Wisdom Amidst Conflict // Wisdom to Transform Your Life, Part 8

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

Don’t you hate it when there’s conflict in your life? Just one relationship where the harmony’s been, I don’t know, disrupted because of a harsh word, or a misunderstanding, and it doesn’t matter all the other great things you have going on in your life … it robs you of your joy.

One of the reasons that we have conflict in our lives – not the only reason by any means – but one of the main ones, is because we brought it on ourselves.

Let’s do a quick stocktake of your relationships – the ones that aren’t going so well at the moment. The one’s where the harmony of the relationship has been disrupted by conflict, by a misunderstanding, by a harsh word. And the longer it goes on, the more entrenched our positions become, right?

Okay, so thinking about those relationships, honestly, how much of it is your fault? And even if up front, it didn’t start out as your fault, what opportunities have you allowed to slip buy without stepping out and resolving the conflict?

Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it. (Psalm 34:14)

Short and sweet but actually, it’s a verse that is jam-packed with wisdom. The first bit, actually, is pretty obvious. Depart from evil, but all too often, we use it as a bit of an excuse when it comes to conflict.

Well, it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t start it. It’s up to THEM to say sorry!

But God doesn’t give us that luxury. Depart from evil AND do good. Doing good is a proactive step. Doing good is grabbing a hold of a situation and resolving it, even if in your mind, you weren’t the one who started it.

Doing good is about seeking peace and seeking involves getting up off your behind, figuring out a way through and making it happen. Peace, I mean real peace, only happens when both parties are happy with the outcome.

But whilst seeking peace is about being proactive, God takes it even one step further. He doesn’t just want us to seek it out, He wants us to pursue it. The original Hebrew word there for 'pursue' carries this sense of chasing it down, to harass in a sense to get it, to aim to secure it, to be ardent and persistent about it.

I wonder when you consider just this one short verse and what it really means, the different light that it casts on your relationships and their conflicts.

I love this. Just eleven words in that verse and yet powerful wisdom that can last you for a lifetime. Jesus said:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. (Matthew 5:9)

So being the one who brings peace into a relationship, even though it requires humility and sacrifice and not getting your own way all the time, is a powerful witness of the love and the reconciliation that is available in Jesus Christ.

Peacemakers, through their peacemaking, speak the love of Christ into the hearts of their enemies. And that, after all, is exactly what you and I are on this earth to do.

But beyond being the proactive peacemaker, there’s another way in which you and I can apply God’s wisdom to our relationships.

Sometimes the things that we do – albeit that they’re innocent, albeit that they’re not wrong, per se, bring conflict and strife to a situation. Have you been there? And when the other person gets upset with you, you’re left wondering: “Hang on, what did I do wrong?”

Yah! We’ve all had that experience. And believe it or not that very situation is something that God’s Word has some wisdom on. I love this. I love it how God has thought all these things through and poured out His wisdom through His Word.

Back when Christianity was being birthed out of Judaism in the first century, there was some conjecture and dispute over what people could eat and not eat. Was pork in or out. Were shellfish in our out. We take that for granted today, but back then, it was a big deal.

Those who understood the grace and freedom they now had in Christ, understood that they were free to eat anything, but were prone to criticise those who still thought the old way. But the Apostle Paul turns around and says to them:

Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another. (Romans 14:13)

So, don’t use your freedom, to be a stumbling block to others. He goes on to say that if what we do is going to be a stumbling block to others in their faith, we should curb our freedoms for their sake.

In a world that’s so focussed these days on individual freedoms, what a powerful message that is! When you think of it, much of the conflict in our lives arises out of our assertion of our individual rights. But I’m entitled … is what we so often think.

And yet, according to God’s wisdom, there is something more important to the things that we think that we’re entitled to. And that thing, is preserving peace in our relationships. Because, after all, when you boil it all down:

… the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. (Romans 14:17)

How many times have you and I disrupted the peace, when, all along, we could not only have kept the peace, but built up and encouraged those around us.

Let us therefore pursue what makes for peace and for mutual building up. (Romans 14:19)

So beyond just peace, you and I have the opportunity, through the things we choose to day and do, and, importantly through the things we choose not to say and do, to build others up.

To encourage them. To strengthen them. To serve them by helping them to grow. What a privilege to be put in a position where we can sacrifice our entitlements, to serve others like that.

When it comes to dealing with sinners, peace always comes at a price. And let’s face it, we’re all sinners. We all get it wrong – pretty much never a day goes by where we don’t think or say or do something that’s not honouring to God.

And even when we’re doing the right thing, sometimes, especially because we are doing the right thing, other people, other 'sinners' take offence and cause strife.

I mean there was Jesus healing this man with a deformed hand and the religious leaders criticised Him because He was healing on the Sabbath.

But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the Sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the Sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing. (Luke 13:14-17)

Do see how easily God’s wisdom, a wisdom born out of his great love for us, is used by sinners to criticise. Because what was going on here was that the power of God in Jesus was upsetting the entrenched power structures of the religious leaders. Sometimes … sometimes it is important to stand up for what is right. The thing you notice about Jesus though, is that He never stood up for Himself, only for other people.