Rick Warren - Resolving Conflict - Part 2
The only way to resolve a conflict is to face it. I’m sorry, but the only way to resolve it is to face it. We don’t like that, and in order to face it, number 2 is confess my part of the conflict, that’s the biblical thing to do. Now, they may be 99,9% wrong, and you’re only 0,1% wrong, then you confess you’re 1% first, that’s called humility. Now my guess is that it may be more than that, but you start with you. You don’t start with condemning, you don’t start with accusing, you start with, instead of accusing and attacking and blaming, you begin with humility and you deal with your part. Everybody’s got blind spots, some of us have bald spots, but everybody’s got blind spots.
And Jesus deals with this in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, he says, «Why do you notice the little piece of dust,» in other words, you know, the splinter, «in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the big piece of wood,» the telephone pole, «in your own eye. First, take the,» telephone pole, «the log out of your own eye. And then you’ll see clearly to take the,» splinter, the speck, «the dust out of your friend’s eye». This is humility, it’s starting with my part of the conflict. So what I do is I start with this, «Am I being unrealistic»? Okay, «Am I being unrealistic»? And I ask myself this, okay, «Am I being ungrateful in this relationship? Am I being insensitive, am I being oversensitive, am I being too demanding»?
Do you know what the number one excuse for divorce is today? I’m not saying the reason, the number one excuse that people file for divorce, they say, quote, «We’re just incompatible». Friends, incompatibility is a myth made up by divorce attorneys. There’s no such thing as incompatibility, any two people can get along if they’ll grow up, if they’ll stop being self-centered, if they’ll stop saying, «I’m gonna be stubborn, I want my way, you want your way, we’re not gonna grow up». Incompatibility is a myth, there are entire books written on the myth of incompatibility. Everybody is different, you’re never gonna marry somebody who’s just like you, so you’re incompatible with everybody.
The issue is not incompatibility, the issue is immaturity. How do you break a relational logjam, you may be in one right now. It’s always the same way, humility. You take the first move and humility breaks the logjam. Let me tell you a sentence that’ll break any relation to logjam, «I’m sorry, I was only thinking of myself,» what did you say? Don’t ask me to say it again, «What did you say»? «I said, I’m sorry, I was only thinking of myself». You say that it will break any relational logjam, I guarantee it. Before honor is humility, God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Pastor Tom’s gonna come and teach the next two steps. Pastor Tom Holladay: So here’s the third thing you do when you’re resolving a conflict, you listen for the hurt, you listen for the hurt. If you wanna connect with people, you gotta start with their needs, and that means you gotta start with their hurt.
Now how do you hear the hurt, how do you listen for the hurt? Well, a great verse is James 1:19, I love this verse. In fact, it’s worth reading together, would you read it with me? «Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry». To listen for the hurt, you have to do what this verse says, you have to listen. God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason, you need to listen at least as much, twice as much as you are talking so that you can hear the hurt that’s in somebody else’s life.
That is the key to beginning to diffuse the conflict, that’s the key to understanding where people are coming from, understanding their circumstances, understanding their background, understanding their perspective, understanding their temperament, you gotta listen. These seven things we’re talking about together, in fact, just this one verse, James 1:19, you put this into place in your life and relationship, it can save you thousands and thousands in counseling. James 1:19 says, «Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry,» you guys get like an A+. When you got when you have those verses in your mind and you can bring them to mind in the midst of the conflict, I don’t know what it does.
All of a sudden it gives you the ability to do something you couldn’t do on your own strength, you listen for the hurt. Now as you’re listening for people’s hurt, there are two areas you have to be especially considerate of in the next verse in the outline. Romans 15:2 says, «We must be considerate of the doubts and the fears of others». You might circle those two words, doubts and fears. I’ve got doubts and fears, you’ve got doubts and fears, and many times in a conflict you’ve, you hit the nerve of somebody’s doubt, you’ve hit the nerve of somebody’s fear and because of that, all of a sudden the conflict starts coming your way. So you want people to consider your doubts and fears, you have to consider their doubts and fears as you consider their hurt, you consider the hurt.
Number four, you listen for the hurt, number four, the forth thing you do is you consider their perspective. Consider the way they’re looking at it, look at their viewpoint. You have this moment when you intentionally shift your focus from your needs, your point, you winning the argument, to their needs. You try to get their perspective on the issue. I was at a wedding yesterday and came in and sat down and there was this older couple sitting in front of us, and they were sitting with a chair in between them. And I noticed he tried to say something to her, point out something in the back of the room, and she’s just like, boom, just straightforward. You could feel the tension in both of them that’s why there was a chair in between them.
About halfway through the service, the pastor who was marrying this young couple said, «You know, there’s very few things that are worth arguing about, and even if you do argue, you gotta learn to forgive». And I saw them just sort of look at each other when he said that, and then they looked back towards the front. About 20 seconds later, the guy’s shoulders, the tension sort of goes out of his shoulders and he moves over one chair to sit next to his wife. This is the issue in relationships, who’s gonna move over one chair? Who’s gonna start seeing it from the other person’s perspective? Who’s gonna make the move, and the person who makes the move is always the person Who Stops saying, «How do I see it,» and starts thinking, «How do they see it? What are they going through»?
The Bible says this in Philippians 2:4 and 5, here’s how we see from another person’s perspective, «Each of you should look out not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus». It’s that old Chinese proverb, «You seek first to understand before you seek to be understood,» how do you do this? How do you consider another person’s perspective? Well, there’s an important word in that verse, each of you should look not only for your own perspective but the other person’s. That word look is the Greek word scopos like you scope something out a microscope or a telescope.
You scope out, you focus in on their perspective, you realize that you are most like Christ when you pay attention to other people’s needs, and how do you do that? How do you really do that? How do you start noticing others' needs instead of always needing other people’s notice? I don’t know about you, I’m not that altruistic. I’ve got needs too, that’s what I think, what about my needs in the middle of this? You might just jot down a Bible verse in the corner of your outline. Psalm 139, verse 3, Psalm 139, verse 3 says of God, «God, you notice everything I do and you know everywhere I go».
The way you do this is you realize there’s a God in heaven, there’s a Father in heaven who is there to notice and to take care of every one of your needs. You’re not in this alone, he takes care of my needs so I can help with your needs. If you are expecting some other human being, whether it’s a a wife or a husband or one of your kids or somebody at work, if you’re expecting another human being to take care of all your needs, of course you’re gonna have conflict. They’re as imperfect as you are, they can’t do it. But when when you recognize there is a God in heaven who is willing to meet the needs of your life, all of a sudden you have this new freedom. Because you know he’s gonna meet your needs, you have this new freedom to begin to look out and to consider the needs of other people in your life.
Now, the fifth step is very important, tell the truth tactfully. In this peace conference that you’re having with this person that you’re in conflict with, you tell the truth tactfully. The Bible says in the book of Ephesians, «Speak the truth in love». It may be the truth, but if I’m not speaking it in love, I’m on the wrong side, you never use truth as a club. It may be true, but you don’t use truth to beat people over the head, that’s only allowed on the internet. People do that on the internet all the time, beat people over the head with truth. Don’t do that, you tell the truth tactfully.
Proverbs 12, verse 18 says this, «Reckless words,» that’s the kind you say in an argument that you weren’t thinking through, «Reckless words pierce like a sword,» and you’ve all been pierced by reckless words by people in your life, «but the tongue of the wise brings healing». In other words, foolish words hurt, wise words heal, and it’s my choice. You never get your point across by being cross. You are never persuasive when you are abrasive, you tell the truth tactfully. If you don’t tell it tactfully, it’s not gonna be received. Truth without love is resisted, truth wrapped in love is received.
People grow faster, people change faster, people change easier when truth is wrapped in love. People must trust you before you can tell them the truth, and they learn to trust you by proving that you love them, that you accept them. And when you prove that, then you can say things that you couldn’t normally say, but you have to love them before you tell them the truth.
Ephesians 4:29, «Do not use harmful words,» well, in that case, a lot of us wouldn’t have a whole lot to say. «Do not use harmful words, but use only helpful words, the kind that build up and provide what is needed». So when I’m in this conversation with this person I’m in conflict with, the first thing I say is «Now, is what what I’m about to say, is it gonna be helpful to them or is it gonna be hurtful to them? Is it gonna build them up or is it gonna tear them down? Is it persuasive or is it abrasive», and what I’m saying is, this skill is learning to attack the problem rather than attacking the person. Most of us never learned that, and so we go through arguments and we go through conflict, attacking the person, not the problem. So you learn to attack the issue without attacking each other.
Now, related to that is number six, fix the problem, not the blame. Now you only have a certain amount of emotional energy and in a conversation where you’re trying to resolve a conflict, you can either use that energy to fix the blame or you can use that energy to fix the problem, you don’t have enough energy to do both. Now, related to this is establishing some ground rules of words that you’re just not gonna use. If you’re a young couple, I highly recommend that you establish some ground rules for fighting fair in your marriage, and you follow them your entire marriage, actually, it’s never too late to do this. But there’s some things you should never, never, never say in a marriage. They’re WMDs, they’re weapons of mass destruction.
You know, during the Cold War when Russia and America was at each other’s throats and for 50 years, America had thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at Russia, we could explode the entire nation. They had thousands of intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at us and could destroy America like that. And even when we were at the worst point in the Cold War, and there was enormous tension, both sides still had enough sanity to say, «You know, there’s some weapons we just aren’t gonna use, because they’re MAD, M-A-D, Mutually Assured Destruction. You use those and we’re going to use ours and we’re gonna destroy each other and there’s not gonna be countries left».
So even when we were totally on opposite sides of an issue, we could at least agree, we’re not going to use these weapons, these WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, we’re just not gonna use them. There are some weapons of mass destruction that should never be used in your marriage, like threatening divorce, that’s a weapon of mass destruction, like threatening to walk out, that’s a WMD, like bringing up somebody’s parents, that’s a WMD. There’s certain things you just say, «We’re not gonna use these, no matter how mad we get at each other, no matter how upset we are with each other, no matter how hurt or frustrated or angry we are, we’re just not gonna use these, they’re off limits,» because they destroyed the relationship. They certainly aren’t gonna build it, all they’re gonna do is tear down trust.
Now, the Bible is very, very specific about what’s out of bounds. Let me just give you one example, Colossians 3:8, «You must rid yourself,» notice, this isn’t optional, you can’t use these. «You must rid yourself of all such things as these: anger,» rage, it’s actually angry rage, «malice and slander, and filthy language from your lips». Those aren’t allowed, sorry, they’re not allowed, they’re weapons of mass destruction. Now, angry rage, what does that mean? It means, no matter how mad you get, you do not try to intimidate with anger, angry rage. You do not try to threaten people into doing the right thing, it doesn’t work. It says, «You don’t use malice and slander,» what is malicious, what are malicious words? They’re words that are designed to hurt.
There’s certain things you know you can say that will hurt that person. And you know them very well. You push their buttons. There’s certain things you can hurt, you can damage, you can wound, you can destroy. He says, that’s off limits, that’s a weapon of mass destruction. You’re not allowed to do that, no matter how angry you get. Malice, no malice, no malicious words, no slander, what’s slander? No insults, no slurs, no calling people dirty names, nasty names, no labeling, no belittling. Belittling is about as low as you can go as a human being, little people belittle people. When you belittle someone, you are showing how tiny your heart is. Only little people belittle people, great people make people feel great. So when you belittle your partner, your spouse, your kids, you’re showing how little you are, not how little they are. You’re showing how little you are.
Number seven, no, let me give you one more verse, Romans 14:13, «Let us stop passing judgment on one another, and instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way». The reason why we fix the problem, not to blame is because blaming is a form of judging and only God has the right to judge, you’re not the judge. God is a judge, so don’t blame. Now number 7, focus on reconciliation, not resolution, focus on reconciliation, not resolution, there’s a big difference here. You’re never gonna find anybody who agrees with you on everything, so give that one up.
Can you have a loving relationship without agreeing on everything? Of course you can, you can have reconciliation without resolution of every issue, 'cause some things you’re just gonna always disagree on. If you learn to disagree without being disagreeable, that’s called wisdom. If you learn to have unity without uniformity, that’s called wisdom. If you learn to walk hand in hand without having to see eye to eye, that’s called wisdom. So you don’t have to agree on every issue to come to a reconciliation. By the way, if you focus on the relationship, not the issues, you’re gonna find that some of the issues you’re arguing over just aren’t that important.
As Tom said, that pastor said yesterday, «Some things just aren’t worth arguing about. I’m distinctly remembering to forget them». And you need to do that, there’s some things that are never gonna change in your wife, in your husband, in your parent, and your child, that just aren’t ever gonna change, you need to let it go, you just need to let it go. And you need to say, «I’m gonna focus on the positive, not the negative, because they just aren’t gonna change,» and you’re certainly not gonna change them by attacking them on it.
As your pastor who loves you, I want to challenge you where everything in the world tends to divide, I challenge this church, challenge you to become an agent of reconciliation. One of the greatest things you can do with your life is to be a bridge builder, not a wall builder, because everybody else is building walls. And you are most like Jesus Christ when you are reconciling people. You are most like Jesus when you’re building bridges, not walls. That’s exactly what Jesus came to do, he’s the great reconciler. God sent Jesus to earth to reconcile us, 'cause you know what? We are in conflict with God, I don’t know if you realize this, but until you accept Christ in your life and you get in God’s plan, you’re in rebellion.
You’re saying, «God, I wanna run my life my way, I wanna do my thing. I’m gonna thumb my nose to God, and I’m in rebellion against God,» so what did God do? He takes the initiative, he doesn’t wait to come to me, he sends Jesus to come for me and to die on the cross for me. Before I even knew what the problem was, he sends Jesus to die for me. He takes the first step and he looks at us and he says, «I’ve come to reconcile you to God». And that’s my prayer, that you’ll become that kind of person, because the world is filled with conflict. And you are most like Christ as an agent of restoration and reconciliation.
Jesus said it like this, Matthew 5:9, «Blessed are the peacemakers,» not peace lovers. A lot of people love peace, a lot of peace lovers in the world, very few peacemakers. You be not a peace lover, you be a peacemaker. That means you take these steps and you use them and you teach them to others, and you become an agent of reconciliation.
Now I wanna close by giving you a statement. I want you to write this down, okay? It’s always more rewarding, it’s always more rewarding to resolve the conflict than dissolve the relationship. It’s always more rewarding to resolve the conflict than dissolve the relationship. Now it’s not easier, but it’s more rewarding. There are people in your life, you wanna just wash your hands up and walk away and forget it, it’s not worth it. I’m gonna dissolve the relation, I’m just walking away from it, it’s just not worth it. Yeah, you can do that, but you don’t get any rewards in heaven for that. You don’t get any joy on earth for that. You don’t get any character growth and development for that, it’s not rewarding for that. It’s always more rewarding to resolve a conflict than to dissolve a relationship.
Now, you can’t make peace with other people till you’ve made peace with God. And maybe that’s part of the problem, is you’re not at peace with yourself because you’re not at peace with God. First, you gotta make peace with God, then you get the peace of God, then you have peace on earth, goodwill toward men. The reason people don’t have peace on earth, good will toward men is they don’t have peace for themselves. The reason they don’t have peace with themselves, they don’t have peace with God.
Look at this verse on the screen, 1 Timothy 2:5, «There is only one God and one Mediator,» that’s the reconciler, «who can reconcile God and people,» who can bring us together, he’s a bridge builder, «He is Jesus Christ». And that’s the starting point, first, you need to get peace in your heart by getting the prince of peace inside you. So let’s do that, let’s bow our heads, would you say this to God in your heart?
God, you know the conflict in my life, you know the conflict with people, and you know the conflict with you, and you know the conflict with myself, and I’m tired of it and I want to make peace. I want to make peace with you and have peace, your peace in my life so that I can offer peace to others. You said, «Blessed are the peacemakers,» I want to be blessed, «for they will be called the children of God,» I wanna be a child of God. So Jesus Christ, I accept your peace today, I accept your forgiveness. I want to be your child, I want to be a peacemaker. I opened my life to you as best I know how, fill my life with love, not anger, with patience, with joy, with peace. Come in and fill every area of my life with your calmness and help me to be a bridge builder, not a wall builder.
And then pray this:
Dear God, help me to take the initiative. Do not wait on that other person, but help me to take the initiative, find the right time in the right place, and then help me to have the courage to to confess my part of the conflict and to be humble, so I won’t stumble. Instead of attacking the person, help me attack the problem. Help me to consider their perspective, to listen for their hurt. Help me to speak the truth, tell the truth tactfully, to fix the problem, not to blame, and to focus on reconciliation, not resolving all the disagreements. I ask this in your name, amen.