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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/bruce-rodgers/overcoming-conflict-and-honesty/
Let's look together in Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. Now we were looking a little bit at some of these verses just in closing this morning, but we'll start at verse 25, Ephesians 4 and 25,.
Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath or your provocation. Neither give place to the devil.
Let him that stole steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto a day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake or in Christ has forgiven you.
Now the first two verses of chapter 5 actually follow from that and he says, Be ye therefore followers or imitators of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.
Now this morning I was emphasizing the importance of honoring one another and that part of that honoring one another is simply to genuinely listen when someone is speaking to you, especially confronting something that is between you.
And when we look at what we're going to be examining right now about being honest, I think most of us realize that a commitment to honesty leads to an obvious problem. If we are going to be genuinely honest with each other, we're going to have to deal with problems.
We can't just keep ignoring things, pretending they're not there, pretending they don't exist, and just let it fester. Many, many problems in families and in assemblies end up being much bigger, much more disastrous than they needed to have been because we didn't deal with it at the beginning.
Now it doesn't mean that you are there with a hammer as soon as somebody irritates you, you're going to give it to them and you're going to, you know, nail them to the wall. You're going to keep things short, short accounts.
This passage is emphasizing the mingling of love and truth, the essential of being honest, being genuine, being sincere, and doing it in a gracious way. And so I want you to think for a moment because in my experience of dealing with people, a number of times I have tried to mediate, sometimes in marriage problems, sometimes in assembly problems.
And one situation particularly I'm thinking of right now, a number of believers in an assembly were very upset with the overseers, and this had been an ongoing conflict for a number of years, and I'm not going to give you the details or anything about it, but at a certain point I offered to try to mediate, to see if we could come to some kind of unity in the assembly, because I realized that the assembly was basically being held hostage with this ongoing situation.
And so they agreed to it, and we began to have some meetings together and so on. And one of the things that impressed me very quickly, now I had sort of come in as an outsider, I hadn't been there all that long in that assembly, I had known a number of the believers for many years, it became very evident to me that each side had very strongly formed perceptions about the opposite side.
It was so fixed that they could not see anything godly in each other, no matter what it was. They attributed the most carnal, fleshly motivations, unspiritual attitudes to the opposite party. And at the same time I could see many, many wonderful, noble, sincere things about every one of them, and yet they were locked in this atmosphere of hostility, of imagining the worst in each other.
And so I want you just to check your own idea when you think about being honest. They were being honest to their own perception, but what they didn't realize or didn't seem to be willing to acknowledge is that it is possible to be honest, but still mistaken.
And one of the things that distressed me the most was that when I conveyed to them a different perception, a different perspective, I should say, I found them unwilling to accept it. And so I want you just to think about this issue of love and truth.
Think of somebody that you've had difficulties with, and I want to ask you this question. Would you be happy to discover that what you thought about them was not completely right, and that they weren't as bad as you thought they were?
Would you be happy to understand that? Or would you resist that knowledge, resist that information, refuse to accept it? That'll tell you whether you love that person or not. And I'm not saying that you might like them or not.
We're not called just to like people. We are called by God to act in his love. And if I am going to genuinely love another believer in Christ, I am going to wish for their well-being. I am going to wish for their honor.
I am going to wish for their blessing. And if I realize that I have been somewhat mistaken, it will be a relief to me, not an irritation or a frustration. So we need to challenge ourselves, because very often when it's in conflict, our perception of each other is unbalanced.
And so there is this important principle, if we can manage to think in these terms, try to put yourself in the other person's shoes. Try to conceive of the possibility that they could be just as genuine as you are, just as sincere in their thinking.
They might be wrong, but they could be just as genuine and sincere in their thinking as you are. And so perception and perspective are two key elements that we need to step back from ourselves and take stock of.
Now, some people have put it this way that empathy is the ability to feel what the other one is feeling. Perspective is the ability to see what the other person sees. And that can change dramatically how you think of them, how you interact with them.
And I remember reading or hearing about, I don't know if you remember the Camp David Accord. Does that ring a bell with anybody? It's back quite a number of years. But that was between Israel and Egypt.
And at that time, there was, you know, war had been going on back and forth very frequently. And that Camp David Accord, which I think it was President Jimmy Carter at the time, that managed to bring those two heads of state together.
And one of the things that he worked on, despite the, you know, the tremendous hostility that had existed between those two countries, was to get those two men to begin to think how the other one thought, to see what the other one saw, to feel what the other one felt, to develop somehow a sense of empathy.
And the way he did it was to ask them to start thinking about the grandchildren. And he said, what kind of country, what kind of nation, what kind of region do you want your grandchildren to live in? And they both came to realize, we want our grandchildren to live in a region of peace and stability.
Now, that's just an example in the world, where someone with the ability to help someone to look at things from a different perspective. Now, I believe that that is part of the answer to overcoming some of the things that are given to us in the latter part of the chapter.
I'm just going to mention one more thing before I get to that. And that is what has sometimes been called a fundamental, fundamental attribution error. Now, that's a big, long phrase that just means, when I'm thinking of myself, I tend to excuse my failure by blaming it on circumstances.
I tend to excuse myself. But when I'm thinking of another person's failure, I tend to blame them personally for it. So we tend to excuse ourselves, we tend to accuse others. So just remember that in your own thinking, when it comes to how we view ourselves and the other person in conflict.
But when we look at this, it speaks about being, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor. I'll just make a couple of comments about the problem of lying. I may have mentioned something already this morning about it.
But not only is lying a sin in its own right. But it is the constant companion of other sins. Because lying, most often is associated with covering up something that is not right. And so we excuse ourselves.
And inherent in this tendency is the desire to be self protective, to protect ourselves from the anger, from the judgment, the shame that belongs to evil. You know, people that are only as honest as they have to be.
And you have to dig it out from them layer by layer. That's not genuine honesty. That's only making a calculation, what do I have to say to satisfy that person? Genuine honesty is transparency, a willingness to confess what is real, what is what is going on.
And so we need this genuine honesty within us. And to leave behind the tendency to excuse and cover up. You see, as long as there is good and evil in the world, conflict is inevitable. And we have to be willing to take sides against the evil that discovers itself within ourselves, as well as in others.
But you notice how it leads into verse 26. If we're going to be honest, well, then we're going to have to face the issue of conflict, be angry and sin not let not the sun go down upon your provocation.
Neither give place to the devil. Now, there's a number of other passages that I'm going to try to relate to the latter part of the chapter particularly. But I'm just going to offer you some suggestions about the issue of anger.
Now, again, personality does enter into this. Those who are more outgoing in their personalities will show their anger more readily. Some of us who are more hidden, withdrawn kind of people, it takes for some of us, it takes a lot to get us really out of control.
The tendency that we have is to stuff everything inside, to hold it inside and not deal with it. And so he really talks here about two aspects of anger. Each of them can be a problem. Be angry and sin not.
That would suggest there can be a righteous indignation. There can be a righteous anger against something that is wrong. But be careful that in your anger you don't cause more damage instead of helping the problem.
Remember the phrase, the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God. What you do in a fit of anger will cause a lot more damage than it does good. But some people say, but it sure felt good letting it go.
Well, if that's the attitude you have, you haven't thought very far. And some people actually use anger as a weapon. They use it to control other people. They have shown their anger in times past and people learn to be afraid of it.
Don't say anything to him or don't get her going or you'll regret it. And so we can use anger as a means of controlling other people. Anger can be very deceptive, very manipulative. And so anger itself has to be confronted.
And the initial thing to realize is if you are an angry person, you have a problem that you need to face. But he says here, be angry, be angry against what is wrong, what is unjust, what is immoral, what is impure and so on.
What is sin, but don't sin. Do not violate God's character and principles in the way you deal with it. But then he also says, don't let the sun go down upon your provocation. In other words, the longer you allow anger to be within yourself, unresolved, undealt with, you are actually sabotaging your relationship.
You are actually handing over to Satan a strategic foothold in your life. And you know how often it has happened where something happens, there's something that triggers something, and someone goes off and you say, where on earth is all this coming from?
And you begin to realize that this has been going on for months, maybe years in that person's life. And they have this built up reservoir of anger. The longer it is there, it becomes bitterness. And ultimately to malice if it is not dealt with.
And so this is a very solemn warning given to us. I'm just going to give you a few hints or suggestions about handling anger. What should we do with angry feelings? One of the things to understand is that anger is basically a secondary emotion.
It arises out of something else initially. It may arise out of frustration. And frustration is usually because somebody's not living up to your expectations. Somebody has failed you in some way and it has brought frustration to you.
Anger is the response, the reaction directed towards the other person. It can also be a response to fear. Do you ever use anger to deal with your fear? We often mask our fear with anger. We're afraid of something happening.
We're afraid that this is going to lead to some disaster. And so we speak angrily with the person because we're trying to enforce this upon them and prevent what we're afraid of taking place. Now the classic example is when the little child runs out onto the street and you think they're going to be run over by a car and you go out after them and you bring them back in.
And of course you wouldn't do it today in public. But in the old days you would get them on the sidewalk and you would straighten them up. You would stand them up and then you would give them a wallop, maybe two or three.
And then you would dress them down. You would really give it to them. It's because you're scared out of your wits. They're going to die. So fear triggers anger to handle, to control what we are afraid of.
But unfortunately it's not a good strategy for long-term relationships. And so what do we need to do? Well it can also arise out of being hurt. Now the paradox of that is that when someone is expressing anger that triggers a reaction of being defensive.
Whereas if someone expresses hurt or expresses fear, it's easier to be sympathetic to the person who is expressing that feeling to you. So the first thing I want to suggest to you is that when you feel angry, the first thing you need to do is discern the cause.
You need to settle at the very beginning, do I have the right to be upset with this person? Discern the cause. Is it justifiable anger? Is it righteous anger? And the next thing I would suggest is that we need, and this is essential, defer to God.
What do I mean by that? Bring it before the Lord. Bring it consciously to God. Express, acknowledge fully to God what you're feeling. Pour it, your heart out before God and commit it to Him and ask Him for grace to be able to handle yourself properly in dealing with it.
And then decide the right course of action and do not leave it hanging endlessly, as the verse goes on to say. And I've already mentioned about the danger of stored-up anger, and I think we have it very clearly when we come down to verse 31, bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking.
I think these are often the outflow of anger that is stored up within us. Now remember reading a book by Gary Smalley, and the book is called Making Love Last Forever. He's another Christian counselor who has spent a lifetime helping people with their marriages, and he makes a very interesting observation.
In fact, it's a significant part of his book. Going from his own experience, that unresolved anger is the number one enemy of love. Now that might not make sense to you immediately, but he refers to himself growing up in an alcoholic home where he never knew how his father was going to act.
He learned to repress his anger. He knew that he could not spout off, he would be beaten up, and so on. But he developed this inner anger within himself that was always had to be kept bottled up. But the unfortunate thing is, is that he realized after he got married and started his career as a Christian counselor, that he was running into this inner anger that came out over and over again in unsuitable and unreasonable ways.
And he began to recognize that reservoir of inner anger that was within him had a source that had very little to do with the actual circumstance. Now, I remember discerning this a little bit myself in one occasion in my own life, and it made me understand this idea that whenever you find yourself reacting way out of proportion to the situation, you have to go a little bit deeper.
It's because something in this present situation is triggering a past experience, it may be a lifetime of a kind of experience, that has affected you very deeply. And that's bringing out a very strong response, an unreasonable response to the present situation.
And so that's something to be aware of, to be cautious about in the way we handle ourselves. Now, I want to look with you now at the latter part of the chapter, because I think this has been, for many of us, one of the most difficult things that has the potential to cripple us.
And I had personal experience with this as a young Christian, where I came into conflict with another believer, and I became so embittered within myself that I almost left the assembly. I stopped taking part, I stopped being involved, I withdrew into my own shell.
And if I had not found a way to get through that, I probably would be nowhere near an assembly today. And so what we have in the last part, let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice.
Now, when God gives us this kind of a charge, it is obvious that he is holding us personally responsible for holding these emotions within us and not getting rid of them. You might say, yeah, but you have no idea what's been done to me.
You have no idea how they treated me. Have you ever realized that what somebody has done to you, it has created an effect within you? That's correct. But the very sad reality is that very often we ourselves have tormented ourselves by rehashing it, dragging it up, going over it and over it and over it.
And we have run ourselves through that experience over and over again. And sometimes we are trying to resolve it in our own mind, how we would say what we would say to them now and all these kinds of things.
Sometimes we are consciously trying to forgive them and get over it. But especially some of us who are more introspective, we have the potential to magnify the damage of somebody else's sin against us.
And that's very tragic. And so he is saying here, these are attitudes to get rid of. And so you might say, that's easy to say. How do you do it? Again, I want to suggest to you that it has a lot to do with remembering.
It's usually when we remember that it triggers the emotion, triggers the anger, the resentment, the hurt and so on. And we victimize ourselves all over again. And so how are we to do it? Well, he says here in verse 32, be kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake or in Christ has forgiven you.
So there's the first clue. He says, even as God. So he's going to appeal to us to bring God into the picture. And so I want to suggest to you three great realities. Now, as I do this, I am going to possibly go to some other verses in the New Testament to relate with this, because there are certain key elements that are found in these various passages.
So what should we remember? Well, the first thing to remember is simply this. Whatever it was, whatever it is that troubles you, that when you remember it, it brings you discomfort, distress and anger, resentment, whatever.
The first thing to remember is that God was there. You and that other person or other people were not just experiencing that all by yourselves. God was there and he understands perfectly everything that is involved in it.
Remember what I mentioned about perception and so on? Because we are self-centered, we tend to magnify the things that have been done to us. We tend to minimize the things we have done to other people.
And so our perception is often unbalanced. We need to remember God was there. God knows all about it. And the issue that I want you to think about is this. If avenging needs to be done, God is well able to do it.
Now, there are three realities about God that I want to just try to present to you and leave with you. The first is that God is just. You see, there is within every one of us a sense of justice. And when we have been wronged in some way, instinctively, we demand justice.
And that's not wrong. That's God-given. But let me take you to a couple of other passages and maybe the most focused will be upon this. Romans chapter 12, first of all. Romans 12 verse 17 says, recompense to no man evil for evil.
Provide things honest or honorable in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, as much as it is in your responsibility, live peaceably with all men. Then verse 19 says, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord.
And so then he says, actually, you can afford to stop worrying about that issue. And you can be kind to your enemy. You can do acts of kindness to them. And it says in verse 21, be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Let me take you again to James chapter three, or sorry, James chapter four. And verse 11, speak not evil one of another brethren, he that speaketh evil of his brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law.
But if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver who is able to save and to destroy, who art thou that judgest another. Now these passages are pulling together a very, very important truth.
And that truth is, God is the judge. And God has not relinquished his authority. He has not abdicated his throne. He accepts the responsibility to be the supreme judge of all things. And despite the fact that the world is in rebellion, and evil is flourishing in the world, and many things are wrong in the world, God still accepts, now this includes not only that he is judge, but also that he is sovereign, that God as the supreme sovereign of all things accepts the final responsibility for taking care of judging everything that is wrong.
And so what he is asking us to do in Romans chapter 12, notice what it says in Romans 12. He says, he appeals to us. He says, dearly beloved, do not, do not avenge yourself, but rather give place unto wrath.
Now what does that mean? Now does that mean that if somebody's angry with you, you just step back and, you know, let them walk all over you? And no, no, this is not talking about somebody else's wrath.
This is talking about God's wrath. It's saying, you stand aside. You let the living God step into your shoes, step beside you, and let him deal with it. The next verse confirms that. Give place unto wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine.
I will repay, saith the Lord. You can be absolutely sure if you are justly angry about something, God is more angry. God is justly angry. And I want to tell you that God has all eternity to set things right.
There are consequences for sin. There are judgments for sin. And this is appealing to us. And this is why I didn't really give you the label for my message or for this part of my message, but I'm going to give it to you now.
And it really is this idea, relinquish your claim. Relinquish your claim. What does that mean? Let it go by handing it over to somebody else. Hand it over. And he says, vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord.
And so basically, we are to remember that God was there. God saw what happened. He has perfect knowledge of every detail of it. And he is appealing to you, to me, to relinquish the issue into his hands.
Leave it in his hands to deal in judgment. Now, this does not deny the reality that there are mechanisms of discipline in the assembly of judgment. There are mechanisms of discipline in a family and so on.
There are appropriate authorities charged with the responsibility of carrying out judgment as it is required. I am thinking now of the personal aspect between your soul and God, between your soul and that other individual.
God is just. Now, the life of Joseph is a very beautiful life to think about in terms of what is involved here. Remember that despite what happened to Joseph, he was willing to leave it in God's hands.
And in fact, when his brethren came to him later and were afraid that he was going to get them now after dad is gone, he says, am I in the place of God? Don't be afraid. I'll take care of you and nourish you and so on.
And so this is one of the greatest challenges. And I want to just suggest to you that this, if you will truly do this, it will set you free from this tragic bond with another person. That has become to you an enemy.
You don't have to hate them. What happens, and I'm just going to refer now to James chapter four. What is the issue with speaking evil one of another? Why does James make such an issue about it? Well, let me just put it into perspective.
Have you ever asked yourself, what am I trying to do when I can't seem to stop saying something negative about a certain person? Now, I had a time of that in my life where there was a certain individual that I had held responsible for a lot of damage in an assembly that I was involved in.
It wasn't between myself and that person at all, but just the damage that he had caused in other believers' lives. I had a lot of resentment towards that individual, and whenever his name would come up, I would have a negative reaction, and I would find it almost impossible to deny the urge to convey something that was negative about that person.
What was I doing? I was trying to bring judgment on the person. You've heard of the court of human opinion? That's what I was doing. And so here is the problem. If you find yourself speaking about someone negatively over and over and over again, you are taking the place—really what you're saying is this, according to James, the law is not doing its job, which means the lawgiver isn't doing his job, which means there ought to be a law.
I'm going to have to write a new law, and I'm going to have to execute the judgment based on my law. You see, what we are saying, it starts out with what is right, the instinctive sense of injustice. Something that is wrong, that has not been properly punished or dealt with, should be punished.
But then when we take it upon ourselves to try to make it happen—and I have witnessed, tragically, believers who have become so obsessed with bringing somebody else to justice that they have destroyed themselves and sometimes destroyed their family and others in the assembly—it's not your prerogative.
We need to accept this. God says, this is my prerogative. Hand it over. Release it to me. I will take care of it. So that is a very important reality, and so the outcome of that is simply this. That person is in God's hands for judgment.
The second thing to remember is that God is for you. Have you heard that in the Bible? Romans chapter 8, that beautiful chapter that emphasizes so strongly, God is for us. And we come to that verse that says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, who are the called according to his purpose, and yet we struggle with fitting a lot of things in life into that kind of an equation.
What it is really emphasizing is that the sovereign God has chosen to bless you, to bring you into an eternal blessing, but we need to understand God has eternity in his focus, and not just today, not tomorrow, not this life necessarily, but eternity.
And God, who has bounded our lives with his sovereign determination to bring us to blessing, whatever he permits to touch our lives, he will work in order to create good for us through it. It may not be the thing itself that has any good in it, but it is the God who works all things together for an ultimate good.
And so the principle simply is this. In the end, it's actually irrelevant. And I shouldn't say this quickly or casually. In the end, it's irrelevant what anybody has done to us. We are in the hands of a God who will overturn every evil.
And for the sake of those he has saved and called to his eternal glory, he will transform it unto your eternal good. So not only is that person in God's hands for judgment, but you are in God's hand for blessing.
Now, if you could grasp those two things, it would set you free. It would set you free from feeling that you have to somehow judge or punish that person. You would realize God will take care of that. And you would also realize that that person cannot define my life.
That person cannot define who I'm going to become. I'm in the hands of the God who has loved me and eternally desires and wills my good and blessing. But the last point that I want to draw together from this is found in the last part of the verse, and it says, even as God for Christ's sake or in Christ has forgiven you, be kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another.
Now, it's interesting that the word to forgive here is not the usual word, but it actually means to act graciously towards. Be kind, just like Romans 12 ends with. Show kindness. Show kindness. In the freedom, in the deliverance of God within your own spirit, you are set free to manifest the grace of God towards that person.
And he says, just as just as God in Christ has forgiven you. So the last thing that we need to remember is that you also, you also have sinned. You also have failed. You also deserve judgment that God has chosen to act graciously towards you in Christ.
He has erased your guilt. He has embraced you to himself. He has made you his forever, and he wants you to act as he does out of the enjoyment of the grace of God. So the thing to remember here is that God is good.
God is gracious, and he has forgiven you. Now, I think my time is getting close to being done, and I'm sure you won't mind having a couple more minutes of being able to move around if I stop now. May the Lord grant us to be able to absorb these truths.
Let's commit ourselves to the Lord.