Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of restoring wounded relationships, drawing parallels between the dynamics of the Trinity and our relationships within the body of Christ. He highlights that healing relationships is a priority for God, as it reflects His love and joy. Bickle encourages believers to actively pursue reconciliation, whether they are the offended or the offender, and to communicate with grace and humility. He stresses the significance of Ephesians 4:29, urging individuals to avoid corrupt speech and instead impart grace through their words. Ultimately, Bickle calls for a commitment to excel in love and maintain healthy relationships, reflecting the unity and joy found in the Godhead.

To a message I gave a few weeks ago on restoring wounded relationships. I have a few more in this series that I'll get to in the weeks ahead. But just a first a point of review. The Lord is establishing the not just the first commandment in first place in the body of Christ around the world. He's also establishing the second commandment in place. And he's empowering and inspiring and stirring his people to walk in healthy relationships, that honoring relationships, inclusive relationships. One of the reasons he's doing this is because that's how God relates to God. Within the relationships of the Godhead and the Trinity, the Father relates to the Son with great joy, with overflowing gladness. And the Son relates to the Spirit in the Father, etc. And salvation is actually an invitation to participate in the family dynamics of the Godhead. Actually the family dynamics, the way they relate with one another, salvation is saying be part of our family and enjoy the joy that we have in walking and sharing love together. And that's why the Lord so cares about the first and second commandment being in the highest place of priority in the body of Christ. And so healing wounded relationships is of the highest priority in the kingdom of God because of the way that the Lord values and enjoys love. Now a relationship can be wounded at various levels. It can be slightly injured, or it can be deeply broken, or a hundred steps in between. And we don't want to wait till a relationship is deeply broken before we began to have that alert kind of attentiveness to it. If even there's a slight injury, we want to move in biblical principles and restore that injury so that love would abound and excel in our midst and in our relationships. Paragraph B from the last session, there are signs of a wounded relationship, and there's quite a few, but I just mentioned a few just for a little review there. Paragraph D, Ephesians 4 verse 29. Now this is one of the most important verses, in my opinion, in building relationships as well as in restoring relationships. Ephesians 4 verse 29. Paul said, let no corrupt word, no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth. But what is good for necessary edification, that it might impart grace to the hearers. So the point I'm making here is that the spirit of a relationship is wounded in a significant way by corrupt speech. And I have 12 examples of corrupt speech, but obviously the list could be much longer than this. Unfair criticism, sarcasm, demeaning speech, shaming, belittling, etc. etc. You can look at that list yourself. But Paul said that make it a goal of your life that there would be no corrupt speech proceeding from your mouth, but only words that impart grace. To impart grace that gives confidence and courage to people to press into God, to obey God, to stay the course in the will of God when it's difficult. Words that impart grace, it gives inspiration, it gives insight in how the things of the kingdom work, and how we're to apply them in our everyday life, in our family, in the marketplace, in the neighborhood, in every dimension of life. Now I want to challenge you to make Ephesians 4 verse 29 a personal life goal. That this is one of your standards of excelling in love, of walking in the second commandment. Having no corrupt speech leave our lips is excelling in love. This is a practical description of excelling in love, or at least an aspect of it. Make this a goal for your family, for your marriage. This is a goal myself and my wife Diane, we have set this as a goal. We won't let this happen in our marriage. Now of course it does happen. We violate it, but there's, the good news is, is that when you do come short, and I come short of this often, by simply owning it, by admitting it, and apologizing for it, it only takes a minute. You can pull the arrow out, you can undo the damage most times. Sometimes it takes a little bit more than that. But as a spiritual family, as a leadership team of the spiritual family, we have it as a goal that we don't want our speech to be corrupt in any of these many different ways. Again, from sarcastic, to condescending, to demeaning, to shaming, any of those kinds of ways. And of course we do violate it, but when we violate it we're committed in our hearts by the grace of God to admit it, to apologize, to own it, and to undo the damage of it. And if you would do that in your own life, in your own marriage or family, and many of you have already done it, the ability to abound in love increases greater. Paragraph E, Proverbs 18 verse 19, a brother offended is harder to win than a fortified city. Now this brother is a generic term, it's, it could be a sibling, it could be a family member, it could be a spouse. But the idea is when the slight injury of a relationship escalates to an offense, now the relationship's broken, it is very difficult to win a city that's fortified, that's put up their guard against the intruder. And that's what Solomon is telling us here, he says, don't let the injury escalate to an offense and a broken relationship. Move in quickly and correct the wrongs that were, that were done, or even the perceived wrongs, make them right. Roman numeral two. Now one of the primary biblical principles for healing or restoring wounded relationships is that we make a godly appeal. We go to the brother or sister and we make an appeal. Now a godly appeal means a appeal based on biblical principles, because some people go to somebody when there's a conflict, but the way they go, the tone in which they go, the spirit, the process, the whole manner of the way they go is not very helpful. So going to the brother is not enough, or going to the sister, but it's doing it in a godly way as prescribed by the Word of God. But the point of this principle is, we're not to draw back from the relationship. What happens often is somebody gets into a conflict and one of the parties, they just live in retreat from the relationship. They avoid them. They retreat into silence. They kind of duck every time they see them. Jesus, and the Word of God, Jesus says, no, don't retreat. Go forward. Communicate with them. Talk to them according to biblical principles. Don't be naive thinking the relationship will just heal itself. Relationships don't just heal themselves. If there's an offense, even a minor offense, that's taking root, and it's not healed, if it's not restored, it will escalate and become a greater offense. It just doesn't go away on its own, and that's one of the foundational biblical principles. Paragraph B, Romans 12, verse 18. Paul says, if it's possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably, or in this context, pursue the restoring of relationships. Pursue the healing process. Now, the idea is that not all relationships will be healed. Even in the body of Christ, not all relationships will be healed in this age, but as much as it depends on you, you're going to do your part. That's what Paul said here, to live peaceably, or again, in this context, to see relationships healthy and restored. The Lord wants a culture of honor established in the body of Christ. He's speaking this and inspiring ministries all over the earth. I mean, thousands, hundreds of thousands of ministries, the subject of a culture of honor. They may use different terms. Where relationships that are broken, there's a pursuit to see them healed. I've heard many ministries talk about how the Lord is highlighting this. And as a spiritual family, our goal, I mean, this is a real goal. We want everybody that's a part of this spiritual family to be committed to seeing 100% of your relationships in the body of Christ, that you're going to do your part to see them restored. They won't all be restored, but we want to make a commitment before the Lord that we're going to continue to exhort and to move forward with the resolve to see this process happen. I don't mean just current relationships that are being injured or being troubled right now, but even ones from five and ten years ago, from, you know, back in the city you were at, or in another ministry. Just, we want to walk in that excellent spirit of love, in that clean spiritual environment, where as a people, we so value the second commandment, that we're endeavoring to do our part. This is a, this is a sober, serious goal that we have as a leadership team to pursue this as a spiritual family in a long-term way. Turn to page 2, if you would. Now, the way that Jesus talked about making this appeal, this godly appeal, He talked about in paragraph C, go to your brother. He's talking about making a godly appeal. It's the same thing, but it's this phrase, go to your brother. Now, the word brother, again, is generic. That brother may be in your house, in your home, in your family, maybe your spouse. That brother may be a dear friend that's, brother, sister, that's not the point. It's go to them is the point. Now, it's very important to observe that Jesus applied this principle of the godly appeal to go to your brother. He applied it in two very distinct ways, and we often emphasize one of the two, and then we neglect, we emphasize the first, but neglect the second. We talked about the first one in our first session. Now, we're in our second session on this series, and we want to talk about the second application. Jesus says there's two ways. If we have something against our brother, if the brother's troubling us, go to him. And then Jesus turns it around. He goes, if you're troubling the brother, go to him. So, on both accounts, whether they're troubling you or you're troubling them, He says both times to the godly believer that wants to obey Him, go to your brother. Take responsibility in both situations. Take the initiative to make the first step to see healing and restoration in the ministry. You say, now, which is it? If I didn't do anything and they're bothered at me and I didn't do anything, I think they're trumped up charges anyway, what do I do? Jesus says, you excel in love and go to them. But I didn't do nothing. I'm at peace. I'm waiting for them to come to me. That's not a biblical answer. The biblical answer is you go to them. If they bother you, you go to them. You bother them, you go to them. Or bother's not quite strong enough. You trouble them with a sense of injustice is the idea. Now, the Lord, He commands us to do both of them. Every believer is commanded to go on both accounts. And the idea is, if only one of the believers obey, the process of restoration and healing begins. And the Lord wants us, as sincere believers before Him, we want to be committed to obey on both different applications. Lord, by the grace of God, we want to do what You say is love in the Word of God and we want to obey You in this. Well, let's look at paragraph one again. I'll just kind of say the same thing again. Our last session is this idea that when someone troubles you, go to them. And then again, paragraph two, the emphasis today, when we trouble them, go to them on both accounts, even if you're at peace. Well, we're all familiar with Matthew 18. If they bother us, then we take the initiative. That makes sense, Matthew 18. But Matthew 5 reverses that and says do both of them. Now, the Matthew 5 exhortation, we go to them when they're troubled by us. That is the, that is one way to excel in love. This is going the second mile. This is abounding in love, as Paul prayed. This is the goal that the Lord has for the body of Christ and everybody in the body of Christ would buy into the Matthew 5 exhortation that when they're troubled, you go. Not only that you go when you're troubled, but you go even if they are and you're not. This is the will of God for the body of Christ and this is what He's emphasizing in our own midst right now. Paragraph D. Now having said that, I'm going to put a qualifier on it because this is not talking about going to everybody who disagrees with you. This is not talking about initiating a conversation with everybody who doesn't like you. This isn't talking about people on Facebook, they don't like what you said or the clothes you were wearing or your lifestyle or your convictions and they say bah humbug and now you need to go spend time with them to make them happy with you and to get them to like you and agree with you. That's not what he's talking about. That's too broad and the reason it's important to narrow this down, because if it's too broad you will conclude this is too big, it's impossible and you'll end up, if you try to do it in every situation when someone doesn't like you or agree with you, you'll end up not doing this at all. You'll relegate this exhortation to the impossible status and there's only a few relationships that the Holy Spirit would in most people's lives is referring to in this. It's real actual relationships where there's been meaningful personal exchanges and personal interaction. It's not about whether somebody likes you, agrees with you, it's far more narrow than that. You have a real relationship and you've really had an interaction and it's really troubled them. They have the sense of mistreatment in that interaction and so that would narrow it down to a much smaller group of people and that's doable and that's why we can't exaggerate this command because it'll be daunting and overwhelming. You won't do it at all or if you exaggerate it you end up getting manipulated by it and you're running around in a frenzy trying to make everybody like you in the name of this verse. And the Lord's saying no that's not what I'm talking about. Living manipulated and undergilled in a frenzied way trying to make everybody happy with you. That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about actual personal exchanges where there's a clear sense of injustice in the exchange and a real relationship. Paragraph E. Now we're still in Matthew chapter 5 which is the passage of this exhortation. We'll back up a few verses to verse 9. Jesus promises a blessing. He says blessed are the peacemakers. He goes there'll be a special release of my presence. I'll help you. I'll honor you. I'll be with you in the process of making peace. Now this peacemaker dimension that is helping two parties reconcile. Peacemaking is about helping two parties that are in conflict reconcile but peacemaking is not limited to you being the arbitrator to two parties. You might be one of the parties that's in conflict but you're taking initiative. And if you take initiative you're still a peacemaker. You're still pursuing peace even if it's peace in relationship with you. Whether they troubled you or you troubled them you're taking the initiative and you're going forward and you're in this peacemaking beatitude here in chapter 5 verse 9. Jesus said that not only would there be a blessing on you a release of the presence of God. God would actually help you to succeed in these. He said that people will call you sons of God. They will conclude different things about your life. Now paragraph F. I comment on that for a moment. And why? Because it is so rare for people to consistently with humility with tenderness with wisdom try to be a peacemaker. Again whether they're making peace in their own conflict or they're an arbitrator for somebody else for two other parties. It is so contrary to human nature to do this consistently. That when people see you do it consistently Jesus said not occasionally but consistently they conclude you're like your heavenly father. You're being motivated by the God of heaven. I mean look at you nobody puts time and energy and value into people walking in love enough because it takes a lot of time to do this. Then it takes energy to do this. And when we do this Jesus said they will conclude you are like your heavenly father. Roman numeral three. Now let's narrow in and look at this exhortation today. This you going to the person that's troubled by you. You're at peace. You feel innocent. They're troubled. It seems to you it's a trumped up charge. It doesn't seem even realistic. They should not be troubled as far as you're concerned. Like why would they be troubled by what I did? I didn't do anything. And Jesus says in this over this overcoming love he says yeah get bigger than that. The fact that they're troubled that concerns you because you love them and you want to help pull that thorn that arrow out of their heart and you're going to do what you can to do that. This is just as an act of love and sometimes in the process you'll find your own error and deficiency in it. But even if you don't think there's deficiency in it you go forward and you patiently listen and you engage in the process and the Lord says you're excelling in love if you do that. Well let's look at the passage here in Matthew five. He says if you bring your gift to the altar so it's you know picture a worship service and you're in the public meeting you bring your gift up front to the altar and you haven't they haven't given it to the priest yet but they brought it up to present it to the priest in that Old Testament context or think of a worship service of the of today contemporary. And there while you're about to give it it's a gift of money you're about to give your money and you remember ah there's a brother that's troubled by me. Again he doesn't it's not an issue that he dislikes you or disagrees with you that there's there's a perception of of an injustice and a mistreatment that you did with your words or with your deeds towards them. Then you remember oh that guy thinks I've ripped him off in some way or I've just mistreated them in some way. Jesus said put your gift now put your money down on you know on the altar run out you know go make a phone call initiate the process of getting together to get this thing cleared up and then run back into the meeting and then offer your money give it to the priest. Now I don't know that anybody ever stopped in mid you know that well put their money on the on the altar ran out the door made a phone call ran back in. I don't know if that actually happened but the point of it is the urgency to do this. But not only the point of urgency to don't even go forward in any other act of worship put your act of worship on hold and go do this that's point one but there's another point. Jesus is saying that giving your money is an act of worship. Singing your songs is an act of worship. Your service of the kingdom whether it's in the church or in the marketplace or in the neighborhood or leading the the kids soccer team. I mean whatever you're doing in service for the kingdom there's many ways to serve the kingdom. So whether it's your money in the service or your worship songs or your act of service what Jesus is saying is the time it takes to seek reconciliation with the brother is as much of an act of service as giving your money your time and your singing to the Lord. So he's declaring that when you take time to do that you're actually worshiping Jesus like you are when you're giving money or you're singing songs or you're serving the kingdom and various facets of whatever God's assignment is for your life. Top of page three. This is a remarkable that you express as much love for Jesus by pursuing that brother. Again you're at peace. You think the charges are trumped up and exaggerated. You don't think he should be even mad. If he was paying attention he wouldn't even have been offended. How could he be because you didn't do anything wrong but you put that on pause and you pursue that relationship for the sake of love and you're gonna go in humility and gentleness. That is as much loving Jesus as giving your money, giving your service, or singing in the worship service. Jesus calls that worship. That's a remarkable reality. Now one of the reasons, paragraph one at the bottom of the paragraph, our union with Jesus in worship is deeply connected to the way we honor his family. The way our union with him in worship and our connection with him in worship is deeply connected to the rest of his family. And one of the reasons is because Jesus is as committed to that offended brother as he is committed to you. I mean he's committed to you and you enjoy that. And he enjoys the relationship with you and he values you. But he says I enjoy the relationship with that brother even if the charges are trumped up. I enjoy that brother as much as I enjoy you. I'm as committed and I love him. And in the process you might find that you have deficiencies in it as well. And then you'll grow in love as well. You'll grow in godliness in the whole process. So we are to, because of our identification with Jesus and our union with him, we are to treat the brother in the way we treat the Lord. Because in reality there's Matthew 25 and Acts chapter 9, several passages, where Jesus says the way you treat them is the way you treat me. Well I wouldn't ignore you Jesus if you were troubled. Well then don't ignore my brother. He's your brother too, but he's my brother and he's troubled. If you ignore him you ignore me. It's like oh Lord come on. I mean you're so easy to relate to. He's so difficult to relate to. And our union with Jesus actually in the way we treat Jesus is reflected in the way we treat our brother. That is a profound spiritual reality. Meaning profound, meaning it's a real substantial one is what I mean by profound. I mean it's a key tenant in the kingdom of God that this is a reality. Let's look at paragraph 4. The fellowship of the Trinity, the way the Father and the Son enjoy each other, the fellowship of the Trinity has expression in the relationships on the earth of the family of God. The way the family of God relates on the earth is an expression of the life of the Trinity, the way they relate together in heaven. And by the blood of Jesus we've actually been called into the participation of that fellowship and we actually give an expression of that fellowship when we have fellowship with one another. And I don't mean just your favorite folks to hang out with. That gives expression of it as well. That's real and valid and powerful. But going that extra mile to give the expression of that fellowship of the reality of the life of the Trinity by brothers and sisters reconciling is something that pleases our Heavenly Father who loves his family so much. Paragraph C. Jesus said lay your gift on the altar, go be reconciled. Go be reconciled. Now the very heart of the gospel is reconciliation. I want to add a verse here that's not on the note. 2nd Corinthians 519. 2nd Corinthians 519. Paul said the whole point of the gospel is God reconciling the world to himself and then he gives us the message of reconciliation and we reconcile people to him but in the context of that we reconcile our one another under his leadership and his family. The whole heart of the gospel is reconciliation. Reconcile them to God and then the family under the Father is reconciled under the Father's delight, under his pleasure and under his leadership. So Jesus says go. Go to your brother. Now James the Lord's half-brother in the natural, this was his, you know, his half-brother, I'll just make that clear, but he says this. He says confess your transgressions or your trans- I mean your sins to one another that you may be healed. Now this passage has several applications that is quite, there's quite a bit involved in this passage. I'll just mention a few things here. Number one, what he says that the promise that you will be healed. The promise in context of James 5 is physical healing. That's the price. He promises there will be the process of physical healing will be started. He says the confession of sin is linked to the process of physical healing. And you don't want to derive your entire theology of healing from this one verse, but he says it's included in that. But this promise of the process of healing taking place is not only physical, it's emotional healing as well as relational healing. When he says confess your trespasses that you may be healed, the you is individual, the man confessing, but the you is also corporate. It's the relational dynamic as well. So it's this simple act of confessing, which means admitting, you're going to the brother and you're admitting and you're apologizing for the even the minor injustice that happened in the relationship. So it's not just a confession to God, that's not, James is saying more than that, where you confess to God that you had a private sin. It includes a confession to a brother of an injustice, even a minor injustice that happened in the relationship that you participated in. So that word confesses, confess to God, but it's also a horizontal dimension as well of confessing to the brother that you actually are in the conflict with because broken relationships are connected to broken bodies. Now again the whole theology of healing is not in one verse, but there is a connection between broken relationships and broken bodies. And so again don't take that in a wrong way, if you're sick that means you must be sinning, that's not what I'm saying, but there is a connection of this whole kind of larger reality of how healing takes place. So James is saying the simple act of verbalizing your sin to your brother and apologizing, I mean committing to to not go in that direction, not to continue in that pattern or continue in that attitude or mindset, it actually has a tremendous impact on the healing of the relationship. Now it's interesting, Jesus says in essence, or the Word of God says go to your brother and confess. We retreat in prayer and we say Lord come, come and heal our brother, come and visit our brother, and we pray that the Lord would visit and heal, and he says no let's do it this way, you go and confess and as you go and confess I will visit and heal. No Lord, I'm gonna stay in the prayer closet, I'm gonna ask you to visit and you heal, you heal the relationship. The Lord says I want you to rise up, go and confess, and as you go and confess I will visit and heal, we will do it together. And so why not Lord you go, and the Lord says no you go, no Lord you go, the Lord says I'll go if you go, how's that? And there's really these kind of dynamics, it's real, it's more than just a nice little play on words. And so we go and we make our confession, now our confession to our brother has to be genuine, it can't be confession to win the argument, it can't be confession for a show, it can't be confession just to defuse the brother. So if we confess it, even if we don't mean it, we'll defuse the anger of the brother. The confession needs to be real, it needs to be a genuine ownership. You say well I haven't sinned in the process, and I would challenge you in the way the Lord challenges me, that it doesn't have to be a scandalous sin, is there any deficiency in love on your part in the relationship? Is there any insensitivity or deficiency in love at all? Well yeah, well bring that to the conversation then. Find that deficiency, that insensitivity, if it's not a scandalous sin, if it is a scandalous sin bring that, but if it's something smaller than that, search it out and come with your offering of love to the relationship, and bring that humble confession in it. Now when you can make a confession to somebody of a fault, and I've said this so many times over the years, but I love repeating this over and over, don't go to the person and say if you're hurt I'm sorry. That is not a confession, if you're hurt I'm sorry. Here's what a confession is, since I sinned, forgive me. That's a real confession, or it might be since I'm deficient in this area, or since I'm insensitive in this area, forgive me. Don't say if you're hurt I'm sorry, because that's what you're really saying is, because you're so fragile, and you're so insecure, you cannot hear my sound clear words of love, and so now you're upset. And because you get upset so easy, I am now sorry you're upset so easy because you're so fragile and insecure. I want to tell you in my house that doesn't fly at all. If I go to my wife and saying if you're hurt I'm sorry, she'd say hey pal, try again, that's not working. I wouldn't even try it, that would be so absurd, that just, I wouldn't even try that one. I've tried other things, but not something that blatant. Paragraph D, Jesus gives this sense of urgency. He goes first, before you give the money, even before the service, begin the process of reconciliation. Begin it, do your part. Again it might be a phone call, might be an email, might be a letter, begin it. First begin the process. And often it's a process, and sometimes it's a simple conversation, a simple acknowledgment, sometimes it's a series of meetings. But begin the process. Now the reason why there's this urgency, because the Lord knows that bitterness, if it's not resolved, it escalates. Bitterness doesn't stay the same, it escalates if it's not resolved. Now that doesn't mean the person's going to be venting in a greater intensity. A lot of times the person acclimates in their bitterness, and they don't vent. It's not just that, but they settle into this posture of distrust, and this posture of suspicion and accusation in the relationship against you. And so if the offense is not resolved, it does escalate. Now again, you can't guarantee it will be resolved, but you can go and do your part. Now Jesus says, before you give your money, go do it. In other words, begin the process. There's urgency. Paul says the same thing here in Ephesians 4. He picks up this urgency. He says, before the sun goes down, even before 24 hours passes, begin the process, or you're going to give the devil opportunity to escalate the offense. The offense will grow. It won't go away on its own. Paragraph E. Now I can't emphasize this too often. I say it over and over when I talk on this subject. One of the most important points in a healing of a restored relationship, or restoring a relationship, is the tone of the conversation. It's not enough what you say, it's how you say it, how we say it. We can say the right thing in the wrong way, and it sets back the whole reconciliation process. You can go to the person and say the right thing, but you can say it with a wrong tone and a wrong spirit, and actually instead of healing, the bitterness gets more established. They go, I'm convinced now that you're insincere and you're off. So tone really, really matters. Now Galatians 6 gives us insight on how we restore relationships. And Paul is talking in Galatians 6 on how to restore a brother who sins. But the very same principles apply to restoring a relationship in the very same way. And he emphasizes two things here. He goes, when you want to see a brother restored in his personal life, or you want to see a relationship restored, two things are critical in Galatians 6 verse 1. Go in a spirit of gentleness. Number two, and consider yourself. Look to yourself. Identify deficiencies in love that you contributed to the relationship. Identify insensitivities that you were negligent and insensitive in that way. And we can always find deficiencies and insensitivities. If there's not a big scandalous injustice and a horrible sin, there's certainly these other things. We can find them and we bring them into the relationship. So what happens often is the guy goes to restore the relationship. He doesn't go with gentleness and he doesn't go with looking to himself. He goes to explain to them why they should not be so offended. Brother, if you knew me well, you would not be offended. It's your wrong perception and your fragile nature that makes you so easily troubled. Brother, sister, that will not restore anything. Particularly in a marriage. She won't buy it if that's your line. That's not going to work. Your children won't. Your parents won't. Your siblings won't. Your friends won't. Your co-workers. You won't buy it if they do it to you that way. That doesn't bring reconciliation. You won't accept it. They won't accept it. Don't even try that method. It's not workable. Jesus's method is so, I mean, wholly other than. I mean, here's the ultimate. The innocent one, Jesus, took the role of the guilty one. Us. Our role. He took our sin. So that the guilty ones, you and I, could have the benefits of the innocent one. So the innocent one takes the role of the guilty and so that the guilty can be reconciled and have the benefits of the innocent. That's the ultimate. Now, none of us are innocent. So we can't have a messianic complex and think we're doing some amazing thing. But here's the point. We're searching for any way where we can take the position of the one that has guilt in the relationship. Even if it's deficiency and insensitivity. And that's the way reconciliation and the kingdom has been modeled by Jesus. Top of page 4. Just in the last final moments here. One of the things that sets back reconciliation when you go to this brother to ask them why he's troubled at you. Don't be defensive. The most natural thing is for us to be defensive. It's the most natural thing. What do I mean by defensive? Where we seek to defend ourself. That we seek to show why they should not be so troubled if they knew the whole truth. So here's what a defensive spirit is. A defensive spirit will set back the whole process. A defensive spirit looks like this. And I know it because I've done it plenty of times. So I've had a lot of practice at this. I'm not proud of. You're in a conflict. Okay. And as the brother is sharing his reason he's troubled. You're searching for the answer to why you're not responsible. You're searching for the answer to defend yourself. So the brother's talking. You're searching for the answer to defend yourself. And you're not searching to hear what he's saying. Particularly hear the unspoken things that he's saying. He has fears. He has hurts. He has disappointments that have not been articulated yet. He hasn't said them well. He hasn't even located them. And in a right spirit we're searching to hear what they're saying. Not searching for the answer to defend why we're not guilty or responsible. And a defensive tone will set the whole thing back. Paragraph G. Active listening. James chapter 1. James says everyone. James chapter 1 verse 19. What a powerful passage about this is. I'm talking about an expression of walking in love. Here it is. Everyone must. Circle the word must. Must be quick to hear. Slow to speak. Particularly if you're in leadership. Leadership anywhere in the kingdom. Whether in the church ministries or in the marketplace. If you're in leadership you must. You must do this more than the people under you. You must be quick to hear. Be careful. I have paragraph G. Don't interrupt them. Don't cut them off. Don't put them down. Don't interrupt them to tell them why you're right and they're wrong. Be quick to hear. Well part of being quick to hear is not just don't interrupt them. Being quick to hear means when they're finished don't change the subject the minute they're finished. Say hey I didn't interrupt them. They went ten full minutes and most of what they said was trumped up charges. It was exaggerated. It was confused and I listened patiently. I even smiled a few times. I mean I did it. No. No you not quite. Almost. Almost. Ten minutes comes and goes. Don't interrupt them. Now you thrust into your argument. No that's that's not being quick to hear. Being quick to hear and again this is easy to preach in a whole different way to thing to live. I don't do this near as well as I want to. But being quick to hear says okay let's stay on the subject. Let's stay on the subject of what you're saying. You're trying. You're speaking your heart. Let me tell you what I heard you say. I'm not changing the subject. I'm going to give you a chance to clarify and elaborate. And so the point is we're locked into hearing the deeper thing on their heart. That is what quick to hear means. Don't interrupt and give opportunity for them to even clarify and elaborate. And then in time you'll be able to give your answer. Paul James said you must be quick to hear. And again whatever role of leadership you have in the body of Christ whether in the marketplace, in the neighborhood, getting over the soccer league. It doesn't matter what role in the kingdom you have. In a church ministry we must be quick to hear. We honor people by listening to them carefully. Okay the end of page four. I'm going to go down to paragraph B just for about 60 seconds here. I just want to having said all this you get people all okay I'm going to do this. Now I want to end with a beware. Because you can again if you misinterpret this and you think it's about somebody disagrees with you or someone doesn't like you. You have to now go meet with them for hours to get them to agree with you and like you. That's not what he's talking about. Because if you don't interpret this right it's daunting. It gets real big or secondly you can be manipulated by this. I have seen people manipulated by this and it's not Jesus's intent. They don't narrow down to what he's talking about. They think oh well I'm just gonna live in this frenzied kind of pace running around to everybody trying to make them like me and agree with me and Jesus says no no no that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a real sense of injustice in a real encounter and interaction with somebody. So some folks if people have higher expectations they think like in a relational dynamic they think you're their very best friend. You don't think they're your very best friend. They think you are. So they're charging you. They want you to give way more and you're saying no I don't we can't solve this one. There's no real sense of injustice. There's really just disappointment and Jesus isn't calling you to hang out with everybody to make sure they like everything you're doing and you fulfill all their expectations. That you're just living in the manipulation of anybody that really wants to port on you. So don't and another thing is I've seen people get liberated from manipulative controlling relationships. They hear a message like this and they walk right back into it under the guise of repentance. I'm sorry manipulate me. No no that's not what we're talking about. And so though I've given this charge I just wanted to give that one qualifier and I give a couple examples of it here at the very end of this. So we want to excel in love but we want to see the narrow focus of what he's saying. We don't want to exaggerate it and but we want to do it faithfully and consistently. Amen and amen.