We gotta start like right now? So, Johnny, let's pray together and then we'll start here. Heavenly Father, thank you that we're here listening to your word. Thank you God that we're here as a church. Thank you for these seminars that have been prepared. But more than anything, God, we always want to thank you in every prayer for the gift of your Son, by which everything else we pray matters.

And so God, we give this time to you, that it be a time where we understand what it means to be Christians, to be peacekeepers, to be pursuers of peace in the midst of conflict and sin, and that we would desire this because this is the type of God that you are.

In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Okay. Well, oh, that's awesome. So, I've been working feverishly to cut this down. We're going to be moving very quick today. So, there might be some things that we kind of skip over, some things that we gloss over. My ask of you is to take as much of the principles that you can, and it's going to be your job to apply them to your life.

So, we're going fast because I actually have like 63 slides, which probably we're not going to get through, because we don't have enough time. But let's start with the first. So, you're a peacemaker, resolving personal conflict. I have the definition written down for you already on the worksheet. It's indifference and opinion are purpose to frustrate someone's goals or desires.

So, if you think about that, try not to, yeah, I'll kind of cue you. So, variations and tastes that might create conflict, if you think about it. For those of you who are married, you might have seen that in a lot of your vacation. You go to a vacation and one of you just wants to stay at the hotel and watch TV and sleep in, and the other one wants to go and see everything, see the world.

From top to bottom, you have it all packed, and it creates conflict. There's hostile arguments when you're fighting and quarreling with people. That's maybe the type of thing that you're kind of thinking of as you're thinking of resolving personal conflict. But the one thing about conflict that's for sure is that you can't dodge it in life.

And I think there are multiple ways that people do try to dodge it. First, they'll try to dodge it by ridding your surroundings of people of conflict. So, if you just stay away from people who will create conflict in your life, if I avoid them, then maybe I can dodge conflict.

Another way is by being a good person. If you're thinking, if I can just be a good person, then maybe I can dodge conflict in life. And in the middle of that, even then, we think that maybe turning to God, whatever that means, will make everything better. We have to think a little bit more sophisticated than that, the Hukouki speaking.

And so, this is not true. We know that in a sinful world, we're going to be coming up against conflict with every person that we come across in many different types of ways. And so, with this notion that there is going to be conflict, when it inevitably comes, how are you going to deal with it as a believer?

That's what we're going to be addressing today. And so, hopefully, this conflict is going to lead to reconciliation, whether in major or minor ways. And with that, we're going to be looking at four primary causes of conflict. So, the first one, we can go to the next slide here.

Oh, I forgot about this one. Well, this is the reason why we're doing this. This is Vision 3 to Glorify God by building a community through love and accountability. And to really want to build a community, you know, you think of coming to church, and when you kind of think about what church is, you want it to be a place where everyone's kind of holding hands and singing together, and smiling, and happy all the time.

But as soon as you have a church that's actually like that, you have to kind of question, is this a church that has gone deep into relationships? Because as soon as you do, you know, again, for you married couples, it might have been okay to get married, and then you'd be able to see all these different parts, all these different things.

Maybe even for people who have ever dated, you're like, "Oh, this is the perfect guy. He's the perfect girl. He's the one I want to marry." But when you get into it, you're like, "Wow, he's disgusting," or whatever it might be. So when you start building a community, when you start getting deeper into your relationships, this concept of loving one another and holding each other accountable gets into a place where things get sticky.

And so reconciliation is going to be necessary, peace-making is going to be necessary, because we are going to be seeing people with different mentalities. We're going to be addressing that a little bit. So what are the four primary causes of conflict? The first one is our misunderstandings. So Joshua 22, verse 10 through 34, we can't have you turn there right now, but if you remember the story of nine and a half tribes and two and a half tribes, it was Agad, Reuben, and a half tribe of Manasseh.

They were kind of divided up, and what happened was, because this was after the time of all the conquerings, of the time of Joshua, into the land of Canaan, a time of peace was beginning to come rolling in. And so with all the conquering of the land, they began to distribute which land belongs to which tribe.

So two and a half of the tribes were separated pretty far past this Jordan River, which was the eastern part. So there was the western Israel and the eastern Israel, as well as the north and south. So the eastern people were like, "Oh man, this river is going to stop us." And so what they did was they erected an altar.

And so if you think about where an altar is supposed to go, that's supposed to stay at the holy land. That's supposed to be over there. And so when they made it, nine and a half tribes came up in arms, and they came up against this border and said, "What are you doing?

We declare war on you." And what happened in that setting was the two and a half tribes were like, "Whoa, this is a miscommunication. We know that this is an altar that's supposed to take care of that. This is actually an inaugural altar. And this altar is supposed to be here to remind your children and our children, way past the time when we're gone, that we have an understanding that we are the same people, of the same God." And so a misunderstanding could produce a conflict.

Secondly, differences in values. Differences in values. In Acts 15.39, this is a very famous passage where Paul and Barnabas, who were doing missionary journeys together, they separate because Barnabas wanted to take John Mark, and then Paul wanted to take Silas. And so regardless of what was going on there, it was definitely a difference in value that was happening.

And so that caused a conflict between the two. Third, conflict could be caused by competition over limited resources. So in Genesis 13, 1 through 12, there's the story of Abraham and Lot, and their herdsmen, their people, are kind of fighting against each other because they have big flocks, and they're fighting against the same land, so Abraham says, "Okay, you choose the land you want to go to, and I'll go to my own land." So that was kind of a conflict.

And fourthly, this is the obvious one, sinful attitudes or habits will cause conflict. And most of the time, all these things are kind of playing with each other. In Galatians 5.15, it's that passage where it says, "But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another." And these people are fighting each other because of their sinfulness.

Now, why is it so important for the church to learn to reconcile alone? Well, this is our theme passage. I didn't realize it would be, but it's the same one. But in Philippians 1.27-5, it says, "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or amass it, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, one mind, striving side by side with the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents.

This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in Him, but also suffer for His sake. Engage in the same conflict that you saw I had, and now hear that I still have." So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy of being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord, and having one mind, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. And then verse 6-11 talks about that passage with Christ's humility, where He doesn't grasp the deity, to His Godhood, and instead He dies on the cross for us, and then He's exalted.

So this passage, if you look at it as a whole, you begin to see a lot of this unity talk. It talks about being of one spirit, one mind, it says that we're engaged in the same conflict. It says, Damian 2, verse 2, "Complete my joy of being of the same mind again, same love, full accord, one mind." Verse 3 and 4 talks about what that looks like, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, count others more significant than yourselves, don't look only to your own interests, but the interests of others.

And this all has this unity talk, all has a purpose behind it. And you can kind of glean some of the purpose, in verse 27 it says, "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ." It has something to do with the gospel that comes through Christ.

That the gospel is going to make it so that this unity is very, very important. And then if you continue to read down, even in verse 28, you see, "This is a clear sign to them of their destruction." What's it talking about? Christian unity is going to signal to other people destruction, but of us, of our salvation.

So this unity has something to say about our salvation, that in ending saved people, a unification happens. And then in verse 5, if you can't be clear enough, "Have this mind among yourselves." And on this, this humble talk, before and after this passage in verse 5, it says, "This is yours in Christ Jesus." "Have the mind of Christ," is what it says.

So, it's so important for the church to learn to reconcile well. Unity is very, very important to our gospel proclamation. That if this is gone, that the power of salvation that's given to us, and that message we proclaim to the world, is not only going to be diluted, but we do the exact opposite of what we want to do to the world.

So, if we're out there, you know, proclaiming the gospel to our co-workers, and to our friends, and to our non-believing family members, and yet we are in conflict with someone, and we have no desire to resolve, no desire to reconcile, and we're just bitter at heart and mind, and there's a division in the church because of this.

Or maybe even within the church, maybe you look across the aisle, and there's somebody that just drives you crazy. But you just decide, "I hope you avoid them all my life." If that happens, we are doing a disservice to the gospel, because it means that we haven't fully understood what it means in our own lives, what God has done for us.

So, in John 13, 35, it says, "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." That's how people will know, by the love that we have for one another. Alright. So, again, in this seminar, it's going to be very important for you to understand that we can't go into it case by case.

We're going to be throwing out there a lot of principles, and so there might be a conflict that you're thinking of in your mind, and it might not fit perfectly with some of the things that we're bringing up. But you're going to have to do the legwork of kind of drawing the principles and the biblical principles to what's going to work for you in your case.

Okay? So, before we go into the main part of it, I want to ask you to think of some conflicts that you've been in recently. This is going to be very helpful for you as we continue this seminar. Okay? I'll give you like ten seconds to think of a conflict.

It could be small, it could be big. And as you think of that, think of how you generally respond to conflicts like this. Okay? So, maybe in this conflict, how are you responding to it? Or in the past, how have you responded to it? So, if you don't have one, as an important example, you still have to use your imagination, but if you get into an argument with a friend, and you're visibly frustrated with your friend, and you feel it, their smiling face just makes you angry for some reason.

So, you're frustrated. How do you respond to that? What do you do to your friend? So, do you stop talking with them? Do you just avoid the topic of whatever that topic is? Those are the kinds of things that you need to think of. Alright, go to the next slide.

And then the next slide after that. Okay, this is called the slippery slope. So, you're going to see three on this side, six in the middle, three on this side. And I'm going to kind of take you guys through this. So, on the left side there, it's called peace faking.

You're going to see denial, flight, and suicide. Alright, so peace faking. The first one is denial. I'll just drop that one down. And this is like someone who says, if you've ever met someone, like my dad was like this. Like he'd get a really bad injury, and then I said, "Dude, Dad, you should go to the doctor for that." He said, "No, no, no, go away." That's not going to go away.

You've got to go to the doctor. Your finger's going to come off, that kind of thing. And so, it's a person who just says, "If I don't think about it, it will get better." That's what denial is. And so, this is peace faking. You're just pretending that peace is there, even though it's not actually there.

So, in conflict, it's that person who says, "It's going to be okay," and that this situation will resolve over time, that I don't really want to deal with it or talk about it right now. And all the while, it's getting worse. And while you're pretending that it's okay, probably the relationship is beginning to poison, your heart is starting to get hardened, and a myriad of other things.

The second one is flight. So, it's pulling away from a relationship, quitting a job, filing for divorce, changing churches. Flight might be legitimate in extreme circumstances. You guys can look at these passages on your own. I'm sorry we can't. But an extreme circumstance could be some kind of physical abuse, or maybe you're flying from a conflict because you need some time to air it out.

You're not thinking clearly, so you need to breathe, pray. So, there might be some circumstances for flight. But in most cases, it only postpones a proper solution to the problem. And in a church, usually as far as it gets after some kind of fight, it will be a change in the church.

And you see that. So, people will be like, "I can't deal with this. I just don't feel safe at church anymore." And they'll say things like that. And so, they will move churches instead of reconcile. And at the next church, pretend like, "I can just go on with my life." Third one is suicide.

We don't need to talk about this one too much. But if it gets far enough, it can go to that side. Now, next slide. On the spectrum, we're going to be looking at the right side now. And the right side is peace breaking. It all rhymes if you remember.

Peace breaking, peace breaking, assault, litigation, and murder. So, these are attack responses aside from the escape responses. So, next slide. First is assault. So, assault is using various forms of force or intimidation, such as verbal attacks. This includes gossip. This includes slander. Physical violence or efforts to damage a person financially or professionally.

Such conduct always makes conflicts worse. This can also be done under the guise of venting. I think you guys have already had that. Small groups are a perfect place to do that. You're going to assault someone, but you're doing it in a godly way. No, you're assaulting them. And so, it's gossiping, it's slandering, these kinds of things.

Like, a bunch of you guys are licking each other. That's a type of assault, too. Whatever the case, there's obviously no thought of God. You're just sharing because it's heavy on your heart. You're not even thinking of the other person's well-being. You're just saying, "I'm struggling with this." And so, that's not good.

By the way, you can assault someone while you're smiling. That's possible. You could just pass by them, pretend like everything's okay. But it's not, and you are assaulting them in many different ways. I think the majority of peace-breaking scenarios fall into this category. The next one is litigation. This is very rare in most church circles, but I've seen it happen.

Coming from a Korean church background, I've seen it happen to a lot of Korean churches around me. But litigation has happened where it goes to the court system. And then lastly, I know it jumps really quick, but a murmur. That is the worst way to peace-break. It can get pretty bad.

As humans, we've seen things like this happen all over the news when conflict gets to that point. People will murmur. You're thinking peace-breaking and peace-breaking and peace-breaking, and trying to see where the white category is. We're like a generation where we love ISFJ, IDMT. We like that kind of stuff.

Don't categorize it. Because it's going to change. And it's going to be this thing where with a person that you're closer to, or maybe someone that you had a relationship with pre-Christianity, or it could be a family member, or it could be a new co-worker. You could be peace-breaking and just going all over the spectrum.

Instead of peace-making, which is kind of in the middle. For example, this is just one example. You could be someone who denies, and then you'll flight, flight, flight, flight, flight, to a point. And then finally, it just gets so out of hand in your mind and heart that you're going to assault.

And then you leave the church. You flight again. These things, you can kind of characterize it into however works for you. Alright, so the next slide here. And this brings us to peace-making. That's right in the middle, and this is where we want to design. You don't want to go to this side.

You don't want to go to that side. And what we talk about for the rest of today is going to be about that. Now a question for you. Don't answer it for real. But is conflict always bad? Does it always stem from sin? The answer is no. It is not always bad.

As we said, the difference in opinions or desires, or even simple miscommunication, these things can create that rough of a temptation. And that in and of itself, what comes out of our hearts might be sinful, but the conflict itself might not. I like this. I'll meet you. I like this.

I'll meet you. Oh man, you know, like there's a conflict. But it's not wrong. You want anything. So what we want is to seek unity in our relationships, not uniformity. That's important to realize. We're not asking everyone to say, "Okay, then we all have to just kind of bow to our own desires and say, 'Whatever you want, go listen.'" That's not what we want.

And so Ephesians chapter 4, verse 1-13, next passage, it's kind of a parallel passage to Philippians chapter 1-27, very similar thoughts. In verse 1, it says, "I therefore, Christian for the Lord, urge you to watch him and awardly the call of the Lord which you have been called." And it kind of describes what that looks like.

"With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace, there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to, one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

For grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift." So it talks about what it looks like to walk in a man worthy of a calling. Unity. Love. If the gospel that's been talked about in chapters 1-3 is real to you, then there cannot be division within the church.

And then it talks about the differences in people. So we have all these different people, different types of people doing different types of things, all doing the work of equipping different types of people. Alright, next slide. So peacemaking. Now before we go to the first one, let's look at some passages in Matthew.

Okay. I'm just going to have to describe it to you. Do I have that there on your... I do not. So in Matthew chapter 5, verses 21-24, you can just write that one down. But peacemaking there is necessary in moving the entrances to your church. That's the passage where it says, you're at the altar, you're trying to offer up an offering.

And it says, if you have something against a brother, what are you to do? Leave it at the altar, go to your brother, reconcile, come back, and then offer it. And you know that when you gave your offering at church? This is a really hard thing to do, right?

But it says that peacemaking is necessary in removing entrances to worship. Now you could be tempted to just say, I'm not going to think about it, I'll just think about the character of God and worship Him. But then there's going to be a big discount for your life. Because if He is the God that you're worshiping, that has demands on your life, and that conflict needs to be resolved.

Because you're thinking, you have forgiven me of my sin. Praise the Lord, and you're singing with tears flowing down on your face, saying, thank you for forgiving me of my sin, thank you for reconciling with me. And then you turn to your brother, and this guy is far from you, and you have no desire to go and reconcile with this guy.

And so, we need to be able to do that. It is causing a hindrance to your worship. In Matthew chapter 18, verses 15-17, this is another thing. Peacemaking is a command given to reconcile and restore. It is a command that ultimately is a tribulation, eventually, as we kind of go.

But it is a command that we need to reconcile with each other, and then restore for all our brothers and sisters. And the third one comes from Matthew chapter 5, verse 9. This is the one where the attitudes, where it talks about blessing, are the peacemakers for, they are going to be called what?

Sons of God. If you kind of go through, step by step, through the Beatitudes, you will see that peacemakers being called sons of God, that means, if you want to be seen as a child of God, you need to be a peacemaker. Or if you flip it, conversely, by being a peacemaker, by pursuing a reconciliation, a peace with everyone that we have conflict with, they are going to say, that person looks like a Christian.

I see God in that, I see Christ in that person. Something very different than what the world looks like. And here are the six categories of peacemaking. First, is to overlook an offense. In Proverbs 19, it says, "A man's wisdom gives patience, it is his own to overlook an offense." So in peacemaking, sometimes it is okay to just overlook it.

Sometimes, there are going to be things like someone, there was this guy, there was this friend that I had, who like sniffled like crazy. I wanted to sniffle all day, like that, right? And it drove me up the wall. And so, you look at that, it's like, well, it's not, you know, this is probably, I just came up with that example, that's a bad example.

There are little things that drive you crazy, that like, that's not his fault, and that's why I just said that example. But if it were to be his fault, right? There are little things that might come up that you can just, well, it's okay, it's not that big of a deal, I'll overlook it.

It's not really hurting anyone to do that. And in an overly sensitive culture like today, I think this is more than necessary. Just overlook an offense. If someone did something, they said something a little bit, maybe, that hurt your feelings. Okay, that might have happened, and if that happens again, maybe you've got to address it.

But if it was just a passing comment, and they really didn't mean any harm, like, you don't have to be like this, like, people always go after you, like a vigilante. I don't know, you don't have to be like this person, like, it is my job to track down every single person who says something that will, you know, bother anybody, and kind of call them out on it, and say, "That's not encouraging like Ephesians 4 says." You know, that's not edifying.

But we can't imagine a church like that, oh my goodness. So sometimes it's okay to overlook an offense. Secondly, reconciliation. So this is a step more now. If an offense is too serious to overlook or has damaged the relationship, we need to resolve personal and relational issues through confession, loving correction, and forgiveness.

And there are a lot of passages about this. Colossians 3.13 says, "Forgive as the Lord forgave you." That command is, you know, that's just one command. But imagine the consequences of that in our lives. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Think about the person you got into conflict with.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you. This is going to change the way you live and the way you relate to people. Thirdly, negotiation. And then even if we successfully resolve relational issues, there might still be some material issues to go over. You know, like we might say, "I forgive you." "Oh, sorry, I forgive you too." But afterwards, like that condition is still going to be there, right?

There's still going to be some residual effect. And so this is where you need to negotiate. Hey, next time, maybe if you say it this way, it won't have any feel about it. And maybe if I respond in this manner, then you can kind of think about it and say, "Remind me of what we talked about last time." So negotiating is going to be the next step after reconciliation.

The next one is mediation. There's going to be times when you guys are just-- you can't come together with agreement, right? A third party is going to help you mediate. Kind of hear both sides and say, "Hey, you're being crazy here. You're being unfair here." And then that mediator is going to help.

You'll see examples from that in Matthew 18, 16, where it says, "Bring in other parties." And then number five is going to be arbitration. When you and an opponent cannot come to a voluntary agreement on a material issue, you may appoint one or more arbitrators to listen to your arguments and render a binding decision to settle the issue.

And that sounds a little bit like legalese stuff, but this is kind of talking about now-- maybe there needs to be someone who says, "Hey, can you just make a decision for us?" In a kind of a simple example, there are two people that are dead set. Like one person--what do you say?

One person wants to go to Ruth Chris, one person wants to go to Panera, and like everyone--they're just dead set on it, right? And then the third person comes in and says, "Hey, you've got to make a decision for us because we can't make a good decision." And then the third person will make that decision.

Number six, accountability. And that's exactly what it sounds like. Now, how do we go about peacemaking? How do we pursue reconciliation? This is the step-by-step kind of road that you can take-- if we go to the next slide here--to pursue peacemaking. You can just drop down on the next slide.

All right, so the first is going to be glorify God. Second, it's going to be get the log out of your own eye. Third, it's going to be try to restore. And fourth, it's going to be reconciled. It's called the 4 G's of reconciliation. Now, this is from a guy named Ken Sandy, who kind of has a ministry all about reconciliation.

And so this is where all of this material is coming from. So these 4 G's, I've used them many, many times in my own life to help me, and it's been very, very helpful. I believe it's very biblical, and I believe that God is glorified through this process. So the first one is glorify God.

Next slide. All right, so drop down the verse here, please. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Now, we love that passage. I think we looked at this, and sometimes we say, "Well, it can't really mean do everything for the glory of God." But that's what it means.

Do everything for the glory of God. So even conflicts, they are to the glory of God. Conflict provides opportunity to glorify God. In every conflict that you come across, whether there's sin involved or whether it's just differences, you can actually bring the glory to Him. Now, example, think about with your parents.

It doesn't matter how old you are. I got that, like, you know, 15-year-old Nathan, I thought, like, that guy was, like, rebellious and stuff. Even now, when my parents use a certain tone of voice, rebellion erupts in my heart. And I'm convinced that no matter how old we get, even though we grow in appreciation and we mature a little bit and the gospel has wonders to transform our hearts, there are just certain things.

When parents say something, I'm like, "Ah!" So it's not easy to be peacemaking with them. Remember, just denying that a problem exists, that's not enough. Sometimes the older you get, it gets better at being denied. It gets better at, like, just sweeping things under the rug because it's, like, too far gone.

There's nothing that's going to change them. There's nothing that's going to change me in this situation. That's a lie. The gospel will change us. And we can glorify God as long as we don't keep running from that situation. We have to tackle these things. Now, so with this example of parents, you can have a natural inclination to rebel against them.

Again, when they use a tone of voice, maybe when they bring up a sore topic. Maybe when you look at how hypocritical they are, you're like, "Whoa, you're like this." Maybe it's the fact that they didn't take time to understand you. Like, "Why do I have to glorify God in this situation?

They're not even trying to understand my point of view." We might have these justifications behind it. But your sole goal in your relationship, in this relationship that you have with your parents, if there's a conflict, your sole goal is God's glory. Like, it's sad that, like, I have to remind myself of that, but that's the truth.

When we talk to our parents and it's making me feel something and sin is starting to come up, what's your goal? God's glory. That's what it is. Glorifying God is the first step in peace making. We have to change how we view this. It could be a comment about you still being single.

"How many times have you gotten dumped?" "Are you dating anyone?" You hate, like, family reunions, right? Because you're like, "Oh my gosh, is this going to happen again?" Like, auntie's going to say this again or whatever. It's going to happen. About you not having a job you approve of.

It could be about your weight or your appearance. It could be that you think you're too opinionated at the expense of your life. Even good things. "Why are you so involved at church?" "You shouldn't be at a church like that." And these things can cause, you know, even these good things.

"I know I'm right. I shouldn't be going to church. I shouldn't be committed to church." And if there's sinfulness coming out, maybe you are not glorifying God, even though you're doing it in the name of God. You have an opportunity in those moments to glorify Him. Or, if you're not glorifying Him, what's happening?

You are robbing Him of His glory. Most likely, you're glorifying yourself. This is step one in the most important in Legionary Conflict. This is the anchor. So what does it mean to glorify God? Pastor Aaron talked about it a little bit today. So, next slide. First one is to bring attention to God.

What does that mean? To bring attention? To display Him? To reveal His perfection? His other attributes? That's what it means to glorify Him? Basically, it's with your own life, it becomes like this compass that points up to God all the time. We were created in the image of God.

What does that mean? We reflect Him. What does that mean? When people see us, they see Him. So we want to be bringing attention to Him. If you've ever driven a new car, you don't hide it, right? You're not ashamed of the new car. So, what happens? You get in this car, and you get that first stop light.

"Yeah, I'm going to go get a new car." And you want to display Him. You don't want to hide who God is. You want to glorify Him. You want to bring attention to Him. You want to draw eyes to Him through your life and in this conflict. So, it's not to win the argument.

It's not to win in that conflict. But it's to bring attention to God. That is your dead set on that. This is what I'm going to do. I want to, in this conflict, to make that other person and everyone around us see who He is. Secondly, next one, what does it mean to bring glory to God?

It's to please God. That's another way glorifying God happens. It goes hand in hand with it. How can I please God? How can I honor God in this situation? If you are enamored in that conflict of pleasing yourself, to get some kind of twisted gratification of yourself, then you are glorifying yourself and not God.

Thirdly, emulating God. Glorifying God has an aspect of this. You will emulate the one you desire to glorify. Pastor Aaron brought up a lot of examples. When you see these people, when you see this thing happening, and you are worshiping, there is an aspect of glorifying happening here. And then...

I have a passage, I was thinking whether we should go through it or not. You can either emulate God, or if you're not emulating God, you're emulating something that's not of God. You can think about it as worldly or demonic, satanic. Next passage, in James 3, verse 13-15, it talks about the wisdom that comes from above.

And this is in the context of not just your tongue, using your words in a very harmful way, but also in the context of what's causing division amongst the church. People who are quarreling and fighting. It says this right in the middle of this. "Who is wise in understanding money?

By his conduct, let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast that you have lost the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly and spiritual and demonic." And what is saying here in the Little Old Conflict?

It's saying you can have a heavenly perspective and a heavenly heart, or you can be looking like something that is demonic and worldly. And it doesn't give any option for you. And so emulating God is going to show this, that God will be glorified in a situation like that.

And lastly, is to look at Him. Looking at God. That's what it means to glorify. That you're constantly just set on Him. Your eyes are fixated upon Him. Because that is glorifying Him. That is the action of what glorifying will do. Glorifying will make it so that you stare at that thing you're glorifying Him.

I think John Cooper uses a term that I really love. He says, "Mom, stare." You're just staring at it. And so in a position of conflict, the temptation is to not look at God, but what happens? First thing that probably happens, you're staring at yourself. Like how you should kind of feel.

"Ugh, I don't like that." And then what happens? You look at the cause of the person that made you feel that way. So your eyes drifted on the person. And then lastly, or if not all, eyes look at God. But we flip that all day backwards and say, in any conflict what you do is you look at God, you long stare at God, you glorify God, and then you love that person, and then you look at yourself next.

You are not... Your job is not to love yourself. But in a conflict that's what we're doing. We're just loving ourselves first. And in that we're breaking the laws and the prophets, right? We're breaking what it means to exist as a Christian. I love myself and so I'm going to fight for what I want instead of saying, "Love God, not love yourself." So our eyes are in the wrong places.

Okay. We're going to skip all that. Let's go to the next slide. Let's skip this one. Okay. I have on there for you the trust part, trust in Him, but we're going to skip that part. We're going to come to these helpful questions. These are some things that will help you kind of think through things.

So number one, who are you estranged with and why? So that's going to kind of tell you, are there people in your life that you have conflict with? Secondly, has the peace and unity of the Christian community been disrupted by your dispute? So if you're thinking about a dispute with anybody, a conflict with anybody, even here at church, has the peace and the unity not been broken because of that?

Thirdly, what effect might this dispute have on the reputation of Jesus Christ? So if a non-believer were to come in and see and you were to describe to them this conflict, what's going to happen to the reputation of Jesus? Fourthly, how would your feelings and attitudes and behavior change if you started to see the conflict as an assignment from God?

Now, you have this conflict. If God were to say, "Here's what's on your plate, what are you going to do with it?" If that happens, how will your attitudes and feelings, what will your behavior, what's going to change about it? Fifthly, this is the last one we want to take, and then we'll get to the real thing.

What good might God be trying to bring into your life if you were to respond in a biblical manner? What good might He be trying to bring? How is this conflict for your good? Because we know that as biblical truth, but we don't often see it as that way.

Next slide, and we're going to go on to the second one. So the first one was the glorified God. Now your eyes are on Him. All your thoughts are on Him. You want Him to be glorified. You want Him to be exalted and be set in His majestic place.

Then you draw your attention a little bit and kind of go digging into your heart to see what's going on. So get the log out of your own eye. I'll instruct the verse now. You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye.

This is from Matthew chapter 7, verse 5. Don't go to the next passage, just read the whole thing. In Matthew 7, it says, "Judge not that you not be judged. For with the judgment we pronounce you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye' when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." So notice how here it doesn't say anything about not taking the speck out of your brother's eye.

It says you take the thing out of your own eye in order for you to restore your brother as well. So in a conflict, it doesn't mean that like, no matter the fault of the other person, I'm just having to confess everything, and then that person can get what he's got free.

We'll get to that one in the third G. So it doesn't forbid correcting another. Maybe the way you can think about it, this is talking about premature judgment and correction. So obviously you cannot see another's fault if you have your own sin clouding your vision. And if we think about this word right here, 'hypocrite', if we think of hypocrisy, we might think like, we might think like, don't say anything to someone if I'm suffering the same problem myself.

So if we talk about dishes, like it's a roomie, and they're not doing their dishes, and you can say, with a clear conscience, "I'm not being a hypocrite, and me being angry with my roomie, because I do the dishes." See, if I weren't doing my dishes, and then my roomie wasn't doing his dishes, and then I was calling out on that, that would be hypocrisy, but I'm not.

But this passage is not talking about something like that. This kind of hypocrisy is if you have sin that's coming in your heart. So it doesn't have to be the same thing. It has to be, he's not doing his dishes, and it's causing in you anger. So you go to them, and you say, "Do your dishes!" See, that's hypocrisy.

Because you're starting to say, "A, Christ would have done the dishes." He would have. He would have. He would have served. He washed his disciples' feet while you were being a hypocrite. Even though it's not the same thing. Does that kind of make sense? Okay. Here are two logs to look out for in the next slide.

The first log is overly critical, negative, or overly sensitive attitude. So ask yourself, do you have those in a conflict? Do I have an overly critical attitude? Do I have a negative attitude? Do I have an overly sensitive attitude? And maybe a way to kind of summarize this is like, are you being unfaithful?

That's a way to think about it. Now my daughter, Annie, has been driving me crazy. She just won't stop talking. And it's just, it's not funny anymore. So, and then she'll say something, and then on top of that, what she started doing is like, if something happens, and she's talking and talking and talking, and then it's not going her way, she starts to cry.

And that drives me crazy. Because sensitive people, like, that'd be number one. People who are overly sensitive, if they get too sensitive too quickly, I go, "Come on, stop that." So with Annie, this is tough, you know? So the other day, what was she doing? She was crying in the backseat about the fact that she dropped something.

And I think it was like a little cracker, but she had like 20 more in her hand. I was like, "Annie, just get another one. You have 20 more in your hand. We'll pick it up later." And she was crying about the one that she dropped. And then I looked back and I said, "Annie, stop being a baby!" I did it, kind of in an angry voice.

"Annie, stop being a baby! Are you a Hudson? Are you a baby?" And then she started crying more and more. And I was thinking about it, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, she's a baby." I'm talking to a three-year-old. And I'm saying, "Mature!" And it's like, it's not fair. So I think that was a big black for me.

It's a place where I was being overly critical of Annie, and it's not fair. So in this, you can actually overlook certain offenses. She was actually complaining too much. And I could get on it. I could say, "You memorized this in Cs! Don't complain! You memorized this! You know it by heart now!" I could have said that.

But that would have been a lot in my head. I could have left out what I could have said. "Annie, it's going to be okay. I could have walked her through that. I could have done a lot of things." But in my frustration, "She's been doing this all day.

She's crazy. I have a crazy child. I'm thinking this in my mind. What's the matter with her?" And then I attacked her. A three-year-old kid. I'm 32. A three-year-old kid. Now, as we think about this, we have to actively, in places of conflict, be able to analyze our heart to be able to see the wrongs.

Here's a second one. The second one is actual sinful words or actions. I don't think that one needs too much stuff. So, the temptation in a conflict is constantly to look at and blame the other person. But what you want to do there is to stop. Just stop looking at them.

Stop blaming them. Stop caring about what they're saying, about what they're doing. And you've got to be able to look at your own life. Right at their choice. It doesn't matter how wrong they look. You are wrong. You are in sin. That's what we need to practice. If there's anger there, if there's frustration there, we like to use frustration to get out, to wiggle our way of saying angry.

Frustration is anger. We're working. We say, "I'm just frustrated." No, no, we're angry. And so in that, we can think about the bitterness that's welling up in our hearts. We can think about the resentment. Are you clamming up in a situation like that? Are you seething inside with words that you want to say?

And so we need to go beyond the confession of the wrong behavior and face up to the root cause. We've got to dig into our hearts. If you want to find the lodge, you have to be able to see deep, deep down into what's causing it. Like in that situation with my daughter, I could have been like, "I've got to stop being angry.

I've got to stop yelling." But if you do that, it's not going to help you. Because you're going to just stop trying to use words and you're going to go, "Willpower? Stop crying." You do that, and she keeps going on a certain point, "Daddy, stop crying. Daddy, stop crying!" It's going to be like that.

But what you want to do is dig down inside and ask yourself, "Why is this causing me anger?" And that's the law of your searching. And I can't take you through that today. Maybe one day. All right, so conflict, by the way, can be fueled by normally good desires.

Maybe a good desire can be something like craving to be understood, craving to be loved, or respected, or vindicated. These are okay, but you've elevated to a sinful demand and selfishness. All right, and to the next slide. So look at this overlooking offense part. Let's drop down the four questions.

We've got to see what this... Here are some four questions that you can ask if you can overlook this offense or if we need to kind of proceed. So is the offense seriously dishonoring God? Has it permanently damaged the relationship? Is it seriously hurting other people? Is it seriously hurting the offender himself or herself?

So if you look at this, if it's no, no, no, no, no, you can consider maybe this is something that you can overlook. So now this isn't a passive process. You might think this is where you stay... This isn't a time where you stay silent for a moment, like I'm going to overlook it this time.

If you do it again, I'm going to get you. Okay, that's not what this is. This is an active process. You're deliberately deciding not to dwell on it. This is decisive. And you're motivated by the character of God. And... Okay, can you go back to the slide? Okay, so this is...

These principles that come from who God is. Good sense makes one slow to anger, and it is His glory to overlook offense. Proverbs 17, 14 says, "The beginning of strife is like letting on water, so quit before the quarrel breaks out." All right, let's go down to the back two steps-- or forward two steps.

Oh, boy, I don't know if we're going to do this. Okay, that's Scripture section, youth transformation. Now, I had a full exercise we were going to do through Philippians 4, 2-9. I'm not going to get to that. But if you were to read through this, you can see in a conflict how, if you were to daily be in Scripture and be saturated through it, that it would start to change your heart and transform your heart.

Okay, you could do that on your own. All right, next slide. What about my rights? Your rights don't matter. Okay? All right, so Paul talks about rights in 1 Corinthians, dropped down to the next paragraph. He talks about legal rights, marital rights, dietary rights, rights of the apostles. And then he says, "At the end of all of that, so whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Give no offense to Jews or to Greeks or to the Church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many that they may be saved. Be in it." And I love this. We like to break it off here, but this is connected.

"Be in it, here is a need, that I am of Christ." He's saying this is the type of Christ that we serve. It is a person who has thought of the other before himself. And so, if we think about our rights, we do not need to hold on to this.

We do not need to cling to it. Where would we be if Jesus held on to his rights? We would be in hell. And that is not something that we want-- we're a place we want to be. And so for us, if we can claim that, how can we ever say, "My rights are so important," to keep other people from something like that?

Let's just finish off with this. I'm going to stop. All right. Next slide. So Romans 12 talks about, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peacefully with all." And the highlight here is vengeance is mine. I will face the Lord. And that means you do not need to hold on to your rights because God will be the avenger.

Okay? Okay, next slide. Getting the law out of your eye, it addresses actually a core root of idolatry. And so this is what you want to get out. Here are the four things that are-- let's go to the next one. And the next one--sorry, guys. You're dropped on all four.

You're going to have a desire in your heart. "I desire my roommate to do--" "I desire my roommate to do his dishes." And then I demand that I go to him. I demand it in certain ways. I've been patient six times. I've done his dishes six times. Now I demand, "Hey, do your dishes." And the third one, I judge.

You're judging him. And then fourthly, what happens in your heart then is I punish. So go to the next. I punish him. Okay. Next slide. And go to the seven A's of confession. And go through this one. I am so sorry, guys. I didn't think it would take this long.

Okay. And the quotes are all there. So these are ways you need to confess before you're able to go and address another person. So the seven are address everyone involved, avoid if, but, and maybe you know that well, right? You say, "I'm sorry, but if you didn't say that, I wouldn't have thought this way.

I wouldn't have done that." We all know that we do need some of that. Married couples, yes? Okay, number three, admit specifically. Don't say, "I'm sorry for making you feel bad about it." Say, "I'm sorry for," and go deep down into specifics of what you did wrong and how you offended them and how you might have offended God.

Fourthly, acknowledge the hurt. It doesn't matter where you are. When you're confessing to someone, you want to acknowledge what you did. Fifthly, you accept the consequences. Sixthly, alter behavior. So make sure that you're changing as you come, you're confessing, or else it's not a real confession. And the seventh, we ask for forgiveness.

This is all before you're able to go and address what's going on in their lives. Okay? -Bye. -Bye. -Come back. -Okay. On your sheet, I gave you guys a list of possible laws. You guys can kind of take a look at that. It starts with reckless words, and it ends in good things you want too much.

So check yourself and look, and then I don't know, one day maybe we could do the final two. I will end this prayer, and then we'll go to the next one. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that you reconciled with us that we might be reconcilers in this world.

And by the pursuit of peace, we pray that we can then say, "We're doing this because you are a God of peace who has offered salvation, grace, mercy, and compassion unto us." And so we extend the same to others. God, help us never to receive this grace and withhold it from others.

May we be dispensers of peace, dispensers of grace, that you might be glorified in our lives. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, I'm sick.