Mountains and Molehills

If you’d like to be making your way to the book of Phileiman, we’re going to finish up some thoughts uh this week on this little letter that Paul wrote. I hope that you’ve enjoyed working through the book of Phileiman. I know I’ve spent a whole lot more time in Phileiman over the last five weeks than probably I ever have before. And so I appreciate uh so much Jonathan sort of prompting that along the way. And I really enjoyed the time he was here.

um we were friends before he came, but I think it just kind of deepened our respect and relationship. And I I think we will uh continue to help each other out even though he’s in another place now doing other things. Uh we’ve already been communicating this week even about this sermon. And so I really do appreciate the hard work he put in while he was here uh and the good work he did. A lot of this came from him uh working on what we were going to do next.

he suggested this idea and actually had most of the sermons and we went through them and kind of reshaped them here and there a little bit, but a lot of this is from the mind of Jonathan. Um, I took some of that and sort of made it my own. So, I didn’t just preach his sermons, but he deserves quite a bit of credit for what we did here in the book of Phileiman. And so, I hope you appreciate uh that Jonathan’s a great thinker and got to enjoy that for a few months while he was here.

Uh, and I’m I’m excited to hear about the good work he’s going to continue where he is now in Kentucky. As we conclude this, I want to show you here in a minute where we’re going. Uh, we’re going to begin another series called Seek First, working on ordering our life as we’re beginning some things a new people are starting school, getting back to routines, really thinking about what actually matters most in our life. And so we’re going to spend some weeks uh really working and thinking on that concept in the months ahead, the couple months ahead.

Over the last five weeks, we’ve been working through the book of Phileiman, coming at this from different perspectives. We looked at Paul’s perspective in Phileiman’s and Onissimus’, and then Jonathan did a great job last week of talking about what it looks like to restore trust. How do we deal with having come through a conflict or having confronted someone who’s offended us? How do we then restore that? How do we come back into a union that God wants us to have uh live in a united way or as a fellowship as a group?

How do we go about doing that? And and so some of what we’re going to deal with this morning kind of builds on that and we’re we’re trying to look at this comprehensively. We’ve talked a lot about the need to get involved. And this morning is going to be a little bit more about how to evaluate various circumstances to decide whether we should be involved or not. Not every situation is a situation we should get involved in, right? If we recognize clear sin or we recognize a clear problem, we’ve already talked about the need to get involved in that.

Paul does that. And so, we’ve kind of used that as a model. But there’s also times even when I’m the one who’s been offended where love uh pushes me in the direction of overlooking that offense. And scripture has some things to say about that. So, that’s where I want us to head this morning. St. Cloud, Florida. In 2021, there was a simple political dinner that turned into a fullscale legal battle when the sitting mayor, Nathan Blackwell, reached across the table and casually took a single French fry off the plate of his political rival and former Councilman Jeff Higgins.

Instead of brushing it aside or laughing it off, Higgins claimed this was an act of physical intimidation. He called the police and filed formal misdemeanor battery charges, triggering a multi-week criminal investigation that forced detectives to interview witnesses and analyze restaurant surveillance footage. Higgins then used the open criminal investigation that he started as proof that the mayor was completely out of control and lacked proper decorum as a leader.

He wanted to get that video, of course, as any good politician does, to kind of gain some kind of advantage over his opponent. Of course, this is nothing new. Fortunately, it was eventually thrown out as ridiculous, seeing as it was, and Higgins efforts completely backfired. And we we can kind of chuckle and laugh at a story like this saying, “Well, this is just how politicians act.” And that’s true. Some of them do. Interestingly, these were both Republicans. They were both fighting.

It’s an internal fight, right? This is a a Republican dinner. They were on different sides of multiple issues. And so even though they were supposedly on the same side, they were fighting, as you can see happened in the story, to gain an advantage, to gain power. A mentor of mine once told me, “Wherever you have people, you have politics.” And sadly, this kind of pettiness can impact local congregations as well. We deal sometimes with personal issues or doctrinal matters.

Really, can be either one. Maybe it’s a look somebody gave you or we overanalyze a conversation we had thinking about all the details of what was said and what it might have meant. Or maybe we realize we were left out of something. You know, we see the pictures on Facebook or Instagram and well, they just purposely left me out. We began crafting the various stories in our mind about what was actually going on. And what I want us to think about this morning is that the last thing God’s people need to do is act like politicians.

Scripture warns us about such behavior. Paul says, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” Augustine considering this text wrote to a friend uh a friend who had asked him for some advice that theology should be done in the spirit of the incarnation. So he’s talking about Philippians 2 and the fact that Jesus he emptied himself and he came in the form of a man and he was humble and he was obedient obedient even to death on the cross.

And so Augustine continued that the theology in this spirit should be done first with humility, second with humility, and third with humility. And his point was that often it is pride and the behavior that follows that are the biggest threats to peace. The Proverbs help us with a lot of this. Jonathan brought these verses out last week, so we won’t spend a lot of time on them, but I just kind of want to revisit the idea. We’re talking about preserving fellowship. How do we maintain unity, the bond that comes through the spirit and being in Christ?

And he brought out a few of these verses from Proverbs, and I want to use another one uh this morning. So, I want to kind of link what we did last week, what Jonathan did with you last week to where we’re going to go here uh in just a moment. So, he brought out this idea that that problems are created when we are whispering and we are creating these problems. Uh and when we love, when we seek to love, often we can cover sins. We can cover problems.

And by covering, we don’t mean we just don’t deal with them or that we ignore them, but it’s not something that we wish to spread or create bigger problems with. And when there’s a lack of wood, the fire goes out. Just kind of this basic principle, the idea, if I keep throwing wood on the fire, it’s going to keep burning. And this is the kind of thing that causes problems. The wisdom of the Proverbs helps us with understanding how we can maintain fellowship.

And I want to pull us from those thoughts and the idea of restoring trust that Jonathan talked about to this idea is this question. Does this even need to be a conflict? You know, as I’m considering how I’ve been offended or what someone is I’ at least I think they’ve done to me or I think they’ve thought about me or whatever the thing is. Sometimes these are realities and sometimes they’re not. I want us to really ask a lot of questions this morning. A lot of the sermon this morning is going to be us thinking through some questions with really the key question being, does this actually need to be a conflict?

Is this something I really should pursue? And then maybe the follow-up question there is, how do I know? You know, I’m asking this question. Do I need to make something of this? Do I really need to to pursue this? And how do I know if this is something that I should actually make a conflict or I should actually confront somebody with? Someone does something I don’t like or someone says something I find offensive or someone makes a decision I don’t agree with or someone interprets a passage differently than I do.

Someone doesn’t meet my expectations in some way. Is this a mountain that needs to be climbed or is it simply a molehill I need to walk around and continue on in my life? The Proverbs offers I think some wisdom along these lines as well. It says good sense. This is Proverbs 19:1. This is sort of the anchor of what I want to do this morning. Good sense makes one slow to anger and it is his glory to overlook an offense. Now, let me kind of draw some comparisons and contrast to some of what we’ve talked before.

I’ve already spent some time talking about Paul and how Paul saw the situation. He saw the seriousness of it and he wanted to get involved. And some of these ideas and and concepts can apply certainly to the outsider, to the third party, but a lot of this is actually dealing with the person involved like me. If I feel offended, this is not a third party looking on and saying someone’s really being hurt by this. This is really critical. This is me in the moment having this feeling or whatever it is and trying to think through it carefully.

And right, good sense makes one slow to anger. Notice that between something happened and I must confront this there’s some thought that should take place, some careful thought. Good sense makes one slow here. It’s slow to anger and it’s a glory to overlook an offense. It may not be a glory to look overlook somebody else being offended, but it certainly can be a glory to overlook some way that I feel like I’ve been mistreated, right? If I can look at this and think I can move on. This is not something I have to pursue. I don’t have to make a big deal about this. Certainly, the wise man is saying that’s that’s a glory. That’s a good thing. Right? And that kind of perspective and the love that comes along with this, it can cover, as I said other places, a multitude of sins.

it can keep from that wood being thrown in the fire and problems being continued and stretched. And so I want us to consider the necessity of conflict by thinking through some questions this morning. First of all, before I confront an issue, before I make it a conflict, I need to ask, do I understand the issue? Do I really understand this deeply? I need to question my own understanding about whatever the situation is. There’s a lot of ways to do this.

Is this actually sin? You know, whatever it is that’s bothering me. Is this actually a sin or is it just something I don’t like? Did this person violate God’s will or is it just my expectations? Is this a matter of truth or is it just a matter of judgment? Paul spent significant time in Romans 14 dealing with the idea of Christians who have strong convention convictions and genuinely believe these convictions. But he also will not allow them to take every conviction and turn it into a standard by which they can judge everybody else.

That’s pretty clear in Romans 14. Do I understand the details accurately? Well, I think this comes in a couple forms. One of them can just be the facts, right? But also it can be scripture. So I want to kind of work through both of these. Proverbs 18, the one who states his case first seems right until the other comes and examines him. We’ve all experienced this probably as parents you know we have a child and runs of you know my sibling they hit me you know and there’s the whole story about what takes place and then sometimes maybe we have a witness or someone else who was there and said hey this is what actually happened right so the story sounds so good when you first hear it until you sort of get another perspective and you realize you didn’t have all the facts you didn’t actually have all the details have I heard both sides have I considered that both sides are probably biased.

Do I know what this person actually did? How many times do you get totally different details from different people involved? This is so I can tell you right now I I know of a situation doesn’t involve anybody here or anything here, but I’ve heard things from multiple directions. And you would think it was completely different events depending on who you’re talking to. You know, the one person’s telling me one story and one series of events and the other person’s telling me completely different story with a different series of events.

Have I actually thought deeply about all of that? What am I reacting to? Am I reacting to what actually happened or to the story that was spun? And so there is the matter of details and facts. Do I actually have all of those? Have I thought deeply about that? And then there’s maybe another side of this. Am I interpreting scripture correctly? That we have the personal side and then we have the doctrinal side. I I think with Phileiman and what we’re dealing with here, it is there are some certainly some doctrinal aspects to this. Like we need to be people who forgive if we want to be forgiven. And those principles sort of are underneath everything that’s going on here with what Paul’s doing.

But I think primarily this is a personal matter in some way. We don’t even know all the details, but Onysimus has wronged Phileiman. it it’s a personal matter that Paul decides is serious enough he needs to send Onysimus back and it needs to be taken care of and so sometimes it’s personal matters it is these interpersonal relationships and people are at odds with each other for various reasons and sometimes it’s doctrinal matters sometimes we have to decide is this something we really need to stand up against or is this something that someone has their opinion and I might disagree with that but we can we can go on and we can still be in fellowship but am I interpreting these scriptures correctly are we humble enough to distinguish what scripture says from what I believe about scripture.

And those two things may not always be the same. Obviously, they’re related because we are responsible to understand and obey scripture. But recognizing that my interpretation is an act of interpretation creates or should create a good bit of humility. Have I studied this carefully? Do I understand the context? Am I defending God’s truth or am I defending the way I’ve always understood God’s truth? And what I want us to understand about this is that is this isn’t some kind of relativism.

This isn’t some sort of like that’s your truth and this is my truth. What this is is precisely what serious Bible study looks like. That I’m willing to go to the word and I’m willing to confront even my own beliefs and challenge the things that I’ve always thought to see if that’s what scripture actually teaches. and particularly before I’m willing to create some sort of conflict over it because someone else says something different than what I’m used to.

Right? And so, do I actually understand the issue deeply or am I just reacting to something that makes me uncomfortable or that I’m not used to? I think the second part of this before I decide a conflict is worthy of confrontation is do I actually understand myself in this scenario? Back to Proverbs 19:11. Good sense makes one slow to anger. Am I actually slow in my response to this? Right? Have I thought deeply about the facts? Or is this an emotional reaction? Something that I’m being I’m being pulled on from some influence or some direction.

The wise person self evaluates. Paul says Galatians 6 and verse one. Here he’s speaking of someone who is found in a trespass, someone who is actually found to be in sin. He says, “You who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness, keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.” Back to the warnings that we see in scripture about and where we’re going to head with some of this is sometimes how we handle it is the worst offense of all, even more than the original issue.

And what Paul’s doing here, he’s warning people. It’s like, you who are spiritual need to handle this. And so my question is, as I’m coming at this from a spiritual standpoint, you know, what are my motivations? What is driving me? Am I in a place where I’m actually handling this the right way? Why does this bother me so much? These are the kind of questions I need to ask myself when I’m considering how to handle a perceived slight or an offense.

or even maybe a doctrinal matter. Why is it that this bothers me so much? Is it because I want to defend God’s uh word or is it because I want to defend what I’ve always believed? You know, what are the influences here? None of us approaches situations without a history, without family background, culture, uh church backgrounds that we’ve come from, personality, previous experience, teachers we’ve respected, fears that we have, friendships that we’ve made and that we’ve forged over time.

All of those influence what we notice, and how we interpret events in a word that’s called bias. The question isn’t whether I have biases. I do. So do you. We all have biases. The question is whether we recognize them sufficiently to submit them to God’s word. Whether we’re able to recognize the various biases we may have from those various sources. And if we’re able to kind of think independently of those within scripture and what God is actually guiding us to do or sometimes maybe within relationships.

Maybe it is our friend who has acted poorly. Maybe it’s our friend who has mistreated someone and we have to go to them and say, “You’re my friend, but this was not done correctly.” Or, “You’re my friend, but you are doing something that’s sinful.” Am I giving a pass to someone because of the relationship or because they’re family or whatever we’ve come up with that we wouldn’t necessarily give to someone else who is not a friend or is not family.

These are the kind of things we have to be honest with. And this is about asking, do I actually understand who I am and where I am in whatever this situation is? Is it really the conflict or is it me? Being convinced that I’m right is not the same as actually defending beliefs from scripture. And so as Augustine encourages, it is humility that comes before, during, and after that should influence all the aspects of how we deal with whether something actually should be a conflict.

What is my motivation? If I confront this person, what do I want to happen? Again, I think asking good questions can really help us. If I if I’m going to come to this person, what is my goal? What am I looking for to happen in this scenario? Am I looking for them to admit wrong and for us to try to restore the relationship? Am I trying to help them? Am I trying to help them see sin in their life and correct that or am I trying to embarrass them a little bit because I would like for that to happen and I want to look better.

Right? This is the concern. This is again what Augustine’s looking at here. And he talks about humility, the human condition that sometimes we are tempted to act in a way that’s contrary to Philippians 2. Not looking for out for one another’s interest, but in selfishness and conceit, acting in a certain way to get advantage or to get power. The temptation is real even for people who claim to follow Jesus Christ. Is the goal to restore them or to destroy them? All of this is why Paul says what he does in Galatians 6:1.

You who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Love asks what is best for this person? What is best for everyone involved? For the fellowship, right? We’re talking about preserving fellowship. Are my actions going to be what’s best for everyone who is involved? And so, as I said, what we’re trying to do here is really asking some deep questions really about ourselves. I mean, I I think we recognize this a lot of times in marriage.

It’s very easy in in a marriage relationship for us to see the problems with our spouse, right? We can identify the things that our spouse isn’t doing right. But how much does that actually help? What really helps is I’m humble enough and sincere enough to recognize my own failings. my own faults and see how they’re contributing to whatever is happening in whatever conflict we may be having. And I think then this all leads to this final idea and that is before a confrontation or before I decide that something is worthy of conflict, I need to ask what does love require?

I think this is a nuance thing. It would be very easy for us to say well love requires that we just overlook everything and we never confront anything. That’s what the world would like us to think. Uh that’s not the answer you’re going to get from me this morning. I don’t think that’s the way it is. But what I do need to think is after I’ve examined the issue, I’ve looked deeply, I’ve looked at the facts or I’ve deeply studied scripture on this and I’m I’m looking into my own heart, right? That’s what Galatians 6:1 is about. Am I actually looking into my own heart? I’m keeping watch over myself. Now I’m ready to ask what should be done.

Can I overlook this? I think Proverbs 19:11 says sometimes the answer to that is yes. And what that means is if I’m going to go that direction, which I think scripture guides us that we should go that direction, maybe that’s the typical direction we should go. But if I’m going to do that, this is a little bit like what Jonathan talked about last week with restoring trust. What that doesn’t mean is I’m going to overlook it, but I’m going to gossip about it or I’m going to keep score, right?

and I’m going to log that for later on, you know, so if I need that sometime down the road or maybe there’s other aspects of this, maybe I’m tempted to resent that person for a while. Now, if we’re going to overlook this, right, in a Proverbs 19:11 sort of way, those things are not what happens. I’m not going to spread this. I’m not going to throw wood on the fire. I I’m not going to have some relationship where they’re on probation, you know, I won’t invite them somewhere or I won’t go eat with them or or that sort of thing.

Now, if I’m truly going to follow Proverbs 19:11, then I have enough love to say, I love you enough to overlook this. And don’t we do this so frequently? I mean, I hope in your marriage you do this. If not, you probably just have constant controversy and that’s another issue to talk about. But, you know, as as we grow in our relationships, we get married and you’re kind of in that infatuation stage and everything seems wonderful. And then of course the longer you’re together you start to notice the little things here and there that sort of bother you and you decide is it worth bringing up or is it something I can just overlook and we go through this process and many of those things we overlook.

They aren’t that important and and we can do the same sort of thing with friends or with our children in any kind of relationship. There’s a process where we do this. If we truly love somebody, then often we’re going to overlook kind of the trivial things that actually don’t matter. Now, if it’s significant, if it’s really important, if it’s really going to bother us, if if I’m looking at the situation and I think in six months I’m going to resent this person or I’m going to be tempted to go talk about this or or whatever the scenario might be, that means you can’t overlook it.

How do I know this is something that has to be confronted if I can’t get past it? If it’s something that’s going to stick with me and it’s going to continue to create problems, this is a situation where I need to go to the at the very least go to the person and say, “This is something that’s bothering me and we need to talk about this.” But ideally, in many of these scenarios, whether it’s personal or even doctrinal, where we maybe look at a passage differently, and we do this all the time as well, too.

Uh we may see something slightly differently, we don’t make a mountain out of every single situation. And when that does happen, it just leads to all kinds of problems and difficulties and disunityity and disruptions of peace. But we also have to ask, will overlooking this actually be loving? And the reality is sometimes the answer to that is no. I think we see that here with Paul in the story we’ve been looking at. I mean, Paul could have just kept Onysimus there.

He would have liked to have done that. But it seems as we read the text, he determined that is not the loving thing to do. It’s not the right thing to do. Phileiman had been wronged. Something about the relationship had just been disrupted and that needed to be dealt with. It was a big enough deal. We read this in in Phileiman 17. He’s Paul is working through this. So if you consider me your partner or a fellow, receive him as you would receive me.

If he has wronged you at all and owes you anything, charge that to my account. I mean, this is serious enough that Paul’s saying, “Hey, I will take the hit on this. You two getting back together. This is extremely important and serious.” He says, “I write this with my own hand. I will repay it to say nothing of your owing me, even your own self. Yes, brother. I want some benefit from you in the Lord. Refresh my heart in Christ.” He’s recognizing, I think, the seriousness in both cases, right?

For Onysimus, he needs to make this right. He needs to come back and confront the problem that he caused. And with Phileman, there there’s some importance in how he handles this. And Paul ties this, you know, even to his own salvation. And just consider the way you receive Onissimus and the way you act in this scenario. It actually says something about where you where you are. It’s a lot about like the unforgiving servant. You know, you remember the story Jesus tells. The servant comes, he’s got this insurmountable debt, and the king lets him off, forgives him of his debt, and he goes out and strangles his brother that owes him a menial amount of money.

I think that’s the concept that Paul is wishing to kind of import here in this text. Remember what was done for you, Phileiman. Remember that you even owe me your own self because I’ve brought the gospel to you. You were delivered. you were saved by this. Keep that in mind. I think Paul is very smart in how he handles this. Again, he’s not trying to force them into anything. But he does want them to think very, very carefully about their scenario.

And this was serious enough to address. He couldn’t just leave this alone and not take care of it. And there are situations where silence isn’t love. Is there a genuine sin? We’re not just talking about matters of opinion, but a a clear sin. It’s not loving to just stay silent with that. Are people being harmed? You know, are there people being harmed in this scenario? Is it impacting relationships in the body of Christ? Right? Serious questions about the things that are taking place.

And in fact, scripture points us this way in Matthew 18, in Galatians 6, as we’ve already looked at. It’s not loving to not deal with those. Those texts remind us that sometimes love means we walk toward the problem and we address it. And what I’m not here to tell you this morning is that everything’s a molehill and we just walk around and we try to ignore it all and act like everything’s fine and there’s no big deal. That’s that would not be a biblical message.

Some problems are mountains that we have to climb. And so we have to work hard in asking these questions of ourselves to determine what this actually is. And so as I said from the very beginning, I think the sermon primarily is just asking questions. Do I understand the situation? Is this actually sinful? Right? And this is this is helping me understand. It’s slowing down the process before I begin to confront something and then find out later I actually didn’t have all the details.

Have you done that before? I know I have. When I was younger, there was a situation. I won’t give a lot of details, but um we weren’t really involved, but you know, as always tends to be the case, the people involved want to get you on their side, right? And we were friends with one of the people who was involved in this. And of course, we heard their story and and it was a complex situation and there was definitely some wrong done to them, but the reality is we hadn’t actually heard the whole story.

We were probably 25 or 26 at the time. It is just extremely easy, and this has happened more than once in my life. It’s extremely easy to hear one side of things and think you have all the answers. So, I have to be willing to ask, do I really know this? It’s also really easy to think, hey, this is what I believe about this passage, and I’m 100% certain about this without having actually thought about a lot of the details. I I can tell you right now, I’ve been there, too.

And then through dialogue and discussion and deeper study of scripture, I realized there were some things I didn’t see, some things I didn’t realize. I have to ask, what are my motivations? And why am I so upset about this? What’s driving this? These are the kinds of questions we have to ask. And how do I actually act in a loving way? Because this is the end of this. This is where I really want us to focus. Here’s the warning. And what we’re seeing in places like the Proverbs, in places in the New Testament, too, like Galatians 1.

How I handle the issue may be more serious than the issue itself. How many times have we seen a minor issue whether it’s in our personal lives or within the body of Christ where it ends up people respond with gossip or anger or arrogance or suspicion or contempt or division or broken fellowship and maybe the problem itself was actually a molehill but pride became the mountain. Anger became the mountain. Gossip became the mountain. vision became the mountain.

And what I want us to consider in all of that, whatever the scenarios are you’ve seen in your life where those kinds of things took place, the wisdom of Proverbs 19 suddenly sounds extremely wise. Good sense makes one slow to anger. And it is his glory to overlook an offense. Don’t run to the elders when someone steals your fry. That’s the message. Let’s be a little more careful. Right? This is what scripture is telling us about how offended we get at things or how quickly we want to jump on something.

Uh, so often there’s just been misunderstanding, particularly with things that people say or that look that someone gave us or whatever it might be that we assume means this great big deal. And so often we don’t even have a clue about the whole story. Maybe they’ve had a terrible day and they’re telling somebody about it and they glance over at us and we can see the frustration in their face and we somehow think that’s directed at us. And so often I think this is just a good principle to live by.

So often I think we just have to realize doesn’t have anything to do with me. We assume so many things. It’s so easy to do. And that’s why it’s so helpful when we are truly bothered and it feels like something we can’t get past that we actually go talk to the person. What did you mean by this? I just want to know. Have I done something wrong or is there something I upset you with? Right? And we clear the air. we find some clarity about what took place rather than sit in our assumptions.

Sometimes love requires the courage to say we need to talk. And I appreciate so much people in this uh congregation who’ve done that. They’ve done that for me or for my children. And that pays uh huge dividends when a true friend is willing to come to you and to help you with something that you’re struggling with, to help you improve some things about yourself. Sometimes though, love requires the maturity to say, “This doesn’t need to become a conflict.

I I just don’t need to make a big deal about this.” And sometimes the greatest threat to fellowship isn’t the original offense at all. It’s my inability to tell a mountain from a molehill. So I think we’ve come quite a ways here from this small little book in Fleiman talking about the various aspects of how to deal with conflict. But I think I want to summarize it with this one line here on the screen behind me. Preserving fellowship requires humility, taking responsibility, offering forgiveness, having courage to do the right thing, and being loving in the process.

And I I think if we are honest with ourselves, that is really difficult. Probably it’s why we have this little book to help us. I’m sure at some way and in some form we’ve allowed our biases to control us at times. And that’s why we need messages like this. What we’re seeing from Phileiman and from this letter and from other parts of scripture to help us slow down and think carefully and really question is what I think happened actually what happened?

And in this way, with this kind of wisdom, the good sense that the wise man encourages us to have, maybe it could be that so many problems could be avoided. I really appreciate your good attention over these five weeks. Uh, and the comments that I’ve heard both about the things Jonathan has said and the sermons I’ve preached. I I think this is material. Jonathan and I talked about this. I think this is material that’s needed all over the place. um the various conflicts that you see and you hear about all over.

People desperately need to consider scriptural ideas about how to handle conflicts with each other. And it is important that we do this well, not necessarily to prove ourselves right all the time, but that we exhibit godly attitudes because what we sacrifice when we don’t do that is our witness. people look at us, that’s what followers of Christ are like. That’s how they treat each other. I don’t want anything to do with that. Or maybe in our effort kind of like this politician to uh criticize and to pull down somebody else, we actually end up hurting our own reputation and our own character.

All of these things are at play when we don’t follow the good wisdom that’s given to us in scripture. What God wants for us and what Jesus wants for us is transformed hearts. He wants our heart to be with him and to follow him. And that’s what I want for you this morning as well. If you know you need Jesus Christ in your life, if you know you need to be part of a group of people who want to follow Jesus, that’s what we’re trying to do here. We don’t always do it perfectly. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we don’t think with the right perspective and we have to correct course. If you’re like that, then you’re like we are.

But we want you to join us and be a part of this fellowship of people who are trying to live for Jesus and to follow him. Scripture tells us pretty simply how to begin that process. It is the very beginning that we give our life to Jesus Christ. We take up our cross and we follow him. And Jesus says you need to repent and be baptized. Right? This is how you find the forgiveness of sins. And then you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit which is life. You go from a a state of death. You go from a state of not being who you’re supposed to be to when you are baptized into Christ and you are resurrected in newness of life.

Now you are one and you are in fellowship with him. And so we’ve been talking a lot about preserving and the fellowship of the body. But a lot of these things also relate to the fellowship that we have with God. And if you need that this morning, we’re ready to help you. Why don’t you come down while we stand and we