Hope in Conflict

OK, this is for the recording, Hope in Conflict, Romans 15, 1-6, and it's May 4, 1914. All the way from chapter 14, verse 1 through chapter 15, Paul is dealing with a single issue. It is how does the church and how do people who are followers of Christ deal with conflict that arises between them? It's one of the most difficult things in human life, just getting along with people around you, finding a way to be able to get along with people. And no matter what happens, no matter how much you try, there's always conflict that arises. And it's true in churches. The church that Paul is writing to is a church that has terribly difficult circumstances because there are Jews in the church who are schooled in the Old Testament, determined to keep the law of the Old Testament, and non-Jews who haven't been schooled in that are not concerned to keep it. So the issue of food, what you eat at the meals at the church, the issue of keeping Sabbath day holy was an issue for them. And here are these people drawn together because of their commitment to Christ when their lifestyle and their religious lives were very, very different. Paul is writing trying to deal with how do you deal with conflict in a way that brings peace to people around you? How can you find some future hope that there will be a reconciliation, that people will be able to find that? His instruction, chapter 15, sort of is the beginning of a summary for Paul's, all of chapter 14 that he uses. Chapter 15, verse 1, we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to build him up, and not to please ourselves, excuse me. We are to be, we who are strong ought to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves. Paul's concern is that we keep this attitude about ourselves that focuses on the other person. The word that's translated in the NIV, we are to bear with the failings of the weak, is really the word that describes taking on the burden of another person, like a bear the load of another person. We are to assume the responsibility for bearing, carrying the burden of people who are weak among us. Now it's hard for us to find maybe good examples of what took place among them, but I thought of one that had happened. If you look at this book, it's a quarterly. In the quarterly, it's a printed material, you see in every one of the quarterlies, this one has on one page a section of the scripture written right here, on this page and on this page over here. Now, would you say that what's written in the scripture there is actually the Bible? It's actually scripture, like you'd find in the Bible? Occasionally we have people come to our church who are used to reading out of the Bible all the time, and they find it difficult whenever you come into a Sunday school class and everybody opens their quarterly to read the scripture instead of the Bible to read the scripture. They feel like somehow or other that this is not really the Bible, it's another book. And in using this, it's sort of like you're not choosing to open the Bible and listen to it and read it. Now you know that if the book of John is here, John 3.16 is printed in this book, it's actually taken directly from the scripture, and it would be the same words that are in the Bible for John 3.16. And so if you read the words in this book for John 3.16 and you read it in the Bible for John 3.16, it would be the very same thing. So if somebody comes to your class and they say, I don't like in our Sunday school class for us to read this book instead of the Bible, what would your first reaction might be? It's the words from the Bible, and you might think that's sort of a silly reaction to this. We've had that happen a couple of times, and once I was in a class and I was leading class and I determined when they came, I'd talk to them about saying, oh, this is the Bible and it's actually the words of the Bible right in here that we're reading, it just has some comments in it that are comments on the Bible, but it's the literal scripture printed in this little magazine. But they said, I don't care, it just does not seem right to me that we're in a Sunday school class and we're not reading out of the Bible. Now I could have argued with them and said, you know, there's nothing wrong with reading the Bible out of this book. But I think what Paul is talking about with people who may think in a different way, this is not actually the Bible, now I would say that most people would say that's kind of a foolish argument, and you need to learn that the Bible printed anywhere is accurate and it's useful for the scripture. So I would say in that situation that that person who had to have the Bible open would be a person who was weak in their faith and the person who said, I can read the Bible and anything would be stronger in their faith. What he says in this passage is if you run into a situation like that and you see that the conscience of the other person is being troubled by what you're doing, that you are to pick up the responsibility for that other person, assume their burden. I have a problem with this. It's not a biblical problem that you're right or wrong. It's not a moral problem that you're right or wrong. It's a difference in understanding. What he says, when you run into those circumstances, if you have your strong faith, you should yourself yield to the person who has the weak faith. Take up their case. It would mean in that situation that you would say, I understand what you're doing now. We're all going to put our, read our quarterlies at home. And then when we get here at church, we're all going to read out of the Bible for the benefit of this person who's struggling with the idea that this is not really the scripture. That's what he's talking about. Does the person who can read out of the quarterly, are they hurting themselves by opening the Bible and reading the passage out of the Bible? No. Is it trouble to them? Yes. Is it necessary? No. But what they're doing is saying, I am going to accept the responsibility of making sure that I do whatever helps you to be able to open your heart and mind to God and the scriptures. I'm not going to let this book stand in the way or cause difficulty for you in following Christ. Now, the requirement he's given is for the weak, those are for those that are strong. You have a knowledge of what's right and wrong, and you're advanced in what you're doing. So I'm asking you to accept the responsibility for those that might not know as much or be as well developed in their faith as the other person. So the burden falls on the person who Paul would say was right. You are right about what you're saying. But the burden falls on you to take instead of that demand that you learn what I think you should do and you grow up to the place where I am. I instead stoop down to help you and strengthen you. That's what he's talking about. So if you are strong in your faith and you run across someone who has conflict with you because of something that's taking place, then it is the one who's strong that is to take the place and help the person who might stumble or be weak. He says you don't have the option in conflict with another person to do what you please. See whenever we have conflicts with other people around us, we want to win that because we know that we're right. We want to make sure that other people do what we think is the right thing. He's saying you cannot judge in conflict by the fact that you're right or wrong and win. What you must look at instead is to say what is the outcome that I want to have happen. I want to build a relationship where there is unity and oneness between us. I don't want them to be divided. So you accept the responsibility to change so that you can support the person who may be less mature or strong in their faith. You cannot please yourself. Now he says in verse 2, each of us should please his neighbor for his good and build him up. Now that seems like a very dangerous thing to do. Each of you should please your neighbor, the person around you. But he doesn't mean that we're to do everything that people around us ask us to do because there are some people that ask us to do things that are wrong or not quite right or immoral or all kinds of different choices. But what he's talking about now is your neighbor in Christ. That is, you're in the church. All of you have made a promise or a commitment to Christ and you're trying to follow him. So you'd look at the person around you and try to make sure that you please the other person. In conflict, when we're in conflict with each other, the normal human trait is to make sure that the other people agree with us. We want to win. We want to make sure that we convince them that they're wrong and that they turn to us and our answer is the right one. In the church, he said, in the Christian community, this is not what you do. Instead, you should try to look to say, how can I please my Christian brother and sister and look out for his good and build him up? Each of you, each of us should please his neighbor for his good. So it rules out simply doing something for another person so that they will win. In other words, sometimes winning an argument or a debate could be bad for a person. So you look at that other person and you say, what can I do to make the outcome of this conflict good for that person? What can I do so when this is over, that person grows in their faith? What can I do so when this argument is over, this person feels loved or cared about or important? That's the test for us. How can I make sure when this is over, this person grows in their spiritual life? So every conflict is an opportunity for us to see the person with whom we're in conflict as a way to help them. Conflict is not bad for us. It's not bad in the church. It's not bad in your house. It's not bad everywhere. If we can handle conflict in such a way so that it becomes a positive dimension of our lives and the lives of people around us, it becomes an opportunity for spiritual growth. And he says the way you gauge this is in the conflict, instead of saying, how can I convince them that I'm right, that we could really use this quarterly? That's not your goal. You look at that person and say, what would help them get out of the lesson today the most benefit? If we all just put down our quarterlies and opened our Bibles, they would then have no issue. They wouldn't be thinking about the quarterly or the Bible. They would be thinking about the material that's being read and looked at. So you remove that barrier and instead you do something that will help them to grow in their faith and help them and will be good for them. Now he points us in the process of this to say, this is not a foreign thing. Verse three, for even Christ did not please himself. He asked us to hold this up. You can think of instances where Christ didn't please himself. The most graphic, of course, is when he comes to the cross and in the garden of Gethsemane he's praying, Father, if you can take this away from me, I ask you to do it. Nevertheless, not my will but yours be done. Christ never went into his ministry saying, I'm going to do the things I want to do when I do them the way I want to do them and everybody must fit my plan. Instead he said, Father, your will be done. And when he looked at people in need, he put aside his own interest and his own concerns and focused his attention on them. The model for this self-denying lifestyle is found in Christ. We deny ourselves the demand inside of us to win the debate, to win the argument, to be right, to make sure everything happens the way we want. And instead, in the place of that, we put the value and importance of the other person and their needs, their desires, and what should happen to them. This is what Christ did. He put in, instead of his own desire, he put in place of that our need for salvation. He gave himself up on the cross for us. He didn't count winning this victory important. And whenever the soldiers came to get him and his friends were around him, their first reaction was to grab their swords and start fighting. If we can drive off these soldiers who are getting Jesus, then we have won the battle. Jesus got on to them because they did it, told them to put away their swords, heal the man whose ear was cut off because he was giving himself up to be crucified. If Christ could do that in the most difficult of circumstances, then when we come to conflict with other believers around us, we can put aside any desire to win and say, I must live in obedience to the will of God regardless of what it costs me. This is Jesus' method for dealing with his own life. So that becomes the model indeed for us. For even Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, the insults of those who insult you have fallen on me. And this passage is used from the Old Testament to describe what Jesus, the Messiah, would say that the insults of people are aimed at God, but they're actually falling on me. Now, when Jesus came, he came in obedience to the Father. He said, I do what the Father tells me to do. I'm here on assignment from him. Everything that people did in reaction against Jesus was really a reaction against God himself because God had sent Christ here. He had given him the direction about what he was supposed to do. Now, when we are trying to deal with issues, conflicts, and they arise, we ask God for what we should do. And when we do that, if it brings conflict to us, if it causes people to be angry with us, we have to stop and remember what Paul is telling us. Living in obedience to Christ that brings conflict means that the conflict is really aimed at God who has directed us. If he tells us what we should do, and we're doing what we should do, all of the conflict, all of the anger, all of the bitterness is really aimed at God. It's like, you know, you mail a letter to someone, and it's a letter that the postman delivers, and you read the letter, and you get mad at the postman because you don't like the letter. Well, you know, it's foolish. The postman didn't write the letter. The guy on the television channel two or three that always saying, don't get mad at me because of the weather. I just tell you about it. I'm not the one that makes it. We don't, if we're living in obedience to God, the things that we do and the things that we say, we're guided by the Holy Spirit. The end result means anyone who gets mad at us or upset by what we do are really aiming that at God. Now when you do live in obedience to God, sometimes those angry things that are directed toward God will fall on you just as they did on Christ. Paul is not unaware of the danger of living a Christ-like life. He knew that if you lived the way Christ told you to live, you would get conflict. People would be upset with you because living the life that God wants us to live doesn't mean that we have no problems. Instead it means that we take on the anger that people might have when they present them, when they see what God is doing or what God is saying to them. Christ did not please everyone and he didn't please himself. Instead he took on the task of presenting himself to people and saying what God wanted and he did that at great cost to himself. In verse 4 he says, For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us so that through endurance and encouragement of the scripture we might have hope. All the Old Testament, everything that Jesus did, all that's written has one ultimate purpose for us, that we would live in a way with endurance, that is we wouldn't give up. We would be faithful to what God's asked us to do. In the middle of conflict sometimes we want to run away. We're doing the right thing. We're trying to do what we know God wants us to do and conflict arises. One of the first things we want to do when conflict comes is to run, escape from it. What he asks us to do instead is to endure the situation, to be faithful to do what God asks, that is building up the other people we're in conflict with, making sure that we're treating them the way Christ wants us to treat them, and then he encourages us in the same thing. What is the encouragement that comes to us? If God has guided me in this situation and I'm doing what Christ wants me to do, what will be the outcome for this? It will always be successful. Now successful doesn't mean it will turn out the way you want it to, or in your following Christ and being obedient to him, it doesn't always mean it's going to work out the way you think success is. Of course our example now is Christ again. When he came into the world as a Messiah, we would have everyone around him expect that he would live his life, the Romans would be run out of the country, and the Jewish nation would thrive, and he would be the king. When his life was over, he was dead and buried in the ground. He rose again from the dead, but his earthly work was a disaster in terms of the success that everybody thought he should have. Ours might be the same. We might live our lives doing the things we know God wants us to do and suffering all the things that come to us, but God makes us confident that when we're doing what he asks us to do, the ultimate goal of all this is the victory of his kingdom. In a war, some soldiers are sent out to fight and they die, but the commanding officer sends them to fight in a certain place for a certain reason, so when the victory is won, they have done their job. They may hold this area, even though they die, while the soldiers in the army circle around behind them and the victory actually becomes, is won. But soldiers die in the process. It is true that God asks us to do some things that sometimes are very hard, very difficult, very painful, and it doesn't appear as if anything is going to happen good from it. But if we are faithful to him, doing what he tells us we're supposed to do, he promises us the victory. The things that are written in the past are written to teach us that through endurance and encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. Now you can draw from things in the past, not only the life of Jesus. You get to open up the Old Testament and you see so many people, so many circumstances that you can identify with them in almost any circumstance you find yourself in life. I find myself in this situation. Where do I find in the Bible someone who's faced the same kind of problems I'm facing? They did what God told them to do, and what was the outcome? As many times as you see these stories and you see how God has worked in the past, it gives us the courage to keep on being obedient to God. It also gives us the courage to believe that in some way, somehow, someplace, God will make this work. Most of the time what we want to do when we come to difficulties, conflict, and problems is we want to work something out the way we think it should be worked out. What Paul is asking us to do is to do something different. Look instead to say, how can I benefit the other people involved in this conflict? How can I make life better for them? How can I help them grow in their spiritual life? And keep on doing it, even though it doesn't seem to be working. Keep on doing it with confidence that somewhere, somehow, someway, the victory of this will be won. When you read the Old Testament, and you go through the book of Judges, God brings these people victory and success, then they turn away from Him, and then disaster comes to them. He raises up a judge, they have victory and success, then they turn their back on Him. Twenty-five times in the book of Judges that happens. You would think that God would say, this isn't working, but He kept on doing the same thing. He was preparing the people for the next step that was going to take place. He was preparing them for the next great thing He wanted to do. In our lives, things might not work the way we want. In the conflicts that we have, we may give to other people this support and encouragement, and ourselves feel like we lose. But if we look at those stories in the past, we see that God always, always gets done what He intends to do. It may take a lot of people who die, it may take a lot of struggles, but He always makes it work. The hope is that God has promised victory. The hope is not that we can see the victory, but the hope is in the promise. In the Bible, the word hope doesn't mean like, I hope it rains tomorrow, that I wish it would take place. It's more like, if I tell you that I'm going to do something for you, you have confidence that I can do it, and I will do it, then your hope is in my promise. I will do that for you. Our hope in all of this is that God has promised victory and success for His people. You go out there and do what I've asked you to do, I'll be with you even to the end of the age, and I'll promise you when this is over, your life will be everything I planned it to be. And when you're dead and gone, you have open to you heaven and all the glory that comes there. You will never fail following me. So this great promise gives us hope. The hope is based not on we think it's going to take place, but on the fact God has said it will take place. Now Paul ends this discussion with two verses of prayer. May the God who gives endurance and encouragement, you notice these same words that he uses above. How does encouragement come to us, and how does endurance come to us? Encouragement doesn't come when we sit down with each other and say, oh, you can do better, things are going to turn around, just keep on trying. Endurance comes when inside of us, God gives us confidence that we can keep obeying Him. There arises in us this feeling, I can do this, I can be obedient to what God wants. How do we have encouragement? Encouragement comes from God. When you say, God, everything looks black, everything looks terrible, I don't know how this is going to work out, and in the moments that we do that, He brings to our mind stories of things that He's done that have been like what we're facing, and yet He brought victory out of it. Our encouragement and our endurance comes from God. It's not a matter of us saying, well, I'm going to keep on trying. It's not a matter of us saying, well, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The matter is that we say to God, I trust you. The picture He gives us earlier is of Jesus' life, and it's a wonderful one for all of this. He's crucified on the cross. How could anyone endure that? When I look at that story, and when you see what crucifixion is really like, you think, I don't think I could go through that. I remember one time reading a story, a story about a little girl in Germany, and she was talking about, well, it was a lady that hid the Germans, the Jewish people, I've forgotten now her name, but she was talking about how she had gotten encouragement that when time came she could keep on doing it. She said, she thought of it this way, my father takes me to catch the train. I don't have a ticket, but I know that my father has made plans to get on the train, and I trust him for the ticket. When I get to the train, at the very last moment before I'm getting on the train, he gives me a ticket. I didn't worry about it all the way there because I believed that my father would provide for me, and you didn't get the ticket until the very last moment when you were ready to give it to the conductor. That's the way God oftentimes works for us. It's the promise that He gives us. He gives us the endurance and the encouragement, and He gives us then as a result of that the spirit of unity or oneness. What Paul describes here is that churches are to have oneness or unity, and he's describing here how we do it in the presence of conflict. We look at the other person and put their interest ahead of our own. We keep on doing it no matter what, and God gives the end result, that is unity and oneness. Not by seeking to convince other people that we're right or that they're wrong, but by looking at the situation and saying, how can I do the best for the other people around me even when we're in conflict? He says, it is God who gives us endurance and encouragement and gives you the spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Jesus Christ. Unity in marriage, unity in the church, unity everywhere comes when there's one person directing everything, and that's Christ. So he says, with one heart and mouth, you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. When the unity comes, here's how it results. Everyone has, he talks about it here, everyone has one heart. Now he's never talking about the fact that unity comes because everybody agrees with what you're doing. Let me use the quarterly again. If we have a class and someone says, I just can't think of studying the Bible out of a book like this, I want to have the Bible. And I say, well, I don't see anything wrong with this, the Bible's printed in here. And that person says, well, I just can't think that it's the same thing. I can put my quarterly aside and open my Bible, and even though I believe that this quarterly is just as accurate as the Bible is because it's the very same words, even though I believe that, we have unity of heart because we're both focused on the Scriptures instead of arguing about which one is the best to do. So you put aside the concerns that you have, and you have in your heart the same goal. What is it? We want to read the Scriptures. Whether it's in a quarterly or Bible, it doesn't matter to me, but it matters to someone else. So I put it aside, and we have unity of heart, that is, we're both focused on the same thing. It's oftentimes the strategy that causes the trouble. Can I read the Bible from a book like this and find it? Sure. Can I read the Bible from a book like this and find it? But there are two different strategies. One is, this is a quarterly strategy, and the other one, this is the Bible strategy. The end result is both people want the same thing, to follow the Scriptures. I seldom ever find in quarrels that people talk to me about where there is not some way in which there's common ground, where deep inside their hearts they have the same interest. Even in the most vicious divorce couples I've ever seen, they're so mad at each other. If I say to them, what did you really want out of this marriage? They will say, well, I wanted to have a happy home and to raise our kids so they'd be good people. You turn to the other person and say, what did you want? Well, I wanted the same thing. You have common goals, you see. If you talk to people who are in conflict in a church and you say, what do you want to have happen in our church? Do you want the church to obey Christ and do His work? They will say, yeah, that's what I want. What the quarrel is usually about is how to get it done. What kind of things do we need to do to get it done? What Paul says is, find that common ground that everyone can agree on. And the Spirit gives us that. When you find unity of heart, so that you have one heart and one mouth, that is, you found that common ground which all of you have. And then when you talk about it, you talk about the common things that you agree on. And leave the things aside that you don't agree on. That's what he says allows you to have the unity that God gives. Now, in talking about settling a conflict between people, especially in the church, you do this, he says, for one reason. It's not to avoid conflict. It's not so that you'll have peace in the church. You do this that you might glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Conflicts never glorify God, even if you win and you're right. Conflicts never glorify God. What glorifies God is when we come together in unity and oneness, so that people can see these people had different opinions, but look how they found the common ground, and look how they're doing things together to accomplish that common ground. And the common ground for all of us is Jesus Christ is Lord. I am wanting to obey Him. He is the primary issue for my life. And when I do that, then I know that I have the voice of the Father Himself coming to me through the Son, through the Spirit, so there is one person directing me. And He's always right, and He always tells me to do the right thing. And if others in the congregation or group or the family, whatever it is, can come to the same place, then there is a common feeling inside, in the heart, and when we talk to each other, there is a common conversation. In the book of Acts, whenever it tells about the early church and they get started, there's a story about the sixth chapter where it talks about the church had a fight. It had a fight because the people that spoke Greek, the widows that spoke Greek, thought that the Hebrew-speaking women, there were more Hebrews there than there were Greek speakers, were getting a bigger share of the handouts for food and whatever else they were handing out, and so there was a kind of a division arose. The Greek-speaking people were criticizing the leadership because the Hebrew-speaking people were getting more of the goods. When they solved this, they established deacons. Now the Greeks were the minority group, the Hebrew were the greater group. So you would say in that story that the Hebrews were stronger and the Greek speakers were weak. Every one of the names of the deacons that were selected were Greek names. The majority of the church selected the leaders of the people who were complaining and said to them, you solve this problem. If you can help the widows who are complaining so that they think they're being properly treated, we will accept the result without question. So if the Hebrews were taken a little away from them and given to the Greek ladies, there would be no conflict from the Hebrews. This issue of how they distributed the food is never mentioned again in the book of Acts. But if you turn a page or two over from that, it says that many of the rabbis began to join with the followers of Christ. I don't know why that was happening, but I've always thought that maybe the rabbis who were used to working with religious people looked at what had happened and said, if those people can solve those kind of problems, they would normally tear a grape apart. There is something going on over there that I sure want to be a part of. It brings glory to God when people who ought to be fighting and have good reasons to fight suddenly discover the unity and oneness that comes from obedience to Christ. It says there is someone in this world who can change the most fierce conflicts in the world and bring peace to both sides. There is someone in this universe who can bring into the hearts of people in conflict and trouble love, joy, and peace. And everyone really wants to have that. It glorifies God. So we normally don't think of a conflict as being a place in which God is glorified. And Paul says it's exactly the place God is glorified. If everybody is always in agreement, everybody always thinks the right things, always says the right things, people say, well, they get along because they always think the right things and say the right things. There's nothing unusual about that. But when we come at odds with each other and suddenly we find unity, harmony, and oneness, then it says to the world there is something at work here more than just human nature. Our God has the power to bring peace in the middle of conflict. Would you pray with me? I hope that this week no conflict comes to you in your life, but if it does, ask God to remind you of these principles that allow you to find peace in the middle of those difficulties. If you meet people who are in conflict, it's an opportunity for you to tell them what God can do to people who are prepared to do what He wants them to do. Take advantage of that. We call ourselves followers of yours. And when you came to this earth and lived in obedience to the Father, people got mad at you, they hated you, and killed you. And you took the blows that were aimed at the Father who guided you in all the things that you said and did. As we live our lives obeying you, help us never to be discouraged at conflict or that people get angry with us, people are upset with us. Help us to remind ourselves that faithfulness and obedience to you always benefits the Kingdom of God. Help us be prepared to put our own thoughts and feelings aside and care more about others and their growth and the fulfillment of their lives than our winning, that we might show to the world the wonderful, glorious power you have to bring oneness and unity to your people. In the name of Christ I ask this, Amen.