BUILDING BRIDGES WITH YOUR WORDS

Building Bridges - Part 3

Monks, lovely potatoes, lumpy potatoes, hate all this bickering!
Think of a relationship that you want to build a bridge in. It may be a bridge to make the relationship better. It might be a bridge to bring the relationship back together. It might be a bridge to strengthen a relationship that’s already good. It might be a relationship with a husband or wife or kids or a relationship at work or with a Christian friend. Just pick a relationship and say, “I’d like to build a bridge there.”

Now picture that relationship like a car. Any kind you want. (If you’re thinking you haven’t gotten in the spirit of things.) Any kind of car you want, as shiny as you want, as expensive as you want.

If you picture a relationship like a car, have you noticed that sometimes cars get stalled? Relationships the same, Sometimes they just don’t seem to be going anywhere. As much repairs you put in over the years, as shiny as it looks on the outside, as expensive as it might be, sometimes relationships get stalled. The question is, when a relationship gets stalled, how do you get it going again? If it’s a car, you’ve got to put the right fuel in.

All relationships are fueled by communication. Communication is what fuels relationships, what makes them run, what makes them work. I don’t care how great the relationship looks on the outside, if you’re not constantly putting the fuel of communication into the relationship, it’s going to get stalled. Look at any relationship that’s not working, any place where a bridge needs to be built and it’s not going, you can guarantee that someone, somehow, someway stopped talking. And whenever that happens, it stalls.

A lot of newlyweds discover this. When they’re engaged they talk a lot, their relationship is great. Then they get married and after a few months or a few years the conversation stops. You just get busy and you wonder why the relationship’s stalled. You’re not talking as much as you used to.

Today we’re going to talk about communication, how you put in communication as the fuel for relationship regularly. It’s something we need in a country where fifty-percent of wives say, “My husband doesn’t talk to me like I’d like him to.” Where, in 86% of the divorces, the statement is made that one of the major reasons was “We just couldn’t communicate.” In a country where one in four kids say, “I’ve never had a significant conversation with my dad.” We obviously need some help. We need to learn to communicate.

The problem is, communication is not an exact science. It doesn’t work that way. I’ve found that it’s not a science. It’s more of an art. It’s not black and white; it’s filled with fine lines and shades of color. If it’s an art, I feel like a lot of you – like I’m a kid with a crayon trying to figure out how to color between the lines. I still have a lot to learn. This is an area where we need an expert to help us to learn how to communicate. And I know an expert when it comes to communication.

Whenever you’re in a problem, you need an expert. If your car has a problem, a breakdown and you’re not a mechanic, hopefully you’ll take it to a mechanic, an expert, who will help you fix it. If you have a plumbing problem and you don’t know how to fix plumbing, I hope you don’t try to do it yourself. You’re under the sink, the water’s on you and you’re thinking, “I should have called an expert!”

Who’s the world’s greatest expert when it comes to communication? His name is Jesus Christ. There’s no one better at communication. Ask anybody and they’ll say Jesus is a great teacher. He knew how to communicate. He knew how to say things. Today, I’d like us to look together about what He has to teach us about talking, about communication. What does Jesus have to teach us about communication
Let’s look together with the expert on how to communicate. Four things on how to better communicate, how to build bridges through your words.


1. YOU BUILD TRUST

That’s where it starts – by building trust. Without trust, if you can’t trust what I’m saying, then there’s no real communication. If I stood here and said, “Eighty percent of what I’m going to tell you today is true,” that wouldn’t make sense. What about the other 20%? You wouldn’t know what was true and what was false. If you inject any element of mistrust into a relationship it destroys all the communication.

This was important to Jesus. Matthew 5:37 “simply let your yes be yes and your no, no. anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” Jesus was serious about this. He doesn’t just say it’s a bad idea. He says if you don’t build trust into your words it comes from Satan himself. That’s how important this is. In that day, they developed this whole system of trust. That’s what Jesus is talking about. They couldn’t swear on God’s name. They had a law against it. So they had this system of trust where the closer you got to God, the more you could trust what the person says. If someone said, “I swear based on earth, God’s footstool,” you could sort of trust them. But if they said, “I swear based on heaven, where God lives,” that’s closer to God. You could really trust what they said.

We do the same thing. When we were kids we would say things like, “I cross my heart and hope to die.” That means, “You can trust me on this one.” When we get older we say, “I swear it’s true this time!” Even a word like “honestly”… I hate it when I use the word “honestly”. When you say to a person, “honestly…” does that mean all the other times you were lying to them but now you can trust me. That doesn’t make sense.

Jesus said, here’s the way to build trust. “Let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no,’ ‘no.’” The more you allow what you say to be something that can be trusted, the better communication inevitably you’re going to have.

We all struggle with this. There’s a lot of ways we erode trust in relationships. The top four:

1. Lies. Lies are always told in the absence of trust. I tell you a lie because I don’t trust you. I don’t trust that you’re going to accept me.

2. Flattery. Flattery is just a positive lie, a lie that’s designed to manipulate you to get you to do what I want you to do. Psalms 12:3 “May the Lord cut off all flattering lips.” The Bible’s an honest book!

3. Broken promises. Whenever you break a promise to someone you break a trust. Have you noticed how easy it is sometimes to break a promise you’ve made to your kids? Sometimes they don’t even complain. But anytime you do it, you’re breaking a trust.

4. Silence. Not talking, not letting someone get to know you. Speak also! That’s part of good communication. Sharing yourself is part of letting someone learn to trust you, opening yourself up. If you’re silent all the time, people don’t know what’s going on. It’s hard to know whether you can trust.

Jesus taught if you really want to have great communication, you have to build trust. You can’t have quality communication without deep trust. It’s impossible.

Some of you have the question, “How do we/I rebuild trust? I’ve already lied. It’s already been broken, destroyed. How do we rebuild this foundation of trust so we can start to talk again?” As hard as it is to say, the only answer I have is, you rebuild trust one word at a time. One “yes” at a time and one “no” at a time. And one “You can believe me this time” at a time. Trust has to be earned

That means it’s going to take time. But it’s worth it.

earthquake up in San Francisco, They worked on a number of the old Victorian houses there that the foundations had been destroyed by the earthquake. The house was fine but the foundation was destroyed. It was harder rebuilding the foundation than building it in the first place. To rebuild it, they had to lift the house, build the foundation under it, and then put the house back down. Was it worth it? Of course it was. It was a beautiful home that was saved.

Some of you have some beautiful relationships that need to be saved but you’ve just got to lift it up, do some work underneath, rebuild that foundation of trust, and then set it back down. It’s going to take time. It’s going to be hard work. But it is worth it.

Jesus said that’s where great communication starts. You build trust.


2. YOU GUARD YOUR THOUGHTS.

That’s where it all begins. In Matthew 12 and Mark 7 there’s a couple of things about the way we think and how that results in what we say. Matthew 12:34 “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” Circle heart” and “mouth”. Mark 7:15 “Your souls aren’t harmed by what you eat but by what you think and say.” Circle “think” and “say”.

Do you see the vicious circle? How what I say affects what I think, affects what I say, affects what I think… You start with angry words and those angry words result in a wounded soul. That wounded soul results in a bitter heart. And that bitter heart results in more angry words. You just can’t seem to get out of this vicious circle of “I’m angry, I’m wounded, I’m hurt so I say more angry words.” It goes round and around.

I heard a story of a vicious circle recently. There was a guy, an old man, jogging round a football pitch. The football players were playing in the middle, doing a practice, and he was jogging. They were doing sprints. He thought, “As long as those kids are doing sprints, I think I can jog.” So he keeps jogging and they keep doing sprints. Jogging –sprints. Finally he had to quit. He stopped. And when he stopped, they stopped. One of the lads walked up to him and said, “I’m glad you stopped. The gaffer said as long as an old man keeps running, we had to keep running!”

That’s a vicious circle. And we’ve all been caught up with those vicious circles that happen with our words. I’m getting angrier because I’m speaking more and more angry words. Jesus said if you want to have great communication you’ve got to guard your heart. It’s one of the keys. Jesus said that words are never a slip of the tongue, they’re always an overflow of the heart. That’s what He meant when He said, “For out of the overflow of your heart, the mouth speaks.” I may not have wanted to say it, but I felt it or I wouldn’t have said it. Communication starts with what I think and what I feel. If I guard that, I’ll talk in a better way.

Do you ever let your thoughts leak out into your words? You didn’t mean to. You weren’t going to say it but you got angry or something happened and it just came out. We’ve all done that. That’s what Jesus is talking about. In fact, Jesus said it’s inevitable. Eventually it’s going to happen. Part of great communication is guarding your heart. Telling yourself, “If I think it, I’m eventually going to say it.”

The truth is, for many of us, we will never experience, in the way we communicate, a real change in our relationships until we’ve had a change in heart because that’s where it begins.

How do you have a change of heart? How does that happen? But before that, two other things that Jesus taught us about communication.


3. YOU’VE GOT TO USE YOUR EARS.

God’s our example in this. Remember there is no better example of listening than God. Psalm 116:1 “I love the Lord because He listens to my prayers for help.” God hears everything. Imagine this… He hears billions of prayers everyday. Some of my prayers don’t seem worth listening to when I think about them later. They’re selfish prayers, prayers that are just focused on me. They don’t think about others or the future. Yet God listens to every one of them. He’s our example.

He teaches us to be listeners also. The problem is, we’re not exactly a nation of listeners. We struggle with listening. Listening is not our natural preference. Most of us would rather be speaking than listening. Most of us filter whatever we hear through our opinions, through what we’re going to say next. Some experts say that we really only hear 20% or so of what’s being said to us. We’ve got to learn to use our ears.

Proverbs 18:13 “Listen before you answer. If you don’t you’re being stupid and insulting.” Circle “stupid” and “insulting”. If I don’t listen, I’m being stupid – it hurts me. If I don’t listen, I’m being insulting – it hurts you. But if I do listen, I’m being wise, it helps me. If I do listen, I’m being loving – it helps you. Listening helps both you and others. It helps others because we all need someone who’s willing to listen to us.

When people learn I am a minister they often want to share a problem or an issue in their life. Why? Because people desperately need someone who will listen to them. We all need that.

If you can learn to listen, you can change the lives of the people around you. No doubt. It helps them and it helps you. If you and I learn to listen, it makes us look good! Proverbs 21:23 talks about how listening helps us. “Keep your mouth closed and you’ll stay out of trouble.” That verse is clear; it helps me to listen. Proverbs 10:19 “Don’t talk so much. You keep putting your foot in your mouth. Be sensible and turn off the flow.” Don’t you hate the way the Bible is so honest sometimes? Yet if I can do that, I’ve found that the less I talk, the smarter people think I am.

Genuine listening is hard work. You’ve got to involve all of yourself in it. It’s just plain hard work. The Chinese character for listening incorporates the symbols for eyes, ears, undivided attention in that one character. It’s a pretty good picture of what listening is all about. It involves all of me. So in the interest of all of us wanting to be better listeners, improving our skills in this area, let me give you an acrostic based on the word “listen”. Six simple things we can do to improve our skills in listening.

L – Look at people. Listen not just with your ears but with your eyes. That’s one of the keys to listening well – simply looking at the person you’re listening to.

I – Invest in people. The attitude when you invest in somebody when you’re listing is, “This person is important.” To be an effective listener means to accept people for who they are and not who I want them to be. Effective listening means you stop labeling people and start listening to people.

S – Stop whatever else you’re doing. Good listening is like tuning in a radio station. You can only tune in one station at a time. I know you can hear two things at a time. I can do that too. I can repeat what was said, but I wasn’t listening. I didn’t focus in and hear what that person said. Stop whatever else you’re doing and listen to the person.

T – Think about what they are saying. When we’re listening, what do we usually think about? Not what they’re saying. We usually are thinking “What am I going to say next?” We have a habit of doing that. I’m terrible at this. I don’t like long stories when I don’t know the end of the story – listening to this long story and I don’t know where it’s headed or what the end is. The problem is everyone in my family tells long stories. I think God’s trying to teach me something! I try to guess the end of the story before they get there. And they make the story longer because I’m trying to guess the end of the story. Let people tell the story the way they want to. Let people talk about their feelings the way they want to. I’ve got a lot to learn on this one, I’m a fellow learner. But if we can do that, we can love people with our ears – listening to them.

E – Empathize with them. Empathize with what they’re feeling and going through. The greatest test between a good listener and a bad listener: A bad listener listens to what you’ve said, then at the end of your story, they tell a story to top your story. That’s a bad listener. A good listener, when you get to the end of what you’ve said, asks a question to draw out more of your story. That’s the difference. You empathize with what that person is saying. You acknowledge their feelings – they may be wrong feelings but they do feel that way. You acknowledge that they feel that way. It’s ok to feel that way and then it’s ok to be changed.

N – Notice body language. That’s a key to good listening. A lot of what we say is in our body language. One university study has shown that 55% of a speaker’s impact is not in what they say. That’s 7%, the words. Fifty-five percent is your body language. The other is in your tone of voice. Do you want to be an expert listener? Learn to pick up those visual cues. Learn what it means when somebody crosses their arms. There’s a barrier here. Something’s wrong. Learn what it means when somebody’s eyes are downcast. They may be saying they had a great day today but something is not there. Learn what it means when somebody’s jaw is set. As you get to know someone better and better you pick up even little visual cues. It’s part of being a great listener.

Psychologist Carl Roger said this about understanding and listening, “Nothing feels so good as being understood.” That’s true. When I try to share some aspect of myself and my communication is met with evaluation, or reassurance or even worse, distortion of my meaning, I know what it is to be alone. All of us have felt the loneliness of trying to talk with someone and not getting anything back. Especially when it’s something important to us.

What do you do? You learn to listen.

We’ve talked about three things communications. We haven’t even gotten to our words yet. It’s important to realize. It starts with what I think. It starts with building through my trust. It starts with the way that I listen.


4. YOU EMPOWER YOUR WORDS

Why? Because words are the single most important tool given to us from God. Without a doubt! The book of Proverbs tells us that death and life are in the power of the tongue. In the Old Testament, in the book of Genesis. Remember the story of a place called the Tower of Babel? They were trying to build a tower to be like God and God wanted to halt the construction project. How did He halt it? Did He take away their hammers? Did He take away their chisels? Did He take away their construction plans?

He took away their ability to communicate. When He did that, the project crumbled. That’s how important words are.

Ephesians 4:29 tells us they are still important in our everyday lives today. “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs.” Words can be used like a tool to smash a window or build a foundation. They’re powerful. Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can …. Break a child’s heart, words can break a husband’s dreams, can break a wife’s love. Or words can build. Do we realize, do we have any conception of the power that we have to build into other people’s lives with a few words? To build encouragement into somebody’s life with the simple encouragement, “Good job!” Or to build a sense of healing into somebody’s life with the simple words, “I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” Or to build hope for the future or energy for today with the words, “I love you.” You know about this. It’s happened in your life. Think of the times that your life has been changed by just a few words at just the right time, just the right moment. It may have been a coach giving you encouragement. It may have been a grandma giving you advice. It may have been your husband/wife sharing words of love with you. It may have been a teacher sharing some truths. Those words said at the right time, you can look back and say, “My life changed because of those words in that moment.”

How powerful are words? The Bible says that God created the world with the word. That’s how powerful words are.

Yet in the book of James in the New Testament in chapter 2, James reminds us that we have a tough time with our tongues sometimes. He says if anybody can speak perfectly all the time, they’re a perfect person. He said that our tongue is like a restless evil. It’s full of poison. Later in the book he says, “Out of this same mouth come blessings and cursing.” We’ve all faced that.

The question is, How do I use these words to build people rather than tear people down? Counselor, Gary Chapman, said this about communication: “Communication is basically an act of the will.” I’ve got to decide some things and Jesus shows us the way. What can I decide to do this week to build people with my words? Four things from the example of Jesus, the way that He communicated with people.

1. I can decide to be honest. Proverbs 24:26 “An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips.” Yet many of us relate more to this quote: “The secret of life is honesty in fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” That’s not Proverbs. That’s Groucho Marx. We relate to that, though. It’s tough to be honest sometimes.

Jesus was honest in His communication. He didn’t talk so much about honesty as He practiced honesty. As I read through every conversation that Jesus had with people and thought about how did Jesus talk to people, if I had to pick one word to describe how Jesus Christ talked to people that word would be “honest”. He spoke with honesty in all of His relationships.

Ephesians 4:15 in the New Testament tells us how that honesty is balanced in our lives. “Speaking the truth in love.” You balance truth and love. It takes both. You speak it in love. There are some people who use truth like a missile. They don’t tell you the truth. They aim it at you. We’ve all discovered that. That’s not what this is talking about. There are other people who are just thoughtless. That can also hurt people. They’re just thoughtless with what they say. They say things like, “You do well for your age.” Or “I can’t believe you did such a good job!” Was that a compliment? The truth sometimes hurts. But it doesn’t have to maim, kill and destroy. You speak in love. But you also speak the truth. You don’t sugar coat it so much that people can’t tell what you mean. It’s not honest to veil the truth in ambiguity. It’s not honest to never get to the point. Honesty demands clarity. The two go together. “Speak the truth in love.”

As I look at myself, it’s a lot easier many times for me to be nice than for me to be honest. Yet as I studied how Jesus spoke to people, He wasn’t always nice. He talked to a group of guys called the Pharisees, religious leaders, one day. He said, “You guys are hurting people with what you’re saying. You’re a bunch of snakes and hypocrites.” That’s not nice, Jesus, to say that. But that’s what He said. He talked to a friend of His one day, Simon Peter, and said, “Get behind Me, Satan!” He said that to a friend of His. It wasn’t nice. But it was the honest thing for what was happening in that moment. Jesus also had the power to encourage people with His honesty. He did both.

The truth is, I have to decide and you have to decide: Do I want to impress people or impact people? Do I want to impress them with, He’s a nice guy! She’s a nice girl! Or do I want to impact people with honesty, the life changing kind of honesty? Especially true with our kids. It’s true in our jobs. Sir Alan Sugar, the apprentice he is tough but they key is that he’s a straight shooter. He’s got a flat out attachment to the truth. He is honest It’s true everywhere in our lives. I’ve learned, especially with those people who are close to you, they’re going to be honest in the end anyway. It’s going to come out. Why not begin with honesty? “Speaking the truth in love.”

Aside: I know that sometimes speaking the truth and being honest, to say we’re being honest when we’re really being hurtful. What’s happening is we’re verbally abusing the people that are around us. These words that can so much heal people can also hurt people. Knowing that we can get caught up in this vicious circle, I thought it might be helpful to read you a list of how do you know if this becomes verbal abuse. We all argue. We all say the wrong things sometimes. How do you know if you’ve crossed over the line and you’re verbalizing abusing the people around you?

1. These outbursts rarely occur in public. It's always private, it's always secret. Nobody else can know. That way you can turn it on and off.

2. They often come out of the blue. Everything’s going along fine and them bam! Everything explodes. By explodes I don’t mean you have to be yelling. You can verbally abuse people by putdowns, by quiet talk sometimes, too.

3. They often occur when your spouse, your kids, your friends are feeling happy and enthusiastic. When they’re feeling great, something in you triggers and you want to put them down. Usually because you’re feeling not to good about yourself.

4. It becomes familiar, a pattern. The people in your life can say, “Wow! We’ve been through that one before. I’ve seen that one happen before.”

5. The communication involves a lot of putdowns. It expresses disdain. It expresses a real putdown of other people. “You’re no good at this… You’ll never amount to … “ kind of talk.

6. You never seek reconciliation and often you’re not even bothered by the incident. That’s how you know if you’re starting to cross over the line.

Illustration- words spoken, then the mask goes on again.

I know some of you are caught up in this. If you are, I want to encourage you: Get help. You can get out of that vicious circle. You don’t have to stay stuck there. We have a lay counseling ministry that can be a first step. This is a circle that can be broken so you can use your words not to tear people down but like you want to. You can begin to use your words to build people up.

One of the ways to do that, Jesus taught us, is to be honest.

2. I can decide to use touch. Jesus had a habit of touching the people that He healed. Luke 5:13 “Jesus reached out and touched the man and He said, ‘Of course I will. Be healed.’” Then the last part of the verse. “… and the leprosy left him immediately.” You may not be a doctor or a nurse, but is it a good idea to touch somebody with leprosy? In that day, if you were a leper, you would walk down the street and cry out, “Leper! Leper!” and people would clear the way in front of you. Jesus walked up to this person that no one even wanted to see their sores and touched his sores and He healed him. Jesus used touch to heal. He taught us to use touch.

When Jesus touched people it was the right kind of touch. It wasn’t a phony touch. Jesus’ touch was genuine, real. And it wasn’t inappropriate. It certainly wasn’t sexual or violent. Some of you have been the victim of that. But His touch was gentle and real. That touch often changed people’s lives. That touch often communicated things that nothing else did. Never underestimate the power of touch.

A few years back in a medical journal there was an article on the power of touch. It talked about a study that was done with surrogate grandparents for children who had been abused and neglected. In this study, the surrogate grandparents gave massages to neglected and abused babies in a shelter. The babies slept better. They were more alert. They became more active and more sociable when they were awake because of the power of touch.

But that’s not the end of the story. The adults benefited too. The surrogate grandparents made fewer trips to the doctor’s office, they spent more time with their friends, they reported less anxiety and depression. The stress related hormones in their bloodstream decreased. All because of the power of touch.

I asked a friend of mine who is a children’s pastor, “What’s one of the mistakes you see parents make as their kids start getting older?” He said, “They stop hugging their kids. The guys start to look studly and the girls start to develop and they stop hugging.” I’m not talking about inappropriate touch. I’m talking about hugging your kids. That touch can make a difference. I am going to keep hugging and kissing my kids even when they say they hate it, it’s a little embarrassing, but it’s still the right thing to do. You communicate love through touch. Jesus taught us to do that.

Who do you need to heal through a simple touch this week?

3. Ask questions. That’s a decision I can make to improve communication this week. Ask questions. Questions have the power to challenge and clarify. Look at how Jesus challenged a close friend of His with a question. Mark 8:29, Jesus asked of Peter, “Who do you think I am? and Peter answered, ‘You’re the Messiah.’” That’s the first time anyone ever said that. That’s the greatest confession of faith in the New Testament. It came because Jesus challenged Peter with a question. That changed everything.

Statements tend to confront. They build barriers. Questions, asked in the right way, tend to challenge. They can break through barriers. A lot of times when we want to challenge somebody else, instead of using a question, we use volume. We get louder and louder. We feel that the louder we get, the better people will hear. When somebody talks at you really loud, does it make you want to listen to them? No. You build a barrier. You don’t want to hear that. But when you use a question, phrased in the right way, well thought out, it can break through that barrier.

I remember before I was a believer in Christ, and understood what Christianity was about (I thought I understood it) someone asked me a question, “Would you like to know that you’re a Christian?” I didn’t want to talk to them and sort of blew them off. But I thought about that. The question challenged me. I’d always thought that you couldn’t know. You had to wait until you got to heaven. It was some kind of huge lottery in the sky whether you made it in or not. When he asked that question, I kept thinking, “Can you know for sure?” That was one of the things that led me to faith in Christ, to understanding what Christianity really is. It’s not just trying to be good. It is finding out that there is a security found in Christ and there is forgiveness and I can know. That question challenged my thinking.

Who can you challenge with a question? Questions also clarify. They help you to identify what you think you’ve just said is what the other person heard you just saying. Clarification is all-important in communication. Because in any communication there is some translating going on.

A lot of you might know that when Vauxhall decided to name a car Nova did not know that it means “Doesn’t go” in Spanish – not a good name for that particular market. Coors encourages English speaking customers to “turn it loose”. Unfortunately the phrase in Spanish meant ‘suffer from diarrhea.” And when someone said, “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” Spanish speakers heard, “It takes a sexy man to make a chicken affectionate.” Something got lost in the translation! It didn’t work.

Often things get lost in the translation. Would you agree that some translation has to go on between parents and kids sometimes. Would you agree that translation has to go on sometimes between manager and staff? Things get lost. How many of you would say that often there is some translating that has to go on between men and women? Questions can help. I can’t tell you how many arguments Donna and I have had – and some big arguments – over the fact that we just didn’t understand what the other person was saying, over one little phrase that we said the wrong way and didn’t understand it. We all do this. And if we just ask the right questions at the right time, it would have changed everything. It has the power to clarify.

4. Use pictures. Jesus was the master at this. One time He sat down with a religious leader by the name of Nicodemus. He was trying to picture for him the fact that Christianity didn’t mean “doing better.” It meant starting over. He couldn’t get it across so finally He said this to him in John 3: 3 “Jesus replied, `With all the earnestness I possess I tell you this. Unless you are born again, you can never get into the kingdom of God.’”

“Born again”. We use that phrase a lot of different ways today. What it meant originally was just a picture. Jesus said it means starting over, having a new life. That’s what it means to know Me. Jesus, again and again throughout His life, used pictures to help people see things they hadn’t seen before. When He talked about who He was He’d say, “I’m like the Door, I’m like the Way.” When He sat down with a woman beside a well to talk about life, He said, “I’m the Living Water.” When He talked to farmers about who He was, He’d say, “The word is like seed that’s planted.” When He talked to fishermen, He would say, “I want to make you a fisher of men.” He had a great knack for using pictures. In fact, His pictures had a name in the Bible. They’re called parables, stories that Jesus told to picture what life is really like. One place in the Bible it says that Jesus was not talking to them without using a parable. He always used a picture when He talked. If I want to be a great communicator and Jesus was the best communicator that ever walked this earth and He always used pictures when He talked, I’d better learn something from it. Pictures are a part of communication. Usually, to use a picture, you have to think it out in advance to help someone to see something.

I was talking to a friend this last week who was saying, “I know I have problems but I don’t feel like working on them because I see people who have a lot worse problems than I do.” I said to him, “It’s like this. Let’s say you’re in quicksand up to your waist and some other people around you are in quicksand up to their neck. Does that mean you’re not going to try to get out of the quicksand? In fact, if you do get out of the quicksand, maybe you can help them too.” A picture can help you to see something that you haven’t seen before.

We are in the middle of a communications revolution. Just think of all that’s happening these days, the convergence of all the cable systems and all the telephone systems and Internet and all that’s happening with cell phones and all the different ways that people are communicating. Think of radio and cell phones, all the messages that are flowing through your body right now that you can’t even hear. That’s how great this revolution is. Yet, we still have a hard time talking to each other.

A while back I got a new mobile phone. The first day I had it, I pushed two buttons on it and it locked the thing I couldn’t use it. I kept trying to push buttons to figure the thing out. I couldn’t. I even read through the manual but I couldn’t figure out how to do it. Finally, after about a week, I talked to an expert and they said, Punch those in and then it will work.

That’s sort of like what we talked about today. I knew theory, I just didn’t know how to put it into practice.

You already know what we talked about today. Who doesn’t know that we need to listen? Who doesn’t want to build people with their words? Who doesn’t know that when you break trust it breaks down communication? We all know these things. The encouragement today is, punch in some numbers this next week. Unlock the communication with somebody. Don’t try to do it all at once.

At the end, there’s some boxes to check. Check one of them to say “This is what I’m going to do this week.” The first one: “Build trust by ….” The next one: “I want to guard my heart by ….” Then, “I want to use my ears by… Then, “I want to empower my words by …” Look through this and check one of those boxes. Don’t try to do all four. Just start with one. You can’t do it all at once and neither can I. Maybe you just want to be a better listener this week. Maybe you want to build trust in a relationship this week by letting your “yes” be “yes”, this time at least and your “no” be “no”. Maybe you want to guard your heart in a better way. Maybe it’s you want to empower your words. Who needs to hear a word of healing from you? Who, with a well-phrased question, could you help to see something they haven’t seen before? Who needs to have a picture from you to discover a new truth?

I told you earlier I want to talk for a moment about how do you get a new heart. One of the keys to communication is what’s happening in my heart. And if I don’t change what’s happening in my heart, it’s not going to change my words. How do you get a new heart?

The same one that teaches about communication is the same one who can give us a new heart, Jesus Christ. That’s what He came to the earth to do. The cross and the resurrection of Christ is not just an historical event. It’s a personal event. It’s all about Him wanting to give forgiveness into my life because I’ve blown it sometimes. And also direction for my life. How do you get a new heart? Communication. Communication with Him. Talk with Him. You can do it right now. You don’t even have to close your eyes. You can talk to God in your mind and He’ll hear you. Right now, where you’re seated, you can say to God in your mind, “I want a new heart. I have done dumb things in my life. I’ve blown it. I’ll admit it. I’ve sinned. Would You forgive me. Give me a new heart. Help me to start over. But that’s not enough for me. I don’t just want to erase the past I want to live in a new way in the future. Would You start to guide and direct my life? A lot of things I don’t understand but would You help me to learn how?” As you say that in your mind right now, I promise you God’s hearing you. That’s why He came to this earth to let us know He’s hearing us. He came to reestablish connection with us, to open the lines, the channel of communication. I promise you, He’s doing what you ask.

I don’t know about you but this thing of communication is tough sometimes.. I want to pray for you and me both that God would give us strength to communicate in new ways this week.

Prayer:

Jesus, You are the best at communication. You are the one who teaches us so we look to You together and ask You for strength. Help us to listen where we haven’t. Help us to build with out words where we haven’t been building and may have been tearing down. Lord, if we’ve been abusing others with these words that You’ve given us to build people up, help us to seek out help. To seek a change. Help us not to give up on rebuilding trust. It’s going to be tough, but You can help us to do it. It will take time but it will be worth it. And Lord, as best as we know how right now, we give our hearts to You. That’s where it all starts. I pray particularly for those who just a moment ago, for the first time, said Jesus Christ I want a new heart. My prayer is that You let them know that You heard their prayer. And Lord when we ask You for forgiveness You always keep Your promise. And when we ask You for direction You’ll always be there. Father, as best as we know how, we communicate to You that we want to build up the people around us with the words that You’ve given to us. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.