Conflict 101 - Part 1

Scripture Reading

Turn in your Bibles with me to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. If you're using your Pew Bibles, you'll find that on page 1039. 1039 of the New King James Pew Bibles provided for you. I thank each and every one of you for one, putting up with me through the book of Mark, but also as you submitted different topical sermon ideas.

One of you suggested at a shepherding visit, can we do some topical sermons in between books? And so that's what we're doing is a series of topical sermons. With that said, I cannot guarantee that today's sermon is only going to last one week. I might only get through half, maybe half of the material that we have. So I hope it is a blessing to you, and I hope that even though it's topical, that we'll see that it's coming up from Scripture and not something that's just imposed upon the Lord's Word.

So let's go ahead and turn into God's Word, Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. Brothers and sisters, this is God's Word. I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all loneliness and gentleness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love. endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.

But each one of us, grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore he says, when he ascended on high, he led a captivity captive and gave gifts to men. Now this he ascended, what does it mean but that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is also the one who ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things.

And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, And we acknowledge the Son of God to be a perfect man, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love. may grow up in all things into Him who is the Head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness.

But you have not so learned Christ, If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus, that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness, therefore, put away lying. Let each of you speak truth with his neighbor, For we are members of one another.

Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.

Prayer for Illumination

The grass withers and the flower fades, but brothers and sisters, the word of our God endures forever. Let's pray. Father, we have read your perfect word. It is like refined silver, like the sweetest honey to our lips, and Lord, we thank you for it. Father, I pray now specifically that you might give me, as we read in Proverbs 10, the lips of the righteous. Lord, we pray that you would please let us know how to speak to one another in love. Lord, we pray that your word would be working in our hearts this morning, that we might learn, that we may be corrected, that some of us, even myself, might be rebuked. But Lord, also that we would be trained up in righteousness. Please, Lord, let us be those thoroughly equipped for every good work that you have prepared in advance for us to do. Only Your Spirit can do this, and so Father, we pray that You would do it. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Sermon

Well, if there's one thing I know about every single one of your relationships, I haven't met any of you yet where I don't think this is true. I guarantee you at some point in every single relationship in this room, whether it's between husbands and wives, or children and children, or parents and children, or children and parents, or brothers and sisters, at some point you haven't gotten along. At some point you fought. At some point you've been angry or just annoyed by the other person.

How do we deal with it? And even more than that, how do you deal with it when it's in the church? Right? We sing Psalm 133 and we're like, yeah, we really want unity in the church. We read the passage before us in Ephesians chapter 4 and we might be like, yeah, we really want to have kinderly affection towards one another.

But you know what it's like to be in a meeting with somebody and all of a sudden it feels like your ship is heading course and you just get torpedoed in the side. How do I deal with that hurt? How do I deal with that pain? How do we have conflict in a Christian way?

I was talking to a man this week. He and I disagreed at presbytery over a matter, and I deeply respect this man. And so I gave him a call, and I was like, hey, I noticed on this vote we voted differently, and I respect you. And so I just wanted to hear from you what was going on. And this was just him saying, you know, Brian, I really appreciate you calling.

Because many times in the church we see disagreement and we want to think there's contention and fighting between each other. Instead of recognizing that any conflict that we have in the church is an opportunity to grow in grace, and in gentleness, and in Christ-likeness with each other.

The question is, what do we do with that opportunity that comes in conflict? Do we see it as a danger? Or do we see it as an opportunity? How do you treat it in your marriage? How do you treat it when it comes between you and your brother or your sister? How do you deal with conflict, especially amongst Christians?

Well, that's what we're going to be looking at this morning, based partly on Ephesians chapter 4, but also on the book of James. So first, I want you to see that there are three different categories of conflict. And if you get these categories mixed up, or if you only have one category, you're going to end up either really frustrating yourself, or really frustrating other people. The first category of conflict is what Proverbs chapter 19, 11 says. The discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, and his glory is to overlook a transgression. There are conflicts that are just overlook. These are conflicts that, you know, they might just be doing something annoying.

I remember at seminary, we all used to eat together at the table, and there were people from all over the globe, and can you believe some people ate their soup slurping? Like nails on a chalkboard. Guess what? It's not a sin. It may annoy me, but there's something that you can overlook. There are simple conflicts that just aren't that big of a deal.

We may be overly sensitive at times, and we may feel like they're a big deal, but yet it is a glory to a man to overlook even annoyances. We each know what it's like to have somebody in our life that's just overly sensitive. It's easy to push their buttons. But it's also, when you live with someone or you're regularly in a relationship with someone who doesn't know what it's like to overlook a transgression, you know what it's like to walk on those eggshells. You never know where you're gonna step and what landmine you're gonna end up on because everything blows up into a big deal.

It's a glory for us to show the love of Christ to look over in love. This is what Ephesians chapter 4 verse 2 says. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 2. Verse 1 says, Therefore the prisoner of the Lord beseech you to walk worthy of the calling which you were called with all, and notice how we are to walk, with lowliness and gentleness and longsuffering, and this is the big one, by the way, Part of this overlooking is suffering long, right?

This may not change in them for a long time. This is a patience. But the other is bearing with one another in love. I would translate that instead of bearing with one another. Sometimes you just need to learn to put up with someone. Sometimes you're just gonna have different personalities and you gotta love them. Why? Because Jesus redeemed them. Because God has put them in your life for a reason.

And it is tiring business to be constantly offended by people. And it's tiring for everybody else to be around somebody who's constantly offended and doesn't know how to overlook even things they don't like. Why ruin the day? Maybe ask yourself, when this conflict comes, maybe you should ask yourself, is this really worth all the stress of ruining my day?

Or can I just overlook this? Can I just bear with them? Just say to that person, you know what, I love you. And just keep moving on. There's a point in which we need to overlook. So first category is a category of overlooking. Other categories though are categories where you need to overcome something. Look with me at verses 26 and 27. Ephesians chapter 4 verses 26 and 27.

Be angry and do not sin. Did you know that that's a command? God is telling us there's a time when you need to be angry. But that does not give you a right to transgress His law. You may be angry, but yet you must not sin. And even in your anger, you must not let the sun go down on your wrath. Because when you swallow down anger, it takes root in bitterness and hatred. And you open a door for Satan to put his foot in the crack, and to get a grip in that area of your life. And so, the Lord tells us here, be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.

This is what I love about scripture. We're not talking about pie in the sky. We're not talking about la la lands. When you become a Christian, everything is happy. You just have a positive mindset. There's always rainbows and there's puppy dogs and it's all sunny days. No, that's not Christianity. That's not what the Bible presents.

Sometimes there are just bad days and bad conflicts. And sometimes people are selfish. Sometimes that people is me. Sometimes there's conflict that we actually need to overcome something that's going on because something has gone wrong. But even when something has gone wrong, even when there is sin that you have a right to be angry against, we need to also recognize though that it's not always the other person's fault. It's not always necessarily that we're angry righteously, but sometimes we're just angry And it's because somebody's not following our script. Somebody's not doing things our way, the things that we want them to do. Often if we mess this up, and things become, instead of working together to overcome a problem, it just becomes we're gonna fight about this.

Normally behind that is this idea, and I struggle with this, right? You can go talk to Olivia, this is my confession to you, right? Olivia would tell you, sometimes I struggle with this principle. I'm not fighting for victory. We're fighting for unity. If you dig in your heels, instead of looking at, hold on, I want to overcome this with you, instead you went, I want my way. I want you to do what I think you should do. You need to feel the conviction I feel. What happens is if it becomes me, me, me, and I'm gonna win this fight, you're not actually trying to overcome in the conflict, you're trying to get your own way. And this is what he's talking about, be angry and do not sin.

Not everything, this especially happens in religious circles and this is something that we need to be careful about. Sometimes we'll see this overcoming and the goal is we're trying to get over, get a solution to a problem or to somebody's sin against us and things like that. But sometimes what happens is we actually take things that aren't sin and elevate them to a moral category. Have you experienced this before with Christian people? People who will, you'll just be doing something and all of a sudden it's like they're throwing the sixth commandment at you and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, hold on, that's not what's going on here. There's many times in which sometimes we can be those who get too wrapped up and trying to get our own way and really convict them of sin and getting sinfully angry.

Now there is a place for anger over sin. But there's a place to be angry. There's a place to know in your heart what happened was wrong. I'm a victim of what you have done. There's a point in which we should be angry when we hear of children being abused. We should be angry when we hear of people who have lied and cheated and manipulated systems and done backdoor-type bookkeeping to steal people's retirement accounts from underneath their feet.

We should be mad at that type of sin. We ought to be able to say, that's sin and that's wrong. But yet, just because they sinned and we may be angry doesn't give us a right that we might now sin and how we respond to that. And to overcome, when there is a sin, necessitates something on the person who has a right to be angry. It necessitates that we become gentle. Because if you are entrenching your heels and saying, no, you sinned against me, and this is exactly what's going to happen.

Often what happens is stalemate, fighting, No giving. Anger at this point in the relationship steals away any chances for resolution. It's one of the hard things, right? When you come to this point of there's a category where you got to overcome something that's happened in this relationship, possibly a sin that's happened between the two of you.

It's at this point if nobody is humble, if nobody's gentle, anger enters into the equation in a sinful way. Hope of resolution is lost. What ends up happening is we end up talking at each other, rather than communicating with each other. When anger sinfully enters into the relationship, we end up talking at each other, rather than communicating with one another. So when you come to this point, and there's been real sin, this is something you need to overcome.

They ask you, what's your goal? What are you shooting for? Are you shooting for the other person's good? Or are you just trying to win the argument? Are you trying to see the other person progress in grace and holiness? Or is it just because you want to be right?

It's a difficult thing. But there are certain ones. There's another whole other category of sins that are overwhelming sins. Sins that overwhelm us. There's this type of sin, this is what Jesus talks about in Matthew chapter 18, right? If your brother sins against you, go, right? And Jesus is the one who commands us to enter into this loving conflict, right? Matthew chapter 18, there's somebody who sins against you, go and confront your brother one-on-one.

And if you win them over, great, praise God. But if you don't, you may need to go get outside help. You may need to go take two or three along with you and try to convince them, try to plead with them, try to get them to see that what's going on here isn't right. And this takes time. And it's hard, right?

Peter, when he heard Jesus talk about this, Peter responded back to Jesus in Matthew 18, 21 through 22. Then Peter came to him and said, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times? Jesus says, no, 70 times seven times. It's gonna take a long time to heal when there's been an overwhelming conflict in our lives. And there's times in which this conflict hits us.

That just a simple apology, just somebody saying, hey, I'm sorry, isn't going to be enough. You may need to actually have accountability to show that your apology is real. There's wisdom at times to seeking outside help where you may need to get a counselor involved. Or you may need to call some brothers and sisters in Christ. You may need to get a hold of me and say, hey, we don't know what to do. Sometimes we have to do this when we reach out to other elders in the presbytery and say, hey, this is happening. How do we respond to this?

Sometimes things are just so overwhelming that you need to get outside help. And when you come, and I'm assuming that these are relationships that you have in your family or in the church, and both of you want this relationship to actually be successful, It takes both parties to actually want to reconcile. When we get to this last category of overwhelm, if only one party wants to actually be reconciled, there won't be reconciliation. Reconciliation takes two parties.

And this is why it might be overwhelming and it may take a long time. Rebuilding the trust in this type of category may take a really long time. So those are the three different categories. I found these categories very helpful, learning them for myself.

But now I want you to come to a place where if you do have to enter into conflict with people, how do you fight fair? What are the rules of engagement? How do you enter into conflict in which you're not just fighting at one another or with one another, but you're working towards resolution? Well, for the first thing, especially when we're talking about within the family or within your marriage or even within the church, there's a big thing to remember.

That person's not your enemy. It's very often when our hearts get angry and we enter into conflict, we want to remember, we want to think of that person as your enemy number one. Well, if they're enemy number one, the fight's not going to be fair. So remember first that this person you love is not your enemy. And so what are these rules of engagement? Well first, one issue at a time. Not a whole bunch of issues. One issue at a time. If you're going to enter into conflict with someone, do it one issue at a time.

Have you ever been in this type of argument before, where somebody comes to you and they're fighting with you about one thing, and then all of a sudden, half an hour, 45 minutes, an hour and a half later, you're talking about 17,000 other things, and you're like, hold on, all I did was not take the trash out.

How did this turn into, like, everything's wrong? That's not a real — Olivia hasn't done that, right? But what I'm saying is — but we found ourselves, each one of us, in those positions, right? Where we're not actually talking about one thing. It ends up ballooning into all these different things, and that's not fighting fair. Fight about one thing, not about many issues. Another second rule of fighting fair with each other is when you fight, deal with behavior and not with character. Deal with behavior and not with character.

What do I mean by that? When we look at how the Apostle Paul confronts people in his epistles, regularly he talks about, this person did great harm to me, and he'll often say exactly what they did. He doesn't say this person was a slimeball who went and chased after the devil instead. No. What is the behavior that is sinful?

What happens if you start fighting and you fight about somebody's character, what's their response typically? Automatic defensiveness. Because they will feel like you are fighting, you are attacking them in their personhood. If you say that, well, you're just like this.

You're just a slob all the time. Well, that actually gets into our next, right, is talk about specifics, not generalizations. Avoid saying like, you always, or you never brush your teeth. I don't know, whatever the example is, right? You always do this. Every time this comes up, you're always like this.

Well, the problem is you actually end up committing a Ninth Commandment violation, because if I could prove to you one time That's not the case, then your absolute has proven that that was a character assassination. And you were going after character.

But we want to avoid generalizations and instead be specific about what we're confronting. And this is a hard thing, especially when we're talking about generalizations. If you can't get to the heart of what the conflict is, you'll always feel like you're trying to shadow box a phantom. You don't actually know where the attacks are coming or what's going on because you haven't narrowed down what is the heart of the issue. So go to the specifics, not to the generalizations. Point number four on how to fight fair. Deal with facts. Deal with facts instead of judging motives.

I remember Dr. Trout, he's the president of Geneva College. He came to our seminary one day, and he's a ruling elder in the congregation out in Gibsonia, Pennsylvania. And he came and he was just talking to us about how do pastors relate to ruling elders. And I remember him saying something that was very helpful.

He said, men, you might need to understand, your job is not to try to guess at what the elders are thinking. or judge what maybe their motives are behind things, because that's trying to guess what's in their heart. And what he said after that shocked me. He said, I don't often know what's going on inside my own heart.

So what right do you have to do to try to judge the motives in somebody else's heart? But we do that when we get into unfair fights, don't we? Right? When we'll try to judge, oh, I bet they're saying that because of, and they've got this motive behind it. You don't know that. You just don't know. And so try to not judge motives, but instead deal with the facts. What was said? What was done? What is the offense? And probably one of the most important ones, instead of fighting for victory, fight for unity. Instead of fighting for victory, fight for unity. Fight for unity instead of victory.

What's the goal? If we're going to have conflicts in the church, in our marriages, in our relationships with other Christians, is our goal my way, my opinion, my rights, what I want to do? Or is it about who we are? What is our identity in Christ? What is our mission as the church? What is the purpose of our marriage together? One is based on selfishness. The other is based in unity. And so my watch is going off, telling me I'm gonna run out of time, so we're gonna go through this last point. I wanna talk to you about communication killers. Communication killers. Number one, going after my own wants.

James chapter four, verse one says, where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? If we come into a conflict with each other, and that conflict is based on my wants, it's going to lead to fights and wars.

It's inconsiderate of the other person. So try to avoid going after your own wants when you come into conflict. Doesn't mean that you don't have desires. Doesn't mean that you don't want resolution. That's not what this is getting at. It's the selfish desires that James is talking about. Desires for pleasure that war in your members.

But then James also says in James 1 verse 19, So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath, for the wrath of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God. Second communication killer or conversation or conflict killer will be your anger. Your worst enemy is your own anger. So we got to slow down. I know what it's like. I think all of us know what it's like when we get into a conflict, when we really want to fight and there's just, your temper starts flaring. Right? And that's the point at which you got to slow down.

Again, remember the person you are in conflict with is not your enemy. I'm not talking about, you know, there's all sorts of people that I would argue that we actually have a right to sing imprecatory psalms about. That's not who I'm talking about here, right? But when we're in conflict with people whom we love and we want unity with, we've got to remember they're not our enemies. Guys, I'm telling you, in the church, this rips up congregations.

When we think that person's my enemy, that person, I just, man, they just need to change. Now they might need to change, but that doesn't mean they're your enemy. How do we know they're not your enemy? Because Jesus Christ bought them at the price of his own blood. We're brothers and sisters in Christ.

So if you feel your anger, you gotta watch your startups. This is what Gary Chapman calls watching your startups. Especially with your anger, you gotta know in yourself what is it in you that you know that you're starting to get angry and you may need to go put some ice on yourself. Physiologically, does your jaw tense up? Do your hands start to tighten? Does your brow furrow? Do you feel the pressure in your chest and the raising of your heart rate? Do you start feeling hot under your collar?

You've got to be able to know in yourself, hold on, I know I'm getting mad and I've got to change course or else this is not going to go well. You've got to watch your start up. Also in your anger, you've got to pay attention to your tone. is something my kids will tell you I tell them all the time.

Hey guys, how you say something is almost as important as what you say. How you say something is almost as important as what you say. You can say one thing when you're happy and loving and it will go over really well. You can say the other thing, the same thing in an angry tone and you're sleeping on the couch for a week. Your tone matters. How you say something is extremely important.

And also, pay attention to your body language. You might think that you're not being angry because you're not screaming, you're not yelling, and yet your body language clearly shows that you're angry and this conversation isn't going anywhere. You know what that's like, right? They start talking. I start rolling. We know what it's like to be angry and even in our nonverbal communication show that person I may not be saying to you I'm seething but you know it full well. So pay attention to your body language. The third communication killer. Harsh language. Look with me again at Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 29.

Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth. But what is good for necessary edification that it might impart grace to the hearers? We're going to just look at the first part of that verse, next time we'll look at the second part. But when he says, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, that's like caca words. Words that shouldn't be in anybody's mouth.

When we come into communication with each other, when there's conflict, start being mean to each other, and you won't work towards a goal. If you start using profanities, slurring at one another, throwing around four-letter words that have no place in a redeemed person's mouth, you know that this is not going to end in the place that you want it to go. But also, I promise you that if you start throwing insults at people, this word corrupt words is encompassing all this stuff. If you're throwing insults at the person, and I've noticed this in between even Christians of generations.

I remember watching on Facebook this conflict that happened, by the way. please avoid conflict over electronic mediums. Everything's always bound to be messed up there. It's really easy to get defensive and to throw things at people. But anyways, these two Christians were talking about something. Both of them very firm Christians, one of a different generation. And the other one said, well, you're just a too fragile snowflake. And I thought, wow, that really earned you a bunch of internet points. But it certainly didn't show the love of Jesus Christ towards this brother.

If you throw insults at each other, talk about somebody as a jack-something-or-another, or an idiot, or stupid, or whatever, right? If you hurl insults at them, you're not going to end up in unity. You're going to end up in division. But then also, if you're just dismissive of people, and this is where I'm going to speak specifically to men and women, if you're going to just be dismissive of the other person, or dismissive of them just because of who they are, you're not going to end up in unity either.

I can't tell you how much I think the Lord is grieved when men will say things like, it's just that time of the month. It's just like a woman. Oh, she's just too emotional. Whatever, I don't care, right? When you use phrases like that and just dismiss people offer, you can throw that the opposite way too, right? Just like a man, When you're just dismissive of the other person, the common sense thing, are you going to end up in unity, especially if you speak those words out of your mouth? No. No, guess what happens? Two people are on opposite ends, still mad at each other, and how do you get over the gulf, the great valley that's happened between them because of these words?

This is not the pattern that Jesus Christ set for us. This is not what Jesus Christ has set for us in communicating with one another. Jesus knew that there was a time to be angry. When he saw the religious leaders laying burdens on the people's backs, he knew that he needed to call them out because what they were doing was sin, but he also told them how to get out of it and repent.

You whitewash tombs. You lay heavy loads on other people's backs and yet you yourself won't lift up, take one finger to help lift them up and help them. You want to say that you love the Sabbath, but you guys are so corrupt. This is what you do on the Sabbath. And you guys know this too. You tell people you can't do this and you can't do this and you can't do that on the Sabbath. You're so legalistic about this and yet you know if your donkey fell in the ditch you would go and you'd get your donkey up.

But when I go and I try to love someone and heal them on the Sabbath you want to kill me for it. Jesus was clear in what the behaviors were and what they needed to do and what they needed to repent of so we can see even in God himself that there is a time to be angry and yet not sin. But here's the issue, right?

When we come to conflict in our relationships, I'm not Jesus. And neither is the person you're fighting against. I don't have perfect motives all the time, and neither do you. We don't know what's going on in the other person's heart. Jesus did find that all over the place as we look through the Gospels. I don't have that type of insight. Jesus did. So we got to be careful. We gotta be careful to fight fair, to fight for unity, to fight to love one another. And maybe you're like, well Brian, I don't think that this is that big of a deal.

I'm gonna keep reading Ephesians chapter 4 and show us how this ties even to the Lord's table this morning. God himself commands us, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth but what is good for necessary edification. One translation translates that as what is good for building others up. That it may impart grace to those who hear. But when we don't do that, look with me at verse 30. What's the converse?

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. The Holy Spirit himself is grieved when we ignore these patterns of communicating with one another with grace and kindness in our tone and in our words. Let all bitterness and wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away with you with all malice. And here's the heart of the gospel. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, Even as God in Christ Jesus forgave you.

How did Jesus confront you about your sin? Did he do it dismissively? Did he do it digging in his heels? Now this is one of the glorious things about the good news of Jesus Christ. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus didn't wait for us to get our act together to reconcile with us. Jesus reconciled us to Him when we didn't deserve it. I don't know who you may be in conflict with, even in your family, even in the church.

What are you waiting to reconcile? What are you waiting for? Is it for them to change? Is it for them to move? because it is to the glory of God and the testimony of His grace when we communicate with each other in a way that promotes and preserves purity and unity in the church. We'll stop there and we'll pick up in two weeks with the rest of Conflict 101.

Closing Prayer

Let's pray. Father, you have shown us such grace Lord, only your spirit can work in our hearts in such a way to make us kind to one another. Lord, we pray where we have had calluses on our hearts toward other people in the congregation, in our marriages, in our families. Lord, we pray that you would cut off those calluses that we may be tenderhearted. Lord, we pray where we have been unforgiving where we have insisted on our own rights, our own prerogatives, our own feelings. Lord, we pray that you would teach us to be forgiving. Lord, we pray that as we even take the Lord's Supper this morning, that we would remember your tenderheartedness towards us, your kindness towards us, and that you have forgiven us of so much red letters in the debt book that we could never repay. So Father, let us please focus our eyes on Jesus Christ and conform us to His likeness and image. We pray these things in Jesus' name.