Be at Peace with One Another Today

``Why do we need to be at peace with one another? Because first John talks about camouflaging your faith or confirming your faith. When people hear about churches having fusses and fumes and fights, they think Jesus must not be worth anything. Because I can do that at school. I can do that in public. I can do that at Walmart. But when they come into a church and they see different people from different walks of life and they see that they're peaceful on one another, when they see disagreements, but they see those disagreements not handled in a disagreeable way, but people with a humbleness and a desire to connect together, then they know that God is at work, and then they know that Jesus is something, and then they come to know that Jesus is the only way to the father and that when he cleanses a brother or sister, he makes them clean. [00:34:58] (60 seconds)  #ChurchUnityMatters

And I love what Jesus says because it it it really informs this idea of of being at peace with one another. He says, do not hinder him for if the one who there is no one who perform a miracle in my name and then later speak bad of me. And then he says in verse 40, listen to this, for he who is not against us is for us. He's saying, look, quit trying to divide into camps. If you're serving God, if we're following Jesus, we need to be together. That doesn't mean that he he's saying, make him come walk with us. He's he's doing his own thing. He's casting out demons in Jesus' name. I don't know who that would be. I don't know how what how that would be, and that's not the purpose of the focus of this message. But he's saying, look, this guy's out serving me in my name, bringing glory to me as I bring glory to the father, that makes him part of our team even though he's not one of us walking around. [00:14:02] (55 seconds)  #SupportGodsWorkers

As a matter of fact, if you're at home right now, I said I want this to be interactive, and I've been talking for a long time. Let me ask you to do something. Just just either stand up or lean forward and just bow your head and ask God this question. God, am I holding something against a brother or sister? Maybe someone always has a different point of view than you do, and you've gotten frustrated with the fact that it always seems like they're contradicting you or or suggesting something different than the way you would do it. Have you humbled yourself and gone to that person? Are you serving that person, humbling yourself and putting their needs ahead of your own? [00:36:30] (57 seconds)  #CheckYourHeart

How many of you have somebody in your life, maybe it's me, maybe I'm that person in your life, that you just man, you struggle to get along. You you look at that person and they're so weird or that you look at that person and they're so loud, or you look at that person and they're so different than you, and you just say, I don't understand where they're coming from. I don't agree with them. I just can't do this. Well, then does that mean then I'm free to to tell them off, to to get on the get on the social media and blast them to everybody? No. Because we are, if possible, as far as it depends on us, to be at peace with all men. Now Paul wrote that in the book of Romans to the Gentile born believers, the Jewish born believers that were struggling to get along. He said, look, get along with everybody as far as you're able. Now there's some people that are not gonna be at peace with us and we can't control them. [00:19:19] (48 seconds)  #ChoosePeaceNotPosting

one another. Let me give you the background of what's going on here in this passage, and we're really gonna focus on verse 50. But one of the important things that I said earlier when I streamed a a Sunday school message for scripture meditation class is we need to make sure that we understand verses in their context. Often often been said, and I don't know who made it up originally, but a a text without its context can easily become a pretext. And what's that mean? What that means is instead of us reading the meaning out of the text, if we're not careful, we can read meaning into the text and try to make it say things that it does not say. [00:10:10] (40 seconds)  #ReadInContext

Be patient with everyone. If there's one thing that I struggle with when it comes to others, it's patience. I'm just gonna be honest with you. I'm I'm kinda sometimes a big picture guy. I can look over the horizon and see what I believe is coming, But the what really is hard for me at times is moving people along into that vision. I'm careful because I'm also a person who likes to have consensus and and I like to inspire people to move on their own instead of directing them. But it's hard sometimes when when you can see something clearly and others cannot. And you're you're tempted to it today. Come along. Why don't you move? Why aren't you coming to small group? You know you need to. Why aren't you getting involved in ministry? You know you need to. Come on. What are you doing? You know you need to not just be a Sunday morning person. You know you need to not just be a Christmas and Easter person. Why don't you get a move on? Why don't you get we need to be patient with people. Now that doesn't mean ignoring them. That doesn't mean letting them stay where they are, but we need to patiently move them along and patiently let God and the holy spirit direct them. [00:30:51] (71 seconds)  #PatienceBuildsPeople

And so the idea of admonishing the unruly is for those who are not living the Christian life that have said they are part of this church and we are together, we need to help them by pointing out those things. Does that mean that we peep in their windows at night and try to find everything they're doing and try to make a list of all their shortcomings? Well, not unless you want them to do that to you because we need to treat each other the way that we want to be treated. No. What we're talking about is when you see a believer acting in a manner that's not indicative of the claims they have made to be a follower of Jesus, and it is hurting others or it is drawing a glory away from God, then we have a we have a responsibility to encourage one another by admonishing the unruly. Admonishing them, by the way, doesn't mean beat them down. It means encourage them. It means encourage them to do right. Tell them tell them what you see. Ask them about it. It may be they don't realize they're doing it. I know I had a particular time one time when I came out of a deacons meeting and I had been pretty brutal with some people in that meeting and one of the deacons came by and said, look, I know you love us and I know you love this church, and I know you love Jesus, but I gotta tell you how you acted in that meeting contradicted all those things. Well, how did I feel? I was I was I'm just gonna be honest. My my initial reaction was defensive. [00:25:33] (81 seconds)  #CorrectWithGrace

Refuse retaliation. Boy. If there's one thing that would make p more peace in our nation between our political parties, on social media, in our churches, in our organizations, it would be, I don't have to be rude to you just because you're rude to me. I don't have to type out a blast message just because you put me on blast. I don't have to get even or over on you. Instead, what should I do? Seek good for you. That's what Paul said when he said, bless your enemies. Right? [00:32:22] (40 seconds)  #RespondWithBlessings