The Importance of Maintaining Fellowship When You Disagree Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Importance of Maintaining Fellowship When You Disagree Part 2. He will be reading out of Philemon 1:23-24.

Because if it’s left up to our flesh, we would not want to forgive anybody who had hurt us. But the apostle says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Have you ever asked God to bestow his grace on somebody else’s spirit? Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and we welcome you to Hope Worth Having.

We’re looking forward to what God has for us as we study the Bible together. We picked up on a very difficult topic last week, and that is the importance of maintaining fellowship when you disagree. We’re in the book of Philemon, and usually what Christians do is when they get mad, they run.

They run from the church, they run for Christ, and God doesn’t want that. He wants us to be bigger, better, stronger. And so I want you to join me as we study maintaining fellowship when you disagree.

Colossians 4.12 tells us that Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you always, laboring fervently for you in prayer, that you may stand perfect or mature and complete in all the will of God. There is no greater labor than you and I could do than to pray for one another. And I’ll tell you, true prayer is laboring prayer.

True prayer is being willing to reach out to the throne of grace, to seek God on behalf of others, and bringing your supplications to God, and praying for the needs and the challenges and the problems that people have in their life, and bringing that all before God. Epaphras was that kind of a pastor. He was that kind of a man of God.

He was that kind of a servant who went to God on behalf of others, and he sought them passionately. He was a man who was truly respected in the church. Philemon would have surely known him and been under his ministry, and heard him teach the Word of God.

Then I want you to know that he introduces to us Marcus, or in the New King James, it says Mark. The word Marcus or Mark means a defense. Oh, this is powerful because you know him as John Mark.

You remember that John Mark was the cousin of Barnabas. You remember in Acts 4 and Acts 5 that Barnabas was this encourager, and he became a quick leader in the church, and that he was a man of means who was able to help the church in its early days. He was able to be strategic in introducing the Apostle Paul, who was formerly known as Saul.

He got converted, and he became Paul. Now the people were scared because Saul was a persecutor of the church, and they thought maybe he’s trying to spy, and maybe he’s trying to come in as somebody different. Maybe he’s trying to trick us, and Barnabas testified to the authenticity of the Apostle Paul’s conversion, and Barnabas played a valuable role.

You remember that in Acts 15, the Apostle Paul and Barnabas were ready to go on their second missionary journey, and they wanted to go back to the churches, find out how they’re doing, and give updates, and begin to be an encouragement to them, and they wanted to take this young man. His name was what church? John Mark. Thank you.

Appreciate that one person. Oh buddy, the pastor has so much to do, so much training to teach, but if you recall, and maybe I’m being presumptuous, and please forgive me, but Paul and Barnabas had a disagreement about John Mark. John Mark had quit on the first missionary journey.

He stepped away and said, I’m done. I’m out. The Bible doesn’t tell us why.

We don’t know if he got homesick. We don’t know if there was health problems. We don’t know that he just didn’t enjoy working with Paul because his personality was so strong.

We don’t know, but for whatever reason, he said, I’m out, and he left them. High and dry, and so Paul was very frustrated about that, and when Barnabas said, hey, when we’re putting our team together, don’t forget John Mark, and Paul’s like, that ain’t happening. I know this is the Mike Sanders translation, by the way.

Just want to let you know, but he said, that’s not going to happen, and Barnabas and Paul, the Bible says their disagreement was so strong, there was contention between the two, and they decided that they would each go their different ministry, and they started two missionary teams, and now look at this. We’re coming to the end of the book of Philemon, and there is John Mark. He’s back on the team.

He’s serving God. God has restored him. The apostle, listen, why is this so important? Because the apostle Paul is asking Philemon to forgive, and let me tell you something, you can’t do, and you can’t expect or ask people to do what you are not doing yourself, amen, and so he’s saying, okay, I see John Mark, and we learn later in first Timothy that he’ll say, send me John Mark, because he is profitable or beneficial to the ministry.

What I’m trying to say to you is that in the context of the church family, God wants us to continue to show grace and to show forgiveness as God is working in the hearts of people. Who among us has not failed God? Who among us has not mishandled something? Who among us has not made a bad choice and a bad decision, and it reflected upon the ministry poorly? The truth is we all find ourselves there, and this is why God is saying that there is restoration, and there is forgiveness and grace, and in the context of when you and I disagree, I know it’s hard to believe, but we just might actually disagree, but how is it that we’re gonna handle this? Are we just gonna run from one church to the next and thinking, oh, that next church down the street, they don’t have any conflicts. Everybody in that church agrees with everybody.

They’re always working together, and they never have personality conflicts. Are we gonna be of that mindset? Is that the truth? Is that how it works? No. The truth is no matter where you go, people are different, and no matter where you go, you find these sandpaper people.

You heard about these people? You heard about these people? They rub you the wrong way, and they keep showing up in my life, and I say, Lord, why are there so many sandpaper people everywhere I go? Try to say that fast, right? Sandpaper people, people eater. Anyways, just kidding. Oh, Mike, get back focused.

Stick with your notes, right? But I want you to know that the Lord has a purpose, and the Lord has a plan, and there are many areas in Mike’s life that need to be smoothed out. They need to be dealt with those rough edges, and so God uses these sandpaper people to make me more like Christ. That’s why I’m saying to you the importance of maintaining fellowship when you disagree.

Philemon can’t just abandon the church, and he can’t just say, I’m not gonna have anything to do with Onesimus. There has to be this restoration that God is at work, and Mark, John Mark, is a living example, and guess who wrote the Gospel of Mark? My questions are easy, church. John Mark, that God would use this young man who abandoned the first missionary trip, and then restore him through the mentoring of Barnabas, and reconnect him back into the church family, and get him back on the apostles team, and then he is used by God to pin down the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God.

My friends, the importance of maintaining fellowship when you disagree. You’ll note the next person that is listed, Aristarchus. His name means the best ruler.

He was a Jewish believer. You can read more about it in Colossians 4. He was a native of Thessalonica, and he was a man who wouldn’t leave you when the chips are down. He was with the apostle at the riot in Acts chapter 19.

He was with the apostle when they were in the shipwreck in Acts chapter 27. Church, we were just there in the book of Acts together, and we were studying the whole book of Acts, and it took us a long time to get through the book of Acts, but you remember that this horrible shipwreck happened, but what did Aristarchus do? He stayed. You know, it’s easy to run from problems, but it’s far better to work through problems.

In the family of God, you’ll have more joy and you’ll have more strength when you don’t run from your problems and you don’t burn bridges and you don’t isolate yourself from others than to work through your problems. When I’m trying to help couples who are struggling in their marriages, I say it’s far better. The joy will be sweeter at the end of the marriage that you work through your difficulties rather than running from your problems.

God’s anointing is in that place where we work through our issues and we don’t abandon each other in the tough times. I get so discouraged by members who run from other churches just because that church is having a season of difficulty walking through a valley and members begin to disperse and leave and say, we wanna go somewhere else. No, my friends, I love the people that are here and they’re here in the good times, they’re here in the bad times, they’re here when the pastor’s bringing his A game and they’re here when the pastor is miserably messing things up, amen? Now you can say amen better than that, can’t you? I wanna remind you, I know it’s probably hard for you guys to imagine, but I umpire softball and so when we start out the game, I pull the two coaches together at home plate and I do what they train me to do, preventive maintenance, preventive maintenance and I tell them up front, I want you guys to understand something, sometimes it’s ladies and I say, coaches, I know this is gonna be hard to believe, but I’m not perfect and they just look at me and startle, struck, they cannot believe it, I’m not perfect and I tell them if they have any doubts, just give my wife a call and she’ll let them know, amen? But I remind them, I’m probably gonna make a mistake in this game, but we can handle it like adults, we can handle it like mature people and what I’m saying to you is that what I love about Aristocrats, maybe everything wasn’t going great, maybe everything wasn’t like he thought it should be or maybe he felt like some of these challenges were tough, but he did not abandon the team or the apostle in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, which leads us to our next person, Demas, here at this moment as the apostle is writing this letter, apparently Demas is a faithful servant of God, but for Demas, who means governor of the people, he did not finish well, he did not finish strong, for we know in the scriptures in 2nd Timothy 4.10, the Bible reminds us that the apostle says, Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world and has departed to Thessalonica.

Goes on to describe where he’s at and what’s next steps, but point being is simply this, are you finishing strong for Christ? What is most startling for me as a pastor is to think about how many people who are still living their life in fear, who are still scared, who are still saying to themselves, well, during COVID, I didn’t go to church and I’m just gonna never go back, listen to me, my friends, it’s time to rise above, it’s time to give your eyes on Jesus Christ. If it’s your time to check out, God will let you know, if it’s not, you’ll overcome and you’ll continue to move forward, but what we can’t do church is be like Demas and fall flat on our face. It’s not enough for you just to begin for Christ.

The question is, how will you finish for Jesus? What will be your legacy to your children? And what will be your legacy to your grandchildren? Will you finish strong for Christ? Will they be able to testify at your funeral service that grandpa and grandma or mom and dad would not retreat and they kept plowing forward for Jesus Christ and they finished strong for the Lord? Or will it be a testimony of embarrassment, a testimony of, well, they did a few nice things and they always bought me a candy or will your testimony of Christ shine through your life? I wanna challenge you church to be strong for Christ and the key is not to get distracted in this world, not to love the things of this world, not to be pulled by the things of this world. We all have within our human sinful nature a tug towards the world but the Bible teaches us that we are not to love the world nor the things of the world but we need to keep our love and our affection and our focus upon the Lord, Jesus Christ. And that’s the importance of fellowship.

You might say, oh, Mike, it’s not a big deal that I come to church. It’s not a big deal that I’m fellowshipping with God’s people and that I’m connected into Sunday school or I’m connected into a Bible study. None of that matters, Mike.

I just wanna live my faith in isolation and I wanna tell you, yeah, I’m not saying you can’t be a Christian and worship God by yourself but let me tell you something as I told the church on Wednesday is that I can eat Thanksgiving dinner by myself but it’s a lot better when family’s with me. I can eat dinner at night but it’s a lot better when my wife is with me. Do you understand? And some of you have lost your spouse or you’ve lost loved ones in your life and you know what it’s like to have an empty chair.

And let me tell you, when we spiritually gather for the Lord, it means so much to see you here. And the importance of fellowship is that we’re all feasting on the word, we’re all feasting on the truth, we’re all feasting on what God has for us and we’re hearing the word of God taught and God is pouring into our life and God is transforming us and shaping our hearts for Christ and it is wonderful and listen, by me being here, if I’m not here, people are saying, where’s the pastor? Thank you. It’s nice to be noticed every once in a while.

Where’s the pastor? You know what I’m saying? You heard about the guy who was all curled up and said he didn’t wanna go to church and his wife said, you have to go to church. He said, I don’t want to. She said, you’re the pastor, you have to go to church.

Amen. But listen, not only does the pastor, you all have to be, you know what? When we don’t see our brothers and sisters in Christ, we need to say something. We need to pick up the phone and now you got this fancy phone that you could text people, you can email people, you could talk to people.

Are you doing okay? Look, I know some of you like to move around. I know who’s here and who’s not here by where you sit. Did you know that? And I know that and I see empty spots sometimes and I say, where were you? And they said, pastor, we were there.

And I said, well, where were you? I didn’t see you. They said, oh, we decided to move on the other side of the church auditorium. Now don’t be messing with my mind.

I mean, it took me 20 years to get here to figure out who you are and where you’re sitting, right? And now you’re moving on me, playing tricks on me. I hear you. But listen, when our brothers and sisters aren’t around and we don’t see them, we need to be reaching out to them because there’s the importance of fellowship.

There’s the accountability of each other and there is that we are members and if maybe if somebody’s struggling or needs help or something, we need to make sure and if they’re just on vacation, we can say, why didn’t you take us? Why didn’t you invite us to go on vacation? Well, they said, we don’t even invite our mother-in-law, much less you. I’m just teasing. Oh, we gotta hurry, church.

We gotta hurry. I got like four pages here and I’m not even gonna get done with that. Can’t even get through these names.

But I want you to see this last name, Luke. Luke. We know Luke.

The word Luke means light giving. He was a Gentile Christian doctor and he was the author of the third gospel. He frequently traveled with the apostle and he helped care for the apostle’s physical needs and his ailments.

He was tender. He was loving. He was caring to the apostle so that the apostle’s body could stay healthy in serving the Lord Jesus Christ.

He was a loyal friend to the apostle. He was with him in his final days. In those final days, Luke was with the apostle.

Second Timothy 4.11. Before the apostle would give his life as a martyr for the cause of Jesus, he wrote to Timothy and said, only Luke is with me. Take Mark and bring him with thee for he is profitable to me for the ministry. Point being, only Luke’s with me.

Final days. Final moments on this earth. Is it gonna be long before I face death? And there’s Luke, the physician.

Always loyal. Always helpful. Always serving.

The importance of fellowship. I’m sure that Luke and Paul disagreed. And like all of us, sometimes our doctor tells us to quit drinking Mountain Dew and we just totally disagree with them, amen? What’s up with them doctors telling us what we can eat and what we can’t eat? Well, I’m sure there was differences, but the love and the forgiveness and the grace that was bestowed upon them.

I wanna give you my conclusion because I want you to note in verse 25. It says, the grace of our Lord Jesus be with your spirit, not the Holy Spirit, but your spirit, your attitude. Because if it’s left up to our flesh and our spirit, why we would just be mad at everybody and we would not wanna forgive anybody who had stolen from us, who have hurt us.

But the apostle says, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Have you ever prayed like that? Have you ever asked God to bestow his grace on somebody else’s spirit? Paul had the personal pleasure of having deeply committed and faithful people who helped him in the cause of Christ. It was also a wonderful thing to see him publicly recognize these individuals and appreciate and acknowledge him.

But the book of Philemon does not end in this final verse. It’s not the end of the story, church. How did things turn out between Philemon and Onesimus? Well, there’s no doubt that Philemon did forgive Onesimus.

First of all, we know that to be true because this book would be included in the New Testament canon. It seems that it would not have been very victorious or helpful had it been that Philemon never forgave, that he had chosen the path of anger and bitterness and resentment and burning bridges and isolation and refusing to be in the body of the fellowship of believers. But just the opposite is true.

What we understand to be true according to church history, that later the church father Ignatius in Smyrna on his way to being martyred in Rome for Christ, wrote a letter to the church. And in this letter, he said, I received your large congregation in the person of Onesimus, your pastor in this world, a man whose love is beyond words. I wonder had Philemon not forgiven, would Onesimus be a pastor today? Would he have been a man who would be described as having love beyond words? The significance of you withholding forgiveness is not only your spiritual health.

It’s not only that you’re an example to the church and to your own family, your children and grandchildren. But the significance is that if you withhold, it has a damaging effect upon the one that you are withholding forgiveness. But I pray that the spirit of God’s grace would be upon your spirit today.

Would you pray with me? Our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed. And it’s so important that you and I choose forgiveness. The ramifications are many.

And the question is, do you want to walk through life with broken relationships, damaged hearts, separated fellowship? Or do you want to live in the grace of his restoration and forgiveness and joy? Oh, there’s hurts and there’s challenges and there’s problems in this journey of faith. We’re complicated people and we’re flawed to the very core. But God calls us to be a forgiving people.

And the only way that I can forgive others and you can forgive others is through the grace, the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has forgiven us. And I pray that you will reach out to God this morning and that you would ask him to bless you with his grace and to give you a spirit of forgiveness and restoration to help you to overcome the negative emotions and the separation. And to once again, build that bridge back.

Back. It might be a person in the family of God. It might be a family member.

It may be somebody in the past. There are many situations that we could share, but you be led of the spirit. You be led of God this morning.

And if it’s time for you to take that initiative, swallow your pride, humble your heart and pray for the spirit of God’s grace to be upon your spirit. If you’re here this morning and you say, pastor, I don’t know about this grace and forgiveness. Well, my friends, Jesus Christ went to the cross for your sins.

And I want you to know that if you would be honest enough with God this morning to acknowledge your sinfulness and your need for forgiveness, if you would just simply believe in your heart that Christ died on the cross, he rose again. If you would believe that he died for your sins and your past and rose again for your future and your hope, if you would call upon him even now where you’re sitting while we’re praying that whoever calls in the name of the Lord shall be saved. This is your moment and this is your time to call out to God and ask him to wash away your sins.

There is no church that is more supportive to God saving your soul than in this moment at this time right now. And I pray that salvation will come to your heart. Father in heaven, when we talk about this difficult subject of forgiveness, we know that there are many complications and many things that have to be dealt with.

But in general, Lord, we come and we’re just asking that you would help us because our flesh cries out revenge. Our flesh cries out separation and isolation. But God, we pray that your grace would be upon our spirit, that you would fill our hearts with true fruits of the spirit, that we would manifest what is truly your will and your way.

I pray, God, that as we reflect on these truths, that you would give us a desire to research the scriptures and to see if these things are so, and that you would allow this to change our hearts and to live in obedience to you as we strive to honor you, not just in our life, but in our relationships with others. And I pray, God, that you will continue to show grace and that we can truly be a heritage of the Lord and a testimony of your great forgiveness to each of us. We thank you, Lord, for this time together as your people.

And may you continue to help each of us to keep you first in our hearts. And we pray all this in the precious name of Jesus Christ. It’s easy to burn the bridge, cut people off, and just be done.

But God wants us to do everything we can to maintain fellowship. I know that sometimes that’s not always possible, okay? And we get that. But we try, if possible, to live in peace with all men.

And if God provides that opportunity where you can live in peace I think we ought to, by faith, embrace it. And so I hope this message has been an encouragement to you and is helping you to stay strong in your faith. Look, we know there are times that we’re not feeling well or maybe we are out of town.

We want you to know that we have a live stream at HopeWorthHaving.com every Sunday morning at 11 a.m. And you’re welcome to join us. We don’t want to keep you out of your church. If you’re not in a church, we want you to get plugged into a church.

But sometimes we need options because of our circumstances. And if that’s you, then join us, HopeWorthHaving.com. Click our live stream, 11 a.m. every Sunday morning. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you, in Christ there is hope worth having.