Getting Help

Good morning, Good News Church. All right, we are continuing our series,

How to Handle Relational Drama. We are now in part seven.

The title of today's sermon is Getting Help.

And I realized this week that this sermon, like this one that you're in right

now, it doesn't stand alone very well.

A couple of weeks ago, our associate pastor, Doug Davison, said something along

these lines, and I thought it was very true.

He said, this series is more like one big, long, multi-hour sermon that is broken

into 30 and 40 minute chunks for you to be able to receive it.

Do you remember when he said that?

So we're doing that like that's a gift to you, okay?

We thought, okay, we could do this in six hours or we could do this a little

bit and it'll actually get understood.

So that's what we've done. We've broken it into like a big, long sermon into

these little 30 minute sections to make it receivable for you.

I think it was the right call. However, the problem with doing it that way is

much of what we are saying in these sermons, it makes a lot more sense when

you factor in what was said just before it or just after it.

And the downside to the way we're doing it is sometimes the thing that was said

just before it was a week ago, right?

So it's hard to remember that way. This is the thing that comes right after that thing.

So for instance, today, the point of today's sermon is going to be,

if you can't work out a conflict with someone by yourself, bring in a third party to help, okay?

But if this is your very first time at our church, or your first time in a while,

and you are hearing the stuff I'm going to say today, disconnected from what

was before it, I could imagine someone would leave here today thinking to themselves,

those church people are so weird.

Like, they think that every time you have a problem with someone,

you need to summon all your Christian friends and get them involved,

right? That's what they talked about.

So I wanted you to know, like, no, we actually do not believe that.

Today's sermon is not step one of anything, right? We've said,

talked about a lot of other things first.

Today's sermon is for these specific situations where you have tried to deal

with a relational problem and it didn't work.

And so you're now going, okay, now what?

Like I did, I did go talk to them and I did try, but they didn't forgive me

or she, I didn't forgive her.

She didn't apologize or whatever. Like it didn't go well. And I tried and I

don't know what to do. So now what?

Right? That's what we're addressing today. And the answer is you may need to

bring in other people to help you.

But I just want you to note that there were a bunch of sermons before this.

Like before you got to this point, you were supposed to try to handle it one-on-one

just by yourself. Do you remember that?

And before you even did that, you were supposed to decide whether you even took

offense at all. Do you remember that?

Yeah. We're supposed to decide, is this like one of those, like it's a glory

to ignore an insult kind of situation. So you're supposed to decide,

is this even something that should offend me?

Then if it is, then you tried to handle it yourself. And only then when that

went poorly, are you even supposed to get to this sermon? Okay.

So I'm hoping you remember all those sermons that came before it.

And now we are building on what we've already talked about. So here is today's situation.

We must realize that it is not always the case that two people,

even two Christians, can resolve all of their problems all by themselves every time.

And so I wanna show you three passages of scripture this morning,

okay? Three different passages of scripture that speak to this issue of what to do next.

And we're gonna start with Matthew chapter 18 as our first one.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read to you Matthew 18, verses 15 through 17.

Matthew 18:15–17

We looked at this passage last week. In fact, we've looked at parts of this

passage multiple times already in this series, but we are revisiting it from another angle.

Like I said, this is sort of like one big long sermon.

I, at this point, I need to refer back to some of the verses we learned earlier in this sermon.

All right. So Matthew 18, I'm going to read verses 15 through 17.

Once again, this is Jesus speaking. And this is what he said to do.

He said, if your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private.

If he listens to you, you have won your brother.

But if he won't listen, take one or two more with you. so that by the testimony

of two or three witnesses, every fact may be established.

If he pays no attention to them, tell the church.

But if he doesn't pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever

and a tax collector to you. You remember that from last week?

Okay, so today I wanna focus on the second step. We've already talked about

go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you've won your brother.

But the question is, what if that doesn't happen? What if it doesn't go well?

Okay, well, but if he won't listen, what is step two according to Jesus?

Take one or two more with you.

One or two more what? One or two more people with you. Take one or two more

people with you so that the testimony of two or three witnesses,

every fact may be established.

So the second step is take one or two more with you. Why would you do that?

You might go, oh, goodness, I mean, so I went and talked to the person.

It didn't go well. And then I got to go and talk to them like a second time.

I didn't even enjoy talking to them the first time.

And now I got to go talk to them a second time and I gotta get other people involved in this?

Like, why would I do that? And Jesus says why, okay?

He says, take one or two more with you so that by the testimony of two or three

witnesses, every fact may be established.

Why are you bringing them along? You're bringing them along as witnesses.

Now, I think it's important to get this. Last week, someone came up to me and

they asked me, I think it was a good question.

They said, okay, wait, so if someone sins against me and I try to talk with

them about it and it doesn't go well, I've got to go find two people.

Who saw that person sin against me, right? I got to go find two eyewitnesses

of the sin and then I got to bring them.

And then I got to talk to the person with these other two people that saw the

person sin against me. Is that what Jesus is saying here? And I said,

no, I don't think that that's what he's saying.

Although that would be awesome. Like that is ideal. If you are in a situation

where somebody sins against you and there were two other people standing there

watching it, those would be two great people maybe to bring in on it if you

can't get along because at least they saw what happened.

But I don't think that's what Jesus is referring to here. If that's what Jesus

meant, then this passage is actually very narrow in its application because

it could only be used for sins that were done in front of other people, right?

So if somebody punches you in a dark alley, or if somebody lies to you and you're

the only two people in the room when they tell a lie, or someone commits like

sexual assault, like there are all sorts of sins that happen where there's just

only two people there, right?

So this would not be helpful for any of that if you had to have an eyewitness to do anything about it.

No, I think what Jesus is talking about is bringing them along as eyewitnesses

to the second encounter, right?

If you notice, Jesus, when he says, if he won't listen, he doesn't say bring

one or two witnesses along.

He says, bring one or two people along to be witnesses, right?

Not bring one or two people who are already witnesses to the original sin.

Bring one or two people along who will now witness the second conversation because

we need that to get established.

Right now, you're saying that you went and talked to her, right,

and you're saying that you said it this way and they said it this way,

right? and she didn't apologize and she won't give it back or whatever the issue

is, but it's just your word against hers or it's your word against his.

You need to bring one or two other people along and they are going to witness the second encounter.

And it's very helpful because they are not only able to witness that it happened,

they can see the attitude that you had when you went and talked to the person,

the tone of voice that you used.

They can see the attitude that that person had as they received what you had

to say. They can see what that person said back.

Did the person admit that they did it? Did the person deny that they did it?

Did the person apologize for it? Or did the person say, I don't care.

I just, you deserve it and I would do it again.

Like they were able to witness all that to figure out what ought to be done next.

I think there's also a second reason why you bring one or two more with you.

One of them, Jesus explicitly says, one of the reasons, right?

As witnesses. But then the other one is just implied and it's at the beginning of verse 17.

Notice what he says. He says, so that the testimony of two, three witnesses,

every fact may be established.

If he pays no attention to them.

Now them is what? Either, is it a singular word or is it a plural word?

It's a plural word. You did better than first service. I mean,

don't tell them I said that, but you did.

Okay, he pays no attention to them. Them is plural, which means what is Jesus saying here?

He's not saying you talk to them, then you bring one or two other people along,

and then you're the only one that's talking with the other two people,

and they are just silently witnessing like some sort of ancient organic security camera.

Okay, like they weren't invented yet, so the people just use their eyes and

they just record what happened.

No, the witnesses are also talking, right?

Well, what are they saying? Well, I think in an ideal situation,

and I think that's what Jesus is assuming here, in an ideal situation where the rebuker is correct,

right, is rightly pointing out a real sin, then the witnesses are adding their

rebuke to the original rebuke to add more pressure to the person so that they would repent, right?

Now, I say that that's the ideal situation.

You may know in life, the ideal situation does not always happen,

and sometimes Sometimes it's helpful for these witnesses to be there.

Sometimes it's helpful for them to add their rebuke to the first rebuke to cause

more pressure for reconciliation.

Sometimes it seems to me they would withhold their rebuke and not add it with

the extra one, but not add it to the original one.

If that's what the situation called for, because sometimes that happens, right?

I think there are situations where the person does, you know,

they rebuke them another time, right?

And then the two witnesses are there and the person says, well,

I'm sorry, will you forgive me? And they're going, wait a minute.

And let's say the person said, yeah, I mean, I told you last week,

I'm sorry. And I asked you to forgive me.

And you have two witnesses that are standing there now going, what?

Why do you keep rebuking her? She just told you she apologized last week, right?

Or it might be that the person says, well, yeah, I did it and I would do it again.

And now the witnesses know, okay, they would. Maybe the person says,

I didn't do it. And I told you last week, I didn't steal your sunglasses.

Like you're just saying I did it, but I didn't do it. So the witnesses,

when they're there, they can add their rebuke to the original rebuke if appropriate,

or withhold it if appropriate.

I mean, I'm pretty sure I've seen that happen where somebody said,

hey, will you go help me talk to so-and-so? All right. So I show up as like one of the people.

And at first, I only know one side of the story, right? Then I watch the two people talk.

And by the end, I'm like, whoa, you were more wrong than him, right?

Like now that I hear both sides, you were the instigator. Like you were like 80% wrong.

They're like 20% wrong, right? So, but I think in an ideal situation,

they would be adding their rebuke to the original rebuker.

But the thing that I think is really obvious that we probably will all agree

on, one thing that Jesus is saying here in Matthew 18, one thing we can know

for sure is he was saying, if someone sins against you and you can't work it out with them,

add in another person or two to help. He was saying that.

All right. Now let's look at another passage of scripture. And this next one

I think is, it's pretty fascinating. All right. It's on a similar topic,

but it's a little bit different.

It's Philippians chapter four, verses two and three. It's a section of scripture

that hardly ever gets preached on. I don't, I mean, I don't even know if I've

ever heard any other preacher preach on it.

Maybe one. It's not very often talked about.

But man, this passage is so good. It's on the same topic. And yet you're going

to see, it's like, there's something special about this one.

Can you put up Philippians chapter 4, verses 2 through 3?

Philippians 4:2–3

It's a little section at the end of the book of Philippians.

This is a letter that Paul wrote to the people in Philippi, the Christians there.

And he says, I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

If you're wondering, what are those weird words? Those are two people's names,

okay? They are female names.

Euodia is a woman, Syntyche is a woman.

I urge you, Odie, and I urge Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

So apparently they were having some sort of disagreement, right?

The fact that he's asking them to agree means they were not currently in agreement,

right? They were in some sort of disagreement and they're supposed to agree in the Lord.

So we're going to find out later. These are two Christians and he's hoping like,

because you believe in Jesus, will you stop fighting?

Because you believe in Jesus, will you stop being in this disagreement?

I urge you, Odie, and I urge Syntyche to agree in the Lord.

Yes, I also ask you, true partner, to help these women who have contended for the gospel at my side.

So true partner is a name for like either a person or a group of somebodies

who are supposed to help these women. Well, who were these women?

They were women who have contended for the gospel at my side, so past tense.

Like at some point before they had been fighting with each other,

these two women had helped Paul with his missionary stuff, along with another person named Clement.

So we got three names here. We got Clement and Syntyche and Iodia.

All of these people at some point, we're all getting along, happy,

happy, and they're all doing missionary work together at some point, right?

So they've contended for the gospel at my side along with Clement and the rest

of my coworkers. So there's a bunch of other people that are involved in all

this. We don't know their names.

Whose names are in the book of life. Now, do you know what the book of life is?

The book of life is a book that is in heaven. That is like the roster of all of God's people. Okay.

I don't know if it's a metaphorical book or a literal book, but there is a book

that's like, these are all of God's people. These are the people who are going

to live with God forever.

And he's saying Clement's in that book. So is Syntyche. So is Euodia,

right? These are people who are Christians. These are people who are going to live with God forever.

So this is what he said to them, right? The reason I think this passage is fascinating

is because do you notice this is a passage that's given to real people with

real names? It's different than Matthew 18.

Matthew 18 is a theoretical passage, isn't it?

Right, like Matthew 18 is just

in general, this is what you ought to do in these kinds of situations.

If a brother sins against you, do this. And if he doesn't listen, do this.

But it's not, Jesus in that passage wasn't teaching like Bob how to get along

with Chuck, right? Like he was just in general talking about how people ought to handle this.

But in this passage, the people are named. Like you need to do this with her,

right? Do you see why that's a big deal?

Okay, one of you gets it. Okay, then I'm gonna have to explain this.

This is crazy to me, okay? This is a public letter that was read out loud in front of the church.

These people were probably sitting there or standing there when it was read.

This would be like, if I got up here on a Sunday morning and I talked about

how we need to get along and not fight with each other and agree.

And then partway through, I suddenly went and Sylvia and Tina,

you two need to get your act together and not do this. And Bob,

help them with it, right?

If I did that on a Sunday morning, naming people's names, like a lot of you

would go, like, what is happening?

He got real personal, real fast. This don't even feel like a sermon,

okay? That's what happened here. They got called out by name.

Okay, so let me go ahead and try to reconstruct this story so you can imagine what happened.

I think there are five characters in it, really four, but five that we can come

up with names for. So let me go ahead and do this.

And we'll talk about what they did and probably what had happened.

So the first name in this story that comes up is what is? Who's the person?

Euodia. Okay, very good. So we have Euodia.

Euodia. Yep, here we go. Okay, and then the person that Euodia is in some sort

of disagreement with is? Syntyche, all right?

Let me see if I can spell this right. I do not spell this word very often.

That might be hard for you to believe, but it is.

So you might go, wow, what weird names. Yeah, this was 2,000 years ago,

okay? So you go, why would anyone name their daughter Syntyche?

I don't know. I mean, that'd be crazy now.

But this might've been, she might've been the Caitlin of the Roman Empire. I don't know.

Like that, like, I don't know if this was a popular name at the time or not,

but this is a whole different culture 2,000 years ago. And these are two women's names.

Now, who else is mentioned by name in the story?

Okay, Clement, very good. All right, so I'm gonna put Clement on here,

but I wanna point out that Clement doesn't really have anything to do with this

story, this current disagreement that I can tell, okay?

He is mentioned, but he is mentioned in the past tense.

Like, in other words, I don't think he's a part of the story.

I think he's a part of the backstory, okay?

Euodia and Syntyche are disagreeing right now. They are mentioned as women who

had contended for the gospel at Paul's side, right?

They had worked with him along with Clement, past tense, right?

Back in the day, Clement had worked with Euodia and Syntyche and Paul.

That's his connection to the story. So I would say, we don't know with 100%

certainty or not whether Clement's even alive at the time that this letter was written, okay?

He's just someone that they knew back when Paul was first working with them.

So I'm going to cross him off just to eliminate any confusion.

I don't think he's a part of this fight, okay?

So we got Euodia and Syntyche. Now, there's another person in this story who gets brought up.

The last two names are more difficult to find than the first three.

But he says, I ask you true partner to help these women. So let's for now,

just put the word partner here, okay?

Paul refers to someone as true partner and asks that person,

assuming it's one, I guess it could be a code name for a group of people,

but I'm guessing this is probably a single person.

And he asks this person to help these women, help them what?

Obviously help them like iron out their differences, whatever they were, okay?

So who's partner? What's the deal here? So there's basically two options.

One option is, this is a nickname, okay? That there's like a codename or a nickname

that Paul used to refer to someone in the Philippian church and everybody back

then knew who he was referring to.

When he said, partner, help them, that all the Philippians would have been like,

oh, partner, we know the person who Paul always calls partner.

Yeah, we know who that is. So it could be that Paul was using this as a nickname

for someone in the church to help them.

Or it could be that partner was the guy's name, okay?

Some people have names that are not words, like Mario and Heidi.

Some people have names that are also words, like summer, clay, grace, right?

It might be that this guy's name was the Greek word for partner,

in which case, when you translate it into English, you should translate it as a name and not as a word.

It might be that this guy's name was Syzygous, because that would be the word

if you didn't translate it and you just kept it like a name.

In fact, you can look this up. You might go, wow, how do you know all this?

It's like literally in the Bible right here.

In this passage, Philippians and a lot of Bibles that have like little things

on the side will say this.

So in the passage, it says, I ask you true partner. And then there's a little note.

And if you look in the margins, it says, or true Syzygous, possibly a person's name.

Okay, so I don't know which one it is, but the point is these two women are

fighting and somebody says partner or Syzygous, help them, help them figure

this out. So they don't keep fighting.

Now, who's the fifth person? Anybody figured it out?

Okay, yeah, Paul. It's kind of hard to figure him out because his name is not

in there, but he is in there by way of pronouns, right?

Paul is the I in this passage, right?

I, the Paul's the one who wrote it. I urge you, Cynthia, I urge you,

Odea, and I urge Cynthia to agree in the Lord.

Yes, I also ask you true partner to help these women. So here's the story.

The apostle Paul hears about the disagreement between these two women and assigns

Syzygous or partner to help them, right?

Now, what were they disagreeing about? We don't know. Passage doesn't say.

Apparently everybody that received this knew, but we don't know all these years later, okay?

But what's interesting to me is I think this disagreement between these two

ladies and whatever it is they were fighting about, it must have been fairly

substantial because Paul hears about it from miles away, okay?

The reason we have Philippians is because Paul gave this message,

not in person, like I'm doing right now, verbally. He wrote it in a letter.

The reason he wrote it in a letter is because he was in a whole nother city

at the time. Okay. In fact, he was imprisoned probably in Rome for his faith.

So he writes this thing long distance and some messenger shows up in Philippi

and hands it to them. Okay.

So I guess what I'm saying is this, there's no way this was like,

well, I don't, I think that we should serve it decaffeinated.

Like, I just don't think it was some little, it was such a big issue that somebody

from Philippi went and hung out with Paul and Paul said, hey,

how are things going with the Philippian church?

And the guy went, well, pretty good, except Euodian Syntyche,

like bark, bark, bark. It's just not good.

They are fighting and it's bad. It's like splitting the church. It is not good.

And Paul goes, well, we gotta handle this. And so the message gets to him miles

away and he handles it long distance.

Okay, the second thing I was thinking is, I bet that these two ladies had no

clue that their argument was going to cause them to end up in the Bible.

Can you imagine it? Like, how embarrassing. Like,

Just think about this from their perspective. Like they're just thinking they're

having an argument, right?

Well, I'm not going to apologize till she says she's wrong, right?

They don't even realize there are going to be people talking about you 2,000 years later.

Millions of people are going to know you. And this is all they're going to know

about you. Like I'm assuming their names are in the book of life.

I guess they're in heaven right now going, this is all so crazy.

Do you realize the only thing anyone down there knows about us is this one fight?

We lived our whole lives. And this is the one thing we know about.

I would bet that if you Odi and Syntyche knew that what they were doing was

gonna cause so much discord that it was gonna end up in a Bible verse.

I bet they would have reconciled sooner. Don't you think?

Which is an application all of its own, isn't it? Like when you're fighting

with people, like you don't even know what the future holds.

You might go, well, I think I'll just hold this grudge a little longer.

You don't even know what that will affect five years from now or 10 years from now.

Okay, so the reason I bring up this passage is just to say it's really similar

to Matthew 18, but it's real specific to two people, okay? But it's the same idea.

When two Christians disagree, sometimes a third person needs to be brought in to help.

All right, now let's move on to the third passage.

The third and final passage of the day is 1 1 Corinthians chapter six, starting in verse one.

1 Corinthians chapter six is written by the same guy, Paul, but to a different

audience. Instead of writing to the Philippians, this time he's writing to the Corinthians.

Look what the issue is this time. He's writing and he says, if any of you has

a legal dispute against another, do you dare go to court before the unrighteous

and not before the saints? So let me pause right there.

So you can see people in Philippi obviously had some disagreements.

People in Corinth had some disagreements. So this idea when people go,

I can't understand why Christians don't get their act together and why are they fighting?

Well, just so you know, this is a thing that's gone back a long ways. All right.

Human beings and Christians in particular, right, have had times where we did,

they disagree and they fight and they dispute. And this is going back all the

way to the early church. Okay.

It's not like everything was perfect back then. And we thought we screwed it

up. Like sin was around then and now.

So he's saying to the Corinthians, if any of you has a legal dispute against

another, and obviously he was saying that because that's what was going on.

He says, do you dare go to court before the unrighteous and not before the saints?

He's using the word saints here.

You'll see as I keep reading, obviously to mean Christians like that are still

alive, not before the saints. Or don't you know that the saints will judge the world?

And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest cases?

Don't you know that we will judge angels, not to mention ordinary matters.

So if you have cases pertaining to this life, do you select those who have no

standing in the church to judge?

I say this to your shame.

Can it be that there is not one wise person among you who is able to arbitrate between his brothers?

Instead, believer goes to court against believer and that before unbelievers.

So if you have ever heard somebody say something

like uh the bible says christians shouldn't sue each

other okay have you ever heard anybody say that right this this

is the passage that comes from this is the christians shouldn't sue each other

passage and so paul is telling them not to do that clearly but it's interesting

to me like what the whole context is right these people are having these legal

disputes so they're going apparently to these courts that are part of the Roman

Empire's court system, right? To settle these things.

Paul tells them not to do that. But if you read the whole thing,

you can tell he's saying that.

He's not saying it as a way to say that a third party should never get involved

in settling a dispute, right?

He's not saying that. He's saying, don't let it be the Roman Empire, right?

So as you go, and if you keep reading, you'll see Paul thought it was bad that

they were fighting at all.

Like, I think he thought in an ideal world, you guys wouldn't fight with each other at all.

But if you're going to fight, okay, if that's going to happen,

then there's got to be a way that you do it, right?

And he doesn't say, never should a third party be brought in to settle a dispute.

He says, don't let it be the Roman empire.

Don't bring it to them. Now, why was he saying that?

I don't know. He doesn't say why, but I'm guessing it was probably something

along these lines. He could have been worried about the church's reputation?

Like, what does this say about us as the Christian church?

That we have such a hard time with our disputes that we have to go to people

who do not even believe in our God and get them to help us settle our disputes? That's embarrassing.

We're the citizens of the kingdom of God. And then we have to go to this kingdom

that doesn't even believe in our God and go, will you help us?

We can't fix our own squabbles without you guys weighing in on it. That's awful.

Or maybe he was concerned about the values of the Roman government,

right? That he's saying like, we're the people who understand God's will.

Like we understand right and wrong and what God wants us to do.

So then when you guys can't figure it out, you go to these people who don't

even believe in our God and even believe in our morality and get them to settle it.

So something like that, I think is going on. And so he says, don't do that.

Verse five is the one I really wanna focus on. Look what it says.

He says, I say this to your shame, which you can tell that means they were doing it.

And then this is a rhetorical question that you know what the answer is, right?

Can it be that there is not one wise person among you who is able to arbitrate between his brothers?

You're taking this to court because there's no one in the whole church who is

wise enough to help you settle this?

You know, he's saying that's impossible.

Now, there were other things in this passage that I'm not gonna get into fully

today because it's not part of the point, but I will just address it.

Remember how earlier than this verse, there was a section in there where he

talked about, we will judge angels, so why not ordinary matters?

I'm not gonna spend a ton of time on that, but I do wanna address it because

some of you might've read that and went, whoa, that's weird, what does that mean?

I think that Paul is referring to sometime in the future, probably after the

return of Jesus Christ, where there will be a time where Christians have a lot

more influence and a lot more governance than they do right now.

And it sounds like there's going to come a day when even angels will be under

the jurisdiction of human beings, okay? That seems to be what he's saying.

And he's saying that will be the case. It does not seem to me that that's the case now.

I've never judged an angel. I'm guessing you haven't either.

It doesn't seem that's the case now.

I think he's saying that is going to be the case someday in the future,

like after Jesus Christ returns.

But his argument seems to be, if we're gonna do that stuff then,

then why can't we handle just normal old human problems right now amongst ourselves?

So the main reason I'm bringing up this passage is to show you that I think

it agrees with Matthew 18 and with Philippians chapter four,

that there are times when a Christian third party should be brought in to help.

If you can't work it out, just between the two of you.

Now, I wanna go down just a little tangent before we close.

And the tangent is, if somebody says, okay, Mario, thanks. That was very helpful.

But what if I have a dispute with an unbeliever?

Okay, like I get what you're saying. And I think that I could see how that would all be helpful stuff.

But I'm thinking about the real things that are happening in my life.

And like my person would definitely not have a, you know, it's just like,

what if my dispute is with an unbeliever?

It seems like these passages aren't really about that.

Like Matthew 18 said, if your brother sins against you, go and show him his

fault. and then it moves on to advice that is given about or instructions that

are given about like a church that these two brothers share.

Philippians chapter four is about Euodia and Syntyche and their names are in

the book of life. Those were two Christian women.

First Corinthians six was about disputes within the church and not letting them

become things that are outside the church.

So what about non-Christians? None of these passages covered that,

Mario. What do I do with this person who's not even believer and I got this issue with them?

So I say to you, that's a good question. And I'm gonna try my best to answer

it. The first part of the answer might be disappointing to you,

but I'm gonna give it to you anyway.

It seems to me that the passages in the Bible that are the most helpful and

the most specific about conflict resolution are about Christians, okay?

I'm sorry, that's just the way it is. Like I didn't write the book, okay?

And God wrote the book and the book was written this way And the Bible seems

to be primarily written for believers as to how we are to operate in God's kingdom.

Now, the Bible does address conflicts with people who aren't necessarily Christians.

So the Bible doesn't assume like, well, there's never gonna be any contact that

we have with the outside world or there'll never be any disputes or discussions there.

Like that is a thing. And the Bible addresses those conflicts.

I'm gonna give you a couple of Bible passages that you can look up on that.

Matthew chapter five, verse 25 is one place you can go.

Romans chapter 12, verse 18 addresses it.

Romans 12:18

And I would encourage you to look up those passages and go by what they say.

Matthew 5, 25, Romans 12, 18.

But when you look them up, I'm just gonna let you know, you will notice they are much more general.

They are far less specific than the passages that I read to you this morning, okay?

They mostly say that we are to try to live at peace with everyone without giving

specific instructions about how to do that in each situation.

So that being the case, that leaves you with two options.

One option is you need to realize that not all of what we learned today will

apply to relationships with non-Christians.

Fair enough? Not all of it will apply. I mean, Matthew 18 is a great example, okay?

You cannot go, well, if you don't repent, I'm gonna treat you like an unbeliever,

right? They're gonna go, I am an unbeliever, right?

I've lost nothing. What's the big deal, right? The threat of church discipline

will not matter to someone who is not a part of the church, right?

They're gonna go, you're gonna kick me out? kick me out of the place that you

always keep asking me to go to. And I keep saying, no, I don't want to go.

Right? Obviously that part of Matthew 18 is not going to apply. Right?

So that's one option is realize not all of this will apply to every relationship you have.

The second thing you can do, and I think this is probably even broader than this morning's topic.

You can notice in Bible passages, principles of,

that are in the Bible passage. And once you understand the principle,

you can try to your best to apply that principle to other situations that aren't

exactly what the passage is about. Let me give you an example.

This was also is with Matthew 18. There was a guy that I knew,

this was years ago, and he was having trouble getting along with his mother. Okay.

It is an adult guy with his adult mom. And they were, they was having a difficult

time getting along and, you know, fighting. And I think there was a period of

time where they weren't talking.

And so he had mentioned to me like, oh, I'm having such a hard time getting along with my mom.

So at this point, and it's hard to remember because it was years ago,

but I think it might be true that this guy was not a part of a church.

And I think his mom was not a part of a church at the time. The reason I can't

remember is there were times that he was a part of a church and there were times

she was a part of a church. I think maybe at this part of the story though, they weren't.

But I guess the main thing that you need to know for the story to matter is

they did not have a congregation in common like Matthew 18 supposes.

You know how Matthew 18 says, if they don't listen to you, bring it to the church.

You might go, what church?

The assumption is the church that you guys share, right? Like you guys are believers

in Jesus Christ. Don't you guys congregate and know each other,

right? The church that you share.

So in this case, I believe these two people, they did not have a congregation in common.

So the guy says, I'm having such a hard time getting along with her. Okay. And I just will.

So I said to him, even though it's not exactly a church situation,

I was thinking in like Matthew 18 principles.

And so I said, well, have you gone and talk to her about it one-on-one and just

explain what the issue is?

And he said, yeah, and it didn't go well. And I said, okay, did you go back

a second time and bring a couple of other people with you?

And he said, no, why would I do that? Like, I didn't even like having the first conversation.

I have to go back and go again.

And I said, well, what if you went again and brought some other people?

And in this case, it's interesting.

They didn't have a congregation in common, but it was a mother and son.

They had a family in common.

So he brought two of his siblings with him.

Actually, I think three, but in particular, he had two sisters that he brought

with him, and they went and talked to the mom all together.

And on the second encounter, things went way better and they reconciled and

there were apologies and forgiveness granted and people were like,

you know, teary eyed and hugging and like, it went really, really good.

And what was interesting is I talked to him afterwards and he said,

he said, first of all, he said, I think that my mom was a lot more receptive

and humble when multiple of her kids were there.

Like she took it a lot more seriously and she wasn't so quick to dismiss what I was saying.

Like with, you know, the other kids there, it was like, you know,

it was like she was just a lot more apologetic, a lot more taking it seriously, a lot more humble.

And he said, and he said, and to be honest, I think that I was a lot more gentle

than I was the first time.

I think that I was much more careful. The first time it was just the two of

us. It was real easy to just pop off and just blah, blah, blah.

And you always, and you never, right? But then when my sisters were there,

I was like, oh, I don't want to do this wrong.

And he said, I was much more kind and much more careful.

And it worked the second time. And I thought about it. I'm like,

yeah, because that's the principle in this passage at work.

So back to the main point. I wanna tell you the main point of the sermon.

I'm gonna tell you four more times, but I'm not gonna say the same thing over

and over again because people stopped coming to church here if I did that.

Okay, so I'm gonna say it in four different ways. I'm gonna say it in my own

words, and then I'm gonna say it using the words of the three passages that we learned.

So here's the point this morning. My words.

In a conflict, if necessary, get help.

Through the lens of Matthew 18, we'll say it this way. If they will not listen,

bring one or two others along.

Through the lens of Philippians chapter four, let me say it this way.

If you can't agree in the Lord with someone, get a true partner to help you.

And now I'll say it through the lens of 1 Corinthians 6. In a dispute,

have a wise person arbitrate between brothers. Do you get it?

And these, what's interesting is the thing I'm telling you today,

all the stuff I'm telling you today, it's stuff that, it's not just okay to do it.

It's not like, it's like, oh, this is neat that the Bible has given us a strategy

that we could use in these situations.

This is what we're told to do, right? Jesus in Matthew 18 said,

do it this way. Not if you want to, but like bring one or two others along.

Paul said, do it. Syzygous helped them out. He said to the Corinthians, right?

Come on, get a wise person to arbitrate. These are, these are instructions.

These are commands, not suggestions. This is what we're supposed to do.

Christians should be people who are characterized by a strong desire for peace.

Peace with all human beings.

See Romans chapter 12, verse 18, and especially peace with our brothers and sisters.

Romans 12:18

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you that you have put so much in your word about this,

that we're able to go on and on and on about it for multiple weeks at this church.

Thank you for not leaving us without light, like without revelation to know what to do.

I thank you for Jesus. I thank you that Jesus came to die on the cross so that

we would be at peace with you, God, the father, that he brought about a peace

that we could have never done on our own.

And now that we are at peace with you, we are now in your family and we can

do our part at living at peace with one another.

So I ask that you would help us do that. And I know that's gonna be,

that's like a hundred prayers.

When I say, will you help us do that? Because there's so many people in this

room and they're different things.

Somebody's out there is gonna need to go, I need to stop taking offense and

somebody else is gonna go, I guess I gotta go talk to them again.

And someone else is gonna go like, sure, I'll go with you and talk to them.

I mean, I'd rather mind my own business.

But yeah, if you need my help, I'll help.

And so I just pray that you would guide us in whatever it is our next steps are.

I know it varies from person to person, But I pray that you would guide us,

that we would be your people of peace, that we would be motivated by your gospel.

We thank you that you would reconcile with us when we don't deserve it.

And I pray that you will help us to be good forgivers and rebukers and apologizers and arbitrators.

I just pray you'd help us to live at peace with everyone we possibly can.

We love you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.

Let me end with these good words from God's word. This is actually from 1 John chapter four.

Dear friends, let us love one another. Because love is from God and everyone

who loves has been born of God and knows God.

The one who does not love does not know God because God is love.

God's love was revealed among us in this way. God sent his one and only son

into the world so that we might live through him.

Love consists in this, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent

his son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. That's good news.