Road Trip to Unity

How many times have we as parents or in our childhood taken a road trip? With our car, with our families, in the backseat of our parents' car? Or as a parent, husband and wife driving the car with kids in the backseat? You all know what happens after a long period of time in the car. Friction starts to build up. Kids start to get fussy and antsy in the backseat. It was that way with my sister and I. In those days, we didn't have seat belts in the backseat of the car. We just kind of started out on our own, but after a while, you start to sprawl out, and then you get cranky, and, your legs are on my side. Your legs are on my side. Get back on your side. You start going at each other, and electricity sparks fly, and then calms down. Everybody's back in their corner for a while. It's just an inevitable part of what happens with kids and cars and road trips and situations like that. You know, a few years ago, a good friend of mine, an elder up in Barrie, Ontario, Gary Lucas, gave a sermon at the Feast of Tabernacles. And it's one of those sermons that I've just always remembered. It was called, The People You Meet on the Way to the Kingdom. And I gleefully plagiarized that sermon once or twice. Gave him credit, but I abused it because it was just a great sermon. It went through different types of people you meet over the years in the Church on the way to the Kingdom of God. Now, we all have been on this road to the Kingdom for quite some time.

And the road to the Kingdom can be sometimes like that road trip in our parents' car or with our kids in the back seat. We start out fresh, exhilarated, looking forward to getting out and away from the house and on the road, and then the heat builds up and the closed quarters come in, and we get a little bit upset with each other and things can happen and said, and you just have to learn how to work with it.

Same thing happens as we roll along toward the Kingdom of God on this big road trip toward the Kingdom. Sparks sometimes fly, and we have to know how to navigate and negotiate those sparks and those difficulties that happen among people, in this case, disciples, on the road to the Kingdom of God. There's a Psalm that talks about this. We all know the Psalm. Psalm 133, if you will, let's turn over and look at this Psalm.

Psalm 133, we sang it in our hymnal. How good and how pleasant. I forgot the number. I never can remember the numbers of the Psalms, but it's there. Psalm 133 is what they call a pilgrim's psalm. It's a part of what were called some of the songs of ascent, and many feel that they were sung by pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem to keep the Holy Days, to keep the pilgrim festivals, the three seasons in a year when Deuteronomy commands must appear before God. And there were a number of these Psalms that they felt were read along the way by the pilgrims, or the disciples in this case, and very likely they would have had their own music to these lyrics and would have sung them.

And this one you have to imagine would have been a good one for them to think about at times as the journey to Jerusalem got a little bit long and bothersome and tedious and hot along the trails, the roads. When people being together for a period of time would begin to get too familiar, tired of each other, and sparks would begin to fly, here's what it says, Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

It is a blessing, and it's good. And when it happens, when everyone is getting along, it's pleasant. It's a pleasant atmosphere. You like to come to church. You like to go to the feast. You just have good vibes and good feelings about your church, your congregation, your church as a whole, the fellowship that we would have. It goes on. It is like the precious oil upon the head, running down on the beard of Aaron, running down on the edge of his garments.

And so the image of a priest, Aaron being the first of the high priests lineage, back in Exodus chapter 30 is a description of how Aaron and the priesthood were to be anointed with oil, the holy oil that had been very specially prepared and consecrated for that purpose.

And here, this brings you back into that scene from Exodus 30, and the anointing of a priest. And unity and the pleasant feeling that comes with that, all the aroma associated with a very heavily scented oil, which is what is being referred to here, and a very expensive oil, is brought to mind. And unity is like that, the harmony among people.

There's a second image that is used here in verse 3. It is like the dew of Herman. Now, Herman is the largest mountain in that part of the world. It's in the northern part of Israel or in the southern part of Lebanon, but it's in that region up there right on the Israeli-Lebanese border as the lines are drawn today. And it's the highest peak in that entire region. You get into the northern Galilee and you can easily see it.

It remains snow-capped most of the year. And you go up in elevation there, but it's like the dew of Herman, descending upon the mountains of Zion. Now, that particular dew from Herman wouldn't make it all the way down to Jerusalem, but by implication it's this pleasant aspect of the dew on Mount Herman has ramifications for the entire nation and for the spiritual well-being of the Church. And then it concludes this very short psalm for there the Lord commanded the blessing, life forevermore. Very short, three verses. It makes a very nice hymn that we have in our hymnal.

And certainly the teaching is very direct and to the point. And the key theme, how good and how pleasant for brethren to dwell together in unity.

Ah, unity. Blessed unity. Harmony. How do we achieve unity? How do we get to what this verse is talking about? Maybe we could ask, will we ever get to what this verse is talking about? I have a member that I've run across a couple of times in recent years in a particular church area not here. And when I visited the church area, I pretty well knew what this individual was going to ask me. When are we all going to get together? When is all this going to, all these scattered brethren of the church going to get together? Next time I see him, I know exactly what his first words are going to be to me.

He's sincere. And I, you know, the answer I basically say, I do not know. That's in God's hands and God's mind. How do we get to this point? Because Christ's disciples are really to be pursuing unity. This is a blessing. It is good and it is pleasant. And there are many other scriptures that talk about harmony and unity among the people of God, the church, and how it is all tightly knit and fit together, and so many scriptures that talk about this. This one is in the midst of a pilgrim psalm.

And we're all pilgrims as we are all disciples on the road to the kingdom. We're not going up to Jerusalem. We're not going up to keep the feasts. We go to our various locations. But in the longer sense, in the longer term, we are certainly on the road to the kingdom of God. And it is quite a road trip. I've been on it for a long time, as have many of you.

And it's had a number of twists and turns, ups and downs, several paths of straight sailing as well. For those of us that remember the original days of Disneyland, not Disney World, but Disneyland, it's what you call an E-ticket.

An E-ticket was the Matterhorn. E-tickets were the Mr. Frog's wild ride. But you got an E-ticket at the end of your book, and that was the Matterhorn. Life in the church is an E-ticket ride. It's the best, because it's a road to the kingdom of God. How are we doing? How do we get to what this verse is talking about? Let's consider that for a few minutes here this afternoon. There's an example from the book of Acts that teaches us something about this, and it paints an image of an actual moment in the history of the Church of God when there was this picture of unity and brethren-plate being dwelling together in harmony.

You go back to the beginning of the book of Acts. And there are about three locations. In chapter 1, it references the fact that as they were waiting for the Day of Pentecost, they were all together with one accord. And that's mentioned again in chapter 2 and verse 1, where they were with one accord in one place, when God poured out His Holy Spirit upon the Church, on this picture of the beginning of the Church, the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Day. And of course, Peter gives this rousing sermon, out of which comes a burst of growth in terms of membership in the Church on this Day of Pentecost, when 3,000 people responded to Peter's message.

It's every pastor's dream, every minister's dream, to get that kind of response. 3,000 people to agree to be baptized or whatever. We'd love to have that. Because after he gives this very stirring sermon, you come down to verse 40, with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, Be safe from this perverse generation.

Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers, which is what they were doing prior to that day of Pentecost. They were together reading Scripture, praying. They replaced the lost disciple Judas with the new one, Matthias. But they did that as a result of reading the Bible and figuring out what they should do, and they replaced him.

And they were certainly in eager anticipation of what this day meant. And then they continued on. It says that they were breaking bread, they were fellowshiping, they were having communal meals, and in prayer. Verse 43 says, Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. We read about a number of them through the early pages of the book of Acts.

But a number of miracles strengthened their belief, no doubt attracted more believers and followers. Verse 44 says, All who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all as anyone had need. Now, this is a unique experience and moment in what they did. Just reading it straightforward, many sold their possessions, and they lived in a communal type of situation. Some people use this verse to justify extreme forms of socialism, even communism and social experimentation.

And certainly what they were doing was unique there. Verse 46 says, They were continuing daily with one accord in the temple, breaking bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. They had things in common. They shared what they had with one another. They were talking about what had happened. Certainly there was an eager anticipation, and there's no question that they were expecting the appearance of the Lord and the fullness of what He had promised to them.

They were looking for that. Even up to the very 10 days earlier, they were still looking for Him to restore the kingdom to Israel. And He said, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons. But it takes a while. Human nature is like this. It takes a while to kind of come to an acceptance of certain things that God is doing, God's purpose and plan. It took the early church a period of time to come to accept and to understand that Christ was not going to appear and restore the kingdom even in their lifetime.

You see that progressive thought as you read through the letters in the New Testament. And it could be. And it likely is that this did help to create this sharing that they had going on at this time, that they came to a conclusion they didn't need all of this. I don't think that that's the only reason they did it. I think it's a bit simplistic to say that, well, they were kind of an apocalyptic in their mentality and looking for the appearance of Christ.

I think they were also actually responding to some very real needs culturally that would have been among those who were among these 3,000 people, who would not have been the rich of the community. And there were some needs that people had. And I think that there was a genuine outpouring of care and concern to help one another out of that love. And so it was a cultural matter of the moment that led them to do this, as well as other factors as well.

But it was a unique experience. Now, it ends here and says that they were praising God, having favor with the people and the Lord, added to the church daily those who were being saved. An important principle to recognize.

But this is what took place. Now, the story continues. Chapter 3 shows other episodes in the story into chapter 4. Peter and John are arrested and admonished not to preach in the name of Jesus. And the story goes on and they are really emboldened by it. They don't give in to the threats from the Jews. They are emboldened by what happens.

And when they are released, they go out and they report to the church beginning in verse 23 of chapter 4 as to what they did.

But focus on verse 32 of Acts chapter 4 and look again at what Luke here records. He says, Now the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul.

It's not enough to just be of one heart, but as Luke gives a double emphasis here of one soul, there was a unity that did go deep within their lives.

Which I think reflects just a genuine, truly, they loved, they liked, they not only loved one another in a godly sense, but I'm thinking that what we're reading here are a group of people who actually liked one another.

You know there's a difference. Let's be honest in our human nature. We may not like everything about everybody.

We're told to love. We must love and we should love. But sometimes, you know, we don't always like everybody, do we?

And that's just part of what happens. And we have to learn how to negotiate that. I think this particular scene is describing a lot of liking going on as well.

Neither did anyone say that any of the things that he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common.

With great power, the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and grace was upon them all.

Not only God's grace through His Spirit and His presence among them by that Spirit, but also just the way they treated one another. There was a graciousness about that.

No one lacked. All who were possessors of lands or houses sold the things that they had. They sold them, and they brought the proceeds of the things that were sold, and laid them at the apostles' feet, and they, distributed to each as anyone, had need.

This really takes it deep as to what they did. And then it ends by the example of a man named Barnabas, who sold all that he had while living in the country of Cyprus, and brought the money and laid it at the apostles' feet.

There we are introduced to Barnabas, who goes on to play a very integral part of the next phase of the story.

But it's an example of what they did. Now, this is a utopian scene. People here are all in. They're totally committed to their calling, to the mission, and to the vision of the church. All in, to use that phrase.

And for one brief, shining moment, there is almost, as I said, a utopian picture here of the church at peace among themselves, dwelling together in unity. A very pleasant picture.

Now, things change. It actually goes right into the story of Ananias and Sapphira, doesn't it? And that shows a little bit of a disruption in the force. And other things happen.

So it's one of those things that we read today, we think, wow, wouldn't it be great if we were there? Wouldn't it be great if this were a picture of the church today? What should we do?

Should we go sell everything we have? Pool all of our resources? Is this an admonition to a communal form of living in order to build some type of a community today, modeling on this?

A lot of people have tried that, as they've read these scriptures, down through the years. They're called Shaker villages.

There's one down here in southwest Indiana called New Harmony, where an attempt was made as well. We did a Beyond Today program on that a couple of years ago.

Now, that's not necessarily, I think, what we should do today. We should certainly be willing to help one another. An announcement was made here today about a need. And others will always be there, and what we can do and should do.

But we're on this road trip for a long time. It's a lifetime trip. We have to pace ourselves. We can't just sell everything and live as if there is no tomorrow.

I don't think that this is telling us that that's what we should do to achieve unity today.

What we have to do, really, is something much harder. Not to sacrifice all of our goods, our property, and pool it together and distribute it and all kind of be on the same level. No.

I don't think that that's the type of sacrifice that God wants us to do or what even the rest of scripture talks about.

In Romans 12, you'll turn over there, the type of sacrifice that speaks more plainly to us today, I think, is what Paul says here in Romans 12 and verse 1.

And it's a sacrifice that, in itself, when properly understood, can as well produce a unity where we have this type of love together.

Romans 12 and verse 1. Paul writes, That you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. A living sacrifice.

Present yourselves a living sacrifice. That's a very interesting concept from scripture, a living sacrifice. It's not a dead sacrifice. This is a much, much harder sacrifice than even what they did back in the book of Acts.

You sell your property, you turn in all your savings accounts, you cash out your 401s and 403s and all of your IRAs and give it that.

That's kind of a one-time thing. It can be hard, but once you do it, you do it, then it's over.

And that's not what we should be doing. What Paul is writing about is a sacrifice of a different type that is much harder.

It's a living sacrifice and it's an ongoing sacrifice that must be done every day, every week, every month, every year, every season of our life for all of our life.

To be a living sacrifice in the way that Paul is writing it here is very hard, very difficult. It's what we are called to do. It's a reasonable service.

You know, all of the Old Testament sacrifices, and they were many, and they were elaborate, and there were many, many sacrifices made at the temples and at the shrines. How effective were they? What good did they do? The book of Hebrews tells us they didn't forgive one sin. It was a zero effect spiritually.

It took the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ to atone for man's sins. Animal sacrifices and any of those physical sacrifices didn't do it.

God doesn't want us to be a dead sacrifice. He wants us to be a living sacrifice.

You know, in the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon wrote that a living dog is better than a dead lion. A living dog is better than a dead lion.

Remember that sometimes, guys, when you want to roar and make a stand and pop off, just make sure you count the cost.

You might get your head lopped off. You might get cut off at the knees, as we say.

It's better to be a living dog. In other words, kind of just maybe cuffed up the side of the head and slink away like a dog might be at times if it gets in the way.

Or he's in a place where we don't want him and we'll kind of maybe kick that dog and he'll scoot off. He's still living.

Lives another day. And in the way the Solomon, if we're living dogs rather than a dead lion, we have still another day to live and another opportunity to learn.

And to not make the same mistake twice. Not get kicked.

You ever felt like a living dog? Take heart. You're not dead.

A living sacrifice takes a lifetime. And that's harder. But that's what we're called to do. In Psalm 51, verse 17, David writes that the sacrifices that God wants are a broken spirit and a contrite heart.

That's the sacrifice of God. To come to a point where our spirit is broken to God, not completely where we are just a broken man or woman and we have no confidence, no self-esteem, but broken inwardly through repentance, through an acknowledgment that we need God. That there's something missing in our life, which we come to in the initial repentance of baptism and come to in deeper ways as we go through various trials of our life. Storms, as we heard in the sermon at. We get battered around and we have to learn and go into the wind and keep working and moving forward.

And we learn to make a better course, to make progress.

Isaiah 57, verse 15, God says that I dwell in the holy place with those that are of a contrite and a humble spirit.

Now, those are the sacrifices and those are words and spiritual qualities that describe the type of sacrifice that is needed for us to get to the point where we are living as a sacrifice before God and even before each other, where our lives are a complete sacrifice. As we have been discussing in some of our meetings and work with the pastor, new trainees that we've hired in the last year and begun to train, one of the things that we have wanted to get across to anyone who we have talked to and begun to teach in our pastoral development programs for their future service in the full-time employ of the church in the ministry.

As we have asked individuals to step away from a job that they are having and a career and to take up the mantle of the ministry, or at least as a trainee in anticipation that they will work out to be a minister, one of the things that we have had to lay down and everyone should understand is that this, the job or the role of the pastor and a minister in the full-time service to the church, is a sacrificial life. It is a sacrificial decision that must be made. I did not recognize the full measure of that when I said yes many, many years ago to the ministry. I don't know that any of us did. I had to learn it. As I went through the experiences, your life becomes a sacrifice to the job and to the needs of the members. You must go where you are told to go literally at times. We have had to pack up and be moved. We did not want to be packed up and moved. We have had to make new lives over again within the church, but in a new state community, as all of the ministers have. An elder, whether employed the pastor or an elder serving the church as a non-salaried elder, all have a certain sacrifice to make at times because when a call will come in at a particular time, a person needing to talk, to be counseled, or an anointing made, it's the all-hands-on-deck call.

Call to quarters. You turn the TV off. You alter your plans. Sometimes family plans get altered. If it's in the middle of the night or later at night, you may need to go and anoint in a hospital emergency room.

And stay told as long as you're needed.

It's just one example of the many aspects that require an approach that is a sacrifice. But we all have to do that at our calling and where God has placed us within His body. It's not just a minister that has to do that.

This entire journey is a sacrificial experience that we are to come to. And to make it through to the end requires that attitude. To deal with the unpleasantries in the backseat of the car, like they often have come up between a kid, between children, it will require understanding, patience, and the ability to work through difficult situations. It will require coming to have a humility that you don't even know you need. I've never met a person, including myself, who didn't think they were humble. And then you find out there's something we need to learn. God's definition of humility in a contrite spirit is sometimes different from ours. And that's a little bit of what is required to get to that state of unity that Psalm 133 is talking about.

Or we see pictured here, and being a total sacrifice might require. You know, sometimes there's any number of different steps and approaches and methods and ways to get to that point where there's a reconciliation, where there's an understanding, where there is this humbleness, that level of humility in a contrite spirit that moves us to a deeper level that is a bit closer to God. Sometimes it just takes one person to take one step across the aisle with an extended hand, with a kind word, with an offer of something, a cool glass of water. It just takes one step sometimes to break that ice, to break that frozen rigidity and that bound-up, unmovable situation that we might have had with someone or we've seen within the church and in our fellowship. And it just takes one step. There's a great story that I'd like to tell you about that I think can humble us, because it's a story not from the Bible, it's a story of people who were, are not in the Bible, it's a story from history, but it teaches this story about as well as any that I can imagine. It is a story between two men who held the highest office in the United States, two American presidents, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Adams was the second man to hold the office behind Washington, and his vice president was Thomas Jefferson. And Thomas Jefferson succeeded John Adams as the third president of the United States in 1801. Now both men, Adams and Jefferson, had been fathers of the country. They were the framers of the Declaration of Independence. If you remember your American history, Thomas Jefferson drafted the original Declaration. But what we read today was not the first draft. It was edited. You know who edited it? John Adams, along with Benjamin Franklin. And they were very rigorous, and they, you know, Jefferson had to give in. He thought he had a good phrase, and they said, no, this doesn't work, let's use this one. And it created the document that we know today. They were coworkers at that moment when America was born in 1776. Two giants of the American experience. And then Adams became the second president, and his vice president was Thomas Jefferson. But you know what happened? They fell out. Their friendship deteriorated. The political differences were too great for them at the time. Adams only served one term. He became the first president to not be elected, reelected. And on the day, Jefferson beat him, and it was a close vote. Jefferson, who was his vice president, now was going to become the president on the inauguration day. John Adams did not stand beside Thomas Jefferson when he took the oath of office. He had slunk out of town before dawn on the day because he was a sore loser. This is what David McCullough, the historian who wrote a good biography of Adams, says. He said it would have been more gracious for him to stay, but he didn't. And Jefferson took the oath of office without the outgoing president there. When we see that happen today, understand that there have been times in the past that it didn't happen.

And that's one. They did not communicate with each other for over 10 years. Now, Adams went home to Massachusetts. Jefferson served out his terms. He went home to Virginia, to Monticello, his mountain top home. And for 11 years, they did not communicate with each other. Until a mutual friend, a doctor from Philadelphia named Benjamin Rush, persuaded John Adams on New Year's Day, 1812, write a letter to Thomas Jefferson to break the ice. And Adams did. And it began one of the most famous periods of correspondence of American and even history itself. Letters began flowing back and forth between Virginia and Massachusetts. And the friendship was rekindled. And it's a beautiful story. Adams, one man, took the step to go across. And he said something that I want to read to you. In one of his letters he wrote to Jefferson, Adams said this, and I think it has a lesson for us all. He said, you and I, Adams writing to Jefferson, you and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other.

We should not die before we have explained ourselves to each other. It's a beautiful sentiment. I have long maintained that part of our problem of not achieving the unity we hope is we don't listen to one another. Because we're all talking over each other, we're figuring out how to rebut each other, we're distracted, we don't listen to each other. If we don't listen to one another, we'll never understand each other. And even in the understanding, it might still have differences that remain, but it can raise us to a level of brotherhood that can bring us closer to the unity that is talked about here. And if two men whose story is not in the Bible, but their story is in American history, and come to a reconciliation before they die, the epilogue to this story is that both men died on the same day, July 4th, 1814, 50 years to the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed. And they both died on the same day. It's a beautiful story. I personally happen to think that there's a little bit of extra hand involved in that particular story. Most two men could set an example like that. What can we do? All it takes is one step across the aisle, one word, one gesture, one prayer, one smile. Whatever it might be that divides us, that keeps us, maybe one phone call, one letter. What might it take for that to happen? Let's go back to Psalm 133, and let's look again at this beautiful vignette. He says, Hold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. It is a worthy goal, and it is one that we are bound by God's word to pursue at every level and in every opportunity and in every relationship that you and I have. It is like the precious oil upon the head running down on the beard, the beard of Aaron running down on the edge of his garments. Oil is a type of the Holy Spirit in the Bible, and it is God's Spirit that should motivate us to want to be reconciled, to want to pursue unity, to want to promote unity, wherever we can, wherever the opportunity presents itself. You know, oil softens. We rub oil on our bodies. We can buy some very expensive emollients if we choose, and work into our hands, work into our bodies, and it softens, and it enhances. We all know that as a beauty technique. Very, very important in that way. You know, oil lubricates, and it keeps parts working. If you don't have oil in an engine, you know what happens with that engine? It seizes up. It locks up. We even not only put oil in our vehicles, but if we want to put a few extra dollars into it, we'll put an additive into it to make it slicker and to keep the friction down. But as people make this journey together on the road, and we jostle, and we bump, we get in each other's space, we rub each other the wrong way. But it's the oil that smooths out things. It should be God's Spirit that softens the rough relationships. And it's that Spirit that we should be able to yield to accomplish that. Look again at this verse. It's not just the oil. It's the image, the person who is described as Aaron, the priest. What does God say that we are? As members of the body, a holy priesthood.

If you and I would begin to look at each other as fellow priests, and we would begin to look at the other person, as our priest, it changes the whole perspective of a relationship. A priest was to speak the Word of God. Teach that word. Hold it dear. And the priest was to be a mediator between man and God under that covenant, under that system. To represent a person before God in that sacrificial covenant relationship. If we could look at each other, speak more words of God toward each other.

Speak more words that are filled with grace and seasoned with salt only as needed, but a bit more grace than the salt. And if we could pray one for another, even more, we might come closer to this.

When you look at some of the prayers of the great figures of the Bible, you find that they were praying for the people of God. Look at the prayers of Daniel sometime. His prayers were prayers of anguish for the people of God. He cared for them. If we were to pray one for another more, then that friction might come down. We were to look at each other, in a sense, as our own priests, as a fellow priest. It would give us a different perspective on one another. This is what the psalm is telling us. To use that spirit of God as an oil to soften the relationships.

The dew of Herman, he says, it is like the dew of Herman descending upon the mountains of Zion.

The dew is what comes in the morning, and at the higher elevations of Mount Herman, or any mountain, that dew is heavier, better, full of more nutrients. And what is being painted here is a picture of the freshness of an opportunity of each day, by this dew that comes in the morning, that period of the day that offers a time of hope, a new day, a new beginning, or a time of renewal.

And that's what unity does. That's what the relationships do when we work hard at those relationships. To even keep them going. You know, any friendship, like a marriage is at its heart, a good marriage is a marriage between people who are friends, and it takes work to keep that going. Our relationships as friends, we have to work at. Because if we don't, we'll drift apart. I've had many friends come and go in my life through the years, some are still there after many years, others are not, not because we've necessarily fallen out, but because we just didn't keep in touch. And if you don't work at a phone call, an email, or now, or even a visit, better yet, you drift. That happens. You have to work at any relationship to keep it going, and to even certainly renew it. It can be done, but it takes work. There's always hope. The reconciliation can be made. There's always hope and opportunity for renewal. This is what the do is like. This is what this image is teaching us. There is another day. If we seize it, and I know that sounds a bit trivial, but it is a literal truism, and it's really what the verse is pointing to. The opportunity of a day that each day will bring to us. God's vision is for a tightly knit body, a tightly knit church where everyone is doing what they are to be accomplishing to the ends of the purpose that God has for the spiritual body of the church. Look at the end of verse 3 here. When this is pursued, when it is accomplished, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, life evermore. If we are to expect God's blessing on our efforts to do the work of God, to come together, then we have to expect that and do the things that are here to accomplish that. We have to begin to look at a psalm like this that teaches us how to make that journey. Just one of these steps right here would begin to help us turn things around in our congregations, in our church, in our individual relationships. And each of us has to look at this as an admonition to each of us as to how to live, how to think of one another, and how to approach our relationships. And if we do that, if we hold that high, we can expect God's blessing. And the road to the kingdom of God will be just a bit more pleasant because we're making it in unity and a higher degree of unity than we had before.