Walking Worthy: Humility, Gentleness, Patience, and Love

And a global gospel impact far beyond their size. Why? All because unity was preserved in the bond of peace. Not by power, not by dominance, not by perfect agreement, but by humility, gentleness, patience, and love. This is how we live out this calling among one another. [01:28:59] (29 seconds)  #UnityThroughHumility

So this call upon our lives is for every one of us, and our confession is to line up with our living. We've seen enough confessional Christianity that says the right things, but what we need to see is a incarnational Christianity where we are living and walking in what the scripture has taught us. And Paul writes here, he says, I am urging you. I am encouraging you. I'm aiming to push you forward in the reality to live in a manner worthy of this great gift of salvation that has been given to you. [00:40:38] (47 seconds)  #IncarnationalFaith

We live in humility with one another. We are gentle with one another. We are patient with one another, and we endure together by loving one another. Love endures people rather than discarding them. Love absorbs the cost at times to preserve the good of the body. Love is not approving of everything. That's not genuine love. But love refuses to abandon and give up people even when they are wrong. [01:19:02] (39 seconds)  #LoveThatEndures

Secondly, this quality of gentleness Paul talks about with all gentleness. This interesting word here. It's a word that the Greeks use that talked about strength that is restrained. It's got it's somebody who has great powerful authority and yet they choose to restrain it and not exercise it with pride. It is power under control for the good of others. [00:58:05] (34 seconds)  #StrengthUnderControl

Now, let me define humility for us for a moment. Humility is not, oh, I'm just not gonna I'm I'm just I'm just not gonna think of myself. Now, we are to think of ourselves, but we are to think of ourselves rightly. But humility is simply this. Humility is thinking of ourselves less in light of who Christ is and also in light of doing good for others in the room. [00:53:43] (32 seconds)  #OthersCenteredHumility

In humility, God exalts. In pride, we exalt. And so in a church, when humility is valued, it's to be seen as a strength, not a weakness. It becomes a very soil in which unity and truth and love for one another and love for God's word takes root. When humility is valued, the word of God in a church sits above everyone in the church including the leaders. [00:56:41] (30 seconds)  #HumilityCultivatesUnity

Patience looks like this. It means enduring people's weaknesses without quitting on them. And sometimes that's a hard one to do. Paul connects it directly to unity. I believe churches often fracture when people are short-tempered, but I believe people hang together and churches hang together when people grow strong, when we are long tempered with one another. [01:10:07] (27 seconds)  #PatienceSustainsUnity

So Paul knew that God was in control and so he was okay with what God was allowing. At times, sometimes we struggle with this. Something enters into our lives and we're not ready for it and we wrestle with that. Paul saw his life not shut in a Roman prison cell, but he saw himself as with God in Rome. God was still his companion. Paul was not alone, and so he was yielding to this reality. [00:37:01] (30 seconds)  #WithGodInTrials

One of the earliest and largest Protestant missionary movements came out of that, where people came out of that and took the gospel to The Caribbean, to Africa, to Greenland, and The Americas. And a global gospel impact far beyond their size. Why? All because unity was preserved in the bond of peace. Not by power, not by dominance, not by perfect agreement, but by humility, gentleness, patience, and love. This is how we live out this calling among one another. [01:28:46] (41 seconds)