Graces Needed to Maintain Unity of The Spirit, 1

Introduction: The Grieving of the Holy Spirit and the Call to Unity

0:03 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, March 22, 1992, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us turn to Ephesians chapter 4, and I shall read in your hearing the first three verses of that chapter, Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 3. Ephesians chapter 4, verses 1 through 3.

1:07 In a few moments, I were to take from the shelf that's underneath this pulpit, within my sight but not yours, and I were to remove from that shelf a framing hammer, and for you non-carpenters, that's a big'un. That's not the kind of hammer a man uses when he's doing delicate work, putting on trim in the house, but that's the hammer you use when you're doing the rough work of raising up the house. That's not the kind of hammer a man uses when he's doing delicate work, putting on trim in the house, but that's the hammer you use when you're doing delicate work, putting on trim in the house. Apparently, Pastor Martin's trying to wreck the pulpit.

2:12 Others of you might say, Pastor Martin's gone crazy, and he's starting to whack with that hammer everything in sight, and who knows where he'll end up when he's done whacking away on the pulpit. Now you might say, any one of those things, or any combination of them, or all three of them, and you might be right in any one or combination or all three. You might be right in any one or combination or all three. of them. But if I were to do such a thing, stand here pounding away on this pulpit, there is one thing I'm absolutely certain no one in this place would think or say. Young or old, whether you know anything about carpentry or not, there's one thing I'm confident no one in this building would think or say, beholding me pounding away on this pulpit with a framing hammer. No one would say, isn't that a shame? Pastor Martin is causing such deep grief to the pulpit. None of you would not

3:23 enter your mind to think that I was causing grief to the pulpit. And why would none of you think that, let alone say it? Well, for the simple reason that you with me, are very much aware that whatever we may do with inanimate objects, we cannot grieve them because they have no soul, they have no feelings, they have no capacity to experience either joy or grief, delight or pain. It is only living personalities as opposed to inanimate objects or impurities.

4:06 Personal forces that can experience such a thing as grief. And it is precisely because the Holy Spirit is a person, is a divine person, that we are commanded in Ephesians 4.30 to grieve not the Holy Spirit of God in whom ye were sealed unto the day. He is not an impersonal force. He is a living, divine person who has the capacity not only to be grieved, but to experience grief with divine dimensions. And this clear command to grieve not the Holy Spirit has been the center of our attention in recent weeks. As we've been considering, the eighth affirmation in the manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church, namely, that we are determined to maintain the presence of an ungrieved Holy Spirit in the totality of our life and ministry. In opening up this highly important theme,

5:32 I stated last week that among the many ways in which the Holy Spirit is grieved, in the corporate life of any church, is this. He is grieved when the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace is not consciously and diligently maintained. The pivotal text on which I sought to base that affirmation I read in your hearing this morning, Ephesians 4.1-3.

6:08 Last Lord's Day I sought briefly to open up that text and to demonstrate that it is the duty of the people of God to give diligence, that is, to engage themselves consciously, deliberately, and constantly, in the preservation of the unity of which the Holy Spirit is the author, and the primary characteristic of which is peace. We are to give diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And if we fail to do this, given the reality of remaining sin in the hearts of individuals, and the stirring up of that remaining sin in the interaction of the corporate life of the church, like a piece of meat left in the open air, unrefrigerated and unsalted, the bacteria of remaining sin will multiply until that unity is greatly fractured, if not absolutely devastated, and the Spirit of God, will be grieved.

Two Ways to Fail Unity: Indulging Sin vs. Neglecting Grace

7:32 I suggested that there are three major ways that we can fail to pursue diligently the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. The first, I opened up last Lord's Day, by indulging the particular sins which will inevitably rupture the unity of the Spirit. And under that heading, we looked at the sin of sowing, sowing discord, nursing grudges and resentments, chronic self-preoccupation, the entertaining of false doctrine, and prejudice and carnal stereotyping. Now today we take up the second way in which a conscious constant pursuit of the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace can be set aside. It can not only be set aside by indulging the sins which militate against that unity, but by failure to cultivate the graces which are essential to the maintenance and preservation of that unity. Last week we dealt with the negative, entertaining and indulging the sins which will inevitably rupture that unity.

Sermon Outline: Justification, Identification, and Prescription of Graces

9:00 This morning, the positive, by failure to cultivate the graces which are essential to the maintenance and preservation of that unity. Now, in opening up this subject, I have three heads this morning. First, I want to give a justification for the use of the term, cultivating graces. That may be strange terminology to some.

9:27 To others, it may sound like incipient, if not blatant, heresy. And I want to give a biblical justification for the use of that term. Then secondly, I want to give an identification of the graces especially associated with the maintaining of the unity of the Spirit. And thirdly and briefly, a biblical prescription for the act of the Holy Spirit.

9:52 for the act of the Holy Spirit. for the act of the Holy Spirit. for the actual cultivation of these graces. Justification, identification and a prescription.

Justification for Cultivating Graces: Monergism vs. Co-action

10:01 First of all then, a justification for the use of the term, cultivating graces. I have said that we can destroy the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace by failure to cultivate the graces which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity.

10:24 which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity.

10:29 which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity.

10:33 which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity.

10:37 which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity. which are essential to the preservation of that unity.

10:41 is the fact that in its initial and in its consummation, in its application to men, in the initial and in the consummating acts, man is totally passive. When God is committed to regenerating the sinner, there is no spiritual life that he blows upon. There is no spark of divine life that he fans into a full-blown work of grace. He finds the sinner dead in sins, spiritually deaf and blind.

11:21 He finds him spiritually impotent. We believe the Bible teaches the doctrine of man's total inability to save himself. It is God who quickens man. He cleanses the dead sinner without the cooperation of the sinner.

11:41 God takes out the heart of stone and implants a heart of flesh. Even repentance and faith are said to be the gifts of God. Well, as it is on the threshold, pure monergism, God alone working powerfully to bring a man into a state of grace, so at the consummation, whether the consummation comes in one or two stages, the moment the departing spirit of the saint leaves his body, and by the time it enters the presence of his Lord, God breaks in and totally removes from the spirit of the departing saint every last vestige of sin, and it joins the spirits of just men made perfect. There will be a marvelous work of sanctifying grace in which the sinner will be passive. God will do it. God will do it in an instant.

12:48 And if it comes in one stage for those who are alive at the coming of the Lord, when he raises their bodies from the dust of the earth, the dead sinner whose body has turned to dust does nothing, doesn't wiggle an atom on his own. To contribute to his resurrection, the voice of the archangel, the trump of God, and it is the power of Christ alone that will raise him to the glorified state. So on the threshold and at the consummation, it is pure monergism. All of God, only of God.

13:29 But everything in between involves the action, of the quickened, believing saint. Everything in between involves our working as God works. Involves the total engagement of all of the faculties of the redeemed sinner. And there are three texts of scripture.

14:01 We could choose many, but I simply touch on them briefly, realizing we have folk who are new, among us, who've been coming only a matter of months, and have never heard any clear, structured teaching on this matter. I want to at least give you an appetizer. In Philippians 2, 12 and 13, we have what many would regard to be the classic text, indicating that in the entire process of the Christian life, after God, all of his own mighty power raised us to life, and before that same God, by his sole power, will glorify us at the end. In between, this is the pattern. Philippians chapter 2, and it's significant, it's in the context of a strong appeal to Christian unity. That's the appeal in verses 2 and 3 and 4, and the great example of the disposition we must have, in order to maintain that unity, is the Lord Jesus himself, and that example is set before us in verses 4 through 11. Now the apostle says, So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence,

15:30 work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for, it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. In the light of this appeal to unity, this marvelous example of the disposition essential to unity, as exemplified in our Lord Jesus Christ himself, Paul says, Now, my beloved brethren, as you have always obeyed, that is, as you have lived your Christian life within the framework and the psychology of a life of obedience, that is, a subject knowing the will of his Master, setting your heart to perform and to accomplish the will of your Master, as you have always obeyed, he doesn't say, as you have been carried along in the Christian life, as you have been borne along passively, in the way of holiness, no, as you have always obeyed, obedience has been their conscious, deliberately chosen path. As you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation

16:59 with fear and trembling. And whatever the text means, it absolutely destroys any notion of passivity. You are to work it out, and you too are to endure it with all seriousness, with all the engagement of all of your faculties, your minds filled with all the weighty issues that are at stake, the salvation of your own soul, the honor of Christ, the good of his people. Work out your own salvation with fear and with trembling.

17:34 And what is it that gives me encouragement to engage myself in this arduous working out? It is the certain knowledge that God is working in. For God worketh in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. His working neither cancels nor negates the necessity and the reality of my working, and my working neither despises nor undermines nor cancels the reality of his working.

18:11 He works and I work. And as I'm enabled to work, I acknowledge it's God who gave me both the will and the power to work. So all the praise goes to him. But I cannot know that he is at work unless I am working.

18:29 My working is the proof that he is working. My ability to work is the manifestation, that he is at work. Here is co-action. Here is the confluence of human endeavor and divine enablement in the Christian life.

Biblical Support for Cultivating Graces

18:49 And notice it's in a context that has directly to do with the subject of unity. Therefore, for me to say that we must be concerned to cultivate graces is something essential to the preservation and deepening of our unity is not to enter a form of works righteousness or do-it-yourself religion. It is to speak according to the mind of the Spirit of God in this passage. Another passage, 2 Peter 1 and verse 5.

19:28 2 Peter 1 and verse 5.

19:35 In the opening verses, Peter celebrates that which God has done. Verse 3. His divine power has granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness. Divine power has granted all things that pertain to life and to godliness.

19:59 Therefore, there's nothing for us to do. Verse 4. Whereby he hath granted unto us his precious and exceeding great promises that through these, you may become partakers of the divine nature. Here the emphasis falls upon the divine activity.

20:19 God has granted all things. He has granted us precious and exceeding great promises. Well, therefore, if he's given all things and promised all things, we must simply jump on the crest of the promise and be carried into the all things he has given us. No.

20:44 Look at verse 5. Yea, and for this very cause, since God has granted for this cause, add in your diligence your faith.

21:06 And then he goes on to speak of these graces which they are to consciously cultivate in their Christian experience. Peter had no conceptions that the largeness of the divine provision and the divine granting would be the occasion of passivity in the cultivation of the graces of the Christian life. And we have our very words, spoudazo, not in its verbal form, but in its noun form, giving all diligence, spoudane, bringing in alongside supply on your part. The only place this compound verb is found in the New Testament. Adding on your part, supplying on your part, bringing to this endeavor all to your faith virtue. So the concept then of the cultivation of graces is indeed a biblical concept and we could add to this, but I pass over and only mention it quickly, Colossians 3 and verse 12.

22:28 As surely as he calls upon the Colossians to put to death, to mortify, and they are to be involved in the mortifying of the sins that would both destroy them as well as undermine their unity, so they are to dress themselves. They are to put on. And the verb means to dress oneself. They are not to stand there passive like a scarecrow with their arms out looking up to heaven that God will clothe them with these various virtues.

22:58 He says, put them on. You be as active in putting them on as you were in putting on your clothes this morning.

23:07 It was an activity in which you were engaged. And God says, we are to do the same. Well, I trust these three texts touched upon briefly will lay to rest in the mind of any who questions the legitimacy of the terminology cultivating graces and bring your judgment to the place where you realize that that terminology does indeed capture the emphasis of the word of God with respect to these vital concerns. Now then, and this is the heart of the message, I want to set before you an identification of those graces especially associated with maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. As surely as the word of God identifies the sins which in a highly aggravated way undermine the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, the same scriptures clearly highlight certain graces which greatly foster, preserve, and promote the unity of the Spirit. Now this is not an exhaustive list. It's only suggestive.

Identification of Graces: Lowliness and Meekness

24:23 But I do believe and I trust I'll persuade your judgment that these graces have not been highlighted arbitrarily but they come out of contexts in which the burden of the passage is Christian unity, corporate unity, that unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. And at the head of the list of those graces is the grace of Lord's lowliness and meekness. And I deliberately said grace, not graces, but the grace of lowliness and meekness. And I want you first of all to notice how these twin graces, these Siamese twin graces are associated with each other in the context of appeals to unity. Go back to our fundamental passage in Ephesians 4. Here in this pivotal passage that we considered last Lord's Day morning,

25:31 the Apostle says, I beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith you were called with all lowliness and meekness. And then you have another preposition with long-suffering. And then you have your two participles forbearing one another in the name of God. One another in love, giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit.

25:58 But the structure of the language clearly indicates that Paul is calling them to these graces of lowliness and meekness viewed as an inseparable couplet. In Siamese twins, you have two individuals, but until they are surgically separated and occasionally it's been done in the life of both or one of them, you have two individuals. But until one has been spared, the life of the two individuals is so joined that generally when one is severed, they both die. And it's in that sense that these are Siamese graces, Siamese twin graces, lowliness and meekness. Any giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit must have as a major attendant lowliness and meekness according to the Apostle. Again, in Colossians 3, notice the close connection between these graces and the unity of the people of God. Colossians chapter 3, put on therefore as God's elect, verse 12, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, loveliness,

27:25 meekness. Here they are again. One set next to the other. Lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving each other, if any have a complaint against any, even as the Lord forgave you, so also do ye.

27:44 And above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness, and let the peace of Christ, rule in your hearts to the which you are also called in one body. So you see, it's a passage in which the subject of unity, though not as dominant as in the Ephesians 4 passage, is certainly here in the forefront of the Apostle's thought. Above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfectness, you were called in one body. Now if we are to know the reality of that unity experientially, we must each one of us be committed to put on among other graces, the graces of lowliness and of meekness. And then in Philippians chapter 2, one of the other classic passages appealing to Christian unity, Ephesians 2 and verse 2 make the point that we must be full, my joy, that you be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind, doing nothing through faction or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind. And those three words are used to translate the one Greek word,

29:12 but in lowliness, each counting other better than himself. Now here lowliness is not joined to meekness, but it is highlighted as the primary grace essential to this unity to which the apostle appeals. Now certainly if the weight of scripture carries any weight in our hearts, we should be convinced that we cannot know as a congregation any measure of the maintenance, let alone the deepening and the increase of corporate power of unity and the spirit in the bond of peace unless there is in our midst an abundant measure of the grace of lowliness and of meekness. Now what precisely are these graces? Well let's look at them briefly in the order in which they come to us in Ephesians 4. Lowliness.

Defining Lowliness

30:16 This New Testament word was not used as a noble quality or a voice of virtue in the secular world as I wrestled with a contemporary term that would show how the secular world used this. Most of the old writers talk about mean-spirited, but for us that means somebody that's got an ugly attitude, and they didn't mean that. I think what they would say in current parlance is it would speak of someone with a rotten self-esteem. Now I don't like the term self-esteem because I'm too familiar with my Bible and everything my Bible says about self is not to promote it but to put it on a cross. To deny it! And I'm sick and tired of that worldly concept of I need to bolster someone's self-esteem. I don't find it in the Bible.

31:16 I may need to bolster someone's sense of his worth as an image-bearer of God. Talk Bible language. Don't import the language of the world.

31:29 And this is the way the Greek world looked upon this quality of lowliness. When they saw lowliness, they despised it. Here was a man who didn't throw his head back and his shoulders back and struck with a sense of his own self-importance. And so to have this grace was not considered a virtue among the heathen.

31:53 But it came to speak of one of those graces. That in the Christian church and in New Testament literature became a very close synonym for humility. That grace in which we consciously take our place as dependent creatures in the face of our Creator who gave us life, who continues to give us life and breath and all things. It is the exact opposite of pride.

32:27 Pride. Pride. That swelling with that devilish disposition that would shove God off His throne and share some of His rights or some of His glory. Proverbs 29 and verse 23 shows the contrast in these matters.

32:46 Proverbs 29 and verse 23.

32:55 A man's pride shall bring him low. But he that is of a lowly spirit shall obtain honor. What's the opposite of a lowly spirit? It's pride.

33:10 What's the antithesis of pride? It is the grace of lowliness. And one of the old writers said it is not merely a grace among many graces, but it is the very casket in which all other graces are found. For God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

33:32 Humble or to the lowly. So lowliness is not a head game I play on myself in which I try to convince an otherwise very important creature that he's not so important. An otherwise very self-sufficient creature that he's not so self-sufficient. No.

33:52 Lowliness is simply facing the reality of who and what I am as a creature.

34:02 And being unashamed that it's so.

34:06 Now in a Christian, it will also be tinged with the awareness of what I am as a sinner. But I leave that because our Lord is the great epitome of this grace and he had no sin with which the grace was tinged.

34:22 I am meek and lowly of heart.

34:28 The more complex compound word is not used there, but the root word that captures the essence of it. Our Lord says lowly in heart. Now certainly that can't be the Uriah Heep mentality. I'm nobody.

34:43 I'm not worth anything. No. That's not lowliness. That's mock humility which is an inverted kind of pride in many cases.

34:54 Trying to impress people how lowly and humble I am. When Jesus said I am lowly in heart he meant I know my identity. And I've embraced my identity as the servant of Jehovah voluntarily choosing to live in the world. I have an independence upon my Father.

35:13 This is why I rise up early in the morning to pray. This is why I unashamedly say I can do nothing of myself. What my Father says I hear and I do. I do all things that please the Father.

35:28 The grace of lowliness is the recognition that I am what I am as a creature of God. Utterly dependent upon him. Utterly indebted to him. For all that I am and have.

Defining Meekness

35:43 And what is meekness? Well it's that disposition which accepts God's dealings with us as good. The disposition that grows out of really believing. Romans 8.28 All things work together for good especially especially when people oppose me when people abuse me when God brings upon me unexplained dealings like a Job that I can't cannot figure out and for which there seems to be no rational explanation meekness will be manifested particularly when God allows us to be injured or wronged by others and enables us to accept such things as God's fashioning tools to perfect us into the image of his Son. One has said that meekness

36:37 is submissiveness under provocation.

36:42 Submissiveness is the act of being a man. Submissiveness is the act of being a man. Submissiveness is the act of being a man. Under provocation the willingness to suffer injury rather than to inflict it.

36:51 And in that sense Moses was a man meek above all men upon the face of the earth Numbers 12 in verse 3 and you know the context in which that is stated? It's right after his own immediate friends and associates and relatives rise up to oppose him and he's willing to leave the things in God's hands for adjudication. It's in that context he's called meek. Now you certainly get no sense that Moses was a wimp.

37:21 That Moses was a man of no moral courage and strength. He was a leader of that whole nation. The man who in righteous anger dashed the tables of stone upon the earth when he came down from the mountain and found the people enmeshed in idolatry and immorality. Who at one time said who is on the Lord's side?

37:43 Gird your sword on your thigh and with me go through the camp and slay the enemies of God. And yet he was meek above all men upon the face of the earth. And as I've already alluded it is manifested supremely in the Lord Jesus for he said in Matthew 11 verse 28 Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek meek and meek and lowly of heart and ye shall find rest to your souls.

38:22 Was our Lord bragging? Was he guilty of pride when he said I'm lowly?

38:28 No. He was conscious that he was possessed of a disposition that gladly owned his divinely appointed identity and station. And he was conscious that he was possessed of a disposition that was prepared to endure anything that came to him in the path of obedience to his Father. I am meek and lowly of heart.

39:02 Come to me and you will not only come to one who is not seeking to impose something upon you which is not for your good but as you come to me and learn of me and by my example and the work of the Holy Spirit working in you a similar disposition you'll have blessed rest to your soul. It's a wonderful thing to be delivered from the tyranny of trying to think of myself as something God never made me.

39:37 What tyranny to try to be something God didn't make me.

39:43 You who are unconverted sitting there in your stiff-necked arrogance saying, I'll run my own life. My friend, that's tyranny. God never made you to run your own show. You'll just make a massive mess of it and hell will exegete for all eternity what a mess you made.

40:02 Christ has come to me. I am meek and lowly in heart. I gladly accept my identity as marked out by my Father and I am prepared to take anything from His hand and anything He allows from the hands of others. There is no disposition of pit for pathism.

40:26 No disposition of ill will. I am meek and lowly of heart.

Application: The Need for Lowliness and Meekness in a Self-Assertive Age

40:35 Now let me say briefly by way of application in an age marked by structure stuff. Assert your rights. Sue everything and anything that crosses your rights. I tell you, dear people, this grace is not going to be easy to maintain among us.

40:55 As God is pleased to use us to penetrate this present society and be an instrument of seeing people brought out of darkness into marvelous light, they will bring with them ex-aggage of the opposite of the graces of loneliness and meekness. They bring arrogance and pride and they bring self-defensiveness, self-vindication as the whole spirit of our society.

41:33 God alone knows what will happen in this place unless by the Holy Ghost there is an impartation by grace and a cultivation by prayerful endeavor of the grace of lowliness and of meekness.

41:56 Have I been talking double Dutch?

42:00 Have I made any sense?

42:04 Do you know lowliness and meekness?

42:09 Content to be what God made you? To be not chafing, not angry because you aren't something else.

42:19 Lowliness, meekness, ready to bear and to forbear, to take whatever God brings into your life unexplained, unexegeted now and neither to dispute with him nor to resist him. How desperately we need the graces of lowliness and meekness if we are to be if we are going to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace but then there is another grace we are going to need in abundance. It is the grace of forbearing, long-suffering and forgiving love. That is all used to describe one grace.

Identification of Graces: Forbearing, Long-Suffering, and Forgiving Love

43:02 The grace of forbearing, long-suffering and forgiving love. Now anyone familiar with the word of God knows that the grace of love is the queen of all graces. of the Christian character. 1 Corinthians 13, the greatest of these is love.

43:23 The fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5.22, the fruit of the Spirit is, at the top of the list, love. Colossians 3.14, it's called the bond of perfection.

43:35 Remember Jesus' new commandment, John 13.35, a new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you by this shalom, and know that ye are my disciples if ye have love one to another. And John's epistles, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, who would dispute that love is there set forth as the queen of all the graces. But I don't want to talk about love generically, because according to the scriptures, according to at least my present light in studying out this subject of the unity of the Spirit, it is particularly the grace of forbearing, long-suffering, and forgiving love that contribute to the maintenance of the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. If I may liken it this way, if we're to maintain the unity of the Spirit conceived of visually as all of us standing linked together hand in hand in an unbroken circle, then the left and the right hand of every one of us, are the graces of forbearing and long-suffering love on the one hand, and forgiving love on the other. And if we've both got strong left and right arms, our bond will not be broken.

45:00 But let the hand of forbearing and long-suffering love grow limp and fall to our side. Our unity will be broken. Let the hand of...

45:15 Let the hand of forgiving love be drawn back and our unity will be severed. Think of love as the left and right hand expressing itself in forbearing and long-suffering and forgiving.

The Nature of Forbearing and Long-Suffering Love

45:37 Where do we see this? Well, let's go back again to Ephesians 4.

45:44 We'll look at several texts that show the relationship of forbearing and long-suffering, offering love and unity. Then we'll look at the relationship of forgiving love and unity,

45:57 forbearing love.

46:01 Ephesians 4. I beseech you to walk worthily of the calling wherewith you were called with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering. The grace of lowliness and meekness is to be joined with long-suffering, and then parallel to giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit is the forbearing of one another in love.

46:34 Here, forbearance is said to be a grace exercised in the context or as an expression of love. This forbearance has as its native soil and its heir that love which is the fruit of the Spirit. Again, in Colossians 3, 12 and 13.

47:01 Colossians 3, verses 12 and 13. Put on, therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another. Long-suffering and forbearing, again, brought into close conjunction, and I remind you that the overarching motif of the next two verses is again the subject of unity, and I relate long-suffering to love, even though it's not explicitly related to it in Ephesians 4, 2, because in 1 Corinthians 13, 4, the first quality of love in action, according to 1 Corinthians 13, the great love chapter, what is it? After showing the supremacy of love above all gifts,

48:06 verse 4, love suffers long. First thing he says about love is love suffers long. Whatever love does in the context of suffering, it bears up over the long haul. And so I say we need, if we're to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, the grace of forbearing and long-suffering love,

48:43 that grace of self-restraint under provocation, unwilling to retaliate or to punish promptly. It's what the servant pleaded for with his master in Matthew 18, 29. He says, Bear with me. Be patient with me.

49:02 Be long-suffering with me. Don't exact my debt immediately. It's what God does to impenitent sinners, according to Romans 2 and verse 4. Though God's righteous anger is provoked at the sinner's rebellion, what does God do?

49:21 Romans 2, 4, Despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and long-suffering, not knowing, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. Notice again, Forbearance and long-suffering are the dispositions of God to the impenitent. Everything about you, unconverted man or woman, boy or girl, is crying up to heaven as much as Abel's blood cried from the ground for vengeance. All that you are is an impenitent sinner cries to heaven for God to judge you.

49:59 To prove, To prove your arrogance is exactly what God says it is. Folly of the most criminal kind. But what does God do? He forbears.

50:12 He withholds. He restrains that which he could justly bring upon you. And he suffers long with your impenitence. Your pride, your impenitence, your breaking of his law, your refusal to live to his glory.

50:29 You suck his air, you pour into your lungs. You eat the food that comes off his earth. You occupy space and his world. And yet you don't live to the glory of the God who gives you all things.

50:43 And what does he do? He suffers long with such indignity. What horrible indignity. But he suffers it.

50:53 Now he says it's that grace that must be found in my people. Because there is in my people, that which will cause them, to provoke one another, to irritate one another. And how are they going to meet it? Well, if it is met with an exacting justice, can there be any unity?

51:14 For in many things we all offend. But if the grace of forbearing and long-suffering love is present, then we can hold to one another. Even when the hand that I'm holding is joined to a person whose ways and attitudes and at times his words and actions may justly provoke me, that I refuse to break the bond at the first provocation. I'm prepared to what?

The Nature of Forgiving Love

51:51 Suffer long and to forbear. And likewise, forgiving love in relationship to unity, look quickly at Ephesians 4. And I can see these will be the only graces we'll have opportunity to look at this morning. Ephesians 4, verse 31.

52:14 After the command, grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. He then zeroes in upon these sins. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and railing be put away from you with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other as God also in Christ forgave you.

52:42 Be ye therefore imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love, even as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for an odor of a sweet smell. He moves from the injunction of a forgiving spirit to this focused emphasis upon walking in the love that mirrors the self-giving love of God himself. This close relationship between forgiving love and the maintenance of unity among the people of God. Colossians 3, again, verse 14a says, love is the bond of perfectness. It is that which holds us together and it must in the language of 1 Peter 4, 8 be fervent love among ourselves for love shall cover a multitude of sins. Not a multitude of faults. The standard word for sin is used.

53:59 Things that in our brethren and in ourselves are actually falling short and missing the mark of God's standard of perfection. But not sins of such a nature that warrant rebuke let alone discipline. The many, many, many sins with which we find ourselves encompassed while we are yet in this present life. Fervent love will cause each one of us to have what I called some years ago an internal blanket factory where all the time we're turning blankets off the loom of our hearts by the power of the Holy Ghost. Not to embroider on those blankets the sins of our brethren and hang them up as banners for all to see. But blankets with which we can throw something over the sins of our brethren so that we do not look upon them to be provoked let alone to parade them before others. Fervent love for what does love do?

55:14 It covers a multitude of sins. And again how we see this grace of forbearing, long-suffering, forgiving love exemplified in our Lord Jesus. How He manifested it to His own constantly putting up with their ignorance. With their bull-headedness and with their thick-headedness again and again they understood not it says they understood not.

55:44 O faithless generation how long shall I bear with you bring Him to me. And how He manifested it even to the ungodly. Father forgive them for they know not what they do. And think of how He manifested to us.

Application: The Church's Immune System and the Call to Christ

56:02 I frankly don't understand how anyone who's been a Christian for a year and is in touch with anything of the reality of his own life cannot find it in his heart to be forbearing and long-suffering and forgiving to his brethren. I don't understand it. How does the Lord Jesus treat you? How does He treat me?

56:28 When I've got to come to Him again and again sometimes for the same thing perhaps many times in one day. And yet He suffers long. He forbears and He forgives. There will always be irritants disappointments, grievances.

56:49 As I again sought to illustrate it I couldn't help but think of how the human body operates. God has wonderfully made the human body that when it is healthy it has a very effective immune system. And when the signal goes that a foreign virus or bacteria has entered it is not in the best interest of the body it immediately goes to work and calls up the Home Guard calls up the National Defense and they begin to attack those invaders and seek to destroy them. And a healthy body God alone knows how many otherwise deadly or debilitating diseases we might all have if it were not for our immune system. But we're all aware of what happens when that immune system is destroyed. AIDS. That virus that breaks down the body's ability to call up a National Guard when an invader comes and the invader comes and no one is there to hinder it.

57:55 And so the body becomes overcome in many cases with a host of diseases that eventually take someone to an early grave. It's a tragic thing. Tragic thing. But I'll tell you something more tragic.

58:11 When a congregation gets spiritual AIDS a congregation that once had a healthy autoimmune system a congregation in which the graces of loneliness and meekness joined to forbearing long suffering forgiving love enabled that congregation to kill the viruses of irritation ill will gossip malice backbiting what Paul says devouring one another. But when those graces are ignored and overlooked and not sought and something happens in a church where that immune system breaks down my friend what a horrible thing because we all every one of us carry about all kinds of debilitating bacteria and viruses. It's called indwelling sin. It's called the flesh. It's called remaining sin.

59:26 And if we are to dwell together and interact together what a horrible thing it will be if we're left with no defenses. And if we then are to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace then we must in giving diligence to maintain that unity in the bond of peace consciously deliberately prayerfully cultivate both the grace of lowliness and meekness and the grace of forbearing long suffering and forgiving love. And if you are here this morning as a non-Christian I've already sought to address your conscience I want to address it again. These are graces that you can never work up of yourself unless you are united to the Lord Jesus in whom these graces find their perfect expression and embodiment. You can never know them. He said severed from me you can do nothing any more than a branch cut off from the main vine can bear fruit.

60:44 There is no living organic union. So unless you are united to Christ you'll go on in your soul destructive pride. You'll never know true loneliness. You'll go on in your self defensiveness and your vindictiveness.

61:02 You'll never know true meekness. And you will go on with a short fuse ready to defend yourself ready to strike out at others ready to hold your grudges and your heart will be a horrible sink of polluted vile and wretched things that are a stench in the nostrils of God. My unconverted friend you need to go to the Lord Jesus and tell him you can't have these things unless you have him. And we who are his children need to go to him again and again gaze upon him that looking upon him we will be transformed into his likeness and then cry to him that he would give us increasing measures of these graces. God willing we'll address two other major graces that I had hoped to address this morning. May the Lord enable us to take what we have been given and prayerfully to apply it and by the grace of God to grow in these graces that we might maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.