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Inner Conflict

Sunday, February 2, 2025

The Rev. Megan Collins


We are in the fourth week of our sermon series on conflict. We’ve talked about how conflict can be a catalyst for our growth. Next we looked at conflict de-escalation tools in the story of Abram and Lot. Last week, Dave shared a powerful message on conflict in the public square. 

For today, let’s think about a different kind of conflict. What if the person you are in conflict with isn’t a family member, or a friend, or even an enemy? What if that person you are in conflict with knows everything about you and knows exactly what you are going to say before you say it? What if that person is always with you, everywhere you go, there they are? 


What do you do when the person you are in conflict with - is you


That’s what we’ll talk about today, what do you do when the one you are in conflict with is you.  It turns out that you are quite a match for you in a fight. 


Dave and I have been rewatching the TV show “The Office” lately. As we think about our topic for today,  take a look at this clip from the Office (Watch the clip here).


When you are in conflict with you, it can be the biggest fight of your life, the hardest conflict in your life to settle. The conflicts in your own head could be the ones that can completely derail you. 


It can keep you in your thoughts so you miss what’s happening around you.

It can keep you stuck so you can’t move forward. 

It can lead you into behaviors or decisions that aren’t right for you. 


So what do you do when you and, well, you, don’t agree or can’t come to a consensus? Let’s take a look at five types of conflict today that can happen when we are completely alone in a room, and what we can do about it. 


Before we start, some of you might be thinking “I don’t have any internal conflict.” Maybe that’s true. Or maybe, you have inner conflict, but you push it down, you ignore the dissonance you’re feeling. The problem is when you ignore it, inner conflict doesn’t just go away. When it’s pushed down, it will likely bubble over to the people around you. Have you ever been in an argument with someone, and realized their anger had nothing to do with you? They are yelling at you but you think perhaps it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them, with their own inner turmoil? That person might be you, if you don’t see the conflict in your own inner life.


Inner conflict can be one of the hardest types of conflict for us to deal with.

But here’s the good news: You can have peace instead, if you let God into your inner life. 


Let's take a look now at the five types of inner conflict, and what God can do in us:


The Conflict of Competing Values


This type of inner conflict happens when you have two values in your life, two principles that are really important to you, but they are working against each other. You end up in this conflict, this push and pull, between two things that you want and are important but that can’t coexist.  Sometimes this is a simple conflict to resolve. Start by looking closely at these two things that you want. If one of them is not good, if it’s not what God wants for you in your life, let that one go.


But what do you do if both values are good ones? Let’s say you really value helping people, but you are also really exhausted, and value time for self care in your life.  Or perhaps you value being informed about what is happening in the world, you want to stay connected to see where God might be calling you to be or to get involved, or to speak up, but staying connected to the news cycle right right now is burying you.  When we get this conflict of competing values, we are tempted to think it’s all or nothing. I have to pick. I can either help people or take care of myself. I can either know what’s happening in the world, or I can stay sane. We get stuck trying to make the choice. That all or nothing thinking, that’s us. That’s not God. 


For six days you shall labour and do all your work. 10But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God;  . . .   11For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; (Exodus 20:8-11)


The Lord worked for six days but then rested on the seventh. 


Immediately he (Jesus) made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. 46After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray. (Mark 6:45-46)


Jesus engaged the crowds, engaged the world, but then took time away, to recenter, to rest. 


You can help people and also carve out time to rest. Do the good that is yours to do, then take a day to take care of yourself.  You can stay engaged in the world and have boundaries, making time to  pull away from the crowds and recenter. Set parameters on your news consumption throughout the day. If you feel like your values are in conflict, first determine if they are both Godly values, and if they are, try to resolve the conflict with boundaries, with balance. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.  Let’s look at our second conflict.


The Conflict of Obstacles and Opportunities


Some of you are in conflict within yourself because you feel like God has called you to something, or there is something important you really want to do, or feel you really need to do, but there is this obstacle that is holding you back. Maybe your obstacle is that you are afraid, or you believe you don’t have the skills or the talent or the time that you need. You think “I want to do something about this, but what can I really do?” I can’t do that. That’s ridiculous. I’m not brave enough, or smart enough or ready. I can’t make a difference.” There’s  a conflict, stirring up in you, this pull between the opportunity God has put into your life right now, and the obstacles you see that keep you from doing it.  But again, that’s our thinking, that’s not God. 

 

If God has called you to the opportunity, God will overcome the obstacle. 


That doesn’t mean it won’t be difficult, but it won’t stop God from using you anyway. In Exodus, God calls Moses to go lead the people. What an opportunity. But all Moses can see is his obstacle. 


But Moses said to the Lord, ‘O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.’  (Exodus 4:10)


God overcomes the obstacle:


11Then the Lord said to him, ‘Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.’ (Exodus 4:11-12)


We all have obstacles. Moses had a stutter. Paul had a thorn in his flesh. Esther was in danger.  If God has called you to the opportunity, God will overcome the obstacle. Step out in faith. Trust God with your future.  Let’s look at a third conflict we have with ourselves.


The Conflict between Flesh and the Spirit.


Do you remember the old cartoons, where a character would be sitting there, and on one shoulder there was an angel, and on the other was a devil? The angel was trying to get the character to do the right thing, and the devil was arguing for the wrong thing?


That’s us, everyday. We believe as Christians that because of who Jesus is we are forgiven and redeemed. We believe that God is changing us and transforming us, all the time. But we also believe that we will never be perfect, that there will also be sin and temptation in our lives - these inclinations to do things that are quote “of the flesh” instead of “of the spirit.”  I’ll be honest, this is a conflict we will live in our whole lives. We will never get rid of it completely. Everyday, we will have an inner conflict between what’s right and what’s wrong.  So how do we deal with this conflict? Let’s look at Romans 8:


5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. (Romans 8:5-6)


You will always have a conflict between doing what is right, and what is wrong. but you can bring down the temperature by setting your mind on the things of the spirit. Keep in front of you what is good, and you’ll see the bad much more clearly. Study Jesus’ life and teaching. Keep in front of you what Jesus did and what he said and taught. Romans says that’s where you’ll find life and peace. When you set your mind on the spirit, you’ll recognize the lies you tell yourself that will get you into trouble.  Because that’s what is so sneaky about temptation. There are some sins that jump out at us and we know they are wrong. But most of the conflict you experience internally, between flesh and spirit, is because we tell little lies to ourselves that rationalize our behavior as we nibble our way lost. It’s the conflict between two seemingly small choices, between something good and something not so good, or between your own self interests and looking out for the least of these, and then you rationalize the wrong choice. When you feel that pull in you between two things, set your mind on the Spirit. Let God shine a light on the choice and it will become much more clear. Next we have:


The Conflict of Decision


Should I stay in this job or find another one?

Should I be with this person or should we break up?

Should I move to another place or live here?

What should I do to make the best decision for my kids? 


We can get caught up in our heads when we are trying to make the right decisions. It’s so hard. And the biggest mistake we make in this type of conflict is thinking we have to figure it out on our own. If you are facing a big decision right now, and you feel stuck as you wrestle between the options, it’s time to involve God in the decision. As Christians, we don’t have do this alone. We bring God in to our decisions through a process called discernment. We ask things like what does God say in the Bible about this kind of decision? What do the people I trust say about the best next step? What do I feel God saying to me in prayer? 


5 If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. (James 1:5)


If you are struggling with a decision, invite God in to your decision making.  That doesn’t mean you’ll get an answer right away. It doesn’t mean if you do get an answer, that it will be the one you want. But if you are feeling pulled into the conflict over a decision, ask God for wisdom. Then be willing to do two things: wait, and listen. 


Let's look at our last one for today. A final conflict we get into with ourselves is:


The Conflict between Past and Future


We could also call this the conflict between where you've been and where you are going, or the conflict between who you were, and who you are meant to become.  Paul, who wrote a lot of the letters in our New Testament, knew about this. He wrote in Philippians 3:


If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more:5circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;6as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.


From everything he had grown up believing, he had done everything right. He had lots to be proud of. He had had some amazing experiences. But then he says this:


7 Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  . . . 12 Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.


Paul had a lot of glory days in his past, but the only thing that matters now is his faith, is the future God is calling him to. Maybe you are feeling pulled between your past and your future.  You may have had some really good days that are behind you, some success in your past, but you feel this tension growing as people around you change, as your life changes. You are feeling moved toward a new future. It’s hard. Change is hard. You’re tempted to resist, to hold into what used to be.   Paul says “I press on toward the goal of the prize in the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” It doesn’t mean you can’t remember the good times., but you will keep feeling that conflict if you are trying to stay in the past. 


A few years back there was this advice for cleaning out your stuff in a house  that was popular online. The basic principle was you would hold an item, be grateful for what it meant to you, but then let it go. It sounded silly, but it can really work. Instead of feeling like you either had to toss away your stuff with abandon, or hold onto everything that mattered to you, you would hold the item, be thankful for what it meant, then release it.  This same principle applies to our past. You can take time to hold onto what used to be, be grateful for it, and then be willing to see how God is at work in you today, what God is preparing you for next if you focus on faith. 


Inner conflict can be hard for us to resolve.  No one can make a more compelling argument to you, than you.  The only way to peace, is through it, with God.  If you really want to feel peace:


Let God into your inner life.

Let God change you. 

Let God guide you.

Let God speak to you.

Let God in. 


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