Crucial Relational Issues Series

Crucial Relational Issues

(topical)

1. This week, something amazing happened:

By Good News Network Thursday, January 26, 2012

Just beneath the radar of formal diplomacy and strategic talks, the largest peace conference in the history of the Middle East took place Monday and Tuesday on Facebook.

Thousands of Palestinian, Israeli and Arab youth joined together for the virtual peace summit where real world leaders, like Hillary Clinton, Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, congratulated their efforts.

YaLa, the Young Leaders movement on Facebook with over 50,000 participants, is sponsored by the Peres Center for Peace with the goal of motivating Middle Eastern youth through social networks and technology to feel a stake in their region’s future.

2. It takes great efforts for differing groups of people to get along. May I suggest to you that national tensions correspond to personal tensions. We have a hard time getting along with one another and working things out.

Main Idea: All our relationships are significantly affected by how we deal with anger, how we argue, and our comfort with forgiving and asking for forgiveness.

I. Harvest ANGER (Ephesians 4:30)

• People make fools of themselves thru misdirected anger; can do irreparable damage. Only our Lord know how many people have died over anger.

• The Story of David and Abigail: David would have killed Nabal and all males

Proverbs 22:24 says, “Make no friendship with a man given to anger, nor go with a wrathful man, lest you learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.”

A. It is not a sin to be ANGRY

B. Danger: anger can easily lead to SIN

1. STUFFING

2. BLOWING UP

The wife was so angry with him she threw his clothes out of the window. Unfortunately, he was wearing them at the time.

3. PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE

Barbed criticism disguised: helpful advice, a funny joke, simple forgetfulness.

Instead of confronting a problem and asserting yourself, you absorb but get back

C. Direct anger’s ENERGY toward addressing the problem

1. Get control of yourself, wait till you are cooled off, but do not neglect to deal with it; if necessary, write a note to deal with it later that day

2. Explain what offended you and how it made you feel

3. Try to understand the other person’s perspective

4. Brainstorm about what you can do to solve the problem

5. Choose what seems the best approach and try it

6. Be gracious, apologize and accept apology

7. If you cannot agree, either compromise and accept that you differ

All our relationships are significantly affected by how we deal with anger, how we argue, and our comfort with forgiving and asking for forgiveness.

II. Break the Attack & Defense CYCLE (Prv. 15:1, 31)

• How does the attack and defense cycle differ from an argument?

• An argument is about the issue; attack and defense starts with an issue but gets diverted, both parties trying to prove the other the hypocrite

A. Not fighting back is COUNTER-INTUITIVE

B. Accept what REPROOF might be legitimate

Matthew 18:15, “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”

C. ADD to the reproof

Pride keeps us from reproof; some families/cultures imbed this. You can see it on the TV show Chopped. On chef kept arguing with the judges and rationalizing.

Since the inability to receive correction is the hallmark of wisdom, according to Proverbs 12:1, some people are set in motion toward foolishness.

James 5:16 says, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”

Do you connect the dots? When we are upfront about our sinful bents and faults, this makes our prayers more powerful and moves us toward being described as a righteous person.

All our relationships are significantly affected by how we deal with anger, how we argue, and our comfort with forgiving and asking for forgiveness.

III. Put Real FORGIVENESS to Work (Luke 17:3-4, Micah 7:19)

A. SUBSTITUTES passed off as forgiveness

• Joseph’s brothers thought he was going to kill them after Jacob died

• David told Solomon to kill the people he had forgiven (to protect Solomon)

B. Real forgiveness brings real RESTORATION

C. Real forgiveness is CONDITIONAL

1. Amish school shootings “we forgive you”

2. We forgive as God forgives

3. God’s forgiveness is conditioned upon repentance

4. God does not always forgive people; sometimes we do not, either

5. The holy souls under the altar in Revelation 6 cry out for vengeance

6. The Bible speaks of an unpardonable sin (apostasy)

D. Real forgiveness does not mean immediate CREDIBILITY

1. Some sins are so bad credibility is gone forever (child molesting)