How Will You Respond To Your Invitation To Conflict?

okay open your bibles to ephesians we're gonna turn to ephesians here chapter four and while you're turning there i wanted to do a little disclaimer it was brought to my attention from last week that we said a pastor was going to give all the kids bunnies to take home well he said it we heard him say it but he didn't do it so he was joking so i just wanted to let the people know i'm not trying to spin that that was what we heard but he didn't do it so i'm thank god it was a joke and but anyway i i don't like to say anything that's and today what kind of what was really on my heart from all week was that we can't control so much what's going on in there but we can control our heart and we have to deal with anger probably more than we've ever had to deal with anger for people making decisions not like we'd make them people out in the streets making choices we wouldn't make just the whole day and hour we live especially for our state and i know other cities around there was a lot of protesting and a lot of anxiety not knowing how far this would go or knowing when it will be happening again and they kind of let us know that this is not over and they want to reform everything and part of this i do know that we know because we've studied some of these agendas and they have to come in and do agendas so we shouldn't be surprised but on the other hand it's shocking to see good being called evil and evil being called good and the lawlessness that's here so we have to guard our heart and that's the main thing i want to talk about tonight is our heart but before we start a nice little old gentleman of 75 got a good report from his doctor after his medical examination and the doctor asked him how did you keep in such good shape for being you know this age 75 well sir he explained when i got married about 50 years ago my wife and i made an agreement if i lost my temper she would stay silent and if she lost her temper i would leave the house and go for a stroll i credit my good health to the well-known advantages of walking so we're going to talk about anger because there's a lot of anger and the bible says we can be angry but we're not to sin we're being invited to be angry at the news when i met tim i thought it was so funny he'd talk to the news you know and i found myself talking to these people i was like stop lying because the media is 24 7 it's getting so negative and it's hard to watch and you just yeah we're it's happy anniversary and i guess i'm turning more like you every day but i wanted to share this ephesians 4 got to keep it light you know ephesians 4 verse 14 that we henceforth be no more children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and this is what we've come out of a lot of movements we've come out of thinking it was god we were so hungry and we found out it was a wind of doctrine so we've come back to know what the the bible says and i just want to encourage everyone out there you're finding and i'm getting these emails and letters that your churches are preaching wrong doctrines and is it okay to leave sometimes you have to leave and sometimes you have to get together with friends of like mind and just read your bible or watch a youtube you can agree on and this is going to be a day of division it's going to be a struggle for you to keep your relationships because the devil wants us divided in this hour divide and conquer and you have to decide in your heart regardless this is family too what decisions people make we're not going to detach and break rank and stop loving people and triangulate and talk about them behind their backs and i hate that division and the division is here so what are we going to do we have to endure as a soldier we have to learn how to handle when people disagree with us when we disagree with them we're coming into conflict like we've never seen conflict how will we respond how will you respond and the main thing is we can't control out there but we can control in here with the lord and the help of the holy spirit to keep our hearts right because we're going to have a lot of invitations especially in the days coming ahead to be angry so we want to talk about this and verse 22 well you start in this and you hate to you know say don't read this because it's also good but we're not to walk as other gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind we're seeing a lot of people ruled by emotions right now and they're doing things out of emotion they're doing things out of hate they're doing things out of radicalness they want things to change but they have no idea they're being pawns in the game that's a message that i preached a while back we don't walk as other gentiles walk in the vanity of our minds in verse 19 who being past feelings have given themself over to lasciviousness do you know what lasciviousness is it's the expressions of lust the lust of power the lust of sexual things it's it's that spirit of unrestrained sexual behavior to work all uncleanliness with greediness but you have not so learned christ and then verse 21 where's the truth the truth is in jesus well they're going to tell you today it's in everything else but we know that our truth is in jesus verse 22 that you put off concerning the former conversation the old man what is that that's the way we react it's the way we talk we're going to talk about we've come from angry families we've come from strange relationships and we have to put off we have to get on put on christ put him on and invite him into your daily life like think about him and i guess that's to me it's walking in the fear of the lord people don't know how to do that but it's just be aware that he's watching you all the time so what you're saying you wouldn't say if he you knew he was watching you right so just be aware that he's watching you are you doing stuff in secret you shouldn't be doing be aware he's watching you so that's the fear of the lord it's the beginning of wisdom and getting rid of this old conversation the way you used to do things the way you used to talk your conversations have to change the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind that you put on the new man which after god is created in righteousness and true holiness therefore putting away lying speak and remember the devil is the father of lies we expect that in the world we expect the father of lies to lie right the problem is we didn't think they would but the devil is a liar and he's also the two characteristics he's a liar and he's a murderer from the beginning he's been a liar and a murderer right so think it not strange wherefore putting away lying every man speak truth with his neighbor for you are members one of another be ye angry and sin not how are we angry and we don't sin we're going to talk about that let not the sun go down upon your wrath neither give place to the devil we all get many angry invitations every day an invitation is anything we could use as an excuse for getting mad in angry people people that walk in anger all the time accept all their invitations we have to say no to some of these invitations no i'm not going to get mad no i'm i'm going to uh think this through and i'm not just going to lose self-control anger is a signal it's not a solution you need to know and i need to know what makes me angry i know what makes me angry do you know what makes you angry it makes me angry when people try to control me because i've come out of some abuse of control and when people try to control me and i feel that spirit something inside of me rises up because you've crossed a boundary i don't know what makes you angry if if your dad yells at you or someone yells at you and then uh your tone now is yelling because that's what you learned in your family so now what do you have to do unlearn it your dad's no longer with you so now we have to unlearn it's not easy it's hard work to learn new habits and they're not it's not fun to learn it's not fun to unlearn and to even admit okay this makes me mad but we all struggle with things that make us mad in church you'd never know it everyone acts like they're just so wonderful but god created us to feel anger and not to live there but it should be a signal the anger tells you there's a problem somebody's crossed a boundary somebody forgot me somebody you know whatever it might be it's a signal it's not a license to lose control it's like some people golf and they just use that one whatever they call those yeah that's the word thanks they use one club all the time and they don't realize there's there's a putter and there's all these other clubs they could use i'm not a golfer as you can tell but they've just learned to just use one and that's the way angry people are they just use that one thing that one emotion that you know i'm going to intimidate and bulldoze you down and that was the world now we have to learn christ and put on christ so anger needs to be understood some people have never been able to admit i'm angry about this never been able to process emotions our parents should have helped us process emotions if you have a mother she would sit down and explain to you rather than rebuke you for feeling fear she would say you're you know you you work through your emotions but many of us didn't have that luxury of having a mother that took the time to help us out but anger needs to be understood admitted and then we have to learn how to keep it under control we need to learn how to manage and communicate it correctly the world just blasts you doesn't it i've just uh seen a lot of people this last week just blasting things what they're angry about and you know this and that and the other thing and it's just like wow i was talking to my granddaughter and she's like what are they doing i said those were kids that were not spanked when they're little they're not acting right right now even someone that's eight years old understands this is wrong behavior you know you're never more vulnerable to evil than when you're angry you're at that spot what are you gonna do put a d in front of anger and what do you have danger we see a lot of angry people right now this one person i was reading about killed his best friend and they said why when he was in jail and they came and talked to him and he said well i ran out of words so they were fighting and he just killed him how sad people just people are losing it danger you can make mistakes injuries more pain when you say things out of anger you can't erase those words how many times we said things that we wish we wouldn't have said it common sense works better at low temperatures anger is like a red light on the dashboard of your car there's a signal something's wrong why am i feeling this and the other extreme is people push down that red light and you become a doormat and i think it's really sad when you see husbands and wives and they don't have the freedom to talk in front of the other one they're afraid it's like so then what happens they become unhealthy and they squish all that anger and guess what one day you're going to have a volcano because you haven't communicated correctly at the right time so anger is like a red light on the dashboard of your car a warning light it's a warning something is wrong and it needs your attention and if you don't deal with it eventually you're going to have to deal with something because conflict is unfortunately part of life and we all struggle you never get to the point you're so spiritual you aren't going to struggle with anger it's it's part of life conflict is part of of life anger is a demand it makes it it's it may be a demand that you hear me stop ignoring me rejecting me recognize my worth respect me respect my opinion right or let go of my arm don't talk to me like that right these are all little warnings it's a demand that we something inside of us says i'm not being treated right and you have to teach people what you will and will not tolerate really because some people just roll roll right over you anger is a strong feeling of displeasure as a result of a real or imaginary threat put downs frustration injustice to yourself or others who are important it's all a battle and none of us are going to escape so with it we have to have a pure heart and know how to deal with these situations as they come up with family members your children aren't acting like you raised them to be your dad is doing things you never thought he'd do and say i mean families right now are being ripped apart the devil wants division he wants division in the united states he wants to divide and conquer it but as christians we have to make the decision we're not going to break rank we're not going to attack each other we we're not going to go behind each other's back and tell stuff that someone else comes and it really it's very hurtful when people triangulate it takes time to get over and we've all done it at certain times so we have to learn we got to get better right we're struggling we all have to learn how to do better so we have to track down these demands so i can stick to them okay this makes me angry maybe your kids always want you to babysit but they're never on time they're always late things happen and all of a sudden you start realizing they're not respecting my boundaries so then sometimes you have things that really make you angry but they shouldn't why is that making you angry you really shouldn't so you have some things you need to say that isn't really a demand that's not important maybe it's just something that i brought along for my past or you know i hate all men because i had a bad one and then there's a nice guy in your life and now you're treating him bad because of the other guy you didn't forgive so there's a lot of baggage with anger so we have to negotiate the ones that really matter this is important to me this one i can cancel i guess that's not going to be a big deal when you get married you understand you don't always get your way so there's some things you have to say i'm not going to fight over that pick your battles right well it's the same things with friendships and the same thing with family we have to pick our battles now people are going to disagree with you you're going to have your own opinions they have theirs so does that mean you're never going to talk to your brother again does that mean you're never are you going to be baby-like childish and this is what's happening now people are disconnecting from each other god's design for anger is to caution us not to let anger control us so we when that light goes on we have to pray and invite god into it instead of just working it out on our own screaming saying whatever you want light yourself on fire explode rant and rave give unwanted advice and blow your stack that's what i call the blow ups or just as bad are the clam ups i've taught on this for years the clam ups they withdraw into self-pity and i have a problem more i think with clam ups because you think everything's fine you don't know you crossed a boundary you have no idea that they're upset and then one day you just get blasted and you had no clue that that even you know that that even upset them you didn't know they didn't like wild rice soup you made it for years and i hate that soup but you know we all struggle maybe one side or the other right down the middle withdrawing into self-pity you shut down communication you give the silent treatment i mean there's sometimes you do need to back up and not talk and say bad things but people that go on and on for weeks with the silent treatment stuff you have a problem they pout and then they're not honest is there anything wrong oh nothing's wrong are you bothered but no i'm fine then there's people that they live angry they've never grown past that one golf club it's just like that's it that's how i'm gonna be and the bible talks about not to associate with angry people right because then that starts coming off on you but someone who lives angry is immature they've never grown into adulthood they still pout blow their stack it's the only emote motion she knows it's the only emotion he knows it's a habit so what do we have to do we have to renew our minds we have to renew our our minds think about what we're saying how are we acting a reaction from childhood to survive well you're not a child and you're not in survival mode so now you have to change the way you think and you act now that you're a christian your new man in christ you're supposed to put him on would he act that way bulldoze through conflicts now you're gonna have to learn you're gonna have to learn how to understand people not everybody thinks like we think and you can't control people not everybody can i've learned more and more people that want to control outcomes they're having trouble in their own life and they want to control you and tell you what to do you can't control another person you have to pray for them release them to god and if you really pray for people you love them you don't attack them so you have to learn understanding you have to learn empathy some people don't know how to be empathetic and other people are too empathetic you're supposed to put yourself in another person's shoes and some people live in their shoes so you got to pull back and say okay now i understand their point of view i understand them but how do i really feel because empathetic people can lose themselves especially if they're wrong strong personalities they're always taking the side of someone else and they don't know who they are they don't know what makes them tick because they're always pleasing everyone we have to learn to compromise especially in this day that we live we are not all going to get our way for instance someone says i like it black and white someone else don't preach on this i've never ever been so discouraged in this hour not to preach anymore because everybody wants something different don't tell me this you tell me this uh i'm like i don't even know what to preach anymore because people don't stop well you need to be everybody has their advice it's kind of like a cook rick you know it's like don't don't cook like this cook like that so what do we do we have to do what god tells us to do amen but we got to compromise there's there's times in our life where your husband wants to go somewhere and you don't so you compromise or you cooperate and the other thing is submit to one another it's not this lordship of we all submit to this guy and he gets to run everything we submit to one another we that's the joy of i love team i love teamwork i've always liked other people's opinions you can't be led by them but it's good to hear submit to one another in the fear of the lord and sometimes you know you want to do something purple they want to do it blue it's okay who cares some things just don't matter the trivia of things you know people have split over the carpet and the all this other stupid stuff throughout history and who cares really i mean really who cares so we got to make sure our hearts right and it's a daily affair because when you turn on the tv i i try to not to i try to find out what's going on that i have to know and what's going on but i don't sit and people we know they keep that thing on 24 7. they just watch it watch it watch it and they're just being totally uh lied to they're being brainwashed you got to think you got to let the holy spirit talk to you so you need time away james 1 19 says be swift to hear slow to speak slow to wrath what do we do we're swift to be angry we're swift to speak and really slow to hear so what do we have to do lord help me listen and people are always trying to answer the other person before they're done have you know how people are so intense these days it's like i'm going to finish and we all just kind of get a little hyper this is a hyper day isn't it i mean it's like so if you just are going off and you're just yelling at everybody you're telling everybody off in the store anger is a form of public littering we don't really want to hear that you're seeing these people fighting out in daylight they're fighting over stuff it's like wow it's the wrong place and it's the wrong time you have an issue this is not where you deal with it you don't deal with with the checkout person it's just their job angry people have velcro minds everything sticks every disappointment every hurt and rejection now it's a habit and we all have problems with rejection we all have issues of abandonment especially pastors i feel bad for them because people come and go it's hard to be secure anywhere in the world nowadays with people are so fickle they're not committed like they used to be like our parents churches they were committed we're just seeing such a difference in the whole church world and pastors think they got to give people what they want well guess what people don't know what they want they want to be entertained that's not what they need it's like kids want candy candy's not good for them they need to have their fruits and vegetables don't ask them what they want they want cake they want ice cream spiritual children are the same way angry people come from angry families they threaten they insult they put down that was normal to them that's to be expected well you know we're having a family union fred will be there and blah blah blah and she'll be there and and then first thing they say well you sure are fat you've gained a lot of weight some families are so insultive so we we don't want to yell this is the other thing i've learned too from my granddaughter she she likes calm i want the calm voice and don't we all want the calm voice because when you speak calmly it enters people's hearts when you're not calm and you yell we have to defend ourselves and put up a wall and you don't even know why it's because that's the way you grew up right so you get one person that grows up in this family another one this one and then you say we're attracted to each other then you get married and you attack each other because your family roots are so different in the way you handle conflict and the way you spend money is totally different so you have to compromise and work it out and everyone have fun i'm closing here now pretty close um conflict it's a part of life and today the the day we live matthew 24 the lawlessness the offendedness brother against brother sister against sister kingdom against kingdom we have to learn to do better with conflict we really do because otherwise we're going to be angry all the time you're going to be angry because you can't control mom you can't control dad you can't control your brother you can't control the outcome of what this person does or even how they act you're in control of you you can't tell other people how to live especially in this day because they're making everything black and white you have to pick a side they want you to pick a side have you noticed that we have a choice how we're going to handle it we've god's given us a will how we handle it you can angrily attack the person and put them down or you can want to withdraw just going to withdraw and get resentful well they're both wrong you've got to come into the middle the middle of the balance in second kings 5 10 we see that naaman verse 10 second kings 5 10. we see that naaman had leprosy and he wanted to be healed and he went to see in verse 10 he went to elijah sent a message unto him saying go and wash in jordan seven times and thy flesh shall come again to thee verse 11 naaman was roth he was wroth and he went his way and he was furious he said i expected something different i expected the man of god to heal me but verse 13 i love verse 13 his servants came near and spake unto him said my father if the prophet had bid thee to do some great thing would as thou not have done it how much rather than when he saith to thee wash and be clean he was humble enough to listen to a servant and realize wow i had a dashed expectation we get angry when we expect something and it doesn't happen right we expect it to be healed we expected this to happen we expected this man of god to come out here and just say you're the great naaman you're the great soldier you're you're this and you're that he didn't he goes go wash in a dirty old river well that was insulting some of us were living lives we didn't think we'd have to live we didn't think we'd see this racial upheaval 30 years of my life i've always been in the middle of reconciling races i love all the races and to see this is is it's really heartbreaking for me personally because of of all the work we've done to unite people especially in this city to walk in in in in love and to see these hate groups starting to show up and it's affecting everybody in our in our areas so proverbs 29 11 says a fool gives full vent to his anger but a wise man keeps himself under control how do you stay under control with the help of the holy spirit we can't do this in our own strength we're all flesh pots we need to get saved proverbs 14 17 a quick tempered man does foolish things when you're angry you're going to say things you don't mean we need to invite god into the situation train ourselves to respond in the fear of the lord because we can't erase words you can't get them back those hurt meaningful words and that's what anger is you want to inflict pain you want to inflict an injury you want them to suffer and that's where we get into sin because vengeance is the lord's right proverbs 25 28 he that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down without walls and we know that without walls a city was left open to the enemy when we don't have self-control we're open to the enemy we're open to every evil work we're open to jealousy and envy and strife and division we need to pray to stay within reasonable bounds what does that mean our tone our words people respond to you by how you treat them even a dog's going to run away if you kick them all the time right so we have to learn that people are precious all these things are going to come and go but our relationships should be very in these end times we have to learn how to walk together even though we disagree right we're soldiers in the army of the lord and we're supposed to know how to endure hardness but we've been so soft because we haven't been taught how to endure we just we're taught to be prosperous wealthy right dream a dream and you're going to have it and you command those angels to come and go we haven't taught how to live in reality and that's why people want to put these goggles on and live in the future and live in these games and no come out of there and face reality face your brother face your sister face talk all these technology things are totally trying to get us away from people true closing two we need to learn to ask we don't demand we don't demand to people change we don't demand this we have to learn to ask there's there's a difference when you ask somebody than when you tell them what to do accept the differences we're going to have to learn to accept differences in our families it's happening whether you like it or not accept differences lower expectations we all thought we were going to be doing this as a family and this is a family now we see people are fighting because they they believe this and there's such controlled oppositions in both sides they want you to be divided against people well devil we see that trick and we're not buying it we're not going to take the bait right we're in the soul we're soldiers in the army of the lord so we have to stop trying to control people god never created you to control another person they have a free will the devil wants to force and control people god never forces you he'll convict you he wants us to repent but he doesn't control so let others have responsibility for their lives while you take responsibility for yours stay in your own lane amen run your race so father we thank you this is a reality check for all of us we're all facing situations that make us unhappy we're facing lawless times hurtful people hurt people hurt people there's laws that are being changed things are happening we can't control what's going on in the world we're aware of it we need to be aware of it but the main thing is we need to make sure our heart that we take time to make sure our heart is right towards you and towards other people so father we invite you in all of our relationships we ask for help help us lord to endure hardness against people that disappoint us the people that hurt us help us to let us know when anger needs to be dealt with when we're just running from it and sometimes we need to confront but help us have a good spirit when we confront that it doesn't wound and harm people that we treat people the way we would like them to treat us how we would like them to confront us with gentleness which is a strong spirit fruit of the spirit and all these things we give you praise and lord i pray for all the people on youtube i pray for them to be bold to be strong in these times we thank you lord you're with us you'll never leave us you'll never forsake us so we promise to give you all the glory everyone said amen if you would like to see more messages from roberta on youtube be sure to subscribe to her youtube channel roberta morrison hit the bell button to be notified of new messages from her and be sure to check out her youtube playlists for other messages that interest you go to the livingnesspresence.org website page and click on the messages button on the top center to go see her messages there are free audio downloads of the messages available also we are viewer supported on the main web page at the top right is a give button thank you for watching and see you next time from you we can't do nothing so we depend on you you

Channel: Roberta Morrison

Views: 3,024

Rating: 4.9340658 out of 5

Keywords: Roberta Gilbert, Roberta Morrison Gilbert, Roberta Morrison, Living In His Presence Church, Bible based teachings

Id: 2nmFHHvla6M

Length: 34min 39sec (2079 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021