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HOW GENTLENESS RELATES TO HUMILITY

I want to talk to you today about the word gentleness, continuing our discussions about the fruit of the spirit that we have in our lives. This is out of Galatians chapter 5:22-23. It says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness.

Now, what do we mean when we're talking about gentleness?

Now before we get to that, I hope that you've been enjoying sort of my life scoreboard. My life is about salt water, clean water and living water. This is a scoreboard that I made for myself so I know how to measure my success in life. It's very much lined up to that. My hope in doing this isn't that you'll mimic my scoreboard, but that you'll think about your own and you'll develop one based out of John 10 10 for your own life so that you can live that abundant life that God has called us to.

So the word gentleness means first of all, mildness of disposition. What are we talking about here? Well, as you look at the fruit of the spirit, you will soon discover like myself that there are some that come easier than others. Now what are we talking about here? Well, some people have are just very joyful. I think of a Kurt Johnston who I got to surf with today. Kurt's a very joyful person, always has been in the 30 years that I've known him. Now today, this word does not come easily to myself in regards to say my surfing.

I live here in San Clemente. I own a home. Now when it comes to surfing, surfers are very territorial. They don't like people surfing their spot because waves are a scarce asset. So the more people that you have in the water like this picture behind here of this is myself and Adam Watts, one of our favorite waves in El Salvador. This was a great day because the surf was about six feet and you can see from the photo just Adam and I here and I believe that's Kurt and Mark Bell actually. But waves are a scarce asset so we don't tend to like a lot of people. So what happens in surfing, at least if you're Ryan Delamater, is like if someone's not from San Clemente I'll just like take their wave and sort of you know laugh about it. Well that's not exactly gentleness what the Bible is talking about here. It means mildness of disposition.

Have you ever been around people that were just sort of chill? Well a fruit of the spirit is that we can learn in certain situations and certain circumstances to just sort of relax, sort of calm down. Let your blood pressure lower. This is what it means to be gentle.

You don't have to win every conversation that you're part of. In fact the Bible encourages us to listen twice as much as we speak to have a mild disposition, to relax, to take in the situation, to be very present, to be very in the moment. It's very much the opposite of how I surf. The opposite of the word gentleness would be aggro. I am aggro when I surf. So first thing it means is mildness of disposition.

Now the second thing that it means is gentleness of spirit. What is gentleness of spirit means? It means someone that when they share their shortcomings or they share their faults or they share the things that they need to work on and improve on, they're sort of calm and easy to talk to. They're the type of people that you think about when you need something. You're going to think of someone who's sort of gentle. So there's a mildness of disposition. There's a gentleness of spirit.

And the third thing is that it implies humility. So gentleness, it implies humility. Humility is perhaps one of the most misunderstood characteristics of the Christian life. However, it's the most important. In fact all of the great writers who've written about really the character of Jesus, really what it means to follow Jesus have all been rooted in humility and they talk about humility. So first of all, humility is not denying that you have strengths or giftings. If you're watching this, you're gifted because the Bible says you have spiritual gifts. You also have some strengths that God gave you in your life so that you could build a life. So it's not saying I don't have gifts and I don't have strengths. Humility simply recognizes the limited number of strengths that a person has and it says I'm aware of these giftings, I'm aware of these strengths, which conversely makes you aware of what you're not good at and what you don't have a strength in. So gentleness implies humility.

It has to do with the way that we interact with other people. Now how do you have a strong personality but also exhibit the quality of gentleness? Well this is mostly demonstrated not by giving up your strong personality or your opinions. What it has to do with, it's the quality of listening, it's the quality of empathy, it's the quality of being in the moment and trying to understand the people that you're interacting with.

So three characteristics of gentleness. The bottom of this video today I'm going to put a link to the other fruits of the Spirit and until tomorrow I hope you have a beautiful day and that God will help us to demonstrate the quality of gentleness in our life.

GENTLENESS AND HOW IT RELATES TO HUMILITY