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Episode Notes
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TranscriptIntroduction
Welcome back to the Biblical Conflict Resolution series. This is part 3, and we’re still working through the necessary steps we all need to take to prepare our minds to respond to conflict in a God-glorifying way.
And—might I add—this preparation isn’t a one and done. It would be wise to prepare our minds before disagreement and conflict, during disagreement and conflict, and—that’s right—even after disagreement and conflict. We humans are constantly in need of remembering and reevaluating what we’re believing, thinking, wanting, and feeling. So, I pray that this series will definitely help you establish a firm foundation for approaching this topic. Let’s jump right in. Topic
By way of review, we’ve talked about how we need to prepare our worldview. We prepare our worldview by remembering that we can only ever control ourselves, but we also need to establish for time and memorial that disagreement is not a bad thing. Disagreement can be valuable. When done in a Christ-honoring way, all disagreement has the potential of benefitting all of us. But when sin is involved in that disagreement, it becomes conflict, and that is always wrong.
And last time we discussed preparing our reaction to disagreement and conflict. On that episode we established that it is God’s will that we approach these situations with a heart of gratitude because we know Who God is, what He’s promised, what He wants to do through and in us, and what He desires to accomplish in the conflict. And we should definitely be thankful for all of those things. And today we’re going to talk about preparing your focus. But before we unpack that topic, today’s show is being brought to you by The Year Long Celebration of God. I created The Yearlong Celebration of God as a tool for parents to use our holidays and our everydays to disciple our children for the Lord. That eventually lead to me starting a podcast which has run for over 100 episodes. Each of those episodes is designed to help you worship God better this year than you did last year and to equip you to help the other people in your life do the same. You can access that podcast, The Celebration of God, anywhere you consume podcasts. You can also visit the website, CelebrationOfGod.com, as well as access the podcast, some of our Bible Reading Plans, and my Fasting Journals on the Evermind App. And there will be a link in the description for setting up your free Evermind+ account. Okay, so what do I mean when I say that we need to prepare our focus? Well, I’m not really going to dedicate a lot of time to this episode because we actually recently talked about this necessary step in conflict resolution. In episode 528, If You Want to See Change in Your Family, You Absolutely Must . . . ., we talked about Matthew 7:15, in which Jesus warns us to deal with the log in our own eye before trying to address the speck in someone else’s. As we all know, in that scenario there has been a legitimate conflict. Sin has been committed by at least one party, and that’s the whole point. Jesus’ main admonition was that we will never be able to reconcile conflict if we’re bringing conflict to the situation. Therefore, it’s absolutely imperative that we diligently search our own lives to see if we have any sin sneaking around that we’re not seeing. And that’s the main point today. In times of conflict, the focus of our spiritual eyes must be on ourselves first. As you prepare your focus to resolve conflict for God, you must . . . Check Your Own Eye. But there is more to say about this than what we covered in episode 528, so let’s set that aside for a moment and consider some other biblical truths that relate to this point. 1. Recognize that you should be more familiar with your sin than you are the sins of others. In I Samuel 16:7 we read, “God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” The truth I want us to pull from this verse today is that you can only ever perceive another person’s actions, words, and—to a certain degree—feelings. But unless they tell you about it, you can never see another person’s desires, thoughts, and beliefs. Why is this important? Let’s couple this truth with another from I Timothy 1:15. As Paul is writing to Timothy, he encourages him by saying “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.” How could the Apostle Paul claim to be the foremost—the chief—of sinners? We have an episode called “The Chief of Sinners in Your Home” which delves deeper into this topic and helps you recognize your place within your home. But—suffice it to say—Paul could honestly say that about himself because in addition to perceiving his own actions, words, and feelings, he was very much aware of his own sinful desires, thoughts, and beliefs. This means that if he were ever to compare his sins versus Timothy’s or Demas’ of John Mark’s, his own list would always be longer. We can only ever see the outward appearance, unless it’s our own heart. Therefore, dealing with the sin in our own lives should always be easier than dealing with the sin in another’s because our’s should be so obvious to us. And this is why Jesus tells us to start conflict resolution by first looking to our own hearts. But despite the fact that your own sins should be clearer to you than the sins of the other people in the conflict, we’re too often blind to our own logs. That’s why . . . 2. Ask God to help you see your sin. Your heart is deceitful and wicked, and—let’s be honest—you can’t really know just how wicked it is. Jeremiah 17:9 reminds us, “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” This is why in Psalm 139:23-24 David cries out, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; 24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.” David knew that He would need the Lord’s help to untangle the web of lies in his own mind. Again in Psalm 26:2 David pleads with the Lord, “Examine me, O Lord, and try me; Test my mind and my heart.” Proverbs 17:3 tells us, “The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, But the Lord tests hearts.” If you’re serious about truly knowing your heart and discovering the logs in your own eye, you must open God’s Word and beseech the Holy Spirit to help you identify they ways you might be sinning in the conflict. And you need to do that first . . . before you start itemizing the sins in the other person’s life. I’ve already said it, but the final lesson for today is very important. It’s too easy to trust our own minds, to take the word of our friends or favorite talking heads, but when it comes to truly knowing the state of our spiritual lives, we have to open the Bible. 3. Honestly compare your actions, words, and thoughts to the Scriptures. James 1:22-25 compares the Scriptures to a mirror. “Prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; 24 for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. 25 But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” How does your love compare to Scripture? What about your communication? How about your attitude? Are you being thankful? Are you being sinfully angry? As a biblical counselor, generally speaking it’s not too difficult for other people to see your spiritual blindspots and identify your biggest temptations. If we’re being honest and humble, we shouldn’t get very far in the Scriptures without being confronted and convicted about our own sin. By the grace of God and illumination by the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t have to be hard. And this is why Jesus commands us in Matthew 7:1-5, “Do not judge so that you will not be judged. 2 For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. 3 Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? 5 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.” There is great hope in the command to “first take the log out of your own eye” because that means it can be done. In Psalm 119:18 David prays “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” The Lord will help us prepare our focus by setting it first on our own hearts. Conclusion
I know today’s episode is so short! But like I already said, I didn’t believe it was necessary to repeat everything we discussed in episode 528, because—like all of our evergreen content—it’s right there for you to study as you deepen your understanding about biblical conflict resolution.
But before we finish, allow me to ask two questions. First, when you’re in conflict with someone else, what percentage of your focus is on how they are wrong and what percentage of your focus is on how you are wrong? Now, this will likely be very hard for you to answer for yourself in this moment. A. It’s not something we normally tabulate, B. It’s too easy to lie to ourselves, and C. We have good imaginations. So, make it a point of order to really meditate on how much you focus on other’s wrongs and how much you focus on your own. You could also ask your family what they think. Of course, they don’t know your heart, but if they intimate that you rarely ever talk about how you’re focusing on and dealing with your own log, then there’s a really good possibility you’re not dealing with it the way you should. Why can I say that? Because if you’re actually dealing with your sin in a Christ-honoring way, you’re going to be confessing and apologizing and committing to change. And finally, what do you need to do differently to deal with any logs in your own eye before dealing with the splinters in others’ eyes? Again, I’m going to encourage you to listen to episode 528: If You Want to See Change in Your Family, You Absolutely Must . . . . We spend a good amount of time practically discussing how to do just this. We all absolutely must prepare our focus, and that focus needs to start on our own sinful hearts. This point is so important, and we humans are generally so bad at it that I’m going to ask you to please share this episode with your friends. All of God’s people need this admonition. And if you believe that you and/or your family would benefit from personal biblical counsel, please reach out to us at [email protected] or call (828) 423-0894. On our next episode we’re going to talk about what it means to prepare our retaliation. I hope to see you then.
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