The Church of Eleven22 - S01 E96 - Reconciliation

Episode Date: October 12, 2020

Hey, church family, if you got your Bible, would you turn to the final chapter of the book of Philippians? And funny enough, this is going to be the final week of our divos. They're not gone forever, but I felt like when we were ordered to shelter at home, was that six months ago or something, I felt like the Lord impressed upon me that I needed to shepherd our church through this season. So this is why I started doing these devos. And at this point now, we're into like the middle of October, all of our campuses are open except our prison campuses. So pray for those guys.

But they can watch on kind of online. Our kids ministry is open. Our student ministry is open. Everything is wide to open. And so just for pacing sake for myself, this is going to be the end of the online divos, at least for the rest of this year. I do think they will come back for certain seasons based on series that we're doing. So I hope they've been helpful.

And if you feel like you just have to have them, well, I think we did 30 weeks or something like that. So feel free to go back all the way to week one and re-listen to them all. Maybe you'll learn something brand new. So Philippians, chapter four, one of my favorite chapters in all of Philippians. I feel like I go here a lot. We're just going to do three verses. today. Paul says to the church at Philippi, therefore brothers, whom I love and long for,

my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved. Do you hear the affectionate language that Paul has for the church at Philippi? And again, we talked about this a few weeks ago when he said in the introduction to Philippians, how he longed to see them, he remembered their tears. he said it was right for him to feel that way and he had this church in his heart again 1122 this is how I feel about you my joy my crowned my beloved and even though what's interesting is the next two verses that we get to right after Paul has said that there is his crown and his joy and his beloved and how into the church and philippi he is that there is conflict in this church I don't know if you

know this I don't know how long you've been going to going to church, but sometimes at church there's conflict. And some of you may say, oh, no, Pastor Joby, how could there be conflict? I thought this was just like a family. Well, think about the amount of conflict that happens in your family. I mean, in fact, most of the wounds that you will carry with you the rest of your life, they don't come from strangers. They rarely come from coworkers. They most often come from family. And the thing about a church family is this, is that reconciliation is a must, that we are called to forgive one another, and then just as we have been reconciled unto God through the blood of Jesus Christ, you and I have been given the ministry of reconciliation.

Now, ultimately, that means evangelism, that we are to share the good news of the gospel with people that are not reconciled to God so that through the blood of Jesus, they too can be reconciled to God, but also to have the ministry of reconciliation means that you and I should be reconciled to one another. Let me think about this. Jesus says that reconciliation in the church, that forgiveness, repentance, by the way that those are the ingredients of reconciliation, we're commanded to forgive everybody. It only takes one person to forgive. It does take two parties to be reconciled. In order for reconciliation to happen, there must be forgiveness and repentance

so that these two parties can come back together. And Jesus says, this is how important unity your reconciliation in the church is, Jesus says, if you are about to give your offering at the altar and you know that somebody in the church has something against you, then hold off on your offering, hold off on bringing your first and best, and first go and be reconciled to that brother or sister, and then come and bring that offering before the Lord. You see, so what Paul says, after he calls him, his joy, his crown, his beloved. Now he's going to talk about a specific situation in the church. He says, I entreat Yodium and I entreat Cintech to agree in the Lord.

Here are two people that must not be agreeing in the Lord, and he is entreating these two people with very difficult names to say to be reconciled, to agree, to come back together. Verse three, he says, yes, I ask you also true. companion. Now, I'm going to be honest. I don't know exactly who he's talking about here, and I looked in a bunch of commentaries, and nobody knows exactly who he's talking about here. There are all kinds of different ideas, but one of the ideas is that he may be talking to the pastor at the church at Philippi. He says, yes, I ask you also true companion, help these women

who have labored side by side with me in the gospel together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the book of life. All right. So here's what he says. He says, all right, ladies, Yodia and Cintech, I need you to be reconciled. And oh, by the way, other folks at church who have labored with me, Christians whose land or whose name are written in the land's book of life, and maybe even the pastor, if they can't figure out how to be reconciled just the two of them, then I'm going to need some of you to help. That's how big a deal this is. You see, a part of the reason we know this is what Paul is talking about is because Jesus in Matthew Chapter 18, Jesus gives us, he gives us the ingredients for what it takes to be reconciled.

So Church of 1122, let me just ask you, is there somebody in your family, at work, or especially somebody in your church that you are harboring something against? Well, in Matthew chapter 18, Jesus walks through step by step exactly how we are to be reconciled. And I think sometime in the past, I walked through Matthew 18 verse by verse, but let's just go over it real quick. You see, Jesus first and foremost says, if your brother has sinned against you, go and talk to him about it face to face. All right? There's a lot there. In fact, first of all, you've got to determine is the person that you have an offense against, is it a brother? If it's not a brother, then your conversation

needs to be about them being reconciled unto the Lord, not necessarily being reconciled unto you. In other words, you need to have an evangelism conversation before you have the discipleship conversation. Secondly, had they sinned against you or did they just get on your nerves? And if they have sinned against you and they are a believer, then the Bible says that you are to talk to them and not about them. I think maybe this is a part of what was going on here at the church at Philippi. That maybe these women are talking about each other, how else would Paul know? And what they need to do is talk to them, not tweet them, not text them, not write Facebook post about them, not share negative prayer request about other people in your disciple group, but talk to

the people, not about the people. And Paul says, and if you win over it, your brother, then praise God, all as well. But if that doesn't work, then what Jesus says in Matthew 18 is then the next step is you need to find somebody else. I think that somebody else is here that Paul is talking about is those who labored by his side with me and the rest of my fellow workers. Pick one of the rest of the fellow workers, and if these two ladies can't be reconciled together and get one of the fellow workers to come in.

and the reason that you get somebody else to help you reconcile is not so that that person can hold them while you assault them. That's not what it is at all. But sometimes what we need is an objective third party in our relationships that can hold up the mirror of the word of God to each person and be fair to each person. And then Jesus says in Matthew 18, and then if that doesn't work, tell it to the church.

This is why I believe that his true companion here he's talking about may be the pastor of the church of Philibaba. And when Jesus, Matthew 18, says, tell it to the church, he doesn't mean tell it to the church gathering on the weekend. That doesn't mean if there's somebody that's got sin in their life or there's a couple that is irreconcilable in that moment. We don't parade them in front of the church service to shame them, not at all. It means that pastors and elders in your church should be there to help you. walk through these kind of relational frictions that happens in the life of a church. And then Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 18, and if that doesn't work, then treat them like an outsider.

Now, let me ask you this. How did Jesus treat outsiders? He loved them. He rolled out the red carpet for him. He called him friends. He died on the cross for their sin. Now, he didn't put outsiders in charge of the church, but maybe what it means to treat them like an outsider is to overwhelm them with love.

And so Paul's encouragement here, after again, he paints the picture of the Church of Philibis, his crown, his joy, his beloved, and yet knowing in every family, in every family, there is friction, and the only way that friction will be healed is by reconciliation. Now Jesus and Matthew chapter 18, knowing, that there would be people that want to push back and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, Jesus, hold on. How in the world do you expect me to be reconciled with this person? You have no idea what they have done to me.

And to which Jesus would say, well, I mean, actually, I do. I know everything, but I get what you're saying. And so then in Matthew chapter 18, Jesus shares this parable. It's called the parable of the unmerciful servant. The parable goes something like this. There was a master and a man. owed him some money, a great sum of money. In fact, the money that the man owed, he would not have been

able to pay off if he lived 20 lifetimes, this huge amount of money. And so that man comes to the master, and the master says to him, pay me what you owe me, or I'm going to throw you in jail. And then the servant gets down on his hands and knees and says, master, please have mercy on me. Please, please, please, please forgive my debt. And so the master in this parable says, your debt is forgiven. And then Jesus goes on to say, and that very man whose huge debt was just forgiven walks out into the street and he sees a guy that owes him basically like a month's wage. So he just got forgiven millions, maybe billions of dollars. And then he bumps into a guy that owes him hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. And as Jesus,

is telling the parable, he specifically uses the same words in each scenario. In the second scenario, the man that owes a few hundred or maybe a thousand dollars comes to the guy who's just been forgiven and says the same thing, master, master, I can't pay what I owe you. Would you please, please, please forgive my debts? And then the unmerciful servant, the one who had just been forgiven, all of that looks down his nose at the man that owes him a little bit and says, the Bible actually says it puts him in a chokehold and says, I'm going to send you to jail until you pay back everything that you owe me, which, by the way, you don't make any money in jail. So it would be impossible from jail to ever repay that debt. Then some bystanders see what's happening there, and then they go to the main

master, the big dog master, and they say, hey, that servant that you just forgave all of his debt, we see him treating somebody else that owes a little bit to him unmercifully. and so the main master gets that guy, the middleman that had been forgiven but did not give forgiveness and he brings him back into his chambers and he says, how dare you? How dare you? You who have been forgiven of so much, how could you not forgive what this man owes you? You see, the reason that we forgive is because we've been forgiven. C.S. Lewis says that Christianity is ultimately this, is that I forgive the inexcusable in you because of what God has forgiven in me. And the reason that you and I should be reconciled is because Christ came on a reconciling

mission. And you and I who were enemies of God through the blood of Jesus could be reconciled to a holy and perfect God. Therefore, if we who are imperfect could be reconciled with one who was holy and perfect, and there is no person that you couldn't be reconciled with. Now, I'm not saying you walk back into abuse or anything like that, okay? I hope you understand that. But is there somebody at the church? Is there somebody that used to be in a disciple group? Is there somebody that you used to know, you used to work with, you used to be friends with?

Is there somebody in your family and you haven't talked to them in forever, and you are waiting for them to go first? Well, then I dare you. I dare you to pick up the phone, not to text, but I dare you to pick up the phone to make a phone call and begin the process. Talk to them and not about them. You own maybe even more than your part of the relationship, because it always takes two. Now again, if they refuse to play along, then it won't be reconciled because it takes two to reconcile. But I know you're thinking, well, you don't know about this relationship.

This relationship is impossible. except if the tomb is empty, anything's possible. And if simple humanity can be reconciled to a holy and perfect God, then surely his children can be reconciled one to another. So pick up the phone, make the call, start the really hard work of forgiveness and repentance that leads to reconciliation. And if you need help, ask somebody in your disciple group.

If your disciple group needs help, call us here at the church. Let's pray. Father in heaven, God, you call us sons and daughters, and you instruct us to call each other brothers and sisters, because that's what we are. We're family. And God, in every family, there's friction, there's strife, there's heartache, there's pain, there's resentment, there's all of those things. And Jesus, your blood can wash away all of those things. God, your blood can make all things new. even our broken relationships. It's the Spirit of God, I pray right now, even through this Devo,

that you would speak to the hearts of men and women, that they would take the hard first step of obedience to reaching out to those people that they need to forgive. And God, that there would be forgiveness and repentance and ultimately reconciliation to your glory and our joy. We prayed in Jesus' name.