Good evening, everyone. So we're going to talk about gentleness today. I want to start us off by asking the question, where does gentleness rank on your fruits of the spirit list?
! You know, if you're thinking about fruits of the spirit, you go, ah, well, love. I mean, gotta have that one. God is love, right? Joy. I mean, who doesn't want joy in their life?
Okay, so that's number two. Joy. I mean, peace. A lot of people pray for peace, think peace would be pretty good. And if you were even here two weeks ago, David Brown was talking about self-control.
And he mentioned self-control as kind of a foundation for almost all of the other fruits of the spirit. So you start to make a list and you go, ah, well, not top three. Does gentleness crack the top five?
And you start to think, oh, well, it's kind of way down there. The good news is when Paul is listing the fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5, he doesn't list them in order of priority.
He is saying, hey, all of these are important for the Christian life, whether it's love or gentleness. All of these are important.
And so we all know that and we acknowledge that. But when it really comes down to it, we go, ah, but that's really hard, Seth.
And I understand completely. I am not a gentle person. See, when we think of gentleness, a lot of times we like to think of this picture right here.
I call this picture Renaissance Mary, or if you have a better accent than me, Renaissance Mary.
See, this Mary, who we kind of think of, right, when we think of gentleness, she's very poised. She's very calm.
This Mary, you look like you could come up to her very gently and say, Mary, I am so sorry. I just ran over your dog.
And she would go, God bless you. That's okay.
See, this is what we think of when we think of gentleness.
But we just never can attain to this. Instead, I like to think of myself, at least, as more Byzantine Mary.
So this is a picture of Mary from Byzantine, and it's a little far away.
But if you can peer into Byzantine Mary's eyes, she looks like she is so done.
She looks like if the little baby Jesus there reaches up his hand and touches her, one more face,
she is going to be not only on the edge, but she's going to be pushed over that edge and screaming bloody murder.
She looks completely done.
And this is not how we respond a lot of the times, right?
At least for me, in general, I, when responding to people not with Renaissance Mary,
but rather Byzantine Mary style, of being very upset and very just mute and honestly right on the edge with people.
Well, so how? How can we go from responding like Renaissance Mary to Byzantine Mary?
Well, it's the entire reason why I labeled this talk and titled it Back to the Future,
is that we need to go back and understand where we have come from
to then understand how we can be gentle as we understand our future as well.
So as we dive into this, let's start with the question, why be gentle?
So I know I kind of asked the question earlier about how can we be gentle,
and I kind of switched it around on you right here, and I'm saying why, but I think the why question is important.
If we don't understand why, what would happen here is that we would go, you know, 20 minutes here,
I'd tell you how to be gentle, you'd go out of the doors, and you would try really hard, two days.
I mean, if you're really good, three days.
But then something would happen.
You'd mess up.
We're all human, right?
And then, once you've messed up, you'd say, ah, maybe this just isn't me.
I'm not a gentle person.
You'd forget about it.
But if we know why we're supposed to be gentle, well, that can transform the how.
So why?
Why should we be gentle?
Well, it's a very churchy answer, but the answer is Jesus.
We should be gentle because Jesus was gentle.
See, Matthew 11, 29, Jesus describes himself as gentle.
He says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
See, Jesus here has an opportunity to describe himself.
And what does he say?
He could have said he's powerful.
He could have said that, you know, he's God.
And he says, I am gentle and humble.
I am gentle and lowly, if you choose a different translation.
And see, his gentleness comes out in many ways.
In the Old Testament, you look at Isaiah 41 through 2, it says,
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for.
Basically, the people have rebelled against God.
And while they're in exile, God says, listen, I know you deserve this, but I am going to act gently towards you and give you,
I'm going to free you from this captivity here in a little while.
See, it's in the New Testament.
If you go to the New Testament, well, you just have to look at the person of Jesus, right?
We already talked about he describes himself as gentle and lowly in Matthew 11.
In John 8, there is a woman who's caught in adultery.
The Pharisees catch her in the act of adultery, bring her before Jesus, and say,
Master, the law says that you have to stone her, and that we should stone her.
What do you say?
And Jesus, he kneels down, writes something in the sand, and then says,
You who are without sin, you go ahead and cast that first stone.
Well, one by one, the people, the Pharisees, they start to trickle off.
Jesus looks up, it's just the woman there.
And he says, oh, in almost a sarcastic tone, oh, no one can stone you.
Well, I don't condemn you either.
Go and sin no more.
See, Jesus, this woman deserved death, and yet Jesus' gentleness overflows into her being spared.
Just before Matthew 11 is Matthew 9, Jesus is going through the countryside,
and he sees the people, and he looks at them and has compassion on them.
See, he sees the crowd and loves them so much that he starts to heal them.
That's what his gentleness leads to, is him healing people.
And actually, I would say that Jesus' healing is actually his greatest showing of gentleness.
But not physical healing, like he does in Matthew 9,
but in healing our relationship to the Father.
See, at one point in time, we have all decided that we wanted to be God, right?
It's what the Bible calls idolatry.
We decide that we know better than God, so we sin.
This sin separates us from God.
I mean, Romans 3.23 says,
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
And so since we have sinned, we need somebody to set us right.
That act of setting right is called justification.
Christians for centuries have called it justification.
And we need justification.
And how do we get it?
Jesus.
Jesus is our justification.
He lived the perfect life.
He took our place on the cross.
And because he took our place, Romans 5.1 says,
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith,
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
See, but there's something interesting here.
I don't know if you caught it, if you're listening.
Romans 5.1 there, the tense of the verb.
Paul says that we have been justified.
This is a past act.
It's accomplished.
So what does that mean right now?
What does that mean for Jesus?
That's the question that we have to ask ourselves.
What is Jesus doing now?
Is he hit retirement age?
Is he 66, collecting his pension, sitting by the pool, drinking mocktails,
and about to go play 18 with Elijah and Moses?
While I would love to see Jesus play golf,
so I can maybe take a few strokes off of my own game,
that's not what's happening here.
See, Hebrews 7.25 says that Jesus right now
isn't just hanging out in heaven chilling,
but instead is interceding for us.
It says,
Consequently, he's able to save to the uttermost
those who draw near to God through him,
since he always lives to make intercession for them.
See, Jesus' job is not done.
He doesn't just give us this path to new life,
this justification,
and say,
Hey, here it is.
Figure it out.
No, he is walking alongside us as we go along.
He lives to constantly make intercession for us.
Now, I want to say something to make something clear.
This does not mean that justification is not fully complete.
But instead, through intercession,
Jesus is applying constantly what justification accomplished.
Again, this does not mean that justification is not complete.
Once we are saved, we are saved.
Jesus has a one-time act.
Jesus has done it.
But intercession, what Jesus is doing now,
once you are a Christian,
once you are saved,
is that he is constantly applying that justification to your life.
And that's great news, right?
Dane Ortland, who wrote the book Gentle and Lowly,
which a lot of this stuff is based off of,
high recommend on the book.
And if you want a copy, we have plenty,
so please come ask.
He says,
the intercession of Christ is his heart,
connecting our heart to the Father's heart.
See, right here, I think that this is something
that you can kind of grasp in your head,
but I honestly think a word picture
and even just a picture up here would be even better.
So I've asked a few friends to come help me.
Lucy, will you come up here?
And Anderson, will you come up here?
Lucy, go ahead and stand on this side.
And Anderson, stand on this side.
So we're going to,
Lucy right here, Anderson there,
we're going to call Lucy God in this instance.
Don't let it go to your head.
We're going to call Anderson here.
Anderson is man.
And so at one point,
this relationship was perfect, right?
It's the very beginning of our Bibles.
But as I said earlier,
men, all of us,
we have decided to sin at one point in time
and it ruined this relationship.
So Jesus, as our justifier,
he comes in and justifies this relationship, right?
He says, no, no, no,
the wrath that he rightly deserves
because he's chosen to be his own God,
it doesn't go to him anymore.
It comes to me
and the grace that I earned
because I lived a perfect life,
me being Jesus in this moment,
goes to Anderson, to man, right?
That's what justification is.
Intercession is almost as if Jesus
is making this relationship right,
but just almost think of him
as turning and looking at God now
and he is saying, hey, hang on.
Not only did I make this relationship right,
but almost as a lawyer,
they would have their client here
say on behalf of this guy here,
I'm actually making intercession
saying that no, no, no, he is right.
I'm interceding for anything
on this guy's behalf.
So that's fantastic, right?
Jesus has got to be the best lawyer around.
But there's one more thing here
that when I was researching
and reading Day Northland's book,
this part kind of blew me away.
See, in this moment right here,
Jesus says that he's not only
our justifier,
he's not only our interceder,
but he is also our advocate.
So not only does he sit here
as the lawyer that says,
hey, this guy is innocent,
he comes and joins this team
and says, we're on the same team,
you can't punish him.
And in fact, it would actually be
unlawful for you to punish him
because the wrath that you had
was actually taken out of time.
Thank you, guys.
Thanks for your help.
We've lost our slides, but that's okay.
So Jesus is our advocate.
He's not only our justifier,
he's not only our intercessor,
but he is indeed our advocate.
1 John 2, 1 says,
my dear children,
I write this to you
so that you will not sin.
But if anybody does sin,
we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous one.
See, this whole goal,
once you become a Christian,
you live this life
and you're supposed to become
more and more like Christ.
This is called sanctification.
This is our goal,
is to become more and more like Christ,
but we will never hit it.
In fact, if you are a new Christian
in the room and you think
or somebody has ever told you
that once you become a Christian
that your sins will,
you will no longer be tempted to sin,
that is a lie.
In fact, there's a lot of older saints
around here today
that I bet you could go and ask
and ask them,
and they would tell you
that when they became a Christian,
it actually got a lot worse,
the temptation did.
See, we need to become
more and more like Christ,
but because we are sinful,
we fail.
But 1 John 2, 1,
it says,
don't worry,
yes, you will sin,
but do not worry
because you have an advocate.
This guy that stands right here
beside you.
And see, he's not just an advocate
that says,
like a lackadaisical advocate, right?
So he doesn't go before God
and he's like,
all right, listen, God,
Anderson, yeah,
he talked back to his parents,
which I never know
never happens right now.
And, but listen,
that's 35 minutes
since his last sin,
and if we do like a year over year,
that's a 27% decrease
over last year
in sin per minute.
And so, honestly,
pretty good investment.
I think you should still keep going.
That's not what God is like at all.
See, instead,
he advocates for us
with a fervor.
I want you to grasp this,
that the angels
who constantly spend time with God,
he advocates for us,
with us so much
that the angels long
to look into this relationship.
They cannot grasp the kind of grace
that God has for us.
The kind of gentleness
that Jesus shows towards us.
Again, Dane Ortlund,
he would say,
we are called
to mature into deeper levels
of personal holiness
as we walk with the Lord.
Truer consecration,
new vistas of obedience,
what we would call sanctification.
But when we don't,
when we choose to sin
through,
though, sorry,
though we forsake
our true identity,
our Savior
does not forsake us.
So why?
Why should we be gentle?
Because we are mimicking
the Savior
who gave up everything
to save us.
See,
the Savior's heart
just overflows
with gentleness
for his creation.
So that's the why question.
We've answered it,
and I promise
that the next few parts
of this how section
will go faster.
I promise we won't spend
that much time
on all of these.
So now we get
to the point.
How?
How can we be gentle?
Well, we have to have
patience
and humility.
See, there's a reason
why patience is listed
as one of the fruits
of the Spirit
in Galatians 5.
Paul is saying
that without gentleness,
or there is no gentleness
without patience.
There's also a reason
why patience
and humility
are also listed together
with gentleness
in Ephesians 4.
Paul says
in Ephesians 4,
1 and 2,
as a prisoner
for the Lord then,
I urge you
to live a life
worthy of the calling
you have received.
Be completely humble
and gentle.
Be patient,
bearing with one another
in love.
So then, okay,
Seth, great.
You've told me things.
You're supposed to tell me
how I'm supposed
to be gentle,
and you've told me
to be patient,
and you've told me
to be humble.
It's not really
a great how-to guide yet.
I'd agree.
So how?
How do we be patient?
How do we be humble?
How do we be gentle?
You have to remember
where you came from.
In about 2016,
Powerade,
which is a sports drink company
owned by the Coca-Cola company,
they started running
these advertisements
called
Just a Kid from Blank.
So it was a call
for these famous athletes
to remember
where they came from.
This one here
is a basketball player.
His name's Derek Rose,
and he's just a kid
from Chicago.
And part of the whole
emotion behind this campaign
was it doesn't matter
or what's really kept
these guys going,
despite Derek Rose
being an all-star,
despite him making
millions and millions
of pounds,
is the fact
that he remembers
where he came from.
See, he grew up
in the slums of Chicago
on the south side.
He at one point
had nothing,
and now
he has everything,
but he doesn't just
get complacent
with having everything.
The thing that keeps
pushing him,
the thing that keeps
driving him forward
is that he remembers
back when he used
to be a kid
with nothing,
and he wants to make
a better life
for himself
in the future.
Now, obviously,
Powerade is trying
to evoke some emotions
inside of us
to monetize
and make money,
but the sentiment,
the premise,
remains.
How do we,
as Christians,
be gentle,
patient,
humble
to those around us,
to an undeserving boss,
to impatient parents?
We remember
who we were
before Christ
saved us.
Remember,
Paul describes us
as enemies
of God.
We weren't neutral
to God.
We were actively
fighting against him,
and when we remember
that,
remember how much
God loves us,
how much Jesus'
gentleness
overflows to us,
we remember that
that changes
how we respond
to other people,
right?
It's point one.
Point two,
how can we be gentle?
We need to remember
our inheritance.
See,
we can be gentle
and should be encouraged
to be gentle
because it's actually
strength.
Again,
we can be gentle
because it's actually
strength.
In one of his most
famous discourses,
Jesus goes on top
of the Sermon on,
what we call
the Sermon on the Mountain,
he goes on top
of the mountain,
and he basically
reframes
all of Jewish thinking
at this time.
He says,
you have heard it said,
but I say to you.
And in this
famous discourse,
at the very beginning,
he says,
blessed are the meek,
for they shall
inherit the earth.
Meek here
is just another translation
for the word
gentleness.
Blessed are the gentle,
for they shall
inherit the earth.
See,
this may have been
opposite,
and was opposite,
to what the people
around him
were seeing,
right?
But Jesus
is redefining
success
for the people
around him.
So you may have
heard it said
that this Roman rule
that we are under
will never end.
You may have heard
it said that
this empire
will keep expanding
and expanding
through war,
through terror,
through slavery.
But Jesus
says,
not yet.
Let me actually
redefine what
is going to
happen here.
And for his
Jewish audience,
Matthew 5 here
would have
actually taken
them to a
passage in
the Old
Testament,
which was a
Psalm of David,
Psalm 37,
which says,
in just a little
while,
the wicked
will be no
more,
but the meek
shall inherit
the land.
The wicked
plots against
the righteous
and gnashes
his teeth
at him,
but the Lord
laughs at
the wicked,
for he sees
that his
day is coming.
Have you ever
shared something
you're passionate
about with
someone and
they have
laughed in
your face?
Whether it's
Star Wars
or knitting
or football
or whatever,
have you ever
shared something
you're passionate
about and the
person that
you're sharing
with looks
back at you
and laughs?
Makes you feel
small, doesn't it?
Makes you feel
insignificant when
it has happened
to me,
I just want
to crawl up
into a little
ball and just
dissolve into
the carpet.
Just pray that
the Lord would
take me in that
moment, actually.
But see,
here in this
moment right here,
wickedness is
gathering its
greatest army.
He's gathering
his best men
all together
and saying,
hey, if we
play our cards
right, we
might just
have a chance.
And then in
that moment
when they've
all gathered
for war,
and in the
moment when you
would say it
would be the
climax of a
movie, swords
drawn, armies
are about to
meet, everybody's
looking, everybody's
excited, Jesus
stops the battle.
How ridiculous,
right?
Jesus laughs at
wickedness, laughs in
its face, and says,
is this all you
have?
Really?
This is all you
can muster.
See, I created
you.
I own you.
And you, who
think you have
amassed a great
army and own
this world, you
will inherit
nothing.
But instead, I
will give your
inheritance to the
gentle that you
trampled over for
all of your
life.
So the reward for
gentleness is an
inheritance greater
than anything we can
ever imagine.
And that is how we
fight brutality,
hatred,
impatience,
force in our own
lives and people
against us, is that
we remember the
inheritance that we
will have.
We don't live for
this life, but the
life to come.
All right, last one
here, and then we'll
wrap up.
You should, oh,
sorry, that was
Psalm 37.
You should look for
gentleness in every
believer.
So this is not
necessarily answering
the question of how,
but this is just
helping us understand a
little bit more of
what gentleness looks
like.
Colossians 3.12 says,
therefore, as God's
chosen people, holy
and dearly loved,
clothe yourselves with
compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness,
and patience.
Again, literally, this
should remind us of
putting on clothes,
right?
Just how you put your
shirt and trousers on
in the morning, you
need to put on these
attributes.
You need to put on
gentleness.
You need to put on
patience.
You need to put on
humility.
And if you look at the
text right there before,
at the very beginning,
Paul says, as God's
chosen people.
So this means, if you're
a Christian, these
attributes should describe
you.
And these aren't just
attributes that you
show towards other
Christians either, by
the way.
Titus 3.1-2, Paul makes
sure to let us know that
these are attributes that
you show to the world
out there.
Remind the people to be
subject to rulers and
authorities, to be
obedient, to be ready to
do whatever is good, to
slander no one, to be
peaceable and considerate,
and always to be gentle
towards everyone.
Everyone means your
mom.
Everyone means your
boss.
Everyone means the
doctor that keeps
overlooking you and
won't give you your
results back.
Everyone means
everyone.
And before we go, I
just want to make a
second and specific
point that kind of
comes off of this one.
See, gentleness is an
attribute of every
Christian, absolutely.
But as the
congregation, you need
to look out and be
aware that gentleness
should be apparent in
leaders as well.
See, we're going
through 2 Timothy in
the morning at church,
right?
Timothy is a pastor, and
2 Timothy is a little
bit older, and 1
Timothy is a pretty
young protege of Paul.
He's pastoring a church
in Ephesus.
And in both of these
letters, Paul warns
Timothy that he has to
be gentle.
To Timothy, he says,
opponents must be
gently instructed in
the hope that God will
grant them.
In his first letter,
Paul says, but you,
man of God, flee from
all of this and pursue
righteousness, godliness,
faith, love, endurance,
and gentleness.
I don't think it's a
coincidence that in the
two letters that we have
of Paul writing to a
young leader in the
church, both of them
mention gentleness.
So it doesn't matter if
you're just the leader of
the hospitality team, or
you're just a leader in
your home, or an elder of
the church.
Gentleness must mark our
lives.
holiness.
So in conclusion, how do we
be gentle?
How do we go from Byzantine
Mary, if you go all the way
back to the beginning of our
sermon here, how do we go from
Byzantine Mary on the right to
Renaissance Mary there on the
left?
Well, see, if you're not a
believer in the room, it won't
be possible.
See, you will try and try, but
you will fail.
No matter how hard you try, you
will never get this relationship
right.
So stop trying.
Instead, let Jesus be your
justifier.
Let him be your intercessor.
Let him be your advocate.
He wants to have relationship
with you.
All you have to do is ask.
But for the Christian, how do we
do this?
Well, we just have to model what
Jesus taught us.
We have to go back to the
future.
We have to remember Christ's love
for us.
We have to remember how sinful we
have been, and then we look to
the promise of our inheritance in
the future.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you, Lord, for your
word that is living and active.
God, we thank you that you loved
us.
Lord, that you are indeed our
justifier, intercessor, and
advocate.
God, we thank you that you've done
these things and that gentleness
just overflows from you.
Lord, help us as we try and be
gentle throughout our next week,
month, year.
Lord, help us to remember these
things.
Lord, more than anything, help us
to remember your sacrifice and how
it should radically change our
lives.
Pray all this in your name.
Amen.
Thank you.