Welcome to Unveiled Faces, a Redeemer Presbyterian Church podcast. Please enjoy our feature presentation. If you're turning your Bibles to Proverbs chapter six, our sermon text will be verses 12 through 19. Proverbs chapter six, verses 12 through 19. This is the word of God. A worthless person, a wicked man, goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart devises evil, continually sowing discord, Therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly. In a moment he will be broken beyond healing. There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers. This concludes the reading and the hearing of God's holy and inspired. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that your spirit would be mightily upon us today, that he would apply these words to our lives, give us understanding of the truth that you have contained within this passage, and Father, that we would be justified and sanctified according to your will. In this we pray in Jesus' name, amen. Our text begins with what Solomon calls a worthless person. Solomon then elaborates upon this worthless person's character by calling him wicked, crooked, evil, perverted. Wicked, crooked, evil, perverted, these are all moral terms. These are terms that describe the sinful disposition of a person whose attitudes, words, and behaviors are contrary to God's revealed righteousness. But when Solomon begins his description of this person by writing that he's a worthless person, that's not a moral assessment. Rather, that's a value, or I should say an assessment of value. What's for Solomon to write that this person is worthless is to speak about this person's value or this person's worth. And it is, we can ask ourselves the question, is it really appropriate for Solomon or anybody else for that matter to make an assessment of another person's worth or value? It's one thing to make an assessment of another person's morality, because morals are clearly defined in God's law. And therefore it is proper to, when we're careful to assess another person's morality, we can judge that according to the righteous objective standard that God gave us in his law. But is it really proper for us to assess another person's value? Doesn't the Bible teach us that a person's value comes from the fact that he or she is made in the image of God? And isn't it the image of God, isn't that the Maggio Dei, one of the foundational factors that informs the Christian perspective that all of human life is valuable? Isn't that what we argue when we discuss issues such as abortion and euthanasia and orphan care and mental disabilities? How is it proper then that Solomon writes that the man he is describing is worthless? You might think that the answer is found in just changing the version of the Bible that you read. Because if you read from the King James, that in verse 12, it renders what we read in the New King James or the English Standard Version, which says worthless person. The King James says naughty person. Now, naughty is a moral word. It has no implications about the person's value or the person's worth. Therefore, if we read Proverbs 6, 12 in the King James, then we don't have the apparent problem that we have when we read this same verse in other translations. But to really understand what Solomon is actually writing in this verse, we need to know what the original Hebrew says, because when Solomon wrote this, he didn't write it in English, he wrote it in Hebrew. And the Hebrew word that's translated as naughty in the King James Version, or which is translated as worthless in other versions, is the word belial, the Hebrew word belial. And this word literally means without prophets. Prophet means spelled P-R-O-F-I-T, not the prophet who declares. And so, Elial means without prophets. And therefore, well, if we look into the scriptures for how this word is used elsewhere, it's used 27 times in the Old Testament. And it's always used to describe somebody or something which stands opposed to God and therefore is not profitable to the calling of God. For example, In the Old Testament, priests were called to facilitate orderly worship for God's people. That was their calling. If you were a priest, your job was to facilitate orderly worship for God's people. Well, in 1 Samuel 2.12, Eli's two sons were in the role of a priest. That was their calling. Yet they abused their calling, they abused the people of God, and therefore they were negligent in their role as a priest. Hence, they were described as belial. Why? Because they were acting in opposition to what God had declared. They were not profitable to God as priests. In Judges 19, the Levite and his concubine arrived in Gibeah and were looking for a place to lodge, which an elderly man took them into his home to lodge them. Now the residents of Gibeah were called by God to show hospitality to these travelers. That was their calling. But instead, the residents of Gibeah harassed the Levite and ended up killing his concubine, and therefore, they are described as belial. Why? Because they were acting in opposition to God's calling, and they were not profitable as hosts within the town of Gibeah. One more example. In 1 Kings 2, or 1 Kings 21-13, When Jezebel plotted to steal the vineyard of Naboth, she intentionally found two, quote unquote, worthless men, two Belials, who would then collaborate in providing false testimony, saying that they heard Naboth curse God and curse the king. These two men, were acting in opposition to God's calling, the calling to uphold justice, to not give false testimony, but to give righteous testimony. And therefore they were not profitable as witnesses. Translating Belial into English as a worthless person, is actually a very good translation because it properly connotes that the person's lack of profit, it properly notes the person's lack of profitability to the calling of God. We should note then that Belial is not really a description of the person's human value, intrinsic human value as image bearers of God, but rather it's a description of the person's profitability to the calling that God places upon everybody, everybody's life to obey God and to glorify God. And so in consideration to applying this term to other people, the following questions need to be asked. Is the person a profitable tool for advancing the kingdom of God? Is a person a profitable tool for advancing the kingdom of God? Is the person a profitable instrument for promoting peace and unity amongst God's people? Is a person a profitable contributor to the work of subduing the earth to the glory of God? See, these are the callings that God has placed upon us. And for those who are not profitable to these callings, then it can properly be said that they are belial. That rather than glorifying God, they're glorifying themselves. Rather than building up the people of God, they're tearing down the people of God. Rather than establishing righteousness in this world, they're capitalizing upon falsehood. The word Belial is such an appropriate description of anything that stands opposed to Christ, and therefore is unprofitable for the kingdom of Christ, that the Apostle Paul uses the word Belial to represent Satan himself. 2 Corinthians 6, 14 to 15. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? So the Hebrew-speaking Israelites, who were Solomon's original audience, would have immediately understood, just because of the use of the word belial, that the person Solomon was describing is not profitable for the purposes of God. Or to put it in other words, that the person being described is a worthless person. And the rest of the passage then gives credence to this conclusion. To demonstrate just how worthless this man is as a servant to God, Solomon describes him as a wicked man who goes about with crooked speech, winks with his eyes, signals with his feet, points with his finger, with perverted heart, devises evil, and continually sows discord. The word wicked, which is a second descriptor that Solomon uses right after calling him worthless, that Hebrew word is often translated into English as iniquity. But literally, the word means to pant. who pant like a dog hanging his tongue out, panting. That's what the word literally means. And it's as if one exerts himself to the point of fatigue. And so the worthless and wicked man that Solomon is describing is a person who exerts himself against God, against the calling of God, against the kingdom of God. And he does so with such to pursue iniquity that he exhausts himself to the point of panting. That's the man Solomon's describing. And the rest of verses 12 through 14 describe how this worthless and wicked man harms the people of God. He harms them with crooked speech, just deception or telling lies. He harms the people of God by scheming against them, the winking of his eyes, the signaling with his feet, the pointing with his finger. All this indicates that this guy is not working alone. He's working in conjunction with other worthless people. And the subtle winks and gestures and forms of nonverbal communication are signals that he's given to his accomplices, identifying where and when and how to take advantage of the people of God. It's like the cheat that you see in the old Western movies, sits down at the poker table, pretending to be all alone. but secretly he has accomplices standing behind the other poker players, looking over their shoulders, giving winks and nods and other gestures to indicate the content of their poker hands. The worthless man that Solomon is describing here is certainly a bad character, certainly a bad guy. In fact, when you look closely at our sermon text this morning, you'll notice that verses 12 through 14, which describe the sinful behaviors of this worthless man, and verses 17 through 19, which describe the things that are listed as an abomination to the Lord, that these two lists parallel each other very closely. There's a very strong correlation between these two lists of sins. Verse 12 from the first list says that the worthless man goes about with crooked speech. Verse 17 from the second list says that a lying tongue is an abomination to the Lord. Verse 13 says that the worthless man winks with his eyes. Verse 17 says that haughty eyes are an abomination to the Lord. Verse 13 says that the worthless man signals with his feet. Verse 18 says that feet that make haste to run into evil are an abomination to the Lord. Verse 13 says that the worthless man points with his finger. Verse 17 says hands that shed innocent blood are an abomination to the Lord. And verse 14 says that the worthless man has a perverted heart that devises evil. And verse 18 says that a heart that devises evil is an abomination to the Lord. In addition to this parallel, if you look at the order of the second list in which these abominations are listed in verses 17 and 18, you'll notice that they start from the top of the man's body and they work themselves down to his feet. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue. Hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that devises evil plans. Feet that make haste to run to evil. And this is Solomon's way of saying that this worthless man is wicked from head to toe. To borrow the language of Romans 6, the worthless man presents all the members of his body as instruments for sin and unrighteousness. He presents his eyes, his tongue, his hands, his heart, his feet as slaves to impurity and lawlessness. And this, according to Romans 6.19, has the effect of heaping sin upon sin. It leads from lawlessness to even more lawlessness, Paul wrote. And the escalation of sin that Paul is describing in Romans 6.19 is the same phenomenon that Solomon is describing here in our sermon text. What started out as a The sinful attitude within the man's heart, the worthless man's heart, soon became manifest, or it manifests itself outside of his heart by scheming and lying and all these things that we're reading about in verses 12 through 14. That's when sin, which was previously internalized, began to be externalized. And that's when, which is, you know, What used to just be a matter of a man's heart contained in the so-called privacy of his heart has now become a public matter. It's impacting other people's lives. And this is a point that we ought to pause upon and reflect upon because sin is never a private matter. Sin is never a private matter. God has created us. He's created this world in such a way that every one of us is connected to other people. We're born into a family and therefore there's a connection between children and parents. There's a connection between children and grandparents. There's a connection between children and their siblings. There's a connection between children and aunts and uncles and cousins and so on. Many of us here are married or will maybe someday be married, and therefore we have a connection with our spouse. We have a connection with in-laws. We attain a whole new family. With all those intricate connections, we'll become married. We're created as social beings. So we have connections with friends, with neighbors. We've been created to work, and therefore we have connections with coworkers, with our employer, with clients, with customers, with vendors, and all the people that we interact with in the course of our day. Whenever we sin, we injure one or more of those people that we're connected to. Sometimes it's obvious how our sin impacts another person. Sometimes it's because we sinned against that person. It's obvious, we harm them. We can see it in their face. We can see it in their reaction. But other times it's more subtle. There are other times when the impact of our sin is not easily anticipated, not something we would have even considered as a possibility. The word collateral. something situated alongside. Something situated alongside. You've probably heard the phrase collateral damage. Collateral damage is always unintended. Collateral damage is always unintended. It's damage that happens for the sole reason that one thing was situated alongside another thing. So when our Air Force drops a bomb on the enemy's weapons factory, The hotdog stand that's next to that weapons factory blows up. That's collateral damage. The Air Force didn't intend to blow up the hotdog stand. It's just that the hotdog stand was too close to the weapons factory, hence suffered collateral damage, not intentional damage. And that's how sin works. Whenever we sin, there's collateral damage. Those who are near us or connected to us get hurt because of our sin. For example, I mean, I could give a million examples, but a rather plain and obvious one is the sin of greed. A greedy person, when his greed allows him to indulge himself in spending habits that he shouldn't, that then has likely consequences about his ability to pay his bills and puts him in a place of poor financial stewardship. And this has an impact upon people, people that that person's connected to, because those people are not receiving the money that's owed to them, due to them, money that they were counting upon, money that they need in order to be productive and disciplined in their life. That's the collateral effect of sin. And all sin has this collateral effect, and we may think that we can keep our sin to ourselves, We may think that the sin we're engaging in doesn't affect other people, that it's in a privacy of my own person, our own mind, our own heart, but there is always, always, always collateral damage. Sin always reaches out to the people who we are connected to. And most often it injures most severely the people that we love the most, which those connections are strongest. Solomon is showing us what the collateral damage is of the worthless man. Because a worthless man harbors sin in his heart, that sin manifests itself in scheming and lying, which the Apostle Paul writes about in Romans 6.19 as presenting your members as slaves to lawlessness. Lawlessness leads to more lawlessness, Paul went on to say, and that's when sin begins to snowball. It's like a little pine cone that falls from a tree, begins to roll down the snowy slope of a mountain. And as that pine cone rolls, the more it rolls, the more snow it gathers, and the more snow it gathers, the larger and larger the snowball grows until finally it's this huge, massive ball of snow that's breaking off tree limbs and threatening everything that lies in its path. Once those little pine cones of sin begin to roll down the hill of a person's heart, they quickly begin to affect other people. And as that sin grows larger and larger, it becomes more and more destructive to anybody who happens to be around. The only way to stop the escalation of sin and the collateral damage that results is by falling on your knees. The only way to stop sin from snowballing in your life and crushing the people that you love is to confess your sin, repent in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and call upon Him to deliver you from that sin. Only then can you have any expectation to enjoy any victory over that sin. And for those who refuse to repent, they can expect their sin to continue snowballing. Not only will you be injuring other people, but you will be injuring yourself. You will be unprofitable for the kingdom of God. You will not function as an instrument of righteousness within this world. And therefore you will be counted among those that Solomon is describing as belial. You will be worthless. Solomon wants his readers to understand the collateral effects of the worthless man's sin. Because a worthless man's sin will impact the people of God. And the whole point that Solomon is driving at here in our sermon text is that this impact happens and the people who get injured are not only the people who are connected to the worthless man, but the church of Jesus Christ. The worthless man is a very real threat to the people of God. Look at verse 14 of your sermon text. What is the result of the worthless man's scheming and lying when sin is heaped upon sin and transgression leads to transgression? What does it say that the result is? Discord. The worthless man continually sows discord. Now look at verse 19. What stands at the end of the six things the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to him? What is the seventh abomination listed at the end of our sermon text? The sowing of discord among brothers. Solomon is telling us that the worthless man's sin will result in division amongst the people of God. Solomon is telling us that the little pine cones of crooked speech and winking eyes and pointing fingers and signals from the feet, these pine cones will grow into huge snowballs that will inevitably crash right into the Christian church. And when this happens, when these snowballs hit, they break through the walls, there's going to be a reaction. And that reaction is discord. It will damage the unity of God's people. Accusations will begin to fly as we accuse each other of things. Defensive postures will be taken on both sides as these accusations land upon us. And before you know it, conflicts and disputes and divisions will erupt amongst the brethren. It's no wonder that Solomon uses the poetic literary device of saying six things the Lord hates, seven which are an abomination to him, to call special attention to the sin of sowing discord. Disruption of peace and unity of God's people is a terrible thing. It's a terrible thing. It's an abomination to the Lord. He's identified it as such right here. I want you to notice the exact words that inspired Solomon writes in verses 19 and 14. Solomon did not write that the worthless man creates discord or that he incites people to discord. But what Solomon wrote is that the worthless man sows discord. And this of course is a term which is borrowed from agriculture. In fact, if we were reading our sermon text in Hebrew, we would notice that verse 14 contains two terms which are borrowed from agriculture. The first term is the word that we translate as devise. And verse 14, eight reads, with perverted heart devises evil. And the verb devise in Hebrew literally means to plow. And of course, the second agricultural term is the verb sow, which is evident even to the English reader. So when the Israelites read verse 14 in Hebrew, it would land upon their ears like this, with perverted heart plows evil, continually sowing discord. The Israelites were an agrarian community. Solomon knew that they understood the process of plowing the ground as a means of preparing the soil to receive the seeds that were going to be sown in that soil. So when Solomon says that the worthless man plows evil and then sows discord, the Israelites would have understood Solomon telling them that the worthless man, all of his scheming, all of his lying, all of his deception, those are the activities of plowing. By plowing the people of God, the worthless man is gaining certain people's trust. He's gaining certain people's respect and confidence. And they don't know that he's lying to them because that's the nature of lies, right? And they don't know that he's scheming against them because that's what deception is. But his schemes are carried out with the wink of the eye, with the signals of his feet, in order that these schemes can go on undetected. But once the worthless man has sufficiently plowed the people of God, then the soil has been prepared for receiving the seeds of discord. And once those seeds germinate and discord begins to wrap its roots around the people of God, peace and unity are disrupted. And what we need to hear Solomon telling us is that the first identifying marks of the worthless man is the discord he creates amongst the brethren. We need to hear Solomon warning us that worthless people will creep in amongst us and they will suddenly be plowing evil amongst us. But you won't know that they're plowing evil. You won't know that that's going on. Why? Because the plowing is intentionally deceptive. You need to realize that all the worthless man's sins that are listed in verses 12 through 14 are sins that probably won't be detected up front. his winking eyes, his lying tongue, his deceptive hands, his perverted heart, his feet which send secret signals to his cohorts. You won't see these things for what they really are because the worthless man has gone out of his way to the point of exhaustion, panting in order to hide these things from you. That's the nature of who he is. The way you're going to identify this man is by the discord which he sows amongst the brothers. Then you will look back at your experience with this man and you will be able to see and discern the lies that he breathed out. You'll be able to see more clearly now the wicked plans that his heart devised, the evil which his feet were so quick to run into. But only after he has caused division amongst your brethren will you be able to discern this man's haughty eyes, his lying tongue, or his clandestine labor to plow the people of God. It should not seem strange that the identifying characteristics, the identifying characteristic of the worthless man is discord among the brothers. Because the identifying characteristic of the Christian man is unity among the brothers. Jesus said in John 13, 35, by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Paul wrote in Ephesians 4, verses 2 and 3, that genuine Christians walk with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Did you hear that? Genuine Christians are those who are eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Now in writing this, Paul, Just like Solomon is using a metaphor that his readers would understand. He's drawing a word picture. Here in Ephesians 4.3, Paul writes that the genuine Christian will, quote unquote, maintain unity in the bond of peace. And he's using here a prison terminology. The verb maintain means to hold fast, to keep or to watch over, to guard. And it's the word that's used to describe the prison guard who makes sure that his prisoner who is in the cell remains in a cell. He remains incarcerated. And the other word, the word bond, that Paul uses here in Ephesians 4.3, literally means band, chain, or shackle. And so when Paul writes that the genuine Christian will maintain unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, he's painting this word picture. When it comes to protecting the unity of God's people, the genuine Christian will act like a prison guard. He's going to secure unity by placing a shackle around the leg of unity. And that shackle, according to Paul, is peace. When Christians promote peace within the church, that is like placing the shackle around the leg of unity. Peace is what secures unity. Peace, therefore, is the countermeasure to the worthless man's plowing and sowing. And that's why it's so important that you and I constantly are committed to maintaining peace amongst the brethren. Remember, the worthless man's plowing efforts will ordinarily go unnoticed by the people of the church. The worthless man's true identity typically is not known until after he has finished plowing, then he begins to sow the seeds of discord, then his true identity becomes known to us. So if peace is going to act as a countermeasure to the divisive efforts of the worthless man, then we need to be committed to peace at all times because We don't know when the plowing is going on in our church. We don't know when the worthless man is plowing the people of God. We don't even perceive these things until later. Hence the necessity for keeping our peace quotient high. By constantly placing the shackle of peace upon the unity of the church, we will, we will successfully defeat the efforts of the worthless man. Most of the time, without even knowing it. How do we do that? How do we, the people of this church, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, maintain unity in the manner that Paul writes about in Ephesians 4.3? Well, just read Ephesians 4.1 and 2. Before telling us to maintain our unity in the bond of peace, Paul tells us 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. That's the answer. That's the answer. 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. Let me quickly unpack this little set of instruction. What Paul is instructing his readers to do is to live their lives in a particular manner. And he makes a statement to walk worthy according to the calling which you've been called. And this is not referring to each person's unique calling in life, such as, you know, I've been called to be a doctor, or I've been called to be a homemaker, or I'm called to be a missionary. That's not what Paul is talking about when he's talking about calling. He's talking about the calling that God places upon all of the elect, the calling, the effectual call into salvation that goes out to all of God's people. It's very similar, this statement here about walking in your calling, the calling in which you've been called to, is very similar to the statement that Paul made to the church in Thessalonica in chapter two, verse 12. We exhort each one of you and encourage you and charge you to walk in a manner worthy of God who calls you into his kingdom and glory. So to walk worthy of the calling means that you walk, that you live your life in a manner that is worthy of God's kingdom and glory. That's what it means. But having said that, let's not rush past this too quickly and move on to the next item, because the implications of Paul's statement about walking in a manner worthy of your calling, there's something profound here. Paul is reminding every genuine Christian of his responsibility to be worthy, worthy. To be worthy, the exact opposite of being worthless. Whereas Solomon is writing about the worthless person who destroys the unity of God's people, Paul is writing about the worthy person who maintains the unity of God's people. You see the contrast? In both cases, worth, the worth of each person has to do with that person's profitability within the kingdom of God. Do you want to be profitable to the kingdom of God? Do you want to be an instrument of righteousness? Do you want to maintain unity within the church with a bond to peace? then walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Paul goes on to give four characteristics then of what this walk will look like. with all humility, gentleness, patience, and bearing with one another in love. So if you wanna see peace and unity maintained in a church and amongst God's people, then these are the characteristics you need to walk in. Humility, gentleness, patience, and you need to be bearing with one another in love. Humility is the exact opposite of pride. Sometimes we struggle to define a word for what it means, but rather we can say what it's not. Well, humility, if you're struggling to understand what humility is, just think of pride and every manifestation of pride, and humility is the exact opposite of that. Whereas the worthless man has haughty eyes and he thinks of himself more highly than he ought to, the worthy man is humble and therefore he's outward focused. He's more concerned about God and other people than he is about his pretended, perceived status amongst his peers. The worthy man sees his own failures and acknowledges his own inadequacies. And he values his relationships with other people more than he values his own ego. And so he's going to be willing then to admit when he's wrong. He's willing to be brought low so that he can be reconciled with his brethren. Gentleness has to do with approachability. It means you don't throw a temper tantrum when somebody comes to you with a complaint. It means you don't immediately assume a defensive posture when somebody wants to share a concern with you. If peace is going to be maintained amongst God's people, then one of the most necessary activities is going to be sharing concerns and complaints and pains and grievances with one another. That's huge. If we can't do that, we cannot expect any long lasting forms of unity. That means you need to be gentle, gentle enough that people can approach you without having to fear some negative reaction. Gentleness runs in the other direction as well. If you have a grievance against another person, then you have every right to go and tell that person about the grievance, but let it be done in gentleness. Don't blast that person with scorn and condemnation, but gently share with that person how and why you are grieved, and then allow for the dialogue to occur. And if it happens that the person you're speaking to is bullheaded and isn't really benefiting from your gentle approach, then you can notch it up a little bit and be a little more direct. But the point here is you start with gentleness. We all start with gentleness with each other and we remain in gentleness as long as possible. And the third characteristic of the worthy person who maintains peace and unity is patience, patience. There are two words in the Greek that we translate as patience. One of the words generally is used to express patience towards people, and the other word is generally used to express patience towards things, such as Romans 12.12, which says to be patient in tribulation. Well, the word that Paul is using here in Ephesians 2 is the first one, the word which encourages patience towards people. And this instruction to be patient with others means that you don't require people to make drastic changes to their life overnight. You might be humble, humble enough to put aside your ego and seek reconciliation with your brother. You might be gentle, gentle enough in your approach that people are comfortable coming to you, sharing a concern with you. But if patience doesn't accompany these other two virtues, then the process of reconciliation that leads to peace and unity may very well be short-circuited, be ended before it began. Sometimes things take a long time, longer than what you and I may be comfortable with, what we may like. God is calling us to be people who are patient with one another. And this really transitions well into the fourth characteristic of worthy people, which is bearing with one another and love. To be quite frank, what Paul is saying here is to bear with one another very literally means to put up with that person, put up with them. It means to endure that person, suffer that person. It's referring to the person who irritates you, the person who just rubs you the wrong way. You are called to put up with that person. And if that isn't hard enough, the manner in which you're supposed to put up with that person is by loving that person. So it's not okay to just put up with a person by avoiding that person. Come to church, oh, there's so-and-so, go the other way. That's putting up with a person, but not putting up with a person in love. A man once told me that he disagreed with his pastor. His pastor had just recently preached a sermon on the dangers of cliques within the church. And the pastor said that everybody ought to make efforts to fellowship with everybody else, not to just form cliques and be content to remain in your little clique. Well, the man that I was talking to told me that when he goes to church, he doesn't want to do that. He wants to spend time with the people that he enjoys. And so he doesn't make efforts to fellowship with everybody. He just hones in on the people that he calls friends. And what this man was telling me is that he's not willing to bear with others in love. That means if Paul is stating the situation correctly here in Ephesians 4, then that man doesn't value the unity of the church enough to bear with other people. That man didn't value the peace of the church enough to set aside his own personal comforts. Psalm 133.1 describes how the Christian church ought to be. Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. This good and pleasant unity, it's not some elusive pie-in-the-sky ideal that churches never really attain. It's real. It's something that God blesses his people with, particularly the worthy people. It's attainable. It's one of the good gifts that God gives to the people who call upon Him and walk according to the calling in which they've been called. But if this good and pleasant unity is going to be manifested and then maintained, then we have to invest ourselves into walking in a manner worthy of the calling to which we've been called. We need to secure the unity that God gives us with the bond of peace, which means we need to be humble towards one another. We need to be gentle towards one another. We need to be patient with one another. And where God calls us to bear with one another, we need to do so in love. And this humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance needs to be immersed. All of it needs to be immersed under the waters of love. Then the people of God will enjoy the type of unity spoken of in Psalm 133, the good and pleasant unity. Then the people of God will be able to thwart the efforts of the worthless man as he comes to plow and to sow discord. And then we collectively as a church, but also individually as Christians will be the most profitable for God's kingdom. May the Lord grant us the strength to walk according to the calling in which he has called us to. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for being such a gracious God, for giving to us the good gift of unity, of peace, of alerting us to the ways of wicked and unprofitable men. Father, may we be a church that is committed to walking in the manner in which you have called us to walk, that we would be humble, that we would be patient, that we would be gentle, and that we would be forbearing. And Father, that you would bless these efforts by increasing our love for one another. Father, it's a remarkable thing when we start out a relationship which requires us to bear with one another in love and over time that forbearance goes away because you have established bonds of friendship and love and you have built a relationship in Christ that no longer requires the effort of forbearance because it's a genuine relationship of friendship in Jesus Christ. And Father, we so much desire this type of good and pleasant unity within the body of Christ. Whether that be here in Redeemer Presbyterian Church or in other churches in our community, throughout the kingdom of Jesus, Father, we want to see this unity. We know there are threats. that attack us from outside. We know that there are worthless men who come in deceptively amongst our people and attempt to plow and sow discord. But Father, we also acknowledge that this is not a battle that we necessarily need to fight so long as we maintain peace within the church of Jesus Christ. And so Father, this is our aim. This is our goal. We pray that you will equip us to meet this goal, that you will sustain us as we have our challenges and our failings, that we would be quick to allow this peace and unity, to be able to come along beside each other, lift each other up, put them back on their feet and point them in the direction of the cross. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen. This has been a presentation of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. For more resources and information, please stop by our website at visitredeemer.org. All material here within, unless otherwise noted. Copyright Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Elk Grove, California. Music furnished by Nathan Clark George. Available at nathanclarkgeorge.com.