Walking It Out

SERMON: 2013-11-10--ac13113--walking-it-out-part-1 SOURCE DURATION: 00:40:01.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 1.00 APPROVED: false REASON: The entire provided material constitutes a continuous sermon, moving from initial exposition on conflict resolution to practical application and concluding with reflection/prayer. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- So here's the scenario this morning. A brother or a sister sins against you. They stab you in the back, they betray you, they take something from you, they lie about you, they do you harm and you hurt and you're angry and you know that God calls you to forgive. But how do you go about extending that forgiveness? What should you do? Well, what we should do, of course, is what Scripture recommends in these verses that we have just read together, because God is a God of relationships, a relationship with Himself, let cost Him His Son, but also relationships in the body of Christ, because where there is unity in the body of Christ, there the Spirit of God dwells. And so in these verses that we have read together, we have one of the most practical instructions that Jesus gives us for working through estranged relationships, and in the time that we have this morning, let's at least make a beginning and we'll see how far we get. When somebody sins against you, what's the first thing you do? Well, Jesus says, "You engage him privately." Listen again to how verse 15 begins, "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you." Notice what it doesn't say. Doesn't say, "Go post it on Facebook." Doesn't say, "Go write yourself a blog." Doesn't say, "Go tell your ten closest friends who will also tell their ten closest friends." It doesn't say, "Sit on it and stew about it for the next ten years." No, no, it's really pretty straightforward. Go and see that person. And the reason for that, as I said, is that relationships matter, and it's in the process of trying to work out relationships that sometimes restoration takes place. Notice how Jesus puts that, "If he listens to you," that is the rest of that verse, "If he listens to you, you have won your brother over." This command, to go see your brother or your sister alone, is probably one of the most ignored relational commandments in scripture. Do you know that? We will do everything, talk to all our friends, publicize our pain, but we will hardly ever go to the source. And you know why? Because we have a thousand excuses. He or she isn't going to listen to me, it's not going to do a bit of good, don't know what to say. And all of that may be true, but none of that justifies not obeying the clear instructions of scripture. If we are Christ followers and we claim to love the Lord our God and our neighbor as ourselves, then we need to be obedient, not just in the areas where it pleases us, we need to be obedient in the places where it is difficult and hard. In the time that we have this morning, I want to give you three reasons why resolving relational conflicts is so important, biblically speaking. Reason number one, unresolved conflict damages your own soul. If you've ever found yourself in a situation where a relationship has been strained, whether that be with a spouse or a friend or a co-worker or a fellow congregant, somebody out in the community, you will know that there is something about a strained relationship that becomes all-encompassing. Try as you might, depending on the seriousness of the conflict, of course, try as you might, you cannot get away from that person. It's like he leaves in your head, have you ever noticed that? You try not to think about it, but time and time again the situation comes back to you and when you're lying in bed late at night, awake, you think of all the clever things you would like to say or like to do in order to get even with that person. You have an unhealthy interest in that person's affairs, and so when somebody starts talking about that person, what happens, your ears perk up because you're looking to gather a little bit of dirt to justify your place of anger. And if at all possible and the conversation turns in that direction, you like to reach into your little bag of dirt and throw it on top of the pile, isn't that true? Isn't that the human condition? It's because we're conceived and born in sin and it's all about ourselves and our own justification. Well the problem with that of course is that that produces an incredible amount of stress. And stress we know scientifically reduces your immune system's ability to fight off disease and a reduced immune system makes you susceptible to a wide variety of illnesses that vary anywhere from ulcers to asthma to overeating to heart disease, including things like arthritis. And it's not that a little bit of stress is bad for you, because a little bit of stress can actually fire you up and make you cope with life better, but we know scientifically that stress, extended over a period of time, not resolved, has huge consequences emotionally and physically. I'll never forget that I've told this story before years ago, we had a young mom of three kids I believe in our congregation, I believe she had three boys, and she was in her mid-30s as I recall, had just been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. And as you can imagine the prospect of getting crippled up at that early age was horrifying to her and to her family. It was a time in our church then when we had just really begun to step out in faith and pray for people's situations and so she came for prayer and as we prayed the Lord led us to ask her, "Are there unresolved anger issues that are coming to the foreground in your life?" Well it didn't take but a flash and she poured out this whole story of a teacher who had made life difficult and miserable for her and she had never ever been able to get past it. And so of course she confessed that, we prayed about it, and in one of those marvelous moments where sometimes God just really wants to show his face in his favor, he touched her body in such a significant way that the next time I talked to her a couple of days later she was out in the field picking rocks. And for many years thereafter she lived in good health and in good strength. You see unresolved conflict damages your own soul and if your soul is damaged your body will eventually get damaged. All the more reason Jesus says go see him or her and settle it. And reason, why dealing with unresolved conflict is so important, it damages our relationship with God. It damages our relationship with God. Who here remembers from last week how the parable of the unmerciful steward ends? Remember the words of Jesus? Verse 34 he talks about the guy that won't forgive despite the fact that he's been forgiven so much. The Lord Jesus ends the parable in verse 34, "In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed." Remember that? What's the next verse? "This is how my heavenly father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." I don't know about you but that scares the living daylights out of me that little verse does because that is the word of the Lord. One of the brothers here came to me last week after the service and he asked me about that passage because he said, you know, for a long time I've puzzled over that because it seems to be so at odds with the gospel of grace, isn't that true? I thought we were saved by grace through faith not by our actions. And now here Jesus appears to be saying, "You don't do this, you're in deep manure. You're not going to be forgiven yourself." How do you square those two? Well I think it's not really that complicated if we can get our heads around the fact that God's kingdom operates on the basis of grace and not on the basis of works. Our ability, listen carefully to this, to forgive others is directly proportional to our ability to understand how much God has forgiven us. Let me say that one more time. Our ability to forgive others is directly proportional to our ability to understand how much God has forgiven us. If we cannot forgive, then we don't really understand how much God has forgiven us and we're living under law and not under grace. Let me try to drive that home just in a very practical fashion. How many sins, here's a good question for you. How many sins do you think the average Christian would commit in the course of a day? One sin, two sins? For purposes of illustration, let's be nice to ourselves and say that we commit seven sins a day. Seven sins a day. Fair enough? In thought, word, or deed. Probably it's a little low for me but it might be okay for you. Seven sins a day. Now seven sins a day, seven sins a day multiplied by 365 days in the year, who's good at math? 2,555. I calculated it twice, it is correct figure. 255 sins a year. By the time you reach the age of 30, how many sins do you think you will have committed? 76,650. And those of you who are fortunate to be 70 years or older, you have committed at least 178,500 sins. Now put that in your pipe and smoke it. That's only seven sins a day. You see the enormity of the debt we owe God because he has to forgive that every day afresh if we're going to have a relationship with him. Now turn it around and say, pick your greatest enemy right now. I know that's not a very sanctifying thought but just think of somebody that you're irritated with if not downright angry. How many times has that person sinned against you? Maybe not seven times a day. Not 2,550 times in the course of a year, the chances are that 10 years ago he or she said something or did something that you've never forgotten and you're irritated with him or her to this very day. Isn't that true? I mean really, there may be the occasional situation where God gives you a grace tester who makes life miserable for you every single day, but that's the exception and not the rule. Now isn't it very clear that if God comes to us and forgives us daily the sins that we commit against him in their totality and in their enormity, if you and I cannot forgive our fellow sinners for what they've done to us, then we don't understand grace because we want to measure our relationship with our colleague on a different level than we measure our relationship with God. A lot of people say, "I want justice." I'll tell you, I'm not interested in justice, I'm interested in mercy because justice is going to end me up in a very bad place, but mercy will end me up in the presence of God. So you see what happens when you hold on to conflict and refuse to follow biblical guidelines for resolving that conflict, what you do is you end up far away from God. You end up in jail to be tortured. And the dynamics of that, and I don't want to overdo this, but I really want us to understand how this works and why this is so important. The dynamics of this are as follows. There are two things that happen. There are two things that happen spiritually. We've talked about emotional and we've talked about physical consequences, but there are two things that happen spiritually when we refuse to follow the biblical pattern for conflict resolution. And the first is that God withdraws His Spirit from your life, did you know that? God disappears from your life. Biblically that is called grieving the Holy Spirit, and Paul talks about that in Ephesians chapter 4, 30, 31, and 32, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." Let me pause there a moment and point out that the Holy Spirit is not just a power, not just a force, He is a person. He's got feelings, did you know that? And His feelings are tender, His feelings are gentle, His feelings are love-oriented. And when He lives in you and you deliberately hold on to that which is opposite to what He is, He says, "I can't stay here because I am grieved." So notice how the passage goes on then. "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling, and slander with every form of malice." Malice is just meanness, where you're trying to do something mean to somebody. And then the positive, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you." Will you allow me to be brutally honest with you for a moment this morning? Very so often, in the course of life, I encounter, and so do you, people who will tell you they have lost the joy of going to church. Ever meet anybody like that? Maybe you yourself will have found yourself in that kind of situation. And it usually goes something like this, "Music irritates me, preaching bores me." "Music irritates me, and I'm left cold." Accurate description? I just love it when you are enthusiastic in your response. And usually when we find, because we all find ourselves there sooner or later at one point or another. And when you find yourself there, what is the temptation of the tendency? It's to blame other people. Worship team isn't doing a good job, preacher hasn't prepared properly, everybody else is just unfriendly and unkind, and I'm gonna take my ball and bat and I'm gonna go home. And you know there might even be truth in that. I have sat through countless services in the course of my life. And guess what? Sometimes the music has been horrific, and sometimes the preaching was even worse. And sometimes the people were unkind and unfriendly. You've heard me tell the story of Michelle and I were on our honeymoon, we went to a church up north that remained unnamed, and we went there in the hope and the expectation that somebody would at least invite us over for coffee. We could have even handled dinner, but we didn't want to push it. So we planted ourselves outside the front door of that church, hoping that somebody would connect us, make conversation with us, let alone invite us someplace or ask us, "Hey, what are you doing?" but we're on our honeymoon and we're bored with each other and we want to come to your place for coffee, whatever, right? Seriously. It's the couch for me tonight, but you know where that's going. And we stood there, were the last people to leave that church, was kind of like today, usually the last one to leave, but for different reasons. Last one to leave and not a single person spoke to us or invited us anywhere. Not exactly the hallmark of a friendly church, and you will have had those experiences. There are people that walk in here, they have that kind of an experience. It's easy in those moments to blame our lack of spiritual vitality on other people and there may even be a lot of truth to it. But you know, fact of the matter is, if our spirituality depends on others, there's already something wrong in our walk with God. And I'm willing to bet that if you and I find ourselves in this kind of place that we're talking about for any length of time, the issue is not the music, the issue is not the preaching, the issue is not the other people, the issue isn't any of the things that we want to make the issue. I'm willing to bet that deep down there is a grudge you carry in your heart, a place where you have been estranged in your relationship from God and estranged in your relationship with somebody else and the Holy Spirit is grieved. And he says, "I'm taking my batonball and I'm going home." Now that doesn't mean you're not a Christian, doesn't mean that you can't find your way back, but it does mean that it's serious business because a holy God has his own expectations of what walking in fellowship with him means. And if we're not repenting where we need to repent, we are crucifying the Lord Jesus afresh. You with me? The Holy Spirit can be grieved away and when that happens, we need to repent and we need to say, "Lord, where are you? What is it that you're trying to point out in my life?" But it gets worse as if it could get worse. Not only does the Holy Spirit withdraw, but when the Holy Spirit withdraws, who do you think comes close? The devil himself. Failure to forgive means giving Satan access to your life. That's again how Jesus put it in the passage from Matthew. Scripture reference there is wrong. In his anger, his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured until he should pay back all he owed. Now I ask you the question, who's the jailer? The jailer is the devil. And what's the devil's primary preoccupation? That is to make your life and my life miserable. Because you see, in the universe, there are only two ultimate spiritual powers that are much, much greater than you and I. Let's just picture it this way. There's God who is the good, benevolent, overflowing fountain of everything good and perfect. And there is Satan. It is in relationship with God, submitting to his authority, and living in relationship with each other that provides God's protection. Most of us have no idea the extent to which God protects us from evil and from evil forces. I've been told in the early Christian church, if you weren't part of a Christian community, you were part of the pagan community and you were exposed to the raw power of hell. And increasingly, that is what's happening today. If the devil can separate you from community, he's already got an inroad into your life because, put that back up again please, apart from relationship with God, guess who's the boss? He is described as the God of this world. And as the God of this world, he will fill you with lies. His intention is to produce conflict even as he encourages self-centeredness and selfishness. So somebody's hurt you, you're in pain, you're angry, you've got a lot of questions. You're not dealing with it. God withdraws, not all at once, not without trying to get at you, but if you keep on choosing that path, you grieve him, Satan draws near. And what do you think he begins to do? He begins to poke you. And I can tell you exactly how he will poke you. He will start by emphasizing the injustice with which you have been treated. My husband doesn't understand me, my kids are rude, my co-worker at work has no respect for me, my boss treats me like an idiot. And if you allow that to settle in, your anger, your grudge, your resentment will continue to grow until it begins to possess your life. And pretty soon you've got a monkey on your back, you don't know how to get rid of it, and the further down the line you go, and the more evidence you are collecting to shore up your cause, the deeper will be the deception, and the harder it is for anybody else to straighten you out because it feels so good, and it feels so right. Anybody here honest enough to admit that when you're in the middle of a significant conflict with somebody that you're close to, there is something about it that makes you dig in, and you just rather enjoy feeling the way that you're feeling, isn't that true? At least some of us are honest, and the rest of us we might have to work on a little bit. Human personalities vary, obviously, right? But what happens is that you get imprisoned by Satan's power, and the more you get imprisoned by Satan, the less you can see the biblical pattern of things, the more you see things your way until life either totally falls apart, or God in his grace brings you to the end of himself, and he brings you to repentance. Unforgiveness is Satan's primary tool to get into your life and to drive you away from God. Classic example, you've heard me talk about this before, is Cain who killed Abel because God did not accept his sacrifice. God said, "Sin is couching at the door. You must resist it. Its desire is to have you. Will you not be acceptable if you do right?" Cain refused to humble himself because after all, he was the firstborn, and he had more claim on God than his brother Abel did, and he went out of there, and he ultimately became a murderer, and he built what is known as the City of Man, all human structures, nations, institutions, and empires, ultimately are built on that foundation. I don't need God, I can do it myself. The end is always the violence of Lamech that we talked about in passing last week. So Paul puts it this way, Ephesians 4.26, "In your anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold." Catch that? What's a foothold? A foothold is when you're trying to climb the rocks, you find a place for your foot that will carry you. Satan is looking to breach your defenses so that he can get into your life, so that once he is there, he can expand his operation, and he can do his disastrous work. Likewise, in 2 Corinthians 2, 10 and 11, "If you forgive anyone, I also forgive him. And what I have forgiven, if there was anything to forgive, I have forgiven in the sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us." Read this last line with me, "For we are not unaware of his schemes." We are not unaware of his schemes. He is a hunter. You are the prey, I am the prey. And he is constantly trying to figure out how can I get these people, and the best way that he can get us is to put us in so much pain relationally that God withdraws and Satan has a field day because he can now move in. Why is it important to listen to the biblical admonition? To go to your brother or your sister alone and resolve the issue? Number one, it damages your soul if you don't. Number two, it damages your relationship with God if you don't, for the reasons stated. And then there is still a third reason, and that is closely tied into the previous two, and that is the fact that it destroys community. A perverse man stirs up dissension, says the book of Proverbs 16, 28, and a gossip separates close friends. Have you ever noticed that when somebody comes into church and they're in a bad place, particularly if they're in a bad place relationally, they radiate, and I don't know what other word to use, they radiate a negative energy. I don't like to use that word because it's kind of new agey, but you all know what I'm talking about. You sit within a six foot radius of a person who is not in tune with the spirit of the Lord and who is mulling over his or her anger or resentment, and it is like the waves are just radiating. You only have to look at his face to know that whatever is happening, it's not good. You only have to look at that person's body language to know that that person is really not into the worship of God or into the life of community. They withdraw, they close off their heart, and that spreads like poison because if you're sitting next to that, what does that do to you? Sort of diminishes your joy a tad, doesn't it? Because now you're sitting there wondering, "Did I do something? Maybe I sat in this chair." That's been known to happen around here. Not only that, but a person who is in a bad spot can hardly ever keep it to himself. Have you ever noticed that? We become motor mouths, and if anybody even bothers to ask us, "What's the matter with you," give them half a chance, there is the tale of woe. Now that's all right if that is a mature person in the Lord who can help you walk through your conflict and who can say, "Listen, we've got to go resolve this, and if you won't go see that person on your own, I will go with you and we'll straighten it out together." But most of the time, it is somebody who resonates with our pain. Now you've got two people all upset. Now you've got a 24-foot radius of irritation. Well, you multiply that over and over and over, and what happens is you grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Because we can grieve Him not only individually, we can also grieve Him collectively. And then before you know it, it's like there is a wet blanket. You've been to meetings, I've been to meetings where you're trying to praise the Lord or you're trying to do relationship, and you come in feeling pretty good and happy and cheerful, and by the time you leave, it's like hokey smokes, whatever happened there. It's like a wet blanket just got thrown over my mind. See, it's easy to point fingers at other people and say, "If only other people didn't do that, then I'd be happy." But you know what, the place for each one of us to start is with ourselves, because none of us is immune to this particular issue. And each of us needs grace to ask the Lord, "How can I best go about working through conflicted relationships? I don't want to make it worse. I want it to come to some kind of resolution. I don't know how to do this." Jesus says, "Simply start." Call up that person, make a connection, and say, "Listen, I'd like to sit down. There are some things I want to discuss with you. I would encourage you not to do it by the telephone, though some people like to do it that way. I don't. Don't do it by email, because email is a funny thing. It is way too temperamental, and it makes you say things that you never thought you were saying, and it stirs up a lot of dissension. Don't do it by Facebook or by Twitter. Just say, "Can we please talk?" Make an appointment, don't just do it on the fly, "Oh, well, let me dump on you now." No, no, find enough space and time. And then don't make all kinds of accusations, because that will just get the other person's dander up. No, you share what has happened, how you see it. You might even be seeing it wrong. My feelings got hurt. I am angry. Can we please discuss this? Stay away from always-never statements. You always do this, you never do that, because now you're going to argue about what always means and what never means, because you and I both know that it's not always, and it's not always never, whatever that looks like in the real world, right? And as I said earlier, what is the object? The object is to win your brother or your sister back. Now it doesn't always work, doesn't always work immediately. And that's why Jesus in the passage goes on to name two more steps that we can take and need to take in case the conversations go south. The first is you take somebody with you, the second is, or the third, you know what I'm trying to say, you take it to the church. And as we follow those biblical steps, God himself will do the work that needs to be done so that we can live in a healthy way in biblical and Christian communities. So let me leave you with this, I don't want to put heavy on you, I'm just quoting Jesus just for the record, so you can take it up with here. We all find ourselves in situations sometimes where this has happened. We all struggle with what do we do or what don't we do. Can I ask you to at least begin by asking the Lord, is there a specific person with whom my relationship is strained, that you are calling me to step into in the hope and in an attempt at bringing about restoration? And if nobody comes to mind, fine and dandy. If somebody does come to mind, then say, Lord, what does stepping into this look like? As I said, we don't want to make a mess, we want to redeem, how can this be redeemed? Because when all has been said and done, at the end of the day, when we stand before Christ in judgment, what are the words we want to hear? Well done, good and faithful servant, you've been faithful over little, I will put you [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:39:55.180; remove through 00:40:01.000] over much. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:40:01.000; resume after this marked segment]