After being stranded on a South Sea island for years by himself, a man was finally rescued. The rescuers were amazed to discover that, over the years, he had built three huts on this island. They questioned why he needed three huts when he was the only person on the island all these years. He pointed to the first hut and said, "Well, that's my home. That's where I've lived all these years. The second hut is where I go to church." The rescuers then asked about the third hut. "Well," he said, "that's where I used to go to church."

As long as there has been a church, there has been conflict within the church. We actually have written, ancient, historical proof. The apostle Paul took up precious space in this letter, written from prison to the Philippians church, to name two people who specifically needed to get their relationship with each other right: Euodia and Syntyche. He even asked the other members of the congregation to come alongside them and help them work together toward reconciliation.

We don't know what the conflict was about. Thank goodness. The beautiful thing about that is that we now have the opportunity to apply what the Apostle Paul said to them, to the broader community of faith, even to each of us. It is not so much the issue of conflict in this case that is of significance but how the Apostle instructs them, and us, to work toward reconciliation regardless of the conflict.

This is what our own church history teaches us. Where two or three (or more) are gathered, even in the name of Jesus, there will be conflict. The fact that we have disagreements and arguments, that relationships are sometimes broken, is nothing more than the proof of our humanity. The proof of our sincerity in being a follower of Jesus is seen in how we choose to deal with those conflicts.

This morning, as we come into the third in a series of sermons on profit and loss at the beginning of a new year, and as we assess what is of greatest value and what is not, and as we set our moral and spiritual compasses accordingly, we come to this particular point of assessment. Ask yourself this morning if it is not true that one of the single greatest drains on your personal energy and your personal dreams and your personal passions to achieve your life's dream is in one way or another related to someone who needs your personal forgiveness.

Don Henley sang a song from the early 1990s, "The Heart of the Matter," and these words have always resonated with me, and perhaps with you. There are people in your life who've come and gone. They let you down and hurt your pride. Better put it all behind you; life goes on. You keep carryin' that anger, it'll eat you up inside.

There is, by the way, clear medical evidence that people who live angrier lives tend to live shorter lives. Often, the greater tragedy is that, long before people die physically, they die spiritually and emotionally, their faces chiseled deep, Mount-Rushmore-like, where anger has dug permanent crevices into their flesh and their eyes, bearing witness of the unforgiving soul that killed them from within.

Even if forgiving other people didn't lengthen our lives by one single moment we are nonetheless commanded by the gospel of Jesus to be people who practice peace with each other. Frankly, if you think about it, in an odd sort of paradox. Being such a forgiving person actually shortened Jesus" live, radically so. Forgiveness always comes with a price. Someone, somewhere, pays. We are commanded, nonetheless, to pay the price and to practice peace.

Now, the word "practice" actually comes directly out of the text. Not from this translation, the New Revised Standard Version, but the New American Standard Version which translates verse nine in this text this way. "The things you have learned," the Apostle writes, "and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things. And the God of peace will be with you."

Forgiveness cannot be microwaved into being; it can't be borrowed like a pound of sugar from a friend; it can only be obtained personally through a lifetime of practice. Tiger Woods says that the one thing he loves most about the game of golf is the practice. That's one difference between Tiger Woods and me, among many! I just want to play the game. I don't enjoy the time on the driving range and the putting greens, like he does and look what a difference it makes.

Our guide in the accounting process is the Apostle Paul himself who is nearing the end of his earthly journey as he writes about the importance of practicing peace. In the previous chapter, he had said something about forgetting those things that are behind. Practicing peace is about far more than just forgetting about things people have done to wound you. It is not the same thing, forgetting and forgiving. In fact, sometimes it is impossible to do the kind of forgiving we are commanded to do unless we remember.

Do you think that had anything to do with Paul's words about forgetting the past, however? Do you think that had anything to do with his skill of practicing the peace? Whether or not someone had wounded him deeply he is now trying, in a proactive sense, to practice peace. In that sense he put those things behind him. Following quickly on the words of chapter three is this challenge from the text this morning.

People who claim to be followers of Jesus should be people who, in their closest relationships, practice with each other the very peace Christ has extended to us on the cross. We cannot claim to be followers of Jesus, legitimately, no matter how much scripture we know, no matter how much money we give, no matter how much religion we practice, we cannot legitimately claim to be followers of Jesus if we do not also struggle every day with the discipline of practicing peace.

Forgiveness doesn't come passively. It won't just come to us. It won't happen to us. We must actively seek it. We have to jump into the vat of all that angers and hurts us and swim around in it for a while, being dirtied by it, until into that vat the presence of Christ brings us peace. Peace is a gift of God to us in one sense. It is something from God that we cannot earn. In another sense, in passing what God has given us in Christ, practicing peace is one of the most important of all spiritual disciplines. As important as prayer, as important as scripture reading, as important as corporate worship. Practicing peace is a spiritual discipline in our closest relationships.

I had to confess to my home team the other night that I get a little anxious when I preach about forgiveness, because every time I do, literally every single time, the Lord tosses me another forgiveness bone to chew on in my own life. It's like, "Okay, Schmucker, you want to preach about forgiveness? Try this!" Almost without question, this week, I will get the chance to find out how serious I was this morning.

Last Sunday, I shared my life's mission with you. I said to you that my mission in life is to be an agent of spiritual hope and renewal in the hands of holy God for the sake of Christ's kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Something I have discovered is that, if I believe I am called to be an agent of spiritual hope and renewal in this world, then I also believe that calling carries with it the responsibility of entering into conflict with other people, sometimes being bloodied by it myself, in order to learn what it means by practicing peace, to be an agent of spiritual hope.

You will recognize, by the way, the latest edition of the Baptist Standard. More specifically, you'll recognize the pulpit on which are tied two boxing gloves. David Clanton, the photographer for the Baptist Standard, came by here two or three weeks ago to take a picture of our old Bassett pulpit with boxing gloves tied to it. The photograph highlighted the cover article about resolving conflict in the church. Kyle Childress is quoted in that article. He is the pastor of the Austin Heights Baptist Church in Nacogdoches, Texas. He says that, "as Christians wage peace within church, it's a round-the-clock, long-term thing. In the 17 years I've been here, one of the major challenges I consistently have had is helping people learn and practice reconciliation" (Kyle Childress, "MAKING PEACE: Creating a congregational culture of peacemaking takes time," The Baptist Standard, January 19, 2007).

If conflict in church has disillusioned you, may I encourage you to think of it another way? God did not bring us into the church in order to put us in a conflict-free environment; God actually brought us into the church in order to make us an intimate part of a community of faith so that it would become a laboratory in which we constantly experiment with the discipline of loving, forgiving, and reconciling with other people with whom we share some of our greatest values and ideals in life.

Very quickly, I want to share with you the four disciplines, or the four skills that seem to be enumerated in this text we've read this morning. The first of those being, celebrate the presence of God. If we're going to be people who practice the peace, we're going to have to practice or celebrate the presence of God. "Rejoice in the Lord always," he says. "Again, I'll say it, rejoice. The Lord is near." We cannot be forgiving people without consciously, intentionally, practicing the presence of God in our lives.

Last Sunday, we studied John 15 in our Sunday School class, where Jesus talks about the vine and the branches relationship that his followers have with him. Forgiveness should flow out of us to others around us just like the tree buds in the spring represent the presence of the sap rising. The absence of a forgiving spirit is evidence of the absence of God.

Being the presence of Christ in the lives of others demands that we practice every day the spiritual discipline of celebrating God's presence in our lives. Not just in the world. Not just in creation. Not just in the church. But in our own lives. "I am the vine," Jesus said. "You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Apart from that intimate relationship with Jesus it is impossible to be a person who practices peace. If we choose to carry unforgiveness with us, or we choose not to forgive, we cannot truly claim, legitimately claim, to be intimately related to the Jesus who forgave us.

The Lord's Prayer says, "Lord, forgive me my trespasses as I forgive." Can you really pray that? Do you have the courage to pray it? They mean something like this. "Lord, I'm not asking you to take my prayer for forgiveness anymore seriously than I am willing to seriously take my responsibility to forgive others in my life."

A group of us are beginning to study Brian McLaren's most recent book, The Secret Message of Jesus. McLaren has written ten books now in which he's trying to cut through the crust of culture and institutional religion to get to the core gospel. He asks these questions in the opening chapter of his book. "What if we have developed a religion that makes reverent and honoring statements about Jesus but doesn't teach what Jesus taught in the manner he taught it? What if many have sincerely valued some aspects of Jesus" message while missing or suppressing other, more important, dimensions? What if many have carried on a religion that faithfully celebrates Jesus in ritual and art, teaches about Jesus in sermons and books, and sings about Jesus in songs and hymns, and theorizes about Jesus in seminaries and classrooms, but somewhere along the way missed rich and radical treasures hidden in the essential message of Jesus" (McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus, W Publishing Group, 2006, pp. 3-4)?

This is at least a part of the essential message of Jesus, that we should extend to others the same forgiveness he has extended to us. To claim to be a follower of Jesus but not practice the peace of God in our most personal relationships is to mock the Jesus who died for us.

Do you know why we're here this morning, in this room? I'm not talking about why you've come to church this particular Sunday. I'm just asking if you know why you're living and breathing at all. It is because we swim in a sea of forgiveness that is deeper and wider than the universe itself. We swim in a sea permeated by God's intention to redeem humanity. Practice the presence of God.

Secondly, if you want to be a person who practices the peace of God, then address your worries through specific and thankful prayer. "Don't worry," Paul says, "but with prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known to God."

This is an interesting little thought, isn't it? Whatever we worry about, whatever it is, unless we resolve that anxiety, that worry will eventually spill over into some form of conflict with someone we love. God keeps throwing bones my way, as I said, to learn what it means to forgive.

Yesterday's forgiveness is yesterday's forgiveness. It's not good enough anymore. The question I have to ask myself is, what am I doing with today's worries that spill over into conflicts in today's relationships with others? Is it that our prayers aren't frequent enough that makes us feel unspiritual, or is it that however frequent or infrequent our prayers may be, they're just not specific enough? "Don't worry about anything," the Apostle says. I never have any peace in my life until I have an honest conversation with God. Sometimes, frankly, a very graphic conversation into which I could never allow another human being, about what troubles my soul most. When was the last time you had a talk like that?

You know how it is when your kids call home from school and they pretend to want to know how you're doing but you know they didn't call to find out how you're doing. Before long, you learn to cut to the chase and say, "How much money do you need?" How many of our prayers with God are like that? What we need is money or help or hope and we never get past the hymns on Sunday morning. Let me put it this way. As I understand scripture, there's nothing in your life so small that, if it has your attention, it is not of interest to your heavenly Father, whatever it may be. Learn to practice thankful and specific prayer.

Thirdly, identify and focus on the best in others. "Whatever is true, noble, honorable. . . ." Sometimes, this is the hardest of spiritual disciplines because what is so irritating about other people to us is so . . . irritating! I've got a little experience I'll share with you, and my allergies, quite honestly, bring it to mind.

A friend, Fred McNab, is the music minister at Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin. Years ago, Fred had something happen to him one day that helped me to remember this thing about focusing on the best in others. He had been called to the home of one of the elderly women in our church. It was a beautiful spring day. Fred decided to enjoy the warm, fresh air and rolled his window down. That was back in the day when you actually had to roll the window down. He parked his left arm on the base of the window and just drove down the street on the way to this lady's house.

During the drive, something choked him up, so he spit out the window. After he arrived at the lady's house he said noticed that she would never look him straight in the eye. She kept staring at his left shoulder. He finished the visit and went back to the church. One of the secretaries said, "Fred, you really need to go look in the mirror." When he did, Fred realized that whatever it was he had spit out the window the wind had blown back and planted on his left shoulder. He had worn it throughout the entire visit with this lady! This very ugly thing, whatever it was, was so distracting and irritating, she couldn't focus on the presence of Fred in her home.

Now, I appeal to you, if you have a hard time forgiving me for telling that story, I appeal to you in the name of Bruce McIver that sometimes the best stories in life are the true stories. One thing's for sure. You'll never forget it! The moral of the story is that focusing on the one thing that is so disturbing about another person can prevent us from seeing the best in them, whatever is true and noble and praiseworthy and excellent about them. Even worse, it can destroy a close friendship. Every marriage that ends in divorce has with it a history of two people who forgot how to remember what was best about each other.

Don Henley asks in his song, "What are these voices outside love's open door, that make us throw off our contentment and beg for something more?" Sometimes those voices that beg to us from outside love's open door are the voices of discontentment that are fed and nurtured by our unwillingness to focus on what is best in one another. If you can think of nothing else good about another person, could you at least be willing to acknowledge that the person you are struggling to forgive is a brother or sister for whom Christ also died?

Last of all, the fourth skill this text reveals about being a person who practices peace is to find a forgiveness role model. Do you have a role model for forgiveness in your life? Is there anyone in your life who ever taught you how to forgive? Paul sounds almost arrogant when he says, "The things you have heard and seen and learned from me, practice those things. And the God of peace will be with you." Too many of us never had a role model. We've never had anyone to show us how to do that. All of us at least have this model, the Jesus who, as he was dying on the cross, pleaded for divine forgiveness for those who brutalized him.

It is a fact that, if we don't forgive others, we will pay a personal price. That's not the most noble reason we should forgive however. The main reason we should forgive others is because, in truth, it is the only way to stay intimately connected to the God who forgave us.

The saddest thing about the man on the South Sea island, the three-hut man, is that, when he was rescued from that island, he left a part of himself in the hut he could no longer visit. He left the unfinished business of himself with unforgiveness.

When the Russians and the East Germans built the Berlin Wall in August of 1961, they established a system that eventually, though it was meant to keep democracy out, led to the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe itself. Whatever reasons we have for building walls that separate us from those who have hurt us, we're doing the same thing to ourselves. The fences we build to keep others out eventually become the Berlin Walls of unforgiveness that keep us fenced in, cut off from the only opportunity we'll ever have to become like Christ and therefore to experience peace with ourselves.

What if we didn't do anything else Jesus commanded this next week but this one thing? What if we didn't do anything else this week but find that one person we've had the hardest time forgiving and started there, taking the message of Jesus seriously in our own lives? That might be the biggest "what if" any of us will ever answer.