Here are the notes from this last Sunday night…you can listen to the message online

Every relationship no matter how good or godly will experience friction.

Conflict is normal & inevitable.
Why?
- Fallen World [John 16:33]
- Beliefs [Acts 15:1-35]
- Perspective [Acts 36-41]
- Preference/Personality [Phil. 4:2-3]
- Selfishness [James 4:1-3]

Conflict is an Opportunity to Grow.
As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17

Why Conflict is hard to resolve?
There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Prov. 14:12

- We choose the wrong Moment. [Prov. 15:23]
A person finds joy in giving an apt reply—and how good is a timely word!

- We have the wrong Emotion. [Prov. 15:18]
A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel.

- We use the wrong Method. [Prov. 15:1]
A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

Stew/Stuff – Passive [Ticking Time Bomb] Turtle – Retreat
Seep – Passive-Aggressive [Prayer Request/Facebook Post]
Spew – Aggressive [Hand Grenade] Shark – React

- We lack personal Objectivity. [Jer. 17:9]
The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?

6 Steps to resolving conflict healthily:

Step 1: Define the problem [own your own]. [Prov. 15:14]
The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly. Prov. 15:14

Personal Examination & Private Prayer:
Anger is a secondary emotion; take time to ask why am I really angry?

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Matthew 7:3

IF necessary seek Wise Counsel:
Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed. Prov. 15:22

Step 2: Set a time to talk. [in person whenever possible] [Matt. 5:23-24]
Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Matt. 5:23-24

Step 3: Address the problem, not the person. [Prov. 18:19]

What’s the most generous explanation for their behavior?
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Phil. 4:8

Focus on one issue, not many issues

Speak the truth in love [Eph. 4:15-16]
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Use: I feel _______ when you ________. statements

Step 4: Feel their pain [as though it were your own]. [Prov. 17:17]
A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.
Prov. 17:17

Practice give & take communication

[Focus on listening and learning…true understanding is the essential ingredient to conflict resolution.]

“Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.” James 1:19-20

He who answers before listening—that is his folly and his shame. Proverbs 18:13

Step 5: Establish a specific action plan [write it down]. [James 1:22-25]

Set things right between you. [James 5:16]

Learn how to Apologize: ask for and give Forgiveness.

- I was wrong [Own your responsibility]
- I’m sorry
- Will you forgive me?
- I forgive you. [not- it’s okay]

The Stages of Forgiveness:
Stage 1: Forgive
Stage 2: Forgiving
Stage 3: Forgiven

If necessary Step 6: If you get stuck – get outside help to resolve your conflict. [Prov. 11:14; Matt. 18:15-20]

“Where there is no guidance the people fall, but in abundance of counselors there is victory.” Prov. 11:14

Conclusion: Embrace a new way of doing relationships where the goal in resolving conflict is not winning, but oneness.
[Phil. 2:1-11; see also John 17:20-26]

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. \

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God
something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:1-11

We love because He first loved us.
We forgive because He has forgiven us completely.
We set aside our rights in order to restore because He set aside His rights bearing our shame and sin on the cross to bring us into relationship with Himself

Many of the Principles for Conflict Resolution have been taken from:

Message by Tim Lundy “Resolving Conflict in Your Marriage” http://www.venturechristian.org/files/sermons2/t032011.pdf

Message by Chip Ingram “Session 5: Conflict Resolution” Experiencing God’s Dream for Your Marriage.

Lecture by Dr. John Maxwell, “The 10 Commandments of Conflict Resolution”

Note: You can listen to the conclusion of dreaming wide awake on our podcast.

Dreaming Wide Awake part 7 [Nehemiah 6:1-16]

Those who finish well…

1. Stay focused: don’t go down to the valley of distractions.

When word came to Sanballat, Tobiah, Geshem the Arab and the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall and not a gap was left in it—though up to that time I had not set the doors in the gates— 2 Sanballat and Geshem sent me this message: “Come, let us meet together in one of the villages on the plain of Ono.”

But they were scheming to harm me; 3 so I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” 4 Four times they sent me the same message, and each time I gave them the same answer.

“The secret of concentration is elimination.” –Howard Hendricks

2. Respond to criticism head-on and then move on.

5 Then, the fifth time, Sanballat sent his aide to me with the same message, and in his hand was an unsealed letter 6 in which was written:

“It is reported among the nations—and Geshem says it is true—that you and the Jews are plotting to revolt, and therefore you are building the wall. Moreover, according to these reports you are about to become their king 7 and have even appointed prophets to make this proclamation about you in Jerusalem: ‘There is a king in Judah!’ Now this report will get back to the king; so come, let us confer together.”

8 I sent him this reply: “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.”

3. End the same way they began: by going to God.

9 They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.”

But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”

4. Exercise discernment: Filter advice through the Word of God.

10 One day I went to the house of Shemaiah son of Delaiah, the son of Mehetabel, who was shut in at his home. He said, “Let us meet in the house of God, inside the temple, and let us close the temple doors, because men are coming to kill you—by night they are coming to kill you.”

11 But I said, “Should a man like me run away? Or should one like me go into the temple to save his life? I will not go!” 12 I realized that God had not sent him, but that he had prophesied against me because Tobiah and Sanballat had hired him. 13 He had been hired to intimidate me so that I would commit a sin by doing this, and then they would give me a bad name to discredit me.

Summary: At the end of A God-sized vision, God gets all the glory.

15 So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of Elul, in fifty-two days. 16 When all our enemies heard about this, all the surrounding nations were afraid and lost their self-confidence, because they realized that this work had been done with the help of our God.

We all have a God-given longing for a standard of beauty that is more eternal, more satisfying than our personal likes and dislikes.

The world’s standard of beauty is counterfeit beauty – God’s standard of beauty is true beauty.

COUNTERFEIT BEAUTY is subjective
TRUE BEAUTY is definite

• We don’t need to seek this beauty that is subjective, illusive, and always disappointing because there is a truth to beauty; there is wisdom to beauty and it is not found in this world.
• “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised” [Proverbs 31:30]
• There is a longing in the human heart for beauty but what we are really longing for is the Beautiful One, the Lord.
• The definition of wisdom: the application of the right knowledge at the right time in the right way.
• What is the wisdom in beauty?  This begins with the right knowledge of how and where to seek beauty.

COUNTERFEIT BEAUTY is self-centered
TRUE BEAUTY is God-centered

• The knowledge we must find so that we ourselves may be beautiful must begin with knowing God and how He sees us; because everything less than God will continue to leave us dissatisfied.
• God created beauty when He created us in His image. “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them… God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” [Genesis 1:26-27, 31]
• Beauty is what God is.
• ^“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” [Genesis 1:1-2]

COUNTERFEIT BEAUTY brings dissatisfaction
TRUE BEAUTY brings contentment

• God has created us just how he wants us.
• “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.” [Psalm 139:13-18]
• When was the last time you praised God for who He created you to be?

COUNTERFEIT BEAUTY is perilous
TRUE BEAUTY is life-giving

• When we focus on beauty outside of God it is dangerous and brings death, but our mind on God brings life.
• “For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” [Romans 8:5]
• We can be rejoined with God as we are made into a new creation – made perfectly beautiful through Jesus.
• “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” [2 Corinthians 5:17]
• Though we are fully ugly because of sin, Christ came from heaven and died for us.
• “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” [Romans 5:8]
• Everything comes back to Jesus, for all else is loss in comparison to knowing Him.
• “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” [Philippians 3:8]
• “Beauty is achieved when the thing created most closely and most perfectly glorifies its Creator.” – Jonathan Edwards

COUNTERFEIT BEAUTY is binding
TRUE BEAUTY is liberating

• The Holy Spirit breaks the bondage to be beautiful by the world’s standard. We may now see God’s standard and be transformed into His beauty.
• “But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” [2 Corinthians 3:16-18]

TRY THIS: This week sit down, in silence and solitude, ask God, “What do You think of me?” Just listen. Pray to know His beauty more so that you may be transformed to really see yourselves as beautiful creations, made in perfection and deeply loved.

I Pity the Fool: Wisdom

What is wisdom & how do I get it?

Background:

Proverbs is part of a collection in the Bible known as the Wisdom Literature. [Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon].

Authorship:
Primarily attributed to King Solomon [the wisest man who ever lived, see 1 Kings 3] wrote and collected most of the Proverbs. [He also wrote Song of Solomon, & Ecclesiastes.] He was sought out by kings from around the world for his wisdom. Unnamed sages as well as Lemuel and Agur are said to have written some of the proverbs as well as the scribe Hezekiah in collecting and putting together some of Solomon’s proverbs.

Date:
Solomon lived from 971 to 931 B.C. and Hezekiah from 715 to 686 B.C. We don’t know when the sages, Agur or Lemuel lived so there is no way to definitively know when it was all compiled together.

Audience:
Much of it is written from the perspective of king [royal father] preparing or passing on the necessary wisdom for his son to rule the kingdom or to be successful.

Themes:
The proverbs speak with intense practicality about: work, relationships, friendship, lust, beauty, thoughts, wealth, poor, attitudes, habits, priorities, values, justice, discipline, foolishness, food, heart, forgiveness, love, future, planning, decisions, emotion/temper, compassion, arguments, laziness, morality, diligence, self-control and more.

Proverb: a short, pithy saying about life that you can carry in your pocket

They are unconnected and thematic sayings that generally use comparative and contrasting literary style. Often juxtaposing wisdom and folly; each is spoken of as a distinct path.

The Proverbs are mainly principles for life not promises from God.

Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.
Proverbs 22:6
What is Wisdom?

Being Foolish isn’t necessarily the same as being wicked or evil

Age, Education, Intellect, Wealth doesn’t mean your wise.

Wisdom in one area doesn’t necessarily mean you are wise in every area.

Wisdom is the application of

the right knowledge,

The way of a fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.
Proverbs 12:15

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death
Proverbs 14:12; 16:25

at the right time, [wisdom requires discernment]

A prudent man sees danger and takes refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.
Proverbs 22:3

Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself. Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.
Proverbs 26:4-5

in the right way.

All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the LORD.
Proverbs 16:2

A man of knowledge uses words with restraint, and a man of understanding is even-tempered.
Proverbs 17:27

The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but victory rest with the LORD.
Proverbs 21:31

How do I get it?

Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold.
Proverbs 3:14-15

The wise know where wisdom is found

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.
Proverbs 1:7 see also Proverbs 9:10; Proverbs 15:33; Proverbs 29:25.

For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.
Proverbs 2:6-8

The wise love discipline and welcome instruction.

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.
Proverbs 12:1

He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise.
Proverbs 15:31

He who obeys instructions guards his life, but he who is contemptuous of his ways will die.
Proverbs 19:16

The wise surround themselves with wise people

He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.
Proverbs13:20

The wise learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others.

As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.
Proverbs 26:11

The wise don’t think they are wise

Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him…The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who answer discreetly.
Proverbs 26:12;16

Wisdom is primarily an issue of the heart.

As water reflect a face, so a man’s heart reflect the man
Proverbs 27:19

Above all else guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
Proverbs. 4:23

A man’s own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the LORD.
Proverbs 19:3

Impact literally means to have an effect on or the force in which one object hits another.

Often times we don’t think of our lives having impact. We mainly think of simply trying to survive the day, the week, or the year. But if you will stop and look around you, you will realize the question isn’t if you are having an impact…but what kind of impact are you having?

What kind of effect are you having at work, school, in your relationships. There is some kind of effect, what is it?

Have you ever thought deeply about what is the legacy you will leave? What if anything will out last your life? Or bring it back to something that we can more easily get our arms around, what influence will you have at work/school that is greater than yourself?

You see Jesus spoke to this idea of impact in his most famous sermon and actually defines the type of impact that last for eternity. He says,

“In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

This verse is the application of an illustration that Jesus just gave about the presence and purpose of salt and light. If you want to have an impact that effects all eternity you must first know your purpose for why you are here on this planet and realize that your presence always impacts, influences and effects those around you.

You see in the same way salt has a specific purpose of preserving and bringing flavor so do you as a follow of Christ have a specific purpose. And in the same way that at night a candle has a specific purpose to light up a room so do you as a Son and Daughter of the King have a specific purpose for which God has called you and it would be just as ridiculous for you to not live out your purpose here on this planet as it would be for someone to light a candle and then cover it…It makes no sense…

Now here is your purpose. Here is how you and I live a life that makes an impact that matters… Jesus says, live your life in such a way that only God can get the glory. He doesn’t say live your life so that people think you are a great person. Or that you are really religious, giving, compassionate, loving, though all these are good. He says, live your life in such a way that the outside world sees your life and they give God all of the glory. A watching world needs to see Christ in us before they receive Christ from us.

You and I can only do this with the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in our life. One note of application to begin the journey is simply order your life with God. Sit and take time this week or even right now look at your relationships and ask the question: what does it look like to do my relationships with God? How do I spend my money with God? What does it look like to plan for my future with God and allowing him to have full input into that arena of my life? What does it look like to invite God into the middle of all that you are, even the messy side of you? You can’t live a life in which God gets all the glory when he is merely a side note. Live this life with God.

The question isn’t if you will have an impact but what kind of impact will you have?