The Hard Conversation
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Opening statement and illustration
Opening statement and illustration
This makes the list because hard conversations are just that. They are hard. We hate having difficult conversations. We hate being in them.
So we often just avoid them all together.
I am a classic conflict avoider. This sermon is outside of my comfort zone. But often real faith and real growth are outside of our comfort zone. I would mostly just like to avoid.
I remember a very specific situation where I learned a valuable lesson I believe from God. I was a very new believer. I had trusted Christ a few months before and was figuring out prayer and Scripture and walking with God.
My car for awhile had a windshield wiper that was slowly deforming. It had been stuck in some ice a couple months prior and had bent a little. Instead of taking the 12.2 seconds to change it I just left it there. It only bothered me while it rained. But a couple months had passed and we headed into the Spring rainy season. And the windshied wiper slowly deformed further. One afternoon I was was driving and the rain started coming down. In sheets. And I was in trouble because my windshield wiper didn’t work well.
I was a new believer and I started to pray that God would heal my windshield wiper. I had that kind of faith. And I started to pray and I promise this is exactly what happened next. Within a few moments of praying, in that rain storm, the wiper caught on something and in mid wipe, bent further, rendering it useless.
God answered my prayer by wrecking my windshield wiper.
What is the message i took from that? Change the windshield wiper.
We can avoid avoid avoid and if we do so eventually we will get stuck in a monsoon. We will pray for God to fix it and will wonder why everything explodes anyhow.
I could have avoided that incident entirely if I would have taken the 10 seconds to change the wiper.
Often times we can avoid a wreck of a relationship if we just have a hard conversation.
And likely beyond just not crashing, God uses hard conversations for growth.
And we are called as a church to follow Christ in such a way that we move toward growth. That includes hard conversations. So we have to learn how to have hard conversations with each other. How to receive challenging words and ideas.
We grow when we Christ. We grow when we trust him faithfully in our lives. But sometimes things get in the way. And sometimes we don’t see those things in our way. And sometimes we need to have to help us see those things that way.
Real change and real growth happen through the hard conversations. We grow in challenge. We grow in rising to that challenge.
We are likely one or two challenging conversations away from incredible growth.
We are likely one or two challenging conversations away from incredible growth.
Think about one or two things you want to see you grow in? What is in the way of getting there? Think about one or two things you want someone you love deeply to grow in. What is in the way of getting them there?
Now, that doesn’t mean that this is permission to just shout out what someone is doing wrong. Not even Jesus does that. Jesus doesn’t shy from truth but He doesn’t shout it out either.
We want to be a people who love Christ enough that we want to have conversations with one another that help us grow. And we wnat to be people who receive growth well.
This is important to talk about because it is so easy to get wrong. We are avoidant, we are aggressive. We get into conflict. We yell, we run, we gossip. or we jump in hot and just say what we want to say as loud as possible. None of that is helpful.
So we want to engage. This year we want to engage with each other. To engage means we enter with gentleness and truth and trust. We challenge because we see something in someone else that we love deeply and want them to grow in.
And we can see how to do that this morning to Jesus’s conversation
Both approaches, avoidance and aggression are not how Jesus enters into challenge.
He’s not grabby. He’s not reactive, He’s not resentful or bitter. He doesn’t shy away from truth as we will see, but equally gives people plenty of space to work out what they are concerned about.
Jesus is never territorial. He never just takes what is His and walks away. Even in conflict when He is standing the ground of the Kingdom, He is generous and gives room for people to communicate. We see that this morning.
Jesus gives the man a lot of room to figure out what he wants to with the conversation they are in.
The point of hard or challenging conversations is not to end in “I was right.”
Our challenging conversations should end with our love for and wanting nothing but growth and the best for others.
Jesus creates challenge because He wants nothing but the best for the rich young ruler. And the only way for that to happen is to introduce some difficult ideas.
But what we are looking at today is how He introduces them. What is Jesus doing to communicate truth in conflict in such a way that we know that Jesus is communicating not to be right or to win, but to serve this person well.
If we do hard conversations right, they will always be to serve and lift up the other.
If we do hard conversations right, they will always be to serve and lift up the other.
A challenge is never accepted because someone yelled louder. It’s because someone pointed to a better future.
"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."
We don’t challenge based on what we like more, challenge is based on a better future reality.
Challenging Conversations have to point somewhere
Challenging Conversations have to point somewhere
And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness,
Look at what Jesus does here. A man comes up to Jesus and asks a question.
And Jesus immediately orients the man, not to being right, not to getting into a fight, not to petty corrections. And He uses His first statement to make a statement about what is truly good. The man has it in his mind that he will be able to do enough good to inherit eternal life.
Jesus challenges his notion of goodness.
Only one is good. Jesus uses a conversation to orient the man toward God.
Every challenge is an opportunity to step toward faith. We are going to watch Jesus move this man toward faith.
When we get into challenging conversations, faith is usually the last thing on our minds. But for Jesus it never leaves the conversation.
Our conversations have the opportunity to move toward what is most good.
This is the lesson of Jesus orienting this man toward faith. It starts with a shared definition of goodness, and most goodness. It starts with a shared definition of what is actually good.
Challenging conversations are usually not seen as shared on common interests. They are usually not seen as shared on common definitions.
When I was growing up, somehow my parents got ahold of a used pinball machine. I don’t know where they got it or how I just know that for one of my birthdays I got a pinball machine as a present. I would play with my friends and they would take the plunger and shoot the metal ball into the maze of the machine. And they would see the ball going in a dangerous direction, one toward a gutter or other difficult option.
And so they would nudge the machine. They would shake it. And there would be a horrendous screech that would come from the machine and a light would light up behind four words on the face of the machine, “tilt.”
Tilting a machine is watching the ball go one way and then nudging or pushing the machine to get the ball to go another way. Nudging the machine to get the ball to do what you want it to is not part of the machine. It is cheating.
Many of us tilt our relationships. We have these words and phrases, or these ideas, or sometimes this volume that acts like a tilt on our conversations. We can “nudge” it toward the outcome we want. But that is working outside the way a challenging conversation works.
If a challenging conversation is to ultimately build up, we first have to agree on what “good” is.
To tilt the machine is always tilt it away from what is good. God can use challenging conversations. God is in our challenging conversations. But when we tilt the machine, we toward our definition of, not Gods. Trying to be right, tilts the machine. Anger can tilt the machine. Yelling tilts the machine.
Because as we will see, defining what is ultimately good allows us to see that for the most part we are not as far away from each other as we thought.
Define first where God is in the conversation. How is God good in the conversation?
If we can define God in the conversation then we can point to Him with action
There has to be a means to move toward where you are pointing
There has to be a means to move toward where you are pointing
He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”
And then Jesus never leaves the reality that challenging conversations are faith filled and move toward God. Look at how he does it.
Jesus gives him a little bit of information at a time. This is hard in challenging conversations. Because we often want to say everything at once. We often want to tell someone just to stop or just to go. Just do it, we tell them.
But it is not that easy. We not only have to orient them to the good but we have to give them the means to do it.
Imagine you are helping someone put together a puzzle. How would you go about it?
You could give them the box with the picture on it.
You could give an example of what a puzzle looks like
You could chuck the puzzle on the floor and hope for the best (well I gave him the puzzle!)
Or you could sit down with them and give them a little bit at a time.
First put together the outline
then lump the colors together
then begin in a corner and work toward the middle.
Jesus’ conversation is a bit like a puzzle. He starts with the picture. Then He gives a little more. Then a little more. Enough so that the person you are in conversation with can do something with the challenge.
We see that when JEsus confronts this man with what is both good and what is true, He gives him enough to do something with at each point.
To challenge someone is to give them something they can do. It is giving something they can actually act on. Often we challenge but we call people to unattainable destinations. We have to show them the destination but ask them to simply take a few first steps there. With you.
A number of years ago I went to one of my mentors and I asked him to help me with my preaching. And I sent him a couple of my sermons and a month or so later we met up for lunch and it became one of the most painful conversations I would ever have. I was challenged one direction and another.
I kind of sunk into a bit of a depressed little hole, nursed my wounds. And eventually came back up for air.
But what was hurtful in the moment became healing in the next. He helped me to see what I wasn’t able to see and help me work through what I needed working through. I’m still working through some of those things.
But in that conversation my mentor did not leave me alone. HE gave mea few things to work through, he met with me a few months after. He built the puzzle with me.
A good challenging conversation may be hurtful in the moment, healing in the next
A good challenging conversation may be hurtful in the moment, healing in the next
Challenging conversations are more about how you can help someone to follow Jesus well in the world, not how they are messing everything up. If we do challenge well people will see the good. They will see where you are pointing them. And they will have enough to be able to take a step.
However:
When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
The challenging conversation does not end the way we would hope. It does not even end the way Jesus would hope.
Is this a waste of time if people don’t respond the way that would be most helpful to them?
It is not. We do not get to control how people respond to challenges. We do not get to manipulate or tilt our way into defining what that person does.
Jesus lets the man go because only the man can respond in the faith that God gives. Jesus does not snap his fingers and make him believe.
The is challenged with the question about what he believes to be the most good in the world. Our the most is Jesus the most good?
These very of things that we are asking when we’re faced with challenging?
Do you believe that God is so good that He is better than everything you have otherwise considered good?
Every challenging conversation will ask you to shift your definition of what is most good in the world.
If you are offering a challenging conversation, people need to see what is most good and then be given time to act on a new definiton.
If you are receiving a challenging conversation, take time to think and pray about what you consider most good.
Prompt: Can we talk about something that I think is really important to both of us? I want nothing more than for you to flourish in your faith
Response prompt: I want nothing more than to flourish in my faith. Help me see what is the most good.
The goal for us is the church is not to walk away from them like the Rich young ruler. Jesus opened the door to heaven itself and the man said no thank you.
The Gospel is the reality that all things come under submission to God. And that God is the most good. Everything else is lesser good. The church can be chucking things left and right in order to find our best good in God.
We are called to find our best good in God. All else is suspect. For those times we need each other. We need each others support, our help, our prayer and our harder conversations.