TLP 540: Biblical Conflict Resolution, Part 6 | make time for resolution

The idea that for the past couple of months my prayers may have been hindered because I was not pursuing reconciliation as I should is pretty sad. Parenting isn't about us. In fact, parenting isn't even about our kids.

Parenting as Worship and the Need for Timely Reconciliation

Parenting is just one way Christian dads and moms are to worship God. So welcome to the Truth Love Parent Podcast, where we train dads and moms to give God the preeminence in their parenting. In order to make time for resolution, you have to make time for conflict.

And in so doing, you're making time for resolution. My name is Aaron Michael Brewster. I'm also known as Aaron to my friends, Dad to my kids, and Poonsky to my wife. I'm the president of Evermind Ministries and the host of this podcast, and it is my joy and privilege to share with you what God has been teaching me through His Word, the Bible.

The purpose of this series is to learn what the Scriptures have to say about conflict resolution, put those steps into practice in our homes, and teach them to our children. Each episode comes with free episode notes, a transcript, and a list of related resources so you can deepen your understanding of the topic.

I hope that you will avail yourself of those resources. Now let's get into today's episode. Some of the information we're going to discuss today will sound familiar if you have been listening to the podcast from the very beginning.

If you haven't, I will do my best to point you to the other episodes that contain and build on these truths so that you can continue your study. Whereas last week's episode dealt with overcoming the natural tendency to want to avoid disagreement that may likely turn into more conflict, today's episode is about the opinion that we need to have concerning the timeframe of conflict resolution.

But before I jump into that, I want to tell you briefly about a new set of resources available from Faith Tree Biblical Counseling and Discipleship that you can access on the Evermind app. This online course is called The Doctrine of Emotions and contains a number of classes, podcasts, workshops, and counseling sessions that all deal with the topic.

The first unit is about understanding our and our family's emotions. The second unit dives into a biblical discussion concerning sorrow, fear, anger, and depression. There's a unit that contains interviews I've done on the topic of emotions, and the final unit has the classes and workshops I've taught for the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors.

Access to the material only costs $25, but today you can claim it for only $10. Just use the link in the description of today's episode to access that. Okay, let's talk about number one, resolve the conflict in a timely manner.

Resolve the Conflict in a Timely Manner

Last week we read Matthew 5, 23 -24. Therefore, if you are presenting your offering at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar and go.

First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. I admit I trampled today's topic quite a bit last time when I said, when you've sinned against someone, God says it's your responsibility to pursue reconciliation in a timely manner.

When I say timely manner, I'm basing that off the events of the verse and how they're to transpire. The individual who remembered their brother had something against him was taking his sacrifice to the priest.

It was a planned and scheduled event, but God said, stop what you're doing, go be reconciled, and then finish your sacrifice. There's an immediacy to this command. It doesn't leave room for finishing our current task.

It requires action. And all of that that I said last time is still true. I just shouldn't have said it last week. Oh well. I want to share a personal example with you to illustrate these points. A couple months ago I discovered that someone in my life had something against me.

I was very uncertain how to navigate the situation, so I kept putting it off while I tried to figure out how best to go about dealing with it. While that quickly turned into the paralysis of analysis, which quickly turned into the forgetfulness of distractedness, and then I found myself writing the sentence from last week's episode, if there's a relationship that needs reconciling, there's nothing more important we could be doing than taking the necessary steps to reconcile it.

In the moment I wrote that sentence, I remembered the individual who had something against me, and despite the multiple-week habit I was forming of deflecting, I recognized I had to prioritize reconciliation.

I immediately stopped working on my notes, and I set about to address the issue. It was uncomfortable, but according to the scriptures, it had to be done. And now I want to read 1 Peter 3, 7, because we need to understand that there are consequences for a lack of reconciliation, and the longer we wait to reconcile, the longer those consequences will exist in our lives.

In 1 Peter 3, Peter is explaining how husbands and wives are to relate to each other, especially in the times of conflict. Verses 1 through 6 are addressed to the wives, and in verse 7 we read, You husbands, in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way, as with somebody weaker since she is a woman, and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.

When Peter wrote, in the same way, he was hearkening back to the situation he described earlier in the passage. In verse 1, Peter admonished wives to be submissive to their husbands, even when those husbands are being disobedient to the word of God.

And that verse to the wives starts with the words, in the same way, hearkening back to chapter 2, verse 18, where servants are being commanded to be submissive to their masters, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable.

I mention this because it may be difficult to immediately recognize the fact that Peter's commands to husbands are being given in the same context of disagreement and conflict that the previous examples were.

Now the men do not have the command to submit to their wives because from the perspective of biblical authority within the home, men are to lead their wives with the inherent authority he gave to them.

Of course, this is not to say that men don't submit to the inherited authority of their wives. All Christians are to respond to the inherited authority of their brothers and sisters in Christ. If you don't know what I mean by inherent and inherited authority, I strongly encourage you to listen to our series all about authority.

It's presented primarily in regard to children, but I do discuss the doctrine of authority in good detail. Anyway, Peter says to husbands, in times when your wife is being unreasonable and disobedient to the scriptures, you're still to live with them in an understanding way, recognizing the fact that she is a spiritually immature person who needs your help to become the woman God created and called and capacitates her to be.

But as important as that role is, something we talk about a lot in our Family United in God online course, what I want us to notice is the consequence that comes when we husbands fail to live with our wives in reconciling ways.

And I'm going to go so far as to say that this isn't just in regard to husbands, and I'll prove that in a point in a moment. First Peter 3 .7 says that our prayers will be hindered. Now, there are a number of things that the Bible says will hinder our prayers of the men and the women.

Mark 11 .25 says that an unforgiving spirit does. Psalm 66 .18 says that the Lord won't hear our prayers when we're harboring wickedness in our lives. Isaiah 59 .2 says something very similar. James 4 .3 says our wrong motives hinder our prayers.

And Proverbs 28 .9 says our prayers are an abomination when we turn away from the teachings of the law. And what's interesting is how many of these prayer-hindering attitudes are so often present in daily family conflict.

In conflict, we tend to be unforgiving. We've sinned and we aren't turning from it. If we're pursuing reconciliation or even avoiding it, we're often doing it for the wrong reasons, and all of this is due to our turning away from the truths of the Scripture.

Now, I don't know about you, but the idea that for the past couple of months, my prayers have been hindered because I was not pursuing reconciliation as I should is pretty sad. We absolutely need to make time for timely reconciliation, primarily, obviously, because God deserves our worship and obedience, but secondarily, because there are consequences for our refusal to be reconciled.

Therefore, the single most important reason to resolve conflict in a timely manner is that it's so important to God that He prioritizes our reconciling with each other over our attempts to please Him in public worship and even private prayer.

Do Not Let the Sun Go Down on Your Anger

But there's another set of biblical instruction we need to consider as we talk about making time for resolution. Let's read Psalm 4 -4 and Ephesians 4 -26. Psalm 4 -4 says, Tremble, and do not sin. Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still.

And Ephesians 4 -26 sounds very similar when it commands, Be angry, and yet do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. By the way, the word in Psalm 4 -4 that was translated trembles oftentimes, be angry, in other translations.

We need to ask of the scriptures, what is the significance of the bed and the sun in regard to conflict resolution and anger in particular? These commands have to do with the fact that reconciliation needs to be pursued before the sun sets.

We need to schedule it into our day because the day will soon be over. Now, I'm definitely not suggesting that all reconciliation can perfectly happen in a moment or before the end of the day. Unfortunately, because of our sin, it often takes days, weeks, and sometimes even years.

Sometimes, reconciliation is never achieved. God forbid that be because of our sin. I did a series for the celebration of God called The Merciful Life. It's all about the doctrine of anger, and one of the aspects we discuss is the difference between sinful anger and sanctified anger.

Sanctified anger is God's divine anger being experienced in us, but here's the thing. The Bible teaches that divine anger is not sustainable for a human. It must come to an end in one of four ways. Number one, divine anger must end if the person at whom we're angry submits to the truth.

Only sinful anger continues to burn after the individual repents and obeys God. Number two, divine anger must end if God judges the person. Only sinful anger continues after the person has received the righteous consequences of their choices.

Number three, if the person doesn't submit to God's truth and or God doesn't judge the person right away, divine anger must end when you leave the person's presence. The idea of being in bed illustrates that the person with whom you have conflict is probably not there with you.

Only sinful anger continues to fester when the individual is no longer anywhere near you. And number four, if the person doesn't submit to God's truth and or God doesn't judge the person right away, and if you can't leave the person's presence because the person is in bed with you, your divine anger must end when the evening comes.

You are not the ultimate judge. There is no benefit in continuing to be angry when you're supposed to be sleeping. And this also provides application for when your spouse is directly rebelling against God.

Even though they're not repentant, even though they've not yet received God's judgment, and even though they're still in the room with you, you must abdicate your divine anger in light of the fact that God is the all-powerful judge and you are the exhausted ambassador.

Part four of the Merciful Life series presents these concepts in much greater detail. I really encourage you to work through that series at your earliest convenience. The whole point today is that regardless of how you look at it, God expects us to pursue reconciliation as soon as possible.

You might remember that you have sinned against someone else. Stop what you're doing and deal with it. The other person may have sinned against you. Talk to them about it right away and don't make excuses for not dealing with it.

Your anger, their sin, and even their refusal to repent does not excuse our responsibility to love them as God loves them. In order to make time for resolution, you have to make time for conflict, and in so doing, you're making time for resolution.

So don't drag your feet, because if you do, there will be consequences, consequences that are going to directly affect your fellowship with God. Next time, I plan to discuss making time for time, and then we're going to get into the practical nitty-gritty.

What does it require to actually resolve conflict? I'm looking forward to starting that conversation in a couple weeks. Please share this episode on your favorite social media outlets, and be sure to reach out to us at counselor at truthloveparent .com or call 828 -423 -0894 if you need personalized assistance reconciling with a loved one.

And then join us next week as we learn what it means to make time for time. Truth. Love. Parent is part of the Evermind Ministries family and is dedicated to helping you worship God through your parenting.

So join us next time as we study God's Word to learn how to parent our children for life and godliness. And remember that TLP is a listener-supported ministry. You can visit truthloveparent .com forward slash donate to learn more.