When Outer Obnoxiousness Meets Inner Peace: Choosing Unity Over Conflict

Have you ever felt like you're surrounded by utter obnoxiousness? The legendary cartoon artist Charles Schultz captured this perfectly in 1983 when he drew a situation between Charlie Brown and his sister Sally. "Sally comes to Charlie and she says this. I hate everything. I hate the whole world." When Charlie asks about her supposed inner peace, "She says, she responds, I do. And then she responds with, but I still have outer obnoxiousness, right?" Maybe that's you right now. "Maybe you feel like I struggle with this idea of how having peace, but I am surrounded by obnoxiousness, right? It could be the people in my home, it could be the people I work with, it could be the people I go to church with, but I am surrounded by utter obnoxiousness."

Peace Isn't Something You Find—It's Already Been Given

"Sometimes we think about peace, we often have the wrong idea of, of peace according to what scripture teaches about it. Peace, sometimes we think about is this like ever elusive thing that's like hiding from us and we have to somehow find it, right?" But here's what changes everything: "What we realize in scripture is that peace isn't something for a believer that we have to find. Peace is actually something that's already been given to us." In John 14:27, during a very tumultuous time in his relationship with his disciples, "Jesus says this to his disciples. He says, peace, I leave with you, my peace. I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Essentially, Jesus says, I'm going to give you peace. You don't have to go searching for it. You don't have to get lucky and stumble upon it. It's something I am giving."

Why Christians Don't Experience the Peace They Already Have

"So the question is then, if believers have already been given peace, why does it seem that many times Christians don't experience peace in their life? And I believe really the question, the answer to that question is because we have to willfully and purposefully choose peace." Most people try to find peace in one of three places. "The first place most time people try to find peace is, is they try to look inward. I would call this the Eastern philosophy or the Eastern mindset of finding peace." This includes meditation, relaxation, and trying to find inward harmony. "But what I would say that the problem with this is is that that is just a means to a process. It's not actually the idea of finding peace." "The other place that most of the time people try to find their source of peace is outward. I would call this the Western idea or the Western mindset when it comes to finding peace." This involves trying to achieve status, conquer challenges, or control circumstances. "But what most people find out if they try to do it this way is that this kind of trying to find peace really is just something that's always just out of reach." "But as believers, we can find a source of peace. Not inward, but not outward, but how I would say is upward. Upward. By realizing that peace is a person, not a condition."

Four Actions for Choosing Peace in Relational Conflict

Let's look at Philippians 4:1-5, where Paul addresses a real conflict between two prominent church members and gives us a roadmap for choosing peace.

1. Cherish Unity

In Philippians 4:2, Paul addresses two women in conflict: "I beseech Euodias and beseech Syntyche that they be of the same mind in the Lord." These weren't troublemakers—"More than likely, these two people are actually really good friends. They're co laborers with Paul in the Gospel... Both of these women were influential in their church. They were prominent church members and had in actual, in actuality helped Paul in establishing the church here in Philippi." "There's no indication necessarily that the issue that these ladies have is some kind of doctrinal error or moral failure." Instead, "it may have been that these two personalities really just seem to kind of clash together." Paul's solution? "He says, hey, the two of you. You two of you need to be of the same mind in the Lord. This idea of being of the same mind is the Greek word phroneo-ho-autos, which really means to think the same thing. We would probably say in our modern terminology to agree, come into agreement, the two of you." "In cherishing unity over conflict, we must first recognize that there is a bigger issue at stake than just whether or not we get our personal desires or just for us to get a chance to be right over somebody else."

The Danger of Petty Conflicts

Church researcher Tom Raynor compiled a list of the top 25 petty conflicts in churches. "Some of the top highlights, I kid you not, these are real stories from real churches around the United States. And unfortunately, I have to say to you that this disunity did cause some local churches to split up and to be hurt." The conflicts included: "the length of the worship pastor's beard," whether to use "crayon grape juice in communion rather than just Welch's grape juice," whether to "serve deviled eggs at the church functions? Because you know what? They're deviled," and "what size filing cabinet to buy. And I kid you not, from this account, it took up an hour and a half of their church meeting, particularly how many drawers they should buy."

2. Choose Wise Counsel

In Philippians 4:3, Paul involves a third party: "I entreat thee also true yoke fellow, help those women which labored with me in the gospel." This person was "unnamed, but he's described here in verse three as a true yoke fellow." "Paul believed essential, what is essential for the unhindered continuance of the declaration of the gospel through this church. Of Philippi is that this person get involved in this situation." The word "help" here is significant. "The word help is sullambano... It's the idea that this guy helping them wasn't the idea of him trying to come in and correct these ladies. It wasn't corrective by nature. Rather, it was a team effort to overcome this obstacle that these two ladies didn't seem to be able to handle on their own." This prevents "cultural triangulation... the idea that instead of just dealing with somebody and dealing with the problem, many times in work environments, in team environments, sometimes even in church places, what happens is that instead of a person going to somebody else and just addressing the conflict and getting it right, instead of directly addressing the conflict with that person, they begin to involve other people, third parties in the issue."

3. Cultivate Healthy Relationships

Philippians 4:4 gives us a surprising command for dealing with conflict: "Rejoice in the Lord alway. And again I say rejoice." "You might be thinking like I did when I first read this. That's kind of a strange one, Paul. We're talking about relational conflict. We're talking about problems, interpersonal problems. How does rejoicing have anything to do with dealing with my relational conflict?" "Here's the reality. In the middle of relational conflict, what do we tend to do? We tend to focus on the problem, don't we? Specifically, the other person's faults, what they did, what they said, what they didn't do, maybe the other person's motives." "God's wisdom through Paul here shifts the problem from the problem to the person. And Paul tells them, in essence to get your focus off the horizontal problem and to begin to think about the vertical solution... Get your focus off the horizontal problem, Christian, and begin to think about the vertical solution, the God oriented worship and praise solution."

Learning from My Pepper Garden

"I really like hot, spicy things... And what I've noticed in that the last few years I've done it compared to the first year I did it is that the first year I did it, I really had no idea what I was doing." In that first year, "I became hyper fixated on all the issues that can happen with these plants... And I'll be honest, some, some of those weak plants my first year never made it out of the basement." "You know what I've learned over the last few years in cultivating these plants is that instead of fixating on all the negative things that could possibly happen or maybe happening with the plants, what I tried to focus on is exactly what the plants need. They need healthy soil, they need the right kind of nutrients and they need the right kind of light and water." "And I believe the same principles really apply when we're talking about cultivating our healthy relationships. Because sometimes when there's conflict, that's exactly what we fixate on. We fixate on the problem... Instead, Paul says, you need to change the way that you're thinking. You need to rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice."

4. Commit to Personal Responsibility

Philippians 4:5 commands: "Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand." "This word moderation that's used here is epieikes, which means gentleness or patience. But the reality of this word is that there really isn't one English word that encapsulates this word... This word actually also carries some other meanings. It carries the meanings of tolerance. It carries the meaning of humility. It carries the meaning of kindness. I like how one commentator called it. He called it, it's a sweet reasonableness." "Paul is essentially telling them to be willing not to get their way in a relationship for the sake of the reputation of Christ and his people, their choosing peace should be known to all men." "Essentially, you ought to be people who are characterized by such a quality because it's more important for things to be right than for us to be right. It is more important for things to be right than for us to be right."

Putting It Into Practice: Five Ways to Defuse Relational Conflict

"So I want to leave you tonight with five practical ways. Five practical ways that if you are in a relational conflict right now, in some relational conflict right now, five practical ways that you can defuse this relational conflict and choose peace in the middle of it."

1. Resolve to Stop Procrastinating

"You need to address the problem. You need to address the core of the issue, what it is that is causing this relational conflict. Because what happens is that if you put it off, you will allow it to begin to build up. It will build up anxiety, it will build up bitterness, and it will build up anger."

2. Reevaluate Your Expectations

"Some of you are like, I'm just like anti conflict, like I can't deal with conflict, right? Well guess what? There's gonna be conflict in your life whether you like to deal with it or not. So you might need to re evaluate your expectation to be ready for when it comes and to deal with it when it comes."

3. Recruit Competent Outside Help

"This might take some humbleness on your part. It might mean that you need to sit with somebody who is a true yoke fellow. Somebody who is not gonna take side but somebody that's gonna help you in this situation that you don't seem to be able to deal with on your own."

4. Refuse to Allow One Relationship to Ruin Your Life

"You might need to just release the offense... The pain might be real, but it doesn't have to characterize the rest of your life. I grew up in a home where my dad left before I was even in school. And I could have let that true hurt, relational conflict characterize the rest of my life. But at some point in my life I had to deal with it... I have refused to allow that one relationship or hopes of reconciliation in that relationship ruin the rest of my life."

5. Remember That a Right Response Is More Important Than Being Right

"Maybe you struggle with always wanting to be right... Maybe you've allowed an offense to become an animosity... But let me ask you a question. What would your life look like if you decided to choose peace in the way that God has told us to choose peace in this relational conflict?"

The Ultimate Example of Choosing Peace

"You know what's amazing is that the story of the Gospel is that Jesus chose peace for us." In Ephesians 2, we learn how "Jesus who became our peace, how he broke down that middle wall of partition between us and the Lord, that he abolished all the enmity of the law and he so was our peace." "Jesus chose peace for you when he went to the cross to pay for your sin debt so that you could have peace with God." This is the foundation for all our relationships—we can choose peace because Christ first chose peace for us. "I believe that if we want peace in our life, we have to choose peace in our relationships. And we do so by doing what God has said. To cherish unity, to commit to personal responsibility, to cultivate those healthy relationships and to choose that wise counsel when it is needed."