Winning at Conflict

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. What takes conflicts to a heated relationship killing level? Be honest. I know the other person's a fault. I get that. But what takes it in your heart to a rage, to a point that it begins to fracture the relationship, is that person is keeping you from what you want, from what you're entitled to, right?

What you feel like you can't be happy without, and that controls your emotions. Welcome to Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. You know, no matter what all the different structures might look like, we all have one thing in common when it comes to family. There will always be conflict. Today, Pastor J.D. teaches an important concept about conflict that comes from James, who growing up as Jesus's younger half-brother might have known better than anyone about family strife that stems from jealousy. He says understanding the root of conflict will fundamentally change how you engage in it.

To catch up on any previous messages from the Forever Family Series, be sure to visit jdgreer.com. Let's join Pastor J.D. for today's message titled Winning at Conflict. Well, Matthew chapter 19, verses 3 through 12, if you've got your Bible, the big idea in this series is that what Jesus taught about marriage in Matthew 19 not only revolutionizes marriage, but it also revolutionizes everything connected to marriage. And so we have looked at things like singleness and dating and sex and divorce, and today we're going to look at how what Jesus taught in Matthew 19, how it impacts how we engage in conflict resolution. Just to review, in Matthew 19, Jesus taught a few very important core concepts about marriage.

First, he taught us that marriage is permanent. Marriage, he communicates, is an indissoluble covenant that is dissolvable only by death. In marriage, you lock the door, so to speak, and you take divorce off the table as an option. That means, Jesus says, that divorce ought to be as rare and as radical as amputation of a body part because that's essentially what it is. That, of course, has profound implications for conflict resolution because if you take divorce off the table as an option, you end up figuring out that a lot of your irreconcilable differences suddenly become reconcilable, right?

I mean, I know that from experience. Have you experienced that if you're married? I mean, all of a sudden, you're like, we're not going anywhere and the door's locked and we're kind of stuck in this thing for the next 30, 40 years. All of a sudden, the irreconcilable, you start to figure it out because, you know, necessity is the mother of invention, right?

Right? And so it has profound implications for how we even think about conflict. Remember, Jesus' teaching on the permanence of marriage was so strong that his disciples were like, well, if that's what you're getting into, if that's the strength of the covenant, maybe it's better to not even get married. And Jesus said, yep, if you're going to make it, you're definitely going to need my help. The second thing that Jesus taught in Matthew 19 was that earthly marriage is not ultimate. In Matthew 19, in this teaching on marriage, Jesus, kind of at the end, takes what many people feel like is sort of a left turn and he pronounces this blessing on eunuchs who were people who could not get married or have a biological family.

And he declares that they are still full recipients in God's blessings in God's forever family. In so doing, in doing that, Jesus was repudiating, refuting the very popular idea of his day and still popular today that marriage and sex and romance are essential for a happy life, right? And so he says, no, marriage is not ultimate.

Ultimately, what you're looking for is God's forever family. And that has implications for conflict also, because as I'll try to explain to you today in a minute, our conflict in our homes often arises from the fact that we're looking to marriage and family for things that we really ought to be getting from God. Finally, scripture teaches us, Matthew 19, that one of marriage's primary purposes is to teach us to love like God loves, which means loving sinful people. Marriage teaches us to love like God loves.

Paul Tripp, he said it this way, marriage and family are primarily about making life smooth and happy. Well, then God chose a really terrible plan, did he not? Let's have one messed up sinner marry another messed up sinner and then combine all of their issues.

And then into that ball of crazy, let's bring other little sinners who are just going to take crazy to new levels. That's not a recipe for happiness and a smooth life. That's a recipe for conflict.

As we have said, though, God's purpose in marriage is not just to make us happy and companions, it's to make us holy by teaching us to love like he loves. So today we're going to take those concepts and we're going to apply them to conflict. One thing we all have in common is that in our families, we experience conflict, right? You've got to look around right now and just look at the people, your conflict sources, regardless of your family structure, whether you're married, whether you're single, whether you're single again, whether you're part of an extended family, if you're in a small group here at church, you experience conflict probably on a somewhat consistent basis. And what makes it even more complicated is that everybody seems to have different styles of conflicts that you bring into relationships.

And that just confuses everybody. Some of you are what we call the peacemaker, which means that what you most want in your relationships is harmony. So whatever happens, you're always trying to move the needle back to harmony, turn the dial back to harmony. Your attitude is basically, hey, if you're happy, if you're happy and we can be at peace and I'm happy, which sounds great, except when it causes you to paper over issues that really need to be dealt with.

For those of you that are into this kind of thing, think Enneagrams Nines, if you're into those things. People sometimes unwilling to do the hard work necessary to create good relationships. Let's just get back to harmony.

Probably a better name I've heard for this is peace faker instead of peacemaker because it's not dealing with it. Others of you are the sulker, which means that when somebody close to you hurts you, you start to sulk until they figure out what they did and rectify it. It's like you turn your whole house into one of those big escape rooms where everybody else has got to figure out what they did to you and why you're bothered. You're not going to tell them anything until they figure it out and get it right, right? Anybody married to a person like that? You married?

Don't raise your hand if you are, because you will pay for that for the next three weeks, I promise you, right? And you'll have to figure that out. Then there's the stuffer.

The stuffer, this is the person who just constantly stuffs anger and conflict down into their heart. You ask them, is everything okay? And their answer is fine. It's fine. It's fine.

It's fine, right? And everybody else can see the little text bubbles above their head that fill with all kinds of, you know, the little exclamation points that represent curse words and wherever you spit, the grass withers and you stuff it down in there, but it's not fooling anybody. Others of you are the litigator, which means that in conflict, you're a good arguer. You can usually prove in whatever situation, whatever conflict that you were the one who is in the right. It's not that you just, not that you can't admit you're wrong. It's just that you're legitimately never wrong.

So you're just a blessing to live with and everybody loves you. By the way, have you fellow litigators figured out yet that when you win an argument at home, you don't actually win anything? In almost all other dimensions of life, all there's fears when you win an argument, there's a reward. You win in a courtroom, you win in an office, you know, you win it with a customer service rep and usually get some benefit. I kind of pride myself on the things that I have extracted from Time Warner Cable, because I can usually out argue whoever's on the other end of the line. But if you win an argument at home, you don't really win anything.

Conflict is so emotional and it's so complicated that actually besting the other person in the argument doesn't actually improve the relationship much at all. Finally, you got the screamer. This is the person who, when something goes wrong, man, the way they deal with it is just go at it at full volume. By the way, I've noticed that when people who come from, I noticed that people who come from families who were screamers, for some reason, always seem to marry people who didn't. And so when you have that first marriage fight, the one who is a screamer can't not figure out why the person who is not a screamer won't engage. And the non-screamer is looking at the screamer thinking, like, demon, come out. You know, what has just happened here?

Right? So what we're going to do today is we're going to look at how all those conflicts, whatever style it comes out in, how it all really has a common root. And to get at that, we're going to use a teaching by Jesus' half-brother, James, who's going to show us one really important concept about conflict that I promise you, when you get this, it'll fundamentally change how you engage in conflict.

First, let me give you a game-changing principle that you need to learn about conflict. Again, it comes from James, who is Jesus' half-brother. James wrote a letter to the church, the book of James. If you've got your Bible, flip over. If you're in Matthew, it's about, what, 12, 13 books to the right.

Go there, find James, lock on there, James chapter 4. Honestly, as you're turning there, who would know more about family conflict and strife that comes from jealousy than Jesus' own brother? I mean, can you imagine, honestly, growing up in a home with the Son of God as your older brother?

I mean, what is that like? He gets out of bed in the morning, he's all sunshine and smiles and this fresh breath, and somehow magically his bed gets made perfectly, and he always does his homework, and he eats his vegetables with joy and without complaining, and you're pretty sure he's doing something to the water that makes it taste better than yours, but you can't really prove it. But seriously, how many times do you think James, Jesus' younger half-brother, heard, why can't you just be like your older brother, Jesus? Nicely, he knows what it's like when we're talking about conflict, especially conflict that arises from jealousy.

Here's the principle, let me give it to you in advance. Intense, heated conflict usually involves idolatry in both parties. When you've got conflict with somebody, I'm not saying that both parties are equally in the wrong. I'm just saying that when a conflict gets heated to the point that it leads to relational fracture, it often, it often, I would even say usually, involves idolatry. And that means if you want to really deal with the source of the conflict, you got to start there.

Let me show you what I mean, okay? Even if you feel like you're the one that's not wrong, and whatever conflict you're thinking about right now, just walk through James, what James says on this. James 4, verse 1, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?

That's a really good question, right? If I were to ask you right now, honestly, what is causing conflict and strife in your life right now? Most of you would probably point to somebody seated near you and be like, oh, easy, them. You'd be pointing at a parent, a spouse, a kid, or maybe you'd be thinking about a friend or a boss or a small group member, but James says, think deeper.

Is it not this? That your passions are at war within you? You see, you desire and do not have, so you murder. By the way, James is writing to church people, so murder here is likely metaphorical.

He's using hyperbole. I think of that as rage or a willingness to destroy a relationship, right? You do not have, so you murder, you covet, and you cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel, but you do not have because you do not ask, right? So what causes the strife? What causes the quarreling? What causes the relational fracture and death? James's answer, your passions.

Think about it. In any conflict, there's something that you want, something that you think that you're entitled to. You deserve this, and that person that you're having conflict with is keeping you from it, and so you despise them for it, right? I mean, for example, I'm sitting at the table and my wife is late coming home to switch places with me so that, you know, that she can watch the kids and I can go out and get my errands done, and because she's late and because she didn't text you, she didn't call, I'm just fuming. I'm just fuming.

I'm in a rage. Why am I so mad? Well, it's because she is keeping me from what I wanted to do that afternoon. Now, again, I'm not saying that she's not doing anything wrong or she couldn't have been more thoughtful or more timely, but I need to acknowledge that the anger, the rage is coming from the fact that she is depriving me of something that I feel like I'm entitled to. Or maybe you say, well, my husband just does not understand or appreciate the work that I do for this family every day, and it seems like every night when he comes home, he only thinks about his needs and only his needs, and just totally ignores me and thinks about how tired I am, and he's totally oblivious to me and what I need in this relationship, and that just makes me furious. He is depriving you of something you feel like you need and you want and you're entitled to.

My spouse, maybe you say, is the most sexually selfish person on the planet. He or she is just not thinking about what I need or I want or I deserve. What creates the intensity in those conflicts is that you, just admit it, you're not getting what you want.

That's what makes it, turns it into a rage, into a quarrel. Scholars say that phrase, your passions are at war within you, is an Old Testament allusion to idolatry. Now, what's an idol? Well, an idol is anything that takes the place of God in your life.

Most of us hear this, and I've explained this a lot of times at the summit here. Most of us here idolatry, and they think, well, I'm not an idolater because we think idolatry primarily means bowing down to some little gold statues, and you don't have any of those. A couple years ago, my wife and I had a chance to go over to Athens, Greece. They literally, if you go through old Athens, they literally have temples or the remains of temples to idols on just about every corner. My wife had said she always wanted me to take that tour of Athens because she said when I took my shirt off, I reminded her of a Greek god, and so that's where she wanted to go, and that's not really true. But we did get to see a lot of these, and there were temples like to Artemis, for example, the goddess of prosperity, the goddess of money, and you worshipped that goddess by, you know, bringing some of your best, some of your riches to her. There was the god of Nike, the goddess of victory, who was worshipped by athletes and warriors, and so athletes, after they would win, would offer the crown to the goddess Nike. Aphrodite, the goddess of sexuality and beauty, you worshipped her by having sex with prostitutes at the temple. My favorite probably in the whole tour was the goddess Cloachina, the goddess of the sewer system.

Honestly, there was no tour guide. I'm not sure who worshipped her or how you made offerings to her. I'm not even sure.

I want to know. We light a candle sometimes in our bathroom, so maybe that counts as an offering. I don't know, and so we say, well, I don't have anything like that. I don't worship any gods like that, so I'm not really an idolater, but that's not what idolatry is. Certainly not what James is talking about.

An idol is anything that takes the place of God in your life, something that controls you, something that controls your emotions, something that you depend on for life and happiness, so when you're deprived of that, you go into despair or a rage, something without that thing. Well, you feel like life is not worth living, and James says when a conflict gets heated in your heart, when it turns into anger and quarreling and rage, it's because you have determined that something is so important in your life that you cannot be happy or fulfilled without it, and because this person is not giving it to you or they're keeping you from it, it makes you furious at them. Notice what James says next, but you do not have because you do not ask.

What's he saying? Where should be the first place you look, the first place to meet your needs, whatever that need is? Well, God, right? As we said throughout this series, God may use marriage, he may use your marriage partner to fulfill some of your needs, but God is still the one in charge of meeting them, and that means if I'm a true servant of God and I've got a need that's not being met, what means the first place that I turn is to him. Ultimately, I trust him, not my spouse, as the one who meets my needs. The other person, my wife in my case, hasn't displaced God as the primary source, a vehicle of the medium of my needs.

Ultimately, my God, my only God that I look to for everything is going to be him. James will take this even a step further in the next verse, but some of you, he says, ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions, you adulterous people. He says some of you know to pray at least, but even when you pray, you pray like an idolater. And then he compares us, idolaters, to adulterers because idolatry and adultery have a lot in common, right? I mean, what happens in adultery? What is the sin of adultery? In adultery, one spouse is finding certain delights, certain fulfillment that they ought to be finding in his or her spouse.

Spiritual adultery is when you find in something or someone else things that you ought to be finding in God. So here's the question, how do you pray like an adulterer, right? Well, think of a man who says to his wife, like, hey, we've been married and, you know, you promised on our wedding, you promised in our vows that you would fulfill and meet my romantic and sexual needs, right? And she says, yeah, so? And he says, well, I figured out what I need romantically and sexually to be fulfilled.

And he says, I need your friends so-and-so. And so I need you to arrange a relationship. I need you to arrange, you know, an affair with me and your friends so that I can be happy and fulfilled romantically.

Now, any wife would say back to that, that is not what I agreed to in our marriage. I meant that I would find those, you would find those things in me. And so when God says, you're praying like an adulterer, what he is saying is you're asking me for something that you feel like having that thing, you're dependent on having that thing in order for you to be happy. Why don't you find your happiness and security and fulfillment in me? Why do you feel like you cannot be happy unless you have that thing, right? God, I can't be happy unless he talks about me this way. God, I just cannot be happy.

Life is not worth living unless we make this amount of money. Well, God, I just can't keep my head up and I can't feel good about myself unless my kids turn out a certain way, go to a certain school, unless they're good, unless everybody praises them. God, I can't be happy unless I've got this level of freedom in my life and I just feel constrained in my family or my marriage. God would say, you spiritual adulterer, why aren't I enough for you?

Why can't you be happy with me and the plan that I've got laying out, that I'm laying out for you? I've told you before that this happened to me early on in praying for this church. I was praying like an adulterer for this church because I was saying, God, bless this church.

Help us to reach lots of people, make it big. And the reason that I wanted God to do that is because I thought that if the church was a certain size and there was a certain amount of influence and prestige with it, I would feel good about myself. I would feel fulfilled.

I'd feel happy. And one day God just basically said to me through this verse, you spiritual adulterer, why aren't I enough for you? Why doesn't your identity and your happiness and your fulfillment, why don't you find that in me?

Right? Why am I looking for those things, looking for from those things what I ought to be finding in him? And that's what was happening, by the way, in my relationships when that was my attitude as a pastor is a lot of my relationships here in the church were strained because if certain people were keeping this church from getting big, I was furious at them. If they dropped the ball in a way that caused us not to grow like I thought we should grow, I just, it was a rage.

And what was fueling that is this thing that I've got, I need this to be happy. And you're keeping me from that. And therefore I got no place for you in my life and you're just getting in the way. So the point is what takes conflicts to a heated relationship killing level? Be honest. I know the other person's a fault.

I get that. But what takes it in your heart to a rage, to a point that it begins to fracture the relationship is that person is keeping you from what you want, from what you're entitled to, right? What you feel like you can't be happy without and that controls your emotions. And that's what James is saying, dominates your heart. So the first way to deescalate any conflict is just to acknowledge that and turn back to God. And God, yes, this other person may be at fault, but ultimately I trust you to meet my needs, not that person. That person might be a vehicle for that, for you to do that through, but ultimately I trust in you, right? You may still confront the person in their wrong, which we'll talk about in a moment, but it won't be from this desperate, raging, you've attacked the core of my life kind of place. Now I love these promises.

Watch this. Think about conflict in light of these. Isaiah 26, three, I will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is fixed upon you. When your mind is fixed upon God, trusting him to meet your needs, you'll have perfect peace, even in conflicts. In your conflicts, is it dominated by a sense of peace? How about this one, Philippians 4, six, be anxious for nothing in everything, everything going wrong in that relationship by parental application, let your requests be made known unto God.

Something your spouse not doing for you, something a friend not doing for you. And you feel like I'm just angry about it. Why don't you tell God about it first? And then what will happen? Same thing Isaiah 26 says, right? Then the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, so that when you actually confront somebody for their wrong, it's no longer from this soul famish place where you're depriving me of that which is necessary for life. And instead you're coming to them out of love.

You're coming out of concern for them and not out of a deep soul need because you have learned first to take this to God. You understand Jesus had plenty of interpersonal conflicts with people. Read through the gospels and you will see that Jesus got in a surprising amount of arguments. In fact, as somebody pointed out that read through the gospels, Jesus more often than not is either eating or arguing, which I feel like is a great sort of model for my own life, right? But his conflicts were always loving conflicts, selfless conflicts, conflicts done from that place of perfect personal peace, conflicts that confronted the wrong without escalating the conflict to relationship killing levels.

If conflict is so common, how do we tackle it head on? Come back Monday when Pastor JD gives us a list of eight things that Christ-like confrontation might look like. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. Today's the last day to get our latest resource designed to help us memorize 50 encouraging and challenging verses in the Bible this year.

Now, JD, let's be honest. Scripture memory can seem like an activity for kids. Why is it important for us as adults to keep up the practice? You know, sadly, I think we emphasize it in the church, mainly to our children. The Holy Spirit can only ignite what's in your heart, but in order for him to be able to ignite that, you got to sew it in there.

And so it's not just for kids. It's a lifelong discipline. I love what Psalm 119 says.

How can a young man cleanse his ways? It's by knowing the word of God, by taking heat according to your word. I know a lot of people who ask, how can I know the will of God? The will of God is directly tied to your knowledge of the word of God. When Jesus confronted Satan, we all know that he used scripture. What we don't think about is the fact that Jesus kind of, he was scripture. So if even the son of God to do battle with Satan needed to quote scripture, how foolish is it for you and me to, for us to engage Satan in our lives and our families for the sake of our kids and not know the scripture that Jesus was so familiar with? If Jesus needed scripture to fight off Satan, how much more, how much more do we? That's one of the reasons we've given, we're giving out this this month, this pack of verses, 50 verses that will help you memorize God's word.

Hope that you'll reach out to us, get one of these, just go to jdware.com. It allows you to be a part of our ministry here as a way of saying thank you to you for that. We'd love to get you these gifts and see the word of God begin to shape and saturate your life. You can even mail in your donation and request your cards when you write to us at J.D. Greer Ministries, P.O.

Box 122-93, Durham, North Carolina, 27709. I'm Molly Bidevich. Have a great weekend. I'm officially inviting you to join us again next week as Pastor JD concludes this message on Christ-like confrontation. I can't wait to see you Monday right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.