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Episode Notes
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TranscriptIntroduction
Hello, my friends, and welcome back. You’re welcome to join us, we’re all just a bunch of Christ-followers learning what it is to worship God in our parenting.
We’re not perfect, we sin, but we’re being sanctified, and so when there’s conflict in our lives, we recognize that we absolutely must take reconciliation seriously. To that end, Truth.Love.Family. and this podcast, Truth.Love.Parent., exists to equip you to be the dads and moms that God called and created you to be. Be sure to check out the description of today’s episode for links to our free episode notes, transcript, and related resources. Why on earth do we have free episode notes? It’s just one of the many ways we try to equip you. You can use them as part of your family worship times, homeschooling, or you could even teach them in a small group or Sunday School. Really, it’s whatever you want. They’re there to help you better understand and share God’s truth. And—speaking of that—it’s time to continue our practical applications. Topic
Everything that has come before this is absolutely essential to understanding today’s topic.
If we hadn’t prepared our worldview according to the Scriptures, we’d still be trapped in our own delusion. If we hadn’t used the Bible to tune our reaction to gratitude in time of conflict, we’d still be angry and bitter. We never would have focused on our own sin if we hadn’t been confronted by the Word of God. We’d still be aiming at everyone but ourselves. Were it not for the Bible, we couldn’t have prepared our retaliation to target the true enemy—sin. We’d be chomping at the bit to just rip into the other person. Without the Scriptures, we wouldn’t understand the importance of making time for potential conflict, resolution, and time itself. Instead, we’d be like a bull in a clock shop, abusing the seconds and misusing the moments for our own purposes. And without God’s holy Word, we would never have—in our own flesh—spoken personally, wisely, and kindly—which is the sum total of speaking lovingly. We’d be hatefully and selfishly speaking whatever words grew from the lust of our flesh. And so it will come as no surprise to learn that our words must truthful, and—to that end—we’re going to say “biblical.” But before we discuss what it means to speak biblically, I would like to remind you of two things. The first is what I mentioned last week. From now until the end of July, 2024, if you pursue in-person or virtual biblical counseling through Faithtree Biblical Counseling & Discipleship, you will lock in the low per-session fee of only $50 for all of your sessions until graduation. Check out FaithtreeBiblicalCounseling.com or use the Evermind App to learn more and request biblical counseling. But the second thing I want to encourage you to do is schedule a conference, workshop, camp, or retreat with us. I would love to have at least 2 speaking engagements a month, so if you would like a speaker for an event you already have planned, or you would like to start from scratch for an event for your ministry, please visit AMBrewster.com or use the Evermind App to start the process. We offer in-person as well as virtual options, and—as I mentioned earlier—it doesn’t matter the format or the theme, we’d be happy to provide a trusted speaker for it. Yes, we speak on all things family like marriage and parenting, but we also deal extensively with discipleship, counseling, and are overjoyed to discuss any topics from God’s Word. Please set up a free account on the Evermind App in order to learn more about Faithtree Biblical Counseling & Discipleship as well as AMBrewster Ministries. The easiest way to set up the app is to use the link in the description. Alright, Ephesians 4:15, the theme verse of Truth.Love.Parent. reads, “speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is Christ.” If you want your relationships that are currently experiencing conflict to grow and mature into Christ, you absolutely have to speak truth in love, and it’s that truth part we want to talk about today. Of course, we’ve spoken ad infinitum on this topic over the course of the past 8 years, 28 seasons, and 544 episodes. But—boy oh, boy—if you’re anything like I, you need to be reminded of this over and over again because you forget it and so easily slip into self-centered communication. So, what is it to speak truth? I want to come at this from a slightly different angle today precisely because we’re all so used to hearing this. So, I want to turn to Ephesians 6:13-18 and consider the verses we studied during the Spiritual Warfare in Your Home Series. Toward the end of that series we talked about the spiritual weapon with which God has equipped His people so that they can stand firm in spiritual warfare. Well, guess what? Conflict resolution is part of that spiritual warfare, therefore, we need to bring that spiritual weapon to bear on our reconciliation. For the sake of those of you who have never heard the Spiritual Warfare in Your Home Series, l’m going to stop using the metaphor of “The Weapon” and simply refer to the elements of spiritual armor as they’re laid out in Ephesians 6. 1. Speak the Armor of God. Ephesians 6:13-28 (with one contextual modification), “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist [sinning in conflict resolution], and having done everything, to stand firm. 14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.” When it comes to speaking boldly about the mystery of the Gospel (of which we are all called to be ambassadors), how can you apply the Armor of God to conflict resolution? A. You will not stand firm and be victorious if you’re not rooted in and speaking truth. B. You will not stand firm and be victorious if you’re not speaking righteously. C. You will not stand firm and be victorious if you’re not speaking in Gospel-accurate ways. D. You will not stand firm and be victorious if you’re not speaking in faith. E. You will not stand firm and be victorious if you’re not speaking from the position of your justification in Christ. F. You will not stand firm and be victorious if you’re not speaking biblical commands and principles. G. You will not stand firm and be victorious if you’re not speaking to God in prayer as you pursue reconciliation. All of our communication—our internal monologue, our silent prayer to God, and our communication with the person in front of us—will only be successful as we speak God’s truth about the situation. And I need to shake us a bit here. It doesn’t matter what we think the problem is. It doesn’t matter if we believe the other person doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. If doesn’t matter what we believe, think, want, or feel . . . all that matters is what God says about the situation. And He says that we should recognize that God wants to work through this conflict to better us and glorify Him. He says that we must be grateful for this opportunity to reconcile. He says that sin is the only thing that must be attacked. He says we must speak personally, lovingly, humbly, cautiously, wisely, patiently, kindly, and forgivingly. He says we must speak biblically. Now I want to focus in on the absolute importance of targeting the sin in conflict resolution instead of the people. 2. Target the sin in the situation. II Corinthians 10:3-6, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. 5 We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, 6 and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.” We dealt with this passage in some detail as well in the Spiritual Warfare in Your Home Series. Listen to how Paul describes our words in times of conflict resolution: warring, weapons, destruction, captive, and punish. That doesn’t sound too friendly, does it?! And, for those of you who too often give in to the temptation to be tone police, these words are accurate and good. We are to fight and war against sin. The issue is that we view our conflict as being against another person. But it’s not. We do not war according to the flesh. So, even though we’re talking with a person, we’re talking about the sin. And sin absolutely needs to be attacked with the weapon of Scripture. Those sinful thoughts need to be torn down and taken captive in Christ. It’s all about the target of our words. Now, I wish this were something I could teach over the course of a podcast episode. As I mentioned, this entire podcast is about training us to be Truth Parents—Biblical Parents. It has to start in us before it will ever come out of us. I believe this step here is the one we spend the most time on in reconciliation counseling. It’s relatively easy for people to mentally acquiesce to the biblical facts about how we are to think and approach conflict resolution. But when we open our mouths, our words prove what we really believe, and the vast majority of professing Christians in the church today just do not have a habit of speaking biblically. Therefore, the words spoken in what should be times of reconciliation often create more conflict by distracting from the most important topics or attacking the person or just reveling in self-worship. John MacArthur once said that the best confrontation is done with an open Bible. Of course, he meant that we actually have to be looking at and speaking the truth of that open Word of God into the situation. 3. Stay on target. It’s so easy to get distracted in confrontation. We start by speaking truth, but before long we’re waist deep in useless wrangling and empty chatter. So, let’s consider II Timothy 2:14-17, “Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers. 15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. 16 But avoid worldly and empty chatter, for it will lead to further ungodliness, 17 and their talk will spread like gangrene.” To help battle this tendency, when pursuing conflict resolution, focus on one issue at a time. You may have to revolve priorities throughout the conversation in order to clarify misunderstandings, come to agreement on events, or address sinful reactions. But, generally speaking, this time should be used to address the main sin of the moment. And I encourage you to biblically identify the root sin, address that first, and then deal with the ancillary sins that sprung from the root. Once the individual sees what the truth of God’s Word has to say about their main sin, it will be much easier to see the consequential sins as well as the outwardly good things they may have done but which were done in the wrong way or for the wrong reasons. So many of these attempts at conflict resolution play out like a fireworks factory and a lit match. One topic is addressed, and—before you know it—every single grievance is exploding in a fiery torrent. And finally, let’s consider . . . 4. A Biblical Example of Conflict Resolution I’m going to read II Timothy 3:1-17, and I want you to listen to the transitions in the passage. Verses 1-9 describe the conflict, but verses 10-17 describe the only source of truth that is guaranteed to result in pleasing God. In addition to learning from others how to live (verses 10-11), verses 14-17 provides us with the teaching, reproof, correction, and training necessary to glorify God in persecution and conflict. II Timothy 3:1-17, “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. 2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.” We could take a long time working through that list and identifying how they play out in creating and sustaining conflict, but—again—we don’t have the time. In my upcoming book, Quit: God’s cure for family strife, I do work through a similar list of strife causing attributes from the book of Proverbs. I pray that will be a help to you in dealing with the strife caused by conflict. Needless to say, sin is the clear and obvious issue. So, what are we supposed to do when faced with this kind of behavior? In general, we need to make a practice of avoiding these kinds of people. We’re going to see that in this passage momentarily. Now, this is not to say that we don’t pursue reconciliation for conflict that grows from such behavior. And it’s also not dismissing the importance of evangelizing the lost. The point that’s going to be made in this passage is that we not fellowship with them and be like them. We have a higher calling. We are to be a light to the lost, not buddies in their self-destruction. We don’t want to walk with sinners, stand with the wicked, and sit with scoffers because we want to protect our influences. Allow me to continue reading at the end of verse 5, “Avoid such men as these. 6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to the faith. 9 But they will not make further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and Jambres’s folly was also.” Now we transition to the example we’re to follow: “10 Now you followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, 11 persecutions, and sufferings, such as happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium and at Lystra; what persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord rescued me!” And then Paul is going to outline how we’re to live regardless of how sinfully others are living. “12 Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted [or we could say “will experience conflict”]. 13 But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14 You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, 15 and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” If you have never taken the time to watch the Biblical Parenting Essentials Conference on the Evermind App, you really need to do that. It only costs $25, and it’s packed with so much valuable truth that grows from II Timothy 3:16. The point of this illustration, though, is to show us the dichotomy between how the world pile-drives its way through life and relationships and how we Christians are to respond even in times of conflict. We must continue in the truths which we have learned from the Scriptures. We have to teach and reprove and correct and train using God’s Word. Those are the only words that will result in us being adequate, equipped for every good work, and that’s definitely the goal of biblical conflict resolution. Conclusion
In conclusion, 1. Speak the Armor or God, 2. Target the Sin in the Situation, and 3. Stay on Target. Regardless of what anyone else does, we must speak truth into the conflict. Sure, the other people may use that to justify their sin, but at least you will be pleasing the Lord.
Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets because there’s not a person you know who isn’t engaged in some kind of conflict right now. And don’t forget to reach out to Faithtree Biblical Counseling & Discipleship or call (828) 423-0894 to get the personalized, biblical help you need. Next week is the final episode in this series. We’re going to be looking at a real-life biblical conflict and dissecting how it was handled. I’ll see you then.
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