Trinity Baptist Church

Walking Worthy!

The Lowly Walk, Part 6

Ephesians 4:2

 

We are learning, hopefully, how to do what Paul begs his hearers to do in Ephesians 4:1 and that is walk worthy of our calling as Christians.  All of us have known the frustration of seeing someone fail in their Christian walk.  Not only is that disappointing to us as believers, it is detrimental to the cause of Christ and the church.

 

It is imperative that we accurately demonstrate Christianity before a lost world if they will ever see the difference Christ makes in a life.  And not only is it an authentic witness, it is the best life you could ever live and far as knowing the blessing of God.

 

And that’s why Paul is making the appeal that he is to the Ephesians.  Now what we often fail to realize, and what Paul is pointing out is the heart of the issue is a series of inner attitudes that characterize the believer. Long before we ever act right on the outside there needs to be developed within us the mind and attitude of Christ.

 

That means living the Christian life is not primarily an issue of simply what you do.  Much more, it is the issue of what you are. When someone becomes a Christian, we tend to say to them, “Now that you're a Christian you need to read the Bible and learn to pray and attend church and share your faith.”

 

And all of that is right and true, but how often do we instruct new believers about what they are to be inwardly in attitude and resonse?

I’m afraid not very often. But that is exactly what the Apostle Paul is doing here.  He is saying, “Now that you're a Christian and now that you have been so wonderfully blessed by God, I want you to know how the person you have become acts.”  And then he talks about nothing but the inner man by giving five characteristics of that inner man.

 

We’ve already learned they are progressive and they lead to the concept of unity. So Paul is saying, “This is where it all starts.”  If you want to walk worthy of your calling, then first of all you must develop total humility in everything

 

And total humility leads to gentleness or meekness which is a quiet willing submission to God and others.  It is power or strength brought under the control of God.  It never retaliates or reacts or revenges anything done to itself, only God. In fact, I think it safe to say that gentleness is the most obvious expression of humility.

 

Now tonight we see what happens next.  When we are living a life of total humility that is brought under the control of God, the result is what Paul identifies as being

 

 

What does it mean to be long suffering?  The word literally means to be long tempered.  I first thought that meant you got to get mad and stay mad!  But to be long tempered or long suffering means you don't blow up.  You don't have a short fuse.  You don't fly off the handle easily.  It’s also translated as patience or endurance.

 

Now it has three main ideas that help us understand the concept.  First, long-suffering is the attitude which

 

 

It doesn't matter how bad the circumstances are,  long-suffering never gives in. That attitude is greatly illustrated in the Word of God.  The word is used in Hebrews 6:15 to describe Abraham. Abraham received a promise from God that in him all the nations would be blessed and that God would multiply the seed of Abraham as the sands of the sea.  And verse 15 says of Abraham that he “patiently endured."

 

Now here's an illustration of a man who endured negative circumstances and never lost his patience. God says to him, you're going to have descendents as many as the sand of the sea coming from your loins, and he never had had any, his wife was barren, they never had one kid and he was over 90. But he believed God and he patiently endured.

 

He just hung in there and believed God and believed God in the midst of very negative circumstances, a barren wife and old age. And what happened? God gave him that promise.

 

And then there was Noah.  God said to Noah to build a boat in the desert because there was going to be a flood.  At that point there had never even been any rain.  But eventually it did.  And for 120 years, Noah patiently endured.  He was long-suffering.

 

 

Then there was Moses.  It is written of Moses that he would rather endure the afflictions of the people of God than the pleasures of sin for a season.  That’s long-suffering.  It is the ability to take any kind of circumstance and never give up and never bail out and never get angry and never lose control.

 

Think about the prophets.  God said to Jeremiah, “I want you to preach all your life long.:  Nobody’s going to listen to you or respond and the nation is going to go right on into terrible evil in spite of what you say.”

 

But old Jeremiah was faithful. He endured hatred, persecution, rejection and unbelief.  He spent most of his life in tears.  He’s known as the weeping prophet.  But he was long-suffering.

 

Isaiah experienced the same thing.  God said, “Isaiah, here's your message.  Preach it but know this:  In spite of what you say, the nation is going to go deeper and deeper into sin.”  Long-suffering.

 

And think about Paul. Paul's on his way to Jerusalem in Acts 20 and he says, “I know that everywhere I go the Holy Spirit tells me that bonds and afflictions await me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself. I just want to finish the course and the ministry which Jesus has given me.”

 

In essence, He says, “I'll endure anything to accomplish God's purposes, I'm not out to protect myself or save my own skin.  I'm just going to be faithful.”

 

Long-suffering. It is the ability to patiently endure the negative circumstances no matter what they are.

 

Not only is it the attitude that can endure negative circumstances but it is the attitude that can

 

 

Sometimes the problem in life isn't our circumstances.  It's the people around us and you have to be long-suffering.  This same word is used in Scripture to speak of patience with people as well as patience with circumstances.

 

For example in 1 Thessalonians 5:14 we are told to “Be patient toward all men." This is the spirit that refuses to retaliate to people.  It is gentleness lived out and applied.  It is saying, “I don't care what insult, what injury, what persecution, what unfair treatment, what slander, what criticism, what hatred, what jealousy, what envy, what accusation comes my way.  I don't care what it is that you throw at me I, I can accept that without bitterness or getting irritated or complaining.

 

Boy that's tough, isn't it? You know something? You can't start a fight with a person like that.  You're stuck with living at peace.

 

It's so easy to get defensive and try to defend yourself.  But do you know what defending yourself says?  It says, “It is important what I am and what I do and that I be accepted.”

 

Listen:  that is not important.  Remember, gentleness is only offended by God being dishonored.

And unfortunately, nost of us act like we’re more important than God and we mean more to us than does He.  We are quick to defend ourselves and set the record straight when someone’s messing with our name and our reputation and our status.

 

But that is not important.  Long-suffering can take anything anybody dishes out.  Listen:  I know myself to well to be offended and defensive.  I know who I am.  Go ahead and say what you want to about me.  I’m in absolute agreement.  In fact, go ahead an believe what you hear about me because it’s probably not nearly as bad as I really am!

 

Why should I be defensive?  I am totally insignificant. My feelings don’t matter.  After all, I am to live my life dead to self.  Therefore, I want to learn to just spend my time defending God. I'd much rather run around being occupied with that.

 

That’s what Paul is talking about when he instructs his hearers to be long-suffering.  That’s a part of walking worthy.  It endures any kind of negative circumstances and it can take anything anybody dishes out. After all, they just may be right, and if they are, I need to listen and if they’re wrong, that’s okay too, because I’ve been wrong a time or two myself.

 

Then there's third element to it.  Long-suffering is also used in the New Testament to speak of the attitude that

 

 

Long-suffering doesn't question circumstances, it can endure them.

It doesn't question people, it can take people.  And thirdly it doesn't question God.

 

Now we are talking about the kind of patience that says, “Lord if this is what is you have for me right now, that's okay.”

 

I would say Jesus is the sum total of all these.  Watch Jesus in negative circumstances.  He comes into the world and all He's ever known is the pristine majesty and the glory of heaven, all He's ever known in His pre-incarnate times was face to face fellowship with God the Father.  For all eternity past, all He's ever known is a marvelous kind of intimacy.

 

Then all of a sudden He comes into this world and from an environment of total love and worship and sovereignty where all of the heavens did nothing but praise His name, He comes to a world with men who spit on Him, and mock Him and curse Him and do to Him all those things that men did to Him.

 

And yet, right up to His death on the cross, He patiently endured.  Not only the negative circumstances of being here instead of being there, but the people, the people themselves. Even while He was even hanging on the cross bearing their sin they were spitting at Him and they were mocking Him and all He had to say was, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

 

And you know what happens to people that God forgives?  They wind up in heaven.  Jesus was asking that the Father bring some of His murderers, those who hated Him, to heaven to be with Him forever. Now that's patience, don't you think?

That's patience with people, as well as with circumstance.  And He could do that because He understood that this circumstance was ordained and lowed by God.  It was His will.  And He was will to accept the plan from God. He could endure the negative circumstance, He could take all the stuff people had to dish out and He could accept anything at the hands of God because He was totally resigned to total humility which produced gentleness, which produced long- suffering, with circumstances, with people and even with God.

 

Listen:  these virtues are the most powerful testimony the church of Jesus Christ has. We have all these methods for doing evangelism.  We learn this strategy and that method and now we’ve got this or that or the other.  Unfortunately the problem with our methods is they have to overcome the terrible reputation of the church.

 

The greatest tool we have for doing evangelism is to just live like Christians.  The world wouldn't know what to make of us.  They’ve never seen anything like that!

 

If the church just had total humility producing this beautiful gentleness that expressed itself in long-suffering no matte rht circumstances or what people did or said because we understand that God is in control, then we would earn the right and privilege to share our faith and be believable.

 

Henry Stanley went to Africa in 1871 to find David Livingstone.  He'd heard about him and was infatuated with his work.  He eventually did find him and wound up spending several months with him.

By this time, David Livingstone was an old man.  Livingstone was busy doing what he was doing with Africans; Stanley was just hanging around observing. Throughout the months he watched the old man, and he said, “Livingstone's habits were beyond my comprehension and the thing that amazed me most was his patience.”

 

According to Stanley’s biographer, he could not understand Livingstone’s patience and sympathy for those pagan Africans. But for the sake of Christ and the gospel, David Livingstone was patient, untiring, eager and literally spending himself in the Master’s cause.

 

This is what Stanley wrote in his journal: "When I saw that unwearied patience, that unflagging zeal for those enlightened sons of Africa, I became a Christian at his side though he never spoke to me one word."

 

I'm not advocating that we never speak a word.  I'm just saying sometimes you won't have to say nearly as much if you just live different.

 

If the world could see a clear picture of Jesus Christ manifest through His body, if the world could see the kind of unity that would make them say, this is not of the earth, if they just knew us as humble and meek and long-suffering how our evangelism would flourish.

 

Let’s pray.