Christians in Conflict: When God’s People Disagree

Well, hopefully I am on. Are you hearing me? One, two, three. There I there I am, I think. Okay.

All right. Well, welcome everyone. It's good to see you here today. I'm glad you could join us. Uh when Cyrus was making the announcements earlier, he said if was asking I thought he said um if we could go a whole weekend without our wives.

And I think most of the men were thinking, "Yeah, that's kind of hard." But then then he said, "Wifi." And then it then they really got sad cuz they were I don't believe a word of that by the way. I think we miss our wives f far far more than we would the Wi-Fi. Well, today we want to talk a little bit about a topic that well to be honest, nobody here probably is really going to have any personal personal connection to this topic because we're going to talk about Christians in conflict. But from a philosophical standpoint, hopefully you'll be able to gain something from it. So let's go ahead and begin and we'll uh jump into our topic.

Uh in all honesty, I do hope that this is something that will hit you from where you are. Uh I did have a uh was at a conference here about a week ago and I just brought up the topic of conflict and and how well no one here has experienced this and everybody immediately just broke into a laughter sort of like what we did here. So it made me think that most of us have had some experience with this. So let's get started. The first thing I want to mention to you as it as we go into this topic is that God loves you.

When I was at that conference, uh it was an evangelism conference and I got to talk to a woman there uh and hear a little bit about her testimony and she said she was living kind of an ungodly life and a believer asked her, "Do you know that God loves you?" And her response to that was, "No, he doesn't. Do you know what I'm involved in? Do you know what I'm doing?" Well, that simple that simple question grew into something bigger and eventually became the the leadin to her her salvation. As she explored that question and found out more about it, she realized, "Oh, God does love me in spite of all the things I'm doing." Um and so it was an important thing to learn of an important thing to see that wow um something that simple just sharing with somebody that God loves you can can lead them to to to salvation. So but whatever your conflicts may be whether they're with fellow believers or people outside the church please keep in mind that God loves you.

God loves you right where you are. So as we go forward in this, don't forget that important message. So we have a number of types of conflict that we're going to look at. Some of them we'll just kind of skim over and then others we'll look at more closely. Um you can see the bullets there.

One of the type of conflicts is wars among nations. Um that type of conflict you might see uh represented here in the Declaration of Independence when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitled them. A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation from our declaration of independence. There is a reference to God here as we explore this topic in the Bible. We see quite a few references to this type of conflict, nation against nation.

I assume most of you here probably won't be in a situation where you have to make that decision. But you know there will be a few that do and we see that in the Bible when somebody had to make that decision they could either consult God with it or they could not consult God with it. Uh when they did not consult God with it typically there was a bad outcome. It was a much better thing to consult God. So, we would hope that the people who make these decisions do consult God with it because it's something that's going to ultimately result in a huge amount of human misery and it's not something that you should enter into lightly without the word of God behind it.

The next uh conflict I wanted to mention or to talk about here is being out of alignment with God. This one is probably the simplest of all the ones we'll look at. It's simple, at least in terms of knowing what to do. Here's an example. Matthew chapter 16.

From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised the third day. Then Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, "Far be it from you, Lord. This shall not happen to you." But he turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan. You are not you are an offense to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men." Now, this the context in which this took place. So here you have Peter rebuking Jesus and in the context in which this took place this was in Cesaria Philippi and uh this uh Peter had been challenged to say who Jesus was and ch and Peter had said you are the Christ the Messiah the son of the living God.

So Peter recognized who who Jesus was and then turn around a few minutes later and he's rebuking him. He's saying Jesus you don't know what you're talking about. So this is the kind of conflict like I say it's pretty easy to know what to do. That is the person who is contradicting God needs to adjust their position. So if you have been in that position yourself, if you have been in the case where you are in conflict with God, well you need to adjust your position.

Now like I say that is the simple answer. It's not necessarily easy to execute. So let's go on from that one. marriage conflicts. Say that might be a good that might be a good advert advertisement for the men's retreat, right? No marriage conflicts if you're gone on the retreat.

Um the Bible does have some some things to say on this. This isn't going to be the topic we're going to spend most of our time on. Any of these we could spend quite a bit of time on. Uh in Ephesians, Apostle Paul writes, quoting Jesus, "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ in the church.

Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his own wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband." So Paul mentions this as a mystery about the one flesh thing. That is a mystery, the one flesh thing. But then he goes on to say, I speak concerning Christ in the church because the church is the bride of Christ, right? So there is this relationship that the church has with Jesus very close. And this is a picture of what it should be like.

Um so the basis for resolving conflicts in marriage love and respect. So if you love each other and respect each other that's how you approach resolution of that kind of conflict. And there can be many different types of conflict in marriage. Like I say that's not where we're going to spend most of our time today. Uh we could spend a lot more time on it.

There's also personality conflicts. So, this might be the type of thing where none I'm sure none of you have had this where there's somebody that just gets under your skin. Every time they open their mouth, they annoy you. They're always saying things that are opposite of what you think are true and they just So, we have some general teachings along the lines of this type of conflict. Again, Apostle Paul writes, "Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, bearing with one another in forgiving one another." If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do so.

You can forgive somebody, just forgive them for being who they are, right? I mean, it's okay. It's okay. just put on these qualities that are general qualities of being a believer, being a follower of Christ, being who Jesus is, and realize that this is somebody that God loves. And maybe, just maybe, you should do the same thing, too. We're going to look at a couple of other ones.

The ideas of legal disputes and being sinned against. Now, legal dispute that might be pretty obvious because it could be something like that breaks the law of the land, right? Somebody has stolen something from you, for example. So, you have a dispute with them based on that. Um, being sinned against, well, that's that's one way of being sinned against.

But being sinned against may include something that's not of a legal nature or not in violation of the law. For example, somebody may be telling stories about you behind your back. There's also teachings related to that, and these are surprisingly quite specific. Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. And if he hears you, you have gained your brother.

But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established. And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. So um the general teaching is that if you have a dispute with a brother or sister in Christ that you don't necessarily take that dispute to the courts or to the law of the land, but you follow this process to go to them individually and try to work it out. Very likely they're going to say, "I didn't mean this to happen.

I'm sorry that it happened." And you'll have a way to work it out. But sometimes it's too complex for that. So you need a couple of other people to come along and help adjudicate, help provide some context for what's right and wrong. And if that doesn't work, you go to the church. And if somebody refuses, if they refuse to acknowledge their sin or acknowledge the way they've wronged you, then the final step is to is that separation.

Essentially, treat them like a heathen or tax collector. We all know how we treat tax collectors, right? Um then there's the concept of doctrinal disputes. We also have an example of this in scripture in Acts chapter 15 starting in verse one. And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, "Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" They wrote this letter by them, the apostles, the elders, and the brethren, to the brethren who are of the Gentiles in Antioch, Syria, and Cissia, greetings. Since we have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, you must be circumcised and keep the law, to whom we gave no such commandment. It seemed good to us, being assembled with one accord, to send chosen men to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things. And then in scripture, those necessary things are listed out. But notice here the methodology or the pathway that they followed to resolve this was to take the question to the church authority. In that case it was the apostles and the elders of Jerusalem. So they were the acknowledged church authorities.

They had uh these are people that had walked with Jesus and should know. And this was a big question. This was a big doctrinal dispute because it had to do with who Jesus was and what his role was. It was the question is Jesus alone the method of salvation accepting Jesus alone or is there something else that we have to put on in this case circumcision and keeping of the law. So it's a very important doctrinal question.

Now we may have doctrinal questions hopefully not that big sometimes they might be but hopefully not that big. So the pathway that we would follow it it could be to go to your pastor, go to your church authority and try to get it sorted out. But our arbiter ultimately is scripture. The scripture has to be the one that tells us and teaches us. And to be honest, sometimes people will see it differently.

And we've seen this before many, many times, right? They go their separate ways because they don't see it the same. But this path to be followed for uh doctrinal clarification for us again would be the authority of scripture. So you should be able to look at it there and tell at least on the big questions. Who is Jesus?

Um how do you uh find salvation and so forth. uh there might be smaller doctrinal differences that in the end may not be that big of a deal but you still have differences related to the one topic the last bullet that I would like to spend a little bit more time on is disagreements on actions or policy this is two believers who have two different ideas on how things should be done now we're going to look at a biblical example but I can Think of some potential examples in a church like ours. Um, that may not be the same as the one we've had here. It could be, but it may not be. An example might be the color of the carpet or what kind of chairs to get, chairs versus pews or or something like that. It could be a different kind of dispute.

And one person sees it very clearly one way and the other person sees it very clearly the other way. So let's look at this biblical example. This is also in Acts chapter 15. In the verses following some of those that we just read, Paul and Barnabas also remained in Antioch teaching and preaching the word of the Lord with many others also. Then after some days Paul said to Barnabas, "Let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing." Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark.

But Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamilia and had not gone with them to the work. Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cissia strengthening the churches.

Now there obviously was a history here going back into Acts chapter 13 we see some of this history at least represented when uh it tells us that now when Paul and his party set sail from Papos they came to Perga in Panilia and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. So this John Mark guy that had gone with them on the mission, had started out with them on the mission departed from them um at that place. And you can see here on the map um I don't know how well you can see from your seats there, but the the purple squiggly line is that first mission that Paul and Barnabas had gone on together. So they had circled down through Cyprus, had gone up to what's now Turkey, the province of Pimpilia, and then up into Galatia where they had visited churches and strengthened the believers there and had uh done missionary and evangelistic work together. So now uh you can see from the red arrows that uh Mark had departed with them, gone to Cyprus, the island, and then when they went up to Perga in Pamilia, which is on the southern border there of Turkey, they that John Mark then departed.

And we don't know why he departed. We don't know if he got sick. Maybe he had a family matter come up. Maybe he realized that there was going to be significant persecution because of what he had already experienced. Whatever happened with him, he made the decision that he was going to depart from there.

And the detail of what that was isn't provided. It's important to realize as we go into this a little further, and hopefully this is a way that you might be able to also apply it in your own situation. uh because sometimes the closer relationships can be the ones that break up and you see division and it's important to understand how very deep the relationship particularly in ministry was between Barnabas and Paul. Paul, you remember at one point his name was Saul and he was involved in persecuting the church and he was issuing all kinds of threats and he was taking people and casting them into prison because they were part of the church of Jesus Christ. And Barnabas had sought Saul in par in Tarsus after this. He went to get him after he found out what had happened that he had this conversion experience in Damascus.

And Barnabas had brought Saul to Antioch. And then he also uh stood up for Paul to believers there and in Jerusalem and said, "Hey, Paul is a is a real believer. He's he's the real thing." And they served that mission together, which we talked about, the one that went up into Galatia. So they had spent that much time and worked very closely together to achieve this ministry. and they performed an extended ministry together in Antioch after that mission work and they delivered relief to churches in Judea. So for a very significant period of time they had been working together very closely to achieve these ministries and do the things that God had called them to do.

Here's some of the detail related to Barnabas defending Paul in Acts chapter nine. And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him and did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road and that he had spoken to him and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. So he was with them in Jerusalem coming in and going out.

So Paul's participation with the apostles and these other believers in Jerusalem was due in large part to the actions of Barnabas to reconcile him to those believers. They were called by the Holy Spirit, specifically called by the Holy Spirit to the ministry that they would uh provide. Now, in the church that was at Antioch, there were certain prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius ofSirene, Manan who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch and Saul. Incidentally, those verses uh show us something about this early church. Uh notice that Luke, who's writing the book of Acts, particularly calls out some of the different backgrounds, uh where they're from and so on.

For example, uh the term Niger means black. So Simeon, who was called black, probably because of his skin color, it was very obvious that these Christians from all these different ethnicities and backdrops were working closely together in that ministry. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said,"Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." Then having fasted and prayed and laid hands on them, they sent them away. And when they sent them away, that's referring to sending them on that missionary journey that we were talking about earlier. So then comes the conflict.

And just to reiterate the conflict from 15 starting with verse 39, then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. Paul chose Silas and departed being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cissia strengthening the churches. And now going back to that map, you can see here um again if you follow the purple line, that was the first missionary journey that Paul and Barnabas went on together.

And uh the green line is the second missionary journey that Paul and Silas went on. So if if you see the red arrows, Paul and Silas went north from there and Barnabas and Mark went south to Cyprus. So they covered the same area. They covered the same area that they had covered before. But now there were two separate ministry teams doing that.

Paul and Barnabas were not together. They were doing it separately. Now after the separation we don't we don't know exactly how the dispute evolved but after the separation Paul writes to Timothy and this is when he was in Rome in prison he writes to Timothy be diligent to come to me quickly for Deus has forsaken me having loved this present world and has departed for Thessalonica, Creskkins for Galatia, Titus for Dalatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you for he is useful to me for ministry.

So here we are years later, Paul looking at Mark and saying he is useful to me for ministry. So Paul is acknowledging that Mark is is useful for ministry now. And then in Colossians, Paul again writes, "Aristocus, my fellow prisoner, greets you with Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, about whom you received instructions. If he comes to you, welcome him." So this probably occurred, this was letter was probably written after the letter to Timothy and Mark had come and now he's acknowledging the ministry that Mark was giving to him was a valuable worthy ministry. So the object of their separation of Paul and Barnabas's se separation was reconciled to Paul.

So some thoughts on on all this people involved in ministry will have conflicts. So Apostle Paul and Barnabas these giants of the early church had this conflict. We can expect if we are involved in ministry to be involved in conflict and many of those conflicts will grow up will evolve out of the ministry itself. I mean there could be some things that are unrelated to ministry that you have conflict but there also can be cases that evolve or grow up out of the ministry itself which is exactly what happened with Barnabas and Paul. So here's some things that can be done or me steps if you will or processes that can resolve conflict kind of general.

One person can be acknowledged as correct and the other acquiesces. So there could be a case where it's like the argument is over something where one person says, "Oh, I was wrong. You were right." So there's that way. One person can give in for other reasons. Maybe one person is more dominant and the other person says, "You know what?

I don't want to have a fight over this. I'm just going to give in." And I'm asking you to think about that. You know, is there a right and wrong or is there is that good or bad? Is it legitimate in some cases and not others? The parties duke it out to establish dominance and one gets his way.

So, you could, you know, you could have a duel. the faster the faster draw is is the right is the one that's right. The parties reconcile through some compromise where each gives a little. I don't know how you would compromise in a case like Barnabases and Paul. They could have said, "Well, John Mark can come with us part way but not the whole way or something like that." Of course, that would look strangely like the first missionary journey where he left them from his own valition instead of being told to do that. So, that might have not been a real answer either.

The parties go their separate ways without reconciling. So which of these looks like Barnabas and Paul? So further thoughts to ask yourself, was there a right or wrong? Was there a right or wrong in the case of Barnabas and Paul? And think about that from your own situation with a disagreement maybe.

Is there a right and wrong? The question I have is why didn't God intervene? I mean, this was an apostle. Uh, Apostle Paul had been called by God. Jesus had directly intervened and and was a part of his conversion and said, "Paul, Paul, why are you persecuting me?" Remember the road to Damascus.

So Paul was converted by God and then the Holy Spirit had directly intervened and set them apart and said, "I want these two men to go on this uh mission." So why didn't the Holy Spirit come in and say, "Look, you two, this is how it's going to be." But God didn't do that. God didn't do that. Why? Why not? They were both pursuing ministry and continued to do so.

And another thing to ask yourself, well, how complex was this dispute? And how did the comp how could the complexity contribute to a resolution? Because you might be thinking, well, you know, none of these really apply to me because my situation is so complex. There's, you know, you don't know all the personalities involved and all the different things that can happen with a relationship dispute. But I I would challenge you with that is I mean you can make it complex or you can make it simple.

And in a way it's kind of simple. It's just it's just a it's just a dispute. Now some things that scripture does not tell us doesn't say. We have no record of what method Paul and Barnabas employed to resolve their conflict if any. We just simply don't know. that we don't know if they got together and said, "Look, how can we resolve this or if they were just so, you know, sticking to their own guns, so to speak, that they just couldn't be moved.

We have no record of Paul and Barnabas working together in ministry again. Although Paul and Mark did, but not Paul and Barnabas. We have no record of it. We have no record of Paul or Barnabas disparaging the other's ministry." That's important, too, right? They didn't say, "Hey, you know, don't send your money to Barnabas." That guy, you know, he wanted to take Mark with him, uh, or something like that.

We we have no indication that they tried to undermine what the other was doing. And we don't have step by steps to follow in this kind of conflict, a disagreement over action or policy. We do have general principles, not absolute answers. Now, scripture does say this. It offers general resolutions to conflict by teachings about who we are as believers.

What's in our DNA as believers to resolve conflict that's in scripture, all through scripture, in fact, and we've covered several of them getting up to this point. There's some others you can think of like for example in proverbs a soft answer turns away wrath but grievous words stir up answer uh anger anger that's a one way that you could approach resolving a conflict. So I would also say that reading scripture and finding applications in scripture can be a very powerful means to resolve conflict. Paul does later acknowledge value in Mark's ministry. We read we read about that significantly to himself.

So the object of the men's dispute was reconciled with Paul and went on to do ministry even though the two men weren't reconciled as far as we know. But both Paul and Barnabas went on to do mission work and continue in their ministries. I think that is maybe the big lesson here is they were doing God's work and even though as individuals they had this dispute, they didn't let that stop them from doing the ministry and doing the work. Now, I know sometimes we as people, you might get to thinking, I'm having this dispute with my brother, so that undermines anything I can do. I'm stopped.

I can have no ministry because of this dispute. because they're probably hating me or they're probably saying things about me or they, you know, who knows what all else you might think that and it might get in the way of you being able to carry out the ministry that God has called you to that the Holy Spirit has called you to. But the example we have here is that doesn't need to happen. Even if that personality problem or that dispute causes you not to do do the ministry together, it doesn't mean that you can't be doing the ministry. So, I would keep that in mind. Say, hey, you know, God's called me to do the ministry.

I'm going to keep doing it. It doesn't really matter what other people are saying about you or trying to undermine you. Your answerability is to God. So, finals on the conflict. A couple of verses here it says in Colossians incidentally many of these writings that we've been looking at at about resolving conflict were written by Paul.

So did he apply them? Did what happened? Well again we don't know and maybe that's not the important thing for us. But above all these things put on love which is the bond of perfection. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labors into his harvest.

Scripture has many teachings on conflict on conflict. And one of the things that I picked out all of this is what I call the lap method. Love and pray. Our desire remains that the other person will receive God's best for him or her and they will remain faithful and remain in ministry. So we love them and pray for them accordingly and they should be doing the same thing for you.

And just also to remember God loves you regardless of the conflict you're having and regardless with who you're having it and whether you think, "Oh, the whole church is against me because of this conflict I'm having with somebody that honestly maybe nobody else even knows about." But maybe they do. I don't know. But you might feel like that. you want to just put your hands over your head and, you know, shut everything out. But God still loves you. God Jesus loves you.

Calling you to ministry. And that is what I would encourage you to do is to is to keep up it with your ministry and stay with it. Just remember, you're loved more than more than you can know. So, let's pray. Lord God, we thank you for your teachings in scripture specifically related to conflict among believers.

We know that there will be conflict, Lord, but we also know how we handle the conflict is the important thing. And we do desire that as a church we would remain in unity, that our love for each other would overwhelm all the conflicts that that can be devised. And we know that Satan and the Satan's minions might be working behind the scenes to devise ways of having conflict with believers and and to tear us down as a church, Lord. But we would ask that we would be so deeply steeped in your love for us and our love for each other that that would not cause dissension or division. Lord, we we just ask for your continued attendance with us and your attention to us and that you will lift us up and help us to walk in faith.

We pray in Jesus name. Amen.