Speaking the Truth in Love - Part 1

Go ahead and open your Bibles again to Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4, and if you want to put your finger in 1 Corinthians 13, we'll actually spend the bulk of our time there. Ephesians chapter 4, and this time we'll read from verse 11 through verse 16 rather than starting in verse 1 like we did earlier. Except I do want to remind you first of verses 2 and 3, which I asked you to take note of. As usual, I'm again reading from the LSB. Ephesians chapter 4, verses 11 to 16, and you'll recall that Paul is speaking of Christ in the first part of these verses starting in verse 11.

But first, let's glance again at verse 2 and 3 because they set us up very nicely. Verse 2 says, "With all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love," then verse 3 continues, "being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." I pray those two verses will come alive to you as we work through the message this morning.

Now on to verse 11, "And he himself," that's Christ, "gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ, so that we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness and deceitful scheming.

But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, that is Christ, from whom the whole body being joined and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the properly measured working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. So the title of this morning's message is, "Speaking the Truth in Love, Part 1," or if you prefer, "How to Speak the Truth in Love, Part 1," because we're going to zero in on that part of verse 15 to examine two things.

What is the truth, as stated there in the verse, and what does it mean to speak that truth in love as Paul commands us? Please note, there's no question whether we should speak the truth, whatever it is that Paul is describing there. Let that sink in. Not speaking the truth is not an option. We do not have the option to avoid speaking the truth, and neither do we have the option to speak that truth in whatever way seems right to us, or whatever way seems most comfortable to us, or whatever way seems most beneficial to us or for us. No, this must is obvious from the plain reading of the text.

We must speak the truth, whatever that is, and we must speak it in love, whatever that is. Agreed? It's impossible to escape those obvious conclusions. One more thing is plain to us by just reading the words presented to us in verses 14 and 15 together, and that is that speaking the truth in love, however Paul meant that, and my hope and prayer this morning is to help you discover exactly what he meant by that, but for now, whatever he meant by that, speaking the truth in love is something that believers who are no longer children do. Do you see that?

Look back at verse 14, actually the first two words of verse 14 which are "so that," they point us back to verses 11 to 13. So let's read those again back to verse 11. And he himself, that's Christ, gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some evangelists, some as pastors and teachers. Why did he do that? Verse 12, "For the equipping of the saints, for the work of service, to the building of the body of Christ." And what's the intended result of that?

Verse 13, "Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ." Then verse 14, which begins with the words "so that," which could also be "in order that," so it's another why. So why? So that, or in order that, we are no longer to be children. And the rest of verse 14 goes on to describe what such children are like.

Verse 14 continues, "Children are tossed here and there by waves, and children are carried by, about by every wind of doctrine, and children are carried about by the trickery of men, and carried about by craftiness in deceitful scheming." You see that? Then Paul transitions in verse 15 which says, "But, speaking the truth in love," or "but instead, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects unto Him who is the head that is Christ." So in verse 14, Paul describes how spiritual children behave, or how spiritually immature believers behave, or what happens to them.

Then in verse 15 he says, "In effect, but those who are growing in Christ and becoming more mature don't do that; instead, they speak the truth in love." You see that? I hope you see that. So again, we are commanded to speak the truth in love. And if we desire Christian maturity, which we should, then we should desire to speak the truth in love. But, of course, in order to do that faithfully, in order to carry out what the Lord, through the Apostle Paul, is commanding us to do here, we need to understand what he means. We don't get to decide what truth we are to be speaking. And we don't get to define what love means here in verse 15 either.

But thankfully we don't have to do that. And we don't have to guess either. Those words in the verse have precise meanings, and we're going to dig those meanings out this morning, or try to. But just before we do so, would you mind if we ask the Lord to help us? Let's pray. Lord, do help us this morning, please. Help us to examine our own understanding of these common English words by looking to the exactness of their meanings as you wrote them by Paul's hand. Help us to comprehend. Help us to understand what he's describing. If you don't help us, Lord, we're lost. If you don't help me, I'm lost.

I do thank you for the clarity and plainness of your word in such places. Use it to change us, in Jesus' name. Amen. Alrighty then, our first order of business is learning what Paul meant here by the phrase the truth. Was he talking about telling the truth in the sense that we teach our little ones to tell the truth when we train them not to lie? Did he mean say things that are true as opposed to things that aren't? That we are to say, for instance, Tommy's hair and beard are gray rather than Tommy has brown hair on his head and face. Obviously, we're supposed to be truthful people. The Bible is filled with commands to be truthful.

The ninth of the ten commandments says thou shalt not bear false witness. And all over the Bible are warnings, instructions for being truthful, warnings against lying, all over Proverbs, other texts. In fact, the Bible says that lying is one of the things that God hates. Listen to Proverbs chapter 6, verses 16 to 19. Proverbs 6, 16 to 19. There are six things which Yahweh hates, even seven which are an abomination to Him. The eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that devises wicked thoughts, feet that hasten to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who spreads strife among brothers.

So in that list of seven things that the Lord hates, lying is listed twice. Once in verse 17, then again in verse 19. So it's obvious we're to be truthful. It's obvious from the testimony of much, much scripture that we are to speak truth in that sense, in the sense that we are not to tell lies. We are to be truthful people. There's no denying that. But is that all that Paul meant here? No. He's being way more specific than that. He didn't say speaking truth or speaking truthfully, rather he said speaking the truth. And that was on purpose. So what is the truth we should be speaking?

We can actually find out some of what he meant by looking at the verses just before his use of the word right here in our text. Remember Paul starts verse 15 with the contrasting word "but." And also remember that the transition is like "but instead do this." Or rather than be like the children or immature believers I just described, instead you speak the truth in love. That means if we look back to his description of what happens to the spiritually immature in verse 14, we don't get a definition per se of what truth is, but we can see precisely some things truth is not. Make sense? Look back at verse 14.

From Paul's description there we can clearly see that the truth is definitely not like waves that toss the immature here and there. Or like every wind of doctrine which aren't grounded and firm. It's not like the trickery of men or craftiness or deceitful scheming. Do you see that? Paul says in verse 15 effectively, "Don't speak those things, but rather you speak the truth in love." So yes, we're always to be truthful. Always. But Paul is, as I said, being a lot more specific here. The truth Paul has in mind here is the opposite of wavy winds of doctrine. The trickery of men, opposite of words chosen by craftiness or deceitful scheming.

But if we work a little bit harder for a minute or two, we can get an even clearer picture of the truth Paul is pointing to in this verse. It's interesting, the Greek that is translated as speaking the truth here is, I'm not going to try to say it because I'll mess it up. But it's difficult to translate precisely into English. One study tool I use says that Paul is literally saying "truthing," "truthing," which has the idea of maintaining truth in both speech and life. That is, walking and talking in truth.

So a commenter further said, "We're not just to be speaking the truth, but also carrying out the truth, living out the truth, and that is the recipe by which growth of the body is maximized and doctrinal error is minimized. For speaking the truth in essence pictures right doctrine in shoe leather," so to speak. Another commenter put it this way, "John Bunyan said this about Christians, 'When all their garments are white, the world will count them as his.'" And the skeptical German poet, this is continuing to quote, the skeptical German poet Heinrich Heine said this to Christians, "You show me your redeemed life, and I might be inclined to believe in your Redeemer.'" Both men are describing the "truthing" that Paul had in mind here in our verse.

But again, what is the truth that we are to be "truthing"? That we are to be both speaking and living out. Well, the Greek word is only used twice in the New Testament. It's used here in Ephesians 4.15 and it's used in Galatians 4.16 where Paul says, "So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?" and it means in its most basic sense quote, "To speak," this is a found this from a commentator, "To speak reality or truth into someone by making it a matter of record what God deems to be the truth." Well, how can we know what God deems to be the truth?

In Ephesians 1.13, Paul plainly says that quote, "The word of truth is the gospel of your salvation." In Ephesians 4.21, Paul reminds us that the truth is in Christ. In Galatians 2 and verse 5 and again in verse 14, he refers to the truth of the gospel. In John 14.6, Christ proclaimed Himself to be the truth. In John 17.17, as Christ prays for us to the Father, he said, "Sanctify them in your truth.

Your word is truth." So when Paul commands us to speak the truth in love, he means the biblical doctrinal truth that brings about maturity in believers, conforms them to Christ, guards them from error, and builds up to church, which is His bride and His body. He does not mean state accurate facts in a nice way when he says, "Speak the truth in love." He means speak gospel truth, biblical truth, doctrinal truth, and do so lovingly. Someone said of this phrase that it means to seek God's reality to become known in the inner man through faith. What is God's reality? Isn't it the biblical testimony? Isn't it the sayeth the Lord?

Isn't it the gospel that's proclaimed by Christ and heralded by the apostles? Isn't the apostles' doctrine as handed down to us in the epistles? Or like Jude says in verse 4 of his short letter, "The faith which was once for all handed down to the saints?" Yes, that's what it is. That my beard and hair are gray is a true statement, but Christ is the truth. The gospel and the apostles' doctrine are the truth. The Word of God, all of it, is the truth that we are to be truthing, both speaking and living, always and ever. Does that make sense? Okay, then.

We are to be, Paul says, as those who are ever maturing in Christ, speaking the truth in love are truthing in love. We've seen the truth were to be truthing, but what does it mean that we should be doing that in love? Thankfully, the idea Paul communicates here is pretty straightforward and easy to define. It's easy, but it'll take a few minutes. Everybody okay? Let's press on. If you've been in church very often at all, you probably already know that when you see the word "love" in the Scriptures, it's normally translated from one of two Greek words directly, or the compound version of the third.

And there's another Greek word that doesn't appear in the New Testament at all that is also translated by the English word "love." The latter Greek word, which again does not appear in the New Testament, but was common in the spoken Greek language of the day, is eros, which described a physical or intimate love. Sometimes in a New Testament, the compound word astorgos, I hope I said that right, is used for the sort of love that might be described as paternal love or familial love or the natural affections found in a healthy family dynamic.

One of the remaining two, one of the most commonly used seen versions is philia or philio, philia or philio, which is used to describe an affectionate brotherly love. And it's where cities named Philadelphia, which means city of brotherly love, get their name. And it's the sort of love we see in scripture between King David and Jonathan. Incidentally, it's also the sort of love we see between Frodo and Sam and the Lord of the Rings. I've actually wondered whether Tolkien had that in mind when he wrote about Frodo and Sam.

Then finally, and you'll probably remember this last one, which is agape, which is of course it describes a self-giving love or a sacrificial love, and it's the love the Father demonstrated toward us in Christ, and it's the love that Christ himself displayed on the cross. Guess which one Paul uses here in Ephesians 4.15? If you guessed agape, you guessed right. I'm proud of you. Paul tells us we are to be truthing in agape, speaking the truth and living the truth in love. I want to spend our remaining time together discovering what sort of love that agape love really is. I want to describe it for you to some degree.

I don't think we could ever capture the meaning in its fullness, but I hope you'll agree by the time we're done with this message and it's part two, whenever that'll be, that we can get a pretty solid and concrete understanding of it because the scripture paints a very detailed picture of what that kind of love looks like in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. I hope you're there now. It's not turned there. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. It's even called the love chapter quite often, and it's the same word, agape. 1 Corinthians 13. And we'll read the whole chapter.

Patty would scold me if I didn't since she's been memorizing the whole thing, but then we'll narrow our attention to verses four and five this morning, and then some other time in part two we'll examine verses six through eight, or at least the first part of verse eight anyway. So 1 Corinthians 13 starting in verse one. Paul says, "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, agape, I have become a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned but do not have love, it profits me nothing." Verse four, "Agape love is patient, kind, love is kind, it's not jealous, does not brag, is not puffed up, it does not act unbecomingly, does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Agape love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with. If there are tongues, they'll cease.

If there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. But when I became a man, I did away with childish things." To me that reminds me of verse 14 in Ephesians chapter 4. Verse 12, "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now abide faith, hope, love. These three, but the greatest of these is love." Patty, did I miss anything? Wasn't I'm all right? Good.

It's almost like I was reading them or something. Patty has a much better memory than I do. I'll promise you that. So here in 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, Paul defines the way in which we should be speaking the truth. His definition of love, agape love, begins in verse 4 with the phrase, "Love is patient." The Bible has a lot to say about patience. Just like agape love is the sort of love that God displays toward His people, so patience is a thing He displays not only toward His children, but even to the wicked.

Paul said in Romans 2.4, "Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?" And in Romans 9.22, he says, "And what if God, wanting to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath, having been prepared for destruction?" The idea here is really the commonly understood notion of patience as opposed to impatience.

Think of how you felt as a small child who, after being told the night before Christmas morning that you dare not wake mom and dad before a certain time, only to wake up two hours before that certain time and have to wait for the clock to catch up to you. Was that patience you felt in those two hours? No, that was impatience, and patience is the opposite of that. Long suffering is a similar concept, maybe enduring, but enduring, not enduring grudgingly. Again, patience is not a foreign concept to our understanding, but it may be, God forbid, foreign to our lives. I pray not.

So to speak the truth in love is to, first of all, speak the truth in patience or with patience. It's helpful to remember that patience is listed as a part of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. That's helpful in two ways. First, it's helpful to know that you can't do it in your flesh. The natural man, the old man, cannot be patient. Secondly, it's also helpful to know that the Spirit of God within a man or woman who's been born again enables you to be patient.

Paul also tells us in Colossians 3, verses 12 and 13 that as born again believers, we are to "put on patience and bear with one another." When you're discussing or explaining some truth of Scripture that you've grasped and God has graciously opened to you, do you do so with patience toward the one to whom you're speaking? Do you bear with them as they perhaps grapple with what you are saying to them? Or do you at least inside? Hopefully not out loud. But at least inside screaming, "Why can't you get this? Why can't you understand? Can you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?" Ouch, huh? Face it.

Those of us who might describe our understanding of Scripture as "reformed" to some degree or other, or who ascribe to what's normally called the doctrines of grace can sometimes not score too well here. Pastor Chris has on more than one occasion referred to hearing John Piper address a group of Reformed pastors and scolding them for their lack of patience with the flocks the Lord placed under their care. He said something to the effect, and this is not a direct quote, just a paraphrase, something like, "Men, it took some of you 30 years to come to the place of understanding in which you now exist.

And do you expect your congregation to catch on after one sermon? How dare you?" That's a good reminder. I can be like that sometimes. Can you be like that sometimes? We shouldn't be like that at any time, whether with a brother or sister, a coworker, a friend, or mom and dad with our own children. Rather, we should speak the truth in love, which is to speak the truth with patience. Next in verse 4 here, we see Paul tells us that the sort of love he mentions in Ephesians 14, that agape love is also kind. We are to speak the truth with kindness. Once again, God shows us the way here.

Already mentioned in Romans 2.4, it says it's the kindness of God that leaves us with repentance. Have you ever thought about that? God would be perfectly just and right to crush us all right now, or to have even done so before we were saved. But He didn't do that. Rather, in His kindness, He led us to repentance. And in His kindness, He opened our eyes. And in His kindness, He made us who were dead in our trespasses and sins alive in Christ. Because of His kindness, He did those things.

Paul told Titus in chapter 3 of that letter that God our Savior saved us because of His quote, "kindness and affection." I appreciate what Spurgeon had to say about the opening two phrases, "Love is patient, love is kind." He says that they are linked together as a two-part definition of love. He said, "The kind of love Paul is talking about is seen and experienced and demonstrated." Notice that Paul begins with two positive aspects of love. Love is patient, love is kind. The first is passive, Spurgeon says, not retaliating. The second, though, is active, bestowing benefits.

He says, "This two-fold opening statement stands as a daily challenge to every Christian." Close quote. And one reason it's a daily challenge is because the tense of every verb in this entire passage is in its present tense, meaning this sort of love should be our continual action. And did you catch that Spurgeon said, "The second is active, bestowing benefits." He's talking about kindness. "Whereas patient love is passive, waiting patiently, enduring without grumbling. A kind love is active in bestowing or imparting benefits." Now, then, when you're speaking the truth, are you endeavoring to bestow benefits to your hearers?

Is your hope and prayer for their good in the matter? Are you trying to help them? Or are you trying to win? Many of you know I spent a better part of 20 years in local law enforcement. One of the concepts drilled into my way of thinking right from the basic training academy onward throughout my career was that control of the situation was paramount. It could be a matter of life or death. I was taught that during a confrontation I must gain control of the situation as quickly as I could, and I must maintain control throughout. That didn't always mean through physical contact or force, thankfully.

It started with a command presence, a clean uniform, polished brass and shoes, well-groomed, fairly good physical fitness, and also included the effective use of command language. That mentality served me well those almost 20 years as they kept me alive, for sure. But boy, did it cause me and everybody else in my house some grief at home. I struggled to flip the switch when I came off the streets and into my living room. I don't recall ever pepper-spraying Patty or the kids, but I do have some not very pleasant memories of conversations for which I still wish I could get a mulligan or a do-over.

Thankfully the Lord graciously saved me and eventually taught me that it's much better to have peace than it is to be right. Again, those of us in the so-called "reform community" can struggle here in the same way we struggle with speaking the truth in patience. We might think we have the truth part down pat, but sometimes we struggle to communicate that truth with kindness, with a heart bent toward the benefit of our heroes instead of bent toward winning the argument. Lord have mercy on us when that is the case. So we are to be speaking the truth in a love that is both patient and kind. What else?

Well, back to verse 4, "Love is not jealous." Paul switches here from positive aspects to negative examples of what love is not. Love is not jealous. What does it mean to be jealous? When the New Testament jealousy means resentment, envy, bitterness at seeing good things happen to others or resentment of God's providence in another person's life, hostility stirred up by comparison, the desire to have what belongs to another, the inner burning that corrodes love. Listen to this. Someone said, "Jealousy is the fire that burns the container that it lives in." Pretty strong picture there. That's all pretty gross, ain't it?

Paul also lets us know in Galatians 5 that jealousy is not a fruit of the spirit, no, it's a work of the flesh. And in 1 Corinthians 3, he also links jealousy to both immaturity and fleshliness. It's not a fruit of the spirit. No, jealousy springs from our old rotting flesh that sometimes fights for dominance within us. Paul described that battle in Romans chapter 7, didn't he? Jealousy absolutely destroys the unity within the body of Christ and is sometimes the root causes of conflict, division, strife. Sometimes other things are the cause for sure, but jealousy is a common cause for such things.

James warns us in chapter 4 of his letter that jealousy leads to murder. Yikes. But hang on. Paul says love is not like that. So what is the opposite of jealousy? Well, how about the first part of Romans 12, 15 in which Paul says rejoice with those who rejoice. Or Philippians 2 verses 3 and 4 where Paul says we should be quote, "doing nothing from selfish ambition or vain glory, but with humility of mind regarding one another as more important than yourselves, not merely looking out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others." 15 in 1 Corinthians 10, 24, poor Paul commands, "let no one seek his own good, but that of the other person." So love is not jealous, but it's opposite.

The opposite of jealousy is rejoicing when somebody else is blessed. The opposite of jealousy is goodwill, which is wanting the best for someone instead of resenting it. The opposite of jealousy is pleasure in someone else's success. It's a generous heart that celebrates rather than compares. And the opposite of jealousy is contentment mixed with joy for others rather than bitterness and envy toward others. So now you speak the truth and live the truth?

Or do you, do I, do we speak the truth harshly, either in an attempt to intentionally inflict pain on others out of envy, or if not intentionally, just without proper regard to whether our words or tone might be hurtful? We're told to speak the truth in love, and love is not jealous. Back to verse 4, we see that love also does not brag and is not puffed up. Now I'll confess this to you, my flesh loves to argue and debate. I'm so thankful that the Lord in His mercy and by His Spirit has tamped that down in me a good bit. But don't get me wrong, the urge to argue is ever present.

But the Lord is quick to, in a manner of speaking, grab me by the short hairs on the back of my neck before I launch, or maybe just after I launch. In His kindness He has spared me much grief and others much injury from the brashness that can come out of my flesh at even the scent of a good argument. I'm thankful for His grace. The fact is that human nature loves to be right. Human nature loves to be the one with the correct answers. A fleshly man relishes the idea that he understands something better than you understand it, and loves making sure that you know that you will never understand it as well as he does. I've been such a man as that.

But I'm thankful that that man is now, in the words of Miracle Max and the Princess Bride, mostly dead, but only mostly. Paul says love ain't that. Agape love is not boastful or arrogant or egotistical or prideful. And neither does it have an overinflated opinion of itself. Tommy. Rather love is humble. Do you speak the truth with humility? Or do you recognize your own fallibility? Do you recognize the possibility that you could be, dare I even say it, wrong? Or do you speak the truth in arrogance? Is your position the only position that could possibly be correct?

Is that what you communicate to everyone you are addressing and anyone else who might hear your words or the tone of your words? Do you speak the truth as if it belongs to you and was first discovered by you? Or do you speak the truth in a love that does not brag and is not puffed up? Do you speak it in a way that communicates humility? That you are amazed that a worm worthy of nothing but destruction could be entrusted with the truth in the first place? That's who we are.

That's how we should speak the truth with a love that is patient, long fused rather than a short one, slow to anger, enduring rather than retaliating, with composure, refusing to become harsh or sharp or critical or sarcastic. We should also speak the truth with a love that is kind, benevolent rather than malevolent, gentle rather than harsh, gracious rather than abrasive, wanting the good of the other person rather than their harm or their submission to your will. We should speak the truth with a love that is not jealous, a love that rejoices when others rejoice, a love that rejoices at the success of others.

We should speak the truth with a love that is humble, with humility rather than arrogance, with an understanding that it's entirely possible we could be wrong or not have a complete understanding, knowing that it is by but by the incredible grace of God that we know or understand anything at all rather than acting as if we wrote the Bible ourselves or are the first person ever to understand it. What else? Paul goes on in verse 5 to say that love does not act unbecomingly. I meant to look up other translations, but I didn't. That's a mouthful. You don't see unbecomingly much in common usage these days.

That means inappropriate, but it sets a higher standard than just not appropriate. One commenter said of this sort of love that it imparts a delicacy of feeling beyond the rules of politeness. You know what? It's just rude. If someone is speaking the truth unbecomingly, they're just being flat out rude and impolite. It's speaking with impropriety, without dignity, without grace, without restraint, without honor, and doing all or any or all of that is patently sinful. We're called and commanded to not do that. We are called on the contrary to speak the truth in love, which is the opposite of doing so unbecomingly.

It's speaking with honor, graciously, with courtesy, politeness, with dignity, with restraint, with warning, with reverence. If not for the person to whom you're speaking, then at least with reverence for Christ in whose presence you speak and act. My goodness. Lord, help us to remember you hear everything and see everything and read our minds. Verse 5 next tells us that love does not seek its own. I think the literal rendering of that phrase is love does not seek the things of itself. In other words, plainly said, love does not pursue its own interests. Agape love is not self-focused. It's not self-advancing. It's not self-protective.

It doesn't defend itself. It's not self-promoting. It's not self-gratifying. And it's not self-interested. Love does not prioritize itself or arrange circumstances around self. Love doesn't negotiate relationships for personal benefit. It's not transactional. It does not calculate or ask, "What do I get out of this? How does this benefit me? How does this affect my image or my position? Does this advance my comfort or my point of view?" Love refuses to make self-descent. Love, in fact, is both quick to repent and quick to forgive. Simply put, do we speak the truth for the benefit of others?

Or do we speak the truth to win no matter how much it might hurt, or confuse the ones with whom we speak or those who hear? If we speak the truth in love, we speak the truth for the good of the other person, the edification of the other person, the protection of the other person, the honor of the other person, the joy, their sanctification, perhaps their salvation. Agape love is fundamentally others-oriented, not self-oriented. Next, Paul says that love is not provoked. That means that love doesn't have a hair trigger. Love isn't easily irritated or angered.

When Paul says love is not provoked, he means that when we speak the truth to one another, we must not speak it from a place of irritation, or frustration, or defensiveness, or with emotional volatility. In other words, if irritation, frustration, or defensiveness is driving the conversation with emotional volatility, then love is not speaking. In fact, truth spoken in emotional reaction is rarely, if ever, truth spoken in love.

If your motivation for speaking is annoyance, defensiveness, exasperation, agitation, impatience, wounded pride, or pent-up frustration, then even if the content of what you're saying is true, the delivery contradicts Christ. And love is absent. Mark this, the truth must never be weaponized. The truth must never become a weapon. When you speak out of being provoked, truth becomes a hammer. Your tongue becomes a sword. And your words become an assault or an attack. And brethren, love refuses all of that. Love refuses to lash out with truth. Love refuses to punish with truth. Mark this also.

Truth spoken angrily might be accurate, but it isn't biblical. Paul doesn't say, make sure what you say is true. He says, speak the truth in love. That requires emotional composure and self-control. And may I remind you, self-control is a fruit of the spirit. A person who's easily provoked can't admonish well, can't correct wisely, can't disciple in a healthy and edifying way, and can't restore gently and courteously. That's because truth must be paired with patience, humility, tenderness, steadiness, and compassion. Otherwise, it wounds rather than heals.

Love ensures that speaking the truth is always about the other person's good or the good of that person and the good of those who hear. And not about your own indignation or mine, my own frustration, my own disappointment, my own irritation. Christ modeled this perfectly, didn't he? As he does all things perfectly. Think of his interactions with Peter, Thomas, with the disciples generally. Those dudes were so slow to understand. So often off the mark, sometimes off the rails. So frequently disappointing. And yet, Christ was never reactive. He was never irritable. He was never provoked into emotional retaliation.

Instead, he instructs patiently. He corrects steadily. He admonishes lovingly. He bears with weakness. He tells the truth, of course, but with peace. Love doesn't just care what the other person-- care that the other person hears the truth. Love cares how they hear it. We're almost there, folks. One more to go. Last part of verse 5. "Love does not take into account a wrong suffered." If we're to speak the truth in love, and love does not take into account a wrong suffered, what does that look like? Well, for starters, the underlying Greek is primarily a financial term, meaning love doesn't keep a ledger of offenses.

Love does not maintain a record book or a balance sheet. Love does not store up grievances for future use. It means we do not speak truth in order to settle accounts or settle the score. One who holds on to wrong suffered speaks truth as a way of payback or retribution. Love refuses to do that. Love does not speak the truth to balance the scales, to get even, to score points, to remind the other person of all that you've endured, or to gain the emotional upper hand. Truth telling is never payback. It means that we never weaponize past failures in present conversations. Here's where most people fail-- many people, me.

When somebody sins against us, we may indeed speak the truth, but we tend to either do it or want to drag in old offenses, past wounds, previous failures, ancient sins, unresolved hurts. Love refuses to do that. Love never says, you always, or you never, or just like last time. All of that is accounting language. Agape love, on the other hand, closes the ledger drawer. Such love not only closes the books, agape love burns the books to ashes and lets the winds of mercy carry them away. Love does not speak the truth like an aggressive prosecutor. Love speaks the truth like a caring physician.

Not how can I convict you, but how can I bring healing to you? Speaking the truth in love is restorative and conciliatory. It's never vindictive or punitive. Proverbs 10, 12 says, hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all transgressions. Proverbs 19, 11 reads, a man's insight makes him slow to anger, and it is his honor to overlook a transgression. Christ said in Matthew 5, 7, blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Peter said in 1 Peter 4, 8, above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

And finally, though there are way more verses in both the Old and New Testaments that deal with the concept of not taking into account a wrong suffered, I'll end with 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 7, which is the passage in which Paul was admonishing the Corinthian believers who were actually suing each other in secular courts, where he said to them, actually then, it is already a failure for you that you have lawsuits with one another. Why not rather be wronged, Paul said. Why not rather be defrauded, close quote. Instead of demanding payback for wrongs committed against us, shouldn't we be eager to cancel the debt?

Aren't you grateful the Lord canceled the debt you owed him? An insurmountable debt you could never repay? When you consider the indescribable mercy Christ has shown you, when I consider the indescribable mercy He's shown me, how could I or you for one minute hold a grudge against a brother or sister? How in the world can you not race to forgive? How in the world could you be one who takes into account a wrong, suffered against you, holds it, nurses it, feeds it, then uses it, use the truth as a weapon to revenge it? Paul tells us love, agape love, is nothing like that at all. All right, we'll stop there this morning.

Next time in part two, speaking the truth in love or how to speak the truth in love if you prefer, we'll dig into verses six and seven in the first part of verse eight. Brothers and sisters, the command is clear. We are to speak the truth and that can be defined as the whole counsel of God. It's the gospel, it's the apostles doctrine, the faith once delivered to the saints. But we are to speak that truth in love.

And we have seen this morning that speaking the truth in biblical agape love is speaking the truth with patience, with kindness, with humility, graciousness, with an attitude that is slow to anger, while being quick to forgive and quick to repent, while seeking the good of the others instead of ourselves, refusing to take into account wrong suffered. And that's the sort of love that should flavor our speech at all times and in all places and all conversations. And we must admit we fall short of this. I fall short of this and you fall short of this.

But praise be to God that Christ has given us his spirit and Christ has given us his word and Christ has given us each other so that together we might mature in speaking the truth in love, that we might grow up together into him who is our head. So may the Lord help us not only to cling to the truth with our minds, but also to adorn that truth with hearts remade by his hands and fueled by his spirit and his example. Only if you've been born again can you hope to do this. It requires a new nature and it requires the constant renewing and refilling by his Holy Spirit.

And may he cause us each one day by day to speak the truth in love for his glory and our good and for the building up of his church. Truth without love is not Christian truth. It's only painful, hurtful, confusing noise. And God's not the author of confusion. On the other hand, love without truth is not Christian love. It's only sentiment or emotionalism. We must hold both truth and love. But let's admit this together. Many of us in the Reformed community struggle far more with speaking the truth without love than we do with loving without truth. Thank you for being attentive and patient this morning.

I'll tell you this, the Lord worked me over with this message. I don't know if anybody else needed to hear it, but I promise you I needed to hear it. I've had to repent at several points along the way. Maybe you have too. Let's pray.