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October 16, 2005
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Communication I
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Speak the Truth"
Ephesians 4: 1-3; 17-32
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God spoke the Heavens and the earth into existence. God brought life to ADAM by breathing life into him. Ours is a communicating living God. From Genesis 1 on the picture given of the character and reality of the Triune God is that this is a God of communication, of relationship. We read in Genesis 3 that "God walked in the garden in the cool of the day to talk with Adam…"
A living, relating, loving, awesome, all powerful God, such is this God. After covering the sin of the first couple and sending them out of the garden, God called forth Abram from UR and made of this one man a nation in order that it would be a light and revelation to all peoples. In other words, it would communicate God to all. God blessed one in order to bless many. And God's crowning gift of communication was when God Himself in the second person of Trinity was conceived in the womb of a girl named Mary, and born as a man upon the earth. Jesus therefore said He was the "Way, the Truth and the Life" for he was God in the flesh.
Yes, the Christian Faith announces a communicating God. As God communicates in words and actions of other-directed love, so we are also to thus communicate. As Christ's Body on the earth we are to speak, to live like Jesus. When people enter church, they ought to encounter Jesus. And one means whereby they will is in experiencing how we live with one another, how we communicate love.
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So, in Ephesians 4, Paul is talking about how the church lives as the church, how the church communicates God to others. In the first half of the chapter he gives the context for all communication saying to live lives worthy of the Gospel, to live in a way that befits what Jesus has accomplished.
Here we have his call to each of us to be completely humble - which is for me to think more of you than of myself. It is a turning from self focus to other directed love.
Be completely humble and gentle - kind to one another, not self righteous and demanding.
Be patient, bearing with one another in love. Friends, this is the call to remember we all have foibles we will not like, we all have sins we will bump up against. How do we handle this? The Bible says "be patient". The bumper sticker is true: "Be patient, God isn't finished with me yet."
This applies to me as well. Too often people place the pastor on such a pedestal that I am in danger of falling to my death if I but step off. But I hope you are all convinced that I am but a man, a man called of God to this office alongside of you in ministry in this community. I am fallible and human. My hope is that you would remember this and that when I forget something or do not do what you expect that you would communicate with me. Don't instead assume that whatever it was you think I did, I did on purpose, or out of spite or to get my way. I hope that is not true of my heart.
Instead, assume the best as I will seek to assume the best of you. And come tell me when what I have done has injured you in some way. How can I know if you do not speak? How can you and I both grow if you keep silent?
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So, this business of communication begins here in these verses as we learn to "bear with" one another. And continues with this command to "make every effort" to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. To keep it does not mean to create it, for as I have said, the Body is one unit already by God's doing.
So we keep it, and I would say we keep the unity first of all by how we communicate with one another.
Our Heavenly Father is always communicating with us - and we must with one another. What does God communicate? Well in sending Jesus it was truth, but truth personalized, truth not as a cold hard mandate, but truth as a person to know and follow. So, we too are to communicate truth. Indeed after Paul's incredible chapter unpacks that we are not to live like we lived prior to coming to Jesus, He says a Therefore in verse 25. "Therefore speak."
Out of the fullness of what you have received from knowing Jesus the truth, being transformed by his work in you, speak the truth one to another.
This is our first lesson in communicating like God today, and it can be said that simply: speak the truth. But remember the context for that truth is our lives. We are not to just "speak the truth" like a 2 by 4 against another person's life: Zits! Hair! Clothes! Car! This is not truth to conform someone to our image!
- No, that is not how God uses truth. There are three kinds of truth I believe Paul is referring to here.
First, Paul says "put off falsehood and speak the truth with one another…"
Now before we get off track by the New International Version's translation, the term "neighbor" here does not mean any Joe on the street, but rather, your "neighbor" your "brother or sister" within the body of Christ, for that is the context.
So, the truth we speak is with those in the Body and is in contrast to lying. Put off falsehood - turn from the old way of lying about everything, speak the truth.
Why do we lie? Well, it is a left over from the old nature, I suppose. The devil is the Father of lies; he was a liar from the beginning. So, if we lie we are demonstrating a place where sin still rules in us.
A husband may lie about why he was late from work in order to keep an affair secret.
A wife might lie about a purchase to escape from the husband's anger.
A girl may lie to her friend because she does not want to go on a date with him.
A business man may lie on his tax return to avoid more taxes.
An employee may lie to the boss about a report in order to avoid getting docked for not getting it in on time.
A fisherman may lie about the size of the 9" fish that got away by describing a whopper of a story.
A daughter may lie about what she was looking at on the internet for she knows she was wrong to have done so.
We can also lie by not telling the whole truth, leaving something out of what we say to make ourselves look good or someone else look bad.
Yes there are many kinds of lies, more than I have listed. But if you hear a lie exit your mouth, stop yourself. You will be better off I can promise you if you stop and say to whomever you are speaking: "That was a lie. I'm sorry. The truth is…" Stop when it is in your mouth.
- Friends we are in the Body of Christ - lying does not befit the body. So, first we speak truth rather than a lie. Then, it is truth about us. Speak the truth, the passage says. We are the speakers in this sentence. IT is not "listen" to the truth, but be speakers of truth.
I need to speak the truth when something is bothering me in relationship to you. I need to bring it up, not sweep it under the rug and pretend it is no big deal. You sweep enough under the rug and soon someone, even you, will be tripping on that rug!
Sometimes people will be upset about something in the church and instead of talking will think: "Well, when this pastor leaves we can go back to the old way…" Friends, church is not about me, and not about the "old way," instead it is about Jesus, about serving Jesus, and about being in relationship to Him and with one another. So, when something is upsetting you, it is time to work together on it.
"It will never change" you say? Well no chance that it can if you don't speak. But don't you want to change? Don't you want to grow? If you speak up, whomever is involved can grow through the encounter and both serve God better.
So, how on earth can I bring up something that is really hard to talk about?
First, in humility I need to come to you and tell you "I am really bothered about something that I need to talk to you about. Do you have a minute?" Notice I begin with my feelings, with myself, not with your infraction. And I ask if you can hear me now? (it is important that you don't do this in a crowd, but in a corner someplace). I don't begin with a shake of my fist and a shout of "You do this…"
Our passage tells us to "Speak the truth to one another…" The speaking begins with me, and therefore if I speak first about myself, my feelings, my sense of upset you will be more likely to hear me.
Then, I need to tell you specifically what is bothering me. I need to speak the truth: "When you did this, it makes me feel this…"
Next, I describe ways I may have contributed to what happened. Admit your own culpability. In any relationship there are two sides to everything. That is part of humility to be able to say: "I know I was wrong in this way."
Finally, offer a solution in the communication of the problem. You can honestly find a place where you could contribute to the solution. And even ask the other person if there is any other way you could contribute to help clear up the instance. Then after this you could ask the other person if they too could contribute something to the solution.
- Friends, this speaking the truth is spiritual warfare. It is exactly what the enemy does not want to happen, that we would speak the truth. What will we have to talk about with one another if we stopped complaining about one another? So, to stop lying and start talking honestly will mess up the devil's schemes, but think of the body of believers it will build here!
And it will swing open another level of communicating the truth which then can happen - that of the truth about Jesus in our lives. In the previous passage Paul says they have been taught according to the truth that is in Jesus. So "truth" relates to the person of Jesus Christ, who we claim is in our lives, changing our lives. What can we share about Jesus?
What He is teaching us… what He is speaking into our lives through the Scriptures… what prayers have been answered… And thus testimony will build through us so that when we are with non Christians the same bits can be shared.
So, speak the truth - don't lie. Speak the truth - talk honestly about yourself
Speak the truth - tell about Jesus' work in you.
As you do this, friends, you will be putting flesh on our communicating God who gave us Jesus full of grace and truth.
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