[0:00] A unity in a church. And, you know, the question was, and I'm going to get to this in a little bit, is that, is it better to be a nice person or a good person?
[0:12] You know, the good person is a peacemaker. Sometimes they say the things and do the things that are not popular, but are necessary. The nice person sometimes will be the peace lover.
[0:26] And so that's a peace at any price. And that's not necessarily the loving thing to do. So we were joking. And, of course, Crawford says, don't worry. I'm paraphrasing. I'll tell you everything you need to know as honestly as possible.
[0:38] And I love that. Thank you. Today we're going to be in Ephesians chapter 4. I'm going to try to work through verses 1 to 24. And we'll finish up Ephesians 4 next week.
[0:50] There's a book that was written by Charles Sheldon. It was published in 1896 called In His Steps.
[1:02] And I don't know if anybody here has read it before or you've heard it before, but it is one of those absolute solid gold reads as a Christian. It asks the question, and this is where it comes from.
[1:14] If you grew up in high school in the 90s or in the 80s, you would have been familiar with the bracelets, WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? It doesn't come from that movement. It actually comes back from Charles Sheldon here.
[1:27] What would Jesus do? We have to ask ourselves that question all the time. And the book is just simply this, that it takes the snapshot of a few different lives that are not necessarily connected together by work or family or anything like that.
[1:41] Different people from different walks of life that have to ask themselves, what would Jesus do? And they do a challenge. For a little while, they do it. Some of them lost their jobs.
[1:53] Some of them lost clients. Some of them lost friends. Other ones gained work or found friends, found clients. What would Jesus do is a question we have to ask ourselves, especially when it comes to church unity.
[2:07] So, for the first three chapters of Ephesians, we've been going through, and the general theme, if I were to attempt to look at it this way, is identity.
[2:19] Who are you? Who are you in the Lord? What does he have for you? What plan has he put you here for on this earth? And Paul now moves into a little bit more of why that is important.
[2:33] What do we do now with church? How do we take that identity of who we are in Christ, who God is making us to be, and how do we all sit in the same church and get along?
[2:46] Hopefully, by asking ourselves a question more often than not, what would Jesus do? And I said in the discipleship class, too, that we have to be careful because he did flip tables.
[2:58] You know, there was some moment. There was deep love, deep grace, some table flipping, but it wasn't quick. It wasn't without thought or prayer. So I'm going to dive in here.
[3:11] Verse 1. As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. We have to live like we're saved.
[3:22] We have to live like we have a purpose. This is one of the things that we've been hammering over and over the last three weeks. You are a miracle, and you have a purpose here on earth, in this county, in this town, in this church.
[3:38] It is by no accident that you are sitting here today. The why, that's between you and the Lord. I can't tell you. But what I will say is this. That means something very important to this church.
[3:53] That means that the personalities, the hearts, the histories that he's brought together in this place are for a purpose and a reason. We don't walk this walk as Christians to try and make ourselves worthy of God.
[4:10] Depending on your family or your origin, wherever you come from, whatever family you've been raised in, there might have been a performative thing where it's like, if I just act this way, I will get approval.
[4:22] If I just walk and talk this way, people will like me. That's not why we're called into this purpose. That's not what God is calling us towards. He loves us.
[4:35] Therefore, we want to walk with him. He accepts us. He identified with us. He took our sin upon the cross. Therefore, we are grateful and we want to walk with him.
[4:47] It's a very different attitude to have. Verses two to three say, be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love.
[4:58] Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. This is what a worthy walk looks like. I'm going to read that again. Be completely humble and gentle.
[5:09] Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. Humility is one of those things where you have to know yourself.
[5:27] Know where you start and where you stop. Know enough about yourself to not think too highly of yourself, but also not too lowly of yourself. We can get into a place of false pride where it's like, oh, I'm terrible at everything.
[5:41] Well, that's not true. You're a creation of the creator. He's made you. And maybe you haven't found your thing yet or found your groove yet, but you will. So we can't think too highly.
[5:53] We can't think too lowly. Where do we start thinking? I heard someone say once that you could boil the gospel down to two words. Others first. I don't think it is as simple as that, but I love that it is also pretty close.
[6:08] Others first. Well, when I feel like defending myself, think of others first. When I feel like upholding my ideals over everyone else's, think of others first.
[6:19] That is a way that we can get to a place where we can find humility. The crazy thing about humility is when you think you found it, you probably lost it. I'm so humble, you know.
[6:31] I'm the most humble person in this room. You can hear that. I'm laughing at myself even saying it, right? Because the moment you start down that road, you realize you got some work to do. And I hope I'm not bursting anyone's bubble here.
[6:45] It's like we all have work to do when it comes to humility. We do. Being gentle. It's also being meek. It's like the wind.
[6:57] You know, it can be a gentle breeze, just a cool, soothing breeze. It can also be a tornado. It can be damaging. It can have chaos with it. Being gentle is important.
[7:11] But I heard it once said, not that long ago, that being a good man isn't necessarily being a nice man. And I know you may be thinking, hold on a second. That doesn't mean you have to be unkind.
[7:24] No, that's not what I'm talking about. Being a good man and a good woman means saying and doing the right things regardless of consequence. because you may lose friends.
[7:36] You may lose people. But doing the right thing, saying the right things, speaking the truth in love, being good as Jesus was, trying to be more like him is ideal.
[7:51] I'll say it again, as I said before. A good man or woman is a peacemaker. Sermon on the Mount, Jesus didn't say, blessed are the peace lovers who just want everybody to get along.
[8:07] That's a nice ideal. But he did say, blessed are the peacemakers. And that is messy work. Because sometimes you have to tell people, you know, you're not flying quite right.
[8:20] You got a bit of a wobble in your wing there. Sorry, Roger. I know I'm massacring this metaphor. You got a little bit of a wobble. I'd love to help you with this.
[8:32] And as Derek very wisely pointed out, that, you know, we can speak the truth, but we also have to be willing to receive the truth and hear it as well. Because sometimes that will offend our sensibilities.
[8:44] So we must be humble enough to accept the fact that we might be wrong. We have to be humble enough to accept the fact that someone else may be able to see something more clearly than ourselves.
[8:58] It takes community and it takes unity. Being gentle. Jesus was a gentle man. I mean, you know, I think about it quite often. And I love that we sang that song.
[9:08] What would it be like to breathe the air that Jesus breathes? There was a while there where my prayer was like, oh, Lord, let me just be in your presence.
[9:21] Call me home so that I can just breathe the same air you breathe. To imagine that kind of closeness with our Savior, that beauty, that love, to be understood like no one else can understand you.
[9:32] that love that Jesus gives is pure and beautiful. This is also the same man that fashioned to whip and flip tables when he saw his people being emotionally, financially, and spiritually abused.
[9:48] There is a time to flip tables. And it may not be the nice thing to do, but it is the good thing to do. Then there's patience.
[10:01] Because it's the ability to endure discomfort without fighting back. I bet you we all sit in this room right now where there's moments where we've just been thinking, oh, I'd love to lay hands right now.
[10:13] Right? Oh, I'd love to throw down or I'd love to just kind of feel that sense of retribution, but it is not our way. Because the table flipping was for the righteous anger, not anger that offended Jesus.
[10:30] It's different. I have seen things on mission that have made me angry to my very core. Like angry like I have never been before.
[10:42] And I believe it was a righteous anger. I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't. But there was a part of me inside that was just, no. And I could feel it.
[10:55] And there's other times where I've been angry because somebody cut me off in the road. That's not righteous anger. That's anger that's coming from me. Humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, and unity.
[11:11] The spiritual unity of a home, a Sunday school class, or a church is responsible of every single person here. we are all responsible for this. We don't manufacture unity.
[11:23] It's not something like we could just get together and just sing songs and we'll have unity. That's not what it is. God institutes unity. It's up to you and me to maintain it. And one of the ways we can maintain unity is protect the relationship and protect the ideologies sometimes and protect the character of others in rooms they are not in.
[11:50] Protect one another. Protect one another. Maintain unity. It's important. It is a command. It's something we have to work at.
[12:01] Something we have to cherish. Something that we're told is important here. And even Paul reminds us again and again and again because the very fact that Paul writes this serves as a reminder that conflict can happen in a church.
[12:16] That's pretty normal. It's not abnormal that we're going to have friction when things happen or things are moving along. Especially when a church starts to grow. When new people start to show up and different things like there's ruffled feathers and it's feeling friction.
[12:31] You know? And it's our choice to devolve into childish bitterness or we can step forward and say, yes Lord, I don't get it. I don't understand it. I don't even like it but Lord help me see you in this.
[12:46] There's a proverb here that I found so valuable. The first pastor I've ever had that was actually a pastor that was a mentor showed me this when I asked him about ministry.
[12:58] A guy named Joe a long time ago. Proverbs 14.4 Where there are no oxen the manger is clean. But abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.
[13:09] In other words where there are no people there is no stuff in the barn. Okay? But the church is built to the strength of the ox.
[13:21] You see the difficulty with this? When we love one another and you know this from being in a family sometimes you gotta wade through some knee high stuff from the barn. Right? When you're in church together sometimes you gotta wade through the abundance of the ox.
[13:39] Some of us can say well I don't do that. Well you're supposed to. We're all supposed to. And yes it's smelly it's messy sometimes. Kingdom ministry ministry in general is a messy messy business.
[13:54] Where there are no oxen the manger is clean. If we wanna have a church with no conflict and no friction then we should have a church with no people. And we'll just have AI do some kind of sermon up here too.
[14:07] Completely empty pews maybe little cardboard cutouts. That would probably liken back to what ever happened in COVID and I don't wanna get back to that. So I actually know a guy whose church secretary said he chose to shut down.
[14:21] My church did not but he chose to shut down and he had cardboard cutouts of people as secretary put all over the church so when he was speaking on a Sunday morning he was actually talking to pictures of the people in the congregation.
[14:32] Oh bro that was so sad but I understand. But it's a reminder why we need to have humility gentleness patience bearing with one another in love and unity.
[14:45] The humble and forgiving spirit that we are to have toward one another will naturally organically help the heart of unity if we have a loving approach to one another.
[15:02] You know I wasn't gonna say this but I'll just say this because I'm hoping it'll be an encouragement. Before I took this job I had two guys previously from this pulpit phone to warn me about certain people.
[15:18] Yeah. And I shot them down in flames and you know why I did is because everybody deserves a new start. I wanted to come in with a completely fresh slate not with bias or opinion from someone else whom I am not.
[15:39] And I'm so glad I did. I'm so glad I did. So here's the challenge for you who have been here for 20, 30 years 10, 5 whatever 2 months whatever however long you've been here can you look at one another with a clean slate can you look at each other and just say today's a new day we're gonna do this differently because everybody deserves a fresh start.
[16:08] Something to consider. Because we don't create unity among believers God created it by his spirit it's our duty to recognize it and fan it to flame.
[16:19] And I think sometimes whenever I'm counseling someone I actually what I'll do is I'll say try and figure out where they want to get to I'll work my way back and look at the opposite of what they want because it sometimes brings clarity.
[16:33] So if we were to say well let's look at the opposite of unity unity is not to be patient when sin causes division. Titus 3 is incredibly you know like non-legalistic bare bones rules for someone who is divisive in the body of Christ warn them twice three times kick them out.
[16:55] I didn't write that. How many times do we do that in churches though where we say look you're you obviously hate it here you know why why do you struggle?
[17:07] How can I help you? How can we help each other? How can we be a unified body through this? What is it? Are you not being heard? What is it exactly? Why do you need to burn the roof down to be heard?
[17:19] You see these are questions that we can ask one another in love when we're going through the thick of it so that nobody has to leave nobody has to be asked to leave nobody has to quit because unity is not peace at any price there's a cost to unity it's humility it's love it's patience that's a cost to unity unity is not meant to keep up religious practices at church to control other people it isn't I'm not saying that we do that here but I've had friends that have been bound by things they needed to do because of their particular denomination that every week they were just struggling through it they were thinking we've got to do this because this is who we are this is our denomination I don't know if that was unity because unity is not uniformity you'll notice we didn't all wear the same colored shirt today right nobody had to phone and say yeah the color code today is blue no no no no uniformity is not unity uniformity is trying to force compliance so that everybody is the same walks the same acts the same talks the same reads the same right unity is accepting that we are all incredibly different people and that is actually a strength that's a beauty artists singers writers
[18:49] CPAs pilots man we've got it all here teachers we've got it all it's a beautiful beautiful mix of people it really is and what a strong body it is as a result because if we were all the same we wouldn't challenge one another in the ways we need we wouldn't learn from one another the way that we need I've clearly demonstrated this morning that I need to learn some piloting stuff from Roger because I don't know what I'm talking about with a plane right praise the Lord for that all that being said sometimes it's important to look at what something is not in order to understand what our role is in it Jesus is our unity and I've said it before and I'll say it a million times again is that if you want to look for an example of that in the word look at the lives of the disciples these are 12 men well the 12 core disciples these are 12 men that had no business being around one another completely different individuals you had a couple of guys who were called sons of thunder you know you had a guy who was a zealot who would do anything including murder to rid his nation of
[20:00] Roman occupation and then you have the accountant which of course worked for the Romans and was considered a traitor of his people how did these guys all sleep around the same campfire at night without killing each other Jesus so when we ask ourselves well how are we going to get through church in this next 10 years 20 years without killing each other Jesus he is our unity the more that we become like him the more we are able to love like him to the people around us humbly patiently!
[20:35] speaking the truth in love verses 4 to 10 there is one body one spirit just as you were called to one hope when you were called one Lord one faith one baptism one God and Father over all who is over all and through all and in all but to each one of us grace has been given as Christ appointed it this is why it says when he ascended on high he took many captives and gave gifts to his people what does he ascended mean except that he also descended to the lower earthly regions he who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fulfill or sorry to fill the whole universe we share one body spirit hope Lord faith God and Father over all the one body even though we are many denominations out there in the world I mean I would lose count if I attempted because there are always branches of branches of branches these days and it should be a beautiful thing we have immediately three churches within a little bit of a walk here with more within town but we have three within meeting and it's interesting when we get together for a ministerial meeting it's like there's unity there you can see it hear it feel it there's love there
[22:02] I know I could call either of those pastors up and say you know I need prayer and I need help right now they would drop everything and do it I would do it to them there's a unity there but it's not because we think the same it's not because we agree on everything it's not because we have the same title on the church it's because of Jesus and we all love him so much we want to be more like him there's unity there there's no ego we don't compete I pray all the time that Dylan's church his house is filled you know and he prays that for us too now there's there's a beauty when we look at one body because we also have one spirit we all hopefully have the same Holy Spirit and what that should look like is from this Galatians 5 verses 22 to 24 but the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace forbearance kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control against such things there is no law those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires these should be things that are increasing in our life all the time and if we were to kind of flip it like I was suggesting before to look at the opposite of something okay that means the
[23:21] Holy Spirit is not dislike or hatred though I feel that neither of those is really equal to love in an opposite love has no opposite or equal it stands on its own as far as I'm concerned it does not mean that the Holy Spirit is full of despair or chaos or impatience or unkindness or bad dark-hearted thoughts or faithlessness or brutality or a lack of self-control the Holy Spirit is not in those things does not breed those things so if you find them in your life you need a time of refreshing with the Holy Spirit and you'll be thinking whoa whoa whoa buddy don't judge me well I pray for that myself all the time it's okay to admit it because some days that's just what's called Tuesday morning I wake up and I'm thinking not feeling kind today and I need the Holy Spirit to come and give me a time of refreshing so
[24:21] I can get there we also have one hope the believer who realizes that we have one body and they walk in the Spirit they walk in the hope of the Lord's return we all hope for this we hope that one day he's going to come and make all things right as we read more and more in news that this world is just falling apart into a weird weird chaos as it continues to do so we have one hope in him we share Jesus we have one Lord he died for us he lives for us he prays for us for every single person in this room right now he died for you he lives for you he prays for you and we have that in common we have him in common it should be impossible for us to imagine two believers who worship the same Lord living in disunity it should be impossible but we're human and we're not in heaven yet which means we have to work at this we have to work hard at this we have one faith the early believers recognized a body of basic doctrine they taught it they guarded it they committed it to others second
[25:40] Timothy chapter 2 verse 2 says and the things that you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses and trust to faithful men who will also be able to teach others and we have one baptism that baptism you know I've heard people say well that's you know some kind of trying to draw in the Holy Spirit and baptism the Holy Spirit with that and actually what it means in the original languages was just simply that we don't have a Jewish baptism or a Gentile baptism anymore we have one baptism we have one God and one father and we're to take unity so seriously that we guard it dearly we do we guard it we should guard unity within this church and where we hear fractions or factions or disunity kill it with fire don't do it for the person across from you do it for the Lord stand in the gap and if you need to be the good person versus the nice person be the good person shut it down don't even give it air to breathe protect unity protect each other and do it for Jesus we cannot believe in peace at any price so how do we do church well that's where
[27:04] Paul transitions into now verses 11 to 12 so Christ himself gave the apostles the prophets the evangelists the pastors and teachers to equip his people for the works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up this means Jesus himself established these offices not men Jesus himself established these and Paul describes four offices some people have said well there's the five-fold ministry it's not actually it's a bit of a an unfortunate take on the end one pastors and teachers that's the same role in the original language shepherd is another word for pastor shepherd and teachers okay so we're talking about four ministries that Paul has talked about here the first one is an apostle it's one who is sent on commission now a disciple is a follower of Christ we're all disciples all of us and it should be someone who is learning and teaching at the same time so we're learning about Jesus we're learning from Jesus but we're also teaching somebody else about
[28:11] Jesus that's the role of the disciple could be spouse could be kids you have could be friends that's between you and the Lord there are some who will call themselves apostles today as in the office as it was in the due testament I don't agree with that I do believe that the apostolic gifting is alive and well and you'll find that in different things church planters often have like a little mixed basket of fruit gifts that they work with and that that is kind of an apostolic look but it's not the role of an apostle as we understand it in the new testament that was something special there are prophets there are men and women today who have very special messages for the church but they aren't quite like the prophets of the old testament foundational prophets those are different and when we look at prophetic today I'll just say this if if one of you kind of hear something from the Lord that that church needs to hear please come and share it because it should be open to be able to share these things really because the purpose of prophecy the purpose of the prophetic person as church is to edify and the original language goes back to that word is to build up and sometimes edification education means also tearing down right if you're in any kind of construction project or anything like that and you're going to renovate and you tear down a wall to rebuild it sometimes as opposed to start from scratch there is a role for the prophetic here and now there is the gifts didn't stop in the first century they continued on they continue on now but to call yourself a prophet is a challenging thing we shouldn't do that I actually think that you should be not telling anybody what you're gifting is they should tell you what it is you know it's like if I walk in I'm like you know yes I'm prophet so-and-so like no no but if I move in the prophetic and people keep coming up and saying wow you know like this is really building for the church this is really something that you know I've been praying for that I've seen happen and stuff like that people are telling you that you're moving somehow in the prophetic let's talk about that that's awesome it's not something to shy away from I eat by the way I even have trouble people calling me pastor you know why because it's a calling to me it's something that will live and die being right I don't need the role or the title it's kind of like saying if you're a realtor well you know realtor Bob it's a calling it's something that you know I
[30:54] I was called into when I was 15 years old 16 years old I don't need a title or an office or anything like that to prove that I it's between God and I so if the Lord's put the prophetic in your life and your heart you don't need a title for it start praying and start talking to people about what the Lord is showing you there's also evangelists you know I don't know if you know anybody in here that's particularly an evangelist by title or anything we don't have anybody like that but that I'm aware of because nobody's lacking humility to say I'm evangelist so and so right but there are always going to be people in the crowd that are just particularly really good at sharing the gospel with other people it's like breathing for them it's just so easy and we can learn from them we should learn from them because we're all called to be evangelists we're all called to share the gospel but some people just do it really really well and that's who we can learn from there's also pastors and teachers it's like I said one office with two titles men who pastor the flock of God through teaching the Word of God help people in these positions Jesus set those up it says it right in the Word that
[32:15] Christ set these up for the church help people in this position pray for us it is not easy if you do it for a salary you're going to be disappointed if you do it for fame you're not in the right job if you do it because you have mommy and daddy issues and you need them somehow fulfilled in your church well you're going to hurt people a lot of people know the checklist beside your name when you're called to ministry is long it's long and I don't mean to offend anyone but I'll just say I'm not called to be your friend I'm not I'm called to shepherd this church and I'm called to die for this church if necessary but I'm not called to be your friend I am called however to be your brother and I think that's better and if you need somebody at 2 a.m. to fix your tire I'll come out at 2 a.m. and fix your tire okay but that means sometimes I'm going to be the good man and not the nice man because a brother and a sister we speak the truth to one another even when it hurts so pray for me please don't shoot and you know why I say that I say that simply because well it'll hurt but beyond that I know God called us here I know you did so you can deal with him it's a pastor's responsibility to lead and feed the flock the word of God is the teaching it what guides us and ministers to us the word of God not my word the pastor teacher is called by God to equip the church for ministry and more important than any of these offices is the why he gave them verses 12 to 16 to equip his people for the works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God and become mature attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming instead speaking the truth in love we will grow to become the very respect the mature body of him who is the head that is Christ from him the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work called leaders and there are many of us here are supposed to equip the saints for the work of the ministry for the building up of the body of Christ that is what a pastor teacher must do that is what a leader in our church must do to equip the saints for the ministry I'm not a hireling I'm not employed in that regard I was hired by our board yes but I can tell you right now they went through as much prayer and grueling effort as as Murray and
[35:41] I did in coming here it was it will actually be a year next month to when I was voted in a year next month it's been a while now and it actually started well before that there was a lot of prayer on all ends through the word the pastor is to lead and equip the body of Christ to do the work and we grow as a church by feeding on the word and ministering to one another and that's why I say when I look at all of these offices when I look at all these different things prophets evangelists right when I look at pastors teachers shepherds however you want to look at them when I look at all of these things I see a room full of different people with different giftings upon them I can't wait to see those blossom failure is an event it is not a person so try something and if it doesn't work try something else just don't give up don't give up keep going there's a lot of beauty that's going on here we grow as a church by feeding the word and ministering to one another I think there are four signs of maturity that we either need to work on or working toward or we need to get started with first measure of Christian maturity is
[37:02] Christ likeness be like Jesus to one another be willing to wash one another's feet serve one another love one another pray for one another Christ likeness is the first aspect of Christian maturity that I think stands out the most Jesus does not gossip he is not bitter he is not boastful he is not prideful he does not try and have his own kingdom but he does the will of his father no Christ likeness is a calling to die to yourself a thousand little times over the course of your lifetime Christ likeness is a measure of maturity in the Christian life if you are not moving towards him you're moving backwards because staying still is not moving the second measure of Christian maturity is stability so you're not tossed around by every little thing that comes on Instagram or every little idea or wind of doctrine or things like that that'll kind of prime pull you away from the word of God the mature Christian or maturing
[38:03] Christian more accurate to say is someone who is stable in their pursuit of the Lord through his word letting the Lord's word mold our lives the third measure would be truth joined with love and I've heard it said before the truth without love is brutality and love without truth is error I read it by Warren Wearsby but I don't know where he got it I'm sure he got it somewhere else but truth without love is brutality and love without truth is error Proverbs 27 verse 6 says wounds from a friend can be trusted but an enemy multiplies kisses I can take a pretty good beating from someone I know who loves me you know but it's really obvious when someone just flowers you with kisses and they hate you it's really obvious so don't do that to one another love one another with truth love one another with faithfulness love one another with reality don't fake it till you make it it's way more obvious than you think the fourth measure of I believe a maturing Christian is cooperation we all belong to the same Lord we have one baptism one father overall we're in this church cooperate there are no little kingdoms here there's one kingdom and it's God's protect the unity of his kingdom at all costs be a brother and sister to one another be loving to one another be real to one another and just know that cooperation is a part of that you know I didn't actually say you got to like everybody right you don't have to have you know a rotating lock screen with everybody's face that you see every morning as you pick up your phone you don't have to do that but love is a higher call and I think it's what we're called to towards when we consider unity
[40:08] I'm just going to read next few verses here and I'll close verses 17 to 24 so I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking they are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts having lost all sensitivity they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity and they are full of greed that however is not the way of the life that you learned when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus you were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to be then to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness we no longer walk with a darkened mind we walk with the Lord and that means something it means something significant we can't try and copy the world to fit in and there's an uncomfortable thing in Christianity that you can see in many many churches where it's like we want approval from the world well if we just act a little more like the world we'll get the world to come in
[41:34] Jesus didn't operate that way he never shied away from who he is he never tried to you know have something that was you know a watered down version he just spoke the truth with love and I think we ought to keep on that path don't walk the way the world walks Paul doesn't give us a list of rules like you got to read your Bible 30 minutes every day you got to pray for 30 minutes every day and you have to call a friend and talk with him for 30 minutes every day good for you if you do great but Paul's not setting up rules for us like this because it goes much deeper the old man and the old woman that we've been living with we need to put off that's the same terminology as taking off a cloak or taking off a jacket or taking off clothes put off the old man which means it's a choice you and I have to make every day choose to not walk with the world choose to not walk in the darkening of our thinking choose to not walk in bitterness choose to walk in a new life with Jesus choose to put on him that's a choice we have to make and it's not about a feeling we don't have to wait to start walking until we feel it we just do it put off the old put on the new choose today to live different choose unity choose to guard the reputation of others when they're not around choose to do what Jesus would do let's pray let's pray