The Incredible Value Of Harmony

Good morning.

Our teaching text this morning is found in Psalms 133.

I want to put O in front of how, because every time I say this scripture, I think, oh, how good and pleasant it is when God's people live together in unity.

It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down on the collar of his robe.

It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion.

For there the Lord bestows his blessings, even life forevermore.

Good morning.

Welcome to Christ Community Church.

I am happy that you're here, and I'm more happy to be here.

I'm happy you're here.

Happy to be here.

Thanks for coming.

Um I feel like we're way back.

Dang.

Hello, hello, hello, hello.

Um, anyway.

Uh quick announcement.

Uh next Sunday is my last Sunday as the pastor of this church.

And um we're gonna have a little going away party, although it's not really going away, but just a little, whatever you want to call it.

Retirement.

Retirement party, yeah.

Yeah.

Uh next Sunday night, 5 o'clock, Kim and Jerry's house.

Um, and there'll be food, everyone's invited.

Uh, if you have children, they're invited, and uh it's just gonna be simple and straightforward.

There ain't gonna be any testimonies or speeches because I hate those.

And so we're not gonna do that.

But if you want to write me a little note and put it in a there'll be a bowl there, and you can put a little note in there if you want to do that.

That's that's fine.

And Shirley will read them to me.

But um anyway, that's that's it.

That's the truest thing he has said yet.

I will open them and read them aloud.

People hand me notes all the time, and I'll just lay them down and Shirley.

She'll break an ankle trying to get over and open that thing and see what it says.

So anyway, um, yeah, we're gonna look at Psalm 133 today.

And uh just start off by asking you a question.

Okay.

You've you've written about this in the past, but to be honest with you, I forgot what your focus was.

Okay, so it might be similar, it might be different.

But you have mentioned to me in the past how one person or one family or one group or one nation runs the gamut, can go through a difficult, painful, tragic experience, and another individual, another family, another group, another nation, can go through the exact same experience, the same pain, the same tragedy, and years later you talk to them or you watch them, and one has been able to move forward, go on with their life, and the other one, it's like that pain and tragedy happened yesterday.

It's still first and foremost on their mind, their words.

It still has such a powerful, I want to say, control on their lives.

Wonder why.

Well, if we could figure that out, we could write a new book.

We could write a new book.

Um, you you we all know that there are uh countless reasons why some people seem to be able to move forward after pain more easily than others.

Um but at least one of the reasons is um I read I'm reading a book.

I'm just reading a regular novel, and this morning I was reading it, and I came across this line that I think will help.

Um the their family is falling apart for a variety of reasons, and one of the is four daughters and a mother and father, and one of them says this there is an infrastructure of grudges that shapes our extended families and keeps us from one another.

And I I thought, oh my goodness, I think that's what we're talking about today.

This idea of lack of harmony.

Um you have we have wounded one another, we families have wounded one another, whatever.

And um It can be individuals, it can be families, it can be groups, it can be nations.

Yeah.

I think that belief that harmony can exist again is a big part of it.

Um faith that harmony in a relationship can exist again.

That God's bigger than the problem.

He is able to do something greater than the pain that was caused by the problem.

Yes.

Um I think that it is a a question of looking forward rather than looking to the past.

The pain is in the past.

I'm not saying that it's not there.

We all can think of a pain right this minute that's like that that's my big one, that's my big one.

But that's in the past, and what about the future?

How much of that am I willing to drag with me into the future is a part of this?

Um that's that's my big belief as well.

That the reason so many of us we go through the same pains as others.

We go I'm not the only one that went through a divorce.

I'm not the only one that went through an affair.

I'm not the only one who had a child that passed away or went away.

I'm not the only one that was fired ruthlessly by my company that I gave 40 years to.

I'm not the only one.

I'm not the only one with an illness that has just changed and limited my life.

I'm not the only one.

But how come some people can move on and some people can't?

And I think there are, as you address so wonderfully, there are many reasons, okay?

And no one's pretending that it wasn't real pain or real wrong, but I do think a part of the answer is, do I value the past more than I value the future?

Or, turn it around, do I value the future more than I value the past?

Do I value what can be versus what has been?

And some people value the past.

I focus on justice and vengeance and uh uh uh playing the role of a victim more than I focus on what God could do in the future in my life if I actually believed that he was greater than my problems.

Greater than my failure, greater than your problems and your failure.

If I can actually believe that.

And just because I like this line so much, I'm gonna go back to it one more time, this line from that novel, um, that we build or can build or have built this structure, this infrastructure built on grudges and grudge holding.

And so it's so big and so firm that to leave it behind or Lord help us tear it down, begin to tear it down, is so big to think of that I I don't want to look at the future.

I I'm comfortable here, even though in my grudge holding.

What's the word?

Being familiar with what I know, which so often is pain, is somehow more comforting than the scariness of the future.

And and um To trust somebody again after I've got this thing built is is difficult.

Whether it's a person or it's God, I trusted you in this situation and in my way of thinking, you failed God.

God, you failed me.

I I married this person, I gave birth to this child, I took this job, whatever it is, I was trusting you for that to turn out a certain way, and it didn't.

You failed me.

Now I'm not saying God failed me, but I I feel that way.

I operate in that place.

Or yeah.

I want us to think about Psalm 133 today for just a few minutes.

David wrote this psalm.

I find it very significant, that he wrote this psalm 3,000 years ago.

And he wrote it later.

Probably, the smart people that I read would say that David wrote this psalm near the end of his life as he was looking back on his life.

And he, let me just read it to you one more time.

How wonderful and how pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony.

For harmony is as precious as the anointing oil that's poured over Aaron's head and that runs down on his beard and onto his robe.

Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion.

And it's there the Lord has pronounced his blessing.

Yes, blessings that produce life forevermore.

Listen to those adjectives.

Wonderful, pleasant, precious, refreshing.

We know we want this.

Who doesn't want that?

But the the barrier from here to there is big.

And I think that's what you're going to address today.

David evaluated, was looking back on his life.

And what the psalm is really saying, what David is really declaring is, God, I've had a great life.

I have been blessed in many ways.

But when I look back on my life, the thing that I longed for the most is something that I did not experience often.

And that is harmony.

I was rich, victorious, popular, handsome, top of the food chain.

But God, when I look back over how me and my brothers treated each other, his literal blood brothers.

I look back on when I was serving under the throne of or the reign of Saul.

I look back on my relationship with my general, my right-hand man Joab.

I look back on my marriage to Michael.

I look back on my kids and how they treated me and how they treated each other.

And there was such division, such animosity, such ill will.

And that, if I could have it, if I could do it over again, what I wished I had focused on more, and what I wish I had neglected less was creating harmony in my life and in my relationships.

I have been a God even said it, Solomon, you're going to be the one that builds the temple.

Why?

Because David has been fighting all of his life.

He has been in battle, in conflict, in war all of his life.

And David declared that there was nothing more valuable to him than harmony.

And uh he uses some pretty bold metaphors just to communicate how desperately he longed for that, how he regretted neglecting that.

He uses two.

One is he said, it's it's like when a high priest would die, and for a brief period of time there would be no high priest.

The person that represents me to God, the person that represents God to me, the person that stands in the gap between me and God, the one that is responsible to make sure that me and God are good, the one that is continually interceding for me, offering sacrifices for me, showing me how to walk with God, he's not here.

And for a Jewish person, that gap when there was not a new high priest was terrifying.

Because their relationship with God was in jeopardy.

And then they would blow these big honking trumpets, and which was assigned to gather in Jerusalem or wherever they were gathering at this time, and they would all gather and a new high priest would be presented.

And they would take this oil which symbolized that this is now our chosen representative, and they would crack open this bottle, and this oil would spill down over his head and his beard and his robe.

And it was the it was the indication, the declaration, all is good.

Now I'm good with God again.

My connector between me and God is there again.

I'm safe, I'm good, I'm healthy, I'm whole because I now have a healthy, righteous relationship with God again through the ministry of this high priest.

And then he says, I tell you what it's like as well.

It's like water.

Um my daughter and I, uh, I almost told you this story last week, but I ran out of time.

Um we, when when Rainey uh uh graduated from high school, God provided, that's what we talked about last week, was God's provision.

God, and when I tell you, he supernaturally provided, he provided the money for Rainey and I to go to Israel.

We were on this tour and we we were, you know, had this uh ex.

He was a retired Israeli general in the military.

And he was also a uh uh Israeli historian.

And just because he was bored, he said, I started giving tours.

He said, I didn't need the money, I just didn't have anything else to do, so I started doing these tours.

And he was unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

But he said something that I'll never forget.

He said, Do you know what the most precious possession in Israel is?

Do you know what is guarded more than anything?

Ah, Liz was with us?

Yeah, I just looked over there.

Liz was with us on this trip.

Golly sucker bill.

It's amazing.

Anyway, uh, but this general, he said, Do you know what's the most precious, valuable, and well-guarded thing in all of Israel?

The Sea of Galilee.

Far more than any border, he said, we protect the Sea of Galilee more than anything in Israel because that's our water source.

And if we lose that, we cannot function as a nation.

Never forgotten that.

And in a desert climate, in a climate where there isn't water, you don't see any lakes.

Look on a map of Israel.

Look at all the lakes that run through the the center section of Israel.

There are none.

There are none.

Water is of utmost importance and value.

And what David is saying, oh, to have harmony with my wife, my kids, my co-workers, my boss, my countrymen.

Oh, to have harmony in my life and in my the relationships that matter.

It's more valuable.

What he's really saying, it's more valuable than my relationship, my spiritual relationship, and it's more valuable than that which gives me life.

Water.

That's really what he's saying.

And he regrets that he had not focused on it more.

Three thousand years after David prayed that prayer, made that declaration, lifted up that wish, don't you know that the people in the Middle East today are not wishing for the same thing?

Oh, that we had harmony.

Oh, that we did not live in such violent angry hatred.

Oh, that we had harmony.

David declares there's nothing more vain.

This was such an important psalm that it became one of the psalms.

Only a handful was this true of, but for the next thousand years, give or take, 700 years.

For the next seven hundred years, when the Israelites would travel from their homes to Jerusalem for their feast, they chose just a handful of psalms to sing along the way.

And every year, three or four or five times a year, the Israelites would would be heading toward Jerusalem, and they would sing this psalm.

This song.

And I think it's significant.

They were coming from different parts of Israel, different parts of the empire that surrounded them, that rich people, poor people, people from different cultures, different uh uh uh educational.

Backgrounds, men, women, children, smart people, dumb people.

Everyone was coming from such a diverse background, but they were all heading, future, they were heading in the future to this singular place, this central place, the temple in Jerusalem, where they came to receive forgiveness, they came to give thanks, they came to ask for future blessings, they came to worship the God of Israel, they came from all this variety and diversity, but they were coming to do a singular thing, an agreed-upon thing.

And it's just a beautiful picture of how the people in the Bible, and I believe the author of the Bible, even more so, values harmony.

I think of the very first story in the Bible after humanity gets kicked out of the garden.

Very first story.

They're now out of Eden, well, they're out of the garden.

They're out, very first thing that happens, Cain and Abel.

And the story of Cain and Abel declares and reveals the consequences of relationships where disharmony is allowed to continue.

What it says, Genesis 4.

The Lord asked Cain, why are you so angry?

Why do you look so dejected?

You will be accepted if you just do what is right.

But if you refuse, then watch out.

Sin is crouching at the door and is eager to control you.

And I would suggest to you, like most saints, there's a season when we choose to do wrong.

But if we don't address that seriously and effectively, there will be a season when we can't choose anymore.

Pharaoh is a perfect example.

Ten times the Bible says Pharaoh hardened his heart.

Pharaoh looked into the face of Moses as God and said, No.

But after the tenth time, there's another ten times.

And the Bible says, God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

And that was language that was communicating.

Pharaoh had lost the ability to choose.

Now he was no longer the master of his fate.

His bad choices now mastered him.

And I think that's what God is telling Cain.

Cain, oh my goodness, son, your parents screwed up.

Don't make the same mistake.

Choose right, and you've got a bright future.

But if you choose wrong, if you allow disharmony into your relation, your family relationships, it's like a wild animal crouching, seeking to destroy you.

And you've let him in.

Thank you.

Yes.

I think Abraham, father of our faith, Father Abraham, had many sons.

You know the story, the song.

Abraham understood the value of harmony.

God sends him to the promised land.

Everything in the promised land is his.

You pick.

I will take seconds with harmony, then demand what is mine with disharmony.

It's a powerful, powerful image.

Abraham, and what the verse says is this, it's so cool.

It says in Genesis 13, a dispute erupted between the servants of Abraham and Lot.

And then if you're not careful, you'll blow right by this next verse.

It says, at that time the Canaanites and the Perizzites also lived in the land.

Why would Moses stick that in there?

Who cares?

Who cares is Abraham understood what most of us don't.

If I'm going to survive and thrive in this journey called life, I better get along with those that are that God has surrounded me with.

Because it is life and death.

There's a mean world that would like nothing more than my demise, my failure, me missing out on everything that God has for me.

And Abraham understood that if his family was going to survive in a mean, hostile world, he had better make things right and not allow disharmony enter into his family.

The writers of the gospels, the writers of the epistles, the Lord Jesus Himself, above all.

You could answer this question many ways and be right.

But I want to suggest to you there's no more right answer than the answer I'm going to give you to the question.

What's the New Testament declaring?

What's the New Testament all about?

What's Jesus coming to this world and living and dying and rising again and at work creating a new eternal kingdom that will be a part of?

What's that all about?

Why does that matter?

And I would suggest to you there are many answers to that, but one right answer is God values harmony.

We had disharmony between us and God.

Adam and Eve started it, and I've continued it, and you have too.

And God said, I don't want to, I don't want a creation that is dominated by disharmony.

That is not, that's unacceptable.

And it was so unacceptable that God sent his son to die on a cross so that we could experience harmony with him and harmony with one another.

The Bible heroes, the Bible writers, and the king of the Bible, they all declare to us we should value harmony.

It matters.

It matters more than we realize.

That's why Paul says in Ephesians 4, end all bitterness and rage and anger and harsh words and slander and all types of evil behavior.

Instead be kind and tenderhearted, forgiving to one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

This will surprise most of you, but I'm pretty fond of my daughter.

I think she's great.

I mean, she's great.

And that's because of my wife's influence on her and the ministry of the Lord Jesus in her life.

But I get tickled because I drive my grandson back and forth to school on a daily basis, and we'll be driving along, and he'll be telling me something.

And all of a sudden, these little things will shoot out of his mouth that I know he heard from his mama.

And what I forgot, I forgot this one that I'm trying to say, but the one about the Seegers family, we don't let problems what's it called?

What's that?

Fix and forgive.

Yeah, the Seegers family fixes and forgives.

We don't let things linger.

We don't let things go on.

We don't let things be drawn at.

The Seegers, we were right along the topic.

He said, lad, you know the Seegers family, we fix and forgive.

And I didn't say anything for a minute, but the longer I drove toward his school, the more I.

Oh my gosh.

My daughter is teaching my grandson that harmony matters.

That it's a big deal.

And that whatever we've got to lay down, whatever.

I'm not suggesting that wrong doesn't matter.

I'm not suggesting that we need to cover it up or ignore it or live in denial.

I'm not suggesting that conflict isn't important and it needs to be addressed.

I'm not saying that because it doesn't.

I'm not suggesting, well, in fact, I am suggesting there are times when the wounds, the convict are so serious, so deep, that maybe we need to get some help from somebody that is trained to help us work through those things.

I'm not talking about just acting like everything's okay when it's not.

That's not what I'm saying.

That's not what we're saying.

That's not how we live, just so you know.

But I am telling you, we value, and I'm now the beneficiary of this, we have valued a bright future over our 42 years together more than we have valued the wrongs and the failures of the past.

I don't want to miss out on the great future that God has for us.

And I'm not, that's the good, that's my somebody, Randy said something about a testifying.

I'm testifying that I'm enjoying the bright future that God has for me because we valued the future through the lens of making harmony happen more than we valued holding on to wrongs and wounds and all that kind of stuff.

Anything you want to add to that, Brent?

Amen to that.

I'll add that.

Um I do think that what what holds us back, perhaps, is that we all feel that our particular wound is the biggest one.

That that it's just you that we feel real singular, I think.

I think people feel singular in that.

Well, you just don't understand quite how bad that is, or how bad that was or how difficult that person is, or whatever.

And and I understand that feeling, I think everybody understands that feeling.

Um but it does bear repeating that we all that's not true.

It's it's all of us feel that.

Yeah.

Yes.

Everybody who hurts hurts.

It's my there's just such a temptation to make my wound or your wrong bigger than what the rest of humanity has to deal with.

And so we hold that up as our I don't hate to say it an idol, but we we hold that thing up as bigger.

And so when we focus on that, talking about this idea of the future, when we focus on that thing, then I quit seeing past it.

And then I start loving it or worshiping it or holding or whatever verb you want there.

And I quit looking past it.

And so this message is about moving with hope past that to a future that does exist, can exist by our choice.

And it to recognize the necessity of it, I cannot achieve and experience God's best alone by sh throwing people out the window, out the door as I travel along, because to live as if they're not needed and vital and necessary and important.

Yeah, I can do it, but I'll miss what God has for me.

And one last thing I would just add to this is harmony is a gift that God gives us.

But it's like a baby.

I was holding Bethany's little baby Ezra a little while ago, and I mean, what a gift, what a gift.

But it's a gift that must be protected and nurtured and developed.

It's not just something that you get, it's something that must be pursued and with the people in my life.

Am I pursuing that harmony?

Am I initiating?

Am I uh uh developing that?

Am I investing in it?

Am I sacrificing for it?

Or am I just sort of going through life?

And well, if if you want to be harmonious with me, Brenda, I'm open to that, but I'm gonna put it all on you.

That person dies a lonely, isolated, sad life.

Versus the one that says, God has put people in my life, and they are valuable, and I'm gonna do everything I can to keep us in the same boat so that we can go through life first class rather than beating.

Thank you.

I wanted to do something.

Uh, we're gonna celebrate the Lord's Supper here in just a minute.

But before we do that, I wanted to give us, I had something else that I was gonna, that we were gonna teach today, and I've been working on it for two weeks.

And I guess it was Wednesday, I read Psalm 133.

And man, just in the light of what's going on in Gaza and Israel, and just the lack of harmony there, and how that has been held on to and built on and expanded and by both sides.

You want to make a villain out of some and a victim out of some?

Good luck.

The truth is, nobody has sought peace, nobody has valued harmony, and that's what you get.

That's what you get.

And I'm not I'm not trying to blame or justify, I'm just saying, I'm saying what I'm saying.

I wonder if there are relationships in our lives that are not harmonious.

I wanted to justifying the wrong that was done, the failure that happened.

But I I've just I've been so focused on the past wrong that I have I've just neglected the bright future that God has for me and mine.

So before you come up to take the Lord's Supper, I just want to invite you to just take a moment.

Just and Christopher, if y'all don't mind, y'all just, y'all are good.

Y'all just y'all participate with us today.

I think y'all probably got a lot of people you need to fess up to and pray about, so y'all just participate.

But before you come up and celebrate the Lord, before we take that which God sacrificed, the blood and the body of his son to create real harmony.

Before we do that, how can we hold his body and his blood in our hands and participate in God's means of harmony and just be in these disharmonious or whatever the word is, these relationships that lack harmony.

I don't think that's good.

Maybe that's what Paul was talking about.

Don't take the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner.

That doesn't end well.

And I don't, I'm not trying to offer simple, easy solutions to very complicated, deep pain and problems.

I'm not I'm just, I believe God wanted us to declare to you and to remind I don't know about you, but me.

Am I valuing harmonious relationships like God does?

Because they're a matter of life and death.

And am I willing to to begin to do things to create and promote harmony rather than just whatever else?

I want you to think about that, maybe even pray about that.

Maybe God has something that if you just ask him, if you just stop a minute and ask him, God, what are you saying to me?

What do you want?

How do you want me to respond?

Um I believe he'll show you.

I believe he'll show you.

I believe he'll show me.

So just take a moment and bow your heads and close your eyes and talk to him.

He's the one that has life for us and help for us.

And in a minute when you feel ready, you come and you celebrate the Lord's Supper.