Purpose FULL - Disagreeing Well, Part 2

I've got a question for you. Is there someone in your life with whom you've had a falling out? Maybe it's your spouse. Maybe it's a son, a daughter. Maybe it's someone at work or at church. How do you make it right?

How do you fix that relationship? Stay with me as today on Living on the Edge. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, which is a daily discipleship program motivating Christians to live like Christians.

I'm Dave Drouin. We're in the middle of our new series called Purposeful, taught by Chip's son, Ryan Ingram. In these uncertain times, Living on the Edge has made a commitment to occasionally turn to new teachers like Ryan for a fresh biblical perspective on the many challenges facing believers. Our mission to motivate Christians to live like Christians remains the same through Chip's teaching or a special guest speaker. So we hope you're enjoying what Ryan shared over the past several programs. And if you've missed any part of this series, go back and listen either at livingontheedge.org or via the Chip Ingram app. Before we begin, I want to remind you to keep listening after this message to hear Ryan and Chip share some deeper application to what we're about to hear.

So you won't want to miss that. With that, if you have a Bible, turn now to Acts chapter 15 for part two of Ryan's message, Disagreeing Well. Second, move from thinking about them to praying for them. We're going to examine our heart and then isn't it true that the people that you have a disagreement with, that they just keep coming back to your mind and you keep thinking about them and you maybe think about how you're going to win that argument or what you would say if you had the guts to say it or all those sort of things? Move from thinking about them to praying for them. Jesus in Matthew chapter five says, listen, bless those who persecute you and pray for your enemies.

Every time, listen, make a commitment. Every time that person comes to mind, I'm going to pray for them. I wonder what would change in our hearts.

I wonder what would change in the atmosphere. I wonder what God would want to do if every time they came to our mind, instead of moving in to the mental dialogue of all the things we want to say and all the ways they've done X, Y, and Z, that we turned it to prayer for them and then give the generous explanation for their behavior. What is the most generous explanation for their behavior? See, I'm going to write down and examine my heart. I'm going to move from thinking to praying and instead of jumping to the very worst explanation, I'm going to give them the best explanation.

Here's what I'm going to do for them. I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt that I want them to have given me. What is the most generous explanation for their behavior? See, we have to be careful about the stories we're telling ourselves and we jump to conclusions. We jumped to judgments.

We jumped to motives immediately. Define the problem on your own. Examine your heart. Move from thinking to praying.

Give a generous explanation. And then finally, if necessary, seek wise counsel. Well, Ryan, why would you say if necessary?

Well, because here's what we do in our culture today. Much of our seeking wise counsel is trying to get people on our side, trying to get people to agree with us, see life from our frame, telling people how bad that person is. Scripture speaks a ton about seeking wise counsel.

And as you're defining on your own, and if you find yourself stuck, you go, okay, who is someone that loves Jesus, that knows God's word, that knows both myself and this other individual who can speak into it and give me perspective. You know, when I try to bring something that's frustrating to my wife, the frustrating part is instead of her going like, yeah, because that's what we all want when we share something frustrating or so and so, she gives me, well, maybe there's another reason. Or have you thought about, I don't want to think about that. I don't want to wrestle with that.

I don't want to give them the benefit of the doubt. And so define the problem on your own. Navigating disagreements well.

First, we have to define it on our own. Secondly, then we have to set up a time to talk and do not put it off. Set up a time to talk. Go directly to the person. In our culture today, we go directly to social media. We go directly to our friend group. Set up a time to talk.

Don't put it off. How do we do this? We do this first face to face. Note, not in a text, not in a voice text, not in a Marco Polo, not in a DM, not even in a phone call. I can't tell you how many disagreements have gone over text messages that have been completely taken out of context and just watching two people who love Jesus who are going back and forth. And then eventually what happens is one just stops. And then they stop talking altogether. Go face to face. In fact, psychologists tell us this, that the mere act of listening to someone humanizes them.

Just listening to them. And what we know about communication is that our words only make up 7% of what's actually communicated. 38% is our tone.

55% is your body language. If you choose to communicate only via text or email, like nobody does email, okay, not email, whatever, you're taking out 93% of the communication and allowing the other person to fill in the tone and the motive and the judgments. Here's how we're going to do it. We're going to set up a time to talk. We're not going to do it on text.

We're going to do face to face, and then we're going to go sooner than later, sooner than later. Ephesians 4 26 says, be angry. Did you know the Bible says be angry? So we can hear don't be angry.

Don't be angry. It says, be angry and yet do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil a foothold. See, the issue is, is the longer you stew on something, what you're going to allow is a root of bitterness to grow in your heart. It will produce a heart of judgment where you're moralistic and right and they're wrong.

And eventually it creates division and the devil won sooner than later. Take time, take process, be angry and do not sin. Jesus thinks this is such a big deal by the way. He says, leave your offering and then go and make it right.

It's such a big deal. You should skip church to make it right with another person. Like as we're worshiping and if you've been worshiping and you're realizing there's something not right between me and another person, the spirit of God is convicting. I need to walk away from this moment and go make a phone call. Hey, can we meet?

Can we get together? We need to make it right. Like how can I worship God and not be right with you? Like the two great commandments, interlinked, love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

The overflow of my love for God is represented in my love for others. Set up a time to talk. Don't put it off. Well, what if they're unwilling?

That might happen. As far as it depends on you, be at peace with all man. You take the step. You're not responsible for their response. What if they're unsafe? First, I would say we classify unsafe way too quickly these days.

So you may need to get outside counsel as whether or not they're unsafe or not. And if they're unsafe, then you need to go through a process of forgiving them. There's a great book called Forgive and Forget. Really, really good book on how to process the wounds that we cannot then go and restore with one another.

Set up a time to talk. Don't put it off. Number three, address the problem.

Do not attack the person. I love Paul and Barnabas here. The issue's really clear.

The issue is a issue of calling. Did you catch that? Barnabas is called to come alongside those to help them reach their full potential. He did it with Paul. You know, Paul shows up in Jerusalem and nobody wanted to be around him. And Barnabas comes alongside and walks with him and for Paul to live out his full purpose and calling in Jesus. And then John Mark, who's his cousin, obviously, he's got some skin in the game with him.

John Mark, he's like, I'm called to come alongside. That is my calling. Paul, what is his calling?

His calling is to go reach those who have not heard the name of Jesus, to go into territory that is dangerous and share the gospel. And it's an issue of calling. At some point, these wonderful godly men, their callings collided and they could not partner anymore. So instead of going, you always, Barney, come on, man. Get a grip.

What's up? JM, dude, he deserted us last time and you're always given these second chances. Come on. Don't you care about those who don't know Jesus? You got to make the hard choices sometimes. And Barnabas isn't going, Paul, come on, man. You got a second chance.

I gave you a second chance. Don't you care about people? See, they didn't attack each other. They didn't address, they address the issue. How do we do that? First, we have to be specific. Focus on one issue, not many. Be specific, not vague.

Everyone, others, you always. Be specific, not many issues. We tend to jump to another issue when we feel like we are losing an argument, don't we? And so we're talking, we have one issue and then, well, that starts to fizzle out. Well, what about this?

What about that? And so addressing the problem, we're going to be specific. Our language matters. Speak the truth and love. Ephesians 4 says, in speaking the truth and love will grow into full maturity. How do we do that? Well, it's not dropping my truth.

That's kind of what we think. Speak the truth and love like, boom, this is my truth. The truth of the matter is, is speaking the truth and love means I got to do a lot more listening than speaking. Be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. Colby talks about this in his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, to seek to understand before being understood. Disagreeing well means listening well.

It means the truth is I have a limited perspective and I want to hear and know more. Speaking the truth and love says, when you did this, I felt hurt. I felt sad. When you did this and you begin to share things in compassionate ways, but clear and finally seek resolution and extend forgiveness. Paul and Barnabas, they said, you know what? Our callings aren't a match anymore. It's not, that's okay. Here's our resolution.

You go this direction. We're going to multiply impact. I'm going to go this direction and we're going to do more for the kingdom of God because we realize we're going to lean into our calling and extend forgiveness. We cannot say, I can't forgive them. I hear that a lot from Christians.

I could never forgive them. And Jesus calls us to forgive in the same way that he has forgiven us. It doesn't mean it's easy, but when we recognize the depth and the grace and the forgiveness of God, when we're overwhelmed by that reality and recognize that we are all spiritually bankrupt before a holy God. And Jesus says, I love you and you're fully forgiven.

It's like, how could we not then extend that to others around us? So how do we navigate conflict or disagreements? Well, we got to define the problem, set a time to talk, address the problem.

Don't attack the person. And then finally, if stuck, seek outside help. Matthew 18 gets really clear on how we're to go about disagreements. If stuck, get outside help. Matthew 18, Jesus talks about go directly one-on-one to the person. If you're stuck, get one or two witnesses.

Someone who sees the situation, who understands, who can speak into. Still stuck, go get outside help, bring it to the leadership of the church. You know, everyone gets stuck. We all get stuck at some point. Please don't stay stuck.

Please, please, please don't let your pride keep you stuck in a relationship where God wants to grow you through that relationship. You know, it was about eight years ago, Jenny and I were just stuck. We're just stuck in our marriage. We just kept hitting the same problems over and over again. And it just felt like we're on this loop, right? And we couldn't break out of it.

And just over and over, it just felt like, man, if nothing changes, then I'm not sure we're going to make it. Not real encouraging as a pastor. It was through a process of God breaking me to come to the moment where I said, you know what? I'm willing to get counseling and we need counseling. And we reached out and got some help. And for those who this moment, it just might save a relationship. It just might save your relationship with your kids or your relationship with your spouse or a relationship with the friendship.

When you're going like, you know what? Maybe the outside help is I need to get a good, godly counselor that can help me navigate and walk through this because I can't do this and I am stuck. And where we just acknowledge it, man, is one of the best decisions of our marriage. At the beginning, it was hard. At the beginning, it felt like it was a bigger mess because there's a lot to unpack, a lot that I needed to work through, we needed to work through.

And through that process, man, God has done such incredible things in our marriage, in our life. If stuck, seek outside help. Everyone gets stuck at some point.

Just don't stay stuck. How we go about conflict will make or break a purpose-filled life. How we do this as a church, listen to this, will either enhance or diminish the reputation of Jesus. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Ryan Ingram has been our guest teacher for this program, Disagreeing Well, from his series Purposeful. Chip and Ryan will be here with us in just a minute to share their application for this message. Have you ever thought to yourself, does my life matter or what am I here for?

If you've wrestled with these tough questions, this series is for you. The lessons we're learning from Ryan really speak to the deep desire inside all of us to know that we matter and that we're here for a unique reason. Our hope is that this series will cause you to live your life centered on Jesus. Let me encourage you to get plugged in with this series and get everything you can out of Ryan's messages. For more information about Purposeful, Discovering God's Calling on Your Life, just go to livingontheedge.org.

And if you have to miss a message, catch up anytime with the Chip Ingram app. Even if there's one thing I hear from Christians a lot is, how do you study the Bible? I mean, it's so thick, it's so big, like where do you start? I mean, for us regular people that are not going to go to Bible school or seminary, how do we learn to study the Bible in a systematic way where we can really understand it?

Or is that just above our pay grade? God's Word was given in a way for all of us regular ordinary people without any formal training to really hear His voice. Because the goal isn't that we get smarter about the Bible or that we get to be experts, it's that we know Him. You know, it's interesting, the Scripture says the common people, in other words, the uneducated people, heard Him, Jesus, gladly. And we've done a lot of things, small groups, we obviously have lots of broadcasts.

And out of the COVID pandemic, something got birthed. I'd never done it before, but sort of almost on a lark, a spiritual experiment, if you will, I said to our team, what if we set up a camera, and I got a cup of coffee, and I just met with people individually. And to our shock, surprise, excitement, literally tens of thousands of people over the course of a year would meet with me individually. And I literally, I'm going to take my coffee, I'm going to take an open Bible, and I'll meet with you for 10 minutes. I will do what I would do if you were sitting across the table from me with a cup of coffee and an open Bible. And for about two and a half weeks, every day, we'll meet. What the bricklayer did for me when I met with him in the mornings, and he taught me how to study the Bible and meet with God, I will do for you. And what I can tell you from the feedback from those thousands of people is they don't think I'm a great teacher at the end.

They think there's a great God that they can hear from, and they have confidence to study the Bible. And what's exciting is we're going to study Romans chapter 12 about what it means to be a real, authentic follower of Jesus. That's my invitation.

I can't wait to meet with you. Thanks, Chip. Well, we're so excited to share with you this new daily discipleship with Chip, True Spirituality, based in Romans chapter 12. Our heart behind this video series is to really help you dive into God's Word and discover how to more intentionally live out your faith. For 17 days, you and Chip will walk through what true spirituality looks like and how you can put these truths into practice. If you're looking for the next step along your faith journey, let me encourage you to be a part of Daily Discipleship with Chip, True Spirituality. Pre-register for this study today, and we'll send you our friend Lance Witt's devotional based on Romans 12 called Leave Ordinary Behind at No Cost. Sign up now while this offer lasts by going to LivingOnTheEdge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. Again, that's 888-333-6003 or go to LivingOnTheEdge.org. App listeners just tap discipleship.

Now here's Ryan and Chip to share some application for this message. Ryan, I know so often when conflict arises in a family, a key relationship, and especially in a marriage, you know, our temptation is to kind of dig in our heels, assume it's really the other person's problem. What do you say to that person, maybe specifically a wife or a husband, who feels stuck the way you felt stuck? Who says, I can't resolve this and when we talk it always ends up in a fight. How would you coach them either to get outside help, especially if maybe one of the people is not too open to it? What do you say to that person who just heard this teaching and says, I want to get unstuck, but I just don't know how?

Yeah, absolutely. That's so good. And you know, as you were talking, I was reminded of one wedding I went to during that season where Jennie and I were just stuck and we eventually got counseling to really help us. And this is the first wedding that I've ever gone to. I sat in it. There was another pastor that was performing it and I started taking notes. I was like, this is good stuff. And I just started to, you know, write down what he was saying. And in his wedding sermon, he talked about the five stages of a relationship and this was profound to me in this season. And he talked about the honeymoon stage, the disillusionment stage, the misery stage, the awakening stage, and then the intimacy stage. And I remember just typing in my phone as quickly as I could to try to get these because I was like, he's outlining the process that I feel like I've been going through and I'm stuck in the misery stage and I'm not exactly sure how to move on.

Let me just define those stages real quick for you. The honeymoon stage, you know, everything's great. You know the honeymoon stage, everything's amazing. They're perfect.

They're awesome. You know, you say things like this, don't change a thing. And then you get to know them a little bit better and the honeymoon stage wears off. And then he's talking about the disillusionment stage and you begin to say things like this, if only they would change, you know, they're spontaneous.

If only they could be more consistent or, you know, they do the same thing every day. If only they could be more spontaneous, if only they were cleaner, if only they were more organized, if only they, you know, and we just start to look at and we become disillusioned in our relationship. And then he said the third stage is then the misery stage. And what I love is as he walked through this process, he's like, this is, these are the stages that all relationships go through. You walk through these, we expect them.

That's what we're going to experience. And the misery stage is you realize you can't change them. Now, some people, when they realize they can't change the other person, they just opt out for a another person. But this is a powerful realization because much of the problems for us in our relationships specifically our marriages with our kids, close friends, family is we're constantly trying to change them. They are the focus.

The awakening stage is you begin to ask this profound question, what can I do to change? You shift the focus off of them so they won't go to counseling. So they're not willing to meet you in the middle. So they're not owning their side of it.

Okay, great. Instead of focusing on how can they change and what do they need to do, begin to ask the question, what can I do to change? They're not going to counseling. I can go to counseling.

You know what? They're not going to pray with me. I can begin to pray for them. I'm going to begin to identify areas, God, where you want to help shape and change my character, shape and change my attitude, shape and change who I am and how I respond. And by the way, I'm just going to love you the way Jesus loved me. That's just my commitment to you. And dad, you always have a great definition for love. Love is giving the other person what they need the most when they deserve it the least at great personal cost. The awakening stage, what can I do to change?

And then finally through that consistency, oftentimes you get to break through to the intimacy stage where you become a team. And this was a helpful framework for me to understand where I was at and what was happening and what I needed to do to get unstuck. Just before we close, I want to thank each of you who's making this program possible through your generous giving. 100% of your gifts are going directly to the ministry to help Christians really live like Christians. Now, if you found this teaching helpful, but you're not yet on the team, would you consider doing that today? To donate, just go to livingontheedge.org, tap donate on the app, or give us a call at 888-333-6003. And let me thank you in advance for whatever the Lord leads you to do. Well, until next time, for everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.