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TranscriptIntroduction
In order to make time for resolution, you have to make time for conflict, and—in so doing—you’re making time for resolution.
My name is Aaron Michael Brewster. I’m also known as Aaron to my friends, Dad to my kids, and Paczki to my wife. I’m the president of Evermind Ministries and the host of this podcast, and it is my joy and privilege to share with you what God has been teaching me through His Word, the Bible. The purpose of this series is to learn what the Scriptures have to say about conflict resolution, put those steps into practice in our homes, and teach them to our children. Each episode comes with free episode notes, a transcript, and a list of related resources so you can deepen your understanding of the topic. I hope you will avail yourself of those resources. Now, let’s get into today’s episode. Topic
Some of the information we’re going to discuss today will sound familiar if you have been listening to the podcast from the very beginning. If you haven’t, I will do my best to point you to the other episodes that contain and build on these truths so you can continue your study.
Whereas last week’s episode dealt with overcoming the natural tendency to want to avoid disagreement that may likely turn into more conflict, today’s episode is about the opinion we need to have concerning the timeframe of conflict resolution. But before I jump into that, I want to tell you briefly about a new set of resources available from Faithtree Biblical Counseling & Discipleship that you can access on the Evermind App. This online course is called The Doctrine of Emotions and contains a number of classes, podcasts, workshops, and counseling sessions that all deal with the topic. The first unit is about understanding our and our family’s emotions. The second unit dives into a biblical discussion concerning sorrow, fear, anger, and depression. There’s a unit that contains interviews I’ve done on the topic of emotions. And the final unit has the classes and workshops I’ve taught for the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors. Access to the material only costs $25, but today you can claim it for only $10. Just use the link in the description of today’s episode to access that. Okay, let’s talk about how to . . . 1. Resolve the Conflict in a Timely Manner. Last week we read Matthew 5:23-24. “Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering.” I admit I trampled today’s topic quite a bit when I said, “When you have sinned against someone, God says it’s your responsibility to pursue reconciliation in a timely manner. When I say ‘timely manner’ I’m basing that off of the events of the verse and how they’re to transpire. The individual who remembered their brother had something against him was taking his sacrifice to the priest. It was a planned and scheduled event. But God said, stop what you’re doing, go be reconciled, and then finish your sacrifice. There’s an immediacy to this command. It doesn’t leave room for finishing our current task. It requires action.” And all of that is still true, I just shouldn’t have said it last week. Oh, well. I want to share a personal example with you. A couple months ago I discovered that someone in my life had something against me. I was very uncertain how to navigate the situation, so I kept putting it off while I tried to figure out how best to go about it. Well, that quickly turned into the paralysis of analysis which quickly turned into the forgetfulness of distractedness. And then I found myself writing the sentence: “If there’s a relationship that needs reconciling, there’s nothing more important we could be doing that taking the necessary steps to reconcile it.” In that moment, I remembered the individual who had something against me, and despite the multiple week habit I was forming of deflecting, I recognized I had to prioritize reconciliation. I immediately stopped working on my notes, and set about to address the issue. It was uncomfortable, but it had to be done. And now I want to read I Peter 3:7 because we need to understand that there are consequences for a lack of reconciliation, and the longer we wait to reconcile, the longer those consequences will exist in our lives. In I Peter 3, Peter is explaining how husbands and wives are to relate to each other . . . especially in the times of conflict. Verses 1 through 6 are addressed to the wives, and in verse. 7 we read, “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.” When Peter wrote, “in the same way,” he was harkening back to the situation he described earlier in the passage. In verse 1 Peter admonished wives to be submissive to their husbands even when those husbands are being disobedient to the Word of God. And that verse to the wives starts with the words, “in the same same way”—harkening back to chapter 2, verse 18 where servants are being commanded to be submissive to their masters, “not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.” I mention this because it may be difficult to immediately recognize the fact that Peter’s commands to husbands are being given in the same context of disagreement and conflict that the previous examples were. Now, the men do not have the command to submit to their wives because—from the perspective of biblical authority—men are to lead their wives with the Inherent Authority He gave to them. Of course, this is not to say that men don’t submit to the Inherited Authority of their wives. All Christians are to respond to the Inherited Authority of their brothers and sisters in Christ. If you don’t know what I mean by Inherent and Inherited Authority, I strongly encourage you to listen to our series all about Authority. It’s presented primality in regard to children, but I do discuss the Doctrine of Authority in good detail. Anyway, Peter says to husbands, in times when your wife is being unreasonable and disobedient to the Scriptures, you’re still to live with them in an understanding way—recognizing the fact that she is a spiritually immature person who needs help to become the woman God created, called, and capacitates her to be. But as important as that role is—something we talk a lot about in our Family United in God online course—what I want us to notice is the consequence that comes when we husbands fail to live with our wives in reconciling ways. I Peter 3:7 says that our prayers will be hindered. There are a number of things the Bible says will hinder our prayers. Mark 11:25 says that an unforgiving spirit does it. Psalm 66:18 says that the Lord won’t hear our prayers when we’re harboring wickedness in our lives. Isaiah 59:2 says something very similar. James 4:3 says our wrong motives hinder our prayers. Proverbs 28:9 says our prayers are an abomination when we turn away from the teaching of the law. And what’s interesting is how many of these prayer-hindering attitudes are present in conflict. In conflict we tent to be unforgiving, we’ve sinned and aren’t turning from it, if we’re pursuing reconciliation or avoiding it, we’re often doing it for the wrong reasons, and all of this is due to our turning away from the truths of Scripture. Now, I don’t know about you, but the idea that for the past couple of months, my prayers may have been hindered because I was not pursuing reconciliation as I should is pretty sad. We absolutely need to make time for timely reconciliation primarily because God deserves our worship and obedience, but secondarily because there are consequences for our refusal to be reconciled. Therefore, the single most important reason to resolve conflict in a timely manner is that it’s so important to God that He prioritizes our reconciling with each other over our attempts to please Him in public worship and even private prayer. But there’s another set of biblical instruction we need to consider as we talk about making time for resolution. Let’s read Psalm 4:4 and Ephesians 4:26. Psalm 4:4 says, “Tremble, and do not sin; Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still. And Ephesians 4:26 sounds very similar when it commands, “Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, 27 and do not give the devil an opportunity.” We need to ask of the Scriptures what is the significance of “the bed” and “the sun” in regard to conflict resolution? These commands have to do with the fact that reconciliation needs to be pursued before the sun sets. We need to schedule it into our day because they day will be over soon. Now, I’m not suggesting that all reconciliation can perfectly happen in a moment or before the end of the day. Unfortunately, because of our sin, it often takes days, weeks, and years. Sometimes reconciliation is never achieved. God forbid that be because of our sin. I did a series for The Celebration of God podcast called The Merciful Life. It’s all about the Doctrine of Anger, and one of the aspects we discuss is the difference between Sinful Anger and Sanctified Anger. Sanctified Anger is God’s Divine Anger being experienced in us, but here’s the thing, the Bible teaches that Divine Anger is not sustainable for a human. It must come to an end in one of four ways:
Part 4 of The Merciful Life series presents these concepts in much greater detail. I encourage you to work through that series at your earliest convenience. The whole point today is that regardless of how you look at it, God expects us to pursue reconciliation as soon as possible. You might remember that you have sinned against someone else, stop what you’re doing and deal with it. The other person may have sinned against you, talk to them about it right away, and don’t make excuses for not dealing with it. Your anger, their sin, and even their refusal to repent does not excuse our responsibility to love them as God loves them. In order to make time for resolution, you have to make time for conflict, and—in so doing—you’re making time for resolution. Don’t drag your feet! Conclusion
Next time I plan to discuss making time for time, and then were going to get into the practical nitty-gritty. What does it require to actually resolve conflict? I’m looking forward to starting that conversation in a couple weeks.
Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets. Be sure to reach out to [email protected] or call (828) 423-0894 if you need personalized assistance reconciling with a loved one. And then join us next week as we learn what it means to make time for time.
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