Enemies Within The Walls: Failing To Reconcile (part 1)

Father in heaven Lord, we come before you this morning just thankful for the opportunity to gather and to study your word and to Just really work together to be conformed into the image of your son father.

We're thankful for Forgiveness of sins and even as we gather to worship you we're mindful that we are indeed sinners saved by grace and Lord, we would pray that you would bless this time together in Christ's name.

Amen All right We've been talking about This series called.

Oh, I guess I have to give some books away Now if you look under your seat and you look for an envelope there, you won't find one

So I've always wanted to do that. I don't know why

Is there anyone who does not have this book who would like a copy of it Strange fire.

I'm just going with the first hands I saw So here you go nice hands, you know, the nice thing about books is they are virtually indestructible

I say virtually Okay, so we've been talking about enemies within the walls and and different aspects of of This a lack of forgiveness.

I mentioned I talked about gossip and Different things and and this morning

We think about it. Here's what I'm after this morning. Just can I give you a preview? if there are people in the church that you

Don't really like I think it's important for us to figure out why we don't like them

Why? When you're a kid and you fight with your siblings, how many of you have siblings by the way?

How many of you never fought with your siblings? I was gonna say if I see any hands when

I have to throw down the liar card my brother My brother and I were

I think we were pretty good and pretty mild by Cooley family standards

Which is not all that great. I mean, you know typically it was like Visits to the ER or whatever, but my brother and I were just like, you know punch a hole in the wall smash a window typical kid stuff

But what happens after you fight You know, there's some efforts either by the two of you if your parents don't know anything about it or Maybe if they do know something about I I guess

I do need to get my Bible. I left it down here There's some kind of effort at reconciliation at making things, right?

You know and if it's a parent that gets involved then what do they say, you know? Say you're sorry or you know

Whatever there's some effort at reconciliation, but somehow within the church we think we have the right to just kind of go

That's okay But I'm done with that person or I don't want to talk to them anymore

I don't want to be Reconciled. Can you think of a problem with that?

Is there a problem with that? What's the problem that's a good thing

God didn't do that to us You know what Steve I Told you last

Thursday not to do this again I mean, you know if God did do that sort of thing and yet you did it again

Therefore I'm done with you if we think about reconciliation

Biblically if we think about how God reconciled us to himself through his son

And he's no longer counting our former sins against us How should we think about reconciliation?

What's the what's the impetus to kind of Push us to that, you know, do we have the right to hold a grudge against somebody within the body of Christ?

By the way, I'm not trying to establish my bona fides my or some people say bona fides

But if you think about it, here's what you know what I used to tell people because I didn't like to say I'm a cop

So if I was flying or doing something else and somebody says what do you do for a living? You know what? I used to say I would say

I am an Engineer of what was the phrase

I used? It was some kind of fancy name basically what it meant was and then they look at me kind of funny because I had some

Contraption of a phrase I put together but they look at me kind of funny and I just look at him and I go I help

People get along that was my job Right, I go to somebody's house.

They're fighting. What do I get them to do? Stop fighting in The jail, they're fighting what I get them to do stop fighting.

In fact, let me just give you a story I had a deputy who was super mad at me He worked for me and he was super mad at me and nothing

I did was was resolving it and I just thought this is just getting nowhere So pulling on all my training as an unbeliever,

I challenged him to an arm -wrestling match

Now he was younger stronger bigger And he lost and he goes, okay left -handed and he lost again.

I thought dude, this is awesome I should do this more often But you know what? We had no problems after that. So my advice to you is if you have a problem with somebody in the church

No, that's now a lot of us

Don't do that You know One of the ladies in the church doesn't like me and she says pastor

Steve Let's arm -wrestle for it. Okay, good. I don't want to I don't want to arm -wrestle

Jack Kurtz though That'd be that'd be bad for me a lot of this information.

I took from Peacemaker net. This is Ken Sandy's material about Peacemaking I like what he says here.

He says conflict is not necessarily bad or destructive I Think well, how can it not be bad?

How can it not be bad? Well? He points out one way

As we heard this morning Romans 828 God uses all things together works all things together for good, right?

So even if it is something that we put in the category of bad good things can come out of it What sort of good things can come out of?

conflict between two people in church How can it come out to be our ultimate good

Carol we can understand somebody else better, right? Very true might learn something a lot of times, you know foundationally a lot of our

Difficulties are from just not understanding what somebody else is saying or miscommunicating or something like that Bruce.

Go ahead Okay, humility

And we're gonna get to that because I and let me just kind of preview it. I would say this that a lot of times

We offend I Know I never do this, but some of you might struggle with offending your brothers and sisters in Christ I might do that on occasion to sometimes we offend people and what we don't even realize it and When we realize that what happens well, there are two possibilities right one is

I just go well too bad for them You know, they shouldn't be offended The other one is

I get a little mortified I'd get a little dose of humility, which is good.

That's right How else can it be good Bruce?

Excellent. It encourages us to pray for one another. Absolutely Any other thoughts

Patience absolutely. Now, here's one you may not have thought about it gives us the opportunity to glorify

God gives us the opportunity to glorify God I I You know at first I thought well, this really doesn't have anything to do with this

But let's open up at 1st Corinthians chapter 10 at the very end of it And when

I first saw it, I thought you know, I don't really know if I like this but it is like Romans 8 28 in this sense when we say that God works all things together for good and I think

One of the Puritans I think I want to say it was Watson, but I don't remember who wrote all things for good If you read that book, he starts categorizing, you know things that we would think.

Well, these are good and And naturally God uses those things for good, but then he starts in category bad even our sinfulness

And he starts laying out how God uses these things for good So ultimately all things really means all things together for good all things

Disease every every everything that we can classify as bad or good is

For our good now with that in mind. Let's look look at 1st Corinthians chapter 10

Verses 31 all the way to 11 chapter 11 verse 1 would somebody read that?

1st Corinthians 10 31 through 11 1 would somebody read that please go ahead mark

Okay, now you you know at first blush maybe you look at that you think well, you know That they may be saved and this just has to do with how we treat unbelievers

Okay, but look again it also says give no offense to Jews or to Greeks those would be the unbelievers he's talking about the unbelieving world or to the

Church of God So back up again to 1st Corinthians 10 31

Whatever you do, that's one of those all -inclusive statements Do all the glory of God so conflict resolution to the glory of God Everything you do for the glory of God even this and it really is an important principle

And we're gonna see how they lay this out here They suggest that you glorify

God by trusting obeying and imitating him that's right there in the in the verse You serve other people

Now listen to this we talked a little bit about this but in terms of conflict resolution by helping to bear their burdens

Praying for them, right Even when we're not yet reconciled we can pray for somebody else and Then he goes on to say or by confronting them in love

And we're going to talk about that form of conflict resolution, too The other way that we glorify

God in handling these things as we grow to be like Christ by confessing our sin

That is agreeing with God that we're sinful and then turning away from attitudes that promote conflict

Sandy goes on to write he says these concepts are totally overlooked in most conflicts because people naturally focus on escaping from the situation or Overcoming their opponent what happens if you're in conflict with somebody they're basically two responses.

What a what a psychologists and I guess Police officers also use this term

What is our natural inclination? It's one of two things fight or flight Right, what does that mean?

somebody challenges you and you either back down and run away or you just sheepishly say you're right or You know, they give you the left jab and you give them the right cross it's on You're down you're wrestling just brings me back to my brother and I oh, sorry

Therefore it is wise to periodically step back from a conflict and ask yourself

Whether you are doing all that you can to take advantage of these special opportunities I'm just going to tell you that is a great principle in everything.

I've said it before about when we speak How should we how we should filter our speech and that's what

I mean kind of taking a step back from it But even in this case if you focus on the why is so -and -so mad at me or why is this happening to me or why?

Why why why why you might be missing? You might be missing a good opportunity to clean your lungs out with a good holler some primal scream therapy

If you if you focus on the problem itself You might miss out on either what you should be learning from it or how you can grow from it

And he comes up with some suggestions here when he talks about glorifying God he says

That we ought not to think about and I know nobody thinks about their Christian life like this but sometimes

I think practically we can limit our our walk our growth

To the one or two hours that we spend here on Sunday And then the rest of the week is this kind of we're not putting

We're not viewing all of life through our our God Spectacles as it were we're not viewing life as Really, we ought to how do we glorify

God in everything that we do whether we work or whether we eat whatever we're doing How do we glorify him even in conflict resolution and one of the best ways?

that That we can do this is just it just as this question somebody gets upset with us

They come to us with a concern or we notice that somebody won't interact with us. They won't have fellowship with us

What would be a good question to ask ask ourselves? What have

I done wrong? Okay? What if what if you do a you know,

I'll use a 12 -step term. Forgive me. What if you do a fearless moral inventory? Whatever that means

What if you check yourself and you're going I I really still can't figure it out. I What's it what's another question you could ask yourself

Even if you can't figure out what you've done wrong Bruce Okay, pray for them is great

And and yeah try to talk to them But I want to just back up a little bit and just think about this way if before you enter into the situation

Before you even go to talk to them Your mindset should be how can I glorify?

God in this situation. I don't know exactly what's wrong But my goal going into this no matter what happens no matter what this other person says in order what the accusations may be

I want to glorify the Lord Throughout this situation now, let's talk about let's go back to what

Bruce was saying You go and you want to find out what's wrong and really he says that this is kind of more in a confrontational

Situation, but let's go back to Matthew chapter 7 and let's read

Verses 2 to 5 we've read these on several occasions, but it bears repeating because I think it's easy for us to Get this wrong.

Would somebody read Matthew 7 verses 2 to 5, please? You know this week.

I was really tempted Thank you, Gary. I was really tempted to use visual

Accompaniment here because I saw a cartoon on Facebook That I thought was really great, you know, it was the it was a picture of a guy with it like a log

Like extending out of his eye and he he's looking at the other person going what you know Like what are you talking about get this

I Mean it looked like one of the it looked like a concrete girder only it was just a you know, great big log

But Sandy writes he says there are generally two kinds of logs that you need to look for when dealing with Conflict first you need to decide or ask whether you've got a critical negative or oversensitive attitude that has led to Unnecessary conflict in other words whether the source of the problem is

You and your attitude Says the second kind of log you must deal with is actual sinful words and actions

That's probably easier to recognize, right? You usually if you think about it for long enough you can recognize

Usually that you've said something or that you've done something that has offended someone else

But he writes because you are often blind to your own sins you may need an honest friend or advisor who will help you to take an objective look at yourself and Face up to your contribution to a conflict and I'm gonna hold that thought for a minute because we'll get back to that This idea of somebody else being involved

When you identify ways that you have wronged another person is important to admit your wrongs honestly and thoroughly

The most important aspect of getting the log out of your own eye is to go beyond the Confession of wrong behavior and to face up to the root of the cause of that problem.

I don't want to get too psychological but if we if I go to someone and I say, you know

And I recognize that I've sinned against them and I go to say, you know what? I recognize that I've Sinned against you.

Would you please forgive me? And they say yes. Well, I understand what

Sandy's saying here, but I don't want to get Ken Sandy I don't want to get involved in a situation where now

I sit down like in a Therapist couch with this other person and say well, let me explain the root of my sin

You know, it really goes back to my childhood. I was locked in a closet I don't need to do that.

And that's not what I'm sure that's not what they're talking here and Talking about here, but there are reasons that we do what we do and if we if we kind of Go back from where we started if I say something to someone and I offend them

Well, what are the possibilities I say something to you? I offend you There's two possibilities.

One is I intended to offend you Right, the other one is I didn't intend it.

I mean that's glaringly obvious, but it matters why? Because in the first case if I intended to offend you then

I know I did Right. I set out to do it Now we mean we may leave that and we may not come back to it right away

But now the burden is clearly on me, right? I offended you. I Need to go to you and get your forgiveness

And if I don't then you need to come to me and say, you know what you offended me with what you said and The wrong response would be duh because I do know that but I'm slow to repent

But I should not say that I should say well Hopefully by that time

I've got my mind, right? But the other possibility is I don't know that I've offended you and then the burden is on you to say, you know

What what you said offended me and this is Where I wanted to go to begin with because so often what happens is

I Offend you and I don't just mean to say that I'm in the only offensive person here at Bethlehem Bible Church Maybe I am

I don't know but if I offend you and I don't know it and you don't say anything to me then what?

We're just gonna go in a perpetual state of you know, you being Out of basically out of fellowship with me being angry with me being disappointed in me and we're not gonna do anything about that This is going to grow the harmony and love within the body of Christ No No, we absolutely have to be willing to confront one another it if we have something against the other

We have to do that. Let's talk about what it means to confess

They have the seven A's of confession Address everyone involved, you know when you when you've sinned against people.

What do you need to do? You need to go to everybody who's involved all those whom you have affected now, let's think about this

Let's say that I Sinned against you and then you and return

Decided that you were going to go and tell three or four friends all about the conflict We're having then what's gone on?

I sinned initially and then You sinned in return And this is why conflict risen one of the reasons why it's so important.

It's so important that we keep short accounts. Why? Because you could just see from that little illustration these things just kind of multiply

If I sin against you and then you tell three or four people Well now there are four or five people that don't like me very much because of what

I did That is Destructive of the unity and were to glorify the

Lord were to work for unity within the body so if this kind of thing happens, then

I need to Confess my sin. I need to talk to that person. But then if someone else has

Gossiped about me or slandered me because of my sin even in my sinfulness. It's not right to do that.

They should come to me Matthew 18 if your brother sins go and tell three or four others

Go and reprove him in private That should be the way we go

And you know to this to this point I want to go back and just address gossip for a minute

I know I've said this but think about this I've said that just because something's true doesn't mean it's not gossip if you spread it around And I and I and I think

I use some fairly graphic Illustrations, but again, I would just say this about gossip if you were to sin

Let's just reverse it instead of me singing against you for a change. How about you sin against me? If you were to sin against me and then

I was to go around the church and tell everybody about what you did Would you think well, you know what

Steve had the right to do that. I shouldn't sin in the first place I don't think you'd think that I think you'd think that Steve He's got a big mouth

What I did was bad, but what he did might be worse Our goal should be in every situation

Yes to glorify God. How do we glorify God by magnifying sin by putting sin on parade?

or by minimizing sin By trying to handle it at the lowest level, you know when complaints would come into the sheriff's department

Somebody says, you know I'm working the desk and somebody says, you know your deputy out here deputy so -and -so

He did whatever You know, he said some things to me that he shouldn't have said I Don't get on the phone.

You know start going through the directory going. What's what's the sheriff's phone number? His sheriff needs to know about this right away

Sheriff's got 10 ,000 deputy sheriff's he doesn't need to know what every every every one of them is doing all the time, right?

I don't need to go to the watch commander. I don't need to go to any supervisor What do I need to do? I need to talk to that person in that same respect

There's no reason For sin not to be held You know handled at the lowest possible level at the with the least number of people involved

So they say address everyone involved secondly Avoid words like if but maybe and what here's what they mean, how many times have you heard this kind of Apology at which by the way,

I'm not really that fun You know what? It's okay to say I'm sorry If you're walking by somebody in the hallway trying to squeeze by and you bump into them.

Sorry is fine I don't think you always have to ask forgiveness for that because you didn't intend to do anything. But if you sinned against somebody

Bumping into someone in the hallway is not a sin, but if you've sinned against someone Don't say you know what if you were offended.

I'm sorry That's like the double conditional.

Nothing. That's a nothing burger if you were offended Well, we wouldn't be having this conversation if I wasn't offended

And then I'm sorry again. I don't like it. Why because it's passive it requires no

Not even you don't you have to say anything Would you forgive me

Why is that so important because it brings it brings this whole idea of reconciliation. I've I've sinned against you.

I Asked for your forgiveness. I I say that you know what I acknowledge what I did was wrong. I've sinned against you

I've sinned against God, you know, would you please forgive me? And then when you say yes, that's it

It's done and we're gonna talk more about that. We don't you know, these these things are buried not to be raised again

We don't get to raise The things that we've forgiven from the dead so that we can use them again

He goes on to say admit specifically both attitudes and actions You know,

I was angry against you when I said I Didn't like whatever and so I unloaded on you.

I think that's fine Forth he says acknowledge the hurts It's okay to say listen

I am sorry that I hurt you in addition to ask one of your forgiveness. I I recognize

That what I did cause you pain and I and I don't like that Then accept the consequences.

Well, what are the consequences? Making restitution. What's the classic example of making restitution?

You know, you break the window Your neighbor's house. However, we we had this

The school where I went to elementary school there was a field where we played Anybody ever play over the line, you know what over the line is

It's like baseball for only it only takes three kids to play Sometimes we play with four or five, but every once in a while somebody would really get a hold of the ball

You know, you throw it up and you hit it yourself somebody really get a hold of the ball and it would sail into this apartment building and I Think just a couple times window might

I got him broken And naturally we went up and knocked on the door Like to pay for the damage or we ran.

I don't remember which one I'm not gonna pay for that.

All right, you pay for it You should have caught the ball But you need to make up for it if there's something that can be done to make up for it

There's some things that you you can't make restitution for and you know what? Those are the worst things.

It's fine if I if I break Charlie's car window, I can pay him for that if I You know say something

Untoward to him. Well, I can ask for his forgiveness and Charlie being a godly man might be able to forgive me and keep a short memory of it

But for some people there's no getting over it. It's gonna be hard to get over it The sixth one that they suggest is alter your behavior

If you go back and do the exactly the same thing not just to the same person not the same way But in a different way then it really indicates that you didn't take time to reflect and think

Why did I do this in the first place? Was it pride that caused me to say what

I said is It just the fact that I refuse to think about what I say before I say it.

I'm Irish therefore Whatever's on the tip of my tongue.

I have to say You don't understand my Italian hot temper. I need to think about Not only how

I can change my behavior, but things there might be practical things. I mean, I might I mentioned this before, you know, one of the hardest things

Ever for me. I like to I know this is gonna be hard to believe I like to laugh Even when

Mike tells really bad jokes I Like to laugh

And so I've told the story before about how I I got saved but you know backing up into that 12 -step meeting

That I was at I didn't get saved in the 12 -step meeting, but it kind of it was the catalyst for a series of events and Maybe the hardest thing

I ever had to do was not laugh at those 12 -step meetings Because my immediate response was you know what some of these people were saying was ridiculous and so I was like You know wanting to laugh and so I thought boy

I'm gonna have to do something or I'm just gonna bust out laughing here You know what some of these things like for example,

I'll just you know said it before but when somebody says that their higher power that they were surrendering their life to was a

Part of their brain that they dedicated to be their higher power It's like see

I wanted to just laugh and I'm going well, it's not laugh So I just started biting my cheek and I bite my cheek super hard Well point is at least

I understood that I had to alter my behavior if I let nature take its course I was gonna be laughing hysterically.

They were gonna throw me out of these, you know I'd be the first person ever kicked out of a 12 -step me, but you have to think about how can

I alter my behavior? What what you know, are there any practical changes I need to make? You know, do

I need to carry around a log under my arm? So I'll just think well before I criticize somebody else.

I need to take the log out of my own eye, you know What are you carrying that thing around? It's just a reminder. I know it's your right arms getting pretty big left arms really small

So because I carry it around here, you know We need to look at ways that we need to alter our behavior and the last

Seventh a is ask for forgiveness good. I'm glad he said that instead of Saying we're sorry now they suggest the next step is to gently restore gently restore the relationship and Again from Matthew 18 if your brother sins against you go and show him his fault just between the two of you now if if you read that alone

You'd think well It's your job to make sure that everybody else knows that they've sinned and that's not the point The point is there are times when the other person doesn't know that they've sinned they don't know that they've

Offended you and you have to go to them But let's go.

Let's go back to Matthew 18 for just a moment because we're gonna look right before that in Matthew 18 verses 12 to 14 and I'll read that when

I get there because I think it's I think it's just helpful to just kind of understand the sort of Setting and the sort of heart that Jesus had and that we really ought to have when we're thinking about sin and confronting sin

Look at verse 12 there What do you think if a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray?

Does he not leave the 99 on the mountain and go in search of the one that went astray and if he finds it?

Truly I say to you he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray so it is not the will of my father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish and Then he goes straight off into What we call church discipline if your brother sins against you and then look even afterwards the parable of the unforgiving servant there's a theme here and the theme is

Forgiveness is Godly Forgiveness is right and what happens ultimately?

There is when we read in Matthew 18. He says go and confront him and if he repents you have

Won your brother What's the overall sense right there, what is he saying?

What if you win your brother, what are you gonna think you're gonna think? Oh, I wish he hadn't repented.

I Wish our relationship hadn't been restored No Your response is gonna be

Yeah, I Won my brother. We're restored. This is good. Praise the

Lord And going back to 1st Corinthians chapter 10. We have glorified

God in everything that we've done including This conflict resolution. It's a good thing.

It's a very good thing But when we talk with someone we spoke earlier about a hypercritical attitude

Should you or do you need to confront someone on every sin that they commit? we had

And We had a series of or a list of violations vehicle violations

That were really just some of them were just trite You know, the favorite one was anybody know you have any kind of guess what maybe the our favorites like most ridiculous reason to pull people over was

License plate light is a winner That was that was the best, you know now during the day maybe not so good

His license plate was odd. It was noon. Well, you know, it was a heavily overcast day

But we would we would have things like that well, you know what in our Christian lives We can't walk around with a list of you know, minor offenses just waiting for people to violate them

So we can pounce what does the Bible say anyway? that love Which should be our motivation, right?

Covers a multitude of sins So it's only the ones that we can't cover

That we can't bury I Like that word, why do

I like that word bury because in a case is dead it's over You know what happens when you bury a person most of the time

They stay there I know in movies nowadays, it's pretty common for them not to but generally speaking they stay there

It's a good picture If I'm covering it If I'm burying it, it's done.

It's over. It's finished. It's Resolved that's how it should be.

But now here are some questions When should it be overlooked and we'll need to close here, when should it be overlooked if You can answer no to all of the following questions

Is the offense seriously dishonoring God is it seriously dishonoring

God? Well, I mean imagine, you know, I mean we can come up with all kinds of scenarios. I Think maybe the most common one today in the church

And I don't I don't even understand this I mean I've known Christians who live like this and and I don't get it

Boyfriend girlfriend living together They both say they're Christians is the offense seriously dishonoring

God. Well, yes, it's a sin against each other It's a sin against God and it's a sin against anybody who's in that kind of relationship okay,

I'm a Christian and I'm and I am Admitting I am living as a fornicator.

Well, there's an issue there It's a sin that can be forgiven, but it's one that needs to be confronted So that's the first one and it could be as simple as well as simple these days

What do we see Christians? Blaspheming, you know doing all sorts of things

So that's the first one. The second one is has it permanently damaged a relationship? Look if somebody is sinned against you in a way where you think you know what

I could overlook this But I don't want to talk to them again Then you're not overlooking it

You can't overlook it and you should talk to them Is it seriously hurting other people and the last one is it seriously hurting the offender himself?

you know, maybe The theory is you know, he's not hurting anyone else, but himself

But if it's seriously hurting the offender himself, it should be confronted. Now. There are a lot of examples of that.

I let's let's just say that somebody is not working

Therefore they you know Can't care for themselves and all these other things and they're living a random kind of life where they stay up all night and sleep all day

They might think well who's a hurting it's just me Okay, but it's something that needs to be confronted.

Why because it's seriously hurting you So if you can answer note all those questions, then you can probably overlook it

But if you can answer yes to any of those then it needs to be Confronted and we need to close there and we'll we'll pick it up there.

But we're going to be talking more about Confrontation about reconciliation, you know sometimes even

You know if you go to confront somebody about sin, do you think that that will always go? Well, the answer is and I could tell you this from personal experience.

We'll talk about this next week The answer is definitely no sometimes things can get really ugly

Well, let's let's close in prayer father We're thankful today that you have

Reconciled us to yourself that we were rebels a strange separated from you

That we did not want you we did not we could not merit being in your presence

But father you Reconciled us to yourself through the work of your son

Father, we praise you for him Praise you for your plan praise you for your grace in Christ's name.