Rick Warren
Hey, everyone, we’re so glad you’re here with us today on Pastor Rick’s daily hope. Rick is sharing biblical wisdom that we need to have great relationships. And let’s admit it, we can all use that. Alright, let’s jump right in as Pastor Rick shares part two of a message called resolving conflict.
Rick Warren
Now the first thing you have to do is deal with your fear or you’re never going to take the initiative. The second thing you’re going to have to deal with is you’re going to have to deal with the timing. Timing is everything in conflict resolution. You got to do it at the right time. Now you say, okay, fine.
When they’re ready and they come to me, I’ll deal with it. No, that’s a cop out.
You take the initiative. Would you write this down? It’s always my move.
It’s always my move. In conflict management, conflict resolution, God expects you to take the first step. That’s called being a peacemaker.
Now Jesus talks about this in the sermon on the mount. And in Matthew chapter five, verse 22 and 23, he teaches this principle of take the initiative. It’s the first key to conflict management.
He says in Matthew 523, if you’re standing before the altar in the temple. Now what’s he talking about here? You’re at worship. It’s what you’re doing right now.
If you’re standing before the altar in the temple, okay, if you go to church to go to worship and you’re giving an offering to God and you suddenly remember that somebody has something against you, notice it’s not you got a problem, it’s they got a problem with you. So either way, you take the initiative, you remember that somebody has something against you, you leave your offering, leave your offering there beside the altar, go at once, circle at once, go at once and first be reconciled to that person.
Then come and offer your gift to God. You notice he’s saying here, God says reconciliation takes priority over worship.
Wow, some of you shouldn’t be here.
Reconciliation takes priority over worship. He says, you know, you like to worship, you like to come and sing, you like to hear God’s word, you like to learn the principles of life, good.
But he says there’s something more important than that, reconciliation. And he says if you come to worship and you got something out of whack with somebody else, you need to go get that right first and come back.
He says, leave your gift at the altar, go at once, be reconciled, then come and offer your gift to God.
Now what is Jesus doing here? He’s saying don’t ignore it. It doesn’t matter if you’re the offended or you’re the offender. You need to take the initiative. It’s always your move. When? At once, as soon as possible. You don’t delay. You don’t postpone. Some of you have been putting off this for weeks, months, or maybe years. Okay, step number two.
Or the third thing you have to do before. Sorry, this is still in initiate, you gotta plan a sit down meeting.
Okay? This isn’t taking the initiative. And let me give you some suggestions, and I didn’t give you a lot of room on your outline, so just write these down. I’m gonna give you four suggestions on how to set up a meeting with somebody you’re in conflict with. Okay, here’s what you do. Four things you do in setting up the meeting. Number one, I’ve already mentioned this. Choose the right time.
Choose the right time. Timing is everything.
When is the best time to have a meeting to resolve a conflict? The best time is when you’re both at your best.
That’s when you do it. When you’re both at your best, you may be ready, but they may not be ready to receive it. You’ve been thinking about this. You’re ready to talk about. They may not be ready to talk about it. So you don’t pull it on them. You don’t drop a bomb on. By the way, never drop a bomb in bed.
You’re going to get an explosion. I mean, you’ve been thinking about this all day wise. Your husband comes home just as he puts his dad on the thing. You say, honey, we need to talk.
And you start in the first point he’s going, and then you explode. Never drop a bomb in bed. Somebody ought to tweet that.
Choose the right time when you’re both at your best. Okay. Number two, right place.
You choose the right place. You don’t just do it anywhere. You figure out where’s a good place and a good time to do this. Where we can be relaxed, where it’s quiet, where we won’t be bothered. Where maybe the kids are asleep or they’re away or whatever. Where we can talk frankly and honestly. Where there’s an emotion can come out.
You choose the right place where you can be interrupted. Number three, pray before meeting.
Very important. And you say, God, I’m scared to do this, but I need to be filled with your love, and I need you to help me do this right now. If it’s a deep problem, you may take more than one meeting. But you still pray before the meetings of and the fourth thing is, come with a positive attitude.
You want to come to work on the problem, not to attack each other. You’re not coming to demean or demand or to disable. You’re not coming to just disagree. You’re coming to say, look, we’re on the same team here. Let’s try to make this thing work.
And you work on the issue. You come with a positive attitude.
Now, why do I do this? Why should I take the initiative? Well, let’s just remember Jesus commands it.
I’m out of fellowship with God. My prayers aren’t heard, and I’m not happy until I really deal with this issue. Now, before we go on to the other six steps, I want us to pause for just a minute and pray. So let’s bow our heads, okay? And as we bow our heads, I want you to think of who you need to have this conversation with.
You’re out of harmony with them. There’s something that you just haven’t talked about it. You haven’t brought it up. You haven’t dealt with it. Maybe you both know about it, maybe only you know it about. But you think of who you need to resolve a conflict with.
And then right now say, God, I’m scared to death, but I’m asking you to give me the courage to resolve this conflict.
I don’t need it in my life. 1 second more, father, I look out on all these people that I love so much, our church, family, and I ask you to give them the courage and the strength to deal with these issues. I pray that they would live conflict freely, lives as much as possible as far as it depends on them, that they may experience your joy, your happiness, the answers to their prayers and all that you have planned for them. In Jesus name, amen.
Okay, step number two. Step number two. Once you get together in the meeting with that person you’ve been in conflict with, here’s the first thing you do. Number two is confessed my part of the conflict.
That’s what I do first. That’s the biblical thing to do. Now, they may be 99.9% wrong and you’re only 0.1% wrong. Then you confess you’re 1% 1st. That’s called humility.
Now, my guess is that maybe more than that, but you start with you. You don’t start with condemning. You don’t start with accusing. You start with, instead of accusing and attacking and blaming, you begin with humility and you deal with your part. Everybody’s got blind spots some of us have bald spots, but everybody’s got blind spots.
And Jesus deals with this in the sermon on the mount in Matthew seven, he says, why do you notice the little piece of dust, in other words, the splinter in your friend’s eye? But you don’t notice the big piece of wood, the telephone pole in your own eye.
First take the telephone pole, the log out of your own eye, and then you’ll see clearly to take the splinter, the speck, the dust out of your friend’s eye. This is humility. It’s starting with my part of the conflict. So what I do is I start with this. Am I being unrealistic?
Okay, am I being unrealistic? And I ask myself this, okay, am I being ungrateful in this relationship? Am I being insensitive?
Am I being oversensitive?
Am I being too demanding?
Do you know what the number one excuse for divorce is today? I’m not saying the reason. The number one excuse that people file for divorce. They say, quote, we’re just incompatible friends. Incompatibility is a myth made up by divorce attorneys.
There’s no such thing as incompatibility. Any two people can get along if they’ll grow up, if they’ll stop being self centered, if they’ll stop saying, I’m going to be stubborn, I want my way, you want your way, and we’re not going to grow up.
Incompatibility is a myth. There are entire books written on the myth of incompatibility.
Everybody is different. You’re never going to marry somebody who’s just like you, so you’re incompatible with everybody.
The issue is not incompatibility. The issue is immaturity.
And we’d have a lot fewer divorces if people had to file. We’re divorcing because we’re both immature and we refuse to grow up. And we’re self centered and we will not give ourselves away. And neither one of us is willing to change, or only one of us is willing to change. That’s the real issue. Given the right situation, you can fall in love with anybody. It’s true.
I could put you in the right circumstances. Given the right situation, you could fall in love with anybody because love is a choice.
You choose to love people and you choose to not love people. Love is a choice.
And you just need, many times, we just need to grow up. You see my nature. It is my nature. It is Rick Warren’s nature to be self centered. It is my nature to be stubborn. It is my nature to only think of me I don’t think about you. In fact, as your pastor, I never think about you.
For those of you who are listening on audio, I just winked at the audience.
Of course I think about you.
But it is my nature to think mostly about myself, most about myself. And I’m always thinking about me, what’s best for me, what do I need me.
And I’m always doing that.
You see more relationships and more marriages and more friendships die from inflexibility than anything. It’s I’m unwilling to move.
I’m unwilling to make the first step. I’m unwilling to show a little humility.
Sometimes you get in a relationship and you’re just stuck.
And when I mean stuck, I mean you can’t get on with it, but you can’t get out of it, and you just feel trapped.
This could happen multiple times in a marriage, seasons in your marriage, where you say, I can’t get on with it, but I can’t get out of it, and I feel trapped. It’s like a traffic jam. It’s like a log jam. And all the logs are in the river and they’ve stopped up and they can’t move forward because no one log knows which to move first.
How do you break a relational log jam? You may be in one right now.
It’s always the same way. Humility.
You take the first move, and humility breaks the log jam. Let me tell you a sentence that will break any relational log jam.
I’m sorry, I was only thinking of myself.
What did you say?
Don’t ask me to say it again.
What did you say? I said, I’m sorry. I was only thinking of myself.
You say that it will break any relational log jam. I guarantee it.
Before honor is humility. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
Pastor Tom’s going to come and teach the next two steps.
Tom
So here’s the third thing you do when you’re resolving a conflict. You listen for the hurt.
You listen for the hurt.
There’s a phrase that Pastor Rick’s taught us over the years that our kids actually have heard often enough that they use it as a cliche with us at appropriate times. It is the sentence, hurt people, hurt people.
When I get hurt. When you get hurt, we hurt the people in our lives. If someone’s hurting you, I will guarantee you it’s because someone’s hurt them. It may be you that’s hurt them, it may be somebody else that’s hurt them, but someone has hurt them. That’s why they’re hurting you. So you have to listen for the hurt in the midst of the conflict. And it doesn’t matter if it’s marriage or the marketplace or the Middle east. When people feel fearful or they feel robbed of their dignity, when they feel afraid.
Out of that fear comes hurt, and out of that hurt comes conflict.
Since we’re talking about men this weekend, women, let me just tell you a little secret about guys. We tend to hide our hurt behind logic. You’ve seen this happen. We get hurt in a conversation. But instead of saying, I’m hurt, we say, let me tell you seven reasons why you’re wrong. In fact, here’s my little chart that shows you exactly why you’re wrong. With arrows and pictures and everything. We file a legal brief. Instead of just saying the two words, I’m hurt. But the truth is, we’re hurt because that’s where all conflict comes from. It comes out of this hurt in our lives. If you want to connect with people, you got to start with their needs, and that means you got to start with their hurt. Now, how do you hear the hurt? How do you listen for the hurt? Well, a great verse is James 119. I love this verse. In fact, it’s worth reading together. Would you read it with me? Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry. To listen for the hurt, you have to do what this verse says. You have to listen. God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason. You need to listen at least as much, twice as much as you are talking so that you can hear the hurt that’s in somebody else’s life. That is the key to beginning to diffuse the conflict. That’s the key to understanding where people are coming from, understanding their circumstances, understanding their background, understanding their perspective, understanding their temperament. You got to listen.
These seven things we’re talking about together. In fact, just this one verse, James 119.
You put this into place in your life and relationship. It can save you thousands and thousands in counseling.
In fact, this verse is our memory verse for the week. It’s so important a verse. James 119. Let’s try to say it again. I’m not going to put it up on the screen. I’m going to see how much we remember just all by ourselves. It’s a pretty simple verse. Let’s see how we do on it. James 119 says, be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to get angry. You guys get like an a plus when you got. When you have those verses in your mind and you can bring them to mind in the midst of the conflict. I don’t know. I don’t know what it does. All of a sudden, it gives you the ability to do something you couldn’t do on your own, strengthen you. Listen for the hurt. Now, as you’re listening for people’s hurt, there are two areas you have to be especially considerate of. It’s in the next verse in the outline, romans 15 two says, we must be considerate of the doubts and the fears of others. You might circle those two words, doubts and fears. I’ve got doubts and fears. You’ve got doubts and fears. And many times in a conflict, you’ve hit the nerve of somebody’s doubt. You’ve hit the nerve of somebody’s fear. And because of that, all of a sudden the conflict starts coming your way. So you want people to consider your doubts and fears. You have to consider their doubts and fears as you consider their hurt. You consider the hurt number four. You listen for the hurt number four. The fourth thing you do is you consider their perspective.
Consider the way they’re looking at it. Look at their viewpoint.
You have this moment when you intentionally shift your focus from your needs, your point, you winning the argument to their needs. You try to get their perspective on the issue.
I was at a wedding yesterday and came in and sat down, and there was this older couple sitting in front of us, and they were sitting with a chair in between them.
And I noticed he tried to say something to her, point out something in the back of the room, and she just like, thump. Just straightforward. You could feel the tension in both of them. That’s why there was a chair in between them.
About halfway through the service, the pastor who was marrying this young couple said, you know, very few things that are worth arguing about.
And even if you do argue, you got to learn to forgive. And I saw him just sort of look at each other when he said that. And then they look back towards the front. About 20 seconds later, the guy’s shoulders, the tension sort of goes out of his shoulders, and he moves over one chair to sit next to his wife.
This is the issue in relationships. Who’s going to move over one chair? Who’s going to start seeing it from the other person’s perspective? Who’s going to make the move? And the person who makes the move is always the person who stops saying, how do I see it? And starts thinking, how do they see it? What are they going through? The Bible says this in Philippians two, four, five. Here’s how we see from another person’s perspective. Each of you should look out not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. It’s that old chinese proverb. You seek first to understand before you seek to be understood. How do you do this?
How do you consider another person’s perspective? Well, there’s an important word in that verse. Each of you should look not only for your own perspective, but the other person’s. That word, look is the greek word scopos. Like you scope something out. A microscope or a telescope. You scope out. You focus in on their perspective.
You realize that you are most like Christ when you pay attention to other people’s needs.
Now, how do you do that?
How do you really do that? How do you start noticing others needs. Instead of always needing other people’s notice? I don’t know about you. I’m not that altruistic. I’ve got needs, too. That’s what I think. What about my needs? In the middle of this, you might just jot down a Bible verse in the corner of your outline. Psalm 139 three.
Psalm 139 three says of God. God. You notice everything I do. And you know, everywhere I go, the way you do this is you realize there’s a God in heaven. There’s a father in heaven who is there to notice and to take care of every one of your needs.
You’re not in this alone. He takes care of my needs. So I can help with your needs. If you are expecting some other human being, whether it’s a wife or a husband or one of your kids or somebody at work, if you’re expecting another human being to take care of all your needs, of course you’re going to have conflict. They’re as imperfect as you are. They can’t do it. But when you recognize there is a God in heaven who is willing to meet the needs of your life, all of a sudden you have this new freedom. Because you know he’s going to meet your needs. You have this new freedom to begin to look out and to consider the needs of other people in your life.
Rick Warren
Now, the fifth step is very important. Tell the truth tactfully.
In this peace conference that you’re having with this person that you’re in conflict with, you tell the truth tactfully.
Rick Warren
The Bible says in the book of.
Rick Warren
Ephesians, speak the truth in love. It may be the truth, but if I’m not speaking it in love, I’m on the wrong side. You never use truth as a club. It may be true, but you don’t use truth to beat people over the head. People do that on the Internet all the time. Beat people over the head with truth. Don’t do that. You tell the truth tactfully.
Rick Warren
I don’t know about you, but I am encouraged after that message, and let’s keep the encouragement going with a letter from one of our listeners. Here’s Rick.
Rick Warren
You know, I really enjoy getting letters from you, and I’d like to thank each of you who’ve taken the time to write me. Your letters and your emails really do encourage me. In fact, let me just read one from a listener that I can share with you. It says this dear Pastor Rick, I’m a suburban public school teacher who works in a district with a great socioeconomic and ethnic divide.
I love the diversity of my student population, but at the same time, these high school students arrive with all kinds of religious and moral values, which, of course, impacts their relationships with others.
Daily hope always gives me the compass I need to guide my day. I like how your messages encourage respecting cultural differences while maintaining the truth. I think it’s important to foster relationships with others in the name of Jesus.
Rick Warren
Pastor Rick, I listen to daily hope.
Rick Warren
On my 35 minutes drive to work, and although I can’t mention God or Jesus in school, students are allowed to initiate that discussion with me.
So I’m refreshed and equipped daily because of your messages. Thanks for the broadcast. I look forward to it every day. Sincerely, Amy. Well, thanks for writing, Amy. Keep up the good work with your students, and I’m glad that daily hope is encouraging and equipping you in the calling that God has called you to do. I want you to know I’m going to be praying for you because you wrote to me.
Rick Warren
To the rest of you, I just.
Rick Warren
Want to say Jesus is able to reach every person because he came to save all people.
Jesus came for every tribe and every nation and every culture on earth. In fact, the Bible says in revelation seven nine that one day in heaven that every tribe, every nation, every people, and every ethnic group will be clothed in robes, standing before the throne of God, praising God in that day. That’s why it’s so important to share this good news with not just our kind of people, but with every kind of people. One of the most powerful things you can do to fulfill the great commission is to share your story, and I’d.
Rick Warren
Like to hear it.
Rick Warren
You can actually write to me and we’ll share some of these testimonies on the air from time to time so that other people can be encouraged, too.
Rick Warren
If daily Hope has helped you. We’d love to hear about it. Just email rickastorrick.com dot. Your story could really touch and help encourage other people. So once again, that’s rickastorrick.com dot. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God’s word for our daily hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick’s daily Hope and your generous financial support.
