Speaker 1: To our lives and to our time together. We thank
Speaker 1: you for your word that teaches that your word is
Speaker 1: your God breathed expression that teachers, trains, correct and rebukes.
Speaker 1: We thank you for it. We welcome this interaction with
Speaker 1: you today in Jesus name. Everybody said, Amen, Amen, Amen. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you a little bit more
Speaker 1: about love. We've named this series Becoming Love. This is
Speaker 1: going to be my little as far as I know,
Speaker 1: this is going to be my last in this series
Speaker 1: on becoming Love. And as I've told you every week, No.
Speaker 1: Part four, the truth can kill. Oh look at that.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. So as I told you every week, Really,
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do is come into alignment with
Speaker 1: who we are. Is that all right? Because we already
Speaker 1: we already have become love, Believe it or not. We've
Speaker 1: already become love by becoming born of the spirit. So
Speaker 1: when you were born of God, you became one with love,
Speaker 1: and the testimony of love dwells in you. And so
Speaker 1: a lot of what we're trying to do in church
Speaker 1: and as a community together is we're trying to renew
Speaker 1: our mind. We're trying to bring ourselves into understanding knowledge, understanding,
Speaker 1: and then alignment and agreement with who He's made us
Speaker 1: to be in Christ Jesus. Yes, so, and that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of Ephesians Ephesians. The first three chapters
Speaker 1: of Ephesians are telling us who we are. The first
Speaker 1: three chapters are all about identity. You are now seated
Speaker 1: in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. You've been raised up,
Speaker 1: you've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, for instance. That's
Speaker 1: chapter one. So we've got three chapters telling us a
Speaker 1: lot about the new identity, the new reality, the transformative power,
Speaker 1: and the things that have happened to us in Christ
Speaker 1: and through the new birth. The last three chapters of
Speaker 1: Ephesians is Paul speaking to them about their behavior, and
Speaker 1: part of what he's speaking to them about is what
Speaker 1: they already heard as they were told about the new creation.
Speaker 1: He's reminding them so in chapter four is one of
Speaker 1: the big ones. We're going to focus in on a
Speaker 1: bunch of that today, on a bunch of chapter four.
Speaker 1: But the idea is that we truly have become love,
Speaker 1: and that the witness of love, the ministry of love,
Speaker 1: the word of love, the compelling of love and the
Speaker 1: grace of love already dwells in you that are born
Speaker 1: of the spirit, and the love that dwells in you
Speaker 1: and me who are born of the spirit. That love
Speaker 1: is agape, and agape is sacrificial. A word that we
Speaker 1: had last week that I thought was totally of the
Speaker 1: Lord is that agape. Love is one way love. Everybody
Speaker 1: say one way love, meaning I don't need you to
Speaker 1: love me back for me to manifest this love. I
Speaker 1: don't need you to love me back. And even if
Speaker 1: you don't love me back, I will not stop in
Speaker 1: loving you. So this is the spirit of God dwelling
Speaker 1: in you. You've received a spirit of love, power and
Speaker 1: soundness of mind, and the spirit of God dwelling in
Speaker 1: you and me. Is this miniSTR and ministry of love.
Speaker 1: And it's one way love. So is that cool? And
Speaker 1: this love will compel us, This love, if we'll listen,
Speaker 1: this love will compel us. This love will be speaking
Speaker 1: to us and adjusting our heart. And the purpose of
Speaker 1: this love that we are we are so connected with
Speaker 1: you know what that is? What do you think that is?
Speaker 1: That is one of our famous baptismal tanks. You should
Speaker 1: have known immediately as soon as you saw that this
Speaker 1: is the famous baptismal tank. The purpose of this love
Speaker 1: is that as we are raised up out of the
Speaker 1: baptismal tank, that we no longer live like we once lived,
Speaker 1: that we no longer live in the darkness of our
Speaker 1: heart and our minds. First John form, so that I
Speaker 1: can convince you you want to be convinced we don't
Speaker 1: have this one on the scripture. Somebody wants to be convinced.
Speaker 1: That was enough. I just needed one. If anyone acknowledges
Speaker 1: this is First John four fifteen. If anyone acknowledges that
Speaker 1: Jesus is the son of God, God lives in them,
Speaker 1: and they in God. And so we know and rely
Speaker 1: upon the love God has for us. God is love.
Speaker 1: Whoever lives in Love lives in God and God in them.
Speaker 1: This is a gope. This is not falleo, this is
Speaker 1: not aros. This is a gope. One way love, selfless love,
Speaker 1: sacrificial love, initiating love, lay down my life love. And
Speaker 1: this is how verse seventeen. And this is how love
Speaker 1: is made complete among us, so that we will have
Speaker 1: confidence in the day of judgment, For in this world
Speaker 1: we are like Jesus that's the NIV. The NIV is
Speaker 1: really soft. The King James says, as he is, so
Speaker 1: are we in this world. This is John telling us
Speaker 1: that this born again experience that we have embraced is
Speaker 1: so powerful that it's transformed who we are, and that
Speaker 1: we now are like him in this world, that we
Speaker 1: are the manifestation of love. In this world. There is
Speaker 1: no fear in love in a goape love, but perfect
Speaker 1: love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment.
Speaker 1: The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
Speaker 1: I mean of you think people around you ought to
Speaker 1: be made perfect, that you know that you actually are
Speaker 1: a You actually are a weapon. You actually are a tool.
Speaker 1: You actually are you're actually useful to the Lord to
Speaker 1: bring others into perfection as you partner with him and
Speaker 1: love others in a gape. Now, if you only love
Speaker 1: in fileo, if we only love in fialleo love, then
Speaker 1: we are being used fully of the Lord to bring
Speaker 1: others into liberty and into freedom because we are partnering
Speaker 1: with something else. We're partnering with something less than a cape,
Speaker 1: and that means we're partnering with deception or falsehood or
Speaker 1: punishment or something. We'll get into that, all right, Is
Speaker 1: that all right? We love because He first loved us.
Speaker 1: Why do we love? We love because He first love us.
Speaker 1: So this is why, this is why we can operate
Speaker 1: in one way love, why we can manifest one way
Speaker 1: love and we can love fully and sacrificially and not
Speaker 1: need love to back because that's the way He loves us. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we've been talking about is
Speaker 1: how important it is that we get deliverance, that we
Speaker 1: get freedom, because my feeling and my experience is that
Speaker 1: many times we don't need more of God, we need
Speaker 1: less of the devil. Now you're gonna hear you need
Speaker 1: more of God. You're gonna be you're gonna be swooned
Speaker 1: by that, and you're going to be drawn by that.
Speaker 1: You're gonna feel like that's your problem. But even getting
Speaker 1: more of God might actually happen as you get less
Speaker 1: of the devil. What if your revival is not so
Speaker 1: much related to getting more of God? What if your
Speaker 1: revival is related to getting less of the devil. Did
Speaker 1: you know that most sickness and disease the Christians are
Speaker 1: afflicted with has nothing to do with God not wanting
Speaker 1: to heal them. It has everything to do with oppression
Speaker 1: from the demonic realm. That's why in almost every single
Speaker 1: case where it says Jesus healed, or when philippent to
Speaker 1: Samaria and it says that the people were healed, it's
Speaker 1: always in conjunction with deliverance. So when it comes to healing,
Speaker 1: even we're trying to talk God into healing us all
Speaker 1: the time instead of trying to talk devils into leaving
Speaker 1: our body. Well, I'll let you meditate on that in
Speaker 1: a minute, but anyway, it's true, and I think the
Speaker 1: same thing is true for us manifesting love better. For
Speaker 1: us to manifest love better, you don't need a new
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit. You don't need a double Holy Spirit. You
Speaker 1: don't need a triple Holy Spirit. You don't need a
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit with chocolate sauce on top. What you need
Speaker 1: is to decide that you are no longer going to
Speaker 1: partner with who you were, and you need to kick
Speaker 1: who you were out of you. If all what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: you'll follow better as I go. But today, as we
Speaker 1: go through this, I want you to I want you
Speaker 1: to part partner with some deliverance as we go through
Speaker 1: this today, a little bit, recognizing that some of what
Speaker 1: you've held onto that is antithical to love, untithical to
Speaker 1: and opposed to a gape, is actually demonic. So let's
Speaker 1: read a little bit about our calling to love. A
Speaker 1: little bit more about our calling to love Romans, Chapter thirteen,
Speaker 1: eight through ten. Let no debt remain outstanding except the
Speaker 1: continuing debt to love one another. Let no debt remain
Speaker 1: outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another. For
Speaker 1: whoever loves others has fulfilled the law the commandments you
Speaker 1: shall not commit an ultry, you shall not murder, you
Speaker 1: shall not steal, you shall not of it, and whatever
Speaker 1: other commandment there may be, And we know in the Torah,
Speaker 1: in the first five books of the Bible, there are
Speaker 1: six hundred and thirteen commandments. Whatever other commandment they might
Speaker 1: there may be, are summed up in this one command.
Speaker 1: Love your neighbor as yourself loves. Love does no harm
Speaker 1: to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.
Speaker 1: So this is like the supreme commandment that we are
Speaker 1: called to interreact and inter relate to. And what we've
Speaker 1: been understanding is that we are anointed with that enablement already.
Speaker 1: So if we're anointed with that enablement already, the problem
Speaker 1: is not a lack of ability. The problem is somewhere
Speaker 1: between our head and our heart. Now, one of the
Speaker 1: ways that we love each other is to tell each
Speaker 1: other the truth. And this is my emphasis today, is
Speaker 1: that truth. Truth is intricate to love, and love exists
Speaker 1: within the boundaries of truth, and truth exists within the
Speaker 1: boundaries of love. That the truth that the two are inseparable,
Speaker 1: that they are woven together, that you can't have one
Speaker 1: without the other. When we have a God of love,
Speaker 1: we have a god of truth. When we have a
Speaker 1: God of truth, we have a God of love. And
Speaker 1: anything less than the fullness of truth is the absence
Speaker 1: of love. And so Jesus was the embodiment of that.
Speaker 1: We're told in the Word that he's the embodiment of
Speaker 1: grace and truth. Instead of the embodiment of the law,
Speaker 1: the law of Moses, he was the embodiment of grace
Speaker 1: and truth, love and truth all combined into one being.
Speaker 1: Truth is central to love, Truth is central to Jesus.
Speaker 1: Truth is perfect theology. Jesus is perfect theology. Now Satan
Speaker 1: is the opposite of that. So our former partnership in
Speaker 1: life was a partnership with satanic methodology. And we have
Speaker 1: to realize that before Christ came, this was common. Before
Speaker 1: Christ came, and there came liberty to our hearts and
Speaker 1: liberty from the demonic realm. We partnered with de seit,
Speaker 1: That deception de sit was how we fulfilled our desires. Now,
Speaker 1: whether those desires were unclean desires or clean desires that
Speaker 1: we before Jesus we built. We climbed our ladder, our
Speaker 1: corporate ladder, our government ladder, our family ladder, our sexual ladder,
Speaker 1: our romantic ladder, our educational ladder, whatever ladder it was,
Speaker 1: we climbed. We climbed it on the backs of de seat,
Speaker 1: on the shoulders of deception, on exaggeration and falsehood and
Speaker 1: impurity and uncleanness. So this is how we fulfilled our desires.
Speaker 1: But when Christ came and we received forgiveness of sin
Speaker 1: and liberty from that first atom's influence, and we came
Speaker 1: into Christ, who is the second atom, the fountain head
Speaker 1: of a new creation, we were liberated from the law
Speaker 1: of sin and death, and we were liberated to love.
Speaker 1: You've been liberated to love now. You can love now
Speaker 1: because You don't need to climb your ladder on the
Speaker 1: backs of deception, on the backs of harm, on the
Speaker 1: backs of theft, on the backs of anything. I don't
Speaker 1: need to harm you to have my desires fulfilled. Christ
Speaker 1: is my source. I don't need a cheat from you.
Speaker 1: I don't need to lie, I don't need to connib
Speaker 1: I don't need to deceive. I don't need to use exaggeration.
Speaker 1: I don't need to use sleight of hand. I don't
Speaker 1: need to bear any falsehood with regard to my desires,
Speaker 1: because I've been liberated from all of those methods through
Speaker 1: the waters of baptism, and I've come up new in
Speaker 1: Christ and in my resurrected life. Christ is my fullness.
Speaker 1: He's my fulfillment. He's my overcomer. He's my victor. He
Speaker 1: is my prosperity and my help. He's my defender and
Speaker 1: my hope. He's my avenger and my redeemer. He's my restore.
Speaker 1: He is the builder of my life. He is everything.
Speaker 1: He's everything wherever we wherever we falter in understanding the
Speaker 1: fullness of what has become for us. Wherever we falter,
Speaker 1: then we lapse back into deception. You ever had a
Speaker 1: temporary lapse. No, and we said no. But then they
Speaker 1: said it was alive with a temporary lapse right there.
Speaker 1: If you know the truth and you fail to tell
Speaker 1: the truth or expose the truth, you're failing in love.
Speaker 1: Because love liberates. I'm sorry, you're failing in love because
Speaker 1: truth liberates. Truth heals, truth delivers, truth perseveres, Truth saves heartache.
Speaker 1: Truth is a compass. Truth is God's heart, Truth is
Speaker 1: God's word. The Holy Spirit is called the spirit of truth,
Speaker 1: and there's no deception in God. Ephesians chapter four. We
Speaker 1: jump into these three chapters in Ephesians. Chapter one, two,
Speaker 1: and three tell us about our identity, who we've become.
Speaker 1: Chapter four, five, and six tell us about the behavior
Speaker 1: we're called to. Chapter four, I want to read this
Speaker 1: to you Chapter four, verse seventeen. Are you still okay?
Speaker 1: Verse seventeen. So I tell you this and insist on
Speaker 1: it in the Lord, that you must no longer live
Speaker 1: as the gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.
Speaker 1: They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the
Speaker 1: life of God because of the ignorance that is in them,
Speaker 1: due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity.
Speaker 1: They have given themselves over to sensuality so as to
Speaker 1: indulge in every kind of impurity, and they're full of greed.
Speaker 1: These are gentiles. He's talking about the non Jewish nace
Speaker 1: of whom now the Church of Ephesies, and those coming
Speaker 1: to the Lord in ephess were gentile people. So yes,
Speaker 1: there were Jewish people being saved, even in Ephesis. They
Speaker 1: were preaching at the synagogue, and Jewish people were coming
Speaker 1: to know the Lord. But the majority of the people
Speaker 1: coming to the Lord in Ephesus as they were sent out,
Speaker 1: were gentile people who didn't know the Lord. And they
Speaker 1: were darkened in their understanding, and they were foolish, and
Speaker 1: they were blind, and they had hard hearts. And God
Speaker 1: was fulfilling the prophetic word of Jeremiah. He was reaching
Speaker 1: into that hard heart, pulling it out through Christ and
Speaker 1: giving them soft hearts of flesh, new hearts. They've given
Speaker 1: themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every
Speaker 1: kind of impurity, and they're full of greed. That, however,
Speaker 1: is not the way of life that you learned when
Speaker 1: you heard about Christ and were taught in him, in
Speaker 1: accordance to the truth that is in Jesus you were
Speaker 1: taught with regard to your former way of life, that
Speaker 1: old person who was put into the water of baptism,
Speaker 1: to put off the old self, which is being corrupted
Speaker 1: by its deceitful desires. So the old self was corrupted
Speaker 1: by deceitful desires and fulfilled through deceitful desires. Put off
Speaker 1: that old self, and everybody say, put off, and to
Speaker 1: be made missus verse fienty three. And to be made
Speaker 1: new in the attitude of your mind, or to renew
Speaker 1: your mind, or to be made in the new in
Speaker 1: the spirit of your mind, and to put on the
Speaker 1: new self, created to be like God in true righteousness
Speaker 1: and holiness. Therefore, so we put on the new self,
Speaker 1: made like God in righteousness and holiness. Therefore, each of
Speaker 1: you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor,
Speaker 1: for we are all members of one body. Falsehood falsehood
Speaker 1: in any measure, opens the door for injury. When we
Speaker 1: withhold the truth, we bring injury to one another. Inasmuch
Speaker 1: as we would never injure ourselves to love one another
Speaker 1: as we love ourselves, then we put off falsehoods so
Speaker 1: that we bring no injury to others around us. This
Speaker 1: is our calling. This is our calling. And so and
Speaker 1: this way you can see that truth and love that
Speaker 1: they go together. You cannot separate truth from love. And
Speaker 1: wherever we walk in any measure of falsehood, then to
Speaker 1: that degree we are not loving our neighbor as ourselves.
Speaker 1: And as we fail to love our neighbor as ourselves,
Speaker 1: then we also fail to meet the calling, the anointing,
Speaker 1: the enablement of the grace that dwells in us. We're
Speaker 1: no longer partnering with that grace that dwells in us,
Speaker 1: because deception is one of the characteristics of the old nature. Amen,
Speaker 1: Astra Dwayne, that is so good. I'm absolutely floored by this.
Speaker 1: Thank you, God, bless you. I appreciate that. Proverb six sixteen.
Speaker 1: Listen to this one. You doing okay? There are six
Speaker 1: things the Lord hates. Seven that are an abomination to
Speaker 1: the Lord. Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed
Speaker 1: innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that
Speaker 1: make haste to run to evil, a false witness that
Speaker 1: breathes out lies, and one whose swords says discord among brothers.
Speaker 1: God hates these things, but because they're not of him.
Speaker 1: These are of the enemy. Satan is the author of lies.
Speaker 1: The truth is not in him. He is the fountain
Speaker 1: head of hatred, disdain, animosity, warfare, enmity, jealousy, every unclean
Speaker 1: faction that comes between people. Satan is the fountain head
Speaker 1: of that. And we are called out of that life
Speaker 1: completely and called into the liberty of love. I can
Speaker 1: love you. It's called the perfect law of liberty. The
Speaker 1: law of Christ is called the perfect law of liberty.
Speaker 1: And I can love you perfectly because I am perfectly
Speaker 1: love psal I'm fifteen one through five. Lord, who may
Speaker 1: dwell in your sacred tent, who may live on your
Speaker 1: holy mountain, The one whose walk is blameless, who does
Speaker 1: what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart,
Speaker 1: whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to
Speaker 1: a neighbor, and cast no slur on another, This is
Speaker 1: who can dwell in the habitation of the Lord. And
Speaker 1: the end of that verse five, the end of that
Speaker 1: I wish I would have kept it, but it didn't.
Speaker 1: But the end of that it says that he who
Speaker 1: does these things, they cannot slip like. They cannot slip,
Speaker 1: they cannot falter. They cannot slip like your life. Your
Speaker 1: life is built on a warranty better than Kia and
Speaker 1: Hyundai ten years, undred thousand miles. I don't know, we
Speaker 1: know whereever they got none. So truth must be married
Speaker 1: to love. So truth must be married to love for
Speaker 1: it to bear fruit. Truth must be married to love
Speaker 1: for it to bear fruits. So we're called to love.
Speaker 1: We're called the truth. But then the next thing I
Speaker 1: want you to see is that the truth we're called to.
Speaker 1: Everybody said the truth we're called to. The truth we're
Speaker 1: called to must be married to love. And let's talk
Speaker 1: about that a little bit. Because I have like a
Speaker 1: doctorate degree in some of this other stuff, and you
Speaker 1: didn't know that, but I have, like this one over here,
Speaker 1: speaking the truth with harm. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: some of you others in the room might have a
Speaker 1: doctorate degree. Mine was conferred upon me by the University
Speaker 1: of Stupid, and so I have a doctorate degree in
Speaker 1: this one over here. But I'm I've got like a
Speaker 1: probably a bachelor's. I've earned a bachelor's maybe a master's
Speaker 1: in this one here over here. Withholding truth? Anybody a
Speaker 1: master's or withholding truth? You know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's just inconvenient, Like sometimes you don't want to
Speaker 1: take the time. Sometimes you don't want to bear up
Speaker 1: under the situation, Like what if they don't like this? Right?
Speaker 1: Do I really want to invest in them this way?
Speaker 1: Do I really want to face the rejection that might come?
Speaker 1: This is extremely inconvenient? Do I really like confrontation that much?
Speaker 1: Over here? So what happens is is we withhold the truth.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we withhold the truth. So the Bible is calling
Speaker 1: to and you heard my scriptures already. This is not
Speaker 1: the preaching of Duwayne. This is the preaching of the Bible.
Speaker 1: The Bible is calling us to truth and in relationships.
Speaker 1: The Bible is trying to show us that when we
Speaker 1: withhold the truth, that we're walking in something less than
Speaker 1: a gope love. We're walking in We're walking in a
Speaker 1: degree of disdain, a degree of hatred, a degree of contempt.
Speaker 1: So sometimes we withhold the truth. And withholding the truth,
Speaker 1: now I've got this line here because what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to show you is I'm trying to show you that
Speaker 1: this is this is a zero balance in the bank account.
Speaker 1: This is a zero balance in the bank account. Here
Speaker 1: and so, and all three of these methods right here,
Speaker 1: these are demonic methods of communicating with one another. Back as,
Speaker 1: somebody came up to me after the service this morning
Speaker 1: and they said, oh, now I know what's going on
Speaker 1: in my relationship. I said, what is it? Well, when
Speaker 1: they leave the house, you know they've got conflict in
Speaker 1: the relationship. And they said, when they leave the house,
Speaker 1: they say they're going here, but they actually go over here.
Speaker 1: But they tell me that they were going here. They
Speaker 1: just don't tell me the whole thing about going over
Speaker 1: here too. So they think that they're speaking the truth.
Speaker 1: They're in a deception that they're giving me some truth,
Speaker 1: but they're not giving me the whole truth. So therefore
Speaker 1: they're partnering with the unclean realm. If we withhold truth
Speaker 1: because of our own convenience or our own selfish motive,
Speaker 1: or because of something unclean, if we withhold truth, then
Speaker 1: we're partnering with the unclean realm, because we are going
Speaker 1: back in our pre baptism state. We're going back in
Speaker 1: our pre baptism state, and we are resurrecting first atom
Speaker 1: sinful adom, and we are pursuing the fulfillment of evil
Speaker 1: desires with deception. Okay, so then sometimes we speak falsely
Speaker 1: and we have to be careful about that. Sometimes we
Speaker 1: speak falsely. None we know that the truth is a
Speaker 1: very powerful thing. The truth can be hard. The truth
Speaker 1: can be offensive. The truth can be injurious. The truth
Speaker 1: can also be flattering. The truth can build up. The
Speaker 1: truth can strengthen. The truth can edify. The truth can
Speaker 1: give grace. The truth can establish a thing. The truth
Speaker 1: can be a compass. The truth has a lot of
Speaker 1: wonderful attributes. But we also know that the truth can
Speaker 1: be harmful. Right, so you try it out for the
Speaker 1: singing team, and after you were done, we let you
Speaker 1: know that you couldn't carry a tune in a bucket,
Speaker 1: and so you were wounded by that. Maybe you were
Speaker 1: wounded by that. But the truth sometimes we have an expression,
Speaker 1: even in America, the truth hurts. Have you heard that expression?
Speaker 1: We have that expression, the truth hurts. But the problem
Speaker 1: is is that many times what happens is because we
Speaker 1: the speaker, everybody's everybody say the speaker. Sometimes the speaker
Speaker 1: doesn't want to cause harm with the truth, and so
Speaker 1: they color the truth with a little bit of falsehood.
Speaker 1: Oh I wish I could tell you an example of
Speaker 1: something that just happened, but I can't tell you very
Speaker 1: that's a very good story, though, I wish I could
Speaker 1: tell you this story. Oh boy. But what happens is
Speaker 1: if you don't tell the truths, you pass the buck.
Speaker 1: Somebody down the line is going to have to tell
Speaker 1: the truth because they walk away from you deceived. They
Speaker 1: walk away thinking that they should be on American Idol.
Speaker 1: But you told them, Yeah, that was just amazing what
Speaker 1: you did. We'll call you, we'll get your scheduled, we'll
Speaker 1: give you a buzz, and you never call them. You lied,
Speaker 1: but you passed the buck. Dumble and somebody, somebody who's
Speaker 1: honest and the Lord is going to have to tell
Speaker 1: them the truth. Hellous somebody. So sometimes we have to
Speaker 1: tell people your workfalls short, your meals are goulash. Please
Speaker 1: don't fix any more meals. Your zipper is down, You're
Speaker 1: spending way too much money. Your kids are out of control.
Speaker 1: One time, at one time, one of the church members,
Speaker 1: their kids were running across the tops of the chairs,
Speaker 1: back and forth, and so I just gently said it
Speaker 1: to the brother. I said, your kids are a little
Speaker 1: out of control. Could you just kind of grab them
Speaker 1: and bring it down just a notch. He got so offended. Listen, Church,
Speaker 1: I spoke it with love. But you I want you
Speaker 1: to know something. This is my ear. That's my ear.
Speaker 1: And you see how big those ear lot loves are.
Speaker 1: You see that. My wife made fun of me. I
Speaker 1: didn't even tell her to make fun of me, but
Speaker 1: we had a good laugh. We got the boat out
Speaker 1: last weekend and we were zooming down the lake and
Speaker 1: the boat fast and she said to the grandkids, look,
Speaker 1: papa's ears are flapping. My ear loves are so big
Speaker 1: that they flap in the wind. Okay, but listen, listen, listen, listen.
Speaker 1: You are called to speak with love. We're going to
Speaker 1: get to that in a minute. But you're also called
Speaker 1: to listen with love. Now. If you have not been listen, listen, listen, listen,
Speaker 1: If you have not been delivered a rejection and inferiority
Speaker 1: and regret and self loathing and self blame and abandonment
Speaker 1: and betrayal, then no matter how sweet they say it,
Speaker 1: you hear it wrong. You're hearing it wrong, even though
Speaker 1: they say it really sweet, You're hearing it out of
Speaker 1: the framework of rejection or abandonment or offense, and so
Speaker 1: you get offended when they didn't even mean to offend you.
Speaker 1: That ever happened anybody in the room, I'm not looking.
Speaker 1: So we've got speaking falsely and that's just you know, coloring,
Speaker 1: and these are all partnerships with the demonic realm. We
Speaker 1: color our speech, We color our speech with exaggeration or flattery.
Speaker 1: And then thirdly we have speaking the truth with harm.
Speaker 1: Is you know, speaking the truth with harm is just
Speaker 1: as bad as these others. Yeah, but I spoke the truth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I spoke the truth. Yeah, but nobody can receive
Speaker 1: the truth if it's not spoken in love. See, the
Speaker 1: calling in Jesus is a calling of maturity, and the
Speaker 1: maturity of love. Says, when I was a child, I
Speaker 1: spoke as a child, But when I became a man,
Speaker 1: when I grew up in God, I put away childish things.
Speaker 1: It's talking about love first Corinthens thirteen. It's talking about love.
Speaker 1: It's the same exact language as Ephesians chapter four. That
Speaker 1: we grow up in maturity in Him, and the whole
Speaker 1: body grows up as we speak the truth in love.
Speaker 1: Because if I speak the truth to you, and this
Speaker 1: is where I have a doctorate degree. Okay, don't worry,
Speaker 1: I'm killing this guy. He's quite dead. But I've got
Speaker 1: a doctorate degree. In Let's add a little judgment to
Speaker 1: that truth. You know, let's add little rejection to that truth.
Speaker 1: You know, if they don't shape up, I'm going to
Speaker 1: reject them. You know. Let's add a little shame to
Speaker 1: that truth. Just mix that in a little poo and
Speaker 1: the brownie. Let's let's add a little condemnation to that.
Speaker 1: Why don't we add a little condemnation, right, Okay, why
Speaker 1: don't we add a little retaliation. I'm just gonna raise
Speaker 1: my voice. I'm gonna get a tone. I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: a tone. They're gonna know that they Why don't we
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, this one works really good. I've this
Speaker 1: one has worked so good. I think I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna work this one again. Why don't we ad a
Speaker 1: little profanity to that truth? Now, I know none of
Speaker 1: you have a doctorate degree like I do in this stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, but maybe you working on an AA out
Speaker 1: at the Community College of stupid. I don't know, it
Speaker 1: could be, you know, you're working on something. But this
Speaker 1: we have to realize that anything less than speaking the
Speaker 1: truth in love is actually working in the demonic realm.
Speaker 1: We still haven't come above bankruptcy. All of these, all
Speaker 1: three of these methods work bankruptcy of the heart. This
Speaker 1: is why when it says in Ephesians four, same chapter,
Speaker 1: be angry and sin nod, why does it give you
Speaker 1: permission to be angry? Because it gives you permission to
Speaker 1: be angry in the context of sin nod. Anger is
Speaker 1: a righteous emotion when there's been a violation of righteousness,
Speaker 1: where there's been a violation of truth, a violation of justice,
Speaker 1: and the violation of a right emotion. Are we dismissing
Speaker 1: the kids. We're supposed to dismiss you to get your
Speaker 1: children and bring your children back. I think so. Do
Speaker 1: we have a keyboard coming? Okay, you got to shut
Speaker 1: me down. Anger is a righteous emotion or an emotion
Speaker 1: of righteousness where there's been a violation. It's meant to
Speaker 1: move you toward resolution, to bring things back into soundness. Now,
Speaker 1: if you don't have kids, you're not supposed to leave.
Speaker 1: This is not your excuse to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Oh, that was speaking the truth, right, there.
Speaker 1: How'd they do? I don't know, a little bit of
Speaker 1: shame throwing on there? So this is this is why
Speaker 1: he says be angry and sin not now, what's what's up.
Speaker 1: He's trying to say something that where there's been a
Speaker 1: violation of righteousness or justice, you can be angry, but
Speaker 1: don't hook something to it that's demonic. Speak the truth
Speaker 1: in love. And if we will speak the truth and love,
Speaker 1: then fruitfulness can come, profit will come, blessing will come,
Speaker 1: increase will come. The person will receive it in a
Speaker 1: beautiful way. Even if it hurts, they'll say, ouch, that helps.
Speaker 1: Let's stand Ephesians Form fourteen. Then we will no longer
Speaker 1: be infants tossed back and forth by the waves. We
Speaker 1: will no longer be ins tossed back and forth by
Speaker 1: the waves, and blown here and there by every wind
Speaker 1: of teaching, and by the cunning craftiness of people in
Speaker 1: their deceitful scheming. Instead speaking the truth and love, we
Speaker 1: will grow to become in every respect the mature body
Speaker 1: of Him who is the head. What does maturity look
Speaker 1: like for us? Maturity looks like we leave all of
Speaker 1: this in the baptismal tank, and we dismiss all of
Speaker 1: those influences that partner with this realm. Maturity looks like
Speaker 1: coming up to this realm where we frame the truth
Speaker 1: with a sweetness of speech. That's where the power is,
Speaker 1: That's where the grace is. That's where the transformation is.
Speaker 1: That's where the goodness of God is. That's where people
Speaker 1: get their lives transformed. Instead, speaking the truth of in love,
Speaker 1: we grow to become in every respect the mature body
Speaker 1: of Him who is the head that is Christ, from
Speaker 1: whom the whole body, joined and held together by every
Speaker 1: supporting ligament, grows and builds itsself up in love. How
Speaker 1: does the body build itself up in love? As we
Speaker 1: speak the truth but not the truth alone, as we
Speaker 1: speak the truth and love. Hello, somebody, we uh uh
Speaker 1: we We had an administrator here at the church and like,
Speaker 1: we can do this without love, and I just I'm
Speaker 1: want to I'm going to read you a couple of
Speaker 1: scriptures and we're going to close. But we had an
Speaker 1: administrator at the church. His wife noticed that I had
Speaker 1: really bad body odor. Now this this was years ago,
Speaker 1: before I got rid of all that. Now I smell
Speaker 1: like cinnamon. So that's a jokement you aren't very laughable
Speaker 1: this morning. But she noticed I had a really bad
Speaker 1: body odor, and so she was passive aggressive about this.
Speaker 1: She ever been passive aggressive. Passive aggressive means you're withholding
Speaker 1: the truth for a long period of time, And when
Speaker 1: you withhold the truth for a long period of time,
Speaker 1: you start avoiding a person and you start building tension
Speaker 1: within you until the tension has to explode. So finally
Speaker 1: she got so tired of my stake that she came
Speaker 1: to me with a bunch of deodorant, and she said,
Speaker 1: it passed her. You steak, and you have to get
Speaker 1: this fixed, you know, And she was pretty nasty about it,
Speaker 1: and then and then she loaded on me up is
Speaker 1: of deodorant. I'm just saying, I'm just saying, we can
Speaker 1: speak the truth, but we don't have to speak it
Speaker 1: without love. A lot of you this morning have bad breath,
Speaker 1: and I've been wanting to tell you about it. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's coffee or you haven't brushed, you're
Speaker 1: not flossing, but I just I wanted to tell you
Speaker 1: this morning, you've got nasty breath. It's foul. No, No,
Speaker 1: that's one of the things I've had to endure all
Speaker 1: sorts of church members telling me how my breath is,
Speaker 1: and so I had to start brushing my teeth. Finally,
Speaker 1: after years of growing moss, I finally had to start
Speaker 1: brushing my teeth. Listen Proverbs fifteen to one. We'll close
Speaker 1: with a couple verses. A gentle answer turns away wrath,
Speaker 1: but a harsh words stirs up anger. I'm just talking
Speaker 1: to you about the gentleness of the Holy Spirit. Listen
Speaker 1: to listen to Galatians sixty one. Brothers and sisters, If
Speaker 1: someone is caught in a sin, you, who live by
Speaker 1: the spirit, should restore that person gently. Listen to Ephesian's
Speaker 1: four noo. We'll skip that one. Listen to two Timothy
Speaker 1: to twenty four. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome,
Speaker 1: but kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents
Speaker 1: must be gently instructed in the hope that God will
Speaker 1: grant them repentance. You notice all the words of gentle
Speaker 1: lots of gentle stuff here. Listen to Proverbs sixteen twenty one.
Speaker 1: The wise in heart are called discerning and gracious words
Speaker 1: promote instruction. Listen to it. In the New King James,
Speaker 1: the wise in heart will be called prudent, and sweetness
Speaker 1: of lips increases learning. All of this stuff right here
Speaker 1: doesn't bring increase to people. It's partnering with the demonic realm.
Speaker 1: It's only as we speak to truth and love. Sweetness
Speaker 1: of speech increases learning people receive from us when we
Speaker 1: receive have sweetness of speech. Listen to verse twenty four
Speaker 1: Proberms sixteen twenty four. We'll close with this. I know
Speaker 1: I'm going long. Pleasant words are like a honeycomb, sweetness
Speaker 1: to the soul and health to the bones. Just pray
Speaker 1: with me, which as we close this morning, and let's welcome.
Speaker 1: We can get this board out of here because we're
Speaker 1: going to close us in worship. But let's welcome right
Speaker 1: now Holy Spirit to wash us with his word. Father,
Speaker 1: we thank you right now for your word in our
Speaker 1: midst and we welcome you to wash us. We leave
Speaker 1: the old life behind. We agree this morning that falsehood
Speaker 1: is not of us. We're not called to falsehood. We're
Speaker 1: called the truth. And we agree this morning that we
Speaker 1: abide in truth, we're enabled in truth, and we embrace
Speaker 1: truth with our whole heart. Whither we agree this morning
Speaker 1: that the framing of truth with unclean words or methods,
Speaker 1: attitudes and perspectives is not profitable, and we dismiss those
Speaker 1: influences right now. We renounce and dismiss those influences right
Speaker 1: now that want to join themselves the truth. I heard
Speaker 1: this this morning. I heard this this morning that if
Speaker 1: the enemy can't keep us in falsehood, then his plan
Speaker 1: is to sabotage the truth with these unclean attitudes. And
Speaker 1: we're just going to say no to that right now. Father,
Speaker 1: we thank you right now that we put to death
Speaker 1: and no longer have to listen to those unclean attitudes
Speaker 1: and allow them to be hooked to truth. We gave
Speaker 1: you the praise for it. In Jesus' name. Everybody shouted