Overcoming conflict and Honoring one another

Could we look together in Philippians chapter 2, Philippians chapter 2. Now this passage has been referred to at least a couple of times in the worship this morning, and I want to draw attention to a few important principles that are found in it. Chapter 2 and verse 1 says, If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfill ye my joy, that you be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves.

Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Now we appreciate the emphasis in this section about the Lord Jesus, and so we're going to drop down to verse 12, and he says, Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation or deliverance with fear and trembling.

For it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Do all things without murmurings and disputings. So I think you can see very clearly that just as we have been noticing in the ministry yesterday, there are some very important truth given to us in the Word of God in the context of conflicts among God's people.

And I mentioned as well yesterday that the truth of God is actually given to us to meet our need. And so this mind of Christ is essentially love as it puts the interests of another ahead of oneself. Now I'm going to try to focus on the idea of the goals that we should have when we are in a situation of conflict.

What are the goals that we need to have? And really I've been trying to give you a bit of that framework already, and so I'm going to continue to do that today. And the emphasis I'm going to give to you, first of all, is really what I would call the pursuit of honor. It is part of the attitude of love to desire to honor the person that you love.

It's instinctive. If you hear something negative about somebody that you care about a lot, do you very easily repeat that to somebody else? No, you don't. You don't enjoy, you don't relish, dishonor being attributed to somebody you care about.

On the other hand, if you hear something honorable, good, praiseworthy about that person, that gives you joy. And so it is part of love's instinctive desire to honor the object of his love. And we find here in Philippians that that involves a self-sacrificing spirit.

It holds God's interests first, and that's the emphasis of the chapter, as servants of God, our challenge is to put God's interests first. And so I want you to think about what it means to honor one another, and I'm going to give you a number of verses that are given to us in the New Testament that emphasize honor. There's one back in the Proverbs that says, Proverbs 20 and 3, it is an honor for a man to cease from strife.

And then on the other hand, every fool will be meddling. And so, you know, if you're the kind of person who likes to meddle and get into controversy and arguments, you know at least what the Lord thinks of you. It is an honor to a man to cease from strife.

Isn't it one of the most difficult things? When something has happened that triggers resentment, frustration, and it boils over into words and accusations. What a tremendous thing to be able to have the ability to quiet down the conflict, to reduce the tension, to bring it to peaceableness. And so it is an honor for a man to cease from strife.

But there's another verse in 1st Peter chapter 2 and verse 17 that says, honor all men. Love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the King. Now there's a lot to think about in a sentence like that or an expression like that.

Why should we honor all men? Well, it derives fundamentally from our relationship to God, first of all. Every human being has been designed to be in the image and likeness of God. We carry that image even though it has been distorted by our sin.

And so we are to honor God's interest in that person. God has a vested interest in every person that he has made, regardless of how badly they have fallen. And so we are to act with honor towards them because of who they represent as a creature bearing the image of God.

Love the brotherhood emphasizes that we are to honor the relationship that we have been brought into as brothers in the family. We belong to the family of God and so we should honor that relationship and recognize that God has a deep interest in every other Christian. Fear God, that's to bring him into full consciousness in everything we are doing.

Respect his presence, honor his presence, honor his principles, act in the fear of God at all times. And then he says, honor the King. Well, you could widen that application out to say to honor and respect every person who is in a position of authority, whether it's in the family, whether it's in the assembly, whatever the realm may be that we act with respect towards them.

In Romans chapter 12, there's an interesting expression relating very very significantly to the exhortation to love. And it says, Romans 12 and 10, be kindly affectioned to one another with brotherly love in honor preferring one another. In honor preferring one another.

So what does the idea of honor really entail? It actually involves the idea of esteeming a person, placing a high value upon them. And so that is what we are called to do in our care of one another. And so that really presents a challenge, doesn't it? When you get into a situation where that person is looking at you and saying things to you that are hurtful, it's pretty difficult to step back and to think of that person first.

To place an high honor upon them. To think of their need first. But that's what we actually have in Philippians chapter 2. And the key thing that I want you just to notice as we look at verse 12 and verse 13, verse 13 particularly, he says, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

It is God who works in you. Now that means, first of all, that I need to honor God's interest in myself. I think one of the things we as Christians have a little bit of difficulty kind of fitting together in our thinking is that we know that the world's emphasis upon putting loving yourself first and all of these self, self, self-focused ideas, we know there's something wrong with that.

We know that that isn't the true understanding of life that God has given us. And yet it almost seems like when we come to the Bible that you don't count. And that you're supposed to just, you know, let yourself be trampled under and and walked on and all these other things.

Well we do have to face this challenge that we are called to serve God's interests. And that may involve taking things that we don't like, experiencing treatment that we don't appreciate. But if we can balance that concept with recognizing that God has an interest in us, he has a work that he is doing within us, and so our challenge is to recognize God's stake in us, God's interest in us, and then God's interest as well in the other.

And so based upon that in verse 12 he says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Now I believe in the context of this passage the salvation he's talking about is really the deliverance from the effects of conflict. The damage caused to them spiritually, individually, and collectively through quarreling, strife, rivalry in their midst.

Now you see from this passage that we're to do nothing through strife and vainglory. And I wonder if you could honestly assess your own inner motivation. Whenever something comes up and you feel twigged by it, something creates a resentment or a frustration within you when you see somebody else doing something.

We need to have an inner honesty to assess, why am I upset about this? Is it because they're doing something that is dishonoring the Lord? Is it violating God's interests, God's purposes, God's care for another believer? Well then that's a valid concern. But if it's just that that person is getting to do that instead of me, that person is getting the prestige of being in charge of this or that instead of me, if that's the kind of trigger for our inner resentment or anger that is being triggered, we need to judge ourselves. We need to recognize that as part of that competitiveness of pride and self-interest first.

That's really the distortion of sin. And so I want to think with you then some practices that cultivate honor. And the first one is so obvious, when I tell it to you you're going to say, well I think we know that.

The first thing I want to talk to you about is how to listen. One of the frequent frustrations that people have is, I was not listened to. I was ignored.

They heard five sentences, but they didn't listen to it. I want to talk to you about something that I would call active listening. We need to accept the idea that when someone is speaking to you, communicating to you, especially in the context of a conflict, that you must accept equal responsibility with the person who is talking.

So it's not this idea where you just, you know, you half look at the person or maybe you won't even turn to the person. You keep looking off in a different direction. You don't turn towards them with an openness.

You're really conveying to them that you're not really interested in what they have to say. Or you are really holding them in contempt and you're barely putting up with them nattering in your ear. We convey by how we respond whether we actually honor that person or not.

Now as I say, in times of conflict, when we disagree with somebody, it's difficult to desire their honor. But it's a critical, critical thing. So I'm going to take you to a very simple verse in James chapter 1. James chapter 1 and verse 19.

He says, "'Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.'" Now that sounds like good advice. Swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath. What is that telling you? Isn't that telling us that we should be more eager to understand than to be understood? More willing to listen to understand what the other person is trying to convey to us than to get our opinion across.

Swift to hear, eager to listen. So if you pay attentiveness to the person, you are expressing honor towards that person. In fact, I'm going to say that there's nothing like attentive, active listening that conveys honor to a person, especially if there is some kind of issue between you.

Now I remember reading something, a suggestion, and it sounds a bit trivial at first. This author suggests something that he calls drive-thru listening. Now I don't know how many drive-thrus you have here in Garnevillo, fast-food places, but it's pretty common in a lot of places.

And you know, you just you can't wait to get your stuff, and so you drive in, and you go around to that little box, and you bark your order. And there's somebody responds to you inside, and they will make sure that they have got the order correctly. And they will usually repeat it back to you, and then they ask you, you know, and then you can confirm that that's what I mean.

Now I'm not suggesting to you that you parrot back everything somebody says to you. But if you, as someone is speaking, and you are paying attention to it, you stop them perhaps and ask for clarification. Do you mean, do you mean by this, and then you paraphrase back to them in your own words what they have just been telling you, to confirm that you are interested in understanding what they're trying to say, and that you want to understand it, and you want to convey that understanding to them.

Now another important thing that this enables, it reduces the atmosphere of hostility. It reduces the conflict level. It enables each one to be able to express themselves honestly and be understood, and you don't have to immediately respond to correct something that you don't like.

You can take the time to make sure that you understand what they are seeing in the situation, what they see happening, what it means to them, what they think should be done, and all those kinds of things. This is actually something that should be practiced and developed in a non-hostile environment, so that you learn to show this kind of attentiveness to each other and care for the other one, so that that person knows that you value them and that they are safe in expressing what they really believe or think. Those are some of the things that are important in listening.

Now there's a few things to think about when it comes to the message that you are getting, because I think we all realize that there's a complexity to any communication. There are the words that the person actually is saying, then there's the tone of voice that may convey something very significant about the level of emotion, the level of tension within them, how much this matters to them, and when we are listening, if we care about the person especially, we will want to understand how much this means to that person. Is this just a casual comment or is this person trying to tell me something that means a lot to them? They may be struggling as to how they can convey it to us.

And so not only the words that are being spoken to understand that surface meaning, but also the emotional content that is being expressed. And another thing that we do instinctively, whether we think about it or not, is whenever somebody is talking to us, especially in an atmosphere of tension and conflict, is we are measuring their tone, not in the sense of tone of voice, but what they believe about the relationship between us. Have you ever had somebody talk to you and and you are thinking in yourself, that that person's talking to me like I'm a kid? You know, they're talking down to me.

And if there's one thing, if I could advise those who are ladies here, if you're speaking to your husband, don't talk to him as if he's your little boy. That'll remind him too much of his mother. And he didn't marry his mother.

He didn't intend to live with his mother the rest of his life. He wants a partner on equality, not someone who's going to be lecturing him like a little child. Now, you might say, well, that's just a little bit of stubborn pride.

Well, that's part of honor. It's part of respect, to respect the relationship that is involved. And so good listening skills involve assuming an equal responsibility with the speaker so that the communication is being understood.

And to be attentive, to aim to understand what the other one is saying, and then to respond and convey communication back. One thing I will say on the side of the speaking person is that if you only talk to a person when you're upset with them, you're almost defeated before you start. Now, this is very important, especially when it comes to assembly relationships, Christian relationships, because at times there are people, and maybe this is especially pertinent to overseers, but it can be in any relationship among Christians, if the only time that you notice somebody and spend any attention on them is when you're criticizing them, that is not going to either convey honor to them or care.

And so those who spend time in counseling and so on will say that any relationship cannot handle anything less than at least 80% of communication being positive, affirming, and encouraging. Now, I would have to say honestly that if the communication was 20% negative, that would be tough. I would reduce that percentage even more when it comes to negative communication.

But basically, what I'm emphasizing is every communication that is a confrontation should be in a context of a relationship where there is an abundance of confirmation, of encouragement, of strengthening. And coming back to Ephesians chapter 4, in that chapter it says, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. So are we consciously, deliberately ministering grace in our relationships with one another? Now, some guidelines for the speaker.

Now, I'm going to get into this a little bit more this afternoon, but, and this is coming back to Ephesians chapter 4 particularly, and maybe we should turn to it just so that we at least see where I'm coming from. In the passage, Ephesians chapter 4, I was referring yesterday to a series of expressions that use the term in love, in love. Verse 15, Ephesians 4 and 15 says, but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him in all things who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies according to the effectual working in the measure of every part makes increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

Now, this is a very important expression, speaking the truth in love. Love and honesty are the two foundational necessities for long-term relationships. We are going to get to know each other.

We become pretty well exposed to each other after a while, especially in close relationships. Does our love, does our love grow with that increasing knowledge of one another so that even though we see things that may disappoint us, that may at times irritate us, our love is growing to adequately handle this. We are still committed to the blessing and care of that person.

This passage is emphasizing that we are to speak in the element of honesty and in love. These are the elements of true life in Christ, and the outcome is that we will grow up together in Christ, into him, into likeness to the Lord Jesus. But then when we come down to verse 20, the emphasis turns more completely to the issue of truth.

He says, in contrast to the kind of life of the Gentiles in all their ignorance and immorality, he says, verse 20, but you have not so learned Christ, if so be you have heard him and have been taught by him, as truth is in Jesus. That you put off concerning the former conversation or behavior, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man, which after or according to God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.

Now this is a very, very important section, and I won't probably have time to develop it so much right now, but if you see this at least here, notice this little expression, as the truth is in Jesus. Now what does that mean? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is the ultimate truth, and that ultimate truth is God, the eternal God manifested, the eternal God brought into our humanity, revealed to the world. He is the ultimate truth.

That's 1st Timothy chapter 3, verses 15 and 16. But all reality is derived from him. He is the one who determines all morality.

The world has no understanding of where morality comes from. It's derived from the nature, the character of Christ. He is what determines what is good, what is love, what is real, and so on.

And so we're exposed to this reality here, and that when we come into salvation, we have come into a realm of truth, a realm of reality, and I have come to be very convinced of this, that God always works in the realm of reality. And the problem for us is that every sin has a lie in it. Every sin is a distortion from something that is good.

It's a departure from honesty and reality. And so lying does not belong to us as Christians. We are to abandon all falsehood, all pretense.

We are to be transparent. We are to be sincere and genuine, and that's the kind of honesty that he's talking about here. When you came into relationship with Christ and you were born of God, there was created within you this new life, which again patterned after God himself, created in righteousness and true holiness.

Now that expression, true holiness, is literally holiness of truth. So while the first part of the chapter has emphasized very strongly the absolute essential of love, now we learn that love is anchored in truth, in reality. And so this forms the foundation for our interaction with one another.

And so he says, wherefore, putting away lying, being done with lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor. Why? Because we are members one of another. Because we belong to each other, we are part of one another in the body of Christ.

And so it is a violation of the life of the body for us to be deceptive to one another, to seek to manipulate, to be insincere with one another. And so these really form the foundational issues when it comes to how we interact with each other. And I would just say in closing that dishonesty, dishonesty sabotages intimacy.

Dishonesty will eventually be discovered. Dishonesty is a betrayal of trust. It breaks down communication.

It destroys that closeness that we are intended to have with one another. Let's pray.