Love Casts Out All Fear — Joe Aldrich

Myths About Human Limitations

When I was a youngster, I I still do but I had a lot of fantasies and when you're young the the line between reality and fantasy often gets blurred and I always wanted to fly an airplane and In my dreams, I flew a little peach craft made out of a peach box around our orchard at home on the farm where I live and I always wondered if I got some boards and put them under my arm and get up on the roof and ran the length of the Roof and jumped off whether or not I could fly.

And I wasn't really sure whether I could. But on the other hand, I wasn't really sure I couldn't and I was not a student of aerodynamics. But I knew that you know airplanes had wings and one day I was thinking about this.

Then about the same time a little neighbor buddy Wesley came over from the next farm. And I said well, so I've got a great idea. I Said I really think that if we got some boards and put them under your arms.

And we got you up on the roof of the barn and I'll be the air control tower and you know. You'll be the airplane. It's always more fun to be the airplane because you get to fly. And I'll just have sit there and you know give the orders.

I think if you ran the whole length of the peak of that roof and leaped off that you could fly. Well, he was kind of a skeptic but I was a good salesman. It wasn't too long before all the West was up there on the end of the barn and I told him now stay right on The top of the ridge, you know, don't get down the side.

Just go full bore all the way down when you get the intake great big leap and less you're gonna be flying all over the Orchard, it's gonna be a you know, really a an experience. Well, I I checked the air, you know.

Make sure everything was all right and boy on your mark gets it going. He went right down the ridge of that barn. You wouldn't believe it took a gigantic leap and went right off straight down. Fortunately into the manure pile at the back of the loafing shed probably saved his life.

And the myth about flying with boards underneath my arms died. You don't like this that way. There are a lot of myths that we carry into adulthood. And one of those myths is that we can't do anything.

There are a lot of information items that come to us from inappropriate sources that become haunting and As a result, we're greatly limited By our lack of understanding of what we might do. I think of Joan of Arc.

And I have an illustration here that Illustrates I think very well in the first part of the 20th century a French peasant made by the name of Joan of Arc Was called upon to save her country from its enemies with her sacred sword her consecrated banner and her belief in her mission.

She swept her enemies before her. She sent a thrill of enthusiasm through the French army such as neither King nor statesman could produce. On one occasion. She said to one of her generals I'll lead the men over the wall.

The general said not a man will follow you. Joan replied I will not look back to see whether anyone is following me. But the soldiers of France did follow Joan of Arc and She saved her country from the British and then fell into her hands.

While the fires were being lit around the stake at which this 19 year old French peasant girl Was to be burned alive. She was given a chance to regain her liberty By denying what she believed. In choosing fire above freedom she said.

The world can use these words. I know this now. Every man gives his life for what he believes. Every woman Gives her life for what she believes. Sometimes people will even little or nothing and yet they give their lives to that little or nothing.

One life is all we have to give. One life is all we have to live and then it's God. But to surrender what you are and live without belief is more terrible than dying even more terrible than dying young.

But there's a worse fate than Living life or excuse me. There's a worse fate than living without belief. It's to live With a firm commitment to that which at the end of life at the portals of eternity Turns out to have betrayed you and this morning we kind of asked the question When you and I come to the end of our life and we have nothing but death to look forward to.

Nothing but memories to look back upon. What will we need to conclude that our life was a success and the first thing we saw Was an individual needs to surrender to a purpose. Paul says in 2nd Timothy if we cleanse our lives that we can become instruments for noble purposes.

And so the first priority of our life is to submit to the control of God and To express his character and we chat a little bit about The more manward dimensions of the outworking of God's purposes and that is to treat something according to its true value.

And if you and I are gonna do the business of marking men and women for Jesus Christ and leveraging them towards the cross. And if God is going to take our five loaves and two fishes or our bologna sandwich and he's going to multiply it.

Then we need to be certain that we are responding appropriately to value and we saw that this value begins with looking at ourselves a Walking through the forest one day a man found a young eagle which had fallen out of its nest.

He took it home and put it in his barnyard where it soon learned to eat and behave like the chickens. One day a naturalist passed by the farm and asked why it was that the king of all birds should be confined to live in the barnyard with the chickens.

The farmer replied that since he'd given a chicken feed and trained it to be a chicken never learned to fly. Since it now behaved as the chickens. It was no longer an eagle. Still it has the heart of an eagle replied a naturalist and can surely be taught to fly.

He lifted the eagle toward the sky and said you belong to the sky and not to the earth. Stretch forth your wings and fly. The eagle. However was confused. He did not know who he was in Seeing the chickens eating their food.

He jumped down to be with him again. The naturalist took the bird to the roof of the house and urged him again say you're an eagle stretch forth your wings and fly. But the eagle was afraid of his unknown self and world and jumped down once more for the chicken food.

Finally, the naturalist took the eagle out of the barnyard to a high mountain there. He held the king of the birds high above him and encouraged him again. Say you're an eagle. You belong to the sky stretch forth your wings and fly.

The eagle looked around back towards the barnyard and up to the sky. Then the naturalist lifted him straight towards the Sun and it happened that the eagle began to tremble. Slowly, he stretched his wings and with a triumphant cry Soared away into the heavens.

It may be that the eagle still remembers the chickens with nostalgia. May even be that he occasionally revisits the barnyard. But as far as anyone knows He has never returned to lead the life of a chicken.

And I think a lot of us Illustrate the truth of an old Yiddish proverb that says if one man call up via donkey pay him no mind. But a two-man call up via donkey. Get thee a saddle. And one of the things that we need to be liberated from is the realization that we're not donkeys.

We're the Kings kids our value grows out of the value that God has attached to us and he says he's committed to us as He's committed to the Sparrows because of the great value that we have in the pilgrimage toward wholeness is a pilgrimage that begins by treating God according to his true value and Then treating ourselves according to our true value.

Ephesians 4 and the Transformation of Community

The third phase of the process is treating others according To their true value and I'd like to look at this process for just a few minutes as explained to us in Ephesians chapter 4. And here we'll see a behavior change model.

We'll see the mechanism the Theory the philosophy the essential ingredients of kissing frogs. Now all of us are waiting on a lily pad. Aren't we for someone to come along and kiss us warts and all. And move us on toward beauty.

And then I want us to look at the mechanics of it. We'll look at the mechanism in Ephesians chapter 4 and then we're going to look at the mechanics or the practice of Doing this from 1st John chapter 4.

Now if you remember the argument of the book of Ephesians in the first three chapters Paul presents the incredible truths of redemption reconciliation and then the revelation of the church and Having finished his theological Section as he does in many of his epistles, then he moves to the practical implications of that theology.

Remember Romans follows the same pattern chapters 1 through 11 and then chapters 12. I beseech you therefore On the basis of God's mercy that you present your bodies a living sacrifice and immediately we start talking about the body of Christ.

Because it's in the body of Christ this Transforming community that the theology of the first part of these books becomes operational in our experience. Same thing in Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1 begins.

I therefore the prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ beseech you that you walk in a manner Worthy of the calling with which you've been called. Then he goes and talks about all the unities. There's one Lord one faith one baptism one God and father of us all who's in us all through us all and so forth.

And then he drops down and he reminds us of Christ's Incarnational ministry how that he he descended to this earth. He entered into conflict with a foes of our soul. And he ascended victorious. And it's a picture of a Roman military conqueror coming back from battle victorious with all the booty.

He sacked the cities and he's robbed the treasuries and the museums and everything else. He gets his buddies all around. He gives all the goodies away. And the text there says in the Lord gave gifts. He gave some apostles some prophets some evangelists some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the Saints for their work of ministry.

And he goes on to tell us why so we no longer be children tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine but He goes on speaking the truth in love. We will grow up in all aspects into him who is the head.

Now I want to take that little phrase speaking the truth in love. We will grow. I think that is probably the most significant statement of the philosophy of how God changes the life of anything in Scripture.

Three things it's talking about. The first is intent and if you and I are going to be effective in a Ministry of multiplication our intent must always be the growth of the individual. That we're relating with relating with into.

The second is content truth. Truth is the tool the only tool Basically that moves us on toward maturity. Maturity is always a return to the truth about ourselves truth that sets us free. So the individual who is going to be effective in Multiplying his gifts and seeing one become a thousand the individual knows truth.

The individual whose life is grounded in truth the individual whose life is True. But truth alone is not enough for growth because truth has a soil In which it takes root and produces growth and if that soil is not there truth produces bitterness.

So we have intent that's growth. We have content. That's truth, but we also have context. That's love. It's not just speaking the truth. Truth without love is brutality. In love without truth as mushy sentimentality and this passage is telling me that long before I've earned the right to say anything.

That is communicate content. I have to carefully build the context truth. Or excuse me love the context of love. Because love greatly influences the impact of truth. It's even come to me. You see always I don't like the way you talk.

I don't like the fact you wore a tie. I don't like the way you comb your hair well. You deliver me a verbal message. That's 7 of effective communication. 38 is tone of voice. 55 is totally nonverbal.

And if I get the message from you from your tone of voice and your nonverbal communication, you don't give a rip about me. What you say may be true. But the chances of it contribute contributing to my growth go way down, you know the ultimate test of love if I claim to be a lover and I used to think I was when I was a teenager.

My model was Russian mushroom crush and flush them and that's what I did. Well, then I got married and volunteer. I discovered I didn't know anything about love. Didn't know anything. I Discovered the marriage license is just a learner's permit.

I Discovered that everything in one person nobody's got someone has said that marriage is. Begins with a prince kissing an angel and ends with a bald-headed man looking across the table of fat lady. Back to Plato said by all means marry you find a good wife twice blessed.

You'll be if not you become a philosopher. Lord Chastberry said that if the Pope had been married He would have never come up with such a ridiculous doctrine as papal infallibility. I Think that shows a lot of wisdom a lot of insight.

But marriage begins like a tree with blossom on it and if fruit is going to come the blossoms have to disappear. Can't have it both ways, yeah. The evidence that I as a husband I'm loving my wife is Her growth.

The purpose of love is always to call forth beauty. Ephesians chapter 5. Jesus Christ loved the church and he gave himself for it. Why so he could present it to himself not having spot or wrinkle or blemish?

And one of the great missions that you and I have is to be about the business of building beauty into the lives of those people. That God intersects us. That's what gross growth is all about and as our lives intersect with the lives of other people We need to be contributing To their growth.

You know the tool That contributes towards spiritual and emotional growth is true. It's truth that literates. Now this is not this sword cuts both ways to know and not to do. It's not to know at all. And long before you and I start communicating truth verbally.

We got to be living it. Children have a tremendous ability don't they to close their ears to advice and open their eyes to example. Practice doesn't make perfect it makes permanent and friend. If you want those kids to bleed you've got to hemorrhage.

And Howard Ennard used to tell us all the time in class and quit praying that God will change your husband or your wife is nothing I happen. Start praying to God will change you. Miracles will take place.

Truth, Love, and the Context of Evangelism

Yeah. When we think about dealing with truth, we have to recognize that we are the message. God's strategy of communication involves the incarnation of the truth of his character in Your life and my life and we are to display his character the universals of it through the particulars of our everyday living.

His strategy for evangelism is not a mouth that moves on cue. Life we're called shining stars. We're called good seed. It's a Greek word coloss beautiful. Beautiful seed sown out in the world. We're called living epistles.

Evangelism is allowing the non-christian to turn the pages of the book of our lives and read the fine print. We're called a shining star. We're called a fragment aroma all of them telling us that we are the message.

How important it is to realize that as you and I get involved in changing other people's lives. We've got to be. What we're teaching that yeah. There's a statement that race Deadman has made famous and that is the maturity is always a return to reality about yourself.

Want to be mature? You need to welcome feedback. One of the marks of a mature individual is openness to feedback. When I became pastor of Mariner's Church. First board meeting I met with my men and said gentlemen I'd like you six months from now to meet in a private session to evaluate my marriage my family my preaching my teaching anything and everything.

Because I want to be a growing person. I'm not content. To live with blind spots that go on and on and on for years and years and years and turn off people toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Because people aren't going to receive Christ through me if they won't receive me, you know I was the wisest thing I ever did and I can't take any credit for it.

You know, I wish that's smart enough. No, it's gonna happen. And I tell you I went away from some of those sessions bloody and I went away thanking God that they only saw the tip of the iceberg. That's right.

In fact, I remember I Had two or three groups of men I met with every week and it's one group I was coming here to the Glen to speak brought my wife with me and They said well Joe, we held each other accountable a whole lot of areas and so well, what's your biggest prayer requests?

Well, just pray, you know, the Lord will bless me here as I speak at the Glen. What kind of problems do you anticipate. I mentioned a few. I said well. One of them is I get involved in speaking and when my wife is there I kind of become public property.

So I tend to ignore her and I don't spend enough time with her and so forth and they said well I said I really like you pray about that, but I'll spend more time and they said well. We'd be happy to do that.

But how much time you and spend and tend to spend with her? So well, how about a couple hours a day? Great, I Got five telephone calls from Southern California from these men while I was here teaching that week.

And they said well Joe our things go. I'll seem to be going pretty good people responsive, you know and everything else. Well, that's great. But that's not what we're calling for. Are you spending time with your wife?

Wowie, you know every one of us needs that kind of a relationship. You ever stop to think of the fact that if the Spirit of God had 10 ,000 years to conform you to Christ before he went home to glory that you would not be out of the starting blocks.

If that truth will ever grip your heart, you'll never be the same you see. Someday we're gonna wake and be like him. But you and I will never come close to that in this life. He is perfect in every dimension.

Perfect in holiness perfect in compassion perfect in understanding. And Frank. We're never going to be close to that in this lifetime ever stop to think to just parenthetically that the more you walk with the Lord the more corrupt you should feel and That if you don't you're not growing in the grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I Didn't say you are more corrupt. See when most of us come to know the Lord we think all we need is a little spiritual deodorant and choir robe and ready for glory. And we read a verse like what is it Jeremiah 17 9 or whatever it is.

The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Yeah, that's Hitler. That's Mussolini. You know, that's all these guys. But you know as you and I come to understand more and more the holiness of God.

We realize the boy when the Bible says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately we it's talking about your heart and mine and it's amazing thing to me to see two men of the stature of an Isaiah in a John who are finally given a glimpse of the holiness of God and both of them find themselves flat on their faces.

Crying out. Whoa is me. I'm undone. I'm a man of unclean lips and I live among the people of unclean lips. But nobody's telling us we ought to feel more corrupt. So we do feel more corrupt and as a result we try and hide more and we flee rather than recognize hey, you're just beginning to appreciate grace a little bit more and Beginning to understand.

Hey, it's by grace alone. The worse a lot of work. There are no works That merit the attention of an infinite. Yeah. Got to be open to feedback. The other area mature person needs to be open is to self-disclosure.

See there parts of you that you know about that others don't. Now not everybody needs to know everything but you need to have some people around you that you can share some of those Innermost longings with because you know everything inside isn't bad.

It's not a question sharing a whole lot of dirty laundry. But there's very little growth without accountability. When I left Mariner's Church, we had a couple hundred groups of men meeting every week.

And they did three things. They shared the word and prayer together they shared Their schedules together their business and professional schedules. We wanted them very much to understand that God was just as interested in their contract negotiation that Thursday afternoon.

As he was whatever happened Sunday morning in the Sunday school, and they shared how they were doing in their marriages and families. And a man's number one fear is the fear of failure. And we've bought the line that to be macho means we bite a bullet right off into the sunset alone when we're hurting.

But friend that's not biblical and if you want to be a frog kisser. That's gonna really smack. There has to be a vulnerability and an authenticity there that invites people To come into your presence and to seek help.

Because they realize here's somebody who's in process to what I said. That's an important important step in all of our lives and I trust we can all grow in that dimension. Truth we got to not only be it.

We got to know it and communicate. But in the process we have to be continually building that context of love. Research shows that for every time a parent says hey you did super 15 times he puts that kid down 15.

He becomes. What he sees reflected in the faces of his parents now. I was raised in a home nine kids and Occasionally a family would be brave enough to invite us all over for dinner. But my mother was a real believer in praise.

She knew that the reinforced response returns. You tell a kid not to pick his nose. What's he gonna do? I'm gonna pick his nose and You and I determine what we will report reinforce and we're either always reinforcing the negative.

Or we're reinforcing positive and if you reinforce the positive the negative comes up less. Less and I can remember mother on occasions. We get in our old worn-out Cadillac funeral hearse. That was the only thing we could all fit in and we go charging off to somebody's house.

And she'd say, you know, it's so neat to be able to go out to dinner with you kids. And one of the things that was gonna make it a neat experience is the fact that when you get in that house You're not gonna tear around tear it all apart.

You're not gonna be ripping the bedrooms up and breaking toys and so forth and we did sometimes but most of the time. We didn't know when we didn't on the way home. She said, you know Dad and I are sure fortunate kids like you.

It was just a delight To be able to be out that evening and know that your kids didn't totally crater the house. You know every one of us thought we were the most we went around talked about this is I always thought I was mother's favorite.

I Find out all my brothers and sisters thought the same thing, you know. And let me illustrate how it works in terms of my own life and excuse me for using my own experience. But I one of you wants to share your own tell me and I'll use it the next meeting.

Parenting Through Affirmation and Loving Discipline

To illustrate I chatted with my darling little nine-year-old daughter on the phone last night. And I and she said daddy what you doing? And I usually answer this way said Kristen I'm talking to the most wonderful girl in the world.

Oh, I know that dad. But what are you doing? I said well, I'm just about to go into a meeting and I'm gonna tell him about you. What are you gonna tell him? What do you think she knows she said you're gonna tell him I'm gonna grow up be a lady.

Aren't you that's right. That's exactly what I'm gonna tell. I was driving home from the beach from our little beach cabin with my daughter just my daughter and myself here about a week ago and Haven't had a chance the joy the fun of sharing the facts of life with her and I feel a dad should do that for his daughter.

And so we got talking about a neat couple who just adopted a baby. And one thing led to another I said Kristen. Do you understand where babies come from all that kind of stuff? No, I you know, I really don't.

I said let me tell you about this. It's the most wonderful thing and we would just serendipity a whole time. I mean magic moment. And after we got finished discussing this whole thing about marriage and intercourse and all of these kind of things I said to her I said, you know, uncle John's just got a brand new baby girl.

He doesn't know how to be a daddy and I want you to sit down with him one of these days. And I want you to tell him what he needs to do to raise up that little girl. What would you tell this man Kristen or what would you call tell uncle John right away?

First of all uncle John you got to tell her she's gonna grow up to be a lady nine years old. Second you got to tell her every day. She's special. That's right got to do that. Third you got to tell him to spank her buns.

Well, I have never Never given my daughter spanking. But I spank her buttons all the time daddies will understand that little girlies have the cutest little buns. It just ever existed and. But my little guy was about 18 months old.

We used to go through a litany every night and I'd say Steven. Let's talk about all the people that love you that think you're special. We go through this list. Mama yeah mama. She thinks you're neat dad.

Yeah, he thinks you're the fourth member of the Trinity Grandpa. Yeah, he think you he thinks you hung the moon and we just go through this list. Go through it go through it. When I put my little daughter to bed I still do it.

I put her to bed both the kids and I'm home. But I I don't always do this. When I used to do it regularly. I'd go in I put my hand under our under her head and say Christie. No, it excites me about you.

She'd say no dad. She knew what I was gonna say, but she says no dad what I Said Christian, you're gonna grow up be a lady. Not every little girl grows up to be a lady, but you're going to. And you know the exciting thing every time I see her doing something that a little lady does it I want to tell you she is a little lady.

She is a little lady. I'm so high. I'm hiring a kite about that little gal and every time I see her do something I I can enthusiast in case you can't tell I think Kristen you did it again. You get me so excited.

Said it just proves you're going up to be elected. She calls me almost every day at work secretary knows put her through whoever's there to make a difference and we just jab her on and. Well, usually when she does it dad what you doing?

No, don't say it. Cuz he knows him say Kristen I'm talking to the neatest girl in the world and I want to tell you she is one of the most Loving one of the most giving girls and we talk a lot about beauty talk about it all the time.

And I probably asked her a hundred times Kristen. What is a beautiful lady? What makes her beautiful? She's learning how to give. She's learning how to be kind. She's learning how to be thoughtful. Yeah.

And then one little refrain that I keep signaling my kids with all the time too is you know kids. We love you, even when your boots and that message has to be conveyed. Otherwise, they'll think you only love them when they're when they're special or when they're doing good and you know, I was raised in a home or I was the black sheep and Every time the car would pull in the garage.

I just had a Pavlovian response. I'd go right down the basement stairs because I knew that's where I was gonna end up. And I don't know how many. Hundreds, this is not ministerially speaking. This is true.

I don't know how many hundreds of spankings that I had as a kid. And I rise up and call my father blessed for that. My father is the most balanced Mature man I have ever met in my life. I've never seen anyone come close.

But I have not spanked my little boy in all of his life. Though I'm a firm believer in it. I've been trying to count it up. I think three times maybe four. Those kids want to please. Now I need to say.

They have the capability of kicking everything over and I'm well aware of that five years from now I'll know a lot less about raising children than I do right now. But I had the fortunate experience of being raised in a very balanced home.

And I want to tell you when you start building that Context it's sure a whole lot easier to introduce content into it. You see the key to discipline is not beating that little kids rear end until it glows.

That'll just produce bitterness or it may. The thing that makes discipline effective is that child realizing that he did he has disappointed someone that loves him. But if he doesn't know he's loved you don't have the right to discipline so here's a little model.

Speaking the truth in love. We're gonna grow. Now let's look at this in terms of evangelism. Long before you've earned the right to verbalize the message that is communicate the content you have the responsibility to build the context.

Remember that song don't tell me what a friend I have in Jesus till you show me what a friend I have in you. People have an incredible of it. You know, people don't care what you know. Until they know that you care.

So if you and I move out into our neighborhoods and part of the explosion of our lives and the Multiplication of our lives is going to be marking men and women for Jesus Christ. You don't know Christ.

We'll talk a little bit about that tomorrow you need to build that context. Before you introduce content and that's what's really saying in Ephesians 317 speaking the truth. Excuse me that God has planted us in the soil of his love that were rooted and grounded in the soil of his love.

So we can grow now. Let me make one other comment here. Love is The filter for the communication of altar. That's what this passage is saying. Love is the filter. For the communication of truth now filter lets certain things through and keeps certain things from getting Through.

Love as the Filter for Truth

Now, you really want to get convicted. Turn with me for just a moment to 1st Corinthians chapter 13. This is where the rubber hits the pavement. This passage begins in verse 4 saying that love is patient.

Now if I'm to speak the truth in love and if my objective is to contribute to the growth of that individual then I've got to put the patient filter up and If what I want to communicate is liable to come from a state of impatience.

It won't contribute to growth. Love immediately stands up says wait a minute, you know, you can communicate the truth. But if you're genuinely interested in the growth of the individual that you're going to communicate it to and you're totally impatient just forget it.

Love is kind boy. I think how much communication we'd eliminate if we just put that filter up. Love doesn't envy doesn't boast it isn't proud. Why if I want to contribute to your growth? Hey, I Can't come across as a proud cocky Fanny rooster.

No, when I package truth with a genuine humility, it has explosive power. Look at the next one. Love is not rude. Want to contribute to the growth of your wife. Stick that filter in front of everything you say.

Be a lot of silence around some of our homes winner. Love isn't rude. And if I'm gonna speak the truth communicate content that is going to have soil to grow in. I've got to eliminate rudeness. Not self-seeking.

Well, I think how much we'd eliminate if we could really run everything we say through that test. Love is not easily angered. And It's next one is I wish the Lord hadn't put it in there. Love keeps no record of past wrongs.

I had an experience in my on in my office and this is honest to God truth. I Had a lady come in my office dragging this little moth Eaten looking male species in behind her by the ear. Almost literally threw him in a chair slapped this great big packet on my desk and you know almost, you know.

Dared me to the challenger and I saw ma 'am. What's this all about? She said That's that's a record. I saw a record a record of what everything he's done for the last 18 years. I Thought she was kidding.

So I made some inane comment and you know, she shared to me a piece of her mind. She could ill afford to lose. And she was serious. She had a record of everything that poor soul had done in the last 18 years.

At any time he'd open his mouth and protest against something she'd done man. This thing was, you know, like a Scofield Bible about 20 years. I the edges were all brown. She knew the chapter in the verse of every single thing he'd ever done.

So I turned to a first Corinthians 13. I said, let me just read you some verses here and I praises and I read the first Couple ones. Yeah. Yeah, he's rude all the time. You know, he's doing this and that I can't his one keeps no record of past wrongs.