Resolving Conflict! 3rd in a series of 9

Resolving Conflict! 3rd in a series of 9 Slide #1 Series : How is it going with the crazy makers in your life? Do you have any new ones since last week? Have you managed to keep your buttons in your pocket or have you left them out on the counter for all to see and push? This morning we are going to jump right into week three of You Drive Me Crazy, a series focused on helping us build healthy relationships in our lives. This is why each week we start off with something just a bit crazy. Skit: The Terminal Visit So how can Lauren and Paige resolve their conflict? I became a pastor in 1979 and as of June of this year it will be a total of 34 years since I began in the ministry. As I look back at all the individuals and couples that I ve counseled over the years, without a doubt the number one time consumer has been helping people navigate through conflict. Conflict at work, conflict with spouses, conflict with kids, conflict with parents, conflict with boyfriends or girlfriends, conflict in the community, conflict with church members and the list could go on and on! Because the world is broken there is conflict. There is conflict between the Democrats and the Republicans, conflict between the church and the state, conflict between the township and the residents 1

and conflict between the school and the home. There are always international conflicts and economic conflicts and relational conflicts and sexual conflicts and financial conflicts. It seems that no matter where we go or what we do, conflict just seems to pop up like error messages on the computer. Do you know the sound? Slide #2-21 Error messages with Audio Clip The title of the message this morning is Slide #22 Title Slide: Resolving Conflict! One of the most important skills we will ever need to learn is how to resolve conflict. If we don t learn how to resolve conflict, we will carry it around with us like this back pack full of books and every time a conflict is unresolved another book is added to the pack. Did any of you ever weigh your kid s back pack? My daughter Christy carries this to school every day, so Friday evening I decided to weigh it. Does anyone want to guess what it weighs in at? Three guesses, closest one wins! Many of us walk around every day with this heavy weight of conflict on our backs and the most troubling part of it is we don t need to! So let s talk about it.. We can be wealthy, attractive, successful and talented, and if our relationships suck we are a mess. 2

If our relationships aren t good, if we are constantly engaged in conflict and we don t know how to deal with that relative, that in-law, that friend, that boss or that fellow TLiner then we will never experience peace because the books of conflict will continue to pile up in our back pack. The good news is, is that if you still have blood pressure and a heart beat it s not too late! Every now and then my kids go through their back packs and say I really don t really need that book and we are finished with that class and I don t believe I m still carrying this around and suddenly the back pack becomes lighter and this is what we are going to do today. One reason that I love the Bible and study it and memorize it is that it is filled with truth. God recognizes that we re going to have conflict in our lives, because the world is a broken place and so he tells us. Slide #23 John 16:33 I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. Slide #24 Matthew 6:34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. 3

Just like we heard from Lauren and Paige, there is going to be trouble, there is going to be conflict and there is going to be unresolved conflict! Unresolved conflict can be incredibly damaging because it has three devastating effects on our lives. Slide #25 The damage of unresolved conflict: 1) It blocks our fellowship with God. When I m out of whack with you I can t be in harmony with God. Slide #26 1 John 4:20-21 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. It s real clear, we cannot claim to love God and then not love others. We cannot be in harmony with God and out of harmony with others. Slide #27 Galatians 5:14-15 The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So every time I bring on a conflict with others my fellowship with God is blocked. Slide #28 The damage of unresolved conflict: 4

2) It hinders our prayers. It prevents answered prayers. When we are in conflict with others it can hinder our prayers. Slide #29 1 Peter 3:7 Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers. So when I m not treating Lisa right and I m allowing conflict to go unresolved with her, I can preach and pray and raise my hands in worship but God isn t impressed and here is how he responds he puts his fingers in his ears he s not interested in listening to me. Slide #30 The damage of unresolved conflict: 3) It hampers our happiness. We cannot be happy and conflicted at the same time. Slide #31 James 4:1-2 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When conflict comes in the front door, happiness goes out the back door. 5

So how could Lauren and Paige have esolved their conflict? Today we are going to look at seven biblical steps to resolving conflict and the first one lays the foundation for the following six. Let s go to our notes. Slide #32 Steps to Resolving Conflict: 1. Take the initiative. This is the most difficult step but it is almost always the starting point. Sometimes others will come to us first, but usually we need to take the initiative and go to them. It is a temptation to ignore conflicts and pretend they don t exist, but if we continually push them under the carpet they will eventually pop up like error messages. Slide #33 Many of us resort to the famous character in the movie, Oliver Twist, his name was The Artful Dodger. He was a skilled pickpocketer, who made his living stealing, and then would resort to dodging and disappearing. This is the way many of us function in relationship we dodge and disappear when conflict appears on the horizon. Actually problems get worse when we try to dodge them and they can easily lead us to anger and anger to resentment and resentment to bitterness. Conflict is not going to go away on its own! So take the initiative. The only way to resolve conflict is to deal with it by having face to face conversation and in order 6

to do this we need to overcome three Artful Dodgers of fear. Slide #34 Artful Dodgers: 1) Our fear of the conversation 2) Our fear of setting up the conversation 3) Our fear of navigating through the conversation The fear of resolving conflict is as old as Adam and Eve. They had a conflict with the serpent, they had a conflict with God and they had a conflict with each other and it resulted in broken relationships. So what did they do? Slide #35 Genesis 3:8-10 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." The first way they tried to resolve conflict was by hiding. They didn t want to face the conflict so they hid from God. When Adam spoke of being naked it meant exposed! So they hid! And we have been to hiding from God and others ever since! The second way they tried to resolve conflict was by tying to cover it all up. They started with fig leaves and covered their bodies and then they tried to continue the cover up by accusing and blaming each other and we have been covering up ever since! Why? Because we fear being exposed and we fear 7

being vulnerable to our emotions. Fear makes us distant, defensive, and demanding! It makes us distant, in that we want to withdraw and hide. This is why Adam and Eve ran for cover when God appeared. It makes us defensive, so we start attacking others. This is why Eve attacked the snake and Adam attacked Eve. It makes us demanding, in that we insist on having the last word and controlling the situation and this is why Adam and Eve took things into their own hands. It is fear that keeps us from connecting at the deepest level with those we love the most. Most of us have difficulty finding intimacy with others and I m not talking about sex, I m talking about something far deeper than that soul-to-soul intimacy. The reason is fear. We don t really fear conflict, but rather we fear the emotions of it and the possibility of rejection. We fear being misunderstood. We fear that what we say might be used against us and so we run for cover and hide! So, how do we find the courage to take this first step and take the initiative and have face to face conversation instead of Face Book conversation? Only courageous people are willing to have real conversation and work at resolving conflict. Cowards usually run from meaningful conversation and this is 8

why Face Book flows with raw, unrestrained and emotional comments that wound others deeply and leave no room for real conversation. Let s go to God s Word. Slide #36 2 Timothy 1:7 For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. This means that if I let God s Spirit fill my life I will not be timid or filled with fear, but rather I will be filled with power, love and self-discipline. Did you know that love overcomes fear? Love will give us the courage to facilitate significant conversations. Slide #37 1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. Let me show you how this works. This past Monday at 4 AM, Bill Stone, a friend of mine tried desperately to save the life of his sister during a deadly house fire in downtown Lancaster. He was in the basement with his son when the smoke detector went off. Bill immediately took his son to safety and then reentered the deadly blaze in attempt to save his sister. Through the smoke and haze he finally got close enough to talk to her and he tried his best to reach her but the heat and suffocating smoke drove him back outside. He was devastated to be unable to save her. 9

Why would Bill reenter a burning building! It takes courage to enter a towering inferno. Why would he do this? Love! I have no doubt Bill Stone loved his sister, and no amount of flames would hold back his love! Fear cannot hold back our love! When love drives us, we will do things we are normally afraid to do. This is how we develop courage, we learn to love! This morning you may already know who you need to resolve a conflict with. Perhaps a name or face has already come to mind, but fear is controlling the conflict. I know that arranging for face to face communication is hard, so we need to ask God to fill our hearts with love so that we have the courage take the initiative. We need to talk with God before we talk to that crazy maker so that he can develop love in our heart for that person. This is difficult, but listen carefully to what Jesus said. Slide #38 Matthew 5:23-24 Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. 10

Jesus said that reconciliation must take priority over worship! Maybe some of us shouldn t be here this morning. Maybe some of us need to leave early and make a phone call. Now don t get down on yourself maybe you never really thought about this before... no problem just let God lead you through this. Jesus said, if the conviction hits us during worship then we should leave our gift at the altar, or in the offering, and go at once and be reconciled. Slide #39 Matthew 5:25-26 Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny. What is Jesus saying here? He s saying don t ignore it. It doesn t matter if we are the offended or we are the offender, we need to take the initiative and take care of business. It is always our move. Maybe some of us have been putting this off for weeks, months or maybe years and now is the time to plan a sit down, face to face conversation. So here are some suggestions for the conversation. Slide #40 The Conversation 11

1) Choose the right time. I know Jesus indicates right now, but the point is get it done. The point isn t be obnoxious, but rather pick a time when it suits the person you want to talk to. 2) Choose the right place. Whenever I have conversations like this I try to make sure it s a place where the other person is comfortable, a place where we will not be interrupted. Sometimes I have had to ask people to turn off their TV s or tie up their dog because their words are important to me. 3) Commit it to prayer. We must go into this with much prayer. I would also encourage you to ask a trusted friend or a member of the prayer team to pray for you. Their prayers will place a hedge row of protection around your meeting and it will also give you accountability because they will ask how did it go or did you get it done yet? 4) Come with the right attitude. We need to go into this with humility, hope and trust that God is at work. So once the conversation is scheduled, here is how we navigate through it. Let s go to our notes. Slide #41 Steps to Resolving Conflict: 2. Confess our part of the conflict. This is where we start. They may be 99.99% wrong and we may only be.01% percent wrong, but we need to start with that.01%. When we confess our.01% of 12

the fault, it s the beginning of humility, it s a starting point. We should never start with condemnation or accusations because all of us have blind spots. Slide #42 Matthew 7:3-5 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? Slide #43 Matthew 7:3-5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. So we start with our part of the conflict. Are we being unrealistic? Are we ungrateful in this relationship? Are we insensitive or overly sensitive? Are we too demanding? What might the plank be? Let s think about marriage for a moment. Rick Warren says that the number one excuse for divorce is incompatibility. He goes on to say that incompatibility is a myth made up by divorce attorneys and there is really no such thing. This goes beyond marriage as well. Think about it, any two people can get along if we will only grow up! If both parties are willing to stop being self- centered any two people can get along. Incompatibility is a myth! The issue of resolving conflict is not 13

incompatibility... the issue is immaturity. Love is a choice. And many times we just need to grow up. Here is one sentence that leads to maturity and resolving conflict. Slide #44 I m sorry, I was only thinking of myself. Slide #45 Steps to Resolving Conflict: 3. Listen for the hurt. Maybe you are tired of hearing about this by now, but we still have conflicts at TL so apparently we still need to hear it. When we get hurt we tend to hurt others so we need to listen for and acknowledge this hurt in the midst of the conflict. It doesn t matter if its marriage or the market place or the Middle East, when people feel fearful or they feel robbed of their dignity or they feel afraid out of that fear comes hurt and out of that hurt comes conflict. If we want to connect with people we must start with their need, and that means we must acknowledge their hurt. So how do we do this? Here is a great place to start. Slide #46 James 1:19-21 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. 14

In order for us to listen for the hurt, we need to do what this verse says. The reason conflict elevates so quickly is that most of us are slow to listen and quick to speak! Think about Lauren and Paige, think about how their conversation could have been different if they had been quick to listen and slow to speak! They could have enjoyed a great family reunion. Instead they couldn t wait to say goodbye! Most of us capitalize on talking, because talking is about me and listening is about you and human nature is always inclined to be about me. God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason. We should listen twice as much as we talk, so we can be tuned into the hurt in the lives of others but we don t and consequently conflict escalates! This verse could save us thousands of dollars and hundreds of counseling sessions. Slide #47 Steps to Resolving Conflict: 4. Consider their perspective. Consider the way they are looking at it. Consider their viewpoint. We need to intentionally shift our focus from our needs, our point, our winning the argument to their needs. We need to try and get their perspective on the issue. This is so critical in building relationships. Who is going to start seeing it from the other person s perspective? Who is going to make the first move? The person who makes the first move is always the person who stops thinking, how do I see it, and starts 15

thinking, how do they see it, what are they going through? The Bible is so practical! Slide #48 Philippians 2:4-5 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: So how do we do this? How do we consider another person s perspective? There s an important word in this verse. Each of us should look not only to our own perspective but rather to the other person s interests or perspective. This word look comes from a Greek word that means to scope something out, like a microscope or a telescope. We need to scope out the perspective of the other person. This is what Jesus did all the time; look at his interactions with his disciples, the rich young rule, Mary & Martha, even the scribes and Pharisees. He was constantly scoping out the interests of others. We are most like Jesus when we pay attention to the needs of other people. How do we do this? How do we start noticing other people s needs instead of always needing other people s notice? Here is some practical help. If we are expecting others to take care of all our needs we are going to be disappointed because they are as self centered 16

as what we are. When we begin to understanding that there is a God in heaven, who is willing to meet all of our needs, it takes us to a brand new level of freedom, since he meets our needs we can then scope out the needs of others. So it doesn t start with what we say or even with active listening, it really starts in the mind, with believing and trusting God to meet all of our needs! Slide #49 Steps to Resolving Conflict: 5. Tell the truth tactfully. Wait! Slide #50 Ephesians 4:15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. It may be the truth, but if we are not speaking it in love, we are on the wrong side. We must never use truth as a club. It may be true, but we don t use truth to beat people over the head. This is one of our modern day internet sins we beat people over the head, with truth knowing that they can t duck or run. This takes absolutely no courage and not only is it not helpful it is cowardly, stupid and dumb. Don t do it! We need to tell the truth tactfully, in love and in person or not at all. The Bible says it just right. Slide #51 Proverbs 12:18 Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. 17

How true, and the Psalmist had no idea about Face Book but wow did he ever hit the nail on the head! In other words, foolish words hurt, wise words heal. And it s our choice. We never win or resolve conflict by being like sandpaper! We need to tell the truth tactfully or it will never be received and if it is not received we will not resolve conflict. Truth without love is resisted. Truth wrapped in love is received. People grow faster, change faster and change easier when truth is wrapped in love. People must trust us before we can tell them the truth and they learn to trust us when we prove we love them by accepting them. Slide #52 Ephesians 4:29 Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. So when we are in this conversation, trying to resolve conflict, we need to ask this question will my words be helpful or hurtful? Is it going to build them up or tear them down? We need to learn to attack the problem not the person and this takes us to the next step. Slide #53 Steps to Resolving Conflict: 6. Fix the problem, not the blame. Here is a helpful thought. We only have a certain amount of emotional energy. In a conversation where we are trying to resolve conflict, we can either use our energy to fix the blame, or we can use our energy to 18

fix the problem. We don t really have enough energy to do both. So we need to ask the question, which is more important to us, to blame them or to resolve the conflict. As I was preparing for this sermon I realized that for me this takes intentionality because my natural inclination is to fix the blame because I like to be right. Is anyone else like that? And so it s easy to think that if I can just get them to understand that I am right and they are wrong we can resolve this conflict and I was in my office yesterday writing this out and I m thinking wow. am I ever wacked! During the cold war, from 1947 to 1991, America had thousands of intercontinental missiles aimed at Russia, because we didn t like or trust them. We had the capability of annihilating them at the push of a button. Consequently they also had thousands of intercontinental missiles aimed at us and could wipe us off the map at a moment s notice as well. Here is what is interesting, even though there was enormous tension between these two super powers that hated each other, both sides still had enough sanity to say, there are some weapons we just aren t going to use against each other, because they are so powerful, so deadly and so destructive. Had we used them, TL would have never have come into existence. So even secular rulers, that hated and mistrusted each other, had the common sense to not use these weapons of mass destruction. 19

Here are some weapons of mass destruction that should never be use in our face to face conversations, if we want to fix the problem and not the blame. Slide #54 Weapons of mass destruction! 1) Saying you always 2) Saying you never 3) Walking out in the middle of the conversation 4) Rolling our eyes 5) Screaming and yelling 6) Name calling When it comes to navigating through conflict these are all weapons of mass destruction and they consistently fail to fix the problem, but they certainly assist in fixing the blame. Slide #55 Romans 14:13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way. The reason we should fix the problem and not the blame is because blaming is a form of judging and only God has the right to judge. We are not the judge. As I have said before, we don t really know the motives of another person. We don t really know why they do what they do and when we assign motivation we are passing judgment. Judgment fixes blame not the problem. 20

Slide #56 Steps to Resolving Conflict: 7. Focus on reconciliation, not resolution. There s a big difference between reconciliation and resolution. Reconciliation means reestablishing the relationship. Resolution means resolving every issue and this isn t going to happen because there are some things we are never going to agree on. There is no one on this planet who agrees with me about everything. No one! So we will never bring complete resolution to anything. We can have reconciliation without resolution, because there are some things we will always disagree on. If we learn to disagree without being disagreeable, that s called wisdom. If we learn to have unity without uniformity, that s called wisdom. If we learn to walk hand in hand without seeing eye to eye, that s called wisdom. We don t have to agree on every issue to come to reconciliation. If we learn to focus on the relationship and not the issues, we are going to find that some of the issues are just really not that important. Slide #57 Matthew 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Jesus said, blessed are the peace makers, not the peace lovers. A lot of people love peace. Anyone can love peace but it takes courage, humility and discipline to make peace. 21

One of the greatest things we can do with our lives is to become bridge builders, not wall builders. Even though people around us are building walls we become most like Jesus when we build bridges. That s exactly what Jesus came to do. He came to reconcile people with each other and to himself. In closing: We need to do everything possible to resolve the conflict. We need to pray, take the initiative, humble ourselves and confess our part, listen to the hurts of others, consider their perspective, tell the truth tactfully, stay away from blaming and focus on reconciliation, but the bottom line is sometimes reconciliation will not happen and conflict cannot be resolved because it takes a willingness on both parties to be reconciled. In other words, the other party can block resolving the conflict. Slide #58 Romans 12:17-19 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord. The scripture says, If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 22

The truth is we can t live at peace with all people because some people will refuse us and no matter how hard we try to appease, please, love, support or whatever some people have this need to dwell in conflict and they will make sure that we can t live in peace with them! They are just unpleasable! I never came across a person like that until I got to college. It was my first experience with a crazy maker that refused to be reconciled. It was non reconciliation 101! Since then I have made a commitment: I will always go to the table and have conversation with people, but I will not resort to self condemnation if they refuse to respond to the invitation. I have made it a priority to take the initiative with people, but once again if they continue to refuse conversation, I have come to the conclusion that the only thing I can do is pray, hope, forgive and look for opportunities to show kindness. No one can stop me from doing this. Wow! It s a big topic. Maybe this message will bring about conversation and reconciliation or maybe it will help us to live in such a way that we can head off conflict before it happens. Either way, may God use this message for his honor and glory! As your pastor, I want to challenge you, my TL family, that in a world that is filled with conflict; where there are disagreements, where there is anger, where there is prejudice, where everything in the world tends to divide, I challenge TL to become agents of 23

reconciliation. At least go down trying! Take the initiative, have the conversation and do it with wisdom. Prayer: Let s pray together, Father you know the conflicts we have and we are tired of them. So give us the courage today to take the initiative to become peacemakers and bridge builders. And if you are not a child of God today, but would like to become one pray with me I confess that I am a sinner and that I need your help. Forgive me for all the wrong I have done. I believe that Jesus death on the cross paid the price for my sin. Come into my life. I want to become your child and I welcome you to become the boss of my life. Benediction: Jude 1:24-25 To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy-- to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen 24