Speaking the Truth in Love | Ephesians 4 Colossians 3:16-17
Brad O’Dell | September 21, 2025

Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Ephesians 4; then, when you get there, go ahead and flip a few more pages to the right and put a finger in Colossians 3 as well. We’re going to work from both of those passages this morning. All the preaching books tell you not to do that, but I think you guys can hang with me this morning. It won’t be too complex.

We’re in a series on some of the “one anothers” of the New Testament, looking at what life together looks like. What does ministry to one another look like in the body of Christ? So far in this series, we’ve talked about the overall command that all the other “one anothers” sit underneath or flesh out, and that is the great command to love one another has Christ has loved us. Then some of the commands help us flesh out how to find unity together as we live this life of love for one another. That was where we began, and then last week we looked at how we serve one another with the spiritual gifts we’ve been given and also show hospitality to one another with the resources God has given us in life.

This morning we’re looking at this command, both in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4 (and elsewhere in the New Testament) about speaking the truth to one another, speaking the truth into one another’s lives.

By way of transitioning into the topic, I’ll just play my role in the church and make sure that in September I bring a football analogy to the pulpit for all the football lovers out there. I was watching Thursday night football, just a little bit of it, this week. The Buffalo Bills were playing; Josh Allen is the quarterback. Josh Allen is one of the premiere quarterbacks in the game, perhaps one of the best and most skilled players to ever play the position. He’s a man of tremendous capacity in what he’s able to do.

At one point during the game, they were talking about some adjustments that he had made in his career for how he threw the ball. They had some side-by-side screens. He used to throw the ball a certain way, where his arm would come up and his head would cock to the side, and he was very skilled and was very good even then, but over the course of his career he was trying to get better and better, and they were showing his throwing motion now. What has happened with Josh Allen, if you’ve followed his career, is that he was always very good, but now he has become great, almost one-of-a-kind great. Though he was usually a very reliable passer, he’s now become extremely reliable and has one of the lowest interception rates in the league.

I’ve heard it described like this in some other sports media: that in the game of sports—various sports—you have skills and you have technique. Skill is just kind of raw ability and things you can practice and things you can make sure you drill that you are on top of your game. That’s skills. But there’s also technique, and this is making sure that your body is in the best position it can be to perform the action that you need to perform.

They described it like this: Skills are what you pour into the cup, and you can fill up the cup with as much skill as you can; but technique is what actually increases or decreases the size of the cup that you’re filling. So, if you have a bigger cup, then you can fill that up with more skill and get to higher levels. That’s what’s happened in Josh Allen’s career.

I thought of that when I was thinking about this sermon this morning and the topic we’re going to be looking at. With our spiritual walks, there are lots of things we can do, lots of habits, lots of skills we can even develop in our spiritual walks that fill our cups and make us effective in our spiritual walks and give us a lot of life. There are also things that just tend to increase the size of our cup and actually give us more capacity for the spiritual life that we are called to.

I think this morning, this aspect of speaking the truth to one another is one of those things that increases our spiritual potential or increases the size of our cup, that gives us more to fill up as we follow the Lord in life. So I think it’s a much-neglected part of “one another” ministry, but a very important one.

With that, here’s going to be my outline for the sermon.

1. The Vision Presented: We need to see that vision, be committed to that vision, and then from that place we can actually figure out together how to flesh out the vision. The vision presented.
2. We We Need This: Then we’re going to see some of the Scripture passages that indicate why we need this, why this is so important, something that we would tend to maybe not put as much importance in.
3. Hindrances and Helps: Then we’re going to look at the real aspects of the many hindrances and hangups that can happen in this avenue of mutual ministry to one another and some helps to help us flesh it out together as a community of Christ.

1. The Vision Presented

So, with that, let’s read Ephesians 4. We’re going to read just two verses here, I’m going to make two very brief comments, and we’re going to flip over to Colossians 3 and sit there for a little bit longer. Ephesians 4:15-16 says,

“Rather, speaking the truth in love [that’s the phrase we’re looking at], we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

So, this is a passage that we’ve actually looked at a few times already over the course of the last two weeks. The context is this life together in Christ and the fact that we have these gifts that we are supposed to be using to serve one another, and as we do so we grow up into the fullness of who we are in Christ. That’s the context.

However, we get this other aspect that’s also supposed to be happening in the midst of this, and that is this speaking the truth in love. That’s what we’re looking at this morning.

Go ahead and flip over to Colossians 3. We’re also going to just read a couple verses and make comments on it. Colossians 3:16-17 says,

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom [that’s going to be the phrase we focus on here], singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

So, Colossians is a very similar letter to the book of Ephesians. It’s a very similar context. In fact, if you read this portion of Colossians and the portion of Ephesians we just read, there’s a lot of very similar language that Paul is using, and he’s writing very similar themes to different audiences, so it comes out a little differently. Here we get this core idea, teaching and admonishing one another. What I want to do is look at some of the smaller parts of this verse and some of the verses around it so we can get a vision together of what is in view, and then we’ll start fleshing out what that looks like a little bit more.

(1) First, when we talk about this teaching and admonishing one another, or speaking the truth to one another, the first thing to see is that phrase “one another.” This is a one another ministry, and I think when we see these words “teach and admonish,” we all know what teaching is. It is a positive instruction in or application of God’s word to someone's life. Admonishing is similar. There is still instruction in and speaking of the word to one another, but oftentimes there’s a sense of warning with it, or the understanding that the person might have a misgiving in them or maybe something in them that would not want to hear the word. So it’s a little more challenged, as it were.

We see this and we think, “Okay, that’s the job of the preachers and the pastors and the teachers in the church,” right? But I think it’s important to see that this is actually the job of every single person who comes into the church, who’s in the pews, who are in the small groups, who are in the classes of the church. This is your command to be fleshing out in your life and in your Christian relationships, just as it is mine. This is one another ministry, and it’s presented as this ongoing, mutual communication between all believers in the church. I think that’s the first thing we see.

(2) Secondly, we also see Paul use these words, “teach and admonish,” like we just said, but there are also a lot of other words in the New Testament that I think help us flesh out what this mutual communication, or word ministry, might look like together. I’ll put some on the screen so you can see it there.

In Ephesians 4, as we saw, it’s “speak the truth,” so it’s a little more broad, right? Not as specific. In 1 Thessalonians 5 it says, “Encourage one another; build one another up.” That’s very positive communication, a lot of encouragement, building one another up and helping people kind of come into the fullness of who they are.

In Hebrews 10 we are told to “consider how to stir one another up to love and good works.” This is the idea of persuasiveness and getting at people’s motivations that we’re trying to influence. In Hebrews 3, the word is exhort. “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” So the idea of exhort—this also carries the idea of building up, but it’s a little more direct. It’s a little more urgent, and it might even include something like an idea of a reproof or, in the strongest form, a rebuke. In some situations that might be what is called for.

So, we see this quite diverse presentation here of different ways that fellow Christians are supposed to be speaking into one another’s lives and actually receiving input from one another. It could look like instruction, it could look like application, it can look like a reminder, an encouragement. It can look like a warning; it could look like motivation or confirmation in the way that you’re going, or a correction: “Let’s not go that way, let’s go another way.”

(3) Number three: the content of this communication. We’re speaking to one another, but what is the content that we’re speaking? We see that right there in verse 16, right at the beginning. It says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,” and from that be teaching and admonishing one another, or speaking the truth in love. That’s the language from Ephesians 4.

That’s really important, right? In the process of spiritual growth and maturity, it is not our momentary thoughts or analysis or discernment that whatever might come to our mind, that actually causes growth and advancement. It is the word of God that has the power to actually generate growth and advancement in someone else’s life.

Second Timothy 3:16 is a core Scripture, we quote it a lot, because it’s very important as we are speaking God’s word from the pulpit to remember what the word of God does. Here it is.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

That’s what we’re looking for: to be complete, to be equipped for every good work, to grow up into the fullness of who we are in Christ. It is the word of God that has the active power to actually do that in someone’s life when it is spoken into their lives and it is received by faith and applied in various ways. You just see there a lot of the parallel language there, what the word of God does and then what we are supposed to do as the people of God, communicating to one another.

I think it’s important for us to just think: many of us will readily in our Christian walks, in our small groups, in our relationships, speak words of encouragement to one another and try to build one another up and all these things; but I wonder how many times we stop and say, “Was that grounded in the word of God at all? Can I think of anything that actually makes sure that that is consistent with God’s word and grounded in the word of God? Did I have any Scripture that came to my mind that I might have been able to give someone in this moment of need?”

There’s a caveat here. It doesn’t mean that we walk around looking at one another and only speak in these short phrases of KJV language to one another, right? That gets really weird if you speak that way. But give some thought as to, “What is the source of my encouragement, and is it consistent with what God’s encouragement might be for this person in the moment?” That’s what we’re supposed to be looking at.

So we see this mutual communication of God’s word between fellow Christians, and this takes various forms depending on the need of the moment.

(4) But the next thing we see, again in verse 16, is that as we are speaking God’s truth to one another, this is supposed to be done in all wisdom. That is, we don’t just spout off unthinkingly, right? There is a discernment that needs to happen here. There needs to be a prayer for the Spirit to give you wisdom and nuance; to say, “Man, is this the right time to speak, or is this not the right time to speak? Is this the right way for me to do it, or is there a different way that I should do it? Am I the right person to speak this into their life at this time, or is there someone else who might be the person whom God is asking to come and bring this truth to bear in their life?” There’s a feel, there’s a nuance, there’s discernment. That’s not easy, but it is a very important aspect, and there’s a lot of damage that can be done if that wisdom is not there in the communication.

(5) There are a few more pieces we’re putting together. Next we see that as we’re doing this, speaking God’s word into each other’s lives with wisdom, we’re to do so in the name of Jesus. It says that in verse 17, right? “...in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.” That’s an important layer here in our considerations. We don’t just come in our own names; that is, we don’t come with our own wisdom, we don’t come with our own considerations, we don’t come with our own preferences and understanding of what the priorities ought to be from our own point of view.

A lot of times, when we’re speaking to someone, we just default to speaking from our own point of view, because that’s the primary point of view we have, right? But some of this is actually saying, “What might God’s point of view be?” We ask ourselves questions like this: “What might God want this person to hear? What might he want them to see? What might he want them to understand or recall? What is he potentially doing in this person’s life that I can affirm in them?” Right? We have to see ourselves and genuinely feel the burden of the fact that we are, in the words of Paul David Tripp, instruments in the Redeemer’s hands, and that is our presence in our fellow believers’ lives, at all times in various ways.

Two more things. As we speak, we do it from two places: we do it from a place of thankfulness and we do it from a heart of love.

(6) We do so from a place of thankfulness. Three times there in Colossians 3 it says this—in verse 15 it says, “Be thankful.” Verse 16 says, “[Do this] with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” In verse 17 it says, at the end of this whole section, “Giving thanks to God the Father through Christ.” That’s a lot of iterations in a short amount of text!

What is the significance of being thankful as we are having this type of communication with one another? I think it’s this: we are thankful for the grace that God has shown us in our lives. We are thankful for the promise and sure hope of new life. We’re thankful that God’s Spirit has been given to us as a seal of our salvation, and from this heart of thankfulness we then encourage one another in that same hope, in that same grace, by his Spirit, knowing that he is the one who is going to do the great work in their lives. It’s very important to be thankful, and there’s an overflow of words that comes from that place. There’s a warmth, there’s an encouragement, there’s a conviction that comes when it comes from that place.

(7) The other thing we’re supposed to have, as we saw in Ephesians 4, is a heart of love. We saw that in Ephesians 4: “Speak the truth in love.” Later on it says the body builds itself up in love. Here in Colossians 3:14, the thing that launches this whole section: “Above all these things put on love.” This is a central element in our communication to one another as the people of Christ.

You see, we can do everything we’ve talked about. We just went through a lot of different ways and aspects of how to speak to one another with encouragement and upbuilding in the body of Christ. But if we don’t have a genuine love for the other in our hearts, everything will go awry. It can be hurtful, it can end up as self-aggrandizing, it can become obnoxious like a clanging symbol or a noisy gong, in the language of 1 Corinthians 13.

I think from the other side, if we are those who are receiving words from our brothers and sisters in Christ in a time, if we don’t have a genuine love for our brother or sister speaking to us, I think we can easily misread their intentions, perhaps. We can not given them the benefit of the doubt if they misspeak a little bit or if they don’t do it perfectly; or we could just not care. I think from the presentation of Scripture and what God is trying to accomplish through this type of ministry, that’s an issue, if you just don’t care and you don’t receive it well.

So, that’s the presentation of this. Let’s put it in a summary statement, though I know there were a number of different facets. Let’s see if we can put it in a statement. I thought I could get this in a single sentence that went on the slide; I did not do that. But, it is in a cleaner statement, and I’ll just read it out.

The New Testament seems to present to us, brothers and sisters, Redeemer Church, a picture of church community where people are mutually known. We are mutually known, and we’re known to the degree that others are able to wisely and lovingly speak the encouragement of God’s word into each other’s lives, into our spiritual successes and our failures. They know about them and they can speak into them. They can speak into our life’s joys and difficulties. They can speak into our questions and our concerns. The vision here is that ongoing, mutual word ministry would be a primary means by which the people of Jesus actually maintain their spiritual walks and grow up into Christ. Our spiritual walks need some maintenance. We find that we need help to do that, and there’s growth that needs to be had, and we find out that we need help to do that.

2. We We Need This

That’s what the next point is about: why we need this, why we need this type of ministry going on in our church. I think there are a few keys in the passages we’ve looked at thus far.

(1) First, we see that as the people of Jesus we are a communal people. Ephesians 4:25 says it like this: “We are members one of another.” It’s interesting; do you think of that when you come into the building every Sunday, or into your small groups throughout the week? We are members one of another; that is, I am dependent on these people, and I am incomplete without them. It’s a different way of thinking of your identity in Christ and your presence in the body of Christ, but that’s the presentation of the New Testament.

I think it needs to be mentioned that there never was in Christ provision for you to have all the wisdom and know-how and self-determination you’d need for your spiritual walk, in and of yourself. I think a good measure of these things was always supposed to be provided through the ministry of your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Therefore—this is important—we don’t operate as spiritual mavericks. We don’t operate as spiritual mavericks, thinking we don’t really need the input of others. Maybe some of you out there have been thinking about this, and you’re like, “Nah, I don’t really want the input of anybody else in my life.” This comes up, right? I get it, because there are issues. We’re going to look at the issues later, how this can go wrong. But I think we need to remember that Proverbs speaks a lot to the ministry of other people and how a collective wisdom is better.

“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.” It’s a wise man, a wise woman, who has a regular input of the advice of other people and the words of other people in their life. Only a fool thinks they’re okay in their own eyes.

(2) Secondly, we are not there yet. What I’m talking about is full growth, full maturity in Christ. That’s the whole context of Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3. The thing is, no matter how far along in the Christian life we are, how mature we think we are, we always still have a long way to go. Right? We’ll always be short of “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,” until the day when God brings us into the fullness of our identity in Christ in glory. So if there’s always growth to be had, that means that there are always new changes, new methods, new motivations, new aspects or fleshing out of growth that needs to happen in our lives, and we need each other if we’re to continue on and keep from growing spiritually stagnant or fading backwards. In fact, the major source of this newness in your life is going to be from the sound counsel and input of your fellow believers. That’s what we see, I think, if you read these passages a lot.

(3) The third one: sin, Satan, the world, and the flesh always threaten to shipwreck your faith, and you never just get over that. Sin, Satan, the world, your own sinful flesh always threaten to shipwreck your faith, and you’re never just going to grow beyond that. That’ll remain until the day you see Jesus face to face.

Look at Ephesians 4:14. This is right before the verses we just read. It says we’re doing these “that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves, carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.”

Why do we need others to speak the truth in love to us regularly? Why does this need to be an ongoing ministry? Because our flesh will desire to fall back into the ease and the ignorance of spiritual immaturity. There will be waves. Waves will come at you in life that will threaten to sweep your feet out from underneath you and drag you under in despair. There will be winds that come at you all throughout life, winds of convincing, appealing deception that will blow in and seek to undermine the truth in your life and carry you off into all sorts of error.

There are people who will give you false counsel, and that will be false counsel that often is compelling. It might stoke your ego, and it might confirm you into a false path that will ultimately lead to destruction if you stay on that path. This happens in life, so because of that we need people alongside us who love us and have the opportunity and the courage to speak words that keep us in the way and remind us of what is good and right and true. That is a beautiful, lovely thing and something that we should embrace and desire in our spiritual walks. The sorts of issues that we just read in Ephesians 4:14 are ever-present, so this type of community, where we have people alongside us, also needs to be ever-present.

From just a pastoral perspective, let me tell you why this is important. This is how it often plays out: There is a time, we find, when Christians will greatly desire others to speak into their lives and to be a tremendous help, and that’s usually when things finally hit a point of crisis in the family, with the kids, with their own personal lives. Then they come to the door and they say, “Pastor, I need everything. I need it all.” That’s a difficult time to try to have an intervention.

You see, the pattern tends to be—I’m not saying this is true of all of us, but there is a pattern—that the neglect of this type of community that we’re talking about, in an ongoing way, happens until problems become very deep, they become very difficult, and they often become, sometimes, unsalvageable. Instead of people receiving small inputs, small fixes, small encouragements that are very directed at their life throughout life, they come to the point where they need some drastic repair.

It’s like someone who has set a pattern of very unhealthy eating and lifestyle habits over many, many years; and then eventually they need to have a serious medical intervention to hopefully save their life, right? Sometimes that intervention works, but usually what it does is it brings them to a point where they’re alive, but they have a much reduced and difficult life, and honestly, there’s nothing they can do to go get all those years of waste back—not complete waste, but difficulty.

I think the call of Scripture is, let’s not live our spiritual lives like that. Let’s not walk our spiritual lives out like that. The New Testament vision is that we can be a spiritually healthy people, and we can stay spiritually healthy through the ministry of brothers and sisters in Christ, and as we find ways to minister God’s truth to one another in love, this is how God works this grace of spiritual health and vitality into our lives on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis.

3. Hindrances and Helps

So, that said, that is the vision. There are some hindrances to this; there are some ways this can go awry. We all know that. A thousand have probably come to your minds as I’ve been speaking here this morning. Let’s look at some of those. We’re not going to hit all of them this morning, but I think we are going to try to clean up some of the areas where this can go wrong. In the words of the classic phrase, “Here there be dragons.” And there are dragons we need to be aware of. Being cautious of those together does a lot of the work. Hindrances and helps—that’s my last point.

(1) The first hindrance is this: false expectations. When we’re talking about this mutual word ministry, people speaking into my life, me speaking into others’ lives, people knowing me in and out, me knowing others in and out, and making sure I am careful with that knowledge and have a reliable source—all these things—sometimes we can just have false expectations.

One false expectation is that no one should actually notice anything wrong in my life or anything I need to be doing, and they shouldn’t be speaking into my life. A lot of people have that expectation, and hopefully this sermon so far has disabused of that notion.

However, we could also think this: “Okay, if I’m going to do this and if I’m going to trust the Lord for this, everything is going to smoothly and easily and lives are going to be changed like that.” That’s probably not how it’s going to go. It might; oftentimes it does, honestly. However, it oftentimes looks just a little rockier than that, right?

If you’re going to try to correct an angry person, it’s not a great surprise if that person in the moment becomes a little angry with you. That’s the issue, and it’s coming to the fore. However, sometimes that coming to the fore and having it out in the light gives you the chance to actually do some work on it together.

If you’re going to encourage someone who’s pretty deeply depressed, chances are they’re not going to immediately turn the corner and erupt into joy. It might seem like, “Man, this isn’t hitting at all.” But, by God’s grace and by his Spirit, I think he can do the work to start working in those deep parts of someone’s heart. If you try to speak wisdom to someone who’s clueless or foolish, it might take some time for it to sink in. But the promise is that it might actually sink in, and that can be a dynamic element in their spiritual life and growth, and it’s something that you brought to them in love.

Another expectation, from the other side of the things, as someone who’s receiving words, you might have an expectation that if someone’s going to do this they’re just going to do it perfectly, right? They’re going to say it just the right way, they’re going to say it with just the right amount of warmth, but also the right amount of directness, right? “I don’t want to mess around.”

No, it’s probably not going to be perfect. Someone might in love and care come to you and try to enter something into your life. It might just be a simple encouragement, or it might be a warning, it might be a correction in some way. Here’s the thing: that’s a difficult thing to do, and we are all sinners, and none of us are perfect yet. So there are probably going to be some areas that aren’t as perfect as they can be. A false expectation can put too high a burden on it. Here’s the thing: you need to make sure you’re operating in forgiveness and grace and just attribute best intentions to the other person. Look for what God has for you in those words, not necessarily if that person did if perfectly themselves.

We’ll go through the rest of these a lot faster.

(2) We can have a lack of love, or we might just call this a lack of humility. This is right in the Scriptures we just looked at. Love is this key component, and sometimes there’s a lack of love. There are some people who love the truth and they see an opportunity to call out the truth in someone else’s life, and there’s kind of a thrill of battle that arises in their hearts; and that’s wrong. That’s not the right motivation to get after this, right? There’s a lack of love.

In the words of Tim Keller, when this is present this is just “imperious self-righteousness.” That’s a good phrase. “Imperious self-righteousness.” It might be that you actually just like being the person who’s right more than you actually, genuinely love the other.

(3) On the other side of it there can be a lack of truth, or we might just call this a lack of courage. There are some who are highly concerned about coming off as very loving and very understanding, and this can be to the degree that they actually think it’s best to stay silent when a word might be needed. Now, there are times to stay silent, but sometimes you use that as an excuse to not actually do the thing that God is calling you to do.

In Keller’s words again, this can be “cowardly self-indulgence.” It might be that you love your own comfort and your own self-presentation more than you actually love the other person or love the truth, and this can be a great error.

(4) There can be a lack of God’s word. We already talked about this. Maybe you’re offering all kinds of words of encouragement and upbuilding, but you haven’t actually made sure that this is consistent with God’s word. And here’s an error that can come in here: there might be many in here who don’t actually know God’s word enough such that when you are in an intimate moment with someone where you can encourage them or speak something into their life, you don’t actually have enough Scripture at hand to give them anything of substance, anything that’s grounded in God’s truth.

Some of you maybe have been just sitting around for years and just saying, “I’m glad other people know the word, because I just don’t have time for it.” That’s just not how Scripture calls us to be as believers. We all are supposed to—what is the language of Colossians 3? I have to flip back; I have multiple things here. It says that “the word of Christ [should] dwell in [us] richly.” That’s on all of us! It’s not just the pastors who preach. It hopefully should be for them too, but it’s every single one of you. You have to find patterns to know the word of God, to be meditating on the word of God, to be memorizing the word of God, to have something—even if it’s the most basic thing—to be able to speak substance into someone’s life. Otherwise it can just be ineffectual.

(5) You can have a lack of wisdom. We’ve talked about this, and if someone comes to you with a lack of wisdom, not praying to the Lord, asking the Lord for wisdom and discernment in the moment, that can be greatly frustrating.

(6) Then there can be this, and I think this is important. There can be a lack of relationship. What I have in mind here is something like this: relationships like this take a little bit of time and a little bit of relational capital to kind of find these rhythms together. You probably have someone in your life who knows you a little deeper than others and you guys can talk to each other in a way that others can’t. That’s probably because you spend some time with them. You’ve been through some stuff with them.

Relationships like this do take some relational capital, and I think for a lot of us one of the main issues is that we simply haven’t taken the time or given the effort to find these kinds of friends or to be this kind of friend for someone else. I would just say this: if your priorities or your schedule disallow this type of Christian community, the overwhelming expectation of Christian community in the New Testament, then I think that’s a great hindrance to your receiving God’s grace in this area. Your cup is smaller than it otherwise should be.

So I think the obvious solution, as we look at that list of things, is that we need to be aware of these pitfalls, and we need to constantly be checking ourselves against them. The thing is, love, truth, wisdom, God’s word, relationship, and right expectations are all needed if we’re going to do this word ministry to one another and have these types of relationships with one another well.

However, I think this is also an important caveat to put in there: don’t despair if it’s perfect or not. We’ve said that. We are all people on the journey together, so you can give some grace, you can give some understanding, you can be merciful, you can be forgiving, as we seek to flesh these things out in close relationships together. I think that heart is very important, that God can obviously work his grace through us despite our fallenness and weakness.

That’s a lot of the solution, but here’s the biggest solution. It’s very, very important; if you’re kind of tuned out for a bit, key back in. This is the most important thing, and it’s where we end most of our messages, because it’s the most important thing of all.

That is this: The biggest solution to all the errors that come up in this area is that we must have a daily trust in the gospel that is humming in our hearts and in our souls, and that we are grounded. A daily trust in the gospel that gives us a deep confidence and a thankfulness for God’s grace.

That has to be present, because here’s the thing about the gospel. The gospel creates in us this special mix of both humility but also deep security, and we need both a deep humility and a deep security to be able to both speak and receive words from others. If we don’t have that humility, things really go awry. We’ve talked about that. If we don’t have that security in the love of God, things can also go awry because of our insecurities and self-doubts.

You see, the gospel shows us how deeply flawed we are and how needy we are of God’s help and grace. If our sin was so bad that Jesus had to go to the cross for us, then that humbles us. It humbles us such that we won’t go speaking to someone as if we’re all-wise and awesome, because we know we’re not that wise. We know we’re not that awesome. God chose the weak things in the world—that’s us—and he did it to shame the wise. So, from that place, we’re not going to come to someone with a place of imperious self-righteousness, if that is in our hearts.

Also, we won’t get defensive or prideful when others try to speak into our lives, because honestly, we know we need help, and we’ve faced our sins ourselves, so if someone else points them out we’re just going to be like, “Yes, you got me. Been there, done that, and I’m still going there and doing it. Thank you for reminding me of that.” Right? You’ve been there, you’ve gone through it, because you know the gospel and what your sin is. That brings a deep humility.

However, it doesn’t just bring that. It also, at the same time and in a mysterious and wonderful way, brings a great sense of security and stability and courage. We can speak even when it’s hard, even when it might be difficult, even when it might be scary to us, because we know that we are filled with God’s Spirit. It’s not all about us. God’s Spirit is in us; he’s working with us. That is a promise of salvation. Also, we have been made ambassadors of Christ, so we truly can trust that we are God’s instruments and can be God’s instruments in this place. That’s what the gospel has accomplished for us, and we can rest on that.

Also, we can receive others’ words without falling into self-pity or despair, because at our very core we know that we are the beloved of God, loved with the very love with which he loves his own Son. We are saints according to his promise. That’s crazy! As the same time we’re humble, but we also know that God has called us saints and that he will accomplish our salvation. So nothing these people reveal can shake that. “I am secure in the love of God.”

From that place of deep humility with deep security and confidence, as we all are walking in this together as the people of Christ and feasting on these gospel promises, we really can be a people who walk alongside each other in such community that we are known and we are comfortable with that, that people can speak into our lives, that we can receive those words of encouragement, and we can seek to apply those and build ourselves up in love as we continually try to grow together more and more. That’s the calling and that’s the promise of the Scriptures.

Just a couple very practical wrap-up thoughts before we go—a few practical takeaways. Maybe this paradigm is helpful. For those who are hearing words from others—this is important—invite feedback. Don’t put the onus on someone else to figure out how to step into your life and call you out on something that you know you should be called out on all along, right? Don’t leave it to others to try to bring attention to some of your weaknesses; instead, you go to others and just say, “Hey, I understand that I need growth and help, so I’m going to take the initiative and just say, ‘Can you speak into this? Can I have some insight? Can I have some help? Can I have some wisdom?’”

Maybe in your small group—it’s not as personal, like, “Here are my deepest struggles that I’m going to throw out to the group.” Maybe it’s a topic. “Hey, can we talk about this issue? Because I would love to hear your collective wisdom and insight on this.” That’s a way to throw a topic into the middle of the group, and then we all contribute to that, and then we can all take and receive from that together. That’s a good way to discuss things in a small group. Take the initiative.

Go to someone and just say, “Hey, can you be this kind of friend for me? Can I get some advice? I’m not there on my own. I want other people alongside me.” Invite feedback.

Secondly, pray for gospel humility and security. You might find yourself in a moment when your blood’s rising, your face is getting a little hot, and you realize, “Oh man, I’m having to face some stuff right now,” if it’s confrontational. Or you might be just discouraged, and you know that someone’s trying to encourage you and you know that you’re supposed to receive it. It’s difficult sometimes in the moment. So pray, right there in that moment. “I need humility, I need security, and then also, I need to look for God’s words in the words of others.”

They might not say it perfectly. They might stumble over it. They might say it completely wrong. But there still might be a grace in those words, a truth that God is trying to bring home to my life. I’m going to look for it.

Forgive any failures, foibles, weaknesses; be gracious and longsuffering. We talked about that.

Then, apply. Actually do this! Try to apply what was spoken and see what God has for you in that. Do it with discernment, of course, do it with other wise counsel. But actually seek to apply what comes across your way.

Then, for speakers, love. This is the first thing. Before I say anything to anyone, I’m going to check myself. Do I genuinely have a love for this person in my heart, or is it kind of weak, is it kind of cold? That’s very important. Start there.

Next, you pray for God’s wisdom and for his words for this person.

Third, ensure your words are grounded and supported by Scripture. Take a second. “What do I know about God, his character, his ways, and his word that is consistent here? Is there a way to actually just bring that to the attention of this person and trust God to do what he does through his word?”

Speak with humility, and then point people to Jesus and the gospel. This is important. Point people to Jesus and the gospel as their answer, not to some different actions, or not to a life hack, or not to your way of doing things that will solve all their solutions.

This happens all the time in Christian community. We give a lot of good advice, but sometimes we forget the fact that maybe this person actually just needs to do some work with the Lord and receive the gospel of grace a little more. Point them to the gospel of grace and Jesus.

Last thing here…this is just an addendum, because this is my ministry. Join a small group. If you haven’t joined a small group, if you aren’t in these communities, this is where we are trying to flesh these things out together. And addendum to that: be committed to that small group. This doesn’t happen if you show up once every two months. It’s tough to really have the regularity to form these relationships. So get in a group, show up regularly, and I promise you, God does something kind of weird and miraculous when people who wouldn’t normally be good friends can grow together. It’s a deep, rich community, if you just keep showing up. Join a small group.

Here’s the other thing: start a small group. You might have some people that you know, “I like these people, I trust these people. These are the people I want to have this type of relationship with.” Get together with them and say, “Let’s do this, and let’s invite a few other people in to just talk over the sermon together, pray together, and know one another.” Start a small group. If you do that, come to me; I can equip you with all kinds of things to run that. You don’t have to be the most skilled person in the world. I have all kinds of patterns and paradigms for you. But take the initiative to get into this type of community, and then as a pastor I can then equip that initiative as you carry it out.

That’s just a few suggestions for how to do this together. Love you guys; I think this can be very rich, even if it’s very difficult. Let’s commit to the vision and see what God does through it as we commit together. Let’s pray.

Lord, we thank you for your word, we thank you for this very practical topic. I felt myself more reasoning and just talking on a very personal level this morning, because it’s such a practical topic like that, something we all have to figure out together. Lord, we pray that you would show us where our hearts are hard towards what you’ve called us to in Scripture. We ask that you would heal hurts and pains we might have in these areas. Lord, we ask that we would be a people of discernment and deep love so we can naturally carry out these commands well. We also ask that you would give us good, good friends. Maybe it’s not a formalized setting, but there are good Christians in our lives who can really be these types of people.

Give us courage to open up. A lot of us have a lot of things hidden, and people know us only at a certain level. Lord, we want to be at a deep level—it’s scary, it’s hard, we don’t really know that we’re going to be okay if we open that up. Lord, give us the courage by your Spirit. Give us the right people and the right moment to be able to so we might find help and healing and grace in those deepest areas of our lives. Lord, we want your name to be maximally magnified in us as individuals and as a church community. This is a big aspect of it. So teach us your ways that we may walk in your truth; unite our hearts to fear your name together. It’s in your name, Jesus, we pray, amen.