8.14.22.

All right. Welcome everyone. We're excited to dive into this message today. The much anticipated wisdom in conflict is what we're talking about today.

Don't we just love conflict? Nobody loves conflict. I kept joking all week at park night that I was going to have everyone raise their hand if they're in conflict right off the bat. Some hands would be going up.

In all seriousness, as I was preparing for this message, I think especially when it comes to things like conflict, we can almost over spiritualize things while under spiritualizing them at the same time. We think, okay, if I'm in conflict with someone or I'm working through some stuff, I'm just going to pray about it and trust that the Holy Spirit's going to work it out, which is awesome. But the Holy Spirit also gives us holy strategy with the word of God. I think it's wise for us as followers of Jesus to continue to look and not just sit back and say, well, I'm just going to trust the Holy Spirit. Sometimes when we find ourselves in conflict, in relationship or whatever that looks like, we think the Holy Spirit will just take over. I think that's actually a pretty unwise thing for us to do.

Instead, what does it look like for us to continue to grow as individuals, grow as disciples of Jesus, look to the word of God, look to Jesus for guidance in our discipleship journey, and start to have some Holy Spirit strategy for when we do face conflict?

Conflict avoidance

I hear a lot of people say things like, I just hate conflict or I don't do conflict. I don't do confrontation. And I would say that's probably a really unwise thing for us to just claim that identity is someone that's just never going to have conflict.

Because we are created in the image of God to be in relationship with God and with each other. And every relationship is going to have conflict. I would almost go as far as to say that if you haven't had conflict with people that you're close to, you might not be as close as you actually think. There's always going to be differences of opinions. Sometimes it's going to be a difference of right or wrong. Sometimes it's just a difference of your upbringing, of the culture that you come from, how you were raised.

We're always going to have conflicting things about the way that we live our lives.

Working through conflict

I want to encourage you to take notes. Think and workshop as we go. The first question I want to ask you: when you hear the word conflict, what comes to mind? Is it a person that continues to be a point of conflict in your life? Is it a situation? Multiple people? Something from your past? Something you're going through?

What do you feel when you hear the word conflict? Do you get a little tense? Do you get a little anxious? What are those feelings that come to you?

Rich Lotus, when talking about conflict, said this. He said we have several different approaches. Some of us, we just avoid it. Some of us, we hear the word conflict and we think that's something for me to go and defeat, something for me to conquer and defeat. Or we can see it as an opportunity to lovingly negotiate our differences. Isn't that so pretty? To just lovingly negotiate our differences.

Proverbs has a lot to say about conflict. Proverbs 10:12 says:

Hatred stirs up quarrels, but love makes up for all offenses.

Proverbs 10:12

A hot-tempered person starts fights. A cool-tempered person stops them:

Proverbs 15:18

Proverbs 16:28 says:

A troublemaker plants seeds of strife. Gossip separates the best of friends.

Proverbs 16:28

You see, conflict, if not dealt with, can be a pretty big deal. The closest of friends, the closest of relationships can literally be separated through gossip, through words that are spoken. A hot-tempered person can start fights, but a cool-tempered person can stop them. Hatred stirs up quarrels, but love makes up for all offenses.

You see, there is hope for us when it comes to conflict in the relationships that we have and the situations that we walk through. No matter what you thought of or what you feel when you hear the word conflict, I want us to think of today as we walk through this with a sense of hopefulness. We were created in the image of God, and God is someone, a God of restoration, a God of healing, a God of wholeness. We were created to walk in unity together, to be agents of change. Jesus, you change everything. And through the power of his Holy Spirit, we can walk in that authority of being agents of restoration and healing and hope for people.

Let's dream together. What if we were people that said in this world of chaos, we are going to be people that bring peace? In this world of dysfunction and disunity, we are going to walk in the authority that brings unity to even the types of relationships that everyone would look at and say, it does not make sense that those people can sit next to each other. It does not make sense that they can forgive one another in that type of way. What does it look like for us as followers of Jesus and as a church community to be people in this culture of unforgiveness and bitterness and grudges to bring hope and the freedom that Jesus came to bring?

This is why it's important. Proverbs is stressing the results of conflict unresolved and the things that lead to it. But it's important for us to know who we are in Jesus and that we don't have to live that way. It's not going to be through avoiding conflict. It's going to be through actually addressing it, and that's how we're going to see unity in the relationships in our life and as a church.

I think I would almost be more concerned if in any given period of time, none of us had any conflict in our life. That would almost give me the sense that we're probably just avoiding a lot of stuff and numbing a lot of stuff. It's probably healthy for us to have some differences that we need to work through, and to see every opportunity not as a place where we can just shut up and hold a grudge, but as a place where we can start to speak out and grow through that.

Three foundations for wisdom in conflict

If there's nothing else that you write down or you take notes on, it's this: having wisdom in conflict consists of these three things. Self-awareness, self-control, and surrender.

We have to ask the Holy Spirit to make us aware, show us where we lack control, and how we need to surrender to Jesus. At the end of today's service, I'm going to have Elena come up and play some keys, and we're going to take time to process this more with the Holy Spirit and specifically ask him questions to help us process conflict.

Because often in conflict, we do a few things. We shift blame. We shift responsibility. If you start to think of conflict that you've been in or you are in, I want us today to not think of the role the other person plays but the role that we play in it. Part of being like Jesus and a healthy disciple is learning how to be responsible, mature, growing adults. That means sometimes we're going to have to make changes in our life.

But I want to preface before we dive deeper into what the scripture says here: when we're talking about conflict, we are not talking about abusive situations. We're talking about healthy, mutual relationships that we are in. Not ones where there is any type of abuse, whether that's abuse of power or anything like that. That is a different conversation. We're talking about healthy individuals and healthy mutual relationships or people on the journey of being healthy, mature adults in relationships.

Self-awareness

The first thing that we're going to talk about is self-awareness. This is the part where we need to invite the Holy Spirit to show us our role in conflict and how we can grow.

Often again we try to blame-shift. We think everybody else is always the problem, everybody else is always wrong. Now, sometimes people are going to wrong you, and that's where forgiveness and mercy and grace comes in. Sometimes nobody's wrong, and it's just a difference of opinion. But guess what? Sometimes you might be the one who is in the wrong. These are the moments that are hard for us to swallow, where we never want to admit that.

It's hard for us as humans to admit that we might make a mistake, and it's hard to receive feedback on that. But before we can start to address our conflict with others, we first have to address the conflict within. Before we even start to address conflict with others, we have to look within.

Not everything even has to be addressed. More times than not, when I find myself in places where maybe I'm hurt by something, I'm offended, if I just pause and I take a step back and I ask the Holy Spirit to help me see what's happening, it's usually a conflict within me. It's not always what that person said, but it's how I received that based on things that maybe I have had happen to me in my past that I need to heal from, areas in my life that I haven't quite surrendered to the Lord.

If we can first take a moment to pause and focus on the conflict within our own growing self before we address it, that right there is going to be so healthy for us. Luke 6:42 talks about this:

How can you say to your brother, Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite. First take out the log of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye.

Luke 6:42

We're seeing here that it can't always just be the other person in conflict. When I'm offended, more times than not, if I take a moment, I realize that I'm probably the problem or it's something that I have to work through.

The reality is there that we really could have done nothing wrong or the other person could have done nothing wrong, but it still can hurt us. And that's okay to acknowledge. And that's okay to address.

Through the years, I've realized that there's sometimes that I'm doing things and my heart can be in the best place. Maybe the words that I said weren't necessarily harmful or hurtful, but the way that it was received by somebody else was. And so it can be easy when someone confronts us in conflict and maybe says, Hey, the way that you've been speaking has really hurt me. It can be easy to get defensive and say, well, that's not hurtful. Why is that hurtful? That shouldn't be hurtful. But that's not who Jesus made us to be. He created us to be people that can speak life and encouragement.

The next time that even someone comes to you in conflict and has words that they are coming to you with in confrontation, before getting defensive, pause and look within and say, you know, maybe I didn't mean it in that way, but there are ways that now I know this is hurtful. I can change my language or I can change my speech to be loving towards this person.

When we do start approaching people and we want to share something in loving confrontation, be slow to make assumptions but quick to ask questions. Slow to make assumptions, quick to ask questions. So often when we are faced in conflict and it's time to address it and to have a conversation about it, we can be so quick to make assumptions. Well, why are you coming at me in that way? Why are you saying that I need to change? But instead ask questions. Hey, tell me more about how that made you feel. Tell me more about what you're experiencing.

Be slow to listen and patient to process. One of the most well-known passages on conflict is in Matthew 18:15 through 21. Jesus gives us a pretty clear model of what we should do if we are in conflict with someone. The first thing that we see is to go alone and directly to that person. Talk directly to that person. We saw earlier that gossip can destroy relationships. We have to be so careful to tame our tongue and to go to that person and talk directly.

Then, if they're not receiving it and it's something that needs to be resolved because you can't move forward in relationship unless it's resolved, you go and take two to three others with you. Take someone with you in this loving confrontation to then address these things.

And then there does come a time where it is okay to walk away from relationships. Now, this is something that sometimes in the church we can be quick to be like, well, we all have to be best friends and like family all the time. But even in the New Testament church, when the church was starting, we see that there was parting of ways. There may be a time where you can have restoration with someone and reconciliation with them without having to go back to that same type of relationship. And that's okay.

It is okay if someone that you were really close to, there's been broken trust, and maybe there's been hurts that has happened, and it's okay to still be in relationship with them, but guard your heart a little bit now on what you share, because maybe there was some trust broken. However, we never get an excuse to not love like Jesus. We can have a reason, and we can see that in the Bible. God's showing us there might be a time to have some distance in relationship with people because they're just not willing to have that reconciliation. But that never gives us an excuse to not love them like Jesus.

We see this in Acts, this scripture talking about this disagreement that Paul and Barnabas had:

Sometime later, Paul said to Barnabas, Let us go back and visit the believers in all the towns where we preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing. Barnabas wanted to take John, also called Mark, with them. But Paul did not think it was wise to take him because he had deserted them in Pamphylia. They had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company. Barnabas took Mark and sailed for Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and left, commended by the believers to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.

Acts 15:36-41

We see here that two people who built the church and were founding the church and sharing the gospel to all these people for the first time that we read about in scripture, they too had a point where they had conflict, they had disagreement, and they said, you know what, I think it's better if we go separate ways.

In this situation too, you see, it wasn't that there was this huge right or this huge wrong. They had different ways that they felt like their ministries were supposed to continue. And so they parted ways. There might be times where we're not all going to agree on the different best approach or best method. That's even why you see why there are so many different churches and we don't all just sit in one big auditorium. Sometimes we don't all see everything the exact same way, but it doesn't mean we can't be in unity together. It doesn't mean that we can continue to have some sort of relationship. But there might be disagreement that separates us in those ways.

With all of this, we have to realize that in conflict, oftentimes it's going to require confrontation. And we love confrontation, don't we? I mean, who actually loves going to someone and having something that they're like, I don't know how you're going to receive this? There's a lot of questions with it, a lot of stress that can come with us, but confrontation causes us to address things.

But here's what I want us to hear as Christians. I believe in the power of prayer, but we cannot just pray conflict away. We cannot sit here and think if I just pray hard enough that this is just going to magically disappear. Instead of using prayer as a way to spiritually just avoid things, we need to use prayer to courageously step in to conflict and confrontation.

When we don't want to confront things, we end up just staying stuck in the same patterns of hurt, bitterness, brokenness, unforgiveness. You don't have to be best friends with everyone, but you do have to be like Jesus. My mom would always say to me, we're kind and cordial to everyone, but you don't have to be their best friend. Yeah, that person that you didn't really like at the birthday party you met, it's okay, you don't have to be their best friend, but you're kind and you're cordial. Not everybody in here, we're not all going to have the same interests. We're not all going to have the same likes. But we can be kind, we can be cordial, we can be like Jesus.

Inviting the Holy Spirit

The next thing that we see in wisdom is asking the Holy Spirit how we should respond. There have been times in my life where I think I know how to respond to conflict and I know that it's time to address it. And when I pause and I pray, the Spirit will speak clearly to me. When we ask, he speaks. We can talk to God through prayer.

There's moments where I think, okay, I have to have this conversation with someone. I have to address it. And instead, I'll just feel the Lord say, okay, no, you just have to wait. Just wait. I've had situations where then that thing that I was going to address, that person comes to me and they end up apologizing and saying, Hey, the Lord just really spoke to me that I did this thing and I need to apologize to you.

There's going to be times where he's going to say, be bold and bring it up to this person. And there's going to be times where he says, wait, I'm doing something that you need to be patient for. So having a relationship with the Holy Spirit as we address conflict is crucial.

Unwise conflict resolution would be praying it away, avoiding it, or just letting it build up and blowing up in anger. But wise conflict resolution is praying before, owning your part, letting the Holy Spirit speak to you, convict you, repenting, and then asking the Holy Spirit for guidance on how to approach it and surrendering the outcome to Jesus.

Because avoidance leads to just more assumptions and more anger. But if we address things, we can make way for freedom to take place in those relationships.

Self-control

The next thing that we see is self-control. Staying in control of your emotions, behaviors, and staying centered in Christ during difficult situations. Proverbs 15:1 says:

A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Proverbs 15:1

We need more gentleness in this world. We can be people of peace. We can bring in the peace of God into our world, but it's going to take some self-control. It's going to take some self-discipline. And building these spiritual disciplines as we spend time with Jesus, as we follow things like our rule of life that we have here as a church, so that when we are in situations, we're not just responding out of emotion and being overly reactional to things. We can have self-control. When we're having a conversation that might be hard to hear, it might be hard to say, we can stay centered in Christ.

What I have seen so many times in conflict is that when we don't address it, we just let it build up, build up, build up. And then it blows up, and it blows up bad. Have you ever been in one of those situations with someone where it started as the smallest of thing? And the next thing you know, over time, because you're like, it's fine. It's fine. It's not that big of a deal. But it was a really big deal. Maybe you weren't asking the Holy Spirit what to do with it. You needed to just be bold and just say, Hey, can you not put that there? Or, Hey, would you mind not saying this anymore? And it turned into this huge thing.

When we were young, we had this chore wheel at our house. Every single week, for some reason, our fourth sibling, Roman, the baby of the family, he was a little too young. So Nathan, myself, and Michael, the two brothers and myself, we each had a different chore every single week that we were responsible for. We would spin the wheel every single week, and then our chore would change for that week. I think it was like Fridays, but somewhere along the line, like the wheel just stopped spinning. We just stopped spinning the wheel and we just got stuck on the same chore. I don't know why it happened or when it happened, but it happened.

I'm fully going to blame my mother and not take responsibility for this, but I was stuck on laundry. I was in charge of laundry for the family growing up. Nathan, I think, was dishes, and Michael was sweeping and vacuuming.

Because of this, I'm going to just be real vulnerable here with you, and don't judge me because you probably all have weird things you do or do not do in your life. But even now, as an adult, I learned a few years ago that one chore that I just never think about doing is sweeping and vacuuming. I'm one of those people that, like, unless I see dirt on the floor, I won't even think to sweep or vacuum. I just don't.

A couple of years ago, I was living with a roommate and we had been living together for like three months. I had noticed like every single Saturday I would be out with students because I work with Chi Alpha. So I was working, meeting with students, doing things. And every single Saturday she stayed home and cleaned. So our floors were always clean. And I was like, okay, great.

And then finally it happened where things built up. I didn't even know that it was bothering her, but she blows up and yells at me. She's like, you have not vacuumed once in three months that we've lived together. I'm like, yeah. The floors were clean. So I didn't think to vacuum because every Saturday she cleaned the floors. But it was like this blow up moment in our relationship because all these things built up.

It was simple where I was like, I'm so sorry. I just literally don't think about vacuuming. So now I'm a little more self-aware of that thing in my life that I just never think about vacuuming the floors. So every roommate I've lived with since, I almost the second we moved in, I was like, just so you know, sometimes I forget to vacuum. So don't get mad. Just ask me. I love vacuuming. I just literally, my brain does not think to vacuum. So just ask and I'll vacuum.

It's these little things in our life that sometimes start so small. It's just, hey, could you vacuum this week? That can turn into this huge thing where then we're reacting in anger and words are said that should have never been said.

So how do we not let things build up? How do we learn to communicate with one another so we can live in healthy relationship? Well, a few things that I kind of try to practice in my life that have been helpful.

When we are in communication and conflict, when we're confronting people, ask yourself these four questions before you speak. Is it kind? Is it loving? Is it helpful? And is it necessary?

Before we confront people to ask these questions, to have self-control, to be in control of our tongue, to tame our tongue. Before we speak, say, is this something that's kind and represents Jesus, even if it's hard for the person to hear? Maybe take the time to say, could I phrase this and be intentional to phrase this in a way that's kind, to present this in a way that's loving?

Because when we're just blowing up and reacting in anger, then usually that's when we say hurtful things that never should probably be said out loud at all. There's little things that maybe are never necessary for us to say.

This is part of listening to the Holy Spirit and being proactive in our communication before we confront people. Think of this: is it kind? Is it loving? Is it helpful? Is it necessary? Because unwise communication is going to be driven by reactions and selfishness and spite. It's going to be all about proving a point and not relationship with the person. It's going to be all about being right and not wanting actual restoration.

But wise communication is going to be filled with self-control. Realizing that relationship is the goal, not being right. Recognizing that our initial response might not be the righteous, godly response. Sometimes, and I'm guilty of it, we are going to react and our flesh is going to come out louder than the Holy Spirit within us. And we have to acknowledge that.

So what do you do if you feel like you lack self-control? Well, self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. So continue to pray and ask the Lord to give you self-control. Continue to practice spiritual disciplines where you are building up self-control and ask the Spirit for that.

Surrender

And finally, we have surrender. Surrender the outcome of every conflict to Jesus. Know that justice is His, forgiveness is His, and the glory is His. Ephesians 4:32 says:

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

Ephesians 4:32

Luke 7:47 says:

I tell you, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little loves little.

Luke 7:47

If you forgive little, we love little. Part of us loving like Jesus is showing forgiveness and grace and mercy like Jesus did for us. 2 Corinthians 5:18 says:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

2 Corinthians 5:18

He gave us that ministry where we can be people that reconcile and bring restoration. But we need to surrender the outcome to Jesus.

I want you to think about this. What if we're the ones that are wrong and not the other person? What if they'll never agree with us or understand where we're coming from? What if it takes years to resolve? What if it gets worse before it gets better?

Here's the thing: obedience is in our hands. We get to decide whether or not we're going to be obedient to listening to the Holy Spirit as we walk through conflict. But the outcome is in God's hands. Christ already freely forgave us. And so then we get to decide, are we going to withhold that from other people? Or are we too going to freely walk in forgiveness?

What would it look like for us to be carriers of peace in a world of chaos, hope in a hopeless situation? To bring freedom through forgiveness? What could that look like? The next time you're at work and something happens and you address it in a loving way, and maybe the person was wrong, and you're quick to not keep the record of that wrong because love keeps no record of wrong. But you're quick to say, I forgive you. Don't worry about it. And instead, we encourage people. We empower people. We give people the chance to change.

You see way too often we do keep record of wrong and we don't give people the chance to change. You say, yeah, that person might have had a terrible attitude or that person might have been the biggest gossiper six months ago. But we can trust them now and they're taming their tongue. What does that look like for us to give people and make room for people to change and to be transformed by Jesus?

So here's the thing: as we talk through all of this, we have to be aware that Satan wants us to live and to stay stuck in conflict. He wants us to be so afraid of what would happen if we had that conversation that we just avoid it altogether. And instead, we just build up more unforgiveness and hold more grudges. He would love that. He would love if we never talked about the things, the differing opinions or the things that bothered us. He would also love if we did it in a way that was dishonoring and disrespectful to one another. He would also love if we made every little thing the biggest of deals and that we were so emotional and reactional about it. He would love for there to be the most destruction possible.

But God wants us to be free. He wants us to have unity. He has set up ways of saying, be gentle in your approach. Know that love can stop things. Love can change things. We see that in Proverbs. We see that in scripture, in the instructions. Go to that person. Sometimes it can be just that simple of saying things out loud. Words can have the power and that freedom.

But the reality is that we all need to grow in how we walk through conflict. We all need to grow in how we apply the wisdom that God has given us to conflict. To be honest, we would be so unwise to think that we have figured it all out.

So today I want us to take some time and to process through how we handle conflict or maybe even a conflict that you're in right now in a relationship with someone. In just a minute here, I'm going to give us a chance if you want to stand up and move or spread out or you need to go grab a piece of paper or whatever to just process through this. Because I don't want us to be people that are scared of conflict but instead know how to look for resolution. Instead of thinking, oh no, like what's going to happen, think what could happen if this was resolved? What could happen if we walked in wisdom together? And remember that conflict requires confrontation. But oftentimes before we can face the conflict with others, we have to face the conflict within.

Here's what I have you do. I want everybody to pick a conflict that you have either been in or that you are currently walking through. And it can be a super small thing, or maybe it is a bigger thing. Maybe there's someone in your life that you're like, I know I have to forgive and I'm really struggling to do that. And it could be something that needs to be addressed. It could be something that doesn't need to be addressed and something that you have to work through with the Lord.

I'm going to give you a few minutes to just walk through and process these questions with the Holy Spirit. And even this is kind of a moment for us to just remember and be reminded that you hear from the Holy Spirit. So he might even right now, as you just take a second and you ask, he might show you things that you didn't even know that were going on. He could remind you of things. There's so many ways that he can speak to you.

Maybe even as I've been talking, he's been drawing your attention to something. But I'm just going to give you a second. For this first one, just close your eyes and ask the Holy Spirit, is there a conflict or something that I am avoiding? Would you just ask him right now to just show you, Holy Spirit, would you show us: is there a conflict or something that we have been avoiding? If anything came to mind, I want you to just take a minute and just write that down and then follow these next set of questions.

Ask him next to show you: why am I avoiding it and what am I afraid of? Why am I avoiding it? What am I afraid of? Then ask, where do I need to ask for forgiveness? How should I address this conflict? Or even, do I need to address this conflict? And then, is there anything else that you want me to know?

I'm going to give you guys a few minutes to just sit with the Holy Spirit. These are on the slides if you want to look up and be reminded. But just ask him, what am I avoiding or afraid of? God, where do I need to ask for forgiveness? Should I address this conflict? Holy Spirit, for these next few moments, would you just speak to us? And would you show us?