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Guest (Male): Welcome to Key Life and day three of the sermon we’re listening through called Harmony in the Band. Steve gave this sermon back on March 27, 1988. Thus far, Steve has been discussing the vital importance of unity and yesterday, cited not only scripture, but also quoted George Whitefield and even Jean-Paul Sartre. Only Steve, right? He’s brought up some interesting points that unity is not a lack of conflict and that caution is imperative.

Can’t wait to dive back in with you today. All of this is brought to you by the Vault Project, our effort to rescue and preserve vintage sermons from Steve by digitizing old tapes and reel-to-reels. So far this year we’ve released a sermon series on Galatians, one on Ruth, and 25 sermons on Ephesians. Learn more about this ongoing project at keylife.org/vault. For now, let’s rejoin Steve and his sermon called Harmony in the Band. Here's Steve.

Steve Brown: Did you hear about the couple that went to the marriage counselor for counseling? The marriage counselor said to the wife, "When did all of this begin?" She said, "It started when he wanted to be in the wedding pictures." There are people like that. There are people around who simply are divisive and abrasive and they want to cause problems, and this is not license for that particular kind of person.

Secondly, I want you to see not only the imperative of caution; I want you to see the necessity of confrontation. Matthew 18:15: "Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother." He’s using him and brother in a generic human sense. As I look around this congregation, I see a number of couples for whom I have performed the service of marriage.

If I did that, you were required to listen to a marriage lecture. A number of you have heard my marriage lecture. If you came to that and if you were listening—and most of you were so euphoric and in love, you didn’t hear what I said, so I’m going to say it again—the point is this, that fighting won’t hurt your marriage. Fighting wrong will kill your marriage.

Couples who never fight, never communicate, and never confront will come in to me six months later, and it takes six months to find out what in the world it is they’re fighting about anyway. As a matter of fact, ladies and gentlemen, confrontation is very, very important. You heard about the man on the deathbed who took his wife’s hand and said, "Dear, when I die, you call your brother, my brother-in-law, and you tell him I forgive him. But you wait and make sure that I’m dead first."

A lot of people are that way. We’d rather do almost anything than confront somebody about a problem that they’re having. Somebody wrote me a letter recently and it just had one line. It said, "Dear Steve, after all of these years, I forgive you." The first thing that impressed me about the letter is I never heard of the guy. The second thing, I had not even the foggiest idea what had been bothering him over all of these years.

Can you believe that? That had been eating up inside of this man and I didn’t even remember his name, something that I’d done. I want to know because I don’t want to hurt people like that. I want to get it fixed and he had not confronted me with whatever it was. If something is bothering you—and ladies and gentlemen, this is not license for you to go tell somebody they’re fat, or to tell somebody you don’t love their beard, or to tell somebody you don’t like their accent or their clothes.

"You’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny." That’s not the kind of thing Jesus is talking about. But if there is a problem between you or a brother or sister in Christ and it’s causing even the slightest bit of division or lack of fellowship, then you are to confront and get it worked out. Michelangelo one time was doing in the Pope’s Chapel a painting of hell, and he was having a fight with a particular cardinal. He painted the cardinal in hell.

That’s not the way you’re supposed to do it, ladies and gentlemen, but a lot of us do it that way. What we do is we go to our friends and we say, "Do you know what she did to me? Do you know what they said? Do you understand how much that hurt me?" Jesus said, "That’s from the pit of hell. You go to your brother and sister in Christ and you get it worked out if it’s breaking any fellowship whatsoever."

Thirdly, I want you to see not only the imperative of caution and the necessity of confrontation, I want you to note the importance of communication. Matthew 18:16: "But if he will not hear you, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established." In Leviticus 19 and Deuteronomy 17—and incidentally, that phrase is a direct quote from Deuteronomy 17—this passage is more clearly understood.

What Jesus is saying is don’t get a gang of accusers together. What’s the reason for the witnesses? So you’ll have more accusing that sucker? No. The reason for the witnesses is to listen and to make sure that what is said is what is heard and what is understood is what is real. The witnesses are to further the process of understanding and communication. The late columnist Murray Paul was often approached by people about whom he had written.

They would say, "What did you mean by what you wrote about me?" He always responded by saying, "What do you think I meant when I wrote about you?" Every time he said that, they were silenced. Folks, what do you mean when you’re angry? I think I’ve told you about the way I sometimes get couples to talk to one another if they haven’t been communicating. Don’t you hate that word, communicating? I wouldn’t use it, but I can’t think of another word.

They haven’t been communicating, they don’t know what they’re saying to one another, and so I put them on a couch and I say, "Alright, I want to make one rule. The rule is you’ve got to tell each other what you think and you can’t respond to what the other person says until the other person agrees that you understood exactly what they said." I always let her go first. She goes, "Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah!" He can hardly wait, man, he’s ready to get her.

As soon as she leaves a short pause, he goes, "Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah!" I say, "Wait, you’ve got to tell her what she just said." "I know what she said." I said, "I don’t care, tell her." He said, "Well, you said..." and then she says, "That’s not what I said." I said, "Tell him again." She goes, "Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah!" Pretty soon, they get laughing at the process and they begin to realize in a humorous way that they simply aren’t listening to what is going on.

Had a unique case of that recently. Remember when I was talking about Lee Clower, who’s an assistant minister in this church, and I said he lived in Tampa and he worked for World Sports? Lee’s a dear and old friend, but he doesn’t live in Tampa, he lives in Naples. Not only that, he’s not with World Sports, he’s with World Servants. I want you to know if I can do that without any rancor, if I’m angry, I can really mess it up.

That brings me to a principle and then a corollary of the principle, and I want you to listen carefully. The principle is as follows: there is usually a direct correlation between the size of your anger at an insult and your lack of understanding of what was really said. Let me say it again, slower. There is usually a direct correlation between the size of your anger at an insult and your lack of understanding of what was really said.

Now, let me give you the corollary of that. There is a direct negative correlation between the size of your anger and your proficiency in expressing it. Say that again. There is a direct reverse or negative correlation between the size of your anger and your proficiency at expressing it. Jesus said, "Look, make sure that you have some witnesses who can further the cause of communication, who are objective and not emotionally involved and who can hear and understand and help you hear and understand what’s really being said."

Fourthly, I want you to see not only the imperative of caution, the necessity of confrontation, and the importance of communication, I want you to see the reality of contagion. Matthew 18:17: "And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector."

The negative letter I received about the church, there were four pages that I had to take to the post office because the postman refused to carry it. At any rate, in the final paragraph of this particular caustic letter that I wrote, I said to this person, "Good comes out of even very bad situations and there is some good about our communication with one another. The next time you are in Miami, you’ll know where not to worship."

Ladies and gentlemen, that sounds horrible, but it really isn’t because there is a sense sometimes when somebody comes in who is narrow and angry and abrasive and divisive and they need to go find some other narrow, angry, abrasive, and divisive people and get away from us. That’s one of the reasons that Jesus said this. But I want to go further than that.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Steve, and thank you for joining us on this journey through a classic sermon called Harmony in the Band. Tomorrow, Steve will land this plane by exploring the power of collaboration. Do not miss that. This sermon comes to us from the spring of 1988. I don’t want to presume, but chances are your body worked a little different back then, maybe a little better.

It’s true that over time, things stop working and start to fall apart. It’s true of the human body and it’s also true of magnetic audio tape. Back in the 1970s through probably the early 90s, Steve’s sermons were recorded using cassette tapes and prior to that, reel-to-reels. Physical wear, humidity, and temperature changes can warp and shrink those tapes. We’ve been diligent in protecting them over the decades. I mean, some of these sermons have survived a couple hurricanes.

The problem is that the breakdown is inevitable and once a tape becomes unplayable, that sermon is gone forever. That’s why we created the Vault Project to carefully digitize, restore, and curate these priceless messages of grace. The best part, you can play an important role in that process. Get all the details now at keylife.org/vault. That’s V-A-U-L-T.

There’s probably a lot of things that kind of drag you down: responsibilities, disappointments, the fact that the tastiest food is also the worst for us. But the top of that list for a lot of folks would be guilt. But here’s some great news: Jesus’ death paid the debt for all our sin. That means guilt can actually lead us back to Christ to find true and lasting forgiveness.

Steve teaches about guilt in a special mini-book called Feeling Guilty: Grace for Your Mistakes. If you struggle with guilt—and hey man, isn’t that all of us?—this free mini-book is really going to help. So call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at steve@keylife.org to order that mini-book, or you can go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, you’re going to ask for the absolutely free mini-book called Feeling Guilty: Grace for Your Mistakes.

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