LEADING IN LIFE - Leader's Resolve Conflict

Everything rises or falls on leadership. Nehemiah has been sent by God to lead in rebuilding this wall and the day they begin, opposition begins too.

Review about opposition and how Satan tries to stop a work:

In chapter 2 they first started w/ ridicule and mockery. They tried to laugh them out of doing the work. They made fun of them, ridiculed them, put them down. Nehemiah's response to that was to simply ignore it. When people ridicule you and put you down for what you're doing for the Lord, just ignore it.
The second thing they tried was discouragement. They came and said, You're tired, you're never going to be able to finish, it's hopeless, there's too much rubble. They got them all discouraged. Nehemiah's response to discouragement was simply to reorganize. "Remember the Lord is with us and don't give in to discouragement."
The next tactic that came along was danger. They started threatening their lives. They threatened them and tried to scare them into quitting. Nehemiah's response to that was to resist it. He said we're going to reinforce it: half will build the wall, half will carry swords. Then they would alternate on shifts.
All of that got them nowhere.
Chapter 4 was the opposition from the outside. Chapter 5 is internal opposition. That's much, much worse, the sabotaging from the inside. Satan tries to divide them. He uses money. Isn't that typical? More conflicts are caused by finances than anything else. The majority of divorces are because of financial problems. Satan is going to try to divide them over financial issues.

Question: Does the devil still use division today? Of course he does. Internal problems destroy more churches, homes, business’ than external problems. Satan would rather cause division in w/in than anything else.

Mark 3:25 "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand." You ever see a football team defeat itself? A bunch of people with massive egos and, rather than fight the opposing team, they fight each other. Division can happen wherever you have two or more people. We tend to want our own way.

If you don't deal with conflict then it's going to stop the work of the Lord in your life. For us to Lead in Life we've got to learn how to resolve conflict. This chapter is very important. It teaches us conflict management, the skill of dealing with conflict. V. 1-5 gives us the causes of conflict; 6-13 the cure for conflict.

I. THE CAUSE OF CONFLICT
The background of this chapter is the people have been spending all their time working on the wall. They didn't have any time to cultivate their gardens and raise food.
V. 1-2 "Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers. Some were saying, `We and our sons and daughters are numerous. In order for us to eat and stay alive we must get grain.'"
The first complaint was food shortages -- too many mouths to feed.
In the next verse, we find out there was a famine. Resources and goods were in short supply. There were more mouths to feed than they had food. Inflation and high prices. Food shortages.
It's interesting: they are doing the work of God, yet God allowed a famine. Why? Weren't they doing what He'd told them to do? I think that doing God's will does not exempt you from common problems of life. Just because you're doing the right thing doesn't mean your car isn't going to break down or have some major health problem or otherwise. So there was a food shortage in v. 2.

The second thing is that they were over mortgaged in their homes.
v. 3 "We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine." That's what you call financial bondage.
They were using their equity to feed their families. They were taking their equity out of their homes and mortgaging them deeper and deeper just to put food on the table.

v. 4 "Still others were saying, `We've had to borrow money to pay the king's taxes on our fields and vineyards.'"
High taxes are the third problem. They're having to borrow just to pay taxes. They're in deep debt here.

As a result of that, in v. 5, "Although we are the same flesh and blood as our countrymen, and though our sons are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved but we are powerless because our fields and vineyards belong to others." Enslaved

They had to have food so first they mortgaged their homes then they started selling off their family to raise money. They are in that much debt! They are forced to place their kids into slave labor to pay debts. Circle "mortgaging" and "borrow" and "enslaved". I think those three words go together. The Bible is relevant! High taxes, high mortgage, high prices, forced to work overtime -- sounds like the business section of today's paper.
But these hard times were not the root problem.

v. 1 "Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers."
(by the way, this sounds like trouble doesn’t it?)
They are complaining about each other.
The rich Jews were exploiting the poor Jews in a time of crisis. They were taking advantage and capitalizing on the misfortunes of the poor people. (ever seen or heard of that happening before?) Those who had money and had food were saying, "If you'll sell me your house I'll give you food. I'll lend you money but it will be at high interest rates. And if you can't pay the loan I'll take your children as collateral." They were exploiting each other. Rather than helping and giving to the poor they're charging high interest and repossessing their homes, taking their children as slaves -- total disregard for the misfortunes of other people, only thinking of themselves "How can I take advantage of this problem?"

This was clearly against God's law. Exodus 2:25 said that Jews could not charge interest to each other. God allowed the Jews to charge interest to other people, but they were not allowed to charge interest to each other. They could loan to each other but they could not charge any interest on it. The Bible also said that the Jew was not to enslave another Jew. If somebody was poor he could come and work for you but you were not to make him your slave. They were clearly violating God's will. The rich were blatantly violating these laws: profiteering, exploiting, capitalizing on the famine. We have a conflict between the haves and the have nots right in the middle of this building program.

Leadership Law: The root cause of internal conflict and discord is always selfishness.
Whether you have conflict in your family, with your boyfriend, in church, in your office, at school -- the bottom line in conflict is always selfishness. Always! James 4:1 "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but you don't get it." What causes conflict? Selfishness. When my wants conflict with your wants, we've got a problem! We're going to have conflict, division.

The most fulfilling part of leadership is working with people. But the most frustrating part of leadership is working with people. People tend to be selfish, including me. We want our own way. We want to do our own thing. As a result we don't always want to do the thing that's best. They put themselves first and that can be very, very frustrating. We think of ourselves and that causes conflict. It's always selfishness.

II. THE CURE FOR CONFLICT

How does a leader resolve conflict? Nehemiah knew this whole thing could blow up in his face and the wall never get rebuilt. They were exploiting each other. They had Jews fighting against Jews, families fighting against families. v. 1, the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their own people. This is much worse than fighting an enemy out there. An external enemy often rallies the troop, it builds unity. When you're fighting each other, it's dividing you apart.

STEP 1 v. 6 -- "When I heard their outcry and these charges I was very angry." GET ANGRY (excuse me Joe what did say?)
Nehemiah did not ignore the problem, he took it seriously. If you're the leader of any kind of group and the harmony of your people is threatened, you better get angry. It's very, very important. You, as a leader, are to protect the harmony of your home, your group, your bussiness -- wherever.

Sometimes anger is very appropriate. Sometimes it's the right thing to do. This verse says Nehemiah was very angry. Anger is commanded by God. Ephesians 4:26 "Be ye angry and sin not." It is possible to be angry and not sin. If it wasn't possible then God sins. God got angry. Jesus got angry. You can get angry and not sin. One of the first things you need to do if there is disharmony caused by selfishness, you as a leader, better get angry. Take it seriously! There is the right kind of anger and the wrong kind of anger. Leadership is knowing the difference.

Nehemiah's anger is not a personal reaction. Nobody was hurting him. He is not getting angry and striking back because somebody bruised his ego. That's the wrong kind of anger. He's not striking back in revenge. That's the wrong kind of anger. But what he has is justifiable indignation. He was angry at the selfishness of these rich people. He's deeply disturbed by their exploitation. They could call a halt to the entire project just because of their own selfishness and greed. Nehemiah is thinking "What good is a wall if the people inside the wall are ripping each other off? What good is a wall if we're exploiting each other?"

A leader without some fire in his/her bones is not much of a leader. When you see something that is destroying the harmony in your family, your church, your nation, your business the first thing to do, as a leader, is to get upset. Nothing will upset a leader more than division.
The last thing they needed here was internal strife especially since there was plenty external strife anyway.

STEP 2- REFLECTION: THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK
If you only do step one and don't do step two you're going to get into a lot of trouble. V. 7 "I pondered them in my mind." Living Bible says, "So after thinking about it, I spoke out against these rich government officials." These were the people who were ripping everybody off. The Hebrew word is literally "I consulted with myself". Nehemiah's first reaction was to get angry. But before he did anything else he talked to himself about it. He got alone with God, prayed about it, thought about it to get the perspective right. He planned it out and said, "God, what do You want me to say?" He talked to himself. ‘Leaders make time for Think time’. You don't need to go talk to anybody else. You need to set down and say, "What's really going on here? I'm ticked off. I'm irritated. I'm upset. But what's really happening?" Set aside some time for reflection and to think. Because, when you get angry your first reaction is usually wrong. You ought to get angry. There are some things you ought to get upset about when you see selfishness preventing or harming the work of God. But before you do anything about it you do step two where you think before you speak. (sometime you may be part of problem)

James 1:19-20 "Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry. For man's anger does not bring about the righteous life God desires." This is the antidote. It's not a contradiction. It's clarifying what Ephesians said, "Be angry and sin not." There is a difference between man's anger and God's anger. Man's anger is when we act in revenge. God's anger is when we act in righteousness. There is no personal vendetta involved: I'm going to get angry because you hurt me, you irritated me, you frustrated me, you disappointed me. That's the wrong kind of anger. You're angry out of your own selfishness. Somebody didn't live up to your expectations.

What he's saying, "Be quick to listen and slow to speak." If you do these first two the third one is automatic. If you're quick to listen and slow to speak you will be slow to anger. And the anger you have will be godly anger after you've thought it through, consulted with yourself. You haven't just spouted off whatever first came to mind. Impulsive anger always gets you in trouble.
Step two is reflection. It's a good antidote or qualifier of step one -- the reaction of getting angry.

STEP THREE -- REBUKE: YOU PRIVATELY CONFRONT THE OFFENDING PARTY
Go directly to the source. You don't deal with somebody else about it, talk with five or six different people to get everybody on your side. You don't say, "I've got a prayer request..." which is often sanctified gossip. You go directly to the person, directly to the source.

If somebody has offended you and you go to somebody else besides them first, you have already sinned. An example: Nehemiah 5:7 "I pondered them in my mind then I accused the nobles and officials. I told them...`He goes to them
directly. Directly to the problem -- the people who were sinning.
Matthew 18:15-17 this is what Jesus said about how to handle conflict, wherever you are: "If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you've won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along so that every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses. If he still refuses to listen, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector." How did Jesus tell us to treat pagans and tax collectors? Love them. He just didn't treat them like brothers. That's the difference between acceptance and approval.

Only involve the people to the limit you have to involve others.
A Good saying is, “If they’re not a part of the problem or the solution they don’t need to be involved”
First go see the person. Try to resolve it with your boss or whoever. If that doesn't work, take another person along. If that doesn't work then you involve a larger group and bring the church in on it. But he doesn't say, first go tell the whole church and then the person.
Notice Nehemiah 5:7 "I pondered them in my mind and then accused..." [circle "accused"] Nehemiah is not making a polite social visit here. He's angry and he's not glossing over the fact that these guys were ripping off other people. He's not watering it down. He is confronting them.

How many of you like to confront people? If you like to confront people, you're weird! People who like to confront have a problem! How many of you like to be confronted?

I hate confronting people! It is not fun. I want everybody to like me! So do you! I don't want to be disliked and I don't want to cause hard feelings. But I've learned it is necessary to confront for the good of everybody. I have also learned that if I don't confront the problem it only gets worse. It does not get better. I've also learned that the longer I wait the more courage it takes to confront. I become more and more of a chicken the longer I wait.

Have you ever seen the morale in an office deteriorate because of one jerk who is making everybody miserable and yet is a trouble maker and his poisonous attitudes are being spread throughout the entire office because the manager is a wimp and would not deal with it. He kept putting it off. Maybe that person who is causing everyone's problem happened to be the top producer. So the manager was more interested in profits than he was in people. He didn't care that everybody else was sick of the person, because he was still bringing in all the sales.

Have you ever seen a family fall apart because the parents were afraid to discipline their kids? They were afraid that if they really disciplined them, they would loose them. That's tough love. Privately confront the offending party.

Leadership Law: Leaders must have the courage to confront.
If you're ever going to be a leader, this is a skill you have to develop. You must have the courage to confront. Speak the truth in love. Leadership requires courage. Leadership is not a popularity contest. For the greater good of the family, for the greater good of the business, for the greater good of the church -- I don't care if you don't like me, but the fact is this has to be dealt with." That's what Nehemiah's doing here. He said I'm going to deal with the issue.

Privately confront the offending party.

Do you imagine that Nehemiah was nervous here? This takes guts. He took on the city leaders. He is rebuking the wealthy owners of Jerusalem, the very people he must depend on to fund the rebuilding of the wall. Now who would pay for the wall, all the poor people? Who would pay for the doors, the people who didn't even have enough money for food? No. He goes to the moneybags, the very people who are funding the rebuilding of the wall and finally supporting the rebuilding. It's a real gamble.

The devil is probably saying, Nehemiah if you do this you loose their support, who's going to pay for the wall? You'll never finish the project.

But Nehemiah was committed to doing the right thing regardless. If it meant putting the wall on hold for a few days while they dealt with this sin, so be it! That shows the integrity of Nehemiah.

v. 9 "So I continued, `What you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?'" He's appealing to their conscious. He's saying what you're doing is a bad testimony. All the unbelievers are laughing. "Those people are supposed to be godly people and they're buying and selling each other into slavery and ripping each other off."

v. 10 "Give back to them immediately... continue to help out, but stop charging interest!” He's saying he's challenging them to make restitution. Do it immediately.

The result was they repented. v. 12 "And they said, `We will give it back,' they said. `And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.'" Nehemiah must have breathed a sigh of relief at that point. That was quite a gamble to challenge the people -- those wealthy owners.
(confronting usually turns out real good)

STEP FOUR - REINFORCEMENT. Set an example of unselfishness.
We see this on down in v. 14. We're going to cover it in more detail next week from a different angle on the example of leadership. But the foundation of all of Nehemiah's leadership is he led by example. When he asked them to rebuild the wall, he was out on the wall rebuilding it. When he asked them to pray he had already been praying. When he asked them to stay up all night and work night and day to get it built, he stayed up night and day to get it built. When he asked them to help the poor, he'd already been doing it. That's what these next verses say.

v. 14 is a little biographical statement about himself and what happened when he was twelve years as governor. "When I was appointed governor in the land of Judah neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor. But the earlier governors, those preceding me, placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver in addition to food and wine. Their assistants also lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God I didn't act like that. I devoted myself to the work on the wall. All my men were assembled there for the work. We didn't acquire any land. Furthermore, 150 Jews and officials ate at my table as those who came to us from surrounding nations. Each day one ox, six sheep, and some poultry were prepared for me. And ten days an abundant supply of wine of all kinds. In spite of all this I never demanded the food allotment to the governor, because the demands were heavy on these people."

As the appointed governor there was a certain amount of food he could receive from people and he never took it. He realized the people were hard up. He could have exploited the people. His servants could have exploited the people like the servants of the governors in the past but he didn't.
In fact he set the example. He was feeding the poor. He was helping them. He was doing all he could out of his own
personal wealth. He's setting the example.

Nehemiah says, as a leader I have modeled unselfishness. Why does he say that right at the end of all this stuff about conflict? Because the source of all conflict is selfishness. Nehemiah said I haven't exploited the people, taken advantage of their misfortune. He's contrasting his approach to the people with the wealthy rulers and owners' approach, which was to exploit the people. Nehemiah never asked anyone to do what he himself wasn't willing to do or wasn't already doing. He could say with a clear conscious, "Follow my example". That's a mark of leadership.

Paul was a leader like this. 1 Cor. 11:1 Paul said, "Follow my example as I have followed the example of Christ."
You say, "I'd never say that!" Why not? If not, you'd better change whatever you need to change in your life. People follow models. Paul wasn't being arrogant. He was saying, "At least I'm making the attempt. At least I'm making the effort." - What’s holding you back from saying that? You need to start working on the areas where you could say, Follow my example as I follow Christ.

Leadership Law: Leaders only ask others to do what they are already doing.
That was the secret of Nehemiah's boldness. I'm in awe how this guy stood up to these people and challenged them and confronted them. He was a person of integrity. He was already feeding the poor. He had every right to stand up and say, "How come you guys aren't helping the poor instead of hurting them?" If you cannot challenge someone to follow your example, whatever you say to them is going to loose its impact. In challenging our children, I can't say "Do as I say, not as I do". That's ineffective. If I can't say, "Do as I do, " then the impact of me saying "Do as I say" is worthless. Organizations, homes, families, office, wherever... will have fewer conflicts when we
live unselfishly and model that.

The fact is internal differences, wherever you've got a group of people, are inevitable. When two people agree on everything, one of them isn't necessary. There's going to be differences. There's no such thing as a perfect church. There's no perfect family. There's no perfect business, office... There's going to be conflict. But God wants us to minimize them for His glory and especially in the family.
God has called us in every arena of life to be people who are know by love.
That's the mark of a Christian.
Jesus said, "By this shall all men know that you're My disciples, that you love one another."