Video Transcript: Pursuing a Healthy Perspective - How Worship Changes Us (Part 1)

Reviewing the three legs of the Peacefire triangle, those three principles that give us a grasp of God's perspective on conflict.  

The first was when we pursue God's Purpose in our conflict stories, it changes our priorities in responding to conflict.  And in that section on Purpose, we talked about the dynamics of conflict and how it gets started in the trap of offense and what the enemy's objectives are at the trap of offense, and what the Lord's purposes are at the trap of offense.  

We talked about the three things every conflict firefighter must know; that the Lord's always at work, that His correction is a sign of His love for us, and giving thanks is His will for us.  

And we talked about how God's Power, when we use God's power to extinguish conflict wildfires, it changes our possibilities about restoring relationships and escaping from shallow wildfire stories and retributive justice with its labels and put backward looking constrictions on our lives.  

We talked about God's three step path to restoration of relationship - confronting wrongdoing, acknowledging and confessing wrongdoing, and forgiving wrongdoing, that powerful river that extinguishes, that river of forgiveness that extinguishes the conflict wildfire.  

Well, the third principle is when we seek God's presence in our conflict stories, it changes our Perspective on the conflict.  Spending time in God's presence begins to change the way we look at things, the way we look at people.  Perspective is very important in conflict.  In most conflicts, everyone thinks they're right, and most of the time they are.  

Let's take this bottle of water, and I used this illustration during a brief introduction to the first introductory class you took here at CLI.  But when I hold this bottle of water up, you see this W, this label, and on the backside, I see a bar code and a nutrition table.  If we were called into a court of law to testify about what we see, we would describe this bottle in different ways.  And we’d both be right.  But our perspective is limited because of where you're looking from and where I'm viewing this bottle from.  

Our perspective impacts how we respond to situations.  And in my 25 years of practicing law, I've had many cases where clients would come in and I would hear their story and I would think, well, this is a pretty open and shut case.  That is until I heard from the other party's attorney and heard their side of the story, and I thought hmmm, this is not as open and shut as I thought it was.  

Where we sit, we see what we see and our perspective is usually accurate, but it's also usually limited.  And so understanding our Perspective is important in responding to conflict wildfires, and understanding the perspective of others of others in the conflict fire with us.  Everyone looks at conflict from their own unique perspective and sometimes our perspectives differ.  But sometimes our perspective is so important to us that we forget that the Lord also has a perspective on our conflict stories.  We can often spend time seeking God and praying that he'll give us what we want according to our perspective, but if our perspective does not align with his perspective, He will not grant us our requests.  

So how do we get God's perspective on our conflict stories?  By spending time with him.  The same way we get to know another person's perspective in the wildfire.  We ask questions.  We listen.  Spending time with God is no different.  We spend time in prayer talking to him.  We spend time in Bible study listening to him.  We spend time in worship with other mature Christians who can give us Godly counsel.  

Well in the next four lectures, we're going to examine four attributes of a person God can use in the midst of a conflict wildfire.  These are four attributes of a person who can enter God's presence with confidence, that his or her prayers will be answered.  These are people who write Peacefire conflict stories rather than shallow wildfire stories.  

The first attribute is Humility.  I refer to it also as the fire crawl in keeping with our fire metaphor.  When a room is burning, the cleanest breathable air is within from within 12 to 18 inches from the floor.  And it's the posture of humility.  Humility is different in the heavenly kingdom than it is in the earthly kingdom. 

In the earthly kingdom, our humility is typically based on knowing that we have sinned or that we don't have what it takes.  We're humbled when we fail, we're humbled when we commit wrongdoing.  But that's not the kind of humility we're talking about in the heavenly kingdom.  

Jesus Christ is the model of humility in the heavenly kingdom.  He's the model of everything in the heavenly kingdom for man.  

But the Lord desires that we walk humbly with him.  We were created to be humble like Jesus Christ.  Micah 6:8 says, “He has shown you, O man, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.  That welcomes the humble into His presence.  

In Isaiah 57:15 we read, “For thus says the high and lofty One, one who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”  The Lord promises to exalt the humble.  In James 4:10, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.”  Pride is the enemy of humility, and the Peacefire.  In Proverbs 29:23, we read a man's pride, we'll bring him low, but the humble in spirit will retain honor.  

Humility is a measure of greatness in the heavenly kingdom.  Jesus said in Matthew 18:1-4, at that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven, he called the child to him, place the child among them and he said, Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  Humble like a child.  Humble like a child who is totally dependent on their parent.  The Lord desires to reveal his love to us by providing for us, by blessing us, and He blesses those who are humble, and the humble are among the great ones in His Kingdom.  

Jesus Christ displayed a humility that please the father when he came to this earth as a man and laid down his life for us.  Listen to the Philippians 2:5-11.  It describes for us the humility of Jesus Christ. “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset (or the same attitude) 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, gave him the name that is above every name, and 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.”  

Jesus Christ is the greatest in the heavenly kingdom.  Jesus Christ is the most humble man who ever lived.  The same humble mind, the same attitude, the same way of thinking that was in Jesus Christ is formed in us as he transforms us into His image.  1 Corinthians 2:16, “for we have the mind (the attitude) of Jesus Christ.”  When we humble ourselves before the Lord, it takes our focus off of what is happening in the wildfire and on to what the Lord has for us at the Peacefire.  

Let's review the key points from this lecture.  

• When we seek God's presence, He changes our perspective on conflict.  

• We seek God's presence by spending time with Him in worship, Bible study, prayer, and fellowship with other Christians.  

• We were examining four attributes of people who God can use in conflict to accomplish his purposes.  Humility is the first attribute.  The Lord welcomes the humble into His presence, and he exalts them in due time.  Humility is a measure of greatness in the heavenly kingdom and Jesus Christ is the most humble man in the heavenly kingdom; the greatest in the kingdom.  

Thanks for watching.  God bless you.  We'll see you next time.