Speaking the Truth in Love

A couple of years ago, I was at Bible College in a prayer group.

And in this prayer group, you had some students at Bible College.

I was one of the students.

You had some pastors and some lecturers, and we were praying for each other, kind of going around the circle praying.

And it got to my turn to pray.

And to be honest, I was a little bit daunted to pray.

These are like Bible nerds.

These are smart people.

And so as I was just thinking about what I would pray about, as I was praying, I was saying, don't say anything heretical, don't call Jesus Father, don't misquote the Bible.

And I prayed my prayer, and I was a pretty good prayer.

My heart was in it.

I felt like, yeah, I've prayed for my brother, the pastor next to me.

After this prayer group, we were walking back to class, and I was talking to a friend who's a pastor in Sydney.

And he said, hey Ben, would you like some feedback?

What are you supposed to say?

No, thank you, I'm happy just the way I am.

You can't say that.

So I said, oh, sure, yeah, feed me.

Like, well, what do you got?

And he said, did you know that when you pray, you use the word just a lot?

Like, Lord, we just pray that you would just bless us because we're just so grateful.

You're just so good to us.

So would you just?

He said, you use the word just a lot when you pray.

I just wanted to let you know that.

Now, my first response was my thought.

I thought in my head, wow, dude, I was really feeling that prayer.

Like, what are you, the just police?

Like, were you listening to my prayer?

I was in it.

And all you have to say for me is a criticism that I say the word just too much.

That was my first response.

My second response was better.

And that was the one that I acted on.

I said, thank you for telling me that.

I didn't know that.

Thank you for letting me know something that I didn't know.

And in that moment, I sort of meant those words, but I was still a little bit hurt.

But in the days and weeks and months and even now, years later, that followed that incident, I am grateful for the gift that my friend gave me.

Because he showed me something that I couldn't see in myself.

I didn't know that I used the word just when I prayed.

And when I think about it, I don't want to use the word just a lot.

So my friend gave me a great gift in helping me see something I couldn't see myself.

Many times in my life, I remember significant moments when a friend or family member has shown me something that I couldn't see about myself.

And they're turning points in life.

Moments of revelation and insight where you realize who you are as a person, and you draw closer to Jesus through that.

So my example, of course, is trivial.

Who cares if you say the word just a lot in prayer?

But there are real stories in our lives of moments when we were changed because someone spoke life into us.

That's sort of what we're going to talk about today.

Our core value this month, as you know, is coaching community.

And the heart behind that value, as the video next week will show, I didn't get time to make one, the video will say that the heart of coaching community is that we do this life of faith together.

None of us walk alone.

That's not the way that God designed the life of discipleship.

We walk together.

And part of our walking together in faith is to speak life into each other, to help each other see the things that we can't see.

And so when it comes to this idea that we're looking at, whether you call it a rebuke or a correction or just helping someone see something that they can't see, it's a vital part of Christian community.

And yet in my experience, it's not something we do well.

I'm not talking about NorthernLife, I'm talking about Christians generally.

It's not something that we do well.

Personally, as many stories as I have of friends and family speaking life, truth in love and it being helpful, I have as many stories of someone taking it on themselves to be my moral instructor, and I've been offended and hurt.

And so we live in this kind of tough world where it's so important that we speak life into each other, and yet we don't know how to do it well.

I think our story today helps us to reflect on this theme and helps us to have some biblical principles for how to help each other see what they cannot see.

This is the fourth sermon of Kings and Characters Season 2.

As always, if you missed the first three, they're on our website or our podcast if you just type NorthernLife Sermons.

Season 1 of Kings and Characters was almost exactly this time last year.

In fact, this time last year, in a week, meaning in a week's time, one year ago, last year, I preached a message on David, which was quite cool to look at the life of King David as a whole, his entire life, and tell his story.

And as I looked at the story of David that plays out across 1 and 2 Samuel, I noticed that there was this particular theme of the secret place that was quite a core theme in David's life.

So, if you were here a year ago, we had the digital whiteboard here.

It's the only time we've ever used it.

And I wrote this sort of front stage, back stage framework as a way of understanding David's life.

That at the start of David's life, he lived entirely on the back stage, which is to say his life was private.

He wasn't doing it for others.

But as David's life went on from being a shepherd boy to the champion, to the king, to a sinner, David increasingly stepped into the light, into the front stage, and his life went downhill from that point.

Well, today we come to another story in the life of David.

We're zooming in on this particular moment in 2 Samuel 12, and I think there's another framework again today, which will help us to understand what plays out in this story.

And it's called the Johari Window, if you're familiar with that framework.

Over the course of this message, I'm going to spell out what the Johari Window is, but before we get there, a bit of a backstory before we arrive in 2 Samuel 12.

David has become king, finally.

After years and years and years of being persecuted by Saul and wrestling with the anointing of God, but not being king, David has finally become king.

In 2 Samuel 7, we have this great moment called the Davidic Covenant.

It's a really crucial chapter.

In 2 Samuel 7, David says to Yahweh, to God, I live in a palace of cedar, but the ark of God is in a tent.

So let me, David, build you, God, a house.

And in the Davidic Covenant, God flips it around and says, no, David, you won't build me a house, I'll build you a house.

God promises that he will, David will never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.

The Davidic Covenant ends with these words, 2 Samuel 7 verse 16.

Yahweh says to David, your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me.

Your throne will be established forever.

Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation.

This is the first time Nathan appears.

Nathan, it seems, although we don't really know much about him, he was a prophet of God, probably someone who David knew, who was sort of an advisor, who spoke the word of God to King David.

Nathan reports the Davidic Covenant.

A couple of chapters later, in 2 Samuel 9, we have this scene where David is just at the high point of his kingship.

2 Samuel 9, David asks, Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan's sake?

He's like Oprah.

He's just giving blessing to whoever will take it.

He's using his power as king to bless others.

The next chapter, 2 Samuel 10, David's killing it in battle, literally.

It's a brutal chapter, but throughout chapter 10 of 2 Samuel, David is winning.

Israel are winning because God is on their side.

They are defeating their enemies, and this is the high point of the Israelite monarchy.

And then we flip the page.

2 Samuel 10 to 2 Samuel 11, verse 1 says this, In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king's men and the whole Israelite army.

They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabah, but David remained in Jerusalem.

Can you hear the motif?

There's a haunting kind of musical motif.

David is not where he should be.

We know from the story of David, he is at his best when he's leading the army, when he is at the front line, but David wasn't where he should be.

David remained in Jerusalem.

And you know what happens after that?

It's the scene where David abuses Bathsheba and then lies and then murders Uriah to cover it up.

David blatantly abuses his power.

And as we see in 2 Samuel 11, there's one word which appears so frequently throughout the story that it's not accidental.

And the word is sent.

I invite you tonight or tomorrow, go home and read 2 Samuel 11 and underline every time the word sent comes up because it's everywhere in 2 Samuel 11.

David is not where he should be on the front line.

So from back in Jerusalem, David sends.

He sends and sends and sends.

He's abusing his power.

And then we flip the page to chapter 12, which is our passage for today.

Trotty read this for us.

We'll start in verse 27.

After the whole Bathsheba incident, but the thing David had done displeased the Lord.

So the Lord sent.

And we can just pause right there.

This is frame one of the Joari window.

God knows.

God knows what David has done.

When you see those words in the first verse of chapter 12, God sent, the Lord sent.

In the context of chapter 11 and chapter 12, that is a total flipping of the power dynamic upside down.

In chapter 11, it was David who was doing all the sending.

David was abusing and using his power to send and send and send.

And now we come to chapter 12 and the Lord sends.

The power has totally shifted and now it's God's turn to act.

God knows what David did.

Sort of goes without saying, but I think David probably thought he got away with it.

He abused his power and then he used more power to cover it up and more power and more power and he thought he had dealt with that problem, but God saw it.

2 Samuel 12 verse 1, The Lord sent Nathan to David.

When he came to him, he said, and we'll get to what Nathan said, but very quickly in the story, we move from frame one to frame two.

Nathan knows.

God has somehow spoken to the prophet Nathan and told him.

It's interesting that God sent a human.

Often in the Old Testament or in the whole Bible, we see moments where God talks directly to someone.

It says in scripture that God spoke to Moses face to face like a friend.

God spoke to Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob directly, but equally often or maybe more often, God chooses to speak to his people through a prophet.

Through a human mediator, and that's what God does here.

God tells Nathan what he needs to know in order to do his job and tell David.

But before we get to what Nathan said, just picture Nathan for a second.

Picture what he's feeling in this moment.

David is an adulterer, a liar, a murderer, and he's also the king of Israel.

And you, Nathan, are told that you're supposed to go and confront that guy about a terrible abuse of power.

I think it's fair to say Nathan is feeling scared.

David is an adulterer, a liar, a murderer, and a king, and it's Nathan's job to speak to him.

So what does Nathan say?

How does he say it?

I think he says a parable.

We read in verse 1, The Lord sent Nathan to David.

When he came to him, he said, He said, There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor.

The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb he had bought.

He raised it, and it grew up with him and his children.

It shared his food, drank from his cup, even slept in his arms.

It was like a daughter to him.

Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him.

Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him.

Nathan tells a parable.

We might call it the parable of the power abuser.

Why does he tell a parable?

Well, I think it's because of who David is in this moment.

The scripture doesn't say that Nathan said, this is what the Lord says, and then he says the parable.

And when we see prophets in the Old Testament, I don't think the sense is that God overrides their human agency to just put them in a trance and they speak the words of God directly.

I think God's modus operandi in the Old Testament is to use the humanity of the prophet to communicate the word of God to the people.

And so when we think that David is an adulterer, a liar, a murderer, and the king of Israel, it makes sense that Nathan would be scared.

And so the way that he chooses to convey the truth of God to David is through a parable.

Because the parable has this way, stories have this way of slipping under the cracks of our self-guardedness, and they carry more truth than we think they do.

You know, Jesus taught in parables.

In Matthew 13, we see the first parable in the whole gospel, and it's sort of the parable of the parables.

And afterwards, it's the parable of the sower.

After that, Jesus explains to his disciples, they ask him, why do you speak in parables?

And Jesus says, it's because the secrets of the kingdom of heaven have been given to you.

Jesus is saying, he speaks in parables so that those who see and understand might understand more.

But he also speaks in parables so that those who don't see will not see.

Jesus said that he spoke in parables to invite people to lean in to what he was saying.

For those that didn't care to find out what the story meant, they would never see.

As Isaiah said, which Jesus quotes in Matthew 13, those seeing, they may never see.

And those hearing, they may never hear.

Parables, the way Jesus told them and Nathan, invite us to lean in, to lean in to what the meaning is.

So what's David's first response?

Well, verse five.

David burned with anger against the man and said to Nathan, as surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die.

He must pay for that lamb four times over because he did such a thing and had no pity.

Now remember, David doesn't know that this is a parable.

As far as David's concerned, Nathan is telling him something that actually happened in David's kingdom.

And so, his response is the perfect response of a king who claims to be just.

David says, that's terrible.

What a terrible injustice.

That man should die and that man should be paid back four times what he lost.

David doesn't know it's a parable, which brings us to what I think is the most important line in the whole story, verse 7.

Then Nathan said to David, you are the man.

It's a haunting moment.

That Nathan flips the whole story on its head, which brings us to frame number 3, David knows.

Firstly, God knew.

God saw what David did.

And then God spoke through the prophet Nathan.

Now, Nathan knows, Nathan has told his piece to David.

You are the man, says Nathan.

Jesus did that a lot in his parables and in his teaching.

He would sort of say one thing, and then at the very end, flip the whole thing upside down.

He had this way of teaching in parables that was upside down.

And Nathan does the same thing.

You are the man, says Nathan.

What Nathan was doing, I think, is helping David see what he couldn't see in himself.

David has really a wild unself awareness that as Nathan was saying the parable, he had no clue that it was referring to him.

He had no conception of his own sin, of his own power abuse that had happened.

But God, through the prophet Nathan, shows him.

Verse 7, Nathan said to David, You are the man.

This is what the Lord the God of Israel says.

I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.

I gave your master's house to you and your master's wives into your arms.

I gave you all Israel and Judah, and if this had been too little, I would have given you even more.

Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes?

You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own.

You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.

Consequence is what Nathan is saying.

Because of what David has done, there are consequences.

And as we read that list, there's this funny tension of, which I think is inherent in every sin, sin just has consequences.

When you murder someone, it tears apart a community.

When you do bad things, it has natural consequences that God doesn't even have to put his hand on.

And yet we also see that God is active in his punishment on David.

We have both the natural consequence of sin and the supernatural from God.

Effectively, God is saying through the prophet Nathan, David, if you will abuse your power over others, then you will have the same thing done to you.

The sword that you used against Uriah will come back on you.

The abuse will come back on you.

Skipping down to verse 13, we see David's response.

So Nathan's told the parable.

David was outraged.

Nathan flipped it.

He said, you are the man.

And he spelled out the consequence.

This is David's response.

David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.

In Hebrew, it's three words.

Look in your Bible.

Look at how much Nathan speaks.

He says a whole parable, and then the consequence of sin.

David says three words.

That's all he says.

I have sinned against the Lord.

So what's he thinking?

Like, what's going on in the mind of David?

Is that just a kind of reaction, just a defense, not a true repentance?

I don't think it is.

Because even though we get only three words in Hebrew, and what is it, five in English, six, we have Psalm 51, which I think Serene was quoting from before in her prayer.

Psalm 51 gives us a window into the heart of David in this moment.

I'll read the first few verses.

Have mercy on me, O God, says David.

According to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

David goes on in the rest of Psalm 51 to lament what his sin has done to himself and to his community, and he turns back in repentance to God, praying that God would cleanse him.

It's the Psalm of the repentant, Psalm 51.

And it's one to remember if you find yourself in a situation like that.

I myself have used Psalm 51 a lot.

It's a good scripture to have locked away.

David said, I've sinned against the Lord.

Nathan replied, the Lord has taken away your sin.

You're not going to die.

But because, verse 14, because by doing this, you have shown utter contempt for the Lord, the son born to you will die.

Here again, we have consequence and yet grace.

There's grace and consequence in what the Lord says to David.

The consequence is just the fallout of what David has done.

He has wielded his sword against others and it breaks apart the kingdom of Israel.

And yet, still, God is gracious in forgiving David.

What I find interesting about this grace and consequence tension is God created the tension.

Because in 2 Samuel 7, the backdrop of 2 Samuel 7, by the way, is God anoints Saul to be king of Israel.

He says, this is the man who will lead us.

Saul becomes king, then Saul stuffs up.

God takes the kingship away from Saul and gives it to David.

And so, if you're reading the story of the Bible, you think, okay, is this just going to happen every time?

We have a king, God gives the anointing, they stuff up, God takes it off, gives it to a new person, takes it off, gives it to a new person.

That's sort of the pattern that is starting to form until 2 Samuel 7, God says, as I took the kingship away from Saul, I will not take it away from you, David.

God commits himself by covenant to the line of David.

He commits himself to work with this family as messed up as they are.

And so the tension of grace and consequence was created by God.

God bound God's self to the line of David.

And so God is going to have to deal with the consequence of sin.

God forgives, and yet there are consequences for David's sin.

We skipped verse 11, so we'll return to that.

This is what the Lord says, out of your own household, David, I'm going to bring calamity on you.

Before your very eyes, I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight.

You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before Israel.

Frame four of the story is Israel Knows.

As we've been watching the story of 2 Samuel 12 unfold, it goes from God knows to Nathan knows to David knows to eventually all Israel will know, because it's grace and consequence.

David sinned in secret, but his sin tore apart Israel, and it became known to everyone.

And from this moment in 2 Samuel 12, David's life falls apart.

He has like 2 chapters of being the best king ever, blessing everyone, leading Israel, victory, and then it gets terrible very quickly.

His life goes very quickly downhill.

And in fact, when we look at verses 11 and 12, we see that what God said would happen is exactly what happened.

David's son, Absalom, took his father's concubines and didn't do it in secret.

He slept in broad daylight on the roof of the palace.

David's son multiplied his own father's sin on the roof of the palace.

So what was done in private in David becomes public in his son, Absalom.

David's, the son with Bathsheba did die, but David had a second son, named him Solomon.

I found out this week that Solomon as a name comes from the same Hebrew root as shalom, meaning peace.

Shalom is the Hebrew word which means peace and wholeness.

And so I think there's something interesting in the fact that David names his second son a man of peace in like wild contrast to the fact that God said, the sword will never depart from your house.

David is a violent man.

That's why he couldn't build the temple.

2 Chronicles 20 says that David is not the one to build the temple because he is a violent man.

David names his son man of peace in an attempt to try and break the legacy, but God has said that your line will be marked by violence.

And from the line of David, it pretty much gets worse and worse and worse.

Sometimes the kings get better and then they get worse.

On the screen here, this graphic, the blue squiggly line, I think that's kind of the story of the kings.

You get a good king.

It says, then someone so became king of Israel.

He did what was good in the eyes of the Lord and then he died.

The next king did what was evil in the eyes of the Lord.

The story of the kings is up and down and up and down, but generally down.

The whole story falls apart.

So that's the story, 2 Samuel 12.

David is confronted by the prophet Nathan.

And stepping back and looking at the four frames, we see the picture of sort of an adapted Johari window.

The background behind this is David has sinned.

David is not perfect.

Firstly in the story, we saw God knows.

God saw.

Then Nathan, the prophet, knows.

Nathan tells David.

David knows.

And eventually all Israel know.

That's sort of an adapted Johari window, which I think is a framework which is quite helpful for Christian community done well.

Here's a quote from Robert Mulholland.

If indeed the work of God's formation in us is the process of forming us in the image of Christ, and it is, obviously it's going to take place at the points where we are not yet formed in that image.

This means that one of the first dynamics of holistic spiritual formation is or will be confrontation.

That's just so logical, but I've never heard somebody actually say that.

If we follow Jesus, we desire to be like Him, to be formed into the image of Jesus.

And obviously, if we are being spiritually formed in the image of Jesus, that has to happen first in the places where we are not like Jesus.

And in that dynamic, we need each other because we are a coaching community.

That's what we value at NorthernLife.

We walk this life of faith together, helping each other see what we can't see ourselves.

So let me adapt the Johari window from David's story to something that might be helpful for us.

The Johari window becomes, God knows, you know, I know, they know.

I being the subject of the way that we framed the Johari window.

And each transition, I think, is helpful to look at.

So the first transition is this one.

God knows to you know.

It goes without saying that I'm not perfect, you're not perfect, you know that.

We are not perfect.

We have areas of our life where we are not yet fully formed in the image of Jesus.

It also goes without saying, God knows that.

God sees that.

So we can establish that.

And then as we've seen in the Old Testament, God so often works through prophets.

God communicates to his people via his people.

It may just be that God wants to speak life into you through your brother or sister.

And God wants to use you to speak life into somebody else.

Hebrews 1 says, in the past, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways.

But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.

The son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.

On the topic of the word, how would God let you know if you are to speak life into a brother or sister?

2 Timothy 3.16, all scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Look at those 4 things.

2 of them, the middle 2, are like negative parts.

Scripture is useful for rebuking and correcting, and it's useful for teaching and training in righteousness.

And so scripture does have the ability.

God can form us into the image of Jesus privately.

Just me and the Bible, God can transform me.

But equally, God can use scripture in the community of faith to form us into the image of Jesus.

And so if God is inviting you to be a part of helping your brother or sister become like Jesus, you better pray about it.

And I think probably it's wise to pray in proportion to how serious the matter is.

Now my friend from before, all he had to say to me was I say just a lot when I pray.

He probably didn't have to pray that much.

But if you're Nathan confronting David about his lying, murdering, adulterous act, you better pray and be certain that God is calling you to speak life into someone.

So you have a sense that God wants to use you to speak life to help somebody see what they can't see.

Frame two to three is this transition from you know to letting me know.

You know to I know.

When we look at the story, I think the first thing that is crucial in this part of you telling me what I can't see is don't say God told me to tell you.

The prophets get to say that.

Nathan gets to say, this is what the Lord says, but we don't get to say that.

You do a lot of damage when you say, God told me to tell you something.

Instead, what I've found helpful when people have said it to me is, I have a sense that God might be saying, or better yet, look at what God has said in Scripture, because Scripture is God-breathed and useful.

So how do we do this part well?

How do we speak life, helping other people see what they can't see?

Matthew 7 verse 3, Jesus said, Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there's a plank in your own eye?

You hypocrite, says Jesus.

First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you'll see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Dallas Willard commenting on this passage says that the need to correct somebody else is itself a plank.

If you feel the need to nitpick at every little thing that's wrong with another person, that's a plank in your own eye.

And yet, I don't think Jesus is saying that we have no responsibility to speak life into each other.

He's saying we have to have a posture of humility and search with the Lord whether he is wanting to speak through us.

Galatians 6 verse 1.

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently, but watch yourselves or you may also be tempted.

Restore that person gently.

Ephesians 4 11.

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then, in becoming mature, then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.

This is the bit.

Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow, it's plural, together.

We will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him who is the head, that is Christ.

From Him, the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work.

Speaking the truth in love is what we're talking about.

To communicate the truth of God in scripture, what you see, what God has helped you to see in another person, in love.

Holding those two things is really the tension that we're talking about.

So now that you've told me what you see, you are my friend who said, Ben, do you know that you say just a lot when you pray?

How do I respond?

Well, we see in David, he had two responses, right?

David's first response was to burn with anger.

My first response was maybe not that strong, but I was like a little bit fiery with something when my friend told me what he told me.

But don't act on the first response.

David's second response was repentance.

He said, I have sinned against the Lord.

Remember that spiritual formation, we talked about this a few weeks ago.

Spiritual maturity, part of that is to increase the time between trigger and response.

If you have no time between trigger and response, your first response is the one that you act on.

But in the wisdom of God, by the grace of God, if we can lengthen the time between trigger and response, then the Spirit of God can help us bear its fruit, bear His fruit in our lives.

Patience, love, that we might respond well.

We've quoted Mark 1-15 a lot this year as we worked through the Gospel of Mark.

Jesus said, the time has come, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God has come near.

Repent and believe the good news.

One way of interpreting what Jesus is saying is when the kingdom of God comes, that's the rule and reign of God, the activity of God.

When the rule and reign of God comes into a place, the response is repentance and belief.

So if God is acting in your life, the proper response of a human being is turn from my way and trust your way, God.

So as we hear the truth in love, repentance and belief is our part of the response.

Fourthly, the transition between frame three and four.

I know to they know.

This is what we see in the story when the consequence of David's sin becomes known to all Israel.

Robert Mulholland, who I quoted before, he defines spiritual formation as a process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others.

And I like that definition.

I haven't heard many people add the for the sake of others bit.

But he's right, that as we follow Jesus, it's not only that we might become so mature and godly over here, but that we might be formed into people of love that overflow in community.

And so if you help me see what I can't see in myself, and I become more like Jesus, it will be for the sake of other people, that they might glorify God and say, how good is Jesus?

Look at what he has done.

Now, it goes without saying, it might not be appropriate for everyone to know the dynamic of what has happened in that conversation.

But the fruit in your life, the changed person you become as a result of someone speaking life into you should be known.

It should be evident to other people.

But we need wisdom to handle that part.

So stepping back again, this is our Johari window.

God knows, you know, I know, so that they know.

I think that that might be a helpful framework for us to approach this important aspect of discipleship.

Remember, we're looking this month at coaching community.

It's our core value.

We do not walk this life of faith alone.

We live in the Western secular world, which has emphasized so much the individual aspect of faith, that I follow Jesus, and it's what I decide to do, and you can do what you want to do, because I'm a rational, autonomous human being.

That vision is so foreign to the New Testament.

The New Testament envisions the life of faith done in community, and I know you believe that because you're sitting in this room.

And if you're joining online, you know that there is value in Christian community.

The way that we function together is to help each other draw closer to God, to speak life.

And so this framework might be a helpful thing for us.

I invite you maybe to have a coffee with a friend or a trusted mentor or someone, and sketch this on a napkin and talk about it.

Maybe God might use you to help your brother or sister see what they can't see.

And maybe God might use that person to help you see what you can't see.

But in the end, this might not be helpful, and that's okay.

The point is, we want to be like Jesus.

All of this is about Jesus.

There's no capacity to change outside of the grace of Jesus.

Last month, we looked at our core value, his grace is enough.

It's grace that empowers, grace that transforms.

So NorthernLife, may we become more like Jesus by his grace.

May we be a community of faith that walk together this life of faith, helping each other see what we can't see, that we might become more like Jesus.

Let me pray.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for your incredible grace for us.

It's the grace that has forgiven us, set us free from our sin and given us life.

And it's also the grace that helps us to be matured, to grow up, to transform.

And so we pray that you would give us your grace this week, help us to become more like you.

And if we have a role to play in each other's formation into your image, then would you make that clear?

Help us, God, to speak the truth in love, knowing that you first loved us, and that's only how we can love others.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

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