How to Resolve Conflict in Relationships, Part 2

Final reason is probably the most basic. Carnality. Likely the most common of all sources of disunity and disharmony, plain, old-fashioned sin and selfishness are still the primary culprits in relational conflict. The answer always is repentance, confession, and forgiveness, and following God’s commands.

See, the fact is that the real reason, 1 Corinthians 1:10 to 13, the whole chapter, 1 Corinthians 3, “I have heard among you, brethren, there are actually divisions among you,” Paul says, “and I believe it because some say, ‘I’m of Paul,’ some say, ‘I’m of Peter,’ some say…”

And at the root of it was their carnality. Paul writes and says, “I’d like to talk to you as mature, but I can’t. You are so small minded, you are so selfish, you are so into the politics of the church, you’re so into your own agenda, you’re so using the Church of God for a platform for your own ego strokes.” He says, “We are not flat out putting up with that!”

In fact, one of the strongest words, powerful, strongest statements in all of the New Testament is 1 Corinthians 3 about verses 16 and 17. And it talks about the Church there, the “you” is plural, speaking of the Church plural, and basically it’s a warning that if you mess with, if I mess with unity in the Church of God, the very hand of God will come down on you.

See, this unity stuff is real big to God because a disunified Church communicates to the world that Jesus wasn’t sent by the Father, that the faith isn’t true, and that this is nothing other than a glorified Lion’s Club, Rotary Club, or Kiwanis Group. All wonderful groups, by the way, not all commissioned to save the world, not all commissioned with the life-saving message of Jesus, fully God, fully man, resurrected.

See, we are not a social club. We’re an army, we’re a family, and we’re people with a purpose. And part of that purpose is we must live in harmony with one another.

I came across a list of various personality traits that give us problems. There’s the critic, constantly complains and gives unwanted advice. These are really the carnal type personalities that we have all experienced. And I’ll do this to jog your memory because I have an application at the end that you might think, “Ooh, mm, I know that person I need to talk to.”

The martyr, forever the victim and wracked with self-pity. The wet blanket, pessimistic and automatically negative about everything, all the time. The steamroller, blindly insensitive and runs over people. The gossip, spreads rumors and leaks secrets. The control freak, unable to let go and let be, if it gets out of their hands, out of their control.

The back-stabber, the irrepressibly two-faced person; the cold shoulder, the person who disengages and avoids contact when there is conflict; the volcano, builds up steam and is ready to erupt, we just don’t know when or where; the sponge, constantly in need but never gives anything back.

The workhorse, always pushes and pushes, no matter what you do, they are never satisfied. And the chameleon, the person that is eager to please and always avoids conflict.

What am I saying? I’m saying that there are lots of legitimate reasons for conflict that godly people have. Our personalities, our sin, it’s not a good reason but it’s one, isn’t it? And until Jesus comes back or you go to Him, we’re going to struggle with that, I’m going to struggle with that, we’re going to have theological differences, we’re going have philosophical differences, and just change. Every time there is change, even good change, is going to bring conflict.

So, here’s the deal, if there are that many situations that cause disharmony, and we’re commanded to live in harmony with one another, here’s the question I want to spend the rest of our time on. How can we restore harmony in relationships? How can we restore what God commands, Jesus prayed for, the early Church practiced, and when they did, it was transforming? How do we do it?

First, refuse to tolerate disunity. As far as it depends on you, Romans 12:18 says that. “Be at peace with all men, as far as it depends on you.” Refuse to tolerate disunity. As far as your relational network goes, you know there is a problem with you or with someone else, just don’t let it happen. Address it. Don’t avoid it, it won’t go away; don’t procrastinate, don’t buy that lie. “Oh, it’ll get better, I’ll give it time.”

Yeah, like an infection. You know, “Just give it time.” What’s it do? You get gangrene! That’s what happens in the Church. “Oh, well, someone will tell them.” “Yeah, who is it bothering?” “Me.” “You tell them.”

Third, don’t delegate it. That’s a coward’s way out. You know, we find someone, “Why don’t you go tell them about that problem they’re doing over in our church? They are really messing up our Bible study group. You think you could tell them?” No, why don’t you tell them?

Fourth, don’t rationalize it. That’s denial. Unresolved conflict is not an option in the body of Christ. Unity is a nonnegotiable.

Second, embrace conflict as normal and unavoidable. John 16:33, Jesus promised us, “In the world we will have tribulation.” Why? It’s a fallen world, there’s your flesh, there’s my flesh, we have multiple differences, and the enemy’s number one agenda is what? Divide and conquer.

Conflict is normal, learn to deal with it, embrace it, and grow from it.

Third, be the initiator in conflict resolution. Be the initiator. You say, “Well, it’s not my fault.” The Scripture says it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. Matthew 5:24 says, “When you come to the altar to worship God and there remember your brother has something against you, go to your brother, lay down your offering, go make it right.

Matthew 18:15 says, “If your brother has offended you, if he has sinned against you,” what? “you go and if he listens to you, you have won your brother.” In a word, when it’s perceived to be your fault, take the initiative. When it is perceived to be their fault, take the initiative. If there is a problem, take the initiative. The body and the health of Christ’s Church is more important than who is right, who is wrong, and who ought to apologize first.

Who took the first step with us and God? Who had the problem? Who brought on the problem? Us. Who took the initiative? God. Who left heaven? Jesus. Why? We had a problem. Conflict resolution. He came, dealt with the conflict, lived a perfect life, conflict resolution, made an offer, and whosoever would desire to come, you can come because He didn’t wait to figure out whose fault it was. He knew that. It was ours. Take the initiative.

Fourth, deal with you before you deal with them. Luke 6:41 is that classic passage about the speck in your eye and the log in your brother’s. What I mean by this is don’t be impulsive. Own your part even if it’s “in your mind.” “Five percent of this was me but ninety-five percent of it was them.” Okay? Tell you what, here’s what the Word of God says, “You own your five percent and you repent of your five percent and you go and tell them you are sorry for your five percent.”

Well, will they then own their ninety-five percent? I don’t know. That’s not your responsibility, is it? See, we don’t do what God says because we’re promised results, we do what God says because He says it.

Get your perspective before you try and give it to someone else.

Finally, meet together ASAP and outline the issue. Alright? You’re not going to tolerate, right? You’re not going to let disunity, disharmony go. You’re going to embrace it and say, “God is going to do something good. This is going to be painful but I’m going to do it. I’m going to take the initiative.”

You’re going to deal with the “you” before you start to deal with the “them.” And then meet together as soon as possible. Now, here’s what you do, you ready? You work on this. I got to do this last week. Got to do it last week.

At two o’clock in the morning, I’m struggling with an issue, and struggling with a very, very close friend and it was more, I saw some symptoms, and the week before I had talked to him and he is of the personality and giftedness that when you mention something casually it’s usually bang, bang, bang. I mean, the world happens.

And it was a week later and couldn’t quite figure it out and then I learned he was kind of frustrated with his job, and I was getting kind of frustrated with mine, and I was thinking, “What’s the deal here?” because I felt a little tension coming up, ministry-wise.

But what I have learned is, if you let ministry tension go, eventually it’ll end up in your relationship.

And so, here’s what you do. First, the what. Calmly describe what you perceive the other person is doing to cause the problem. And so I did.

I think there’s a problem and I told him, “This is what I think you’re doing to cause that problem.”

Second is the how. Tell them how it makes you feel. And I told him, “Man, I am frustrated. I’m really frustrated.” And then I learned that I think he was more frustrated than me.

Then next, the why. Tell why this is important to you. So, I told him why it mattered to me.

And then the question. Notice, “What are we going to do to fix it?” See, I knew it wasn’t a “his” problem or just a “my” problem.

We’ve been working together a long time. We do this so often, so forthrightly all the time, there are people that come into a meeting that we’re in and look at us like, “Oooh, I think I’ll catch you guys later.” I mean, it’s just out there! Why? Because he loves me. He always tells me the truth and I try hard to tell him the truth. He’s better at that than I am. So, then I got to, “How are we going to fix this?”

How are we going to fix this? And then we sat down and we talked, and he talked about what his job is doing to him, and I talked about what my job was doing to him, and what are his responsibilities, and mine, and how do we look at this? And what I think they ought to be, and what he thinks they ought to be, and then we came to, “Boy, yeah, we need to address that.”

And so then you encourage their response and feedback. Someone has said, “Fifty percent of the time when you go to a person, they didn’t even know there was a problem. Thirty percent of the time they are more than willing to work at it.” So, eighty percent of the time when you go and talk with someone, you’re going to get a great response. We think it’s just the opposite.

And then write down the desired action. This is a central step. After I stayed up all night, then I went to my little donut shop and I read my Bible and I prayed and then I got a napkin, I wish they would get better napkins because it was very hard to write on, and I wrote down what I thought the issue was, I wrote down every single thing, and then I came up with a specific game plan of what I thought we needed to address this issue, for he and I to work in a way that would be productive for the kingdom of God and he have some sanity, and me have sanity as well. And so I wrote it down and I gave it to him.

Then, set a specific time to revisit. Patterns don’t happen overnight. Patterns aren’t broken overnight. And so what I realized, see, I could give you all the stuff on this is that my first response to life when it’s not going well, this will surprise some of you, is anger.

Because I seem like a really nice guy up here and on good days I am. And that’s part of my personality that just loves to be with people. Underneath that real nice person that likes to be with people, I, on those tests, come out real high “D.” Make it happen, here’s the task, take the hill, what’s the problem, we agreed on this, there’s what we’re going to do, why aren’t we doing it?

Now, I have learned and I’m trying to say it and learn how to do that in very, very nice ways. But the way I internalize it, when there’s a roadblock I get mad. And then I have to say, “Why am I angry?” And I go to that anger series and work through all my issues.

And what I realized was, here’s what happened to me, as I realized, major transition, change. And so, some of the things are falling through the cracks. Well, my first reaction is I am angry. So, from two to three I’m angry. From three to four I’m figuring out why. And by five thirty, what I realized is, I’m asking him to do what I am not doing for him.

Guess where the problem landed – right back in the center of my desk. It wasn’t his problem. It was my problem. His lack of perspective, of getting sucked into things, who does he report to? He reports to me. What’s my job? My job is to make sure that he does only the most important strategic things. I dropped the ball. I blew it. I have to own it.

But you set a time so that you can address it.

So, Monday at eleven fifteen, he and I are going to get together. I’ve got a game plan, I’ve been thinking about it, and, man, we’re going to get together and we’re going to meet every Monday at eleven fifteen so that I keep my focus and he keeps his because I have not done a good job of giving him what he needs to minister effectively.

Finally, commitment by both sides to put the issue in the past once solved. See, the reason I can share this even though it was just last week, man, I’ll tell you what, we’re committed. We’re committed to doing what God wants us to do.

We happen to get along really, really well and so there are parts of this that it was a great example. The good part of this example I like because I actually followed, I did what you’re supposed to do. I was really happy about that.

Now, however, sometimes when it’s really messy and there’s not a lot of freedom and it’s hard to speak the truth in love, you get it resolved and then you don’t make this final commitment by both sides to put the issue in the past once solved.

What this means is you don’t bring it up to others. You don’t tell. I asked permission. And because it’s not a problem anymore. You don’t bring it up to people, “Well, you know, I had this problem and I was talking to her and, yeah, we talked and we met.” No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It’s done. Shh. You just, shh. You don’t tell anybody else.

Secondly, don’t bring it up to this person again. If it’s solved, if it’s behind you, you may meet, you may work through it, but in the heat of another argument don’t pull out of your bag, “Well remember that time when you did…?” No, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. You’ve let loose of that, that’s gone, that’s foreign territory.

And finally, here’s the big one, don’t even bring it up in your own mind and your thinking and fantasizing. Don’t replay the tapes of what they did, when they did it, how. It’s resolved, isn’t it? Bang, it’s done. You have power over what goes in your mind, how you think, and how you don’t. Stop.

Hey, “Lord, thank You.” The enemy will come in and just stir that pot, stir that pot, stir that pot. So you meet together, you say – what? Calmly describe the problem, how it makes you feel, why this is important, and then the question, “How are we going to fix this?”

You answer the question by encouraging their response, write down the desired action, what are you going to do? Set a specific time to follow up so you do it, and then make a commitment together, “This is in the past.” You got it? Okay, flip the page.

Number six is, “If resolution does not occur, follow the biblical guidelines of Matthew 18.” And all I’m going to do is read them. There are four steps in Matthew 18. You go to them and you love them and you share your heart and you do it with a right attitude, you go to a brother, you go to a sister in Christ, and they basically stiff arm you and say, “Get out of my face,” in sort of a nice or an un-nice kind of way.

“If your brother sins against you,” step one, “go and show him his fault just between the two of you.” Step one is personal confrontation. “If he listens to you, you have won your brother,” it’s over. You’re done. Step two is small group confrontation. “But if he will not listen, take one or two others so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.”

So, if he stiff arms you, you go back, or she does, and you say, someone they respect, someone they think is objective, someone that actually is objective would even be better. And you go back and say, “You know, we’ve got to get this resolved. Unity is nonnegotiable in the body of Christ. And so I want to bring so-and-so and so-and-so that they can get in on this so that the data and the fact and if it’s my perception or yours, whatever.”

Step three is you take it to the church. If they refuse to listen to them, the small group, tell it to the church. “And if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

So, we have a two-step process where it goes before the elders, we work it through there, if there’s still no response, then it goes public. And then after that it’s excommunication. It’s what he says. Treat him like a tax collector.

That’s hard. That’s how important unity is. Psalm 133:1 says, “How good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity.”

But what I’d like you to do is I’d like you to look at the four questions on the bottom of this sheet and I would like you to obey them. I’d like you to respond, I’d like you to be an answer to Jesus’ prayer. He prayed that we would be unified, in agreement, one mindedness.

But commit to live in harmony with one another.