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Last week I spoke on conflict, conflict with others, conflict with self and conflict with God.
Today I would like to talk about conflict reduction. I would like to suggest a Conflict Reduction Plan. I would like to look at some specific actions that can be taken to reduce conflict in our lives. ----------------------------------------------------- It doesn’t take much to start a conflict. About a thousand years ago, a conflict between 2 cities in France started over a water bucket. In another conflict, one Chinese emperor went to war because of a broken teapot. Also, one of the many conflicts between England and France originated with the spilling of a single glass of water. ------------------------------------------------------- So what can we do to reduce conflict in our lives? The first step in the Conflict Reduction Plan is to:
James 4:7a = Submit yourselves, then, to God. The command to submit to God is the logical response to verse 6 which says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. This is a response is indicated by the word “then”. Submit yourselves, THEN, to God. Since God opposes the proud but helps the humble, believers are to submit to Him. Submission is the surrender of one’s will. Submission leads to obedience. James issues a series of 10 commands in vv.7-10: In v.7, he commands us to submit and resist. In v.8, he tells us to come near, to wash and to purify. In v.9, we are instructed to grieve, mourn, wail, and change. In v.10, we are commanded to humble ourselves. In each instance, it is an aorist imperative in the Greek language that calls for an immediate response. It is a pointed and forceful way to demand action. ----------------------------------------------------- Let God be God in your life. Give Him control. Put Him in charge. Yield yourself to Him. Quit trying to run your own life. --------------------------------------------------- Conflict with others often happens because we have conflict inside. We have conflict inside because we are trying to run our own lives. We don’t get along with other people because we have a civil war going on in our lives. Before we can have peace on the outside we need to have peace on the inside. The real conflict is inside of us. Who’s in charge of our lives? If we are in charge, then anytime something comes along that doesn’t go our way, we will get uptight. We may become irritable. We may become upset. We may get mad. But if God is in charge of our lives, things or events are a lot less likely to irritate us. Letting God be God in our lives means learning to say “Thy will be done” instead of saying “Me first.” The peace process begins when we can say “Lord, whatever You want, that’s what I want!” Martin Luther said this about submission: “I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.” When we do battle with God, we can be sure of this: We cannot win. We must make a choice. A war usually ends in one of two ways. Either there is a total surrender or there is total destruction. The same is true in our lives. So what’s it going to be for us, a surrender of our will or destruction? ------------------------------------------------------ Perhaps a surrender sounds scary to us. We may wonder “What will happen to me if I surrender to God?” “Will I become a religious fanatic?” “Will I have to become a missionary?” “Will my life be boring?” “Can I really give this up or can I really give that up?” “Will it be worth it?” “If I submit to the Lord, what will I become, what will I be like?” -------------------------------------------------------- If we submit to God, we will become exactly what God wants us to become. “We will be at peace with God, because the war will be over.” The second step in the Conflict Reduction Plan is to:
James 4:7b = Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Rather than resisting God’s will for our lives, we should be resisting the devil. The promise we have in verse 7 is that the devil will flee from us. Although Satan is powerful, we have the assurance that he can be resisted and defeated. Be aware, be alert. Realize what Satan is trying to do in our lives. Realize where much conflict comes from. Recognize the fact that Satan is the source behind much of the conflict we experience. The word resist is a war term. It means to be prepared. It means to stand against. It means to withstand an attack. The devil wants to destroy relationships, including marriages. He will use whatever he can to destroy a relationship. He will use conflict, arguments, confusion, stress, hurt feelings, disappointment, anger and chaos. He loves to do it. We must defend ourselves. We must realize what Satan is doing and then resist him. -------------------------------------------------- How does the devil operate? He doesn’t stand around in a little red suit holding a pitchfork. How does he operate? He plays on our pride, especially wounded pride. He tells us what we want to hear. He whispers in our ear. He plants thoughts, suggestions, and ideas in our minds. When we are in the middle of an argument, he starts whispering in our ear things like: “You don’t have to take this kind of stuff. Show them who’s boss.” He tells us all the things our pride loves to hear. We need to say, “Satan, I know that’s you.” And then resist him. How do you resist the devil? By using the weapons that are available to us. You have heard of weapons of mass destruction. These are weapons of divine deliverance:
There is power in the name of Jesus.
There is power in the blood of Jesus.
The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is available to us in standing firm against the attack of the enemy.
The Word of God is powerful and Satan can not stand against it. I would like to give you an example of how these weapons can be used. Let’s say that Satan is attacking us in our thought-life, causing us to be fearful. Satan, in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and through His precious blood that was shed on Calvary and through the resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead, I resist you and bind you in my thought life in this area of fear. For it is written in God’s Word Greater is He who is in us, the Lord Jesus, than he who is in the world. (I John 4:4) At the end, quote Scripture that relates to the area in which you are under attack. Jesus quoted Scripture when He was tempted. If you are tempted to lash out at someone in anger, use the same weapons but quote Scripture that relates to anger: You might say, “Get away from me Satan in Jesus’ Name for it is written in God’s Word, A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. (Proverbs 15:1) We have a great promise here in the Book of James. The promise is Resist the devil and he will flee from you. We don’t have to put up with Satan. We have the weapons to drive him out. Our weapons are unique. 2 Corinthians 10:4,5 = The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. Our weapons are unique. They are weapons designed to be used by a Christian soldier. When we are saved, we are called to be Christian soldiers. ------------------------------------------ The third step in the Conflict Reduction Plan is to:
James 4:8a = Come near to God and he will come near to you. The series of commands in this passage continues in v.8 with the command to Come near to God. As we saw earlier in this chapter, the people that James is addressing in this letter had set their hearts on pleasure. As a result, they had drifted away from God. Though they were still His people, they had become estranged from God. But the assurance that God will welcome them back accompanies the command to return. How does coming closer to God reduce conflict? How do we come closer to God? Ways to come closer to God include:
These are some of the spiritual disciplines we can practice that will bring us closer to God. And when we are closer to God, we will get along better with other people. We will also be able to cope with life more effectively if we are practicing these spiritual disciplines. In the year 2000, I designed a questionnaire that would show whether there was a connection between practicing the spiritual disciplines and the ability to handle the stress of life. The questionnaire revealed that those who regularly practiced the spiritual disciplines of prayer, reading God’s Word, worship and fellowship were able to cope with the challenges of life more effectively than those who were not practicing these spiritual disciplines. The more time we spend with God, the better we will get along with other people. Isaiah 26:3 = You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. (NKJ) When we are experiencing peace in our hearts, we will be less irritable with other people. ----------------------------------------------------- Someone might say that he or she is too busy to spend time in prayer, in God’s Word, or attending church. If we are too busy to practice spiritual disciplines that will change our lives, then we are too busy. We may need to cut some things out of our schedule. When we spend time with God, we are much more likely to enjoy the rest of our time. The rest of our time will be more productive, more beneficial. The conflict in our lives is inversely proportional to the time we spend with God. In other words, the more time we spend with God, the less chance of conflict in our lives. The promise in verse 8 is this: If we come near to God, He will come near to us. God doesn’t back off! When we move toward God, He moves toward us. The fourth step in the Conflict Reduction Plan is to:
James 4:8 = . . . Wash your hands . . . purify your hearts . . . Our hands represent our conduct and our hearts represent our attitudes. In their eager pursuit of pleasure, the people James is writing to had sinned both in their conduct and in their thought life. So James, bluntly, addresses them as you sinners. It is a strong term showing the extent of their involvement in worldly attitudes and actions. The term double-minded describes their attempt to love God and the pleasures of the world at the same time. Learning to ask for forgiveness from God and from those you hurt will reduce conflict. Don’t minimize what’s happened. Take it seriously. If someone says you’ve hurt them, you’ve hurt them. It may not be a big deal to you, but it is to them. Be willing to ask for forgiveness. Are we willing to apologize for our part? The other person may be 95% wrong and we may be only 5% at fault. Let’s take care of our 5% and let God handle the other 95% in their lives. The fifth step in the Conflict Reduction Plan is to: V. BE SORRY FOR SIN James 4:9 = Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. There is a time to rejoice and there is a time to mourn. Four of the 10 commands found in vv.7-10 occur in this verse. All 4 are calls to repentance. The Greek word translated grieve is a strong word meaning “to be miserable”. In contrast to the worldly pleasures they had sought so eagerly, they are to repent in misery. They also are commanded to mourn. The Greek word that is translated mourn refers to a passionate grief that cannot be hidden. Similar grief is called for in the command to wail. In the past, when they had pursued pleasure, their lives had been marked by laughter. But now they are to change their laughter to mourning. There are some who believe that the attitude expressed in this verse is to be a constant characteristic of the Christian. There are those who think we should continually be in mourning, that all our days should be filled with gloom. Such an interpretation, however, overlooks the situation that led to these commands. It was their burning desire for pleasure that led James to issue this powerful call to repentance. The sixth step in the Conflict Reduction Plan is to:
James 4:10 = Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. Proud people are easy targets for the devil. Huge egos provide huge targets for Satan. Humble people are not as easy to trip up. God graciously helps the humble. The specific form of humbling referred to here is that of repentance for the sin of transferring affections from God to the pleasures of this world. However, the principle stated in this verse is much more comprehensive in its application. That fact that God exalts those who humble themselves is a consistent biblical principle. Life doesn’t work very well when it is out of alignment with God, with His Word and with His will. The only way to bring our lives into alignment with God is to humble ourselves before God. When the wheels on your car are out of alignment, your tires wear out a lot faster than they should. When your wheels are out of alignment, you will feel your car pull to the left or to the right. Changing tires does not fix the problem. The wear and tear on your tires and the pulling to the left or to the right is just an indicator that you have problems somewhere else. If our lives are out of alignment with God’s will, we will experience wear and tear on our lives and we will be pulled to the left and to the right. Are our lives aligned with the Word of God and the will of God? -------------------------------------- As you know, Billy Graham went to be with the Lord on Wednesday of this past week. Now there was a life that was aligned with the Word of God and the will of God. This morning I have talked about letting God be God in your life. I would like to close with a quote from Billy Graham that addresses what it means to let God be God in your life. “It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to convict, it is God’s job to judge, and it is my job to love.” Billy Graham Loving people goes a long way when it comes to putting in place a conflict reduction plan.
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