Conflict resolution — Colossians 3

0:00 So I think it's I think it's fair to say to Dave, you know, I I I pray that... I pray and hope that you're not embarrassed around us because we we we love you. We understand we understand what you're going through. We we can't really fully embrace it. But don't be embarrassed around us.

0:18 We we love you. We love having you here. And you're a very important part of this this body of believers. So, thank you for what you do. You are an encouragement.

0:28 That that that's awesome. You know, I think could add a name. Dave, you could add an amen or whatever the comments you want to make.

1:08 Amen. What

1:19 a great testimony you are for all of us, David. Really. A great testimony. So David gave testimony to the relationship, The relationship with what he has with the Lord, the relationship that he has with his wife, the relationship that he has with the body of believers. We need to understand that.

1:42 We need to understand. We don't think about this. It's part of our life, but we're relationship people. We are relational. You know, this forty five minutes or however long I take today is probably the worst way to teach as possible.

2:04 Why we do this, brothers and sisters? I have no idea. I'm sure there's a reason why. But that real teaching comes in a one on one relationship. The Bible calls it discipleship.

2:17 That's where the real teaching takes place. Because we know that we're relationship people, when Christ came down, He built a relationship with many people, specifically 12 apostles, but a lot of disciples. And he followed the same model that he put into place with the Jewish people. We understand Gabriel is going to... Thanks for praying for me today, by the way, brother.

2:52 Gabriel's gonna be 13 this week. And what happened in Jewish tradition is at age 13, they identified which young men had the potential to become rabbis. So all of those young men, right, the Bach Mitzvah, right, got together and then they weeded them out, get to point A, you know, he he should be a carpenter. Point B, he he needs to be doing something else. And eventually, at the age of 30, where our Lord entered public ministry, at the age of 30, these men that were raised with the rabbi became rabbis.

3:30 But they spent their life from age 13 to 30 with the rabbi being taught and learning because we're relationship people. That same model Christ followed and He changed the world with, I hope this is acceptable, 12 knuckleheads. I relate so well to Peter it's not even funny. I mean, I and Peter. Peter, same personality.

4:00 And here we are, how many years later, two thousand and whatever, and we still praise, worship, and honor Him. And it started from a relationship standpoint. It was that relationship that Christ had with the apostles. The relationship that Christ had with the disciples. In that relationship, you have to have trust.

4:46 Your relationship with the Lord. Do you trust Him? Does knowing Him give you courage? Right? But if don't have trust, it is a difficult time to have a relationship.

5:11 Now I look at this body of believers over the last, I'll point out my son Luke, he'll get embarrassed, but right, since you know, when Luke was a young guy growing up, we used to have seats all the way to the back. Now we're about half the size as we were five years ago, maybe four years ago. Andy taught me something about linear thinking this week. If I take a look three years down the road, four years down the road, are we going to be half the size that we are today? That scares me.

5:49 Nancy was reading from some of her father's notes yesterday. And I'll paraphrase Harry, which is always hard to do. I'll give you Bob Markovich's paraphrase of Harry. If we continue like this, we'll just be a bunch of gray haired people. If we take a look at gospel houses or we take a look at what we say that we are, right, Plymouth brethren, all around us they're crumbling because they're just gray haired people.

6:31 There's nothing wrong with gray haired people. Believe me. What's that? Up. That's the thing.

6:40 So we need young men

6:43 like Gabriel. Right? We need young men

6:47 like Noah. And we need to raise them up. And how do you do it? Through relationships. Alright, so Bob Buttress had the opportunity to give a devotional this week at our camp meeting.

7:03 And that was kind of the essence of it, right? Bob? Okay. Come on in. We're talking about you.

7:22 But what I understood Bob to say when he did his devotional was that we we need to we need to be an encouragement to others. We need to create relationships. We need to see what we're really here to do. And so this is my second message on, yes Bob? Right on.

8:07 Yeah, we are where we are, right? We are where we are. The question is where are we going? Where are we heading? And Bob Markovich says, and I believe the scriptures support this.

8:19 I know the scriptures support this. Where we are is we are at a crossroad where we are going to move forward and we need to do it through love and we need to do it through kindness and we need to do it through relationship building. Anyhow, so this is the second message on conflict resolution for the Christ followers. So as Christ followers, how do we handle this conflict resolution? The point that I was making earlier is I think that we're missing some people as a result of conflict.

9:28 Let's not ignore them. We know that it exists. We know that it caused problems. We know that it caused problems among us. We know that we still can't talk to somebody because of something that happened.

9:40 Let's expose it for what it really is. Now how do we handle it? How do we take that and move forward? How do we take that and move forward? Okay.

9:54 So as most of you know, I'm athletic coach. I like athletics. I always use athletics as a illustration. Come here Jeremy, I'm going to do a quick interview of Jeremy here. And hopefully, see the theme and the seam that I create here when it comes to conflict resolution.

10:21 First of all, I recognize you're an athlete, right? Yes. Yes. Okay. What sports do you participate in?

10:28 Soccer and track.

10:29 Soccer and track. Now, do you devote your life to becoming the best track star you can possibly become?

10:40 Like in college? I'm not going to do it in college. Oh you mean, yeah. Yes. Like in high school, yeah.

10:46 Sure.

10:46 However you decide to answer that. Don't look to me. See a good attorney never asks a question that he doesn't know the answer to. I'm not good nor an attorney, so I have no idea. Any answer that you give, just be truthful because it's going to, I'm going be able to use it to illustrate some points later.

11:03 So the question is, do you do everything that you can possibly do in order to be the best track athlete you can be? Yes. You do everything that you can possibly do. Do you do everything that you can possibly do in order to be the best soccer athlete that you can possibly be?

11:16 Well, yeah, I try.

11:17 You try. Do you either, do you or do you try?

11:22 I mean, try I guess.

11:26 You try, okay. You try. If I came to you and I said, Jeremy, I've got this brand new exercise routine that's going to take you and it's going to make you even a greater athlete than you are now, would you try it?

11:39 Oh, definitely.

11:40 If it would make you better, you would try it? Yes? I'll do it. Yeah. Okay.

11:45 You'll do it. Okay. Thank you. So believe it or not, I'm going to use that to illustrate a little bit later conflict and conflict resolution. So let's jump into a word of prayer real quick while my computer gets booted up here.

12:05 So let's pray. Lord, we come before you and we know that you are in control of everything, Lord. We know that you love us because your word says that for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. We thank you for that promise. Lord, we thank you that you are here among us.

12:22 We pray that we can listen to words of encouragement. We pray that we can listen to your word, Lord, that will help us understand where we are individually in this whole conflict resolution process. Lord, we pray for this body of believers, we pray for this chapel, we pray for your spirit to go forth, we pray that we are your representative here on earth, Lord, that we can show others the love of Christ, and we can show others what exactly being saved is. Because not so that we can edify ourselves or lift ourselves up, but so that you can be glorified, Lord. So we ask you to bless us today, and we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

13:08 So, Give me a minute here. All right, so you know we are, we live a life of conflict, right. There's conflicts that occur everywhere in our life. We're conflicted during the course of our day. It's part of life.

13:36 I take a look at conflict and over, I don't know, it's over the last six, seven, eight weeks or so, whatever it's been that I've actually been studying this, I have been more exposed to conflict and conflict resolution than I ever have been. It has been a blessing to me. This whole thing that I've been going through has become a blessing to me. I can say honestly that our house when I was young Bobby growing up was a house of conflict. Alright.

14:07 I never learned how to deal with conflict. Conflict existed, you ignored it until it got so bad that all you can do is respond in anger. That's how I learned about conflict. I carried that baggage with me into my marriage with my wife. I carried that baggage with me into the relationship with my children.

14:32 A majority of the Sundays when we came to church, you didn't see the real Markovich clan. Because the conflict that we had, we never solved. Rarely solved. I was right and that was the answer. She was right and that was the answer, and nobody was going to solve that situation.

14:58 So, if anybody else has a more clear understanding of the ill effects of conflict, I'd love to have a talk with you. Because I think that I understand them. I see them. I see the danger. I see the problems.

15:12 The I person that I was and man, if I could only do it over again. You know, I pray that my children grew out of that environment and learned and they don't carry on the same tradition that I carried on. Conflict is here. The more people I talk to, the more I talk to people about, Bob, I don't understand. Help me to understand conflict and guide me through it.

15:40 I use this as an example, right? We had Samuel live with us for a year from Germany, Nancy's cousin's son. And we had Oliver that I talked with a lot during that time period. He came out and visited us. And I was amazed at some of the things that were done that in Bob Markovich's vision was conflict.

16:03 That they were able to solve very easily. So I'm of the opinion that other people, maybe Europeans specifically, they know how to engage in situations that causes a little bit of a tense filled situation, causes conflict, and they know how to settle it. We need to learn as Americans how to settle conflict. Now I'm using myself as an example, but I probably talked with 25 people over the last four weeks that agree that they do not know how to settle conflict. So we need to take a look at the scriptures and we need to identify how do we handle, how do we work through, how do we settle conflict.

17:16 So, what we're going to do is we're going to read Genesis thirty seven three to 11. What I want you to do as I read this, and I'm reading from the Christian Standard Bible, so it's going to be a little bit different probably than most of you have. I want you to pay attention to who caused the conflict. Observe the conflicts. Observe who caused the conflicts.

17:38 Observe what kind of conflicts. There's a lot of information here in these verses. Genesis chapter 37 and verse one, Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. These are the family records of Jacob. At 17 years of age, Joseph tended sheep with his brother...

18:00 Brothers. The young man was working with the sons of Bilal and Ziphah, his father's wives, and brought a bad report to them... To their father. Now Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons because Joseph was a son born to him in his old age, and he made a robe of many colors for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all of his brothers, they hated him and could not bring themselves to speak peaceably to him.

18:32 Then Joseph had a dream. When he told his brothers, they hated him even more. He said to them, Listen to this dream I had. There we were, binding sheaves of grain in the field. Suddenly, my sheaves stood up, and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheave.

18:52 Are you really going to reign over us? His brothers asked him. Are you really going to rule us? So they hated him even more because of his dream and what he had said. Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers.

19:07 Look, he said, I had another dream. And this time, the sun, moon, and 11 stars were bowing down to me. He told his father and brothers, and his father rebuked him. What kind of dream is this that you have had? He said.

19:29 Am I and your mother and your brothers really going to come and bow down to the ground before you? His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. So the first thing that we identify is that Israel loved Joseph more than his other sons. The interesting thing here is we also find out that that Israel gave a special tunic to Joseph. Now, if we understand this word, this tunic word, it's the same word that is used in Genesis where we talk about the slaying of the animal and the creating of a tunic for the man and the woman in the garden.

20:22 This tunic itself, right, it is identified as a coat of many colors. This tunic was not something that you wore when you worked in the field. You couldn't work in it. It was tight. It was long.

20:37 It was a robe. It was a long flowing robe. So we see that Joseph was loved by Israel more than his other brothers, and he was also given a gift that to me symbolizes the fact that he was going to be the Lord over his brothers. Right? Because he has this, he's not going to be physically working in the field.

21:11 His brothers could not speak peaceably to Joseph. Then Joseph told his brothers about his dream. So as sitting there, right, I'm thinking, it's hard for me to study one specific thing because I get these thoughts in my mind and I gotta go look. I gotta go look everywhere else. So I can't just register that Joseph went to his brothers to tell his brothers his dream.

21:37 Why would Joseph do that? Right? So at first I'm thinking, was Joseph prideful? Was Joseph naive? Did Joseph have low emotional intelligence?

21:52 Why would he do that? Why would he do that? You know, in my mind, I would know if I had a dream and I went to somebody and said, You're going to bow down before me. I think I have enough emotional intelligence to understand that I probably shouldn't say that. Right?

22:10 If this is something that is prophetic and the Lord wants me to say it, maybe I could say it in some different way. I'm not saying that I would ever get a prophecy from the Lord. Not even saying that we're getting prophecy anymore from the Lord. But what I'm saying is, isn't there a better way to handle this? But Joseph did what Joseph did.

22:25 And I'm going to give Joseph the benefit of the doubt and just say that Joseph was naive. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. I really don't know. But Joseph went and told his brothers that they were going to bow down before him, And his brothers hated him even more. Conflict.

22:42 You can see the way that the conflict is being stirred up. You can see the problems that are occurring. You can see communication issues. You can see all kinds of problems. Right?

22:54 The interpretation of the dream was that Joseph was going to be lording over them and they hated him more. And then he had another dream. Right? And this time, the sun, the moon, and 11 stars were going to be bombing down before him. Right?

23:12 Not only this time did he tell it to his brothers, and they hated him more, he also told it to his father. Now listen, what did his father do? He rebuked him. Right? So we see this area of intensity.

23:36 We see the hatred that these brothers have for Joseph. You would think, I think that Israel was an observant person. We'll see some other things later that help me understand that. But Israel knows, has to understand that there's tension among the brothers. And so he's rebuked.

24:02 He's rebuked, and we we see that Joseph... We we see in this verse, his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. Brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind. So, rebuking is sharp. Alright?

24:24 It's not an easy thing to do to rebuke somebody. And it is a little bit on the aggressive side. When you rebuke somebody, you're calling them out and you're telling them, hey, this probably isn't the wisest thing to do. But what did that do? With this, but his father kept this matter in mind.

24:42 He's not jealous like his brothers were. He understands that this this dream said that his mother, Israel, and the boys were going to bow down before him. But I think that this conflict was solved as a result of Israel rebuking Joseph. Let's put this out. Let's put the cards out on the table, son.

25:08 Let's understand, son. Let's talk about this. Let's make sure that we have, we understand where you're coming from. We make sure that we expose this for what it is or whatever, in order to keep that relationship. Now if we read further in Genesis, so remember what happened, Eventually Joseph goes toward his brothers, he's got the coat on, they call him the dreamer.

26:13 Potiphar's wife had the cloak. Potiphar's wife started screaming. Potiphar's wife said, hey look, Joseph was here. He trying to do something to me that we shouldn't be doing. I screamed.

26:24 He ran. He left his cloak behind. Right? So boom. Catch up to that point.

26:29 Joseph then goes into prison. So he's in prison. But we have to understand that during this time period, Joseph was constantly being rising up and taking over areas of authority. He ran Potiphar's wife, Potiphar's house. Potiphar had no problems with Joseph running his house.

26:52 They had that much trust in him. So you talk about a good relationship there. Potiphar trusted Joseph around the household. Then as a result of Potiphar's wife lying, which is what happened there, creating conflict, Joseph ended up being put into prison. But what did he do in prison?

27:09 He ended up running the prison. So there's a prisoner running the prison. Right? We find out that the bread maker and the wine steward get kicked down into prison. They had a dream.

27:24 And what does Joseph do? What does the dreamer do? He interprets their dream. Tells the baker, right, tells the baker that in three days he's going to be hanged, and he tells the wine steward in three days, you're going to be part of Pharaoh's house again. Don't forget me.

27:51 Well, what does the wine steward do? He forgets him. Until Pharaoh has a dream. Right? Seven cows, seven lean cows, the lean cows eat the seven cows.

28:05 Joseph interprets it. You're going to have seven years of abundance followed by seven years of leanness. What's that? We heard you. I didn't hear what you said, but did you?

28:21 Carnivorous cows. Carnivorous cows. There you go. And now and now, Pharaoh tells Joseph that he's going to run the land. So Joseph is in charge of the land.

28:36 So he goes around, gathers up everything that they can until their lean years come. Now we're going to fast forward it to Genesis 42 verses one and two, and we're going to go here. Again, this is we're just going to read verse one here for a little bit. Verse one and two. Just because I think this is kind of cool to point out because my mind goes everywhere.

29:09 When Jacob learned that there was grain in Egypt, so we are in the lean times here. When Jacob learned there was grain in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you keep looking at each other? Think about that, right? I love that you laugh because I think it's funny too. Why are you looking at each other?

29:31 We're here dying. We have no food and the only thing that you do, you're sitting here looking at each other. Can't we do something? So, Israel says, listen, he went on, I have heard that there is grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us, so that we will live and not die.

29:53 So here they are. They're going out. They're going to Egypt. And they go to Egypt. Joseph identifies them.

30:06 Joseph knows who they are. And if we if we read this, if we read this, which we're not going to take the time to do it. We'll see that Joseph has no disdain for them whatsoever. And they, among themselves, make a comment, we are in this situation because of what we did to Joseph. So they still have this conflict that's not resolved because of, in their mind, so I don't know how many years later this was, I'm sure if Don Morris was here he would know, how many years this was, but these guys, it's still burning in their heart.

31:27 These guys are looking back at it right now. The same thing with an athlete. Wouldn't you try to figure out everything you possibly can to become the best version of yourself as an athlete within the rules? Wouldn't you try to become the best version of yourself as a follower of Christ within the rules in order to live the life that God intended you to live? That's the question.

31:58 I think the answer is yes. You said, I'm going to try to be the best I can be. I'm going to work the hardest I can. I'm going to find those exercises. And I'm sure if I would have asked Mason, Mason would have said the same thing.

32:12 Focus on that. Focus on that. And as believers we need to do that. What is hidden in our hearts from a conflict standpoint that is stopping us from doing what God has called us to do? There's something in there.

32:27 I told you the last time I was up here that I had to call a friend of mine. Well, guess what I was doing on Friday this week? Sitting down with somebody saying, I've got to apologize to you. You don't know this. This person had no idea.

32:43 You don't know this. But I need to make you aware of this. And I'm sorry. Here we see Joseph's brothers, again, how many years later, still being exposed to the pain that they had as a result of the conflict. Another side note, why did Joseph take Simeon?

33:14 So he sent the brothers back, right? And he kept Simeon. Poor Simeon. Poor Simeon. Why did he keep Simeon?

33:22 Tell you what. Do some research on that. You're not going to find anything, I don't think, biblically on that. But there's rabbis who studied this and they have opinions. And the opinions of the rabbis are interesting.

33:33 Why did Joseph, and Joseph was the one who grabbed Simeon and handcuffed him. It was a decision that Joseph made. The question is, why Simeon? Alright. So let's move on.

33:44 Let's go to chapter 43 and we're going to go verses one and two again. Now the famine in the land was severe. When they used up the grain they had brought back from Egypt, their father said to them, Go back and buy us a little food. Again, I said, poor Simeon. How long do you think Simeon was there in prison waiting till they came back?

34:12 I mean, they just, they'd left him. They'd left Simeon there. And they were on their way back. So they went back and we'll go to Genesis 45. Again realize that up until this point, the brothers still don't know that Joseph is Joseph.

34:54 I can't remember his Egyptian name. Genesis 45 verse four, then Joseph said to his brothers, please come near me. And they came near. I am Joseph, your brother, he said, the one you sold into Egypt. Now you must die.

35:21 Nope. Didn't say that. Now be thrown into prison. Nope. Now you're going to get some lessons in love.

36:11 Interesting thing. So I'm going give credit where credit is deserved on this one. Nancy and I were chatting and we were talking about something else, but I'm going to use it here. The brothers were accepting a level of dysfunction. Do you ever do that?

36:34 You ever in that situation where you're talking to somebody knowing the back of your mind that you have a problem, you have an issue with them? All right? And you carry on like there's nothing really

36:48 there. Right? They call that the elephant in the room. Right? The elephant in the room.

36:53 And you just carry on with somebody and you haven't solved that problem. So there's a dysfunction. Right? In my family growing up there was dysfunction. We didn't solve conflicts.

37:06 It existed, you just didn't talk about it. You never mentioned it. And there was a level of dysfunction here. And it didn't stop there, right? It didn't stop there.

37:18 Let's go to let's go to chapter 50. Let's go to chapter 50. Chapter 50 verses 15 through 21. 50 verses 15 through 21. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said to one another, if Joseph is holding a grudge against us, he will certainly repay us for all the suffering he has caused us.

37:47 How many years later was this? I have absolutely no idea, but these guys were still, in their heart, they had not solved the problem. They had not asked for forgiveness. They have not sought forgiveness. They didn't try to solve the problem.

38:02 They were living with this conflict. They couldn't be the best that they were supposed to be. They couldn't be the best indication of Christ's example. They couldn't do anything. They couldn't do anything because of this sin.

38:15 So they sent this message to Joseph. Alright? They sent this message to Joseph, and again there's a little bit of a little antenna that goes up in my mind here. They sent this message to Joseph, Before he died, your father gave a command. This is the message that they sent Joseph.

38:37 Before he died, your father gave a command. Still not taking personal responsibility for anything right here. This is the command, say this to Joseph, Please forgive your brother's transgressions and their sin, the suffering they caused you. Therefore, please forgive the transgressions of the servants of God of your father. Joseph wept when their message came to him.

39:02 So Joseph wept about the message. Joseph understood the message. Joseph wanted to rebuild that relationship. Joseph said to them, Nope. Then, I think this is, I'll call this the piece de resistance, right?

39:21 His brothers also came to him, bowed down before him, and said, we are your slaves. We are your slaves. We see the prophecy of the 11 sheafs bowing down. That's what happened here. But I believe that this is a time where the brothers finally got down and asked for forgiveness.

39:53 And what did Joseph do? Man, Joseph is... We should all strive to be like Joseph. But Joseph said to them, don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God?

40:10 Question mark. You planned evil against me. God planned it for good, to bring about the present result, the survival of many people. Therefore, don't be afraid. I will take care of you and your children, and comforted them and spoke kindly to them.

40:29 Conflict resolved. Yet we spent many years of history with these struggles and these problems. Joseph says, I will take care of them. And he did. And he did.

40:48 I guess what learned from this, and by the way, you got me again next week, so I am not done. I think I've set the stage for that next piece, and that's forgiveness. What exactly is forgiveness? How do we seek forgiveness? How do we give forgiveness?

41:12 That's what we're going to be spending our time on next week. Now, I don't know that I'm going to take the entire time next week. What I'm looking for, remember, testing plus trust equals testimony. We go through a time of testing and we trust in the Lord, then we have a testimony. I would like to hear from anybody here that has a testimony regarding conflict and overcoming conflict and how that has changed your life.

41:51 I'd like you to reach out to me. We might have opportunity for somebody to give a testimony. We might have opportunity for me to at least give me speak it. Who knows? But I've got in my mind a plan for next Sunday, but I would really love to see a great testimony of forgiveness.

42:17 Of forgiveness. I think it will be healing for you. I think it will be healing for us. I think that will help us move in the way that the Lord is calling us as an assembly to move. So that's what we have on the list for next week.

42:45 So time goes faster than you really want it to go here. But we're going end there. That's a good spot. I'll give you some homework though. I'm going to send you back to Colossians.

43:04 And I want you to read Colossians. I want you to... So here's here's right. We we are we are chapter in Romans. You're be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

43:15 Right? So, here's your here's your homework assignment. Every day this week, I want you to go to Colossians and I want you to read chapter three verse 12 through 17. I want you to read that every day this week until next Sunday. Then on top of that, I want you to go and I want you to read Matthew chapter five twenty three through 24.

43:45 Matthew 18 verse 15. Romans two:one. There's a lot of em. Yeah. James five nine.

44:04 And then Matthew eighteen sixteen through 20. That'll put you, I think, in the mindset to understand forgiveness. I think these are these are great scriptures. So anyhow, let's let's close in prayer. Lord, we we come before you and we thank you for this this short time that you gave us today.

45:10 Just ask you to bless our time today, and we look forward to coming together again next week. In Jesus' name, amen. Yes.