When conflict comes, we never feel ready. When conflict comes, we always feel like we're on the back foot, and we're just not quite ready, and not now, and I've already got one of those things happening in my life. When conflict comes, we never feel ready, which is why we need days like today. It's why we need sermons like today, texts like we've met when meeting now in Philippians 4. Because everyone has conflict in their life. It's in our families, it's in our friendships, it's in our marriages, it's in our church. And when conflict comes, many of us, me included, are just living on our default settings. And if you just reset and hit our default settings, what does that mean? We either see conflict as something where I need to fight. Fight until I'm right. Or we see conflict as something to flee. Flee until we get away from it. But for us grown-ups, me included, we have realized by now, hopefully, that neither is a long-term solution to conflict. And here we see in Philippians 4, the gospel shows us something unique and wonderful in the world. The gospel shows us something wonderfully new about how we can meet conflict in a very different way. Last week, we saw from Philippians 4 verse 1, which was our last verse for that text last week. The reason is, and if you look in your Bibles, you'll see Paul finishes what he was speaking about as he speaks about enemies of the church, enemies of the cross, and he concludes that section with, therefore. So when you're looking at the Bible, you always ask, what is the therefore, therefore? And it's there because he wants to say at the end of that section, we stand firm in the Lord, but also that verse is connected to what comes next. So, therefore stand firm in the Lord when we see conflict with the world, with our enemies, the enemies of the cross. And we look at those enemies, by the way, as a recap, with tears, don't we? So we are enemies of the cross, we look at them with tears, but stand firm in the Lord. Now he says, for us, today, that same encouragement to stand firm is needed. Not when we face conflict outside the church from the world, but when we make conflict from within the church, from our brothers and sisters in Christ. And friends, let me suggest this, that's often the harder conflict. The harder conflict comes from when it's friends, when it's brothers and sisters, when it's the unexpected, when it's people who own the name of Christ, that's when it's harder. That's when I think we find it more difficult. Conflict is complex and it comes in a variety of forms. So I have a caveat this morning, briefly, and that the conflict we're looking at here in Philippians 4 is a particular type of conflict. It's between friends, it's between two sisters in Christ in this church at Philippi. there's other sorts of conflict that we're not going to be able to, in this sermon of half an hour or so, not be able to engage with but we do need to talk about because more and more we're meeting it. And today we're looking at a conflict between two sisters and and we'll see how that's solved by the gospel But what I want to say is, for many of us, we're experiencing conflict in a variety of forms, it comes in an array of armaments, and for some of us, you have met, I have met, extreme conflict. Abusive conflict. Narcissistic conflict. You may not know what that word narcissism means, I really didn't know what it meant until a few years ago, and I've learnt a lot of things since then, I've got a lot of help from different people. But I recognise as one of your Elders and our Elders recognise this, many of us are meeting it in a variety of forms and it's very difficult. For today as we look at this text though, this text is not about that kind of conflict. And so I actually wrote a sermon that was getting quite large to look at this and to look at Philippians 4 verses 1 to 3 and realize this is what needs to happen. I'm going to mention that there's that kind of conflict, which is not today's subject, but it could be a sermon for a tough topic series another time. At the very least, what I'm going to do is this. I'm going to write an article. I'm going to take what was half a sermon and turn it into an article, post on our website this week to speak about that kind of conflict. it needs to be spoken about, it needs to be pastorally cared for, you need to be cared for. Today though we're looking at the kind of conflict when it comes that we're not even sure how it started. We're not even sure how we got here. We're not even sure how we're gonna fix it. And it's hard because it's between friends, sisters in Christ, brothers in Christ, that kind of conflict. That is, if I can just call it this, not to be glib, common garden variety church conflict. It's not abusive conflict, it's not from narcissism or anything else that we need to, and that article will come this week to look at. It's from the kind of stuff that says, these are friends, it ought not be so, how are we gonna address this? And when conflict comes with people we love, it's such a common human experience that I'm sure you've all seen it. Perhaps you've experienced it. We don't seek conflict. We'd rather not have it. But today we need help. And here's where we're going today. You'll see there's an outline on page five. Simply this. We're going to be looking at the heart of conflict, the help of conflict, and the power for conflict. The heart of conflict, the help of conflict, the power for conflict. And today we see this. Here's the big idea. Conflict is a gospel opportunity. We don't often think of it that way. We don't think of it as an opportunity at all. We don't look at conflict and go, wow, what an opportunity. But that's what it is. Conflict is an opportunity for the gospel every single time. And it starts by agreeing in the Lord. Look at verse two. Paul writes, after writing Stanfirme, he says, I entreat Iodia and I entreat Sunticae to agree in the Lord. As we read the Bible again and again, we see how very personal the pages of the Bible are. The Bible is not like this dry book of just rules that the world imagines what it is. I just want to say, just read it. It's deeply personal. And here Paul gets very personal about two women, two friends. He knows them. I mean, he names them. In a letter that goes to the Philippian church, he names them. And he says, you know them, they're two fellow servants in Christ, they're both Christian colleagues in ministry, they're in conflict, and personally this grieves Paul. Why does this happen? Why is it happening for you? Why is there conflict here? Why? Well, because we keep learning as disciples and knowing this, as we learn and understand biblical theology, why is conflict here? Because sin is here. Conflict exists because sin exists. Conflict is a foreign body in creation. It's like in the summertime. You know when you're riding your bike in the summer, or you're walking along, or you're like me, you're a bit of a talker. And you're talking along, and all of a sudden, you know what happens? A fly is sucked into your mouth and it goes down to your stomach. And the problem with swallowing a fly is you can't get it out. That's conflict. You can't fix it. You can't get it out. It's there and it's stuck with you and it's buzzing around. That's what it feels like. That's sin. The problem of conflict is the problem of sin. See, back in the Garden of Eden there was zero conflict. ever since the fall and all we've known ever since the fall is now conflict so we're almost used to it except we're not. Some of us in our society look at conflict and they say yeah look I think God might exist and he might be okay with me but kind of having a vague acknowledgement of God is like saying I think my loved ones exist but I'll never talk to them. So we don't want to relate to God We'd like to keep God from a distance. You stay over there, thanks, until I'm nearly dying and maybe I'll consider you. We kind of like to keep God just slightly out of the picture. Friends, although we like to sanitize it, that in itself is conflict. Why? We are all in conflict with God. We are born into conflict with God. That's what a sinner is, a person in conflict with God himself. And our conflict is expressed either in rebellion against God or just in the ordinary meal of ignoring him. Conflict even exists in churches because best friends, fellow workers like Yodi and Sintoki can somehow be in conflict. And here Paul weighs in on this disagreement. Now notice this. As he weighs in, it shows a few things. It means this conflict was no small thing. It wasn't over the color of the church carpet. It must have been a bit bigger than that. It must have been big enough that, you know, they could say, well, more than when we just agree to disagree. There's something bigger going on. But also notice this, Paul doesn't come in, whatever the conflict is, we're not told, but he doesn't come in and take a side. He doesn't come in to this disagreement with the judgment. He comes in with the balm of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And whatever the disagreement is, Paul doesn't speak to it of course, but he wants to speak Jesus into it. That's where he goes, that's what he's doing. And if we just take a moment and think of who Paul is in his life and his story, we'll know that he is one who has experienced with conflict himself. Remember Paul? A couple of years ago, I think it was 2020, we were in a series in the Book of Acts. So we did the Book of Acts almost the whole of 2020, all the way through. And we met Paul in Acts having disagreement with a good friend, Barnabas. It was a strange thing for us. If you want to, you know, have to turn there, I'll turn there. But if you go to Acts 15, Barnabas, his nickname is Son of Encouragement. So can you imagine being in conflict with someone who's called Son of Encouragement? It's going to be a pretty big deal, right? Something's going on. But in Acts 15, and we pick it up in verse 36, after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark, we see in verse 37, Acts 15 37. But Paul thought not best to take them one with them who had withdrawn from them in Penphimelia and had not gone with them to the work. And there arose, look at this Acts 15, Acts 15 verse 39, and there arose a sharp disagreement So as they separated from each other, Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed. Do you see this? Here is Paul, this church leader, this one that wants to say, come together in the Lord. Here's Paul having a disagreement with Barnabas, son of encouragement. They have a falling out. And whilst we don't see Paul and Barnabas getting back together again, it doesn't mean they didn't. And what we notice as well, here is Paul who's giving advice down conflict, but it's that experience of conflict. Here is Paul giving this advice. How can he, when he and Barnabas had a falling out? Because we also look at Paul in Scriptures and we see that these conflicts are resolved. You can turn to 2 Timothy chapter 4 and you can see later what happens. So I have a falling out of Mark, John Mark. Mark, it seems, didn't want to keep going on the mission. And Paul, who's very driven, says, no, you've got to stick with this. You've got to stick with the mission. Barnabas is like, give him a second chance or a 72nd chance. So this disagreement arises over Mark. And you wonder, are they going to get back together? Are they going to be friends again? Well, we see evidence of that, I think, in 2 Timothy. 2nd Timothy chapter 4, Paul writes to Timothy and he says in chapter 4 verse 11, Luke alone is with me and then he says this, it's beautiful, get Mark and bring him with you for he is very useful to me for ministry. Paul has, in this sense, shown he's reconciled with the situation. He's not going to say to Mark, you don't get another chance. He's now saying he's very useful in ministry. Something has happened in this conflict that our world is foreign to. And now Paul wants to say, something can happen for your conflict, Iodia in Syntyche. And it starts by agreeing in the Lord. What does it mean to agree in the Lord? It means to agree in what matters most for a church. Even allowing disagreement on secondary things for the sake of what is primary. You see, Paul is not saying you need to agree on every single secondary issue. You need to agree on every tertiary issue. He's saying you need to agree in the Lord on what is primary. What's the difference? Well, we've got a whole Bible that shows us the difference. The Bible itself will show us the difference between primary doctrines and secondary doctrines. What is a primary doctrine? What is a secondary doctrine? The primary doctrine we have in the Bible is, what is the make and break of a church? What is the make and break of a church? What is the make and break of a church existing as a church? What saves and gathers the church? It's the gospel. The primary thing that Paul says we need to be able to agree on, we have to agree on, is agreeing in the Lord, is in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what is secondary? Might matter to a church, down here it might matter, but doesn't make or break a church. What is primary? Well absolutely, if you don't have the gospel at centre, the church is not the church anymore. If Christ is not Saviour and Lord, it's not a church. It's an association or an organization or some sort of whatever else it is, it's not a church. A church is saved and gathered and formed primarily by the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and Paul says that's primary, which means what's secondary? Other things that might be important but those things don't make and break a church. For example, things like baptism. I grew up in a Baptist church and now I'm a Presbyterian, who would have thunk it? you can be in our church, you can be a member and have different views on baptism. It doesn't make or break a church because baptism doesn't save us, it's not a core doctrine of salvation. It's not equal to the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord's Supper, we're going to share in Lord's Supper. Two sacraments in the Old Testament, two sacraments in the New. Lord's Supper, it's important, we're going to celebrate it But it is not the self, the gospel, as we'll see in 1 Corinthians, it proclaims the gospel, who's Jesus. These things are important to us, friends, but they don't make or break a church. How frequently you do the Lord's Supper or all this, it doesn't make or break a church. Other examples, church governance. As a fellow elder, I think church governance is important, very important for healthy church. I've come out of churches where it was just the senior pastor was the head and I just fundamentally am convinced from the scriptures that should not be. And so Presbyterians, we believe in teams, we like to say. We believe in plurality of authority, shared authority. The elders and I have a shared authority. I have one vote at a table. If you want to know what I am, I'm a preaching pastor, I'm a preaching elder, but those guys who have other jobs, they also dedicate their life to caring for the church and we all share authority. Which means there's no one person show here, there's no... Our senior pastor is Jesus and we are under shepherds. Now, that's not to say that if you're not Presbyterian in governance, with that plurality of elders, that therefore that makes or breaks your church. No, it's secondary, it's not the most important thing. It's important to us, but it doesn't make or break the church because friends, what is core? What is primary? It's the gospel. That is what we need to agree on. You can disagree on all those things. You can disagree on baptism, theology of last things, church governance. You can even disagree on how we should do coffee around here. That's allowed. But the gospel, that is what we need to agree upon and agree in. That makes or breaks a church. And so Paul says, I know you have disagreement about many things, and they're important to disagree upon, perhaps for you, but you need to agree in the Lord. Don't let this make or break you, because you've been made new in Christ. They have been blood bought by Jesus. They are sisters now. Not just friends. We are friends and we say that to one another, but they are sisters in Christ. Part of His family. And here in this letter, Paul shows us how to have that mindset towards one another. In Philippians 2, verses 1 to 5, he says, so if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation, notice that participation, fellowship in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy of being of the same mind, being of the same love, being in full accordance and one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you not only look to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." And how do you do that? Verse five, have this mind, this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Paul has been writing for this joyful community to find their joy in Jesus, agree in Jesus. Paul uses these phrases all the way through his letter. This is how we do conflict now, friends. We don't do conflict by piling on one another or gossiping about each other. We don't speak ill of each other. We don't form factions. We pause to ponder the grace given to us in Christ and look to others' interests greater than my own. And as we do this, as we see conflict as an opportunity for the gospel, we help one another. Look at verse 3. Yes, I ask you also, true companion, help these women who have laboured side by side with me in the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers. Paul says to his true companion, we're not really sure who that is, you know, it could be Sus Ege, it could be Epaphroditus, we're not really sure. But whoever it is, Paul entrusts them with the ministry. In fact, I think if we read this, he's entrusting the church the ministry of counselling. We just finished the biblical soul care course here yesterday. It was a course we had because we want the church to be counselling one another with the gospel. Paul entrusts the church at Philippi with the ministry of counselling one another in conflict because people don't move there without that kind of help, not naturally. What do we do naturally with conflict? terrible things. Here's what we naturally do, we hold on to grudges. But we've said this before from the pulpit many times, there's a bit of a phrase around here. Friends, you can't hold on to a grudge and the gospel at the same time. You can't hold on to a grudge. Yodir in Tzintuke could not hold on to a grudge and the gospel. So I'm saved by the gospel. I've been given grace from God and then not give grace to my sister. That would be a very difficult thing to do. In fact, I think the Bible shows us it ought not be. In fact, what is holding a grudge? Holding a grudge is like a pirate with a parrot. You know pirates and parrots? I'm not really over pirating. Like I've not done a lot of work in pirating, a lot of research in pirating. But I think they have parrots. Holding a grudge is like a pirate with a parrot. The parrot's there just parroting away, isn't it? You know what it's like. So you're walking around with this parrot on your shoulder. Yes, you're right, they're wrong. I'm totally gonna own them next time in that conversation. I'm so gonna get this right. I'm gonna prove to everyone that they're the one that's wrong. And the parrot just keeps telling you back and forth about that person, and it breeds an anxiety that you end up just being this one-eyed pirate with a parrot on your shoulder because that's all the grudge is doing for you. It's repeating back to you, you're right and they're wrong. You can't hold on to that parrot and receive the gospel. Now this of course goes against every grain now being, every fibre of belief. We naturally, we naturally want to do that but supernaturally, Paul writes, the church is here now to help that be different. The grace of God given to us in Christ is one another, we're given to one another as gifts and we're here to help one another. These women have been side by side but because sin gets into everything including our pride, prizes apart, when conflict comes we actually need others to help us when we can't see straight. We need the church to be a safe place of confessing sins to one another. We need the church to come in and listen to one another because we love one another. The church is the place where we ought to come liberated that we know that we can say this, I need help. If you can't admit weakness in a church, if you can't admit wrong in a church, you're going to ask, is that church made by the gospel? The gospel of grace. We need to be able to admit weakness, admit that we're wrong, admit that I need help, and no one's going to scold me, and no one's going to shame me, and no one's going to point out my faults any more than I know them. They're going to come in and help me. That's the gift of the church. When you come to the church, you come to the safe place of grace. And so we are to help those in conflict with grace. And how do we do that, finally? With the power for conflict. And that power is in those last few words of verse 3. Paul writes about Jodi and Sintike and anyone really with conflict and he says this, you need to remember this, their names are in the Book of Life. whose names are in the Book of Life. Our cross-reference passage today was intentionally from Exodus 32. We always do that. We always connect the Old Testament to the New Testament, showing how God has authored His Word that way. And in Exodus 32, it's a famous incident, isn't it? Chris read it you saw that incident you know this incident makes a great story but it's profoundly a description of our sin and God's salvation and in Exodus 32 we see something that after God rescues his people from slavery out of Egypt that's the storyline beforehand Exodus 32 he rescues his people from slavery out of Egypt after God then saves them to glorify him and enjoy him and worship him and then we read after God cares for them he provides for them he's going to give them a promised land after he does all that for them, we then see the massive mess that is a golden calf incident, where worship goes terribly wrong and it's there that God's anger burns hotly against people. And in that moment, Moses does something incredible. In that moment, Moses says to Israel, you have sinned a great sin and I'll go up to the Lord and perhaps I can make atonement for your sin. And then Moses says to God, which is even more extraordinary, but now if you will forgive their sin, open-ended, could you forgive their sin? And then he says this, but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written. blot me out of the book of life. Who says that? If there came to be a moment in the life of our church that we had a grievous thing among us, would you be first to say, okay God, blot me out of the book of life on behalf of them? Who says that? Who would actually do that for someone else? Who would look at sinners, who would look at people in conflict, and then say, blot me out of the book of life. Who would actually do that? Moses didn't actually do that, but just who would actually do that? Jesus. That's who. God himself in Christ comes into a world of conflict and then when he comes, who is the fuller Moses figure, when he comes, he comes to make atonement for sin, which is what Moses says, but then how does he do that? He comes into a world of conflict and he doesn't flee conflict, he doesn't fight to be the one that's right. What does he do? He is blotted out on the cross. Jesus gives us life so we can have our names in the Book of Life simply by faith in Him. That's who does this. Jesus does this. Friends, that's good news. It's got to be the best news in the world. The power for conflict is the Gospel. The Gospel solves our conflict. This is a culture shaping moment for us as a church. After all our failings, whatever they are, you could list them in your mind now if you're honest. My failings. I want you to think of your failings. And then every conflict you've had, especially with a fellow believer. What are those things to you? Regrets? Shameful? Now if you get the gospel, here's what they can be. Opportunities for God to display his gracious work in us. Isn't that wonderful? Do you know when you're forgiving someone, you're most like Christ in character? You're displaying his character to a watching world when we forgive someone. Our region is watching. Our region is watching reforming church. We're a small church and we're not big influences in our region, but they're watching. Your friends who know you and they know you're a Christian, they know you belong to a church, they're watching. And they've seen perhaps you and your friends in conflict. And they're watching, and you know, you can't get an evangelistic course for this. This is more powerful than an evangelistic course or a tract. Because they're watching you, and they're wondering, how do you get through life, and what makes a difference? And what makes a difference to conflict? And rather than our region seeing reforming, finding conflict as, you know, an opportunity to fight or flee, our region is watching to see something more wonderful, and here is the opportunity before us. Imagine this. Imagine someone said to you, one of your friends said, Hey, you're at that church, aren't you? Reforming church, that's right, yeah. Weren't there two women, weren't there two friends of yours in that church, Yodir and Sintoki? Weren't they in conflict? They were fighting each other, weren't they? And you can say, yeah, they were. But they're friends again, like I've seen on Facebook, the way that they relate, I've seen them in life, they're friends again. How did that happen? Let me tell you about Jesus and what he's done, how he changes everything, even conflict. Let's pray. Lord, Father, You, in your unthinkable grace and mercy, have shown your love for us by coming into our messiness and dying on the cross. Thank you for your patient love. We pray then now that we would be a church with a culture of Christ, that he would be our hope and guide, that we would be like Jesus in facing conflict, because we praise you that our names are in the book of life by faith in Jesus. And so we pray, see Jesus change everything for us, including conflict. We thank you and pray in Jesus' name. Amen.