Biblical Gentleness - John Humenik Ministry Weekly Podcast

Hello, my name is John Humenik, and I'll be your host tonight. I'm excited you're able to join me as I teach on the topic of biblical kindness. I'm going to start this teaching off with Ephesians chapter 4, verse 2. It says, be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Biblical gentleness is the second to last fruit of the Spirit, but by no means is it one of the ones that we want to disregard. Because what we'll learn today as Ephesians talks about, as Paul talks to the, the church in Ephesus, is that it is incredibly important to be gentle with one another. The, the key aspect of our life In how we carry ourselves, in what we do, and how we do it is all based upon gentleness. It is about humility, and that they do go hand in hand. And the reason being is, is that how you act to one another in every situation shows that you want to be able to be treated the same way. And what Paul is saying is, is that as You treat others, you will be treated as yourself. And you want to bear with one another in love. In order to bear one up, you must be gentle. There's an aspect of gentleness in every person's life. The thing about it is, is that God came as a gentle God. One of the biggest mistakes that the Jewish people made 2,000 years ago is they thought that Jesus the Messiah was going to come as a conquering king. Their anointed one was going to come down from heaven and crush his enemies and bring about an eternal peace. And sure, when you look at the scriptures in Zechariah and some of the other prophets, you see that happening. But we needed to be reconciled to the Lord first. And when you look at Jesus's life, every single thing that he did was all about gentleness, was about— even when he was correcting and when we thought he was harsh, he He still had that gentle spirit about him because he wanted to be able to bring back people together in love and just be able to create an atmosphere where he could be trusted. Think about it from your perspective and in your walk with your friends, your families, maybe with your parents, maybe with your children, your siblings. Are you known as a gentle spirit? Are you known as a person that can come up and have anyone talk to you at any time? And they're always going to get good worldly— I'm not sorry, good and just heavenly advice. You're not going to be caught in the world system where, oh, you have to talk to them after they ate, or you have to talk to them an hour after they wake up because they're grumpy, or you can't talk to them past 7 o'clock because they're tired. Are you a gentle spirit that allows you to show God's love? To others at every moment of every single day, or are you caught in the system of being rough-edged and rough and difficult to talk to? This is what Paul is talking about in Ephesians. He says, "Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love." That leads into Philippians chapter four verse fifteen. It says, "Let your gentleness." Be evident to all. The Lord is near. Now, in this verse, what we see Paul saying to the Philippians, the church in Philippi, is is that you need to be gentle to all. He didn't say to Christians or your brothers and sisters. He didn't say to the Jewish nations or the Gentiles. He said, let it be evident to all. And that's so important because as a part of love, as a part of the fruit of the Spirit, we know that there's only one fruit of the Spirit. That's love. That's why it doesn't say fruits of the Spirit. It says fruit of the Spirit. So what we see here is love is the fruit and everything hangs off of love. And gentleness is a key part of that. And it's a key part of that, um, Walk with the Lord because he wants you to be gentle to all in all situations, in all moments. When you're hungry, when you're tired, when you're excited, when you're happy, it doesn't matter. He wants that gentle heart to be evident to all because God wants to be a part of that picture. He wants you to reflect his nature. Which is gentleness at its core. The Lord is gentle because think about it from the perspective of sin. Think about it. We know that the wages of sin are death. And what that really means is, is that when you go to get paid, your payment is death. That's what's— that's what it means, is, is that's why Jesus had to die for our sins. That's why he had to hang on the cross, because None of us could pay the penalty. I mean, obviously we could, but that would then lead to eternal separation from God. When you have to pay for your sin, and it doesn't matter if it's a small sin, a big sin, all the things that you want to talk about, the wages of sin are death. And so what God is saying is, is that when I came to this earth, I was gentle in heart. I reflected Gentleness is a part of the love, as the expression of love towards all the people. It was always about gentleness, always about caring. It's always about being approachable, always about being that person that could be trusted in any moment of any day, because he wanted people to return to them and to return to him and be in a place of posture of love. And so what he wants us to do as children of God, sons and daughters of the King, Remember, princes and princesses seated in Christ in heavenly places. He wants us to reflect his nature in every walk that we do so that we're never abrasive. We're never the type of person where you're like, well, if someone comes up to you and asks you for something, for money, for help, that you're not going to be saying, oh no, I'm tired. Oh no, go ask your mother or go ask your father. You know, go, go get a sibling to help. I'm not interested in helping. My back doesn't feel good. This and this. You— there are so many people out there that will make excuses and put themselves in a posture where they're not approachable, and where God wants you to be that person. He wants to elevate you into a place where you can be the one that can help. And gentleness is at the core of all of the things that you see in the walk. Jesus portrayed gentleness multiple different ways. Let's talk about Matthew 11. Verse 29. This is a perfect example of this. It says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." Now, I can say that there are very few verses in the Bible that I will continue to repeat over my lifetime. One of them for me is always about taking the yoke off of my shoulders. And putting Christ's yoke on mine, on my shoulders, because it is light and easy to bear. What you see here is, is that he's saying, learn from me. I'm your example. I'm the one who's showing you how to walk this Christian life out. And it starts with gentleness. It starts with being— putting yourself and giving God The burdens of the day. If you're worried, you wake up in the middle of night and you have something on your mind and you're like, man, I just can't get this out of my head. I'm thinking about a presentation, or I'm dealing with a sale, or I have a problem that I'm trying to solve at work, or I just can't figure something out, or why is my kids acting this way? There's so many things in your life that could be bearing you up And causing you to be caught in a position of just difficulty. And what God is saying in those moments is he's saying, be gentle, be gentle, be humble, lower yourself, and allow yourself to be almost— it's like almost like you're opening yourself up and showing that you are human, you are fallible, you are in a position where you're like, wow, Wow, I can be a part of this relationship because they're vulnerable like I'm vulnerable. I can relate to that. That's the essence of what Jesus is saying here, because what he's doing is, is that he takes your burdens. When you go into your prayer closet and you put those things on a sacrificial altar, you put your anxieties, you put your hurts, you put your pains, you put your physical ailments All the things that are bothering you, and you put your wishes and your wants and all the things you want. Like, God, I'm praying for this. I've planted seeds in the ground. I'm calling on the harvest. He wants you to do that. He wants you to put all those things there, because what it does is, is it lifts those burdens and it pours out of you. And then what he does is he returns you with this depth of just gentleness and stillness. And when that happens is Now you can operate like Jesus. And Jesus says that again in Matthew 21:5. He says, say to daughter Zion, see, your king comes to you gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Now I want to make sure that we, we understand the context of what we said. I talked about this a little earlier, that the Jewish nation was expecting a conquering king to come and set them free. They were reading verses from Zechariah that talk about the second coming and how Jesus is just going to bring back and restore the kingdom and all those things. That's still to happen. But what happened is, is that they're expecting him to come in on this majestic white horse with this procession of angels and just ride in and just crush their enemies. And yet what Jesus does is he comes in on an unclean animal, a donkey. humbly riding on into Jerusalem, not with the trumpet blasts, not with a procession of armies, not with his legion of angels, but yet people singing, hallelujah, praise be to God, Jesus is Lord. And that was Palm Sunday. And so you see this stark difference between the King of Kings that the Jewish nation wanted and the Lord of Lords that rode in on this gentle donkey, because God Wanted to show that he did not need to meet the needs of his people in what they wanted, but rather what he was doing was accomplishing this great spiritual work, showing that you can be kingly, a high priest, and operate at the highest level of God's kingdom and still be gentle at the same time. And that was a powerful statement, something that no one, no one in their right mind— if you look at nonfiction today or fiction or any type of stories you see today, it doesn't matter if you're reflecting on someone's life or you're dealing with someone in just type of movies. You don't see a leader coming in with the depth of gentleness that Jesus had because there's— it's hard for certain people to look at a leader and say, wow, that person is someone I want to get behind Because they want— there's, there's this posture, there's, there's an aspect of masculinity, there's an aspect of femininity that, that people portray greatness, and they want their leaders and their heroes and their icons to emulate. But Jesus was like, no, I don't need any of that. I want to show that the, the gentleness of the Lord can come and establish a A foundation that cannot be shaken. And what we see here, and when you continue further, you start to see that gentleness has the power to defuse anger. It's actually the action of inaction that allows you to defuse situations. So what we see here in Solomon talking in Proverbs chapter 15, verse 1, it says, a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. Think about that. Let that sink in. You can have a gentle answer to a person in wrath. Now, this is something when you understand is when you use the word wrath, we're not talking about someone who's angry, who's mad. We're talking about someone that's in a state of mind who's basically trying to hurt Or kill, or just completely destroy people. Wrath is a very strong word. It's a very— it's a really functionally a dark place to be. And it's something where you're like, wow, I don't want to be on the receiving end of anything that this person who's going to bring wrath into my life— I don't want any of it. Whether it's physical, whether it's verbal, whether it's emotional, or even mental, or some kind of relationship, destroying my stature in life, my standing, all these things. I don't want any part of it. Like, that's what wrath is. That's the depth of wrath that we're talking about. But Solomon said, look, if you give someone in a state of wrath a gentle answer, you will completely defuse the situation. Think about that. Gentleness has the power to defuse a situation that would be Extreme violence, extreme harm, and change it for good. It's unbelievable. That's the posture of being gentle. Because whenever you are a person who is known that's filled with wisdom, someone that's known to be filled with knowledge, possibly deep understanding, and you have a situation where someone is irate and out of control, and just being in a state of like, wow, I can't control myself. Your gentleness and your posture, the way you approach things, the way you say things, the tone of your voice, the posture of your heart, the willingness to show them love will take their wrath and completely take that whole situation down to a peaceful state and probably save lives and save careers and save so many things. I've been in situations myself where I've walked into business meetings where people are just, just completely beside themselves and they're so upset. And I remember being able to just talk them down off the ledge and just bring a gentle attitude. I even had one of my employees come up to me later and said, I've never seen someone go into an executive's office when he is in that state of mind. So angry, so disappointed, and yet you were able to get him to come calm down, get him to understand what we were accomplishing and move forward and put him on a path of true joy, of true happiness. He'd never seen it before. And this is the essence of gentleness, is gentleness undergirds the actions that you do because it's a posture in which you walk into. Because when you're gentle, You're not fearful. You're not walking into situations with anxiety and concern or wonder, wow, is things going to work out? No, what it really is, it's a quiet confidence in God. Gentleness is a quiet confidence in God that says, my God is greater than all these things that are out there, and that I can be in this position, in this moment, And not have to be emotionally charged, irate, or try to be forceful, or try to, you know, use my position to force things into hands, and just be able to just be in a posture where I can be a strong foundation for someone to— even if they necessarily have to just let out a little bit and just get that anxiety off their chest and just verbalize it a little bit. But you're there, you receive it, and you just keep moving on. And you're like, wow, Wow, this is incredible. Because that's what gentleness is. Gentleness is the stirring of God in your heart to the point of stillness that no matter what's going around you, you are unmoved and you continue to maintain a mental and emotional state that can't be changed by the things that are going around, by the tone of the voice of everyone around you, the state of their current being, whether it's financial or mental or whatever they may be dealing with, you can stay fixed on the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords because you have this gentle heart. That's the essence of what Solomon was talking about in Proverbs 15:1. We also see in Proverbs 25:15 a very powerful statement about gentleness. It says, through patience a ruler, Can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone. Now, obviously, where there is a symbolic aspect to this because we're not really trying to break physical bones, but what it does mean is is that your tongue, when you have a gentle tongue, what it shows that you are able to smash through problems that other postures of heart. Can't. You can break down the barriers that separate where you are going and where you want to be, especially for other people, and allow them to receive the Lord in a powerful, in a meaningful way. That there cannot— some— there cannot be something in front of you that can stop you. That's what it's saying. When you speak with gentleness, you're tearing down mountains. You're tearing down and filling up valleys. You are leveling the plains. You are taking mountains and you see valley and you're filling it up and everything's flat. That's the essence of a gentle tongue, is to be able to reset and reorient reality back to the way God wants it to operate. It's not about getting your way, it's about putting it back in the place where the kingdom of God can operate fully without restraint and without restriction. That's the essence of what a gentle tongue can do. And what we see here, what we see here in talking about in 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 4, and in this section, uh, Peter had this long discourse when he was talking to wives and the posture of heart of women. And this is something that, uh, you know, when it comes from a man, it can be difficult to hear. But the reality is, is this is the Bible. I'm just speaking what the Lord said. And what the Holy Spirit is trying to communicate is, is that wives need to be gentle, husbands need to be gentle, because it's so important that whenever you have this capability within you and you're bearing each other up, there are going to be situations in marriages that are going to be charged. You're going to want something that you didn't get. You're going to want to be in a position where You want some form of change, but that change comes through gentleness. And let's talk— let's look at the scripture. It says, 1 Peter 3:4, it says, rather it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight. This is the important aspect. Notice what Peter says, that a gentle and quiet spirit is unfading. It's beautiful. Which it means is, is that it's eternal. When you carry a gentle spirit, it becomes functionally a permanent state of being. It's not something that changes, and it is something of great importance, of beauty, because What Peter is saying is, is when women take the posture of gentleness and quietness, God looks at you and understands your situation. He respects what you're doing. He loves what you're accomplishing. We know in the grand scheme of things that husbands and wives throughout their lives truly ultimately cannot accomplish anything outside of God. Even those people who are not saved and are wealthy and successful are only doing it by the grace of God and by the giftings that he had given him and her in order to operate. And so they're not accomplishing it by their own means. They're just using the things God had already given them and the opportunities that manifested in their lives in the different seasons. But what God is saying is, is that the unfading beauty of gentleness And quietness within a spirit is of great value and of worth in God's sight. So when you think about that from the perspective of the word worth, that has a lot of meaning because generally it's around monetary. And what we know God does is he is a rewarder of those who are humble. We know that because what he does is, is that he will allow the proud to fall and then the humble to rise in their place. That's Very, very common. You see that in all forms of scriptures. You even see that at the end of Isaiah 6, in all different parts of the Bible. And so what God is saying is, is that women that go about their lives with this quiet and gentle spirit are valuable to God, and God will reward you in many different ways here on earth and in heaven. And that is a powerful statement. Because at the end of the day, no matter where you're at in your walk of life, you don't want humans rewarding you because whatever they give you will disappear eventually, either in your lifetime or thereafter. Nothing we build with our hands is eternal, not even steel buildings, because even with the technology we have today, it'll eventually rust away, it'll get destroyed or weathered. It ultimately has some form of life shelf life. Even look at the, the beautiful architecture in Europe and in the Middle East where things have been around for thousands and thousands of years. Even in the unchanging environment of the desert, which doesn't have the moisture but does have to deal with the sun, those buildings eventually fall apart. Nothing is eternal. But God is saying that women who operate in this manner are worth They're, they're very valuable in God's sight. And so it's— he wants to reward you for your actions, and he is the one that can orient things on this earth for the things that you want. So if you're praying for something, you're yearning for something, you want something to happen, this is where a humble wife that goes to the Lord, who's of gentle heart, who's a quiet spirit, who has this beautiful internal capability within them, God will say, wow, I'm going to listen to this prayer because this is a righteous person, and the prayer of a righteous person is powerful. And that's biblical. We don't have to argue about that. We can see it in the lives of those who operate like that. But also you see this— Peter continuing later in a chapter in verse 15 where he says, but in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone or everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have, but do this with gentleness and respect. This is one of the most powerful evangelical verses in the entire Bible. If you don't operate in the gift of evangelism, it may not necessarily resonate with you. If you are a person that does go out there and you're a part of the missionary or you do apostolic work, or you're, you know, doing anything out in the field, or, you know, you're preaching, a street preacher, or you do that kind of work within the church, you will understand that you must always be in a position, always, at any point in time, to give an answer for your faith. Why do you believe in Jesus? Why do you love him? Why are you so on fire for the Lord? What did he do in your life How did he transform it? What is your testimony? And but what the key aspect that Peter is saying is, is that he says do it with gentleness and respect. Okay, do this with the care and love of the Lord. Do it with the aspect of understanding that this person sincerely wants to know, and because they sincerely want to know You have an opportunity to be able to open a door to salvation to a non-believer. And when you do it with gentleness and respect, you're reflecting the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. When you build a relationship up with Jesus, you understand that he treats you with gentleness. He treats you with care. Every conversation I have with Jesus, it doesn't matter. What has happened in that day. If I've made a boatload of mistakes and I have sinned even across a large portion of the day, when I go back into my prayer closet, I repent and I move on. His voice is always gentle. It's never condemning. It's never in a position of like, wow, I, I'm just— it's kind of like this fire and brimstone and this hatred or, or this anger. No. It's always, always humble. It's always gentle. It's always quiet because he wants to emulate to you, to me, how he wants you to operate in every situation. Because he knows we're all prone to sin. We're all fallible. We do have and we will make mistakes. He gets it. He already knows the mistakes before we do them. So God is gentle in dealing with you. So he wants you to be gentle in dealing with others, no matter the situation that that person's in, no matter the situation or the relationship that you may have with that person. God wants gentleness and respect because what happens is, is that's the fire that the Holy Spirit can operate with, because we know the Holy Spirit inhabits the praises of the people. And when you're— when you bring a gentle spirit And you want to light the room on fire, turn up the heat and get the atmosphere boiling and get the Lord flowing. You operating from a position of humility, you operating from a position of gentleness gets that going. That's the power of what God does. Titus 3:2 continues, to slander no one, be— to be peaceable and considerate, and always to be gentle toward everyone. This is a powerful statement because it starts off, don't slander, don't gossip, don't say anything that isn't true about a person. And even if it is true, sometimes the best thing is not to say anything at all unless God wants you to reveal it, because you want to be in a position where your words are known to be trustworthy. Your words are meant to build up. This is the beautiful thing about what you see in 1 Corinthians 14, and this is the essence of prophecy, which is edification exhortation, and comfort. Prophecy is the only gift that's listed 3 times. There's the gifts of the Father, the gifts of the Son, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and prophecy is the only one listed in all 3. And so Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14 to pursue prophecy because we know— because Revelation talks about this in 19:10— that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus Christ. And what that means is, is anytime you're sharing a Bible verse, anytime you're speaking John 3:16, you're prophesying. But what that starts means is, is that you're starting from a position where you're taking a person, whether they're already lifted up or not, and you're trying to move them forward. And that's what Paul is saying to Titus, is, is that don't be in a position where you are condemning people and Punishing them with your words and, and talking them down. Rather, you are supposed to be lifting them up, because when you— when you're considerate of their situation, you're peaceful. You are able to be gentle towards everyone in every situation, and that's a powerful posture to be in, because God loves gentleness. He loves it when you're able to go into those situations. Diffuse it with your tongue and then lift them up. Because remember, think about this. Remember when the martyr Stephen was being stoned? He was wise and powerful in word and deed, and yet they're in the process of killing him. And what does he turn around and say? Forgive them, Father. Okay, cleanse their slate. And who was a part of that gang that was killing The, the martyr Stephen, the, the, the one, uh, person named Saul. Well, who was Saul? You know, not too long after, he's on the road to Damascus and Jesus meets him there, blinds him for 3 days, and he converts to Paul, and he becomes the, the apostle to the Gentiles, writes a huge chunk of the New Testament, a lot of the doctrine that all the churches are based upon. And it all started at that point where Stephen said, forgive them. He was able to humble himself even to the point of death and just say, let it— let them be forgiven. He could have easily have taken the stance that Elijah took when the troops came up, and he says, if I'm a man of God, let fire come down from heaven. Did it twice, and the third time the person begged him not to do it because he would have done it a third time. The power that operates in us operates from a posture of gentleness. The power that operates in us operates from a place of humility. That's where God wants us to be, because when we're gentle and we're humble, that's when he can move very powerfully in the lives of those around you to be very effective. Because remember, the fruit of the Spirit are things that other people consume. It's how you outwardly act towards everyone, and you shouldn't be treating other people of stature differently. You should be gentle and caring and helping to all people. That's what Paul is talking about. It continues to 1 Timothy chapter 3, verse 3. It says, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. So what he's teaching Timothy is he's contrasting the worldly things. Is this— don't go out there and get drunk and get wasted and drink wine or drink beer or any form of alcoholic drinks to the point of you being non-functional. Don't be violent. Don't be a person that likes to argue and fight and get their way and, and just be a person that wants what they want and they always receive it. And definitely don't be a lover of money because we know that's the root of all evil. Money is not the root of all evil, but the love of money is the root of all evil. That's what he says. So in that entire verse He's contrasting all these evil actions and he's saying, but gentle. Be gentle, because gentleness isn't drunkenness. You can't be gentle and drunk at the same time. It— that just doesn't work. You might be a happy drunk and you might be someone that's walking around all goofy and silly, but at the end of the day, you're still not gentle. You clearly can't be gentle when you're violent, and you clearly can't be gentle when you're quarreling. And you clearly can't be gentle if you love money because you're going to put money in front of other people where God is like, no, money is a tool no different than a hammer. And so, and since he's your provider, if you're tithing and you're doing your part, he's your provider. You're not even supposed to be worrying about that. God will take care of it for you, and he'll prove it to you. If you don't believe that, just ask him to show you how he's taken care of you your whole life, and then you'll allow yourself to use money as a tool And then now you can operate in the areas where you normally would be argumentative, in the areas where there may be a physical confrontation, maybe in a situation where you could be arguing and fighting over something or being concerned about money. You can discard all those situations and be gentle in those moments. That's the power of God. And we see this further in 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verses 21. He says, what do you prefer? Shall I come to you with the rod of discipline? Or shall I come in love with a gentle spirit? Now Paul is talking to the Corinthians very strongly because they were in a bad spot at this time. They had people that were publicly sinning and they were accepting it in just horrific ways. And so what he was saying is, is that you've got 2 options. I can come in and be able to discipline you and show you through the power of Christ who flows through me That I can exert my authority over you and therefore discipline you in form of a correction and make you change, or I can come with humility and gentleness and allow you to feel the love and then transform your situation through the fruit of the Spirit. Your choice. I'm going to be able to— I'm— my choice is obviously Paul's always going to say, I want to come with a gentle spirit. But I will come with a rod of discipline. This is very, very important for those people who are in management positions. If you have children or any position where you're overseeing a group of people, you're in charge of something. If you're not in charge of something, if you're a younger person, this is some, you know, word of wisdom for you. When you're in a position of power and authority, when you need to exert that power of authority, there generally is 2 options for a person. The first option is going to be being able to exert your authority and command things to happen. And in a lot of cases, that for— that in that case is some form of discipline or punishment, especially in the case of children, as well as in the case of workers too, because you may be in a situation where a worker just can't get it and they just don't want to work, and there has to be some form of like performance plan or some form of repercussion To reorient them and have them take it seriously. When that happens, Paul is saying gentleness is greater, because when you're gentle with them, you're able to establish a friendship and a trust, an aspect of true love with a bond between you. And when you base a bond upon love, what happens is, is now a person can work in that relationship Without fear. Because when you're operating in gentleness, there's no anxiety. When you're operating in gentleness, there's no fear, there's no condemnation, there's no stress. You're able to lift that person up and move them forward in an amazing way because they can go forward. Now, you do have situations, and it talks about in Proverbs, where discipline is required, and that's fine. We have— we understand what those situations are. And generally it's an escalation, which is where you know that you're trying to be gentle and over time it doesn't work and you have to be able to escalate in order to form a correction. But even then, the, the point of the matter is, is that if you're able to build a relationship of trust, even in correction, that can be done in gentleness. Even in a place of discipline, it's going to come with gentleness. And that's very powerful because now The, the way the person who needs to receive it, or persons need to receive it, it's going to resonate deeply because they're going to know this person cares for me. I need to change. This isn't comfortable, but I'm going to listen to what they say because I trust them. That's the essence of gentleness. That's the essence of how the power of gentleness can work in your life, in your children's life. If you're a manager, again, in your employees' lives. It's just powerful beyond understanding because it changes the way relationships work. Because when you're based upon gentleness, the power of God falls upon people and allows this aspect of community to form in a way that the bond can't be broken. It's very powerful. So now let's talk about gentleness. Now in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 11, One of the things we'll learn about is that gentleness can actually be pursued. It says, but you, man of God, flee from all of this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Now think about that from the perspective of pursuing things. Paul is creating a list in which you can orient your life and then chase. What he's saying is, is that you can pursue righteousness. You can pursue being in a holy state at all times, being of the mind of God. You can pursue godliness. The attributes of God can manifest in your life in a way that you can chase. You can chase faith, which is an amazing thing because that's the currency of heaven, and everything that God does operates through faith on this side of eternity. What an amazing thing, because you can pursue it. What an amazing statement, because if you need God to move in your life, walk in faith and watch God do what he does and do it in a way that no one can even understand or explain. That's the power of God. He wants you to trust him, and faith does that. He wants you to pursue love because that's an aspect of your character. That's an aspect of how you operate. And when you're orienting towards love, Because we know love is patient, love is kind. We know love is all the fruit of the Spirit. It's joy, it's peace, it's kindness, it's patience, it's all these beautiful things. And so as you're chasing love and you're trying to instill love in every single situation, you're trying to speak in love in every single situation, that's pursuing it. But you also can pursue that with endurance and be able to build yourself up in a way that allows you to manage yourself through the trying times of life. And endurance is important because it talks about endurance being able to be built up through the storms of life. And as you're on your Christian walk, there are going to be storms in your life. Jesus literally walked through storms. He literally slept through storms. He was there. He knows it. He experienced it. The storm of his life was whenever God gave him all authority on earth and under heaven, and he was not yet resurrected. That was the greatest temptation. Many people believe that the greatest temptation came when Satan went after him after 40 days of fasting. That, that was— I mean, not, not to belittle that by any means, But Jesus wasn't fully empowered at that time. Jesus was fully empowered when he went to the cross. He even said in Matthew, "I can call down, if I remember correctly, 72 legions of angels and rescue me." He had the authority and power to crush the Roman army at that time, and yet chose the cross instead because he had you on his mind. He had me on. Is mine. That's the aspect of endurance that God wants us to pursue. But when you do that, it also leads to pursuing gentleness, because now in those moments, in those storms, you have the opportunity to showcase it. Gentleness is easy to showcase when your, your belly is full and you're rested and all things are going well in your life. That's an easy thing to do. Gentleness in the storms of your life, in the points when you're fasting and you're hungry and you're crabby and your blood sugar is dangerously low, and/or you're tired and you just didn't get any sleep, and you're still able to operate in gentleness. You're able to operate in gentleness at the points in times when your kids are acting up or when your family is just, just out of control with their words or their actions, or your work is stressful beyond belief— when you're able to be gentle in those moments, that's God showcasing himself through you. And that's what he's talking about. You're pursuing it because you have the opportunity to accomplish something amazing, and you do it through gentleness. And it just— it will resonate in the lives that are around you in ways that other things can't. Because people are expecting emotion to match the emotion. They're expecting the situation to escalate, and gentleness does the exact opposite. Not only is it the great de-escalator, it's now the foundation in which you can move forward in that situation where other people thought, well, that was not possible. I was expecting it to blow up. But now not only is everything did not blow up, but everything settled down, and now I'm moving forward. In complete and total peace. That's the power of gentleness. I want to talk about a little bit here. I'm going to pivot here for a moment and talk about this verse from Job chapter 41, verse 3. Now, in this chapter, God is speaking to Job. So we know that the, the Book of Job is 42 chapters. The last basically 3 to 4, God is basically publicly rebuking Job's friends and, to a degree, publicly rebuking Job. And he's establishing a standard where he is saying he's God and everyone else, there's just no one near him, right? Like, who are you to come and ask for me and try to defend your case? It's just, you're not even worthy to even sit in my courts. And the reality is, that's very true. By the blood of Jesus Christ, we sit on the throne of Christ. But that's not because of our righteousness; that's because Jesus's. And I'm very thankful for that. There's a very big difference. There's a reverence of God that you have to understand who He is. Okay? He did not take down and kill Uzziah when He touched the Ark of the Covenant for no reason. There's a holiness that He has, and we have to have that reverential respect. So God is in this moment talking about in chapter 41 about Leviathan. And we know that Leviathan is this generally, you know, at least in the context it's used, it's symbolic of a chaos monster. And without getting into the biblical eschatology, which is functionally talking about monsters and beasts, which today would be similar to like we would think of like a dragon or a dinosaur, God is talking about Leviathan as this legendary-level creature. Right. That you just don't want to deal with. And it's on a scale that functionally you can't tame it, you can't injure it, you can't control it. It's just— don't mess with it. And basically it is, it's a, it's a chaos monster. And that's the essence of what he's talking about. So what he's saying is, is that in, in Job 41:3, it says, will it keep begging you for mercy? This is Leviathan begging you for mercy. Will it speak to you with gentle words? And the answer is no. It's not going to beg for mercy, and it's not going to speak to you with words, gentle words. What really God is talking about in one of the meanings, and there's plenty of them here, is, is that he's talking about the enemy. He's talking about Satan and his army. And one of the things that you have to understand about the, the kingdom of darkness is there is no mercy. There is no gentleness. In fact, we're at war with a kingdom that wants to destroy us. They're not our friends. They're not our family. They're not trying to— even if you are involved or have family that are involved in things they're not supposed to, whether that's witchcraft or sorcery, whatever, black magic, the whole occult, it doesn't matter. You're truly being used because Humanity has a position of power and authority on earth, and the demonic does not. It got disarmed at the cross, and the only way they can operate in any form of authority is through people. And so they use them, and sometimes people will form partnerships with them and to try to gain power and authority and wealth and fame and all kinds of junk that they don't need. But at the end of the day, they're not your friends. They don't ask for mercy. Once your usefulness is up, it's over for you. It's as simple as that. You'll just get replaced. And so what God is saying, that these chaos monsters, that the enemy will never talk to you gently, will never ask you for mercy, will never give you mercy. The only mercy you get is from the throne of God. The only grace you get from the throne of God. It's a complete Opposite. And it is something— it is really ultimately a warning. It's something that it is allowing God to show you how the enemy works, and that when you really truly understand how the enemy works, there is no love, there is no hope. All it is is despair and destruction, death and just total annihilation. That's what God is talking about. It's important to understand that that's Would contrast the gentleness. But it also is important to understand that when you're not operating in gentleness, you're operating like that. Think about that for a second, that whenever you're not gentle to someone, you're operating like the kingdom of darkness. And like the kingdom of darkness, their goal is to steal, kill, and destroy. It's in that order. And so imagine your willingness to operate not in gentleness, aligns you with the way the devil wants to destroy people's lives. And that's how he works. If he was not constrained by God, he would have wiped out humanity thousands of years ago. He has that level of power. We saw when the hedge of protection dropped in Job's life what happened. God said, just don't kill him, okay? And he had to keep his wife safe too. And because, you know, obviously we— he was going to be restored with his children. And he blew everything up within a day, blew it all up, took his life, nearly took his life, ruined everything, killed all his kids, killed his flocks. Only the only person that survived was the one to tell the story. And so that's the essence of how the evil one works. That's the essence of how darkness works. And when you're not operating in gentleness, you're operating like that. And I know that may be difficult to hear if you're in that situation. But that's the power of the Holy Spirit to break those things. Because when you yield in those moments to the Holy Spirit and you're like, oh, I just— okay, Holy Spirit, take over— that's where God wants you to be. That's where God wants you to be, in that posture of heart and of love. Because now he can flow through you in those moments and reset all the expectations, reset that atmosphere, reset the heart posture of everyone involved, and just be life-changing. And that's the essence of what God does, is gentleness is life-changing. It's powerful. It's incredible. We see this further in, in really a very important verse, and I really want people to take home this verse. Galatians 6, uh, verse 1. It says, brothers and sisters, if anyone is caught in sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. This I this is a very heavy-handed verse because one of the aspects of the church today is being able to confess our sins to one another in a in a place where there's no conviction, there's no condemnation, and even to believe it or not, even no correction. And what Paul is saying is, is that if someone is caught up in a sin, whether it's adultery, whether it's an addiction, whether it's lying or slander, whatever it may be, people that live by the Spirit are meant to bring them back into the fold gently, not through any form of condemnation, not through any form of correction. Because remember what Jesus said: you're allowed to judge your brother, okay, but you got to pull the plank out of your eye first before you pull the speck out of their eye. That's the power of that verse. People think, oh, you're not allowed to judge people. No, Jesus said you are allowed. You just got to make sure your eyes are clear because you don't want to be seeing partially visions because you got a big log in your eye and you can't see clearly. But when you've cleaned your life, you're in a position where you can guide people back to Christ. Because you have to remember that at some point someone did that for you. At some point someone in your life guided you back to Jesus gently, even though they knew you had made a big mistake. This is incredibly important for those who are in very positions of power over children, people operating in schools, Uh, in churches, over youth groups, whatever that may be, you're going to have situations, your own kids, that are going to be wily. They're going to make a mistake. They're going to do something like, oh my goodness, why did you do that? And the essence of it is, is that God is trying to establish a path to reconciliation, and he's going to use you to do it. And remember, he wants you to represent him, and he's gentle. Remember, think about this. Remember, God knows every single sin you're going to commit from this time till you die. He already knows, and he's going to do his best to keep you from doing it, but you're going to do it anyway. I'm going to do it anyway, okay? I make my fair share of mistakes, uh, even in these last couple weeks. You're like, man, this is just a bad set of weeks, like holy moly. But at the end of the day, God knows it. Like, I even asked him and I said You already know I was going to do this, but you weathered— you weathered my storm for me because you knew that I would come out on the other side clean and focused and ready to operate again. That's how God operates, because he's timeless. You have to think about it from his perspective, is, is that he doesn't look at the moment of the sin that happened and the consequences, even the consequences, even if they're great consequences, severe, even damaging. Because God is a restorer of all things. Nothing that has happened on this earth God can't reverse. He's the only one that has the power to extend your life. If you've lost years on your life, he's the one that can give it back to you. That's what he probably did with Job. That's what a lot of people believe what happened, which is we don't know for sure, but we believe that most of Job's life, when that great turmoil happened in his life, he was around 70 when God doubled All the things after, he also gave him 140 years of life. So Job lived to 210. Now, he did live closer to the time of Noah, and so those people were slowly sliding from the ages of 1,000 back down to 120. But there were people after that that, that lived past 120, even though God said the limit was 120. God has the power to extend your life. He has the power to turn gray hairs back to color. He has the power to restore weakness and to make you strong. He has the power to clobber diseases. Okay, so when you see this and you understand the extent of how God operates, he doesn't look at the situation that has just happened and even the consequences and the ramifications. What he does is he looks at the bigger picture because he knows that when you're gentle in heart and then you push people through and you're carrying them forward, what you're doing is, is you're leveling them up into a new season That allows them to operate in a level that no one can operate at, only by God's grace. That's the power of gentleness, because gentleness doesn't look at the current situation that the person is in. What it does is it looks forward to the cross and say, what can they be? What can they accomplish? What can we do to be a foundation of love, a foundation of care, a foundation of Patience that pushes people up into a place that allows them to operate in a powerful and a meaningful way. That's what gentleness does for people in their lives. When they are sinning and you are able to lift them up, it puts them in a place where they can operate at a higher level, a point of clarity, a point of surrender, a point of humility, because now every single thing that God does is an upward motion. That's the essence of everything. You see that with Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree. We see that he went up. We see that when Jesus went into the wilderness, it says he went up into the wilderness. We see this with Moses on Mount Sinai. He went up into the clouds and disappeared. We see this with Elijah on the same mountain. He went up into the mountain. Everything is, everything is an upward direction for God because that's how he operates. And when you're operating from an up position, you're operating from the throne of God. You're operating from a position of power and authority. And that's what gentleness does. It undergirds the position that the person is in and pulls them up. And so when you understand the essence of how gentleness is supposed to work, is, is that it's a foundational aspect of love. It allows people to rise up out of the, the darkness, out of the valley, and into the plains. It's a bridge. It's a, it's a stepping stone. It's a staircase that allows people to move forward into a position of holiness and greatness because of your posture of heart, because of your words, and because of your actions. That's the power of gentleness in a person's life. I hope this message blessed you in an amazing way. And I just wanted to ask, um, one favor, um, before we, uh, close out this, uh, video is we here at John Humenik Ministries have a very, very important mission. In 2024, we are looking to spread the gospel to all the people before the rapture. But God also laid on my heart the opportunity to partner with and raise up 1,000 churches to dramatically expand and turn their social media ministries into a first-class program where they too can go out there and reach the masses with their specific message, with their specific anointing, in a powerful way. So I just want to ask you Uh, if you will prayerfully consider, uh, partnering with us. We have a great ministry team that is working, uh, very hard to continue to put out content. We're building first-class programs and all kinds of exciting things for this year. But over time, everything that we need for the ministry ultimately costs. And every donation that comes in goes back into the ministry to expand it. to hire new people, to be able to grow and offer more things that we can do to just get the gospel out there. So if you have it on your heart to partner with us, you can go to our website. It's humenik.com/give. It's spelled H-U-M-E-N-I-K.com/give. There you can become a monthly partner, or you can set up just a one-time donation. If you want to be able to mail us a check, our address is there. We do accept PayPal and other forms of donations, but we would love to have you on this journey with us as we continue to move forward. We want to powerfully move in ways and allow us to just be able to move through the mountains and soar higher as we go forward. And I'm just excited to be able to part of this ministry and have people partner with us. And I just want to thank you in advance for those who are willing to be blessed, because when you are a blessing, you can become a blessing to others. That's what God does, is he pours into you in order for you to pour out to others, and then he just refills that pitcher to do the process over again. The beautiful thing about it is, is the pitcher gets wet during the process, so you're blessed during that process in a Bountiful in a mighty way. So thank you for joining me. I pray that this edified you in amazing ways, and, and have just an amazing day ahead. God bless. Amen.