Communication Breakdowns and Gospel Communication

When Communication Fails: It's A Lack of Gospel Application

"Apply the gospel," is an easy statement to say. We might say it to one another all the time. But have we come to grips with what that truly means? It is different and counter-cultural to the world. And it is one of the most important things for those in Christ.

Applying the Gospel in communication should be the default action of the Christian. It's supposed to be the natural outflow of our Gospel identity. However, our humanity, our flesh, often fights us and in turn, we fight against one another. 

In marriage, we might have thoughts of "why are we not communicating?" or "he (or she) just doesn't understand me." In other life arguments and situations, we might think, "I'm not going to listen to them until they hear from me." We struggle to be heard and we fail to listen. Communication and relationships without the Gospel are always headed towards difficult and unresolved territory.

The reason that communication fails is that we are often speaking, hearing, and trying to communicate while idolizing ourselves. We aren't really communicating, instead, we are listing conditions, stating our demands, and listening to the speech that focuses on us. We make great debaters, but lousy listeners. We speak with strong voices but hear with weak ears.

Our communication is an evidence of our fruit. It demonstrates and often exposes who we truly worship. If we worship ourselves then our conversation is bent on getting our own justice, getting our way, holding grudges, creating bitterness, exposing impatience, and growing unforgiveness. It is not loving the other person as ourselves, but loving ourselves more than the other person and worse – more than God.

Gospel Communication: A Different Focus

Gospel communication, however, offers a different focus. It is applying the Gospel when we are captured heart and soul by the Gospel. It first recognizes that I am a sinner and I am in need of forgiveness. Secondly, it realizes that the grace that I have received is so incredible that I have no ground to stand on. I am in need of the Savior Jesus Christ and it is He that is to live in me. And third, it recognizes that the Gospel and Jesus Christ are to be the focus of our lives and conversations. 

Jesus tells us that when an issue comes about that we go to the other not for judgment, not for justification, and not for our way, rather for restoration. We are to facilitate peace, build connections, and love the other person deeper. Gospel conversations seek peace, patience, love, kindness, goodness, and meekness. It isn't self-serving but seeks to speak Jesus Christ into every moment.

So how do we have better Gospel communication?

First, to have Gospel communication we have to first lay down our own lives. We have to apply the Gospel to ourselves. Often the purpose of a conversation will be totally destroyed when we do this. In light of the Gospel and Christ's love so many issues dissolve or crumble. The foot of the Cross humbles us all.

Secondly, we have to come with total forgiveness – remembering the Gospel. If anytime in a conversation we say: "you always do _______," we have demonstrated that we have not forgiven past wrongs or issues. We are holding judgment over the other person– something that is totally opposed to the Gospel.

Gospel communication seeks restoration, seeks the love of the other person, and forgives the past and hopes for a different outcome. If we continue to repeat those negative things then we communicate that the other person's identity is based on the wrongs they have done to us. Forgiveness removes that from their identity. Gospel communication seeks to create new identities in Christ.

Third, we have to speak in love and in truth that is held up to the Gospel. If what we say or how we act goes against the fruit of the Holy Spirit we can be assured that it isn't Gospel communication. Instead, it is devoid of love and thus just a noisy gong clanging and doing nothing for the sake of unity or grace.

Fourth, we also have to submit to each other as to the Lord. That means that after we have spoken, we have to allow the other person to correct and lovingly rebuke us in light of God and His Word if we are in error. Gospel communication isn't a one-way street, in fact, it isn't even a two-way street – it is a three-way street – between you, the other person, and Christ.

In Gospel Communication, the goal is not ourselves, but to point one another to Jesus Christ. All other communication seeks to create discontent, dissonance, and selfishness.

More Than Pornography: Our Abuses of the Mind: Matthew 5:27-32

When you hear of the #metoo movement, it might bring sadness, concern, or a deep impassioned reaction to sexual violence and harassment. And there are elements of the #metoo movement that focus on sexual violence. #metoo started ten years ago as a way to help those who had survived sexual violence. But recently it has become a voice and message for those who have been sexually abused and harassed on a variety of levels.

Using #metoo as a cultural entry point isn’t to focus on those who have been chastised by it. It isn't to point judgment to abusers, instead, I want to use it as a point of cultural contextualization of the common grace of God. It is a point where we can begin to connect with those around us of God’s heart and design.

What I mean is that we can expose a realization, in our culture—news, social media, and our social and cultural contexts, as there being something evil or wrong in abusing women or men sexually.

A point of truth is being established by society that isn’t relative truth but is a moral and ethical grounding point. And portions of our culture are standing for, often unknowingly, a tenant and truth of God.

Taken to its deepest meaning, the #metoo movement symbolizes and points to the lostness and sexual depravity of the human mind. Taken to its furthest point— a point of recognizing the selfish motives of one or both of the parties, within even consensual sex, as being a form of abuse, then no sexual activity outside of Gospel marriages can be seen as fully consensual or unselfish. Outside of marriage sex will always be some form of abuse of power against God’s design in the mode of adultery and sexual misconduct or immorality.

Gospel marriages are to point to Christ and his servant attitude of honoring God and the other spouse and their needs above ours. A Gospel-oriented worldview of marriage (between a man and a woman) sees it as the only God-ordained safe and sacred space for sex. It is the only place legitimized by God for thoughts of fleshly desire and their consummation. And it is a place where we display a covenant of intimacy, devotion, and the endurance of Gospel love. As Christ demonstrates his love for us and doesn’t leave us, so also do we love and remain devoted to our spouses. What God has put together, we are to honor, cherish, and fight for its unity.

As Christians, we should have an even deeper and heartfelt sensitive realization of what is sexual immorality and abuse. We have a more profound understanding that all of us abuse God’s plan.

We are to realize that sexual abuse isn’t just physical acts, but how we think about things. In our viewpoint, adultery isn’t just committed behind closed doors, but also within our minds and closed eyes. How we play things out in our heads is paramount, for it plays from our hearts. And the root of our hearts leads our thoughts and focus.

In Matthew 5:27-32, Jesus said:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

One of the main points of Matthew 5:27-32 isn’t what we often make it out to be– just avoiding pornography, lustful desires, and divorce, although those are important facets and discussions to be considered, it is even more. It is about the root of our heart’s affections. It is about the deep holiness and special design that God has created for sex and connection—for a Gospel-oriented husband and wife in marriage. It’s about the radical love we have for that design and our radical reaction and heart protection against any thoughts and distortions against it. And it is a deep heart affection that sees any thought not captured by Christ as an affront and abuse of another person. Such radical motivations don’t come from moralistic teachings or devices, but from the Gospel, by the equipping of the Holy Spirit, and a deep understanding of what is so offensive to God that Christ uses the hyperbolic language of cutting off or plucking out parts of our bodies to protect us.

Without this heart and understanding, avoiding lustful thoughts and its adulterous implications will seem more like a restriction. However, the Gospel heart beats in love and with a mind that is renewed by Christ. This Gospel mind brings a fuller understanding that any extra-marital sexual act, even within the mind, is sexual misconduct that violates God, hurts others, abuses individuals, downplays a person’s value, trades holiness for a moment of wasted pleasure, and harbors a lack of Gospel love for our spouses, our neighbors, and their spouse (or future spouse).

Ultimately, the Gospel, through Christ, teaches us about God's design and intentions, shows us the depravity and distortion of sin in our lives, redeems us and forgives us of these abuses and sin– through Christ's work, and then restores our hearts back to God.

This Gospel activity also calls for us to die to ourselves. It calls us to different motivations and a love that is compelled and created by Christ’s love for us. In him, we have a treasure of love that is greater than anything we have in this world. This love allows us to not only die to ourselves but also equips us to tear out the sinful eyes and cut off the offending parts of our lives. Ultimately it creates in us a new heart.

In this Gospel understanding and life, we have an opportunity to demonstrate to those in society, our friends, and those in our schools, that we are also concerned for the #metoo movement. And we have a greater vehicle to speak to an even deeper purpose and level. We can communicate that we care for the sanctity of each person’s life and their value not as a body to be used for advertisement, not as a morsel of our flesh appetite, not as the source of our twisted mental or physical sexual happiness, but as people made in the image of God. We can demonstrate that true love is about having a true heart of God and not about lust and pleasure.

As for application, here are some steps:

1. Repent: Let us repent of our flesh tendencies and our own abuses.
2. Pray: Pray that God will give you the grace and faith to fight the flesh and help others to see in the heart of God.
3. Apply the Gospel: We must surrender to the grace and life-giving Gospel. We also are to share the Gospel and its healing to all we come in contact with– in words of love, hearts of protection, and actions of grace and help.
4. Cut out: Cut out elements of our lives that are just that– our lives, rather than God’s life. Remove yourself from situations that compromise your thoughts and motivations.
5. Protect: Protect all marriages, your mind, and the minds and hearts of those around you.
6. Submit: Allow other believers to know your weaknesses and for them to help you monitor and speak into your life. Fully submerse yourself into the church and missional communities to come alongside others for yourself and them.

Questions:

1. Have you considered the Holy Spirit’s fruit of love and how that motivates our hearts and minds to see others as valuable in God’s eyes, rather than an object of pleasure?
2. How does viewing one another as Christ’s bride and someone’s spouse (current or future) help us see and guard against our flesh proneness and selfishness?
3. Do you find yourself bending to your fleshly desires often?
4. Are there situations that you are putting yourself in that are compromising your thoughts and heart? 
5. What steps, personally, do you think you can implement to protect your mind?
6. Maybe you have been given the gift of singleness or lack of sexual desires. How might you help others?