Inevitable

The pastor of the church I go to has been preaching a series of sermons on Philippians that he has titled "Flipside -- Seeing Life From God's Perspective." Today's sermon was titled "Inevitable" and it was about conflict.
The specific text he used is Philippians 4:2-8, which is really interesting to me because the famous part of that passage is verses 4-8, but when you add 2 and 3 to the mix it adds more to those more famous and oft quoted verses. Here is the whole passage for those of you who want to know but don't have your Bibles handy:

2"I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to live in harmony in the Lord. 3Indeed, true companion, I ask you also to help these women who have shared my struggle in the cause of the gospel, together with Clement also and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the book of life.
4"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! 5Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. 6Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8"Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things." Philippians 4:2-8 NAS

The key thought of the sermon is that conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional. There is nothing you can do to avoid conflict, but you can choose how you deal with it and what the result of it will be as far as it rests on you.

1. Pause. Do not just react. Take time to decide how you will handle the situation. Is this really about getting the other person to do it your way or is this about you learning something, working on an underdeveloped character trait. In verse 5, the word translated in the New American Standard as gentle spirit could more accurately be translated as forbearance, the abstaining of the enforcement of a right, mercy.

2. Pray. Okay, so now you have shown that person you have a conflict with some mercy. Keep it to yourself. Don't go blabbing to everyone else about how wrong that person is and how good you are at turning the other cheek. Go to God (verse 6). You want to talk? Talk to Him.

3. Reflect. Don't reflect on the conflict, reflect using the filter of verse 8. Reflect on the true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy things about the other person. The issue isn't the thing you are having conflict about, it is will you choose peace in the midst of conflict?

Finally, Pastor Dale gave us a challenge, which he, being a guy, calls 1st and 10. Today is the first of the month, so today, or at least before next Sunday, write down ten things about someone you are having conflict about that that meet the verse 8 test.

This is just based on my notes from the sermon, if you want to hear the whole thing, you can go here to listen to it and other sermons from the series.