BACKGROUND:
Love is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. When believers show love, they do not show superior morality by taking pleasure in another’s fall. Love does not take pleasure in any kind of injustice. Instead, love does the exact opposite. Through their relationship with Jesus Christ, believers possess the one and only truth (John 14:6). Those who love should remain untainted by evil. Instead, they ought to always seek truth, desire that truth wins out, protect the truth, and proclaim the truth whenever possible.
SO WHAT? (what will I do with what I have read today?)
If you want to move out of grade-school loving and become a graduate-level lover, sometimes in life you’re going to have to do what we talk to you about today. Because it’s not easy what we’re going to talk about today.
Today, we’re going to look at how love speaks the truth. Let me first say what speaking the truth is NOT. Most people have a misunderstanding that keeping the peace means avoiding confrontation at all costs. It means swallow my hurts, hide my feelings, repress the truth, ignore problems in my life, pretend that everything is OK. But the Bible says that only causes more problems. The Bible says that repressing the truth rather than dealing with the truth causes trouble.
In theory, we all believe that honesty is the best policy. But in practicality, there are a lot of times in life when we don’t think honesty is such a good idea. Speaking the truth is not such a positive thought.
For instance, “If I told my father the truth about him, he’d never speak to me again.” “If I told my husband how I really feel about our marriage, he’d blow up.” “If I told my boyfriend what I don’t like about him, he’d leave me.” “If I told my wife about my frustration with our love life, she’d accuse me of a one-track mind.” “If I told my boss that what we’re doing is unethical, I’d get fired.” “If I confronted my friend and told him he needed counseling, he’d never see me again.”
Love is not always easy. Love is not always fun. Love sometimes takes courage. Love sometimes is tough. And love sometimes includes a confrontation.
The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13:6, that “Love rejoices with the truth.” Ephesians 4:15 tells us, “Speak the truth in a spirit of love.” Today we’re going to talk about a skill that almost no one is good at. I’m certainly not good at it. And I doubt of any of you here are really professional in doing this skill. Because it’s a skill that we never learn. We’re never taught. Nobody sets us down and shows us the steps to doing it effectively.
It is how to confront someone you love in a loving attitude. How do you do that? How do you confront someone you love? If you want to have a better relationship, if you want to help other people, sometimes you have to say tough things that they don’t want to hear but they need to hear it. And you, in love, need to share it.
Three keys in confronting someone in love.
#1. Before you ever confront anybody in love, you check your motives.
Check your motivation. You have to make sure you have pure motivation. Why do I need to talk to this person about this issue? Why do I want to confront this person with the truth? Honestly, there are a lot of bad motivations, bad reasons for confronting.
You might want to confront somebody just because you’re jealous of them. You might want to confront them because you’re irritated by them, frustrated by them, annoyed by them, angry. You might want to confront somebody just to get even with them. You might want to point out something wrong in their life to make yourself feel spiritually superior. Or out of envy or many, many other wrong motivations.
One of the biggest motivations that is very common in our lives and we don’t recognize it is we often criticize in other people the weakness we hate about ourselves. We do this all the time. If you know your weaknesses and you don’t like them in you, you really don’t like them in somebody else. So if you tend to be a gossip, you notice other people who gossip, and you really don’t like it when they do that. If you tend to be prideful, you can pick out ego in a second. If you tend to be lazy, you notice other lazy people. We tend to criticize in other people the very thing we don’t like in ourselves.
That’s why Jesus says this in Matthew 7, “Why worry about a speck in your friend’s eyes when you have a log in your own? First get rid of the log in your own eye and then perhaps you’ll see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.” Pretty good advice. He said make sure you’re not doing the same thing. Before you confront anybody in the spirit of love, make sure you’re not doing it yourself.
Make sure you’re not guilty of the same thing. You don’t have to be perfect to point out something that needs changing in somebody else’s life. If that were true, you’d never point anything out, because is anybody perfect? No. If you are perfect, stand up, because I don’t know anybody perfect and I’d like to meet you. Nobody’s perfect. If you have to say, “My life has to be totally together before I can notice something wrong in a relationship to point it out or notice something wrong in your life and point it out.” That’s silly. You don’t have to be perfect to speak the truth in love. You just have to make sure that you’re not guilty of that exact same sin.
You start with the correct motivation. What is the right motive? To help, not to hurt. The reason you speak the truth in love, you confront with a loving attitude, is to help the person, not to hurt them. You’re doing it in love.
We see this in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians 12, he has just brutally been honest with them about things that were out of whack in their lives. Listen to what he says “We tell you this as Christ’s servants and everything we do dear friends is for your benefit.” He says, I’m not saying this just to get a kick out of it. I’m saying it for your benefit. I care for you. I love you and there are some tough things I need to say to you – for your benefit.
Proverbs 27:6 says, “Wounds made by a friend are intended to help.” All confrontation is intended to restore another person, not to blast them, not to put them in their place, not to let them know how you feel. Confrontation is intended to help.
Once you have checked and corrected your motivation, you know you’re doing this because you genuinely care about the relationship or genuinely care about your better or good, then you do the second thing….
2. You plan your presentation.
You think through what you’re going to say before you say it. Proverbs 16:23 says, “Intelligent people think before they speak. What they say then is more persuasive.” If you want to be persuasive in a presentation, you must think through what you’re going to say in advance.
You need to pray and plan how what you’re going to say it. You need to ask God for the right words. That’s very important. Proverbs 12:18 says, “Thoughtless words can wound as deeply as any sword. Wisely spoken words can heal.” It’s all in the way you say it. If you say it thoughtlessly, it’s probably going to hurt them. But if you think it through and think how you’re going to say it and when and what you’re going to say, then that has the potential to heal them.
I’ve had a lot of practice in this area. I’ve discovered that there are three things that work for the best response. Three ways to say it if you want the message to get through to the person you love.
Say it tactfully. Proverbs 16:21 says, ”A wise mature person is known for his understanding. The more pleasant his words the more persuasive he is.” Do you want to be persuasive? Here’s the point: I’m never persuasive when I’m abrasive. If you want to get the message across, you don’t say it offensively. That will be received defensively. You don’t say it rudely, arrogantly, angrily, in frustration, in irritation, in annoyance. You don’t say it like that. You say it pleasantly. The more pleasant your words, the more persuasive you’ll be. You say it with tact.
Say it lovingly. Paul had some brutal truths he had to share with the people at Corinth, his friends. The Bible tells us, ”I’m speaking as plainly as I can with great affection.” He spoke it in a loving way. You never use truth as a club. You never beat people up with the truth. You never hit them over the head with it. You say it in a loving way. And how do you know if you’re saying it in a loving way? It’s for their benefit, not yours. If you feel good in saying it, you’re probably saying it for your own benefit.
By the way, never confront anonymously. That’s unloving. That’s the coward’s way out. Never confront in a letter or an email. Emails and letters are done so often written in anger or irritation. Always confront in person, face to face, in love.
Say it gently. Galatians 6:1 says this, “If someone is trapped in sin, you should gently lead that person back to the right path.” Part of that means just being humble. Maybe even qualifying your approach: “I may be totally wrong about this, but…” or “I may be totally off base, I may not have all the facts, I’m certainly not perfect. You set it up being humble yourself. You’re not coming in as the schoolteacher, the authority, the disciplinarian, the know it all. You’re saying, “We all need help.” Say it in a gentle and humble way, so that it can be received in a humble way.
I had an old Bible professor and fellow Pastor at MBC, Bill Postin, say often this line – “Truth plus Tact plus Timing equals Transformation.” If you want your marriage transformed, if you want your friendship transformed, if you want a relationship with anybody transformed, if you want to help somebody change, if you want to see that life transformed, it takes more than truth. It takes truth plus tactfulness plus the right timing to create the transformation in that person’s life or in your relationship. And you have to say it in a gentle way.
You check your motives - You plan your presentation. The next thing you do is…
#3. Risk their Rejection.
Paul did this in 2 Corinthians 7, “ I know I have distressed you greatly with my letter and although I felt awful at the time I don’t feel bad now that I see how it’s turned out. The letter upset you but only for a while and you were jarred into turning things around. You let the distress bring you to God. And that’s what I was hoping for in the first place when I wrote the letter.”
It’s scary to speak the truth in love. The reason why we stuff our emotions and stuff our feelings and we don’t speak the truth is because we fear the possible consequences. Cowardice keeps us from speaking the truth in love. We let fear become greater than our love.
The truth is, it’s scary to do a speaking-the-truth-in-love to somebody. We don’t know how they’re going to react. They may get mad. They may walk out. They may misjudge your motivation. They may attack you. You don’t know what’s going to happen. So it’s scary, and you’re taking a great risk.
But folks, we must be willing to risk rejection if you love that person. You must be willing to absorb the initial anger because you love that person. It takes enormous courage. What’s the alternative? Shallow, meaningless relationships.
Some of you have not felt loving toward a loved one for weeks or months or maybe even years. You have a parent, a husband or wife, a partner, a brother or sister or some relative, but you don’t love them and you don’t feel any love toward them. Because you’re stuffing your feelings. You’re stuffing the truth. You’re pushing it down. You’re not speaking the truth in love, you’re not dealing with it and you are killing the relationship.
Who do you need to have an honest conversation with? Who do you need to speak the truth in love to? Somebody in your neighborhood? Somebody in your small group? Do you see a teen-ager heading down the wrong direction, getting involved in things they have no business getting involved in and you know that their parents aren’t going to do anything about it. Will you? Will you care enough to speak the truth in love?
Let me ask this: What excuses have you been giving to procrastinate bringing up the issue that everybody needs to deal with? “I don’t want to make it worse!” Being quiet will make it worse. “I don’t want to be judgmental.” We talked about this – that excuse is stuff that cowards are made of.
“I don’t know what to say. I don’t know the answer.” You don’t have to know the answer. You only have to point out the problem. God will take care of step two. God has not called you to solve everybody’s problem in the whole world. You don’t have to solve everybody’s problem, but you do have to care enough when you see the problem of somebody you love to point it out. That’s called love. Graduate-level loving. You care enough to not be quiet. You speak up.
I love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course.
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