Beatitudes pt 3
Notes
Transcript
Handout
start w definition of conflict
merriam Webster
to be different, opposed, or contradictory : to fail to be in agreement or accord
Lets start with a question. How many of you have had a conflict in the last month? Last week? Last 24 hours? this morning?
Here’s what I want you to hear.
Conflict is normal.
The way out is what is abnormal
We need to, according to the sotm, make our dealing with it normal. This morning we are going to look at what I believe is the capstone for understanding wholehearted, flourishing living.
what does a person who is called into the life that the sermon on the mount depicts do
We are called to be peacemakers. Which means, with all the effort that we have, we are called to make peace with others.
Jesus tells us that is still the blessed life. To do the right thing even if people respond to it poorly. To act justly and righteously and mercifully toward people because there is more at stake than our own comfort.
This morning we are going to stare at conflict directly. We are going to look at what conflict is, what it does, and what we do about it.
Because this is very important to the heart of the Gospel.
In fact reconciliation is in the heart of the Gospel
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him,
We are going to look at three steps in understanding conflict.
The first thing we have to realize is that no matter the situation or conflict, there is an opportunity to give glory to God.
Glorifying God
Glorifying God
To glorify God is to recognize His power and authority to act within our situation. When we get involved in conflict we shrink everything down. Nothing has power, we feel. Only the conflict. Nothing has more authority, only the conflict.
To give glory to God is to say that the conflict is not the final one to speak, God is. God can move and work and in fact if we let Him, He will work in our lives through conflict.
Giving glory to God is paying attention to God in the conflict. Seeing how He is leading us
Because
In fact it is in conflict that we grow.
God may be allowing you to be in this conflict because He is wanting you to grow in an area. Conflict is the area of transformation
It is important to place conflict rightly before we act within it. It is like aiming at something. We line up the conflict between ourselves and God.
If we know that God can be glorified in conflict it means that we approach it differently.
The first thing we have to do is
Getting the Log out
Getting the Log out
This is a metaphor Jesus uses later on in the Sotm. Let’s look at what He says
Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
We will cover this in a little more detail down the road, but it is essential to conflict.
If we are going to be peacemakers, then it includes our understanding of our part in the conflict.
To get the log out of our eye we have to assume that we a play a part in the conflict.
If we are in conflict we are likely not innocent in what we have done
A caveat. This notion does not include areas of abuse. That is not conflict, that is control and sin on the abusers part. Abuse is not a two party system, the blame lies on the act of the abuser not the victim. That is a different issue.
For areas of conflict in which we are a part of, in which we do contribute, we have to begin by understanding we play a part in it.
Any conflict I have ever been in or mediated is usually not equal parts. You might be 10 percent of the conflict or 90 percent of it, no matter how much of a part you play, we first have to understand our role.
And the way we express that role is through confession. We admit that we have created conflict, we participated in it.
If you are a Christian this morning, this is a normative process between you and God. When our lives skew sideways in sin and brokenness we are called to confess. To admit that we did wrong.
Mt Angel Monastery. Monks stepping out and bowing. They owned thier mistake.
This is a normative posture because it is the place where Christ lifts our burdens. It is not the place of shame or heaviness, it is the posture of freedom.
This is how we understand that conflict can give glory to God. We go to the place where we need restoration.
And just like Christ, who though sinless and without fault, went first. His peacemakers, the sons and daughters of God, go first.
We are always waiting for the other person. Christ didn’t. We don’t either.
Because it is in getting the log out that we can understand restoration
If we can get the log out then we can now move toward freedom found in restoration and reconciliation
Restore and be reconciled
Restore and be reconciled
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. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison. Truly, I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.
For the Christian, conflict is placed on us to offer reconciliation.
We are called to be experts in it. What does it mean to be a Christian in the world? What does it mean to act like Christ in the world?
It is to be focused endlessly on 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.
This is who we are. This is our calling. We can’t escape it in the Scriptures. We are called to be reconciled through offering and receiving forgiveness.
We are to be so enamored with Christ as the One who has modelled forgiveness, that we then extend it to others. We become the messengers of reconciliation.
This is what we should be incredible at, focused on and applying.
When we approach someone after getting the log out, we recognize forgiveness as the following act. We offer it and receive it.
To be a peacemaker is to respond to Christ making peace in our own lives.
. The idea is that we expend our energy on how it is we can be peacemakers.
but just to make sure to follow the line of scripture, while we may want to be peacemakers, it does not mean that everyone does.
We know that not everyone responds in the way that we are called to make peace, but that doesn’t deter us from trying to.
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
“Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
This is a tough business. Because notice Jesus doesn’t tell us to act in accordance with how people will respond. He doesn’t say blessed are the peacemakers because they make everything wonderful and happy.
The focus on peacemaking is not the outcome in the world but rather the outcome in the Kingdom of God.
When we live out peacemaking we are actually just living out our natural relationship with God. The blessed life is the life of a peacemaker because they are sons and daughters of God.
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
If you are a son or daughter of God, if you call Jesus your own, you are called to be a peacemaker. That is the connection
If you question purpose It’s in the sotm
If you question calling sotm. If you need discernment sotm
We often get wrapped up into what is God calling me to do. No matter where it is is is to be a peacemaker.
Jesus doesn’t say that everything will be rosy. In fact He shows us the blessed life of a peacemaker and that they are children of God.
And then immediately after he says, people will misunderstand you because they misunderstand Christ and they will utter all kinds of evil.
And that connection may be the most important of all
Because we love justifying the idea of treating people the way they treat us. Jesus doesn’t say be kind to people only as long as they are kind to you. He says make peace even when, especially when, people utter all kinds of evil against you.
We are not the people of cause and effect, acting against people the way they act against us.
We are the people of the Kingdom. We act based on how God acts with us, regardless, according to the Sotm, of anything else.
We could not survive for long if the call was just to make peace. Because it would hurt to work to make peace when the world doesn’t want to.
But we don’t make peace just in response to people’s reaction. We make peace because peace was made possible in Christ.
We have experienced the very impossible thing of a repaired relationship with the God of the universe. A miracle.
And when we get the log out and when we extend forgiveness, it is an expression of the miraculous.
Not because it always returns in kind but because the King of the universe knows how it all ends. And we can rejoice in that.