We're gonna take a little bit of a break from the study of gifts and the fruit of the Spirit. But it's not totally disconnected. Hopefully, it'll help to shape our sense of the context. One of the primary not exclusive, but a primary contexts where our gifts are to be invested. And the kinds of settings that call for the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control. Before we began looking at a series of passages, I want to tell you a little bit of a story. When Deborah and I moved to Maryland back in early in 1985, we spent quite a bit of time with a search committee, team of people that were appointed to work through resumes of prospective preachers, and then discuss it and recommend which ones would be brought in for the pig show. You know, that's where you come in, and you, you preach your best sermon and you teach your best Sunday school class. I was thinking this morning, I'm a little bit amped about the chance to preach to think years ago, you know, I taught a Sunday school class, preached a Sunday morning, a Sunday night and had a Wednesday night class every week. And those days are long gone. And some are celebrating and others are lamenting, maybe we need to bring a few of those times back. I won't enter that debate. Definitely don't want to be responsible for four presentations a week.
Terry, Herndon was a member of the church who had been an elder. And if Ronald Reagan had not been elected the first time and eventually appointed the first member of the cabinet, as Secretary of Education. Terry Herndon would have been if the Democrat do caucus had one. He was in and out of the Carter administration. He was a member of the congregation where I was. Thankfully, I didn't know that about Terry, when I went for the big show. And I'm saying that in good humor. There's a real purpose when proclamation is a primary part of your position. Does he proclaim well? Is it true to the word? Is he personable? Does he communicate? Well. Now when that's the only thing you know about him, there are lots of gaps. But there was another Terry in the congregation, Terry Dawson and Terry was the chairman of that search committee. He had his PhD in aeronautical engineering. Theory love the jokes about you know, it's not rocket science. He understood rocket science. He was terrified of flying. Because he knew so much about aeronautics, that he knew that it's almost an impossibility that something that weighs that much can fly, and that there's enough given those wings that all of that pressure does it just rip it apart. Because of his degree and training and experience, he was the chief scientific adviser to the House Subcommittee on space. When the space shuttle blew up. Terry Dawson flew all over the country. For hearings he was a part of the team that finally boiled it down to it was a small o ring that was defective. small piece of rubber failed. And that was where the catastrophe We came from if you think your part in the body of Christ is small
remember the importance of something small. Here were two guys who were cheap champions in their field. Highly successful in Washington DC, members of the same church. One was a card carrying Democrat and the other a card carrying Republican potluck dinners at the rockville Church of Christ. were fascinating when Terry and Terry sat on opposite sides of the table and talked about whatever the latest Washington DC topic was. They could disagree with the best and they could state their case with articulate details that were fascinating. The most remarkable thing that I began to recognize is they never called into question each other's faith in any of those disagreements if there's one thing that our nation has lost in the last 20 plus years, it seems civility and disagreement.
The ability to contend without being contentious to challenge without seeking to destroy
Terry Dawson had a PhD in aeronautical engineering. And our daughter Rachel was born in 1988. February of 1988. She had a malformation the T fistula of the esophagus, esophageal atresia T fistula that's the long medical name. Your organs form in your body in utero before the connectors. And then those connectors grow from the organ to the other place. And so your stomach forms and then the esophagus goes up or your your esophagus goes up and it comes down from the throat and they connect. Well, in rare cases of this condition, one hand turned and grew to her windpipe from her stomach up, and so the part from her throat just dead ended there. Well, in utero, you're breathing the amniotic fluid and swallowing it. And so through her swallowing, it was getting down but she couldn't clear her lungs immediately after her birth because they were connected to her stomach not properly. It's It's Miss plumbed.
And we found out the first day of her life that she was going to have to have major surgery. That was going to require at a minimum the removal of one of her ribs to create just enough space for this surgeon to get his hands in and do what needed to be done. Deborah is in one hospital because she's given birth Rachel has been transferred to another hospital and I'm there with her by myself in a waiting room. And I look up and there's Terry Dawson coming in. incredibly busy schedule. He sits down we talked for a little bit he can't stay long but he reaches into his pocket and he pulls out a roll of quarters. David talked about taking you back. There's no nostalgia in this is just unnecessary detail of the story. Cell phones didn't exist at that point. It was only a few years old. later that I saw the first one, and it had that satchel, brick heavy battery that only the very wealthy or very busy had at all. If I was going to call family to give them updates, I was going to have to go out to a payphone and drop quarters in it. In any call took quite a few quarters. My PhD scientists brother thought ahead that John might need some quarters to use a payphone. He took the time out of his busy schedule to go by bank and get a roll of quarters. And he put them in my hand. Years later, when I started preaching here, Deborah and the kids are still in Maryland because we needed to sell our townhouse there before we could buy a house here. And thankfully, a contract came through even though it was a really tight market at that point there. There were more sellers than there were buyers. But we had to have a house inspection done. And this house inspector climbed up on top of a three floor townhouse and found a little something up there. That had to be corrected. Can you guess who Deborah called. To get help with that? It was Terry Das. One of Terry's gifts that most of the people in DC probably didn't know is he had this incredible heart of compassion. And he was a very practical, hands on House Repair kind of guy.
And he was willing to block off the time and do what he could to help us even if we were leaving. In this swirl of giftings and fruit I want to remind you have one of those primary context where our gifts are supposed to be used. And that's in the context of one another.
I've cut and pasted a list of verses that use the phrase one another. If you have an online Bible, either on your computer or on your phone or somewhere else an app, if you go in and you put in the two words one another and you put parentheses around it. You're going to get passages that use that phrase to word phrase one another. And that's how I found these. Look at Romans 1210. We've got it up here. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. The next one, Romans 1216 Just a few verses later, live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud. But be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited or Romans 15 Seven, accept one another. Then just as Christ accepted you in order to bring praise to God. Romans 1514 Paul writing says hi myself, I'm convinced my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another. Then one of my all time favorites, Romans 1616 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches have Christ send greetings greet one another
one of the great difficulties of COVID shut down. social distancing. You can't do the one another's without being with other people. Now there's some parts of it you can do through a phone call
I remember as a kid, a season when some in my home church over in Belle Boca weren't particularly happy with a preacher. And I remember hearing one lady say, you know, I can sit at home and read my Bible for myself.
My 1213 year old man first question was, would you
I hadn't yet discovered that there's this whole series of passages that address things that are supposed to go on in addition to beyond the preaching, the singing, communion. But even the word communion challenges the way many of us were trained school discipled. It's a solitary, self searching individualistic activity.
Let's look at three from Ephesians chapter four verse to be completely humble and be gentle, be patient bearing with one another in love. Ephesians 430 to be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other. Just as in Christ, God forgave you. Ephesians 521 Submit to one another, out of reverence for Christ. When you start digging into these passages, you find that they're primarily not exclusively but primarily from Paul, in letters that he wrote to churches. The first half or more of Paul's letters are theological. They unpack they grapple with the reality of Jesus atoning death, and then the implications that flow out of what God's done for us through Jesus appear in that second half. And that's what's going on in Romans 12 1314 1516. He's applying the theology of chapters one through 11. In Ephesians, one through three is the theological section four through six is the Life Application in a community of people from different backgrounds. And even in this summary reading of these verses, notice that one of the great challenges to the one another's is pride and selfishness. Our great fear is that if we spend our lives blessing others will come up the loser who's going to take care of me and our culture, disciples us to this idea, you got to look out for number one, you've got to take care of yourself because nobody else is. So if you experience a bit of an internal tug of war Don't be surprised. Our culture is pushing us to believe and live out of selfishness and are following Jesus is always challenging us. With this admonition, remember who you are. I've shared this before. It's been probably several years I remember. I was going out on my first whatever date the last word from my dad's mouth is son remember who you are
his dad had been a preacher for decades in that community and had earned a name of high praise. My dad was a godly man who did his best to rear his five sons as a single father, to be men of faith. And now I was carrying the family reputation out.
All that's background, all that sort of big picture context, I want us to dig in a little bit on another passage that uses this phrase one another. It's found in Colossians chapter three verses 12 through 17. If you get the newsletter that Larissa sends out, and, and you you know, John will give the title or Greg the title of the sermon, and then the verses in some of you read it ahead, and some of you're like, huh, it's in there. I want to read these six verses. And then I want us to step back into him. Remember, chapters one and two, there's a lot of theology, groundwork, foundational God's character what God has done. And thus, chapter three, verse 12, starts with that word, therefore. And as I've said before, therefore is always like a hinge. If you see a door swinging, there's another part attached to the wall that supports it. Those two chapters, two and a half chapters in front of this support, the weight, that this is calling for. That therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patients. Bear with each other, and forgive one another. If any of you has a grievance against someone.
Forgive a timer to
know. Forgive us, the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues, put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, through psalms, hymns and songs from the spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God the Father through him.
I'm doing something that I really don't like to do, let's just drop into a passage without spending a bit of time on the context. One of the reasons I like to do that is there a lot of people who go to the passages about grace and give no attention at all, for the context that those passages are revealed.
Paul reminds them of things he said before as God's chosen people as God's holy people as Gods dearly love people
Is everybody in our world a part of the chosen
in the sense that Paul's using that phrase here
in this section of six verses, Paul gives a pretty strong summary of what Christian living ought to look like. Especially in communities of faith
compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. I have a Twitter account I don't do much with it. I really don't fully understand it. I opened it as much as anything when I started my blog because I could tell people out there in the whatever that sphere is, that I'd posted a blog post. I go into it once a morning just to get the numbers off my phone. They're irritant to me. I'm just Oh C, C, D and F. I don't I don't want to see those numbers on my iPhone. But there was a guy who had a statement about gentleness and then he spent all of his time his 160 characters I think that's the max on Twitter it's just a little more than text messaging 140 letters you got an iPhone and it just sends a whole thing like a email he spent his 160 characters saying what gentleness wasn't and I would agree with everything he said gentleness isn't trying to leverage people into doing what you want to do I don't know him I don't know how we ended up on each other's lives probably in that great rush to get all of those what are they called on Twitter followers his followers followers Yeah. I don't I don't know anything else about him other than I see his name from time to time he posts some things in there Deborah's favorite statement with social medias, take your hands off the keyboard. That's that's what she says to herself often. And I've learned to hear that every now and then I'll make the mistake of going ahead and typing something and sending it and I was very careful. It attempted to be deliberate in my crafting my response, but it was like I think I agree with everything you've put in this, but could you state something positive about what gentleness is he liked that. So I knew that wasn't gonna get a full frontal assault. And then he responded. This was a quote from my book. I'm not sure I could do the heavy lifting in this format you're asking for you can tell me what it isn't. But you can't help me and others to think about what it is
I haven't responded to him. Not sure I will know.
That's a gentle right there. Yeah. I want to call your attention to another phrase. It's there. Bear with each other and forgive one another. In a daily devotional that I read and have for several years, John Gardner was the one who put me on it. I don't know 1015 years ago probably the primary writer there there's a team of them. Others do on the week ends he does it mostly during the week, the primary writer he was looking at this passage and he said probably the best today translation of this is put up with one another maybe the hardest of all of the one another's What do you do when you have a real disagree? But now we're not talking about sin. Right and wrong. We're talking about this agreement about do you roll your socks? Or do you fold them?
Do you XYZ? How do we deal with disagreements? Greg and I've have this ongoing discussion about conflict. He's convinced it's here to stay, we need to get used to it. I'm convinced it's a part of the fall. So it doesn't have to be the way it is in the kingdom. But we're living in that land in between the already and not yet. How do we deal with conflict in the here? How do we deal with conflict within our families? How do we deal with conflict with disagreement with our best friends that maybe we go on? Vacation with?
How do you deal with conflict with your wife, with your husband, with your adult children
I don't think put up with in the sense we just ignore it is what Paul's talking about. But also don't think it's like, you know, the little fights dog that's just nipping at your heels all the time, either. You ever have a disagreement with your spouse, and she just can't let it go? Or just Whoa, let it go. I'm an equal opportunity. One of one of the one another's I didn't include this one is rebuke one another, you know, there is this calling that we help each other to be better. At whatever God's called us to do. Then we've been this isn't a case of rah rah what will be will be passage
as God's chosen people, close yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bear with each other, and forgive one another. You know, Paul goes even beyond the things where it's not about right or wrong, it's about different perspectives even deals with when we're in the wrong how do we how do we deal with that? When your brother wounds you.
Over all these virtues put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity. That's a legitimate translation of the Greek here it's possible that the binding together isn't about love being the outer garment that binds all those other character traits it is possible loves what binds us together what holds us together through our differences. There are difficulties
Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart since as members of one body you are called to peace
how do we disagree and maintain peace?
This bearing with one another
I'm looking for it appears also in Ephesians 421 of the verses that we put up here be completely humble and gentle be patient bearing with one another in love I'm gonna take a risky maneuver I want you to imagine the person who has been your thorn in your side the person that you've lost the most sleep over a disagreement with him or her
it's likely there's someone close to you
it's likely they'd someone that you expected more from
and Paul's talking about forgiving is a real real challenge I
want to ask you a question a serious question. Have you ever talked to him about the issue the two of you face to face I'm not asking if you talk to others about that person. Have you talked to him? Have you talked to her?
I'll just be autobiographical rather than a tribute to you can talk myself out of that conversation in 1000 ways because I'm convinced it's going to go badly wrong. I can say things like I have four brothers I know how to knock down drag out fight and that's my fear. That's where that's gonna go
Are we living out the one another's when we avoid and an honest discussion about a real disagreement
as our songs pointed today is Palm Sunday today's the day that we remember Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem. It's it's when he was riding on that donkeys cold Colt. And they're shouting Hosannas, and they're cutting down palm branches and they're waving them and they're putting their coats in the in the entryway into Jerusalem.
And I suspect a lot in the crowd are hoping this is the signal that he's finally going to kick Rome out of the Holy Land, the promised land. And he's going to assume the throne of David. And all the wrongs are going to be righted. That's the reason. The mother of James and John had earlier asked him, Lord, when you come in your kingdom, we put one on the right and one on the left. Remember, remember what we've done to support your ministry
but she should have remembered that coming in on a donkeys colts, not the way Rome enter the city when they're conquering. Jesus is going to undermine Rome's oppressive force by dealing with death, their ultimate threat. We can kill you in so many ways. Your death will never be forgotten. That was Rome's motto. And that's really the outlook of any empire. Historically, globally. We hold Europe lives in our hands. And our news is littered with a travesty of such an abuse of power
but Jesus coming is very different.
And because he's dealt with things so differently, he's called us to a different life, a different lifestyle. But you can't do it by your own strings. It's going to take the Holy Spirit, at work in your heart, in your life in your behavior in your gifting to produce something the world's not seen. To Terry and Terry understood
what happens in Washington isn't as important as what happens in heaven. They always communicated with each other as brothers. That was a given.
Rather than laying our coats or palm branches down for King Jesus, my admonition today is we lay down our lives. Let's submit our wills to His will. Let's use our gifts to build up one another. Let's make sure we swim against the tide of individualism. Let's do our part to function well as the body of Christ. Let the fruit of the Spirit shape all of your conflicts, temper every one of your critiques. And undergird your interactions with others who follow Jesus
want to close with one last one another it's First Thessalonians 511 therefore, encourage one another and build each other up. Just as in fact you were doing
just a few years ago, I made it a point when I was in North Carolina to reach out to Ted Terry and Barbara Dawson.
And I spent a night in their home and I discovered that Terry's losing his memory to dementia
I'm so thankful the precious memories we have
we pray with me as the praise team to come on up during this prayer. Father grow us up into the maturity of Jesus
challenge us prevail, provoke us rebuke us convict us. Confirm us. encourage us. Lord, you know where we are in our walk you know those of us who are especially prone to pride and pushing this you know Those of us who are reticent and shirking and pulling back you've cover all those bases. And we pray that we will recognize and live daily in view of the fact that we are members of one body. In wherever we go, whatever we do, however we speak and interact. Our calling is to reflect Jesus. Father, I pray that will become polished mirrors that reflect him well. In Jesus I pray, amen. When I asked you to stand and we're going to sing, if if God has a word for this community, that he's sharing with you, we'd love for you to share it also.
