How Big Is Your Gospel?

Well, if you turn in your Bibles, please, to Philippians chapter 4. This morning we will look to the first three verses of this chapter.

Philippians 4, verses 1 through 3.

Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the

Lord, my beloved. I entreat Iodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the

Lord. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women, who have labored side by side with me in the

Gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life.

May God bless the reading, the hearing, and now the proclamation of His Word.

As Paul begins to bring the Gospel to bear on the issues, on the things that happen in this life, and most especially within the church.

This Gospel that we have been proclaiming, this Gospel that he has been proclaiming in this letter to the

Philippians and to us, to apostolic succession, if you will, it means something.

It comes to bear. Theology matters, as we say, and I ask you this morning, after having read those first three verses from Philippians 4, the question to you is, how big is your

Gospel? How big is your Gospel? And this does not mean, of course, that we each have our own

Gospel, we have our own separate little version of what the Gospel is, our own view of Christ Jesus.

There's one Gospel, there's one Savior and Lord, there's Jesus Christ declared in the one Scripture, but I ask you then, how big is your

Gospel? How big is your view of the Gospel? Paul's concern in what I just read is for these two women,

Iodaea and Syntyche, to stop bickering over matters that just are not worth all the fuss, all the bad feelings, all the broken relationships.

Of course, they're not worth the damage they were doing to the

Gospel. The witness to those outside of Christ would be seen as sheer hypocrisy when people preaching peace with God by faith in Christ cannot manage to have peace with each other, despite their faith in Christ.

The witness to those who are in Christ, to those in the Church, was no less damaging, because it brought discouragement, it brought divisions, it brought factions, and I would say, it brings discouragement, it brings divisions, it brings factions, it encourages fits of wrath, it encourages arguments, it makes weaker brothers and sisters wonder if there is anything that's even real about the

Gospel at all. So I ask, how big is your

Gospel? Is it big enough for love to cover, not a multitude of sins, because it is definitely big enough for that, but here my question, is it big enough to address preferences?

My own personal way of doing things, my personal preferences, matters of indifference.

You see, for too many of us, for too many points, the Gospel really does come up short.

Or I should say, our version, my personal way of the Gospel comes up short in being able to address things like what we had before in Philippians 4.

You see, God can reconcile himself to sinners by the sacrifice of his son Jesus. God did reconcile himself to sinners by the sacrifice of his son

Jesus. But all too often, sinners who by faith have made peace with God, cannot seem to make peace with each other.

Paul's concern in Philippians chapter 4, for the Philippians then 2 ,000 years ago,

Paul's concern in Philippians chapter 4 verses 1 -3 for the church day 2 ,000 years later, is this.

Is your Gospel big enough? Is your personal take on this

Gospel of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, each of us individually, by faith in Christ, all of us together as a body, by faith in Christ.

Is your Gospel big enough to cover things? To cover matters of indifference?

To cover secondary kind of issues? Paul speaks in very passionate language to these

Philippians and to us. I want to go through these verses one at a time. And I want to, as I go through them, constantly ask, is your

Gospel this big? Is your Gospel large enough? Is it powerful enough to accomplish what the

Apostle wants the Philippians to accomplish and today wants us to accomplish? You see, the

Gospel is bigger than any worldly issues. The Gospel is bigger than any here and now sort of thing.

In verse 1, Paul's language sets the tone for what's going to be more practical, if you will.

In verses 2 and 3, he sets a tone here and he soars above these earthly concerns. He transports us to our true home, which is heaven, that place where our citizenship now resides, in heaven.

He says, Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, stand firm thus in the

Lord. I'm going to read this again piece by piece. I want us to be sure we get this language. I want us to be sure that we come to his bird's eye view before we look at the nitty -gritty here and now that he brings us to.

And there's a reason for this. That we have to have this kind of language, not just as poetry, not just as something we appreciate because it's so beautiful, which it is, but because it sets our mind somewhere else.

It gives us a higher view. It brings us up to where Jesus is, which is up, and looking down and seeing if that helps us to minimize the things that cause the problems that we will see here in Philippi.

He says, Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, stand firm thus in the Lord. Therefore, he says,

Therefore, it could be accordingly, or more windedly, we might say, here follows the implications of what has come before.

All that theology, looking back, we could summarize this whole letter up to this point as this therefore.

You see, it means something. It has to come to bear on something. It addresses things.

For the Philippians then, it addresses this issue that we will dig into in a few moments in verses two and three.

But therefore, accordingly, as a result of all these things, because of these things that I have labored to bring to you, here's what we must do.

We could summarize the whole letter going back very far, and we could preach it over and over again even this morning.

We won't do that. Chapter two, verse five, you might remember, it says have this mind. Mind is phoneo, a fairly important word.

It's going to come up again a few times. So I just want to put that one word before you. Phoneo, think, your thought process, your worldview.

Have this mind, this phoneo, among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

And what comes right after that but that beautiful Christ hymn? Speaking of Jesus, who though he was in the form of God did not consider 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, found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. Have that mind, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

Have that phoneo, that way of thinking think like Jesus thought, think like Jesus does.

So therefore it brings us back quite a ways. And we could keep rolling this back, we could keep rolling this back, and you could do that this afternoon when you go home and study this letter again and read everything that came before that therefore, that therefore.

And understand that the therefore is there for a reason as we like to say. That sounds clever, and I didn't come up with that of course.

But it's true, it's there for an important reason. Go back further than I just did in chapter 2 verses 4 and 5 and take it back and back and back and see what the therefore is there for.

He calls them my brothers. My brothers. He reminds them that their kinship runs deeper than anything so common as being mere siblings.

They are his blood brothers by birth. And that's true, but not by natural birth. By the working of the

Holy Spirit, by giving them new hearts, new spirits, new birth. New minds be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

They are his brothers. As Jesus said, who is my mother and my brother and my father and my sister and so forth.

And he waves his hands and says, it's those who do the will of God. It's those who obey God. It's those who love his

Father. Many of us need to stop right here and ask whether the gospel that we carry is big enough to accommodate even this kind of language.

Paul's appeal is emotional. His appeal is passionate. But it's not based on this emotive response to the struggles in Philippi.

His sentiments derive from what we would call the indicative. The statements of facts. The facts of the matter.

Hard -pulled logic confirms the facts of the gospel. Jesus' penal substitution as he suffered for me on the cross.

His resurrection assuring me that I will follow in a resurrection like his. His Holy Spirit reminding us of what

Jesus taught the Savior Jesus. Sergeant Joe Friday never really said, but I like saying it, those are the facts.

Those are just the facts, man. But it means something.

It's not just intellectualism. It's not just an academic exercise. It means something. Those indicative, those statements of fact and more.

It means that there's a bond running between us that should make our heart ache, but it's disrupted.

It means that when you look to a fellow believer, especially a fellow member of your church, your local church, you see one for whom

Jesus also died. And if that doesn't change your perspective on where you draw the lines, the boundary lines, boundary lines that say, okay, we're buddies if we stay on this side, but step one foot onto this cherished doctrine, we've got troubles.

If these sorts of thought processes don't change, we need to look within and ask ourselves this, how big is my gospel?

Why is my view of the gospel so small that it can't cover things? He calls them brothers.

And then he says, whom I love and long for. Again, this soaring, this high language to bring our thoughts upwards to where Christ is before we look downwards and try to resolve our differences.

Whom I love and long for. Love comes from an adjective that can also mean beloved, which is how he finishes that verse.

He says, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. It's the same word. I love, beloved, and beloved at the end of the verse.

It's an adjective. It means beloved. Long for is a very strong word.

He says, my brothers whom I love and long for. In Galatians chapter 5 verse 17, that word is used to speak of the desires of the flesh.

They're so strong that it brings war against our spirit. In 1 Timothy chapter 3 verse 1, this word for long for speaks of a man's desire to be a pastor, to be an elder in Christ's church.

In 1 Peter 1 .12, this word for desire speaks of angels' desire to understand our salvation.

Things that angels desire to look into, to understand, to know. And just one more example of this word, this very strong word of long for, in Luke chapter 22 in verse 15,

Jesus uses this powerful word for his longstanding desire to eat his last Passover with his disciples.

And he says, I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. You see, this is

Paul's longing for them. He's in prison in Rome, and he longs to be with them. And this is how he describes it.

That's sort of a power. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. That's a very old, true expression.

But fonder yet is the supernatural connection of believer to believer. Today we have a unique opportunity to share this longing for each other.

For nearly three months we've been apart. Recently we've gotten closer as we are in this parking lot. We transport ourselves here in these metal capsules that insulate us from each other.

And I'm not a big hugger like some of you are. But I do miss that occasional sideways hug.

That handshake. The hand on a shoulder. I miss being close enough to see your eyes and hear all the inflections of your voice.

I miss sitting next to you and together in prayer going to the throne of grace. And I know that many of you miss that.

I know that all of you really miss that too. Do you miss as well the day that we can meet again?

Do you long for that day to be together in the way that Paul longs for the flippance? Does your heart yearn for that day when good sense and safety will allow us to be once more intimate with each other by sitting next to each other and being in the same room together?

Paul's desire was made all the greater by his imprisonment. And I would that our hearts would follow and we would follow his and we would long for each other in this way that Paul longs for them.

So he calls them brothers whom I love and long for and they joy and crown. They are his holy pride.

He has his holy pride in their faithfulness to Christ. The crown is that victor's wreath at the end of an athletic contest that they used to give back in that day.

They proclaimed him the winner. Many of us are someone's joy and crown.

Ultimately, of course, it's Jesus Christ and by his spirit who gets all the glory for any conversion. But many, if not most of us, were converted through the ongoing ministry of another person.

Someone who insisted upon telling us about Jesus Christ, about proclaiming the gospel to us, about showing us in Scripture who he is and what he has accomplished.

After all, somebody in that sense if that happened with you as it did with me, somebody else's joy and crown.

Paul takes a humble and a holy pride in the Philippian church in their conversion of something that Christ accomplished that we have to say through human means, through him.

Through the preaching of his word, through the preaching of Christ's living, powerful, and active word.

Don't be uncomfortable with that language that Paul uses when he calls them his joy and crown. It takes nothing away from Jesus.

But what it does do is it attaches us to the man or to that woman that Christ finally used to bring you or me to himself.

It attaches you to those God used you to convert. This deep, emotional, possessive language, the language of brethren and the

Lord. And finally, just in that first verse, raising us up high so we can look down and see what is really worth standing firmly on against each other, if you will.

That's what he says. Stand firm, thus in the Lord. Stand firm. That military term we've run into before, that military term for standing shoulder to shoulder, shield to shield, strong and immovable and impactable against a coming enemy.

Stand firm, thus in the Lord. It's in the

Lord. It's in Jesus. Thinking towards each other the way that Jesus thought, the way that Paul thought, the way that we all should think.

In the Lord, Jesus is the only basis that we have for our unity. Stand firm in His power. Stand firm on His word.

Jesus is the one and the only unifying factor that we could have. He says, in the Lord. That could mean location as we're found in Him.

Not having a righteousness of our own, but that which is by faith, as Paul wrote earlier. It could be cause.

Stand firm in Him who is the risen Son of God, now exalted to the Father's right hand because of what

He is. Our Savior, who loved you and gave Himself up for you because of what He will do, which is to return and to gather

His saints to be with Him. On all this, and for all these reasons, because of this,

Jesus, as the basis of our unity, Jesus as the basis of our meeting, Jesus as the basis of everything, stand firm.

Stand firm on that shoulder to shoulder, side by side, with each other, thinking freneto together the way

Jesus thought, as we had in that hymn that I read a moment ago. So therefore, my brothers, whom

I love and long for, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. I would suggest to you, a gospel that can elicit that kind of language is a mighty big gospel.

It's a gospel that's bigger than anything here below. And I ask you, is this your gospel? Is the gospel you live and the gospel you breathe the gospel you bring to church, the gospel that you bring to issues, to conflicts with fellow brothers and sisters, fellows in the

Lord, is the gospel you live and breathe that big? Does it soar that far above this earthly globe?

Because it must. And it should elicit this kind of emotive response from us.

As we look to the issues that we have, the gospel is bigger than we can imagine. The gospel is bigger than our worldly issues, and the gospel is bigger than our personal grievances.

It doesn't mean grievances go away. It doesn't mean that they're unimportant, but the gospel is bigger than them.

Look at verse 2 now. This is the issue of these two combatants that we're now going to meet.

Verse 2, I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. To agree in the

Lord. To think the same way in the Lord. And in the Lord being key. I entreat these two.

I entreat Euodia, he mentions them individually, and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

There's an awful lot we do not know here. We don't know who either of these ladies really was.

Some think Euodia was in fact Lydia who we meet in Acts chapter 16, who was running that prayer meeting by the river, the one that Paul came to and preached the gospel.

And that was the inception of this very Philippian church. There's really no evidence for that speculation.

Some even think Syntyche might have been the Apostle Paul's wife, which again is sheer speculation. I just throw that out there for you for interest, but we really don't know anything about them.

We don't know their positions at the church. Some think they were deacons, they were deaconesses. Some think they were pastors.

I would object to both of those classifications, but that's out there. Some people think that. They may have been simply rich matrons of the church and so influential in that way.

Now we know very little about them. What we do know is that they were influential, that whatever was happening between them was causing this rift in the church and as we're going to see when we get to verse 3, people dividing into camps, which is very anti -gospel, a very small gospel that would allow such a thing.

We do know that Paul is very concerned about it. We know that Paul doesn't say here because if we have it in writing before us, he doesn't say, hey, ladies, just get along and get over this thing.

Can't you just be friends? Like the old song, Why Can't We Be Friends? No, he takes it very seriously.

He takes it as a very serious matter. Again, that word that I told you, phreno, agree.

He wants them to agree in the Lord, be of the same mind in the Lord. No basis for agreement except for him.

And he's asking them to agree not just to make peace, but to agree in the Lord. Now they had at one time agreed.

Verse 3 says that they worked side by side with him in the gospel. We'll come to that in a few moments. They had at one time been in agreement with each other.

So what happened? What happened? And many of us have seen this.

This process that happens when people come together and they're excited about something, a new beginning, and they're all marching together.

And it's especially exciting when it happens in a church, when something, the Lord gives us a ministry or something that we can do to bring the gospel to bear to people we hadn't even thought of.

And it's exciting. And then that excitement wanes. And things start to get fractured and the bonds become weaker.

That old song, Why Can't We Be Friends? I'll tell you why, because you don't do things my way. And one of the surprising things to me is people who are so successful and they just can't get along and maintain the success.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, I don't know if you've heard of them, but they were a super group back in the day. These guys were incredibly talented vocalists and songwriters and guitarists.

And they're selling albums. They couldn't make them fast enough. These guys feel rich and they're famous and they're being able to execute their artistic talents and bring them to bear.

But they couldn't get along. The group kept splitting up and coming back together and splitting up and coming back together.

They're rich. They're famous. Yet accrimony caused them to split up, to make up, to reform, and to get mad and to split apart and on and on it goes.

How could this be? Is it only because they're artistic? Only because artistic people are sensitive? It always surprises me to see things like that.

And yet, here is Ioria and Syntyche, not just being a group, not just selling albums, not just successful entertainers who are able to exhibit their artistic talents, but gospelers,

Christians, those who have the Holy Spirit in the

Lord. It means petty differences can't rule the day. Jesus in one setting said that those who do not oppose him are for him.

That's Mark chapter 9, verse 40. Luke chapter 9, verse 50. So, what does in the

Lord mean to us? If he's telling, I entreat Ioria, I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord, what of us today?

What of you this morning? What does in the Lord mean? When the

Lord, of course, is Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ, he being the example, he being the standard, his word being the bar that we take everything to.

But in the Lord, that denies us some rights. We like to speak of the rights. We have the right to bear arms.

We have the right to freedom of expression in religion. We have a lot of rights. In the Lord denies us a lot of rights.

It denies us the right to divide over small matters. Petty things, out there, within limits, music, style of worship, those sorts of things.

We have the worship wars of a decade or so ago. In the

Lord, the standard for everything. And he would have them, he would have us agreeing in the

Lord. It doesn't mean every personal preference has to be lined up. Look at the cars that we have out here.

All the different kinds of cars, all the different makes, different ways we dress, different homes we live in, cities.

Those are all matters of indifference. Those are matters of personal preference. Agreeing in the

Lord is agreeing on the matters of the gospel, matters of the church. Whatever Uri and Syntyche were riled up about, we can be sure that it was not a gospel issue.

It wasn't some cardinal point of the faith or else Paul would have said so. He would have taken sides, as he did against Peter, for example, when

Peter stopped eating with the Gentiles when those of the circumcision party came. And that hypocrisy put the gospel at risk and he challenged him on it.

Read Galatians, you read Philippians, you read the letters where he addresses the issues. If there's a gospel issue, Paul says so.

And in Philippians 4, verses 1 through 3, and especially in verse 2, we have nothing like that.

What silliness is sometimes we allow to grow from these little tadpoles into great white chunks.

From these little beings that are friendly and harmless into these terrible monsters.

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

And then chapter 2, verse 5, which I read before, have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus. And then all the rest, which

I read a moment ago, 6 and following, and I won't read it again now. The small differences.

Things that don't impinge on the gospel. Matters that don't violate the main tenets of the faith.

Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. Jesus Christ, who God the Father sent to this world in order to redeem helpless sinners.

By faith alone, by grace, through grace alone, in scripture alone, and so forth. The apostle asks in Romans 6, verse 21, he asks, what fruit have you gained from those old deeds of which you are now ashamed?

I could piggyback on that and I could ask, what fruit do we gain by holding onto our preferences as though our taste in music or how someone should dress in church or whether public schools are abominable and God Molech and we raise those things to the level and we're willing to fight over them as if Jesus' deity was put at risk by what was being said.

You can ask, does it bring joy? The apostle Paul says, complete my joy by being of the same mind.

Does it bring joy? This issue that we can't quite let go of?

That we can't give any ground on? Does it bring joy? Is there one -mindedness in it?

Is the gospel at risk because of it? Will it help Euodia and Syntyche resolve their differences?

To be of one accord, to have one mind, has nothing to do with these small matters. The qualifying phrase, in the

Lord. Is the gospel at stake? One -mindedness demands that you put it to that test.

Full accord demands that we consult with someone outside of ourselves because better than not any one of us has all the answers and that's why there's safety in many councils.

There are things that are essential. There are things that are secondary and there are things that are indifferent. As I said earlier, there's a lot we don't know about this.

But there are some things that we do know about this issue in Philippians 4, 1 through 3. Because whatever that issue was,

Paul knew and that church knew what it was. And whatever that issue was,

Paul took it seriously because of what it was bringing to the church, what was happening because of it within the church.

Because whatever that issue was, it was causing strife, it was causing division, it was inhibiting the gospel.

Ambassadors of the reconciling God who couldn't reconcile over a matter that Paul doesn't even name.

He doesn't even name what the matter is and yet ambassadors of the God who reconciled them to himself and are to go out and preach the reconciliation of God to sinful men can't even reconcile with each other.

Do you see the alarm that Paul had? Do you see why he begins by calling him brother, love, longed for, my beloved, my joy, my crown, trying to lift up their thoughts higher than these small, unimportant, secondary matters.

The gospel must be bigger. The gospel has to be bigger than our personal grievances and even our personal preferences unless they impinge upon the proclamation and the purity of the gospel according to the scriptures itself.

It's bigger than that. And what happens when we allow these things to go on?

Well eventually because we're sinners what are we going to do? We're going to choose sides. And I would argue that this alarms

Paul as much in the letter to the Philippians as it did in the letter to the

Corinthians, the first Corinthians where that disunity that I follow Paul, I follow Paulus, I follow

Cephas, well I follow Jesus brought such alarm to the apostles. We have something very like that here in this letter to the

Philippians. So the gospel is bigger than our worldly issues. The gospel is bigger than our personal preferences.

The gospel is also bigger than our camps, our club, our group, our sorority, our fraternity because that's the way churches can end up looking when we go and divide over things that are not essential to this one thing in the

Lord, the gospel. Verse three, yes

I ask you also true companion help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

This unnamed issue has grown into such a monster that abandoning the same mind in the

Lord vacating the mind of Christ that was also theirs choosing strife, choosing misery, choosing division over joy,

Paul had to remind them that these people were actually Christians. That they were actually

Christians, these ones who are somehow being derided and Paul's saying no, they're my fellow workers, they worked in the gospel, their names are in the book of life.

It's been a long time talking about the book of life, let us just say by saying that their names are in the book of life,

Paul means that they're saved. They truly are Christians and it seems to me that he wrote that and he commends them this way because dividing into the camps over whatever this issue was between these two women, people were taking sides and the one side saying to the other side well if you believe that and if you would follow this camp or this sorority or this fraternity or whatever it is, you must not even be a

Christian and Paul's saying no, no, no. They were among those he called brothers.

These people, these camps and both sides of them were those whom he loved and longed for, his joint crown.

He says they labored with him, that's here, that's chapter 1 verse 27 where it's described side by side they labored for the gospel.

They had worked on it so hard. He says to help them and to help them is a compound word in the original language which is something like together taking getting a hold of something, to take into custody, to capture an animal in Luke chapter 5 verse 9 of the fish that Peter caught in his net, to help by taking part in an activity, to get down to the nitty gritty of getting with people and making sure that they resolve these differences.

And remember the difference is not is Jesus Christ the unique eternal son of God? It's not his equality with God as God himself.

It's not very God of very God and so forth. I am certain if it were anything like that Paul would have written it for us.

It was nothing like that. Who's the true companion?

We don't know. It's often thought to be Timothy something as Epaphroditus. One man suggests

Luke. I think if it were anyone like that though if it were anyone outside the church he would have said

I've asked Epaphroditus my true companion to help these women but he doesn't. He's speaking to the church.

He's speaking to the church then and their responsibility to come together to bring those two together.

To stop dividing into camps. Which means of course that the camps have to reconcile before the camps can come together and be one again be one in Christ.

How can they help the ladies to reconcile? It seems to me that this true companion again we don't know exactly who it is but they knew and Paul knew probably the pastor of the church.

That seems the most logical choice to me. Paul's very alarmed by this.

He'd seen this sort of thing before. Just before he came to Philippi as we have it in Acts chapter 15 at the very end of that chapter.

Remember Paul and Barnabas they had this famous strife between them and the disagreement gets so sharp over John Mark and whether he should go on because he's the one who failed to continue to Pamphylia.

They split up over it. And later in Colossians chapter 4 verse 10 we find Paul naming

Mark as one to be welcomed to the church in Colossae. Colossae.

I think Paul had seen this kind of strife over things that were not essential to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I think he'd seen himself between himself and Barnabas what this leads to. I think that's part of his alarm here in Philippi.

He'd seen this for himself. I saw something like this once where I didn't take reconciliation importantly enough.

I don't know if I've used this example before this actually did happen to me so I'll tell you again if you've heard it before I guess

I make no apologies for that. When I was a substitute teacher in New Haven district here near Union City I was at an elementary school and during the recess break

I was walking along the causeway and heading up to the class that I was going to take over next and I saw a couple of kids who were having a real road between them.

They were just furious with each other. These kids were second graders third graders maybe fourth graders and I'm thinking to myself as I walk by well look at that just little kids having a road

I just wish they'd get over it stop yelling so loud go play and they'll be over it in an hour. I didn't take it seriously.

But as I was approaching and walking by I saw that the vice principal took the two kids together and she knelt down with them and she talked and she talked and when

I looked back later she was still working with them to reconcile to teach them how to reconcile the differences.

I was very convicted by that because I was thinking well these kids are 7, 8, 9 years old what difference does it make they'll get over it.

Well she took a different kind of view. I don't know where she was spiritually anything like that but I know that she took reconciliation then more seriously than I did.

I was very convicted I'm the one who should have stopped and made those kids figure this thing out and led them along in that process.

I would say here that the gospel has to be bigger than the camps. Those who seem to have said well

I follow Udia I follow Syntyche whatever that issue was this is what happened and this is what we have to guard ourselves against brethren.

This is what we have to guard ourselves against. That we set forth a preference we set forth a secondary issue we set forth something that is not key crucial to the gospel and say on this issue

I fall on my sword this is it. We have to be careful here. Is that the mind of Christ?

Is that being of one accord one spirited together as we learned a few weeks ago? The apostle

Paul is so concerned with whatever is going on here that he would have his true companion be the first to go in there and bring these two parties together.

How big is our gospel? How big is your gospel? Is it big enough to have one mind with others and by that set aside my own personal preferences?

Is it big enough for me to look at the things that you do that bug me and take them first to scripture and see if this is something that denigrates the gospel of Jesus Christ that says something about him that isn't true or is it just a preference?

Is your gospel big enough for that? How big is your gospel?

The one gospel. How big is your personal view of that one gospel? Big enough to solve differences?

Is there enough room in that gospel to squeeze in the mind of Jesus which is yours in him?

I'm very convicted that when I read this that the very fact that Paul doesn't tell us what the issue was between these two women makes it so much more important that we nip things in the bud.

That when there's a rift between you and a brother or sister in the Lord and you take care of it now we're swift not to anger but swift to resolve, swift to reconcile, swift to take hindrances out of the way of our gospel, swift to remember that if we've been reconciled to God but we can't reconcile with each other we need to ask ourselves how big is my gospel?

Is it big enough for this? Why isn't it? Why is it not? Let me read the three verses again.

Just a closing comment and we will be done for this morning. Therefore my brothers whom

I love and long for my joined crown stand firm thus in the Lord my beloved.

I entreat Eodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord. Yes I ask you also true companion help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life.

We need to remember that we're brethren together. That we're brothers and sisters together and we long for each other.

We have to have that heart for each other. We need to remember that the gospel is bigger.

It's bigger than the issues that sometimes just bug us at no end and if we would stop and remember the size of the gospel and the beauty of the cross and the goodness of God in sending his son to die for my sins, we would overtake so much of this.

Remembering that each other are written in the book of life, saved by the blood of the same Savior who brought us together and placed us here in this church exactly where it pleased him in 1

Corinthians 12. Is your gospel that big? Is your gospel big enough to cover up your personal preferences?

Is your gospel big enough to draw you out of camp and put you back into unity with brothers and sisters in the

Lord? Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, we give you thanks that once again we can meet, that we can come together, that we can gather around your word and know you better.

We pray Lord for your spirit to be a spirit of reconciliation in any matters known or unknown amongst us even now.

Lord, we would be that body that is a proper representative of Jesus Christ, bringing together each other into one -mindedness.

Lord, we thank you for this word that shows us that all this theology means something, it comes to bear upon our problems, and we thank you

Father that your gospel is bigger than anything we can imagine, bigger than the small differences that so easily divide us and drive us into camps.

Lord, may you protect us and guard us from this, and may we by faith always turn to Christ and His word, and be able to look to each other the way

Paul did, as brothers long before in the world. For in Jesus' name, amen.