Navigating Strained & Broken Relationships

Little disclaimer in the message today.

If you have young kids with you in the room, we have amazing kids' stuff, but sometimes you might choose to have your kids with you in the room.

We are going to be talking about something a little bit that is at the very least PG 13.

And so uh if I'm just giving you that warning, if you want to go check a kid in right now, you can totally do that.

Our kids' areas are awesome.

Our high school students are with us this morning.

Let's hear it for our high school students there in the room this morning.

Yep.

You have all seen PG-13 movies, I'm going to assume.

Is that correct?

All right, cool.

You'll be fine.

No, no, it's uh we're just gonna cover something that is important, but if you have really young kids with you, you might want to check them in fair or get ready to have an awesome conversation in the car.

Up to you.

It's gonna be great.

We are wrapping something up this morning that we have called the Summer of Wisdom.

We've been exploring uh several parts of Scripture that are often referred to as wisdom literature, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes.

Heath did an unbelievable job covering Ecclesiastes last Sunday with a message about how to keep your faith simple.

That was great.

And on top of us just looking at what the scriptures have to say about various topics in life, we have allowed you guys to help shape what we talk about.

We've had a number, and you've been able to text into that number, and I have been personally responding to each one.

I counted this morning.

I'm all caught up.

I've got a few people that I have phone calls scheduled with this week.

We've had 138 different people send a problem or an issue.

And every single one of those I've had a chance to share with.

Some of those have been fairly short answers, a lot of those have been lots of back and forth.

Many of those have been phone calls, a few of those have been meetings that have been set up or have happened.

And man, it has been a blessing for me to see what you guys are dealing with.

So thank you for that.

We're not gonna keep that number going on forever for my sanity.

Um but occasionally we'll we'll do this again.

And it has truly been an honor to read what you guys are going through and have a chance to respond.

A few weeks ago, we started talking about relationships.

Relationships are hard.

One of my favorite proverbs is that a barn with no oxen always stays clean, but much strength is gained by an ox.

In other words, life without people is in a lot of ways a lot easier.

Like if you want to live your life secluded, cut off from people, you know, maybe you have a really small circle and that is it, and you don't you don't do the whole people thing very much, in many ways your life, at least for a time, is gonna be a lot cleaner because people are messy.

But man, people are so often God's plan A for life.

People are who God uses.

We are God's primary instrument to do his will in this world.

So much so that when it came to saving us from our sin, God became a person to do that.

God uses people, and so if we want to get things done, if we want to see life go to places it could never go on our own, we've got to have the right people in our lives.

And so a few weeks ago, we talked about what the scriptures teach us about having the right people around us.

And as a quick recap, Ecclesiastes 4, 9 and 10 says that two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed.

If one person falls, the other can reach out and help.

But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.

Proverbs 18, 24 says, one who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 17, 17, a friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.

When you're in a season of adversity, life is not cooperating, you need the right people around you.

Proverbs 27, 17, as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

You need people in your life who sharpen you.

You need friends who aren't just funny and fun and share common interests.

You need friends who challenge you to live life better.

When you spend time with them, you are challenged to become a better version of yourself.

You need iron sharpens iron friendships.

And so a few weeks ago, we had kind of a general conversation about how to how to value those types of friendships, how to discern the right people and how to prioritize them in our lives.

One of the greatest blessings that I have, and I'll be honest, most of it has come through this church.

One of the greatest blessings I have are dear friends who I love.

I'm for them, I know that they're for me, and I know that if anything happened to them, I'm there for them, if anything happened to me, they're here for me.

And there's just a safety net that's a beautiful thing in life when you have people like that around you.

But here's the challenge even the right people can make the wrong decisions.

Even if you have the right people around you, things can go in the wrong direction.

And so I would say that about a third of all the texts that I've received as we've been going through this series have been about broken relationships.

And how do we navigate those?

How do we navigate broken strained relationships?

Whether it's in our marriage, close friends, I've had a lot of texts from adult parents whose also adult children, they have broken strained relationships or adult children who have more adult parents, and there's broken and strained relationships, and no one knows how to navigate it.

Messages from husbands and wives going through divorce or separation, and it's painful.

There have been so many messages about broken relationships.

And even if you haven't sent one, you know what those feel like.

There's few things in life, maybe nothing, that can cause more stress and more pain than a broken, strained relationship.

And so even if you have the right people, the right spouse, the right parents, the right kids, you don't really get to choose those.

But even if you have all of those things correct, things can go the wrong direction, and we're gonna have to navigate through that.

Now, what we're gonna do today is go over several, in many ways, disconnected ideas, because what I want to do as we close this series out is I want to address some of the major issues that I've seen that you all have shared with me.

And so some of these are gonna seem like very random topics, but the through line, the connection on all of these is these are the most prevalent things that you have expressed to me as the source of brokenness in your relationships, and I want to deal with them bit by bit.

Does that make sense?

So my hope is that you'll all get something out of all this.

Maybe think about it like if you ever go to eat and you get an appetizer that's like a sampler and it's just like a bunch of different things.

That's kind of what the message is today.

These are different topics that have been chosen by you and what you've shared.

I want to do justice to all of them.

They may not seem like they completely connect, but they do, because again, all of them, all of them are related to broken strain relationships and how to navigate that and move forward.

Make sense?

I want to start in an interesting place.

Um, I've had a lot of people text in about relationships that are over.

Like, what do you do when it's over?

And this specifically applies, I think, to a lot of us who who have experienced divorce in marriage.

And sometimes it's not even your choice.

You may have done everything in your power, whether it's with a spouse or a close friend, you may have done everything in your power to try to fix things, to try to make things right, but that person can still decide to reject you and leave.

And what do you do when it's over?

Maybe you had a part to play in that, maybe it was in many ways your fault, or maybe it wasn't at all.

Maybe the other person just went a different direction and hurt you severely.

But what do you do when the relationship, for all intents and purposes, is over?

How do you move on from that?

How do you heal?

I've had a lot of people ask questions about that, and I want to share something with you, and we'll move on.

1 Peter 5, verse 10 says that in his kindness, God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus.

1 Peter 5:10

So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.

Never underestimate God's ability to restore and replace.

Even if you've experienced loss in a relationship and you've been rejected, first remember that God knows that feeling very well.

No one has been rejected more than God.

No one's been rejected more severely than Jesus.

So he understands that pain.

But if you've experienced a relationship and the other person has said, no, I don't want any part of you, it's over.

Never underestimate God's ability to restore or replace.

Do not lose hope.

I got a really interesting reminder of this just a few weeks ago.

I want to show you guys a picture that will not mean much to you, but it means the world to me.

And I'm gonna explain this with a story that I think I've told once, but not in its fullness.

It's kind of an odd story.

So this picture is a picture to me of God's unbelievable faithfulness.

It's a picture of chairs, some of which we pulled out this morning and are in the very back.

But uh, that was a picture taken just a couple of weeks ago in this back room that we used to have full of extra chairs, but as we've grown, like all the chairs have come out.

And over the last year or so, especially as we've experienced a lot of growth, we've had a lot of situations where we're like out of chairs.

And they're not cheap, and we try to be really wise financially.

But what's made that extra hard is that about seven years ago, a local pastor stole 200 chairs from our church.

I'm not lying.

This is a true story.

So here's the way, here's the way it happened.

This is crazy.

Um, and I won't use his name, even though I really want to.

Uh he has since moved, he lives in Memphis.

He's still a pastor, still stealing chairs for all I know.

But I got to know this guy because I was part of a group of pastors that would just meet occasionally and we would pray for each other and we would share things with each other, and sometimes we try to one-up each other a little bit if we were being honest, but we just met together to try to support each other.

And this guy would share that things were really, they weren't going well at his church.

He was struggling.

And and I had a heart for this guy.

We all we all did.

We cared about him.

And I remember asking him one day, hey, is there anything we could do to help you?

And he said, Man, to be honest with you, chairs.

And I was like, Oh, what do you mean?

He said, Listen, in our church, things are just going really hard.

All we have are these metal folding chairs, and it's really hard, you know, it's not comfortable, and we're trying to grow, and people are having to sit in those chairs.

Like, what do we do?

And I said, Man, well, we have about 200 chairs that are not currently out.

We we weren't the size that we are now, so we had chairs in storage.

I was like, we've got about 200 chairs that we really only pull out for like Christmas and Easter, and they're just in a storage room.

I mean, we'll need them for Christmas and Easter, but rather than store them at a in some closet, what if they were at your church and you guys could have those week in and week out?

Then if we ever need them, you know, we'll work something out and get them back or whatever.

And he was like, that would be amazing.

So we worked it out.

He came, he had a truck, we loaded up the chairs, took them there.

Okay?

It was great.

Not that long afterward, the church ended up folding.

But the building they were in got taken over by another church.

I happen to know the pastor of that church too.

And so I called him and I said, Hey man, just let you know, there's about 200 of our chairs that are there.

I don't need them back right now or anything, but I just wanted you to know where those have come from.

You can use them, but if you want to use something else, that's fine.

And he was like, Oh, there's no chairs here.

And I was like, No, it is hard to hide 200 chairs, okay?

I'm like, no, there's 200 chairs.

And he's like, I promise you they're not there.

And I was like, What in the world?

So come to find out, this pastor that had borrowed our chairs sold them and pocketed the money before he left town.

I know.

Right?

Who steals chairs?

Actually, credit to where credit's due, it's genius.

Because when you see stacks of chairs, you don't think money, but he did.

And those are actually pretty expensive, and you can sell them online.

So, anyway, what makes it even crazier is that uh is that like a month later, the pastor that had taken over that building called me and said, Dude, you won't believe what happened.

He said, Another pastor came looking for his chairs.

Yeah.

Dude did it at least twice.

At least twice.

And same thing.

I don't know how many pastors he did too.

I know of two.

So he left town and he started another church in Memphis, Tennessee.

I used to live in Memphis, so um I called some buddies of mine to pay him a visit.

No, I didn't do that.

Uh I did used to live in Memphis, but no, I didn't do that.

Man, it it I stewed though.

Like I forgave, kind of.

It just really, it really what bothered me most of all is that he was at like another church, and I would see just posts about how God was blessing things, and I was like, oh man, I could bring you down.

This would be a church scandal to rock the entire nation.

You know, Pat, no.

I really struggled with it.

Eventually, eventually we spoke.

Eventually we spoke.

And he admitted to it.

He said, Yeah, I totally did that.

I stole your chairs.

I did it to other people as well.

And what's funny is I was I forgave him, but I also kind of, we needed chairs.

And he he apologized.

He didn't offer to replace them or anything, that would have been great.

But I even asked him, I said, Well, hey man, like we are growing so much, we are we are out of chairs, and obviously we could go buy new chairs at full price, but they are very expensive.

We're trying to be smart with money.

Um, do you do you remember who you sold them to?

Because I would love to go buy them back from who you sold them to, because they match all our stuff.

And he's like, dude, he said, man, I was on so many drugs back then, I don't remember who I sold them to.

That's what he told me.

It gets worse, right?

Look, I'm actually, at the end of the day, it's okay.

It's okay because I'm grateful for an opportunity to forgive someone.

And we are all capable of far worse than we imagined.

And so it was a good chance to say, okay, well, we're never gonna get that restored, but I forgive you, peace be with you, whatever.

And then about two weeks ago, three weeks ago, Andy on our staff sends me a picture of these brown chairs.

And he's like, Justin, I was talking to uh somebody that works at, I don't know if it's a church or another organization, and they have 200 of these, and they they need to get rid of them, and they wondered if we just want them.

And I was like, and he sent me a picture, and they are I mean, they're brown chairs.

They're not the ones, they're not exactly the ones.

That would have been even better, but but they're in great shape, and it's the exact number that he stole.

And I was like, are you serious?

Yes.

And so those are now in our our our storage closet.

Yeah.

We were even able to uh those of you sitting in the back rows, I saw us bust those out this morning.

We had extra chairs for the first time in like a year.

Never underestimate God's ability to replace or restore.

I saw that as something that was just over and done with, and God said, No, I have a way to replace this.

And it wasn't when I expected or how I expected.

Some of you have had relationships and they went the wrong way, and it's over, and your heart is broken.

You tried everything you could try to protect that relationship, to save that relationship, but that person decided no.

And you may never be able to change that person's heart.

But God can.

Or, if he doesn't do it that way, in some other way that you don't understand or couldn't understand at this moment if God showed you, he will replace what's been lost.

So don't lose hope.

If a relationship is broken to the point that it's over, don't lose hope.

God, he can do anything.

He can replace.

We have chairs.

Let's shift gears.

This is gonna be a little bit of a heavy shift.

This is like a wheel being jerked in a car.

Sexual immorality.

There you go.

Beautiful transition.

Just smooth.

Really set that one up well.

Oh man.

You talk about broken and strained relationships.

The number of messages that I have had over the course of this summer specifically dealing with strain, brokenness, anger, resentment, betrayal, hurt in relationships as a result of sexual immorality of some kind.

I can't even, I mean, it's it's been an incredible number.

And I've had a lot of conversations, a lot of long conversations with people on the phone who have experienced a spouse that's had an affair.

Or maybe it's pornography or something like that that's that's involved.

Or even in some situations, the residual effects years down the road of even sexual morality that happened in the relationship they're currently in years ago, and now it's kind of reared its head at a later date.

Um, I want to say this on the front end of this part of the conversation.

Who's having fun, by the way?

Woo! Yeah.

Look.

Um, anytime we talk about something like this, there is a high propensity for shame.

A few years ago we did a series called The Biblical Sexual Ethic, and we explored what does scripture actually say is healthy human sexual behavior, and essentially you could boil it down to heterosexual, monogamous relationships where sex or sexual activity is saved for marriage and then is exclusive to marriage.

The reality is very few people, if we're being honest, very few people have lived that perfectly.

And so anytime we talk about something like this, our enemy, Satan, who is an accuser, that is what Satan does.

He accuses us.

We start feeling accusation, we start feeling shame and guilt.

And I want you to know on the front end of this, that is not the intention of this part of the conversation.

You are not supposed to be ashamed in this space, okay?

We have multiple examples in scripture of what happens when Jesus comes across someone who is living in sexual sin.

The woman at the well is living with someone she's not married to, she's been married like five times before.

Jesus comes across this woman caught in adultery, in the act of adultery, brought to him.

And in zero of those types of situations does Jesus go, Oh my goodness, you disgust me.

How could you?

He never heaps on shame.

Every one of those people gets love, they get forgiveness, they get dignity.

And so listen, if if you have found yourself on the wrong side of that, I mean, so have I.

And what that means is that we have to receive the forgiveness that God has given us, we have to forgive ourselves and be willing to forgive others, because we've been on the wrong side of that too.

And at the same time, we have to take it really seriously because we have experienced firsthand how damaging that can be.

We live in a culture that is obsessed with sex.

Obsessed with it.

So much so that it raises sex to a level that it's it's never been meant to be.

A little bit of an interesting example of that would actually be how difficult it is to have conversations in our culture related to homosexuality as it relates to our faith and what scripture says about it.

That's a very dicey topic for a lot of people, and I understand that.

But one of the biggest reasons why is because this is very new, by the way, like almost brand new in the history of the world, is that our culture and our world has become so obsessed with sex that we have elevated sexual behavior to the level of personal identity.

Where people feel that their sexual desires are the most core part of who they are, so much so that if someone tells them you should deny those desires, that is like saying you should deny who you are.

That's never been the way this has been looked at in history.

When Paul in the New Testament wrote to the church, the early church, he said, Hey guys, I hear that this is going on.

Don't do that.

Don't be doing that stuff.

You look at something like 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 18 and 20, Paul says, run from sexual sin.

1 Corinthians 6:18

No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does.

For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body.

Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?

You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price, so you must honor God with your body.

When Paul would write to the early Christians and say, guys, stop it, he wasn't telling them to deny who they were, he was telling them to change their behavior.

And they would have seen it as such.

But our culture has gotten so obsessed with this that we have risen, uh, we've raised sexual behavior to the level of personal identity.

And that's created so much confusion.

Satan thrives on confusion.

Sexual sin, it just affects us and those around us in incredibly damaging ways.

Listen to what Proverbs chapter 5 has to say about it.

Proverbs 5 · chapter mention

And just so you know, ladies, uh, Solomon is going to personify like temptation as a woman right here.

Um, but he also personifies wisdom as a woman as well.

So it's kind of like he's writing to a dude who has a choice between two.

Wisdom is a female, so is temptation.

So I just want you to know that.

Um, so you don't get mad at Solomon, even though he's been dead for a very long time.

Okay.

And by the way, if you know his story, when he died, a lot of women were really mad at him.

Okay, so Proverbs chapter 5, verse 8.

Proverbs 5:8

It says, Stay away from her.

Don't go near the door of her house.

If you do, you will lose your honor, and you will lose to merciless people all you have achieved.

Strangers will consume your wealth, and someone else will enjoy the fruit of your labor.

In the end, you will groan in anguish when disease consumes your body.

You will say, How I hated discipline.

If only I had not ignored all the warnings.

Oh, why didn't I listen to my teachers?

Why didn't I pay attention to my instructors?

I've come back to the brink of utter ruin, and now I must face public disgrace.

Drink water from your own well, share your love only with your wife.

Why spill the water of your springs in the streets, having sex with just anyone?

You should reserve it for yourselves.

Never share it with strangers.

There's just something about sexual sin that cuts a little bit deeper.

And it hurts more.

And when betrayal happens in that area, forgiveness is it's extra hard.

And many of you have experienced that in one way or another.

And so no matter what your past is, don't let shame dominate your mind.

At the same time, understand that if you want to have healthy relationships and specifically healthy romantic relationships, guard that dearly.

Guard it.

What that means is that if you're married, set up boundaries in your life that would prevent that from even happening.

Look, when I first became the youth pastor here years ago, a couple of the guys that were leading me, Steve and Doug, met with me and they asked me to make a commitment.

They said, hey, never meet with a woman one-on-one that is not your wife.

Don't do that.

And that's something that like I've kept all these years.

And it's actually been been great.

It actually saved me from a lot of really awkward conversations that I didn't want to have.

Because I could just be like, oh, I'm so sorry.

I don't meet with women one-on-one.

Do you want to meet with my wife and I?

And they're like, no.

And I'm like, yay.

I'm just being honest.

But but it I'm I never would have thought to give myself that boundary.

I just don't think at 23 years old it would have crossed my mind.

But it made so much sense.

And so that's something that, by the way, our whole staff puts in place, or they should.

And if that's something that goes the other way, like that, they've one we've made a mistake and we got to correct that.

Like, let me know.

But we just we don't do that.

The only time that we would ever have a meeting with someone of the opposite sex would be here at the office in the conference room that has glass walls, like when other people are in the office.

I'm so grateful for that boundary because it just made it made it extra easy for me to avoid temptation.

To the point where, listen, I'm saying this as your pastor, if you saw me just at a restaurant with a woman that is not Megan, I should get fired.

Like seriously.

Even if we're just having a meal, because that's a commitment that I'm not saying you should get fired from your job if you're like, I'm just saying that's a commitment that I have made, and I'm saying this out loud in front of everybody.

It's a commitment that we make as a staff.

I've crossed the line.

I'm not talking about being fearful, I'm talking about being wise, just being smart.

Listen to what Proverbs chapter 25 says, verse 28.

Proverbs 25 · chapter mention

A person without self-control is like a city with broken down walls.

I love that it likens self-control to the walls that would surround an ancient city.

You need boundaries.

You need to establish in your life barriers that protect you.

Ancient cities, they would always build walls around them.

No king in their right mind would have said, My soldiers are so great, we don't need walls, bring it.

You'd just be wasting your soldiers with every little skirmish that comes along.

No, you build, you build walls, you build boundaries around your life to protect your life from a lot of those little temptations that are going to come.

And so I just want to encourage you, do that.

Do that.

If you're, look, if you're in a serious relationship and you're not married yet, even if you've already moved in together and you're doing that, which by the way, studies show that that makes marriage even harder.

And if you've already done that, look, the past is the past, let it go.

But but just know that it's a concept called sliding into marriage.

It makes it tougher.

Studies show it, read about it.

But just make a change now.

Whatever's happened in the past is the past.

But from this moment on, you can say, you know what, we're gonna do it the right way.

We're gonna do it right, we're gonna do it in a way that honors God, and it's it's not punitive, it is protective.

It is protective in your life.

Last little thing I'll say, and we'll move on from this.

Um, in our day and age, man, just phones, the internet makes this so much harder.

Because sexual morality can be something that we engage in in an anonymous way, and I just want you to know if that's something you struggle with, pornography, whatever it might be, um, man, listen to Jesus in Matthew chapter 5.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

You've heard the commandment that says you must not commit adultery, but I say anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

So if your eye, even your good eye, causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away.

It's better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And if your hand, even your stronger hand, causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.

It's better for you to lose one part of your body than your whole body to be thrown into hell.

And listen, if you've ever been through an affair or sexual sin in a deep relationship, you know that that is hell on earth.

And so look, if your smartphone causes you to sin, throw it away.

If an iPhone causes you to stumble, get a different phone.

If Instagram creates temptation in your life, delete the app.

And I will just tell you get accountability, share your struggle with somebody.

I have I have friends, look, I've talked about my struggle.

I I was introduced to pornography in the third grade, and I didn't fully know what it was or understand how serious it was.

I also knew it was wrong.

I wasn't like, hey mom, guess what I saw today?

Um like I knew it was wrong, so I hit it.

And it was a battle that I fought for so long, and it had the best of me for a long, long time.

But even to this day, I have blocks on my phone, and I don't have an I don't have a phone that's wide open.

Why would I do that?

That would be like a former alcoholic carrying a flask of whiskey in their pocket every day, hoping they don't take a drink.

So be wise, have boundaries, put things in place to protect you from that temptation.

Because sexual sin, it just devastates relationships.

Make sense?

Woo! All right.

Let's move on to something way less heavy, but just as difficult.

Let's talk about conflict for a minute.

Again, I told you it's kind of like a grab bag of topics, but the through line is broken relationships.

Is anyone here, just be honest, anyone here afraid of contact?

Or conflict?

Sometimes conflict involves contact, hopefully not.

But is anyone here afraid of conflict?

You avoid it.

Some of you are just afraid to raise your hand right now because you're afraid that that's going to create conflict with a person sitting next to you.

Okay.

Oh man.

Jesus, you can say a lot of things about Jesus.

Jesus was not afraid of conflict.

He did not avoid conflict.

Mark chapter 3.

Mark 3 · chapter mention

It says that Jesus went into the synagogue and noticed a man with a deformed hand.

And since it was the Sabbath, Jesus' enemies watched him closely.

Remember that in their culture, work was forbidden on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees were so backwards in their thinking about God that they would have viewed a person as being miraculously healed as work that was done on the Sabbath.

So Jesus sees this man, he knows he can heal him, but it's it's the Sabbath.

Saturday for them, it'll be like Sunday for us.

And Jesus is going, Man, if I heal that guy, they're gonna get mad.

Because instead of focusing on the miracle, they'll be like, Well, you did it on the wrong day.

Like, literally.

It says, Jesus' enemies watched him closely.

If he healed the man's hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath.

So they're watching.

It's like a trap that's been set for him.

Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, Come and stand in front of everyone.

He didn't do it discreetly.

He didn't say, Hey, meet me later when no one's watching.

He could have.

Then he turned to his critics and he asked, Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath?

Or is it a day for doing evil?

Is this a day to save life or destroy it?

But they would not answer him.

He looked around at them angrily.

He was deeply saddened by their hard hearts.

I love that.

He just stares at them.

Like, what's wrong with you guys?

And then he said to the man, Hold out your hand.

So the man held out his hand and it was restored.

And at once the Pharisees went away and met with the supporters of Herod to plot how to kill Jesus.

Now we're going to come back to this here in just a minute because Jesus gives us a master class on how to have good conflict, right here?

But just know that Jesus is not afraid of conflict.

God is a warrior.

He is not afraid of conflict.

And sometimes tremendous harm happens in our lives because we just avoid conflict.

There's something that happened.

Think about it this way.

Let's use, I'm going to use marriage as an example because I think it's an easy one, but this can apply to lots of relationships.

How many of you married your high school sweetheart?

Just out of curiosity.

Oh, not that many of us.

How many of you are glad you didn't marry your high school sweetheart when you look back?

Yeah.

Some of you were like, she was nuts.

I married my high school sweetheart.

And I'm really grateful for that.

Like we've been together for so long.

And when we looked at each other on our wedding day, when we stared in each other's eyes, we were so we were just so in love.

It was like we used to say things to each other before we got married, like, you are perfect.

We don't say that as often anymore.

Um because we know it'd be a lie.

We just know each other too well.

No, but when you got married, you were just delighted, right?

You were just this person is just wow.

But then what happens, inevitably, quickly, is that person disappoints you.

You just you do something and you you disappoint them.

You don't live up to their expectation.

And maybe that's unfair, or maybe it's well deserved.

And if you don't deal with that disappointment right then and there, it has a tendency to grow.

That doesn't mean there's not things you just look over.

Sometimes you just overlook it and go, yeah, just move past it, whatever.

But but if you have a real disappointment, something really bothers you, and you don't address it because you don't like conflict, it doesn't tend to go away.

And it grows, and eventually it really bothers you.

And it gets a little deeper and a little deeper and a little deeper, and then one day you're just like full of resentment, and they're like, What did I do?

And just bah, like everything comes out.

Because you never dealt with the disappointments when they were small.

You avoided conflict, and so the problem grew.

Now it's much bigger than it would have been had you dealt with it earlier.

We can't avoid conflict.

There's times wisely to let something go, but as a way of life, be like Jesus and have healthy conflict.

Now, thankfully, Jesus actually gives us a blueprint for how to do this.

In Matthew chapter 18, Jesus says, if another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense.

Matthew 18 · chapter mention

If the other person listens and confesses it, you've won the person back.

But if you're unsuccessful, take one or two others with you and go back again so that everything you say may be confirmed by two or three witnesses.

If the person still refuses to listen, take your case to the church.

And if they won't accept the church's decision, treat that person as a pagan or as a corrupt tax collector.

Now, again, we know that Jesus loves restoration and reconciliation.

He's just saying, listen, before you ever get to where you're like, hey, you're not part of my life anymore, Jesus is saying, make every attempt.

Go to them privately, and then bring someone else, and then get your church involved.

Can I let you guys know?

I've been full-time at his hands now for almost 20 years.

I've been the lead pastor for 11 years.

Do you know how many times in that entire span I've had someone have an issue going on in a relationship and they've gotten to the point where they've come and asked for help in mediation?

Zero.

It's never happened.

It's never happened.

We've had people that say we need counseling, and that I guess counts.

We will go and help them find counseling.

But I'm saying I've actually never seen someone go through this process the way that Jesus recommends.

Let's explore this for a moment.

Number one, Jesus says that if you're the person who's offended, if someone has hurt you, you need to go and talk to them.

And a lot of times we're like, well, they should come to me.

They're the one that messed up.

But people have an amazing ability to do the wrong thing and not even realize they did it.

People can say really hurtful, rude things and not know.

I'll use, again, I've used a lot of marriage analogies, but as a married man, it is very often that I go, I did something and I don't know what it was.

I said, I clearly, because I can tell she's upset and I don't think she's she's being crazy.

I and I go, What did I what did I say?

And I'm being honest, I don't know.

And sometimes she'll look at me like, you seriously don't know what you said.

I'm like, I honestly don't.

And she'll tell me and I go, that makes sense.

Yes, that was, yes, okay.

No, sometimes something can hurt you deeply, and the other person gives it no thought.

They just move on with their day.

So if you wait for them to come to you, that may never happen.

If you've been hurt or offended, you've got to initiate.

But check this out.

Matthew chapter 5, verses 23 and 24, Jesus says, if you're presenting a sacrifice at the altar in the temple, and you suddenly remember someone has something against you.

Matthew 5:23

In this scenario, you're in the middle of a worship song.

You're about to give financially or something as a way to worship God, like you're in the act of doing something to worship God.

And you're like, oh, that one person has an issue with me.

Jesus says, leave your sacrifice there at the altar, go and be reconciled to that person.

Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

This, by the way, is how I uh mentally deal with the fact that sometimes people might get up and leave while I'm talking.

And I'll just go, they're probably just going to reconcile with someone.

They probably just realized it's definitely not something I said.

They're just, they love Jesus so much, they're gonna go reconcile right now.

And I'm grateful for it.

Um so Jesus tells us in Matthew 18, hey, if you're the one who gets offended, go initiate the conversation.

But then in Matthew 5, he says, if you realize that they're offended, go initiate the conversation.

What are we supposed to do with that?

The takeaway is be an initiator of reconciliation, no matter how it happens.

If you're the one that's offended, go initiate reconciliation.

If you're the one that knows that they're offended and they haven't come to you, go initiate reconciliation.

I cannot tell you how much I did not enjoy planning this part of the message this week.

Because I had three relationships come to my mind.

And I was like, dang it.

I am either gonna stand on stage and be a hypocrite or I have to have some unpleasant conversations.

And so I made one phone call to a guy who had no idea that he had upset me.

This is years ago, years ago.

A guy that was older than me and kind of a mentor in a lot of ways in my life, and loved the guy, but I was like, hey man, years ago, I've been holding on to this.

I just realized it this week, I've been holding on to it.

When I hear your name, I get a little angry.

You have people like that?

Yeah, you do.

And so, just be honest.

And so I called him and he was like, I had no idea.

And I was like, Yep, and dude, I recognize that even as I say it, it's so dumb.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry for being offended.

But we had a quick conversation and we're good.

There's another guy, and I called him and he answered, and he didn't have time to talk, but we're gonna get together in like a week or two, and I am not looking forward to that conversation at all.

But I'm gonna have it.

And then there was another person that I text and they haven't responded yet.

We'll see what happens.

I was just convicted as I was studying this and preparing for this that, oh, we're supposed to initiate reconciliation, and I've got some relationships that need reconciled, and I'm just sitting around doing nothing.

Be an initiator of reconciliation, and if it goes sideways, just know at least that you were doing what the Lord asked.

That's where it starts.

Be an initiator of reconciliation.

Notice also that the point is to win them back.

The point is for reconciliation.

It's not to be vindicated, it's not to say your peace, it's not to be heard, and then you can walk away being like, Yeah, I finally said it.

The heart behind it should be to win them back, to be reconciled.

So remember that.

And then he gives us some steps.

He's like, first, go to them privately, not first talk to a bunch of other people.

I think it's good to have maybe one person that's a mentor to you that you want to run things by, like, hey, am I thinking about this wrong?

Help me out for the purpose of doing it right.

But don't go and talk to a bunch of people first and get them all riled up about it and agreeing with you so you feel better about yourself and you feel justified.

That just creates more and more strife and division.

Go right to the person you have a problem with.

And if it doesn't work, bring someone along.

Like, do that.

Some of you are like, I would never do that because it would be awkward.

Yes.

If if you could master the ability to embrace awkward conversations, you will go far in life.

Like that's a superpower.

If you can just be like, I am capable of having awkward conversations, you'll probably be the CEO of a company one day.

I don't know, because very few people are willing to do that.

Bring someone with you, and if that doesn't work, and this is this is based on the assumption they're a believer, bring bring a pastor, bring someone at the church, and for the purpose of reconciliation, a third party that can help that out, see what happens.

Okay, so initiate reconciliation.

Seek reconciliation, make sure that's your goal, and then follow the steps that Jesus takes.

Go right to that person, then get someone else involved, then bring someone else, even on we'll as a church, we will do that.

We will help you.

I've just never had someone ask.

All right, we're gonna wrap up.

I didn't tell you guys this, but we have a bunch of people getting baptized today.

So I'm looking at the clock.

We gotta we gotta land the plan.

That's exciting.

And honestly, we've got we've got a bunch of kids getting baptized today and an adult.

We have one adult and a bunch of kids, and just so you know, if you're new to his hands, our kid stuff is we love kids.

And when kids, when they go on with Jesus, look, it is not cute.

It's not like a junior baptism, and they get the junior Holy Spirit in their life, and it's every bit as real and powerful as it is when someone who's a fully grown adult makes that decision.

So we're gonna celebrate that in a second.

But here's what I want to wrap up with and say.

And we're gonna take Lord's Supper as we do this.

And so if you guys came in and if you're new and you didn't know this, we have little cups with bread and juice at the back.

There's tables that you walked by, but you may have not noticed.

And so if you want to go grab that now, you're not messing anything up.

Feel free to do that.

And uh, and if you don't want to do that, because it feels awkward, then you'll know next week, the tables in the back.

But you're all invited to take this with us.

Every week we finish by taking Lord's Supper.

Sometimes we move it around a little bit.

But I love it because it gets our eyes on Jesus.

And I will tell you this: he is a reconciler.

And I covered a few specific topics.

I covered, you know, how to have conflict in a Christ-like way, how to initiate reconciliation and be willing to embrace the awkward and have that conversation directly with the person.

That's what Jesus recommends.

I mentioned, I should have done this, that masterclass that Jesus gave us on conflict, whenever he talked to the Pharisees when he healed the man's hand.

Notice that he made the conflict about an idea, not about them.

So rather than say, you guys are the worst, he says, Hey, is it wrong to do good on the Sabbath?

He made it about a concept.

If you want to have good conflict, have conflict about ideas.

Like, hey, do you think it'd be a good idea if this was better in our relationship?

Hey, do you think it makes sense for us to do things a little more this way?

Let that be the starting point.

But just know this: Jesus is willing to endure anything for reconciliation.

He endured the cross so that we could be reconciled to God.

We need one another.

We need great relationships.

We need to have relationships that sharpen us, that strengthen us.

All of us need that.

We need friends.

We need partners, we need companions.

We need people who we can love passionately, who love us in return.

And we're all brothers and sisters through our relationship with Jesus.

So we've got to love each other, we've got to be there for each other.

But it is inevitable, even if you have the right people around you, that things will go the wrong direction.

And so never lose hope.

Remember that God can restore and replace what's broken.

Be very, very mindful of the things that are often the main culprits of division in broken relationships.

Guard your heart against those things that Satan would use to cause you so much shame, such feelings of betrayal, that it makes reconciliation even harder.

Be very careful with those things.

And when it comes to reconciliation, remember that we would not know God if Jesus hadn't been our mediator.

We would not have a relationship with God the Father if Jesus hadn't reconciled us to God.

We did not do this.

We do not have a relationship with Jesus because we're worthy.

We don't have a relationship with God the Father.

We're not adopted as his children because he just said, ah, whatever.

No, Jesus paid the price for our sin.

He died on our behalf.

He gave himself up as a sacrifice, and in that way, he reconciled us to God.

And if Jesus cares that much about reconciliation and right relationships, that he was willing to do that so that we could be restored in our relationship with the Father, then how much more should we be people who seek reconciliation in our lives?

Willing to inconvenience ourselves to be in a right relationship with the people that we care about.

So with that in mind, let's pray.

We're going to thank him for the bread.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for this piece of bread and what it represents.

This is your body.

And this wasn't just an offering to pay a price for sin.

This was a means of reconciliation.

You did this to restore a relationship.

The relationship between our Heavenly Father and us.

We couldn't have done that.

So, Lord, as we take this, we thank you for being the reconciler that you are and help us have a heart for that as well.

It's in your name we pray, Jesus.

Let's take the bread.

Now we'll pray for the juice.

Lord, thank you for this juice and what this represents.

This is your blood spilled for us.

It's poured out as an offering to cleanse us.

Lord, sometimes broken relationships cause so much pain.

Sometimes we bleed, even if it's metaphorically, we we bleed, Lord, because of the pain that happens in our brokenness.

But I pray, Jesus, that as we take this, we remember that you were willing to suffer, to make things right.

Help us be willing, Lord, to suffer a little bit in order to make things right with those that we have broken relationships with.

Help us care about it that deeply because you did.

We pray this in your name, Jesus.

Let's take the juice.