Why Can’t We Get Along?

Introduction. Throughout history—all over the world—everyday—everywhere—in homes, in churches, on the playground, in the classroom, in the workplace, in places of recreation—between siblings, between friends, between husbands and wives, between parents and children, between coworkers, between brothers and sisters in Christ, between drivers on the highway—or nation against nation—we can see conflict.

Have you ever wondered why it is that people just can’t seem to get along with each other? This morning I would like to consider what the Bible can teach us about why people do not get along with each other.

I. Sin.  (Gen. 4:1-8) The very first example of conflict is because of sin. Cain did not obey God’s will—Abel is said to have acted “by faith” (Heb. 11:4)—if faith comes by the word of God (Rom. 10:17)—we may infer that God had given instruction about how to worship Him.  Abel obeyed—Cain did not obey God’s instruction regarding how to worship Him. Then he became jealous of his brother and so chose to compound his error by murder.

Every time there is some conflict between people either sin has occurred or the friction of the situation has the potential to lead to sin. Many sins can be involved in conflict:

A. Envy. Cain resented Abel and wanted the favor of God that Abel deserved. Scripture tells us...

•         Rachel envied Leah when she born children so it led her to give her servant Bilhah to Jacob (Gen. 30:1-3).

•         Joseph’s brothers envied him when he told of his dream that they would bow before him (Gen. 37:11).

•         Eliphaz said correctly to Job: “Envy slays the simple one” (Job 5:1).

•         The wise man declares, “Envy is rottenness to the bones” (Prov. 14:30).

B. Hatred. It was hatred that first stirred in Cain. Scripture tells us...

•         Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing his father gave him (Gen. 27:41). This contributed to years of alienation from each other.

•         When Jacob showed favoritism to Joseph and gave him a special tunic his brothers “hated him and could not speak peaceably to him” (Gen. 37:3-4).

•         The apostle John tells us “he who hates his brother is a murderer” (1 John 3:15), and “he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” (1 John 2:11).

C. Covetousness. Cain wanted what he did not deserve nor did it properly belong to him. There was a lawful way for him to deal with this—“if you do well, will you not be accepted?” (Gen. 4:7). In almost all areas where we face temptation to covet there is a lawful way to address this:

•         You want that car someone drives—work and save and you can purchase it.

•         You want a man or woman that someone else has—you can’t have that man or that woman but you can fulfill that need by lawful marriage.

•         One nation wants the resources of another—they can work, negotiate, barter, or use their own resources—they can’t just steal, or go to war to take them.

D. Identify the Sin to Help Resolve the Conflict. When we can’t get along, the very first thing we need to do is try our hardest to identify the sin that has contributed to the conflict.

•         If it is our own, we must repent of it and confess it to the one with whom we have a conflict (Matt. 5:21-24).

•         If it is our own, must remove it so we can “see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matt. 7:5).

•         If the sin is on the part of the one with whom you have conflict, work to “restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted” (Gal. 6:1)

II. People are different. (1 Cor. 7:1-9) Notice, the subject is not really what we are considering this morning, but in talking about this Paul describes his own ability to remain unmarried as a “gift.” Paul acknowledges that human beings have different gifts. This infers (what all of us know intuitively)—people are very different from each other. We don’t see the same situations the same. We don’t hear the same words the same. We don’t react to the same words the same way.

The challenge is to recognize this and work to understand—be considerate— and patient with each other when our differences come into conflict (Phil. 2:3-4).

III. Using the wrong “rule.” (Matt. 7:9-12). Luke records this with slightly different wording, “And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise” (Luke 6:31, NKJV).

Men have called this the Golden Rule. This is not a biblical designation but it is an honorable attempt to glorify the teaching of Jesus.  There are many similar teachings that men have called the Silver Rule or the Iron Rule. For example:

•         Confucius put it, “Do not to others what you would not like done to yourself” (Analects 12.2).

•         The Greek orator Isocrates taught, “Do not do to others that which angers you when they do it to you. Practice nothing in your deeds for which you condemn others in your words” (Nicoles or the Cyprians 3.61).

•         The apocryphal book of Tobit admonished, “Do that to no man which thou hatest” (4:15a, KJV).

While each of these sayings are similar to Jesus’ words there is a notable difference—each of them expresses the thought negatively. They call on us to avoid behavior, but do not encourage us to take a certain type of action.

Some came closer to Jesus’ words. Diogenes Laertius quoted Aristotle as saying, “We should behave to friends as we would wish them to behave to us” (Lives of Eminent Philosophers 5.21). Even this, however, narrows the behavior to friends—not as Jesus teaches to “men” in general.

What we must understand is that any time we are not treating others the way Christ taught us to we are using the wrong rule.

IV. Assuming what we can’t know. Some conflicts happen as a result of open words and deeds, but others happen as a result of words and deeds misjudged or misunderstood. Human beings are horribly vulnerable to paranoia. Scripture doesn’t use the term, but it demonstrates it in the lives of many biblical characters.

•        Saul became so afraid that David would take his throne that he tried to kill him (1 Sam. 19:1).

•        Herod was so paranoid that some child would rise up to be king that he slaughtered the children of Bethlehem (matt. 2:16).

•        The lazy servant was so afraid that the master would expect more of him than he was able to accomplish, he failed to work—declaring, “I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed” (Matt. 25:24). He didn’t really know this! He assumed it.

Paranoia often assumes the worst about others. It puts man in the place of God. We don’t know the heart of others—and we can’t know what they will or will not do.

Misjudgment and false assumption—often causes conflict or creates problems that were not there to begin with. Suspicion and mistrust—in some case can actually lead to the very behavior we feared. In such cases it isn’t always that “that is what would have happened all along”—Rather, the injury to the relationship caused by the suspicion sets the stage and motivates the behavior. Instead, Christians should...

A.    Listen before we make assumptions (James 1:19-20).

B.     Work to believe the best about others. (1 Cor. 13:4-8a).

V. Failure to See What God Sees. (1 Sam. 16:1-7) God sees the heart. Sometimes this is called the “inner person of the heart.” It is this element of human nature that bears the image of God. It is this which makes us the offspring of God.  In conflict we don’t see this. We see the deeds of the flesh. We see enemies. Sometimes we don’t even see each other as people—we see each other as irritants—we see each other as objects that must be controlled. This is not how God sees His creation.

If we can see another person (even when we have a conflict with him or her) as a soul made in the image of God, everything about our interaction with them must change.

•         James exposes the foolishness of blessing God with the mouth, while cursing human beings “who have been made in the similitude of God”—concluding “these things ought not be so” (James 3:9-10).