00:00:00 Thanks for joining me on episode 762 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm Dow Tippett, author of seven daily choices. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your colleagues, having the ability to make the right choices every day is key.
00:00:25 And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader. It's something that we have to recognize that speaking the truth in love comes in a much larger context of relationship and community. And if we aren't building that relationship and that community, then speaking the truth out of love will never really happen.
00:01:04 Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
00:01:37 And today's spiritual foundation episode about investing in others. I share a passage from a Fijian chapter four verses one through 16. I talk a little bit about why truth and love is way easier said than done. And I share what that really means for all of us in Ephesians. In this letter, there's a series of passages, one through 16 and, and it's actually Pat verse 15 that I think gets referenced a lot by folks.
00:02:09 But I wanted to read the whole thing to kind of give the context of what comes before. So it starts, I therefore a prisoner for the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling, to which you have been called with all humanity and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.
00:02:31 There is one body and one spirit just as you are called to the one, hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one, faith, one baptism, one, God and father of all who is overall and through all and in all. But grace was given to each one of us, according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore it says when he ascended on high,
00:02:52 he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men and saying he ascended, what does it mean? But that he had also into the lower regions of earth. He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God,
00:03:24 to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ so that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried by every wind of doctrine by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him, who is the head into Christ from whom the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly,
00:03:54 makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. See this, this idea of speaking to each other with the truth of love is one of those things that often gets talked about in Christian circles. And I will be honest. Oftentimes it's used as code words for, let me tell you something you're not going to like, let me tell you something you don't want to hear,
00:04:18 but I'm going to speak it out of love. But if you notice in the context of this passage, what is being talked about is the idea that we're all in this together, the idea that we all serve the same end result, we're all after this idea of growing together in Christ becoming a little bit more like Christ each and every day. You've heard me talk about on,
00:04:45 towards perfection are moving towards that status and how it's one of those things that it's always a journey. It's never a destination. And this is kind of another version of that. And it's talking about how we shouldn't fall for these things that come in from outside human schemes, craftiness other things, but instead be focused on doing the work that we're asked to do to bring the gospel,
00:05:12 to bring out the living Christ, to do things that show that we love and serve each other. This isn't about taking an opportunity to kind of do what I call Christian gossip. This isn't about taking an opportunity to look at each other and say things in that really, and truly are meant only to tear people down or to be hurtful or to, to break people up.
00:05:38 This is about having an opportunity to work with each other, to create one body unified, not uniform, but unified indirection working in the same direction, trying to do things Together. But here's the problem that's really Hard to do because as human beings, as much as we want to be focused on serving others, as much as we want to be focused on making sure that others are taking care of and that we're lifting everyone up and that everyone is succeeding together,
00:06:14 we do have two things that kind of block us. One is we often have this feeling that if somebody else gets something good, it means I can't have it. We are selfish at times. We look out to other people and we actually become a little bit jealous and we reach out to them in a negative way in part, because we're comparing ourselves to them and we're asking,
00:06:41 you know, if they have more, if they have better, why can't I have it? And then there's another part of us that as much as we want to serve and give others what they want and we want to help others, it's really hard to know what that is. We have a tendency instead to try to give other people what we want.
00:07:00 We have a tendency to think that other people think the way we do, they act the way that we do. They see the world the way that we do, it's really hard to truly be open-minded and recognize the fact that other people's journeys through life is probably not yours. That if everyone in your community and your group and your church and your business,
00:07:22 whatever it is, looks the same and thinks the same and acts the same. That's actually not a good thing because out of diversity comes strength. It's about uniform. No, it's about unity. We wouldn't, we're asked in this kind of passage to become a body together. It's about focusing on being United, but it's not about focusing on being uniform.
00:07:53 It's not about everyone looking the same. It's not about everyone acting the same. It's not about everyone thinking the same instead. It's about everyone moving the same direction. Maybe getting there different ways, maybe not always doing it the way you would want to do it. Maybe not always acting the way that you wish they would act. Definitely not necessarily looking like you are coming from the same background as you.
00:08:18 This is one of the things that happens a lot, you know, as Christians we'll reach out to some group to help them. But the truth is we assume that we know better than them, what it is that they need. I've seen that over and over in Christian action projects, where we come in with our standards, with our ideas, with our background,
00:08:40 and we try to dictate that for the group that we're trying to help where the truth is, we ought to have enough humility to actually ask what's going on, to try to learn deeper. What's the mindset behind group. What's the attitude behind this group to not assume that our system and our attitude is better, but rather to recognize that maybe they do things differently.
00:09:08 And there's a reason behind that and understand the reason and not hold it in judgment, but rather work within it or with it before you just assume that it's wrong. But that's really hard to do. It's hard to do within our own groups. It's hard to do outside of our groups. It's something that we have to recognize that speaking the truth in love comes in a much larger context of relationship and community.
00:09:38 And if we aren't building that relationship and that community, then speaking the truth out of love will never really happen. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling.
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