The Church - Practical Unity In The Body

All right, we're gonna be continuing our study of the church and today we're going to be discussing practical unity in the body.

Connelly's passing out a handout for you. And the two primary passages that we're gonna be thinking through today are going to be

Philippians 2, 1 through 8 and Matthew 18. So I'll go ahead and read

Philippians 2, 1 through 8 and later we'll get to Matthew 18 as well.

But Philippians 2, 1 through 8. So if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourself.

Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

So when we're talking about practical unity in the church, it really is important that we recognize the foundation for our unity as believers.

And that foundation for our unity is what this passage starts out with. So Philippians 2, 1 says, if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in spirit, any affection and sympathy, our unity is founded on the person and work of Christ.

The only reason why we can come together as a group of very diverse people and have any hope of really getting along and working together is because Christ has done a great work for us as Christians.

We believe that he's come to earth, that he who was God came to earth, took on flesh and dwelt among us and did for us something that we fundamentally couldn't do ourself.

So he lived a life we couldn't live. He died the death that we deserve. And as a result of his sacrifice, when we trust in what he has done for us, we receive his righteousness as a free gift imputed to us.

We are reconciled to him. There are benefits that come from what he has done.

And one of those benefits is that we're adopted into his family. So all of us become adopted children into God's family.

And his sacrifice basically grants to us this shared familial status.

So as you know, this shared familial status was not just given to the Jews, right?

God has given this familial status to everyone who believes in him, whether Jew or Gentile.

And when you think about the nature of Jesus' early disciples, the nature of his early disciples, they're a pretty diverse group.

So how do you get a tax collector and a zealot to be unified and to get along with each other?

How do you get people who are natural enemies to get along with each other and to work together?

If you think about Jesus' disciples, he had poor disciples, he had rich disciples, he had disciples who were political enemies, he converted

Pharisees, he converted tax collectors, he converted those who wanted to bring the system of Roman oppression down.

He converted Jews and Gentiles. He put them all together as members of one family.

So when you think about the foundation for our unity, it's going to be found in this encouragement in what

Christ has done, this comfort from the love that he has given, this shared participation in the spirit and the affection and the sympathy that comes from that.

And I would tell you to pay attention to that word, sympathy. As a preview, we're gonna be talking about some of those things later on in the afternoon, but basically the foundation for our unity is this work that Christ has done for us.

And so as we think about pursuing unity within the body, we're pursuing a unity that has been one on the basis of what

Jesus has done. Now how do you pursue unity? That'll be our second point in thought that we're gonna be thinking about today.

Philippians 2 .2 says, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and one mind.

So how do we pursue unity? Well, we're pursuing unity by renewing our minds.

Now, I think when we think about unity, particularly within the body, we think of unity as something that we're supposed to try to produce at times.

I think we're naturally tempted to think about unity that way, like it's something that we need to, like certainly it's something that we need to work towards, but we think about it as something that's our responsibility.

And a lot of times because we live in a very feelings -oriented society, when you think about pursuing unity, if you notice that there's disunity, you might lead with your feelings, if that makes sense.

Like meaning you might think, well, I don't feel unified with this person, but God tells me that I need to be unified with them, so then you may think

I either need to figure out how to change my feelings towards them, or I need to get them to act in a different way towards me so that I don't feel what

I feel, because you do live in a society that doesn't really think that we're responsible for the way that we feel.

But here's the point, when you think about pursuing unity, you may think about some feeling of unity that you're trying to produce, or that you're trying to work yourself up towards having, you may think about actions that you should be taking in order to produce that, but then when you think about the way that Paul describes unity, unity is not really something that we're producing, it's something that we have.

So it's not something that we're trying to achieve in that kind of way, it's something that has been won for us, and the way that you have unity within the body is recognize the unity that you already have.

So the path to unity is going to be found in renewing your mind. Like unity in the

Bible is something to maintain, because it's already been won for you, if that makes sense.

When a church has disunity, or when a family has, like a Christian family has disunity, it's not because they're missing this concept of unity and they have to somehow get it, what's happening is that their sin is getting in the way of the unity that the

Christ has established. So Ephesians 4, one is a good passage which describes this dynamic which

I'm trying to describe. So Ephesians 4, one says, I, therefore, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the

Spirit in the bond of peace. So notice the language here of unity. Unity is something that's won for us on the virtue of what

Christ has done. And we're told, like if we're gonna walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we've been called, we need to be eager to maintain that unity.

So you notice the difference between maintaining that unity and trying to produce the unity? You're not trying to produce in yourself feelings of unity.

You're trying to maintain the unified status that God has granted you. And the things that get in the way of unity are your sins.

You understand? So the path to unity is gonna be found in the first instance in renewing your mind.

So renewing your mind, like if you renew your mind on this topic, then what you realize is not,

I need to figure out how to be unified with my church members. That's not the thought you should have.

You should be thinking, I need to recognize the unity that we have and walk in accordance with that unity and do nothing to destroy that unity.

So what are some ways that we can destroy unity within a body? Any thoughts?

This is a quiz. Gossip, yeah, gossip.

Anything else? Thinking of yourself as more important than other people, trying to take on responsibilities that don't belong to you kind of thing, yeah.

Yes. Yeah, so part of, like Paul's saying, complete this joy by being of the same mind, being of full accord and of one mind.

That one mind, later on, we're gonna find out in the passage is the mind of Christ, which is revealed to us in the scriptures, and we're gonna have an example of what that looks like within the passage.

But God, the fundamental heart cry of the Christian is that Jesus is

Lord and what he says goes. And so when you teach things that are not in accordance with sound doctrine, that is an act of, like you're violating the unity that you have, because you're all supposed to be marching towards the same orders, right?

So there's a, God has given you in his words his will for you. So Jesus is Lord, what he says goes.

You should all have that kind of mind, the mind of Christ, namely a desire to be, to do his will and to be well -pleasing in his sight.

Now, if you have that mind together, that's a fundamental source of unity that is coming outside of yourself and outside of your efforts to produce a kind of unity.

So, I mean, in any organization that you might find, there's supposed to be some sort of mission statement that is going to hold the thing together.

There's gonna be some sort of rules that are holding the society, the organization, the company together, and to the extent to which people align their hearts and minds towards that mission, towards that goal, there's going to be unity.

Now, in the secular world, that unity may not be a good unity. It may not be a worthy pursuit.

It may not be a perfect pursuit, but then with the scriptures, what we have is we have a perfect foundation for unity that's going to be found in the work of Christ and his revealed will for us.

And then if you have people who are teaching things contrary to his will, that's going to be disrupting that unity that his word is trying to produce in you.

So if everyone has the mind of Christ and you're teaching something contrary to the mind of Christ, you're disrupting the unity, right?

That's what you're doing. You're disrupting the unity. So gossiping, yeah, gossiping is one way that you can disrupt the unity of the body.

Arguments, fights, elevating your own selfish preferences above the preferences of others, making demands that you be treated in ways that you want to be treated.

You know, conflict, divisions. Yes, sir? Be inactive.

Be inactive. Like distancing yourself from the body.

Forsaking the assembly of the... Yes, that would be disunifying. That would be an example of something that would be disunifying.

Instead of pursuing the shared mind of Christ together, placing yourself under the authority structures that God has ordained, you remove yourself from that and basically say, keep yourself at a distance.

You're not pursuing your responsibilities to build up one another in love. Those would all be examples.

But notice how what you're doing there is you're doing things that are disrupting the unity that you have. So Christ has won the unity for us.

He's given us his word, which is meant to unify us. There are things you can do which disrupt the unity you have.

And the primary way that you regain the unity is stop doing those disruptive things. If that makes sense.

Like stop doing those disruptive things. Submit yourself to God's will because he's the one who defines the terms of your unity.

So don't walk contrary to his will and disrupt the unity. Those are the primary instructions the

New Testament gives us in order to attain unity. So what the Bible is doing is not telling you to produce that unity or feel unified.

It's telling you to recognize the unity you already have, if that makes sense.

Any thoughts, questions about that? All right, so recognize the foundation of unity, like practical unity body.

Recognize the foundation. Pursue it by the renewal of your mind. Three, stop being selfish.

Stop being so selfish. This is not a personal attack on anyone. It's what came to mind when

I read it. Now, Philippians 2 .3. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.

But in humility count others as more significant than yourselves.

So notice, like in the passage, the path to disrupting unity of the body is selfishness.

And that selfishness is gonna manifest itself in all the ways that we've already described. So that selfishness is going to demand that the church centers around your desires, your will, your preferences, your wants, your perceived needs.

You live in a time right now that is filled with rampant consumerism as it relates to the church.

You know, in the business world, in the corporate business world, obviously you have advertisers who have been trying to market their products towards you for a long time.

So you're used to being treated as if you are the center of the universe with different corporations who are buying for your attention, who are trying to get your money, right?

And so they'll sell you their products. They're trying to sell you their products and telling you that you're worth it and you deserve it.

You deserve a break today, yeah. Treat yourself, you know. It's funny that when you listen to some of the advertising spiels that people have, indulge yourself, treat yourself, you deserve it.

You have corporations that, on a regular basis, are buying for your attention, that are buying for your attention and engaging in flattery in order to try to get your money, right?

I mean, and it's funny, if you have eyes to see and ears to hear, just to step back and realize all the ways in which this is happening.

So Connelly and I were on a business communication platform and when you set up the video for that, it tells you, you look great today.

And I thought that was so funny because people really wanna hear that kind of thing for some reason.

Hear a computer program that doesn't know them or doesn't know what they look like whatsoever, like engage in flattery, you know.

So the words on the screen, you look great today, I guess that does something for a certain kind of person, you know, but that's the culture and society that you're living in right now that incessantly praises you, you know, flatters you in order to try to get your money.

But then, yeah, you look around the church today and there are so many churches that function in this way.

I mean, there's hundreds of churches all around us. I mean, it's worse than the

Bible Belt, I guess, but there's still a lot of churches around here, like in a close proximity. Maybe not like multiple ones on the same street in the same way, but I'm sure at times there are even that, but it's very common as a pastor to have people come to church with their list of demands that they present you.

The first time they're talking to you, they're running through the list of all the things that they want from you. So they'll run through the list of all, like, do you have this, and do you have this, and do you have this, and do you have this, and this is what we're looking for, and there's no indication in their minds that anything weird or strange is happening.

They're treating you as if you're, like as a church, they're treating you as if you're just some kind of, you know, car lot or something like that.

You go to the car lot and say, here's the thing I'm looking for in a car, and you know, a lot of, most of them are not, like, doctrinal concerns.

They're all just, they all just reduce to a bunch of preferences that they have and ways in which they wanna be treated, and as I've done membership meetings with people over the years at every church that I've been at, if you ask them any questions about, like, their life, they really have a hard time, like, understanding what is happening, you know, so they say, hey,

I wanna join a church. It's like, all right, well, let's talk about your life, talk about your salvation experience, talk about your understanding of the gospel, and you can notice that they just start getting very, very weird, because in their minds, what they're thinking is, like, shouldn't you be thrilled to have me here?

You know, like, I'm telling you that I wanna be a part of your church. Like, I'm telling you that, like, you can have me as a member, you know, and it seems like you're asking me questions, and I don't understand what's happening.

Like, don't you realize the deal that you're getting here? You know, and they don't realize, from your perspective, that, you know, like, a bad church member can cause a lot of problems in a church body, and you might wanna, as pastors, know who you're letting into your family, because sometimes family members aren't all that nice, and sometimes family members cause a whole lot of problems, and we may wanna at least find out whether or not you're a

Christian before we say, welcome to the family, right? I mean, certainly, you would do that in any other area of life.

In general, you wouldn't just extend an open offer to anyone who wants to come and live in your house with you, right, but we live in a time that's so narcissistic to where we think that everything is about us.

Like, we think that we are doing churches favors by coming to join with them, that we're doing them a favor, and we're tempted to view them as if they owe us our list of demands, and yeah,

I mean, I could just tell you, and occasion after occasion, this is what actually happens when new people come to visit churches, even solid churches, they'll come with their list of self -centered kind of demands that they have that are prerequisites for them gracing you with their presence.

If you've ever done that, I'm not talking about you, because I haven't even been here for any length of time, so I wouldn't know, but just that's something to be aware of.

Like, the Bible says, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves.

The church shopper culture is a real culture, and I wouldn't pretend as if this isn't a real thing, and these are not real dynamics, and if you engage in formal ministry to any length of time, you'll see these dynamics playing out over and over again, but the issue is that the primary thing that stands in the way of church unity is selfishness.

When you insist upon being the center of the universe and having your will and your desires and your preferences elevated above God's word and God's will for the body, you're going to have a disunified church, and certainly no one ever thinks that that's them, right?

Like, when you're the one who is elevating your selfish preferences and desires and will and your list of demands above the unity of the body, when you're doing that, you're going to be the least predisposed to understand that that's actually you.

Yes, sir, John, or Josh. I think at some point

I had a better answer to this question than what I have now, but then it's gone.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it seems that the most natural assumption to have is that you did have a lot of selfishness that was present there at the very least, so when he's addressing that problem of looking not only to your own interests but the interests of others, you certainly had people there who were probably guilty of doing that.

Now, what form did it take? I've forgotten. Maybe there's not an answer, and I can't remember, but.

I think in terms of, maybe like. You have, what's that? Some of those, yeah, situations are pretty specific, too.

Conley, you had a thought with that? I mean, you might have church discipline situations that they're fleeing from, from another body, things along those lines where you're, like if they are fleeing from a church discipline situation, you might not welcome them with open arms.

You might encourage them to go back and reconcile their situation, so there's things like that that could happen.

I wasn't trying to communicate like a posture of, like a pastor saying, well, do we want them?

Do we think they're gonna be an asset to the church? But you do have to run through, are they a Christian? Are they, but then people will treat any kind of, any of that basic due diligence as if it's weird and strange at times.

Like, don't you understand? I'm telling you I wanna join, like I'm doing you a favor. Right, that's exactly what

I mean. That is exactly, yeah. So they interrogated you?

Did they have the lights on? Did they tape your eyes open, you know? Like, how dare they ask you questions?

I thought joining a church was just walking up to the front of the aisle while they played just as I am and shaking hands with the pastor, right?

So there's a lot of people who have that kind of mindset, for sure. So stop being so selfish. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourself.

Jesus is, the point is, Jesus is the Lord of the church, you are not. Jesus is the

Lord of the church. What he says goes. We all have the same marching orders.

The authority for how the church is run is going to be found in the scripture, and I've been in numerous situations like this where you have church members who are deeply upset with you because you're not doing something that they want you to do that's found nowhere in the scriptures.

So we can elevate our selfish will above God's will, and at times we can do so in a fairly shameless way, and when we do that, that is disrupting the unity of the body because Christ is

Lord of the church. What he says goes, and we must follow him. The church doesn't just exist to execute our own personal wills.

Now, if it did, you have to understand there's no, like think about how poor of a foundation for unity that would actually be if the church existed to execute our own personal will.

Well, the problem is in a church of any size, you have any number of different conflicting wills, don't you?

So if the church just exists with no marching orders, no structure, no commands, no overarching goal that it is required to do, then what you have is, and the responsibility of the church was to discern the individual wills of the church members and execute that.

Well, the problem is they disagree. And I mean, you notice this in marriage, if you've ever been married, or you notice this in parenting.

How do you get a husband and wife to be unified when they're both different creatures who have different sets of desires?

So if unity is going to be found in each one getting their way, you're never gonna have unity.

I've often pointed this out when

Elizabeth and I maybe have a clash of will. If there's something that she wants me to do, it's equally true, like she wants me to do either that I didn't do, or she wants me to do something in a different way than what

I did in that moment. You have to understand that I did exactly what

I wanted to do. So if there's anything

I do that she doesn't want me to do, you have to understand like,

I did what I wanted to do in that moment. So who's to say whose want is more important?

Are you following what I mean? So every time I do something she doesn't like,

I did what I want to do. And so if she were to look at me and say, well,

I don't like that, therefore you need to not do that, then I can look back at her and say, well, I like that, so you need to like that.

But then that's no answer to anything, is it? Basically, if every conflict reduces to I like,

I don't like, there's no winner. The only path forward really is just to figure out, well, what does

God like? Because if we're both aligned with what

God likes, then we're both unified because we have a like outside of our own likes that we're submitting to.

So in every conflict, my point here is to say in every conflict you have, generally you have a clash of likes.

I like it, I don't like it, I guess we're stuck. Right, I guess we're stuck.

So ultimately, the issue here is there's a like above our likes, there's a

God's like, so you shouldn't be just trying to enforce all of your likes on other people.

In fact, I mean in those kind of situations, so in that kind of situation, my natural impulse should be to not just demand my likes, but to count her likes as more significant than my likes.

But then she should also have that same kind of pattern, and she does. To me, which is just to say,

I am not just trying to demand my likes, but trying to pursue your likes. And then the issue is if we're both trying to pursue each other's likes, if there's a clash of likes, we're not gonna be fighting over that.

We should be fighting over trying to give the other person what they want as much as we can. But then we know that in the church too, there's a like above all of our likes that sets the direction for where we should be going.

And his likes matter way more than our likes. So this is like a Jesus first, other seconds yourself last kind of passage here.

So stop being so selfish. If you want to disrupt the unity body, the best way to do that is being selfish.

So recognize the foundation of unity. Pursue unity by the renewal of your mind. Stop being so selfish.

Learn to distinguish between preference issues, wisdom issues, and sin issues. Now you may look at that and say, where is that?

Is that a little bit of a stretch there? And I'll say, no, I don't think so. Philippians 2 .4

says, let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also the interest of others.

This makes sense only if you understand different categories of thought, different kinds of issues.

So this is an appeal to a particular type of issue in contrast to other types of issues.

And it might be helpful to know what different types of issues there are so that we can properly put this, right?

So let each of you look not only to his own interest, but the interest of others. That would be related to what

I would describe as preference issues. So there's three kinds of issues here that could be at work, at the very least, three.

And I think it's helpful to think through some of these things so you can understand what's happening here. So there's preference issues, there's wisdom issues, there's sin issues.

Preference issues, these are situations requiring decision making where choices are made based on subjective preferences or desires without moral implications.

So they are non -moral and shaped by personal taste or context. Now sadly, in most marriages, most churches, a lot of the things that are being fought over are preference issues.

That's the natural way it works, I think to our shame at times.

The things that we get really worked up about, we get really worked up about these preference issues. And often like the sin issues, like the things that are really sinful, we'll tolerate those almost indefinitely, but we won't tolerate violations of our preferences.

It's amazing how that works. If you do any counseling, you'll see this dynamic playing out over and over again, that the couple is spending all their time fighting over preference issues, and then they refuse to deal with sin issues.

It's bizarre to watch, but I mean, this is the way that the world actually works. And this is the way it works in churches at times.

So I mean, preference issues, color of the carpet, color of the paint.

You could think about any number of things that, I mean, really, they have very little moral implication.

Now, some of this can be a little bit fuzzy, because sometimes a preference issue can transition into a wisdom issue.

But if you're dealing with two different colors of blue that are slightly different,

I mean, you're firmly into the territory of preference issue. Maybe there's a case to be made that there's some wisdom involved.

Now, maybe if it was like, you know, the elders decided to make the walls all black, and the floor all black, and, you know, that kind of thing, and dim the lighting down, and get the strobe lights out, and at some point, it transitions into a wisdom issue at a certain point.

But I mean, most of the time, like that, like you think about, try to imagine most of that's probably preference at a certain point, and then after a certain threshold, it becomes wisdom.

But, just silly examples, you know, couples fighting over the direction of the toilet paper.

Some of you may be, like, tempted to argue with me and say, no, this is a wisdom issue. It's designed to go down, you know.

But, putting the toilet seat down, up, you know, a lot of these things are preference, borderline wisdom, maybe, but probably, you know, preference.

Wisdom issues, these are situations requiring decision making where multiple biblical principles apply, but no single divinely prescribed solution is provided.

As an example, who should I marry? The Bible says, marry whom you will, only

Mary and the Lord. There's a command there that you need to think through,

Mary and the Lord, right? But then, there's a marry who you will part.

So, you have to understand, you have freedom to marry who you wanna marry within certain constraints.

So, God created Adam, he put him in a garden, he gave him all kinds of fruit to eat, right?

He didn't overload him with commands, he just said, I give you one command, don't eat that one, right? But, I mean,

Adam, presumably, he could eat on whatever schedule he wanted to eat. God didn't tell him, like, you need to eat 10 times a day at these particular times and these particular intervals.

And then, you need to eat this fruit first and then this fruit second and this fruit third. And a lot of us approach God's will that way to where we're just hyper about it and we think that there's hidden commands out there, there's a trap or something, right?

So, God gives you a bunch of fruit trees and he says, have at it. And then, you think, well, there's something in there that he's trying to trick me at.

But there was no trick for Adam in the garden, there was no trick. Here's the fruit tree, enjoy, right?

Don't enjoy that one. And that was it, if Adam and Eve would have just listened to the constraint and accepted the freedom, then they would have been okay.

But, I mean, certainly, there's some wisdom in what you eat, what order you eat, how much you eat.

There's a lot of wisdom in a lot of these things, but what I'm trying to say is, wisdom situations, issues or situations describing requiring decision making where multiple biblical principles apply, but no single divinely prescribed solution is provided.

So, as an example, how much should you save? How much money should you save? Well, I imagine that each individual person in this room might answer that a bit differently based on the situation that they find themselves in and a lot of the priorities that we had.

So, when Elizabeth and I were first married, I mean, I gave her a grocery and toiletry budget for $100 a week, so she needed to get all the toilet paper and diapers and food for $100 a week.

That's all we had to spare, right? So then, that was it. Now, you say, how did

I come up with that number? Well, I was just looking at other numbers that weren't very much, and I was saying, that's the number we got to work with.

Now, we had other priorities, too, right? So, we had that number to work with.

We had some attempt to try to save, which we didn't do very well because we're operating on a very slim budget.

You have hospitality concerns. You have general holidays kind of concerns for other people trying to honor your family and follow whatever expectations they have.

And so, a lot of it, so how much do you save in that kind of framework? Well, it kind of depends on your life stage and how much income you have and what you're prioritizing in other ways.

And so, you need to think about, we need to give to the church, we need to be hospitable. There is some kind of celebration principles in the

Bible that we should be thinking about. There is saving principle.

Then there's your basic needs kind of principle. Now, I mean, I had a, one of my seminary teachers told me during, before I got into that stage, when you're young, you're gonna be tempted to skimp on food and just eat a bunch of garbage, and that's going to harm you later, right?

So, you'll get more money as you go on, but don't just like, you know, eat your ramen noodle meals all day long every day because you, like, you should prioritize eating healthier.

All right, throw that into the mix then. So, to what degree are you prioritizing trying to eat healthy while saving, while being hospitable, while giving to the church, while taking care of your necessities?

And what you'll realize is there's no divinely given answer to that number, how much you save, but you come up with that number based on trying to be faithful to a bunch of different priorities that God has given you.

And there's no real, like, right answer, but then the thing is, if you sow sparingly, you'll reap sparingly.

If you save more, you'll have more for a rainy day. If you save less and prioritize other things, you're gonna have less for a rainy day.

So the consequence, and it's like one of the things Connelly says, the consequence will be in the action itself, right? So if you don't prioritize saving as you should, then when you need it, you won't have it, right?

You won't have it, but then there's no, you know, here's the dollar amount that I prayed about.

You know, like, there's no way I can just flip through and see what saw my land on, and that'll tell me something about the nature of what

I should be saving. It doesn't really work like that. But now, at the same time, like, with wisdom issues, all right, how much should

I save? Well, if I save nothing, I've fallen into one clear sin, right, so that becomes a sin issue, if I save nothing.

And then if I save way too much, I fall into another sin, which is called hoarding.

Like, meaning, like, if I'm just laying up treasures on Earth with no plan for what to do with them, then

I've just fallen into another ditch. So yeah, at some point, these wisdom issues can crystallize into clear sin issues, but there's a lot of room in there.

There's a lot of room for interpretation into how that you're applying any of these individual commands.

Then situations, sin issues, these are situations requiring decision -making where Scripture clearly defines the right or wrong course of action.

They involve clear -cut sins of omission or commission, requiring obedience to God's word. So, you shall not kill,

I put, because I read the King James early on in my life, and I manfully resisted the temptation to put thou shalt not, but then kill, just stuck in there for some reason instead of murder.

But yeah, I mean, so you shall not murder. That's the command, you shall not steal. There's no situation where it's ever going to be right to murder someone, there's no situation where it's ever gonna be okay to steal from someone.

That's a clear -cut, like there's a clear -cut sin issues that are more black and white.

So you understand the categories? There's preferences, these are non -moral. I like, you know,

I like pizza, you like burgers, whatever, you know, I know I like burgers better than pizza but whatever, but those are preferences.

They could be wisdom, you know, if you eat too many burgers and all you like is carbs and you look like it, you know, but generally preference, preferring one thing over another.

Wisdom, multiple biblical principles apply, no single divinely prescribed answer or solution to balance them all and be faithful to them all.

Sin issues are black and white kind of things. Now, what does the text say? It says, let each one of you not look only to his own interests but the interests of others.

What that means is, like, you shouldn't be demanding your preferences. If you wanna disrupt the unity of the body, the way to do that is constantly demanding your preferences.

Like, you should have a very different posture towards preference issues than you do towards wisdom issues or sin issues.

If you think about different postures that you have. Like, if we were to have a lady stand up here and preach one

Sunday, I would hope that you guys would tar and feather us. Like, we'd go to the mattresses, right?

Like, I mean, I hope that, like, I hope that you would be somewhat emotional about that and impressing upon us with a sense of urgency that we should not be doing this.

I wouldn't even care if you yelled at me about it. And your face got red. Was that?

Yeah. I mean, I would hope that there's some things that we're willing to fight over.

I mean, I hope that there's some things that we could do that are wrong. Like, morally, clearly, morally wrong that you would fight us over.

But, like, fighting it, you know, over a preference. Like, that's, like, we shouldn't be fighting over preferences.

Like, we should not be looking to our own interests but the interest of others. And that's true in your marriage.

It's true in your relationship. I mean, if all you're doing in your marriage is you're fighting over a bunch of preference issues, then you're gonna have a rough time.

You're gonna have a rough road if that's what you're doing. I think. But then wisdom issues are on a scale.

Like, there's some things that are a little bit unwise and there's some things that are, like, really, really, really unwise.

And there should be some kind of sense in which you ramp up the seriousness of how you're addressing something based on where you're at on that scale, if that makes sense.

So if you're, like, right on the border between preference and wisdom, and you're treating, like, your rhetoric is treating that situation with the seriousness of being right on the border between wisdom and sin, you've misplaced, like, your emotions are not, like, triggering in the right kind of way, if you get what

I mean. So, like, there should be a, like, you should figure out where you're at on the scale and respond to where you're at, right?

If you're following what I mean. So, wisdom issues, you talk about wisdom issues, you discuss wisdom issues.

When you're lower on the scale of wisdom issues towards preferences, you're having a, hey, yeah, let's have a conversation about that, right?

Let me hear what you have to say about that. That was interesting. I don't know if this is the wisest course of action, but,

I mean, let's keep it in perspective, right?

I mean, that's the kind of conversation you're having at that point to where, yeah,

I mean, imagine if you're, like, having a genuine biblical confrontation moment because someone is squeezing the toothpaste from the middle instead of rolling it up from the bottom or something like that.

It's like, this is a misplaced, this misplaced what's happening here. But, yeah, I mean, there's certainly things that are very, very, very, very, very unwise, too, that may not be completely sinful, but they're very, very unwise that you might need to have stronger warnings towards.

So, like, if a young man were to be always over his love interest, house, by himself, at questionable hours,

I mean, at some point, you might look at him and say, I think you're acting like a fool, right?

I think you're acting like a fool, and this is not going to go anywhere good, and I'm concerned for you.

Now, is that a, you church discipline of him over his hangout choices?

I don't know that you can do that, because I don't know that it's clearly sin, but you might be doing that pretty soon if you don't warn him, if you understand what

I'm saying there. So, there's different categories here. Any questions about these things? Okay, so, recognize the foundation of unity, pursue unity by renewing your mind, stop being selfish, so get yourself out of the way, don't do things that are going to disrupt the unity, learn to distinguish between these different kinds of issues.

Yes, sir? I mean, there may be some wisdom in making some of those determinations, but then there is a procedure laid out in the next, on the next page, basically, that will help us navigate some of those situations, too.

So, yeah, I mean, there may be some wisdom in some of the details, but then there is a clear path forward, basically.

So, path forward, personal, so yeah, if you turn over to the next page, practice biblical conflict resolution.

So, you know, like if your elders were to have a lady teacher on Sunday, then step one would be to go tell him his fault between you and him alone.

Now, this is, there's a little more to it than that in that particular situation, because public sins do often have public rebuke.

So, when Peter was not eating in front of, you know, withdrawing when the

Gentiles came, or when the Jews came, when he was eating with the Gentiles, so Paul confronted him to his face because that was a public action that was witnessed publicly, and therefore he addressed it publicly in that way.

So, there are prescriptions for that, like meaning you can, this go tell him his fault between you and him alone is, in the first instance, for private actions, but then there's some more wisdom there, too, but then if they don't listen to you, you know, bring two or three others so every fact may be confirmed.

In that situation, you already have your two or three witnesses looking at what's happening. You know, so at that point, you're basically trying to have a public confrontation, deal with it in a public way, and you may be going to step three at that point.

So, there are times where you jump to jump stages, if that makes sense. Yeah, practice biblical conflict resolution.

So, if your brother sins against you, go tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you've gained a brother, but if he does not listen, take one or two others along so that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses, just as the law says.

If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church, and if he refuses to even listen to the church, let him be to you as a

Gentile or tax collector. Truly I say, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Can I say to you, if two or three, or if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my

Father in heaven, and then we have our wonderful personal Bible study verse here, right?

This is a joke. First, for where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among you.

This is a verse about church discipline, obviously. God stands behind the actions of a church when they follow his priorities in dealing with sin.

So step one, what do you do? What is biblical conflict resolution? Step one is to go tell your brother his fault between you and him alone.

So if your brother sins against you, that's what Matthew says. In Luke, it says if your brother sins, go tell him his fault.

So it's not necessarily, this isn't restricted to just personal sins against you. If your brother sins, go tell him his fault between you and him alone.

So step one is meant to be private. So if your brother sins against you, you have an obligation to keep it private.

And the reason why you wanna keep it private is because this doesn't need to go out to other people.

Step one is to try to appeal with him yourself, deal with it yourself. Yes, sir? Yeah, I mean,

I think that would be a, there might be other commands that filter into how you handle certain situations like that.

I mean, assuming that there is a law, you might involve the law. There could be situations where there isn't a law or the law is not going to do justice.

But either way, even in a situation like that, you should be confronting the person who did it.

With some degree, that confrontation might involve restraining him and getting him ready for police, but there should be some kind of confrontation that happens in that moment.

If you're a woman, you may not be able to confront the murderer and restrain them.

But yeah, there might be other things. I'm just giving examples of situations that would be clear sins.

There may be different, like reconciliation. Steps that could happen depending on the nature of the sin.

All right, so step one, go tell him his fault between you and him alone. The assumption here with this is the fault was an obvious violation of God's word.

So example, like look, my house got broken into last night. I checked the surveillance footage and noticed that it was you.

So I wanted to come talk to you about it. If this is a Christian brother, your impulse shouldn't just be to call the cops.

And in certain situations like that, I do think that your impulse should be to try to go deal with it.

I would think that a Christian would want to confront his brother about that as a first step.

But leaving that aside, even though that's a crime, imagine like a clear example of some kind of sin, your first step should be to go talk to him about it.

Confront him about it between you and him alone. Because no one else really needs to be involved if you can resolve it with him.

If you can resolve it with him, that's good. No one else needs to be involved here, right? You want to try to keep the damage as minimal as possible.

Love covers a multitude of sins. You want to try to preserve their dignity, reputation as best as possible.

Go tell them their fault between you and him alone. Many, perhaps most things in life are not so clear cut.

So the first step might be an information gathering step. So if you hear someone say something that you don't like, you may say, hey, what did you mean by that?

First, put it in the best possible light. Think the best of it. What did you mean by that? First, that may, oh, you meant what

I thought you meant. Well, this is me doing step one. But that would be a lot better than just taking that thing that you heard and sharing it with a bunch of people before you talk to the person about it.

So how to avoid gossip? Well, here's a scenario. Person A to person B, I'm just so hurt by what person

C did, I can't believe they would treat me this way. If someone comes up to you and is approaching you that way, how should you respond?

Well, you should respond by saying, have you talked to person C about this yet? Person A, no, they never listen.

They always turn things around on me. Person B, well, I'm happy to come with you to hear both sides after you talk to them first, but I don't want to enable you to skip that step, right?

So in other words, there's a step here. When someone sins against you, talk to them first.

Don't go talk to everyone else first in the name of getting counsel. Talk to them first.

Step two, and this is very important, bring one or two unprepared witnesses. Unprepared witnesses.

So here's a good example. Person A, I'm having a disagreement with X, right?

That's another person. Would you mind meeting with both of us to help establish every charge, right?

So then person B, what is this about? Person A, I really don't want to prejudice you towards my side.

The first to plead their case seems right until another one comes along to examine them. It's important for you to hear both sides fairly so that every charge can be established.

Like, I'm not gonna fill your mind with one side of a story. That's not what

I'm gonna do. I'm not gonna tell you all the bad, like dirt, try to enlist you to be on my side because it could be that I'm in the wrong.

So what I would like you to do is come hear us both out. Hear me out, hear them out together to see if you can help us understand who's at fault here.

So you're hearing every charge. Now, I mean, that person doesn't necessarily bear the burden of having to decide the matter, but if they're not in agreement with the person making the charge, then you don't go to the next step.

Do you understand what I mean? So you're not having to decide who, you're not the ultimate judge of who's in the right or wrong but if you have a charge against someone and all your witnesses say, hey, there's no charge here that we can see, then that should tell you something, right?

But this step is very important and if you've done any counseling for any length of time or if you're a parent, you've talked to your kids, you know what

I'm saying. Kid A has a complaint against Kid B. You listen to Kid A's complaint and you think, oh man,

Kid B, you know, why did you do that? And it's like, well, it turns out they didn't do that, you know, it was very different.

But the other one is doing something and then, so it's like, all right, you tell me your side of the story,

I think they're the bad guy. I asked them for their side of the story, they're telling me, now I think you're the bad guy and then when I ask you about what they're saying,

I realize that they're leaving out certain things too so now, I don't know what's happening anymore and a lot of parenting is that.

It's like, all right, yeah, I have no idea what's going on, you guys need to get along. Yes, same thing.

There may be many Yodia and Syntyche kind of situations that are just like that, right?

Help these ladies get along in the Lord, help these church members too, yeah. So the point here is just, it needs to be unprepared witnesses.

You don't need to listen to one side of a story without listening to the other. You need to be very careful what you listen to.

So if someone comes to you with a complaint, direct them to the person first. If they haven't talked to them yet, refuse to entertain it, okay?

If you're enlisting other people for help after you've done your due diligence, step one, don't fill their mind with one side of a story.

Because the first to flee the case seems right until another one comes along to examine. That's what the text is saying. So if your brother sins, you go, you tell him his fault between you and him alone.

If he listens, you've gained your brother. The goal here is to gain a brother, right? The goal is to gain a brother. And the way you gain a brother is by going to him first.

If you wanna lose a brother, the way to do it is to go to everyone else first. That's how you lose a brother, okay? If your goal is just to get everyone on your side and get everyone mad at your brother, that's the way to do it, but that isn't very unified.

So go to them first, bring one or two unprepared witnesses, and then step three will be to tell it to the church, and step four will be to let them be to you a

Gentile or tax collector. So there's a process here that should be respected that we should think through.

And there's, I'm sure, a lot of questions that we can answer related to these things, but I'm not sure if we have time.

Last one here, put on the mind of Christ. So have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.

Yeah, there's so much to say here that I'm not going to be able to say, but certainly we should remember that Jesus' work on the cross is the foundation for all of our unity, and he certainly didn't come to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many.

He didn't come to earth as a Saul, who was just a taker, who wanted everyone to hand him grapes, or something like that, right?

He wasn't that kind of Messiah who basically was all about his own creature comforts and wanting others to fulfill all of those things.

Certainly, he gave himself up as an example for us, and we should be willing to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

The more that we mature as Christians, the more that we're going to be fighting not over getting our way, but if you're gonna fight over anything, it's over you being able to give the other person their way.

You know, if you're in a marriage, and it should be unsettling if you're the one who's always getting your way, because the

Bible says it's more blessed to give than to receive, and you should be deeply satisfied with being the recipient of, you know, if all of your preferences are always the ones that are getting met, that's really not a happy life.

You should be seeking to advance the desires and the preferences of the other person way more than yourself.

But Jesus, yeah, Jesus certainly came as an example for us, and there is no unity, really, that we're gonna have apart from his work on the cross.

So let's thank him for that today, and look to him as an example for how we are to care for each other.

Lord, we do thank you for dying on the cross for us. We know that apart from your sacrifice on the cross, we are still in our sins, and of all men to be most pitied.

Lord, if you didn't raise from the dead, then we have no solution to our fundamental problem.

Pray that you help us to have your mindset, Lord, knowing that you are Lord, that you call the shots, that what you say goes, that the purpose of the church exists for your glory, not for our own and for our own personal happiness and for our own perspective of what we need or desire or want,

Lord. You call the shots, and your ways are right, and you've given us a plan for unity, and we pray that you help us to not get in the way of that plan and constantly be inserting our own desires and our own will into that plan as a disruption of the unity that you've won for us in Jesus.