Kerwin Baptist Church Daily Broadcast

Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today. Our desire is for the Word of God to be spread throughout the world so that all may know Christ.

Join us now for a portion of one of our services here at Kerwin Baptist Church located in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today we're going to be talking to you, conflicts. We all have them in relationships, some in marriage, some in friendships, some in inter-work relationships, inter-church relationships. There's conflict. Some have conflict with their children.

Some with their parents and some with siblings and some in their extended family. We can look around and see them everywhere and God gives biblical grounds and biblical instructions on how to handle that. Let me take another swig.

No, it didn't help at all. All right. And in verse one, he said, from whence come these things? Where do these conflicts start? This word, wars, in verse one, is speaking of the conflict we have inside of us. This is a one enemy.

This is a one battle type thing. We keep fighting the same person. That's Satan and our flesh inside of our life. Then this word, fightings, is speaking of numerous enemies. It means literally that it's those around us. So there is a conflict inside of us between the spirit and our flesh.

And then there are conflicts that we end up having with those outside, which would be all of our interpersonal relationships. And we are asked here in this chapter, where does this come from? We talked last week first that literally that all conflict is a source issue. Where is the source? Where does it come from? It comes from us. And it comes from our lust, our desires, our desperation, the damage that we do.

It comes from us. We said, secondly, that all conflict is not just a source issue. It's a spiritual issue. Jesus said, ye have not because ye asked not through James. And he means this, that you're looking to other things for that contentment. And when you don't get that contentment, then you seem to produce conflict in those relationships. And he said, the problem is you didn't come to me for it.

Ye have not because you asked not. Then he said, if you came and asked, then you asked to miss. And so that means literally that there's a spiritual issue because we begin to look to other people or other things for the contentment that we should only have in Christ. And secondly, our motives now become selfish instead of spiritual.

He says, you're asking it to literally consume it upon your lust. Then thirdly, we talked about how that all conflict is a sin issue. He said, ye adulterers and dultresses know you not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God.

We have conflict in our relationships because we have moved closer to the world and farther away from God. And I know none of that was fun to hear, but it's biblical. And so now we come to verse six and one of my favorite verses and I love it just simplistic. And God's word is, by the way, it just gets right down to what you need to know. Verse six, but he giveth more grace. Are you thankful for that this morning? You might have some conflicts in your life, some things that need worked on, things that need fixed.

Maybe you're desperate. We had some individuals here in the first service this morning that I've spent some time texting back and forth even after the service during Sunday school time trying to help through things that just had to admit. An individual said, really, I got to be honest, I'm just mad at God. And to sit and they needed the message and they needed the service that's not fun to hear. But you might be desperate in your life and there might be some conflicts and as hard as you've tried, it seems that there's just so much conflict in relationships, be it marriage, be it work. It just seems if you're like me sometimes that just when it rains, it pours. And today let's look at the Bible and see what God's word has to say.

Assembly required is our series. It means that literally we need to carefully read the instructions. God, how am I supposed to handle this? But he giveth more grace. Let's pray.

Lord, I love you. Pray that you'd bless as we look into your word. Lord, I pray that it'll help.

Your word always does. And Lord, as we look to your word, we are reminded that this affects every area of our life. And Lord, when we have conflict in our relationships, then we have conflict in our life. And it robs us from the peace that you've provided. So Lord, I pray that you would help us as we not just strive to better ourselves, but to better our relationships and better our marriages and better our church and better our families through your word. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. If you'll notice in verse one through five, we see all kinds of conflicts. He says literally wars and fighting. He says you consume it on your lust.

You want, you don't have, you can't obtain. There's constant conflict. He literally says ye fight and ye war.

You cause damage. And literally if you look through verses one through five, there's just a lot of conflict with people. And I want you to look at this statement this morning, and I have this on the screen because I want you to see it. Isn't it interesting that the conflict in this chapter centers on your relationship with others? That's where the conflict is seen. But the solution centers on our relationship with God.

The conflict shows up in others, but the solution starts in our relationship with God. What does he say in verse six? But he giveth more grace. Now listen to me this morning.

I hope this, I hope you'll let this help you. Number one this morning, I want you to see this resolution or resolving conflict in your relationship. Resolution requires grace. Resolution requires grace. Now two things from this passage that we see. But he giveth more grace. And it says that God resisteth the proud here in this verse, but gives grace to the humble.

First thing we need to know is this, and this is obvious. We need grace from God. You need to know today that if you're going to start trying to resolve conflict in your relationships, and some of them are deep seated, and some of it's more than just a phone call, hey I'm sorry. There are some things, there's some resentment, there's some damage that's been done. And if we're going to resolve that, you and I need to know today, we need God's grace. Now what is grace? Grace is unmerited favor.

It means something that we receive, that we do not deserve. All God's people said. So we need grace from God, but notice secondly, we need to show the grace of God. You see to resolve conflict in my life, I need not only grace from God, but I need to show to the person, or to the relationship, I not only need grace from God, but I need to show that grace from God. Now you say, well preacher, that's different.

Now listen to me, I want to ask you a couple questions. If grace is unmerited favor, it means giving something that the other person does not deserve. If you agree with that, would you say amen?

Let me give you a scenario. Let's say that somebody has done you wrong, and they come, and you've said you go to them or whatever, and somehow it comes out and they've done you wrong, and that person admits that they've done wrong, they're remorseful and regretful for what they have done, and if they acknowledge that, and out of humility say, you know what, I was wrong, I should not have done that, and I'm sorry. Now, if you forgive, or when you show forgiveness to that individual, are you listening to me? That forgiveness you gave them is not necessarily grace.

You say, why is that? Because they humbled themselves, they asked for forgiveness, they admitted that they were wrong. That means according to the Bible, the Bible says that when a person comes and asks you for forgiveness, you should forgive them.

You all agree with that? Grace is me giving something that a person doesn't deserve. So, if I say, well, this person, they finally admit they've done wrong, and they've come and asked me for forgiveness, so I showed them grace and forgave them. No, you didn't. You just showed them forgiveness.

Look at me. Grace is when you forgive them, even when they don't deserve it. Grace resolves conflict in a relationship, because if you're ever going to resolve some relationships, you are just going to have to choose to forgive, you're going to have to choose to give grace, even though they might not deserve it, even though they might not have earned it, but you didn't deserve grace from God, and he still gave it to you. It's going to take grace.

Resolving conflict takes us being willing to give something that the other person might not deserve. Now listen to me this morning. How long would our relationship with God last if he did not show us grace?

Are you all awake this morning? You can answer back. How long would our relationship last if God did not show grace to us? Now let me ask you this. In our relationship with God, that's us or me and God, how many perfect people is there in that relationship? I wish.

One. That means this, that in that relationship, not one time has God ever done anything wrong. And yet who is it in my relationship that shows grace?

It's God. So in a relationship that involves a perfect person, which none of your relationships with individuals, none of those relationships have a perfect person in it. So even in a relationship with a perfect person, that perfect person has to show grace. So if my relationship would not last very long with God if he didn't show me grace, how long do you and I think that relationships are going to be peaceful in our life if we don't show grace? I say preacher, but they don't deserve it.

They don't want it. Listen, I didn't write it. And I'm not saying it's easy, but I'm saying it's biblical. He giveth more grace. More conflict means more grace. Now you say, preacher, I don't really agree with that.

Well, get this. You don't have to resolve conflict in your life. You can just continue to fight and war. You and I can continue to have the kind of marriage that there's never peace or rarely, and that peace is always short-lived.

We can continue to fight that battle. You can have it where wherever you work there's conflict with a person or a boss or somebody or whatever business relationship. There's always a conflict that ends up between you and them.

And for some reason we always look out and think it's everybody else's fault. And where did this whole thing start in verse one, two, and three? What is the source of conflict? You. Like I said, it's not much fun, but this is step by step of what we need to do. You and I have to show grace. You say, preacher, that's awfully hard for me if you knew what all had transpired. If you and I only knew what had to transpire for Jesus to show us grace. We'll never know what he went through and what he suffered and what he bore for us to get grace that we do not deserve so that you and I could have peace. And dear friend, I'm here to tell you, as unfair as it might sound and as difficult as it might sound, if you want to resolve conflict, you are going to have to show grace.

You not only need God's grace because he gives more, you're going to have to give more grace. Number two, resolution doesn't just require grace. Resolution requires humility. Isn't this interesting that after all these conflicts that we have with other people in our life, you say, preacher, I have conflict maybe with my husband or my wife or my family or whatever the case is. Why don't you deal with that, preacher? Why are we sitting here talking about me and God? Because that's where the conflict is. You see, he says, where come these fighting and wars among you? The solution begins with you and God.

You've got to get that right. You and I are often trying to fix relationships without fixing the most important one. And our fixes are temporary.

And we don't know why. Number two, because resolution requires humility. Look at verse six.

Now, I didn't write it again, but I'm going to read it. But he giveth more grace, wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Look at verse 10. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. Resolution requires humility. Preacher, this isn't very easy.

No, it's not. But I do want to give you a couple things from these two verses that we just read. Just look closer and find out what he's saying. Number one, I want you to see this, and it's on the screen if you need it. Humility comes from seeing who we really are as compared to Christ. Look at verse 10. Humble yourselves where?

In the sight of the Lord. You and I, get me, you and I do not humble ourselves by looking at the individual and comparing ourselves to them. You know why? Because we're going to look through very biased eyes. And we're going to see their faults, and all we're going to see is our accomplishments.

We're going to see where they've done wrong and all that we've done right. But you and I do not need to humble ourselves to an individual. Listen to me. Humility comes when we compare ourselves to Christ. We humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, not individuals.

Number two, humility must be centered on Christ, not the person. Now, as I did the first one, let me illustrate if I came with my wife, Julie. Now, if I look at Julie and I say, you know, I love Julie, this is my wife, and you know what, I'm going to humble myself to her. And I'm just going to be humble to her.

Now that sounds good, and it might work for a while. But that humility is going to run out, look at me, when she does something that makes me think she doesn't deserve it. As long as the object of my humility is a person, then that humility is going to change when that person changes. I might wake up tomorrow and think, my wife made breakfast for me, and she did this or that, and I tell you what, what a wonderful wife. She really works hard, and she really goes to, you know, and I just, I really want to do more for her, and I just really want to love her. And you know what, the next morning she might not do breakfast for me.

And she might wake up on the wrong side of the bed and be cranky or grumpy or whatever the case might be. And all of a sudden I'm looking around, let me tell you something, I'm not going to be humble to her. Look at all I've done. And she won't even cut my fruit up.

Which she does. Look at me, what did he say in verse 10? Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. It means this, that my humility is centered on him. For my relationships, for my conflict with others to be resolved, my humility must be centered on Christ.

Because that person might end up acting in a way where I think they don't deserve it, but look at me, Christ always deserves our humility. So if I humble myself under Christ, it's going to manifest itself by me being humble to you. But I'm not humble to you because of who you are, I'm humble to you because of who Christ is.

So much conflict in relationships come because, well I would do this but they did this, well I would be this way but you know what, I look back and they haven't ever done blah blah blah blah. Dear friend, we're not humble in their sight. We're humble in God's sight. Humility must be centered on Christ.

Notice the third thing in this passage. Humility spares us of opposition from God. What did verse six say? God resisteth the proud. When you and I show humility under Christ to others, look at me, now God is not against us, he's for us. But this verse teaches that when you and I refuse to humble ourselves, we now are full of pride and God opposes that. That word resisteth means opposes. So now guess what, not only do you have conflict, but God's against what you're doing.

And then we look around and we wonder, well why aren't things working out? No wonder. You're not resolving your conflict at all with individuals and now you have God against you. Hello?

You all here this morning? So it means this, that I humility, when I humble myself under God, which then allows me to show humility to others, God is now for what I'm doing, not against it. Can I tell you something this morning, you don't want God against you. See often times we're reading books trying to do these principles, but we've never humbled ourselves under God.

And we wonder why all these little things we're trying to do, it still doesn't work. Because God's opposing you. But when we humble ourselves to God, now God is for us. Now God can work for our benefit. Notice last this morning, humility allows God to take over. Look at verse 10.

I love this. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, now what does it say? He shall what? Look at me, when you and I humble ourselves under Christ, which then manifests itself by us humbling ourselves to our mate, to our husband, to our wife, to whoever it might be, to someone at church, whoever. When we humble ourselves under Christ, look at me, God said that now he will take over.

Now he will lift you up. When you and I refuse to humble ourselves, what are we trying to do? We are trying to lift ourselves up. That's pride. What does the Bible say? Pride puffeth up. Love doesn't do that, but pride puffs up.

We're trying to get higher than the others, we want to win that argument, we want to prove our point. But when we humble ourselves to Christ, which then makes us humble ourselves to others, now God can take over. And God will lift us up.

He'll take care of the whole situation. Listen, I'm not saying it's easy, but if there's a little bit of a light bulb going off now and you see what this word teaches you, would you say amen? We need this, don't we? You see, conflict kills churches. Conflict kills marriages.

Look at me, get this, and what we're trying to do, we're trying to go to the world to find out how we can prevent conflict. And I am telling you, it cannot be prevented. Because we're sinful people. God never says that it can be avoided, he says this is how you deal with it when it happens. And we need this in our marriages, in our churches, and in our families. God requires humility.

Number three, resolution requires submission. Now I know how this is going. You're like, wait a minute, I have conflict in my life because of what that person did.

Would you leave me alone and start getting on them? Is there a point somewhere where it's that person's fault? And dear friend, I'm here to say, Lord knows, I've counseled so many people where an individual has just done atrocious things to them. We're not okaying that. We're not saying that there's no price for that. But I'm telling you this, if there's ever going to be a resolution, you cannot focus on how they're wrong and you're right. You and I must focus on how wrong we are under the side of Christ. And we need his grace.

You're like, okay, alright. Give me point number three, what do you mean submission? Look at the verse, look at verse seven. Submitting yourselves therefore to God. I just tried to drink that drink without the lid off.

Having a hard time this morning. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Now, you say, alright, preacher, you just said humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord. Now this says submit yourselves therefore to the Lord.

It's the same thing. Why are we talking? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Listen to me.

Get this. Humility is the attitude. But submission is the action. When I humble myself under God, it will then manifest itself in my life by me submitting to him. You and I can talk all day how we've humbled ourselves in the sight of God, but if it has not produced submission in your life to God, that's not humility.

That's just talk. So if I humble myself under Christ, that brings submission to him. Humility is my attitude. Submission is my action. You say, well, preacher, how does this, listen to me, this is huge. As a person that at times sits down and tries to help with conflict with people, this is a big one because normally when there's conflict, either one or both are convinced they're right, are convinced that the other person's wrong and have no interest in even thinking about looking at themselves. And dear friend, here's the problem.

You think, well, this person did me wrong. Why in the world should I submit to them? The Bible never says you have to.

The Bible says for you and I to submit ourselves to the Lord. And that's a big difference. Now, I kind of put together a little bit of a chart just to kind of show you the difference. There are two things. There's resolution, which means resolving a conflict, and there's dissolution. Dissolution means to cause further damage. And oftentimes couples think that they're trying to practice resolution when how they're doing it is really just practicing dissolution. Them trying to bring or to solve the conflict, they're just making it worse. And I put a couple of these things down just for you to understand.

Number one, I want you to see this. Resolution focuses on and clarifies conflicting issues, the pertinent issues. This is what really the deal is. But listen, dissolution brings up old issues. It means when you begin to have a conflict, all of a sudden we bring out everything that happened 10 years ago. That has nothing to do with what's going on now.

Yeah, it does because it's exactly what they did 10 years ago. But dear friend, that's making it worse. That means you're not submitting to God.

If I submit to the Lord, what does it mean? Well, okay, I'm going to forget. I'm not going to bring that up again.

Notice this secondly. Resolution deals with negative and positive feelings, but dissolution only deals with the negative. Dissolution means that I'm just, you know what? Yeah, but sweetheart, let's put it in a marriage aspect. I know you're mad at me, but I have tried to do such and such.

Oh, we don't want to hear that. It's what they've done wrong. But if you want to resolve conflict, you've got to look at the good and the bad.

You've got to not just accuse a person for what they did wrong, but you've got to appreciate them for what they've done right. I don't know why I keep doing this, maybe because nothing keeps happening. Listen to this one. Resolution gives complete and honest information, but dissolution only gives selective information.

Boy, this is a big one. Sometimes you've got to counsel three times before you finally get the truth about some things. Well, I've done a little bit of this in the second session. Well, yeah, I've done a little bit more than, what, third or fourth finally, and they realize nothing's worked.

Now comes the honesty. Listen, this resolution focuses on the problems, but dissolution focuses on the person. We're going to resolve.

We've got to figure out what the problem is, not attack the person. But until we submit to the Lord, it's not going to happen. Resolution accepts the blame, but dissolution gives the blame. Resolution focuses on the common ground, but dissolution focuses on the difference. I mean, a person that wants to resolve is going to find somewhere where we can meet in the middle on this thing, but dissolution just, this is my way, and this is what I think, and that's it. Resolution facilitates change to decrease the conflict, but dissolution refuses to change and increases the conflict. You go into any relationship and just to say, they need to change, I don't, nothing's ever going to be resolved. Resolution and resolution both win, but in dissolution neither win. Resolution, it increases intimacy, but dissolution decreases intimacy. Thank you for listening to the Kerwin broadcast today. God bless you.