Good Communication

February 13, 2022 Preacher: Luis A. Cardenas Series: Relationships

Topic: English

We are currently in a series talking about relationships. Once this is all over, we will go back to Daniel and the second half of the book. Last week, we looked at the topic of communication, specifically from the book of Proverbs. I can’t remember the last time I had that kind of immediate feedback from a sermon, but a number of you have commented on how much that message affected you.

That’s not a testament to me; I’m just the messenger. That’s a testament, first of all, to the power and the relevance of the word of God, if we will do the work of studying it. Secondly, it’s a testament to how universal this struggle is of controlling the tongue.

Some of you commented on how convicting a topic like that is, and as the one who had to be the messenger, I completely agree. I also have the added warning of James 3, which says: Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.

That’s a sobering reality. But it should remind you that I’m not above those whom I teach nor am I exempt from the message. We’re all in this together. We may be at different stages in the journey, but we’re all growing.

This morning, we are going to continue the topic of communication. But this time, we are going to focus more on what the New Testament has to say. It really isn’t going to be anything new, but given how incredibly difficult it is to control our tongue, I think it’ll be a good reminder.

God made us in His image. He equipped us to express His glory on the earth, and that included giving us the gift of speech. But, like any other gift, our ability to communicate, has been corrupted.

Speaking on the tongue, James 3 continues saying—With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing.

James doesn’t just point out the fact that our mouth can be used for good or bad. He makes the point that our ungodly speech is completely contradictory to who we are in Jesus Christ. We have been redeemed and ransomed from sin, now becoming a new creation in Christ. Our body now belongs to him and to use our tongue to then dishonor God and others is a contradiction, It’s absurd.

He says—My brothers, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.

So, with that message in mind, let’s jump into some New Testament lessons regarding our speech, our tongue, and our communication. These rules, as I’m calling them, are not exhaustive, and they definitely aren’t anything new. But I’ve had to choose what I think would be helpful for us. There is always more we can learn about communication, and our hope today is that the Spirit of God will prompt us and help us grow.

I am going to share four rules this morning, of good communication. The first rule of communication for today is something that is not explicitly stated, but it is an important part of effective communication. Rule number 1 is “Be clear.” Be clear.

Communication and language are amazing and fascinating gifts of God. It’s what enables us to relate to one another. God made us as a combination of body and soul. There’s the physical, tangible part of us, and there is the invisible, immaterial part of us. And those parts work together and affect each other.

As a spiritual, rational being, I have a mind; I have thoughts. In communication, I’m taking something that’s in my mind, and I am translating those thoughts and ideas into words. Those words then travel across the air to the other person. And that person takes my message and turns it into something in their mind. When a message is clear and effective, the other person knows what I was originally thinking.

Communicating clearly has two main components. First, I need the skill to turn my thoughts into words. That ability starts when we are babies. We learn to match words to objects and desires. And that skill develops for the rest of our life.

The second component of clear communication is being able to speak the same language as the other person, either literally or figuratively. You have to know something about how the other person speaks and thinks. A message that is clear to one person might not be clear to someone else, right? Because we’re different.

The way I talk to my wife is going to be different than the way I talk to a 3-year-old, and it’ll be somewhat different than the way I talk to a brother at church. Adults are different than children, and men are different than women. In fact, we’re all different. We all have different backgrounds and experiences.

Turn with me to Colossians chapter 4. This is near the final section of Paul’s letter, and he’s talking to the church about his own ministry as a missionary and their ministry in their own community.

Look at Colossians 4:3—At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

This is the Apostle Paul. He was trained in the Bible. He was teaching doctrine to the churches. If anyone knows the message of Christ, it would be him. But as he thinks about his ministry of evangelism, he says, “Pray for me, that I may make it clear.”

That phrase “make it clear” means “to reveal, to make visible.” Paul recognized that communicating a message isn’t automatic. It takes skill. And in the case of evangelism, it takes divine enablement. I want that other person to understand what I’m saying. And part of that responsibility falls on me. I need to “make it clear.”

And then Paul takes that same principle and applies it to the Colossians in their own community. Look at verse 5— Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Salt enhances the food you’re eating. So, in the way that you speak, you need to think about how to say it in a more compelling or effective way. To use Paul’s words, you need to know how you ought to talk with each person. So, that’s not just some generic skill. It’s specific to each conversation.

A couple of years ago, I was part of a training seminar that was about interacting with people from different cultures. And one of the assigned readings from that was a book by Erin Meyer called The Culture Map.

Erin Meyer runs training for big companies helping their employees work with different cultures who have a different way of communicating and evaluating others and leading and making decisions and building trust. We also think differently about time.

In terms of communication, she writes about a spectrum between what she calls “low context” and “high context” Low context communication is very direct. What you hear is what they mean. High context communication, on the other hand, has a lot of unspoken messages, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t being communicated. You just need to learn to pick it up.

Culturally speaking, the culture of the United States is one of the most low-context cultures for communication. We tend to be explicit, simple, and clear. And that makes sense because we are a melting pot of immigrants. We need to learn to be more direct with people who are different than us.

The most high-context culture for communication is Japan, which is a much older civilization. There, communication is implicit and layered, and nuanced.

Well, that same continuum can also be applied to personal relationships. For example, if I tell my wife that the trash can stinks, I probably mean that it stinks. I’m making a comment about something that I didn’t expect. That’s low-context communication. But if my wife tells me that the trash can stinks, what does she mean? She means I should take it out. That’s a higher context way of communicating. It doesn’t mean she’s being deceptive. It doesn’t mean she’s being manipulative. She’s giving me the reason behind what she’d like me to do. That’s the way she’s communicating. And, as husband and wife, we can both learn to talk and to listen more like the other. That helps us be clear.

Along the lines of communicating clearly, Albert Mohler wrote a little booklet called From Boy to Man: The Marks of Manhood. One of the characteristics of a boy becoming a man, Mohler says is “verbal maturity sufficient to communicate and articulate as a man.”

He writes: “Here’s a striking phenomenon of our times—many adolescent boys and young men seem to communicate only through a series of guttural clicks, grunts, and inchoate language that can hardly be described as verbal. A man must be able to speak, to be understood, and to communicate in a way that will honor God and convey God’s truth to others.”

Then, he says, “Parents must work with boys, requiring them to speak, to articulate and to learn respect for language. This respect must extend to an ability to enunciate words so that articulation is clear and communication succeeds. This skill must be learned at the dinner table, in family conversations, and in one-on-one talk, especially between father and son. Beyond the context of a conversation, a boy must learn how to speak before larger groups, overcoming the natural intimidation and fear that comes from looking at a crowd, opening one’s mouth, and projecting words. Though not all men will become public speakers, every man should have the ability to take his ground, frame his words and make his case when the truth is under fire and when belief and conviction must be translated into an argument.”

 For those of us who are already grown and married, that means we husbands should learn to speak our wife’s language. Wives, learn to speak your husband’s language.  Learn to say things in a way that they would understand. And learn to listen to the way they talk. Your spouse cannot read your mind. Have you figured that out already? Learn to be clear with one another. That’s a very helpful and very general principle for good communication, and I’ll let you fill in the details as you talk with others this week.

Let’s move on now to the second rule of good communication. Rule number 2: Be honest. Be clear and be honest.

Last week we saw how often the Proverbs warned us against lying and encouraged us toward honesty. That’s what it means to fear the Lord in your speech. But that same principle gets repeated multiple times in the New Testament. God is a God of truth, and He cares that we speak the truth.

Turn with me to Matthew 5:33. Matthew 5:33. These are Jesus’ words from The Sermon on the Mount. In large part, it was a corrective to the religious culture. People assumed just because they took part in religious activities, they honored God. But, as we all need to be reminded, that’s not how God works. He will not be pleased with you simply because you’ve tacked on some religious stuff to your life.

Here's what Jesus says: Matthew 5:33—Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.’ But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not take an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

To start, Jesus makes a reference to the Old Testament commandments saying that if you make a promise, or an oath, or a vow, or a pledge—whether it’s made to God or to someone else—you need to honor that.

Number 30:2, for example, says—If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth.

Speaking more specifically about oaths made in God’s name, Leviticus 19:12 says—You shall not swear by my name falsely, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord.

God takes the truth very seriously. You do not swear by God’s name and then tell a lie. The religious leaders of Jesus’ time, however, had missed and ignored the heart of this law. Instead, they invented imaginary loopholes to excuse their guilt. If they wanted someone to believe a lie, they would say it with an oath, “I swear it.”

But according to the Law, making a false oath in God’s name would bring condemnation. So, they made oaths based on something lesser than God. Jesus said they made oaths by heaven, or by the earth, or by Jerusalem, or on their own head. So, someone might say, “I swear it on the heavens, where God dwells.”

Why did they do that? They did it because later, if they were caught in the lie, they could say, “Well, I didn’t really swear by God’s name. I swore by something else.” We should see how foolish and childish that justification is, and that’s how those Pharisees operated.

We get a little more insight later in Matthew 23:16 when Jesus says this—Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ ... And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’

Jesus called them blind fools. They were inventing all kinds of rules about which oaths needed to be kept, and which ones didn’t. Over time, this kind of language, or these kinds of idioms, became part of their normal conversation.

And the same is true for us today. We learn, and we pick up, all kinds of idioms to express how sincere we are. Someone might say “I swear, I thought I was going to die. No lie. That’s the God-honest truth. I promise you.” As a kid, I heard: “Cross my heart and hope to die” or “I swear it on my mother’s grave.” And the list goes on.

Now, Jesus’ words here don’t mean that we shouldn’t ever make an oath or a vow. If you’ve ever testified in court, they make you swear to tell the truth. That, in itself, isn’t wrong. In the Bible, God makes oaths. When Jesus and Paul were arrested and put on trial, they had to speak under oath. And there’s even a mention of Paul taking a religious vow. Vows, in themselves, aren’t wrong, and the Old Testament has even more examples and instructions concerning vows.

But what Jesus is addressing here is the flippant, casual attitude the Jewish leaders had taken with oaths and vows. They had falsely elevated some vows leading them to behave as if the lesser vows didn’t really matter.

And Jesus’ response was: Don’t do that. Don’t be the kind of person who gives misleading or deceptive information. Be honest. Be trustworthy.

All of you have people in your mind whom you deem as trustworthy and people who you struggle to trust.

Every year, Gallup conducts a poll asking people about how they would rate the honesty and ethics of certain professions. In other words, how trustworthy are these people?

According to the results of their survey in December 2020, the most trusted profession on their list was “Nurses” which had 89% of the people indicating they were above average in honesty and ethics. The lowest ranking professions on that list had positive responses only 8% of the time, and those were “Car salespeople” and “Members of Congress.”

What if someone asked that question about you? How would someone else rate your honesty and trustworthiness? Would they say you have a high level of honesty? What if we asked your boss, and your coworkers, and your neighbors, and your kids, and your parents, and your siblings, and your spouse? What would they say? Are you an honest person?

Maybe another way to help you think about this is to flip the question around. How often do you think people believe you? Do people take your word? If you have multiple examples of people not believing you, you could take the mentality of a victim, but you could also use that as an opportunity for self-evaluation. What cause have I given people to not believe me?

Wherever you think you might fall on that scale, we should all be seeking to improve, and we can do that by taking Jesus’ simple advice: Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.

Don’t deceive. Don’t hide the truth with half-truths. Don’t misrepresent reality. You want to be known as a trustworthy person. So, tell the truth. Be honest. It’s a simple principle, and because it’s so important, it’s found all throughout the New Testament.

Let’s go now to rule number 3. Rule number 1: Be clear. Rule number 2: Be honest. And now, rule number 3 is Be Intentional. Be intentional.

Go with me to Ephesians chapter 4. At the end of the chapter, the Apostle Paul is talking about what a life looks like that’s been transformed by Jesus Christ. Following Jesus means putting off your old self, being renewed in the spirit of your mind, and putting on the new self.

What does that new self look like? Look at verse 29. Ephesians 4:29. This is a key passage for communication—Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

Do you remember what God said to the prophet Samuel when He chose little David to be the king after Saul? He said, “Man looks at the outside, but God looks at the heart.” That principle is true, even for our speech. When God evaluates your speech, He’s not primarily looking at your vocabulary; He’s looking at your intent. Why did you say what you said?

You don’t want corrupting talk. The word there means rotten or diseased; it causes harm. Instead, you want good words, words that build up and give grace to the other person. That doesn’t happen by accident. It needs to be intentional.

How many problems could I have avoided if we just stopped and asked ourselves, “Why am I about to say this?”

Even if you’re going to correct someone, the goal should be to lift someone up, to edify them. That doesn’t mean you’re flattering them; it means your goal is their spiritual good. That’s intentional speech. You speak for the benefit of others. You speak as God’s representative to give grace to those who hear. That should be the purpose or the reason we open our mouths, every time. Be intentional about that.

Lastly, we come to rule number 4. Be clear, be honest, be intentional, and lastly, Be Pure. Be pure. Another way to say it is, to be self-controlled.

Let’s continue in Ephesians 4, looking at verse 30. Ephesians 4:30—And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

We don’t get this kind of image very often in the Bible. God is grieved. He’s sad. What makes Him sad? And how do you stop that from happening? Look at the next verse. Verse 31—Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

Those are all examples of the sins of our old nature. They are all examples of a lack of self-control, and they can all be expressed in how we speak to others. Can you show bitterness in the way that you talk to someone? Of course, you can. Can you show wrath and malice through your words? Yes. And that grieves the Spirit of God who dwells in you and in me and longs for us to live in peace and unity.

Verse 32 tells us what our relationships should look like. This is what pleases our heavenly Father—Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Again, this isn’t anything new. We saw this last week in Proverbs, and we probably heard this from our parents from the time we were little. We need to show self-control in the way that we talk.

Skip over to chapter 5 now, and we are going to end with this section. Ephesians 5:1 says—Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

Just like Christ gave Himself up to the Father, we need to do the same. We are living sacrifices to God. And that means pursuing holiness. Look at verse 3, and I’m going to read all the way to verse 9.

Ephesians 5:3—But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them; for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light

We tend to think about sexual immorality only in terms of the external—the things people do. But Jesus said sexual purity extends to our mind, and Paul says it includes our words. Again, verse 4 says—Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place but instead let there be thanksgiving.

That’s talking about impurity in our speech. Remember how I said at the beginning that God has given us the ability to take something that is in our minds and place it in someone else’s mind? That is a huge responsibility.

Jesus said the things that come out of your mouth come from the heart. When your heart is filled with lust, it comes out in your speech, and it can defile others as well.

Dirty jokes, or sexually explicit conversations, place into someone else’s mind something that does not honor God. When a coworker mentions something explicit about a girl that walked into the room, he’s not doing you a favor. He’s hurting you. He’s producing in you a discontentment.

The opposite of that, Paul says in verse 4, is thanksgiving. That is the opposite of covetousness. Thanksgiving says “God I am grateful for what you have given me.” Covetousness says, “I want more.” God wants us to pursue purity and self-control in our speech.

Your mouth, your words, James says, are like the bit on a horse or the rudder on a ship. They might seem trivial and insignificant, but they will dictate the direction of your life.

I’m sure there are other lessons on communication we could cover, but I hope these have been helpful to you. And I hope this leads to some profitable conversations this week in your marriage and in your discussion groups. This is what we should be pursuing in our lives and with our communication. Be clear. Be honest. Be intentional. And be pure. May the Lord bear fruit in our hearts as a result of hearing His word today.

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