There are times…when we will sin against one another.  And the danger is that if we react to that sin out of our old nature with anger, rage, bitterness, slander and malice, we’ll destroy the church.

We’re spending a few weeks looking at some of the ‘one another’ commands God gives his church as we follow Jesus together.  So far, we’ve looked at loving one another, encouraging one another, and bearing with each other.  This morning we’ve got two for the price of one.  But I think they’re two one another’s that we instinctively find hard or wonder what they look like in practice.

Paul isn’t suggesting these attitudes and actions, he’s not even recommending them and if you look careful there’s no asterisk with a paragraph of legalese that mutes their impact or makes them easy to do.

“Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other…”

What’s your instinctive reaction when someone wrongs you?  It’s to strike back.  To want revenge.  To go away and nurse the hurt and bitterness and anger you feel that they’d dare to do that to you.  Maybe it’s to get your own back on them.  Or slander them, to carefully orchestrate a campaign of character assassination as you tell others what they’ve done to you.  Or store up the hurt so you can throw it back in their face next time.  That’s a natural reaction, isn’t it?

It’s what we so often see around us, at work, in the diss track, or in a spat on social media.  Or maybe if we look closer to home, we can see how we’ve done that too. The one another’s aren’t natural to us.  They’re new attitudes and actions.  They’re the result of being transformed by faith in Jesus and the work of the Spirit in us.  But they’re also hard won.

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