Rick Warren - How to Restore a Broken Relationship (Part 3)

You are most like Jesus when you're focusing on the

hurts of somebody else rather than your own. You are

most like Jesus when you're focusing on the hurts of

somebody else, your child, your wife, your dad, your.

Client.

When you're focusing on somebody else's hurts and you steady

of your own, that's when you're like Jesus. When Jesus

is on the cross, dying for the sins of all mankind,

he's not focusing on his pain.

He's saying, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.

He's still focusing on us, even in the middle of

his pain. So he says, focus scopos, try to see

their perspective before you go mouthing off on your hurt,

your need, those are legitimate, but go ahead and first

try to focus on their perspective.

Now, let's just take an example, the people that you

work with.

And you have some people who work with, and you

think that one person, they are so irritating to me.

I just they every time I get around them, my

blood starts to boil. I just don't even like being

around them. And the reason why is you don't scope posts.

You don't see their circumstance. You don't see their temperament,

and you don't see their background. The people that you

work with, the more you understand them, the more patient

you're going to be. The less you understand the people

you work with, the more impatient you're gonna be. Why

because it is human nature when you're working with people

that you tend we tend to judge how.

Far people have to go.

We look at it and go, man, they got a

long way to go before they start being mature. Instead

of looking at how far they've come. When you look

at how far they've come, then you start cutting them

some slack. And if you scope posts, you actually take

the time to get to know that jerk and find

out their temperament, their background, and the things that they're

going through their pressures, you'd cut them some slack. You go, man,

If I had a father like that, I'd probably be

irritating too. If I had gone through all the difficulty

they went through, if I had experienced that kind of prejudice,

if I had experienced that kind of bigotry, if I

had understood the hurt, if I had that hurt in

my life, I probably wouldn't be as far along as

they are. Stop looking at how far people have to go,

and start looking at how far people have come, and

then you're listening for their hurt and their perspective.

Now there are two areas.

The Bible says that you are commanded by God to

be patient with, to be understanding with, and to be

considerate of when you're dealing with anybody else. It's in

Romans chapter fifteen, verse two. We must be considerate of

the doubts and fears of others.

Circle doubts and fears.

Let's please the other fellow, not ourselves, and do what

is for his good and thus build him up in

the Lord. Anytime somebody does something that you go that

doesn't make sense, why in the world are they doing that?

It's almost always a fear.

And if you just look at their behavior, you're going

to be quite judgmental. But if you look at their

fear and you find it out, you're going to be

a whole lot more understanding. We are to be considerate

of the doubts and fears of others.

That'll make you more patient. Here's the problem.

My fears are perfectly rational and entirely normal. Your fears

are stupid, they're irrational, they don't make sense.

Yes, and that's the way we feel my fears.

There's a legitimate reason why I'm afraid of this, and

you ought to be afraid too.

You, on the other hand, your fears nah, and they

just you just pooh pull them away. Husbands, do you

pooh pooh the fears of your wife? Honey?

You shouldn't fear that way. That's very helpful, thank you. Listen,

all fears are irrational. All fears fears f e A

R false evidence, appearing real and minor, as irrational as

yours are. We just have different ways of rationalizing them.

You know what rationalize means, rational lies. We tell ourselves

rational lies. He minds are natural, yours are unnatural. Minor

normal yours are unnormal, minor.

Legitimate, yours are illegit.

No, we must be considerate of the doubts and fears

of each other.

And when you do that.

The conflict is to go down in your marriage, and

the conflict's going to go down with your kids, and

the conflict's going to go down with the people you

work with and your customers and your clients. Okay, number five,

the fifth step, after I've I've admitted my faults, and

I've listened for your hurts and perspective. Now I speak

the truth tactfully. Speak the truth tactfully. The truth sets

you free. But you've got to say it with love.

You've got to say it with kindness. You've got to

say it with tact People say, well, I just tell

it like it is. That's called being rude. Don't be

proud of that. Don't ever be proud. Well, I just

tell it like it. It means you're a jerk. It

means you don't really care about other people. You just

want to get it off your chest.

Speak the truth.

The Bible says this, look up here on the screen

Phesians four fifteen. Speak the truth what in love? The

truth is not enough. It's not just what you say,

it's how you say it. And if you say it offensively,

it will be received defensively. You must always speak truth

to your children in love.

Parents.

The moment you start yelling at your kids, they're not

listening to a word you say. All they're hearing is

the emotion, and they will remember the emotion and will

not remember the words. It doesn't work. You are never

persuasive when you are abrasive. Now, the Bible says in

Proverbs twelve, verse eighteen, reckless words pierce like a sword,

but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Now, what's

you say in there in a conflict? Foolish words hurt

and wise words heal. And it's your choice. You never

get your point across by being cross. It's all in

the way you say it. Yesterday I was abducted by

a group of young men in our church who took

me to San Diego to Comic Con, and it was

a blast. I wanted to go as Batman, but Kay

wouldn't let me. And everybody there were one hundred thousand

people at Comic Con, and I mean everybody's there. I

mean all of the superheroes are there, and all the

great TV shows and all the science fiction and all

the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Star Wars and

Star Trek, and one hundred thousand people are at this place,

and about ten percent of them were dressed up, and

it was just a lot of fun. But as one

hundred thousand people are going into the convention center in

San Diego, there are two guys, obviously Christians, standing there

with giant yellow signs with frowns on their faces, clearly

not enjoying it, not saying a word to anybody, just

standing there looking angry. And they were what I call

turn or burn, you'll die and fry while we go

to the sky signs.

Okay, one of them said repent.

It was something like repent or go to hell, you know,

something like that. And the other one said, believe on

the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. Now, the

fact is both of those are true, but they were

not speaking the truth in love. It's true I do

need to repent, and it is true I do need

to accept what Jesus Christ did for me on the cross.

I guarantee you nobody got saved yesterday from those signs,

not one single person. Why because they were speaking the truth,

but they were not speaking the truth in love.

Does this make sense?

It's not just what you said, it's how you say it.

Sometimes you watch these preachers on TV, and you know

they got an anger management issue, and they're not They're

out of whack with their wife at home, and then

they're angry at their wife and then they're coming.

To church every weekend and spiritually.

Vomiting on everybody else by, and they feel really good,

But everybody else goes home feel a little sticky.

You know, I just gotta ugh.

I mean, you take the truth of God's word, but

you wrap it in love. For instance, the Bible says

in Romans three twenty three, all of sinned and fallen

short of the glory of God. Now, I could teach

that truth to you two different ways, all of us.

I could shout it to you in anger. I could

say it like this, all of sin and all have

come short of the glory of God, and you'd go home.

Go Rick yelled at me. I don't like that, okay.

Is that the way Jesus would quote Romans three twenty three,

shouting like you was happy.

Like we're all going to hell in a handbag? It's true?

Or I don't think so. I think Jesus would say

it like this kind of matter of factly. I think

he said with a broken heart. I think he would

look out at the world and go, all of sin.

You know, everybody's wanted, everybody's messed up, nobody bats a thousand,

We've all sinned, everybody comes short of the glory of God.

I don't measure up.

To my own standards much as God's. I think that's

the way he said. You see the difference. See the

difference in that.

Now.

The Bible says in Ephesians for twenty nine, do not

use harmful words, but only helpful words, the kind that

build up and provide what is needed. That's one of

the greatest verses on parenting you can ever learn. Fact

in your marriage to your center. Your spouse is a center.

Two imperfect people cannot make a perfect relationship. So you're

gonna have conflict. You are going to fight, You're going

to argue, You're gonna have conflict the rest of your marriage.

Now the question is are you going to fight fair

or not? And what you need to do is you

need to establish some ground rules so you don't destroy

yourselves in the inevitable conflict of life. And you need

to take some words that are inflammatory and say, sorry,

these are off limits. We're just not going to use

these words. There's certain words that you can use that

trigger your spouse and enrage them. And there's certain words

your spouse uses and you that can trigger you into

rage or depression. They need to not use it. You

need to take them off and say fighting fair. We're

not gonna use these words in our marriage. One of

them is the threat of divorce. You're not gonna say, well,

then we'll get a divorce. You need to take that

one off the table. You need to close the escape

patch of your marriage. You need to lock it with

the key and throw the keyed away and say, we're

gonna make this marriage work. If it kills us, okay,

it may, but it will keep.

You going further.

During the Cold War between the communists East and the

capitalist West, between the Soviet Union and its allies and

the United States and its allies. Even in the height

of the Cold War from the nineteen fifties on about

when the Berlin Wall fell, and I think it was

eighty nine, even in the worst moments of the Cold War,

both sides agree that some weapons were off limits. We

called them WMD's weapons of mass destruction, and we said

we may fight, we.

May argue, we may have conflict, but.

We're not going to use the big one. Neither side

is going to drop the atomic bomb because of what

was called mad m a D mutually assured destruction, and

both the Soviet Union and America and our allies all

knew that if one atomic bomb was dropped, it was

over for the world.

This was going to destroy the whole place.

You need to ban the weapons of mass destruction from

your marriage. There are certain words you just need to

those are off limits. We're not going to use them,

and you need to make a list of them. And

you need to agree and say, we may be so

mad and so upset, but we're just not going to

use these words. Do not use harmful. You need to

learn to fight fair. Now that leads me to the

sixth step. Write this down. Fix the problem, not the blame.

This is the sixth key to resolving conflict and restoring

a relationship.

Like I said, this is.

Worth thousands of dollars of counseling what I'm giving you.

Fix the problem, not the blame.

You need to learn to attack the issue, not each other.

You need to realize that you're both on the same team.

Anytime you're busy fixing the blame, you are wasting energy

not fixing the problem.

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Now, God is very very specific about the kind of

words that are out of bounce. And you don't say,

but you did this, but you did that, But you

did this, but you did that, but you did this,

but you did that. That blame game is a waste

of time. Stop fixing the blame and start fixing the problem.

You got a problem with sex in your marriage. You

got a problem with finances in your marriage. You got

a problem with in laws in your marriage. You've got

a problem with children in your marriage. You got a

problem with work schedule in your marriage. Stop fixing the

blame and start fixing the problem. Now, God is very

specific about the kind of words that are out of bounce.

Colossians three eight is just one example. I could give

you dozens. I don't have time to do this. Let

me just give you one. You must rid yourself of

these WMDs, these weapons of mass destruction, of all such

things as these angry rage, malice, slander, and filthy language

from your lips. Okay, he says, in your marriage and

in your relationships, no angry rage. In other words, you

should never try to intimidate anybody with anger. You never

make threats. That doesn't work. You don't intimidate with anger

and threats. Malice means you say things that are intentionally

designed to hurt, like you're just like your mother, or

you're just like or labeling or belittling or psychologizing.

Well, now I know why you did that. No, you don't.

You can't even figure out your own motivation. How in

the world would you figure out the motivation of anybody else.

There's no way you can know anybody else with motivation

because you don't even know.

Your own half the time. And then no slander.

That means no insults, no insults, no belittling.

No labeling. Fix the problem, not the blame.

Finally, number seven, the seventh step is focus on reconciliation.

Not resolution. Focus on reconciliation not resolution. There's a big difference.

Reconciliation means re establishing the relationship. That's what it means,

re establishing the relationship. We bury the hatchet doesn't mean

we remarry if you're with an ex, it just means

we're at peace with each other. I'm not holding on

to any hurt. You're not holding any hurt. It's we

bury the hatchet, reconciliation, re establish relationship. Resolution means we

resolve every disagreement, and that ain't going to happen because

the truth is, there's some things in your marriage and

some things in your friendship and with other people you're

just never going to agree on because we're all different.

But you can disagree without being disagreeable. That's called maturity,

that's called wisdom, that's called Christ's likeness, being like Christ.

To disagree without being disagreeable. We can have unity without uniformity.

We can walk hand in hand together without seeing eye

to eye. Can and I don't see et ee on

a lot of different things, but we walk hand in

hand and we're now coming up this next year will

be our fortieth year of marriage.

All right.

You can have reconciliation without resolution. And here's what I've

learned from counseling marriages. If you focus on restoring the relationship,

oftentimes the issue becomes insignificant. How many of your biggest

arguments were over the smallest things and they weren't really

about that. And you need to get back to focusing

on the relationship. Now, let me wrap it up. Here's

my challenge to you, as your pastor who loves you.

Our world is filled with conflict. I mean it's just

pick up the newspaper. It's everywhere. And in a world

where there is constant conflict, wars, division, argumentation, stress between people,

where there are prejudices and racism and clashes, where we

have everything from violence and tribalism and terrorism and people

getting in each other's face and partisanism and people attacking

each other constantly.

And as a.

Result, we have broken relationships. We have a broken economy,

we have a broken government, we have broken marriages, and

we have broken lives and broken hearts. My challenge to

you as your pastor is that you you you will

commit to becoming an agent of reconciliation in a world

filled with conflict, that you will become a bridge builder,

not a wall builder, that you will look for ways

to bring people together rather than tear them up. Let

me show you what the Bible says. Last verse on

the screen two Corinthians five eighteen to twenty says this

God has restored our relationship with him. In other words,

God made us his friends. We were estranged, we were unreconciled.

And God has reconciled us to himself through Christ. Jesus

died for our sins, and he says, and now He

has given us this ministry.

Of restoring relationships.

Your ministry if you are a Christian, if you're a

follower of Christ, if you claim to be a man

of God, a woman of God, your ministry is the

ministry of restoring relationships. Your ministry is the ministry of reconciliation.

Your ministry is doing everything I just taught you how

to do. God was in Christ restoring his relationship with humanity.

He was reconciling us to himself.

He did not.

Hold people's faults against them, and you shouldn't either. And

He has given us this message. What is the message

the message of restored relationships? To tell others, Jesus Christ

loves you so much. He'd rather die than live without you.

He has broken down the barrier and the wall, and

he wants you to be reconciled to him. God wants

a relationship with you, and then he wants to give

you that relationship to others. The message of restored relationships

to tell others, we are Christ representatives. We beg you

on behalf of Christ to become reunited with God.

That's what it means to be a witness.

It means to God in society and say, hey, man,

God's done everything to put you back in fellowship with him.

He's already paid for all your sins. You don't have

to be his enemy. He's not mad at you, he's

mad about you. Be reckoned, stiled the God and be

at peace with God, and then spread that peace.

With everybody else. And if you do that, the Bible.

Says this, God blesses those. God blesses those who are peacemakers.

They will be called the children of God. It's a

bow our heads. Do you need to plan a peace

conference this week? Do you need to pick up the

phone and a relationship that's been starved or strangled, or

strained or even deeply broken and take these steps. It

takes courage. Tell God, I want to be a peacemaker

this week. I want my prayers answered, I want happiness.

I want to be in.

Fellowship with you.

So I want to restore the relationships that have been broken.

And God, I'm scared to death. Just tell him that

help me.

You need to make a peace plan for your home

and make a list of the WMDs you go these

are off limits for us. We just let's agree that

we're never going to use these words again in our marriage.

Maybe you've never made peace with God, and if you're

at war with God and you've never received Jesus Christ

as your savior, you need the peace of God so

you can have the peace of God. Say in your heart,

Jesus Christ, I admit that I've made many mistakes and

I need your forgiveness. And the biggest mistake is I've

tried to run my life without you. I've tried to

pretend like I was God. And I'm sorry, and I

humbly ask you, Jesus, to save me, and I ask

you to come into my life fill me with your

peace and your love so I can share your peace and.

Love with others.

Fathers, Pastor, I pray for these people, these dear people,

that we would become agents of reconciliation in a world

of conflict and where there is strife, that we might

bring peace. And I pray this, giving you the glory

and asking for you to give us the courage and love.

I pray this blessing in the name of the Father

and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.