Speak the Truth in Love
“11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ. 14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.” – Ephesians 4:11-16
As we approach Easter, we are reminded of our great Saviour Jesus. This can serve as an encouragement and strengthening of our faith while also giving us an opportunity to invite friends and family to an Easter service that shares the Good News about Christ with them. When we read Ephesians 4:11-12 – “11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.” – we can fall into the trap of believing that it is the responsibility of the pastor who is preaching the message on Easter Sunday to share the Gospel. We have done our job by inviting them to church and now we leave the rest up to the pastor. But if we read verse 12 carefully – “Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ” – we see that the pastors and leaders of our church are called to equip us, the believers, the body of Christ. Verse 13 continues to say “This will continue until we all come to such unity…that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ”. This unity and maturity will keep us strong in the storm of the world but furthermore, it will prompt us to “…speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ”. So what does it mean to “…speak the truth in love…”?
Well first let’s determine what truth is: in John 14:6 it says “I am the way, the truth and the life; no-one comes to the father except through me”. Here we see that truth is Jesus himself. This carries massive implications for us as believers because any conversation we have must carry the truth of Jesus. So if we are speaking to a believer who is living in sin (knowingly or unknowingly) or perhaps not producing the fruit of the spirit in a certain circumstance or relationship, we need to “go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back” (Matthew 18:15). If the person is a non-believer, we are not to unfairly judge them. They have not accepted the truth of Jesus and therefore have not agreed to follow Him and commit their lives to Him. Our conversations with them need to speak about the truth that is Jesus. We need to share with them the hope, truth, life, love and joy that can be found in following Him. But we also need to tell them that following Jesus is not about what’s in it for us. The truth of the Gospel is that Jesus is King. He is worthy of all our praise and following comes at a great cost. It may cost your popularity or friendships or the things that give you pleasure but what you earn is worth so much more. We don’t follow Jesus for the reward, but we do know that we store up treasures in Heaven and not on Earth.
Secondly, we need to speak this truth about Jesus in love. When we interact with anyone, the greatest love we can show them is to share Jesus with them. We are all commissioned to share the Good News about Christ (Matthew 28:18) so maybe this Easter, instead of just inviting someone on the off chance that something the pastor says will impact them in some way; why don’t you speak the truth in love and tell that person who’s on your heart the truth.
Go listen to Love You with the Truth by Casting Crowns
Justin Alford
