Documents

Restore a friendship

• Relationships are worth restoring
• God has called us to be peacemakers
• God gave his son to restore his relationship with you
• Peacemaking does not mean appeasement
• Peacemaking does not mean avoiding conflict

1. Unbelief
   1. That God is and has been control of all situations in your life
   2. Stops us from receiving what God has to offer
   3. We are all believing something – Choices:
      1. I believe that God will answer my prayer
      2. I don’t believe that God will answer my prayer
   4. Belief is a decision not an emotion
2. Lack of Faith
   1. Faith is belief in action
   2. Without faith you can not please God
   3. Faith and worry do not go together
3. Worry
   1. God wants to supply all our needs
   2. Make God happy
      1. to heal all your wounds
      2. deliver you from all evil power
      3. to give you all you need 
4. Lack prayer
   1. One can not pray about this until

1. Talk to God before talking to the person

• Pray first instead of gossiping to a friend
• Tell God your frustrations
• God can change hearts – yours and theirs
• Most conflicts are rooted in unmet needs – check to make sure your needs are met by God
• Many conflicts come from prayerlessness (James 4:1-2)

2. Always take the initiative

• God expects you to make the first move
• Takes priority over worship (Matthew 5:23-24)
• Do not procrastinate, make excuses – delay deepens resentment
• Acting quickly reduces the spiritual damage to you
• Communication is the burden of the communicator
• You are only hurting yourself (Job 5:2)

3. Sympathize with their feelings

• Use your ears more than your mouth
• Look out for others interest like your own - Philippians 2:4
• Focus on their feeling, not the facts
• Begin with sympathy, not solutions
• Feelings are not always true or logical
• It is sacrifice to absorb the anger of others – especially when they are unfounded (Romans 15:2)

4. Confess your part of the conflict  

• Begin by praying with them
• Begin by admitting your own mistakes
• Ask God to show you
• “Am I being unrealistic, insensitive, or sensitive?”
• If claim to have no sin – we are fooling ourselves – 1 John 1:8
• Humbling admitting defuses a persons anger
• Do not beat around the bush
• Talk about how things made you feels
• Men: allow women to share first
• Do not make excuses or shift the blame

5. Attack the problem, not the person

• How you say it is as important as what you say – Proverbs 15:1
• Cold War – must destroy our arms it is not worth destroying ourselves

6. Cooperate as much as possible

• Sometimes it costs: Pride and Self-centeredness

7. Emphasize reconciliation, not resolution

• Reconciliation focuses on the relationship, resolution focuses of the problem
• God expects unity, not uniformity
• It takes a lot of effort to restore a relationship (Us and Christ)