Peace Lesson 5: Lights, Camera, and ACTION

Recap

Welcome back to the Anchor everyone! I hope each of you have had a great week! I know tonight looks a little different then we were expecting, but you know life is like that, God had us be here for a reason.

So we have been going through a series on Peace, lets recap a few things:

Can someone tell me the Biblical definition of peace we have been using when talking about relationships?

Peace - not just the absence of negative conflict but the presence of positive relationship

Awesome, and the Hebrew word is? Shalom

Then we have the four causes of conflict:

Misunderstandings

Differences

Limited Resources

Sin

2 Common responses to conflict:

Flight or Fight

Last week we asked this question: “How can we live at peace with others? How do we actually do this?”

We must start with the attitude:

Does anyone remember the three traits we should have in our attitude from last week?

Humility

Gentleness

Patience

How exactly can we have these when someone has hurt us? What do we do with our hurt?

We take it to Jesus, He knows what it is like, and He can heal us.

How exactly can someone take it to Jesus?

through prayer, talking to God

Awesome, so tonight we will be looking at what’s next? Where do we go from here? What do I do now?

Lights, Camera, ACTION

We looked at the 2 responses, flight or fight, but where do we even begin when thinking about how to respond to conflict.

Tonight we will break this into two questions:

How can I resolve conflict with another believer?

How can I resolve conflict with an unbeliever?

There is a difference.

How can I resolve conflict with a believer?

Let’s see what God’s word says for the first one:

New Living Translation Chapter 18

15 “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back. 16 But if you are unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again, so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses. 17 If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church. Then if he or she won’t accept the church’s decision, treat that person as a pagan or a corrupt tax collector.

What is the first thing we must do if another believer sins against us, go. We go and talk to them.

Now do you think we are going to go up to them and start yelling and accusing harshly?

No we keep an attitude of humility, patience, and gentleness. Relying on God to help us. I would say even praying for the person and asking the Lord for help when talking to them.

I am about to give you a big term, I’m curious if you’ve heard this before: Church Discipline?

What do you guys think this means?

Church discipline is the people of the church being involved in one another’s lives in such a way as to keep people from falling into sin or to rescue them from out of sin.

(Definition from my class)

-> Sketch out on the board what is happening in Matthew 18. <-

So something we should learn from this passage is the importance of GOING to the other person who has hurt us and talking with them about it!

There is another passage in Matthew that will help us understand this.

“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. 2 For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.

Has anyone heard this passage before?

Now I like how one commentator puts it, there is two types of judging

Critical analyzing.

Condemning accusing. -> This is for God the judge alone

As you can see in verse five, there is a place for this first one. But what does Jesus command for us to do in this?

Remove the log out of our own eye.

Let me give you an example of someone who has a log in their eye.

Example

Before we GO to someone, we must ask ourselves if we to have done or are doing the same offense as them.

We will be right back to this.

How can I resolve conflict with an unbeliever?

What about unbelievers? How do we approach them?

Let’s go to Romans 12:17. Hand them the MAD Bible.

Do not repay evil with evil, be honorable, live in peace with everyone. Never take revenge.

Show kindness to your enemies, conquer evil by doing good!

So what about the bullies at school?

When it is verbal

Show them kindness, overlook the offense. Jesus calls this “turning the other cheek”

Pray for them, Jesus tells us to pray for those who persecute us

inform authorities

When it is physical

Inform teachers, parents

Continue to show them kindness, ask God to help you see them as He sees them

All of these things God calls us to do with people in our lives who are unbelievers. If you have a deeper relationship with them, this can be hard, especially if it is a family member. Take your hurt to God, Jesus had difficult family members too.

He will give you peace when you cast these cares on Him. It might not bring immediate peace between you and the other person, but it will bring inward peace.

A deeper issue

We need to go back to the log question. Are we doing the very same things that are others are doing to us? Do I get made fun of, but continue to make fun of others? Do I get mistreated, but mistreat others myself?

When we think of the conflict in our life, stop and ask this question to ourselves. We won’t always be doing the same thing, but a lot of the time we are making the same mistake.

Guess what. We have a God who wants to help us grow in this. When we discover we are making the same exact mistakes, God calls us to tell Him that, He says:

1 John 1:9 ESV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Let me ask you this question: Have you done this before, have you told God your sins. Have you been forgiven by Him?

He waits for you to come to Him and have this conversation. Ask me or Grace about this afterwards if you don’t know how to do this but want to. We are open and want to help you with your walk with God.

When we ask God for help in these things, He helps us. Go to Him for help before confronting others, okay?

Key Action: Go - to God for help, and to others to talk with them about what happened.

Any questions ?