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Luke 12:3 “What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.” 

PURPOSE: to highlight and demonstrate that our private worlds and words shape our public relationships, which determine our personal destinies.

MOTIVE: Written out of a deeper fear of the Lord myself, in taking my burdens to God, in dealing biblically with inner and outer conflict; and finally, in being loving to all, with a deep sincerity.

We realise with one reading of the gospels and epistles how much God values unity. Christ died to make us “one”. This is the great mystery of the gospel – that a living, spiritual Body can be formed to represent Christ in real and lively ways - and that such a body can be formed out of angry men made peaceful; out of sinners made holy; out of broken lives made new.

God is never looking for a public show, for pretence or external appearances. He rejects these as tainted offerings. He looks at the heart and inspects the motive, without embarrassment.

He has poured out His Spirit to prepare a perfect, spotless Bride for the Son.

So, when we strip down the meetings and ministries, travel and timetables, what matters to God is the quality of our relationships. He works to knit us together in ways the world can never imitate. Scripture is clear on this: “Above all, love each other deeply” (1 Peter 4:8); “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.” (1 Peter 1:22); “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35).

This is an indiscriminate, 360 degree kind of love. To love like this takes Christian faith daily in the great “I AM”. It takes also a firm belief that God is over all, through all and in all. God gives us people to love who are a challenge to love. It is easy to love the loveable and agree with the agreeable!

Without beating around any bush, I want to make this argument in the context of God’s goal of deep unity of the Spirit, purpose and faith – that how we speak of and about others when apart has a direct bearing on the nature and quality of our relationship to such others when together, and also to our Christian progress.

Now, I want to offer rationale – both negative and positive – for this postulation.

1.  When we speak differently of a person (more negatively) than to that same person, the spiritual atmosphere changes. The power of life and death is in the tongue. This scripture from James never adds “when you are present”. In other words, the words uttered in my inner chamber still have the power of life and death. 

2.  When the atmosphere changes, people read atmospheres. Psychologists tell us that 70% of communication is in ‘body language’ - and a chunk more in tone and choice of words. When love fades, things get more formal, starchy, awkward, measured. Things ‘fade’. We are called into a measureless kingdom, yet for some we go from hosepipes to thimbles. You only have to consider your own children to understand how perceptive humans are to the invisible ink written “between the lines”.

3.  When we speak about someone, we are failing to include this person in the process of forming or hardening our perceptions about him/her. This is the demonic power of gossip or slander - we form a view through our own paradigm, hurt or offended pride, then we find blind witnesses to validate our view. These third parties only need to share a common hurt, common agenda or common tryst, to be deceived into gossip. We have all done it. Especially in moments of deep offence. As a small counterbalance, RT Kendall says it is good to have ONE OTHER to share with, but only to get godly and impartial perspective. Impartiality is in desperately short supply in the church today. We must claim it, because it comes with grace…and with honest answers to questions such as: “How much is God overlooking in my life? How big a debt has been cancelled over me?”

4.  When we speak about someone falsely or differently, we lose the favour of God. God is truth, and never a lie. God is honest. God is forthright. God is never duplicitous. So, when we fume or plot or distort things, when we plan an attack or scheme on “how to handle someone”, we lose the power of grace and the personal involvement of the Holy Spirit. God is holy. And in losing His fellowship, we lose wisdom all the more. And as this happens, we more easily convince ourselves our path is right, our life is noble, our brother is a fool. This is the “spiral of justification” the enemy hooks believers into, if we allow him to.

5.  When we muddy the waters of offence through private speculation and gossip amongst friends, we lose the Biblical opportunity for true reconciliation. Where the sin is real and the offence unmissable, even here Jesus’ counsel is straightforward: “If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.” (Matthew 18:15-16). There is an immediacy about going to your brother that precludes a few weeks or months of debate within your inner circle. One of my wonderful pastors in my early Christian walk used to say, “God has not even granted you the right to debate it with your spouse. All too often,” he would add, “the husband gets healed but the wife stays stuck in her husband’s old offences.”

6.  When we speak two languages in different circumstances, we become modern day Pharisees. The Pharisees were missional, evangelical, charismatic and evangelistic. They would travel over land and sea to win a single convert. They tithed on their spices. They read and prayed. The only thing keeping many of us from becoming Pharisees is sincerity. It is keeping an integrity – a “oneness” and sameness in every sphere of our lives. There is no point in being zealous only in church meetings. There is little point to only worshipping when your band is on stage. There is utter futility in doing things publicly so men can notice and applaud… And so too, it is hypocritical to the point of pointlessness to speak life over one’s brother in his presence, and death over him in his absence.

7.  In planning attacks and defences, in pulling others down to raise ourselves up, we lose the power of God’s advocacy and vindication in our own lives. I used to tell new brides at the altar, “Submission is learning how to duck so God can hit your husband”. It’s true, actually. Too often, we are bobbing and weaving, jabbing and circling so much that we interfere in God’s righteous dealings with the other party. Jesus loves to defend the underdog; He loves to protect the adulteress from religious hypocrisy and accurate but unloving accusation. Do you want God to deal with your enemy? Scripture tells you straight how to do that – “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:17–21). Another alarming little scripture is found in Proverbs 24:17-18: “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him.” I am still not quite sure how to apply that!

8.  In ganging up against a brother who rubs you up the wrong way, we lose a potential friend or disciple. In the gospel, sworn enemies become dear friends. Jews and Greeks, slaves and free, male and female, young and old – they can become one, as Christ and the Father are one. The Holy Spirit is a uniting spirit. This is not a culture club or a middle class friendship agency. My son once saw an advert for a dating agency which claimed to match “personality profiles, likes and interests”. He commented, “So much for enjoying diversity”. The church should be like a modern day Naioth (1 Samuel 19), the city where angry King Saul took off his war clothes and began to prophesy. Someone has to help angry men find peace. Someone has to be the shock-absorber. Church becomes an astringent, unpleasant environment with radars up for offence and indiscretion. Finally, we could all do well by asking ourselves the question, “Has repaying like for like and kind for kind, hurt for hurt and word for word, matured me and made me a friend of sinners?”

9.  In speaking well of our brothers, in believing the best and overlooking offence, we gain favour with God and men. All men ache to find a brother who deliberately turns a blind eye to their glaring weaknesses. “Maturity is not so much how much we observe, but how much we choose to overlook”. And all the while, our heavenly credibility grows. All the while we become promotable in the Kingdom of Mercy and Forgiveness.

10.  So, learning to live with difficult people means we are being qualified for higher assignments. I don’t want to spend my remaining years just dealing with middle class angst and awareness. I want to access the lost and broken. This is where Jesus ministered. He loves us middle class, but we are low on faith. I truly believe that being faith-full in these little battles like brotherly offence qualifies us to being used for assignments requiring more faith, and thus greater rewards. We cannot shrink our way to greatness. There is a whole world dying in the valley of decision. It is time to win these minor skirmishes!

11.  Forgiving a person in private, before they apologise for or even notice a real offence, keeps you in the flow of the Father’s forgiveness. And with forgiveness, the fount of blessing flows unceasingly! “Unforgiveness is the only unforgiveable sin”, said Michael Eaton. “Forgive, that you might be forgiven”, said Jesus. And nowhere in scripture does it say the offending brother must grovel and squirm before you release forgiveness (and never does it commend us to say, “I’ll forgive, but I won’t forget”). What if God treated you like you treat the offender? Have you not offended God daily, sometimes by the minute? Keep the fountain of forgiveness flowing, and don’t be stupid like the unforgiving servant of Matthew 18.

Paul was so adamant that we win this battle against self-righteous deception and hypocrisy, that he blurted out to the squabbling Corinthians, “Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?”! (1 Corinthians 6:7). He equated “the devil’s schemes” to sowing disunity amongst believers through unforgiveness (2 Cor 2:11), for the devil also knows that “a house divided against itself will fall” (Luke 11:17b).

He also observes what the Trinity observed at the tower of Babel, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.” (Genesis 11:6). The only difference now is it is God’s temple that is going up!

Without this kind of integrity, church becomes a political sphere and a cloak for the Darwinian maxim of “survival of the fittest”. We are all only made fit by grace and unspeakable mercy, so… “go and do ye likewise”.

Finally, may God grant us grace upon grace to believe the best and to speak life over one another – in public and in private.

-- Nick Davis