Resolving Conflict Together

How do we resolve conflict together in a healthy way that honors each other and God? This can apply to our families, but this can also apply to the church. So I'm gonna give you seven steps.

1. The very first thing we ought to do is talk to God about it.

Instead of getting into it in the heat of the battle, we ought to go right to God and say, “Okay, Lord, what can I do before I talk with the person I’m upset with?” Before we do anything else, we ought to talk with God about the conflict. Pray about it.

James, chapter four, verse two says, “You desire and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and wage war.” In other words, you're trying to do all of this on your own to resolve this conflict, and nothing's working. Why? “You do not have because you do not ask.” Have you ever thought in the middle of a conflict, “Man, I need to ask God about this”? Typically, we're at it. We want to win, we're going to fight, we're going to get our way, and we're not even thinking about talking to God about it. But this is the first thing we ought to do. God wants to meet our needs. He doesn't want us to be in conflict, first of all, but he wants to take care of our needs. But a lot of times, I think we just don't ask him to. We'd rather just bicker with each other and try to get our way and win the war and hope we get our way than stop and take a moment to talk to God.

The next verse says, “When you do ask, you don't receive because you ask with the wrong motives so that you may spend it on your pleasure.” So maybe we do take a moment and go, “Okay, I'm going to talk to God about this.” We've got these competing desires that lead to this conflict. And then when we go to God about it, he doesn't give us what we're asking for because we're being selfish.

So, how many times have you prayed, “Lord, change her”; “Lord, change him”? Maybe God needs us to change first. And we need to talk to God about it.

2. Analyze the problem.

And specifically, what I mean is I think we need to ask ourselves, “How am I contributing to the situation? How is some of this my fault? What have I done to lead us to this conflict?”

In Matthew, chapter seven, Jesus tells us we've got to check ourselves first. He says, “Why do you look at the splinter or speck in your brother's eye, but don't notice the beam of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there's a beam of wood in your own eye? Hypocrite. First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the splinter speck out of your brother's eye.”

You think about any conflict, you know, when we're like, at odds, we are trying to dig this little speck out of the other person's eye, and the whole time we’ve got a telephone pole sticking out of ours. And unfortunately, we're not really in it for the right reasons.

We need to ask ourselves, “How have I contributed to this situation? Am I being demanding? Am I being realistic? Am I being oversensitive? Am I being impatient? Am I being insensitive? Am I the problem? How have I contributed to the situation?” There's no such thing as a one-person problem in the family. Like, family problems are not just your problems. Family problems are not just my problems. They're our problems. First, John 1:8 says, “If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.” So we all make mistakes. We all do dumb things. So, we should take some time to really analyze the problem. Take some time to think through the conflict and ask ourselves, “How have I contributed to this conflict? How have I contributed to this?”

3. Schedule a peace conference.

So the reason I would call it a peace conference is because we're not at war. Family is not a battleground between each other, husbands and wives. You are not battlegrounds. The church is not a battleground between Christians. This is a battleground between Christians and Satan. And so we ought to come together at a peace conference and realize that this is what we're after. We're after peace. We're after resolving the issue. Because most times, conflict is rarely resolved accidentally. It’s a deliberate approach. It's an intentional approach to resolving conflict.

In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus talks about the importance of resolving conflict. He says, “If you're offering your gift on the altar and there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First, go and be reconciled with your brother or sister and then come and offer your gift.” And so if I'm at church getting ready to worship, and I go, “Oh my goodness, that argument I had with my wife last week, we didn't resolve that,” I'm to go and make it right before I even worship God. Before I even think about worshiping God, I need to go and make it right. It's important that we come together and resolve our conflicts.

Take this a little deeper here because husbands pay attention. 1 Peter 3:7 says, “Husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way as with a weaker partner, showing them honor as coheirs of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered.”

Some of you are praying, “Lord, strengthen my marriage.” Some of you are praying, “God, heal me,” or “Heal her,” or “Heal someone.” You're asking God to help you with your finances, or you've got all these prayer requests going up to God, and it's like God's not listening to you. And here it is, the disharmony, husbands, that you have with your wife is actually hindering your prayers. And it might be a time for a peace conference to get together with your wife and sit down and go, “Okay, what is going on? Let's work this out. Let's resolve this conflict. Because, man, my prayers are not working.”

Now, when you have the peace conference, you need to choose the right time and the right place. Because there are times you shouldn't argue. No doubt, there are times not to address conflict. So right time, right place. But there is one very important thing you must do when you finally do come together at the peace table for your peace conference. The first thing you should do when you get together is you should pray. Pray about it openly with each other. Pray with each other to work it out. Jesus says in Matthew, chapter 18, “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.”

I think sometimes we take this verse out of context. We want to say, well, you know, we're two or three gathered together. Well, he's in the worship service, or he's at the Bible study. You know, Jesus is there because there are three Christians together. And Jesus, yes, he is. But Jesus wasn't talking about worship services. He was talking about conflict. You read the verses prior to him saying this, and you go, “Oh, that's what he was talking about.” Jesus was actually addressing how to resolve conflict with one another in the church. So when we gather together, yes, he is here, no doubt about it. But when we read this verse, Jesus is saying, “When we gather together and we want to resolve the issue together as Christian brothers and sisters, then I’m there.” And we ought to ask Jesus to be there in that situation, and he will provide the answers and he will help us. He is there.

4. Establish ground rules.

Come up with ways to fight fair.

There are seven things to never do in an argument.

• Never compare. You should never say, “Why can't you be more like so and so?” Dangerous game.

• Never condemn. Don't use phrases like, “You always,” or “You never,” or “You ought to.” In fact, it would be wise to stay away from the word you. Go back to I. Don't play the blame game.

• Never command. Don't try to end an argument by force. Don't try to be a parent to your spouse.

• Never challenge. Don't threaten. You know what the three most common threats are in marriage that couples threaten each other with? Sex, money, divorce. Most common ones to threaten each other with. You must decide in your mind right up head, right up front is to rule out those, especially as deadly weapons in your marriage. Those are deadly weapons. Never threaten with sex, money, or divorce.

• Never condescend. Don't treat anybody as an inferior. Don't belittle each other.

• Never contradict. Try not to cut each other off. Try not to think about what you're going to say next. Be in tune with them.

• Never confuse. Stay away from unrelated issues. I like to say, don't get historical. Don't dredge up the past. The idea is to attack the issue. Don't attack each other, attack the issue.

Proverbs 11:29 says, “The fool who provokes his family to anger and resentment will finally have nothing worthwhile left.” It's foolish to intentionally cause anger or resentment. Wives, you know what ticks off your husbands. Husbands, you know what buttons to push to rile up your wives. But doing this, this proverb says, is worthless. It's pointless. It's foolish. It'll get you nowhere.

5. Switch your focus.

Go from selfishness to selflessness. If we practiced Philippians chapter two, man, we'd have fewer conflicts in our homes. We'd have fewer conflicts in the church. Philippians chapter two says, “Everyone should look not to his own interest, but rather to the interest of others. Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus.” What was Christ Jesus? Attitude. Humbleness. Putting people first, not looking out for number one. The Greek word for look in verse four is the word skopeo. What's that sound like? Scope. That's exactly where it comes from. Scope, telescope, microscope. And it means to really pay attention to the needs of other people. To scope it out. How can I meet your needs? So when we're trying to resolve conflict, we ought to be asking ourselves, what are his needs right now? What are her needs right now? And how can I meet those needs? What can I do to meet those needs? I know it's difficult to do when you're upset in the middle of a conflict, in an argument. You know, when we're upset and angry, we're not thinking about the other person, are we? We're typically in tune with ourselves. All I can see are my needs, my hurts, my expectations that haven't been met. So this is a challenge Jesus gives us to shift our focus from ourselves to others and consider their needs. If you want a magical sentence, husbands, write this one down to clear up any conflict. Wives, write this down, too. You can say this, “I'm sorry, I was thinking only of myself.”

6. Ask for advice.

Don't be afraid to ask for professional advice. I'll say that some conflicts are too difficult to handle on your own. Sometimes we need good counsel. And I know for some, you think it's taboo. Like, I'll never go to counseling because that's weak or whatever, and I don't need that. But, man, I'll tell you, we seek counsel in every other aspect of our lives, don't we? If we have a medical issue or a health problem, we go to a doctor. If we have a legal problem, we hire a lawyer, an attorney. If we have a financial problem, we go see a financial advisor. CPA. If we have a relationship problem, a problem in our family, man, we ought to go get some good Christian counsel. There's nothing to be ashamed of. I've gained a huge advantage from going to counseling. Love it. People might say, “ I'll just work it out myself.” Really? Like, would you say that if you're going bankrupt? What if you got cancer? “Oh, I'll just work it out myself.” We're going to go get some professional help, right? We should do the same thing when it comes to relational issues. Proverbs 15:32 says, “Anyone who ignores discipline despises himself.” You don't want to go get help for yourself, you must hate yourself. “But whoever listens to correction acquires good sense.” I want to live my life with good sense. Give me good advice. So, in difficult conflicts, go get some good professional counseling.

7. Don't give up.

A lot of times when the going gets tough, people just. They throw up their hands and say, “Yeah, I'm done.” Don't give up. Don't walk out in the middle of a fight.

There are typically three stages of conflict. Stage one is recognition. You recognize you've got a problem. You say, “Okay, we've got to do something about this.” Some people have a hard time getting to this stage and going, “Yeah, I accept it. There is a problem here.” At the first indication of a problem, a lot of people just run.

Stage two is reaction. This is the painful stage. This is where the emotions come out, voices are raised, tears are shed, and it's just crazy.

Stage three is resolution. And that's answering the question, “What are we going to do about this? How are we going to resolve this?” Many families and churches never get past stage two, unfortunately. They know they’ve got a problem. Tempers rise, emotions get blown out of proportion, and somebody finally says, I'm out of here. They leave the room. Some leave the family, some leave the church, and the issue is never resolved, unfortunately. Stick with it.

It takes courage to work it out, especially when every part of your body, inside and out, is screaming, “Get out of this. Stop putting up with this and get out.” No, it takes courage to stay at the peace table, because if you stay long enough, you'll get through it. You get to the point where you'll say, “What are we going to do about this?” And you'll start answering that.

Galatians 6:9 says, “Let us not get tired of doing good, for we will reap at the proper time if we don't give up.” Keep at it. Don't give up. It is more rewarding to resolve a conflict than it is to dissolve a relationship. Remember that.