Psalm 133, Psalm 133. Let's read this, Psalm of Degrees,
it says, Psalm, let's read it. Behold, how good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious
ointment on the head that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's
beard. and went down to the skirts of
his garment, as the dew of Hermon, as the dew that descended upon
the mountains of Zion. For there, there the Lord commanded
the blessing, even life forevermore." Don't we love the Psalms? Don't
you love the Psalms? I know you're like me. You just
read through them and then you go back and start reading through
them again. You can always find comfort. It's full of prayers. David, a man after God's own
heart, says everything that I feel. Always. I can always find the
very things I'm feeling when I go through the psalm. My heart's
cry unto God. Psalms, psalms are songs. They're written to be sung unto
the Lord. They were given to song leaders. A bunch of them. If you go back
to the Chronicles and 2 Samuel, you'll see there were a bunch
of psalm leaders, and that was their job, full-time. Asaph and
others. The sons of Korah. For our joy. The song to the Lord and for
our joy. Singing helps us. It's a great
tonic. It's a help. Our joy and rejoice.
The joy of the Lord is our strength. The joy of the Lord is strength. If we sing, it will keep us from
murmuring and complaining. The joy of the Lord. Now this
says, A Song of Degrees. Now there are 15 of them, beginning
with number 120 through number 134. A Song of Degrees. Now there are many thoughts on
this. Some think it was sung by the people. They were sung
by the people as they were marching. Up to Zion, they'd sing these
songs until they got up there on Mount Zion where they worshiped. Or the priests, when they ascended
the stairs to offer those sacrifices, they made some of them then.
But what it means is ascending. That's what it means. Starts
low and ends high. That's salvation. I love music. I love all kinds of music, almost
all kinds of music. It's got to be music. But I love,
I like classical music. There's one piece in particular,
and there are many, but Jeanette knows this, Bach's cello suite
number one in G major. Are you impressed with that?
Bach's cello suite number one in G major, and it's a solo,
one instrument. And it begins very low, you know,
those low, deep bass notes, and then at the end of it, it just
starts climbing. It just starts climbing and climbing
and climbing until the end of it just sends chills down my
spine when I hear it. That's the story of salvation.
We begin in the slime pits and we end up on the mountain with
God. It begins on the dung pits. And we end up with the Lord in
glory. We begin as worms, groveling, creatures of the dirt. We're
going to mount up with wings of eagles. This thing is ascending. We're going to ascend all the
way to the throne of glory. Now, that's salvation, isn't
it? That's salvation. It begins. Behold. Behold. How many scriptures? How many
Psalms begin that way? Behold. Behold, that means stop
and think and consider. Behold, stop and think and consider
how good it is. How good this is. There's nothing
better. There's no one better. How good
is our God? How good has God been to you? We're here to give thanks. We're
here to worship our God for help. He's made all his goodness pass
before us. Oh, behold, how good our God
is. How good it is to be here. How
good it is to hear this. Do you realize? You do. You know
that so many people don't want to hear this. They don't want
to be here, but we want to be here. Why? Because our God's
been good to us. He's been merciful to us. He's
chosen us. He's been gracious to us. He pulled us out of the
pit and said, you're going to come worship me. You're going
to go out into the wilderness. I'm going to spread a table for
you, and you're going to worship me. And the presence of fear
in you, and you're going to enjoy. How good, verse 1 said, and how
pleasant. This is very pleasing to me,
isn't it to you? It's pleasing to the Lord. The
Lord takes great pleasure in His people. Well, they take great
pleasure in Him. Now good, and how pleasant it
is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Brethren. Don't you
love that term? Some of you never had earthly
brothers, siblings. I did. I had two of them, and
it was a very special relationship. We fought a little bit. and picked
at each other, but we loved each other. And it was a very, very,
Ron had five sisters, didn't he, Ron? Six. Oh, Ron. Six, plus your mother, seven
women. Ah, boy. But I had a sister. That was special, too. Special
relationship. But to be able to call each other
brother. It's very special. They're all brothers in Adam,
sons of Adam, but I love and I look forward to the time I
feel like the Lord reveals Himself to somebody and they confess
Christ and I'm able to call them from the heart, Brother Mike. He's one of us. Behold how good
and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity, to
dwell together. Oh, we have a brother, don't
we? We have a friend that's sticking
closer than a brother, our Lord Jesus Christ. And he's our elder
brother. And like the article Sunday,
he's not ashamed to call us brethren. But I'm not ashamed to call him
brother either. And I'm not ashamed to call you
brother. And we all dwell together. Where do we dwell? Where do we
dwell? Well, Ephesians 2 says he's raised
us up together with Christ. He's quickened us together with
Christ. We've been made alive. We were
dead in trespassing sin. That's why at one time we had
no interest in what we're doing right now. You couldn't have
dragged us here at one time. And now, He can't hardly drag
us out of here. We want to stay here. We're quickened
together. In Him we live and move and have
our being. Christ, in Him, like that ark,
like the people Noah and his family were in that ark, that
ark was their life for over a year. The psalm we sang, our hopes,
our dreams, what were they talking about on that ark for a year? God's mercy to them. There wasn't a day that went
by that they didn't thank God for choosing them and bringing
them into that ark and for that pitch. Dad, you reckon that pitch
still holding? It's holding, son. We're in Christ. We're in the ark. And he's our
joy and rejoicing. He's our dwelling place. And
he dwells in us. We dwell together. Don't you love Psalm 27? You
love Psalm 27? I got a big smile out of somebody
back there. It says, One thing have I desired,
that's what I'll seek after. And I may dwell in the house
of the Lord all the days of my life. What house is he talking
about? Well, this house. This is God's house. Yes, it
is. It's where God's people live,
where Christ said He would be, where He promised to be. I want
to be found here until the Lord takes me to that eternal home. Don't you? I want to be found
here beholding the beauty of the Lord, inquiring. Oh, we preach
in part, don't we? We know in part. And I learn,
you learn, we all learn. We're still learning. We're still
students in God's Word. And I want to be found in His
house with His people in the end when it's all over, forever. And there is coming a time when
we're all going to be united together in glory and we never
have to leave. Never have to leave. You don't have to go back out
in the world. There is no world. Won't that be wonderful? How
good and how pleasant that will be. Ed read it tonight. At thy right
hand are pleasures forevermore. Christ is at his right hand and
wherever he is, there are pleasures. How pleasant. This is pleasant.
David, remember that psalm, he said, your love and kindness
is better than life. Nothing in this world is better
than this right here. But it will get better up there. In unity. Unity. Look at 1 Corinthians 1 with
it. How pleasant it is for brothers and sisters to dwell together
in unity. United. One accord. I talked about loving music and
I do. an orchestra, where there's a
concert. That word concert is a noun. It means a musical performance. It also means everybody working
together in perfect harmony to play one song. They're all in
concert together. Now, everybody in that orchestra
or band or whatever it is needs to be playing the same tune,
don't they? What if one person said, I don't
like that. I've got one I want to play. It will be noise. It will be strife and confusion. No, no, no, no, no. We're here
to play one thing. What's that? The gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ. And that's unity. That's our
united cause. First Corinthians 1, look at
verses 9 and 10. God is faithful by whom you were
called into the fellowship. That's what we're doing right
now. fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Now I beseech
you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you
all speak the same thing, that there be no divisions among you,
that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and
in the same judgment. What's that all about? What?
What is it? Why are we meeting? Why are we here? It's not about
us, it's about Him. Sing His praise. If that is truly
our heart's desire, to worship our Lord, to give thanks, sing
these hymns to the praise of the glory of His great, we'll
all be singing together in perfect harmony. Our voices, our hearts,
everything will be united in this beautiful music. It is to
God. You may not be able to carry
a tune singing these hymns, I've heard some people over the years.
But I tell you, I know them. I've told you many times about
Jim Eccles, James Eccles. He sat right, Mindy and I always
sat on the second row, about right there. And Jim Eccles and
his wife Juanita sat right behind him. And Jim was deaf. He wore
two hearing aids. And he just couldn't hardly hear at all.
Well, he just sang as loud as he could. And it wasn't anywhere
close to that time. But it put tears in my eyes. He knew who he was singing. He wasn't singing to be heard
by others. He was singing out of joy and rejoicing and worship
to his Lord. And God, I'm sure the Lord thought,
that's the best singer in that congregation. God's not impressed
with our ability to sing or play or pray or anything like that.
He looks on the heart. That woman caught in the act
of adultery and was thrown at our Lord's feet. She wasn't saying
anything. Our Lord was listening to her. She was groaning. Everybody else was talking. And
it says He acted like He wasn't listening to any of them. When
it's all done, it's just Him and her. Let me be like her, just a sinner
saved by grace, pouring out my heart to Him in joy and rejoicing. So that's our cause, and that's
why we're here. You know, there are three in
heaven, and these three are one. They're in perfect union or concert
together. Father, the Son, Holy Spirit,
sweet unity of spirit they are in the work of saving God's people
and bringing them together. Three, the Trinity. There's an
evil Trinity. And they're out to divide and
separate and cause disharmony. Satan, self, and this Word. Oh my, let's pray the Lord will
keep us from these three. Verse 2 says, this unity, Brethren
dwelling together, it's like precious ointment upon the head
that ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard, the high
priest's beard went down to the skirts of his garment. It's like
precious ointment. You ladies like ointment. And
I'm not embarrassed or shy to say that I like ointment. If you lose all your hair and
you go outside in the sun, your head is going to get burnt and
there's nothing And over in the East, you know, they used to
anoint people's heads with oil because it was hot, that sun
burning, beaming down on your head, and to pour soothing oil
on the head and on the feet, it was just so soothing and relaxing. But this is like precious ointment. Soothing, relaxing. You're out
in that hostile world all day, dealing with people that have
no interest in God, using God's name in vain. It's painful, isn't
it? You come in here and this dwelling
together with God's people in perfect unity and harmony, trying
to worship our God, it's just soothing, it's just relaxing. That's why we hate to leave here.
It's like precious ointment, ointment of God's love, mercy,
grace, kindness, gospel toward us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Our Lord Jesus Christ broke down
the enmity between us and God and us and each other. We wouldn't
have anything to do with each other if it wasn't for the gospel.
You know that? We're from all walks of life. We're different
ages. Different ages. Take Margaret there. She's so
much older than me, and yet we're good, close friends, aren't we,
Margaret? And we're different ages and
different walks of life, and we had nothing in common before
we came here. Now, none of that matters. This
is the only thing that matters. The only thing that matters.
Unity. Like precious ointment. Precious ointment. Pleasant. Oil of the Spirit. Outpouring,
anointing of God's Holy Spirit. It comes down. It comes down. Where does it come from? It comes
down. Precious ointment upon the head.
It comes from Christ, our Lord, who is our head. We're the body.
Flows down from our Father. Through the gospel, preaching
the gospel of Christ our head and runs down upon the beard,
even to the skirts of His garment. All the way down to the lowest
of the low. Doesn't matter how low you are, it's going to reach
you. That woman at the issue, she said, if I can just touch
the hem of His garment. You remember that message? Why the hem of His garment? Because the high priest wore
a special garment. ordered by our Lord, a special
garment that only the high priest was to wear. And he wore it into the Holy
of Holies to offer that sacrifice once a year. And on the hem of
his garment were bells and pomegranates. Fruits and bells. And when the high priest would
go into that Holy of Holies and offer up that sacrifice, if God
was pleased, if God accepted the sacrifice, the people could
hear those Bells ringing. He never sat down, you know.
He's always moving around. But the people were listening
for those bells, because if God wasn't pleased, he'd kill that
man. Those bells still ringing. Still ringing. He's alive. God's
not angry. He's alive. And all of a sudden,
he'd come out from under the veil, and I'm sure he had a smile
on his face. Accepted. God accepted it. We're accepted in the beloved,
the sacrifice. Ring the bell, preacher. That
woman crawls if I just get hold of him of his garment. He'll
hear those bells ring. Taste of his precious fruit. Runs down to the skirts of the
garment. Now, I want you to look at this.
I want you to go back in Exodus 30. Go back to Exodus 30. This
made me want to go through the tabernacle again. It's been a
long time since we've looked at the tabernacle. So many things I want to go through.
Exodus. We have been. But Exodus 30 tells
us about the principal spices that went into making of this
holy ointment that Aaron and his sons were anointed with.
It says in verse 22, The Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take
thou also unto thee principal spices. The first thing being
myrrh. Myrrh. You ever heard of myrrh? You hear of it throughout the
Scripture now. You know, some feel like that's pitch. I know
this about myrrh, that it's taken from a tree. They don't cut it
down, you make a wound in it. You wound the bark, the trunk
of that tree, and out comes, as it were, the blood of that
tree. And that blood is a healing balm. It's the balm of Gilead.
Myrrh is the balm of Gilead. Myrrh. And it's supposed to be
sweet-smelling. Well, that's the blood of Christ.
He's the tree of life, isn't He? He's wounded for our transgression. That savor, sweet, savory sacrifice
of Christ that came from His wounds on Calvary, that's the
balm of Gilead. Myrrh. That's what they anointed.
The Song of Solomon is all through there. to have unity with his
bride, and he touched the hole in the door, you know, and she
was sleepy-headed and didn't get up, and, boy, she cursed
herself. He said she got up later on,
and he dropped some myrrh all over her. Myrrh, that's what they anointed
our Lord's body. for his burial, myrrh, myrrh.
And then it goes on to say, sweet cinnamon, have some, 250 shekels,
sweet calamus. And we've gone through these,
but I won't do it tonight. Calamus, cashew, and all of it
mixed with olive oil. Olive oil was the oil, the only
oil you'll find in Scripture. Olive oil. Why is that? Because our Lord is that tree,
that olive tree. The candlestick got all of its
oil from the olive tree. It was olive oil. Beaten oil. That's the blood
of Christ. He is that tree. So all these
spices, principal spices, five of them, mixed with this olive
oil, you make a holy ointment, verse 25. Anointment, a compound
after the art of the apothecary. Who's that? That's the Spirit
of God. That's what He does in preaching. And it shall be a holy anointing. Oh, look at verse 26. And thou
shalt anoint the tabernacle of the congregation. Therewith,
the ark of the testimony, the table and all his vessels, the
candlestick, his vessels, the altar of incense, the altar of
burnt offering, the vessels of laboring, the foot, sanctify
them, verse 30, anoint Aaron and his son. Everything was covered
with this holy anointing oil. What do these five spices represent? Well, you could come up with
any number of things, but love, mercy, truth, righteousness,
peace, Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption, keep
going. He didn't understand. You know, the Psalm of Solomon
says that the beloved, his cheeks were like spices. His cheeks
were like spices. That poor sinful woman that came
in where our Lord was eating with the Pharisees, Mary Magdalene
or someone, she came in and the Lord was eating with the Pharisee.
They hadn't given him any oil for his feet nor his head. They
didn't care. She came in weeping. And she
had a box with her. She had an alabaster box full
of precious ointment, sphagnum, which is a mixture of these things,
myrrh and so forth. And she had saved up. Maybe this
was a family heirloom. Maybe her daughter or somebody
was going to get this. She heard her lord and her savior
was in this hat. Her redeemer was in this hat.
And she thought, I'm going to anoint him with this. And she
went in there and she broke that alabaster bow. I don't need this
anymore. I got him. She broke that alabaster
box and took that precious ointment and anointed his head, anointed
his feet, and the scripture says the smell just filled the room. Everybody there smelled this.
And our Lord was well pleased. Judas said, we could have given
this to the poor. He said, you leave her alone.
She's done a good work. Done a good work. And it's remembered
of her up until this day. Oh, I love that song of Solomon. It says, Awake, oh north wind,
oh south, come, blow upon thy garden. Let the spices thereof
flow well. Let my beloved come into his
garden and eat the pleasant fruits thereof. Lord, find in my heart
these fruits and thanksgiving and praise and love and mercy
and truth. Oh, the only thing that will
do it is His precious ointment anointed on us. It comes down
from our head upon us, the skirts of His garment, His body. Verse
3 says it's like the dew of Hermon. Dew of Hermon. That's Mount Zion
is what that is. You know that? It's Mount Zion. Dew of Hermon. It was so high
that the elevation, the water would, you know, accumulate on the trees
and the cedar trees, big cedar trees,
and it would just drop like rain. The dew was so heavy. Don't you
love going out in the woods in spring or early morning? And the dew, isn't
it wonderful? It's just so refreshing. Well,
this is like the dew of Hermon comes down, descended upon the
mountains of Zion. There, that's where the Lord
commanded the blessing. Where? Well, you're in it right
now. You're in it. Psalm 134, verse
3 says, The Lord made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion. The Lord loveth the gates of
Zion. more than all the dwellings of Jacob. He loves this. He loves
when people get together in unity to worship Him. This is where
He's commanded the blessing. There shall be showers of blessing,
singular. What is it? It's the gospel.
Oh, that today they might follow. I believe it has. You know, things
are always better together Oh, food, everything. I study down there alone nearly
every day, and it's joyful. I rejoice, but it's not like
coming in here with you. It's better together. It's like
fixing a five-star meal, five courses and all the trimmings
and all that and eating it by yourself. That's, you know, it
might be good, but it's better when somebody else says, oh,
isn't this good? Yes, it is. Isn't it wonderful? Now, my dad
did a message from this text, but he didn't deal with the song.
He dealt, the title of it is, and I'm going to put it in the
bulletin Sunday, and I want every, I wish every child of God could
hear it five times. I've already listened to it three.
Now, when I tell you to listen to a message, Mindy, is it good or what? I
listened to it myself. I had something to do, a project,
and I was listening to it. I thought, it doesn't get any
better than that. Oh, hell. It's not that you need
it, it's we need it. I needed it. And I said, and
so Mindy was joining me in this little project. I said, you've
got to listen to it. And she did. And that was yesterday. And today, I thought, when you
all came over, I was listening again. to that message. It's
called Things That Promote Peace. And I'm going to give you some
of these things, and I want you to listen to it. And he went
in-depth about it, and I'm just going to touch on these things.
Things that promote peace. And I want you to listen to it.
I'm serious now. We need it bad. We need it bad. We. Things that promote peace. And do you know how much the
Scriptures talks about peace? How much it's commanded of us
to be at peace among ourselves. Follow things that make for peace.
James, oh my. Things that promote peace. And
Romans 14 was another text. Let us therefore follow after
the things which promote peace and things wherewith one may
edify one another. Build up one another. Not tear
down. Not divide. All right, here's
the first thing. Love one another. And my dad,
Alabama accent, just flat love one another. If you love one
another, you'll be at peace. How could we not? Now here, he kept hammering this point that
God's people who are at peace with God, And why are we at peace
with God? Where do we get peace with God?
By the blood of God's Son. Christ, the Lord had to, God
had to put his own Son on a cross for this worthless maggots. Enemies. Why were we enemies? Christ died
for that. Alright? And when we find that out, that
God did that to his Son, for me, it does break our heart. That's the peace. That's where
we get peace with God. We have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Redemption through his precious,
through his, He, if you've seen a loved one bleed, it's horrible
in there. God's son, all his lifeblood
floated. For whom? And we find that out. And that's what it took to make
peace with God. We're so eternally grateful and
thankful and all that. We think, how could God love
me and do such a thing for me? No, God, here in His love, not
that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to
be propitiation. Pitch. Ground Him up. First. And that reconciled us to God,
and in light of that, we have peace with God. How could we
not have peace with one another? How could we not love one another?
And all of God's people that really do have peace with God,
they do love one another. It's not that they ought to,
they do. John said, if any man love not his brother whom he
hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath seen? He can't.
It's not possible. It's just not so. Our Lord said
it's not only a command, but He said if you don't, you don't
know God. Two people living together claim
to love one another and can't get along. Something's wrong
with one of them or both of them. That's a fact. Love one another. Love one another.
One of the last things He said, this is my commandment that you
love one another. Love one another. Secondly, He
said, avoid a spirit of argument and debate. What is worth arguing
over? What is worth arguing over? Nothing,
except contending for the truth. Contending for the truth with
somebody that doesn't know it, but then don't argue. That doesn't
do any good, does it? Now, my dad said, you may win
an argument and you may lose a friend. Was it worth it? No. We don't have to be right,
do we? We don't even have to comment.
Why not just not comment? Not voice our opinion. It doesn't
matter. It's of no value, my opinion. It's of no value whatsoever. Avoid a spirit of argument and
debate. Things promote peace. Another thing, third thing, there's
nine of them. Third thing is beware of jealousy. Jealousy
destroys happiness and builds suspicion. See if I can find
this. Proverbs 17, I believe it is. See if I can find it.
Didn't write it down. It says, love covereth. You find it for me. Yeah, here
it is. No, that's not it. Anyway, it talks about jealousy,
destroying, happiness, makes you suspicious. Now, what have
we got to be jealous of? Because God gives different ones
according to his will and what he doles out is according to
this measure of the gift of Christ and everything. And one may have
more of this or more of that or be better at this and better
at that. And Paul wrote about this in the body. There are many
members, and all have not the same ministry. But the hand can't
say to the foot, you're not of the body. You're not a hand.
You're not visible. You're not as necessary. Oh, my. If you
hurt your little toe, you'll find out how vital your little
toe is. I hurt my thumb. I fell and hurt my thumb. I didn't realize how much you
needed your thumb. Really, I was having a butt in
my pants, my shirt and everything. I can't do anything. Well, brother and sister, we're
all part of the body. We all have a ministry and jealousy. The disciples were jealous of
one another. James and John's mother got in
on it and said, I want my boys to sit one on your right hand
and one on your left. And the rest of the disciples
got angry. Can preachers be jealous of one
another? They're sinners, like everybody
else. I know men, back down through the years, who all of them wanted
to be Henry Mahan's heir apparent. Ain't nobody be Henry Mahan.
Nobody don't need to be. He was him, and I'm me, and Marvin's
Marvin, and Tom's Tom, and that's who God... And He uses... Where
He uses them? Jealousy. Beware of envy. Beware of envy. Let us learn
to rejoice in others' gifts and blessings and happiness. God
gives as He will. Fifth thing is do not... Listen
to this now. And honestly, I want you to hear
him because he went in great depth about all this. Do not
meddle in the private lives and the domestic affairs of other
people. Do not meddle. Don't get involved. Mind your own business. Paul
said that. Mind your own business. Brother Bruce Crabtree preached
one of the best messages I've ever heard on that. Preached
it right here at my request. Mind your own business. That
was when the Lord was leaving, going back, and Peter, and the
Lord told Peter, you're going to be crucified. And he said,
what about John? What are you going to do with
him? He said, it's none of your business. What I do with John
is my business. You follow me. Don't meddle in
the private lives and domestic affairs of others. Mind your
own business. Don't meddle in the marriage
of others and the raising of their children. Everybody's different.
None of our business. None of our business. My parents,
my parents, my in-laws never tried to tell us what to do.
They never interfered. I'm sure they thought we were
too hard on him. Just like now, we think Hannah's too hard on
her girls. But it's none of our business, is it? When a man,
if my daughter's married to Gabe, all right, that's a man's wife
now. It's none of my business. Okay? They're children. That's their
children. You'll listen to an older man.
Preach this. Don't meddle. Stay out of it.
It's none of your business. We've got our own problem. None
of us are good counselors. Unless we've got something good
to say from God's word, unless we've got some wisdom from this
book, we've got nothing worth hearing. But my mama said, forget
your mama. If she doesn't know Christ, she
doesn't know anything. Don't meddle. to promote peace. You know what happens when people
start meddling. Guard against a touchy temper. Have you ever been around somebody
you have to walk on eggshells all the time? It's awful, isn't
it? It's awful. Dad gave this little saying, somebody said, For every
trifling thing to take offense shows either great pride or very
little sense. Guard against a touchy temper.
In many things, we offend all. We all offend, don't we? We're
going to keep offending. We are. And we keep offending
our God all the time. Guard against a touchy temper.
Next thing is learn to keep a confidence. Learn to keep a confidence. And
Proverbs 17 says, he that covereth the transgression seeketh love,
but he that repeateth the matter, separate the very friends. A whisper. Gospel. Keep a confidence. If somebody feels like they have
to tell you something, don't tell it to somebody else. Dan said this. He said, here's
what happened. You tell something to a close
friend of yours. You have a real close friend and you feel the
need to tell them something. And so you tell them something.
Your husband, your wife, or a close friend. All right? You tell them.
They have a real close friend. And they tell it to their close
friend. And they have a real close friend. And they have a
real close friend for as long as everybody knows. And who started
it? I did. Don't do that. Somebody once said, if you don't
want something told, don't tell it. Don't tell it. Learn to keep a compass. If someone
has to, our blessed Lord, he's the one we need to confide in.
He's the one we need to pour out our hearts. He's the one
we need to cast all our care on. When he stood before Pilate
and all of them, didn't speak a word. He had all our deep,
dark secrets, and he didn't speak them. He's not going to expose
us. He died with our secrets. He
died with our sin and put them away. Here's another thing. Strive to heal differences. Blessed
are the peacemakers. Peacemakers, not peacetakers. It takes humility to make peace. It doesn't take humility to take
peace. Somebody says, I'm sorry, would you forgive me? Oh, OK. That's not. It's the peacemakers. Blessed are the peacemakers.
They're the children of God. I want peace. Brother, let's
have peace. Abraham said to Lot, brother,
we'd be brethren. Why are we divided over this
stuff? We're brethren. And so what did Abraham do? You
take whatever you want. Just give me the rest. Whatever
you don't want, take it all. Who's the peacemaker? Who showed
himself to be the child of God? Abraham or Lot? Abraham. Strive to heal differences. Blessed
are the peacemakers. And lastly, and as my pastor said, we all
fail on every one of these points. We fail miserably. We have, we
do, and we will. We will fail. That doesn't mean
we should quit trying. Didn't Paul say, I can do all
things? How? Not by your own strength. Not by your own resolve. You
can't do anything. Through Christ, it strengthens me. In light of
His mercy, His love, His grace, His kindness toward us, you pray
and you call on Him, Lord, let me be like you. Let me love like
you. Let me be merciful like you. Let me not be envious or jealous
like you. Let me be easily entreated like
you. Let me keep a confidence like
you. Let me be a peacemaker like you. And the last thing is this, most
important, be ready to forgive anything. Be ready to forgive
everything. Isn't that what our Lord did? Didn't our Lord forgive us everything? He's already forgiven us what
we're going to do. And the worst may be yet to come
that we do. And He's already forgiven us. If He can forgive us for what
we do against Him, how could we not forgive one another for
our little trifling grudges? That's a bad attitude. We're poor people. Forgive. Forgive our sin. Our
Lord says, if you don't forgive your brother, he won't forgive
you. That's what He said. And he said
this, and I close with this, and consider this. Forgiveness. Forgiveness is forgetting. If
you don't forget, you haven't forgiven. You know that? I'll forgive you, but. No, no,
no, no. Forgiving is forgetting. He likened
forgiveness as a canceled debt, a note that's been canceled.
The debt has been paid. And what you do is, have you
ever done this? You've had an old bank statement,
an old loan that you made, and you keep it around, look at it
all the time, and it's beautiful. Oh, you want to forget it. I
owed a million dollars. And that's paid. What do you
do? You rip it up. The best way to completely destroy
and cancel a note is burn it. There's no evidence ever again.
You can't bring it up. It's burnt. Our Lord Himself, John, was a
burnt offering to God. And He says, your iniquities
will not be brought up. I'll never bring them up, as
bad as they were. I'll never bring them up. They're
gone. There's absolutely not one charge
against us. That's forgiving. That's forgiveness. May the Lord enable us to love
like that, forgive like that, promote peace, blessed unity,
brethren dwelling together. Okay, stand with me. Father in heaven, we come far
short of thy glory, but thy blessed Son glorified thee in all points
as we are, yet without ceasing. Oh, how we're thankful for Christ.
Oh, our substitute, our redeemer, burn offering, blood sacrifice,
reconciler. Oh, broke down the enmity between
us and thee and each other. Oh, Lord, forgive us. Forgive
us for our murmuring and complaining and grudges and offense. We have nothing to be offended
by. No one to be offended by. when
we're such an offense, but you've forgiven us and forgotten how
we thank you. Thank you, Lord. Use these words,
your word. This is your word. Use it mightily
to bring us all into unity of spirit. How good and how pleasant
it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Anoint us with this
precious ointment of your grace, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.