In Christ - The Believer’s Identity

In The Believer’s Identity, part of the In Christ series, Kelly Kinder returns to Ephesians to help you bridge who you are with how you live. He frames the message with a simple picture: imagine a scale with your calling in Christ on one side and your daily conduct on the other. The goal isn’t to grind harder but to let your behavior rise to match your calling. Kelly shows how Ephesians moves from identity (chapters 1–3) to lifestyle (chapters 4–6), and he urges you to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling” from Ephesians 4:1–3.

Kelly reminds you that spiritual amnesia—forgetting who you are in Christ—wrecks confidence and relationships. But when you remember you’ve been crucified with Christ, hidden with Christ, and made alive by faith, you can love and serve without fear of rejection or the need for constant validation. Drawing from John 13, Kelly points to Jesus, who, knowing exactly who he was, took the lowest place and washed his disciples’ feet. Identity fuels purpose.

From there, Kelly unpacks the “worthy walk” through four graces that turn belief into behavior. Humility isn’t groveling; it’s sober self-assessment that lifts others. With a lighthearted nod to Muhammad Ali’s airplane quip, Kelly contrasts self-promotion with Christlike lowliness that lets the work speak louder than our words. Gentleness isn’t weakness; it’s strength under control—the kind of measured presence that won’t break a bruised reed or snuff a smoldering wick. Patience stretches your fuse, trusting God’s timing in a hurry-sick world; Kelly even laughs at his own battles with red lights and long checkout lines to show how formation often happens in life’s “long line.” Enduring love bears with people to the end, echoing Jesus’ love on the night he washed feet—yes, even Judas’s.

These graces are not abstractions; they work in real life. Kelly retells David’s restraint with Shimei to illustrate entrusting your case to the just Judge rather than retaliating. Then he gets practical: soften your tone, wait a beat before reacting, choose to serve unseen, and stay present when you’d rather withdraw. Unity isn’t something we manufacture; the Spirit already formed it. Our call is to maintain it in the bond of peace by walking this path together.

If you’re ready to realign your walk with your calling and rebuild trust where it’s thin, watch and share this message—and consider which grace you’ll practice this week.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Recap Of Ephesians And Big Theme
• 3:50 Identity In Christ Versus Lifestyle
• 7:30 Spiritual Amnesia And Why Identity Matters
• 12:20 Identity Fuels Purpose And Service
• 16:30 The Worthy Walk In Ephesians 4
• 20:40 Grace One: Humility Reframed
• 27:10 Grace Two: Gentleness As Strength Under Control
• 34:50 Grace Three: Patience And The Long Fuse
• 42:00 Grace Four: Enduring Love That Holds

Transcript

Kelly Kinder: 0:03

Today we're in our study back again in Ephesians. Remember, we had to look back a few months months ago, back in the fall. We did the first three chapters of Ephesians, and we did a deep dive, kind of looking and looked to see the first half in these first three chapters. And uh what we were looking at was we saw uh being seated in the heavenlies with Christ. We saw our position, our possessions, and the power we have in Christ. And so uh there's some profound truths there, and what we find when Paul talks about it is like, Paul, what's in your mind here? It's so difficult sometimes to understand what you're saying. So these are real deep uh truths that we're gonna uh look at. We're walking through it fairly slowly so we can kind of uh get these ideas in our minds and hearts. But before we get into chapter four, which is where we're gonna pick up today, let's uh let's sort of refresh our memory and kind of go back and look. So Ephesians has often been described as one of the most deep books in the New Testament. And there's real reason for that because it captures the cosmic scope of God's redemptive plan, looking back at uh from eternity past to eternity future. And so we're seeing here how God works in what he's created, not just in us, but he wants us, he wants the heaven, heavenly realm to see through the church how he has purposed it for all of his own glory. That's what the church is supposed to be be doing. And so we're trying to plumb the depths of these truths. Clearly, we see Ephesians chapter 4 through 6 is the second half. It's divided into two parts. And uh as we're looking at these, we're looking at the second half is really about our actions and our lifestyle. The first half was about our identity in Christ. As I said, the position, possessions, the power we have in Christ. And the second half is how do you live this out? And it's so good, it gets really practical here. So I want us to consider just as a reminder of what we talked about, our identity in Christ. Our identity is so important. And uh it's it's just so important. Identity, as you think about it, is who you really are, who you really are. Back uh a number of years ago, when I was in my next last year in seminary, I think I've told this story before, I was in a class right before Christmas and uh was uh almost finished the class. We had some class went on into January as well, sort of overlapped Christmas in the holidays. And uh I had missed one of the classes. And so I uh was sitting next to a friend in that class, and his name was Michael, and I said, Hey Michael, I missed a class, and before Christmas break, do you think I could borrow your notes and kind of catch up what I missed? He said, Sure, he handed them to me. He said, You can just get them back to me when we get back together. And so uh Christmas break came and went, and January rolled in, and we came back to class, and I was sitting there in the classroom and uh waiting to give Michael his notes back, and I saw him walk in the door and I said, Hey Michael, how you doing? Hope your Christmas was great. And uh he said, Um, I'm sorry I don't know you. I thought he was kidding with me. I don't know you. And he said, I don't know who I am. They tell me that uh I had a bike accident over the holidays, and um he said, I lost my memory. I don't know who I am, and it just floored me. And I got to thinking how like that is for us sometimes as believers. Spiritual amnesia, we don't know who we are in Christ many times. And if you don't know who you are, you really can't live your life like you need to. It's critical to know who you are in order to know how to live. Think about that. In fact, if you don't know who you are, you won't know what to do. Because here's what the first three chapters of Ephesians gives us it gives us our belief system. And the next half is how we behave. So belief informs right behavior, right belief informs right behavior. So the believer's identity really can be summed up in one simple phrase, two words, in Christ. In Christ. Everything of who you are is summed up in that little phrase in Christ. So as a follower of Jesus, here are a couple of things just to think about and remember. My entire life is centered on him. Jesus is not a, he's not an add-on, he's not a little bit extra I put on Sunday to enhance my life. He is the center and circumference of it. He's the core of my life. My life is focused on Jesus. And so this is what it is when our life is centered on him in Christ. And and what happens to me? My wrongly centered self, which is sometimes it really gets in the way, myself gets in the way all the time. Guess what happens to my wrongly centered self? It gets crucified. Listen to what uh what Paul says, because he says this. Why does this happen? Why does my wrongly self centered self go away? Because it gets nailed to the cross. Listen to what Paul says. He says in Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Amazing statement. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. He says it again in Colossians 3, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. And then lastly, in Philippians 1.21, he said, Paul did, for me to live is Christ. Could you say that about yourself? Can I say that about myself? To me, to live is Christ, it's a whole different way of looking at who I am. What Klein Snodgrass says in his book, who God says you are, listen to this. He says, You cannot be better than you are, act better than you do, or think better than you do until you see yourself differently. Scripture gives us an alternate vision as a foundation for life. It tells us who God says we really are. And that changes everything. It's so important to know who you are. And that's the focus of chapters one through three. And it's critical, critical that we get this right in order to live out, chapters four through six. So after laying out these profound realities, what does Paul do? The first half of the letter, that's our identity in Christ, that's who you are. He then talks about our purpose. He makes it clear. And so what he's expecting us to do is his community of faith as believers in Christ, is that we should walk in accordance with our heavenly calling. That's chapter 4, verse 1, as we're gonna see. So your identity is who you are, your purpose is why you're here. I don't mean why you're here today, I mean why you exist. It's one of life's ultimate questions. People know, want to know what the meaning of life is, who they are, and why they're here. So it's your reason for being, it's why you exist. It defines and actually motivates you for what you do as a believer. So think about this. This was true in Jesus' own life. Jesus' awareness of his own identity helped him to fulfill his mission. Listen to what John says in John 13. It says, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. You see the words Jesus knowing? Jesus knew who he was. He knew who he was. That the Father had given him all things in his hand, that he had come from God and he was going back to God. He knew his identity. And what did that allow Jesus? It allowed him to do what he did, to love unconditionally without any strings attached. His identity was so important. See, understand this identity cannot be separated from your purpose. It just can't. So when you know who you are in Christ, you can love and serve others without fear. It's very powerful for our relationships. Not worried about being rejected, not worried about losing my rights, not worried about uh, you know, my my perception of my my uh uh value, uh not worried about being validated by someone. See, when we internalize this idea that we're deeply loved by Christ, guess what? We're no longer driven by insecurity or the need to be approved. And so we have this. Jesus had this. No expectations. I know who I am, I know what I came to do, and we can live that way in our relationships, and we can serve each other and love each other secure, even for the people that we we think are really unlovable, hard to get along with. This becomes really powerful in those kinds of situations because I know who I am. This has profound implications for all of our relationships. So, Jesus, what did Jesus do at the cross? At the cross, he put to death the sinful self in us that destroys all of our relationships. And that sinful self, what did he do? He created one new man in Christ. This is what Ephesians talks about. One new man in Christ with a new heart, with new motives, with new resources and new powers. Which means as you follow the Spirit of God, you can live like this if you're in Christ. So what happens? In Christ, we're brought into a spiritual unity. Peg talked about unity today. So powerful. It basically affects and transforms every relationship that we have, especially in the church, but also out there and also in our homes, in our workplaces. So let's look at this foundational text now for the rest of this series. It really goes from chapter four almost into the little part of chapter six. Let's look at it. Ephesians chapter 4, 1 through 3. Read it with me. It says, I therefore, therefore what? Based on all these things Jesus has done for us in changing our identity, giving us power, possessions, and resources, I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to main the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. This is what Jesus has called us to. And let's just stop and ask him to help us as we go through this text this morning. Father, we're so grateful, so thankful of what you've done by your death on the cross for us. You've made us into one new person in you. Given us powers and resources and abilities to live this life in a worthy way. Father, we just ask you to help us to understand these truths this morning, apply them to our lives and transform us in a new way. In Jesus' name, amen. So let's talk about this call, this call to the worthy walk is a call to live like Jesus. What a tall order. But we have the Holy Spirit to help us, and He's working in us to change us to look like Him. Every day we go from one degree of glory to another. That's what the Bible says. Just a little change every day. He's working us a little change every day to look like Jesus. Look at the verse one. Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called. And so this idea of walking, it's the word parapitao. It means to walk about. And it's referring to your lifestyle. It's the way you live your life out in the world, your conduct, your lifestyle, your behavior, how you live from day to day. Walk. And he says, walk worthy. Walk worthy, a word that means suitable. It means appropriate or balanced. If you think of this like a scale, it's like a scale where the balance gets into equilibrium. So here's where you are now. Here's your calling. And Paul is saying, let this rise, let your behavior rise to match your calling. What a great picture. Living worthy means the calling that you're being asked to live out this the actions, the behavior, the attitudes, the words, in all the relationships that they have to do what? To match this new identity, this new new man in Christ, to look like Jesus. Not out of an obligation, but what is he saying? This comes to us through grace. We receive it. We don't have to work it up. The Holy Spirit works it in. But this this can only be done as we depend and rely on the Holy Spirit to do it in us. So the apostle now gives four graces that I want you to see this morning. Four graces that give evidence that our character matches our calling. You see? And so these are so important to our relationship. They affect every relationship that you will have. These are four essential qualities he mentions here. Let me just give them to you: humility, gentleness, patience, and enduring love. Humility, gentleness, patience, and enduring love. We're going to talk about these. These are all essential for good relationships in the community and out there, both inside and outside the Christian community. And they're shown, they were shown in perfection in Christ. Think about it. Jesus exhibited these qualities or graces everywhere he went, in perfection. So we look to him to see how to live these out. And they contribute, by the way, to the unity and holiness of the church and to our families. So let me give you these. Let's just call them stepping stones of grace for healthy relationships. Think of them as stepping stones, stepping stones for healthy relationships, stepping stones of grace. And as we cultivate these things, think of these as progressive. Because we start with the first one, and the first one is humility. Humility. So this Christ-like spirit begins with a commodity that was greatly despised in the ancient world. The Greeks thought it was horrible to be humble. Horrible to be humble. They viewed the Christian virtue called humility as groveling, as less than what you should be. F. F. Bruce even says this. He describes it as the crouching submissiveness of a slave. See, only slaves were humble, because that's what they deserved. They're slaves. But for every one of us, we don't want to be like that. So they considered humility to be a characteristic of weakness and cowardice. To be tolerated, as I said, only if you were a slave. And they considered it something to be proud of to be, to acknowledge their own superiority. You know anybody like that? Sometimes we think we're better than other people, right? But here's what the word means it means lowly thinking. Literally, lowly thinking. So it's an attitude. An attitude really is that's uh an unassuming estimate of our own abilities. An unassuming estimate of our own abilities. You know, remember, uh, I know some of you remember this uh legendary boxer, his name was Muhammad Ali. And uh if you don't know, he Muhammad Ali was uh really an amazing boxer. He is he was great. In fact, he would he wouldn't mind telling you he was the greatest. See he would go around and say, I am the greatest everywhere he went. One time Muhammad Ali was on a plane and the seatbelt sign came on, and the flight attendant was walking down the aisles, and everybody put their seatbelt on. And she got to Ali and she noticed that his seatbelt was unbuckled. She said, Sir, you need to buckle your seatbelt. And Ali looked up and said, Superman don't need no seatbelt. And she shot back, Superman don't need no airplane either. Somebody said humility is not thinking less of yourself, but it's not thinking of yourself at all. That's not quite right. It's not quite right. Really, humility. What we ought to say is humility is not thinking greater of yourself or less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. Not thinking greater of yourself or less than yourself, but thinking of yourself less. You know, there's a story about uh a group of people who were being shown and touring the house of the great Beethoven, doing tours in the lecture was walking people around, seeing all the different rooms. They came into the room where uh Beethoven's piano was sitting. And uh after talking about it, he said to everyone, if anyone would like to go up and play a few notes, play a few chords, go right ahead. And the whole crowd just trying to get at Beethoven's piano. And after a few moments, the guy that was taking them on the tour, he looked at this one man who was standing sort of outside the circle, a man with long flowing hair, and he said, Sir, wouldn't you like to come up and play it, play a few chords on the on the piano? And the man said, No, no, no, I'm not, I'm not worthy. The man's name was Padaruski, the great Polish statesman and pianist. And it basically his idea, if you think about it, he was the only man who really was worthy to sit down and play that piano. And sometimes we, because of our pride, are thinking we should jump in and be first. Jump in where we're not really ready to be, thinking we know more than we do, when we need to sit back and kind of watch what's happening. This is this is humble, this is humility. This is what Paul affirmed in Romans chapter 12. He said, For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned, not thinking too highly, not thinking too lowly, but just thinking of yourself less. Because we all have value, but we don't, this is not about diminishing who we're made to be, but it's also not exalting ourselves who we're not made to be. And so again, the Greeks didn't think highly of this lowly word, humility. But you know what? Christ elevated it to a supreme place, supreme virtue. Philippians 2, verse 8 says this by Paul. He says, and being found in human form. He, Jesus, humbled himself how? By becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. That's humility, folks. So how do we cultivate this grace, this first grace? How do we step into this in our walk with Christ? Dwight Edwards, who was a, he was a uh relative of the great Jonathan Edwards, who was famous for the revivals across America, he said this: True humility is not putting ourselves down, but rather lifting others up. This is how we do this. And so Philippians Paul reiterates this idea. He says in Philippians 2, 3, and 4, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. How would that be for us? Count others more significant than yourselves. That's a tall order, isn't it? Let each of you look not only to his own interests, do pay attention to your own, but he says also to the interest of other people, of others. And one of the ways you can know you're in the presence of a humble person is. That they're more interested in you than they are in themselves. They talk more about you than they do about themselves. You ever been around somebody whose whole conversation is about what they've done, who they are, who they know, and what they're going to do? This is not a humble person. I like the paraphrase of this in the message version, which reads, Don't push your way to the front. Don't sweet talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. So listen, if we make it our job to lift others up, we won't feel like we need to put anybody else down. That's the idea. When we put others down, guess what it makes us? It makes us, quote unquote, we feel like we're superior to somebody. That's pride. But if we go through life exalting Christ, we sang about exalting Christ today, and then we also lift others up, then genuine humility is going to be the result. Even more, and let this, I think, be a warning to all of us. If we exalt ourselves, then God will make sure of our humiliation. This is found as a principle all through the scripture. If we exalt ourselves, we're going to be humbled. James 4, verse 6, but he gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. And then Jesus in Luke 18 said it like this. He said, Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. This is a principle that always operates. And so you can be sure that pride is going to lead to a downfall. Just mark it down. While humility leads to divine favor and exaltation. Notice one other thing, and we'll move to our second thing. How Paul qualifies this attitude of grace with the words withal, with all gentleness, with all humility. Both those, that withal applies to both those words, which is we're going to come to the next one in just a moment. But this withal applies to both humility and gentleness. Withal means with everyone, everywhere and in all circumstances. You know, what we find ourselves struggling with for the people that we think are wonderful, that we love a whole lot, we don't have any trouble being humble because we think they're great. But for people who we struggle with in relationships, we minimize them sometimes and make them less than we think they should be. So humility is a starting point for building any relationship. Let's go on. This is the first step to building unity. The second grace we have to cultivate is gentleness. Gentleness. Sometimes it may be in your version, the word meekness, it's often translated that way. Meekness or weakness or gentleness is uh strength under control. Strength under control. So you might think of a cult or a stallion who's been tamed. There's power there. But he doesn't use it like he maybe wants to. He's under control. So gentleness, we think about gentleness or meekness as being something weak. Meekness is not weakness. Jesus, remember, he used this. This was just part of who he was. It's part of his heart. So this idea, what we see here is that gentleness is not weakness. The idea is that it's strength that accommodates itself to somebody else's weakness. When I look at somebody, I'm not trying to be overbearing. I want to make sure that I am calm enough and gentle enough that I don't run over them. And so this person who doesn't let, he's a person that doesn't let their emotions get the best of them. So what I do is look at this in this way, is that I consider where that person is in their life. It's the way I respond to them. That's what we all should be doing. Jesus describes himself, think of this, he describes himself as gentle and lowly of heart, gentle and humble of heart. This is who Jesus is in his very heart. And so we're called to come to him to unburden ourselves, to give ourselves rest. Isaiah goes into detail about this specific aspect of Jesus, this grace-filled attitude of Jesus when he says, and he's talking about Jesus here in Isaiah 42, verse 3, a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench, he will faithfully bring forth justice, which tells us two things, that Jesus is gentle and compassionate toward those who are weak, who are struggling, who are broken. You think, see these images, the image of a bruised reed he won't break, which is, you know, some people are just emotionally or spiritually damaged. And one little word will just break the rest of them. And he Jesus doesn't come in and say, you know, you just need to get over it and move on. No, Jesus doesn't do that. He gently restores and he strengthens those who were hurting. This is that idea of gentleness. And then he talks about Isaiah does a faintly burning wick he won't quench, which symbolizes a person who's about, their life is about extinguished. They're about to give up. Jesus doesn't remove our hope, does he? He is he has always given us hope. So this is a promise that ought to be deeply comforting. If you're here today, listen, you're not too broken for Christ. You're not too broken for Christ. What does Jesus see? He sees your pain, he sees your weakness, he sees your struggle, he sees where you're hurting. And he sympathizes. In fact, that's what Hebrew says. We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness. And it also relates to the way we receive our receive injuries. Somebody hurt you this week? When you're talking about this gentleness, this is the person who walks with an attitude that doesn't get offended, doesn't respond or try to defend themselves. A lot of times we want to we want to defend ourselves when we're hurt. Barclay comments that this is someone who's who's always at, he's always angry at the right time and never at the wrong time. And so, well, who could do that? Always angry at the right time, never angry at the wrong time. Exactly. No one of us can do that without the help of the Holy Spirit. And so this is why it's called a grace. Only when we're controlled by the Holy Spirit. You know, give you a couple examples of this. King David showed this grace when he was in 2 Samuel 16. He was fleeing from Jerusalem from during Absalom, his son's rebellion. And David and all those with him, he and his mighty men and his army were walking along the road, and there was this little man off to the side of the road picking up rocks and just throwing them at David as they're walking along. David's mighty men wanted to take off this man's head. His name was what? Does anybody remember? Shimei. They wanted to take Shimei's head off. Shimei keeps throwing rocks and cursing at David as he's walking along. But here's what David said to his men. He said, If he's cursing, because the Lord has said to him, Curse David, who then shall say, Why have you done so? Leave him alone and let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will look on the wrong done to me, and that the Lord will repay me with good things for his cursing today. And so this happened all the way to the end of his journey. And by the time that they got to the end of the journey, it says they were exhausted. And sometimes people, when they are unkind and not thoughtful toward you, you are worn out. You're worn out. But guess what? These are the things that build this character trait in us. You don't need it unless you're in the situation. And in the situation, God can build it. Gentleness. In fact, our Lord showed this amazing grace throughout his ministry. Listen to what 1 Peter 2 says. He said, in 1 Peter 2, he said, He, being Jesus, did not retaliate when he was insulted. When he suffered, he did not threaten to get even. He left his case in the hands of God, who always judges fairly. Think about this. They called Jesus every name in the book. They spat on him, beat him, ultimately hung him on the cross. And so, in the face of betrayal and death, what did Jesus do? Since he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. And how do we respond? What did he do? We hand our hurt over to the one who judges justly. Just give it to Jesus. Give it to Jesus. And sometimes we just justify our anger. We act critically reacting critically to the wrong things done to us. Maybe somebody's let you down at your job this week. And you're angry. Your reputation's at stake. This is where this character quality comes in. Maybe you've done everything you could to serve people and love them really well. Maybe you've served here and you've never been noticed for it. And that's offended you. Give it to God. Give it to God. So this is our calling. This is our calling. Not to hurt people back, not to think about how you're going to plan to hurt people back. Not even to hold on to bitterness because you think that you were in the right. So again, this is not a rule, folks, that we're trying to keep. This is a grace that we're supposed to receive. You know, the reason we have this grace is because we have relational problems. All of us. I mean, if you're with people, you're going to have problems. The only time you're not going to have problems is if you're a hermit. Anybody a hermit in here? A few people, okay. But if you have people, you're going to have problems. Humility and gentleness are therefore essential. Let's look at the third one. Third stepping stone of grace to walk worthy in our relationships is patience. Patience. And the word literally means long-tempered as opposed to short-tempered. You have a short temper? You know, when I was a kid, I used to play with fireworks. And uh I used to get these things called M80s. Anybody know what an M80 is? It's a bigger than a firecracker. And so I would take all my army men and bury them in the ground halfway up, and I would stick an M80 under them, light the fuse, and watch them blow up. It was so fun. You all didn't know I was so violent, did you? Sometimes I would hold on to a little firecracker, well, one time. And I like I lit the fuse and it was sh bam. And I learned not to hold on to that. But the fuse was short. And so this is the idea, the picture. Short fused. Short fused. So this is a really this is a person who has a really long fuse before they blow up. I was watching a video this past week of a so funny. The a dog who was an older dog. He had a little puppy in the house. And the puppy kept crawling on the bigger dog's back. He would bite his ears and bite his nose, and the bigger dog would kind of do like this, and just overall irritate the hooey out of this older dog. And finally, it looks like the older dog has finally had enough. And so he grabs the little puppy by the scrape of the neck and he just calmly walks him over and drops him in a laundry basket. Didn't seem to get upset. This is patience. Patience is the quality that exercises restraint in our relationships. So some people say it's the meme between being too angry and not angry at all. There's a time to be angry, but our fuses need to be long. So it's this capacity of grace to hang on a long time without getting angry. Putting up with people that we'd rather kind of just like tell them what for? And soon. People who take more than they give, honestly, and you just put up with them. Have you noticed in our culture patience is in short supply these days? You look around in our world and it's just getting seemingly worse. People blow up at the slightest things. You know, there's a the business person. He has people think, well, he is um he's known for getting things done. But what does patience tell us? Patience is about focusing on the timing, the timing of God. There's that part of patience. Um you know, personally, I I struggle with this. Uh I go to pull up my car at the stoplight, and um the light is red and then it's green. And the guy in front of me doesn't seem to care. Can I just be honest? Would you just get off your phones at the light? Tells you where I am, right? I look for the quickest line in a grocery store. Just hurry up. I even get upset at the scanners because they don't work. Hurry up, why isn't this working? What if God wanted to use that time to do something else in me? What if, you know, I think of, I'm thinking of just, I just want to get on to the next big thing, right? What if the next big big thing was right there in that moment? What if the next big thing was that person standing behind the counter who's doing the checkout line, who I see is not doing too good today? This is what patience does for us, folks. You know, I love it because I have a great example in my home. My wife, um, sometimes I'll sit outside and she goes into the grocery store and I'll think, what is the world is taking her so long? And I come to find out, she tells me, I just talked to this lady in there 10 minutes about Jesus. I think, okay. Lord, help me, Jesus. I need patience. How do we cultivate this grace? Again, certainly it takes the power of the Holy Spirit, right? We we might think of it as sanctified slow reaction time. Sanctified slow reaction time. James Boyce has an interesting story about a man who uh who was in his uh one of the churches, and the pastor who'd gone up to, or the man who'd gone up to his pastor said, You know, I struggle with patience. I just really do. He was trying to be, he was trying to look humble, I guess. He said, I just struggle. He said, I wish somebody had prayed for me. And the pastor said, I'll pray for you right now. Pray for you right now. And so he reached out his hand and he bent to pray for this man. He said, Lord, would you just bring all kinds of suffering into this man's life? And the man reached out his hand, he said, No, no, I think you misunderstood. I asked for patience, not suffering. And the pastor said, Maybe you've never read this verse, Romans 5, 3, which says, And not only so, but we glory in our sufferings, knowing that suffering works patience. Or endurance. And you see, you don't you don't need it until you're in the situation that requires it. So guess what? God may put us in a situation that you don't like that you suffer simply to teach you how to be patient. Well, let's move on. Let's go to the last one: enduring love. Humility, gentleness, patience. These all cultivate healthy relationships. It doesn't matter what relationship you're in, they all build unity and community. This last one, number four, is enduring love. He says, bearing with one another in love. And the phrase here is uh in Ephesians 4, 2, there's a verse, characterizes patience as an enduring quality. Something that goes on and on. Just as humility and gentleness are paired, those two are paired, these two, these last two, patience and enduring love are paired. In fact, 1 Corinthians 13 says, love is patient. And so it means we put up with people and suffer over them a long time and suffer because we're called to show the love of Christ. It's hard sometimes. Can you imagine how hard it was for Jesus to love us when he knew us? When he knew me, when he knew you. This is selfless love, folks. Selfless love in relationships. And so we endure the unpleasant for the sake of love. John 13, just before the Passover and making his way to the cross that night that he was betrayed, it says, now before the feast of the Passover in verse 1 of John 13, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own, who were in the world, it says, He loved them to the end. The words there in the Greek are Istelos. Literally, he loved them to perfection. He loved them to perfection. Who is John referring to? His own disciples, including who's number twelve? Judas, the one who would betray him with a kiss. And that's when John tells us, right after this passage, John tells us that Jesus rose from the table, set aside his outer garments, tied a simple towel around his waist, he poured water into a basin, and he began to wash the disciples' feet. So we started with this grace of you of humility, and we end with enduring love. And as someone said, when you look at this example and you see what's the point here, what's the great lesson, and it's this only absolute humility can generate absolute love. Only absolute humility can generate absolute love. And so this is why it starts here stepping stones of God's grace. Our text ends with verse 3 with the words eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. Being eager about something means I go after it. I have a passion for it. I want it to happen. I make every effort to keep what? To make unity? No, it says keep it. It's already there. The Holy Spirit has made, He's created unity in the body of Christ. We don't create unity as the church. We keep it. How do we do that? By faithfully walking in a manner worthy of our calling. This is the bond that preserves peace. And you can go out and you can have the passion for it by being. A peacemaker. When you see conflict occurring in the church, step out and try to help that situation go away. It's the superglue that holds us together. Think about that. It's a super glue. So we see humility gives birth to gentleness, gentleness gives birth to patience. Patience gives birth to love. And these are the steps of grace that lead us into the great relationships that we can have in Christ and with one another. So I want to just end today and just ask you do you need these graces in your life? Do you have relationships that are not so great right now? I want you to just think, and I want us to bow our heads and pray and ask God to heal broken relationships right now. And I want him to help us here. Father, for all of us, Lord, we all struggle at times in our relationships, whether they're at the job, whether they're in our homes, whether they're with kids or grandkids or relatives or friends. And Lord, we need your help. We ask for healing in those places that are broken, that are hard and are struggled, that are in crisis, even, Lord, today. We pray that you would restore what's been broken, bring to life what is dead. Reveal the life of Christ through us. And give us these graces, Lord, by your Spirit. Help us cultivate these stepping stones of grace. And we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.