Key Getting Everybody to Work Together

Key Getting Everybody to Work Together as a church leader, how do I get everybody working together when they want to fight all the time?

I have been compiling a notebook and my own study notes on the Holy Spirit (actually, I began this in college back in 1980, and continue to expand it all the time). In those studies, I try to define “spirit” so that we can understand the Holy Spirit. I get into the parts of man. There is a division, easy to make, between spiritual and physical. Spiritual is not so easy to see, but it is nonetheless there, and body is easy to see, but nonetheless hard to understand.

• See a sample Appendix of that work here, Salvation as a Divine Relationship between People

On the spiritual side of this, we have our will, which I see as being a part of that “made in the image of God” that defines what we are. We can decide what we want to obey and what we do not want to obey. What you submit yourself to, you are actually enslaved to that thing.

But our will is what we are. Our wills are intertwined with our moral character, which is sinful. But the two of them make up what we are and what we do. Our heart (not physical heart, but the seat of our emotions) gives another push into what we do. But none of that actually allows us to “do something” without a physical body. To be very careful here, Nephesh (Hebrew word for soul) is used in

Numbers 19:11 He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days.

The key Hebrew words here are “dead body” H4962 מַת math of “any man” H5315 נֶפֶשׁ nephesh. So the instruction of what is unclean, is a person who touches a dead body of a man. There is no way that the Israelites could bury their dead without touching them somehow. But the idea of a person’s soul (nephesh) is that it is the unity of that person. Being dead, spirit has left that body. So the idea boils down to that person’s physical body.

So to sum up, a person’s will and moral character bonded together make him have actions in the real world. Once dead, they no longer participate in the earthly world.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

What is the real problem, then?

The real problem then is simply that man’s will and moral character clash one with another to cause conflict.

James 4:1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

So each person participates with “life” by willing (focusing what they want according to their particular moral character) and acting through their bodies. Understanding that, conflicts in churches are resolved into a moral war between people’s characters (and their wills). Some people are at a difference level of maturity than others, so this is what this is about.

The only real way to resolve these conflicts is on a moral level. For preachers, you solve every problem via preaching. If you can get everybody on the same page, then you have some kind of unity. You will only have God’s blessing if you get everybody on the same page that God is on, and this focuses on God’s work, salvation and sanctification. Beyond that, you get everybody to a point of spiritual maturity.

The way to do that is to preach and make every point abundantly clear for all to understand. If you fail at revealing the truth of God’s Word, you will have conflict. If you insert your own will, you fail. What you must “push for” has to be God’s will, so every point is flexible if there is not a specific Bible verse that affirms what you are promoting. That is a very essential point, remove what is your will from everything, let others decide (that is called Christian deference) and insist firmly on what God commands.

Re-Evaluating what is Salvation

Let me start by giving a brief summary of the gospel. Salvation is first of all admitting that you are a sinner (confession), having remorse over your sins to the point of rejecting them (repentance). Then the person has to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior (John 1:12), and that includes imitating God’s moral character (Eph 5:1).

But let’s take a step back for a minute and consider salvation from another point of view.

Matthew 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. Matthew 22:38 This is the first and great commandment. Matthew 22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The question was what single commandment is the greatest? We can presume that the greatest concern of God is the salvation of man. So the answer Jesus gave was in two parts, with the first part clearly man’s salvation. A person is saved because he loves God. That aspect of salvation is often overlooked. But do not miss the second part. The second part about loving others is just as much in the answer as the first part. We ask why are others included in this assertion about salvation?

God wants to know what we are really. Actually, God already knows us (1 Samuel 16:7; Luke 16:15; Jeremiah 17:10), because God probes to the deepest part of man to see what is there. But we can say we love God, but it is hard to get many tangible things to show that love, true evidences of that love. We cannot take God flowers or chocolates, or really do anything that we can identify as “love” like when a man loves a woman. God knows that. God is not going to come to earth and set up house somewhere so that we can mail him a card on his birthday.

What God does is demand that we love others because that is very tangible, to the point of being impossible to ignore. When we love others, (you know, get along with them), then God knows how much we really love Him. Here is where all this bears on resolving church problems. God sees our salvation in how we get along with others.

But someone will complain, “You just don’t know how difficult it is to get along with that person“.

Matthew 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

When you have conflict with other people, God is testing you to see what you are made of. The fact of conflict means that you are proving what you are spiritually. The issues many times are inconsequential. One side or the other may be right or wrong, but the issue is to get along with one another.

Matthew 25:40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

In this parable, Jesus focuses on what you do to your brethren, it is as if you actually did it to Jesus in person. So burn that image in your mind, that when you have a conflict with somebody, make sure if that person were to be Jesus, you would treat them respectfully. Not all people we have conflict with are respectful to us, but this is defining what we are. That is the point. The important thing is in how you are, how you act, speak, etc.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 1 John 4:8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 1 John 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 1 John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

So the saved person loves God. That love of God has to be a spiritual activity in the soul of that person. Loving somebody else is basically a brute denial of egoism, the love of one’s self. So the point here is that everybody in the church has to understand this. “Getting along” one with another is actually an evidence that people are saved. So this throws church conflicts into a different kind of matter. It is a salvation matter. These conflicts are important in revealing who is really saved, and who isn’t.

A word of caution, this sword of “getting along” cuts both ways. There are pastors that want to force everybody into doing what they say, like they are little dictators, and this indites them as being unsaved just as it does anybody else. We (pastors and leaders) do not want everybody to obey us, but the point is, we and the church want everybody to obey God. There is a keen distinction between everybody obeying the pastor, and the church and pastor obeys God.

The only way you make this distinction is focusing on what God has commanded and convincing everybody of that “will of God”, and pushing for that will of God by teaching.

How to Fight Against Church Conflict

1 John 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 1 John 4:2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 1 John 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. 1 John 4:4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 1 John 4:5 They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. 1 John 4:6 We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

1 John 4 begins with a exhortation to try the spirits, because within the community of the church, there are antichrists. People who take the moral opposite of Jesus Christ (Jesus is God, Jesus is love), and cause divisions and fractures within the body of Christ.

The first thing to understand, is that the conflict is not really “with your brethren,” i.e. “people“. It is with what Satan has put into their hearts and minds. It is with the sinful moral nature their were bron with. There undoubtedly are many situations where the “protagonist” or “antagonist” is just unsaved. (Your view of things is usually that you are right and others are wrong, which is what the opposition thinks likewise. Your concessions or Christian deference that you show to others and their positions disarms their desire to attack and overthrow. A simple reminder of what God’s will is makes attacks very hard for them.) But here we need to see the battlefield clearly. The battle has to be in the Scripture. What is the will of God? The pastor and leaders need to absolutely fight “that battle on that hill.” There is a saying in war, choose carefully the hill you want to die on. Never so true as in this spiritual battle.

For example, many churches have gone the way of Hollywood with their services as Hollywood entertainment, and the church activities are basically all oriented in focusing on “fun”, entertainment. Talented people with music and singing like this because they show off their talent in church, which entertains the membership. Elvis Presley began singing in the church choir. Talent plus opportunity to shine equals bad things in the end. Question: Was Elvis Presley’s early days “performing” in church sincere? Would a sincere Christian eventually become the king of Rock and Roll? Rock and Roll is a musical movement based on its rebellion to authority, the very name referring to a man and woman (not married to each other) in a car having wild sex so that it rocks and rolls the car? The movement’s essence was captured in their song, “We will rock you…” which would seem to mean that these singers will force you to have sex with them and enjoy it. That is somehow from a true Christian?

Romans 13:2 Whosoever therefore resisteth the power (authority), resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

The fruit from that tree is definitely nothing that a true Christian would want, nor enjoy.

Why does the youth group need to go to some park or entertainment show? Because that is what youth respond to.

Mark 4:19 And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.

How about Bible studies, special prayer meetings, and evangelism? Those things can be sustained very easily from the Bible as being what churches and Christians are supposed to be concerned with. What a Christian earnestly desired like the milk of the Word (1 Peter 2:2 As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby). (I would also point out that what a church puts money, time, energy, interest, and is their pleasure says a lot about them. Also it says a lot about a church what they don’t invest their resources in. We are here to do God’s will, God’s work, not entertain people until they die.) I find nothing in Scripture that would indicate that entertainment is either a goal we work towards with people (saved or unsaved) nor is it a weapon we would use in resolving the lack of enthusiasm of youth to the things of God.

The cry of these people are that they are bored. That is true. Remember diversion means not doing what you always do. It is a distraction. Entertainment is the opposite of work. They are addicted to entertainment if they have a modern phone. So giving them more drugs of entertainment is somehow going to fix their misguided desires?

Exodus 32:6 And they rose up early on the morrow, and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. Exodus 32:7 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves: Exodus 32:8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them: they have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto, and said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which have brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

1 Corinthians 10:7 Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

So the sin of Israel at the foot of mount Sinai when Moses was receiving the 10 Commandments is that they were bored, so they started entertaining themselves. God calls what they did idolatry. Paul frames his criticism in the same vein. “They rose up to play“. Is entertainment another god, an idol, which we freely invite, nay, not invite, seek out and force into our churches? Unfortunately yes.

Again, the proper way to fight conflict is by preaching, not by other ideas. If you can clearly see the Bible teaching the will of God, you push that will of God, you will have God working for you. There is a barrier that almost every pastor or Christian leader faces and does realize it until things are way out of hand. The majority of the people who sit in front of you in church, as your “Christian brethren”, are just not saved. Some people just go their own way, and they are not even interested in church. But even a lot of those who do come to church, they are not saved either, but they are deceived into thinking that they are saved. So they show up, and usually are late, leave early, disinterested in anything about the Bible, and do not take any preaching as being for them. These are signs of not being saved, or if they are saved, they haven’t grown much at all.

But these people are famous at “not getting along” with other people. The only ones they get along with are if there are people that are blind followers, and these followers are following these unsaved “church members”. That is how Satan builds an anti-Christ movement in your church. People who act, speak, and morally are the antichrist, or the opposite of Christ. God is love. Those who love are born again

1 John 4:21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. 1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

It is very difficult to get through these verses for most Christians. While we fully understand that salvation is confession of sin, repentance from sin, faith in Jesus Christ’s work on the cross, when we hit “God is love” and the mark of a born again believer is that he has to love others, we stumble at that rock. God considers our salvation, our faith and response to Christ’s death, in being a way, an attitude of one another loving. There is no sex in this folks. This is loving by showing concern for the souls of other people above your own desires. Love is defined as…

My sacrifice for your benefit.

If you love God, you will keep his commandments.

1 John 5:1 Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him. 1 John 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. 1 John 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

What takes priority over your own desires, over your Christian deference to others, is the will of God. You absolutely MUST VERIFY AND ESTABLISH every desire you have for the church, for yourself, for your brethren in Christ, with Scripture defending that desire. It has to be the will of God, the work of God. Many times these things in a practical sense are difficult to discern. But everybody, praying and working towards the same will and work of God, will overcome.

Key Getting Everybody to Work Together