Typical Problems: General Principles of Communication Part 2

Ephesians 4 and the Four Rules of Communication

We're going to be continuing the four rules of communication from Ephesians 4 and then we're going to talk about four more rules. And then we're going to talk about a way to apply those things. So we have a lot of ground to cover today and I'm going to see how far we can get in our objective here.

But if you do have a Bible, turn to Ephesians 4 and we're going to read Ephesians 4, 25 through 32 and then we'll get started. Ephesians 4, 25. Therefore having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.

Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as good for building up, as it fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God and Christ forgave you. So last week we began talking about four rules of communication in this passage.

We talked about speaking the truth. Does anyone remember anything we said as it related to that? I'm going to quiz you. Or any thoughts? Any thoughts about anything we talked about last week? So we talked about speaking the truth.

Okay.

Right?

Sure. So like a falsehood, right? A falsehood.

Right.

Yeah.

So we talked about different things that go into speaking the truth. So speaking the truth, there are different genres of communication. That's part of what we talked about. So last week we basically said that generalizations are true statements about the way the world generally works, and that's a genre of communication.

It's not a lie. You live in a society that thinks that you disprove generalizations by pointing to extreme counterexamples, right? So to speak the truth is not to reject the ability to generalize. If I say a statement that's true 95 of the time, that's useful, right?

That's useful.

It helps us understand the way the world generally works. When you're in a situation in the moment, you don't really have the luxury to think in terms of rare exceptions most of the time, like there's time constraints, and so trying to think about the way the world generally works, like it's unsafe to walk out at night in certain areas.

That would be a generalization. It may be perfectly safe one time, right? You may have walked one time and nothing happened to you, but generally speaking, statistics are not in your favor, right? So we talked about generalizations, talked about half-truths, like is it ever okay to.

Lie?

We said no, it's never okay to lie, but then there are forms of deception in the Bible, and that may not be the best word, but I think you understand what we're talking about. There are forms of deception that are used in general, so not all forms of deception are necessarily wrong.

But any other thoughts related to speaking the truth in general, right?

So not everyone deserves to know every true thing, right? If I were to walk up to you and demand your Social Security number and your bank account information, and you would say, well, you don't have a right to that, do you?

Right?

I mean, is it true?

Yeah.

But just because you want the information doesn't mean you deserve it, right? It doesn't mean you have a right to it, and it doesn't mean that I have a, you have a responsibility to answer everything that someone says, particularly if there's an evil person who's going to use the truth to do evil things.

They don't necessarily need access to the truth. There may be situations where you know you're going to go into a situation with an evil person who's going to use the truth to do evil, just like we talk about Samuel and Saul.

You know that they're going to use the truth. They're going to demand you give them information. It may be helpful to go into those situations knowing that, making allowance for that so that you can answer truthfully while at the same time not giving them the information that they're demanding that they're going to do something evil with.

That would be an example that we talked about last week. But yeah, if you have any thoughts on that, go ahead and feel free to raise your hand and we'll interact with them, but that's just a brief refresher.

Keeping Current in Anger and Conflict

Second part here is keep current, so be angry. This is Ephesians 4, 26. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger and give no opportunity to the devil. So there's a lot of discussion about this one.

Much ink has been spilled trying to figure out what is being communicated here. So is this a command to be angry? So is this a command to be angry? Should you translate it in more of a passive sense of in your anger, do not sin?

So many interpreters have proposed that. So you look at that and they've proposed that it should better be translated in your anger, don't give in to further sin or something like that.

Right.

Is there ever a time for righteous anger? That is a part of this discussion that we should think about and we should talk about. Like what place does anger serve in the Christian life in general? And then the principle we're going to be talking about is the principle of keeping current, but you obviously have to understand what place anger has in all this in general.

So good way to think about anger. I mean, I think I've been taught, particularly in the biblical counseling world, that almost all anger is probably sinful. And I generally think that that's probably right.

Okay, so I mean, I think most of the time when we're angry, it is fairly self-focused. Okay, so it's fairly self-focused. It's not directed towards the proper ends. So I think it's true that most of our anger is probably not righteous.

But at the same time, I think that there are certainly times and places where we should be angry. And in fact, there are times and places where we probably should be more angry than what we are. Okay, so it's not, for example, it's not a virtue to tolerate false teaching in a church indefinitely and have no emotional whole person reaction to that at all, right?

I think a lot of the, like a major failing of the church today is that we're not angry enough about the right things. And we're mostly, we were like way too angry about the wrong things, okay? So a simple way to think about what anger is, anger is a whole person moral response to perceived evil.

That's a definition that you can get you somewhere in the right vicinity of what we're even talking about. So a whole person moral response to perceived evil. James gives us a lot of insight about the nature of anger and the difference between like what you might describe as a righteous form of anger and an unrighteous form of anger.

So if you think about what's happening in James 4, James says, what causes quarrels and fights among you? Is it not that your desires for pleasure which wage war against your members, right? So I often, you know, you look at the Bible and you say, hey, I wish you would address topics very specifically a little bit more than what it does.

And that's not that, no, none of us should be obviously discontent with the way that God has chosen to reveal himself. But then sometimes it can be a little bit hard to find the answers. But that would be a passage where James really does speak very directly about a very common problem.

So what causes quarrels and fights among us? Is it not your desires for pleasures which are waging war on your members? He says, you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and you don't receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

Like the issue is that when you're angry, you should always think, what do I want in this moment that I'm not getting? That should be your question. So if you're having a fight, you should be thinking, what do I want that I'm not getting?

And typically, if you want to distinguish simple anger versus righteous anger, the want is normally very self-focused, right? So it's a very self-focused one. So righteous anger says God's kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Sinful anger says, my kingdom come, my will be done on earth as it is in heaven, or on heaven as it is on earth, right? So like the issue is that when you're angry, you have these desires that are fighting, right?

So everyone in your heart, heart's just a word that means the inner man. In your heart, you have a battleground of desires and the strongest desire is going to win. So, you know, most people, they assume that their motives are all great and pure and wonderful and everything else.

But like the issue is you have competing desires in your heart. So the old man is wrestling against the new man and whatever's strongest is going to come out. And so most of the time when we're angry, it's more about your kingdom being violated, right?

It's more about like you have a demand. I want what I want when I want it. I want you to treat me a certain way. And this comes out when you're fighting with people, right? I don't deserve to be treated that way.

How dare do you talk to me like that? I don't feel like you appreciate me, right? That, you know, and then you do it in the victim language too. So we'll say like that really hurt my feelings and I can't believe that you didn't remember this or that or whatever else, right?

So we have a lot of different ways of expressing. I have a desire that you have violated and now I'm going to punish you, right? So we punish people in different ways. We'll either punish them in a loud, angry way or in a quiet, I'm going to withhold affection kind of way.

So there's what you might describe as loud anger and then there's quiet anger, right? So there's like, I'm going to scream and yell and holler at you because I don't deserve this kind of anger. And then there's like, don't touch me.

I'm not going to talk to you. I'm just going to sit here and look like I'm mad at you. And then I'm probably going to pretend like I'm not when you point it out, right? Pretend like nothing's wrong. And so I'm sure that many of us have had plenty of those kind of conversations too.

So the issue is that there is a type of anger that's righteous. I think most often because we're sinners, our anger probably isn't righteous. It probably isn't motivated in the right kind of way. But then our motivations are pretty complicated, right?

So when you think about a lot of the things in which you're, like, just try to think about like during the week, things that you got angry about. And then one of the things you might realize is that because we're not just simple human beings with, you know, a singular motive in every one of those things, there might've been a mixture of priorities, some of which were priorities that honor the Lord, right?

And then there's probably a lot of priorities and, you know, motivations in the midst of that that didn't honor the Lord. And as I think about most of the situations I've been in my life, there's a good mixture and it's often pretty difficult to know which is more motivating me, right?

I desire for God's glory and the sanctification of other people who are just like selfish, sinful. I'm sick of it. I'm done with it. I don't want to deal with it anymore. I'm tired of this. I don't deserve this.

You hurt me, you know, all that kind of selfish entitlement kind of things. And I would say that in most situations when you're having an argument or most situations when you're having a fight, it's probably a good mixture of both.

And it may not even be entirely clear what your motives are. So, you know, this is something that Paul says about himself routinely. I'm thinking in particular of his communication with the Corinthians.

You have these super apostles who are looking at him and basically saying that they're casting aspersions on his motives or whatever. And he essentially responds to them by saying, hey, I know nothing.

Like I have the testimony of a clean conscience. That's what I have. I can look at you and say I have a testimony of a clean conscience, but in this I'm not justified, right? Because I'm like, I don't have all the information.

I'm biased in my own respect. And so I'm going to leave it to God who judges the secrets of men's hearts, according to my gospel. So one day God's going to step in and like when we see him, all of our motives are going to be revealed with perfect clarity and whatever, you know, good percentages and bad percentages.

But the issue is just to say that we're complicated. It's often not that in any encounter, it's like this is 100 righteous anger or this is 100 sinful anger. But I mean, you know, it may be pretty clear that this is maybe 80 sinful anger and 20 righteous anger, the kind of thing or, you know, it may be the opposite way.

It's 80 righteous anger with a little bit of sinful anger in there. And so we ought to, whenever we are angry, do some basic self-reflection and ask, what do I want right now that I'm not getting? That's a good question you can ask.

So when you're mad, what do I want when I'm not getting? If the answer is something self-focused and self-centered, if that's the first thing that comes out, then that's probably an indication that you could ask forgiveness in that moment, if that makes sense.

Any thoughts about any of that? Talk about anger a little bit. We're going to talk about the overarching premise of keeping current, but any thoughts, questions related to that? Yeah, so I think a major failing of the church is that we're probably not angry enough about false teaching.

You know, Jesus has some pretty strong words to say about false teaching in the Bible. He doesn't seem to tolerate it. He definitely doesn't tolerate it indefinitely. You can look at his letters to the seven churches in Revelation.

You'll see that he's not tolerating it indefinitely. In almost every one of the letters, I mean, there's seven letters to seven churches. I think there's two that don't have any condemnation, but five of them have condemnations.

And he basically says, be zealous and repent, or I'm going to come at you with the sword in my mouth, right? And so he uses some pretty strong language, some strong rebukes. There's certainly part of the Christian life where you need to rebuke sin, error.

Yes, sure.

Yeah, sure. So I think there's some simple... As you read through the New Testament, one of the things you'll see is that... I think Conley might express this a little bit different than me, so I'll let you fuss at me later if I don't do that.

But I think there's some pretty clear passages that help you make those distinctions. So theologians often talk about these things in terms of the language of primary issues, secondary issues, and tertiary issues.

Primary issues are issues that center around the gospel in general. So Paul will say to the Galatians that, you know, if me or an angel from heaven were to bring a gospel different to the one that I've taught, right, let that person be anathema.

When you're messing around with... I just did a Southernism. When you're messing around with the gospel, there's some pretty strong words that people are given in the Bible, right? So that gives you an indication you're in primary issue kind of territory, meaning, like, this is...

You're dealing with a false teacher, right, in that way. So, I mean, there's false teaching and false teaching, and that's kind of what you're asking about. So anytime I say something wrong, in one sense, that's false, and it's teaching.

But it's not false teaching in the sense of I'm a heretic, right? So primary issues are that. Secondary issues are issues that are generally pretty close. Like, they have a few connection points to the central matters of the faith, but they may not be issues to completely cast someone into, like, a fire over, essentially, right?

Now, when I say that, a major error that people have is they think secondary means not important. But that's not true. Secondary issues are very important. They're very important, but you may not consign someone to, like, a fire over a difference of that opinion.

I mean, I wouldn't want to say that all Presbyterians are lost, right? So I would say that I think baptism would be a secondary issue. So I wouldn't want to say that they're damned to hell, but I think it's a very important issue, and it's hard to imagine fellowship in a local church with that as a major point of disagreement.

You know, you may, like, if you're, like, as a Baptist, you may be at a certain part, certain area where there's no Baptist churches, and you may attend a Presbyterian church because they're the best you got, right?

I mean, at the same time, you'd ask them to make certain exceptions and allowances for you and see if they would, you know? But that, I'm just, you know, I wouldn't consider all Presbyterians lost, you know, in that way, just because we have a disagreement over baptism.

But that'd be a primary issue, a secondary issue. Tertiary is way, again, it doesn't mean unimportant, right? And people, what's really frustrating about tertiary issues is that people think if you put it in a tertiary, put the label tertiary on it, then that means you're not free to even discuss it, right?

Like, off limits. And if you talk about it, you're being divisive, right? And it's like, well, no. I mean, there's things that are central to the gospel. There are things that are closely tied to it, but not, you know, it.

And then there are things that are further out, right, that are more debatable. But I think we should talk about those things, too. We're just talking about them in a different way. Manuel, you had a question?

I don't know that, yeah, I mean, I don't know that every Presbyterian church would deny access to that. But yeah, we're the ones who won't accept them in general. But yeah, I think that's a priority. I'm just saying that if I can, there's plenty of situations where I know a Baptist to have tried to go to a Presbyterian church because their Baptist options are pretty horrendous, you know.

So they're just doing the best they can at that point.

So, yep, yep, right. And that's a secondary issue. But like, when we're talking about the utility of being able to share the Lord's Suffering together, do evangelism together, you know, it's going to be different beliefs are going to matter in a primary way versus a secondary way.

The other thing is like, Paul, you look at, it almost matters how something is affirmed more than it matters what is being affirmed, right? So you look at Paul with the resurrection, and in 1 Corinthians 15, he's like, really, you know, gracious and patient.

Their misunderstandings, and other times, it's like, cut them off, they're getting green. So there's like, so there's, it has to do with how close it is to the gospel, but then the way that someone means what they're saying.

Also implies how much they're caring about the gospel.

I think, so the third thing that came to mind, too, was the, even with secondary stuff, I get pretty angry. And I think this is righteous anger. You can tell me if not. If it's something that's being imported from the world, I'm sensing motivations of compromise.

Like last week, in the sermon, you were talking, you gave some quote from some complimentary authors who are acknowledging differences between men and women in roles, but then undermining foundations in a way that's really trying to placate people.

And that's something where, like on one hand, I'd say, oh man, these guys are so close to us, it's very secondary, but I hear that, and I'm like, man, there's something real devious that's happening here.

The Trojan horse?

Yeah, yeah, where the, I guess, where the battle regice, the soldier's medal is tested or whatever kind of thing. So yeah, I think that's part of what I'm trying to say with how people naturally understand that language.

They understand secondary, and they think unimportant. And then they understand tertiary, and they think off limits. And so I think whatever you call the categories, there is some category of you're a heretic.

If you deny X, right? And then there's some, I mean, there are categories of things where I don't think you're formally a heretic if you have a difference of opinion. I still think you're wrong, you know, so a lot of people will treat secondary issues as if you can't be confident on them, you can't be, you can't contend earnestly for them, and that's kind of what you're talking about.

And then tertiary, you can't even talk about, you know, that you can't even talk about because it's so not important. It's like, well, no, I think those are useful categories in some way, but you need to understand that all those things are not off limits for discussion, and then they could show up in pretty significant ways.

And part of, yeah, that's part of what you're saying, and I agree, yep. So keep current, so be angry, do not sin. I think that's like, yeah, there are times where you're righteously angry, and you don't want, but that, because we're sinful human beings, that could quickly lead us, even righteous anger can quickly lead us into a lot of different sins.

So there may be times to be righteously angry, but then don't let that lead you into sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. Give no opportunity to the devil, so keep current. This means, like, deal with today's problems today.

Don't let the sun go down on your anger. I don't know that this is intending to communicate an exceptionless absolute, in other words, it's 1 .30 in the morning, and you and your wife haven't resolved it yet, and you're gonna talk it through, you know, for the next five hours in a sleep-deprived state until you get to the other side of it and everything else.

I don't know that that's what it's saying, but, I mean, I think that there are ways to reconcile quickly, even if there's more to be said, right? So there's ways to just quickly say, hey, it's one o 'clock, we need to sleep.

I'm gonna think about this, I'm gonna pray about this, and I'd like to talk about it again and see if we can gain more clarity about it, but love you, care about you, and be praying for me. Let's go ahead and just pray real quick and ask God to soften our hearts towards all the areas that we might be contributing to the conflict that we're having, and let's go to bed and deal with it, see if we can gain more clarity tomorrow and give it a little bit of time.

So I think that would be a faithful mechanism of dealing with something that you're not finding a resolution, but, I mean, most of us are probably not dealing with it at all, okay? I mean, it's very common.

I mean, it's very, very common, particularly in Christian circles, to have a fight, and then one spouse will just go and sleep in the other room because they don't wanna deal with it. I mean, it's very common.

I mean, for guys, I mean, unfortunately, it's very common for guys to joke around about, well, I guess I'm gonna be sleeping on the couch tonight, to which I'd say, what is wrong with you? If your wife wants to go to bed unreconciled, she's gonna sleep on the couch, not you, right?

Like, what are you doing? Like, meaning I don't think she should be, no one should be sleeping on the couch. You should go to bed reconciled. But just, like, passively accepting that, like, you're gonna, like a whipped dog, gonna go sleep in the corner or something because your wife is mad at you.

I mean, you've been totally emasculated to that point, and if that's what you're doing, you need to stop. But the idea is, like, we need to deal with today's problems today. It says, be angry, do not sin, do not let the sun go down.

Your anger, give no opportunity to the devil. Both people in a relationship need to have a commitment to say, hey, we're gonna deal with it today. I mean, this is one of the most life-giving things that you can do in whatever relationship that you find yourself in.

Like, you're living in a time right now where people are so passive and so cowardly to the point where if there's conflict to be had, we basically just kind of run from it because it'd be awkward to deal with it.

I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've heard church members, like, just respond like that. Like, there's some kind of tension there and they don't want to deal with it because that would be awkward.

So they just, like, they just ignore it. And then all that's happening is they're letting a wall build up between this person and themself, right? And then every time they see them, they're trying to pretend like there's not an elephant in the room.

And there is an elephant in the room and they're just not dealing with it. Like, we need to, as a church, just learn basic conflict resolution skills. And if you start, I mean, if you start out your marriage, if you're talking about marriage, you start out your marriage learning basic conflict resolution skills.

Like, you're not just letting things pile up, right? I mean, you can imagine, like, if you were to just take plates full of food from dinner and put them on your counter and just every time you eat, have a half-eating bowl of food you're putting on the counter, pretty soon your house is going to stink, right?

And that's what happens when you don't deal with your problems. So when you just let them build up, like, it stinks. Everyone knows it's there. No one wants to deal with it. No one wants to have a simple conversation.

And it just gets, like, the smell gets worse and worse and worse and no one wants to be around each other anymore. And then, you know, if you're married, when the kids get out of the house, then you're like, hey, yeah, I don't even know you anymore, right?

We've let so many things go on for so long. I have so much bitterness and anger built up towards you that I don't even like you anymore, right? And I don't know what we're doing. So you have something?

Okay, that's fine. Keep current, though. I mean, in general, deal with today's problems today. I mean, this is like a really life-giving thing that you can do for any relationship that you're in, is not just sit on it, just deal with it, deal with it quickly.

But any thoughts or questions about that?

Yes, yes, sir. What's that?

Yeah, the text says, don't let the sun go down on your anger. You give no opportunity to the devil. So in general, I think, deal with today's problems today. You know, if it possible, as much as lies within you, live at peace with all people.

Deal with today's problems today. The Bible is so committed to the principle of reconciliation that it says, like, I mean, God says, if you go to give your gift at the altar and you know your brother has something against you, you leave your gift at the altar and you first go and be reconciled with your brother.

So there's a, blessed are the peacemakers, right? The Bible doesn't say just sit on things, ignore them, pretend like they're not happening and hope that they'll go away. It's deal with them today.

Like, deal with today's problems today.

Yes, sir.

Outside of what? Brothers and sisters? Bitterness from the couple against people on the outside? So are you saying, like, okay, if it's a scenario, me and Elizabeth don't have conflict with each other, but then we have conflict with another couple or something?

One of us has. Yeah, so, Paul, I mean, in the past I'm talking about, like, if you know your brother has something against you, it's not talking about if you know your wife has something against you, it's just talking about a Christian brother or sister.

So I think as a church body, we do what we do in home, in our marriages, our primary relationships, we do that with our church body. So to the extent to which we're not practicing quick, quick reconciliation at home, what happens is you don't do that at church either.

So the church is just a reflection of what's happening in the homes, essentially. So when you see a person, like, in the church who,.

Here's what happens in churches.

What happens in churches is someone gets upset about something and they don't want to talk about it because they have no practice or experience talking about anything at all. So if they finally get the courage to talk to you about it, what then they do, what generally they do at that point is they just kind of unload on you all the list of wrongdoings that they have piled up over the course of, so they have a record of wrongdoings they've piled up, they finally talk to you about it, they unload upon you and it's like you need to, with the expectation that you do whatever they say at that point, right?

And then if you try to talk to them about it, they don't want to have, maybe some of this is misunderstandings, can we put this in a different way? At that point, they just leave, right? And so that's generally how churches work.

Because they haven't practiced at home learning to deal with small things, so they just, they practice at home, you just kind of ignore things. Then you have a big blow up moment, get it all off your chest and then you move on.

Does that make sense? So if, basically, if we're doing this in our homes, then it would be a very normal, natural thing to do this in the church.

Yeah, this is an imperative,.

I think, to deal with it quickly. Yeah, I mean, you may not be able to resolve everything. You may not be able to resolve everything. Um, that there is to resolve. So when you have like a bunch of problems that are entrenched in a certain situation that haven't really been dealt with as they should, then yeah, you may not be able to resolve it all in one sitting.

But you can say, hey, I love you, I care about you, I want to deal with this. And, um, but you can, you can gain kind of a posture of unity with the person, even if you haven't sorted it all out yet. So I think there is a, there is an imperative that Christians have to deal with this quickly, and even quicker than what we think, and like make time for it to deal with it.

Don't just let it go on and on, because the longer it goes on and on, you're going to give an opportunity to the devil, it says. And, you know, we do that pretty much. So yeah, I think there might, there might, I don't think it's an exceptionless absolute,.

As I was saying.

I think there might be situations where it's one o 'clock in the morning, and, you know. But I think as much as it's possible, just say, hey, I mean, I've had people text me and say, hey, man, I love you, I care about you.

I know that we need to deal with some issues we have. And I'm open and ready to do that. But I'm not like against you, or I'm not against you. We just, we need to talk about it. When's a good time to talk about it?

And that's just not letting the sun go down in your anger. It's just communicating a willingness.

To deal with something.

You may not completely fix at all. But I think that to the extent to which we can do that, we should.

Any other thoughts related to that?

Keep current. I'm supposed to go to 1030, right?

Okay.

Edify.

Principle number three. So speak the truth, keep current.

Edify.

It says, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth. But it's only such as good for building up as fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Edify.

So let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth. So edification is a concept that probably is misunderstood. Meaning, like when you read this, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth. But only such as good for building up as it fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear.

You probably think that there's just a one size fits all standard of communication that you should employ. In every situation, you should be nice. Like we're living in a society right now that is kind of a sycophantic society.

Like we demand that everyone praise us incessantly. Like so we're a very thin-skinned society.

In a lot of ways.

And the church too, like we're very thin-skinned. We're addicted to flattery as a society. I mean, just you look at the way that people talk and they demand that you praise them, right? Praise them, flatter them, tell them what they want to hear.

When most people come to counseling, they're coming to counseling wanting to be told that if they want you to like stroke their ego, they want you to basically agree with everything that they say in their interpretation of the situation.