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REALationships:
Strengthening Your Relationships
Through Conflict
/Senior Pastor, Jeff Jones/
/February 25~/27, 2005/
Today we are talking about conflict in relationships, because of we want relationships to last and to get better over time we have to know how to deal with conflict and hurt when they happen.
And to help me illustrate my main point today I have these plates on the table with me.
They are here to remind us that you and I live in a disposable society, and I am all for it.
I think all these plastic cups, plates, and utensils are awesome.
No dishes to clean, no plates to put away…you just use them and chuck them in the trash.
If Christy said yes I’d be all for throwing away all our real dishes and just use these…then we could replace our dishwasher with a trash compactor.
When we have groups come over to our home, I will almost always pull out anything disposable we have.
Why use anything else but these?
Christy, however, is not so excited about our disposable society and would be happier of these things had never been invented.
This brings up on of the very minor conflicts in our relationship.
She likes to use real plates, real glasses, and real utensils.
When I buy plastic cups with the intent of disposing of them, guess what she does?
They end up in the dishwasher to be cleaned and used again.
What’s the point of that?
I wouldn’t be surprised to see her wash and dry used paper towels one day, maybe even Kleenex.
Really.
You might come over to our house and see used Kleenexes drying out in the sun.
It’s just this little running argument we have in our marriage.
You and I live in a disposable society…we are in a rush a lot and rather than just clean things up, it is easier to throw them away.
That’s probably fine when it comes to paper plates, but certainly not when it comes to relationships.
Yet, a disposable view of relationships is gaining ground in our culture and it impact our attitudes to relationships also.
If relationships become too much work, we just move on.
We have this idea that relationships that are good should be easy.
No wonder most people don’t sustain life-long relationships.
Today we are talking about conflict in relationships, about the hard work that keeps our relationships from being thrown aside.
We typically think of conflict as an enemy to relationships, but they can be our greatest friend in relationships that matter.
Conflict well handled is the hard work that cements relationships that last a lifetime.
So today we’ll look to God’s Word to see how we can handle conflicts well enough to strengthen and not destroy our relationship.
The first thing we must realize is:
1) Expect Conflict
If you eat with dishes, they are going to get dirty.
You are going to have to clean them up.
Likewise, if you relate to others, conflicts are going to happen that you have to clean up.
There is no way around that.
It is always entertaining in pre-marital counseling hear the two engaged loved birds talk about their relationship.
In pre-marital counseling one of the things you talk about is how to handle conflict in marriage, and yet at that stage they are so much in a world of non-reality that they can’t even imagine having conflict.
One of them might say, “Oh, we’ve dated two years and we haven’t ever had a fight.”
The other one looks and smiles at them, and then they both look at me as if to say, “I’m so sorry your marriage is so much worse than our relationship.
I’m so sad you have to deal with conflict.
We aren’t going to have any.”
They get married, and six months into it the boxing gloves come off and they are at each other.
Last week I was talking with a young couple who said something very similar.
They’ve been married four months and are just now realizing that marriage is really hard work.
They have conflicts and ways that they are missing each other, and it is freaking them out a little bit.
I just assured them that they are normal.
Conflict is going to happen.
We see that in the New Testament.
Paul and Barnabas split up as a missionary team because of a conflict over John Mark.
Paul writes to two women and Philippi, both of whom he deeply respects, and he tells them to quit fighting with each other and work out their issues—to get along.
He doesn’t say to these two women, “Shame on you for having conflict…you should never have things like that.”
He just says, “Deal with it.
Work it out.”
So in our relationships, expect conflict.
Conflict will come for multiple reasons, for one just because you and your friend or spouse or child or parent are two very different people.
Early in a relationship that is actually attractive, but over time our differences can be annoying.
Christy, for example, is much more exact and perfectionistic than I am…so she has a “right” way to do lots of things, like loading the dishwasher or folding laundry.
I feel like there are hundreds of different ways to load dishwashers or fold clothes, so we get in these little arguments about that.
She grew up in a home where they spent time together as a family doing things around the house.
I grew up in a home where we got away from the house to spend time as a family, so we always have this little push ~/ pull thing that happens on weekends.
We have conflicts because we are different.
I wish everybody could be normal like me, but the world is full of abnormal people.
Conflicts also happen because of misplaced and uncommunicated expectations.
We have expectations of friendships and marriages, and if they aren’t met we get upset.
A newly married husband might expect his wife to be like a June Cleaver around the house, and she expects him to be like a Bob Villa.
Not happening.
And the Bible tells us one more very common reason we quarrel and have arguments with those we love.
James 4:1 says, /"Do you know where your fights and arguments come from?
They come from the selfish desires that war within you"/ James 4:1.
Conflict happens because we are human, and as humans we want our own way.
Rather than focusing on meeting the needs of our spouse or friend, our natural approach is to look for our spouse or friend to meet our needs.
And we start keeping score in our minds.
We want what we want and they want what they want.
As long as they keep giving us what we want, no problem.
But in that game someone will always lose.
As long as we are human, we are going to have conflict.
We need to expect them and not be surprised by them.
And when they come our focus has to be on the next major point:
2) Resolve Conflicts
Turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 4. We are going to camp out today in that chapter of the Bible to learn how to resolve conflicts in a way that strengthens our relationships.
Again, every conflict if handled well is a chance to understand each other better and to deepen a relationship.
We could just throw the relationship away or we can make it better.
We are going to see five principles in this chapter to help us resolve conflicts and use them to strengthen our relationships.
- Roll up your sleeves for some hard work (Eph 4:1-3)
In Ephesians 4:1-3, Paul says, 1As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.
2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
3Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
He says that we are to “make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.”
Some translations say that we are to strive for unity—fight for it…because that is what harmony in relationships demands.
That’s true of churches, minichurches, families, marriages, and friendships.
We have to fight for unity.
We have to fight our own selfishness and our own natural inclinations to mishandle conflicts.
I just read a book about Billy and Ruth Graham’s marriage, and you might think that they have had an easy time of marriage, but they haven’t.
She talks about how hard marriage is, but how glad she is that they fought to keep it together.
They learned to accept each other and to work through hard issues.
The reason a lot of marriages break up is because people aren’t willing to fight for unity like the Grahams did.
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