Brethren, if you will, let's
open to Ephesians chapter 4. After the Gospels, you've got
Acts, Romans, Corinthians, Galatians and Ephesians. Ephesians chapter
4. We began Wednesday night looking
in Romans 12. We spent a year together, exactly,
going through the first 11 books of Romans. plainly declaring,
looking at Paul, just tell us clearly the gospel of Christ. What salvation is. What man is. What he's done for us. All the
love he had for his people. And beginning that first service
of January, we began Romans 12. Here's the reaction to redemption. What the Lord does in his people.
The way we walk in this world. We've been going through Ephesians.
And now we're starting Ephesians 4. First three chapters of Ephesians. Plain as a nose on your face.
Couldn't word it any clearer myself. Gospel of the Lord. The good news for sinners. And
now we're starting chapter 4. It's how we walk in that good
news. And I prayed the Lord would make me humble. As we look at
those gifts that the Spirit gave, gives to His people Wednesday
night, it's in humility. It's in humbleness. And I prayed
the Lord would make me humble. And you know what? He did exceedingly
abundantly more than I ever asked. There are some believers in this
world, around this country, in this congregation that are hurting.
I mean wounded. They're in bad shape. What will
cure that? What could I have? Should I give
them some good philosophical advice? I ain't going to do them
no good. I'm singing that same song. Worthy is the Lamb to look
to Him, to see the love of God for His people in Christ Jesus,
His Son. It's the only thing that will
mend us, the only thing that will cure us. There in verse
1, Paul writes, I therefore. Brother Rolfe used to say, anytime
you see a therefore, find out what it's there for. That's simple,
isn't it? Boy, how good would we be if
we did that? When it says, but God, that's in contrast to something,
and we need to hear what comes before that. Paul says, therefore,
he just told us there in chapter 3, he was in and up, he was praying
for that whole family of God. Look at that last time. He prayed
for the whole family. He said he wished that they were
strengthened with might by the Spirit in the inner man. Look
at that. That's to be weak. us to be brought
low and Christ to be exalted. That's strength right there.
And our weakness, His strength is on perfect display. It's completed. It's come to fruition in us.
Paul prayed that we were rooted and grounded in love. Being rooted,
being grounded, droving deep into it, in love. That in some
measure, we just get a taste, just a nibble of the volume of
the love of Christ through His people. the width, the depth,
the height, the length of it. And he prayed that Christ would
abide in them in their hearts, in the hearts of his sheep, and
that we would know it. That's a whole lot to ask for
and then say, and to know it. To know him, to know Christ.
And he goes on to finish and says, he is able to do exceedingly
abundantly above all that we ask or think. I ask a good bit. I thank a whole
lot. He's able to provide much more
than I can even conjure up in my head, in this little brain.
But why? Why would we need Paul to pray
for believers? Why would we need the Holy Spirit
to come to us and do these things for us? We ain't doing too good
on our own. We're sinners, aren't we? That's
why he said there in chapter 2, verse 1, and you have he quickened. You, He gave life to. Spiritual
life. The Holy Spirit comes to you, does a work in your heart,
puts a new man in you. That incorruptible seed of Christ
in you. Wickened. Made alive. Why do we have to make it alive
when we're already living? Who were dead in trespasses and sins. Plumb dead. Graveyard dead. Dead man can't do it. A dead
man like that coin laying in a dusty floor. Get in my pocket
and I'll take you with me. It ain't going nowhere. That
sheep wandering out in the wilderness, scared, frightened. You just
find your way back and all feeds you. Can't do it. Dead. That's where He found us.
That's why the Lord has to come and strengthen us. The Lord has
to ground us, prove His faith in us, make Christ abide in us
and make us know about it. Because we were dead in sin.
How does He do all that? That's what Paul just therefore
told us in chapter 1, wasn't it? That's as plain as you can
get. I don't like watching things squirm so I don't watch people
that don't know the gospel try to preach out of Ephesians 1.
Like an ant under a magnifying glass. They've got to do some
wiggling or something. I don't know what to do. That's
as plain as it can be. God the Father purposed a whole people
more than the sands of the sea to be made just exactly like
His Son. Holy, unreprovable, without blame in His sight. Perfect.
Holy. He's going to make them that
way. And he said, I'm going to put them in my son, and he's
going to do all the work. The father purposed salvation
for those he purposed to do so for. The son purchased it. Christ came to this earth made
of a woman, made under the law like as we are, a worm surrounded by billions of
people of sin that ain't like him. He laid down his life willingly,
willingly shed his perfect innocent blood for a worthless wretch
like me. Somebody that's dead in sin.
Like Lazarus was dead. Lazarus, this is Lord, he stinketh.
He may have been dead a couple of days. They didn't bomb folks
back then. A stinking dead man like me,
God Almighty in human flesh. fully God and fully man to come
to this earth to die, to lay down his life for me. So the
Father purposed it. The Son purchased me. He bought
me. He paid the price for that debt
I owe to that law, the debt I owe to the God I offended. He paid
it in full, the full wrath of God. And then God, the Holy Spirit,
proclaims it. The Father purchased it, the
Son, I'm sorry, the Father purposed it, the Son purchased it, and
the Holy Spirit proclaims it. He abounds towards you like a
linebacker. Sprinting, that's what comes
to my head every time I read that. Charges you, attacks the heart, and says,
this is what you are, the sin that you are. Here is the righteousness
of Christ, and here's the judgment of the Father that's been satisfied
completely in Him. That's called saving His people,
and that happens. You say, I got saved. Well, if
you didn't get saved this way, it didn't happen. That's how
the Lord saves His people. He does it through the preaching
of the gospel. People say, I don't agree with that. You don't have
to. The Lord declared it. The gospel is not a debate. It's
not a discussion. It's a declaration. It's not
to be meddled with, with our puny little minds. It's declared. Just as there in Romans, those
first 11 chapters, Paul laid the same foundation. He's speaking
to believers. He's speaking to those that aren't
believers yet. He's speaking to us in our day. The Lord has
preserved this Word. He's gave us His Word. We can put all our
eggs in one basket. Here's the Word of Christ. He
gave us His Word. And then once He's laid that
foundation to tell His men and women, then He says, now, if
you've been a recipient of that grace, if the Lord's done a work
in your heart, Here's how you conduct yourself in this life.
And why? This ain't rules. This ain't
laws. If you don't do this, you're going to lose all that stuff
that the Lord purposed before He ever put a grain of sand on
this earth. I don't know. Out of a debt of gratitude, out
of love. If we see that love, that's the love that we want
to walk with. That's the walk of the believer. There in chapter
4, In the first three verses, this
is one sentence. A compound sentence, a semi-colon,
and I had to go back and study to make sure I was saying it
right. A compound sentence and a semi-colon. So that's two thoughts
that go together. This is one sentence in three
verses. I therefore, because of everything he just told us,
the prisoner of the Lord, Paul was his prisoner. "...Beseech
you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing
one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace." I want to talk to believers,
and if the Lord hasn't done a work in you, you haven't come to Christ
yet, you just be quiet and listen. You get a listening on a good
conversation. We have a vocation. We have a vocation. That ain't
a job. Well, it's called a job just
over broke, isn't it? Whenever I got out of the military, I
used my GI Bill to go to vocational school, and I learned a vocation. Now, if I work for company A,
I have a job there. If I work for company B or company
C, my jobs may have been different, but my vocation did not change.
Believers have a vocation in this world throughout our lifetime. We have duties. We have jobs.
We looked at that last time. The Lord gives gifts to His people. He gives dispensations, as Paul
called it, for Himself. We have the duty of preaching.
Some have the duty of ministering, of serving one another, of giving,
whether that's time, or money, or looks, or your attendance. That's a gift to me. Thank you
for being here today. I don't say it lightly. Thank
you. It's good to see you. God Almighty gave you the grace
to give me that gift this morning. I'd like to see you. He gives
us gifts of ruling, whether it's taking care of the church, He
gives every one of us the gift of showing mercy. If He's shown
us mercy, doesn't He? We have those duties. We have
those responsibilities. But we have, and we're supposed
to do all those humbly. Do them in love. Do them in understanding. But we have a vocation. We have
a vocation. Here's the attitude we're to
conduct our vocation in. Look here in verse 32, chapter
4. Ephesians 4, 32. And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's
sake hath forgiven you." He's speaking to people who have been
forgiven by Christ. And that's the attitude we're
to have. The same manner. Often times he says, after this
manner, he says, so. For God so loved the world. After
this manner, He loved the world. After the manner that God and
His darling Son saved us, forgave us, was tenderhearted to us,
that's how we are to be to those around us. We have to know Him
first, don't we? We have to know Him first. We
each have a calling. We each have gifts, some more
than others. Some have ten talents, some have
five talents. But what is all of us given as our vocation? That's our duties, that's our
dispensations, our jobs, we could say. What's our vocation? What's our baseline? It says
there in verse two, with all lowliness and meekness. with long-suffering, forbearing
one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace. That is our lifelong vocation. That's our career. As we walk
this earth, from the Lord doing a work in our heart, from Him
coming to us, Him saving us, Him revealing Christ in us, we
have a vocation to walk in this earth. It's to walk in meekness. People say meekness. I say meekness
and lowliness real fast. They kind of bleed together,
don't they? What's meekness? Meekness is how I approach others. That's my disposition towards
others. I'm to be meek. That's my vocation.
Lowliness. That's to myself. I should think
highly of others than I think of myself. If the Lord shows us what sinners
we are, we think that. It ain't a contest to see who
sinned the most, but it's an earnest, heartfelt lowliness
and meekness. Lowliness in ourselves and meekness
towards our brethren that we esteem higher than ourselves.
And we walk in our vocation with long suffering. That's whenever
your brothers and sisters are suffering. We got a lot of folks
suffering right now. Sit down and cry next to them.
You suffer with them. Like that little boy went to
his neighbor and said to his mom, what are you doing over
there? He said, oh mommy, I'm just helping him cry. You just
go cry with them. Suffer with them. It's my vocation. Forbearing one another. That
one that you sat down next to and you cried with. Oh, they
were hurt. They had a great loss. They had
a great trial. They had a deep pain in their bones. And you
just sat down and wept with them. That same one, as I, pardon me,
I'm talking about me, turned around the next week and chopped
your head off. As James said, that tongue's a rudder of a ship.
It's tiny, but boy, it steers the whole thing, doesn't it?
That two-edged sword come flying out of my mouth. Say something
sharp, mean to somebody. You say something sharp back,
we suffer no more, now we can go fist to cuffs. No, you forbear. You take that load, that burden
of your brethren, and you put it in a backpack and you put
it on your back and you bear it. You just walk, carry it. How we're compassionate to one
another and how we are to address one another when they're acting
like we act most of the time. forbearing. And how are we supposed
to do all that? How am I going to be meek? How
am I going to be low? How am I going to be long-suffering
with my brethren and at the same time be forbearing? Graciously put up with them.
In love. In love. Is that law? Well, that's a precept. You better get there and get
to loving. It doesn't sound too loving, does it? That's not law.
A believer's desire is, I want to be more like Christ. I want
to know Him more. I want to love as He... I'm instructed
to love my wife as Christ loved the church. Step one, I got to
know how He loved the church. I want to know more about Him.
And as I learn about Him, and as I love her more, I want to
love her the way Christ loved me. I want to. I want to be made
like Christ. Some people say, I ain't got
much care in those things. I don't like worshiping. Well,
you ain't going to like eternity. The Lord is going to conform
every one of His children to be just like Christ. His spirit and His
image. Turn over to Matthew chapter
11. Matthew chapter 11, we'll begin
there in verse 28. Matthew 11, 28 Christ is speaking
here and He says, Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy
laden. You're working hard, you're bogged
down. Come to Me and I will give you rest. Rest. Take My yoke upon you. I thought
you said you were going to give us rest. Why are you putting
yoke on me? Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me. For I am
meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your
souls, for my yoke is easy." It's easy, and my burden is light. How meek was our Master. How meek was Christ our Husband.
Concerning us He lowered himself that he was equal with God came
made lower than the angels to be made like us and in the willing
to die for us Meek how lowly was he of heart? And his response
to me or in himself he bore ever ever bit of me in him Those messianic
Psalms read I'm a worm. How could he say that? He's lowly. He did something I can't do,
man can't do. And we put on his yoke of love. What an easy and light yoke it
is. And you know what it does not say there? It doesn't say
there's a whip behind them oxen of yoke. That yoke of oxen. A
whip of the law to drive them, make them go faster. Pull them
in the right direction. And there ain't a carrot dangling
out in front of them as a reward for doing what they're told to
do. Every time I read through it,
I put it in about everything. That yogurt just looks lighter
and lighter, doesn't it? That rest is looking sweeter
and sweeter every time I read it. Alright, back in our text
here in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4, verse 2. With all lowliness and meekness,
with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love. We do this
vocation. We are called to in love, in
the understanding of the Lord's love. That same love, that's
the love that saved us. Same love The vocation we walk
in, it's the same love that saved us. The Lord said that He commended
His love towards us while we were yet sinners. While we were sinners, He loved
us. He saved us. And He called us. That's the
same love He called us in. I was thinking of those Pharisees
there, hanging on that cross at Calvary. Come to those people and they
said, who do you want? And he said, give us Barabbas.
Crucify him. Away with him. Oh, people looked
down their nose. That was me standing there. I'll
take Barabbas. And what did our master pray
on that cross? Lord, forgive them. They know not what they
do. And you know what the Lord did after
that? He sent Peter and a couple of
other apostles, didn't he? They're on Pentecost. Go preach to them,
folks. Tell them exactly what they just did. You know who you
killed? You know who you cried Barabbas
for? And you know what? The Lord did a work in their
heart. They believed on Christ. And they called to Him for mercy.
And He was merciful to them. That's love. It's the love that
saved us, the love that called us, and it's the love that unites
us. Every one of us. By this shall all men know you
are my disciples. If y'all wear the same outfits.
No, that ain't what he said. If y'all say the same prayer. No. If you love one another. You can't fake love. You can
for a while, for a season. But if he's put love in you.
That's the order we looked at last time. God loved us. We love
him. And then we love our brethren.
He has to love us first. We don't know what love is. I
was talking to a family member the other day, and we were speaking
about tough love. I used to be a large proponent
of tough love, because time is money and let's get it done.
Say what you got to say and move on. In truth, there's no such
thing as tough love. There's just love. There's times
I thank the Lord for being tough with me. Oh, no. He's not being
tough with you. He's being loving to His people.
Loves us. Mankind doesn't know anything
about the love of God by nature. Boy, it's something when He just
gives us a glimpse. When He gives us a slight understanding, Paul
prayed for us for. Give us a taste of it, Lord.
But this love unifies us. It unites us. Look here in verse
3. Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of
peace. We're meek. We're lowly. We're
long-suffering. We're forebearing. Endeavoring. We're doing those
things in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the bond of
peace. Why do we have to be unified?
Why ain't we unified? We're different. Ain't we? Everyone else is different. I
guarantee you, in this room, there's six different ways to
load a dishwasher and seven different people ready to fight about it.
If y'all just let me load it my way, it'd be fine, wouldn't
it? That's the problem. That's my problem. I don't know
if that's your problem. That's my problem. If everybody
just do things my way, we'd all get along just fine. Be a lot
better place. We're different. That's pride,
isn't it? That ain't me being lowly. Don't make me think of low of
myself, being meek towards my brethren. That's pride. Must be in love. This unity must
be in love. Let's turn over to 1 Corinthians
chapter 13. Let's go back to the left a few
pages. 1 Corinthians 13. Romans, Corinthians, Galatians,
Ephesians. 1 Corinthians 13, verse 1. It says, Though I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, that word
means love. I am become as a sounding brass
or a tinkling cymbal." If I could stand up here and talk to you,
and I didn't have an accent no more, or where people wanted
to hear, and it was angelic. Oh, that man could speak. We'd
have 10,000 people busting at the seams of this place. They'd
drive 200 miles if they thought a cherubim was up here talking.
But if I had that ability, if the Lord gave me that gift and
I didn't have love, you might as well have a cowbell out there
ringing a dinner bell. Out of beat, out of time, just
ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Just something that's annoying.
That's it. Verse 2, and though I have the
gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge. Those gifts again, we looked
at Romans 13. If I had the ability to read the scriptures and tell
you just exactly what it means. You know what's going on right
now a lot in this country? The mark of the beast. Oh man. Is that what this is going to
be? What do you think that's going to be? Do you know what that is in Revelation?
The mark of the beast? I have no idea. I don't know. I don't know what it is. But
I can tell you this. It's got something to do with
God loving a people in Christ. And it being for His glory and
for our benefit. Now, all of a sudden, I don't
have to know, do I? I can look to Him. Instead of
letting my little brain get on a treadmill and go in circles. Faith. If I had faith to move
mountains. If I could go out there and just move cars around
a parking lot, park them where I want to. If I didn't have love to
go with it. The love of God is nothing. Verse
3. Here's another one of those gifts.
If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, give everything I got,
and though I give my body to be burned, I'll be a martyr.
And have not love, it profit me nothing. I thought about that when I wrote
that article in the Bulletin this morning. So there's been
people that's given their lives. I mean, they have a zeal in them. Give their bodies, set themselves
on fire for a cause. But if it's not the love of God,
it's nothing. If it's not unified in Him, made one with Christ
in His love, it's nothing. It doesn't count. Charities,
what does this love do? This true love, this love of
Him. Charities suffereth long, and it's kind. Love envieth not. Love vaunteth not itself, is
not puffed up. Love's not puffed up. doth not
behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked,
thinketh no evil. Love rejoitheth not in iniquity,
but rejoitheth in truth. Love bears all things, love believes
all things, love hopeth all things, and love endureth all things. That love's not starting to sound
like something no more. That's starting to sound like
somebody, isn't it? It's doing a lot of stuff. If we are recipients of the love
of God, we give our whole bodies over to Him in every aspect. We make ourselves a living sacrifice
unto God. It says there in 1 Corinthians
13. And now by the faith, hope, Love. These three. But the greatest
of these is love. The greatest of these is charity.
The greatest is love. The greatest is love for Christ.
For his word. For his worship. For his glory. If somebody experiences this
love, you ain't gotta whip them to go hear the gospel. They want to. If my brother landed
at the airport, This morning, nobody's going
to have to take a belt off and hit me to go down there and pick
him up. I'll beat you to it. I love him. And love for his
glory. I just broke down sackcloth and
ashes. If I were to dress in a burlap
sack, I remember on 9-11 in Towersville, everybody looked the same. That's
covered in ash, wasn't it? Covered in dust. You could hardly
distinguish faces. No faces, no races, no graces.
They all looked the same. I don't want to be seen. I don't
want to be known. I don't want to be adorned to make people
look at me. I want them to look to Him. I
just want to blend into the wall. Look to Him. If you see His love,
you want Him to receive the glory for His love. Alright, back in
our text. Now hurry. How unified are we
in this love? This vocation? that we walk in. How unified are we? How unified
are believers in a local assembly? How unified are other local assemblies
of that local assembly? How unified am I? That's why
I started putting dates on names and locations in the bulletin
from people who write other articles. How united am I to a man that
wrote something in 1415, 700 years ago? How unified am I? Look here at verse 4. There is
one body. and one Spirit, even as you are
called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism. One God and Father of all, who
is above all and through all and in you all." It says we have
one body. We are unified in love, one to
another as a body. As unified as my ring finger
is to my pinky finger, we are unified together in the love
of Christ. We suffer along with our members, don't we? I've left
them in the back, but when I start wearing reading glasses, if my
eyes start getting weak, I ain't doing like I used to do. Do I
pluck them out? It ain't holding up to the standard
no more. Get rid of them. I don't get glasses. Go deaf,
you cut your ears off? No, get hearing aids. That's
my body. I want to keep it, I suffer with
it. We're unified in one spirit, one worship, one praise. The
Lord's done a work of love in your heart. You come here this
morning and you want to worship Him. We've come into this house
and gathered in His name to worship Him. We want to give all praise
to Him. I'm up here to sing a big solo
and play guitar real loud and make everybody look at me. I
want Him to receive it. I want to worship Him in spirit.
We receive one hope. We're unified in love and our
same hope. If I went around and had everybody
write down, who's your hope? What's your hope of salvation?
I've got a good feeling. Might be different spellings
or different handwriting, but it's going to be the same answer,
isn't it? Christ is our hope, the blood of Christ. Nothing's
changed. From Abel, Abel brought a sacrifice. Adam said, son, here's how you
worship the Lord, here's what he did for us. A lamb was slain,
I was clothed. I was naked, now I'm clothed.
Christ has to come. And Abel went and slew a lamb.
God didn't accept his lamb. He accepted the faith he had
in Christ. What's the difference between Abel and you sitting
here today? Nothing. Look into Him. That's it. We
have one hope. And it says we have one Lord.
One that ruleth all. We don't have one Buddha. Everything underneath the sun
isn't wrapped up in your kind of Lord. There's one Lord. There's
one Lord in creation. Christ made everything, this
whole earth, everything we're standing on. There's one Lord
by the Father's decree. Read there in Acts 2. The Lord
declared Christ was Lord. There's one Lord by death. Turn over to Philippians 2 real
quick. To the right, just a book or two. One book to the right.
Philippians chapter 2. Begin in verse 5. Let this mind
be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the
form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, as he was,
he is God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him
the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men,
And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and
became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore
God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is
above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under
the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord, to the glory of the Father." He is Lord. We have one Lord. We don't have
a bunch running around. We have one. We have one body.
We have one spirit. We have one hope and it's every
bit in one Christ. God's Son. It goes on there in
chapter 4 of Ephesians. It says we have one faith. We
each possess it, don't we? The Lord has given the gift. It is to give. He's given the
gift of faith, and it's like, I feel like mine's on a rollercoaster
or a dial. It goes up and down, oh, it wavers.
My brethren's waver, and as he fitly frames us together, one
will be stronger than the other one, and it'll flip-flop the
next day, won't it? One will be long-suffering and meek, and
you'll be crying, they'll be going back the other way. Have
to keep going back and forth. But of that faith, We possess
in different degrees. It's the same faith. It's the
faith of Christ. It's His faith. It says there's
one baptism. Physically, we are required to
be baptized. When do we be baptized? When
Christ went down in that water with John the Baptist. In the
eyes of God, under the holy law of what's required of me, Kevin
Thacker, I was baptized perfectly in righteousness in that water
by John the Baptist. Our master said, suffer it to
be so now. John said, I don't want to do
this, you need to baptize me. And Christ said, suffer it to be
so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Spiritually, we have one baptism.
Baptism of the Holy Ghost. We're each plunged. The Holy
Spirit comes to us and He takes our consciousness and our minds,
the whole of me. Takes that new man and plunges
it in the blood of Christ in true conversion. And we know
that we are resurrected with Him. We are raised with Him. Verse 6 says there's one God
and Father of all. There's one above all. How above
us is He? He's glorified now, at the right
hand of the Father. It's where He is through all,
in all providence. Everything in my life that's
brought me to this second, Christ working in and for His people.
Every bit of it. We always say, we were talking
about that the other day, Christ is all and in all. Believer has
no problem saying Christ is all. Boy, that flesh gets in the way
when we say Christ is in all. Whether you stub your toe or
you have a flat tire, well, that's the Lord doing it. Christ is
through that, through all, and in you all. While I shall be
meek, lowly, long-suffering, and forbearing with my brethren,
Christ dwells in them. The closest thing on this earth
I have to seeing Him and hugging Him and being kind to Him, being
loving to my Master, that's my husband, is to be loving and
kind and meek and lowly to you. David wrote in Psalm 133, how
good and how pleasant. It's good, it's right, it's just,
holy, and it's pleasant. Oh, it's pleasing. How good and
pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity. That don't mean we live in the
same building. The unity of His love. Verse 16. Ephesians 4, 16. From whom, speaking of Christ,
from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted. by that which every joint supplieth
according to the effectual working and the measure of every part
maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love."
We're fitly framed together. And they used to use that expression
as they were honing the stones down. They'd grind them stones
together till they fit just right and slid down in there. That's
what they did for the Shul Foundation. But we're fitly framed together.
Rough edges start going away and all that. And then once we're
fitly framed together, you know what it says? We're compacted. Squeeze them up. That makes it
one, doesn't it? It ain't just two loose things
laying together. Made one. One body. How is that? How's that our vocation? Not our jobs, not our dispensations,
our duties. That's our vocation. That's what
we are. we to have the attitude of in
our vocation. Go back there to the end of the
chapter again. We'll begin in verse 31. Ephesians 4, 31. With this love in mind, this
unity of mind, love of Christ in us, let all bitterness and
wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from
you with all malice. And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's
sake, for His glory, that's what we want, hath forgiven you. I hope that was a blessing to
you. I pray I can walk worthy of my
vocation for with I've been called. I didn't have to. I want to.
I want to. I'm sure he'll be exceedingly
abundantly more than we can imagine. That's pretty good.