Father, it's the desire of our hearts to be in Your presence, to be as near You as is personally and humanly possible. And we are grateful as we think upon these wonderful texts and the Scriptures, portions that are quoted in these texts, and even the Scriptures we have shared tonight in the assembly, to think that You are the God who is changing us, transforming us into the same image from one degree of glory to another as we behold the glory of our Lord. And we open the Word eagerly knowing that You have intended, purposed a great work of transformation. And though sometimes the change seems undetectable to us, growth that is at moments imperceptible. Yet we are trusting You as Your Word reveals to us that You are making us more and more into the image of Your Son and You will not stop that work until Christ is fully formed in us. That gives Believers such as are gathered here tonight, great hope, because the war against sin is intense and the warfare within our souls, flesh against spirit, is at moments overwhelming to us. But how grateful we are that this principle of life that you have implanted in us at the new birth will win the day. And it is because Jesus Christ has already won the day. So we are here in simple faith, believing Your promises, looking to You that You will make good upon Your Word. And I pray, Lord God, tonight that You would attend the preaching of Your Word, Spirit of God, would You take this Word and run it deeply within our souls again so that there would be no resistance within us against Your holy will as You reveal it to us. that you would overthrow our tendency toward self-rule, and that you would establish again the sweet and perfect, holy and wise dominion of Christ. Only He is Lord and King, so where we have unseated Him, forgive us. And we acknowledge Him alone as Savior and Lord this night. We pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen. Go again with me, please, to the book of Ephesians, Ephesians 4, page 977, if you are using one of our Pew Bibles. looking at the first of four one another references, phrases in the book of Ephesians. Let me read again. I want to actually read a little further into the chapter tonight, so bear with me for just a few minutes. This will not take long, but I really think it will help us to read through verse 16, in part because I want you to have a sense of where Paul is going to take this worthy walk. He ties it into our relationship to one another in the body of Christ. And so when he is speaking of a mature man, he's not talking about you individually. He's actually talking about the body of believers. You all, plural. We as a local assembly become a mature man together. Our unity in Christ is essential to the maturing of the body. And only as the body matures do individuals mature. So it's very easy to read chapter 4 and think first and foremost that he's talking about individual maturity. And although every believer needs to mature individually, he's really not making that particular point here tonight, in the letter. That's not the point I want to make either tonight. It's tied back to chapter 2. I mentioned this this morning, but for the sake of those who were not here this morning, we noted that as God is doing this remarkable work in Christ, through Christ, by His Spirit, there are particular truths that come to bear upon individual believers like us. He says, you who were once far off have been brought near. And then says specifically in verse 13 of chapter 2, now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Verse 14, for he himself is our peace. Christ is our peace. And he'll say just a couple of verses later that he came and preached peace to you who are far off and peace to those who are near. So he is our peace. He has a message of peace. And I think Paul still has those very truths in his mind as he will write some things here in chapter 4. So let me begin reading in verse 1. You follow along as I read down to verse 16. I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. There's your unity. There's the purpose for which Paul is writing some of these commands to individual believers. When we each do our part, it contributes to the growth of the whole. So when Paul calls us individually to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel or the calling of God. As revealed in the gospel. There is certainly individual responsibility, but it is. the participation of the whole in this truth that creates the kind of maturity, a mature body that the Lord pictures. Now, we made our way through three of those graces, as I referred to them this morning, that are listed there, humility, gentleness, and patience. These are characteristics of the worthy walk. And we pushed the pause button after we had spent a little time considering patience. So I want to return to verse 2 and resume our study of this text. The next phrase, bearing with one another in love, helps us to understand the specific point of patience that Paul has in mind. Bearing with one another in love has the idea of holding up, holding yourself up. Why does God include commands like this in the scriptures? Bear with one another in love. More and more I come to see that He commands it because if He doesn't, we won't think about it, let alone do it. I think He is guarding against a tendency, a tendency, that we have to drift apart. This is such a contradiction to me. As I've thought about it this week, it struck me as being very odd that God has to command us to separate from sin, get away from worldliness, separate yourself from false teachers and the like, and at the same time, command us to hold together. Does that strike you as odd? Why is our tendency to drift away from the good guys toward the bad guys or toward the bad stuff. Well, it's a reminder to us that sin has wrecked our world. Though we are in the process of being sanctified, we can say we are those who have been sanctified, but there's this ongoing process that's underway where we're becoming more and more like Christ. As I mentioned just a few moments ago, being renewed in His image, it's God's purpose to fully form Christ in us. But we're not there yet. And so God gives us commands just like these. It's a sobering reminder to us that a tendency within us would be to drift away from the very ones that we are to hold together. And apart from God, we would drift. And even as I think of a passage like this, in partnership with those other passages that command us to get away from disobedient brothers or false teachers or worldliness or the like, you see how those two sets of commands are rooted in the same truth. It's rooted in who Jesus is. It's rooted in what he has done for us. I say that very often here, but you cannot love Christ without loving the things that he loves. That also means you cannot love Christ without hating or rejecting the things that he hates and rejects. And you think of the number of times in scripture where there is a biblical expression of what we call separation, and it is actually practiced in rather extreme circumstances. You say, what do you mean, extreme circumstances? I mean circumstances like a disobedient brother who is habitually practicing sin. We were just in Galatians 6 a couple of weeks ago. It's very obvious from that that you don't separate from a brother who is ensnared in sin, who struggles with sin. You separate from the one who shows a pattern of living that is inconsistent with that of a Christian. And so after given enough opportunities to turn out of that lifestyle, after given enough opportunities to hear the truth, to change, there comes a point where you say, we can't hang out together anymore. You cast that into the context of Matthew 18, where the Lord explains exactly how we deal with a brother who is in sin, going privately, then a semi-private rebuke, and then ultimately a corporate rebuke as a congregation. It's always with a view of the purity of the body itself, the restoration of the sinning brother. It's connected again to life in Christ and his body. That's an extreme circumstance. We're not hasty. As a matter of fact, in Matthew 18, do you remember the question that Peter asked of Jesus? Lord, how often does my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Seven? And if I can put that in the larger context of Matthew 18. Well Jesus said you forgive him. Seventy times seven. The point is you make every effort to hold together it only the separation that results or church discipline that results in separation only comes after extended opportunities to hear the word to repent of sin and to be reconciled. Why. The default mode of the Christian life is one of unity. So this kind of separation is an extreme circumstance. Or you think of how the scriptures teach us to separate from those who distort the gospel. False teachers. They appear all through the New Testament letters. but it's because they preach another gospel that we distance ourselves. They may profess to be of us, but eventually they will demonstrate that they are not of us because they don't preach the very thing that unites us and brings us together. So even our practice of separation is part of the church's care for and discipline of the body and what unites us is a commonly shared bond in Christ. It is a common commitment to him. We should not easily turn loose of one another. We must not. But what about the issues which aren't in the categories of sinful habitual disobedience. It doesn't fall into the category of false teaching, of heresy. What about those issues that would be described more as irritations, the friction that results from imperfect people just being together long enough? You know, the family car rides are the quintessential illustration of that. You put enough people in a confined space for long enough and somebody's going to get upset. And I can't help but think that a lot of times, even in the body of Christ, we get upset about things when really we're just saying to use childhood language, stop touching me. And the flip side of that is we love to poke and prod and push buttons, don't we? Did you ever have a sibling who after the law came down from the front seat, you know, which was the old, don't make me pull this car over? That's when you knew that Hammurabi was speaking, right? You ever have a sibling who wouldn't actually break the law by touching, but would, you know, take the finger real close? I think we sometimes do that to each other, even in the context of the church. Because if you think of what most commonly erodes the unity of the spirit as it is expressed in a local body like this, It would be categorized not as flagrant disobedience to the law of God. It would probably not fall in the category of heresy or false doctrine, but it is typically just the irritation of one life against another life where either there is a strong opinion that one holds and rubs the other the wrong way, or there is an imposition of some preference on the other, or sometimes we just like to pick fights. What tends to break marriages apart? Let me use this as an illustration for just a moment. Honestly, in the years of pastoral care and even as our staff shares and prays through a number of things together, it is very rarely that a marriage dissolves with a testimony like this, where someone would come in and say, you know, we had 20 years of phenomenal marriage, perfect unity, loved each other, and then I came home one day and found my husband in a drunken stupor in an immoral relationship. As a matter of fact, I've never heard a testimony like that. It could happen. That's really atypical. But what we tend to hear are stories of accumulated small offenses. It's like snow. If enough little snowflakes fall over a long enough period of time when the temperature is below freezing, it's amazing what can pile up. And often couples come and need a spiritual snowplow. to clear what's accumulated on the driveway of their marriage. And often it's so overwhelming at that point that they say, we're done. I don't even want to fool with it. I'm just worn out, had all I can take. But as you begin to unravel a very difficult knot, a relational knot, you begin to find out that it's just, frankly, a lot of little stuff that was never dealt with biblically. a small offense twenty years ago that was never handled in an Ephesians 4.32 kind of way. Be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake forgave you. And because that offense has been carried for twenty years and there's more that has been packed on top of it, it's impossible, humanly speaking, to deal with it. differences of opinion in the context of a marriage that create friction. We ought to handle our finances this way. And the spouse says, no, I think we ought to do it this way. We ought to have these particular priorities for our household. No, I think we ought to have these. And because a man and a woman will not work it out, the offense grows deeper and the irritations take root. and unity is eroded. The passage in front of us is instructing us that we are to hold ourselves up under loads that other people create. This corresponds to Galatians 6 in the respect that there's similar terminology where we're called to bear one another's burdens. the loads that are too heavy for an individual to carry, too exhausting for them to bear up under their own strength. But now the Lord is actually showing us that we are to bear one another's irritations. That is a load that they create on our souls. We hold ourselves up under that load. And aren't you glad that the Lord says, look at the verse with me, bearing with one another in love. Love is the only way you're going to find strength to do it. I used an illustration of bringing children into your home this morning and what that costs a parent. Let me go back to that for a moment because I actually see many of our younger parents here illustrating this very thing. As you leave tonight, if you walk down through the children's wing, You will likely see individual parents who will have a child in one arm, some who even have a car seat with child in it in the other arm, and slung over their shoulder is some kind of equipment bag, diaper bag, toolbox, tool chest, and they've got all the stuff there. And that's an inconvenience. At times it's an irritation, and some of you have even said, I will be so glad when we are out of the car seat stage. Amen. I'm very happy to be out of that stage. But for the sake of love, you continue to grab the car seats, shoulder the equipment back, and gather the children, don't you? You are an illustration of what it means to bear with one another in love. You hold yourself up physically under that load for love. That's what we are called to do in the context of the church. Let me remind you again, as I reminded you this morning, just because you look at an assembly like this and it looks like full-grown mature adults, don't confuse yourself thinking that that equates to spiritual maturity, spiritual adulthood. We're all at different stages. And even those who may be mature in one regard have other areas where they're immature and they need to grow. So in one sense, every one of us needs the forbearance that's being taught here and we need to extend it. So don't be surprised as it is hard to put up with one another sometimes. Again, why would God write these things if it was easy for us or if it was just the thing that we tended to do? It's not our tendency. So when he calls us to walk worthy of the calling in all humility and gentleness with patience, he's telling us that patience has to express itself specifically through bearing with one another in love, bearing with the irritations, bearing with the provocations that come our way. bearing with the strongly held differences of opinion that will inevitably show themselves. I'm eager to see the results of the survey that we took a couple of weeks ago, and several folks have worked very hard to compile all that information, the comments that you wrote and the, you know, items that you circled or boxes that you checked, whatever was appropriate. I haven't read through any of them yet, but I'm eagerly anticipating working through that. I will tell you this, though. I can just about tell you some of the comments that we will get from that because I hear them frequently. And I do appreciate those of you who are always kind and gracious even in sharing a strong difference of opinion because your humility and gentleness and patience makes a big difference in that message. It's interesting in particular to listen to the comments that our leadership team receives regarding worship at Heritage. And some of you express desires for particular ways of doing things. Some express frustration that we don't sing particular songs that you love, whether they be older or newer. It's equally expressed. Some express a preference that we remain seated more while we sing, which, Warren, you made those people happy tonight. I was very frustrated. How could we sing five stanzas seated? Thank you for the key change that gave us time to get up, but come on. He's not surprised that I'm saying that. Some want to sing three songs, take the offering, have the message and be done. Some think we should go a good hour and a half every service. Some think we ought to have an open microphone for testimonies and spontaneous prayer, which, by the way, we do Wednesday nights. You can be here for that. Some think we ought to have an even greater variety of instrumentation leading our worship. Some would like to see it simplified. There's a wide range of opinions. Personally, and I think the vast majority of you feel and believe as I do, we are exceedingly blessed through the leadership of Warren Cook and our instrumentalists who are here, those who use their gift in the choir and different musical groups. It's extraordinary. This morning there was a couple who has recently moved away and just came back for the weekend and they were just sharing with me how much they appreciated worshiping with you again today. Loved it. And where they are located, they've been driving between 30 and 45 minutes still looking for a church, first of all, that will just feed them the Word consistently. And as far as the style of worship, it's anybody's guess as to what they will ultimately have to participate in. I'm grateful for what we have here, and honestly, as your pastor, concerned that we sometimes slip into that mode of hanging on to our personal preferences and so refining even through our learning and study what we think ought to characterize the entire church that we miss the blessing of a variety of spirit filled word instructed saints who gather here. We'll never resolve that particular issue, I guarantee it. Pastor Conley used to say years ago, you know, if you're getting shot at from both sides, you're probably right where you need to be. So Warren's probably right where he needs to be. Look where God puts the responsibility, squarely on you. squarely on me. Individually we bear with one another in love. One author writes, Mutual forbearance is the practical expression of patience. As believers bear with one another's weaknesses and failures in the midst of tensions and conflicts, they show a lifestyle that is consistent with their divine calling. This kind of behavior can spring only from God's love. We will probably never answer all the questions related to this whole worship conversation that's going on. But you know one thing that we can do is bear with one another in love and let our behavior spring from God's love for us. Another author writes this type of ethical exhortation demonstrates that the writer's visionary conception of the church is a little heady but bear with me. The conception of the church and its role is accompanied by a realism about the problems of community life with its inevitable clashes of character, attitudes, and actions. A realism about the problems of community life. I fight it in my own heart. It's the frustration that grows out of an unrealistic expectation for the church. We want the new heavens and new earth now, don't we? We want to dwell in perfect unity. We want worship to be perfect. We want our knowledge to be perfect. We want our service to be perfect. Beloved, that's not now. That's then. comes in the new heavens and new earth. And we're not content, as if we get careless and sloppy and everything, to say, well, you know, it's just part of everyday life and sin is no big deal and conflict and clashes of character and attitudes are no big deal. No, they are big deals. But we keep them in their proper perspective so that we're not alarmed and destroyed by them, but rather we say, oh, wow, OK, here's an opportunity for us to bear with one another in love. He goes on to write, bearing with others means fully accepting them in their uniqueness, including their weaknesses and faults, and allowing them worth and space. And that last comment is consistent with what we've been looking at in the scriptures. Very quickly we press on to the last phrase, Ephesians 4 verse 3, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. I would prefer a translation like some of those that even you may be looking at tonight, make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit. I think eager may be a little less clear to us, because Paul is talking about more than an attitude, because I can be eager and not take one step. But what he is talking about is personal effort, that when joined with the effort of a hundred or a thousand others, begins to look like something very remarkable. So we make every effort to maintain, that is we are attending carefully, almost guarding something. And what is that thing that we are maintaining? It is the unity of the Spirit, that state of oneness that by the finished work of Christ and the cross, by the union that God has accomplished, bringing us eternally and personally and vitally into union with Christ, by the indwelling of the Spirit, He has created unity. We're never called to create unity because that is God's work, but what he has created and entrusted to us, we are called to maintain. And we maintain the unity of the spirit. We looked at the outset of the service at Ephesians 2 verse 14. Go back there with me for a moment. Notice some of the expressions and thoughts that Paul carries here. He himself is our peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments and ordinances that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two. So making peace. and might reconcile us both, that is, Jew and Gentile, to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who are far off and peace to those who were near, for through him we both have access in one spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God. Do you see yourself in that kind of relationship one with another? It's challenging because you look over a assembly like this and you can say to yourself in one respect, there are a lot of people here that I don't know. And yet if you are functioning in the body of Christ as the Lord intended, you are continually building relationships so that as you are here day after day, week after week, year after year, you should in fact know many more people year by year than you once did. So some of you who like the anonymity of a big church like this, Let me exhort you on the authority of God's word to start developing and building some relationships. If you think that this assembly is a comfortable place for you to kind of slip in and then head out, maintaining your anonymity, you miss the beauty of what God has done through Christ. Church is not a show that you attend once a week. Your offering, your tithe does not purchase a ticket for admission. This is family. So we make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. What joins us together? The particular thing that Paul puts forward is peace, peace that initially originates in Christ. We looked at that, just read through it. He brought us into relationship. He himself is our peace. He's preached peace. So we have the assurance that as his people we are no longer in a state of hostility toward God. God is no longer hostile toward us as sinners. Remember his wrath abides on sinful men and women. He is not at war any longer with us, so we are, in fact, in a true state of peace, and out of that we maintain peace. We pursue peace with one another. It's all through the New Testament. Paul said it in Romans 12, verse 8, If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. In 2 Corinthians 13, 11, he wrote, Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration. Comfort one another. Agree with one another. Live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you." There is a bond here which consists of peace. One author writes, it is a peace-loving spirit, a spirit laying more stress on the points in which Christians agree than those in which they differ. Those who are combative, censorious, careless of peace do not walk worthy of their vocation. And I would direct you, because some of you are here tonight and were not here this morning, but I would ask you to consider that statement even in light of what we studied earlier this morning. concerning gentleness as it contrasts with a quarrelsome spirit. And the notes will be posted to the website and a recording of both messages will be available at our website in the next couple of days. And I will not repreach that right now. Bearing with one another in love. It's not our tendency naturally but it is a work that God is developing in us. The worthy walk. Humility, gentleness, patience, which expresses itself specifically in bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. There's much more in this chapter, but that's enough for us to chew on tonight. Are you walking worthy of this astonishing calling of God? Are you growing in the graces of humility, gentleness, and patience? Are you making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit as an agent of peace ought to? This is God's Word to us. This is God's will. Pray with me, please. Father in heaven, we need to be changed. We need to be matured. Jesus Christ is a glorious head, infinitely glorious, eternally beautiful. And His plan is that His body, the church, would mature to the point where it is perfectly suited to him. And as a local body of believers, our desire is to mature in a way that others would look upon our love for one another would see even our forbearance with one another through the difficulties and clashes of of personality and character and attitude and recognize that something greater than human love is at work here. It is divine love. And I pray father in heaven that you would. Expel from our hearts. the kind of pride that is counter to humility, that you would expel from our hearts the harshness that would override and obscure the gentleness of Christ, and that you would expel from our hearts that impatience and frustration That ultimately divides us one from another. When in. Your wisdom you have called us. To love one another. And thus protect the unity of the spirit. We pray. That your word would linger in our hearts. And long after this night, let it reside within us and take root and bear beautiful spiritual fruit. And let no word, no opinion of mine or man-made point of another who is here that is counter to your word, linger in our hearts, but just jettison all but your truth from our soul so that we might be shaped by the eternal, unchangeable word. As we are beginning a new week, there are many responsibilities that lie before us. So whether we enter the workplace or the classroom, the home, the neighborhood, whether we travel thousands of miles representing a company this week or we call on a client for the very first time, Lord God, let us be the picture of Christ's love. These things we pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Will you stand with me please? If I can be of help to you after the service, it would be my privilege. Other members of our leadership team are available. But you know, you stand in the midst of an assembly that really does love Christ and loves you, and probably the person standing next to you is as able and eager to serve you, to encourage you, to pray with you, to talk with you as any of our leadership team is, and we are. So before you go tonight, let someone assist you and help you if you need that. We are here to serve one another. Now I send you again with Paul's closing benediction from Ephesians 6. Peace be to you, brothers, and love with faith from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ, with love incorruptible. Good night.