This week I welcome guest blogger, Kirk Marks. Kirk is a retired pastor, having served 30+ years in both local churches with his wife, Debbie, and in denominational administration. He has also taught theology and led a pastoral assessment center for many years. He and Debbie, along with their two daughters and son-in-law are members of Faith Church. Kirk preached at Faith Church this past week, continuing our series on Relationships in the Church. I think you’ll find his thoughts as compelling and helpful as I did.
My mother always warned my sister and I to be very cautious of the “shoulds” out there. If anyone’s telling you what you should do, be very cautious of them, even if it’s coming from the BibleEven saying something as seemingly obvious as “Christ-likeness is what we should pursue” can lead to trouble and here’s why.
Suppose that I’ve really spoken to your hearts this week through my previous posts on speaking life to one another. Suppose you are thinking, “I should work harder at speaking life to others. I’m not speaking life to my husband or to my kids or to my coworkers. I should to do a better job of speaking life, saying encouraging and positive words and stopping my negativity.”
Maybe you read this post or the previous posts this week, and you think, “I’m going to do better. I’m going to try really hard to do this.” And maybe you’ll do that for a day or two or a week, but then this message will fade into your memory and you notice yourself falling back into old habits. Or worse, perhaps it’s not a slow process of days or weeks. Perhaps you read this post and think, “Today I’m going to talk to my coworkers better. Today I am going to speak like.” But within an hour or two, one of your coworkers has really ticked you off and you’ve gone off and said something negative to them.
Then at lunchtime you think, “Oh my gosh, Kirk blogged about speaking life to each other and I didn’t do it. I just talked really ugly to that person and then, well, maybe if I feel really guilty about that and really beat myself up about it, then I won’t do it again the next time.”
But we do it again the next time. The “shoulds” never work. There are whole religious systems that are built on using guilt to motivate, and it doesn’t work. It’s not going to work. If you read this post and commit to yourself, “I’m going to try really hard to do this,” I have another passage of scripture I would like to read to you that helps us understand how we change. How do we live as the people that God wants us to be? Trying hard and really understanding what God is saying to us has a piece to play in it, but there is something else that can help us make lasting change.
Paul gives numerous directions to the church in Ephesians chapter 5. In verse 18, we catch him in the middle of his teaching. This might initially seem to be a strange passage of Scripture to talk about as we’re thinking about how we actually become people who speak life to one another, but I think you’ll see how Paul makes a really important point.
Paul writes, “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery.” Okay, good advice. We don’t want our lives to be filled with debauchery that comes from getting drunk. But then Paul says, “Instead be filled with the Spirit as you speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs that come from the Spirit.”
Paul is using drunkenness as an illustration. Unfortunately, in several of my careers, as a police officer long, long ago, as a pastor for 30 years, and most recently as a fair trade agent, I’ve had to deal with drunken people. Not a pleasant experience. If you’ve ever had any experience with inebriated people, you know the beer is talking. The booze is talking. They’re not talking like they would normally talk because they’re full of liquor. They’re speaking is sometimes crazy, sometimes miserable.
Paul’s point is that rather than being filled with alcohol, we can be filled with the Holy Spirit. Flowing with the Holy Spirit, we can speak life. The Spirit is who can make positive, transformation in our lives. Ask the Holy Spirit to be at work in your life as you speak to other people, especially when it’s hard, especially when you really wanna say the negative thing, especially when it’s hard to bear with other people in all of these things. Ask the Holy Spirit to do that transforming work in you so you will speaking encouraging life to one another.
For speaking life to happen, it’s only going to happen by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why we talk about the fruit of the Spirit as the Holy Spirit’s working in our lives. Speaking life to one another is going to come out of our lives as the Spirit produces his fruit in lives.
Also, because speaking life to one another is something we don’t do well in our culture, we need to practice listening to each other. Speaking is only going to be effective if somebody is listening. Just as important to speaking life to one another is hearing the life being spoken to one to one another.
In yesterday’s post, I described a situation when I had what I thought was a great approach to dealing with a difficult person. My church board chair listened to my idea, then said, “Pastor, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you say.” What would have happened if I would not have listened to the church leaders who were telling me not to do this crazy thing I’d come up with. It likely would have resulted in increasing the negativity in the church and in my life.
We need to stop, slow down, and listen to and hear people speaking life to us. Take the time to honor one another by listening to what they’re saying even if, even if they’re not saying it very well. I’ve had many conversations in my life, maybe you have too, where you’ve had to look beyond the words of what people are saying to the heart that it’s coming from.
My wife and I do a lot of grief work with people resulting from personal experiences we’ve had. Many times people say the wrong things to grieving people. We might not know what to say to people who are grieving and having a hard time. We encourage people to look beyond the wrong words those people are saying and see that in their hearts they care about you. They’re trying to comfort you. They’re trying to express love to you even if it’s coming out really badly.
We need to listen to one another. Listening to one another as we seek to follow Jesus together. Through the Holy Spirit’s power we can speak life to one another, listen to one another, and help each other follow Jesus together by speaking words of life.
Photo by Jarritos Mexican Soda on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 