 The title of my sermon today is Family Feud. Now it's not like the game though. It's not like, you know, we're not gonna sit here and play guessing games here. But the title of my sermon is Family Feud and I wanna talk about conflict in our families. Now I know that might seem like a little bit of a Debbie Downer on a Sunday morning but inevitably we all have them in our families. It's like a fart. Nobody likes to admit that you do it but we all do it, right? Sorry, I don't know why I said that. I honestly wasn't planning to say that. But it's like that. We all fight but we act like we don't. And the reality is that fighting to a certain degree is a good thing. Iron sharpens iron, right? Proverbs 27, 17. As iron sharpens iron, so does a brother. And so as we are together and our families, it's natural that there's gonna be some conflicting. There's natural that there's gonna be rubbing together where things just get tense. But there's a problem sometimes when that sharpening turns into stabbing. And that's what we wanna talk about a little bit this morning. Because oftentimes in our families, we'll have little fights here and there but then there's those fights that we have that are honestly, they run deep. They're the kind of fights that are way beyond the surface level. And oftentimes the little fights that we have have little to do with the underlying issue that we're facing. And for some reason, every time we get into a family argument, it goes straight to the heart. It goes straight to the painful place. And if not dealt with properly, if not done properly, these issues, these family problems, what ends up happening is they become emotional tension that becomes internalized so much so that it becomes our beliefs about our family members. It becomes the way in which we view each other. And we need to be careful of that. But oftentimes we just don't know how to go about that. So today, hopefully in this sermon, it's more of a teaching today. Hopefully that will be able to give you a couple tools to be able to fight well. And also some tools on what to do when fighting doesn't go well. I believe that it's God's intention this morning to bring hope to relationships that we felt like were lost causes. I believe specifically this morning that this message is not just by accident but that it's very timely, that it will be a word in season for some families. Because even as we talk about conflict in the family and you might already be thinking, yeah, that's me, I kind of got some things going on. And my family, if you knew my mom or if you knew my brother, if you knew my dad, then you would know things get a little bit tense. But this morning I believe that God wants to help the family members who are struggling and hurting because they have a son who is addicted and he's hurting the family but we don't know how to bring resolution. I believe that God's gonna bring resolution and bring just a glimmer of hope and a purpose and a focus this morning on how we might be able to bring restoration. But before we do so, I wanna ask for your permission. I wanna ask for your permission because oftentimes topics like this, sermons like this can be simple. They can be very straightforward. And if we're not in a place of ready to receive it or hear it, it can be easy to hear it and like, wow, that's so good. My brother really needs to hear that, right? It's so good. I wish they're gonna listen. When I get home, I'm gonna send this sermon to them. But how many of you guys know we gotta first pull the plank out of our own eye? We gotta first look at what's going on with ourselves. Even if the problem has nothing to do with us, we have to be willing to look and see, God, what can I do? What am I maybe not doing that could help bring restoration into this situation? So do I have your permission this morning? Because I don't wanna give you something that you look back and say, man, my problems and my family, they just run too deep. And anything that you try to say in the next 30 minutes, it's probably gonna be good for Jane and John Doe over there who've got a perfect family and they've got a boat and their kids go out boating every weekend and they have fun. But in my family, we've got issues. And so you trying to tell me in 25 minutes how I can fix my problems kinda feels cheap and superficial. So I wanna ask you this morning, if you're ready for that, I want us to pray. Can we do that? Let's just close your eyes right now and we're just gonna ask the Holy Spirit to speak to us this morning. Lord, I just pray for every person right now. And I pray that you would open our hearts to hear. Lord, that we would not just expect God for everything to be resolved, but that we would hear what you're saying to us this morning. Lord, that we'd be willing to look inward to look at the plank in our own eye. I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would help us to hear even simple things, God, that they would have a profound impact. And I pray, God, that we would hear, not for our brother, but that we hear for ourselves this morning. That we could have tools. And Lord, that you would ignite hope in us for that lost family member or for that tension between our parents that we've had since childhood. I pray that whatever it is that you need to say, Holy Spirit, that you would say it to our hearts, that my words would only just go forth in God, that your spirit would bring the increase, that I would just sow seeds today, God, and that you would bring fruition into every person's life. In Jesus' mighty name, we pray. Amen. Amen. So as we're going forth, like I said, these are gonna be simple thoughts, simple strategies, but I believe that the simple things, when we take them seriously, when we have the right heart foster, they can develop extremely powerful solutions. And so if you're taking notes this morning, as we're looking at wanting resolution, we have to look at first and foremost, the framework of resolution. And what I mean by that, and if you're taking notes, I think they have it up. Yep, the framework for resolution. What I mean by that is the value that we carry for resolution, our core values, the thing that we go into any sort of conflict or confrontation, I mean, it's the viewpoint that we come. It's the heart posture. It's the frame of mind that we go into any confrontation with a family member. And there's two main things I wanna boil it down to. I could probably say a bunch of core values, but I just, for the sake of simplicity this morning, I wanna break it down to two things. And the first framework, so to speak, is humility. Humility. Now, in my last family sermon that I did, about a month and a half or two months ago, I talked about our frame of our house. And the frame of our house is love and honor. It's the thing that defines the parameters of our home, and it's the thing that allows us to be able to see each other and find the uniqueness within our family unit of each individual person. And if those are our framework, then I wanna say that humility is the posture of love and honor. I'll say that again. Humility is the posture of love and honor. And what I mean by that, it's the stance that we take. It's the posture that is coming in lowly of heart. And it's the posture of pouring yourself out to serve somebody else as if they're more important than yourself. And when we can come in with that mindset, it will allow us to see things differently. I wanna reach you, Matthew 1129. It says, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. This is Jesus speaking, by the way. For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. You know what I find interesting? Cause Jesus is our ultimate example for everything in life, right? What I find interesting is Jesus was lowly in heart. He says, I'm gentle and I'm lowly in heart. And that allowed him to take on people's burdens. That allowed him to bring rest to people's souls. And I want you to take a moment in reflection and think about on your family issues, your family fights that you may have had. What was your heart posture? What was the way that you presented yourself in that situation? Were you lowly in heart? Or were you high and lofty having a point to prove? Did you have a place where I had to make sure I won the argument? Or were you looking to bear another soul? Do you hear what I'm saying this morning? Jesus was lowly in heart and that allowed him to carry the burden of someone's soul. And in our families, we need to be able to carry the burden of each other's soul. If we want to be able to love well, if we wanna have honor that's in our home, if we wanna be able to have an environment that's healthy, that produces good seeds in our children, produces good seeds in each other and our brothers and our sisters and our families, our husbands and our wives, we need to have this humility that takes us to a place where I'm no longer, even if I have conflict with you, when we and you talk, I'm ready to carry the burden of your soul. But the problem is oftentimes we don't do that. And then there's the others of us who are actually the ones who have been hurt, right? Has anybody ever been hurt in this building before? I know I have. And when we have been hurt, how many guys know it's so easy to have this self-righteous justice rise up within you and say, you know what, this person hurt me, they need to know what they did was wrong. And so instead of us coming into a conversation ready to have a conversation about what happened about the conflict, we're more focused on making sure they know that they're wrong and making sure that they get punishment. Because somehow making sure that they get punished for the wrong thing they did is more important than restoring the relationship. Did you hear me this morning? Sometimes there's a self-righteous justice that rises up in us that's so hungry to make sure the other person's wrong that we forget about the relationship altogether. But my question is, are you lowly and heart enough to believe that you could make the same mistake that they made? Are you humble enough? And do you have the heart posture to hear the burden of their soul? Oftentimes our conflicts can be things that are not even intentional. And if we're in a place of wanting to bring judgment and punishment rather than restoring a relationship than what ends up happening is in those moments, we end up allowing ourselves to put ourselves on a pedestal because you hurt me. You hurt me and therefore I'm going to make sure that you know it and you hurt me and therefore your feelings don't matter. Your struggle in life doesn't matter but we're all struggling. We all have pains and burdens in our soul and are called to be like Jesus. Be gentle and lowly and heart. How are we approaching another? I want to ask you this question this morning. How do people experience you and your family? How do they experience you? Is it pleasant? Is it loving? Is it gracious? Or does your family see you as cold? Or does your family see you as someone that is too busy? Or does your family see you as someone just super emotional and can't control themselves and just says whatever's on the tip of their tongue? How does the family experience you? It's quiet in here this morning. It's quiet. And more than that because humility is one of those things that's scary. The reason why it's scary because this bad word that many of us think is a bad word is vulnerability. If you're taking notes, you can write down humility requires vulnerability. It's scary especially if you've been hurt. Especially if things are tense. Because the last thing you want to do in the midst of conflict is be courageous and step out and be the first one to meet in the middle because there's a chance you might get hurt. It's a real thing. And I wish I could tell you if you did that that you wouldn't get hurt. But the reality is there is a potential for you to get hurt. But it's absolutely vital. If we're gonna have restoration in our families, humility and vulnerability are at the forefront of every confrontation. They're at the forefront. Now, some of us are feeling like my brother's so far gone. He's so messed up. I know that if I step out, he's just gonna stomp on me. So it's not even worth trying. You may know that. But I want to remind you of someone who we hurt, all of us hurt. And he was willing to die on a cross for us knowing full well that many of us were gonna continue to hurt him. And knowing full well that many of us would still not pursue reconciliation. But he did it anyways. He humbled himself. And he wasn't the person who was wrong. He was the right one. We were the ones that screwed up. Take a page out of God's book, out of this Bible. Be the first to be humble. Be the first to be vulnerable. Even if that means you might get hurt. If we wanna have reconciliation, we have to have humility and vulnerability. And so I'm gonna ask you again, how do the people around you experience you? And do you know the needs of the people around you and your family? You might be fighting with your brother or your sister, but do you know the need of their heart? Do you know the need of their soul? Are you in a low enough posture in your heart that you can bear the burden of their soul? Can you provide rest? Can you provide comfort in their own pain? It's something to ponder upon. The second value I wanna talk about, in our part of our framework, is the value for relationship. Now, we have humility and vulnerability, and then we have value for the relationship itself. And this might seem interesting why I would bring this up, but I wanna read to you John 3, verse 10 and 11, and then 14 and 16. It says this. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are. Anyone who does not do what is right is not God's child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother or sister, for this is the message you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another, jumping to 14. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love each other, and anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murder has eternal life residing in him. This, and this is the important part, this is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. God relentlessly pursued an eternal relationship with us through sacrificial love. And the way that we express value for the relationships in our family is by treating people the way God treats them and thinking about them the way that God thinks about them. But oftentimes we don't do that. Oftentimes we have a hard time, especially when we're looking at the forefront and right in front of our face, all of the things that they're doing wrong or all the things of why I shouldn't forgive them or all the reasons why, over the years I've become bitter, it's their reason that I ended up like this in the first place. So it's hard to see sometimes why I should have value or why I should treat them the way God treats them. But God did this through sacrificial love. And I wanna speak about two family types this morning as I'm talking about this idea of value for relationship to kinda give us a framework or an understanding of how our families work and I'm gonna kind of over-categorize or over-simplify our families a little bit into two categories. One being the family that has no problem with confrontation. That's the family that loves a good fight. The first family, and my family is very much like this, we get into situations where we have no problem expressing what's on our mind. We have no problem telling each other what's going on. But to a fault, we're on that extreme of while we have the ability to be open, we're actually not coming with value for the relationship. We're coming with value for getting our way or value for winning the argument. And so oftentimes when we get into fights and it's funny, my wife, she's the one that pointed this out to me because when me and my mom one time, we were in a argument, a petty argument. To me was small, to my mom was small, but this was when we first got married, maybe like a year into marriage and Priscilla and I, we moved into my mom's house before we moved into our house that we have now. And while we were there, me and my mom were arguing about something small. Anyways, it was maybe 15 minutes that we were talking back and forth and I walk into our bedroom and I see my wife terrified. She's like, got tears in her eyes and she's like, shucking up. I'm like, babe, what's wrong? Is everything okay? Like, are you hurt? Like everything fine? And she's like, what happened out there? What do you mean? Me and my mom are just talking. She's like, is she gonna kick us out of the house? We'll have nowhere to go. She was genuinely concerned that the way that we were talking and the way that we were loud and the way that we were expressing to each other, she honestly thought that our family was gonna fall apart because of it. But the funny part is to me and my mom were like, I didn't even think twice about it. We just yelled at each other and went on our way and did our thing and granted, we learned sense that, you know what? That's probably not the best way to communicate to each other. Realizing there's a lot of pain that's involved with that because oftentimes you say things that you don't mean. You say things out of hurt and anger that you honestly can't take back. It came out of your mouth, you verbal diarrhea everywhere and there's a mess that you made bigger than the problem that you had in the first place because you added to the situation rather than solve the situation. And so you might be in that family group. You might be in the side of the family, like, yeah, that's my family. We're loud, we're obnoxious, we yell at each other. We just say it like it is with holding nothing back. We have no filter and everything gets laid out. And sometimes we think, well, that's the right way to do it because we might be doing it a little bit wrong but at least we talk about it. And then there's the other type of family and that's my wife's family. This was interesting for me because when we first got married, I was, you know, like I said, I'm the one that I love a good argument. I will definitely share what's on my mind and what was interesting to me is her and her sister were having a, I don't know, I couldn't even say in a fight, it started to build. I can't even remember what they were fighting about but it was just this thing where they started to getting angry, they started getting frustrated and I'm thinking, okay, good, finally some family drama is gonna be dealt with this morning. We're gonna get to it. I'm sitting on the couch and like, babe, this is your family drama so I won't get in but don't worry, I am a master of argument. A person who is ready, I got the words. If you want, just tag me in, I'm right here. I'm ready to go, I'm ready to help you. Just tag me in, I'm ready at any moment. And so I'm getting myself prepped. I'm like, I can pin her down with my words and then you go in for the kill. But I was ready, I was ready and all of this tension is building in the room. There's this crescendo of dissonance. It's like, yes, it's about to explode. Finally, I'm gonna hear them yell for once and everything just fizzled out. Every in the moment, I'm like, okay babe, ready, ready, ready, shh, what the heck? I open my eyes, I'm just sitting there, I'm like looking at him, I'm like, they just all of a sudden got quiet, completely silent. I think Priscilla went, whew, walked into her, walked into her parents' room and her sister walked into her bedroom and it was silent. They left me in the family room sitting on the couch. I'm like, my heart is like confused. I don't know what to do. I feel stuck because I'm like, I'm ready to fight and nobody's fighting, everybody's gone. What happened here? And it's so confusing to me and about 10 minutes later, because it was like dead silent and I was like, I don't know what to do. Guess I'll just jump on my phone because this is awkward, nobody's talking. 10 minutes later, Priscilla comes out of the room, Paula comes out of the room, Priscilla's like, do you want some pizza? And she's like, yeah. They went in the kitchen, like nothing even happened. Like nothing even happened. And I'm sitting here thinking in my mind like, this is dysfunctional. This is not okay. This is not right. And you might be from that family that's quiet. You just don't talk about your problems. And there's a sense of maybe peace that seems like it in the moment because, hey, we're choosing to not fight. We're choosing to not throw our words at each other blamelessly or just carelessly. But at the same time, avoiding confrontation is also not the solution. There's two extremes. There's my family is very loud, rambunctious and mean. And then there's my wife's family. They're quiet. They don't talk about problems. And both have their dysfunction. On the first one, the pain is, man, you said some really mean things in the heated moments. You got way too overly emotional about it. And honestly, like this is tiring. We can't keep doing this. And honestly, we just created more problems for ourselves. And then on the other side, there's a sense of like being unseen, being unheard, a lack of safety because the relationships are fragile. There's a sense of at any moment, this could become unsafe for me. And that's not healthy either. And so I wanna get to what really means to have value for the relationship. Value for the relationship doesn't mean letting everything come out of your mouth. And value for the relationship doesn't mean not talking about it. True value for the relationship means you're prepared to confront behaviors that threaten the health of relational connection in an honorable way. Proverbs 17-10, a quiet rebuke impresses a discerning person more than 100 lashes of fool. If we're able to have conversations with each other that are not throwing punches, are not being mean, are not being disrespectful, but yet still speaking in truth. Because sometimes we feel like when we hear, be nice, be kind, be gentle, we hear, be fake. Don't tell them the truth. Try to just keep peace by not bringing it up. But the reality is true value for the relationship means that I care about this relation so much that I'm willing to confront the behavior and notice I said behavior, not the person, not their identity, but I'm willing to confront the issue, the problem that's disconnecting us. I'm willing to confront that because I care about us too much to hide it. You know, my wife told me that in Hispanic culture, or who was I talking to? It wasn't my wife, it was Alexandra. She said in Hispanic culture there's this saying of taking things to the grave. Yeah, I'm gonna, we're gonna take that one to the grave and you just holding on to this bitterness in your heart, literally until you die and that could be so unhealthy for us. God doesn't want us to hold bitterness, anger, strife, clamor, he doesn't want us to hold on to these things all because we don't know how to communicate. And so it's also important that we go out of our way for our relationships, Romans 14, 19. Therefore let us pursue things which make peace and things by which we may edify another. So the way that we speak to each other, let's pursue how we're going to communicate. Let's pursue how we can bring value to each other in this moment rather than focusing on the issue at hand. So humility, vulnerability, value for the relationship, meaning I'm not afraid to confront the things that have been going on for a long time, but I'm gonna do so in a way that's not hurting. I'm gonna do so in a way that's not pointing fingers. I'm not gonna do so in a way that causes me to get more angry at you and I'm definitely not gonna hold it back. So once we have this value and this humility, we can move on to something a little bit more practical. Something that is a little bit more tangible, how to go about the conversation. You might be thinking, okay, that's great, humility, all of these things, but how do I do that? And there's a few keys to confrontation I wanna talk about. And the first one is create a safe place for giving and receiving feedback. Ephesians 4, 25, verse 29 through 32 says, therefore put away lying, let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor, for members of one another. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good and necessary for edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed in the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with malice, with all malice, and be kind to one another. Tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. The goal of exchanging feedback is to give one another good information about how we're affecting each other. The goal of this whole thing of creating a safe place is we're gonna speak to each other in all truth, but all of the negative stuff, all of the clamor, the bitterness, I'm coming into this conversation. I've already talked to who I need, and my accountability partner that my heart is right. I'm not angry. I'm not coming into this conversation still carrying bitterness and unforgiveness, but I'm ready to bring solution. And as I do so, what will happen is I can have a conversation that isn't focused on me trying to tell you what's wrong. It's focused on let's bring restoration to this relationship. And so here's a couple tips for us on how to give good feedback. Number one, when you're giving feedback, understand that it's your responsibility to give the other person good information about what's going on inside of you. What I mean by that is people can't read your mind. People don't know what's happening inside of this head and inside of this heart. And as much as you think they should know, the reality is we're all so much more focused on what's happening inside of us that oftentimes we miss what's happening around us. And so be aware that I have to tell them what's going on inside of me. If somebody did something wrong to me, if a family member said this or that, I have to make sure that I express that in my words verbally out loud. I can't assume that they should just know that. I can't assume that they'll get it. Another thing is address how you're experiencing the person's behavior, not what you think about their motives or their character. So when you're talking to someone and you're saying, you know what, I'll just use you, Zach as an example. You know, Zach, when you said those hurtful words to me, I realized that you're a real jerk. I realized that you have a horrible heart. Obviously, this is not a way to talk to somebody. But what I could say to Zach is this, Zach, when you walked by me and you had said that thing, I think you might have been joking, but to me, it actually really hurt my feelings. And I'm trying to understand it. And so maybe, Zach, you could help me understand that because I'm kind of hurt right now. One, I'm accusing him. And two, I'm being vulnerable. The fact that I'm using, saying, I'm hurt, you hurt, my hurt, my feelings are hurt. I'm addressing the behavior rather than saying, Zach, dude, you're always a jerk to me when you walk past me, dude. I can never, I can never get along with you because you always just put on a fake face, you know? Instead, I can say, Zach, for some reason, I've been feeling like there's disconnection here. For some reason, I feel like you don't care anymore. And I don't know why I'm just trying to understand it. One's very offensive and aggressive. And the other one is inviting Zach the opportunity to tell me the burden of his heart. Does that make sense? The other thing is this, when giving feedback, trust the other person to care about your feelings and needs and be willing to adjust to protect the connection. That's a scary thing that comes back to vulnerability. That means I'm gonna have to trust. See, what I just said now with Zach was really easy because it wasn't a real fight. But if we were in real fight, if you were in a real fight and you've been really hurt, the last thing you wanna do is show weakness, right? But that's the very thing that will bring restoration. It's the very thing. So you have to trust that the person is gonna have your best interest in mind. And like I said, there's a chance that they might not, but you can't go into a conversation thing. You can't go into the conversation otherwise. Otherwise, you'll end up leaving more hurt than before. And then for those who are receiving feedback, we just talked about giving feedback, now receiving feedback. Listen in order to understand what the other person's telling you. You can't do anything productive until you understand what he or she is trying to say. So listen to identify the need. Not identify necessarily the problem, but identify the need. Identify what's going on inside their heart because sometimes when we're trying to express things, we're not the greatest at expressing our emotions, especially you haven't done it a lot. Sometimes we say things and honestly, we butchered it. But as the person who's receiving feedback, so if Zach came to me and he said something and he just totally accused me and he said things about me that were just, I knew were not true. It was not true about the way that I felt about him, but he felt this way about me. I have a choice to either defend myself. Zach, I'm not like that, I'm not a jerk. Everybody says that I'm like the nicest guy ever. You're the only person that has a problem with me. The problem is probably not me. It's probably you. If I were to do that, then I've completely missed what he's trying to communicate. And what ends up happening is Zach goes, see, he doesn't listen. I'm trying to talk and he doesn't get it. Instead, if I were to go, well, Zach, I'm sorry, that's not my intention. I never meant to hurt you, but in what ways have I hurt you? Asking for questions, and that's the next thing. Ask good questions. Ask good questions. Because right now Zach is coming and he's trying to be vulnerable with me, but he doesn't know how to tell me. And so I'll say this, I'll say this, Proverbs 20 verse five, counsel in the heart of man is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. Not a man of pervasive words, not a man of many words, but a man of understanding will draw out the deep waters and counsel of a man's heart. When I can understand Zach, I'll be able to figure out what's going inside his heart. When instead of just trying to defend my point, and I listen to what he's saying, even if what he's saying is wrong, even if what he's saying is not true about me, if I can listen to him and not listen to win the argument, but I listened to identify his need, solutions will happen. Powerful solutions will take place. And I have a interesting story about this in my own life. My dad, me and him when I was like 23, I was over at his house and we were having this argument. I honestly can't ever remember what the argument was about in full detail, but I remember we were yelling at each other. I just remember being so angry at him. I had a lot of pent up frustration and I asked to share this story before I asked him if it was, I had his permission to share it, but we were fighting and when we were talking, he had said to me, I had said to him, dad, I just feel like you treat me horribly. I feel like you don't even care. And in that moment, my dad did something unexpected. We were in this heightened fight, right? Cause my family's loud, we say mean things, but my dad did something out of the ordinary, something that made all the difference. When I had said that to him out of my pain and anger, cause the reality is my dad's helped me out a lot. My dad has been for me, my dad does care about me. My dad does a lot of good things for me. And so he could have defended me, but in that moment, he saw the bigger need. He saw my need. Me expressing, dad, I don't feel like you care about me. You treat me like crap. He said, son, do you not know that I'm proud of you? And I froze. I was like, you know, I couldn't respond. And he sold me and then he said, son, I'm sorry. It changed total change of tone. We went from here to here. And he's like, son, I'm sorry if I never expressed that verbally to you growing up, that I'm proud of you. And his apology all of a sudden started hitting me like arrows into my heart. And then he began to follow up with all of the things that he was proud of me for. And I was sitting there like, ooh, I didn't know the need of my own heart, but he identified it by asking the right question. And in that moment, in that moment, and I kid you not, I actually fainted. I didn't know how to respond. I literally, my legs went jello and I fell to the ground and I began to ball 23 years old. I'm a man, but at this time, and I'm being broken down because he chose to not look at why I was wrong. He chose to look at the need of my heart. And when he did that, something broke in me. My need was met, I was heard, even though I wasn't expressing it well. My need was heard and my heart was healed and our relationship was restored. And I began to realize he recognizes I needed, I just needed to hear it from him. Now, I know that that situation is not necessarily gonna be the case for all of us. We may not actually get those opportunities with our fathers or our mothers. But one thing I can tell you is that if you come humbly, you come vulnerable, you focus on not trying to win an argument or bring someone down but valuing the relationship, you choose to think about how people are experiencing you rather than just how angry you are at them. When you do these things, they open up the door of possibility that our hearts will be opened and that we can bear one another's souls and in the process be healed. And in the process, God can bring restoration. And in the process, family drama that's been built up, ongoing conflict that's plaguing family unity can be solved like that because we talk to each other, not angry, not accusing, but we have conversation that's real and confronts behavior, not identity, not the person. When we do so, something shifts. His ability to ask with those right questions rather than making a statement because sometimes when we make statements, there's a lot of assumption that goes into it. If I just make a statement, dad, I made the statement to him. Dad, you don't love me. I don't feel like you don't love me. I made a statement rather than asking a question and there's so much assumption that I put into that, so much lack of truth that was in that statement, even if there was an ounce of truth in it of what I felt. And so when we ask questions, it allows us to find a strategy to adjust to the need. And that leads me to my second to last point, which is building solutions. Every problem has an owner and the best person to fix the problem is the owner. What I mean by that is when we have a situation, our ability, and this comes back to humility and vulnerability, our ability to own our problems allows us to fix our problems. If we don't own them, or if we don't even own our part of them, because sometimes they're not our problems, they really aren't. But if we're too lofty in our own eyes to even see maybe our ounce, then we'll miss it. We'll never be able to help fix it. We'll never be able to help the person like me that's screaming at my dad and his part was small, my part was big. But because he chose to see the part that was hurting me, it brought restoration, it brought solution, it fixed the problem. So when we identify the need, we have to adjust. Because we value the relationship, we adjust to meet the needs. So now the problem that you might be having with your brother or your sister has little to do with the fact that they're not cleaning. It actually has more to do with the fact that when I speak, I feel like you're not listening. And it's a feeling of I need to be heard by you. That's a big difference. Now, if I were to say to you in a situation, hey, your brother feels like he's doing all the cleaning. That's like, whatever, blow that one right out. But if I were to tell you, hey, your brother feels really unheard by you. Your brother feels like you don't care about what he says. Like, huh, that's weird. I don't feel that way. Well, every time that you don't listen, every time that you just blow them off, that's what you're doing. That's what you're communicating. The scary part about communication is that it's always happening. There's never a time that communication's not happening. Even when me and you are on different parts of the earth, we're still communicating something. Even if that communication is nothing, it's still communication. Even if I don't tell you my problem, I'm communicating to you that the relationship is not important enough to try and fix it. It doesn't matter to me enough to try and resolve it. So as we're going throughout our lives and our families, think about these things. Hopefully these things are helping us. And I'll make this quick because I know I'm severely over time. But when confrontation doesn't go well, what do we do? And I'm gonna say these quickly. First thing is we wait and we pray. Let's say you did everything right. You bared your heart. You were humble, you were vulnerable. You tried talking to your dad or your mom. You tried talking to your brother and it just didn't work. Their heart was not ready to hear it. Their heart was not in the same place. They didn't hear the same sermon that you're hearing this morning. So they don't have that same frame of mind. And it just didn't work. You wait and you pray because sometimes you can say something and it might take someone a little bit of time to process. And they might come back and say, hey, you know what, let's talk about that. The next thing you do is you grieve. Now this is kind of an overlooked thing, especially for men. When somebody's hurt us and we've been hurt by a situation, it's easy to be like, whatever, okay, I'm good. Move on. Haters gonna hate. But the reality is there needs to be a place, and I'm not saying every time has to be a, I'm bawling, you know, who? Crocodile tears. But there has to be a place where it's like, that does hurt my heart and it grieves my heart that this is happening. I'm recognizing it. I'm at least aware of it. And then number three is manage your heart. Don't let any root of bitterness spring up inside of you. Don't allow unforgiveness to take root. In the midst of your pain and your sadness, move forward in the relationship. Move forward until the repair work is done. Keep pressing on and keep trusting that the Lord will bring something about. And fourth, set boundaries. Because sometimes when we've brought things up and just the confrontation didn't go well, it didn't resolve anything. We tried in humility and it didn't work out. This person who's choosing not to participate in this confrontation is communicating that they're not ready to repair the connection. So therefore, there are very practical boundaries that we do have to set up. Because why would we go and continually hurt ourselves time and time again? You know, I think of Matthew 18. Matthew 18, Jesus tells us how to handle our brother when their brother is sinned. If your brother is sinned, what do you do? You go to them in private and you talk to them. You bear one another's soul, hoping that you might win them over. And if they listen, it says, then you have won him over, things are good. But if they don't, then you go into the council of two or three others. This is where it's okay to have a mediator. It's okay to have somebody step in as a third party to help bring about solution. Say, hey, you know what? This is actually not just hurting me. This is hurting both of us. Or hey, we need someone to come in and intervene. And if that still doesn't work, you go to the church. And what that means is you get one of the leaders involved. You get one of the pastors involved. Hey, can you help us get this thing figured out? Cause this seems a little bit heavier and bigger than what we can handle on our own. We probably just don't have the communication ability to really help each other. We need some guidance in this. It's okay to ask for help in your family. It's okay to ask for help. And families, if you need to go through family counseling, it's worth it. Do it. What's more important? Being right or having restoration. So don't be afraid of it. Don't be afraid of it. And then lastly, I want to read to you, actually from Matthew 18. It says this, if they still refuse to listen, if they refuse to listen, even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. The funny part is we hear that. We're like, yeah. I've done everything I could. Now it's time to put the smack down. See you. And we put up this thing like, oh yeah. But who's saying this? Jesus is saying this. How did Jesus treat the pagans and the tax collectors? How did he treat them? He loved them. He wasn't surprised by the mistakes they were making. Come on somebody, that'll preach. When someone's been doing something wrong to you for a long time and they continually do it and you've told them and things are not changing and they're not showing any signs of wanting to change or any sort of repentance, it's hard to treat them as if they didn't do it. You're not surprised. But every time they do it, we're like, imagine this because you go to your friend or whoever, like you're not gonna believe what they did again, right? As if you didn't know that they were gonna do that. You keep putting yourself in a situation for them to continually hurt you because somehow you're surprised again that they're gonna keep doing it. But if you treat them like a pagan or a tax collector, imagine if an unbeliever comes into the church right now, we're not gonna expect them to have everything figured out. We're not gonna expect them to even do the right thing, right? And in fact, what we do is we show them love. We surround ourselves around them. In certain distance, they may not know every detail about our life, but man, we're gonna show the love of God to them and we're gonna treat them the way God treats them, not how maybe you might feel that they need to be treated. This reality can happen for many of us if we just choose to treat them the way Jesus treats them. And it's interesting too because when you treat someone like that, you're also able to help them see themselves. You know, it's interesting when you've been hurting and not that you just bury your pain. That's not what I'm talking about. That would be like the second family I talked about. You just bury your pain and don't talk about it. But hey, we have real boundaries here, but I still love you, I still care about you. And I, you know what? I'm taking every opportunity to speak life into you. And every time you do that, it's like that thing where it's like, well, okay, I know I'm doing something wrong, but you're still treating me with love. You're still treating me. You're not looking at me differently. You know that you've expressed to me that you're hurt by me, but why are you still being nice to me? Normal people, when they're hurt by someone, don't treat people nice. But why is that happening? And it can oftentimes bring about heart transformation. It can bring about the change that we're looking for just simply by treating them with love and treating them and seeing them the way that Jesus does. Hey, thanks for watching this video. If you enjoyed this content and this was a blessing to you, would you help us? And hit thumbs up so that it could help more people to discover this video. It cost you nothing, but it can go a long way to help with the algorithm. As well as if you're not subscribed to our channel, hit subscribe, click on the bell so that you can be reminded each time that we upload videos. Thank you so much for being a part of this community. If you're interested in learning more about Hungry Gen, our internship, our conferences, deliverance, and so many other things, go to HungryGen.com for more information. And as always, remember, better is not good enough, the best is yet to come.