Participants: Michael Kontes
Series Code: FC
Program Code: FC000409
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00:01 Please stay with us as
00:08 3ABN presents 00:16 this closed captioned program 00:30 Hello, my name is Michael Kontes 00:32 and I want to welcome 00:33 you to Faith Chapel. 00:34 Today we're going to look at 00:35 how Jesus would want 00:36 us to deal with conflict. 00:39 Let us pray. 00:40 Father we come to Thee now and we thank Thee for the 00:43 opportunity of opening up the Bread of Life 00:45 and learning how You would want us to be here on Earth 00:49 and how to deal with conflict. 00:51 Be with us now in Jesus name, Amen. 00:55 Has anyone ever hurt you? Has someone offended you 00:59 or sinned against you? 01:00 Probably not, right? 01:02 I'll bet all of us have been offended 01:06 by someone and someone has sinned against us at some time. 01:10 Today I'd like to share with you the most overlooked commandment 01:15 in the Word of God. 01:17 Let us open up to Matthew 18:15-17 02:10 This is so very important for us as Christians to realize God is 02:16 giving us a mandate, He's giving us a commandment here. 02:18 The same as in Matthew 28 where Jesus gives the Great Commission 02:23 where He tells us to go into the world and to all nations 02:26 to make disciples and to baptize them. 02:29 Here Jesus is telling us to go to our brother if he has 02:33 offended us, go to our sister 02:35 if she has offended us. And Go Alone 02:39 not with our posse, 02:41 not with 7 or 8 people to make us feel good, 02:44 in attack mode, 02:45 but go alone. 02:47 Why? 02:49 Why does the Word of God say, 'alone? ' 02:51 I'd like to share with you what I believe 02:53 what the Bible reveals to us, why we are to go alone. 02:56 First and foremost when we go alone 02:59 we do not expose our brother and sister 03:02 and make the circumstances harder. 03:03 We go in love and in care 03:07 to really heal the relationship if possible. 03:11 Now this does not guarantee that the relationship 03:15 will be healed automatically. 03:18 But, it ensures us that we are following the Word of God. 03:23 Now some of us might be saying, 03:26 "Well Pastor Mike, is email okay? " 03:32 "or can I get on my mobile phone and call the individual? " 03:36 Brothers and sisters, the Word of God does not say 03:39 that we can get on our AOL account, 03:41 our Juno account, Earthlink account, whatever account 03:45 and send an email to a brother or sister 03:47 who has offended us. 03:49 It does not say to get on the phone. 03:50 It says to physically go to our brother and sister and 03:54 to resolve this situation. 03:57 Now, if I was the pastor of your local church 04:01 and we're preparing for communion next week 04:04 and you came to the communion service 04:06 and I decided to use Wonder bread and Coca-Cola 04:10 for the symbols of communion 04:12 would that offend you? 04:13 I'm sure it would. 04:14 And I'm sure it would offend God. 04:17 I would be committing a grave sin. 04:20 Because the Bible mandates how we are 04:23 to have the communion service. 04:24 Yet, we as people so neglect 04:27 going to our brothers and our sisters 04:30 and to share with them alone because 04:32 we do not want to lower our walls and have God 04:37 transform our hearts. 04:40 Now, this is a tough situation 04:45 because as we lower our walls 04:48 and make ourselves vulnerable to our brother or to our sister 04:51 we might get hurt. 04:55 In fact there are times when a brother or sister 04:58 might not even accept what we're saying. 05:02 Should that stop us? 05:05 Should that stop us from following the biblical protocol? 05:09 You see I believe we do a great job 05:13 following the second part of this verse where it says, 05:18 "go with two or three. " 05:19 And even then we don't go about it with the right spirit. 05:22 We take two or three witnesses with us so we can show 05:26 our brothers or sisters who are coming with us, 05:29 "Look how this person is going to respond to me. " 05:31 "Look at this person, what they're going to say to me. " 05:34 "I told you so! " 05:37 Yet we neglect to realize how Jesus approached others. 05:45 You see many times when we go to our brother and sister 05:51 we want the situation to be fixed automatically. 05:53 But we have to realize that sometimes 05:58 and most of the time I should say 06:00 it's in God's timing. 06:02 As we read the Bible we are told over and over 06:06 that God bore with Lucifer long in Heaven 06:10 before Lucifer was expelled. 06:12 We also as we read the Scriptures find out that 06:15 Jesus bore with Judas for a long time. 06:18 Judas was a thief. 06:20 We're told in the book of John that Judas was a thief. 06:23 Judas was stealing from the bank account that the disciples had, 06:28 their 'Swiss bank account. ' 06:30 Jesus knew about it. 06:31 But did Jesus expose Judas to the group? 06:36 No He didn't. 06:40 Jesus tried to win Judas over. 06:43 Now we must serve God from principle and not feelings. 06:51 Sometimes the person who has offended us 06:53 doesn't even know they've offended us, has no clue. 06:59 And I'd like to share with you a personal story 07:02 that has happened to me. 07:03 I had a very good friend of mine 07:04 say something a while back that really offended me. 07:09 I decided to go about fixing this situation through email. 07:19 I sent my email. 07:21 The friend of mine replied back. 07:24 Didn't like what was said. 07:28 I replied back to that email. 07:34 Next thing you know we have 07:36 seven correspondences going back and forth 07:38 about how we've hurt each other 07:40 and how the other person is at fault. 07:45 When we go to the individual who has hurt us 07:49 in an humble spirit, face to face 07:52 and we lay down the sword 07:55 and allow Jesus Christ to work a transformation process 08:01 in this conflict resolution 08:03 where we can sit down and look at someone eye to eye 08:07 we are allowing God to be God. 08:14 Many times, once again, we don't like to do that. 08:19 We would rather go to a brother and sister in the church 08:22 and share how we've been hurt. 08:24 "Did you know Brother So-and-So hurt me? " 08:27 "You know Sister So-and-So, you know what she said " 08:30 "to me last week? " 08:32 We get a scar touched upon 08:37 and we begin to put our own spiritual ointment on 08:42 the same way when we go to others in the church 08:45 and try to garner sides. 08:49 And we begin to divide the church in half 08:52 because we are not humble enough 08:54 to go to our brother and our sister 08:56 when we have offended them. 08:59 I can share with you another personal note. 09:04 If my wife and I did not practice this principle 09:09 in the Bible, we'd be at odds with one another all the time. 09:13 We'd carry things with us 09:16 we'd begin to build resentment towards one another. 09:19 It would ripen into malice. 09:20 And next thing you know I am at odds with my helpmate. 09:24 But Jesus said if your brother, if your sister 09:30 if your wife, if your co-worker 09:33 whoever offends you, you are to go to them 09:37 with a humble contrite heart. 09:39 And share with them what they have done in hopes 09:42 that the relationship will be strengthened. 09:46 You see ultimately we carry our character to Heaven. 09:54 I also believe we have an opportunity 09:57 to carry relationships to Heaven. 10:00 And what God is trying to have us learn here on earth 10:06 is not only how to be holy 10:09 but how to be holy to others. 10:17 Usually when we choose not to go to our brother or sister 10:25 when this has taken place 10:27 and we go to the church 10:32 and we spread what people have done to us 10:34 and the church begins to divide 10:38 I can share with you that Jesus is hurting. 10:44 When Saul was going around killing Christians 10:51 Jesus meet Saul on the road to Damascus and said, 10:54 "Saul, why do you persecute me? " in the book of Acts. 10:59 We're also told by the writer John 11:02 that if we hate our brother 11:05 without a cause we are committing murder. 11:08 Many times it is our pride 11:13 and our selfishness and our past baggage 11:17 that keep us from practicing this first principle. 11:20 I think as a church many times we can do 11:23 the second part of this commandment 11:25 "take two or three " 11:27 and "take it to the church " 11:28 We can go through the motions and go through the proper steps 11:31 and say we've done that. 11:33 But we neglect the first part 11:35 of this commandment 11:37 which is to go 11:38 and go alone. 11:40 Do we care enough for our 11:43 brothers and sisters to go alone 11:45 or do we care more about ourselves? 11:48 Another experience I'd like to share with you is 11:52 when I've done this commandment in the way God wants me to do it 11:59 I have seen relationships restored. 12:02 I don't know about you but when I read 12:04 the Bible from Genesis to Revelation 12:07 God is in the business of restoring relationships. 12:10 Isn't that right? 12:12 God is trying to restore us 12:15 with the relationship that we have broken away from Him. 12:19 And in turn God wants to restore harmed relationships 12:23 that we have with others and that others have with us. 12:28 There was an opportunity that I had 12:32 to go and to share with a brother 12:34 something that he had done to me 12:37 and I went to him and basically, friends 12:42 we had a heart to heart conversation 12:45 where tears were shed and there was opportunity of healing 12:49 and I'm closer today with this brother 12:53 than I was in the past. 12:55 Because every experience we have with someone 12:59 we're either growing closer to that individual 13:02 or we're slipping away. 13:06 So when we have a very delicate situation 13:08 that arises when a brother sins against us 13:11 or a sister sins against us, 13:12 really what it boils down to is: do we care enough 13:18 about the relationship that we have 13:21 with this brother or sister? 13:24 Many of us have multiple friends 13:26 and sometimes what we do is we say, 13:28 "Well you know what, they did it, I'm going to " 13:30 "love 'em at church, I'm gonna smile and give 'em a hug " 13:33 and then when we have the opportunity 13:39 to put a dagger in their back 13:40 spread seeds of discontent 13:43 that's the first thing that we do. 13:45 That's not what Jesus would have for us to do. 13:50 Jesus would want us to humble our hearts once again 13:56 let down our pride 13:57 and have restoration from conflict 14:01 come about in such a way 14:05 that ultimately the unseen and unfallen worlds 14:09 can look upon us and say, 14:11 "You know what, look, Mike's a son of God " 14:15 "because he's practicing that commandment. " 14:17 Now I will also share with you 14:20 that because this is also an imperative in the Greek language 14:22 and which makes it a commandment 14:25 I like to call this the '11th commandment. ' 14:28 This commandment, I believe, shows us truly in a mirror 14:38 if we love God or if we love ourselves more. 14:42 This commandment shows us, do we love ourselves? 14:44 or our brothers and sisters more? 14:48 Now, you say, "Mike, you're being pretty strong today. " 14:52 "You seem like you have the answers for this. " 14:55 Yeah, unfortunately I have the answers because I've done it 14:58 so many times the wrong way 15:00 that God has impressed upon my heart how to do it the right way 15:11 There's a story in the book of Acts where Paul comes across 15:16 and he notices that Peter is being a little obstinate 15:22 towards the Gentiles. 15:24 And Paul pulls Peter aside 15:27 and begins to tell him what's going on. 15:32 Paul was offended at the actions of one of his fellow disciples. 15:42 Paul could have very easily turned his shoulder 15:45 and neglected Peter. 15:47 And Peter would have missed an opportunity to grow. 15:50 Ultimately friends, when we have these circumstances 15:55 come across our path, we're told among others, by a 15:58 19th century Christian writer once said, and I paraphrase, 16:04 that if we are to take every situation that comes 16:08 across our path as having the Hand of God allow this we could 16:15 look upon these situations through a different glass. 16:18 Instead of looking at it half empty 16:20 we could look at it half full. 16:22 So when a brother or sister sins against us 16:24 we don't have to look at it as, 16:25 "Oh my goodness I've been so hurt! " 16:27 And I go out and begin to pull out my spiritual 9mm's 16:33 and going after my brother and sister in church. 16:35 If I could humble myself for one minute 16:38 go in prayer 16:39 and ask God, "God what would You have for me to do? " 16:42 and I'll share something else friends 16:43 God would not have us to do anything 16:45 that goes against the Word of God. 16:50 So if the Word of God says, 'When our brother and sister ' 16:52 'have offended us we are to go to our brother and sister, ' 16:56 we are to go! 16:59 Once again, we could come up with excuses. 17:01 Now there are some situations 17:02 I have to admit are very difficult. 17:05 Someone could say, "Well, Pastor Mike " 17:07 "the person who offended me is now over in Europe or " 17:09 "over in South America and I don't know " 17:13 "if I'm going to be able to see this person face to face. " 17:16 These are tough situations and the only answer to that is, 17:18 you need to take that to prayer 17:21 and see what Jesus would have for you to do. 17:23 Maybe, if this person has offended you 17:25 you could take it into prayer 17:27 and the burden could be released then and there 17:30 and in due time God can begin to orchestrate 17:33 events to bring this person back into your life 17:36 where you're not so emotionally charged 17:40 or you'll start throwing daggers at your brother or sister. 17:43 Maybe in God's timing the emotions will have settled 17:48 you'll be able to explain to a brother or sister 17:52 in the proper manner. 17:55 Now this is one point I do want to bring out 17:57 also and that is, when we go to our brother 17:59 or sister alone, we need to go in a humble manner, 18:03 not with 'guns a blazing! ' 18:06 "DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO ME! " 18:08 No, that's not the protocol Jesus would have us take. 18:13 We're to go to our brother and sister and say, 18:14 "You know, there's a situation that has arisen " 18:18 "that I need to bring to our attention " 18:21 and I'd like to talk to you about it if that's okay. " 18:24 "Could I have prayer before we talk about this? " 18:28 And we go into prayer. 18:30 Now if the person at that time 18:32 senses that this is going to be a heavy conversation 18:35 and the person says, 18:36 "Now's not the right time can we set a time for next week? " 18:40 We're not to get huffy and puffy 18:42 "Oh my goodness, Brother Jack offended me " 18:45 "because he didn't want to settle the conflict. " 18:47 Well Brother Jack may be busy. 18:49 He may already have things on his list 18:52 to do for that day 18:56 and we have to be patient. 18:58 I think that's a word we hear throughout the Bible 19:01 in fact if I'm not mistaken 19:02 Revelation 14:12 says, "Here is the patience of the saints " 19:06 "here are they that keep the commandments of God " 19:08 "and have the faith of Jesus. " 19:10 Here are they that keep the commandments of God! 19:15 The commandment being, 'Go to our brother and sister ' 19:20 'Alone. ' 19:22 And we are to go to them and we are to be patient. 19:25 Meaning, in God's timing 19:30 all things work together 19:31 for good. 19:34 As a pastor this is very 19:38 very difficult commandment to sometimes teach. 19:47 The reason being is that sometimes 19:51 we may not model it ourselves. 19:54 And this is where I believe 19:56 that the leaders of the church 19:58 should be the first to be practicing this commandment. 20:05 As a pastor when someone comes to us and wants to say, 20:08 "Pastor Mike, I want to let you know that last week " 20:12 "Susie offended me and this is what Susie said to me " 20:15 and members begin to start sharing what's going on. 20:20 What do I do? How do I respond? 20:24 Do I care about gathering information 20:27 and I sit back and allow this member 20:29 to begin share with me all the beefs, 20:31 so I have my little black book 20:33 of what has been taking place in my church? 20:35 Or do I stop the member right away 20:41 and say, "Sister So-and-so " 20:43 "I believe that God wants you to go " 20:46 "to Susie and talk to Susie. " 20:49 "You see we're told in Matthew 18, if someone offends you " 20:53 "you are to go to them alone. " 20:55 "And by coming to me there's an opportunity " 20:59 "where I could share it with someone else. " 21:01 "Do you want me to share it with someone else? " 21:03 "No Pastor. I don't want you to share it with someone else. " 21:07 "You need to go and speak to Susie yourself. " 21:12 Now let's take this to a higher level. 21:13 From a pastor perspective let's go to a Conference situation. 21:16 Let's say there's a member 21:17 who's upset at a pastor. 21:20 And they go knocking on the conference door 21:22 or wanting to speak to the Ministerial Director 21:23 or the Conference President. 21:25 "Elder So-and-so " 21:28 "I need to talk to you about Pastor Michael. " 21:30 How should the conference leader approach this situation? 21:36 I believe once again, the Bible tells us how. 21:39 I believe that the Conference President 21:42 or the Ministerial Director or anyone in the conference 21:45 should be able to say, "Brother So-and-so " 21:47 "Sister So-and-so " 21:48 "it sounds like a real delicate issue. " 21:51 "But being in the position that I'm at " 21:54 "and being that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior " 21:57 "I need to point you back to pastor Mike. " 22:00 "You need to go to Pastor Michael " 22:02 "and you need to settle that with Pastor Michael. " 22:04 "And you know, if Pastor Michael does not listen to you " 22:08 "you need to take two or three witnesses " 22:11 "and you guys need to go together " 22:14 "and you need to share what he's done to you. " 22:16 "Hopefully he'll get a chance to hear you. " 22:18 "And you know if you go with two or three witnesses " 22:21 "and Pastor Mike doesn't listen to them " 22:22 "you need to take it to the church body. " 22:25 Now, I also want to share about this commandment, 22:28 it's not just going to our brother once. 22:31 The reason why is many times we can go 22:34 with the wrong spirit as I've said. 22:35 We can go one time and we can be huffy and puffy 22:38 and if our brother doesn't listen to us 22:40 we can automatically think we're going to shift 22:43 into taking two or three witnesses. 22:45 I believe we can go multiple times to our brother and sister. 22:48 If Jesus can bear with Judas for three and a half years 22:52 we can sure try to emulate that example. 22:56 Amen? 22:57 Also, if Jesus and the Father 23:00 could take thousands of years, 23:03 maybe five thousand years, 23:07 no, not that long 23:11 maybe a week, two weeks, three weeks, maybe a year 23:14 to allow Lucifer in Heaven to run his course. 23:22 They gave him time. 23:25 That's a principle that God shares with us. 23:29 When someone offends us we are to give people time 23:33 to maybe realize what they've done to us. 23:36 But we have had that scab so scratched 23:40 and so hurt 23:42 the experience that has 23:45 brought so much pain to us 23:47 and then all the other experiences 23:49 that if we have not gotten victory over from the past 23:53 to begin to build up and then 23:55 we want to go to our brother and sister 23:57 upon edict and have them fix the situation then and now 24:05 Yet the Bible says, "Here's the patience of the saints. " 24:09 We are to keep the commandments of God 24:11 and have the faith of the Son. 24:15 Now, as we're preparing to close 24:20 I just want to share with you 24:22 the only way this commandment can be kept 24:28 is through the power and strength of the Holy Spirit. 24:33 We have to allow the divine power of Jesus Christ 24:37 to help us look at the situation 24:42 through His eyes. 24:45 So many times we look at it through 24:48 our goggles and our perspectives 24:50 and that which causes anger and malice 24:53 because we have been so offended. 24:55 Yet, brothers and sisters 24:59 have you ever offended God? 25:01 I can share with you that I have. 25:03 And I know that God has been patient with me. 25:05 And God has allowed 25:10 He's allowed me to come around 25:12 to see that He is worthy 25:16 of my worship, worthy of my obedience 25:20 and worthy of all my devotion. 25:24 So when we begin to look at others 25:26 through His eyes and through Matthew 18 25:32 we begin to realize that our God is the God of reconciliation 25:38 as mentioned in 2 Corinthians 5 25:41 God is in the business of reconciling the world 25:44 to Himself! 25:46 God is in the business 25:48 of reconciling you and I to Him. 25:54 The Father is in the business of reconciling families. 25:57 How many families have been destroyed 26:01 over Christmas dinners, Thanksgiving dinners 26:05 anniversaries, birthdays because someone said something 26:09 and lo and behold, the two brothers and sisters 26:12 did not talk to one another for ten years. 26:15 I am from Greek descent and was raised 26:19 to think when someone hurt you, you discarded them. 26:24 You didn't pay attention to them anymore. 26:26 even if it was a family member because, 26:28 'they crossed the line. ' 26:32 'They hurt you. ' 26:33 And so now you draw boundaries and stakes in the ground 26:37 and you don't allow these family members to come anywhere 26:42 over these boundaries. 26:46 What if God had done the same thing to Adam and Eve? 26:51 What if God had done the same thing to us? 26:57 I'm only going to allow you guys to get so close. 26:59 Because I know you are going to bring a lot of pain to my heart. 27:07 You see the Bible says in the Jeremiah 31 27:10 "I have loved you with an everlasting love " 27:13 God does not look at us as we are. 27:18 God looks at us as who we can be. 27:21 When Jesus came across through the Gospels 27:24 when He looked upon Nicodemus 27:27 He saw who Nicodemus could be. 27:29 When He saw Mary Magdalene He saw who Mary could be. 27:37 The lady at the well, He saw who she could be. 27:42 The question today to you, to us 27:49 when someone offends you do you see 27:53 who they can be? |
Revised 2014-12-17