Reconcilable Differences

Have you ever experienced a time when a minor disagreement escalated and became a full-blown conflict? Imagine this started out as some kind of disagreement or some kind of issue between two faithful women in the church and now it has become sort of the prevailing issue that threatens the entire church.

Gossip has no interest in staying quiet. These issues that emanate from a graceless character that we all have relish an audience, and the bigger the audience, the better. Can you think of a time when a couple people in your church were having a dispute? Disputes in the church are inevitable, and we need to know how to deal with them effectively even when we're not personally involved. When people we know are involved in conflict, there's a couple ways we're tempted to respond.

We either stay out and mind our own business, or we take sides. The Apostle Paul provides a third option, and we're going to learn that option today. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen's calling today's lesson, Reconcilable Differences. We're in Philippians chapter 4, and we arrive at a text where Paul names two women who are not getting along. One of our church leaders sent me an email yesterday and he said, this is going to be a tough passage.

Well, it will be. Actually, it's easy to preach because Paul is so clear in his basic issue at hand. Let's pick up the study where we left off. We're now at verse 2, where Paul writes, I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord. Now, if anybody was dozing off in the Sunday morning service while this letter was being read, they're wide awake now.

In fact, every head is going to turn to Syntyche and probably on the other side of the assembly, Euodia. Now, what you might immediately think is rather blunt is actually a study in gracious confrontation. Let me show you two things Paul does right off the bat. First, he repeats this verb, I urge Euodia, I urge Syntyche.

Did you notice? The verb there can be translated and maybe in yours, I entreat. Or you can render it, I plead, I appeal, even I encourage is the idea. And that's striking to me because the Apostle Paul could very easily have thrown his apostolic weight around that church through this letter and commanded these women. Why is he entreating them?

This is disrupting the church, Paul. You've done it before where he would write, I command you. And there's a little discussion. He doesn't do that here as he opens this rather gracious confrontation.

Instead, he calls them by name. You need to think in your minds that this is a grammatical expression where Paul is as if he were speaking first to one woman and then the next. Now obviously, the issue of disharmony is serious enough to call out. I mean, Paul understands that there is a great danger in false doctrine, false teachers.

He's just laid that out in chapter 3. But just as crippling as false doctrine is disharmony. Even if a church's doctrine is sound, disunity robs a church of its power. It can easily destroy the testimony of any individual church in any community. Maybe you're here having come from a situation like that where the church effectively lost its testimony because of disharmony. Just Google church fights as I did, wondering if there was anything out there. And oh my, there are more video vignettes, more news reports than you would ever want to see or have time to serve.

And I finally clicked off too much. Paul fully knew that discord and disunity and conflict could devastate the integrity of the Philippian church's testimony. In fact, I think by this time, it's already splashed on the front page of the Roman News and Observer. You know, the headline would probably read something like church fight in Philippi.

Just as the London Times carried the argument between Spurgeon and Parker over incidental issues. Yes, Paul calls them by name, but he uses a gracious approach at appealing to these women. Then he does something else. I want you to notice that Paul refuses to take sides. He's appealing to them both, and by doing that, he doesn't take sides with either one of them.

And that may have been a little frustrating to both of them. But he says, I urge you, Odie, and I urge syndicate to live in harmony. And then this phrase, in the Lord.

And that's a little hint at where he's heading. Live in harmony is the same as have this mind, have the same thinking. Why? Because you are both in the Lord. In other words, go back to your common ground that you have in the Lord. Make up your mind to live in harmony. That's something you're going to have to choose to do.

And you're going to choose it because you are both in the Lord. Go back to that common ground. You can't agree with a lot of things in life, but can you agree with the most important thing in life?

So return to that common ground. He pleads with them as he attempts to reconcile. Paul said it in a way one commentator wrote it this way. He knew that if they got right in the Lord, they would be right with each other. Now the next thing Paul does, I observe, is this. Instead of taking sides and going into all of the details and spreading it out in front of the church, instead of berating these women, Paul actually begins, and this is rather surprising, but I think a wonderful lesson to us all, he begins to praise these women.

You would think that following that statement, he would say, let me give you five reasons why you've got to do this. But instead, notice the middle part of verse three. These women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the Gospel, together with Clement, also in the rest of my fellow workers, he's saying, look, they shared. Let me tell you about them. Because by the way, in the church, everybody was probably talking about them, but he said, let me tell you about them. They shared in my struggle in the Gospel. Now that tells us several things about them.

First of all, it tells us that they were church members, not outsiders. Secondly, they're active members. They're not inactive or simply observers or absent.

They're active. Thirdly, they are long-term members. They share in the struggle that Paul refers to in the establishment of this church. It is between two faithful charter members who, for some reason that Paul doesn't give us, have a personal disagreement, and now the church has taken sides.

One is siding with Euodia and one is siding with Syneke, and there's probably another group just trying to stay out of the way. The enemy of the church is licking his chops. It's true that in any church division, the devil does not take sides.

He just provides ammunition for both sides and then watches and waits. This has become a threat that Paul has to deal with head on. Imagine this started out as some kind of disagreement or some kind of issue between two faithful women in the church, and now it has become sort of the prevailing issue that threatens the entire church. Gossip has no interest in staying quiet. These issues that emanate from a graceless character that we all have relish an audience, and the bigger the audience, the better. That's what's going on here. Everybody knows it's the elephant in the room.

This has affected everybody. It's finally on the table. And now having done that, Paul begins to offer a recommendation that will bring it to an end. I want you to look back at verse 3 again. He says, Indeed, true comrade or companion, I ask you to help these women who have shared in my struggle. Now Paul here doesn't name the comrade.

The noun can be translated, it may be in your text, yoke fellow or companion. Paul here is clearly enlisting a leader to help these women in the church, and they evidently knew who the man was. It was obvious to them. I've read a dozen different viewpoints on who this man was. Some believe it was Timothy. Timothy is certainly referred to by Paul as his true companion. Others believe it was Silas. Silas was a traveling fellow evangelist having struggled in the gospel with Paul and its delivery. Some believe that this is meant to be a metaphor for the entire church, and that's a good option as well. Others believe this should be translated as a proper name and given a capital S, sudzuge. And the meaning of the name is yoke fellow or companion, and so Paul is providing a pun or a parallel to the meaning of the name. Now go do what your name means, basically.

Create a yoke between these who are divided. Others, not many, but at least one other that I read suggested that this was Paul's wife because the term companion, that same word is used to refer to a wife. There are all kinds of different opinions. I would personally throw my vote behind Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus was called Paul's co-worker earlier in chapter 2 of this same letter. He was the man that we know was carrying this letter to the assembly in Philippi, and he was more than likely the man who would have been standing reading this letter to the church assembly. But we really don't know, and so we don't want to fight about it.

We just don't know. In the end, who he was is evidently not as important as what he's supposed to do. Paul says, would you help these women? Let me pause here again and offer some principles, number 98, 99, and 100, okay?

Here we go. First, conflict is often resolved by the assistance of cooler heads. So many times, people embroiled in a conflict, you've been there and so have I, can use someone to come along who can offer a fresh perspective.

If they're a good listener, especially if they are emotionally unattached, they can provide an honest evaluation that kind of goes past, let's just leave all the details of he said, she said. That's really not the issue. Just bring clarity where there is so much emotion. Secondly, when conflicts arise, the church body is not asked to take sides but untangle the issues. In other words, where there's a divisive problem in the church, and this is going to sound strange, and maybe this is why Paul left the individual unnamed because perhaps it is to be applied to the body and other passages of scripture would imply the same thing. Paul is effectively recommending to the body that when you see a conflict, feel free to jump in, but not to take sides but to untangle the issues. Don't sit on the sidelines and say, wow, would you look at that? Don't listen to it and think, well, you know, it'll probably work itself out.

No, jump in and help out. I think this is much of what Paul was thinking when he wrote to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 19 when he said, I hear there are divisions among you. Church in Corinth was experiencing it just like any other church. And then he says, but it must be so, so that those who are mature will be made evident among you. In other words, when temperatures start to rise, watch for cool heads and wise hearts to surface and begin to benefit the body.

And they will begin by encouraging the participants to stop and stoop low and dish out a generous portion of grace, graciousness. Third, winning an argument is never more important than protecting the body. As I have mulled over the implications of these verses, it strikes me, you know, Paul was never asking his companion to get rid of these women. He wasn't asking for his companion to take sides with one of these women.

He's not asking his companion to declare a winner in the argument. Now, just go and build a bridge and lead them back over it to each other. One of the verses that came to mind was the verse by the Lord when he's giving his sermon on the mount when he said, blessed are the what? What comes to your mind? Peacemakers.

And it's instructive. He doesn't say, blessed are the peace lovers. We'd all like that. No, blessed are the peacemakers.

They're going to jump in and help out. In fact, I couldn't help but also recall if you've read the biography of John Adams or Thomas Jefferson, these two men who fell out with each other. You talk about heat and fire between these two statesmen.

They abandoned any kind of correspondence in their later years, and the feud between them was known around Washington. But in 1809, another signer of the Declaration of Independence, his name was Benjamin Rush, he began to appeal to these two men, urging them for the sake of the country to renew their friendship and begin corresponding with one another. And evidently, after several years of pleading, and it took about three or four years of pleading, Thomas Jefferson wrote a very short letter to John Adams. And John Adams wrote a very short reply. One letter followed another, however, until in one letter from John Adams, written to Jefferson, July 15th, 1813, he wrote this, I write four letters to your one.

Your one is worth more than my four. He stooped low in grace. And then he writes this, You and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other. That began correspondence and a friendship between these two signers of the Declaration of Independence, both former presidents of the United States.

By the way, it's interesting, if you read their biography, you'll know that they both died on the same day, which just so happened to be the Fourth of July. And really, it's a wonderful testimony, because the story was not their division, the big story was their reconciliation. I think that plays into what I read at the end of this paragraph. Notice how Paul concludes his discussion on the matter. Notice how he ends verse three, whose names are in the book of life. Now, he's referred to Clement.

We know absolutely nothing about him, but we're not even going to begin to guess. He references fellow workers. He references these two women. He references this faithful commandment. But notice, all of them have their names in the book of life.

This is a family issue. This final phrase is deeply convicting. It's as if Paul subtly reminds them and us, look, we're all going to die. We're all going to die. And then, what will be said of us as it relates to the unity of the church? We're all in the family of God, but what is going to be said or thought of as it relates to us? Can you imagine this?

Euodia and Siddiqui, for 1,900 years, are known as the two women who couldn't get along. Wouldn't it have been great if we had just gotten another letter that said they patched it all up and everything worked out? It's left there, and I think it's left there as a warning. And here's the point. What would Paul say about you and me? I mean, how would our one sentence read as it relates to the harmony of the church? The final phrase, that little phrase is not only convicting, but it's very encouraging. Our names are written in the book of life. In other words, for those who believe, we're on our way to heaven.

Yes, we're going to die, but we're going to heaven. There's another way of saying resolving problems in the present with grace takes place when we remember we are heading to a place of unbelievable grace that we'll be able to see and touch. The graciousness of God that he has reserved for those who believe is unimaginable, the apostle writes. We can't even begin to imagine the glory that God has reserved for those who believe.

You can't imagine it, but that's our future. Paul says, listen, in light of that future, remember your names are written in the book of life. Come back to the present and demonstrate the grace that God has reserved for you beyond your own salvation. Don't forget, all of you, your names are written in the book of life. This is what Paul was reminding him.

Why? Because in an argument, in a division, it's like, well, those people aren't even saved. I mean, those two women couldn't do that, and that church couldn't be divided if they were all saved. And Paul said, well, those who believe in that assembly are. They're all saved.

All their names are written in the book of life. Rejoice in that. The disciples came back from a preaching week or two and met with the Lord, and they were giving their reports to him, and they were rejoicing over it, and Jesus said to them this wonderful phrase, oh, no, here's something to rejoice in. Rejoice, not in your ministry success, don't rejoice in the power that you saw demonstrated even over the demonic world.

Yes, you can rejoice in that, but here's something to really rejoice about. Rejoice that your names are written in heaven. Daniel, in his Old Testament prophecy, writes that he sees the resurrection of everyone whose name is found written in the book. Is your name there by faith in Christ alone? Beloved, one way to endure with grace and to offer to live by grace as a believer and attempt to demonstrate grace to others is to remember our eternal future is drenched, literally drenched with grace, that God would stoop to give us that kind of eternal future when none of us deserve it. We demonstrate the uniqueness of this mindset of our Lord who stooped low in his humility to demonstrate grace back in Philippians 2, and this attitude ought to be in ours.

He's telling you, Odie and Synegy have this attitude, have this mindset, live in this manner as our Lord. I close with this front page article in the San Francisco Chronicle. It's featured in a book by a Christian author from the West Coast. The article in the Chronicle was about a metro transit operator named Linda Wilson Allen who demonstrated grace to the people who rode on her bus, and it so marked those people that it eventually made it into the newspaper.

Now here's the kind of article you want in the newspaper. She would wait for people who were late, what bus driver does that, and then make up the time in her route. She learned their names.

The same people tended to ride the same route at the same time. A woman in her 80s, the Chronicle interviewed, named Ivy had had some heavy grocery bags and she struggled with them and Linda got out of her bus seat and out the door to help her load them on the bus. Now Ivy lets other buses pass so she can ride on Linda's. On another occasion, Linda noticed a stranger in the area. She introduced herself and found out the woman was new to the area and was lost. It was coming up on Thanksgiving Day, so Linda said to her, you're out here all by yourself. You don't know anybody.

Look, come on over for Thanksgiving dinner and spend it with me and my family. Now they're friends. And this woman, Tanya, has found the help she needed to get settled.

The article went on. Linda, the bus driver, has built a little community of blessing on this bus. Passengers offer Linda the use of their vacation homes. Sometimes a passenger will bring her a potted plant or some flowers or a scarf like the ones she enjoys wearing to spruce up her plain bus driver's uniform. Doesn't make her job any easier. In fact, think about what a thankless task driving a bus can look like in our world, the article said. Cranky passengers, engine breakdowns, traffic jams, cranky passengers, did I mention that already?

Gum on the seats, trash in the aisles. How does she have this attitude of grace, the San Francisco Chronicle asked. The reporter answered. Her attitude is actually set at 2 30 a.m., but she gets down on her knees and begins to pray. And then the article said, Linda Wilson Allen is a Christian. At the close of her shift each day, when she gets to the end of her line, she always hollers out to the remaining passengers, I love you. Have a great day. Chronicle said, Can you imagine a bus driver telling his passengers or hers, I love you?

The article ends by the author making this application. If people ever wonder, where can I find the spirit of God's kingdom? I'll tell you. On number 45 bus riding through San Francisco. If people want to know, where can I see the grace of God at work?

The answer is right there behind the wheel of a metro transit bus. And I was left with the thought, I couldn't help but think, if this kind of grace can work on a bus, surely it can work in the church. Thanks for tuning in today.

I hope this message helped you. It may not be happening right now in your life or church, but we're all going to encounter and observe conflict. Today you've learned a grace-filled way to respond.

And I hope we all will do just that the next time we're faced with the opportunity. This is Wisdom for the Heart with our daily Bible teacher, Stephen Davey. Stephen is the pastor of the Shepherd's Church in Cary, North Carolina. This was the first message in a series called Extravagant Grace. In the days ahead, we're going to explore how grace should permeate all of our relationships.

And I hope you'll be with us for each message. Today's sermon is entitled Reconcilable Differences. If you missed the beginning of this broadcast and want to hear what you missed, or if you want to go back and listen again, you can do that from our website, wisdomonline.org. Each daily message is posted there and you can access that free of charge anytime. You can also find it easily on the Wisdom International Smartphone app. That app contains the complete archive of Stephen's Bible teaching ministry. You can follow along in our daily Bible reading plan as well. And as I mentioned, you can listen to our daily broadcast.

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