BOLD: SPEAKING IN LOVE | SUNDAY 9TH AUGUST | PS AARON MORE

Gosh, I just wonder if we should have

just got Daniela to preach this morning.

E, like how good was uh that?

Awesome. Well, we are into uh week three

of a series that uh is called Bold and

uh the subtitle is about finding your

voice. And uh in Proverbs it tells us

that the righteous are as bold as a

lion. And uh we we we wanted to start

that foundationally that when we're

coming to boldness and finding your

voice, there are a lot of places in

society that would encourage us to find

our voice. You do you. Be the real you.

Just express who you really are. And so

we we we we're starting off by saying,

"Hey, no, scripture actually says the

righteous are as bold as a lion." So

we're not actually leaning into a

humanistic way of becoming bold, but we

are actually being invited in to our

identity as believers in Christ that we

are to be bold. And so we've been

talking, what does that look like in our

lives? And uh we've been looking into

this Greek word that is paracia. Can we

have that up on the screen? And so it

really means like an unreserved speech.

So regularly in the New Testament, this

word is translated bold. But really what

it's talking about is the ability to be

bold in the way we speak. And uh so

we've uh talked a bit of an introduction

the first week. The second week, we

talked about what it was like to be bold

in the place of prayer. And this

morning, we're going to look at what it

means to be bold in our relationships.

And what does it mean to have unreserved

speech or bold speech in our

relationships? Because I don't know

about you, but many times I struggle to

say the thing that I'm supposed to say,

but I'm really good at saying it in my

head an hour later, right? Like it's

like then they say this and I'll reply

with this and then they'll probably say

this and you know in my mind later I've

got the perfect words to say, but many

times in the moment I'm like, "Wow, I

don't I feel like my speech is

reserved." And I actually saw online uh

this week I saw there is a guy offering

a service. Now he can be quite crass so

please don't look it up but the service

online is called John breaks bad news

and you can go online and you can uh pay

John to phone someone and tell them the

bad news that you don't want to break to

them. And so uh you either do it uh in

your name or anonymously. And so, um,

you know, you might get a call from John

and he says, "Hey, it's John from John

Breaks Bad News Here. Uh, someone just

wanted to let you know that you're not

very good at your job." It's like

absolutely horrific. So that's not the

kind of uh finding your voice that we're

talking about in church. But the reality

is a service like that actually exists

in our world because generally so many

of us actually struggle to say the

things that we are needing to say in a

moment and many times we can

uh feel like we are paralyzed. So, if

you're looking for a new job opportunity

that was an American influencer, so

maybe you could have Lucian breaks bad

news or I don't know like uh there could

be a bit of a market there uh within the

New Zealand uh within the New Zealand

market. But,

you know, Paul wrote and he used this

word about speaking boldly in second

Corinthians. And uh sorry, my computer's

actually just on the down and I can't

read it there. So, I'm going to have to

read it here. I I do not say this to

condemn you. I've said before, you have

such a great place in our hearts that we

would live or die with you. I have

spoken to you with great frankness. I

take great pride in you and I'm greatly

encouraged in all my troubles. My joy

knows no bounds. So, it's interesting

here. It is that Greek word paracia.

I've spoken to you with great frankness.

And so here Paul is writing to the

Corinthians. He's like, "Hey, I wrote

you the first letter and I was pretty

bold in it. I spoke to you with great

frankness." But I I want to see you to

see what the first part there was where

he says that I you have such a place in

our hearts that we would live or die

with you. You see, before we have frank

speech in relationships, we need to have

love for those we're in relationship

with. Right? You ever had someone speak

frankly to you, but you weren't so

convinced they loved you? Right? It

doesn't go so well. And so the a as we

look at this, what does it mean to find

our voice within our relationships? We

we we start with this guard rail that it

starts the people who should find their

voice and be bold in communication are

people who love deeply. You know uh

sometimes you will get someone who is

bold in finding their voice but um but

you you don't sense they have love. I I

I I laughed. Um last year Clinton was

here um doing some work at church and

he's like, "Oh, someone came in to

complain about the church." I said, "Oh,

no, that's no good." He said, "Yeah,

they they came six months ago and they

had a complaint about it." And I said,

"Oh, okay." And so we listened and it

was something reasonably minor. And uh

they said, "Oh, I um so I just thought

I'd come in and tell you I'm never

coming to this church again."

And Clina was like, "Okay, well, God

bless."

like we don't seem to love one another

like thank you for being bold and

sharing your opinion but uh actually

that this isn't in the context of

relationship like you've discovered we

are not the church for you god bless and

sometimes uh what can happen is some

people are empowered and want to share

every truth that they have you see in

Ephesians it tells us that we need to

learn to speak the truth in [snorts]

love speak the truth truth in love. But

what it doesn't say is speak every

single truth you ever know to everyone.

Right? Like sometimes you need to be

silent in love. Sometimes the thing of

what you actually need to share is not

what you need to share. And so sometimes

being silent is actually the way to love

someone well.

But how many of us sometimes actually

speaking something would be the way to

love someone well but we don't can't

find our voice. So we re we we become

reserved and we decide that maybe the

way to love someone well in that moment

is to remain silent when actually maybe

we will being called to speak the truth

in love.

you know, it's working out, hey, is this

something that I need to share or not?

You know, if you're going to the

shopping mall with someone and you don't

think their colors match,

you you you don't necessarily

have to speak that truth in that moment.

Probably Paul's happy for you to speak

that truth. He's color blind, so he

[laughter]

feel free. Just let him know. Obviously,

Karen wasn't at home when he left the

house. And uh

but you know, if someone's about to go

to the biggest job interview of their

life [laughter]

and their colors totally don't match,

you you you might want to let them know.

So, you know, we we it's not about

becoming a jerk in the name of Jesus,

but it is about loving people enough

that we would push through sometimes

what is uncomfortable to be willing to

speak the truth in love.

You see, sometimes we hold our tongue

and we say, "Oh, it's for the good of

the Oh, yeah. I just didn't want to

offend them." And sometimes that's true.

But I think all of us would identify

sometimes we say I didn't want to offend

them. But what we were really saying was

I didn't want to be uncomfortable.

Like we say, oh no, I'm trying to love

them well. But actually really what's

going on inside of us is no, I do not

want to be uncomfortable. This will be

an uncomfortable situation. And so when

we hear this word bold and when we hear

about speaking the truth in love, what

it really means is that we would love

one another enough and we would love

others enough to speak the truth in love

when it's required and our care for them

would be greater than the discomfort

that we feel on the inside.

See, true friends will be bold in love.

I uh Clinton's not here this morning. Uh

he's getting a second reference today. I

do remember a number of years ago I was

working um uh when I was youth pastoring

under Pastor Trevor and Clinton said,

"Hey, let's catch up for a coffee." And

um so yeah, we went out for a coffee and

I thought we were catching up for a

coffee, but actually um Clinton needed

to speak the truth to me in love. He

actually had some things that he was

like, "Hey, are you aware of this

attitude that's kind of creeping into

your life?" And uh man, I I I remember

at the time, you know, you're kind of

like, "Oh, flip. I thought, you know, we

were just having a coffee."

Now someone's holding up a mirror and

saying, "Hey, are you aware of this? Can

I tell you I'm so grateful that Clinton

loved me enough that he would go, "Hey,

I can just see this attitude in your

life. Maybe that might be something you

need to deal with."

I was so grateful that he loved me, that

he was willing to speak the truth in

love. you know, now he didn't go and

I've also seen this and this and this

and this and by the way, here's the

other 18 things I've observed over the

last uh eight years and uh you know, he

he didn't do the pylon. He just said,

"Hey, have you are you aware that this

are you aware I've seen this attitude in

your life?" And I'm like, "Oh, wow.

Thank you, Jesus." Side note, a few

years later, number of years later,

Clinton was actually on the interview

panel for interviewing me for the job.

the panel say, you know, do are you open

to growth? I said, well, a number of

years ago, someone confronted me about

an attitude [laughter]

and uh I got the job, so obviously there

must have been enough uh repentance and

and change. But the the truth is this,

we speak the truth in love.

Now, some of us might be like, "Man, I'm

already feeling a little bit

overwhelmed. Like, I can think of all of

the times where I perhaps struggle with

that." And I I want to remind us this

morning that this is anchored actually

in who Christ is.

The the righteousness of Jesus actually

causes love for people where where our

speech is unreserved. You see, we said

the righteous are as bold as a lion. But

here in Ephesians 4, Paul goes on to

this. He says, "To be made new in the

attitude of your minds and to put on the

new self, created to be like God in true

righteousness and holiness." So, he's

like, "Hey, you're a new creation. Put

on your new self." And then, can we have

the next verse uh up? What happens when

we put on our true self?

Can we uh grab the next verse? Uh next

one.

Put on your true self. Yeah, back. Yep,

that one. Perfect. Verse 25. Therefore,

each of you must put off falshood and

speak truthfully to your neighbor. For

we are all members of one body. In your

anger, do not sin. Do not let the sun go

down while you are still angry. And do

not give the devil a foothold. So be

made new in the attitude of your mind.

Put on your new self. What then happens?

We speak truthfully to one another. It

is the fruit of a bornagain believer

that we are actually unreserved in our

speech. As I say, not that we just go

around giving everyone a piece of my

mind, but we are the place where we love

people enough that we actually speak

words of love to one another.

It is our identity in who we are in

Christ.

But for many of us, it is a real

struggle to be able to speak boldly in

love to other people. And it's

interesting what he says here because he

says, "Do not let the sun go down on

your anger."

Uh I've shared many times that I used to

be a checkout chick. One uh Saturday I

was working at the supermarket. I got to

work on the customer service kiosk which

was always a good day because you didn't

have to hear beep beep beep. You just

got to say, "Okay, you want to return

that? Good." Yes. So I was on the

customer service kiosk and someone came

up and said, "I've got a complaint to

make." And I said, "Oh, okay. What's

your complaint?" They said, "See that

lighter there?" And we had these little

lighters that were called flick lighters

and they had like a slogan on them. You

know, they were meant to be funny. They

kind of had a joke that you could read

on the lighter. And so the lighter said

this, "Don't go to bed angry." And then

the second half was stay up and fight.

And so um [panting]

it was meant to be a joke, but clearly

this person um did not see the funny

side of this. And and they said that's

horrible. I said, "Oh, okay." THEY SAID,

"WHY? WHY WOULD YOU HAVE SOMETHING

THAT'S ENCOURAGING people to fight?"

Said, "I think it's a joke." "Well, I

don't find it funny." And they were

like, "I want to see the manager." And

so the manager came down uh store

manager and uh she complained and uh he

said, "Oh, yes. I'm very sorry. Maybe

that's um maybe that's not a good

lighter for us to be stocking." I can

tell you that was one of the more polite

things that the lighters said. Man, if

if you'd seen the rest of them, they

were pretty uh inappropriate. But what

was interesting is it was almost a

paraphrase of this uh Bible verse where

it says do not let the sun go down on

your anger. So here it is. Hey, we need

to speak truth. Don't let the sun go

down on your anger. Now I don't believe

in in my belief I I might be wrong. I

don't believe he's talking about a

literal 24 hours. Like never go to bed

angry. I mean for some of us we would

get very little sleep.

Um

I don't think he's like hey never

because how many people know sometimes

actually the better thing is to have the

conversation a little bit later when

emotions aren't quite so heightened

right I mean married couples um can do

this all the time where it's like hey we

feel really disconnected and I don't

know if you even love me anymore. Let's

talk.

never ends too well, right? It's like,

man, while we're feeling disconnected

and maybe like we dislike each other,

let's have an ongoing conversation and

try and get to an agreement. It doesn't

tend to work so well. But it is

interesting. He says, "Do not let the

sun go down on your anger." Do not sin,

but also don't let the sun go down on

your anger. Don't get in the habit of

delaying truthful speech. Don't get into

the habit of putting off in our

relationships things that are important

for us to say.

Because when we get in the habit of

putting things off in our relationships,

what we are actually doing is giving the

devil a foothold or giving the devil a

place. When we get into the habit of

deciding that really bugged me, but I'm

just not going to say anything. And then

the next thing that bugs me, I don't say

anything. What he says is, hey, when

that becomes our pattern, we actually

give the devil a foothold.

I remember Sarah and I having a

conversation one time and a uh it was to

do with an extended family member and

something came up and um like the good

Christian that I am, I um sort of let

her know that I didn't really like that

person very much and uh that I didn't

want to be around them. And Sarah was

kind of like, "That's strange. Why is

that?" And I didn't even realize it, but

I actually said to her and as soon as I

found myself saying it, I thought, "Oh

my goodness." I was like, "Well, 16

years ago,

true story, 16 years ago, they said,"

and then all of a sudden, I burst into

tears and like I wasn't aware that I was

carrying something for 16 years. It

wasn't at the front of my mind, but it

was pretty strongly there in the back of

my mind. And it only took the mention of

this person for this to come out. And I

remember uh Sarah looking at me and

she's like, "Well, I'm really sorry they

did that to you." And then she and as a

good Scouser would went, "But I'm even

sadder that you've held it for the last

16 years and not dealt with it." And in

this case, it wasn't something I needed

to go and see the person about. I just

needed to repent and say, "Lord, yeah,

that hurt me, but I realized their

intention wasn't to hurt me." And I've h

harbored this unforgiveness, and I have

given the devil a foothold because I was

not willing to speak in the next day to

let them know that what they had done

had hurt me because I wasn't willing to.

I had actually given the devil a

foothold. And the other person had no

idea that that was what I was reacting

to and just thought I wasn't a very

friendly person. Just, oh, Aaron

doesn't, you know, they picked up the

subtle clue that I had dropped with my

passive aggressiveness because, you

know, you're in full-time ministry. You

got to keep your aggressive passive, not

uh not not not outright. But they had

picked up the tone of passive

aggressiveness.

But it was because I had given the devil

a foothold because I hadn't been able to

speak the truth in love.

Now I do understand in sharing something

like this there are all kinds of

dynamics going on. There are people in

all kinds of different relationships.

There are people who feel like I I I get

what you're saying but actually I'm in a

relationship where it's not safe for me

to speak my mind. I've tried before and

it got shut down and this is not how I I

I just don't know the way forward and I

just want to acknowledge there are all

of those kind of tensions within a topic

like this

and a and and you may need someone to

journey with you and you if it's someone

that you're really close to and are

going to be on ongoing relationship you

might need someone to journey with you

and them to help walk you through that.

But the thing is many times we end up in

a position

an absolute knots [snorts]

because we don't have the conversation

when it's easy. Uh it's not easy it's

hard but sorry we don't have the

conversation at a time when it could

have been a far easier conversation than

six months of hurt built up. Now all of

a sudden this thing has emotion attached

to it that it never needed to have

attached to it. But we have given a

period of time and it has enabled the

thing to get so much bigger in our

hearts in our lives. And that's why Paul

says don't let the sun go down. Become

someone that speaks truth. Again just

reiterate again not everything. You

don't need to go and tell everyone

everything, but where there is something

that has hurt you or that you feel you

need to express

that we would lean into who Jesus is in

us, his righteousness, enabling us to

speak truth, but to do it in such a

loving way. And what can happen is the

things that

seem so difficult can can just bring so

much healing. I mean, how many of us so

often have had the conversation and the

other person said, "I had no idea. Oh,

I'm so sorry." Like, and and I found

sometimes the ones things that I were

thinking, "How on earth are we going to

have this conversation?" And when I

actually with love can come and not be

emotional, but be uh grounded and just

sharing who I am, that actually. So more

often than not, it's not a guarantee,

but more often than not, things actually

go well and we get to move on. You see,

Paul says that uh the way we overcome

fear is with love, power, and

self-control. And that's what we've been

working on. Uh that's what we've been

framing up this topic of boldness as

love, power, and self-control.

And I know for me, one of the uh

self-control that I have to have is

sometimes to be disciplined

uh to actually say what I know I need to

say.

I I'll give you an example uh without

the specifics. I I was in a situation

where something came up and I felt

really uncomfortable and I felt like I

needed to say something and I didn't,

right? And it was the kind of situation,

I think we all know it, to go back to it

a week later would have just seemed

crazy. Like to go back and bring it up

like kind of like, hey, this last week,

the person would have been like, uh, and

so I was like, uh, Lord, I need to work

out on a scale of 1 to 10, it mattered

to me, but it's probably a three, so I'm

not going to go back and have the

conversation. But for me, the discipline

and self-control was I actually said,

"Okay, Lord, next time if I'm in a

similar situation, particularly with

that person, I don't want this to grow

in me. So Lord, would you please help

me? Give me the self-control that in

that moment I would be able to be

controlled and loving and full of your

power that I would be able to speak up."

And sure enough, a few weeks later, a

similar situation with the same person.

Again, not a massive thing, but I was

actually able to say, "Hey, do you mind

if

and share my heart and and it was good

and everything moved on." And what I

realized in those moments was it wasn't

actually about the issue. It was

actually about me learning to be able to

express myself. It was actually about me

learning what it is to push past

timidity and to actually be bold. uh to

be bold and unreserved in a righteous

way.

See, sometimes

we choose the easy conversation with the

wrong person rather than the hard

conversation with the right person.

Oh, Paul, you wouldn't believe what so

and so said to me. Oh, man. Like, it was

so tough. like they just they said this

and you know I I just sensed in the in

the spirit in that moment that I it

wasn't right for me to challenge them

but oh Paul you wouldn't believe what

they said to me. You know how easy it

sometimes is to choose the easy

conversation with the wrong person

rather than the more difficult

conversation with the right person. And

uh I'm aware man you guys have been

quiet this morning. We're talking about

uh relation

finding our voice and hard conversations

on a wet rainy day. So, you know, that's

like the a a a double uh a double thing

to give you plenty of energy. But can I

say this? I actually believe some of us

have lived in the fruit of giving the

devil a foot foothold. I'm not saying

that we're like that you're possessed or

that it means that there's uh the

demonic upon you, but we've actually

enabled through our inaction in speech.

We have enabled a bitterness to come

into our lives and the Lord is actually

wanting a reset in us where we would

learn what it is to have a holy

boldness. The Lord is actually wanting

to reorientate something within us where

we can be bold in our relationships

because motivated by the love for one

another.

And I wonder

how you feel right now even as you take

a look over your relationships. You

know, for some of us, it might be that

we do need to go away and have a

conversation with someone and say, "Hey,

I actually need to let you know I've

probably not been very good at sharing

my heart." You know, you can actually

own that. Like you don't have to say

they've done this XY Z. you can actually

say, "Hey, I've maybe not been very good

at being bold when uh when I should have

been."

And I just want you to know that going

forward, I'm going to really try and be

honest. So, you may have people that you

need to apologize to and say, "Hey, I

know you've probably been frustrated by

me and you've wondered why I pull back

and why I do this and and you're

probably wondering why. And I've

actually realized what it is is I

haven't been speaking when I need to and

I've been holding back and you've been

getting uh the feeling that I am pulling

back and I'm sorry for that and I want

to move forward

because the Lord

spirit does not make us timid but it is

love, power, and self-control.

And uh I'm going to invite the worship

team to come up now. Um, and what we're

going to do, it's going to be a little

bit of a juxiposition. We're going to go

from one extreme to the other. What

we're going to do is, uh, I'm going to

say a prayer. We're going to have just a

little bit of silent time with us and

the Lord. Um, and, uh, after that, what

we are going to do is boldly declare who

we are in Christ. Cuz the awesome thing

is no matter how much you don't feel

like you have the words to speak in

difficult situations, the awesome thing

is you are a new creation. If you are in

Christ Jesus, you the old is gone, the

new has come. There is grace for you to

step into this that it's not based on

our goodness.

So why don't we close our eyes?

Lord, I thank you that your

heart for us,

Lord, is that we would be a new

creation. And Lord, part of that new

creation identity is to speak the truth

in love.

And Lord, if we've struggled with that

or if that's been something that we

haven't been able to do, Lord, I pray

this morning there may even be a reset.

Lord, would you bless us

with that awareness

of who you are in us,

Lord? Not that we need to win arguments,

but we need to love well. And Lord, that

we're we've been guilty of holding back

our voice, Lord. That we would step into

that fresh identity.

Just going to allow like 30 seconds of

silence between you and the Lord. And it

it might be that

there's just something you can give to

him where you might just feel his love

wrapping you, saying it's going to be

okay. This is your new identity. It

might be a relationship that he's going

to lay on your heart that he's going to

restore. But we'll just have a few

seconds of silence now.

Jesus, I bless you that even as the rain

pours down, Lord, that you are a God of

new beginnings. And Lord, you invite us

from glory to glory to discover new you

in new realms. So Lord, I bless each

person here in the name of Jesus to know

that identity of who they are in you,

Lord, to be as bold as a lion in Jesus

mighty name. Amen. And what we're going

to do now, church, is stand to our feet

and we are going to have a praise song.

We are going to declare the goodness of

God that you and I are new creations.

[music] That he has set us free to be

everything that he has called us to

[music] be in Jesus mighty name.