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October 30, 2005
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Communication III
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Every Word"
Ephesians 4: 1-32
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My oldest daughter Anna is a Resident Assistant in the dorm at Trinity Western University. As such she is in a daily opportunity to practice good communication skills. The unity of the dorm depends upon the way the girls relate to one another. If one of them begins to have an attitude it will affect the others. Anna is working with two roommates now helping them sort out their communication problem and find a way to work together in their shared room situation. But one thing stood out to me in her email when she wrote,
"Rachael, my RD, is an amazing blessing. Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to go to her with issues because I know she will always tell the truth, even when I don't necessarily want to hear it! But I am learning a lot from her about myself and about Jesus. So that's good."
When Rachael speaks the truth, she is speaking from her redeemed self. She is speaking from the reality that she has been transformed by Christ, speaking from the new self created to be like God in true Righteousness and holiness. And notice that Anna is learning about herself and about Jesus - Rachael is speaking truth that Anna needs to hear about herself and speaking the truth of Jesus.
Communicating like the Trinity begins with truth, is experienced as we learn to have self control over our emotions and continues as we "do not let any unwholesome talk come out of our mouths but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs that it may benefit those who listen."
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Here is a passage of Scripture telling us to use words that encourage. It does not say we will never need to correct someone, but does tell us to speak in such a way that we bring grace to another's life.
The idea of bringing grace is rooted in this passage, for it speaks of the idea of bringing a benefit to another person. And that is the English translation of the word GRACE. It literally tells us to speak in order to give grace to the hearer.
God wants our words to be vehicles of grace into another's life.
Racheal is doing that in Anna's life. God is using her to communicate His grace into her life. God is using Anna in the lives of her girls in the dorm to do the same. And God uses you and me, day by day, to be speakers of grace as well.
But to do this, we must become guardians over "every word."
Every word we speak matters to God.
Jesus said we will be tested by every word we have spoken (Matthew 12:36), for those words show forth what is in our hearts. Here Paul says to not say every word, which is what? Unwholesome is what the NIV says. The word translated "unwholesome" is used of something corrupt or rotten, primarily used of refrigerator science experiments. It is typically a piece of fruit or meat unfit for consumption.
Something that is rotten or putrefying is unwholesome. What kinds of words would fit that description? Certainly anything that fits with the old nature that was crucified with Christ - the manipulative, self-motivated, 'all for me' part of us; words spoken to demean, classify, objectify, or ridicule another person; words that are cruel, hateful or rude. Such words once spoken ferment in the heart of the hearer, birth further rottenness so fall into this category.
If there is a really bad apple in a bag of apples, and it is left there, soon all those apples will resemble not the good apples but the bad one. When something is rotten and decaying, it will infect even what is good around it. Have you ever tried to cut off the bad looking stuff from an apple and bit into what you thought was the good side only to taste the rottenness in that good side? So, these words taste rotten to those receiving them and exhibit the rottenness of the person saying them.
That's why Jesus said by every word we will be judged, and why Paul tells us to stop every such word. A friend when angry finds his mind thinks up all kinds of words to speak into the situation but does not want to, so in defense, begins to talk very slowly in order to carefully measure his words.
Yes, God tells us our words carry such weight - they corrupt us and infect the hearer.
- So, we are to stop the putrefying words for they wield power.
To the Jew a word was "not only sound and breath but a reality…. In Hebrew thinking, the divine word would continue to be active, creative and changing as the experiencer follows and is included, so to speak, in the wake of its advancing movement."
(http://www.misericordia.edu/users/davies/thomas/Genesis_Now.htm Copyright Neil Douglas-Klotz 2000. All Rights Reserved, permission requested).
In that description the word is like a wave of the ocean and we know sound waves look like waves. They go through the air, they are not felt or seen by us physically, but carry great power on every other level. Do we begin to recognize this truth? Scripture tells us the tongue has the power of life and death - by the words we speak.
From this perspective a word is not about something but it is the reality of that something in and of itself. As God created by the spoken word, so we create destruction or contribute to redemption through the spoken word as well.
As speakers of language we then become participants in the creative work of God, bringing grace to our hearers, or participants in the destructive work of the enemy of our souls.
Eliphaz the Temanite paid Job a tremendous compliment before he began to deride him saying in Moffatt's translation: "Your words have kept men on their feet" (Job 4:4).
Paul would say Job's words brought God's grace to many.
So are the words you speak grace words or corrupt, destructive words? Grace you remember is not a mysterious substance, it is the true activity of God the Father, Son and holy Spirit working in the life of a person.
Are the words of your life critical, self serving or loving and generous? Do your words give grace or curse to those who heard them? Do you need to repent of words you remember speaking which you know grieved the Holy Spirit with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption?
- If you are remembering words you spoke but have not repented of, make a covenant with God right now to go back to the person to whom you spoke them and repent. You can even ask God now to forgive you for having spoken the words, and then make amends as best you can with the brother or sister you have offended.
So how can you tell if you are speaking positive, grace-words, or negative, corrupt ones? Ask someone whom you can trust to tell you the truth.
You could ask: "Do I speak forth positive or negative words?"
Scientific research into the use of language abounds. Over the past 50 years there has been much research into what is termed positive Psychology. It was discovered that previously psychology has focused upon the wounds rather than the gifts people carried with them. From this field research began into the area of the power of the spoken word in the lives of people. This research has resoundingly supported the power of the positive grace-word in a person's life.
John Gottmann did pioneering work looking at marriages. His team working with mathematicians recruited 700 newly married couples in 1992. They then would videotape a fifteen minute conversation of a newlywed couple and then analyze it. They would literally count the number of positive to negative words used. They found that if the ratio was five positives to one negative, the couple would more than likely survive in marriage. However, if it was the reverse the marriage would end in divorce. Based upon the videotaped conversations then they predicted which marriages would succeed and fail, and checked with the couples after 10 years and were 94% accurate. (from How Full is your Bucket Tom Rath and Don Clifton)
Grace words build up others. Non-grace, corrupt words destroy.
Following the Korean War, Major William E. Mayor, who later became the US Army's chief Psychiatrist, studied 1000 POWs who had been detained in a North Korean camp. The camps had no physical abuse, no barbed wire, and no soldiers tried to escape yet the death rate was 38%, the highest POW death rate in US military history.
The soldiers regularly broke rank and turned against each other. When they were freed to a Red Cross area in Japan and could call home, few wanted to do so. It was not uncommon for a soldier to enter the barracks, look around at nothing, go to a corner, pull a blanket over his head and within two days be dead. The soldiers would say he had died of "give-up-itis".
Mayor found that the weapon used against these soldiers was a most sophisticated system of psychological cruelty: they were simply denied any emotional support that comes from human relationship. From four fronts the captors wore away at the soldiers morale until they were cut off from every tangible support while surrounded by would be comrades.
Mayor found that in effect the soldiers were placed into a psychological and emotional solitary confinement through the treatment, which effectively destroyed their ability to want to live.
- Psychologically we do not need a huge number of positive words, only one can make a huge difference.
I can tell you that the belief my 8th grade teacher expressed in me as a person turned my life around. Up until that point I had not been able to stand up to what I felt were the demands of my life, but after that year under the teaching of Jack Harlan and his amazing love for each of the students, my life turned around. He did not speak a lot of words, but his support and belief in me changed my life.
The ratio of positive must outweigh the negative.
Every word builds into a person's life.
It may be a word spoken because someone has done a job well.
It may be to a child or grand child who has successfully received a few good grades. There is no reason to berate them for the places where they did not do well. But there is great cause for rejoicing over the places they have succeeded.
The words may simply be identifying the fact that someone has returned and you missed them.
They may be words that you are proud of the kind of work they are doing.
What would happen if the majority of our words were "grace words"?
What if we became aware of our words -- became aware when a word we spoke hurt rather than blessed, dealt with our language in order to by God's grace speak forth grace into the lives of those around us?
Can you imagine a church where the positive outweighs the negative?
Nobel Prizewinning Scientist Daniel Kahneman found that in any given day we have 22,000 moments. These are one or two second intervals which if impacted positively or negatively can be remembered and cemented into our lives. When asked to pinpoint a single person or event that was life changing, most will recount such a moment. They will cite a grade school teacher who told them she or he believed in them; or they will recount three words in an email that altered their view on their lives.
The grace words can come in very small packages. It is not speaking a word that is profound, but a sincere word of appreciation. Celebrating a place of strength rather than focusing on a weakness.
Every word you speak makes a difference. I invite you to make them count.
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