The Church of Eleven22 - S02E16 - Speak to One Another with Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs

Episode Date: July 26, 2021

The way we speak to one another matters. The way we speak to one another is not a reflection of the mouth, but a reflection of the heart. Are you speaking life, or are you speaking death? ¹⁹ addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, ²⁰ giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. – Ephesians 5:19-21

Welcome to Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. The Church of 1122 is a movement for all people to discover and deepen a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we're praying this message helps you deepen your relationship with him. Now let's dive in. Hey, church family, welcome back to Deep and Devo. We are going to be kind of piggybacking on last week's sermon, John Chapter 10, one of my favorite passages in John 1010, where Jesus lets us know that he is the good shepherd and that the thief has come to steal, kill, and destroy, but that Jesus has come,

that we might have life and have it abundantly. And so what I want to do in our time together is focus in just on a few verses. We mentioned it last weekend, but I want to dive deep in this. And the reason I do is because our one another this week we find in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 19. Paul says in Ephesians 519, these words, speak to one another with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Now, I don't think he means we're supposed to, you know, like sing musicals to one another. I think the mode in which we speak to one another

should have a similar type tone that we worship God in. Not that we worship one another, but that it's positive, it's uplifting, that we speak truth, those kind of things. And so in John chapter 10, the reason that I wanted to look at that one another this week is, in John 10, chapter 10, verse 3,

The second half of the verse, Jesus says, The sheep hears the shepherd's voice, and the shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Do you think about that? That Jesus calls you by name. So let me ask you, do you hear it? And if your answer is, well, I haven't heard Jesus call me my name. Well, then my question is, then what's going on?

Because if Jesus says that he speaks to his sheep, and you are saying that you don't hear him, then maybe it's because the noise of this world has just turned way too up. Maybe you've got way too much of this, maybe you've got way too much of this, maybe sometimes you need to pull the AirPods out and just listen for him to call your name

because he says he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. He goes on to say, when he the shepherd has brought out all of his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him for they know his voice. A stranger, they will not follow, but they will flee from the stranger, for they do not know the voice of strangers. Let me ask you this again.

Do you know the voice of the shepherd? Can you recognize the voice of the shepherd? Now, people ask me sometimes, does God speak to me? Yes and absolutely. Does he speak audibly to me? Yes, absolutely. And you say, you have heard the voice of God out loud? I have.

If you read your Bible out loud, then you will hear the voice of God out loud, all right? Now, Jesus' voice sounds like the words of this book, because he is the word, he spoke the world into existence, he led the authors of the scriptures along as they wrote his word. So if you want to know what God's voice sounds like, read the word. And when you read the word, then you can begin to identify the voices, the kind of nudges that feel. I've told you this for years, man. I struggle with what I call the whispers. We have an enemy and his native tongue is our lies and fear, deception, and one of his favorite things to lie to us about is condemnation. That the enemy wants us to feel condemned. And I constantly,

in my head, I get these ideas. When you get these, when you get ideas in your head, it is very, very important to identify who those ideas are coming from. They can either be coming from the enemy. They can be coming from God, or I guess you could be making them up yourself. And even if you are making up yourself, they're either going to align with the enemy or the father. And so when I get these whispers, when I get these lies, and the enemy wants me to be identified by the things that I have done, and he's trying to tell me that I am disqualified from standing in, the anointing God has given to me today, I know that is the voice of the enemy, and the way that I know it is because it smells like condemnation. But God's voice to me says in Romans chapter 8, verse 1, therefore now there is no

condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So Jesus speaks to us. The shepherd talks to his sheep, and he doesn't lead like a cowboy, and I'm pro cowboy, but he does not lead like a cowboy. He does not get behind us and push. He walks out in front of us and beckons us to follow him. That's how he speak. Now, think about that. this. Think about the Gospels. Think about all of the Bible. How does Jesus speak to us? Softly and tenderly, Jesus is calling. Then in John chapter 15, Jesus calls the disciples his friends. That's right. He talks to us like a true friend, which means this. Jesus always speaks to us truthfully. He always speaks to us lovingly. And sometimes as Jesus is speaking to us to us,

the truth in love that comes out as a warning or even a conviction of sin because he loves us so much. But Jesus never condemns. He says this in John 317. The Father did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He does love us enough to convict. He does love us enough to warn us. But he always speaks to us in truth and in love. He speaks promises over us. Okay. So I want you to think for a minute. Think how. Think how. how the good shepherd speaks to his sheep. All right. Now, if we are followers of Jesus,

then shouldn't, over time, shouldn't our voice begin to sound like the voice of our Lord and Savior? I don't mean that we're trying to stand in the place of Jesus. That's not what I mean. But if we are as disciples walking in the footsteps of Jesus and emulating the life of Christ, and if we have the Holy Spirit in us, the Spirit of Christ in us,

then should it over time, our accent begin to sound like his accent. The tone of our voice should be like the tone of his voice. I mean, think about this. Speaking of accents, I obviously have a southern country accent, and that's because I'm from Dillon, South Carolina. And I don't really try to do anything about it, even though I'm a professional speaker and all of that. And sometimes it's better, and sometimes it's a little more thick.

But guess what happens? if I talk to my dad, Perry Martin on the phone, if I call him on the way, even if it's just from church to my house, it takes me maybe five minutes to get from here to there, all right? Sometimes I will call daddy on the phone and I'll talk to him and, you know, just catch up and be like, all right, well, I've got to go. I'm about to walk into the house and I will walk in the door of my house and I'll say hey to Gretchen, I'll say hey to the kids. And almost immediately Gretchen says to me, you've been talking to your dad?

How's your dad doing on the phone? And I'm like, how do you know I've been talking to my dad? and she tells me that when you have been talking to your father, when you walk into the house, you sound a lot more like your father. That's what I mean. The more time we spend with Jesus, shouldn't our voice sound like his voice? Which means this.

Therefore, if the good shepherd talks to his sheep with love and gentleness and care and warning and conviction, if he talks to us like a friend or like a father, then how should we then speak to one another? Because in Ephesians, Paul says that we're supposed to speak to one another with Psalms and hymns and spiritual Psalms. Now, I want to give you a little context of where that comes from. Ephesians chapter 5, we're going to pick it up in verse 15.

Now, I love the book of Ephesians. We studied the whole book years and years ago, maybe six, seven years ago, something like that. and we call the series Love Incorruptible. You should go and check it out. And what you've got to know, this is true of almost all of the epistles of Paul, but Ephesians plays out this way the best.

What Paul does in the book of Ephesians, there's six chapters. And basically chapters one, two, and three, what Paul does is establishes the gospel. He says that we are saved. We are saved by faith through grace and not of our own works. He establishes the gospel at the personal level.

He established the gospel like at the cosmic level. That's what the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians is. It's gospel, gospel, gospel, gospel. And then when you get through about halfway through the third chapter, then Paul makes this shift. And the rest of the book of Ephesians is then how then we should live in light of the gospel. The first half is the gospel, the infection, and the rest of the book is the symptoms of the gospel infected life.

And halfway through three and all the way through four, Paul talks about what it looks like to live with one another in the church. And then when he gets to chapter five, he's going to talk about how the gospel should influence our relationships in your marriage with your children and at work. And then he finishes up with Ephesians 6, which is about spiritual warfare. Okay. So in light of the gospel, here's what Paul says. Ephesians 5, 15, look carefully then how you walk. That means how you live. not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil.

Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And don't get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. And then here comes our one another. Now, I love when the Lord does this, okay? I just noticed the positioning of this verse here, maybe for the first time ever, okay? Because what he's going to do after he gives us this one another is he's going to talk about the role of husbands and wives. Then he's going to talk about the role of parents and children. Then he's going to talk about in our context the role of employer and employee.

But before he gets to that, he says, address one another in Psalms and Psalms. and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord in your heart, giving thanks always, and for everything to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then verse 21, and submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. And then he talks about husbands, love your wives, wives, submit to your husbands. Fathers, don't exasperate your children. Children, obey your parents, okay? But again, before he gets there, every time I've taught this, every time I teach,

on wives and husbands or parents and children or work relationships. I always like to go back to verse 21 and say, the banner over this entire section is that we are supposed to live mutually submitted lives, that husbands and wives we should submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. But I think from now on when I talk about this, I think we've got to go back up to verse 19, address one another this way. Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord in your heart, which leads me to this. How do you speak to the categories of people that he's about to dress? Husbands, how do you talk to your wives? Wives, how do you speak to your husbands? Parents, how do you speak to your kids? Kids, how do you speak to your parents? And at work,

how do you speak to your bosses? How do you talk to the people that work for you? Would you say that the way that you speak to those one another's, would they qualify Psalms' Hems and spiritual songs? Are you making melody to the Lord in your heart or not? You see, in the book of James, James says that the tongue is so powerful that with just a little spark of a tongue, you could burn down an entire forest, that the tongue is like the rudder on the ship. It's the smallest part on the ship, but whichever way it turns, it steers the entire ship. Proverbs 1821 says, death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits.

Did you get that? That the words that you speak to your wife, the words that you speak to your husband, are either bringing life to your marriage or they're bringing death to your marriage. I mean, I hate to be this brutal, but some of you, some of you had failed marriages because you killed it with your tongue.

like you just you spoke death into it and then it did what you said it was going to do some of you don't have relationships with your kids because you've killed it with your tongue some of you have incredible work relationships and incredible culture at work because you speak that thing into existence have you ever thought about the fact that we were created as image bearers of god now you can't take this too far but think about how god created everything he spoke it into existence and when God speaks, he creates and he cultivates. As image bears of God, that's what we're supposed to do with our words. We are supposed to create life, speak things into existence.

And we are supposed to cultivate environments where people grow and love flourishes, and they are the best version of them that they can be in light of who God created them to be. And we have the power by God's grace to help bring those things about. this is how important our words are. I mean, think about this. When Jacob steals Esau's blessing from his father, Isaac, and Isaac blesses Jacob, and then Esau comes along later and realizes that Jacob has tricked his dying father. And he says, well, just bless me. Issa says, just take it back and bless me. And Isaac basically says, I can't take it back. That's how powerful words are that when they come out of our mouth, man, it's like toothpaste out of the tube. There's no putting it back.

When words leave our mouth, they'll either bring life or they'll bring death. And the only thing that can come out of you is what is in you. Jesus says, for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. So, pay attention to your words. Pay attention to the way that we speak to one another. Are you speaking life or are you speaking death? And if death is coming out of your mouth, then you don't have a potty mouth. You've got a potty heart. What is going on in your heart? Why is there death in your heart? And what does Jesus need to do in your heart to flush that out so that when you open your mouth, the love of Christ comes out? You see, can I tell you some of those powerful words that you can say? Even if you said a thousand wrong words, and listen, man, all of us have.

some of those powerful words that maybe you need to say today. As husbands, maybe you need to go to your wives. Maybe you need to go to your husbands. Or parents, maybe you need to go to your kids. Or bosses, maybe to your employees. And maybe the psalm, the hymn, the spiritual song, that you should speak to one another is this. I am so sorry.

And dads and husbands, I want to challenge you to go first. The Bible says that we're supposed to stand up and act like a man. You want to lead and love your family well? One of the best ways to lead your family is what if you're the chief lead repenter in your family? What if right now in order to build life into your family or into whatever relationship that you're in, you go to that person and when we've been careless with our words, so the Bible says, careless words stab like a sword, why don't you go right now and why don't not make a defense? Say, I didn't mean it. It wasn't my fault. It just slipped out. Jesus said things don't slip out. Whatever's in here, that's what comes out. Why don't you look

and say, I am sorry. Will you forgive me? I repent. Church of 1122. In all of our relationships, at church, at home and at work, in this world, may we speak to one another in a way that honors and glorifies God. pray. Father in heaven, Lord, I thank you, and I praise you that because of the blood of Jesus Christ, because he is the good shepherd, that he never speaks condemnation over to those who believe in him. And so, Lord, I pray, I pray that we would sound like our Lord. We, the sheep, would sound like our shepherd? That would we open our mouth, that life-giving words would come out? Because that's what's in our heart. I pray it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Thank you for joining us for Deepen with Pastor Joby Martin. If you're looking for additional resources to help you further deepen your relationship with Jesus Christ, visit C-O-E-22.com slash resources. We're praying this message you heard today helps you experience God in a unique and fresh way. And as always, be free.