last night we talked a little bit about the great prayer and now we're down in Ephesians chapter four I want to read verses one and two I won't ask everybody if they well let me see who memorized Ephesians four one or two I want to ask you to say it who went home and memorized it oh somebody put up their hands lie me no bad bad bad now those of you that weren't here last night I can't blame you hey listen you got to hide the word of God in your heart then it grips your life Ephesians four one and two I therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation to which you are called with all lowliness and meekness with long suffering for bearing one another in love after the tremendous prayer the tremendous request that come in the preceding section. Now, if God answers those requests with a yes, if he does the things that Paul asked him to do for the Ephesian believers, what will happen then? If God does all these great things, these great requests, and then Paul goes on and says, you know, he's able to do more, even we can't even imagine what he can do. what should that prepare us for? What should we do? What will happen? How will we be if God answers those great requests? Well, the Apostle Paul in verse one says that he's the prisoner of the Lord and he beseeches them to walk worthy of the vocation to which you're called. Now, The urgency now is not on what you do, but it's on what you are. And he's going to talk about these four characteristics that become the foundation of which all the rest of the practical instruction in the book of Ephesians is based. So now what do we expect God to do for us? Paul has told them that his life is controlled by the Lord. His concern, as he says in Colossians one twenty-eight, was to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. And so now he says, walk worthy of your calling. Now to what had they been called and we ourselves been called? Now to walk means step by step. It means progress. God is at work. Philippians one, six says, Therefore he which has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Sometimes if we look around at others, we think that the progress is absolutely glacial. It's so slow. But every believer, every person who is trusted in Christ, God is at work in them. God is doing something. Well, what is to be the end of this? What does it mean to make this step-by-step progress that corresponds to their call? Well, what have they been called to? Turn with me to Romans chapter eight. If we ask the question, what does God like, or the better question, who does God like, there is one answer that we all should give. God likes the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus, as he begins his public ministry, receives the attestation from heaven, which says, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Every moment of every day, Jesus made his Father happy. And that's what God has called us to. Romans eight. We are called to bring glory to God by having the family resemblance, the family resemblance. You know, you can tell people, some it's easier to tell than others, but you can tell, if you saw my father, you would know exactly where I come from. You would know, we look so much alike. We act alike, having lived at home for years and years. and I can visit my father and find myself holding my hand in a certain way that he holds it. I just picked up these habits through the years. Well, you know, God wants us to pick up the characteristics of the family. He wants us to be like the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans eight, verse sixteen, the Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are what? The children of God. The children of God. Children act like their parents. You may not like to think that, especially maybe when yours are less than wonderful, but they do. And so we are the children of God. That's what we're supposed to be like. Verse seventeen, and if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. I don't know why I have to put this in. If so, be that we suffer with him, that we may also glorify together. far too often we're more interested in the glorification than the suffering but it's got to come God cannot treat us any better than he treats his son and what happened to the Lord Jesus suffered suffered verse twenty nine for whom he did foreknow he also did predestinate to do what to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren Moreover whom he did predestinate them, he also called. And whom he called them, he also justified. And whom he justified them, he also glorified. What does God want? What does God want to do with us? What are we to be? We are to be like Christ. We are to be like the Lord Jesus. We are to take on increasingly the family resemblance. Now, what does that mean? I don't agree with this particular brother, but a brother wrote and told me how disappointed he was to see on the back of some of the courses the picture of Christ and the two people on the road to Emmaus. Now I understood what he was saying, a very Puritan thinker, meaning he thinks as the Puritans did. And he said, no one knows what Jesus looked like. How could you argue with him? And so, you know, I, curiously enough, even though I don't necessarily agree with him, it won't be on our new course on marriage and the family. But the fact is, it's not how Jesus looked physically. So then what are we to be like? If it's not the way the Lord Jesus looked physically, what is the family resemblance? that is part of this worthy walk in accordance with the vocation to which we have been called. What is it like? What are we to be? Are we to be known by the things that we do? Well, in a certain sense, yes. As Brother J.B. said earlier, there's no such thing as a person that's so heavenly-minded, they're no earthly good. That's a complete misnomer. It is impossible to love God and not have something to do. The sad thing is that it is sadly possible to have things to do and not be in fellowship with God. And that is a true tragedy. So it is not what we're doing that is in view here. It's what we are. And when we are what God wants us to be, we will do the things that the apostle will talk about in the rest of the book of Ephesians. These things will just be Easy instructions. But the issue is, what kind of mind and what kind of heart are we going to display? If we, as we read in Romans, are sitting in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, we should please Him. I go to somebody's house as a friend. I observe any changes in the decor. Anything new that's been added. I tell them how glad I am to be there. I don't go into the house and begin to insult them outrageously and say, well, I'm here, lucky for you, and things like that. No, we try and please our friends. Now, here we are. It says that we're seated in heavenly places, positional truth, seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. What should we be like? Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. And so the apostle calls upon the Ephesians to be imitators of Christ and to have these attitudes. Now, something else is very important to understand. These attitudes, though they are in and of themselves absolutely vital. His view here is that these attitudes are necessary if believers are going to be able to live together. Now, I don't know many people in this audience, but I look at, and I can well imagine, that there's people from all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of families, perhaps some born in other countries, people with all kinds of different ideas, and the one thing that we have in common assuming that you are trusting in Christ is common life in Christ and so one of the most beautiful things on the face of the earth is a group of diverse people and we don't understand it so well because in the in New Testament times for Jews and Gentiles to get together in the same church was so unbelievable you know the Jews always referred to the Gentiles as the dogs of the Gentiles there was tremendous prejudice outrageous prejudice and Jews weren't like much better notorious troublemakers which they have It seems to me they still are. It's going to be nice when all the Jews are changed, right? And they're going to be. He's going to put a new heart in every Jew. It's a wonderful thing. God is not done with them, no more than he's done with us. But for people to come together and to meet and to be in unity and to love one another was the great testimony of the church. By this, the Lord Jesus says in John thirteen, thirty-four and thirty-five, everyone will know that you follow me because you love one another. And listen, every single person I've ever met in my life needs this instruction. We do not have a natural bent toward unity. Our natural bent is toward divisions. How many do we have? Hundreds and hundreds of divisions. The natural tendency. Now that's the natural tendency. There's got to be a rejection of this. Now he wants to talk about what kind of things will make it possible for you and your brother and sister in Christ to stay together in unity. What has to be true? And so I would like to talk a little bit about these things. Now, God loves these things in and of themselves because they're so true of the Lord Jesus. But the aim of the Apostle Paul is that we are lowly in mind and meek and long-suffering and forbearing so that we can live together in harmony with others that have named the name of Christ. That's the purpose. I'd like to read a verse in Lamentations. Well, I better not read it because my quote is that of the New English Bible. Israel is broken. God has pounded on them and they have just been completely crushed. And Jeremiah is sort of speaking for that remnant that remains, the people that that have really had a lot of the draws purged out of them. And he says to the people in life, Let us lift up our hearts, not our hands, to God in heaven. Let me say it again. Let us lift up our hearts, not our hands, to God in heaven. And the proper... thing for the people of God who have been ransomed, who are the remnant, was not to say to God, now we're willing to do all this for you. Don't lift up your hand and say, I'm going to use this hand for your honor. I'm going to do this. God knows. Look at the last chapter of Isaiah, he says, you come in here and you bring in the bullets and you sacrifice them. He says, to me, it's like you kill the human beings. You come in and bring your offering, and it's like you covered the altar with pig's blood. Why did God say that? Because they weren't doing the right thing? Yes, they were so contented with the form. They went through the motions, and they did it. But their hearts were terrible. Their hearts were terrible. Samuel is sent out on it. A secret mission that would cost them his life. Go to the house of Jesse. You know I am done with Saul as king. And I have sought me a man after my own heart. And I want you to go down to the house of Jesse. And you're going to anoint the new king. Saul being smart says, if Saul finds out, Samuel being smart says, if Saul finds out, he's going to kill me. So God just take a sacrifice and have an offering there. And so he tells Jesse, he says, well, one of your sons is going to be the king. Let's bring him out. And here they come. Oldest to the youngest, right? Oldest. Man, this guy has, man, wouldn't he look good in a king costume? Broad shoulders? And he goes down through all the sons that are brought there. And God says, not him. It's not him. It's not him. It's not him. And Samuel is sort of like the guys that know God. He always talked to him. You know, it's really interesting. Well, if it's not him, who is it? Come on, you know. And God says to him, tremendous verse. He says, Samuel, you are like men. You look on the outward appearance. You see this son? Looks pretty good to you. You see the muscles on this one? You think, well, if there's a man that's going to defeat the Philistines, it's going to be... He's got all the... He's been lifting his weights and doing his sword practices. It must be him. He says, you're looking at the wrong thing. He says, I understand you don't see the way I see. Because you look at the outward appearance. He says, but I'm looking at the heart. I'm looking for somebody with a heart that can be the king that I want them to be. And so he goes, he says to Jesse, he says, you know, there's something wrong here that you must not have a whole family together because God hasn't chosen any of these men. He says, well, there's the kid. There's the kid, David. But he's the youngest, least experienced. Now, he doesn't do too bad with the sheep, but we don't let him in the house all the time. You know, he wasn't even asked. to come in. That shows you what his father and brothers really thought of him. In fact, later he goes down and God's going to use him to kill Goliath. His brothers, he comes down and his brothers, he says, who's that coming out here, giving, you know, that infidel attacking the living God? That's Goliath, kid, go home. You don't know what you're into here. You don't understand the situation. You don't understand how big he is, how much his sword is. waves and how much his shield weighs and what he'd do if he'd got his hand around any of it. They didn't have a high opinion of him, but somebody had a high opinion of him. And who was that? The only one whose opinion matters. In time and eternity there's only one opinion that matters, God's. And he had sought him a man after his own heart. Now, you know, he wasn't a slouch, good-looking kid. As he got older, he had a ruddy complexion, wonderful, wonderful and inspiring leader. But he didn't look too promising at the time. Well, you see, now here's what God wants to have true, be true of us. We are so often preoccupied with appearances. We are preoccupied with the way we might appear to others. Or we are... we are so easily offended that we we can hardly stand somebody that has the affront tree to disagree with us and we want we want a unity that is not based upon the heart that's what the World Council of Churches want they want everybody let's all smile and get together the Muslims the Hindus the Jews the Christians unbelievable all they want is All they want is the facade of unity. God doesn't want the facade of unity. He wants real unity. Real unity. And so we who are occupied with appearances are so often contented with a form of things. My wife and I had moved closer to where I was teaching. and we changed assemblies in New Jersey and we went to an assembly that at one time had been the largest assembly and had one of the greatest evangelists, the man named Andrew Craig, that I had ever heard or met. But it had fallen on real hard times. There was only about ninety-five or a hundred people in fellowship, but very diligently and I always made it a point to be there. There were sixteen or seventeen men and every Sunday night we would kneel down in a room and ask God to save people. But in the two years I was in the meeting nobody ever got saved. I didn't know then what I know now that you should expect some answers. There should be some answers to this stuff. Now these were good brothers. Now don't Make any mistake, they were very earnest, lovely people. But you know, they were contented with the form. They had prayed, and that satisfied them. They were not asking God to live up to the promises He had made. And so we are so contented with the appearance of things, but that's not what God wants. Don't lift up your hands to God. That's not what God wants to see, the appearance of things. Do as Jeremiah said, lift up your heart to the Lord. What does God want to find? Now let's talk about this. The first trait, with all lowliness, lowliness, humility, lacking all sign of pride, self-assertiveness or aggressiveness God hates fraud he doesn't dislike it he hates it that attitude of regarding myself with favor and God is filled with rage regarding myself with favor. That attitude in a verb, it means to congratulate oneself for something one is, has, or has done or achieved. And in about thirteen seconds we can start to think we're a little bit better than another brother or another sister. Happened just like that. All we have to do is one thing right and we begin to think we're wonderful. where the Lord Jesus said, now you, after you have done everything that has been commanded, no one but Christ has ever done that, you are to say, I'm profitable servant. If we do one thing right, we begin to think, boy, isn't that great? God hates it. God hates it. I want to give you some illustrations and we'll end with the great illustration. Turn to me to Second Chronicles. You know, We don't understand how insidious this pride is. Second Chronicles chapter thirty-two. A terrible warning passage. Take instruction of brothers and sisters from this passage. second chronicle thirty two twenty four in those days hezekiah was sick to the death and prayed unto the lord and he spoke unto him and he gave him a sign we understand that hezekiah's life was extended in response to his prayer to god now look at verse twenty five this shows what god really thinks of self-sufficiency independence but hezekiah rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him for his heart was lifted up Therefore there was wrath upon him and upon Judah and Jerusalem. And he came to his senses in verse twenty six, notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. So the wrath of the Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah. He had asked God to do something. And God had done it. And he didn't thank him properly. I'm a great believer in prayer diaries. Write it down. There are two reasons for it. One, it helps you to remember what things you want to pray for. Two, I write my request in black ink and I write my answers in red. And so when I turn to a page and I see something with a great benefit, I use my wife as an illustration. When we moved from Colorado, my wife has had lots of trouble with her back and she had a chiropractor out there that really was very, very helpful. Well, she wanted to find somebody that worked the same way. And he wasn't able to give much help, a few ideas. And so she found a chiropractor. And after moving, you know, lifting the boxes and you do all this, her back was really giving her tremendous pain. And she went to this one man in town that had gone to the same school as this chiropractor in Colorado Springs. And it was just nothing but more pain, more pain, got no relief. So in the process of time, she called around and found out there was a guy in Dyersville, a doctor named Meish, that really everybody thought he was a little odd because he didn't really break the bones and do real good chiropractic stuff. He sort of was gentle with you, and she went out and got relief. And every month gets more relief. Let me ask you, when should I stop thanking God for that? When should I stop thanking God? when the benefit runs out, right? And so if she goes and she gets more relief, I thank God for Dr. Meish. He may be a Christian. He's a Roman Catholic. He goes on pilgrimage and stuff. I pray God might even save him if he isn't saved. When should I stop thanking God? Now you see, this is Hezekiah. And let me tell you, it's us. And the reason we do not thank God for the things that he's done for us is because we're proud. We begin to think, I deserve that. That was owing to me. And God was up in heaven after he had responded to Hezekiah's prayer and he's up there and he's filled with anger and the wrath of God, it says, was just hovering over him and upon Judah and Jerusalem. He was the guy that was unthankful. Perhaps in your meeting, progress is being hindered by somebody that you don't know who is unthankful. And it may even be you. We are so proud. God values what? Lowliness. Lowliness. Humility. Lots of groups of believers are not working well. you know what you say is true of something when it doesn't work well you say it's broken the only spirit God likes God hates pride in Ezekiel sixteen forty nine and fifty he's comparing Israel and he says now Here was the sin of your sister Sodom. Now everybody knows Sodom. Homosexuality. Terrible, terrible, wicked place. God came down and wiped it out. So Ezekiel gives God's list of the sins of Sodom. You know what the first one was? Pride. Pride. So do you like your sister Sodom, Israel? Proud. And you know, the moral sins aren't even mentioned. He talks about their lack of care for the poor. He talks about other things. But number one, in God's hit parade of despicable nations, Sodom, there's their first and greatest sin, pride. In James four, verses four to seven, and in first Peter five, five, we read what God does if we're proud. It says God... Resisteth the prayer. So we can find in our lives and in our Christian testimony, our meetings and assemblies, instead of God helping us, causing us to advance, making up for those mistakes, working in spite of us, we can find ourselves in an opposite position that God is holding us back God resist the crowd you think you're doing okay you're doing badly God resist the crowd how much powerlessness of life do you think we could trace to that deadly disease of pride. Now you see, this is not something you can use to judge anybody else. You have no way on the face of this earth of knowing what's in my heart. Or I have no way of knowing what's in your heart. So it behooves me to look at me and say, Lord, am I proud? Lord, am I independent? Lord, is my attitude that I don't need you? Now, it's not your words. It's not your words. Listen, you don't have to be a Christian for long before you know how to say the right things that other people want to hear. How to give the appearance of. In one of the classics of English literature, Charles Dickens has a character his name is Uriah Heap he always dropped his H's right Uriah Eap and he went around and he always pretended to be so humble and he always said just your humble servant Uriah Heap just your humble servant Uriah Heap and he was plotting to steal the money from the daughters of Mr. Pickwick and in reality he was an arrogant vicious wretched person Well, you always went around and talked about being humble. No, it's not the person that says it. And you don't know. See, that's the thing. You do not know what kind of heart somebody else has. You cannot judge that in a million years. It behooves us to be before the Lord and say, Lord, is that me? Is that me? Am I independent? I guess I have a fixation on prayer. You have to forgive me for that. But you want to know, you want to have a little test of whether you're proud or humble. I'll give you a little test. How much do you pray? That's the little test. If you don't need what God can give, you're not going to talk so very much about anything. If you're truly a dependent, broken, humble person, you're going to be talking to God a lot. Because you say, I'm not going to make this. I can't get through this day. I don't know what to say. I don't know how to handle this. Now, you're saying these things to God. And so if you're humble, that's one of the things that's going to typify your life. It's going to be a lot of conversation with God. It's going to ask him a lot. Talk to him a lot. You're going to bring everything before him. You're just going to keep telling him. It's impossible. I can't do this. This will not work. Now, in the last minute or two, I'd like to turn to Matthew chapter eleven. We have a great number of reasons for being humble. We have loads and loads of reasons for being humble. for being lowly minded Jesus is God incarnate the God man fully one hundred percent God possessing in total the attributes of God and has taken to himself a human nature verse twenty seven of Matthew eleven for all things are delivered unto me by my father And no man knoweth the Son but the Father. Neither knoweth any man the Father except the Son. And he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. Now you have to understand. The Lord Jesus really knows God the Father. He knows that he alone is the one that can make the Father known to others. Now listen to what he says in verse twenty eight. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. and I will give you rest. 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. I am meek and lowly in heart, he says. What does God like? He likes Jesus. And what does he like about Jesus? Everything. And what does the Lord Jesus say about himself? I am meek and lowly in heart. This is the attitude that God approves of. Jesus, and understand how I say this, there is no time, if I understood it, there would be no time to truly explain it. Jesus, as a man on the earth, was the most dependent man that ever lived. How often he's going away and spending the whole night in prayer to God before he chooses the apostles. All night in prayer. That's the Lord Jesus. How many people do you think you get for your next call for an all-night prayer meeting? Well, you know, it wouldn't be any sense to have it just because it seemed like a good idea. The only reason for having it is if you need that much help. The Lord Jesus was completely dependent. He says, the things that I do are what I see my father do. He was totally dependent upon his father. I do always those things that please him. That's the typical attitude of the lowly minded person. He says, you know, my meat, the stuff of life for me is to do the things that make my father happy. That's what lowly mindedness is. It's not thinking of yourself. It's not looking of yourself and thinking of your achievements and proud and arrogance and all these ugly things. It's to be like the Lord Jesus who could say he was meek and lowly in heart. Meek and lowly in heart. He was so dependent upon his Father. Now I'm going to, the last message that I give, I'm going to tell you, humility and how to achieve it. I am really, but it's not going to be what you might think. I want you to just think of this. Think of the greatness of Christ and he could say, I am meek and lowly of heart. He did everything he could to keep glory away from himself. One of the most perplexing things, and I see it isn't as perplexing as it used to be, but one of the things that I see is after the Lord Jesus had done some great and mighty work, What does it say? It says, and the people glorify God. Somehow, if Paul Sapp had fed the five thousand, I would have had a jet plane and been on television. Jesus feeds the five thousand and everybody said, oh, praise God. That should be every believer's desire. That whatever you do, Whatever you say, however you act, the end of it is that those who know, praise God. That should be the desire of every believer. And let me tell you, you can't manipulate that. There is no way you can manipulate that into happening. I think the thing that made it possible for Jesus to do things, the most remarkable things that have ever been done, and for people to always to say give glory to God the thing that made that possible was his lowly heart he in no wise in no way wanted to attract any attention to himself he was determined that his father get the glory and you know his father is going to turn it all around and the day is coming when the people in the crowd that scoffed at him the people that mocked him Those of us who had believed in him and maybe followed him from afar, God is going to turn it around. And he's going to say, here is my son. Bow to him. And he is going to get the glory. And Jesus, you know what Jesus is going to do? He's going to give it to the Father. Lowly mindedness is what makes that feasible. The independent person cannot do it. It's impossible. And here's the first thing that God wants.