OLD SCHOOL WISDOM | Week 2 | Full Service

you're not attacking a problem, you're attacking the person. It's when you're a fight revolution means it's where you're now, I just wanna win or I wanna avoid.

I either wanna run away from this or I wanna win this. It's not about the problem anymore. It's not about trying to resolve something with each other. It's about you're angry, you're mad, one person's hurt, you say something. And what happens when the dam breaks in our fights, you know you're really in a revolution is when you're not really fighting about anything anymore. Now you're fighting about everything.

You ever do that? You start a fight, an hour later you can't remember what the fight started about because now you're into subset three paragraph two of section 97 of subset fight here. And you and you start fighting about I my wife and I will get stuck in fighting about what we're fight fighting about the fight.

Like, well, you know, you said this. No. I didn't say that five you were fighting about what we said five minutes ago now. It's like now we're fighting about the process of fighting. And and and I go that now you know you're in the revolution. You're not in a resolution. The dam has broke.

And what would cause it in Mike? A guy on our staff, Hunter Perry, his dad actually works in where they have to inspect and maintain a dam.

And he got this information where he says they have pressure gauges because normally you look for cracks, deal with it right away. It's a pretty long process. But he goes, you also look at the pressure because a lot of times a dam will get destroyed because there's too much pressure on the other side.

This means there's too much water, which is something up until recently we didn't even understand the concept. They could have too much water on the other side of a dam. But when it gets too much water, that's when they have to do a controlled release.

That's what this proverb is saying. There's gonna be pressure in your relationships. There's gonna be And if you leave the pressure too long, you're starting to have cracks. And if you ignore the cracks and you ignore the pressure, the dam will break.

And just like a real dam breaking, water does massively destructive. It also water always goes to the lowest possible point. It travels down. It'll settle in the lowest place. You get into a fight, your attitude will go to the lowest place. Your words will go to the lowest place. Your actions will go to the lowest place. You will say things you shouldn't say. You'll do things you shouldn't do. You'll believe you'll have attitudes you don't need.

We can't let the pressure build. We need to know how to have the controlled release. We need to know how to do conflict resolution, not revolution. And you know how that works? Is you have to stop it at the source is what this is saying.

And I think as we talk through this, this is going to apply to every relationship you have. Husband, wife, children, parents, work relationships, people you oversee, people that

oversee you. Every one of these, this will apply to on how to have this conflict resolution. The biggest fight you're going to have is with yourself is is most of us are trained and you think you do not even think about resolving a conflict until the dam has already broke.

So what do we do about that? Well, we're gonna turn to Ephesians chapter four and in Ephesians four,

you know, Ephesians is this letter to this church and they've had some conflict, but Paul starts off like he always does the first several chapters are really deeply theological and he talks about unity with Christ love of Christ that comes because of Christ, love for us, and he's talking about how to live in unity and love. Then he gets practical into our well, that's practical, but then he starts applying it to our everyday lives. And in chapter four, it starts to apply it to us. Like, hey, since we can have unity

with Christ and live in the light with Christ, we can have unity with one another and live in the light with one another. So in this section, it actually brings out some things. I wanna point out six things in here on how to have conflict resolution.

How to have the right kind of how to quarrel without having a dispute is what it's about.

And so here we go. I just wanna read these verses first, and I'm gonna go back through and point some stuff out. Starting in verse 15 of chapter four, it says this. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more like Christ who is the head of his body, the church.

He makes the whole body fit together perfectly as each part does its own special work. It helps the other parts grow so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

With the Lord's authority I say this, live no longer as the Gentiles do for they are hopelessly confused. Their minds are full of darkness. They wander far from the life God gives because they have closed their minds and hardened their hearts against him. Basically they're Seahawks fans.

They have no sense of shame. They live for lustful pleasure and eagerly practice every kind of impurity. But that isn't what you learned about Christ.

Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception.

Instead, the spirit renew you through your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature created to be like God, truly righteous and holy. So stop telling lies. Let us tell our neighbors the truth for we're all parts of the same body.

And don't sin by letting anger control you. Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry. For anger gives a foothold to the devil. If you're a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good work and then give generously to others in need.

Don't use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. And do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Remember, he has identified you as his own, guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you. So there you go. In there, I wanna

point out six things about how to say something, how to have a conversation, how to try to manage conflict and have resolution before it turns into revolution. And the first one, the first two points we actually find in verse 15

when it says instead we will speak the truth in love growing in every way more like Christ. So if we're gonna have any conflict resolution, the first thing we have to do is apply the fourth word in this verse, speak. Meaning the first thing we gotta do is say it. This is the one I think people go, duh.

But this is probably the thing that holds up a lot of you. You don't say it. You wait till the damn verse, then you'll say lots of things. And you'll say lots of things you wish you hadn't said. And so will the other person.

The first thing you had to do is be willing to have the conversation and understand that you need to have this conversation when you're not angry. And and you got to be willing to say it. You got to be willing to go in and here's the thing you got to decide. Okay.

Should I say it? That's a lot of times a lot people we hold up because basically

there's there's there's couple things you need to do with this conversation. If you think something needs to be said, the first one is you got to decide should I even be saying anything yet? And I think there's two boxes you got to decide when you feel pressure. Does this go in the box of forgive and forget?

Is this really necessary? Do I need to say anything? If so, it needs to go in the fix it box and you need to have conversations. The box you should never put it in is the file it box. File it. File it means I'm just gonna keep it on file and I'm gonna wait. And

the problem with that is eventually you become J Edgar Hoover and you have a file on everybody. And then all of a sudden when that person you act like no things a big deal and all of sudden when something goes, Oh, I'm glad you brought it up. Okay.

You wanna talk to me about that? Do you wanna respond to how you talked to me in April 1983 at your grandma's house?

I think the hard part with knowing how to say it is determining what needs to be fixed, what needs a conversation and what can let go. And really how I, I'm not saying this is exactly, this is what I know to be true is the best way is determine is this an event or a pattern? So if

someone does something once and you're mad like, okay, that hurt my feelings. You can say that, or maybe you can just say, you know what, having a bad day, whatever. I'm just not gonna worry about it. But if it starts to become a pattern, you should talk about it. But here's the problem. The way we're wired

tends to make us throw something in the fix it box too fast or throw everything in the forgive and forget box. See, there's two kinds of people when it comes to our temperament. There's microwaves and there's crock pots or pressure cookers. And by rule of God, they always marry each other.

One person, a microwave heats up fast, cools down quick.

Well, the problem with being a microwave is you're the one that's gonna throw everything in the it. Like, somebody did one thing the first time ever. You know what? Why are you doing this? You always we need to sit out and talk about this because this has gotta stop. And you're like, this is the first time this ever happened. What are you talking about?

Well, you know, you left. You came home late from work. The first time in twenty two years. You know, what do you you know, something like that. If you're a microwave, you might jump to in too quick.

And the problem when you do that, the other person feels like, am I a home am I a DIY project or something? Are you always trying to fix me? You're trying to mold me into something. But the other extreme is the pressure cooker. That means you heat up really slowly. But once you're hot, watch out. Watch out. That's

my wife, pressure cooker, microwave. And microwaves tend to irritate the sun. They just slowly add to the pressure cooker's pressure until finally they blow. My mom and dad were this way. My mom was the calmest one until she wasn't. And then she was the most explosive one you've ever seen. My dad was afraid.

I would come into the house once and they'd been She'd gotten so mad that my dad would yell out, Save yourself, friendly fire! Which does not make a pressure cooker very happy because he's already cooled down. He's not mad anymore. He's like joking now. And now she's like, I'm still angry. So you got to determine.

But the one box it can never go in is you don't file it.

And here's the thing, if you are the pressure cooker that tends to just let it go, let it go, let it go, you say you're forgiving and forgetting, you're actually filing it.

And if you're the microwave, you keep just pestering stuff. The problem is if you're always making everything into an issue, then nothing is truly an important issue.

So you got to figure out, but you got to be willing to say it. The other thing here is what he says, what do we need to say? The truth in love. We need to say it straight.

Say it straight. It says, Speak the truth in love. People misunderstand this passage and misapplied all the time. Emphasize the love. The object of this statement is what? Truth. The point is people need the truth. We need to bring truth into a scenario.

Now the delivery process is in love, but it's not even talking about that sentence. That's not talking about our temperament, our tone or anything. What it's saying is you need to love somebody enough. If you're gonna handle a conflict, you need to love them enough to speak the truth to them.

That's what it's really saying.

They in love means I love you enough to that's how I preach. That's how I say it. A lot of times I say, you guys know I love you, right? I gotta give you a throat punch. It's like all those like, this is a tough truth that I'm hopefully doing at the right time and in the right way, but it's gonna be tough.

And sometimes my tone changes and I get really serious because sometimes tone needs to be really serious, right? We think the truth in love is always talking like Mr. Rogers. Always, you know, like, oh, it's okay. And you're super encouraging

and you think that that's somehow gonna work. I mean, the business world, they have a terrible practice they've taught that is the worst thing. I have led this church for their own ways. I have hundreds of people I've led. I've planted churches. I've led leaders and leaders of leaders for years, for a long time. It's what I do.

And I'm telling you, the compliment sandwich is a bad meal.

If you haven't heard of the compliment, you gotta have a tough talk with someone that works for you. You bring them in, you say something very nice and encouraging to like set them at ease. Then you tell them the problem, and then you put the top piece of bread and you go back to being nice and complimentary.

The problem is we tend to overemphasize. We have all bun and no meat. There's really tiny meat. And so then the person goes away and guess what? They're confused. They think they're doing a great thing because your tone and what you did was all wrong to help them. I think we should give people the open face sandwich.

I call it threatening encouragement.

I'll do it in it because I keep using marriage as an illustration. It's easy, but I'll use it at work. Like, I'll bring Someone's struggling and they need the truth. I love them. I want them to make it. If I don't love them and I don't want them to make it, they don't fit. That conversation is done. We're like, hey, we need to have an exit strategy. You're done. So if I sit down and say, hey, I love you. I love the part of the team. I believe in you. I think you can fix this. That's why we're having this conversation instead of a different one.

But with that being said, here's the problem. Big huge giant piece of meat. Boom. And you'd be real clear with it. You lay it out very clearly. Here's what it is. It's not my feelings versus yours. We even have a definition of what leadership is around here so I could actually give you fact. Here's the C you are really struggling with and here's why. You gotta have clarity. We'll talk about that in minute. And then you finish the only compliment there is you say, and the reason we have this conversation is I believe this can be fixed. But if this stays the pattern, you are done here and this is gonna end you.

So I I believe in you, but don't let this end you. Later.

And I I think in so let me apply it a family. Kids, tone. Of course, we should be gentle. Matter of fact, we already read the verses. We'll get to it where it says don't use abusive language. Don't be harsh. Don't be so don't hear what I'm not saying.

But there is a view with little kids that you always just talk in the calm gentle voice 99% of the time. Yes. But truth and love is even a parent like I've had discussions with moms ago. I never raise my voice or talk in a serious tone to my kid. It's always a conversation. Here's the problem.

And here's where you're a liar. Why it says tell the truth. Because the example I'm gonna bring up, you're gonna do exactly what I said. Therefore, you just contradicted your own philosophy. What this is, is kids, especially toddlers, they're like dogs. They understand tone more than words.

You can't reason with a three year old like you do with an adult. You just can't. I don't know why you guys keep trying to do it. We're getting now where we have to reason with adult like three year olds. So what makes you think a three year old is gonna reason like an adult when most adults don't even reason like adults?

They hear tone. They're like a dog. If you walk up to your dog and you try to tell it something bad like it then you're like, no. And you go, oh, Fido, no. No, no, no, no, Fido. That is bad. You're a terrible, terrible dog. And you know if you keep doing this, I got a shotgun and a shovel.

And we're gonna be done with this relationship. So come on over here. What's Fido thinking? Fido's, I'm the greatest.

Cats, shotgun and shovel. That's all you need. Just tone, no reasoning. Just be done. So when you talk to a child, there is a time. I'm not talking about always yelling. I'm not talking about because I'm talking about you're doing this before you're angry.

See, lot of discipline of our kids, we're already mad. The dam has broke. What I'm saying has nothing to do with anger or frustration. It's I love them enough that the tone needs to change.

And I'm telling you, I don't care how much of I just talk it out. If you have a toddler that's about to walk into a street and you're 10 feet away and you see a car coming, your tone changes mom.

And you know why? Because you instinctively know I need to tase that kid right now. I need to use a tone and a language and a volume that stuns them long enough that I could run over there and grab them by the arm and yank them away from the street I'm talking about.

To speak the truth in love sometimes means to say it, but say it straight. And when you say it straight, got to sometimes that means a tone. That's why I preach sometimes the way I do. I love you, but I was like the tone, but you gotta save it. It's gotta be the right tone at the right right time. Time.

I mean, just happened in my house. I got two grandkids. One's three, almost four. The other one is little brother is

nine months and he's crawling and he wants to do everything his big brother does. So that's caused a lot of irritation because the big brother, they're classic guys. I mean, don't I think there's a drop of estrogen in my grandson. He's aggressive

they play and he gets mad when his little brother gets near him and makes him mad, so he'll hit him. And so they've been the conversations and the timeouts over it. All of a sudden, we're all sitting at the table just

day before yesterday. Little brother crawls over to where his brother's playing, sits there, sits up, sitting on the tile floor, grabs one of the toys and big brother just shoves him in the head straight back. You hear it like sound like a coconut hitting the ground. That could kill a baby or hurt them badly.

And so we run over and my daughter grabs the baby to make sure he's okay.

My wife grabs the older one and starts walking into the room to have a conversation. And I sat there and I looked at my wife. I go, you gotta change your tone on him on this. This has gotta be one of those moments. She goes, and now I'm in trouble.

So when she's done with him, she's gonna walk and pick me up and take me into the other room? I don't know. I go, well, now I'm gonna have to deal with that too. But let's just deal with one crisis at a time. So I was like and what I meant, but I I heard her. She's going there. Tony, I look at my daughter. I'm like, I'm sorry I said that. I just I just I really think that you just need to look them in the face, get eye to eye and say, you do not do this again. I mean, the tone has to get deep. It's gotta get it's gotta be a tone. He's not used to hearing and she goes do it. I'm like, wait, what? Because my daughter is a master pro at having that gentle way of guiding her kids the right direction. She's good at it. So I thought she would hey, dad stay out of it. Just like my my wife did. I go, you serious? Goes, yes. I want you to say it just like that. He needs that. I go,

alright. My daughter put me in the game.

I run-in there. I started to get down to my wife. What are doing here? I told you to stay out. She told me to. Micah told me to. And so then I go, well, we'll deal with this later. And I look him in the face. I just said it. I made him look me in the eyes. He kept trying to look at it. No. You're not gonna look away from me on this one, son.

And I said it, and you could tell he almost started crying. And I go, good. And I left. That's all I did. I'm telling you, there are moments that that is speaking the truth in love. Now, wives, don't try that with your husband. You already have. It doesn't work. But there is tonal things. You got to say it straight.

And part of saying it straight too is remember this, clarity trumps content. And that's the reason why if you let the dam break, it's really hard to resolve something because then you start fighting about everything. And when you are trying to speak your mind or your heart, you're not really clear at it.

Or you might be manipulative. I get, I turn into a lawyer. I know that I can barrage my wife. That's why I like her to fight me right away because I can throw facts and stories and info at her and her brain doesn't process it quick enough. I get her to go, She paused. Go, see, you know it. I'm right. And I go, your honor,

the defense rests because she can't handle the truth. I go, but no, no, no, no, no. It's saying you got to have clarity. And sometimes we use we just need to learn to speak in a way that someone understands. Hence, like I said, sometimes kids just need tone, not a lot of words. The same thing with adults. Sometimes we

get so bogged down and specific because we don't even know why we're having this conversation. And that's why we got to have clarity. Like what I mean is a lot of times when I say, Hey, you should go at least three layer deep with why before you have this conversation.

Someone does something you're frustrated with. Why? Why am I so frustrated? Let me use an example. Let's say it's husband and wife. You got kids. I don't care which one's at home with the kids, but you both work and like one gets home early. Like and one spouse is coming home late a lot now. And you're really upset.

So what you wanna say is quit coming home late. But then you're still mad at them for something else. Like, why didn't you tell me that? Why didn't do it? They they spent money this way. They did this and you you get mad. So when they're coming home late, you can say, why? Why am I so upset? We both have a job.

They were late at work. Well, I think it's disrespectful because I'm stuck with the kids. All right. Well, I know I love my kids so it can't be just that I'm tired. But why do I feel so disrespected about that because kids will drain you no matter what and then you get a little layered deeper and you go, you know what?

I think it's because they're choosing something else over me. And then you realize it's the same thing with the way they spent the money. They spent the money, they did this. Now you have more clarity to talk about.

Because if you just say, came home late, guess what they're gonna do? Well, that happened twice. And you know, Fred, know, we almost lost that account. I need to, you know, I need to get a paycheck, don't I? I mean, now you're gonna be arguing about that. And you start arguing those well, you were actually late four times last week. And you're right. If you were just out to say, Listen, you came home late and it made me realize something. I noticed the pattern

and it's hurting me. I feel like you choose me second. See what I mean? But you got to take some time to ask the why, the why, the why, the why. Get a few layers deeper. Say it straight, but say it with clarity too. Like this. Watch this. See if you can understand what I'm saying.

Let me say something and see if you know what I'm saying. Scintillate, scintillate, globule, vivific, I'll even say it slower. Feign, wood, eye, fathom, thy, nature, specific loftily poised in the ether capacious strongly resembling a gem carbonaceous. Got it? How many have no idea what I just said? Would me saying it slower help? Would

me repeating it over and over help? Would me saying it louder and more more more more more emphasis help? Would it help if I said, scintillate, scintillate, globule vivek? Why are you listening to me? Is the problem what I'm is there a problem with repeating it, saying it slower, saying it louder? What's the problem?

I don't understand what you're saying. You know what I just said? Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are up above the world so high like a diamond in the sky. That is a literal saying. To twinkle is to scintillate in the scientific term. It's a literal scientific saying of twinkle, twinkle, little star.

So many of us try to say scintillate scintillate globule vulvific when we should just be saying twinkle, twinkle little star. That's actually the theme of how I try to preach.

Because I realize it doesn't matter how much I know. It doesn't matter how much you need. It matters how much can we communicate in a way to understand what God is saying in a practical way. And some these people knock me and go, well, you're fun to listen to, but I like depth. I go, I don't think you really listen to me then.

Because you probably were raised in a culture that church was, I need to listen to a guy that says gets up there and says scintillate scintillate globulvivific. Wow. I don't even understand the words he's saying. This is so deep.

When I just come up here and I'm like, hey, twinkle twinkle little star how I wonder where you are. We said the same thing. Which one would you rather? Would you rather enjoy that and then listen to that? Because guess what? You know what I'm saying?

Same thing in conflict resolution. Sometimes we get so confused. We get louder. Decide they don't understand. You're not speaking with clarity. And it's usually because you don't even know what the issue is. And that's why it dances around to so many issues.

And the problem with that is to put it in the job areas. I have talked to people that were like younger and working and what's weird is I challenge, hey, here's what the issue is. And they'll go, well, you're the first person who's ever said this to me. As if I'm lying.

Like it's my fault. Like I'm making it up. And you know what I say back? Truth in love? Wow. You've had terrible parents, awful friends, and horrible leaders in your life then. Because it takes about two seconds to tell that this is a problem for you.

Time, like, no, no, no. I go, okay. Well, if I got your wife alone and asked her, does this describe you? What's she gonna say? I thought so. The defense rests. It's it's it's it's say it, say it straight, but also say it soon. Say it soon. Don't file it.

Don't wait and write your own narrative. It's what it says down in verse

twenty six and twenty seven. It says, and don't sin by letting anger control you. Don't let the sun go down while you're still angry for anger gives a foothold to the devil. You need to say it soon. What it's saying is, first of all, some people take that literally. But

you do need to get to it quickly. You need to talk because if you wait too long, what it's saying is you will start writing your own narrative. You'll

start writing your own narrative. You'll add elements that say they know that when they do getting eyewitness testimony from a crime scene and stuff. You wait forever. Somebody's talking to this, talking they heard someone else's perspective. You start to believe you saw stuff. You start to believe something happened. So then all of sudden the testimony is weird and you really believe it. If you wait a long time to talk something out, you will create your own narrative. And you know what you'll do? You'll be not telling the truth. That's why he says tell the truth to your neighbors. We're saying is when you wait forever, you create a narrative that's not true. So you make the person worse than they actually are. You actually start putting actions and attitudes

into them that they might not have.

And it's usually because we wait too long. Now does that mean you got to go the very before the sun sets literally? No. Sometimes that's a terrible time to do it. You come home, you have this problem with your spouse, kids are screaming, it's, you know, dinner time, you haven't even eaten yet, but the sun's gonna set in twenty two minutes. You're like, wait, forget that. We need to have a talk.

You know, if you do that, there's gonna be police there trying to get eyewitness testimony as to how you got killed. It's a bad idea. It just means don't let it sit. Don't let it sit long enough to fester and and and and write your own narrative. Also, means don't say it sideways.

You know how many of us say stuff sideways instead of straight to the person?

That's why we don't say it soon. We talk to so many people except the person we need to talk to about. When you talk to other people, you start building a narrative. Cause then the person, Yeah, that sounds like they're this way. Yeah, they're that way.

And you start creating stuff that you don't even know the truth. You're like, You've actually made it worse than it is. Because we will go sideways. Now in the church world speaking sideways is called prayer requests. In your small group or your women's group or your men's group, could you pray for my

wife and I? Because she's the worst.

Have you ever sometimes when someone starts up, I go, wait. Have you talked to them yet? No? Then who's there? Go talk to them. You're not seeking advice. You're seeking allies.

You're creating a narrative. You're creating a battle plan. Creating And you will actually start speaking lies into this person and you won't even know it because you've created a narrative. In other words, deal with the issue before it deals with you. Because the longer you wait and you start to speak sideways and you start to build a narrative. Guess what you stop going after the problem and you start going after the person

and speaking the truth and love says we want to fix this. I want to help. It says right there. You want to grow. You want that person to grow. That's the goal. And so say it soon. Don't sit on it for a long period of time. And then the other thing when it says this is to not lie and all that say it all. Say it all.

I've said this before, but to say it all means most of the time when we try to solve an issue, even if we go ahead of time, even if we don't wait till the dam breaks,

it's actually we tend to do this more when we do it sooner because we feel bad. We don't we're afraid the dam will break. So we'll share 90% of what's going on if we don't share the last 10%. It's like, okay, this is doing alright. Got a little bit rough. I'm afraid if this goes bad, the dam is going break. So we hold back that last 10%.

Here's the problem. The 10% you didn't share is where 90% of your problem is coming from. So you spent all that time to only actually deal with 10% of what's going on.

This is why so many of you, especially in marriages, keep having the same fight over and over and over again. You never get to the last 10% because you let it you wait too late, you wait till it's a fight. You can't even get to the last 10%. You're too busy fighting on the surface. You're

not saying it straight. You're not saying it soon. You're not and so then you don't say it all.

You need to get to it all. And a lot of times the reason is you're not holding back on purpose. Problem with not reflecting on this and the problem is sometimes you get conflict that's so hard. There's so much pressure. You don't know what the last 10% is. That's what a counselor is supposed to help you with.

Counselors say, hey, I'm gonna help you guys figure this out to get to that last 10%. So you know what you need to work on and you need to work on. But most people go to counseling after you've the dam has broken a bunch of times and what you go in there doing is, okay, I need you to fix this person.

And when I did counseling,

most people would show up and I realized they don't want counseling. They don't want me to help them on this journey to figure out the work they need to do on the last 10% and own their own part of the issue and commit because we love each other. I'll work on me, you work on you, let's work on each other, let's work together. It's coming in and go, I wanna tell you my side, they'll tell your side and then you declare the winner.

You be the judge. Declare the winner and issue, all right, damages due. You need to give them this or whatever. That's stupid. That's not gonna work.

Because in that concern, guess who's working the hardest on you? The counselor is working the hardest. In a counseling scenario with a couple and a counselor, the person that should be working the least is the counselor.

When someone not always, there's reasons counselors are bad. There are things thinking and whatever. There are mitigating circumstances sometimes. But I would say most of the time when people say, oh, we tried counseling. It didn't work. The problem wasn't that the counseling didn't work is that you didn't work.

And what I mean is both of you. It takes two people to say, I'm gonna do the work. Because when you do it the other way, you sit in the counselor's office and every time he's saying something you hear, you're like, Oh, I sure hope they're listening.

I sure hope he or she is listening to this. It happens with sermons too. Right now, all this stuff I've said about how to deal with conflict, a bunch of you married people and couples are sitting next to each other. And I guarantee every one of you is thinking, I sure hope he's listening to this.

I sure hope she's listening to this. I sure hope he's listening to this. Well, you know what? Here's the problem. Those of you that are thinking that. You know what the other person is thinking? The same thing. How about you listen to it for you? And if you're the spouse, you listen to it for you. Try that

because that's what the truth in love is. We gotta get to the truth because we wanna choose love.

Any other system is gonna fail every time, and that's why the counseling didn't work. And if you let the that's the problem with the dam breaking. It's so damaging. We don't even realize how damaging it is. And some of us get stuck. We can't get to the heart of the issue. Say it all. But also,

let me read these last few verses here.

It says, if you were a thief quit stealing instead use your hands for good hard work and then give generously to others in need. Don't use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them and do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live.

Remember, he has identified you as his own guaranteeing that you will be saved on the day of redemption.

Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. That means I have to stop watching Cardinals games because they cause all of those in me. Instead, be kind to each other, tender hearted, forgiving one another just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

Say it, say it straight, say it soon, say it all, say it supportively. Like I was saying about the counseling thing, you're doing it for love. And it says right here, the goal is I want to grow, I want them to grow, I want us to grow. In every relationship, that's what the goal should be.

The problem is when you make it about when I make it about you or I make it about me, just being self selfish, and it's not making about us, then we don't attack the problem, we attack the person. And the problem with that is every time conflict becomes win lose or avoid, a piece of your heart relieves the relationship,

especially if we use a lot of sarcasm. You know what the word sarcasm literally means biblically? To tear flesh. You know what happens if you tear flesh enough? You get scar tissue.

If you tear it deep enough, like my knee has all kinds of scar tissue. I blew it out in high school, had eight hours of surgery. It only bends this far.

And that's affected things my whole life now. It's affected my flexibility. I'm not as flexible now, which affected my hip flexibility, which affected the way I did sports, affected the way I do stuff. So now I've blown out this in my back. It goes to the knee. And now my shoulder is messed up and I got a pinched nerve in my neck somewhere. That's all related to this.

It affects the gate of my walk and over time it starts to make me more inflexible and it starts to hurt things. And it's harder to even do the healthy things to fix it. That's what happens when we treat each other this way. When we become avoider win, avoider win, we start to use sarcasm, we start to tear the flesh. Even if you get it fixed, even if you operate on it, it's a little bit less flexible.

And it gets harder every time. So that's why we have to say it supportively. But like I said, supportively doesn't mean your tone sometimes has to be serious. It has to be this, but supportively means you make it about each other, not just about you or you. And that leads into the last part of this passage.

Say it selflessly. It's not only supportively, but selfless selflessly. What does that mean? Well, he ends with talking about don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Remember what Jesus did.

The goal is for us to be like Jesus, even our relationships. Well, what does Jesus do? We sinned against him. We created conflict with him. What did he do? He came to fix it.

And you know, he did is says, for God so loved the world, he gave his one and only son. Love gives. I need to care enough that even if I'm hurt and there's conflict, I got to relieve that pressure, but I got to go and be selfless and then I got to go and say hey, I am going after this not to be right

not to win not to make you suffer not to even be fair. It's about let's be right In other words, you got to decide, especially in a marriage. Do you want to be right or do you want to be in right relationship? There's a subtle difference in that. Some of you are people that you always have to be right.

And if you always have to be right and your spouse doesn't agree with you, that means they have to be wrong. I'm not talking about math. It's why I just want to believe two plus two is five. I don't know. Maybe that's passing in schools these days. I mean, everything else that's truth is like, that's whatever.

But don't get me started on that. I won't say it properly.

Say it selflessly. You know what's crazy? What I mean by that is actions speak louder than words. Think about this. Jesus never said I love you to anyone in the gospels. Did you know that? So you go look it up and you come back, got you. Yeah. Twice he said, I have loved you in the past tense.

Like he never said it straight up. Even John, who was called the disciple whom Jesus loved, we don't have him recording saying, hey, John, I love you, man, But don't tell anyone else. I'm the one that you're the one I love. No. He said, I have loved you. And they knew it because of his actions.

His actions matched his words. If you are gonna be in conflict resolution, you have to be a consistent person. In fight when it says twice

it says be honest because when we let it the dam break, we get kind of dishonest with ourselves with each other and we start to say things and and and and we don't show things. We say stuff that we think we Oh, but I love you and you know I love you and I love But the problem is if you got to defend the fact that you love someone over and over and over again and say how many times you've said it and they still don't believe it, guess what? Look in a mirror. That means your actions and your mouth need to start matching.

You can't just wipe away problems by saying, but I love you. Jesus said what love is, is it's a choice. It's an action. Usually when we say we love someone, it's a feeling we're describing. That's why we say, I don't love you anymore. Most of the time, what you mean is I don't feel it anymore.

Because if you said I don't love you anymore, it should be, I'm choosing not to love you anymore. Now love can can bring feelings, but love is an action more than a feeling. Love is a choice. I say this all the time. You don't get to choose who you like, but you do get to choose who you love.

See, I told you I said deep things every now and again. Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Like is a preference. There's people they could have no problems with. Just don't like that person. I don't know why. But you know what? You can love somebody you don't like.

You can. You can also like someone that you're choosing not to love.

Say it selflessly. In other words, what you bottom line need to remember is this. You need to listen. If you are gonna have a conflict resolution, you're the one that wants to start the conversation. I would challenge you to ask questions first. And then present with clarity what you're saying

and then go, Hey, I want to hear what you think about this. In other words, seek to understand before you seek to be understood. Because what if you've written a narrative that's just not true? And the other thing you got to remember is this. Conflict resolution is about taking a journey with someone not just

talking about something. We have to sit down and work out. Don't just think about it. We got to talk about this. It's more of we are going on a journey together to get to a better place. And that's why you need to start it. Stop it before it even starts.

You need to stop the battle, the fight, the conflict at its source. Don't let the dam break as it says. Stop it right away. Quit trying to clean it up after it's too late. Stop it before it breaks is what it's saying. And so to do that, I want to do a little object lesson here. I'm going to need a volunteer,

two volunteers. I want a couple And there is a reward involved. And what I need is I would love a couple, especially if you're like engaged, newly married. Maybe you're trying to figure out a good way to ask them to marry you. Here's your chance.

I don't know. Is there anybody is there anybody under that category or am I gonna have to widen it? Man, this is the one service that nobody just raised their hand right away. Bunch of cowards. I'm not gonna embarrass you too bad. And there is counselors standing by afterwards if it goes horribly wrong.

It's not terrible. What what what do we got? Over here. Come on down. I

need your guys' first and last name for the reward, so they need to know the name. Go up this this side. This side. Cesar over here. Yeah. Straighter. What's your first and last name? My name's Rhianna Hastings. Rhianna Hastings, Anne? Aaron. Aaron. What is it? Pelobosch. Pelobosch. Pelobosch. Pelobosch.

So you guys engaged? No. We're already married. You're already married. Okay. You just don't like each other enough to have the same name. Right. I just want Go to over. One of you on each of you on one side. Alright. Perfect. Okay.

Here's the here's the challenge. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna pour this on his head and you tell me when I've poured enough to make up for all the horrible things he's done to you in the last week. How does that sound? No. No. That's not what we're doing. Don't worry about it. Here's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna have a game here to see if you guys can win. I'm gonna pour water on this table. You gotta stop it from getting to there. You gotta stop it from getting off the table. Don't let it get off the table. The only rule is you can't you can't move the table. Alright? Okay. You ready? You ready to try?

Ready to get wet? Alright. Here we go. See if you can do it. Here we go. Go. I don't wanna get off. That's not you're so That works terribly. That

works terrible. Usually, he has really good ideas. I got an idea. Here here's an idea. No. There was a better idea. I don't know what it was. Did you think about just grabbing my hand and tilting it back up? Come on. Come on. Said the only rule is you can't move the table. See?

You're supposed to think of smart stuff. If it makes you feel any better, out of five services, three people didn't figure it out, two services did. They did. I'm not saying anything, just an observation. Both did figure it out. It was the guy that figured it out. That's why I was looking you. See? Sorry, man. Sorry,

man. Thank you. And I'm glad you love me. You guys got soaked. It's we love it better when they don't figure it out. It's more fun. One service, if you feel it the wife start going, no. Get down. Get down, Lord. You got that. And she tilted the table and he tried to drink it.

And I'm like, I'm pretty sure this is used toilet water is what it looks like. So he we had to give him a yeah. They got towels for you. But also, I got a gift for you. I wasn't kidding. This is a gift card to our coffee shop. So So if you love coffee, here it looks like you have kids. Yes. You need coffee. Yes.

And so here, I'll give it to you. There you go. That's wet. Thank you so much. Give them a hand. They were awesome. This is why I did at the end of the service too, so you wouldn't have to leave if you got wet. Here's my point. Three out of five tried to stop the water after a poured. You know why?

This sermon I just shared, easier said than done. Because we are almost just by our nature. That's why I says don't be like the world anymore. Don't be our very nature wants us to not even deal with conflict until the dam breaks.

And that's why I set up this way. It's kind of almost deceptive. Once I say, stop the water here, you just automatically hear, I gotta deal with it down here. And so we by nature think that this is what conflict resolution is. When conflict resolution is simply this, the second you start to sense, you go deal with it.

Got it? Good stuff. Twinkle, twinkle little star right there. Amen? Let's pray. Let's pray. Father God, I just thank you Lord. I thank you that you do love us and I thank you that you are clear with us. And I thank you that you showed us the way to how to deal with conflict resolution. It's to be you, to follow Jesus.

So Lord, I just pray for anyone in this room, anyone online, even myself, that especially in any relationship that we're sensing the pressure, that we would take this wisdom from your word, this old school wisdom, and then we would walk it out in our lives. And that you would bring us victory. You'd bring us resolution

instead of so much revolution. I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Hey, I love you guys. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for joining us online this weekend. Let us know if we can help you in any way. Make sure to follow us on social media and connect with us on the We Are Rock Point app for prayer and everything happening here at Rock Point.