Conflict and Peacemaking

Relationships are hard.

Any relationship is.

Everybody is different, with different point of view, different life experiences to influence those points of view.

God did not make cookie cutter people.  We are intrinsically different.

And God has called each of us in a different way.

I have chosen to homeschool my kids.  Do I think everyone should homeschool?

 

Absolutely not.

We each have our own strengths and weaknesses.

And that’s okay.  Look around at creation, it’s obvious that God delights in variety.

But here’s the thing.

Because we are different, we don’t always agree.

And this leads to conflict.

I want to share this article on conflict

.

Even if you are not experiencing a conflict right now,

I can guarantee you will in the future.

 

Even Paul, a great follower of Christ, one of the main founders of the Christian faith, experienced conflict.

Conflict: An Opportunity for Peace

Acts 15:36-40;

36 And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let us return and visit the brothers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.” 37 Now Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark.38 But Paul thought best not to take with them one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. 39 And there arose a sharp disagreement, so that they separated from each other. Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, 40 but Paul chose Silas and departed, having been commended by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.

I began with the story of Paul and Barnabas for a couple of reasons. First, to illustrate that church conflict is as old as the first church. But conflict was not the problem; sin was. You see, God created all things with diversity in mind. There is night and day, water and land, Paul and Barnabas. Even though both men were united in their mission (v.36), they disagreed about the best choice for the third team member. Paul didn’t want John Mark to join them because he’d proven unready for the mission. He let deserted them in the middle of their last trip to return home. Paul did not think John Mark was mature enough to persevere in the work and wanted Silas instead (v. 40). Barnabas wanted John Mark to have a second chance to prove himself believing the young man learned from the debacle and was now up to the challenge. Whose side would you have taken? The expedient Paul or the merciful Barnabas?

Second, I used the story in hopes that it might relieve some fears when we see the apostle and a co-worker in the gospel agree to go separate ways after an argument. It’s true enough that God overruled the quarrel in his providence doubling missionary efforts, but what about their relationship? Luke does not commend the quarreling nor does he tell us that there was reconciliation at this point and assumptions that there was might be premature.[3] It may be more likely that the disagreement over John Mark alienated the two men for quite a long while.

Four principles for biblical peacemaking (Col 1:15-20)

Let’s look at what we need to learn for effective biblical peacemaking. In this text from Colossians, we can identify four principles to encourage us in learning how to be peace makers.

Real peace is a priority to God

Peace is such a high priority with God that he did not send angels or even prophets to bring it. Instead, he sent his only Son who is called “The Prince of Peace.”[9]His assignment from the Father was a predetermined plan long before the creation of the world. According to Peter, “he was foreknown before the foundation of the world.” (1:20). Long before the creation and fall, and all the conflicts that would erupt due to sin, God provided for them before any of them existed.

This pre-creation provision shows us that peace is one of God’s highest priorities. In doing so, God makes peacemaking one of our highest priorities. Estrangements in relationships are foreign to God. He calls us to act in a timely fashion when someone has something against us. Consider Jesus’ command in Matthew 5:23-24, “So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

Real peacemaking is costly

Real peace is also costly. Remember that Jesus left heaven’s glory, descended into a fallen and impure world, took on our humanity, endured rejection and opposition from those he came to save and shed his life’s blood on the cross. That’s the price of reconciliation with God.

The cross stands as a testimony to two things: God’s judgment for sin and God’s love for the unjust. This judgment and love are taught together in all the Scriptures. The apostle John wrote,

In this, the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Notice that the response John is looking for in this love of God for us is that we channel that same love to one another. So, we have to ask ourselves, is our love costing us something? Am I willing to pay the price required for the spread of peace and reconciliation with others? We might say: “No cost; no love.”

What might it cost us to become real peace makers in our church? It will cost those things that make us more like Christ. It might cost humility; actually believing that other people and their interests are more important than mine. It might cost radical self-examination in order to see how I have contributed to the break down in relationship with another person. I may still be obligated to remove the speck from a brother’s eye, but I must be willing to admit and remove the giant Redwood tree in mine. It might mean that others may understand a conflict situation more accurately than I do. It might demand me to overlook the betrayal, ignore the unkind or untrue gossip, forgive the failed commitment and accept the half-hearted repentance in order to encourage reconciliation. It will most certainly mean renouncing the familiar companionship of bitterness and self-pity. And it will mean giving up all my rights to even the score.

Real peacemaking needs an ally

Aren’t you moved by that kind of love? When you hear this description of Christian relationships, don’t you long for this to characterize the relationship in our church and your home? Don’t you secretly pray, “Spirit of God – do that in me!”

Then we remember the price, we look at the account marked “our love quotient” and see we’re in the red. We barely have any humility or forgiveness to cover the damages caused by sin. Especially if someone has racked up a “seventy times seven” withdraw from us.

If you have suffered a deep and repeated wrong at the hands of someone who said they loved you, you know how impossible it sounds to your ears to “overlook the fault.” I would not be surprised if you didn’t hear another word after that, because of the multitude of words flying up from your heart reminding you afresh of the pain all over again.

Brothers and sisters, that is why we must have an ally; someone who is eager to come to our aid with the resources necessary to restore peace. We need someone who really knows what it is to pay the price of bearing the full weight of someone else’s sin. That someone of course is Christ, in whom all the fullness of God dwelt, and through whom reconciliation was made “by making peace through his blood shed on the cross” (Col 1:19-20).

Jesus is eminently qualified to establish peace and the safety and protection of relationship that come with it. The OT prophet called him the Prince of Peace, and if you follow the description of what he will do throughout Isaiah’s prophecies, you will see Jesus as tireless in establishing peace in the lives of his people.[10] He will help you.

You may be afraid to go to the one you offended or to the one who offended you. I know what that feels like. That is when it is necessary for you to put your trust in Christ, who cares for you, and take courage from him in order to pursue peace with others. We can go to each other with this promise etched on your heart: “it is God who works in you to will [to want to] and to act according to his good purpose.”[11] This fear you have is not faith. So you must act banking on the love of God to bless your peace making efforts.

 

 

Real peacemaking has eternal consequences

Matthew 18, a text we will look at in some detail later on, is not the only text that calls upon us to become peace makers. Another text links our privilege of experiencing the gift of peace in the new birth with our responsibility to others. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about this:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.[12]

If you have been reconciled to God through Jesus Christ, you have been forgiven of your sins and you are no longer the child of darkness that you once were. Your old life of sin-saturated rejection of God and his ways as relevant to you came to an end. This is what the Bible means by the phrase “the new birth.” The Spirit of God has put into you a new power of life along with the presence of the Spirit to make it real. Now, instead of being dominated by repulsive thoughts about God, you find God satisfying. You have become the recipient of a declared peace with God.[13] Just like enemy combatants who lay down their weapons at the end of the war knowing they are no longer in danger of the enemy, you have laid down your rebellion against God and experience him now as Friend and Father.

This is one of the effects of the gospel of peace.[14] Our sins are forgiven, our consciences cleansed and we enjoy freedom from our slavery to rebellion against God. My friend, if you cannot say this is true of your life, I urge you to consider how to switch sides in this war between you and God. God is a holy judge who has proven he will not overlook anyone’s sins against him and everyone has sinned against him. We know this because he sent his Son to pay the penalty for those sins. All that is necessary to avoid paying the penalty ourselves is that those who have sinned against God would humble themselves to trust in the sacrifice of Christ’s death for the punishment.

And it takes humility to accept Jesus’ death on our behalf because we are so enamored by our own self-sufficiency. But self-sufficiency lies at the root of our problem in the first place. It is said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results. Since self-sufficiency hasn’t worked much in your favor in the past, what makes you think it will work in the future?

In order to obtain a different result – in this case peace with God – there is a necessarily different approach, namely renouncing a rebellious heart, asking for a faithful heart and trusting in a merciful God. If you are willing to do this, it is because God has put that want to there.

Brothers and sisters, because we have received God’s peace, we are now called into active duty as ambassadors of God carrying the message to others to be reconciled. Our ambassadorship is to work for the reconciliation of those alienated from God to come to Christ. But our ambassadorship also has implications for the life of our church. When Christians get “sideways” with each other, we must be ready to serve them. The charter of our ambassadorship seeks to persuade them to act contrary to the world’s way of approaching conflict. Instead of adversarial approaches, we come with the gospel of peace in order to maintain the unity of the Spirit.

And this reconciliation catches the attention of the world. It’s hard to say that the church if filled with hypocrites, when those hypocrites practice loving one another. And this brings us to conflict as an opportunity to glorify God.

Three opportunities in any conflict

There are many healthy benefits to be realized by the people who practice biblical reconciliation. If you have been used to thinking of conflict as something bad, I am going to recommend a new way to think and approach conflict so that it might be a positive event.

We start by admitting that God has created each of us uniquely. As individuals, we have different opinions and convictions, different desires and perspectives. In fact, these differences often attract us to each other. How many husbands and wives will admit that they are as different as night and day? And it’s the differences we enjoy. Many of our qualities are neither inherently right nor wrong; they just are.

When our differences set the table for conflict, we can use our disagreements to stimulate productive discussions and even encourage creativity and helpful change. Although the Bible calls us to unity in our relationships, we don’t seek conformity (see Eph 4:1-13). Rather than avoiding conflicts or demanding that others agree with our positions, we should enjoy the differences in one another, learning to work with people who simply see things differently than we do (see Rom 15:7; 14:13). If we are unwilling to live this way together, we won’t be together long. We’ll be looking for another church and then another.

However, when conflict arises, our first impulse should be to see it as an opportunity to demonstrate the love and power of God’s grace in our lives. Paul tells us in 1 Cor 10:31, 32 that we are to do everything for God’s glory and the good of others; and that includes our responses to conflict.

So, I recommend that this week we all spend time meditating on these three things to help us get over our fear of conflict and change our thinking along biblical lines.

Conflict is an opportunity to glorify God

Conflict becomes an opportunity to show what we really believe about God. When we pursue peace with others, it is like you having a banner flying over us that reads, “I believe God is the God of all peace; just look at his grace at work!” If you run away from conflict your banner reads: “I don’t really think Jesus came in the flesh or ever suffered real pain from the angry threats or ever got perturbed by the petty bickering of the disciples jockeying for power.” Avoidance is the way we say that Christ’s life has little relevance or hope to offer.

Here’s the best part. A gospel-centered approach to conflict resolution makes you less dependent on the results. Even if others refuse to respond biblically to your efforts, you will find comfort in knowing that God is pleased with your obedience. So, the next time you find yourself in a conflict, ask yourself this: how can I please and honor God in this situation? In particular, how can I bring praise to Jesus by showing that he has saved me and is changing me?

Conflict is an opportunity to serve others

Second, as you might expect, conflict is an opportunity to serve others with God’s grace. We’ll learn more about this as we go along, but the key Scripture is on Galatians 6 which calls us to carry the burdens of others by providing for their spiritual, emotional or material needs. Conflict encourages us all to trust in Christ and display God’s love through humility, wisdom and grace.

Conflict is an opportunity to grow in Christlikeness

Finally, all this leads to growth in Christlikeness. Conflict exposes our sinful attitudes and the Spirit draws us to lean on Christ’s grace. Part of that grace is wisely developing new habits and praying for new heart attitudes. It’s strenuous work being transformed. Just like athletes are stretched and pushed to greater achievements, so are God’s children. The pain and the mess are the arena for growth. There is no growth without adversity.

I have a love/hate relationship with running. Getting up in the morning to run a couple of miles used to be something I looked forward to. When I had to stop running, it was really tough getting going again. But after the run is over, I usually get that runner’s high and feel pretty good the rest of the day.

But I’ve learned that focusing on what I’m doing to my body during the run is not as encouraging as focusing on how I’m growing through the run. Stamina is being built, leg muscles are being strengthened. Pretty soon a three mile run barely brings a sweat.

If you would deepen your walk with Christ, it will take the “ABC” of spiritual growth. It stands for “Adversity Builds Character.” God cares that we grow through our conflicts, not just that we get through them.

So.

We are to approach someone we have a problem with in humility, and with love.  With our focus being on bringing glory to God.

And we are to respond to someone who comes to us with humility and love, with our focus being to glorify God.

And this brings me to my next point.

Recently, someone confronted me on something in my life he disagreed with.

I went on the defensive immediately, and my response was neither humble, nor loving.

And it certainly did not bring glory to God.

So, you who confronted me, and you know who you are,

I am sorry for my response to you.

I am sorry I did not treat you with love.

I hope we can resolve this conflict in a God glorifying way.