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Sermon: How Big Is Your Gospel? Date: June 14, 2020, Morning Text: Philippians 4:1–3 Series: Philippians Preacher: Pastor Josh Sheldon Audio: https://storage.googleapis.com/pbc-ca-sermons/2020/200614-HowBigIsYourGospel.mp3
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 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
through apostolic secession if you will.
It means something it comes to bear.
Theology matters as we say and I asked 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 is 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 and what I just read is for these two women Yoda and Sintike
to stop bickering over matters that just are not worth all the fuss, all the bad feelings,
all the broken relationships.
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 who those in the church.
Was no less damaging because it brought discouragement.
It brought divisions.
It brought factions.
I would say it brings Discouragement.
It brings divisions.
It brings factions.
It encourages fits of wrath and 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 have before some 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 through 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 he is a body by faith in Christ.
Your gospel big enough to cover things to cover met 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.
Which is heaven that place where our citizenship now resides in heaven.
He says therefore.
Therefore my brothers whom I long whom I love and long for stand firm thus in the Lord.
I'm gonna 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.
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 seeing if that helps us to minimize the things that cause
Problems that we will see here in Philippi.
He says therefore my brothers whom I long 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 2
and 3 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.
You can summarize the whole letter going back
Very far and you can preach it over and over again even this morning.
We won't do that chapter 2 verse 5 you might remember says have this mind mind is
Franeo a fairly important words gonna come up again a few times.
So I just want to put that one word before you Franeo think your thought process your worldview have this
mind this Franeo.
Among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.
And what comes right after that but that beautiful Christ him.
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 and being 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 Franeo that that way of thinking think like Jesus thought think like Jesus
does.
So therefore 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.
It sounds clever.
I didn't come up with that.
Of course, but it's true.
It's there for an important reason.
So go back this afternoon go back further than I just did it.
Chapter 2 verses 4 and 5.
And take it back and back and back and see what the therefore is therefore
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 the new heart 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 Is those who do the will of God and those who obey God is 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 derived 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's 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 and Driving us always to
glorify the Savior Jesus.
Sergeant Joe Friday never really said but I like saying it those are the facts or they're just the facts ma 'am.
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.
This should make our heart ache our heart break when unity in the church is 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 that doesn't change your perspective on where you draw the lines the boundary lines boundary lines to 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 find no remedy in the gospel.
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 be beloved which is how he finishes that verse.
He says stand firm thus in the Lord my beloved the same word I love beloved
and beloved at the end of the verse.
It's an adjective means beloved.
Long for is a very strong word.
He says my brothers whom I love and long for in Galatians chapter
5 verses verse 17.
That word is used to speak of the desires of the flesh.
There's so strong that brings war against our spirit.
In first Timothy chapter 3 verse 1 this word for long for speaks of a man's desire to be a
pastor to be an elder Christ's Church.
In 1st Peter 1 12 this word for desire speaks of angels desire to understand our
salvation.
Things that desire angels desire to look into to understand to know.
It's just one more example of this word this very strong word of long for in Luke chapter 22 and
verse 15 Jesus uses this powerful word for his long -standing desire to eat his last
Passover with his desire with his disciples.
He says I've earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffered.
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 with that sort of a power.
Absence makes a heart grow 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?
There's 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 follow this we would long for each other in this way that Paul longs for them.
So it 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 there 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 by showing us in Scripture
Who he is and what he has accomplished?
So we're all somebody in that sense that 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.
But we have to say through human means through him.
Through the preaching of his word and the preaching of Christ's living powerful and active word.
And 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 and Attaches you to the to those God used you to convert
his deep emotional possessive language the language of brethren in 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 standing firmly on against each other if you will.
That's what he says is 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 shield strong
and immovable and 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 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 can 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 it 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 is the basis of everything.
Stand firm.
Stand firm on that shoulder to shoulder side by side with each other thinking for an echo
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.
It's the gospel you live and breathe that big.
Does it soar that far above this earthly globe because it must and should
elicit this kind of a motive 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 down.
This is the issue of these two combatants that we're now going to meet.
Verse 2.
I entreat Iodia 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 Iodia.
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.
Something Iodia 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.
Something there were deacons or deaconesses something there 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 for now.
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.
That's especially exciting when it happens in the 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.
It's exciting and then that excitement wins and Things start
to get fractured and the bonds become weaker.
That'll 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.
And Crosby stills.
Nash and 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 To
execute their artistic talents and bring them to bear, but they couldn't get along.
The group kept splitting up and come back together and splitting up and come back together.
They're rich.
They're famous yet at criminy.
Cause them to split up to make up to reform and to get mad to split apart and on and on it goes.
How could this be?
It's only because they're artistic only because artistic people are sensitive.
No surprises me to see things like that and.
Yet here is Yuria and sink to keep not just being a group not just selling albums.
Not just successful entertainers were able to exhibit their artistic talents
but gospelers.
Christians those who have the Holy Spirit
in the Lord means petty differences can't rule the day.
Jesus in one setting said that those who do not oppose him or for him as mark chapter 9 verse 40.
Luke chapter 9 verse 50.
So what is in the Lord mean to us if he's telling I treat Yodi?
I treat sink to key to agree in the Lord what of us today?
What have you this morning?
What is 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 and 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 I would throw out there within limits music.
Style of worship those sorts of things with the worship wars of the decade or so ago
in the Lord.
It's a 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 two 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 unity and sync you 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 chapter 4 verses 1 through 3 and especially in verse 2.
We have nothing like that.
What's sillinesses?
Sometimes we allow to grow from these little tadpoles into great white sharks from these
little Beings that are friendly and harmless into these terrible monsters.
Philippians chapter 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 them a moment ago six 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 21.
He has 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 on to our preferences?
As though our taste in music or how someone should dress in church or whether public schools are abominable.
God Moloch.
And we raise those things to the level and we're willing to fight over them as if Jesus
deity was put at risk.
And ask does it bring
joy.
The Apostle Paul says complete my joy by being of the same mind.
Does it bring joy this this Issue that we can't quite let go of that.
We can't Give any ground on.
Doesn't bring joy.
Is there one -mindedness in it?
Is the gospel at risk because of it?
Will it help you idea and sin to keep 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 wreck and preach the reconciliation of God to sinful men.
Can't even reconcile with each other.
You see the alarm that Paul had you see why he begins by calling him
brother love.
Long 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 in the
letter to the Philippians as it did in the letter to the Corinthians the first Corinthians were that
Disunity that I follow Paul.
I follow Paul as I follow Cephas.
Well, I follow Jesus.
Brought such alarm to the Apostle.
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 3.
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?
Is 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 saying no,
they're my fellow workers.
They worked in the gospel.
Their names are in the book of life.
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 or this sorority or this fraternity
or whatever it is.
You must not even be a Christian of Paul saying no, no, no.
They were among those he called brothers.
These people these camps in both sides of them were those he whom he loved and longed for his joint
crown.
He says they labored with him.
That's here.
This chapter 1 verse 27 were to strive side -by -side.
They labored for the gospel.
They had worked on it so hard.
He says to help them and help them as 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 or anything like that Paul would have written it for us.
It was nothing like that.
Who's the true companion?
We don't know is often thought to be Timothy.
Something is Epaphroditus one man suggests Luke.
I think if it were anyone like that though before anyone outside the church He would have said I asked the pastor.
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 a very alarmed by this.
He'd seen this sort of thing before.
You know 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.
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 guess part of his alarm here in.
He's 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 you with you 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 a little kids having you.
I just wish they'd get over it stop yelling so loud go play, and they'll be over 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 their differences.
I was very convicted by that.
And I was thinking well these kids are seven eight nine 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 reconcile 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 let 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
you idea.
I follow sink to key 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.
Then 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.
So the very fact that Paul doesn't tell us what the issue was between these two 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 that you take care of it now.
We 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
you read the three verses again?
You're just a closing comment.
We will Be done for this morning.
Therefore my brothers whom I love and long for my joy and crown stand firm thus in the Lord
my beloved.
I treat Yoda and I treat 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.
We need to remember that we're brethren together.
There were 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 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 and sending his
son to die for my sins.
We would overtake so much of this.
Remembering that each other 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.
1st 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.
Gather around your word know you better.
Pray Lord for your spirit.
To be a spirit of reconciliation in any matters known or unknown amongst us.
Lord will be that body that is.
Is a proper representative of Jesus Christ bringing together each other
into one -mindedness.
Lord, thank you for this word.
It shows us that all this theology means something.
It comes to bear upon the 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.
Protect us and guard us from this.
Turn to Christ in his word To be able to look to each other the way Paul did as brothers long for
in the world.
Jesus.