SPEAKER_00 0:00

Uh, as we get into the words, we get into our teaching, I want to start with a question. Uh, how many of you would say that Jesus was a nice guy? Lift your hands. If you Jesus was a nice guy, you don't have to say that, but how many think Jesus was a nice guy? I'm just guessing that most of us would say, yeah, sure he's a nice guy. He was a really nice guy, right? Uh Jesus was a nice guy. What's interesting is when you read the gospels, the first four books of the New Testament, uh, we get the story of Jesus' life, and he says some really mean things. I mean, just to be honest, if you know the culture, you know the day he was in, he says some really mean things. Like, let me give you a few examples real quick. John 8 44, he's talking to these religious leaders. He says, You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He says they're children of the devil. You tried that one lately, right? Maybe to your kids. But that's that doesn't sound real nice, doesn't sound real kind coming out of the words, out of the mouth of Jesus. How about this? Matthew 23, verse 27, 28. There's a section of scripture where these are called the seven woes. And Jesus says this. He says, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you're like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. I mean, that's what Jesus is saying, right? He just straight up calls it what it is. And he says to these guys, you look pretty on the outside, but inside you're what you're rotting away. Because you're religious on the outside, but inside your hearts are far from God. Wow. It's pretty strong. How about this? Uh, Matthew 23, later in that same chapter, he says, You serpents, you brood of vipers, how should you escape the sentence of hell? Calls them snakes, calls them vipers, right? So again, I mean, if the if you said these things to your friends or to people around you today, they'd be like, uh-uh, you ain't gonna talk to me like that, right? But Jesus says these things, he speaks these things out. You see, Jesus was willing to speak the truth even if it was offensive. He was willing to speak the truth even if people didn't want to receive it. So here's the point. Um, if Jesus said some hard things, and we know he was perfect, he was sinless, then you can be a godly person, you can be a person who loves God, who loves people, and who is walking in the ways that God has called us to walk and say difficult things. Are you with me? So you can you can actually speak hard truths and not sin in doing that. Now that's very difficult for us because a lot of times when we say hard things, and we're gonna talk about this, we typically say them in a way that is probably not like Jesus would say it say it, and we probably say it in a way that is sinful because we're ticked off, we're offended, we're frustrated. But Jesus spoke hard truths, even if it was offended. In fact, I would say to us this morning, if we want to grow into the church that God's called us to be, if we want Point Community Church to be the family that is healthy, that is growing, that is mature, then we actually need to have hard conversations. We need to say some difficult things to one another. This might not be popular, this might not even fit our culturals, our culture's view of how we should function with one another, but in the scripture, we're reminded that we need to say hard things so that we can grow up, so that we can mature. And sometimes churches aren't mature because we're not willing to say difficult things. We won't be honest with one another. So we see things and we just kind of ignore it, kind of just pass by it, just kind of move on and say, I hope that gets resolved. I hope they figure that out, right? Rather than engaging in it. In fact, I want us to look at a scripture in Ephesians 4. So if you have your Bible, pull out your Bibles, Ephesians 4. We'll have it on the screen above. We're gonna look at verse 15 and 16. This is a great section of scripture where Paul's been talking about Jesus and his supremacy, and then he's gonna talk about, uh he's gonna talk about how that God's given gifts in this in the in the church, in the local church has these leadership gifts uh that are there so that the church can grow up, can mature, can develop into the church that we're intended to be. In fact, we call this the apest gift. Some people use that term apest, which means there were apostles, there were prophets, there were evangelists, there were shepherds, there were teachers, okay? That's all that is. That's an acronym, just using those words. And it's this idea that God gave these gifts to help the body grow, to mature, because hopefully over time we're maturing, right? How weird would it be if your if your child uh just hit two years old and never move beyond that, right? That's just not how it works. And in the body, when things are healthy, you should be maturing, you should be growing, you should be developing. Now, we sometimes we regress back to two-year-old status, right, men? I'm just being honest. Sometimes we act like a two-year-old again, we throw fits and we we can regress in our maturity, but we should be growing, should be developing. We should be physically getting bigger, we should be emotionally getting more mature, we should spiritually be growing and developing. And so if the church is going to grow, we need these key leadership gifts. But Paul says something really important in verse 15 and 16, and I think this is what we want to lean in on this morning, is what he's saying to us as the church, even though he was writing this to the church at Ephesus back in his day. Verse 15 says this But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head Christ. Speaking the truth in love, let us grow into every way, in every way, into him who is the head Christ. From him, the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part. Now, this isn't the only place in Scripture that you find this idea that the church is a body. In fact, 1 Corinthians is a better section where he really explains this in more detail. Talks about how that we're we have different parts of the body, but we all are important to helping the church accomplish its mission, accomplish what God wants us to be. Some people are a hand, some people are a foot, some people are a mouth, uh, some people are our parts we don't, yeah, we won't go there. But there's different parts of the body, right? We're all different parts of the body, and we're to help the body grow. Now, in this section of scripture, Paul says something, again, about how that we each have a role. And what I think these five words, speaking the truth in love, do is they summarize, they summarize for us what our ministry is to one another. So if there's these five kind of core gifts, apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, teacher, speaking the truth in love is for everybody. So if you're a member of the body of Jesus, as in, if you've put your trust in Christ, you have a responsibility, you have a role to participate in helping the body grow. And the best way you can do that is by speaking the truth in love. Now, we've been saying throughout this series, using this image, this metaphor, that we are called to come to the table. This table imagery is used throughout Scripture, and it's really this idea that we're called into community with other believers. We're called into the community with God, and he's invited us to his table. Now, last week's message was really, and I don't mean this in any way, a bad way, it was a warm, fuzzy conversation about grace. And we need to be reminded of God's grace. We need to remember that we are invited to the table of God, not based on our works, not based on our merit, but by Christ's sufficiency. What Christ has done on the cross. It's a good reminder that we are Christians, not because of the good things we do, but because of what Christ has done. So we're invited by grace. This week's sermon is not quite warm and fuzzy. Okay, I'll just be honest with you on the front end. Because if we're going to actually grow in the grace of God, if we're going to grow in obedience to God, we're going to have to have some hard conversations. There's a scripture in the Old Testament that says it this way. It says that as iron sharpens iron, so does one man sharpen another. You guys ever clank two pieces of iron together? It's kind of a loud clanging sound. There's some friction that's there. And if you're actually going to see them sharpen, it's going to be a pretty intense clanking, right? And sometimes conflict can be the seedbed for us to really grow up in our faith. And so in the church, there ought to be a healthy amount of conflict. Now, I'm not talking about, again, the wrong kind of conflict. We're going to describe the right kind of conflict, but a conflict that says, I'm willing to offend you because I love you. And to speak truth to you, even if it's something you don't really want to hear. So he says we should speak the truth in love so that we can all grow up. And as I said, these five words really are a summary of the ministry that we have in each other's lives. God has planned it, He's created it, He's designed it in such a way that in order for us to grow, we need each other. That if we really want to grow up, we have to look at each other and say, help me. Because you can't say I'm a Christ follower and live in isolation. We said this probably, I think, week one or two of this series. Maybe you've heard this before. Your relationship with God is personal, but it's not private. Your relationship with God is personal. You have to make a personal, conscious decision to follow Jesus, but it's not private because it is an invitation into community with others. And it's in that community you start to see some of the areas of your life that are out of line with Scripture, that are out of line with God's agenda and his plan. I mean, all of us who are married, we have a spouse in our life that God uses to expose our issues, right? To expose our weaknesses, to expose those areas where we are struggling. I've told some of you guys that we're in the process of remodeling a house right now. And through that process of being in that remodeling, um, we've been tired, we've been uh taxed at times, just feeling like, okay, I don't have any more strength. And what's done is in that process, we've been our hearts have been exposed at times about what we worship, uh, what we really look to rest and to deal with the hardships that come in life, difficulties that come. But there are is also a huge need for us to invite other people into our lives to show us where our blind spots are because we all have them. Would you agree? There are spots where the way we use our money, the way we use our time, the way we parent, the way we treat our spouse, we're completely oblivious to the fact that we're out of line from God's intent, God's plan. And what people can do for us is they can bring clarity to that. They can expose that issue, they can speak into that and say, hey, I see this area of your life where things don't really match up. Now, again, that makes us a little uncomfortable to even say that. But the truth is that discomfort can be a really positive thing if we want to grow, if we want to develop into who Christ has called us to be. When you become a Christ follower, you're saying, I am laying down the right to be Lord and Savior of my life. I am laying down control and kingship. I am giving that over to Jesus, right? That's what you're doing at the point you put your trust in Jesus for your salvation. But there are still many areas of our lives where we are still calling the shots. We're still on the hands on the steering wheel holding on, and we don't want God to have control. And we don't want God to be in charge. And so we say, God, I've got this. And friends who really love us, friends who are believers, maybe it is our spouse, but maybe it's someone in the church family we're a part of, maybe it's somebody in our life group that can say, I see how you have not let God be in charge. How you've not let God be in control. And that is a good thing. May not feel good, but it's a good thing in our life. Our ministry to one another is to be truth tellers out of love for one another. Now, some of you in this room, when I say be truth tellers, you're like, I got that part down. And I know some of you. You just naturally like, you have no problem telling it like it is, right? And I want you to know that if that's you, you need to ask God today to help balance out that truth telling with a love. Right? Now, there's some of you that are very loving. I would say the majority of in this room at least want to be loving. And so we say things like, Man, I just want to, I want people to feel loved. I want them to be cared for. I want them to experience God's love. But in that, you're unwilling to say hard things to people. You're fearful of them even to say that the things that need to be said. John Newton said it this way: He says, Our natural temptation is to say what we should not say or to not say what we should say. Right? One is cruel arrogance, and one is cruel cowardice. Ouch. That kind of hurts, doesn't it? But that's true about us. It's a good observation of the human heart and how we can struggle to either say things we shouldn't say or to not say the things we should say. And so we need to wrestle through that. We need to talk about that as a community who wants to grow. Tim Keller says it a little bit differently, but he's getting at the same root issue when he says truth without love is imperious self-righteousness. Love without truth is cowardly self-indulgence. Both are selfish. You see, at the heart of both of those things, unwillingness to speak truth and unwillingness to be loving when we speak truth is really self-centeredness. It's about me. It's about how I am in my own heart wrestling with what people think about me andor wanting my own way, wanting my agenda, wanting control over people. Regardless, it's about me and putting myself at the center. And so we need to wrestle with that. At the same time, my guess is that this the moment I said that we need to have hard conversations with other people, we need to be willing to say hard things. Some of you are like, doesn't he get the point that we're not supposed to judge one another? Right? I hear that a lot, and I hear that in our culture. Like, we're not called to judge one another. We're not called to be the judge of other people's lives. It's not my job to tell them what they're doing is wrong. Now, let me just correct you slightly on this, okay? Understand, we are not to determine who goes to heaven and who doesn't go to heaven. That's God's job. We are not in charge of that. We are not in charge of who gets into the kingdom of heaven. Although Jesus has made it very clear when he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. Jesus is the only way to salvation. I believe that. So if somebody says, I don't believe in Jesus, then I can say with confidence, then they do not have eternal life. They do not have salvation. That's a clear biblical principle. However, it is not my job to judge people's hearts because I can't see their heart. In fact, Scripture even says that man looks at outward appearance, but God sees the heart. Only God really sees the deepest part of who we are. And in that, I know that I am not called to judge the deepest part of their hearts because I can't see it. However, let me remind us not to get so lopsided in this and swing the pendulum the other way and forget the obligation, responsibility we have as brothers and sisters in Christ to one another. Are you with me? Hang on. 1 Corinthians 5, Paul says, he says to the Corinthians, who by the way, they're dealing with some sin in their church. Actually, they're not dealing with the sin, that's the problem, is there's some sinfulness going on, and they're just kind of ignoring it. They're saying it's not a big deal, or they're just not willing to engage on it. And there's probably a number of reasons why, and then some of those reasons are probably similar to the reasons we don't engage with people's sin. Notice what 1 Corinthians 5.12 says. Paul's writing here. He says, For what business is it of mine to judge outsiders? Those outside the family of God, right? He's saying, I can't judge them for a couple reasons. One, if they're not Christians, we should expect them to behave in a way that's not Christian. Okay, that's that seems pretty obvious. Also, because he understands he's not in the position of God, right? But notice what he goes on to say. Don't you judge those who are inside? Now, he's not talking about salvation here, but he is saying we should be evaluating each other's behaviors. If we want to help each other grow, we should be looking at the outward behaviors that are reflecting inward beliefs. And in our lives, there are things sometimes that are completely inconsistent with what we say we believe. And we need people that will be willing to say, hey, I see this, and it's not consistent with the gospel. It's not consistent with the truth you proclaim to believe, you profess to believe. And in my life, I need people who will be willing to offend me, to say things when I'm out of line. I need that. And I encourage you as well in that that it is okay to have those kind of conversations. So I want to look at a quick passage of scripture where Jesus does this very thing. Okay? We've already said there's some examples where he says some things that seem pretty mean, pretty harsh, maybe pretty offensive, calling them sons of the devil, right? But let's look at what he says to this man. It's the story of the rich young ruler. It's from Mark 10, uh, verse 17 through 22. And in life groups this week, uh, we're actually going to read this passage together and talk a little bit about what we can learn from Jesus. But notice what Jesus does. Uh, first off, just before we even get there, uh Mark 10, verse 17 to 22, uh, Jesus is approached by this man who's wealthy, uh, who apparently has a lot uh going for him, and he even seems to be a pretty good guy. And he asks this question of Jesus. He says, You know, what must I do to inherit eternal life? So notice verse 17. It's on the screen if you need it. You can look at it in your own Bible as well. But here's what here's what it says. And as he was sitting out, setting out on his journey, that being Jesus setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Seems like a genuine question, a good question. And Jesus says to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. Now, Jesus was God, he is God, and so he was good, but he's kind of driving at this point, right? You you don't even fully understand who I am. But he he does set this guy right, and at least initially, there, and and it goes on. Jesus says, You know the commandments. Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness. So here's some of the commandments from the Old Testament passages from the law. Do not defraud, do honor your father and mother. And he says to them, this is the rich young ruler, he says, Teacher, all these things I've kept from my youth. Wow. Like he's doing really well. He's actually obeyed the law, he's doing pretty good. And then he goes on, Jesus looks at him, and he what? He loved him. Don't you love that? Like Jesus saw right through this guy, he saw what was going on in his heart. That's something we can't do, but Jesus had the capacity to see what was really going on below the surface. And when Jesus sees him, he loves him. Some versions say he has compassion on him. When we see Jesus in this story, we're reminded of the kind of heart we should have towards people. Now, at that point, he could have stopped. You could have just looked at him and loved him, and then just said, Man, you're good. You've been following the law, you're good. But Jesus then says the hard truth that this man needed to hear. He says to him, What? He says, You lack one thing. Go sell all that you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. And that's a hard truth. Because he knew this guy had a lot of stuff. In fact, he even says in the next verse, disheartened by the saying he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions. This is probably a good word for Americans. How many times we as Americans we want Jesus, but as long as it doesn't cost us our stuff and our comfort. Like we want to follow Jesus, but we got a lot of stuff, Jesus, and so don't mess with my stuff. Can I just add you to my stuff? That's kind of how we tend to view Jesus at times. And this young man who's back in the first century, same problem. So it's not a new problem. It's a heart problem that's been around with mankind for a long time. But Jesus looks at him and he understands the deeper issue here, and this guy walks away sad. Now, again, notice Jesus loves him, Jesus speaks the truth to him. And what happens? The guy walks away sad. Now, know this. Sometimes when we say hard things, you're not going to be able to tell if you were faithful or obedient or successful based on the way people respond. Right? Here's Jesus, and he speaks a hard truth, and this guy walks away sad. We don't get the rest of the story. We don't know if this guy ever turned around. We don't know if he ever decided, you know what, I'm Jesus is more important than my stuff. I'm gonna follow him. We don't know. We just don't get the rest of the story. But we do know that Jesus let that truth sink in. He didn't mince words, he didn't pat it. In fact, he didn't even like chase after him and say, hey, wait, wait, wait. I actually meant just only sell 10% of your stuff.

unknown 20:52

Right?

SPEAKER_00 20:53

He didn't like try to lower the bar so that the guy could could kind of come back in. He said, That's that's what your issue is. And he spoke that truth to him. So we can learn from him. None of us in this room are Jesus. None of us are gonna do it exactly like Jesus. We're not perfect. But we can learn from the way that Jesus looked at him, loved him, and spoke truth. So I want to, in our rest of our time together this morning, get really practical. And I want to look at four ways that we can say hard things to one another. Because if we're gonna grow up as a church family, we need to grow in some of these areas. I need to grow in some of these areas. There's sometimes I get to preach sermons on Sunday mornings where I'm like, I'm doing pretty good in this. And then there's some Sunday mornings God calls me to preach a sermon, and I'm like, you're not doing so good in this. This is one of those for me, okay? Because I like people to feel loved and cared for, and I want people to like me. And so they can really get in the way of wanting to say difficult things. In fact, practically, uh, I mentioned we were in this uh home remodeling project and we've had some contractors working for us. And just at a real practical level, how I've seen this play out is some of the contractors haven't followed through with what they promised. They were gonna do. Surprise, surprise. I know. We live in Austin, and there's a lot of bit, a lot of work going on. And so, like, I'm like reaching out and I'm texting people, and I'm like, hey, you know, is anything going on? Are you gonna show up? You know, and and so I this is this is in no way criticism. I want you to hear this is this is where my wife is much stronger than me. Now, there's been some emotion driving that. But she actually reached out to them and she said the truth, like really spoke the truth really well in a very gracious and compassionate way. And guess what? They replied. And it's something that I need to learn from her how to do a better job of speaking the truth and not being afraid to say what needs to be said and hold people accountable. But I want us to grow together as a community of people here this morning. First one is this we need to prayerfully prepare. We need to prayerfully prepare. This may seem as elementary as it as it comes. And in some ways, I hope you say that. I hope you say, yeah, the first thing I do when I have an issue is I pray. That ought to be our first response to hardships or difficulties or even to a situation where you see something that's inconsistent in somebody else's life. We should pray for them, right? We should pray and ask God to give us wisdom. In fact, James 5, or James 1, verse 5 says, Now, if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives to all generously and without criticizing, and it will be given to him. God will give us wisdom on how to handle the situation. But if we see each other's lives and we see an inconsistency, we should pray. We should ask God for wisdom on how to address the issue. And we know that God will give us wisdom if we will call on him and ask for it. Now, we also need to make sure that what we're dealing with is a real biblical issue and not just a preferential issue. We want to approach a lot of people at times about personality issues and preferential issues instead of biblical issues. Like there are some of you in here who operate differently from each other, right? We all have different ways of viewing the world. It's part of the diversity of the way we think and the way we do life. And that's a good thing when we can really grow together. Some of you are like super anal retinum about details. And some of you are like, hey, let's just have fun, right? So some of you are like free spirits and you just kind of go through life that way. And some of you are more like, agenda, agenda, agenda. Now, sometimes that's personality, that's not Jesus. That's not biblical, right? It's just different ways that you function and you process. And we probably should help each other, right? So we can be productive people. But the point is that uh we need to ask God to give us biblical instruction on some of the issues. And if we see something that's inconsistent, let's pray and ask God to show us. If it's lying, if somebody's being deceptive, let's ask God to lead us to some scriptures that will help. Uh Alex, earlier in kind of our welcome worship time in call to worship, he said that the scripture is a tool that really cuts to the heart of the issue. Have you ever noticed that? Scripture just really cuts to the heart of the issue, it exposes what's really going on. And in fact, the scripture says about itself that it divides bone and marrow. It like cuts to the nth degree. Now, sometimes we want to use the Bible like a sword, which in Ephesians 6 it says it is a sword, but that's to beat the enemy, not each other. Okay? So the Bible is a sword, it's called the sword of the spirit, so that we can defeat the lies of the enemy. We can say, hey, enemy, that's not truth. We're gonna cut that apart. We're gonna cut that down. We're not gonna buy that lie. But when it comes to each other, we need to be more like surgeons. And we need to see the word as a scapel, not a sword. We need to say, God would use the word to cut and expose what's really going on in the heart. There's a big difference, right? We're not here to just beat each other down. We're here to help each other, and we need to let God's Spirit expose. And we also need to remember in that process, we're not the Holy Spirit. We talk about this a lot. There's a Trinity, and none of us are one of the three, right? So, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, they are all doing really well without us. God doesn't need us to be the Holy Spirit in people's lives. But we get to participate with the Holy Spirit. And when we use the scripture and we call people to account based on scripture, then the scripture is living, it's active, and it's useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness. So if we're going to grow, we need to look at the scripture and say, what does the scripture say about lying? What does it say about disrespect, kids? What does it say about gossip? What does it say about greed? What does it say about unforgiveness? What does it say about anger? What does it say about impurity? You know the Bible says a lot of things about all these issues. And it even tells us how we fix these issues, which is Jesus. Right? All of them can be resolved in the person and work of Christ. But those are the issues we need to go to and we need to seek God's counsel in his word. The second thing is we need to consider the timing and approach. Consider the timing and approach. There are right times and there are wrong times to approach people. Would you agree? There are times when it's not a good moment to have to bring a hard conversation. Some of you guys who've been married for a while, you may have heard this acronym. If not, it's a good one. It's the acronym HALT. And if it says hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, that's not a good time to have one of those good heavy conversations, right? So for me, 11 o'clock at night, as my eyes are just starting to close, is not a good time to have a good conversation. My wife and have had this discussion because I'm not going to be fully engaged and then I'm going to be offensive, right? Because I'm going to be like, you know, like she's trying to have a serious discussion, and something she's, that's not a good time. If I'm hungry, I'm a grizzly bear, right? So don't have a hard conversation. Feed me first and then talk to me, right? Um, but this is just, I'm, this is in our lives, we know some of these things to be true. That we need to consider the timing. But even beyond that, sometimes we want to have an instant conversation, and God says, wait, be patient. They're not ready. There's a guy in our church, he's been praying about his sister and having a hard conversation with her for 20 years. Two weeks ago, almost three weeks ago now, he had a very difficult conversation with his sister about some areas where she was struggling. You know what? He's thankful he waited until his heart was in the right place to have that conversation. And God used that conversation. What I'm saying is that we don't always know the timing, and it might not always be an immediate conversation. And God may want to use somebody else other than you. Right? So we need to consider the timing and approach. Speaking to the approach, um, being a dad of six kids, each one of my kids is very different. One of my kids, if I look at him, he starts crying. I look at him, and I'm not like even like mean. I just say his name, I look at him, and he's like, Oh Dan, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, you know, like that's kind of his response. One of my other kids, it's like the moment I say their name, they bow up. And they're like, You ain't gonna make me cry. You can spank me, you can do whatever you want. I am like putting my feet in, I am done, right? So it's funny how our kids are different in how they handle discipline. But we adults are the same way, right? And some of you, you just need a little bit more firmness, a little more directness, a little bit more, mmm. Because sometimes it's just not getting through. Other people, you need to be gentle. And oh, we should always be gentle, but we need to consider and we need to ask God for wisdom on who is this person and how do they receive truth. And God will give you wisdom on that. He'll give you insight on that. Remember, the goal is not to shame people. We should go to pri in private. We should seek to do these, have these hard conversations in private. In fact, Matthew 18 says it this way: Verse 15. If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him. Notice he says you should rebuke him, right? It's instruction. This is Jesus. We should go and address the issue. Don't ignore it. Go address it. But notice where he says to Duressa, in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. That's a good thing. Now he goes on to say that if they don't listen, bring somebody else with you. Right? Keep coming back to the issue and calling them to account because you want to encourage them. A word here. Is it meaner? Is that the right way? Is it more mean? Is it meaner? I don't know which one that is. Is it meaner? That just sounds fun. That sounds very Texan. Redneck. To address the issue and call someone to confess and repent and to truth? Or is it just to let it go and let them hurt themselves and hurt others? You know, and the reality is that I think for us in our lives, sometimes we are unwilling to engage and we watch people destroy themselves. And when God says no, you like step in, say something, speak up, be courageous, say truth, speak truth. But always be aware of the timing and be aware of the approach as you do that. Third, be clear and compassionate. Be clear. This is one of the areas where I can struggle because I can start a conversation, I've got it all in my mind how I want to say something to someone, and then all of a sudden I want to soften it, and I start softening it, and pretty soon it's not very clear what I'm trying to say. And so it can retract, and rather than being direct, and rather than doing what Jesus did and not mincing words, you can start trying to like tweak it and soften it, and it's not helpful to be unclear. So sometimes we need to sit down and write out what are we trying to speak into? What are the areas where we're trying to address, and to make sure that we're clear when we say what needs to be said. Many times, if you're like me, the reason I'm not clear is because there's a fear of rejection, fear of them thinking badly of me. And I need to speak directly. It's easy for me on Sunday mornings to stand up on a platform and to just tell you guys, do this, don't do this, you know, follow this. But when I have a conversation over coffee or lunch, it's a completely different ballgame, isn't it? You get up into each other's lives and you're personally looking at each other in the face and you're having this discussion, and we need to be clear in those moments so that there can be true growth. Galatians 6.1 says this if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. So we don't, not only do we want to be clear, but we want to be compassionate. We want to remember that Jesus wasn't harsh when he said what he said. He was direct, he was truthful, he was honest, but he wasn't intentionally trying to be harsh to push people away. See, we need to be gentle when we restore people, when we talk to them about their sin, their struggles. Fourth, we should ask and invite good questions. This will help with clarity, by the way, if you ask good questions. Understanding that we don't always see the whole picture, we don't always know the whole thing. We don't know what's going on in people's hearts and lives. Proverbs 18, 17 says this the first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him. What does that mean? Sometimes that it might seem or appear like you've got the angle, but there might be some more to this story. And so asking good questions. Jesus was masterful at asking questions that expose the heart issues. And I encourage you with that, whether again, be in your marriage, with your kids, or with friends, people in the body of Christ. You may not have the full picture, you may not have complete understanding. So in our lives, we need to ask. And also invite questions because people may say, What do you mean by? It may be crystal clear in your mind, but it's not crystal clear in their mind. Okay? So invite those questions. So, as I said already earlier, uh just know that the initial response that they have to this discussion may not always be good. There may be some emotion that comes, there may be some anger that comes. And so you may feel like, wow, I just stirred up a hornet's nest. Maybe again, that's why we're fearful to have these discussions. But just rest in the fact that if you've been obedient, you can trust God with the results. But let's think about the other side for just a minute. Because it's not just about saying hard things, it's also about receiving hard things. Uh, it's not just about going to other people and calling them out, but are we willing to let other people call us out? That's a whole nother ballgame, isn't it? There's four things that I want to speak to, and we're gonna move pretty quickly through these this morning. But I want you to start with this, and as I was thinking and praying through this, one is to be approachable and teachable. To be approachable and teachable. If you and I are wise, if we are wise, we will invite correction into our lives. We will. We will invite other people to speak into our lives things we probably don't want to hear. Because Proverbs 12, 1 says, this is about as blunt as it can get. Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but whoever hates correction is stupid. It's the Bible. In our house, we don't let our kids say this word, but the Bible says it, okay? Foolish, stupid, a fool, you know. If you don't receive correction, you're being foolish. In fact, it is wise, it is godly to invite people into your life to say things that you need to hear so you can grow. Second thing is to listen in a non-defensive way. To listen in a non-defensive way. Proverbs 19.20 says, listen to the advice and accept discipline. And at the end you will be counted among the wise. Again, to be wise means to listen to advice, to accept discipline. Um, some of us, when somebody's speaking hard truth to us, you know what we're doing? The whole time we're trying to discredit what they're saying. You know what I'm talking about? Trying to poke holes in it. And we're like, well, I know what they do. Well, I know their issue, or I know this, or I know that, or that's not really fair what they're saying. They don't know the whole. And so instead of listening and embracing that and learning from it, we're the whole time we're making excuses for ourselves, or we're making, we're we're thinking through how do we like keep the, how do we deflect what they're trying to say? And so we need God's help to listen in a non-defensive way. Uh, maybe I've shared this with you guys before, but one of my terrible habits is when somebody's trying to say something to me that's instructive or correcting, I like to say, I know. I know. Anybody ever do that? Our kids are like, that's they're they're like the spitting image of me. That's what they're doing now, and so now it drives me crazy. I drove my parents crazy with it, right? And so now I'm paying for my raising and that. But because we have this idea, I know, and we're just prideful. And we need to say, God, help me not to deflect and not to defend, but just to receive. Third, ask God to help you receive what is true and reject what isn't. You don't you do know that the people who approach you are not perfect. In fact, Hebrews 13, and Alex alluded to this a little bit earlier as well, tells us that our fathers discipline us the best they know how. God disciplines us perfectly, but our fathers, they discipline us the best they know how. Meaning they don't always do it the right way, right? There's always, as a dad, I try to discipline my kids the best that I know how, but there are moments I fail at that. There's moments I succeed. But the reality is, is for us to understand that the person bringing the truth to us is not perfect. However, God could be using imperfect vessels, because he always has, to bring good truth to change our hearts, to speak to us. And so we need to receive what is true. We need to reject what's not true, and we need to pray through that to ask God to show us what that is. Don't dismiss it quickly, because typically, when you're defensive, there's a nugget of truth there, right? That's why it hurts. That's why you want to deflect. That's why you're like, ah, no, I don't have that problem. I don't have that issue. No, I don't use my money that way. No, I don't treat my wife that way. No, I don't do my this with my kids. Like we want to deflect it because there is an issue there. And so we're defensive. We need to, again, come back and say, God, help me to receive the nugget of truth that you want me to receive in this moment. Finally, this one might be really hard if nothing else has been hard. All these other things have been hard for me personally. It says, respect and thank the person for speaking truth to you. Everybody, they feel warm fuzzies after somebody has a hard conversation, right? Oh, thank you so much for being mean to me right now, right? Thank you so much for saying that. So much for stabbing me in the front, the quote, right? Thank you for telling me what I needed to hear. You probably don't feel that in the moment, but listen to what 1 Thessalonians 5 says. Again, Paul writing to the church Thessalonica. We talk about Paul a lot because he's written so much in the New Testament. Good stuff. Respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord, and who admonish you. That's the biblical word for confront, right? And to challenge and to encourage, even in learning how to remove those lies and replace with truth. It says, hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. We should respect those who come to us. We should be willing to say, you know what? I know it was probably hard for you to come and approach me with that, but thank you for doing it. Thank you for loving me enough to say something that I didn't want to hear. Thank you for speaking truth to me, even though I probably, if I'd known what you were gonna say, I would not have come to this meeting. Right? You ever been there? That's what happens sometimes. But we know that God has put people into our life to say things we need to grow in. Now, whether speaking or receiving, here's what I personally believe with all my heart. Whether speaking or receiving, we must center ourselves on Christ. We must center ourselves on Christ. We will never be approachable or teachable, we will never be non-defensive, we will never be able to really listen to the instruction that's coming. We will never be able to respect and say thank you. We will never be able to be humble and gentle. We will never be able to be the person who really comes with clarity and with confidence until we put our trust in Jesus and who we are in Christ. When we center ourselves in Jesus, we are capable of being confident and bold and at the same time humble and teachable, right? You see, when speaking without recognizing our gospel identity, our identity in Christ, we will come into the conversation prideful and condescending, and we'll be harsh with others. But when we come in knowing Jesus is our Savior, and that we don't have to prove ourselves to others, we can come in and we can speak truth because we love people and we want them to hear what will help them grow and experience all that God has for them in the gospel. That's what God wants us to do, is to encourage each other, to help each other grow up. And we won't do that if we're not looking to our gospel identity. In fact, the other option, though, is that sometimes we'll come in too soft. And rather than really speaking truth, we'll we'll let go of what we know we should say and we'll be fearful and we'll be unwilling to say what needs to be said in that moment. But when we rest in Jesus, we don't have to stress about what they think about us because that's sealed. Our identity worth value is sealed in the person and work of Christ. So we don't have to earn that again through their approval. Without resting in the finished work of Jesus, we will be defensive. We will reject what is being said because we feel like they're attacking our self-achieved image. Our self-salvation project will have holes punched in it because we have issues. We don't have anything in our own righteousness that allows us to come into God's presence. It's only because of Jesus. That brings real humility and allows me to receive from others when they're calling me to account. Or, maybe some of you have been here, when someone approaches us, we will be crushed and devastated. Like just devastated by someone saying something to us again because we feel like we are incapable of growing through the counsel and really growing to a place where we can receive it in such a way that helps us mature rather than just being thrown aside because we struggle, we have issues. Regardless, in Jesus, we find the ability to be whole, bold, and humble. Now here's what I just want to close out with and ask us to pray about today. Let's commit as a church family, and I realize not everybody here is a part of Point Community Church regularly, but if you've got believers in your life, whether it's your spouse, whether it's your people that are in your life group, whether you're your family, let's commit to be for one another. Can we do that? To be for one another to the degree that we would be willing to say hard things, even if it offends, even if it stings a little, because we love each other that much and we want each other to experience all that God has for one another. Let's commit to do that. Let's ask God to help us let our guards down, remove the defensiveness, so that we can invite others into our lives to see where we struggle and to help us grow up. Let's grow together at the table. If you see some areas in my life that are inconsistent with Scripture, inconsistent. I know not all of you know me personally, but if you came to my house, you'd see plenty of issues. If you see that in my life, please, I invite you, speak in. I need that. And I pray that by God's grace, I won't be crushed by it, but I'll be helped by it. Let's do that for one another. Let's challenge one another to grow in godliness. Let's grow in the grace of the gospel. Let's pray. Father, thank you so much for the opportunity to grow this morning, even just through our awareness of how this can be a real issue that could hinder us from maturing individually but collectively as a body. I pray that every person here knows that we don't have to prove anything to you or to others. That we can truly rest in the cross, we can rest in the finished work of Jesus, that it said once and for all, we are saved, we are free, we are redeemed, we are forgiven. Therefore, we have freedom now to say hard things and to have hard conversations. I pray that you would bless every person here today by your power, by your grace, to balance love and truth. Jesus, you were masterful at it because the word says you were literally full of grace and truth. Both at the same time. Help us to increasingly see that in our own lives. Full of grace, full of truth, full of compassion and love for one another, and yet a willingness to say things that are difficult. We need your help. Thank you that by the gospel we can be set free to do that. Praise in your name, Jesus. Amen.