Video Transcript: Discerning Your Role in a Conflict

Welcome back to PeaceSmart Relationships.  This lecture is the last lecture in the section of the course, where we're examining how God's power changes our possibilities in conflict.  We've talked about strange fire, and Wildfire accelerants, responses to conflict where we try to extinguish the Wildfire in the power of the flesh or the ways of this world. 

We've talked about the Peacefire accelerant of God's love.  And we've talked about the Reconciliation Triangle, that process of humbly confronting, confessing, and forgiving sin; the restoring relationship.  And we've talked about some of the traps of offense that can wait for us in that process and that often occur during that process.  And we talked about what to do when a fire rescue fails and how to wait in the fire break.  

In this session, I want to talk about your role in a conflict.  And there are four roles in a conflict that I want to talk about today. 

You know, when a fire truck and a fire team responds to a fire call, every person on the fire squad has a role.  Someone drives a truck, someone's responsible for the hoses, someone's responsible to turn on the water and hook up the water.  Every person has a part to play.  And as the Lord brings you across Wildfires, whether they are Wildfires that you are involved in personally, or as a Christian leader serving others, there's a role for you to play. 

The first role that you might experience in a conflict is the role of the as the person who has caused the offence.  If this is you, you have the following opportunities.  You have the opportunity to examine your heart.  Your sin has been exposed, you know that you have caused someone to be offended.  Now that may have happened intentionally; it may have happened unintentionally, but your opportunities to go before the Lord, examine your ways, and ask Him to show you if there's something in you that He is exposing here that He wants to change.  And if it is the case, then just let Him.  Give it to Him, ask Him by His grace, to change you.  And then you have the opportunity as the person who caused the offense to ask the Lord what He wants you to do to restore relationship with the person you've offended and ask Him for the power to do it.  That's one role you might play in conflict. 

The second role is you might be the person who's offended.  You might be the one who's in the trap, who's taken offense.  Sometimes we take offense consciously sometimes it's subconsciously, we don't realize we’ve taken offense until after the offense has occurred and something else happens and we recognize, yeah, I'm offended.  

Sometimes we don't recognize it until the Lord sends someone to rescue us.  But if you're that person has been offended in a conflict, you have the following opportunities to go before the Lord of the Peacefire and ask Him Lord, is there something in me, is there a desire in my heart that you've exposed that you want to change to look more like Jesus Christ?  And if there is, you let Him.  You ask Him to change. You also have the opportunity to extend grace to the person who's offended you, forgive them, and ask the Lord what He wants you to do to restore relationship with them.  And then ask Him for the power to go and do it. 

Now in some conflicts, you might play both the person who's been offended and the person who caused offense because conflict isn't just a simple exercise of one offense.  In most conflicts, there are many offenses that occur.  Usually there's one that starts it and then it will trigger a series of offenses as the as the fires burn.  So as you address offense after offense, seek the Lord and ask Him to show you all of the things that need to be addressed to put that fire out because sometimes it occurs that we know of one offense but we don't know of another and we resolved the one thinking we've put out the fire, but it's really still burning.  So when that happens, just remember the Lord's always at work, and He has more for you in that conflict that He has to teach you, or to use you to bless others in that conflict. So don't give up. 

The third role you might play in a conflict is the role of the ambassador. The ambassador represents Jesus Christ in His kingdom in a conflict.  You know, an ambassador serves the country and wherever that ambassador goes, he serves as the representative of the country that sent him or her.  As ambassadors of Jesus Christ, we represent His kingdom wherever we go.  And in conflict, we have the opportunity to serve as ambassadors of reconciliation.  

Are you often tempted in conflict to side with one of the parties, we always like to figure out who's right, who's wrong; we like to cast the blame and then go in and impose our judgment on the situation. 

I once knew a couple who had experienced some severe marital infidelity.  And they were referred to meet with me.  And during my first meeting with them, the spouse who had committed the offense indicated they definitely wanted to try to stay in the marriage and make things work.  The other spouse, the innocent spouse we’ll say, also wanted to remain in the marriage. And that spouse made this comment during that conversation.  

They said that they had a number of friends around them who were telling them what they thought this person needed to hear.  And they were telling this spouse how rotten the offending spouse was, probably sympathetic to that person's situation and trying to help them feel better about their plight.  And what this spouse said to me during that meeting, was that he or she had to cut off communications with these friends in order to stay committed to the marriage relationship, because all these friends were interested in doing was talking about what was right, what was wrong, how bad the offending spouse was, and what rights the non-offending spouse had in the situation. 

So you'll often be tempted in the midst of conflict, to look at the situation and just base your opinion on what's happened, who's right, who's wrong.  And remember that the Lord is at work in that situation.  His ultimate goal is reconciliation, restoration of relationship.  And in exposing things, exposing the heart issues, He gives people opportunity to change and He gives people the opportunity to forgive, to confess.  

And it's your opportunity as a Christian leader, as the ambassador of Jesus Christ, to point them to that rather than, like the friends of this spouse, to point them to their rights to pointing to how they've been wronged. 

Our right as an ambassador of Jesus Christ is found in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.” 

And what's fascinating about that verse is be reconciled to God. 

In the midst of conflict, that's our first encouragement to others; be reconciled to God.  And as they're reconciled to Jesus Christ, He will lead them and being reconciled to the others in the conflict.  It is out of that relationship of relentless reliance on Jesus Christ that we find the power, that we find the love, that we find the grace to be reconciled with those who have wronged us and those who we have wronged. 

The fourth role, after the role of an ambassador is the role of an intercessor.  The role of the intercessor occurs when you become aware of a conflict but you're not any of the other three.  You haven't, you're not involved personally as someone who's caused offense or taken offense. And you're not an ambassador, you're not actively involved in the situation.  So someone comes to you and you're made aware of a conflict, you're made aware of a relationship that's broken, damaged, but you don't have, the Lord hasn't opened the door for you to speak into their situation. 

Know that He has opened the door for you to speak in the situation, and that is in His throne room, as an intercessor.  In the same way that Jesus Christ has empowered us to be His ambassadors of reconciliation, He also empowers us to be intercessors for those in conflict.  Jesus Christ is our great intercessor and that same spirit of intercession, He makes available to those who seek Him at Peacefire, that we can become intercessors for those in a conflict. 

This doesn't mean we talk about the conflict.  This doesn't mean we gossip about the conflict. And unless you have been assigned one of those four roles in a conflict, it's probably a good practice as a Christian leader, not to talk about a conflict because we don't know everything that's going on.  We're not involved personally, the Lord hasn't opened the door for us to be an ambassador in the conflict and any information we might have is probably partial, inaccurate and not complete. 

So those are the four roles in the midst of conflict that we can be assigned. And as we seek the Lord of the Peacefire, He leads us and guides us and uses us for His glory. In Jesus name, Amen. 

God bless you. We'll see you next time.