I’d Like to Teach God’s People to Sing…
Harmony in the House     Part 1
1 Peter 3:8a      11-24-2012 & 11-25-2012

Summary: This section is on how to handle mistreatment within the church. We are to live in harmony with one another and never to retaliate. But how does that harmonize with the many commands to excommunicate unrepentant sinners? It harmonizes because church discipline is good, not bad. It is the most loving thing toward Christ (purity of His church), the most loving thing toward the Church (protecting them from negative influence), the most loving thing for the sinner (the best way to bring him to repentance so his soul is not destroyed), and the most loving thing toward the accused (the two or three witnesses guard against invalid accusations). Passages like 1 Peter 3:8-9 must always govern our practice of church discipline, lest we carry it out with sinful motives.

Introduction
Context
Harmony in the Household of God
Reconciling this Passage with Church Discipline
A Contradiction?
Church Discipline is Good
The Purity of the Church
The Restoration of the Sinner
The Protection of the Accused
Bypassing the Process
The Goal of Discipline: Harmony!
Wrong Uses of Church Discipline
Harmony
1:25 Questions

1 Peter 3:8 Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. 10 For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. 11 He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. 12 For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil."

Introduction
I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony. 
A song of peace that echoes on, and never goes away.
I'd like to see the world for once, all standing hand in hand. 
And hear them echo through the hills, for peace throughout the land.

Is that ever going to happen? Is this world every going to join together in perfect harmony? Yes, someday Jesus will return and bring harmony to this world (after He brings final judgment on the wicked.) But what about in this age – are we ever going to have a point where we reach harmony in the world? No. This depraved, fallen world is not capable of that. But what about in the church? Is it possible for a church to live in harmony? It had better be, because it is commanded:
1 Peter 3:8 Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another
We are not permitted to lack harmony in the Church. When you walk through the doors of a church building, this is what you should see:
8 live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing 
Context
We have been studying verse-by-verse through the book of 1 Peter together as a church, and we come today to a section that teaches us how we are to behave toward one another in the household of God. Starting halfway through chapter 2, Peter has been teaching us how we as individuals are to deal with a hostile, unbelieving world. Now, starting in verse 8, Peter is going to wrap up that discussion by talking about how we are to deal with conflict inside the Church. There are some commentators who would disagree with that. They would say that verse 8 is about how we deal with one another in the church (harmony, love, humility, etc.), but then in verse 9, he is back to talking about hostility from the outside. And the only argument they offer to support that is the fact that verse 9 talks about people insulting you and doing evil against you. So the assumption is that has to be the unbelieving world, because Christians would never do that sort of thing to each other, right? I wonder if the people who hold that view have ever actually been in a church. Anyone who has ever been a member of a church knows that insults and evil do occur within the household of God. That is why we need to be commanded to live in harmony. If you and I are supposed to live in harmony with each other, what are the two threats to that harmony? What are the two things that could potentially spoil our harmony? One is you, and the other is me. I can sin against you or you can sin against me – that is the only way our harmony can be spoiled. So the fact that we need to be commanded to live in harmony is evidence that there is such a thing as people sinning against one another in the church. We know that verse 8 is talking to believers, because it commands brotherly, family love, and I see no reason at all to assume that verse 9 suddenly changes focus. It is all one sentence in the Greek, and I believe it is a unified idea. Part of living in harmony with fellow believers means returning their insults with blessings rather than getting even.
That is important, because not all persecution comes from the outside. There is such a thing as in-house persecution.  In fact, most of the persecution I have faced in my lifetime has been from believers. I have suffered far more at the hands of the saints in the church than I ever have from unbelievers on the outside. Peter is not naive. He commanded us to have a deep, powerful love for one another at the end of chapter 2, but he understands reality. There is what we are commanded to do, and what we actually do, and they do not always line up exactly. So now Peter is going to teach God’s people to sing, in perfect harmony. 
Harmony in the Household of God
Each item in this list is one word in the Greek. And the command to be this way is not even there – it is just implied. There is no verb at all. Peter just fires out a list of adjectives. Literally, it is:
8 Finally, all of you, harmonious, sympathetic, loving, compassionate, humble.
Peter packs all those virtues in the shortest little space so it hits us almost as a single concept. This is the way we are all striving to be toward one another. But inevitably we will slip, and hurt one another. But when that happens, the harmony does not have to be spoiled. It can be recovered by following verse 9.
9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing…
Instead of the natural course, where they hurt you, you respond with harshness, and it turns into a fight, God’s way is for them to hurt you, and for you to overcome that evil with good, respond with kindness and humility and blessing, and they respond to that with repentance, and the harmony is preserved.
Reconciling this Passage with Church Discipline
A Contradiction?
Sounds simple enough. But there is a problem. How do we harmonize that with passages like …

Matthew 18:15 If your brother sins, go and show him his fault?

Show him his fault? Accuse him of sin? I thought we were not supposed to retaliate in any way? But not only does Jesus tell us to confront the person with his sin, but if he does not repent, Jesus says, “treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.” Not just as an unbeliever, but as an outcast – someone you have nothing to do with. And if you think that is just kind of a strange anomaly in Scripture, think again. I do not know if most people realize how often the Bible commands us to have nothing to do with unrepentant sinners in the church. If they repent, that is different. But if they do not repent, Jesus says, “Treat him like an outcast.”
Titus 3:10 Warn a divisive person once, and then warn him a second time. After that, have nothing to do with him. 
2 Thessalonians 3:6 keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us. 
Romans 16:17  I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them.
2 Thessalonians 3:14 If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. 
1 Corinthians 5:11 you must not associate with anyone who calls himself a brother but is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or a slanderer, a drunkard or a swindler. With such a man do not even eat. 
Over and over we are commanded, treat him like an outcast, have nothing to do with him, make him feel ashamed, keep away from him, do not even eat a meal with him, etc. How can we possibly reconcile all of that with what Peter is saying here, to live in harmony and to never retaliate and when someone does evil against you, repay him with blessing? Is this a contradiction in the Bible? Is it possible to harmonize the passages on church discipline with the passages on forgiveness and non-retaliation? 
This is an especially important question for us at Agape right now because we are in the midst of a church discipline situation. And it is an especially difficult one. And it is complicated by the fact that part of the way through the process he left the church. And so there are a lot of questions about what should we do when someone leaves the church part-way through the discipline process. And others question whether we should have even initiated the process in the first place, because isn’t that unloving? Isn’t it a violation of 1 Peter 3:9, which tells us to respond to insults and evil with blessing and kindness? How can we possibly reconcile the doctrine of church harmony with the doctrine of church discipline? It is crucial that we answer that question, because as long as these two doctrines feel like a contradiction, we will tend to disobey one side or the other. If we see church discipline as an interruption of love and harmony, then we will try to avoid it as much as we can. But obviously we do not ever want to be trying to avoid something God commands us to do. I thought about taking two or three weeks to do an in-depth study of all the various passages that teach on church discipline. But I did not want to have another extended interruption of our study in Peter at this point, so we will have to hold off on that for a little while. We need to do it, because if God commands us to carry out church discipline we need to make sure we understand all that He said about how to do it the right way. And there are some parts of some of the passages that I do not really understand very well, and some parts that we have wrestled with in our elder meetings. So we definitely need to do that study sometime soon. But for now, let’s just stick with the one specific question of how to reconcile this 1 Peter 3:8-9 text with the doctrine of church discipline.
Church Discipline is Good
Let me start with a quick overview of the doctrine. Whenever someone in the church sins, if that person is a believer the norm is that he or she would repent. And when that happens, we must forgive the person – even if it happens over and over. We need to be patient and forgiving with one another when it comes to repentant sin. But what about when the person does not repent? Then what? Is the most loving thing to just overlook the sin anyway? Or should we deal with it?
Confronting someone on a sin is such unpleasant business, that our natural thought is just sweep it under the rug. Just let it go. Don’t make a federal case out of it – especially if no one seems to be getting hurt. But Jesus did not think that way. In Matthew 8 Jesus gave us four clear steps to follow in the case of a sin – any sin – where the person does not repent. Step 1 – confront the person one on one. And if they do not repent, then step 2 – take one or two witnesses and confront the person as a group. Then step 3 – tell it to the church, and the whole church tries to bring them to repentance. And if the person still refuses to repent at that point, that is when they are to be shunned, and you are to have nothing to do with that person anymore until he repents. That is step 5. No Christian fellowship at all – not even so much as having a meal together. And you get the feeling that God knew that step would be hard for us to accept, and so that is the step He repeated over and over and over throughout the New Testament.
And even then, it is still rejected by many in the church. I once attended a seminar with several hundred other pastors, and there was a presentation on how to handle various difficulties in the church. The scenario that was presented was a situation where the pastor has an affair and was not repentant. It was a group discussion about how it should be handled, and not one of the pastors said anything about church discipline. So I stood up and just read Matthew 18, and then sat down without making any comment. And as soon as I sat down, the guy leading the seminar said, “That would be the absolute worst thing you could do.” Of all the words that came out of our Savior’s mouth, probably the ones that are the least popular for His Bride are the words in Matthew 18.
Obviously that is a problem. Everything Jesus said is perfect.
Matthew 24:35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Every word from His mouth should be precious to us.
2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness
So Jesus’ instructions on how to deal with sin are beautiful and good and useful. And when you read what Scripture teaches about the purpose of it, it is not hard to see why it is such a good thing.
The Purity of the Church 
Let me point out three of them. First, church discipline is a good, desirable thing because it protects the purity of the church. In the case of the guy in 1 Corinthians 5, the church was actually boasting about the fact that they were such a tolerant church that they were allowing this guy to continue in his sin and still welcoming him in the church.
1 Corinthians 5:6 Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast--as you really are.  
Yeast represents influence. When there is unrepentant sin in the church, it has a contaminating influence. It spreads. And it contaminates the worship of the entire church. In the book of Revelation, the churches that tolerated unrepentant sinners were strongly rebuked, and those who refused to tolerate them were praised by Jesus. The Lord Jesus Christ is jealous for the purity of His Church, and so it is a great evil to tolerate unrepentant sinners in the church who claim to be believers. 
The Restoration of the Sinner
So church discipline is good because it maintains the purity of the church – so it is the most loving thing we can do toward Christ and His Church. Secondly, church discipline is the most loving thing we can do for the sinner. In that 1 Corinthians 5 case, Paul tells the church to excommunicate the man, which means put him out of the church so he no longer has protection from Satan. Why? 
1 Corinthians 5:5 hand this man over to Satan, so that the flesh may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
When a person is continuing in unrepentant sin, his spirit is headed for destruction on the day of the Lord. But if discipline is carried out in a biblical manner, and the person is shut out of the protective shelter of the church, the devastation that Satan brings in his life is the one thing that is most likely to bring about the one thing that can save his soul from being lost: repentance. If you sidestep church discipline, it might feel more loving, but it is actually cruel because it puts his soul in peril.
If he is truly saved, he will crave Christian fellowship. He will crave the grace that comes from being with the saints in the church. And his need for that will drive him to finally be willing to repent. If he is not genuinely saved, that will become evident by the fact that he does not care about fellowship as much as he loves his sin.
So if he is a believer, you are doing him a favor because you are putting him in the context where he will finally repent, which is the best thing that can happen for him.
And if he is not a believer, you are doing him a favor by letting him know that, so he is no longer under the illusion that he is actually a true Christian. 
And now that he knows that, he might realize his need to be saved.
The Protection of the Accused 
So, the instructions of Jesus about how to deal with unrepentant sin (using the church discipline process) are beautiful and good, because…
it is the most loving thing to do toward Christ, because it maintains the purity of the body 
it is the most loving thing toward the body because it protects the people from in deadly influence of unrepentant sin
it is the most loving thing to do toward the unrepentant sinner, because it is the best hope for bringing him to repentance, and one more…
The church discipline process that Jesus gave us in Matthew 18 is a wonderful thing because it protects the accused. When Jesus said to bring one or two others along, it was not to gang up on the person. It was to protect the person from false accusation.
Matthew 18:16 if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.'
That is a reference to Deuteronomy 19:15 One witness is not enough to convict a man accused of any crime or offense he may have committed. A matter must be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. Somebody in the church has a complaint against you, and they accuse you of sin. And the accusation is false. Either you did not do what they are saying you did, or you did it, but it is not something Scripture calls sin, or you did it and it was sin but you have repented – if any of those are true, then the person has no business holding that against you. If it was not sin, or if it was sin but you repented, then that person has no right to hold it against you, no right to bring it up with others, and no right to cut off fellowship with you. If they just decide they don’t like you and don’t want to be around you so they start shunning you out of their life – they do not have the right to do that. The only time it is every permissible to shun a fellow believer is if you have taken it through the church discipline process in Matthew 18. And step 2 in that process brings in witnesses.
So suppose this person is accusing you of being in sin because of something you said. He confronts you, and you say, “I’m sorry it hurt you, but I believe what I said was actually a godly thing to say and was not sin.” And he brings his two or three witnesses to confront you. The witnesses hear his accusation and hear your defense and they end up agreeing with you. They tell the guy, “That wasn’t sin. Nothing in the Bible forbids saying something like that.” At that point, the matter is dropped.
If there are not two or three witnesses who can corroborate that yes, it was indeed sin, and yes, the accused person is indeed unrepentant, then the matter is dropped. But if the witnesses all agree – yes, there is unrepentant sin here, then the matter is established. And only then would it go before the whole church.
And bringing it to the church is a further safeguard. If you have two or three renegade people who conspire to agree on something, but when it is brought before the whole body, the church as a whole looks at it and says, “No, there’s nothing sinful here,” again, the matter is dropped.
So the process Jesus gave us protects the accused from baseless accusations. The normal procedure is for the offended party to make the accusation, send it through the gossip chain, and the accused ends up unfairly convicted without due process. But Jesus gave us very clear instructions to guard against that.
Bypassing the Process
And that happens more often than you might think. We do it in some subtle ways. Someone keeps hurting you, sinning against you, insults you in some way or whatever – and finally your attitude just turns against that person. You do not officially declare this to anyone, but in your heart, you are done with that person. When that person sees you in the hall, there is not going to be any warmth from your heart. You will be polite, but in reality that person is shut out of your heart.
What is that? That is step 4 without steps 1-3! You have appointed yourself – not judge, jury, and executioner, but accuser, witnesses, and church. You have just bypassed the entire process and skipped right to excommunicating that person from your heart.
There are people who do that while at the same time look down their noses as the church discipline process. They see all the trouble and anxiety and messiness that go along with doing it Jesus’ way and say, “I’m above that. I’m the adult in the room, I can overlook an offence, I’m not going to stoop to bringing witnesses and making it public and all of that craziness.” And they imagine themselves to be taking the higher road, but in reality they are taking a very low road. They have stripped that other person of all the means Jesus provided to bring about repentance and to protect that person from false accusation, and to protect the church from negative influence – bypassed all that and just skipped right to their own, private, self-styled step 4 that accomplishes none of the good things that church discipline is designed to accomplish.
The Goal of Discipline: Harmony!
Going through the steps Jesus gave us might seem harsh or cruel, but in reality they are loving and kind and merciful – as long as they are done with the goal of restoration rather than condemnation. And that is the key to harmonizing passages like 1 Peter 3:8-9, with the discipline passages. If we follow the process Jesus gave us in Matthew 8, and if our goal in doing so is to restore the person and rescue him from his sin so that we can joyfully embrace him as a brother in full fellowship again – then there is no tension between the two doctrines. God commanded that we have harmony in the church, and the whole purpose of church discipline is to restore that harmony when it has been broken by sin.
And that is the answer to the question of why we do not drop the process when the person leaves the church. Most of the time when we follow the Matthew 18 process, by the time it reaches step 3, the person stops attending the church. And dealing with unrepentant sin is such an unpleasant business that it is tempting to use that as an excuse to just drop it. And if we did not care about the person, we would drop it. But if we truly believe that the process Jesus gave us really is the most loving thing toward God, toward the church, and toward the accused, then we are not going to be eager to look for any excuse to drop the process. We will follow through with it because of love. If that person has been part of our family for the past several months or years, then their spiritual wellbeing is our responsibility.
And just because they are not attending this fellowship anymore, we are still siblings with them in the household of God. There is a huge difference between someone leaving the church on good terms, in harmony with us, and someone leaving on bad terms with unreconciled relationships. We do not just wash our hands of a person just because that person leaves our fellowship. We must still deal with sin.
Is the whole matter unpleasant? Very.
Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Of course it is unpleasant, but it is God’s way. To say that church discipline is unloving is like saying it is unloving to discipline your children. That is the argument the world uses against discipline of children – they say it is harsh and unkind and mean. But God says He who spares the rod hates his son (Pr.13:24). Loving discipline is not cruel, but withholding loving discipline is cruel.
In this current discipline situation that is going on at Agape, the man under discipline has said, “Let’s just drop this whole thing and focus on kingdom work!” But what he does not realize is this: dealing with sin in the Church is kingdom work. Kingdom work is not just preaching the gospel to the lost. Just think of how much of the New Testament is devoted to teaching us how to deal with sin in the church. That is a huge part of our task in this age.
So church discipline is not a distraction from our kingdom work, nor is it a disruption of our harmony in the church because the whole purpose of it is to restore harmony. And as long as that is our goal, there is no tension at all with 1 Peter 3:8-9.
Wrong Uses of Church Discipline 
However, let me hasten to add this – it is most definitely possible to carry out church discipline in a way that does violate 1 Peter 3:8-9. For example, what if a person used church discipline for the purpose of retaliation? 
“This person hurt me; I’m going to get him back by using church discipline.”
That would be a clear violation of 1 Peter 3:9, which forbids any kind of retaliation. Sometimes a person will commit some especially egregious kind of sin that causes a great deal of sorrow and pain and destruction, and then he repents right away, and some of the people who were hurt and who are still angry are thinking, “What? He’s going to get off that easy? All he has to do is repent, and it’s over with? That’s not right! He needs to suffer some consequences. He caused a lot of pain, and he needs to learn a lesson.” And so they come up with some kind of self-styled “church discipline” that has no other purpose than to punish the person. That is absolutely unbiblical. It is never the church’s role to punish anyone. That is God’s job. If the person needs consequences, God is fully capable of taking care of that. Our job is to forgive whenever there is repentance. In fact, not only to forgive, but we have another job as well. When the man in 2 Corinthians 2 repented, here’s what Paul said:
2 Corinthians 2:7 Now instead, you ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.
The whole purpose of church discipline is to bring about repentance, and once repentance happens, our job is to come around that person and encourage and comfort him so in order to guard him from being overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. If his repentance is real he will feel tremendous grief and sorrow, and our job is to keep him from being overwhelmed by that, so we encourage him.
In fact, any church discipline that is carried out with an angry, malicious heart is wrong. It is just like if a parent enjoys spanking their child – a person like that is perverse. And anyone who enjoys church discipline is perverse. No matter what sin the person has committed, we are never permitted to harden our hearts toward him. And one of the ways to check your heart on this is to ask yourself, what would you do if the person repented? Would you rejoice? Would you welcome that person back into full fellowship with open arms? Would you celebrate like the father in the Prodigal Son parable? Or would you grumble like the older brother? There are churches who use so-called “church discipline” for the purpose of driving the person away from the church. That is the opposite of true church discipline. If that person is not welcome in the church if he repents, then it is not biblical church discipline.
So there are most definitely ways to twist and pervert the church discipline process. And so it is a wonderful thing, in the providence of God, that we should happen to come to this text in 1 Peter 3 at this moment in the life of Agape when we are dealing with a hard discipline situation, so that this passage can govern every part of what we do in this process and keep us from going off the rails and misusing the discipline process.
As much as we all wish the ordeal were over, it isn’t. We are still in step 3, and so what happens next is going to have to be decided by you. I wish we had time this morning to look at the astonishing words Jesus said in Matthew 18 about the level of authority the church body – the congregation – carries in church discipline. He said that if we follow the process with the two or three witnesses, etc., then Jesus is actually there present during the process, and the determination of the church body as a whole is actually ratified in heaven. If the church finds the person guilty, then that is established in heaven, and if the church body finds the person innocent, that is established in heaven (Mt.18:18-20). So what happens next is up to you. Some people have asked me, “What are you going to do, Darrell?” It is not up to me at this point. This matter has gone way above my head to the whole church. The reason step 3 has lasted this long is because we wanted to give everyone who is talking with JR all the time they need. And as long as he is responding and conversations are ongoing, we can continue to pray that God’s Word will have a softening effect on his heart. When those conversations draw to a close we will have a church meeting, with the whole congregation, and ask a very simple question: Has he repented? Or does anyone see any signs that perhaps he is moving in that direction and we should give it more time? When that happens, there are three possibilities. Those of you who have been talking with him might say, “Yes, we believe he is repentant.” If JR would agree to that then we could all rejoice and forgive and there would be no rift in our fellowship with him.  Or, the congregation might say, “After talking with JR, we don’t even believe what he did was sin. We have found the two or three witnesses who brought the accusation against him to be unreliable, and the JR’s explanations sound plausible, and so we don’t believe he has even committed any sin.” In that case, the matter would be dropped. Or the congregation might say, with a heavy heart, “We do not see repentance.” And in that case it would have to move to step 4 and we would all be required by God to shun him and have no future fellowship with him of any kind until he repented. And it would not be my place to dictate any of those responses to the church or to overturn what the church decides. I am just one voice along with all of you, and it is the consensus of the congregation that will determine what happens next.
There is one person that I know of who still has an ongoing dialogue with JR about this, and so we would not want to have that church meeting until that conversation is finished. And if any of the rest of you are still dealing with him on this matter and feel you may be making some progress, please let us know. But when the conversations come to a close, we will need to have that meeting in order to be faithful to the command of our Lord. And when we do so, we will be glad we studied 1 Peter 3 so that we can make sure we allow these principles of love and harmony to instruct every part of what we do and say in this matter.
Harmony
OK, so let’s go back now to 1 Peter 3 and let these principles shape the way we deal with each other in both the good times and the hard times. All we have time for today is to just look at the first word in the list in verse 8. We will plan on picking up with the others next time. But this first word is really a good summary of all of them. Some translations say harmonious, others say, like-minded. I think harmonious captures the idea the best. Elsewhere in the New Testament the almost identical phrase is used to describe living in peace with one another (2 Cor.13:11), and not having divisions or factions (1 Cor.1:10). In Philippians 4:2-3, that phrase is used to describe reconciliation between two women who were at odds with each other. If you are having some kind of conflict with another believer, and then you get it resolved so you are back on good terms with each other – that is what this phrase means.
It is a compound word that combines the word “attitude” with the word “same.” When we have relational conflicts with one another, usually it is because we have let our attitudes turn against each other. And that goes beyond mere agreement or disagreement. Two people can disagree on a point and be in wonderful, relational harmony. The disagreement does not strain the relationship. It does not make them less interested in spending time together, it does not make them less willing to listen to one another, there are no negative feelings.
This past Thursday and Friday some of the men were helping me with this sermon – thinking through how I could present this in a sensitive and wise and helpful way, and we ended up having some disagreements.  We debated and went back and forth, but I do not think we lost our harmony at any point. A couple weeks ago Bob and Rod and I got together to discuss our views on the Rapture. We were coming from opposite points of view, and we did not end up all agreeing, but at no point did I feel there was any anger or tension or strain on our friendship at all. I thoroughly enjoyed our time together and left feeling edified and built up. If Andrew and I get into a debate about the interpretation of Revelation 20, and later that day Andrew is coming over for dinner, it does not make me look forward to his arrival any less. I am still looking forward to it thinking, “This is going to be an enjoyable evening.” That is harmony. You can have harmony even while disagreeing on things.
But there are other debates I have been in with people where at the end of the debate I would honestly really rather not be around them. I would not look forward to having a meal with them - our relationship is strained. And once your relationship gets strained like that, the tendency is to let your attitude turn against the person. When your attitude is for someone, you consider their point of view when you deal with them. When you turn against a person, you stop doing that. When they talk, you do not try very hard any more to understand what they are trying to communicate – you just take the words and interpret them in a way the fits your negative attitude toward them. And when you talk to them, instead of working to say it in a way that they can understand and receive it – you just speak from your own point of view only. And if they do not understand – that is their problem. If there were some special glasses that allowed you to see attitudes, you would see your attitude and their attitude with arms folded, back-to-back. But when you soften, and return to harmony with that person – not just in your actions and words, but in your attitude – that is what this word is talking about.
Whether you are just dealing with some annoying person in the church, or you are in a theological debate, or that person has insulted you or slighted you, or even if it is a full-blown church discipline situation that goes all the way to step 4, so that God’s Word commands you to have nothing to do with that person anymore – even then, it is never appropriate to allow your attitude to turn against the person.
2 Thessalonians 3:14 If anyone does not obey our instruction in this letter, take special note of him. Do not associate with him, in order that he may feel ashamed. 15 Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

Benediction: 2 Corinthians 13:11 be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. 12 Greet one another with a holy kiss…14 May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

1:25 Questions
1.	Are there any broken or strained relationships with believers in your life right now? If so, have you followed the instructions of God’s Word in seeking reconciliation? 
2.	If Jesus came and evaluated us right now, what do you think His assessment of you would be in the area of living in harmony with the saints? Do you tend to restore or disrupt harmony?
3.	What one change in your character do you think would do the most good in the area of making you more of a restorer of harmony?