How to Restore Broken Relationships

Pastor Dan Walker, PhD, MDiv

Introduction: Why Relationships Matter at the Core of Human Life

Relationships are at the core of what it means to be human. Nobody wants to live life alone, and nobody wants to live life without warm, loving relationships. Where do we get this strong desire for relationships? We get it from God, because we were created in God's image, and God Himself consists of a relationship between the three persons of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So God created us to have a loving relationship with Himself and to have loving relationships with other people. It doesn't matter if you're a believer or not, because every human being has the innate desire to have those two basic relationships, with God and with people. Today, I'm going to focus on our relationships with other people, but your relationship with God is actually the most important.

Last week, we talked about Growing Together In A Life Group and building relationships with new people. Each of us needs to learn to build the relationships in our lives that God has blessed us with.

NLT Philippians 2:1-2 Is there any encouragement from belonging to Christ? ... Any fellowship together in the Spirit? ... Then make me truly happy by agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another, and working together with one heart and purpose.

There you have God's will for the family of God: we should agree wholeheartedly with each other, we should love one another, and we should work together with one heart and purpose. Those three things are also God's will for your family, agreeing with one another, loving one another, and working together with one purpose. Yet sometimes things go wrong, and relationships that were once warm and close become cold and distant.

Relationships that were once loving become broken. What should you do when a relationship becomes broken? Should you just give up on it and look elsewhere for a new one? I believe that relationships are worth salvaging, so today I'm going to talk about how to restore broken relationships.

How To Restore Broken Relationships

Those who restore broken relationships are peacemakers, because broken relationships lead to conflict, arguments, and fights.

NLT Matthew 5:9 God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.

The blessing of God is upon those who work for peace, and the blessing of God is on those who restore broken relationships. They will be called the children of God because peacemakers are acting like their heavenly Father, who made peace with us through the death of Jesus.

So now let's see what God's Word teaches about how to restore broken relationships in your life. Think about the relationships in your life, some may be going good, but there may be others that are strained or completely broken. Keep the one in mind that is the biggest problem in your life right now.

Pray About the Broken Relationship

In any how-to message, the first thing you should always do is to pray. We all probably know that, but knowing what we ought to do and actually doing it are two very different things. I'm not talking about praying once about the broken relationship, I'm talking about being persistent in praying for that relationship until it is restored.

Your prayer might take days, weeks, months, or even years until the answer comes, but don't give up. In your prayer, you need to begin by admitting your wrong.

Always in a broken relationship there is wrong on both sides, and how can I be so sure? Because each of the people in any relationship is a sinner, and we all sin. Now, in the scales of heaven, one person may have a lot more guilt than the other, but in our prayer we need to admit our own wrong to God.

Even if you think the other person has done all the wrong, how has your attitude been toward them, and have you done everything you could have to restore things? Tell God that you are sorry for your role in the broken relationship, and tell Him that you are ready to do things differently in the future.

NLT Matthew 7:5 First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.

Jesus is really pretty funny here. Of course, we usually think that our friend has the log in their eye and any wrong that is in our own lives is really just a speck, but Jesus says that our sin should be as a log to us. Deal with your own log first before you try any surgery to correct your friend.

You also need to ask for God's help. You need God's help to restore a broken relationship, because a badly damaged relationship is not any easy thing to fix. God can work in your life, giving you the wisdom to know what to do.

Maybe some areas of your life need to be corrected before the relationship can work out again. Not only can God work in your life, but God can speak to and work in the life of the person that you're in conflict with. Ask for His help.

NLT James 4:1 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? ... You are jealous for what others have, and you can't possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don't have what you want is that you don't ask God for it.

Lack of prayer can be the cause of broken relationships. People try to get from other people what they should be getting directly from God. And when a relationship is broken, you can't try to fight to get it back, you need to ask for God's help, because He is the only one who can heal a relationship.

Choosing Persistent Prayer When Conflict Runs Deep

One of the most famous feuds in American history was between the Hatfields and McCoys in West Virginia. It all began in 1878 when a McCoy accused a Hatfield of stealing a hog, and from there things escalated, and four years later a Hatfield was shot to death. The feud between the families continued for over 125 years, with a dozen murders during that time period and numerous court battles.

Finally, on June 14, 2003, sixty descendants of the original clans gathered to sign an agreement to officially bring the two families back together. The treaty read, "We do hereby and formally declare an official end to all hostilities, implied, inferred, and real between the family, now and forevermore. We ask by God's grace and love that we be forever remembered as those that bound together the hearts of two families to form a family of freedom in America." It was only with God's help that the feud was finally ended.

Do you have a difficult relationship in your life? It might be with a son or daughter, a mother or father, or another relative. Pray about it, not just once or twice, but pray and don't stop until the relationship is restored, because prayer is the key to restoring broken relationships.

Talk to the Person

After you have prayed about the relationship and asked for God's help and wisdom, the next step is to talk to the person about the problems in the relationship. Everyone's natural tendency is to try to ignore the problem and hope that it will go away, or perhaps that the other person will come to you first. However, serious relationship problems do not get resolved with time, and God wants you to take the initiative to do something about it with His help.

NLT Matthew 5:23-24 So if you are standing before the altar in the Temple ... and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you ... Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

Jesus is saying that we'd better get our relationships with other people right, or those broken relationships will interfere with our relationship with God. Go and talk to the person.

Begin by sympathizing with their views. Our tendency is to begin the conversation telling the other person about how they are the problem, and if they just do so and so the relationship will be better. Whether there's truth in what you say or not, that's not the best approach.

The best approach is to start with the other person by asking what their feelings are and what their views are.

NLT Philippians 2:4 Don't think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing.

Care about the other person and try to see things from their viewpoint. You may not agree with all of them, but at least you'll begin to see where they are coming from. The other person will sense your care and concern for them.

Then work toward a resolution. In any broken relationship and in any conflict, there are issues that need to be resolved in order for the relationship to be restored. After you see things from the other person's viewpoint, ask God to help you come to a resolution of the top issues.

It may take some compromise on both of your parts.

NLT Romans 12:18 Do your part to live in peace with everyone, as much as possible.

You can't make the other person do anything, but you can do your part to live in peace. To do your part may mean giving up some of your rights and laying them down for the sake of peace as you work toward a resolution.

Taking Courage to Initiate Honest Conversation

Let's take a look at a clip from a movie in which a grown son who hasn't spoken to his mother in years visits her home on Christmas Eve. Midnight Clear shows us that when relationships are totally broken, people stop talking to one another. No matter how awkward it feels, someone has to have the courage to break the ice and initiate a dialog.

Maybe there is a relationship in your life that seems beyond repair. It's gone on for a long time, and maybe you are no longer talking to the person. Ask God to give you a plan, ask Him to give you the courage, and talk to the person and work toward a resolution.

Choose to Be a Peacemaker

When you are working on restoring a relationship, there is always the possibility that you will get angry and upset with the person, and you could make things worse. So you need to make a decision to be a peacemaker and to do everything possible to bring about peace.

NLT James 3:18 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of goodness.

The words and actions of a peacemaker sow seeds of peace, not seeds of conflict. When those seeds grow, you will reap a harvest of goodness. So how can you be sure that you are sowing seeds of peace?

Remember to forgive. The other person has probably hurt you and they have done wrong things, so remember to forgive. This is not a time to take revenge, to hold a grudge, or to try to exert your rights.

NLT Luke 6:37 Stop judging others, and you will not be judged. Stop criticizing others, or it will all come back on you. If you forgive others, you will be forgiven.

When you're being a peacemaker, it's not time to judge and it's not time to criticize, but it is time to forgive. Jesus' promise is that when you forgive others, you will be forgiven by God, and most of the time you will be forgiven by others. When you have forgiveness in your heart, you can focus on restoration.

Focus on the restoration of the relationship. Whenever you have two people, you have different views, differences of opinions, and different experiences. It's not always possible for two people to see eye to eye on every issue.

Your goal should be on the restoration of the relationship rather than achieving perfect agreement on every problem. Two people can agree to disagree about certain things and still have a great relationship.

NLT Proverbs 19:11 People with good sense restrain their anger; they earn esteem by overlooking wrongs.

A wise person keeps their anger in check and overlooks wrongs in order to build the relationship. God is there to help you be a peacemaker.

Allowing Forgiveness to Rebuild What Was Lost

A pastor was talking to a couple in his office and they showed him a picture of themselves. "Nice picture," he said, and then he noticed tears in the man's eyes, so the pastor asked him why he was crying. The man said there was a time in their marriage when he was unfaithful to his wife and she found out about it.

She was so deeply hurt and injured that she was going to leave him and take the kids with her. He was overwhelmed at the mistake he had made, and he shut the affair down. He went to his wife in total brokenness and asked her to forgive him, even though he knew he didn't deserve it.

She forgave him. This picture was taken shortly after that, and when he sees this picture, he sees a woman who forgave him. He sees a woman who was willing to stand with him and his life given back to him again.

God can do the impossible. He can restore relationships that seem forever broken. It takes someone to choose to be a peacemaker.

Conclusion: Choosing Peace in Every Relationship

Even if you don't have any damaged or broken relationships in your life right now, someday you will, and most of us have some relationship work to do right now. God wants you to pray persistently about that broken relationship. Take the initiative to talk to the person and work toward a resolution.

This morning, choose to be a peacemaker and to work for peace in all your relationships. God will be pleased, and His blessing will be upon your life.

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