Conflict Resolution Genesis 26:17-35

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The Bible makes it clear that our lives are to be distinct from the world.
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We should look different in every way. A Christian should never be known as someone who holds grudges, stirs up conflict, and is always bitter toward others.
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We see this all too often. And this is the normal life for the world, but it should not be for the
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Christian. The Christian should be one who easily forgives. Let's go of the temptation to hold grudges and instead pursue peace with all people.
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What you will experience as you walk with Christ is that people will hate you without cause. Jesus said it would be this way.
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The closer you follow Him and the further our culture turns away from God, the more you will notice this.
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I tell you this so that when it comes, do not be surprised. But Christians should stand out from the world in the way they handle conflict with others.
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We have been forgiven so much in Christ. We can't even comprehend how much we have been forgiven.
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Therefore, we above all people should be those who pursue peace and not quarrels and controversy.
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We are going to see conflict arise in Isaac's life in Genesis 26 today.
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Isaac is of course a follower of the Lord who handles the conflict admirably.
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We are going to see that in the text. And as Christians, we should reflect the godly way in which he handles friction between other parties that he came across.
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So I encourage you as always to turn in a Bible with me. We are going to be looking at Genesis 26, verses 17 -35.
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And if you are using a red Bible in the pew, it's on pages 24 and 25.
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So we are slowly but surely making our way through Genesis. This sermon is titled
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Conflict Resolution. And our big idea, our proposition is that as a follower of Christ, it is essential that we handle inevitable conflict in the right manner.
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As a follower of Christ, it is essential that we handle inevitable conflict in the right manner. We are going to see two resolutions today for handling conflict.
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The first is to make every effort to pursue peace. Make every effort to pursue peace.
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And we'll see this in verses 17 -22 and then 26 -31. And I'll explain this as I go throughout the sermon.
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And point two is actually going to be verses 23 -25 today. But before we jump into the text, let me give a little recap of last week's sermon.
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We looked at the first 16 verses of this chapter. We saw the Lord's grace in the life of Isaac.
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And the big idea was that following God's way is always the best way.
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We saw three reasons why. The first is the blessings are the greatest for you and others.
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We experience this when we go down the best path that God has for us. So the second reason why following God's way is always the best way is
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His path keeps you out of trouble. We saw this with Isaac. When we get entangled in sin, we bring trouble upon ourselves when we could just be experiencing the blessing of following the
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Lord. But when we do fall, we should be motivated to get back on the path to once again experience
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His blessing. And that was the third reason God's way is always the best way. His blessings continue as you right the ship.
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So this brings us to our text today. And at the end of last week's sermon, we saw that the stage was being set for a conflict between Isaac and the
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Philistines. We will see this conflict arise and how Isaac handles it correctly.
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And we will see what our relationship should be to conflict. Once Isaac got back on the path, the
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Lord blessed him greatly. We saw that He blessed him with material things.
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He blessed him with crops. And the point I made last week is that when we talk about the blessing in the
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Old Testament, often the physical blessing would match the spiritual blessing. So really the blessing we're talking about here is spiritual blessing.
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Now Isaac now departs to a new location still in the land of Canaan to continue his life there.
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And we're going to see the conflict arise. So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the valley of Gerar and settled there.
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And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the
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Philistines had stopped after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given them.
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So Isaac is kicked out of the city of Gerar by Abimelech and goes to the valley of Gerar.
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So before, Isaac was just outside the city. Now he's in the sticks.
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Maybe like Eureka. Now he's out in that region. And they go to the region where Abraham had dug a well of water in 2130.
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That verse says he dug a well. But this verse gives us more information by telling us that he dug multiple wells.
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And verse 15 of our chapter tells us that the Philistines had filled these wells up after Abraham's death.
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And they probably did this to keep foreigners from grazing in their land.
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What we have to understand is that water was such a precious commodity in this region.
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We're very blessed today to have all the water we need. Back then, they wondered where their water was going to come from.
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It was mostly a dry and arid place. And a reliable water source was of utmost importance.
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And what Isaac does is he digs these wells up again and gives them the same names as his father gave them.
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And after digging out these filled up wells, Isaac gets ambitious and has his servants search for more wells of water in verse 19.
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But when Isaac's servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water.
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So as you read this, you think, great news. They found water. They found more water.
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And this is going to be a great place to stay. Wrong. Finding the jackpot leads to conflict with the locals as we see in verse 20.
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The herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen saying, the water is ours.
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So he called the name of the well Essek because they contended with him.
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So they find a spring of water and Isaac and his men run into the herdsmen of Gerar.
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Even though Isaac and his men found this well of water, the herdsmen say, the water is ours.
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I don't know what you think about it, but this water is ours. And the text tells us that Isaac named this well that they discovered
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Essek, which means contention in Hebrew. Now we will see that Isaac names another well to describe their turbulent experience in verse 21 as they find a new well.
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Then they dug another well and they quarreled over that also. So he called its name
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Sitna. So this well named Sitna in Hebrew means enmity.
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And what it means is that enmity arose between him and the herdsmen. So these men are fighting over water.
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In our modern day example, maybe oil. Oil is one of those commodities that people pursue.
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And the fight over oil has caused wars throughout the history of the world, especially in more recent years.
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And so they're fighting here over water. And our text today is about how to handle conflict and how to nip it in the bud before it takes a hold of us.
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And we'll see how Isaac handles this rightly because this could have turned into a war over water.
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Let's see what he does in verse 22. And he,
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Isaac, moved from there and dug another well and they did not quarrel over it.
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So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, for now the Lord has made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land.
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You see that? Instead of quarreling in that location over the wells,
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Isaac and his servants moved to a new location to dig another well. And this time, they did not meet opposition.
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As the end of verse 22 says, for now the Lord has made room for us and we shall be fruitful in the land. So, Isaac is overjoyed that they now find this place where there is water and there's no conflict this time.
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If Isaac were a quarrelsome person, this could have ended up very bad. Sin leads people to be quarrelsome.
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To stir up conflict. And we even see this in our own hearts if we're honest.
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This is a normal way of living for believers and this can be a besetting sin that Christians fight.
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And that's the difference, by the way. Unbelievers do this and they just keep doing it. They don't care.
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They just continue down that path. Believers, when we recognize the besetting sin of quarreling and controversy and bitterness, we have to stop it.
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We have to kill it. The Bible has strong words for those who cause quarrels among people.
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Proverbs 26 .21 says, As charcoal to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome man for kindling strife.
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One of the qualifications for an elder is that the man not be quarrelsome. And that's not only true for the office of an elder, but for all
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Christians. It's sad that some people actually enjoy conflict.
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The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 6 .4 that some have an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels.
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He says these produce envy, dissension, slander, and evil suspicions.
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Do you crave controversy? Ask yourself that question. Does it somehow bring you a twisted joy?
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This can be a besetting sin for Christians. There's a lot of Christian blogs out there.
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I read them sometimes. There's one blog in particular that I read, and I almost always agree with the content.
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I'm thinking, yep, he's got it. And yet, I almost always disagree with his tone and the way that he treats people.
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He does not treat other believers in a charitable manner, in a Christ -like manner.
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And so as I read this blog, and I was talking with another pastor friend of mine, I was thinking, I think
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God is actually quite displeased with the blog, even though I think the content is mostly spot on.
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Which tells you, right, people who like to stir up controversy, like to stir up conflict, making a big deal out of something that's not a big deal, it can cause problems.
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Because quarrelsome people turn moles into mountains. Instead of noticing the 90 % good that someone is doing, all of the focus goes on the 10 % where a wrong is perceived.
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And we do this with our family and friends and among fellow Christians. And let me be clear on something.
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Within the Christian community, there are times to speak up. If we see heresy, we must condemn it publicly.
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If we see an unhealthy trend within evangelical Christianity, even then it is appropriate to speak out.
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To do this is not being quarrelsome, but rather is protecting the body of Christ from any unhealth. However, it must always be done in the right manner.
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To say the truth is not enough. It must be done with the right tone and spirit.
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This includes tone and highlighting the positives and points of agreement with the one with whom you have a dispute.
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Think about how much better a conversation can go if you say, you know what, we agree on this many things.
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We just disagree on this. It would be so much more peaceful when that takes place. The Apostle Paul addressed this topic much in his letters.
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He was always running into conflict with people and trying to help people with conflict. And he said this in 2
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Timothy 2 .24, The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.
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God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth. And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.
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You can say the truth and say it in such a way that is displeasing to the Lord. To say something in an un -Christlike way can cause serious conflict with others and the sad part is that it could have been avoided.
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Think of how badly this would have turned out if Isaac were a quarrelsome man.
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We would have had a war on our hands here. He was trying to avoid conflict instead of stir it up.
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And what he says to the herdsman is you have these wells. We'll go to another location. He could have said, you know what, we're going to fight over these.
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He said, nope, we're going to let you stay there. We're going to go over here. And if someone brings you into a conflict, because remember, he didn't instigate this conflict.
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They came to him. They were the ones who started this. So if someone brings you into a conflict, you must do the best to resolve the conflict in a way that leads toward peace.
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And pray that the Lord gives you wisdom in that of how to pursue the path of peace because sometimes it can be difficult to know how to get to that point.
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Now we just saw one approach that Isaac took. He and his men let the herdsmen in this region keep the wells and they went to a new location to dig a new one.
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And now what we're going to do is we're going to go down to verses 26 -33 in the next section here.
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And we're going to see another conflict that faces Isaac.
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We'll begin by reading verses 26 -29. This is with different people.
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When Abimelech went to him from Gerar with Ahuzab, his advisor, and Phicol, the commander of his army,
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Isaac said to them, Why have you come to me, seeing that you hate me and have sent me away from you?
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They said, We see plainly that the Lord has been with you. So he said,
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Let there be a sworn pact between you and us and let us make a covenant with you that you will do us no harm, just as we have not touched you and have done to you nothing but good and have sent you away in peace.
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You are now blessed of the Lord. So King Abimelech goes to Isaac with his advisor and the commander of his army.
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The purpose of going to Isaac is to make peace with him. Why is
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King Abimelech so eager to pursue peace with Isaac? We know this because of Abimelech's previous encounters with Isaac's God.
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Last week I mentioned that Abimelech had a previous encounter with God in Genesis 20. In that chapter,
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Abimelech thought Sarah was Abraham's sister and not his wife as he was fooled by Abraham. The Lord told
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Abimelech in a dream, You are a dead man because you took another man's wife. This literally put the fear of God in him.
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Abimelech has also seen firsthand that the God who threatened his life has also greatly blessed his people, namely
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Abraham and now Isaac. So Abimelech just kicked Isaac out and now he thinks he may be in trouble.
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He's thinking, I do not want this man greatly blessed by the Lord to come out against me.
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So Abimelech, in an effort to protect himself, desires to make a peace treaty with Isaac. You remember that from last week?
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How Abimelech kicks Isaac out of his land. That's where he is. That's why he is where he is right now.
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And now Abimelech is thinking, that might have been a bad idea because of my past experience with his
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God. Things might not go well for me in the future. So we can see this in verse 27 that Isaac was not happy that he was kicked out of Gerar.
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And there may have been some bitterness in Isaac. We don't know, but I think it's safe to assume there may have been. The Bible tells us not to let the root of bitterness spring up and cause trouble in our hearts and the hearts of others.
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And if this is indeed bitterness in Isaac, we know that it did not stay because of his response in verses 31 and 32.
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The text says, In the morning they rose early and exchanged oaths, and Isaac sent them on their way, and they departed from him in peace.
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That same day Isaac's servants came and told him about the well they had found.
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And so we see here, they pursue peace. Isaac, once again, is not interested in having a conflict.
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He agrees to this peace treaty. And he's not causing quarrels.
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And you'll notice here that not only does he agree to the peace treaty, but they also eat and drink together.
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In verse 30, you don't typically have a feast with someone with whom you're in conflict, right?
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So he says, I don't want conflict with you. Let's be at peace with one another and let's eat and drink together.
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Let's have this feast. And then they make a peace treaty. So even if Isaac had bitterness at first, it did not stay very long.
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Isaac follows the same pattern he did with the herdsmen. What could have been a huge conflict, he keeps from becoming one because he's a peacemaker.
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So the question I have for you is, does your life look like this? Have you done whatever it takes to be at peace with others?
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Romans 12 .18 says, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
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You may be in a situation where you have done everything you can and it's just in the other person's court.
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And you know what? The Lord's pleased with you if that's the case. But if there's still something that you can do to make peace with someone else, then you need to do that.
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And I don't know all of your situations if you might be in a conflict with someone, but just ask yourself that. What can
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I do to pursue peace here? Because we want to model Isaac's example here. Remember, he's going out of his way to not have this conflict with these people.
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He wants peace. And we need to follow this godly example. Last Sunday, it was a beautiful thing.
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A number of churches in the area gathered down at Hope Free Church in Osceola. And it was really a unifying event.
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All the pastors and different Christians in the area. Different denominations. I'm sure we have disagreements.
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If we were to go down the line of doctrine, we would say we have some disagreements. But I think the people there, they agreed on the major things.
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If you don't agree with those things, you're not a Christian anymore. But anyway, it was a great night of unity as we gathered together and we prayed together for our nation.
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And we should pursue peace, not only broadly with other believers, but even narrowly with Eureka Baptist Church in our local congregation.
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Every Lord's Supper, I say that if you have conflict with another in our congregation, you must be at peace before you take the elements.
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According to 1 Corinthians 11 .27, if anyone comes to the meal in conflict with another in the church, to eat of the meal is to bring judgment upon oneself.
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So the Lord desires greatly that we have the right heart toward one another in this church.
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And so you see it, right? You see this unity needs to be within our church, more broadly with other
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Christians, and even with those who do not believe in Christ. We need to aim to be at peace with all people.
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And specifically, the Lord's design for the church, according to Ephesians 4 .12 and 13, is for building up of the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the
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Son of God to mature manhood. Then verse 16 says, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
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So in short, the Lord's goal for our church and every church is maturity and unity.
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As one of your shepherds, what I can say is that I'm encouraged with this because I think we're going in the right direction, right?
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As we mature together and as we're unified, the Lord's going to be able to do wonderful things through us.
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And we need to keep pressing on toward that. And one of the ways that we have this unity, right, is to set our differences aside and to pursue peace with one another at all times.
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And Isaac is our model in this. In our text today, he was not a quarrelsome man. He did not crave controversy.
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Rather, he pursued peace and so must we. And I'll close with this, with the closest first point, with this point to say that when
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I was growing up, my church had a split. We probably had a couple hundred people at that time.
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And I was talking to someone yesterday who came to the men's breakfast who was a part of that church way back then, and what we were saying is that should have never happened.
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If we were pursuing Christ, if we were aiming for unity, it would have never happened.
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But people got, their pride got in the way. Their desire to be right got in the way.
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And the church blew up. The church split. And that should never happen in a church.
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And so we must always aim for peace. So the first resolution for handling conflict is to make every effort to pursue peace.
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And the second, this is much shorter than the first point. The second resolution for handling conflict is to make the Lord your focus.
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Make the Lord your focus. Verses 23 -25. As we read this passage, we get a big clue as to why
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Isaac handles these two conflicts so well. One thing we always talk about is how we should make it our aim to represent the
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Lord well. We never want to bring dishonor to the Lord with our behavior. If you handle situations differently than the world handles them, people look on and say you are different.
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And they ask the question, why are you so different? As Isaac treats the herdsmen well by not making a big deal out of the fact that they took his wells, and as Isaac treats
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Abimelech and his men well for not making a big deal out of them kicking him out of Gerar, they had to ask, why are you treating us so well?
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Our neighbors over here, they want to be in a war with us, but yet you're pursuing peace with us.
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What's the difference? Well, verses 23 -25 gives us a big clue. From there, he went up to Beersheba and the
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Lord appeared to him the same night and said, I am the God of Abraham your father.
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Fear not, for I am with you and will bless you and multiply your offspring for my servant
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Abraham's sake. So Isaac built an altar there and called upon the name of the
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Lord and pitched his tent there and there Isaac's servants dug a well.
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So what we see in these three verses is that Isaac has a vibrant relationship with the
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Lord. We know this does not mean that Isaac was perfect, but he does have a good relationship with God.
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And when one has a relationship with the Lord, the fellowship is a two -way street. You notice that in this text?
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The Lord pursues Isaac. So the Lord pursues
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His people and His people pursue Him. And we need to pause and see how wonderful this is.
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What the Bible makes clear is that God is not some far -off deity who doesn't have enough time for us. What the
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Bible makes clear is that He wants to always be in fellowship with you. He's the one who pursues you.
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And of course, in response to that, you pursue Him. And you think about how wonderful that is that the incomprehensible
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God desires to be in fellowship with His people. The same one who created hundreds of trillions of galaxies desires to be in a relationship with you.
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If that doesn't move us, there's something wrong with us. Okay, that should move you as you think about that.
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And as the Lord speaks to him here, He appears in a theophany. And that's, of course, when the Lord appears in human form.
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And what He tells him here, He reminds Isaac of his promises to him. The promises that he made to his father
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Abraham. He's going to bless his offspring. And Isaac does not need to fear because the
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Lord is with him. Isaac does what his father Abraham did so often.
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As an act of worship to the Lord, he built an altar and called upon the name of the Lord. And we know that Abraham was a sojourner, so whenever he would go to a new place, he would build an altar.
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And he would worship the Lord by building this altar. And so Isaac does the same here.
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And so what we see here is that Isaac's focus was on the Lord. And you can see why
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Isaac did not let the conflict blow out of proportion. People who get into conflict all the time, they don't have a big view of God.
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Their focus is not on the Lord. Their focus is on little peddly things. Every little thing that brushes up against them turns into a storm.
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I mean, look at our world. It's a mess. And if people aimed for peace, following God first, aiming for peace as they follow
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God, think of what the world would be like. And think of what the world will be like one day when everybody is a follower of God.
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It's going to be a wonderful place. We're not there yet. We can see it all around us. And our pride can put us in a position where we always have to be right in a dispute.
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And we think the problem is entirely the other person's. Does that sound familiar? It should because I experience it in my own heart.
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And what we have to recognize is that sin blinds and we need to see where we are at blame. It's rare that a conflict is a one -way street.
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It's typically a two -way street. We have some blame. Sometimes we might have more blame than the other person.
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Sometimes they might have more blame than us. But we need to recognize, you know what? I was at fault here. And think of how wonderful that is if you can say to the person, you know what?
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I was wrong here. And then hopefully that will encourage them to say, you know what? I was wrong here. And you can aim for peace together.
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And when our focus is on the Lord, we can see where we are at fault and confess this. And when we realize how great our sin is against God, we're the people who easily forgive.
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And the path that avoids quarrels and answer peace is the better path. It's the joyful path, right?
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The God's path is always the joyful path. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 -9, blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God.
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That word blessed in that verse means happy. Happy are the peacemakers. If you want to be happy, be a peacemaker.
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It's a joyful position to be children of God whose regular pattern in life is peacemaking and not being entangled in constant quarrels.
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And this sermon is so relevant to us because conflicts will come. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.
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So the question is, how are you going to handle them when they come? And as children of God, we are kingdom citizens now, as 1
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John 3 -2 says. The kingdom is not yet fully here since Christ has not yet returned, yet we are
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His children now. And because of this, the Lord expects His children to live holy lives on this earth.
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And one of the ways we live a holy life is through peacemaking and not seeking constant conflict. So we need to represent the
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Lord well while we are here. It's so sad when the unbelieving world looks at a church that just can't get along.
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What a horrible witness that is. It's embarrassing. And it puts shame upon the
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Lord. And that's a tragedy. And so ask yourself an honest question. This is a personal question, a regional one here.
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Would the people in your life describe you as one who frequently causes quarrels? Or would they describe you as a peacemaker?
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As the church, we must be the latter and not the former. As you walk vibrantly with the
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Lord as Isaac did, one of the fruits of the Spirit that will be produced in you is that you will be one who sows peace and not discord.
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The Lord hates it when His people sow discord. So the second resolution to handling conflict is to make the
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Lord your focus. So to summarize our sermon here today, as a follower of Christ, it is essential that we handle inevitable conflict in the right manner.
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And we've seen two resolutions to this. The first is make every effort to pursue peace as Isaac did.
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And the second is to make the Lord your focus. And as we saw last week, the
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Lord's blessing is upon Isaac. Okay, so as he pursues this path, right, as he doesn't get entangled in sin, the
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Lord's blessing is upon him, right? This is the joyful path. His blessing is upon him. And as we read verses 32 and 33 here, we're going to close out by reading these last few verses of this chapter.
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We're going to see the Lord's continued blessing on Isaac. That same day, Isaac's servants came and told him about the well that they had dug and said to him, we have found water.
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He called it Sheba. Therefore, the name of the city is Beersheba to this day.
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Okay, so the well that they dug in verse 25, they now say to him, we found water.
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Okay, so we see the Lord's continued blessing upon Isaac. And we're going to close today with verses 34 and 35 to show us that even though the
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Lord's continued blessing was with Isaac, this blessing was not without problems in the future.
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Okay, verses 34 and 35. When Esau was 40 years old, he took
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Judith, the daughter of Beeri, the Hittite, to be his wife. And Basmat, the daughter of Elon, the
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Hittite, and they made the life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah. Okay, we already saw
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Esau sell his birthright. And now even though the
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Lord's blessing is upon Isaac, he's going to have this conflict, right?
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I think what we can assume here as we see how Isaac handles conflict here, he's going to handle it hopefully in the same manner with Esau going forward.
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And it goes to show, right, the conflicts don't end. They're going to be there. But the question is, how are you going to handle it?
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When they come. We must be peacemakers and not those who stir up constant conflict.
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Speaking of conflict and consequences for sin, next week, we're going to look at Genesis 27.
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And what we're going to see is the Lord's blessing is upon one of the children and not the other. Okay, so the story of Jacob and Esau comes back into focus.
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And I look forward to opening the word with you next Sunday. Let's pray. Father in Heaven, thank
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You, Lord, that everything written in the Old Testament is written for our good. It's written as a pattern of life that You call us to live.
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And by living this out as we follow their example, we are following the example of Christ.
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Christ was a peacemaker. He spoke up when He needed to. He was tough on people when
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He needed to be. But He was a peacemaker. And He's the greatest peacemaker of all in that He reconciled the world through His death and through His resurrection because of the conflict between us and the
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Holy God and how wonderful that is. And Lord, we have been forgiven so much and we are at peace with You.
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And may we be the people who are quickest to forgive others. And we ask this in Jesus' name.