Today I'm doing the second in our series called Simply Christian. We're looking at some of the core themes and messages in Christianity. And we pulled the title from the, for the series from NT Reich's book Simply Christian. Why Christianity makes sense? And it's, my sermons at least have been very loosely based on the book. Dono might do a better job next weekend. But I'm just loosely pulling some themes that NT Reich talks about. It's an amazing book, he tackles just a huge amount of material. We've got it for sale in the lobby for $12, which is about half price, so we got a publisher's discount. So pick this up if you are interested in getting NT Reich's take on what are the essential themes in Christianity. Or you've heard about NT Reich and you want to give it a try, this would be a fantastic place to start. Again, out in the lobby there's a little book table where you can pick up a copy of this book. Last week I talked about our thirst for spirituality. The longing that every human heart has to know God, that relationship with God. This week I'm going to be talking about relationships and next week Donald's going to be talking about the longing for justice. So this week I'm going to talk about the desire we all have in our hearts for relationships and for particularly for healthy relationships. I think it's so interesting that we all ache for relationships, we all have a deep desire to have relationship with other people, to know people, whether it's friendships, whether it's romantic love, whether it's a mentor or a father figure in our life. And yet we find relationships so difficult, at least I do, but I find relationships very difficult and I think most of us probably have found relationships difficult at one point in our lives. It's ironic that we're made for one another, we're designed to be in relationships and yet we find it's so difficult to make relationships work, let alone to make them flourish. So in my sermon today I'm going to be examining our relationships in particularly within the church. And the reason I'm going to do that is because it says in the Bible, it says in the New Testament, these are Jesus' words, that we're to be known by our love for one another. If there's one thing that when people look at the church and they see us and they say, "Well what makes a Christian a Christian," it's that we're to be known for our love for one another. That's what Jesus said. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at the state of the church today, see what's going on, and see that the world is divided, it's fractured, it's fighting with one another. I mean you see Christians writing angry books about other Christians, or well this denomination is doing this wrong and it's just a super critical spirit sometimes. And we even see Christians openly fighting with each other in the streets in different parts of the world. It's really tragic. And aside from that, it's a rare thing when we find in our churches today churches that go out of their way to maintain healthy relationships with other Christians in the community, or with other churches, or teach their members to maintain healthy relationships with each other in the church. Now one of the things we tell new people who come to the church in our newcomer class or in various meetings with new people we say, when you get offended by someone else in this church, not if you get offended, but when someone else offends you in the church, because you're going to be offended, you are going to be offended, someone is going to say something to one of your children that really bugs you, or someone's going to ask you to do something that puts you off, or someone's going to write you a note, or you're going to hear something from up front that you disagree with and that you find offensive, or somebody in your small group says something that just really bugs you. So when you get offended, you'll have a choice to either respond to it in a biblical way, or to respond to it in an unbiblical way. And there are tons of ways to respond to these things unbiblically. I mean, you can just leave the church. Someone says something to you that you find a little offensive, or a pastor says something that you don't agree with, well, leave the church. Or you can gossip about that person, and talk to all your friends, and call up the prayer line, and say how so-and-so really needs our prayer, because he's a real jerk, or you can talk about how the pastor always does this or that. Or you can commit yourself to resolve that problem in a biblical way. So today I want to look at some things that make for great relationships in the church among ourselves. I'm going to be looking at Ephesians 4, if you have your Bible, you can turn to it. It's one of Paul's letter letters to the early churches. And starting in chapter 4, he says, "As a prisoner of the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit. Just as you were called to one hope when you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is overall and through all, and in all." Now, in some translations you can see that the Apostle Paul begins Ephesians chapter 4 with the word that's translated "therefore." In the Greek it's "un" so he's making a transition here. It doesn't come through clearly in the Anavi years in the Tiananmen. He's saying, "As a prisoner of the Lord, therefore, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." There's a transition that happens. For three chapters, the first three chapters of Ephesians, Paul has been talking about what God has done, but what God has already done. Now, in chapter 4 of Ephesians, he's switching his terms and he begins to talk about what we're to do in response to what God has done. He's moving, in other words, from belief to behavior, from creed to conduct, from principle to practice. Here in Ephesians 4, the Apostle Paul lays out for us the great marks of the Christian Church. What distinguishes the Christian Church from the rest of the world? What should our badge be? The things that we are known by? Not funny hats, not strange dress, not super weird, super spiritual speech, but what is it that is to mark a Christian and the Christian Church from the rest of the world? Here in Ephesians 4, he begins with the first great mark of the Church, which is unity. Without unity, we really don't have a Church. His first exhortation to us is found in verse 3, "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace." Unity was one of the great longings, one of the great themes of the 20th century. The 20th century was all about trying to find some kind of unity between various groups and various peoples. The 20th century was about the League of Nations, about the United Nations, about the unification of the Church, the ecumenical movement, and the World Council of Churches. Unity and having great relationships is a goal that most people aim for and strive for. Most people want to have healed relationships. Most people don't want to live isolated, angry, alienated lives. But even though having great relationships and unity is a goal, the vast majority of us, and I include myself in this, are pretty clueless regarding how to get to that goal. Paul is going to tell us that unity doesn't happen by committee meetings and by sitting around in groups and exchanging papers. He says this, "Let me lay out the foundation stone for having great relationships with other people." The first thing Paul mentions is that we need to be passionate about making unity and great relationships our aim and our goal. In other words, great relationships don't happen automatically. Now we know that. We definitely know that. Great relationships don't happen automatically. We have to be passionate about having unity, read verse 3 along with me here. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Here is where doctrine turns into practice. Here's where our whole Christian faith really comes in to effect. Here's where the rubber meets the road in our Christian profession. Do we make every effort to have healthy, united relationships with others? I am particularly challenged by this phrase, "Make every effort." I find it very challenging because it's almost as if Paul is saying, "Spare no expense. Be urgent. Be passionate. Don't just settle for okay in your relationships." I find that very challenging. Isn't it the case that so often you and I settle for a really low standard in our relationship with others? For those of us who are married, isn't it the case that so often we settle for such a low standard in our marriages? If we're honest, we'd have to say that we're satisfied with a certain level of disunity broken relationships with one another. It's almost like if I can use an analogy, it's like we say, "You know the Ten Commandments? Nobody can keep all ten of them." That is impossible. That is a lot. That's asking a lot. So I am going to strive in my life to keep eight of the Ten Commandments. So the one about stealing, I'm not going to be real finicky in particular about that one. So I'm going to steal stuff from work. It's not a big deal. I'm going to use the office phone for making personal long distance calls, and I'll steal office supplies for my home because, give me a break, nobody can keep all ten of those commandments. And the one about not lying, I'm going to let that one kind of go. So I'm going to exaggerate wildly about things. I'm going to bend the truth. I'm not going to be particularly scrupulous in terms of honesty and my communications, but all in all, I'm doing pretty well. I'm not bowing down to idols, and I'm respecting and honoring my parents. At least I try to. You know, that's sometimes how we are with our relationships. We say, "You know, well, I know I'm at odds with these two people. I don't get along with these two people. I have a strained relationship with these two. But you know what, these other eight, I have a great relationship with. I'm doing great with those other eight." Isn't that enough? I mean, nobody's perfect. You know, I know that some of us are saying to ourselves, "You know, I know I've got a couple guys in my men's group right now who I just butt heads with, who I haven't talked to in a long time." And as I think about the state over my relationships, I see there's some real disruption over here with this group of people or this individual, and there's a burned out bridge over here that was burned a long time ago and haven't really done anything about it, and there's some upset and anger with this individual who I don't really call anymore, but I am an incredibly busy person. If you only knew how busy I was, how many things I've got on my plate, I mean, I've got a job, I've got kids I'm trying to raise, and they're busy people too, they would probably rather just kind of let it go. But the Apostle Paul says, "Make every effort. Stop settling for a certain amount of relational disharmony. Aim to be at peace with every single person you know. Aim to be at peace with every single person you know. Aim at total unity just as you would aim at obeying all of God's commandments, because this is one of his commandments. Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace." Now, how far should we go in making every effort to be at peace with our siblings? If you've got a brother or a sister, how far do we go? How about with our parents? How about with our spouse? How about with the other person in the church or someone you know at work? Or how much time and effort and energy are we supposed to expend on maintaining and repairing these relationships? I was struck by the thought that this area of relational harmony and fixing relationships and keeping unity, it's one of the few things that God tells us to keep him waiting for until we accomplish it. Let me explain. In general, worshiping God comes before everything else in our life. I mean, the Bible teaches us that we're to worship God before our desire to make money. We're to put worshiping God above our leisure, we're to put worshiping God in front of going to the gym. Go to the gym another time, clean your house another time, read the paper another time, but don't keep God waiting. Worship God, worship him above everything else. Except in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says, if you are offering your gift at the altar, if you're worshiping, and there you remember that your brother is something against you, leave your gift there, first go and be reconciled to your brother. Then come and offer your gift, then come and worship. In other words, make every effort to be at peace and then worship God. Reconciliation between people is so important that Jesus teaches us in a sense to keep God waiting. Put off worship until you do this one thing. Now, a note of caution, this doesn't mean that if you had an argument in the car on the way to church, you're just supposed to go back home. If that were the case, half of us wouldn't be here. It doesn't mean that if you realize, I think what Jesus is saying is don't continually put this off. Don't, you know, week after week, have this festering relationship issue, this broken hurt, painful disunity, and still feel like, you know, gosh, I'm just going to worship God, I'm just never going to deal with that. You know, this idea runs all through the Scriptures. The prophets were regularly challenging the people of God regarding what they would call phony worship. The people of God would come to the temple and they'd make a big show of their worship offering sacrifices, singing songs. But then there were all these areas of just complete disobedience in their lives, oppressing people or not showing mercy, areas of darkness, areas of sexual immorality, demonic strongholds in their lives. But they'd say, you know, I'm not really going to deal with that. I'm going to come and lift my hands and worship God. That's all he cares about. So, you know, I'm going to sing and clap and that's going to take care of everything. But God says, you know what? That's totally misguided. Worship can wait first, go and straighten out your relationship with that person you're at odds with. Then come and sing praises and worship me. The reason we're to make every effort and spare no expense and be passionate about an urgent and extreme about clearing up relationship problems is because, God ties his relationship with us to our relationship with one another. I mean, there's no more common temptation than to separate those two things. Then to say, well, my relationships with people are one thing and my relationship with God is another. I can have one just be totally falling apart, but it doesn't affect the other. That can be our temptation. But the prophets in the Old Testament continually dealt with that desire to separate those two things. People claiming to worship God while they neglected the poor, while they neglected simple acts of justice and mercy to their neighbors. Jesus in the Book of Matthew, he ties our forgiveness from God to our forgiving people who have hurt us. In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray this way. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Forgive us, Lord, our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us. For those who have offended us, those who have angered us, those who have hurt us, those who have abused us. Forgive us, Lord, as we also forgive them. That's challenging. What does God mean there? He won't forgive us if we don't forgive somebody. Now I take this to mean that to the same extent we refuse to forgive another person, to that extent our hearts have become hardened. When we hold unforgiveness in our hearts, our hearts become hardened. So God's forgiveness is there. God's grace is there. But our hearts are so calloused and hardened by unforgiveness that we can't receive it. We can't receive God's grace in His mercy. This idea is all through the Scriptures. James, who is the brother of Jesus in the New Testament, he writes about the absolute hypocrisy of claiming to bless God while we curse people. You think that with that same mouth you've been custom people out and yelling at people all week and then you're going to come and use that same mouth to bless me. What's going on with that? John says the same thing about hating the person that we can see while claiming to love the invisible God that we can't see. Is that really going to work? You have all this hatred and discord and disunity with so many people and yet your heart is filled with love for me. To those of us who are married, the Apostle Peter says in 1 Peter 3, if you're odds with your spouse, you want to clean that up before you pray. That's bad news for some of us. I can no wonder my prayer didn't get unanswered. Now, again, I don't want to get to a point where you're saying, "Well, then, gosh, God never hears our prayers unless everything's perfect." But God's saying, first, make a point of reconciling, of healing your relationships. It is so important. And all of these things, I think, are conditional upon this phrase if it is possible. There are some situations in your life where you aren't able to clear things up with someone. You're not able to reconcile with someone. Sometimes, if you're married, sometimes your spouse doesn't want to work things out. Sometimes your spouse says, "I don't want to talk about our problems." Sometimes a person refuses to accept your apology. They don't want to have anything to do with you. They refuse your invitation to relationship. Sometimes there's nothing we can humanly do. Sometimes you are abused, and there's too much damage and hurt there for you to re-establish contact with a person. Sometimes you can't fix a relationship. But honestly, in the majority of cases, the problem so often rests on our end. I mean, think about it. If you were standing before Jesus, and Jesus looked at you and said, "Son of mine, daughter of mine, have you," regarding this relationship with your spouse or with your brother or sister, your parents, "have you made every effort? Have you spared no expense to reconcile, to bring unity?" Now, I know this is tough. Those are challenging, challenging cords to all of us, because the Apostle Paul understands that relationships break down, that relationships fall apart. That's why he says, "Make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit, to keep the unity of the Spirit." Our relationships with each other are constantly in need of repair. I have a friend, John Samos, who fixed carves. He's always working on his own cars, where he runs a single mom's ministry, so he's fixing cars up for single moms, or a friend brings the car over to save some money, and John then's working on their car. If you think about cars, the principle of entropy that things go from order to disorder certainly applies to cars. Cars are always breaking down. But things are always breaking down in relationships, too. Things tend to break down in this business of making every effort means that if we want to keep our relationships healthy, if we want to keep going with other people, it's going to take work. You can't have a great relationship with someone at your job unless you work at it. There's a great temptation to just let sleeping dogs lie, or to use another metaphor, ignore the elephant in the middle of the room. You know, I know it's there. I don't want to deal with it. Why mention that big lump that's under the middle of the rug in the living room? Let's just leave it alone. It's too difficult. It's too painful in my family to talk about that stuff. Yes, there is a rift in my relationship, but I've come to a place where I can live with it, and they seem to be okay living with it. Policing, you can't live with broken relationships with others unless you're prepared to live with a much less than perfect fellowship with God. That means we must pick up the phone. We must write that letter. We must go and pay that visit. We must set up that appointment with a counselor. That means, you know, if you're a married couple, going to a counselor, going to a marriage course, if we can't solve it on our own, it means going to a small group leader, or a pastor, or a counselor, or a peer counselor, or a friend. It means making every effort. You know, maintaining unity doesn't just involve work. It doesn't just involve a lot of hard work. It also involves wounds. No one who takes the Christian call the relational harmony can seriously escape being wounded. We cannot escape being wounded. There's a wonderful story in John, one of the four gospels in chapter 20. This is after Jesus rose from the dead. One of his post-resurrection appearances was to his disciples, and he says to them, "Peace be with you." And then the text goes on, and he says, "He showed them his hands and his side, and again he said, "Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, I am sending you." Do you get what Jesus is doing here? What Jesus is saying here? Jesus is saying, "Do you see, son? Do you see, daughter? Do you see, beloved? What it took for me to make peace between you and God?" I was wounded in the process. See my side? See these hands? I was wounded in the process of making peace between you and God. I was hurt. Now as the Father has sent me into this world, so I am sending you out into the world. If we want unity, if we want healed relationships, if we want to be a peacemaker, we're going to be wounded also. So often I talk with people about relationships, and I almost never meet somebody who isn't in pain because of some tear in some relationship in their life. Tears in relationships cause pain. They create guilt. No one wants a bad marriage. I don't know anybody who wants a bad marriage. But very often what people are looking for to repair a tear is an easy remedy or a quick fix or a painless solution. And it's frustrating for us to hear that there isn't an easy painless way to have unity with someone. There isn't just a quick fix for it. I mean, isn't there a way besides risking disappointment again? I don't want to be disappointed again. I don't want to get my hopes up again. Isn't there some other way than putting my neck on the chopping block and hoping and being disappointed again? Or isn't there another way then becoming vulnerable, then giving the impression possibly that I'm the one who is wrong? Isn't there another way besides going through that long process of going to see a counselor and setting up meetings and the expense? And so often the answer is no. There's not another way. Forging real peace with someone involves risking real pain and discomfort. The pain of hoping again for a good relationship, the pain of being vulnerable again, being wounded is part of the process of making peace. As God sent Jesus into the world so Jesus sends us. And God is fully aware. Jesus is aware of our temptation to avoid the cross, to avoid that pain, that suffering, that discomfort. But it also says that Jesus can protect us and he can heal us when we go through that and when we're hurt. Now, being passionate, if making every effort is a foundation stone for the healing of our relationship, what attitudes are required for us to have unity with each other? In verse 2 it says that the attitudes that are foundational for a great relationship are these. Be completely humble and gentle, be patient, bearing with one another in love. I want to picture a husband and wife who are at odds with each other. They've settled into a kind of cold war of virtual non-communication about anything really significant, just avoid it. Because every time they start moving towards something significant or talking about something serious, it flares up and it creates more hurt. At the same time they don't want to live in this kind of cold war anymore. So what do they do? Now, no amount of counseling, no amount of reading, no amount of advice is ever going to bring a couple together unless something first happens in their hearts. Unless there's some kind of attitudinal change, they can schedule date nights from here to eternity, they can go through all of the motions, but without some sort of change in attitude, the house still collapses. The Apostle Paul says, be completely humble and gentle. Be completely humble. Why is humility so important? Pride is behind so much of our discord and our relational breaks with each other. You know, I'm not getting the recognition I deserve from this person. What about my needs? Why aren't my needs being met? I'll apologize after she does because she's 51% at fault and I'm only 49% at fault. You know, humility says, you know, I'll take the first step. I'll take the initiative. Even though I think they actually have more fault than I do, I'll take the first step and I'll say I was wrong. I'll be the first to risk it and say, you know, I blew it, but I want this relationship. Pride says, you know, I need to look good. I need to save face. I need to not be taken advantage of. Humility says, you know, I don't care about that. I value this relationship more than I value saving face and looking good. Be patient, bearing with one another in love. You know, there are a lot of aggravating people in aggravating situations. This didn't just get invented in the last 100 years. You know, in Paul's time, there were lots of aggravating people in aggravating situations. But this business of being patient, of forbearance, I mean, if I want to love and have good relationships, I can't be so thin-skinned. I can't be so easily offended. You know, I've noticed that some of us, we tend to walk around as if we have a really bad sunburn. So any little thing that somebody does or any little slight offense or something wasn't said the right way, or it seems like we were kind of overlooked in something, or somebody didn't say hi, and we overreact, and we get so hurt and offended. If we want to maintain a relationship, we can't focus on people's weaknesses. I mean, read the advice columnists. You know, every day in the paper, somebody's writing about a coworker or a roommate or a spouse's annoying habit. Things that just drive them crazy. You know, my coworker has cracked his knuckles for the last 15 years, and if he does it one more time, I'm going to blow up. I can't take it anymore. I mean, I am guilty when it comes to this. I can get so hyper-sensitized to little annoying things. I mean, I've got a friend who, every time he eats pudding or yogurt, he's got to take the spoon out and lick it, and lick both sides, and lick the little plastic cup, and it's just, where did you learn to eat? Why can't you just take the spoon and put it in your mouth like a normal person? You know, and I can't even concentrate on what's going on. Or I've got another friend who shakes his foot. So whenever he's sitting, he's shaking his foot, so I'll be sitting next to him there, and I always see this foot shaking. I'm like, "Just cut it out! Just stop!" Or we're in a movie theater, "foot shaking." And once I just reached over and I grabbed it, "Quit shaking your foot!" We can be so hyper-sensitized to things that people do. And discord and broken relationships happen when we just focus on other people's weaknesses. So Paul is saying, "No, stop looking at other people's flaws. Stop picking everybody apart. Stop magnifying other people's weaknesses. Stop talking about what you notice is wrong with so-and-so. Would you ever notice so-and-so always does this or never does this? Or guess what so-and-so did again? Get rid of it. Policy and get rid of that hyper-critical spirit. Talk about what's good in another person. As hard as that is. Find one good thing. You know, that person, well, at least they're nice to their pets. Find something good in the other person. You know, focus on what's good. Focus on what's pure. For parents and patients means that we accept people even with their quirks and their weaknesses. We cut each other some slack. We give each other some space, which means space to fail sometimes. And grace to mess up. And all of this, all of this passion for relationships, all of these attitudes are built on a foundation of truth about God and about us. It's not just some nice tips for living. Paul is saying if we tolerate broken relationships with each other, if we settle for less than the best, it's because we don't understand who God is and we don't understand what he intends for his church. The Apostle Paul focuses upon the triune nature of the God, this idea of the Trinity, of a relationship within God. In verses 4, 5, and 6, which are up on the screen behind me. In verses 4, he says, "There is one body and one spirit." In verse 5, he speaks to all of us about the one Lord Jesus Christ. And in verse 6, "One God and Father of us all." He's talking about that triune nature of God, the relationship within God. If you understood, Paul is saying, what God intended for the church and you understood your relationship with God, you'd make every effort to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace because the church is the reflection of the Trinity. The church is the reflection of the unity and the diversity of the triune God. We are the reflection of who God is to the world. We're not asked to just form some kind of organizational unity. We're asked to maintain a unity that has been given to us by the Holy Spirit. We all share the same spirit. And where the Holy Spirit is poured out, there is unity. Where the Holy Spirit is, there is unity. One of the great marks of the Azusa Street Revival back in 1906, and you may have seen newspaper or magazine articles about it because they're celebrating the 100-year mark. One of the marks of the Azusa Street Revival that gave birth to the modern Pentecostal and Charismatic movements was that you had black and white men and women, young and old, all coming together, all repenting of their prejudices, laying down their past hurts, coming together. That's where the spirit is, where the spirit is, the church comes together. It includes racial reconciliation. One of God's great desires for the Ann Arbor Vineyard is that we be a diverse group of people, that we be a testimony to the miracle power of God, that we're not just birds of a feather that flock together. We all have common background and common interests, and we all get along so we just get together as a big social group. No, we have differences. We have differences in racial backgrounds. We have differences in socioeconomic backgrounds. We have differences in levels of education and career choices. Tyrone Kelsey and Maria White are going to be doing a class, not too long here in the future, on this idea of racial reconciliation and building bridges. I encourage you to check that out. There should be some things mentioned in the bulletin about it in the next month or two. Paul is talking about our one spirit, our one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, and through all and in all. I want to close with that particular focus upon our one Lord. I've regularly seen that as people lift up Jesus, as people worship Him, there's unity. But where we have different traditions exalted or different leaders exalted, you know, this one's saying, "Well, I'm with John Calvin." This one says, "I'm with John Wesley." This one says, "I'm with John Wimber." You know, or we have respective churches exalted. "I'm Grace Brethren. "I'm First Presbyterian. "I'm Trinity Lutheran. "I'm Vineyard. "I'm Nazarene. "I'm Baptist. "I'm Episcopal." Wherever we have people or particular traditions exalted, there's going to be disunity. Wherever that becomes our focus, there's going to be disunity. But where Christ is exalted, when we gather around Jesus, the person of Christ, not just some aspect of His teaching. Because we all like to sometimes focus on just one little particular aspect of His teaching that we're going to zoom in on. Whether it's the teaching about Jesus in His second coming, or our interpretation of what Jesus meant in the sermon of the Mount, or on baptism, or on communion, you know, it's okay to hold on to those things. It's okay to teach and believe those things. But when we meet with other Christians, when we meet with others who have the Spirit, who are sons and daughters of the living God, then let's exalt Jesus together. Let's focus on Jesus together. Let's talk about our love for Christ. Let's be passionate about Him. Jesus, the one mediated, the one savior, the one great high priest, the one head of the body, the one king, the one lord, Jesus Christ. These are the things that make for great relationships. We're going to close with worship and communion. So if a band would come back up and our ushers would get ready to distribute communion. I think there are probably a lot of us who we think about this. We realize there's a certain level of hypocrisy in our lives. And I'm in that group of people who recognize that we've allowed a certain level of just relational mess with certain people in our lives. And for some reason, we've just kind of gotten used to it. It doesn't seem to bother us so much. We just kind of accepted it. And for a lot of us, the main reason for that is on our end, because we haven't done anything about it. We've just accepted it. I want to say that if you're in that place, if you're in a place of you know you have a messed up, strained relationship with somebody and you realize, you know, I haven't taken a step. Maybe it's because you think the other person is more at fault than you are, or maybe you realize it's just pride. You feel like you're always saying sorry, so you've had it. This is the other time. This is their turn to say sorry. Or you've just let it go for so long, you don't want to dredge all that up again. There are some cases where if you were abused, that it's not necessarily healthy for you to resume contact with a person. But for most of us, this is a sibling or a spouse or a child or a parent who we've just kind of let things go with. I would just pray for you as you come up to take communion, to just offer that before God. To just resolve in your heart to take the first step. Some of us that means getting on the phone and calling that person, saying hey it's been a long time, I'm sorry I haven't called. Or writing a letter if you can't call. Or it means saying you know what, I've been resisting it for a long time but I think I'm ready to go to a counselor. I'm ready to set up an appointment with a marriage counselor and go and do whatever it takes. That might be you. I just want to ask you, as you come up and you worship God and you take this communion, you acknowledge before God. You know this is important to you and it's important to me and I want to do it. And so let's go ahead and stand and I'm going to pray and bless the communion. Lord Jesus, thank you that you made reconciliation possible. Thank you that we're not estranged from God that we have the Spirit and then you open the way for reconciled relationships with other people. God we acknowledge that we've let things go in a lot of areas, that we've held grudges, that we have resentments that have built up, that we haven't tried to work through. We've just kind of ignored it. We've got brothers and sisters we haven't called or talked to in months and years. Jesus we just, we acknowledge, we accept the fact that our relationships are so important to you. And so God we resolve that wherever it's possible, wherever it's possible Lord God we just commit to opening doors to reconciliation, to taking the first step God. And I just ask you God for your protection and your grace as we do that because Jesus we know there's going to be pain involved. That this doesn't happen without pain, but I ask you God to protect and to heal us from those wounds. Lord I ask you to empower this bread and this grape juice just to be the sign and power of your body and your blood poured out for us. This isn't just up to us God, there is power and there is grace available for restored relationships. We can't do it on our own God, we don't have magic words to say, but Lord God we trust you, we trust in your power in Jesus name. So what?
