Wisdom for the Heart

Reconcilable Differences

• Stephen Davey

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A small disagreement can upend an entire community when gossip spreads and pride takes the wheel. We dive into Philippians 4 to trace how a private rift between two respected leaders began to fracture an otherwise faithful church—and how Paul guides them, and us, back to peace. Instead of picking sides or shaming from a distance, Paul models gracious confrontation: he names the issue without spectacle, appeals to both women equally, and calls them to meet on their shared ground “in the Lord.” He even honors their gospel work, reminding everyone that these are not enemies to defeat but sisters to restore.

From there, we pull out practical principles for real-world peacemaking. Disagreements are inevitable; division is optional. You’ll hear why mature believers still clash, how conflicts between a few can harm many, and why the church should raise up peacemakers who step in to cool tempers and untangle issues rather than become spectators or partisans. We talk about the dangers of letting preferences eclipse doctrine, the cost to a church’s witness when fights go public, and the courage it takes to invite a wise third party to help two sides hear each other.

Perspective changes everything. Paul anchors his counsel in eternity—“whose names are in the book of life”—to pull our eyes above the fray. When our future is drenched in grace, our present can be too. We end with a vivid, modern story of everyday grace on a city bus to prove that small acts of kindness can rebuild trust and create community anywhere. If grace can transform a daily commute, it can heal a church family. Listen, reflect, and share your next peacemaking step with us.

If this conversation helped you, follow the show, leave a review, and share this episode with a friend who could use a nudge toward reconciliation.

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Stephen's latest book, The Disciples Prayer, is available now. https://www.wisdomonline.org/store/view/the-disciples-prayer-hardback

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Have you ever experienced the time when a minor disagreement escalated and became a full-blown conflict?

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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.

SPEAKER_00:

Have you ever been in a church, a workplace, or even a family where two people just couldn't get along? And everyone else got caught in the middle. In Philippians 4, the Apostle Paul calls out two women by name whose disagreement was threatening the unity of the entire church. Instead of taking sides or ignoring the problem, Paul gives a timeless lesson on what it looks like to show grace when conflict erupts. Today, Stephen Davy explains how grace isn't just a word we sing about. If you've ever been wounded or stuck in conflict, keep listening.

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One author writes some words that provoke my thinking and I think will serve as an illustration to the text for the day. He writes, in family life and in church life, there's always a gap between the ideal world and the real world. For example, here's the ideal day we had recently of apple picking. The leaves are golden and rust colored. The sky is beautiful, and it's a perfect 75 degrees outside. My wife and I and all our children happily pile into the van and start singing as we merrily drive the three hours to the orchard. We arrive early enough that morning with plenty of time. Surprisingly, the folks at the apple orchard say to us, today apples are free. So our kids guzzle the apple cider and stuff themselves with apple donuts and don't get a sugar high in the meantime. Finally, after a perfect day at the orchard, we drive home as our children keep saying over and over again, Thanks so much, Mom and Dad. You guys are great. The real day looked like this. Here's what actually happened. It was a disaster from the start. We were late leaving. I had to basically order everyone into the van. While driving there for our first visit, I called ahead and found out they would close about the time we got there. But with three hours on the road, it was too late to turn around. We hadn't stopped for lunch and couldn't now because of the lateness, and everyone was hungry and irritated. Even my wife and I started arguing. We argued until the kids interrupted us with their own arguments. I turned around, nearly driving off the road, and yelled, knock it off, I'm arguing with your mother. We pulled into the apple orchard, we ended up with less than 45 minutes before closing time. The entrance fee was outrageous. They knew we weren't going to stay long, but they wouldn't budge. We parked and I told the kids, hurry up, get out, and have some fun. By this time of day, all the good apples were gone. The cider samples were gone, and nothing was free. After what seemed like only a few minutes, we loaded the kids back in the van. And on the way home, we stopped at McDonald's, had enough money to get everybody an apple turnover, which was as close as we got to tasting any apples that day. His father applied it by writing: unfortunately, family life and church life are often the same. You have the ideal and then the real. The events, surprises, and situations of life are never ideal. That's why we have to practice grace in the midst of real life and real community among real people, just like us. Well put. Grace, as you know, if you've been old enough in the faith to do a little study, is a word that we use to refer to unmerited, undeserved favor. That's how we're saved. We often think of the word grace as it relates to salvation or something that God grants to us who don't deserve it. But the truth is, grace in the Word of God is not only something that we receive from God, it's something we're to give to others. And when we do, it's as refreshing as the spray from some waterfall you've gone to visit, or maybe even a cup of water somebody gives you when you're thirsty. The Old Testament word for grace carries with it the idea of stooping low in humility in order to serve another. The idea of grace in the New Testament as well focuses on bestowing favor on someone undeserving. In fact, if they deserved it, it would not be grace. They earned it. Grace is never earned. Grace, that word caress, is used often in the New Testament for graciousness in speaking or in acting. In fact, in your mind, when you hear the word grace as it relates to others, just think of the term graciousness. That's the idea. Graciousness carries the idea of acceptance in this New Testament word and welcome. Now, the thing to keep in mind is that, you know, nobody can simply say they are a person of grace unless they stoop low in serving another. It doesn't matter if you say you believe in grace. It doesn't matter if your church is named with the word grace in it. Most Christians can talk about grace, and in fact, we have sung about grace today. It's a lot harder to live it out. To stoop low to the undeserving. The truth is, grace is difficult, isn't it? And that's because people are impossible. People are impossible. Not you, people that live in Chapel Hill. I'm thinking of them, not you. You live in Chapel Hill, I'm teasing, okay? I appreciated this story by Warren Wearsby, the former pastor of Moody Church, and uh in his 90s, still living, and the Bible teacher on Back to the Bible for many years. In fact, they're bringing his messages back on that radio program. But he said this as a pastor, he wrote this event. He said, One day my elementary school-age daughter jumped off the school buses that stopped in front of our house and slammed her way through the front door, stomped up the stairs into a room, slammed her door, and all the while we could hear her muttering, People, people, people, people. I went up and knocked on the door, may I come in? She said, No. I said, again later, can I come in? No. Why can't I come in? She answered, Because you're a people. There's a reason why that little poem has made its way around, and you've probably heard it. To live above with the saints we love, that will be wonder and glory. But to live below with the saints we know, well, that's another story. Well, you don't have to read in between the lines in this letter that we're studying to quickly learn that the church in Philippi is in need of a refreshing demonstration of grace. 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. Everybody at 8 o'clock, by the way, walked out on me. I'm hoping you'll stay. 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 Syndeche 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 Syndic and probably on the other side of the assembly, Euodia. They're watching these two women. Paul, by the way, very diplomatically doesn't give the details behind the disharmony, but something is obviously very wrong. Very wrong. In fact, it's more than that, it's dangerous to this assembly. The level of disunity, by the way, by implication, has reached such a level that it has found its way from Philippi all the way to Rome, where Paul is incarcerated as he writes this letter. So the ripple effects of that disharmony has already reached, if you can imagine, all the way over to where he is in Rome. It's serious. Now, what you might immediately think is rather blunt is actually a study in gracious confrontation. And let me show you two things Paul does right off the bat. First, he repeats this verb, I urge you odia. I urge syntaci. Did you notice? The verb there can be translated, and maybe in yours, I entreat. Or you could 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 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, and 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 in appealing to these women. Then he does something else. I want you to notice that Paul refuses to take sides. Notice what Paul does not write. Look at the text. He doesn't write, I urge Euodia to live in harmony with Syntiche. Well, that would have let you know who's at fault. Nor does he turn it around and say, I urge Syndeci to live in harmony with Euodia. 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 Euodia 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, and 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 was saying, let me give you five reasons why you got to do this. But instead, notice the middle part of verse 3. These women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement, also and 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, you know, 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 here in Philippi. And that made me just sort of review in my mind what that struggle was like. And we don't have time to go into the details, but if you're new with us, know that when Paul first arrived in Philippi, the first group he preached to was a group of women down by the riverside there meeting to pray. And after he preached, one of the prominent businesswomen by the name of Lydia trusted Christ by faith. And then she immediately welcomed Paul and the other believers into her home, and her home became the location of this house church. Others, of course, were saved. It wasn't long before Paul and Silas created a disturbance. They basically created a disturbance everywhere they went. They were thrown into prison and they're there in chains. You remember they're singing at midnight. They had preached the gospel, and then God sends this miraculous earthquake that loosens their chains. None of the prisoners escape, and the jailer is stunned by that. And he comes in and he asks Paul and Silas, what do I have to do to be saved? And Paul delivers again, sort of the gospel verdict to believe in this resurrected Lord, and he believes. And now you have a church that's grown. It also includes a formerly a young demon-possessed girl who has come to faith in Christ, and they're meeting in Lydia's home. And eventually the city fathers tell Paul to get out of town. And so they do. And what's left in this home is this small group of individuals, including other women, more than likely from that first prayer group, who've come to faith in their Messiah, and they are struggling through those early days of taking the gospel to their community. They're deeply involved, they're deeply invested in the church in Philippi. And frankly, I think if you look at any successful, effective New Testament church to this day, you will find it filled with women who are deeply invested in the gospel. Another observation, by the way, that's worth making is that this divisive issue is not doctrinal. And we know that because had it been erroneous in its doctrine, Paul would have followed his customary response in identifying the false doctrine and then correcting it and teaching the true doctrine. But that doesn't happen here. There's no mention of divisiveness because of false doctrine. And that point needs to be made simply because the issues that often distract and divide and bring disharmony to a local church are not doctrinal issues, but personal issues. You travel around this country, I get phone calls at least every month or so from pastors who are struggling, and the issues in the church that they lead has nothing to do with core doctrine. It's over leadership decisions, the annual budget, whether it's the number of committees, the delegation of authority, maybe even the color of carpet or the walls. In my greenhouse class, we cover disruptive issues, as many as we can. By the way, you'll be interested, beloved, to know that over these past two years, we've had more people go through the greenhouse class wanting to join than any other period of time in our history. It's fascinating to me that more than 300 people in the last two fall sessions have begun or have finished taking that class. When we were going through the messages on the church, enough people come up to me and say, you know what, we really don't want to wait any longer. We like what you're saying. We like where this church stands, we want to join with you. And so we started an additional course this spring with 100 people registered. We've had over 420 joining in the last 24 months. And I tell them all the same thing, by the way. The average evangelical church that believes the fundamental doctrines of Scripture is not going to divide over the deity of Christ, over the literal physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, we're not even going to talk about that. We believe it, you're probably here because you know we believe it and you believe it too. But we're not going to talk about that. We're going to talk about those things that will bring disharmony, things that you need to know where we stand because they're going to create potential division. And those issues are always far less significant than the deity of Christ and the resurrection of Christ, right? But they will divide a church. They will bring disharmony, and there must be leadership and direction and agreement on those issues, like the philosophy of ministry, the purpose of the worship service, things like the use of money and facilities, the organizational structure of the church, the church's view on baptism, their view on the role of women preaching in the church, their view on speaking in tongues or whatever. I mean, that's really the divisive stuff. And they do play into other core doctrines. And we do care, by the way, about doctrine. In fact, we sang a hymn, and I'm standing back there singing it, realizing I do not recognize any of those lyrics, but I recognize the tune. That's when I walked up here, I asked Gary, did you write all those lyrics? And he said, Yes, I did. He wrote every stanza, and he did that, I know, because the doctrine in the original lyrics needs correcting. And he did it. We do care about it. But I've heard of so many other churches, even this, even this church. I've heard of people leaving this church because of music. They didn't like the music. I've heard of people leaving this church because uh the sermons were too short. Okay, I made that one up. Well, let me let me encourage you. This is not a new problem. They're dealing with it in the first century, and for 1900 years, the potential exists. The greatest threat to the church in Philippi is not their view on the deity of Christ, it is not the physical resurrection, it is not the eternal state. 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 Syndicate, and there's probably another group just trying to stay out of the way. And 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 from both sides and then watches and waits. This has become a threat that Paul has to deal with. Let me give you some principles. Let's just kind of pause right here. I'm going to do this several times in this study and make some observations and practical points. By the way, after the 8 o'clock hour, two sisters, little girls, I think four and six, they come up to me every after every 8 a.m. service and they give me a hug and they show me what they've colored. Well, they had a brand new book that their mother had gotten them a coloring book, and it kind of follows the idea of the sermon where they can take their own notes and write down some points. And then at the bottom of the last page, it had a little box and it asked the question, how many points were in this sermon? And one of them wrote 91. And the other girl wrote 104. Well, there aren't that many points. It'll feel that way, but it it isn't true, okay? Here's the first disagreements and differences of opinion are inevitable in the church. Whether it's your own family, disagreeing about where to go to lunch, and a thousand other things. The church is made up of households, single and married, young and old, and the potential for a thousand disagreements is constantly bubbling away in the kettle on the stove. I have a small plaque that for years rested on the doorframe of my office at church, and when it was painted, I'm not exactly sure what happened to it, but trust me, I have it memorized. It simply said this where two or three are gathered together in my name, there will be disagreement as to what the Bible teaches. It's true. Once you get past one person in the church, I mean, if I went all the way back to the early days, it was just Marcia and me, still, we didn't get a unanimous vote every time. Disagreements are inevitable. Secondly, mature Christians don't always disagree agreeably. Mature Christians don't always disagree agreeably. Now you're looking here in this text at two women who are veteran saints. They're not beginner believers. They have already been involved in the struggle. This is a, by the way, that's a military term. They've been involved, they've faced the fire, so to speak. They've felt the heat of establishing this church. And now, more than likely, because of Paul's hint earlier in chapter 2 at a power struggle there in chapter 2, most New Testament commentators believe that these women were either vying for the same position in the church, or perhaps even wanting a different choice for some position of authority, perhaps for their own husbands. And neither one of them could gain any traction. Neither one could sort of edge the other one out. And now it was getting heated, and now the church was filled with disharmony, and now they were taking sides. It was just getting ugly. Beginning to look a lot like a presidential debate, by the way. I mean, words are flying, heat is rising, and disharmony is spreading. Here's a third principle. If left unchecked, disagreements between a few can harm many. 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. Most uh New Testament scholars that I ransacked in my study on this text believe that Paul has been hinting around the edges of this issue at least four times in this letter. And now in chapter four and verse two, he just puts it on the table. 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 maybe 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 uh 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 two 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. Okay? 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? That word help is. Is freighted, it carries a very strong sense of physical action. You could actually render it to lay hold of or to grasp or to seize. That verb is used when Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Matthew chapter 26, verse 55. It's the same verb used to refer to the disciples catching all of those fish in Luke chapter 5, verse 9. This is the only time Paul ever uses this verb in any of his letters. And it's a rather urgent request for his companion to take decisive personal physical action and meet with these women and catch them, as it were. Bring them together, draw them together, get them in the same room and hash it out. 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. And 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, but 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 there 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. 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. No, 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. That'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. 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. And 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 4th 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 3, whose names are in the book of life. Now he's referred to Clement. We know absolutely nothing about him, and we're not even going to begin to guess. He references fellow workers. He references these two women. He references this faithful commanding. But notice all of them have their names in the book of life. This is a family issue. This final phrase is deeply convicting. I mean, it's as if Paul suddenly 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 of the family of God, but what is going to be said or thought of as it relates to us? I mean, can you imagine this? Eodia and Sydecke, for 1900 years, are known as the two women who couldn't get along. And 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 gonna 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. 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 them. 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. They're 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 chapter 2. And this attitude ought to be in ours. He's telling you, Odi and Synege, 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. And 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. Same people tended to ride the same route at the same time. A woman in her 80s, a 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. And 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.

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This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen is the president of Wisdom International and the pastor of the Shepherd's Church in Carey, 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.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. And as I mentioned, you can listen to our daily broadcast. You'll find the Wisdom International app in the iTunes or Google Play Stores. If we can assist you today, our number is 866-48 Bible or 866-482-4253. Thanks again for being with us for this time in God's Word. Join us again next time for more Wisdom for the Heart 24.