I like that they keep the part in there about Him keeping us too, because if He just saved us and left us alone, we'd sit there and lose it and it wouldn't have been very much of a salvation to begin with. But He saves us and keeps us, it's complete salvation. It's not temporary, it's not flighty, it's complete. Alright, let's grab our Bibles this morning and turn to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, this is going to be our Our primary text, you want to keep a marker here. We're going to be in some different places, but this is home base for this message. It's good to see you guys here. I appreciate it. I'm glad that you showed up. I've had a really good spiritual week, and I want to praise the Lord for it. I always, I got my regular Bible reading routine that I do, you know, New Testament, Old Testament, stuff like that. And I was having, I don't have my inside person anymore at the library and my library card kind of quit working. And so I wasn't being able to do the hoopla stuff or anything, but I was like, you know what? I was like, I want to, I want to start listening to some audio Bible on top of my daily Bible reading. And I found a real good one that I'm enjoying. I found it on audible or whatever. And so I'm listening to the Bible as I'm working. And my goal is to get through the whole New Testament in just a couple of days. And apparently, it's 17 or 18 hours worth of listening. So I need more time listening. But as I was just listening to Extra Bible, and I like how the guy reads it, the Lord just keeps giving me messages from exposure to the Bible. And I'm like, well, this is good. Oh, hold on. And I have to stop it and take some notes and everything, play some more than a different message. And I'm like, oh, this is great. So I'm getting all sorts of stuff. going on and God's just been really good to me. And but before I did that, I was praying and asking the Lord, Lord, I have no idea what I'm preaching Sunday morning. Could you please give me give me the message? And before he just started really making my cup runneth over, he gave me this message to begin with. And I think that's still the one he wants me to to go over today. So that's the one we're doing today. And we'll get one of the new ones tonight. Not like this one's old. Ephesians chapter 4, let's start in verse number 20. The Bible says this, Ephesians 4, 20. But ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have heard him and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus. If you're looking for the truth, it's in Jesus. Verse 22, that ye put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt. according to the deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness, wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor. For we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. That's how he keeps us right there. Verse 31, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven you. Let's pray. Amen. Alright, so this portion of Ephesians is telling us how to learn to be more like Christ. We see in verse 20, it says, but ye have not so learned Christ. He says, well, you don't have Jesus down yet. Let me tell you a little more how to be like Christ. Verse 21, If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus. So all that we read is teaching you how to be more like Christ. If you're a Christ follower, you probably want to know how to be like Christ so you can follow Him better. Part of what we need to learn, this includes putting off the old man and being renewed in your mind. Verse 22, Now you put off concerning the former conversation, the old man, how you used to be, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, you know, you were rotten. Verse 23, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Verse 24, and that ye put on the new man. It's not enough just to put away the old stuff. You've got to put on Christ. Well, I'll be good, and I'll just get rid of the bad things I used to do, and then I'll be fine. No, no, no. Put off the old man, put on the new man. Okay, you can't be like Christ without some things changing. And that's not just getting rid of the bad, okay, that's making you new. He makes all things new. Verse 24, and that ye put on the new man, which after God, our example, is created in righteousness and true holiness. So Paul then goes on to give us several things that need to be put off like lying and anger and thefts and corrupt communication and things like that. And God gives us, through Paul, some attributes of Christ that we must put on in order to be like Christ and to live like the new man instead of the old man. So we're gonna be focusing on one of those attributes this morning, one that is often overlooked and underappreciated. And when the Lord was giving me this message, He made one word stand out. And I go, huh? And I had to stop everything and be like, okay. And the Lord just started giving me some good things about it. Look at verse 32. Bible says this, and be kind one to another, tender hearted. We're gonna be looking at being tenderhearted this morning. Because I think this is an attribute of Christ that we often overlook or we underappreciate and we say, oh, you know, Jesus was a lot of things. He's got many, many wonderful attributes. But I think his tenderheartedness is something that we overlook and we don't really care to possess because it comes with a cost. Understanding and obeying this is only important if you wanna be obedient to God and be like Christ. So if you say, well, I don't care about obeying God, I don't wanna be Christ-like, go ahead and take a nap, okay? But if you wanna follow Jesus Christ, if you wanna be as Christ-like as possible, if you wanna obey the commandments of God, then you're gonna need to pay attention this morning. Because being tenderheartedness is a distinctly Christian characteristic. Keep a marker here, but turn to Isaiah chapter 53. Do you realize it was prophesied before Jesus got here that he was going to be tender? The Bible tells us in one of the greatest chapters, Isaiah 53, prophetic chapter all about Jesus Christ and it talks about His suffering on Calvary, it talks about Him being like a lamb before a shearer is dumb, He spoke not a word. It talks about Him being wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. It says all these things that's gonna happen to Jesus Christ. And look at Isaiah 53, let's start in verse one. Christ's tenderness was part of this prophecy. Isaiah 53 verse 1, Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we would desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." It would go on and tell you more and more about Jesus. But it mentions there in the second verse that, for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant. Do you realize up to and through Calvary, Jesus Christ was tender? That was part of the prophecy of Jesus Christ. Well, it's good to know that that's what He was, but it only helps if you know exactly what the Bible is talking about when it's speaking about being tender. So let's turn to Deuteronomy chapter 28. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy chapter 28. And we're going to get a Bible definition as to what this word tender is, because if we want to be tender-hearted, we better know what it means. It kind of makes sense. As you're turning to Deuteronomy chapter 28, this is a very fun portion of scripture, but it'll give us the definition that we're looking for. In Deuteronomy 28, this is a prophecy about God sending a foreign nation to pummel Israel so badly that they turn to eating their own kids. But while he's prophesying about this, we get a great definition twice, as a matter of fact, of what the word tender means. Deuteronomy 28 verse 54. So things are gonna be really bad, and this is how bad it's going to be. Deuteronomy 28 verse 54. So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, His eye shall be evil towards his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children, which he shall leave, so that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children, whom he shall eat, because he had nothing left in him in the siege and in the straightness, wherewith thine enemies shall dress thee in all thy gates. So the man that used to be tender, verse 54, so that the man that is tender among you and very delicate, there's our definition. So the man that used to be tender, delicate, soft, caring, now he's so hard that he's eating his children and if that's not bad enough, he's not sharing them with anybody else. That's pretty bad, okay? Don't eat your kids, that's not good, okay? And through these hard times though, we also see tender is again defined in verse 56, talking about the women. Verse 56, the tender and delicate women among you. which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness. Her eyes shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom and toward her son and toward her daughter." So this woman's real soft, she's real gentle, but now she's turning so aggressive and so evil And it says in verse 57, And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children, which she shall bear, for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege of straightness, wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in thy gates. So here we have a bunch of cannibalism, but in the midst of that we have a good definition of what tender is. So tender means delicate, soft, caring, unharming. Things that are often called tender in the Bible include a branch. We read about tender branches, tender herbs, tender children, God's mercies. There's several places in Psalms that talk about God's tender mercies. He's soft with us. He's gentle with us. He's delicate with us. To be tenderhearted means to keep your heart delicate, soft, caring, regardless of what life or others throw at you. Remember, this is a command of God, to be tenderhearted. It's not an easy command. But in order to be like Christ, we have to be tenderhearted. He was. And so what we're going to do is we're going to look at three traits of tender heartedness. And we can see all of them personified in Jesus Christ. We can see him being our prime example, which he is. He was so tender hearted and he was very, very tender man. It was prophesied that he was going to be tender. So hopefully by learning these traits, if we don't have them, we can ask the Lord for them and we can come to appreciate it. We could see the value in it. And so it's important. So the first trait of tenderheartedness that I want to talk to you about is vulnerability. And if you're like me and you have trouble spelling that, you can put exposure. Being vulnerable, being exposed. Do you realize in order for your heart to be tender, it must be exposed to others? And we're not talking about just friends. Jesus' tender heart was evident by his willingness to be exposed to the hurt and pain that he knew was coming. Calvary was a prime example of this. The Bible says in John 10, 17 and 18, you don't have to turn there, but in John 10, 17 and 18, the Bible says, Jesus said this, He said, Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. You realize Jesus knew exactly where Judas was and where the other people were going to be coming from. He knew where he was going to be betrayed, and he didn't ignore it. He knew what was going to happen to him, and he didn't just cast it all off. He didn't find himself somewhere else. It wasn't a plot gone awry. Jesus knew what was coming, and he went through it anyway. Jesus didn't run from the hurt or the pain. He knew it was coming, and he took it. A tender heart is evident by the fact that you allow hurt to come without defense, out of love for someone else. That's what a tender heart is. I'm gonna put my guard down, I'm going to expose my heart to this person or to these people, and if it gets trampled, that just shows that it was exposed. If you make it through, and you never get hurt, that means your heart was never exposed. It means you're not tenderhearted. A closed heart may be protected, but it's unable to reach anyone. When you put up walls of protection to keep others from hurting you, it may keep you safe from the hurt of others, but it keeps you from their love as well. Love comes in and out of the heart. And if you've got those walls up, if you've got it protected, if you've got a hard heart, you say, I'm not gonna love them. Yeah, their love's not gonna get to you either. A wall doesn't just keep people out, it keeps you in. So when you put those walls around your heart, you're not just keeping them out, you're keeping you in. Jesus expects us to be tenderhearted. You realize who your heart is open to shows who you love? If it's closed off to everyone but you, it shows that you just love yourself. That's what it is. You say, yeah, but I've been hurt. I understand. I'm not going to say I know exactly what you've been through. I don't know your kind of pain. All of you all are different. All of you went through different heartaches and pains. I'm not saying that it was easy. What I'm saying is with that wall up, You can't have the tenderheartedness that God requests of you, that he expects of you. And you cannot be like Christ in that area with those borders up. Vulnerability is part of being tenderhearted. A tender, open heart will lead to wounds. But that's okay. It'll be worth it in the end. Jesus was naked on the cross, bearing his wounds, everything exposed. That's okay. You say, that's okay. Yeah, it ended very well. He showed love for the whole world and God raised him up from the dead. That exposure, that hurt was temporary. God turned something, made something wonderful out of that pain. God can do that for you. Do you realize we are to act like Christ in order to love like Christ and to get rewarded like Christ? Turn to Matthew chapter five. Matthew chapter number five. It's a tall order, but it comes with great rewards. It's not an easy thing. I know this world will make you hard. It puts you up. Why? Because you get hurt and you get that self-defense mechanism going on. You know, you get punched in the face. Now every time somebody goes like this, you kind of guard or you back away. What's that? Self-defense. That's natural, but it's the old man. We need the new man that even though it hurts, you stay open and you stay exposed. Why? So you can reach him. You can care for him. It's good to still be affected by people. Matthew chapter 5, verse 43. Jesus says this, Matthew 5, 43. You have heard that it has been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemies. But I say unto you, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you, that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. So God's children love those that hate them, bless them that curse them, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. that ye may be the children of your father which is in heaven, for he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if we love them which love you, for if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? If ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." We need to learn that to be like Christ is to be mistreated by others who hate us. Do you realize Jesus was not mistreated whenever he was just around the disciples? I don't see any time of that. There were times of doubt and things like that. He was never persecuted or beaten or blasphemed or stricken or anything like that. When it was him and the 12, everything was good. It was fine. Why? It was easy there. They all thought the same. They all acted the same. They had the same goal. Jesus was leading. They were following. They were submissive to the Lord. They said, I want to be like Christ. In that scenario, everything was fine. When everybody's trying to be Christ-like, everybody gets along. The problem is, whenever you're trying to be Christ-like, and there's someone who doesn't care about being like Christ, you'll see what the result of that is, is the one trying to be Christ-like is the one that's gonna be mistreated. Even when it's two Christians arguing back and forth about something, when one stands up and decides to be Christ-like, they're gonna be the one that gets hurt in that scenario. You don't have two Christians disagreeing about something and one overpowering the other and that one being Christ-like. That's not the case. When Christ was confronted with someone else who didn't care about being like Christ, that's when he was smote and spit upon and had his beard plucked out and was whipped and blasphemed and lied about. Why? That comes from being like Christ. This is a hard thing. But Jesus chose to do the thing, the hard thing out of love for others. You realize that's what love is? Love is doing what is hard for self but better for others. That's what it means to love somebody. It's sacrifice. Refusal to expose yourself to hurt is refusal to be like Christ. Tenderheartedness is part of the job description. See, reciprocated love is easy. It's easy to show somebody love when they show you love and y'all just do something nice one for another all the time and everything. That's easy. Love that hurts you is Christ-like. Look at verse 46, that's what he said. For if you love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? The worst people in this world still can show love to other horrible people if they are shown love in the first place. It's easy to love those that love you. That's why Jesus' command is so hard because it says love your enemies. Why? That's unnatural. That goes with the new man and the old man doesn't like that too much. The old man's ready for a fight. The old man's ready to be number one. The old man's ready to put up the guards, put up your dukes, let's fight it out. I'm going to win. I'm going to be the victor. You're not going to hurt me. I'm going to destroy you. That's the old man. We got to put that off in order to put on the new man to be like Christ. Or you can say, I don't care about being like Christ. Enjoy your separation from him. Stop calling yourself a Christian then. Just call yourself saved. Christians try to be like Christ. And it's not easy. It's hard. Jesus, what Jesus did was not easy. It was hard. But he'd done it out of love. It helped a ton of people. Do you realize Jesus was betrayed by a very close friend a couple of different times and he never allowed it to make him bitter or hard against anybody else? How about Judas? Judas betrayed him. Claimed to be a friend down to the very end. Betrayed him with a kiss, right? You know what Jesus didn't do? Whenever he came back, okay, I'm watching out for you guys. No, Judas did it. Any one of you guys can do it. I'm not opening myself up to any of you guys. I can't trust people anymore because what Judas did to me. Do you realize Peter did something to him too? Peter was sitting there rebuking him, saying, no, no, no, this ain't going to happen. And Jesus said, get thee behind me, Satan. And remember, Peter said, I'm not going to deny you. I'm not going to deny you. You did three times the cock crew. And he went out and wept bitterly. You know what Jesus didn't do? No, Peter, you denied me. I'm casting you off. No. He opened himself up again. He didn't hold the grudge. Being like Christ comes with hurt. Jesus got a lot of hurt when he was here. That's part of it. Listen, don't let the fact that someone else has chosen not to be Christ-like by attacking you, rob you from an opportunity to be uniquely Christ-like. Say, no, no, I could be tender-hearted towards everybody, but not them because they did this to me. That is your opportunity. They are your opportunity to show Christ-like tenderheartedness. Because it's easy to love everybody else. Everybody else is nice to you. Everybody else doesn't give you the problem. But that person, they did that to me. They've hurt me. I got my guard up for them, not for anybody else. You know, I'll be open with everybody else, but not them. Okay, let's look at something. Look at Psalms 145. Psalm 145. In case you think, well, it's okay, I can have those walls up. I don't have to love everybody. I don't have to take it from them. They've hurt me not once, but not twice, but three or four times, they keep hurting me. I need to put up that wall. I need to say, no, I will have nothing to do with them. It's okay to be hard towards them. Let's see what the Bible says. Psalm 145, look at verse nine. Because if I'm recalling things right, Jesus Christ died for all, right? He suffered for everybody. He was exposed for everybody. He was whipped for everybody. He took the hurt for everybody, not for just some. Psalm 145 verse nine, the Lord is good to all and his tender mercies over all his works. It only takes Hard-heartedness towards one person to make you hard-hearted. To be tender-hearted, you gotta be open to all. The Lord is good to all. His tender mercy is over all his works. God's not just tenderly merciful to some, he's tenderly merciful to everyone. Let's turn back to Ephesians chapter 4. So the first trait of tenderness is one we really got to get a hold of is being vulnerable, being exposed. Second trait of tenderness, Ephesians 4 verse 31. Ephesians 4 31, let all bitterness, notice we're getting rid of all of it. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Do you realize there's nobody that's beyond Christ's forgiveness? No one should be beyond your forgiveness. You want a trait of tenderness? How about forgiveness? If you've got a tender heart, you are forgiving. Forgiveness is to treat someone as though they are not guilty. That doesn't mean you make them unguilty. That doesn't mean that they never did hurt you. That doesn't mean that what they did to you doesn't matter. What it means is you're not holding that against them. You're forgiving them about it. You're saying the penalty that that offense comes with, I'm not gonna execute that against you. I'm gonna forgive you. That means not holding a grudge, not making plans to get even, not spreading gossip about the evil that they did to you. You know, that's why we're told there's some things we gotta give up. That old man, we gotta give up the old man, put on the new man, verse 31. What are some of the things we gotta give up in order to be forgiving? Let all bitterness. You gotta give up bitterness. You gotta give up anger. Evil speaking. Those are things you've gotta give up to be forgiving, to keep your heart tender. If you hold onto it, your heart's never gonna be tender. We are to leave I want you to understand this, we are to leave not just vengeance up to God, but justice as well. It's really easy to say, you know what, I'm not gonna plan to get my vengeance on this person. Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. I will repay, I'll let God deal with it. I'll let God get them. Great, you should. Leave vengeance up to God. Leave justice up to God too. What's that mean? Well, they've mistreated me. I was wronged. They caused the offense. God will make both sides of that right. He'll bring justice to them and he'll bring justice for you. You realize we are to serve without getting resentful. We are to love without getting hardened. We are to give without expecting to receive. We are to fight the sword with the olive branch. We are to fight against hate with love. We are to battle hardness of heart in others with tenderness of heart within ourselves. That means forgiving those that hurt you. Jesus was a great forgiver. He was great at it. Bible says in Luke 23, verse 33, Luke 23, 33, the Bible says, and when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary there, they crucified him. And the male factors, one of the right hand and the other on the left then said, Jesus father, forgive them for they know not what they do. They parted as Raymond's and they cast lots. So Jesus just got through a mock trial. They lied about him, said he was blaspheming his father. He's the only sinless man that ever lived. They're lying about him. They're trying to get these witnesses to agree to the evil that they are making up that he did. They find him guilty. They bear his back. They whip him. They pull out his beards. They slap him on the face. They spit in his face. They whip him mercilessly. Pilate says, Behold the man, and they say, Crucify him. That's not enough. He carries his cross up to Mount Calvary. They put the nails in his hands. They put the nails in his feet. They've already stripped him down naked. They put him up on the cross. And he says, Father, forgive them. Those guys? The ones that just whipped him? The ones that just drove nails through his hands? Those are the ones that he wants forgiveness for? Yeah. What's that? A tender heart. A tender heart saying, I don't care what they did to me. God, please don't, don't, don't, don't give it to them. Don't, don't give them what they deserve here. God, can you just, could you overlook what they've done against me? Could you treat them as though they've done nothing wrong here? Could you just forgive them? Because they know not what they do. Is there someone that you refuse to forgive? It'll keep you from being tenderhearted. Oh, I can forgive everybody else, just not that one. That's the one you need to forgive. Yeah, but they did, did they drive nails through your hands? Did they whip your back? Did they put you to death? You wanna be Christ-like, it comes at a big cost. It means going through some things that he went through. It means forgiving those that don't deserve it. Trait of tenderness number three. How about this? How about mercy? Mercy is a trait of a tender heart. Mercy is choosing not to exercise the power that you do have in order to hurt those who deserve it. It's not that they don't deserve bad. It's not that everybody wouldn't agree with you, that that person wronged you and there should be something they have to go through now because of what they've done to you. It's saying you don't have to be the one to give them what they deserve. We're still in Ephesians chapter four. Look at things that we've gotta give up in order to be like Christ. It's showing mercy. Verse 31, how about this? It says, let all bitterness, but look at this, and wrath. Wrath is withholding mercy. If you're being merciful, you gotta withhold that wrath. Wrath is the angry things you want to do. I could just strangle them. I can't believe they did this. I wanna beat the living fire out of them. What's that? That's your wrath. Mercy is withholding that wrath. Here's another one. Bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor. You know what clamor is? A loud cry, screaming and yelling. I won't hit them, but I'll scream my head off at them. That's clamor. That's something else we've got to put off to be like Christ. When did Jesus ever yell and scream at those people that were beating him? He didn't even speak up for Himself at His trial. He didn't even call a bunch of liars that were sitting there making the false accusations against Him. The only thing He was yelling at the cross was, Father forgive them for they don't know what they do. He was yelling on their behalf, not against them. Jesus is God and He never used His power to destroy those who deserved it most. What's mercy? Withholding the wrath that you could put on them. You have some power, you have some authority, you have some way to punish them, and instead you don't. Let me ask you this, who is it that you have authority over or have power with? Maybe it's a husband, maybe it's your wife, maybe it's a child, maybe it's a co-worker or a friend. You can exercise power over somebody. You have authority over somebody, or you try to. You know, Jesus never destroyed those that deserved it most. Do you realize he could have killed all those Roman soldiers who beat and crucified him? You say, well, why didn't he? Well, because of Jesus's mercy, the soldiers that he could have destroyed had another chance to come to him. One of them said in Matthew 27, 54, Matthew 27, 54, the Bible says, now when the centurion and they that were with him watching Jesus, saw the earthquake and those things that were done, they feared greatly saying, truly, this was the Son of God. One of those soldiers that beat him, probably the one that put the nails in his hands, raised him up on the cross, one that Jesus had every right to strike dead with lightning or just say the word and he'd just heart explode or whatever. Jesus could have killed him in a million different ways right then. He had the power. He had the ability. But he showed him mercy. Why? Because just the next day, or that same day, that soldier would look up there after feeling the earthquake and he goes, truly that was the Son of God. You think that changed the man? You think he went back home the same way he came out that day? Whenever he was laughing and mocking and hitting Jesus and whipping him and having a good old time beating up another prisoner? You think his life didn't change whenever he went back home and his wife said, honey, what's wrong? And he goes, ooh, I messed up today. What happened? You got some of his blood on you or something? Are you afraid of HIV or hepatitis or something? No, I think I killed the son of God. What? I think that had an impact. Why? God showed him mercy, gave him another chance. Who is it you have authority or power with? If they've done wrong to you and you have the ability to make them pay, do you exact revenge or do you show mercy? Which one's Christ-like? When do you ever find Jesus exacting revenge? You say, oh, at the second coming, he's coming back, sword coming out of his mouth. Great, that's when you get your revenge too. Why don't you get it the same time he gets it? But until he comes back and exacts that revenge, takes away his mercy, and it's all wrath and judgment, wait to have yours then too. You realize we come back with him, right? Save yours then. Until then, be like the lowly lamb of God. How's your heart? Is it exposed? Is it forgiving? Is it merciful? Do you have a tender heart? So a preacher, I want to have a tender heart, but I don't really know how to. Well, let's turn to 2 Kings. 2 Kings chapter 22. The Bible describes what we've got to do. If Jesus wasn't enough of an example, we can look at the life of someone else here that's also spoken about having a tender heart. In 2 Kings 22, Josiah is the king. He's 8 years old whenever he starts to reign. He reigns 31 years in Jerusalem. At this point in time, he's a good man. He starts off as just a kid, eight-year-old king. He chooses to follow God, and part of that included fixing up the temple. It was in disarray. He sets priests to go, hey, let's worship God the way he's supposed to be worshiped. Let's clean out the temple. While they were in there, he finds a book of the Lord. He saw from the scripture how he and all Israel were wrong and worthy of God's judgment. So he sent the priest and some men to go speak to a prophetess of God. And God told them that Israel would be punished greatly, but Josiah would be spared. And the reason why is in verse 19. Well, verse 18. But to the king of Judah, that's Josiah, but to the king of Judah, which sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall you say to him, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, as touching the words which thou hast heard. Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord, when thou heardest what I spake against this place, and against the inhabitants thereof, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and as rent thy clothes, and wept before me, I also have heard thee, saith the Lord. So what do I need to do to be able to have a tender heart like Josiah and like Jesus Christ? Gotta humble yourself before God. Especially when you hear God's word. Because thine heart was tender and thou hast humbled thyself before the Lord when thou heardest what I spake. You want a tender heart, you gotta humble yourself. What's that? Expose your heart to God. Say, God, I don't know how I got in this state. Maybe you do. Maybe you just realized through this message that, hey, my heart is hard. It's closed off. I'm not willing to open it up to some people, maybe one person, maybe two people. Maybe it's everyone. I don't know. Maybe God showed you, well, my heart's closed off. And in order to be like Christ, I've got to open it up again. And yes, it's going to come with hurt. It's not going to be all sunshine and rainbows. You will get hurt with an open heart, but you will be obeying God's command and you will be like Christ. I'm glad Jesus didn't say, okay, I'll have an open heart towards my disciples, but whenever it comes to everybody else, I'm closed off. I got in because he opened it up to other people. There's a lot of good. that can happen, a lot of praise that Jesus got, a lot of worship that he got because he opened his heart up to everybody. There's a lot of good you could be missing out on if your heart's closed. Are you having trouble obtaining or maintaining a tender heart? Why not do what Josiah did? Humble yourself before God, ask him for help and mercy. I'd like to ask you to please stand with your heads bowed and your eyes closed.