Last week, we saw that conflict isn’t necessarily bad.

Conflict can occur even when both parties are doing their best to hear from God. Conflict doesn’t stop God from being at work.

The obvious question is how do we approach conflict well? How do we keep relationships open? How do we know when it’s ok to NOT fight, and when we need to stand firm until the end?

[Powerpoint] We really need an expert authority… [CLICK] To quote the great Kenny Rogers: “You got to know when to hold ‘em…know when to fold ‘em…know when to walk away, and know when to run.”

Ok, let me quote someone with a little more authority.

In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he has to deal with conflict run amuck. Paul is disgusted with the Corinthians for letting their internal disputes and conflict get so out of hand that they ended up in court.

If you want to open your bibles to 1 Corinthians 6: 1-8, you can look at Paul’s words as we move through the passage. [READ]

The point we are to take from this is NOT that we should never file a lawsuit.

The point is that the idea of winning a conflict or a lawsuit became more important to the Corinthians than being on the same team, than being in the same family.

We must be willing to submit. We must be willing to enter conflict without having a death grip on winning. Our relationships with each other must remain more important than winning. That is what it means to be like Christ in the midst of conflict.

But…

But aren’t there times when we should stand up for what is right? Aren’t there times when spiritual issues are at stake? Isn’t one of the problems in our world that Christians have made compromises about what they think is right.

Of course. We must be very careful, though, not to turn EVERY conflict into a battle where we think we are doing God’s work and everyone else is doing Satan’s work.

Several years ago, Dick Sartwell shared some very helpful categories to help us describe conflict at our pastor’s conference. I’d like to steal from him today.

Here’s the number one rule, the thing to take to heart before you try and figure out what to do about conflict:

Do everything you can not to take conflict personally. Dick said this over and over again. It is SO true. And it is SO hard to do.

It’s hard not to see conflict or disagreement with someone as some kind of reflection on my value as a person, or at least as a reflection of how the person I’m in conflict with values me.

We often hear things that aren’t said. (Powerpoint) Here’s my daughter Aubrey, with a simple question. Here’s what is said. [CLICK- “Daddy, can we go to the park?”]

There are times when I don’t hear what she actually says. There are times when THIS is what I hear: [CLICK- “I can’t believe you, dad. If you weren’t so busy all the time, if you actually listened to me and kept your promises, you’d already have taken me to the park. What’s the deal, dad?”]

When I choose to hear her question that way, you can bet I’m much more likely to be defensive and not helpful in how I deal with her.

Here’s another example.

Say, for instance, I’m playing softball. Here’s what actually is said: [CLICK- “I’m so mad! I can’t believe this team is beating us!”]

Here’s what I sometimes hear: [PLAY- “Why don’t you just go home? We’d be beating these guys if you hadn’t booted those ground balls!”]

Perhaps the best way for each of us to deal with conflict is to actually let people’s words speak for themselves, instead of taking things personally and filling in all sorts of assumptions.

If we can learn to do that…or at least, attempt that…we’ll be better able to figure out the kind 0f conflict we are in.

The first category of conflict Dick outlined is conflict in the Spiritual realm.

Some conflict really is between right and wrong, between good and evil, between God and Satan. That conflict really does exist.

In our culture in America, it’s sometimes very difficult to see the Spiritual world, because so much of our lives has to do with material things. We have a lot of things, gadgets and tools that accomplish many things. It affects how we view the world, causing us to assume that there is a mechanical explanation to things.

But things are shifting. Even in our culture, people are beginning to look for other answers, because the mechanical answers aren’t satisfying. And when we get outside of our country, evidence of the Spiritual conflict that is taking place between good and evil is more obvious.

Some things really are wrong, and we must make a stand against them.

One of the things Dick reminded us at Pastor’s Conference, though, was that we are often tempted to overspiritualize conflict. If we are having a disagreement in a church situation, it can become really easy to assume that our disagreement is a life or death struggle, a do or die stand over a principle of God’s against Satan.

Music is one example out of many where this can happen. It’s obvious and even legitimate that we will have differences of opinion and even conflict over what style of music we should have in church. We are all different ages, from different backgrounds, and with different musical styles that we like.

The problem comes when we view our style of music as God’s music, the music that will happen in heaven, and viewing whoever is on the other side as having devil music.

Think about this: There are billions of Christians who have lived in every part of the world over a 2000 year period of time. Heaven is going to have lots and lots and lots of different styles of music!

It doesn’t mean we can’t talk about our differences with music. But, it means we need to be careful in that discussion to not make music a “spiritual battle” or a “spiritual conflict” between right and wrong.

Another category of conflict is the kind that occurs between people who truly are enemies.

Sometimes we are in conflict with people who have a different goal than we do, people who are truly against us.

Whoever we are going against has different goals, different expectations, and they want to win. They want to beat us.

When we are truly in these situations, we must remember the words Jesus said about how we are to treat our enemies. Even those who are against us must be treated with respect. When Jesus said to turn the other cheek, when he said go the extra mile, he was talking about what our attitude should be to our enemies.

Once again, I think it is easy today in the church to escalate our view of conflict and see the person we are in conflict with as an enemy when they might not be.

Some of the letters and publications I get in the mail are from Christian organizations that seem to view everyone-the government, public schools, even Disneyland-as the enemy, out to get us as Christians. I don’t want to discount the fact that persecution can happen; but we should be careful not to assume people’s motives are always against us. They may just disagree with us, without being out to get us.

And when we get to conflict that comes within our church, the reality is we should almost never experience this type of conflict. Because we are on the same team. We are striving to do God’s work together. We have the same goals.

Which leads to the third type of conflict, the kind of conflict that occurs between people who are on the same team.

In this category, we want the same thing. We have the same goals. We’re friends, even family. But something has come up between us that needs to be resolved. We have a difference. Even though we want the same things, we both believe strongly that the way to accomplish it is different from the other person’s idea.

This is good conflict to have.

This is also the conflict that we are most likely to try and avoid. We realize we’re on the same team, so we don’t want to fight. We want to put our heads in the sand.

But, if we have conflict over the way we are doing something, we need to deal with it. Because we are on the same team, we need to have conflict and talk it out, so that God can use the issue to define more clearly what truth is and how God might be leading.

This kind of conflict has the most potential to help us, because it clarifies and refines what our common goals are. It gives us a clear picture of what we’re doing. And, even as we work through our differences, we find that we can develop a stronger sense of “team” because we articulate more clearly than before what we’re really trying to accomplish.

Finally, some conflict is so incidental, it just needs to be ignored.

It’s extra. It’s a disagreement, but for whatever reason, you are able to look at it and say, “For right now, this isn’t worth fighting over.”

Parents have to learn to do this all the time. You’ve got to pick your battles. When your daughter wants to wear bright pink sandals with blue-striped pants and a plaid shirt, and you have to get to the store and back in 20 minutes, you let her wear whatever she wants. That’s extra conflict that you can let go.

Jesus knew there were times it wasn’t worth fighting, too.

Here’s just a short snippet as Jesus was getting close to the time of his death. [READ Luke 9:51-56].

The disciples wanted to fight, but Jesus knew there were more important things at stake. He was preparing for the time of his death. He was focused on his mission, what was truly important. Fighting with people who didn’t want to welcome him was not worth it at the time, so he just went around the town.

Sometimes we just need to let it go. When the stakes are really low, let it go. When your mission is more important than this particular conflict, let it go. If the conflict you are having would cause more harm than good even if it would resolve well, let it go.

Paul’s view of the Corinthians was that they didn’t know when to let it go, when the conflict was causing way more problems then it was worth. Relationships are more important. Sometimes conflict just needs to be ignored and let go.

What can we take away?

May God help us, challenge us, heal us so that we don’t hear things that are not said. May God enable us to stand firm when his principles are at stake, and discern well when those times are. And finally, may God help us let things go that need to be let go.