Our New Identity and Calling

I want everyone to picture an elephant. Now stop thinking about that elephant with its big trunk and its flappy ears. Stop thinking about the elephant. Why are you also thinking about the elephant? See, once you have something in your mind, it's hard to just stop thinking about it. The mind is active. You can't just stop a thought. You need to replace it. Everyone, think about an orange orangutan eating a banana. See, now you have something else to think about. You can't just stop thinking about the elephant. You've got to think about the orangutan. I don't know if many of you are saying, no, the orangutan is riding the elephant. Okay, well, you're very creative. See, the mind is active. If you're going to put off an idea, you have to add an idea. You have to replace it. You can't just say, I'm going to stop thinking about something. You're thinking about it. You have to put it off and put something else on. Well, if the mind is that active, you have to renew your thoughts. You have to add new thoughts to replace old thoughts. Well, the heart is all that much more active. The heart is always desiring. We always have new loves and new desires coming up. And our desires, apart from Christ, apart from God, apart from the Gospel, are evil. They're wicked. That's why Paul used very strong language. Put off those earthly desires. Put them off. Put them to death, he said. The reason he uses such strong language is because those sinful desires are trying to kill you. It's a kill or be killed battle. Either you put that sin to death or it will kill you. But we can't just put sin to death. That's what we talked about a couple weeks ago. You need to also put on righteousness. We need to replace those old sinful desires with new godly desires. We can't just stop sinning. We have to begin practicing righteousness. It isn't just being void of sin that makes us faithful Christians. It's progressively and proactively pursuing righteousness. We're going to talk about holiness today. We're talking about living a Christian life. And there's just two basic parts that we're going to see here in Colossians. There's the putting off of the old self. There's the putting on of the new. These are the two parts and we have to have them both. Our message this morning is very simple. God has given us a new identity so we can put on a new life. God has given us a new identity so we can put on a new life. Now, originally, I had verses 12 through 15, but this verse was just so rich in the list we have here. And so I'm only going to be in verse 12 today. Put on them as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. Compassion, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. And if you look in your bulletin on page 11, you can see we have just two basic sections. Our new identity, God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. There's three descriptions of who we are in Christ. Then there's the three commands, the three imperatives of who we're supposed to become, the cause of who we are. We are to put on compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Again, we've just left the command to put off sin. Now we're putting on the obedience that God deserves. Let us look to the new identity. Our new identity. God's chosen ones, holy and beloved. Three just rich declarations. that I hope we enjoy meditating upon because it tells us who we are. It tells us what our position is in Christ. There are three descriptions, but really there's one leading one, chosen ones, the chosen of God. The other two describe and help articulate what the chosen ones are, and so I'm actually going to begin with holy, then move to beloved, and then explain and apply what it means to be chosen because, well, that's the one that's a little more difficult for us oftentimes. So first, holy is our first new identity. We are holy. Now holiness is something that's typically only ascribed of God, and only he then declares things to be holy. There's the classic verse in Isaiah, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His, I don't know what else to say, glory. He alone is holy in and of Himself. He is separate. He's far above. He's better than everything else. He is superior as the Creator to the creature. He is perfect in His nature because He is pure in morality. He's superior in His wisdom because His ways are above ours ways. In morality, He doesn't follow a standard like we do. He is the standard. What God declares right is right. That's why He is holy. We don't have the right to say what is right and wrong apart from what God has declared right and wrong. We call His Word the Holy Bible because it's like no other piece of literature ever written. because God inspired it. These are holy writings because God gave them to us. Yes, they were penned by men, but inspired by the Spirit. The content of this book is holy because God gave it to us. It tells us the thoughts of God. It tells us the desires of God. It tells us the truth of God. It's set apart. It's above and better any other book. In the Old Testament, there was this temple. He had holy candles, holy tables, holy cups, because all these things were set apart for the worship of God. The temple itself was a holy building. It was set apart as God's dwelling place where God's people came to worship God. It's where he was present. Now, we are God's holy people. We are God's holy people because he has set us apart. If we are God's people, He indwells us like He indwelled the temple. If we are God's people, His Word is written on our hearts like it is written, or very similar to the way it is written here. See, we're holy because God makes us holy. There's nothing about us that makes God want to make us holy. It's just His own free choice. To be holy is to be set apart by God And for God, we actually have a great verse in Colossians. Paul says, He has delivered us out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of His beloved Son. That's holiness. That's what it means to be holy. You were delivered out of the domain of darkness. You were lifted up from it. You are holy, set apart from it, and delivered to the domain of darkness. It has two parts. You're set apart from and set apart to. Now, it's very important for us to think about the sanctification here. There's really three aspects of sanctification and this verse speaks of one of those parts. So, let me slow down. There's three kinds of sanctification in the Bible. There's positional, progressive, and perfected. The Bible speaks of three different kinds of sanctification. Positional, progressive, and perfected. Here, we're talking about positional. God sets you apart to have a new position. You are no longer a child of wrath, you're a child of God. You're no longer in the domain of darkness, you're in the kingdom of His Son. So, positional is God just setting you apart to be His own person. It gives you a new identity. The second is progressive. That is our continual growth in godliness. Our salvation is not dependent upon our progress, but our salvation should lead us to progressive holiness. Because we have been declared holy, we are now supposed to pursue holiness. God declares, be holy for I am holy. Be holy as I am holy. We're supposed to be putting on a new conduct. We're supposed to be progressing because of our new status. Then finally, perfected sanctification. Well, that's that glorious state where we will do nothing but sing and praise and worship and obey God without sin because we'll receive new bodies, new glorified bodies that are not tainted with sin. When Christ returns, we will receive perfected sanctification. We will truly be made holy. So, we're declared holy, we pursue holiness, and then we will be made holy. Here, He declares us holy. It's the position. We are declared by God holy who are not holy. There's nothing holy about us by nature. We're sinners just like everybody else. But God declares us holy. How can He do that? How does He do that? Well, actually, I'd like to jump off here from another of my daughter's favorite songs. Holy God and love became perfect man. to bear my blame. Holy God in love became perfect man to bear my blame. We are not holy. We are guilty. That's why we have blame. But the Holy One Himself came down to us, took upon a nature just like us, except for the guilt. except for the sin. The Holy One came to pursue us so that we could then be declared holy. See, the Holy One, the One who is perfectly righteous, perfectly wise, perfectly good, the One who had never sinned, He was nailed to the cross as if a sinner. The Holy One nailed to the cross as if He were perfectly sinful. As if. He who knew no sin was known to the cross as if a sinner. See, the Holy One came to take our blame away from us. The Holy One came to take away our sin so that we can be forgiven, so the wrath of God would no longer be upon us, so that He could then declare us holy. He takes our sin and we get to be declared holy. He's declared a sinner. We are declared holy. The Holy One has come to let us participate and share in His holiness. Now, what is the application from being declared holy? First, be comforted. It's your position. God has declared it and God doesn't change His mind. If you have believed in Christ and you have received the holiness, it's yours. And nothing can take it away. It's your new position. It's the position that is secured in the resurrected Christ who stands and sits at the right hand of the Father to intercede for you, to give you a pure foundation. We know that we are declared holy even though we know we don't experience holiness. It's the beauty of grace. He is called sinners righteous. Second, be holy. This is getting at the progressive sanctification. We are to be holy. We are to not pursue sin. We are not called to be holy. We are not called to Christ so that we continue in the destructive patterns in the domain of darkness. We are not called to Christ so that we continue to self-destruct in the darkness as we stumble along. No, we're called to Christ. To know the light. To see the light. to enjoy the light, to be the light. When we are called out by Christ, we are called to pursue holiness, which means we start to see sin as sin. We put a light to that darkness. We avoid that darkness. We avoid that sin. And we start seeking to live according to His true light. This is, I think, just a clear rule. Your position must determine your practice. If you want the position of being declared holy, the position of being declared righteous and justified, you do have to then practice it. Your position leads you into the practice. Another way of stating this, your practice must demonstrate your position. You're given that position by grace alone, but there's no reason to think that's your position if you're not practicing it. If you have been declared holy, you will pursue Holiness. Our position must determine our practice, and our practice must demonstrate our position. Third, the third application of being declared holy. Long for the perfected state. We talked about this at Easter. When Christ comes back and reconciles all things to Himself. What a glorious day that is. For Christians, we will no longer have to fight sin. We will no longer be double-minded and double-hearted and double-tongued. We will be given a single mind, a single heart that's been purified and glorified and perfected by God's abundant grace and love. 1 John 3, 3, when we see Him, we shall be made like Him. When we see Him, we shall be made like Him. That is a promise that we must cling to. And if either in death or His return, when we see Him, He will transform us. You'll no longer have to trust limping leaders that lead you to a partial vision of God. In fact, you'll get to worship God face-to-face in purity, in a perfect state. Our second new identity, beloved. We are God's beloved children. Jeremiah declares the Word of God, I have loved you with an everlasting love, there I have drawn you with loving kindness. The words of Jesus, for God so loved the world that He sent His only Son. No greater love does a man have than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. God is infinite in His love. And whenever He chooses to love us, we get to participate, share, and enjoy that infinite, perfect love. Now, it's very important. I know I've said this before, but it's always important for us to hear. There's nothing lovable about us. There's nothing that makes God fall in love with us. If we saw ourselves from God's perspective, we would look like this. We're fighting. We're in a position that isn't just offensive, but actively rebelling, spinning, mocking, and kicking against God's righteous rule. We're opposed to God's love. We're opposed to God's law. There's nothing that makes God love us. God doesn't fall in love with us. No, for God, love is a free choice. He freely chooses unlovely people. He freely chooses to send His Son to die for those who are putting Him to death. That's God's love. It's freely given. It's a choosing love. There's nothing about us that makes us deserve this love. No, God gives it to us. He's not compelled by us to love us. He loves us. He doesn't change His mind. I'm in here this morning, and you're saying, I don't know if I experience the love. I don't know if I'm loved by God. Friends, if you are questioning if God loves you, there's only one place for you to look, and it's the Son on the cross. If you want to ask, does God love me? You look to the Son, and you look to His sacrifice. You look to His death, because there you see the love of God manifested like no other place. God dying for you. Laying down His life for you. God taking on your sin for you so that you can be forgiven. Does that stir desire to worship Him? Does that stir desire to repent of your sin? Does that stir desire to love and to know Him more? Well, that, my friends, is an assurance of God's love for you. My concern is how we oftentimes think of God's love, because deep down, no matter how much we progress in our holiness, we're sinful. We're selfish. I love country music, and country music talks about real things. There's an artist, his name's Billy Carrington. I'll go ahead and give him some credit. He's got a song named Turnip Greens that I love. Here's another song that I don't know the title of it. I googled it. I only heard it once and it's just stuck in my head as offensive. The message of the song is, I wish, talking to his girlfriend wife, I wish you'd love me like the dog. He wrote a song, I wish you'd love me like a dog. Now, this is just insane to me. And I didn't want to reprint the words because they really weren't helpful, but it basically said this, I wish you'd let me love the dog because the dog gets excited when I come home. I wish you'd let me love the dog because he'll go out and play when I want to play. I wish you'd let me love the dog because he'll sit there and do nothing when I want to sit there and do nothing. This is a complete perversion of what love is. That's not love. He's wanting an animal kind of love and he's not an animal. He's made the image of God. He was created to have a deeper sense of love. He was created to have infinite love from God and to share a great love with other men and women made in the image of God. But yet he's wanting his wife to love him like an animal. This is insane. Now, I'm just going to assume that none of you find this as a definition of satisfactory love. And I actually think, you know, Billy wouldn't either. He's a country star. Women, dogs, love. This had to happen eventually. But this is gross. It's a gross perversion of what love really is supposed to be. There's no headship here. There's no sacrifice. There's no desire in a mutual affection for another. There's no seeking the other's gain. It's so selfish. I wish you'd just be there when I want you to be there and be gone when I don't want you there. I wish you'd get excited when I want you to be excited and leave me alone. That's completely carnal. It's not human love. What's even worse is, I think oftentimes we treat the love of God like this. Do you think God gets excited just because He came to church? Do you want Him around when you're ready to praise and you need help, but you actually hope He leaves you alone when you're doing other things? Do you want the love of God to always be powerful, present in your life? Or do you want to pick and choose when God's love is manifest? When I'm at church, sure. But when I'm at home, that's my time. We do not want God to love us like this. The love of God is mighty and precious. It's who changes. When we see the love of God that has for us, when we see that we are beloved of God, He has set His affection on us and He does not change His mind. He loves us and He never changes His mind about it. It should change us. It's a powerful, mighty, holy love that transforms. There's no way you can look and understand and experience the love of God and not be changed by it. It's an affection that has true effect in our lives. My challenge to you, brothers and sisters, is the love of God what drives you. Is the love of God what you want always present because it is the only comfort you know, it is the greatest love you know, and you never want anything else. We must pursue the love of God if we've truly been loved by God. Third, we are God's chosen ones. Now, this is the first one on the list, but I think it's better to, I think it's more helpful to think about the fact that we've been called holy, and He's called us beloved, and now we look at how He has chosen us. We are God's chosen ones. Notice God is the subject of the verb. God chose us. He does the choosing. We are passive. He is active. God chooses people. Now, He's not a lonely God. He's not waiting around for you to choose Him. It's actually very encouraging as a Christian to know that God is actively pursuing His children and choosing them. God's not running for office. He doesn't need our vote to be God. He's God. He's perfect. He doesn't need any of us, but for some reason, He wants some of us. He needs no one. But yet he pursues those who are actually actively fighting against him. He's not running for office. Jesus isn't his campaign manager. He doesn't need a vote. No, instead he is pursuing us. Read another one of Paul's great declarations about God's choosing. This is in Ephesians 1 beginning in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, through the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. The Father has chosen us in Christ. Now, let's combine here the chosen and the beloved. God doesn't love us by nature. He chooses who He puts His affection on. To say we're chosen and to say we're beloved is very similar, actually. God calls out His people. The cross wasn't a shotgun, it was an arrow. Christ was dying for a specific people. It wasn't just, here's love, whoever wants it can grab it. No, Christ came to specifically die for those God called. Now that's encouraging to Christians. Because for me, it tells me, that's secure love. It wasn't generic love. It was specific and precise love that tells me that He had picked me out and put my sin on the cross and Christ particularly and precisely and specifically died for me. That's secure love. The Holy Spirit came specifically to apply that death and resurrection to me. See, we would never choose God. Left to ourselves, we would never choose God. He had to choose us. We love God because He first loved us. That's John. That's from the Word of God. We love God because He first loved us. Because He first bestowed His love upon us, we can now respond in love. The Bowmans, who are not here, they're usually right in here, There's a great example of that today. There in China, right now, they've gone to adopt their son, Caden. Now, the Bowmans said, I want to adopt a child. And the Chinese government took their profile, took a child, and they put them together. Now, the Bowmans, they chose to go overseas. Caden did not choose to be homeless. Caden did not choose to not have a family. Caden did not choose to be parents. Caden was just there in desperate need, in darkness. And the Bowman said, we will choose to adopt. And they've gone and they are going right now. They have him to adopt him. He's now theirs because they went precisely to get Cain. That's like God's love. Only there's actually a breakdown. See, the government put them together. God doesn't have a mediator in that way. God says, this one is mine. I'm going to get that. He comes to adopt us out of the man of darkness. If you're a Christian, the application is pretty simple. You're not chosen to be arrogant. You're not chosen to think you're special. You're not chosen to think there's something about you that made God love you. You're chosen to be merciful. You're chosen to be a blessing to the nations. Abraham was chosen out of paganism. And then God said, go bless the nations. We are chosen by God to be a blessing to others for God. See, we're chosen from the world. We're delivered from the world into the kingdom. We're chosen by God for God. Non-Christian. If I were you, I would be asking myself, am I chosen? I hope you're asking yourself that. Am I chosen? I don't know the mind of God at that level. I only know the God of what He's revealed to us. But I know this. God has put you here, right now, where I pray you've heard the gospel. I pray you have ears to hear. I pray you have a heart to respond. I pray God softens your neck and your heart. If you haven't heard the gospel yet, here's what you need to believe to be saved. Here's how God will choose you. It's through His gospel. You're a sinner. You're offensive before God. His wrath is against all humanity, every person, because we've all rebelled against Him. And left to ourselves, we're nothing but children of wrath, deserving of death and judgment. But God came down, Jesus Christ was God, and He took upon Himself perfect human nature. He lived a perfect life that we did not live, in perfect obedience to God, and then He was nailed to the cross to have the sins of us put upon Him, so that the wrath of God could be poured out upon Him, not on us. And on the cross, He defeated sin, He defeated death, and He rose again. So whoever believes in Him is now forgiven of their sin and they have eternal life. Friends, does that stir in you a desire to know God? Do you have a desire, a longing to be forgiven of your sins? Do you have a desire to know God, to have peace with God, to know what God's Word says? I pray God is calling you. And I pray you will speak to me or someone else, one of the men who took the offering, I pray that you would speak to us after the service. Nothing would delight us more than to hear you confess Christ. So, that's our identity. Holy, beloved, chosen. Now, let's look at our new calling. The rest of verse 12. Put on, then, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Because God's chosen us, we are now called to live according to His Word. The key imperative here is putting on. Again, we have to remember there's the putting off of sin. There was the putting to death of sin. This is what we put on. You put off your carnal desires. You put off your evil practices. And you put on righteousness. The two sides. And if we look at what we're putting on, they're not just behaviors. It's character. R.C. Sproul wrote this about this passage, Kindness, meekness, and patience, and so forth, are praiseworthy only if they are not merely outward qualities, but are the very disposition of the heart. Anyone can show kindness or patience externally while inwardly hating the object of one's good will, but it takes love. to ensure that virtues we display outwardly match the thoughts and desires that no one but God can see. I like what another theologian said. It's much more simple. These are the garments of the renewed soul. These are the garments of the renewed soul. These aren't just behaviors. These aren't just actions. Most people in the world have a sense of kindness and humility and patience. These are truly reformed hearts. These are the garments of the renewed soul, not mere outwardly behaviors. Now, I want to, maybe I'm thinking too much about these, but I want you to be on guard here because these are things we're supposed to be putting on and I try to think of what you might think. And there's a danger here that I'm the one telling you what you're supposed to be putting on and there's a danger that you could say, Preacher, you don't do that. You're not patient. You're not meek. I'm not your standard. My job is not to get you to the level of my sanctification. My responsibility is to lift the bar up to God's standard and hold us all accountable to that so that we all strive together to reach it. So do not discredit this high bar because I have not reached it. Seek it with me. Seek it with one another. First, compassionate hearts. The first one already lets us know it's not an activity. It's not just a behavior change. It's a true heart change. A compassionate heart. And this isn't just sympathy for whenever we see someone hurting. This is an intentional desire to help others. Compassion that seeks others. This is a disciplining of the affections. We're supposed to put it all. See, just as God did not fall in love with us, we don't wait until we fall in love with somebody else. No, we put it on. There's an intentionality to it. You put on a compassionate heart. You seek out those who need compassion. You're looking for how you can show compassion. You're not waiting for it. You're putting it on. Compassionate hearts is very similar to mercy. As Jesus said, be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful. Our mercy will be directly tied to how we understand God's mercy to us. Because God has loved us, we are called to love others. Because God has been merciful to us, we are called to be merciful to others. Because God has had compassion upon us, we are to show others compassion. It's intentional. It's a care for others by looking around. This is a small body. I think if you're a member here, you should be able to look around and try to find folks to show compassion. There's a simple way to do that. Invite them to lunch. Ask them the testimony. Ask them what they're struggling with. Ask them how they're doing. Ask them how you can pray for them. Ask them what God's teaching them. Share with them the same thing. See, there's an intentionality. You can't just put on compassionate hearts in a vacuum. No, you have to have people that you have a love for and that you show a compassion for. So, put on compassionate hearts. Second, put on kindness. Put on kindness. I like how one pastor put this, kindness is really just a sweet disposition. We know folks like that. You walk to them and there's already a smile, there's already a sweetness, there's already a kindness that's overflowing. See, we're not naturally that kind of people. We're called to be kind. One of the key things between the world's kindness and our kindness, the world wants to be kind so people think they're kind. We're called to be kind so people think God is kind. There's a difference in purpose. We're called to be kind for the glory of God. The world wants to be kind for their own glory. A key question I've really been challenged with here is, to whom are you kind? We were just doing the Good Samaritan in the market class. How much do you try to limit who you're kind to? Is it just folks who are like you? Is it just folks you feel comfortable with? Are you kind like God is kind? You seek out those who are not like you. You seek out those who may even be your enemies. How do you define who you are kind to? We are to look at each other as a family. If you're a member of Jefferson Park, you're called to be kind to everybody. Not just your age group, not just your social class, not just the folks who are like you. No, we're called to be kind to one another. No matter what other differences we may have, we have Christ in common. Now, the opposite of kindness is being mean and rude. And I often hear rude people say this. It's their boasting and their rationale. I was just raised to speak my mind. How many times have you heard that? It's kind of the Southern equivalent of, bless their heart. You say something really mean, but if you throw that on the end, it's okay. You guys are not Southerners enough, I guess. Or maybe you are Southerners, you've just been offended. Yeah, I do that all the time. No, I regularly hear people say something rude. And then they justify it. With a boast. I was just ready to speak my mind. No. Proverbs calls that person a fool. Someone who doesn't tame their tongue. Someone who doesn't filter what they say. We are called to build each other up with our words. If you're saying rude and mean things as a Christian, you're not supposed to speak your mind. You're not supposed to let the words that come out of that dark heart come out of your mouth. You're supposed to repeat these words. You're supposed to let this so indwell your mind and your heart that you're speaking this, not your own mind. Our hearts are full of envy, jealousy, and malice, and hatred. We need to be changing our hearts so we're speaking these words. When we speak to one another, it must be out of kindness to build one another up. Our next new calling is humility. Humility. This is really in contrast to the false humility of the false teachers in chapter 2 verse 18. Let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels going on in detail about visions puffed up without reason by a sensuous mind. The false teachers, they're not humble. They're arrogant. The Christian is called to be Now, it's interesting that we actually get to experience a great benefit of Christendom, kind of the Christian nations, but when Paul is writing this, the word he's using here for humility was a derogatory term. This was not a virtue in Paul's day in the secular world, in the Roman or Greek or even the barbarian world. They didn't have a concept of humility being a quality you wanted. They were prideful and prideful about being prideful. Humility is a Christian transvaluation. They were taking a quality that was only spoken of of slaves in a derogatory way and they were saying, this is who you want to become. And they could only do that if their master and Lord and Savior and Commander and God was humble. There we see the power of the gospel. a transvaluation, a change of value and virtue. We see the power of the gospel. Taking a word that was once derogatory and negative and only used as slaves and now say, this is one of our chief virtues and values as a community. We see the greatest example of what that humility looks like in Philippians 2. Consider others more important than yourself. How counterintuitive is that? That's because we're sinful and selfish intuitively. But we're called to follow Christ. We're called to have a mind of Christ. We're called to consider others' interests more important than our own. Again, friends, these are high bars, but this is the Word of the Lord. To be humble isn't to think less of yourself, necessarily. To be humble isn't just to beat yourself up. To be humble means you think of others as more important. So we can get into a whole, oh woe is me, I'm horrible, and call that humility. That's not what humility is. Humility is not seeking to glorify yourself, but to glorify Christ by building others up. That's humility. Seeking others as more important than yourself. Meekness. Meekness. Now, my first question, how is meekness different from humility? Because when I first started thinking of down to the way our culture uses meekness, I thought of someone who's shy, kind of timid. But as I studied the word more, as I studied the calling, this is not shy, this is not timid, this is a strength. To be meek is to have resolve and to remain steadfast in the midst of being provoked and being persecuted. Christ was meek. Christ was not weak. He was meek. He was led to the slaughter like a lamb and said nothing. That's meekness. He was accused falsely of those he was coming to save. That's meekness. He said nothing. He didn't have to give an answer. He knew God and what He was doing, and that He would ultimately reconcile all things to Himself. Meekness was that resolve to trust God, to trust His Word, and not have to defend Himself. Meekness is a power to not have to give an answer, to not have to defend yourself, because you trust God. It's living peaceable among all men, not trying to stir up trouble. Now, meekness in the early church that Paul's talking about is probably because they were being persecuted from the outside. The non-Christian world was persecuting the Christian world, and they were to show meekness. As Christ went to the slaughter, they were to be quiet. They were to be peaceful. They were to be not defending themselves, but proclaiming Christ. In our world, while we may think that the world is persecuting us, I find that meekness is actually more required within the church than from without. And that's sad. How many hurtful words do you hear from outside the church versus from inside? How many people have said something that was very offensive and hurtful and harmful to you that came from within the body of Christ? So there's where we have to exercise meekness. We need to exercise the forgiveness. We need to exercise that God will make all things right. We need to not respond with sin. I think meekness is in the midst of persecution and suffering. That's where we have to exercise it. And I think it's a sad state, but today the meekness has to be practiced within the church. Let that be a challenge to us to put on kindness and compassionate hearts. Finally, patience. I'm a big Steinfeld fan and one of my favorite episodes is Serenity Now. Kramer, and I think George's father, they walk around and when they're frustrated, when something doesn't happen the way they want it to happen, they say, Serenity now, Serenity now, Serenity now. And the idea there is you're trying to remove the bad idea out of your mind without replacing it. And if you watch the episode, well, they blow up in an anger, a fit of rage. See, we're not simply trying to avoid frustration and anger. We're not simply trying to be patient and ignore the frustration of this fallen world. No, we're supposed to pursue something else. Patience is imminently and necessarily tied to wisdom. You cannot be patient unless you are wise. You cannot be wise unless you know God's Word and trust it. You're only going to be patient if you know God ultimately reconciles all things. You're only patient if you know God is the just judge that cares for you and nurtures you and makes all things work together for your good. We're only patient as much as we trust God, His promises, and His power. If we're going to put on patience, we must pursue who He is and what He said. We must trust it. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. We again praise You, our great Savior. We praise You because of who You have called us out to be. We are completely unworthy of Your love and of Your calling. We praise You as one who is worthy of all of our breath and words because You have bestowed upon us such a great love. to walk as children of the light. Help us to recognize and understand the great position you've given us as your beloved and holy and chosen people. And help us, Lord, to exercise that with practice of putting on your righteousness, putting on Christ's likeness, being unified and proclaiming you to all the nations. May we be a blessing As You have called us to be, Lord, I pray that You would bless us in our efforts to hear You, to know You, and to love You. In Your holy name we pray. Amen.