Healthy-er Conflict

WELCOME

Pastor Chris Paavola:

Everybody, good morning. Good to be with you guys. My name is Chris Paavola. I get to be the senior pastor here at St. Mark. And yeah, it’s wonderful to be with you. As we wrap up today, this four week series we’ve been going through called “A Healthy-er Family” because your family can’t and won’t always be perfect, but it can always be healthier. That’s what we’ve been talking about all this whole series.

THE JESUS DIFFERENCE

And honestly, as we’ve gone through this series, I’ve realized, and it really wasn’t when we designed at the beginning and how it’s kind of emerged, but really this series is all about the Jesus difference. It’s the difference Jesus makes in a home, not just like the idea of him or the acknowledgement that he’s important or that he’s a wallflower in the home, but that he’s an active member of the home and everybody in the household is interacting with him. It really is a game changer. It’s a cheat code.

Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is…For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

           Corinthians 3: 1,3

And you can actually kind of see it in Paul’s words that we just looked at where he says, “Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your heart on things above where, Christ is seated at the right hand of God, for you died” and your family. You died and your relationship with your spouse. You died and your relationship with your kids or kids, your relationship with each other, your life.  “Your life is hidden with Christ and God.” And really that’s what’s been the theme of this series is the Jesus difference. A couple of weeks ago, I said it’s like a cheat code. It’s like a hack that really Jesus is, the way he changes the dynamics of a home, it’s such a leg up and such a head start for families.

SERIES

And so, in week one, we talked about a healthy foundation. So, Jesus and what he says, sometimes we’ll call it God’s word or the Bible, is the foundation of a healthy family because a family can make a lot of things. It’s foundations. You can make a hobby your foundation. You can make each other your foundation. You can make money your foundation, a career. All of those things are good, but they’re not perfect. They’re important, but they’re not permanent. But the word of God is this thing we call perfect and this thing we call permanent. And it’s a wise foundation that predates you and lasts long after you’re gone. And so a healthy family makes God’s word its foundation. Not just that you, again, hit the I accept user agreement, scroll to the bottom, didn’t really read it, click I accept, this idea that you would open the Bible together as a family and read, game changer, game changer.

Then in week two, we talked about healthy roles. So just like any organization you would have, like in an org chart, every healthy organization has good job descriptions. Looking at my HR ladies, if you don’t have good job descriptions, then that’s where there’s confusion in the company. Someone gets resentful for they’re doing someone else’s job and they’re doing my job and I’m doing their job and it’s confusion. But in a healthy family in the same way, we have a clear idea of the roles that are given to us by who, by the one who has authority in the family, the leader we all follow, Jesus. And so Jesus establishes these roles. And when we lean into these roles and understand these roles, we can flourish. And that was week two.

And then week three, last week, Grant, our director of care and connections talked about healthy attitudes, did a great job at it. And he talked about how everything, whether it’s a good attitude or a bad attitude, they all have a cause, something caused it. And for us, again with Christ, the cross is the cause of our attitude towards one another. And he stressed the importance of that.

THIS WEEK

That brings us then to this week where we’re going to talk about with all of that framework in place, healthy conflict. There is this, like when you’re puppy love dating and you’re like, “We love each other so much, we never fight.” And you’re like, “Yeah, you haven’t picked their hair out of a drain.” You haven’t seen them load a dishwasher and go, “Who are you? You’re a psychopath. Who loads it like that?” Every relationship touched on something there, man. Oh my goodness. Every relationship has conflict. It is inevitable. It’s actually an unhealthy relationship if you don’t have conflict because everybody’s walking on eggshells trying not to upset that one person.

And if you’re like, “No, we don’t,” then you’re that person. No one’s trying to upset. Every home has conflict and disagreement and you have to work for it and work through it. And by the way, as we talk through this, what I’m going to talk about today doesn’t apply to abuse or any type of, if you’re unsafe, that’s a different situation entirely. Please contact the right people, get help. But we’re just talking about just the general day-to-day interaction people have. And I think, I think Christians handle conflict differently. Again, it’s this Jesus difference that happens. And when conflict inevitably arises, the way that we as followers of Jesus, or if you’re just looking into this, I’m just telling you, this is the difference. And I think you can glean something from this regardless of where you are on this whole team Jesus thing. But I’m telling you, there is a difference that Jesus brings and the way we handle conflict. And you can kind of see it in the reading that we had today.

FIRST YEAR OF MARRIAGE

When Ashley and I were first married, this is like 21 years ago, 2005, first married, I think God in his wisdom floods you with all this honeymoon phase emotions. You’re just so in love. You’re just so in love that you can tolerate some of the hiccups that happen of like, oh, I mow the lawn. Oh, you do the laundry. And all of those little conflicts, you need that flood of endorphins or whatever it is to gloss over some of the conflict that happens because there’s just a lot to figure out that first year of marriage. First year of marriage is hard. It just is. And our first year, I don’t even really know when it was and I don’t know what we were arguing about, but Ashley and I had our first battle royale knockdown drag out fight.

It was our first big fights. And that’s where you’re like, oh, this happens and you got to figure this out as a couple. And I remember we started talking and it went up a notch and then that kicked it up a notch. Who was that? Emerald, right? Kick it up a notch. And then all of a sudden, fireworks, man. And we were fighting and she wanted some space to calm down and I wanted to fix it. And so I’m following her around the house and she’s trying to find space and I am still talking about the thing and why aren’t we fixing? And that didn’t help. Don’t do that. Okay? Not a good tactic. And it just escalated. Words were said.

And it got to a point eventually where we kind of looked at each other and realized what was happening. We apologized and smeared makeup and you makeup and all that kind of stuff. But we got done with that fight and we just decided, we had this actual conversation and said, “Here’s some rules of engagement. We’re not doing that again.” And we just set some ground rules of what it was going to be like in our house. We know what our parents’ house was like, not our family, our extended family, but in our house, these are our rules of engagement. And I’m going to share with you three rules that we have in the Pavela house, rules of engagement of how to handle conflict.

3 RULES OF HEALTHY-ER CONFLICT

And these are not an exhaustive list, but these are what I think the Christian difference. So I could talk about, I mean, there’s a lot I could say.

I could talk about compromise. I could talk about using I feel statements or what I hear you saying statements. All of those things are good, but you don’t need to be a Christian to do that. A Buddhist could say that. A Hindu could say that. An agnostic could say that. I’m just going to talk today about what I believe is the Christian difference and as a follower of Jesus, how it changes the way we fight. And these are the three rules of engagement that we have in our house for healthier conflicts.

Number one, brace yourself. Here we go. Number one. I mean, we said this in 2005, so clear. No cursing.

NO CURSING

That’s it. No cursing. A couple weeks ago, we had a series through the book of Proverbs and we talked about the difference in blessing and cursing. Remember that? And we talked about cursing. And we have a narrow definition of cursing as this thing. These are the words that the FCC beeps out on TV, but there’s a much broader definition. And we talked about how curses is assigning a negative value to something and prescribing a negative future often with negative touch, either the absence of touch or aggressive touch. So negative word, negative future, negative touch. That’s what a curse is in the truest sense. So, when you’re golfing and you bang your golf club and you say this stupid club, you’re placing a curse on the club. Negative value, negative future, this thing never works, negative touch. You hit it and you break it, right?

That’s what a curse is. And in our house, on that level, we say no cursing, not when we’re fighting. No cursing when we’re fighting. So what we’re saying is all of that. We don’t assign a negative value. We don’t prescribe a negative future and obviously no negative touch, no silent treatment, no stonewalling, and then obviously no aggression. No cursing. We place no curses. The apostle Paul in Romans 12, he goes, “Bless, don’t curse.” That’s what he means. And this makes sense why the words that we associate with cursing, you bleepity bleep and you blankety blank, why those words, we’re trying to find the most negative value we can ascribe to something and we’re placing that value on it, like the most shameful base negative thing we can. And we put it on our golf club or we put it on our spouse or our kid who’s making us angry.

That’s what cursing is. And in our house we say no cursing. And here’s why. First of all, that rule is like boxing gloves. You’re putting gloves on.

Cursing isn’t just taking the glove off, man. It’s putting brass knuckles on because think about what you’re doing. You’re saying, “Here’s the idea that I’m trying to communicate and I’m going to put artificial sweetener on the idea. I’m going to enhance it and prop it up artificially with a word to give it a little more oomph and wait.” I’m going to bold it and highlight and italicize it because the idea doesn’t stand on its own without it. In logical fallacies, it’s called argumentum ad hominem, argument against the man. Has nothing to do with the argument. You just attack the man. It’s the same thing. Comedian Jerry Seinfeld, right? Seinfeld, Joe Seinfeld, that guy, he realized early on in his career that he would watch other comedians and when they had a joke and they wanted to sell it, they’d throw in a curse word to get the laugh.

And he realized it was a cheap trick that if it’s a good joke, it doesn’t need the curse word to make the audience laugh. And he’s like, “Okay, if I want to be the best comedian I can be, I’m going to figure out what’s the joke, the truly funny thing, and I’m going to remove this curse word.” And so he doesn’t curse in his sets because he wants to be the best comedian he can be. And he doesn’t want to prop up his jokes with cheap words. And in our home, this is what we do, no cursing. And I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you how many arguments have been prevented because of this silly little rule. What is cursing? I think it’s a gateway drug. I think it’s a gateway drug to what follows.

8 But now you must also rid yourselves of al such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

Colossians 3:7-8

 And the Apostle Paul talks about it. He says, “You must rid yourself of all such things as these, anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.” It’s like that word leads to yelling.

Hear that word, hear a couple bombs get dropped and you’ll soon hear escalated volume. It’s an exciter. It’s an escalator and it doesn’t help conflict resolution. It doesn’t. And so in our house, if a word flies or we describe a negative, you’re just like your mother, you always do that. That’s also a curse, right? Negative future, negative value. And as soon as it happens, unsportsmanlike conduct, two minutes, my hockey buddies in basketball, it’s this, right? Two minutes, two and 10, you’re in the box and you’re sitting there for two minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. And so in our house, when it happens, we take a break. Conversation over. I know what we have to talk about is important. Conversation’s done because now there’s another issue at play and we don’t want to deal with two issues at once. It’s conversation over. Take a little break, sit in the sin bin, the penalty box, whatever, calm down and we come back to the idea.

It’s powerful. And I don’t know how many fights it’s prevented, but I promise you, my home is healthier because of this silly little rule. And I think the same would be true for your home. I preached this at the eight o’clock service, the service just before this one, and a lady came up to me afterwards and she goes, “Yeah, that first rule, I don’t know, Chris.” I’m like, “Hey, I didn’t write it. I deliver the news and I believe your home will be healthier if you try this rule out. You love each other. You do. You love each other.” All right. So then there’s the second and third rule. Again, these are differences, the Christian difference, the Jesus difference when it comes to resolving conflict.

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

 Colossians 3:13

SAY “I FORGIVE YOU”

And the idea comes really, you see it in verse 13 of Colossians three, “Bear with one another and forgive one another. If any of you as a grievance against someone, forgive as the Lord forgave you.” What do you think the rule has to do with?

Forgiveness. All right. I know what some of you are thinking. You’re thinking, “I’ve seen non-Christians forgive. You can be a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, an agnostic, whatever you can and forgive. And you know what, you’re right, you’re right, but I’m going to point out that there is a difference. There’s a difference in the way we forgive.” And I’ll demonstrate it, okay? Only imagine you have two kids sitting on a couch. One of them is playing Xbox and the other is patiently waiting for their turn to play said Xbox, for instance. And then a timer goes off and a parent says, “That’s a timer. It means it’s your sibling’s turn on the Xbox. Please give them a controller.” And the one child throws the Xbox controller at the other child and hits them with it and they go, “Ow,” for instance. Just imagine, hypothetically speaking, this random event, imagine this possibly happened in your home.

And then you say to the one, “Tell them you’re sorry.” And then they go, “Sorry.” And you’re like, “No, no, no, no. Like you mean it. Sorry for what? For throwing the Xbox controller at you.” Okay. And the other one says, “Y’all, it’s okay. It’s not okay. It’s not okay.” And when someone apologizes to you, “Sorry, sorry, I was late. Traffic was terrible. It’s okay. Sorry I yelled. I’ve been under a lot of stress at work.” It’s not okay. And it’s not forgiveness. In other words, God doesn’t look at you and go, “It’s okay.” It’s not. What you did was wrong. It’s not okay. And I know in this room and watching online, I know there are so many people who are sitting here in homes where you say it’s okay and that’s not forgiveness.

And so one of the rules in our house, it doesn’t matter if it’s between kids, kid to parent, parent to kid, or spouse to spouse, doesn’t matter. We say, “I forgive you.” I want you to imagine this. The Xbox controller gets thrown. Sorry for throwing the Xbox. I forgive you. Sorry I yelled at you. Work was crazy and I took it out on you. I didn’t… I forgive you. That carries a little more weight, doesn’t it? It’s vulnerable. It’s intimate, but isn’t that what a healthy relationship is? And I’ll tell you guys, your pride’s at work. You don’t want to say it. I forgive you. It’ll be like, I forgive you. And you’ll pull the words out or something. You won’t want to do it, but that’s your pride. It’s humiliating to find humility, to be humbled. It is. And when you say, I forgive you, what are you saying?

You’re saying, I don’t need anything else from you to make this right. Isn’t that what God did for you in Christ?

The psalmist says he keeps no record of wrongs. I forgive you. I don’t need anything else from you. And when you say those words, what you’re saying is, I can’t bring it up two weeks later. I can’t bring it up three years later and be like, Do you remember that time when you… This is just like that time when you… And you said it was okay, but it’s obviously something you’re carrying around, but when you say I forgive you, you’re saying this debt is free. You have no more debts to me. I forgive my debtors as I’ve had my debts forgiven. And you’re saying I can’t bring this up two weeks later and weaponize this against you and levy this against you. I forgive you. And I’m telling you that’s where like a grudge, you’re just holding all these things that people have wronged you and you’re like the one carrying this and this resentment builds up and then you yell at them because they forgot to empty the sink of pick up their shoes off the floor.

Everyone’s like, “What is going on?” It’s because you’re carrying all of this inside of you and you haven’t let it go. You haven’t forgiven them.

And so, I forgive you is the words that you’re looking for. I’m telling you, this will transform some homes. This will save marriages if you learn these words. It’s powerful. And you’re not forgiving them because they deserve it. You’re not forgiving them because they’re a good person or they did the right thing. You’re not forgiving them because you’re super kind. You’re forgiving them because you’ve been forgiven by God in Christ. You’re forgiving as you’ve been forgiven. That’s what Paul says, right?

SAY “I’M SORRY FOR” NOT “I’M SORRY BUT”

Now, you’re looking at that list and you’re like, “Wait, that’s missing something. That’s the offended. What about the offender?” You’re right. Christians, because forgiveness is so freeing and so free and so liberating, we run around looking for our guilts. When I observe the world, I see people all the time making little excuses to dodge any sense of blame and to be just a little bit less guilty.

“Sorry I was late, but traffic was terrible. Sorry I yelled, but worked as crazy. “What are you trying to do? You’re trying to be less guilty, but not followers of Jesus. We’re looking for our guilt because we want to be rid of it. We’re not playing hot potato with our guilt. We’re running around looking for how have we offended? The psalmist says,” Search me, oh God, test me and see if there’s any offensive way within me. Show me God, where have I sinned? “And that’s not just our posture with God, it’s our posture with each other. “What have I done wrong? Tell me.” And so our third rule, and we do this all the time, especially my wife and I, you say, “I’m sorry for not, I’m sorry, but. I’m sorry for this.” This is the equivalent or the cousin of what I hear you saying is…

You say, “I’m sorry for…” And then you name the thing that you’ve done, period. Not parentheses, not semicolon, not comma, period. And then you give them the opportunity to say, “I forgive you.” It’s, “I’m sorry for,” and you list it. Not, “I’m sorry for that, but money’s tight right now, but I had too much to drink. But the kids were driving me crazy.” Stop it. What you’re trying to do is take away a little bit of guilt. “You’re guilty. Own it. Be accountable for it so you can be forgiven of it. I’m going to just go there, okay? Nagging. When nagging happens in relationships, two and three are at work and they haven’t been… They’re saying it over and over and over because they haven’t heard from you ownership of what you’ve done. I did that. Here’s what I did, and I am sorry. I need your forgiveness.

If you want to amp up your, I’m sorry, I need your forgiveness. And just period, not a comma, period, done. And then they say,” I forgive you. “Now they can’t nag you anymore. Two things happened. One, they finally felt heard. And two, they said,” I forgive you. “They can’t weaponize it later on. They can’t say the words,” You always do this because they forgave you. “And what’s interesting after this transaction happens, if I’m sorry for, period, and I forgive you, now you can talk about all of the reasons that the offense happens. You can talk about why work is stressful apart from the offense. You could talk about how the kids are unruly and the systems we need to put in place to get some of this behavior under control apart from the offense. You could talk about the money apart from the offense. Do you see how liberating this is? This is huge, guys.

So, there you go. Three things. These are three rules that… I mean, it’s in our house. And the first one was spoken right away. The second one kind of emerged right after that. And the third one started to merge after a few years. But these are three rules in the Pavel house. And honestly, I think these are three Christian differences for handling conflict in a healthier way. And I think your home will be better for them.

ARGUE ABOUT ARGUING

So, here’s what I want you to do. Just look at the list for a second. I want to give you something to argue about on the way home.

I want you to argue about arguing, not to talk about talking about it, right? Not about anything. It’ll be healthy. It’ll be fun. You’re just talking about this. First question I want you to talk about.

WHICH OF THESE 3 RULES COULD WE BE BETTER AT?

WHAT OTHER RULES COULD WE USE?

Which one of these could we get better at? It’s so easy. Which one of these could we get better at? And then the second question, I mean, this could be a family conversation, honestly. Kids have really fun ideas. What other rules could we use? Like you know like, “Oh man, this has been happening and we got to put a new rule in because…” So, are there other rules that you need?

Don’t make a long exhaustive list. Just, “You know what? This happens a lot, so what can our rule be about that?” You guys, your home will be healthier for it. It will be.

And I can say that because I’ve lived that. My family isn’t always perfect, but we can always be healthier. And the same is true for you. Let me pray for us.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, we need your forgiveness. We acknowledge and confess to you that we have fallen short in this area. First, with our words, we should bless and not curse. How can praises and cursing flow from the same lips? We need your forgiveness. So help us guard our mouths and guard our tongue, especially in our relationships in our house and the way we speak to the people we live with. And then God, help us be humble enough to say, “I forgive you,” just as you’ve forgiven us in Christ, that our homes can be a demonstration of your mercy and your grace.

And then God, help us apologize without trying to dodge guilt or deflect or to just own what we’ve done, each one of us, that we might receive that same absolution from our spouse, from our kids, that you give to us in Jesus. And it’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Upon this, your confession of your sins, I as a call and ordained servant of the word, your pastor, am honored and joyed to announce to you the grace of God and that your sins are forgiven in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.