Gentleness and Meekness

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good morning everyone. It is Saturday, August seventeenth, twenty twenty four. It is currently ten oh seven am Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, I have a number of rule books. I'm looking through all of these rule books trying to find the rule that tells me what should I do after there is a delay between one broadcast and the next broadcast. What is the role? Specifically speaking, if you are kind of doing a series, you're focusing on a specific say, chapter of the Bible. Right, You're working on a specific chapter. You're giving everyone specific assignments to do on that chapter. You're having everyone listen to sermons specifically on that chapter. Everything is there, and then there's a delay. Let's say you kind of just stop talking about it. You don't do another broadcast about it for like a week or over a week. What is the rule? Is? The rule is you just wait until someone emails you going, hey, you were working on Ephesians chapter four. I've done all the assignments. Where are you you just kind of leftists there, come on, finish this,

1:33 bring it to some kind of conclusion. Do I wait for that email? And if I don't get that email, do I take that as a sign to mean, well, no one cares, so you should just forget about it and move on? And well, then I have to ask myself, well, can I move on or will I not kind of be obsessed with the fact that I left it unfinished? Ano there are many times I leave things unfinished. A lot of times is because of well, no, if you don't get an email, if you don't get anyone asking you about it, then you kind of have to just decide, well, maybe no one is interested. Now sometimes that's a wrong conclusion to come to, but you just you don't know. So what is the rule? I've been looking at the rule books and there is no There's no rule. But I feel like we have to go back to Ephesians four.

2:19 We have to write because we were working on Ephesians chapter four. I told you to read the chapter over and over and over. I remember there was a specific church that held a conference, the Assault and Light Conference of twenty twenty four, and their key text for their conference, the key verse for their conference was Ephesians chapter four, verse five, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all, and in you all. And once I realized here's an entire conference dedicated to Ephesians four five. Remember how excited I got. I was like, Oh, this is going to be awesome, right, we will review some of these sermons. This will be great, and we'll dig into the Book of Ephesians. So everyone read it and then and then what happened, Well, what happened is I started getting extremely frustrated, right because this is a conference where Ephesians four to five is like the key and the first speaker. I think we review two sermons, maybe three sermons, and they didn't really deal with a Book of Ephesians. It was really frustrating. It was almost maddening. It's like, wait a minute, if you're going to have a conference on Ephesians four five, don't you have to then establish what Ephesians one, two three was about. Then you have therefore in chapter four, verse one, and so we have then a transitional transitional word.

3:41 Therefore is a transition from the three chapters one, two, and three, which was a philological exposition. Now chapter four begins the practical exposition, and the practical exposition relies and is built upon and flows from the philological So remember I told everyone to go through chapter four and then find how each thing relates to chapters one, two, and three. I remember, I give you all these assignments, but it was maddening how they were handling the text, and so I kind of got irritated. To be honest, I got aggravated. Probably you even heard a little anger in my voice at times, because I'm just like, can we just deal with the text. But what I try to do is when I get frustrated, when I get aggravated in a sermon review, I could just sit there and be negative and be critical. That's easy to do, But then I always say, okay, all right, even though that frustrated me.

4:36 Even though that irritated me, even though I may disagree, I am forever grateful that they put their content online because now I can use that as motivation for us to dig into the text and really try to get something from it. So what did I do. I provided you an entire message, I think almost an hour long, of giving you the structure of Ephesians one, two, three, four, five, and six, trying to give you kind of an outline and how it all fit together. I think that was very beneficial. And then they even acknowledged in the conference. They acknowledged this because if you'll notice and Ephesians four five, one Lord, one Faith, one baptism, one God, and this idea of one and so they said that this section really emphasizes unity. We need unity, and the body of Christ, we need unity, so that there's one God, there's one faith, there's one baptism. There needs to be unity. And I'm like, well, that that's great. And they even argued that this section was calling for unity. And I'm like, that's great because if you go to Ephesians chapter four and you read verse three endeavoring to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace, and I'm like, okay, here, even in a four Ephesians four three is saying there's something you have to do. You have to endeavor, endeavor to keep the unity. You have to endeavor. It's something we must pursue, it's something we must do. So there

6:07 is a And again Ephesians four is the practical exposition, So practically you must endeavor, not endeavor endeavor, You must endeavor to maintain that unity. To keep the unity. It's not something that's natural, it's actually unnatural. So we have to figure out what is required for us to endeavor to keep the unity. Now, remember, the practical unity flows from the spiritual unity. What do I mean by that? Well, when you put your faith in Christ, right, when you put your faith in Christ, you are in Christ Jesus. So you are in Christ. I'm in Christ. Doesn't matter what country you came from, does not matter, your racial background does not matter, your gender doesn't matter anything. We are one in Christ spiritually. Or we could use the word positionally. Now that positional reality we must endeavor to live out practically. That's the again, that's the Christian life. Positionally, you are a new creature. Old things are passed away, all things have become new. Positionally, you're perfect and holy because of imputed righteousness. Positionally, you're perfectly obedient because Christ obedient obedience has been accredited to your account. That is true positionally. Now, practically we have to endeavor to live out even though it's not going to be anywhere close to perfect. We try to live out some level of

7:38 reality of what is true positionally. So positionally we are one in Christ. Positionally we are unified. Practically we have to endeavor to keep that. Now what is required for us to endeavor to keep that unity? Well, I believe the text lays it all out. Look at Ephesians four one. I Paul speaking therefore the prisoner of the Lord, wanted to do a lot of work on the word prisoner. But we've never we've never gotten a chance to get to that. All right, But I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you. Now, Paul's like, okay, I beseech you. I beg beg you. I played with you. Look at this. To walk worthy of the calling which you were called, walk worthy of the calling which you were called. We were called with a holy calling, with a sovereign calling, with an eternal calling, with a gracious calling, with a loving calling. And so now we that is true. Now we are to try to walk and practice worthy of it.

8:32 We're never going to come close. We're only worthy in Christ. But practically we endeavor to do so. Then look what happens with all Now here's the characteristics and the attributes that are very important to walking worthy. When we say walk worthy, we immediately say, well, don't do this and don't watch this and dress this way. That's not what's given immediately. It gives us these very important characteristics and attributes. Right, you're ready, lowlyess, gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity. If you want to keep the unity practically, what is required is that we maintain and have these characteristics in these attributes.

9:20 And what are they? I told you to write them down. The first one is a lowliness, the second one is gentleness, the third is long suffering, the next is bearing with one another in love. Those are the attributes. And remember I told you to write them down and to think about them. I know, I know, it feels like it's been six months since we talked about this, but we needed to circle back. We need to finish this. Like if you're gonna do a conference on Ephesians four about one faith, one this, one this, and we need unity, Well, you can't just tell everyone have unity. Just remember there's one faith, one God, one baptism. That's just giving them the philological motivation for it. But the philological motivation for it flows from Ephesians one, two and three, So you would really have to go back to Ephesians one, two and three to get the philological basis for this idea of one God, one faith. But even if you're not going to do that, what you really need to do is, like, okay, guys, before we talk about the fact that there's one God, one faith, one baptism, and we need to have unity. Well, what to endeavor to keep this unity, to endeavor to maintain this unity, to endeavor to even experience this unity.

10:39 What we must determine is we have to find a way for these specific attributes and characteristics to be developed in our life, because without it, you're never going to have unity. And what are they again? What are they? Class Number one lowliness, Number two gentleness in the New King James, makeness in the King James. So lowliness, gentleness, long suffering, and then bearing with one another in love. Those are the attributes that we desperately, desperately need. So let me quickly remind you of lowliness. Right, Remember, lowliness comes from a very interesting Greek word, a very interesting Greek word. It's this Greek word lowliness comes from this Greek word. Everybody, remember this one. This is worth, This is worth like you know, fifty dollars if you can remember it, remember.

11:35 This strong g fivey twelve tapai now for rasune, tapai now frasune. Tapa noaf rasune, Tapa naff rasune. If I look at it, I can do pretty good. Tapa noaf rasune. That's that's worth fifty dollars. If you just walk around the house today going top tapa noof rasune, topof not rasune. Just keep walking around saying it. Say if you say it too, fashion'll mess it up. You got to go really be You got to be very intentional in saying it, tapa not rasune. Like if you say it intentionally, I think you can get But you need to go around today saying it over and over and over. But you need to say the word so that you remember the characteristic and the attribute. Remember this word tappa rasune is used seven times. It's translated humility three times, humbleness of mine one time, humility of mine one time, lowliness one time, and lowliness of mind. The strongest definition is humiliation of mind, humiliation of mind, modesty, humbleness of mind, a lowliness of mind.

12:42 It really the outline of biblical usage is really three having a humble opinion of oneself, Having a humble opinion of oneself. If you want to endeavor to keep unity, if you want to walk worthy of the calling, then you must maintain a humble opinion of oneself. And I think this idea of a humble opinion of oneself is really deals with your spiritual understanding of yourself. See a humble opinion of oneself. You're not gonna be like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, where you say, I think the God that I'm not like the homosexual. I think the God that I'm not like the coveteousness one, the one who covets. I'm not like the glutton. I'm not like the slothful. I'm not like the sloughtful person. I'm not like the No. No, no, no, that's that's not this idea of loneliness. No, the idea of humble, a humble opinion of oneself. Here's the key. You are more aware.

13:49 You are more bothered about your own sin, your own spiritual shortcomings, than you are of anyone else's. You're more bothered by your own. You're willing to admit your own. Whenever you see anyone else's failure, your first thought is how you can relate to said failure. When you see someone else's sin, you immediately think of how you can relate to it. You may not be able to relate to the practice, but you may be able to relate to it. Internally, you see your own, and even if you can't relate to their sin at all, you'll be quick to it. No, you've got your own. And this is why I get so bothered by so much preaching in the American Church, because the American Church loves to go them, they them, and it's always about those people though those and we are always yelling and screaming about those outside of the church. Inside the church, we act like we're all perfect. Now we say, oh no, we don't admit that, we admit we're sinners. Then why are all the sermons always about them? And they and them?

14:59 And how about? It should be about us and you and I about me? It's about we. It should be about us. If we're going to have unity, we must maintain a humble opinion of one's self. Second, a deep sense of one's moral littleness. This Greek word that's translated lowliness means you will have a deep sense of your own moral littleness. You'll know your own littleness when it comes to morality. And number three modesty, humility, loneliness of mind. Now, we did an entire hour on that one, so that means today we come to the second one, gentleness or meekness. Now, are you ready to try to dig into this? Now?

15:53 I know that was about a fifteen minute review, and I apologize for that, but I want to get us all back on the same page. Okay, I gotta get myself on the same page because I'm just gonna be honest with you. I haven't given him much thought. I kind of moved on, like I was like, Okay, we're working on Ephesians. We're working on Ephesians. We're working on Ephesians. And then I was just kind of like, all right now, I'm just moving on. We didn't really come close to finishing this. Can you imagine what your family would look like? Can you imagine what your church would look like if everyone truly had lowliness of mind, where we all had a humble opinion of oneself, We all had a very deep, deep deep sense of our own moral littleness, and we had modesty and humility and lowliness of mind. Now the next one, I'm going to go back to the anti linear.

16:56 The next one again is translated meekness or gintness, meekness or gentleness. It comes from this Greek word. Are you ready? Here's the Greek word. Strong g forty two thirty six pratase, pratase. Pra atas, pra ATase, pra atas. Much easier to say pra atas, not as much fun, but much easier to say pra a tastes. Now this one is used nine times, nine times. It's translated meekness, all right, strongest definition gentleness by implication humility or meekness. All right, gentleness, mildness, meekness.

17:41 Seems pretty straight forward. So let's do some work on this and see what we can find again. Ephesians chapter four. All right, these are things that are required to walk worthy. These are things that are required if we're going to keep unity. Right. We need lowliness, which we just spent a fifteen minutes talking about, and then we need meekness, gentleness, meekness or gentleness all right. The Greek word does not give us a lot, does not give us a lot to go on, So let's do a little bit of work here, right. Gentleness, often translated from the Greek word, which we've already looked at, refers to all right, here we go. This is kind of what it refers to, a quality of mildness, humility, and meekness. So clearly this, I think if lowliness kind of gives you that humble way of thinking, and I think this is kind of building upon it. It's kind of like lowliness to me in some ways lowliness should lead to meekness or gentleness. Right, So this is still dealing with humility, but I think it's dealing with with a practical impact of a humble mind, I think. So let's see if this if a number of sources agrees with this, disagrees now here. Now this is where it gets very practical. This meekness or gentleness is described, at least by one source, it is the ability to remain calm and composed in the face of provocation. Wow,

19:20 the ability to remain calm and composed and the face of being provoked. See lowliness, Is that true? Humility, that true humility. You are. You are so in a sense almost broken and brought low because of the awareness of your own frail to your own sinfulness, your own ungodland. You're you're brought low. But from that lowliness should then arise a meekness and a gentleness, where this gives you the ability to remain calm even when being provoked. All right there, I just kind of want to just say, well, we're having some technical difficulties and we're just going to end this broadcast, and I think nobody really cares about Ephesians for maybe we should just be done, because I have to admit to you, I'm not very good at that. See, my way of thinking is in the face of provocation and being provoked, my way of thinking is I'm going to respond, not in an equal way, but I'm going to respond so far above and beyond that by the time I'm done, that person will never ever even think of provoking me ever, ever, ever, ever, ever again. I'm gonna want them to regret provoking me like they have

20:53 never regretted it in their entire life. I'm going to go for total annihilation and destruction. But see that not show lowliness does it, and it definitely doesn't show meekness or gentleness. It is to be considerate and carrying towards others and to avoid harshness and speech and action. Now, the thing with the Bible, though it just looks, make sure this is very clear, the Bible also would allow at times a righteous kind of anger and a very righteous, very blunt response. Now, the thing is typically in men will go find those passages where John the Baptist is saying some harsh things, or Jesus is picking up a whip, and we utilize that to justify our We'll call it righteous indignation, where we're saying things that ultimately really are not very godly. And the reason Jesus could do that well because while he was the eternal son of God, and you know, perfect and righteous and holy and without a sinful nature, so obviously his way of doing that would be always something that we probably will never even come close to pulling off. John the Baptist said a lot of things we could we could try to justify our words. I think I think sometimes we try to

22:25 justify our actions by pointing to some of these. But we are called whether whether we like it or not. We are called to be lowly, a lowliness, and gentle and meek, which means to be considerate and caring towards others and to avoid harshness and speech and actions. And if you've listened to this podcast, you know I'm not always meek or gentle, and my response because I get very angry and very frustrated. In Ephesians four, Paul list gentleness as a crucial attribute for maintaining unity within the body of Christ. Now, if you want unity anywhere, if everyone is lowly or lowliness, and everyone is gentle and meek, there should be a high degree of unity, you would think.

23:23 So it is paired with humility, patience, and love, emphasizing the need for believers to interact with one another in a manner that fosters peace and cohesion. Now, some of the characteristics of gentleness, according to one's source self control. Gentleness involves exercising control over one's emotions, especially anger. It is the opposite of being easily provoked or reacting impulsively. So if we're going to be gentle or meek, it means that we exercise control over our own emotions. We control our own emotions, especially when being provoked. We do not react and pulsively, so there's a sense of self control with the idea of gentleness and meekness. Second, humility, a gentle person recognizes their own limitations and does not assert themselves over others. The humility allows them to serve others without seeking recognition or asserting dominance. See the gentle person.

24:32 The meek person recognizes their own limitations. Now, this is why I believe the gentleness and meekness flows from the lowliness. If we have lowliness, that already we already more aware of our own sin. We're already aware of our own moral littleness, we already understand that, we're willing to admit that. And now that manifests itself in a gentle and meek attitude where you know your own limitations. I wish many Christians would be willing to admit their own not only their own moral littleness, but their own limitations, because so many times Christians think that they are an expert on everything.

25:12 If they want to talk about medical issues, they think they're an expert, even though they demonstrate they don't have a clue what they're talking about. You have Christian men who think that they're experts when it comes to hermoneutics or theology, and they don't even have any formal education. But then they will mimic, mock ridicule those who do have the education and act like that they're smarter and they know more there and they're the ones who have the understanding. Well, everyone else are just idiots. Self control Humility number three consideration for others. Gentleness is marked by a thoughtful concern for the feelings and well beings of others, and involves speaking and acting in a way that is considerate and avoids unnecessary harm. You're gentle and meek, then you should show that in how you consider other people, how you think about how you are impacting other people.

26:09 Sometimes all we think about is ourselves. We don't think about well, if I do this, this is what's going to happen. No, I only worry about me. But see if your lowly lowliness, then you'll be so broken that whenever you consider yourself, you will see your own failures, your own shortcomings, your own sinfulness. But then that should lead to them a gentleness and meekness, and how you consider other people, and you are more you're considerate of other people, You take thought of other people, you may even put them before yourself. So some of the characteristics of gentleness is self control. Number two is humility. Number three is consideration for others, or you're considerate of others.

26:56 And next calmness and conflict. A gentle person is able to maintain peace even in challenging situations. They respond to conflict with calmness rather than aggression, seeking resolution rather than escalation. See the gentle the meek person. It's calm and conflict A man or O me. How do we obtain meekness and gentleness? I don't know if there's any specific way I think. I think the key is to maintain I think loneliness and gentleness and meekness are very much related, very much connected, right, And I think the only way to bring us low, the only way to keep us humble, The only way to bring about gentleness and meekness, I think requires really two things, is a constant reminder of the greatness, sovereignty, power of God. Because the more you see the greatness of God, the more aware you are of how little and insignificant and small and broken you are.

28:25 Right again, I know it's You've heard me say it a million times. It comes from Calvin's institutes. When we see God as he truly is, then we see ourselves as we truly are. We have to see God and his greatness, which then will demonstrate our littleness. It will, It will break us, hopefully and humble us. It should, it should, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the more we know about God, the more it makes us arrogant. It should break us. So I think we have to spend much time acknowledging and studying and meditating on the greatness of God. And I think this is important. We need to spend much time acknowledging the reality of us. Christianity is so much about putting on fig leaves and putting on robes of self righteousness and pretending, pretending, pretending, pretending, pretending, pretending, pretending, pretending, pretending, and acting shocked at everyone else's sin and acting horrified that other people would How dare they do this? You need to look at yourself. You need to see your own struggles, your own issues. I know we like to pretend that we're so great. If we could just be honest with ourselves. Gentleness is essential and maintaining unity in the church because it fosters an environment where people feel respected and valued. It prevents division and promotes harmonious relationships.

30:00 Without gentleness, conflicts are more likely to arise, and unity is harder to maintain. Gentleness is a vital attribute for Christian unity, characterized by self control, humility, consideration, and calmness. It is cultivated through prayer, scriptural reflection, and intentional practice and community support. Now, I didn't go through the ways as they said to develop it because I'm not completely convinced that those ways actually develop it. I think what actually develops because lowliness and meekness and gentleness they're connected. Well, how are you going to be brought low by seeing how hot? Again? Isaiah, when he saw God high and lifted up, then he saw how little he was. Right, he saw what he really was. That's the When we see God as he truly is, we see ourselves as we truly are. And then if we will spend time actually acknowledging what we are. I don't think. I know.

30:51 Church doesn't allow that, right, Church doesn't allow you know, you're sitting around in a semi circle, goes, So how was your wig? Well? You know, I spent six hours on a porn site. That's how my week is going. No, you can't say that, well, you know I was. I was thinking how my life would be so much better if I wasn't married to my stupid husband. No, you can't say that, well, I have this desire or I have this, or I was thinking this, or I was wanting this and I'm sick of this and I'm really irritated about God about You can't say any of that. You can't. So everyone puts on their nice little church clothes and they put on their nice little church smile, and everyone goes and saying, how you do it? I'm blessed brother, How you doing? Oh I'm doing so great, sister. Right, Everyone's like, oh, great, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. The sun comes up and there's a rainbow of skittles. Everyone's happy.

31:47 There's unicorns, there's butterflies. Life is wonderful, life is great. And then you get in the car and scream and yell at each other all the way home. Now, I understand church is not necessarily the place for that honesty to be to be expressed. I understand that I'm not talking about making everyone uncomfortable. What I'm saying, though, you have to be aware of the reality. You've got to know and not become. Don't convince yourself by the game you play. Be willing to look in the mirror, going, man, if people only knew what was inside of me, if people only knew, and then you take what's inside of you.

32:33 It's not necessarily you have to go tell everyone what's inside of you. The issue is that you are willing to admit it because then guess what. That brings you low, and then that should make you meique and gentle towards others because you've seen the greatness of God and you've seen the reality of self. The greatness of God and the reality of Self should bring you low lowliness, and hopefully from that flows a meek and gentle spirit. Not saying there's never a time to get upset, not saying there's never a time to get angry. The Bible also tells us to be angry and sin not. There is a place and time. So there's two attributes you need to put down. You can put rite them on your refrigerator today. Lowliness gentleness slash meekness don't worry about if anyone else in your family is maintaining having these attributes of lowliness, meekness, slash gentleness. Worry about yourself. Don't worry about other people in your church having lowliness, meekness or gentleness.

33:48 You demonstrate this is about you. It's not about them or they. It's about us. It's about me, it's about you, it's about we. We need this. Christianity locks these attributes. But you can't tell people, hey, there is one body, one spirit. Even as you're call you can't go through all the kind of the philological realities of the oneness of all these things, because those oneness of all those things will not matter if the individuals who are called to endeavor to keep the unity, if we do not have lowliness, meekness, long suffering for bearing one another in love.

34:30 So you could think we need lowliness, we need meekness, we need long suffering, and we need love. And we're never going to have these perfectly and Christ see and Christ there's perfect unity. But we then must endeavor to take that positional unity and then try to make it practical to whatever degree that we can. Two thousand years of Church history shows there's not a lot of lowliness sometimes within Christianity, and there's not a lot of jeepness, gentleness and meekness, but we desperately need it now. If you want to continue to work on Ephesians four, we'll continue to go through Efusians four, reading it over and over and over. Remember everything in Epusians four find its counterpart, its connection. Chapters one through three is the philological exposition, four, five, and six is the practical exposition. The practical must be connected to the philological, and one, two and three right.

35:34 Make sure you're listening to sermons. Remember I told you to listen to the Salt and Light Conference of twenty twenty four. Listen to all of those messages. I think there was thirteen. You can just look up random sermons for the sermon's two point oh app challenge on Ephesians four if you so desire. But I really want you to focus on these attributes lowliness, meekness, lung, suffering, and then love. Now I could probably say more about gentlenessess, I probably could do a better job, but I think we'll stop right there and we will try to finish this up. At least those attributes. At least those attributes. Maybe we'll do more work on Ephesians four. We will see, but at least want those attributes very well known. All right, I'll stop there. Thank you so much for listening. I greatly appreciate it. I hope you will continue to work on Ephesians for and we will see what else the day has for us. Tomorrow Victory Baptist Church. Primarily, I think it's going to be a Romans day. I think it's going to be looking at the word therefore in the Book of Romans. I know we need to finish up the eschatology, but I may use both hours for that tomorrow. That therefore I want to do. I wanted to do a little bit more work on scrupulosity. Scrupulosity I think is I think that concept is far more important than anyone who knows. There was very few contacts about it. I don't think anyone else was impressed with the scrupulosity discussion. I feel like it's absolutely critical. But

37:06 we we'll see. So maybe tomorrow we'll just do at the church. It'll just be all Romans, and then we'll see where else we'll go. But I think we may talk about scrupulosity again, I feel like we do, and obviously we'll continue to work on Ephesians. You've got all your assignments for Romans, so I already gave you your assignments for Romans. Hopefull you already started on that. So all right, with all that said, everyone have a great Saturday, and may God bless you as you read and study his word.