The title of this morning's sermon is Temptations the Church Faces. Did someone put this up a little higher? Did someone? Sorry, I'm going to put it down just a little bit. I just noticed it. Did it feel higher to you too? Who did that? makes me feel shorter, which I don't need to feel. So the title of this morning's sermon is Temptations the Church Faces. For any of you new to joining us, we're in a series on temptation. My suspicion is the moment I say the title of the sermon, you probably say he's going to talk about all the temptations that the church faces, and I am going to do that, and I expect to conclude about 3 p.m. on Tuesday. No. There's a few temptations that we're going to be able to cover. I had to take a few out. We're going to discuss three temptations. I had more, but they wouldn't fit in the sermon. Just to let you know, one of the lessons I took out related to false teaching. And another one, I wanted to discuss the temptation for churches to be seeker-sensitive. And I took that one out just to let you know, because we have two sermons on the website called Vision for WCC. There's two parts to it. And I would encourage you to listen to that and why we're not a seeker-sensitive church. So I don't wanna repeat myself there. Now the first two temptations that I'd like to discuss that I think the church faces relate to last Sunday's sermon. You could say the last week's sermon served someone as a foundation for this morning's sermon. So let me briefly review some of the things that we talked about. We discussed the Supreme Court's decision regarding all or requiring all states to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples. We also discussed homosexual curriculum in schools, reaching all the way down to five-year-olds. I identified the Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia and the Clark County School District in Nevada as examples for you. We discussed some of the recent laws that are coming out to defend, or they would say, to prevent discrimination against transgenders. We talked about how 15-year-olds in the state of Oregon can have a gender reassignment surgery without their parents' permission and how the state will pay for that. And we talked about the recent movement to award men like Bruce Jenner or Michael Sam because of their transgenderism or because of their homosexuality. And these issues bring us to the first temptation that I see the church facing. So lesson one in your bulletins, Temptations the Church Faces, Part One, Approval of Sin. Temptations the Church Faces, and Part One is Approval of Sin. I want to back up a little bit so that we can hopefully see things accurately. I want us to consider this for a moment. We shouldn't be surprised by the Supreme Court's decision, because the Supreme Court is not a group of Christians. It's not a group of individuals who identify themselves as Christians. They don't get together as individuals claiming to follow Christ or claiming to follow the Bible and say things like, what does the Bible say about this? Or how does the Bible address this situation? Or how would God view the decision that we're making? And so when individuals without that mindset, without that heart for the Lord come together, are they gonna come up with biblical decisions? No, they're not. So we shouldn't be surprised by those decisions that the Supreme Court makes. In fact, we should expect it, you could say. But here's what should surprise us. We should be surprised when people who call themselves Christians, who claim to follow Christ, or claim to follow the Bible, see these decisions and do what with them? approve of them, celebrate them, exactly, agree with them. And unfortunately, that's what we see with some churches and with some people who call themselves Christians. Now, when the Supreme Court's decision was made, for any of you who were on Facebook, I don't often discuss Facebook and church, but for any of you who were on it, you know that there was this tool, it seemed, that allowed you to put the homosexual rainbow pride, or the pride rainbow over your profile picture. You guys know what I'm talking about? And it seemed that a number of people did that. And that wasn't the truly sad part, though. The truly sad part was that unbelievers who, or actually I would say, when unbelievers who don't claim to follow Christ do that, that's not the truly sad part. That's not something that we should be surprised about, right? But what's the truly surprising, or what was the truly sad part, which I'm sure a number of you noticed. There were people that you know, or who identify themselves as Christians, or followers of Christ, people whose very Facebook profiles under the little area where you can identify your religious preference, identify themselves as Christians, and then those same profiles had those rainbow pride profiles on them. And that's the truly sad part, that's the truly disheartening part. Now most of those people probably weren't homosexuals. They probably weren't doing this to support or to defend their behaviors or their actions. And so it begs the question, why did they do this? And maybe they wanted to appear loving. There's a whole other sermon that we could have about what being loving really means and what loving really isn't and supporting or approving of sins that are life-wrecking and damning is definitely by no means loving. Maybe they wanted to appear supportive of friends or loved ones in those lifestyles. Maybe they want to appear open-minded or tolerant. Maybe they want to make sure that people don't think that they're legalistic. Now, I don't know all the reasons, but my suspicion is most of these people probably see or saw some difference between themselves and the people engaging in these sins that they're approving of. If they were pressed, I suspect that they would say something along the lines of, no, I don't do these things myself. No, I don't do this, but I want to be kind toward, or I wanna be loving toward, or I wanna show my support toward, or be supportive of. But I think what many people fail to realize, even people in the church, is in God's eyes, there seems to be very little difference between what we approve of and what we do. There seems to be very little difference, at least in God's eyes, between what we approve of and what we do. And I don't want you to think that this is my opinion. So I'll show you a place in Scripture that makes this very clear. If I say, tell me the place in Scripture that most strongly condemns homosexuality, what would you say? Romans 1, right? Romans 1 has a very strong, scathing criticism of homosexuality. To a person, we know that Romans 1 has that critique. And it's one of the clearest condemnations of a number of sins. Unless you want to believe a lie, you can't really read Romans 1 and walk away from it remotely confused about how God views homosexuality or views some of the sins there. Now, if you look at the very end of the chapter with me, starting at verse 28, It says, and Brandon had just read it, it says, even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over, says, to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, their whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful. And then verse 32, who knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death." Now let's just pause right here. Let's pause right there for a moment, please. This is a pretty serious list of sins, and there's two things that hopefully we can say about it. That these are evil actions, we would all agree that these are evil actions, and hopefully we can see why God judges people who do these things. Hopefully we can see, like the end of the verse says, why those who practice such things are deserving of death. See that in verse 32? It says, those who practice these things are deserving of death. And second, hopefully the other thing that I would say is we all have the humility to look at this verse or these verses and these sins here and say that we've done what with a number of them? Committed them, committed them. I mean, this is a list that I think most of us would say, definitely myself included, that we've committed a number of these sins and that's why we need Christ, that's why we're so thankful for the gospel, that's why we're so thankful for the grace and the mercy that's found in the gospel. But this isn't the end of the verse. There's another group that God includes who are equally deserving of judgment. Verse 32 goes on and it says those, this is the final group that's addressed. at the end of this lengthy, scathing criticism of sinfulness, he says, those who not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them. Those who approve of these practices, not those who practice these practices, or engage in these practices, but those who approve of these practices. If you write in your Bible, you might even circle the word approve, just to be reminded of the seriousness of the point that Paul is making here. So Romans 1 lists all these terrible sins, and it concludes with a strong rebuke, not just to those who practice such things, but also those who approve of these practices. The NAS says, give hearty approval to those who practice them. The Amplified says, approve and applaud others who practice them. And if you remember last week's sermon, that's one of the things that we're seeing take place in the world today, not just an acceptance, but an applauding of, or a celebrating of some of these things, even a rewarding or awarding. of individuals who engage in these. And so, the point is, you don't have to engage in evil actions yourself. It's enough simply to approve of those who engage in these actions. And this is why, as a church, we need to make sure we don't approve of the things going on around us. So, let me conclude this lesson by saying this. As the world moves further in the direction of the issues that we discussed last week, and especially as other churches or other individuals who identify themselves as Christians approve of these evils. This is how we can be tempted, and we need to be aware of this. This is the temptation that we could experience. We can be tempted to wonder if we're on the wrong side of things. We can be tempted to wonder if we're wrong and they're right. Could all these people be wrong? Are we the ones who are looking at things incorrectly? We can be tempted to believe those first words that the devil said to Eve." What were those first words that the devil said to Eve? Did God really say this? Has God indeed said? Did God really say this? And so we can be tempted to say, you know, God said this 2,000 years ago. Does this still stand today? There's this many centuries ago that this was said. Is this still true or is this still binding for us? I mean, that's one of the main arguments when you discuss this stuff with people who identify themselves as Christians, that you can't take what these things are written this many centuries or even 2,000 years ago and apply it today. And so what we have to do as a church is we have to resist these temptations. We have to stand strong on God's word. We have to embrace the truth that's found in scripture, regardless of what's taking place around us. Now, this is probably the shortest lesson for today, because my suspicion is most of us, if not all of us, don't approve of those things that we see taking place around us. My suspicion is if you did approve of those things, You probably wouldn't be in this church for too many weeks, or you still wouldn't be here today. If you approve these things, I highly doubt you'd be worshiping with us. But there is something that I see as a stronger temptation face in the church, and the reason that I think it's stronger is it's subtler. It's subtler, and it brings us to the next part of the lesson. Lesson one, temptations the church faces. Part two, egalitarianism. Temptations the church faces. Part two, egalitarianism. One time Glenn Zumstein was talking to me, and he said, you know, you put some of these blanks in the bulletin, and people aren't going to know how to spell them sometimes. You get some tough words, and I thought, well, this is probably one of those. Egalitarian might be a tough one for you guys to spell, so let me go ahead and spell it for you here. K-X-7. No, just kidding. Just do your best. It's not a spelling test. Now, I actually used to do that with my students. And you would not believe how many letters you can string along before they figure out you're doing that to them. You can even throw some numbers in sometimes and get them to write that down. So did any of you guys put any sevens down or anything? Okay, we discussed complementarianism and egalitarianism during our marriage and family series, and I hope we made it very clear during that time the roles and responsibilities between men and women. But in case you don't remember these terms, complementarianism and egalitarianism, let me briefly remind you of them. Complementarianism is the belief that God has separate and distinct roles for men and women, and what do those roles and responsibilities do with each other? They complement each other. They complement each other. That's why Genesis 2, 24 says a man and woman are joined together and they become one flesh or complete as they complement each other. This verse is repeated throughout the New Testament by Jesus in the Gospels and by Paul in Corinthians and Ephesians. And so the idea is God has created or He has ordained masculinity and femininity. In complementarianism, it goes beyond just the home. God has separate and distinct roles and responsibilities for men and women in the church, where men and women continue to complement and complete each other. Men are needed in the church in crucial ways, and there are wonderful, blessed ways that women are needed in the church, too. Egalitarianism is the belief that God does not have a separate and distinct plan for men and women, that he does not have separate and distinct roles and responsibilities. for men and women. Egalitarians believe if you're a man or if you're a woman, God has the exact same expectations for you regardless. A simple way to understand egalitarianism is it blurs, or I would say worse, it destroys the line between men and women. It doesn't just blur, but it removes that line, those distinctions. And so what does egalitarianism look like in the church and in the home? In the church, you'll see it where there are female pastors or there are female elders or where there are women in positions of teaching over men. Egalitarianism in the home means that the husband is not called to what or be what. He's not called to lead. He's not called to be the head as described in 1 Corinthians 11. or Ephesians 5, as you can expect, submission is completely rejected. You see no distinctions between the genders. You see men who don't want to follow God's commands in the Word. They don't want to be leaders or spiritual or otherwise. They want to be passive. They want to abdicate their roles as fathers and husbands. You see women who don't want to follow the commands in God's Word. They want to lead or they want to be in charge in a sense they want to be like men. And I don't mean wanting to be like men physically, regarding any physical changes to their bodies, but wanting to be like men regarding roles and responsibilities. 1 Peter 3, 4, it talks about women having the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of the Lord, but this wouldn't be attractive to egalitarian women. It wouldn't be precious to them, you might say. It would be more attractive, or it would be more precious to them to think about being like a man. So essentially, you see no distinction between men and women in terms of their roles and responsibilities or their actions or their behaviors, their physical differences, but aside from that, nothing else. And here's what I want you to think about. This is what I want you to consider, please. If we look at or consider all those situations that I discussed in last week's sermon, we should be able to recognize one commonality between them. Everything that I discussed in last week's sermon, we should be able to recognize one commonality between them, and it is the blurring of the lines, or worse, the removal of the lines between what? Between the genders, between men and women. For example, with the Supreme Court's decision regarding marriage, you have the lines blurred, or I should say you have the lines so completely removed that it doesn't matter what. It doesn't matter who you marry. It doesn't matter if it's someone of the opposite gender or not. That's how much the gender lines have been destroyed. That would be a very extreme form of egalitarianism. Bruce Jenner, he rejected the way that God had created him. He denied what his DNA made abundantly clear about him, that he's a man. He said, it doesn't matter if I'm a man, it doesn't matter if I'm a woman. He did everything that he could to reject the masculinity God had given him and everything he could to embrace femininity. So he completely disregarded the line between the genders, which again is an extreme form of egalitarianism. Now here's the thing, while many churches will not embrace some of the things we discussed last week or even just a moment ago, homosexuality or transgenderism, they will embrace egalitarianism. And here's what it does. It subtly supports the agendas of those other sins that we discussed. Egalitarianism moves in the same direction as these other sins, as it denies the gender roles. Egalitarianism, it undermines God's Word and it destroys the lines between men and women. So homosexuality and transgenderism, they might be at the very end of the spectrum, very extreme. But as you move back across the spectrum, what do you end up encountering? You end up encountering egalitarianism. It might not look as extreme as these other sins we discussed, but it shares the same foundation. It shares that foundation of denying the gender roles. And in my mind, egalitarianism is a greater threat to the church because of its subtlety compared to these other sins, that it doesn't look as serious or it doesn't look evil. and it lays a foundation for these other sins. Now, I want to conclude this lesson by providing some encouragement. As your pastor, I'd say this is my exhortation to all of you that I give you. If you're a man, you want to embrace the commands that are in God's Word for you. You want to, as a man, help your wife be a biblical wife. If you have sons, you want to raise your sons to be what? Godly men, raise them to be fathers, raise them to be husbands, teach them what it says in God's word about being men or about being fathers and husbands. If you're a woman, embrace the commands that are given in God's word to you, help your husband be a biblical husband, encourage him to embrace his role, support him in that role, and if you have daughters, raise your daughters to be what? Godly women and mothers and wives as described in God's word. Now for the young people, for the young people here, even the children, I have two encouragements for you. First, set your sights on growing up to be a biblical man or woman, a biblical husband or wife or mother or father. Start preparing to fulfill those roles, understand what's expected of you, and start preparing yourself to be that. Second, if you're not married, commit yourself to marrying someone who is, what, equally committed to a complementarian view of Scripture or to God or to The Bible itself, I mean, it all goes together. If you're single, because you will encounter people who don't hold to a complementarian view of Scripture, commit yourself at this time to only marrying someone who embraces this teaching in God's Word. Now, moving on to the last temptation that we're gonna discuss. Lesson one, temptations the church faces, and then part three, quarreling. Temptations the church faces, part three, quarreling. This is the temptation that most threatens the health and the joy of the church in my mind. Now, I'll tell you, I love being the pastor of this church. I mean that sincerely. I love being the pastor of this church. I could give you a lot of reasons why that's the case, whether it's my job description, whether it's the people here. There's plenty of reasons I could tell you that I love it so much, but one main reason I'd like to share with you relates to the health and unity of the church. There are plenty of issues that make a church unenjoyable for the pastor or for the members, and that's quarreling or that's conflict. And I just want to be clear, one of the reasons that I love pastoring this church so much is the absence of conflict. It is the absence of quarreling. One of the ways you've been a blessing to me, and I believe been a blessing to each other, is the absence of conflict and quarreling. And one of the ways we can all hopefully continue to be blessings to each other and continue to enjoy the unity that we have here is by striving to avoid quarreling. And I'd like to help us do that by looking at a quarrel that took place in the Philippian church. If you wanna turn to Philippians, this is where we'll be for the rest of the sermon. Turn to Philippians 4, please. We're gonna look at this conflict or this quarrel that took place in the Philippian church. It was threatening their unity. It's very instructive for us. We're gonna see what we can learn from it. The posts are back. Yeah. Well, I guess you thought you'd sneak in here. Well, we're glad you guys are here. Thanks for letting us know. Man, I think you know someone. They come all the way across the country and don't even tell you when they're back. All right, well, glad you guys are back. Praise God you're back safely. So glad to have you with us this morning. All right, where were we? OK, Philippians 4, 2. Philippians 4, 2. We're going to read verses 2 and 3. Philippians 4, 2 and 3. I implore you, Uodea, or I implore you, Odea, and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. So he says, I implore you, Odea, and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. Now we're introduced to these two women. There's a lot we can learn about them just in these two verses. First, because these women were quarreling, it's tempting for us to look at them, because we know that they're addressed in this letter, it's tempting for us to look at them and sort of assume what about them? That they're probably not... They're not godly. You might even think that they're not Christians. We think, wow, these women must have been really immature. Maybe they're not even saved. Must have been some terrible ladies to have to be named in an epistle like this. But the truth is, that's not the case at all. That's not the case at all. Most of what we learn about these women is actually pretty wonderful. First and most importantly, notice that they were Christians. At the end of verse four, it says that they had their names in the book of life. See that right there? They're Christians. They have their names in the book of life. We're not talking about unbelievers or pagans. Second, not only were these women Christians, there are some great credentials. They have some great credentials. Notice Paul says that they labored with him. I mean, being able to serve with the Apostle Paul and say that you labored with him, that's a pretty great deal, isn't it? Pretty big deal. He said that they had worked for the sake of the gospel, which means that they had a heart for Christ. The heart for the gospel, they had a heart for others to know Christ and to hear the gospel. Paul called them fellow workers. which in the Greek is the word synergos, related to our word synergy, and it refers to how they worked well together with Paul and possibly others, so these women were servants. Most commentaries also make the point that they were very prominent and distinguished and respected church members, and the reason there's that suspicion is if they weren't, then they probably would not have had to have been named in this letter, right? If they were insignificant or unknowns, they were probably pretty well distinguished and respected. And the reason I want you to understand this about these women is if you think they're immature, or perhaps you think that they're unsaved, there'd be little application for us because we would be tempted to look and say what? Well, what do you expect from them? I mean, yeah, that would happen to them, but there's no way that's gonna happen with me because I'm way too, mature, you know. But these women, that could happen with them, but not me. And these women, they reveal a very important point. I almost made this a lesson in the sermon, but decided to just tell you instead. These women reveal something. They reveal that even mature Christians, even people who love the Lord, even people who have hearts to serve, can find themselves in what? quarrels, or in conflicts, or disagreements with others. And this is why it's a temptation that we all need to be on guard against, that we all need to be aware of. Now let me share a few things with you that I'd like you to notice. First, Paul actually addressed them individually. He says, I implore you Odia, he's speaking personally to her. I implore Syntyche, he's speaking to her personally too. I mean, can you imagine that for a second? You get a personal appeal from Paul in one of his letters to shape up. I mean, that's a pretty serious thing, right? He named them, he named them in his letter. And this is a pretty big deal to me because some of you have given me a hard time about using people's names in sermons. I'm just trying to be like the Apostle Paul. So after studying this, I became convinced I should be using way more people's names in my sermons if I'm gonna be biblical. No, in all seriousness, These two women, they did get their names recorded in Scripture for all eternity because they couldn't get along, and I do want us to recognize the seriousness of that. I mean, how would you like it if your name was recorded in Scripture for everyone to see for all eternity because you couldn't get along with someone? And that would be pretty unfortunate. And in my mind, this is one of the most unique uses of people's names in Scripture because Paul often used people's names for one of two reasons. He often used people's names because he wanted to commend them, because they had been wonderful. They'd been a blessing to him in his ministry and in helping him. Or he used people's names because they were so terrible, because they were a threat. They needed to be avoided, like false teachers perhaps, and Paul needed to let the church know. Stay away from this person. Don't sit under this person's ministry. Basically, Paul wrote about people because they were either really, really good or they were really, really bad. But in this situation, this is why it's so unique, you see him name these two women who are pretty wonderful Christians. And so it begs the question, what could they have been doing that was so bad that Paul had to call them out in front of the whole church and in front of all of us for all of eternity? right, by putting their names in scripture. What is it that they did? And the answer is they were engaging in a quarrel that was potentially divisive for the whole church. John MacArthur said, they were leading two opposing factions in the church, most likely over a personal conflict. Now consider this, consider this. The spiritual strength of a church, the health of a church, the church's witness to the surrounding world depends on what? Depends on the love of the members. It depends on the unity of the members of that church, and these women were threatening that. So consider the potential consequences of their conflict. Their conflict could have divided the church. Galatians 5.15, it says, if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another. Their conflict could help the enemies of the church find some reason to slander the church. What enemies? The devil, possibly the unbelieving world looking on that wants some reason not to go to church or wants some reason to criticize the church. Their conflict had the potential to stumble those who were weaker or younger in faith. Younger believers could have looked on and said, it must be acceptable for mature Christians to act like this. Or younger believers could look on and say, well, Christianity must not be true because it cannot even take these mature women and help them to get along. So there was a real danger, there was a real threat, a number of different ways. So their conflict was negatively affecting the whole church and it had plenty of potential for consequences. And you can see how seriously Paul viewed the matter by the words he uses in verse three. In verse three, he tells an unnamed companion to help them. I mean, you hear the urgency. He says, I urge you, true companion, help these women. The urgency is he wanted the situation taken care of. He wanted it handled as quickly as possible. And the fact that Paul asked this true companion to help them, this also reveals something else important to us about our conflicts or about struggles. I thought of making this a lesson too. The fact that he invited this person to help them shows that there's going to be some quarrels that we can't do or resolve by ourselves, right? There are gonna be some conflicts that require the help of a mediator or reaching out and asking someone to provide some counsel. But the difficulty is to do that, it often takes what? It takes courage. It takes an amount of, you're saying, will you help me? That takes what? It takes humility. It takes courage. And so there's that difficulty associated with asking for a mediator to help. It's saying, we have a problem. We can't resolve this ourselves. We need some help. Now, some people, they don't have this kind of humility. And as a result, their conflicts don't get resolved. They go on unresolved and they continue to worsen and worsen and worsen. until perhaps they affect the whole church negatively, like the situation with these women. And so Paul tells this true companion to help them, and the Greek word for help reveals what this companion was supposed to do. And by the way, we don't know who this true companion is, he's unnamed. But the Greek word for help, it's the word soulambano, soulambano, and it means, interestingly, listen to this please, that word for help means to seize or take someone as a prisoner. It occurs 16 times in the New Testament, Eight times it's translated as take. Only two times is it translated as help. Here's two places where it's used. Luke 5, 9. All who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken. That's Sulembano. Acts 12, 3. Because Herod saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also. That word for seize is Sulembano. Now it might seem like it doesn't make sense to us. That idea of helping means seizing or taking. But the idea is Paul is telling this companion to take these women or to help them by taking them and holding them together, seizing them and holding them together because this is what God wants in the church. He wants us held together. He wants unity between people. And I want you to notice something significant about Paul's words. We all probably want to know why they were having this conflict, right? What was this quarrel about? What were they fighting about? These are two women who it seems love the Lord and are servants and labored with Paul, what could possibly put them at such odds with each other. But when Paul told the true companion to help this woman, or help these two women, excuse me, he didn't say who was right, and he didn't say who was wrong, he didn't say who was more at fault, he didn't say who was less at fault, he didn't say who started the conflict. Aside from mentioning their names, he gives us no other information. And there's two reasons for this. First, Paul didn't say who's right or wrong, because both of them are what? Because both of them are wrong. Even if one of them started the conflict, and at that point this woman starts it, and then she's at fault and the other one's not, the fact that they both let it keep going, instead of at least one of them humbling herself and going to the other and asking for forgiveness, or seeking reconciliation shows that both of them were at fault. But since neither of them did that, humbled themselves, asked for forgiveness, this is how we see both are at fault. And I think this reveals something about conflict. Very rarely in conflict is only one person at fault. Very often when there's conflict, there's going to be fault on both sides. Now I know we're all tempted when we're in a conflict with someone to sit back and say things like, man, he's so wrong, or she's so wrong, or he did this, or she did that, or he shouldn't have done this, or she shouldn't have done that, they should have done this instead, I can't believe he did this, I can't believe he did that, and just think or focus on what the other person did wrong. But we'd probably be a lot better to look where? at ourselves and see our fault in the situation, see what we did wrong. And even if we happen to think our fault is much smaller than the other person's, which most of the time it's not, our pride just makes us think that, can we still take responsibility for our fault in the situation, even if by chance it's only like 2% and the other person's at 98%. Can we still ask for forgiveness for that 2%, which is probably a lot more like 80%? We can do that, right? Even if it's a tiny, tiny amount of fault we have in the situation, we can apologize for that, we can ask for forgiveness for that. Now the second reason that Paul didn't discuss the conflict is the conflict itself was not the important issue. The important issue was what? that these women are unreconciled, that these women are threatening the health and the joy and the unity of the church. And so for their sake and for the church's sake, they need to be reconciled and that's the important issue. So look what Paul says to them. He says, be of the same mind in the Lord. The NAS says, live in harmony in the Lord. He's saying, be at peace with each other. There should be unity between the two of you. Now this idea of being of the same mind, or living in harmony, it's been a theme in Philippians. If you just want to briefly look at Philippians 2.2. Paul says, fulfill my joy. He says, fulfill my joy. Now just to understand something, Paul is saying this, but we understand that the epistles, the letters in the New Testament, were they ultimately written by Paul, who are they written by? They're written by the Holy Spirit, or they're written by God. So when Paul says, fulfill my joy, we can read this as though God is saying, fulfill my joy. Fulfill God's joy. And how does God say that his joy is fulfilled? By being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Look at Philippians 3, 15 and 16. Philippians 3, 15 and 16. Let us. as many as are mature, so this is what mature people do, if you ever wonder what characterizes or indicates a mature person, they have this mind, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you, then verse 16, nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind. Three times it's written in Philippians, and that idea of being of the same mind, it goes way beyond Philippians. Let me just share a few other verses with you, they're on your bulletins to look up on your own if you'd like, It's really a command throughout the New Testament, Romans 12, 16, be of the same mind. Romans 15, 5, may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded. 1 Corinthians 1.10, be perfectly joined together in the same mind. 2 Corinthians 13.11, be of good comfort, be of one mind. Live in peace. 1 Peter 3.8, all of you, be of one mind. And so the number of times that that's commanded of us shows us not only that it's a theme in the New Testament, and not only that it's something God doesn't want us to miss, but that it's very significant. I mean, for God to repeat himself that many times, he's making it clear that this is not an optional part of the Christian life. It's not an optional part. So what does it mean exactly to be of one mind? It means to have unity. It means to have unity, to be at peace or live in harmony with other believers in the body of Christ. Now we all know, I'd like to think, what unity means, but I wanna briefly discuss the difference between unity and uniformity. I wanna briefly discuss the difference between unity and uniformity because there's a world of difference between the two, but I think sometimes people confuse them. Now unity comes from within. Unity is a matter of the heart. Unity is about deferring to one another. It's about seeking to understand each other. It's about being compassionate and forgiving toward each other. It's about extending grace to one another. Now most importantly, unity is established by our mutual love and our commitment to whom? to Christ, to God, right? Our unity should be most strongly established by our mutual love and commitment to Christ. Unity, on the other hand, unity is external. It is about people being the same. Now one of the things that I love about WCC, I suppose you could say one of the other things I love about being the pastor here, is the absence of a push for unity. There's a diversity here, there's an eclecticness that I think is special, what? What did I say? Thank you. Guys, I listen to my sermons sometimes. I feel like I owe you an apology for how many times I swap words. I'm sorry about that. Thank you for not saying amen when I just made that confession. But yeah, I listen to my sermons. I recognize that I do that. So thank you very much. Please do. Please do correct me like that when I say the wrong words. I know it can be very confusing. Hi. You guys swap words too? OK. I thought you were saying you make the same mistake, but apparently not. Oh, my brother in Christ. All right. Okay, I'm just kidding. Yeah, thank you though. Christina was letting me know that even when I swap the words, you can still follow what I'm saying. So thank you very much. We should share that at the membership meetings. If you want to be a member here, you need to understand how I mess up words and sermons. One of the things I love about WCC is the diversity or is the eclecticness associated with our church. I've heard a number of people say, wow, you really have something special there. It's amazing how that many different families that are so diverse and live out the Christian life in so many different ways. Now, just last week, I was in a conversation with some people, and they were discussing the diversity of the church. It just happened last Sunday right outside the church. It was Jill Lee and Carrie Card, And they were discussing this, and I sent an email this week to Carrie, and I asked her if I could quote something she had said. And I said, can you tell me what you said out there, and do you mind if I put it in the sermon? And she said, no, don't quote me in the sermon, but I'm going to anyway. No, just kidding. She gave me permission to say this. So this is from Carrie Card. She said, while we were discussing the diverse group of families at WCC, I mentioned that we really do have a very eclectic group of believers, but it does not hinder the unity and common ground and fellowship. What we've learned over time is that we all share, and this is what we should all share, we all share the love of Christ, and that creates an easy bond. The diversity is very refreshing and can break down some misnomers some may have had about other believers once you really get to know one another and become part of each other's lives. I think when there's a healthy biblical church structure where adults can feel safe and trust the leadership and each other, it does create more of an atmosphere that attracts a wider range of diversity. For myself, I felt more comfortable discovering who I am in Christ and what role our family has in the church without having to worry about fitting into some kind of mold that's expected of us, end quote. But if you appreciate Carrie's comments, you can let her know, because I appreciated them very much. So to be clear, we don't need uniformity. The Bible doesn't discuss or prescribe uniformity. I'm glad for the diversity that we have in our congregation, but we do need unity, because unity is commanded. Unity is commanded when it says, be of the same mind, or when it says, live in harmony. It's one of those commands in Scripture that occurs frequently. And this brings us to the next lesson. Lesson two, nobody is more important than the unity of the church. Lesson two, nobody is more important than the unity of the church. The fact that Paul gave the names of these two women reveals this very significant truth to us. The fact that he named them, this is what it reveals. It reveals that no matter how important these women were, and we can be sure that they were very important, they were not more important than what? the unity of the church. We know everyone is important, we know everyone is loved by God, but no matter how important people are, they're not more important than the Lord's reputation and they're not more important than the health of the church. So let me say it like this. There are a number of things that are bigger than our conflicts. There are a number of things that are bigger than our conflicts. There are a number of things that should be bigger than our pride. A number of things that should be bigger than our pride that wants to make sure we're right and other people know that they're wrong. There should be a number of things that are bigger than our pride that stops us from humbling ourselves, asking for forgiveness. There are a number of things that are bigger than us being right and making sure everyone knows it. And what are some of those things? The church itself, the bride of Christ, Christ's reputation, the Lord's name, the Lord's reputation, And all of these things are threatened when we give in to the temptation to quarrel with each other. And this is why you see such strong verses regarding divisiveness. Now I'm not saying that there's other sins that are necessarily tolerated in scripture, but when you consider what the Bible says about divisiveness, you develop an appreciation for how important unity is and how God does not want it threatened. Proverbs 6, 16 to 19, it lists six things that God hates. If you've ever looked at that list, you might be surprised by what's included and you might be surprised by what? What's not included in that list, we've talked about homosexuality the last two Sundays, and homosexuality's not in this list. But here's what is listed, and I wanna ask you in particular to listen to number seven, please. These six things the Lord hates, yes, seven are an abomination to him. A proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that are swift in running to evil, a false witness who speaks lies, and then this is the seventh that's an abomination, one who sows discord among the brethren. of all those things. That's what God says is an abomination to Him, someone who sows discord among brethren. Now, in the New Testament, God has some particularly strong words to discourage us from giving in to the temptation to be divisive or threaten the unity of the church. In Romans 16, 17, Paul said, I urge you, brethren, note those, take note of those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learned and avoid them, And then Titus 3.10, please listen to this, listen to the weight of this verse. I think it's probably neglected or not discussed often enough, but listen to this and let it settle on you a little bit, the weight of it. Titus 3.10, reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition, knowing that such a person is warped and sinning, being self-condemned. And so just consider that for a moment. This is saying that a divisive person gets one warning, and then after that, they're to be rejected. And you say, well, why is that? Why is that? Why is it? Because a divisive person threatens what? the unity, the witness, the health, the joy of a church. And I want to briefly discuss people who are outside the church. I want to briefly discuss people who are outside the church. Now when I say outside the church, I'm not using the language of 1 Corinthians 5 like those who are put outside the church because they're under church discipline. I mean people who are outside the church because essentially they can't get along with people in the body of Christ. They often give in to these sorts of temptations. They often develop an offense. They regularly end up being wounded. They often feel like they're not being treated well enough, or treated as well as they deserve to be treated. They spend more time thinking about themselves than thinking about others. They're often contentious. They regularly find themselves quarreling with others. And this often leads them leaves them going from one church to the next church to the next church to the next church until they finally find themselves outside a church because they can't find a church where they're really settled or where they can live in harmony with others. So in that respect, they're outside the church because they can't find one where they can live in peace and unity. Now, if you talk to these people, they can tell you all the reasons that those previous churches were what? Wrong. They can tell you all the different ways that they were what? Mistreated or right. But they'll never tell you about anything they've done wrong because they don't think they've done anything wrong. Now, according to Scripture, according to the verses I shared with you from Romans and Titus about divisive people, until these people change, which is really to say until these people repent, they should probably stay outside the church. They're often divisive. They often pose a threat to the health of the church. Until they learn to be of one mind or live in harmony with the body of Christ, They shouldn't be part of the body of Christ. Bringing them back into the church, it wouldn't be good for the church, but it actually wouldn't even be good for them because when they found themselves back in the church, assuming that they haven't repented yet, what's gonna happen? They're gonna get in another quarrel, get in another conflict, be wounded again, be offended again, get upset about something else. Sometimes it's tempting to think, these people are outside the church and we should do everything we can to bring them back in. And for some people, that is absolutely true. We should be doing everything we can to restore them. see them part of the body of Christ. But for other people, until they repent, that's not the case. And here's the question, why is that not the case? Is it because these people are not important? Is it because we don't love them or God doesn't love them? That's not it at all. They're very important, but they're not more important than what? The unity of the church, the health of the church, Christ's name, Christ's reputation. And I'd like you to notice why Paul said that these women should have unity. I want you to see why he said they should have unity, and he did so with three words. If you look in verse two, at the end of verse two, Paul told them they should be of the same mind for this reason that they're in what? That they're in the Lord. He says, be of the same mind because you're in the Lord. The New Living Translation words it like this. I appeal to you, Odiah and Syntyche, please, because you belong to the Lord, settle your disagreement. So he's saying, Because they belong to the Lord, they need to have unity with each other, and this brings us to our final lesson. Lesson three, our hearts for Christ should motivate us to maintain unity. Our hearts for Christ should motivate us to maintain unity. After discussing those who are outside the church, it might be tempting for us to see ourselves possibly different than them or better than them, which would be very self-righteous or prideful of us. And so I wanna give you two reminders or share two things with you so that we don't see ourselves that way or so we're not self-righteous or think we're better than others or better than those outside the church. First, remember that these ladies who are disrupting the Philippian church, they seem to overall be pretty wonderful what? Pretty wonderful people, pretty wonderful Christians. Real servants, women that had a real heart for Christ. So the point is, if it could happen to them, it could happen to us. Now second, James makes it clear that this temptation to quarrel is in all of us. You can turn to the right to James, we'll close there. Turn to the right to James 4. James 4.1. I want us to be clear that this temptation to quarrel is in all of us. It's not just some select group of people or immature believers or worse, unsafe people. There's potential for this temptation that all of us need to resist because it's in all of us. James 4.1, he makes it clear. He says, where do wars and fights, almost all translations except the King James and New King James say fights and quarrels. So where do wars and fights or where do fights and quarrels come from among you? And this is a great question. This is a wonderful question. Now we might be tempted to say what? They come from evil sinners. Maybe they come from bad church leadership. Maybe they come from legalistic people. That's where wars and fights come from, or terrible governments, or immature people. But listen to where James says they come from, and I want you to notice the repetition of the word you and the word your, as he says where they come from. Do they not come from your desires? Who's he talking to? He's talking to us, he's talking to each of us. He says, don't they come from your desires for pleasure that were in your members? Verse two, you lust and do not have, you murder and covet and cannot obtain, you fight and war or you fight and quarrel. You cannot miss the reputation of you and your. James is clearly blaming us or putting the responsibility on us for quarreling and disunity. And hopefully this sounds familiar to one of our first sermons, James 1.14, each one is tempted when he's drawn away by what? his own desires, his own lust, his own that belong to him, belong to us. In both places, James relates temptation and quarreling to our desires. Now we're talking about temptations the church faces. And there's a temptation in all of us to fight and quarrel. It's the evil desires in us that can cause problems in the church. And it says why these desires tempt us to quarrel with others. I want you to notice this, please, and I would encourage you to strive to remember this. When you're having quarrels or conflicts with people, this is why. The verse tells us, up here, up here. I used to have to do that in my class all the time. Now I find myself doing it at home with my children when we're on Bible study. Now I'm doing it with you guys. I just want you to notice why it says these quarrels or these conflicts take place. It says because we're not getting what we want. It's basically selfishness. It says it's happening because we don't get what we want. The NIV, you covet, but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. The ESV, you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. Now since we're talking about temptations the church faces, and we're talking about not getting what we want, let me be clear about this, and I've told some of you this. Nobody in this room, including myself, gets exactly what they want when it comes to church. Nobody. There's nobody in this room that is getting exactly, including me, getting exactly what they want when it comes to church. We're all different. We all have different preferences. We all have different opinions. We all have different desires that are warring within us. Sometimes I think the only thing you all have in common is that you wish the sermon was shorter. No, just kidding. So, here's the question. Here's the question. How in the world are a group of sinful, selfish people, like all of us, me included, how are we all going to get along? How are we all going to love each other? How are we all going to enjoy each other? How are we all going to avoid quarreling and have unity? Fortunately, we have something that is greater than any of our differences. And what's that? We have Christ. We have the Holy Spirit indwelling us. Any of these desires, any of these lusts, any of this selfishness or opinions or preferences we have, we have something greater than all of that, and that's Christ. It's because of Him that we're here this morning. It's because of His sacrifice that we're drawn together. It's because of the gospel that we can have unity. It's because of what Christ has done that we can look around and call each other what? brothers and sisters. It's because of what he's done for us that our sins can be forgiven. It's because of what he's done that we can have eternal life. And so the question is, do we owe it to Christ to love one another? Yes. Don't we owe it to him to lay down some of our preferences, some of our opinions, some of our selfishness so we can have unity? Doesn't Christ deserve our best efforts in saying no to those evil desires that cause division? And this is why Paul said that these two women should have unity. This is why he said they should have unity. It's not because they deserved it, or it earned it, or because this person had been wrong, or that person had been wrong. He says that to them. Be of the same mind because you're in the Lord. You should have unity because you're in the Lord, because you belong to the Lord. That's why you should have unity, because of Christ, because of our love for Him. That's why we should work for unity. We should put the health and the joy and the unity of the church ahead of our selfishness, ahead of our preferences, and ahead of our convictions. Listen to these verses from Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5, 18, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And listen to this, submitting to one another. Now let me pause here. He says submitting to one another. submitting to one another. Now, the question is, why should we? Why should we submit to one another? Because it's easy? Because someone else deserves that we submit to them? Because it's what we feel like doing? No, listen to the rest of the verse. Paul says, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. out of reverence to Christ. You don't submit to someone necessarily because you love them or because they deserve it, but because you love Christ and he deserves it because of what he's done. It's our hearts for Christ that should motivate us to submit to each other so we can have unity. So let me ask you these questions. How are you personally working toward the unity of WCC? What sinful desires are you resisting because they threaten the unity of the church, the joy of the church, the reputation of the church, Christ's reputation? Now if you look back at the lessons, let's try to tile this together. If you look back at the lessons, my prayer for our congregation is we would resist these temptations. We'd resist approving of sin. We would resist egalitarianism. We would resist quarreling. My prayer as your pastor is we would recognize that none of us are more important than the unity of the church. We'd have hearts for Christ that would motivate us to fight for this unity. And I wanna close by telling you, I'm not the only one praying for this. I'm not the only one praying for this kind of unity. Guess who prayed for this unity? Guess who prayed for this unity only hours before his death of all the things that he could have prayed for? When he prayed for future believers, when he prayed for us, when he prayed for each of you, this is what he prayed for, listen to this. John 17, 21, Jesus said, I pray that they all may be one. as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they all may be one in us. And then this is why, so the world might believe that you sent me. It's our unity that's a witness to the surrounding world. And the glory which you gave me, I've given them, that they may be one, just as we are one, I in them, you in me, again, that they may be perfect in one, so the world may know that you sent me. It's about our witness to the surrounding world, too, and have loved them as you have loved me.