From Conflict to Joy
“Unresolved conflict can extinguish your joy. You might have a blessed home, but one conflict with kids or your spouse can drain its joy. Your job may be fulfilling and successful, but one
conflict with your boss or a fellow employee can make a work environment toxic.
Business development consultant Alan Lovejoy wrote, ‘Workplace conflicts are
worse now than they have ever been.’” – Tony Walliser
Read Philippians 4:1-3
From Conflict to Joy
Conflict is as old as time itself. The Bible tells us it started with Adam and Eve, when
the serpent convinced them to defy God’s command not to eat from the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. Conflict was conceived. More conflict soon
followed when spiteful Cain murdered his younger brother, Abel.
Countless other conflicts ensued: maidservant Hagar proudly flaunting her pregnancy over Sarai, her childless mistress; conniving Jacob outwitting his minutes-older twin
brother Esau; Joseph being sold into servitude by his jealous brothers; the
Israelites questioning the leadership skills of Moses even after he had led
them out of slavery in Egypt.
We could say the Scriptures offer accounts of one conflict after another, whether
man vs. man, woman vs. woman, man vs. woman, or worst of all – human vs. God. This
week’s passage, in which the apostle Paul pleads with two women named Euodia
and Syntyche to resolve their petty differences, presents one more example. As
someone has asked, “Can’t we all just get along?”
Why is it so difficult to “just get along”? There are many reasons, but one of the
biggest is selfishness. ‘I want what I want – and I want it RIGHT NOW!’ We have
an impulse to safeguard our own interests, whether it’s our standing among our
peers, our needs, or our viewpoints. Protecting our ‘right to be right.’
When that doesn’t happen, when we feel things important to us are in jeopardy, we find
ourselves feeling anxious, even fearful. We start thinking, ‘If I don’t look
out for me, who will?’ That’s when conflict starts, trying to control
situations so they turn out the way we think they should.
What’s the remedy to this common problem? We find it by looking back just two chapters
in Philippians, to a passage in which Paul challenged believers about the
importance of taking ourselves off the throne. He wrote, “Do nothing out of
selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than
yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to
the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4).
No one exemplified this better than Jesus Christ. It certainly wasn’t in His own
interest to endure scourging at the hands of Roman soldiers and suffer a
hideous execution on the cross. Yet He did so willingly, to achieve complete
and eternal atonement for our sins. There was no other way to reconcile sinful,
unrighteous people with a holy, all-righteous God.
We’re to keep this in mind, as Hebrews 12:2 declares, in “looking to Jesus, the
founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him
endured the cross, despising the shame….” What was this “joy”? The knowledge
that, as He said in His final words on the cross, “It is finished” (John
19:30). He had achieved the necessary payment for sin, once-and-for-all-time,
and through His resurrection accomplished victory over death for all who trust
in Him.
What does this mean for us today? Yes, we know our sins are forgiven. And that by
being born again in Christ (John 3:3) we have the assurance of eternal life.
But it also means that whenever we find ourselves in conflict with someone else
– or on the brink of it – we can remember what He has done for us.
Through the Lord’s power, we can conquer anxiety and become peacemakers rather than
peace disrupters. When we want to cry out, “I can’t help it!” Jesus wants us to
remember, “apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). And as Paul affirmed
later, “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength” – including
working to resolve rather than to intensify conflict.