on the book of Ephesians. As you recall, we did begin with the consideration of the first three chapters as being the doctrinal foundation, the doctrinal background, wherein we read that God has formed a new humanity and a new society according to the riches of his grace. God's grace did what nothing else could ever have done. By his grace, a fracture, a broken, humanity is healed. We know well the brokenness internally, our alienation from God because of our sin. That's been healed only through the grace of God in Jesus Christ. We know as well the brokenness that has occurred externally or between people. And we can praise the Lord As we read in Ephesians 2 verse 14, Jesus, as our peace, has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. Jesus has healed that external brokenness and brought together Jews and Greeks into one church. The new society then, in chapters 1 through 3, and in chapters 4 through 6, the standards by which this new society is to live, is to operate. This has definite implications for us as a church. The church is called, among other things, to have unity, to exercise, to practice unity together. You see, we've been united to Christ. We have been made one in Him. And now we're to do, as verse 3 in chapter 4 says, make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Make every effort to maintain that unity which was won for us at the cost of the Son of God. Make every effort to keep that unity, even in the face of various differences that crop up between people. Social differences, racial differences that has plagued the human race for centuries, for millennia. Personality differences, differences in temperaments that can infiltrate the body and cause division. He says, you've been made one. You've been united in Christ. The way we keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. is given for us in verse two, be completely humble. And that's what we dealt with, I think three weeks ago now, being humble in our service one to another in a church. Today, as Glenn has mentioned, we will be dealing with patience. Patience. Now when I talk about patience, I don't have in mind primarily today, the various reactions to irritations that we may have. For example, when we are snowed in by a storm and it takes us, say, two hours to drive the four miles home, which is what it took me two weeks ago this past Friday. I'm not talking about that kind of patience so much. Neither am I talking about the endurance or the patience that we are called to exhibit when we are persecuted by others for the sake of Christ. That's a different kind of patience. It's related to the patience that Paul admonishes us to here in this chapter, but it's not quite it. What I will stress this morning is the patience that we exercise, that we have towards other people, towards other people in the Church, so that we can keep that bond of unity in the Church. That's the context that Paul is speaking, and that's the context that we will be thinking about patients this morning. There is a need for patience, for the all-important end, as you see in your bulletin, for the unity of the body. This is essential. We are not called to peace with one another and then allowed to remain dissociated from each other. that we are to live, which is worthy of the calling we have received, is a life of fellowship with each other. This is so basic and so elementary, but I'm afraid it's misunderstood by many. We're called to have fellowship in the body. Now, it is easy for us to have a false sense of peace, a false sense of well-being, as we come to church together. In this day and age, which could be characterized possibly more than by any other thing, by alienation that we feel. This age that is characterized, called the society of alienation, leads us to think of ourselves as being in a shell, as being in hermetically sealed containers, sealed off from other people. The tendency is not to invest ourselves in the lives of others, not to involve ourselves in other people. That's what our society calls us to, and believe me, it spills over into the church. You see, we don't need patience in the church if we're not really touching each other. What could pass as a sort of peace in the church could just be because of this absence of conflict, could just be because there's an absence of contact with one another. in the church. We are called to have contact, though. We are called to be bound together in the church. We have the bond of peace. That's the beauty and the power of the gospel. The bond of peace. And as you notice also in your sermon outline, the theme for this morning is we have the peace, we have peace with God secured for us because of his great patience. And consequently, there is peace in the Church, secured through our patience with each other. You see, patience solidifies. It causes to harden that bond of peace. Do you catch the utter uniqueness then of the Church? Utterly unique among all organizations or organisms in the world. through patience. Christians of all kinds, of all colors and sizes and shapes can come together and be one body together. We can not only tolerate each other, these people of all different kinds, but we can enjoy each other. Where else can such different types of people sit down and participate in the kind of communion with each other that the world doesn't even understand, doesn't even know about? Where else can people who love classical music sit down with people who really like 98 Rock? People who have a staid, rational type of outlook can have fellowship with people who are emotional and flighty, We can have communion between Republicans and Democrats, labor and management, hawks and doves, blacks and whites. We can get along, if nowhere else, in the church as we're united to each other. And the real beauty of it is that we don't obliterate the differences that we have. We don't need to obliterate the differences to become homogeneous, to become the same. We don't need to do that. We don't need to remove the differences. Rather, we recognize them as trivial. We can recognize even those differences as trivial, and we can still come together. We don't cultivate those differences, we cultivate instead the unity that we enjoy and the bond of peace through the exercise of patience. And I don't need to remind you that we do in fact have to cultivate that. It isn't the kind of thing that just comes naturally, comes easily to us. What I've described is that ideal that we have. We've been declared to have that unity in Christ. And what you and I are called to do is bring to bear the power that is at our disposal, God's power, to bring that into effect in our church. So we need to cultivate it because we lack patience. We just lack patience. There will be certain people who still will be just plain aggravating. Thus, the first definition that we have for patience long-suffering towards aggravating people, people that we perceive to be aggravating to us. There are certain people who are different in beliefs, in attitudes, and that will be aggravating. When I say those people are different, what I'm saying is they're inferior to us, aren't I? Isn't that the sense that we often have, that those people who are different are inferior? They're less spiritual than we are. They're not serving the Lord Jesus the way we are, the way we think they should be. There's not enough commitment on their part. There's too much of the world in them. They're not doing discipleship. They're not practicing discipleship, following the Lord Jesus the way we are, the way we think they should. Boy, it's so easy to be condescending when we think of those people who are different. We see those people as weaker, as not quite as far along as we are. We also see those people who are different in behavior. Different in behavior. And we judge by our own standards so often, by our own agenda, instead of by God's. It's something that is difficult for me, something that I have to wrestle with. But there are people in this church who don't raise their kids the way I think they should. Who don't spend their money the way I think they should. Who don't serve the Lord Jesus the way I think they should, the way I do. They don't spend their time the way I think they should. And from that difference in behavior, we have to learn patience. And when I say patience, I'm not talking about waiting for them to change, to be brought more in conformity to ourselves. I'm talking about learning to accept. Learning to accept people who are accepted already by God. But what about those people who are just plain offensive? Not just different, but offensive in their attitude and in their behavior. You may have even noticed that there are Christians who are offensive in their attitude and in their behavior. But, you know, we don't have the option of ignoring them. We don't have the option to just go our separate ways and be separated from them, because we are made one in Christ. We are united in Christ. When you see a person like that, a person who is offensive, superior in attitude, or abrasive in his behavior, I would like to ask you to do something when you look at them. Imagine that there's a little pin right on their shirt or right on their lapel that has the letters B-P-W-M-G-I-F-W-M-Y. Now, I don't know if you've ever seen a little button with those letters on it. But it's helpful if you could just in your mind's eye see the person with those letters on them. That's an acronym for the uninformed, for be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet. I knew someone who was very abrasive, someone who was very superior in attitude, and this woman had one of those buttons on. And when I saw her, and I saw that button, I was caused to remember. That person's offenses towards me are so minor compared to what's been forgiven by God. And that person is in great standing before God. God smiles on that person in Jesus Christ. And yet I can allow myself to get all excited, to get all irritated at that person. The second definition of patience, as I have listed here, is slowness in retaliating when wrong. Slowness in retaliating when wrong. A couple of weeks ago, in the big snow, we had a number of incidences at our townhouse where we live. You know, people would get out there early in the morning, and they would spend an hour, maybe two, shoveling out of their car, and then having a nice, clean place to put their car. One woman did that. And then she drove off. She went to an errand at the store. And when she came back, there was someone in her place. She found out who the owner of that car was. She went to the door of that person. She began knocking on the door. And then she began kicking the door. And then she began cursing at that person. A very likely, a very natural response, we might think. And we could sympathize with that person because every sense of fair play in us just screams out against the injustice there. Certainly that person had every right to act that way. But there's a verse in 1 Peter 2, verses 19 and 20, that hits us right between the eyes. It just comes right at us, at our very natural tendency, our natural reaction in a situation like that. 1 Peter 2, 19 and 20, bear up under unjust suffering. Suffer for doing good. Endure it. That's commendable before God. In the church now, in the church, how do we respond to criticism? Be it just or unjust, how do we respond to criticism? Do we quickly strike back? Do we, without thinking, just respond against that person, feeling ourselves superior? Don't fool yourself. Who of us doesn't respond that way? We will respond quickly. I don't have to take that kind of talk from that person. That will be a response more often than not. But again, we need to remember the faults of others. The way they offend us are trivial. Trivial. In view of the patience that God has, not only for us, but for that other person. See, it's important to gain the objective understanding of what God's patience is about. The objective understanding of His patience. For his patience, his wrath is restrained for a time. In Matthew 18, we have that well-known parable of the unforgiving servant, and we have a picture of wrath being stirred up, being put off for a while because of the patience of the master. And like the unforgiving servant, we owe an impossible amount, an incalculable amount to our master. because of our sin before a most holy and infinitely holy God is so great. His wrath against us, His wrath towards us, is entirely appropriate, and yet He's restrained it for a time. He's restrained that wrath for a purpose, for the purpose of our repentance. Those of you who do not know Christ, who have not submitted your will to Him, I don't want you to interpret God's patience as weakness, as His overlooking sin, as His giving implied consent to sin. Rather, His patience is calling us to repentance. We don't respond with nonchalance because the wrong that we commit will just be forgotten, and his patience will last forever. We read in Joel, the second chapter, verse 13, the response is to be one of repentance. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. It's possible to show contempt for the patience, the long-suffering of God, His kindness. And you can assume that His patience is really a sign of His weakness. But Paul says, be forewarned. We have in Romans 2, verse 4, Do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you towards repentance? A day of wrath is coming. inexorably, it is coming. And God's patience will run out. That will be an awesome day. It may not look like it as we look around It may not look like it at all. People today can mock just like they did in Peter's day. As Peter tells us in his letter, people say that things just keep going on just like they have since the time of the flood. God's patience isn't, or God's wrath isn't going to come. Things just keep going on. Time keeps rolling by, but it will come. It will come. But it won't come upon us, those of us who know the Lord Jesus. You know, one of the most reassuring verses in the Bible is 1 Timothy 1.16. I'd encourage you to underline it, put a star next to it, and just hang on to that one. Because this speaks to us, to us who are Christians. Even when we are bogged down in the monotony of sin, which can happen in the Christian life, Nothing can take the snap out of our step more quickly, more thoroughly, than repeating sin, than feeling trapped in sin that we just can't get out of. In fact, we can tire of saying the same thing over and over again to our God in prayer, forgive me for this, each day. Nothing is more depressing than that. And we can get to the point where we believe that Jesus' patience can't even reach us. But 1 Timothy 1.16, for that reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Jesus Christ might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Jesus delights to forgive you, even when you repeat the same sin. Now, I'm not giving you license to do that. I'm not saying it's okay to do that. But Jesus celebrates the fact that His patience is so vast, so unlimited, that it covers you, even in that situation. He declares His patience loud and clear. He declares it in celebration. We can rejoice in that. 2 Peter 3 verse 15 has this similar type of idea of the Lord's patience meaning our salvation. The Lord's patience meaning our salvation. Right back, as usual, we come to the doctrine of justification. And I hope we never go far from it in our thinking. in our Christian life, the most basic step, the most important thing. We should never leave this. You see, it's only when we have grasped the doctrine of justification that we can have any power at all in our Christian life. because we've died to sin. And the new life of Christ has been born in us. That's the Christ life that we have that provides the power to practice, to exercise patience. See, the importance of considering God's patience is not just to give us an unattainable ideal, not something that we should just think, well, we've got to go imitate that kind of patience in our relationships with other people. There's a lot more to it than that. We can celebrate the presence of God's patience because it's through his patience, through the justifying power of the blood of Jesus Christ to cover our sin, that we have power at all. That we can have the power to exercise patience in our lives. You know the quickest route to fear and anxiety is? The quickest way to get to anxious and fearful thoughts is to start with our human understanding and our human practice of patience and somehow apply that to God and say, yeah, He's got that kind of patience towards me. We assume that His patience is just as easily disturbed as our own. But that's a backwards way of looking at it. Instead of implanting the weakness of our patience in our idea of God, He has implanted in us His patience, and that becomes of the essence of the Christian life. It's not a peripheral thing, it's not an optional thing that we can turn from if we should choose to. Ephesians 4 verse 1 says that it's part of our calling, living the life worthy of the calling you've received. That life will demonstrate patience. We have a similar idea in Colossians 3 verse 12. Patience is normal for the Christian. As God's chosen people, clothe yourself with patience. clothe yourself with patience. Now, I'm not talking about exercising some mere human endurance to put up with other people, some kind of passive indulgence just to tolerate other people for a while until we can get out of the room. I'm not talking about that kind of patience at all. We don't treat people in the body, even the aggravating ones, even the ones who are offensive to us. The same way that people who live near airports treat the sound of the take-off and the landing each day, each hour of every day, just by ignoring it. We don't have that freedom. We don't need to slip into that kind of weakness in dealing with patients. Rather, we have His power. A parallel to our passage in Ephesians 4, verse 2 and 3, is found in Romans 15 verses 5 and 7. And in Romans 15 it says that God gives patience and encouragement and a spirit of unity so that we can accept one another even as he has accepted us. Unity achieved through patience by his power. That's not just an ideal. That's something that God calls us to and something that he equips us for. One of the fruits of the Spirit, as you know, is patience. We can be very thankful that it is a fruit of the Spirit, a fruit of the Holy Spirit, and not something that is just a natural inclination that we have to foster and develop within ourselves by our own strength. It's not by human effort, by personal reflection. Rather, it's a gift of God by the Holy Spirit, a supernatural gift, something that we are to cultivate by prayer. Be patient then, even as patience is shown to you from God. You know, the appropriate response of that unforgiving servant, as we've seen in Matthew 18, in view of the great debt, the incalculable debt that he has forgiven him. Natural response, the proper response, is to forgive that smaller debt, to cancel that debt that was owed him. But I ask you, do you exercise that kind of patience towards other people? You know, we won't. There's no possible way that we can do that if we're depending on our own patience. depending on our own human feelings. But we have that power. We have that power because it's been implanted in us by God. Maybe all you have is the seed. Maybe all you have is just that little bit that was implanted in you when the Lord Jesus came into your life. but that seed can grow. It can be nurtured, it can be watered through prayer, through the study of His Word. You can pray for growth. There are also some very practical applications that we ought to keep in mind. Could it be that there is a situation in your life in which you generally respond in impatience or you are generally easily irritated don't overlook the physical situation in which you're in. It could be the pressures of work, the pressures of raising those screaming kids. It could be the fact that you're tired or hungry that is leading us, that is encouraging us towards a response of impatience. Isn't it something how those little things, we can tolerate things over a period of time, but then something so little, so insignificant can happen that can just set us right off? It would be the part of wisdom then to watch the situations which we're in. To analyze the things that are bothering us, the things that are getting to us. And it could be that there's someone of whom you need to ask forgiveness because of impatience. Who is that? Who is that person? God is calling you to do that. He is calling you and me to keep short accounts with Himself. And also short accounts with other people. Have you ever felt like a floating mine that has detonators sticking out all over the place and just one touch can cause an explosion? See, God has not built us with the capacity, with the ability to maintain those long accounts and not asking for forgiveness from Him or other people. He has made us to be responsive to the beauty of His grace. and asking forgiveness from Him and giving that forgiveness to others. He has called us to have short accounts. Let's be thankful. Let's have hearts of praise and thanks as we consider the extent to which Jesus gave of Himself, exercised great patience in tolerating the insults, the suffering on the cross for us. He's done that. not just to give us a model of patience, but to supply us with the power to exercise that patience. The victory has been won. The victory is won in Christ. We can enjoy it. We can have that kind of fellowship, that kind of patience, even with our diverse personalities and temperaments, because we're one in Christ. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we praise you. Praise you for the work that you have done in us. Lord, we thank you that you have forgiven us so completely and so freely. Lord Jesus, help us to overlook the trivial things that bother us about other people. Lord, we need your patience. We need the power that only you can give. And we praise you that that power is available, that Christ's life has been planted in us and is growing. Lord, we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.