Carp is in your way, sorry. But if you'd like to move, feel free to welcome, feel free to move to where you can see better, and that would be perfectly fine. There is a handout also for today. Did anybody not receive a handout? Anybody need a handout? There you go. Anybody else? They're free. They're free today. They're free today. Well, I think we will go ahead and get started today. I think I'm one or two minutes early, but since I'm the pastor of the church, I guess I can be a minute early. So let me ask you please to take your Bibles and we'll turn together to the book of Colossians. Colossians chapter three. Get my brain together for a minute. All right, you are in the workshop session about handling conflicts biblically. If you're married in this session and one of you doesn't want to be here, then you're in the right spot. This is a topic that I am no expert on, but I have done some study and research on it and tried to teach through some things in a marriage class, for instance, or I've taught through this in a Sunday sermon series to our church family on a couple of occasions. But this is something that is a burden on me, but it's something that I think can be and ought to be addressed by God's people in a way that is helpful, that is honoring to the Lord, and that can truly help us move forward to advance, really, the cause of Christ. What I'm going to share with you today in the series that I preach to my church, this is really the first part. So this is a broad subject, okay? how to handle conflicts biblically. And at the end or the back side of your handout, you see several resources there. I'll point those out at the end. But as we begin this discussion, I want us to understand, initially, conflict is inevitable. Okay, conflict is inevitable. Okay, good old Calvin and Hobbes teaches us that. We live in a fallen world. And because of that, conflicts between people, we're talking about interpersonal conflicts with people. These are inevitable, whether it's marital conflicts, parent-child conflicts, conflicts at your work situation, conflicts in your church. I know none of us have problems in our church. But if they were ever to come, this is why. Conflicts are inevitable. And perhaps you've been in an occasion where you've been in the midst of a conflict with someone. And for whatever reason, it hasn't worked out well, hasn't ended well, hasn't resolved itself in a biblical fashion. And hopefully, at least today's discussion can at least start the process, perhaps, of thinking through these in a more biblical level. In my years of pastoral ministry, one of the biggest problems I see within the church is that people don't know how to think and respond biblically to conflicts. It could be over something as mundane as the color of a carpet. People get into conf, and I know that's kind of the joke, oh, the church split over the carpet shade. It's probably not as as silly as we might think, things like that happen in our churches. And it's unfortunate that it does, but it does happen. I want us to turn here to Colossians 3 and look at a series of verses. I lost my glasses, oh well. Colossians chapter 3, let's read beginning in verse 1. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth, for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth for an occasion, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence." That's a word I doubt you've used in the last month of your life, unless you're reading this passage. from the King James, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience, in the which he also walked some time when you lived in them, meaning you should no longer be living in them because you're risen with Christ. Verse 8, but now you also put off all these, anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth, Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things, put on charity or love, which is the bond of perfectness. And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also you're called in one body, and be ye thankful. Okay, now that's a lot in that passage. And obviously I don't have time to really dissect every one of those things to put off or every one of those things to put on. We'll mention a few particularly this morning. But just make a general observation that the Apostle Paul is admonishing the Colossian Church to act in a certain way, to adopt certain characteristics and character traits that are in alignment with Christ. and to put off those things that aren't. And particularly, we'll spend some time, especially in verses 12, 13, 14, and 15, because these are a lot of where the battles rage. This is where the conflict tends to really come about for the most part, and there's a lot here to study and consider. What I wanna do in this session is just give you three foundational truths. You say, well, I have four or five. That's fine, I'll give you three, and you can add your own after that. Okay, with three foundational truths that I think are important based on the teaching of the text that are important for us to understand as we strive, and we ought to be striving, to handle conflict in a biblical way. Okay, first foundational truth is this. Our biggest problem is not others, our biggest problem is ourselves. So often when there are conflicts, we hear people say something like, well, that person made me so mad, or variations on that theme. It's much easier to blame others than it is to focus on our own problems. But this is a foundational truth. I mean, Paul, in this passage, he's not saying, and make sure your wife puts on bowels of mercies and kindness and humbleness of mind, because if she doesn't, you have every right to lash out. It doesn't say that. It directs it to you. You put these on. Every one of us, these things are directed to us personally. And yes, to your wife or your husband or your child, but that's God's dealing with them through his word. But as we're reading the text of scripture, as you read a passage like this, you say, I need to do this. My biggest problem is me. No one else makes me do what I do. No one else makes me say what I say. I choose to do those things. Jesus said that it's from our heart that all kinds of evil things come in Matthew 7. So this is true. Our biggest problem is not others, our biggest problem is ourselves. Why is that true? Let's take a biblical survey of just general teaching why that's true. First, our sinfulness makes us our biggest problem. This is not, there's not one part of our being that has not been affected by the fall. Every aspect of your life has been tainted. Your thinking, your response habits, your activities, what you desire, They've been tainted by the fall, our words, attitudes, ideas, and so forth. When we deal with people, it is our sin that must be at the forefront of our minds. One of the books I'll recommend is this one by Robert D. Jones, who wrote this in his book, Pursuing Peace. Whose sins bother you more, your sins or the other person's? That's a good question. There have been several times when I've been meeting with someone, discipling them, and I've thought to myself, and I've even asked this question before, you need to be more fed up with your own sinfulness than you are with the other person's. Your sins cause you the problems. But very often we are so easy to blame other people and we don't take the blame for ourselves. We do not respond biblically to conflict, but rather we choose to respond unbiblically because our sinful nature leads us to do this. Another good book by Paul David Tripp, sinners tend to respond sinfully to being sinned against. That's true. This is our tendency. Because we're sinful, the fall has tainted even our tendency. And God seeks to change that in our lives. So, we are sinful people. We are also selfish. Our selfishness makes us our biggest problem. We do not want to be merciful, as the text tells us to. We don't want to be kind to others. We want them to be kind to me. You need to show me mercy. You need to show me forgiveness. You need to show me love, rather than us saying, I need to show mercy, I need to show kindness, I need to show love, and so forth. We do not want to yield ourselves to others. We want others to yield themselves to us. We're selfish creatures wanting the attention to be focused on us rather than someone else. This is a tendency of all humanity. All of us are like this. Now by God's grace, the redemption of Christ, right? If we have been risen with Christ, which all of us who are saved, that's us, then God should be changing that tendency. through the power of the Spirit of God through His Word. That selfishness that is bound in our hearts, God wants to change to say, rather than desiring everything to serve you, how can you serve others? So we're sinful, we're selfish, and we're also proud. Our pride makes us our biggest problem. Proverbs 13.10 said, it's only by pride that contention comes. It's our pride. Say, I know it's their pride that made this happen. Well, be careful. Take the blame. Our pride is what causes us to want the focus to be on our own wants and desires rather than others. But we're told in verse 12, for instance, you look there, we're told one of the things to put on is humbleness of mind, humility. We're to put that on, meaning there's the inference there that it's not normally a part of us. We have to take that idea and put it on like a piece of clothing, right? Peter said, be clothed or clothe yourself with humility. Because it doesn't come naturally. Our pride balks at that. I don't want to be humble. Because we think, if I'm going to act in a humble fashion, then Then what? If I humble myself before my wife, for instance, then she's going to fill in the blank. She's going to, variations on this theme, run all over me. Or vice versa. If I humble myself before my husband, he's just going to treat me like a rug, walk all over me. But folks, even that is proud. When it comes right down to it, we deserve to be walked all over. We deserve a lot more than that, a lot worse than that. But our pride manipulates God's truth and say, well, I can't do that because if I do that, then this is going to happen. When we just need to humble ourselves even before the Word of God and say, I need to obey the scripture and let God control what happens. Pride goes into attack mode when we feel threatened. In conflict, our pride rises and causes us to say biting and demeaning words, often in loud and domineering tones. Oswald Sanders' book Spiritual Leadership wrote, pride ever lurks at the heels of power, but God will not encourage proud men in his service, rather he will oppose and obstruct them. Can you think of a biblical verse that tells us that? Okay, pride goes before destruction, haughty spirit before fall. Think of another one? It's mentioned three times, at least three times in your Bible, once in Proverbs, once in James, once in 1 Peter. What is it? God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. I just preached on that verse to our church a couple weeks ago. That's a universal principle. Old and New Testament, God always resists the proud and he always gives grace to the humble. Our selfishness, our sinfulness, our pride is why we are our biggest problems. And if that's true, and I'd say since that's true, then the second foundational truth, our biggest need then is not personal gratification, but it is spiritual growth. We often think that our biggest need is for us to be happy through others serving us and meeting our needs. And because our expectations of that are not being met, I'm not going to be happy. Because that's what's most important to me. In other words, we think that our own gratification in life is what we need most in conflict. This is why in conflicts, we're so locked in to getting our own needs met and our own way followed. Our selfish, sinful pride demands what we want, believing if we get what we want, then all will be well. There's a word for that, a lie. That's a lie. People who believe that are believing something that is not true. We think it's true because of our selfish, sinful pride gives us that statement. If you just had everything you want, if everyone just met your needs, if everyone just did what you said, everything would be great. The only person who can say that is Christ. And you're not him, neither am I. God designs life to work in such a way that our own gratification comes through the means of growth in Christlikeness. You want to be happy? Then follow what these verses say. Put off all those selfish, sinfully proud things that he says to put off. Put on these things that Paul says to put on. You know what will happen as a byproduct of that? Well, verse 15, the peace of God will rule in your hearts. There will be a sense of satisfaction, happiness if you want to call it. I think blessedness is perhaps a really good way to say it. Joy. I've told people at times when I've talked to them, if there's interpersonal conflicts, I say, I'm not on your side and I'm not on your side. I'm on God's side in this. And my desire is for both of you to stop fighting for yourself and fight for God. Because when you do that, the closer you draw yourself closer to the Lord, the closer you'll be together. And there are a few things here that we must keep in mind with regards then to our own sanctification. First of all, we need the love of Christ to grow in our hearts. This is what verse 14 specifically mentions and says, that's the supreme thing above all these things put on love. That's the bond of perfectness. Our love for God must flow out in our love for others. This is based on the two greatest commandments, right? Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. The second is like into it, love your neighbor as yourself. On those two things hang everything. If you are seeking after to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, the natural byproduct of that is that I'm gonna strive to love my neighbor in a relationship kind of situations, husband, your closest neighbor is your wife and vice versa, but church neighbors, family neighbors, work neighbors, you're gonna strive to love them as yourself. And by the way, that doesn't create a third set of love that you have to keep straight first. Our problem is that we love ourselves too much. We love others. Love God and love your neighbor. Those are the two greatest commandments. Now, this love for others doesn't mean we ignore sin. It does mean sacrificial, scriptural responses to what is going on. But even that is done in true Christian love. I can have conflicts with other people and still exhibit Christ's love to them, even as we're seeking to deal with that in a biblical fashion. Loving someone does not necessitate agreement with them, nor does it necessitate support of them. We must discipline ourselves to love more, allowing the Holy Spirit to grow this in our hearts. I can love my wife, and I do love my wife, though there are things that we will disagree about. But I can say in the 20 years that we've been married, we have never raised our voices at each other. We established right at the beginning, by God's grace, we would never yell at each other. Have we disagreed? Sure. Yeah, every couple does that. That doesn't mean we have to blow up at each other. That's sinful. That's sinful. Secondly, we need humility of Christ to be cultivated in our hearts. Verse 12 speaks of humbleness of mind. Humility has been called the queen of Christian virtues. Humility is willing to respect others even in disagreement. I think it was A.W. Tozer who said, a Pharisee is hard on others and easy on himself, but a spiritual man is easy on others and hard on himself. Now, this doesn't mean that confrontation of the sin of others cannot happen. But even when that is necessary, it is to be done with a spirit of humility, not in haughtiness and pride. Galatians 6 talks about that. If you see someone who's caught up in a fault, you who are spiritual, doesn't mean that you're the super Christian. It means you're seeking by God's grace to live in accordance with Galatians 5, walking in the spirit. You who are spiritual seek to restore such a one in a spirit of meekness. Be mindful lest you be caught up as well. There's a humility there that must be in place. Then also we need the peace of Christ to rule our hearts. Verse 15, for the peace of God rule in your hearts, it says there. We must respond to conflict in a peaceful and honorable way, and when you do that, that peace will perpetuate. On our part, we must live peaceably with people as much as we can, as Romans 12 says, right? As much as lies within you, be at peace with all men. Peace is not the absence of conflict, but it is living for the glory of God through our Lord Jesus Christ under the control of His Spirit and Word, no matter what the situation may be. Conflict does not need to remove the peace in our hearts. We must have the peace of God that passes all understanding and allow that to guard our hearts and minds by Christ Jesus, even in the midst of conflict. Now, none of this makes the conflict go away. Okay, you understand that. But foundational truths help us to get us on a footing, like a foundation, you put footings down and all this kind of stuff, it gets you on a better footing so that you can biblically and properly address what's going on. And then we need to adopt the mind of Christ. All of these things in these verses were exemplified by our Savior. He responded to conflict in ways that were honoring to his Father every time. His mindset must be ours whenever conflicts arise. Again, this takes training and often undoing a mindset that we've trained ourselves to have for so long. People say, well, this is just how I am, Pastor. This is just the personality God has given me. Well, let's hold on. Is the personality that you have, yes, but does God not want to reshape that personality to be what He wants it to be? I mean, consider the Apostle Peter as a good example of that. Peter was impetuous, vocal, outspoken, all those kind of things. God used that, but God reshaped that. to be what he wanted, and then Peter launched out and did incredible things for the Lord. God wants to reshape the personality that we have, not get rid of it, but just hone it and form it and transform it and sanctify it to be what he wants it to be. We sing the hymn, we do, I don't know if you do. This hymn, May the mind of Christ, my savior, live in me from day to day by his love and power controlling all I do and say. That's a tremendous hymn. If you don't know it, look it up. Kate Wilkinson, 1925. It's in our supplemental notebook in the pews there. Wonderful hymn, May the mind of Christ live in me from day to day. Our sanctification must be of utmost priority in our lives. God's goal for every believer is to grow to be more like Christ. Since that's the case, then we get to foundational truth three. Our greatest goal then must not be to win an argument, but to glorify God. The glory of God is the chief end of man. It is the quintessential purpose for all of creation. We must do all to the glory of God, all to the glory of God, including handling conflicts. In light of this, we do not always have to prove we're right. We don't always have to prove we're right. This is difficult for many of us. We get into an argument about something and we fight to prove that we're right, even if we're not. And this mentality is merely reflective of a lust for power and control over people and over a situation. I'm right. I know I'm right. I'm going to tell you I'm right. I'm going to prove to you that I'm right. And you're going to know that I'm right by the time we're done. But even if you're right, that doesn't mean you always have to prove it. There's one instance in the scripture that I find fascinating. The night before Christ died, Christ is talking with his disciples, and he tells them all, you're all gonna forsake me, you're all gonna leave me. And Peter pipes up. Nah, they might, but I'll never forsake you. I'd die for you, Lord. And Jesus clarifies his statement, particularly to Peter. He says, Peter, before this night is done, you will deny me three times." And again, Peter vehemently said, no, no, no, I'll never do that, blah, blah, blah. But after that, Jesus doesn't say anything. The night goes on, Jesus is arrested, Peter follows loosely behind, denies the Lord three times. And what happens after that third denial? I believe it's in Luke's gospel. There's one little phrase that I find so piercing that Jesus looked at Peter. Can you imagine when Peter's eyes met the Lord's? Now, I don't think Jesus looked at Peter like, told you so, bud. You should have listened to me, you idiot. No, I think it was a look of love, compassion. And Peter knew, Lord, you were right. I don't believe we have to prove we're right all the time. I think humility will sometimes allow us to say, That other person will find out if I am right, and if I'm not, I'll be the first one to admit I was wrong. But this is important. Can't click with my phone. We don't have to prove we're always right. We must, though, readily confront our own sin. If we're going to glorify God, that means we've got to address the sin that's in our heart. In conflict, there is rarely, if ever, rarely a time, and I say if ever, because I don't want to be overly dogmatic, but I can't think of any, that conflict is only one-sided. It takes two to tangle, two people to mix it up. Whatever your role is in the conflict, be ready and willing to confront your own sin You can't help how the other person may respond or act or what they'll say, but you must respond to your own sin in a way that honors God. You say, well, I didn't do much. Well, then take whatever little that you contribute to the problem, whatever, if it's only 1% of the 100 that you're responsible to say, yeah, I wronged him this way, then own 100% of that 1% and deal with it in a biblical way. Own your sin. Everyone sins. Everyone knows you have problems. Everyone knows I have problems. We're not hiding it from anybody. Admit the sin that everybody else can see. And own your own sin. And know also this doesn't guarantee that when you do that, that the other person will reciprocate. That's not the guarantee. They might, and that's the prayer, but they might not. But whether they do or don't doesn't mean that you shouldn't. You deal with, as Dr. Berg would say, you deal with your side of the wedge, because you're responsible for that. Confront your own sin. And God's grace is sufficient for that. Which leads to this, we cannot control the words or actions of others. You can't determine or control what that person will say to you or about you. You can't control how that person will feel towards you or express to you or do to you. You can only control yourself. And in light of that, don't seek after revenge. Oh, man, that's the heart of so many people in conflict. Oh, yeah, you do that to me? Well, look out, bud. I'm going to come after you. Or you're talking to someone, well, what led you to this? Well, they did this, so I did that to them. We do that with children. Why'd you hit her? Because she hit me first. So it was right for you to hit her when she hit you first? Don't seek after revenge. Verse 8 tells us to put off anger and all of its cousins. Our thirst for revenge comes because of our thirst for power. We think to ourselves, how dare they do that to me? I'll show them. And we follow that with acts of revenge. But Romans 12 tells us to give place to your anger. That's to God. God is the avenger. God is the avenger. God will make right. Now, again, that doesn't mean you You gloss over sin, you confront the issue that's there, but you don't seek revenge in the process. The goal of every Christian at every moment of his life and every relationship that he has and every circumstance that he faces should be to glorify God, not himself. And that includes even times of conflict with others. Let me conclude with a statement. I'll recommend some books and maybe a couple minutes for questions. Don't settle for the world's methods of conflict resolution. Let the word of God rule over your marriage, your home, and your church, and handle conflicts in a biblical way for the glory of God. Folks, don't let Dr. Phil determine your theology of handling conflicts biblically. Now, he might say something that's good, but that's only because it matches what the Bible has already said. But take your theology of handling conflicts biblically from the Bible. Don't swallow the world's pill. But look after God's word and let it shape you. Now, in light of this, let me share with you a couple of resources. I think these are all listed in the book, but I'll show them to you. Instruments in a Redeemer's Hand by Paul David Tripp, excellent book about how to help people. People, the subtitle, People in Need of Change, Helping People in Need of Change. So as I mentioned in this book, Pursuing Peace by Robert Jones, this was an excellent read, excellent read. This one specifically deals with parents and children called Get Out of My Face by Rick Horn. If you are dealing with angry children or know someone like that, that could be a good read resource for you. Paul Tripp's book also War of Words. Our ladies in our church went through this recently in a ladies Bible study and they really enjoyed this. It's a good book as well. And then Peacemaker that's been around for a while by Ken Sandy. Also a good resource in this idea as well. All right, I think we have two or three minutes left. Any comments or questions you want to add today to this? It's like I know it's taking a drink out of a fire hydrant and I get that, but maybe something click here. Anything you want to add to this or ask? Make sense? All right, well, let's pray and we'll be dismissed and get ready for the last session. Our Father, we know that in the conflict of life that you were the one to reach down and initiate resolving our conflict with you. You gave us your Son who died on the cross for us even while we were yet sinners. The forgiveness that we have in Christ is so important in this discussion because in that we are humbled and we see your love on display. And Lord, help us as your people who have been risen with Christ to set our affections on that which is above. and to not let our minds be clogged up with the psycho babble of the world. That we would allow your truth, your scriptures to permeate us so that when conflicts do arise between us and someone else, that we can address those in a way that would honor you. And Lord, as with any situation like this, the ultimate goal and desire is to glorify you, and to resolve the conflicts in a biblical way that honors you. And we pray that you would help us to think through these things more. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.