Rabbi Schneider - Effective Gentleness
Now as we approach chapter four, beloved ones, Paul moves from the theological to the practical. And so we’re moving now into the practical. Now knowing what we know, how should we then live? And so let’s pick up now with this practical application, beginning in verse 1 of chapter 4. Paul continues, «Therefore…» In light of everything that I just told you, you’ve been chosen by God, God chose you in Ephesians 1 before the foundation of the world to be His. You’re not like the rest of the world. God chose you out of the world. You did not choose Him, He chose you, Jesus said.
Paul continues, he says, «Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord…» Paul’s saying, I’m, as the prisoner of the Lord, in light of what I just told you, imploring you. Think about that word «imploring you». It’s like I am begging you, I am challenging you as strongly as I possibly can, in light of everything that I’ve told you, that you’ve been chosen of the Lord, supernaturally sealed by the Holy Spirit, God’s own possession. He says, «I’m therefore imploring you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called…» Think about this.
I want you just to get this again. In Ephesians 1, Paul tells us that God chose His own in Himself before the foundation of the world, and then He, listen now, predestined us. If you know God, it’s because you were, listen, foreloved. God does not love you because He saw that you were going to choose Him. Jesus said, «You did not choose me, I chose you». So when the Bible speaks of foreknowledge, it doesn’t mean that God knew that you would choose Him, therefore He chose you. If that was the case, His choice of you would be based on your choice of Him. But that’s not how it is.
Paul told us in chapter 2 of Ephesians that you and I were, by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. There was nothing different about you and I from everybody else. But God simply chose to love us. You were foreloved. God, for reasons that we don’t understand, had nothing to do with who we are. He just chose for His own sovereign purposes to love you. So Paul says in Ephesians 1, He chose you before the foundation of the world, and as a result of being chosen, He predestined you to adoption through Jesus to Himself.
And so now Paul, in light of this, says, «I, therefore, knowing you’ve been chosen, knowing you’re foreloved…» I mean, you’re not like the world. Jesus said, if you were of the world, the world would love you. But I chose you out of the world. So Paul says, «Therefore I’m imploring you, come out from the world, be different, because you’re not of the world». So listen, he says, «Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord…» because he was in prison for most of his ministry, «I implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you’ve been called».
You’re the temple of the Holy Spirit. And how do we walk out in such a way that we’re revealing to the principalities of the air, as I covered in the last broadcast, that we’re the dwelling place of God? How do we walk as one that’s walking worthy of our calling? Number one, he says, you do it by walking in humility and gentleness. So Jesus modeled this for us. He came meek and lowly, a bruised reed He did not damage. Everybody that came to Him with a humble spirit He treated so tenderly. And He talked about His love for children. He said, «If you cause a little one to stumble, it’d be better for you to have never been born». He had such a heart of gentleness towards childlike people.
And He’s asking you and I to become like a child, to come in that spirit of humility, to strip ourselves of all our defenses because of our insecurities and our fears, to come out of all the false personas that we put on to try to be macho and strong and manly, and for women to come out of walking in a spirit of sensuality, to try to attract attention because they want to feel love, you want to feel love, precious one. He says, no, I want you to come out from that and walk worthy of your calling. I want you to walk as a child in the spirit of humility. Because we know, as it relates to humility, that but by the grace of God, my friends, there go we. Again, there was nothing different about you and I. God just chose to save us.
Paul says, «You are by nature are children of wrath, just as the rest». But then he continues, «But God, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved you, He saved you. He made you alive in Christ by grace through faith». And even the faith is not your own. It was given you as a gift of God. So we’re to walk in humility. We’re no different than anybody else. We need to not judge people, not accuse people, not condemn people. We need to be tender towards people. We need to think not more highly of ourself than we should. We need to humble ourself. And humility also means that we’re walking in dependency on God.
A lot of people say, «Oh, I’m going to be doing this. I’m going to be doing that.» Jesus said, don’t say you’re going to do through the prophet. He said, don’t say you’re going to do this tomorrow or that tomorrow. You don’t know what your life’s going to be tomorrow. You don’t know if you’ll be here tomorrow or not. Don’t have that kind of a spirit. That’s evil. Walk in humility. Recognize you’re like a vapor. You’re here today and gone tomorrow. Because you’re a child of God, you go into His glory when you die. But you have to recognize that we are simply at the mercy of God, our creator. This should humble us. And one of the things that helps us be humble is to recognize if we’re not humble, God’s going to judge us in discipline. He’s not going to judge us and reject us, but He’s going to discipline us until we become humble.
So, Paul says walk worthy of your calling with all humility, and he continues on with that next word, and gentleness. Some of you heard me share this before, but I had a really supernatural incident take place about a year ago. I was in New York City, and I just got done preaching to a group of pastors in New York City. It was a wonderful experience. And I was staying at a hotel with my team who was coming to film the event. That night in the hotel in New York City, right before I was leaving the next day to fly back to Columbus, I had a dream, and the Lord spoke to me in the dream clear as a bell. And the Holy Spirit said to me, «You don’t always have to use power. Sometimes it’s more effective to use gentleness».
And of course, even gentleness comes only from power, but the Lord was saying to me, you don’t always have to use force to get your point across. Sometimes I can more impact My people when you’re gentle. And so it really, really stood out to me. It was a very marked word. So clear. So specific. The Lord was saying to me, «You don’t always have to use force. Sometimes My tool, the anointing that I want to bring from you is gentleness».
So I woke up the next day and I met downstairs at the hotel, as we were waiting for our ride to the airport, I met one of my team members, and I told him about this dream I had last night when the Lord spoke to me. And he showed me… he pulled out of his backpack the book he was reading. And the book he was reading was called Gentleness. Here I’ve got the dream, and lo and behold, he’s reading a book and the main theme of the book was on gentleness. So the fruit of the Spirit is gentleness. The opposite of this caustic sound behind me, right, that siren. Soon there’s going to come a time there won’t be any sirens, right?
When we’re in the New Jerusalem, we’re not going to hear any sirens going off, this alarming sound to the soul. We’re thankful for ambulances and police, but hey, the time’s going to come and we’re not going to need them. We’re just going to be surrounded by gentleness and peace and shalom. And so we should do our best to walk in a way that people aren’t threatened by us. We need to have supernatural insight into other people’s vulnerability. Sometimes we’re intimidated by people. And because we’re intimidated, we get threatened and we come across harsh and we come across rough. But notice once again what Paul says.
Walk worthy of your calling with all humility and gentleness. With patience, showing tolerance for one another in love. I love that word patience because for me, this is something that I’ve really had to work at in my life, being patient. Some people are born just more naturally patient. Others of us are born with a natural disposition that is less patient. We all have to work on developing supernatural patience. But it’s harder for those of us that are real high energy, we’re external, we’re driven, we’re focused on things, and we run into situations in life that slow us down. And when something slows us down, our soul gets disturbed. And so this was something in my own life that I had to really work at because in the natural, I had to stop operating when I got angry because something was slowing me down because I lacked patience. But the thing is, is that overcoming these things is what produces God’s strength in us.
So don’t let your weaknesses become discouraging to you because your weaknesses are God’s opportunity to make you strong. Because we get strong, beloved one, by overcoming our weaknesses. The more we have to work at overcoming something, the more strength we build. So don’t be discouraged with yourself. Just recognize this is an issue that needs to be overcome. And as you face this thing and begin to climb the mountain, you’re going to have a great reward and you’re going to be supernaturally strengthened because as I’ve said so many times, His power is perfected in your weakness. But patience is a virtue of the Holy Spirit, and all of us need to work at developing it.
And oftentimes the result of not being patient, as I said a second ago, is that we get angry because when something comes, you know, we’re in traffic… what do we do when traffic is real slow? We have a tendency, you know, we cram on the steering wheel. Here in Jerusalem now, sometimes I hear people honking. There’s no place to go. Everything’s backed up. You can’t get around anybody. It is what it is. And yet some people are so angry. They’re so impatient. They lay on their horn and they leave their horn blaring for like 40 seconds. And blaring on their horn is not going to accomplish a thing. No one’s able to move. But they’re so angry, they’re so impatient that they just, bam, they go on that horn and it’s going and it’s going and making a ton of noise, disturbing everybody that hears it.
And rather than just blaring on your horn, which accomplishes nothing, some of you are challenged with your driving, when you feel that, you just pull yourself back and you say, God has called me to develop the virtue of patience. And this applies to many of us in our marriages or with our children. How many of us struggle with patience in our marriages? You know, I like something that I heard a long time ago. And this is obviously a generality, but I think it’s true in some cases, many cases. Like when men and women go, let’s say, to the store together, women are shoppers and men are hunters. In other words, a woman goes to the store, and of course, I’m speaking in generalities.
Please don’t be offended if you’re a woman. And a woman will go to the mall and she’ll think, «I got to go to the mall to get so-and-so». But when the woman goes to the mall, oftentimes they, you know, kind of look in the store and they want to look at this and they want to look at this. A man goes to the mall, he knows exactly what he’s going to the mall for, he goes exactly to that one spot to buy what he came to the mall for, and then he leaves. A woman will take her time and shop. Men can become very impatient. I don’t naturally personally like going to the grocery store because it’s just like I have to really work on my patience with that when I’m with my beautiful wife, Cynthia Marjorie, that takes so great care of me.
And if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be enjoying all the comforts and preacher comforts that my wife blesses me with. But it takes work for me to be patient. But now I actually kind of like it because I’ve worked at it for so long. I just enjoy being with my wife and I just enjoy honoring her and blessing her just by being with her. But it took a lot of work for me to overcome impatience. So once again, your weaknesses are God’s opportunities. But you’ve got to recognize in yourself where your soul is out of sync with God’s Spirit and make it a challenge, take it on as a personal challenge to bring yourself in to the Spirit of the Lord. So God tells us here through the Apostle Paul that we need to walk in a spirit of gentleness with patience.
So whether it’s with your spouse or your children, remember when you start feeling that irritation because you’re not patient, remember, pull your soul back. You have the authority to pull your soul back. You might feel like this, you’re anxious, you’re angry, you’re impatient, but you know what? You don’t have to release it. You don’t have to act on it. You pull your soul back in the Spirit and you abide in Him. And as you do that, more and more, you’re going to get sealed. Your mind and your psyche and your personality will become sealed by the Holy Spirit and you’ll find yourself living, beloved ones, God’s beloved ones, in more and more of His divine shalom. God bless you and God empower you to overcome every obstacle you ever face.