Responding to Conflict

Many, many years ago, my brother and I came across a book entitled The Batman Handbook. The back cover said it was “the ultimate real-world training manual for the aspiring super hero.”

Chapter 1 covered things like how to make a Batsuit and how to bulletproof your Batmobile. Chapter 2 dealt with skills like how to throw a grappling hook, how to see in the dark, and how to execute a backflip.

Chapter 3 of the book was entirely dedicated to fighting skills and included sections like: how to disarm a gunman, how to break a chokehold, and how to jump out of a tall building.

Chapter 4 was about detective skills like photographing a crime scene, determining the cause and time of death, and extracting a confession.

The final chapter dealt with escape skills like how to win a coin toss, or how to survive a poison gas attack, and how to withstand hypnosis.

As a kid, that kind of stuff was very interesting to me. Even now, as an adult, there’s still a little bit of interest, though I’m more aware that that kind of stuff falls more into the fantasy category.

Sometime after I finished with high school, I remember watching a TV show called “Man vs Wild.” They’d put a guy in some remote part of an island or a jungle or a desert, and he would show the viewers how to survive. And in my mind, it wasn’t just for entertainment, it was educational.

But as much as I liked the show, looking back, I have to admit that it wasn’t a very practical education. In fact, educational television is a bit of an oxymoron. For one, whatever survival skills I might have learned didn’t last very long. And secondly, even if I could retain what I was learning, there was probably only a slight fraction of a percent that I would ever get to put it to use.

Knowing how to get water and shelter and fire and medical help can be important, but they’re not the types of things I’m dealing with in everyday life.

I’m not a hunter stuck in the forest for weeks at a time. I’m not a soldier going out into active deployment. I’ve lived in Pico Rivera practically my entire life. The greatest survival skills I will probably ever put to use are how to change a flat tire, and how to microwave eggs. That’s it.

This morning, however, I want to give you a survival skill that you can all put to use. In fact, you will have countless opportunities to put it to use. And as you put this skill to use, you will find yourself increasingly proficient at it, increasingly grateful for the results, and increasingly effective for the kingdom of Jesus Christ.

We’re coming to the final section of our series on Christian unity, and the survival skill I want to arm you with today is how to resolve conflict. How to resolve conflict. This is going to be a more practical extension to what we talked about last week.

I would say, that to some degree or another, all of you were involved in some kind of conflict with another person this week. Could have been a big one, could have been a small one. Could have been in person, or could have been electronic.

To make a conflict, you need two major ingredients. The first ingredient is a difference between two or more parties. People who agree on something don’t have a conflict over it. You need some kind of difference or opposition. The second ingredient is frustration. There has to be some kind of emotional response in one of the parties. So, in order to have a conflict you basically need a difference of opinion, and you need some frustration.

If you get frustrated all by yourself, that might be some kind of inner conflict, but it’s not an interpersonal conflict, like we’re talking about today. And if you disagree with someone, but nobody is actually bothered by it, that’s not a conflict either. It’s just a difference.

But when you get a difference of opinion, and that differences produces some kind of frustration or tension, then you’ve got a conflict.

You can have a conflict with anybody else, right? You can argue with your parents. You can have a conflict with your coworkers. You can argue with your kids. You can argue with your neighbors. The list just goes on and on.

And the list of things you can fight over or argue about is just as long, right? You can get frustrated with another person for any number of reasons, ranging from the trivial and superficial, to the profound and significant. We can, and do, find anything to fight about.

So, in learning about how to resolve a conflict, we need to start by understanding what’s really going on. Someone might say they’re arguing over money, or over household chores, or over an unrealistic deadline, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

The problem won’t simply be solved by receiving more time, or more money, or less work. That would be like a duct-tape solution. It works for now, but pretty soon, you’ll just get another problem.

At a deeper level, there are other issues. There are some character traits and some relational skills that you need to help you build strong relationships. And I’m grateful for my professor Dr. Ernie Baker who put this list together for a class I took on Conflict Resolution.

Beneath the surface issues we have character traits and relational skills that help us stay out of conflict, or get out of it sooner.

You have character traits like humility and patience and gentleness and self-control. The people who lack those qualities get into conflicts much more easily, and they struggle to get out.

Alongside those qualities, you also have relational skills that are connected to conflict. This would include: communication, and the understanding and fulfilling of roles, and mutual worship and fellowship, and service toward others. The better you get at those kinds of relational skills, the better you will be able to avoid and to deal with conflict.

Each of those character traits and each of those relational skills could be a sermon, or even a series, all on its own. We’re not going to do that. Our focus for today is the specific skill of conflict resolution.

And if you want to get better at resolving conflict, you need to recognize that there’s something even deeper that’s behind it all.

Deeper than the immediate issue, and even deeper than your character traits and relational skills, is the deepest level of who you are as a human being. This is the control center of your life. And it’s known as your heart. Your heart. Not the physical organ, but the spiritual center of who you are.

That’s the problem here. The problem you’re facing in a conflict is not ultimately because of money, or time, or your in-laws, or whatever else you’re fighting about. And the problem isn’t simply that you’re not a good communicator, or that you don’t spend enough meaningful time with the other person. The root issue is your heart. That’s what’s really causing the conflict.

You may have heard it said like this before: the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.

We’ve talked about the heart in previous messages, particularly when we studied Proverbs 4:23 which says: “Watch over your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

Your heart is what guides your life, either into Christ-honoring thoughts and words and actions, or into sin. You heart is made for worship. It pursues something. And what you’re pursuing can be good and righteous, if it’s God Himself in Jesus Christ, or it can be something else. And if it’s anything else, that’s called an idol.

As Martin Luther once said: “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself, that is really your God.” Your heart wants something. Your heart desires something.

James chapter 4, in speaking about conflict, asks the question: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.”

To put it simply, conflict comes when someone doesn’t get what he/she wants. It’s actually that simple.

The difficulty comes because many times, without even thinking about it, we function as if what we want is righteous or better than what somebody else wants. Or we get our desires out of priority.

And complicating the issues is the fact that the idols of our heart are not easily determined. Many times, they’re hidden from us. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things… who can understand it?”

The heart cannot be easily understood. Proverbs says it’s like a deep well, and it takes wisdom to draw it out.

Also complicating the issue is that from a human perspective the heart cannot be transformed. We’re all born with greater desire for ourselves, than for another person, or for God.

Never have any of my children, in their first year of life ever communicated: “Mom, I’m thirsty, but I realize you have some chores to do, and you’d probably like to shower and use the bathroom. So why don’t you go ahead and take care of that stuff, and then I’ll get some milk when you’re all done.”

They don’t think like that. If we could put words to a baby’s cry, I think a good word would be, “Me! Me! Me! Pay attention to me. Give me what I want.” We’re born a lovers of self.

But thank the Lord, in Jesus Christ, in the power of the gospel, not only is there forgiveness, but there is the transformation of the heart. We are a new creation. Our heart of stone has become a heart of flesh. That doesn’t mean we’re sinless now, but it does mean we have a taste and a desire for God now. And we’ve been empowered to battle against our sin, by the power of the Spirit.

And that means that just like the gospel has addressed the infinite separation between you, as a sinner, and an infinitely holy God, the gospel will also empower you to address the conflicts we have with one another. And it will allow us to address conflict at the deepest level.

So what you need, when there’s a conflict is to, not just address the external issues, but to address the human heart. And in order to help you do that better, the best biblical tool I know of, in terms of Christian authors, is what has been developed by Ken Sande. And it’s available in both the websites of Peacemaker.training and rw360.org.

Ken Sande wrote a book entitled The Peace Maker. I have a copy in the church library. That was later condensed into a smaller book called Resolving Everyday Conflict.

This is such a helpful book, and what we’ve done is purchase about a dozen copies of this book in both English and Spanish, and we’ll have those available in the book cart outside during the fellowship time next week.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book to all of you. It’s so helpful and so clear. And that’s because it’s biblical and practical.

The Conflict Resolution tool described in those books is known as the 4 G’s of Peacemaking. The 4 G’s of peacemaking.

For the past four years of preaching here, I don’t think I’ve ever done this, but I’m going to just rip off someone else’s material entirely. I’m going to give you a crash course in Conflict Resolution following Ken Sande’s “4 G’s of Peacemaking.”

We’ll cover the first two today, and then we’ll finish it next week. Okay? The 4 G’s of Peacemaking, and I’m going to give them to you upfront. Just so you know, these principles were originally laid out in the bigger book The Peacemaker. And then they were relabeled in the smaller book Resolving Everyday Conflict. So I’ll give you both. I’ll give you the updated title, and then I’ll also give you the older, more expanded title.

Principle number 1: Go higher. Go higher. That’s the way it’s listed in the smaller book. The original heading for it was “Glorify God.” Glorify God. They both start with a G, so you can take your pick. Go higher, and glorify God. That’s going to deal with placing this conflict within the proper perspective.

Principle number 2 is “Get Real. Get Real.” The original title for it was “Get the log out of your eye.” That has to do with admitting your own contribution to the conflict.

Principle number 3 is: Gently Engage, or Gently Restore. Gently engage, or gently restore. And this is where we start getting to plan how we’ll talk to the other person about what’s happened.

Principle number 4 is Get Together, or Go and Be Reconciled. Again, they all start with a G, so you can call it whatever you want. Get together, or go and be reconciled. Once you’ve seriously and honestly done all the preparatory work, then you’re ready to step out and meet with the person.

Let’s start out with principle number one: Go higher and glorify God. The primary verse for this principle is found in 1 Corinthians 10:31, which many of you will recognize.

I would encourage you to find it in your own Bible because that’s a verse that should be marked. First Corinthians 10:31— “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Now, in the specific context of that passage, Paul is talking about eating meat that’s been sacrificed to idols. But what he’s doing it applying a principle that covers all of life, even something like eating and drinking.

And since it’s an all-encompassing principle, then  it covers even how you respond to conflict. Your primary goal, in any conflict, should be to glorify God. It should be to worship God.

Our God is sovereign. That means He rules over every detail of life. So, He is fully aware you’re in the conflict. In fact, He knew it would happen. He allowed it to happen.

But what happens in a conflict, especially as the emotions start to rise, is that we forget about God. We forget about living for and responding to Him. But He’s there in the middle of it.

God is in your living room when you’re arguing with your spouse or with your parents or your kids. God is there when you’ve got an angry email or text message you’re about to send. So you need to stop whatever it is that you’re thinking, and think about glorifying God.

What’s your motivation in a trial? What are you after? Typically, your goal is to either get rid of the conflict or win the conflict. Isn’t that right?

Peacemaker Ministries has a diagram that you can look up on your own, and it’s called “The Slippery Slope of Conflict.” And it’s shaped like a hill, or a semi-circle. On the center of that hill is peacemaking, which is what God calls us to do.

But on the ends of that hill, on either side of it, you’ve got two different options, and they are options that do not honor God. One side is labeled Escape, and the other side is labeled Attack. Those are the wrong responses we’re tempted to have in conflict. And if you look at the Slippery Slope diagram on your own, but it goes into detail describing examples of how we can attack or escape.

We either want to shoot out of there as fast as we can, or we want to do whatever we can to make sure we win. Each of you probably has your own inclination, but you can also switch your preferences from one argument to another.

I’ve heard these extremes described as the turtle and the shark. The turtle just wants to run back into its shell, and the shark wants to come out and fight. They want to get this over with. They want this settled now.

If you’re a turtle, and you’re arguing with a shark, they come off as insensitive and harsh. And if you’re a shark, and you’re going at it with a turtle, they come off as wimpy and weak and unwilling to deal with the issues.

If you have two turtles in a conflict, then the house might be quiet, but issues don’t get resolved in any meaningful way. It’s a false peace. And if you’ve got two sharks arguing, then everybody knows about it.

But the point of the diagram is to recognize that whether you are a turtle or a shark, whether you’d rather attack or escape in the moment, you are not honoring God, because you’re not seeking genuine peace. You’re either trying to fake peace, or you’re trying to make war.

The question you need to be asking yourself is not: “How do I get out of this?” or “How do I get this over with?” or “How do I win this?” … The question you’re supposed to be asking is, “How can I glorify God in this situation? How can I please Christ as my Lord? How can I approach this situation as an act of worship?”

What does Romans 8:28 say? Very familiar verse. All things work together for good. And the “good” in that passage is that we are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. We’re being sanctified.

So you need to take a moment, step back from what’s happening, and think about that. Ask yourself, “How is God using this so that His attributes get put on display? How can I show Christ in this situation and how can I become more like Him?”

That is supposed to be your driving desire. Not getting your kids to obey. Not getting your boss to appreciate us. Not getting your wife to listen or your husband to love you.

None of those desires are inherently sinful, but when they become the driving desire, when you are willing to sin because you aren’t getting something, then you aren’t honoring Christ anymore. You’re not living for His glory, you’re living for your own.

And this brings us to the second principle for conflict resolution: Get Real—Get the log out of your eye.

The wording comes right out of Matthew chapter 7, and I’d like you to turn there. Matthew chapter 7, this is the final chapter from what we call The Sermon on the Mount. And some have said that it is one of the most well-known and quoted passages among non-believers. Matthew 7, verses 1-5.

“Judge not, that you be not judged. ²For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. ³Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? ⁴Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? ⁵You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."

Speck refers a piece of straw or a twig. That word “log” is referring to a supporting beam in a house. Big difference, right?

What is Jesus saying? He’s saying that the biggest concern to you should be your own sin. You need to hate that and be more bothered by that, than by the sin of someone else.

Jesus doesn’t say, ignore the sin in another person’s life. That would be unloving. But what He’s saying is, before you think about addressing the sin in another person’s life, think about your own sin.

We’re gonna get to how to talk to the other person about their sin, that’s principle number 3, but Jesus says before you get to that, you need to think about yourself.

One of the most common responses you get, when you step into someone else’s conflict is, “Well, he started it.” Maybe so, but that kind of response indicates that the person is more concerned with the other person’s sin than their own. And that’s not what Jesus wants.

The question Jesus wants you to really stop and ask yourself is, “What did I do to contribute to this conflict? How have I added fuel to this fire?” Don’t rush past that. Ask it in prayer, like David does in Psalm 139—"Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me.”

That’s not an easy prayer to make, but it’s a godly one. You’re asking God to check your motive. To check your heart.

And in addition to what we call “sins of commission,” meaning bad things you did, there are also sins of omission, meaning good things you didn’t do.

So you should also ask yourself, “What didn’t I do that might have helped, or even avoided, this conflict?”

And this step is dealing with two groups. First, you’re confessing to God. This is the extension of principle number 1. So you might pray something like, “God, I was more concerned about not being embarrassed than I was about loving my children the way you love me. Forgive me.” Or, “Lord, I was so selfish in what I said. I responded to evil with more evil.”

Don’t rush past this step. You need to pause and think about your own sin before God, and then secondly toward the other person.

Did you say unloving things? I’m not asking if you cursed. I’m asking if you spoke in a way that did not have the intent of giving grace. Even if you didn’t speak, did you convey a divisive attitude. Did you miss an opportunity to allow God’s grace to come into this situation?

So, don’t just think about actions. Think about words and thoughts and attitudes.

One of the great examples we have in the Bible for confession comes to us in Psalm 51. It’s David’s confession for adultery and murder, and I would commend that to you for reading this week too.

What you find in Psalm 51 is not a guy trying to defend himself, or trying to excuse his behavior. He owns all of it. And he recognizes that God has the right to impose whatever kind of consequences He wants.

Peacemaker Ministries has developed a list known as the Seven A’s of confession. You can get the book and read more about it, and I think some have even added an 8^th principle.

They’re so helpful, and I would commend that to you, or find me afterward, and I’ll give them to you. But the main point here is that we are putting ourselves in a mindset that is asking for forgiveness.

The world like to use the word apology, which really only means you feel some regret. An apology isn’t bad, but it isn’t enough. We’ don’t just apologize to God or to one another. The Bible calls us to ask for forgiveness. That’s the posture of humility. That’s the posture of a person who recognizes that they have done something wrong.

I don’t remember the exact quote, but I remember hearing a pastor and counselor say, “Look, even if you have only contributed 5% of the conflict, you need to own 100% of what you’ve contributed.”

Recognize the holiness of God. Recognize that nobody stands guiltless before Him, apart from Jesus Christ.

What was it that you were desiring more than the glory of God in Jesus Christ? Remember the words of James 4. It’s our desires that have led to this conflict. Ken Sande, on his rw360 website, says: “Some of these desires are obviously sinful, such as wanting to conceal the truth, bend others to your will, or have revenge. In many situations, however, conflict is fueled by good desires that you have elevated to sinful demands, such as a craving to be understood, loved, respected, or vindicated.”

So again, go to God in humility, and ask Him for the grace to see your own sin in what’s happening. Ask Him to show you how you have been worshipping something, you have been seeking satisfaction, in something other than our glorious God in Jesus Christ.

And once you do that, once you’ve taken the time to meditate on the situation and on how God’s word applies, then you’ve taken the log out of your eye, and you’re ready to start dealing with the speck in your brother’s eye.

And we’ll talk about that next week with the final two principles, when we discuss how to gently restore, and how to go and be reconciled.