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Better Together: The Communication Challenge
July 16, 2023 · 30 min
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Series A Significant Life July 16, 2023 · 30 min · A Significant Life
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Jim Graff is a respected pastor, leader, and author who loves helping people fulfill their unique
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0:00 The Holy Spirit is a gift to all of us, given to us by God, sent from heaven to be our helper. Are you living in the full power of this incredible gift? In Jim and0:12 Tamara Graff's new book Maximum Impact, you'll learn the importance of living by the Holy Spirit, understanding practical ways to do so in your daily life, even in the most ordinary of times. Even0:23 Jesus knew that living the Christian life can be hard, but he never wanted us to live in our own strength. This book will help you see that every part of our life is open to change and we can achieve our maximum0:35 potential through the Holy Spirit. Are you ready to claim this promise that God has given to every believer and change your life? If you want more of our God and the kind of power it takes to make a maximum0:47 impact on our world, visit asignificant life dot com. And for your gift of any amount, receive your copy of Maximum Impact today. Visit asignificant life dot com.1:00 Welcome to Significant Life. We are so thrilled that you're letting God do his work in your heart today.1:06 Yes. Today, we're starting a new series called Better Together. We'll be talking from scripture about the building blocks to close relationships. If you've been around a while, you know that our relationships have a huge1:18 impact on the way we experience life. And healthy, life giving relationships, they don't just happen, right? But thankfully, God has a lot to say about how we can build great relationships.1:28 Michael, as my son, you've been with us these 3 plus decades as we've had the opportunity to pastor the people of Faith Family Church, and you've seen firsthand the impact that godly relationships have1:40 on people's lives. And it's been so rewarding for me to see you and your brother Jeffrey now sharing God's word on this stage from time to time. And in this message, you're going to look at scripture that addresses a1:52 very important part relationships, and that's communication. I pray it encourages all of our hearts today.2:17 How many of you guys love relationships? Like, you love people. My wife is this way. She loves being around people. Wherever the party's at, wherever the people are, that's where she wants to be. She can talk to anybody,2:29 and it's pretty amazing. But there is a whole another group of people in this world. Did you guys know that? How many of you guys would say, you know what? Honestly, I would be okay if I never talked to another person in2:39 my life. Right? Here's my point. We're all different. Yeah. Right? But but we wanna find a way to coexist, and not even just coexist, but to enjoy relationships. Did you know2:51 God gave us relationships to bless us? But just like anything, it's the way that we steward our relationships that determines the amount of blessing or the amount of headache that we get out of them. Alright?3:03 Let me show you in scripture how I know that God wants relationships to be a blessing to us. Ecclesiastes 4 9 and 10. It says, 2 are what? Better. Better3:15 than 1 because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, 1 will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls. Genesis 2 18 is another scripture that3:27 says, then the Lord God said, it is, what? Not good for man to be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him. So God gives us relationships3:38 to help us. So I wanna ask 2 questions this morning. What does scripture say about communication? And then how does scripture encourage us to communicate?3:51 So let's look at the first question. What does scripture say about communication? The first thing that it says is this, communication is important. Everybody say important. Important. Now that's probably not a huge4:01 revelation to anybody here this morning. We know it's important, but sometimes I don't know if we know how important communication really is. Listen to what Proverbs 18 21 says. It says, the tongue has the power4:13 of what? Life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. This little thing right here has the power to bring life or death into our4:25 lives. Our words are important. Do you guys remember that saying growing up, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me? We know that's a lie. Right? Some of us here4:37 today, we've had things spoken over us, spoken over our lives that we're still dealing with today. But see, it's important that we learn how to speak life. Maybe you've been4:49 told, you know, that you'll never amount to anything. Maybe that's what people have said about you. But man, speak life. Remind yourself that the Bible says, greater is he who is in you than he who is in the5:00 world. Maybe you've been told, man, you'll never be loved. You're not worthy to be loved. But, man, remind yourself that you're a child of God and and the book of John says that God so loved5:12 you that he sent his only son to die for you. Speak life. It's important that we learn how to speak life over ourselves, and not only over ourselves, over our relationships. Amen?5:25 You know, leading research about, you know, the workplace says that the problems that we have in the workplace, 80 percent of them can be attributed to communication. Communication5:36 is important. Here's the second thing that the Bible tells us about communication. Communication takes work. Everybody say work. Work. In the book of James chapter 3,5:48 it's a really good chapter on communication if you want to read the whole chapter on your own time. But basically, James talks about a ship and he talks about a rudder on a ship, which is this little piece of the ship6:00 that controls the direction of the ship. Now, don't really have a, you know, we don't deal with ships as much these days, so for us, it would be like the steering wheel of a car. Right? The steering wheel tell tells the6:12 car where to go, not the other way around. And he says it's the same way with our tongue. And then he talks about, you know, how we, you know, wanna tame our tongue and he talks about taming animals. And then he says a6:24 really interesting thing in in chapter 3 verse 8. He says, but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. And when I read that, I thought no human being contained6:36 the tongue. I thought that's interesting because we know the Bible wants us to speak life. Proverbs 21 23 says, those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity. So what is6:47 James saying here? Well, I think he's saying a couple things. 1, he's just saying that our tongue is very powerful. Right? An unruly tongue has more ability to control us6:59 than we have to control it. An unruly tongue has more ability to control our direction than we have to control it. Let me put it this way. We cannot speak negative7:11 and expect to reap positive into our lives. Amen. Here's the other thing that I think he's saying. I think he's saying that a healthy tongue starts with a healthy heart. Everybody say heart.7:23 See, our tongue is a great gauge, but that's exactly what our tongue is. It's a reflection. So if we were gonna begin training ourselves to speak life, it's gonna start by doing the hard work of7:34 guarding and filling our hearts with the right thing. Here's what Proverbs 16 23 said. It says, the hearts of the wise make their mouths prudent and their7:46 lips promote instruction. Here's another 1, Luke 6 45 b. It says, for the what? Mouth speaks what the heart is full of.7:58 If we're full of anger and bitterness, guess what's gonna come out of our mouths? Right? My son, I've told you this before, he's obsessed with the drums. He's bent on being an awesome drummer and he's getting8:10 there. But guess what we talk about all the time? The drums. Why? Because what's in his heart is what's coming out of his lips. See, our speech, our communication,8:22 it's it's a reflection. It's an audible materialization of what's going on in our hearts. So the truth this morning is that healthy communication starts with developing healthy hearts.8:34 Now, it's still a skill though, right? Because I know a lot of people who, man, they have great, pure hearts, but they still struggle with communication. Maybe because, you know, they're8:46 shy, or maybe because, you know, they're scared to upset or hurt anyone or maybe it's just because and we've grown up in an environment where, you know, we've developed some really bad communication habits.8:57 I've talked to a lot of people who, you know, the way they grew up, the loudest person in the room was always right. Right? See, communication is a skill. Healthy communication is a skill. So9:09 for the rest of the message, I wanna talk about a few guidelines. 3 steps that scripture gives us to have healthy communication. Aren't you thankful for God's word this morning? Amen. Let's9:21 talk about it. Here's 3 things scripture says that we can do to have healthy communication in our lives. Here's the first 1. Prepare to communicate. Everybody say, prepare.9:31 Prepare.9:32 Now, if communication is really so important, how many of you think it's important for us to prepare for it? I think it's it's funny because we live in a very prepared society. There's an app for everything.9:44 Right? We probably all have 2 or 3 calendars on our phones. We, we prepare our grocery list. We prepare our days. We prepare sometimes our workouts and and our shopping list and everything else, but9:55 sometimes, when it comes to communication, we just kinda let it fly and fire from the hip. Right? Anybody else like me? But the truth is there are conversations we have in life that are important, and we need to show10:07 up prepared. Now, I'm not talking about casual conversation. Right? Like, how you doing? I like your shoes. Like, how's the weather? Those kind of things. I don't want us to walk around and be weird and like overthink10:17 everything. Right? But we have conversations in our lives, with our spouses, our family, our kids, you know, our friends that are important and we wanna show up prepared for these10:29 conversations. So how do we show up prepared? Well, let me just give you a couple things. First thing we can do is we can prepare our hearts. Everybody say hearts. We talked about Luke 6 45, how out of the the10:40 heart, the mouth speaks. So we can't go into a conversation full of anger and bitter and expect nothing but love, compassion, and reason to come out of our mouths. Right?10:52 Maybe, you know, we have a coworker who did us wrong and we know we need to have a conversation about this. And that's okay. We have to have conversations because we don't wanna be avoidant pushovers in11:04 life. Right? But if you find yourself in a place where you're really angry and you know that nothing good is gonna come out, then it might be good to step away and prepare for11:16 the conversation. Now, I'm not talking about, you know, preparing all the zingers that you're gonna say to this person. Right? Anybody like me, how, man, you, like, you can step away and you can think of some really good11:27 things to say, like, man, I can say this. I can come at him with this. Or if you're really like me, maybe you're like a lot better after the conversation. Right? You ever do that? You walk away from a conversation,11:38 you're like, man, I should have said this or I should have got him with this 1. Right? Now don't just prepare for how you're gonna, you know, come at the person, but let's prepare to have a conversation that's gonna11:50 show both sides that we want good for them. Right? Not to tear the person down, but to find resolution in our conversations. Proverbs 15 28 says, the heart of righteousness weighs its answers, but the12:02 mouth of the wicked gushes evil. Let's prepare our hearts to weigh our answers and not gush evil with our mouths. Right? Here's another way we can prepare. We can set a time and a12:13 place. Now, why do we do this? Well, because we wanna be proactive, not reactive. Everybody say proactive. Proactive. Proverbs 29 20, Solomon says this, he says, do you see someone who12:25 speaks in haste? There's more hope for a fool than for them. Ouch. And Solomon wrote some some great diss tracks back in the day, man. He was he could be brutal, but he12:37 was smart and he was really elegant and he's just being honest. He's saying, listen, don't speak in haste because you'll make a fool of yourself. You know, we may feel like we need to react to something right now, but12:48 sometimes we don't. Right? Let's be proactive, not reactive. I was talking to someone the other day and they told me that they and their wife have this practice where every day or every evening, they13:00 get together and they go on a little walk and they always designate that time to talk about any issues that they need to solve together. Now, I know we can't all do that, but here's the point. If we can agree13:12 to designated times to have proactive conversations rather than reactive conversations, we're going to be far more successful. Because what happens when we're reactive? We get defensive.13:24 Right? We get emotional. So let's be prepared. Have a time and a place. Let's set boundaries. Nobody appreciates when someone randomly brings up something they were mad at from 2 weeks ago.13:36 Right? That doesn't help communication. So number 1, let's be prepared to communicate. Here's the second thing that we can13:47 do to have healthy communication. We can communicate with honor. Everybody say honor. Honor. What does it mean to honor? Well, to honor means to regard with respect.13:59 Simply put, it means to think about the other person, to consider the other person. So when we communicate, we have to make an effort not just to think about ourselves. And14:11 that's not always easy, is it? Some of us, man, we're like Toby Keith. Y'all remember that old song? Wanna talk about me? Wanna talk about I wanna I don't remember it. Number 1, 014:23 me. Come on. Some of you all know that. You don't want to admit that you know Toby Keith. It's alright. If I know it, I know y'all know it. I'm just kidding. But that's how we feel sometimes. Right? We wanna talk about14:35 me, and and that's okay. We sometimes we gotta talk about me, but it's important that we consider 1 another. Best the best communication happens when both sides work hard to understand14:47 and consider each other. Right? So how do we do that? Well, here's the first thing, and I think some of you might not like this 1 too much, but we have to listen. Everybody say, listen. Listen.14:59 Here's what James 1 19 somebody said, amen. Here's what James 1 19 says. Okay? Read it with me. Says, my dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be what? Quick to15:12 listen and then what? Slow to and slow to become angry. I think that's interesting because sometimes we feel like we have to be quick to15:24 speak, right? But it says, be quick to listen and be slow to speak and become angry. Listening causes other people to feel valued, doesn't it? Have you ever had15:36 someone actually listen to you? Doesn't it make you feel valued? It changes the atmosphere and the environment for the conversation. Listening also helps us learn important15:47 information about the person that we're communicating with. Right? That changes the environment of the conversation. Now, when we talk about listening, it reminds me of this lady that I talked to. She told15:59 me, Mike, she said, my husband and I are are having a difficult time because all he wants to do is talk, talk, talk. And I thought, man, that is a problem. So I asked her, I said, well, you know, are you guys working on16:11 it? Have you have you spoken about it? And she said, well, actually, I haven't spoken to my husband in 3 years. She said, I thought it would be rude to interrupt him. I was like, man, you do have a16:22 problem. Right? Now, maybe maybe you're you're more like me this morning where the other day, Chrissy, she said to me, she said, Michael, are you even listening to me? She didn't sound that rude. Let me16:34 redo that. She said she said she said, Michael, are you even listening to me? And I thought to myself, I said, man, what a strange16:46 way to start a conversation. Right? I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. Come on. Y'all don't act so holy, man. I know y'all thought that before. Your your head is just spinning16:58 like, what did she say? What did she say? But we have to work at listening, don't we? As communicators, we have to practice listening so we can17:09 listen. Here's another thing that we can do to to communicate with honor. It's just simply to consider the other person. Here's a scripture for that. Matthew 7 12, in everything do to others what17:21 you would have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets. When we communicate, it's important that we ask ourselves, would I appreciate how this was communicated? Was my tone17:33 rude or was it considerate? If someone said that to me or if someone sent me that text, how would I feel about it? Right? See, the person the people that we communicate, they probably have more going on17:45 than we realize sometimes, and it's important that we consider the people we communicate with. 1 of the best pieces of advice that I've ever been given was this. Whenever you have a a problem17:57 with somebody, never make it you versus them. Always work hard to make it you and them versus the problem. Right? Whenever we approach communication like, hey, this is me18:09 and you versus the problem, it changes the dynamic of the conversation. Healthy communication is a team effort. Everybody say, team effort. Team Philippians 2 verse 4, it18:20 says, let each of you look not only to his own interest but also to the interest of others. So we wanna prepare to communicate. We wanna communicate with honor.18:32 And here's the third thing we gotta do if we wanna have healthy communication. We gotta communicate with honesty. Everybody say honesty. Honesty. Now, for some of us in this room, communicating with honesty18:45 really isn't a problem. Right? We have no trouble communicating and saying what we wanna say. Right? Some of us, we gotta work a little harder on the honor side, but there are people in this18:56 room who struggle when it comes to communicating honestly, who it's really difficult. Maybe because you struggle to voice your own needs and your feelings. Maybe it's because you're afraid to19:08 rock the boat or maybe you don't wanna appear weak or needy. Right? Or maybe you just genuinely feel bad for the way that you feel. But here's the truth, if we can't communicate19:20 honestly, we end up stuffing things which can lead to bitterness, frustration, and resentment. Has everyone else found themselves there before? Right? So I'm not suggesting19:32 that every time you feel a certain way, you should just bring it up. Okay? I know our feelings, they can come and go, but if there's something consistently that's an issue, it's important that we learn how to communicate19:41 it honestly. So how do we communicate honestly? Right? Well, there's a few things. 1, be truthful. Everybody say truthful. Ephesians 4 25 says, therefore, having put19:53 away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with his neighbor. Here's Colossians 3 9, it says, do not lie to each other since you've taken off your old self20:06 with his practices. See, if we don't communicate truthfully to somebody, we're doing them a disservice. Why? Because how else are they supposed to know what's going on? Right? Well, you should just20:18 know. Right? That phrase is not my favorite phrase. Right? Because sometimes they don't just know. Now, if you've told them this 100 times and they're not listening and they're ignoring you,20:29 that's different. Right? But we have to communicate truthfully so that we can work together to solve the issues in our relationship. Here's another way that we can communicate honestly, is be20:41 gracious. Everybody say gracious. Gracious. Colossians 4 6, let your speech always be what? Gracious. Season with salt so that you may know how you ought to answer20:53 each person. How many of you guys like to season your food with salt? Right? It tastes a little better. See, I put this in there because I don't want you going home today and saying, hey, well, pastor Mike said that I21:04 should communicate honestly with you, so I'm just gonna let you have it and you could take it up with him. Alright? You gotta be truthful, but we gotta be gracious. Alright? Communicate in a21:16 way that shows that we want good for both parties. We can't use honesty as an excuse to tear the other person that we're communicating with down. Right? You asked me what's wrong, so I'm a21:28 I'm a tell you. I'm a let you have it. No. Let's be truthful, but let's be gracious. Here's another way that we can communicate honestly. Be clear. Everybody say clear. Clear.21:40 Now listen, I can struggle with this 1. Okay? Like, sometimes I can wanna say things so perfectly. I can wanna try to be considerate. Right? But the truth is I'm not clear and people21:52 don't understand. And they call this beating around the bush. Anybody else ever have trouble, like, you beat around the bush a little bit or else maybe someone you know can beat around the bush? You're like, what are22:02 they trying to tell me? Right? If we don't communicate clearly, it leaves a lot of opportunity for things to be lost in translation. And I found this funny story that I thought illustrated this pretty well, so I'm gonna22:13 share it with you this morning. Okay? There was a lady, she was a really proper and elegant lady. Alright? And she was gonna be taking a couple weeks of vacation in Florida, and she was, like I22:25 said, really particular about the way that she talked and very proper, and she needed to write an email to this campground she was staying at. She wanted to make sure that their their facilities were fully equipped and22:36 she was going to have a good time, but she couldn't get herself and bring herself to write the word toilet in her email. It just didn't feel right for her, So she thought, well, I'll just use this old22:48 word, bathroom commode, which is a really old word. It's kind of a weird word, but for some reason, she felt like that's a little more proper way to say it. But even then, she couldn't even bring herself to put that in22:59 her email, so finally, she just settled on BC for bathroom commode. So she said, does the campground have its own BC? She thought, he'll know what that means. Right?23:11 So the campground owner, he got the email and he actually wasn't all that proper of a guy himself, so when he read it, he was like really stumped. He was like, what does BC mean? You know, he was confused. So23:23 after worrying about it for several days and asking like campers, like, you guys know what she's talking about? They finally came to the conclusion that she must be talking about the local Baptist church. Alright?23:36 So he sat down and he wrote her this following reply. He said, dear madam, I'm sorry for the delay in answering your letter, but I now take pleasure of informing you23:48 that the BC is located 9 miles north of the campsite. He said, it's capable of seating 250 people at 1 time. And then he said,24:00 I admit that it's quite a distance away if you're in the habit of going regularly, but no doubt you will be pleased to know that a great number of people take their lunches along and make a day24:11 of it. It gets better, y'all. He said they usually arrive early and stay late. The last time my wife and I went was 2 weeks ago,24:24 and it was so crowded that we had to stand up the whole time we were there. It may interest you to know that right now, there's a dinner plan to raise money to buy more seats. They plan to24:36 hold the dinner in the middle of the BC so everyone can watch and talk about this great event. This is my favorite part. He says, it pains me very much not to be able to go more regularly,24:50 but it surely is not for lack of desire on my part. As we grow older, it seems to be more and more of an effort, particularly in cold weather.25:02 And then he said this, if you decide to come down to the Camp Brown, perhaps I could go with you the first time you go. He said, I'll sit with you and introduce you to all the other folks.25:15 This really is a very friendly community. I'd say that's pretty friendly. Right? Clearly, these 2 people were not on the same page. It would have been a lot better if she25:27 would have just used the word toilet. Right? See, we gotta be clear whenever we communicate. So real quickly, let me recap. 3 steps. How do we communicate well? How do we have healthy25:39 communication in our relationships? Number 1, everybody say prepare. We gotta prepare to communicate well. Number 2, let's communicate with Honor. Honor. And number 3,25:50 let's communicate with honesty. Amen. Hey, I wanna applaud you for being in church this morning, guys, because, you know, the fruit of our lives comes back to be rooted being rooted in God. Right? And26:02 you could see that when it comes to relationships and even something as specific as communication, God has a lot to say. He wants all of us to experience healthy, life giving relationships26:14 that are blessings in our lives. So, man, let's start by speaking life into our relationships. Amen? Amen. See, this wasn't even I didn't even have to give you a counseling session, man. I just got to go straight26:26 to God's word. How many of you guys are thankful for God's word? That he cares enough about us to share that.26:38 Preparation, honor, and honesty. I know those 3 things have helped me immensely when it comes to communication. And I'm definitely not perfect either, but I found that when we stay committed to those 3 principles from26:49 God's word, our conversations end up going a lot better than when we don't.26:53 Yeah, and you know, 1 reason that relationships aren't easy is just because we're all so different, right? I've seen it as a pastor and I've also seen it as a father, We have 4 kids and no 2 are the same.27:05 But you know what I've learned? God designed us differently on purpose and with a purpose in mind. And we need each other and it's been so cool to see how God's used those differences in each 1 of you in such27:17 a specific way. And I believe he wants to do the same thing in the families of everyone who's watching.27:22 That's true. And, you know, the way you and mom and our church family has spoken life over us has made such an impact. Speaking life is important. Yeah.27:31 It wasn't just us. I remember when you first started working as our worship leader. And now, of course, you're our worship pastor. But you and I learned a lot about constructive dialogue as we were working through27:41 generational issues and worship. And I always loved the fact that the people of faith family just kept speaking life over everything we27:49 were doing. Yeah, absolutely. And it's such a joy now getting to lead the people of FFC and worship. And in fact, now we're a part of the Pray TV Worship Wednesday lineup. So on the first Wednesday of every month from 1228:00 a. M. To 12 p. M, we get to worship with people all over the world here on Pray TV. So hopefully we'll get to worship with some of you watching soon.28:08 Yeah. And as we sign off, let me encourage all of you joining us. You know what? Worship is so important. God refreshes us. And honestly, people have a life giving relationship with God, usually have a life28:19 giving relationship with other people too. So I just want to encourage you in worship, making that part of your life. And over the next 3 weeks, we're going to be looking at 3 more building blocks of building28:31 relationships that cause us to have the close relationships everybody's heart craves. Yeah.28:36 And if you'd like to watch 1 of our previous messages, you can do so by going to pray dot com or on our website at asignificantlife dot com. On our website, you can also find a lot of other resources that we believe28:47 could be a blessing to you. So we'd love for you to check that out.28:50 Yeah. Let's step into significance together. We have a devotional that can help you do that. But listen, it's time for all of us to live our very best lives.29:00 The Holy Spirit is a gift to all of us, given to us by God, sent from heaven to be our helper. Are you living in the full power of this incredible gift? In Jim and Tamara29:12 Graff's new book Maximum Impact, you'll learn the importance of living by the Holy Spirit and understanding practical ways to do so in your daily life, even in the most ordinary of times. Even Jesus29:24 knew that living the Christian life can be hard, but he never wanted us to live in our own strength. This book will help you see that every part of our life is open to change and we can achieve our maximum potential29:36 through the Holy Spirit. Are you ready to claim this promise that God has given to every believer and change your life? If you want more of our God and the kind of power it takes to make a maximum impact29:47 on our world, visit asignificant life dot com. And for your gift of any amount, receive your copy of Maximum Impact today. Visit asignificantlife dot com.
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The Bond of Peace: Forbearance: His Way or the Highway Jim Graff
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