spirit of God being manifested in the composition of the body. The body of Christ, the church, is the design of God. It's the composition of God's Spirit. In chapter 13, of course, he talks about the Spirit of God being manifested in the character and conduct of this supernatural love. And then in chapter 14, he speaks of the Spirit of God being manifested in the construction of the body of Christ, in the building up of the body of Christ, ordered by the Spirit and what God has intended. And again, in all of this, chapters 12 through 14, he's focusing on the true nature of the work of the Spirit of God. And so chapter 13, as it is sandwiched in the middle of this section, is focusing on what is the heart and soul of God expressed in the Church, namely His supernatural love in Jesus Christ. And in chapter 13, as we saw last week, in verses 1 and 3, He's speaking of the superior necessity of this love being evidenced. And in very emphatic and exaggerated terms, this hyperbole in which Paul is speaking, he's affirming over and over and over again that the greatest of spiritual gifts that might be evidenced in the church mean absolutely nothing and are of no benefit to the person who possesses those gifts if they're not accompanied by love. And that's what he's speaking of, the superior necessity of love. It struck me as continued to be thinking and praying and considering these matters with all that he says there in verses 1 to 3. You know, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but don't have love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. prophetic powers, understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I'm nothing. If I give away all that I have, if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I'm nothing." It's striking, isn't it, that Jesus Christ possessed and accomplished all of those things, did He not? And because He is the embodiment of God's holy love, He's everything. He's everything. So Jesus and His love working in and through His people is everything in the life of the local church, in the life of what's been referred to as the family of families. And so then in chapter 13 and verses 4 through 7, As we're entering into, he speaks of what I call the supernatural dispositions of love. The supernatural dispositions of love. These qualities of love. And we'll begin to look at these, of course, this morning. And in verses 8 to 13 of chapter 13, he speaks of the supreme permanence of love, that love never ends. It carries on into eternity because it is the love that is bound up within the triune nature of God Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And for believers, we've been brought into this love, and thus it is never ending. So this is what we're looking at, and again, we're gonna begin to look at verse four, these qualities, these dispositions, these attitudes, if you will, or inclinations of love. And beginning with love is patient, love is kind. Now I want you to note as we begin to zero in and kind of focus in on this matter of love being patient and love being kind, all of the statements that are spoken of love here in verses four through seven, there's 15 different qualities that are identified. All of them are verbs. In the Greek text, they're not adjectives. So in other words, what Paul is describing here is not so much what love is, But it's what love does. And the nature of God's love is known by how He has expressed and revealed it most fully in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it is to be in our own lives as well, that this rich and beautiful portrait of God's holy love is to be evidenced and manifest among us by what it does and how it works among us. And I might also note here that with all these different qualities and characteristics, our understanding of these matters, our possessing and exhibiting these matters, is not to be a question of balance, but a question of fullness. Now, if you've been around here at all any length of time, you know that this is a little bit of a hobby horse, but we don't think, and we're not to think of these things, even as they're evident in God himself, as matters of balance. Because whenever you have balance, by the very definition of balance, to have more of one thing is to have less of another thing, right? Well, that's certainly not the case in God Himself. And He says of Jesus in John chapter 1 that He came full of grace and truth. So it's not a matter of trying to balance all these various qualities. It's a matter of understanding and growing in the fullness of who God is in Jesus Christ, and exhibiting and living that out in the same way in our lives. So it's not a matter of balance, but of fullness. Another thing I want to just identify, it's so important for us to understand this, because again, as we all recognize and understand, if there's any chapter in the Bible that's probably been more quoted, more printed on greeting cards and little signs and posters to put up around the house and all of that, it's either this chapter in its totality or portions of this chapter. And as a result, it has this air of sentimentality, and this air of beauty, and all these things. And of course, it is beautiful, and it does unfold in a rich, and a dramatic, and a poetic sort of fashion. But all of this is being expressed by Paul in the context of the nitty-gritty, dirty, ugly, hard, messy, burdensome reality of life in the local church. And Paul is not giving a fancied or a sentimental view of the local church. He's talking to believers, he's writing to believers, but he's addressing matters of sin, and of pride, and of selfishness, and how we, just like the Corinthians, are to grow through these matters. In Paul's vision, in a biblical vision, the church does not exist in a Thomas Kinkade painting. You're not going to find the church on any street in Mr. Rogers' neighborhood. It's in the nitty-gritty reality of a fallen world. I appreciate what one commentator has said on this. He says, quote, he, Paul, does not picture love in ideal surroundings of friendship and affection where each individual embraces and kisses the other, but he sees it in the hard surroundings of a bad world and a faulty church where distressing influences bring out the positive power and value of love. And what that commentator is affirming, that in the very raw difficulty of life together as God's people, and not just in a broad, general, universal sense, although we affirm and we embrace that, but in a unique, particular, local assembly sense, What God is doing in all of the challenges and the difficulties of life together as his people is providing context, providing opportunity for this very kind of love to be evidenced and to be demonstrated in such a fashion that the unbelieving world would take notice that there's something unique, something humanly inexplicable going on as this love would be all the more evidenced among us. And it reminds us that this love is not just humanly difficult, it's humanly impossible. Now, of course, we might hear these words, love is patient, love is kind. You might hear those words or even see a poster of those words on all kinds of places, in a business or at a public school or anywhere else that we might find. Everybody would affirm, yeah, it's good to be patient, it's good to be kind. But beloved, this is Christian patience. This is Christian kindness and all of the other descriptors of love that are given. Now, as we look into verses four through seven, just briefly, important to understand the focus of these 15 qualities. Because you may notice that the first two qualities, love is patient, love is kind, those are given in sort of a positive way. And I would refer to these first two as the compassion of love. The compassion of love. It is patient, it is kind, and I think the heart of what Paul's speaking of there is compassion toward those who offend and injure us. And then from the rest of chapter, or verse four through verse six, there's a number of negative qualities that are spoken of. And I believe what Paul's giving here are what I would call the contrasts of love. And so he says, love does not envy or boast. It is not rude, or I'm sorry, it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It's not irritable or resentful. It doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. He's speaking of these things in a negative way, to contrast the negative with the positive. So we see the compassion of love, we see the contrasts of love, and then in verse seven, with these statements that he repeats, all things, all things, all things, all things, I refer to that as the comprehensiveness of love. And we'll get there eventually to consider that. But just to help give some handles to this particularly rich section describing love, we see the compassion of love, the contrasts of love, and the comprehensiveness of love. Now as we work through this and consider these first two aspects, what I call the compassion of love, love is patient, love is kind, I just want to frame what we're going to look at around four questions for us to consider as we understand this patience and this kindness. So I'm going to just reference these four questions as we move through. Question number one. Question number one, what is the essence of this compassion, of this patience and kindness? What's the essence of it? How do we understand this? Well, again, in understanding the essence of it, it's important to be reminded that the context has to do with how love responds to the hurt, to the offense, and to the sins of others. How love responds to the stresses and the strains and difficulties that we experience with other people. And I want to reinforce again, for all of us, it's not just other people in a general sense. Certainly there's much application there as we think about our connection and interaction with unbelievers, as we think about our connection and interaction with those who are aggressively hostile against the gospel. But again, what's the context here in 1 Corinthians? It's dealing with these matters directly in the context of a local assembly of believers. So as we think about these matters, process these matters, sure, think about them in a general broad sense with regard to all people everywhere, but I want to encourage all of us, and it has been for myself as well, how does this play out in the life of River City Grace Community Church here in Sacramento in 2013? And how are we to exist and to grow in these matters? Well, patience and kindness, what I'm referring to in a collective way as compassion, are really two sides of the same coin. One is passive. namely patience, and the other is active, namely kindness. As one commentator has said, patience endures evil and kindness confers blessing. So they're really two sides of the same coin. One, a passive reaction to injuries and offenses and sins that our brothers and sisters in Christ in a local church bring against us. And the other has to do with active kindness and how we would seek to bless them in spite of these injuries. So let's examine these just a little bit. Patience really has to do, the Greek word is a compound word that has to do with long-suffering or being long-tempered. It exhibits a great sense of patience that has the sense of not being inclined to retaliate or to seek revenge because of an offense that has occurred. To not retaliate or to seek revenge, even when it may seem justifiable to do so. Now we all know this, don't we, by way of experience, that we're wronged by somebody, and again, let's just keep making it specific, we're wronged by somebody in our local church, and usually, at least for me anyway, there's a gut-level reaction of how I want to seek revenge, how I want to retaliate. Now, you and I know, too, that there's myriads of ways in which that retaliation can be made. And there's myriads of ways, it seems, as we grow older and older, that we can be very skilled and very cunning and very shrewd in the way we may exhibit that. Sometimes our retaliation is more passive in nature. I'm just not going to interact with that person anymore. I'm just going to kind of shut them out. I'm going to just not really be involved with that person. Sure, I'll kind of coexist and can smile together and da-da-da-da-da, but I'm just, in essence, putting up a wall, and I am no longer dealing with that person. They are on the off list, as it were. And we can be passive in that way. And of course, our retaliation may be very aggressive. Maybe with words that we say to retaliate, maybe with actions and whatever it may be. But this sense of patience, this sense of long-suffering, as Jonathan Edwards has observed, has to do with bearing the evil and the injuries and the offenses that come to us from others. And again, even from our other brothers and sisters in Christ. One of the early church fathers in the early centuries of the church, John Chrysostom, says this, quote, it's a word which is used of the man who is wronged and has it easily in his power to avenge himself, but he will never do it. It's an internal sense of patience, of long-suffering, of being long-tempered that is not inclined to retaliate, but rather to absorb and to bear the injury. This is the same word that is used by Paul over in Ephesians chapter 4, verse 2, when he says, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, the same word, bearing with one another in love. He goes on to say in verse 3, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. So this is the sense of that patience. And this patience, beloved, is not simply biting your lip. You know, somebody wrongs you and all of a sudden there's this volcano that's just churning inside and it's all you can do to not let it just explode. Well, the sense of this Spirit-empowered, Christ-exalting patience is that there's no molten lava boiling inside your soul. There's a trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and there's a dependency upon Him. And there's a supernatural ability that He provides to look beyond the offense to care for the need of the one who has injured you. And so this isn't just a humanly empowered biting of the lip. It's a deep internal lack of inclination to retaliate in any way. Now, hand in hand with this, beloved, is kindness. As I mentioned, patience is sort of the passive side. It's a willingness to endure injuries and injustices and griefs and offenses from our brothers and sisters. Well, kindness is the active side. of not only patiently bearing those matters, but kindness has to do with being useful and serving and being gracious and beneficial. It has to do with what one has said is an active goodwill that not only desires others' welfare, but works for it. It's an active disposition to do good to others in spite of how they have hurt us. Now, again, just maybe think of the kind of silly example of a dentist. You know, a dentist has to learn to work through whatever conceivable reaction his patients are going to give to him. Why? Because he's committed to the well-being of their dental health. He cares for them. Now, of course, for a dentist, there's other ulterior motives like income and all those types of things, but you get the point of the illustration, hopefully. Beloved, as brothers and sisters in Christ, God calls us in faith and dependency upon Him to bear the sins of our other brothers and sisters in Christ, and to not only bear them, but to actively seek to do them good. Such is the nature of this kindness that He calls us to. Now taken together, this patience and this kindness provides the disposition and activity that expresses deep compassion for another individual and deep concern. It expresses deep concern for the glory and praise of God who is supremely patient and kind. It expresses deep concern for the unity, peace, health, and fruitfulness of the local church, the people of God. It exhibits deep concern for the powerful life-giving advancement of the glory of God in Jesus Christ, a deep concern for the fact that when there is disunity and when there is division and when there is impatience and unkindness and a desire for revenge, the person who's ultimately harmed and grieved in that is the Holy Spirit. because of the testimony that is marred of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's why Paul says in Ephesians chapter four, verse 30, don't grieve the Holy Spirit, but rather to exhibit kindness and forgiveness. And this patience and kindness is to express deep compassion and concern for both the temporal and the eternal welfare of every individual. to care for their souls. And in that sense, brothers and sisters, whenever we are offended, whenever we are hurt, whenever we are injured by one another, that circumstance becomes an opportunity to demonstrate this love and to care for another's soul for the glory of Christ. And so again, here's the heart of this supernatural patience and kindness. Love cares more and looks beyond the offense to the need. It looks beyond the offense to the need. In other words, we could say love cares more for the soul of the offender than for the hurt of the offense. We could also say love doesn't seek revenge for the wrong, but rescue for the wrongdoer. We could also say love doesn't belabor the offense, but it seeks to bless the offender. And this is why Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 8, he says, quoting actually from Proverbs chapter 10, he says, above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins. Now why is a commandment like that necessary? Because we are easily guilty of a multitude of sins toward one another, are we not? And so he says that love covers those sins. Now again, this patience and kindness has to do with our reactions to one another. And it has to do with what the Lord calls us to in genuine humility, in caring for the souls of others, even in spite of and even in the context of how they have hurt us. Listen to what Jonathan Edwards says of this humility as it's expressed in patience and kindness in his excellent by-the-book treatment of 1 Corinthians 13. The book is called Charity and Its Fruits. He says this, quote, a humble spirit disinclines us to indulge resentment of injuries. For he that is little and unworthy in his own eyes will not think much of an injury offered to him as he that has high thoughts of himself For it is deemed a greater and higher enormity to offend one that is great and high than one that is mean and vile. It is pride or self-conceit that is very much the foundation of a high and bitter resentment and of an unforgiving and revengeful spirit." End quote. Well, this is, beloved, what Jesus Christ The head of the church calls his people to exhibit this patience and this kindness in his power for his glory and for the good of others. Well, that leads to the second question, why is this patience and kindness so necessary? Why is this necessary? I've already alluded to this, and there's a few ways in which we can actually answer this question. Why is this patience and kindness so necessary? Well, most fundamentally, it's necessary because God Himself is patient and kind. It's a marvel that after thousands of years of human existence, God hasn't just obliterated all of us off of the face of the earth and the earth with it. It's a reflection of His patience and kindness. And it's also necessary because it's indispensable to the preserving of the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This is what Paul speaks of in Ephesians 4, verses 1 to 3. And as we've been being reminded in our equipping hour and considering this matter of fellowship, how essential for all of us to always see the bigger picture of what God's doing. That life in the local assembly of believers is not primarily about what we hope to get out of it, It's about what God has designed and intended for His glory and for the good of His people. And amazingly, when we're aligned with His purpose for the local church, and not our own skewed orientation to what we think should be happening, when we're aligned with His purpose, it's amazing the joy and the hope and the peace and the confidence, the sweetness and the goodness that comes out of all of that for His purposes in our lives and for the witness that He would bear through our lives. But this patience and kindness is also necessary because of the variety of people that we come into contact with in the context of a local assembly, of a local congregation. And it's necessary because of the many different ways that our brothers and sisters in Christ Real Christians, genuinely born again, and yet not perfectly sanctified any more than any of us, myself included, are perfectly sanctified. But just think about the various ways that we can be hurt, offended, and injured, both in real ways and also oftentimes imagined ways in our minds. People can be hurtful, they can be mean, they can be indifferent, they can be insensitive, ignorant, preoccupied, they can be inappropriate. Sometimes they can be just flat out irritating because of any number of quirks that we just don't quite find real endearing about the way they are. People can be rude. People can be weird. You can define that however you'd like. People can be inconveniencing. They can be disruptive. They can make us uncomfortable. You ever had, well, I won't go into it. They can make us uncomfortable. They can be scary. They can be terrifying. Sometimes we get upset because we feel like we're being intentionally ignored by people. Or maybe people are doing unfair, unjust things to us or about us. Maybe there's dishonesty that takes place. Maybe there's unmet expectations. It's been said that unmet expectations are disappointments waiting to happen. And sometimes we get in our mind, boy, this person should really do this or this. They should do this or do that. And so we have all these expectations. And what begins to happen is in our mind, we're beginning to evaluate and consider everything in view of those expectations. And when the expectations aren't met, boom, we're offended and we're hurt. And again, sometimes those are real, sometimes those are imagined. There can be broken promises. People say they're gonna do one thing, and then they don't end up doing that. And I have to tell you, every single one of these things, I mean, I've been working through this, it's just slicing, dicing my own soul, okay? So I'm increasingly aware of my own failures, tragically, in all of this. But I can be guilty of that, you can be guilty of these things, and others do them to us. People can be given to gossip. And gossip can take many different forms, of course, slander, speaking evil of other people behind the backs of those people, spreading false reports, misinformation. People can judge us. People can be unforgiving. They can be selfish. They can be stubborn. They can be unteachable. They can be unwilling to admit fault. They can be provoking and vengeful, and we can just go on and on and on and on and on. This is life in the local assembly. And within all of this, you know, those are all things referring to specific kinds of offenses and injuries that others may bring against us. But even just in the midst of the fact that we're all human and we're not perfectly sanctified and all the different ways in which we are different, We have different gifts. We have different levels of maturity and understanding. We have different convictions on any number of issues. We have different backgrounds, different circumstances, different strengths and weaknesses, different ethnicities, different socioeconomic status, different educational backgrounds, just all of these things. Do you see why any local assembly truly manifesting the glory of Christ is a miracle of miracles? Because all of those things are things that from a worldly perspective would drive us apart. I've mentioned before, some of you are familiar with a book that's an excellent book just focusing on the dynamics of marriage in the context of the gospel. The title of the book is When Sinners Say, I Do. A number of you were a part of going through a study that Laurie and I led over this last spring through that book. It's a wonderful book. I would commend it to you. And it's just bringing the gospel to bear in the context of marriage. But I've thought to myself, you know, somebody really needs to write a book entitled, When Sinners Join the Church. And the whole point of the title is to just explode the false expectations that are often there, right? When you get married and you stand at the altar, it's beautiful, it's wonderful, it's exciting, and you're marrying a sinner. And the person who's marrying you is also marrying a sinner. And the same is true when you join the church. You want to know what our church is about? I often tell people this. I'm a sinner, all the people in our church are sinners, and God is gracious and merciful, and praise God. When people say, how's the church doing? I mean, I understand what they're saying, but that's often how I answer them. What else can I say? And so I thought, somebody needs to write a book entitled, When Sinners Join the Church, and then I thought, you know, that book's already been written. It's called the Holy Bible, because that's what God deals with. And so this is why this patience and kindness is so necessary, because it's what God has given for us to grow in his holy love, that his glory and the hope of the gospel would be all the more displayed in us and through us to a world that desperately needs to know him. And because he is profoundly patient and kind. Well, that really leads to the third question, how is this patience and kindness manifest or evidenced in God himself? In what ways do we understand the patience and kindness of God? And, oh, this would be an endless series of considerations. In many ways, the commentary on the entire word of God could be summed up with those two words, God is patient and God is kind. It's easy to get lost in all of the particulars of the Old Testament and all of the movements of the history of God's dealings with His people and all the things that take place within the nation of Israel and everything that's going on. And all of this is given ultimately to reveal the glory of God that ultimately is culminated and consumed in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ with the resounding statement, God is patient and God is kind. And as Peter says in 2 Peter 3, verses 8 and 9, he's not willing that any should perish. Can you consider the patience of God toward his enemies and the kindness of God towards his enemies? Jesus in Luke chapter 6 speaking words of instructions to his disciples of how we are to love our enemies and to do good to those who persecute us. The whole reference point in all that Jesus said is that God himself is kind to ungrateful and evil people. He's kind to ungrateful and evil people. And dear friend, if you are one who is outside of faith in Christ, the only reason that you are alive is because God is patient and kind, and He's not willing for you to perish, but He's willing for you to come to eternal life and to flee to Christ. And if you persist in your rebellion and your resistance against the God who created you, there comes a day where His patience ends. But it will not be because he did not give you opportunity after opportunity after opportunity after opportunity and show you his kindness after kindness after kindness after kindness so that you would come to repentance and to faith in him because he's good and he's kind and he's wise and he loves you and he wants you to know him. And he takes no delight in the destruction of the wicked, but mark it well that he will destroy the wicked. but he's patient and he's kind towards his enemies. And we see his patience and kindness with his people again, over and over and over again. We see this in the Old Testament with his dealings with Israel. And certainly again, as all of that points to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, and even Jesus with his people, go through the gospel sometimes and just watch Jesus exhibiting patience and kindness towards his own disciples. It's a very pronounced reality in John's Gospel. It is in all of the Gospels. I've thought often about the statement that Jesus makes to His disciples in John 16, verse 12. Here He's about to go to the cross. He's unfolding to them the realities of what's happening and of what He's entrusting to them. He's comforting them. He's speaking to their ignorance, to their unbelief, to their fear, to all of these things. And in chapter 16, verse 12, He says at one point, I have much more to tell you. but you're not yet able to bear it. Can you consider the incomprehensible, vast disparity between what the eternal God in Jesus Christ, perfect knowledge knows, and the small, puny, tiny understanding of the disciples at that point? And yet what did he exhibit? Patience. and kindness. He looked beyond the offense of their unbelief and their ignorance and their fear and their selfishness and all of these things. And he said, I've got more than I'm going to be telling you. I've got more than I'm going to be revealing. And he's the same way with us, beloved. He's patient with his people and he's kind towards his people. Really, the whole New Testament, even Paul's letter to the Corinthians is an expression of the patience and kindness of God. There's issues that have to be dealt with for the good of the souls of these Corinthian believers, but the whole letter is framed in the patience of kindness of God exhibited through Paul to instruct, to correct, to rebuke, to encourage, to exhort, to admonish, and on and on. So we think about God's patience with his enemies, we think about God's patience with his people, but we also need to particularly think of God's patience with you. God's patience with me. When's the last time that you, in a concentrated, purposeful way, took inventory of how patient and kind God has been to you specifically? It's a good exercise. We ought to be filled with thankfulness and gratitude. And it's amazing, the more filled with thankfulness and gratitude we are, the less drawn we are to sin, because we're so overwhelmed with the mercies of God and the goodness of God and the grace of God, and we lose sight of how patient and kind He has been with worms like us, who are deserving of nothing but His wrath and His judgment. And yet we've not only been delivered from that, He's not only borne our iniquities in patience, But He has extravagantly, incomprehensibly poured out riches and kindness and mercies to us in Christ. Beloved, don't lose sight of the patience and the kindness of God. Well, that leads to a fourth question, and we'll move along as we move towards wrapping up here. How is this patience and kindness to be demonstrated? How is this compassion towards one another in the great compassion that the Lord has shown to us in Jesus Christ? How is it to be demonstrated? Let me just mention four ways we can demonstrate patience and kindness towards one another. Number one, just in our overall disposition towards one another. and a heart of patience and kindness. And this heart, beloved, is born out of trusting the greatness and the goodness and the wisdom and the power of God in Jesus Christ. but it ought to be a mark of growing in Christ and of maturing in Christ, that we're becoming more and more patient, that we're becoming more and more kind, and that when somebody does offend us, hurt us, injure us, whatever the case may be, rather than our knee-jerk reaction being one of retaliation and revenge, that it ought to be a mark of growing maturity, that we are disposed to be patient and kind. And as the Spirit of God graciously works in us and through us, that indeed will be an increasing thing. But we acknowledge we're not perfect. And again, as I've been studying, reading, thinking through these things again, it just is brought to my own mind all the more fully, what a weak, small wimp I am. Somebody says something wrong, does something wrong, and instantly there's so many things that can run through my mind. And that just is a reflection of my sinfulness and my smallness. but we ought to have an increasingly kind and patient heart disposition freely and extravagantly towards our brothers and sisters in Christ in our local church. A second way we can exhibit this is with our prayers. With our prayers. Think about a person you've had tension with, you've had conflict with, you've had offense, you've had hurt. When's the last time you prayed for God's blessing in that person's life? For them to grow in the knowledge of God and of his loving Christ, even as Paul so frequently expresses in his prayers, whether it's for the Philippians or the Colossians or in Ephesians. And beloved, those are instructive for us. And remember the prayer of Jesus on the cross? Just before he gave up his spirit and died, what was his prayer? Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. And Stephen, the first martyr after Jesus, learned that very prayer as well in Acts chapter 7 as he's being stoned to death by those who are rejecting the message. In essence, the same prayer, Father forgive them, don't hold this sin against them. If that's the way we're to respond to enemies, how much more are brothers and sisters in Christ? and praying regularly for them in a general sense, but even particularly when they sin against us, that we're to pray for God's blessing in their lives. And I should note, I'm not talking about praying imprecatory prayers, you know, God bring fire down on this. No, that would be wrong. That would not be an evidence of patience and kindness, okay? Praying for God's blessings. A third way we exhibit patience and kindness is through our actions, through our actions. This patience and kindness, as Matthew Henry said, is ready to show favors and to do good. It seeks to be useful, listen to this, not only seizes on opportunities of doing good, but searches for them. And think of the myriads of ways in which we can actively do good for others, both in the physical realm, material realm, as well as spiritually. any and every way that we might demonstrate kindness and love. To notice needs, to ask questions, to strive to rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn. And beloved, don't think that this patience and kindness means that we just ignore sin. No, but it means that if we're truly loving this person and they've sinned against us, our concern for the sin isn't primarily the hurt that it's brought to us, but our concern is the hurt that it brings to their own soul in terms of broken fellowship with God. And that's why all these other aspects of love that Paul speaks about are reinforced, that it doesn't mean that we're ignoring sin, but rather that we're loving them enough to even address sin. But not from the standpoint of our own personal hurt, but from the standpoint of care for their soul. And that's just one way in which we can show kindness, myriads of ways. Well, a fourth way, of course, that we are to show kindness is with our words. With our words. Proverbs chapter 12 verse 18 says, there is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. The tongue of the wise brings healing. And of course, Proverbs over and over and over again has things to say about the power of the tongue for good and for bad. And certainly we can show kindness and patience by our words. Read the account of Joseph in the book of Genesis beginning in chapter 38 going on through chapter 40. Read about the jealousy and hatred that he is the next to the youngest of 12 brothers experienced from those brothers. Read about them conspiring to kill him and then at the last minute just selling him off to slavery in Egypt. And for many years, that's where he's at. And they lie to their father about what happened to Joseph, that he got killed out in the field by a beast. And they've lied, and so they've lived in this murderous, hateful, destructive, jealous lie. And finally, in God's providence, in God's purposes, he preserves the family and he moves Joseph into a place of power and authority in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh at that time. And eventually, his brothers come because of the famine that was in the land. And this is all by God's design and you can read about it in chapter 50, well, earlier, as they're revealed to him and he's revealed to them. But then eventually, as the narrative moves along, they recognize that Joseph is in a place of power. He can utterly destroy them and seek vengeance because of the harm that they did. But what's the answer of Joseph to this as they tremble before him in fear of their lives because of the vengeance that they know they deserve? Joseph says to them, am I in the place of God? Beloved, that's really where it starts when people sin against us. We're not in the place of God. He says, am I in the place of God? He says, you intended to harm me. He doesn't diminish their wrong. He acknowledges it. He says, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. And then it says, and he reassured them and he spoke kindly to them. Of course, as dramatic and as overwhelming as that is with Joseph, There's a greater Joseph who exhibited an even greater reaction to the sin and evil against him. You see, Joseph was not a sinless person. He was guilty of his own sin, but the Lord Jesus Christ was sinless. And in essence, is that not what the Lord Jesus does with us, with all of his words? In spite of our guilt, in spite of our wrongdoing, and he could say to each one of us, you intended it for evil, but God has intended it for good. receive my salvation, drink of my salvation. And what does he do to us through his word? And even as we have opportunity to minister to one another, he reassures us and speaks kindly to us. Our words are so powerful and they can be used for great evil or for great good in building one another up. Listen to how Paul speaks of this in Ephesians chapter 4. in this very context of preserving the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. And I'll pick it up in verse 25 of Ephesians 4. He says, Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we're members of one another. Here's the church again. We're all members. We're all part of the body. He says, be angry and yet don't sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. He says, do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. Beloved, the love of God in Christ looks beyond the offense to the need. It's compassionate, and it's expressed in this supernatural patience and kindness with those who sin against us. It's Father's Day today. Maybe this is a good word of encouragement, particularly to us men. All of us, men and women, battle and are vulnerable to any number of sins, but men, is it not true if we're honest how easily we can be given to unrighteous anger? Dads, think about it with your children. It's the first thought that comes to their mind about their dad that he's patient and he's kind. I get emotional because I know that's not always been the case for me. I've sinned in these ways. God's gracious and God's merciful. He's bigger than our sin. And my kids have short memories by his grace as well. But I'm just being honest. We are particularly prone, it seems, to unrighteous anger. And it can be expressed towards our wives, it can be expressed towards our children, it can be expressed to others in our family, to co-workers. And at the root of that, that anger betrays or it reveals pride and selfishness and unbelief in the patient, kindness, sovereignty of God in our lives. So men, I want to encourage us in particular, and of course this is true for all of us, but are you man enough to be overflowing with compassion? Are you man enough to be filled with the patience and kindness of God in Christ? and to exhibit that for His glory, even in this messy, hard thing the Lord has called us to as a local church. May God give us grace to do so. Let me lead us in prayer. Father, thank You for the scalpel of Your Word. Thank You that You are patient and kind. to your people. Thank you that you've shown that patience and kindness over and over and over again in my own life. Thank you for the embodiment of that patience and kindness in the Lord Jesus Christ. And in what He accomplished at the cross, that patience and kindness was most fully demonstrated for all eternity. Thank you that our sins are forgiven in trusting Him. Thank you that where sin abounds, your grace has abounded all the more. and that your patience and kindnesses of such an extravagant, rich nature will spend all eternity praising and rejoicing and worshiping you because of your mercy and grace in Christ. O Father, forgive us for our dullness and for our pride and for our selfishness and help us, O God, to live in the way that you've called us to live by faith that we might all the more fully exhibit what you desire. We thank you for your great love and pray that we would grow in the knowledge of that love all the more for the glory of your name and for the good of one another and for the ongoing witness of the gospel to people who are dying in their sins. Lord, help us to be faithful in your glorious and mighty name. Amen.