All right. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I uh hey there. There's a uh there's a question that's been plaguing my mind uh for the last three weeks. Really, it's been something I've thought about for the last 10 years, but especially the last three weeks as Nathan kind of asked me to speak on this topic um and just been mulling it over in my mind even as recently as this morning, sitting on my front porch. And it's just this question: why do the relationships that matter most to me tend to be the ones that break down in the same ways over and over and over again? Why do the people closest to me that I should uh love the most, have the most humility and grace and patience for, tend to be the ones that I don't, right? Like why is it that with my wife, Katie, the sweetest woman on the planet, that I am the harshest with, that I am the rudest with, that I'm the least patient with, right? It should be the opposite. It should be that the people closest to me, my parents, my siblings, my friends, my colleagues, that experience uh the best Dylan, the most gracious Dylan, the most Christ-like Dylan. But oftentimes that's not the case. Sometimes I'm nicer to a stranger that I meet on the sidewalk than I am to those closest to me. And as I've been pondering this, I just I can't help but think that many of us have probably experienced that before. Um, that uh, and I think there's there's something to that, that that um we've we've been in this, uh starting this series of of conversations that we're calling rules of engagement. Um, rules of engagement. And what we're looking at is how the gospel, after changing our hearts and lives, after giving us salvation and restoring our relationship with Christ, comes and calls us to a new set of expectations. Um and we talked, you know, it's it's much like joining a sports team or joining the military or starting a new business. We we receive a new identity, and that new identity comes with expectations of doing things different. One of the things that makes following Christ so uh unique, though, is that we have an active and present enemy that is seeking to rip that apart, seeking to destroy that identity, to destroy the relationships that make up that identity. And so this makes the rules of engagement even more important. This isn't about setting up a to-do list of things that we must do, right? This isn't about creating a one-way sort of transactional relationship where we just obey for the sake of it. Uh, this is about recognizing we've been given an incredible gift in our salvation, in our relationship with God, in what we've been invited into, that there is an enemy that wants to take that away, that wants to destroy and tear apart. And so, therefore, we must live differently. We must set some practices in place that serve as guardrails to keep us from tearing the relationships apart and tearing the relationship with Jesus apart. Because this invitation to new life is made up of relationships. It's a relationship with Christ and then it's a relationship with every other person that we interact with. That relationship with Christ sets a new standard. It sets a standard for how we relate and manage the relationships with others in our lives because they are such a key part of the fabric of our lives. We all have family, friends, coworkers, and many other circles of influence in our lives, but a lot of times we've sat in church, we've heard the gospel, we've received salvation, we've gotten dunked in a tank and said, all right, we're going to heaven, but we've not thought about what it looks like to have an intentional framework for how to engage in all of these relationships. Christ and every other circle. We're not taught that often. Oftentimes, our our framework is not intentional, and it comes from the patterns or habits that we've learned from our past. It comes from our experiences, our family of origin, our upbringing, and it's just kind of subconscious. It's picked up over time and not intentional. What are some of those unintentional patterns, right? Here's a couple of them. The first one, when when conflict becomes competition, right? Here's what this looks like. We we disagree and it immediately becomes about being right or about winning. We raise our voice, we bring up old stuff from the past, we're keeping score. We're saying, hey, remember you did this, right? We want to prove that we're right, and the relationship becomes transactional. We have expectations without communication. Something bothers us, but we don't say anything. Instead, we pull back, we crank up the passive aggressiveness, we grow emotionally distant and just let it fester. We had an unmet expectation, but how is somebody to meet our expectations that we never communicated to them? The third thing, we're we're quick to leave when things get hard. A friendship goes sour, so we stop reaching out. Church got a little uncomfortable, so we just go find a new one. A relationship tension with a spouse or a significant other goes sour, and we start to think, uh, maybe this isn't it. Maybe I need to move on. The fourth thing, we we take everything personally. Feedback is always an attack, or feedback always spirals into insecurity. We assume people's motives without asking a question. Now, before you elbow your significant other or brother and sister, if we're honest, we all do each and every one of these things. We all do it. At different times in our relationships, at our home, in our home, our workplace. In fact, I think that I have done all four of these things probably in the last two weeks. And I know that I did all four of them in the span of about 10 minutes, about two weeks ago. I remember a very specific moment that I did all four of them. Uh it was at work, and it was so silly. It was so silly. But I had I had kind of hit this personal milestone I had at work, right? And it's typically something that people get publicly recognized for. Uh, there's usually like a little shout-out, you know, in front of the entire team. And I accomplished this thing and I marked my calendar because I knew when that meeting was coming where people were gonna, where I was gonna get the announcement, I was gonna get the praise, I was gonna get the credit. Oh, and I was I was so excited. So the the meeting, we all, we've been there, you felt that, right? I'm not alone, I'm not crazy. Um so the meeting comes, the meeting goes, the announcements are happening, and due to a just a simple administrative error, the person that actually accomplished it last month got announced instead of me. And my name was never mentioned, never brought up, just moved on. A simple administrative error. Oh, but I was I was livid. I was livid. I had spent eight months trying to accomplish this thing, and the one, the, the moment that I my time to shine, my time to get some praise came, and I was passover. What was my immediate response? I I turned on the passive aggressiveness. I worked uh remote, and so we were in a Google Meet. I started typing things in the Google Meet chat that were very subtle and passive aggressive, but not so subtle, right? I I thought it was kind of joking, but I wanted to make my intentions clear. Um deep down though, I wanted to prove I was right. That's what I was trying to do. I wasn't trying to be funny. I wanted to prove that I was right. Uh I wanted to keep score. I wanted to win, and I didn't get it, so what happened? I checked out. I stopped paying attention. Things got hard, so I left. I didn't pay attention to a single word that was left in the rest of the meeting, and I immediately started texting a coworker about how upset I was, about how hurt I was. Right? I assumed a motive without asking questions. I did all four of these things in the span of about 10 minutes, and then it hit me about 30 minutes later, like you doofus? Nathan just asked you to preach on humility, and you're like not doing that. Like, you know, it's it's funny how the Lord works. And it was just an honest mistake. I got an apology and we moved on, and it was over something that did not matter or impact my life in any significant way. But what it exposed was that in my flesh, I did not have a healthy framework for handling unmet expectations in relationships. And this is just at work. Don't Katie's not here, but don't ask her at the next service about how often I do this at home. We'll be here all day. Um we're humans, we're fallen, we're broken, we're sinful by nature, and right now we still live in a world where that enemy is seeking to destroy, kill, and tear down these relationships. Each of these opportunities, each of these relationships presents us with an opportunity to choose Christ, to choose obedience to him, or to choose our flesh. Before we talk about, though, what we need to do in relationships, we need to understand is, is this actually possible? Is this possible to correct, to fix, to redirect? I think the answer is yes, and that's what we're gonna spend the next five weeks kind of unpacking based on what Paul teaches in Ephesians. Before we talk about the do, though, we have to talk about how we show up in relationships. Before we look at a checklist of do this, do that, how do we first show up? There's baseline postures that followers of Jesus must have if they're going to engage in relationships in a way that honors the Lord. This brings us to our first rule of engagement, if you will, and that is that we must engage with humility. We must engage with humility. Every relationship has friction at times. Marriage, we think I'm right, they're wrong. Friends, work, they just don't get me. Church, ah, that's not how I would do it. Right, there's always tension. But oftentimes we think that these relationships are, the issues in them are a skill problem, a do problem, but in fact it's the opposite. It's actually a posture problem. It's not a skill problem, it's a posture problem. The common denominator in all those scenarios that we've talked about is that we bring ourselves to the center. We bring ourselves to the center. And as we look into the book of Ephesians today, we're going to see that Paul doesn't start with techniques or skill, he starts with attitudes and postures of the heart. So, we're gonna dive in. Here's the two things we've established. In Christ, we have been given a new identity. That identity produces a new posture. And that posture is that if humility is missing, nothing else works. If humility is missing, nothing else works. Let's look into Ephesians 4. We're just gonna read verses 1 through 6 here. Therefore, I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling. For you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle, be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one spirit. Just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future, there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all in all, and living through all. Right there in verse one, Paul sets the standard. I beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling. The calling, the identity, sets the standard. This is not a new idea that Paul is instituting. This is an idea that's supported all over the scriptures from the Old and New Testaments. In Exodus, the Lord said to Israel, He said, You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians and how I bore you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself. Now, therefore, if you will obey my voice and keep my commandments, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples, for the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. This came right before God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. And what we're seeing, what we see there is that God didn't give Israel the law to earn their identity. He gave it because of their identity. He didn't give the law because to earn their identity, he gave it because of their identity. And so this is what Paul is reinforcing here. Jesus reinforced it later. He said, if any of you want to be my follower, my disciple, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. Our calling raises the bar beyond what feels natural. This is not just about getting into heaven when we die. This is about an expectation of a way of life that is reflecting the calling we've been giving. So how do we match it? Verse 2, Paul says, always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other's faults because of your love. So there's three big things here: humility, gentleness, and patience. Always be humble and gentle and be patient with one another. Let's break each of those down quickly. Humility is, we've often said it's it's not thinking of yourself less, but think, or sorry, it's it's not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less. That's what I'm trying to say. Not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself. Let's just say that five times fast. Goodness gracious. Choosing to lower yourself for the sake of others. We see this in Philippians 2, 3 through 5. Don't be selfish. Don't try to impress others. Be humble. Thinking of others is better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interest, but take an interest in others too. You must have the same identity that Christ Jesus had. We do this because it's what Christ did for us. Gentleness. Gentleness is strength under control. This is not being harsh, not being reactive. Oh, this is probably the hardest of the three for me. Uh just being honest. Strength under control. Jesus said, Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. He gave us the model. His humble and gentle heart towards us modeled how we should do the same for others. Humility, gentleness, patience. This is long-suffering with people, giving people the grace and time and space to grow. Since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender-hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, making allowance for each other's faults, forgiving anyone who offends you, because remember, the Lord forgave you. So you must forgive others, and above all, clothe yourself with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. It's Colossians 3. We're going to unpack more of this idea in the weeks to come, but we cannot grow in our relationships with Christ and others without embracing these sometimes challenging and uncomfortable moments. If humility is missing, nothing else works. The end goal here, as Paul makes clear in Ephesians 4, is unity with Christ and others. Verses 3 through 6 that we already read, but make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace, for there is one body, one spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There's one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father of all, who is over all, in all, and living through all. What do we learn here? We learn that unity is not something that we create. Christ has already done it. Christ has already created unity by what he did on the cross. But it is something that we maintain. We have a responsibility to protect it, to maintain it. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble, as we're told in Proverbs and James, and pride goes before destruction and haughtiness before a fall. You see, pride divides us. Pride does not protect unity. But humility preserves the unity that Christ has created. This is where the competing values of our culture and our and the kingdom of God come into play. Culture says, put yourself first, speak your truth, protect your peace, even if it costs relationships. Cut people off when it gets hard. Remove yourself from the situation. But God's kingdom says, put others first. Die to yourself. Seek peace and pursue it. Pursue unity. Stay and work through it. What's interesting about this is that we live in one of, we talk about this all the time, one of the most anxious, depressed, and isolated generations ever. And I think it's because we've believed a narrative from the enemy that keeps us divided. We crave belonging, but often end up isolated because we avoid the hard work of relationships. Pride results in isolation. Humility results in belonging. We're reminded again and again that if humility is missing, nothing else works. If humility is missing, nothing else works. So as we seek to understand how to make this type of humility a regular part of our lives, I want us to reflect on just the words and teaching of Saint Benedict. He was a sixth-century monked monk. He wrote about what has kind of today become called the ladder of humility. It's kind of a 12-step framework, frame of reference for what humility should look like in our lives. For the sake of time, we're not going to dive deep into each step. I encourage you to jot that down and go research St. Benedict's ladder of humility for yourself. But what we come to see in this teaching is that a life of upward ascent to God is actually rooted in the downward way of humility. A life of upward ascent to God is actually rooted in the downward way of humility. Oftentimes we take this kind of checklist ladder approach to walking with Christ. We think that growth in the Christian life is climbing a ladder higher and higher and higher. But if we want stronger relationships, more peace, more maturity, and an authentic relationship with Him and others, it will not come from climbing a ladder and elevating ourselves. It will come from lowering ourselves to the last rung on the ladder. Benedict's 12 steps move in a progression, and I'm summarizing them here, but there's kind of four progressions, right? It starts with our orientation to God. Our orientation to God. We fear the Lord and have an awareness of his authority. This is where humility starts. Not in our relationships, but in our view of God. Because if God is not At the center, we will be. This is the difference between walking into conflict thinking, how do I win? versus how do I honor God? We move from our orientation to God into the surrender of our self-will. We let go of our control and we obey even when it costs us something. A lot of our relational problems are not confusion problems, they're control problems. Humility says, I don't have to win this moment to be secure. I don't have to be right in this moment to be right with God. We go from our orientation to God, the surrender of our self-will to the transformation of our character. This is where our instincts, because of the work we've already been doing, placing God in his rightful place, surrendering our self-will, our instincts begin to change. We start to experience patience, confession, contentment, things we never thought we would experience before. We're no longer as defensive as we used to be, reactive as we used to be, we're no longer as easily offended. We're slower to speak, quick to own fault, and confident in our standing in Christ. And even when we do fail, we're quick to repent. We're quick to recognize it, apologize, and repent. It's not about perfection. So we move from the transformation of our character to then true embodiment of humility, the embodiment of humility. We don't just act humble. We're not just putting on a show, but we are actually becoming humble. At this point, humility is no longer just a strategy that we're putting in place. It's our default. It's our default reaction. We can be wrong without spiraling out of control. We can be overlooked without resentment. We can stay when things get hard. This is the type of person that Christ, your spouse, your brothers and sisters, can actually build a real relationship with. What Benedict is showing us is that none of us will ever accidentally become humble. We are intentionally formed into humility. And without that formation, we default to the same patterns we talked about earlier: competition, withdrawal, defensiveness, quitting when it gets hard. The question that I'm asking myself and that we should all be asking ourselves every day is when I'm looking at this relationship right now, think of the moment, think of the relationship that's the hardest, the most difficult, the person you have attention with right now. When I look at this relationship and myself, do I see somebody trying to climb the ladder? Someone protecting their position? Or do I see somebody lowering themselves? Be honest with yourself. Am I climbing the ladder in this relationship? Am I protecting my position high and mighty? Or am I taking a step down, lowering myself, saying this person is more important than I am? The question has never been, do I believe in humility? It's am I practicing the kind of life that actually produces it? Am I practicing the life that produces it? So now what does this look like? Not in theory, but in practice. This week, in our real relationships, what does this look like? Most of us don't wake up and choose pride. It's just our default, right? It's what we've been wired, it's what we've been taught by culture. So it's okay. But it's not okay to stay there. Just like my reaction at work last week, it happens sometimes. It's real. I'm never going to graduate from that. I'm never going to escape the temptation for that to happen. But the point is that we can build a framework for our lives and relationships that brings us back to humility, back to grace, and back to Jesus. So here's a simple framework. Write these down. This will help you in every relationship that you're going to face this coming week. Pause before you react. Pause before you react. I needed to do this. Humility begins in the moment we don't say the first thing that comes to mind. We pause instead of reacting. We take a breath, we don't interrupt, we don't send off that message in the Google Meet chat that we want to send right away. Something I'm learning? I don't think I can be humble if I'm always immediate. Number two, check the story you're telling yourself. Check the story you're telling yourself. Most of our reactions are not based on facts, they're based on assumptions. In that meeting I sat in, I thought they don't respect me. They did that on purpose. I'm being overlooked. None of that was true. Not an ounce of that was true. Humility assumes less and asks more questions. We should always ask a question before making a conclusion and clarify instead of accusing. Number three, choose the relationship over being right. Pride says, win the argument. Humility says win the relationship. We need to own our part first, not bring up the past, and we need, oh gosh, this one's hard for me. We need to not have the last word. I just remember being like 13 and hearing that from my mom all the time. That was my life. You always have to have the last word. We can be right and still be wrong in how we love people. The fourth thing, we stay when it gets hard. Culture says leave when you're uncomfortable, cut people off, avoid tension, and the kingdom says lean in, work through, and stay committed. Humility doesn't run at the first sign of friction. Most of our relationship issues don't come from a lack of knowledge, they come from a lack of humility. We know what to do. We just don't want to take up our cross. We don't want to die to ourselves. But what would it look like if we actually lived this? What if this became, this sort of framework became our natural reaction? We would be a church where people don't keep score. Conflict does not result in division. Feedback does not create defensiveness. Imagine that. And people stay when things get hard. We don't just run down the block. In our day-to-day lives, we would have relationships where we can be honest without fear. We can mess up and still be loved. And we don't have to perform to belong. If we are going to lead a life worthy of our calling as a community, we have to collectively see humility as a strength and not a weakness. Paul is not after perfect people, but unified people. Make every effort, he says, to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourself together with peace. Unity is not something we create, it's something we protect, and we protect it through humility. If humility is missing, nothing else works, but if humility is present, everything changes. Everything changes. And everything changed two thousand years ago when Jesus embodied humility truly and perfectly by taking our sins upon his body and his flesh and dying on the cross. The most humble moment in history, the man who didn't deserve any of it, the man who had every right to be defensive, the man who had every right to argue, the man who had every right to strike down lightning and kill everybody that was accusing him. But he didn't. Because the relationship with us was too important. He chose the relationship over being right. And now he gives us that same opportunity. And he's inviting you into that. This is not about getting your ticket to heaven when you die. This is about entering into a new relationship that changes everything about the way that you live your life. And this is the invitation that is available to you today. If you've never considered what that means, you can climb down the ladder today. And you can kneel at the foot of the cross. You can repent and turn to Him. And that invitation is available to you right now. I want to close with a prayer that's just kind of adapted from Philippians 2. And I just want to invite you to reflect. If you've not considered what Christ has done, reflect on that. If you've got that relationship that is in tension right now, reflect. So, God, we come to you. We need to have the same attitude that you had, that Christ Jesus had. That though you were God, you did not consider equality with God as something to be grasped or clung to. Instead, Jesus, you gave up your divine privileges. You took the humble position of a slave. You were born as a human. You appeared in human form, and you humbled yourself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on the cross. And therefore, God elevated you to the place of highest honor. He gave you the name that is above every other name, and that at the name of Jesus every knee would bow in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue would declare Jesus you as Lord to the glory of God the Father. That's what you've made possible right here in this room today. We love you, Jesus.