I'm coming in like a dragon, shall see the world shine Come away with the gates of the world This whole week I've been humming This looks like a good job for me So everyone just come with me Because we need a little controversy Because it feels so empty without me The p- Guess who's back? Hey I missed y'all y'all missed me Yeah, you guys are okay Acts 15 verses 36 through 41 And after some days Paul said the 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wanted to take with them John called Mark But Paul thought it best not to take them Or take with them one who I withdrawn from them in Pamphilia And had not gone with them to the work And there arose a sharp disagreement So that they separated from each other Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away the Cyprus But Paul chose Silas and departed Have you been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord And he went through Syria and Sicily I can't talk today Strengthening the churches This is the word of the Lord Father bless this time as we discuss this subject That is our everyday God And pray that we would glorify you as we engage in conflict And that the thing that matters to us most God is just your goodness God That you would be glorified in every single word we speak And the things that we take up and Jesus name amen Several weeks back, Gabe asked if I was interested in coming here to speak And I said yes because Gabe is a friend I have compared him actually to like a great-dane puppy that I've before And because they're big and they're energetic and you love them But Gabe has brought tremendous value to my life And I thought we might be able to turn into a little family get away down here So in the lead up to the conference I was thinking a lot about my favorite comedian growing up Norm McDonald He was on SNL Saturday night live in the 90s He hosted a weekend update And he always was making jokes about OJ Simpson being a murderer Now some of y'all are young OJ Simpson was a football player who turned actor And his wife Nicole had been stabbed to death and resulted in this incredible trial of this entry It really was the beginning of that sort of thing being covered on TV that way He is guilty as in and everyone knew it But he had a lot of money and a lot of friends And the head of NBC was tight with OJ Simpson And he wanted Norm to stop making jokes all the time But that is not Norm McDonald's nature He refused, he found a way to work a joke in every week He was just relentless One of my favorites is in his book OJ Simpson said he'd take a bullet or stand in front of a train for Nicole Man, I'm gonna tell you That's some bad luck when the one guy who would die for you kills you Anyway, so eventually, no I'm got fired And about 18 months later they invited him back to host the show And he gave this hilarious monologue And I think if I got it right, he'd practice one monologue before and actually recorded a totally different one live And so he makes this point like how is it that I was so unfunny? I couldn't even be allowed in the building and now I'm hosting it And he asked how you got so funny in a year and a half Because you really can't get that much funny or that become funny in a year and a half And then he said it occurred to me It wasn't that he had gotten funnier, it was that the show had gotten worse I said so recap, so recap The bad news is I'm still not funny, the good news is the show blows So now what does that have to do with me? Some of you might not know this, but I used to be in the CREC Yeah, not long ago, I was one of those pesky, creative communities Who won't budge on that position, I know we hate babies, I get it, I've heard it But changes to the book of procedures just tidying up the culture of the CREC I think that's really what's happening Essentially what it required us as a church to take a position That we just can't do convictionally, which was practicing paid to communion in some rare circumstances So we parted ways and this is really my first CREC adjacent event since then So how in a year and a half did I go from being so at odds with the domination That I couldn't even be in it, to headlighting the nose How did I get so orthodox? Now the reason I bring up my departure because Gabe assigned me this topic The Holy Role war in Antioch, how to fight with brothers And so I was at odds with this denomination And they were at odds with me There was a fight of sorts that resulted in a parting ways Probably not exactly the way either side really wanted But I'd say it ended about as well as it could And I'm standing before you as your friend, as your brother, as a Christian who loves you And counts you as part of the body of Christ and it really is a privilege to be with you today to encourage you You can actually fight well without burning relationships to the ground It is possible I'm not back because I've changed, you guys are still listening to me I say this, you are still 100% wrong about pedocaming it I'm never doing it, I'm not in play, it's not happening Yes, yes, I've read it, okay? Anyway, and I'm not back because the series C or Fight Left Feast has changed either They still think I'm wrong I'm here because what we share in common Including the Cardinal doctrines of the faith And a willingness to engage in conflict with the hope of doing it well for the glory of God Yeah, so I have six principles from Acts 15 that I thought of this morning The I hope will help you First, conflict is a normal and necessary part of the Christian life Therefore, Christians can only lead a God-pleasing life by becoming a custom to dealing with conflict in a godly way This dispute between Paul and Barnabas follows another dispute in Acts 15 One over whether Gentile converts needed to be circumcised The conflict became so sharp that it led to the Jerusalem Council So Paul and Barnabas went up to Jerusalem where the apostles and elders gathered to work through the issue So this is a chapter full of conflict and the B-O-Christian is to enter into conflict You have conflict with your flesh, with the kingdom of darkness, and at times with brethren over doctrine or character And if you're going to be a Christian, you're going to be involved in conflicts of various sorts I'm not talking about savoring stupid disputes Someone asked me if I was going to talk about mermaids No, that's a stupid dispute The servant of God must not be quarrelsome Always looking for something to fight about But there are things that must be dealt with And they have to be dealt with through confrontation I like to distinguish between peace and quiet Peace in the full or biblical sense is wholeness Everything in this proper place doing what it's supposed to do I want a peaceful home, I want a peaceful church, I want a peaceful society But sometimes or often the doorway to peace is conflict You consider the table where everyone is quiet Well everyone is mad at each other Everyone in those dining room tables, you and the wife are at odds The kids feel it, they're as thick Right? It's quiet, there is no peace No one's screaming, so you pretend that's peace The Christian who confronts a real problem is not necessarily causing conflict I didn't cause conflict I didn't try to It's trying to reveal it, so it can be dealt with Sometimes you know, you have something out of the surface Like a splinter or something that's going to be Every step down like a little shard of glass, you can't quite see it You're trying to bring it to the surface, get a little infection So we reveal conflict, that's our goal That's what happens in Acts 15 The church confronts the circumcision and controversy Then Paul and Barnivus have to confront their discrepancy over whether Marx should go with them That must be our attitude What must be confronted with the goal of studying things right and pursuing true peace You will never have a holy church You will never have a community worth belonging to if you're not willing to deal with conflict And again, conflict can be that doorway, that pathway to peace And that is what we're after But there is no peace almost ever without conflict I tell you what, you've ever gone through a church split A church splinter or something like that And the good guy, so to speak, won And the Sunday after, or maybe two Sundays after, it's just different You can feel it Like there's so much peace I can remember how the church was that many years ago Where we had to remove a contentious woman And not a lot of people knew it was going on And she was gone, and that Sunday I was like, it's a different church How can that be? That's just how it works, man, in low 11, 11's a whole lot, and you've got to take it out So be willing to confront Second, some conflicts are so sharp and complicated that they cannot be easily or quickly resolved And often require outside intervention and counsel Some arguments can be resolved quite simply And in healthy church, brothers are always correcting their encouraging one or another First step of a church discipline First step of a church discipline is, a monocene one another with the word of God So that should always be happening It doesn't have to be formal A lot of it's informal, right? You notice that a friend is incredibly sharp towards one of his sons in a way that's clearly robbing the kid of courage And you take him aside and say, hey, I don't know if you see this It's good to take it to the kid from time to time And I think you're exasperating him and you should think about it, brother Here's a couple of verses that help me Alright, that could change a guy's entire relationship with his son Or maybe you're a Titus 2 woman And ladies, there has been a father hunger epidemic, but there is a mother hunger too The young ladies are desperate for Titus 2 women that decided not to have a second career Right? After you got done taking care of your kids, so many women go back into the workplace And there's a place for that on time, but man, I'll tell you what There's a lot of ladies that don't know how to run their household And if they could just get a little bit of your time, they would be blessed by it But with that in mind, maybe you notice a wife that's always niggin or husband Like arguing with them, taking them down a notch, right, in front of other people And you just say, look, you know, you take her aside when you have an opportunity That is not what God commands, you're not respecting your husband when you do that And that's church discipline Right, if you're doing that all the time, that should be happening all the time in the church If you're doing that all the time, things don't grow and turn into these sort of nuclear explosive bombs You know, the ordinary corrections often keep small things from becoming huge things But some conflicts require more than one conversation Acts 5 to you says, no small dissension and debate Paul and Barnabas argue against error, but the controversy remains, so the church sent them to Jerusalem to address it With the apostles and elders, even there, verse 7 says, there was much debate Some things are hard and you can't, you just gotta maintain and push through it And this is clearly a good argument for church government, for some level of connectionalism Some press parities are more like associations, some associations are more like press parities I'm at this point where I kind of don't really care what you label it as long as the reality is there I've just done with labels, but am I press parian? You know, I want to be, but I want to be healthy And I rather have the reality, even if I don't get the label by a bunch of geeks They don't approve of me, no, no, anyway So the church sends them up to Jerusalem, Calvin sees Acts 15 as a pattern for a similar synods When controversies cannot otherwise be settled Paul combined courage and defending the truth with the willingness to pursue godly agreement If we're going to war well, we need something like principles of just war and ecclesiastical sense There are rules for how we fight with personal offense, follow Matthew 18 With the divisive man Titus Threese's warn him once or twice, in afterwards have nothing to do with him Some offenses should simply be overlooked, that's what Proverbs 1911 says Can anyone overlook an offense anymore? Is everyone a bunch of sissies? What is going on? People are so precious But overlooking means overlooking, that's what it means, overlooking Forget it or deal with it, make a choice Don't keep it in your pocket to bring it up later Me and a pastor friend, I was in ministry with them We had a sharp difference And we did go to war with one another, and it was pretty ugly But you never got put into it, the church didn't We dealt with it behind the sains, we dealt with it with the elders We called each other names, it was intense But we were committed to our church, we were churchmen We loved our church, we had labored hard for their souls, for them to grow And we had differences, but we were not willing to nuke the church because of our differences The church belongs to him, it's his body, how could we betray Jesus in that way? Because we're at odds with one another, there was rules There was rules that we wanted to fall, and there's such an independent anti-authoritarian spirit in our times That people refuse to work through the ordinary means God has given the church Private offenses become public campaigns While public errors get treated as though they were merely private discrements We don't understand boundaries anymore, there are things that must be brought to light We must talk about them, do we want to talk about them? No, we all have other things to do But we must, because Paul stood up to Peter and said, no, you're not in line with the gospel, brother He had to rebuke him that way But there are things that should remain private, how many of you? What do they say? X is where we go to become friends with people we don't know And Facebook is where we go to become enemies with people we went to high school with You learn all this stuff about people Like, it's crazy, like the meltdowns people have on Facebook I'm in a bunch of community groups for around where I live That's stuff, that's pretty hillbilly stuff there Pretty intense, it's like Jerry Springer, which many of you guys don't know But it's like the Jerry Springer show Well, that's where we're at now, where are the rules of engagement? Where is the honor of honoring God and conducting one with dignity? To say you need to conduct yourself with dignity is not to say that you're not allowed to throw punches It's serious and get down in the dirt and go at it, it's not that That there's just lines Right, there was a dissension, there was much debate, they were at odds What do they do? Well, they bring it to the church They work through it the right way Acts 15 involved teaching that troubled, involved the teaching that troubled entire church So the response was formally communicated to those churches The response fit the problem And if we're going to go to war well, we need to discern what belongs where And be willing to follow the proper course I'll tell you a practice I do if you're active on social media What I do is I write things down on my phone like in my notes And then I never post them right away I'll post them like the next day or sometimes not to months later It's always hilarious that people think I'm like responding to something that's going on that day I'm like I wrote this month ago, it's the Holy Spirit convicting you But just sit on it for a night, is this the right way to deal with this? Is this something I can overlook? Is this something that needs me dealt with privately? Is this a public matter that I need to make public? And if so, am I dealing with it in the right way that honors God? You should do some things because of who you are and who God is Not just because you won't win For example, if I was brought up on charges, sham charges and it came to root court Which would most likely happen in the PCA Which is why I'm not in the PCA right now Which is I'm a quasi-asical pirate on the open waters at the moment It ain't bad, this is deal with my own problems So yeah, got plenty of those But if I was brought up with some sham charges, make no doubt I'm going to that hearing And I'm going to speak the truth and I'm going to walk through it because of what honors God Just like Machen and those guys who entered up getting into fruct But history is spoken to them well, right? And we do things because we believe the word of God Because we fear God because we're Christians Because we want to be a certain type of man and woman Not just because of what we think the outcome may be The outcome is left in the hands of the Lord, right? So where do these things belong? Third, many of the most intense conflicts are not merely intellectual arguments over abstract theology They are intensified by other factors including family relationships and friendships Therefore, it's right to consider the social, familial, political, and financial factors that might be contributing to the presenting issue That sounds more like a, some teacher in a talk here doesn't it? So one of the things that sticks out in this dispute is that Mark was not some random, you know, young man Colossians 410, it tells us that he was a relative of Barnabas But it looks like his cousin or the KJV makes him his sister's son So it's cousin or nephew And Luke does not say that Barnabas wanted Mark to go because Mark was family So we shouldn't pretend to know the motives that scripture doesn't reveal All that to say is Barnabas may simply have believed Mark deserved another chance He was after all the man who stood up for Paul, what everyone else was suspicious of him in Acts 9 Barnabas has got a big heart, you know But that's what makes these sorts of things complicated A good instinct can become disordered, loyalty can become partiality And mercy can be an unwillingness to call something what it is Matthew Henry says, we should suspect ourselves of being partial and guard against this and putting our relations forward We should suspect ourselves, you should have a healthy suspicion towards yourself I don't trust people, this is kind of ironic, but I'm suspicious of people who are suspicious of themselves Don't you struggle with your own heart? Don't you know how your motives are mixed bag a lot of times And so when you're in conflicts, you need to know yourself Paul makes the same concern explicit in 1 Timothy 5 when dealing with accusations and discipline involving elders Timothy is to maintain the principles without bias doing nothing in a spirit of partiality Calvin says that the challenge is to remain impartial and in every cause to look at nothing but the cause itself It's very difficult, I mean that's the goal, don't let friendship decide it, don't let family decide it Don't let money or influence or fear decide it, do it again because it's right, you trust God Barnabas himself appears in another situation where social pressure is at work in Galatians 2 Peter has been freely eating with Gentiles until certain men arrived, then he withdrew because he was afraid of the circumcision party And Paul says that even Barnabas was carried away by the hypocrisy So the theological issue here really didn't change, it was just the social situation did Different people walked into the room and suddenly men behaved differently That happens all the time, people don't want to rebuke someone because he's influential or wealthy or popular or family Sometimes they give someone an allowance, it would never give anyone else And we need to be honest enough to recognize those pressures in ourselves If you're an elder and your own family member is under church discipline, they may become a point where the wisest thing you can do is recuse yourself from a particular judgment That's not being a coward at all, it's just you recognizing your own limitations Conflicts are rarely just about the thing everyone says they're about There can be friendships underneath of it A lot of times there's an angry wife underneath it I remember there was an elder again at a former church I think he'd be okay with me saying this, but I guess we'll find out right? But in our session meeting he kept saying, you know my wife, my wife thinks this, my wife thinks this, my wife thinks this And I say, hey brother, you mind going home and sending your wife here? You know, sounds like she's an elder at this church anyway, doesn't it? That was the moment they got removed from that church Anyway, family underneath it, money underneath it, fear, reputational hit as a pastor A lot of times you're the guy that laid hands on that person and put them in to a position of authority I mean, it's your mistake at some level, at some level you're responsible for it And some guys don't want to take that hit and say, I'm the one that messed this up, but you got to You got to, it's right This doesn't mean we're cynically, and you know, this is something I can fall into if I'm not careful We don't want to reduce every theological disagreement, eshesiology or psychology Right? Truth is truth But wise men understand that our loyalties and fears can affect our judgment So part of warring well is asking not what is the presenting or not only what is the presenting issue But also what else might be influencing the way I see this? Think through that Let me take a risk here, because this is not on my notes But think about this Something that was going on during 2020s, a lot of people came to the series C and movements adjacent to it Because there were one of the few movements that were understanding the gap against government overreach And being bold and meeting on Sunday and all that And there's a little bit of rock and roll coolness to it, right? And a little punk rock feel to it And so people were drawn to that because it was the cool kids table And now there's some other people who have rose up that they think they're the cool kids Or maybe they are, or maybe other people think they're the cool kids And you're seeing people jump from cool table to cool table to cool table to cool table to cool table to cool table Are you interested in being cool? It's not very cool Are you interested in just being with what's hot? I heard someone that told me Oh, I started on Michael Foster and then I went to Doug Wilson and now I've gone to Joel Webin Now put aside what you think about any of us Put aside Do you know how unstable that is? Do you know how unhealthy it is? I was with the polos, but then I was with Paul and now I'm with this guy Jumping from thing to thing to thing to thing I don't want fans I don't want any of you to be a fan of mine I don't like fans I don't have people picked up on this, but I don't like it I don't want to be your hero I want to be your brother, I want to be a spiritual father, and I want to be a pastor And I will let you down, and I'll tell you what, fanboys turn to haters in a second Because there's shallow individuals I want to see them not be shallow But just give up on all the personalities They're all people They're all normal people They will let you down Anyway, fourth Many conflicts arise from tensions between good things, they're not being rightly ordered Therefore, Christians must ask, do I have the right priorities? I think that's part of what's happening here between Paul and Barnivus Both men want to see the gospel go forward Both are committed to missions, both continuing in the work afterwards Paul reasoned his reasons for not taking Mark as given in Acts 1538 Mark had withdrawn from them in Pamphilia and had not gone with them to the work That's the issue, the work Mark had been tested in this kind of assignment and he had quit Maybe because he was partial to the circumcision party, there's some good evidence for that That might be what's going on there Anyhow, Paul looked at the mission and said, I'm not willing to put him back into this role yet And Barnivus, he seems willing to stake the partnership on bringing Mark Maybe he believed Mark needed another chance That would fit Barnivus, he seems to be the sort of man who sees potential when people Others have written off, there's a good there But good things still have to be put in their proper order The question wasn't merely, is restoring Mark good? Of course it is The question was, does restoring Mark require immediately putting him back into this particular position and responsibility? Those are two different questions Jesus gives us a strong example of this in Matthew 16 Peter loves Jesus, that's not the problem Jesus tells that a Cypher is going to Jerusalem to suffer and die and Peter says essentially no This can't happen to you, why? Because he hates Jesus? No, Peter loves Jesus Peter doesn't want Jesus to suffer, right? There's a good affection there But it's completely out of order and he's not listening So Jesus says, give behind me Satan, you're not setting your mind on the things of God but on the things of man A good affection became a temptation because it was placed above the calling of God Jesus makes the same point of Matthew 10, 37 Whoever loves Father and Mother more than me is not worthy of me He isn't condemning love for Father and Mother, He's ordering our loves The larger catechism makes the same point from another angle What God commands is always our duty and yet every particular duty is not to be done at all times That's wisdom You don't have to hate Mark to tell Mark no You don't have to give up on Mark to say you're not ready for this assignment Calvin makes that distinction, Mark was not rejected as a brother Paul simply refused to restore him immediately to the particular ministry, he had abandoned forgiveness does not automatically mean restoration to every responsibility You can love a man, forgive him, call him your brother and still tell him he's not ready to carry something yet And Paul clearly did not carry a grudge Years later he speaks favorably of Mark and excuse me in Timothy at the end of his life, get Mark and bring him with you for his very useful to me for the ministry That's restoration, Paul wasn't against Mark, he was for Mark And being for Mark meant that at one point he had to say no No, no, no We need more knows in the church, tell people no, no you may not, I'm sorry, I love you but we're not doing that here, no, that's not allowed here, no No son, no Get the guts to say no So the Bible is not about knows, have you read the Ten Commandments? It's about knows and yes, it's about things that we condemn and things that we affirm But we have to get better at saying no, and you got to get better at taking it When I was getting to, going to plant my first church plant, I went down to actually I'm a boot camp down at Matt Chandler Which is why he follows me on Twitter if you've ever wondered why does Matt Chandler fall Michael on Twitter and it goes all the way back there But in the assessment, I didn't really know what a philosophy ministry was at the time, I remember calling it my friend Stephen Coit what is a philosophy ministry Like, because it's like to write it down on my application And so, actually I did not go well for some valid reasons Anyway, I was down there and they asked me, Michael if we tell you know that we're not going to give you the green light on church plant, what are you going to do? And I said I think I'm just going to go get my PhD and teach history, I think that's what I'll do Really, I said yeah Like so, if you say no, if we say no, you're just not going to plant a church And I was like no, I'm not going to, you know, I was like what do most people say? They said well most people say they're going to do it anyway And I said dude, why come down here then? If I'm going to do it anyway, why am I wasting my time in a plane ticket coming down here and sitting in a room and filling out paperwork, I don't want to fill out I'm here because I want to know if this is a good idea or not And you see my guys, I trust A lot of people have called me and asked me should I plant a church and I tell them no, maybe some of you are here Remember that conversation? I don't think it's a good idea I would urge against that, three years later, yeah I didn't work out, it was kind of rough Yeah, yeah, I told you no because I liked you Not because I didn't like you, okay? Take nose, nose are good Sometimes love, comfort your brother, sometimes love confronts him I remember when I get in a call from a very close family friend Our families spent a lot of time together and the wife had called me, I think she called Emily first then me And her husband had gotten really drunk and he had stripped down to his underwear And he was lying on the kitchen floor crying and just acting like a fool I had just gone off of a long second shift job at Verizon Wireless So it was like a little after 9, like 9, 30 years of my aunt And I wanted to go home to my wife and kids but I drove to the other side of town and went to their house And there I knocked on the door and she opened it and had this sort of flat frowning sort of look in her face And there he was, completely wasted line on the floor of crying And I said hey, like put some pants on and come out on the porch and smoke this cigar with me So we did And before I had much of an opportunity to say anything, you looked at me and said, I bet you enjoy this, don't you? I bet you get off on the scene you like this You just love coming over to see people like this and rebuke them And I said bro, if I'm going to spend my night with someone where alcohol was involved and they're mostly naked, it's going to be my wife Okay? Not you New smell close to something like sausage Free cuts I'm here because I love you I'm here because I'm your friend and you're destroying your life you drunk So just sit here with me So we sat, two's credit, kind of sobering them up a little bit at that point And he did apologize and I listened to him and about his disappointments and hung out Not much longer really, maybe 20 minutes and went home That's friendship Do you love your friend enough to go to conflict with him when he's covered in filth? Sometimes love puts its arm around him, sometimes love tells him no So in conflict we have to ask more than, is the thing I care about good? It might be The better question, have I put that good thing in this proper place? Is there some higher duty, some greater good, some clearer calling of God that has to govern this one? Do I have the right priorities? Fifth, many conflicts have messy and murky resolutions Therefore, while it's not wrong for Christians or work towards an absolutely decisive, crystal clear resolution They must understand that some judgments take time to prove wise or unwise and some things must wait until heaven The Jerusalem Council gives a clear judgment on the gospel Gentiles do not need to become Jews to be saved Salvation is through the grace of Lord Jesus But living together still required patience and practical accommodations Calvin understands the food restrictions in Acts 15 as an accommodation intended to preserve fellowship between Jewish and Gentile believers The Gentiles were at the exercise of liberty with consideration for their brother So you can stand firm on principle while yielding something in practice for the good of your brother Then you have Paul and Barnabas who was right I think the context favors Paul clearly, including the church's commensum in verse 40 But Luke doesn't give us a complete accounting to each man's fault Calvin defends Paul's judgment while allowing that both men may have gone too far in the heat of dispute And that's an important distinction You can be right about the decision to still have something to repent of in how you handled it A lot of conflicts don't end with every question answered Every mode of expose Everyone agreeing about who is right Sometimes a faithful resolution includes concessions Sometimes a work in arrangement is the best you can achieve You must not compromise the truth but you may have to surrender your demand for a perfectly satisfying ending I can remember So Emily and I fight not like we once did very rarely now but early on That woman needed Jesus right Firing, fiery, the Irish blood or whatever is going on there But we would go at it and we would argue into the middle of the night sometimes And we would forget, you know how stupid arguments are But there's some sort of presenting issue And then hours later you're talking about a child or like I hate the way you communicate It always ends with becoming a conversation about communication or whatever But I can remember as we started the mature like I love you I'm sorry I don't really care can we just can I repent and forgive you and you repent and forgive me and can we go to bed? That's okay sometimes guys Right some of you autistic folks might have to solve everything That's going to be rough on those long term relationships Sometimes it's enough to say we went awry somewhere along the way I'm sorry I mean it it was wrong forgive me and then let it go move on there's a place for that You don't always get your satisfying ending I heard people say that my departure from the series C was evidence that I'm divisive or unsimmissive And that I was bouncing from denominations to denomination because I was too particular to get along with people I am an extremely tolerant person believe it or not And whatever discrepancy I have I'll let you know but I have no problem getting along with people I disagree Which I think should be pretty clear at this point And I wasn't true and I hated hearing it But my elders and my closest friends in this year has seen new the situation They knew, Doug knew, Gabe knew, right Rich Lusk knew, Bill Smith knew, my elders knew They know I didn't have to go online and answer every accusation If I did it would look like I'm overly defending myself You know me, dad think the man protest too much sort of thing And sometimes protesting too much makes you look even more guilty You know just gotta let it go man let it go Sometimes you have to live with being misunderstood, get over it, grow up You can correct the record without making universal agreement the condition of moving forward If you insist on a clear victory in every dispute you'll be bogged down in arguments for the rest of your life There's wisdom in knowing when you've done your duty and you can leave them out of with God Paul reminds us that the Lord will bring hidden things to light and disclose the motives of men's heart First Corinthians four or five, let that comfort you Some things really must wait for judgment That pastor I was really at odds with We've worked out our relationship, you know, like we're not gonna be best friends again But we do text each other from time to time and wish each other well And have had some really good long conversations And I become fond of a saying that I think is me but if it's not, oh wow It's like you miss all the shots you don't take Wayne Gretzie, Michael Scott But never take a pound of flesh when an ounce will do I'm just learning, you know what? It is, I am dead You are dead, man, this thing is fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, quicker all the time Seek the correction in the situation actually requires and don't keep pressing me only to make the other man hurt or force everybody to admit you are right Get done what you can get done faithfully and trust God to put everything right at the end of the age You will get it a lot done and live a much better life Six, lastly I guess I could say Well conflict is a necessary part of the Christian life and many conflicts require the intervention of wise brothers Not every conflict deserves your attention You must get priority to the problems closest to you and those in your marriage or household or your church and your denomination Have a little saying that I like to quote, Phil Collins was right That I mean the title of his song I don't care anymore or no mo, no mo, that's funny it says over That's how I feel about a lot of the disputes going on right now and online I called a lot of those people and I did my best to broker peace and give them my thoughts on what direction things could go And tried and I couldn't get it done and there comes a point where you have to recognize the limits of your responsibility and move on And I really don't care anymore I'll get people DM me or send me messages what do you think about this? I don't think about that Like legitimately I don't Sounds what do the kids say? What do the 37 year old kids say fake and gay? Angry young men with receding hairlines Oh what a joke the whole thing is Are there any truth tellers left? Yes, I have a lot of truth to say I don't think about that anyway Proverbs 26, 17 compares someone who metals in a quarrel that isn't his own to a man who grabs a passing dog by the years You've inserted yourself into a fight and now you're going to get bitten that's your fault The fact that a conflict exists doesn't mean God has appointed you to settle it You may lack the facts, the relationship, the authority or the wisdom to contribute to anything useful You've evolved in this Well for the greater cause of the church, sure Maybe it's within the realm of possibility Well maybe you're just a busy body that doesn't want to deal with the many problems in your life Do you think I'm accusing you? I'm accusing me I know my own heart I don't think I'm a snowflake I think we're probably a lot alike Notice what Paul wants to do in Acts 1536 He wants to return to the cities where he and Barnivus preached and see how the brethren are doing His attention is directed towards people from whom he has a particular responsibility That's a good pattern for us Start with the people and responsible as God has given you One of the dangers of the internet is that it makes every dispute feel close You can watch people argue a thousand miles away and begin to feel that you have an obligation to weigh in My dad, I love my dad But he likes to ask me about any time there's like some threat of war Michael, what are we going to do if Russia shoots us with like nuclear weapons I said, oh dad, I play on dying I think I'll die I think I'm completely unequipped to deal with that level of a problem I don't think me buying anything online is going to solve that In the post-apocalyptic movie, that pile of skeletons, that's my family The Campbell's got us, you know, it was rough But, so are you worried? No, I just choose not to think about it Like once upon a time we would, we didn't know what's going on in this other world Actually, there's crazy, terrible things happening right now Right now And you know nothing about them Okay And some of that is by God's providential design So people, hours online because we're praying for them Because we're praying for them, hours of research for minutes of prayer Maybe So, we feel like we have to weigh in today everything Meanwhile, you can become absorbed into the controversy between strangers While avoiding a hard conversation with your wife Or neglecting a problem with your own children Or overlooking someone who needs help with your own church Those distance disputes can be attracted because they let you feel courageous So, you have to be more honest with someone who's just not gonna be able to Require you to face the people you have to live with Here's a criticism of street preaching. Not against it, not against it But I've done it And it's easier to talk to strangers about the gospel than it is a lot of times with They're at the football game, they're at the parade or whatever. You talk to them and it does take a level of courage to share the gospel with them and praise the Lord for it. But then they go home. If you tell this person right next to you that you're going to see all the time, the truth and it offends them, well that's part of your life now. And I think there's a lot of people that find really crafty ways to get out of their most prominent responsibilities. Paul tells Christians to aspire to live quietly, attend to their own affairs and work with their hands, first Thessalonians 4-11. There's a good promise for his first real life. So cultivate a certain disinterest and disputes that aren't yours to handle. Be willing to say, I don't know enough to judge that, or there are men closer to that that should handle it, or I don't care anymore. You don't need to follow every controversy or announcer position on every following out. You have a wife to love, children to raise, church to serve, all sorts of work to do. Give your priority to those things. There will be plenty of opportunities for courage and faith when it's right there. So we can conclude that I do want to say that had originally, but it or not, had something much more feisty planned, a little more controversial in mind. But as I talk to people at the beer and soms, I started picking up and vived, and I just honestly thought some of you guys could really use encouragement. I think some of you all are exhausted and tired from just intense conflict. From separations, you had hoped to be long-term partnerships. And now there are a real source of pain, right? Pain or radiates from it. You ever hurt your sciatic? Your sciatic nerve? It's like that pain that goes up and down your leg. I think that's happened. I think some of the air has been let out of your balloon. You know, a lot of us, I was telling someone, when we planted yeast forever, we could do nothing wrong. Like, you just had to get a couple things right and people showed up to your church, more and more people every Sunday, and they put up with your imperfections or whatever. But now that outside pressure of the Biden administration, all that stuff is not there anymore. Now we actually have to get to know each other and work through our problems. And our attention is not as focused on that, what felt like cataclysmic threat. You know, I'm not saying those threats aren't still out there, but the act of war is a little more of a cold war at this point. And now we've got to be friends. Now we've got to get to know each other. And I think, is that telling me I'm done? Is that what that beat means? That makes me want to keep going longer. I've got another story for you. That's my observation as I look at the series, you see. I think you guys are doing good. I think you guys are doing okay. And I know some of you aren't in the series, but many of you are. They had counsel here. And if you're not, you care for the denomination. But I think it was riding high. I was with you guys riding high. And now we're back to that normal grinding work, good work. And some of the things that we had hoped would come out of that sort of pandemic error didn't really play out. And it's discouraging. It's discouraging. So let me exhort you, okay, or others. You need to pursue true peace wherever you can. Do not relish controversy or unnecessary conflict. But don't back down either. Stand and fight where you must stand and fight. Be man a principal, prioritize truth over relationship, and the cause of Christ over your personal preferences and differences. Know that in this world, you have much tribulation. But our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, has gone to prepare a place for us, a place of perfect peace forever and ever. And it's just a second away. So occupy into them. Amen. May I bless you with a prayer. Father God, bless these people. Strengthen them in your word. I pray they would fear you all the days of their life. I pray they would toss off every sin that so easily encumbers them God. And they would pursue you, your son, the author, and the finisher of their faith. Thank you, Father. Jesus name, amen. Amen. Thanks.